My Favorite Red Sox Players 25-21

 

25. Mike Greenwell

Man, I wanted Greenwell to continue that unbroken Sox left field MVP lineage of Willams, Yaz and Rice. If Canseco didn’t have a monster 1988, it’s probable that Greenwell would have been number four.

But he did (with better living through chemicals), Greenie fell short and ended up as the American League MVP bridesmaid. For ten seasons Greenwell wasn’t a perennial MVP candidate but he was really good. He hit for average, more than a little power and was a fun player to root for.

He wasn’t fast nor could he field the easiest position in the Majors (left field at Fenway) but you could do a lot worse with Greenwell hitting third in the lineup.

He played in Game Six (struck out on three straight pitches), often destroyed centerfield teammate Ellis Burks because he was a disaster in left and got his ass handed to him when he tried to big time Mo Vaughn in the batting cages when the Hit Dog was a rookie. However he was never boring. I like dudes with personality on the Sox.

Fun fact, I personally saw him hit an inside-the-park grand slam against the Yankees. How about that?

24. Roger Clemens

Speaking of better living through chemistry.

Am I a Roger Clemens fan today? No. I can’t say that I am. Do I hate him as much as I did 20 years ago? Also no. But 35+ years ago he was, without a doubt, my absolute favorite player in the world.

These caveats all count for something in the rankings.

We don’t have to go through Clemens’ career high/low lights: MVP and a billion Cy Young awards, two 20K games, a couple of World Series titles, HGH, an extramarital relationship with an underage girl, playing for the Yankees, inability to beat Dave Stewart or Pedro Martinez when it matters, his unique ability to completely psyche himself out on the mound on front of 40,000 people.

It’s all part of the Clemens stew that made Roger, Roger. I don’t know. Aside from 1986 when he came on like a rocket (pun intended), I can’t say that I enjoyed the Roger Clemens experience. I remember making more excuses for him during his Sox career than actually enjoying him pitch.

I guess that’s what you do when you’re young and have sports idols, isn’t it? The ump was obviously squeezing him, his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shoelaces were too tight, the manager removed him from the game against his will, he was just too pumped up for this important game. It was always something.

Rooting for Roger Clemens was never easy as he mixed transcendent dominance with abject frustration and by the time he left I think everyone was just plain exhausted of the rocket ride. If he finished the twilight of his career in Toronto and Houston, I think we all would’ve been okay.

But he didn’t.

Add that to the pile of complexity that is Roger Clemens.

23. Nate Eovaldi

Can a journeyman who pitched one awesome game and lost be a favorite? He can if he’s Nate Eovaldi.

Game three of the 2018 World Series between the Dodgers and the Red Sox was one of the all-time greatest games in Fall Classic history. It took 18 innings, SEVEN hours and 20 minutes and only five runs total were scored.

It was one of the most tense games I’ve ever fallen asleep to. I know that sounds crazy but it started at 8:00 pm and ended after 3:00 am.

Eovaldi was the loser in this game as he gave up a walk-off homer to LA third baseman Max Muncy but he saved the Sox pitching staff that night as he gutted through six (mostly shutout) innings.

The Red Sox went on to take the next two games and won the Series that year. Much like Tim Wakefield taking the bullet for the staff in Game Three of the 2004 ALCS, I don’t think the Sox beat LA without Eovaldi pitching his arm off in this game.

When we think of how we’d be as pro athletes, I think a lot of us would say “I'm a team player” and “I don’t care about my health as long as the team wins” but it’s bullshit. Most people don’t put team first because it’s hard to do that. And a lot of times if you do do that and you get hurt, you’re screwed.

So it’s nice when a player does that. And that’s what Nate Eovaldi did on that October 2018 night. For that he’ll always be one of my favorite players and I wish he was still with the club.

22. Andrew Benintendi

The outfield for the Red Sox in the late teens (Benintendi, Jackie Bradley Jr. and Mookie Betts) is my favorite outfield ever.

They were young and full of promise. They played hard and hit and fielded and were fast but they looked like they had a lot of fun. They epitomized the joy of baseball for me. They reminded me of what it was like to play ball with your buddies.

That’s what I like most about sports, but baseball in general. One of the reasons why you watch the seemingly endless parade of games is because it connects you to something in your past.

Whether it’s at Fenway Park or on the diamond at the Town Park in Amesbury, at its best, baseball is about the relationships you make with your teammates.

The three Bs had that strong bond, or at least it seemed like they did.

Benintendi came up last and had the most hype. He was a high draft pick from the University of Arkansas and he was the kid that might be the best. Mookie had the MVP, Jackie had the highlight reel of unbelievable catches, but Benintendi was going to be the one who outdid both of them.

Fun fact: I saw Benintendi’s first pro homer when he was a member of the Lowell Spinners. He turned on a fastball and launched it out of LeLacheur Park. It was crushed and I thought, this kid’s the real deal.

Unfortunately Benintendi was good (he made the All-Star team after the Sox traded him the Kansas City) and he had his moments (his defense in the 2018 postseason is iconic) but he never quite lived up to the hype.

He’s bounced around the league but by the end of his career there will be nothing to be ashamed of, but that potential of youth. That’s what I’ll remember most.

Again another connection for us all.

21. Don Baylor

I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the 1986 Red Sox and how they were the first team that I really was obsessed with. Aside from my obsessiveness, there were a ton of things that I noticed for the first time.

One of these firsts were the first time a player who wasn’t homegrown had a great year for the Sox. That player was Baylor. I was used to players like Jim Rice, Dwight Evans, Wade Boggs, Roger Clemens, Rich Gedman, Bruce Hurst and Oil Can Boyd being good for the Sox. They came up through their system and (theoretically) you watched their careers unfold. Since this was my first year of following baseball, I knew that these guys were good because of course they’re good; that's how baseball works. .

But it wasn’t until this year that I fully understood that team actually acquire good players too. When I looked on the back of Baylor’s baseball card (he was pictured as a Yankee!) and saw his numbers, the amount of teams and that he was the 1979 MVP, I was shocked.

“Why wouldn’t you keep a guy like that forever? Why did the Orioles and A’s and Angels and Yankees let him go? He’s good!”

But at the same time, I thought it was awesome that he was good for the Sox. How did we get so lucky? Not only was he good on the field but supposedly he was a good guy in the clubhouse. The papers say he runs the team’s Kangaroo Court.

What the fuck is a Kangaroo Court? Why do they need this? Why don’t we have one of these on my Little League team? It sounded so cool.

