By Hal McCoy
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave, wondering every day which team will show up, the Cincinnati Jekylls or the Cincinnati Hydes.
—WAY PAST TIME: The always late-to-the party MLB finally caught up to the 20th century. Yes, the 20th. It still hasn’t caught up to the 21st century.
A female umpire finally worked an MLB series over the weekend, decades after it should have happened, when Jen Pawol worked the Atlanta-Miami series.
She graded 97%, better than the average grade for most arbiters.
Now go back to the 1970s when females were not allowed in clubhouses even when some newspapers began sending women to cover games.
The Cincinnati Reds were one of those teams, most all of them were. The Los Angeles Daily News hired Lisa Nehus (now Lisa Nehus-Saxon) to cover the Dodgers.
When they came to Riverfront Stadium, the security guard stopped her at the clubhouse door and said, “No women.”
She was in tears when I walked in and asked what was wrong. I went into the clubhouse to protest and the Reds agreed to send a couple of willing players to the outer waiting room for her to interview. That, too, was intrinsicly unfair. And I stayed with her and wouldn’t go back into the clubhouse until she was admitted.
Finally, MLB said females should be allowed inside the clubhouse and teams issued bathrobes for players to wear before leaving the shower room.
Even that often didn’t work and if you’re prudish stop reading this right now and skip to the next item.
I won’t mention names, but I know it happened. A player, not with the Reds, walked up to a female writer, yanked opens his robe and said, “What do you think of this?”
Quickly she said, “Well, it looks like a penis, only smaller.”
—CHASE-ING RECORDS: Cincinnati Reds rookie Chase Burns struck out 10 hitters in four of his first eight MLB starts, something only two other pitchers have done since 1883 — Herb Score of the Cleveland Indians and Dwight Gooden of the New York Mets.
Score was Hall of Fame-bound until early in his career he was smacked in the eye by a line drive hit by Gil McDougald of the New York Yankees.
He was never the same. Somebody please teach Chase how to duck.
While Burns was striking out 10 of his Pirates teammates, opposing pitcher Mitch Keller said, “I found myself walking up to th railing to watch him, which I don’t do when I’m pitching. He has great stuff and I can see why the Reds are so excited about him.”
—NEEDED. . .MORE RUNS: When the Reds scored 14 runs Sunday against the Pittsburgh Pirates, it was an anomaly. In 40 games the Reds have scored two or fewer runs. . .one-third of the season.
They are 5-and-35 in those games.
—LOOKING FOR SIGNS: The misconception is that Cincinnati Reds manager Sparky Anderson played ‘The Great Eight’ from The Big Red Machine every day and the extra players grew cobwebs sitting on the bench.
Not true, not true at all. In fact, from May of 1975 through the end of the 1976 season, ‘The Great Eight’ started only 65 games together. Incredibly, they were 64-1 in those games.
For example, super glove infielder Darrel Chaney played in 71 games in 1975 and batting 175 times.
Speaking of misconceptions, Chaney relayed a great story about shortstop Dave Concepcion, for whom Chaney often replaced in the lineup.
“Davey made the sign of the cross before he stepped into the batter’s box,” said Chaney. “Looking for a way to be more productive, I asked Davey if making the sign of the cross helped him and he said, ‘Only if you can hit.’”
—THE LONG POKES: Any idea who hit the first home run into the upper deck red seats shortly after Riverfront Stadium opened in 1970. It was Tony Perez.
Any idea who has hit the longest home run in Great American Ball Park? It was Adam Dunn and his 535-foot explosion cleared the stands in right field and landed on a piece of flotsam on the banks of the Ohio River.
—LONG AND SHORT: The longest game in professional baseball history was 33 innings, played on Easter Eve in 1981 between the Triple-A Rochester Red Wings and Pawtucket PawSox in McCoy Stadium.
But it didn’t end until June 23. After 32 innings at 4:07 a.m. Easter morning, the game was suspended with the score tied, 2-2. There were 19 fans still in the stands and two sports writers in the press box.
When play continued on June 23, McCoy Stadium was filled to over-capacity at 5,746. They built three rows of press box seats to accommodate 150 reporters from New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, Time Magazine, The Rolling Stone, Good Morning America and media from England and Japan.
The resumption lasted 18 minutes. Pawtucket loaded the bases in the bottom of the 33rd with no outs and first baseman Dave Koza singled home the winning run for a 3-2 PawSox win.
Dallas Williams, who had a couple sips of coffee with the Orioles, went 0 for 13 in the game for Rochester. Pawtucket’s Russ Laribee struck out seven times and quite baseball two weeks later.
Bob Ojeda, who had a good career with Boston and the New York Mets, pitched one inning in that game, the top of the 33rd, and was the winning pitcher.
McCoy stadium is long gone but I have a hat that says ‘McCoy Stadium’ on it.
—TRIVIA TIME: Some stuff that only baseball junkies care about, but interesting nonetheless:
—San Diego Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn poked his 3,000th hit this week in 1999. The next day, Hall of Famer Wade Boggs homered for his 3,000th hit, the only player to hit a home run for his 3,000th hit — until 2011 when Derek Jeter upstaged him by not only homering for his 3,000th hit, but going 5-for-5.
When Boggs played in the minors, the Red Sox did not include him on their roster one year, so any team in baseball could have claimed him.
Did the Reds claim him? Nope. Neither did any other team that could have had him for nothing. So he remained with the Bosox en route to the Hall of Fame.
—It shamefully took forever for closer Billy Wagner to made the Hall of Fame, despite the fact he averaged giving up only six hits per nine innings pitched. It’s the lowest for any pitcher in history with 900 or more innings.
—It is too bad Billy Hamilton couldn’t hit, because his glove was a baseball magnet. His .9949 fielding percentage is the fifth best all-time for outfielders. The best? He’s still playing. It’s Toronto’s Myles Straw at .9963.
—QUOTE MACHINE: Baseball people say the darndest things:
—From Bob Uecker, catcher/broadcaster/comedian: “It was great to be recognized off the field, even in New York. I’d walk around Times Square wearing my catcher’s gear and people would approach me and say, ‘Are you a ballplayer?’”
—From Baltimore manager Earl Weaver during spring training when highly touted prospect Bobby Bonner told him that Jesus lives in his heart and goes wherever he goes: “Well, the Lord isn’t going to Baltimore.”
—PLAYLIST NUMBER 104: Dedicated to pitchers who have control problems:
—I Walk Line (Johnny Cash), Walk Like A Man (Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons), Walk Like An Egyptian (The Bangles), Walkin’ In The Rain (Ronettes), These Boots Are Made For Walking (Nancy Sinatra), Walkin’ To New Orleans (Fats Domino), Walking ,To Missouri (Sammy Kaye).
—Walking On Air (Bee Gees), Walk This Way (Aerosmith), Walk On By (Dione Warwick), Walk Away (Kelly Clarkson), Walk In The Park (Feng), Walk Me Home (Pink), You’ll Never Walk Alone (Gerry & The Pacemakers), Walk On The Wild Side (Lou Rawls), Walk Of Life (Dire Straits), Walk Of Fame (Brittany Howard).