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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 > October
October 2009
The Phillies are NOT the Big Red Machine (yet)
Before I depart for Aruba Saturday and a week’s fun on the beach and at the pool as Official Bikini Observer, let me weigh in on the nonsense I’m reading and hearing about the Philadelphia Phillies as The Little Red Machine.
Pshaw and balderdash.
Just because the Phillies are only the fourth National League team in history to win back-to-back National League pennants doesn’t mean they are on a level with The Big Red Machine.
They aren’t even The Little Red Machine yet.
Oh, yeah. They’re good. Very good. But don’t lay the BRM or LRM on me until they win two straight World Series, as the 1975-76 Cincinnati Reds did, or they go through the playoffs and World Series without losing a game, as the ’76 Reds did that included a sweep of the Phillies in the League Championship Series and a sweep of the New York Yankees in the World Series.
And the ’76 Reds won the NL West by 10 games.
Want to play the lineup comparison game? OK, here is how I seee it:
Catcher: Johnny Bench over Carlos Ruis in a landslide.
First Base: Ryan Howard over Tony Perez,
Second Base: Chase Utley/Joe Morgan. That one is probably a wash.
Shortstop: Jimmy Rollins on offense and Davey Concepcion on defense.
Third base: Pete Rose over Pedro Feliz, not even close.
Left Field: George Foster over Raul Ibanez, by a wide margin.
Center Field: Shane Victorino on offense and Cesar Geronimo on defense.
Right Field: Ken Griffey Sr. over Jayson Werth because Griffey was a better all-around player.
Starting pitching: The Reds Don Gullett, Gary Nolan, Jack Billingham, Pat Zachry and Fred Norman against Cole Hamels, Cliff Lee, Joe Blanton and Pedro Martinez, to me, is flip a coin and call it.
Relief pitching: Rawly Eastwick, Will McEnaney, Clay Carroll Pat Darcy and Pedro Borbon were better than Brad Lidge, J.A. Happ, Chad Durbin and Ryan Madson.
Anyway, that’s my opinion? What’s yours? It’s something to discuss while I’m eating, drinking and being merry for a week.
The blog returns the first week in November and will appear two or three times a week throughout the winter.
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TweetTime for umpire challenges in baseball
When I lost a good portion of my vision a few years ago, a few helpful folks suggested, “Now you can be an umpire.”
And judging by what I’ve seen so far in the playoffs this year, maybe they’re right. The umpires so far have missed more calls than a teenager with their cell phones turned off.
Don’t get me wrong. I love umpires and some are good friends - like former umpire Bruce Froemming, who is now a major league umpire supervisor who watches games and grades the work of umpires, and Randy Marsh, who lives across the Ohio River from Great American Ball Park.
The job is tough, almost impossible. But these guys get it right - most of the time. I can’t count the number of times I’ve sat in the press box and watched a play with my naked eyes and said, “He missed that one.” Then I watched replays and realized, “He got it right.”
When the NFL and NCAA put in replay challenges, I thought it was an awful idea. But now that I’ve watched it a few years, I believe it is a great tool.
Isn’t the idea to get it right? And with the amazing technology available, why not use it?
Which brings me to baseball. It’s time for replay challenges, especially after watching about 10 incorrect calls so far in this postseason, including two missed calls Tuesday by umpire Tim McClelland in the ALCS involving the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
Tim McClelland is a crew chief and an excellent umpire, but he blew two easy calls in one game Tuesday, plays that could have been called right if replay was used.
Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker is against replay and says, “It takes the human element out of the game and the human element is a big part of our game.”
Maybe so, but isn’t getting a call right more important, especially when it might decide the outcome of a game?
I never thought I’d ever say this, but the time is now for replay to be available. My proposal would to be give managers three challenges a game on every umpire’s call except balls and strikes. If a manager believes an umpire missed a call, he tosses a red hankie onto the field.
All this would require would be a fifth umpire seated in the pressbox with instant replay in front of him. Yes, baseball games already are too long, but what’s another ten minutes if it means getting a call right?
And if a game goes into extra innings, the replay calls are in the hands of the fifth umpire - he would review any close call and if it shows the call was missed, he reverses it.
Before technology in sports television became so sophisticated that if the catcher has a mole on his left check it is visible in your media room, they didn’t use enough close-ups and isolated cameras to show if a call was right or wrong.
And not so long ago, the home team was told not to show close plays or controversial plays on their scoreboards. But in recent years, that isn’t the case and all close plays are shown on the board, sometimes to the embarrassment of umpires, who have no access to replays. They see the play unfold and make a quick decision - usually getting it right. Usually.
Somewhere down the line, when an umpire makes a wrong call that costs the home team a game and it is shown on the scoreboard, they’ll have a European soccer riot on their hands.
So I say, with a heavy heart, install replay challenges.
Any of you have a better idea as far as different replay challenge systems? Or do you like it the way it is, permitting mistakes by umpires to possibly determine the outcome of an important game?
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TweetIs Price right for the Reds?
So you can put away your “Hire Dave Duncan” signs. The Cincinnati Reds hired former Arizona Diamondbacks coach Bryan Price as their pitching coach, shuffling aside Class AAA Louisville pitching coach Ted Power and special assistant to the general manager/minor-league pitching instructor Mario Soto.
