Ryne Sandberg

I was watching The Wizard of Oz last night. I can't remember ever having watched it before, but then again, I give myself no credit for anything that I've done before turning 18. Simply put, I remember very little of it, and some is for good reason - being a teenager is an awkward time that I'd rather forget about (and a pre-pubescent, and a kid, and...), but alas... I know that I've seen bits and pieces of it, and I get its populist message that lurks underneath the childhood story, but more than anything (and somewhere beyond Dorothy's annoying moans - man, how do people appreciate Judy Garland when her 2 most important offspring - being Judy and Liza frickin' Minelli - just grate all that we are, but nevertheless, before I start getting hate mail, let me just say, I was laying in bed thinking about how there really is no place like home. 15 years ago, I was living in England, and it was rapidly coming to the point that I was heading home. I had no desire to go home at that point. England was my adopted home, and I was clinging to it with a fierce tenacity that wouldn't give way to the fact that the relationship I was in had to dissolve so that the both of us could go on to happiness (we've both since married and are doing reasonably well with our lives), and I had no concept of what America or life was meant to be - just that I was going to soon go back home and live with my parents while I went to school and got my life together (on July 8, 1996, that reality finally happened). It took a while. The first year was hard. I still had a lot of England left in me - not least of all the idea that I would go back and be with my ex-gal friend (when you're older than high school, you can't really be a girl), but alas, that didn't happen, and it was a long dark winter that was finally punctuated with a few trips to California to see another friend. For the first trip, I bought a baseball preview guide with Derek Jeter on the cover. I didn't know who he was or hate the Yankees at the time (that was in 1998 with the story of Roger Maris and accentuated with the pickup of Roger Clemens), but it was that which brought baseball back. Sure, there were moments like watching the Braves dominate in 1996 while working at an Air Force sports bar in England, or watching the Phillies lose in 1993 when the Blue Jays smacked them around (thank you Paul Molitor), but through it all, there was nothing other than the memory of Ryne Sandberg... a guy who played for the Reading Phillies, but was later traded to the Chicago Cubs where he went on to have Hall of Fame stats. And he was right there waiting for me when I returned home, and for that, I am eternally grateful. His career wasn't like it was in the 1980s, and while I still have his rookie card, it isn't the value that I'd like it to be. Then again, neither are the cards that my wife bought me the other night that sit smack dab in the middle of this era (1990ish). It was a great gift for a player, and there's something about looking through cards - even of players we don't necessarily know. There are still favorites from my childhood, guys left over to adulthood, and marquee players that will always be known. In the end, there were a few cards that stood out. Curt Schilling 1990 Topps - not THE rookie, but a first Topps card. Sammy Sosa 1990 Topps - if only it was 1998... I'd be sitting pretty. While not the Upper Deck Griffey Jr., there was the regular set Topps marked rookie of Ken Griffey Jr. Most of these are now selling for $1. Juan Gonzalez? Joey (Albert) Belle? Names of once great, but fallen stars. Jose Canseco? You can't even give his rookie away, but there was a 1990 Canseco - when he still sort of kind of mattered. But there were the guys from this era... the ones that were still left... the Ryne Sandbergs... the million dollar contract trail blazers who used to name names and define the era... And they're largely forgotten in modern baseball history, but they're still a part of my childhood history, which I see myself going back to more and more (also, the Disney Pixar movies and brainless comedies)... and I know that's not such a bad thing. It's made me the man that I am, and it's made my American home (in the middle of Amish Paradise) such a great place to be and to sit on the backyard furniture while watching my firepit and looking over my wife's garden and just being. That's really what home is all about. That sense of mellow Americana and nostalgia for a time past in a time now... Even if that time never really was.

