By Hal McCoy
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave, no longer counting the days until Opening Day, but counting the hours and soon it will be minutes.
—THE OPPOSITES: Does spring training numbers and statistics really mean anything? For one thing, teams only play about 30 exhibition games and players don’t play entire nine innings.
So it is a small sampling.
So, with Opening Day just a few days away, what do we make of Matt McLain and Andrew Abbott — one on the positive and one on the negative?
Will McLain be as good during the regular season as his sensational spring training numbers — .512/565/1.024 with six homers, 13 RBI and 15 runs with onlyy five strikeouts in 46 plate appearances. The Reds certainly hope so.
He is one of those elusive pieces to a jigsaw puzzle and the Reds need him to fit snugly.
Will Abbott, the Opening Day starter, be as bad as his bleak spring training numbers — 20 earned runs in 13 innings with seven walks over five appearances. The Reds certainly hope not.
Most alarming was his appearances last week when he gave up eight runs and recorded only six outs before he was yanked.
Afterwards, he told the media, “I’m kinda waiting out the storm, waiting to see when it will click.”
Click time is running out. The Reds certainly hope the talented lefthander finds the click-on switch real fast.
With the loss of Hunter Greene until at least July, te Reds are counting on Abbott to pitch like a No. 1, not like a batting practice pitcher with a 13.83 earned run avereage.
—HE PAID UP: What kind of competitor was Frank Robinson?
When he played for the Baltimore Orioles, he launched one toward the 37-foot high Green Monster in Boston’s Fenway Park.
Believe it was a sure-cinch home run, he began his home run trot. But the ball hit about 36 feet above the ground, thumping the top the wall before plummeting earthward.
Robby then turned it on and reached second for a double, most likely where he would have ended up if he had sprinted out of the box.
Nevertheless, after the game he walked into manager Earl Weaver’s office and plunked $200 on his desk. “I’m fining myself for not running full speed out of the box. There’s no excuse for it.”
And that’s also why Robinson was a hard-nosed, no-excuses manager. He probably fined himself for bad managerial decisions.
—A WAR STORY: The San Francisco Giants drafted Garry Maddox in the second round of the 1968 draft and sent him to Class A. He tore it up there.
But he was making only $1,500 a month and he wanted to help his near-destitute family in Cincinnati. So he quit baseball.
Why? To join the military and serve two years in Vietnam for more money. After two years his father became ill and he needed to go home.
The military said it couldn’t discharge him until he had a job. He called the Giants and asked if he could come back and received a quick, “Yes, of course.”
Despite being away from the game for two years, he tore it up again in Class — 36 homers and 106 RBI. In 1975, the Giants traded him to Philadelphia for fancy-Dan first baseman Willie Montanez.
From 1975-85 he was a star center fielder for the Phillies and won eight Gold Gloves and was nicknamed, “The Secretary of Defense.” Former Philadelphia sports writer Ray Didinger wrote, “The Earth is 80% covered by water, the rest is covered by Garry Maddux.”
—ANOTHER SHOCKER: Who said this?
“They said we didn’t play anybody. Nobody would play us. Well, they gotta play us now.”
No, it wasn’t Miami coach Travis Steele after Miami beat SMU and it could have been him. But it was High Point University coach Flynn Clayman.
He said it after High Point stunned Wisconsin, 83-82 in the first round of the NCAA. Going in, High Point was 0-57 against Power Five (now Power Four) opponents.
To add to the wonderment, the winning basket was scored on a breakway lay-up by Chase Johnson with 11 seconds left, his FIRST two-point basket of the season. He was 0 for 4 from two.
He had taken 132 three-point shots and made 64. And missed all four two-point tries.
By the way, what did Miami’s Steele say after the SMU game? “This wasn’t an upset. People are going to say it was, but it wasn’t.”
March Madness. That’s what it is. Total Madness.
—NOW THAT’S A ‘HIGH’: Speaking of High Point, don’t feel sorry for the team having to return to campus, rated by Princeton Review as the No. 1-run campus in the U.S.
Why? Well, the campus is resort-style, a campus countrty club. It has six outdoor-heated swimming pools, five huge jacuzzis, a campus cinema, a campus hair & nails salon, a campus gaming arcade and 300 statues.
In addition, there are three high-rated restaurants on campus, including the 1924 Steakhouse, Alo (Mediterranean) and Kazoku (Hibachi). Studens can eat free at any of the three once a week.
