By Hal McCoy
UNSOLICITED OBSRVATIONS from The Man Cave with a word of advice to the Cincinnati Reds: Don’t take the Sacra-Vegas Athletics lightly this weekend. It’s the old, “On any given day. . .”
—ONE THAT GOT AWAY: In early August of 2019, the Cincinnati Reds signed a pitcher name Kevin Gausman off waivers. They only used him out of the bullpen for 15 games and he went 0-and-2.
He took free agency after the season and the San Francisco Giants signed him and turned him into a starter. In 2021 he went 14-6 over 33 starts with a 2.81 earned run average.
He pitches now for the Toronto Blue Jays and is on a tear — 3-0 with a 0.75 ERA over his last three starts.
On Thursday, he pitched a complete-game two-hit shutout against the Houston Astros, throwing 100 pitches and only 21 were out of the strike zone.
Before that, he held Milwaukee to one run over seven innings and held the New York Yankees to one run over eight innings.
Wouldn’t he look good still wearing red?
—QUOTE: From Kevin Gausman on his incentive to be a great pitcher: “I was on the best team in baseball in 2018, but didn’t get the job done and that left a bad taste in my mouth.” (Gausman was 10-11 on a Baltimore team that won 115 games in 2018.)
—THE SKENES SCENE: If Cincinnati Reds fans think they have it bad, how would you like to be a Pittsburgh Pirates fan?
In the last 33 years, the Pirates have had exactly four winning seasons. That’s 29 of 33 seasons below .500.
Nobody feels the frustration more than Pirates pitcher Pau Skenes. In his two seasons, he is 21-12 in 51 starts. Somebody figured out that if the Pirates scored only four runs in each of his 51 starts he would be 35-1. And if they scored just three runs in each game he would be 32-5.
—OH NO: Where are the no-hitters this season? There were nine in 2021, then four each in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
But with three weeks left in this season, there has not been a no-hitter. . .but the Los Angeles Dodgers came close twice in three games.
First, Yoshinobu Yamamoto was one out away from a no-hitter against Baltimore and led, 3-0. With two outs in the ninth, one out from a no-hitter, Jackson Holliday hit a home run.
Not only that, the Orioles scored four runs in the ninth for a walk-off win. It wa the first time in MLB history that a team missed a no-hitter by one out and also lost the game.
Two days later, LA’s Tyler Glasnow and Blake Treinen no-hit the Colorado Rockies for eight innings and lost the no-hitter in the ninth. Ryan Ritter doubled off Tanner Scott leading off the ninth.
That, too was historic. The only team to lose two
no-hitters in the ninth inningss in a span of three days. At least the Dodgers won the second one.
—A BOONE-DOGGLE: Nobody respects New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone more than I do. When he played for the Reds in 2002, he saved my career when my eyes went bad and he convinced me not to quit.
But what the heck, Boonie? What the heck was he doing Tuesday night when the Yankees trailed Detroit by eight runs in the seventh inning?
The Tigers had a runner on third with one out and Boone ordered Spencer Torkelson intentionally walked. Down eight runs? In the seventh inning? That was a strategic head-scratcher.
—QUOTE: From Aaron Boone: “I always had these romanticized thoughts that I was going to coach high school football one day.” (If he doesn’t get the New York Yankees act togehter quickly, he might get that opportunity soon.)
—THE LEE-WARD SIDE: Former major league pitcher Bill ‘Spaceman’ Lee, who believes he was blackballed from MLB, still makes cameo appearances as a pitcher for the Savannah Bananas while in his 70s. And he believes (like many) that today’s baseball is b-o-r-i-n-g.
As he put it in Jane Leavy’s new highly entertaining book, ‘Make Me Commissiner,’ “You know why it is so f – – – – ing boring? Because everybody knows what’s going to happen. Somebody is gonna hit a home run and the f – – – ing closer is going to strike out the side in the ninth.”
—THE TONY AWARD: Is Tony Gwynn the greatest contact hitter in MLB history? He certainly was during his career.
Hall of Fame pitchers Greg Maddux and Pedro Martinez faced him for a combined 132 plate appearances and neither one ever struck him out.
He once went 39 straight games without striking out and 11 times in his career he went 20 or more straight games without striking out.
During his career, he faced 18 Hall of Fame pitchers, 541 plate appearances, and hit .337.
