My Favorite Teams 23-19

 Back in March and April of this year I was counting up my favorite baseball teams on Facebook in anticipation of The Real National Hot Dog Day. I thought that it might be a good idea to keep them here for posterity. Here are the second group of teams along with the FB introductions. 

 

23.

I started down the road to nostalgia city and ended up taking a left turn and finding myself at fuck these stupid fucking owners they're all greedy asshole pigs village.

The Reds bring up a lot of conflicting emotions.

 

 

We are 23 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Shadoe Stevens style, my favorite baseball teams.

 

When I was a kid I thought that if a team beat you in the Championship game, they were automatically your rivals for the rest of your life. I believed this for an embarrassingly long time, but in my defense I grew up when the Celtics played the Lakers in the Finals seemingly every other year so I thought that's how it was in all sports.

 

It really isn't.

 

But for a long time, I had a hair across my ass for the Cincinnati Reds (and the Mets and the Cardinals times two). How dare these barbarians from Ohio march onto the holy Elysian field that is Fenway Park and snatch our prize from us? How dare they not allow St. Carl Yastrzemski and Fred Lynn and Jim Rice and Rico Petrocelli and Bill Lee and Dwight Evans and the rest of that beautiful 1975 team not achieve their ultimate goal?

 

This loss happened when I was one year and one month old, so I took it very personally.

 

Fast forward to 1990 and these Ohio assholes did the same thing to my backup favorite team (who were really my favorite team at the time -- shhhhh, don't tell anyone!) the Oakland Athletics. I thought that the A's were going to curbstomp the Reds. Not only were they lucky, but they weren't even the best team in the National League that year (I liked the Pirates too).

 

But behind Jose Rijo and Billy Hatcher and the Nasty Boys and a bunch of other dudes, the Reds swept the A's. I remember sleeping at my buddy's house during Game One and being in utter shock that the Reds won that one. I must've been a puddle a week later.

 

In any event, it's monumentally stupid to feel this way. Players go and try to win championships because that's what they do. Rarely is it personal. And if it is personal there's probably a good reason. The people who take losing the championship the worst aren't the players, but the fans. Again, that's dumb.

This is a long road to say the Reds are kinda cool. A few years ago I went to their new ballpark and it was hot as balls, but really nice. The fans around us were cool, there were plenty of places to get suds and it was a good take. I think I know two or three Reds fans and they're nice too. We obviously don't agree on Pete Rose, but that's okay, if I loved the Reds, I doubt that I'd be rational too.

 

MLB bathes itself in tradition, when it wants too. But when that tradition comes into contact with making money, MLB tosses that old timey shit out the window. For decades, the Reds used to be the first game of the season. They'd have a parade, play about an hour earlier than the other games and it was a thing.

It's not a thing any more and MLB is constantly and consistently moving away from those little things that made the sport great and unique. I've referred to it as "baseball weirdness" and MLB seems to think that people like it when that baseball weirdness is sanded down and streamlined.

 

I wish that the Reds still had the first baseball game of the season and I also wish that the Reds would be good again. Their owner, like most owners, is a major problem. He's antagonized the fan base, he's cut the payroll to nil and he just doesn't give a shit anymore.

 

I'd like them to be good because this city has supported this team since 1869 and they deserve a good team. And more kids need to hate this team when they beat their favorite team in the World Series.

If you know the dude, please tell their shithead owner that good teams bring in more money. Also tell him that this team deserves to be kicking off the season every year like they used to. And tell him to bring back this psychotic looking logo below. Or you know what? just tell him to sell the fucking team already and go live on an island.

 

22.

My entry on the Cubs begins with a deep confession and ends with a commentary on who deserves what.

BTW this Cubs logo slaps.

 

Is slaps still something that the kids say? Why the hell am I asking you this question, you're still on Facebook.

 

 

We are 22 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Shadoe Stevens style, my favorite baseball teams. 

 

We're all friends here. And friends can be honest with each other, right? I have a confession to make. It's been gnawing at my soul for sometime now and I feel I need to get it off my chest.

 

Here goes.

 

I didn't want the Cubs to win the 2016 World Series. In fact, I was more than a little bummed out that Cleveland lost.

 

I know. I know. I'm a worse person than if Hitler and bin Laden had a baby. But I never bought into the whole, if you don't live in St. Louis, the Cubs should be your second favorite team because they're lovable losers thing. I don't know, is that a thing? Because I feel that it is.

 

The Cubs seemed to be that team that everyone always pulled for them to win. They had a cute name! They had an even cuter nickname: the Cubbies! They played in Chicago! They had fun fans! They had a fantastic announcer! Their games were during the day and they were at Wrigley Field! They lost with panache! Their fans weren't always whining about curses and how because they lost god doesn't love them (looks in mirror, wipes tears).

 

They were just a fun, flukey franchise that brought the joy of baseball where ever they roamed.

But I still wanted them to lose. Not horribly or anything. Not in a gruesome, knife twisting, Dante's Infereno-esque sort of turmoil that would reduce the Windy City to a pile of nuclear radiated ashes. But I just wanted Cleveland to win that Series.

 

Up until that point, that city hadn't won shit. The Browns left and something resembling that franchise came back to town via Stephen King's Pet Semetery. The Cavs got their heart ripped out of their chests when LeBron took his talents to Miami. The Barons never got off the ground. And the Guardians (nee Indians) had been punched in the proverbial nuts dozens and dozens of times.

 

Chicago? The Bears won the 85 Super Bowl. The White Sox won the 2005 World Series. The Black Hawks were in the midst of a dynastic run that would see them win three Stanley Cups. Do I have to mention the Bulls? Six titles in eight years. Seeing the absolute GOAT play every night for more than 15 years. Now you want the Cubs to win?

 

Come on, guys. I know it was 108 years but look at the success of your other teams. Cleveland should have gotten this one. It was nice, I suppose. I wasn't furious that the Cubs won but it was like adding one more gold coin to a city that has a ton of riches.

 

Though I will say watching the Cubs crash back to Earth wasn't fun either. I thought that they were going to be a dynasty and that they'd dominate the sport for years. Very strange that it didn't happen. Sorta reminds me of that 85 Bears team that I mentioned. Weird.

