Wait ‘Til Next Year

~ latskojerry ~ Leave a comment

For some,it came almost immediately. We knew long before the month of May ended that the Chicago White Sox, the Colorado Rockies, and the West Covina Angels weren’t going to the World Series this year. Now that it’s September, even the most stubborn and loyal fans of big league baseball teams are having to face reality.

When we get together with a group that has a goal in mind and begin the long hard task to attain what is desired, it’s a commitment. We commit to working hard and getting along with each other so that we might succeed as a group. To baseball teams, that sounds like fun in March and April, but it can get a little rough come August and September. Losers will always outnumber winners but dreams of October baseball can defy logic. I’m watching players like Mike Yastrzemski and Matt Chapman, who have busted their asses since spring training to make sure that their team does well, have to start to accept the fact that it ain’t going to happen. Weeks from now they, and many others like Francisco Lindor and Julio Rodriguez and justin Verlander may be able to accept that they had done what they could but it was not enough. Right now,however, it is painful.

There are still a lot of good games to be played. Kansas City played well long enough while Cleveland stumbled long enough that those two teams got tied for first place in the American League Central before the Royals lost Vinnie Pasquantino. Bobby Witt Jr. has been a great story but it would be a surprise if either team got beyond winning their division.

Right after most of us had written them off, the Arizona Diamondbacks are looking very, very strong down the stretch. like a lot of teams, they have been trying to overcome serious injuries, including a recent one to Gilbert Moreno, one of the best young catchers in the game. The Serpientes might be hitting their stride at just the right time, similar to last season. Their World series opponent last year, the Texas Rangers, look like they will be spectators this time around.

Watching the Braves and Phillies on ESPN Sunday Night Talk Show was good. I had to turn off the sound while they discussed college football with Bryce Harper while he was playing first base but it was a great game between two very good teams.

Come on, Baltimore, you can do it. Milwaukee is a real force. They are the No Names right now but that won’t last much longer. The Dodgers look like a sloppy organization lately but they had the good sense to sign Nick Ahmed after the Giants blithely unloaded him and Alex Cobb and Jorge Soler under the guise of a youth movement that shows talent still mostly untested under management that seemingly expects little development of stamina before the call to perform in the majors. It’s past the dog days—it’s the damn! days.

The Athletics of Oakland by way of Kansas City and Philadelphia have been one of the most improved teams this season. They will be missed in a big way. Potential owners of teams ought to be required to have ties and commitment to their locale other than rhetorical. I know, we could say that about a whole lot of businesses.

The best part of managing a professional team is the worst part. When you get fired, you don’t have to manage for a while.

The next great baseball movie will have little newsreel or C.G. action parts but instead it will feature dramatic music scenes as wily executives trade roster parts.

Got a bet on when we will see “—-bets, the official major league betting partner”?

Is Pat Murphy the new model for trendy team leadership?

Favorite team announcers: Dan Shulman, Mike Krukow, Jon Miller, Duane Kuiper, Dave Fleming, Dave O’Brien,John Kruk, Bob Walk, Jon Sciambi, and Jim Deshaies.

The Meat Market

~ latskojerry ~ 1 Comment

“Short sighted businessmen ah nothing lasts for long…”–Joni Mitchell, 1982.

A lot has changed, although what could very well be true is that my perception of mostly unchanged things is what has changed—again. It seemed to me in my youth that baseball was high on the list of important things to a high percentage of the citizenry. Of course, at that time the citizenry was composed of my immediate household with perhaps some of the rest of the neighborhood as well. The reality that I thought existed then was that business people, including the owners of major league baseball teams, preferred to take a long range view of things and recognized the value of building a successful business by employing folks with a long term interest in growth and success through intelligent planning.

One of the best examples of what I perceive as the decline of empire due to loss of reason is what is called the trade deadline. This issue has been addressed more than once in this venue so I must apologize for repetition but it seems that “buy or sell” has taken on a degree of general acceptance comparable to that of Halloween becoming endured as a three month holiday or Joe Biden being considered a radical leftist. “Stand pat”, by comparison,has been relegated to a position similar to third party candidate status, or not worth consideration.

