The Ballad of Stephen Strasburg

It was the fall of 2007 when my friend Eric and I decided to start a blog about minor league baseball. We were both bloggers already – Eric’s specialty was college basketball and mine was “esoteric bullshit,” at least according to a commenter on Awful Announcing, the blog where we met as commenters and ended up becoming fellow contributors and friends – but the goal here was to just kick back and have fun writing about a sport that was meant to be exactly that.

The timing of Bus Leagues’ debut was pretty typical for the way we approached life in general – for the uninitiated, the bulk of minor league baseball action ENDS in the fall; it was like we showed up to a game in the ninth inning – but we still took to it with a delight that never fails to surprise me when I think back on it. We were just a couple of random dudes, writing about random teams in a random sport, and we had a blast.

We tried to look at the game from a fan’s perspective, since that’s what we were (later, we gained experience as “insiders” and while that was fun as well, and led to a number of remarkable memories, it didn’t spark the same organic joy), which meant that one of the first things we focused on was the players. And ironically, one of the first players to catch our eye wasn’t a professional, but a promising college pitcher named Stephen Strasburg.

In 2019, Strasburg is a ten-year veteran with a career 3.16 ERA and more than 1,500 strikeouts, all with the Washington Nationals. In 2014, he led the National League with 34 starts and 242 strikeouts en route to a ninth-place finish in the Cy Young voting. In 2012, he was infamously shut down while the Nationals were still very much in the mix for a championship, the team putting long-term arm health ahead of short-term competitive goals (they still haven’t reached a World Series). In 2010, he turned in one of the most remarkable debuts in major league history, striking out 14 Pirates and walking none in seven innings to pick up his first career win. And sometime in 2009, Eric dubbed him Lord Vishnu, a nickname that was both completely nonsensical and one of my favorite things in Bus Leagues history.

But the moment Strasburg first appeared on our radar was in 2008, when as a San Diego State sophomore he took the mound one night in April and struck out 23 Utah batters. That was what started it all, both for us and the baseball world in general. That was when Stephen Strasburg announced his presence for all to see.

The reason I thought of this wasn’t Strasburg’s 1,500th career strikeout, which came on May 2nd this season against St. Louis, or his 100th career win, which he recorded on June 4th against the Chicago White Sox. It wasn’t even anything Strasburg did, though he is certainly putting together a nice Hall of Very Good career and looking back on his first decade makes me unreasonably happy. What made me think of Strasburg was a performance over the weekend by Vanderbilt freshman Kumar Rocker, who took the mound for his team in an elimination game and completely dominated Duke, striking out nineteen batters and pitching the first no-hitter in NCAA Super Regional history.

This performance scratches so many personal itches. The name, Kumar Rocker – even if this young man doesn’t reach the major leagues (and his performance this seasons – 3.50 ERA, 97 strikeouts in 87.1 innings – would seem to indicate that he’s well on his way), he should donate his name to someone who does, because that name BELONGS there. It’s like Madison Bumgarner. His size – at 6’4”, 255 lbs, he’s built more like an NFL defensive end than an elite pitcher (and according to his Vanderbilt bio, his father was a standout college football player who went on to play in the NFL). The age – he won’t turn 20 until November; my college “athletic” highlight when I was his age was running the table to win a pool tournament in my school’s game room. All of it together gives me Strasburg bumps. (That sounds weird but I don’t care.)

Kumar Rocker (I want his fastball to be named Harold, the pitch he desperately needs but spends all night trying to get a feel for to be named White Castle, and his out pitch to be Mary Jane’s Last Dance; if he doesn’t have three quality pitches, then GET MORE PITCHES) may be great, or he may amount to nothing. (If he enjoys even a portion of the success that Stephen Strasburg has, he’ll be doing alright for himself.) Most likely it will be somewhere in between, like the rest of us. But at the very least, he brought a nearly forty-year-old mostly former blogger a bit of joy and a flash of memory and awoke that old feeling of “this is great – I want to write about it!” And I appreciate that.

Enoughfulness

Today, I installed an air conditioner, even though it took longer than expected.

I sat in a meeting and actually felt confident that I knew the information inside and out, even though I was careless and forgot to check one small but important piece of data.

I successfully stopped an upset person from making their situation worse, even though I wasn't the first one to react and others handled the more difficult aspects of the intervention.

I made sure a client will have enough meds to last his full vacation, even though it took two trips to the pharmacy and my involvement basically consisted of approaching a sympathetic tech and saying, "This is my problem, please fix it."

I helped a coworker who wasn't expecting it.

held my two youngest boys while they fell asleep, both after choosing to climb into my lap and snuggle in.

