Some Labor Day Observations

By Hal McCoy

UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from the extremely hot Man Cave trying to hide the three cigar burns I put on my new La-Z-Boy in The Man Cave (And happy Nadine doesn’t read my stuff).

—THE FAST ONES: Wasn’t it heart-warming to see Eugenio Suarez hit a home run during his first game after becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen.

It came in the third inning, a three-run rip, against Milwaukee’s lefthanded rookie Shane Dashan.

Dashan offered him a fastball and Suarez lost it deep into the left-center seats. Why a fastball?

Suarez is easy prey for sliders, cutters, curveballs and changeups. Most of his strikeouts come when he swings at or takes off-speeders.

Fastballs? When he hit 49 home runs in 2019 and 2025, Statcast says 70% came on fastballs. In fact, it alo reported that of his 346 homers, more than 70% were hit off fastballs

Any pitcher who throws Suarez a fastball in a crucial situation should be forced to turn in his rosin bag.

While Suarez hasn’t provided as much offense as the Reds hoped, he is one great guy.

Who else would keep smiling and blowing huge bubbles in the field and at the plate after the team put him on waivers?

And who else would stand in a driving rainstorm signing autographs for the kids?

Suarez and Suarez, that’s who. Remember? Good vibes only.

—HOMER HAPPY: What does a raw rookie position player want to do to impress his new manager? Hit a home run, of course.

Believe it or not, 15 rookies this season have hit home runs in their first-game debuts, with St. Louis Cardinals rookie Joshua Baez hitting three in his first three at bats in one game.

Reds rookie Edwin Arroyo, a power hitter in the minors, has 160 plate appearances and is still hunting a homer. Hector Rodriguez went 13 games before his first home, then homered five times in his next nine games.

—FROM YEAR-TO-YEAR: Some interesting numbers pointed out by radio host Lance McAlister:

After 140 games last season, the Cincinnati Reds were 70-70. This season they were 67-73. And this year’s team has scored 53 fewer runs and given up 82 more.

And at 140 games last year, the Reds were five games away from the final wild card spot, while this year’s team was 6 1/2. But last year’s team only had two teams to catch while this year’s team has five teams ahead of it.

—THE NICKNAME GAME: Ted Williams most likely carried the most nicknames of any player in MLB history: Teddy Ballgame, Splendid Splinter, The Kid, The Thumper.

Can you guess which one he preferred? He liked to be called ‘The Kid.’

Everybody knows he was baseball’s last .400 hitter, .406 in 1941. To me, he had a more impressive year. After he missed playing time by serving in World War II and the Korean conflict as a fighter pilot, he kept playing.

His most impressive year? It was 16 years after his .406 season. In 1957 he hit .388. . .and he was 39 years old.

And this one. One year, when he was injured and couldn’t ‘play,’ he hit pinch-hit home runs in four straight at bats.

—MR. UNPOPULARITY: There have been eight players hit more than 600 home runs and seven had nicknames:

The Bambino (Babe Ruth), Say Hey Kid (Willie Mays), Hammerin’ Hank (Henry Aaron), The Kid (Ken Griffey Jr.) A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez), The Thomenator (Jim Thome), The Machine (Albert Pujols).

That leaves one without a nickname. It’s Barry Bonds and ‘The Jerk’ doesn’t count.

Did you know that the year after he hit 73 home runs (2001) Bonds finished third in the National League outfield balloting?

—THROW IT, WALK IT OFF: San Diego Padres catcher Luis Campusano had a dream game last week, doing something only one other catcher has done in MLB history.

First, Campusano threw out three New York Yankees runners tryin to steal. Then in the 10th inning he hit a walk-off home run that beat the Yankees, 3-2.

The only other catcher to throw out three base-stealers and hit a walk-off home run wasn’t Johnny Bench or Roy Campanella or Yogi Berra or Mike Piazza or Pudge Rodriguez.

It was some guy named Sammy Taylor and he did it for the Chicago Cubs in 1961. Taylor actually played three games for the 1963 Reds.

The Reds traded catcher Jesse Gonder to get Taylor and infielder Charlie Neal from the New York Mets. Exactly a month later, the Reds traded him to the Chicago Cubs for Gene Green.

—HE WAS IN STITCHES: The Oakland A’s of the early 1970s were known to be, uh, a bit different.

Somebody described the 1974 World Series champion A’s this way: “A Rainbow Coalition of brawlers, boozers and malcontents. They were truly America’s team, although most of us were too square to realize it.”

An example: There was a line drive hit to infielder Sal Bando. After he caught the ball, he noticed three stitches were broken.

He walked to the mound and handed the ball to pitcher Rollie Fingers and said, “You can throw two or three good sinkers with this ball before the umpire checks the ball.”

Bando ran back to his position and turned just in time to see Fingers looking in for the sign, then straighten up and yell, “Time out. There’s something wrong with this ball, Mr. Umpire.”

Said Bando, “Man, he was the dumbest damn pitcher I ever saw in my life.”