Life, admittedly, is a gamble. You want Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. but can you have him? You’ve lost interest in Bo Bichette or Wilmer Flores or Chris Taylor but who else wants him? You want to be part of the 27% that go to post season but at what price? All of those contracts to consider!

Why can’t we all calm down and show some faith in our team as it is and try to build some confidence in each other (Rockies and White Sox exempted)? Do the metrics say that that doesn’t work? Take some deep breaths, baseball execs, unless of course you work in New York. It’s demeaning to all concerned when we can’t decide whether or not our decisions have done any good. Does a general manager or whoever is in charge of roster enhancement need to be cold blooded to prove they are both serious and competent to owners/fans/players? Really? Aren’t you then implying that you don’t do so well in the off season?

Many human beings are put through perhaps needless stress about packing up and moving out and whether or not anybody still wants them. Everyone will always say that yes, it’s a business and, of course, it’s hard on the families but at the same time the money is real good yadda yadda. This isn’t life or death, okay? It’s athletic entertainment. Have some faith in your own judgement and your players’ ability. Attitude matters. Let players agents have a vacation in July. The dollars involved are speaking louder than what the game should allow. We used to imagine being ballplayers or perhaps field managers. To imagine being upper management or the corporate money dude is dullsville. Play the game.

We will always be reminded of the Atlanta Braves’ great success in 2021 that was harpooned by desperation mid season trades but, in the aftermath determined to be brilliant additions. The Braves, however, also benefit by the now legendary ability of their management group to make excellent player evaluations and player development. Despite their frequent moves, they appear to be long term thinkers. Jorge Soler and Luke Jackson the second time around may very well work. San Francisco Giants fans were warming to Soler as he appeared to be warming to his task in the cool damp city by the bay. Now we’ll never know how it could have gone and what has been gained? Real baseball fans prefer smart moves or non-moves to fireworks and bobbleheads. Once your loyalty eliminates all but the dollar you are on your way to oblivion.

When Men Were Boys

~ latskojerry ~ 1 Comment

Ninety one years ago the first major league All Star game was played in Chicago. My first memory of what has been called the midsummer classic was July 12, 1955 in Milwaukee, a city that was enjoying its third season of major league baseball. The Braves, formerly of Boston, were represented by Eddie Mathews, Henry Aaron,Johnny Logan, Del Crandall, and Gene Conley, who became the winning pitcher when Stan Musial hit Frank Sullivan‘s first pitch in the 12th inning for a home run and the National League prevailed, 6-5. Everyone I was watching the game with on TV was happy about that.

This year’s version was a good game, won by the American League after everybody’s best friend, Shohei Ohtani, hit a three run homer to give the senior circuit (nobody calls it that anymore so I had to) a 3-0 early lead.

Some of the best ball players in the world put on their clown suits and microphones to battle one another in Arlington, Texas. Actually,some of the athletes were not electronically audibly enhanced but Joe Davis, who is not the guy I would want to be seated next to on a crowded bus for a trip longer than a quarter mile, was able to keep telling each participant’s life story all the way through nine innings despite the interference of action. I’m fairly used to Joe because just about all the ball I see is on TV and there he is. John Smoltz needs someone like Jon Miller or Dan Shulman to team with so that some quiet time exists on the air between fascinating biographies.

Davis actually tried to converse with Tarik Skubal while he was on the mound pitching. I went into my what if that was Bob Gibson spin, gasping for air. No doubt Gibson would have told FOX and the commissioner to put their microphone where the sun doesn’t shine. Joe Davis talked to three infielders at once and then two outfielders at once during play. Everyone but Skubal was kind and considerate. I was aghast. This is not what many of us tune in to receive when athletic contests are being played. Neither would an interview with a working chef or musician be interesting or informative.

