THE LAST RIDE
Houston Astros (42-50) at Washington Nationals (35-57)
Nationals Park
1500 South Capitol St., SE
Washington, DC 20003
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This is the last series before the All Star break, and it is easily among the most meaningless series being played this weekend by anyone anywhere in baseball on the entire planet.
You have the Astros coming in to Washington after a 10-16 June and a 2-7 start to July, floundering about the cellar of the National League West (Central, whatever.) If everything goes perfectly for them the rest of the way – the offense becomes consistent, the pitching magically becomes consistently effective, and a couple of teams ahead of them stumble – the Astros are looking at an outside chance of finishing in fourth place in their division. If they are really, really lucky.
The Nationals were out of their division’s race before the season ever started. They, too, had a terrible June (9-18) and are having a terrible July, and should soon start bringing up prospects to try out with a look to the future. They are going nowhere presently. They have lost seven of the last eight, thirteen of their last eighteen. Lovely.
No one will be watching these games except the hardcore fans of each team. And maybe not so many of those. The only thing that will keep me inside this weekend, in front of the TV and watching these games, is rain, and lots of it. And right now, it doesn’t look that is going to happen. I suppose it is possible by then that Hurricane Bertha, which is, as I write this, tracking in the general direction of the upper Eastern Seaboard, will make these games seem even more irrelevant than they already are.
Whatever. Wake me up when September comes.
Outside the sun is up
The wind, it blows me like a paper cup
Down the highway. . .
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• Game 1: Friday July 11, 2008 – 6:35 p.m. CDT (FSN)
• Game 2: Saturday July 12, 2008 – 6:10 p.m. CDT (FSN)
• Game 3: Sunday July 13, 2008 – 12:35 p.m. CDT (my life in the bush of ghosts)
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This is the third go-‘round for Washington, DC and a baseball franchise.
The first version, the Senators, was a charter member of the American League, founded in 1901. Over the years that team had some storied players (Walter “Big Train” Johnson, Sam Rice, Goose Goslin) and middling success, overall. It’s best seasons were in the 1920s and 1930s, under Bucky Harris, Johnson, and Joe Cronin. By the late 1940s and through the 1950s, however, the Senators had inspired the famous sportswriters’ sobriquet, “Washington – first in war, first in peace, and last in the American League.” Owned by the skinflint Griffith family, the mediocre Senators drew less and less to their home games. By the end, they were averaging less than 10,000 per opening. Instead of actually spending some money to shore up the team on the field, Calvin Griffith decided a better option would be to pick up stakes and move the whole shebang. Which he did, after the 1960 season, to a wheat field just outside of Minneapolis.
Griffith waited so late in the 1960 off-season to announce his intentions, it was thought Washington would be without a replacement franchise for some time. But the AL management felt, wisely I think, that there should be a franchise of some sort in the nation’s capital, so an expansion franchise was literally thrown together in about three weeks time, just prior to spring training, 1961 (Los Angeles had already been awarded a franchise, the Angels, earlier on that off season.) Thus the Washington Senators, version 2.0, was born.
Version 2 was much more short-lived, and almost devoid of any success on the field. After stumbling along for most of a decade, the team was purchased in 1968 by a yahoo named Bob Short, an investor originally from Minneapolis, of all places. Short did bring some success, initially. The team had its best season to date, under manager Ted Williams, in 1969. But the success was short-lived, and attendance was dismal. Short, who had a track record already for moving professional franchises (he had been owner of the Minneapolis Lakers of the NBA, a perennially successful team he moved to the greener vistas of Los Angeles in 1960), finally gave up and moved the team to a cow pasture outside of Fort Worth in 1972.
The last home game the Senators played, the last game the Senators played, was on September 30, 1971 in RFK Stadium against New York. A 6th inning rally had given the Senators a 7-5 lead over the visiting Yankees, and in the top of the ninth Nats lefty Joe Grzenda retired the first two Yankees, Felipé Alou and Bobby Murcer, on weak grounders back to the mound. As light-hitting switch-hitter Horace Clarke stood in from the right side as New York’s last hope, Grzenda concentrated on getting the final out and finishing the game. Suddenly, something overtook the 14,000 or so faithful in the RFK stands (a good crowd for the Senators in those days), and seemingly all of them rushed the playing field at once. The players were ordered off by the umpires, who then watched helplessly as the fans started tearing out clumps of grass, removing bases, the pitchers’ rubber, etc., and in general vandalizing the field. Finally the umps had seen enough, and awarded the Yankees a forfiet.
An excellent way to end that franchise’s tenure in DC, I think. Baseball thought so much of it, they did not allow another franchise into Washington for 30+ years.
Now we have the Nationals, of course, and a nice new stadium. The team, the former red-headed stepchild Expos, is mediocre, and promises to be for some time. Major League Baseball is much more “corporate” nowadays, however; they pay much more attention to the overall public relations angle, and I doubt seriously Washington will be losing another franchise again anytime soon.
