The Pecan Park Eagle

Three Amigos of “One-Hit Wonder” Astro History

February 1, 2015

Thanks to the dauntless, eye-blinding research a fellow named George Rose, a big little book entitled “One-Hit Wonders” from 2004 went through a revised edition second printing in 1979. In brief, it is a brief career sketch of 75 men who are in the record books among the approximately 200 total field of players who made it to the big leagues long enough to register one hit, and one hit only, as the sum total of their offensive accomplishments with the bat at the game’s highest level of play.

All of these players had minor league careers that ranged from immediate and early flame-out spurts – to brief steadiness for four or five years – to many seasons of distinguished minor league production. They share only that MLB “one-hit wonder” common ground as the sum total of their major league experience and their slippage away from further opportunity is both common and individual as an explanation for how they ended up in each other’s company.

Although it’s not clear if the book’s treatment of three men who achieved their one-hit wonder status is the grand total for Astros – or simply the total number of Astros included in Rose’s book, we shall list them here for your edification and opportunity for further research into the possibility of others.

Unless further research or author clarification proves us wrong, the Three Amigos of Houston Astro “One-Hit Wonder” History are:

(1) Greg Sims.

Greg Sims

19-yeear old outfielder Sims broke into the Astros lineup for the first time on April 15, 1966 and went hit less. He finally got his lone MLB hit, a seeing-eye single, against veteran pitcher Terry Fox of the Phillies on May 14, 1966. (The book incorrectly reports the date of Sims’ only MLB hit game as May 20, 1966.)

Sims was 1 for 6 in 7 games before an attempt was made to return him to the Pirates as a returnee from the earlier Rule Five draft, The Pirates didn’t want him, so Sims accepted a minor league assignment with the Astros and then played several good years as a minor leaguer without ever returning to the majors with any club.

One interesting note: When the Astros bumped Sims from their 1966 roster, it was a choice they made between him or a fellow named Nate Colbert. They kept Colbert, so let’s give them their due. The Astros have made some good personnel decisions in the past.

Link to the MLB & Minor League Record of Greg Sims at Baseball Reference.Com:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/simsgr01.shtml

Link to the Box Score of the One MLB Hit Game of Greg Sims at Baseball Almanac.Com:

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/box-scores/boxscore.php?boxid=196605140PHI

(2) Jesus de la Rosa.

Jesus de la Rosa

By the time he reached the Astros for his first MLB game on August 2, 1975, de la Rosa was only four days shy of his 22nd birthday, but he had been playing in the clubs minor league system since 1969, having signed as one of those eager family kids from The Dominican whose celestial dream was always getting off the island and becoming a big league baseball player. As a first and third baseman. de la Rosa was eager to go. In his first try, de la Rosa was retired as a pinch hitter for pitcher Wayne Granger in the late innings of an 8-7 Astros loss at San Francisco.

The following day, August 3, 1975, de la Rosa got his second chance as a pinch hitter for pitcher Jose Sosa in the top of the 9th against Pete Falcone of the Giants. This time he cracked a double and scored a run as Houston rallied for two, but still lost to San Francisco by 5-4. It would turn out to be, of course, the only hit of Jesus de la Rosa all too brief MLB career. He would make more out in a third and final appearance to secure his career MLB batting average at .333, but he didn’t play log enough to buy his mama a house.

Link to the MLB & Minor League Record of Jesus de la Rosa at Baseball Reference.Com:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/dela_je01.shtml

Link to the Box Score of the One MLB Hit Game of Jesus de la Rosa at Baseball Almanac.Com:

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/box-scores/boxscore.php?boxid=197508031SFN

(3) Craig Cacek.

Craig Cacek

Traded by the Mets to the Astros in a December 1975 minor league deal, first baseman Craig Cacek finally got an MLB call-up by Houston in 1977 when star first sacker Bob Watson went on the DL with a hand injury. Cacek made his big league game debut on June 21, 1977 as a first base starter for Houston against a pretty fair pitcher named Steve Rogers in a contest played in Montreal. Cacek would get his lone hit off Steve Rogers.

In the Rose book, Cacek described the memory of his only big league hit on page 129-130 in wonderfully personal terms: ” My recollection was that Rogers shut us out on three hits, and I got one of the three. [It was] a big bouncer hit over the mound and was cut off by either the 2nd baseman or shortstop in shallow center field, and there was no play on me.”

Someone from the Astros collected the ball and gave it to Cacek after the game. “I still have that ball, it is a nice keepsake, but bittersweet in a way because I always believed I could have done more in the show.”

Cacek must have been a real competitor. Real competitors never give up, even if they don’t reach their highest goals. These disappointment just go where all regrets go in the memory banks of our human egos. – They just transform their way into “woulda, coulda, shouldas!”

