Welcome to the new rant area…

I’ve been putting off doing this for quite some time. It’s long overdue (thanks for the push, Johnny). Now you can post to your heart’s content right back at me and anyone else who’s out of line. Spread the word. The more the merrier.

I have been down with a flulike thing and haven’t had a chance to post on Gwynn/Ripken. It honestly irked me that Gywnn got a fraction less support than Ripken. Yes it did. I’m sooo sick of “the streak” and the over-the-top sendups on that. Don’t get me wrong, the streak is nice but it is a tad selfish, isn’t it? How many of those games later in the thing was he HURTING his team by not taking a blow? I know, I know, I get it but a streak like that is a pecurliarly selfish deal. Still, it is remarkable. Take away the streak and he probably makes it. An above average 21 year career with about 7 standout years mixed in with some pretty mundane years. He started out in the era of Bowa and Harrelson practically; where SS’s were skinny little guys who could pick it and hit you .240 with 3 HR’s all year. He ends up in the Jeter (genuflect) , Tejada, Rodriguez, Nomah era, when shortstop is loaded with power. His numbers looks phenom vs the Bowas of the world and pretty ho-hum later on in his career.

Here’s an anecdote about Ripken that you might not hear this week. Later in Ripken’s career, one of the Oriole managers ( I forget whom) pulled the catcher aside to question a pitch that was called the previous half inning. The catcher said to his manager matter-of-factly, “…Oh, I didn’t call that pitch. Cal called that pitch…”

Gwynn on the other hand, hit .338 over his CAREER! He won 8 National League batting titles. He is one of the nicest guys ever to play the game — a true gentleman. I heard Jack McKeon on XM saying that he signed Gwynn to 10 contracts and on almost every one of them, he could have gotten a lot more money–but there wasn’t a greedy bone in his body. Tony Gwynn is up there with the Williams and Sislers and Hornsbys. He should be celebrated.

Game Origins

Discussing Curling with Johnny the other night at Tom’s 40th and we were commenting that if people are bored enough, they can make just about anything into a game (and begin betting on it). I know my brothers and I invented a few great ones. One is a beer-pong derivative where instead of shooting for a cup of beer, there was a little angled piece of wood. The beauty of that was, if the guy hit your “beer”, you could slam the carom right back at his “beer”. We worked out some rules and games were to 7 and it was hilarious.

Johnny mentioned a game at a place he used to work where guys would throw a red spaldeen into a big trash barrel. That lead to discussions of betting on this stuff. He recalled seeing a guy lose a paycheck on one of these games! That reminded me of the time I worked with a guy in Accounting who had a gambling issue, let’s just say. We opened up a package and the packing material was big square styrofoam cubes. We quickly took a highlighter and made dice. Then, over the next 3 weeks, I lost 242 dollars playing dice with this clown. I have never seen such luck. Eventually, I just paid him and tossed the dice. I remember when one of the honchos came quietly around the corner and busted us, shooting the big styrofoam dice against a file cabinet. At first, we were scared at what this guy might do, but when he learned that I was down 200+ to Ray, he couldn’t believe it and he couldn’t stop laughing and nothing came of it.

Anyway, Curling struck Johnny as one of those “boredom” games. Guys standing around and then they start throwing big rocks on the ice at a stick or something. He’s probably right. I’ve no doubt that football, soccer, baseball, basketball, all started very humbly and just kept growing.

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