Newscoma

In 1998, my mother died after a battle with cancer that was intense. I don’t think she was ready to go but who really is.

And I fell into myself. I smiled at work, I went through the motions and I grieved harder than anyone can imagine. To think about that year, I honestly can say it was a blur. Food lost taste, I slept a lot because I was obviously depressed and I don’t think I’ve ever been through anything like that experience. I don’t want to go through it again, I can tell you that much.

And baseball saved me.

The chase to break Roger Maris’ home run record brought me back to life. Before congressional hearings and steroid use shamed Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire, it was a joyous time for baseball. I became obsessed with it, watching the Cubs and the Cardinals with a fervor that I cannot explain. I was transfixed, planning my days to watch the teams to see what was going to happen next. Squirrel Queen and I would trek up to Busch Stadium and watch McGwire although I have to admit I never saw him hit a home run. Didn’t matter.

So yesterday I’m watching one of those shows that was focusing on the greatest moments in baseball which included Ozzie Smith hitting a home run and collectively clinching the world series (that wasn’t his forte) and Kirk Gibson serving Dennis Eckersley when he hit that famous home run that you’ve seen a million times.

And then it showed McGwire beating Maris’s record and the joy of that moment that included having Sammy Sosa meet him as he crossed home.

This is where I’m a baby. I’ve saw this event when it happened live and probably dozens of times since then, but yesterday I got all teary-eyed.

It’s amazing how things, when a person is as full as I am a bit right now, wash over you. Grief can hit you at anytime.

And it was that baseball season that helped me get through mine.

Squirrel Queen is a historian of sorts when it comes to baseball promotions that go horribly wrong. I honestly love hearing her talk about things that she saw when there were only three channels watching

Saturday afternoon baseball with her grandfather. Their team was the Oakland A’s and if you aren’t familiar with some of Charlie Finley’s shenanigans, you should. Of course, I learned all of this from SQ. As she grew older and makes a living writing sports, she keeps her eyes on the game and the subculture of what goes on in baseball.

Last night, after a day of such frustration due to a broken vehicle and a thwarted attempt to take a vacation which is much needed by both of us, she told Badger and I about the ten cent beer night fiasco in Cleveland, as she had read a story on Page 2 about it.

The ‘74 Indians were a smorgasbord of mediocre and forgettable talent playing in an open-air mausoleum. That year, in a city that fielded one of the founding professional teams (the Forest Citys, incorporated there in 1869), 85 percent of the seats at home games went unsold. All those empty seats meant a balance sheet written in red. The team’s executive vice president, Ted Bonda, could put up with losing teams and an ugly stadium (he had inherited both in 1972), but he would not tolerate insolvency. Bonda called a meeting to discuss options for improving attendance, which must have felt a little like trying to figure out how to get people excited about a trip to the orthodontist. Someone, apparently a team employee likely acting out of desperation, suggested copying the Texas Rangers, who had recently hosted a successful “10-Cent Beer Night.” We can imagine the grim silence in the boardroom as the group considered this obviously dangerous remedy. How interested would Cleveland be in such a promotion?

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Accounts vary as to the volume proffered — 8 ounces? 10? 12? — but the price was certain enough: 10 cents per cup. Fans — and we shall use this term for lack of a better one — could buy up to six cups at a time, with no system in place to prevent a designated mule from purchasing a full complement, handing them off to underage clients, and returning for more.

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The beat reporters worked overtime that night, particularly Dan Coughlin, from the Chronicle-Telegram of Lorain County, Ohio, who was punched in the face twice while interviewing fans. Those reporters smart enough to follow the teams into the safety of their clubhouses got more than stock responses about looking forward to the next contest.

Apparently it got scary and of course a riot ensued. When the stadium ran out of beer, they just pulled in the Strohs’ trucks and started selling it from there.

Ill-advised. It was ugly.

Players were injured, streaking occurred and everyone collectively lost their barley-water soaked minds.

The reason I’m writing about this today is how well this story is written. Some of the best articles out there are sports history tales that bring you in. Someone asked me recently who wants to get into the writing game of what she should look at when crafting a story.

I recommended reading the flow of a sports feature.

Squirrel Queen is pretty durn cool about this stuff if you ask me.

Allow me this on gloat as I know it can change on a dime. It’s baseball.

But my beloved Cardinals are leading 10 days into the season in the standings in the Central Division. 7 – 2 campers.

LWC, BST and Smiley, how those Cubs doing? I tease. I keed because I love you all.

Squirrel Queen, incidentally, agrees with Tommy on his pick of the Indians for the World Series.

You get to mock me next week when it all goes down hill for us Cardinals fans.

Albert Pujols is my new bicycle.

Image credit

As I was driving into Nashville yesterday before I imbibed in an evening of good-natured debauchery with some truly fabulous people (IVY, I love my zombie Elvis more than I love cheese and I’m pretty damned fond of cheese. Mark, my hat is groovy and I’m wearing it right now in my pajamas), I turned the radio on and found several sports programs talking pretty much about one thing.

Rha-ger.

I called sports diva Squirrelly and gave her some of the highlights from some of the live updates that Colin Cowherd, Jim Rome and Mike Turrico were giving and it occurred to me that the Rocket, who was never one of my favorite pitchers by any stretch of the imagination, thinks this nation is rather stupid. Or at least that’s what I got out of it. I didn’t know we owed Roger anything but apparently we do. I’ll be sure to set up that shrine I’m apparently supposed to have when I get home.

Listen, he says he didn’t take steroids and that it was his wife who took HGH, yada, yada, yada … but Brian McNamee said he did. I’m thinking Rha-ger did something but who knows.

What grossed me out though is that Roger Clemens blamed everyone in the world for his troubles and owned nothing. To hear Clemens tell it, he is the most victimized man in America. I’ll give him an B+ for being defiant, but the self-righteous stuff was …

Wait, have I ever told you that self-righteous folks make my skin crawl? I didn’t. Okay, Self-righteous people make my skin crawl. There you go.

I don’t blame him for defending himself. But the whole “the president found me in a duck blind” and “I wore USA across my chest” statements then basically saying “How dare you? I’m Roger Clemens, Lord of Baseball and I’m also kind to kittens” just made me sort of go “Blech.”

Clemens basically had his day in the sun under oath and he flailed around like a dying trout. McNamee isn’t a saint either. But why is it everyone else’s fault in Roger’s world. Petitte “misremembered?” Knoblach?

Bueller?

Baseball has taken worse hits. But no one won yesterday, quite frankly. Not Roger, Not McNamee and definitely not baseball where we as fans forgive stupid crap but we don’t forget. And Roger, you looked like a tittybaby. Man up, dude. You don’t have to be so defensive and snarly if you didn’t do it.

But, I’m thinking you did something or you wouldn’t have reacted the way you did.

Wanker.