22-year old Craig Cacek played in a total of 7 Astros games in 1977, but never got another hit, ending his one-chance run at the big leagues with a 1 for 20 mark and a batting average of only .050 – an outcome, indeed, that left plenty of room for a fellow’s “woulda, coulda, shoulda” second guessing on the way to the greater peace that comes from finally accepting that life is what it is – we live only in the here and now – and that here’s never any going back for any of us. The past should only be our teacher – and not our torture. The also great lesson here too is – There are a lot of other ways in life for us humans to find ourselves on at least one “one-hit wonder” list in some area of life.

Link to the MLB & Minor League Record of Craig Cacek at Baseball Reference.Com:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/cacekcr01.shtml

Link to the Box Score of the One MLB Hit Game of Craig Cacek at Baseball Almanac.Com:

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/box-scores/boxscore.php?boxid=197706210MON

Appendices Comment: We know what the author says about himself,with help from the photo on the back of “One Hit Wonders” about his Michigan background. We don’t really think that the author of “One-Hit Wonders” is the same George Rose who played infield for our 1956 St. Thomas High School Eagles, but, in case it was you, George – and you were just using someone’s else photo and story to cover your humility as the true author of the book, you should have spoken up much sooner to our large and growing active alumni group. You could have sold a lot more books.

~ Editor – The Pecan Park Eagle 🙂

Tags: one-hit wonders
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If Only Common Sense Were More Ecumenical

January 31, 2015

Thanks again to Father Gerald Beirne of snowbound Rhode Island for hanging out by the fire of his computer keys and virtually writing most of our columns for The Pecan Park Eagle this week. Stay warm, Father Gerald, and keep those hot ideas and stories pouring into our land of Houston sunshine and smiles of appreciation. – Editor.

If Only Common Sense Were Less of a Parochial Gene – And More of an Ecumenical Phenomenon

During a Eucharistic Congress, a number of priests from different orders are gathered in a church for Vespers. While they are praying, a fuse blows and all the lights go out.

The Benedictines continue praying from memory, without missing a beat.

The Jesuits begin to discuss whether the blown fuse means they are dispensed from the obligation to pray Vespers.

The Franciscans compose a song of praise for God’s gift of brother darkness.

The Dominicans revisit their ongoing debate on light as a signification of the transmission of divine knowledge.

The Carmelites fall into silence and slow, steady breathing.

The parish priest, who is hosting the others, goes to the basement and replaces the fuse.

Tags: common sense among clergy
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Once Upon a Future Time Machine

January 30, 2015

Someday, we’ll do it more than …
ONCE UPON A
… future …
TIME MACHINE!

As anyone who ever took a course or studied basics physics already knows, the light images of our earthly past are out there from yesterday’s views to billions of light years away in space. They are a pulsating sequence of light images that inherently show all features, organic entities, activities, and patterns of motion from the big bang to now to forever.

When our technology and genius catches up to the task, it is possible that we shall one day have some high quality HD digital moving images from recaptured light from earth of everything from an event like the Gettysburg Address – to that dance where your great-great grandmother first met your great-great grandfather. As for the problems of recapturing the sound that goes with them, we hall have to leave that problem also to the geniuses that will solve the elementary process of recapturing lost sound waves.

In the meanwhile, check out what some have done to digitize high resolution natural light color into these old originally black and white negative still shots from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

My favorites are the street view of 1864 Atlanta and the late 19th century street scenes of New York City.

Thanks again to Father Gerald Beirne for sending us this virtual portal through the mind of H.G. Wells in the past to the digital wizards of today and, finally, back to the future.

Click the following link and buckle your seat belts for a really fun ride back in time:

http://www.liveleak.com/ll_embed?f=d6d9d5385aee

Tags: A THEORETICAL POSSIBILITY, HD PHOTOS OF THE PAST
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On The Streets Where We Lived

January 29, 2015

Home of The Pecan Park Eagle 6646 Japonica Street Houston, TX 77087 1945-1958

Home of One Pecan Park Eagle
6646 Japonica Street
Houston, TX 77087
1945-1958

Our good SABR friend, Father Gerald Beirne, is busy this week fighting the cold of that rampaging blizzard in New England at his snowed-in abode in Narragansett, RI and he has chosen to spend the time warming our hearts in more hospitable climes with warm and fuzzy high tech sites that are designed to open the bucket of nostalgia confetti that hangs over most of our heads.

This website is sort of a “Goggle Maps Made Even Easier” vehicle for instantly viewing any place in your childhood years that may have been special to you. For example, if you want to see a piece of Pecan Park in Houston, where I grew up, as it exists today, just use the link below and type in “6646 Japonica, Houston, TX 77087” and, voila, there’s our little house i Southeast Houston off the Gulf Freeway at Griggs Road, looking far now than it ever did when we lived there some seventy years ago. Then, if you use the little drag-and-see tools there to move around the neighborhood, you will even find our not-so-famous “Eagle Field” sandlot, catty cornered across the street from our old north-facing home site, now officially known as “Japonica Park.” It’s too cluttered now with small children’s playground equipment to handle the kinds of games we used to play.

