You autograph photos of yourself using Robin Ventura’s head as a speedbag. And, they sell for $100 each on ebay.
Thoughts (usually cynical, though sometimes vaguely hopeful) on our nation’s pastime.
Baseball great Rickey Henderson recently gave the Hall of Fame induction speech to end all induction speeches. He was a larger-than-life figure in my childhood, and he had a personality to match, often referring to himself in the third person. For example, “There are pieces of this puzzle that Rickey is still working out,” in a discussion of age and baseball in an excellent New Yorker profile. There was no third-person in the speech, but there was plenty of Rickey being Rickey:
As a kid growing up in Oakland, my heroes were Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Reggie Jackson. What about that Reggie Jackson? I stand outside the ballpark in the parking lot, waiting for Reggie Jackson to give me an autograph ... I said, ‘Reggie, can I have an autograph.’ He would pass me a pen, with his name on it.
The best part is that Jackson is sitting behind him, cracking up, along with Robin Yount and various other living legends. You can watch the whole thing, in three parts, on YouTube: Part 1 has some awesome commentary by Tony Gwynn and Torii Hunter; Part 2 is the beginning of Rickey’s speech; Part 3 is the conclusion.
Zack Greinke’s lockdown pitching during the bottom of the fourth inning of tonight’s All-Star game made me wonder: When was the last time a Royal looked great in an All-Star game? Of course Bo Jackson’s epic home run to lead off the 1989 All-Star game comes to mind. Royals Review helpfully offers a brief history of Royal participation in the All-Star game over the past decade.
- 2008: Joakim Soria named, pitched one and two-thirds innings of scoreless relief.
- 2007: Gil Meche named, did not play.
- 2006: Mark Redman named, did not play.
- 2005: Mike Sweeney named, struck out as a pinch-hitter in the 7th.
- 2004: Ken Harvey named, struck out as a pinch-hitter in the 3rd.
- 2003: Mike MacDougal and Sweeney named, neither appeared.
- 2002: Mike Sweeney named, replaced Paul Konerko at 1B in the 7th inning, flied out to right in the 9th inning.
- 2001: Mike Sweeney named, replaced Jason Giambi at first in the 8th inning, flied out to right in the 8th inning.
- 2000: Jermaine Dye voted to start, Mike Sweeney named. Sweeney pinch-hit for James Baldwin in the 4th, reaching on an error. Sweeney did not appear in the field. Dye walked once and struck out.
Yeah, not so illustrious.
Hard to believe that this was 30 years ago, but here’s some excellent local news footage of a notorious moment in baseball history: the White Sox ill-fated “Disco Demolition” promotion. In the end, Comiskey Park descended into a riot after a Chicago DJ exploded a crate full of disco records in the middle of the field between games of a double-header. The NYT has a nice chronicle of the unfolding disaster:
[Mike] Veeck, [son of the White Sox owner], ordered yellow-jacketed guards to go outside to stop fans from crashing the gates.
That allowed the spectators inside the ballpark to storm the field without much resistance. Jack Morris, a Tigers pitcher, recalled “whiskey bottles were flying over our dugout” after Detroit won the first game, 4 – 1.
Then Dahl blew up the records.
“And then all hell broke loose,” Morris said. “They charged the field and started tearing up the pitching rubber and the dirt. They took the bases. They started digging out home plate.“
Watch for Greg Gumbel in the footage above; he was a sportscaster for a Chicago-area station.
Like lots of stuff, they really don’t make baseball cards like they used to. Halftone action thumbnail! Alternating colors in the player names! Don Drysdale’s coif!
After all my trash talk about Bonds and how he should just fess up to the roids, I saw him hit a dinger last Saturday, and I actually cheered. Like, I stood up as it left the bat, and maybe even jumped in the air when it went out, all the while clapping my hands. It was irresistible. He hit the thing a mile. It was awesome.
As Barry Bonds approaches Babe Ruth on the lifetime homerun list, he’s getting a heckuva lot of ambivalent coverage: Veterans express ambivalence and skepticism (SI), even San Franciscans souring on the event (AP via ESPN), but baseball has seen worse, though not by much (ESPN). I figured I’d do some first-hand investigation this afternoon, so I rode down to AT&T Park during lunch. When Bonds came up to bat, there was the requisite “Bar-ry, Bar-ry,” but even this seemed pretty half-hearted, like everyone felt that they kinda had to chant along. Cynical comments rippled through the crowd. It seems weird to say this, but maybe you don’t have to like Bonds as a person to feel drawn to his achievement. Or, how about this: Maybe there’s a whole different kind of enjoyment that one derives from watching villains break records? Whatever it was, it was definitely not 2001 all over again, when a Bonds at-bat sent palpable electicity through the crowd. In 2006, it’s more akin to watching Enron execs lie their asses off in court.