Between the bombs, the frozen ropes he hit for doubles and being a Kangaroo Court judge—a role he played on a bunch of other clubs—Don Baylor was built like a brick shithouse and seemed exotic to me because of his well traveled resume. Plus he got hit by the pitch a lot. And it never looked like it hurt him. New guy, awesome guy, tough guy. So cool.

Like I said he produced too. In ALCS Game Five against his old team, it was Baylor who got the ninth inning started with a home run off Mike Witt in the top of the ninth.

Without that dinger, Dave Henderson is just another guy who made a mistake that lost Boston a big game. Baylor was a catalyst in more ways than one and made a lot of things happen in 1986–including a dropped foul pop up in Clemens’ 20K game. If he catches that, Clemens finishes with 19.

Every team should have a Don Baylor type. That's just smart baseball.

My favorite stadiums 25 - 20

 25.

 

We are 25 days away from The Real National Hot Dog Day and we're counting down the stadiums I've been to in order from worst to best. 

 

Today's stadium is Chase Field in Phoenix, AZ home of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

 

What brought my then girlfriend/fiancee and I to Arizona wasn't a business trip. Nor was it our first choice for vacation that September. It was because our initial trip to the Bahamas was completely hurricaned out at the last minute and we needed to go somewhere else.

 

We cancelled that trip, found a really awesome deal in Scottsdale and it was Arizona, here we come.

Oh yeah, there was another part of that trip that was supposed to be memorable: I was going to ask Aly to marry me. I already had the ring, I made all sorts of special accommodations and instructions with our hotel, but then the hurricane hit and my plans were ruined. It threw me into such a tailspin that I asked her to marry me in my bedroom in Somerville.

 

It wasn't as romantic or grand a proposal as I wanted it tto be, but miraculously she said yes.

 

So we went to Arizona to have a good time and celebrate our coming nuptials. It was fun, we each had $100 a day in spa credits, there was barely anyone at the resort, we drove to Sedona and at the end of the trip we went to Phoenix to see the Diamondbacks play the Giants.

 

Oh yeah, before we get to the game, there was one other thing: Phoenix in September is hot. Like really hot. Really fucking hot. I think it was about 105 degrees every day. We'd sit by the pool, go for a dip and when we came out we were completely dry in 30 seconds. It was weird, but I loved it.

 

However, since it's so hot out, barely anyone is outside. So when we went to Phoenix to have a few drinks before the game, the place was a ghost town. There were folks in the bars, but not a ton of them. It was as if everyone wanted to leave the city as fast as possible and get back to their air conditioned homes in the desert suburbs.

 

There's not much to say about Chase Field (it was called BankOne Ballpark or the BOB when we went). It has a retractable roof, but I don't think it's open very much. It was cool indoors and the game was a terrific matchup: Randy Johnson was on the hill for the D'Backs. Barry Bonds was in the lineup for the Giants and was looking for his 700th home run. He didn't hit it that night and wouldn't until a week later in San Francisco.

 

I remember it being a good crowd but it felt like the game was being played in a airplane hanger or a giant barn. The whole place just felt big and everything in the stadium felt dwarfed by the facility.

We're at the part of the countdown where the parks were fine and there was nothing really bad about them, but they just weren't very memorable. That's how I'd describe Chase Field, huge but not very memorable.

 

Here's the box score of the game that I went to: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2004/B09100ARI2004.htm

 

Jeez, aside from Johnson, this Diamondback team was a shitshow, no wonder they only finished with 51 wins. RJ was the only Hall of Famer, though we all know that Bonds should be there too.

 

24.

 

 

We are 24 days away from The Real National Hot Dog Day and we're counting down the stadiums I've been to in order from worst to best.

 

Today's stadium is the Rogers Centre in Toronto, ON home of the Toronto Blue Jays.

 

When the Rogers Centre, then known as the SkyDome, opened in 1989 it was hailed as a marvel. The 21st century version of Houston's famous AstroDome. Not only did it have a roof that could open and close in like 20 minutes (take that Olympic Stadium!) but it also had a bunch of other cool stuff too.

 

Like the pitcher's mound was on a hydraulic lift, so that when the CFL's Arognauts played football there, it would disappear from the playing surface. The bullpens were outfitted with cameras so that the warmups can be watched from a dugout monitor. There were even little old tyme touches too like incredibly detailed brass sculptures of fans watching the Jays play. Even their astroturf was supposed to be better, more high tech, easier on the knees.

 

It was where the Jetsons would play baseball. It was the future.

 

For a couple of years it was; Toronto had the crown jewel of stadia and people flooded from all over to check out a Blue Jays game. Then Baltimore's Camden Yards opened and people found that they'd rather be transported back to the past, then watch baseball in the future.

 

The past is alway less scary, we know what happened because we lived through it--or at least can read a sanitized version of events that happened. The future? Well, no one knows what the future holds in store for us. It could be better. It could be worse. Much worse.

 

For a sport that trades in nostalgia as much as baseball does, the future is not a Timbuk 3 jam, it's more of a dystopia (doesn't matter which one, pick one).

 

In 1993 my Dad and I decided to go to Toronto on a father/son weekend. We've never did this before, but he said that he wanted to check out the Hockey Hall of Fame* (as did I) and I wanted to see what the SkyDome had in store (he wasn't as intrigued as me).

 

* My Dad and I saw all four of the major sports Hall of Fames. We made a detour to Springfield in the late 80s on a waterlogged Cape Cod trip. We saw Cooperstown twice when the Amesbury High baseball team played a tourney there in back-to-back years. Then we went to Canton in 2016 (I think) to see the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Now that he's gone, I'm really glad that we got to do this. It meant a lot to him and it meant a lot to me too.

 

Toronto, the city, was awesome. Clean as Disney and a lot of fun. Since the drinking age was 18, my Dad said, "By, I want to get you your first beer." I think we both knew that was bullshit but I said, "Okay, let's go." Who am I to turn down a free brew?

 

Dad and I walked into a bar and we sat down and looked at the menu. All of a sudden he started looking around. He leans over and says to me, "By, do you notice something?" I looked around and shook my head no. He said, "There's only men in here." I looked around again, my eyes got big and I said, "We gotta get outta here!"

 

It was the early 90s, I was 18, gay panic was a real thing (for me at least). We scrammed and found a "less gay" restaurant to eat at: a TGI Friday's. It's a cringy memory no doubt, one that I'm not particularly proud of, but it still makes me laugh a bit.

