The Infield Dirt with T.S. O'Connell - Tuesday, January 05, 2010

   I think it’s kinda cool that one of my all-time favorite sports legends is a guy that a lot of casual sports fans might never have heard of. I used to be disappointed and dismayed that the shadowy world of professional pocket billiards had such difficulty getting mainstream media coverage, but now ...

   (Photo courtesy of www.insidepoolmag.com)

   So much time as passed since the days when I used to gripe about that situation that I now understand it’s probably not going to change substantially in my lifetime, and I guess that’s OK. Too bad for the many great players and all the fans, but probably an understandable situation given the aforementioned “shadowy” nature of the game.

   I have been wading around cyberspace for quite awhile looking up information about Efren Reyes, so long in fact that I have forgotten what got me onto it in the first place.

   I want to say that Reyes was the greatest pool player I had ever seen, but anybody who knows anything about pool understands that the “sport” defies the idea of that kind of broad labeling. Best you can hope for is “best you’ve ever seen” at this or that particular game.

   Since I practiced for several months with Irving Crane, he has to easily get the nod as the greatest straight-pool player I’ve ever seen, but Reyes is my pick for 9-ball. He also has the purest and most elegant stroke I’ve ever seen, and I suspect that anyone who’s ever seen him play would probably agree. It’s probably no coincidence that the three sports I am most involved with – baseball, golf and billiards – each offers a particularly compelling reverence for the purest swing, or in the case of pool, stroke.

   However I happened upon Reye’s Wikipedia entry, I was struck by the extensive listing of his “Titles and Achievements,” numbering to 78 in all. I noticed there were only seven listings in the 1980s, and I was looking for the event in Atlantic City, N.J., where I first saw him play.

   The other cool thing I remembered was that he used to play under an alias in those days – Cesar Morales – which he said he used because at the time U.S. players knew of Efren Reyes by name (he was already a legend in his native Philippines and in the Far East) but wouldn’t necessarily recognize him by sight.

   But once they saw his stroke, as I did at that 1988 tournament on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, they would have had no doubt.

   The other reason I liked Reyes was that he was born in Angeles City just outside of what was Clark Air Force Base. I had been to Angeles City a couple of times when I was stationed at Subic Bay Naval Base during the Vietnam War, and the thought of a world-class pool player emerging from my adopted homeland tickled me no end.

   There is perhaps no other sport in the United States played by so many millions of citizens that seems so completely unable to effectively market its professional tour than pool. Catching “The Magician” on one of those taped matches on ESPN or ESPN2 can be a hit-or-miss undertaking, but I would urge you to do so if the opportunity arrives.

   You should never pass up a chance to see one of the all-time greats.

Tuesday, January 05, 2010 3:59:56 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Monday, January 04, 2010

When winning becomes just another thing ...
Posted by T.S.

   “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.” We seem to have come a long way since that hoary old aphorism was in its prime, presumably in the Vince Lombardi days of Green Bay Packer dominance in the 1960s.

   Though he is widely linked with the pronouncement, its actual originator is 1950s UCLA Bruins football coach Red Sanders, with the legendary Packer coach reportedly first taking it out for an oratorical spin nearly a decade after Sanders’ reported first utterance in 1950.

   Perhaps now its been unofficially modified to something more in line with the alleged moral relativism of modern times. I blather in this fashion as a result of watching a couple of weeks of NFL tap dancing in the closing weeks of the regular season that seems markedly different from the win-at-all-costs image that gave the game its initial verve and vitality.

   I don’t know about you, but regardless of the quite understandable explanations, I don’t much care for watching NFL games where one team has little or no interest in winning and instead is more concerned with avoiding injury. With those as the parameters, that makes it exactly a half-ass exhibition game.

   I suspect that the expansion of this particular problem came about because the parity theme in the NFL seems to have gotten strained a bit this year, with several teams posting such imposing records that the final stretch of games was almost guaranteed to pose difficulties along these lines.

   While I understand that winning the Super Bowl is the ultimate goal, I think it raises really troublesome issues when you have things like an undefeated team essentially throwing in the towel early in the second half, even with the understandable goal of avoiding injury to the front liners.

   I object to this simply on the basis of upsetting the fundamental underpinnings of the sport; a game where physical contact is such an elemental component is not meant to be played halfheartedly. The very bastardization of the process is enough to invite injury itself, since the game is being performed in a fashion diametrically opposite to its primary function.

   And if it seems too snooty to decry it on such broad philosophical grounds, how about this: What happens if – for example – the New York Jets somehow pull off the second miracle in the history of that often moribund franchise? Would a Jets Super Bowl win in four weeks be forever tainted by the argument that they never should have set foot in the playoffs in the first place?

