Consider this: it’s September and you’re 19 years old and getting some experience under your belt playing in the Double A leagues. Then you get a call from the Yankees that you’re needed for the pennant battle against the Boston Red Sox and would you kindly show up to pitch the next day for the first game? So you show up, and nobody knows who you are: the BoSox scouts and batting coaches, who have no video of you and don’t know what you can do; and the Yankee staff who assume you don’t know which end of the bat to hold and put you at the bottom of the rotation (let’s assume for the purpose of this analogy that National League rules apply, and the pitcher bats). What happens? Well, you pitch OK, but to everyone’s surprise except yourself, you hit four home runs—more than any other rookie pitcher in history. You’re an instant legend.
Such is the (very) loose analogy for baseball fans for what has just happened to Ashton Agar in cricket. Brought in as a spin-bowler for the Australian team for the first Ashes Test match with England, Agar did OK with the ball, but coming in as the last member of the batting order, he scored 98 runs—the highest score ever for a number-eleven batsman—and took part in the largest partnership for the last wicket in the history of the game. Furthermore, he so clearly enjoyed taking part in the match—smiling even when he was caught only two runs from making his first ever century let alone one in a high-stakes match—that even grizzled old cynics like me (Martin) couldn’t help but relish his arrival on the international scene. You can be sure of two things: (1) Ashton Agar will no longer be batting at number eleven, and (2) we’re going to see a lot more of this young man in the future.
Following the whole media-and-financial brouhaha between Brian Cashman and Alex Rodriguez, it has taken me (Evander) a few extra days to digest all the doings of the New York Yankees sixty-seventh Oldtimers’ Day. Unofficially, this treasured event has its origins on July 4, 1939 (not 1946, Yogi Berra’s first season by the way), when Babe Ruth and other members of the 1927 Yankees team and Murderers’ Row gathered in tribute to a failing Lou Gehrig.
My one and only in-person Oldtimers’ Day was in 1964. My father smiled when The Yankee Clipper launched a loud, foul-ball home run. But Daddy, it was a foul ball!…It’s all right, Son. The 1964 game, which featured the likes of Dizzy Dean (then a broadcaster for the CBS “Game of the Week”: Dean fell down, tripping on first base) and Heinie Manush as “Yankees Opponents,” squaring off against Yankees Oldtimers, including the aforementioned Clipper, Phil Rizzuto, Joe Sewell, and other stars. Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Whitey Ford were very much of the regular team; and Yogi was their manager.
(I would need to return to my buried-in-the-closet scorecard to determine whether the game took place on a Saturday or a Sunday. I am guessing—and dim memory also takes me to—Saturday. Sundays were reserved for doubleheaders. I am fairly positive the game took place in August, perhaps on the sixteenth, which would have been the sixteenth anniversary of Ruth’s death [and exactly thirteen years preceding Elvis Presley’s].)
The recent Oldtimers’ Game was scheduled for June 22, a Saturday, and unusually early in the season. The weather was perfect. As always, Jesse Barfield came to play, pulling out all the stops but spiking his fellow-Timers. Sterling Hitchcock, who broke in with still-active Andy Pettitte, was one of the first-time participants. Pat Kelly, who now coaches in Australia (see below), was on the Oldtimers’ Day field, but I cannot say if this were his first. Joe Pepitone’s circumference now about equals his height. Joe still puts on a good show, though I can testify to his being a crank in real life, possibly for his Japanese career in yakyu. (I understand in that country the noun “pepitone” entered the lexicon: meaning “a goof-off.”)Much-less cranky are Steve Balboni, Ron Blomberg, Roy White, Willie Randolph, Bucky Dent (who can still throw from shortstop), and Bobby Richardson. Bernie Williams, yet to announce his retirement, received the most-sustained ovation. Many others were included, and likely an equal number were not invited or could not attend. Every player’s uniform fit like the proverbial kid glove, a testament to the Yankees organization.
Naturally, introductions of the superstars are for last. Most are inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame or its broadcasters’ wing, Don Larsen being one exception, having pitched perhaps the greatest game of all time, certainly among the most pressurized, Dr. Bobby Brown another. I got to see a weirdly subdued Reggie Jackson and an ego-inflated if not feathery Goose Gossage. War (II and Korea) experiences of Jerry Coleman, Berra (almost compared to Sergeant York, credited with storming the beach during D-day, a sprinkle of heroism formerly cast exclusively onto The Major, Ralph Houk), and even Whitey Ford were big parts of their respective intros.
