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2009 AMA Red carpet
Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy is in his 37th year of covering the Cincinnati Reds, the longest tenure for any active writer covering one team. Counting spring training and postseason games, McCoy has covered more than 7,000 major-league baseball games, written close to 18,000 baseball stories and eaten enough hot dogs to give Babe Ruth indigestion.Home > Blogs > The Real McCoy | Cincinnati Reds baseball news > Archives > 2008 > June
June 2008
Still some glory days left
OK, be honest. How many of you Griffey-haters and Griffey-baiters (I know you’re out there in droves) were mumbling something like: “He has to bunt, he has to bunt.”???
Sure you were.
Ninth inning. Reds down, 3-2. David Ross, who had doubled, was on second. Griffey, who took the day off and came into the game as part of a double-switch in the top of the ninth, came to the plate.
Yes, you have a normal guy bunt the tying run to third. Griffey, even at 38 and not close to the player he once was, still has a flare for the dramatics.
The surprising thing was that Pittsburgh manager John Russell didn’t walk him intentionally, but the rule of thumb (fractured or not) is you don’t intentionally put the tying/winning run on base, especially on the road.
So Russell had closer Matt Capps pitch to him. Second pitch. Bang. Game over. It ended a humorous day during which Reds manager Dusty Baker’s 9-year-old son, Darren, told Grifffey he wasn’t playing Monday because he can’t hit left-handers and because he is old.
Maybe Baker should instruct Darren to drop some insults on Ken Griffey Jr. every day, a few Rodney Dangerfields here and there.
If it produces what it did Monday in Great American Ball Park, a game-winning walk-off home run, then why not?
The Cincinnati Reds made it three wins in a row and climbed out of last place in the National League Central (by .001 percentage point) with a 4-3 decision over the Pittsburgh Pirates.
The igniter? Griffey. The ignitee? Little Baker, or as Griffey called him with a smile, “Half-Baked.”
Griffey didn’t start the game, getting a day of rest, but came in to right field in the top of the ninth as part of a double switch.
Before the game, Griffey kiddingly asked Darren why he wasn’t playing and Darren said, “Because you can’t hit left-handers.”
Griffey told him he hit 21 homers off left-handers in 1996 and Darren said, “It’s not 1996 and you’re old. About 50.”
After hitting his 10th homer this season and the 603rd of his career, Griffey said he is going to start calling Darren, “Baker-and-a-half.”
Before the game, Adam Dunn asked Griffey why he wasn’t playing and Griffey said, “GSP, a good, solid benching. I figure it worked out for you, so they’re just giving me a jump start.”
Griffey, though, made it clear he prefers to play nine innings and shake hands, not less than an inning and shake hands.
“I don’t like those (days off), but it’s OK. Well, no it’s not,” he said. “You want to be out there all the time. So you just try to contribute when you’re in there.”
Before that, it was familiar territory for starter Aaron Harang. He pitched seven innings and gave up three runs, but his so-called friends could only score two for him.
“Harang threw a pitch low-and-in for Adam Roche (who hit a home run) and he likes the ball low-and-in,” said Baker. “We wanted to get Aaron the victory, but we got the victory and we’ll get one for him next time.”
Pittsburgh scored first after a leadoff double in the second inning by Ryan Doumit and he scored on Adam LaRoche’s sacrifice fly.
The Reds tied it, 1-1, in the third on Jerry Hairston Jr.’s second home run, a drive into the left field seats.
LaRoche struck bigger and better in the sixth when he followed Xavier Nady’s double with his eighth home run, a blast over the right field wall to make it 3-2.
The Reds had the bases loaded with one out in the sixth, but scored only one. Jay Bruce’s grounder to first scored a run, but David Ross struck out, leaving the Reds in arrears, 3-2.
Putting the first two on base in an inning didn’t do the Reds much good, except raise the frustration level.
The first two reached in the first inning against starter Paul Maholm, but nothing came of it because Brandon Phillips popped up and Joey Votto grounded out.
The first two reached in the eighth against relief pitcher Damaso Marte, but Votto missed on two horrible bunt attempts and struck out, Edwin Encarnacion struck out and pinch-hitter Javier Valentin grounded out.
Then it was time for The Old Man Like LaRoche, he likes the ball low-and-in, too, and that’s where Capps put the fastball that Griffey dispatched with alacrity.
“You know what Bill Cosby said, ‘Kids say the darndest things,’ ” said Griffey. Wasn’t that Art Linkletter?
“That was a tremendous at-bat by Ross before the home run, falling behind 0-and-2 before working the count to 2-and-2 and then doubling. “We haven’t had one of these in a long time and I’m extremely happy for Junior,” said Baker (the father/manager, not the son).
“We left guys on in the first, the sixth and the eighth, but we won in the ninth and that’s all that matters,” Baker added.
And here are Griffey’s career game-winning walk-off home runs:
—Monday, Pittsburgh (Matt Capps), ninth inning.
—May 11, 2006, Washington (Joey Eischen), 11th inning.
—August 8, 2002, Los Angeles (Omar Daal), 13th inning.
—August 20, 2001, St. Louis (Andy Benes), 11th inning.
—August 24, 1998, New York Yankees (John Wetteland), ninth inning.
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Telling it as (like) it is
Out of the Mouths of Babes Department:
Ken Griffey Jr. was not in Monday’s lineup and he saw 9-year-old Darren Baker standing i n the clubhouse.
“Why am I not playing tonight, Darren?” asked Griffey.
“Because you can’t hit lefthanders,” said Darren, son of manager Dusty Baker. “And you’re old.”
“How old am I?”
“Fifty.”
“If I’m 50, how old does that make your daddy?”
Adam Dunn got in on it, too?
“You’re not playing tonight?” he said to Griffey.
“Good, solid benching,” said Griffey. “He figured it worked for you so he’s just giving me a jump start.”
“I didn’t get bench, I was a DH,” said Dunn.
“Same thing,” said Griffey.
And the real reason?
“Were the writers standing there when Darren asked Griffey?” said Baker. Told there were a few, Baker said, “Oh, man. Well, don’t ask kids, man.”
Addressing the issue directly, Baker said, “This guy is tough on lefties (Paul Maholm) and Dunn has hit him pretty good and Griffey hasn’t. Just trying to find a way to get some righthanders in the lineup and Griffey will be back in there tomorrow.
“The guy tomorrow (Zach Duke) has been tough on Dunn,” Baker added. “Like I said, I’ll be mixing and matching to have the best lineup in there for that day.”
Dusty must have been reading the numbers upside down: Griffey is hitting .278 (5-18) with a home run and five strikeouts against Maholm. Dunn is hitting .136 (3-22) with seven walks and nine strikeouts.
BY THE WAY, Pittsburgh manager John Russell batted his pitchers eighth in the order, making it three managers doing that, all in the NL Central. He joins Tony La Russa (St. Louis) and Ned Yost (Milwaukee).
Why? Don’t ask. It’s so much gibberish - same nonsense that comes out of La Russa’s mouth.
ADAM DUNN dumped a pile of bats on the floor and said, “That’s it. These are done. Batting practice only for these. I’m going back to ash.”
Dunn has been using maple but is tired of bats shattering in his hand. “I hit one right on the screws, right on the sweet spot, right on the barrel against C.C. Sabathia, and the bat was in pieces. Most bats late three weeks to two months, but not these. Back to ash.”
Dunn also said he was feeling some pain in his kidney after he was hit by a pitch Sunday. In fact, he was hit twice in a row by Cleveland pitcher Aaron Laffey. Before Dunn faced Laffey again, catcher Kelly Shoppach ran to the mound and said, “Please don’t hit him again. He’s bigger than both of us combined.”
“I wasn’t sore yesterday, but I am today,” said Dunn. “I know he didn’t do it on purpose, but I’m glad he was throwing 87 instead of 97.”
Griffey was uncarting packages of batting gloves and shoes sent to him by Nike.
“They finally got the batting gloves right,” he said. “They haven’t been paying attention. You’re at the bottom of their barrel when the Olympics roll around.”
As he unpacked the shoes, Javier Valentin said, “All-Star shoes, huh?” Griffey, who’d rather be in The Bahamas than at the All-Star game, is running second in the balloting, meaning he’ll start.
Can’t let this go without throwing Continental Airlines under the bus (can you throw an airplane under a bus?). I’ve nailed U.S. Airways, United and Delta, now it’s Continental’s turn.
Arrived at the Cleveland airport at 6 p.m. Sunday night for a 9:15 flight to Dayton. After dinner at Max & Erma’s (great burgers) I went to the gate and the plane was there - always a good sign.
But at 9 o’clock, came the dreaded announcement. “The plane is here, but the crew isn’t. The crew is on its way from Portland, Maine, and won’t be here until 10:01. Not 10, but 10:01. That’s when we were supposed to land in Dayton.
We boarded at 10:30. We blasted down the runway. We were just about to take off. The pilot applied the brakes. I white-knuckled the arm rests. The pilot got it stopped and mumbled something about a light glowing on the control panel. “And by the way we have to sit here for 15 minutes because now the brakes are hot.”
Got home past midnight, a couple of hours late. And changed my underwear.
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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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Cueto: One for the road
Bob Feller walked up to me in the press box, stuck out his hand, and said, “What d’ya say, young fella?”
Talk about making an old guy feel good. Young fella? Usually people come up to me and say, “I’ve been reading you since I was a kid (and they’d be 50 years old),” or they say, “My grandad read you.”
So here was MY big chance and I took it. “Well, Mr. Feller, when I was a kid my dad took me to Cleveland Stadium to watch you pitch.”
True, too. Feller is 90 and doesn’t look a day over 89. I hope I look as good as he does when I’m…ah, forget that.
Another true story. Growing up in Akron, I always read baseball writer Jim Schlemmer of the Akron Beacon Journal. He’s the reason I’m in this business.
Well, one time when Feller was pitching, he got hit by a line drive in an, uh, sensitive area of his anatomy. So in the Akron Beacon Journal the next day, Schlemmer wrote, “Feller got hit where only a feller can get hit.”
You think Feller could help The Lost Soul in Louisville - Homer Bailey? Somebody needs to help him - and fast. In his outing at Louisville Friday, Bailey pitched only 4 1/3 innings because he threw 110 pitches - in 4 1/3 innings!!!
He gave up five runs, eight hits, walked three and struck out five. And lost. He is 4-6 with a 4.41 ERA and it wouldn’t be surprising if we never see H.B. in a Reds uniform again. He’s trade bait, if his value hasn’t decreased to zippo.
Remember Ryan Freel? Somebody asked about him a few days ago. We’d all pretty much forgotten about him since he went on the DL June 4 with an injured right hamstring.
Well, he’s not close to coming back. Manager Dusty Baker said he gets medical updates every day and the only thing it says about Freel is that he is still a long way away from coming back.
A national columnist recently wrote that two or three teams are interested in Freel (with a bad hamstring)? If that’s true, the Reds wouldn’t ask for much to dump a contract that will cost them $4 million next year.
OK, OK. I agree. Why does Corey Patterson EVER play? He was in Saturday’s lineup and came up with the bases loaded and one out in his first two at-bats. He stranded all six. the first time he struck out into a double play.
Fortunately for the Reds, the second time Paul Bako picked up Patterson by pushing a three-run double to left field.
IN BETWEEN innings, they showed celebrity birthdays on the scoreboard, complete with pictures. When they showed former Denver QB John Elway, the crowd booed. Why? Well, there isn’t a Cleveland Browns fan who doesn’t remember The Drive. I was there. I booed then and I booed tonight.
I REFUSE to mention The Ohio Cup. Oops, just did.
MISSING FROM the Indians roster due to injuries: Starting pitchers Jake Westbook and Fausto Carmona, catcher Victor Martinez, 1B/DH Travis Hafner, infield Josh Barfield.
Missing from the Reds roster due to injuries: Nobody of significance.
So the Reds should be pounding this team, right?
THE CLEVELAND hot dog race. Bogus, bogus, bogus. A very bad rip-off of the Milwaukee hot dog-sausage race. Cleveland should have a bowling pin race.
WHAT’S WITH Johnny Cueto’s home-road differential? Before Saturday, Cueto was 4-3 with a 4.11 ERA at Great American Ball Park and 1-5 with a 6.49 ERA in enemy territory.
On Saturday, he was spotting his fastball, throwing it hard inside. He even hit a couple of Tribesman while on his way to 6 1/3 shutout innings as the Reds beat the Tribe, 5-0.
Cueto gave up no runs, five hits, walked three and hit two - what they call in the business as effectively wild - or, if you dig in, you better hang loose.
He worked out of a bases-loaded jam in the second and two-on and one out mess in the fourth.
For some good quotes about his outing by him, manager Dusty Baker and shortstop Jerry Hairston Jr., check daytondailynews.com/sports or daytondailynews.com/reds. Check out Ask Hal, too.
So the Reds are 4-4 on this sojourn through New York, Toronto and Cleveland, with one game remaining on the trip. If they win Sunday, they’ll go home with only their second winning road trip of their last 22.
Hey, everybody has to have some goal, no matter how menial, right?
THIS ISN’T one that’s going to frighten the bejeezus out of the Chicago Cubs, but general manager Walt Jocketty admitted, “We’re short of bodies at Louisville.” So he signed 32-year-old journeyman Rob Mackowiak to a minor-league contract. He took batting practice in Toledo with the Class AAA Bats Saturday.
He started the season with Washington and hit .132 in 58 bats before they took away his uniform.
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Hiding from the elements
Sitting in the press box at 3 o’clock, four hours before game time, looking at the overcast skies. Rain predicted. Might be best for the Cincinnati Reds these days. Rain, rain and lots more rain.
Lightning is dancing around the skies and somebody said, “Just get yourself a one-iron golf club and hold it over your head. Not even God can hit a one-iron.”
Before batting practice could begin, they pulled a tarp over the field and Reds pitcher David Weathers headed for the clubhouse, telling people who asked if it is raining, “I don’t know, but they’re gathering animals in pairs.”
Staring at the scoreboard in Progressive and they’re testing the bulbs color by color - red, blue, white, black, green. How many bulbs? 3 million. I didn’t count ‘em, somebody told me.
A young man who works for the Indians is telling somebody that Shoeless Joe Jackson is his all-time favorite player because the man’s grandfather used to read Shoeless Joe’s mail to him because Jackson could neither read nor write.
You can’t make this good stuff up.
Dusty Baker said something interesting after Friday’s 6-0 loss to the Indians. Unsolicited. For the first time, somebody with the Reds brought up Josh Hamilton’s name.
The question was about the offense, the lack thereof. Hamilton’s name wasn’t mentioned. Said Baker, “We lost a big bat out of the middle of our lineup, traded it to Texas. But we did obtain (pitcher) Edinson Volquez. But Josh Hamilton was a big bat in the middle of our order.”
From that, Baker went to his familiar and all-true refrain: “We strike out too much. Way too much. We have to do better. Much better.” C.C. Sabathia struck out 11 Reds.
At the halfway point to the season, not one Reds hitter is on pace for 100 RBIs, but six are on pace for more than 100 strikeouts (Adam Dunn, Joey Votto, Brandon Phillips, Paul Bako, Ken Griffey Jr., Edwin Encarnacion).
The Reds have struck out 564 times, which isn’t the worst in the NL, but the guys who are whiffing the most are the guys who are supposed to be driving in the runs.
Speaking of Sabathia, he hit a 440-foot home run when the Indians played in Dodger Stadium and the pitcher had to bat. Whose bat did he use? Adam Dunn’s.
When the Tribe was in Cincinnati in late May, Sabathia borrowed some bats from Dunn and used one for his home run.
“I’m going over there and get it back,” said Dunn. “I used to work out with C.C. and he is a very good athlete. I’ve played basketball with him and thrown passes to him in football. Don’t let how big he is fool you. He’s a good athlete.”
So who’s bigger? C.C. or Adam? Dunn is 6-7, 275 pounds. C.C. is 6-7, 290. Whatever, the scales are yelling no mas, no mas after those two step on them back-to-back.
Said Dunn, “I gave him two bats. Obviously the wrong one. I’m going over there and get it back.” Now there is a wrestling match I’d pay to see.
Before Friday’s game, manager Dusty Baker spotted Daryl Thompson on the street, carrying a McDonald’s bag.
“Son, c’mere,” said Baker. “What kind of car do you drive?”
Thompson told Baker he drove a Lincoln Navigator and Baker said, “Do you put cheap leaded fuel in it or do you put supreme high-test? You put the cheap stuff in it and it’s going to start sputtering. Same with your body. You’re gonna run out of fuel late in the game eating that stuff.”
It was suggested that Thompson might be used to minor-league meal money, which barely pays for a couple of Big Macs. Said Baker, “I’ve seen a lot of Latin players their first year lose weight. I ask them about it and they told me they send most of their meal money home to their families.
“I always told them to take care of their bodies and eat right and soon they’ll be making a lot more money to send home to their families.”
Baker, turning philosophical, as he often does, shook his head and said, “Tomorrow is a tough sell when you’re young.”
Hey, man, it is even tougher when you’re old.
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Does Cleveland really rock?
It’s still The Jake to me. Jacobs Field. What’s this Progressive Field stuff? I mean, The Prog? C’mon, Cleveland..
It’s like when they changed Riverfront Stadium to Cinergy Field. T’was always Riverfront to me. Cinergy Field sounded like a science experiment.
JOEY VOTTO is thrilled to be out of Toronto, even if it is his hometown.
“You have no idea,” he said Friday in Cleveland. “It was just too much at one time for a young player like me - the media attention. It was nice to see my family and friends, but it was too much.”
Votto went in to Toronto on a seven-game hitting streak and was 14 for 28 (.500). During the three games in Rogers Centre he was 1 for 11 with five strikeouts, two walks and a lonely double.
ADAM DUNN, for some strange reason, was a villain in Toronto. Even though it was Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi who ripped Dunn on a radio show, it was Dunn who was booed heavily by the fans.
“I didn’t mind it,” he said with a laugh. “It’s kinda nice to be booed on the road.”
THERE IS a video game in the Jacobs Field - OK, Progressive Field - visitor’s clubhouse, a hunting game called Big Buck Hunter. Deer dance across a screen while the game-player holds a mock rifle and pumps away at the images.
“This is as close as I get to hunting,” said Aaron Harang, pumping away on the plastic gun. “I haven’t hit many deer, but I smoked a wolf.”
THE TEAM hotel is only five blocks from Jacobs/Progressive, but Daryl Thompson, also known as D-Train, took no chances. Even though he didn’t have to take a subway and risk getting lost like he did for his debut in New York, he left the hotel at 2 o’clock for the walk to the stadium.
No big deal. If he went the wrong way, Lake Erie would have stopped him within two blocks.
DAVID WEATHERS has an 8-year-old son, Ryan, who makes a lot of the trips. The kid is unbelievable with the bat and snags fly balls like a major-leaguer. Ahem, better than some. There he was Friday, in a miniature Reds uniform with ‘Weathers, 25’ on the back, in the outfield shagging fly balls early Friday.
One problem. It was the Cleveland Indians taking extra batting practice.
KEN GRIFFEY JR. was looking at Friday’s lineup card when trainer Mark Mann walked by and said, “Vacation’s over, Griff. Back in the field.”
