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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 > 2009 > December
December 2009
Reds shouldn’t trade starting pitchers
It has been a couple of weeks since the Los Angeles Times published a rumor that the Cincinnati Reds were talking with the Dodgers about trading Aaron Harang.
And that’s the last peep we’ve heard about it and it appears no other media outlet heard the same rumor.
To that, I say, “Good.”
Why would the Reds want to trade pitching, especially starting pitching, now that it seems to be a fairly stable commodity in their somewhat bare cupboard of players?
I’ve never been a big (or small) fan of Jim Bowden, but when he was general manager of the Reds he had a sign on his office wall that had three words: “Pitching, pitching pitching.”
And he is so right.
ONE BIG REASON the Reds shouldn’t be trading starting pitchers is the fact starter Edinson Volquez underwent Tommy John surgery and probably won’t be ready to pitch until June or July of next season.
So they need Harang, even though his record over the past two seasons is 12-31 (6-17 and 6-14). No, that isn’t good. Not even average. And for $11 million a year, it is putrid.
There are extenuating circumstances. In his 26 starts last season, the Reds scored 89 runs, or 3.42 per game. They scored two runs or less 12 times and twice were shut out. Reds batters hit .239 when he was pitching.
I won’t get into the argument over whether something happened to him after manager Dusty Baker used him in relief on two days of rest during an extra inning game in San Diego, then used him again two days later on his regular turn - or if he was affected when he was one out from recording a victory last season and Baker let him come back after a long rain delay to get that out.
We’ll never know if that affected him. It is a subjective thing and there is no proof either way. Smart? Probably not. But Harang is a big, strong durable fellow.
ALL I KNOW is that he is only 31 and that he is one strong and tough specimen at 6-7 and 261 pounds.
Last year when the team was in Pittsburgh, Harang’s appendix screamed to be taken out. Harang wanted to be home in Cincinnati near his family, not at a Pittsburgh hospital. Flying was too dangerous - what if the appendix erupted while he was in the air?
So equipment manager Rick Stowe put him in a car and they drove the four-some hours from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati. While in pain, Harang kept his sense of humor and kept faking that he thought his appendix would burst any moment. Stowe, several times a father, drove with sweaty hands and forehead like a first-time expectant father rushing his wife to the hospital.
That was on August 23 and Harang didn’t pitch the rest of the season. In his previous three starts he was 1-1 with a 2.14 ERA.
Typical of Harang’s season was an August 3 start against the Chicago Cubs. He struck out 10, but lost, 4-2. His last start before the appendectomy came on August 20, a 2-1 victory over the San Francisco Giants. But he, of course, did not get the win. He got a no-decision and a few pats on the posterior or a job well done.
Everybody knows the Reds are cash-strapped (aren’t we all these days?) and need to shave quarters, dimes and nickels. So discarding a salary like the one Harang hefts to the bank is a big mone-saving deal.
But it wouldn’t be in the best interests of trying to win more baseball games in Cincinnati.
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TweetThe Hall of Fame ballot, please …
Hal McCoy on the Hall of Fame:
The Hall of Fame ballot is signed, sealed and hopefully (Please, Mr. Postman) delivered.
Shortly after I mailed it, I picked up the Dayton Daily News and saw where esteemed colleague Sean McClelland had written about his ballot. You may ask why McClelland is voting on the Hall of Fame? To be a voter, one must be a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America for more than 10 years.
Before coming to Dayton, McClelland covered the Yankees and Mets for a newspaper in New Jersey and when he came to Dayton he covered some games on my days off.
But I digress.
I found it interesting that his ballot was almost identical to mine, with a couple of minor exceptions. And we never once discussed the ballot.
We agreed on voting for Barry Larkin, Andre Dawson, Bert Blyleven and Lee Smith.
We differed in that he voted for Mark McGwire, Roberto Alomar and Jack Morris. I didn’t vote for those three and I voted for Edgar Martinez.
I’m already on record as to why I don’t vote for McGwire. Says McClelland, “… Because that home run total (583) is hard to ignore and every era has it scoundrels.”
