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Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
Two-time Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom (Tommy John surgery) is ready to return to the rotation of the Texas Rangers . . .
At the opposite extreme is veteran left-hander Blake Snell, who has already informed the San Francisco Giants he will opt out of the player’s option in his contract and seek a longer-term deal in free agency . . .
In addition to Snell, who has two Cy Young Awards, players who could also opt out include Yankees ace Gerrit Cole, who has one Cy Young, and former National League MVP Cody Bellinger of the Cubs . . .
Speaking of multiple Cy Young recipients, Justin Verlander is returning to the Houston rotation after missing two months with neck problems . . .
With lefty reliever A.J. Minter sidelined for the duration with left hip inflammation, he’s likely to leave the Braves as a free agent, following top starter Max Fried . . .
The good news is that erstwhile World Series star Ian Anderson, healed from Tommy John, has pitched so well in his Triple-A rehab that he seems set to return to the Atlanta varsity.
Leading Off
On the Blight Sox aiming at the Original Mets
They need to learn how to suck . . . with style.
By Jeff Kallman
It’s not impossible that the saddest and most infuriating words in the English language this year have been, “The White Sox play today.” And those may be just the words of their announcers opening a live broadcast.
Saddest? Because this year’s White Sox have played baseball, most of the time, as though they couldn’t win a fixed fight. Most infuriating? Because, unlike losers of the past spoken of with great affection (those on the other end of Chicago come to mind at once), this year’s White Sox lack any ability to laugh at themselves.
Nobody likes to lose but somebody has to lose. No team comes into a baseball season expecting to become its doormat, but somebody has to finish with the worst record in the game. When a team as badly constructed as this year’s Blight Sox threaten to finish with the worst single-season record in modern baseball history, they have two choices:
1) Laugh at themselves, and get their fans laughing along—that one and all might not weep.
2) Stick their heads in the oven.
There’ve been no reported suicide attempts out of Guaranteed Rate Park yet. But the kind of dour dismissiveness these White Sox have aimed toward their record-tying losing streak and their potentially record-tying season’s finish may yet inspire their brown paper bag-wearing fans to thoughts of manslaughter.
Do any of these White Sox know about the team they just might shove to one side in the major-league record book? Well, maybe interim manager Grady Sizemore does. Sizemore may wish to sit his charges down one fine hour and tell the tales of the 1962 Mets.
Granted: The Mets were in Year One, as one of the National League’s first two expansion franchises. Granted, too: They were trying to fill a hole ripped into New York’s heart when the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants were all but forced out of town. These White Sox didn’t have those preparatory advantages.
Still . . .
They used to ponder asterisks for certain record-breakers, as if the record-breakers-to-be had to prove themselves above and beyond. Usually, for home run hitters daring to think about chasing and passing the Sacred Babe. Well, now. You want to play asterisk? Here’s one for you: put one on the team who passes the Original Mets for season-long futility play.
Hear me out. If other bad teams merely suck, the 1962 Mets sucked . . . with style. They really did have Abbott pitching to Costello, with Who the Hell’s On First, What the Hell’s on Second, You Don’t Want to Know’s on third, and You Don’t Even Want to Think About It at shortstop.
They really did have a manager who’d hector the paying customers entering their ballpark thus: Come an’ see my amazin’ Mets! I been in this game a hundred years but I see new ways to lose I never knew were invented yet.
Since-deposed White Sox manager Pedro Grifol was a wet blanket. His interim successor Sizemore seems able to find half-full glasses in poison factories. Neither of these dudes have Casey Stengel’s panache or spontaneous riffage virtuosity.
And you can’t name one of this year’s White Sox with the anti-heroic charisma of 1962 Met Marv Throneberry. Acquired in a June trade with the Orioles. First baseman who resembled your friendly neighborhood barkeep but—thanks to several seasons’ rust after beginning life as a glittering Yankee prospect—played like him, too.
Therefore, the proposition here is that the White Sox must fulfill these requirements to be considered the Original Mets’ proper successors:
They must blow 65 leads. (The Original Mets blew 64 but could have blown two more had two rained-out games been made up.)
They must finish exactly 62 games or worse behind the eventual AL Central winner. (The Original Mets finished 61.5 games out of first.)
They must actually find a way to make for 16 more comeback wins before the season’s out. (You can look it up: The Original Mets had 25 comeback wins—including the one Throneberry himself won in the bottom of the ninth with a pinch-hit, three-run homer off Pirates relief legend Elroy Face.)
They must mount at least one game comeback in which the deficit they overcome is six runs. (The Original Mets’ biggest comeback: from -5.)
They must designate at least one veteran who will come up with daily humorous observations and self-criticisms following yet another loss. (On the Original Mets, that would have been Hall of Fame outfielder Richie Ashburn at the end of his career: I don’t know what to call this, but I know I’ve never seen it before.)
Even if they have to draw straws, cut for high card/low card, or hire comedy legend Mort Sahl on loan from the Elysian Fields.
