How we got Rick Ankiel into the bedroom

I realize I’ve been complaining a lot lately on the blog, so in the spirit of all that is good and uplifting, please allow me to offer you the latest manifestation of Julie’s affection for Rick Ankiel (you’ll need to click that link if you really want to understand the twisted, beautiful nature of their relationship).

I was going to post the back-story, but perhaps you’ll have more fun making up your own.

(Confidential to Rick: Get well soon! You need that wrist healthy so that you can get back to swinging at everything that moves.)

Mr. Clean

Today, friends, I am possessed by an irrational loathing for Steve Garvey.

He’s never been my favorite—the overly wholesome televangelist types always make me want to smoke or litter or get pregnant or something, just for the sake of contrariness—but he hadn’t been much in my thoughts until recently, when he revealed that he was assembling an ownership group in the hopes of purchasing the troubled Dodger franchise. You see, Garvey wants to restore the Dodgers to their former glory. “There was a Dodger way,” he says in the linked article, “but that way has drifted by the wayside.” (No way! Way.)

No doubt there are plenty of sentimental Dodger fans who would love to see Garvey take the reins; he had a stellar career here, and a clean-cut persona that made parents want their kids to shake his hand and get his autograph.* There’s only one real problem: Steve Garvey out-McCourts the McCourts.

Take a look at this 2006 Los Angeles Times article. It describes in punishing detail the debts the Garveys racked up, the people they screwed over, and the lavish lifestyle they continued to enjoy even as they failed to pay everything from their nannies’ salaries to their electric bills. According to the article, they even stiffed their own church after a charity auction. Why all the money trouble? Well, some of it is attributable to the not insignificant amount of child support that Garvey shells out for the children who resulted from two of his extramarital affairs, but most of it seems to be just an all-American combination of irresponsibility and greed.

If that’s not sufficient evidence that Steve Garvey shouldn’t be allowed within home-run distance of the Dodgers’ front office, consider this: He’s parlayed his history of succeeding at baseball and failing at life into a lucrative gig as—you guessed it—a motivational speaker.

Let’s be clear about this. Even if you’re not a hypocritical, debt-ridden cheater, “motivational speaker” is still NOT A REAL JOB. It’s like “spokesmodel” or “personal color palette consultant” or “in-home candle party facilitator.” It’s roughly as legitimate as anything the Bullshit Job Title Generator comes up with. Motivational speakers, on the whole, are people who became rich and/or famous largely due to generous helpings of privilege and luck that they will never, ever acknowledge during their $10,000-a-pop sermons, because CEOs want their drones to hear about the virtues of teamwork and positive thinking, not the good fortune of great genes and athletic scholarships. (The last motivational speaker I was forced to listen to was Olympic swimmer John Naber, who insisted with a straight face that his victory over a field of swimmers from countries without Olympic-sized pools was entirely attributable to his Willingness To Invest In His Dreams.)

Anyway, if you can bear to watch the video at Steve Garvey’s motivational-speaking link, you’ll receive the benefit of wise and profound statements like this one:

“Baseball…..the only game where the defense has the ball.”

I’ll stop typing for a moment so that you can let the full weight of that sink in. Or vomit. Your choice.

[……….]

Folks, even if Steve Garvey had a trillion dollars in the bank and a credit rating higher than Andre Ethier’s OPS, he ought to be banned from purchasing any part of the team on the grounds that his interviews and call-in shows would be more excruciating than Ryan Franklin multiplied by Jonathan Broxton. He’s an empty uniform and a palaver-peddler at best, a feckless cheat at worst.

Garvey isn’t Mr. Clean—he’s Mr. Clean-and-Jerk. And he can keep his “Dodger way” way, way, far away from me.

Bonus reading #1: I found someone who dislikes Steve Garvey even more than I do. And he does it with cartoons!

Bonus reading #2: Check out Garvey’s own website, where you’ll learn that Garvey is “a devoted family man” (Big Love-style!) who is “destined for enshrinement at Cooperstown” (pay no attention to the fact that he received 21% of the vote in his final year of regular eligibility!).

* The one friend of mine who actually did get Garvey’s autograph reports that he “felt dirty afterward.”

The saddest thing ever posted on the interwebs

You might have noticed that the Padres are, uh, scuffling a bit.