I can ignore McGwire because he ignored Congress when asked about steroid use by saying, “I’m not here to talk about the past.” Well, if he isn’t willing to talk about his past, then I’m not willing to consider his past on the baseball field.
McClelland also points out that other scoundrels are in the Hall of Fame, citing racist Ty Cobb, who once went into the stands to beat up a fan. I didn’t vote for Cobb, either. No writer did. When Cobb was in the first class of Hall inductees, he wasn’t voted in by writers.
Sean (and I’m not picking on him, it’s just that he made his ballot public and made some comments) voted for relief pitcher Lee Smith, as did I. And he said Smith should have been voted in by now. To that, I heartily agree. He said Smith isn’t in yet because the electorate tends to shun relief pitchers.
The same could be said about designated hitters. Edgar Martinez is a designated hitter - and, yes, as a National League guy, I hate the DH was much as I hate pot roast, even though I eat it to keep a semblance of peace in the McCoy household because the boss makes it, cooks it and eats it.
But Martinez is, by far, the all-time best DH in the history of the game. So if he is the best ever, he belongs in the Hall of Fame.
We both voted for Blyleven and I can’t understand why he doesn’t get the 75 percent needed to induction, just as I don’t understand Andre Dawson missing every year. Blyleven was 271-231 with a 3.22 ERA, pitching mostly for gosh-awful teams. I am staging a bit of a protest myself, not voting for Jack Morris (whom Sean voted for) until Blyleven makes it.
Blylven had 262 COMPLETE GAMES and 60 SHUTOUTS. Think of that - 60 of his 271 wins were shutouts, mostly because he usually had to pitch a shutout to win.
Jack Morris was 254-186 with 175 complete games and 28 shutouts. Until Blyleven makes it, I’ll look no further at Morris.
Finally, we get to Alomar, the guy with glossy numbers but who sullied his name forever by spitting into an umpire’s face. Again, Sean points out the scoundrels already in the Hall of Fame and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Ty Cobb not only spit in an umpire’s face, but probably punched a few or at least stepped hard on their feet with his spikes.
But this is my ballot and it says character should be part of the equation. Spitting in an umpire’s face is not Hall of Fame stuff to me, except maybe The Kleenex Hall of Fame.
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TweetChatting with Robin Roberts and Tom Seaver
A blog post Hal McCoy sent to me this morning:
With all the news of pitchers changing teams - John Lackey to Boston, Roy Halladay to Philadelphia, Cliff Lee to Seattle - my thoughts turned to a couple of Hall of Fame pitchers with whom I chatted last week in Indianapolis: Robin Roberts and Tom Seaver.
The Veterans Committee meeting was droning on in a hot meeting room at the exquisite Conrad Hotel in downtown Indianapolis. Time to stretch some bones and believe me, with the age of some of us, those bones were rattling when we stood up.
A 10-minute break was granted, but I was fascinated by the man sitting next to me and when he didn’t get up for the break, neither did I. Time to chat with a legend.
My neighbor in the next chair was Hall of Fame pitcher Robin Roberts, who pitched in the majors for 18 years, mostly for the Philadelphia Phillies. He won 286 games with a career 3.41 earned run average.
Roberts folded his gnarled hands across his belly, leaned back in his chair and said with a smile, “Know how much money I made? I made $538,000. That wasn’t for one year. I made $538,000 for the entire 18 years I pitched (1948-1966).”
We talked about current starting pitchers who leave games after six innings with a lead or leave a game shortly after reaching 100 pitches.
ROBERTS SMILED and said he remembered Opening Day 1957, against the Dodgers.
“Gino Cimoli beat me with a home run in the top of the 12th,” said Roberts. Top of the 12th? And Roberts was still in the game?
“Oh, yeah. I’m not good with computers, but my grandson got online and looked it up,” Roberts said with a smile. “I lost, 7-6, I threw 138 strikes that day. Not pitches. Strikes. I threw 193 pitches, all told. Probably not the smartest thing I ever did.”