Jeff Kallman is an IBWAA Life Member who writes Throneberry Fields Forever. He has written for the Society for American Baseball Research, The Hardball Times, Sports-Central, and other publications. He has lived in Las Vegas since 2007, where he plays the guitar and writes music when not writing baseball. He remains a Mets fan since the day they were born.
Cleaning Up
Four Twins Hall of Famers Delight SABR Audience in Minneapolis
By Dan Schlossberg
The best part of Hall of Fame Induction Weekend is the Monday Roundtable that closes festivities for the new members.
An informal discussion held at Doubleday Field, just off Main Street, the event gives spectators a chance to see the stars close-up and to ask questions submitted through a moderator.
It’s even better when the stars on the panel played for the same team, lived in the same city, or both.
That’s why the opening events of this year’s Society for American Baseball Research convention in Minneapolis were so enjoyable.
Separate but consecutive panels featured hitters Tony Oliva and Rod Carew and pitchers Bert Blyleven and Jim Kaat.
Together, they combined for 31 All-Star selections, 17 Gold Gloves, 10 batting titles, three World Series rings, two Rookie of the Year trophies, and an MVP award.
Carew, born on a train in Panama, grew up in the Bronx and played ball outside Yanke Stadium.
“I wanted to play inside but my (George Washington High School) coach told me I wasn’t good enough,” he revealed. “I weighed 140 pounds and they said they didn’t have a uniform that would fit me.”
Carew’s savior was Minnesota manager Billy Martin, better known for running the Yankees on multiple occasions. “He wanted to stick with me while everybody else wanted to send me down,” said the former infielder.
Oliva and Carew were roommates on the road for 11 years. “He taught me how to bunt,” Carew said of Oliva, who preceded him to the big leagues.
Bunting is now a lost art, he lamented. “The game is not played the way we played it,” said Carew. “A lot of young players don’t know how to okay the game because they weren’t taught.
“Everybody wants to be the hero. A lot of kids are not using their sixth tool: their brain.”
Oliva’s career was curtailed by persistent knee problems; he said he needed seven surgeries during his career.
He also lacked experience. “I never played Little League, high school, or college ball,” said the Cuban native. “And I never played a night game before signing.”
Oliva said he was on the wrong end of a Vida Blue no-hitter. “It doesn’t matter how good you are or how bad you are. You have to be lucky to pitch a no-hitter.”
Blyleven threw one, thanks to his roundhouse curve, but Kaat never did — even though he and the Dutch-born right-hander combined for 570 victories.
A teenager when he reached the Twins, Blyleven followed teammates Jim Perry, Luis Tiant, and Kaat “like a puppy-dog,” he said. Apparently, he picked up some pointers.
“My analytics were picking up the newspaper and seeing how Don Mattingly was doing,” said Blyleven, who signed in 1969. “I never liked a goddam hitter. Cleveland had a second baseman named Jack Brohamer and I couldn’t get that guy out.”
Kaat’s nemesis was Lu Clinton, a Red Sox outfielder. But he had Reggie Jackson’s number.
“He came up at the end of ‘67,” Kaat said. “I fanned him 25 times in 57 at-bats.”
Like Blyleven, who yielded a record 50 home runs in 1986, Kaat was a control artist who was always around the plate.
“I gave up three home runs in a row twice,” he said. “We wanted to save the bullpen. There are more damaging hits on breaking balls than fastballs.”
Kaat faced Sandy Koufax three times in the 1965 World Series, in Games 2, 5, and 7. “He threw shutouts in the fifth and seventh games and never walked anyone,” Kaat recalled. A year later, though, the Minnesota southpaw won a career-peak 25 games.
“Sometimes the numbers can be deceptive if you win a lot of one-run games,” he said with a touch of modesty.
Blyleven could relate; he finished on the wrong end of a slew of 1-0 games. The Dutch Master finished with 242 complete games, 60 of them shutouts. He went 15-9 in 1-0 games.
More than 600 rabid baseball fans attended the Minneapolis SABR convention, which also included major and minor-league games, research presentations, poster and trivia contests, and a vendors room where publishers not only sold books but solicited new projects.
Former AP newsman Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ has been a SABR member since 1981 and is vice chairman of the Elysian Fields (Northern New Jersey) chapter. Email him at ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia: Remembering Joan Payson
Joan Payson was vital to New York sports history before the Mets were invented . . .
The first woman to buy majority control in a team without inheriting it, Payson was a former New York Giants stockholder who opposed the team’s move west . . .
She was one of the original “designated owners” when Branch Rickey cooked up the Continental League idea, which probably helped her win the National League expansion franchise in New York . . .
Mets president from 1962-75, Payson was active in the affairs of the club and was popular with uniformed and non-uniformed employees plus the press . . .
Payson played a key role in the trade that brought Willie Mays back to New York from the Giants in May 1972, when he was acquired for pitcher Charlie Williams . . .
She was inducted into the Mets Hall of Fame in 1981.
Know Your Editors
HERE’S THE PITCH is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Benjamin Chase [gopherben@gmail.com] handles Monday and Tuesday editions, Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] does Wednesday and Thursday, and Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com] edits the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HTP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.