I’m not certain Soto even wanted the job - he told me during spring training he wasn’t interested in a full-time job. But by snubbing Power the Reds could lose him. If another organization comes calling - and they will - Power probably is gone.
And who is Price?
He is 47 and never pitched in the majors. He was 31-29 during six minor-league seasons, pitching only 11 games as high as Class AAA in the Angeles and Mariners organization.
But he does have two Major League Coach of the Year awards - Baseball Weekly’s Coach of the Year in 2001 when he was pitching coach for the Mariners and Baseball America’s Coach of the Year in 2007 when he was pitching coach for the Diamondbacks.
Me? I would have preferred Power or Soto or even the return of former Reds pitching coach Don Gullett, but my general manager’s card expired years ago.
FOR SOME of you who asked, my favorite National League cities to visit:
If you want rain, go to Pittsburgh any time the Cincinnati Reds are in town and there will be enough precipitation to ruin three pairs of Cole-Haans.
If you want people, go to New York City and wander around Times Square, where on any day and at any time there will be enough people to populate a third-world country and enough nationalities for a U.N. meeting on 42nd street.
If you want heat, go to Houston, the air-conditioning capital of the world. When you emerge from an air conditioned car and into the Houston humidity, your glasses immediately fog over and your shirt turns into a soggy rag.
Those are just a few of the things embedded in my mind after traveling for 37 years with the Cincinnati Reds. If I had all the time back I spent in the nation’s airports I could add ten years to my life.
So, after much thought based on a liftetime away from home while spending time in mostly National League cities, here are my five favorite places:
SAN DIEGO — In 37 years, I saw it rain in San Diego one time and it was at a game. When they rolled out the tarpaulin to cover the field it came apart in shreds because it hadn’t been used and it had rotted away.
San Diego weather? Sub-tropical perfect. It used to be fun ducking south of the border for a Tijuana visit and a bullfight (just once — too gruesome, no matter what Ernest Hemingway writes).
Or you can visit posh La Jolla for exquisite dining at night (don’t miss Donovan’s Steakhouse) after spending the day on a fantastic beach.
And when the nags are running at Del Mar, it is one of the best horse racing emporiums in the country. When Lou Piniella managed the Reds, I once had to drag him out of the place in time for batting practice because, as he said, “I’m hot,” after hitting four winners in the first five races.
The new Petco Park is one of my favorite ballparks with all the nuances in the outfield, including the old warehouse down the left field line that houses some choice seats.
SAN FRANCISCO — A culinary delight. If you’re there a week, you can eat in a different restaurant every night and have unforgettable meals. One of my favorites is the Cathay House in Chinatown, and it’s worth it to walk through Chinatown after a meal.
The trip across the Golden Gate bridge is breathtaking and worth it to cross it to get to Sausalito and a seafood meal at Scoma’s. As you dine on the world’s best sea scallops, you look out the windows across the bay at the skyline of San Francisco.
And if you’re lucky, as I was one night, Sharon Stone might be dining at a table next to you.
Then drive the hills of Sausalito where famous artists and writers have multi-million dollar houses on stilts propped against the hills, just waiting for an earthquake.
The ballpark, AT&T Park, is my favorite, mostly because of the view of San Francisco Bay beyond the right field wall and the smell of garlic fries cooking right next to the press box.
CHICAGO — The city has everything New York has, without the hassles. I always stayed on the Magnificent Mile of Michigan Avenue and mostly window-shopped because the prices in those stores are far beyond my means. A guy can dream.
There is nothing better than Chicago-style pizza and there isn’t a better steakhouse in existence than The Saloon behind the John Hancock Tower. The first time I wandered into the place, strictly by accident, Joe Nuxhall and George Clooney were seated at the bar. With Nuxy there, I knew I was in a good place to eat (and drink).
The Lodge, a musty bar just off Rush Street that has peanut shells on the floor, is a baseball writers hangout and the Old-Style is always ice cold.
And, of course, there is Wrigley Field, baseball’s real Field of Dreams (and Nightmares for Cubs fans).
DENVER — Where else can you get buffalo meat loaf and buffalo chili? Do not order the prairie oysters. Trust me. Coors Field is in LoDo (lower downtown) and there are enough bars and restaurants within two blocks of the park to satisfy Dean Martin.
And where else can you look beyond center field and see the majesty of the snow-capped Rocky Mountains in the middle of summer. Just a half an hour away and two miles up are Central City and Blackhawk, old silver mining towns that are now casino towns, a mini-Vegas.
I once left a casino at midnight after it had snowed four inches and crept down the two-lane road with numerous switchbacks. At the bottom of the mountain in Denver it was 72 degrees.
Coors Field is a favorite, too. Where else do they have to keep the baseballs in humidors to compensate for the thin mile-high air and where else is there a micro brewery in the right field corner?
ST. LOUIS ¬— Yeah, I know. Downtown is deserted at night and they turn the traffic lights to flashing yellow and flashing red at sundown.