Said Griffey, twisting his head, “I think my neck hurts.”
Actually, Griffey told manager Dusty Baker he doesn’t like DHing, which he did the first six games of this trip. So Baker had him back in right field Friday and he’ll play there Saturday, too, while Adam Dunn is the designated hitter.
WITH THE NBA draft in progress, Baker was thinking basketball.
“We want to get back to .500 by the All-Star break,” he said. “Most teams see that vacation coming and are thinking about that. We have to keep pushing hard right to the last game - sort of like hitting a couple of three-pointers just before the half to get back into a game.
“Then a lot of teams come back from the break thinking they are still on vacation and ease back into it,” he said. “We have to jump on ‘em hard right from the start.”
Nice plan. Let’s see about the execution.
The Cincinnati-Cleveland series supposedly is for The Ohio Cup. In reality, with both teams in last place, it is to determine the second-worst team in Ohio.
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No voltage for Volquez
Funny how players - and coaches - can be extremely superstitious.
Cincinnati Reds first base coach Billy Hatcher walked out of the dugout before batting practice in Rogers Centre Thursday with bullpen coach Juan Lopez.
He and Lopez were about to play catch, but Hatcher stopped him and said, “Let’s go over here behind first base by the stands. We played catch there yesterday and we won.”
Yep, that was the reason.
Well, then what happened Thursday night. The Blue Jays unraveled the Edinson Volquez mystery in a 7-1 rip job during which they nailed him for seven runs (five earned), six hits, three walks and a hit batsman.
Toronto hitting coach Gene Tenace is from Portsmouth, Oh., and etched his name into Cincinnati Reds history as a villain more evil than The Penquin. Playing the the Oakland A’s in 1972, he hit home runs in his first two at-bats in Game One and hit .348 with four homers in Oakland’s seven-game victory.
On Thursday he leaned against a batting cage, his hair gray but his memory sharp. Long-time Reds scout Gene Bennett is from close to Portsmouth, too, and still works for the Reds.
“You see Gene Bennett, you tell him I said hello,” said Tenance. “And tell him he is still 1 for 4. He had four major-league players in the Portsmouth area and he only signed one. The one was pretty good, Don Gullett. And I can understand him not signing me, but how could he not sign Al Oliver and Larry Hisle?”
It was 37 years ago, but Tenace hasn’t forgotten how he made the Reds pay for not considering him a major-league prospect.
Guess who else is from that area? Yeah, Brandon Webb. To Bennett’s credit, he wanted the Reds to draft Webb, but they didn’t.
So Volquez is now 10-3. After the game, the Reds busily filled out customs forms, copying names and numbers from their passports and asking each other questions like, “What number do I put in here? What’s our flight number? What can we carry across the border.”
Leave the bats, guys. They’re useless.
It is so easy to say, “Well, the Cincinnati Reds couldn’t hit a bat boy these days.”
Easy? And correct. A few years ago, Toronto pitcher Jesse Litsch was a bat boy for the Tampa Bay Rays, so it should have been embarrassing that the Reds couldn’t beat him all over the Rogers Centre artificial turf.
In reality, Litsch is pretty good — 8-4 with a 3.82 earned run average after holding the Reds to one run and three hits over eight innings.
The guy who had assault and battery perpetrated upon his person was Cincinnati’s Edinson Volquez, 10-2 with a 1.71 ERA when he arose for breakfast Thursday.
The Blue Jays were unimpressed with his credentials and pounded him for seven runs (five earned) over 4 1/3 innings en route to a 7-1 victory, taking two of three from the Reds, also known as The Unhappy Wanderers.
The last-place Blue Jays jumped on Volquez early, a two-run home run in the second by Scott Rolen after Volquez issued a walk.
They scored three in the third with only one hit because Volquez hit a batter, walked two and made a throwing error. That made two of the three runs that inning unearned, but Volquez put himself in jeopardy with a high throw to second base that should have been a double play but retired nobody.
Toronto completed the thumping with two more in the fifth with three doubles and Volquez’s ERA sprouted from 1.71 to 2.08.
Volquez knew before he left the bullpen after his pre-game warm-up that it would be a day of doom.
“Bad day, bad night,” he said. “I knew this would happen some day. I threw too many strikes in the bullpen. I don’t like that. I even told Dick Pole (pitching coach) that I don’t like that. Same as when I was in the minors — any time I threw too many strikes warming up, that didn’t work for me in the game.”
And the mound was not a comfort zone for Volquez.
“The mound was higher and the landing area was flat and that made my back tighten a little bit,” he said. “No excuses, but the bullpen mound was really nice, but the mound on the field was really high.”
Adam Dunn produced the Reds’ only run off Litsch with a double in the fourth, enabling him to score on a sacrifice fly by Brandon Phillips.
Dunn’s effort to stick a sock in Toronto general manager P.J. Ricciardi’s mouth was moderately successful — 4 for 12 with three doubles, two runs, two walks, four strikeouts and no RBIs, about as well as anybody wearing red could do..
Litsch, a 23-year-old righthander drafted in the 23rd round, held the Reds to three hits over his eight innings and retired the first 10 until Dunn’s double.
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Cleaning up in Toronto
It is a seven-block walk from the Toronto Harbor Castle Hotel to the Rogers Centre, home of the Blue Jays.
On the walk to the park today, I was determined to find a scrap of paper on the ground. Any scrap. I was not successful. This city is cleaner than your mother’s crystal wine glasses after she rubs them down.
Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker noticed, too. He opened a stick of gum and was about to throw the wrapper on the ground, but noticed there is no litter on these streets and tucked the wrapper into his pocket so he could deposit in his hotel room trash basket.
I did the same thing with a cigar wrapper as I sat on a park bench near Lake Ontario, reading, watching the scenery and smoking. The wrapper went into my pocket.
Before Thursday’s game, some of the Reds were watching the Baltimore Orioles beat up on the Chicago Cubs on the clubhouse television when a broadcaster said about a certain player, “He has a hole in his swing on up-and-in pitches.”
Reds relief pitcher Jared Burton heard that and said, “Oh, yeah. Up and in.” Scouting reports can be wrong. Pitchers can make the perfect pitch and watch it spiral out of the ball park.
“Ask Bronson Arroyo,” said Burton. “We had a scouting report that said Alex Rios couldn’t hit a pitch up and in. Catcher Paul Bako even stood up on the pitch to hold a high target. Arroyo threw it right there.”
And it landed in the left field seats.
Jerry Hairston Jr. was activated Thursday and was leading off and playing shortstop. He’ll wear some protection on his fractured left thumb and said it still hurts a bit, “But guys with worse injuries than this play and I’ve had worse and played.”
With Hairston in the starting lineup, the Reds are 18-12 and Baker said, “I’ll take that.”
The casualty is Paul Janish, optioned to Louisville after going 3 for 34. He took it well and said, “I was actually here longer than I anticipated. It was a good learning experience and a lesson on how everything works.”
Janish took extra batting practice early Thursday and Baker said, “He was looking real good.”
Said Janish, “Ironic, isn’t it. That’s the best I felt in a week. Dusty was real positive with me. I know I can hit. I was hitting at Louisville and hitting when I came up here.”
Said Baker, “Sometimes you come up here hitting good and the scouting reports catch up to you. He needs to work on offense. Defense? He is good. He is very good.”
As they begin Thursday’s game, the Reds are 3-2 on the trip (2-1 in New York, 1-1 in Toronto) with a game left here and three in Cleveland.
A chance for a winning trip? They’ve come home with losing records in 20 of their last 21 trips and Baker said, “The law of averages are with us on this one.”
Maybe, maybe not. Having watched this team, I’d say the chances are better of me finding a gum wrapper on Yonge Street than the Reds having a winning road trip. We’ll see.
What Baker wants by the end of this trip is for his team to climb out of the dregs of the NL Central. “We have a chance to get out of last place,” he said. “There are a couple of teams real close to us, only 1 and 1 1/2 games ahead (Houston, Pittsburgh).”
Ken Griffey Jr. was the DH for the sixth straight game Thursday, but he’ll play in the field Friday and Saturday in Cleveland, said Baker. Adam Dunn becomes the DH.
“It was good for Griff’s legs to rest because you do all your running on defense,” said Baker. “this should keep him fresh to the All-Star break.”
I’ll be fresh, too, after a trip to Aruba.
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An unexcusable foul-up
Forgive me, for I have sinned.
For those who picked up this morning’s Dayton Daily News and didn’t find a game story on Wednesday’s 6-5 10-inning win by the Cincinnati Reds over the Toronto Blue Jays, it is my fault.
My deadline Wednesday was 10:45 p.m. and the game ended at 10:45. I had my story finished and I thought I sent it to the paper, then scurried to the clubhouse for the post mortems.
What I didn’t realize is that instead of sending my game story, I re-sent my Reds Notebook that I had already sent. My cellphone wasn’t working in the Rogers Centre, so my desk couldn’t reach me.
So my game story didn’t make the paper. For those still interested, go to daytondailynews.com/reds and you’ll find it. But don’t ask me for the 75 cents you paid for the paper, OK?
The Reds won it in the 10th without a hit - and that shouldn’t surprise you with this team. Norris Hopper walked. Paul Janish walked. David Ross bunted them up a base and Jay Bruce hit a sacrifice fly to left.
Amazingly, the Reds had a 5-0 lead on Roy Halladay after three innings, but suddenly unimpressive and ineffective Aaron Harang gave it all back. Free of charge. No strings attached.
He gave up five runs and there has to be concern. Harang has given up 18 runs in his last four starts over 23 innings. With the collapse of Bronson Arroyo, the Reds 1-2 pitching punch isn’t even a slap these days.
The other goofy thing that happened was David Weathers pulling an escape act beyond belief. To start the seventh inning, he threw three pitches. All three were hit for singles that loaded the bases.
On his fourth pitch, Scott Rolen popped up. On his sixth pitch, Lyle Overbay grounded into an inning-ending double play.
The Reds stranded 11 runners. No shock there. That’s modus operandi stuff.
So now it is 2 a.m. and I’m in room 1222 of the Westin Harbor Castle writing this because I feel guilty about screwing up.
I hope some of the Reds feel as bad as I do when they mess up.
I still can’t figure out why Jay Bruce tried to bunt in the fourth inning. There were two on and one out and he tried to bunt for a hit. On the fast artificial turf. He forced a runner at second.
Bad rookie mistake. But manager Dusty Baker made it clear to him that he was up there to drive in runs, not to bunt.
Had to laugh before the game when the Reds were playing catch in front of the dugout. A tune that Brandon Phillips recognized was blaring on the public address system and Phillips was singing. Very loud.
A fan near the dugout yelled, “Hey, Brandon. Love your singing.”
Said David Ross, “You’re the only one. Don’t encourage him.”
Adam Dunn was sitting in the dugout doing an interview with a Toronto radio guy and ground rules were, “No questions about J.P. Ricciardi.”
The guy asked Dunn who his favorite player was growing up in the Houston area and he said, “Alan Ashby.” Alan Ashby? A journeyman catcher?
I told Dunn that the only thing I remember about Ashby, a catcher, was the license plate on his car. “What was that?” asked Dunn.
I told him it was SBE2. To translate, that means, “Stolen base, error on the catch (E2).”
“That’s hilarious,” said Dunn. “At least he had a sense of humor.”
And with that, I bid you good night (or good morning). Tomorrow is another day.
“And we have our ace going, Edinson Volquez,” said Baker. At least he now realizes that Volquez is the ace, not Harang and not Arroyo.
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What’s new up North?
Strange things are happening in Toronto - beards gone, nicknames born, an unlikely third baseman, a beat up pitcher and a batboy turned pitcher.
Jeff Keppinger, 1 for 6 since coming off rehab at Louisville, no longer looks like Abe Lincoln. The full beard is gone, shorn somewhere on the streets of Toronto.
“Time for it to go,” he said. Poof. Gone. And he didn’t even get a Gillette commercial out of it.
Pitcher Daryl Thompson likes the nickname I told him I was going to hang on him - a suggestion from my son, Brent, who was in Yankee Stadium to witness Thompson’s major-league debut - after D-T got lost on the subway and ended up in Brooklyn instead of The Bronx.
“From now on, you are D-Train,” I told him. He smiled.
The lineup card for Wednesday’s game was on Dusty Baker’s desk and I thought it might be a mistake. It had, “Javier Valentin, 5.” Five means third base. ‘2’ means catcher. But David Ross was in the lineup with the ‘2.’
Yes, Valentin was playing third base, a move by Baker to stack his lineup with lefthanders against Toronto’s Roy Halladay.
“That guys is tough,” said Baker. “One of the best over the last few years. This year righthanders are hitting .219 against him with one home run. Lefthanders are hitting .261 with seven homers. One home run? That’s unheard of, that’s pretty awesome.”
Yeah, especially when his own pitchers have given up 101 homers this year.
“Does that lead the world?” Baker asked. Close. Only Houston has given up more in the majors this year.
Baker told Valentin before Tuesday’s game to take some ground balls at third base, “Because I might have to use there again.” Baker used Valentin at third base for one inning Sunday against the Yankees, but he didn’t have a play.
“I’m going to wear my mask,” said Valentin. “Hey, I thought he was joking when he said I was playing third base tonight. When I figured out he was serious I said, ‘OK.’
“Hey, I don’t care,” said Valentin. “It gets me in the lineup and that’s all I want, to be in there playing. As soon as I get one ground ball I’ll be OK.”
Rogers Centre has an artificial surface and Valentin said, “That should help. No bad hops. The ball comes quicker, but third base is all reaction. I’ll react with the ball and I’ll be all right.”
The first thing Baker did today was check with the trainers to see if Bronson Arroyo is OK. Or maybe he wanted to make sure Arroyo didn’t jump of the old CN Tower after giving up 10 runs and 11 hits in one inning Tuesday - the most runs given up by a starting pitcher in one inning in modern times.
“Bronson told the trainers he feels great, nothing wrong,” said Baker. “I’m glad there is nothing wrong, but now we have to find out what IS wrong, why he is pitching this way. The umpire (Joe West) told me the Blue Jays were hitting his pitches like they knew what was coming. I never saw so many hard-hit balls squared on the bat.”
After talking about Halladay, Baker laughed and said, “Tomorrow we get to face a bat boy.”
Toronto pitcher Jesse Litsch is a former bat boy for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (now it is just Tampa Bay Rays and man are they better without Devil in their name). When Aubrey Huff, who was in Tampa when Litsch chased bats, faced him recently as a member of the Baltimore Orioles he shouted at Litsch, “Hey, batboy. Wanna shine my shoes?”
He’ll probably clean the Reds shoes and their clocks tomorrow.
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A terrible time in Toronto
Somebody is talking out of the side of their mouth and I know where my bet is. Adam Dunn is the truth-teller and J.P. Ricciardi is the second coming of Jim Bowden.
Toronto GM Ricciardi said he talked to Adam Dunn and apologized for ripping him last week on his radio show. Ricciardi said he left several message for Dunn and when Dunn called he told him he was sorry, “That I let my guard down.”
When asked about it, Dunn said, “I haven’t talked to that guy. Not at all.”
Maybe J.P. left a message. If so, Dunn hasn’t heard it.
Not this just in. J.P. said somebody called and identified themselves as Adam Dunn, “And I apologized to that person.” Hoo-boy.
Here’s a thought. After watching Bronson Arroyo gave up 10 runs and 11 hits while retiring only three batters Tuesday, maybe Ricciardi was talking about Arroyo and not Dunn.
Could be, could be.
A Toronto media horde surrounded Dunn after the 14-1 loss to the Blue Jays and he said, “This is ridiculous. The real truth is I haven’t talked to him. If he said he talked to me, it’s a lie. It’s a joke. It’s stupid. I don’t get it. I hope this is the end of it. I’m tired of it.”
So are we, Adam, so are we.
It is for certain that new Toronto manager Cito Gaston and Cincinnati manager Dusty Baker have nothing to fear, but the appearance of Atlanta advance scout Bobby Wine should bring shudders.
On his current tour, Wine has stopped in Seattle, “When Mariners manager John McLaren was fired,” stopped in Milwaukee, “When Blue Jays manager John Gibbons was fired and was in New York, “When Mets manager Willie Randolph was later fired in LA.”
That’s the last time anybody says a day with Bobby is like a day of wine and roses.
I’m going to the Hockey Hall of Fame on Yonge Street (the longest street in the world and you can look it up) before lunch Wednesday, even though I can’t tell a hockey puck from my Grandma Wilderman’s biscuits.
And to make it a complete hockey day, I’m lunching at Wayne Gretzkey’s restaurant, where I’m told you CAN tell a hockey puck from Grandma Wilderman’s biscuits.
As I sit here watching the Blue Jays totally embarrass the Reds, the 28,153 fans are chanting, “See-toe Gas-ton, See-toe Gas-ton.” In 36 years of covering baseball, I’ve never heard a crowd chant a manager’s name. Never. Not even Bob Boone.
After two innings, when the Blue Jays scored 11 runs, I thought I came to the wrong place and was watching a Canadian Football League game. By the way, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Montreal Alouettes open the CFL regular season Thursday.
Do they still have rouges in the CFL? If so, the Reds scored one rouge Tuesday. Don’t ask.
David Weathers just hit two batters in one inning. A message? Let’s hope so. Somebody on this pitching staff needs to make sure the opposition isn’t too comfortable in the batter’s box - and 14 runs on 22 hits is way, way, way too comfortable.
A couple of good quotes from a bad game:
Manager Dusty Baker after the Reds gave up 11 runs in the first two innings: “You know it’s a bad game when you’ve played two hours and you’ve been on defense an hour and 45 minutes. It was almost like they knew what was coming.”
To that, Arroyo said, “If I had told them what was coming I might have fared better. Can I forget this? I forgot it seven innings ago.”
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Tales from Toronto
A fire alarm went off at 12:45 this afternoon in the Westin Harbor Castle, but we all know it wasn’t because the Cincinnati Reds’ bats were on fire.
It was a false alarm, just as the Reds put up so many false alarms with minor winning streaks, only to revert to being The Hitless Blunders.
Walked the seven blocks to the Rogers Centre — formerly SkyDome. Watched them roll back that humongous roof. Takes 20 minutes, and when open it looks like a giant version of the Hollywood Bowl.
Of course, I had nothing else to do. A computer expert with the Blue Jays worked 45 minutes on my computer, trying to get it to hook up to the internet. Amazing that they had so much trouble with the wireless. Rogers (the Rogers Centre) is a telecommunications company.
We’re good to go now — I hope. I’d hate to revert to the Golden Days of journalism when I’d have to call the office and say, “Give me the sports desk and a dictationist.” Then I’d have to dictate my story to somebody who would type it. Yech.
There is much excitement in Toronto because Cito Gaston is back as B-Jays manager and this was his first home game. It also excited Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker.
“Got one of my own boys up here now,” he said. “Cito and I go way back.”
Bakler said he and Gaston share a baseball bubblegum card, “One of those manager’s cards where they put two managers on one card, half and half,” said Baker. “I had him sign it and I still have it. I think it was 1993 (the year Gaston and the Blue Jays won the World Series and Baker was in San Francisco).”
And they go back farther than that.
