Opening Day!

How sweet it is! The Tribe smashes the hated White Sox, 10-8, with two of my favorite players, Casey Blake and Jhonny Peralta, among the heroes. The Home Opener at The Jake goes in the W column. All is well in Mudville, at least on this day.l

Takes me back to my most memorable Opening Day game in Cleveland. 1975. Frank Robinson, F. Robby, Take Frank to the Bank, managing his first game ever. Puts himself in the starting lineup and smashes a 3-run home run to win the game in front of a sell-out crowd at Municipal Stadium. OMG what a game! Did we scream our lungs out or what?

(Pause as I wipe away a tear or two.)

In earlier years, when we were younger, it often fell to my sainted mother to take us all to Opening Day. If the old man couldn't get off work, she'd pack us into the car and haul us down to the lakefront, wind howling off Lake Erie, the ballpark an absolute refrigerator even when the sun broke through. We didn't care. Opening Day. Ya had to be there. No matter how the rest of the season went--and it usually went very poorly for Tribe fans back then--you couldn't dampen the the thrill of Opening Day. The buzz was everywhere. "This is gonna be the year." "Did ya see that Rookie Max Alvis, what a kid, huh?" "The Rock is back with the Tribe and all will be well again!"

Self-delusion is an essential quality in a Tribe fan. And the delusion is never stronger than on Opening Day.

Bonus Baby Boomers

Billy Consolo died the other day. His passing subtracts another name from the list of living 1950s/60s "Bonus Babies." These were young players usually right out of high school who were offered what was then considered a large amount of money to immediately sign with a Major League team. (According to the back of his 1959 Topps baseball card, Consolo got $60,000 to sign. The cartoon shows him hauling off a giant sack of money with a Brink's guard, gun out, at his side.)

Back then, as today, baseball owners in the smaller markets objected to the largesse the more well heeled teams could dump on young talent. So they forced through a stupid set of rules that were triggered by a big bonus. The most egregious rule was that the kid had to stay with the Major League team for at least two years before he could be farmed out.

I have not done a study of Bonus Babies. I would like to, but there are a lot of things I would like to do that my wife tells me are silly and i don't have time for when there are bathrooms to clean and bills to pay. But my rcollection is that a high percentage of these Bonus Babies did not have stellar careers. Now, that may be because they rusted on the big league bench for two years when, as very young men,they should have been competing with other kids and drinking beer with other kids and chasing women of their own age. It may be because most young players don't have impressive careers; a huge percentage of players who start out chasing the dream don't make it.

But it does seem, if not unfair, which is a term I don't like, at least weird that kids like Consolo would be anchoring the south end of the Red Sox bench with insane adults like Jimmy Piersall, Frank Sullivan, Ted Williams and Mel Parnell only too eager to warp the young man's mind and body. First, they're jealous of the dough he got. Second, he might take one of their jobs. Third, those guys just gave kids shit for the fun of it.

Billy Consolo got into 603 games in 10 seasons and hit .221--which was still a lot better than many of the Bonus Babies did.

At least Billy got his revenge. For years his pal Sparky Anderson kept him around as a bench coach (read: synchophant) (as in most of Don Zimmer's jobs) where he reportedly told yarns and tall tales one on top of another to the unsuspecting kids on the Tigers teams. (I can't imagine the veteran Tigers of that era, Jack Morris, Frank Tanana or Darrell Evans sticking around for Billy's Story Hour.) Basically, Billy Consolo became a clubhouse clown and entertainer to the players and a drinking buddy to the boss.

The aging Bonus Baby gone creased and golden brown in the summer suns of too many hapless, frustrating seasons, making the best of bad policy concocted by pallid old used car dealers who wished they were in New York or Boston instead of Pittsburgh.

For those of you who are like me (you have my condolences), here's a good article on the subject: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/cash-in-the-cradle-the-bonus-babies/

That was really good for me!

Just completed my first purchase of cards from checkoutmycards.com, the Seattle-based sports card site. I'm happy to report that the site was easy to use and to navigate. I was able to closely examine the cards, front and back, prior to purchase. And when they arrived today, they looked even better in the light of day than they did on the site. Kudos to Steve Hollander for a smooth transaction.

