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 fourth group of teams along with the FB introductions.
12.
My 12th favorite team is the Sox. The WHITE Sox. Ha, ha, got you.
Now you should read what I wrote about them. Also get your collective asses ready for the Real National Hot Dog Day because it's coming whether you like it or not: April 3.
We are 12 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Ryan Seacrest style, my favorite baseball teams.
To me, the White Sox were always a strange team. They shared the same city with the Cubs, but they seemed like the anti-Cubs. They played in a run-down old park (which in retrospect was pretty cool) with obnoxiously bright yellow bars dividing the seating sections compared to Wrigley's classic brick facade.
They played mostly at night, the Cubs played during the day. The White Sox were in the western division of the American League while the Cubs were in the NL East. The Cubs wore the same home uniforms since the 30s, while the White Sox seemingly had new unis every other year.
The two teams didn't seem to play in the same universe, yet they somehow managed to share a city.
As a kid growing up in Boston, it bugged me that the White Sox "stole" the Red Sox' name. There was only room enough for one team to be named after hosiery and that team called Boston home. You steal our catcher and you take our name?
With the crumbling stadium and the so-so teams, the White Sox always seemed to have one foot out the door too. Until the state ponied up some cash, the White Sox were about to move to St. Petersburg and play in the dome that the Rays now called home. Yes, that's how long that stupid stadium has been around, it was used as leverage for a new White Sox stadium, which opened in 1991.
The White Sox had players that you sorta knew but it seemed weird to see Carlton Fisk and Tom Seaver in jerseys that screamed "SOX" on the front with horizontal blue and red lines around it and numbers on the front of their pants. And the home grown stars that they had were fine. Harold Baines was a quiet professional hitter. Ron Kittle was a power hitter that looked like a substitute chemistry teacher that got too friendly with the kids. Catcher of the future Ron Karkovice looked like he'd buy you a 12-pack if you gave him enough money so he could get a sixer.
They were anonymous and strange looking and almost always an afterthought.
Then in late 1990 the White Sox did something really interesting. They rebranded. They no longer wore red, white and blue and their logo was no longer an abstract guy hitting a ball over the word "SOX". Suddenly the White Sox shifted to black and silver, they added pinstripes to their home uniforms, they looked like a baseball team again. But beyond that, with the black and silver echoing the LA Raiders and Kings with a nod to gangsta rap culture, the White Sox looked like a team of bad asses.
They also started to promote players from their minor league teams that could play a little. The Big Hurt Frank Thomas. Robin Ventura. Alex Fernandez. Black Jack McDowell. They picked up free agents like Tim Raines and Bo Jackson. And they started winning.
Their was a buzz around the White Sox in the early 90s. Hip hop videos were filled with dudes wearing White Sox caps (Dr. Dre named checked the team in a song) which meant that goofy suburban white kids were wearing White Sox hats (myself included). I told people that I liked Frank Thomas, but in reality I probably liked Dr. Dre and Eazy-E more. Not only that but I spent my hard-earned dough on an official away White Sox jersey (THE KIND THE PROS WEAR!) because I thought it looked so cool.
To their credit, the White Sox have stuck with this look for almost 30 years. They bring the only beach blanket bingo unis (the ones from the mid 80s) out on Sunday and everyone has a good time remembering how shitty those things looked (except for Chris Sale, who when he was with a White Sox, went ham and cut up all of the jerseys with a scissor because he didn't want to wear them, which okay Chris thank you
for your input) but the next day they’re always back in their usual silver and black.
They've had their ups and downs since the 90s--winning a World Series in 2005 for the first time since 1917, so their streak was longer than the Red Sox by two seasons yet people nationwide seemed to care less about that, which is odd--but they're been a pretty consistently good team. They have an interesting nucleus of a team now and they're without the ancient Tony LaRussa, which is a good thing.
How good? We'll just have to see.
11.
