2012 West Carrollton graduation
Home of the Week
Madison graduation 2012
Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy has retired from the Dayton Daily News after covering the Cincinnati Reds for 37 years. Hal's blog, though, will continue to be a must-read for Reds fans. He'll share his thoughts on the team this season and will file updates from Great American Ball Park. You also can catch Hal in print every Sunday in his popular Ask Hal columnHome > Blogs > The Real McCoy | Cincinnati Reds baseball news > Archives > 2009 > July > 06
Monday, July 6, 2009
At least there’s beer and cheesesteaks
AFTER THIS ONE, I’m going to need a couple of EXTRA Yuengling Lagers tonight before I go to bed. And when I get up and go to lunch? Two cheesesteak sandwiches at Jim’s instead of one. Extra Whiz.
What the Cincinnati Reds did on the field in Philadelphia tonight is what cows do in the pasture and elephants do during parades. I’d say they were pathetic, but that’s an insult to the word pathetic.
Never in my 37 years of covering the Reds have I seen anything so stuffed with pure ugliness. The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Reds, 22-1, and it wasn’t that close.
You can go back to the first professional game ever played, since the 1869 Red Stockings debuted, and you won’t find a Cincinnati baseball team losing by 21 runs.
Johnny Cueto gave up a walk and a home run in the top of the first. 2-0 Phillies. He retired the next two. Two outs, nobody on. Then the next eight Phillies not only reached base, they scored. After one inning, Philadelphia 10, Cincinnati 0.
THEY SHOULD HAVE stopped the game right then. A baseball TKO. No mas, no mas. Wave the white flag. Surrender. Unconditionally. It could only get uglier and worse. It got uglier and worse.
Trying to save something in his bullpen for the next six games, three in Philly, three in New York, manager Dusty Baker brought in infielder Paul Janish to pitch the eighth inning. He gave up six runs, including a grand slam home run to Jayson Werth.
Personally, I think they should make a rule: A position player can NOT pitch. It’s like a hockey team putting a centre in as goalie. Or an NFL team putting a defensive tackle at quarterback. It’s a farce.
I’ve seen outfielder Paul O’Neill pitch for the Reds and I’ve seen shortstop Dave Concepcion pitch for the Reds. But this is the second time this season Janish has pitched and it has been gruesome both times.
AND NOW guess what happens? The Reds need to get another pitcher up from Louisville pronto - like in time for tomorrow’s game. So who gets sent back? Probably Janish because he won’t be able to lift his arm to comb his hair or lower it enough to pull on his socks for a week.
He takes one for the team and probably gets demoted for it. We’ll see. Maybe I’m being too cynical here. Maybe they’ll send out Drew Sutton instead.
Whatever. I know one thing, this team is poised to dump on everybody’s parade, everybody who has hopes for a first winning season in eight years and maybe, just maybe, a shot at the playoffs.
Folks, it ain’t gonna happen. The Reds are 40-41 at the halfway mark. They are tied for fourth/fifth with the Houston Astros. In the last two games they’ve been outscored 32-2.
Make that four Yuengling Lagers and three cheesesteaks. And do I really need to show up at Citizens Bank Park tomorrow? I’m going on vacation after Sunday’s game in New York, a little R’nR at the blackjack tables in Tunica, Miss. Can I leave now? I promise to double down every time I can and split 8’s every time.
And I don’t think I’ll ever lose 22-1.
Permalink | Comments (34) | Post your comment |
TweetFour days of Brotherly Love in Philly
NO TRAVEL problems to report today as U.S Airways whisked me away from Dayton and into Philadelphia with no problems, except the guy sitting next to me on the plane was as big as a woolly mammoth and I wasn’t about to argue with him over the middle arm rest.
One problem: As soon as we left the ground shortly after 6:45 a.m., the flight attendance announced, “I regret to inform you that there is no coffee on board.” What? I was ready for a caffeine conniption fit, ready to rip out all the seats, even the one in which woolly mammoth sat. I love orange juice, but in the morning I HAVE TO HAVE MY COFFEE!!!!!!
WILLY TAVERAS is back in the leadoff spot for tonight’s game against the Phillies, but that’s because lefthander Cole Hammels is pitching, meaning Jonny Gomes is in left instead of Chris Dickerson, who is on the bench.
While Hammels is having an off year (4-5, 4.98), not many Reds have had any success against him, other than catcher Ramon Hernandez, “Which is why I’m batting him sixth behind Gomes,” said manager Dusty Baker. “And I’ve got Edwin Encarnacion batting eighth because he is still looking for his stroke.”
The lineup is the 64th different lineup in 81 games, mostly because the Reds have had their original 25-man roster out of spring training on the field for only 10 games.
“I have no choice,” said Baker. But even he didn’t realize he had his full team on the field for only 10 games and said, “Ten out of 80? Really? Wow. Wow. That’s only one-eighth of the time. That’s why so many different lineups. No choice.”
SPEAKING OF MATH and one-eighth of the time, former Reds interim manager Pete Mackanin, now a Phillies coach, was standing behind the batting cage and said, “There are only three kinds of people in this world, those who can add and those who can’t.”
Think about it.
Mackanin finished the 2007 season after Jerry Narron was fired and was 41-39, the only Reds manager with a winning record since Jack McKeon in 2000. Mackanin probably should have been named manager for 2008. He earned it.
“I got them pointed in the right direction,” Mackanin said with a laugh. “Now it’s up to them.”
Mackanin said he was thinking about the Reds before they got here, wondering how they would react to the smallness of Citizens Bank Park, “Then I laughed and thought, ‘Well, coming from their place, which isn’t any better, it’s no big deal.”
ABOUT FIVE times a week, Jonny Gomes runs the steps of a stadium and calls it, “My Rocky moments.” Now that the team is in Philadelphia, Gomes said he might head for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, not far from the team hotel, to run the same steps Rocky Balboa ran in the movie, “Rocky.”
I wouldn’t even run DOWN those steps.
JAY BRUCE heard that Ryan Weathers, the 9-year-old son of pitcher David Weathers, played golf Monday and asked, “What’d you shoot?” Ryan told him he shot 103 and Bruce said, “That would beat me.”
Speaking of golf, broadcaster Marty Brennaman came within four inches of making a hole-in-one Monday, “And I nearly had a heart attack. Never had one and I’m going to keep trying.”
The Phillies already have played in the new Citi Field in New York and hitters are complaining about it being too big, too difficult to hit home runs. Mackanin, though, wanted to talk about the new, cozy Yankee Stadium.
“That place makes our park look like the Astrodome (a park where homers went to die),” he said. “Mark Teixeira broke his bat, snapped it half, two pieces, and the ball landed in the 15th row for a home run,” said Mackanin.
WHAT DO players do in the long hours and minutes before batting practice in the clubhouse. Most visiting clubhouses have a full library of movies on DVD and on Monday many of the Reds watched “Anchorman,” then watched “Super Bad.” Bullpen coach Porky Lopez walked into the room, saw the players sprawled on couches and leather chairs and said, “Do you guys want some popcorn?”
SOMEBODY SUGGESTED that I take photos and post them on the blog when I take the Amtrak train from Philly to New York Friday. Obviously, that person never made that ride. It’s a monument to junked cars, abandoned factories and bad neighborhoods. But it’s still a train ride and that’s all I care.
But first - tomorrow for lunch I’ll have a Philly cheesesteak from Jim’s, WITH the Cheez-Whiz. It ain’t official without Cheez-Whiz.
Permalink | Comments (23) | Post your comment |
Tweet
