Clutch 26-2016: Injuries and Worse

Generally speaking natural instinct is to not purposely do anything that would jeopardize one’s ability to do their job. That could be said for the short-term as well as something that would affect the ability to do the job ever again. Your job is typically your livelihood and one would not want to put that risk. This goes doubly if the person has no other skills or ability to get “Another” job that they would be physically able to with a similar compensation level.

It’s fair to say that this would be a main and golden rule if your job pays up in the higher stratosphere like a major league baseball player. Now, unlike professional football, an MLB player generally has a longer career which brings with it a longer ability to make money. Smart players would “Make hay while the sun shines” and try to best capitalize on the amount of years that they are granted. Even those who stay involved in the game after retiring as an active player can make a few bucks, but nothing like what they made on the field.

There have been many intentional, kind of intentional and accidental while at risk incidents that have happened through the years with active baseball players. These all ended with bad results, some not too bad, some pretty bad and some flat out fatal. In all cases a player’s action or lack of led to their career going sideways or ending. That leads to deeper affects like how their families could be supported, etc.

The first player to discuss is the reason for this blog due to the close timing of the incident. This is referring to the budding star from the Miami Marlins, 24 year old pitching sensation Jose Fernandez. From all accounts Jose was a great guy on and off the diamond. He was only at the beginning of what was going to be a long and prosperous career with Jose likely being a perennial all-star and a feared pitcher. During an off-day in Miami Jose and two friends were excessively speeding on a boat recklessly in the literal middle of the night. They crashed and all three of the guys died on the scene. RIP #16.

That case is of course a tragedy on all counts and for all reasons. What makes it just worse than worse is that someone in Jose’s position should not be participating in fun activities that put his life at risk. Really nobody should, but especially when you are a public figure of sorts with a tremendous revenue upside and you are someone beloved by a global fan base. In Jose’s case his fiancé has a baby on the way and will now need to find ways to support that. Things happen and Clutch’s handbook doesn’t say that players or regular people should not leave the house, but controlled risk is probably a better option.

There are also many cases of reckless activities on the field that led to injuries of all shapes and sizes. These cases usually only put a team’s ability to win at risk, but can cause a player his career. There is a couple from the Clutch archives of a “Lighter” note than above. Met icon Pat Zachry once kicked the dugout bench after getting the hook during a bad outing. This lead to a broken leg and missing most of the season. Of course this was during the bad Met era of the late 70s so it didn’t affect “Winning” too much.

Another Met that was the recipient of a bizarre injury that kind of was a negative turn to the Met season and may have put the kibosh on a possible World Series win. It also wound up ending his career, which was a shame. His name was Duaner Sanchez, and he was the setup man for the 2006 club. With him and Billy Wagner the Mets had a pretty dynamic back of the bullpen.  On a summer night he went out to dinner after a game with a few guys and was in a taxi when a drunk driver hit the taxi connecting the two cars and separating Duaner’s shoulder.  He missed a season and a half with the injury, made a short comeback and then was released. Middle to late inning relief guys can usual play forever, or until they stop throwing strikes. Sanchez had around a five year career and was last seen a few years after his last Major League appearance trying out for Long Island Ducks.

Though the name escapes Clutch’s memory banks there was a player recently who broke his leg during a home-plate celebration. He had just hit a game winning homerun and his teammates met him at home plate where everyone proceeded to jump around hooting and hollering. The end result was a trip to the ER and a cast on the leg. This clearly could have and should have been avoided. This was basically a super-sized version of getting injured while issuing or receiving a high-five.

The last Met who was victim of preventable injuries is the great Bobby Ojeda. Ojeda was a key cog of the 1986 championship Mets. Though he had a pretty good career it was derailed by two pretty preventable incidents. The first was when a year after winning the title he lost part of a finger or two on his pitching hand while trimming the hedges at his house. You would think he would hire someone for that. A few years later during spring training with the Cleveland Indians Bob went on a boat ride with two fellow players, Steve Olin and Tim Crews.  Crews was legally drunk and the boat crashed. He and Olin died, while Ojeda survived but missed the entire season and was never the same.

Things happen all the time and there were many active players’ fatalities over the years for one reason or the other. As noted earlier it’s a matter of controlled risk. Players and their entourages should be smart enough to not do anything to put their livelihood in jeopardy. Maybe they think their invincible because of the ability to throw a hard to hit curve-ball or hit a ball over the fence at will. That works and is likely true in the game, but doesn’t apply to real life. This blog is dedicated to all the players we lost way too early. 

Clutch 25-2016: The Brothers Reuschel

It doesn’t seem that baseball “Runs in the family” as most as it did it in years past. The same can probably said for any line of business in the modern era. This possible could be due to the increased numbers of “Things to do” in the world as well as the theory that a generation wants to be a rung up on the previous. Parent, in some respects, have a job of giving their kids the better opportunity than they had. Back in the day more folks did what their fathers or brothers did as it what all they knew.

