Yesterday for the first time in history, all 15 games in one major league baseball day were won by the home team.
While watching “Baseball Central” on the MLB Network I cringed when hearing the so called tribute to Mickey Mantle, who died 20 years ago tomorrow. Comments such as “the lack of too much footage caused his legend to grow” and questions for an obscure former big league player, Dave Valle to comment on Mickey Mantle did that rather rapidly.
When it comes to this it is time to say “abandon hope all yee who” (watch this inane stuff)! Additionally, Valle, that striking .237 lifetime hitter, got the facts wrong concerning one of Mantle’s famous home runs.
He seemed stuck on the distance 565 feet which was the supposed distance of a home run Mantle hit in Washington, not as Valle said the home run off the facade at Yankee Stadium, which nearly was the only fair ball hit out of Yankee Stadium.
The New York Yankees have won 27 World Series and 5 since the New York Mets last won one in 1986. They had a 7 game division lead on July 27th and at that point the Mets trailed by 3 games in their divisional race. Now after last night’s results, the Mets with a two and a half game lead, have a bigger division lead than the Yankees, whose lead has shrunk to a measly half game.
Twenty years after fellow 1956 MVP and champion, Mickey Mantle, with whom he shared a locker at Yankee Stadium and many other things, not the least of which great player status, Frank Gifford also died on the second Sunday in August. Gifford was one week shy of his 85th birthday on August 16th, the same date Babe Ruth and Elvis Presley died.
Gifford had “it,” that certain quality of charisma and good looks that made a star. He also could play and was a versatile, at one time two way player, for the New York football Giants, playing on 6 Eastern Conference winners and one NFL champion, that in 1956.
“Fearless Frank” went on to fame and fortune, an early beneficiary of “jocks” in ads, and broadcasting. His tenure and ascent to play by play, while nowhere near indicative of the miserable standards now (think so called “pretty boy” Chris Fowler, a man devoid of play by play skills, yet the lead announcer on college football) did represent a ‘warning,’ as he replaced Keith Jackson on the Monday Night Football package for its second season in 1971.
Yet “Giff,” who yields almost “Mantle like” admiration in so many my age and older, was an excellent analyst, and though challenged by play by play and mistake prone (just ask Howard Cosell, but that is a “long distance phone call” as Mr. Cosell, like Mantle also died in 1995) was professional and hard working enough to make the broadcasts/telecasts more than adequate.
He loved the NFL and the players. Frank Gifford knew the game and appreciated greatness in it whether citing old Giants’ team rival, the Cleveland Browns’ great running back, Jim Brown or praising Pittsburgh Steelers’ Hall of Fame receiver John Stallworth “holding on” to make a fine pass reception, despite a big hit on him during a game.
I worked with Mr.Gifford a few times and while a bit distant, he did communicate. At a function, I found myself next to him, each of us taking a rather large “Bullwinkle” doll. Mine represented the closest my parents got to a grandchild, while Frank was so excited thinking how much one of his children was going to like it.
In a conversation that followed Gifford talked of how his 1956 Giants’ (47-7) victory in the title tilt vs the Bears was the biggest margin in Giants’ title winning annals and how he told Wellington Mara, the team owner and good friend/father figure just that.
Sadly 1963 is a terrible link to the late, charismatic President, a time before his assassination, distant and hopeful, a far cry from now. It is December of that year and I am 8 so it is not the “groundbreaking” personal event recalled in “The Four Seasons” song “December 1963,” but a meaningful one.
I am allowed to break away from my family’s visit to my grandmother in the hospital and go to the lobby and tune in the radio broadcast of the Eastern Conference showdown between the Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers. (No home television in those days, 10 years removed from the eventual lifting of the blackout).
During that brief period that I was in the lobby, Frank Gifford made a one handed catch that helped the Giants win and even though I was not a Giants’ fan, that memory is the most pleasant of many such memories I have of the truly accomplished Frank Gifford.
My thoughts and there are so many about what this versatile player and man represents to me, that I will write more in the near future.
Both the Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs swept weekend series against good opponents (the L.A. Dodgers and S.F. Giants respectively) and they rank one/two, by a decent margin in the bogus wild card race.
It may be bogus, but sadly the wild card is here and teams that gain the wild card have legitimate shots at winning the title, as the wild card Giants did last season.
If the standings hold up and there is such a long way to go, the Pirates and Cubs would meet in the one game, so called “play in” game.
Should the two teams meet, it would be their first ever in post season. The teams won their first titles in three consecutive years from (1907-1909.)
The Pirates won their first World Series in 1909 and have won four after that, none since 1979.
The Cubs won their only two titles in 1907 and 1908.
Since any won/loss record in baseball does not afford the team any real advantage, I have not given enough credit to the two Missouri teams, the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals, each team with the best record in its league.
Both teams have played tremendous baseball this season, thirty years after the two met in what was known as the I 70 World Series in 1985.
Then there were 4 divisions in baseball and no bogus wild card team presence.
The Cards and Royals won their divisions, overcame (2-0) deficits in the LCS and then met in a memorable World Series, which was won by K.C. in 7 games.
Last year, both the Royals and Cards lost to the World champion San Francisco Giants in post season play.
This year, with both K.C. and St Louis as likely top seeds in their leagues, perhaps they will meet in the World Series thirty years later. However, each is at best one of 8 playoff teams, far too little a reward for their stellar play thus far in baseball 2015.