“My first year in pro ball, 1967, I was playing in Austin, Texas, and Cito was on my team,” said Baker. “We played our first game in Little Rock, Ark., and I dropped the first fly ball hit to me. I started crying and called my mom and said I was coming home. But Cito grabbed the phone and told my mom, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take care of him.’ And he did.”
Baker said he and Gaston call each other constantly for advice and to cheer each other up when things aren’t going so well.
And, of course, this is a homecoming for Joey Votto, who grew up 20 minutes from Rogers Centre. His mom and dad own a restaurant and dad is the chef. Votto said if he didn’t play baseball, he’d be a chef.
“Votto can be one of our team leaders,” Baker told Toronto writers. “He never gets out of line and is very respectful. He mom and dad did a great job. You tell him something that he did wrong and he says, ‘Don’t worry, skip, it won’t ever happen again.’ “
Votto is the regular first baseman and will play every day, regardless, but Baker says he always tries to get a player into a game in front of his hometown friends and family.
“I can remember a teammate of mine once was going home to play for the first time and he left 50 tickets,” said Baker. “He didn’t get a sniff — didn’t play, didn’t pinch-hit, didn’t pinch-run. Nothing. I said right then that if I became a manager I’d always get a player into a game in his hometown. And I do.”
With Edwin Encarnacion out of Tuesday’s lineup with back spasms, Baker came up with another innovative lineup. Adam Dunn was batting second.
“Toronto has four left-handers in the bullpen and you have to be careful not to stack your left-handed hitters,” said Baker. “Pittsburgh has three lefties in the bullpen, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen four.”
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To Toronto, with trepidation
Didn’t sleep at all last night in New York. Too worried about travel today.
I’m not one who covets unfamiliarity and I haven’t had to go through customs since Montreal moved its franchise to Washington and back then I could see. And you didn’t need a passport to enter Canada, just your birth certificate and driver’s license.
I lost sleep for nothing. It was a breeze, other than waiting 30 minutes in line to clear customs and the agent was a friendly fellow who said, “Ah, ha. The Real McCoy. Did you know up here we have a saying that if something is genuine and authentic, we call it the real McCoy.”
And he wanted to tell me about the McCoy-Hatfield feud and I didn’t tell him I’m a direct descendant of Ole Ran’l McCoy. I humored him, other than to say, “I’m a baseball writer and my blog is called The Real McCoy.”
Once in Montreal the customs line I was in was dragging, so I jumped to another line. The agent in the new line apparently didn’t want additional customers so when I got to his window he sent me to a detaining room, where I sat for an hour.
When I was asked why I was in the room, I told the agent about my line-jumping episode and he said, “You must have had Claude. He doesn’t like line-jumpers. Now get out of here.”
So it is an off day and we’re at the Westin Harbor Castle. While the St. Lawrence River/Seaway is about 100 feet outside my window, the only thing about this place that resembles a castle is the musty smell in my room.
Had lunch at a place called Slopsky’s - best western omelette I ever had. And they had a cigar humidor with Cubans. I purchased one for the walk back. The cigar cost more than the meal and didn’t last as long.
When I went into the place, it was 70 and sunny. When I came out, it was raining and thundering and it was 50. Welcome to Canada, huh?
Last time I was in Toronto was for the 1993 World Series, when Joe Carter hit the game-winning walk-off home run off Philadelphia’s Mitch Williams. My good friend, Columbus Dispatch columnist Bob Hunter, was seated in the left field auxiliary pressbox and nearly caught the ball.
Mitch Williams was a nutty lefthanded relief pitcher who reminded me of one of his Philadelphia lefthanded predecessors, Tug McGraw. When Tug signed a $100,000 contract he was asked what he would do with the money and he said, “I’m going to spend $50,000 on wine, women and song and I’m going to waste the rest.”
I once caught a ball in the World Series. New York’s Derek Jeter fouled one into the press box during the 1996 World Series and I caught. Still have the ball on a shelf in my home office. I know, I know. I told you that last week, but I’m damn proud of that catch.
It beat the time I caught a foul ball in the press box in Dodger Stadium and my 1976 World Series ring flew off my finger and into the stands. I looked over the railing and people were passing the ring down the aisle gazing at it. A nice man gave it back to me and I gave him $10.
Can’t wait for batting practice tomorrow to see if Toronto GM J.P. Ricciardi approaches Adam Dunn to apologize for ripping him on a radio show. I hope Dunn does what Ron Oester once did to former Reds GM Jim Bowden and turns his back if Ricciardi sticks out his hand.
The Oester incident: Bowden told Oester he had the managerial job in 2001 and made a money offer. Oester said he’d like a day to think about it and Bowden said OK. Then, that day, Bowden gave the job to Bob Boone without calling Oester. Boone said he’d take the job and didn’t care about the money.
So when Oester appeared with members of the 1990 World Series champions not long after that, when Bowden walked up and down the players lined up on the first-base line, Oester turned his back when Bowden reached him.
Classic.
What gets me is that Ricciardi is criticizing Dunn on a radio show when his team is in last place in the AL East when many picked them to compete. Ricciardi told Reds GM Walt Jocketty that he flew off the handle on the radio show because he was under stress and knew he had to fire his manager and coaches in the next couple of days.
Rumor up here is that Ricciardi is next.
The Reds face A.J. Burnett and Roy Halladay, but not Shaun Marcum, doggone it. Marcum is 5-4 with a 2.65 ERA and I was hoping to see him pitch because his grandfather lives in Dayton.
Oh, well - it’s on to what I hate most in baseball — roofs and artificial turf.
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The nostalgia that is Yankee Stadium
As I sit here in the second row of the press box, Yankee Stadium is quiet and empty, the 54,234 from Sunday’s game scattered.
I have finished my work for the paper and I’m gazing out at old Yankee Stadium, the last time for me. I see the monuments behind the left field fence and the 17 retired numbers - pretty soon, some Yankee is going to have to wear uniform No. 108.
I remember sitting in this pressbox during the 1996 World Series and catching a foul ball hit by Derek Jeter - a genuine red-inked World Series baseball that remains on a shelf in my home office, which my wife, Nadine, calls, “Your shrine to yourself.”
Well, OK.
And now, as Frank Sinatra says, “The end is near,” for this venerable old place. The place drips of nostalgia and that’s what makes it special. Physically, it is a dump. Really. The clubhouses are small, the press box is small, the radio-TV booths are small.
For a guy like me, visually impaired, the place is a booby trap of jutting unmarked steps and concrete walls placed in strange locations.
Nevertheless, it is 10 times better than the dump in Flushing Meadows called Shea Stadium, also coming down after this season, and not even Sinatra would say about losing that place, “Regrets, I’ve had a few.”
Not me. Let me push the plunger.
But I’ll miss Yankee Stadium because it is baseball. Mention Yankee Stadium all over the world and heads nod. Mention Shea Stadium and you get, “Huh?” There is, indeed, a reason it is located in a place called Flushing.
Yankee Stadium is in the Bronx. Now there’s a masculine, aggressive name. The Bronx.
Anyway, the Reds are gone, having lost Sunday, 4-1. But they took took of three. Counting the two games they won here during the 1976 World Series, they won four of the last five they played here.
Not many teams can say that.
Had it not rained Sunday for an hour, they might have swept this series. Johnny Cueto held the Yankees to one run and four hits, walking none and striking out seven. But it rained after the top of the sixth and the Yankees had scored a run in the fifth to take a 1-0 lead.
With the delay, Cueto couldn’t come back and bullpenners Gary Majewski and Jeremy Affeldt gave up three more in the next inning and that was that.
Edwin Encarnacion left after the second inning with lower back spasms and manager Dusty Baker had to move just-activated Jeff Keppinger from short to third and put bewildered rookie Paul Janish at shortstop.
When Janish’s turn to bat arrived, Baker pinch-hit catcher Javier Valentin and he was out of infielders. So he moved Keppinger back to third and put Valentin at third base.
Now there’s a sight. Valentin should have worn his chest protector, just in case, but he could have played there naked because he didn’t get a ball in the one inning he was there.
Even though the Reds won two of three, they still aren’t hitting. Adam Dunn isn’t hitting and sat out Sunday until the ninth when he pinch-hit with two on. He represented the tying run, but Mariano Rivera struck him out.
Janish isn’t coming close to a hit. Jay Bruce is struggling as we all expected him to do. Not even he can live up to the multi-page spread Sports Illustrated did on him this week, practically putting him into the Hall of Fame. Bruce still has a few pit stops on his way to Cooperstown, but he’ll adjust.
On to Toronto. From the vista that is Yankee Stadium we move to the indoor monstrosity that once was SkyDome and is now called Rogers Centre - now does that sound like a hockey arena, or what?
It is one of the last vestiges of artificial turf - a place where ping pong baseball is played. Heck, it isn’t even baseball. It’s a gigantic pinball machine.
And now one last look around before I pack my gear and head for the subway station. See ya, Yankee Stadium. See ya in my dreams.
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Honest Abe Keppinger returns
A roster move had to be made Sunday morning to make room for the activation of shortstop Jeff Keppinger.
There was a delay, backing up our pre-game meeting with manager Dusty Baker and backing up Marty Brennaman’s pre-game taped interview.
Finally, the announcement was made. Andy Phillips was designated for assignment.
“He was in Sunday chapel,” said general manager Walt Jocketty. “I didn’t want to go into the middle of chapel and pull him out to tell him he was designated.”
It was suggested that maybe Phillips was in chapel praying that Jocketty wouldn’t tap him on the shoulder, but when Keppinger walked into the clubhouse Sunday morning one could see the stricken and forlorn look on Phillips’ face.
Said Baker, “That would have been sacrilegious to pull him out of chapel. We don’t want that.”
Jocketty then began talking positively abut how much he liked Phillips and how much they’d like to get him back up quickly, but Phillips is out of options and has to pass through waivers.
“Don’t write too many good things about him because we don’t want anybody to claim him,” Jocketty said.
Activating Keppinger is a quick-fix emergency situation. He may not be quite ready, but with the loss Friday of Jolbert Cabrera and the offensive ineptitude of Paul Janish, Keppinger is needed.
“We would have preferred to keep him down there (rehabbing at Louisville) for a while longer, but I talked with (manager) Rick Sweet and (Director of Player Development) Terry Reynolds and they say he is ready,” said Baker.
“We’ll play him today, we have an off day Monday and he’ll get treatment, then he’ll play Tuesday. We need a real shortstop for that AstroTurf in Toronto.”
Keppinger is sporting a full beard that he began growing the day he fouled a ball off his kneecap and fractured it. He looks like a small economy-sized Abe Lincoln.
“I tried to find a beard trimmer yesterday but I couldn’t,” he said. “So it stays, for now. If I don’t get any hits today it is gone for sure. If I get some hits, well, it served me pretty well in Louisville.”
Adam Dunn, in the polite vernacular, was given the day off, replaced in left field by Norris Hopper. Don’t get too excited, though. Corey Patterson was in center - but at least Hopper was leading off.
Dunn, one of the world’s great self-deprecators, said, “Just a GSB, a good, solid benching.” And he added, “Seriously, who would you bench?”
Uh, Dunn is 6 for 54 (.111), but he has a lot of company in the slump department.
“It can’t hurt for me to sit right now,” he said. “I get into these little ruts that only I can get myself into. Hopefully, I’ll sit today and get it going in Toronto.”
Dunn said he hasn’t heard from Toronto GM J.P. Ricciardi, who promised to call Dunn and apologize for Ricciardi’s critical harangue of Dunn on a radio show.
“No, he hasn’t called,” said Dunn. “It would be hard for him to get my number.” Told that GM Jocketty, who did talk to Ricciardi, could have given up the number, Dunn said. “That would not be nice of Walt.”
So maybe Dunn and Ricciardi will meet on the field Tuesday. Is Dunn going to give J.P. a big ol’ hug.
“Yeah,” said Dunn. “A bear hug.”
Ken Griffey Jr. walked into the visitor’s clubhouse and said, “Last time here when I walk out the door after today’s game.” The Yankees move across the street to a new Yankee Stadium after this season.
Said Griffey, “I suppose they’ll keep this place as a National Historical Landmark.”
When he was told that there were plans to tear down the old place and turn it into greenspace, a park, Griffey said, “Bet they don’t. It’ll be a historic landmark because, after all, Babe Ruth urinated in the grass.”
Daryl Thompson, who made his major-league debut with five scoreless innings Saturday after getting lost on the subway, walked into the clubhouse early Sunday and when asked if he took a cab this time or the team bus, he said, “Oh, no. I took the subway. I’m a veteran now. I know how to get around.”
Baker knows how to get around, too.
“Love these early games,” he said. “I was in bed by 10 last night. Went to Spanish Harlem and had some Cuban food and listened to merengue while I ate.”
I ate at Junior’s Delicatessan on 45th street. Don’t bother. Long wait, poor service (35 minutes between ordering and delivery), cold food. I knew I should have walked nine blocks to the Carnegie Deli - my favorite. Tonight. For sure.
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Bad situations and a good one
OK, so the Reds have won two straight at Yankee Stadium and that’s great, that’s wonderful, that’s superb.
But - and there is always a but - doesn’t anybody know how to count or keep their heads in the game these days?
What do I mean? Well, three times in the last two days a Reds player has started to run off the field, thinking there were three outs when there were only two.
In the second inning Friday, Jason Giambi flied to right and catcher Paul Bako started running off the field. There were only two outs. Sheepishly, Bako crept back to home plate and held up two fingers to tell EVERBYBODY else, “There are two outs.”
At breakfast Saturday morning, David Weathers teased Bako unmercifully for not knowing how many outs there were.
Flash forward to Saturday afternoon. Weathers enters the game in the seventh with one out and two on. He strikes out Derek Jeter and heads for the dugout before looking up to see nobody else leaving the field. Oops? Only two outs? Well, maybe he thought he should get credit for two outs for whiffing Jeter with two men on base.
Now move to the eighth inning and the Yankees have two on with one out. Jorge Posada grounds out to Joey Votto at first and he run to the bag to tag it for the out. And he keeps running toward the dugout. Uh, Joey? Two outs, buddy.
Does that say something about the concentration and game awareness of this team, or what? Humorous? Yes. But telling
Said Weathers, “That’s a first for me. I’ve forgotten to cover first base a few times, but never ran off the field before three outs. Of course, I didn’t do it in front of a big audience or anything (54,509). Why couldn’t I do it in Pittsburgh?”
Daryl Thompson did it up big in Manhattan in his major-league debut - no runs, four hits, four walks, two strikeouts over five innings.
Getting out of a base-loaded and no outs situation in the second and two-on and no outs situation in the third drove up his pitch count. And, of course, he didn’t get any run support and left with a 0-0 tie.
After he was gone, the Reds scored four unearned runs in the seventh and won, 6-0, their second straight in Yankee Stadium.
“I haven’t slept in three days, since I knew I was going to pitch in Yankee Stadium,” he said. “I woke up Saturday morning at 4:30 and didn’t get back to sleep. I haven’t eaten anything for 24 hours and except one little piece of sausage.”
But he certainly didn’t look intimidated, getting out of both messes without damage. He went mostly with 94-95 miles an hour fastballs and a change-up. Nothing else.
Like Edinson Volquez and Johnny Cueto, this kid is a keeper, another who has zoomed past Homer Bailey. If only they could find the right buttons on Bailey, they have the makings of a full-throttle pitching rotation for the next few years.
When Thompson had the bases loaded with no outs in the second, manager Dusty Baker visited the mound. Usually, when Dusty comes, the pitcher goes. Not this time. Dusty was merely delivering a message:
“Hey, man. Same game, different place (No, this wasn’t Toledo, Columbus or Pastucket). Take a couple of deep breaths, slow down. Take your time,” said Baker.
Thompson knew he was letting the game speed up into fast-motion. “Even before Dlusty got out there, I was taking deep breaths,” said Thompson. “And his visit helped.”
He retired the next three with no damage and Yankee third baseman A-Rod said, “I don’t know what Dusty told him, maybe magic.”
Pure magic this day, pure magic.
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Take the ‘4’ - to Brooklyn
Subway Stories: And they don’t involve me. My trips on the ‘D’ train have been uneventful, other than the heavy rainstorm that was pounding Manhattan Friday night when I emerged from the tunnel. In 10 minutes it was over.
But wouldn’t you think three rookies would at least ask a veteran to accompany them on a subway ride? Jay Bruce, Paul Janish and Daryl Thompson ventured on their own odyssey Saturday and, uh, ended up about as far away from Yankee Stadium as you can get and still be in one of the five boroughs.
They found the ‘4’ train under Grand Central station just fine. But instead of getting on an uptown train, they boarded a downtown train.
“We ended up in Brooklyn,” said Thompson.
Hey, Brooklyn? Bronx? Both start with BR.
“Maybe they wanted to see Ebbets Field,” said manager Dusty Baker with a laugh.
Bronson Arroyo, a veteran subway rider, was on the ‘4’ Saturday when a man approached and asked, “Hey, man, need tickets to the game?” Said Arroyo, “No, dude. I’m good.”
When Ken Griffey Jr. arrived at the park Saturday he found a long red terrycloth robe hanging in his locker, something from sportsrobes.com.
He put it on, displaying ‘Griffey, 3,’ in large letters on the back with a ‘3’ and a Reds logo on the front. He walked past Adam Dunn’s locker and said, “I’m on my way to a weigh-in. Fightin’ for the title tonight.”
Griffey took it off and said, “I never wear a robe. Never wore one, not even as a kid.”
Somebody else mentioned the only time they wore a robe was when a hotel furnished one. Said Gary Majewski, “Not me. I walk around naked. I air dry.”
To much information, right?
With the dislocated finger of Jolbert Cabrera, suffered Friday night during a head-first slide into second base after his fourth hit, the Reds are down to Janish at shortstop, “And I got Andy Phillips as a back-up,” said Baker.
How about Brandon Phillips, signed as a shortstop?
“I asked him about it and he said with what has happened to our shortstops this year he’s afraid to go over there,” said Baker, speaking of injured shortstops Alex Gonzalez, Jeff Keppinger, Jerry Hairston Jr. and Cabrera.
Amazingly, Cabrera was called up from Class AAA Louisville to take Hairston’s place after he fractured his left thumb - sliding head first into second base.
Maybe Baker should issue a moratorium or a complete ban on head-first slides. Or maybe they can clandestinely call in Pete Rose to give head-first sliding lessons - and hitting lessons, while he is at it.
Phillips came up hobbling in the ninth inning Friday, too, hopping around after making a defensive play. Said Baker, “Man, I was holding my breath. But it was just a cramp.”
Yankees broadcaster and former pitcher David Cone walked into Baker’s office and Baker immediately recalled a game Cone pitched for the New York Mets against Baker’s San Francisco Giants.
“You threw about 150 pitches in a complete game,” said Baker.
“To be accurate - 166,” said Cone. “And I won, 1-0. I went to 3-and-2 on everybody.”
And for those keeping track - yes, Corey Patterson was in Saturday’s lineup, batting eighth after going 0 for 3 Friday. Norris Hopper? He could have been riding the ‘4’ train around Brooklyn, for all anybody seems to care.