Good.
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Pitching Matchups
Friday
RHP Roy Oswalt (7-8, 4.60) vs. RHP Tim Redding (6-3, 4.06)
Saturday
LHP Wandy Rodriguez (3-3, 3.23) vs. RHP Collin Ballester (1-1, 5.06)
Sunday
RHP Brandon Backe (5-9, 5.07) vs. LHP Odalis Perez (2-6, 3.66)
Fun Facts
Ever hear of Rusty Torres? Unless you are my age or older, probably not. Torres was an unspectacular AL outfielder of the 1970s. A slight, speedy switch-hitter, he was a good defensive player who never hit enough to earn a regular spot, and spent his tenure with five different AL teams as a fourth or fifth outfielder, pinch-hitter, and late-inning defensive replacement. . . Torres is the answer to a terrific trivia question, though. Can you name the only player to participate in as many as three of the five forfiet games which have occurred in MLB since the mid-1950s?. . . Torres was a Yankee September call up in 1971, and was the New York RF the last day of the season in Washington, when the Senators fans stormed the field and caused the game to be forfieted to the Yankees. In fact, Torres was on deck, hitting behind Horace Clark, when all the commotion began. . . Three years later, Torres was a reserve outfielder for the Indians. On June 4, 1974 the Indians management thought it would be a good idea to have a 10 cent beer promotion in old Cleveland Stadium (“The Mistake by the Lake”), selling brew for a dime a pop all game long. The Indians were hosting the Rangers that night, with Torres in the lineup, and as the game went on, the crowd grew increasingly rowdy. In the bottom of the ninth the home team was trailing 5-4 but rallying. Meantime, the drunken fans had begun throwing things at Rangers RF Jeff Burroughs, and after one near miss (a pint whiskey bottle, I think), Texas manager Billy Martin pulled his team off of the field. At this point, a full scale riot by Indian fans ensued. The game was forfieted to Texas, and Torres had two under his belt. . . By 1979, our man had moved on to the White Sox. Torres had played in the first game of a twi-night doubleheader on August 4 against the Detroit Tigers. As a between games promotion, White Sox management (Bill Veeck, I believe) had allowed local DJ Steve Dahl to promote a “Disco Demolition Night”, whereby any disco-hating White Sox fan could get a discount on their ticket by donating a disco record to be placed in a bin and then, once there were enough of them, “blown up” by Dahl and his crew. Perhaps predictably, by the time the records were ready to be blown up, hundreds of fans were milling around the railings nearest the playing surface, and things soon took a turn for the worse. When Dahl blew up the poor disco discs, all hell broke loose. The second game was called and postponed intially. But the next day the league awarded a forfiet to the Tigers. And so Torres, who was scheduled to start game 2, had bagged forfiet #3.
As an aside, I feel sorry for anyone who was not fortunate enough, as I was, to grow up and come of age in the USA in the 1970s. There were a lot of fucked up things about that decade, and I don’t think any one decade (or anyone’s young adulthood) is any better than any other in an objective sense. But an idea like selling beer at drastically reduced prices all game long (probably more like $1.50 beer night nowadays, instead of ten cents), or blowing up records on the field between games, would seem insane if anyone thought them up today. But in the mid- to late-1970s, they seemed perfectly reasonable. The Astros used to give away free beer if an Astro hit a home run (“Foamer”) when a light on the back wall of the ‘Dome, under the clock by the Gulf signs, was lit. Free beer, all one could carry. In the news reports about the White Sox game on You Tube, it is mentioned that the Disco Demolition at Comiskey Park was Steve Dahl’s third time to run the promotion in a venue, and that the previous two times he had similar results. But it seemed perfectly sensible to let him do it again. I cannot accurately describe or explain the sort of freewheeling, anything goes attitude about things that was prevalent in this country when I was growing up to anyone who was not there. All I can tell you is it was completely cool, there is nothing like it now, and those forfieted games Rusty Torres participated in and the incidents surrounding them are as good a depiction of that time as anything I could come up with myself.
You don’t get that shit watching That ‘70s Show.
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- July 11 (Friday) – Fireworks
- July 12 (Saturday) – Hispanic Heritage Night
- July 13 (Sunday) – Family fun days
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MELON COLLIE AND THE INFINITE SADNESS
It’s the last ride
Our little game is over
It’s the last ride
It’s time to take you home
Phil’s dream ended at that point. He doesn’t know if he just died after that, or was reduced to begging bread crumbs in a square somewhere. He said he thought what happened was the pigeon in his dream died of sadness when the Senators moved, and its soul transmigrated into Phil, just as the latter was surfing down his mom’s birth canal on the way to his very first birthday. And Phil said that having a soul that was part pigeon was why he kept having that dream.
