Simon F., Rainiers fanboy
Dave's World's most obstinate correspondent, Simon F. of Adolphstown, Idaho, is back for more. The first half of his email was a rueful affair, lamenting his belated discovery that the gun rack on the back of one's pickup truck does not make an adequate substitute for a child safety seat. Consider that his public service announcement for the day.
The rest, though, relates to Tuesday night's post on the Tacoma Rainiers and Cheney Stadium:
You bring up Cheney Stadium and that is a place that is especially
close to my heart. Growing up in Tacoma, I watched countless games
there before it was renovated. The place was once upon a time
considered one of the true gems of minor league baseball. But that was
before the corporate world wrapped their ever-lovin' arms around the
bush leagues.
That's when stadiums started becoming centers for urban renewal and,
thus, needed amenities ... like restrooms larger than your standard
Honey Bucket. It's also, of course, when teams started being renamed
with marketing in mind, thus the Las Vegas Stars became the Las Vegas
51s and heaven help us all when a new minor league team is founded.
Then we get the Augusta Green Jackets, the Macon Whoopees and the
Kannapolis Intimidators. (By the by, did the good folks at Kannapolis
kick around naming their team after their true most famous son —
Michael Jordan? Or did the deceased Mr. Earnhardt seem like a better
gimmick?)
Anyway, after years of watching the Tacoma Tigers, a farm team of the
Oakland A's, I was sent out to cover the Tacoma Rainiers one night when
the Mariners had just traded Randy Johnson to Houston. They had picked
up a kid named Freddy Garcia and he was making his first start for the
now Tacoma Rainiers, the Mariners triple-A club. Not a bad little story
and a decent way to spend a summer night.
Anyway, I do the story and go down to do the postgame and end up in the
visiting clubhouse to ask the Tucson guys what they thought of Garcia,
who had been in their organization the week before. Get to the visiting
managers office — also the size of your standard Honey Bucket — and am
instantly star struck and lose all sense of what the hell I am doing.
Sitting in the office — among three Toros coaches, all smoking — was
none other than Mitchell Page. I blurt out — "Hey, you're Mitchell
Page. I used to watch you out here for years playing for the Tigers."
Ugh. How many unforgivable mistakes had I just made? First — I acted
like a fawning nincompoop when I was supposed to be a pro. Second, just
pointed out to a guy who spent many, many years in the minors that,
yup, he spent many, many years in the minors. And that, yeah, after all
these years he still hadn't made the show. He greeted my comments with
all the enthusiasm of somebody who just smelled a fart in a car. Easily
my biggest breach of protocol. But, since no other reporters witnessed
it — I was stunned that the media horde covering the Toros were nowhere
to be found — it never happened.
Anyway, Mitchell, as you probably know, did eventually make the bigs as
a hitting coach and did a fine job with last year's St. Louis Cardinals
... before the World Series. He was then fired by the Cardinals for
reasons unrelated to baseball and checked into an alcohol rehab
facility. But now he's back in the game as a roving minor league
hitting instructor with the Nats.
Why is it, that whenever you ask a sports writer about who their
favorite ballplayer was as a kid, they always put forth some bizarre
answer, like Mitchell Page or Alvin Davis. The whole rest of the world
answers Ken Griffey, Jr. or Manny Ramirez, but sports writers say Bob
Kearney or Jerry Remy.
Two questions: One, why would the Athletics' farm team be named the Tigers? And two, you're right on your last point -- In two months of Dave's World, we're discussed John Marzano, John Trautwein, Atlee Hammaker, Kevin Romine, and now Mitchell Page, among others.
And, WE HAVE A WINNER in this week's Dave's World contest, which asked which was the worst metal band of the 1980s and why. Our winner is Dave's World technical adviser Scotty (hey, I've never prohibited cronyism in my contests), who is sometimes of Medford, MA and sometimes of Columbus, OH:
Worst heavy metal band of the 80s? On the basis of one song: Gorky Park. Around the time heavy metal was working nobly to end drug abuse in the former Soviet Union by collecting all the drugs for their own recreational use, I remember being excited about the prospect of MTV exposing us to the popular music of another culture. And then came "Bang!" Even as a teenager, I began to wonder if the Iron Curtain wasn't such a bad idea after all. "Bang, say da da da da!"
Scotty wins a dazzling 2005 WNBA Champion Seattle Storm pocket schedule for his efforts.
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