Kevin Costner stars and Kelly Preston co-stars in this romance/baseball yarn about a 20-year veteran and future Hall-of-Fame pitcher who has one last game to pitch with his current team, the Detroit Tigers. Billy Chapel, the character played by Kev, “is forced to reexamine his life” and has many decisions to make about baseball (he’s been traded and the owner has sold the team) and about his NYC-based girlfriend, Jane Aubrey (Kelly Preston), who wants to leave him. John C. Reilly (Magnolia, Never Been Kissed) plays Gus Sinski, the tough, loyal and steadfast personal catcher. The movie is based on a fine best-selling novel by Michael Shaara and was directed by Sam Raimi, who has given us a number of horror/slash movies, some Xena and Hercules stuff, The Quick and the Dead and A Simple Plan.

For Love of the Game has Kev finally back where he belongs — in baseball. It’s a great story, with a pretty good director at the helm. John C. Reilly plays a terrific sidekick. And it has the beautiful and intriguing Mrs. John Travolta as the love interest. If you think this is the recipe for a great movie, you’re probably right. However, in this case you’d be wrong. This movie is the Godfather, Part III in the so-called Kevin Costner trilogy of baseball movies.

(more…)

By Raymond Mileur

St. Louis — I sat behind home plate that Sunday and watched Mark McGwire hit a monster bash well into the left-field upper deck. This was Big Mac’s second home run of the day — the 536th of his career — and it tied him with Mickey Mantle for the eighth spot on the all-time home run list. I didn’t realize it until I got home after the game.

Somehow, I missed the story.

I grew up a Mickey Mantle fan. In 1964 I rooted for the Yankees against my now-favorite St. Louis Cardinals. The Cards beat the Yanks in seven games, but Mickey remained “the greatest.” An excerpt from All My Octobers, the former New York Times Bestseller by Mickey Mantle and Mickey Herskowitz, sums it all up:

“To all Americans, Mickey Mantle epitomizes the Golden Age of American Sport: He is the quintessential hero of a time when much was right with the world, and nothing was ever wrong with the Yankees.”

Mickey was an athletic phenomenon in the greatest dynasty baseball has ever seen: the days when he and his Yankee teammates made it to twelve World Series in just fourteen years. However, as the reporters scrambled to McGwire’s locker after the game that Sunday, the focus was again on the home runs. Lost was the fact the Cardinals were losing games that they should have been winning, losing 8 of their last 11 games and they were lucky to get out of town without being swept by the Dodgers at home. All focus was on the fact that the Cardinal slugger had just passed Jimmie Foxx and tied Mickey Mantle in the same day in career home runs.

“But like I’ve said before, it’s all not really going to sink in until I retire,” McGwire said. “I’m passing Hall of Famers, but I have got a lot left in me.”

The press and the fans have McGwire chasing Mike Schmidt for Number 7 on the list (just 12 more homers) and then onto Reggie Jackson’s 563 (27 to go). Then comes Harmon Killebrew at 573 and Frank Robinson’s 586. By the end of this season it is conceivable that Big Mac will only trail Willie Mays, Babe Ruth and Henry Aaron. As for McGwire, he is just playing baseball.

So I missed the story that day — for at least for awhile. Or perhaps everyone else missed it.

You see, Mark McGwire is in St. Louis to win a Championship and a World Series ring. He plays baseball, and he knows the home runs will come, but he would give up all the home runs in the future if it would help the Cardinals win it all now.

The real story is that McGwire is not playing against Mickey Mantle, Mike Schmidt, Reggie Jackson, Harmon Killebrew or the rest of the members on the home run list. He is playing against the Astros, Reds, Pirates, Cubs, Brewers and the rest of the National League for a pennant and return to the World Series.

The Mickey Mantle home run record Big Mac would like to break is Mantle’s mark of 18 World Series home runs. McGwire has one homer in three World Series appearances with the Oakland A’s. Perhaps he’ll get his chance to close the gap this season.

McGwire turns 37 this October and shows no signs of slowing down. In 1998 when he hit 70 homers, Mac homered once every 7.3 at-bats. This year he is hitting one every 5.9 at-bats. It is conceivable that if the Cardinals can pull it together, McGwire could have a chance to break Mickey Mantle’s coveted World Series home run record with just to three trips to the October classic. It could be possible if each Series goes the full seven games.

But he has to get there first.

