Just bragging here, your humble (?) reporter was the first member of the general public to learn of this fact. Truth!
June 26, 2016
Breaking News From The Reds HOF
You read it here first; This is the hallowed spot where the Pete Rose plaque will be on display at the Reds HOF:
Just bragging here, your humble (?) reporter was the first member of the general public to learn of this fact. Truth!
Just bragging here, your humble (?) reporter was the first member of the general public to learn of this fact. Truth!
June 25, 2016
1976 BRM 40th
This weekend's Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame Induction (of Pete Rose on Saturday) and Pete Rose jersey number retirement ceremony (Sunday) was preceded by Friday night's 1976 Big Red Machine World Championship 40th Anniversary celebration. Lou and I popped for Champions Club seats obtained from a well-known interwebz secondary market. Here was the view from my second row seat:
On the drive down to the Great American Tilt Yard, Lou and I reviewed that evening's festivities and our plan of attack. Upon informing Lou the soundtrack for the post-game fireworks was to be a selection of hit songs from 1976, we immediately began speculating as to what we may be subjected to.
Eagles? Maybe; not bad.
Queen, Elton John? Both awful; this could get ugly.
With me helming the Jeep Main Battle Tank through a mine field of construction zones and rush hour traffic, scanning the onboard SatNav for real time traffic alerts, Lou utilized his Android to search the Top 40 songs for this same week in 1976 as well as looking up the top 100 songs for the 1976 year. Often when I find myself on patrol late at night or on weekends when there isn't a Reds game being broadcast I will settle my radio dial on a station playing the Top 40 from some long-ago year, mostly out of a recently discovered fascination I have for all the terrible music from artists I've somehow never heard of but - yet - were wildly popular among the American public for indiscernible reasons. It's the radio-listening equivalent of rubbernecking car wrecks; You know it's going to be bad but you just can't resist the urge to look - or in this case, listen - and subject yourself to the carnage.
With alacrity Lou began reading aloud the Top 10 songs from this week in 1976:
#10 - "I'll be Good To You" by The Brothers Johnson
#9 - "Afternoon Delight" by The Starland Vocal Band
#8 - "More, More, More (Part 1)" by the Andrea True Connection
#7 - "Shop Around" by The Captain and Tennille
#6 - "Shannon" by Henry Gross
#5 - "Sara Smile" by Daryl Hall and John Oates
#4 - "Love Hangover" by Diana Ross
#3 - "Misty Blue" by Dorothy Moore
#2 - "Get Up and Boogie (That's Right)" by Silver Connection
#1 - "Silly Love Songs" by Wings
At risk of exposing my limited knowledge of mid-1970s pop music to widespread ridicule from my easy listening subscribers, most of the above list was foreign to me. Sure, Diana Ross we knew, Wings (and Paul McCartney in general) we loathe. What children of the 1970s doesn't know of Daryl Dragon and Toni Tennile from their short-lived but seemingly ubiquitous television variety show? Hall and Oates in the 1970s, I observed, were like the Syd Barrett years for Pink Floyd; largely unknown, mostly unlistenable and practically irrelevant. We agreed that "Afternoon Delight" with it's lyric about "...Skyrockets in flight..." seemed an obvious choice for the fireworks (evidently it proved too obvious as it was omitted from the fireworks soundtrack; Yes, I'm sad to admit Lou and I both knew the lyrics). I think "More, More More" is being used currently in a national advertising campaign for some commercial entity. Otherwise, the rest of this Top 10 has - to my own awareness, at least - been swallowed by the mawing gullet of oblivion.
I think most of my sophisticated music sufficionado Heavy Artillery subscribers are in consensus that so-called pop music is mostly bad, no matter the calendar year. Yet 1970s pop music surely proved to be the nadir of the species.
As an aside directed to the fillies reading this, isn't it about time you bring back the Dorothy Hamill hair style?
The remainder of this week's 1976 Top 40 was equally atrocious. Probably more so. Observe for yourself, here.
Lou's intrepid research suggests the fireworks soundtrack was significantly influenced by Billboard's year-end "Hot 100" singles. We heard "Silly Love Songs" during the fireworks show. Also "A Fifth of Beethoven." Including pre-game and between inning fare we thrice heard "Don't Go Breaking My Heart." What else Kiki Dee may have done in her presumptive career cannot be proven by me. Elton John, we all know, achieved great success thanks entirely to The Who.
Now, back to the action!
Severe weather brought in by a cold front in the early morning hours of Thursday served to lower the heat and humidity for Friday night's game.
The leading edge brought with it a 2:50am tornado warning, my deep slumber being interrupted by the faint sound of a tornado siren. I'm surprised I heard it. An hour and a half later, a strong wind roused me from my sleep again, when I captured the two screenshots above. Then went back to sleep. And so on Friday we experienced just about as favorable weather conditions as one should justifiably expect for SW Ohio in late June.