   I’m just sayin’.

Monday, January 04, 2010 3:14:32 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Thursday, December 31, 2009

And what do we do with guys like Harold Baines? ...
Posted by T.S.

If all the other HOF dilemmas I've discussed aren't enough, how about adding a discussion of Harold Baines into the mix? He narrowly missed falling off the ballot entirely after last year’s 6 percent tally; Baines ended up with an eye-popping 1,628 RBIs.

   It’s tricky trying to determine why a player who accumulated such unassailable numbers should be so lightly regarded by the voters. He also ended up with 2,866 hits, and I always wanted him to get the needed 134 in order to test the reliability of that particular Cooperstown magic number.

   My suspicion was/is that it wouldn’t have made enough of a difference. I don’t think fans and writers outside of Chicago environs thought of Baines as a Hall of Famer, and I think that’s unfortunate. Guys like Baines and McGriff shouldn’t be penalized for simply acquiring their HOF-worthy statistics in such a professional and low-key manner that somehow nobody appreciates how good they were.

   But Baines faces one other challenge: he played roughly 60 percent of his games as a designated hitter, and serious fans are going to have to prepare themselves for a lengthy debate about how that major league rules anomaly is going to be treated by the BBWAA. If Baines' initial vote totals are any indication, it’s going to tax our abilities to successfully apply logic, fairness and reason to a debate often directed largely by emotion and intuition.

   The arrival of one Edgar Martinez on the ballot this year makes the question more compelling. Almost certainly the greatest designated hitter in the history of the game, he was a late bloomer who didn’t get rolling at the major league level until he was 27 years old, then sat out much of the next two seasons after a torn hamstring.

   He had one batting title under his belt when he became a full-time designated hitter in 1995 and won a second, adding a Silver Slugger Award and generally leading the league in everything except restaurants visited.

   So what are we to do with a DH with five Silver Slugger Awards, seven All-Star appearances and two batting titles and a .312 lifetime batting average? The answer ought to be obvious: install him in Cooperstown where he belongs, but I have concerns that it isn’t going to be that simple.

   The Hall of Fame voters are going to have to decide how to evaluate the top performers at that jury-rigged position that curiously is embraced by only half of the major leagues. That grotesque situation alone probably explains some of the confusion about it; just because it’s been 37 years doesn’t mean that MLB has any less of a responsibility to figure out a way so that all 30 teams could play by the same set of rules.

   In the meantime, there’s no effective argument to make that Edgar Martinez doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame. Hell, Major League Baseball itself renamed their annual designated hitter award after him, a nod quite properly reserved for only the truly immortal.

   If there are writers out there who harbor gnawing misgivings about the appropriateness of the DH and thus decide to massage their apprehensions by passing on Edgar’s candidacy, the simple answer is you guys have got to get some counseling.

   And DH is not the only far-reaching examination that the voters face. All-time saves leader Lee Smith is edging up toward the 50 percent mark after eight years on the ballot, so voters clearly seem to have some ambivalence about that odd statistic that is barely older than the designated hitter rule in its modern configuration. Add in the anguished debate that is ahead (or already upon us) about how to handle the steroid-tainted crew and the BBWAA and maybe later on the Veterans Committee setup (whatever form that ultimately takes) are going to have their hands full.

   For the record, I might as well push forward my own choices, It seems only right that I would offer my views about how I would vote if I somehow were allowed to do so.

   So here goes: (in a kind of haphazard order of relative enthusiasm for the selection) Andre Dawson, Mark McGwire, Roberto Alomar, Edgar Martinez, Fred McGriff, Harold Baines, Dave Parker and Don Mattingly.

   As I noted in earlier blogs, my list bears no resemblance to what I fear is going to happen, that no one is going to make it. There a couple of others I would have loved to add in there, most notably Dale Murphy, but I had to limit it to the number that I did. It was only upon proofreading that I noticed there were no pitchers included in the mix.

   Gee, I may be as goofy, arbitrary, illogical and inconsistent as the knuckleheads who actually get to vote.

Thursday, December 31, 2009 9:03:54 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [2]

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Dawson faces imposing HOF challenge ...
Posted by T.S.

   Here’s one of my elemental beefs with the lunkheads (some of the them are, anyway) who make up the annual BBWAA vote for the Hall of Fame: Andre Dawson came up 44 votes shy of election last year. If we are to hope that he gets elected this year – and I do indeed – 44 guys/gals have to decide that an eight-time All-Star who wasn’t worthy last year is somehow now looking more, uh, immortal this year.