Today, I wasn't perfect. I made small mistakes, and I made small impacts. In other words, I was me, and today, I was enough.

Forty is the New Thirty: End of an Era

Back in the day, I ran this series here and at Bus Leagues called "Forty is the New Thirty." I forget how I first thought of it, but the premise was simple: call attention to the teams that experienced the longest droughts without a 40-homerun hitter.

I have two lists that I try to keep updated: the last player to hit 40 for each team and streaks of more than 10 seasons without a 40-homerun hitter. Usually I wait until the end of the season to update, so I don't get confused and miss information somewhere, but something happened a couple weeks ago that made me decide to write about it the next time I pulled out the laptop (and that happened to be tonight):

Brian Dozier of the Minnesota Twins hit his 40th homerun.

Now, this is noteworthy for two reasons: one, he is only the fourth second baseman to hit 40 homeruns in a season (off the top of my head: Rogers Hornsby, Davey Johnson, Ryne Sandberg...boom - assuming wherever I read that was accurate about the number? NAILED IT). That's a cool fact, but not the one I'm most excited about. I'm way more pumped about number two: he is the first Twin to hit 40 homeruns in a season since Harmon Killebrew in 1970.

The Twins had gone 45 seasons (1971-2015) without a 40-homerun hitter before Dozier took Detroit's Daniel Norris deep on September 12, the fourth longest streak of all-time. That's a fair bit of history to cast aside with one swing of the bat, but Dozier managed to do what Hrbek, Puckett, Mauer, Morneau, and others could not.

The longest active streak still belongs to the Kansas City Royals, who have never had a player hit 40 homeruns in a season in the team's 48-season history. The closest was Steve Balboni's 36 in 1985. The Pride of Brockton, Mass, had seven 30-homer seasons in his professional career, fittingly ending with 36 at the age of 36 in 1993. (He and Rob Deer were basically precursors to Russell Branyan - guys who were put on earth to hit homeruns, no matter what level of baseball they were playing). The Royals have a ways to go to catch the Chicago White Sox, who hold the all-time record with 73 consecutive 40-homerless seasons from 1920-92 (I'm not positive, but guessing I used 1920 as my start point), but are within striking distance of second-place St. Louis, who experienced a power outage for 57 seasons from 1941-97.

(My third favorite thing about the Royals' lack of power historically? The Kansas City Athletics never had a player hit 40 homeruns either, which means no one has ever done it for a Kansas City-based MLB team despite a franchise existing there since 1955 (except for a gap year in 1968). Also, for the record, my two favorite things about the Royals' situation is Steve Balboni's mustache and the fact that I used this to springboard into a small paid research opportunity for ESPN The Magazine several years ago.)

The second-longest active streak (and fifth-longest of all-time) now belongs to the Pittsburgh Pirates, who have not had a 40-homerun hitter since Willie Stargell in 1973, a span of 43 seasons. The only other team without a 40-homerun hitter this millennium is Miami; the last (and only) Marlin to hit surpass 40 was Gary Sheffield in 1996. I keep waiting for Giancarlo Stanton to change that, and he keeps letting me down.

My Favorite Movie Quotes, Version 2.1

I used to do a lot of posts here with quotes from my favorite movies. Stuff that spoke to me in some way. Haven't done one in a while - haven't done anything here in a while, if you haven't noticed - but I was watching "A River Runs Through" it tonight* and an exchange between Craig Sheffer's Norman and Brad Pitt's Paul (the brothers Maclean) caught my attention.

*I decided this week that I was going to work on getting to bed earlier, since my children are no longer waking up in the middle of the night and it doesn't make sense to be up so late. So of course, I fell into "A Beautiful Mind" on Monday (with mental health issues a major professional concern of late) and "River" (a longtime favorite) tonight.

Paul: I thought we were supposed to help him?

Norman: How the hell do you help that son of a bitch?

Paul: By taking him fishing.

Norman: He doesn't like fishing. Doesn't like Montana. Sure as hell doesn't like me.

Paul: Yeah. Well, maybe what he likes is somebody trying to help him.

There was also an incredible, subtle moment near the end that I had never noticed before. Judt before the boys go fishing with their father (played by Tom Skerritt), Norman tells the family that he is planning on accepting a teaching position in Chicago, halfway across the country. Later, on the river, he tells Paul that he plans to ask His girlfriend to marry him, before leaving the water to sit with their father. When he sits down, his father reaches behind him to pat him on the leg, but comes up empty because NormaN is too far away. He looks, sees where his hand was, and touches his leg paternally. He leans over slightly, wanting to be closer to his son, while Norman, content, doesn't move an inch.