Eagle Sandlot Park
1947-1952
Now Japonica Park
Japonica @ Myrtle Streets
Houston, TX in 2015

Of course, you may want to just check out the two photos taken here from our own search and go straight to your own. Just insert the full street, town and city address of your own history and watch what happens.

And please – those of you who will – consider sharing your experience in the search with a comment on this Pecan Park Eagle site, and not as an e-mail to me that leaves everyone else out in the rain on your particular observations . We’re all on this time-limited ride of life together – even if we do enter and exit on our own time schedule. The more we are able to share the joys and sorrows of our own journeys, the tighter our chances grow for becoming more connected to our common ground as human beings.

Here’s the magically visual time machine link that will take you back to where you each started, if it’s on their maps. Have fun!

http://www.vpike.com/

Have fun! Let us hear from you, if you will. And thanks agin, Father Gerald Beirne, for this wonderful gift!

– The Pecan Park Eagle

Tags: etc., street map to old homesites
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50th Anniversary of Astrodome Baseball is April 9

January 26, 2015

April 9, 1965: Astros defeat the Yankees, 2-1, in first baseball game played in the new Harris County Domed Stadium. ~Photo Courtesy of AstrosDaily.Com

April 9, 1965: The Huston Astros defeat the New York Yankees, 2-1, in the first baseball game ever played in the new Harris County Domed Stadium.
~Photo Courtesy of Astros Daily.Com

Where is the love?

Fifty years ago this coming April 9th, the first baseball game was played in the then brand new Harris County Domed Stadium, aka the Astrodome. April 9, 1965 also marked the first time that the newly re-christened, then three-years old MLB franchise took the field indoors in their brand new home as the “Houston Astros”?

We ask again, “Where is the love?”

What plans do the Houston Astros, Harris County, and/or the City of Houston have to honor this historic date and occasion with an appropriate nod of public appreciation for an important date in both our local history – and in the world history of covered architectural venues for the public presentation of certain sporting events that previously – from the beginning of civilized time and their individual sporting game inventions – had to be played – or canceled – at the mercy of nature’s strongest climatic elements?

The fact that little, if anything, has even been whispered about this important upcoming moment this close to April 9th is also surprising in light of the preservation movement that exists to save the Astrodome from demolition by the “bucks-alone-matter” Houston developer crowd that for years already has torn down so much of our local architectural heritage for the construction of parking space and strip centers.

Once more, “Where is the love?”, and just as importantly, “What are the plans in place for a celebration of this internationally important anniversary by the local entities that benefited the most from the creation of the Astrodome in the first place?

The Pecan Park Eagle has no earthly idea at this publication date what any of the “big people” are planning, if anything, and frankly, we are beginning to care less daily about the big entities, and what they do and don’t do, by the moment. Even as I write, it’s brought home to me good and hard that there are simply too many egos piling into this pie to suit my digestion.

Personally, I do hope something worthwhile happens in behalf of the old steel–framed icon of new era stadium construction. Beyond all personal agendas, she’s still special in the hearts of us everyday people.

And what did actually happen on April 9, 1965 at the brand new domed stadium in Houston?

The brand new Houston Astros defeated the New York Yankees, 2-1, in a final exhibition game prior to the start of the regular season, but let’s allow historian Bob Hulsey of Astros Daily to give you the best account ever written about that special moment:

http://www.astrosdaily.com/history/19650409/

If you also want to see Mickey Mantle trudging toward home to cap the first home run in the Astrodome that night – or watch Jimmy Wynn of the Astros later racing toward home with the winning run, try this old movie coverage link too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCNfSjG3me0

Now, if you would also like to see the 50th anniversary of the first Astrodome baseball game acknowledged in some appropriate way, please leave your expression of wishes, ideas, or plans for what should happen as a detailed statement in the comment section that follows this column. Don’t send them to us as comments. That will only force us to enter them as comments for you – but without your identification at the top of the post. – Also, be sure to note who you think should be taking the lead in planning this historic recognition of a big moment in Houston history. Unless one or more of the founding entities feels some responsibility for leadership in this matter, this one is tailor-made after a half century for all original factions to simply do nothing and then say “we thought so-and-so was going to do it.”

Thanks, friends!

