I knew the Cards would win

Susan and I got back from two weeks on Cape Cod on Saturday, just beating the nasty snowstorm that clobbered the northeast, and I called my son Matt (in Tucson) not long after we slogged all our crap inside.

Matt and I hadn’t talked about much sports related stuff for a while, or anything for that matter, as where we stay on Cape Cod is very unfriendly to cell phones. There is no Internet or TV either, but the very limited access (from anyone to us) is one big reason why Susan and I like going where we go. I do draw the line in regard to being able to access the World Series but at least this year, finally, we were able to listen to baseball playoff and World Series games on the radio. There are a few places within a few miles that serve food and adult beverages that also have ballgames on TV, but I’ve never been a "nurse a couple of beers" kind of guy. Alternately, getting popped for DWI is not something I wanted to experience a second time, 27 years after my "celebration" of Matt’s birth got me my first one. These days I tend to let someone else drive, or take in the game at home.

But anyway, the time Matt and I did talk (we had a landline in our cottage) was after game 2 of the Series, but the subject wasn’t about baseball. Rather it was which one of two job offers Matt should take, and he wanted my input. Being the half-drunk gambler kind of guy that I am, I was adamant that he should take the job in Las Vegas, and I’d be out there to visit him as soon as I brushed up on my Blackjack strategy.

Wouldn't you take a free drink?

Actually, both job offers were Vegas-based, so I am being disingenuous, but it doesn’t detract from the fact that my boy will be living and working (for the record, as an attorney) in one of his old dad’s favorite towns soon enough! 

The way I see it, as I inch towards retirement, I will need some way to pass the time in my doddering old fartitude. I figure that free drinks at the tables will save thousands of dollars, but it’s really about just having a place to go and spend productive time. When the deck is running hot, the dealer is showing 6, and I am splitting Aces, could there be a better place for me to have a free drink served by a sexy young lady? Talk about making a "hard eight," huh?

Our lusting President

Someone might be thinking about all the great shows the casinos put on, but to me that’s like some porn junkie (back in the day) telling me he bought a certain issue of Playboy for the interview with Jimmy Carter. Plus, there are swimming pools on casino property these days that allow ladies to go topless, which does not suck, and for anyone inclined to recline, there is an abundance of love for sale. 

Of course prostitution isn’t legal in Vegas (Clark County), but no one is seriously fooled into believing that the law is strictly enforced when there are 50+ Yellow Pages of listings for escort services in the local phone book. The top-end casinos don’t let working girls troll their premises for the most part, but unescorted "escorts" do slip through the lines quite often. This generally happens late at night, not that 50% of the clientele at any given time has any idea what time it is. Anyway, nothing perked me up more than a 3:14 A.M. conversation with a voluptuous and scantily clad lady on a casino floor, unless it was a hot run of cards at a $25 Blackjack table.

Come to think of it, during the times when my stack of chips was growing larger by the minute, I’d often see a young lovely in my field of vision, sucking a coke through one of those narrow cocktail straws. One time I gave my cocktail waitress an extra large tip if she’d buy the young lovely at the bar a drink and ask her (as a joke) when she got "off duty?" I have no idea what my waitress said to the lady at the bar, but I do know that she came back to me and whispered "Not sure about her, but I get off in a couple of hours."

You have to admire self-promotion and a strong work ethic.

I had an opportunity many years ago (mid-1970’s) to move to and (potentially) work in a Vegas casino, but I chickened out, and stayed in Tucson. In retrospect, if I’d taken a job in Vegas, it’s 90% certain I’d be long dead – too much sex, drugs and gambling. It’s only a matter of luck that I didn’t die in Tucson, where I worked with an endless stream of cocktail waitresses, and the drugs were just as plentiful. Picking my way through that minefield was tough enough, without gaming tables.

Elisabeth Shue

But that aside and soon enough, Susan and I will have a place to stay in Las Vegas, and I will have a direct connection to a very successful law firm in case I get into any trouble! No hookers need apply -- that ship sailed long ago, and I love Susan too much. Even the beautiful young lady on the right wouldn't have been able to woo me.  I dare say that I'd have left...

Thinking about Vegas and gambling while the World Series was taking place got me to recall that the most money I ever won on a sporting event was the 1976 World Series. I had the Reds over the Yanks, but also had a Reds sweep, and bet all 4 games as well. 6 for 6 ain’t easy, and I even received a "very well done" from my bookie, along with the cash. He also told me about a casino in Vegas that got hammered by a flood of Cincinnati bets, as gambler’s invariably bet favorites. It was around that time that I began to study gambling and the history of Las Vegas as well.

My lovely grandma, Florence, and grandpa Frank

So, with Matt and my daughter-in-law (Shannon) living and working in Las Vegas soon enough, it kind of connects my son to me to my dad and to my dad’s mom, Florence, and completes a circle in my life, so to speak. 

Back in 1952, a few months before I was born, my parents (Mary and Charlie Sr., hereafter, sometimes referred to as Senior) bought a house in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. 60 years later, my son will be working at a job that will pay him more money in one week, than his grandfather made in all of 1952. Matt will make a lot more money in one month than that house cost, when my parents bought it. About 10 days ago, I left a tip for a food waitress at a favorite restaurant in Wellfleet, Massachusetts that was equal to the mortgage payment Senior told me he had to scramble to pay each month in the year I was born.

