OBSERVATIONS: MLB Says Farewell To ESPN

By Hal McCoy

UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave, getting pumped up watching spring training exhibition games on MLB Network. I’m so starved for baseball that I watched the Alabama State-Grambling game in the Andre Dawson Classic, a tournament for Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCU). And what better place to play it than the Jackie Robinson Training Complex in Vero Beach, Fla., although the ‘ping’ of aluminum bats made me cringe.;

—BYE-BYE ESPN: ESPN, the Especially Stupid Programming Network, tried to cut back the money on its next contract with MLB.

And to its credit, MLB told ESPN’s dunderheads to take its micriphones and stick them in their ears. . .and elsewhere.

So after this season MLB and ESPN won’t be partners and to that I say, “Good move and good riddance.”

ESPN always has treated baseball on the same level as cornhole, curling and steeplechase. If you wanted to watch a baseball game, ESPN gave you the Boston Red Sox at the New York Yankees. For variety, they offered you the New York Yankees at the Boston Red Sox.

For ESPN, it is the NFL and the NBA, even in mid-summer. The only thing good ESPN does is college basketball. Baseball? Well, you better have the MLB Network.

ESPN will continue with Monday Night Baseball this season (Red Sox-Yankees and Yankees-Red Sox), then the contract expires after 2025.

In a news release, MLB said, “The positive energy around our sport has led to significant interest from both traditional media companies and streaming services who would like to obtain rights to MLB games. We will be exploring those opportunities for a new agrement that would start at beginning of the 2026 season.”

As George Carlin once put it, and he could have been talking about ESPN, “Here’s some people who should be smashed repeatedly across the mouth with some heavy mining equipment.”

—A ‘PIPP’ OF A STORY: The accepted story is that Wally Pipp took a day off in 1925 with a ‘headache’ and Lou Gehrig took his place. . .for 2,130 straight games.

That story isn’t quite true. Pipp suffered more than a headache. He was hit in the temple with a pitch during batting practice.

He was semiconscious when they carted him to a hospital. He was hospitalized for two weeks. When he came back, Gehrig owned the first base job. . .for the next 13 years and 2,130 straight games without a day off.

Pipp? He was traded to the Cincinnati
Reds in 1926 and played three years. His slash line was .279/.335/.379 with 10 homers and 166 RBI. Then he retired.

And Lou Gehrig? Wonder whatever happened to him?

—ANOTHER HURDLE-ISM: Just finished Clint Hurdle’s book, ‘Hurdle-isms.’ There are so many words to live by lines that if one adopts one-quarter of them they’ll be a much better person.

When I wrote that I was not happy returning from the Caribbean to snow-blanketed Dayton, Hurdle sent me another great message: “Don’t be sad it’s over, be glad it happened.”

Hurdle said the quote comes from Dr. Suess, “He’s my favorite doctor, along with Doctor Pepper.”

My favorite doctor is Dr. Farouk Tabrah. He saved my life in 1983 when he determined I needed a pacemaker. And 42 years later, like Timex, it keeps on ticking. . .with the same battery.

—WHERE IS IT?: Speaking of Clint Hurdle, he explained how pitchers like Gaylord Perry got away with applying foreign substances on the baseball and passing the umpire’s frisking.

“I played with Gaylord Perry one spring and I’m telling you I know where the stuff was,” he said. “They put the. . .I’m just going to leave it with this. . .they put it in a spot where the umpires would never check in the middle of 40,000 people in the park.”

Obviously, umpires would never be hired by TSA because those guys check you closer than a gynecologist or a urologist.

—MR. CONSISTENCY: Only four times in MLB history has a player had more than 50 extra base hits, more than 50 stolen bases and more than 100 walks in a season.

And here’s a list of the ‘four’ players who did it.

Joe Morgan, 1973.

Joe Morgan, 1974.

Joe Morgan, 1975.

Joe Morgan, 1976.