It was a good game with some good plays. However, for Bruce Bochy to have to wear that worse than any beer league or “city connect” outfit was just embarrassing. Someone or, most likely, a committee may actually have been paid to come up with those designs and colors. Put them back in their team unis and stop this dress up nonsense. Torey Lovullo and Bochy both did well as did Juan Soto and the guy who charged Ohtani three million for the cab ride to the park.

Too Late In Askin’

~ latskojerry ~ 3 Comments

In the early Fall season of 1954 I was in the second grade and one day I came through the front door of my house after school to learn that a big deal had happened in New York City, one of the places where really big deals occur. The Cleveland Indians had won 111 games and only lost 43 that season to comfortably win the American League pennant over the Yankees, the team that had won the previous five years. I had not known that at the time but I looked it up later in my brother Paul’s 1954 Baseball Almanac, which I read through hungrily one day when I should have been in school but wasn’t. Because this Autumn day was the day that I became fascinated with baseball, in particular the big leagues. The big deal in New York was that the New York Giants beat those unbeatable Indians ,5-2 ,in the first game of the World Series. The game was played at the Polo Grounds, an oddly shaped stadium that the Giants would abandon after three more seasons. The dimensions of the Polo Grounds played a very big part in the outcome of that first game and, ultimately the Series. Cleveland took a 2-0 lead in the first inning off Giants starting pitcher Sal Maglie. Vic Wertz hit a triple to score Al Smith and Bobby Avila. Don Mueller and Hank Thompson drove in runs off Cleveland pitcher Bob Lemon in the third inning. The 2-2 tie score was still holding in the eighth inning. Maglie walked Larry Doby to start the inning. Al Rosen hit an infield single and New York manager Leo Durocher replaced Maglie with Don Liddle. Up to the plate stepped Wertz, who had already added a pair of singles to his first inning triple. Wertz hit another tremendous drive, this one over the head of young New York center fielder Willie Mays. The ball traveled 445 feet but Mays caught up to it, swiveled around and made a throw for the ages back to the infield. Doby took third base but Rosen had to hold at first. Even people who never cared about baseball have seen the film of this play, which ever since has been known as The Catch. Yes, the center field wall was 480 feet from home plate. Pull hitters enjoyed the Polo Grounds, however. Both the left and right field walls were a little more than 250 feet away. That helped make Dusty Rhodes a New York hero when he delivered a pinch hit three run homer to win the game in the tenth inning. Lemon was still pitching then; in fact, he was such a good hitter that he batted in the top of the 10th and made the third out. Wertz had led off that inning with his fourth hit of the game, a double, before being lifted for pinch runner Rudy Regalado.

Cleveland never recovered from that and lost all four World Series games to a New York team that actually, despite winning a mere 97 games to beat Brooklyn by three games, was probably a little better overall team. Why? Mainly because they had Willie Mays who could, as scouts would often say, beat you every which way.

So Mays helped get this author interested in the game. I was a western Pennsylvania kid who rooted for the Pirates and Cleveland. I was a Dodgers fan from 1955 on and after I moved to L.A. in 1964 but like all folks who got to watch him or play with him or against him, I was a Willie Mays fan. His story is one of the ones that brighten our lives. Like so many of our athletic heroes, his story began in relative poverty. We think of professional athletes now as coddled millionaires but it has not always been such. I remember Chuck Tanner coming to our school when I was in fifth grade to take our class photographs. I remember Bill Skowron signing his photo for me at a super market opening in the off season. Many ball players had off season jobs in days of old. Many minor leaguers still do.

Willie Mays died after 93 say hey years and right before the game June 20th between the Giants and Cardinals at Rickwood Field in Birmingham Alabama. It was a great and overdue event to recognize and honor the old Negro Leagues but of course MLB and FOX TV choreographed a rather untidy whitewashing, shall we say, of the actual history. The only reason the Negro leagues existed was that the major league owners would not allow descendants of slaves to play for their teams no matter how well they could play. It was all mostly happy happy joy joy until Alex Rodriguez asked Reggie Jackson how it was playing for Birmingham in 1967.Jackson replied that he would not wish that experience on anyone and that he was lucky to have a manager and some team mates that helped him control his anger at being treated as a sub human or else he may have very well been lynched. Heartfelt honesty on FOX startled us all but I will forever be grateful for that moment.

