What happens when an outfielder and a heckler meet in right field?

The Jacksonville Suns opened the 2014 Southern League season with
a 3-1 victory over Huntsville. (Photo by Will Brown)

By Will Brown

Few things elicit more optimism than Opening Day. A player’s slate is wiped clean, a fan’s hope has yet to be extinguished and the jokesters among us have spent all winter waiting to unleash their best.

That was all on display Thursday night when the Jacksonville Suns opened the 2014 season against Huntsville.

The Suns went on to win the game 3-1 after starting pitcher, and top Miami Marlins prospect, Anthony DeSclafani allowed one run on two hits in six innings.

As fascinating as the action may have been on the field, one person’s one-sided conversations with Huntsville outfielder Mitchell Haniger may have been just as captivating.

Mitch Haniger
(Courtesy Huntsville Stars)

Haniger is the No. 3 prospect in the Milwaukee Brewers organization. He’s a 23-year-old right-handed outfielder from California who spent Thursday night adjusting to life in AA baseball. 

More than 7,500 people came to Bragan Field Thursday night, which is probably bigger than anything Haniger saw while playing for the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers and Brevard County Manatees in A ball the last two years.

Nonetheless, this fanatic, in particular, was in midseason form. He was a stationed in the first row of the bleachers in right field, bearded, appeared to be in his 20s and wore a gray and black Suns hat like so many others — myself included — on Opening Night.

The fan made it his mission to heckle Haniger every time he took his station in right field. From the warm up tosses before the second inning to his anticipation for a delivered pitch, the fan rode Haniger as though the season depended on it.  

The Huntsville outfielder made the first of his two putouts in the second inning. Two innings later the Californian showed why some scouts say he has the best outfield arm in his organization.

DeSclafani hit a liner to right field for what he thought was his fourth career single in 22 career minor league at-bats in the home fourth. Haniger fielded the ball, took a crow hop and fired a dart to first base to beat DeSclafani, earn oooohs from the crowd and quiet his heckler…momentarily.

When Haniger fired, a group of us wondered what one local sportscaster would say when he heard a player was thrown out at first base on a ball hit well into the outfield. While we kibitzed, the in-form fan was keeping his verbal volleying in reserve for the later innings.

Jacksonville took a 2-1 lead into the bottom of the eighth inning. Our fan, recovered from the sting of watching Haniger show off his howitzer, to razz him unmercifully. There was whistling, noisemaking and trash talk. The grief-giving rose in volume when the Suns pushed across an insurance run.

When the Suns grounded out to short to end the home eighth, Haniger sprinted toward the dugout faster than any other frame all night. We joked it was because he wanted nothing more with our heckler. In truth, it was because he led off the ninth inning.

Haniger flew out to center to finish 0-for-3 on the night. The heckler, feeling he did his job, kept quiet for the final two batters and the Suns won their home opener for the third straight year.

Afterward, Haniger and his teammates trudged back to the visitor’s dugout, undoubtedly understanding that while hope may spring eternal, it’s not as everlasting as the jabs from the cheap seats.

Laughs and liveliness,
-Wb

Would you be tempted to cheat?

Major League Baseball suspended New York Yankees infielder Alex Rodriguez for 211 games Monday. The 38-year old slugger was supposed to be the sport’s golden boy when he bludgeoned baseballs as a 20-year old shortstop for the Seattle Mariners in 1996.

Instead, he is suspended for his role in a performance-enhancing drugs scandal that has enveloped the game for the last 15 summers.

People, and the sports media, can pretend to be a moral authority and decry Rodriguez for combining his prodigious talents with PEDs. But they should ask themselves this question: would you take a shortcut if the payoff was a few hundred million dollars?

Rodriguez has the highest paid baseball player for each of the last 13 seasons. He has earned more than $300 million in salary during his career. If he indeed serves his suspension, which will encapsulate the entire 2014 season, Rodriguez will forfeit his $25 million salary. Nevertheless, according to multiple media reports, he is owed another $61 million dollars after the 2014 season.

Friday, the same night Rodriguez told the press he believed the Yankees and Major League Baseball were conspiring to keep him off the field, the U.S. Department of Labor released its jobs figures for July. Most of the new jobs created were either part-time or low wage positions that would leave someone hovering around the poverty line. On the surface, neither seems to be related. But, if you think about it a lot of those who are underemployed would like a position that offered financial stability. If someone offered them that stability—but told them they had to take an ethical shortcut—to get the position, they would probably take it.

Rodriguez did something similar, take a shortcut to enhance his career prospects, except there were many millions more at stake.

