Rollie Fingers and random thoughts.

I think Rollie’s neck is talking to me.

Yankees fans are the new defrauders and ballot box stuffers of the idiotic All Star Game fan voting system (hello Royals fans!) by voting their entire infield into the finals; including 3rd baseman Gio Urshela who I had no idea existed as a baseball player until yesterday. I’m not trying to say I have a busy life of wine, women and tropical beaches or anything of that sort, but the day that I make a mental note of a career .249 hitter that the Indians and Blue Jays threw in the dumpster is the day that I enter the attic with a noose in hand. (Oh, wait. I just did.) Why don’t we all just give up now and have the All Star game be a contest between the Yankees and Mike Trout vs. the National League!?

Isn’t it time that the A’s sent down Lou Trivino and his solid 5.00 ERA? Every time he enters a game I immediately turn off the television knowing that the game is lost and that I probably have something better to do; namely watch Neil Tyson DeGrasse talk about how humanity is more than likely a simulation created by a “snot nosed kid in his parent’s basement.” Goddamn, these aliens are hyper-advanced! Which begs the questions: Do the Athletics care about their sponsors? How many potential viewers are the Athletics losing when Trivino steps on the mound? Are the aliens the least bit concerned about Trivino’s WHIP?

Rollie Fingers riding a dolphin….and other random thoughts.

Maybe I’m crazy and maybe I aint

So was Picasso and so were the saints

I’ve never been partial to shackles and chains

I’m too young for breakin’ and too old to change.

–Willie Nelson

I think Chris Rock is one of the funniest, hippest and most intelligent modern-day comedians out there–and he recently had some poignant thoughts concerning baseball. Rock referred to himself as a “dying breed;” a black baseball fan. Here were some of the more interesting points he had to make with my opinions in parenthesis…

— 4 out of 5 viewers are white and the average median age is 53. (I may be the wrong person to opine on this topic considering that I enjoy the beauty and intricacies of the game that take historical knowledge and the ability to let time slow down for a moment. Baseball is a thinking man’s game and always has been. This doesn’t bode well for the modern generation that isn’t known for its voracious devouring of books or ability to slow down and daydream for a moment without looking at their phones to see whats “going on.” Scoring a game will soon be as dead as cursive writing. All of these things are appreciated by someone who is older and is wise enough to realize that slowing down is vital to enjoying one’s existence. As far as race is concerned, African-Americans also aren’t interested in International Soccer…the world’s most popular sport. The reasoning behind this is difficult and not an easy black and white (no pun attended) issue. I will have to ponder the reasoning behind this.)

— other cultures embrace “fun” more than Americans. The Koreans love the bat flip and the Caribbeans/Mexicans turn a ball-game into a virtual party. (I’d have to agree with this assessment. A lot of fans were unknowingly acting culturally superior last season for criticizing Yasiel Puig’s bat flips. This type of thing is accepted, even embraced in Cuban culture, and personally I see nothing wrong with injecting a little pizzaz into the game. This is not even close to an issue of who is “classier” or not despite fans using this term liberally during their borderline racist attacks on the man. The game is supposed to be fun…period. This isn’t a stock broker convention, it’s baseball.)

–Black people like to look to the future and the “retro” ballparks that are in-vogue embrace the past. (This is an interesting statement and actually gave me pause for a moment. I can see why American blacks would want to forget about the injustices of their past that are unfortunately still going on today. But I also wouldn’t want to see cookie-cutter, faceless basketball stadiums either. My question is this: what architectural aesthetic quality doesn’t remind someone of slavery/oppression? and does this make a European trip virtually impossible?)

–In other news: Ike Davis recently became the first position player on the Athletics to pitch since Frank Menechino in 2000. Davis pitched a mop up ninth inning job in a 14-1 beatdown by the Angels and actually did a decent job with a scoreless inning. I wasn’t surprised to learn later that Davis pitched at Arizona State as he looked like he knew what he was doing out there and had a semblance of command. It’s good to see Davis doing well early in the season for Oakland considering the bashing he took in New York with Mets fans and in Pittsburgh with Pirates fans. He is what he is…a platoon first baseman with above average defensive skills and a little pop that will probably bat in the lower .200’s. Anything is better than Daric Barton and I think A’s fans realize that.

Rollie Fingers riding a dolphin and other random thoughts.

Yes, he rides dolphins.

Most of the Athletics sights in internet-land played the typical baseball writing game of follow the leader and were frothing at the mouth at the signing of Barry Zito. We here at the ‘Fro, however, felt a keen sense of bafflement and confusion. Zito, A) didn’t play last year and B) had ERA’s of 4.03, 4.15, 5.87, 4.15 and 5.74 his last 5 seasons. To put it bluntly–he sucked. 