That’s just the way it was in those days.
Roberts remembers many battles against lefty Warren Spahn, a Hall of Fame lefthander, in which both threw close to 200 pitches (or more).
“I was like 3-8 against Spahnie and he got better as he got older,” said Roberts. “He came up with a new pitch late in his career and I read somewhere that he won more games after he was 38 than he won before he was 35.”
Spahn actually recorded 187 of his 363 wins after he was 35, including six straight seasons of 20 or more wins after he turned 35.
HALL OF FAME pitcher Tom Seaver pitched a couple of years late in his career for the Chicago White Sox when Tony La Russa was manager and the memories, uh, are not so fond.
As he stood munching snacks before dinner one night, Seaver suddenly began talking about one incident with La Russa.
It was 1984, Seaver’s first year with the Chisox, “And I was pitching Opening Day in Milwaukee because LaMar Hoyt couldn’t, for some reason or other.”
And Seaver picks up the story.
“It’s the sixth inning and I’m leading, 3-1,” he said. “I walked the first two guys and I see La Russa coming from the dugout and I think, ‘C’mon. I’ve won 261 games and I’ve been in this situation a time or two. I know what I’m doing.’
“That’s what I’m going to tell the guy, but before he gets to the mound he signals to the bullpen for a new pitcher,” Seaver said. “Don’t think I’ve ever been that hot in my life. As I left the game and headed for the clubhouse, I told the guys, ‘Don’t anybody come up here for a while. Somebody might get hurt.’ ”
And the topper? The White Sox lost the game.
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TweetThree untold Tony Perez stories
Tony Perez is not one to boast or gloat, but he isn’t the strong, silent type many folks believe he is. All you have to do is ask some of the members of The Big Red Machine about how outspoken he was in the dugout and clubhouse when there were some big egos to deflate.
Perez related some stories as he dissected a medium rare filet mignon this week in an Indianapolis restaurant, stories he says has never been in print.
The audience at the table was Hall of Famer Eddie Murray, former Astros star Bob Watson, now the commissar of discipline for Major League Baseball and me.
Perez and Murray were trying to top each other with their entertaining behind-the-scenes stories when Perez came up with this one about the 1976 World Series against the New York Yankees, a Series the Reds swept in four games.
“It was Game 2, and man it was cold in Riverfront Stadium that night,” said Perez. “We were in the ninth inning of a tie game, 3-3, with two outs and nobody on. Catfish Hunter started that game and he was still in there.
“Ken Griffey (Sr.) hit a ground ball to shortstop Fred Stanley and he threw the ball into the dugout and Griffey ended up on second base,” Perez continued.
“Then you know what they did? They walked Joe Morgan on purpose to pitch to me,” he said. “I never liked it when a team walked somebody to pitch to me. And I never liked to make the last out of a game.”
As the Yankees were walking Morgan, Perez was standing on deck.
“I turned to the batboy and I said, ‘Put away all the bats but mine. This game is over.’”
And it was. Perez lashed a searing single that one-hopped the outfielder and Griffey, “The fastest guy I ever saw,” said Perez, scored from second to end the game.”
Watson then volunteered that he probably hit the longest home run of his life in Riverfront Stadium against Cincinnati pitcher Dale Murray. “He hung a curve and I hit it off the facing in front of the green seats so hard that the ball bounced all the way to first base,” said Watson, who once suffered the ignominy of having a beer dumped on his face in Riverfront as he stood near the left field wall looking up at a ball heading into the seats.
THE NAME Dale Murray brought sparkle to Perez’s dark eyes.
Perez was traded before the 1977 season to Montreal for pitchers Murray and Woodie Fryman by then club president/GM Bob Howsam, “The worst trade I ever made,” Howsam later said.
Perez picked up the story and said, “The first time I came back to Cincinnati to face the Reds, Murray was pitching. I wanted to hit one real far, about nine miles. Well, he hung a curveball and I hit it into the green seats.
“After I ran around the bases and touched home plate, catcher Johnny Bench said to me, ‘I knew you were going to do that.’”