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Lots of friends in Gotham
Since I was quick to pull the rip cord on U.S. Airways on my last trip to New York, during which I thought I’d find Dr. Livingston before I found Manhattan, I’ll tell them today what a nice job they did.
Departure: On time. Arrival: On time. Flight: Smooth, uneventful. Luggage: Waiting on the carousel. Hoo-ha.
And, yes, the Reds have confirmed that rookie Daryl Thompson starts Saturday and no matter what Reds Authority tries to throw against the wall, readers of this blog read it first LAST WEEK right here.
Thompson arrives tonight and goes directly to the hotel for some shut eye, if he can do it. No appearance at Yankee Stadium.
As I disembarked from the ‘D’ train at 161st & River Avenue, the first thing I saw was the outer concrete shell of the new Yankee Stadium. Outwardly, it looks like the Roman Colosseum.
The Yankees have won seven straight, the Reds have lost five straight and even though Edinson Volquez goes tonight, the Reds are facing Mike Mussina (10-4). So it looks as if the Reds Christians might get fed to the Yankee Lions tonight.
As many of you know, my last two trips to NY were packed with personal problems galore - torn meniscus in my knee, an eight-hour flight that should take 1:45, lost luggage, a wrong turn near Times Square and a lost soul (me) wandering the perimeter.
I found a shiny penny on the floor of the Dayton airport this morning, so maybe that’s why things have gone smoothly. I left my Blackberry on a concierge desk this morning and went back 30 minutes later and it was still there.
The Reds should have ample support tonight and this weekend. Half my flight from Dayton this morning contained folks wearing Reds gear, including one young lady I overhead talking about her dog, “Nuxhall.”
When she saw me laughing, she said, “Is Daryl Thompson really pitching Saturday, Mr. McCoy?” I said, “Yes he is. You going to be there?” She said, “Yes, my first visit to Yankee Stadium.”
I left early for logistical reasons because I haven’t been to The Bambino’s Home since the 2003 World Series.
As I walked down River Avenue toward a McDonald’s, a couple of blocks away from the stadium, somebody put their hand on my shoulder - scaring the bejeezus out of me.
“Mr. McCoy, we’re from Brookville (near Dayton), up here for the weekend series,” said one man, nodding toward his friend.
Man, it’s nice to be among friends when you are walking by yourself in The Bronx, even in the shadow of The House That Gehrig Didn’t Build.
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The ‘p’ word, plus Thompson, Dunn
Nature’s call can sometimes become a scream. Just ask me and my limo driver about our Thursday trip.
Yes, a limo driver. Because I can’t drive, for about half the games on a homestand the paper rents a limousine for me for the hour-and-fifteen minute trip from Englewood to Cincinnati - and the hour-and-fifteen minutes back home.
Usually it is an hour-and-fifteen.
On Thursday two tractor trailer trucks collided on southbound 75 near Tylersville Road, shutting it down completely. In one 30-minute stretch we moved 100 feet.
Of course, both my driver and I had an abundance of morning coffee and, well, what is a guy to do. He was seat-scooting in the front and I was seat-squirming in the back.
Finally, we both did what we had to do. Large coffee cups hold more than what Juan Valdez grows.
I missed a scheduled 10:30 meeting with manager Dusty Baker and for a while I thought I might miss some of the game.
Reminded me of a time when I rode from Los Angeles to San Diego with Greg Hoard, then the beat writer for the Cincinnati Enquirer. He wanted to set a land speed record and refused to make a pit stop as he roared down I-5.
I tried and tried and tried to not think about what nature wanted me to do as San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano and Oceanside flew by my window.
Did pretty good, too, but one block from the hotel I could stand it no more. With the car still rolling toward the hotel parking lot, I leaped out and set a personal best for the 60-yard dash to a service station restroom. I may have shouldered down the door because it was locked and I had no time to secure a key.
THE REDS have yet to make it official, but punch it into your Blackberry or iPod — 22-year-old rookie Daryl Thompson will pitch Saturday in Yankee Stadium against the New York Yankees.
Thompson is 3-0 with a 3.25 earned run average in four starts at Louisville (AAA) after starting the season at Class AA Chattanooga and going 3-2 with a 1.76 ERA in 10 starts.
Thompson is an interesting story and was, basically, a throw-in to the deal that sent Austin Kearns, Felipe Lopez and Ryan Wager to the Washington Nationals.
In return, the Reds received Royce Clayton, Bill Bray, Gary Majewski, Brendan Harris and Thompson.
What ensued was a dispute between Nationals general manager Jim Bowden and former Reds GM Wayne Krivsky over whether Majewski was damaged goods.
Amazingly, Washington insiders said Thompson was included in the deal because he had major shoulder surgery in 2005 (torn labrum) and Bowden didn’t think he would last. As one Bowden acquaintance said, “Bowden thought he was sticking it to the Reds with Thompson.”
As a matter of fact, Reds medical director Dr. Tim Kremchek performed the surgery while Thompson was in Washington’s minor-league system and he was still rehabbing the surgery when the trade was made.
It isn’t likely Thompson will be intimidated by the Yankees, Yankee Stadium or the ghosts of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle.
Thompson had a dose of Yankee-sim this spring when he pitched an inning against the Yankees in packed Legends Field in Tampa, Fla. and struck out the side.
AND HERE is what Toronto Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi said on his radio show when a caller asked if he would be interested in trading for or signing Adam Dunn:
“Do you know the guy really doesn’t like baseball that much? Do you know the guy doesn’t have the passion to play the game that much? How much you know about the player? There is a reason why you are attracted to some players and there is a reason why you’re not attracted to some players. I think you would not be very happy if we brought Adam Dunn here. We’ve done our home work on guys like Adam Dunn and there is a reason why we don’t want Adam Dunn.
“I don’t want to get into specifics. He is a lifetime .230 to .240 hitter that strikes out a ton and hits home runs.”
Loved some of the comments by the callers after Ricciardi’s barrage.
“Do you have a passion for baseball, J.P.?”
“Yeah, all Adam Dunn does is hit home runs and the Blue Jays don’t have anybody to hit home runs.”
My question to ol’ J.P. is, “How do you know what Adam loves or hates or has a passion for or doesn’t have a passion for?” Yes, Dunn loves football. Even has a passion for it - probably more than he has for baseball.
But he does like the game and he does have a passion for it. Does he watch football? Absolutely. Does he watch baseball? Not much. But he does watch tapes of himself and opposing pitchers.
Hey, when I’m not working I don’t sit behind another base]ball writer and watch him work. And I believe I have as much for baseball writing as any other beat writer I know.
And here was Dunn’s response after the Reds left another odiferous deposit in the middle of GABP, a 6-4 loss to the Dodgers that left the Reds 2-7 on the homestand and about to hang a sign on last place that says, “Squatter’s Rights.”
“I have a lot more important things to worry about than some wind-bag GM in Canada says about me,” he said. “It is very unprofessional. He can talk about his players all he wants. If he said that about anybody on our team I’d be angry because he has no right to talk about anybody other than his own team.
“Passion? He can say what he wants about the strikeouts and that I don’t fit in their scheme, whatever, but you can’t tell me about something you have no idea about. You’re not even in the U.S., you’re in Canada,” Dunn added. “He can’t tell me I don’t love the game or I wouldn’t play 160 games a year.”
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Of Votto, Hopper and Bailey
Surprise, surprise, surprise.
-A new leadoff hitter, for a day.
-Outfielder Norris Hopper was activated before Wednesday’s game.
-Pitcher Homer Bailey was sent back to Louisville (0-3, 8.76 ERA), but his replacement in the rotation for Saturday’s game in Yankee Stadium was not named. Best guess: 22-year-old righthanded rookie Daryl Thompson, although one NL scout who saw him recently said, “That kid is not ready for the majors, not even close.”
When Jerry Hairston Jr. and his fractured thumb scanned Wednesday’s lineup card and saw the leadoff hitter, he said, “Oh, my.”
Ken Griffey Jr., not in Wednesday’s lineup nor will he be Thursday, told the night’s mystery leadoff hitter when he walked into the room, “Hey, Rickey. The writers want to talk to you.”
The leadoff hitter is Joey Votto.
“Votto leading off today,” said manager Dusty Baker. “Corey (Patterson) wasn’t getting on base and Jay Bruce is struggling some. I asked Votto if he had ever led off and he said, ‘No,’ but I told him just to do his thing. It’s just a temporary thing and Thursday we’ll do something else against a lefthander.
“Some day Votto is going to be batting 3, 4 or 5 and I explained to him that I wasn’t crazy about hitting seventh one year (Votto’s normal spot) when I hit 30 home runs. But that’s an important part of my lineup because you can’t have too many low average guys at the bottom of your lineup or you make it too easy for the other team.
“I pulled some stats on Joey and he is hitting better seventh than anywhere,” Baker added. “He is hitting .333 in the seventh hole. .186 in the six-hole, .267 in the five-hole and .154 in the four-hole. So maybe he might not quite be ready to move up in the order like we all want him too.”
And what does Rickey Votto think about it? He laughed as he headed to his dressing stall with the writers following and said, “They want to talk to Rickey?
“Don’t know. Never done it, that I can recall,” he said of batting leadoff. “Dusty said to do the same I always do, but just do it from the leadoff spot, right?
“Maybe it is because I was doing so bad in the seventh spot, but if he feels like I can help the offense, or whatever, I’ll do my very best. That’s a crazy thing. Putting me in the No. 1 spot probably won’t make a difference, but I hope it does.”
Votto smiled and said, “Pay attention, I’ll steal second, third and then steal home. Gee-zuz, no!.”
And Griffey? Last time it was general soreness. Now it is general illness. He said he hasn’t felt good since Saturday, even though he pinch-hit Tuesday and struck out. Asked if he could pinch-hit Wednesday, he said, “I hope not. I hope we have enough runs that I don’t need to do that.
“It started Saturday and I can’t focus long distances,” Griffey said. “Flu-like stuff. It is probably more dehydration than anything.”
SOMETHING FOR CERTAIN: Homer Bailey is listed as Saturday’s starter in New York on the Reds probables. Won’t happen. He won’t make that start. Who will? Stay tuned.
MARIO SOTO is in town. He’ll be with the team the rest of this homestand, then in New York over ther weekend, “Then I’m going back home.”
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Baker’s TWO reasons for Patterson
One might label this one: “Beating the opposition the punch,” or, “A guilty conscience.”
Before he was asked by the media after Tuesday’s game, Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker brought it up himself, saying he knew people wandered why.
Oh, yeah?
So why did Baker permit Corey Patterson, a lefthander hitting .193, bat against Dodger lefthander Joe Beimel, a pitcher against whom Patterson was 1 for 13 with six strikeouts.
At the time, there were runners on second and third with two outs and the Reds trailed, 2-1. Patterson bounced meekly to second base.
Baker said his reason was two-fold:
ONE - He said at the time he didn’t believe Ken Griffey Jr. was available (out of the lineup with a virus), although Griffey pinch-hit in the ninth - and struck out.
And he said Patterson hits leftanders better than righthanders. Untrue. Patterson is hitting .167 against lefthanders and .199 against righthanders. Clearly, he hits neither.
TWO - Baker said he had no outfielders. Andy Phillips played outfield in spring training, but not since, and Baker said it would be unfair to him. Still, he could have played right field for a couple of innings, with Jay Bruce moving from right to center.
And shortstop Jolbert Cabrera played 16 games in the outfield for Louisville. He could have moved from shortstop to right and Paul Janish inserted a shortstop.
To me, those are feeble reasons, Illogical reasons.
Anyway, that’s Baker’s story and he is sticking to it as we sit in the press box at Great American Ball Park awaiting the second game of the Dodgers series.
The thing is - nobody is hitting. The Reds are hitting .178 on this 2-5 homestand. They’ve scored 2.3 runs a game. They are hitting .075 with runners in scoring position and are 0 for their last 11.
My Aunt Opal could hit better than that with her ironing board - and she is in a wheel chair.
The lineup hasn’t been posted yet, but if Patterson is in there I won’t be able to write tonight because there will be a mess on my laptop.
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Let’s all play nice
So I took the day off, stayed away from the ol’ ballyard Tuesday.
Between chores and loafing, I monitored my blog and laughed and giggled at the way some of you snipe at and trash each other.
With no apologies to Rodney King, can’t we just all get along and have some fun and rationally discuss the plight of our free-falling and fast-plunging Cincinnati Reds?
A few of you sound like the Los Angeles Police Department.
I read ALL the comments, but do not participate other than to post my thoughts and let you respond. I don’t have time to comment because I’m busy doing my every day job of writing for the newspaper - a notebook before every game, a game story, a re-write of the game story for the web-site and columns, plus Ask Hal for Sunday.
As one of you said today, we have beaten Corey Patterson to a pulp.
But I must admit as I watched the game on TV, that I was downright perplexed when manager Dusty Baker permitted him to bat in the seventh inning with the game on the line.
The Reds were down a run with two outs and runners on second and third. Lefthander Joe Beimel was on the mound. A lefthander. Patterson is lefthanded and his career numbers against Jammin’ Joe was 1 for 13 with six strikeouts.
Baker had used Javier Valentin in the previous at-bat. He had David Ross, Paul Janish and Andy Phillips as right-handers on the bench.
Yes, he had no outfielders left. But Phillips has played outfield and could have played an inning or two out there.
I would have even preferred seeing Bronson Arroyo or Aaron Harang batting in place of Patterson. As expected, he grounded out and the Reds’ last chance died.
If I had been there, I would have asked Baker about it. I hope the scribes in attendance did.
Anyway, people, let’s play nice. We all are entitled to our opinions, whether we agree with each other or not. Let’s state them in a sane and humane way.
I love doing this blog and enjoy so much the many, many positive comments about it. There are some days, though, when I wonder, “Why bother? Why put in the extra effort to give some inside stuff and some personal experiences only to have a few goofs and foofs spoil it for the majority?
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Who’s next in the No. 5 spot?
For those with their shorts snagged over my comparison of Homer Bailey to Eric Milton, the comparison was merely the propensity that both have for giving up home runs. Nothing more.
I wasn’t saying that Bailey’s career will follow the path of Milton’s. Some of you are correct - Bailey is only 22. But soon he’ll be 24, then he’ll be 26. Then what? Time is running out for him to come up with a major-league curveball and change-up.
A lot of you should listen to Mr. Redlegs (Original) when he posts. He ALWAYS makes sense and is always one who reads the post closely and doesn’t jump off the deep end.
Homer’s Odyssey with the Cincinnati Reds is a strange one and so far it is something close to a Greek Tragedy — although Homer Bailey is a Texas cowboy, not a Greek philosopher.
Bailey should not be with the Reds right now — manager Dusty Baker knows it, the Reds front office knows it, perhaps even Bailey knows it.
He was an emergency plug-in, a guy with a 4-4 record at Class AAA Louisville, an ERA near four and he hadn’t won a game for the Bats since April 30.
But the No. 5 spot in the Reds rotation is a black hole — Matt Belisle didn’t work out and Josh Fogg didn’t work out.
Bailey was the reluctant choice, a grasp at catching a miracle in a mayonnaise jar — but mostly because the choices are few.
Fans scream about the Reds selling Justin Lehr and Tom Shearn to Korean professional teams, but the Reds had zero choice. Both had it written into their contracts that if a Japanese or Korean team offered them contracts the Reds had to let them go.
They both went.
Bailey is 0-3 with an 8.76 ERA for his three starts in Cincinnati. He has given up six homers in 12 1/3 innings and was publicly hanged Sunday by the Boston Red Sox, three homers in 2 1/3 innings.
Why did it happen? For the same reason the Reds didn’t really want to bring him back in the first place — he needs more time to work on his curveball and his change-up.
Even Baker said, before Bailey arrived in Cincinnati, “We would have like for him to spend more time down there, but we’re in an emergency status.”
Some fans suggest putting Jeremy Affeldt into the rotation. He was a starter in Kansas City early in his career and came to the Reds camp this spring promised a tryout in the rotation.
That didn’t work and he was put in the bullpen. It would take time for him to stretch out his arm now so he could pitch more than two or three innings, so plopping him immediately into the rotation is not an option.
Andy Pettyjohn is 7-2 at Louisville and Matt Maloney is 6-3, but both have high ERA’s — 4.84 and 4.92 and that’s in Triple-A.
The best option probably is 22-year-old Daryl Thompson, the same age as Bailey with a lot less experience.
Bailey’s turn pops up this weekend in Yankee Stadium. That’s probably not going to happen. Running him out there for more abuse would wreck what little confidence he has left.
Some suggest the Reds should do to Bailey what the Texas Rangers did to Edinson Volquez in 2007 and what the Toronto Blue Jays did to Roy Halladay in 2001 — send him back to Class A for shock therapy.
Maybe starting over would work, maybe not. What he definitely needs is to come up with a major-league curveball and a major-league change-up or he may vanish into the mist where so many high draft picks disappear.
For now, though, do the Reds want to throw another youngster into the lion’s den, this den being Yankee Stadium?
Thompson faced the Yankees during spring training at Legends Field, packed with 11,000, and struck out the side. Later in the spring he faced them again and went 1-2-3 — the only two innings he pitched for the Reds last spring.
Hey, it’s only Yankee Stadium and maybe Thompson can have the same attitude third baseman Gene Freese espoused in 1961: “To hell with the Yankees, to hell with New York and to hell with Babe Ruth.”
And now I’m going to enjoy the rest of the day off - a respite from the harangues about Dusty Baker and Ken Griffey Jr. and lineups and batting orders. My wife is cooking some ribs on the grill and I can smell them now.
Or is that odor emanating from Cincinnati?
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Homer - As in Home Run
In the “No Truer Words” category:
When a colleague in the press box arrived Sunday morning, he said: “Josh Beckett vs. Homer Bailey? Why are we even here?’
Why indeed?
This was a bigger mismatch than Georgia Tech vs. Cumberland in football in 1916: Georgia Tech 222, Cumberland 0. Georgia Tech by quarters: 63, 63, 54, 42.
It was agonizing to watch Bailey, a perfect match to Jackie Gleason’s Poor Soul. I mean, it looks as if he is afraid to throw the ball, then when he does throw it he is afraid to throw it over the plate.
It is probably wise that he doesn’t throw strikes more often because he gave up three home runs to the Red Sox Sunday in 2 1/3 innings and for those counting, that’s six home runs in 12 1/3 innings this year.
I’m no pitching coach, but I’d say that falls under the horrendous category, although Homer truly is living up to the worst first name in major-league baseball pitching history.
Dare I say it? OK, I will. Homer Bailey is a righthanded Eric Milton.
Even before Bailey’s awful appearance - brief as it was - former Reds interim manager Pete Mackanin, now a Yankees scout, had this assessment: “I’ve never been a big Homer Bailey fan. He doesn’t have any pitches to go with his fastball and he doesn’t locate his fastball very well.”
And for all those out there who clamored and clamored and clamored for Bailey’s call-up? Be careful, you might get what you ask for.
Even before Homer’s odyssey Sunday, manager Dusty Baker had a message that was as clear as an S.O.S. in a bottle.
Baker was talking about the team’s pitching prospects — specifically RHP Josh Roenicke and RHP Daryl Thompson, knocking them stiff in Louisville (AAA).
Baker emphasized that there is room for them and the team won’t hesitate to make changes.
