By Hal McCoy
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave beginning to believe the ‘e’ in Reds stands for errors.
—THE TRUE BLUE CREW: The Milwaukee Brewers always find a way to win, like finding loose change under a sofa cushion.
Even though they are in MLB’s smallest market, the Brewers are on their way to playing in the post-season for the seventh time in eight years.
The Cincinnati Reds? Well, we know their story.
For example, when the Brewers trailed the Reds, 8-1, in the second inning Saturday, Christian Yelich walked up to manager Pat Murphy and in the words of Murphy, “He told me straight up, we’re going to win this game.”
Then Yelich made certain it would happen with two homers, a double. single and five RBI. If he played for the Reds in Great American Ball Park, they would be putting together his Hall of Fame plaque right now.
The Brewers now lead the second-place Chicago Cubs by nine games, the biggest lead in MLB, but Yelich has his batting helmet on straight.
“We haven’t accomplished a single thing yet,” he said after the 10-8 win over the Reds Saturday. “We haven’t won anything. One day at a time and it doesn’t matter what we’ve done. We still have a long way to go.
“There are a lot of games left in the season. We don’t care about all the stuff that’s happened before, it’s about tonight and playing as hard as we can.”
And just to show how talented the Brewers are, they didn’t need Yelich Saturday. He went 0 for 4 and didn’t get the ball out of the infield. . .but the Brewers won in 11 innings, 6-5.
—GOING BAT-TY: With all the players using custom-made painted bats on Players’ Weekend, how about a look at bat manufacturers.
When I wandered the Cincinnati Reds clubhouse during the Big Red Machine and Wire-to-Wire eras, nearly every player swung a Louisville Slugger bat, with a smattering of Adirondacks.
It was that way in every MLB clubhouse. . .until 2004. That’s when the Marucci bat company was born in Baton Rouge, La.
And as so often happens, the Cincinnati Reds were at the forefront of something new. Eduardo Perez, son of Tony, was the first player to use a Marucci. Barry Larkin got the first hit with a Marucci. Former Reds outfielder Mike Cameron, playing for the New York Mets, hit the first home run with a Marucci.
Now Marucci and Victus, another upstart bat company purchased by Marucci in 2017, are the most prominent bats found in the hands of MLB players.
Louisville Slugger is now a distant third.
The average bat used by MLB players is 33/34 inches long and weighs 31 to 33 ounces. Of course, Babe Ruth’s bats were outlandish. He started out using a 54-ounce bat and was down to 40 ounces in 1927 when he hit 60 homers. And they were 36 inches long.
“I swing big, with everything I’ve got,” said Ruth. “I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can.”
—TWO AND GO: That seemed impressive Wednesday when the Cincinnati Reds squashed the Philadelphia Phillies, 8-0, and all eight runs scored with two outs.
And it was. . .but on Sunday the Arizona Diamondbacks scored 13 runs, all with two outs. No team had done that since the Milwaukee Brewers in 1999,
Then, wouldn’t you know it, the New York Mets did the same thing Tuesday, 13 runs with two outs while hitting six home runs.
But how about this one? Indiana Southeast was down 11-2 with two outs in the bottom of the ninth in a 2024 NAIA tournament. The Grenadiers scored 12 runs (WITH TWO OUTS) to beat Indiana Tech, 14-11.
With two outs, Indiana Southeast produced seven hits, three walks and a walk-off home run.
—CENTURY LIMITED: The Milwaukee Brewer are a tight-nut cinch to do something this year the franchise has never done. That’s win 100 games in a season. Their best is 96.
There are five other franchises never to win 100: Toronto (99), Washington (98), San Diego (98), Colorado (92), Miami/Florida (92).
—BRANCH-ING OUT: Branch Rickey, the iconic baseball genius from Southeast Ohio, is known for breaking the color barrier by signing Jackie Robinson and for constructing baseball’s first farm system when he was with the St. Louis Cardinals.
Rickey was known to be a loquacious talker, even during general conversations. New York baseball writer John Drebinger said he asked Rickey a question and he launched into a 20-minute soliloquy.
When he finished, he said to Drebinger, “No, does that answer your question?”
