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MLB’s Nine 4 Million Home Attendance Clubs

May 21, 2016

TEAM	YEAR	HOME GATE	PER GAME	PARK
Colorado Rockies	1993	4,483,350	55,350	Mile High Stadium
New York Yankees	2008	4,298,655	53,070	Yankee Stadium
New York Yankees	2007	4,271,867	52,739	Yankee Stadium
New York Yankees	2006	4,248,067	52,455	Yankee Stadium
New York Yankees	2005	4,090,696	50,502	Yankee Stadium
Toronto Blue Jays	1993	4,057.947	50,098	SkyDome
New York Mets	2008	4,042,045	49,902	Shea Stadium
Toronto Blue Jays	1992	4,028,318	49,732	SkyDome
Toronto Blue Jays	1991	4,001,527	49,402	SkyDome

The Rockies drew over 4,000,000 fans in their 1993 first season. – How did they do it? Did they count live bears that came in from the woods to tour the “new” Rockies?

Data Source Link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_attendance_records

Notes on the Nine Clubs that have achieved the only 4-million home gate season attendance marks:

The Toronto Blue Jays (3 appearances)

The Toronto Blue Jays became the first MLB club in history to go beyond the 4 million home game attendance mark in 1991, and they continued this boost of fan support for two more years through 1992 and 1993. In 1991, the Jays won the AL East title, but lost the pennant to the Twins in the playoffs. They followed with consecutive World Series title years in 1992 and 1993. Throw in the shiny effect of the new-since-1989 SkyDome and the formula was perfect for record support of the first World Series champion from a non-USA city member of MLB. Putting a cork back on the magic fan juicer was “1994” and the bitter labor-management crisis that both shortened the season and cancelled the World Series.

The Two New York Teams (5 total appearances)

The Yankees (4) and Mets (1) occupied 5 of the 9 spots earned by MLB’s only 4-million season home attendance club. In 2008, both New York clubs made it, grabbing a record 8-millon plus attendance mark for the Big Apple as the only “town” in America that could have pulled off that freakishly strong support for baseball in America.

The Colorado Rockies (1 appearance)

It was the Rockies first year. We get it. “New” usually translates new fan hope into strong attendance until reality creeps in – but – over million of them? – The Pecan Park Eagle would like to invite Tom Hunter – or any other expert on Rockies baseball history – to explain how this happened for a club in one of baseball’s smaller market cities that finished their 1993 season at 67-95 in 7th place in the NL West Division. Was the “magic” of their first season also helped by the Rockies playing at Mile High Stadium – or is there something more ethereal and dynamic that we need to understand about Colorado fans? – What ever you share with us by e-mail or public comment will be moved up here as an addendum to the column with credit to you, if you have no objection. And today, that same invitation goes out to any other comments that readers may have on this topic about any of the clubs.

Thank you very much. I’m getting better from a sorry-ankle cold that I picked up this week and would enjoy your digital company in the knowledge that I cannot infect you.

Have a safe and healthy weekend!

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Addendum Comment # 1 Re: The Colorado Rockies (1993)

Cliff Blau Says: May 22, 2016 at 1:21 am)

On the Rockies- It makes me think of what Clark Griffith said about the Nationals- “Fans like home runs, and we have assembled a pitching staff to please our fans.” Lots of scoring and first year of an eagerly anticipated major league team= big attendance.

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Addendum Comment # 2 Re: The Colorado Rockies (1993)

Tom Hunter Says: (May 22, 2016 at 3:05 am by e-mail)

I moved to Denver in the fall of 1973 and attended my first baseball game at Mile High Stadium the next year between the Denver Bears and their major league affiliate, the Houston Astros. One notable pitcher on the Bears roster was J.R. Richard. I discovered that many people in Denver were New York Yankees fans because the Bears were a Triple-A farm club of the Yankees from 1955-’58 and featured such players as Tony Kubek, Bobby Richardson, Don Larsen, Ralph Terry, Ryne Duren, Johnny Blanchard, and Norm Siebern as well as manager Ralph Houk. Billy Martin’s first managing job was with the Denver Bears in 1968, when they were affiliated with Minnesota Twins.

Denver has a rich baseball history and the Bears actually outdrew a few major league teams in attendance. In 1977, billionaire oilman Marvin Davis unsuccessfully tried to move the Oakland A’s to Denver. After the 1984 season, the Bears were sold and renamed the Denver Zephyrs. The Zephyrs roster included Barry Larkin, Chris Sabo, Eric Davis, Paul O’Neill, Billy Bates, and Ron Dibble. They played on the Cincinnati Reds team that swept the Oakland A’s in the 1990 World Series.

Before Denver was awarded a National League franchise in 1991, the closest major league teams were in Missouri or California. The Colorado Rockies play in Denver, but draw fans from all over the state as well as neighboring states and are truly a regional team.

I went to the third game ever played by the Houston Colt .45s on April 12, 1962 at Colt Stadium and I was in Mile High Stadium (neé Bears Stadium) on April 9, 1993 along with 80,226 other fans for the Colorado Rockies inaugural home opener against the Montréal Expos. It was a thrill for me, but even more so for native Denverites, who as long-suffering faithful fans had waited decades for this day.

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Addendum Comment # 3 Re: The New York Yankees (2005-2008)

Mark W Says: May 22, 2016 at 5:39 am

It’s intriguing to me that the first year the Yankees topped 4,000,0000 (love to see the zeroes) was the year after the Red Sox came back on them from an 0-3 deficit in the ALCS, and even more intriguing that they never managed 4,000,000 during their run of four World Series titles in five years, 1996-2000. It’s also intriguing that the Yankees lowest total during their four year 4,000,000 run was the year they last won the World Series, and that was the only time they won the World Series during their four-year 4,000,000 run.

