The Baltimore Orioles have been awarded 70 Gold Gloves, recognizing defensive excellence, since 1957 – the most in the American League and second only to the St. Louis Cardinals.
One of my Yoga students came to class this week and asked, “What are you going to do now that there’s no baseball?”
Apparently, some people believe that I am small, uninspired, and one-dimensional in my interests.
There is plenty to do in the off season, I’m told, and I am ready to do all of it.
I won’t bore you with ALL the things I will be doing. But, I assure you there will be lots of them.
Here are just five.
1) Sort Photos.
I took hundreds of photos at baseball games this season. (Actually probably more like a thousand, but “thousand” makes me sound weirdo-y, so let’s say, hundreds and leave it at that.)
It’s time to paw through them and see who’s in there …
Former Richmond Flying Squirrel and rookie Giant Joe Panik, who just won his first.
Congratulations, Giants!
This project trumps my other photo project – sorting through my grandfather’s slides from the 1950s and ‘60s of people and places I don’t know or can’t recognize. Boxes and boxes of slide carousels fill an entire closet in our guest room. I suppose I could go through them. Or, I could put it off another year and continue to pile all the things that should be stored in the closet on the floor in our bedroom.
2) Bake.
It’s free-agent time in baseball, which means the Baltimore Orioles will cut loose many players who have multimillion-dollar paydays coming.
Yes, it’s the cruel financial reality of being a small-market team … we can no longer afford many of our best players.
Am I happy to say “goodbye” to Andrew Miller and his 94 mph fastball and spaghetti legs? No. Do I understand why the Orioles probably won’t pay $10 million+ a year to resign a one-inning reliever? No.
Also in the free-agent pool is longtime Orioles right fielder Nick Markakis. The Orioles have declined his option for 2015, but still remain hopeful they can re-sign him. Will they? Maybe. Will someone else swoop in with a better offer? Maybe.
But, not if I can help it.
I want to do my part to help collect the millions that the Orioles will need to keep Nick Markakis.
I’m thinking, bake sale.
I can’t bake enough to keep Andrew Miller, Nelson Cruz, and Nick.
I stick with Nick.
Anyway, cupcakes.
Thousand dollar cupcakes.
I encourage you to bake some cupcakes for Nick, too.
Just remember, take all the money you raise and send it to:
Baltimore Orioles
Let’s Pay Nick Fund
Camden Yards
Baltimore, Maryland
3) Care for Munchie.
Among the unusual birthday gifts Editor/Husband gave me this year was this …
Munchie.
Editor/Husband thought a venus flytrap would solve a long-standing kitchen problem.
When the compost pail gets kinda full-ish, it attracts fruit flies. Now, sure, you might take a moment to comment below with your good ideas of how to stop attracting fruit flies in our kitchen. “Take out the compost more regularly,” you might suggest, or “Get rid of the stupid compost pail.”
Your suggestions, while interesting, would be wrong.
The best and only way to deal with fruit flies is to get a venus flytrap and hope he has a taste for them.
My first question to Editor/Husband after “You got me a venus flytrap? Really?” was “Do we have to find food for him? Do we feed him meat?”
Apparently, no. You do not feed them meat.
Except all the “flytrappists” online insist you must. They say you have to buy flies and bloodworms and feed them to your plant. They do suggest you be careful, though, since many people are highly allergic to bloodworms and just touching one could kill you.
If the venus flytrap doesn’t get you first.
I’ll let you know if one of the cats goes missing.
4) Read War & Peace.
I am not kidding.
Tolstoy’s War & Peace is almost always listed as one of the greatest novels ever written. Which is funny because I know only one person who has actually read it.
None of my friends – even the fussy ones – has read it.
So, I’m reading it. Because they won’t. And, you probably won’t either.
I’m doing it for you.
Look, I’m already a quarter of the way through!
It’s actually very good.
Although, you have to wade through an awful lot of war to get to the peace parts.
Public Domain, 1903.
Napoleon Lajoie, the “Little Frenchman” and namesake of the Cleveland Naps (today, the Cleveland Indians), is not in War & Peace.
Public Domain
Napoleon Bonaparte, also a “Little Frenchman”, is.
Fun Fact: The original title for War and Peace was War – What Is It Good For? Tolstoy’s mistress didn’t like the title and insisted that he change it to War and Peace.