Mays began his professional career playing for the Birmingham Black Barons at age 17. By 1951 he was National League Rookie of the Year and center fielder for the World Champion New York Giants. In 1973 I moved to San Francisco and the Giants had a great trio of outfielders but Willie Mays was not one of them. That season ended with Mays back in New York playing in a World Series for the Mets. Hard economic times was the given reason that Giants owner Horace Stoneham traded Willie away in ’72. He was 41 and a shadow of his former self but that was a very sad day. Like all of us he wanted to play forever but cold reality overtakes even the best of us.

It put me in mind of an old John Prine song a week before Willie’s passing when another hero of my youth died. That was Jerry West. And Daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County Down by the Green River where paradise lay I’m sorry my son but you’re too late in askin’ Mr. Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away

Death still shocks and alarms me. Death near like our dogs and friends and family, death far like two of the athletes that I no longer want to admit to idolizing, Willie Mays and Jerry West. It’s all subjective of course. When Roberto Clemente died I was 26 and I told myself that it would be good not to have to watch him age. Me first of course. But it would have been good to see him maintain his dignity like those two did and Henry Aaron as well. Perspective changes.

I think I tried not to have heroes because I wanted the hero to be me. Growing up in western Pennsylvania Jerry West could not be denied as a hero. Zeke from Cabin Creek was just admirable. He went from West Virginia to Los Angeles, which is where I wanted to go as soon as I could. I wore number 44 in my CYO league. I wasn’t good enough to even try out for the high school team but I loved basketball. By 1964 I lived near L.A., watching him as a Laker just will his team to victory. I saw West, Elgin Baylor, and Wilt Chamberlain in a pre-season game in Santa Barbara and by college days I shouldn’t have been in awe but damn. Mister Clutch. The unbeaten streak. Heartache after heartache versus the Celtics while epitomizing what hard work, humility, and determination could accomplish–or not. Just an unforgettable human being. My wife at the time worked at a department store in Huntington Beach in 1968 and he was there signing photos. She got one for me and I still have it. But I try not to have heroes.

The Goal Was Parity

~ latskojerry ~ Leave a comment

The most noticeable thing about the 2024 major league baseball season so far, other than the high number of broken bats and strained hamstrings, is the absence of many teams from the races for first place. Coming into this weekend, eight of the fifteen American League teams had winning records, but four of those were in the Central Division. There,the Cleveland Guardians held a five game lead over Kansas City. Both of those clubs are considered pleasant surprises by the National Committee of Baseball Know It Alls but, as the opthalmologists say, we will see. The fifth team in that division, the Chicago White Sox, are not in contention for anything other than 122 defeats at their current rate of play. In the A.L. West, the Costa Mesa Angels are in a race with Oakland for fifth place and Seattle is the only team that has won more than it has lost. Baltimore and the New York Yankees are the only teams above .500 in the East, and they are the two teams clearly superior to the rest of the league. In the National League, the Philadelphia Phillies, Atlanta Braves, and Los Angeles Dodgers are your three good teams out of fifteen –so far, I have to add, since we are only a bit more than a third of the way through the schedule. It is no doubt fun to be a follower of those successful franchises, but success in competitive sports associations (business) is dependent on, well, competition. When the people know who is going to win most of the time, the interest in each individual game sags to a dangerous low and not even television can adequately compensate.