I am telling all of that because of what happened in 1954.

Senior was a huge New York Giant fan, and an even bigger fan of Willie Mays, who to Senior’s dying day called his "cousin." (It was part of the times to patronize black sports heroes in that way, and many other ways. My dad was a racist, just as a huge part of the American population was. One of the best things I can tell you about my dad was that he truly changed, when he realized how wrong he’d been.)

Senior, top left, Hank top right, w/ Wilb and Dolores

Senior had gotten his love of the Giants at an early age, from his mother, Florence (his father died when he was 5 years old). Dad told me that his mom was known to wager one or two dollars on the Giants once or twice a year. He told me a wonderful story about he and his mom, along with his older brother Hank going to a New York Giants versus Cincinnati Reds game at the Polo Grounds, sometime in the early 1920’s. Senior said that Hank was a big Reds fan, particularly a huge Eddie Roush fanatic – the Red’s (Hall of Fame) centerfielder. On that day, Cincinnati was beating the snot out of Florence’s Giants, and 10-year old Hank was cheering and shouting like the crank he was when my grandmother had finally had enough. She slapped Hank across the back of his head and lectured that "When I buy your ticket you root for the Giants or bite your tongue!" I have to believe granny had a wager that day.

By 1954, Senior had been a Giant fan for more than 30 years, and he "just knew" that the New York Giants were going to beat the Cleveland Indians in the World Series that October. The Indians had (still) one of the greatest seasons in baseball history that year. The Yankees had won 5 straight World Series, and won 103 games in ‘54, and finished a distant (8 games back) second – that’s how good Cleveland was. They were a prohibitive favorite to brush the Giants aside, which was how Senior got such great odds on New York. For the time, and based on how much money he made in a week, he put a large bundle down on the Giants to win. He told my mom he’d placed a wager, because he was such a forthright guy he couldn’t imagine how he’d be able to explain the devastation if he’d lost. It was also a fact that he didn’t tell my mom exactly how much he’d bet, giving her a substantially lower sum. She was rocked anyway, so when he asked her about putting some additional funds down on a bet that the Giants would sweep, she cried, and he said he wouldn’t do it. But he did put some money on the sweep, just not that much.

Of course the Giants swept Cleveland and my dad won a bundle, but never again tempted any amount of money he couldn’t afford to lose, like a $2.00 bet on the Kentucky Derby, stuff like that. It remains one of the greatest pieces of advice on gambling I have ever received when my dad told me to "Never bet more money on a game than you can afford to throw down a sewer – unless you are really sure who will win."

Hence, my Cincinnati bets. Even with the odds seriously on the Reds to win, I never hesitated for a minute to back them as a big favorite – I just knew, you know?

Over the years Senior would come up with his fair share of touts, which I took in with varying degrees of attention. Later, after the event, he’d ask me if I followed his advice, because invariably, his picks would win. It got a little eerie after a while, and I started (slowly) to put some actual keesh on his picks, and won every single time. There weren’t many over the years, and you couldn’t force a pick out of him, rather, these forecasts would just come to him, and he’d give them to me. This went on for about 12 years or so, beginning in the early-1970’s. They weren’t all underdogs, and the sports varied. One of the last ones he gave me was Oakland’s dismantling of Philadelphia in the 1981 Super Bowl. The Raiders were about a 3-point dog, and became the first wild card team to win the championship. It was the second most money I ever won on a sporting event.

Senior almost always introduced one his rare (maybe 15 total, all time) touts in the same way:

"Charlie, would you like to make some money?"

"Shit yeah!"

Lefty...on the left

It was kinda like having my own Lefty Rosenthal, without having a vicious Joe Pesci-type maniac killer on the side. (As a side note, Rosenthal – Robert De Niro’s character -- really was the target of a car bomb. I worked for a guy in Tucson whose son, Gary Triano, was the victim of a car bomb in the parking lot of a Tucson (La Paloma) country club. For a while, one of the leading theories about the murder was it was casino related, as Triano was allegedly working with Chinese investors in an attempt to start a casino in any number of locations aside from Vegas.

I don’t know if it was a coincidence or not, but after my mom died in 1982, the touts just stopped. A number of years later Senior married Donna, and they both loved to take those group bus-trip junkets (from Tucson) to Loughlin (Nevada) for some casino gambling. Senior would spend a few hours at the $2 and $3 poker tables, while Donna pounded the slots, but my dad was never really a gambler. The man had often worked 3 jobs while I was growing up so he and his family would have nice things in their lives, and he was too smart to think that gambling was an easy avocation.

I pretty much gave up betting on sporting events in the late-1980’s, when Matt was still a little boy, but I "rediscovered" Vegas again in the late 1990’s, and had excellent success playing 21 on any number of visits.

Matt is not a gambler, though he does love games, and he especially loves card games. He is not averse to making a wager on a game here and there, but generally speaking these are "friendly bets," the kind you have a difficult time collecting, like the $100 I still owe him for losing a chess match to him about 10 years ago.

Soon, I will have a chance to go to a casino with him, and maybe I’ll get him to sit down with me at a $5 Blackjack table, and sip some free highballs. Then we can spend a little time at a sports book, and wager a few dollars on a game. I have an image of a cocktail waitress coming by, and we’ll order a round, I’ll over tip her upon her return, but then shue her away too.

