I want to be Kyle Schwarber for a day. What’s it like to hit 16 homers in 18 games? Home Run Derby. . . for real!
You’re 28 years old and you’re launching homers like you’re batting cleanup for Bill Burton’s Main Street Chevron in the Wednesday Night Over-50 Coed League. You’ve trotted so many bases lately, the grounds crew at Nationals Park has to work overtime, just to smooth the ruts.
Schwarber hit another last night. Up, up and away, in the 1st inning, off a guy (Rich Hill) who doesn’t give up longballs to lefty swingers. Only Sammy Sosa has hit more HRs in one calendar month, ever, than Schwarber – 20 in 1998 – and Schwarber still has today to pass him.
Sixteen in 18 games, and in eight of those games, he didn’t homer. So. . . 16 in 10 games! (Insert incredulous laughter here.)
I dunno, but I’m thinking Schwarber didn’t have this kind of run as a kid at Middletown HS.
Anybody play ball against him when you were a kid? ESPN.com:
This is completely unexpected, especially from a player who struggled last season with the Cubs, hitting .188 and getting non-tendered, who missed the start of 2021 on the COVID-19 injured list, and who got off to a horrible start -- hitting .189 with three home runs in his first 25 games.
"To be honest with you, I want to play stupid," Schwarber said after Monday's game, when he homered twice against the Mets. "That's kind of the best way to describe it -- just keep going up there and take your at-bat. Don't remember the one before, just live in the present. I think that's the biggest thing, is just go out there and have a short memory."
Schwarber is the consummate all-or-nothing slugger. I wouldn’t want to be him when he’s air-conditioning 30,000 people. In his three previous full seasons, Schwarber averaged 148 Ks in 466 PAs. But now? Now, I want to be him.
I had this discussion once with Deion Sanders, during his brief stay as a Red. He was mad at me for something I’d written about him. He said the reason I was critical was because I was jealous of him.
Well, sort of.
But not really.
I told Prime I’d love to be him, for one day. I’d want to know what it was like to score from 1st on a single to CF. To play such an ungodly great cornerback for the Cowboys and 49ers, QBs didn’t even look to your side of the field. Football in the afternoon, hardball at night? I’d take a day of that ridiculousness. But just one.
I told Sanders I had no use for the fame he had and the privacy he lacked.
I like eating dinner out without having people ask for autographs or, worse, just stare at me. I like not being tabloid food. To want stardom but not fame is a bitch of a line to draw in America’s dirt. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t want to have to try.
But I’ll surely take a day of Schwarber’s current slo-pitch softball life. I want to play stupid for a day.
THAT SAID. . .
Who’d you want to be? What athlete, ever, would you trade places with for one day, one game, one. . . moment?
I’d say Ali, walking into the ring v. Foreman in Zaire. Imagine the feeling of omnipotence he got from that pure idolatry.
Kirk Gibson, Game 1, ’88 World Series.
Wilt, scoring 100.
Joe Montana, to John Taylor. (Sorry.)
Any player or coach associated with the Miracle on Ice.
Jack Nicklaus on a certain early spring evening in April 1986.
Gimme yours.
Now, then. . .
OHTANI HIT TWO MORE TUESDAY. . .
MY NEW FAVORITE RED IS BRAD BRACH, who said this after The Club got to 0-5 against the San Diego Padres last night at GASP:
"We’re here to win baseball games. That’s what we get paid to do. It’s great that we played a tight game and that we had a shot to win, but at the end of the day, we’re here to win games."
Amen, son. No talk of the dreaded “C’’ word. It’s nice to compete, but in the pro arena, ultimately unfulfilling.
LOTS OF BLOWBACK YESTERDAY, from my writing that the hype for Simone Biles was starting to be a turn-off. Here’s the larger point:
The USA-USA-USA sent 555 athletes to the last Summer Games, 2016 in Rio. It’ll be close to that this time. Are there not a handful of other performers worthy of occasional mention in the lead-up to Tokyo?
I hear we swim pretty well. Our track jocks are decent. So are our rowers, softball players, volleyball players, wrestlers, boxers and so on. Could we get a little information about a few of those people?
That’s all. Good on ya, Ms. Biles. And on the other 554 folks wearing the colors.
THE POPULAR NOTION is the Reds will trade Nick Castellanos if they judge themselves to be out of contention. That very likely won’t happen.
One, the notion any Central-ite will put considerable space between themselves and Cincinnati in the next month or so doesn’t seem likely. Every team is warted.
Warted, Doc?
No one is more sensitive to attendance numbers than The Big Man. No one is more reluctant to deal popular players, no one believes more that popular players sell tickets.
That’s why the Reds waited too long to trade Aroldis Chapman and Todd Frazier and Johnny Cueto. That’s why they won’t move Castellanos.
That said, they drew just 16,332 last night.
AND FINALLY. . . I love those adfotainment blurbs at the bottom of online news content. You know: 40 Best Small Towns for Guacamole Lovers. Here’s one I saw this AM:
40 Things Boomers Still Think Are Cool.
I’m proud to note that I nodded yes to a very few. I do not, for example, think there’s anything cool about the mall, and never have. I don’t write a lot of checks anymore, I’ve stopped wearing Hawaiian shirts (OK, my wife threw them out) I’ve never carried a briefcase or worn Velcro shoes. I haven’t tucked in a polo shirt for a decade at least.
I do, however, still use e-mail.
And it’s AOL.
OH MY GOD!
I didn’t know until recently that you can be judged by the e-mail you use. AOL isn’t for Boomers. It’s for people who think Lawrence Welk is groovy. NO ONE uses AOL.
Except me.
I have a G-Mail account, too. I hear that’s acceptable. But my AOL account is loud and proud and in its 25th big-league season. I’m supposed to ditch it because it’s not cool?
I mean, it’s an e-mail address. You shallow kids gonna judge the OG for an e-mail address?
Send your snark to [email protected].
And if you’re Boomer-ish, tell me a possession/behavior that gives you away.
What’s Huey Lewis sing? (Huey Lewis, Hugh Anthony Cregg III, known professionally as Huey Lewis, is an American singer, songwriter, and actor. Lewis sings lead and plays harmonica for his band, Huey Lewis and the News, in addition to writing or co-writing many of the band's songs. Wikipedia)
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