There is concierge service in the dorms and free shuttle service for students to and from the airport. And the school has a 99% rate of placing graduates in jobs within 180 days of graduation.
So why did I go to Kent State University?
—‘MID’ THIS: So the Atlantic 10 is a mid-major conference, huh?
Ask Georgia of the SEC. St. Louis 102, Georgia 77.
Ask North Carolina of the ACC. Virginia Commonwealth 81, North Carolina 78.
And ask Virginia about the Horizon League. Wright State lost to the Cavaliers, 83-74, but the 17 1/2-point underdog Raiders stayed step-for-step the entire game until the final five minutes.
WSU actually held a 71-70 lead before running out of petrol.
March Madness. That’s what it is. Total Madness.
—THE NAME GAME: A basketball player named All Right plays for Xavier and Always Wright plays for UT-Rio Grande Valley. Too bad they both don’t play for Wright State.
Speaking of, uh, unusual names of college basketball players, how about Maximus Gizzi of Minnesota? Or Gob Gob of Northwest Missouri State? Or Tennessee Rainwater of LeMoyne.
Then there is Amillion Buggs of North Alabama. He appeared on The Jimmu Kimmel Show and the Kimmel staff arranged for Bupgs to have his face appear on the side of Orkin Pest Control trucks.
Buggs said the first thing everybody asks him is, “Is that your real name?” Said Buggs, “Now when I introduce myself I quickly say, before they ask, ‘Yes that’s my real name.’ And when I go to Starbucks I give ‘em a fake name.”
—SCRAPPY SCRANTON: Who knew?
The NYU women’s D-3 basketball team was on a 91-game winning streak this week when it met Scranton in the Women’s Final Four.
The streak ended: Scranton 60, NYU 52. That lifted Scranton’s season record to 32-0. The Lady Royals won games by 87-46, 90-48, 90-53, 92-40, 88-36, 80-28, 93-46, 87-38, 81-47, 104-29, 94-53, 93-42, 103-39 and. . .well, you get it. They’re pretty good.
And did you know that the women’s basketball is smaller than the men’s ball. The women shoot with a ball 28.5 inches in diameter with 18 to 20 ounces of air. The men’s ball is 29.5 inches in diameter with 20 to 22 ounces of air.
—TRIVIA TIME: Stuff to drop on friends during a dull party:
—There have been 12 Hall of Famers who made the last out of a World Series: Mike Piazza, Tony Gwynn, Carl Yazstremski (1975 against the Reds)I, Willie McCovey, Luis Aparacio, Red Schoendienst, Pee Wee Reese, Gil Hodges, Earl Averill, Billy Herman and, yes, even Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner.
—In 2009, Alfonso Soriano had 209 hits for the New York Yankees and struck out 157 times, the most strikeouts by any player with more than 200 hits.
—Cincinnati’s Johnny Vander Meer pitched two no-hiters over the span of four days. The next shortest span was when Nolan Ryan pitched two no-hitters over a span of two monts and five days in 1973,
—QUOTE MACHINE: Baseball people say the darndest things:
—FROM former manager Bill Rigney on facing Willie Mays: “As a hitter, Willie’s only weakness is a wild pitch.”
—FROM former manager Gene Mauch on Sandy Koufax: “He throws a radio pitch. You can hear it but you can’t see it.”
—FROM Willie Mays on the impact of Jackie Robinson breaking MLB’s color barrier: “Every time I look at my pocket book, I see Jackie Robinson.”
—PLAYLIST NUMBER 160: As Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin put it, “Music comes from a place we don’t know.”
—Yellow (Coldplay), With A Little Luck (Wings), Magic (Pilot), What About Love? (Heart), I’ll Be There For You (Bon Jovi), Angel (Aerosmith), The Flame (Cheap Trick), Love Bites (Def Leppard), Is This Love (Whitesnake), Heaven Is A Place On Earth (Belinda Carlisle), Oh, Sherrie (Steve Perry), Tell It To My Heart (Taylor Dayne).
—Everything I Own (Bread), Maniac (Michael Sembello), Let’s Dance (David Bowie), Kiss (Prince), Soldier Boy (Shirelles), Johnny Angel (Shelley Fabares), The Stripper (David Rose), Only The Lonely (Roy Orbison), Best Day Of My Life (American Authors), Walking On Sunshine (Katrina & The Waves).