   That’s idiotic on the face of it. I don’t fault the Hall of Fame, which labors mightily to find a fair and effective procedure for deciding who gets a plaque, but I do think there needs to be more rigorous oversight from the BBWAA over their own little (and important) fiefdom.

   If there were some procedure for our mysterious scribes to explain some of their more unusual maneuvers, like the guys who somehow leave names like Henry Aaron or Willie Mays off the ballot, or more recently guys who turn in blank ballots. Really? Nobody at all is worthy enough by your ethereal standards?

   So I fear for Dawson’s chances, pessimistic as I am about his ability to pull in those 44 additional votes. I figure there are enough new HOF-worthy names appearing on the ballot for the first time to confuse these same writers anyway.

   Mark McGwire, who belongs in the Hall of Fame, seems unlikely to make it this year of maybe even any year until the voters figure out an equitable way to reconcile their epic disgust over alleged steroid use with the reality that virtually a whole generation of modern stars is going to arrive on the ballot under that cloud.

   McGwire, who is guilty of little more than implementing a regrettable strategy when he testified in front of several hundred Congressional hypocrites, will have to ultimately find a spot on the wall in Cooperstown. But at 22 percent last year – actually a decline from the year before – it’s difficult to imagine that happening anytime soon.

   Bert Blyleven fell a mere 67 votes short last year, but his situation is more ominous because he only has two BBWAA votes left after this one. The only thing I can figure is wrong with his candidacy is that he won 20 games only once, and thus confronts a curious BBWAA preoccupation with magic numbers that seems to suggest that winning 20 is wonderful but 18 or 19 is just plain yucky.

   He also suffers from being lumped in – fairly or not – with a number of other fine hurlers who fell short of that other magic number: 300. That list would include Jim Kaat, Tommy John and Luis Tiant. How you look at those four guys and decide who is the more urgent candidate is way beyond me.

   More on this year's HOF ballot in another blog.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009 3:49:26 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [3]

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Why does boxing emulate wrestling? ...
Posted by T.S.

   Will somebody please splain to me why boxing seems to want to be more like wrestling than it does try to be a serious sport worthy of its once-exalted status in both its amateur and professional incarnations.

   I had more or less abandoned the sport for a couple of decades or so as it reveled in all of the inane self-inflicted confusion and idiocy that has been rampant over that span. And then I kind of accidentally watched Manny Pacquiao defeat Miguel Cotto for the Welterweight Championship last fall and I was hooked once again.

   I saw the fight on HBO a week or so after it took place, but it was the best boxing match I had seen since Muhammad Ali’s tangles with Joe Frazier. With my longstanding affection for all things Filipino, I promptly declared myself a Pacquiao fan and decided I would eagerly await the Super Fight with Floyd Mayweather.

   And then the B.S. started.

   I know, I know, with the hundreds of millions of dollars at stake the epic battle is probably still going to take place sooner or later, but now the two camps are wrangling over blood and urine. And my question is essentially: Why in the hell does boxing allow the parameters of how its matches are contested to be something that is part of the negotiations between the two fighters?

   Gee, I am so naive that I thought the sport’s governing body(ies) would determine important considerations like testing for drugs, etc. I suppose it’s also likely that this silly wrangling over whether Pacquiao can withstand the rigors of a blood test within two weeks of his match is nothing more than a publicity ploy, but I grouse about it because it makes the sport and its practitioners – boxers, officials, media, etc. – look stupid in the process.

   Golly, how much blood do they actually extract for these things? Perhaps we have spent too much time watching that other HBO extravaganza “True Blood.”

   Nearly 30 years ago when I worked for the Empire State Games in New York, our offices in Albany were about 30 feet away from the chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission, which at the time was former Heavyweight Champion Floyd Patterson.

   I would catch him napping with his feet up on his desk from time to time and with his office door opened a tiny crack, which was no big deal lest anyone think that’s some kind of criticism.

   But what I found most interesting about the NYS Athletic Commission was the fact that at the time it had professional wrestling under its domain as well as boxing. One seemed like a legitimate sport – including a considerable presence at the amateur level in our Empire State Games – and the other seemed more like, uh, entertainment.

   I understand that the borrowing back and forth between the two would be inevitable, but sadly it seems like over the last 30 years boxing has become more like wrestling than the other way around.

   Maybe that wouldn’t have been so bad, except that over the same span wrestling was becoming more like the Jerry Springer Show than it was moving toward boxing.

