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Baseball Thread

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    • Baseball Thread

      milkman wrote:

      Hey Astro, I gotta tell ya about the time when we were living in Flat Rock, Michigan. Detroit Tigers pitcher Fred Gladding moves into the neighborhood and on my street. My friends and I just thought this was the coolest thing. Well, we wanted him to sign out mitts. We walked by real slow for what must have been 2 or 3 weeks trying to see him and ask. Finally we got up enough nerve to go up to the door a knock. He came to the door and we asked him if he would sign out mitts and he yelled at us "you kids get out of here and don't come back". We were stunned. After that we would walk by and yell Fred Gladding YOU SUCK! Along with a lot of other stuff every chance we got and we were big Tiger fans. We would even say hey we gotta go by Fred's and yell you suck. I even got so ballsy I would yell right at him while he was standing in front of the screen door all by myself. He didn't stay very long and moved out and we accredited ourselves with our harassment even though we probably knew it wasn't it still felt good saying it.


      That is a shame that some people are jerks. I grew up near Dodgertown and my mom would take me to a game every spring. Garvey, Lopes, Russell, Cey, etc... were great about signing but I always wanted Bill Buckner's autograph. He blew me off twice in my pre-teen years. Worse he would says things like I am going in clubhouse but I will be back in a few minutes, another time it was I need to run some and then I will be back. Of course like waiting for Gadot he never made it back. I guess I got my payback in 86' with the Mets and Mookie's ball between his legs.
      The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.
      Richard Ewell, CSA General
    • Baseball Thread

      I gotta tell ya another story. My friends dad brought home a cracked Al Kaline bat from practice. This thing was huge and weighed a ton. He put some wood glue in it and some screws and taped the handle. We all the time had these made up games with other streets. None of us could swing that bat but we drug that thing with us everywhere. When the other streets would trash talk us and tell us how bad they were gonna beat us we would say oh yeah, well we got an Al Kaline bat and show them and then they'd get real quiet and mumbling amongst themselves and we knew right then and there we had just gained an edge. We didn't know the word psychological then but we knew we had 'em.
      Changes Daily→ ♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫ ♪♫♪♫♪♫ ← Don't blame me. It's That Lonesome Guitar.
    • Re:Baseball Thread

      Similar story (sort of) to Milkmans: a few months ago I take my 8 year old son to a birthday party at SkyZone. Chipper Jones was there and was sitting on a bench by himself. I told my son to go tell him about his home run he hit earlier in the day. My kid works up the nerve, walk over to Chipper and says "are you Chipper Jones?" Chipper says "no" and turns away. When we got home my son tore his poster off his bedroom wall. What a ass clown.
      RIAP
    • Baseball Thread

      Astro wrote:

      milkman wrote:

      Hey Astro, I gotta tell ya about the time when we were living in Flat Rock, Michigan. Detroit Tigers pitcher Fred Gladding moves into the neighborhood and on my street. My friends and I just thought this was the coolest thing. Well, we wanted him to sign out mitts. We walked by real slow for what must have been 2 or 3 weeks trying to see him and ask. Finally we got up enough nerve to go up to the door a knock. He came to the door and we asked him if he would sign out mitts and he yelled at us "you kids get out of here and don't come back". We were stunned. After that we would walk by and yell Fred Gladding YOU SUCK! Along with a lot of other stuff every chance we got and we were big Tiger fans. We would even say hey we gotta go by Fred's and yell you suck. I even got so ballsy I would yell right at him while he was standing in front of the screen door all by myself. He didn't stay very long and moved out and we accredited ourselves with our harassment even though we probably knew it wasn't it still felt good saying it.


      That is a shame that some people are jerks. I grew up near Dodgertown and my mom would take me to a game every spring. Garvey, Lopes, Russell, Cey, etc... were great about signing but I always wanted Bill Buckner's autograph. He blew me off twice in my pre-teen years. Worse he would says things like I am going in clubhouse but I will be back in a few minutes, another time it was I need to run some and then I will be back. Of course like waiting for Gadot he never made it back. I guess I got my payback in 86' with the Mets and Mookie's ball between his legs.

      Paybacks are hell. You probably weren't the only kid he did that to and probably ain't the only one sayin' good - couldn't of happened to a better jerk.
      Changes Daily→ ♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫ ♪♫♪♫♪♫ ← Don't blame me. It's That Lonesome Guitar.
    • Re:Baseball Thread

      Trebor wrote:

      Similar story (sort of) to Milkmans: a few months ago I take my 8 year old son to a birthday party at SkyZone. Chipper Jones was there and was sitting on a bench by himself. I told my son to go tell him about his home run he hit earlier in the day. My kid works up the nerve, walk over to Chipper and says "are you Chipper Jones?" Chipper says "no" and turns away. When we got home my son tore his poster off his bedroom wall. What a ass clown.

