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Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
After sailing through the first two months without significant injuries, the front-running Phillies took a major hit when star catcher J.T. Realmuto went down indefinitely with a bum knee that will need surgical repair . . .
Both the Phillies and Braves could place three starting pitchers on the NL All-Star team, with the former likely to send Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, and Ranger Suarez and the latter looking at representation by Max Fried, Chris Sale, and converted reliever Reynaldo Lopez . . .
As an American Leaguer, Sale shared the major-league record of starting three All-Star Games in a row, tied with Lefty Gomez and Robin Roberts . . .
Players with expiring contracts, including Houston third baseman Alex Bregman and Mets first baseman Pete Alonso, are likely to be traded before the July 30 deadline . . .
If the White Sox can over-matched pilot Pedro Grifol, the team could pick any of three candidates with Chicago ties: Joe Girardi, Joe Maddon, or Ozzie Guillen . . .
Before April 29, the Braves were batting .277 (tops in the majors) with an .801 OPS that also ranked first and 149 runs scored (fourth despite a 5.7 runs-per-game average that stood first). After taking a home series from Cleveland, they stood 19-7, first in the NL East, and looked likely to extend their best-in-baseball streak of six straight division titles. Then, out of nowhere, an inexplicable 37-game skid started that lasted well into June. When Atlanta beat Baltimore, 6-3, yesterday, that ended a five-game losing streak that was the club’s worst in seven seasons.
Leading Off
FLAG DAY, BASEBALL AND VIN SCULLY
By Tom Hoffarth
Everything we have come to believe the flag of the United States of American represents -- pride, hope, governance, citizenship, civility, perseverance and allegiance -- Vin Scully did as well. Probably more.
Those values were important enough for him to amplify as seamlessly as possible into a Los Angeles Dodgers broadcast if a game landed on a day like today -- Flag Day, June 14. We understood the moment to listen and process.
When Scully died at age 94 in August of 2022, about five years after his retirement from a 67-year broadcast career with the team, we searched our files, notebooks and audio tapes to create a better appreciation for lessons he left for us. It became a book project soliciting essays and remembrances. His adoration of patriotism and history became an important chapter to include.
Scully admits his experience stationed in San Francisco with the U.S. Navy between 1944 and ’45, bridging a high school graduation and entrance into Fordham University, was nothing like what he saw friends endure as they were drafted into World War II.
The National Anthem may be one of the most difficult songs to sing before a baseball game, but to Scully it was more difficult to imagine what the country would be like without understanding of its meaning, underscoring our freedom to assemble and enjoy another ballgame that he would describe.
Here are three things related to the American flag we still connect to Scully.
== April 25, 1976. Amidst the nation’s bicentennial year, and a year removed from the official end of the Vietnam War, Scully is describing a Dodgers-Cubs game from Dodger Stadium on a Sunday afternoon. In the bottom of the fourth, Chicago relief pitcher Ken Crosby is facing the Dodgers’ Ted Sizemore.
“Outside, ball one … and wait a minute there’s an animal loose … two of ‘em, all right … We’re not sure what he’s doing out there … It looks like he’s going to burn a flag … and Rick Monday runs and takes it away from him! (Crowd cheers) … I think the guy was going to set fire to the American flag! Can you imagine that? … Monday, when he realized what he was going to do, raced over and took the flag away from him.”
And Scully took our breath away. Especially now as we read a transcript to see what adjectives he picked in the moment.
As Cubs center fielder Rick Monday snatched up the flag just a man and his son knelt down, doused it with kerosene and kept striking a match but couldn’t get it lit, we are reminded that in the Retrosheet.org recreation of the box score, it notes in bold letters that before Sizemore popped up to second, “Rick Monday saved an American flag from being burned by protestors.” It’s on the record. Monday, who spent six years in the Marine Corp reserve, would be in a Dodgers uniform the next season.
https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1976/B04250LAN1976.htm
== Six days after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, MLB games returned, and Scully came on the air for a Dodgers-Padres telecast from Dodger Stadium. On the TV broadcast, Scully spoke:
https://www.mlb.com/video/scully-s-touching-speech-c18652293
“All of us have experienced a litany of emotions, whether it would be shock, disbelief and horror, followed by grief, mourning and anger. … We’ve lost some self-confidence. We have lost some of our freedom and certainly we have lost a way of life.
“All the ballplayers in the major leagues are wearing the American flag. Out of patriotism, yes. Out of love of country, yes. But more so, out of duty and of courage and to pronounce a national firmness of will. God bless us in our effort. God bless America.”
The broadcast then went to a scene of a large American flag unfurled across the field.
I talked to him about how he choose those words.
“This is a country that defeated the German army and air corps, the Italian army, and the Japanese armies and air corps in our time, but 19 people brought us to our knees,” he said. “I guess America’s strength is resilient and baseball has been helping the inspiring Americas to play again.”
That sentiment aligned every June 6 when Scully would recount the importance of D-Day. Or every Memorial Day, as his broadcasters were sent out over Armed Forces Radio and he would read the poem “In Flanders Field.” Or every July 4. Amazing how all that aligned within a baseball season’s schedule.
== After Scully’s 2016 retirement, he participated in a Southern California speakers’ series event. One night in front of about 3,000 in Pasadena, he declared he would no longer watch NFL games because some players were kneeling during the National Anthem in protest.
His remark drew applause in the auditorium and made local news.
I asked Scully if he understood what was behind the actions of NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Scully not only stood firm in his opinion, but he doubled down.