Baseball didn’t have an issue with the Steroid Era until a reporter exposed the Emperor of American Sports was not wearing clothes. When Associated Press sports writer Steve Wilstein spotted androstenedione in Mark McGwire’s locker in August 1998 and reported on his findings he was vilified by the St. Louis media, as well as others around the country.

It took years for Wilstein, and to a lesser extent former outfielder Jose Canseco, to be vindicated for their claims about performance-enhancing drugs in baseball.

(For context, Sammy Sosa drove in 158 runs, won the 1998 National League MVP award and helped the Chicago Cubs win 90 games. Few remember they were 12.5 games behind division winning Houston. St. Louis was a pedestrian 83-79 in 1998. In games, McGwire hit a home run, the Cardinals won 35 of them for a .593 winning percentage. Attendance that year jumped 3.5 percent, because the home run chase between the two syringe-filled sluggers captivated the sport.)

Through Sunday, MLB averaged 30,616 fans per game. Through the same number of home dates last year, the average attendance was 31,396. Neither figure tops the average attendance of the strike-shortened 1994 season when, on average, 31, 612 walked through the turnstiles at major league parks.

The point is, a lot of people made money off baseball players taking all sorts of substances. The sport recovered from the self-inflicted debacle of canceling the World Series because of a labor dispute, the owners made more money and player salaries skyrocketed.

Five years before Rodriguez signed a 10-year $252 million contract with the Texas Rangers in 2001 there were eight teams in baseball that did not have a total payroll of $25 million.

Rodriguez took a gamble and got caught. Despite today’s media moralizing, it’s a temptation most of us would struggle to table.

Laughs and liveliness,

-Wb

Is there a better way to pass time in the summer time?

By Will Brown

Baseball is the national pastime because it’s a wonderful way to pass time.

With some of the best minor league prospects a short drive away, it was the perfect opportunity to get an intimate look at the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville for the first time. Watching baseball beat watching game shows in the suburbs and getting some of the answers correct.

A record 9,373 people watched the 2013 Southern League All-Star game Wednesday night. We occupied four seats in the grandstand down the right field line.

As we made our way to our well-lit perch a familiar face threw out the first pitch. When Hall-of-Fame outfielder Andre Dawson fired home, most people in the stands yelled “Hawk” in homage to his nickname. Being the baseball fan that I am, instead of yelling Dawson’s nickname, I shouted out his alma mater—“FAAAAAAAAAAAMU!”

It’s possible some were lured by the fireworks show promised at the end. Whatever the motivation there were not too many empty seats when David Holmberg, a farmhand of the Arizona Diamondbacks, fired the first pitch a few minutes after 7 p.m.

The teams were separated into the North and South divisions. As the South started out hot, it led to hilariously inappropriate jokes about the Civil War from my wife’s father. Holmberg held the North hitless in his one inning of work. He fanned Joc Pederson to end the inning.

David Holmberg and Bradin Hagens both pitch scoreless innings for the South to start the All-Star Game!

— Mobile BayBears (@Mobile_BayBears) July 17, 2013

North batters failing to get good wood on pitches

was a common theme throughout the night. The South scored two runs in the first to lead them to a 6-0 victory.  The longer the North went hitless, the more my wife’s dad attempted to use levity to inspire their bats.

It turns out baseball players must be flattered to perform—even if there is no way they can hear the compliment. When Seattle Mariners prospect James Jones walked to the plate in the top of the fifth, my wife noted how “cute” he was.

On cue the right fielder lined a double right over first base for the North’s only hit of the entire night.

In the top of the ninth, with the game essentially over, and most of the dynamite prospects out of the game, Jones had one more at bat. After picking on my wife for her newfound crush, Jones made me, and a few thousand others, happy by flying out to left field to end the game, which meant the much anticipated fireworks were soon to come.

Justin Greene made the running catch to end the game. He was named the game’s MVP because his 2 RBI triple in the first opened the scoring. The award presentation was one more obstacle between the fireworks show that was as advertised.

#southernleague all-star game MVP Justin Greene pic.twitter.com/YPiuMc2YfA

— Chris Porter (@ChrisPorterFCN) July 18, 2013

Fans were treated to a salute to the home run, which interestingly included Mark McGwire hitting his steroid-tainted 62^nd home run in 1998, as well as Chris Hatcher’s 2010 home run that clinched the Southern League title for the hometown Jacksonville Suns, before the explosions began.

At first the fireworks seemed as potent as the North’s offense. But as the 15-minute show wore on the explosions became bigger, louder and a celebration of baseball. Two boys standing on the concourse kept yelling “Merica!” when they were not singing along with Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” which was being played over the loudspeaker.

