Madison graduation 2012
Warren County CC graduation
New Miami graduation 2012
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 > 2009 > August > 11
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Some more fun at the ol’ ballyard
Maybe this retirement stuff isn’t so bad (he sniffed).
Charley Gitto, owner of Charley Gitto’s (funny how that worked out) picked up my check at lunch today - first time in about 20 years of eating at his wonderful establishment.
During the third inning tonight, they put me on the DiamondVision scoreboard, hard at work in my bright blue shirt, and told of my impending retirement. Polite applause. Thank you, Cardinals fans.
Some of my favorite writers were standing behind me - Rick Hummell, Joe Strauss and Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Bob Nightengale of USA Today/Sports Weekly. I’ve always had a lot of great people standing behind me propping me up.
Strauss always has called me “Old Dude.” He’s right.
They were going to do it in the second inning, but my seat was empty. I was outside the press box door getting my Ben & Jerry’s ice cream fix - cookies and cream, two dips, waffle cone. Let the game continue.
I wasn’t in San Francisco, but I’m told they recognized me on the scoreobard there, too. Classy people. I appreciate it immensely.
Anyway, the Redlegs won a strange one tonight in Busch and Justin Lehr must pitch with a rabbit’s foot in each pocket, a horseshoe in the seat of his pants and maybe even Marge Schott left some Schottzie fur to rub on his chest.
Justin Lehr was in more trouble all night than little brother playing in big sister’s closet, but the Cincinnati Reds pitcher was a marvel to behold, an execution of escape by legerdemain.
Lehr was peppered and plastered for 11 singles in six innings, but somehow held the St. Louis Cardinals to one run and the Reds won, 5-4, in Busch Stadium.
All singles? Eleven singles?
“If you are going to give up hits, they might as well be singles,” said manager Dusty Baker.
And it began oddly. Watching from the Reds dugout, Aaron Harang had to be muttering, “Is that legal?”
The Reds scored three runs in the top of the first inning before Lehr threw any of his 89 pitches, something they never do for Harang, or any other pitcher.
Three runs in the first? They seldom score three runs in a game for Harang. Sometimes not in two starts combined.
Lehr, making his third major-league start after a complete-game shutout over the Chicago Cubs in his previous start, gave up at least one hit to everybody in the Cardinals lineup but Skip Schumaker and Albert Pujols — and how do you do that?
Somebody facetiously asked Lehr about being a slayer of first-place teams and his first utterance was a gutteral, “Huh,” at a loud pitch.
“You’ll never hear that come out of my lips,” he said with a laugh. “You’re never as good as your last start or as bad as your last start.”
About his eventful evening, Lehr added, “I had a good amount of baserunners, gave up a lot of small hits, but they never got the big hit.”
Lehr is a stand-in No. 5 starter for injured Micah Owings, who will make another rehab start before he is given consideration to return, but Baker supports Lehr.
“If the kid — well, he’s no kid, he’s 32 ‘ keeps pitching, it would be tough to take him out. He has battled to get to where he is and at 32 he has learned how to pitch.”
Laynce Nix poked a two-run double and Jonny Gomes pushed across a third run in the first with an infield single to give the Reds and Lehr a 3-0 lead.
The Reds made it 4-0 in the second on a triple by Chris Dickerson and a single by Joey Votto.
Then it was hang-on time for Lehr.
The Cardinals put two on in the first, two on in the second, scored a run in the third but left two more on and put two on in the fifth without scoring.
The Reds turned a doub le play in the second and a double play in the fourth when left fielder Gomes caught a fly ball and threw Yadier Molin out at home on a tag-up.
The last Reds’ run was driven in by Alex Gonzalez, a single in the eighth that was his fourth hit.
The Cardinals scored twice off Nick Masset in the eighth, including a homer by Pujols, his 37th, and once in the ninth off closer Coco Cordero before he closed it off for his 25th save with the tying run on second base.
“An exciting game, but I was having a little trouble breathing in the ninth inning,” said Baker.
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TweetCueto is OK, but Rolen lands on DL
GOOD NEWS: Johnny Cueto is OK and probably won’t miss his next turn - well, since he is 0-5 over his last seven starts, maybe it’s not so good news. But at least he isn’t hurt. He left after two innings last night with a tight hip flexor. More likely, it was a cramp. Cueto ran in the outfield today and was fine. So, as I wrote yesterday, it was just a boo-boo.
BAD NEWS: As I predicted in today’s paper and last night’s blog, Scott Rolen is on the disabled list with his concussion-like symptoms. Why not just say it like it is. He has a concussion, the third in his life.
Nice trade so far, huh? Not that it is anybody’s fault, but so far the Reds haven’t received much. To me, the positive is that they traded Edwin Encarnacion. He had to go. He wasn’t going to do anything here and I’m not so sure he will ever do much positive anywhere.
I still don’t like the trade, though, because the Reds gave up pitching prospect Josh Roenicke and Zach Stewart. Rolen is a great guy and a great player. I can tell he is an outstanding person from the few times I’ve chatted with him. But he is 35 and he is injury-prone.
And now there is a chance that he might not play much the rest of this season.
Yeah, yeah, don’t forget the Reds received cash, too. I remember once when John McNamara managed the Reds and they traded a key player for cash. McNamara was angry at GM Dick Wagner (wasn’t everybody always angry at Wagner?). When told of the deal, McNamara pulled out a wad of money from his pocket, threw it on his office floor and said, “There’s cash. Cash everywhere. Can that cash play third base for me. Hell no it can’t.”
OMIGOD, as I sit in the pressbox writing there words, I look down on the field and there is this mountain down there wearing a white Cardinals shirt with ‘33’ on the back.
It is NBA Cleveland Cavaliers center Shaquille O’Neal, wearing shoes in which I could sit and ride across the Mississippi River to the Casino Queen. He took a few swings and misses and I swear I saw the Gateway Arch wobble.
Shaq is in town as part of the taping of a reality show in which he is playing different sports against Albert Pujols. If they have a free-throw shooting segment, I’m betting on Albert the Great.
Dusty Baker, a big man, just walked on the field and gave Shaq a hug. Shaq made Dusty look like Gary Coleman.
SPEAKING OF which, I walked six blocks this afternoon from Charley Gitto’s restaurant to the St. Louis Westin hotel (one of the all-time best hotels) and I saw Albert Pujols about two dozen times. Well, I saw people wearing Albert Pujols jerseys with his number 5 on the back. If owned the Pujols shirt concession and made a dollar for each shirt sold in St. Louis, you could retire in St. Lucia.
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