Curse of the Billy Goat

In 1958 and 1959, he was the MVP for the National League, but he still couldn’t keep the Cubs’ hopes for ending the Curse of the Billy Goat alive. During those 2 years, he averaged 46 home runs as a shortstop in a time before guys like Alex Rodriguez, Cal Ripken, Miguel Tejada, and Nomar Garciaparra were redefining a position that guys like Mario Mendoza had held down “effectively” in defensive capacities while hitting .215 and 4 home runs over a career that lasted from 1974-1982.
For that matter, from 1978-1996, the great Ozzie Smith who did hit a defining playoff home run where fans were allowed to go crazy afterward, had 7 seasons where he didn’t hit one home run, and other than his "slugging" year of 1983 when he hit 6 home runs, there was never another year like that as he never got more than half of this total. In aside, Smith should be glad that he didn't do that in 2001 when he would have been investigated for steroids. Of course, the Wizard could do summersaults and stop sharply hit grounders up the middle while channeling programming messages to future ESPN Baseball Tonight programmers that stated the importance of the “web gem,” but Ernie Banks was a guy who could do it all. He had personality, he had life, he had a hot bat that could drive in serious runs and hit for a more than respectable average, but he had no World Series rings.
Despite Banks having a total lack of October experience, he did have one thing other than the fact he made the All Star team for 10 of his seasons and hit 512 home runs over his career. That thing that made him stand apart in the history of baseball was a catch phrase: “It’s a beautiful day for a ballgame. Let’s play two!”
And here we are at the start of the season and my two ballgames are the two fantasy teams that I will take to the finish line: the Ephrata Fighting Amish and the Amish Paradise Green Dragons.
All the same, neither is as memorable as the real game that will be taking place at Fenway Park for the first time since the Cubs lost the 1918 World Series to the Red Sox. In a game that someone had to win, much like the Rangers and the Giants in last year's World Series, the Red Sox, the dominate team of the 1910s, took the series from the Cubs and added another year to their championship drought, which had just moved to a decade since Merkle's Boner.
So will this be a sign that the Cubs are going to move past evicting some stinky farm animal and his uncouth owner who would have even dared to bring him into the park? Will this be the year that Steve Bartman's soul can rest in peace and he finally is forgiven for interfering with Moises Alou's catch in foul territory? Can he come back from his purgatory? Can the Cubs gather round all of their great players from the past and let them cry as the drought ends? Will the real live Ryne Sandberg get his opportunity to guide the team to the crown or will he be passed over yet again? Will fans make peace with Sammy Sosa's corked bat and steroids use enough to let him come back to a late 1990s love fest all over again? Can Rick Sutcliffe's pitching arm slap the new look Cubs on the back? Would Ron Santo walk back onto the field like he did before diabetes claimed his legs, and if he did, would he walk in with the ghosts of Mordecai "3 Fingers" Brown, Ed Reulbach, Tinker, Evers, Chance? Would they recognize Starlin Castro, Aramis Ramirez, Carlos Zambrano, Geovany Soto, Marlon Byrd, Kosuke Fukodome, and Alfonso Soriano?
Is this the year that Billy Williams gets to come back with Leon Durham, Greg Maddux, and Fergie Jenkins, the Cubs greats of the past, and speak about what could have been and be applauded for being there for the 102 years of sadness?
Can Harry Caray finally rest in peace?
When all is said and done, will Charlie Root bring his fastball and throw it at the effigy of Babe Ruth set to go on the bonfire at the center of all that is more than a century of sadness in Wrigleyville?
Not if the new look Red Sox have anything to do with it... but here's hoping from the heart of a baseball fan.

Harold Reynolds

America is a land of second chances. From 1983 to 1994, Harold Reynolds wasn't an offensive threat at all. His 21 home runs from the second sack weren't anything to write home about. Hell, Ryne Sandberg had more home runs in a season during 6 of his years in the pros than Reynolds had total, and considering that he was the new face of second base (before Utley, Cano, and Soriano showed just how much power one could have from that position), Mr. Reynolds was just rapidly decelerating into career ending lack of productivity. All the same, he did have 60 stolen bases in his best year, but as a whole, he was what he was - average and his batting average of .258 for a career proved just that.
Nevertheless, he became a face for baseball because he went on to be a baseball guy for ESPN Baseball Tonight, and in that, he was always knowledgeable and interesting. However, after nearly a decade, he was canned from ESPN for hugging a female intern, which was considered offensive and sexual harassment when 3 weeks later, she said something about the hug and the dinner afterward. Maybe it was because she was white and he was black. Maybe he didn't return her further advances or maybe she just didn't hit it off with him. Either way, ESPN was not happy.
Later that year, he filed suit and won against his former network in that they settled the money he had asked for, and eventually, he went his way until MLBTV picked him up, which is unlike Steve Phillips, also an ESPN guy canned for issues that he had while being in a bizarre love triangle (cue New Order). There began the 3rd chance for Mr. Reynolds.
Now, Reynolds is on the air daily with Billy Ripken (the least of the Ripkens), Dan Plesac, and Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams (getting another second chance for himself after becoming Joe Carter's monkey boy and the most hated figure in Philadelphia history this side of JD Drew and Santa Claus). Together, they're disseminating what can only be described as "porn" since the constant baseball images on MLBTV are not only addictive and a guilty pleasure when I should be working or being productive on my days off, but a constant opportunity to gawk at the money shot home runs and defensive gems. I get to skip to the best parts of the greatest arguments, relive the memories past of glory that is missing from my life in this cold, nasty winter as I wait for life to come back to a former glory. Somehow, the images of the past and a past never seen have become my substitute for a daily life.
Not that I'm complaining. The countdowns are incredible and the Bob Costas interviews are enlightening me to all that is the grandeur of baseball. While they play the old Ken Burns Baseball stuff (I have this on DVD - it's the Vivid Entertainment of baseball), they haven't gotten to the new stuff yet. Someday, I'm sure they will, and I'll be able to record it rather than having to pay for the DVD just yet. On really good days, there are things on there like the entire game of Bill Mazeroski's home run to beat the Yankees and make Mickey and Roger cry.
If only MLBTV reached out to the world with their history (through Youtube), there would be a generation of baseball converts, but unfortunately, the already converted will be the only ones to relish in this greatness of a past world that can no longer be - at least until baseball becomes a game instead of a business.
Nevertheless, the hot stove is always burning - at least until my wife gets home and we watch "acceptable" television together.