Alyson Footer (A-Foot?) on XM with Steiner

[strosrays]

I didn't hear the whole segment, but she said:

On Bond's HBP:  Kind of funny more than anything else.  She couldn't believe it took Springer 5 pitches to hit him.  It occurred to her it was "nice, sweet LA country boy Russ Springer" going after F-Berry.  For most of his 713 bombs Bonds has "stood arrogantly at the plate" and watched 'em go before going into his trot, so she imagines Springer was 'speaking' for many NL pitchers when he did what he did.  The Astros should have almost no fear of later retaliation, because Bonds falls outside the "protect your teammates" ethic prevalent in MLB.

On the Giants series:  The team didn't do much right.  The young pitchers got shelled, but they weren't scoring, either (personally, I don't think these two things are necessarily independent of each other, but whatever), and there were defensive lapses.  She expects some experimenting, moving Wilson down in the order, etc.  Steiner said of the Astros, "This team just isn't very good," and while she didn't contradict him, Footer didn't exactly agree, either.


My own view is, if something like this had to happen, let it happen now.  For one thing it causes Charlie Steiner, et al, to write the team off already.  Good.  Sometimes a complete figging like this takes off the pressure, and lets the team just do its thing.

I still like the way this team is made up, flaws and all.  And they may end up benefiting from being under the radar now.

And, oh yeah, that might've been the last time Bonds plays in Houston the other day.  I wish I could say I was sad.  As a kid, I idolized his father -- he was my favorite non-Astro for years.  But I never did take to Bonds fils even before his personality and the whole steroids thing came to light.

[No? in Austin]

Steiner = Yankees broadcaster?  Yeah, he has no bias.

[David in Jackson]

Steiner is the Dodgers broadcaster

[homer]

 

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Steiner said of the Astros, "This team just isn't very good,"  

The day Clemens signs to play, however, I am sure Steiner will proclaim the Astros to be contenders.

[astro pete]

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The day Clemens signs to play, however, I am sure Steiner will proclaim the Astros to be contenders.

And he'd be right.

[No? in Austin]

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Steiner is the Dodgers broadcaster

Cool, he used to be a New York broadcaster.

[jaklewein]

 And, oh yeah, that might've been the last time Bonds plays in Houston the other day. I wish I could say I was sad. As a kid, I idolized his father -- he was my favorite non-Astro for years. But I never did take to Bonds fils even before his personality and the whole steroids thing came to light.

Bonds was a dick before he started taking steriods.  Within his first season or two with the Giants, I could no longer stand the guy.  To that point in my life, I'd never seen anyone actually stand and admire his homeruns like he did, at least not with the regularity that he did.  Fuck'm.  As far as I'm concerned, the sooner he retires, the better.

[Astroholic]

You can call me a racist or whatever for this statement, but I suspect that Bonds retires shortly after passing the white boy in HRs.

[Rebel Jew]

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You can call me a racist or whatever for this statement, but I suspect that Bonds retires shortly after passing the white boy in HRs.

I'm pretty sure Bonds has said as much.

As an aside, does it bother anybody else that people keep suggesting that Ruth was on beer and hot dogs when he hit all his home runs?  Yes, Ruth was a partier, but if you read about him, and look at pictures of him for the majority of his career, he was a tremendous athlete, a naturally big and strong guy, not the lazy fatso that he seems lately to be portrayed as.

[Matt]

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As an aside, does it bother anybody else that people keep suggesting that Ruth was on beer and hot dogs when he hit all his home runs?  Yes, Ruth was a partier, but if you read about him, and look at pictures of him for the majority of his career, he was a tremendous athlete, a naturally big and strong guy, not the lazy fatso that he seems lately to be portrayed as.

The real question is do hookers count as a performance enhancing substance or a performance draining substance?

[Lefty]

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Yes, Ruth was a partier, but if you read about him, and look at pictures of him for the majority of his career, he was a tremendous athlete, a naturally big and strong guy, not the lazy fatso that he seems lately to be portrayed as.

Babe Ruth stole home 14 times in his career.

[drew corleone]

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Steiner is the Dodgers broadcaster

Cool, he used to be a New York broadcaster.

Was he the one that did the annoying "Yankees win... THEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Yankees win."?

I liked him on Sportscenter. he used to laugh hysterically fairly often when he was reporting a story.

[Ty in Tampa]

Was he the one that did the annoying "Yankees win... THEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Yankees win."?

No. That's John Sterling, possibly the most annoyingly arrogant broadcaster ever.