   But assuming they get this silliness behind them, I am going to be watching that fight in some fashion or other. And I’ll be rooting for the Filipino.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009 4:09:51 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [1]

Monday, December 28, 2009

2010 HOF ballot has too many worthy candidates ...
Posted by T.S.

   OK, I’ll admit it, I’m nervous. With about a week left to go, I am starting to worry that there might not be anybody elected from the BBWAA ballot for next year’s HOF class.

   It’s bewildering that the number of worthy candidates should have an impact on the results of any particular individual’s chances, but it seems to be the case, and thus the addition of names like Roberto Alomar, Edgar Martinez, Barry Larkin, Fred McGriff and Andres Galarraga seems ominous for some of the holdovers.

   I refer, of course, to Andre Dawson and Bert Blyleven, the two candidates with seemingly the best shot at election after a significant number of years on the ballot. For the former, this is the 10th try; for Blyleven, the 2010 vote is No. 14, meaning he’ll have but one more crack at BBWAA election if this year’s tally comes up short.

   And I think it might. Depending upon the day you asked me, I would likely say there are between 7-10 guys on the list who would get my vote, and my fear is that with that many worthy nominees the votes get spread around so much that perhaps nobody gets the needed 75 percent.

   I am going to blog about the 2010 vote for much of the next few days leading up to the Jan. 6 announcement, citing some of the individual cases of most interest to me. In the meantime, it’s worth noting that many of our cherished notions about magic numbers and hallowed benchmarks need to be re-examined, to say nothing about the looming (actually already upon us) dilemma about what to do with the steroids questions.

   I hold no illusions that my prognostications are any more valid than anybody else’s, but if I am going to blog I might as well put something at risk: I don’t think the 2010 BBWAA vote will push anyone past the 75 percent threshold.

   Even as I type it, I hope to heaven I am wrong about my conclusion. No offense to Doug Harvey and Whitey Herzog, but I’d want to see more folks on the podium next summer.

   More on this on the morrow.

Monday, December 28, 2009 4:39:16 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [1]

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Recounting the best hobby gift at Christmas ...
Posted by T.S.

Let’s face it: for the average schmo, chasing down suitable Christmas gifts can pose a real challenge. It helps a bit if the intended recipient has a hobby that might offer recurring themes, etc., but even then there are pitfalls that need to be avoided.

   For one, there’s always the concern that if someone is a serious collector, it might be difficult to find something that they haven’t already snagged. In the same vein, finding gifts for big-time collectors can also be harrowing because the more serious the collector, the greater chance that whatever is still on the want list might be pretty expensive.

   Mix in the difficulty – in our hobby, for example – of knowing where to turn to in buying something in terms of finding a reliable and reputable seller, and you can see that the execution might be fraught with hurdles.

   I’d be curious about what were the best hobby-related Christmas gifts that our readers had ever received. For me, it’s an easy call.

   After I got married in 1983, my wife was as good at Christmas shopping as she was at everything else. This is not a Henny Youngman aside: she got me great Christmas presents.

   And the hobby helped in that regard. Throughout the decade she got me a number of Gartlan statues that I always coveted but probably wouldn’t have bought for myself. But the very best Christmas present was in 1983 when she picked up the entire set of Perez-Steele Hall of Fame Art Postcards.

   It’s hardly a shameless plug to say she purchased it from an advertisement in SCD. The cost at the time was $100 to get all of the Perez-Steele Series up to that point, along with being registered for the subsequent issues down through the years.

   I could add, and have mentioned in a number of times, that her purchase of those cards represented perhaps the best investment of cards ever done in our family. Since I rarely ever buy anything with an eye towards reselling it down the road, I also rarely ever hit on any accidental winners. That ditty about the blind squirrel doesn’t really apply to me.

   But my now ex-wife did just fine playing Santa Claus 25 years ago.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 3:15:46 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Monday, December 21, 2009

HOF and baseball cards a perfect marriage ...
Posted by T.S.

   I can remember going to Cooperstown in the 1980s when my friend Larry Fritsch was operating his baseball card museum there a couple of blocks away from the Hall of Fame, and it always seemed like vintage cards and the Hall were made for each other.

   Cards have always been included in the Hall’s archives, but the significant presentation in ongoing displays has been much more prominent over the last quarter century than it had been earlier.

   That understanding of the baseball card as an important element of the game’s history has probably never been better illustrated than in the most recent (Winter 2009) issue of the Hall’s classy Memories and Dreams official magazine.

   With – who else? – the T206 Honus on the cover, the issue is almost completely devoted to all things cardboard, save for the wrap-up from the 2009 Hall of Fame Induction Weekend.