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Addendum Comment # 4 Re: The improbability of another 4-million season home gate

Greg C Lucas Says:
May 22, 2016 at 2:08 pm

With what ticket prices have done in recent years I doubt if 4-million can ever be reached again. Certainly it won’t happen with the Yankees in their new stadium unless prices go way down. However if prices were ever reduced enough I think 4-million would not be an unreasonable goal if the stars were aligned.

____________________

Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas

https://bill37mccurdy.com/

Tags:The 4-Million Fan Season Home Game Gates
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The History of Team Chemistry in Baseball

May 20, 2016

Hugs and Laughs were no everyday experience for Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson back in 1997.

As we implicitly reviewed in yesterday’s column, “Destiny’s Demise”, the pain for Adam, of living alone with pleasure in Eden, proved also to be the birth of our first and arguably still greatest social fear – the fear of loneliness. Good cases also exist for our fears of the unknown (alone) – and the dreadnought fear of being unloved – or not respected – figuring into the mix up top too, of course, and they each are also ubiquitously present in that earliest moment in recorded social time.

Destiny’s Demise

The Fall of Eden

Once God created woman for the supposed sake of satisfying Adam’s desire for human companionship, the game of life changed. It introduced the potential for human social rebellion in the matter of human ego, as in “who’s running this place, God or Mankind”? So God introduced, for the first time, the presence of potential pain for missing the mark of His expectations (also called “sinning'”) by humanity. – Adam and Eve could do anything they wanted in Eden – and it would be OK – just as long as they remembered and abided with God’s new rule that they should never eat the fruit of the apple tree.

What a deal! Bernie Madoff could have Ponzi-schemed Eden to his heartless pocket book’s delight – had he been around to prey upon Adam and Eve back then – and it would have been OK – as long as the three of them did not toast the deal with shared glasses of apple cider.

It worked out much more simply. Adam and Eve blew it all by biting into the apple. Eden fell. No more entitlement. God put on an early record of “Get a Job” by The Coasters – and we’ve been either working or looking for a way around it ever since. The eternal “pleasure-pain era” was now in effect, but with pleasure becoming downright elusive, delusional, short-lived, or sometime non-existent in the face of the other realities produced by either Adam and Eve’s original sin – or the simple reality of living in a world that is basically governed daily by the natural laws of physics and chemistry. As human beings, Adam and Eve, and all the rest of us who have followed, would now face the challenge of finding ways to live is spite of – The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – Conquest, War, Famine, and Death.

The Pleasure-Pain Distribution in The Early Egyptian Model

In ancient Egypt, only the top 1% knew anything of transitory pleasure. And their mark in life was to pass on down the social cycle all the pain of building the pyramids as the ultimate victory for the elite over the Four Horsemen. If the actual stone-pushers felt anything but pain, it came at the moment they fell in their tracks – and their lifeless bodies could not be beaten into ever working again. There was no discussion of team chemistry in those days. The Pharaoh owned 100% of the power chemistry – and everyone else was low gradiently – to no gradiently – chained to each other as the team assigned to the job of getting the will of the sand kings done.

The Real Birth of Team Chemistry: July 4, 1776

Team Chemistry as a valuable aspect of human accomplishment did not truly flourish in fuller ways until our American Revolution. Until then, it probably only happened in those instances in which a relatively small number of humans were forced by the circumstances of their labor to find a way to work together for the sake of their shared instincts for survival. – Shipwreck survivors come to mind. – It would have been pretty hard for s surviving captain on the beach to still give orders to thirty other men who had been slave oarsmen on his ship. In fact it would have been pretty hard for that captain to even have survived on the beach under those circumstances. – The birth of America marked the first serious time in history that freedom and equality, at least, were written into the founding documentation, even if the actuality from what happened there still came about in total ignorance of black slavery in the South, the universal treatment of women as non-voting entities, and the dismissal of men who owned no real estate as pretty much “second-class” citizens with no vote in the new democracy.

Our National Pastime

As flawed and embarrassing as that start was, it was the beginning of a culture that would provide leisure time, even if it were Sunday only, to pretty much all American people by the late 19th century. And the game of “base ball” – from the even earlier discernible times – found itself evolving into something that began to receive notice as “our national pastime”. Without much further research, we are not sure when that reference was first made in print – nor are we aware of when a lesser know descriptor – “team chemistry” – found its way into commonly referenced usage in application to baseball. – We simply know it happened.

The Henry Ford Contribution

Henry Ford invented the assembly line as a way to build cars faster. The problem for workers was that they no longer worked on the whole assembly of a complete auto. Many complained that it was too boring to simply stand there and do the same partial thing repetitively – all day – without the former satisfaction of being involved in all aspects of producing one whole car. – Paraphrasing here, Henry Ford’s answer was straight foreword: “All we’re asking of you here is that you simply give us an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.”

Words were not enough. The dispute between management and labor continued, leading eventually to the start of the United Auto Workers union as the voice of labor.

The Production-Morale Continuum

Industrial psychology got involved and came up with the idea for the Production-Morale Continuum as a way of helping corporate management and labor find their best balance between those two important ingredients. What we like about it is the fact that one may even overlay what we shall call the Pleasure-Pain Continuum over it to support how important getting this issue resolved is to finding the best fit for both management and labor. Here’s what we mean:

Management: If you are management, what are you willing to give labor in service to the accomplishment goals that are important to you. – And is the pleasure of reaching those goals worth the pain of what you have to pay your workers to get it done?