After the Rangers failed to score in the top of the 11th inning of game 6, I turned the radio off, and went to bed.  I was absolutely certain that Texas would lose the game. Similarly, I knew the Cardinals would win game 7. I thought of my dad asking me if I wanted to make some money, and actually considered calling Matt, and telling him to find a way to bet on St. Louis that night.

From my dad, to me, to my son…right.

It 1985 I placed an enormous amount of money on the St. Louis Cardinals to beat the Kansas City Royals in the World Series, and also bet each game. When the day of game 7 beckoned, I was in a considerable hole, and still had my huge series bet riding. I was looking at a financial disaster as I spoke with one of my closest friends, and fellow gambler, Al.

"This is from the guy so sure St. Louis would win, right dickwod?" Al asked. "Why don’t you wipe your ass with your St. Looey bet and just get even, if you can’t afford to let it ride?"

"Huh?" I muttered.

Al asked me how much did I stand to lose if Kansas City won, and I squeaked out the figure. He then called a bookie and placed that amount of money on KC to win the seventh game that evening.

"That’s your bet, dipshit," Al said, "you’ll be a big zero on the books."

"Al, you’re genius."

"Shut up St. Louis breath and tell me who you like in the Cowboy/Redskins game on Sunday… cause I’m gonna bet 10-grand on the other side."

I often think about gambling as a metaphor for the ocean’s tides, the way the dollars come in, then get washed away. I have often told folks the story about Florence swatting my Uncle Hank upside the head when he rooted for the wrong team on her dime. But most importantly, I will never forget the simple lesson my late friend Al taught me back in 1985

So I didn’t call Matt, and St. Louis won, of course.

Did I mention that I knew the Cards would win?

Pickling Willie Mays

In Bill James 2003 "Historical Baseball Abstract," under his comment on Tony Taylor he describes the Phillies and Giants playing a game in 1963. A series of pitches, plays, and other events finds Willie Mays caught in a rundown, between second and third base.

Anyone with a reasonable sense of humor has a time (or 1000) when something just cracks them up so much, they can’t repeat why they are seemingly hysterical. So it was about 10 days ago when I attempted to tell Susan why I was laughing so hard that snot was running down my cheeks, and my eyes were stinging from the tears.

The reason for me is below, and it's for anyone who may ever be called upon to describe what a great base runner Willie Mays was, Bill James has given all of us the perfect line:

"Catching Willie Mays in a rundown is like trying to assassinate a squirrel with a lawn mower…"

Boston Chicken

After reading and hearing all the stories that have come out about the Red Sox, I am left one big question?

What video game were Josh Beckett, and his minions Lackey and Lester playing in the clubhouse? I mean, admit it, you’d like to know right?

I also wonder if anyone screwed up at a critical moment because one of the controller buttons was greasy from all the fried chicken greasy fingers?

If there is anything I take away from this it’s that age-old truism that when a team is winning, all these stupid and selfish behaviors by players are never news, but losing spawns countless pieces of evidence why a team was doomed to fail.

Jack McKeon was interviewed about Beckett, having managed him in Florida during the Marlins championship 2003 season. Apparently McKeon had to chase Beckett out of the clubhouse with a bat that year, and later keep the clubhouse locked to prevent guys from flaking off during games. Does anyone think that Beckett wasn’t pounding Bud’s in the clubhouse every year while he was with Boston?

The thing about Terry Francona abusing painkillers really bothers me. The guy’s playing career ended very early due to operations on both knees, and (so you know) he was the NCAA College Player of the Year in 1980, so the man could hit. To think he suddenly started to abuse prescribed medications after close to 30 years of taking things to alleviate pain is the worst kind of journalism, in my opinion.

Sometimes, things just play out, you know…they just end. That’s what happened to the Francona era in Boston. A bad mix of personalities combined with a few too many injuries to a team that didn’t have a player or two capable of kicking some teammate’s asses when things started going bad.

The Boston media has many villains to blame in all of this, and the team will spin it the best way they can. The bottom line is that the players couldn’t figure out how to police themselves, and not one guy in the starting rotation was able to be a stopper down the stretch.

So, with Boston a no-show, the Phillies not nearly as good (no hitting) as most folks thought, and the Yankees exposed (no starting pitching) as a post-season fraud, we are left with perhaps Texas being the best team in baseball? We are also being treated to being able to watch the best hitters in each league (Cabrera – AL and Pujols and Braun – NL) play deep into October, and a very realistic chance that one franchise will win it’s first ever championship. If either Texas (spawned as the expansion Washington Senators in 1961) or Milwaukee (Seattle Pilots – 1969) win it, it will be the first time.

I continued to root for Tampa Bay, and whichever team is your favorite, wasn’t it hard to not root for those guys and their manager, Joe Maddon? How many managers would have had the guts to start a rookie (Matt Moore) with a total of 9 and 1/3 innings of MLB experience in a critical game #3, on the road versus Texas? Girardi may have done it, but then he’d bring in a reliever in the 3^rd, one in the 4^th, another 2 guys in the 5^th, etc., etc. Does anyone over-manager more than Girardi?

Answer: Yes!

And you wanna be my latex salesman?

Tony LaRussa does, but he does it in ways that are beyond our normal human intelligence, and Tony doesn’t have the time to explain anything to us dorks. I can’t stand the guy, I really can’t. He is so smarmy he makes wish I didn’t love baseball, with all his imperious crap.

