By Hal McCoy
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave wondering when a player from the Reds will say to the Milwaukee Brewers what Pedro Martinez said when the New York Yankees kept beating him up: “Who’s your daddy?”
Small market is no excuse. Of the 30 teams, Milwaukee is 27th smallest, San Diego is 26th and Cincinnati is 25th. The smallest? Kansas City.
—THEY WEREN’T SPIDERMEN: The Chicago No Sox (28-91) are en route, via a rocky dirt road, toward eclipsing the 1962 New York Mets ‘modern’ record of 120 losses in a season. The No Sox have lost 24 of their last 25.
It’s ‘modern’ because it happened since 1900, the modern day era demarcation.
But the Cleveland Spyders missed it by one year. In 1899 they lost 134 games and won 20. But there is a back story.
The Spyders and the St. Louis Browns were owned by the same two men, the Robison Brothers. Both teams were below mediocre, so they decided to strengthen one team. They chose St. Louis and transferred every good player from Cleveland to St. Louis, including pitcher Cy Young.
That made Cleveland so bad few paid to watch them, so they played most of their games on the road. Only 6,088 showed up at the Cleveland park for the entire season.
Because the Spyders played mostly on the road, sports writers called them a variety of negative nicknames: Exiles, Wanderers, Misfits, Leftovers, Barnstormers, Outcasts, Homeless Ones, Forsakens.
They had more nicknames than wins over their last 57 games. They won three. And they didnt know how to spell Spiders.
—LIKE THE MICK?: Folks are spending time comparing the young Elly De La Cruz to whom he might become. Eric Davis? Willie Mays?
The best one I’ve heard so far comes from former Bloomington (IN) Herald-Times sports editor Bob Hammel, who was for years Bob Knight’s confidante.
“Elly is the next Mickey Mantle because he is a switch-hitter who just like Mantle started at shortstop and made too many errors to stay there,” said Hammel.
Mantle moved to center field and if the Reds are sensible they will do with Elly what they did with Eric Davis and Billy Hamilton and move him from short to center.
—YER OUTTA HERE: When umpire Bill Miller sent Reds manager David Bell to his room Thursday, it was Bell’s 31st career ejection. He became Cincinnati’s No. 1 manager in getting the thumb, passing Sparky Anderson.
It took Anderson nine years to accumulate that many dismissals. Bell accomplied it in less than six seasons.
Bell always has the right to remain silent, but he doesn’t have the ability.
New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone is an ejection-artist, but earlier this year umpire Hunter Wendelsted tossed him because he thought Boone was too vociferous from the dugout. The problem was that it wasn’t Boone aiming epithets at Wendelstedt. It was a fan seated behind the dugout.
Speaking of umpires, there was a time in older stadium when the arbiters didn’t have decent dressing quarter. So during a league meeting, MLB suggested that teams provide a quality room with showers.
Asked the Philadelphia representative, “Hot and cold?”
—OF MYTHS AND LIES: Baseball is full of myths and outright lies, like the whopper that Abner Doubleday invented the game. Not true.
And one of the biggest is the tall tale that Tinker to Evers to Chance was the best double play combination ever.
Not true, Not close. They never even led the league in double plays turned. Not once.
But they became famous when some fanciful writer (not me, New York sports writer Franklin Piece Adams) scribbled the doggeral, ‘Tinker to Ever to Chance,’ which became a famous ditty. One part: “These are the saddest of words, Tinker to Evers to Chance.’
Actually, shortstop Joe Tinker and second baseman Johnny Evers hated each other. Never spoke except on the field and then it was in as few words as necessary. And they once brawled with each other on the field. They didn’t speak off the field for 30 years.
Nevertheless, the trio was inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame together in 1946, even though first baseman Frank Chance was the only one with true Hall of Fame credentials.
—ONE AND DONE: It is amazing what one finds in Baseball Reference when one has too much time on one’s hands.
A kid named Carl Spongberg got off a train from Utah and pitched seven innings for the Chicago Cubs. He gave up seven runs, eight hits, six walks and hit two batters.
And he never threw another MLB pitch. Carl Spongberg? Wonder if that’s where Spongebob Squarepants came from?
Speaking of names, a guy name Orval Overall pitched seven years in the majors, two for the Cincinnati Reds. And, overall, Overall was pretty good — 108-71 with a career 2.26 earned run average.
—THE OL’ ONE BALL: When a pitcher throws a ball into the dirt, that baseball is tossed out of play. But if Elly De La Cruz missiles one off the right field wall, knocking the ball oblong and snapping three stitches, that ball stays in play.
What’s the criteria?
The baseball magazine, ‘The Sporting Life,’ documented what umpire Bill Klem said about a game played in St. Louis on August 4. 1908, a 3-0 Brooklyn Dodgers win over the Cardinals. One baseball was used the entire game.
And it is for certain that baseballs these days are better manufactured than they were in 1908.
—FUTURE VENUES: So the Reds and Atllanta Braves will play a game next August on the infield of the Bristol Motor Speedway. Why? So they can see if Elly De La Cruz can outrun a NASCAR Toyota.
What’s next?
A game on the Augusta National Golf Club’s back nine? A game in Wembley Stadium, home to Wimbledon? Maybe an indoor game inside the Mormon Tabernacle? Or perhaps a game in Yellowstone National Park, where they can see if anybody really can hit one out of Yellowstone. And the real test? A game inside Don Carter’s Bowling Emporium.
—YOU DON’T COMPLETE ME: Another example of how pitching has changed. Complete games are as rare as a buffalo nickel.
And for the Miami Marlins? Complete games? How about that on Friday night Edward Cabrera went six innings, the first time a Marlins pitcher completed six innings since July 11.
He actually went seven, but had to throw seven four-hit shutout innnings. Of course, even with a shutout and only four nits, he got pulled.
—DRESS ‘EM UP: How old school am I? I tell people I’m so old school when it comes to baseball that I’m one-room schoolhouse.
That’s why my favorite home uniforms are all iconic, haven’t changed in ions: New York Yankees, Detroit Tigers and Los Angeles Dodgers.
—UPON REVIEW: With all the plays that are overturned via replay/review, nearly two a game, and many at first base, one wonders how many calls were missed before replay/review that determined the outcomes of games.
The guess here is many, many, many. And then many more.
—STEPH STUFFS IT: A quick diversion from baseball. . .is Steph Curry the best basketball shooter on Planet Earth?
In Saturday’s Olympics Gold Medal game, France was within three points on the USA in the fourth quarter when Curry went off like a short-fused firecracker. He took over the game. . .five straight three-pointers and the nets still haven’t stirred. Those shots came under more pressure than a fire hose.
On the fifth, the game-clinching stiletto, with two French players on top of him like a too-tight beret, Curry, while falling, hit it seemingly from the base of the Eiffel Tower.
OK, that’s my ‘gee whiz’ post for the day
—PLAYLIST NUMBER 81; Some more old-timers from a real old-timer:
I Just Want To Be Your Everything (Andy Gibb), You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth (Meat Loaf), We Didn’t Start The Fire (Billy Joel), Then I Kissed Her (The Beach Boys), Hold The Line (Toto), I Hear You Knockin’ (Dave Edmunds).
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Lookin’ For (U2), I Love Rock And Roll (Joan Jett & The Blackhearts), Open Arms (Journey), Atlantis (Donovan), Holiday Road (Lindsey Buckingham), Love Is Strange (Mickey & Sylvia).