I
wrote about the Royals today, so you know that I'm going to spend a lot
of time writing about Bo Jackson. Not that much though. Just enough.
We are 11 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Ryan Seacrest style, my favorite baseball teams.
Growing up, the Kansas City Royals were one of those teams that always gave the fits. At Fenway, the Sox were glad to split a series and really lucky to take two of three. This despite the fact that the Sox always had the power bats. Jim Rice, Dwight Evans, Tony Armas, Mike Easler, Don Baylor, etc could outhomer the entire Royals lineup with one arm tied behind their backs.
But the Royals played a type of baseball that was alien to Boston, it was based on speed, defense and good pitching. They'd pinball the horsehide all over Fenway, the Sox would end up running in circles trying to chase it down and Willie Wilson or Lonnie Smith or Frank White would be standing on third waiting for George Brett to drive them in.
When they met in Kansas City, the Royals were nigh unbeatable. The Sox would come in on a winning streak and the Royals would run them into the ground, National League style. Kaufman Stadium was expansive and had miles of astroturf. KC would slam the ball into an alley, it would get by Armas (or Rice) and the those Royals rabbits would run forever. When the Sox were up Baylor or Evans would drive a ball deep, Wilson would glide over and make a catch 390 feet away from home plate. Lots of loud, long outs for the Sox.
It always seemed to be hot there, which sucked if you were an old guy like the Sox always seemed to have, and that was usually evidenced by the thermometer that WSBK TV-38 would show where the mercury would reach 130 on the field (astroturf didn't absorb heat really well) and announcer Ned Martin would say, "Hot one today, eh Monty?" and his partner Bob Montgomery would chortle, "Glad I'm not playing Ned!"
An organization that was built around speed and defense took a strange turn in 1985 when they drafted and signed Auburn running back (and Heisman Trophy winner) Bo Jackson. When he debuted in 1986, all eyes turned to KC--which is strange because the Royals won the World Series the season prior. Was Bo an immediate hit when he showed up in Missouri? No. But that didn't matter, much like Ohtani has captured the imagination of kids today, Bo did that for another generation. And his legend only grew when he signed with the Los Angeles Raiders.
Dude plays baseball and football? How? Why? Can he do that? He could and did. Now the Royals had a legit power threat (sorry Steve Balboni) in their lineup who was a world-class athlete and star.
Unfortunately, Bo got hurt. A bunch. He got hurt playing baseball and he really got hurt playing football. He's the ultimate what if and that makes him a legend.
Read "The Last Folk Hero" by Jeff Pearlman. It's fucking amazing.
After Bo got hurt and left and the Royals legends retired, Kansas City went into a deep, deep funk. They lost a ton. They wouldn't spend money (despite being owned by a family member that owns WalMart). They would develop players, but trade them the minute that they wanted more than the bare minimum. They were adrift in a shitty wasteland. And for someone who remembered how scary it was when his team visited KC, it was depressing.
Somehow in the early 10s, the Royals got the message and started developing (and keeping) their players. There was a bit of a Royals renaissance. They actually made it to the World Series one year. The next year, they did even better and won the World Series. It was awesome, the underdog (owned by one of the richest families in America) actually beat the team from New York and won it all. Amazing.
It didn't last though. In subsequent years, the Royals have played okay--most of the nucleus of the World Series winner were either traded away (WalMart has to spend money to smash local mom and pop stores!) or got old. They're not terribly bad, but they're not terribly good either. They're, as the kids would say, mid. I guess that's okay.
The Royal's uniforms are excellent. They shouldn't change a thing, but they did in the late 00s adding the mean looking, sinister black to the color palette. It looked dumb. It looked as if they were trying way too hard. It reminded me of the dork that left school in June and showed up in September with an earring and a scowl. You can't fool me, I know that you cried when you got hit in the face with a kickball. Quit frontin' Kansas City.
10.
Hot Dogs Rock! Hot Dogs Rock! Hot Dogs Rock!