It’s hard for me to believe that he and Jim Leyland are such good friends, the way Leyland is so down to earth, and so much of a throw back to the way managers used to be when I was a kid. My lips say Texas, but my heart says Detroit.

I really don’t have a take on Ron Roenicke, except that he was a fair-to-suck MLB player, and he seems like he’s on auto-pilot as a manager, which may not be the worse thing for that team?

Ron Washington looks like he’s still doing lines, all fidgety and jumpy. You’d think that incredible bullpen and all those great hitters would calm him down a bit, wouldn’t you?

In parting, I thought Francona was great fill-in for Tim McCarver, but then a lot of guys would be a huge improvement over Tim. I am liking A.J. Pierszynski a lot, though it’s easy to see why he’s pissed off so many teammates over the years – baseball players don’t like guys that are smart, critical, and talkative.

As Tony Plush would say, "Gotta go," but before I do, has anyone (aside from me) given any thought to the idea that Theo Epstein will hire Terry Francona as the new Cub manager? My only question is will the Cubs part with Ernie Broglio as compensation for hiring Theo?

Wouldn’t that be something? Only thing better would be those two guys celebrating a World Championship in Chicago in a year or three, with their star players, Prince Fielder and Jonathan Papelbon.

Remember where you first read that last part.

Free Beer and Naked Women

I’ve thought about writing something for this blog for about half of the 45 days since I last posted, but too many things got in the way. The biggest one was just losing my muse for doing it, and it’s given me a whole new and deeper respect for the folks that actually write multiple columns a week that thousands or millions of people actually read.

Another major thing was trying to figure out what I really want to say, and how to go about putting it out there? Do I want photos each time, or are the photos I add (without permission) just something to entice people to read what I’ve written?

I really like looking for photographs and other things about people I am referencing, because I think it makes what I am "talking" about more amusing or interesting, and hey, if it ain’t amusing or interesting, even I don’t want to read it.

But who does read it, and why?

Most interesting to me is that the biggest ‘keywords’ for finding this blog on the Net are the names Lindsay Fredette and Brandi Chastain. Google tells me this is true, and they would know. Far and away, the most searched is Jimmer Fredette’s older sister Lindsay, who I mentioned in a wacky piece way back on January 31. Brandi gets searched quite a bit too, with one keyword being "Brandi Chastain’s boobs." That is great! To think that there are probably enough guys or gay ladies out there, wanting a look at Brandi’s boggles? It boobies the mind!

Years ago, when I lived in Tucson and worked as a bartender, I had a Monday night to work. The regular band was off on Monday’s, so we’d have a band fill in for the evening. It was often a very dull night, with hopefully enough friends of the band filling some seats, buying some drinks, and not starting any fights.

(The place I was working at the time was called the "Longhorn Saloon," so you have to just trust me when I tell you we had fights in that place. The bar sat right outside the main gate of Davis-Monthan AFB, so imagine all those young and drunk airman stumbling into a cowboy bar for last call? It got nasty some nights…days too.)

This Monday we had a band with 5 guys, a couple of whom I knew from other bands and other clubs. The lead guy in the band and I were lamenting the crappy turnout when he told me the secret to getting new business was to open a bar and call it:

Free Beer and Naked Women (Now I have hit the title to this piece, and if you’ve gotten this far in reading it, well, you’ve read about 450 words.)

I don’t know what a lot of people’s reactions would be if they saw that sign lit up in big letters on the top of some bar, but it would get my attention. I’d also bet that it would get the attention of a lot of the same guys that are Googling Brandi’s ta-ta’s, or Lindsay in a swimsuit?

Of course I can also imagine having a bar with that name, and putting up with all the crap from boozed up dudes looking for what’s on the sign, if someone could actually get the sign up to begin with? It’s a more PC world every day, and while I can see being able to do it in Tucson, up here in Burlington (VT), things like that are just not done.

I wonder what ever happened to a bar outside of Miami called Sofa King? Susan and I heard their ad on the radio one morning in 2005 while driving (and getting lost) on the south Florida highway system.

"Sofa King! You gotta be where the sounds are sofa king cool, the beer is sofa king cold, and the ladies are sofa king hot!"

It’s an old joke, but to actually hear it on the radio was nuts, so think about advertising a bar called "Free Beer and Naked Women?" If liquor laws preclude you from that I bet "Cold Beer and Naked Women" would work pretty well. Hey, chill the beer lad, how you supply the sofa king naked women is your problem -- I am just selling the franchise fees here.

By the way, the word "free" took on a different meaning for me about 6 or 7 years ago while I was driving through one of the housing developments I manage. As I circled through I noticed that one apartment had placed a number of things on the green space that everyone is praying to find! Great stuff like broken and cheap furniture, bags of stained and dirty children’s clothing, old tires, and stacks of car repair manuals, kid’s VHS tapes, and James Patterson novels.

It’s a city code violation to put stuff on a green space (the area between the sidewalk and street), so I took special note of the fact that the tenant had not put the usual "FREE!" sign up. When I told the story to Susan she reminded me that when we had moved from Shelburne to Essex, we had done similarly. What was funny was that along with taking most of our discards, someone took our "FREE" sign as well.

Vermonters make up their own rules about these types of things, because we don’t want anything to go to waste. Somewhere, some day, the person that took that sign will find a use for it, or know someone who’ll need it.