But the town has my favorite Italian restaurant, Charlie Gitto’s. My last trip there I ate lunch three straight days at Gitto’s and ate the same thing, sausage linguine.
There is a new casino downtown, right across the street from the domed football stadium and several other casinos up and down the Mississippi. I expect them some day to turn the Gateway Arch into a casino.
My favorite hotel, the St. Louis Westin, is directly across the street from Busch Stadium and it’s a place where you feel as if you are in your own bedroom rather than a hotel room.
Busch Stadium? You can have it. Nothing special, except that Albert Pujols plays there.
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TweetLa Russa? No. Duncan? No.
For those with their fingers crossed, hoping that the Cincinnati Reds can land Tony La Russa as manager and Dave Duncan as pitching coach, well, uncross them.
To use the vernacular, it ain’t gonna happen.
If La Russa continues, he’ll continue in St. Louis - a much better situation than he’d have in Cincinnati. The Reds’ situation involves massive rebuilding and La Russa doesn’t want that. He is 65 and wants to win NOW.
Staying in St. Louis is his best option and it would not surprise me if he is offered - and accepts - a two-year extension for a raise above the $4 million he made this year.
And if La Russa is available, the Reds would have to fire current manager Dusty Baker and eat his $3.5 million contract for 2010. Do you really think the cash-strapped Reds could invest about $9 million to pay a manager and a fired manager next year?
Doubt it.
AND DAVE DUNCAN?
Pretty much the same argument. Duncan is 64 and probably doesn’t want to spend time learning an entire new pitching staff and working with pitching prospects. And he makes more than $1 million with the Cardinals.
Yes, he was upset that he learned about the trade of his son, Chris Duncan, from the media this year instead of from the Cardinals front office. And, yes, he had issues with the team’s farm director over how pitchers were handled in the Cardinals minor-league system. Are those enough to drive him away from a winning organization that pays him handsomely?
I doubt that, too. And he has been with La Russa since 1983 at Oakland, the Chicago White Sox and the Cardinals. If La Russa re-ups in St. Louis, so will Duncan.
THE TOP candidate in Cincinnati should be Class AAA Louisville pitching coach Ted Power, who has been interviewed for the vacant spot with the Reds. All the pitchers handled by Power love the guy. And here’s a warning: If the Reds don’t make him their pitching coach, Power will be gone. He’ll seek opportunities elsewhere.
MEANWHILE, look for some shakeups in the Reds front office - and soon. When Walt Jocketty took over, he kept pretty much everybody who was in place. But he also started bringing in his own people, such as former Seattle general manager Bill Bavasi, former Pittsburgh general manager Cam Bonifay and super scout Jerry Walker.
They’ve been observing and working in Jocketty’s inner sanctum, but changes are coming and that’s natural. People brought in by former GM Wayne Krivsky are vulnerable, especially with the team in financial straits and fat needing to be trimmed.
People like farm director Terry Reynolds, assistant general manager Bob Miller, scouting director Chris Buckley and others could be re-assigned to lesser roles and could be leaving for other teams.
Front office people like J. Harrison and Scott Nethery, guys brought in by Krivsky, were once highly visible but were nearly invisible this season.
Yep. changes are a-comin’.
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TweetThe Real McCoy, Ask Hal (To be continued)
Retirement is for the birds, except I’ve never seen a robin or a sparrow sitting in an easy chair wearing a T-shirt and boxer shorts while eating Fritos.
I don’t officially retire from the Dayton Daily News until October 31, but with baseball season over for those with leanings toward the Cincinnati Reds (no playoffs - again) I have had a week’s dose of watching sports on TV until my eyes are bleary and my posterior is numb.
My fingers, though, are itchy. I need the laptop on my lap and hopefully I can keep the Fritos from between the keys.
If you read the Dayton Daily News this morning (Sunday), you already know I’m going to continue doing some writing for them. I won’t be an employee of the DDN, but I’ll be a free agent, a contractor, a contributor.
The DDN and I have come to an agreement whereby The Real McCoy remains alive. During baseball season I’ll do at least five blogs a week and I will continue doing my Ask Hal questions and answers from the fans that appear in the paper every Sunday and online.
In the off-season, I’ll do a couple of blogs a week (and if you know me, probably more) and a few special assignments.
No, I won’t be traveling with the Reds as a baseball beat writer. Anything I do comes out of my own pocket. But I will make some cameo appearances at Great American Ball Park to gather some inside information and do some interviews to take you inside the clubhouse and dugout.
The DDN provided me with a driver last year, a fine gentleman named Larry Glass. He lives in Fairfield and loves baseball, has been involved in the game all his life, including coaching national championship youth teams.
Get this. Larry lives in Fairfield, at least an hour from my home in Englewood. Because of my vision problems, I can’t drive. For nearly every home game last season, Larry drove from Fairfield to Englewood and picked me up. He then drove down to Cincinnati and stayed with me at the games, sitting next to me in the press box.
After the game, he drove the 1:15 from Cincinnati to my home, dropped me off, then drove the hour back to Cincinnati. That’s about 4 ½ hours of driving every day, leaving his home shortly after noon and getting back to his home after games sometime near 2 a.m.