Ford and Berra, the last introduced, did not leave their golf cart. I suspect Yogi does not want to be known or remembered for using a wheelchair, of which there is no shame; in fact, this poignant acknowledgment would help raise the spirits of millions. Ted Williams seemed to have no problem appearing at the special turn-of-the-century 1999 All-Star Game in one. Of course, the decision is a personal one.
Of additional interest to the Right Off the Bat project was the mound work of Graeme Lloyd. Aside from his left-handed relief-pitching heroics with the Yankees, Lloyd is also a former manager of the Perth Heat of the Australian Baseball League (current manager Steven Fish of the USA) and a baseball participant with Team Australia in the 2004 Olympics in Athens. Lloyd has done more than his share to popularize baseball in one of the Meccas of the cricket universe. Hats off to Messrs Lloyd and Kelly.
In other news, more or less from that part of the cricket and real worlds, Oldtimer Imran Khan (recently injuring his back in a bad spill), following his defeat by the retooled Nawaz Shariff—along with his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party—did well enough in the election to be running the ultra-wild region around Peshawar. (So A-Rod and Cash, you think you got problems?)
As we see, baseball, cricket, and realpolitik all do come together.
Every two years since 1882 (excepting world wars, international crises, and, um, this year), England have taken on Australia in a competition known as “The Ashes.” Australia have beaten England 123 times; England, Australia 100 times; and the rest of the games have been drawn. Until 2005, Australia had slaughtered England for 18 years. England lost the Ashes in 2006-7, regained them in 2009, retained them in 2010-11, and they’re now set to play back-to-back series in England and Australia.
As anyone who’s ever met or seen an Australian knows, Australians take their sports VERY seriously. Australians don’t like to win: they like to crush the opposition. And there’s no opposition they like to crush more than the English. And there’s no competition where they like to crush the English more than the Ashes. And there’s no competition in recent memory (until 2005, that is) where they have succeeded in doing just that.
OK, cricket fans: We need to talk again about Jonathan Trott—and perhaps you baseball fans will have an equivalent player you can talk about who raises the same issues. Jonathan Trott plays cricket for England—both the longest form of the game (Test cricket) and one-day internationals (ODIs). In Test matches, Trott has accumulated 3451 runs in 43 games at an average of 50.01, which places him in the top ten batsmen playing today. In ODIs, Trott has accumulated 2791 runs in 65 games at an average of 52.66, which makes him the third best batsman playing today. Moreover, his strike rate (in other words, how quickly he scores his runs, which is an important factor in ODIs, which limit the number of balls a team receives) is 77.20: the number of putative runs he scores per hundred putative balls.
Trott’s strike rate and average are superior to the silken genius Kumar Sangakkara, better than the imperious battleship Jacques Kallis, and on a par with the majestic Michael Clarke. Yet Trott is the Rodney Dangerfield of cricket: not only does he not receive the love from fans for his dogged brilliance in Test cricket, but he can’t get no respect from commentators, pundits, and assorted know-it-alls in one-day cricket—even when the statistical evidence is plain to see. “Too slow,” they say. “Not explosive enough at the start of the innings. Drop him! Drop him now!”
Trott’s trouble is that he’s not a power-hitter, like Chris Gayle, or a swashbuckler like Kevin Pietersen. He doesn’t caress the ball around the park like Ian Bell. Balding and stolid, he lacks the impish charm of Michael Clarke. Yet, as baseball fans know all too well, if you had to pick a team based on impish charm, you’d be hard-pressed to get beyond a catcher (I’m thinking of you, Yogi Berra). In sum, you don’t have to look good, stand tall, or glide around the field to be good at hitting a ball: you can look like you just ran into the business end of an anvil and be pigeon-toed and beer-bellied (I’m thinking of you, Babe Ruth) and be all that a player should be.
The trouble with Trott is that, unlike the Bambino, he lacks personality: he’s not the lovable clown, the debonair lady-killer, even the maverick loner with a glint in the eye and a slow drawl. He’s just a bloke who’s good at hitting a ball around a field. Even his one major tic, an OCD-inclined routine of scratching a guard in front of his stumps, has a leaden quality that makes him, frankly, annoying. Of course, because he’s absolutely unflappable, the very image of professionalism, it’s the opposition (as well as the pundits) he drives crazy, and that might be the best aspect of his brilliance.
