Category: Uncategorized

 

 

By HAL McCOY

Playoff baseball is a different animal and it is glorious. It changes colors like a chameleon. Managers tear up ‘The Book’ and think outside the box.

Chicago Cubs manage Joe Maddon does it all season long — playing four-man infields, using pitchers in the outfield, using his players at several different positions, coming up with slogans and tee-shirts that read, “Try not to suck.”

It is so refreshing and maybe managers will follow Maddon’s lead and become creative instead of doing things the same way game after game after game.

LOS ANGELES DODGERS manager Dave Roberts did it Thursday night in Game 5 of the NLDS and it paid off with a 4-3 victory that sent the Dodgers into the NLCS against the Cubs.

His team led, 4-3, with no outs and a runner on first base in the seventh inning. Chris Heisey had just hit a two-run home run to draw the Nats to within a run and the Washington crowd was in a frenzy.

What did Roberts do? He brought in his closer, Kenley Jansen, a guy who only pitched in save situations in the ninth inning all season long.

Jansen quickly gave up a hit, putting two runners on. Then he retired the next three batters to preserve the one-run lead.

It plays into what I’ve said ever since somebody came up with the closer’s role. The closer is the best relief pitcher a team owns, but managers insist on saving him until the ninth inning and a save is in order.

But the game often hangs by a suture thread in the seventh or eighth inning. So why not bring in your best pitcher? Roberts did it and it worked.

Not only that, Jansen pitched 2 1/3 innings the game. He threw a career-high 51 pitches. When the ninth began, Roberts had starter Clayton Kershaw warming up in the bullpen.

But it got dicey in the bottom of the ninth and more drama. Jansen retired the first batter in the ninth, but then walked Bryce Harper and Jayson Werth.

What did Roberts do? He brought in starter Clayton Kershaw, who started Game 4 just two days ago and threw 110 pitches.

Kershaw got Daniel Murphy to pop up to second and then he struck out Wilmer Difo.

The Dodgers won three one-run games and Kershaw had two wins and a save.

THE BALTIMORE ORIOLES are sitting at home eating popcorn as they watch the post-season when things might have turned out differently if manager Buck Showalter had climbed out of that box manager’s like to hide in.

Baltimore closer Zach Britton had one of the best season’s a pitcher could have. But when the Orioles played Toronto in the one-and-out American League wild card game, manager Buck Showalter didn’t use him. He waited and waited and waited, like a kid waiting on a school bus, hoping his O’s would get the lead late in the game so Britton could save it.

It never happened. The game went into extra innings and Toronto won it on Edwin Encarnacion’s home run in the 11^th inning.

SPEAKING OF EDWIN Encarnacion, isn’t it delightful to see former Cincinnati Reds doing positive things in the post-season?

Chris Heisey, a popular former Reds outfielder, hit a two-run pinch-hit home run for the Nationals Thursday night.

Heisey is the same player for the Nationals that he was for the Reds – an extra outfielder who provides nitroglycerin off the bench, just as he did for the Reds.

Fans were often on manager Dusty Baker’s back when he managed the Reds and didn’t play Heisey regularly. They thought Baker held something against Heisey, that maybe Heisey stole Baker’s expensive wine he was saving for a celebration.

It wasn’t true. Baker often said, “I love Chris Heisey. Nobody plays harder, nobody works harder. But he has his limitations.”

Those limitations were that Heisey was a dead red hitter — he could handle fastballs but breaking pitches were a murder mystery. So Baker picked and chose his spots for Heisey, just as he did Thursday night.

Heisey drilled relief pitcher Grant Dayton’s misplaced fastball into the hands of a fan in the left field seats.

AND BAKER RIPPED a page from San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy’s book. Bochy used five relief pitchers in one inning during his team’s elimination loss to the Chicago Cubs. And Baker used five relief pitchers in the seventh inning when the Dodgers scored four runs.

Baker ended up using seven pitchers and Roberts used six, a typical National League game that makes a scorecard look like a kindergartner’s finger-painting.

UNFORTUNATELY, THE NATS came up a run short, depriving Baker of an opportunity to face the Chicago Cubs in the NLCS, the team that fired him. And misguided fans will blame Baker for not being able to win in the postseason.

Yeah, sure, it was his fault the Nats were 1 for 10 with runners in scoring position and stranded 11 runners.

It was, though, somewhat surprising that he removed starter Max Scherzer in the seventh inning after he gave up one run and five hits in six innings, Yes, he had thrown 99 pitches, but this was a win or go fishing game and Scherzer is his best.