Okay, fine—that’s sort of like saying that Will and Kate had a nice little ceremony this morning. The Padres suck. They blow more than all of Her Majesty’s trumpeters. They couldn’t hit the fascinator off Princess Beatrice’s head. And in the reader comments on the San Diego Union-Tribune’s write-up of one of their recent debacles, I found this pitiable gem:

Left two tickets to next homegame taped to gas pump #7 at Emerald Gasoline @ corner of Lake Murray Blvd & Baltimore (no joke) if anyone is interested…..anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Got better things to do than watch this pathetic club.

That was two days ago, but considering that nobody really goes to Petco Park or to the gas station these days if they can help it, I’d say there’s a good chance they’re still there if you want ’em.

Please don’t ask the broadcaster

It’s the bottom of the 6th. The Cards and Braves are knotted at 2. With two on and two out, Carp is gritting his way through the heart of the Atlanta line-up.

You know what that means: It’s time for “Ask the broadcaster!”

Groan.

I was excited about this feature when the Cardinals’ radio team first introduced it. I figured it would be an invaluable inside glimpse at the game of baseball and the craft of broadcasting—a chance to peer behind the curtain, learn some of the unwritten rules of the sport, and find out once and for all whose shoes I have to kiss in order to realize my lifelong dream of being the Cards’ play-by-play voice.

Apparently, though, a whole herd of Redbird fans—many of them, tragically, women—saw their chance to ask thumpingly obvious and simple-minded questions that every baseball fan should already know and every non-baseball fan should have the means to figure out.

What’s a 6-4-3 double play?

Who holds the Cardinal record for most stolen bases?

And just tonight: When do the Cardinals play the Royals this year?

Really, people? You have a precious twenty-second audience with Mike Shannon and John Rooney, and you’re going to treat it like it’s your phone-a-friend for Who Wants to be a Remedial Baseball Fan? And who’s choosing the questions that make it to the air—Sarah Palin’s media team? Come on, Redbird Nation, ask the tough stuff:

Do you ever just want to slap Tony when he starts doing that grouchy-mumbly thing he does?

Has anyone told Tyler Greene that the soul patch looks ridiculous, or is it a subject the guys in the dugout politely avoid?

Can I have your job someday? Please?

As for the softball questions, it’s simply too bad that there’s no radio equivalent of Let Me Google That For You. “What’s a 6-4-3 double play, you ask? Just click here and it will all become clear…..”

How we got into Rick Ankiel’s pants

I got into Rick Ankiel when we all did—when he was a hotshot phenom with a surfer-dude hairdo and a lefty curveball that left dollar signs in its wake. Lacking cable TV or home internet access in those dark years at the turn of the 21st century, I didn’t follow him day to day as I would later on, but I knew of his mystique, of his blazing rookie campaign at the age of 20, and, alas, of the fateful October night that kicked off his legendary downward spiral. Over time, Ankiel transformed from a historic prospect into a topic polite Cardinal fans didn’t bring up, not without shaking their heads and clucking.

Did any of us really believe, during those years when he toiled quietly at Memphis, fighting off a couple of devastating injuries and showing up in the back of the sports section now and then, that we’d see him in the big leagues again? I didn’t. I admit it. I’d moved on. But Rick Ankiel kept plugging away, until, on August 9, 2007, in his first game in the majors as an outfielder, he did this—hit a 3-run homer that cemented a Cardinal win, sent the crowd into ecstasy, and (as you can see in the video) put one heck of a smile on the unsmiley face of Tony La Russa. And he didn’t stop there, adding two more home runs and a sliding catch two days later, and continuing to dazzle Cardinal Nation with his power, his range, and his ridiculous cannon of an arm in the months and years to come.

It was just about the best baseball story of the decade. And it should have ended with Ankiel blasting a walk-off, World-Series-winning, stadium-light-exploding homer in a Cardinal uniform, then retiring to toss curveballs to his son in a twilit field somewhere. Instead, after a couple of seasons of declining production and skyrocketing strikeout totals, Ankiel left without much fanfare, spending time in Kansas City and Atlanta before settling in Washington.

This is where the pants come in.

See, as much as I love Rick Ankiel, I don’t love him one-tenth as much as my girlfriend, Julie, who, when asked to supply a couple of quotes for this blog post about why she adored him so, contributed the following:

Why Rick Ankiel is my Boyfriend:

1) His body simply goes where the ball is—he has baseball in his CELLS.
2) He’s dreamy (when not sporting a disgusting porn-stache).
3) Only Boyfriend and Babe Ruth have ever thrown 10 winners and hit 50 home runs.
4) We didn’t have to shoot him to get him to stop pitching.