Amazing. And he did it all for just gas money and a press pass. Even more amazing, he has agreed to drive me any time next season when I want to go to Great American Ball Park.
While I won’t be in the inner circle as a traveling writer, I know I can entertain and inform you with 37 years worth of experiences and I can utilize contacts I’ve made through the years.
While we’re at it, Ask Hal continues for the next three weeks, so keep those great questions coming.
In addition to the work for the DDN, I have a couple of other things going that will keep me attached to the baseball world and I’ll let you know if and when those materialize.
So I’ll be doing more than emptying Fritos bags and burning up cigars in my Man Cave. I look forward to keeping in touch with all you great, great fans who have supported me through the yeas.
In the meantime, pass the Fritos.
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TweetThey don’t make ‘em like Chris Sabo
Chris Sabo is one of my all-time favorite characters, too out-there to be believed. But he was real and the stories about him are even better than the on-the-field stories about him.
That he was elected into the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame is not surprising. He was always The People’s Choice, a blue-collar guy who always owned the dirtiest uniform, one with the knees ripped out. He was so down-to-earth you expected him to carry a lunch bucket out to third base and pull out a thermos jug for sips of black coffee between innings.
SOME OF MY favorite Sabo stories:
Sabo wore goggles when he played, making him look like a scuba diver who forgot his flippers. At the time, there was a dog on a Budweiser commercial that wore goggles and was named Spuds McKenzie. Manager Pete Rose never called Sabo Chris or Sabo. Always it was Spuds.
HE WAS RIDING a cab from the hotel to the ballpark in Pittsburgh and the driver was smoking. Sabo asked him to put out the cigarette and the driver refused, puffing even harder on his Marlboro. After asking the driver again to cease, the cabbie fired up another one. Sabo opened the back door and bailed out, while the cab was still moving and the meter was still ticking.
SABO ALWAYS WORE a flat-top haircut right out of the 60’s and all he needed was to roll a pack of cigarettes in his T-shirt sleeve to complete the image - but, as we know, he doesn’t smoke.
There was a time in an Atlanta mall when Sabo decided he needed a haircut and he asked the barber if he knew how to cut a flat-top. The barber assured him he did. But halfway through the haircut Sabo looked in the mirror and was not satisfied with what was transpiring. He leaped from the chair, tossed aside the drop cloth and stormed out of the shop, walking through the mall with half a haircut.
Sabo had an old car he loved. Wouldn’t buy a new one and said, “Why should I? I have a good car.” It was a Ford Fiesta sub-compact with 300,000 miles on it. One time his closest friend, Paul O’Neill, rode in that car,and to listen to the radio he had to hold the broken-off antennae out the window and high in the air to get reception.
ONE DAY WHEN I walked into the clubhouse Sabo was sitting there staring at the floor, a forlorn look on his face.
“What’s wrong, Sabes?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m depressed,” he said. “They’re trading all my friends.”
The Reds hadn’t made a recent trade and I asked, “Who’s that?” Said Sabo with a shake of his head, “Pauly.” That was Paul O’Neill, who had been traded the year before.
Sabo always arrived early on Sunday mornings and commandeered the clubhouse stereo system. What did he play? Metallica? Not even close. He played Frank Sinatra or college football fight songs, usually the University of Michigan, where he attended.
SABO once got into an argument with umpire Charlie Williams on a play at first base. Sabo argued too vehemently and was ejected.
Knowing Williams would be working behind the plate the next day, Sabo grabbed a magic marker and scribbled on the knob of his bat, “Charlie Williams sucks,” knowing Williams would see it.
SABO WAS NEVER happy with his bats and loved to rummage in an old storage room under Riverfront Stadium where there were scores and scores of bats. He’d find one he liked and use it.
That got him in deep trouble.
He used one of those bats one day and when he hit the ball the bat splintered and cork sprayed all over the infield. He was suspended for using a corked bat, but it wasn’t even his bat.
And who did it belong to? Rumor has it that it belonged to Hal Morris, but Sabo took the punishment and never threw Morris under the bus.
A team guy and a character. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.
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TweetTracy can talk the paint off the wall
Pardon my non-objectivity, but I’m pulling for the Colorado Rockies to win it all this October for one reason and one reason only.
Jim Tracy.
Tracy is one of the many big ones the Cincinnati Reds let get away. In the early 1990s, he was manager of the Chattanooga Lookouts, Cincinnati’s Class AA Southern League affiliate. Later he was the Reds’ minor league field coordinator.
Shortly after Jim Bowden became general manager of the Reds, Tracy left the organization. A wise professional move.
TRACY WAS Colorado’s bench coach early this year and when the Rockies started the season 18-28, manager Clint Hurdle was fired and Tracy replaced him.
The Rockies were 14½ games out of first place, at the bottom of the NL West. After Tracy took over, the Rockies went 74-42 and won the NL wild card, putting neck-squeezing pressure on the Los Angeles Dodgers and nearly winning the division.
I have a Manager of the Year vote and I voted for Tracy. Who else?
THERE IS A strange parallel working here. In 2003, former Cincinnati Reds manager Jack McKeon was in the front office with the Florida Marlins. They started the season 16-22 and McKeon was asked to take over.