      What a suck wad. Now your boy will remember that his whole life and tell everybody what an asshole he was. Hopefully that's another one that'll never make the HOF.
      Changes Daily→ ♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫ ♪♫♪♫♪♫ ← Don't blame me. It's That Lonesome Guitar.
    • Baseball Thread

      milkman wrote:

      I gotta tell ya another story. My friends dad brought home a cracked Al Kaline bat from practice. This thing was huge and weighed a ton. He put some wood glue in it and some screws and taped the handle. We all the time had these made up games with other streets. None of us could swing that bat but we drug that thing with us everywhere. When the other streets would trash talk us and tell us how bad they were gonna beat us we would say oh yeah, well we got an Al Kaline bat and show them and then they'd get real quiet and mumbling amongst themselves and we knew right then and there we had just gained an edge. We didn't know the word psychological then but we knew we had 'em.


      That is Awesome! gif.004
      The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.
      Richard Ewell, CSA General
    • Re:Baseball Thread

      Trebor wrote:

      Similar story (sort of) to Milkmans: a few months ago I take my 8 year old son to a birthday party at SkyZone. Chipper Jones was there and was sitting on a bench by himself. I told my son to go tell him about his home run he hit earlier in the day. My kid works up the nerve, walk over to Chipper and says "are you Chipper Jones?" Chipper says "no" and turns away. When we got home my son tore his poster off his bedroom wall. What a ass clown.


      Trebor, sorry to hear that, especially for your son. I was one in my teens at Dodgertown and Sandy Koufax gave me his autograph. He could do that for me, others can certainly do it for an 8 year old.
      The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.
      Richard Ewell, CSA General
    • Baseball Thread

      Astro wrote:

      milkman wrote:

      I gotta tell ya another story. My friends dad brought home a cracked Al Kaline bat from practice. This thing was huge and weighed a ton. He put some wood glue in it and some screws and taped the handle. We all the time had these made up games with other streets. None of us could swing that bat but we drug that thing with us everywhere. When the other streets would trash talk us and tell us how bad they were gonna beat us we would say oh yeah, well we got an Al Kaline bat and show them and then they'd get real quiet and mumbling amongst themselves and we knew right then and there we had just gained an edge. We didn't know the word psychological then but we knew we had 'em.


      That is Awesome! gif.004

      It was funny. In the middle of the game we'd get a guy or 2 on and we'd "whisper" loud enough to the next batter pssst get the Al Kaline bat, then he'd come back and pretend to make the switch and the other team would all start backing up including the infield. "That bat" caused more errors than anything I've ever seen. Man was that fun. :)
      Changes Daily→ ♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫ ♪♫♪♫♪♫ ← Don't blame me. It's That Lonesome Guitar.
    • Re:Baseball Thread

      I have 2 baseball stories:

      1) In the summer of 1992 (operating on memory here) Phil Plantier visited Augusta Maine to sign autographs. He was a Red Sox player at the time. As we stood in line, we saw a sign that read, "One autograph per person". My wife and I were both there with our 1st 2 children. My daughter was almost 2 and my 1st son was a few months old. I said to my wife that I was going to see if we could get 4 autographs because there were 4 of us there. My wife did not like the idea. I said I was going to play it by ear. I had my son in my arms as our turn came up. Before I could say anything, Phil stood up and said, "May I" as he gestured toward my son. I handed my son to him. He starts in about how he was recently married and had a son and was building a home in Maine and about having the well drilled. I don't remember the exact things he was saying. I was just in awe that he was holding my son. Moments later a promoter urged Phil to sit down and keep the line moving. I have no clue what I said if anything. He volunteered to sign 4 items. The next year he was traded to San Diego.

      2) Growing up, Rico Petrocelli was my favorite player. I associated myself with him when I took a baseball to the face at 10 years old. He has a big crooked nose and mine looked like his for a while. He would come to Maine often in the 80's and 90's to sign autographs. One day he was at the Bath Armory. He was signing free autographs. He agreed to sign a certain amount of pictures for the promoter. There was a large stack always beside him. He was very pleasant a polite to everyone. But when a kid would come up and ask for an autograph, he would beam. He would quiz the kid about their interests and talk with them about what ever they liked in a way that you would think it was his favorite thing to do in life. This would aggravate the promoter, because of time constraints or something. I watched this scene for a half hour or so. There was no formal line. Most people were buying cards at the card show in that same building. I finally walked up a handed him a baseball. He signed in curving along the stitching. I asked him why he did that. He said that there was probably going to be more important signatures on the ball someday. I handed him another and said, "Please sign this one down the middle. You are my favorite ball player." He looked at me in disbelief for a moment. When he saw I was serious, he signed it as I asked. I still have both balls. One has just his signature on it. The other has a bunch of Red Sox signatures including Yaz, Clemens, Vaughn, Plantier, Miller, Tudor, Lee, etc. I will have to dig those balls out and look at them after typing this up.
      Non hikers are about a psi shy of a legal ball.
    • Re:Baseball Thread

      namtrag wrote:

      Looked at Rico's stats...wonder how he turned on the power and hit 40 HR in 1969? I remember him vaguely, seems like he was a defensive whiz as I recall.