Labor: If you are labor, what does management have to give you to make your best efforts at work possible? – And is the pleasure you derive from your paycheck worth the pain of what you have to do to get it?

So, What is Team Chemistry in Baseball?

If the preceding section made sense to you, team chemistry is everything else. It can even be the factor that transforms a silly looking and strange talking guy who once released a bird from his cap from being an absolutely forgettable managerial failure with the Braves and Dodgers during the 1930s into becoming a Hall of Fame managerial genius with the New York Yankees from 1949-1960.

If you are management, “team chemistry” works better at that level if the owner, the GM, and the manager all openly share the same realistic season goals for their team. Obviously, if the owner is expecting a World Series title, if the GM will be happy with a playoff appearance, and, if the manager is just hoping to reach .500, there are going to be problems very quickly.

On the other hand, if all three levels of management start out together wanting a World Series win, but over the years, the owner simply begins to settle privately for turning a good profit as he guts the farm system as a cost-saving measure, there are going to be problems too. Somebody’s going to get fired. And it’s never going to be the owner.

As for the players, and the team chemistry with their manager, how often do we see the pattern of a club spinning its wheels forever because they alternate managers from one end of the Production-Morale Continuum to the other. For example, Adolph Hitler gets hired to demand production of his players. If he lasts even two full seasons, he is then replaced by Kris Kringle for the sake of everyone’s morale. When the team’s rally under their new manager is either short-lived or never really in the hunt for a title, the cycle repeats. The problem exists until the club either comes to terms with the talent level of their players – or comes to terms with the fact that “carrots or sticks” alone cannot make things better in the long run – or they simply acknowledge that their club is the kind of kiss-ankle organization which only talks like winners as they play each actual card like losers by just doing what they’ve always done.

Nothing gets better when people are just doing what they have to do to protect their point of view or keep their jobs. And so, the cycle repeats:

GM: “We’re getting nowhere with Kringle. The team is happier, but we’ve lost 9 out of 1o games since he took over as manager.”

Owner: “DIAL HITLER!”

GM: “We can’t DIAL Hitler. – We just FIRED Hitler.”

Owner: (abruptly passing a card TO THE GM) “THEN HERE’S THE NUMBER FOR ATTILA THE HUN! I COULD CALL HIM MYSELF, BUT YOU DO IT! – YOU’RE THE GENERAL MANAGER!”

GM: “Yes Sir.”

In the end, most World Series winners attribute victory to “team chemistry”, but that’s only because the joy of victory is powerful enough to cover many tears upon the soul during a long tough season. – One more time, check out the loving celebratory picture of Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson from 1997. Even before the world had PhotoShop, pictures were known to lie.

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Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas

https://bill37mccurdy.com/

Tags:The History of Team Chemistry in Baseball
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Destiny’s Demise

May 19, 2016

In The Big Inning

In the beginning, as opposed to the “big inning”, God created the sun and the moon and the stars – and then He picked earth in Round Four – in the first material draft in the universe. God never argued His version of the creation with the early evolutionary theorists. As the omnipresent, omniscient intelligent Creator of Everything, He simply deferred all arguments and questions with the same one-sentence explanation: “However you see it, that is how I did it.” Once in a while, God would throw in a second thought, just to interject a little mystery into the discussion about the genuine meaning of His words.: “If you enjoyed the first “Big Bang” – God would sometimes say – “check back in the future year of 1920 and watch what happens when the Red Sox trade Babe Ruth to the Yankees.” It stumped ’em every time, but there were a few short-lived religious sects that spawned a belief that centered on the idea that Babe Ruth was the Messiah who would come to redeem the world from all the sins that people would have a chance to generate between the beginning of time nd the year 1920. These efforts always failed due to the inability of all to discern the answers to the mystery of that human-made trinity of three questions that spawned but never hatched as answers in the human mind: (1) Who were the Red Sox? (2) Who were the Yankees? And (3) What’s 1920 got to do with start of anything?

Then came the booming sound of that big Master of Ceremonies in the Sky: “In the final round of the first Material Draft”, God of the Universe, selects – Adam Man of Mudville to be the first and only inhabitant of the Worldly Paradise He calls Eden.

What a deal! – Man enjoys almost the full range of pleasure that Eden offers. On a steady diet of what the world shall one day come to know as Mexican and Italian foods, nachos and pizzas, chicken and dumplings and cherry pie with ice cream on top, and that forever wonderful comfort food known as “mac and cheese”, Adam finds that the more he eats of them all, the more his body develops consequentially into a finely chiselled display of abs and muscular attraction for every heterosexual woman on earth. The problem for Adam, of course, is the fact that there were no women at all on this planet at the start. And, in his early time, Adam doesn’t even know what a woman is – nor does he have any idea about how she may be able to help him pleasure and comfort away the loneliness he feels in every bone in his physically perfect body. He just wants relief – and he is tired of searching for it alone.

(The following five paragraphs are based upon a punchline joke I heard years ago in one of those old anonymous get-around stories. Wish I knew their name, I’d give them credit for that cruncher-line-to-come. Since I don’t have it, I’l simply do my best to weave the line into the story I’m telling here in my own way.)

“God,” Adam asks the Lord one day, “can you possibly send me a friend? Someone whose a little different from me – and even built a little differently? And – can this “person” be someone who takes care of my every wish, my every request, and my every order – without grumbling or feeling resentment toward me in any way? And can this friend be someone who lives to love and serve me daily – and be someone who tries constantly to make sure that I am loved and spared even a second of unnecessary loneliness? – Could you do that for me, God? – Could you, please?”