Tags: 1965: 1st Baseball Game played in the Astrodome., April 9
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Ernie Banks Holds Some First Houston Records

January 25, 2015

Ernie Banks
1931-2015
Rest in Peace

It’s a sad day for baseball and the human race. When Ernie Banks died in Chicago yesterday, 01/23/15, in Chicago, and just eight days shy of his 84th birthday, we surrendered a very special human being – a guy whose love of the game he played hardly needs amplification from the likes of me – or anyone else. His “Let’s Play Two” state of mind and his Hall of Fame accomplishments on the field speak for themselves: 512 career MLB home runs, 1,305 runs, and 1,636 RBI, all as “Mr. Cub”, speak loudly for themselves.

But how many of you know the eternal Houston connection to these totals? If not, it’s no big matter to fill you in to this small part of the big picture that was the MLB career of native Texan Ernie Banks:

Back on Opening Day at Colt Stadium, April 10, 1962, Ernie Banks of the Chicago Cubs became the first oppositional player in Houston’s brand new first day big league history in the 7th inning of the game played between his Cubs and the brand new Houston Colt .45s to set one of those forever-records with one swing of the bat in the 7th inning. With nobody on and Ernie Banks hitting against Houston’s lefty starter, Bobby Shantz, Ernie got hold of a pitch and sent it hurdling far and away to the great record bok in the sky. With the Cubs trailing, 1-0, at the time, Ernie’s out-of-the-park blast at once became the first run and rbi registered against a Houston big league team – and the first home run ever hit against them, as well. Banks also picked up a single in that game to go 2 for 4 on the day and the only Cub to have a multiple hit game against Houston – another first and forever record against Houston for Smiling Ernie Banks, even if his Cubs did get battered, 11-2, by the end of the day.

Photo of Stan Musial and Ernie Banks at NY Awards Dinner on 2/02/69 that was sent to writer friend Ron Paglia by Steve Russell,
Executive Director of the Mid Mon Valley All Sports Hall of Fame in Donora, PA and then wired to The Pecan Park Eagle. Ernie had been honored that night by the NY Chapter of the BBWAA with their annual “Good Guy” Award.

We Houstonians also knew that Ernie Banks was both a great player and a really “good guy.” We got to watch him on a regular basis during the last ten seasons (1962-71) of his nineteen year career and, for that fact, we should be eternally grateful. Ernie Banks was the total embodiment of the spirit and character of all those who play, coach, or follow baseball for “the love of the game” – and an old James Bond movie theme song occurs to me here – “Nobody Does It Better!”

And nobody, but nobody did it better in that area than the lean, sweet man that was Ernie Banks of Dallas, Texas and the Chicago Cubs!

Rest in Peace, Ernie Banks! We are also happy for your spiritual homecoming, but we are going to miss your personal spirit among us in all the baseball seasons yet to come.

Chicago Cubs	ab	r	h	rbi
Brock cf	3	0	0	1
Hubbs 2b	4	0	0	0
Williams lf	4	0	1	0
Banks 1b	4	1	2	1
Altman rf	4	0	0	0
Santo 3b	3	0	0	0
White ss	1	0	0	0
Rodgers ph,ss	1	0	0	0
Barragan c	3	0	1	0
Cardwell p	1	0	0	0
Gerard p	0	0	0	0
Morhardt ph	1	0	0	0
Schultz p	0	0	0	0
Warner p	0	0	0	0
McKnight ph	1	1	1	0
Lary p	0	0	0	0
Totals	30	2	5	2

Houston Colt .45s	ab	r	h	rbi
Aspromonte 3b	4	3	3	0
Spangler cf	3	3	2	1
Mejias rf	5	3	3	6
Larker 1b	4	1	1	1
Pendleton lf	4	0	1	1
Smith c	4	1	2	1
Amalfitano 2b	3	0	1	1
Buddin ss	3	0	0	0
Shantz p	4	0	0	0
Totals	34	11	13	11

Chicago	0	0	0		0	0	0		1	1	0	–	2	5	0
Houston	1	0	4		0	0	0		3	3	x	–	11	13	2

Chicago Cubs	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO

Cardwell L (0-1)	2.2	5	5	5	2	1
Gerard	2.1	1	0	0	1	0
Schultz	1.0	4	3	3	0	1
Warner	1.0	1	0	0	0	0
Lary	1.0	2	3	3	1	0
Totals	8.0	13	11	11	4	2

Houston Colt .45s	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
Shantz W (1-0)	9.0	5	2	2	2	4
Totals	9.0	5	2	2	2	4
E–Smith (1), Amalfitano (1). DP–Chicago 1, Houston 2. 2B–Houston Smith (1,off Cardwell). 3B–Chicago McKnight (1,off Shantz), Houston Spangler (1,off Cardwell). HR–Chicago Banks (1,7th inning off Shantz 0 on, 1 out), Houston Mejias 2 (2,3rd inning off Cardwell 2 on, 0 out,8th inning off Lary 2 on, 2 out); Smith (1,3rd inning off Cardwell 0 on, 2 out). SF–Brock (1,off Shantz). Team LOB–4. SH–Buddin (1,off Schultz). HBP–Amalfitano (1,by Schultz). Team–5. SB–Aspromonte (1,2nd base off Lary/Barragan). CS–Amalfitano (1,2nd base by Warner/Barragan). HBP–Schultz (1,Amalfitano). U-HP–Dusty Boggess, 1B–Stan Landes, 2B–Vinnie Smith, 3B–Mel Steiner. T–2:32. A–25,271.