      Very popular guy locally. Just a really good guy that is constantly upbeat.



      Had to dig them out after recalling the story. Phil's signature is on the opposite side in a similar spot.
      Non hikers are about a psi shy of a legal ball.
    • Re:Baseball Thread

      I am a lifelong Dodger fan, but always have had a soft spot for the Red Sox. I used to love watching Dwight Evans gun people down from RF.

      It was also nice as a kid to see the AAA Pawtucket team come down and visit Norfolk and play the Mets' AAA team (Tidewater Tides). I got to see a lot of great players from the Red Sox as they moved up.
      First Law of Physics for Backpackers: What goes down must come up.
    • Re:Baseball Thread

      namtrag wrote:

      I am a lifelong Dodger fan, but always have had a soft spot for the Red Sox. I used to love watching Dwight Evans gun people down from RF.

      It was also nice as a kid to see the AAA Pawtucket team come down and visit Norfolk and play the Mets' AAA team (Tidewater Tides). I got to see a lot of great players from the Red Sox as they moved up.


      Ah, Dewy. That is my wife's favorite player. Never got to meet him. He had the most painful stance at the plate. What an arm in right.

      I met Bill Lee. He is truly a spaceman. He was playing the Freeport Fire Department with his traveling softball team. He was signing baseballs in the crowd when the ump yells "Play Ball!" It was Bill's up. He ignores the ump and continues to sign balls. Finally the ump points at the pitcher and tells him to pitch. The fireman shrugs his shoulders and chucks a ball in that was way high. the ump calls "Strike One!" The pitcher chucks in another that was closer and the ump screams "Strike Two!" Bill at this point bails from the stands. He was on the third base side but hits left handed. He ran at the plate as the third pitch came in. He gets there just in time, but on the wrong side of the plate and proceeds to drive the ball over the right field fence. Of course the crowd went nuts.

      I got a bunch of Red Sox signatures that day.
      Non hikers are about a psi shy of a legal ball.
    • Re:Baseball Thread

      What a great story about Bill Lee!

      Is it true Luis Tiant actually pitched while smoking a Cuban Cigar?

      I loved watching him contort around. He is certainly one of the great pitchers of all time that no one ever mentions as such. I looked at his stats, and he was 229-172, 3.30 ERA, won 20 four times, and had a 21-9 1.60 ERA season with the Indians, which I don't recall. But I do remember him on Boston.
      First Law of Physics for Backpackers: What goes down must come up.
    • Re:Baseball Thread

      namtrag wrote:

      I am a lifelong Dodger fan, but always have had a soft spot for the Red Sox. I used to love watching Dwight Evans gun people down from RF.

      It was also nice as a kid to see the AAA Pawtucket team come down and visit Norfolk and play the Mets' AAA team (Tidewater Tides). I got to see a lot of great players from the Red Sox as they moved up.


      Dwight Evans was a great Right Fielder. An argument could be made he was more valuable to the Red Sox than Jim Rice was. Sometimes people focus too much on just hitting. The impact of a defense on your pitching is so much more significant than most people realize.

      I once won a 9-10 league championship with only two 10 year olds. We were really small but played great defense, had small strike zones, put the ball in play, and could run. It also helped that we had the best pitcher in the league and did a great job fielding ground balls. No one else expected us to win (even my assistant coach thought we be around .500 at best).
      The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.
      Richard Ewell, CSA General
    • Re:Baseball Thread

      namtrag wrote:

      What a great story about Bill Lee!

      Is it true Luis Tiant actually pitched while smoking a Cuban Cigar?

      I loved watching him contort around. He is certainly one of the great pitchers of all time that no one ever mentions as such. I looked at his stats, and he was 229-172, 3.30 ERA, won 20 four times, and had a 21-9 1.60 ERA season with the Indians, which I don't recall. But I do remember him on Boston.


      I don't recall the cigar thing. As teenagers we would all pretend to be Tiant. Whoever could twist around and look the highest into the sky without falling over was the winner. Baseball was so innocent to a kid growing up in the 60's and 70's. At least that was my memory.
      Non hikers are about a psi shy of a legal ball.
    • Re:Baseball Thread

      namtrag wrote:

      What a great story about Bill Lee!

      Is it true Luis Tiant actually pitched while smoking a Cuban Cigar?