[Astroholic]

Ruth was a man among boys.  His numbers at the time were far superior to any of his peers.  

I probably would have hated him seeing that he was a yankmee.

[Gizzmonic]

Charlie Palillo played a really funny clip of Sterling last season.

He was in full home run catchphrase call on a ball that was caught on the warning track..."Giambi hits it to right, it is high, it is deep, it's GONE!!!!!! (pause) caught!  Caught on the warning track!"

What a flashy buffoon that guy is.

[NeilT]

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Ruth was a man among boys.  His numbers at the time were far superior to any of his peers.  

I probably would have hated him seeing that he was a yankmee.

There's a new biography of Ruth out, The Big Bam, by Leigh Montville.  Montville also wrote a very good biography of Ted Williams (I like it because Montville spends allot of time writing about Williams' relationship with Sears sporting goods, which always fascinated me as a kid.  Ted Williams' fishing reels? Who's Ted Williams?).  Anyway, I'm about halfway through it, and it may break no new ground, but it's a bunch more readable than the Creamer biography.

One of the interesting things Montville points out is that the year the Creamer biography was written, there were 4 other Ruth biographies in addition to Creamer.  That was 1973-74.  Go figure.  Kinda answers the question of why a Ruth biography now.

The best line so far is that people loved Ruth with the kind of love most people reserved for the family golden retreiver.  As a golden retreiver family, that resonated. You adore her when she's good and isn't she cute when she gets up to the cabinet to take a good lick of dinner?  Won't dinner be a bit better with a good dose of dog slobber? You darn betcha.

Ruth seems like a cross between Berkman and, I dunno, Hugh Hefner I guess.  Take away the Baptist side of Berkman's moral virtue but leave the ADD and humor; take away all of Hefner's faux sophistication but leave the extreme gluttony. Then throw in Bonds for baseball skill. That might get close.

[strosrays]

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Ruth was a man among boys.  His numbers at the time were far superior to any of his peers.  

I probably would have hated him seeing that he was a yankmee.

There's a new biography of Ruth out, The Big Bam, by Leigh Montville.  Montville also wrote a very good biography of Ted Williams (I like it because Montville spends allot of time writing about Williams' relationship with Sears sporting goods, which always fascinated me as a kid.  Ted Williams' fishing reels? Who's Ted Williams?).  Anyway, I'm about halfway through it, and it may break no new ground, but it's a bunch more readable than the Creamer biography.

One of the interesting things Montville points out is that the year the Creamer biography was written, there were 4 other Ruth biographies in addition to Creamer.  That was 1973-74.  Go figure.  Kinda answers the question of why a Ruth biography now.

The best line so far is that people loved Ruth with the kind of love most people reserved for the family golden retreiver.  As a golden retreiver family, that resonated. You adore her when she's good and isn't she cute when she gets up to the cabinet to take a good lick of dinner?  Won't dinner be a bit better with a good dose of dog slobber? You darn betcha.

Ruth seems like a cross between Berkman and, I dunno, Hugh Hefner I guess.  Take away the Baptist side of Berkman's moral virtue but leave the ADD and humor; take away all of Hefner's faux sophistication but leave the extreme gluttony. Then throw in Bonds for baseball skill. That might get close.

There was some (not very scientific) speculation awhile back that Babe Ruth was, in fact, part African-American.  Because he had a wide, non-aquiline nose, I think it was.

Silliness, but kind of funny in this context.  "Hey, Barry, you're all geared up to pass the wrong fucking guy!"

[Golden Sombrero]

I'm reading the Creamer bio of Ruth right now.  I'm enjoying it so far (I'm on page 100 or so).  For old time yankee greats, I'd also recommend "Luckiest Man" by Jonathan Eig about, who else, Lou Gehrig.  

I went on a baseball book tear a while ago and purchased "I had a Hammer" by Aaron, and mean to procure "The Glory of their Times" at some point.

[NeilT]

I recall Creamer deciding that there was no proof and not much evidence of African American heritage in Ruth.  the new book raises the issue and seems to leave the question open.  Among Ruth's nicknames, those involving the N-word were pretty common, and among the earliest.

The speculation is all based on his looks, and particularly his lips ("N-lips" was his earliest nickname, given to him by the good Catholic kids at St. Mary's.  He was also relatively dark.).  There's apparently no obvious indication from his family history.

[Golden Sombrero]

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I recall Creamer deciding that there was no proof and not much evidence of African American heritage in Ruth.  the new book raises the issue and seems to leave the question open.  Among Ruth's nicknames, those involving the N-word were pretty common, and among the earliest.