Baseball Almanac Box Score |

Tags: an Ernie Banks memory
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Roster Planning with the Gotham City Bats

January 24, 2015

Team Logo of the Gotham City Bats

The Gotham City Bats are a good-hitting ball club. We’re not real sure of their exact team colors. They play all their games at night in the dim glow of cheap always-popping-out arc bulbs at Guano Park here in downtown Gotham, so it’s hard to tell – and we’re not real sure either where they hang out in the daytime to ask anybody. Until those conditions change, their team colors will just have to remain a pigment of our wildest imaginations. Black and gray with a dab of yellow as the oval background to their black bat logo that appears on both the left side jersey pate and the cap are the closest ideas here of everybody at The Pecan Park Eagle.

We did get a snoop-scoop the other night at the ballpark by hiding a sound activated micro-video gadget in the suite where team owner Bruce Wayne was holding a roster-move planning session with General Manager Jim Gordan and Playing Manager Robin Rocker after the club’s game with the Reading Riddlers was rained out. Those guys are so big on conserving and recycling their resources that it’s a shame that more big league clubs don’t follow their example. Straight from the “tape”, so to speak, here’s how the Bats got away from having to pay a player $2,000 a month for seven months in the 2015 season by simply assigning him out and activating his tricky compensation clause that some guy worked into his 2014 contract as the penalty for letting him go this year. The player they are talking about here is that well known veteran utility man, 38-year old Joker Jester, also recognized in Houston as the great-grandson of T.C. Jester.

Give a listen to how smooth the Gotham City Bats front office pulls this one off:

Owner Bruce Wayne (BW): “Gentlemen, the Bats don’t need to waste money in 2015. The Joker must go!”

GM Jim Gordon (JG): “I agree, Boss, but there’s the matter of that buyout clause we failed to notice when we signed him in a pinch last August. Do you really want to pay him for nothing – just to get the Joker and his “deck of 51″ misplaying-the-ball tricks off the field?”

MGR Robin Rocker (RR): “It’s not my money, Mr. Wayne, but I have to agree with Jim. ‘Holy Strangeglove’, gentlemen! We’ve got to do something! He’s not only killing us in the field. The Joker also strikes out ten times in between each homer he hits!”

BW: “Then riddle me this one, gentlemen: ‘What’s faster than a snail, but slower than a turtle? His DP/AB ratio only makes my red blood curdle?”

The JG/RR Chorus: “We know! – We know! – The Joker’s gotta go! – But how we can his butt and save the bucks – still hurts our toe!”

BW: “Could we salvage him with a move from the outfield to pitcher?”

JG: “Are you kidding, Boss? We’ve tried that in the winter league. The Joker’s more hittable than our Iron Mike pitching machine!”

BW: “How about as our back-up catcher?”

RR: “Back-up Catcher? Boss, we tried that one too this winter. Anything the opposing batters don’t hit is a potential passed ball, especially, if they swing and miss it near his eyes. He always blinks!”

BW: “How about first base then?”

RR: “Doesn’t work either. The guy can’t stretch six inches. Our infielders would need Hall of Fame arms and make perfect throws to first every time in the hope that some of their great efforts stayed in his glove rather than popping out – which is what usually happens when we let him take infield at that spot.”

JG: “And please, Boss, I know this probably goes without saying, but the Joker is too lead-footed for either middle infield spot.”

Fearless Fosdick
~ from Lil Abner
~ an Al Capp creation

BW: “What about third base?”

RR: “Holy Fearless Fosdick, Mr. Wayne! There’s no way the Joker could handle third base!”

BW: “Fill me in on the particulars of your cryptogram, Robin. What exactly did you mean by your ‘Holy Fearless Fosdick’ comment?”

RR: “Don’t you remember Fearless Fosdick from the old Lil Abner comic strip in the newspapers, Mr. Wayne? Cartoonist Al Capp invented him as a parody of the popular Dick Tracy cop cartoon. Only Fosdick was a defective detective who went around with all those baseball-size holes in his body that you could see through from the bullet blasts he took from the crooks and other bad guys. – Got that picture? – Well, I’m just saying that’s what the Joker is going to look like if we put him at third base for the Bats – only, in his case, the baseball-size holes are going to be from all the real baseball smashes down the line that our Gotham City pitchers usually give up!”