21.

I wish that the Cards would use this logo. Three colors. Boom. That's all that's needed.

 

Speaking of all that's needed, get thee to a grocery store post haste to purchase the sundries needed for the Real National Hot Dog Day. You don't want your bun to be without a wiener!

 

 

We are 21 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Shadoe Stevens style, my favorite baseball teams.

 

At appears our tour through the National League Central is stopping in beautiful St. Louis, home of the Cardinals AND THE GREATEST BASEBALL FANS IN THE WORLD!!!!

 

Or at least that's what everyone tells us.

 

Whenever any sports media person says or writes something like that, it's what's known in professional wrestling parlance as, "cheap heat". You flatter the home crowd by speaking directly to their vanities.

 

"Oh, these Cardinals fans are so into the game, I saw a bunch of people scoring the game, Bob!"

 

"The St. Louisians are real baseball fans, they watch every single pitch from beginning to end. No one's looking at their phone here, Bob!"

 

"The Cardinal faithful are some of the smartest baseball fans in the country. You don't have to explain the double switch to them, Bob!"

 

Two things:

1. I don't know who Bob is, he's just some made up play-by-play man that the color guy is mindlessly prattling on to.

 

2. This cheap heat is used pretty much everywhere, so I'm not trying to drag the fine folks of St. Louis.

Buuuuuttttttt, the yokels of St. Louis really tend to thing that this is some badge of honor and that they are different from other fan bases. It's obviously not true, but they think so. It's a bit annoying.

 

Kinda like the Cardinals in a lot of ways. I don't dislike the Cards per se, but I'm a bit sick of seeing them in the post season year after year after year after year. Let someone else win the NL Central, my dudes. Suck for a few years so we can actually miss you.

 

That's the amazing thing about the Cardinals they may have gone 23 seasons without a title (1983-2006) but they never truly bottomed out for a long time. They've always been consistently pretty good. They've always had stars and watchable teams, they're a really good franchise.

 

They're like a baseball metronome.

 

The one thing that I have to give the Cards is that they change it up every few years, in the 80s they were all about speed and defense. Watching those teams in comparison to the station-to-station Red Sox back then was like watching a team from Venus come down in play. They were exciting and scary.

 

In the 90s they went all power, all the time with McGwire and company. They didn't win anything, but again, they were a fun ass team to watch.

 

Since the dawn of the 00s, they've been a more balanced team. They're definitely not as speedy as they were on the turf of old Busch Stadium, but the could run a bit, hit for a lot of power, had superb defense and could pitch too.

 

It's amazing to me that the Red Sox swept them in 2004, because that was one STACKED team and no one ever mentions it. In fairness because the Sox had just completed the greatest comeback in sports history, but that Cardinals team could've been the fly in the ointment. Look at that roster sometime, they were damn good.

 
20. 

Did I make a mistake and put the Reds too low and the Mets too high? Probably. But the Mets are spending money and that's a good thing.

 

BTW, have three of the four teams that the Sox lost World Series to pretty close to one another is on-brand for your pal Byron. I guess I carry a grudge even when I say I don't.

 

 

We are 20 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Shadoe Stevens style, my favorite baseball teams.

 

"Meet the Mets! Meet the Mets!

Step right up and greet the Mets!"

 

I like that song because it's corny and goofy and funny, just like the Mets. Aside from the mid 80s, the Mets have always been the franchise that all little siblings can relate to. Once in awhile they excel and do something great, but most of the time they're going to fall on their collective asses.

 

A real Icarus of a baseball team, a real LOLMets situation.

 

But it took me a long time to get there with regards to New York's National League franchise. I came of baseball age in that sliver of Mets history when there was no badder (and I mean the Michael Jackson version of the word) team in all of baseball than the Mets. From Gooden to Strawberry to Hernandez to Carter to Dykstra to Wilson, these guys weren't just good.

 

They were take-two-of-three from every team and burn that city to the ground in their wake. They were baseball playing Vikings. Land bound pirates (not the Pittsburgh variety). Vandals that stormed the city, spat tobacco in your eye and laughed when you got angry. They won, drank, snorted and fucked their way through the mid 80s.

 

Not only that but they were fun to hate. Those mid 80s Mets seemingly got into more bench clearing brawls than any other team. Their swagger was thick and other teams wanted to knock it down their 

throats.

 

It's amazing (HA PUN!) that the Mets didn't go (much less win) more than World Series during this time, but like I said they drank, snorted and fucked their ways through their prime. Gun to their collective heads, I'm not sure whether they'd say it wasn't worth it.

 

Once the Mets "dynasty" collapsed, they returned to their historical Metsy ways. They had good teams. They had bad teams. They had teams that grabbed the attention of New York for a bit, they had other teams that were easy to ignore. But eventually they settled back into their plucky upstart team and that's where I like them.

 

They look really good this year, especially with new owner Steve Cohen breaking necks (of his fellow owners) and writing checks (to just about everyone coordinated enough to play ball). So they could be good this year. And if they got to the Series, depending on who they play, I could see myself rooting for my new favorite baseball squadron the NY Mets, just like Apu.

 

It's weird to type that. In high school one of my best friends loved the Mets and it used to make me sick. Today we'd say he was trolling because walking around New England in a Mets Starter jacket in 1988 was a "conversation starter".

 

If you told me then that I'd be writing a Facebook post saying that I'd be a Mets fan under certain circumstances and letting everyone I know know about it, I'm sure I'd say, "What the fuck is Facebook?" Then "Why do my friends give a shit about that?" Then "It's on a computer? Am I nerd in the future?" 

 

"We're all nerds in the future and people like being called that?"

 

Eventually I'd ask "Why would I root for the Mets? Those guys are a bunch of assholes." Which maybe that's true, Byron from the past, but they're a lot better than a bunch of other assholes you've already written about.

 

Since I seem to be doing this now, the blue and orange colors of the Mets logo are really cool. They're complementary so their natural repulsion makes for a very vibrant feel. Also this logo is goofy and I love it, all of New York in a baseball. Plus they have cool uniforms (without the black drop shadows) and Mr. Met is a Tier 1 mascot. How could you not love the Mets' whole vibe? The answer is you can't.

