The Real McCoy

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Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy is in his 36th year of covering the Cincinnati Reds, the longest tenure for any active writer covering one team. Counting spring training and postseason games, McCoy has covered more than 7,000 major-league baseball games, written close to 18,000 baseball stories and eaten enough hot dogs to give Babe Ruth indigestion.

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June 2008

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• The Joys of 600 home runs
• Griffey: Call him Mr. 600
• Griffey hits No. 600
• Of 600 - and much, much more
• Some more Griffey 'fluff'
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Home > Blogs > The Real McCoy | Cincinnati Reds baseball news > Archives > 2008 > June > 08 > Entry

Some more Griffey ‘fluff’

By Hal McCoy | Sunday, June 8, 2008, 02:08 PM

My ears are still ringing from the clanging cowbells they gave away at Saturday’s Marlins game — and there were only 25,000 in the seats. Just think of the noise if south Florida fans actually liked baseball.

They could move the Florida and Tampa Bay franchises to Peoria and Poughkeepsie and draw more fans. The Marlins give away something (other than games) nearly every night and still draw more geckos than fans.

FOR THOSE who hate Ken Griffey Jr. and consider anything nice written about him a piece of fluff, well here’s a ton of fluff for you to chew on.

Griffey did not hit home run No. 600 Sunday, but he made a hit with a mother and three kids who probably should have been escorted out of Dolphin Stadium.

During the game the mother and three boys asked Griffey for an autograph and he politely told her, “I can’t sign during the game.” The mother and the sons began ridiculing him and the mother said, “You stink and no wonder your team is losing so bad.”

Late in the game, Griffey walked close to where they were seated, handed them three autographed baseballs and silently walked away.

As for hitting No. 600, Griffey might have to use an extension ladder and a canoe paddle to hit home run No. 600 because pitchers are avoiding him like Typhoid Mary.

In the first seven games of this trip, Griffey has walked eight walks times in 18 plates appearances — and he didn’t start the first three games in Philadelphia. He made two pinch-hit appearances in Philadelphia and walked twice.

“They’re pitching him carefully, that’s for sure,” said manager Dusty Baker. “The only pitcher to come after him recently was (Philadelphia’s) Cole Hamels (Griffey was 0-for-4).”

It reached ridiculous heights Sunday when with a runner on second and one out, the Marlins intentionally walked Griffey — in the FIRST inning. It worked, though. Brandon Phillips grounded into a double play.

After saying Saturday that Griffey would get Sunday off, Baker had Griffey in the lineup. Was it because the Marlins used Sunday’s scheduled starter, left-hander Burke Badenhop, in relief Saturday and had to call up Class AA right-hander Ryan Tucker to start Sunday?

“Not so much that as it is that Griffey feels good and if he feels good he plays, plus it’s hard to sit with all his family here,” said Baker. “I try to get him out of games early to conserve and preserve him.”

In other words, Griffey talked his way into the lineup And Baker said he will play tonight.

And here’s what facing Griffey means to a kid coming up out of Double-A.

When Ryan Tucker told friends he was getting called up to the major leagues, the congratulations came first. But the teasing wasn’t far behind, especially when they realized the third batter he would face would be Griffey chasing his 600th home run.

“All my teammates in Double-A were like, ‘Don’t give it up! Don’t give it up!’ I was just trying to let that thought go because as awesome as it would have been for him to get it, I really didn’t want to give it up.

“It was pretty cool being part of the opportunity,” Tucker added. “I was trying to completely throw it to him. I was not trying to walk him. It just wasn’t going where I wanted it to go.”

And it isn’t where Griffey wants it to go, either.

ONE OF THE many delights about visiting manager Dusty Baker’s office is that there is always somebody interesting sitting in a chair by his desk, mostly old-time players.

Such was the case when I walked in their Sunday and saw Paul Casanova. Paul who?

Casanova is the last player from the Negro Leagues to make it to the majors, going from the Indianapolis Clowns to the Washington Senators in 1965. And he played for the Atlanta Braves 1972-74.

The Cuban-born catcher never played for the Reds, but is a huge fan, “Never miss a game on TV. Watch every one,” he said. On Sunday he wore a Reds hat and wrist bands.

“He ain’t lyin’ none,” said Baker. “He calls me all the time with tips and comments on my team and players and he is always, ‘Right on.’ “

Why the Reds?

“I played against ‘em when they were just starting and they were so good,” he said. “They’d be in their dugout in the seventh losing, but they’d be laughing. Then Pete Rose would say, ‘Let’s go get ‘em.’ And they’d go get ‘em.

“One time we beat them the first two games of a series so I said in the papers, ‘The Big Red Machine is done. We’re the Big Blue Tractor.’ The next day, Joe Morgan came up to me and said, ‘You shouldn’t have said that in the paper.’ Then they beat us a doubleheader and one of ‘em was by 18-4,” Casanova said with a laugh.

“One day I was catchin’ Phil Niekro’s knuckleball, tryin’ to catch it,” he said. “It was in Cincinnati and the stands cast a shadow halfway between home and the pitcher’s mound. Made it worse. A few rolled to the backstop and Johnny Bench came up to the plate, tapped my shin guards with his bat, and said, ‘If I had to catch that guy’s knuckler, I’d quit.’ “

Casanova said he played on an amateur team in Cuba in the early 1960s with Tony Perez, and one time in Venezuela Davey Concepcion was his team’s bat boy.

“He has a batting cage at his house and players go there all the time,” said Baker. “I send him over some of our old balls. The guy is something, isn’t he?”

Yes, he is.

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