 

Anyway, the SkyDome was fine. We had seats way the hell up in the third bowl and the players looked tiny. We caught a good game: the Mariners (the Jays were defending World Series champs and would go on to win another in three months) and it was really cool.

 

The one thing that I remember the most are the three women in front of us who were obsessed with Jays' catcher Pat Borders. Every time he did something or came up to the plate, they'd scream "GORGEOUS!" My choice of bars aside, I know what a good looking guy looks like, Pat Borders is decidedly not gorgeous.

 

But whatever, I'm sure there's a weird Canadian exchange going on here.

 

Here's the box score of the game: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1993/B08200TOR1993.htm For the second entry in a row, Randy Johnson pitched a doozy going nine, striking out 11 and giving up one run. John Olerud didn't play that game, but the first five Blue Jay batters were amazing: Rickey, Devon White, Paul Molitor, Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar. Five Hall of Famers: Rickey, Molitor, Alomar, RJ and Ken Griffey Jr. Not bad.

 

23.

 

 

We are 23 days away from The Real National Hot Dog Day and we're counting down the stadiums I've been to in order from worst to best.

 

Today's stadium is the Turner Field in Atlanta, GA former home of the Atlanta Braves.

 

Turner Field was less than 20 years when the Braves decided that they didn't want to play there anymore. They broke ground on Truist Park in 2013 (Turner Field saw its first baseball game in 1997) and were playing in Cobb County by 2017.

 

I'm not saying that Turner Field is the best park that ever existed and that it's a tragedy that the Braves no longer play there. That's not the point. It sucks that the Braves don't play there anymore, but it has more to do with corporate greed than it does with the actual stadium.

 

In the early teens, the Braves wanted money ($500M) from the county to upgrade their stadium. Fulton county, where the stadium is located, told them to pound sand, that they'll give them a portion but not a half-billion dollars. Which is fair, if you ask me. The team already has a free place to play, they can chip in a couple of bucks if they want to spruce the place up.

 

The Braves got mad (billionaires and the like aren't used to people telling them no) and started making eyes to Cobb County, which is the county north of Fulton. Cobb County said that they'd be happy to build a team that's worth billions a stadium financed by public money.

 

And they did!

 

I spoke a little bit about corporate welfare before, and this is another example. The only time that sports owners care about loyalty is when you put your wallet back in your pocket and don't buy their bullshit. Then it's a nonstop caterwauling about how much the team means to the community. How it's enmeshed in the fabric of the Atlanta people. How important the team is to everyone and everything everywhere in Georgia.

 

It's all 100% percent bullshit. These people know what heart strings to pull when it comes to separating you from your money. Of course, when it comes to sports owners showing loyalty to their fans, you get the Ayn Rand Cliff's Notes version of her stupid, shitty books that every capitalist seems to love and commit to memory.

 

I'm not even touching on the sweet heart real estate deal that the county gave to the team for the Battery, which is the entertainment, restaurant and shopping area around the park. This is the biggest plum and it's what all owners are now trying to get because why have 81 days of revenue and ripping off your customers when you can have 365?

 

Seriously fuck those guys.

 

(Also there was some racial stuff of the Fulton County fan base that the Braves were done with, but which are "better" in Cobb County. I'm not getting into that, you can Google it if you want.)

 

As far as Turner Field goes, it was a nice park to watch the Braves play. My brother-in-law and his family live down there so we've gone to the park a couple of times and it was a nice take.

 

The first time we went was in July and it was sweltering. It was a day like only Rob Thomas could sing about. I think that we were in the third tier and there was no shade. My kids weren't alive yet, but my BIL and sister-in-law's kid was like three. Dude was a little trooper, he did not complain about the heat once.

We were watching the Sox and *I* complained more about the heat than he did. About the only thing he complained about was the post-game fireworks display. That's probably because a. they were too loud (he wasn't wrong) and b. he was dog tired.

 

Or maybe he was pissed Doug Mirabelli went yard. I know if Mirabelli did that to my home town team, I'd be fucking cranky too.

 

Here's the box score of the first game we went to: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2004/B07030ATL2004.htm

 

Only one Hall of Famer in this game (David Ortiz), but noted good person Curt Schilling got the win and it was one of Nomar's last games as a Sox--he'd get moved within the month.

 

22.

 

 

We are 22 days away from The Real National Hot Dog Day and we're counting down the stadiums I've been to in order from worst to best.

 

Today's stadium is the Globe Life Park in Arlington, TX former home of the Texas Rangers.

Globe Life Park, formerly known by the clunky name the Ballpark at Arlington, was a Frankenstein's monster (remember, Frankenstein was the scientist, his creation was the monster! I hated writing that as much as you hated reading it) of ballparks.

 

It had the friezes of Yankee Stadium, the tallish left field wall of Fenway Park and a bunch of other crap from other parks thrown into a blender and spit out onto a parking lot in the middle of Texas. It looked nice and it played okay, but this was a textbook example of the sum of its parts being weaker than the whole.

 

I get what the architects were going for here; they wanted something timeless and classical looking but what they got was the kind of ballpark I'd have designed when I was 10 and was just grabbing the best parts of parks that I'd seen before. In fairness, this was what ballpark design was like in the 1990s thanks to Camden Yards.

 

Baseball fans wanted quirky parks that reminded them of a past that their teams might not have had. Old ballparks had quirks because they were shoehorned into urban areas where they abutted streets and were part of neighborhoods. Globe Life Park was built in the suburbs and surrounded by acres and acres of parking lots.

 

It was a forced quirkiness with reheated design elements than felt contrived.

 

That being said, it was a nice place to watch a game, though the ushers were real assholes. Every year we do a guy's trip where a bunch of friends and I hit a ballpark and the city surrounding it. For the Rangers we first went to Austin and then drove up to Arlington a day or two later for the Rangers/Orioles tilt. Both teams were, at that point in the season, a combined 70 games out of first place--they finish the season a combined 97 games out of first place (the Orioles were 61 games behind the Red Sox--remember when the Sox were good? Sigh). They were dreadful.

 

It was the summer of his Hall of Fame induction, so there was a Vlad Guerrero bobble head night* (celebrating the two years he was a Ranger at the end of his career) so there were a lot of people there ... for the beginning of the game. By the middle innings, it was really hot and people realized they had better things to do with their Saturday nights so they started leaving.

 

Me and my friends started walking around and trying to catch the game from different seats. We had decent tickets in the first tier, but when we tried to go into the upper seats we were stopped by security and told that we couldn't sit in that section and that we had to go back to our seats. This happened a couple of times, which was weird because this never happened in any other stadium I've ever been to (and I wormed my way down to two rows behind home plate in Milwaukee).