 

19.

Get up! (Everybody's gonna move their feet!)

Get down! (Everybody's gonna leave their seat!)

You gotta lose your mind in DETROIT! Hot Dog City!

 

Spend a few moments with my 19th favorite baseball team and then go get some hot dogs for the Real National Hot Dog Day.

 

 

 

We are lucky 19 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Dick Clark style, my favorite baseball teams.

 

I thought that the Tigers were a bit better than what they are. I'm not talking last year, I mean franchisewise. They've been around since 1901 and they've won 11 pennants and have only won four World Series.

 

For a team with a ton of Hall of Famers (27! And that's not including eventual HoFers Cabrera, Verlander and Scherzer, dudes who will be knocking on the door like Whittaker and Darrel Evans), they haven't won a lot. I wonder why that's so?

 

But at the same time, aside from a few years here and there, the Motor City Kitties (I enjoy that nickname) haven't been all that bad either. They're just a middling baseball club that wins some and then loses some.

When I was younger, the Tigs were excellent -- my first non-Red Sox baseball memory is the 1984 World Series between Detroit and San Diego. I don't remember much but I recall the brown, yellow and orange uniforms of the Padres and the all-encompassing blue of Tiger Stadium mixed in with the crisp whites and dark blues of the home team.

 

Other than that, it seemed like every Tiger I pulled out of a 1986 Topps pack was photographed in a murky dungeon. I got the feeling that Detroit was the United States' answer to London, at least in terms of weather and these poor dudes spent most of their time playing under a constant dark cloud.

 

It was especially confusing because Magnum himself wore a Tigers cap and he lived in Hawai'i. How could this seemingly dreary team have such a weird real life existence versus their fantasy existence? I thought about that as a kid--I guess I didn't have enough on my mind at the time.

 

I'd like to see the Tigers win more (not at the expense of the Red Sox, of course). I'm not sure why, but it seems like the good people of Detroit love their team and should be rewarded. I guess you could say that about every fan base, but I'm saying it about the Detroit Tigers.

 

I have no real strong feelings on the logo, but a few years ago the Tigers decided that the olde English D on the front of their home jerseys had to match the olde English D on their hats. I'm usually very down with keeping things orderly (the Yankees have three different versions of the interlocking N and Y) but I don't like this type of housecleaning at all. I wish that they'd go back to the different Ds. Or they might get some other Ds.

My Favorite Teams 30-24

Back in March and April of this year I was counting up my favorite baseball teams on Facebook in anticipation of The Real National Hot Dog Day. I thought that it might be a good idea to keep them here for posterity. Here are the first group of teams along with the FB introductions. 

 

30. 

It's that time of the year everyone! The Real National Hot Dog Day will be here in a month! Get your collective asses ready.

 

We are 30 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Casey Kasem style, my favorite baseball teams.

 

We begin at the bottom with a surprising entry at number 30, the Tampa Bay Rays. You might think that I hate (and this is sports hate people, not the real thing) another team even more, but you're wrong. I hate everything about the Rays.

 

I hate:

- Their players. If a team could have 25 middle relievers, the Rays would do so. Everyone (except Wander) is bland as hell.

- Their front office.

- Their front office's philosophy.

- That they made the shift "cool".

- That they made openers "cool".

- Their hats. Have you ever seen anyone wearing a Rays hat? Ever?

- Their boring-ass uniforms.

- Their stupid logo. It looks like it's for a Chili's rip off bar anchoring a dead-ass strip mall where you get watered-down margaritas and microwaved jalapeno poppers.

- That they were bullied by Christian fundamentalists to remove the word "Devil" from their name because it was "Satanic". (True story!)

- Their park. Every game here is like watching paint dry. Though my friend Ryan Foley said it "wasn't too bad", which is a five-star ringing endorsement for this shit hole.

- The weird rules of their park. And dude, I love weird baseball. But fuck this place.

- Their lack of fans. Most of them are Yankee fans, let's be honest.

- How all of their fans constantly cry about getting to the park on game day. Like going to any of the other 29 stadia on game days are a breeze.

- How they're not in Montreal.

 

29.

The Evil Empire? Not any more, amigo. They're just another team.

We are 29 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Casey Kasem style, my favorite baseball teams.

 

It's a bit of a shock that this team wasn't number 30, but guess what, here's another thing that this team hasn't won. Coming in at 29 is the New York Yankees.

 

Truthfully, if this countdown was done 20 years ago, they'd be number 30 with a bullet. But one World Series since 2001 will cool the fires of hate (the embers are always there), plus there isn't as many current Yankee bad guys as many. There's no Reggie or Thurman or Billy or Nettles or Goose or Posada or Giambi or Sheffield or Jeter or O'Neil or Pettitte or Kevin Brown or Steinbrenner or Zimmer to really focus your hatred on.

 

I mean are you going to hate Aaron Judge? Or Giancarlo Stanton? Gerrit Cole seems like a douche, but I mean, so what. He's not that detestable, at least not yet. Brett Gardner was always a shithead, but he'd probably be a fourth outfielder on a really good Yankee, he's sort of like hating Ricky Ledee.

 

The reality is that the Yankees became what I wanted them to become the most: just another team.

While the rivalry of the early 00s was a lot of fun, it was also exhausting to listen Boston sportswriters breathlessly inform us that the latest Yankee signing was going to destroy the Sox (it rarely did) or how the guys in the Bronx have a super prospect on the rise (most of the time no). Now they're one of 30 and no special attention is needed.

 

They'll find their way to the playoffs every year, probably win a round (especially if the Twins or the A's are involved) and then get blown out by the Astros or even the Sox (when they decide it's worth it to be in contention).

 

To be honest, I can live with this new reality. I think that we all can.  

 

28. 

The Diamondbacks are just fine. Only 28 more days until the Real National Hot Dog Day!

 

 

 

We are 28 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Casey Kasem style, my favorite baseball teams. 

 

I don't hate too many baseball teams and I don't love too many baseball teams, but I'm indifferent to a lot of them. It's a sliding scale where I might root for a team one spot above the other, but that doesn't mean I like that team much better.

