That’s the old peppah, boy…

Click here to relive a great moment from childhood

Ballgame.

Dodgers Lead, 1 Game to None!

My nephew amazes me yet again and closes the game today–the World Series; and the Dodgers hung on to beat the A’s 7-6.  We were up 7-0 and looking good, but then we ran into pitch count issues and tried to leg it to our closer, Max for one inning only.  As it turns out, we had to use him for 2, but it ended up being the right call and we kept his count low enough that he can go two more innings in the series.

In the 6th inning, we had no margin for error yet again!  Just like the pennant clincher against the Mets.  The score was 7-6 and my little buddy had to hold the 3, 4 and 5 hitter and keep them off the board so we could get game 1.

He struck the first kid out on about 4 pitches.  We were, ahh, let’s just say, “changing speeds” a bit on him and Max was doing it to perfection.  His regular fastball is meat to these good hitters and you have to change speeds to keep them off balance.  He did.

Then up stepped a team mate of his from the travel team: The big stud.  The pitcher and cleanup hitter.  We had an approach with him where we would pitch backwards.  Start him off with the off speed pitch and then alternate so as never to throw him the same speed twice.  He fouled about 5 pitches into the top of the backstop.  Then, on a fastball (cutter Max told me later), he swung through it: 2 outs!  Bedlam on the sideline.  No one on.  Pitch count in tact.  2 dead.

The next hitter offered at the first ball and hit it down first for a 3-Unassisted putout and Game 1 of the series belonged to the Dodgers!  Everyone mobbed Max and then we had to do the handshake.  Amazing.  So, so amazing that an 8-year old is closing the big games and striking out the best kids in town who are a year and a half older!  I really can’t believe it.  And what makes it better is that really only two people at the game today knew just exactly precisely why those kids struck out.  I mean, really knew.  Max and I.

I over enlarged this one because I love the expression on his face.  Someone has just fouled one off and you read him correctly, he is scared.  He told me that after both the pennant clincher and the series game.  I told him that he handled the pressure very well and that it’s ok to be nervous but don’t let it get you to where you can’t do your job.  Use it and get mad, if anything.

The talk around town is that the Dodgers don’t have really any 4th graders and how the heck are they doing it?  And now there’s a buzz that Max struck out big Phil and people are starting to realize that we have something cool going on here.  One more to go.  Two to play.

It’s Important Literature!

Well, since I woke my kid up, I minazwell do a post. I just ordered these up on Amazon used books. One has a 2007 copyright so they are somewhat recent. Jeff Rice is the original author anyway. That book has two mini stories in there: The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler (my favorite). It’s very true to the movies but has a little more detail. I haven’t tried the other one but I’ll get to it. And there are more. My wife is laughing at my Kolchak obsession but I need the bedtime reads and at least it isn’t baseball this time.

Right now, I’m working on “Crazy -08″, the story of the 1908 season when the Cubs stole the pennant from the NY Giants and then never won again (curses anyone?). Sure, McGraw was a jerk and everyone wanted to pummel him, but so was Frank Chance and Johnny Evers. Peerless Leader, my a**.

In the book as the Cubs take the train to NY to play the playoff game (replay game, whatever), Frank Chance turns to someone and says, “…since when have the Cubs ever lost a game they had to have?” And I’m thinking, “ahh,…ever since”?

McGraw wore Mathewson out trying to avoid the play-off game and he only could manage a tie because Stan Coveleski’s brother beat them 4 times in a week or so with a bad Phillies team. Despite being a decent major league pitcher, Coveleski was driven from baseball by embarrassment. He couldn’t help his addiction to bologna. That’s right, he kept it in his pocket and HAD to have a baloney chaw going at all times. Someone found out about it and he was ashamed of being found out–so the players would pass him on the inning changeover and say, “…Hey Frank, you got a piece of that baloney?” And he would go to pieces. He ended up back in the coal mines while his brother became a Hall of Famer pitcher who was AFRAID of the coal mines. Stan Coveleski helped Tris Speaker’s 1920 Cleveland Woil Champeens and he was one of the grandfathered spitballers in 1920.

So the pitcher who destroyed the Giants in 1908 and let the Cubs’ evil plan work, was a guy who was run out of baseball for embarrassment over his baloney habit. Crazy ‘08.