—QUOTE: From Tony Gwynn: “Nobody talked about my defense or that I used to steal bases, too.” (Indeed, he was an accomplished thief — 319 stolen bases for his career, 56 in 1987.)
—OH WHAT A RELIEF: Speaking of the Los Angeles Dodgers, here is something that will never happen again. His name is Mike Marshall and like Nolan Ryan he had to be a freak of nature.
In 1974, relief pitcher Marshall appeared in 106 games. He once appeared in 13 straight games. He appeared in back-to-back games 53 times.
In an era when starting pitchers rarely reach 200 innings, Marshall pitched in 208 1/3 innings, all in relief. He won 15 games and saved 21 and won the National League Cy Young.
For example, the Dodgers played the Cincinnati Reds six times that year in Riverfront Stadium and Marshall appeared in all six. During a three-game series in July, he pitched 6 2/3 innings and gave up one run. During a three-game series in September he again pitched 6 2/3 innings and gave up two runs.
At Michigan State, he majored in Physiological Psychology and was a bit of an odd bird, refusing to sign autographs.
“As an athlete, I am no one to be idolized,” he said. “I will not perpetuate that hoax. They say I don’t like kids. I think that by refusing to sign autographs I am giving the strongest demonstration that I really do like them. I am looking beyond mere expediency to what is truly valuable in life.”
Uh, OK.
—NO ACADEMY AWARDS: When Maury Wills was stealing bases like a grand larcenist, Lou Brock discovered that Wills had compiled a black book about every pitcher’s idiocyncradies on the mound so he could get great jumps on steal attempts.
When Brock asked Willis if could copy it, Wills said no because he wasn’t about to help an opposing player.
So Brock went technological. He purchased an 8-millimeter camera and filmed every pitcher, “My home movies,” he called them.
One day he was filming Don Drysdale, the Dodgers’ ‘Mean Man,’ and Drysdale said, “What the hell are you doing with that camera?”
“Just taking home movies,” said Brock.
“I don’t want to be in your goddamn movies,” said Drysdale.
And the next time Brock batted against him, Drysdale drilled him in the ribs.
Otto Premirger never had to worry about something like that.
—TRIVIA: Stuff nobody but we baseball aficionados appreciate:
—What do Frank Thomas and Jeff Bagwell have in common? Both were born on the same day, May 27, 1968. Then they both won the MVP award the same year, 1994, Bagwell in the National League and Thomas in the American League. And both were voted into the Hall of Fame.
—Something I never would have guessed. In MLB history there have been more players hit for the cycle than pitchers throw no-hitters — 350 cycles to 322 no-hitters.
—QUOTE MACHINE: Baseball people say the darndest and funniest things:
—From Bob Uecker, catcher/broadcaster/comedian: “When the club sent me to a psychiatrist to see if I was emotionally distressed, he said, ‘Hell, no. You just can’t hit.’”
—From Bob Uecker, Bonus I: “In Philadelphia, if you win a rowboat race they only cheer if your boat tips and you drown.”
—From Bob Uecker, Bonus II: “My bat company doesn’t put ‘powerized’ on my bats, they put ‘for dissplay only’ on them.”
—From former New York Times sports columnist Red Smith: “Ninety feet between home plate and first base may be the closest man has ever come to perfection.”
—JIM DANDIES: From my favorite all-time sports writer, Jim Murray, on baseball.
“The infield fly rule is about as simple as calligraphy and might as well be Japanese naval code.”
On former Dodgers manager Walter Alston, a country guy fron Darrtown, near Oxford: “He is the only guys in the game who can look Billy Graham in the eye without blushing. He would order corn on the cob in a French restaurant.”
On pitcher Don Drysalde: “To hitters, he is baseball’s version of the gas chamber and batting against him is like playing catch with a hand grenade.”
On Willie Mays: “The only thing he can’t do in a baseball park is fix the plumbing.”
—PLAYLIST NUMBER 109: As philosopher Plato put it, “Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.”
—It’s Only Make Believe (Conway Twitty), A Turn Down Day (Cyrkles), What About Love? (Heart), Groovy Kind Of Love (Phil Collins), Beat You There (Will Dempsey), Turn The Page (Bob Seger), The One That You Love (Air Supply).
Easy Loving (Freddie Hart), Some Day My Day Will Come (George Jones), Because The Night (Patti Smith), Don’t Go Breaking My Heart (Elton John & Kiki Dee), She’s About A Mover (Sir Douglas Quintet), Surrender (Elvis Presley).