There is no better story this year in baseball than the Texas Rangers. A bankrupt franchise sold to the highest bidder mid-season that made more strategic moves down the stretch than their well financed peers. Their recovering crack addicted All-Star outfielder led the majors in hitting. Their recovering coke addict manager guided the franchise to their first playoff series win beating the Yankees on their way to the World Series. Their ace pitcher was traded for the third time in two years at the deadline is undefeated in the playoffs for the last two years. Timmy Lincecum might think he is a bad boy blowing some weed while driving 80 in Washington. Brian Wilson might think he is an animal for growing a pirate beard. The Rangers are the real story. The Giants might take issue with that declaration but this is the Yard and they are the Giants.
The author behind the story that is the Rangers success can be traced to one man-Smokin' Nolan Ryan. Ryan is the embodiment of the old school toughness that has grinded the Rangers through the challenging baseball season. The 162 games are tough enough but having creditors and trustees haggling over the future, the Rangers season is all that more remarkable as is Nolan Ryan’s leadership. He is part owner and team president of this halfway house of baseball excellence. The face of the franchise took the team to a place no one saw them visiting.
Nolan knows all about magic in the bottle. In his 27 year career, Ryan pitched for all four of the baseball expansion franchises of the 1960’s-The Mets, Angels, Astros, and Rangers by way of DC. The only one of those teams that he did not lead to the playoffs was Texas. Ryan won his only World Series title as part of the 1969 Miracle Mets. He was later traded to the then California Angels for Jim Fregosi who would later return to manage him. The trade was largely ignored at the time as the Mets went on to win another title in 1973, But Nolan Ryan for Jim Fregosi? Really? It is amazing to think about it now considering Ryan’s legacy and the Met’s idiocy.
During the early 1970’s, Nolan Ryan was the biggest story in local baseball. The Dodgers were still finding their way after the retirements of Koufax and Drysdale. The Angels were hopping along under the shadow of the Gene Autry era. In 1973, Smoking Nolan won 21 games and pitched 26 complete games. In 1974, he won 22 games and pitched another 26 complete games. While you wrapping your head around 52 complete games over two seasons, factor that the entire Giant pitching staff had six complete games this year. Nolan threw four no-hitters and tied this Sandy Koufax record during his Angel days. He would break Koufax’s season strikeout record with 383 in 1973. As Koufax would joke,”He broke my strikeout record by one and exceeded my base on balls total by 91. I suspect half those guys swung rather than get hit.”
It was never pretty but Ryan was a battler much like his team. Ryan led the majors in strikeouts seven of the eight seasons he played in Anaheim. He also led the league in walks in six of those years. He is the only pitcher to walk 200 batters in a season and he did it twice. The Angels were terrible during those years making the playoffs only once as the tortured Cowboy tried to find the right pieces to surround a player who should have been the face of the franchise yet never was. Autry and Ryan were kindred warriors who would have fought to a championship if history and Buzzie Bavasi had allowed them to ride off into the sunset together.
Ryan was 26-27 in his last two years with the Angels and then General Manager Buzzie Bavasi let him go without even making an offer to keep him. Bavasi quipped to the LA times that he could replace Ryan with two 8-7 pitchers. He was sadly mistaken and declared letting Ryan go his biggest mistake as a baseball executive. Ryan went on to pitch another 14 seasons, strike out another more 2800 batters and pitch three more no-hitters. He had a Hall of Fame Career with the Angels and another one after he left to finish his life in Texas.
Ryan threw seven no-hitters as a major leaguer and an amazing 12 one-hitters. He only pitched four games in his career that he did not walk a batter. He is the only pitcher to strike out the side on nine pitches in both leagues. Nolan was elected into the Hall of Fame in 1991 and proudly wears a Rangers uniform even though his greatest statistics were with the Angels. The Angels are still waiting for their first HOF inductee. The Angels did elect Ryan to their team HOF and retired his #30. The Astros and Rangers have done the same making Ryan the only Major Leaguer to have his jersey retired by three teams.
In one of the final starts of his career on August 4, 1993, he hit Robin Ventura with an inside fastball. Ventura charged the mound with an unconcerned Ryan barely moving from the pitching rubber waiting for him. First of all, baseball players named Robin should not charge the mound under any circumstances. Ventura was 26 years old and he was racing to his destiny with the 46 year old Ryan. He just did not know it at the time. Nolan put a head hold on him and pummeled his face repeatedly before Pudge Rodriguez dragged him off the youngster. If it was in the Octagon, they would have stopped the fight. The video is still on You Tube and Ventura never quite lived up to his budding superstar billing after suffering that shellacking by the Smokin’one.