 

Beginning the league of indifference is the Arizona Diamondbacks. I don't dislike the D'backs, but if any subsequent teams played them in a postseason game, chances are I'd root for them. However, that could change if the D'backs get a transcendent player or if they employ someone who it would be cool if they won the World Series (like the Astros last year).

 

Otherwise they're an uninspiring team. They have a long ass name, so they have to put their nickname of their uniforms, which sorta bugs me for some reason. I should like their original colors of purple, teal and copper because it was a unique look but I don't. Having said that, I'm not wild about their red, black and tan colors either. Though their hat that has a snake shaped like a "D" is pretty inspired.

 

Aside from the 2001 World Series, they haven't been anything that really captured the sport's zeitgeist. Though to be fair, the 2001 Series was pretty god damn epic for a lot of reasons.

 

They just seem to exist in the desert and around to get their asses kicked by the western team du jour (mostly the Dodgers) and just play uninspired baseball. Back in the day, I'd write out an MLB season preview and I forgot to include Arizona one year. I think about that a bunch when I think of this team. 

 

The Diamondbacks are just there as ballast.

 

27. 

While you're waiting the 27 days until the Real National Hot Dog Day, why don't you check out what I have to say about the Rockies -- a team that may or may not exist. 

 

Also, if you don't follow The Real National Hot Dog Day, what are you doing with your life? Give it a follow and learn all about the bunny goodness that is TRNHDD. Your mouth will thank you for it!

 

 

We are 27 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Casey Kasem style, my favorite baseball teams. 

 

The past three times it has grown, baseball expanded in a pair of teams (which makes sense). Mariners and Blue Jays in 1977, Diamondbacks and Devil Rays in 1999 and wedged between those two expansions were the Marlins and Rockies in 1993.

 

What I felt that this meant is that you become a fan of either one of the other: I liked the M's, I eventually warmed up to the Jays. I thought a lot about liking the D-Backs, but as we saw with yesterday's post that didn't happen and I've always disliked the Rays.

 

I thought that I was really going to appreciate the Rockies, despite the fact that they ripped off the old Colorado NHL franchise's name. But there was a lot of history of baseball in the Mile High City, they were going to play in a place where a ton of homers were going to be hit and it was going to be fun.

It's been 30 years and aside from one World Series appearance against the Red Sox (where they were destroyed an ultimately lost on the exact day my eldest was born), the Rockies have been a pretty lame ass team.

 

The team's owner, Dick Monfort, sucks and consequently, the front office is pretty clueless. There always seems to be a rebuild going on, the team's philosophy changes on a whim and for such a beautiful ballpark (honestly, top five for me) there's not a lot of excitement there.

 

It's like their whole motto is, "We understand you need a team in Dever and we're that team!"

 

The Rox were fun in the 90s when they didn't have a humidor to squelch the number of homers hit in their park and they loaded the lineup with aging sluggers who mashed their way throughout the season. I guess they got sick of losing 11-10 every game, so they tried to find some pitchers, but that didn't work out but they also jettisoned their power threats and now they're just a team with some decent hitting and below average pitching.

 

I get that most GMs will say that "We want a balanced team mainly because we don't play all 162 games in Colorado." But is it entertaining? If you're a Rockie fan, wouldn't you much rather watch a bunch of steroid addled lumberjacks hit tape measure dingers and lose a little more than you win than watch what the Rockies have become now?

 

I know what I'd choose, but hey, the Rockies are my 27th favorite team and I don't really have a dog in this fight.

 

26.

A few words on the Texas Rangers.

 

 

We are 26 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Casey Kasem style, my favorite baseball teams. 

 

If Tuesday was a baseball team, it would be the Texas Rangers.

 

The Texas Rangers are just there. Even when they get superstars (and they've had their share over the years -- Ted Williams was the first Rangers manager ever), they never seem to grasp the spotlight.

Aside from Nolan Ryan, I suppose. But he retired 30 years ago. The Rangers have had some really good team chock full of really good players since then but they're somehow terrific and anonymous. I know that people say that teams like the Pirates or the Reds are baseball's version of Siberia, but it's Arlington, Texas.

 

If you're a Ranger, nothing you do seems to matter much.

 

This might be my own biases talking, but childhood is where you start putting stuff together and it leaves a mark that lasts a long time. Whenever I'd get a Texas Ranger in a pack of baseball cards, he always looked the same: longish hair under a washed out blue hat with a white "T", droopy mustache, kinda looked like a cowboy--but one that had been dragged by a horse for a few miles. The pics always showed a man that appeared to be hot and uncomfortable--no matter where the picture was taken--like he had been running sprints in the Texas heat for an hour before the photographer nabbed his shot.

 

And when I watched the Sox play games there it was always sunny, but it was that unbearable sunshine: too bright, too hot, it made you feel sluggish; like the last thing you wanted to do was hit a ball or throw it. Boston always wilted there, which might be the cause of my dislike, but by August, the Rangers would inevitably get worn down too. But by then it was football season and no one cared about the Rangers.

The idea that Rangers getting to back-to-back World Series will never not shock me. For my entire life, they were also rans, a group of players who were assembled to play pretty well in the spring, break down in the summer and limp off to obscurity in the fall.

 

I don't hate the Rangers, but even with their success, I kinda think that they're just nothing. 

 

25.

Know a Marlins fan? Neither do I.

 

Know a Real National Hot Dog Day fan? I'm sure you do. As we count down to TRNHDD, peruse this essay on baseball, fun and the elimination of fun told through the prism of the Miami Marlins.

  

We are 25 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Shadoe Stevens style, my favorite baseball teams. 

 

Every time the Miami Marlins do something interesting, they get cold feet and reverse course. Baseball is an exciting game, but unlike hockey or hoops, it's not a constantly exciting game. There's a lot of down time and during those periods, people at the stadium need to be entertained.

 

This is not a new, "stupid kids and their Tik Toks!", thing. The Lords of Baseball have known this since Cracker was introduced to Jack. It's why there are beer vendors in the stands and seventh inning stretches and exploding scoreboards and fly overs and kiss cams and grounds crews doing the YMCA. You are not less of a baseball fan if you want a little entertainment outside of the game.