In the fall of 1990, I went to see a Twins-Royals game in the Homer Dome. Do I need to mention that the Royals were not contending for a playoff spot? They weren’t, and neither were the Twins. There were approximately 1000 people there, but the rare assortment of players on the field has made the game stick in my memory. Royal legend George Brett was locking down a batting title in a third decade.[1] Bo Jackson was about to play his last baseball game at full strength. And Kirby Puckett was in his prime, smiling, clowning, and inspiring even the Royals fans (me and my friends) among the crowd to cheer for him.
My friends and I had an entire left-field section to ourselves, and the Metrodome’s infamous acoustics combined with the absence of people provided my friend Adlai with a rare opportunity to ensure that Twins fan favorite Dan Gladden heard his every comment about his mullet. It also afforded us an opportunity to hear Kirby clowning around with people in the center field bleachers. At that point, no one could argue that Puck was anything but a great guy. He was fun; the Twins were good; the Twins infamously fair-weather fans didn’t really seem to appreciate him at that moment, but he didn’t let it get to him.
A little over a year later, his heroics would propel the Twins to another World Series championship, and his leaping Game 6 catch, combined with the game-winning dinger, would comprise one of the great all-time clutch performances. Everything after that seemed out of character.
[1] At this point, this seems even more remarkable than it did then. Seriously, who else is going to pull that off? Todd Helton in 2011? Maybe, but not likely.
I was just watching ESPN’s Opening Day coverage of the Braves-Dodgers game, and the conversation between commentator Erik Karros (wasn’t he Rookie of the Year like 5 years ago?) and Rick Sutcliffe turned to steroids. Karros couldn’t contain himself. He blustered and rambled for a while, criticizing those who demanded an investigation, and basically rehashed Mark McGwire’s non-denial denial to a Senate sub-committee: Steroids were abused in the past; the league has adopted a stricter policy; let’s all move on. The message was unoriginal — a lot of current players don’t want to dwell on this unsavory development — but the air of defensiveness mixed with disdain seemed oddly reminscent of another guilty, defiant person — Donald Rumsfeld.
Anyway, over the past couple of days, I tore through Game of Shadows, the recently published steroids expose by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams. After a month of PR build-up and published excerpts, there weren’t many surprises:
- Bonds availed himself of steroids. One might say, a buttload of steroids.
- So did Marion Jones.
- They’re both liars.
- So are a lot of professional athletes.
Bonds is the big story in Game of Shadows. If you couldn’t already tell by his cartoonishly swollen neck/head and his late-career power explosion, Bonds hasn’t been playing fair. He admitted to a grand jury that he allowed his trainer (a known juicer) to place droplets of an “unknown” chemical under his tongue, and to rub an “unknown” cream on his joints. Bonds thought that these were legal supplements — the drops were “flaxseed oil” — yeah, he actually said that — and he implied that he’d never injected anything. Uh-huh, yeah. I’m a fan of the flaxseed oil, and I can testify that it doesn’t make your head become like 5x bigger. Plus, Bonds has always been a control freak. Is it even remotely possible that he didn’t bother finding out what his trainer was sticking in his mouth?
The book reveals the Bonds was on a steroid regimen that included more than “flaxseed oil,” making it seem even more likely that Bonds perjured himself in front of the grand jury. Sources close to him indicate that he was on all sorts of injectable crap, including Decadurabolin (in the butt) and human growth hormone (in the stomach). He wanted us to believe that it was all free weights and sprints and vitamins, but it makes a little more sense that there was some secret sauce in the mix.
A personal note: Barry, dude, seriously. Just freakin admit it. You’re like a little kid sitting in a pile of cookie crumbs, crying and claiming that you didn’t eat any cookies. It’s undignified, really. Say “I took steroids because I wanted to win, because everyone else was, because it’s what I had to do.” Fans understand competitiveness, and you’re a competitive guy, and steroids weren’t against the rules anyway. So just fess up, you big baby. At some point, you could even ask for our forgiveness. I mean, it’s possible. You always claim that you’re not given the respect you deserve. Here’s your chance to earn it.