That said, there are some relatives in baseball today. The first one that comes to mind is the Seager brothers. Most of us know about at least two of them, Kyle (Mariners) and Corey (Dodgers). Low and behold there is a third Seager brother Justin, who is currently in the minor leagues also with Seattle. It’s an interesting dynamic in that all three of these guys are excellent players. This has happened in the past, but many of the brother combinations were that of a slanted scale with one being great and the other just getting by.

Many moons ago Mr. Clutch worked, not in sports, with a gentleman by the name of Geno. It was Geno DiSarcina to be exact. The relevance of this is that Geno was the younger brother of Gary. Gary of course had a better than average 10+ year career at SS for the California Angels. Why it’s also relevant is that there was also a third brother here Glenn who was drafted by the White Sox. Glenn’s claim to fame was that he played for the Birmingham Barons in the minor leagues with – you guessed it; Michael Jordan. The best part about this is that Geno, who never played baseball at any professional level, claimed he was the best of the three!

There have also been many generational players in the game of course. The most famous ones that come to mind are The Griffey’s, with both Ken’s being phenomenal players, with the latter of them being a first ballet hall of famer. Ken and Ken also hold the pretty cool distinction of being the only father and so duo to play in an MLB game together. It was August of 1990 when Ken Sr. was on his way towards retirement and Jr. was just starting to make his mark.

There were also a few odder family tree relations in the game. Mr.Clutch’s favorite player, or at least one of, Dr.K Dwight Gooden was the Uncle of Gary Sheffield the power hitter from the Marlins. One of Mr.Clutch’s confidants and personal friends Joe McEwing’s former brother-in-law is also Bristol, PA native Jeff Manto. Matt Franco, former Met utility guy, is the nephew of famed actor Kurt Russel. One could argue that’s a stretch since Kurt “played” a role in sports movies, but – little known fact that Kurt played minor league ball in the early 70s for the Angels!

There are some better known tandems who played together, meaning in the same time, from back in Kid Clutch days. These are combinations that we, we meaning people of similar age, likely recall with a grin. George Brett was a great hitter, while Ken Brett was a mediocre pitcher. The Forsch brothers were both mediocre pitchers if memory serves correctly. Then there were the Niekro’s Phil and Joe who were both high quality pitchers. Phil was the top half of that and a hall of famer.

Twins have also factored into the MLB relative landscape. Controversial player and former “Smash Brother” Jose Canseco has an MLB player twin brother named Ozzie. The strange thing about this is that they were identical twins, which would make you think that they had the same DNA strand and the same skills. This was not the case here, as the career HR difference between the two was 462. That also happens to be the number of career HRs hit by Jose. Ozzie had no dingers in his three year limited career. He actually only had 65 At bats over that span. The twins did play together in Oakland for the A’s in 1990. That alone is an interesting dynamic. The Clutch research staff just returned some information that you probably assumed they would. Ozzie often “Subbed” in for Jose at autograph signings and other promotional events. Twin shenanigans with these guys, would anyone think otherwise?  

Last of the list of those from the same era is the Reuschel brothers. Rick and Paul Reuschel both had major league pitching careers. Similar to the common theme of the majority of the DNA going one way, Rick had a much better career than Paul. Rick had 214 career wins, over 2,000 strikeouts and a respectful career ERA of 3.37. Brother Paul, on the other hand, only played in the big leagues for five years and ended up with a 16-16 record. One of the interesting factoids about these guys is they are, and likely will continue to be, the only brothers to pitch a combined shutout, which was for the Cubs back in 1975. It’s also noteworthy that towards the end of Rick’s career he appears on a baseball card and was the spitting image of kid Clutch’s 11^th grade Spanish teacher.

What spurred a discussion on sibling athletes is that Mr. Clutch recently listened to an interesting lecture on Catholic faith recorded live on CD by a gentleman named Darrell Miller. It would take too long to explain how and why this happened, though the short of it is that the CD cover had a baseball field on it with the title being “More than a game” or something like that. Darrell had a brief nondescript career with the Angels from 1984 to 1988. The interesting part is that he is the big brother of Reggie Miller (NBA Pacers HOF) and Cheryl Miller (Women’s basketball in many HOFs). What a talented family!    

Clutch 24-2016: Evolution of the Game

Regardless of your beliefs in “Evolution” the fact of the matter is that everything and everybody changes over time. Some change for the better, some for the worse and some change is sideways. Evolution by definition is the gradual development or advancement of something. What’s noteworthy and possible overlooked is that the definition doesn’t have an “End” or time in which that something is completed.

Baseball, like everything else, has certainly evolved over time. Some of the evolution has been more natural and closer to the vest of the definition while other parts were more forced change for various reasons. Within that, some was “Change for the sake of change”, while some was change for the betterment of the game. Lastly, some was so the game can continue around evolution of other things.