Back in the days of Elvis, Ed Sullivan, and ubiquitous movies about World War II, the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers dominated the post season, which consisted of the World Series only unless there was a tie for a pennant. So all of us got to be familiar with Roy Campanella, Duke Snider, Gil Hodges, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, and Whitey Ford. Those were very good teams but the sad sack teams like the St. Louis Browns, Pittsburgh Pirates, and any team from Philadelphia were usually not really worthy opponents. Things began to change as the sixties appeared, and the lords of the diamonds made an admirable leap toward progress, otherwise known as parity. The amateur draft was instituted in 1965. Rick Monday was drafted by the Kansas City Athletics and the team with the worst record each season would get that first “draft pick” followed in order by each of the other teams in reverse order of the standings. The goal was to help the losers catch up to the winners and, to a certain extent, it helped. Before long, teams like Baltimore, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and, yes, even the expansion teams won pennants and World Series.

Years later, free agency came along and it was very good for the players as far as salaries and other conditions of employment. Expansion and subsequent widening of the post season participation helped the game become more popular and television contracts enriched all teams and increased the money available. At long last, we may have reached the point that, like most big businesses, MLB had so much cash at its disposal that some teams, like some corporations, had a whole lot more to spend on things like free agents than others. That may account for today’s disparity. Now is a good time, by the way, to tell all baseball commentators around North America that a “ton” equals 2,000 pounds, although Webster says that it can also mean a great quantity, but I would not use it a “ton” of the time.

OTHER MATTERS: May 26 marked the 65th anniversary of one of the weirdest baseball games ever. On that date in 1959, Harvey Haddix of the Pirates pitched 12 perfect innings against the Braves in Milwaukee. He lost the game in the 13th when Felix Mantilla reached on Pirate third baseman Don Hoak‘s throwing error. Eddie Mathews sacrifice bunted Mantilla to second base. Henry Aaron was then intentionally walked. Joe Adcock then delivered a home run except it wasn’t. Adcock passed Aaron between second and third base because Aaron stopped, thinking the ball had landed inside the fence. The umpire ruled Adcock out (correctly) and said the Braves won 2-0. Later, National league president Warren Giles ruled Adcock’s hit a double and the score therefore 1-0. Lew Burdette was the winning pitcher with a 13 inning 12 hitter (all singles). The question is, how many pitches did they throw? They were not counted. Haddix walked one (Aaron) and Burdette none.

More trivia:Who were the first Most Valuable Players to wear glasses at the time? Jim Konstanty of the 1950 Phillies in the National League and Dick Allen of the White Sox in the 1972 American League. You needed to know that, right?

Reduce Fun, Add Revenue, Then Play

~ latskojerry ~ Leave a comment

We might just be reaching the peak of the Era of Analytics, emphasis on the first two syllables of that word. Everyone has studied and learned the catechism: loopy, launch angle swings, pitchers throwing as hard as they can for as long as they can, buying Tommy John insurance, miles per hour obsession whether hitting or throwing, on base percentage et cetera ad infinitum.

Heretics are beginning to assemble, however. His Eminence Justin Verlander is a skeptic. We are not teaching pitchers to pitch the whole game anymore. That’s old school rubbish. Pitchers batting is way long ago now. Bunting might make a comeback, but I don’t think it is being taught anymore. Home runs are losing their luster as spectators yawn waiting for walks and strikeouts to be reduced. Runners are being stranded after reaching third base with fewer than two out. Things got better last season with the “speed up”, although pitchers aren’t getting much rest between pitches, batters, innings, or seasons. If your child can’t learn to hit balls over the fence or throw 100 mph, send him or her to med school to learn arm, shoulder, or elbow surgery. This is the 21st century, nimrod.