 

When the Marlins put one over on the city and county that they play in and got them to pay for their new park, they added this loud, ostentatious statue that would move when one of the Marlins hit a home run. It was bright and colorful and reflected the most vibrant city in MLB--it was quintessential Miami--and it was beautiful.

 

So when the Marlins named the most boring milquetoast superstar to ever lace up his cleats as their team President, one of Derek Jeter's first actions was to take the statue down. Why? I'm sure he mumbled something about unwritten rules, playing the game the right way, this is a Major League franchise and about 100 other cliches. The bottom line is the statue was gone and now the stadium is as dull as the last 20 Marlins team.

 

Good work, Captain Jeter, the team is now as soulless and mundane as you.

 

In 1996 former owner Wayne Huizenga (and Blockbuster maven) was getting ready to sell the team but he wanted to go out a winner. He signed and traded for every really good baseball player, won the World Series and immediately had it dismantled. He sold the team to John Henry who baby sat the franchise for a few years until selling it to Jeffrey Loria--it was more complicated than this.

 

Loria won the World Series in 2003 and then also started to dismantle the team. And they've stayed dismantled since then. The one interesting thing about this malaise is that the Marlins were the only team to ever win the World Series every time they made the playoffs. What a weird stat, right?

 

Of course, a former Yankee had to help ruin that. In the Covid shortened season of 2020, just about everyone made the playoffs and that included Don Mattingly's Miami squad! They weren't very good and were bounced in the first round, so that's another weird wrinkle ironed out by a former New Yorker.

 

I guess this is just a long winded way of saying, the Marlins can be fun, but they're not going to be fun for too long. So whether it's a dope ass statue, a weird playoff streak, using teal as your primary color or your favorite Marlin, don't get used to it. It's probably on its way out the door very soon.

 

24.

Remember the Barbie Twins from the 90s? This post isn't about them.

#24 on the countdown: The Minnesota (not the Barbie) Twins.

 

   

We are 24 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Shadoe Stevens style, my favorite baseball teams. 

 

I definitely don't hate the Minnesota Twins. In fact, when they were one of the two teams that were going to be folded back in the early 00s (and how fucked up was that, seriously?), I was really bummed out that a team that had been around since 1901 was going to go away due to owner greed (it's always owner greed, forever and ever).

 

But at the same time, I don't think that I actually like the Twins. Back in the day, I was a big Kirby Puckett fan, like Kent Hrbek, Gary Gaetti, Jeff Reardon, Frank Viola, Bert Blylven. In subsequent years I liked watching Joe Mauer play, Johan Santana pitch, Torii Hunter and Byron Buxton (what an awesome first name) make amazing plays.

 

Even the idea of Minnesota having a baseball team way up in the northern part of the country is appealing to me. I am looking forward to visiting Target Field one day.

 

Having said all that, I don't think that I've ever actively rooted for Minnesota. In the 1987 World Series, I wanted the Cards to win. In the 1991 World Series, I wanted the Braves to win. I wasn't devastated that the Twins won, but I would have preferred it if the other walked off the field with the trophy*.

 

* Especially in 1991. I'm a big Hall of Fame guy, but I was never aboard the Jack Morris for the Hall of Fame train. I thought that Morris was fine and never really dominant. If Lonnie Smith didn't get deked out and scores, maybe the Braves win and Morris' Game 7 performance doesn't go down in history. IDK. All I know is that Morris owes a percentage of any revenue he gets from being a Hall of Famer to Smith, second baseman Chuck Knoblauch (for doing the faking) and Puckett for single-handedly getting Minnesota to Game 7 in the first place.

 

The only time that I really have rooted for the Twins (fun fact, since 1987 the Twins have had an underscore line on all of their home shirts so that it reads tWINs, also the logo [Minny and Paul] with this post rocks though, I love it) is when they play the Yankees. This is an absolutely Sisyphian chore as since 2002, the Twins are 39-111 (.243) against the Bombers.

 

That's insane to me. How bad is that? It's comical at this point. Why bother scheduling the Yankees at all?

 

Another thing that leads to my Minnesota malaise, the Twins also share Ft. Myers so the Red Sox play them a ton in Spring Training -- so much so that there is a Mayor's Cup where the winner of the Spring series gets to show off that they're the best in Ft. Myers. I have no idea who is leading, but it's a lot of Twins games in March.

Boston Red Sox Leaders 1989 Topps

 

Sometime in the last two or three months, I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

 

 

 

 

Back in the day baseball cards were just pieces of cardboard that had pictures of your favorite baseball players on them. They weren’t worth much more than the paper that they were printed on. I mean you wanted some players more than you wanted others, I’d take a Willie Mays over a Walt Droppo any day, but aside from the playground, no one over ten gave a shit about cards.

 

In the 70s and especially the 80s, that changed. Boomers aged and as this generation is wont to do, began fantasizing and fetishizing their childhood*. They’d do anything to bring them back to that garden, even for a fraction of a second. They thought that their key back were their old baseball cards. 

 

* I understand the irony of me calling out one generation’s nostalgia while spilling an ocean of ink on my own.

 

Thousands of Boomer boys made their way back to their homes to find out that Mom (it was ALWAYS Mom, low-key misogyny) threw away their precious cards when they were shipped to Vietnam or when they went to college or when they skipped off to Canada until the mid 70s. Anyway once they found out that their garden keys were thrown away, they had to what any group of people with access to disposable income would do: they bought it back. At any cost.

 

Suddenly a lot of people over ten-years-old started to give a very big shit about baseball cards. Man children were spending small fortunes trying to rebuild their collections, which got the few baseball card dealers in the country crazy rich. “Oh? This 1952 Mickey Mantle rookie? It’s $10,000. Yup. Very valuable. Can't possibly ever find another one like this one!” And those whose Mom didn’t chuck their collection sold whatever they could and bought an ugly-ass Porsche and a small mountain of cocaine—it was the 80s after all.