—BIG LITTLE MAN: Ever hear of Art ‘Pinky’ Deras? If you are a baseball fan, you should. After all, he was the greatest pitcher of all time.

OK, so it was Little League. . .but Deras pitched Hamtramck (Mich.) to the Little League World Series championship in 1959.

Chomp on these numbers: He was 18-0 with 10 no-hitters, five in a row. Games are six innings and he struck out 298 batteres.

And hit? He batted .641 with 33 homers and 112 RBI.

Want some legitimacy? Former major leaguer Tom Paciorek played against Pinky in Hamtramck and said, “When he pitched, it was just a matter of if in six innings he was gonna strikeout 17 or 18.

“You knew he was going to pitch a no-hitter,” Paciorek added. “And if you were dumb enough to pitch to him he was going to hit a home run about 400 feet.”

Pinky signed with the St. Louis Cardinals but never made it out of the minors. Those minor league guys were just as big and as strong as he was.

—TORRE’S STORIES: Joe Torre was a player, a manager and an MLB official and saw hundreds of players.

At age 86, he named five players that impressed him most and said, “Great players are different, do things that other players can’t do. There are the handful of players I’ll never forget and I still see them.”

His list: Mickey Mantle, Bob Gibson, Henry Aaron, Stan Musial, Willie Mays.

No surprises there. . .only five of the best players all-time.

—TAKE A CHANCE: Pitcher Dean Chance made me proud in 1964. What a season.

Pitching for the California Angels, he was 20-9 with a 1.69 earned run average with 11 shutouts. He shut out the New York Yankees three times and beat the four times.

He gave up one run to the Yankees in 52 innings, a home run by Mickey Mantle.

And why did that make me proud? I faced him in a high school game in 1958 when I played for Akron East and he pitched for Northwestern, near Wooster, Oh. He struck me out three times. . .and I only struck out eight times all year.

For his career at Northwestern he was 52-1 with 18 no-hitters. . .so it is easy to see why I had no chance against Chance.

—BALL STATE/TESTICLE TECH: Ball State University is named after five brothers who founded the Ball Corporation and manufactured Mason Jars in Muncie, Ind. until 1996.

But when I was at Kent State and we played Ball State we referred to it as Testicle Tech.

Why would 101,120 people pay a queen’s ransom to watch Ohio State use T.T. for capital punishment for 60 minutes?

Why would T.T. travel the 135 miles from Muncie to Columbus to endure a 56-3 wipeout? T.T. is working toward its sixth straight losing season at the Mid-Major level.

That’s easy. Ball State was paid a guaranteed $1.9 million to come on over. That buys a lot of Mason Jars.

—FIRE UP?: Radio and TV broadcasters keep saying, “The Reds need to play as if their hair is on fire.”

If my hair is on fire, the last thing I want to do is play baseball. Where’s the garden hose?

—TRIVIA TIME: Stuff only my readers (most of them) enjoy:

—Bo Bichette leads MLB with 664 foul balls. Anthony Santander has fouled off 655 pitches and only put 220 into play.

—Sal Stewart needs to stick his arm out over the plate a few times. While St. Louis rookie JJ Wetherholt has been hit by a pitch16 times, Stewart has only been hit four times. Well, maybe Sal ducks quicker.

—Just my personal observation — baseball is not analytics. Baseball is Elly De La Cruz going from first to home, Dane Myers crashing into walls, Sal Stewart taking a two-strike pitch to right field. . .and Eugenio Suarez signing autographs for kids in a driving downpour.—

—QUOTE MACHINE: Baseball people say the darndest things:

—Former player/broadcaster/comedian Bob Uecker on women sports writers in the clubhouse: “Sure they look. Read their stories. How else do you explain a capital letter in the middle of a word?”

—Former Reds superstar Ken Griffey Jr.: “Confidence is how you go about your business. Cockiness is when you have to explain it to somebody.”

—From former Twins infielder Kirby Puckett: “I was told I would never make it because I’m too short. I’m still too short but I have 10 All-Star games and two World Series championships.”

—PLAYLIST NUMBER 206: As American playwright Tennessee Williams put it: “In memory everythling seems to happen to music.”

—Jolene (Dolly Parton), Tell Me Why (Earl Lewis & The Channels), Pour Some Sugar On Me (Def Leppard), Danger Zone (Kenny Loggins), Heart Of Glass (Blondie), I Can’t Stop Lovin’ You (Ray Charles), Don’t Worry Baby (Beach Boys), Soldier Boy (Shirelles), Two Hearts (Phil Collins), My Prerogative (Bobby Brown).

—Lonely People (America), Mr. Bojangles (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band), Do Ya (Electric Light Orchestra), Go Your Own Way (Fleetwood Mac), I Just Want To Be Your Everything (Andy Gibb), Concrete And Clay (Unit 4+2). Elusive Butterfly (Bob Lind), Shower The People (James Taylor), Long As I Can See The Light (Credence Clearwater Revival).