Let’s start with what’s most important, which is the on the field stuff. Fortunately, the look and feel is that the basic “Rules” of the game have not changed in a long while. The number of strikes, outs and innings have all remained the same. It’s probably fair to say that if you pick up an “Official” major league baseball rule book from 50 years ago it would still be relevant today. As a purist around statistics (more to come on this shortly), Mr. Clutch is very glad that this is the case and that the core game is still that.

Once obvious glaring change in the game is the concept of “Instant replay” and call reviews. This is a case of technology driving the evolution of umpiring a game. Back in the day this was not possible from a functional standpoint as there was not six zoomed in camera angles of every play, which were incidentally instantly available for review and in high definition. At best you had a single camera shoot in black and white, with a 30-minute lag time to “Review” a play. The question at hand is what’s right? Getting the call exactly correct? Or keeping the ruling on the field human?

A Clutch guess would be that most people would vote for getting the call “Exactly” right and that reviewing calls is a good thing. A small minority of purist might think it changes the integrity of the game and that good and bad calls are part of the game. Recalling what was stated above – call review was born by nature of being technologically available. This would mean that if it was possible to review calls back in the day, baseball probably would. That sort of kind of proves the case that it’s a good thing. The other reason instant replay works is that an umpires call is and never will be an “Opinion”. A runner is either safe or out, a fielder either did or didn’t make the catch and a ball is either fair of foul.

The players on the field have of course physically evolved over time. Some of this is due to extreme workouts and paying more attention to shape, while others were artificially driven through drugs and what not. Just think back to the greatest players of the previous generation and what they look like. Take Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio for example. Two icons of the game that let’s face it – never exactly looked like a modern athlete. Clutch’s vision of the Sultan of Swat is that he was always an old out of shape guy. The Bambino never seemed to have a youth and/or a prime as it related to being in shape. DiMaggio was in shape per-se, but looked nothing like the star players of today.

The evolution of the man baseball player has certainly led to a shift in statistics. For example, in previous eras a short-stop was hired to play the field only, and in most cases batted eight and was a usual out. An average SS back in the day would hit an occasional homerun and get on base every now and again. The perfect example of this was great Met Rey Ordonez. Rey would literally (and uncanny) hit one (1) homerun every year. He did this in five of the six complete years that he played. Rey had a power surge in 2001 where he hit three. He batted in the .240 range and knock in around 40 runs a year. These prestigious stats earned Ordonez a $6mm salary in his last few seasons in the game. That’s $8mm adjusted for inflation. He earned that salary by way of being a phenomenal fielder and all said one of the best at his position during that time.

Fast forward to 2016 – the year of the power hitting short-stop. Let’s start with Colorado Rockies rising star SS Trevor Story.  Trevor had 27 HRs in 400 ABs before getting injured. The interesting stat here is that he had seven (7) HRs by April 10^th, a mere single week into the season.  More interesting is that in the 2016 season 20 starting Short-stops had 20 HRs or more for the season. In 1985 – there was one, and that was Cal Ripkin, one of the clear exceptions to the rule. Remove that outlier and you are down to none. It’s safe to say that this position has evolved. Anyone wanting to play it at a high level needs to bring both a glove and bat to tryouts.

To step off the field and into the stands for a moment, the fan experience and concept of attending a major league baseball has evolved off the charts. Just look at any of that old grainy footage from yesteryear to get an idea, and then compare it to the game watching of today. There are many aspects of this to analyze, with today’s focus being on fan representation and stadium offerings. These probably represent two of the biggest changes in fandom and one could think that they both evolved for the worse.

Old footage shows fans sitting in the stands wearing two or three piece suits, dresses, derbies, neckties and shoes. Going out to the ballgame was an event that required dressing up and looking your best in a respectful manner. It was the equivalent of going to the ball, not playing ball. Fans also quietly watched the game in awe of what was being seen. Today attire for attending a game is printed t-shirt or jersey, and gym shorts. Oh have times changed! Also, fans of today seem to have a vested interested in cursing out the opposing teams and players, starting brawls in the stands and of course finding a need to tweet a play by play.

The in stadium experience has clearly taken a turn for baseball purist worse. Back in the day you sat down and watched nine or more innings of baseball and possible kept score in this thing called a scorebook. It got you intimately close to the game at hand. Maybe you ran to the restroom in-between innings and grabbed something quickly at a concession stand if the concession in question wasn’t hand delivered to your seat by a vendor. Today, stadiums have pools, wiffle-ball fields, numerous sit-down restaurants and a plethora of “Other” things to do during the game. When cameras flash to foul balls, many of the seats are often empty during sell outs. It has become an unnecessary necessity to add entertainment to an entertainment event.

Darwin where are you? He’s likely turning over in the grave over certain portions of the evolution of the game.