Went to the Smets game today. I like the rows in the middle 200 sections with a small shelf in front of you to put your stuff on: my radio, my phone, my food and drink and my book, (Baseball Anecdotes, 1990 by Daniel Okrent and Steve Wulf, which I read between innings, or until I realize the inning has started). The view is great and I can afford the price, (40 bucks) for the 6-8 times a summer that I go there. There are some downsides. For some reason, the area below the shelf has a metal fence below it so you can't stretch your legs, (there's a similar area down the third base line with raided chairs and a bar for you feet but no fence). Fortunately, the seat to my right was unused so I could urn and stretch my legs, (I have a problem with my right leg that it aches a bit when I can't stick it out). Also, you have to watch out of incoming foul balls - not hit directly back toward you, (there's a screen for that- but no top to it), but those hit off the building behind you. One landed about 5 seats behind me. When I look up into a grey sky such as the one we had today, the ball disappears for me. I have no idea how the outfielders do it. Young eyes and repetition, I guess. The third thing is that the air there is dead and on a warm, humid day like today, it can feel kind of oppressive. there are two cures. One is to think of February, or even what it was like a few weeks ago and wonder why I would be complaining about an 82 degree day. The other is to do what I like to do after the 6th inning: get up and peregrinate around the concourse. As soon as I got up there, it was much cooler and there was a zephyr like breeze that made the day pleasant, especially as everything was going the Smets way.
Our heroes hit 4 home runs on the way to a 7-1 win. Bret Baty hit a 416 foot home run to the bater's eye in center field. I was reading my book when I heard that special WHACK! when you know it's gone. I looked up and saw it was going to deepest center and the Bison CF made a show of leaping for it but that's all it was: a show. Two batters later Luke Ritter, out first basemen hit a drive that barely made it over in right center. That made it 4-0. Joey Lucchesi pitched 5 shut-out innings with 6 strike-outs. The Bison got an 8th inning home run from Spencer Horwitz, (who is hitting .332) to make it 4-1. Baty's day had slipped a bit after his long home run with a throwing error and two situations where he came up with with players on second and third and popped up and struck out. We had an insurance run in the bottom fo the 8th and a man on when Baty hit another monster drive, which got out in a hurry and flew over the Salt City deck in right. People out there were pointing up at it. It flew 420 feet. Michael Tricarico said "No way is this guy a 4A player, (a player too good for Triple A but not good enough to make it in the majors), This sparked a discussion, (Mike's normal partner, the overly talkative Evan Stockton, was not there. In his place where two voices that sounded like older men. One had played third base and another was an American Legion umpire but I didn't get their names), of Baty an Mark Vientos and their struggles to stick in the majors. They said that both were 24 years old and we still have to be patient with them. One guys said that not every prospect is going to be ready as a teenager like Juan Soto. He said there is only Juan...Soto.
A couple of items from Baseball Anecdotes I liked:
One of the key players on the 1927 Yankees was Wilcy Moore, an early relief specialist. Relievers then were both firemen and closers and Wilcy had a 19-7 won-loss record and a league leading 13 saves. But he was a lousy hitter, even for pitchers, and Babe Ruth bet him $300 before the season that he wouldn't get more than 3 hits on the year. But it was a career year for Wilcy in more ways than one: he got 6 hits, one of them a home run. The Babe paid up at the end of the season and Moore, a farmer, used the money to buy two mules. He named one "Babe" and the other "Ruth".
Dutch Leonard was famous for a spitball and being a tightwad. After he retired, he bought 2,500 acres in the San Joachim Valley in California and built one of the largest grape growing and packing businesses and well as a famous collection of more than 150,000 records. When he died in 1952, he was worth $2 million and the envy of most ex-players. But was it all due to his frugality with his baseball salaries? He had made an allegation that Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker had been throwing games during the 1919 season, just like the Black Sox. The charges were dismissed but the book says that American League president Ban Johnson bought two incriminating letters from Leonard for "$15,000-25,000" dollars and that's what he used to buy his farm and the record collection.
Eppa Rixey, a Southerner, was a fine pitcher but he tended to get flustered when the opposition whistled "Marching Through Georgia", the anthem of Sherman's Army during the Civil War. He was asked why it made him so upset and said "The song doesn't make me mad. The thing that makes me mad is that they think they are are making me mad!" Eppa was a Virginian.
Casey Stengel was playing in the Southern Association in 1912 when he noticed there was a wooden box in left field in Pensacola, below ground level. Casey removed the lid and found that it contained water pipes but there was room for man in there. A ball was hit to left field and people were shocked to see that Montgomery had no left fielder. Suddenly, Casey popped out of the box and caught the ball.
Babe Ruth made several movies during his baseball career One was called "the Babe Comes Home" in 1927. The plot was that Babe Dugan, a sluggers of the LA Angels, appeals to the ladies except for his habit of constantly spitting out chewing tobacco. He proposes to one of them but she asks him to promise to give up the messy habit. His response is to give her a wedding gift. They are "two beautiful hand-painted cuspidors". The marriage is off unless he stops chewing tobacco. He goes into a terrible slump and the woman shows up at the park to hand him a chew of tobacco. He hits the home run that wins the game and they live "happily and sloppily ever after". One critic's opinion: "There is no reason for John Barrymore or any other noted Thespian to become agitated over the matter."
Bret Baty did pretty good without the chewing tobacco.
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