First pitch to final out was over in less than three hours. Had a bevy of relievers not come in to make a brief showing in the final four innings, the game would have breezed along. Wednesday was a wonderful day to pass time, watching our past time.

Laughs and liveliness,

-Wb

How tempting is a shortcut to success?

Photo taken from ESPN.com

Taking the road less traveled is easier in theory than practice. 

Baseball is considering its biggest mass punishment in 93 years after a Miami area entrepreneur agreed to share his knowledge about providing performance-enhancing drugs to a litany of players. Whether the players will be suspended, and for how long, remains to be seen.

The story is another case of a professional trying to seek an edge by any means necessary.

A Sports Illustrated columnist argued Wednesday that he wouldn’t take performance enhancing drugs if he were an athlete. The column was in response to outfielder Ryan Braun being caught in the crosshairs of another investigation that he used performance-enhancing drugs. There are more than a dozen other players linked to the Miami-area clinic, but Braun’s backstory may be the most intriguing.

In truth, most of us would have to look long and hard at the person in the mirror if a shortcut to professional success and financial security was thrown in front of us like a thong in front of a throng at a bachelor party.

In some ways, one can empathize with Braun. Baseball is a sport where the difference between very good and elite can be as much as $50 million.

Then again, Braun’s road to riches was much shorter than many of his baseball brethren. He was a first round draft pick in 2005, breezed through minor league baseball and reached Major League Baseball before his 24th birthday.

He, allegedly, chose to take performance-enhancing drugs in search of additional success.

After driving in his rookie season, Braun signed a $45 million dollar contract with the Brewers. Four years later, the player and the team were once again at the bargaining table. In April 2011 Braun signed a $105 million extension.

Few complained when Braun went out and won the NL MVP award in 2011 and helped the Brewers win a division title for the first time in 29 years.

The bottom fell out that winter when a doping test revealed Braun had elevated levels of testosterone. In his case, the house of cards was too fragile to conceal the deceit in perpetuity.

Those who are seduced by the shortcut to success may not have such a public shaming.

What Braun is accused of doing, taking a banned substance to get ahead of his peers, is no different than offering a young judge a seat at the federal level if they ensure a certain verdict. Perhaps it’s the aide to a politician who is promised support for a future run for office if they help the politician deceive the people they serve. Maybe, it’s the journalist who works in Middle-of-Nowhere, America who is tempted with a cushy position in New York City and a six-figure salary, but only if they report a story from a specific angle.

An athlete who chooses to take performance-enhancing drugs has a choice, just as those other professionals. Athletes are just in the limelight more than your wayward judge, politician or journalist.

Of course it’s the latter whose misfeasance has the broader impact on society — albeit with fewer press clippings.

Braun made $4.27 million in his MVP season. He’s scheduled to make $8.5 million this season. And who can forget the $113 million in guaranteed money the Milwaukee Brewers owe him through the end of the 2020 season.

Many of us joke our principles have a price. It’s likely that price falls below the nearly $130 million in compensation Braun will earn by combining his talent with temptation.

Laughs and liveliness,
-Wb

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be on traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as far that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

-Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken

Does the “hero” always have to be the main attraction?

A lot of fanfare and media attention has been devoted to the recent release of a sixth production about Jackie Robinson.

This one is arguably has more financial support than the other productions and was released to the broadest audience. Some have praised the movie, others have panned it. My suggestion would be to see the movie and make up your own conclusion.

My knowledge about Jackie Robinson and baseball history led me leaving the theater wanting more. As happy as I should have been that another movie was made about Robinson, I wondered why elements of Robinson’s past were not mentioned and why the picture only focused on a narrow segment of his life.

What was surprisingly refreshing was the prominent role the movie showcased to one of my trailblazers.

Before seeing the movie with my wife and a friend of ours someone told me there was a character in the movie that reminded them of me. The first time I saw Andre Holland in the film, I knew exactly what that person meant.

Wendell Smith was the first African-American accepted into the Baseball Writers Association of America in 1948. In my career, I have made fun of press boxes that have mice in them. Smith, meanwhile, was not even allowed to sit in the press box during parts of his career.

As the movie wore on I was more enamored with Smith and the bigoted baseball players as opposed to the centerpiece of the biopic. Maybe that was the journalist in me, the journalist who admittedly would not have lasted too long had my role with Smith been reversed.

Wendell Smith came to mind hours later when I remembered a sobering story I was told last summer as I sat in a room filled with sports journalists at the National Association of Black Journalists annual conference. Rob Parker, yes, this Rob Parker, noted how important it was for more blacks to cover baseball because there were only 10 African-Americans in the Baseball Writers Association of America at the time.