Max’s Jacks

We had a great day yesterday.  My 8 year old nephew hit 2 homers in his 9U travel game.  Previously, he had never hit anything beyond a double.  He does make a lot of contact and has a great knowledge of the strike zone, so he’s done a lot of leading off.  He lead off as a 6 year old on the 7U team.

But this year, he was increasingly playing pepper with the second baseman.  He would offer at the ball middle-away and just tap it down the line.  I decided to move him up from a 29″ 18oz bat to a 31″ 18.5oz bat and it has done wonders.  He can get it around on pretty fast pitches so it is ok for him.  I know most are thinking, “…but isn’t bat-speed the most important thing?”  And it is.  That is true.  You HAVE to have adequate bat speed to be successful but that’s not the whole story.

The rest of the story is mass.  A baseball weighs 5 ounces.  Now when we were kids, the wooden bats were at best, “-3″.  That means 3 ounces lighter than their length in inches.  No more.  And that is typical of wood bats.  And that is why the hardball bat spec is “-3″.  But now with these exotic aluminum bats, the kids are walking up to the plate with bats as light as 14 ounces!  And if you take enough weight off the bat, eventually it doesn’t matter how fast the bat is because the baseball will be victorious in the collision of objects–and the ball won’t go very far, even though the kid squares it up with all that bat speed that everyone raves about.  In the big leagues, the bat is never so absurdly light for this concept to come into play, but with 8 and 9 year olds, it does matter.

There is another aspect to the thing that I suspect is working in our favor.  Now that the bat IS truly longer and a half ounce heavier, he has to put more energy into the swing.  He must be, by definition, LESS tenative and tenative was his problem on the tap-outs to second base.  So now he must plan a little ahead; swing a fraction earlier (be more decisive) and put more energy into the swing.  All those things, plus the added weight and length (which remember, increases the speed of the end of the bat because the radius is longer), make the balls jump off this bat compared to the old one.  And with lots of reps at the cages, he is timing the balls well and squaring them up off the sweet spot.

He can now reach the pitch, middle-out, and PULL it.  That was unheard of before with the other bat.  He also is killing high pitches, and I’m not sure where that came from.  Even if he’s offering at balls a little out of the top of the strike zone, at this point, I’ll trade the diminished plate discipline for the aggressive hacks.  It’s all trade-offs.

So this week during recreation baseball practice, after we had gone to the cages 2 nights this week, he starts KILLING the ball to the pull field in batting practice.  Enough to make all the other kids stop and ooh and ahh.  He loves it.  Now he is asking me if he hits them as far as the big freak kid on the team.  “Hmm, I don’t know, maybe after a few more trips to the cages you will be with him…close”.

Then in the Sunday travel team game he is stoked to play.  He’s openly talking of hitting a triple or a homer.  I tell him “…just get a good ball to hit and put a good swing on it…never worry about the outcome…those hits will come…”

His BP is ok.  Not stellar like the other day.  He gets up in the first and CUES the ball down to first, off the very end of the 2-inches longer bat!  No worries.  He will make the adjustment.  He is smart.  “You were in front of it Buddy.  You got it off the end”.  He doesn’t care.  He’s having fun.  Looking forward to the next at bat.

His next at bat is a rocket, down-hard and past the left fielder and rolling away.  As Max is rounding first I look to see where the ball is and I KNOW: “This is it.  He’s got a homer”.  I wave the kid from second home and then tell the third baseman that he has to get out of the way if there’s no play all while watching Max round 2nd and come towards me.  One more glance to Left Field and they are just getting the ball turned around and there is no question that I’m sending him.  Pointing at third with my right hand, I’m wheeling my left hand in circles and telling him, “You’re scoring, you’re scoring…touch third and go-go-go…”

He makes it in and is mobbed.  His first homer.  And wouldn’t you know it, BOTH sets of grandparents are in attendance.  That’s never happened before.  Whoever says things don’t happen for a reason is wrong.  He also pitched 2 innings and only let up 2 baserunners.

Later in the game, he hits another ball, almost identical.  Down hard and rolling forever and for the second time that day, I’m sending him home.  I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed waving that little boy around third.  He was excited.  His teammates crushed him the second time.  He talked about it all the way home and even the next day.  The bat, the kid, the ball: everything came together.

As an odd footnote, I had played my league softball game on that very same field that morning and even lead off the game with an unlikely (for me) homer myself.  There was some weird energy there that day.

***

Liverpool Chelsea at Anfield Tomorrow: Tue.  Here we go.