On Failure

I have a desk. And a computer. And responsibility.

Ten years ago, I worked for an independent professional baseball team. I started as a public relations intern before moving up to Media Relations Manager after my first season on the job. It was hard work, with a lot of hours at the ballpark, and I wasn't very good at it. This was especially true when it came to the most important component: sales. After less than a year on the job, I was "laid off" the day after the end of the 2004 season.

I had failed before - the occasional bad grade in high school or college, relationships that didn't work out, less than stellar performance at the job that helped put me through college - but never to this magnitude. When I told my mother about the full time position, she had been thrilled. "Your son is gainfully employed!" she told my father.

It occurred to me recently that I had never figured out how to generalize failure. I never saw the loss of a job for what it was, as something on the same scale as those other issues, just bigger and therefore just as possible to overcome. I had graduated with honors despite those occasional bad grades. I had met the woman I would eventually marry despite those other failed relationships. I just needed to pick myself up again and move on.

Instead, my already fragile self-confidence broke. For the next decade, I worked at jobs that rarely required me to take risks. Back Room team member at Target. High school paraprofessional. Direct support professional. Every so often I would talk about wanting more, but it always came down to one thing: no responsibility meant no chance of failure.

Until a year or so ago when I told my boss I wanted to do more. I was a new father for the second time, soon to learn that numbers three and four were on the way, and that sparked something inside me. I was scared of failing at something again, of being proven unworthy, of having ten years of voices in my head by proven right.

But all that was outweighed, for a brief moment at least, by the thought of my children. How could I encourage them to reach high if I myself had given up the first time things got hard? How could I expect them to attempt great things - to attempt ANYTHING - if I was afraid to do the same?

My boss agreed that I was capable of more than I was doing and ultimately offered me a position despite my insistence that others would be better choices, or my descriptions of the myriad ways in which I could fail, or my outward expression of the war between No You Can't and Yes You Can taking place in my head. If you can say nothing else positive in my favor, at least say that no one else in the history of the world has ever tried so hard to talk his way out of a sure thing.

As things were starting to get set up in my workspace, my boss looked around my small office and casually noted that I could decorate however I wanted. The next day I brought in two things that had been in my car, my previous "office": a picture of my wife with all four of our kids and the prayer card from my grandmother's funeral.

The family picture was a no-brainer. My wife has always supported me and told me I'm better than I think I am, and my children are the most important people in the world to me. Those five people are the reason I do anything. I want them close to me.

And my grandmother...there's a story I've told about her many times that only recently struck me for its relevance (this is not an uncommon theme in my life). When I was nine or so, I wanted to learn to ride a bike but had no one to teach me. So the task fell to my Mum-Mum, then in her mid-60s.

We went into her driveway and worked at it, but at some point I started to fall. Though I caught myself, the bike knocked her over. She rolled across the ground and bounced to her feet, laughing and encouraging me to give it another try.

She's gone now, and I've forgotten that lesson too many times. You fall down, you pick yourself up. Something knocks you down, you pick yourself up. As many times as it takes.

I have a desk. And a computer. And responsibility. People are counting on me. And I am going to fail, most definitely, to varying degrees. And when it happens, I'm going to look at my wife and kids and remember that no matter how poorly I do at work on a given day, their smiling faces and excited yells will greet me when I walk in the door. And I'll look at my grandmother's card, the one with the Irish lullaby on the back, and remember that I need to laugh, pick myself up, and try again.

Best Names of the 2015 First-Year Player Draft

The Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft took place a couple weeks ago. Every year, I like to look back on the players chosen and pick my favorite names. There's no clear-cut criteria for making the list; it's all about those names that amuse or interest me in some way.