One by one, 40 minutes prior to game time, attending members of the 1976 Big Red Machine were announced and they took their places along the first base line. Pete Rose was the last to be introduced, it is ultimately his weekend after all, and in the photo below I captured the moment he and Hall of Famer Johnny Bench high-fived one another:
JB made a few brief comments once the team was assembled.
Notably absent from the proceedings was Pete's best friend from his BRM playing days, Joe Morgan. Little Joe was not in good health during last summer's celebrations surrounding the unveiling of Tony Perez' statue (or is it a sculpture?) and he has since, seemingly, disappeared from public view. An announcement was made to the public that Morgan was unable to attend the BRM festivities but that he "was there in spirit." This is all too foreboding. We all hope Little Joe is OK or that he soon will be OK. [Going-to-press edit: During this afternoon's national broadcast, Pete said Joe Morgan was awaiting a bone marrow transplant.]
In the fifth inning, Lou and I repaired to the Champion Club's interior for a feast of yummy grub:
On the evening I had a cheeseburger. And a hot dog. And nachos. And Montgomery Inn BBQ pulled chicken on tortillas. And a slice of LaRosa's pizza. And a cinnamon pretzel. And popcorn. And two Coca-Colas. And I should stop now.
MVP!
Bruuuuuce!
The game itself was agonizing. The Reds didn't pitch, hit or field well. One bright spot came from the ball yard's dueling JumboTrons which presented the standard in-game data (score, balls/strikes, stats, etc) in a style reminiscent of the black-and-white 8-bit graphics as graced the Riverfront Stadium scoreboard in the 1970s. Who could ever forget this Riverfront-era classic:
You can purchase a similarly adorned t-shirt here. I strongly recommend it.
Fortunately for you, my Android disintegrated most of the other 50+ photos I took so this represents just about all I have remaining from the evening.
After dropping Lou off at his palatial estate among the foothills of Fairfield late that Friday night, the quality of musical selections I ran across on satellite radio steadily improved before then regressing and, oddly, running full-circle:
On the drive down to the Great American Tilt Yard, Lou and I reviewed that evening's festivities and our plan of attack. Upon informing Lou the soundtrack for the post-game fireworks was to be a selection of hit songs from 1976, we immediately began speculating as to what we may be subjected to.
Eagles? Maybe; not bad.
Queen, Elton John? Both awful; this could get ugly.
With me helming the Jeep Main Battle Tank through a mine field of construction zones and rush hour traffic, scanning the onboard SatNav for real time traffic alerts, Lou utilized his Android to search the Top 40 songs for this same week in 1976 as well as looking up the top 100 songs for the 1976 year. Often when I find myself on patrol late at night or on weekends when there isn't a Reds game being broadcast I will settle my radio dial on a station playing the Top 40 from some long-ago year, mostly out of a recently discovered fascination I have for all the terrible music from artists I've somehow never heard of but - yet - were wildly popular among the American public for indiscernible reasons. It's the radio-listening equivalent of rubbernecking car wrecks; You know it's going to be bad but you just can't resist the urge to look - or in this case, listen - and subject yourself to the carnage.
With alacrity Lou began reading aloud the Top 10 songs from this week in 1976:
#10 - "I'll be Good To You" by The Brothers Johnson
#9 - "Afternoon Delight" by The Starland Vocal Band
#8 - "More, More, More (Part 1)" by the Andrea True Connection
#7 - "Shop Around" by The Captain and Tennille
#6 - "Shannon" by Henry Gross
#5 - "Sara Smile" by Daryl Hall and John Oates
#4 - "Love Hangover" by Diana Ross
#3 - "Misty Blue" by Dorothy Moore
#2 - "Get Up and Boogie (That's Right)" by Silver Connection
#1 - "Silly Love Songs" by Wings
At risk of exposing my limited knowledge of mid-1970s pop music to widespread ridicule from my easy listening subscribers, most of the above list was foreign to me. Sure, Diana Ross we knew, Wings (and Paul McCartney in general) we loathe. What children of the 1970s doesn't know of Daryl Dragon and Toni Tennile from their short-lived but seemingly ubiquitous television variety show? Hall and Oates in the 1970s, I observed, were like the Syd Barrett years for Pink Floyd; largely unknown, mostly unlistenable and practically irrelevant. We agreed that "Afternoon Delight" with it's lyric about "...Skyrockets in flight..." seemed an obvious choice for the fireworks (evidently it proved too obvious as it was omitted from the fireworks soundtrack; Yes, I'm sad to admit Lou and I both knew the lyrics). I think "More, More More" is being used currently in a national advertising campaign for some commercial entity. Otherwise, the rest of this Top 10 has - to my own awareness, at least - been swallowed by the mawing gullet of oblivion.
