Interview with poet, baseball writer and Brewers fan, Steve Myers

Steve was one of the very first (if not the first) individuals to post a comment on this blog, and we’ve been “internet friends” ever since. 10 long years later, we are both published and still banging away on our keyboards–what a strange, wild, wacky world.  I recently contacted him to chat about his book, Dreaming .400: Tales of Baseball Redemption. 

Let’s start at your formative years. Talk a bit about where you grew up, how you gravitated to the game of baseball, and who were your favorite players?

I grew up in Milwaukee, but to say that would be kind of a lie since I was raised in a suburb of Milwaukee – Whitefish Bay… people around town called it “white folks bay” for obvious reasons. There were no bars there either, but there was a city bus line…the number 15 took us down to Milwaukee’s east side and elsewhere, to eat at diners, slip flasks into laundry mats and drink at bars which was always a scary self-conscious venture, for me anyway. I don’t know what initially triggered my interest in baseball but my dad took a bunch of friends and me to a doubleheader at County Stadium against the Red Sox. I don’t remember who won. I think it was in 1977? I woulda been seven at the time. I also remember my dad bringing home a pack of cards in 1975, all those colored Crayola explosion borders. I remember one of the cards – Jim Brewer, probably because I knew the Brewers played in Milwaukee, and yet, here was this pitcher with Brewer for the last name and he played for the Dodgers? It was confusing. I was no Einstein.

My favorite player was and will always be Harold Baines. I first saw him on WFLD channel 32 Chicago in the early ’80s. I don’t know what it was about him…maybe because he was an outfielder and so was I…maybe because he batted left-handed and so did I or maybe because he just seemed so mellow and humble or maybe it was the way he lifted up his front foot when batting?  I later got to meet him in Sarasota, Florida where the sox trained and where my grandpa lived. He was standing with an Amish family. I waited my turn. He didn’t talk too much to me, but he sort of smiled and signed the ball I handed him. I later learned that Baines was from St. Michaels, Maryland and that there are a lot of Amish there. That explained that. Anyway, the contrast of Baines in his uni and the Amish family in their unis stuck with me in a whole lot of democracy happening on the urban street corner sort of way.

I have a nice baseball card collection, nice as in large. When I was a kid, I was a sucker for the rookie cards, thinking I would make a money-killing future. I bought tons of Dwight Gooden rookies in 84 and then a few years later, John Kruk and Kal Daniels and Barry Bonds and Barry Larkin, McGwire, all from that wood border 87 Topps set. I did score a 1968 Nolan Ryan rookie at a card show for 10 bucks which I’ve since sold for 500. I wish I wouldn’t have. it’s the only card I’ve ever sold. I did it to send money to my kid’s mom. I should have talked my way into postponing alimony.

I also got a Johnny Bench rookie, the same year, 1968. I still have that one. I still collect too. I’d like to one day have every Brewers card ever made or at least every Topps Brewers card. Seems doable since the Brewers are not that old…51 years. So am I. I like knowing that I was born the same year the Brewers were. I haven’t been too loyal. I spent many years away from “The Crew,” but they always welcomed me back…a forgiving family.

I played Strat-o Matic baseball as a teenager and into my adult life. The awesome thing about our strat-o group (there were five of us) is that one of the players was Craig Counsell, former MLB player and current manager of the Brewers and another guy was Galen Polivka, bass player for The Hold Steady. It’s awesome because their dreams came true!!!….Craig became a big leaguer and Galen became a member of a rock and roll band. The Hold Steady just came out with a new album too so they’ve been together for a good stretch. Anyway, I’m happy for them both and a little jealous too, mostly because I hate my job. I work in a hospital, in the warehouse, delivering supplies all over the place. too heavy. bad for my back. I’m freaking 160 pounds and not strong, but there is that team dimension that’s kind of interesting like a dugout with all the ages and personalities, plus I don’t have a boss breathing down my neck so it does award me time to jot down notes for my blog posts and stories. I’m currently working on a second collection of short stories which is supposed to be out in September or October 2021 but these dates always change which is cool because deadlines suck. I like the extra time and freedom to further develop characters, clarify themes, and whatever else to make a story more compelling.