Playoff baseball. You gotta love it.

WAS READING AN old baseball book while watching the Nats-Dodgers game and saw fans scrambling for a foul ball.

The book talked about how in the 1910s baseball teams wanted foul balls returned and had employees scrambling in the stands to retrieve balls. In 1916, three fans in the Polo Grounds in New York were arrested for larceny when they refused to return foul balls.

The cost of a baseball in 1916 was $2.50. The cost now is almost $20 and teams go through about six dozen a game.

ON SATURDAY I will be at the Miami Valley Centre Mall in Piqua at a memorabilia show selling and signing my book, ‘The Real McCoy,’ from 2:30 to 4:30.

By HAL McCOY

The Chicago Cubs removed any doubt Tuesday night that they have hearts bigger than the John Hancock Tower. And the guts of diamond thieves.

San Francisco Giants fans were poised to board cable cars and tear up Fisherman’s Wharf with three outs to go in Game Four of the National League Division Series.

The Cubs, though, don’t need three outs. They only need one. And they proved it Tuesday night.

THE GIANTS LED THE Cubs by three runs entering the ninth inning, three outs away from tying the series at two games each and setting up a one-game showdown in Chicago for all the pebbles on the Lake Michigan beach.

Before the fog rolled in on AT&T Park, the calm Cubs ravaged the Giants bullpen, five guys, for four runs and a 6-5 lead.

Then they turned the bottom of the ninth over to Aroldis Chapman and he struck out the side — whiff, whiff, whiff — and the Giants were dead at the bottom of the beanstalk, 6-5 losers and sent to a long winter’s nap.

ASKED ABOUT THE possibility of a decide-it-all Game Five in Wrigley Field, Cubs manager Joe Maddon said honestly, “We didn’t want a Game Five. Have you seen our numbers against Johnny Cueto? Abysmal.”

Cueto, the former Cincinnati Reds ace, was waiting to pitch Game 5. Instead, his next game will be the first week of the 2017 season.

San Francisco’s Matt Moore held the Cubs to two runs and two hits and had struck out 10 through eight innings. He had thrown 120 pitches, but he threw 130 in a game late in the season against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

MANAGER BRUCE BOCHY, one of baseball’s best managers (he and Maddon are probably the best), decided to take Moore out with the 5-2 lead.

Even though the San Francisco bullpen did a season-long imitation of the Cincinnati Reds bullpen — bad, very bad — Bochy turned it over to his bullpen.

Surely, it could protect a three-run lead. Sure, it could get three outs before the Cubs could score three or four runs.

HE WAS AS WRONG as the Flat Earth Society. He used five pitchers in the ninth. Five. And they couldn’t get three outs before the Cubs scored four runs.

This is how the ninth inning went down and if you are a Giants fan, quit reading now.

—Derek Law pitching (1). Kris Bryant singles to left field.

—Javier Lopez pitching (2). Anthony Rizzo walks.

—Sergio Romo pitching (3). Ben Zobrist doubles to the right field corner, scoring Bryant. Giants, 5-3.

—Will Smith pitching (4). Pinch-hitter Willson Contreras singles to center, scoring Rizzo and Zobrist. Tie game, 5-5.

—Jayson Heyward bunts into a force play at second, but the relay throw to first is wild and Heyward takes second on the error by shortstop Brandon Crawford.

—Hunter Strickland pitching (5). Javier Baez singles to center, scoring Heyward. Cubs lead, 6-5.

NOW IT’S THE BOTTOM of the ninth and here is how it went with Aroldis Chapman on the mound, throwing every one of his 13 pitches more than 100 miles an hour.

—Gorkys Hernandez strikes out. Denard Span strikes out. Brandon Belt strikes out. Game over. Cubs win, Cubs win, Cubs win.

IN ADDITION TO FORMER Reds closer Chapman pitching the ninth, he was pitching to former Reds catcher David Ross.

Ross, 39, is playing his final season and on this night he got the Cubs started with a solo home run in the third to tie it, 1-1, then produced a sacrifice fly in the fifth to cut a Giants lead to 3-2.

The Giants scored two in the bottom of the fifth to take a 5-2 lead, so heading into the ninth inning Ross had the only RBI produced through eight innings by the Cubs.

Then the Cubs showed why they are the best team in baseball and why manager Joe Maddon is more of a zen guru than a baseball manager.

A few minutes after the game, TV cameras showed the obligatory champagne nonsense in the Cubs clubhouse. Then a camera panned the empty stands, empty except for a colony of sea gulls feeding on the leftover garlic fries and hot dog buns.

