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Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy has retired from the Dayton Daily News after covering the Cincinnati Reds for 37 years. Hal's blog, though, will continue to be a must-read for Reds fans. He'll share his thoughts on the team this season and will file updates from Great American Ball Park. You also can catch Hal in print every Sunday in his popular Ask Hal columnHome > Blogs > The Real McCoy | Cincinnati Reds baseball news > Archives > 2008 > May > 22
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Mitch puts needle to Griff
OK, a bad loss to a bad team. Make that a bad loss to a bad team by a bad team.
San Diego, owner of the worst record in the majors and the lowest batting average in the NL, emasculated the Reds, 8-2, hitting four home runs and clipping 14 hits Thursday night.
It was uglier than Throw Mama From the Train. Even Aaron Harang was bad - five runs, 10 hits (two homers) in 5 1/3 innings.
So, this roaming band of rogues have lost 11 of their last 12 road games and now they are getting their behinds reddened by a real bad baseball team.
Time for something off the wall to soothe the pain.
Kevin Mitchell, a storied player with the New York Mets, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, Seattle Mariners, Cleveland Indians, Oakland A’s and the Cincinnati Reds, was in the Reds’ clubhouse before Thursday’s game.
Always one with the snarky tongue, Mitchell was sitting at Ken Griffey Jr.’s locker, the needle razor-sharp.
“You ever gonna get off 597?” said Mitchell. “I see they got you in right field, the old man’s position.”
“Naw, first base is the old man’s position,” said Griffey.
“You’ll be there soon,” said Mitchell, his gold tooth flashing under the clubhouse lights. He was hefting Griffey’s bat and said, “Man, why are you swinging a toothpick?”
Said Griffey with a smile, “I’ll tell you what I told Dave Parker when he got all over me: I got this far, didn’t I?”
Griffey then showed Mitchell how he got to 597, although it took him 90 at-bats to get from 597 to 598.
In the first inning Friday night against the Padres, Griffey crushed one that sounded like a Browning Automatic Rifle, “c-r-r-r-r-r-r-a-c-k-k-k-k.” Gone. No. 598 in the books.
It was his 200th as a member of the Reds and Randy Wolf became the 382nd pitcher to feel the sting of Griffey’s home run wand.
In the stands, Mitchell smiled. He once caught a fly ball barehanded with his back to the infield. He once punched Reds manager Davey Johnson when the two argued over Mitchell’s late arrival for a practice after the All-Star break.
Mitchell said his two best friends were, “Big, Fat Stinky Mike and Japanese Tony. Mike was so fat he took the front seat out of his Cadillac and drove it from the back seat.”
Mitchell once owned a club in suburban San Diego at which an old USA Network show called “Silk Stalkings” was taped. He built a house in San Diego that had a sliding board from his upstairs bedroom into a swimming pool. “I can’t slide anymore. I have to crawl,” he said.
While he seemed in constant trouble and turmoil, he was so good with the Reds media that one year they awarded him The Good Guy Award. When we gave him the trophy it brought tears to his eyes and he said, “I ain’t never won an award like this.”
When I saw him Thursday, one of the first things he said was, “You got me that award, sir. I really appreciated that.”
Before Griffey homered, he told Mitchell, “I’m just like Big Brown. I let ‘em all get out in front and then I sneak up on them and pull away. And by the way, Mitch, ANYBODY can catch a ball barehanded.”
Speaking of Big Brown, one of the nation’s prettiest horse tracks is Del Mar, not far from San Diego. Lou Piniella loves the sport of kings and the last year he managed the Reds he and I went to Del Mar on a Saturday afternoon.
You had to wear a sport coat in the clubhouse. I wore one, Lou didn’t. So they brought him an usher’s jacket - a blue blazer with an orange Del Mar logo on the pocket. So there was the manager of the Cincinnati Reds sitting at a table checking out his program in an usher’s blazer.
He hit three out of the first four races and it was time to go - Piniella needed to make out a lineup card for batting practice. But he was running hot with the ponies and wanted to stay. “One more, one more,” he said.
I nearly had to drag him out of Del Mar, and as we sped down the interstate toward the ball park I said to him, “We’re going to be late. Batting practice starts soon and they don’t even have a lineup.”
It was early September and Piniella wanted a contract extension from owner Marge Schott, but she wouldn’t talk to him during the season. So, at that moment, on the freeway, Piniella said, “To hell with them. I’m not coming back next year anyway.”
And that’s how I got the scoop that Piniella wasn’t returning for another season.
Oh, for the good ol’ days - back in the day …
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TweetTrains, planes and coyotes
It’s a boring three days in Los Angeles when the most exciting occurrences are spotting two coyotes crossing the road not far from downtown and a train ride to San Diego.
A lot of that has to do with watching three poorly played baseball games by the Cincinnati Reds (“To err is human, but to make bunches of errors is to lose”) and a losing argument with a couple of Dodger Dogs (Dodger Dogs 9, McCoy’s Stomach 0).
So after Game 3, the Reds’ ninth straight loss in Dodger Stadium, the cab was winding down Stadium Way To Elysian Park toward Sunset Blvd. when a coyote crossed the street, followed three seconds later by another bushy-tailed creature.
I looked for the Roadrunner but he must have been purchasing supplies at Acme so Wile E. couldn’t buy them.
What a pleasure riding a train. No security lines. Just walk on board. Plush, comfortable recliner seats with much more leg room than you get on First Class on an airplane.
