Posts Tagged ‘Cincinnati Reds’

Dodgers/Reds, right? Photo courtesy of Kelly O'Connor/sittingstill.smugmug.com and used with permission.

71 years ago today the first live major league baseball broadcast hit the television airwaves.  It was a Saturday double-header between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbetts Field.  Red Barber called both games with the Reds winning the first and the Dodgers the second.

A few things strike me interesting about this double-header.  The lineups for both games were almost identical.  The pitchers, of course, were different, but the only other difference was that the Reds used a different catcher for the second game while the Dodgers replaced one of their infielders.  Also, the first game only took 1 hour and 16 minutes to play.  Reds’ pitcher Bucky Walters only gave up two hits in the game and pitched a complete game to get his 21st win of the season (he’d go on to win 27 games in 1939).  I’m not one of those who criticizes players for needing a day off or who thinks pitch counts should be eradicated, but these guys played two full games on the same day without falling apart.

Although, to be fair, in total both games only took 3 hours and 17 minutes to play.  Joe West would have been in heaven.

71 years relatively speaking, wasn’t that long ago.  My father was four and my mother’s father was 16.  Both are around today to enjoy the many technological advances we’ve experienced as sports fans.  Today we can watch baseball on over 10 different channels thanks to cable television.  I can watch any game I want (well, any game but an in-market game) on my computer and I can listen to any radio broadcast over my computer or on my cell phone.

Tonight I’ll be at “meet-up” of people in the baseball industry.  These folks got together through a social network (in this case, Linked In) and are celebrating their first anniversary as an online network.  Over 5000 people involved in baseball in one form or another get together virtually (and tonight some of them in person) to discuss baseball.  I’ve made some of my closest friends over the last 7 years thanks to the Internet (and, really, baseball).  I sit in awe that technology has come so far in less than 100 years.

One of the blog’s readers emailed me a week or so ago asking me what baseball books I would recommend to help pass the time during the off-season.  Just after that email exchange, I received an offer for free copies of the new book about Game 6 of the 1975 World Series.  Timing is everything.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I, like many Red Sox bloggers I’ll assume, was contacted by a representative from Hyperion Books about reviewing Mark Frost’s book GAME SIX: Cincinnati, Boston, and the 1975 World Series: The Triumph of America’s Pastime.  They send me a free book, I read it and write about it.  It was a book I had planned on buying anyway so why not, right?  I’ve had this offer a few other times and I often worry about reading a book that was comped to me and then not liking it.  There’s no clause saying I have to write something positive about the book – just that they supply me with the book for free and I give them publicity by writing about it.  But you never want to take something for nothing and then just spit on the person who gave it to you.  I’m not big on writing straight reviews, though, but I’m happy to give this book a much-deserved shout out.

Mark Frost wrote what is on my short list of favorite sports books not related to baseball (high praise since I don’t claim to have much fondness for golf): The Greatest Game Ever Played: Harry Vardon, Francis Ouimen, and the Birth of Modern Golf (Mr. Frost needs to work on shortening those titles!), so that, coupled with the subject matter of the book, brought me to it with high hopes.  On the surface, a book dedicated to one specific game in a series wouldn’t seem to have a broad appeal.  Who, outside of Reds and Red Sox fans, wants to relive one game of a seven game series?  Well, any baseball fan interested in the history of the game, I would hope.

There aren’t many spoilers  in a book written about possibly the most famous World Series game ever played.  The game has such an impact on baseball that even Joe Morgan, second baseman for the 1975 World Champions, admits that there are people out there who treat it like it was the final game in the series.  I’ve actually heard Morgan say that some people forget that the Reds, not the Red Sox, won that series (highly unlikely given how prevalent the whole “Red Sox haven’t won since 1918″ mantra was in baseball prior to 2004 – but more proof that Game 6 really stuck in the heads of baseball fans and even the men on the teams that night).  If you’re worried that it’s just 400 pages that rehashes one, four-hour baseball game, your worries are unfounded.  There’s a lot in this book not directly related to the game that gives people not fully educated on either of these teams a lot to work with.  For those of us well-aware of both teams, there’s a lot in this book to devour that while reads as what should be common knowledge, really isn’t.  Finding out how Lesley Visser and Dick Stockton met, for example, while not being important to the story of the game at all, gives a personal, insider’s view as to what went on that day.  There are a lot of those side stories in this book.

