Baseball
First off, in this game there were six home runs hit. Five of them were by the Nationals.
Now that’s exciting, because most games you attend don’t feature six home runs in today’s game. Great American ballpark played like Great American. Even my wife said the game was exciting and made it through three hours and thirty minutes of baseball with a fair amount of whooping and hollering.
For a recap on the rest of the day and more photos, click through the jump.
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Sergeant Gunnery Hartman/Davey Johnson is baseball’s best manager. We only get one more season of him.
Any conversation about baseball’s most-loaded team must begin with their R. Lee Ermey style manager, Davey Johnson. Johnson is baseball’s finest manager, having been perched on dugout top steps since Small Pox was a problem; he’s seen more baseball than any living man has forgotten.
Johnson is a no-nonsense, tough loving, thick skinned son of a gun. He’ll probably live to be 120 years old before crawling off into the woods somewhere and dying alone with his dignity like only the toughest old hombres would do. We actually were lucky enough to obtain footage from the Nationals Spring Training barracks just a few days ago. Let’s take a good look at Johnson addressing his troops during a routine, middle of the night bed check:
If there’s one thing Sergeant Davey hates to find, it’s an unlocked foot locker. How did you like when he went off at Dan Haren there in the video for having a jelly doughnut in his foot locker? In all fairness to the Gunnery Sergeant Davey and Haren; this came after Haren’s most recent troubling spring start.
Biggest Off-Season Moves:
The Nationals had an already absolutely loaded roster, even down into their minor leagues before any of these moves were made. Things seemed to line up perfectly for them to add three key veterans in spots that could afford some touching up with the perfect addition.
I have loved everything that this team has done in building it’s organization since General Manager Mike Rizzo took over. Now they’re in a position to really reap the benefits over the next five to seven years. They’ll have a chance to win a World Series every year in that window unless something goes wildly wrong. They’re also in position to trade a highly valued prospect in the farm system; of which there are many, should they need to acquire another Major League ready player to help them in their current run. Times are good right now for the Washington Nationals, and that is putting it lightly.
Bryce Harper collected three more hits today. I don’t want to jinx the kid too early or anything but he’s started spring training by going 6 for 8. He’s already in his manager’s ear about not wanting to sit. He doesn’t know these games don’t count. And this guy is too good to be true.
Keep sitting him now and again, Davey. He’ll wear himself out by July at this pace. Every spring there’s inevitably one player I really like who has a monstrous spring. Then the stats disappear in April and somehow he gets off to a really slow start. I hope this isn’t the case with Harper.
Buster Olney also said recently on his podcast (18:40 mark): “Joey Votto on Harper: Essentially, he can’t be beaten. He has a “slump proof swing.”
ESPN SweetSpot compares the 1986 Mets to the 2013 Nationals position by position, including bench. It’s a pretty cool little post.
Dave Schoenfield of SweetSpot has the two teams even, 6 to 6.
One other similarity between these: The Mets, like the Nationals, had a lot of young talent. Strawberry was 24, Dykstra 23, Backman 26, Mitchell 24, HoJo 25. On the pitching staff, Gooden, Darling, Fernandez, Aguilera and McDowell were all 25 or younger. Mets fans know all too well that this group of players would return to the playoffs only once more and never return to the World Series. The future of the Nationals looks bright, but success is never a sure thing.
You know what is a sure thing? The Nationals won’t be doing copious amounts of cocaine, tearing up commercial aircrafts (while showing their genitals to the stewardesses), and generally entering other towns with the soul goal being to drink as much beer as they can before leaving town.
It was just a different era back then, and one of the reasons that the 1986 Mets will remain one of my favorite teams of all-time no matter what 2013 holds for the Nationals; who are proud new owners of Dan Haren.
Last night on The Baseball Show Podcast, co-hosts Mike Rosenbaum and M.J. Lloyd and I discussed the following topics:
-The Marlins/Blue Jays blockbuster trade
-The Toronto Blue Jays chances in the AL East
-Why it sucks to be a Marlins fan
-Giancarlo Stanton’s future in Miami
-What is it like to be a Marlins fan right now?
-The prospects on the way to Toronto via trade
-Torii Hunter leaves Anaheim for Detroit
-Thoughts on all season awards
And as always much more in between!
Not sure if you heard about the whole hullabaloo last night during the Rays-Nationals game in Washington. We had the game on live, and Joel Peralta had just strolled out to pitch the 8th inning in a game the Rays were up 5-4.
That’s when things got hairy. Davey Johnson had prior knowledge of Peralta doctoring his gloves with a foreign substance and had the home-plate umpire go out and shakedown Peralta. Peralta was found to be guilty and promptly ejected. And the poker game continued on into today with Johnson’s quotes, namely his thoughts on Rays manager Joe Maddon.
“I don’t know him that well, but I thought he was a weird wuss anyways.”
Listen to this guy. Calling people ‘weird’. Calling his fellow managers wussies. I love it.
You know what’s even better? We had someone sneak a hidden camera into the Nationals clubhouse a few weeks back. Here’s what we found:
I don’t know Davey Johnson all that well either, but I feel like we had him pegged spot-on a few weeks back when we called him a red ass and said that was the exact reason that we loved the guy.
I also imagine that there are a lot of normal people out there that Davey fails to find the color in and deems them as ‘weird’. He has the temperament of a grandpa that has missed his nap.
Once again Will Leitch shows why he’s one of my favorite writers, especially when pertaining to baseball.