"Harry, hold on! I have a sign that already says "FREE. You don’t have to do a damn thing!"

"You’re kidding right? You’re not? Dude, that’s awesome dude, frikkin’ awesome! Thanks for borrowing it to me man"

As a further digression, a few years ago there were a couple of signs Susan and I used to see every time we went to her dad’s house. One was for a guy named Tardie, and he was an accountant that did the IRS thing for folks. What better way to let potential clients know that then by putting a sign out that read "Tardie Tax Returns?" Really, that was his sign. Maybe he attracted clients anyway…you know, those that like a joke about the IRS auditing them?

Maybe none of my tenant’s property left the green space because it was not quite free?

The big sign on top of the pile had one word, perhaps a warning, or more likely an omen?

It read "Feer!" Seriously, and yes, I was.

Along the same route as "Tardie Tax Returns" there was a landlord with a vacancy that needed filling. So, he (or she, but I gotta bet it was a guy) bought a 2-foot by 3-foot piece of thin white cardboard, and nailed it to a phone pole with the following written on it:

House for Rnet

999-9999

Yup, rnet, but someone caught it after the fact and added a ^ between the R and the n, and placed an e above the ^. The way I read it was "House for Renet." I tried calling the number, but got no answer. I figure the owner must have been at an Algonquian Round Table meeting, so I let it go, but would it have killed the guy to buy another piece of cardboard, and spell the damn word correctly?

Okay, I’ve been writing this thing over a couple of days now, and just enjoying the process of writing, which was the entire point of this blog anyway. I used to write so many long emails that I’d get folks telling me to just blog, which I took as a polite way of saying, "Write your ass off, just don’t send it to me because I’ll feel guilty if I don’t read it. You should start a blog. That way, if I don’t read it I will just be one of billions and billions of people who don’t read it, instead of just me."

Last words about "free beer" is that beer should always be free, or we should only be charged for renting it. I think this is a law Vermont could enact?

I also doubt I could have "naked women" as part of the name either, but I could have a sign at the door telling folks that there is never a cover for naked women.

I have one more day of work left before I am on vacation until November, which is nice. Susan and I are going to spend a couple of weeks in a cottage on Cape Cod that looks out over the Atlantic, just relaxing. I am old, and need to relax.

Time for baseball.

The Awfulness of Suzyn Waldman

I haven’t heard all the great baseball radio and TV announcers, but I’ve heard many of them in over 50 years of tuning in.

Feel the weakness of his suckness

This Blog was started (in part) when I heard the fantastic news that Joe Morgan was fired, and not returning to ESPN for the 2011 season. 


I was also hoping that Rick Sutcliffe would similarly feel the ax – which hasn’t happened, but ESPN has mercifully cut his national exposure, and to Sutcliffe’s credit, he isn’t as much of the droning sycophant as he used to be.

I know, and you don't

Morgan was an imperious and smarmy boob. He was always right about everything, and if you didn’t believe him he’d tell you that he’d played the game, so therefore his opinion trumped all others. Facts didn’t matter to Joe (he never read "Moneyball," but knew it was all wrong, and persisted in stating Billy Beane wrote the book), but what did matter was telling you 4 or 5 times why he was correct in his opinions or observations.

There was a hilarious Blog called "Fire Joe Morgan" that stopped posting back in 2008, though you can still check out most of those classic posts here - http://www.firejoemorgan.com/

I can recall listening to Red Barber and Mel Allen as a kid, and there has never been a time in my life when Vin Scully wasn’t doing Dodger games. Scully is far and away the best I have ever heard on the radio, doing a local (Dodger) game.

Something happens to guys when they get to the National stage. I think they are told to dumb-it-down, as the school of thought is the national broadcast is for the casual fan, and the local ones for the hardcore.

Tim McCarver was one of the best "color" guys I’d ever heard when he was doing Met broadcast on TV in the 1980’s, but has since become painful to listen to – too many of the same old puns, and out of date sub-references. It reminds me of the TV shows M*A*S*H and Seinfeld, which were both as good as any sitcoms ever aired during their first 3 or 4 years, then slowly but steadily slid into mediocrity until they became unwatchable.

I despised Harry Caray too. Back in the early days of cable, I had baseball games on five cable channels, and we got all the Cubs games on WGN. Harry was an obnoxious drunk, an excruciating homer, and a tireless self-promoter. He honestly believed people came to the park, or tuned into games on TV because of him. Having been a Met fan back in the early ‘80’s, I had occasion to tune into WGN, when the Mets (WOR) were not airing games. I hated the Cubs in 1984 because they were the Mets big rival, but it was Harry that made me hate the Cubs to this day.

It was bad, even before he was drunk.

Two of Harry’s most annoying bits were pronouncing names backward – "So, the Mets first baseman’s name backwards would be Htiek Zednanreh," and singing a song about (Cubs catcher) Jody Davis, basically to the tune of "Davy, Davy Crockett…" He also always sounded like he was drooling.

Cute or even funny once or five times, but by the time you’ve heard either 30 times, you’re done, right?

The only line I can recall never growing tired of hearing, was Kenny Mayne on ESPN, referring to some crappy looking swing by a MLB hitter striking out as "he was choppin’ broccoli." I just laughed when I typed that.

The best color guy I have heard over the last few years is Jerry Remy, who does Red Sox games on NESN. Remy is invariably funny, insightful, and self-deprecating. Please don’t go national, Rem-dog.