And we can’t cry ‘cause we seen it coming
No use running, take it slower
Phil is dead now. He was shot through the head, accidentally, by another friend of ours who was playing with a pistol he didn’t know was loaded at the time. The two of them had been sitting around Phil’s garage, getting stupid drunk. This was about 15 years ago. I had been married for a few years by then, had my first kid, and I was pretty much past that sort of everyday mindless craziness in my life; but Phil wasn’t, quite.
Anyway, he is probably the closest friend I ever had to get killed like that. I remember being messed up about it at the time. But not for long. We had always lived by such a devil-may-care, laissez-faire code back all those years we hung out together, it would have seemed hypocritical for me to go on too long about the senselessness of his death. Instead, I thought about stuff like his pigeon dreams. Then it occurred to me. . . Phil had said the pigeon’s soul had transmigrated into him from RFK, in 1971 (the last year the Senators were in Washington), just as he was being born. Except Phil was born in, like, 1961 or something. So when that pigeon supposedly merged with his soul, he was already, like, ten years old.
Wow. Pretty freaky, man.
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Injuries
Houston – Humberto Quintero (C), concussion, 15-day (July 2).
Washington – Elijah Dukes (OF), torn meniscus, 15-day (July 5); Nick Johnson (1B), torn tendon right wrist, 60-day (June 28); Lastings Milledge (OF), groin, 15-day (June 28); Shawn Hill (RHP), forearm strain, 15-day (June 25); Ryan Zimmerman (3B), labral tear, left shoulder, 60-day (June 3); Ryan Wagner (RHP), right shoulder surgery, 60-day (May 23); Johnny Estrada (C), ulnar neuritis elbow, 60-day (May 9); Chad Cordero (RHP), muscle tear, 60-day (May 2).
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And the road rolls around
And turns through the town
People around here are sick and tired by now of my stories of past loves, lost loves, etc. And rightly so. I’ve inflicted way too much of that stuff on an unsuspecting, undeserving audience; and I am determined to quit it. But. . . well. . . I’ve just one more. . .
This is from back when I was 15 or 16. High school. This cute girl fell in love with me, and I with her, and it was the real thing. Back then I was still pretty new to the intracacies of romance and all that, and I must say I just loved her without any reservation. I loved her naívely. I knew bad stuff could happen, but I didn’t think at all that anything bad would happen, so I never held back. I just showered this girl with my love and affection (and she did me) for a long while.
The depression drips down
And glazes the ground
At that age, one tends to think the first love might be the last one, too. The only one. I think I believed that for a little while. I was in no way prepared for the day my girlfriend sat me down and let me know, in the gentlest terms she could come up with, that she felt like it was time for her to be moving on.
I wanted to be devastated about it. I felt like what had come before would not have meant as much if I wasn’t. So I was, a little bit. But not nearly as much as I would have expected. After a few days, a week, I pretty much shook it off, and went on. There was a part of me I didn’t even know was there beforehand, telling me of course I was shocked by her wanting to break up, because I had chosen not to think about that possibility at all. I had loved her unequivocally; and sure, I was hurt and embarrassed for a few days when she dumped me, but that was nothing compared to a year-and-a-half of loving her all day, every day, joyfully, without any reservation. A small price to pay.
And I have always tried to love that same way, ever since.
Horizons east and skylines west
The moon, the sun, and all the rest
Funny, though. The only thing I really remember clearly from that day was what she said to me as she smiled at me, ruefully, while sticking the knife through my heart. She said, “It’s all over, baby. Let it go. I’m gone.”
The loving son, the faithful wife
The burnt out wreck of a poor man’s life
The father, son, and holy ghost
They all turned away love when they needed it most
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This has all been my fucked up, self-indulgent, roundabout way of getting to the announcement that this will be my last Series Preview.
I have been writing these for a year-and-a-half now, roughly 18 of them in all, I believe. And I have enjoyed writing them, very much. And I am exceedingly grateful for being allowed to do so by the SnS moderators, and for all the gracious comments I have received regarding them from the OWA – SnS readership and beyond. Anyone who has ever written anything, as a vocation or (in my case) as an avocation, will tell you – a few kind words, a little positive criticism. . . is better than any amount of money. Any amount. So, I thank you all for that.
There is nothing much more I can say. Anyone who has mostly followed along already knows pretty much everything there is to know, and what I think. I have had some trepidation about this, yes. But then I just remember what my old girlfriend told me, way back when: “It’s all over, baby. Let it go.”
Yes. And I am gone.
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Nationals win the series, 2-1. Dans le vide, les garçons. Dans le vide.
You may follow the game action as it unfolds in the Game Zone.
The kids in the back street cry
Their voices in your brain
The world is full of hungry souls
Behind the window panes
Little Jenny on the high wire
Slow motion as she fell
Sometimes I think the wire is me
The tragedy as well
And it rains all down the avenue
Just for you, boy
Just for you