EDDIE MURRAY listened to the home run stories and finally said, “I may have hit the longest home run in history. It was in Charleston and I hit one way over the right field seats. It landed in the coal car of a passing train and, who knows, it might have gone 200 miles.”
Perez laughed and said, “That doesn’t count. That was in the minors.”
Murray even went back to his time as a Little Leaguer for one of his stories from his childhood in Los Angeles. “We played on a field in the ‘hood that had a fence and my first three times up I hit ball way over the fences,” he said. “The coaches in the league said, ‘You can’t play here. You’re gonna hurt somebody.’”
HALL OF FAME shortsthop Ozzie Smith walked into the room, wearing a sling on his right arm, the result of recent rotator cuff surgery.
Said Perez, “Ah, ha. Took me 15 to 20 years, but I finally got you. I knew I’d get you. I said for years that I would get you.”
And what was that about?
“Well, it was unbelievablel,” said Perez. “When we played the Cardinals, every hard hit ball I hit on the ground, Ozzie would catch it. In the hole, up the middle. Everywhere. I’d hit one hard thinking I had a hit and there would be Ozzie, right in front of it. Making it easy. I’d swear and keep telling him, ‘I’m going to get you.’
“Late in my career, I hit two very hard balls at Smith that short-hopped him and hit him in the arm,” Perez said. “He never flinched, never rubbed it. But now, 20 years later, there he is with a sling. I knew I’d hit him hard.”
Smith laughed and said, “Yeah, those hurt. But I wasn’t going to let you know. Until tonight.”
NEXT: Pitching stories from Tom Seaver and Robin Roberts.
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TweetBreaking bread with Bunning, Lasorda
Indianapolis certainly is nice this time of year - or any time, especially if one likes to eat. And who doesn’t?
Within two square blocks of mid-town, near the palatial Conrad Hotel, I counted 14 restaurants, all seemingly doing stand-up business - including the big names like Ruth Chris’s Steakhouse, Morton’s of Chicago, the Capital Grille and several local steakhouses.
One could overdose on red meat.
I was in Indy over the weekend as a member of the Veterans Committee for the Hall of Fame voting and every time I go I am awed. I get to eat meals and rub elbows with Hall of Famers, most of the time during which I sit and listen with wide eyes.
This morning I had breakfast with Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Bunning and Hall of Fame manager Tommy Lasorda.
Bunning, a senator from Kentucky, is only 79, but he has 40 grandkids from his 13 children. Lasorda asked him, “Do you know all your grandkids’ names?”
Said Bunning, “Yeah, if they are with their parents. If they aren’t with their parents, I struggle a bit.”
One of Bunning’s grandsons is Patrick Towles, a 6-5, 240-pound quarterback at Fort Thomas (Ky.) Highlands High School and the team’s runningback is Chris Collinsworth’s son, Austin Collinsworth.
“My grandson can throw the football 60 yards in the air,” Bunning said. Highlands won its 18th state title this year, going 15-0, and is ranked No. 6 in the country by USA Today. Collinsworth rushed for 176 yards - IN THE FIRST HALF - in the state title game.
Everybody knows that Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax went to the University of Cincinnti on a basketball scholarship, but Bunning said, “Not too many people know I coached against Koufax. I signed a pro contract when I was a freshman at Xavier and was ineligible to play baseball. So to help me out, they made my freshman basketball coach at Xavier and I coached against Koufax when he played freshman basketball at UC.”
HALL OF FAME knuckeball pitcher Phil Niekro plopped down at the table and his career at Bridgeport (Oh.) high school was brought up. In addition to the Niekro brothers, Phil and Joe, the same high school produced Ohio State/Boston Celtics basketball star John Havlicek, Cleveland Browns placekicker Lou Groza and his brother, University of Kentucky basketball star Alex Groza.
Lasorda asked Niekro, “How many games did you lose in high school?”
“Just one in four years,” said Niekro. “I lost one game, 1-0, to Tiltonsville. You know who pitched that game for them? It was Bill Mazeroski (Hall of Fame second baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates) and he hit a home run to beat me.”