God stared at Adam for a moment that felt to his entreating creature as an eternity of silence. Then He finally spoke:

“I can do that for you, Adam,” God said, “but it’s going to cost you an arm and a leg.”

Now it was Adam’s turn to hold his breath and collect his thoughts. He had not considered the possibility of a stiff price. And that’s perfectly understandable. After all, Adam Man was not merely the first human. He was also the first entitlement baby. In the spite of that obstacle, Adam finally spoke his mind, setting in motion the world’s first amateur draft negotiation:

“in that case,” Adam asked, “…. what can I get for a rib?”

And so the first woman was created by God and named Eve, clearing the way for the first Ladies Day game celebrations that followed the eventual invention of baseball. It also marked the first time in history that the big Man from Mudville went down swinging for the fences with his own selfish search for personal joy. The search for joy together as a couple goes on through today. If you are into blame, blame Adam and Eve. They didn’t solve it for all the generations of us that since have followed. As their descendants, they left so much work for the rest of us.

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About thirty-one years ago, I wrote a poem about relationships that came down to these understandings from both my own life and work with others in my day job. It embodies what amounts to the major derailment for most of us until we figure it out. We project what we want to see in potential partners of attraction, but nobody is totally that person we think they are – and neither are we the total person they project us to be. And nobody is the rest of what we feel is missing in us. Once we figure out that love is not about sating our own appetite for love and wholeness through another’s response to our wishes, and only then, are we free to find together what we could not reach alone. I called it Destiny’s Demise – and it goes like this:

Destiny’s Demise

By Bill McCurdy 1985 (C)

you were not the rest of me,

and i was not your destiny,

but coming on like destiny,

desperate for the rest of me,

almost got the best of me and you.

____________________

Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas

https://bill37mccurdy.com/

Tags:Destiny's Demise
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We’re Back ~ and SABR’s the Word

May 17, 2016

When Irish Eyes Are Smiling
Larry and Kathleen Miggins

Morti Update

Morti’s doing as well as expected. All he does is sleep, eat, and smile lovingly at the rest of the family every day, but, at least, he’s not being put down for pretty much following my schedule, give or take a blog column or two. As long as he seems to be pain free in his decline, we would much prefer to see him breathe his last in his own little bed than go through another of those awful, almost fatal trips we took to the vet six days ago. I can’t thank all of you enough who expressed your understanding and support in this matter. And I will never forget each of you who did so. The actions that people take in matters like this one speak loudly for them – and about them. I also appreciate those of you who simply offered your implicit support with a knowing look or a smiling hello in person. I got the message from even that subtle a contact. There’s no one out there among you that I know who “owns” an animal who misunderstands the point. These little, or not so little, creatures are not simply possessions. The also give and receive love as members of our families. Thank God for all the “Mortis” of this world. I’d hate to seriously consider how much worse our chances for peace on earth would be without them.

SABR Last Night

Larry Miggins was present for the first time since he fell and broke his leg last November. Accompanied by son John Miggins, Larry came in a wheel chair, but he both looked and sounded great. As per usual, Larry told some wonderful baseball and Irish stories, but I would not even begin to try and recapture here in the linear context of typed print their heart, their humor, or their Miggins’ storytelling signature. In other words, “you shoulda’ been there.” Larry did share with us that his enthusiasm for the Vin Scully cover story article in the May 16, 2016 issue of Sports Illustrated that is now on seller shelves everywhere did prompt him to do something he’s been meaning to do anyway. He called his old high school classmate, Vin Scully, yesterday to “catch up” on things – and to thank him for including the story off Vin’s incredible high school classmate prediction that he would be there someday to broadcast Larry’s first MLB home run. And, of course, as wild as it seems improbable, Vin Scully was the rookie junior man on the Dodger radio broadcast crew when Larry Miggins stepped to the plate at Ebbets Field as a raw member of the St. Louis Cardinals to face Preacher Roe on May 13, 1952. – And it happened – just as Vin Scully had called the shot and game coverage. “It was the most significant home run of my career,” Larry said, “and it was an event that seriously directed the rest of our lives.” – Larry’s son Robert Miggins of San Antonio also will be traveling to Los Angeles this summer with the President of HEB Foods to attend a Dodger game and meeting with Vin Scully at the stadium during the latter’s last season in the broadcast booth. What a wrap for Scully – 66 years in the booth (and 67, once he finishes his career with the 2016 season) as a baseball play-by-play solo genius – and it all began – as it shall shall soon enough conclude – with another Miggins on board as the second of two baseball family career book ends in the life of the great Vin Scully.

Joe Perez was on deck as President and Owner of the OTW (Over the Wall) Bat Company here in Houston to lay out the history, science, and business of a small Houston operation that has found its way into the swing of competition with the big boys in this field. Colby Rasmus of the Astros is OTW’s most famous local customer, and, as Perez pointed out, it didn’t hurt business at all when Colby became a client last season and then went into that playoff tear with all the home runs. – After all, these are “over the wall” people and that kind of action is good for business. The contents of this presentations were altogether comprehensive and articulately presented. All we can hope to do is give you a smattering of them. – OTW mainly uses maple and ash tree wood. – Most big leaguers are superstitious and demanding of precision in each bat they order – The MLB clubs pay for their player bat orders. – Colby Rasmus probably takes a couple of dozen bats with him on nine-game road trip. – Wood absorbs moisture like a sponge. – During spring training in Florida, a bat may gain 3 oz. of weight from the morning dew. – Too much weight slows the bat speed. – A heavier bat of 44 oz. could not afford the 3 oz. gain. – 46 oz. is the legal upper limit of bat weight. – In arid Arizona, bats lose weight due to the absence of air moisture. – They become brittle and more susceptible to breaking. Members of our SABR chapter have been invited to tour the OTW Bat Company and, hopefully, those of us who are interested will take up Joe Perez on his invitation.