Apologies to Drew Carey, but it's true. Hot Dogs, like Cleveland, do rock*. And there's only 10 days left until the Real National Hot Dog Day, so get your shit together.
* Kids, whether you like the Guardians name or not, I think that we can all agree that we dodged a bullet when the Cleveland brain trust decided not to use the name "Rockers". What a dumpster fire that would be. Ughhh.
We are 10 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Ryan Seacrest style, my favorite baseball teams.
So yeah, the Guardians. I'd have liked the Spiders better but after you know why they're named the Guardians (Cleveland has these eight huge art decco statues called the Guardians of Traffic as you enter the city) the name sorta grows on you. Plus, I guess if the Guardians were cheap, they only had to change four letters from their last team nickname. So, cost savings over Spiders!
As far as the name, whatever. These things weren't handed down from the gods. The old ones were mostly made up by sportswriters and the new ones are created via marketing focus groups. YMMV on which is worse. But, coming from a high school that had the same name, Indians is a dumb nickname. All permutations of sports nicknames based on Native American heritage are dumb.
You want to honor Native Americans and make everything square? Don't name some shit baseball team in Cleveland, how about you give them back their land? How about you admit and apologize for knowingly giving them diseased blankets and pushing them further and further west, essentially wiping out their people. How about that?
As far as the franchise goes, I have a soft spot for Cleveland ever since I got my first Sports Illustrated baseball preview issue that screamed "Indian Uprising". Cleveland outfielders Joe Carter and Cory Snyder were under the grinning mug of Chief Wahoo and SI was telling us that this was Cleveland's year.
Sports Illustrated was huge back in the day and everyone bought into the hype. What did Cleveland do? They sucked. Hard. Finished last that year, a billion games behind the Tigers.
Those people love their sports so much and they get gutted so many times, yet they keep coming back. Again and again and again. Is it a coincidence that the world's biggest optimist in the face of realism is Charlie Brown? I think not.
But the Guardians have gone through just as many heartaches as the Browns have. The team it had in the 90s was absolutely stacked and they lost some heartbreakers to the Braves and the Marlins. The Marlins? Are you kidding me? That team had been around for four hours compared to the (then) Indians.
And since this is Cleveland, they had to (HAD TO) sell off their stars and they floundered for a bit. But then they built the team back up and went to the World Series against the Cubs. THE CUBS! This was like a street fight between Greg Brady's Hawai'ian tiki idol and some other equally shitty luck trinket (I can't think of one off hand). Cleveland tied the game going into the ninth and had a ton of momentum, they were going to win this motherfucker. And the rain came down, Jayson Heyward rallied the Chicago troops and they won it in the tenth.
BTW, you know the last team to win a World Series Game 7th in the tenth? The Marlins. Who did they play? The Indians.
Once Cleveland wins, they'll probably fall a few spots down the list. But until then, let this team win. Good lord. Maybe changing their name might lead to better luck. But what do I know, I couldn't even think of another bad luck charm that wasn't on the fucking Brady Bunch.
9.
When I was younger (like when I was 44-years-old) I used to call this team the Oreos, because I didn't know what an Oriole was. I guess I could have looked at the logo and assume that it was some sort of bird, but what do you want from me, I was probably trying to figure out what channel Battle of the Planets was on.
Anyway enjoy this piece on the Oreos! (FUCK, I did it agan.)
The Baltimore Orioles used to be good. Actually, strike that; the Baltimore Orioles used to be really fucking good. From the late 60s through the mid 1980s, the Orioles were a consistent force in the American League. They won AL East flags, they made it to the World Series and they actually won multiple World Series titles.
Not only that but the way they did it was through smart trades and a player development program that netted them a handful of Hall of Famers. Jim Palmer, Brooks Robinson, Eddie Murray, Cal Ripken Jr. and manager Earl Weaver all came up through the Baltimore system, all won World Series rings, all ended up in Cooperstown.
