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Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy has retired from the Dayton Daily News after covering the Cincinnati Reds for 37 years. Hal's blog, though, will continue to be a must-read for Reds fans. He'll share his thoughts on the team this season and will file updates from Great American Ball Park. You also can catch Hal in print every Sunday in his popular Ask Hal columnHome > Blogs > The Real McCoy | Cincinnati Reds baseball news > Archives > 2008 > October
October 2008
Cancun becomes Can’t-cun
Never, never, never take a trip with me — not on a bet, not on your life, not ever, ever, ever.
Just returned from Cancun and the worst vacation of my life. The highlights: It rained every day but one, so Nadine and I were on the beach once. I contracted food poisoning the third day and spent one entire day getting right with The Almighty because I was sure I was in the last days of my life on earth.
It started when we landed in Cancun and they told departing passengers to “declare” any prescriptions they were bringing in. Nadine was the only passenger on our flight to say she had prescription drugs, so we were stopped and her luggage was searched. Everybody else — most carrying pX drugs, walked through.
The hotel sent a van for us, and as we left the airport the policia, or the federales, stopped our van. They took our driver back to their car to scan his papers. Then one of the officers walked around the van peering in the windows at us. Satisfied that we were not unsavory, they let us go.
Our hotel was excellent, except it was $20 via cab to the nearest civilization that had restaurants and shops. Everybody took U.S. dollars, but gave change in pesos — which was 12 pesos to one dollar. I nearly choked at the first restaurant when I saw my meal was $875 on the menu. But that was pesos — about $40 U.S.
Nadine had a club sandwich at the hotel and had a Cracker Jack-type prize between the bread — a piece of plastic.
The food was below average and I’m sure the chicken mole I ate one night was the culprit that knocked me off my feet — diarrhea, fever, cold sweats, chills, dizziness that had me bouncing off the walls as I tried to walk to the bathroom.
One plus: They sold Cuban cigars (fairly cheap) out of backpacks on the beach. And they were legit, not phonies. For $50, I got five pyramids from a guy on the beach. For the same cigars, they wanted $27 FOR ONE at a shop downtown.
They told us to be at the Cancun airport three hours in advance to go home. We were there. It took us 15 minutes to check in. We figured we still had to go through customs. Wrong. You go through customs on your first stop in the States, for us it was Charlotte.
So we had to kill almost three hours at the airport. When we got to Charlotte, we had 1:20 to make our connecting flight. Customs, of course, was jammed. Took us 1:10 to get through and we sprinted to the gate and were the last to get on our Dayton flight.
Alas, as we pulled from the gate and headed for the runway, a young passenger up front had a panic attack or a seizure. He was screaming. They took us back to the gate and we sat for an hour. US Airways did give us a cup of water and one cookie and didn’t charge us, as they usually do for coffee ($1), soft drinks ($2) and adult beverages ($7).
Amazingly, after an hour, they announced that there had been a medical emergency on board, but all was OK now and they were putting him back on board. After another 20 minutes to add fuel, we left. The guy began screaming again.
But he stopped and apparently the drugs kicked in and he fell asleep until the end of our Trip From Hell.
Did get to see bits and snatches of the World Series, broadcast in Spanish.
And what did the 2008 World Series prove?
ONE — The season needs shortened. How about 148 games and some Sunday and holiday doubleheaders?
TWO — A neutral site for the World Series, such as a warm climate in California or Florida or in a domed stadium.
Watching Game 5, played in a downpour, convinced me. Baseball is not meant to be played under cloudbursts and in cold, cold weather. The only gloves that should be worn at a baseball game are the ones players use to catch baseballs. Gloves to keep hands warm are not for baseball games.
Sorry Tampa Bay didn’t win, but happy for the much-deprived Phillies fans.
One questions: Why did Joe Maddon start Grant Balfour when Game 5 resumed? Why didn’t he go with David Price right way? From what I saw, Maddon was outmanaged throughout the Series by baseball lifer Charlie Manuel.
More later.
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TweetCan the Reds be the 2009 Phillies?
There are defining moments in every baseball game, usually a defining moment.
As for the Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Dodgers Wednesday night in the NLCS, it was the first batter of the game.
LA pitcher Chad Billingsley slipped two quick strikes past Jimmy Rollins. Then Rollins worked the count to 3-and-2 and on the eighth pitch of his at-bat he popped one into the right field seats.
It was Rollins who hit a leadoff home run in the final game of the NLDS when the Phillies eliminated the Milwaukee Brewers - and as Yogi Berra would say, “It was deja vu all over again.”