BW: “Yes, Robin, I see what you mean. – And the outfield is no possibility?”

JG: “That’s where he screwed up last year, Boss? – Remember how we started this discussion?”

BW: “Yes, Jim, I remember. Well, failing the absence of any other good alternatives to letting him go and still paying him, we’ll just have to do what all baseball clubs do with these kinds of washed up, never-were-much good ballplayers.”

RR: “What’s that, Mr. Wayne?”

BW: “Simple math, Robin. – Joker Jester just got the 2015 job as our new bench coach.”

JG: “Good move, Boss, and who knows? Maybe the Joker will turn out to be another La Russa and go on to managing his way into the Hall of Fame someday!”

Tags: The Gptham City Bats
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Hot Stove Banquet is Smash Hit for Houston

January 23, 2015

Hosted By the Sugar land Skeeters
Constellation Field
January 22, 2015

Thanks to the Sugar Land Skeeters, loyal banquet sponsors, and the Larry Dierker Chapter of SABR, the greater Houston area again enjoyed the taste of a winter baseball banquet that from early on, until 2013, had convened annually to honor the great game we all love and honor those deemed worthy of honoring, including the top high school players from our area.

Held at Constellation Field, home of the Sugar land Skeeters, a mustard seed crowd of under three hundred dyed in the wool fans and other esteemed professional members of the baseball community gathered to both enjoy and resurrect what has been a Houston baseball tradition since the early years of the city’s enfranchisement as a major league city.

Former "League of Heer Own" star and Texas baseball hall of Famer Red Mahoney (L) and Marsha Franty listen attenttivley.

Former “League of Her Own” star and Texas baseball Hall of Famer Red Mahoney (L) and Marsha Franty listen attentively.

Although this is the third year the Skeeters have held such a function, it also marked the end in many of our minds of the two-year blackout from 2013 to 2014 of the former Houston Athletic Club Winter Baseball Dinners that once carried the larger crowds into the brink of spring training on many other levels. Those of us who attended last night are determined to pursue the return of even larger annual celebrations in 2016. It is in our blood and part of our make-up as the Greater Houston baseball community to see that day return. This morning, our genuine thanks go out to the Sugar land Skeeters and their wonderful supporters for making this rise from the abandonment of a great idea by others to a germinal state of normalcy for the entire local baseball community.

The evening began with Mike McCroskey of SABR singing Our National Anthem. Then things moved spiritedly forward with a hearty and enthusiastic welcome from master of ceremonies Brett Dolan. Dolan also noted the presence of some pretty important former players at the banquet, notably, three men named Roger Clemens, Jimmy Wynn, and the Skeeters’ own Deacon Jones.

Banquet attendees were informed of how the Skeeters Foundation would be using proceeds from the night’s silent auction in active support of youth baseball and their playing fields.

Skeeters General Manager Chris Jones, a product of Bellaire High School baseball himself, spoke warmly and generously about the success of independent league baseball in Houston and his hopes for the coming season, as well as uttering some important words of support for the important role that former Bellaire coach Ray Knoblauch played in working with high school players.

Radio voice of the Skeeters, Ira Liebman, presented the first annual Larry Dierker SABR Chapter Award for distinguished service to baseball to Hall of Fame member and local resident former player Monte Irvin of the old New York Giants. Liebman noted that Irvin came close to playing the role of color line breaker that finally fell to Jackie Robinson, noting too that Monte was still one of the early forces for change against the embarrassing system of segregating blacks away from major league baseball for most of the early 19th century years and all of the 20th century seasons until 1947. Wonderful writer and broadcaster Greg Lucas accepted in Monte Irvin’s behalf, in effect noting an explanation for Monte’s absence that was straight out of an evergreen 1940’s popular song: “At age 96, Monte hopes that everyone understands that he deeply appreciates the honor, but that he doesn’t (don’t) get around much anymore.”

MC Brett Dolan also commented on how special it had been for him and his son to go visit with Monte earlier in the week and to soak up some of the many stories he had to share with them during a single visit. Talk about a lifetime gift. Just saying “I once drove Monte Irvin to a SABR meeting is at the top of my “brush with greatness” list. And Brett Dolan’s son, and Brett too, now have a chart-changer for their own lists. Congratulations, guys!

Greg Lucas and Ira Liebman each played roles in the Hot Stove program.

Dolan also did a magnificent job framing questions for a featured program panel that included Skeeters manager Gary Gaetti, Skeeters adviser Tal Smith, and the great former Houston Colt .45’s and Astros pitcher – and later broadcaster, writer, and team manager – Larry Dierker. You had to be there, friends, to enjoy all of this one and would be foolhardy to even try a recreation here, but I will point to one concluding question of the many great ones that moderator Brett Dolan posed to his very simpatico panel:

Dolan to Panel: “What is the one game in your memory that you cannot ever hope or expect to put away?”