It rained in Virginia this week. That kind of overflowing, cold, pouring rain that makes you stop saying, “Well, we need the rain,” because, not like this. And, now there’s mud on my pants and I have to change. That sort of rain.
So, when I grabbed the basket of massage linens and began to tote them into our basement early Wednesday morning, where the washer and dryer and friendly skinks, lizards, and wolf spiders live, I was especially careful.
Because our basement is a cellar that you enter from outside, pulling up wooden dormer doors, and going down cement steps.
(Except, I wasn’t wearing catcher’s gear and there was no foul ball. So not exactly “exactly”.)
I could still be lying there in a puddle of my own carefulness. Instead, I’m just banged up.
But, unbroken.
(Caleb was fine, too, by the way.)
When you fall, it plays out in slow motion. So, in those milliseconds of disaster I saw my career crumbling into a heap of broken bones.
Actually, this is what I saw when I fell.
Wait, no … THIS is what I saw when I fell.
I’m told I could have killed myself, but really, I was just trying not to break my arm.
Once I landed on the cement – my left elbow and low back took the worst of it, for those of you who are injury-curious – and determined I was not dead, I wrote a poem.
It’s also versatile. Just change the “s” to an “f” and you have a brand new poem which celebrates rain and cement steps and nearly, but not quite, killing oneself.
Please feel free to use it whenever you need it.
I took photos of my bruises for you. They are ugly, but not quite ugly enough. I’m looking for pity here, not another lecture about how one needs to be careful when cement steps are covered in rain. The photos are more like, “Really? I thought it would have been a lot worse than that.” You’d be disappointed. They don’t help my case at all. So, nevermind.
I’m lucky.
But, my very bad, but unbroken, morning, got very, very badder as the Baltimore Orioles were swept out of the playoffs that afternoon by the pesky Kansas City Royals.
The cement steps couldn’t break my bones.
But, baseball broke my heart.
(I’ve been waiting all week to write that for you.)
Let’s cover a few post-season and World Series topics …
#1) The Kansas City Royals won, fair and square. Congratulations! You swept two of the best teams in baseball to make your way to your first World Series since 1985. That’s pretty awesome.
Whining by Orioles fans who think it’s unfair that there’s a wild card team even in the mix, because wild cards often reflect currently “hot” teams, rather than “consistently consistent” teams, were unusually quiet when the Orioles were the wild card team in 2012.
The Royals will be tough to beat … but …
#2) Go Giants.
Because, they’re almost a home team for Virginia and Orioles fans.
(That home run call? That’s Giants radio broadcaster, Jon Miller – beloved, former Orioles broadcaster.)
Giants reliable, reliever Javier Lopez? Grew up in Fairfax, Virginia; played for the University of Virginia.
The Richmond Flying Squirrels (Giants AA team), and just an hour down the road from here, has included Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, Matt Duffy, Joe Panik, and Ryan Vogelsong (rehab, 2013).
And, Giants Manager Bruce Bochy? He played for the AAA Tides when they were in Tidewater, Virginia (and a Mets farm club) back in 1981-1982.
It’s not my preferred orange and black, but it will have to do.
KC Pitcher (& former Oriole) Jeremy Guthrie & his stupid tee-shirt, following Game 3.
Oh, one last thing …
After the Orioles loss, Casey Karp – Mariners fan, cat person, and author of the especially fine Koi Scribblings blog (really, check it out) – arranged for me to drown my baseball sorrows in ice cream.
Last week, Baltimore Orioles first baseman, home-runny guy Chris Davis was suspended for 25 games for failing his second drug test. He used Adderall, an amphetamine that is restricted by Major League Baseball.
I wrote about the messy business of drug testing and cheating and Chris Davis here.
And, here’s the weird thing I just discovered.
I started this blog in 2012. That was the summer that Giants outfielder Melky Cabrera was suspended for using performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) and failing a drug test.
And, I wrote back then about Cabrera and the messy business of drug testing and cheating. (Which you can read here.)
In my post last week about Davis, I was conflicted. I don’t like cheaters, but hey, we all make mistakes and do stupid things from time to time, right?
Right?
Was I mad at Chris Davis? Disappointed? Could I ever trust him again?
The last words of that post on Friday … “I just don’t know.”
When I wrote about Melky Cabrera in 2012, I couldn’t decide either. Was I mad at him? Disappointed? Could I ever trust him again?