Wonder if one of those sea gulls could have recorded an out in the top of the ninth?

 

 

By HAL McCOY

UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave, relaxing in front of the Smart TV watching the Toronto-Baltimore wild card game with no intent to write anything.

Edwin Encarnacion changed all that.

His three-run home run on the first pitch from Baltimore’s Ubaldo Jimenez in the bottom of the 11^th sent the Jays into the playoffs and sent the Orioles home.

REMEMBER ENCARNACION, REDS fans? He went by EE. He was a third baseman for the Reds, but not a good one. Fans behind first base needed batting helmets for protection from his many errant throws.

And there was the time manager Jerry Narron fined him for not running out a pop fly. Narron didn’t appreciate Encarnacion’s laid-back demeanor. He is the strong, silent type and it sometimes made him look lazy. He wasn’t.

ENCARNACION, THOUGH, HAS turned into a superstar with the Toronto Blue Jays and fans constantly ask, “Why did the Reds trade him?”

He was dealt mid-season of 2009 to Toronto for third baseman Scott Rolen. Why? The Reds needed defense at third base and they needed leadership. Rolen provided both.

And Encarnacion is either a designated hitter or a first baseman for the Jays. Because the Reds are in the National League, Encarnacion could not be a DH. And the Reds had this young first baseman named Joey Votto.

Votto won the MVP in 2010 and Rolen helped the Reds win the National League Central. They lost in three staight to the Philadelphia Phillies.

Encarnacion was expendable. And in Toronto Encarnacion has had a reincarnation of his career.

HOW THE GAME IN TORONTO unfoled Tuesday night was curious.

Why was Encarnacion pitched to in the 11^th and why was he facing Ubaldo Jimenez?

Baltimore manager Buck Showalter has this unhittable relief pitcher, closer Zach Britton. His earned run average this season was 0.54. From May 5 until the end of the season Britton gave up one run. One.

Showalter used seven pitchers this night but Britton wasn’t one of them. Why not? Because Showalter was operating on the accepted theory these days that you save your closer until you get a lead.

THIS, THOUGH WAS A one-and-done game. Lose and you go home. Shouldn’t Britton have been in the game for the 10^th and/or the 11^th. Shouldn’t he have at least been brought into the game to face Encarnacion in the 11^th with one out and runners on third and first?

Showalter, though, stuck with Jimenez. And he permitted Jimenez to face Encarnacion. An intentional walk would have filled the bases, yes, but it would have set up a force at any base and would have made it easier to turn a double play.

BRITTON, BY THE WAY, throws a death-defying sinker and is a ground ball machine.

Instead Jimenez threw a hit-me, hit-me fastball right into Encarnacion’s red zone and he hit a no-doubter that brought out a roar that shook the CNN Tower near the ball park.

Asked about not using Britton, Showalter said, “That’s the way it was. It just didn’t work out.”

It certainly didn’t. He did acknowledge that from the sixth inning on, “I thought about it (using Britton), but it was working out for us. Ubaldo Jimenez has been our best starter his last six or seven games.”

But he hasn’t been a relief pitcher. Zach Britton is his best, probably baseball’s best right now and a Cy Young contender.

Showalter is an outstanding manager, one of the best. On this night, he wasn’t.

And Edwin Encarnacion thanks him from the bottom of the batter’s box.

By HAL McCOY

This is a tale about how one bird turned a large flock of American Airlines passengers into a wake of angry buzzards.

After five delightful vacation days in The Bahamas, Nadine and our friends Nancy and Jeff Gordon boarded American Airlines Flight 1762 for Charlotte at 4:30. The misery began 10 minutes into the flight when the captain informed us that the plane had struck a large bird on take off and we had to go back to the Nassau airport to check the damage.

The plane returned to Gate 44 and we were told a mechanic needed to check for damage and if all was well we’d be on our way.

FOUR HOURS LATER, we were on our way — to even more aggravation. The pilot said there was no damage but a lot of paperwork was necessary, nearly four hours worth of paperwork as it turned out. And we sat on the plane the entire four hours. Snacks while we sat? Sure. Only $5 for a small bag of trail mix.

Once airborne again the passengers were told that nearly all of us had been rebooked on later flights and that nearly everybody had been accommodated and would make their connections.

What a crock that message was.

When we landed at Charlotte, we were told to report to the Service Desk at Gate B8. When we arrived at B8, the line was 100 yards long and more than 500 people stretched down the hall. Bad weather throughout the country caused delays and cancellations and the Charlotte airport was a zoo, only smellier.