And as much as we admire Charlie O. Finley and Bill Veeck for their “circus like” candor, I just didn’t see Billy Beane, the paradigm of rational thought, as nostalgic, a clown-enabler or the type to give into Zito’s sense of entitlement to waste a Spring Training spot that a young player could desperately need to further his career. Zito, although once an Athletic, had erased any positive emotion from my mind when he signed with the Giants–all but stoking provincial animosities and spitting in Oakland’s face. Due to popular belief, emotions still exist in baseball, although the numbers-crunchers would tell you otherwise. They try to rationalize the signing with  “low risk-medium return” hyperbole to the point of vomit inducing fervor, all but erasing the “gut feeling” that made Earl Weaver so successful. Perhaps the Athletics would have been better off using the 1 million they gave Zito to hire some people who actually NEEDED the money to help promote and to get “fringe fans” to buy tickets. It is common knowledge that their promotional representation in the Bay Area is a mockery to the fan base that is consistently criticized in the media for lack of support….

Jason Giambi retired, finally ending his reign as a PED user, MVP, lovable lug, Yankee, douchbag, party boy, laughing stock of New York and finally, grizzled, useless DH. (The above sentence bringing to light Tina Turner’s “We don’t need another hero” in my synapse hell.) Oddly enough, Giambi was quoted as saying, “I’ve done everything I can in my career.” Touche, Jason. In the end Giambi was seen as sort of a rascal despite his Yankee short-comings…and I’ve always had a soft spot for rascals…what would life be without them? Now Giambi can finally experience what other baseball retirees had to go through– the life of an Average (albeit wealthy) Joe, where no one knows who you are and no one cares until you show up at a fan-fest or baseball card show in a lonely, trash strewn strip mall. Good luck, Jason.

Random thoughts and Rollie Fingers riding a dolphin.

 Just a few random thoughts……The A’s bullpen has stunk this season. The Jim Johnson fiasco and Luke Gregerson’s 7 blown saves has given a crap team like the Angels a chance to compete. (and let’s face it, Bob Melvin has enough on his plate– worrying about 3 platoon catchers, Brandon Moss’ slump, where to play him and all that jazz.) There are the people who think the ‘pen is fine based on BABIP and SIERA , (no, not Ruben!) but I tend to go with my eyes rather than a bunch of stats conjured from thin air by numbers-crunchers and the jobless. It gets so ridiculous at times that you wonder how they could ever cross the street until they figured out the Pythagorean projection of success. (A note to the ladies…they are most likely bad in bed.)….

…Is former Athletic and current Astro Chris Carter the new Dave Kingman? His stats suggest so. He has amazing power, low batting average, strikes out a lot, yet throw a hanger and that fucker will have its own stewardess. The only difference being that Chris is a soft-spoken “good guy” and Kingman was known for being one of the game’s biggest assholes…so much so that after hitting 35 round-trippers no one signed him….and he NEVER PLAYED AGAIN…

…The vape pen is the best thing to ever happen for all you low-key weed smokers/baseball fans. It’s compact, and you can get your smoke on without any of those corny ass, nosey, do-gooders getting in your face for no good goddamn reason. It’s the perfect ballpark accessory. (this works extra well late in the post-season and early summer when the “on the cusp” bring their kids and ignorantly see the ballpark as Disneyland.)…

The season is slowly/quickly and sadly coming to an end.

 

 

 

“Mudcat” Grant

My girlfriend and I made a trip the Pasadena library in 2012 to honor a couple of ex- major leaguers who were to be inducted into the Baseball Reliquary hall of fame…..Jim “Mudcat” Grant and Luis Tiant.  Grant and Tiant had just been elected to the Shrine of the Eternals by the Baseball Reliquary. The Shrine, based in Southern California, serves as a kind of alternative Hall of Fame, with criteria predicated as much on a candidate’s place in social and cultural history as on what he does on the field.

 Rollie Fingers famously said he had learned how to become a reliever thanks to “Mudcat.” “I learned how to become a reliever from Grant,” Fingers told a reporter for Baseball magazine many years later. Fingers watched Mudcat attack opposing hitters by mixing his pitches, rather than relying on one dominant pitch. Fingers also observed the different ways that Grant warmed up in the bullpen, depending on the game situation and the inning.

To his discredit, owner Charles Finley did not value Grant’s influence on Fingers, nor his ability to pick up outs in the late innings. So in a cost-cutting maneuver that smacked of his tendency toward cheapness, he released Grant. “Mudcat” later signed with the Indians, his original organization, and agreed to pitch at Triple-A in hopes of returning to the big leagues. But the promotion never came, and Grant called it quits after the 1972 season.

I approached Grant and asked him for a couple autographs. He was kind and seemed genuinely humbled by his induction into a Hall of Fame that would receive little or no attention. I felt awful that he had to endure racism and an altercation with his bullpen coach in Cleveland because of it.  I also felt elation that I was receiving an autograph from a great MAN instead of someone who could just simply throw a ball hard or hit a ball far. One of my favorite baseball cards of all time had new meaning to me.