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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Monday, April 21, 2008
As commenting nomar34 almost said..."I love me some (more) Neyer...”
I have one in particular that’s been driving me a little crazy. I attended a game in the mid-1970s where Ted Simmons and Bill Madlock, who was then with the Cubs, got into a brawl --- and the brawl was precipitated by Al Hrabosky going into his Mad Hungarian routine behind the mound. Every time he’d get back on the rubber, Madlock would step out of the box. And then when Madlock would step back in, the Hungarian would go back behind the mound and do his psyche-up routine again. And eventually words were exchanged, and Simmons and Madlock started going at it. I’ve gone through the archive looking for any game in St. Louis in which Hrabosky pitched an inning in which Madlock came to bat, and I can’t find the game. But I was there.
One of the stories I do remember from my youth --- and I should have remembered this one before --- also involved Hrabosky. I remember very vividly being at my grandparents’ house on summer vacation in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, which is Cardinals country as you know, and I have this incredibly vivid memory of Hrabosky coming into the game with the bases loaded and I believe even falling behind the first batter 3 and 0, and then striking out that batter and the next two batters. I would have bet just about anything that this happened. Well I tried to check it out a few years ago when I was working on my Baseball Lineups book, and I could not find anything. These things lodge in our heads, especially when we’re young, and once they’re there --- I don’t know much about how memory works, but my guess is it’s self-reinforcing. Things pop in there, and then the next time it pops in, we think about it again and that reinforces it, and that happens over and over again --- and eventually we know that happened. Even though it didn’t.
Repoz
Posted: April 21, 2008 at 01:31 PM | 9 comment(s)
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The stories Neyer chose thus far (again, I am only part of the way through) - come from bios and other books that most readers would take with a grain of salt. What is odd is the story from Lasorda (praying to get out of a jam) was true. That floored me -
So even if not all of these are annuals of baseball legends - Neyer picks out some real beauts.
A great brawl was the 1974 Cubs and Cardinals game in which Bill Madlock took exception to Al Hrabosky's "Mad Hungarian" act and kept stepping out of the box each time Hrabosky would finally step up to the rubber.
The umpire told Madlock to stay in the batter's box, but Madlock kept stepping out.
Finally, the ump ordered Hrabosky to pitch and the pitch would be called an automatic strike if Madlock wasn't in the box. So Hrabosky winds up, and just as he's delivering the pitch Madlock gets into the batter's box, and the pitch is right at his head. Simmons and Madlock exchange words, and then they just go at it, and both benches empty. Just a fantastic brawl because of the escalating tension throughout the at-bat.
What I can't figure out from the photo is why Jose Cardenal seems like he's joining Madlock in the batter's box....
[EDIT: in fact, there appear to be three Cubs within 5 feet of home plate as the pitch is caught by Simmons...]
I feel the same way.
I actually had low expectations about the book before picking it up but so far it seems like the best one he's written.
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1974/B09220SLN1974.htm
There were no ejections, so there's nothing about it in the play-by-play. The Cubs were furious that Simmons wasn't ejected, especially when he got the winning hit in the bottom of the ninth. They got back at the Cards though by losing the last game of the season in Pittsburgh to help the Pirates clinch the division.
I remember that game: the Cubs vs. Pirates, in their last game of the season, was televised in St. Louis---an incredible rarity in those days---because of its local implications: if the Cubs won, the Cardinals would be a half-game back with one to play.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT197410020.shtml
The Cubs held a two-run lead going into the bottom of the 9th; a Dave Parker groundout brought the Pirates to within one, but with two outs.
With Rick Reuschel, the starter, still pitching, Bob Robertson pinch-hits and strikes out to apparently end the game, much to the momentary elation of Cardinals fans. But Steve Swisher drops the third strike and throws wildy to first, allowing Manny Sanguillen to score the tying run.
The Pirates would go on to win in the bottom of the 10th, eliminating the Cardinals.
I still couldn't stomach it a couple years later when Steve Swisher, of all people, became a back-up catcher on the Cardinals.
In another irony, my divorced mother returned home with her date and he stayed to watch the end of the game; it turns out he was from Chicago, and I felt at the time that he was a jinx, given the outcome. I'm sure my mother felt the same way years later, when, after being married to him for 15 years, he ran off with a Venezuelan TV newscaster.
Don't leave us hanging...which one?
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