I’m not sure how many people are members of the association. But there were nearly 570 ballots sent out to writers for the 2013 Baseball Hall of Fame vote. I’m also not sure whether Parker’s number was spot on. But the murmur of surprise that wafted through a room with more than 75 sports journalists led me to believe there was some validity to that fact.

There are all sorts of studies and information that chronicle and specify the lack of minorities in journalism, specifically sports journalism. Were it not for ESPN those figures would be worse for not only minorities, but women as well.

So forgive me if I pay more attention to the bespectacled man relegated to the stands in 42, not the gentleman whose immeasurable impact has been discussed and dissected for more than 50 years.

Laughs and liveliness,

-Wb

Fish Fanaticism

There has always been a hat.

The first one was a teal adjustable hat I bought at Woolworth’s. I wasn’t a fan of the black stripes stitched into it so the cap rarely left my closet.

There have been others, adjustable hats, warm-up hats, vintage hats and more. But, through the years, I have always had a Marlins hat.

The caps serve as my connection to a team and a sport that captivates my attention only long enough to elicit frustration. For 20 seasons my relationship with baseball recedes and flows like slow waves to shore.

On occasion there is a high tide and the Marlins are having a successful season. In others the sea is gone, revealing shells and other undesirables that are masked by a winning season.

Through it all, there has always been a baseball cap.

It’s a relationship born out of proximity, and a lust for leaning my baseball fanaticism on some team I could relate with. Atlanta appeared to be an alternative universe to an inquisitive baseball fan in Southwest Florida. Miami felt just as foreign, but at least it was in Florida.

Spring training in Sarasota brought all the stars to me. But once April came, the players and teams were only as tangible as the television or newspaper box scores would allow.

That hideous teal cap made Charlie Hough, Benito Santiago and Jeff Conine more than names in a box score. Even if I was never closer than a box television in my bedroom, the Marlins seemed to be a team there for my own summer entertainment.

A collection of errors has hindered any ability to see this routinely mediocre team in person. But, the hat has always been there. In the good years and the bad, the hat has been a tether to a team teetering along in the National League.

Every April my optimism would heighten that this would be the year. They would flirt with my emotions for five weeks, only to go on a losing spell, stinking like rotten citrus as May drifts toward June. Father’s Day would be the barometer for the rest of the season, saving cranks like myself from suffering through summer’s dog days in the fabulous Florida sun.

I was never too good at baseball. My swing had a hitch in it. My throwing motion was never consistent. Plus, I always took circuitous routes to fielding my position.

Personal shortcomings never hindered my Marlin-inspired mania.

Mr. Marlin winning the All-Star MVP award in ’95 was the highlight of my summer. Meeting Charles Johnson six years later was such an experience I nearly hyperventilated. Little compares to dressing up as Marlins player — hat and all — for a Halloween party days after Craig Counsell floated home.

It’s been nearly a decade since Josh Beckett tagged out Posada to shutout the vaunted Yankees. Since then, there have been occasions, large and small, to proudly wear the hat of a team that defiantly represents Florida — whether it’s the booms, the busts or the steady promises for future growth.

As I’ve grown up with the Marlins, the hats have changed. My fanaticism has never wavered, even when the team is floundering in fourth place.

Laughs and liveliness,

-Wb

Is it picking nits to call winners “World Champions”?

When something does not make sense to me, I usually make a funny face and ask a question: sometimes to the closest person near, or to no one in particular.

Otis Nixon ending the 1992 World Series with a bunt was one of those instances. Three weeks away from my eighth birthday, I asked my dad why he would bunt since the probability of him reaching base was very low.

The Braves were the closest thing to a major league baseball team in Southwest Florida at the time, so by almost obligation I rooted for them. (It didn’t hurt that the headmaster at my school — Edwin Gleason, a genial gentleman with an English accent — was an ardent Braves fan, who had a child-like smile on his face when molasses-slow Sid Bream beat Barry Bonds’ throw from left field earlier that month for the Braves to even make the Series.)

As Toronto danced in the infield of Fulton-County Stadium I sat there in my room as disgusted as a seven-year old who never played organized baseball could be.

Some time during one of my periods of stewing and snarling at no one in particular, my mother must have mentioned the fact that Toronto were not the “World Champions” as many broadcasters and newspapers reported.

With the Texas Rangers or the St. Louis Cardinals two wins away from baseball immortality, I cannot help but recall those consecutive Octobers where the team I wanted to win didn’t, and I sought for every excuse or plausible explanation for why it didn’t happen.