There are three first place teams in the New York area at this time. Two are the highly publicized baseball teams, each a surprise, the New York Yankees and New York Mets. The other team is the WNBA New York Liberty.
The Liberty won in Chicago vs the Sky last night and have a 2 game lead in the WNBA East just past the halfway point of the season.
Epiphanny Prince, in a memorable return to her former home court, scored 30 points in the Liberty’ (77-63) win, which leaves (14-6) New York just a half game behind the defending WNBA champion, the (15-6) Minnesota Lynx for the best record in the WNBA.
An exciting time in New York sports with the baseball Yankees and Mets ahead, augmented by another surprise team, the WNBA Liberty also atop its entity.
The monolith NFL begins with a preseason game between the team with the most Super Bowl victories–the Pittsburgh Steelers with 6–and one of two teams–the Minnesota Vikings (the Buffalo Bills being the other)–that has an (0-4) record in Super Bowl games.
Two inductees into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this weekend, Mick Tingelhoff (Vikings) and Bill Polian, as Bills General Manager, were involved with both (0-4) Super Bowl teams.
The Steelers won their first Super Bowl and for that matter NFL crown, beating the Vikings (16-6) in the ninth Super Bowl (1974 season).
Pittsburgh went on to win 4 Super Bowl titles in six seasons.
The Vikings played in 3 Super Bowls in 6 seasons, 4 in 8 seasons, but never even led at any point of those games.
A few days back, I commented on the two 1962 National League expansion teams, the New York Mets and Houston Astros (now an american League team) and their marked improvement this season. I almost included a big “beware of the next opponents” warning for each team and while the Mets passed the “danger” with an impressive 3 game sweep in Miami vs the Marlins, for a second time this season, the Texas Rangers swept the Astros in a three game series.
The Mets gained two games on the Washington Nationals and now lead them by two games in the National League East.
Similarly, the Astros have a two game lead in the American League West but they had two games sliced off their lead by the Los Angeles angels of Anaheim. Also the aforementioned Texas Rangers have moved within 5 games of the Astros.
On May 4th, the Astros entered that night’s home game vs Texas having won 10 straight and 14 of their last 15 games. They led the second place Angels by 7 games. Texas swept Houston then and in a series concluded yesterday. Next the Mets go to Tampa to face the Rays while Houston visits Oakland to play the A’s.
First the Detroit Lions’ former great tight end Charlie Sanders and now their star former running back, Mel Farr have died. Though death is inevitable and Farr was 70, I might ask “What’s going on,” a great Marvin Gaye song, on which Farr and a Lions great still with us, Lem Barney, sang background.
Mel Farr was much more than a superb runner with U.C.L.A. in college and the Lions in the pros.
He became a great entrepreneur, owning many Ford dealerships and like Dave Bing, another Detroit athlete who got rich, he did much for the community.
Farr’s brother Miller is still with us and I think of them all, including cousins Marvin Gaye and SMU star Jerry Levias.
Farr played in the same college backfield as Gary Beban and each finished high in the Heisman Trophy balloting in 1966 while the honor was afforded to Beban in 1967, the same year Mel won the NFL rookie of the year.
I am sure the Lions will wear some commemorative item honoring both Farr and Sanders in the upcoming 2015 season. They will be missed, but memories of their deeds and football exploits especially in the traditional Thanksgiving Day game in Detroit will live on.
The 1968 World Series ended when Detroit Tigers’ catcher Bill Freehan caught a foul pop off the bat of his “opposite number,” St. Louis Cardinals’ catcher Tim McCarver.
At the immediate moment, being a National League rooter, and probably having lost a quarter or two, I was somewhat sad, but upon reflection I am so glad Detroit won.
The “good for the good” is that the city, so hurt by riots the year before came together for the Tigers. Additionally, a great player, the Tigers’ Al Kaline played great and was on a World Series winner for the only time in his great career.
Mickey Lolich was the star of that World Series, winning 3 games and Dennis Mc Lain, a 31 game winner in 1968 and the only hurler to win as many as 30 games in 81 years and counting, won the other game.
The “bad to the so called bad” is a bit more complicated. The Cardinals of (1963-1968) were an excellent team that won three pennants and two World Series. Had they won a third world Series in that span, which they nearly did in 1968, dissipating a (3-1) series lead, their place in history would have been much higher, increasing the already overstuffed ego of the “last out maker,” Tim McCarver.
EPSON MFP image
Last baseball’s regular season ended with a virtually meaningless interleague series between the New York Mets and Houston Astros, the two 1962 National League expansion franchises. It is really early, but imagining these two teams meeting in baseball’s last and most important series, The World Series, is not out of the question.
The Mets bounced back from a horrible defeat last Thursday vs the San Diego Padres, by sweeping a weekend series from the Washington Nationals, leaving the Mets and Nationals tied for first place in the N.L. East
Meanwhile the Houston Astros, a 22 to 1 longshot to win the A.L. West at the season’s beginning, now have a four game lead in that division.
The Mets and Astros met in one of the greatest post season series in baseball history, a six game Mets’ triumph in the 1986 NLCS.
It still is a nice longshot, but the juxtaposition between the two teams’ status at season’s end last year and this point of the 2015 season is astounding in a positive way for both teams. This even more so for the Astros, but a good story for the Mets as well.