The last words of that post … “I just don’t know.”
That I ended both posts exactly the same way – unknowingly – means what? That I’m hopelessly conflicted? Unable to find the black-and-white answer in a gray-area world? Utterly predictable? Or, that I’m my only plagiarist?
I just don’t know.
Just like the strike zone, balks, the ever-changing rules about blocking the plate, the phantom “almost tags” at second on double plays … baseball might seem black and white on the outside, but inside the rules can get a bit mooshy.
To ban Adderall for some players, but allow it for others? I just don’t know. It doesn’t seem so black and white after all.
Yes, Chris Davis broke the rules. He admitted that. He’s serving his suspension.
But, as CBS Sports reports, Davis may be one of the few players who isn’t “faking” his ADD diagnosis. Read here.
And, there is this.
Yesterday, with no game to go to (because of that suspension thing) Davis was on his way to the airport to pick up some friends. He came across an accident on 295 outside of Baltimore, stopped, flagged down help, and helped right an overturned truck that had pinned one of its occupants.
So, he may have done a bad thing. But, he’s also does good things.
How can I stay mad at someone who helps out like that?
How can I stay mad when the Baltimore Orioles are one win away from clinching the American League East title?
No expert predicted it (except The Baseball Bloggess). And, it hasn’t been easy.
Orioles All-Star catcher Matt Wieters? Out since May with a season-ending elbow injury. Orioles All-Star third baseman Manny Machado? Out at the beginning of the season and out again since August with a season-ending knee injury. All-Star first baseman Chris Davis? Out (we’ve covered this).
The Orioles are about to win the AL East title with the help of a bunch of non-All-Star Other Guys. How cool is that!
It’s been a long time, too. The last time the Orioles won their division was 1997.
In 1997, there were no blogs. No iPods, iPhones, or iPads. Chris Davis was 11. Manny Machado was 5. And, we all thoughtthis songwas great …
“The weather may be tricky or a bat may slip or a ball may bounce in some unexpected way; now and then the best man may go stale or lose his nerve; the professional honor of the player, however, has been taken for granted. We do not trust cashiers, diplomats, policemen, or physicians as we trust an outfielder or shortstop. … The man at the bat, cheer him or hoot at him as we may, is supposed to be doing his best.” ~ The Nation magazine, October 13, 1920
Baltimore Orioles first baseman (and home-run slugger) Chris Davis was suspended today for 25 games for testing positive for Adderall, an amphetamine, which is restricted by Major League Baseball.
Chris Davis
His suspension means he will miss the rest of the regular season and the first eight games of the post-season – should the Orioles get that far.
Davis was having a weirdly unsuccessful (.196), successful (26 home runs) sort of season.
So, sure, it’s a weirdly insurmountable (who will hit home runs now?), surmountable (Nelson Cruz, Adam Jones, Steve Pearce, and all those other guys) problem for the Orioles as they make a run toward the post-season (something they’ve done only one other time this century).
I am mad at Chris Davis. Because I trusted him not to be stupid.
(Trusting guys in their 20s to not be stupid, I realize, is stupid. I have just put my head down on the keyboard in shame.)
I am mad at Chris Davis because he cheated and now he is screwing up everything. He has let down his team and fans. (If we don’t win the World Series this year – no matter what happens – I will blame him.)
But, I’m also mad at Orioles fans who have been whining since the news broke this morning, “He wasn’t really cheating. Adderall isn’t a performance-enhancing drug (PED). It’s not that bad. Oh, why does everyone gang up on the Orioles?”
Let me clear something up, you whining tweeters.
Yes, yes, he was cheating. Yes, it is that bad. And, no one was ganging up on the Orioles. Chris Davis broke the rules.
Davis used a drug he did not have permission to use. (He had a “therapeutic use exemption” for Adderall in previous seasons. He does not have it now.) This is his second offense – hence the 25-game suspension which begins today.
Adderall, used for Attention Deficit Disorders in children and adolescents, is one of those sneaky gray-area drugs. Its benefits to athletes aren’t physically obvious – with steroids you can see the effects in the beefy muscles and resulting power. Adderall acts more like a super dose of caffeine, enhancing concentration, focus, and reaction time.
Dr. Gary Wadler, a former chair of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s Prohibited List Committee, told The Seattle Times in 2012 that Adderall is “one of the quintessential performance-enhancing drugs.”