Lasorda, of course, has a million stories, all of which he’ll tell you if you care to listen. I do - even though most of them feature himself and features himself in a glowing spotlight.
Somebody asked him, “How many fights did you get into during your careeer?”
“With my team or with the other team,” Lasorda said with a smile.
Lasorda was the head coach of the 2000 U.S. Olympic baseball team that won the gold medal, beating a Cuban team in the finals, a team that had never lost an Olympic game.
“The night before the game against Cuba, I sat down with Ben Sheets (now with the Milwaukee Brewers) and said, ‘Kid, you may some day win 20 games in the majors. You may some day win the Cy Young. But you’ll never, ever pitch a bigger game than you’re pitching tomorrow. This will be the biggest game you’ll ever pitch in your life. You’re pitching for your country.’”
Lassorda said Sheets looked him in the eye and said, “OK, who are we playing?”
Sheets pitched a three-hitter to beat Cuba for the only U.S. gold medal in Olympic baseball history.
Seeing me sitting there, Lasorda launched into how he felt about the Big Red Machine. He wasn’t the Dodgers manager at the time, but was third base coach for manager Walt Alston.
“The Reds beat us by about 12 games in 1975 and by about 18 games in 1976,” said Lasorda. “I hated the Reds. Despised the Reds. I told our guys in ’77, ‘Don’t any of you are EVER walk into this clubhouse wearing red. Never.”
Lasorda said he was the one who started the practice of having the eight starting position players run together in the outfield to loosen muscles before a game.
He said Reds manager Sparky Anderson saw it while he was talking to Alston, and according to Lasorda, “Sparky told Alston that by season’s end those eight guys would be running in eight different directions.”
Lasorda paused for effect and said, “Sparky was right. We ran in eight different directions - to eight different banks with our championship money.”
Then he asked for another cup of hot water. His hot tea was ice cold.
NEXT: Dinner with Tony Perez, Eddie Murray and Bob Watson.
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TweetREDSFEST: Up close and personal
The best way to have up close and personal contact with Cincinnati Reds players is spring training, where the atmosphere is relaxed and congenial.
Nobody is in a slump, games don’t count, averages and ERA’s don ‘t mean much except to a few players trying to make the team. Most of their minds are on fishing holes and what golf course to attack.
Players are more apt to stop near the grandstands to chat and sign autographs than they are once the season begins asnd things turn serious.
THE SECOND best way is to attend Redsfest, a carnival-like atmosphere where players are even more accessible. And fans can get that opportunity Friday and Saturday at the Duke Energy Convention Center in downtown Cincinnati.
Many members of the Reds will be there to interact with fans and sign autographs.
It all begins Friday afternoon at 4, with introduction of the players in attendance at 6:10.
Before that, former Reds shortstop Barry Larkin will hold a 5:45 press conference to talk about his candidacy for the Hall of Fame this year and his manager from the 1990 World Series champions, Lou Piniella, has a 7 o’clock press conference.
At 6:50, on center stage, the winners of the MVP (Brandon Phillips), Most Outstanding pitcher (Bronson Arroyo) and the Good Guy Award (Arroyo) will receive their awards, as voted by the Cincinnati chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America.
Some of the main stage festivities are to be broadcast on reds.com, including the introduction of all players, the awards presentations and a question-and-answer session with the 1990 championship team (8:15-8:50).
There will be a Fox Dating Game Show (9-9:15) and a Cintas concert featuring The Rusty Griswolds (9:30-11).
On Saturday, pitcher Bronson Arroyo and Elom Trotman put on a concernt from 1:30 to 2:20 and there will be a Playstation Longest Hit Challenge featuring Joey Vo9tto (5:35-5:50).
IN ADDITION, the convention center will be filled with exhibits, interactive games and concession stands.