A SABR Chapter Charter Bus Trip to See the Corpus Christi Hooks on Saturday, June 11th is being explored by Mike McCroskey. The trip would include a 3-hour ride from Houston to Corpus Christi, leaving about 1 PM and arriving in time for a tour of Whataburger Park, an included in the price meal, a Hooks game that starts at 6 PM and an immediate return to Houston when things ended. (Although, I’m assuming that, if we ran into a game that was 15-0 after six, we might be free to leave early. We should be back in Houston some time after midnight. – The cost slides, depending on how many people sign up. – If 30 people sign up, I think Mike said the cost would be $125.00 per person. The big thing now is time. If you are interested, please e-mail Mike McCroskey soon at:

mikemccros@hotmail.com

Jim Kreuz reported on his enjoyable experience attending a baseball Saturday program in Austin with the Rogers Hornsby Chapter in which SABR’s Paul Rogers of Dallas made a measurable impression on everyone. We are hoping to have Paul join us in Houston too one of these fine SABR weekends. – Tony Cavender‘s Trivia Quiz was won by Tom White and Mike Vance, with the latter agreeing to prepare a quiz for June’s meeting.

Our Larry Dierker SABR Chapter Meeting Schedule through August 2016:

Monday, June 27, 2016, 7:00 PM ~ Spaghetti Western Ristorante on Shepherd Drive at Eigels, south of I-10 West. (Program TBA)
July 2016 ~ No Meeting Scheduled to conflict with too many summer travel plans.
Saturday, August 27, 2016, 4:00 PM ~ Minute Maid Park, Union Station Board Room, Astros President Reid Ryan, Speaker, followed by the Blue Jays @ Astros game. Cost: $35.00 per person. *

Jo Russell and Mike McCroskey are in charge of reservations and collections and may be contacted through the earlier e-mail provided for Mike.

Sales, Trades, and Outright Releases

Bob Dorrill, Mike Vance, Joe Thompson, Jim Kreuz, and Tom White brought collectibles to buy, sell, or giveaway. It went well for most of us members of the hands out and hungry crowd. We went home with some nice and valuable collector’s trinkets – something I needed like another hole in the head. Bottom Line: It was fun.

Have a great Tuesday afternoon, everybody, and stay dry!

____________________

Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas

https://bill37mccurdy.com/

Tags:Miggins & Scully, SABR
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Recipe for a Baseball Dream Cake

May 13, 2016

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1^st 700 GAMES	BA	HITS	HR	SB
PETE ROSE	.296	835	43	29
ROBERTO ALOMAR	.290	794	37	167
JOSE ALTUVE	.306	870	45	182

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Recipe for a Baseball Dream Cake

1) Place your dream in a large bowl, keeping in mind, that if your dream comes true, you won’t find a bowl in the kitchen that will be big enough to hold it.

2) Sprinkle the contents with liberal pinches of hope, expectation, and egotistical certainty that time is really the only chef needed in this exercise, and that the charade of your participation is only important to your personal goal of achieving recognition as a baseball culture pundit.

3) Add some personal words of quotable proof that the expected outcome in this exercise is your eloquently personal prediction. As you do so, throw in the idea that these words shall serve as the yeast that shall make the cake rise to its deliciously forecasted full size and glory.

4) Shake, do not stir, the ingredients – and then place the bowl and its contents in the microwave time machine.

5) Set the timer for the amount of time you project it will take for the dream to be affirmed as true.

NOTE: If the dream has to do with a player career achievement, an ETA (Estimated Time of Actuality) of 15-20 years is suggested. Remember too, the closer your ETA is to the actual outcome date, the more credit you will receive for your Delphic powers.

6) If you pull your cake from the machine to find your predictions fulfilled, celebrate, of course, but be prepared for the reality too that by using the machine, no matter what results it shows, that you also have actually aged the same time it took to travel into the future and find your answer. As soon as the cake is removed from the “time waver”, it ages everything within the immediate structure in which it rests to the same degree. In other words, if you use the “waver” in 2016 on a twenty year ETA setting, it will still be 2016 for everyone else in your neighborhood and city of residence when you are are done, but you, everyone and everything else in your house, and the house itself, will have physically aged 20 years to 2036.

Small Consolation: If you didn’t get the dream cake you wanted, there is one bowl, at least, in the house that will get rid of the failed cake rise for you, and that’s the toilet bowl in any bathroom in your house. The flush handle should still work, even if it has been twenty years.

Dream on. But stay away from the “time waver”. Life’s tough enough.

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Now I can begin my “as advertised” brief column break. After I wrote that piece, I received the Altuve, Alomar, and Rose box at the top of the page from Mark Wernick. Then the muses hit me. And I could not resist their call. I will try again. Let’s see how far I get this time.