During the summer while the Rangers future was decided by the bankruptcy trustees, Ryan shepherded the franchise to the AL West Title. He took a chance on Josh Hamilton and recruited Vlad Guerrero to DH. He found starters CJ Wilson in his bullpen and Corby Lewis in Japan. Vlad Guerrero was not re-signed by the Angels and Nolan provided him exile in the Ranger batting order. He traded for Cliff Lee at the trading deadline.
The Yard loves this Ranger team. Not just because of the Giant vitriol gurgling in our esophagus because they are good and a great story. Josh Hamilton was tatted and out of baseball messed up on drugs by the time he was 22 years old. He is sober and a leading MVP candidate for Ryan’s red necks. Bengie Molina has the distinction of getting a World Series ring no matter who wins. He was the Giants starting catcher before he was shipped to Texas to make room for Buster Posey. He is the only starting catcher in major league history to face his team after being traded during the season. He is a difference maker as he showed during the Yankee series. His three run home run sunk the pinstripes. His post game comment of “It’s not a bad for a fat Mexican kid that everybody makes fun of when he runs,” was hilarious. Cliff Lee struggled to a 12-9 record and a 3.18 regular season but he is money in the playoffs. He is 7-0 with a 1.26 ERA the last two seasons in the playoffs. The Giants will see him twice. Manager Ron Washington apparently only snorted blow one time in his life and tested positive a few days later. He must have been really unlucky and Nolan stuck with him.
Nolan is guiding the ship from the land of Misfit Toys on their way to Oz.
Inside the lines: Shock story of the week was the Maria Sharapova and Sasha Vujacic gave her a $250,000 engagement ring. Not the ring, we just thought Sharapova had more sense. She seems like a classy broad and Sasha seems like a load.
Extra Innings: One of the Rangers creditors was NY Yankee Alex Rodriguez! The Rangers owe him $26 million in deferred compensation. A-Rod had to get out Texas and get to NY City because the Rangers were never going to win anything. Six years later, A-Rod has played in one World Series and the lowly Ranger knocked him out this year. Priceless!
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Trivial Pursuit
With the nation spiraling to horrifying depths with each passing news cycle, it is an unsettling ingest of this daily content. Trivial matters of undocumented household help and derogatory personal slurs make headline news. All of those issues might cause problems but we have bigger problems. We need bigger people to tackle them. The mid-term election has become a 6th grade note passing exercise and so far no one has to spend the lunch hour on the benches. They pester me during prime sports viewing with their negative rhetoric game.
Is Meg Whitman’s alleged undocumented housekeeper really an issue for local debate? We think Meg did not need to cut corners to find cheap hired help the way most of us do. This did not stop celebrated attorney Gloria Allred from grabbing the headlines for another tour of the muck she harvests. Ms. Allred apparently does have a law degree but we never hear about her exploits in the court room only at the press conference. The Yard would support deporting Allred rather than Whitman’s illegal. Others are outraged that Jerry Brown was covertly recorded calling Ms. Whitman a whore. If she wins the election, she will be called much worse in the next few years…deal. We do not condone either trivial news event we just wonder which stop the real issues got off the campaign bus.
Of greater concern was the performance of the Giants this year. The Yard has rained down unrelenting negative rhetoric on the Giants since our first kilobyte. There never had been a reason to look in the rear view mirror. The Yard had more legendary demons to vanquish with our words. It has looked like a scary horizon with that pitching staff in the playoffs and Yard karma coming home to roost.
The rivalry with the Giants is more important to San Francisco that it is to LA. My son, the telecom exec, crystallized the rivalry for me the other night. He lives in San Francisco and roots for their 49’ers and hates the Giants. The 49er’s are the only shining sports star in the history of San Francisco Sports albeit an ancient irrelevant 0-5 one at time of this musing. As he explained to me over a pitcher of margaritas in the Mission district, the Dodgers want to win championships. The San Francisco Giants want to beat the Dodgers. The venom at a Dodger-Giant game in San Francisco is on a magnitude ten times higher on the Scoville scale than at the Ravine. LA could be a better rival to the Giants but we have so many other rivals, in so many other sports during all of these championship runs. San Francisco only has the Giants versus the Dodgers as an arch rival in any sport.
The Yard is staring into the mouth of the demon with the Giants taking the Dodger’s annual spot in the NLCS against the Phillies. The Phillies are playing like the 1927Yankees right now so we can probably rest easy. Halladay does not need throw another no-hitter to win Game 1. With 2008 World Series MVP Cole Hamels as their #3 starter, the Phillies are looking to win their 2nd title in three years. The Giants are just happy to have gone farther than the Dodgers.