The Marlins went 75-49 and won the NL wild card. Then they beat the New York Yankees in the World Series and McKeon was named Manager of the Year. So we have two former Reds employees who were let go and took over dormant teams early in a season and won the Manager of the Year award. Yeah, I know, Tracy hasn’t won it yet, but if he doesn’t they should toss the trophy over the Hoover Dam and never award it again.
Tracy is a native of Hamilton, a baseball and football star. He was offered a football scholarship to Xavier, but before he could play his first down the school dropped intercollegiate football.
So Tracy went to Marietta College and became an All-American outfielder, launching his baseball career. Tracy probably thanks Xavier every day of his life for dropping football.
If there is a more personable man in the game, I never ran across him. He’ll talk to anybody at any time and if there is nobody to talk to he’ll talk to a picture on his office wall. Ask him for a drink of water and he gives you Niagara Falls.
And don’t call him Jim. All his friends call him Tracy or Trace.
Tracy’s first big-league managerial job with with the Dodgers and later managed the dead-end Pittsburgh Pirates, and if you can be an optimist managing that team you can be an optimist standing on a fault line during an earthquake. Tracy always thought the Pirates were going to win.
ONE SPRING DAY during spring training, the Reds were playing the Pirates in Bradenton, Fla. I walked up to the batting cage, just to say hello. A half an hour later Tracy was still talking to me while his team took batting practice and most of it was not about baseball.
Oh, he did predict his Pirates would win the division. They finished last.
When the Rockies came to Cincinnati this year, he had a press conference in the dugout. When it was over he asked me to stay, even though it was a busy day. The Rockies had just acquired pitcher Joe Beimel and Tracy was awaiting his arrival and working on revamping his bullpen.
But he chatted with me for a long time, once again mostly non-baseball stuff.
Tracy is close friends with former Reds pitching coach Don Gullett and former Reds coach Jim Lett. During the winter, the three go deer hunting and Tracy loves to tell deer-hunting stories.
IT WOULD NOT surprise me next year if Gullett becomes Tracy’s pitching coach and Lett becomes one of his coaches. Lett was a coach for Tracy when he managed Pittsburgh and also when he managed the Los Angeles Dodgers. And Gullett wants to get back into the game.
So, pardon me, but go Rox. It’s personal.
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TweetDon’t shake hands with Bailey
I’m typing this blog with one hand today because I made the mistake of shaking hands with Homer Bailey when I said good-bye Sunday.
Anybody who has ever slammed a hand in a car door knows what it is like to shake hands with Homer Bailey. His grip is so strong he probably can squeeze a baseball into an oval and make it look like a hard-boiled egg when he throws it plateward.
I swore after the first time I shook hands with him and heard bones shatter that I’d never do it again.
But I had to do it after watching his shutout of the Pirates Sunday and his amazing finish to the 2009 season, culminating in him being named NL Player of the Week.
IN ALL MY years of covering baseball I have never seen a better turnaround in a career that what I saw from Homer Bailey and when I shook his hand I told him, “You’ll win 20 games soon and maybe a Cy Young award.”
I believe that and I have to say it.
The two previous seasons I thought (and wrote) that Bailey was a lost cause, that he would never be a major-league pitcher, re-enforced last year when he was 0-6.
The thing that was worrisome was that he didn’t seem to enjoy the game, didn’t seem to enjoy life. He was sullen and tight-lipped all the time, gave nothing but cryptic and smart-mouthed answers to the media. He walked past you and stared straight ahead. Not a word.
Then the first week of spring training this year I was walking up the sidewalk toward the front door of the complex when a voice behind me said, “Hey, Hal, what’s happening? How ya doing?”
I looked around and the only person I saw was Homer Bailey. Couldn’t have been him. Had to be somebody else. But it wasn’t. It was Homer. Nobody else was around except a sniffing Labrador who I was certain couldn’t talk.
From that day on he was a sheer delight. A complete 180-degree turnaround. He was personable. He smiled. He told raunchy jokes that had bad punch lines. He gave great interviews.
He didn’t make the team out of spring training and the first time he arrived this season he still struggled a bit. But he smiled and persevered. The second time he came up, he was a Major League pitcher and the metamorphosis was complete.
EITHER MATURITY hit him between the eyes or somebody got to him and explained the facts of life and what it takes to succeed in the world. Whichever, I found myself pulling hard for the guy every time he pitched.
For two years I advocated that he should be traded, for anything - broken bats, used resin bags, muddy bases and a cracked batting helmet.
Now the Reds should put him on their Eliot Ness list - an Untouchable.
But if you ever run into him, keep your hands in your pocket. If you shake hands, he’ll crack three fingers.
AFTER 162 games didn’t decide the American League Central championship, the Minnesota Twins and Detroit Tigers stage a playoff game Tuesday night to determine the division champion.
Not much in baseball can be more exciting than that.
I was in Boston at Fenway Park in 1978, covering the one-game playoff game between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees for the American League East championship. That was the famous game where light-hitting shortstop Bucky Dent hit a home run to help the Yankees win.
Incredibly, the Red Sox had a 14½-game lead in the division on July 19 and frittered it away, gave it away like your neighbor passing out Snickers on Beggar’s Night.
Dent later was a bench coach for the Cincinnati Reds when Jerry Narron managed and Dent said, “That’s all anybody ever remembered me for, hitting that home run. I could have found a cure for cancer and they’d still meet me on the street and say, ‘Bucky Dent? You hit that home run in the 1978 playoffs.’ And if they were Red Sox fans, they’d drop the f-bomb on me.”
The only other one-game playoff game I covered was the 1999 playoff game in Riverfront Stadium (I could never force myself to call it Cinergy Field) between the Reds and the New York Mets and it was for the wild card spot.
The Reds finished the season at Milwaukee, needing two wins to clinch the wild card. They lost the first two and HAD to win Sunday to force the playoff.
Rain delayed the start for nearly six hours and I set an intercollegiate record for consumption of brats and metts in the press box. Then they began play with the outfield under water. A ball was hit to right field and Dmitri Young, a rather large man, belly-flopped trying to make a catch and caused a tsunami. He slid on his belly from right field to the second base dirt.
The Reds won, 7-1, then flew home to face the Mets in the one-game playoff in front of 52,000, a full-house. New York’s Al Leiter threw a three-hit shutout and the Reds lost, 5-0.
And they haven’t come close since.
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TweetA happy/sad kind of day
Some great things happened before the reality hit - my last game as the Cincinnati Reds beat writer for the Dayton Daily News.
Brandon Phillips walked up to me in the pre-game clubhouse Sunday and handed me one of his bats on which was inscribed: “To Hal ‘HofF’ McCoy. Thank you for all the support! Sorry that you have to go, but I know it’s not the last!’ Brandon Phillips, #4, Your boy, 30/30.”
That was special enough, but I was later told by Reds assistant PR director Jamie Ramsey that Phillips will not sign 30/30 at the end of his signature for anybody but his mother and father. People sometimes ask, but he doesn’t do it (30 homers, 30 stolen bases). The bat was enough - without being asked - and the 30/30 gives me the shudders.
WHEN IT was time for breakfast in the media dining room, Denise, the very lovely woman who runs the room as if it is her own dining room/kitchen, refused to take my $7 for my meal, then handed me a box with a small chocolate cake in it.
DURING THE GAME, Reds media relations director Rob Butcher announced, “There is pizza in the back room, compliments of LaRosa’s in honor of Hal McCoy.” Butcher said the delivery guy showed up at the gate and said he had a pizza delivery for Hal McCoy. Said Butcher, “Hal McCoy ordered pizza?” Said the delivery guy, “No, this is from LaRosa’s.”
Then I discovered it was my lovely, beautiful, thoughtful wife, Nadine, who ordered it and had it delivered to the pressbox. Thank you, honey. You’re the best.
BEFORE THE GAME, I was summoned to the back of the press room to meet a father and his son.
Remember on Hal McCoy Night at the ballpark when Jonny Gomes hit a home run and then signed the bat he used and gave it to me?
I neglected to get the son’s age because I was so flabbergasted, but he looks about 14 and his name is Kevin O’Neill of Erlanger, Ky. On the night Gomes hit his home run, O’Neill was in the upper deck in left field and got the ball.
On Sunday, he came to the game carrying the ball in a plastic cover and gave it to me - this treasure of a ball that he could have kept, a ball used in a major-league game that was hit for a home run.
But he gave it up for me. All he asked for was that I autograph my last game story and send it to him. I agreed. I also plan to get a new ball and have Gomes sign it and I’ll send it to Kevin. What an unselfish, caring teenager. Awesome, just awesome.
IN THE SIXTH inning they invited me to the TV booth so George Grande and I and could chit-chat on the air. Grande announced Sunday that he was stepping down and it’s a great loss for me. George and I have been together with the Reds for 17 years, sharing a lot of time together, sharing some meals together at Charley Gitto’s in St. Louis. He’s a pro’s pro and I’m going to miss him - one of the nicest men who ever walked the face of this ol’ earth.
AND I FINALLY lost it. They had a nice tribute on the scoreboard, showing George and I together in the booth. The crowd gave us a standing ovation and I saw the Cincinnati Reds in the dugout, standing and applauding, and that was it. The tears flowed and they’re still flowing as I write these words.
Homer Bailey is mowing down the Pirates, a fitting conclusion to the season. Just when he is finally saying hello, I’m saying good-bye. The kid has a great future, he finally gets it.
AND NOW the stadium is empty and I see the Ohio River flowing behind the right field stands. Ol’ Man River keeps rolling along, and hopefully, so will this ol’ man.
My time as a traveling baseball beat writer is over. But I’m not done. I promise you that. I have some options and I’m going to take one or two of them. Which ones is to be determined … soon.
My OFFICIAL retirement date from the Dayton Daily News isn’t until Oct. 31 and I’ll be writing some blogs and a few pieces for the paper, including ASK HAL for the next three weeks. Send me some questions. Don’t let me get lonely.
And I’ll let you know what’s ahead for me. A blog of some kind is a “for sure.”
It was Elvis who sang about the final curtain. For me, the big show is over. But I’m ready for a few curtain calls.
