Four Games in Four Days

When I first moved down to Florida I was able to feed my love for baseball in the month of March with all the Spring Training baseball I could fit in 30 Days. I was single and I worked nights so all I really had to do was wake-up in time to make it to my destination for this to happen. I shared photos and stories of how great it was with my northern friends and all of them said how great it sounded and would need to plan a trip some day. Well this weekend (23 years later) one of them finally decided it was time to make the trip. My closest and oldest friend Joe finally decided it was time.  Here is a little journal of our trip.  

Day One was a trip to Tampa to see the Yanks and Tigers on Monday night. It was cold and got down to 49 degrees which would not have been too bad had I paid attention to the tickets and saw it was a night game. So when we got to Tampa at 11:15 am and none of the parking lots were open we kind of wondered what was up. We needed to figure out something fast and we figured a double header would be a great way to start the weekend. We decided to drive over to Dunedin since we had a few hours to burn. The scalpers wanted $50 for a $14 general admission ticket, too rich for our taste so we headed back to Tampa and made the best of it.

A little batting practice on one of the side fields and then into the big park to see the “stars” Watching Miguel Cabrera is just a wonderful experience these days. I watched him hit when he was younger and with the Marlins and it was impressive but now it’s just unreal. He makes it look so easy and effortless. My buddy Joe is a Yankee fan so he got to see Jeter dink a few hits and it made his day.

The Thrill of the Game!

This morning I actually may have enjoyed my run, I am getting a little more comfortable in the activity. Don’t get me wrong I will never be one of those guys you see running down the road at sun up in nothing but a pair of shorts and his running shoes but I only need to make myself conform to enough running that I can withstand the final leg of these races.

I went to the baseball field last night to throw my son a little batting practice and hit a little fielding practice to him. It’s our time together and for us its fun.

I have been experiencing some serious foot issues for the last few months and I have finally put things together. I throw batting practice to twelve kids each Monday night approximately 35-40 pitches each so let’s say 480-500 pitches for batting practice in a 45 minute window of time that we have the batting cages.  To say I am sore the next morning would be an understatement but I am thinking now that I have strained my left foot and this is the pain I am experiencing the worst of. On top of all this we usually have a scrimmage game in which I pitch to the kids again so let’s say this is another 100-125 pitches all totaled I am guessing I will throw somewhere about 600 pitches each Monday night. I realize now I need to get my head checked.

My left foot is the foot I land on with each throw and the pain is sometimes crippling and other times nothing at all.  Last weekend we walked all over the Disney Parks and intermittently I was limping and other times felt nothing. Pinched nerve maybe? I am not sure yet but at least now I may have figured out what I did to cause the issue. My father was visiting last week and came to watch a practice, when we arrived at home he asked me how many kids were on the team and how many balls were in the bucket? I knew right away what he was thinking and it dawned on me that when you enjoy something your body will ignore the pain during the time you are competing long enough to feel the rush of enjoyment and then your body will collapse at the finish line. I guess this is what one of those early morning runners experience; I just want that rush at the end of each one of my Triathlons. 

Bring Back the Nickname

Who was the best center fielder in New York in the 50’s? Willie, Mickey or Ed? How about the time George promised the sick boy he would hit a home run for him? Then George went out and did it. Winning the Denton Young Award all of a sudden doesn't sound as glamorous. I would love to see baseball and those that follow it somehow bring the nickname back for the players in the game.

Now when you go back and say did you like Willie, Mickey or the Duke and tell the story of the promise that the Babe made to an ill child, or capturing a Cy Young Award, the importance of the nickname to the history of baseball becomes even more evident.

Reggie Jackson hits five homers in a World Series and is dubbed Mr. October. Pablo Sandoval  does it and he is called…well they already called him Kung Fu Panda, but he deserves something bigger now, don’t ya think?  You can’t tell me that a player like Prince Fielder can’t be given a great nickname. Just look at one of his homers where he swings from his heels and annihilates the ball and the name alone, Prince Fielder, is just begging for something to be attached to it. It seems wrong to let a clutch player who could be an all-time great at his position and another who squares up the ball with such vicious force, to not be honored like so many legends of the game once were.

