Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Monday, April 30, 2007
Let’s all welcome Primer origimate, Craig Calcaterra…back to the baseball blogging world.
Josh Hancock’s death sucks. Sucks for his family. Sucks for his teammates. Sucks for anyone that knew and loved him, as anyone’s death does for the people who are left behind.
But we’re not those people, so we’re allowed to reflect for a couple of moments and then get right back to it. We’re allowed to silently wonder whether Hancock—a mop-up reliever with a relatively short tenure with the team—is worthy of the same kind of treatment front-of-the-rotation-starter Daryl Kile received at his untimely passing five years ago. We’ll do it with the appropriate amount of respect, but we’ll wonder.
We’re also allowed to wonder—at least until the autopsy results come back—whether Hancock was driving drunk at the time of his accident. Hey, I don’t know and you don’t know either, and the last thing we should do is engage in innuendo, but the fact remains that the man hit a parked car at a high rate of speed late on a Saturday night, so such speculation is not baseless. Let’s just wait for the evidence to find out.
|
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
1. Sean McNally Posted: April 30, 2007 at 06:40 PM (#2350072)And second... demerit for Repoz - how do you not get a "craig's wife" reference into the intro.
Craig asked me not to...something about his wife running off with Mike Kekich's nephew...:)
He's been roundtabled...
That's gotta be about five years ago already, IIRC.
I do. Craig, Shredder when he posted all the time, the Beeeah Guy, Rifkin's phonebook-length lead-ins. Those were the days.
He's been roundtabled...
Didn't Alan Schwarz write something about that?
That was my Primer brush with greatness. I was engaged in debate with Craig (under my real name, lost to a previous e-mail address) when he broke out the wife-sleeping-with Reilly remark.
I am glad to see him blogging again, as I generally enjoyed his efforts.
Some things probably should have remained in 2002.
The wife is fine. She's now married to Rick Reilly and works as the scheduler at a urinalysis lab. Says I gave her the idea. Women.
Hee hee. I almost won a Primey with that one.
Dang, we've been around a long time eh guys?
Best Regards
John
On Hancock, it was kind of creepy - I was driving in St. Louis for the first time this weekend (visiting friends) and was thinking "who designed this shitty highway?" like a mile from where Hancock was killed. I was more careful on my way back to 70 this morning than I was going there.
Right. That article originally appeared in Visitors' Dugout.
++++++++++++++++++++++
Posted 3:17 p.m., October 29, 2002 (#42) - John Brattain (e-mail)
"And John, things may be exciting at the Calcaterra house, but Mong's the one with actual evidence of marital shennanigans; me and the Mrs. only have two cats at this point."
Well keep trying Craig, you're bound to have a human baby sooner or later. I just have to ask: if the delivery is difficult, what does the doctor use to deliver the kitten--forceps or does he just try to lure it out by dangling a piece of string? ;-)
Best Regards
John
++++++++++++++++++++++
Best Regards
John
Well, I'm happy to say that we finally did have human babies. Two of them. Still have the two referenced cats too, with an extra one added last year.
Craig's wife thinks he works late. Craig really just likes to avoid going to a home in which he is outnumbered 6-1.
The days of John Freakin' Mabry and Economically Illiterate #######. When Brattain posted Top 10 lists and Score Bard wrote poems. When 60 posts was a long thread, and steroids weren't an issue.
This is the highlight of my Primer career. It all went downhill form there. (That was a better thread before some of the posts disappeared.)
I'll always remember you as the guy who kicked off the Dig the 1950s thread.
John
++++++++++++++++++++++
Best Regards
John
At least some things never change.
I posted a blurb from the overnight Post-Dispatch that kind of got buried in the Hancock thread.
The PD talked to the manager of the restaurant where Hancock was Saturday night, and although she referred questions about if he was drinking to the police (!?!), she did mention Hancock was offered a cab - even though he had his own vehicle.
You can put two and two together from that...
I don't offer this as some basis to launch attacks against the recently dead. He's dead either way. It's my take that no matter the circumstances of his death, the loss of someone is the loss of someone is the loss of someone, and no amount of hand wringing is bringing him back. Go forward. Remember the life and not the death. Deal.