Adderall, he said, “masks fatigue, masks pain, increases arousal — like being in The Zone. … It increases alertness, aggressiveness, attention, and concentration. It improves reaction time, especially when fatigued. Some think it enhances hand-eye coordination. Some believe it increases the mental aspects of performance.”
(Apparently, it does not enhance the “mental aspects” of making good decisions.)
Since Adderall has very little therapeutic value in adults, it’s curious that baseball offers exemptions to players. Nearly 10 percent of current major league players have an exemption.
And, Jayson Stark of ESPN pointed out: “Athletes who have taken it have told me that once you’re used to playing your sport when you’re taking Adderall, it’s incredibly difficult to play without it.”
Oh, sure, you wisenheimers can argue that Adderall was doing a lousy job of enhancing Chris Davis’ .196 batting average this year. But, you’re just being cheeky.
Davis had permission to take Adderall in the past, perhaps even during last year’s monster 53 home run season. If something gives you an edge or a boost or helps you achieve amazing things it can’t be easy to just up and quit. And, Adderall is highly addictive.
But, rules are rules and the rules say this – you cannot take Adderall without an exemption. Pretty simple.
I hate writing posts like this. (I’ve written this blog for two years and every season I’ve had to sigh and try to make sense of some cheater or other – relive previous cheatery here.)
I hate when stupid and ugly things get in the way of the game that I love.
Orioles rightfielder Nick Markakis has been outspoken regarding PED use in baseball.
Nick Markakis
In an interview with The Baltimore Sun last season, Markakis said of players who fail drug tests, “These guys are big boys; they can make decisions. If I go out there and rob a convenience store, I know the consequences that are coming with it. We are all adults here.”
He continued: “These guys that are doing performance-enhancing drugs are taking away from a lot of other people that are doing it the right way. They are taking opportunities away and they are basically stealing.”
“I’m sorry” goes a long way with me. I forgave Nelson Cruz. (Cruz served a 50-game suspension for failing a drug test last season. He apologized.)
I’ll forgive you, too, Chris.
But, trust?
I still trust Nick Markakis.
Everyone else? I just don’t know.
Photos: Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore, Maryland. August 10, 2014
“Remember, one cannot throw a successful party without successful guests.” ~ Amy Sedaris
I promise you this story is true.
This week I learned from The Washington Postthat Baltimore Orioles’ outfielder Nelson Cruz provides home-cooked Dominican meals to the Dominican ballplayers on other teams who visit Baltimore during the season. Cruz is not alone in this courtesy – apparently a whole lot of Dominican players make sure that visiting players are well fed with “food from home.”
I decided that if Cruz could be such a good host to his guests, then I should make some authentic Dominican beans and rice for you, my blog guests. (And, to be honest, I really wanted to know what was so special about Dominican food that players felt the need to create this underground home-cooking pipeline.)
And, as I stood in line at the grocery store this morning – my cart filled with the fixings – I said to Editor/Husband, “If Nelson Cruz hits a home run today, he can come to dinner, too.”
I think Nellie heard me.
Because, he hit two. And, a triple. And, had ALL seven RBI in a game the Orioles won 7-5 over the Tampa Bay Rays. Here’s one …
Holy cow, these beans are magic!
Eleven percent of major league ballplayers today are from the Dominican Republic.
“I love my Dominican food,” Cruz told The Post. “And the day I don’t eat my rice and Dominican food, I don’t feel good. I know other Dominicans feel that way, too. Knowing how they suffer away from home, I try to make their day and visit more comfortable by bringing them food, too.”
Cruz is on his way to Boston this evening (where I hope David Ortiz of the Red Sox will have a hearty meal waiting for him).
I sure wish I could share this meal and make your day more comfortable. Because it was deee-licious.
At least I can share my recipe.
And, it’s worth the trouble to soak the beans and find the proper ingredients. (Every Latin ingredient you need should be at your local grocery, although Editor/Husband and I had a very nice time checking out all the corner mercados in nearby Culpeper yesterday.)
From here on out, these are …
Nelson’s Magic Beans & Rice with Sautéed Vegetables
(Feeds Nelson Cruz and a couple other friends)
One-half lb. dried red kidney beans
(To soften beans: In a big pot, pour 5 cups boiling water over the beans and let them sit overnight. They’ll plump up and you’ll have about 4 cups of beans after soaking.)
