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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 > 24 > Entry
From pole to pool to Korea
The team bus was parked at the curb and the marquee said, “New York Mets.”
It was 1984 and the bus company was contracted to haul every National League team from the Town & Country hotel in San Diego to old San Diego-Jack Murphy Stadium. So, the marquee, where city names appear on Greyhound buses, contained the names of all the teams.
Somebody pointed to the marquee, that this team was the Cincinnati Reds and not the New York Mets. Standing close by was pitcher Bob Owchinko, who pitched for six different major-league teams.
The driver dutifully began spinning the marquee to find “Cincinnati Reds” and all the names flew by - “Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Dodgers, Houston Astros, Atlanta Braves…”
Owchinko, hands on hips, watched the names fly by and said, “That looks like my career flashing before my eyes.”
Speaking of careers flashing in front of one’s eyes, how about one’s life?
Bench coach and interim manager Chris Speier is a health advocate to the nth degree. Early every afternoon, long before most players wander into the clubhouse, Speier is in the stadium running up and down grandstand steps.
On Saturday afternoon, he was doing his daily step-by-step-by-step routine behind home plate in Petco Park. Suddenly there was a loud clanging. It started in the upper deck and moved downward toward Speier, sounding as if a wrecking ball was dismantling the Eiffel Tower.
When the noise finally stopped, a voice from the upper deck shouted down to Speier, “You all right?”
Speier said yes because it didn’t land near him - fortunately. It was a large metal pole.
“Man, I win my first major-league game (sitting in for suspended Dusty Baker Friday) and have a chance to make it two in a row (he manages again tonight) and somebody tries to assassinate me,” said Speier.
How about this one?
Righthanded pitcher Justin Lehr is headed for Korea. The Reds sold his contract Friday to the Doosan Bears of the Korea Professional League.
Lehr, 30, was 4-2 with a 2.41 ERA in eight starts for the Class AAA Louisville Bats, walking only nine in 52 1/3 innings while striking out 34.
“Lehr had a clause in his contract that said if a Korean club approached him, we had to let him go and that’s exactly what happened,” said general manager Walt Jocketty. “We had an opportunity to match their offer but it wasn’t something we wanted to do.
“This is happening more and more,” Jockety added. “Some players use it as a stepping stone to Japan and it gives them an opportunity to make some money.”
It isn’t like Lehr was going to turn this franchise around, though. He is 30 and he has made only 66 relief appearances (no starts) in the majors, going 4-3 with a 5.31 earned run average.
In the minors, he is 63-48 in 297 appearances, 110 starts.
And speaking again of life-threatening and the old Town & Country Resort Hotel in San Diego, one day I was standing pool-side at the deep end. Pete Rose walked up behind me and nudged me into the pool.
After I scrambled out of the pool, spluttering bubbles, I said to Rose, “What if I couldn’t swim?”
Said Rose, “I wouldn’t have jumped in after you because I can’t swim.”
I think he was kidding.
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Comments
By Pete
May 27, 2008 4:38 AM | Link to this
Yea, I guess you’re right. They should have never put Freel in at the top of the 9th to knock Griffey in and make it 7-6 Reds. Look what happened, they were loosing okay without him. It just drug the game out almost six hours and we still lost. Freel should ask Baker for his crystal ball to depict these things in advance.It pushed his BA up to .325 and OBP to .370. Now we’ll never get rid of him. It made Patterson look even worse and we need him worse than Freel. Bad choice…..
By Y-City Jim
May 25, 2008 11:54 AM | Link to this
Freel is a bench player .
By Michael
May 25, 2008 10:04 AM | Link to this
Freel, IS, perhaps the best thing that has happened to this club since Joe Morgan, Pete Rose or Deion Sanders. He has made so many great plays and attempts that others have failed to recognize. It’s really hard to notice the unatainable misses from various angles. Being a score keeper myself, we only judge what is attainable and not attainable. The mere fact that the ball was stopped from readhing outfield, that might perhaps become an extra base hit would not warrant an “E”. I’m almost confident that there was more than one spectator, that has at one time or another, run a yellow warning signal to argue to the police officer they were safe, while he wrote them a ticket for running a red light?
By Michael
May 25, 2008 10:03 AM | Link to this
Freel, IS, perhaps the best thing that has happened to this club since Joe Morgan, Pete Rose or Deion Sanders. He has made so many great plays and attempts that others have failed to recognize. It’s really hard to notice the unatainable misses from various angles. Being a score keeper myself, we only judge what is attainable and not attainable. The mere fact that the ball was stopped from readhing outfield, that might perhaps become an extra base hit would not warrant an “E”. I’m almost confident that there was more than one spectator, that has at one time or another, run a yellow warning signal to argue to the police officer they were safe, while he wrote them a ticket for running a red light?
By Don L
May 25, 2008 2:58 AM | Link to this
Freel was brilliant again tonight playing 3rd. If it wasn’t for a homer scorekeeper he would have been charged with 2 more errors. They could have been added them to the log along with all the stupid base running miscues and bonehead things he does. You would think having spent 8-10 years in the minors some baseball smarts would have rubbed off on him.
By Max
May 25, 2008 12:10 AM | Link to this
No one will call up Lehr unless they happen to be paying international rates. Seriously, since this game really shouldn’t be that important to us, we should laugh at this story. I just wish some of the young kids could come up to Cincinnati. Someone needs to do something exciting for the fans. Perhaps an exhibition game against the Bears?
By Y-City Jim
May 24, 2008 9:36 PM | Link to this
Obviously we need Jocketty to do more than jettison 30-year-old pitchers that have no future. He could start by promoting Thompson to AAA. He could follow it by releasing Patterson.
By John
May 24, 2008 8:33 PM | Link to this
Wanna bet Rose can’t swim???
By Kyle
May 24, 2008 7:41 PM | Link to this
I don’t think this is what we meant when we were calling for Walt to do something. You either laugh or cry at this inane franchise. Since it’s just a game, and really shouldn’t be that important to any of us, we might as well laugh.
By Y-City Jim
May 24, 2008 7:16 PM | Link to this
Guess this will end the call up Lehr comments.