And this time, it’s not just because he’s sticking up for Bryce Harper. Or because he obviously likes Harper for the same reasons I do. But it’s because he does those things more eloquently and subtle than I’ve done in the past on this very blog. And this is all just in time for tonight’s Nationals v. Phillies showdown on ESPN Wednesday Night Baseball.
He takes Hamels to task, kind of like we did.
“That’s something I grew up watching,” Hamels said, “I’m just trying to continue the old baseball because I think some people are kind of getting away from it. I remember when I was a rookie the strike zone was really, really small and you didn’t say anything because that’s the way baseball is. But I think unfortunately the league’s protecting certain players and making it not that old school, prestigious way of baseball. It’s just, ‘Welcome to the big leagues.’ ”
This doesn’t make a lot of sense. How does the strike zone when Cole Hamels was a rookie have anything to do with Bryce Harper? How is the league “protecting” Bryce Harper? (He’d been in the league a week.) And what is Cole Hamels talking about with this “something I grew up watching”? Cole Hamels is 28 years old; he grew up watching Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco and all those players everyone has spent the last decade screaming on television about being the opposite of “old school.” Did he have a dream that he grew up watching different players?
And he makes the best and most truthful point following that.
But the craziest thing about Hamels’ notion was that “old school” was somehow prestigious. Baseball—always, now, then and forever—is the furthest thing from prestigious. Baseball has been a sport for scoundrels and rapscallions; this is why it’s fun.
Yes. Harper is a rapscallion. He is a scoundrel. A scoundrel, dirt-eating, hustling gift given to us by the baseball gods to enjoy for two decades. He’s… more old school than Hamels. Right Leitch?
The funny part about this is that I can’t think of a more old school player—in the way I think Hamels was trying to define it—than Bryce Harper. I interviewed Harper earlier this year, and all he could talk about was how much he admired—and patterned every aspect of his game around—guys like Pete Rose and Ty Cobb. Harper is one of those guys who plays every game like it’s his last, who dives and spits and knocks over catchers and loves baseball in a profound, aggressive way.
I hope Harper gets a few old knocks off Hamels this evening. And if there was any doubt that he would be in the lineup, you don’t even have to wonder. He plays for a manager cut from his own old-school mold.
Last night was another one of those nights. Another Bryce Harper rope off the wall. Another Nationals home victory.
Right now the Washington Nationals represent everything that is energy-infusing and exciting in the game of baseball. Everyone is quick to talk about Harper or Stephen Strasburg, myself included. But I think one of the coolest aspects of this roster is who it’s being led by; their R. Lee Ermey style manager Davey Johnson (tell me he doesn’t look like Gunnery Sergeant Hartman down in the dugout some nights).
This is the tough son of a bitch who won 108 games and a ring with those 1986 Mets. Spry enough to fight (and drink with) a few of those hazy-eyed Metropolitans back then, he’s back from the dead for one more run at the Holy Grail. And therein lies one aspect that I love so much about baseball–Johnson managed Darryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden–and now he’s overseeing the precious roost of prospects that the Nationals have compiled. Two completely different eras with eras in between, and Davey Johnson probably still has the same wad of Beech-nut tobacco in his cheek from that summer in ’86.
Just above the Parris Island drill instructor who moonlights as the club’s manager is general manager Mike Rizzo. He’s part rich uncle, part wise guy. He’s just the kind of Italian your mother always warned you about. He’s also the architect of the roster that has collected the best young kitty of talent in the big leagues. He has the players’ backs. And he’ll forever be a hero because he is the guy who brought Strasburg and Harper to the nation’s capital.
The Roster doesn’t end with the big two. How did we all miss this much young forged talent before the season started? No one should be surprised at the club’s 23-14 record (best in the NL East) when you look at the wonderful mix of veteran and young-stud that litters the roster up and down the organization.
I know Wilson Ramos got hurt this past week and will miss the entire season. But even after Ramos, Harper, and Strasburg, the cabinet features a collection nice young names like Gio Gonzalez, Jordan Zimmerman, Drew Storen, Henry Rodriguez, Ian Desmond, and soon to be ‘next one’ Anthony Rendon. I even still think there’s hope for Danny Espinosa. The Nationals are primed to make this their league over the next few seasons. Rostering veterans like Ryan Zimmerman, Rick Ankiel, Mike Morse, Tyler Clippard, Brad Lidge and Adam LaRoche adds a really nice mix as well.
They play the game the way it should be played. Reflective of their manager’s temperament, they grind out ugly win after ugly win with pitching, defense, and timely big hits in crucial spots. Dominant at home while taking every other game on the road. That’s how a winner is built.
There’s a lot of directions we could go from here. President’s races at the park. The best two young players in the game today. Based in a great city. The Nationals are young. They’re exciting. Finally a fresh face in the National League East. They’re about to begin a decade of dominance a few years before anyone ever predicted–which is how every true great run starts to begin with.
But we digress by going back to the girl who brought us to the dance.
Their manager is a hardened old baseball man who would in any era and these guys are simply playing their ass off for him. In sports nowadays, you just don’t see ballplayers motivated in such a way anymore. This is like Jack McKeon’s last run; if you packed McKeon’s cigars full of cow chips. Davey Johnson is coming downstairs, and he’s pissed off folks. He might be 85, but he’s still here to kick your ass and drink your Johnny Walker.
And back to Harper: isn’t he the type of kid you could see taking a curtain call after ever home run? I hope he decides to do it. In fact, I hope the Nationals never lose again.
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