____________________

Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas

https://bill37mccurdy.com/

Tags:Recipe for a Baseball Dream Cake
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Morti’s Reprieve

May 12, 2016

Morti McCurdy
In His Puppy Years

Part One of this little McCurdy Family Soap Opera appeared as yesterday’s column: World’s Tallest Caterpillar

https://bill37mccurdy.com/2016/05/11/worlds-tallest-caterpillar/

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Part Two: Morti’s Reprieve

Things took an unexpected turn in the vet’s office this afternoon. Because Morti is still eating well; not coughing the way animals with cancers that have spread to the lungs do; not incontinent in any way; and because he is still alert and enjoying our company; the vet presented us with the idea that euthanasia is still an “option” at this point – and not a “requirement.” After the examination today, the vet could only tell us that the visible bone mass growth on the stomach side of Morti’s left hind leg is “probably cancerous” – since no lab tests have been performed to confirm that opinion. And if it is cancerous, it “most certainly” will continue to grow and create issues of pain and change that cannot be ignored. When, or if, that happens, “putting Morti down” will become the “requirement” we thought it would be today.

Then the vet added the fact that he could still go ahead and put Morti to sleep today, if that is what we chose to do. And that statement had to be weighed against the vet’s other statement this afternoon that he was surprised to see Morti doing “this well for this long” since his our first consult about the early stages of the problem back in January 2016.

Given that much wiggle room on something I dreaded doing today, anyway, I opted to bring Morti home as we best like him – in the living, still loving and trusting state. Of course, I tried to call Norma and bring her into the decision too, but she had her cell on silence – and I had to make the call for all of us. And, even though I know that decision has set us up for another day of this torture down the line, it will be easier for me to do when we know there is no choice for life that works for Morti at all. – For now, however, his innocent eyes still say, “Love me. And be with me.” And so we shall continue to be, whether it’s only for a few more days – or a few more weeks. For as long as we can help him breathe in every last moment of goodness about life, we shall do so. And Norma agrees with me, which I was sure she would.

If I had avoided the option the vet gave me today, and gone ahead with the procedure, it would have been to selfishly save me from another 24 hours like the one we just had. Now Morti has the precious opportunity for a little more loving time in life. And we get to enjoy it with him.

My apologies for pulling all of you into this little big moment in our personal life, but it felt good to me – and it also helped support me through the past 24 hours. Those who commented or e-mailed their word of support are especially appreciated, but it wasn’t necessary for you all to write. I know you are out there. I feel your presence on a daily basis.

I won’t write any more columns on this subject, but I will find space somewhere down the line to get the word out on the final resolution, whenever that is.

In the meanwhile, I will be taking off a few days from daily column writing. My energies are needed elsewhere for now.

_______________________

Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas

https://bill37mccurdy.com/

Tags:Part 2, World's Tallest Caterpillar
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World’s Tallest Caterpillar

May 11, 2016

Morti McCurdy, 2004-2016
“World’s Tallest Caterpillar”

Today is a sad one at our house. It probably would be a better idea if I didn’t even try to write, but I cannot help myself. The day looms for what it is – a day of physical separation looming, but also a day of gratitude for all the good times and mental pictures forever of Morti, 0ur little 10-pound, 12-year 0ld Shih Tzu canine son – and the smallest McCurdy family member – the high-pitch barking one that I shall always best remember as “the world’s tallest caterpillar.”

A couple of months ago, our vet discovered a small internal swelling near Morti’s rear left upper leg. The immediate prognosis was foreboding, and time proved the worst. Morti has an inoperable cancer that has reached the point of inevitability. Our son Casey and I will be taking Morti back to the vet one last time at 2:00 PM today, Wednesday, May 11, 2016 for euthanasia. My wonderful wife Norma had to say her tearful goodbye to Morti this morning before leaving for a busy day at the hospital.

Today is the day that our little family has to say goodbye to our smallest canine channel of so much love and laughter, but it is far more than sadness that we embrace – again – today. It is the latest reminder of the stuff that really is important in life:

True Love is not a commodity that comes and goes with birth and death alone. Once given or received, Real Love – not appetite-driven love – is forever – because “God Is Love” – and God is also the name for every other source of eternally nutrient spiritual energy available to us, even when it comes bouncing through the door of our lives one golden moment day – looking like the “world’s tallest caterpillar.”

Goodbye, Sweet Morti McCurdy! – Our Love for You is Eternal too! – And you shall live forever in our hearts, especially in all shared smiling family moments that simply seem to find us when we most need them, no matter what.

____________________

Wednesday, May 11, 2016, 8:15 PM

The outcome of today’s ordeal is summarized in Part II of this report,

Morti’s Reprieve, Thursday, May 12, 2016

Morti’s Reprieve

____________________

Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas

https://bill37mccurdy.com/

Tags:Part 1: World's Tallest Caterpillar
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Ode to the Baseball Calendar

May 10, 2016

Ode to the Baseball Calendar

By Bill McCurdy

The Pecan Park Eagle

May 10, 2016

April sings the hope of spring,

May delivers doubt.

June’s the door to reality,

July shouts – in or out.

August rallies stretch-run nags,

September sorts them out.

October crowns the one true champ,

November’s the time – for losers to pout.

____________________

Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas

https://bill37mccurdy.com/

Tags:Ode to the Baseball Calendar
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Team Chemistry in Baseball

May 9, 2016

“If were what you call blending in, there’s got to be more to team chemistry than we bring to the periodic table of elements!”

Team Chemistry in Baseball

What is it? In reality?

Once you get past pure good or bad luck, the random, but rotating movement of outcomes from those you like, to those that don’t seem to matter, and, inevitably, those you hate, what is this thing that winning teams dismiss as credit to the vagaries of “our great chemistry” as they are popping champagne and pouring the bubbly on each other’s head in the winning team’s World Series clubhouse?

Although we don’t seem to know much about it collectively, we’ve all seen the efforts of ego and intelligence that go into creating the kind of chemistry we think is needed to survive the 162-game regular season as a division winner or playoff qualifier for the games that follow for all the marbles – and the one showdown that puts all other baseball trials and accomplishments in the shade – winning the World Series.