Babe Ruth In The Papers

Click here to open the story in the Washington Post in a new window. You may have to register a username and password but it is not a big deal.

This is the photo that is currently on the front page of the Washington Post’s Sunday Metro section:

Before I go any further, let me make sure that I take time to thank the staff at the Gaylord National Hotel inWashington, DC for their tremendous professionalism and attention to every detail. These people are the standard for their industry. I have, in all honesty, never seen such elan in my life. It was a real treat. With the hotel slated to open in a few days, you could ride on the energy of these folks as they readied their jewel of a hotel.

I would also like to thank Michael Hudson of Gaylord Hotels. He is a throwback to a more civil time in America and in business. He is a true gentleman and a visionary in his field. You don’t run into too many people like him and it was my good fortune to have done so. Thanks Michael, for everything.

This is a shot someone took for me with my camera during the installation.

The Babe Ruth statue is now permanently on display at the Gaylord National Hotel & Resort in Washington, DC at the new National Harbor area.

I went down there on Tuesday and stayed until Thursday and The Babe was installed and well received. The Washington Post came by and did a story on the hotel opening and included a fair amount of interest on the statue. I was not sure how much would run on the statue but I was pleased to have folks in Washington DC call and tell me the good news.

The full story of the statue and everything surrounding it is on the Birrerart.com website:

Click here to open the Birrerart.com website up in a new window

Other things that were noteworthy while I was down there was the fact that the Nationals has declared the sportsbar in the Gaylord as the official sportsbar of the team. Because of this, they had sent over the last home plate used at RFK stadium so it could be permanently installed at the entrance to the sportsbar. Here are a few shots of that and the Washington Post getting their story at the time:

That’s Michael Hudson, Director of Brands at Gaylord Hotels, with homeplate from RFK Stadium.

And here is the laying ceremony while the PR folks take photos.

***
The Gaylord National Hotel is so immense that it is difficult to photograph it all in one frame. The atrium that overlooks the Potomac River and Old Alexandria, Virginia, on the opposite bank, is 18 stories high. There is a village of little shops and fountains and trees and restaurants all inside the enclosure. It is so big that you mostly aren’t aware that you are inside.

Here is a view of the upper part of the atrium. These gaslights are 20 feet high. The scale is just hard to fathom.

On the 24th floor, there is a state of the art nightclub and one of the unique features is, believe it or not, the men’s room. Here are the fixtures and the view is outrageous. The Washington Monument can be seen while you are, well…ahem, you know. It’s just one of a myriad of details that make this hotel one of the most amazing in the world.

Addendum: Greatest Single Inning of Baseball

This was my comment to the last post (a masterwork if I do say so…haha).  A few thoughts that I forgot to put in or that occurred to me later in the shower, where all great ideas seem to occur.***** 

You know, they talk about Babe Ruth’s “Called Shot” all the time and that was more than likely a fluke that the writers blew out of proportion. Many accounts have Ruth only yelling at the pitcher or the bench and the rest is hooey.

Here, in the 8th Game of the 1912 World Series, you have the REAL called shot. Tris Speaker’s pop is allowed to fall foul because of Mathewson calling for Chief Myers to take it (or the Red Sox bench). After the play, Speaker yells out to Matty, “… you just called for the wrong man. That’s going to cost you this ballgame”

Speaker has the sheer audacity to tell the greatest pitcher of his generation that he’s going to beat him and hits a single the very next pitch! Amazing. And amazing that Mathewson has just popped him up, no less!

In such a pressure filled atmosphere, against such a great pitcher as Mathewson, I think Speaker’s prediction is more striking than the 1932 Called Shot at Wrigley Field by Babe Ruth.

And you know what? The audacity to yell like that is just the kind of confidence that you need to hit a baseball. It was detailed in Moneyball, where the author talked about the rockheadedness of Lenny Dykstra. “…who is that? Carlton? I’ll stick him…”

You can’t hit a baseball without sheer confidence that you will succeed.

***

Also, I understand that “visibility” plays a huge role in goat-horns.

Visible: Fred Snodgrass drops an easy fly ball in center–Sox rally to tie and win.
Invisible: Mathewson is calling for Chief Myers to take the pop when he or Merkle would have had it easy.

Visible: Ball gets by Buckner–through his legs and the Mets plate the go-ahead run: Pandemonium.
Invisible: Gedman and Stanley cross each other up and allow the tying run on a catchable passed ball.