 

I don't know what the deal was with these ushers, but they sucked.

 

* No, I didn't get a Vladdy bobble head. I don't think that there was much in terms of security for giveaways as I saw people walking with as many as five bobbleheads in a bag. The fuck was that all about Texas Rangers? Bitter? Me? Noooo. Yes actually I am. Maybe I'll see if I can find one on eBay.

 

Aside from the shitty ushers, the park was nice and had a carnival feel to it, especially when it came to the food. They were selling hot dogs that were three feet long and had all sorts of insane topping on them. They had funnel cakes as big as Bruce Bochy's head and tons of other deep fried goodness to them.

Did I partake in this gluttony? I wanted to, but I partook in the excesses of Austin a little too much and my tummy had the rumblies.

 

The park was so much nicer than the Rangers' old park, which was the Foxboro Stadium of Major League Baseball. That place was a glorified high school field surrounded by scores of bleachers. It always looked like a miserable place to play, especially in the summer when it's 100+ degrees.

 

Despite being a perfectly cromulent stadium and only around for 25 years, the Rangers (and stop me if you heard this before) demanded a new stadium. Maybe Rangers owners were jealous driving by the Cowboy's new football stadium every day, but they got what they demanded. In the middle of a global pandemic their new park opened and no one was there to celebrate it. A real monkey's paw wish, maybe -- but since the owner's got their place for mostly free, they probably didn't give a shit if anyone in the community got to see it on opening night.

 

Which is probably why Globe Life Park was in a state of disrepair when we were there in 2018. Why bother fixing an old place up when you can get a new one for free--which sorta makes sense when you think about how the club borrowed nostalgia from old parks in the first place.

 

Here's the box score of the truly awful game that we saw on our trip: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2018/B08040TEX2018.htm One Hall of Famer was seen: Adrian Beltre.

 21.

 

We are 21 days away from The Real National Hot Dog Day and we're counting down the stadiums I've been to in order from worst to best.

 

We're staying in Texas as today's stadium is Minute Maid Park in Houston, TX home of the Houston Astros.

 

Minute Maid Park started auspiciously enough, as before the first pitch was thrown, they had to change the name of the field. Originally it was going to be called Enron Field but if you were alive in the late 90s, you may recall that the company went through a bit of a rough stretch and eventually filed for bankruptcy.

What was the rough time? Well kids, consult your local library and (especially if you don't live in Texas) I'm sure you'll be able to find tons and tons of resources that will walk you through Enron's troubles better than your old pal Byron can.

 

The Astros couldn't manage to open a park without a name, so they found the good folks at Minute Maid orange juice and convinced (begged?) them to give them tens of millions of dollars to slap their name of their field for a set amount of time.

 

But Minute Maid Park is a really good place to watch a baseball game. It used to be better when the team designed quirks weren't sanded down, but it's still a fun place to watch a game.

 

What makes going to baseball parks fun is that even though the basic rules are the same (60 feet 6 inches between the pitcher's mound and home plate, 90 feet between bases) everything else in a baseball field is up for grabs. Want a 37 foot wall in left field? Fine. Want center field to be an absurd 505 feet from home plate (like in the Polo Grounds)? Go nuts.

 

There were monuments in the field play in old Yankee Stadium. Both Boston and Cincinnati had embankments before their left field walls that fielders literally had to run up in order to make catches. I think in old Tiger Stadium, there was a flag pole in center field. When Atlanta was home to minor league Crackers (yes, real name) there was a giant tree in center field that was never chopped down.

 

Unlike football and basketball and hockey and soccer, the field of play in baseball is bonkers. Houston initially tried to do something similar when they opened Minute Maid Park in 2000. Much like the old version of Fenway and Crosley Field, there was an embankment in the outfield. However, the Astros' version wasn't in left, it was in center field. Not only that but there was a flag pole in play that outfielders had to watch out for.

 

It was kinda cool that once or twice a year you'd see a centerfielder track a ball to the deepest part of the park, forget that there was a hill behind him, fall on his ass, the ball would drop and the batter (usually an Astro) would run forever. It was fun as hell. For some reason in the mid 10s, the Astros decided that there would be no more fun moments like that and leveled the hill and put the pole behind the outfield wall.

If they kept all that stuff, Minute Maid Park would be ranked higher.

 

Bloopers are popular and they're popular because we like seeing people fuck up. It makes us feel better about our lives when we can witness a dude who can hit a 100 mph fastball nine miles with a flick of his wrist fall down and look foolish. Baseball had these little obstacles in their parks, I think, to remind us that baseball players are human, like us. They screw up. They're not perfect. They're relatable. Removing these things takes the fan a little bit further away from the player and make them a little less than who we are, which doesn't really do them a lot of favors when you know how much they make.

 

Anyway, Minute Maid Park is a good take. They have a little train loaded with oranges that goes chugga-chugga-chugga on a track above leftfield whenever someone hits a homer. It's cute and a nice little touch.

When I took in the Astros game it was 2014 and I was in town for a conference. No one wanted to go to the game with me (this is when the Astros were completely bottoming out and were horrible -- they lost like 100 games a year for three straight years) so I went by myself. Like I said before, I don't have a problem with being by myself at a game.

 

I went early to walk around the stadium and really soak it in. I bought a couple of beers on the first level of the stadium and was walking up to the second level where my seats were. I was stopped by an usher and was told that Texas law prohibited bringing alcohol from one level to another. She was very kind but said, if I wanted to climb the stairs to my seat I either had to finish my beers on that level or throw them away.

 

Weird law, but okay. I ended up chugging both beers--which makes me a hero!

 

When I got to my seat in rightfield I was watching batting practice and hoping maybe to get a ball. I didn't care if I got one, but you know, it was something to keep me interested. I was pretty much in the row all by myself when a guy walked down the row (I was in the middle) and just stood next to me. He had sunglasses on and just kept his gaze to home plate. We were the only people there and he said absolutely nothing. Just kept staring.

 

I was going to try and talk to him but I could tell by his vibe that he did not want to be disturbed so I just sorta stared at home and watched shitty Astros try their damnedest to put one in right field. They all failed. Ever stand next to a stranger for 30 minutes and not say anything? It feels like hours. Finally he turns to me and says, "Is it hot out?" (the roof was closed) and I started verbally vomiting on him, "Yes sir, it is warm, but it's nice as hell in here you see I'm from Massachusetts and even in the summer it's cold and boy, do I hate the cold and geez Louise it's so hot here I'm not sure how you can stand it and it's a good thing the Astros play inside ..."