There are a couple of things I’ve noticed in the first quarter of the 2024 major league season that have me bothered a bit. Oh, I’ve noticed that the Philadelphia Phillies are kicking ass and taking names and also that Shohei Ohtani apparently does his own bookkeeping, but, no these are other, perhaps less significant things. One is, why do batters always have something in their back pockets now? What would Ted Williams say about that? I didn’t play anything close to professional baseball, but when I was trying to hit a pitch I needed to relax, feel comfortable and have some balance. I didn’t want a wallet or car keys or loose change upsetting the balance. Now nobody minds that. Maybe it’s part of the “speed up”, which has never affected between innings commercials. They don’t want a batter reaching base to have to wait for someone to bring them the oven mitt, even though it would be an opportunity to say that “…this oven mitt delivery and shin guard retrieval is brought to you by Door Dash.” More important than that, this marriage of MLB (and other pro sports too) with the gambling vampires is outlandish and dangerous and no one seems to care. There is now even ESPN Bet. We can see the odds not only of Kansas City overcoming a 12-1 deficit after six innings but also the over/under on how many Jack in the Box ads we’ll see by the seventh inning stretch. Genuinely disgusting.

The thing that is most bugging me though is another thing that has been spawned by the analytic bunch. Patrick Bailey has been one of the bright new talents to come along in baseball. He is a gamer, a smart player, and infinite fun behind the plate. The “smart” people, who are kind of like “smart” phones, “smart” doorbells, and “smart” vacuum cleaners, have convinced baseball management that having catchers creep closer to batters and catch on one knee is smart. The motivation is to “steal” strikes for the pitcher by “framing”. That is probably worth 2.346 runs per season so it’s “smart”. Patrick Bailey is just one of several catchers who have been drilled by 100 mph foul tips and served time on the concussion injury list more than once. I don’t have a degree in physics but it is becoming obvious that this tactic is too dangerous and needs be outlawed. Careers are in jeopardy. Ask Mike Matheny.

On a brighter note, congratulations to, besides the Phillies, the Atlanta Braves, the Chicago Cubs, the Milwaukee Brewers, Cleveland Guardians and the Kansas City Royals for giving their fans lots to cheer about so far. Dodgers fans have been busy with their GO FUND ME account raising money to get a “smart” calculator for their designated sitter.

Those Silly Millionaires

~ latskojerry ~ 1 Comment

Imagine what you could do with 4.5 million dollars. Perhaps some of you don’t have to imagine. If so, congratulations. You can probably afford season tickets. We may never learn the real story with the probably untouchable Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher/slugger. His interpreter said he had a problem and his buddy helped him out. I really wish that I had a second language. I keep going back in my mind to Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle.

In today’s world, gambling and sports are partners, simultaneously raking in the big bucks with little or no consternation. Not so long ago, their paths were separate. Betting made money for some, but the whole thing was mostly underground, illegal, and considered by many to be immoral. The Black Sox scandal of 1919 nearly destroyed the integrity of the game of baseball when Chicago White Sox players were paid by “gamblers” to throw the World Series to the obliging Cincinnati Reds. Professional boxing and horse racing were other “sports” often linked to “fixes”. From club owners’ point of view, people buying tickets to watch sporting events need reassurance that the outcomes are not prearranged.

1951 was the first season that Mays and Mantle played for the Giants and Yankees and New York City simultaneously claimed three of the best center fielders of all time. Duke Snider was already established in Brooklyn. They each eventually played in World Series and were elected to the Hall of Fame. They were all three extremely talented and relatively well paid. Plus, if you played in New York, it was easier to make a few extra bucks endorsing products enjoyed by baseball fans of the day such as tobacco, beer, shaving cream, and razor blades. They didn’t have the kind of paydays we see now. One hundred thousand dollars was a huge salary in those days, not tens of millions. However, for a quick study of the ravages of inflation, please note that $65,000 then was like $500,000 today.

Players not named Yogi Berra were not able to manage their money so well. It would be a couple of decades before free agency,player agents, and financial managers joined the game. Neither Mays nor Mantle was headed for the poorhouse after retirement but they needed work. After former Cleveland star Al Rosen left his job with the Yankees to become executive vice president at Bally’s casino in Atlantic City, he quickly offered Mays a ten year contract at $100,000 per year to become a Bally’s employee, essentially a casino greeter. Soon, another casino, Claridge, made the same offer to Mantle.