Visible: Luis Gonzalez’ little flair plates the winning run in 2001: Verdict? “Lucky hit off Mariano”.
Invisible: Andy Pettite tipping all his stretch pitches in Game 6 and getting tatooed.
What people forget: Mariano threw a ball into center field that should have been routine.
People also forget: Brosius had a chance to turn 2 and only got one out–he held the ball.

So, your likelyhood of getting goat horns is directly tied to the fans’ (especially unknowledgeable ones) visibility of the play.

The Greatest Single Inning of Baseball

Just finished The Glory Of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter. Probably my 3rd reading in 20 years or so. I’m glad I hung on to it.

Dizzy and Paul at the Polo Grounds

I’ve spoken of him before, and even of this event re him, but I found a written account of the game that 93 year old Max claims to have gone to at the Polo Grounds.  Apparently the Yankees were out of town.  Max is a big Yankee fan and he lived at 165 and Grand Concourse in the Bronx.  Yankee Stadium is at 161st.  The Polo Grounds was right across the Harlem River in Manhattan at 155th Street and Max was such a fan that he’d go and see the National League doings there if the Yanks were away.  So that way, he didn’t miss Mel Ott, JoJo Moore, Bill Terry, Chick Hafey, The Waner Brothers, Lloyd and Paul and the Gashouse Gang. 

This series with the Deans pitching lights out is as the center of the Gashouse Gang legend in 1934, the year they won it all.  The Gashouse Gang was the St. Louis Cardinals, for those who don’t know.  They got their nickname somehow because of a comment that the American League champs wouldn’t play them “in a gashouse”, whatever that means.  “Gashouse” was some sort of Depression-era place or phrase and I have no idea what it means. 

The Gashouse Gang had the last 30 game winner in the National League in Dizzy Dean and his brother Paul Dean, who won 19.  The manager was Hall of Famer Frankie Frisch, “The Fordham Flash”, who had already played in a ton of World Series with McGraw’s Giants and the 1931 Cards. 

The shortstop was Hall of Famer (as manager–he couldn’t hit) Leo Durocher, who up until that time, was known for passing bad checks and stealing money from his drunken roomate, Babe Ruth, on the ‘28 Yankees. 

Third base was Pepper Martin, “The Wild Horse of the Osage”.  Martin, not only played third without a cup, he such a country boy, he played without even any underwear. 

Ripper Collins drove in a 100+ at first and Joe “Ducky” Medwick played the outfield and had to be removed from the 7th game of the World Series in Detroit, because his presence was inciting a riot.  Yup.  The commisshioner yanked him off the field to restore order.  The commisshioner was Landis and you should use a lower case “c” for Landis, because he doesn’t deserve a capital “c”.  He’s the racist bum who single handedly kept non-whites out of the big leagues for 27 years until Branch Rickey stepped up and signed Robinson.  Besides being a low-down nasty thing to do, it deprived us of seeing guys like Josh Gibson play against big league competition.  And Satchell Paige and Buck O’Neill and Judy Johnson and Double Duty Radcliff and on and on.  Every stadium’s tape measure homer story that didn’t involve Babe Ruth, involved Josh Gibson.

Anyway, Max was at this very historic game, for all of you seamhead geeks who like this stuff.  Apparently, it was the attendance record at the Polo Grounds. 

He’s just a man, and not a freak…

Nothing much new today. Seeing the oil refinery explosion and realizing that oil isn’t going to pull back below $90 anytime soon. My strategy is to wait for the next big pullback, hopefully into the mid 80’s and then, assuming that that pullback pulls down MRO Marathon Oil to a nice, sub-45 price, I load up on some Marathon Oil and am pretty certain I’ll see it at 60 sometime in the next 12 months. Remember though, I’m no Jim Kramer.

Also trying to figure out a way to see Liverpool-Inter tomorrow at 2:45pm here Eastern Standard Time or Daylight Time or whatever. Options now are to see if Fox Soccer Channel will air it and tape it while at work. The other option is to go to work at 5am and not take a lunch (mostly don’t anyway) and then ride down to the Bronx at 2:30 and go to Rory Dolan’s and watch it. That’s where I saw them win the European Cup in 2005. Which reminds me. I had thought to list my “top greatest sports thrills” list, for anyone who cares. Here goes:

And this is just me, ok?