 

And the dude looked at me and turned back to field. We stood there until batting practice was over and then he sat down next to me. As the game wore on a family of Texans sat in the four empty seats next to me and they were as friendly as can be.

 

I'm not sure where they were from, but it took them two hours to get to the game, which they go to once a year. The father smuggled a bunch of booze in and he was pretty rocked by the seventh, but they were a lot of fun. I had a terrific time talking to them. Then the game was over and we all went our separate ways.

So to sum up, Minute Maid Park is a land of many contrasts.

 

Here's a box score of the game in question: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2014/B05130HOU2014.htm Only one Hall of Famer (Adrian Beltre of the Rangers) but there is one slam dunk future HoFer (Jose Altuve) and a dude on the cusp (George Springer). Dallas Keuchal went nine for the win (this may have been the last complete game I've seen) and the Astros beat the Rangers in the Battle for the Soul of Texas.

20.

 

We are 20 days away from The Real National Hot Dog Day and we're counting down the stadiums I've been to in order from worst to best.

 

We're in California as today's stadium is Angels Stadium in Anaheim, CA home of the Los Angeles Angels.

 

To be completely truthful, if Anaheim Stadium was located anywhere other than California, it would probably be a little lower. But I really dig that whole California vibe, so it's a little higher than it should be.

 

Anaheim Stadium is where the greatest moment in my baseball watching life happened. It was Game 5 of the 1986 American League Championship Series, the Red Sox were down 3-1 against the California Angels. Not only that but the Sox were down three runs entering the ninth and they were getting dissected by Angels pitcher Mike Witt.

 

Angels manager Gene Mauch crapped his pants, the Sox scored four runs in the ninth, the Angels tied it in the bottom of the inning before the Sox won it in the 11th. Both teams flew back to Boston and the Red Sox kicked the crap out of California in games six and seven. They then went to the World Series when nothing traumatic happened.

 

The absolute pinnacle of that game was little-used outfielder Dave Henderson blasting a two-run, two-strike, two-out homer to put the Sox in the lead. I've written about this a million times, but this was a life transforming moment for me because the Sox were dead and buried. Their only hope was a guy who screwed up earlier in the game (he poorly timed making a home run saving catch at the wall, only to knock it over the wall), who barely played -- and was only in the game because Tony Armas was hurt -- and he hit the decisive blow.

 

It was amazing.

 

I never thought that I'd get to Angels Stadium to actually see where Henderson turned me into a believer. But I got to make my pilgrimage and even though the park is configured a bit differently now, the Rams used to play football there too but when they split to St. Louis, the Angels became the stadium's only tenant and they added a huge rock sculpture beyond the fences in center field.

 

Angels Stadium is the second oldest park in the American League, behind Fenway, which is bonkers to me. It's still a nice park, the seats were roomy, the concession stands were plentiful, the people around me were nice. It was a really good take.

 

The weather is always absolutely beautiful too. How can you not want to live there? Man. California is the shit.

 

Being Anaheim, there's a couple of Disney statues around (Disney once owned the Angels) but if that doesn't bother you, you can do far worse than this place.

 

Angels owner Arte Moreno was making noise about a new park (of course) and it looked like things were heading his way. But then a scandal involving bribes and kickbacks and a bunch of other shit got stirred up and that was the end of that journey.

 

So it looks like the Angels are going to be here for a little while. Which is good, they have a nice little slice of heaven (ugggggh, what an awful pun) and they should stick around and enjoy it.

 

Here's the box score of the game I went to with my family, I'm pretty sure we didn't stay for the whole thing because it was the end of a long week and I already strong armed them into going, but you get to do that sort of stuff when you're a Dad. https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2016/B04220ANA2016.htm

 

No current Hall of Famers, but no-doubt future HoFers Mike Trout and Albert Pujols were in the lineup for the Halos. That was a good summer, Giuliana and I saw Trout in the Spring and then Bryce Harper when we went to DC in the Summer.

My Favorite Teams 18-13

 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 third group of teams along with the FB introductions. 

18.

Hey, if you enjoy one of the characters from "The Facts of Life", maybe you'll be tricked into enjoying this little essay on NatsTown!

 

Also, I'm not sorry for putting the "Facts of Life" theme song in your head. Ha, ha, ha, ha!

 

We are 18 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Dick Clark style, my favorite baseball teams.

 

From 1901-1960, baseball was played in our nation's capital and it was fine. The original Senators moved to Minnesota and became the Twins. From 1961-1972, baseball was played in our nation's capital and it was fine. The new Senators picked up stakes and moved to Dallas and became the Rangers.

 

A lot of years passed and there was no baseball in Washington DC--actually in 1973, the Padres almost moved to DC, but they got cold feet and stayed in San Diego--and it always seemed strange to me. Baseball was purportedly America's Pastime, how could it not be played in the shadow of the White House*?

 

* Interesting fact, from 1973-1991, the sports that both are closely associated with their countries, baseball and hockey, were not played professionally in their capital cities. That was remedied for our neighbors to the north when the Senators (full circle-ish, huh?) began skating in Ottawa.

 

DC wouldn't get their third (THIRD?!?!) chance until 2005 when the Expos moved out of Montreal and relocated to DC. You know the story, but basically the Expos were the hardest hit by the 1994 strike. It destroyed the best team the franchise ever had and Canadian fans weren't too keen on forgiving them. The entire operation tanked and during it's last few years in Montreal, they were wards of MLB and also played a bunch of games in San Juan, PR.

 

For a long time, the Nats were as bad as the late century Expos. They continued the tradition of the previous DC iterations and stumbled through season after season losing more than they won. It didn't appear that they'd ever get better, but they did!

 

Washington drafted Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper in consecutive years. Made some smart, franchise altering free agent signing (Jayson Werth was a big one that seemed to be the catalyst) and built up their club so that they became contenders.

 

It all looked as if this was going to go up in flames when Harper spurned the Nat's offer to keep him in DC and signed with the Phillies. But buoyed by Strasburg and Harper replacement Juan Soto, they went out and won the whole damn thing in 2019.

 

Was this going to be a Nat-aissance with a new Nat-ittude? Only if by renaissance you mean the team would revert back to being shitty. And if by attitude you mean people would ignore them again, then yes. Strasburg got hurt. Players got old. And they finally traded Soto last year to the Padres (I guess either way Soto was destined for this franchise).