For the Beans & Rice:
One-half red onion, chopped fine
One-half Cubanelle pepper, chopped fine
One clove garlic, chopped
2 TBS fresh cilantro, chopped
2 TBS olive oil
1-1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground pepper
2 tsp fresh (or 1 tsp dried) thyme
1 TBS Sofrito (Goya has MSG. I’ll make my own next time.)
1 pack Sazon Tropical (Badio brand only. Easy to make your own … but this one is MSG free and works a-ok.)
1 TBS apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup alcaparrados, chopped (it’s a mixture of olives and capers. Be sure to pit the olives!)
4 oz. Spanish tomato sauce (Goya brand)
1 bay leaf
2 cups rice
2+ cups vegetable broth
Here’s what you’ll need. (I don’t know why that celery’s in there.)
In a medium pot, add softened beans, salt, and 5 cups of water. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to medium-low and cook for an hour … or maybe a little more. Drain and set the beans aside (save the liquid).
In the pot, add olive oil, onion, pepper, garlic, cilantro. Sauté on medium for a few minutes to soften.
Add salt, pepper, thyme, sofrito, sazon, and vinegar. Stir well.
Add the olives/capers, tomato sauce, and bay leaf. Return the beans to the pot and stir.
Cook on medium for about 5 minutes. (Add a splash of the bean water if things seem too dry.)
Rinse the rice and add to the pot. Stir in vegetable broth.
Bring to a boil. Turn heat way down and cover tightly. White rice will take about 25-30 minutes. Check after 15 minutes; if it’s getting dry add some of the bean water to moisten. Cover again and finish the cooking. When rice is tender, take off heat and let it rest while you make …
Vegetable Sauté:
1 TBS olive oil
1 TBS butter
4 cups of whatever fresh summer vegetables you have, chopped. (I used one small eggplant, a red pepper, a stalk of celery, and a zucchini.)
One-half cup corn (frozen or fresh)
2 tsp dried oregano
1-1/2 tsp capers
Salt/Pepper to taste
2 cups spinach chopped
2 TBS cilantro, chopped
A little bit of that leftover bean water (I told you to keep it!)
In a skillet or sauté pan, heat the oil and butter together. Add the fresh vegetables, cook until they just begin to soften. Add the corn, oregano, capers, salt, and pepper.
Stir occasionally until all the vegetables are just cooked through. (10 to 20 minutes depending on what vegetables you have.) If things get dry, add a few spoonfuls of the leftover bean water.
Fold in spinach and cilantro.
Cook just until spinach wilts and turns bright green.
I’m off from work today. Cleaning the house and doing the chorey sorts of things you do when you’re not working.
Editor/Husband is away, so apologies, in advance, for ramble-on sentences, the spirited overuse of unwords like “untrustable” and “chorey,” and excessive smugness.
Also, no baseball.
A few months ago, I chatted with a telephone scammer named Sam, who, when I asked him why he chose to be a crook, started yelling at me. Not the road to redemption, Sam. Click here for the story of Sam and Me.
Today, the phone rang and it was Nancy!
Nancy, like Sam, wanted to help me rid myself of malicious files that were on my computer.
Oh, Nancy! How I’ve been waiting for your call.
I wasted a lot of Nancy’s time. I had her walk me through my computer and where to find certain keys on my keyboard like “Control” and the letter “R”, which she graciously did in her broken, but-better-than-Sam’s, English.
I had trouble finding the “control” key on my keyboard and she had to wait patiently while I fussed around – key by key – to find it. “Wait, here it is. Nothing happens when I press it though. Is nothing supposed to happen, Nancy?”
This went on for almost seven minutes. (This is what happens when Editor/Husband is away and I’m trying to be tidy. I get bored with cleaning litter boxes and look for a call from someone – anyone, even a criminal – to waste some time with.)
“Nancy this isn’t working. Should I get offline? Maybe I’m messing this up. Let’s start over.”
She was getting frustrated. “You need to listen to what I tell you.”
“I am listening. Is nothing supposed to happen, when I press this, Nancy? Listen! I’m pressing it.” I put the phone up against the keyboard as I madly rattled it. I tried to sound flustered. (My performance? Brilliant.)