P.S. Please make sure his name is pronounced correctly in your blog.

She’s hardcore, y’all, and his departure was tough on her. Which is why I started trolling eBay early last fall in the quest for a particularly meaningful Ankiel trophy she could call her own. Baseball cards? Boring. Jerseys? She’s got ’em. Bobbleheads? Please. A pair of….Rick Ankiel’s game-used, dirt-smeared, road-grey pants?

Perfect.

The guy selling them, it turned out, had just splurged to pick up Ankiel’s walk-off, splash-down home-run ball from Game 2 of the 2010 NLDS, and felt he needed to unload a couple of pieces from his Ankiel collection to compensate. He was glad to know that the pants were going to a loving home, and boy, did they ever. See for yourself:

What—your Christmas-morning pictures don’t include women wearing enormous baseball trousers with cats stuffed into them? Okay. I won’t judge.

The pants are now on display in Julie’s house (she’s still wrestling with the question of how best to incorporate them into her earth-toned decor), and Rick Ankiel is home—at least for a few days—in St. Louis, where the fans gave him an affectionate Midwestern welcome and Rick showed his class by taking out this half-page ad in the local paper. He’s had three hits and made a couple of laser-beam throws in today’s doubleheader, earning some wistful applause from the fans in red.

Maybe it’s wishful thinking, and maybe it’s just naive, but I have an indelible sense that Rick Ankiel’s story with the Cardinals isn’t over yet. I imagine a spring training a decade or two in the future, when a guy with some grey hair and a bit of a paunch turns up as a coach at the Cards’ camp, showing the big-league hopefuls how to catch sinking liners and throw bullets from the outfield, spinning them an unbelievable tale of perseverance and redemption. I imagine two little girls in red caps leaning over the railing and saying excitedly to one another:

“Hey, isn’t that Rick Ankiel? ….Why isn’t he wearing any pants?”

A change is gonna come

Two pieces of overdue news from the Cardinal clubhouse:

MLB.com is reporting that Ryan Franklin has been removed from the closer role. No replacement has been named.

ESPN.com is also reporting that two inches of goat-fur have been removed from Franklin’s beard. No replacement is desired.

In which I attempt to be part of the solution

Tough to complain too strenuously about the Cardinals’ past week: They found their bats, took two of three from the Snakes and three of four from the Dodgers, and, on Friday evening, gave me the opportunity to demonstrate my exemplary Midwestern sportsmanship to the Dodger Stadium fans around me. (They did not beat me up. In fact, they were so generous that they tried to give me back Blake Hawksworth.)

But today’s game ended the road trip on a familiar sour note, with Ryan “Fear the Beard” Franklin racking up his fourth blown save of the young season. This one was the most efficient and the most predictable yet; did anyone in Cardinal Nation not leap forward in slow motion, Hollywood-blockbuster-style (we’re in LA, after all), to try to stop the inevitable at any number of points in the action? The Cards score a run in the ninth to set up a save situation: Noooooooooo! Franklin is summoned with a runner on second and nobody out: The call is coming from inside the dugout! Tony elects to pitch to Matt Kemp, who padded his .450+ average with a homer off Franklin just three days ago: Whyyyyyyyyy??

This was vintage La Russa Stubbormetrics at work. At a minimum, Franklin should have been allowed to start the bottom of the ninth, rather than being asked to get three tough outs while stranding an inherited runner in scoring position. And while the common wisdom argues against putting the winning run on base, it’s hard to justify letting a pitch-to-contact closer throw to the league’s hottest hitter with a base open.

I get it: Tony wants to rebuild Franklin’s confidence. But by trying to put his closer in a position to triumph, he guaranteed failure. Franklin may not pitch better until he regains his confidence, but he’s not going to regain his confidence until he pitches better, and the Cardinals can’t waste any more time—or any more leads—in the middle of that catch-22.

I’m not just here to complain; I want to help. I know Tony’s reluctant to offer the closing role to Mitchell Boggs (2.00 ERA, 0.67 WHIP), Jason Motte (2.57 ERA, 1.14 WHIP), or Miguel Batista (three hundred years old, dreams of striking out Jesus). And I’m guessing that the same guy who scandalized the Western world by batting his pitchers eighth is still too much of a traditionalist to try the sort of bullpen-by-committee that won a pennant for the 1985 Cards.