 

• You have an interesting and unique writing style. Who were some writers that influenced you, and who are you reading at the moment?

I didn’t do much reading as a kid, only baseball books and one book about pro quarterbacks in the NFL. I knew all the quarterbacks in the early ’80s and weird, I still remember them…Jim Plunkett, Steve Grogan, brian sipe, and on and on I guess the shit from our early teen years stays stuck in our mind somewhere. I took a beat generation class at UW-Milwaukee in the early 1990s and that rocked my world, from narrow stretches to the wide open. The teacher – James Liddy was from Ireland and a poet, the kind of guy who looked under your hood and provoked, brought us closer to ourselves.  He encouraged us to hang out at bars and really demonstrated how to live a happy, single life, a life of drink and friends. Kerouac is definitely an influence, maybe Huxley and Hesse too. I read a bunch of their books. I also liked Shoeless Joe by WP Kinsella. that’s probably an influence too since I write short stories with baseball references sprinkled about. And then there’s my fellow bloggers like you, Gary…I love your rants and creativity and excellent writing so somehow I’m sure you’ve influenced me too. I’m currently rereading Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl…a book about a psychiatrist stuck in Auschwitz and other concentration camps and how he put to use psychology he had developed prior to the war. It’s called it logotherapy — and in summary, seems to say that if there is a meaning to our lives, we can endure any circumstances. The psychological terms are a bit boring and hard to grasp, but the narrative from his time in the camps is fascinating. I love the metaphor of prison life…I often feel like I’m a prisoner at work, even worse, since, at work, I have to deal with so many people and in prison, you get some time alone or maybe most of the time is alone or with the bunkmate or whatever. I tend to be a hermit which is kind of good since writing fiction is one of the main reasons I wake up in the morning and to do that requires time alone, lots of it….and getting down? depressed? writer’s block? those things happen but talking to my psychiatrist or an afternoon whisky helps. It’s a good thing I live in Canada. my doctor doesn’t cost me a penny. not to go on a tangent, but I think socialized medicine helps individuals from feeling estranged, knowing that a government cares a bit about them. the other book I’m reading is Journey To The End of the Night by Louis Ferdinand Celine. I’m only a few pages in but he strikes me as a badass, a hardcore cynic, a massive critic, and a great writer. I learned about him from an interview with Kerouac way back when. At work, on my lunch break, I read Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller. I like the way it flows and the low-life beautiful characters he creates or chronicles. I’m never sure if it’s autobiographical or fictional or maybe both?  And the book I just finished was Adventures of Wim by Luke Rinehart. It took me a while to know what the freaking thing was about but when i did (it was a long book) I dug it. the concept reminded me of that Kafka book – The Castle…if I remember right…something about knocking on a door and hoping to get “in” when in fact, there is no ‘” in” with the trick being to keep knocking? That longing is the secret to some sort of happiness or a reason to wake up in the morning or afternoon…or ride around in a hearse…whatever you like.

 

 I’ve read your excellent book Dreaming .400: Tales of Baseball Redemption, and I was wondering what your writing process is like, and when did you realize that you wanted to partake in the life of the scribe?