 

Are the Nats going to be better this year? Probably not. Does it matter? Forget it Jake, it's Natstown.

 

Whatever, I don't care. I just like that baseball is a stone's throw from the Potomac River. I feel as if there is order in the world (even though there absolutely isn't).

 

17.

Yo. Cheating is okay gang, it really is. Find out why I think it is and stick around to the end where I offer my thoughts on my old elementary school art teacher's (Mrs. Gillis -- name checks out, she was, in fact, not a fish and did not have gills) fashion choice during a student/teacher softball game.

 

Intrigued? You damn right you are.

 

 

We are 17 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 have two confessions, one: the Astros weren't the original team in this slot, it was the Royals. But the more I thought about it, I like the Royals a bunch so I'm not sure why I put it there. What I did there was be flexible.

 

Confession two: when it comes to cheating in professional sports, I don't really give a shit. Like at all. I used to care. A lot actually. Whenever a sports team was exposed for cheating, I would get very offended, my honor would be besmirched, I would cry to the heavens.

 

I thought that this was a problem of modern sports teams and that the pressures of winning was too great and that money and greed and other influences was ruining the pristine games that I loved. Athletes weren't cheaters, it was the uncontrollable modern factors around them that was making them cheat!

But then I read a lot of books about teams from different generations and you know what? They all cheated. It didn't matter if it was Cap Anson, Rogers Hornsby, Bobby Thompson, Mickey Mantle or Reggie Jackson. Every team, every athlete would use any sort of edge to their advantage.

 

Why? Because it sucks to lose. Because if the opportunity to win is there, you take it. Because there's no such thing as the moral athlete.

 

The greatest home run in baseball history was the aforementioned Thompson taking Brooklyn Dodger Ralph Branca over the fence and putting the New York Giants into the World Series. Remember "THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!" Guess what? Those Giants had a system where they knew which pitches were coming, a signal was relayed from a window in centerfield (look at the Polo Ground to see what I mean) and the batter would know what pitch was on its way. It's one of the main reasons why the Giants made up 14 games in two months.

 

But it happened so long ago that people call it gamesmanship and give a little chuckle.

 

From greenies to steroids (lots of drugs) to corking bats (remember that?) to slathered baseballs (Gaylord Perry is in the Hall of Fame) to SpyGate DeflateGate to (any other Patriots gates?) whatever, I don't care. BTW I don't think I'm alone here. The only people who really seem to care are sportswriters and I think that they care because it gives them an easy 74,000 columns that they can write about it.

 

Which leads us to the pariahs known as the Houston Astros. Did the Astros cheat in the late 10s to win a bunch of games, including an ALCS over the Yankees (HA HA!) and the World Series against the Dodgers? Yup, they certainly did. Did they get busted for it? Yup again. Do I care? No.

 

I'm not normally a might-makes-right type of guy, but the Astros thought of a decent idea, used it to great success and won. It was kinda shitty, but it was fine. Your favorite team is doing something similar too, I can guarantee it. It either hasn't worked well enough or they're lucky not to get caught.

 

When I was younger, the Astros played in the Astrodome on Astroturf (which I guess now has been proven to give you brain cancer--at least in Philadelphia) and I thought that it was kind of neat to play inside. The Astros, like their Texas brethren the Rangers, never seem to win. That was because unlike the Rangers they had guys who could pitch, but no one (aside from Glenn Davis) who could hit for power. Playing in that dome was like playing in a black hole, nothing ever escaped it.

 

So they weren't great for a long time. They were just kinda fine. Then they moved out of the Astrodome and into MinuteMaid Park and have turned themselves into a bit of a dynasty (after some very lean years). The organization has done a lot of things right over the last decade, though removing the hill and flag pole in centerfield absolutely sucks, and they've turned themselves into a model team.

 

And now that Dusty Baker has won his World Series, I can go back to not giving a shit about the Astros. So last year was truly a win-win for everyone (most of all me and Dusty).

 

As far as the logo goes, I would love to see them go back to this but Houston won't because they don't play in that building anymore--BTW, as of ten years ago, the Astrodome is still standing, I saw it with my own eyes. But even though I didn't care about the Stros too much*, as a kid I loved the little detail of the baseballs as neutrons orbiting the dome. Their tequila sunrise uniforms were wild too**.

 

* The Astros in the Amesbury PONY League were the best team in the league. I think that we were okay, but they used to kick the shit out of us all the time. That intensified my anti-Astros takes.

 

** About the only thing I remember from Elementary School is that my art teacher, Mrs. Gillis, wore one of those multi-striped, multi-colored Astros shirts to a teacher-student softball game. I thought that it was awesome and years later I was shocked to find out Houston actually played in them. I thought it was something that a hippie art teacher wore when forced to play softball.

 

16.

You know what the Braves' tomahawk reminds me of? Hot dogs. It's red, the laces are yellow like mustard? Don't you want to just throw that in a bun and wash it down with some cold Miller Lite?

 

Just me?

 

Okay. How about you just read this essay on the Braves and get your butts to the grocery store and buy what you need for the Real National Hot Dog Day. It's coming up, kids! April 3, 2023 is around the corner. Don't delay!

 

 

We are 16 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 wish that the Braves never left Boston. Not just because it would have given the city a National League club to follow, but it may have pushed the Red Sox to integrate their team faster.

 

In 1950 the Braves promoted an African American player by the name of Sam "the Jet" Jethroe to the Major League team. He kicked ass, won Rookie of the Year, had a good year his second year before tapering off in 1952. He was also 33 when he debuted and that's the way things went back then when it came to Black stars and their careers.

 

In 1952 the Boston Braves signed an 18-year-old infielder from the Indianapolis Clowns by the name of Henry Aaron. He wouldn't debut until 1954, after the team moved to Milwaukee. Can you imagine the amount of awesome baseball one could have watched in the Hub where you could see Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews (the only player BTW to play for the Boston, Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves) slam dingers in one park and then go see Ted Williams and later Carl Yastrzemski do the same thing down the street?

 

Fenway Park and Braves Field were separated by a mile.

 

Too bad it never happened. The Braves moved to Suds City in 1953, hung out there for a few years and 

then moved to Atlanta for the 1966 season. Until their dominance in the 1990s, the Braves were never very good (two World Series Championships) and their tenure in Atlanta continued that. They were god awful for years and years and year, but they were popular as hell because they were one of the first baseball teams to be on a superstation.