The speculation is all based on his looks, and particularly his lips ("N-lips" was his earliest nickname, given to him by the good Catholic kids at St. Mary's.  He was also relatively dark.).  There's apparently no obvious indication from his family history.

Creamer dismisses Ruth being mulatto in little more than a paragraph.  He says that a photo of Ruth side-by-side with his father shows them to be very similar-looking- a Ruthian family resemblance.  Obviously that's not ironclad, but neither are the nicknames bestowed by rowdy schoolchildren, in a home for behaviorly-challenged boys.

Edited to add: given the lack of incontrovertible evidence on either side, Occam's Razor should apply.  

[strosrays]

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I recall Creamer deciding that there was no proof and not much evidence of African American heritage in Ruth.  the new book raises the issue and seems to leave the question open.  Among Ruth's nicknames, those involving the N-word were pretty common, and among the earliest.

The speculation is all based on his looks, and particularly his lips ("N-lips" was his earliest nickname, given to him by the good Catholic kids at St. Mary's.  He was also relatively dark.).  There's apparently no obvious indication from his family history.

Creamer dismisses Ruth being mulatto in little more than a paragraph.  He says that a photo of Ruth side-by-side with his father shows them to be very similar-looking- a Ruthian family resemblance.  Obviously that's not ironclad, but neither are the nicknames bestowed by rowdy schoolchildren, in a home for behaviorly-challenged boys.

Edited to add: given the lack of incontrovertible evidence on either side, Occam's Razor should apply.  

Of course, the point is, who cares?  Other than Bonds, I mean?  And a couple hundred media types.  

Hank Aaron took care of all this 32 years ago.

[NeilT]

Well, it's kinda interesting about what it tells you about America in the early 20th century.  Accusing Ruth of mixed-blood was about as common, apparently, as accusing Bonds of steroid use.  One or the other or both or neither may have been true.  Do I care if Ruth was of mixed blood?  Nope.  Did he care?  Yep.  He hated it.

I forgot his nose.  And Ruth did look like his father.

Actually, it occurs to me that the most interesting part of the new biography is how much Ruth wanted off the mound so that he could bat everday.  Apparently with the Red Sox, he pitched and played 1st for a year or so, in a 4-day rotation, but thought that as he got older he wouldn't be able pull it off.  I always thought it was the teams forcing Ruth off the mound, but it was Ruth demanding to play everyday that was a big part of the trade to the Yankees.  I either don't remember that in Creamer, or ran by it too quick.

[mihoba]

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I forgot his nose.  And Ruth did look like his father.

Exactly like his father. I have this same photo in a book, taken in the elder Ruth's tavern which he owned.

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Actually, it occurs to me that the most interesting part of the new biography is how much Ruth wanted off the mound so that he could bat everday.  Apparently with the Red Sox, he pitched and played 1st for a year or so, in a 4-day rotation, but thought that as he got older he wouldn't be able pull it off.  I always thought it was the teams forcing Ruth off the mound, but it was Ruth demanding to play everyday that was a big part of the trade to the Yankees.  I either don't remember that in Creamer, or ran by it too quick.

Babe Ruth was a great pitcher. Bonds can't match that, and the Bambino will remain the greatest player ever in the hearts of many.

[NeilT]

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I forgot his nose.  And Ruth did look like his father.

Exactly like his father. I have this same photo in a book, taken in the elder Ruth's tavern which he owned.

Quote:
Actually, it occurs to me that the most interesting part of the new biography is how much Ruth wanted off the mound so that he could bat everday.  Apparently with the Red Sox, he pitched and played 1st for a year or so, in a 4-day rotation, but thought that as he got older he wouldn't be able pull it off.  I always thought it was the teams forcing Ruth off the mound, but it was Ruth demanding to play everyday that was a big part of the trade to the Yankees.  I either don't remember that in Creamer, or ran by it too quick.

Babe Ruth was a great pitcher. Bonds can't match that, and the Bambino will remain the greatest player ever in the hearts of many.

Montville does a really nice job with Ruth's pitching by describing a series of games between Ruth and Walter Johnson in 1916.  The Red Sox wanted Ruth to pitch, and keep pitching.  Ruth wanted to hit.

The problem with Ruth looking like his father is that Ruth's father's provenance isn't exactly clear.  He may have been Dutch.  He may have been German.  He might have been mulatto.  He surely looked like Ruth's father, though.