I wrote my first poem in that beat class I took back at UW-Milwaukee so I guess that’s when I thought about writing when I started to take it seriously or not seriously but having that ambition, that vain desire to be published. The poem went something like — “didn’t catch the train but beats blow fresh air my way… the Ferris wheel begins.” I remember Liddy, the teacher liking it and that made my day or my year or my life since I still remember him liking it. I wrote hundreds and hundreds of letters, back and forth with three friends, in particular, Liddy too, so they probably influenced me as well. I’m not sure what my process is other than the story idea comes in a specific moment like a flash of light with a lead sentence, a good sentence, a provocative one…and that sentence is like a miner’s light that shines through the whole story. I don’t really have to try to stay on subject because that first sentence guides me subconsciously or if it doesn’t, I make changes where necessary. I very rarely sit down and write a story in one sitting. I work and rework sentences and like my theme to be somewhat invisible so the reader has to do some connecting dots and thinking on their own, but not too much… I don’t want the reader to be confused. I think my writing is simple and straight-forward, probably because I’ve become simple and straight-forward. I think I used to be more confusing because I felt confused. Now, more than anything, I’m pissed off. One other thing about my writing process…I often take long breaks from stories, to let characters and plots marinate awhile in my mind. But there’s a danger in that because if i neglect a character, he or she won’t speak to me, not literally. I don’t have hallucinations, but speak to me in the sense of giving me ideas of things for them to do, things so the reader can get a better understanding of who they are…same with plots…I have to focus on it, give it attention. then the miracle can happen, that breakthrough that links the first paragraph to the last one. And as far as length goes, I find that a 4-page story is sometimes too long and a 14-page story is too short. Reading helps my writing.

 

• Do you have any Brewers predictions for 2021?

I didn’t watch many games last year, but the word was that second baseman Keston Hiura stunk up the place so what do the brewers do this off-season?  they signed Kolten Wong and moved Hiura to first base… a brilliant move, not that 1b is so easy to play…in fact, all that footwork strikes me as very challenging, not quite “spinning nine plates at the same time,” but easier than picking grasses in left field. Having a middle infield of Wong and Arcia….gonna be fun to watch. i’ll say 90 wins and another trip to the playoffs or maybe I’m too optimistic, unlike my dad who is from Boston. He knows better, being a Red Sox fan all those years before BIG PAPI and Manny and Pedro strolled into Bean-Town. Kind of a laugh in the face of Yawkey Boston tradition, if my history is right since Boston was so late to integrate. Thanks for having me on the FRO!!

A short story ode to Mickey Klutts.

“Baseball is a universe as large as life itself, and therefore all things in life, whether good or bad, whether tragic or comic, fall within its domain.” –Paul Auster

I am in the far-flung recesses of my mind, probably contemplating “throw-away culture” or how the scope of time is too vast for humans to comprehend when I stumble upon the fly strewn corpse of a baby raccoon. My eyes immediately shift too a rather large, honey sweet black woman in stained sweatpants–a mother–and she is giving her child a tongue lashing for being a malcontent. She has a beautiful smile and a confident demeanor, she transcended simple tackiness and wore it well.

“The world needs structure! Without structure there would be chaos!”

Why was this profound? Is baseball chaos, structure or both? I’ve heard arguments for both the former and latter, but I can’t seem to argue the contrary– and how did this short walk turn into mental digressions and glorious abstractions? Do I need to see a pharmacologist to ease this mental psycho-babble?

I suddenly trip on the curb, my personage quickly shifting from faux-philosopher into incoherent boob. The mother chuckles.  “You need to look where you’re going sweetie, it’s not good to look like a klutz.” I appreciated her simple candor, and she had no idea how profoundly I connected with her soft and earnest berating of a young ankle-biter. I made sense of the fog for a moment as it cleared–I was a “klutz.”

Kendall Graveman gets sent to Nashville, the mecca of country music.

The Athletics’ young pitcher and top prospect Kendall Graveman was absolutely shelled in his last two starts and subsequently sent down to (AAA) Nashville. The problem? The downward sinking and cutting action on his pitches that he used to get ground balls during his impressive spring training is missing. I have no doubt that the young man will be back soon, and as an effectively solid MLB starter once he gets properly schooled in the muscle memory category. He is already well schooled in the Bull Durham school of baseball interview clichés, “It’s just something that I’ve got to go back to work on…continue to work and not give up.”