So I decided to see what was available on the open market. First I searched for “new relief pitcher” on eBay, and found this:

Hmmm. Not necessarily a worse option than what we’ve got now, but not a classic fireballer, either. I kept looking, and headed to Craigslist, where a search for “Franklin replacement” pulled up these beauties:

Well, those aren’t helpful, except maybe for target practice in the bullpen. I began to grow discouraged—I’m used to being disappointed by the Cardinals and I’m used to being depressed by shopping, but not both at the same time—so I made one last-ditch effort and searched Etsy for “Cardinals inspiration.” That’s when I found this:

We have a winner!

Fear strikes out

UPDATE: Wouldn’t you know it? A sportswriter in Pittsburgh has proven me wrong by—you guessed it—blaming Bryan Stow for wearing a Giants jersey to a Dodger game. There’s already a campaign to get him fired.

The first stretch of the 2011 season has generated plenty of blogworthy stories (Manny flames out once and for all; my team’s terrible; Boston’s team is worse and with fewer excuses….), but here in SoCal, there’s less talk of baseball proper than of the horrific assault that left a Giants fan brain-damaged after he was attacked by two Dodger fans in the Dodger Stadium parking lot on opening day.

It’s not the first time, of course, and it’s not a surprise to anyone who’s experienced the seamier side of Chavez Ravine. A Giants fan was murdered by a Dodger fan after a 2003 game—the first Dodger-Giant game I’d ever attended, in fact. I’d been warned to expect a degree of ugliness that would make the Cards-Cubs rivalries of my childhood seem like puppy tussles by comparison, but, naively enough, I hadn’t thought anybody would actually die.

Since the most recent attack, the local and national media have rightly rallied around the rights of fans—no matter which team they support—to enjoy a safe and pleasant outing at Dodger Stadium. Column after column has lamented the death of our innocence. Frank McCourt and his spokespeople have been blasted for their initial tepid response to the crime. The LAPD presence at games has been (with no shortage of fanfare) dramatically increased. The victim, Bryan Stow, has become a tragic martyr for the cause, while the still-unidentified perpetrators have come to symbolize all that’s wrong with a culture of thoughtless violence and dangerously twisted loyalties.

Here’s what hasn’t been in the news:

“Well, if he didn’t want to get beaten, he should have known better than to wear a Giants jersey at Dodger Stadium.”

And of course it shouldn’t be. Because that sort of victim-blaming, the mere suggestion that apparel justifies assault, would be unthinkable.

…..Except when, for example, the crime is a gang rape, and the victim is an 11-year-old girl who, according to a Florida state politician, “was dressed like a 21-year-old prostitute.” Except when a Canadian judge declines to imprison a rapist because he determines that the victim’s clothing (tube top, high heels, makeup) suggested that “sex was in the air.” Except when a British rapist goes free because a court finds that his 10-year-old victim was “dressed provocatively” and passed for 16.

Gee. I think I see a pattern here. And I think it’s fascinating—if utterly depressing, on more than one level—that the opening-day tragedy at Dodger Stadium has suddenly introduced a whole lot of manly men to the concept of not feeling safe. I’m going to bet that the average woman (not to mention the average person of color, LGBT, resident of an impoverished neighborhood, or combination of these) already knew exactly what that felt like.

The difference? When men are afraid, police are dispatched to rid them of the curse of fear. When women are afraid, men write bestsellers to reassure us that fear is actually a gift. When white guys are attacked, the media leaps to attention, and the whole system—hell, the whole society!—needs an immediate overhaul. When the rest of us are attacked, well, it was probably our own damn fault.

Here’s hoping that Bryan Stow makes a complete and speedy recovery, and here’s hoping his story is the last of its kind.

Bill Plaschke writes like a hack

Here’s the good news: Last week, Marti Sementelli and Ghazaleh Sailors made history, and the national news, by becoming the first female pitchers to square off against each other in a high-school baseball game.

Here’s the bad news: The LA Times entrusted this story to Bill Plaschke. You may know Bill as the guy who almost singlehandedly kept the team at Fire Joe Morgan busy for years—but since FJM’s gone sadly dark, allow me to pinch-hit.

