A question was recently posted about Dunn’s propensity to hit sacrifice flies. After all, somebody with Dunn’s power should be able to drive the ball deep when the need arises. Yet Dunn has just one sacrifice fly this season. Is this simply a matter of having few opportunities or not being able to adapt to the situation?
In the market for big-league hitters leading up to the July 31 trade deadline, perhaps the most popular player supposedly for sale is Reds slugger Adam Dunn. This 25-year-old native Houstonian busted his 6-foot-6, 275-pound frame into baseball stardom by finishing tied for runner-up for the home run crown with 46 long balls in 2004, his fourth season in the league. Dunn also gained notoriety by fanning 195 times, breaking Bobby Bonds’ 1970 record of 189 strikeouts.
What a difference seven weeks makes. Defying predictions that their season was effectively over and inane rumors that Roger Clemens would soon return to pinstripes, the Astros spent June and the first half of July clawing their way to a 44-43 record, second place in the Central Division and third place and just five games back for the wild card.
The Black Sox scandal didn’t occur in a vacuum. It was the culmination of more than a decade of league officials and club owners not dealing seriously enough with gambling influence in the game. While the brazenness of throwing the 1919 World Series may have been shocking, gamblers paying ballplayers to lay down should have surprised no one who’d been paying attention.
As the clock ticked toward 11 Saturday night, even the most jaded fan probably still held onto a glimmer of hope that Sunday morning would arrive with a belated $105-million present under the Astros’ collective Christmas tree. Not 15 minutes after that deadline passed, any such optimism lay shattered among the dead needles that have steadily dropped off that tree this off-season.
The season may have ended a week earlier than hoped, but Houston fans will remember 2004 as one of the finest years in franchise history. The campaign not only took the Astros and their followers on a thrilling ride. It also served as a reminder of a number of lessons that are easily forgotten in more mundane seasons.