My advice to the youngster while he is in Nashville is to learn about the rich history of music that the city has spawned. Here is but a very small list of bards that were born there:

The Allman brothers: This “southern rock”styled group had a string of hits in the 70’s. Unfortunately their leader, Greg Allman was killed in a motorcycle crash in 1971. They have re-united on multiple occasions in recent years to the confusion of everyone but their accountants.

Boone getting cray cray.

Pat Boone:  All American, squeaky clean gospel music singer and Christian who confused everyone by putting out a “heavy metal” record and promoting it by dressing like Al Pacino when he was an undercover cop looking for a killer in the San Francisco gay club scene. The 1980 cult-classic “Cruising” is a must watch for any movie buff with a sense of humor. You can pass on the Pat Boone, though.

Miley Cyrus: Does this even count as someone with musical talent? Apparently her dad, Mr. “Achy Breaky Heart” was recording in or around Nashville when she was conceived because the whole thing reeks of STRANGE.

Donna Summer: I was bummed when I learned Summer had died in 2012. She had great success in the 70’s with some disco smash hits that will stand the test of time and that are still embraced by gay clubbers. She also gets bonus points for being in a psychedelic rock band in the 60’s called “Crow.”

Johnny Cash: Well, technically the “Man in Black” wasn’t born in Nashville, but he did die there in 2003. For those of you living under a rock, Cash can be seen as arguably one of the most influential country music singers of all time. His most famous album “Folsom Prison Blues” was a standard on my turn-table for many years. A little known fact–Folsom, which is 23 miles north of Sacramento, my hometown, is quite the quaint and conventional little town full of cow-licked, barefoot little hicks munching on cotton candy.

Tammy Wynette: Wynette was called “The First Lady of Country Music,” and is arguably the most influential woman of the genre. She sang beautiful, time-tested songs about loneliness, heartbreak and the difficulties of relationships. Her most famous song, “Stand by Your Man” is one of the greatest selling songs in the history of country music. Wynette died in 1998 at the age of 55 and is buried in Nashville.

A fictional account of the adventures of Bob Hale, scout for the Kansas City Athletics.

Bob Hale was tired and just wanted to eat, have a beer and perhaps grumble to a stranger. He spotted a flashing motel sign in the distance and pulled his station wagon into its gravel strewn parking lot. There was a small light above a window/door that said, ring bell for service. The bell hadn’t stopped ringing before a short, twerpy guy popped up from behind the window, leaping from a portable cot that was hidden from sight.

“Yeah, I’ll take a room for the night.”

“That’ll be ten dollars for the night and it comes with a hot shower,” the twerp said, adjusting his thick horn rimmed glasses.

Hale pushed the ten spot across the wooden counter, all the while thinking about a card game he had lost a few weeks earlier.

“There a place to get a drink around here?”

“Yeah, The Double Deuce, right down the street. You’ll be in room 5 and check out is at 10.”

“Thank you kindly.”

The Double Deuce was a small place with sawdust on the floor and a jukebox in the corner. There were a few local toughs milling around mingling with their girlfriends. This was a cesspool, a dump, a junkpile and a shithole all wrapped in one, yet it was fine for a few quick drinks before stumbling back to the room with a melancholy residue. Hale was used to the more classy joints in his hometown of Chicago, but he was here on business so the intricacies of this hick town meant nothing to him.

Kansas City Athletics owner Arnold Johnson (L) yukking it up with president Harry S. Truman. (R)

Hale had driven to Kansas City from Chicago a mere 12 hours ago. Arnold Johnson, the Athletics owner had set up a mandatory scout meeting earlier in the day at Municipal Stadium. The meeting was not pleasant in the mind of Hale as Johnson was more of an industrialist-capitalist than a baseball man. He despised men like Johnson who had  Yankee Stadium in his possession and were using the game for profit. He also had no respect for a man that had weaseled the team from the Mack family with the help of his rich cronies. Baseball was a little different, a little sadder, for the era of one of the game’s greatest figures in Connie Mack was over.