“We have some other dudes coming and they’re coming pretty quickly,” he said. “Roenicke is coming quickly and Thompson is coming quickly. We have some competition coming that can either push some of the guys here or pass up some of the guys here.”
Thompson allowed one run and five hits over 8 2/3 innings against Rochester Saturday and he is 3-0 with a 3.25 ERA in four starts. Roenicke is 0-0 with a 1.08 ERA and two saves in seven appearances.
“And who knows who else we have coming,” he added. “Usually, when they start coming we have so many that we have to make a decision on who to keep and who to trade for what we need.”
As Inspector Clousseau used to say, “Verrrrrrry interesting.”
After the carnage, Baker was more succinct.
With his 0-3 record and 8.76 earned run average, Bailey’s rotation spot is in jeopardy - maybe double jeopardy if Alex Trebec is pitching well in Louisville.
“There has to be some serious discussions (about Bailey),” said Baker. “If you are not making pitches and that’s your job to do, you have to figure out what’s up and why.
“They hit him pretty good,” Baker added. Not pretty good. Real good. “He still has work to do, especially on his change-up and breaking ball.
“You have to make pitches, locate your fastball and hopefully you can get your secondary pitches over,” Baker added. “In the big leagues, if you don’t get your secondary pitches over, they’ll sit on one pitch (the fastball) and you have to locate perfectly to get the out.”
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Bench: Catch Every Ball
There’s a great little book just out by Johnny Bench: Catch Every Ball.
It is a motivational book, only 119 pages and although it is a hardcover it is about the size of a paperback.
What makes it so good, other than inspirational chatter by Bench, is that it is filled with anecdotes from Bench’s Hall of Fame career.
I read it Saturday night in one sitting - mostly to get my mind off home runs flying off the bats of Kevin Youkalis and Coco Crisp (beaten by a cereal???) in the 10th inning Saturday afternoon that lifted the Boston Red Sox over the Cincinnati Reds, 6-4.
Tremendous game to watch, though. Reminded me of Game 6 of the 1975 World Series when Carlton Fisk hit the 12th inning home run to beat the Reds in Fenway Park, a game during which Pete Rose, standing in the batter’s box, turned to catcher Fisk and said, “Isn’t this a great game?”
Anyway, Bench. Love the guy. We’ve become pretty good friends, even better than when I covered him. When he sees me, he gets a kick out of calling me, “Hall of Flamer.”
What I liked about Bench was that if I wrote something he didn’t like, he let me know about it, then forgot about it. No grudges held.
In his last season, with his knees nearly shot from squatting, Bench tried to play third base. During spring training, ball after ball went through his legs and I wrote sarcastically, “Bench playing third base is a perfect imitation of a croquet wicket.”
He didn’t much like that.
Then there was 1977, the year after two straight World Series titles. Things weren’t going well. A lot of the players, Bench included, spent a lot of time on the road lounging around the hotel pools, working on their tans.
I wrote that and said, “The Reds seem to be more interested in getting suntans than winning games.” Somebody clipped the column and hung it on the clubhouse wall. As I walked in, Bench was reading it and said, loudly, “Hey, Hal. What do suntans have to do with winning baseball games?”
As my face reddened, a high, squeaky voice from across the room said, “If the shoe fits, wear it.” It was George Foster. Thanks, George.
When Bench got married the first time, more than a thousand people attended and he invited celebrities, including the President of the U.S. It was a big deal - TV cameras, newspaper stories.
Later, when it came out that Bench was getting a divorce, I wrote a story about it and Bench said the next day, “Hal, why is my divorce big news?”
I said, “Didn’t you invite the President to your wedding?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Then your divorce is big news, too,” I said. He laughed at that one - much later.
Read the book. None of the above stories are in it, but you’ll love it.
Anyway, Saturday’s loss was a stunner, especially after Edwin Encarnacion hit a game-tying home run in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and two strikes to tie it.
Some of you have issues with Dusty Baker batting Jay Bruce first and Paul Janish second. I tend to agree that Janish shouldn’t be batting second (he is 1 for 22 at this moment), but I can’t take issue with the leadoff hitter.
Baker has no choice. He doesn’t have a leadoff hitter. Jerry Hairston Jr. is hurt, Ryan Freel is hurt. Jeff Keppinger is hurt. Who on the roster is a leadoff hitter? You tell me. Tell me who you think should bat first and who should bat second. If you have a legitimate solution, I’ll pass it on to Dusty.
Baker has at least one legitimate reason for batting Janish second - in addition to putting a righthanded bat between the lefty leadoff hitter (Bruce) and the No. 3 hitter (lefty Ken Griffey Jr.).
“I feel that if I bat Janish second he’ll see some good pitches to hit with Griffey batting behind him,” said Baker.
However, my solution might be this: Take Brandon Phillips out of the four-hole. Put him second. Then move Adam Dunn into the four-hole. If Dusty is worried that much about Griffey and Dunn, both lefthanders, batting back-to-back, move Encarnacion into the four-hole.
How about (for now?) Bruce, Phillips, Griffey, Encarnacion, Dunn, Votto, Janish, Bako/Ross?
Just a suggestion.
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Casey: 1,500 and sadness
The day after, Sean Casey had tears in his eyes when he talked about the reception and ovation he got for his first at-bat Friday night with the Boston Red Sox from the Cincinnati Reds fans in Great American Ball Park.
Later in the game, he got his 1,500th hit and said Saturday, “I should have been all happy about it, but all I could think about was how I was traded by the Reds. I never got to say a real goodbye to the fans here. All I got was a 45-second phone call from general manager Dan O’Brien and manager Jerry Narron to tell me, “Sean, you’ve been traded to the Pirates.”
Casey’s hit was a blooper to left off Aaron Harang and after the game Harang sent Casey a baseball on which he inscribed:
“Congrats on your first hit off me. You really got ahold of that one.”
On the other side, however, he wrote a sincere: “Congrats on your 1500th hit. You’re still the best.”
Casey sent a ball back with this written on it: “Ranger: Thanks for letting me hit that rocket to left field off you.”
Modern-day ballparks, like Great American Ball Park, have massive medical facilities, a large training room with several tables on which players recline for treatment.
But on Saturday morning, there was Boston’s Manny Ramirez on the floor in the middle of the smallish visitor’s clubhouse, getting stretched by a trainer - another case of Manny being Manny.
I remember the days of old Crosley Field when there was no trainer’s room, just one table in the middle of the clubhouse and all the trainer had was a bottle of liniment and he drank half of that.
When Jay Bruce dropped a fly ball late in Wednesday’s game he wasn’t in the lineup the next day, but manager Dusty Baker called him into his office to explain, “You’re not out of the lineup because you dropped a fly ball. This isn’t punishment. Just a day off.”
Well, shortstop Paul Janish was 1 for 19 heading into Saturday’s game and he struck out four straight times Friday. But he was in the lineup Saturday.
“You don’t want to take a guy out after he strikes out four times because it looks like punishment,” said Baker. “I remember once when I struck out four times in Montreal against Bill Stoneman.
“After three strikeouts, I tried to bunt my fourth time,” said Baker. “I heard all these noises and it was coming from MY dugout, the guys yelling at me for trying to bunt. Hell, I wasn’t trying to bunt for a hit, I was just trying not to strikeout.
“Well, I struck out anyway and when I went back to the dugout I got a standing ovation. You know, ‘Go down like a man,’” said Baker.
While Baker doesn’t have many options at shortstop, he said he will play Jolbert Cabrera there on some days, “Depending on the pitcher - not theirs, ours. For defense. If a guy like Edinson Volquez is pitching (he gets a lot of ground balls) I want Janish on defense. With a fly ball pitcher like Bronson Arroyo I would be apt to play Cabrera.”
Makes sense to me.
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Good Friday on the 13th
Pete Mackanin, the Cincinnati Reds interim manager for the last half of last season, is a New York Yankees scout now and as he stepped on the media elevator before Friday’s game he said:
“I’m supposed to meet my wife in the stands. She’ll be wearing red so I won’t have trouble finding her,” he said.
Funny stuff, Pete, because Great American Ball Park was coated in red - whether it was for the Reds or for the Boston Red Sox. And Red Sox Nation was well-represented.
And the Reds pulled the plug on them, just as they did in the 1975 World Series, the last time the Red Sox were in Cincinnati.
Leadoff hitter Jay Bruce started things with a first-inning home run, Manny Ramirez tied it in the fourth with a run-scoring single, then Adam Dunn homered in the fourth and Joey Votto poked a run-scoring double.
That was it. Reds 3, Red Sox Nation 1.
“That just shows us we can play with those guys,” said Bruce, batting leadoff because there is nobody else, due to injuries. “I batted leadoff in high school, so I could get more at-bats. I don’t care where I bat as long as I’m swinging and we’re winning.”
Aaron Harang threw a beauty - one run, four hits, no walks, seven strikeouts in seven innings.
He said he has been working on his legs and that was evident Tuesday when he came through the clubhouse door pushing a racing bicycle, a pointed helmet on his head. He said after Friday’s game he was working on his legs.
“I’ve been riding for about an hour every afternoon around the streets of downtown Cincinnati,” he said. “Next stop? Tour de France.”
His opponent, 23-year-old Justin Masterson was as good as Bat Masterson with a pistol - 6 2/3 innings, three runs, four hits. He is from Beavercreek, a suburb of Dayton. And he appears to be the Real Deal.
Bruce was right, too. There is no reason why this team shouldn’t be able to play games like this every time out. But they don’t - more often not.
It was great to see the fans give Sean Casey a standing ovation when he batted in the second. He stepped from the box and waved his helmet in all directions of the stadium.
And my ribs still hurt from the bone-crushing hug he gave me in the Bosox clubhouse before the game.
(See previous post below for loads of stuff on Sir Sean).
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Sean Casey: He’s everywhere
Has anybody anywhere at any time at any place seen Sean Casey depressed?
“I’m in the lineup tonight,” he said. “If this game is rained out I’ll be depressed.”
Impossible.
Casey spent the entire pregame afternoon Friday touring Great American Ball Park and saying hello to everybody. As he walked into the park, he stopped at Gate 3 and posed for a picture with two security people.
My ribs still hurt from the press box fall I took a couple of weeks ago, but they had been getting better — until Casey saw me. His bear hug was enough to crack three more ribs, but it’s worth it to see him.
Casey, the world’s all-time nice guy, was suspended three games for his part in last week’s Boston-Tampa Bay brawl, and they wanted him to serve it this weekend.
“Oh, no,” he said. “Not the Cincinnati series. I’m appealing.” He did, and he won’t have to serve any suspension time until his hearing.
“I’ve only been suspended twice, and both times I was defending teammates,” he said. “The other was Dunner (Adam Dunn). Philadelphia’s Carlos Silva hit him in 2003 and he rushed the mound. But he hesitated and (catcher) Mike Lieberthal caught him from behind and clipped him. I had to protect him.”
Casey was defending outfielder Coco Crisp, who had charged the mound to get at Tampa Bay pitcher James Shields on June 5.
Most of the Red Sox are wearing T-shirts passed out by Casey. On the front is, “Woooooooo,” something pro wrestler Rick Flair shouts. On the back is, “Diamonds Are Forever,” and “alcalde,” which is Spanish for The Mayor.
Casey is hitting .372, but because he only plays first base he doesn’t play that much, although he DH’s and there is no DH in this series with the Reds.
During spring training, somebody asked him if he could play outfield in an emergency and Casey said, “Yeah, if the emergency was that the whole city is burning down.”
Of playing for the Red Sox, Casey said, “Man, this is a different world. I see why they call it Red Sox Nation. It truly is. And they’ll be here in Cincinnati in full force. They’re everywhere.”
Casey was talking about some of his former managers in Cincinnati and told a funny incident about Dave Miley.
“He came up to me in the dugout one game and said, “Should I take out the pitcher? I gotta take him out right now, right?’” said Casey. “I told him, ‘How do I know, I’m just the first baseman.’ “
READY FOR another travel tale?
To get to and from home games, because I can’t drive, the paper furnishes me with a driver, a fine gentleman named Larry Glass from Fairfield, and sometimes a limousine service.
On Friday, a day for the limo service, I was supposed to be picked up at 1:30. They called to say my limo had a flat tire and they’d be late. They showed up at 2:30. With heavy rains and Friday traffic, my driver tried to take a “short cut” to the park.
I saw parts of Cincinnati I didn’t know existed — and the guy had to stop for gas as well. I saw Carthage and the Hamilton County Fairgrounds and the front door of Procter & Gamble. Arrived at the part at 4:45 — 1 hour, 45 minutes late.
A strange coincidence: My limo driver early Friday morning took Boston pitcher Josh Beckett to Kenwood Country Club for some golf.
Beckett and I became friends when he pitched for the Florida Marlins and Jack McKeon managed there. McKeon introduced us and we hit it off.
Unbeknownst to me, Beckett was in a Cincinnati establishment three or four years ago at the same time as my daughter-in-law, Tammy. She’s a huge baseball fan, recognized him, and struck up a conversation. He didn’t know she was my daughter-in-law, but was extremely nice to her.
Tammy is now pregnant, her first child by my son, Brent, and they know it is a boy. His name will be either Beckett or Casey (guess who?).
My grandson, Eric, my son Brian’s son, is named after Eric Davis.
One of the first people I saw at the stadium was Pete Mackanin, the Reds interim manager last year and a guy who deserved to keep the job. But the Reds wanted to go big-time and hired Dusty Baker.
Mackanin scouts for the New York Yankees these days, snooping on the Reds for that next road trip.
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Burying the silly hatchet with Brandon Phillips
Brandon Phillips and I buried the hatchet after Thursday’s game — and it wasn’t in each other’s head.
It was way back on April 27 in San Francisco, a Sunday, and Phillips hit two home runs and had three hits in a 10-1 victory.
First San Francisco writers approached him and he shooed them away. I approached later and he shouted at me, “Get out of my space. Get out of my face and get out of my space!”
He was angry. And that made me angry and I told him, “Tell you what, Brandon. I won’t bother you the rest of the year.”
“That’s cool,” he said.
And I hadn’t.
But when he hit his three-run triple Thursday in Cincinnati’s 6-2 win, I decided that being a 67-year-old child wasn’t cool and I walked up to him. I asked him a couple of questions.
He smiled broadly and answered them, as polite and cooperative as your Sunday preacher. After the interview, I turned to leave, but he stopped me.
“Hey, man, I want to apologize to you,” he said. I knew what for but I asked, “What for?”
“For San Francisco,” he said. “I wasn’t mad at you, I was mad at an umpire and I took it out on you. I’m sorry. I’m straight, dog. Everything’s cool. Hey, I enjoy reading your articles.”
I told him I was out of line, too, that what I said wasn’t professional, that I wouldn’t bother him the rest of the year. We shook hands and that was that.
I don’t know about him, but I feel much better about myself.
And what did I ask him?
Well, he was given a day off Wednesday, then came back with that three-run triple Thursday and I asked if the day off was good for him, even though he argued with manager Dusty Baker that he didn’t need a day off and wanted to play.
“The day off really helped me out,” said Phillips. “I had a lot of energy today and felt a whole lot better. I didn’t really do anything yesterday. Now I can go out and be myself and not try to do too much.”
Phillips said Baker issued words of wisdom.
“He said, ‘Hey, you can’t win the game by yourself’ and just do what you can do.”
One of the things Phillips did so well last season was hit balls the opposite way, the way he hit his triple Thursday.
“Yes, I tried to go that way and I’m trying to hit more balls to right field,” he said.
“They’ve been pitching me in, and on the day off I looked at a lot of tapes and saw a majority of my hits going to right field. I’m going to try to do that again.”
The other noteworthy: Bronson Arroyo had his fifth straight quality start, maybe his best of the season, but got nothing for it because he had to leave after six innings when his forearm cramped when he led 2-0 and had given up two hits.
The bullpen couldn’t hold it for Arroyo, but a four-run inning during which Paul Janish and Ken Griffey Jr. worked St. Louis pitcher Randy Flores for walks was followed by the three-run triple by Phillips.
Arroyo makes no secret over how much he loves Boston and the Red Sox, for whom he pitched before the Reds traded Wily Mo Pena to get him. Arroyo was asked if he would have liked to pitch against the Red Sox in one of the three games this weekend.
“Of course, but it’s a little bit of a double-edged sword,” he said. “I’ve said for the last three years I really wouldn’t enjoy pitching Opening Day here because of all the hoopla going on, which is the same thing that is going to go on here the next three days.”
Arroy said he is going to warn his teammates.
“We’re going to get booed, be ready for it,” he said. “We’re going to be booed in our own park because the Boston fans are in town and they are going to take over the stadium, even worse than what Cubs fans do when they come here.”
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Strawberry pie, Bruce and The Mayor
Wasn’t looking forward to visiting the ol’ ball yard today, what with what is going on in the won-loss column — except I ALWAYS look forward to going to the park for baseball of any kind — good, bad or downright ugly.
And there is a bonus today. Rita Butcher, mother of Reds media relations director Rob Butcher, every once in awhile brings pies to the press box for the ink-stained wretches. At least once a year she brings the best homemade strawberry pie on both sides of the Mississippi.
And tonight’s the night. When she isn’t looking, I’ll snatch a second piece.
AS I ARRIVED at the park today, a cab pulled away and St. Louis manager Tony La Russa was standing at the curb. He took two bags out of the back seat, but forget another bag in the trunk. The security staff was busy flagging down another cab to radio ahead to La Russa’s cab to make a U-turn.
Maybe he had all his stats and strategies in that bag and he’ll have to wing it tonight. But would it matter?
JAY BRUCE was not in Thursday’s lineup, the first time since his major-league debut May 27. As manager Dusty Baker said, “It’s time.”
Bruce was 3 for his last 17, all singles, and Baker said he can tell Bruce isn’t trusting his quickness by the ground balls to second base.
Corey Patterson was in center field, batting leadoff. Insert derogatory remarks here: ( ).
THE BOSTON Red Sox arrive Friday, their first visit since the 1975 World Series. Baker said he and his wife were planning to go to Boston for the ‘75 Series, “Because I’d never been to Boston. But my agent advised me against it because there was some racial tension there at the time, so I watched ‘em all on TV and rooted for the Reds because I’m a National League guy.”
Baker said when the New York Yankees came to Wrigley Field in 2006 for an interleague series, “I kept and laminated the scorecards because it was the first time the Yankees had been in Wrigley since Babe Ruth.”
That was the 1933 World Series when Ruth either did or did not (depending upon whom you believe) pointed to the bleachers then hit a Charlie Root pitch for a home run, the famous “Called Shot.”
The Red Sox are bringing Sean Casey, and Baker said that beside his name on the scouting report is marked, “Hot.” He is 6 for 12 and hitting .376, but he has been DHing because David “Big Papi” Ortiz is hurt. There won’t be a DH in this series.
Baker said, “I love The Mayor. I’m sure he’ll get a great welcome here, won’t he?” He should. Baker said the first time he heard about Casey was when he played in a summer college league, “And his manager was Sarge (former major league outfielder Gary Matthews). Sarge told me, ‘This kid can hit. He’s going to be a good big-league hitter.’”