It’s been a few weeks of silence from the cricket half of this blog as I (Martin) assume American citizenship and put my house in order. Nonetheless, cricket has continued, and thus needs to be reported on. The 2013 Indian Premier League came to a rousing conclusion, only to be completely overshadowed by corruption. Cynics might suggest that corruption is always the rousing conclusion that the IPL reaches, given the dodginess of its beginnings, but I’d actually enjoyed the tournament—especially its excessiveness.
Moving from the Twenty20 form of the game of cricket to the one-day form, the final Champions Trophy has come to an end, with India beating England in a rain-curtailed day that meant that the 50 overs the teams were meant to play became 20. Thus the one-day international (ODI) was a T20! India deservedly won when England choked with one hand on the trophy. But the rain it raineth every day in England, and many games were thwarted—so I can’t summon up much in the way of enthusiasm or malaise. What have we learned from the competition, which is being ended because no one can see any particular reason why it exists in a calendar already packed full or tournaments? India are back on top in the short form of the game; Australia are woeful; and England sometimes need to keep calm and carry on.
THIS is a baseball: actually eight (two peek thro) well-used balls, undoubtedly from a bygone era.
I (Evander) was treated to a good chunk of the fifth-longest game ever played by the New York Mets. It ran twenty innings as the Miami Marlins scratched out a 2-1 win. The contest lasted almost six-and-a-half hours. Altogether, something like 550 pitches were hurtled. (On May 31, 1964, the Mets played a nine-and-a-half-hour-marathon doubleheader against the San Francisco Giants: the vendors even ran out of food. In 1974, they played twenty-five innings against the St. Louis Cardinals. I cannot account for the other two long games.)
Today, however, the Mets TV-broadcast team answered a question I had long asked: How many baseballs are available in the stadium before any given game? Cricket is known for its balls-parsimony. When one does find its way into the seats, it is tossed back or retrieved. (I believe this is even true of T20.) A bowler has advantages with a well-used cricket ball that his pitching counterpart does not.
Major League Baseball is more recognized for its profligacy than are the lords of Lords. The final out caught by a right-fielder is typically flipped into the stands. A screaming liner snagged by the ball boy is given to the cute kid in the pricey box seats. Who knows how many balls are lost during batting practice preceding each game, when sluggers feed their egos by lofting soft-toss pitches into the ozone layer.
So how many baseballs are used in a typical game? The answer, not exact, is that 144 are prepared for play. Prior to a game, new baseballs are rubbed up in the home-team clubhouse with some mixture of dirt, clay, and possibly other elements in standardized combination out of a can. In the twenty-inning game just concluded, twenty-four-dozen balls were readied: the second batch as the game soared past the regulation nine innings.
To rest up I will watch Breathless. This is our 450th blog!
Among old-time Braves fans, the saying ran “Spahn and Sain, and pray for rain,” or its variant: “Spahn and Sain, and two days of rain.” The reference is to Warren Spahn—Battle of the Bulge fighting-man, perhaps the most overlooked super pitcher (even if he is long inducted to the National Baseball Hall of Fame) in the history of Major League Baseball—and Johnny Sain. The NL duo was so dominant back in the day (of the four-man rotation) that, by themselves (in cooperation with Mother Nature), they would lead the Braves up, up, and…up.
It recently came to my (Evander’s) attention that another old-guard NL team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, scouted and signed two bowlers that have been in the Pirates minor-league system, and I understand mostly looking good. These are Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, who, sad to report, had been released after a below-par season.
To my astonishment, the pair represent the first Subcontinent players in the history of high-level professional-U.S. baseball. Right Off the Bat hopes to see Rinku with the Big Club—which has been winning at a good clip somehow without him—soon.
Attention must be paid a ballplayer with any record approaching one of Ruth’s.
I (Evander) am listening to the Yankees broadcast as this unseasonably, downnright cold (at Right Off the Bat HQ) Memorial Day weekend gets off the ground: the unofficial beginning of summer and all the great baseball stuff that goes along with the “boys” of the season that Roger Kahn wrote about.