“What’s it gonna be, buddy?”

“Tom Collins,” Hale said as he lit his Cuban cigar.

“Sorry, pal, we don’t have the mixins’ for that. I can get you a gin and tonic if you’d like.”

“Sounds fine..”

One of the locals, the one with the Elvis Presley haircut, stood up suddenly and started barking at his girlfriend. Hale had the prescience to know that this would happen and didn’t move a muscle. There was a minor dust-up until order was quickly restored.

local toughs.

“The kids today and their rock and roll,” Hale snorted.

“Yeah, they’re a goddamn pain in the ass, but I’m not one to turn away customers…say, are you from around here?”

Hale was wearing a Panama hat with cuffed khaki trousers, a sign that he definitely was not from around “here.”

“Naw, but I’m a baseball man…the Athletics.”

“Wow! They sure are big around here, buddy, you can be sure of that! Are you some sort of big-wig or somethin’?”

“Naw. I’m a nobody, an ass-kisser, a smudge, a nothin'”

“Fair enough. Well, we love the team around here…I just took my kid last month.”

“Actually, I’m just in town for a few days to meet up with my shit-kickin’ boss and to scout a local kid for the ball-club.”

“A local kid! Sheeeeeeeit. What’s the kid’s name?” said the bartender as he looked over Hale’s shoulder at the toughs.

Hale took a long drag off his cigar and exhaled just as “Rock around the Clock” poured out of the jukebox. The hoodlums started to dance in unison.

(To be continued……)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So long, J.D., you will be missed.

This trade hurt; J.D. was easily one of my top 5 favorite Athletics of all time.

 

“We needed to do something that wasn’t timid.”

–Billy Beane

Billy Beane waltzed into the saloon again with guns blazing as he traded Josh Donaldson to the BlueJays for Brett Lawrie and 3 prospects, 2 of which are supposedly ML ready. I saw this coming when Kyle Seager, an inferior third baseman, signed a huge contract with the Mariners–all but pushing the A’s out of the picture for an extension during arbitration. Donaldson also had endeared himself to his already rabid fan base by calling owner Lou Wolff a cheap son of a bitch on Twitter, or in his own words, “they have plenty of money, my friend. they just tell everybody they don’t.

The fans are predictably upset and tired of the Oakland owners playing with MLB’s piece of the profit-share pie for ultimate profit. There is an underlying stench of betrayal, lack of loyalty and an overall disregard to the fan base. Donaldson was the Athletics most popular player and maybe the most popular 3rd baseman in franchise history. (sorry Chavy!) J.D. was very likable with his defensive hustle, power when the game was on the line and awesome trademark mullet/mohawk/rat-tail combo. He was visibly shaken and spoke to reporters about the trade: “I’m so shocked, I just got off the phone with Billy Beane, and I guess they got an offer that they couldn’t resist. I’m definitely a little emotional about it. Oakland is my home. At the end of the day, it’s a business, as much as it hurts emotionally. The guys in that clubhouse are my brothers.”

Our new guy…40 ounces to freedom!

I was/am a huge fan of J.D., and although I’ve analyzed the trade with a heavy heart, I am trying to stay positive and see the pot of gold through the rainbow, or as the Dalai Lama says, “In order to carry a positive action we must carry here a positive vision.”

1. It is no secret that Beane loves pitching, and the two minor league pitchers we received in return (Sean Nolin and Kendall Graveman) put up some good numbers last year. You can be positive both of these gentleman will start a handful of games in an Athletics uniform next season all but assuring Jeff Simardizija or Scott Kazmir will be traded in a packaged deal for oh, say….Justin Upton.