 

Seemingly overnight baseball cards turned into a very profitable way to make money. The next generation of kids (like me) who loved baseball not only bought cards because we wanted to know more about our heroes, but we were fixing to get rich like our uncles and Dads. It wasn't just card collectors that got the bug, the whole hobby caught on and the major card manufacturers (Topps, Fleer, Donruss and Score) flooded the market due to the demand. 

 

And rookie cards were the crème de la crème.Those are the ones that you needed.

 

But kids aren’t economists and didn’t understand simple economics: the more of a supply, the less of a demand. So your 1986 Donruss Jose Canseco Rated Rookie? Junk. Your 1985 Topps Roger Clemens? Nada. How about your 1983 Fleer Tony Gwynn? Maybe $10. if you found the right person. There was just too many cards and everyone was holding on to them. Bart Simpson had it right when he said that Generation X needed “another Vietnam to thin out their ranks”, at least in terms of baseball cards because maybe some Moms would chuck all the cards in the trash.

 

No, our cards never turned into gold. I’m not selling my 1987 Topps Ruben Sierra rookie to send my kid to college. My 1985 Topps Cory Synder Olympic card was used as a down payment for my house. And I never turned my 1987 Mark McGwire Rated Rookie into a Porsche. They’re just cardboard pictures of dudes that were once really fucking great at baseball. 

 

* The only 1980s card that this hasn't happened is the 1989 Ken Griffey Jr. Upper Deck rookie. I mean, if you have one it's not going to push you to a higher tax bracket, but if you sold it, I bet you could take a family of four to McDonald's no problem.

 

What does this have to do with the card above? It shows Jody Reed about to swing at a ball at the Oakland Alameda Country Colosseum with A’s catcher Terry Steinbach behind the dish. Are either of these guys rookies? Nope. And that's sorta the point. 

 

The Leader Cards were originally some of my favorite cards when I first started out collecting. It was a great opportunity to get another photo of your hero* and not only that but it will tell you who was good on that team. 

 

* The 1986 Boston Red Sox Leaders card had a cool shot of Dwight Evans and that year, the person on front of the cards were "Deans of the Team" meaning that those guys were on the team the longest. I thought that was cool as hell for some reason. 

 

The ”leader” part of the Leaders card meant that Topps would list the players who lead the team in about 15 different pitching and hitting categories. So if you weren’t familiar with the Mariners, you could look on the back of the Seattle Leaders card and see that Alvin Davis lead the team in batting average, hits and doubles. And Mark Langston lead the squad in wins and strikeouts. Maybe these are two guys that you should pay attention to when you get them in packs. Maybe they’re both actually pretty good.

 

Once I started really getting into baseball, the Leader cards were kind of superfluous. I knew who lead the Mariners in batting average last year. I know who lead Seattle in wins and guess what, he might have been good for that dogshit Mariners team but in context, he sucked. I was mad that a Leader card took the place of a rookie card. We could have gotten 26 more rookies instead of those stupid cards. That’s 26 more chances to strike it rich!

 

So that’s where I stood in 1990 when I stopped collecting cards: Leader cards were dumb and cost me money. I think that most of the hobby felt the same way because Leader cards eventually disappeared without industry protest. This is the part of the blog where I write about how we may have lost a little something when Topps—they were the only company that printed Leader cards—discontinued these pieces of cardboard. Like maybe we gave up a little bit of the love of the game in pursuit of the almighty dollar in searching for the next rookie.

 

But I’m not sure that’s 100% correct. Leader cards were fine for what they were, they were useful training wheels when it came to understanding baseball and finding out about some decent players. All of that stuff is, and was, available pretty readily. It was a nice little gimmick, but it’s okay that it was put out to pasture.

 

Just because you really enjoyed and needed something when you were younger doesn’t mean that you need it the same way now.Thank you Leader cards for helping me understand baseball a bit better, but your service is no longer needed.

Daryl Irvine 1992 Fleer

Sometime in the last two or three months, I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

 

 

 

I don’t recall anything about Daryl Irvine’s days in Boston. According to the back of this card, Daryl was “one of the top closers in the minor leagues [and] will try to graduate to the big leagues in 1992.” He played three years in the Bigs (1990, 1991 and 1992) and was the exact opposite of what you want in a closer.

 

In 63.1 career innings, Irvine gave up 71 hits, 33 walks and only struck out 27 batters. Not surprisingly, his ERA was astronomical: 5.68; so not only did he put runners on base, but he let them score too. No matter how good he was in the minors—not good, actually he pretty much had the same kind of issues down there—he wasn’t going to close for anyone unless he missed some bats.

 

When I wrote about Dana Kiecker a few weeks back, we talked about that 1990 team and Irvine was a part of that team, he pitched in 11 games. But the other two years he pitched, the Red Sox weren’t great. They had their moments in 1991, but in 92 the Red Sox were so bad. Tom Brunansky led the team with 15 home runs. Bob Zupcic led the team in batting average: .276, over Wade Boggs who managed to hit .259!

 

The team finished with 73 wins, but if you look at their roster, they should have been able to put something together: Boggs, Mo Vaughn, JodyReed, Tony Pena, John Valentin, Ellis Burks, Mike Greenwell (the latter two were apparently hurt) plus Brunansky. Add in older dudes like Billy Hatcher, Jack Clark plus young kids like Phil Plantier, Scott Cooper and Tim Naehring and I mean, they could have been league average or better, if they hit.

 

The pitching was kind of a mess with solid years from RogerClemens and Frank Viola heading the rotation and Jeff Reardon closing, but everything after that was a complete disaster. Plus they had Butch Hobson managing, who was clearly way, way over his head.

 

Fun fact: 1992 was the only year since 1986 that I haven’t seen a game live at Fenway. I’m not sure why, but I decided to sit this year out; which is odd because I’ve seen some really shitty Red Sox teams play baseball. I wish that I saw the Sox play at least one game that season because it’s easier to say, “I’ve been to Fenway for 37 straight years” instead of “I’ve been to Fenway for 37 straight years, except for 1992. So I guess I’ve only been to the park for 30 straight years.”

 

That’s right, if I had a time machine, I wouldn’t go back and kill baby Hitler; I’d go back and watch the 1992 Red Sox in Fenway Park so that uninteresting personal anecdotes would be easier for me to relay.

