By Hal McCoy
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave, awaiting breathlessly to see what the Cincinnati Reds do before Monday’s trade deadline. . .if anything.
—STEW ON THIS: In less than a year, Sal Stewart has become more popular in Cincinnati than Skyline Chili. He is as American as fudge.
Stewart’s run of driving in runs, 84 for a rookie at the end of July, is absolutely amazing.
But he will have to do better, much better, if he is to set the all-time record for RBI by a rookie.
That record is held by Ted Williams, who had 145 for the 1939 Boston Red Sox. And the second most is Walt Dropo’s 144 for the 1950 Boston Red Sox.
It makes one wonder how many RBI Williams and Dropo had at the end of July.
Stewart’s 84 is the most for a rookie before August in 75 years. But go way, way back. . .to 1939 when Ted Williams had 86 RBI at the end of July during his 1939 rookie season.
Stewart does have the National League record. His four RBI Friday night pushed him past Del Bissonette’s 83 set in 1928 with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Anyway, for Stewart to break Teddy Ballgame’s record, he needs 61 RBI in his final 53 games.
And have you noticed the abrupt change in Stewart’s post-game interviews with Jim Day.
The first half of the season, Stewart praised God and thanked God over and over during his interviews. Recently, though, there is no mention of the Almighty and Stewart’s interviews have been extremely subdued and his answers are short and terse.
Wonder if somebody told him to cease and desist with his religious remarks? If so, that’s so sad to stifle somebody for his strong beliefs.
—COME SAVE ME: You want to talk about a savior, how about Jordan Romano?
He saved four games to start the season with the Los Angeles Angels, but was released in late April.
Colorado signed him in early May and he has four saves for the Rockies.
Now get this. Four saves still leads the Angels and leads the Rockies, meaning he is leading two different teams in saves.
And four saves by a team this late in the season? That says all you need to know about the Angels and Rockies.
—CLEMENS. . .KKKK: With two outs in the bottom of ninth inning, the Minnesota Twins trailed the Kansas City Royals, 3-0. The bases were loaded and Kody Clemens faced an 0-and-2 count.
And he homered. A walk-off grand slam by the son of former pitcher Roger Clemens.
Amazingly, it was only the 15th time in MLB history that a player hit a walk-off grand slam with his team down three runs and had two outs.
What Clemens did is called an ‘Ultimate Grand Slam.’ But as far as anybody knows, it was the first hit on an 0-and-2 pitch with two outs. So. . .they need a new nickname for it.
Kody has three brothers, Koby, Kory and Kacy. Notice anything? All four names start with ‘K.’ Roger Clemens, a strikeout machine, named his sons with the ‘K’ because a ‘K’ in scorebooks signifies a strikeout.
Not sure, though, why all four names have four letters. Pretty certain it isn’t because ‘walk’ has four letters.
—BOOKISH BOUTON: It has been 56 years since former pitcher Jim Bouton’s then controversiala tell-all book, ‘Ball Four,’ was published. Yet it remain the all-time best-sellilng baseball book ever, more than 5 1/2 million copies sold.
As Bouton said, “My name no longer was Jim Bouton. It was Controversial Jim Bouton.” After it came out, Bouton became persona non grata in the baseball world. New York Daily News sports columnist Dick Young called him a social leper.
After the New York Yankees released him, he called every other MLB team asking for a job, even a minor league job. Everybody said to take his book and stick it.
“Even Oakland A’s owner Charlie Finley told me on the phone he didn’t want me,” said Bouton. “It may be the only thing he ever had in common with all the other owners.”
I’ve read ‘Ball Four’ three times and laugh my way through it every time.
—HEY, ‘CAN’ YOU SEE: When Dennis ‘Oil Can’ Boyd pitched for the Montreal Expos he walked into the dugout one day and said, “We got a lot of cans on this team. We got AmeriCANS, we got MexiCANS, we got Puerto RiCANS, we got DominiCANS and we got a Oil Can.”
Yep, Oil Can, and we got a Pope Leo XIV in the VatiCAN.
—TRIVIA TIME: Stuff that fascinates me, even if it is minutiae for most people.