And what is the result of winning the World Series? It’s viscerally that 48-hour moment of celebration that begins with the player pile at the pitcher’s mound following the last out, or potentially, the walk-off victory hit by a home club, through the champagne shower, the all night party that follows, the calls to and from family, friends, and celebrities, the smiles and autograph rapture roll of fans, the joyful moment of awakening the next day to the realization that, yes, it’s true, we won it all, to the big parade down whatever serves your city as the “canyon trail of heroes”, and finally – to the biggest descent you will ever make as a player – to that gradual or abruptly realized moment that finally hits you: the rest of the world now expects us to rejoin them at ground level on planet earth. It is in that moment of realization that we shall never quite get there – or be able to translate that realization to anyone has not personally shared our World Series victory experience as players. – For 48 hours sharply, and for all eternity on a more mellow plane, we understood that our club just ended this baseball season as the only winners – while all other 29 MLB clubs ended their years as 29 losers! – We would never say it, but we knew it. – Even if the club we just beat lost to us in extra innings by one-run in Game Seven, the best they can now claim is simply expressed. – They were the top loser on a list that included 28 other – losers. History will forget them all. – They may even forget us too in time, but, as for now, that little discovery is way down the road of realization for most of us. In the warm amber glow of what we have just done, our victorious club is in gear to dance with the delusion that no one will ever forget what we did here – and WHO we now are!

“We ARE The Champions! – WE Are The Champions! – We Are the CHAMPIONS …. OF THE WORLD!“

What is team chemistry?

Is it simply a blow-off phrase for something we cannot really describe? If it is important to winning, is it always a positive factor on the team morale side of things? The 1997 Yankees of Manager Billy Martin, Right Fielder Reggie Jackson, and Club Owner George Steinbrenner won the World Series, but they almost killed each other throughout the season in a meteor shower of ego collisions. In the end, their victory celebration in the clubhouse may even have appeared to the uninformed as a love feast, but it was anything but love for each other that drove the Bronx Zoo club that season. – Were they an example of negative team chemistry driving a club to victory? – Or could they be better described as a club with so much talent that they proved themselves capable in the end of winning in spite of themselves – and a flooding slew of narcissistic collisions with each other?

How important is will?

Most of us don’t know beans about what it must be like to travel through a season with 25 to 40 other members of an MLB club and managerial coaching staff and crew over a 162-game schedule that includes 81 road games from Miami, Florida to Seattle, Washington. How do you do that and perform well if you don’t like or get along with some of the people in your group?

Shortstop Joe Tinker and 2nd Baseman Johnny Evers of the famous early 20th century Chicago Cubs “Tinker to Evers to Chance” double play poem supposedly didn’t speak to each other for years due to a feud they had going between them, but they still performed as one of the premier keystone combos of their time. And they had enough “chemistry” to help lead the Cubs to their last World Series championship in 1908. How did they each do it? Did they simply partition the negative personal stuff out of the way so that they could play to the best of their abilities. – Or did that negative chemistry actually spur each of them to play at a higher level?

And how vital is a winning attitude to success in baseball?

To me, the question almost answers itself, but it speaks even more loudly now. After years of contact and annual meetings in St. Louis as a member of the St. Louis Browns Historical Society, I was privileged to meet and get to know a lot of the old Browns players from the 1940s and early 1950s through their last season of 1953. They were, and still are, some of the nicest people I know in baseball, but their numbers have now “dwindled down to a precious few.”

The old Brownies were no dummies. They understood that their club was one of the “church mice” members of the great American League baseball temple. – These guys had an incentive to play well, all right – and that was so they could be sold to the Yankees or some other monied clubs that were actually trying to win. The Browns ownership used the sale of their talented players to pay the utility bills at Sportsman’s Park.

Losing and low attendance, as always, worked together like an interlocking virus for the AL St. Louis club. Most talented Browns players held out hope for better personal fortune by their individual accomplishments, but losing streaks as a club are built upon the backs of limited ability players who expect to lose. The unspoken question, “I wonder how we are going to lose today?”, was just part of being a St. Louis Brown.

Ned Garver described the lack of Browns fan support at Sportsman’s Park in a talk he once delivered at one of our St. Louis banquets. “Our fans never booed us,” Garver said. “They wouldn’t dare. We outnumbered them.”

Pitcher Ned Garver also stands alone as the poster boy for the futility of accomplishment among the Browns. As many of you know, the 1951 Browns finished 8th and last in the AL with a record of 52 wins and 102 losses – and 46 games back of the first place Yankees. Incredibly, Ned Garver finished with a pitching record of 20 wins and 12 losses for that same sorry club. When he asked for a raise from club owner Bill Veeck over the winter, Veeck turned him down. “We could’ve finished last without you,” Veeck explained.

The eternally cyclical effect in baseball of the morale-production continuum.

How many times have we heard that an alleged tyrant manager is being fired because of his bad effect on the club’s morale and that he is being replaced by a laid-back leader with a two-year contract. Then, nearly two years later, we get the news that the gentle manager is being fired because his happy campers aren’t winning – and that another big-stick disciplinarian is being brought in with his own two-year contract in the interest of getting the club back on the winning track. Some clubs seem to go through this pattern continuously. – What then is the message about the kind of “team chemistry” clubs are seeking in this never finished search for the best balance between morale and production?

– Or is “team chemistry” simply a catch-all laundry chute phrase that we find useful for describing something we always talk about in the thrill of victory – or the agony of defeat – but never quite get around to actually explaining.