Nancy’s voice got edgy and she started speaking very slowly because, obviously, she was dealing with a dolt. “You need to press the control key with the other key at the exact same time. I am telling you what to do.”
“I know, Nancy, I’m sorry, I really am trying! I must be doing something wrong. Let’s go back to the ‘My Computer’ screen. I think I can figure it out from there.”
It was sort of fun, and I was just about to ask her if she knew Sam, which would lead me into the question I really wanted to ask – “How in the world did you end up in a business meant to cheat people? How did you end up a crook?”
And, then Nancy interrupted me. “I see you don’t want to cooperate so I’m going to end this call. Goodbye.”
I made a scammer hang up on me.
(Although, to her credit, she did say “goodbye.”)
This is incredibly disappointing because now Nancy, like Sam before her, has ruined my post.
According to the National Consumers League, thousands of illegal telemarketing operations, full of Nancys and Sams, are scamming in the United States every day.
They’ll keep calling and I’ll keep asking them how they got into the crookery business.
Eventually, one of them will tell me.
And, I will finally get the post I’ve been waiting for.
In the meantime, back to the litter boxes.
Stevie says this post — and her wait for a clean litter box — has taken entirely too long.
A few years ago, when I was quite small, my mom got me this …
(And, by “a few years ago”, I mean, “some years ago” … maybe “a few of a few years past” … and, well … you know, math is stupid.)
Anyway, not quite 100 years ago, my mom got me this …
For those of you who are older than magnets (you know who you are), Wooly Willy’s bare head was surrounded by metal shavings. So, with the “magic” magnetic pencil you could move the shavings around and give Willy hair and a beard and a mustache.
(So, really, you were just creating your own version of the Red Sox.)
As a very precocious youngster, who didn’t quite understand the connection between metal and magnets, I decided it would be interesting if, before fixing Willy’s hair, I could first examine the metal shavings up close. So I broke into my Wooly Willy and poured the shavings on the ground.
(And, by “on the ground”, I mean, on the asphalt, because we were still in the parking lot of Long’s Drug, where we had gotten the thing just five minutes earlier.)
This didn’t improve my understanding of metallurgy. But, it did massively annoy my mother. And, having broken the plastic lid, I never did get to give Willy a metal beard or mohawk, because no way, no how, was my mom getting me another one.
The moral of this story is simple.
Don’t trust children with things.
Really, anything.
Most important, don’t trust children with things that are meaningful to you. Like the foul ball you just caught.
“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.” ~ Mark Twain
I was feeling pretty good about capturing last night’s “supermoon.”
Then, Mr. I’m-A-Very-Smart-Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson had to go and spoil it.
Thanks for bumming out my moon photos.
So here.
Not-So-Supermoon-afterall.
And, here’s a cow with the Not-So-Supermoon.
Here are lots of cows stampeding past the Not-So-Supermoon, becoming Ghost Cows in the process.
Not-So-Supermoon, feelings hurt by the rudeness of Astrophysicist, packs it in and heads for the clouds.
We spent Sunday’s pre-Supermoon daylight hours in Baltimore at the Orioles-Cardinals game (three-hour drive – each way – for those of you who wonder just how dedicated I am to baseball).
Here’s Super-Pitcher, But Not-Quite-So-Super-Today Kevin Gausman.
Here’s Rookie Catcher Caleb Joseph. He homered in each of his last five games, a club record for catchers.
Today?
Not-so-super. And, no home run.
Here’s Ever-Reliable Super Right Fielder Nick Markakis.
Still super.
Although 4-for-5 at the plate, he scored only twice, once thanks to a wild pitch. Thanks for nothing, rest of team.
On July 11, 1914, George Herman Ruth played his first major league game. He had recently joined the Boston Red Sox and was already known as “Babe”.
He pitched seven innings, gave up three runs (two earned), and got a no decision in a 4-3 win over the Cleveland Naps (later the Indians).
He went 0-for-2 at the plate. His first major league at bat? A strike out.
SDN-061193, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago History Museum. (1917)
He became the greatest ballplayer ever. (This is not even worth arguing over.)
If you want the stats, you can find plenty online.
But, how about some other Ruthian notes on this auspicious day?
He Was Born In Baltimore (And Lived In Centerfield)
According to the plaque at Baltimore’s Camden Yards: “During the early 1900’s, Babe Ruth and his family lived at 406 Conway Street in what is now centerfield of Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Babe’s father operated Ruth’s Café on the ground floor of the residence.”