I turned to my dog, Barkley (Nadine was getting us ready for a trip to Cancun) and I said, “That’s it. Game over. Series over.”
And I was right.
Billingsley quickly crumbled and the Dodgers were bird seed in the left hand of Phillies starter Cole Hamels, a 24-year-old powder keg who was 2-0 with a 1.23 ERA in his two starts in the NLCS.
So the Phillies are in the World Series for the first time since 1993.
After the game, in the Phillies celebratory clubhouse, general manager Pat Gillick said something that showed complete class.
After the 2005 season, Ed Wade was fired as GM of the Phillies and three years later, Gillick stood in the clubhouse and on national television said, “A lot of the credit for this team must go to Ed Wade, who put most of it together.”
Is that class, or is that class?
It was Wade who was in charge when the Phillies signed players like Rollins and Hamels and Ryan Howard (three hits Wednesday) and Chase Utley and Shane Victorino.
For Gillick to aim credit at a GM fired three years ago showed not only a basket full of class, but supreme confidence in his own status.
OK, can the Cincinnati Reds be the 2009 version of the Phillies? Why not?
Can Edison Volquez be Cole Hamels? Why not?
Can Brandon Phillips be Chase Utley? Why not?
Can Joey Votto be Ryan Howard. Why not?
Can Jay Bruce be Shane Victorino. Why not?
Can Francisco Cordero be Brad Lidge? Why not?
Can Alex Gonzalez be Jimmy Rollins? Why not?
The Reds had their own Pat Burrell in Adam Dunn, but traded him. And the Phillies probably will lose Burrell, too. So both the Reds and Phillies will need a power-hitting righthanded bat in the lineup.
What the Reds don’t have is a catcher like Carlos Ruiz. Can Ryan Hanigan be that guy? Maybe. But most likely the Reds need a strong catcher.
Tell me. Am I being silly here. I mean I look at the Phillies and I look at the Reds and say, “Is there really that much difference?”
The Reds were 4-5 in their nine games last season against Philadelphia.
Maybe the Reds, absent from the NLCS since 1995, can get there in 2009.
Or am I dreaming?
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TweetTampa Bay - no ghosts on this roster
Are you believers yet in the Tampa Bay mystique? I am.
Hey, like everybody else, I was a guy who made fun of the Tampa Bay Rays, right up through last year when they were the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and I called them the Tampa Bay Deviled Eggs.
I mean, why not? This team finished last so often in the American League East that when they decided to eliminate ‘Devil’ from their nickname I thought they might rename them the Tampa Bay Last Placers.
Now they are on the precipice of playing in the World Series, one victory away, one victory over the Boston Red Sox, who are now the Boston Red because the Rays have knocked their Sox off.
Since getting shut out in Game One, the Rays have won three straight, outscoring the Bosox 31-13, getting 39 hits in those three games. They’ve beaten Boston 9-1 and 13-4 in Fenway Park. Talk about a Boston Massacre.
A little bit of history as I remember it.
Tampa Bay begged for a franchise in the late 1980s and 1990s and other franchises played them like an old fiddle.
First it was Seattle. Owner Jeff Smulyan negotiated for at least two years to move his franchise to Tampa Bay. Didn’t happen. He sold out to a Japanese group and the Mariners stayed in Seattle.
The San Francisco Giants wanted out of Candelstick Park, wanted to move from one Bay to another Bay. It was so cold at night in Candlestick in mid-summer that fans who stayed for an entire game were awarded medals of honor. True story.
Well, when it seemed the Giants might move to Tampa Bay, they got themselves that beautiful new park downtown, one of baseball’s best venues. And they stayed, Tampa Bay lost again.
Then it was the Chicago White Sox, talking to Tampa Bay about shifting the White Sox to Florida. Then the White Sox got a new stadium and Tampa Bay was left holding an empty stadium again.
An empty stadium?
Oh, yeah. Tampa Bay took the attitude, “Build it and they will come.” Well, Seattle, San Francisco and Chicago showed them they were wrong.
With the strong backing of former St. Petersburg Times columnist Hubert Mizell, they built a stadium in St. Pete, the ugly monster with the lopsided roof that sits just off I275. Heck, they even built the place in the wrong place, on the wrong side of the bay. The population base is in Tampa, but the stadium was built in St. Petersburg.
For years, I made fun of that, too, as the park sat mostly empty except for some tractor pulls, motorcycle races and a year or two as the home to the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning while the Ice Palace was built in Tampa.
As a takeoff on the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, I called the Tampa Bay park the Hubert Mizell Emptydome.