Commissioner Bowie Kuhn countered that the two stars could work for casinos if they wanted to but they could not be employed by any baseball team at the same time. That was how squeaky clean the sports world wanted to be or at least look to be as late as the 1970s. A later commissioner, Peter Ueberroth of Los Angeles Olympics fame, lifted the ban and, oh how far we have come since then. Some of us had reflexes of shock and dismay to the recent merger of sport and betting. Now, articles concerning ballplayers note their salaries and length of contract details as much if not more than their batting averages, earned run averages and other statistics. Now we see the odds on everything from winning a game, winning a pennant, or striking out as part of every telecast brought to us by Fan Dual and other venues for dropping cash. I’ve lately been watching a lot of European soccer matches and the advertising in the stadiums and even on the uniforms for betting outlets is widespread.

Millionaires abound, paid by billionaires in the world of professional sports. Is this a good thing? Young people in their twenties or early thirties have enough spare wealth to “help their friends” in million dollar debt. it’s worrisome.

Brave New World

~ latskojerry ~ Leave a comment

Now I really have to have faith in Bob Melvin. Blake Snell is a Giant. He will probably pitch for them this year. I have always hated watching him pitch. Of all the pitchers I have watched pitch,he gets top prize for looking as though the world was coming to an end while he worked and he seldom goes more than five innings. In my mind, that describes a reliever. But no, old school idiot, a reliever is a guy who goes all out for one inning. In many cases, if a reliever gets three guys out before three runs score, he gets a “save”. As we slip and slide through life, it’s important to remember that the meaning of many words changes over time.

Okay, everybody, tell your sons and daughters to get off their butts right now and start throwing. Take your time learning how to break those muscles and other body parts in to the grind of doing that. Tell them to put half of their early paychecks into a fund that will help them during rehab or perhaps when the contract isn’t guaranteed. There’s big money in goose eggs. But Bob Melvin managed Snell three seasons and together they almost got somewhere. So I guess I’m over my hissy fit about how MLB shafted the baseball fans of Oakland California, who were many and faithful. I’m back to raise Hell again. Maybe, when I wake up tomorrow, I will read about Rob Manfred retiring.

We’ll Miss Tito

~ latskojerry ~ 1 Comment

 

In 2024 major league baseball will have to proceed for the first time in a very long while without the on field presence of one of the best managers in its history. It’s a good thing that Bruce Bochy came out of retirement last season so that he could win another World Series because we are faced with the retirement of Terry Francona. We like Francona because, while he was very successful as a manager and as a player, he also has been a leader with about as positive an attitude as could be imagined and he is a good sport, something that seems to be in short supply these days.

In his eleven seasons managing Cleveland, his teams won 921 games and lost 757, a nifty .549 percentage. In 2016, they made the World Series and lost to Joe Maddon and his Chicago Cubs. Francona was manager of the year that season, as he was selected also in 2013 and 2022. His record over a 23 year managing career was 1950-1672 (.538). He had managed the Philadelphia Phillies from 1997 to 2000 and then, perhaps most memorably, the Boston Red Sox from 2004 to 2011. The Sox won it all in 2004 and 2007. There are countless ups and downs throughout any baseball season just like there are at your house, but Terry Francona was never one to look for scapegoats or make excuses. That’s why he had the support of his players and did well.

2004 was the most fun season for those of us who are fond of beating the Yankees. New York won the American league East division by three games over Boston and, after being shut out by Johan Santana and friends in the first game, won the next three division series games while Boston was sweeping Anaheim. The League Championship Series opened October 12 with the Yankees routing Curt Schilling and the Sox 10-7. New York’s Jon Lieber bested Pedro Martinez the next day, 3-1, and then it was off to Boston. Fenway Park was no help at all as the Yankees totally thrashed Boston, 19-8. Was it over? Not quite. The Red Sox won the next two at home, two more in the Bronx, and then four straight over Tony LaRussa, Albert Pujols and the St. Louis Cardinals to rid themselves of the Bambino Curse as World Champions. Terry Francona could have been governor of Massachusetts after that triumph but he had a better job.

