Random Thoughts on Memorial Day
by David Fleitz
Random Thoughts on Memorial Day:
Will somebody please take a sponge and a bucket of soapy water to Ozzie Guillen's helmet?
Are the Reds purposely lying down to get rid of Ray Knight? I see a lazy, disinterested team out there, and Knight may be the casualty of it all. In about three weeks the Reds will have to decide whether to make a push or throw in the towel and trade Smiley, Brantley, Morris and others for prospects.
Don't, however, blame the Reds for the Ruben Sierra "fiasco", as the papers are calling it. The Reds paid very little of Sierra's salary (Detroit is paying almost all of it), and so he was costing Cincinnati next to nothing. It was worth the gamble to see if Sierra, who just a few years ago was being compared to Roberto Clemente and was once traded even up for Jose Canseco, could get his stuff together again. He didn't; in fact, he looked downright pathetic. But I would have taken the gamble.
We used to make bets on the first manager to get fired. Now we look for the first team to throw in the towel. My money is on the Reds.
Why, why, why do road teams wear those drab gray uniforms? Why can't baseball be like other sports, where the home team wears white and the road team wears colors? Add a splash of brightness, especially for the TV cameras.
I know what you're going to say. Gray road unis are something that Connie Mack or somebody thought up in 1886 and so tradition dictates that they be worn forever. Well, bull. I especially hate the gray road caps that the Mets and Pirates are wearing this year, and the Orioles and Royals had a few years ago. Yecch.
I like tradition as much as the next guy, but sports can get fossilized by too slavish a devotion to it. I wouldn't care if the Royals and Astros changed leagues, and I'm looking forward to interleague play. I like the DH, and I even like the glowing puck on Fox hockey telecasts. So there.
Speaking of tradition, the purists are all up in arms about the hockey goalie masks being worn by catchers. The traditionalists are mad because the mask makes a lot of sense and protects the wearer from injury so much better, so it must be a bad thing. They'll complain just like they did for shin guards ninety years ago.
And when will the umpires start wearing them? The umps can't turn their heads using the current mask, because they'll get smacked right in the temple if they do. When will they drop the macho act and use the goalie mask? And how will they decorate them?
I've never seen anything as frightening in a ball game as Detroit pitcher Willie Blair getting hit in the face by a line drive off Julio Franco's bat in Cleveland a few weeks ago. Fortunately, he suffered only a broken jaw. He could have been as seriously injured as Herb Score was in 1957, when a line drive virtually ended Score's career.
After Blair was loaded into the ambulance, the vehicle backed up all the way to the gate in left field. I could have pushed the thing faster than they were driving it, for God's sake. Apparently they didn't want to turn the ambulance around, because the tires might mess up their nice grass. All I could think was, &%$%* THE GRASS! GET THIS THING TO THE $%#@#$# HOSPITAL!!!!!
Speaking of Herb Score, he's been the Indians' TV or radio man since 1964. He's seen more bad baseball games than any man alive, and so he deserves to be in the broadcasters' wing of the Hall of Fame just for that.
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Created: 10/21/96 Updated:
6/23/97