Finally, baseball gave Tampa Bay an expansion franchise and they immediately established squatter’s rights on last place. Fans didn’t come. Would you? To watch a last place team every year?
The only time they drew more than 10,000 fans was when the Red Sox or Yankees were in town and the transplanted snowbirds from New England and the east coast showed up to cheer for Boston and New York.
Sort of like how Cubs fans outnumber Reds fans in Great American Ball Park.
Three years ago, the Reds played in Tampa Bay, a three-game interleague series. The only thing the Reds worried about was that their hotel a few blocks from the ball park, The Vinoy, supposedly is haunted. Pitcher Scott Williamson swears he woke up and saw a ghost standing at the end of his bed - but some folks thought he was dreaming about opposing hitters who knocked him around.
It changed this year as the Rays emerged as an outstanding team. No more last. No more Deviled Eggs. No more fans from New England and the east coast outnumbering Rays fans.
All this is another reason I’m a Rays fan this postseason. Their fans were teased and taunted for years, ready to accept the Mariners, ready to accept the Giants, ready to accept the White Sox, only to have it yanked from their grasp at the last moment.
Now I get a kick out of watching noted Red Sox fan\author Stephen King sitting in Fenway watching his team get their pants jerked down around their ankles. No doubt there will be a black-hearted novel come out of this.
Did you see pitcher Edwin Jackson, a 14-game winner this year who is now relegated to the bullpen, finish Tuesday night’s game.
He almost was a Red. A few years ago, when he was the No. 1 prospect for the LA Dodgers, the Reds and LA nearly made a trade. The Dodgers wanted Adam Dunn. The Reds wanted Edwin Jackson. The Dodgers said no.
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TweetTampa Bay gets rid of the devil
This isn’t going to be an ‘I told you so’ diatribe.
Well, maybe a little bit.
Back in spring training, I watched the Tampa Bay Rays play three or four exhibition games against the Cincinnati Reds and I said (with Tampa Tribune columnist and good friend Joe Henderson as my witness): “That’s a pretty darn good team. That’s a real good team.”
I said that.
What I didn’t say is that, “Hey, this team might win 97 games and win the American League East.” Wish I had. What I did say was, “Too bad this team is in the American League East with the Red Sox, Yankees and Blue Jays. If they were in any other division, they might contend.”
Well, they not only contended in the AL East, they won it. And guess what? They might win it all.
I hope they do. This is a team with a $43 million payroll, second lowest in baseball. This is a team with no overpriced free agents or alleged superstars.
What I like is that this is a team with youthful exuberance and feistiness. They showed all year they wouldn’t back down to anybody, willing to fight at the drop of a rosin bag. And this is a team that walked into Fenway Park and put a 9-1 hickey on Boston’s neck. No fear.
This appears to be a reverse Damn Yankees. Remember the book and the Broadway show and the movie Damn Yankees, when Joe Hardy of the woebegotten Washington Senators sold his soul to the devil for an American League championship?
Well, this year Tampa Bay, formerly known as the Devil Rays, removed the devil from their nickname and are now just the Tampa Bay Rays. It must have pleased the baseball gods.
AS FOR THE Dodgers-Phillies, let’s hope for Philadelphia’s sake they don’t have to run Jamie Moyer out to the mound again. The Dodgers are zeroed in on him like Annie Oakley on the ace of spades.
I found the near-fight they had Sunday a tad humorous. As with most baseball skirmishes, it was mostly GMA — general milling around.
They were aiming baseballs at each other early and often, mostly playing by accepted etiquette. If you are throwing message pitches at the other team, you throw at their backs or their thighs. You don’t throw at heads, even though heads are helmeted.
So I agreed with Philadelphia’s Shane Victorino when the Dodgers threw at his head and he went berserk.
The amusing thing about the teams squaring off in the infield, mostly to exchange words, not punches, the three loudest and most active participants were three old-school coaches — Philadelphia’s Davey Lopes and LA’s Mariano Duncan and Larry Bowa.
Lopes and Duncan jawed at each other — and they were teammates with the Dodgers at one time.
Lopes being upset reminded me of what he did back in the 70’s against The Big Red Machine that touched off a brawl.
The Dodgers led, 9-0, and had the bases loaded. Lopes was at the plate and had a 3-and-0 count. When the Reds pitcher delivered the 3-0 pitch, the cripple pitch, Lopes swung from the heels, trying for a grand slam.
Other teams don’t think that’s a nice thing to do. When Lopes batted the next time, the Reds pitcher buzzed one under his chin and the fight was on.