Tal Smith had two: (One negative and one positive.) The negative – Game 5 of the 1980 NLCS in which the Astros blew a late inning lead and the pennant to the Philadelphia Phillies. The positive – The 18-inning win over the Atlanta Braves in the NLDS that sent the 2005 Astros on to a win over the Cardinals for the NL flag and their only trip in history to a World Series.

Larry Dierker: For Larry Dierker, it was the last game of the 1999 season that was also the last game to be played in the Astrodome after 35 years in residence there. The date was October 3, 1999 and the opposition that day were the Los Angeles Dodgers. Because it was also the last Dome game, a special post-game ceremony had been planned by the club to honor the All Time Dome Team – which included manager Dierker as one of the pitchers and other active players from 1999 like Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell. “Early in the game,” Larry reported, “I got to thinking. – We really need to win this game. It will take a lot of the fun out of our post-game celebration if we have to go there from a loss in the last game the Astros ever played in their original home. – It turned out well. The Astros defeated the Dodgers, 9-4. And manager Dierker got to fully enjoy his post-game party.

Gary Gaetti: Gary sort of got stuck, at first, trying to remember the date of a game during the 2005 season that he worked for the Astros as their batting coach and word came to them on the bench via the scoreboard that they had clinched a spot in the playoffs. Having never secured an exact memory there, Gary turned to his own playing days and Game 7 of the 1987 World Series (10/24/87) in which his Minnesota Twins defeated the St. Louis Cardinals in the Metrodome, 11-5. “With two outs on the Cards in the 9th, a ground ball is hit to me at third. I pick it up and throw the runner out and it’s all over. The next thing I know, I’m rushing to the mound to celebrate, only to end up in the middle of big body pile of screaming, happy players. I can’t describe it any better. It was like no feeling I’d ever known before that moment.” – And probably too – because it’s a feeling that most players never get to touch. Congratulations all over again, Gary Gaetti!

Bob and Peggy Dorilll of SABR also paid close attention to this evening's program.

Bob and Peggy Dorilll of SABR also paid close attention to the program.

The HABCA All Greater Houston Preseason High School Baseball Team was next presented by MC Dolan. These fine young men included Tyler Rand of Langham Creek, Luken Baker of Oak Ridge, Ke’Bryan Hayes of Concordia, Pablo Salazar of Lutheran South, Cade Edwards of Second Baptist, Baylor Rowlett of College Station, Anthony Pagano of Atscosita, Kody Clemens of Memorial, Riley Gossett of Cy Ranch, Jacob Simon of Ball, Ryan Newman of Brenham, Jordan Hicks of Cy Creek, Chris Andristos of The Woodlands, Alex Shaver of George Ranch, Will Gaus of Kinkaid, and Zack Esquivel of Clear Creek.

As each honored athlete came forward to receive their individual awards, they received these unforgettable items as presentations from Ms. Meghan McCroskey, whose father earlier sang the Star Spangled Banner.

Deacon Jones of the Skeeters then led us all in a stand up “7th inning stretch” version of “Take Me Out To The Ball Game!” Way to go, Deak! You were in fine voice and spirits, as per usual!

Long time leader in Texas High School Baseball coaching circles, David Sitton, then presented the last award of the night, the 2015 Ray Knoblauch Coaching Award to Armando Sedeno, Head baseball Coach at Langham Creek High School and a 33-year veteran of teaching the game. He obviously loves working with the kids who are coming up through his teaching lane. Sedeno’s enthusiastic and modest acceptance of this award was only topped by his almost unnecessary closing comment: “I love the game of baseball!”

We do too, Armando! – And we shall only hope that our little shindig in Sugar land last night was just the beginning of a bigger and louder expression of shared joy for the game next year – and for all the other years that lay ahead for us in this ongoing love for the game that truly is our national pastime.

Addendum: Thanks to Bob Stevens for the following comment. Yes, because of traffic and the weather, we arrived too late to hear or know that Mike McCroskey had gotten everything started in song and, from where we sat, we didn’t notice that Meghan McCroskey was handing out the student athlete awards until her father came by our table during the presentation. Unfortunately again, because of some recent health issues, I lacked the mobility Friday night to approach the stage for some usable photos of the actual show. Thanks again, Bob!

The Bob Stevens Comment: “One highlight you may have missed was Mike McCroskey singing the Star Spangled Banner. And his daughter handed out the plaques to the preseason High School ballplayers. Oh, and I left using the stairs and there was Roger Clemens all by himself in the stairwell. I just wished him luck.