—Any pitcher who throws a first pitch strtike to start the game against Tampa Bay leadoff hitter Yandy Diaz should be fined and forced to read Peter Ackroyd’s ‘First Light.’
Twice this season and eight times in his career, Diaz has hit the first pitch of a game for a home run.
—Everybody knows Ted Williams was the last .400 hitter (.406 in 1941). But who knows who is the last National League batter to hit .400? It is New York Giants first baseman Bill Terry, .401 in 1930.
—Walter ‘Big Train’ Johnson pitched 12 Opening Days for the old Washington Sentators and won nine, six with shutouts. One year he pitched a one-hitter and the one hit came when the right fielder tripped over a young fan seated in the grass as part of an overflow crowd, some seated in the outfield in front of the wall.
—UECKER CORNER: I keep finding humorous comments from catcher/broadcaster/comedian Bob Uecker and here are three more:
—When he appeared on The Johnny Carson Show, they played ‘Take Me Out To The Ball Game’ as he came from behind the curtain. When he heard it, he said, “Every time I hear that song I want to go out on the field and strike out again.”
—When pitcher Juan Marichal was inducted into the Hall of Fame, Uecker said, “How can Juan Marichal got into the Hall of Fame? I got a hit off him once.”
—When asked about what he thought about doing when he retired as a player, he said, “I was thinking about starting a used underwear business.”
—QUOTE MACHINE: Baseball people say the darndesrt things.
—FROM former Reds shortstop Dave Concepcion, spotting a Jack In the Box restaurant from the team bus window in San Francisco: “Look guys, there’s a Back in The Jocks.”
—From Al Kaline when a young fan told him he was not half as good as Mickey Mantle: “Son, nobody is half as good as Mickey Mantle.”
—FROM catcher/broadcaster/comedian Bob Uecker: “When I went out to talk to the pitcher it was usually to fell him my protective gear broke and please throw all your pitches up in the strike zone.”
—CLASS ACT: I recently did a piece for Press Pros Magazine on harness racing driver Jeff Nisonger.
I just recently fell in love with harness racing, so I am a neophyte when it comes to writing about it, so I ask stupid questions and probably make gross mistakes in my stories.
But the day the story appeared, I received a complimentary thank you text from Nisonger.
When I interviewed him, I could tell he was a special guy, but for the man who has won more than 4,000 races, a very busy person, to take the time to make a very old guy feel good. . .well, five steps above first class.
I’ve written thousands of stories about baseball players and never once, not a single time, have I been praised or thanked, not that I expected it.
—AH, NUTS: “Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack, I don’t care if I never get back.”
More than 200 million boxes of Cracker Jack, made famous by ‘Take Me Out To The Ballgame,” are sold each year.
The number of peanuts in a box of Cracker Jack varies from six to nine. Get me a box with nine, please.
—MAKE IT BIGGER?: My other passion, other than baseball, is University of Dayton basketball as it seems it is for half the population of Montgomery County.
Was not surprised to hear that the Flyers have sold out UD Arena 94 straight times. Only seven other programs have streaks longer than that.
The average crowd last season was 13,242, 21st highest in the country. Wonder how much higher those figures would be if UD Arena held 20,000.
And to think they laughed and giggled at former UD athletic director Tom Frericks when he had UD Arean built with 13,400 seats, saying, “They’ll never fill it.”
Tom Frericks was quite the visionary.
—PLAYLIST NUMBER 195: As Persian poet Rumi put it, “In the house of lovers, music never stops, the walls are made of songs and the floor dances.”
—Hit Me With Your Best Shot (Pat Benatar), Fox On The Run (Sweet), Let ‘Em In (Wings), I Just Fall In Love Again (Anne Murray), Babe (Styx), Hushabye (Mystics), In The Midnight Hour (Wilson Pickett), Let Me Be There (Olivia Newton-John), That’s What Friends Are For (Dione Warwick), Call Me (Blondie).
—Green, Green Grass Of Home (Tom Jones), Kiss On My List (Hall & Oates), One Call Away (Charlie Puth), Changes In Attitude (Jimmy Buffet), I Am A Rock (Simon & Garfunkel), These Eyes (Guess Who), Draggin’ The Line (Tommy James & The Shondells), Tell Your Children (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young).