The single season RBI record is held by Hack Wilson at 191. Now if you are a pitcher what is going to get in your head more the night before a game; knowing the next day you were going to be facing a player named Hack or Lewis (his real first name)? It is tough not to argue that the Cardinals “Gas House Gang” team of 1934 would surely not be as memorable if they were around today. On that team you had Dizzy and Daffy Dean, Ripper Collins, Ducky Medwick, Pepper Martin, Spud Davis and Leo “The Lip” Durocher. Just classic names, right? Of course today you would have read about Jay and Paul Dean, Jim Collins, Joe Medwick, John Martin, and Virgil Davis. That turns into a forgettable roster of names all of a sudden. It is interesting how a simple moniker can help immortalize a player or team and help them to live on in our memories well beyond their playing days.

Other teams such as The Big Red Machine or otherwise known as the Great Eight dominated the 1970's with a host characters such as Charlie Hustle, Big Dog, The Little General and Little Joe in a lineup of future Hall of Farmer's. And we all know about the Famed Bronx Bombers with the Babe and The Iron Horse.

Has the fun gone out of baseball? Is it because newspapers are slowly disappearing, and along with that, the once crucial baseball reporter for the paper? Back when major cities had multiple daily papers I would assume the writers drew upon their creative side to paint a picture of the game and the players who played it. Now with the internet and outlets such as ESPN you can get up-to-the-minute play-by-play if you wish, or a quick recap on your computer the next day. Because so many of us are in a rush, it is as if the details are fed to the fan as quickly and simply as possible so as not to waste time. With that the game has lost some of its romance to me.

I am a 47-year-old baseball curmudgeon who dreams about a time when field dimensions were bigger than my back yard, players didn't wear their uniforms like pajamas (is it me or does CC Sabathia look like he is wearing a pinstriped Snuggie with his uniform being so baggy?) so you could see their stirrups, with two teams named after the color of their socks I would think maybe it should be mandatory that you could see part of the stirrup. Also the team in Cincinnati was originally named the Red Stockings, come on fellas show us some leg, and if a playoff game ended in a little over three hours you wouldn't marvel at how quickly it was played.

If nicknames are going to make a comeback some rules or guidelines have to be established. What we don’t want is it to turn merely into a marketing free-for-all where nicknames will be chosen based on the higher Q Score that it gets a player.

The first rule of getting a solid nickname is that it has to be given to you and you can’t give it to yourself. This would be a challenge because players today can’t possibly have the same camaraderie they once did to earn the names. Spacious chartered flights have taken the place of long train rides and cramped planes where you were forced to spend time and get to know one another. Add to that cell phones, iPhones, iPads and laptops and you can fly across the country with someone and not find time for them. The good names are derived from a person’s actions, looks or tendencies so the stronger that bond is between the players the more likely a teammate will toss something out there that has a chance to stick.

The second rule is you can’t use anything given to you by ESPN’s Chris Berman. Along with his tired act that gets trotted out every now and again, no one in my opinion has hurt the art of the nickname more. Berman has taken it upon himself to bang a round peg through a square hole in making sure that almost every player has something given to them no matter how mindless or ridiculous. Here is the best example in my opinion; you take Albert Pujols, who when it is all said and done could be one of the game’s all time great hitters, and Berman sticks him with Albert “Winnie the” Pujols. It is cute and funny, if it is coming from my nine-year-old. I am curious to know if the soldiers at Guantanamo Bay would choose waterboarding or forcing a prisoner to listen to Berman’s call of the entire Home Run Derby at the All-Star Game if they had a choice between the two interrogation tactics.

The third rule is if you have been caught doing steroids, or it is pretty much known that you have done them, you don’t get one. So that means good-bye to: Slammin’ Sammy, Big Mac, the Bash Brothers, Big Papi, and the Rocket. The game needs neither your services nor tainted accomplishments that have been at the expense of the true greats that define baseball. The only exception that is allowed is if the name exposes you for what you did, therefore a ruling would be A-Rod “no” but A-Roid a definite “yes.”

There are some decent names floating around the league today. I like that they call Tim Lincecum “The Freak” because of his diminutive stature and the fact that he has such a nasty arsenal of pitches. Another is the much talked about Roy “Doc” Halladay fittingly a marksmen the caliber of the famous attendee at Tombstone. Calling Vlad Guerrero “Vlad the Impaler” is spot on for someone who wears no batting gloves and has never met a pitch he didn't like regardless of location.