Brent Musburger stirred the pot this week when he stated to a group of journalism students at the University of Montana that the use of performance enhancing drug use by professional athletes might not be so terrible if done under a doctor’s supervision. The US Anti-Doping Federation reacted with venom that made them seem like they were maybe on steroids.
We applaud Musburger’s candor and support his view point. He was clear to point out that high school and college athletes should be restricted but pro athletes could take whatever enhancements that they chose to subject their bodies as long as they do so with understanding and guidance. If their testicles shrink, their head explodes, they have a coronary at 50 years old then they do so at their own educated risk. Viagra, Paxil, and Ambien permeate our society and our bed stand with five minute disclosures that go with the 45 second advertisement on TV. Hard working professionals in business are taking HGH and all the rest of their enablers under a doctor’s supervision today and all days. These aging Americans are taking drugs to enhance performance in work, life or in the bedroom. It is all a risk but if Barry wants to risk his manhood so he can hit 75 home runs, it is his choice not the media’s.
Baseball purists are all about the statistics and the history. Performance enhanced ballplayers have blown away many of the historic records. This has led to the asterisk club and exclusion from the Hall of Fame. Baseball statistics are always a product of an era. In the early years, baseball was game played in the day by white men east of Saint Louis. This is not our great grandfather’s baseball. Baseball fans want to see their heroes play longer in their careers, recover from injuries faster and bomb the rock out of the yard with their prodigious exploits. They are not purists, they are fans. The owners are about the fans not the purists.
Bud Selig rooted out the PED crisis that he helped create but he cannot figure out if instant replay is a good idea. Little League baseball decided that they needed instant replay for the Little League World Series but not Bud. He might have rooted out steroids but he has provided fans few reasons to root otherwise. His decision is for the purists who never want to see this dying sport change.
Pundits suggest it would slow an already slow game. Really? How much time does Lou Pinella take arguing a call that could be reviewed? How many games has Bobby Cox been ejected from a game after ten minutes of blood vessel popping frustration for a missed call? Most of the time he is right but the decision is never changed even when game changing. The game would be shortened without Lou or Bobby Cox waddling out to argue a call at second base.
Instant replay in baseball would be simpler than it is in football. Football has 22 players slamming into each other fighting to change possession of a ball and they get it right most of the time. Baseball plays would be far easier to review. There are plenty of football calls that are difficult to review from multiple angles. There has yet to be a replay in baseball that was unclear. Baseball would have a chance to get it right.
In Game 1 of the NLDS, SF Giant catcher Buster Posey was clearly out at second base on a botched hit and run play in a 0-0 game. He was called safe by the umpire. He eventually scored the only run in a 1-0 win for the Giants. If Posey is correctly called out, he does not score and it could have changed the entire game and maybe the series. Bruce Bochy does not let Tim Lincecum pitch a complete game if it is 0-0in the 7th with Tim of the Bong is coming to bat. Maybe, Lincecum gets yanked for a pinch hitter. Maybe Atlanta rallies in Bobby Cox’s final playoff series to win the first game on the road in the playoffs. Maybe Bobby does not get thrown out of Game 2 for arguing a call and telling the ump he missed the call last night as well. Our bias cannot be ignored and neither can the impact of this missed call.
“We will dominate them mentally and physically and then we will steal their girlfriends.” Steve Martin, Center for CSUN about their rivalry with Cal-State Hayward.
Is Meg Whitman’s alleged undocumented housekeeper really an issue for local debate? We think Meg did not need to cut corners to find cheap hired help the way most of us do. This did not stop celebrated attorney Gloria Allred from grabbing the headlines for another tour of the muck she harvests. Ms. Allred apparently does have a law degree but we never hear about her exploits in the court room only at the press conference. The Yard would support deporting Allred rather than Whitman’s illegal. Others are outraged that Jerry Brown was covertly recorded calling Ms. Whitman a whore. If she wins the election, she will be called much worse in the next few years…deal. We do not condone either trivial news event we just wonder which stop the real issues got off the campaign bus.
Of greater concern was the performance of the Giants this year. The Yard has rained down unrelenting negative rhetoric on the Giants since our first kilobyte. There never had been a reason to look in the rear view mirror. The Yard had more legendary demons to vanquish with our words. It has looked like a scary horizon with that pitching staff in the playoffs and Yard karma coming home to roost.