   There are articles on the Wagner card – the Hall owns two of them, both from Barry Halper via different routes – and Jefferson Burdick, a sidebar detailing the museum’s handling of its 135,000-card stash, a great feature by our own Marty Appel on another SCD favorite son, Sy Berger, and even a lavishly illustrated piece on Hall of Famers’ recollections of their own cards.

   That would seem to be what my grandmother used to describe as “an elegant sufficiency,” but there are also stories about baseball card portraiture, the famed 1933 Goudey Nap Lajoie card, a feature about a unique baseball-card artist, and a wonderful glimpse of “A village flipped for cards,” taking you on a brief sortie downtown in the village where cards and memorabilia are just about everywhere.

   It’s hard for me to picture anyone even remotely interested in cards and/or memorabilia not wanting to take a look at this.

   Simple enough: go to www.baseballhalloffame.org, or call (888) 425-5633.

Monday, December 21, 2009 3:38:22 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Phony cards nearly as much fun as the real ones ...
Posted by T.S.

   My pal Bob Lemke just came out with some more of his incredible 1955 Topps All America extension set, and if you’ve never seen them you owe yourself a visit to www.boblemke.blogspot.com.

   There you will find ersatz football cards of Lou Gehrig and Jackie Robinson, and in another later posting one of Billy Clyde Puckett, which I suppose is a variation of an earlier 1955 Topps All America card of Burt Reynolds that he created years ago.

   Seeing more of these wonderful creations got me to thinking what a cool collection somebody could create using a theme of vintage-card designs employed for current, former, real or imagined players.

   This was a tiny little niche in the hobby that existed even 30 years ago before the bust-up of the Topps monopoly, but got a major boost over the last 15 years with all the advances in computer technology and the arrival of same in nearly every home in the country.

   Now there are websites galore showing the labors of some genuinely gifted designers, and no doubt the number of cards that would fit the parameters described above would run into the thousands.

   I know of nobody making such cards who is doing it on a grand enough scale to catch the attention of the leagues or the card manufacturers who make the real ones, and indeed, putting together such a collection would not be all that easy just for that reason alone. One of the pioneers in this esoteric field is a veteran Midwest collector who has made a host of cool 1952 Topps “Cards That Never Were,” but he only makes a couple of each one and tracking them down would be a chore in itself.

   For an easier challenge, a collector could simply vow to put together cards of the above description that were created by the mainstream card companies themselves. That would be easier to do and would certainly number way into the thousands of cards as well.

   Gee, I may have just talked myself into something here.

Thursday, December 17, 2009 3:19:43 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Older guys are way more fun to interview ...
Posted by T.S.

   Ten years ago when I interviewed nearly a dozen Pro Football Hall of Famers during a signing session for the HOF Signature Series art cards, I was struck by the genuine camaraderie between these legendary figures who had labored in the NFL in the decades before it became the multi-billion dollar enterprise that it is today.

   I wrote this at the time: As each player walked into the room, he was greeted by the enthusiastic and occasionally raucous cheers and greetings of former teammates and opponents. This is clearly a unique fraternity, one with a bond cemented by an understanding of those who accomplished something special together. If any further connection were needed, the aching knees and countless nagging infirmities help remind the uninitiated that these men paid an enormous price for the luxury of these fraternal moments.

   The players talked about collectibles, the modern game, their teammates – including several of them in need because of crippling injuries and the attendant costs – and even about things they wished they had saved, but the most fascinating comments came from Otto Graham, the legendary Cleveland Browns QB.

   Although he started out talking about modern players (he conceded they are “bigger, stronger, faster and better”), he pretty quickly moved on to two topics better suited to People magazine than Sports Illustrated: two of the most famous murder cases in postwar America.

   Graham had been a neighbor of Dr. Sam Sheppard, who was charged with murdering his wife in their Cleveland home on July 4, 1954. The murder was the inspiration for the long-running television series “The Fugitive,” and the feature film of the same name 20 years later.

   With characteristic candor, Graham said, “As far as I’m concerned, Sheppard did it. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

There was a good deal more detail that helped explain and fortify his observation, and then he ventured into the more contemporary case. “O.J. did it. His teammates will tell you that O.J. was two different people. He was quite capable of it,” Graham concluded.

   And you wonder why I like interviewing the older players so much more than the younger millionaires. I am pretty sure I never asked about any of that stuff – I certainly didn’t poll the Hall of Famers on their views of the Simpson verdict, which at the time was only a couple of years in the past.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009 3:33:18 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Free Updates

Navigation

Search

Archives

More Links