Mr. & Mrs. Awful

So, why is Suzyn Waldman so awful? For me, it started well before her famous and wild scat the day Roger Clemens was announced as returning to the Yankees, but for many baseball fans, it was merely a glimpse.  If you haven't heard it, trust me, it's worth listening too just to appreciate how bad it can get sometimes, following a sport I love. You can find it all here at:  http://thesportshernia.typepad.com/blog/2007/05/suzyn_waldman_h.html

The only thing that saves her at all is her partner on the broadcasts, John Sterling, who would be annoying all the time, instead of just 75% of the time, when he has to cut Suzyn off. Sterling’s annoying habits include a song to Yankee center fielder Curtis Granderson, sung to the tune of the old Sammy Davis, Jr. hit "The Candy Man," with the lyric changing to "the Grandy Man." We also have had "An Aaaaaaaa bomb, from Aaaaaaaa Rod," and his style in calling a game when he elongates a word and gives us "thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa..pitch."

Among the many problems I have with Suzyn is her casual manner and cozy nicknames in describing Yankee players. It’s like she washes their socks and poo poo undies, packs them a healthy sack lunch, and hears their confessions before they go off to the park. Problem is, she really doesn’t know anything about baseball.

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to a Yankee game in which (center fielder) Curtis Granderson lost a pop fly to shallow left-center in the sun, and (left fielder) Brett Gardner had to make the catch.

My God, you’d think Gardner had just won the pennant to hear Suzyn describe it:

Did you see it, John?

To Sterling: "Did you see that John, the way Brett catches the ball at an angle? Did you see it? I was watching him in practice the other day, and every ball he was catching at an angle – he practices that…did you see it?"

Seriously, this is what Suzyn ranted about, even after coming back out of a commercial break. "You see John, Brett catches everything at an angle…he practices that…"

He ran the bases backwards

I have no idea what she’s talking about, unless Gardner is running a zigzag or button-hook pattern to every fly ball, in which case he may be the second coming of Jimmy Piersall, with the Mets,  running out his 100th lifetime homer?

I wonder what Joe Morgan would have to say about this? I am thinking if the movie "Moneyball" is successful, we could have:

An awful movie.

Brett Gardner

starring in...

"Fear Strikes Out, at an Angle"

The incredible and hard to believe true story of a baseball player that was incapable of waiting for the fly ball or line drive to come directly to him each time, and the woman who dedicated her life to chewing the stains out of his underwear!

Joe will set everyone straight, over and over again.

Good night Irene.

A Padre baseball game, and a Rob Roy

This was originally an email to my lovely daughter-in-law, Shannon, after my son (and her husband) Matt had told her about the first major league baseball game that he’d ever been to. It was during one of many summer trips we took to San Diego – myself, Matt, and Ruth, my ex-wife, and Matt’s mom.

My sense is that Matt told you about taking the drive from our hotel on Mission Beach to the game, one that I had gotten tickets for way in advance and mailed to me in Tucson. My dream was to see the Mets play, but they weren’t in town during the time we were going to be in San Diego, so I got tickets to a Padre and Phillie game, I think? The Phils were pretty good at the time – this was probably about 1992 or 1993, as I can’t imagine that Matt was more than 8 or 9.

We would rent a car for these trips from Tucson (AZ) to San Diego because I wanted to make certain I had a car that would get us through the desert and over the mountains without crapping out. I probably rented a Mercury Sable, Ford Taurus, or a Chrysler Intrepid, something full-size, white, and (you know) really generic.

The Walrus

The car is critical to the story, after what happened, which was that we had barely gotten into our seats, and I had gone down to a food concession to grab some drinks and snacks. As I approached the snack bar I saw the PGA golfer Craig "The Walrus" Stadler walking away with this jumbo draft beer. I thought about asking The Walrus what time he had, in the hope he’d turn the wrist of his hand holding the brew and spill it all over himself in order to look at his watch, but I was trying to act my age, so I didn’t. Instead I just returned to find Matt was being really crabby and pouty about everything. He wasn’t sick, at least he wasn’t saying he was sick, he was just not happy for some reason, so he was being a little bit of a brat.

My feeling was ‘he’ll get over it,’ and I settled in to watch the game, but Ruth started saying that maybe we should go because Matt was sick? By this time though, Matt wasn’t saying that, nor did we have any tangible evidence that he was really sick. I resisted in no small part because I had spent a fair amount of money for the tickets, we’d driven (no short distance) out to Jack Murphy Stadium from Mission Beach, and I had just purchased food. I also hadn’t been to a Major League baseball game in a long, long time.

Well, but, "uh uh" and "no."

But Matt had stoked the mommy fire in Ruth more and more, and she back-fed the same fire by being completely sympathetic and basically creating a scenario in which I was beginning to look like some bad-ass child abuser to the patrons sitting nearby.

I was pissed, but knowing I could win the battle (staying for the game) but couldn’t do anything other than get hammered in the war I ceded and said "Screw it, let’s go!"

At this point Matt knew that I was very angry. He also knew that he was the first and primary cause of my anger, but not (yet) intuitive enough to know that it was really mommy that created the battle. Ruth had subverted the one big thing I wanted to do while we were in San Diego ‘cause little Matty felt a little icky.

I know it's white, and...somewhere...