A couple of person Casey stories:
In the off-season of 1999, I was getting married. On the morning of my wedding, the phone in my house rang. When I answered a voice said, “Hal, this is Case. Just calling to congratulate you and wish you luck.”
No. 1, it was November and I didn’t know he even knew I was getting married. No. 2, I don’t know how he got my phone number. No. 3, only one other player in 36 years has called my home. Barry Larkin.
And Casey was one of three players to call me and congratulate me in December of 2002 when I was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame — Ken Griffey Jr., Aaron Boone and Casey.
When he was with the Reds, on the first day of spring training, before he even walked into the clubhouse to say hello to his teammates, Casey made a right turn into the press room to say hello to the writers, complete with a bear hug.
Only one other player did that. Jose Rijo.
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The view from down under
Time to face reality, Redlegs fans.
This is NOT a good baseball team. This is a baseball team that is in last place and could claim squatter’s rights. It is a baseball team sprinkled with some young talent that can be great one night and awful the next.
Or in the case of 22-year-old Johnny Cueto, semi-great one start and awful the next - like Wednesday night.
In the first inning against the St. Louis Cardinals, he retired the first hitter, then walked two. Rick Ankiel homered. He walked another and Jason LaRue homered. Now it’s 5-0 and St. Louis starter Braden Looper hasn’t thrown a pitch.
Before the night was over, Cueto walked eight in five innings and nothing was pretty about this 10-0 game except the Reds cheerleaders - and this was the first night I even paid the least bit attention to them.
Cheerleaders in baseball? There should be no crying in baseball and no cheerleaders in baseball. Make that a rule.
And, of course, we know St. Louis catcher Jason LaRue, the former Cincinnati catcher. He was hitting .173 when he batted in the first. After he homered, a member of the St. Louis traveling party said, only half-kidding, “That might be the first ball he hit out of the infield this year.”
Hey, if former Reds like Jorge Cantu and Cody Ross can turn the screws, why not Jason LaRue.
The Reds are probably fortunated that Kyle Lohse isn’t facing them in this series. Lohre, gosh-darn-awful with the Reds before they traded him to Philadelphia, is now with the Cardinals and he is 7-2 with a 3.92 ERA in 14 starts.
Guaranteed. If he faced the Reds, he’d pitch a three-hit shutout. But the Cardinals didn’t need that. Braden Looper did it.
The Reds are in last place, 11 1/2 games behind the Cubs. Just hang a lantern on them. They’re the National League Central caboose. Aren’t most caboose’s red?
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The Great Homer Bailey Mystery
Ken Griffey Jr., thanks for a night of no sleep. Still trying to recover and hopefully I won’t doze in the pressbox tonight.
When Griffey hit his 600th home run Monday in Miami, after doing all the necessary writing, it was 2:30 a.m. when I crawled between the covers. The alarm went off at 4 a.m. - time for the trip to the airport.
Halfway there, I realized I had only a couple of hundred dollar bills. Nothing smaller. I asked the cabbie, “Can you break a hundred?” When he quit laughing, he said, “I just got on duty and I have maybe four bucks on me.”
The fare was close to $40. He didn’t take credit cards. I became the first guy ever to give him a $60 tip. I should have had him stop at Dunkin’ Donuts and bought us each a couple of glazed so I could get change and sticky fingers.
Any way, I took Monday off for dinner at my favorite Dayton establishment, The Oakwood Club. But I caught some of Homer Bailey’s effort on TV and it was enough to make me skip dessert.
So today I asked Dusty Baker about the loss of five to six miles an hour off Bailey’s fastball. Baker said he didn’t see Bailey last year, so he couldn’t hazard a guess, but he wondered if Bailey has a governor on himself because he is not a physical issue.
Bailey used to do a full wind-up, taking both hands behind his head on his wind-up. Coach Dick Pole took that away from him this year and as Baker said, “That’s a mechanical thing and Bailey has enough going on with his delivery already.”
Baker did acknowledge one thing we all know: “If he is only going to throw 90-91 (or 87-88 like Tuesday), he better have good control and command of his off-speed and breaking pitches.”
He didn’t have that.
Jerry Hairston Jr. had some good news about his broken left thumb: “They told me I could be playing within two weeks, three at the most. In fact, I’m going to start hitting Saturday. I know one thing, I’m banning the head-first slide. It is no longer in my repertoire.”
It was weird in more ways than one. He was sliding into second base but he broke his thumb on Florida third baseman Jorge Cantu’s spikes. Ken Griffey Jr. was batting and the Marlins put on a bizarre shift. Instead of shifting the shortstop to the right side of second base and leaving the third baseman to cover the entire left side - which is what most teams do - the Marlins leave their shortstop on the left side and shift the third baseman to the right of second base.
Makes a whole lot of sense because your shortstop is a better defender with a lot more range than your third baseman. So that’s why third baseman Cantu was covering second on Hairston’s slide.
Marty Brennaman on the Cardinals losing Albert Pujols, for a month: “If that team keeps winning with Pujols out of the middle of their lineup than Tony La Russa is the greatest manager in the history of baseball.”
Coming from Marty, that’s high plains praise because he is not fond of La Russa.
Baker and general manager Walt Jocketty had a meeting of more than an hour in Dusty’s office early Wednesday afternoon and somebody said, “Maybe they’re discussing vendetta strategy.”
When Jocketty replaced fired GM Wayne Krivsky, Jocketty said, “Dusty and I probably have a little vendetta against the Cubs (who fired Baker) and the Cardinals (who fired Jocketty).”
The clubhouse door opened and pitcher Aaron Harang rode on - on a bicycle, complete with racing helmet. He didn’t look like Lance Armstrong. More like Peewee Herman’s Big Adventure.
Love the gag Paul Bako pulls on teammates. When somebody tells somebody something that is old news, the person hearing the news say, “Have you heard about the Lindbergh Baby?”
Bako has a twist that always draws laughter when somebody tells him old news he already knows:”Have you heard about the Hinderburg Baby? Do you think I’m stupid?”
Well, you have to be there.
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Volquez shares his knowledge
It’s a good thing Edinson Volques is 9-2, and even better that he won Monday night on Ken Griffey Jr. 600 Night.
This little vignette might make his teammates angry, although when it happened who knew that it would come back to haunt the Reds?
Did you see the 21-year-old Florida Marlins rookie, Ryan Tucker, befuddle the Reds Sunday after a call-up from Class AA for his major-league debut?
Did you see that change-up he was using to befuddle them? Did it look familiar?
It should. Volquez taught it to him.
About four years ago, Tucker was a California high school prospect and Volquez pitched for the Texas Rangers’ Class A team.
“When I was in high school, my adviser was Volquez’s agent,” said Tucker.
“One day I went out to dinner with him at a Denny’s after one of his games. He was showing me how he throws his change-up. Since then I’ve been throwing it the same way he throws it.”
And as the Reds will attest, pretty doggone good — just like Volquez’s
Volquez learned his change-up from Pedro Martinez and he called Tucker after Sunday’s game. “He was pretty proud of me,” Tucker said before Monday’s game. “It’s sweet. He got to watch me pitch yesterday. Now, I’m going get to watch him pitch.”
And Volquez used that change-up to win his ninth game.
Baseball has the coolest “inside” stories.
AND HOW about a couple of comments from the Florida Marlins on Griffey’s No. 600, witnessed by 16,003 (I’ve seen bigger crowds in a bar fight)?
Chipper Jones hit his 400th home run against Florida last week in Atlanta.
“We saw 400 the other day with Chipper and 600 today,” said veteran outfielder Luis Gonzalez. “It’s not the side you want to be on when you see those. Nonetheless, 20 or 30 years down the road you can say you were out there and you saw it.’’
Left-handed pitcher Mark Hendrickson gave it up and said, “He hit it a long way. It is what it is. I’m sure I’ll get a lot of attention for it.
“He’s a great player. I grew up in the Seattle area so I watched him. I know what he did for baseball in Seattle,’’ said Hendrickson. ”You’re going to give up home runs. You just hate for it to be in a game where I give up a couple of others. It kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”
Only you, pal. Only you. The fans gave Griffey a standing ovation and demanded a curtain call.
Notice I’m avoiding what happened down the the riverfront Tuesday night against the St. Louis Cardinals. Ugliness to the nth degree.
Homer Bailey? Just like last year, the Cardinals beat up on him again. I still need to be convinced he is a major-league pitcher. Right now, he isn’t. Yes, he’s young. Yes, he’s inexperienced. But there is just something missing — something Johnny Cueto and Volquez have that he doesn’t.
Anybody know what it might be? I’m mystified.
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The joys of 600 home runs
NOTE: For a column I did on Griffey and his legacy, see the post UNDER and BEFORE this one. Hope you enjoy it.
Love him or hate him — and there seems to be no in-between on Ken Griffey Jr. — hitting 600 home runs in a career is an accomplishment for which they should add a wing in Cooperstown.
As is nearly always the case, Griffey accomplished a milestone while wearing road gray and said, “I think the only milestone homer I hit at home was my 100th.”
No. 600 came Monday night in nearly empty Dolphin Stadium, in the first inning against Florida Marlins left-hander Mark Hendrickson. If he had waited one day, just one more day, he could have done it on Joe Nuxhall Night Tuesday in Great American Ball Park.
Or he could have done it on Friday the 13th. Or he could have done it on Father’s Day.
“You can’t control when you hit home runs,” he said. “Wish I could.”
Asked about home runs he’ll remember besides the 600th, he said, “Only two. My first one and the one I hit with my dad, the only father-son to go back-to-back.”
And besides joining five baseball immortals in The 600 Club (Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Sammy Sosa) here are some other Griffey home run noteworthies:
Three were inside the park.
Fifteen were grand slams.
Five were pinch-hit.
Eight came off David Wells, the most off any pitcher.
38 were hit against Minnesota, the most against any team.
Asked about being in the same residence with guys like Mays and Aaron, Griffey said, “Willie Mays called me about 10 days ago and Hank Aaron called me the next day. The told me to relax, keep going and have fun. That helped calm me down and settled my nerves.”
What, Barry Bonds didn’t call? Good.
Well, Griffey isn’t sure. A few minutes after the game ended, a 9-4 win, Griffey check his cell phone: “72 text messages and 18 phone calls. I don’t think I have that many friends.”
Asked who he would call first, he said, “My mother (Birdie), of course.”
Ken Griffey Sr., Griffey’s wife, Melissa, and Griffey’s three kids were in the stands, and when he crossed home plate he pointed to his family in the stands.
His 12-year-old son, Trey, was dressed in a Reds uniform and was in the dugout and was one of the first to congratulate dear ol’ dad. “I caught him staring at me later and I said, ‘What?’ ” said Griffey. “He said, ‘You hit 600 homers!’ “
“It meant a lot to have Trey in the dugout and for him to be one of the first to greet me,” said Griffey. “I’m more excited about what he does than what I do.”
Griffey said the trip around the bases was quick: “I floated and don’t remember touching the bases.”
The 16,003 fans gave him a standing ovation and demanded a curtain call, which he eventually did, “But it took me longer because I wanted to accept the congratulations and the handshakes of all my teammates first.”
Manager Dusty Baker said Griffey called his shot — hey, if Babe Ruth can do it, why not Griffey? “He told me Sunday he was going to do it and I assumed he meant Monday. When he hit it, the first thing he said to me was, ‘I’m a man of my word. I keep my word.’ “
Griffey was asked if ever thought he could hit 600 homers and, of course, said, “No.”
Why not?
“My father hit 152 career home runs and I thought I would be just like him — a No. 2 hitter, move the runner over. I never thought I’d hit 200 or 300 and especially not 600. I’m just a line-drive hitter and some of my line drives go further than others,” he said.
Baker said he hopes Griffey receives a hero’s welcome in Great American Ball Park, “That they show him the love and respect he deserves. What he has done is quite a feat, quite an accomplishment.”
Asked how he planned to celebrate, Griffey smiled and said, “First I have about a two-hour plane ride back to Cincinnati that’ll get us in about 3 a.m. Then I sleep. Maybe I’ll do a little celebrating at lunch.”
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Griffey: Call him Mr. 600
He not only did it his his way, he did it the right way.
When home run No. 600 splashed down among a splattering of fans in the orange seats inside the right-field foul pole of Dolphin Stadium at 7:22 Monday night, Ken Griffey Jr. etched his name in history and he did it with a clean pen.
Griffey’s name never has appeared on a police blotter — not even for spitting on a sidewalk or jaywalking, has never been listed among those who cheated to gain an unfair advantage, has never been listed on any delinquent tax lists or bankruptcy lists for flushing his money away on drugs.
As his current manager, Dusty Baker says, “There is no cloud of suspicion over his head. Should he be held in higher esteem than he is? Yes. And I’m sure he will be down the road.”
He has played in more pain than any player should have to endure and he did it without complaint or excuse. He has rebuilt knees and brackets and pins and plates embedded in every nook and cranny of his body. Three screws in his tailbone keeps his hamstring attached to the bone, six screws hold his shoulders in place, “And I used to have five screws in my elbow.”
Baker didn’t know all that until recently, when he saw Griffey and his battered body in the training room.
“I’m surprised he can go through the airport metal detectors without setting something off. He must really love the game, because he doesn’t need the money,” said Baker. “He has gone through a lot of pain and suffering. I have to damn near drag him out of the lineup.”
Injuries between 2000 and 2005 cost him nearly 450 games games since he arrived in Cincinnati or Monday’s home run might have been No. 700.
He has never complained, “Because I don’t deal in ‘what-ifs,’ ” he said.
His name is found only near the top of most offensive baseball statistics and on any list of Best Father-Husband. He has given his time and his financial resources to help the less fortunate, without standing in front of TV cameras pounding his chest. He prefers anonymity.
He has been ejected only three times, “All for balls and strikes,” and he has never been suspended, “Because when there is a fight I’m too busy laughing.”
And now he is among six players who have hit 600 home runs, one of only four without a sniff of talk about steroids or human growth hormone. That stigma is attached to Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa, but not Griffey, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron or Willie Mays.
Through it all, Griffey has not changed.
“I knew him when he was a little kid,” said Baker. “He’s the same guy I knew as a kid, except for a lot more scars and like most of us he has gained some weight.”
It is difficult to coax Griffey into talking about himself, especially his accomplishments.
Asked if he knew how close he was to Sammy Sosa, Griffey thought for a moment and said, “Uh, 609. And I only know that because they keep flashing it up on the scoreboard. I just want to be the same guy, day in and day out, a guy trying to get this team on track and get some wins.”
The sincerity is legitimate.
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Griffey hits No. 600
And now it’s 600.
At 7:22, on a hot Florida night, Ken Griffey Jr. joined the ‘600’ Club, bashing a 3-and-1 pitch from Florida left-hander Mark Hendrickson into the right field seats - a no-doubt 413-footer.
Griffey joins an Elite Five with 600 or more home runs - Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays and Sammy Sosa.
The Marlins picked their own poison on this one.
On Sunday, with first base open and one out and a runner on second in the first inning, the Marlins walked Griffey intentionally. On Monday, same situation - one out, runner on second, first inning, they decided to pitch to him.
With a quick flick of his ebony bat, the long wait was over and a very small turnout in Dolphin Stadium to witness history gave him a standing ovation and demanded a curtain call, which he gave them.
Griffey had gone 24 plate appearances (17 at-bats, 7 walks) since he hit No. 599 against Atlanta on May 31 in Great American Ball Park.
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Of 600 - and much, much more
Sights & Sounds while awaiting 600 - and I don’t mean Alfred Lord Tennyson’s famous line in The Charge of the Light Brigade, “Into the Valley of Death rode the 600.”
A GOOD LINE from USA Today baseball writer Mel Antonen as he sat in the Florida pressbox awaiting Ken Griffey Jr.’s 600th home run: “I never saw a team below .500 with so many stories - Griffey, Jay Bruce, Edinson Volquez, Dusty Baker …”
THE ONLY COMMENT in the press box Sunday (not from me) when Corey Patterson broke a 0-for-24 slide-to-oblivion in the ninth inning was: “Yeah, it comes with the Reds behind, 9-1.”
Well, it was one of only three hits by the Reds. One of the other two was by pitcher Aaron Harang, which drove in the only run the Reds had until Patterson’s home run. Harang needs the late attorney Johnnie Cochran to file suit against the Reds for non-support: “If the team doesn’t score, I ain’t pitching no more.”
HOW MANY TIMES will we hear and read this in the future: “Yonder Alonso hit one yonder over the fence?”
That was in the Miami Herald Monday after the Reds’ No. 1 draft pick hit a two-run home run in the first inning for the Miami Hurricanes to help beat Arizona and send the ‘Canes to the College World Series in Omaha.
JAY BRUCE NOTICED that Griffey had ‘JR’ embroidered in small letters on the cuffs of his white dress shirt and asked, “What’s that for, in case you forget who you are?”
Said Griffey, “You forget I’m only a few years away from my Golden Buckeye card.” Bruce, a Texan, said he didn’t know what that was, but figured it out quickly and said, “Is that like an AARP card?”
PITCHERS ARE avoiding Griffey’s strike zone with obvious malice aforethought, as in, “It won’t be me giving up 600.”
Asked about his seven walks in his last 20 plate appearances, Griffey said, “One of those things. I’ll just wait it out.”
SPEAKING OF waiting it out, while Griffey waited on deck to bat early in Sunday’s game, a mother and three sons asked for his autograph from the stands, knowing not that players are not permitted to sign during games.
When Griffey refused, the mother and sons aimed some not-so-nice comments his way. Griffey spoke back, not in a complimentary way, but later in the game handed three signed balls to the kids.
“I WAS NOT too subtle when they first asked,” he said. “I said, ‘Do you see any other bleeping players signing bleeping autographs?’ ” He was sheepish about it and gave the kids the signed balls.
AMAZINGLY, GRIFFEY was intentionally walked in the first inning Sunday when the score was 0-0 with a runner on second base and no outs. Has he ever been intentionally walked in the first inning?
“Yeah. Not often, but I have,” he said. “I’ll admit it did shock me Sunday. I waited to get ready to hit and looked back at the catcher and he was standing with his arm out for intentional walk and I said, ‘Uh, well, OK.’ “
DAVID SAMSON, Florida Marlins president, stopped in the clubhouse to chat with Griffey. About 600?
“No, he stopped to give me a hard time about my wine-tasting party,” said Griffey. “He used to be in Seattle when I was there.”
On Father’s Day, after a game at Great American Ball Park, Griffey will host a post-game wine-tasting for the media to introduce his label, Junior’s Cabernet. Proceeds from wine sales go to Ken Griffey Jr.’s Family Foundation.
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Some more Griffey ‘fluff’
My ears are still ringing from the clanging cowbells they gave away at Saturday’s Marlins game — and there were only 25,000 in the seats. Just think of the noise if south Florida fans actually liked baseball.
They could move the Florida and Tampa Bay franchises to Peoria and Poughkeepsie and draw more fans. The Marlins give away something (other than games) nearly every night and still draw more geckos than fans.
FOR THOSE who hate Ken Griffey Jr. and consider anything nice written about him a piece of fluff, well here’s a ton of fluff for you to chew on.
Griffey did not hit home run No. 600 Sunday, but he made a hit with a mother and three kids who probably should have been escorted out of Dolphin Stadium.
