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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 > June > 29
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Splitting hairs in Cleveland
Ever wonder where major league baseball players get their hair cut? It isn’t at a barber college or the neighborhood shop, that’s for sure.
When Pedro Borbon pitched for the Cincinnati Reds, he liked to cut hair. But he was so zany, so nutty, some players were afraid to let him get within 15 feet of them with a pair of scissors in his hand.
This is a guy who bit off heads of cicadas and locusts to win bets.
When Ramon Ortiz was with the team, he loved cutting hair so much he carried barber tools - razors, clippers, scissors. Players loved him to do it because he was always happy, always smiling and said, “If I wasn’t pitching in the majors, I’d be cutting hair.”
He’s probably cutting hair somewhere right now.
When he first came to the U.S. from the Dominican, Ortiz loved to eat red snapper, but couldn’t say it. He called it, “Red Napper,” so his winter league manager and former Reds manager Dave Miley nicknamed him, “The Red Napper.”
On Saturday in Cleveland, the Latin players brought a professional barber into the clubhouse and he was in the bathroom, reggae music cracking the commodes, cutting the hair of Edwin Encarnacion, Johnny Cueto and Edinson Volquez.
OK, so much for hair-splitting.
Speaking of hair, very long hair, Bronson Arroyo made himself palatable again for teams looking for pitching help. After giving up 10 runs and 11 hits in one inning in Toronto (You can’t try to do that bad and succeed, can you?), Arroyo held the Indians to two runs (one earned) and five hits over six innings in a 9-5 win.
The Reds won five of six from the Tribe this year and won some bogus piece of hardware called The Ohio Cup - a trophy competed for by two teams lolly-gagging in last place.
As cups goes, it isn’t the Ryder Cup, the Davis Cup, the Stanley Cup or even a coffee cup, but the Reds and Indians play along, although the players themselves laugh at it and crack jokes about it.
With five homers and 10 RBIs in the six games, Cincinnati’s Adam Dunn was voted Most Outstanding Player - but it wasn’t unanimous. One Cleveland-area writer, who must have covered the six games with a handkerchief over his face, voted for Cleveland’s Grady Sizemore.
OK, grab your resin bags when you read this one. Arroyo said he felt better and had better stuff when he gave up 10 runs and 11 hits in one inning in Toronto than he did Sunday. Is that a slap at the Tribe or what?
“After the first inning, pitching coach Dick Pole said, ‘Well, things must be turning for you because you hung two curveballs real bad,’” said Arroyo. “And I struck the guy out.”
In fact, after giving up a single to Grady Sizemore, Arroyo struck out the side in the first inning.
“One of those days where I got away with a lot of stuff,” said Arroyo. “I threw a lot more bad pitches today than I did in Toronto. I hung a lot of breaking balls, left a lot of balls up in the zone and they were popping them all up or fouling them off.
“That’s why this game is so strange,” he added. “Sometimes you feel great and hit your spots and you get killed. Some days you don’t and it works out for you.”
It was a rare all-around day for Dunn - two exception long running catches, a perfect peg to second to wipe out Casey Blake trying to stretch a single and a stadium-shaking home plate collision with Tribe catcher Kelly Shoppach.
“It was one of those fun games, lot of things happening, lot of fun,” said Dunn. “It seems like when you’re really involved, a lot of balls hit to you, it’s a lot of fun to run around out there and see what happens. It’s a lot better to get the blood flowing rather than sit on the bench as a DH and pinch-hit four or five times.”
Everybody is making a big hoo-ha out of the Reds putting together a winning road trip - 5-4 to New York, Toronto and Cleveland, calling it a difficult assignment. Was it really. Winning two of three in New York was neat, but both Toronto and Cleveland are in last place, so what’s the big kick?
And the Tribe is missing pitchers Jake Westbrook and Fausto Carmona, plus the Reds didn’t have to face Cliff Lee (11-1). Also missing and on the DL are first baseman/designated hitter Travis Hafner, catcher Victor Martinez and infielder Josh Barfield.
The Reds can count their blessings.
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