TICKETS FOR the Fox Sports Ohio Redsfest, presented by Kahn’s, are on sale via the internet at reds.com or by phone at 513-381-REDS and at Meijer stores or at Great American Ball Park or at the Duke Energy Convention Center doors
It’s an event all Reds fans, or any baseball fans, will thoroughly enjoy - a precursor to when baseball returns for spring training.
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TweetDoes Larkin need a PR campaign?
The Hall of Fame ballot was announced this week and Cincinnati’s great and wonderful shortstop, Barry Larkin, is on it.
Hall of Famer? Absolutely. His numbers speak like a foghorn on a battleship.
But I shuddered a bit when I received another e-mail. This one came from the Reds and it was sent to all Hall of Fame voters. It extolled the virtues and the qualifications of Larkin as a Hall of Famer.
I’m not sure how it struck other voters, but to me it smacks of tackiness and I’m not certain it will help Larkin, who deserves enshrinement.
Voters do not like campaigning. It isn’t a political campaign. Votes are not up for bids, don’t go to candidates with glossy public relations paraphernalia.
I don’t blame the Reds for trying. Others have done it. The Tampa Bay Rays sent out a similar e-mail this week asking voters to consider Fred McGriff.
But it doesn’t sit squarely with most voters. The Reds merely want to make voters aware of Larkin’s qualifications, which are Hall of Fame calibre. They want to make certain voters are aware of those stellar figures.
I guess what bothers me a little bit is that the Reds never did this for Dave Concepcion, another Reds shortstop worthy of the Hall who didn’t make it.
In the last two or three years of Davey’s eligibility, he hired a public relations guy to put his name in the forefront. He scheduled public appearances, put Davey on TV and on the radio. He showed up at baseball’s winter meetings, trying to corral votes.
It didn’t work. I know some voters resented the PR ploy.
In the Reds’ e-mail to voters, there was a cover letter from CEO Bob Castellini, who pointed out some of Larkin’s many and myriad qualifications.
One of his points was that Larkin played his entire 19 years with the Reds, conveniently neglecting to say that the Reds once traded him to the New York Mets. Larkin invoked his no-trade rights as a 10-and-5 player - at least 10 years in the majors and at least the last five with the same team.
That’s the only reason he didn’t move on to New York. But that’s hair-splitting. He did play his entire career in Cincinnati.
And Larkin’s highlights are beyond reproach:
-12-time All-Star, five times as a starter.
-One NL MVP.
-Nine Silver Slugger awards as the year’s best hitting shortstop.
-A .295 career average, nine times over .300.
-The only major-league shortstop in history with at least 2,300 hits, 190 home runs and 370 stolen bases.
-An 83 per cent stolen base ratio (379-456), fourth all-time since caught stealings became a statistic.
-The only shortstop in history to have 30 homers and 30 stolen bases in one season (1996).
There is more, much more. Bill James, baseball’s guru of crunching numbers, calls Larkin one of the 10 best all-around players of all time.
And that’s just the on field stuff. In my 37 years of covering the Reds, Larkin was probably the best leader the team ever had. His clubhouse presence was stately, like a Winston Churchill. When Larkin spoke, everybody listened.
He taught rookies how to be major-leaguers, how to act in the clubhouse and how to act on and off the field. When Larkin was with the Reds, there was seldom any problems in the clubhouse and every player knew how to interact with the media. Larkin made certain of that.
Larkin has some stiff competition in this year’s class, which is another reason the Reds probably took matters in hand.
His competition:
Roberto Alomar, Kevin Appier, Harold Baines, Bert Blyleven, Ellis Burks, Andre Dawson, Andres Galaragga, Pat Hentgen, Mike Jackson, Eric Karros, Ray Lankford, Edgar Martines, Don Mattingly, Fred McGriff, Mark McGwire, Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Tim Raines, Shane Reynolds, David Segui, Lee Smith, Alan Trammell, Robin Ventura, Todd Zeile.
That’s a tough field for Larkin and maybe he’ll lose votes because voters think others are better. Let’s just hope some of my colleagues aren’t turned off by a public relations campaign.
Larkin has my vote, just as Concepcion got my vote every time he was on the ballot.
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