During the game the mother and three boys asked Griffey for an autograph and he politely told her, “I can’t sign during the game.” The mother and the sons began ridiculing him and the mother said, “You stink and no wonder your team is losing so bad.”
Late in the game, Griffey walked close to where they were seated, handed them three autographed baseballs and silently walked away.
As for hitting No. 600, Griffey might have to use an extension ladder and a canoe paddle to hit home run No. 600 because pitchers are avoiding him like Typhoid Mary.
In the first seven games of this trip, Griffey has walked eight walks times in 18 plates appearances — and he didn’t start the first three games in Philadelphia. He made two pinch-hit appearances in Philadelphia and walked twice.
“They’re pitching him carefully, that’s for sure,” said manager Dusty Baker. “The only pitcher to come after him recently was (Philadelphia’s) Cole Hamels (Griffey was 0-for-4).”
It reached ridiculous heights Sunday when with a runner on second and one out, the Marlins intentionally walked Griffey — in the FIRST inning. It worked, though. Brandon Phillips grounded into a double play.
After saying Saturday that Griffey would get Sunday off, Baker had Griffey in the lineup. Was it because the Marlins used Sunday’s scheduled starter, left-hander Burke Badenhop, in relief Saturday and had to call up Class AA right-hander Ryan Tucker to start Sunday?
“Not so much that as it is that Griffey feels good and if he feels good he plays, plus it’s hard to sit with all his family here,” said Baker. “I try to get him out of games early to conserve and preserve him.”
In other words, Griffey talked his way into the lineup And Baker said he will play tonight.
And here’s what facing Griffey means to a kid coming up out of Double-A.
When Ryan Tucker told friends he was getting called up to the major leagues, the congratulations came first. But the teasing wasn’t far behind, especially when they realized the third batter he would face would be Griffey chasing his 600th home run.
“All my teammates in Double-A were like, ‘Don’t give it up! Don’t give it up!’ I was just trying to let that thought go because as awesome as it would have been for him to get it, I really didn’t want to give it up.
“It was pretty cool being part of the opportunity,” Tucker added. “I was trying to completely throw it to him. I was not trying to walk him. It just wasn’t going where I wanted it to go.”
And it isn’t where Griffey wants it to go, either.
ONE OF THE many delights about visiting manager Dusty Baker’s office is that there is always somebody interesting sitting in a chair by his desk, mostly old-time players.
Such was the case when I walked in their Sunday and saw Paul Casanova. Paul who?
Casanova is the last player from the Negro Leagues to make it to the majors, going from the Indianapolis Clowns to the Washington Senators in 1965. And he played for the Atlanta Braves 1972-74.
The Cuban-born catcher never played for the Reds, but is a huge fan, “Never miss a game on TV. Watch every one,” he said. On Sunday he wore a Reds hat and wrist bands.
“He ain’t lyin’ none,” said Baker. “He calls me all the time with tips and comments on my team and players and he is always, ‘Right on.’ “
Why the Reds?
“I played against ‘em when they were just starting and they were so good,” he said. “They’d be in their dugout in the seventh losing, but they’d be laughing. Then Pete Rose would say, ‘Let’s go get ‘em.’ And they’d go get ‘em.
“One time we beat them the first two games of a series so I said in the papers, ‘The Big Red Machine is done. We’re the Big Blue Tractor.’ The next day, Joe Morgan came up to me and said, ‘You shouldn’t have said that in the paper.’ Then they beat us a doubleheader and one of ‘em was by 18-4,” Casanova said with a laugh.
“One day I was catchin’ Phil Niekro’s knuckleball, tryin’ to catch it,” he said. “It was in Cincinnati and the stands cast a shadow halfway between home and the pitcher’s mound. Made it worse. A few rolled to the backstop and Johnny Bench came up to the plate, tapped my shin guards with his bat, and said, ‘If I had to catch that guy’s knuckler, I’d quit.’ “
Casanova said he played on an amateur team in Cuba in the early 1960s with Tony Perez, and one time in Venezuela Davey Concepcion was his team’s bat boy.
“He has a batting cage at his house and players go there all the time,” said Baker. “I send him over some of our old balls. The guy is something, isn’t he?”
Yes, he is.
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An ugly one gets away
This was one of those that feels as if somebody reached inside your body and twisted your guts with a clenched firt and won’t let go.
This was one wrapped up in a tidy bow, but what the Cincinnati Reds didn’t know was that the Florida Marlins were carrying scissors and snipped and snipped and snipped until the bow was in tatters.
Leading 7-5 in the bottom of the ninth, closer Francisco Cordero was awful. First he gave up a leadoff double to Jorge Cantu, who is treating the Reds like ants on a sidewalk. He homered earlier in the game and has three in two days against the Reds.
With one out, Cordero walked Dan Uggla on four pitches. Luis Gonzalez hit a sacrifice fly to make 7-6, but Cordero had two outs. Needed one. Never got it.
Cody Ross deposited an 0-1 pitch over the right-center fence. Game-ender. Game-over. Blown Save. Blown game. Back to the hotel for a short night of thinking what might have been, what should have been.
What is staggering about this one, other than the fact Cordero is looking more than a bit shaky as the closer, is that both Cantu and Ross wore Reds uniforms recently.
Cantu, a nice righthanded hitter, played 27 games for the Reds late last season and hit .298. At the end of the season, the Reds pushed him out the door. No trade. No sale. Just, “Good-bye and good luck.”
They also had Cody Ross for about 10 minutes in 2006. He broke his hand when it was hit by a pitch in his first at-bat for the Reds. When he recovered, the Reds traded him to the Marlins.
The other concern is Bronson Arroyo. The Bad Bronson showed up - again. And when he’s bad, he’s as bad as some of the characters Charles Bronson plays in the movies. Arroyo is named after Charles Bronson.
He needed 51 pitches (only 25 for strikes) to get through the second inning. He gave up four runs and seven hits in 4 2/3 innings, putting his team behind, 4-0.
His team didn’t rescue him, the Marlins did. They made three errors to permit the Reds to score four runs and take Arroyo off the hook.
Still, Arroyo and Cordero? Scary.
For those patting Corey Patterson on the back because you heard he volunteered to be sent to the minors, it ain’t so.
It was reported that way (not by me), but it just ain’t so. He never volunteered. When he was asked if he volunteered, he said, “No, I never volunteered. I was in Dusty Baker’s office and he told me I was going back. I expected it, but I didn’t ask for it.”
Actually, I applaud Patterson even more than if he had volunteered. He could have let the story ride and said, “Yep, I said, ‘Send my miserable butt back to Louisville, or maybe even Chattanooga,’” and made himself look good.
But he told the truth. He didn’t volunteer. He was told he was Louisvill-bound.
There are stories along those lines that are true, though.
The Reds once had a utility infielder named Chico Ruiz, a helpful player off the bench but stinko when he played regularly. After one long stint in the lineup, he told the manager, “Bench me or trade me,” a new twist on what most players who don’t get to play say, “Play me or trade me.”
Then there was shortstop Gary Templeton (St. Louis/San Diego). He deserved to be on the 1979 All-Star team but wasn’t voted on as a starter. When he was named to the team as a non-starter, he said, “If I ain’t startin’ I ain’t departin.’”
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Was it chicken, rice and beans?
The players were eating Cuban chicken, rice and beans in the pregame clubhouse and even sipped that strong stuff they call Cuban coffee in those little demitasse cups.
I love coffee, Starbuck’s variety, but that Cuban stuff stands my arm hairs on end and I spend the rest of the night walking on the ceiling.
But, hey, whatever works.
The Reds then went out Friday night and pounded the Florida Marlins, 11-3, spraying 17 hits all over the gridiron where the Miami Dolphins play in ineptitude. OK, so Bill Parcells is going to turn things around, right?
They try everything to draw baseball fans out here in the middle of nowhere, next to the Florida Turnpike and down the street from Calder Race Course.
And speaking of horses, pull hard for Big Brown. Horse racing needs a Triple Crown winner. I love horse racing, but when it comes to finding winners, I can’t even pick my nose.
Before the game and before he was surrounded by media, Ken Griffey Jr. sat at a table (no chicken, beans and rice for him — if he had, maybe he might have hit that 600th home run). Anyway, at the table with him was his son, Trey, and Jay Bruce. Bruce was eating the Cuban food and he broke an 0-for-9 with three hits Friday night.
Suddenly, it hit Griffey. Trey, 14, and Bruce, 21, were closer in age than Bruce and Griffey, 38. Bruce is only seven years older than Trey, but 17 years younger than Griffey.
“Now ain’t that a shame?” Griffey said.
Griffey told Adam Dunn that on the day he was drafted, “Hal McCoy was in my basement to do a story on me getting drafted No. 1 by the Seattle Mariners.”
Without missing a beat, Dunn said, “What did you give him, Tab or Fresca?” Then they both asked me if I was at Woodstock in 1969.
“Nope,” I said. “I was covering Ohio State football that year.”
Pitching coach Dick Pole put down a chicken wing and said, “I’da been there, but I was in boot camp.”
Griffey settled himself on a big black steamer trunk that goes with him everywhere he goes and met the Florida media.
“The biggest thing right now is that I’m just trying to be me,” he said. As I watched, I thought of that song by Chris Knight: “It Ain’t Easy Being Me.”
For Griffey, it isn’t. Sure, he has everything — riches, cars, a boat as big as a battleship, a wonderful family. But the demands on him are enough to rattle the Pope. And he handles it with dignity and aplomb, especially now that every media person wants a piece of him.
And he handles it.
“I don’t think about 600 home runs,” he said. “But y’all keep reminding me of it. When it’s all said and done, when I retire and go home, maybe I’ll think about it then.”
What he was thinking about was Friday’s game. He didn’t homer, but he was perfect. Two walks (the 16,000 fans booed because they wanted to see the 600th, and if it had happened there would be 160,000 people who would say they were there). Then he singled his next two times.
Perhaps the biggest thing this night was another win by 22-year-old Johnny Cueto, leveling his record at 5-5. He struggled a bit, needing 115 pitches to get through six innings.
He nearly didn’t make it. With the score 8-3, he loaded the bases with two outs in the fifth. He needed one more out to qualify for the win.
Dusty Baker came walked to the mound instead of Pole. Usually that means the hook.
But using Spanish, Baker said, “C’mon, Dude (what’s Spanish for Dude?). You want this game. You want this win? Then go get ‘em.”
Cueto was one pitch away from not getting it. He went to 3-and-2 on Matt Treanor. “A walk and he’s gone,” said Baker. Instead Cueto threw a nasty called strike past Treanor - one of the biggest pitches in his young career.
Cueto is 3-0 over his last four starts, a significant turnaround. And a big step forward for both him and the Reds.
And it’s chicken, rice and beans before Saturday night’s game.
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The Family Griffey is ready for 600
Ever enter a place where you know you didn’t belong? Like the women’s restroom if you are a man?
That’s the feeling I get at the Trump International Sonesta Beach Resort in Sunny Isles Beach, Fla. Even the name is off-putting.
And be truthful. How many hotel rooms have you been in that has a closet with a washer and dryer in it? In 36 years of travel, that’s a first for me. I would have been happy with the 10th floor patio and the two lounge chairs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
The price? Only $990 a night. I’m kidding, boss. Honest, I’m kidding about the price, but not the washer and dryer. They are right there behind the closet door. I stood and stared.
As I checked in Thursday night, a voice next to me said, “Don’t they let you travel with the team?” I was tempted to say, “No, bad table manners,” but if that were true the entire charter plane would be empty.
The voice belonged to the beautiful Melissa Griffey, wife of you know who. She said he probably was the only person happy that hubby didn’t hit No. 600 in Philadelphia.
“There wouldn’t have been anybody to give him a hug,” she said. Well, it wasn’t going to be me, Bubba. (“How about them Reds?”) The Griffey family, absent in Philly, is in Florida en masse, hoping to witness the historic blast.
Even Griffey seems anxious to get it over, and he’d like to do it in front of dear ol’ dad, Ken Griffey Sr.
“He’s going to be there because he’s got nothing else to do,” said Griffey. Senior and about 40 other relatives, friends and acquaintances are ensconced at The Trump.
“One good swing sends 40 people home happy and will take a whole lot off my wallet for the next two weeks,” said Junior. “The family is coming in and it’ll be nerve-racking. Hopefully, I can get it over with real quick and they don’t have to come up to Cincinnati and then go to New York and then go to Toronto and then go to Cleveland.”
So for Griffey, the home run will be one big financial-relieving swing. He nearly ended it in Philly in the ninth inning Thursday, sending center fielder Shane Victorino to the wall to grab a low liner.
“I would have been upset and so would a lot of other people,” said Melissa.
Speaking of the senior member of the Griffeys, he represented the Reds at Thursday’s free agent draft.
Forgive me for not getting worked-up over the draft. Never do. Marty Brennaman and I have the same attitude about it. It is not the NBA or NFL draft, where players usually go right to the big club.
The baseball draft is one big lottery. Sometimes you hit, mostly you don’t.
As manager Dusty Baker said, “Sometimes the last time you hear about a No. 1 pick is the day of the draft. And sometimes a No. 26 or No. 27 or No. 45 makes it. I’ve seen it over and over.”
Let me toss some names of former Reds No. 1 draft picks at you since 1989: Scott Bryant, Chad Mottola, Pat Watkins, C.J. Nitkowski, Johnny Oliver, Brandon Larson, Ty Howington, David Espinosa, Chris Gruler.
See what I mean?
In the Miami Herald this morning, the story about the Reds drafting Yonder Alonso was on Page 3 — and he was raised in nearby Coral Gables and attends the University of Miami. On Page 1 was a story about Kansas City drafting Eric Hosmer No. 1. He attends American Heritage High School in nearby Cooper City.
Everybody hopes Alonso does well, but he is a slow-footed, power-hitting left-handed first baseman.
How old is Joey Votto?
Speaking of slow-footed, on my ride from the Fort Lauderdale airport to Sunny Isles Beach, about a $25 cab ride, I had the only slow-footed taxi driver in captivity. We went down U.S. 1 without ever crossing the 30-mph boundary.
I got in the cab at 10 o’clock and at one point I asked, “Do you think we’ll be at the hotel by midnight?” He didn’t get my sarcastic question and smiled broadly said, “Oh, yes sir. Easily.”
He should have said, “Barely.”
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Is it the new, improved Homer?
Absolutely loved what I saw from Homer Bailey — on the mound and in the clubhouse.
OK, so he still had his cowboy buckle and his cowboy boots (but I didn’t see the Bowie knife), but if he can pitch the way he did Thursday and handle the post-game media the way he did, he can wear the Emperor’s clothes.
Heck, only Marty Brennaman gets on Jeff “Cowboy” Brantley for the color combinations he wears in suits, shirts and ties.
Bailey pitched good, man, very good. Had he not run up against a solid Cole Hamels (no runs, three hits in a 5-0 shutout), he might have won. Had he not had three unearned runs posted to his name on errors by shortstop Paul Janish, Ken Griffey Jr. and one himself, he might have won.
He gave up only four hits and two earned runs over 6 1/3 innings against a solid offensive team in a ballpark built for two — two homers a day, whether they need them or not.
Afterward, he faced the media and provided great insight and great quotes. After the way I’ve been hard and harsh on him since spring training, I approached with trepidation, but he twice looked me in the eye and answered the questions.
And with a smile. Good for him. Let’s hope he stays this way, stays strong on the mound, stays strong in the clubhouse and becomes another important piece to the starting rotation.
Think about it: Edinson Volquez, Aaron Harang, Johnny Cueto, Bronson Arroyo (The Good Bronson, not the Charles Bronson) and Bailey.
Things could look up considerably.
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No conspiracy with Griffey
Dusty Baker knows about Conspiracy Theories. Not only is he a history buff who knows a few things about the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, he knows about baseball conspiracies.
And one of them wasn’t The Ken Griffey Conspiracy. To listen to the Philadelphia media when Griffey didn’t start the first three games in Philly you would have thought Griffey took a bat and cracked the Liberty Bell or traded the recipe to Cincinnati five-way chili for the recipe for Philly cheesesteaks.
Baker was batting behind Hank Aaron in 1974 for the Atlanta Braves when they opened the season in Cincinnati and Aaron was one home run short of Babe Ruth’s 714.
The Braves wanted to keep Aaron out of the lineup so he could hit the historic home run in old Atlanta/Fulton County Stadium. But they made their intentions known and didn’t have Aaron come up with general soreness.
Commissioner Bowie Kuhn stepped in and said, “Hank, though shalt not sit. Thou shalt play and smote one into the great beyond.”
And that’s what Aaron did, hitting No. 714 against Cincinnati’s Jack Billingham, then hitting the record No. 715 in Atlanta later in the week against LA’s Al Downing.
Now it is Ken Griffey Jr. trying for home run No. 600, and suddenly he doesn’t play Monday in Philadelphia. General soreness, they said.
Out came the conspiracy theorists. One Cincinnati TV station said Griffey wouldn’t play in the Philadelphia series because his family couldn’t make it to Philly and he would wait until the Reds got to Florida on Friday. He could do it there in front of family.
What a joke. If I’m not mistaken, wasn’t that No. 3, batting third, bashing a double that one-hopped the left-field wall in the third inning Thursday? Guess he was playing, huh?
And wasn’t that Griffey pinch-hitting Tuesday and Wednesday? On Wednesday, he took a hefty-bag swing at a 3-and-0 pitch and Baker said, “You don’t think he wasn’t trying to hit that ball out of the park? He wasn’t swinging for a single to left, that’s for sure.”
Here’s the thing, and it’s one of the many things I admire about Ken Griffey Jr.
On Memorial Day, an off day after a trip to LA and San Diego, Griffey was in the training room. They drained 50 cc’s of fluid out of his left knee. Then he took TWO cortisone shots — one on the outside of the knee and another on the inside.
Don’t know if any of you have had cortisone shots, but I’ve had one. I’d rather chew thumb tacks and drink vinegar straight up than have another cortisone shot in my knee. When they put the word pain in the dictionary, they should include a photo of a cortisone needle.
Anyway, Griffey played the next seven games until Baker noticed him limping last Sunday and took him out. Then he gave him Monday off and didn’t start him Tuesday or Wednesday.
The mistake is that the Reds said he wasn’t playing because of general soreness. What’s that? No wonder folks were skeptical. I was skeptical. General Soreness? I thought he was commander of the 7th Confederate Division in the Civil War.
Why don’t they just come out and say: “Ken Griffey Jr has a sore left knee. We took 50 cc’s of fluid out of it on Memorial Day and he had two cortisone shots. The knee is a day-to-day thing.”
Instead it’s another conspiracy and the Philadelphia media thought he was ducking their fair city. All that was missing was the Zapruder film.
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All-Star matchup: Volquez vs. Hamilton
Picture this. And it could be reality.
First inning of the 2008 All-Star game. Pitching for the National League, Cincinnati’s Edinson Volquez. Batting for the American League, Texas’ Josh Hamilton.
How breathless would that be? About as breathless as me after walking up the ramps of Wrigley Field to get to the press box.