So, I start storming out of the ballpark into the vast parking lot, and suddenly realized that I had no damn clue on where the hell the stinkin’ car was parked. You know how all huge parking lots always have those signs that have "N3" or "V9" or some such code that allows people with functioning brains to actually find their vehicles? Sure, as long as they remember to take note of which one their car is near after they park it. (This is well before the "Seinfeld" episode about trying to find a car in a mall parking lot, but I don’t think he stole the idea from me.)

Now, of course you’ll recall that we have the rental car – a very generic rental car. If we’d rented a Sable or Taurus or something like that (which I am certain we did), there were probably only 63 to 180 or so of those within a infield fly of where we were walking at any given time during our lengthy stroll around the Stadium lot.

Ah, but our car is white! Yeah, and so are 76% of all the cars in the lot in sunny So Cal.

I think we trooped around the lot for 30 minutes…seriously. This was well before the days of always having a remote car lock/unlock button on a key chain, so no help there, pressing the button, and getting that helpful "Beep!"

Now, I am really steamed, because my plan was to get us all in the car, and then pout a lot worse than Matt did that evening, and punish both Matt and Ruth for ruining my evening. However, as I am finding that the more I walk around getting really pissed off and frustrated because I can’t find the damn car, the more I am starting to feel like an idiot. I mean, if I can’t find my own damn car, what right do I have to be pissed at anyone other than myself?

It began to get a little funny, really, and I knew that it really wasn’t Matt’s fault that I didn’t get to see the game, it was all on Ruth. Nothing new there. Matt was just a little kid, and I was able to recall a number of times I’d played the whining brat when I had been his age.

The Charlie story of being a whiny little brat probably took place when I was almost 10-years old.

My mom, dad, sister and I, along with my aunt (my mom’s older sister - Helen) and her son Donny drove to Philadelphia in my dad’s brand new 1963 (white) Chevy Nova to spend a week or so with my mom’s younger sister Stell (Aunt Stella) and her husband, my Uncle George.

One evening, the plan was that we were all going out to eat dinner at some nice restaurant, but I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay at George and Stell’s with Donny, so we could play games and do stuff. Donny was 2 years older than I was, and we were like brothers, growing up.

Nope, we’re all going…and I erupted. Tears and whining, and even Donny wasn’t on my side, as he was looking forward to a steak and baked potato, and whatever.

So, I get dragged into our new Chevy Nova and we drive to the steak house, getting perhaps 53 of my snivels per mile? We get there and I am now a complete diva…I want this, don’t want that, I am "NOT HUNGRY" Wha, wha, whaaaaaa…

However, and this is the critical part of the tale, I didn’t know that prior to our leaving Stell and George’s the adults were imbibing in a highball or two!

Yes, and when George had asked my dad what he wanted, Charlie Senior said he’d like a Manhattan, which is made with bourbon and sweet vermouth, garnished with a Maraschino cherry!

George said he didn’t have any bourbon, but he did have scotch, and could make a Manhattan with scotch and sweet vermouth. My dad said that specific drink is actually called a "Rob Roy," but "Yes, that’d be good," so the whole gang tanked a bevy of Rob Roys before we piled into the cars to do some drunk driving. (Not really, my dad never got drunk, and my mom never drove, but the line is good, huh?)

So, now we’re at the restaurant and the waiter is filling drink orders. I get my Shirley Temple, my sister gets a Peach Blow Fizz or something, and Donny gets a Bat Masterson…or something?

And Uncle George orders a round of Manhattans for the 5 adults.

The drinks come and everyone is happy except me. I think at this point my dad is threatening to make me walk the 110 miles back to New York with two broken legs if I don’t straighten up and pull my act together.

Suddenly, George calls the waiter over and tells him "my drink is wrong, I ordered a Manhattan." The waiter kowtows and goes off to right the wrong, returning forthwith, Manhattan in hand. He waits while Uncle George sips…

"NO, you’ve got it wrong again!" George is more than a bit drunk and very tweaked by now, but it suddenly occurs to my dad that George thinks he should be drinking a Rob Roy…the drink he subbed for the Manhattan at the house, when he found he didn’t have any bourbon. (Trust me, the difference between scotch and bourbon is unmistakable.)

Beef and booze, perfect!

My dad explains that, but George is in too deep now. My Uncle George was one of the biggest bullshit artists I have ever known in my life, capable of telling more enormous lies than the world’s biggest con artist. He would brook no correction, this waiter was an imbecile, the bartender a clod, and when the manager came to the table, my Uncle was ready to rain devastation.

Meanwhile, I am whining, my mom and Aunt Stell are smashed, my sister is really embarrassed to be associated with any of us, and my Aunt Helen is threatening (her son) Donny with all kinds of things because now he is feeling really sick.

My dad is swearing constantly. It’s barely audible, but it’s there. One of his favorites was "Jesus Christ All Fucking Mighty," which is awful…really awful. He was probably saying that every 12 seconds or so, and we were all Catholics. I was positive that if we died before he confessed that stuff, we were all going down, big time. I started to eat more steak, thinking it may be my last supper?

Everyone is now ganging up on George telling him what (he had to have finally realized was) a dumb mistake he had made, but he had dug a huge trench, lined it with sandbags, and was machine-gunning anyone within range. He was not giving in, and it all became even worse than the awful time it had already been.