So, at the risk of sounding like I’m only saying this because I got a free copy – I really enjoyed this book.    SO much so that I asked for a couple of copies to give away.  Hyperion Books was nice enough to send two extras along (so you won’t be winning the one that I read!) and all I had to do is figure out a giveaway.

The giveaway will be a quiz….one I haven’t yet created (I might cheat and use some questions from another quiz I created a while ago – I haven’t decided yet) and the first two to submit the correct answers will win the books!  Hey, the Holidays are coming – the book will make a great gift for your favorite Red Sox lover!

In a day or two I’ll post the quiz so we can start the gift giving early!

Brandon Morrow Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images

The PawSox lost tonight.  This bummed me out much more than I expected.  Best I can figure, I’m subconsciously anticipating how I’ll feel when their season is over if Kyle Snyder doesn’t get a call-up.  Which, as the month goes on, becomes more possible than not.  And THAT truly bums me out.

So I’m going to try and not focus on that and focus on the awesomeness that is a Red Sox can of whoop ass and a Tampa Bay loss to boot.  Josh Beckett was, as they say, the balls.  Four hits and seven strike outs in five scoreless innings.  How’s that tingling working for you, JP?  8-1 was the final score (Okajima giving one up in the ninth…isn’t it nice when that doesn’t matter?) and the Jays took down the Rays 6-4.  This means the Sox are now 2.5 games out of first place.  Can you dig it?  I knew you could!

Speaking of seasons ending…Clay Buchholz’ just did, unless he gets bumped up.  Portland lost their third game in a row to the Trenton Thunder and got booted out of the playoffs.   I hate the slow death of baseball every year.  It’s completely depressing.  I need something to cheer me up…back to the Red Sox!

Mike Lowell came back from his mini-vacation to hit four rbi, including a home run, and hit a triple short of the cycle.  Maybe we should put more guys on the DL and have them come back gangbusters like Lowell and Beckett?

Coco Crisp also had 3 hits, and Jason Varitek had 2.  David Ortiz and Mark Kotsay were the only two in the Sox lineup to NOT get a hit.  Add to that, Manny Delcarmen and Justin Masterson pitching scoreless innings to get to the ninth and you have a really well-rounded, ass-kicking team!  I know at least 3 people who were there tonight and what a game they got to see!

Over in the National League, Bronson Arroyo got his 14th win by pitching almost seven innings and giving up only four hits and one run.  And Reds fans were worried about him at the beginning of the season!

And back to my favorite pitcher…Kyle got in the game tonight and faced six batters.  He gave up a walk and a single and he struck out Matt Carson (fly out, pop up, ground out,  were how he got his other outs).  So 1.1 scoreless innings tonight.  Kyle’s pitching well.  I’m working on which player is on the 40-man who I can put the whammy on to get Kyle a spot over there.  (I’m clueless about this, mind you.  Live in my own little world where I can mess with the 40-man roster whenever I want…)  I think it’s a toss up between Chris Carter and Marcus McBeth.   They need to have a Celebrity Deathmatch-like battle to see who gets the boot.

When I was in 8th grade, April Vigliotta wrote in my autograph book “Maybe someday you’ll own the Red Sox”.  I’ll settle for being the GM. 

Currently watching the Mariners and their rookie pitcher, thus far, kicking Yankee ass.  It’s a nice way to end the evening.  (In his first MLB game, Brandon Morrow just struck out his seventh batter – one Alex Rodriguez.  It’s the end of the seventh inning and, let’s just say, if you can watch this game…you’d really want to right now!)

Edited to add:  The Mariners announcers keep saying exactly what Morrow is doing and it’s making me crazy.  I didn’t realize I was as superstitious about this as I, apparently, am!

Second edit:  Brandon Morrow is out of the game.  Wilson Betemit hit an rbi double to break up the no-hitter with two outs in the 8th inning.  Kid kicked ass…good for him.  Now finish the game for him, Mariners, and get the kid the damn win!