Duncan, of course, was a late-season member of the 1995 Cincinnati Reds, the last time they played in the postseason. The only reason he was with the Reds is that Duncan played for the Phillies and they put him on waivers. Reds GM Jim Bowden, fearful that another contender would pick him up, claimed Duncan. He expected when he laid claim to him, the Phillies would withdraw waivers and take him back.
Didn’t happen. The Phillies said, “OK, you can have him. And you can him, too.”
My favorite Larry Bowa story involved him and former Reds shortstop Davey Concepcion. In the mid-70s, Bowa and Concepcion were baseball’s best two shortstops and their rivalry was intense.
One day in Philadelphia, Bowa was in the dugout when the Reds were taking batting practice and spotted Concepcion standing at shortstop.
“Hey, Elmer,” Bowa yelled. Concepcion ignored him.
“Hey, Elmer!” Bowa yelled again. Concepcion ignored him.
“Hey, Elmer. Elmer Concepcion. I’m talking to you,” said Bowa.
Said Concepcion, “Why are you calling me Elmer?”
Bowa laughed and said, “Because every time I look in the paper at a Reds box score, I see, ‘E-Concepcion.’ So I figured your name was Elmer.”
In a box score, ‘E’ stands for errors.
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TweetSo when do the Reds make the playoffs?
Some thoughts about the early playoffs:
QUESTION: Why did they play the White Sox-Rays game in the afternoon in Florida under a roof and make Cubs fans sit in frigid weather for a night game in Wrigley Field?
ANSWER: That’s easy. Television. And what TV wants, TV gets.
QUESTION: When do the Cincinnati Reds play their first playoff game?
ANSWER: 2011. Maybe.
Did you see Ken Griffey Jr.’s throw in the AL Central playoff game that preserved the White Sox’s 1-0 win over Minnesota that punched their ticket to the playoffs?
Reminded me of the throw George Foster made for the Reds in the 1975 World Series against the Red Sox. Foster, who thought defense was something mandatory you had to do before they let you bat, made a catch near a high wall down the left-field line and when Denny Doyle tagged and tried to score, Foster threw him out.
Have to admit I’m torn over the White Sox-Rays series. I’d love to see Griffey get his World Series ring. But I also love that fact the Rays, with a payroll about the same size as the nearest McDonald’s franchise, have a chance to show the baseball world you don’t have to spend like the Bank of America to win a championship.
Afterwards, Foster said, “I’ve been saving that throw for the right moment. I never had to make one like that before.”
THIS IS ONE that bugs me so much I need insect repellent to watch the ninth inning of some games.
Philadelphia’s Cole Hamels is scything down the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 1, no runs over eight innings. And he was barely over 100 pitches.
What does manager Charlie Manuel do? He brings in closer Brad Lidge, who gives up a run and nearly blows the game. Why oh why oh why do managers think just because they have a closer they HAVE to use him? Hamels deserved to finish. The Phillies deserved to lose that game just for that reason.
ANOTHER ONE that bugs me enough to squirt two cans of insect repellent on my personage:
The Brewers have Philadelphia pitcher Brett Myers in deep do-do. He has thrown six straight balls. His walk loaded the bases with one out. Up steps Corey Hart. He swings at the first pitch. The first pitch! After Myers can’t find home plate with GPS!! And he swings at the first pitch!!!
And he hits into an inning-ending double play. Sometimes you wonder if even major-leaguers need to go to a school called Baseball Strategy 101.
The Brewers went to the well one too many times. It was a sure-thing that using C.C. Sabathia on three days of rest four straight times was going to exact a toll. His 3 2/3 innings against the Phillies in Game Two showed that.
ISN’T THAT the Chicago Cubs just being the Chicago Cubs? The guess here? The Dodgers go to the World Series with Manny being Manny.
There is Eva Longoria and then there is Evan Longoria — the best player nobody outside of Tampa and St. Petersburg never heard of.
Reds fans, bet you don’t remember Australian Grant Balfour. He spent one entire season with the Reds without throwing a pitch. Former GM Dan O’Brien signed him as a free agent when he had a bad shoulder. He rehabbed all year.
Now he pitches for Tampa Bay and did you see him on the mound Thursday? He recorded a strikeout and made a fist-pumping gesture. The next hitter, Orlando Cabrera (Jolbert Cabrera’s younger brother), kicked dirt toward Balfour on the mound when his first pitch was wide of the plate and shouted, “Throw the ball over the plate.”
Balfour then struck him out, punched the air again, and yelled at Cabrera, “Go sit down.”
Love it. Couldn’t the Reds used some of what the feisty Aussie shows?
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