photos from 10/13/10
Category: Sports
I went to several Preakness races
The Preakness is tomorrow (5/15/21) in Baltimore. I went to several of them in the 1970s and 1980s. Thanks to alcohol, I don’t remember too much. I only know which ones I saw if I have tangible proof like a glass or program. I know I saw the last Triple Crown Preakness for over three decades in 1978 because I have the program.
The infield got a lot more crowded and busier in recent years (until the pandemic). They had bands in the infield. There used to be potty races where people ran on top of the portable toilets. Attendance recently was about 50% higher than when I went. Attendance will be limited to 10,000. In 2019, the attendance was 131,256. By comparison, in 1978 it was 81,261.
I have also seen the race from the grandstand which is a lot more adult than watching it from the infield.
Woodstalk 2019
The 2021 minor league baseball season begins today. That reminded me that in 2019, The Wilmington Blue Rocks mascot Mr. Celery celebrated the 50th anniversary of Woodstock with “Woodstalk”. I bought the bobblehead on eBay and the jersey from the Blue Rocks. I used the number and name they had in the online sample jersey.
The Andy Hawkins no-hitter
Andy Hawkins threw a unique no-hitter in 1990. Because of errors and walks, he lost 4-0! He only pitched eight innings so it no longer counts as a no-hitter but it was a remarkable baseball game.
Remembering Andy Hawkins’ Not No-Hitter On July 1, 1990 (audacy.com)
This tweet thread reminded me of it today:
The entire game:
The worst modern baseball team – the 1962 Mets
The 1962 Mets went 40-120. They lost more games than any team since 1889. They had two 20-game losers (Roger Craig 10-24) and Al Jackson (8-20). Jackson was tied for second in the league with four shutouts. Jay Hook was 6-19. Craig Anderson was 3-17.
I saw one of the wins at the Polo Grounds. Roger Craig, who went 10-24 that year, pitched for the Mets. Joey Jay, who went 21-14, pitched for the defending National League champion Reds. Here’s the box score.
Jimmy Breslin wrote an excellent book about the season called Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?
The first Orioles Opening Day in 1954
Opening day of the baseball season is great. I have been to about a dozen of them in Baltimore, all but one at Memorial Stadium.
A Yankees player had a spaghetti-eating contest with an ostrich
Twitter is very educational. I never knew about this. It was 102 years ago yesterday.
“Suck it, Pap”
The Orioles have started the 2021 season against the Red Sox. This reminded me of the 2011 Orioles-Red Sox game when Robert Andino’s hit off Red Sox closer ended the Red Sox playoff chances. The Orioles were bad but it felt good to Orioles fans to knock another team out of the playoffs.
That winter, Robert Andino was signing autographs at the Orioles FanFest. I was behind a couple of young guys who had a picture of the Andino hit and heard one say “I tried to get him to sign it “Suck it, Pap” but he wouldn’t.” That was a great idea.
An Orioles fan’s view of their 2021 season
This will be another long year for the Orioles. I predict they will go 65-97. The team is not trying to win at the major league level. If a veteran player does well, the Orioles will trade him for prospects.
The Orioles will allow 11,000 fans into the stadium but attendance won’t be an issue. Published game attendance is based on ticket sales but I went to several games in 2019 and think the actual number of people there was in the 5,000-6,000 range. The only games that would draw well would be opening day, Yankees and Red Sox games, and games with good promo giveaways or events. This year, I expect fewer fans to come from Boston and New York because of the pandemic.
The biggest problem is the starting rotation. Number one starter John Means pitched extremely well in the opener yesterday in Boston but the Red Sox stink, too.
It’s not all bad news. There are some good young position players and the minor leagues have much more talent than in the past. The Orioles have expanded their presence in foreign player development and caught up with the times on analytics.
Still, this is going to be bad. At least I am old enough to have been to two World Series in Baltimore (1979 and 1983) and will always have great memories of the era when the Orioles were among the best teams in baseball.
Songs about sports
The start of major league baseball season tomorrow has prompted me to post about songs about sports including those sung (being generous there) by athletes.
For baseball, I’m posting “Joe DiMaggio Done It Again” from 2000’s Mermaid Avenue Vol. II. Billy Bragg and Wilco took unpublished Woody Guthrie lyrics and set them to new music. The music for this song was written by Bragg and it is sung by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy.
I saw DiMaggio at a baseball autograph show in Atlantic City around 1990. He was not memorable. There was a long list of stuff he wouldn’t sign which included Marilyn Monroe-related items and The DiMaggio Albums (2 book set). The books included commentaries by DiMaggio so I thought it was odd and disappointing that he wouldn’t sign them,
Obviously, the best-known baseball song is “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” but I’ll post about that another time
For cricket, I have to go with “Cricket” by the Kinks from 1973’s Preservation Act 1. I don[t know much about the sport but I have always liked the song.
For football, I’ll go with “The Super Bowl Shuffle” by the 1985 Chicago Bears. Fortunately, these Super Bowl champions were better at football than music.
For hockey, here’s “Penalty Box” by Dave Schultz who was the highly-penalized enforcer for the Philadelphia Flyers in the early 1970s. He holds the NHL record for most penalty minutes in a season. I doubt this song was played much outside of the Philadelphia area.
Basketball is represented by Cheech and Chong’s 1973 “Basketball Jones”. I also included the 1996 Space Jam version by Barry White and Chris Rock.
7/22/22 – several videos no longer available and I removed them
Sad! 