 

Anyway Boston was apparently unimpressed with righthander and Irvine was sent to the Pittsburgh Pirates after the 1992 season. This was year one of the Pirates annual depths-of-the-division league tour that they’ve been perpetually on since Barry Bonds took his talents to San Francisco. Andy Van Slyke was still there, as was Jay Bell and Jeff King but other than future Red Sox Tim Wakefield and Stan Belinda, the staff was a complete and total disaster. Irvine should have been used to the chaos.

 

Ultimately it didn’t matter as Irvine was never able to put his chaotic team experience to good use as he never got a call up to Pittsburgh. Through the very perfunctory research that I’ve done, I can’t tell when he retired, but I bet it was pretty soon after that. According to Wikipedia, he lives in Harrisonburg, VA.

 

What does Daryl Irvine do all day? I’m not sure, but the way that his baseball career went, I’d be surprised if he thought about his days in the Major Leagues. I prefer to think about how he was drafted by the Red Sox three times over a couple of drafts—I guess the Sox liked him very much at one point. He probably thinks of his dominance in high school and college and how at one point everyone he knew wanted to be Daryl Irvine.

 

I think that’s what I’d think about as I’m relaxing on my porch in Harrisonburg, VA. I wouldn’t be thinking about the boring-ass drive from Pawtucket to Boston, sitting around in a cramped, sweaty bullpen waiting to get my brains beat in. That’s for god damn sure.

 

Maybe I’d show some neighborhood kids my baseball card if they asked, but I’d say, “that was a long time ago” and dramatically stare off into the distance. That wistful drama is almost cooler than having a lot of success at the Major League level. 

 

Almost. 

Ed Romero 1988 Fleer

Sometime in the last two or three months, I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB). By the way, this is a great look at the 75th anniversary patch of Fenway Park  that the Sox wore in 1987:

 

 

 

Even when I was a kid, I knew that not everyone on a baseball team was drafted and brought up through the minor leagues by the team that they now played on. There were agencies to improve teams, like free agent signings and trades.

 

Trades were always the cooler of the two options, any moron could splash a pile of money in front of a guy and say, “Play for us, you disgusting Hessian here’s your filthy lucre.” And nine times out of ten, that player would take the cash. BTW, there is no judgement or shame in the preceding sentences, every single one of us would (and do) the same things every day in our lives.

 

Who doesn’t want to get paid?

 

But trades were a gentlemanly pursuit of excellence, a General Manager needed a bit more deft and cunning to outsmart his cohort. The ability to watch a team other than your own and say, “That chap there looks like he can certainly help our outfit!” and then contact his employer with a proposal to bring him to your team—without sacrificing too much—that takes the steady nerve of riverboat gambler.

 

The ability to really want something, let someone know you really want something and then not give everything you own to have that something—often in a time of extreme need—is a skill that most people don’t possess. If you’ve played cards with me before, you already know that I don’t have it.

 

This is a long road to saying that former Red Sox infielder Ed Romero was one of the first players that I remember seeing in the day’s current set of baseball cards (not this one) pictured for his old team while watching him on TV with his new team. I was well aware that the Red Sox got Don Baylor from the Yankees for Mike Easler in a seldom-seen swap between the two franchises Also add in that it was one-for-one position-for-position trade and this was a landmark deal that weighed heavily for Boston.

 

But Ed Romero? When did we get him? (December 11, 1985) Who did we give up to get him? (Workhorse, but oft maligned, reliever Mark “Big Foot” Clear – I have no idea why they called him that) What is he going to do for us, we already have Marty Barrett and Glen Hoffman plus future shortstop Rey Quinones is rocketing through the minors? Why do we need him? (Because Quinones flopped, Hoffman wasn’t much better when he wasn’t hurt and you need backup infielders because players get tired; though Manager John McNamara might not agree with that last statement)

 

Romero came over to the Sox from the Milwaukee Brewers, the only franchise he had ever known, and was kinda not great for his three-and-a-half years with the team. His totals were .236/.287/.280 with two home runs and two stolen bases (and four caught stealings). For a guy that played 12 years in the bigs (no small feat) but couldn’t really hit (.247/.298/.302) or run, Romero must’ve been a really good glove man.

 

I have no recollection of that. But I mean, he must’ve been. Why would you keep Ed Romero around for more than a decade if he couldn’t do at least one thing well? So let’s assume that he was a versatile (he played every defensive position—including DH!—except pitcher and catcher, according to Wikipedia) glove first ball player.

 

He played on two World Series teams, 1982 with the Brewers (he didn’t play in the Series) and 1986 with the Sox, and lost both of them. I wonder if he thinks about that a lot? I mean it’s cool to say that you were in the World Series, and doubly cool to say that you were in two World Series but the next questions are always: how did your teams do? We lost both. How did you do? I got one at bat in one game and didn’t get a hit.

 

Maybe it’s not something he brings up too often while at dinner parties.

 

The one thing that I remember most about Romero was the Gatorade bucket incident. I didn’t recall all of the particulars, but the Athletic did. Apparently the Sox were playing the Yanks in June 1989 and were getting beat 7-2. All of a sudden things started clicking for the good guys and the score was tied. Romero came to the dish with the winning run on first, facing Dale Mohorcic.

 

The right-handed Mohorcic started the right-handed hitter off with three straight balls when Yankees manager Dallas Green felt like he had seen enough. He summoned another right hander, Scott Nielsen, to try and get the dangerous Romero out. At this point Red Sox Manager Joe Morgan decided it was time to put his genius into action and sent up the left-handed Rich Gedman (who was probably hitting as bad or worse than Romero at the time) to win the ball game!

 

I mean, this is a move straight from Monty Burns. It’s called playing the percentages! It always works—just like telling Daryl Strawberry to hit a homer. Gedman walked, Jody Reed grounded out and the Yankees won after getting a run in the eighth inning.

 

But the big incident was Romero going insane and throwing a Gatorade bucket on the field. He was incensed that Morgan would show him up like that. I remember columnists lit into him and whenever TV stations ran sports bloopers, that was always on one of the reels. 