Cheers.
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TweetPitching coach Dick Pole won’t return
Pitching coach Dick Pole was told today that his contract would not be renewed for 2010 and he chose to leave the team immediately.
The rest of the coaching staff will return next season, all in their same capacities: bench coach Chris Speier, batting instructor Brook Jacoby, first base coach Billy Hatcher, third base coach Mark Berry and bullpen coach Juan Lopez.
General Manager Walt jocketty said the team has not put together a list of potential replacements, “But we have some people in mind, including people in our own organization (Louisville pitching coach Ted Power and roving pitching instructor Mack Jenkins would be on that list).
Neither Jocketty nor manager Dusty Baker would cite reasons for Pole’s dismissal.
“As an organization, we felt Dick has done a good job to this point, but we felt that going forward we needed to make a change,” said Jocketty. “We’ll leave it at that and there are no real specific reasons.”
Statistically, Reds pitchers are seventh in the National League with a 4.21 earned run average. They’ve given up the third most home runs in the league (186) and have the fifth fewest strikeouts.
“We don’t have clear candidate and we are going to formulate a list,” said Jocketty. “We’ll try to find a guy who can be with his organization a long time because we have some good young pitchers who have come along and we want to make sure we find the right guy to help develop them.”
It was a difficult decision for Baker because Pole was his pitching coach in San Francisco and Chicago, although Pole already was in place when Baker came to the Reds last year.
“I told Dick when I got here today and he left,” said Baker. “Naturally, he was hurt. It was difficult for me to tell him because everybody knows how close we are. My relationship with Dick and the respect I have for him made a tough decision. It was an organizational decision and we don’t want to get into specifics because it will serve no point. I thought deeply about this and it is just a move forward and it is not fair to air anything publicly.”
INSIDE THE clubhouse, many pitchers had lost faith in Pole and were turning elsewhere for helpful tips and information, never a good sign for a coach. And for those who might immediately drop the name Jeff Brantley into the prospective replacement list, that isn’t going to happen.
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TweetPitching coach Dick Pole won’t return
Pitching coach Dick Pole was told today that his contract would not be renewed for 2010 and he chose to leave the team immediately.
The rest of the coaching staff will return, all in their same capacities: bench coach Chris Speier, batting instructor Brook Jacoby, first base coach Billy Hatcher, third base coach Mark Berry and bullpen coach Juan Lopez.
Manager Walt jocketty said the team has not put together a list of potential replacements, “But we have some people in mind, including people in our own organization (Louisville pitching coach Ted Power and roving pitching instructor Mack Jenkins would be on that list).
Neither Jocketty nor manager Dusty Baker would cite reasons for Pole’s dismissal.
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TweetCards-Reds: some spicy controversy
Nothing like a little mud-slinging to spice up next season’s Cincinnati Reds-St. Louis Cardinals rivalry, which begins on Opening Day.
And most likely that game will be pitched by Bronson Arroyo for the Reds, part of the current controversy during which Cardinals manager Tony La Russa accused Arroyo of cheating and of somebody on the Reds of cheating.
Reds manager Dusty Baker reacted harshly over the charges and said, “Where I come from, man, you call somebody a cheater, you better know what you’re talking about. That’s like calling somebody a liar, a snitch, a cheat or a thief. Those are strong words when you call somebody a cheater and I’m the man in charge over here.”
La Russa and Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan believe Arroyo used pine star to sticky-up baseballs that were slick Wednesday, devoid of the Delaware mud that is normally rubbed on them before games.
St. Louis pitcher John Smoltz said the balls were too slick and La Russa said the balls did not have the mud on them.
Before Thursday’s 13-0 Cardinals victory, ignited by pitcher Chris Carpenter’s first career home run, a grand slam off Kip Wells in the second inning and six RBIs, clubhouse attendant Mike Dillon, who rubs mud on the balls, stopped in La Russa’s office.
“I had nothing to do with those balls (Wednesday) and I’m the one who rubbed them up, but I had nothing to do with them. I don’t know what happened after they were over there but you look at them (Thursday) and they’ll be the same,” said Dillon.
La Russa showed Dillon two balls he saved from Wednesday and said, “Do they looked rubbed up to you?”
Said Dillon, “No. I rubbed up the balls but they weren’t like that. That’s all I’m going to say. I’m telling you I don’t cheat. I don’t lie. I had nothing to do with it. Somehow the mud got off them.”
La Russa said, “I knew they were up to shenanigans. I appreciate you saying that.”
Of Arroyo, La Russa added, “The guy’s got pine tar all over his hat and the our guy (Smoltz) is out there naked. We’ve got about six of those balls around here. That was pretty lousy. (Arroyo) found a little edge. You can’t let the starting pitcher influence how the balls are prepared for the game.”
Said Arroyo, “I pitch on the road, too, and I can’t tell you how many times I was unhappy with the way the balls are rubbed up. Every time I pitch in Milwaukee I can’t stand the way the balls are rubbed up. They can run out any kind of balls they want and I won walk five guys (as Smoltz did).”
Baker said he didn’t hear any complaints about Arroyo rubbing pine tar on the balls until a writer told him Thursday morning.