No seat belts, you can get up and walk when you want to get up and walk, you can play your iPod and work on your computer from the time you board until the time you depart and no flight attendant interrupting your sleep with an announcement like, “In the unlikely event of …”
I’m aboard Amtrak’s Surfliner #768, seeing LA’s industrial side. The first thing one sees on the left side after leaving beautiful Union Station (how many times have we seen this place on TV and in movies?) is the Los Angeles River. It isn’t really a river. It is the world’s largest, longest drainage ditch - a concrete riverbed and the sides are covered with gang graffiti.
The train is a double-decker and I’m on the second floor. Juice, coffee, muffins and rolls are at the front of the Business Coach car, free for the taking. Cost from LA to San Diego (with Senior Citizen discount, something else the airlines don’t offer): $38.65. With the cost of gas, you can’t drive it that cheap.
The ride is unbelievably smooth - no clackety-clack, no bumps, no sudden dips from air pockets, just the occasional whistle as he come upon crossings and soft jazz music playing in the background.
There are a few stops, but they aren’t really stations - more like big bus stops with cover shelters. Fullerton, Anaheim Stadium (right at the edge of the baseball park, Santa Ana, Irvine (it’s raining and the conductor says to those deboarding, “Watch those raindrops, folks”).
I pull out my cellphone and call my friend, John Robison. Hey, yeah. You’re allowed to talk on cellphones while the train moves without fear of derailing the thing.
We pause briefly at San Juan Capistrano, not to look for swallows, but to let a northbound train whiz past. It’s the northbound Surfliner. But they fibbed. Two trains went by. Something called the MetroLink also held us up.
The woman across the aisle is reading The 6th Target by James Patterson. I love James Patterson. When I write a book, my chapters are going to be that short, too.
Nadine bought me a new laptop two Christmases ago to start my book. It’s still in the box, but I have a head full of stuff to write about. Just need to find time to get it in order and put it on - well, it used to be put it on paper. What do you put it on now?
Just below San Juan Capistrano, the Pacific Ocean comes into view for the first time - the train actually a few feet from the surf on the beach. A fabulous ride the rest of the way.
I sent my luggage ahead Wednesday night with the Reds, but forgot to keep my toiletries. So to hide my rat’s nest hair Thursday I had to buy a hat, and all I could find to wear on the train was a Dodger hat, thinking I’d check in at the hotel quickly and nobody would notice.
As I walked in the door the first person I saw was Dusty Baker, who looked at my head and said, “Oh, a Dodger hat?”
Well, at least they’ve won five in a row.
The Reds need to sweep four from San Diego to avoid their 19th losing road trip of the last 20 they’ve taken — and as bad as they played in LA, it’s possible because San Diego is crippled and has the fewest wins in the majors (17).
But four? Not likely.
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TweetCueto needs tough love
You’ve been worried about the wrong guy all along.
While we all wondered why Matt Belisle kept getting chances despite awful outings, it’s really Johnny Cueto who is the center of concern.
After Belisle pitched a good one Tuesday night in a losing cause, Cueto had his ears removed Wednesday night by the Dodgers.
It was a dreary five innings watching him labor. He needed 114 pitches to get through the fifth, giving up seven hits, four runs (two earned - one of those unearned runs scoring on his pickoff throw that landed in Pismo Beach), three walks, two strikeouts, one wild pitch.
Now he is 2-5 with an earned run average of 5.56 and the look in his eyes of a cornered coyote with the roadrunner sticking his tongue out at him.
Remember the kid who made his debut with a one-hitter and 10 strikeouts against one of the league’s best teams, the Arizona Diamondbacks?
There is not a shred of evidence that guy exists now. The 22-year-old Dominican has lost his way and Mario Soto isn’t around to help him. His body language says, “I’ve lost my way and I can’t find the right way.”
With Soto gone, maybe Dick Pole can get in his face the way he got into Matt Belisle’s face before Tuesday’s start.
Manager Dusty Baker insists that Belisle was not pitching for his rotation life Tuesday, that he already had Belisle listed for his next start.
That’s not how Belisle interpreted it, though, especially before Tuesday’s start when Pole stared him eye-to-eye and told him, “Step it up, pal. Right now.”
Belisle lost, but pitched as if his rotation life did depend on it — three runs seven hits, two walks, seven strikeouts over seven innings.
Pole smiled when asked if he put the fear of Abner Doubleday into Belisle and said, “That’s about right. That sums it up.”
Pole said Belisle thought he was going all-out during his starts, but it didn’t look that way to anybody else.
“I told him to pitch with a little bit of urgency, which he did Tuesday night,” Pole added. “The pitcher he is supposed to be is the pitcher he was Tuesday night. He has the stuff.
“He was aggressive and pounded the strike zone,” he said. “It looked to me in other starts as if he was trying to pace himself. He thought he was really getting after it and I told him to go look at video.”
The camera seldom lies.
“Just watching himself proved it,” Pole said. “Some guys feel like they’re getting after it but when they watch it they can see that they are really not.”
Baker saw it, too.
“A hungry man is a working man,” said Baker. “I’m very proud of him. He wants to keep that job. But I haven’t had him on a start-to-start basis.”
Cueto probably needs some of that tough love, too. If that doesn’t work, a dose of Louisville is probably dead ahead and there are plenty of candidates wearing Bats uniform ready to try their luck.
And for those counting, the Reds have lost nine straight in Dodger Stadium, last winning here in 2005. They’ve lost three straight in each of 2006, 2007 and 2008.
They boarded a pair of buses for the trip down I-5 to San Diego right after the game, with four games against the Padres dead ahead.
I’m taking the train Thursday morning. Can’t wait. Love the train. Don’t know how much fun it will be watching four games in Petco Park with two teams who can’t hit at the moment.
Petco? No dog food jokes, please.
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