And it wasn't only Hall of Famers and fill in the blanks, the Orioles minor league teams were rife with
MVP and Cy Young candidates, players who had big years, platoon players and relief aces that performed well in their roles. It was the Oriole Way and they just crushed it for almost 20 years.
Then the wheels started falling off, the early 90s weren't a great time to be a Baltimore fan--aside from Camden Yards which was a game changer in the way that Branch Rickey and California baseball were game changers--and the O's scuffled a bit. Ripken was getting close to Gehrig and I guess the front office thought that people were going to pay a lot of attention to them, so they started filling in the gaps with primo free agents.
And it worked. But free agents tend to be old guys and wear out their welcome after three of four seasons. The once fertile Baltimore minor league system was what my aunt used to call me, barren (she couldn't say Byron to save her life). Once the free agents couldn't produce and the prospects quickly turned to suspects, Baltimore baseball was dead.
For a long, long time the Orioles were just awful. The new century wasn't kind to the people of Baltimore either and continued to be shitty for about 15 years. Then they got good for a few seasons before bottoming out again.
I'm not a Baltimorian (is that what you call someone from Baltimore?) but I like the Orioles. I remember when they were the Cadillac of Major League Baseball. The crowds always supported them, they always were loud and wild and crazy and games looked fun in Crab City. Despite having the OG retro stadium (that still rules) the way that the Angelos family has mismanaged this franchise is a crime. The city of Baltimore, hell Major League Baseball, deserves better.
I like when the Orioles are good, it reminds me of being a kid; so I always pull for the Orioles to be good. With that goofy cartoon bird and their orange and black togs, the O's look like a fun club. This year, the Orioles might surprise a few people, they have a nice young base that the Angelos family can't fuck up (mostly due to them being cheap) and perhaps the O's are on an upswing.
There has been talk that the Orioles might move to Nashville, apparently one of Peter Angelos' failsons has a wife who wants to be a country singer or these two buttholes like to cosplay as "salt of the earth country folk" or whatever, but if they move from the city, that would be a huge black mark against the league.
Baltimore is really into football, no doubt, but I think that they really love baseball. Taking baseball away from a region that loves it is dumb.
It's a GIANT day here at Real National Hot Dog Day Central. Why? Because we're about a week away from the high holiday and you had better get your stuff now!
Also, if you like what you read, consider giving The Real National Hot Dog Day page a like or a share. I'd appreciate it.
Today we talk about the first pro hat the I ever bought (it's more interesting than it sounds) and why I thought that I was so damn cool walking around in a black wool hat, sweating my ass off during many Massachusetts summers. We also get into the Giants a bunch. It's a lot of fun.
The first fitted pro hat that I ever bought wasn't the Boston Red Sox. Though I purchased it at one of the souvenir shops in Fenway Park, it was the San Francisco Giants. I wish that I could tell you that there was so deep reason why I bought this hat, that there was a real connection between myself and the Giants franchise or the city.
Maybe my grandfather grew up idolizing Mel Ott. Perhaps my parents met on the corner of Haight and Ashbury in 1967. Was I related to Willie Mays, who's to say?
I would expect that the real reason why I bought the interlocking orange squared "S" and "F" is three-fold.
1. I liked the colors. Orange and black rule. Not a lot of teams use those two colors, but when they do; they look so good.
2. I really liked Kevin Mitchell and Will Clark. With his ferocious swing Mitchell spent a few seasons absolutely demolishing baseballs. And there were whispers (started by Mets GM Frank Cashman who stupidly traded him) that made him sound like a complete bad ass. Those whispers weren't really true and they were coded bigot-speak, but at the time I thought that this made Mitch sound more awesome.
