By Hal McCoy
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave — the last one before a 19-day hiatus in Greece and the Italian Amalfi coast. See ya all on the flip side.
—ELEMENTARY WATSON: Who thought any organization could waste more money than the U.S. governent. But the Cleveland Browns succeeded.
They would have been better off filling trash bags full of $234 million and tossing them into the Little Cuyahoga River than give it to so-called quarterback DeShaun Watson.
Every week one thinks, “He has to get better.” He gets worse. On Sunday, against the Washington Commodores the Browns trailed, 24-3 — a disjointed, undisciplined, ill-prepared team.
The Commodores are paying rookie Jaden Daniels $37.75 million and getting every nickle’s worth.
In the first half, Watson was 8 for 18 for 67 yards. On one play, Daniels completed a 65-yard pass.
Watson is the 38th different quarterback since 1999, the year the expansion Browns were born, to start a game.
They need to make it 39 and pronto. Wonder what Baker Mayfield is doing?
The Browns lost, 34-13. And the Bengals lost in overtime to Baltimore, 41-38, when a rookie placekick holder bobbled the snap and the Bengals miss a potential game-winning field goal.
How do you lose when your quarteback, Joe Burrow, throws five touchdown passes and throws for more than 400 yards?
You lose when your defense is worse than the Maginot Line.
As former Bengals lineman Tom Dinkel put it: “Not sure if the Bengals uniforms can get any uglier. Black jerseys and orange pants. (They) look like a bunch of Cleveland Browns.”
—GOOD & BAD: The good news is that players will wear their team uniforms for the 2025 All-Star game instead of that gaudy and ugly softball-style garb they’ve won the plast few years.
The bad news is that every team in the post-season is wearing advertising on their batting helmets. All helmets, on both sides, carry the name ‘Strauss,’ a German apparel company. And next season, all minor-league teams will have ‘Strauss’ on their helmets all season long.
MLB has not disclosed how much Strauss is paying. The sleeve advertising patches most teams wore this year average aobut $8 million per team, with the New York Yankees pulling in $25 million from Starr Insurance.
The Yankees won’t put their players names on their uniforms, but they sold out for $25 million to wear ‘Starr’ patches.
Baseball uniforms continue to come closer and closer to NASCAR drivers’ jump suits.
—CRUZ CONTROL: Elly De La Cruz could race a cheetah in a 100-yard dash and it wouldn’t be wise to wager against him. He says running is the favorite part of his game.
He is also sniffing for that extra base — turn a single into a double and a double into a triple. Sometimes it works. sometimes it fails.
“It feels great, feels great when you’re safe,” he said. “If I’m out, it doesn’t feel great. It feels great when you are running around the bases and you make it.”
Asked if at times he needs to dial back his aggression, De La Cruz said, Yeah, sometimes I gotta be smarter. If you know you’re not gonna make it, you gotta shut down.”
—WHO’S BEST WITH RISP?: Somebody asked me if I knew what player had MLB’s highest batting average with runners in scoring position (RISP).
I didn’t get it even after I was told he played for the Cincinnati Reds. I guesed Spencer Steer. No. TJ Friedl? No. Jonathan India? No. Tyler Stephenson? No. Certainly not Elly De La Cruz? No.
It was Stuart Fairchild. He hit .465 with runners in scoring position. You could have given me three more guesses.
—SHILDT TO THE HILT: After the dust-up/skirmish between the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 2 of the NLDS, Padres manager Mike Shildt was asked how his team is going to react.
With a deadpan response, he borrowed a line from the movie ‘Anchorman’ and Ron Burgandy.
“Stay classy, San Diego,” he said.
That was good because he could have borrowed a line from the movie ‘Network’ and said, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore.”
—MOVE, MOVE, MOVE: What do these baseball teams have in common — St. Louis, Tampa Bay, San Diego, Cincinnati, Boston, New York Mets, Arizona, Chicago White Sox and Kanssas City?
The answer is that outfielder Tommy Pham has played for each of those nine teams. Five have reached the playoffs, including Kansas City this year.
And he has played for those nine teams in an 11-year span. Perhaps he should check his deodorant.
—KNIGHT MOVES: One of the great sports motivators of all-time was former Indiana baseball coach Bobby Knight.
And what did he say about motivatation?
“The greatest motivator in the world is your ass on the bench,” he said. “Ass meets bench, bench retains ass, ass transmits signals to the brain, brain transmits signals to the body, body gets ass off bench and plays better. It’s a hell of a sequence.”
As only Knight could say it.
—CHARLEY TO K.C. TO CASEY: With the New York Mets in the post-season, it conjures memories of when Casey Stengel managed the 120-loss 1962 Mets and said things like, “The only thing worse than a Mets game is a Mets doubleheader.”
As manager of the New York Yankees and the Mets, Stengel was thought of as a clown and talked in his own language called Stengelese.
What isn’t generally known is that Stengel was a better than average MLB player. He made is debut in late September of 1912 with the Brooklyn Superbas (later the Dodgers).
In his first game, he went 4 for 4 with a walk and two stolen bases against a good Pittsburgh team led by Honus Wagner.
At the time he was Charley Stengel. But because he was from Kansas City, the veteran players called him K.C. and it evolved to Casey.
—ROSE REQUIEM: Searching the brain and old notebooks for Pete Rose quotes, realizing that the notebooks are more reliable:
***(This one is for Terry Francna.) “The manager of a team is like a stagecoach, he can’t move unless he has the horses.”
***”There is an old saying that money can’t buy happiness. If it could, I would buy myself four hits every game.”
***”I haven’t missed a game in 2 1/2 years, even though I’d be sicker than a dog and come to the park and feel better until I saw you guys (beat writers) and get sick all over again.”
***”I owe baseball. Baseball don’t owe me a damn thing.”
***”I slide head-first for several reasons, one of them being that I get my picture in the paper.”
***“You know what God told the Chicago Cubs? Don’t do anything until I get back.”
***”I’m pretty fast. I ain’t no Joe Morgan, but I’m pretty good for a white guy.”
***”Tony Perez pulled a muscle? How can he pull a muscle, he’s too slow to pull a muscle?”
—PLAYLIST NUMBER 101: When I began these lists, I could not imagine. . .
It’s So Easy (Buddy Holly), What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted? (Jimmy Ruffin), Mandy (Barry Manilow), One Toke Over The Line (Brewer & Shipley), So Far Away (Carole King), Don’t Worry Baby (The Beach Boys), Ghostbusters (Ray Perkins Jr.), What’s Up? (4 Non Blondes)
I Wonder Why (Dion & The Belmonts), Paint It Black (Rolling Stones), Before The Next Teardrops Fall (Freddy Fender), Fire Bird (Lynyrd Skinner), I’m Leaving It All Up To You (Donny & Marie Osmond), Let You Love Flow (The Bellamy Brothers), Lola (The Kinks).