But back in 1992, I thought maybe there was some way Atlanta had won the series. Instead, her point was that it was impossible to designate the champion of a league featuring only American and Canadian teams “World Champions.” (Just the look on my headmaster’s face in the opening weeks of November was enough to convince me that the Braves indeed did lose for a second straight fall.)

Every morning the next year, I would borrow the Sports page of the Sarasota-Herald Tribune in the hope that someone had knocked Toronto out of first place. When Chicago faced Toronto in the ALCS that fall, I of course rooted for the White Sox, not solely because I despised Toronto, but in part because I went to a few White Sox spring training games earlier that year.

When Toronto won the World Series again, we were in Denver for a family trip. I missed Joe Carter’s Series-ending home run because after driving from Florida to Colorado with three smart-alecks my parents wanted to grab food at a decent restaurant.

Again the topic of World Champions came up.

On that cool Saturday night I was more annoyed that I missed such a dramatic baseball game, but as we walked down the street toward our hotel I again asked how the Blue Jays could be World Champions. For all we knew there might be a team somewhere else in the world better than them. At least that was my hope because I really, really didn’t like Toronto.

I was already aware that the 1904 “World’s Series” was called off because John McGraw thought his Giants were the best team in the world, so there was no point in playing the Boston Americans because it was a formality. But then, as is the case now, when something does not make sense I continue to ask questions until an answer satisfies my curiosity.

My dad said that was the way things have always been. He didn’t know why it was called the World Series. My mom said they should come up with another name. Neither answer was good enough, so I kept pressing for a sufficient answer.

The answer I sought never came, at least that October. Though the Braves eventually won the World Series two years later, so much had changed. My parents had more pressing concerns than the silly questions of a 10-year old with a smart mouth, I no longer attended the school where Mr. Gleason was the headmaster and most depressing of all, I was committed the perpetually hot-and-cold Florida Marlins.

The Braves mini-dynasty was proof that part of baseball’s mystery is not its timelessness, but the fact games always leaves us with unanswered questions.

Since it apparently cannot be defined, what is “loyalty”?

My friends have a lot of time on their hands at work so sometimes we all exchange e-mails about various sports subjects and topics. Usually, a few tangents are taken and this was the case when many of us spoke about baseball this week.

Eventually the focus turned to a column published by Yahoo Sports where the writer asked whether the New York Yankees were making the right decision to stick with their aging veterans. These are players and people who have played for the team for more than 15 years and reached the highest levels of the game on multiple occasions.

Instantly, after reading Les Carpenter’s column, I thought of loyalty and what it is in a sports and business sense. The search for an answer was an unfulfilling one, so I am asking my family and friends for their interpretation in the hope it will catch on.

We are so quick to vilify an athlete for spending their formative years in a city then bolting for more money in another city. It does not matter whether the person might be reunited with family and friends, or they may prefer their new city, or more money is offered fans feel wronged that their “hometown hero” left for supposedly greener pastures.

The same fans who spend their discretionary dollars going to games fail to realize that if another employer offered them a 30 percent increase with some additional perks they would nearly forget to submit a two-week notice to their former employer.

It is not a crime to switch jobs, or to do so with little to no notice to your employer. Yet it may not be the most loyal thing for someone to do that. The refrain is usually “I had to look out for myself and my family.”

In the same notion, employers have long shown a similar zest over the past four decades to terminate an employee or eliminate a position nearly regardless of that person’s performance, evaluations or other metrics. They say “it’s not personal, just business.”

Even the dictionary cannot define “loyal” or “loyalty” without mentioning the word loyal. This week I was telling my girlfriend that what one person may consider loyal could be the exact opposite to someone else.

So what is loyalty, especially in a business and sporting sense? In search of an answer I sought out a friend who like me is looking for work.

Someone who is not loyal has “been burned in the past and they see what other people have done to get ahead. Maybe in their head they think it’s wrong, but they think this is the way it is and they have become complacent with that. No one wants to stand up, because if you do you are the scapegoat and you are made an example of.”

Essentially, her sentiments were aligned with mine. However, the answer sat with me like an appetizer, it was great, but not completely fulfilling.

In all the business books I have read have covertly mentioned that someone must look out for themselves at all times, regardless of how it might impact the team. Hopefully Tavis Smiley’s “Fail Up: 20 Lessons on Building Success from Failure”, which I recently purchased for obvious reasons, will break the uninspiring trend. One, which chances my luck in the business world, could certainly be better.

Laughs and liveliness
-Wb