As for Will Clark, he had the picture-perfect swing. He was nicknamed "The Natural" and it wasn't because he was a naturally nice guy (writer Jeff Pearlman says he's one of the absolute shittiest people he's ever had to interview). But that swing, man. It was a thing of beauty. I had posters on the wall of my bedroom of Mitchell and Clark and they were both cool as hell. But the Clark one captured the follow through of his swing and I'd stare at it wondering how I could ever have something like that. Baseball osmosis doesn't work, kids.
3. The main reason why I bought this hat (back in the day it set me back a cool $25, so this was a [pardon the pun] major league fashion investment) is that no one else in my town had one. When you're a teenager there are a lot of pushes and pulls to your daily social life. But the biggest one is that, for me, I wanted to stand out but I didn't want to be so different as to be noticed and ostracized. Everyone wore baseball caps, but they were the same ones: Red Sox, a ton of Bruins, Celts here and there, (never the Pats), maybe the New York Giants but the San Francisco Giants? A National League team in an American League city? Never.
So I felt like I was making a statement in a very silent way. "Why am I wearing this hat? Have you ever seen Will Clark and Kevin Mitchell hit? That's why." No one ever asked me that question, of course, and that answer would have been completely obnoxious, completely dorky and deserving of an ass kicking, but it always sounds a bit cooler in my mind.
I finally made it to AT&T (or PacBell or Oracle or whatever they call it) Park in 2008 and it was really cool--I never went to Candlestick Park. By this time Clark and Mitchell were faded memories (I may well have been a Carl Hubble or Christy Matthewson fan growing up) but the Giants were starting on a decade of dominance. Prior to this there were stretches where the Giants were bad--they were so bad that they almost moved to Toronto in the 70s and St. Petersburg in the 80s (the Tampa/St. Pete area was used as boogeyman to shake down more municipalities) but they got their new park and really started to pour money into the team.
They picked up a guy by the name of Barry Bonds who did some stuff. They went to the World Series in 2002 (and lost to the Angels) and then they went on this strange every-other-year run where they kept winning the World Series with a homegrown team that played their best in the biggest situations. Buster Posey, Tim Lincecum, Madison Bumgardner, Pablo Sandoval and others beat the Rangers, Tigers and Royals in nonconsecutive series in the early 10s.
It was cool to see a city of real baseball fans who had come so close in so many years (1962 and 2002 specifically) finally win a couple titles. If I still had it, I probably would have jammed that small sized hat on my overly sized melon and walked around with a boring, self-serving monologue in my head ready to answer anyone who asked, "Great game last night. How long have you liked the Giants?"
7.
You know what the We Are Family 1979 World Series winning Pittsburgh Pirates ate when they sat down to family dinner every night? Hot dogs. Mounds and mounds of wieners. That's because everyone knows wieners is Austro-German for winners.
But you don't have to pitch a no-hitter tripping balls on acid to be a winner, all you need is some hot dogs, buns, chips, a bevie of your choice and some ice cream. That's all it takes to celebrate the Real National Hot Dog Day!
So be like Doc Ellis and Load up on Some Dogs a week from tomorrow! It'll be groovy, man. In the mean time, read all about the Pirates and how Pittsburgh fans (just the baseball ones, fuck Steeler and Penguin nation) deserve better.
We are 7 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Down Town Julie Brown style, my favorite baseball teams. Wubba wubba wubba.
I feel like I say this a lot about a bunch of these teams, but it's true: the Pirates weren't always horrible. What sucks about writing this is that baseball owners have figured out that that a lot of times, putting a winning team on the field leads to losing money. You have to get good players to win and good players are usually expensive (unless you hit the jackpot and draft a good player who's cheap, but he can't be drafted too high because he might cost a bunch to sign) and expensive players tend to eat into your profit margin.
Not only that but these owners have also determined that even a shitty team is going to get a certain amount of fans in the stands and a better team isn't going to tip the scales into profitability. Not only that but the bulk of teams' revenues don't come from attendance anyway, so fuck it, run out a AAAA team to keep payroll low, get paid from TV licensing and partnerships, preach about a "process of self-sustaining player development system" (as if you just created that idea) and then bitch about how the city isn't supporting you and that you need money to fix up a 15-year-old ballpark or you're moving to Tucson.
