Many pitchers have been suspected of doctoring the baseball, and some of them have, in fact, been searched for evidence of a foreign substance. Don Sutton was one of them. But he didn’t mind.
As a matter of fact, he enjoyed the search, but eluded the seizure. When the umpires searched him, they found numerous notes that he had placed in his pockets: “cold,” “colder,” “freezing,” “warm,” “hot,” “hotter” and “no trespassing.”
Baseball is coming.
There are thousands of stories just like that one having to do with the sport of baseball, and it’s easy to say that it’s hijinks like Sutton’s that make me love it the way I do.
Above every other sport and every other team that I root for, baseball stands atop the rest. Just ask my mom. She used to tell my girlfriends when I was younger not to make me choose between them and baseball because they would lose.
In all seriousness though, Major League Baseball spring training is now officially underway and to me, it’s the best time of the year. The weather is warming up, teams west of the Mississippi are traveling to Arizona while those east head down to Florida. Sunshine, a few rounds of golf, and oh yeah, preparing for the 2018 MLB season.
I had the opportunity last March to take my dad down to Orlando to Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex to watch the Braves during spring training. It was something that he had had on his bucket list for some time and was a trip that the two of us had discussed many times over the years.
It’s times like that that I’ll always treasure, and baseball was just the icing on the cake as the setting.
The Braves lost that game, but it didn’t matter. It was just the feeling of seeing guys take infield or hearing the crack of a baseball against a bat for the first time since October that give me goosebumps.
Today you hear a lot of pitchers complaining because umpires won’t let them throw “inside” to the hitter. That wasn’t the case in the old days, though.
Some players said that Sal “The Barber” Maglie of the Giants would knock down his own mother on Mother’s Day.
“I would,” he said, “if she was crowding the plate.”
Maglie wasn’t a loner, but he didn’t like to hang out with other players, either. Why?
“I don’t want to get to know them,” he said. “I might get to like them. Then if the occasion arises, I might not want to throw at them.”
Baseball is coming.
Now I may be what some would call a “baseball purist,” or just simply an “old-fashioned baseball fan.” I actually prefer pitching duels that end in 2-1 scores over homer-filled games, and I appreciate stealing bases and laying down bunts.
Maybe it’s because I prefer the National League style of play that has to strategize around throwing to the pitcher instead of a designated hitter. I also like what’s called station-to-station hitting.
Get a hit, get him over, get him in. That’s baseball at its finest.
Exhibition games are already finding their way to my Google calendar, and although they don’t count toward anything, they still are an early barometer as to how my team – or any team – might fare in the coming season.
What’s more exciting than that?
In a Phillies-Dodgers game one evening, umpire Beans Reardon got his messages mixed up. Richie Ashburn came sliding into Brooklyn Dodgers third baseman Billy Cox, and Reardon shouted “safe” but signaled out.
“Well, what am I!?!” Ashburn asked the “caught-on-the-horns-of-a-dilemma” umpire.
“You heard me say safe,” Reardon said. “But thirty thousand people saw me signal out. You’re outnumbered. Get out of here.”
Baseball is coming…
RO contributor Matt Harrelson will be covering the Richmond Senior High School baseball and boys tennis beats this spring.