Now, Bill’s a guy who’s never met a cliche he didn’t swoon over, never missed an opportunity to coat sentimentality with condescension, never lost his faith in the power of the unnecessary carriage return to confer profundity on an incredibly banal thought.

Like this.

But introduce a couple of extra X-chromosomes into the picture, and he goes wild. Let’s see how long it takes him to drop the most thumpingly obvious cliche possible into this arti—….

The probable starting pitchers were two improbable dreams.

On the mound for the Lake Balboa Birmingham High boys’ baseball team was a 5-foot-2 righty with a wicked changeup, a cut fastball, and a whole heap of black hair stuffed under her cap.

Her name was Marti Sementelli, and she does not throw like a girl.

Oh. Okay, then. Three sentences.

Maybe we shouldn’t be so hard on Bill for this one, because a quick Google search reveals that apparently, while I wasn’t paying attention, the Republican-controlled Congress passed a law forbidding any journalist to write an article about either of these players without using the phrase “throw like a girl” at least once. (That ESPN guy—the one who wrote the mostly non-infuriating article linked at the top of the post—is on somebody’s watch list now.) We’ll even glide right past the obligatory ponytails-and-pink-batting-gloves references. But what’s this?

For what is believed to be the first time in history, two high school boys’ baseball teams played a game in which both starting pitchers were girls.

It was not an exhibition. It was not a joke. It was a serious seven-inning battle between two boys’ teams led by girls who had fought to stand at their center.

Are we clear on this? These are boys’ teams. Baseball is a boys’ sport. The girls are special guests in a boys’ world. Boys! (In case you’re still confused, Bill helpfully tells us that “They took the mound looking like small boys, purposely showing no hair under their caps, as Sementelli’s hair was pinned up and Sailors’ hair was cut.” I’m envisioning a blockbuster sequel called Yentl Takes the Mound. Barbra, can you hear me?) Understand, please, that I’m the last one to deny or devalue the barriers these amazing kids have had to smash in order to face off against each other; I’d simply suggest that the real story here is that they’ve integrated their teams, not that they’re exceptional outsiders on a one-time pass. How many girls does it take before it’s not a boys’ team anymore?

Brace yourself for this one:

In a world where softball is supposed to keep women quiet and happy, it indeed has been difficult for those who have insisted on making our national pastime truly national for everybody.

Sweet baby Jesus in the bulrushes, Bill, have you ever watched Olympic fast-pitch softball? Have you ever heard of Dot Richardson? Have you ever even met a lesbian? Believe it or not, you can advocate for inclusiveness in baseball (not that you ever have before, ahem) without dissing and dismissing the many, many women—and men—who play softball. Why bother, though, when it’s so much easier to write a one-sentence paragraph that reinforces (even as it clucks and shakes its head at) the 1950s worldview you find so reassuring?

We’re almost done:

Like Sementelli at Birmingham, Sailors has finally found a home at San Marcos, where she is a valued member of the team even if she has to dress in a storage shed with a kid guarding the door. Together, Saturday, on a Birmingham field awash in the warmth of acceptance, the two pitchers reveled in a new and wondrous space.

Awww. I love new and wondrous spaces! Although nothing says “gender inclusiveness” like a good storage shed, amirite, ladies?

Congratulations, Marti and Ghazaleh. You know what you throw like? You throw like whoa.

Wild thing, you make my feminist heart sing

It’s old news now, but how much do we love Justine Siegal for becoming the first woman to pitch BP to a major-league team?

Siegal, whose 13-year-old daughter accompanied her to the ballpark, identifies as an advocate for women in baseball, having played amateur ball and coached professionally, including a stint with a men’s team. She says she grew up dreaming of being Orel Hershiser, and didn’t realize until she was 15 that her fantasy of playing in the big leagues wasn’t likely to come true—at least not unless she paved her own way.

Siegal spent months petitioning officials from every Major League team for the opportunity to throw to their hitters; the Indians, to their credit, were the only ones to welcome her to the mound, where by all accounts she acquitted herself exceptionally well, give or take a couple of early screamers to the backstop before she shook off her nerves.

In related news, due to the events of the last few months, Charlie Sheen’s future as a pitcher in an Indians uniform is reportedly in jeopardy. Is anyone else thinking what I’m thinking? Pssst….Justine….learn to uncork those wild pitches at will, get yourself some thick black glasses and an agent, and that part could be yours.