That's sports ownership in the 21st Century--the never ending cash grab.
But there was a time when owners felt pride in making sure that they had the best team on the field. Yes, they wanted to make money and yes they were mostly all assholes (and racist to boot) but they thought that the way to make money was to have a good team because that brought in the fans. And the fans would buy hot dogs and beer and pennants and ice cream.
The Pirates were once one of those teams. From the 1950s through the mid 90s--aside from some down years in the 80s--the Pirates were usually pretty decent. They had the great Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, Doc Ellis, Dave Parker, Bill Madlock, John Canderlaria, Bobby Bonilla, Barry Bonds, Andy Van Slyke, Doug Drabek. Some of these guys were Hall of Famers, others should be in Cooperstown, others were consistent All-Stars and award winners.
They won World Series, they went to Championship games, took the National League East flags and were in legit pennant races just about every year.
Then it was over. Even when they were kicking ass on a regular basis, I don't think that the Pirates ever owned Pittsburgh--those Yinzers love their Steelers--but they were a popular group. I don't live in Heinz City but these days, it seems as if they're number three behind the Steelers and the Penguins. The blame isn't to put at the feet of a fickle fan base, it's due to decades of franchise malfeasance.
The Pirates are lucky that they have one of the most beautiful parks in the league, because without PNC they'd be in Portland or Nashville or some other city begging for Major League action (which could be the title of a book about my teenage years). The Pirates scrimp and save and cut corners and let every star leave western Pennsylvania for the same reason, "we just don't have the money" and that's just bullshit. They do have the money, the just don't want to spend it. And that's a shame.
The Pirates played in the first World Series (they lost to the Red Sox -- in your face, Pittsburgh!) and they should be one of the Cadillac franchise. The have the pedigree, they have the park, they have the fans; there's no reason why the Pirates can't be like the Cardinals or the Giants.
After my dalliance with the Giants in the late 80s, I turned my gaze to Pittsburgh. I loved what they were doing there, their outfield of Bonds, Van Slyke and Bonilla was the best in baseball. Their infield wasn't as good, but with Jeff King, Jay Bell, Chico Lind and their first baseman du jour, it was a solid force. UMass Lowell's most famous alumn Mike "Spanky" LaValliere was no star, but a stable presence behind the plate. And their pitching staff, led by Drabek, was good too. Jim Leyland smoked in the dugout and managed this rag tag bunch but they just never could get past the Braves.
Not only were the players cool as hell, but lead rapper(?) singer(?) Chuck D of Public Enemy wore a Pirates hat pretty much all the time (not to mention a Pirates Starter jacket once in awhile) and I thought that was dope as hell. They had history (important to a dork like me!) and street cache (inexplicably important to a dork like me!), the Pirates were riding high.
However, the sun set on this budding-dynasty-that-never-was as players started leaving the city. The Pittsburgh ball club never recovered and went through some truly dark times for years and years, the emerged as wild card contenders in the mid teens but have since fallen back to sucky. Though former Boston GM Ben Cherington is leading the Buccos and he says that he has a plan, which, sure Jan. We all have a plan.
I actually just bought a Pirates hat about a month ago and I got some positive comments on it. Maybe this is apocryphal (most definitely) but the Pirate fan base is around, they just need to get a few wins under their belts to bring it back.
Screw the plan Ben, get some money and bring some talent to Pittsburgh. How much money does this ownership need (all of it, that's the real answer)? Spend it. Build that system with can't miss prospects. Sign a free agent or two that isn't five years past his prime. Give the people what they want. God damn.
Oh yeah, and another thing, don't use red as accent color anymore. It looks stupid. Keep it yellow and black. And bring back this happy Buc on the wanted poster. This dude rules.
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