Volquez did it again Wednesday. The Phillies have to hate this guy who wears his hat cocked back on his head and a perma-press smile. They faced him twice in spring training and couldn’t hit him. They faced him on April 6 in Cincinnati and couldn’t hit him.
They faced him again Wednesday in their own cigar box ballpark and they could hit him even less — no runs, two hits, two walks, eight strikeouts and an 8-2 record.
“We owed him that win,” Reds manager Dusty Baker said. “He pitched those 1 2/3 innings in that 18-inning game in San Diego, where he volunteered to pitch, and we lost it.”
Asked about a possible All-Star appearance, Volquez’s diamond-studded smile broadened and he said, “I’m not thinking about it, but it would be nice if it happened.”
Volquez still can’t get over the sting of being traded by the Rangers last winter.
“When they called me and told me I was traded, I asked, ‘Why?’ ” he said. “They never answered, just said they’d call me back. They never did. I mean, I had my best year of pitching ever last year and they traded me.”
The Reds couldn’t be more happy about that.
Volquez had to be at his best because Philly’s Brett Myers threw a no-hitter for 5 2/3 innings. He walked Brandon Phillips in the sixth and he scored on Joey Votto’s double that erased the no-hitter and the shutout with one sweet swing of the bat.
It was Phillips and Votto again in the ninth for an insurance run, a single by Phillips and another run-scoring double by Votto.
So let’s hope Volquez and Hamilton march on. What an All-Star matchup.
My prediction: Volquez strikes him out with a change-up on the hands. Or Hamilton hammers a home run on a fastball on the outside corner.
What do you think? Who does what to whom in this All-Star matchup?
Addendum (or is it ad nauseum)?
Corey Patterson was 0-for-4, striking out with two on and one out in the eighth. He is now 0-for-22. I fear his initials might mean something cruel: CP for Can’t Play.
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Patterson is back … and playing
You know you have no life when you wake up in the morning on the road and, after thinking about missing your wife, Nadine, and your dog, Barkley, you think about what to write in that day’s blogs.
When blog-writing began at our paper a couple of years ago, I hid in a corner or blamed computer ignorance when they “suggested” I write blogs.
Now it is probably the most fun I have in this business.
NFL QUARTERBACK Donovan McNabb was at the park early Wednesday and chatted with Ken Griffey Jr. for nearly 45 minutes and later said, “I’ve met a lot of celebrities in my time and never been in awe. I’m almost embarrassed because I was so in awe of Griffey.”
They exchanged signed jerseys.
WITH THAT preamble, let the fun begin — again. I see the comments on yesterday’s post are abundantly filled with anti-Patterson remarks.
First of all, even though rules say a player has to stay in the minors for 10 days after he is optioned, there is another rule that says that player can return earlier in the event of an injury to somebody who plays the same position.
Ryan Freel went down with a partially torn hamstring and returned to Cincinnati. He’ll miss at least three weeks, maybe more. Patterson, who left the Reds last Wednesday with a .200 average, is back.
Hey, the guy was hitting .409 for his five games in L-ville with a .435 on-base average. Pause here for everybody to say, in unison — So what? Big deal.
Patterson is in the lineup tonight, batting second and playing center field.
With Freel gone, with Norris Hopper gone and Ken Griffey Jr. still out, Baker has little choice — and let’s drop the idiotic suggestion of moving Joey Votto from first base to the outfield. He is the first baseman for the next 15 years — if the Reds keep him — so don’t start messing with him.
Baker said he wants the same things from Patterson he wanted from Day One — speed, defense, “and in this little ol’ ballpark he can hit ‘em out.”
Baker said he told Patterson to forget about his .200 average.
“I told him to start over, from today. Don’t worry about that average they put on the scoreboard. Show me and yourself what you can do from this point,” said Baker.
On Griffey not playing, Baker said the wet field (it rained most of the day and rain is predicted for tonight) played into it, “And I felt it would be better for him to play tomorrow (afternoon).” So, he’ll play tomorrow? “Yes,” said Baker.
THE MEDIA is mounting for the Griffey Chase. Sports Illustrated, USA Sports Weekly, the New York Times and ESPN.com are here. When they saw Griffey wasn’t in the lineup, they turned to Jay Bruce.
He is from Beaumont, Texas, and they began running names of famous people from Beaumont past him.
George Jones? He didn’t know the country singer.
Babe Didrickson? He didn’t know the female golfer.
Bum Phillips? He didn’t know the former NFL coach.
I pointed out to them, “Hey, the kid is only 21. You’re dropping names from the 60’s and 70’s on him, before he was born.”
Bruce dropped one on them: Mark Chesnutt?
They didn’t know the CURRENT country singing star. And Bruce laughed. Good for him.
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The stench of a 9-21 record
After the game, the Cincinnati Reds clubhouse smelled suspiciously like an outhouse - or what a 9-21 road record possibly smells like.
A pipe broke during the game and the floor was covered with cardboard, a large fan was blowing and the Ammonia smell was gagging.
What else can happen to this team that came to Philly one game under .500 and giddy after a 5-1 homestand? The road. The road. The road to destruction.
The clubhouse smelled nearly as bad as my friend Jeff Gordon and his truck when he took me to the airport Monday. His dog got into an argument with a skunk in his backyard. Guess who won?
And are you ready for this??? We could see the return tomorrow of - ta-dum - Corey Patterson. Ryan Freel strained a hamstring running to first base Tuesday and returned to Cincinnati for an MRI.
Manager Dusty Baker said somebody will be summoned and don’t be shocked and surprised (I KNOW you’ll be angry) if it’s Patterson. The choices are limited. It could be Chris Dickerson, but he is hitting about .254 and is striking out every other at-bat.
And for you conspiracy theorists who believe Ken Griffey Jr. is sitting out the Philadelphia series so his family in Miami will have the opportunity to see him hit his 600th home run?
Well, he didn’t start Tuesday, but he pinch-hit in the eighth inning and drew a walk. Then Baker had to send in Bronson Arroyo to pinch-run, so Griffey IS hurting and IS still hurting.
On the positive side was the debut of 23-year-old slop thrower Danny Herrera. His fastball is 82 to 83 miles an hour. He throws pitches as soft as pin cushions, but he throws an assortment that includes a screwball.
Baker brought him into the game Tuesday with runners on second and third an no outs, the Reds trailing, 3-2.
He got a ground ball, the runners forced to hold. After an intentional walk to Chase (Utterly Fantastic) Utley to fill the bases, Herrera struck out Ryan Howard and Pat Burrell to keep it at 3-2.
Herrera has heard all the wisecracks and short jokes — from friends, from teammates, stuff like, “Shouldn’t you be on top of a wedding cake?”
Equipment manager Rick Stowe playfully said they considered giving him uniform number 2/16ths, “Because 1/8th already has been used (when Bill Veeck used 3-foot-7 Eddie Gaedel to pinch-hit for the 1951 St. Louis Browns).”
Herrera, 5-foot-6, 145 pounds, joined the Cincinnati Reds Tuesday, retrieved from Class AAA Louisville when Kent Mercker returned to the disabled list, this time on the 60-day.
The lefthanded relief pitcher is quite a story:
—The 45th round draft pick of the Texas Rangers in 2006 and sent to the Reds with Edinson Volquez in the Josh Hamilton trade.
—Attended Odessa (Tex.) Permian High School, the school in the book/TV series Friday Night Lights.
—Pitching for the Reds in an exhibition game this spring, he threw the last pitch in old Al Lang Field, now torn down.
Manager Dusty Baker was in wisecrack mode when he said, “When you see him, he’ll look like the batboy. But, hey, what a great story. He’ll be great motivation for people who hear they don’t have enough of this or enough of that or you’re too short or too skinny or too fat or too something. That’s the beauty of baseball. Those types have to be stronger mentally to make it.”
Herrera, 23, only throws 84 miles an hour and throws a screwball. He was 3-0 with a 2.55 ERA in 10 appearances at Class AA Chattanooga before he was promoted to Class AAA Louisville, where he was 0-1 with three saves and a 1.27 ERA in 16 appearances.
“I thought I’d be the last candidate to come up because of lack of experience, only a month in Triple-A,” he said. “Only my second year of pro ball. This early in the season I thought they’d want more experience.”
Of his screwball, a pitch used by Tom “Perfect Game” Browning, Herrera said, “It is my money pitch. I learned it my sophomore year of college (10-0 in 17 starts at the University of New Mexico). It is self-taught and developed over three years of trial and error with different grips.”
Mercker is most likely will announce his retirement - again - in the not too-distant future.
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Life, Liberty and Danny Herrera
At noon - a Philly cheesesteak at Jim’s on South Street with Reds assistant media relations directory Jamie Ramsey (his first cheesesteak) and MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon.
At 1 o’clock - gaping proudly at the Liberty Bell, my first visit in a few years and the first for Mark Sheldon.
They still don’t know who cracked the darn thing and though they twice fixed it, the crack kept coming back. Hey, a little history with your ball.
Doesn’t get much better than that - steak, Cheese-Whiz, onions and a bell more famous than Gus or Buddy.
I know, I know. Some of you think Geno’s is better. Or Pat’s. Or Rick’s. Matter of taste, my friends. I’ve sampled them all. Geno’s is second and I have a lot of people who agree with me.
Ramsay’s report: “Outstanding, man. Very, very good. Deliciously delectable.”
Equipment manager Rick Stowe, two of his sons, and traveling secretary Gary Wahoff visited Independence Hall.
“Along about noon, we were looking at the ink well they used to sign the Declaration of Independence and a copy of the Declaration, both under glass,” said Stowe. “One of the guards said, ‘You folks look trustworthy, like you won’t etch your initials into anything. I’m going to lunch. Lock up when you leave.”
Said Stowe, “I told Wahoff, you take the ink well and I’ll take the Declaration and we’ll put those babies on eBay. But we didn’t.”
Good Americans.
And then the Reds made another roster move as they get younger and younger and younger. Kent Mercker and his troublesome back are back on the DL and the Reds called up left-handed relief pitcher Danny Herrera from Louisville.
Herrera? He is Part II of the trade that sent Josh Hamilton to Texas. The Reds got Edinson Volquez (good enough, right?). They also got 23-year-old Herrera.
He started the season at Class AA Chattanooga and was 3-0 with a 2.55 ERA in 10 relief appearances. After a promotion to Class AAA Louisville he was 0-1 with three saves and a 1.27 ERA in 16 appearances.
He is only 5-7 and 145 pounds (he admits, “I’m only 5-foot-6”) and throws about 84 miles an hour and his best pitch is a screwball. But success is success. He was 10-0 in 17 starts in 2006 at the University of New Mexico, then was a 45th-round (45? Forty-five?) pick in 2006.
Before Monday’s game, Adam Dunn was busily hooking something up to a clubhouse TV.
“It’s old-school, man. Real old-school,” said Dunn. “It’s a Sega Genesis game. NBA Jam. I play one game every day at home against our video guy (Jeff Graupe). We’ve been winning at home, so I brought in on the road.”
Asked who usually won, Dunn said, “You need to ask?”
Then he and Graupe played and Dunn lost, “In triple overtime. You believe that?” Dunn hit a two-run double in Monday night’s game, but the Reds lost, 5-4.
Maybe they should try “Pong.” Grandson, don’t ask.
Ken Griffey Jr., out of the lineup for the second straight night with general soreness, said his son read the paper and thought he was out of the lineup with genital soreness. Well, uh, no.
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Road Wimps - The Big Washing Machine
Once upon a time, back in 1999, they were Road Warriors, or as I dubbed them, The Big Road Machine.
Anciet history.
Right now they are the Road Wimps, the Big Washing Machine.
Even when they pound the baseball on the road, they can’t win. Their road record dipped to 9-20 Monday when they lost, 5-4, to the Phillies.
They only mustered only seven hits, but the hit a batch of line drives that were caught - four straight by Joey Votto, all caught.
“We hit the ball so hard, I thought for sure we’d win that game on a bloop hit,” said manager Dusty Baker. “We deserved it.”
When you get only one hit over the final three innings, you don’t have to read any hand-writing on the wall. It’s as plain as the box score in front of your face.
There doesn’t seem to be a middle-of-the-road Bronson Arroyo. There is The Very Good Bronson and The Very Bad Bronson. On Monday, in the tiny ball park named Citizen Banks Park (It should be named Chase Bank Park after second baseman Chase Utley), The Very Bad, Ugly, Awful Bronson showed up.
He gave up five runs and 10 hits in 4 1/3 innings - three home runs were mixed in, including a two-run rip by Utley in the first, his 21st this season.
Jay Bruce?
As Baker said, “It’s the same thing we talk about every day. Now we need to get some of the others doing the same thing.”
Bruce had two hits, including his third home run and after seven major-league games he is hitting .577 with three homers.
Now how do you go 2 for 4 and have your average fall.
It’s like former Pittsburgh outfielder Al Oliver, a Portsmouth native who still lives there, once said when he was hitting .423 at the end of April.
“Think somebody can hit .400?” he was asked.
“Yeah, I do,” he said. “I think I could do it.”
How about .500? “Now that would be tough,” he said.
It certainly would.
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Griffey speaks about ‘600’
For those interested in reading what Ken Griffey Jr. thinks about ‘600,’ - and that’s not the movie ‘300’ times two - go to daytondailynews.com/sports.
Griffey talked lengthily today in Philadelphia before taking the night off because of general soreness.
His comments are on our web-site. Check it out.
Then come on back later tonight. I’ll have something more for you.
Hal
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J-Roll, meet J-Bruce (Babe Bruce)
You probably read it here first yesterday, but the Cincinnati Reds made it official today — Homer Bailey starts Thursday for the Reds in Citizens Bank Park.
‘Our father, who art in heaven …’ And I’m not just picking on Bailey. I’d say that about any pitcher asked to face the Phlailing Phillies in that CBP bandbox right now. It’s worse than Great American Ball Park, and that’s saying a lot.
And I’m safely ensconced in Philly. Having given U.S. Airways the what-for after my Trip-From-Hell to New York, today I pass out my wondrous thanks. We left Dayton this morning — early. We arrived in Philly — early. And my suitcase accompanied me to the hotel.
The Reds are thankful the Phillies took away first place from the Marlins on Sunday, right? The Reds are 5-0 in their last five games against first-place teams. And they would be 6-0, but they knocked the Indians out of first place on a Saturday and when they beat them again on Sunday when the Tribe was in second place.
I’m sitting outside the hotel, smoking an Ashton on a bench. Across the street is The Melting Pot: A Fondue Restaurant. Ever eat in one? I challenge you to get out of one for less than $100 per person. Good stuff, though. And fun.
The headline on this morning’s Philly Inquirer says: “J-Roll Talks the Talk.”
Does everybody in the world now use their first initial and half their last name as a nickname? Did it start with J-Lo? Or was it A-Rod? Glad they didn’t do it back when Frank Baumholtz played or he would have been F-Baum.
And the Reds’ newest sensation, Jay Bruce, doesn’t have to shorten his to J-Bruce.
Anyway, in Sunday’s Phillies-Marlins game the Phils led 7-5 in the eighth when relief pitcher Tom Gordon walked the first guy in the eighth and threw two straight balls to the next guy.
Shortstop Rollins (J-Roll or Jelly Roll) ran to the mound and said to Gordon, “What the heck you doing? Throw strikes. Babe Ruth is dead.”
Oh, yeah. Wait until they get a look at Babe Bruce. The Phillies know about him, though. Phillies advance scout Hank Webb watched Bruce destroy the Atlanta Braves in all three weekend games and said, “They’ll never believe my report.”
And the Phillies know that Ken Griffey Jr. is one home run away from 600 because J-Roll said, “It would be great to see history made, after we’re up 10-1, of course.”
… Speaking of scouts, one of the nicest guys in the business, San Diego scout Ken Bracey, suffered a heart attack recently and is recovering at home. You never see Bracey without seeing Atlanta scout Jim Fregos — two wonderful throwbacks in the game of baseball.
… My good friend Murray Greenberg runs M.L. Dunn carpeting in Dayton. I tell him he should hire Adam Dunn to do commercials for him, as long as they don’t put a guitar in Dunn’s hands and have him sing, “Together Again.”
… Want to read a highly entertaining baseball book? Get a copy of Pouring Six Beers at a Time by Bill Giles, who once owned the Philadelphia Phillies and whose father, Warren Giles, once ran the Reds and was president of the National League.
A page-turner.
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It is Homer Bailey time — again
Home Bailey is pitching Thursday — in Philadelphia, not Louisville.
When the Cincinnati Reds said they were putting Josh Fogg on the disabled list Sunday, I was tempted to ask, “With what, inflammation of the earned run average?”
But that would be cruel and he says he has back spasms. I’ve had back spasms. Nothing funny about it, especially when you can’t untie your shoes.
To replace him, the Reds called up relief pitcher Gary Majewski, which begs the question. Who starts Thursday in Philadelphia, Fogg’s turn?
Manager Dusty Baker was coy about it, but it is finally Homer Bailey time. Bailey was scheduled to pitch for the Class AAA Louisville Bats tonight and will, but is expected to pitch only two innings and take the rest of the night off.
He’ll face the Phillies Thursday in Philadelphia.
“After Saturday’s game, Fogg complained about his back,” said Baker. “We need some pitching help bad, so we couldn’t wait. We put Fogg on the DL and called up Majewski.”
Next start?
“Scuffling,” said Baker. “We’ll come up with something. We have a few days before we have to come up with something. There are a couple of guys lined up.
“Going into Philly …”
Somebody mentioned the Phillies are averaging like 12 runs a game over the last week and Baker said, “Be quiet, man. Every time I look in the paper, it’s like, oh my God. That’s why we have to get our pitching together.”
The Reds, Holy Terrors at home, are Holy Terribles on the road, and Monday open an eight-game trip — four in Philly (hello, Jim’s Cheesesteaks) and four in Florida (hello rain showers and humidity).
What do the Reds need to lift the road anvil off their shoulders?
“Try not to think about, just play hard,” said Baker. “Score early, play hard, play defense, close out games you are supposed to close out. Don’t let it get into your head. I’ve seen it get into some teams’ heads. And the law of averages are on our side.”
Baker’s assessment of one of Atlanta’s young players:
“I’ll tell you who is fast becoming a good ballplayer is that Johnson kid for Atlanta (second baseman Kelly Johnson),” said Baker. “All I know is I see him running around the bases a lot. I yell at him, ‘Get on the bench. I’m tired of you running around the bases.’ “
Baker, suspended two games in San Diego for bumping an umpire, watched Bobby Cox get ejected Saturday.
“I watch Bobby,” he said. “Bobby is the King of Ejections. I learned something. He crossed his arms and kept his distance from the umpire. I was really studying Bobby. I really was. I ain’t lying to you. I was like, ‘OK, he was careful not to turn into anybody, he backed up before he turned so he wouldn’t hit anybody.’”
When Thom Brennaman wanted to interview Ken Griffey Jr. about 600 home runs (he had 599), Griffey recoiled. He pointed to several writers in the clubhouse and asked each one individually, “Have I talked to you about it? Have I talked to you about it? Have I talked to you about it?”
Each one said no.
“I’m highly superstitious, very superstitious,” said Griffey. “I’ve sold cars and I’ve sold houses because of bad luck. The only thing sacred is my wife and kids. I sell everything else like cattle.”
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