And ‘Little Joe,’ baseball’s Little Big Man, needed one more stolen base and one more extra base hit and he would have done it again in 1977. . .five straight years.

—CALLING HIS PITCHES: It is not a shock, not even a surprise, that Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux called his own pitches, relayed to his catcher what he was about to throw, the last few seasons of his career.

How did he do it? He used a bunch of ways that indicated what pitch was coming — a tug on the left ear, a rub of the left elbow, rubbing his pitching hand on his right knee, pinching his nostrils.

And nobody ever caught on.

—SUPER-DUPER CONFERNCE: Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, arguably the most respected college basketball coach in existence, is promoting the merger of the Big East and ACC into one super power basketball conference.

Just last week, St. John’s Rick Pitino, not one of college basketball’s respected coaches, threw in his support to Coach K’s idea.

And he added something shocking.

“I wish they would add Dayton and Memphis to the combination,” he said. “Just have a super basketball league.”

That’s quite the ‘180’ for Pitino. After UD beat his St. John’s team, 88-81, two years ago in the Charleston Classic, he made some disparaging post-game remarks about UD.

Among other things, he said his team was better than the Flyers and UD didn’t beat St. John’s, St. John’s beat itself.

So if the Big East and ACC merge and add Dayton and Memphis, ‘The Big, Big Big 32 Conference’ would look like this:

Duke, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Virginia, Clemson, Califronia, Boston College, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami (Fla), Pittsburgh, SMU, Stanford, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, Notre Dame, St. John’s, Villanova, Georgetown, DePaul, Creighton, Providence, Temple, Butler, Seton Hall, Xavier, Marquette, UConn, Memphis and Dayton.

I will not apply for the schedule-maker’s job.

—WAS IT BAD OR GOOD?: ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt has a segment on SportsCenter called ‘Bad Beats.’ He shows a string of college basketball games where some late-game shenanigans cost gamblers their wagers, turning winners into losers instantly, usually at the buzzaer.

Never was there was a better example than the UC-West Virginia game this week. West Virginia was a 3 1/2-point favorite and with 10 seconds left they were up nine, 62-53. That’s a nine-point lead, making those betting on the Mountaineers a sure winner, right?

As Lee Coroso always says it, “Not so fast.” A UC player banked in a three-pointer. Two seconds later, West Virginia turned over the inbounds pass and UC hit another three-point with 3.5 seconds left.

That made it 62-59 and that’s how it finished and in a matter of seconds West Virginia backers were losers, even though West Virginia won. They weree 3 1/2-point favorites but only won by three.

Van Pelt calls that a bad beat. . .for West Virginia bettors. But it was a good beat for UC backers. The Bearcats lost, but they beat the spread and made their bet-backers winners.

MORAL: Don’t bet on college basketball.

—TRIVIA TIME: It is general knowledge that Ted Williams is the last MLB player to hit .400 when he hit .406 in 1941.

What most don’t know is who was the last National League player to hit .400.

That would be New York Giants first baseman Bill Terry, .401 in 1930. He had 254 hits and also led the league in putouts and assists.

Known as ‘Memphis Bill,’ his number 3 is retired and hangs on the outfield facade in San Francisco’s Oracle Park.

—PLAYLIST NUMBER 147: As American composer Stephen Sondheim put it, “If I cannot fly, let me sing.”

—I Think We’re Alone Now (Tiffany), Key Largo (Bertie Higgins), Crazy (Poco), Time Passages (Al Stewart), Start Me Up (Rolling Stones), It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere (Jimmy Buffet, Alan Jackson), Take It On The Run (REO Speedwagon.

—St. Elmo’s Fire (John Parr), I’m Gonna Be 500 Miles (The Proclaimers), Simple Man (Lynyrd Skynyrd), Sweet Child O’ Mine (Guns N’ Roses), Shadows Of The Night (Pat Benatar), Imaginary Lover (Atlanta Rhythm Section), While You See A Chance (Steve Winwood), Love Is Alive (Gary Wright).