We are witnessing history as we watch this great slugger — he is the best there is and perhaps ever was — but a few more trips to the post-season would close out a Hall of Fame career in style.

A World Championship, not another home run record — that’s the story.

I’ll see you at the ballpark, and God bless Mark McGwire and Mickey Mantle.

(originally published in Baseball Ink Vol. 1, No. 3 – December 2000)

By Dan Zamudio

Bat boy

Steady
breeze rustles his
oversized uniform
as he kneels outside our home team
dugout

and waits
patiently for
the moment when both hands
will hold smooth pine still trembling from
a hit.

Confucius says

Only two things can last forever:

an old baseball mitt
with softened leather
and a double-header
delayed by
stormy weather.

Baseball Riddle

A ll professional
L eagues forbid its
U se.
M ade to be
I ndestructible.
N ever cracks.
U nfilled inside the
M iddle.

B aseball’s
A ttempt to save
T rees.

Dan Zamudio is a Chicago writer and lifelong Cub fan who recently forced his tired girlfriend to take three
rolls of action photos while he played catch with strangers on Wrigley Field after a long tour. Dan’s baseball poems can also be seen in the 2001 issue of SABR’s “The National Pastime”.

(originally published in Baseball Ink Vol. 1, No. 3 – December 2000)

Recently, I took on a new position with a company that has its headquarters in Melbourne, Florida. Since my boss is in Florida and I live in Maryland, I travel to the Sunshine State about once a month.

Last month on my return from my regularly scheduled trip to the home office, I was waiting to board a plane in the Melbourne International Airport. I see a very large man nod at the ticket taker and board the plane.

Wait a second, I say…that’s someone famous. A sports figure….

Hey, I know I know that guy!

Football…no, I wouldn’t recognize a lineman.

Basketball? Nah, too wide a body.

Baseball – yeah, that’s…that’s…that’s Cecil Fielder. The guy who went to Japan after five mediocre major league seasons to hone up on his baseball skills. The guy who returned to the States after a couple of years and signed with the only team that would have him – the Detroit Tigers. And then in his first season back became the first guy to hit 50 dingers in about 20 years. He led the league in taters and ribbies a time or two and became one of the most feared power hitters of the 1990′s.

So, now what do I do? Yeah, I am a sports fan and especially a fan of baseball. I am in the midst of greatness. I want to yell at him. I want to ask him for his autograph. I want to sit down and talk baseball with him. I know – I’ll tell him I am a writer of some renown for quarterly magazine called “Baseball Ink.” No, that would only turn him off. I want to ask him how many homers he’d be hitting now that the ball is juiced and everyone seems to be able to hit 50 (or 60 or 70). I want to ask him a bazillion questions….

I also want to be a “cool” baseball fan. Not like the others. I want to show him that not only do I know who he is, but I respect him and his privacy.

I want to leave him alone.

No, I don’t – I want to talk with someone who REALLY knows baseball. He’s been a STAR in THE SHOW! The closest I got to greatness previously was when I saw Lou Brock outside the Homer-Dome in Minneapolis at the ’87 World Series. All I could muster then was a “Hi, Lou.”

“Hi, Lou”??? From the biggest Cardinal fan outside the state of Missouri? What the hell is wrong with me? What the hell was I thinking?

So, what do I do? I’m in a dilemma. I’m in a dilemma in an enigma in a puzzle in a Rubik’s cube. My eight-year-old inner-self is screaming at me like the proverbial angel on my shoulder. My 43-year-old outer-self is trying to calm me down like the proverbial devil on my other shoulder.

I board the plane – me a coach-rider and weary business traveler. I know Cecil is in first-class – the way I know George Washington was the first president. As I walk through the first-class cabin I look for him, find him and hope he looks at me, so I can….

WHAT? So, I can WHAT? Prove to him then and there that I am a baseball fan??? Talk about his philosophy of hitting? Ask him what it was like to hit off Nolan Ryan? WHAT? WHAT CAN I DO IN THE SPLIT SECOND THAT HE AND I MAKE EYE CONTACT????

He’s looking pensively out the window. He doesn’t look up. My “problem” is solved.

I walk by – saying and doing nothing. I tell myself that I did the right thing by leaving him alone. I go to my seat and sit there. I don’t pull out the six-month-old airline monthly. I don’t read USA Today. I don’t read the latest best-selling novel. I don’t listen to my CDs. I don’t even eat my peanuts.