Moore’s record is not the only astonishing thing about him. Imagine: He was not selected by any club till the eighth round of the major-league draft. What were the other twenty-nine teams doing? Napping? In fact, what was Tampa Bay—a franchise probably selecting early in the first round in that year—thinking thro rounds one to seven?
(On a separate note of serendipity, thanks go to Martin for enlightening me on the UK-kids’ sport of French cricket. Incidentally, I can’t believe how smart kids are in France…only three-years old and already they know how to speak French. Smart maybe: except, perhaps, for not cottoning to cricket or baseball—a reality that drove Ruth nuts, during his voyage thro Paris in the springtime of 1935, especially among the boys of US-embassy personnel.)
Pitcher Olivia Galati goes where no man has gone before. (Photo: Joseph D. Sullivan)
Of course, I (Evander) realize the subject-title line of this blog is sexist and about as un-pc as it gets. If “sex sells” however, I hope these, our congratulations to Hofstra University NCAA Women’s Division I softball pitcher Olivia Galati, go viral.
The mighty swing that inspired Billy Crystal to conduct his Bar Mitzvah in an Oklahoman drawl. Mantle: “You know more about me than me.” (The photo, as you see, is from the Daily News.)
Mantle always said it was the hardest he ever hit a baseball. (He’d also said this about a towering May 30, 1956, home run.)
We repeat, mere muscle and power are not our thing at Right Off the Bat Project. But momentous is momentous; monumental is monumental. Therefore, let us celebrate the anniversary of the first ball (maybe! if not the previous August: cf. the next paragraph) Mantle almost propelled out of the Stadium during the course of a game: May 5, 1956,* this off pitcher Lou Kretlow.
There were others, documented by the pitchers themselves and confirmed by different players, so “the longest” was not a dubious boast of self-acclamation. These other Mantle balls almost rocketed out of the Stadium in fair territory include: (1) August 7, 1955, against Babe Birrer of Detroit, and (2) June 23, 1957 (a massively attended Sunday doubleheader), off Dick Donovan, a career-star pitcher then with the White Sox.
(Long aside….Comic Billy Crystal, for years, says that he was in “Louie Armstrong seats” among the 12,773 spectators on a Saturday [which would have to be May 5 for the home run described, but read on] “afternoon” [we presume afternoon]—he mentions it was his first ballgame at the age of eight. [One source would list him aetat. 9.] The date Crystal typically ascribes is not May 5, when Mantle hit one of his big ones, but May 30, 1956, the middle of the Long Island school week and, yes, Memorial Day [The holiday became Mondays-only in 1971; and just as Crystal remembers, a doubleheader indeed. Mantle excelled in each ballgame.], which for an eight/nine-year-old, receiving a Mantle-signed scorecard in The Bronx is feasible. Memory, mother of the Muses [it is via those goddesses from whom we get the word museum], can also be a comedic-timed thing indeed. Mantle doesn’t remember what he was doing, on the field, on May 30, 1956—most unlikely since a big deal was made of the ball that missed going out of the Stadium by “18 inches.” Crystal, introduced by Dinah Shore, does jokingly indicate, with his autographed scorecard as a prop, a ball sailing way out to his “grandmother’s house.” But one would imagine he’d refresh Mantle’s memory re “the 18 inches.” Perhaps it’s all n’importe as they say in French for being a million years ago. Johnny Kucks, who had a big 1956, also signed the program with Bob Turley plus another I am unable to discern [perhaps, you, reader/viewer can], as the video shows.)
The May 5 box score can be found here. The frieze-striking blast was served up either by Kretlow (shown by other research) or late by one Moe Burtschy.
Mantle would win the Triple Crown during the regular season. Billy Martin (not Crystal) batted just ahead of Mantle, and had not yet been traded to the opposing team, the Kansas City Athletics, as punishment (in part) for his participation in the infamous Copacabana brawl. The ugly incident at the nightclub would take place almost exactly one year later.
Back to our century, I understand that the United States (or perhaps North American) cricket season opens on Cinco de Mayo, 2013. I’m sure not much cricket is actually played in Mexico or France. It is from their conflict, the holiday derives.
* In early May 1956, Mantle had 11 home runs and was batting an otherworldly .446; his slugging percentage in the stratospheric .900s. In mid-August, he was still hitting .376. Nineteen-fifty-six showcased one of the all-time great single-season offensive performances by any major-league player.
Right Off the Bat 