By Hal McCoy
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave, a sad and silent place for the next couple of days with no baseball.
—REMEMBER HIM?: Jarren Duran is no friend to Cincinnati Reds fans and actually is Public Enemy No. 1. When his Boston Red Sox were in town in mid-June he was a pain in the solar plexis.
First he hit a home run off Andrew Abbott. Then he leaped above the center field wall in the ninth inning to rob Stuart Fairchild of a two-run game-winning home run.
And on Tuesday night, he played the major part in knocking the ‘H’ out of Hunter Greene’s first name.
Greene entered the All-Star game in the fifth with the score 3-3. The first two American League batters hit wall-scraping fly ball outs. Then came a single and Duran’s 413-foot game-winning home run.
It stayed 5-3, making Greene the losing pitcher and Duran the MVP.
At least Elly De La Cruz stepped up. They had him playing third base. What? He led off the seventh with a sharp two-strike single to left. The TV announcers implored him to steal second, but he stayed put.
And he was the second batter in the ninth to face superb Cleveland closer Emmanuel Clase. Strikeout? No, he grounded out.
—BOLD AND CONFIDENT: Rookie mega-sensation Paul Skenes started for the National League in the All-Star game and the plan was for one inning.
The baseball world wanted to see Skenes face Man Mountain Aaron Judge, but Judge was batting fourth, so one of the top three had to get on base for it to materialize.
New York Yankees teammate Juan Soto batted third and on the morning of the game during an interview on MLB-TV Soto said, “I’ll make sure Judge faces him.”
And he did, duiously. He took a 3-and-2 pitch that looked like a strike but was called ball four. As he ran to first base, he pointed to Judge in the batter’s circle.
Judge kind of shook his head then grounded out to third on the first pitch. If you half-blinked, you missed the ‘confrontation.’
—OH SAY CAN YOU HEAR?: So who won the Home Run Derby? Yeah, I know. I found out Tuesday morning on ESPN. . .Teoscar Hernandez, who batted eighth in the All-Star game.
I lost interest after the first round and joined Nadine in the sun room to watch Beverly Hills Cop-Axel F.
When my ‘hightlight’ is Gunnar Henderson’s imitation of Scooby Doo. . .well.
Hernandez received less attention than National Anthem ‘singer’ Ingrid Andress. Five Grammy Nominations? She never won, right?
It hasn’t been a good year for Francis Scott Key. First a ship knocked down his bridge in Baltimore and then Andress murdered his song.
Social media abounds with folks saying it was the worst rendition ever. Not to me. Andress is only No. 2.
I was in the press box at old San Diego-Jack Murphy Stadium for a Reds-Padres game. I heard Roseanne Barr’s effort. If she tried to make a mockery of it, she more than succeeded and she’s still No. 1.
Andress confessed that she was inebriated as she warbled and said she was checking herself into a rehab center.
—JUST PINCH ME: MLB players will tell you, without twisting their batting gloves, that pinch-hitting is the toughest assignment in the game.
They sit in the dugout for seven innings, doing not much of anything, then are told by the manager, “Grab a bat and win this game for us.”
When portly Gates Brown was a pinch-hitter for the Detroit Tigers, he ate hot dogs and sat in the clubhouse talking on the phone to friends.
The Tigers, for some inexplicable reason, put an outside line on their bullpen phone. So Brown would sit in the bullpen talking to friends on the outside line.
Once manager Mayo Smith instructed the pitching coach to call the bullpen and get a relief pitcher ready. When it was time to bring in a pitcher, Smith saw that nobody was warming up.
“Didn’t you call the bullpen?” Smith asked his coach.
“I kept trying, but the line was busy,” he said. The outside line was gone the next day.
How difficult is pinch-hitting for superstars? Ty Cobb, one of the greatest hitters ever, was 15 for 60 (.217) as a pinch-hitter. And Babe Ruth? He was 13 for 67 (.194).
—PICK AND CHOOSE: Is picking runners off first base an art form? For some, yes. Frank Robinson tells this story about managing in Puerto Rico.
His team was a run down with two outs in the ninth-inning and got a runner on against a left-handed pitcher named Frank Conger.
Suddenly one of Robby’s relief pitchers, Freddie Bean, ran in from the bullpen and told Robby, “This guy has the greatest pickoff move in history. I saw him pick off three guys in one inning last year in Triple-A.”
Said Robby, “OK, since you know this guy, go in and pinch-run.”
Bean took a modest lead. . .and Conger picked him off. End of game.
“I was laughing too hard to chew him out,” said Robinson.
—POTENTLY SPEAKING: Baseball, go figure. On the last day before the All-Star break, the last-place Oakland A’s (37-61) beat the first-place Philadelphia Phillies (62-34), 18-3, in Citizens Bank Park.
There has been only one team this season to score 18 or more runs. The Oakland A’s. And they have done it three times, scoring 20, 19 and 18.
And they even won those games.
—ONE LONELY GUY: Something to think about when it comes to baseball defense, something I never thought about, until now.
Defensively, in basketball it is five-on-five. In football it is 11-on-11. In hockey it is six-on-six. Baseball? It’s one-on-nine.
It is one batter against nine defenders. And nobody screens for him, nobody blocks for him and nobody checks for him. Hardly fair, is it?
Back in the ‘80s, the Chicago White Sox defense was horrendous. During one game, broadcaster and former outfield defensive wizard Jimmy Piersall said after one error-filled inning, “I’m surprised they don’t miss the dugout when they run in.”
—A ROSE IS A ROSE: One spring training day, when the Reds trained in Tampa, a fan kept yelling, “Pete Rose, you’re a bum.”
Suddenly, a large man behind the fan went Mike Tyson on him. It was the fan’s misfortune to sit behind David Rose, Pete’s brother who looks like him only 50 pounds heavier.
“Dave’s a paramedic and his ambulance was in the parking lot, so he knew how long to punch the guy and still get him to the hospital in time” said Pete.
—DRESS ‘EM UP: Somebody asked what my favorite uniform is and I know they meant baseball or maybe football.
But my favorite uniform is the University of Southern California marching band with their gold Trojan helmets and red plumes. . .especially when they appeared on stage with Fleetwood Mac doing ‘Tusk.’
—IS IT NOT?: One of my least favorite sayings that is meaningless: “It is what it is.” Well, what is it?
—PLAYLIST NUMBER 73: And I keep finding ‘em.
Straight From The Heart (Bryan Adams), You Gave Me A Mountain (Elvis Presley), Closer You Get (Alabama), Dream Weaver (Gary Wright), Mind Games (John Lennon). No Matter What (Boyzone), Stranger On The Short (Acker Bilk), Tears In Heaven (Eric Clapton).
I Swear (All-4-One), Nobody Knows (Tony Rich Project), Lord, I Hope This Day Is Good (Don Williams), If I Can’t Have You (Yvonne Elliman), Alone (Heart), Tusk (Fleetwood Mac), Bad Luck (Social Distortion).