But major sports leagues and big corporations -- especially those so closely associated with Anheuser-Busch -- don't usually think that way when it comes to drunk driving. If, in fact, Hancock was DUI, I wonder if the Cardinals and AB are going to wish they hadn't committed to uniform patches, a bullpen memorial and other attendant honors so quickly.
He blogs about another sport now...
I look forward to the forthcoming roundtable discussion in Soccer Portugal with Yasin Özdenak, Vladislav Bogi?evi? and "Stats" Shrovetide.
It's not about respect, it's about media coverage. To a lesser extent, it's the same problem when some C-list whore with big tits died a couple months ago and that becomes the news story of the month. All the respect in the world to Josh Hancock's family, but there's nothing newsworthy about his death except that he was a minor celebrity and his celebrity status was not enough for us to pay attention to him when he was alive.
My comment in that passage was inspired by the fact that virtually every article written about Hancock's death plays up the "oh no, not again" angle re: Kile. While it would be distasteful to ask Tony LaRussa, for example, about whether Hancock's death is less of a blow, I think it's appropriate to discuss (a) whether the media is treating the deaths in a similar fashion; and (b) whether it is appropriate to do so.
But we can't kid ourselves into thinking that, once the initial shock passes, there isn't a hierarchy of tragedy. Kile was a man with a wife and kids who died tragically of a disease he likely didn't even know he had. Hancock had no wife and kids and, if NTNgod's links are giving us the straight poop, he died after a night of drinking and irresponsibly taking the wheel. Throw in the fact that Kile was a 12 year veteran (3 with the Cards) and 3 time all star whereas Hancock was a journeyman reliever, and it is not out of the question to expect differential coverage.
Both Abe Lincoln and James Garfield were assassinated in the 19th century. To Mrs. Garfield and his closest friends, James' death was the harder blow. But only to them, and history got it right.
Lincoln invited his son Robert to Ford's Theater that night. Garfield was on a way to a meeting that included, among other, Robert Todd Lincoln when he was shot. Shortly after McKinley got shot in Buffalo, Robert Todd Lincoln arrived in the room.
To update some stuff from the old thread (BTW, ironic that Gary Geiger made a cameo there), the Mets' Morgan number is up to 5: Kranepool-Orosco-Strawberry-Franco-Reyes. And my personal Morgan number is down to 4. My firm used to do Ugie Urbina's tax return, so count that as 2: Me-Tax Partner on the Account-Urbina. And then Urbina played with Rich Garces on the 2001 Red Sox, and Garces played with Morgan on the 1995 Cubs. (We still do the return of another person is baseball who is notably looked down upon by a person who posted in this thread. I cannot comment beyond that.)
Thanks. That may have been my greatest accomplishment at BTF. Or, it may be my worst if you don't like thread hijacks.
He blogs about another sport now...
I took a quick look at it. I'm not a huge soccer guy, so it looks interesting, But a serious footy fan might be able to tear it apart.
I think that is where I grabbed the GGC handle from, that and it was sort of a homage to Repoz. He got his name froma Yankee fourth outfielder from the 60s, so I grabbed his Red Sox equivalent. If Repoz used Oscar Gamble and Huff as a handle, I may have become Bernie Carbo Monoxide.
BTW, in the thread that Brattain linked, Terry Francona was compared to Buddy Bell and Tony Muser.
That was funny.
Bernie Carbo Counter would work just as well.
The Ray Jablonski Murders
Bob Coluccio's Department
Cliff Pastornicky Hopkins
Slinky Davalillo
Bottlecaps Davalillo
Silly-Putty Davalillo
Hula-Hoop Davalillo
and Leon "Daddy Wags" Czolosz
also send their thanks!
I have no doubt that this angle, along with the Cards/Anheuser-Busch connection will get played up if, in fact, Hancock was found to be drunk. The report will set off a new news cycle, and many of those searching for an angle will glom on to this one because it's easy and it lends itself to the moralizing/ballplayers as role models columns that write themselves.
And...
Chu Chu Malave Cross
Harry Chappasquidic
The Apprenticeship of Gavvy Cravath
Warren Cromartie Glickman
Jay Kleven & Kleven is
Mike de la Hosiery
Mahatma McGaha has spoken!
*snort*
Or a Fred Funk and Daddy Wagnalls Encyclopedia of Primer.
Let's not forget Frank Crossetemstraight or Verbanic in Needle Park.
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main