By Hal McCoy
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from Suite 217 in Akron’s Canal Park Stadium while watching in rain so hard somebody needs to take a message to Noah.
—THE BIG RED PITCHERS: When the conversation turns to the 1975-76 Cincinnati Reds, it is always about ‘The Great Eight,’ Pete Rose, Ken Griffey, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez, Johnny Bench, George Foster, Dave Concepion, Cesar Geronimo.
Well, how about the pitching? Didn’t somebody pitch for The Big Red Machine? You betcha and nobody knew it better than the guy who caught them. . .Johnny Bench, the best catcher who ever hid behind a catcher’s mask and chest protector.
“They led the league in earned run average two years in a row, 1975 and 1976, and people don’t realize that,” said Bench. “So let’s talk about the fact that Jack Billingham won 19 games.
“We had Gary Nolan and Fred Norman, who came to us and won seven games in a row and Pat Zachry” Bench continued. “We had wonderful, wonderful pitching. We had a great bullpen in Rawlins Jackson Eastwick III, Will McEnaney, Clay Carroll and Pedro Borbon.
“With them, I’d take anybody on.”
They not only took everybody on, they took it to them and they took them apart.
And don’t forget the extra player like Darrel Chaney, Doug Flynn, Ed Armbrister, Bill Plummer, Terry Crowley and Merv Rettenmund.
They thought manager Sparky Anderson didn’t pay much attention to them so they wore t-shirts with ‘Turds’ inscribed on the front.
But they all made massive contributions.
—OH, BROTHER: Shouldn’t some of this stuff happen in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love?
But it never has.
It is all about brothers hitting home runs in the same inning of an MLB game.
Over the weekend, St. Louis catcher Willson Contreras hit a home run in the top of the ninth. His brother, Milwaukee catcher William Contreras, hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth.
It was only the second time in MLB history that brothers on opposing teams hit home runs in the same inning.
In 1933, Cleveland’s Wes Ferrell homered and his brother, Rick, homered in the same innings. The twist? Wes was a pitcher and Rick hit the home run off him.
And hitting home runs in the same inning is nothing rare for the Naylor brothers, Bo and Josh. They did it twice while playing on the same team, the Cleveland Guardians.
They did it in 2023 against the Texas Rangers and did it again in 2024. The twist? The Naylor brothers did it in last season on National Siblings Day.
Brothers hitting home runs in the same inning is not as rare as it may seem. It has happened 13 times since 1900.
The only brothers to hit home runs in the same World Series game occurred in 1964, but not in the same inning. Ken Boyer hit one for the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 7, as did brother Clete Boyer for the New York Yankees.
But the one that probably will never be matched is a father-son combination hitting back-to-back home runs.
It happened in 1990 when Ken Griffey Sr. homered for the Seattle Martiners, then Ken Griffey Jr., the next batter also homered. Senior, 40, was in the final season of his 19-year career and Junior was 21
As Senior crossed the plate, he said to Junior, “That’s how you do it, son.”
Junior then hit one farther and to this day reminds Senior that his went farther.
—NO BROOMS HERE: This is one that should make you remove your caps and scratch your scalps.
Of the 30 MLB teams, 29 have been swept at least once in a series this season. Only one team has not been swept and that team is. . .the Cincinnati Reds.
Even the Yankees even the Dodgers, even the Tigers have been swept at least once, but not the Reds.
And there’s more. In addition to the Reds expunging the 39 straight series losses if they lost the first game, when the Reds scored four runs in the eighth to beat Detroit, 8-4, it ended an 0 for 29 streak of the Reds not winning a game when they trailed after seven innings.
—GAUGING GAGE: His name in Gage Wood but he pitched the other day like Kerry Wood, the Chicago Cubs pitcher who struck out 20 Houston Astros during a 1998 game.
Gage Wood, pitching for Arkansas in the College World Series, pitched a no-hitter against Murray State.
He set a CWS record with 19 strikeouts. He missed a perfect game when he hit a batter in the foot to start the eighth inning.
He set a record by retiring the first 21 batters. he had never gone past six innings before, but his 100th pitch in the eighth inning was 98 miles an hour. And his last pitch, his 119th, was 97 miles an hour, a game-ending strikeout.
Murray State came into the game averaging 10 runs a game during the tournament, but they were as helpless as mackerel on a hook against Wood.
Between innings he sat by himself in a corner of the dugout with an electric fan blowing in his face. He gave the baseball he used to end the game to his dad and said, “Happy Father’s Day.”
And after the game, he said, “I shouldn’t have hit the guy, that’s all I got to say.”