AND IT ONLY GOT WORSE. We were rebooked for a 7:35 a.m. flight the next morning to Dayton. We tried to find a hotel near the airport, using a kiosk near baggage claim. Everything within 15 miles of the airport was booked. No room at any inn.

When we tried to return to the gate area through security, TSA was locking up. We couldn’t return. It didn’t matter because all the restaurants were closed. Several passengers were congregated in chairs and on the floor near the American check-in counters.

Some asked for bottled water. They were pointed in the direction of a drinking fountain. Some asked for pillows and/or blankets. American said no.

Most of the stranded passengers remained in the gate area and some became so hostile that security/police were summoned to keep the peace.

ONE WOMAN WAS PARTICULARLY angry because she said her flight from Charlotte to New York City didn’t leave the tarmac. “They loaded us up and started taxiiing,” she said. “Then they headed back to the gate and told us the pilot’s time was up, he had been flying too long. Why did he even take that plane away from the gate? He had to know his time was up.”

Meanwhile, all the counter personnel at American went home to their comfortable beds while the passenger peons found chairs and floors on which to waste a night.

Some people received food vouchers, most of us didn’t. Oh, and our luggage? Never saw it. They said it would be flown to our destination. Clean clothes? Toiletries? You American help us in any way? No way.

I guess it’s The American Way.

By HAL McCOY

COLUMBUS — It isn’t often, if ever, that a person can sit in a comfortable swivel chair in a gorgeous venue and be transported 58 years back to re-live some of the best times of his life.

That, though, is what happened to me Thursday afternoon. For a day, I was 17 again.

On a bright, muggy afternoon in wonderful Huntington Park, home of the Triple-A Columbus Clippers, I sat all day watching the Ohio High School Athletic Association state baseball tournament. As I watched, I felt as if I was wearing uniform No. 23 for Akron East High School, playing first base, in a game at Firestone Stadium in in 1985, a park where Babe Ruth once played an exhibition game.

I remember how I felt and how these kids must feel playing on a magnificent diamond with fans in the stands, music blaring, four umpires and Major League scouts sitting behind home plate.

In a flash and a grinding of gray matter, I remembered Philadelphia Phillies legendary scout Tony Lucadello inviting me to a tryout camp after one of those games at Firestone Stadium and how I felt I was on my way to The Big Show. I wasn’t, but in the end that invitation was almost as good and the letter from the Phillies is tucked away in a scrapbook somewhere in my home office.

After covering more than 7,000 major league games over the last 43 years, this was the first time I sat and watched high school games. And what a delight it was.

It reminded me of the Kevin Costner movie, ‘For the Love of the Game.’ That’s what these kids are doing, for the love of the game, to challenge themselves, for the pure competition with few pretentiousness of future greatness.

It is grass roots baseball at its best, nothing close to the major leagues — and that’s a good thing.

The first game began at 10 a.m., an hour when most major leaguers haven’t even ordered room service breakfast. Major Leaguers don’t take infield practice any more, but these kids do and they do it with game-like enthusiasm. You can almost tell which is the better team and which is going to win by the confidence and savior faire displayed during infield practice.

And I was correct after the first two games after only watching infield practice and having never seen either team.

In the first game Defiance High School put on a peppy infield display and I was startled when they ran off the field after infield practice that their fans gave them a standing ovation.

It was disconcerting, because of watching major league ball for four decades, to see that Defiance pitcher Shay Smiddy batted leadoff. And he walked to open the game and later slid across home plate to score the tournament’s first run, dirtying up his uniform before he threw his first pitch.

And the kid can pitch. He pitched a complete game five-hitter to beat Steubenville, 6-1. Impressive? He throws strikes, with fastballs touching 86 miles an hour. He threw 91 pitches and only 30 were out of the strike zone. If only the Cincinnati Reds bullpen would take note.

There were many things that were delightful: No egos, no bat-flipping, no strutting and preening, no loud and obnoxious walk-up music that says, “Hey, look at me, I make millions and you don’t.”

It was stunning to see players run to the batter’s box and run back to the dugout after making outs and run on and off the field between innings. No lollygagging and sauntering. They act as if they want to be out there and they do, they definitely do.

One often hears major league players talk about respecting the game, but most don’t. These kids definitely respect the game, try to do things the right way, the way to respect the game.

Even the fans seem more passionate, even if they are smallish in numbers. In the Hamilton Badin-Poland Seminary Division II semifinals, Badin trailed 3-1 after five innings. When the sixth began, the mostly green-clad basin fans turned the caps inside out — rally caps — and their screams and shouts sounded like 20,000, standing the entire half-inning and reaching a crescendo when Poland pitcher Dan Klase walked the first two.