Tags: Hot Stove Banquet is Smash Hit for Houston
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Random Harvest: Two SABR Meeting Reflections

January 22, 2015

A lot of random reckonings burst forth in our minds and quiet dinner conversations at our monthly Houston SABR meetings that never see the light of day and, perhaps, the same fate should have befallen two that come to mind with yours truly today. But I can’t resist. The second subject here actually didn’t reach full germination until this morning and it sort of dragged the first anecdote along with it – sort of like “friendly fire” cover, most supposedly.

Larry Miggins’ Reflections on Babe Ruth’s Return to God on His Death Bed

BABE RUTH & THE KIDS

At the January 19, 2015 SABR meeting, our wonderful former Houston Buff and dearest friend Larry Miggins had some good things to say about how the notoriously compulsive Babe Ruth got his act together during his days of terminal illness with cancer and made his peace with God. We also hope and believe that outcome to be true. It simply didn’t stop some of us from remembering that Babe’s most interesting and humorous stories occurred prior to the time of his spiritual salvation in the Name of the Lord.

Babe always had the spirit. It simply took more hedonistic paths for most of his life. His own version of “looking for love in all the wrong places” had a lot to do, many of us think, with his years in the Baltimore boys’ home and the absence of two strong loving parents and a sense of blood family in his early life. As one result, he never forgot the kids as a great ballplayer and would go out of his way anonymously to show up at orphanages and hospitals in the hope of bringing a little loving cheer to the lost and lonely kids. He simply did not know how to give that same love to himself. He sought it in base ways that never are what the seeker hopes they will be.

Chemical, physical, or sexual attractions always share these features in common for those who are pulled into them like metal flakes to a magnet: (1) They work instantly to create an immediate false state of well being; (2) They never last long; (3) They are capable of shifting their disguise so that the seeker holds onto the illusion that he or she is still making a decision when, in fact, he or she is not doing anything but responding to a powerful psychological dependency or chemical addiction; and (3) They are not love or the fulfillment of our purposes in life.

When Babe Ruth was young, there is no question in my day-job mind that my childhood hero was such an addict. Food, whiskey, and women were his instant fixes for that huge empty-of-love feeling he carried within him. And that brings me to the thought I had this past Monday when my friend Larry Miggins spoke of the Babe’s late spiritual recovery.

During The Babe’s days with the Yankees, when the club would settle into their St. Louis hotel (and certainly other AL cities too), he would ask some of his teammates if they wanted to go with him to the “convent” to say hello to the “nuns”. It simply wasn’t a real convent he spoke about – and the ladies who lived there were not nuns.

A New Limerick That We Can Actually Publish Here

MEGAHN TRAINOR
“All About that Base’ ‘Bout that Bass,
No Treble!”

Also during dinner at the January 19, 2015 SABR meeting, friend and fellow SABR member Mike McCroskey and I got into a discussion about Limerick, Ireland, a place from which we both may be able to trace our families back to some close point of shared origin. We were lightly bemoaning the difficulties involved in producing new Limerick poetry today. The old stuff was grossly raunchy and disrespectful – and neither of us want any part of that. – We just hate to see the limerick lost as an expressive art form.

This morning, however, my mind clicked upon a new limerick that almost passes the smell test as decent, even though it uses the infamous set-up town name a certain new singer hails from in the body of this work. When I heard on ABC’s Morning Show today that teen singing star Meghan Trainor was actually from a place called Nantucket, the thing just poured out in a synthesis of limerick and song.

Hey! I’d never even heard the girl’s name until this report. All I knew of her prior to this morning was the sound of that annoying song she sings that every now and then creeps into my negative sensory awareness via television.

At any rate, here’s my inspiration from the latest rude awakening:

___________________

There once was girl from Nantucket,

Whose song was so bad she should suck it!

But when I screamed shut-up, Meghan Trainor went butt-up,

And just starting singing ’bout basses!

Because you know she’s all about that bass,

‘Bout that bass, no treble

She’s all ’bout that bass, ’bout that bass, no treble

Now I’m all ’bout that bass, ’bout that bass

No trouble.

____________________

Serendipity from the Fact of Having Readers Like Tom Hunter

Limerick City, Ireland

These worthy and mentally agile limericks arrived as comment section contributions by former Houstonian Tom Hunter, now of Denver. By quality, substance, and length, these two limerick submissions deserve to be up here in what passes for the limelight section of The Pecan Park Eagle:

There was a young woman from Bright

Who traveled much faster than light

She left one day, in a relative way

And returned on the previous night.

____________________

There was a faith healer from Deal

Who said although pain isn’t real

When I sit on a pin, and it punctures my skin

I dislike what I fancy I feel.

____________________

Thanks, Tom!

Sincerely, Your Buddy, Bass-Hammered Bill

Have a great rainy Thursday in Houston, everybody!

Tags: BABE RUTH & LIMERICKS
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