2. Brett Lawrie plays 3rd base with a little bit of second sprinkled in…the dude has a shit load of tattoos and epitomizes the word “bro” more than anyone in my own personal life. The ladies might see him as a “sexy scumbag.” As far as on-the-field he is much younger than Donaldson (25) and is just a notch or 2 below J.D. on the offensive and defensive side. A major concern is his history of injury. He is definitely serviceable with the talent to be really good.

In the end Donaldson says this to the fans of Oakland:

“To the fans of Oakland: Thank you for all the memories on and off the field I truly am blessed to have been part of it. We have had a lot of great memories together and the memories I will have will always hold a special place for me. Everyday I wore that uniform with pride, and gave you all that I could. Thank you again!!”

Strap yourselves in Oakland fans….this is just the beginning.

Hot Dog Eating a Hot dog.

John Kilduff–Rickey Henderson 1980 Topps rookie

As longtime readers know, I like to incorporate different facets of life into this blog, mostly from the realm of modern art and literature. It tends to get a bit tedious talking about baseball players and stats and free agency and Bud Selig’s ego and PED’s and Hall of Fame voters and the widening strike zone until I’m blue in the face. We’re getting closer to the Christmas holidays, I drank too much Crown Royal and I’m feeling a bit silly.

John Kilduff was a loco personality. He hosted a “painting show” that I would watch late at night here in Los Angeles while sucking on the hash pipe. I was supposed to be writing a thesis on “Modern Art and Capitalism,” but this show seemed more interesting and vital at the time. I couldn’t tell if the guy was gifted or if he was a charlatan looking to make a buck, (he turned out to be both) and I loved it. Some of his work had titles like, “Hot dog eating a hot dog,” and “African-American titty burger.” All this talk is meaningless, you simply must see for yourself…

Denny McLain, Beer, Dinosaurs, and Jean-Paul Sartre

The warm-up “trash bag” era.

“It poured a caramel, amber, clear color with five fingers of khaki, frothy head, which settled nicely. Lots of bubbles streaming up from the bottom of the glass. Sporadic spots of lacing along the sides of the glass. Average-to-above average retention on the top all the way down.” 

Beer reviews have always tickled me as I’ve always enjoyed the attention to detail and the ability to pick out the minutiae (whether real or imagined) in any reviewer’s uppity “passion project.” Denny McLain was a person that I never fancied as a beer review kind of guy. In fact, if he was going to give a beer review it might sound something like the below quote:

“It’s best ice cold, and after the first 2 who gives a damn about character anyway.” 

McLain enjoyed the money, adulation and trappings of being a 30 game winner, and has also endured a humbling 6 years in prison for embezzlement, mail fraud and conspiracy. Life is but a dream, I suppose. At some point in our lives we all must confront these four word sentences…Why am I here? Where am I going? What does it mean? I think McLain deserves admiration for sending these existential thoughts straight to hell after ripping off its balls and giving philosophy the finger, or as Sartre would explain it, “existing without justification, independently, and of the for-itself.”

Sometimes over-thinking can be the bane of anyone’s existence. I just recently read a wonderful theory regarding the asteroid that landed in Mexico some 66 million years ago, in essence, wiping out 80 percent of the life on earth. The theory states that if the asteroid had landed 5 minutes earlier or 5 minutes later, or even had a slightly different trajectory (we’re talking feet here) then dinosaurs would most certainly still rule the earth giving mammals no opportunity to thrive. You wouldn’t exist. The crap computer that I am typing on now wouldn’t exist. This was confounding to me because I had laid in my bed at times trying to wrap my head around the astronomical odds of surviving during the sperm/egg process and now the chances of being “me” were so large I would have to write the number down from here and the moon and back over a trillion times. (This is a made-up equation by the way, as you may or may not know…I am no scientist.)