“If anybody should know about that it would be (Cardinals pitching coach) Dave Duncan and La Russa, maybe,” said Baker. “I remember they had Julian Tavarez over there and they threw his hat out of the game because it had pine tar on it.”
That was 2004 and Tavarez was suspended eight days for using pine tar (later reduced to four days). And remember that lefthanded relief pitcher they had?”
That would be Steve Kline, who wore the same hat all season and by season’s end it was no longer red, it was brownish black — the color of pine tar.
“That is all just stupid,” said Baker. “Nothing went on. News to me. I don’t believe in cheating. Can’t anybody just lose any more without extenuating circumstances?”
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TweetCards upset about stolen base, mudless balls
NOT MUCH WAS made of it at the time, but St. Louis pitcher John Smoltz was perturbed (the polite term for p——-) when Drew Stubbs stole second base in the third inning Wednesday when the Cincinnati Reds led the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-0.
It is an unwritten rule, an absurd one, that when a team has a big lead over another team it isn’t polite to steal bases. Why? Who knows? Do hitters quit trying to hit home runs? Of course not. But don’t dare steal bases.
I like what former St. Louis manager Whitey Herzog once said about that: “If the other team promises me they won’t try to score any runs then I’ll promise I won’t try to score any.”
When Smoltz reacted on the steal toward the Reds dugout, manager Dusty Baker held up three fingers, meaning, “Third inning.” Anybody with any sense knows a 6-0 lead in the third inning in Great American Ball Park is not safe, especially when Albert Pujols has three more at-bats.
“Yeah, I guess he was upset,” said Baker. “I held up three fingers and then he held up his hand. I guess he was saying, ‘OK,’ or maybe he was saying, ‘Talk to the hand.’
“I have as much respect for John Smoltz as anybody in baseball because we’ve battled on the field a long time,” Baker added. “He was frustrated about everything, including the balls (too slick). With that offense they have, with a couple of crooked-number innings they are right back in the ballgame. Those guys know how to open that door.
“The kid (Stubbs) has the green light and I didn’t give him the stop sign,” Baker added. “It was only 6-0 in the third inning and I don’t see anything wrong with that. You know sooner or later they are going to score or threaten to score.”
And, oh yes, the balls. While Smoltz complained that the balls were too slick, Cincinnati’s Bronson Arroyo retired the Cards’ first nine batters and breezed into the eighth inning.
Why weren’t the balls too slick for him?
THE CARDINALS had the answer for that, too. Pine tar. Pitching coach Dave Duncan said Arroyo was putting pine tar on the balls to make them sticky.
Baker said he didn’t hear any complaints about Arroyo rubbing pine tar on the balls until a writer told him this morning.
“If anybody should know about that it would be Dunc, maybe,” said Baker. “I remember they had Julian Tavarez over there and they threw his hat out of the game because it had pine tar on it. And remember that lefthanded relief pitcher they had?”
That would be Steve Kline, who wore the same hat all season and by season’s end it was no longer red, it was brownish black - the color of pine tar.
“It’s not like it’s something new, you know?” said Baker. “They didn’t complain about it during the game and maybe if they called him out on it somebody would call them out on doing the same thing.”
Ah, conspiracy theories. Ya gotta love it.
AS FOR TODAY’S game, well, Kip Wells just gave up a grand slam home run to opposing pitcher Chris Carpenter for a 5-0 lead in the second inning. It was Carpenter’s first career grand slam. And with one swing, the four RBIs double his RBI total for the year. He had six career RBIs before that home run.
Wit his 16-4 record and 2.30 ERA, you can put this one in the books. And let’s see if the Cardinals try to steal a base now.
A REDS CLUBHOUSE attendant who is in charge of rubbing up the baseballs stopped by Cardinals manager Tony La Russa’s office to tell his side of the story as to how the balls used in Wednesday’s game seemed so slick to Cardinals starter John Smoltz.
The attendant told La Russa, “I want you to know something. I had nothing to do with those balls last night. I’m the one who rubbed them up, but I had nothing to do with them. I don’t know what happened to them after they were over there but you look at them today and they’ll be the same.”
La Russa said, “You mean the same as what? Yesterday?”
La Russa then showed the attendant two balls he had saved from the previous game and said, “Do they looked rubbed up to you?”
The attendant replied, “No. I rubbed up the balls but they weren’t like that. That’s all I’m going to say. I don’t want to get myself in trouble or anything like that. I’m telling you I don’t cheat. I don’t lie. I had nothing to do with it.
“Somehow the mud got off them.”
La Russa said, “I knew they were up to shenanigans. I appreciate you saying that.”
Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan had said Cincinnati starter Bronson Arroyo had gone to some pine tar on his hat to enable him to grip the balls better.
Today, La Russa, “The guy’s got pine tar all over his hat and the other guy (Smoltz) is out there naked. We’ve got about six of those balls around here. That was pretty (lousy).
“(Arroyo) found a little edge. You can’t let the starting pitcher influence how the balls are prepared for the game.
“Maybe I won’t send over our lineup (to the Reds’ clubhouse),” said La Russa, half-smiling. “It would just disappear like the mud balls did.”
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