From 1981 to 1990 Terry Francona was a pretty good outfielder for the Montreal Expos, the Cubs, the Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland and the Milwaukee Brewers. He was among the league leaders in batting average after 58 games in 1984 when he twisted a knee trying to avoid a John Tudor tag. He and his .346 average were finished for the season and Terry was never the same, losing much of his speed. He pitched one scoreless inning for the Brewers in that final ’90 season.

Terry was the son of John Patsy “Tito” Francona of New Brighton, Pennsylvania, who died February 13, 2018, and is frequently called Tito as well. Terry was born in April of 1959, which just happens to be the best year of his father’s major league career. Papa was born in Aliquippa, Pa. , not far from New Brighton. The elder Francona played for Cleveland in ’59 and, in 122 games, tore up the American League for a .363 batting average with 20 home runs. He stayed with Cleveland through 1964. He, like his son, played outfield, first base, and pinch hit a lot in the days before designated sitters. Both Franconas ended their careers playing for Milwaukee, father in the American League and son in the National. Another interesting fact for Tito the elder is that, before that big ’59 season, he was traded to Cleveland by Detroit in exchange for Larry Doby, who is famous for many important things such as winning a pennant in 1954 and earlier becoming the first black player in the American League.

Of the Rich, By the Rich, and For the Rich

~ latskojerry ~ Leave a comment

Old John was right. Major League Baseball is a business, not a game, not a sport. If any of us had any doubt of the truth of that statement, the signs have been numerous and obvious. Support your chosen team by spending hundreds of dollars on caps, shirts, and other “gear”.Disfigure the uniforms worn by the players with patches on the sleeves advertising businesses that have nothing to do with the game. Drive the prices of tickets and concessions up so high that only the well to do can afford to see games in person, and then make them pay even more to park their cars. Owners, executives, and players now make so much money that it is hard for them to relate to common folks. We all know the shameful practice of building stadiums with unearned shiploads of taxpayer dollars. The latest example is the sadistic treatment of the human beings in Oakland, California who happen to like baseball by, not only the hopelessly clueless billionaire who never worked a day in his life but owns the Oakland Athletics, but also the entire roster of other super rich major league baseball owners. It’s no wonder that gambling , which once threatened the viability of the game, is welcomed and fully endorsed by these blood sucking vermin: none of them apparently knows the difference between right and wrong.

John Fisher is the owner who is , with the blessing of his fellow vampires, moving the Athletics to Las Vegas, the same desert crime scene where the son of Al Davis moved the Oakland professional football team a while back. Why anyone would want to move a thriving business with a large following to a tiny sand trap that has been previewing global warming for us for years is a question that I really don’t think I want to know the answer to but I’m sure it’s not good.

If you think I’m annoyed, let me assure you that I am not the only one. Here is part of what Scott Ostler, the venerable sports writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote,” Oakland is no longer held captive by the worst owner in baseball, if not in all sports…Oakland is no longer exposed to the massive risk of entering into a partnership with a guy who has the business acumen of a pair of Gap blue jeans.”

Then there is Ann Killion, also of the S.F. Chronicle. “The owners waived their own chance at a massive relocation fee, accepted and parroted lies from Fisher and his minions, ignored the reality of the situation, all to protect one of their own. The most dysfunctional of their own. A man who has deliberately ruined his own franchise. Which sends a pretty clear message. The people who run baseball do not care about you, the fan…they care only about circling their gold-plated wagons and taking another sip of Macallan single malt while stuffing public tax money in their pockets”

Here are the names of players who not long ago played for the Oakland A’s but were visible among playoff teams this season: Marcus Semien,Matt Chapman , Matt Olson,Chris Bassitt,Sonny Gray, Max Muncy, and Sean Murphy. If you combine them with others who didn’t make the playoffs, you would have a pretty damn good team, wouldn’t you.? Fisher ditched it all for more free money. Welfare for billionaires, apparently the American way.

From now on, Baseball Anarchy will continue reporting on baseball, but not these schmucks.