      I loved watching him contort around. He is certainly one of the great pitchers of all time that no one ever mentions as such. I looked at his stats, and he was 229-172, 3.30 ERA, won 20 four times, and had a 21-9 1.60 ERA season with the Indians, which I don't recall. But I do remember him on Boston.


      The reason Tiant started the contortions is that he hurt his arm and had lost velocity. He originally threw smoke, but then had to change his motion to keep the hitters off balance to make up for it. He was a character and fun to watch and hear about. Growing up in south Florida I learned to hate Castro, but I do have to say I appreciate him letting Tiant's father come to the USA for the 75' World Series. May have just been a publicity stint for Castro, but I found it heart warming to see the former Negro League player in the stands watching his son pitch in the World Series.
      The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.
      Richard Ewell, CSA General
    • Re:Baseball Thread

      BirdBrain wrote:

      namtrag wrote:

      What a great story about Bill Lee!

      Is it true Luis Tiant actually pitched while smoking a Cuban Cigar?

      I loved watching him contort around. He is certainly one of the great pitchers of all time that no one ever mentions as such. I looked at his stats, and he was 229-172, 3.30 ERA, won 20 four times, and had a 21-9 1.60 ERA season with the Indians, which I don't recall. But I do remember him on Boston.


      I don't recall the cigar thing. As teenagers we would all pretend to be Tiant. Whoever could twist around and look the highest into the sky without falling over was the winner. Baseball was so innocent to a kid growing up in the 60's and 70's. At least that was my memory.

      I remember the Cigar in the clubhouse and anywhere else you might find him, but never on the mound, at least not in a MLB game.
      The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.
      Richard Ewell, CSA General
    • Re:Baseball Thread

      namtrag wrote:

      Bill Lee had 2 HR in his career, so that story is even more legendary knowing that!


      He could hit. I remember watching in the Senior League in FL (do not remember the exact name). When he was not pitching he would still be in the lineup (DH, and perhaps 1B and OF). As he got older I think he put on more bulk/weight and probably increased his power. While sometimes a really strange guy, he truly loved the game and is probably still playing it somewhere.
      The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.
      Richard Ewell, CSA General
    • Re:Baseball Thread

      BirdBrain wrote:

      namtrag wrote:

      Looked at Rico's stats...wonder how he turned on the power and hit 40 HR in 1969? I remember him vaguely, seems like he was a defensive whiz as I recall.


      Very popular guy locally. Just a really good guy that is constantly upbeat.



      Had to dig them out after recalling the story. Phil's signature is on the opposite side in a similar spot.


      Nice!
      Changes Daily→ ♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫ ♪♫♪♫♪♫ ← Don't blame me. It's That Lonesome Guitar.
    • Re:Baseball Thread

      Another Red Sox story I vaguely recall is that Jim Rice once hit the ball so hard that it tore the cover, and caused the ball to almost decapitate the outfielder, who was expecting it to go over the fence when it suddenly nose-dived down at him.

      Anyone else remember a story like that?
      First Law of Physics for Backpackers: What goes down must come up.
    • Re:Baseball Thread

      milkman wrote:

      Hey Astro, Check it out
      http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/07/us/alex-rodriguez-lawsuit/index.html


      Reality is a wonderful thing if you can grasp it, and looks like A-Rod finally has. I believe he had been listening to his lawyers too much, whose recommendation is always another lawsuit ($$$).
      The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.
      Richard Ewell, CSA General
    • Re:Baseball Thread

      Astro wrote:

      milkman wrote:

      Hey Astro, Check it out
      http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/07/us/alex-rodriguez-lawsuit/index.html


      Reality is a wonderful thing if you can grasp it, and looks like A-Rod finally has. I believe he had been listening to his lawyers too much, whose recommendation is always another lawsuit ($$$).

      Yep. Do your time. Keep your mouth shut. Work hard. Come back stronger and better and let your skill and talent do the talking for you.
      Changes Daily→ ♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫ ♪♫♪♫♪♫ ← Don't blame me. It's That Lonesome Guitar.
    • Baseball Thread

      Grew up a Dodger fan living only a few miles from Dodger Town and watching them in Spring Training,. Worked in Houston for 18 years so it finally wore on me, especially when taking my boys to the games, so I am an Astros fan.
      The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.
      Richard Ewell, CSA General
    • Baseball Thread

      max.patch wrote:

      as a cobb county resident, i wish the braves would stay in atlanta where they belong.


      I guess I am just the opposite, if the Astros had of moved to the NW side of town as proposed instead of downtown, I probably would have never moved and left the Houston area. Having a team 5 miles away with good roads on my side of town would have been too good to leave. But having to drive downtown and the expensive parking was too much of an effort to be a factor in keeping me there.
      The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.
      Richard Ewell, CSA General