OBSERVATIONS: Why Not Trevor Bauer?

By Hal McCoy

UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave, anxiously awaiting the Wright State University ‘First Pitch’ baseball dinner Friday night because one of my favorite baseball people, Clint Hurdle, is the keynote speaker.

—TRACING TREVOR: MLB teams constantly search for starting pitchers and throw cash in bundles bigger than hay bales to any guy who can breathe and tie his shoes at the same time. And he only has to tie one shoe.

So wouldn’t one believe they’d line up with eight-figure offers to a guy who was 10-0 with a 2.48 earned run average last season and 11-4 with a 2.59 ERA two years ago?

Is he too old? Nope. He’s only 34.

His name is Trevor Bauer and last seen in a Cincinnati Reds uniform during a COVID-shortened season he won the Cy Young with a 5-4 record, a 1.73 ERA and 100 strikeouts in 73 innings.

Yes, the 10-0 record was with the Diablos Rojos de Mexicon (Mexico Red Devils) and the 11-4 record was with Japan’s Yokohama Bay Stars.

And this week he re-signed with Yokohama. Why is that? Why not an MLB team?

Because he is obviously being blackballed for some alleged sexual assault charges for which the Los Angeles District Attorney refused to file charges.

Nevertheless, MLB suspended him in April of 2022 for two full seasons and an arbitration panel reduced it to 194 games.

Didn’t matter. MLB teams are blindfolded and deaf about him, even though he offered to pitch for the Major League minimum of $720,000.

Maybe it’s because all 30 general managers have clips of Bauer facing Max Kepler. In five at bats against Bauer, Kepler hit five home runs. Bauer is the only MLB pitcher in history to give up five home runs in five successive at bats.

Anyway, whatever happened to second chances? Oh, just ask Pete Rose.

—HAYS WAS IN A HAZE: The Cincinnati Reds signed free agent outfielder Austin Hays for $5 million and $1 million in incentives, hoping he can bounce back.

He was an All-Star for the Baltimore Orioles in 2023, but injuries ruined his season last year with the O’s and Philadelphia Phillies.

Don’t look for him to be the power-hitting righhanded bat the Reds need. He is righthanded, but he hit only five homers and drove in 20 runs over 255 plate appearances last season.
A kidney infection slowed him last season, “The scariest thing ever to happen to me,” he said.

“I know I haven’t lived up to what I know I can do as a ballplayer,” Hays said after the Phillies non-tendered him after last season.

“I want the offseason to fly by so I can get to next year and show everybody, ‘This is me. What you saw last year, that’s a shell of me. If I can hit .260 with a kidney infection, what can I do when I’m healthy?’”

We shall see, Austin, we shall see. He is a typical Reds’ free agent signee — a player coming off issues that the Reds hope can be rectified.

And the Reds made another take-a-chance, take-a-gamble signing this week. They signed lefthanded pitcher Wade Miley to a minor-league contract, even though he is coming off Tommy John surgery and can’t even try to pitch until late May.

If he can and makes the Reds roster, he’ll make $2.5 million with incentives that could take him to $4 million.

The Reds also traded with the San Francisco Giants for $6 million. . .and the Giants tossed lefthanded relief pitcher Taylor Rogers into the deal. Shouldn’t they also have received his twin brother, Tyler Rogers? Well, it’s probably because they aren’t Siamese twins and can be separated.

—ANCIENT HISTORY: Some smart-alecky people ask me if I covered baseball’s first full-professional team, the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings. No, I just missed them.

But I do know alot about them. I do know that only one Cincinnati resident played on the team. Most came from the New York City area.

That’s because captain Harry Wright was lured from the New York Knickerbockers club team and he brought players from the hundreds of club teams in New York.

He was given $10,000 to pay his players and $2,000 went to him and $1,500 to his younger brother, George Wright. The $10,000 is equivalent to $47,000 today.

The Red Stockings went 65-0-1. George Wright batted .519 with 59 home runs and scored 339 runs. A writer dubbed them, “A nicely adjusted machine.” Ah, the first Big Red Machine?

They ran their unbeaten record to 130-0-1 in 1870 before losing.

They lost, 8-7, in 11 innings to the Brooklyn Atlantics. One run scored in the 11th inning when a fan jumped on the Cincinnati left fielder’s back as he chased a fly ball. The ball and outfielder fell to the ground. The fan was arrested, but the run was counted.

After that loss, fan interest in Cincinnati disappeard, so Harry Wright packed all the gear and moved the team to Boston. . .the Boston Red Stockings, now the Boston Red Sox.

As Paul Harvey used to say it. “Now you know the rest of the story.”

—DIS-MANTLE-ING: Any film that shows Mickey Mantle circling the bases after one of his 536 home runs, it shows him running with his head down. Always. Every time.

Why?

“I figured the pitcher already felt bad enough without me showing him up rounding the bases,” he said.

That’s quite the contrast from guys these days. They flip their bats as high as the upper deck, they stand at home plate watching the flight of the ball as if waiting for somebody to hand themn a Polaroid photo of their swing. Then they do everything but somersaults during a five-minute slow trot around the bases.

—THE TONY AWARD: Like Pete Rose, Babe Ruth, Nolan Ryan, Greg Maddux and Sandy Koufax, I never get tired reading staggering facts and figures about Tony Gwnn.

So here’s another. Tony Gwynn’s career batting average was .338. That in itself was above-and-beyons for his era.

So how did he do when he faced Cy Young award pitchers? Even better. He hit .339 for his career against Cy Young winners.

—A TRUE TURNABOUT: When Eddie Kasko played for the St. Louis Cardinals, he sent a fake telegram to roommate/teammate Joe Cunningham, convincing Cunnigham that he had been traded to the Cincinnati Reds. It was fake news.

Karma, though, is a fickle thing. Kasko received a telegram in 1958 that he was traded to the Cincinnati Reds. It wasn’t Cunningham getting even. It was true.

Kasko became a scout for the Boston Red Sox and when the Reds trained in Tampa, he and I both stayed at the International Inn, which had two tennis courts.

And every morning, Kasko would beat my brains out on Court 2. I should have sent him a fake telegram telling him the Red Sox had fired him.

—UECKER’S WARPED VIEWS: And the Bob Uecker quotes keep dribbliing in:

“I led the league in ‘tough luck’ and ‘go get ‘em next time.’”

“I spent three of the best years of my life in 10th grade.”

“I’d take my kids to the game and they’d want to go home with a different player.”

“When I played baseball, I got a lot of death threats. . .from my mother.”

“I had slumps that lasted deep into winter.”

—RIGHT ON: One of my favorite sayings, and the author is Anonymous: “All the important things in BASEBALL and in LIFE happen at HOME.”

—PLAYLIST NUMBER 143: A quote about music from an unexpected source, Albert Einstein: “I see my life in terms of music.”

—I Need You Now (Alibi), Hurt So Good (John Mellencamp), Drift Away (Dobie Gray), How Long (Ace), Heart Of The Night (Poco), 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover (Paul Simon), Up On Cripple Creek (The Band), While You See A Change (Steve Winwood).

—In My Room (Beach Boys), Ventura Highway (America), Hard To Say (Dan Fogelberg), Deacon Blues (Steely Dan), Fooled Around And Fell In Love (Elvis Bishop), Lookin’ For Love (Johnny Lee), I’ve Lost You (Elvis Presley), Don’t Answer Me (Allen Parsons Project), Love Takes Time (Orleans), Ain’t No Way To Treat A Lady (Helen Reddy).