 

Team owner Ted Turner was one of those dudes who loved to be rich, buy shit and promote synergy across his purchases. He bought the Braves, already owned WTBS and decided that he was going to take his channel nationwide via cable and that the Braves were going to be his bedrock. All programming would revolve around the Braves' schedule. Want to watch Andy Griffith? Don't tune in at 6:30, you tune in 6:35 because the Braves game begins at 7:05.

 

And it worked. Even though they were really shitty, people watched the Braves. There are people I know who were old time Boston Braves fans who were ecstatic that they could watch the Braves again. It might be THEIR Braves, but it was THE Braves and that was good enough for them.

 

So when the Braves started kicking ass in the 90s, it was weird. For my entire life the Braves were bad and now they're good? And free agents want to play there? And they have a ton of crazy fans? And they actually win (just not the World Series)? It must've been like NFL fans when the Patriots got really good all of a sudden.

 

For the better part of 20 years, the Braves were a machine. And then they weren't. They didn't bottom all the way out, but they got pretty low. They left the Launching Pad (Fulton County Stadium) in 1997 for Turner Field which was not a bad place to catch a game. But for some reason (there's a bunch and a lot of them ain't good) the Braves decided that they needed a new place to play so they opened Truist Park in 2017.

 

Since then, the Braves have been really good again. A young team that revolves around solid hitting and defense, it's a little different from the 90s version of the club (which was led by three Hall of Fame pitchers) but it gets the job done.

 

I feel strongly that human beings shouldn't be used as mascots, especially if they've asked the team not to do so. And double especially if those people were systematically wiped out by ancestors of the people that are "honoring" you. It's a stupid look and it's disgusting.

 

Having said that, I think that the Braves uniforms are awesome. I pretty much love everything about them. They seemed to move the team/city name up a few inches on the jersey, which I'm not wild about, but that's a small nit to pick. They're legit great.

 

Also if they were to change their name, how about the Hammers? You can honor Hank Aaron, you can change the tomahawk to a hammer and keep the colors. Plus they could turn the "Tomahawk Chop" into "Hammer Time" or something and do a similar move with a few modifications without, you know, being totally racist.

 

I don't know. We've taken a lot from the Native Americans, maybe we should return their dignity.

 

15.

Number 15 on my list of lists is the Philadelphia Phillies. In this essay we talk about anonymity due to falling behind the times, this dope-ass logo and Veteran's Stadium turf being the cause of brain cancer.

 

It's heavy one, but I think that you're ready for it.

 

 

 

We are 15 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Dick Clark style, my favorite baseball teams.

 

The Phillies have been a professional baseball club since the 1880s. That means they began play within 15-20 years of the Civil War. They didn't win their first World Series until 1980 and their second didn't come until 2008.

 

For a large, East Coast city, the Phillies have been practically anonymous to the country at large (aside from greater Philadelphia of course) until the 1970s. Aside from a Grover Cleveland Alexander here or a Chuck Klein there or a Whiz Kids or a Gene Mauch led collapse, the Phillies haven't had much.

 

I'm not sure why this is true. Aside from a few years in a truly dumpy Baker Bowl, the played in Shibe/Connie Mack Park which looked like an elegant place to play. They had to share Philadelphia with the Athletics until 1955, but the A's were mostly even worse than the Phillies; so it's not like that club was siphoning off fans.

 

Maybe it goes back to the fact that the Phils were one of the last clubs to integrate, so while the Dodgers and Giants and Pirates and Cubs and Braves were scouring the Negro and Caribbean Leagues for the next big star, the Phillies* were sitting on their collective asses. You could sorta do that in the American League, but it was franchise suicide to try that in the NL.

 

* The Phils were also among the worst of the teams that were pretty shitty to Jackie Robinson. But, really, all the teams were super shitty to Jackie Robinson.

 

In the late 50s/early 60s the Phils got the memo that having Black players on your team was actually a good thing and things started to pick up. They weren't great until the 70s, but the club started to come together as they became the class of the NL East. Their only issue was that they couldn't beat the Reds and when the Big Red Machine broke down, the Phils made the World Series in 1980 (they WON!) and 1983 (they loss).

 

From then they were an up-and-down franchise, who (probably) won more than the loss. I always dug the Phillies look and when they went away from the logo picture below to the one that they have now, I was happy because I liked the retro modern look. But over the years I came back to loving those old Veteran Stadium logos--that sort of weird, 70s vaguely futuristic font with the baseball inside the P.

 

It's kitschy and reminds me of being a kid and trying to figure out who's good on the Phils besides Mike Schmidt. Charlie Hudson? Rick Schu? Former Methuen high and Northern Essex Community College and 1987 Cy Young Award winner Steve Bedrosian?

 

Speaking of those 1980s Phillies, after the team tore down Connie Mack Stadium, but before they moved into BankOne Ballpark, the Phils (and Eagles) played at Veteran's Stadium. It was one of those 1970s, cookie cutter, multi-purpose, Astroturfed stadium that was all the rage a generation ago. I was serious when I mentioned that the turf had a bunch of carcinogens that gave brain cancer.

 

Apparently a bunch of Phillies died of brain cancer over the last decade or so and so some enterprising journalists saw a trend and wanted to see a connection. They found some old samples of the turf on eBay, won the bid and had them tested. Sure enough, the samples were found to have the chemicals (I am not even going to attempt to spell them, but Google is your friend) that are the leading causes of brain cancer. And they're also chemicals that don't just dissipate in the air, they stick around forever. Literally. For-fucking-ever.

 

So if you played for the Phillies during the 70s, 80s or 90s and you're reading this, thank you for your service and get thee to a doctor.

 

14.

Would you look at this: two days in a row with teams that were/are known as the Blue Jays! Bet you didn't know that the Phillies rebranded themselves as the Blue Jays during World War II. It didn't stick. But the name stuck in Toronto!

 

While you're doing that, you'll bump into a metaphor I made about the Jays, the Mariners and the characters from "Reality Bites". Intrigued? I bet you are!

 

 

We are 14 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Dick Clark style, my favorite baseball teams.

 

When I became a baseball fan in the mid 80s, the Seattle Mariners and the Toronto Blue Jays were the most recent clubs added to the American League. I considered them the "new teams" back then and to a certain extent, I still do.

 

But new franchises are never the same. The Mariners stunk and continued to stink from their inception until plugging Ken Griffey Jr., Edgar Martinez, Alex Rodriguez and Jay Buhner into their lineup and trading for Randy Johnson. That was the mid 90s.