I see potential still for all the stars of today. There is Sandavol and Fielder who were mentioned earlier along with players like Ryan Zimmerman, Evan Longoria, Josh Hamilton, Matt Kemp, Joe Mauer and Robby Cano to name a few. The Washington Nationals have possibly the hardest thrower in the game in 2009 #1 pick Stephen Strasburg since “The Big Train” Walter Johnson pitched in the same city ages ago. Somehow you have to link those two flame throwers together, it is almost wrong not to.

My personal favorite is Hall of Famer Jimmie Foxx who was known as “Double X” and “The Beast.”  Unless you are a woman playing sports, being called “The Beast” has to be one of the most complimentary things to be referred to as in the field of athletics. Just think if they called softball star Jenny Finch “The Beast,” bite your tongue. Even his other name of “Double X” is strong. Some players can’t even get one intimidating name and Foxx has two, and he backed both up soundly; hitting over 500 career homers, winning 2 world titles, three MVP Awards and nearly winning back-to-back Triple Crowns. Foxx missed leading the league only in batting by a margin of .003 points in 1932 (.364-58-169) and finally turned the trick in ’33 (.356-48-163).

Don’t take for granted the names that baseball history has given to us. What kind of a past on the diamond would have been passed on without players known simply as Shoeless Joe, Yogi, Three Finger, Lefty, The Say Hey Kid, Joltin’ Joe, Hammerin’ Hank, Mr. Cub, The Georgia Peach, The Heater from Van Meter, Schmidty and of course Pee Wee . It would be a disservice to what was once a great game to not leave tomorrow’s legends with something as unique and identifiable as the ones who came before them.

Baseball and Friendship

Yesterday I took my Sunday off! That’s two weeks in a row! Now did I rest? Kind of, in life you meet many people, different people all kinds of people. I made a friend when I was seven years old that without ever saying much to each other we became instant lifelong friends. As you grow up and grow away from your childhood and life moves you around the country and even around the world, true friendships withstand any distance put between two people who share a common bond.

We started out as kids playing the game baseball and developing the love of a game we shared. Playing night and day on a field, street or backyard with whatever was available, rubber ball, wiffleball or dice and strat-o-matic cards it was learning the game, the fundamentals and the history.  We pretended to be our favorite players playing on our favorite teams, he the Yankees and me the Reds from that 1976 World Series. We were separated after high school as he went into the Army and headed off to Germany and I to play ball in college. We both returned home and resumed our friendship as if we went on a weekend vacation before he moved on to Texas and I left for Florida. Phone calls spread out over the years kept us up to date on each other and flights to each other’s new homes to appear as the best man at each other’s weddings kept us in the family albums. The memories of these times come up over and over again in our conversations some forty years later and we are young again. We laugh and then we look at our grown kids and come back to reality.

This weekend my best friend met for the first time my 9 year old son and I met his 16 year old daughter for only the second time. We spent a day at Disney trying to cram three parks into a twelve hour visit and even though the time flew by and we hardly had much time to speak with each other we had the peace of mind of being with each other for a few hours and “all was good”. Rushing from park to park (something I hate to do) was fun on this day and I was energized and tireless. I kind of got a workout in as we walked too many miles to count and then for all intense and purposes I did a quarter mile sprint with my son sitting on my shoulders (he was too tired to walk)  as we raced out of the last park trying to avoid some of the traffic.

It was a great day and I hope we can do it again sooner rather than later.

As I mentioned my friend Joe is a Yankee fan, as are most of my friends since I grew up in the New York/New Jersey area and he would have enjoyed seeing Lou Gehrig on here with his name but I already posted that part of my list and the Iron Horse will be the only Yankee that makes my list of favorites by position so, I will post the oldest member of my list here. The greatest Right Handed Starting Pitcher in my opinion is Walter Johnson.  Two things; 417 wins on a historically poor team and when a batter says to the umpire “that sounded high” you have got to think that Walter Johnson stands way above the rest of the Right Handed Starting Pitchers in the history of the game. 

Oh by the way how about this for a great battery, Joe was born on Tom Seaver's Birthday and I was born on Johnny Bench's Birthday! No wonder we worked together so well!