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Pete Rose was a guy I loved to hate when I first became a Cards and MLB fan as a young boy in the late 60s. He wasn’t even that good I thought, all he could do was hit a single every now and then. I could hit several doubles and homers every game in our neighborhood outings, haha. The whole “sprint to first on a walk” and Charlie Hustle schtick annoyed me.
But it turns out the schtick was real. Over the years, I begrudgingly started to admire the guy for his competitive qualities. Told my son and other young kids in youth leagues to play hard like Rose did. His catch of the foul ball that Boone dropped in the 80 World Series clincher sums up Rose’s playing career about as well as any one play possibly could — more so than anything he did with a bat. I marveled at that play watching it live with my college roommates in our apartment.
As for HOF status, I don’t really care. It’s just a symbol in the context that we know Rose was a better player than most in there. He also committed the ultimate breach and paid the price.
Good stuff 1td and other posters.
1td, your faith that the future will be even better than a wonderful past is great inspiration to handle hardships. I believe you are correct that these things are temporary. A better time is ahead both of you to share.
Nice story bikemike on Lohrke. I wasn’t familiar with it. Glad Yadi’s family is okay.
I think it was Valens who won a coin flip, but not with Waylon. Waylon agreed to let the Big Bopper fly because the Big Bopper was sick.
As I’ve been retired a few years now, I listen to much more music these days, streaming random classic rock lists that take me back to my teenage years in the 70s. I’m always drawn to American Pie when it comes up.
One last thing, my wife worked at the Murrah Building in OKC (McVeigh bombing of 95). Fortunately, we left the area in 89 when the military relocated me. My wife’s former coworkers who were actually in the office at the time of the bombing were killed. Fortunately some of them were away in meetings. One secretary, though, had baked some brownies for an office luncheon that day, but forgot and left them in her car. At a random time later she left the building to go get the brownies. The bombing happened was while she was out, so she survived. Can you imagine being that person?
some of my fondest memories of WS games were of those played during the day.
A fond memory I’d like to take all the way to my grave is racing off the school bus to hopefully find the Cards winning Game 1 of the 68 series. I got to see Gibby get the last couple of his 17 Ks that day.
Or maybe they should try to pitch Ohtani without catching so much of the plate. Just like the 1-2 pitch earlier when Freeman drove in a run to tie it at 4-4. The Jay’s pitchers are showing us what wild in the strike zone is.
Wong at 1B, haha, good one 1td. Man o man, you can’t leave your brain in the dugout when you’re running the bases.
That was a beatdown. The first inning was maybe the most important one, in that it set the tone for what was to come later.
He may have not been aware that there were 2 outs?
I think the panic was so severe in that moment he was not aware there was even such a thing as numbers or outs.
Google AI Overview said MLB average is around 4.3 seconds for right handed batters and 4.2 for left handed batters.
Welcome to the St. Louis Devil Rays.
Good post, Bob Reed. That’s why I’ve been about 80% punched out the last couple seasons. They don’t care, it’s hard for me to care. And quit lying about it, then maybe I could dislike it a wee bit less. As the mouthpiece, Mo’s
doublespeak kills me.Coincidentally, it took an ownership change to transform the previous iteration of the Devil Rays into the Rays.
Euro what you are saying is true but I don’t know how any fan could objectively know if that applies to this situation or not.
Yep, gscott. I haven’t watched enough this year to have a feel for it. Was just making the point that minimal managerial impact on wins and losses applies to x’s and o’s — not inspiration and leadership, where impact on wins and losses can be significant.
I do think Marmol made a few unforced errors by going public with player personnel issues 2 or 3 years ago. That’s a tricky leadership path and usually not the best way to get resolution, maybe makes things worse. Add to that, you could be lowering the value of guys you might want to get rid of. Maybe Mo and BDW Jr taught Oli something there.
I think you have to look at the different facets of managerial impact on a ball club. If you look at it just from a tactical, in-game decision-making standpoint, then yes it may not matter that much. I think that’s where the old saying applies about managers deciding only a few games each season.
If you talk about leadership, then the impact is much greater. Players can quit on a manager and that means a ton over the course of 162 games to the downside. On the other hand, some managers can inspire players to figuratively run through brick walls and that can mean much more than a few games to the upside.
Yeah, Cox would lose it sometimes if his future Hall of Famers weren’t getting the calls 4 inches off the plate. I guess with Weaver, Martin and Durocher it was more about the quality of the ejections that we remember rather than the quantity.
Hopefully Bloom discussed this type of issue with Junior prior to and contingent upon his accepting employment. Shaping culture and turning a page is critical.
. . . there are a lot of loyal and knowledgeable fans in Cardinal land. I do not think they are chased away by a couple bad years. Thay are turned off by loss of confidence in the competency of the front office and in ownership’s commitment . . .
I would try to improve this 44-word excerpt, but I can’t. Well, other than spelling “thay” correctly . . .
Greed kills everything. When you have players making the kind of money they make it has to come from somewhere……Sad and we are all guilty of participating. We are all part of the problem.
Yes, we are at fault. Fans need representation and need to unify. Maybe something like the MLBFA (F=Fans)? On top of that, the product is downright boring. May and June have become my favorite baseball months in recent years (NCAA).
Not exactly sure why, but previous droughts (e.g., 70s) didn’t cause me to lose so much interest. Maybe I’m getting too old to have patience and share my dwindling time for a rebuild, haha. Even if I trusted them to do it right…
It’s not just baseball though, I bought tickets to a couple rounds of US Open tennis later this week. Prices are crazy high compared to even 10-15 years ago.
The first time I looked on Baseball Reference, his OPS since July 1 was .730. Yesterday’s game jumped that OPS 91 points to .821. That just goes to show how small sample size makes a difference.
Yep. His OPS since Aug 8 (yesterday inclusive) is 2.250. Ha!
. . . Yadi called Mo at the beginning of the season and asked if he could be in the dugout for this series because it lined up well with his schedule. And Mo asked Ollie if he was good with that and he said yes. . .
Ain’t philosophical harmony a beautiful thing? It’s how ya win, baby!
Yep, bikemike. That statue went up just recently. I’ve heard about Smoky since I was a little kid. He’s from my father’s hometown (I also lived there a for a several years in my teens) and just a few years older than dad.
The hometown folks always mentioned his pinch hitting record, but he was more than just that, e.g., all star in 6 different seasons.