Spanning the world of emails
Emails last week spanned the specter of sport. From home runs to the NBA to Big Brown, here we go.
Michael wrote about my home run column, in which I said we have lost the ability to have a Ruthian moment. We just don’t care enough anymore about milestone homers. “You failed to mention what started all of this. In 1968 Bob Gibson set the ERA record of 1.12 and Denny McLain won 31 games and they met in the World Series. I was working at Busch Stadium at the time and saw every game Gibson pitched at home. After that season, baseball lowered the pitching mound and the home run derby started. I asked Sparky Anderson if they should raise the mound again and he is in complete agreement. You should start a campaign to raise the mound back to its original height. The downside to a vendor; when Gibson pitched, you only had two hours to peddle your wares because he worked fast and the games were all 1-or 2-zip games. He rarely needed a relief pitcher.”
Great memories from St. Louis. But the lowered mound did not launch the home run derby. The lowering of the mound brought in more offense, but I don’t think it brought more home runs. 1969 was an expansion year, and home runs and offense always go up in expansion years (1961 was an expansion year), but home runs did not really take off until 1987. The home run leaders in the NL and AL the five years before the mound was lowered hit 47, 52, 44, 39 and 36 (NL) and 49, 32, 49, 44 and 44. The five years starting in 1969 were 49, 44, 33, 37, 32 (AL) and 45, 45, 48, 40 and 44. And then both hovered in the 30s the years after that. I don’t see a big difference.
Edgar is worried about the name of the OKC NBA franchise. “Oklahoma City Barons? Say it ain’t so. A buddy says it’s a fait accompli, with the graphic artist, the front page photo shop of the jersey on Durant, the story how fans just love the black and gold? Black and gold, Texas tea, cute. Folks hold oilmen in high esteem these days. Takes a jumbo set of heuavos to buy a team and name it after yourselves. No one even gets it, and when they do finally, it’s elicits a tragic groan. Robber Barons – first words out of a blogger’s mouth. It’s a stupid name. OKC T-Birds!”
Who cares what bloggers say. Oh, wait. This is a blog. Never mind. But Barons is no fait accompli. It’s not even a done deal.
Chazzy saluted my column on how Tulsa has certainly helped Oklahoma City in this NBA process but wrote, “the bottomline to a NBA franchise longevity here in Oklahoma is the name. If the owners select the name OKLAHOMA instead of OKC, then the Tulsa market and northeast Oklahoma will be on board 100 percent. If they decide to use the name OKC only, Tulsa will show little interest, let alone corporate sponsorships and the TV market etc. Tulsa did little as far as money for the Hornets and OKC. I feel qualified in predicting this as I am a business owner in Tulsa and opened an OKC office eight years ago and market the two key areas very successfully under one name. I moved to Oklahoma many years ago from Boston and was a season tickets holder for all the Boston teams. When the Boston Patriots moved to Foxboro and became the New England Pats, the six New England states embraced and supported the Pats and eventually they became a premier team as the Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins. I know egos in OKC want the name OKC Whatevers, but the key to long term success is to become a state franchise and market to three million plus people and have five or six games in BOK center. That is the winning combination for such a small market as OKC. I would like to see your thought on this.”
I think New England is ga-ga over a ballteam, and it’s not the Patriots. The Red Sox are a religion in Vermont and Rhode Island and Maine. As for six games in Tulsa, that’s a sign of weakness, not of strength. The NBA does that when things aren’t working. The Celtics and the Sixers and all kinds of teams used to do that – play games somewhere else in the region; Wilt’s 100-point game was played in Hershey, Pa. – and cut it out just as soon as they could.
Joe wrote, “The NBA is the biggest joke of pro sports. High-priced crybabies, and thugs thrown in too. The crooked refs and the showtime; let’s-not-guard-anybody-until-the-Finals mentality. I quit watching it about time the glory days some have written about were over (Boston and LA in the 80′s). All it is good for anymore is to ruin the college game by taking top players away from that sport.”