Left hander Matt Baker replaced Klase and Cody Border and Zach Larkin singled for a run. Then Ross Mulcare laid down a suicide squeeze bunt to tie the game, 3-3, and by now the Badinaires behind the dugout were dancing in the aisles. Mitch Raley doubled to the left field wall for two more runs and a 5-3 Badin lead and the rally caps had done their work.

Badin, though, wasn’t done. No. 9 hitter Garrett Hogan executives a perfect hit-and-run between first and second, a play botched more often than not by the pros. Badin used that seven-run inning to score an 8-3 victory and they left the field feeling as if they’d beaten the 1998 New York Yankees.

And for those who despite challenge/replay/review in the majors, there was a play at second base on which a Badin runner was called out. Coach Brion Treadway pled his case to the umpires and without the aid of 14 strategically placed cameras the umpires, on their own, reversed the call.

One thing I cannot abide is the ear-hurting ping of baseball meeting aluminum. There is nothing like the thunk of wood against baseball, although the loud ‘pow-wing’ of aluminum on baseball demands you’re attention if you happen to be looking away.

On the other hand, there is one tradition that major leaguers should adopt. After every game in this tournament, the two teams meet in the middle of the infield for handshakes and “nice game” and “good luck.” I the majors the winning team shakes hands with teammates, note the opposition, and the losers mope their way to the clubhouse.

Grass roots baseball? It many ways it beats that stuff they play professionally and sometimes on artificial turf. There is a lot that’s artificial about the play-for-pay game.

By HAL McCOY

There will be no baseball in this space today. There are some things more important than baseball and a whole lot of things more important than writing about baseball.

At the top of my list is my wife, Nadine, and what she does for a living, something a hundred-fold more important that what I do.

She teaches math at Our Lady of the Rosary school and she doesn’t just teach it. She lives it. She taught nine years at Dayton’s Precious Blood (now Mother Brunner) and the last 31 years at Rosary.

And tonight, at Kettering’s Presidential Banquet Center, she will be honored for 40 years of teaching service in Catholic schools, where pay is low and pats on the back are few.

She doesn’t want to go. She feels she has not accomplished much in her life, spending all her time trying to teach a subject most kids don’t like and to an age group with raging hormones.

Nadine never says anything stupid. This time, though, she did. She has accomplished more in her life, something extremely important, than I could ever come close to doing.

There are people, unfortunately, who believe baseball is more important than education. Now that is stupid beyond belief.

Because of my job, because my picture is in the paper and because I write a blog and write for web-sites, including my own, I am recognized publicly wherever I go.

I make speaking engagements and attend book signings for my book, ‘The Real McCoy.’ Nadine stands by idly while people stop me, ask me to pose for pictures and ask for autographs.

If the truth be known, it is Nadine and her fellow teachers who should be recognized far more than they are, far more than a guy who gets to sit in a press box  watching baseball games. Teachers should pose for pictures, they should sign autographs, they should write books.

Are there many jobs more important than teaching our youth? Of course not. Do they get the recognition and pay they deserve? Absolutely not.

That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be recognized. And while she doesn’t want to be there, I will be the proudest person in that room when she stands up and takes a bow.

Does she get frustrated? Yes, she does. She comes home at times believing she isn’t doing a good job because, “These kids just aren’t getting it and I’m not getting through to them.”

Well, that’s not true. It might take a while, but they get it. Nadine runs into students all the time long after they graduate and and they say, “Oh, Mrs. McCoy, my favorite teacher. You made such a difference in my life. Thank you so much.” Those are the times I stand idly by her side and smile broadly.

That doesn’t mean much in the paycheck, but it means a lot to a teacher who often believes they are talking to four walls in a classroom.

And teaching isn’t the only vocation for Nadine. She has me to look after, a job even more difficult than teaching, as difficult as that is.

Because of my legal blindness, she has to be my driver and caretaker. It is the little things, little to most, that I can’t do. I can’t hammer a nail, I can’t hook up those nasty little buttons on sleeves and button-down collars, I can’t see curbs and steps, I can’t see that the dog water dish is empty.

And to top it off, she is a fabulous cook and loves trying out new dishes on me. Usually, they are scrumptious.

So, honey, tonight is your night, even though it is your night 365 days a year. My press box seat will be empty at Great American Ball Park tonight. But my seat in the Presidential Banquet Center will be the best seat in the house, other than yours.