The Café? A polite way of saying saloon.
Adam Jones, Orioles Centerfielder. Camden Yards.
Ruth Was A Catcher (Before He Was A Pitcher, Before He Was The Sultan of Swat)
While at St. Mary’s – a reform school/orphanage for wayward boys where Ruth was sent by his family for being “incorrigible” – he began to play as part of a formal school baseball league. He was a star of the league and played catcher – a lefty catcher (a rarity then and now).
Public Domain image. (1913)
Babe Ruth, Catcher. St. Mary’s. Back Row, Center.
He later moved to pitcher and in 1913, his last year at St. Mary’s, according to historian Robert Creamer, he homered in nearly every game he played and was undefeated in every game he pitched.
The Baltimore Orioles Signed Ruth To His First Professional Contract (But, Not Those Orioles)
Yes, the Baltimore Orioles did sign Babe Ruth to his first professional baseball contract in 1914. (His salary: $100 a month.)
But, no, it was not the historic 1890s-era Baltimore Orioles that eventually moved to New York and evolved into the Yankees. (They were long gone by 1914.)
And, no, it wasn’t the current Baltimore Orioles. They have only been in Baltimore since 1954, and were previously the St. Louis Browns.
The Baltimore Orioles that signed Ruth were a minor league team in the International League – a team that was originally based in Montreal.
The Orioles weren’t even the most popular baseball team in Baltimore that year. They played a woeful second fiddle to the Baltimore Terrapins, a Federal League team.
They couldn’t compete with the popular Terps and Ruth was quickly sold to the Boston Red Sox. The next season, those Orioles packed up and headed to Richmond, Virginia.
SDN-061536, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago History Museum. (1918)
Babe Ruth and two other Orioles were sold to the Red Sox in July 1914 for a reported $25,000.
Baby Ruth Candy Bars Were Not Named For Babe Ruth (Except That They Were)
The Curtiss Candy Company always claimed they named the Baby Ruth bar for Ruth Cleveland, President Grover Cleveland’s daughter who died at age 12 in 1904, which was nearly 20 years before the candy bar even appeared.
More likely is that the Curtiss Candy Company jumped on the Babe Ruth bandwagon, but Ruth Cleveland was a convenient back story that would allow them to avoid paying Babe for his image, likeness, name, and endorsement.
Should you wish to argue that Babe Ruth and Baby Ruth are two completely different names: Reporters of the day would, on occasion, refer to the Babe as “Baby Ruth” and here’s some proof of that.
In the 1990s, Nestlé, which now owns the brand, contracted with the Ruth family to use the Babe’s image in their marketing.
Although, Nestlé seems to have put Baby in the corner these days – Baby Ruths aren’t even listed on their chocolate page. (Aero Bars? They’re horrible.)
A candy bar melted into a brownie? With cream cheese? The Babe would definitely put his name on that!
Ruth Played Where The Sun Don’t Shine
In 1922, Ruth lost a fly ball in the sun while playing left field at New York’s Polo Grounds.
After that, Ruth determined what position he would play from game to game, based on where the sun would shine in the outfield in every stadium – always avoiding the “sun field.”
At the Polo Grounds and in Yankee Stadium, for instance, he would always be in right field. At Boston’s Fenway Park, however, he would forever after play in left.
He didn’t literally build it. He did, however, have basic tailoring skills and while at St. Mary’s briefly worked at a shirt factory. His job was to attach collars and he was paid six cents a collar.
I’m Related To Babe
Seriously. But, not Babe Ruth.
My mom was named Julie at birth, but everyone in the family and most everyone in town knew her as Babe. Her high school yearbook lists her as Babe, too. She was called Babe, she said, because she was the youngest in her family and the youngest in her class.
Sadly, her daughter’s witty jokes about her being named for Babe Ruth or Babe the Blue Ox were wholly unappreciated.
But get this …
In the 1930s, Babe Ruth discovered that he was a year older than he had been told he was, when he had to produce a certified birth certificate in order to get his passport.
In the 1990s, Babe, my mom, discovered that she was a year older than she had been told she was, when she had to produce a certified birth certificate in order to get Social Security.
On July 11, 1914, George Herman Ruth played his first major league game. He had recently joined the Boston Red Sox and was already known as “Babe”.