Anybody out there have any fresh ideas on the meaning of “team chemistry”? – Is it intangible beyond description? – Or is it simply something, like Goldilocks search for the right temperature of soup, that you just have to go through personally as an owner, GM, or manager until you find what tastes right to you personally.

The Pecan Park Eagle welcomes your comments or columns on the general subject of team chemistry in baseball.

If you simply want to comment, no matter how long, simply leave it in the comment section. And I won’t presume you intend it as a column feature.

On the other hand, if you would consent to write a column on this subject, I will be happy to publish all appropriate on-topic works as separate follow up feature columns as either a single or multiple article piece – or as a series of columns on the same subject – with full credit to each contributor.

For column material submissions, please send them by WORD attachment to a cover e-mail to me at

houston.buff37@gmail.com

Thank you.

Bill McCurdy, Editor, The Pecan Park Eagle

____________________

Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas

https://bill37mccurdy.com/

Tags:Team Chemistry in Baseball
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The Moody Blues MLB Nine

May 8, 2016

Aloysius “Pop” Joy, 1B
Washington Nationals
Union Association, 1884

____________________

Our Moody Blues Catcher, Pop Joy

There was “no joy in Mudville” because Aloysius “Pop” Joy only played one season of 19th century major league base ball – and, according to The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball, even that attainment was limited to the 36 games he played for the 1884 Washington Nationals of the short-lived Union Association. “Pop” had 38 hits in 130 times at bat for a batting average of .215. According to Baseball Almanac.com, all of Joy’s 28 hits were also singles.

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/player.php?p=joypo01

Pop_Joy2

We found one grainy photo of Pop Joy on the Internet, and, unless this copy was cropped from his 19th century same-sex wedding day picture, it must have been taken from his club’s team picture. We are betting on the latter – and even narrowing that guess to the strong probability the club he represented here was his one and only Washington Nationals of 1884.

Pop Ivy: A Jack Nicholson Ancestor – or Soul-Precedent Lifetime?

In the photo, Pop Joy closely resembles a young Jack Nicholson, as he appeared in both “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” and the horror classic, “The Shining.” For those who are familiar with the latter film, it makes one wonder if Pop Joy spent all that bench time he had with the Nationals redundantly writing this line in a little pencil notebook tablet that he probably carried in a hip pocket. The line we had in mind was: “All work and no play makes Jack (Pop) a dull boy.”

Maybe actor Jack Nicholson is the reincarnation of Pop Joy. Who knows? All we know is that Pop Joy is our poster boy for our MLB lineup of nine former players whose names cleverly suggest that they could fit in well with a team comprised of only those former big leaguers who suffered from bi-polar mood disorders.

We’re calling the nine here our Moody Blues club. It was just something I had fun doing while I watched the Astros on Roots this Saturday night – and the baseball watching for Astros fans wasn’t too much fun. Neither were those three late innings in which the Astros each time left a tie or a lead dead on the bases by their totally absent clutch hitting. We’ve been wasting time with how well or poorly Carlos Gomez speaks English and the issue of how he handles “asleep at the wheel” reporters who quote him literally. That fact is, Brian T. Smith was dead-on right in his subject matter. – Carlos Gomez is a major disappointment to those who acquired him, thinking he could still hit. For the rest of us, Gomez is just a guy with an attitude who can’t hit when it really counts, as was proven again tonight.

As Tommy Lasorda used to say, Gomez couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat when it comes to hitting with runners in scoring position – and Preston Tucker is missing the chance of his career with those ball-free bat swings. With Gattis out of town “to practice catching in Corpus”, Tucker had the door open to show that he belongs in the lineup as the DH. Instead, he used his first Gattis-free game going the Jon Singleton route.

Please, Manager Hinch, if you have to play Gomez and Tucker in the same game, try to figure out a way to not bat them back-to-back. As for that stunt that Gomez pulled to get kicked out at the expense of the team’s chances for winning late in the game, all I can add is – this was a fitting, if not a good night to work on a Moody Blues MLB All Star Nine. – Remember this spoken philosophical Moody Blues entry to “Morning Begins” in their great album, “Days of Future Past”?

With prior and post apologies, here’s a parody of that beautiful piece of original work. The contamination here was inspired by the Mariners’ 3-2 win in ten.

Cold-hearted orb that rules the night
Removes the colours from our sight
Red's now orange, as we struggle to fight
But time will decide - which is right
And which is an illusion

Pinprick jinx holes - in a mag called "SI"
Let ineptly swinging bats - and opportunity pass by
The mighty plight of forty thousand fans
Challenges attendance - and spawns empty stands
Night games for losers - are a brief interlude
In the end - all they offer - are rare solitude

Brave Helios, wake up your steeds
Bring the warmth the Astros club needs

~ with sincere post-apologies to the original Moody Blues
____________________

.... and here's the club that started in tonight's first inning 
as a much simpler column idea:

The MLB Moody Blues Club Nine

Pitcher – Ellis Kinder (1946-57)

Catcher – Dad Meek (1889-90)

1st Base – Pop Joy (1884)

2nd Base – Andy High (1922-34)

3rd Base – Fletcher Low (1915)

Shortstop – Tony Suck (1883-84)

Left Field – Aubrey Huff (2000-12)

Center Field – Ben Grieve (1997-2005)

Right Field – Art Rebel (1938, 1945)

____________________

Happy-Mothers-Day

…. and we’re not addressing this cheerful loving message to the mothers who failed the Astros in the clutch last night!

____________________

Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas

https://bill37mccurdy.com/

Tags:The Moody Blues MLB Nine
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