I just love this picture
It's Pitchers-and-Catchers time in the old ball yard.
First things First!
This is THE YEAR!
GooooYoooouuuuuWhiiiiiiiiteeee Sooooxxx!
-Andy the Clown
The Houston Astros with bench coach Alex Cora, won the World Series 2017. The Boston Red Sox with manager Alex Cora won 2018. What an amazing 'leader of men'. It does help to have a live camera feed from the outfield to the dugout stealing the catchers signs so the batter has a heads up.
If nobody knows that, it does look good on the Yearly Performance Review. But if people do know the scheme was in place, you look like Bozo. Not exactly illegal in a criminal way, just plain weasal -like. Not starred on the new resume he needs to punch up.
As if Bill Veeck hired Andy the Clown to managed the White Sox. I wonder if he gave that consideration. Bill's first hire when he and his "partners" took ownership was Paul Richards, long time baseball man with a reputation of doing what was needed to win. While he managed the team, low tech, he used a guy with binoculars in center field and his assistant waving a handkerchief. The SouthSide Hitmen of 77-78 lead the league in homers in the largest field, by far, in the American League (440 center and 352 on the lines.) Long, loopy fly balls with a 'plink' off the bat, especially in the later innings. We cheered like mad.
Jack McDowell spilled the beans on Tony LaRussa using a light on the smaller scoreboard to signal the batter. Not much new under the sun, only getting higher tech.
Wavy Lines... Wavy Lines... Garth... Wavy Lines
In some crazy willy-nilly decision, Bubsy, Daniher, Frankie and I decided outside the usual left field lower deck grandstand location, where Old Willie McGee would buy all us beers from Sawtooth Darling, the vendor. Willie would pay from the 16 yr olds' money, one for himself. Only fittin'.
Whatever reason, on a sunny day in May, upper deck behind the plate,
in our youthful jerkiness, settled into our seats. I was filling in my score card and fooling with the little pencil, dropped it and while trying to find it in a tangle of legs, Tom Egan, a big, right handed hitting catcher, hit the ball out of the park. Right down the third base line, just past the pennant and over the roof. I was on my hands and knees looking for my pencil. People jumping up and down. I missed it. That's why I will always remember 352 ft down the line, those big yellow numbers at the top of the wall in my sight line.
Roger Broussard, the Sodfather of Comiskey Park, groundskeeper extraordinaire would have half the first base running lane in two feet of fine sand when Rickey Henderson came to town. Didn't matter, he'd be safe and two pitches later he's be on third, esp. w/ Carlton Fisk's pus arm. Henderson may be all-time best in my lifetime, I'll give that some consideration, he is from Oakland and I hold a grudge. Roger should write a book, an oral history of his secrets. Baseball Omerta keeps them sealed.
Didn't Alex's brother Joey play for the Sox? Maybe Joey picked up some tricks from the Masters and relayed it to his big time big league big brother manager brother.
A.J. Hinch, the manager of the 2018 Astros says he knew, but didn't stop it. Dweeb. It was hatched by Carlos Beltran, in the meantime named manager of the 2020 Mets. He is also creating a new resume to hawk, but in Espanol, as Carlos will go back to the old country and never be heard from again.
MLB fined the team's owner, who in great Old Texas Oil Man grumpiness called a press conference and told everyone to fuck off. Altuve was also there, the MVP for that year. I think they should cut his fingers off on a paper cutter at home plate on Opening Day. If I was a Muslim, that is.
Let's talk about those on the team definitively did not get advantage from the cheating - the Astros and Red Sox pitchers. Except for pitching with a lead, there is no Quo Quid Bono for their job BUT you are on a team. Not many secrets after 180 ball games or so, barnstorming the country. The coaches are also more culpable, as they have to have higher degree of integrity as their position shows.
MY RULING (I got this one, Commish): The World Series of 2017 and 2018 shall be vacated, declared un-won. All prize money, all endorsement, merchandising monies of the unofficial winners, namely the Houston Astros and Boston Red Sox, shall be allocated in a fair and agreed upon manner to the players and club of the officially declared 'undefeated' teams in all playoff games involving Houston and Boston through the World Series 2017 and 2018, respectively.
Although the Astros returned to the Series in 2019, they were defeated by the Nationals. Those opponent clubs and players in the Astros playoff rush shall fairly compensated by the Houston Astros baseball club.
SOLUTION: Bluetooth from pitcher to catcher to dugout.
and
A Big Finger Wave and Warning to Everyone in MLB
No, No, Never
******************************
This is the year, Walt
**********************
Pitchers and Catchers*
Opening Day*
REMEMBERING MARK FIDRYCH
MARCH 20, 2020 BY PAUL MIRENGOFF
For those who missed the Mark Fidrych experience, here’s some background. Fidrych debuted as a 21 year old rookie for the Detroit Tigers in 1976. He made the club with only a year and a half of experience in the minor leagues.
Inserted into the starting rotation in mid-May, Fidrych won nine of his first ten starts. His only loss was to Boston, 2-0. He completed all but one of these starts.
For the season, Fidrych went 19-9 with 2.34 ERA and 24 complete games (in 31 starts) for a bad team. He didn’t win the AL Cy Young award, the great Jim Palmer did. But from the time Fidrych entered the starting rotation until the end of the season, the Bird was as good as Palmer.
... After baseball, Fidrych returned to his home in Northborough, Massachusetts. He farmed, drove a truck, and did odd jobs. Once, when someone said to him “don’t I know you from somewhere?” Fidrych replied “I used to work at the Sunoco station at the corner.”
Fidrych died in 2009, at age 54, in an accident as he worked underneath a truck.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/03/remembering-mark-fidrych.php
************************************
Miss you, A.J.
Evan Gattis on Astros Cheating Scandal: ‘We F*cked Up’
"Everybody wants to be the best player in the f–king world, man…and we cheated that, for sure, and we obviously cheated baseball and cheated fans,” Gattis said. “Fans felt duped. I feel bad for fans.
“I’m not asking for sympathy or anything like that. If our punishment is being hated by everybody forever, just like whatever. I don’t know what should be done, but something had to f–king be done. I do agree with that, big-time. I do think it’s good for baseball that we’re cleaning it up…And I understand that it’s not f–king good enough to say sorry. I get it.”
An MLB investigation into the Astros sign-stealing scheme resulted in the suspensions of both the general manager and manager, in addition to the forfeiting of first and second round picks in 2020 and 2021, and a $5 million fine.
“We didn’t look at our moral compass and say this is right,” Gattis said. “It was almost like paranoia warfare or something. But what we did was wrong. Don’t get it twisted, it was wrong for the nature of competition, not even just baseball.”
********************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment