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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 > 31
Saturday, May 31, 2008
You can’t make this stuff up
Everybody keeps asking: “In your 36 years, you ever seen anything like this?”
No, never. Nothing close. No, zip, nada.
There has never been anything like this. Not in real life. You have The Natural and you have Joe Hardy in Damn Yankees.
But this? This? This is real life what Jay Bruce is doing. You can’t do this in your first week of major-league baseball when you just turned 21.
Some folks want to start calling him Batman. Well, not bad. After all, wasn’t Batman’s real name BRUCE Wayne.
For those of you with your nose into the NASCAR race or an NBA playoff game, well, even Jay Bruce topped himself Saturday.
The Kid not only topped himself, he topped Ken Griffey Jr., and that’s tough to do when Junior hit his 599th career home run. Bruce hit a game-winning walkoff home run in the 10th inning to give the Cincinnati Reds an 8-7 win over the Atlanta Braves.
Hey, I saw Ken Griffey Sr. (not Junior, Senior) begin his career with nine hits in his first 17 at-bats, but no walk-off home runs.
This is why we in the media harped and harped and harped to get Bruce pardoned out of Louisville, where he was exiled after spring training for committing no crimes and no sins.
Heck, seeing this, I’m saying the Reds should have called him LAST SEPTEMBER when they called up Joey Votto, but not Bruce.
Big, bad mistake. Just think what he could be doing now.
When the Reds finally called up Bruce last Tuesday, one of the front office people said to me, “Well, you’ve got Bruce up here, now what are you going to start demanding?”
Well, now that you ask, how soon can you get pitcher Daryl Thompson up here. Tomorrow will be just fine.
Votto, one of Bruce’s friends, sensed it all along.
“Take a look at his month of May and he might be the hottest hitter in all of baseball,” said Votto. “It’s unbelievable. I hope he keeps it going. That was a big swing. That’s about as good of a home run as it gets, especially in front of a big home crowd.”
Told that it was Bruce’s first-ever walkoff home run, Votto said, “Even better. Obviously it was meant for the big leagues.”
No, no. Bruce was meant for the big leagues - a long time ago, even if he just turned 21.
Are we overhyping this kid. Expecting too much.
Hey, his teammate, Javier Valentin, calls him, “Babe Bruce.”
And manager Dusty Baker has seen them come and seen them go and he is mystified and mesmerized like all the rest of us.
Love this quote from Dusty: “A lot of times hype is overhyped, but this hype is real.”What a remarkable story for Jay Bruce,” said Baker. “That’s probably one of the best stories I’ve ever seen. If he is living a dream, I’d like to get into that dream.”
Remember Joe Namath’s famous quote and his book title: I Can’t Wait For Tomorrow Because I Get Better-Looking Every Day?
Bruce would never, never say that. He’s like Opie of Mayberry, mostly gosh and gee-whiz.
But me? I can’t wait until tomorrow because Jay Bruce gets better every day.
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TweetJust call him Babe Bruce
Javier Valentin was seated in his new locker location, close to a hallway that leads to the field, when Jay Bruce walked by.
“There he goes, Babe Bruce,” said Valentin with a broad smile.
Hey, Javy. Good one.
Some folks want to dub Bruce “Batman.” Well, hey, wasn’t Batman’s real identity Bruce Wayne?
And why is Valentin occupying a different locker? He is now perched where Scott Hatteberg dressed before he was designated for assignment.
“Who else has been in this locker since Great American opened?” asked Valentin.
Let’s see: Barry Larkin, Joe Randa, Rich Aurilia, Jeff Conine, Hatteberg.
“And you know what they all had in common? Hits. Lots of hits,” said Valentin.
When it was pointed out that they all are gone, too, Valentin smiled and said, “Yeah, that too.”
Walked into Atlanta Braves manager Bobby Cox’s office this morning and he said, “Does Jay Bruce ever make a damn out?” Then he laughed.
“I see an energized team over there from the first time we played (a three-game Braves sweep in Atlanta in early-May). “Sometimes young kids can energize a team. Happens all the time.
“Bruce makes contact, looks like he can run, patrols center field pretty good,” said Cox. “With Joey Votto and Edinson Volquez this team is going in the right direction.”
So here we are awaiting the 3:55 start of this afternoon’s game and left fielder Adam Dunn dreads it. The sun peeks over the grandstand right into the left fielder’s eyes.
“It’s a great day, but I know Dunn doesn’t love it,” said manager Dusty Baker. “It’s a bad time, man. I can remember Ron Cey in the 1977 getting hit in the head by Goose Gossage, right around this time of day in the World Series.
“I was on deck when Cey got hit and they asked me if I was nervous,” said Baker. “Told ‘em, ‘Not at all because the changes of him hitting two of us back-to-back ain’t real good.
“On the west coast, almost every playoff and World Series game was played at 5 o’clock,” Baker added.”You couldn’t see. It’s a bad time, a time when there are a lot of car accidents. I used to be scared to death in left field in Yankee Stadium with the sun right above the roof.”
The phone rang is Dusty’s office and when the call was completed, he said, “That’s my old dentist from California. He’s originally from Fort Thomas, Ky., But he is in his 70’s and he is retired now. Man, he’s a trip. When there was full moon he would climb on his roof and play the accordian, wearing his bow tie. He’ll be at tonight’s game, but I don’t know if he’ll bring his accordian. If he does, you’ll hear him.”
Josh Fogg was Saturday’s starter for the Reds, hoping to bring his best stuff with him.
True story: The Reds had a big ol’ country boy pitcher in 1981 named Scott Brown, from DeQuincy, Louisiana. As Pete Rose used to say, “He could throw a baseball through a car wash and not get it wet.”
But he had no breaking ball at all. Didn’t even know what a curveball was. He saw one of the Reds pitchers throwing it one day. So he asked equipment manager Bernie Stowe how he should go about being able to throw that pitch.
“Go to a sporting goods store and ask them for a box of curve balls,” said Stowe. The guy did it. He honest-to-god did it. Amazingly, he made the team and pitched briefly and was doggone good - 1-0 in 10 appearances with one walk and seven strikeouts in 13 innings.
Then he disappeared. That was his major-league career. Perhaps he went on a scavenger hunt to find a box of curve balls.
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