I would say baseball has the corner on high-priced crybabies and the NFL leads the world in thugs produced. But I’ll give you crooked refs.
Manny also addressed the NBA. “When there is cheating and corruption going on in practically everything on this earth, I wouldn’t bet a penny that there isn’t something going on in the NBA. People going to prison everyday for all kinds of corruption, and they have plenty to lose. I have said for years that as much money is moving on any given Sunday in pro football (or basketball or baseball), you name it, there is no way it is lily white. The world doesn’t work that way and people are naive to think otherwise. In years past, maybe, but too much greed this day and time.”
Actually, greed goes back thousands of years. The Roman Empire and the Black Sox prove that.
Jim wrote, “Got to complain to someone, first you, then ESPN next. All week we hear about the Tiger/Phil match, and then ESPN shows us duffers hitting out of the sand, announcers getting their time in and their faces on national TV. Terrible, terrible, terrible coverage. We never see the leader at this time. We hardly see Phil and Tiger! ESPN stinks in its coverage.”
Actually, my only complaint with ESPN is its terrible leaderboard. Horizontal, across the top. The simple, five- or six-man leaderboard, in vertical form, does not need improvement.
David wrote about my idea to redshirt one of the Paris twins. “You’re right; it makes perfect sense redshirt one of them. That’s why it won’t ever happen. Coaches don’t think like us common folk.”
Maybe there’s hope. Sherri Coale is nothing if not common folk.
Don wrote about the death of Sooner great Tom Catlin. “Your article about Tom Catlin was a walk down memory lane. Just a few weeks ago, we lost George Cornelius, the starting tackle off the 1952 squad. The 1952 team was one of Wilkinson’s best, with four legitimate All-Americans, Billy Vessels, Eddie Crowder, Buck McPhail and Catlin. Interestingly, all were Oklahoma boys; from Cleveland, Muskogee, Oklahoma City Central and Ponca City. The team’s dominant status is ruined by the controversial loss to Notre Dame on a maneuver that would be illegal today. By the way, you mentioned the starting centers off the one-platoon days of 1950s. Actually, we had free substitution during the 1950s until the 1953 season, after Catlin had completed his eligibility. It is true that Catlin did occasionally play both ways – he was that good – as did Steve Zabel in 1969. Elements of free substitution began to return in 1960 (the wild card and double wild card), and by 1963 we had returned entirely to two platoon football.”
This is going to make people think I’m crazy, but I would vote to go back to single platoon football today. The idea that college football teams need 85 scholarships is silly. There’s way too much specialization. College football could get by with 50-60 scholarships, easy.
Donald offered a theory about Big Brown’s Belmont demise. “I know all your readers are really interested in horse racing (not), but as a former track coach, I and my colleagues would readily be able to determine what happened to the big fella – it was too hot! Temperatures on the track that day were a date record for the area (93 degrees and high humidity). Big Brown was evidently the largest animal in the field, and any track coach knows that the big bruisers have a lot of body surface that need to displace heat. Heat displacement efficiency is a foremost problem for big runners in any sport, especially in the distance races. That’s the reason you find the best decathletes struggling in the 1,500 meters. The Belmont was the longest of the three triple crown races, and the big guy just didn’t have it in the stretch. Make the day ten degrees cooler, and he would have kicked it in.”
Big Brown never could have made it on the Pony Express circuit. The mail waits for no horse.
Bob wrote that he believes Big Brown’s owners “knew he couldn’t run, but it would be a financial disaster if they scratched him. There was no way that they scratch that horse. The betting would be way off and the attendance would be down. The advertisers would pull their ads because no one would watch. The reasons are all true, but them knowing ahead of time is my opinion.”
Sounds like Big Brown is no Tiger Woods.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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And Big Brown no doubt conspired with Lee Harvey Oswald to shoot JFK and kidnap the Lindberg baby.
Enjoy the vacation!