But then how could a purchase involving Valmy Thomas, Eddie Kasko and Willie Jones be anything but satisfactory?

When the Irish ruled MLB

In my bedside Ninth Edition (1993) of the MacMillan Baseball Encyclopedia, 73 position players are listed whose surnames start with O'. That pretty much makes them Irish. (O'Briens comprise the largest single group, if you care.) Of those, 63 played before 1960. (Danny O'Connell retired in 1962 but I still didn't count him as having played before 1960. Just a technical thing, you know?) You could look it up. But the fact is, St. Patrick's Day is no longer an excuse for half the players in Spring Training to go missing on March 17.

The Irish once ruled MLB. It was the typical story--a way out of the slums and also out of a really nasty job of some sort. It was a different game in those days, a lot dirtier, the fight to keep one's job much more desperate than today, when most third-year players have more money than they'll ever need for the rest of their lives.

So today, be sure to raise a glass to those scrappy, rascally Irish ballplayers of yesteryear. Maybe you'll even run into Billy O'Dell or Johnny O'Brien, Paul O'Neill or Pete O'Brien, Kid O'Hara or Hustlin Dan O'Leary on your rounds today. Tip o' the hat to 'em, by god!

La primavera ya esta en el aire

Si, amigos, now we will speak of the joys and hopes that arise in the warm places of the South at this time of year. Specifically, of the many promises Tribe management made to the fans during the 1960s regarding the bounty of hispanic ballplayers that were flooding into the majors.

Tiny bit of history: Hispanics played years before blacks were allowed in. As Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, Al Smith and others were crossing the color barrier in the 1950s with much fanfare, players like Clemente, Pascual, Ramos, Minoso, Vic Power (Puerto Rico), Aparicio and Bobby Avila were quietly paving the way for what would be a virtual invasion of latinos post-1960.

So spring training would arrive in those days. At the Twins' camp, you could watch Tony Oliva, Zoilo (Zorro) Versalles and Cesar Tovar cavort in the sun. You could drop in on the LA Angels and see Jose Cardenal rocket a few off the fences. The Two Joses--Tartabull and Santiago--were struttin their stuff with Boston, while KC (soon to be Oakland) was showcasing the man who would spark the As for years: Bert Campaneris. We won't even talk about the NL, the Alou Bros., Tony Perez, Leo Cardenas, Manny Mota, The Baby Bull (Cepeda), Marichal. No, it's too painful to speak further on this topic.

Now take yourself in your imagination to Tucson, Spring Training home of The Tribe. Who do we find? Why, our own Matty alou: Vic Davalillo! We had the Future Leo Cardenas: Pedro Gonzalez! The next Campaneris: Mike De La Hoz! And don't forget The Immortal One, Jose "Joe" Azcue, a fan favorite. Wait, we gave up on Johnny Romano, who was hitting nearly 20 HRs a year and driving in nearly 50 runs a year, to put Jose behind the plate. The Immortal One was pinking out 6-8 HRs and maybe driving in 35 during those same years. Amusing, si! Manny Sanguillen, no!

OK, we had one legit hispanic star in those days: Luis Tiant. Traded after five years because he had one off year. Went on to win 154 games for other teams. Que terible!

The question is: How did our talent evaluators screw up so completely? I mean, a lot of other teams weren't really scouting Latin talent at the time. The Yankees, Tigers, Orioles and White Sox waited to jump in. But Cleveland's scouts were actively looking for Latin players! How many times did we have to hear that Chico Salmon was going to be the next Bert Campaneris before we lost all hope in the Tribe's front office? And this blind spot was to plague us for years, as we were offered up a Miquel Dilone when Milwaukee fans were getting Sixto Lezcano, or Bo Diaz when the Pirates had Tony Pena behind the plate.

Ah, primavera en Tucson! Que hermoso el cielo! Que bonito el desierto! Que buenas las muchachas locales! Que malos los latinos del Tribe!