 

From what I've heard Romero, was a pretty mild-mannered guy, so I wonder what his teammates thought? I know that they called him "Gator" for a bit, which must've made Mike Greenwell mad as that was his weirdo nickname. But I think that they had to have sided with him because that was a bullshit move that Morgan pulled. And I bet Morgan would agree. 

 

Morgan, who was interviewed for the Athletic piece, said that he understood why Romero would react that way but that he (Morgan) “made crazy move (like that) once in a while”, which would’ve have driven today’s baseball fans insane. Morgan said that Romero paid the $50 fine right after the game and they never spoke about the incident again.

 

I recall that Romero was released like a week later, but it was a little longer than that. His employment with the Red Sox ended on August 5, 1989. From there he played with the Braves, the Brewers (again) and the Tigers. Finally retiring in 1992.

 

Romero is a baseball lifer and has been bouncing around various leagues with various jobs, I would assume that he’s retired. But you know who’s not? His son, Eddie. Eddie Romero has been in the Red Sox front office since 2006, currently an executive vice president and assistant general manager.

 

Not a bad deal at all.

Dana Kiecker 1991 Fleer

Sometime in the last two or three months, I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

 

I bet that you don’t think about the 1990 Boston Red Sox all too much.

 

You're not alone if you don't, they weren't a particularly memorable team. 

 

I mean, they weren’t a bad team, they won the American League East but got mowed down by the Oakland Athletics in the American League Championship Series 4-0. If you remembered this series or this team at all, this was the one where staff ace Roger Clemens talked shit to home plate umpire Terry Cooney in Game Four in the second inning and got himself tossed. Clemens claimed he was talking to his glove, which what?, and Cooney said he was sure that Clemens was talking to him. Clemens had to be dragged off the field (he went crazy), Manager Joe Morgan was ejected as was second baseman Marty Barrett who was so incensed that he started chucking stuff onto the field.

 

Clemens was wound up pretty tight for his Game 1 rematch against Dave Stewart (who almost always kicked his ass).To pump himself up for the do-or-die game, Clemens applied thick eye black and tied his shoes with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shoe laces*. It was dumb.

* I’m not sure why this last bit of information is stuck in my head, nor do I understand how cartoon turtle shoe lacers makes a pitcher pitch better, but it didn’t work. Clemens got bombed, like he usually did against the A’s, and the Sox were swept.

That year’s Sox team wasn’t an all-timer. In the late 80s/early 90s, most of the talent was in the American League West—the 1991 AL West is the only division where everyone finished at or above .500 (the last place Angels were 81-81 that year). The American League East was sort of like the AL Central this year, someone has to win. The Blue Jays were a year away from making the trade that would add the heart and soul of their mini dynasty (Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar), the Yankees sucked, the Indians were young and terrible, the Brewers were mediocre, the Tigers were old and the Orioles were flat-out bad. Thus the Red Sox were the sacrificial lambs that were slaughtered by the A’s*.

 

In the entire series, the Red Sox scored four runs—literally one per game.

 

* I’ve said it before, but I loved those A’s teams. They had pitching, they had hitting, they had power, they had speed and they had duende. The stars that were on that team were amazing: Canseco, McGwire, Rickey, Hendu, Lansford, Baines, McGee, Eckersley, Stewart, Welch, Steinbach. Thirty-three years later and I’m still shocked that the Cincinnati Reds beat them.

 

You might not remember that team too much but you know who thinks about that 1990 Boston Red Sox team a lot? Dana Kiecker. Drafted by the Sox in 1983, the Sleepy Eye Minnesota (and how about that name for a hometown) native spent seven years languishing in the Boston farm system until he got his shot in 1990.

 

And you know what? He wasn’t too bad. He pitched 152 innings, finished 8-9 with a 3.97 ERA and didn’t walk a ton (54) but didn’t strike out a bunch either (93) though he did give up a ton of hits (145). He was a perfectly cromulent fifth starter on a decent team. He wasn’t someone that you’d build your staff around and he wasn’t someone that you could count on for consistently great performances, but it seems that he could play.

 

Only he really couldn’t. He started for the team in 1991 and was hammered: 18 games, 7.36 ERA, 56 hits in 40 innings with 23 walks and 21 strikeouts. The reason for his awful stats may have been due to a sore elbow, which he spent a majority of the year in Pawtucket rehabbing. His year was dreadful and he was never heard from (Major League wise) again. He signed a minor league deal with Cleveland in 1992 and was invited to spring training with his home state Twins in 1993 before retiring due to elbow soreness.

 

Not surprisingly Kiecker’s high water mark occurred in 1990 when he had the best game of his life. Down one game to none, he pitched really well against the A’s in Game 2 in Boston: (5.2IP, 6H, 1R) and left the game with the score tied 1-1 against A’s starter Bob Welch who won 27 games and took home the Cy Young Award that year. The Sox would eventually lose, but it wasn’t through any fault of his. Greg Harris took the loss as the A’s didn’t slam the Sox but instead bled the Boston bullpen on bloops and singles. Death by a thousand papercuts.

 

The one thing that I recalled reading about Kiecker back in the day (and that Wikipedia reminded me) was that he worked for UPS in the offseason while in the minors. After MLB, he went back to UPS and became an Enterprise Accounts Manager and was the pitching coach at Dakota County Technical College.

 

I wonder how many times he told co-workers that he was a Major Leaguer? Better yet, I wonder how many of those co-workers believed him. Maybe he kept this particular card in his wallet and would show it when that wry smile would show up on that face of someone who didn’t trust his word, “Suuuuuurrree you did Dana. And I used to be a running back for the Minnesota Vikings!”

 

But Kiecker lived the dream. Even if it was only for a short time. For one year he gave it his all and he was about as close as you could get to playing in the World Series. A year in the Major Leagues. Even if the price was being awful and hurt the following year it’s a trade any baseball fan would make in a second.

 

How often do you think about that year though? Every minute of every day? What does it feel like to climb that mountain, make it to the top and then have everything come crashing down? I say that I’d make that trade in a second, but the thoughts of that year must be maddening for the rest of your life.

 

I hope that he found some peace and perspective and is able to say that his job never defined him.