Of course, at this moment in time most people in the sanctimonious world of baseball blogging are scratching their heads thinking, “what the fuck is this guy going on about?”– their hubris keeping them from thinking about not much more than grown men gripping hard wood, fingering balls and embracing over-the-top, nauseating Boomer nostalgia. It probably took you longer to read this essay than the time McLain was with the Athletics–all of 5 horribly pitched games towards the end of his career in 1972 before being shoved through the door of obscurity with Charlie Finley’s foot planted firmly up his ass. That’s what the fuck I’m talking about.

I’m just a gun cleanin’ fool.

This is a short piece of fiction inspired by a very poignant moment of reality.

 

God, I love Leila.

Sounds like she is feeding the dogs right now. Jesus, those tits are amazing.

They are talking about ebola on the radio. I’ve been feeling feverish lately. I need to get that checked out. Ebola….that sounds funny.

Leila wanted to go get a”falafel” earlier. I had no idea what she was talking about. “Middle Eastern food,” she says. I wanted a Cuban sandwich.

The dogs are barking. Neighbor is fussing around in her backyard. I wonder if she knows I’m famous?

Puma puntu…or is it Punku? I just know that it fascinates me. Wow. How’d they do that?

Leila

“You’re  a lot to handle…sometimes I just give up. But I’m all you have. You don’t have anybody else in your life.” Leila told me this earlier. She’s probably right. I need to call my manager about that autograph session later this week.

I do not think Mr 50/50 is born or conceived yet. God, I love Leila….her ass is amazing. Yummy.

I would love to be the hitting coach of the Oakland A’s. I love Oakland; the fans made me feel wanted again at the reunion.

Leila is cooking something. God, I love her. Wow. I made my Major League debut a year before she was born.

I think I need to clean my guns. I was the first man to achieve 40/40…perhaps I can be the first man to clean 4 guns at one time…..

 

 

 

 

A special message to the Giants before game 7.

The Billy Beane failure chronicles…part 1

He’s a stone cold fox! Also nicknamed “Captain Clutch.”

Even a “genius” can make mistakes. Nikola Tesla made bizarre contraptions such as an earthquake machine and a death ray. Thomas Edison wanted to make entire houses out of concrete. Einstein said that the universe was eternal (apparently he thought the Big Bang Theory was hooey.)….and Billy Beane traded Andre Ethier for Milton Bradley.

At the time the trade seemed to make sense. The Athletics needed a big bat and they acquired one in Bradley. All they had to give up was their minor league player of the year and Texas League MVP in Andre Ethier. The trade worked fine for a while as Bradley helped the A’s get to the 2006 ALCS where they were eventually swept by the hated Detroit Tigers. Bradley, however must have forgotten to take his meds the next season as he became the violent schizophrenic that he had been in Los Angeles and was traded to the Padres  after only 19 games (with cash…now THAT is desperation) for forgotten relief pitcher Andrew Brown.

head case.

Ethier, on the other hand became the poster boy of Los Angeles. He is one of the most beloved Dodgers to ever put on the uniform and will forever be seen as a heart-throb (right up there with Menudo!) to the female contingent of 20 and 30 somethings in the City of Angels. He is a two-time All Star, won a Gold Glove and a Silver Slugger award. Ethier also gave the Dodgers 145 career HR’s and 628 RBI’s, compared to Bradley’s 16 and 59 for the Athletics. Ethier is class–personified while Bradley is quite the opposite. The psycho burned every bridge in every city he played in until everyone finally gave up and he wasn’t re-signed after the 2011 season (he even took to wearing earplugs to drown out the heckling fans)….and it didn’t end there. Bradley was facing 13 years in prison for spousal abuse and even threatened to kill his wife on more than one occasion. Strangely enough, she died on September 14, 2013 of unknown causes. (this was swept under the rug…perhaps I might get a notice from a lawyer or 2 after this is posted.)

This was a trade of disastrous proportions and will probably go down in history as one of Mr. Beane’s worse, and to save subjective judgment is diametrically opposed to what “Moneyball” was supposed to be about in the first place. This is but the first installment of “The Billy Beane failure chronicles.”