“I certainly defend their right to protest,” he said. “What has bothered me is that this looks like a way to dishonor our veterans. When I turn the TV on, I see flag-covered coffins, and warriors returning from the war without arms or legs … suicides of veterans because of post-war stress. When I see players kneeling, it absolutely kills me that anyone dare do that. If they really wanted to do something, instead of taking a knee, they’d get down on both knees and thank God they live in America …”
I reminded him that Jackie Robinson wrote in his 1972 memoir: “I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a Black man in a white world. In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made.”
I asked Scully: What do his words mean to you then, and now?
“I think I have said enough,” he responded.
It was a perfectly eloquent response then, and still is now.
Tom Hoffarth has covered sports in Southern California for more than 40 years. His new book, “Perfect Eloquence: An Appreciation of Vin Scully,” was released in May 2024 by University of Nebraska Press. His website is www.fartheroffthewall.com/blogs. He is on X as https://x.com/TomHoffarth ; on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomhoffarth/ and on Instagram as @tomhoffarthscribe.
Cleaning Up
All-Stars Who Started at Multiple Positions Are Hard to Find
By Dan Schlossberg
En route to the Hall of Fame gallery, Robin Yount joined Hank Greenberg and Stan Musial as the only players to win MVP awards at multiple positions (A-Rod did it later.)
Yount, who spent his entire career with the Milwaukee Brewers, won as a shortstop in 1982 and as a center-fielder in 1989.
What he didn’t do, however, is start All-Star Games at both positions.
Yount’s only All-Star years were 1980, 1982, and 1983. He didn’t even make the American League’s All-Star roster in ‘89 even though his red-hot finish enabled him to win a tight race for the MVP trophy.
In fact, no one has started All-Star Games as both a shortstop and an outfielder, though that could change — twice — when the 2024 lineups are announced.
Both Mookie Betts, an outfielder-turned-shortstop, and Fernando Tatís, Jr., a shortstop-turned-outfielder, could start the July 16 game at Globe Life Field for the National League.
Betts, the compact lead-off man of the Los Angeles Dodgers, has started five previous Midsummer Classics in the outfield but showed remarkable versatility in switching to shortstop, filling a rare void in the lineup of manager Dave Roberts.
He’s hitting so well that Betts and Dodgers DH Shohei Ohtani are the early favorites for MVP honors, along with Milwaukee catcher William Contreras, and could join Frank Robinson as the only men to take the coveted trophy in both leagues.
With the season approaching the halfway mark, Betts is also bidding for his first NL batting title. While with the 2018 Boston Red Sox, he was the first man named MVP, batting champion, and winner of a World Series ring, Gold Glove, and Silver Slugger.
He did all that as an outfielder but is on the 2024 All-Star ballot as a shortstop, since he’s been playing there — with a few respites at second — all season.
Tatís, on the other hand, was the Senior Circuit’s starting All-Star shortstop just three years ago but is now listed on the ballot in the outfield, where he won a Gold Glove last season.
Three previous players — Ian Desmond, Harvey Kuenn, and Tom Tresh — were All-Stars as both shortstops and outfielders but never started at both spots, the Elias Sports Bureau reports.
Starting All-Star Games at more than one position remains a rare feat, though superstars Hank Greenberg, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial, and Ernie Banks did it as both first basemen and outfielders and both Cal Ripken, Jr. and Alex Rodriguez did it as shortstops and third basemen.
Nearly a dozen others have also done it.
The list includes Lance Berkman, Orlando Cepeda, Harmon Killebrew, Paul Molitor, Albert Pujols, Jackie Robinson, Pete Rose, Gary Sheffield, Alfonso Soriano, Vic Wertz, and Carl Yastrzemski.
Thanks to the DH, Molitor appeared at a record five different positions in All-Star play but started in the field only once — as a second baseman in 1988. Oddly, he had played only one game at the position when named to the team.
Molitor also was a starting DH for the Junior Circuit, so he gets credit for starting at two different spots in the lineup.
Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ is national baseball writer for forbes.com and contributor to Sports Collectors Digest, Memories & Dreams, USA TODAY Sports Weekly, MLB Report, and Here’s The Pitch, plus other outlets. He’s on the campaign trail for his second Hank Aaron biography, Home Run King (Skyhorse, 2024). Dan’s email is ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia: Rookie Pitchers To Remember
“Our expectations for him are so high, or everyone's expectations are so high. He's got to sub-two [ERA] a third of the way through the season. He's been unbelievable.”
— Cubs outfielder Ian Happ on red-hot rookie starter Shōta Imanaga
In the last 10 seasons, only three of 20 Rookies of the Year were honored solely for their work on the mound — most recently the Brewers' Devin Williams in 2020 . . .
Al Spalding won the most games by a rookie, with 47 wins in 1876, but Grover Cleveland Alexander holds the Modern Era mark of 28, in 1911 . . .
Since the current Rookie of the Year award was created in 1947, pitchers who won it included Hall of Famer Tom Seaver and future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander . . .
Three consecutive Dodgers pitchers won it from 1979-81, with trophies going to Rick Sutcliffe, Steve Howe, and Fernando Valenzuela . . .
Current Dodger Shohei Ohtani, strictly a DH this year because of elbow problems, started 10 games as a pitcher in 2018, when his bat (22 homers in 104 games) helped him win American League Rookie of the Year honors while with the Angels . . .
In its first two years, the Rookie of the Year Award was given to only one pitcher in the majors. That changed in 1949.
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.