The rivalry with the Giants is more important to San Francisco that it is to LA. My son, the telecom exec, crystallized the rivalry for me the other night. He lives in San Francisco and roots for their 49’ers and hates the Giants. The 49er’s are the only shining sports star in the history of San Francisco Sports albeit an ancient irrelevant 0-5 one at time of this musing. As he explained to me over a pitcher of margaritas in the Mission district, the Dodgers want to win championships. The San Francisco Giants want to beat the Dodgers. The venom at a Dodger-Giant game in San Francisco is on a magnitude ten times higher on the Scoville scale than at the Ravine. LA could be a better rival to the Giants but we have so many other rivals, in so many other sports during all of these championship runs. San Francisco only has the Giants versus the Dodgers as an arch rival in any sport.
The Yard is staring into the mouth of the demon with the Giants taking the Dodger’s annual spot in the NLCS against the Phillies. The Phillies are playing like the 1927Yankees right now so we can probably rest easy. Halladay does not need throw another no-hitter to win Game 1. With 2008 World Series MVP Cole Hamels as their #3 starter, the Phillies are looking to win their 2nd title in three years. The Giants are just happy to have gone farther than the Dodgers.
Brent Musburger stirred the pot this week when he stated to a group of journalism students at the University of Montana that the use of performance enhancing drug use by professional athletes might not be so terrible if done under a doctor’s supervision. The US Anti-Doping Federation reacted with venom that made them seem like they were maybe on steroids.
We applaud Musburger’s candor and support his view point. He was clear to point out that high school and college athletes should be restricted but pro athletes could take whatever enhancements that they chose to subject their bodies as long as they do so with understanding and guidance. If their testicles shrink, their head explodes, they have a coronary at 50 years old then they do so at their own educated risk. Viagra, Paxil, and Ambien permeate our society and our bed stand with five minute disclosures that go with the 45 second advertisement on TV. Hard working professionals in business are taking HGH and all the rest of their enablers under a doctor’s supervision today and all days. These aging Americans are taking drugs to enhance performance in work, life or in the bedroom. It is all a risk but if Barry wants to risk his manhood so he can hit 75 home runs, it is his choice not the media’s.
Baseball purists are all about the statistics and the history. Performance enhanced ballplayers have blown away many of the historic records. This has led to the asterisk club and exclusion from the Hall of Fame. Baseball statistics are always a product of an era. In the early years, baseball was game played in the day by white men east of Saint Louis. This is not our great grandfather’s baseball. Baseball fans want to see their heroes play longer in their careers, recover from injuries faster and bomb the rock out of the yard with their prodigious exploits. They are not purists, they are fans. The owners are about the fans not the purists.
Bud Selig rooted out the PED crisis that he helped create but he cannot figure out if instant replay is a good idea. Little League baseball decided that they needed instant replay for the Little League World Series but not Bud. He might have rooted out steroids but he has provided fans few reasons to root otherwise. His decision is for the purists who never want to see this dying sport change.
Pundits suggest it would slow an already slow game. Really? How much time does Lou Pinella take arguing a call that could be reviewed? How many games has Bobby Cox been ejected from a game after ten minutes of blood vessel popping frustration for a missed call? Most of the time he is right but the decision is never changed even when game changing. The game would be shortened without Lou or Bobby Cox waddling out to argue a call at second base.
Instant replay in baseball would be simpler than it is in football. Football has 22 players slamming into each other fighting to change possession of a ball and they get it right most of the time. Baseball plays would be far easier to review. There are plenty of football calls that are difficult to review from multiple angles. There has yet to be a replay in baseball that was unclear. Baseball would have a chance to get it right.
In Game 1 of the NLDS, SF Giant catcher Buster Posey was clearly out at second base on a botched hit and run play in a 0-0 game. He was called safe by the umpire. He eventually scored the only run in a 1-0 win for the Giants. If Posey is correctly called out, he does not score and it could have changed the entire game and maybe the series. Bruce Bochy does not let Tim Lincecum pitch a complete game if it is 0-0in the 7th with Tim of the Bong is coming to bat. Maybe, Lincecum gets yanked for a pinch hitter. Maybe Atlanta rallies in Bobby Cox’s final playoff series to win the first game on the road in the playoffs. Maybe Bobby does not get thrown out of Game 2 for arguing a call and telling the ump he missed the call last night as well. Our bias cannot be ignored and neither can the impact of this missed call.
“We will dominate them mentally and physically and then we will steal their girlfriends.” Steve Martin, Center for CSUN about their rivalry with Cal-State Hayward.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