—COVERlNG ALL BASES: Roberto Clemente put hjs name in record books over and over and there is one that may never be duplicated.
During a game in Pittsburgh’s old Forbes Field in 1956, Clemente hit a walk-off home run against the Chicago Cubs.
What’s so special about that? The bases were loaded.
And, again, what was so special about that? It was an inside-the-park, bases-loaded grand slam walk-off.
It came against Cubs pitcher Jim Brosnan, who later pitched for the Reds and wrote two popular books, ‘Pennant Race’ and ‘The Long Season.’
It remains the only walk-off inside-the-park grand slam and most likely will remain as the only one.
There are no more outfields like Forbes Field, where the center field wall was 457 feet from home plate.
—SCORE BIG AND LOSE: It is so uplifting to fans when their them team scores 10 runs in the first inning. An easy win, right?
As Lee Corso would say, “Not so fast.”
There have been two instances, one in each league, where a team scored 10 runs in the first inning. . .and lost.
The 1989 Pittsburgh Pirates scored 10 in the first and lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 15-11,
The 2006 Kansas City Royals scored 10 in the first and didn’t score again, eventually losing, 11-10 in the 10th inning to the Cleveland Indians.
—TRIVIA TIME: Useless information, but it’s all about baseball so it’s never useless.
**Who is the oldest pitcher ever to win a professional game? He was 67 years old.
Of course, it had to be the eccentric and daffy left-hander Bill ‘Spaceman’ Lee. And it wasn’t with the Savannah Bananas.
In 2013, as a publicity stunt, the 67-year-old Lee pitched pitched 5 1/3 innings for the Sonoma Stompers in a 6-3 win over the Pittsburg Mettle.
The Stompers were in the independent Pacific Association, but the players were paid and were, uh, professionals.
**From reader Steve Newsome: After the Cincinnati Reds traded Lee May to Houston in 1972 for Joe Morgan (and others), both hit 207 home runs the rest of their careers.
But Morgan contributed more speed, better defense and a better batting average. Plus the Reds received a solid starting pitcher (Jack Billingham) and a Gold Glove outfielder (Cesar Geronimo).
—FOR BASEBALL BOOKWORMS: My collection of more than 300 baseball books keeps expanding and my office bookshelf is out of space. I keep gathering and my stack of to-read gets higher.
And I’m old school. I want books, books that I can keep and savor. I don’t want to read them in hard cover, not on an iPad or Kindle.
That said, a book published in 2016 is my current read and it’s a beaut. It is called ‘The Only Rule Is It Has To Work,’ and I thought I’d hate it.
Why? It is about two young analytics nerds who were given full control of the Sonomo Stompers in the independent Pacific Association. Every move the team made was based on analytics.
The team had no showers in the clubhouse and the toilet facilities was a Port-Potti outside the locker room. Even if you hate the overuse of analytics in baseball, as I do, you will love this book.
**And good friend Al Lautenslager has a new release that is a must read, ‘Cincinnati Soul,’ about black baseballs teams that represented Cincinnati — the Buckeyes, the Tigers, the Browns, the Clowns, the Cuban Stars.
Who knew?
**Speaking of grass roots baseball, I highly recommend a book by Mark Epstein called, ‘Cape Dreams,’ about a season with the Brewster Whitecaps in the summer college Cape Cod League.
—WHAT’S IN A NAME?: The Oakland A’s are playing in Sacramento while a stadium is built for them in Las Vegas.
And, uh, excuse me. They don’t want to be called the Oakland A’s or tbe Sacramento A’s. They just want to be called the Athletics.
My suggestion? The Lascremento A’s or the Sacravegas A’s.
—PIE IN THE SKY: After further review, the MLB players union has demanded that Boston creme pie be served to every play before every game. And it demands that every game must be a home game.
Said commissioner Rob Manfraud, “I don’t know about the pie, but I know I can figure out a way for every game to be a home game.”
—PLAYLIST NUMBER 181: As English novelist George Eliot put it, “Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music.”
—I Wonder Why (Dion & The Belmonts), Hello MaryLou (Ricky Nelson), Try A Little Kindness (Glen Campbell), Dance With Me (Orleans), Sara (Starship), I’ll Be Over You (Toto),We Didn’t Start The Fire (Billy Joel).
—Just In Case (Morgan Wallen), If You Leave (Orchestral Manoeuvres), How Do You Talk To An Angel (The Heights), I’ll Leave This World Lovin’ You (Ricky Van Shelton), Not A Day Goes By (Lonestar), In Dreams (Roy Orbison).