All this time, I thought the best thing about Oscar Gamble was his epic afro. But now I’ve learned that the title of this post is said to have originated from Gamble during a discussion of the 1975 Yankees; those were the early days of George Steinbrenner’s tenure, and the first of Billy Martin’s five managerial stints. And yeah, Gamble’s assessment sounds about right to me. (I first saw it in the comments section of an excellent post by Joe Posnanski, which is worth reading for the wealth of sports quotes).
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.
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!
I’ve said it before: I don’tlike Barry Bonds. So it may seem strange that I wanted to be there when he hit home run number 756. But consider this: I love baseball; the record for career home runs is, like it or not, one of baseball’s hallowed milestones; Bonds plays in my city; the Giants were beginning a home stand as he was poised to break the record. Too many stars were aligned for me to NOT try to get into a game. I could always boo, right?
So, on Tuesday, August 7, I rode my bike to AT&T Park, hoping to get lucky and figuring that I wouldn’t. Immediately, I got really lucky, scoring an amazing ticket in the club level (a $70 value) for the price of two AT&T Park beers. At that moment, I had a good feeling. A couple of hours later, Bonds faced a 3 – 2 count, and I decided to join 45,000+ other fans in pointing my digital camera at the plate. Up to that point, I made sarcastic remarks about mediating the experience in that way. Now I’m posting my crappy version on the Internet. Why? I don’t know. Anyway, a moment later, Bonds drilled the pitch into deep, deep center field and the stranger next to me grabbed my arm and started jumping up and down.
Here’s the video that I shot with my digital camera. (Warning: It’s bad. And bouncy).
For the next five minutes, I high-fived a lot of people, and someone gave me a hug as I was filming the celebrations. Fireworks exploded over McCovey Cove; streamers rained down; the Nationals left the field; Hank Aaron congratulated Bonds asynchronously through a pre-recorded video. It was surreal, but festive and exciting.
Of course, there was also a weird vibe. People seemed to feel personally gratified that they got to witness history, but few seemed really, truly happy for Bonds. Few people said: “Wow, good for Bonds.” Those who did were either people who possessed amazing capacities for forgiveness and seemed genuinely happy, or younger guys with way too much bitterness who saw Bonds as a kindred spirit. The rest of us said: “Wow. I can’t believe I saw that. Wow. This is really weird.”
After hitting the home run, Bonds left the game. It was the 5th inning, and the Giants had a 5 – 4 lead; the Nationals came back and won. My question: Who does that? Hank Aaron? No. Dimaggio? Never. Ted Williams? God no. Sort of a perfect ending to a conflicted, surreal night.
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.