Said Drebinger, “I don’t know. I forgot the question.”
—THE HOT CORNER: This is an impossible challenge because there have been so many great third basemen. In your opinion, who was the all-time best among these chaps listed in alphabetical order:
—Nolan Arenado, Adrian Beltre, Buddy Bell, Wade Boggs, Ken Boyer, George Brett, Ron Cey, Darrell Evans, Chipper Jones, George Kell, Harmon Killebrew, Evan Longoria, Manny Machado, Eddie Mathews, Paul Molitor, Graig Nettles, Brooks Robinson, Alex Rodriguez, Scott Rolen, Ron Santo, Mike Schmidt, Robin Ventura, David Wright
My choice? Ya gotta be kidding me.
One of those guys did something never done but once and probably will never be done again. He is the only MLB player to hit a walk-off inside-the-park home run.
In addition, that homer gave him a cycle in the game: home run, triple, double, single.
It was Nolan Arenado in 2017 against the San Francisco Giants when he played for the Colorado Rockies.
—LEFT IS RIGHT: Are left-handed pitchers in MLB better than right-handed pitchers? Being a full-bodied left-hander myself (they could cut off my right arm and right leg and I’d never miss them), I say, “Well, of course.”
Proof? So far this season left-handed pitchers have a 3.71 earned run average and right-handers are at 4.27. So there.
—BOONE-DOGGLE: Do you think New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone would still be employed if George Steinbrenner still owned the team? He would have been gone by the All-Star break.
—TRIVA TIME: Some baseball stuff that nobody cares about. . .except me.
—When they filmed the Fenway Park scene in the ‘Field of Dreams’ movie, there were two extras sitting in the stands and like the other thousand their names were not in the credits. Their names: Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.
—Hall of Fame shortstop Luis Aparicio scored 1,335 runs, the most runs ever scored by a player who never scored 100 runs in a season.
And he was adept at putting himself in scoring position by leading the American League in stolen bases nine times.
—There is only one active MLB player who can wear three World Series rings at once to dinner. Nobody else has more than two. And we know he doesn’t play for the Cincinnati Reds.
It’s Mookie Betts. He won one with the Boston Red Sox and two with the Los Angeles Dodgers, including the COVID-19 shortened season.
—QUOTE MACHINE: Baseball people say the darndest things:
—From Bob Uecker, catcher/broadcaster/comedian, in a conversation with Johnny Bench: “I played against you a couple of years. Don’t you remember me? I was the guy in the dugout in street clothes.”
And. . .”I had a career highlight. I drew a bases-loaded walk once to win the game. . .the first game of a spring intrasquad game.”
—From author Bob Chieger: “The announcer said, ‘Will the lady who lost her nine boys at the ballpark please pick them up immediately. They are beating the Cubs, 10-9.’”
—From former manager Whitey Herzog, when told Sparky Anderson said he wanted to manage until he was 80: “Why would I want to do that. Look at Sparky — he’s 55 and he already looks 80.”
—From former manager Nick Leyva: “I’m going to buy one of those headsets like broadcasters wear. If seems every time you put one on you get 100 times smarter.”
—From Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle, who entered a chicken enterprise after he retired and came up with the company’s slogan: “The only way to get a better piece of chicken is if you are a rooster.”
—NAME GAME: The top men’s tennis player in the world, as ranked by ATP, is Jannik Sinnner. Sinner? I think I’d change my last name to Winner.
—PLAYLIST NUMBER 105: As novelist John Green put it: “Some people have lives and some people have music.”
—If Drinkin’ Don’t Kill Me (George Jones), Come And Get Your Love (Redbone), I Hear You Knockin’ (Smokey Lewis), Band On The Run (Paul McCartney & Wings), Make It With You (Bread), Lola (The Kinks), Crying In The Chapel (Elvis Presley).
—Sweet Child O’ Mine (Guns ’N Roses), Livin’ On A Prayer (Bon Jovi), Beat It (Michael Jackson), My Heart Will Go On (Celine Dion), These Old Eyes Have Seen It All (George Jones), What’s Goin’ On (Marvin Gaye), One Way Or Another (Blondie).