I think.

I think of what I should have said, should have done; what I should say and do the next time I brush against greatness….

I still don’t know precisely what that is…but at that time, THE NEXT TIME…I’ll be ready!

(originally published in Baseball Ink Vol. 1, No. 3 – December 2000)

By Mike McCann

Mike McCann has been a baseball fan as long as he can remember. He has a goal to visit every major and minor league baseball stadium. This regularly-appearing column will follow the progress of “Bunko” and his quest.

The 2000 season was a good one for me. I was able to see 26 major and minor league baseball games in 18 different stadiums. The eight new stadiums conquered this year were: Delmarva Shorebirds (Salisbury, MD), New Haven (CT) Ravens, Texas Rangers, Capital City Bombers, Sacramento River Cats, Oakland A’s, Queens (NY) Kings and Jamestown (NY) Jammers. Quite an interesting combination, if you ask me.

One of the highlights of this season was my trip to South Carolina. I hadn’t been on a real vacation since 1996 when I went on a road trip to Toronto (five games in six days). Now I finally had my chance to go on another road trip. My girlfriend, Steph (I’m sure you remember her from my last story), has relatives in Columbia, SC. We thought that it would be fun to drive from here in the Philadelphia area to the middle of South Carolina. Yes, I am that insane.

We had planned on going in the middle of July because that fit into our schedules best. Unfortunately, the trip needed to be pushed back a few days because I had to go to Ft. Worth, TX on business. I did, however, get to see a Rangers game, so the trip was definitely worthwhile. The Ballpark at Arlington is an extremely nice stadium — it reminds me of Camden Yards in Baltimore. (These are two ballparks which you should visit if given the opportunity.) I flew back from Texas on Friday, and Steph and I left for South Carolina on Sunday. We didn’t stop very often, and we encountered very little traffic, so the drive down took only about 10 hours. Making good time makes me happy.

Columbia is favorably located for a quest like mine. A good number of baseball teams that play in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia are within a few-hour driving radius of Columbia. Additionally, we were fortunate to with Steph’s family. When possible, I try to find people to stay with when I travel places for baseball games. In addition to being more personable than bunking in a motel, I can benefit from someone who knows the area to give little pointers about things I normally wouldn’t think about.

On Monday, Steph and I drove to Augusta, GA. We did the touristy thing during the day (the Riverwalk is pretty nice). Around 5:00 o’clock, we decided to get dinner. Immediately after we got inside the restaurant, it started pouring. Nothing like a good summer thunderstorm, unless, of course, you want to go to a baseball game that night. Around 5:30, the rain subsided and we made it to Lake Olmstead Stadium, home of the Augusta Greenjackets, around 6:00 o’clock. After a few minutes of waiting for the gates to open, we were informed that the game was being cancelled because the field was flooded. That was not the news that I wanted to hear. We said that we had come all the way from Philly to see them, so they were kind enough to let us walk around the stadium.

After a little while, we decided that we should head out. Soon thereafter, we ran into J. P. Alexander, the publisher and editor of Baseball Ink. What an amazing coincidence! (All right, you figured me out — we planned to meet at the baseball game, but it sounds better if it is a coincidence.) It was great to be able to meet up with somebody else who is a big baseball fan like me. I always enjoy meeting others who share the same interests to trade stories and insight.

When we arrived back in Columbia, we found out that there were still tickets available for the Major League All-Star Game the next day. Atlanta isn’t a very long drive from Columbia, and you don’t get an opportunity like that very often. When the game was in Philadelphia in 1996, I had no chance at getting tickets. Unfortunately, by the time that we called Atlanta for tickets, the game was sold out. Another near miss. We did spend Tuesday in Charleston, SC, another great place to visit, although you can’t see everything in just one day.

On Wednesday, we planned on seeing a Capital City Bombers game at Capital City Stadium in Columbia. The stadium isn’t really anything special, but it was a pretty good game. The Bombers mounted a comeback in the 9th by scoring two runs, but they eventually fell short. The visiting Augusta Greenjackets ended up winning, 7-6.

Wait, that isn’t much of a road trip. I drove all that way for just one game? I guess that vacations are more than just seeing baseball games…sometimes. I’ll do my best to keep you informed of my travels. Hope you are able to get out to a game yourself soon!

(originally published in Baseball Ink Vol. 1, No. 3 – December 2000)