Get your kicks, on Route 66

I don’t exactly recall how everything ended other than I had a nice steak, baked potato, and multiple Shirley Temples, Uncle George further burnished his reputation as a complete dipshit. My mom and aunts got plowed, Donny got sick, and my dad steamed. My sister didn’t care, as at the time, she was falling in love with George Maharis and his TV show Route 66, along with an album of sexy ballads he’d recorded.

I also ended up with a life lesson I could apply 30 years later.

In ensuing years when the story was retold, my part in all of it grew dimmer and dimmer. Innocent Donny slid easily into second place as what became the coda for evening when all Uncle George wanted was a Rob Roy, but said he’d like a Manhattan, and got one…over and over and over again.

I hope he got Uncle George first

Oh yeah, the coda? Donny puked repeatedly out the car window on the drive back to Stell and George’s, flecks of prime rib and potato skin adhering to the white metallic-paint of our new (generic) 1963 Chevy Nova.

I can still here my dad mumbling "Jesus Christ All…"

“Taking my talents to Ankara,” and other short takes.

It’s been a while since I’ve done this. I can chalk up not writing to a number of things, with the primary culprit being very busy at my job -- and maybe too many Coronas afterwards?

All World Cups

SOCCER

The stories that interested me a month ago no longer do. The US Women managed to lose to Japan in the World Cup, and even though I watched the entire game, there really wasn’t any pain at the end, more like an "Oh well." Moms across the nation keep shuttling their kids to soccer practice in droves, but few bring them to MLS games. That’s all right, I will still watch the World Cup in Brazil, and isn’t Brazil going to get a lot of attention in the coming years by also hosting the Olympics?

GOLF

Beware 2011 PGA!

Darren Clarke won the British Open, which was a true feel good story for a short stretch, except for the Irish, who are still celebrating the glory these days, with 3 of the last 7 golf majors having been won by a Son of Eire. Tiger Woods finally played another tournament this weekend, and now that he’s back, and not the "old" Tiger, I find it interesting how he now just seems older and more arrogant.

NFL

The NFL finally figured out how to split up the billions of dollars that the league generates into more doable doses for all concerned. Wow, what geniuses.  That one made me think of a scenario like winning half of a mega-million dollar lottery, and having the other half won by my best friend. Yeah, it would really suck to have that happen.

The King's Ankara castle

NBA

It’s looking more and more like the NBA will lose a lot of games, if not the entire 2011-2012 season. I heard Kobe’s people were negotiating with a club team in Turkey, and wanted a guarantee of $1,000,000 per month for him to play. If that happens, Lebron has been heard to say "I’ll be taking my talents to Ankara."

MLB

Baseball has gone through the trading deadline with a few interesting player moves. The Phillies took advantage of Houston finally committing to a youth movement by picking up Hunter Pence, and their pursuers, Atlanta, getting Michael Bourn. Even with all the injuries the Braves have had, they still look like the Wild Card winner to me, and I’ll admit I had the Phillies wrong in predicting them to not make the playoffs. I did that more than anything else, to pick a long shot.

The Pittsburgh Pirates caught our attention, didn’t they? It was nice story for a while. I was watching a game on ESPN where some idiot said that the everyday players Pittsburgh had felt good knowing that one of the same 5 starting pitchers would be out there in rotation for each game. Yeah, the 1962 Mets basically trotted the same guys out there too. Their top five starters went 30-95 on the season. The Pirates need much better starting pitching in 2012, if they are to contend all season.

We look to have a few races. The AL Central may yet be a 3-team race? Cleveland mortgaged a bit of it’s future in trading for Ubaldo Jiminez, but with Shin-Soo Choo coming back in a week or so, and the kid second baseman Jason Kipnis, they may remain viable? Ozzie Guillen keeps plugging away, unfortunately the plugs he’s firing keep missing Adam Dunn and Alex Rios. It’s amazing to me the White Sox are still only 6.5 games behind Detroit, who look to have asserted themselves as the team to beat. Justin Verlander has been the best pitcher in MLB this year, and Jim Leyland plays all kinds of guys looking for an angle. Not sure how good the pitching is, but I like their chances in a short series with Max Scherzer as the number 2 guy.

In the NL West, we have the Giants and Diamondbacks, two extremely flawed teams, trying to not lose as many games as the other guy. Not sure that the same magic San Francisco had last season will be around this time? I mean superior starting pitching is nice, but you have to score at least one run to win a game, and the Phillies pitching is better anyway.

Hey Tony!  How about 8 more brews?

In the AL West, Texas looks like they are sleep-walking, and they struggle to score runs on the road, the same way Milwaukee can’t win on the road in the NL Central. I actually picked the Angels to win the AL West this year, so I am looking pretty smart right now. I do like Texas picking up two excellent relievers in Koji Uehara and Michael Adams at the trade deadline, and they really should win. I also picked the Brewers to win their division, but that was a consensus pick among the experts. Being that I despise Tony La Russa, I am really rooting for Milwaukee.

Leaves us with the Red Sox and Yankees, in a flat tie at 69-43, going into tonight’s game. 50 games left, but with the Wild Card almost assuredly going to one of them, how much drama do we have?

Well, having 4 tight divison races is pretty good, the PGA is coming up, and the corn in our garden is getting high.

Nice to see folks are still checking in.  You'll have to excuse me now while I grab another Corona.  

Tony, you buyin?