1.      Kyle Funkhouser, RHP, Los Angeles Dodgers (1-35)

2.      Travis Blankenhorn, 3B, Minnesota Twins (3-80)

3.      Trey Cabbage, 3B, Minnesota Twins (4-110)

4.      Demi Orimoloye, RF, Milwaukee Brewers (4-121)

5.      Skye Bolt, CF, Oakland Athletics (4-128)

6.      Kade Skivicque, C, Detroit Tigers (4-130)

7.      Parker French, RHP, Colorado Rockies (5-137)

8.      Jagger Rusconi, CF, Boston Red Sox (5-141)

9.      Ka’Ai Tom, CF, Cleveland Indians (5-154)

10.  Tucker Tubbs, 1B, Boston Red Sox (9-261)

11.  Sarkis Ohanian, RHP, Cincinnati Reds (9-265)

12.  Seby Zavala, C, Chicago White Sox (12-352)

13.  Scooter Hightower, RHP, Pittsburgh Pirates (15-457)

14.  Nate Gercken, RHP, Minnesota Twins (17-500)

15.  Rock Rucker, LHP, Cincinnati Reds (20-595)

16.  Toller Boardman, LHP, Detroit Tigers (22-670)

17.  James McMahon, RHP, Colorado Rockies (24-707)

18.  Zach Morris, LHP, Philadelphia Phillies (24-714)

19.  Icezack Flemming, RHP, New York Yankees (26-783)

20.  Taylor Hicks, RHP, Detroit Tigers (26-790)

21.  Christian Turnipseed, RHP, Baltimore Orioles (28-853)

22.  Earl Burl III, CF, Toronto Blue Jays (30-902)

23.  C.D. Pelham, LHP, Texas Rangers (33-978)

24.  M.T. Minacci, RHP, Chicago Cubs (33-983)

25.  Jake Peevyhouse, LF, Arizona Diamondbacks (34-1006)

26.  Joeanthony Rivera, LHP, Texas Rangers (34-1008)

27.  Kewby Meyer, OF, Tampa Bay Rays (37-1108)

28.  Rayne Supple, RHP, Chicago Cubs (38-1133)

29.  Bucket Goldby, 3B, Miami Marlins (39-1166)

The Most Bus Leagues Game Ever

Back in 2007, my friend Eric and I started a blog called Bus Leagues Baseball. For five years we chronicled various aspects of minor league baseball: players, promotions, mascots, teams, oddities – anything that caught our attention, really.

Eric and I live several hundred miles apart, but we would get together from time to time to catch a ballgame or two, meetups that I eventually began referring to as “Bus League Summits.” (I have a vague recollection of mentioning a Bus League Summit to Someone Important. They were intrigued by the concept until I was like, “Um, yeah…it’s pretty much just two dudes watching baseball.”) There was the Hall of Fame in 2008, an Orioles game in 2009 (where he was famously harangued by an usher to return to his seat because, “This isn’t general admission – we’re close to a sellout!”, and a Phillies game in 2010. I think that was the last of the Bus League Summits before we shut the site down following the 2012 season.

The last…until now. (Cue dramatic music. No, not that one, the other one. Right. Thanks.)

Eric came up north for a visit last weekend, and after attending a Red Sox-Twins game with my wife and son on Thursday (nothing exciting happened there, unless you count Blake Swihart’s first major league home run and the extremely drunk person behind us in the eighth inning who began profanely telling his friend that he planned on killing someone who said he had poured beer on his head; THIS…IS…BOSTON!), we got down to business on Friday, heading up to Manchester to see the New Hampshire Fisher Cats take on the Richmond Flying Squirrels in a tilt that he ultimately labeled, “The Most ‘Bus Leagues’ Game EVAR!”

One of my professors in college told me that bullet points are lazy writing and should be avoided. Apologies, Professor Frankfurter, but a) it’s late, and b) bullet points and numbered lists are also Bus Leagues Things. So away we go.

1) Food: We were in the ballpark for roughly four minutes before hitting up the concession stands. Eric got a sausage and a beer; I went with a sausage, fries, and iced tea. After enjoying a great sausage at the Sox game I expected to be disappointed by a minor league offering that was somehow almost the same price; it was a pleasant surprise, then, when the Fisher Cats’ version delivered.

2) Prospects: When I emailed my friend and Bus Leagues fanatic Craig Forde to tell him we’d be at this game, he said he wouldn’t be able to make it due to a prior commitment but noted that we would probably get to see Tyler Beede’s first Double-A start. I didn’t know who Beede was and honestly didn’t bother to look him up (that statement would have given 2011 Brian a stroke), though it was obvious that he was somebody since Craig deemed him worthy of mention.

Turns out he was the Giants’ first round pick in last year’s draft. A righthanded pitcher originally from Auburn, Massachusetts, he was originally drafted by the Blue Jays in the first round in 2011 but didn’t sign and ended up attending Vanderbilt, where he won a College World Series championship in 2014. So he’s pretty good, and he just turned 22 on May 23.

Against the Fisher Cats, he was obviously nervous, surrendering hits to two of the first three batters he faced and walking another to load the bases with only one out. A double play ball got him out of the jam, though, and the Fisher Cats did not touch him again. And by “did not touch him,” I mean, “he retired eight in a row before putting a man on with a throwing error, then got seven more outs before walking a batter.” He was, as they say, as advertised (even if I didn’t pay attention to said advertising). In the end, it was seven innings of two-hit, three-walk, four strikeout baseball.