 

By that time, their expansion brothers had already won their division a handful of times and made the World Series twice, winning both appearances in back-to-back years. While the Mariners were cooler in the 90s--most things from Seattle was during that time--the Blue Jays were way more successful.

 

It was a lot like "Reality Bites" where the M's were Ethan Hawke (full of promise, short on results) and the Jays were Ben Stiller (hardworking, successful and sorta dorky). MLB fans were Winona Ryder and I have no idea who Steve Zahn or Janeane Garofalo is in this metaphor. As Ryder who should you cheer for/end up with? Readers, I'll leave that decision to you.

 

Give me a break, this was a solid metaphor and I was inspired.

 

The Jays weren't always good but they were a frisky team. In the 80s, they had the best outfield with George Bell, Lloyd Mosby and Jesse Barfield. They had a better-than-decent left side of the infield with Kelly Gruber at third and Tony Fernandez at short. Newly minted Hall of Famer Fred McGriff manned first and their pitching staff had Dave Stieb*, Jimmy Key and Jim Clancy.

 

* Dave Stieb should be in the Hall of Fame. He was really, really, really excellent, you guys. Way better than Jack Morris. This is going to sound insane, but I watched a four-hour YouTube documentary on him (part one: https://youtu.be/ZlviajJlctQ) and it was incredible. You should watch it. Honestly.

 

In the 90s the Jays got better. Like I said they won the World Series twice, moved into the futuristic SkyDome (there's a hotel in the park! And there are rooms that look onto the field!) and the Jays were just rolling along. Then the strike hit, the World Series team got old, players got traded and the Jays have sorta muddled along since then.

 

They've had some really good teams (Jose Batista is one of my all-time favorite non Red Sox players ever) and, to borrow a phrase, Toronto has been "sneaky good" for a few years. But they've never captured that dominance that they had in the early 90s. They never got their Ben-Stiller-taking-a-call-in-his-Porsche-when-no-one-did-that mojo back.

 

The Blue Jays are Canada's only baseball team and they're owned by the Rogers Corporation. They are a sleeping giant and if they wanted to, they could absolutely ravage the lower 48 if they ever wanted to put their financial muscle to the test.

 

When they were really good, I really disliked the Jays. But now that they're finally out of the desert, are on the rise and still an underdog, I like the Blue Jays a bunch.

 

13. 

You might be having a devil of a time trying to find hot dogs (it's like the few weeks before Christmas) so in the mean time check out this entry on the Angels. 

 

There's a nice Tom Yawkey slam buried in there.

 

We are 13 days away from the The Real National Hot Dog Day and to celebrate, we're counting up, Ryan Seacrest style, my favorite baseball teams.

 

It's not a surprise that the Angels have been a bit of a mess as a franchise. When they began in 1961, they were known as the Los Angeles Angels. Then they moved from LA's Wrigley Field (where the awesome old TV show "Home Run Derby" was taped) to Anaheim and became the California Angels. They then turned into the Anaheim Angels for a few years when Disney bought them (SYNERGY! The name on the front of their uniforms are the same as where DisneyLand is located).

 

After being bought from Disney, new owner Arte Moreno wanted to incorporate LA more, but the city wouldn't let him (the city paid to fix up the Big A and one of the stipulations was that the team had to be called the Anaheim Angels) so he changed the name to the ridiculously sounding Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Once the contract expired, Moreno dropped the "of Anaheim" and the Angels were back where they started from. 

 

The existence of this franchise is just as schizophrenic as it's name changes. They've had stars, but they never can seem to win. They're not doormats, but they don't really rise to the occasion. They've blown postseason leads (to the Brewers in 1982 and to the Red Sox in 1986) they blown regular season leads (1995 to the Mariners) but they've also come back when it mattered most--during their only World Series appearance where they were down big in the seventh inning of Game Six where they stormed back against the Giants shocking Dusty Baker and Barry Bonds. They rolled over SF the next night behind rookie John Lackey and captured their first championship.

 

I know how this sounds coming from a Red Sox fan, but the Angels also seem to lead the league in pity. As in every time you find LA/California/Anaheim/LAofA/LA in the playoffs, it's always "I hope they win it for ..." The list is long: Gene Autry, Gene Mauch, Mike Trout, Ohtani, etc. It never seems to be about the fans like it is/was in Boston*, Chicago, Cleveland and other woebegone towns.

 

* Though Boston had a few years where people were pulling for the Sox to win it for racist owner Tom Yawkey. Now that they've won it (four times!) I can say, fuck that guy; I'm glad he went to his grave thinking he was a loser. And that goes double for his wife too.

 

The Angels play in the second largest market in the country and while they have to share the spotlight with the National League team to the north (Dodgers) and now need to make room for the NL team to the south (Padres), I don't think that the Angels have to play the little brother or underdog role.

 

Having said all of that, I do like the Angels a bunch. I like their whole Southern California, it's always sunny here, no matter what vibe. I've always wanted to live in Southern California and I think I'd spend a lot of time watching Angels and Dodgers baseball. Especially if I moved there pre-MLBNetwork.

 

The Angels usually have a fun team to watch. Ohtani and Trout are worth price of admission alone. They've always had stars from Nolan Ryan to the four former MVP teams of the early 80s (Reggie, Fred Lynn, Don Baylor and Rod Carew) to the mid 80s squad to the farm-build teams of the 90s and 00s to now, the Angels at least give it the old college try. And that's all you want as a fan, you want your team to try and win. 

 

Sure, they strike out on a bunch of free agent signings (Anthony Rendon, Josh Hamilton, Mo Vaughn, CJ Wilson, Vernon Wells, Gary Matthews Jr. and a bunch of other jabronis*) but they at least make the attempt. They put themselves out there. They spend the money. They don't spend it wisely but if someone in the front office ever got a clue and used that in conjunction with Moreno's checkbook, they could be dangerous.

 

* I didn't include Albert Pujols because his contract was going to be a complete shitshow in his last few years and it was. He did pretty well for LA when he was there, not as great as he did in St. Louis, but did anyone think he'd really put up those numbers? BTW if Mo Vaughn didn't get hurt (and then fat), who knows if he would have put up big numbers in Cali. But he didn't, so he's there.

 

While their free agent signings are uniformly bad, their uniforms and logos (aside from the Disney years -- Woof) are all really good--just look at that chunky stitching on the ball in the logo at the top of this entry. It's glorious.  Go through any of the logos or the uniforms and you'd be happy to buy a bunch of overpriced crap and root for that laundry.