By Hal McCoy
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave, watching it rain down on a dreary, miserable Sunday morning, but thankful I’m able to watch anything.
—SUCCESS AND FAILURE: It would be easy to say that the three straight 1-0 losses made Cincinnati Reds manager Terry Francona sick, which is why he missed the next game.
That would be unfair, a cheap shot.
Nobody loves being at a ball park more than Terry Francona. When he managed the Boston Red Sox, he often didn’t go home after night games. He slept on a cot in his Fenway Park office.
And it would be unfair to wonder if he regrets coming out of retirement to manage what right now appears to be a team of misfits.
Managing baseball teams courses through his veins. But as I pointed out before the season, he is no miracle worker.
Former managers Casey Stengel and Yogi Berra are proof of that.
Warren Spahn pitched for Stengel when he managed a bad Boston Braves team that never finished above fifth in Stengel’s six years there. And Spahn pitched for an even more rotten New York Mets team managed by Stengel that finished last four straight years.
In between, without Spahn, Stengel managed the New York Yankees from 1949 to 1960 and only twice did the Yankees not win the pennant.
Said the sage Spahn, “I played for Stengel before he was a genius and after he was genius.”
And Yogi? He won a pennant managing the Yankees. He also manager the 1973 New York Mets to a pennant, then managed a horrid Houston Astros team.
A man of few words, Berra was asked what made a good manager and he answered in two succinct words, “The players.”
Terry Francona, take note.
—ZERO, ZERO, ZERO: Some more stuff about the three straight 1-0 losses suffered by the Cincinnati Reds.
As everybody knows by now, it was the first three straight 1-0 shutouts endured by a team since the 1960 Phillies.
What isn’t generally known is that the Phillies’ third straight 1-0 loss was to the Cincinnati Reds in Crosley Field. Jim O’Toole pitched a seven-hitter and Vada Pinson had three hits, including a triple.
After the three shutouts, the Reds had been shut out 28 straight innings and it stretched to 35 before they scored. The record? Forty-eight straight innings by the 1968 Chicago Cubs.
I would have wagered that it was the 120-loss 1962 New York Mets who owned that record. And they were never shut out, 1-0, three straight games. Their pitchers could never hold a team to one run.
In the three games, the Reds owned nine hits (9 for 90, .100), seven singles and two doubles (Elly De La Cruz, Jose Trevino).
On the day after the Reds were shut out for the third straight time, 1-0, in Milwauee, former Reds player Eduardo Perez showed up wearing strange gear on MLB-TV’s new show, ‘The Leadoff Spot.’
He wore a Reds’ game jersey, but it had ‘Los Rojos’ on the front, a jersey the Reds wore to honor Latino players.
Said Perez, “I’m wearing this jersey to motivate the Reds.” Can he still hit?
—SHOT BY SCHOTT: As deeply as I was involved in the Pete Rose baseball gambling story, I thought I knew nearly everything about it.
But I recently discovered a tidbit about how investigator John Dowd came across the knowledge that Rose was making bets from his Riverfront Stadium clubhouse office.
And it involved penny-pinchng owner Marge Schott. She was angry that so many outside calls were emanating from the clubhouse, calls she had to pay for.
So she began keeping records of all those calls. Dowd got ahold of them and there were dozens of calls from Rose’s office to his Franklin bookmaker, Ron Peters.
Cell phones were not universally used in 1989. Had they been and Rose used one, Dowd probably would never have stumbled upon any records.
Schott loved Rose and they both died not knowing how Dowd discovered the Rose calls to Peters.
–THE TONY AWARD: The Tales of Tony Gwynn are mind-boggling and this one doesn’t boggle the mind, it blows it to smithereens.
Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz was asked how he did against Gwynn and he invoked the names of Hall of Fame pitchers Tom Glavine, Pedro Martine, Greg Maddux and himself.
“Not good,” Smoltz said about facing Gwynn. “I think this is the greatest stat in the history of sports. Maddux, Glavine, Martinez and myself recorded more than 12,000 strikeouts. We faced Gwynn about 330 times between us.
“We struck him out three times,” he said. “Martinez and Maddux zero. Glavine got him twice and I don’t even remember getting him that one time.
“He struck out less times in a year than some guys these days strike out in a week.”
—QUOTE: From Barry Bonds on Tony Gwynn: “He was the best pure hitter of our generation. There were a lot of good hitters, but Tony was at the top.”
—NO NO-NO: Baseball never fails to provide quirks one only sees once in a lifetime.
The University of North Carolina’s Aidan Haugh was pitching a no-hitter, one out to get. There was a Boston College runner on first with two outs.
BC’s Noah Lang smashed a line drive between first and second. It hit the base-runner. That’s an out, game over.
UNC players danced around Haugh for his no-hitter. But wait. When a base-runner is hit by a batted ball, he is out, but the batter is credited with a hit.
So even though that was the game-ending out, the batter was credited with a hit. No no-hitter.
But a week later, three UNC pitchers combined to throw a no-hitter at Gardner-Webb, UNC’s first no-hitter since 1999.
Baseball. What a strange but wonderful game.
—CALLING ‘EM OUT: Before a game involving the St. Louis Cardinals, a warning was issued by plate umpire Mike Muchlinski.
“Don’t do what you guys did in spring training or you will be instantly ejected,” said Muchlinski.
What was that? During spring training, the Cardinals played a game during which the ABS robot umpire was used. Every time they disagreed with a balls and strikes call, they grabbed their batting helmets with derisive gestures.
No Cardinals were ejected. . .even though a post-game evaluation revealed that Muchlinski missed 55 calls.
—‘RING ‘EM UP: As they say, one is never too old to learn things, even though when I’m asked how it’s going, I say, “Everything is going — my memory, my eyes, my teeth, my knees and my hair.”
Anyway, when a player strikes out three times, it’s the hat trick. When a played strikes out four times it is the golden sombrero.
Houston’s Jose Altuve struck out five times in a game last week at Minnesota. So what’s that called? I had no idea. Well, it’s called Olympic rings and an awful day for Altuve.
—READING REPORT: Baseball books worth your time:
The Last Commissioner by Fay Vincent: Thought this would be a snoozer, but it is actually highly entertaining, crammed full of stories and anecdotes about some baseball greats.
Cape Dreams by Mark Epsstein: Just out and is great reading about a seaso with the Brewster Whitecaps of the Cape Cod League.
Hurdle-ism by Clint Hurdles: Words to live by from the former player and manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Colorado Rockies.
—ANOTHER UECKER-ISM: From former catchers/broadcaster/comedian Bob Uecker: “They never forgot me. The St. Louis Cardinals brought me back for the 1966 All-Star Game. I worked a concessions stand. It was 106 degrees and they had me selling hot chocolate.”
—PLAYLIST NUMBER 151: From author John Greene: “Some people have lives, some people have music.” (Hopefully, most of us have both.)
—Sunglasses At Night (Corey Hart), St. Elmo’s Fire (John Parr), Come See About Me (Supremes), Don’t You Forget About Me (Simple Minds), Video Killed The Radio Star (The Buggles), Spirit In The Sky (Norman Greenbaum), Keep On Dancin’ (The Gentrys).
—You Were On My Mind (We Five), Get Outta My Dreams (Billy Ocean), Maybe I’m Amazed (Paul McCartney), Angel Of The Morning (Merrilee Rush), It’s Now Or Never (Elvis Presley), The Most Beautiful Girl (Charlie Rich), Mandolin Rain (Bruce Hornsby).