Sadly, Beede’s success meant nothing good for one of my favorite players, New Hampshire’s Ronald Torreyes. My friend Chris laughs at me for how much I love Torreyes, a non-prospect I’ve picked up and released several times in our thirty team fantasy baseball league, and he’s probably right: the Venezuelan infielder is hitting .162 this season (including .098 for the Fisher Cats) and has played for four organizations (Cincinnati, Chicago Cubs, Houston, and Toronto) in six minor league seasons.

So why do I love him so much? Because he’s listed at 5’10”, 150 pounds (but I seem to remember reading at one point that he isn’t even close to that big) and he’s played at the upper levels of every organization he’s been in since he was 20 years old. Maybe he’s a weird sort of organizational filler, a guy who can be plugged in to hit .260 and do little harm. I don’t know. I don’t care. I just like the guy.

Alas, Tyler Beede did not agree with him, to the tune of an 0-3 day at the plate, which means I don’t like Tyler Beede. Sorry, Tyler.

On the bright side, K.C. Hobson hit a home run for the Fisher Cats, which is always fun to see, and a Flying Squirrel named Rando Moreno (I couldn’t figure out how to explain my delight at the fact that his name was Rando M.) went 5-for-5.

3) Seats: At Fenway the day before, Eric and I were crammed in side-by-side (at first; the rest of the row remained empty so we were able to spread out once that became clear), which was awkward considering we hadn’t seen each other in like five years. Northeast Delta Dental Stadium (Nedd’s to its friends…okay, only Craig and I call it that) presented no such problems. When ordering tickets, I correctly assumed that location wasn’t a huge concern; with that in mind, I avoided the sun drenched bleachers in right (you’re literally staring into the sun for a couple innings) and went with the General Admission seats (take that, Biff!) in left field.

When we walked in and determined that it was, actually, first come first serve as far as where we wanted to sit, Eric looked over at me. “I assume up close is good for you?” he said. In actuality, I don’t mind sitting further back and overseeing the action from afar, but when in Rome. He led the way down the steps, to the very front row, and parked himself squarely behind the Richmond bullpen.

For several innings, the banter amongst the pitchers provided us a pleasant alternative to the game, which was quickly out of hand in favor of the visitors. The first inning largely featured commentary on Beede and his struggles. Later, family members and friends stopped by to say hello and steal a few minutes of conversation. A nearby fan inquired about a Frozen backpack on the bench and was told that it belonged to the last bullpen pitcher to surrender a homerun. Someone questioned if “Bum” (I’m assuming Madison Bumgarner) had skipped Double-A; I resisted the urge to lean forward and let them know that I had watched him pitch on that very field several years before, when several of them were likely still in high school.

Midway through the game, a good-natured argument broke out: what year was the movie “Super Troopers” released? Guesses were submitted, but no one knew for certain. Finally, one of the pitchers caught my eye.

“Hey, do you know when Super Troopers came out?”

“Actually, I was intrigued by your conversation, so I looked it up,” I said. “Don’t any of you guys have cell phones?” Eric wondered out loud.

“And…?” the pitcher said to me while another told Eric that the fines for bringing a cell phone to the bullpen is very, very large.

“2001,” I said. Cheers erupted from the pitcher who had guessed correctly, groans from those who had missed.

“This is the most Bus Leagues game ever!” Eric exclaimed.

“I wonder when Barbie Girl came out,” murmured one of the other pitchers, who I had already pegged as the sarcastic cut-up of the group. I wasn’t falling for it, though; a line must be drawn somewhere.

Around the top of the seventh, another pitcher, Stephen Johnson, asked when the weather could be expected to improve, a question that began a half-inning conversation about crowds in Richmond, losing streaks, Eric’s job, and other mindless banter. For him, I’m sure it was little more than a way to pass the time in a blowout game with a couple guys who had been sitting next to him, mostly quiet, for a couple hours. For us, it was just a cool moment in general, one that ended when Johnson realized the entire team was standing at attention and “God Bless America” was starting.

As the game drew to a close, Johnson shouldered the Frozen backpack (the current holder was already in the game, so as the youngest member of the bullpen, Johnson was tasked with bringing it back to the dugout) and wished us well. Eric and I exited the ballpark at the final pitch. The decision not to wait for fireworks, and the cool weather (it had dipped into the sixties, but felt a good ten degrees cooler), saved us plenty of time getting out of the parking lot; minutes later, we were on our way home.