I think most of my sophisticated music sufficionado Heavy Artillery subscribers are in consensus that so-called pop music is mostly bad, no matter the calendar year. Yet 1970s pop music surely proved to be the nadir of the species.
As an aside directed to the fillies reading this, isn't it about time you bring back the Dorothy Hamill hair style?
The remainder of this week's 1976 Top 40 was equally atrocious. Probably more so. Observe for yourself, here.
Lou's intrepid research suggests the fireworks soundtrack was significantly influenced by Billboard's year-end "Hot 100" singles. We heard "Silly Love Songs" during the fireworks show. Also "A Fifth of Beethoven." Including pre-game and between inning fare we thrice heard "Don't Go Breaking My Heart." What else Kiki Dee may have done in her presumptive career cannot be proven by me. Elton John, we all know, achieved great success thanks entirely to The Who.
Now, back to the action!
Severe weather brought in by a cold front in the early morning hours of Thursday served to lower the heat and humidity for Friday night's game.
The leading edge brought with it a 2:50am tornado warning, my deep slumber being interrupted by the faint sound of a tornado siren. I'm surprised I heard it. An hour and a half later, a strong wind roused me from my sleep again, when I captured the two screenshots above. Then went back to sleep. And so on Friday we experienced just about as favorable weather conditions as one should justifiably expect for SW Ohio in late June.
One by one, 40 minutes prior to game time, attending members of the 1976 Big Red Machine were announced and they took their places along the first base line. Pete Rose was the last to be introduced, it is ultimately his weekend after all, and in the photo below I captured the moment he and Hall of Famer Johnny Bench high-fived one another:
JB made a few brief comments once the team was assembled.
Notably absent from the proceedings was Pete's best friend from his BRM playing days, Joe Morgan. Little Joe was not in good health during last summer's celebrations surrounding the unveiling of Tony Perez' statue (or is it a sculpture?) and he has since, seemingly, disappeared from public view. An announcement was made to the public that Morgan was unable to attend the BRM festivities but that he "was there in spirit." This is all too foreboding. We all hope Little Joe is OK or that he soon will be OK. [Going-to-press edit: During this afternoon's national broadcast, Pete said Joe Morgan was awaiting a bone marrow transplant.]
In the fifth inning, Lou and I repaired to the Champion Club's interior for a feast of yummy grub:
On the evening I had a cheeseburger. And a hot dog. And nachos. And Montgomery Inn BBQ pulled chicken on tortillas. And a slice of LaRosa's pizza. And a cinnamon pretzel. And popcorn. And two Coca-Colas. And I should stop now.
MVP!
Bruuuuuce!
The game itself was agonizing. The Reds didn't pitch, hit or field well. One bright spot came from the ball yard's dueling JumboTrons which presented the standard in-game data (score, balls/strikes, stats, etc) in a style reminiscent of the black-and-white 8-bit graphics as graced the Riverfront Stadium scoreboard in the 1970s. Who could ever forget this Riverfront-era classic:
You can purchase a similarly adorned t-shirt here. I strongly recommend it.
Fortunately for you, my Android disintegrated most of the other 50+ photos I took so this represents just about all I have remaining from the evening.
After dropping Lou off at his palatial estate among the foothills of Fairfield late that Friday night, the quality of musical selections I ran across on satellite radio steadily improved before then regressing and, oddly, running full-circle:
If you check the clock display, you'll observe that to the Stones I didn't long listen. Seriously, does anyone?
June 24, 2016
Prophecy Thy Name Is Nigel
In those halcyon days of my college yesteryear, more than 20 years ago, I submitted a paper for a 200-level political science class proctored by Professor Forgette - a close and personal friend of long-time subscriber Dr Phat Daddy - putting forth an iron-clad thesis on the certain failure of what we then referred to as the EEC and what since has transmogrified into the EU.
Big Jeff will be surprised and disappointed to know that I was unable to locate for purpose of sharing here this sacred document amongst my extensive archive. What my paper proved in brief; While cultural and societal differences among the constituent parties would be an obvious and irritating pressure, the disparate historical precepts of government and governance would be just the second-most serious point of ultimate disunion whereas the primary force for dissolution would be the crushing economic burden which failing European states would place on those fellow European states tasked with keeping the entire misguided apparatus afloat.
As the Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher herself was known to assert at various times and with subtle variance, "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money to spend." [For further reference on the subject, see Venezuela.]
In the decades since, the EEC-cum-EU has morphed into a crypto-communist totalitarian bureaucratic regime the kind of which would appeal to the crypto-communist Islamists in our own country's administration, up to and including our Islamist-in-Chief BHO. How else to explain our President's position against independence for Great Britain? This is the country in which independence forms a bedrock core of its citizens' DNA.... or at least it did until multiple generations of oppressive Great Society so-called reforms have collectively turned us into Mitt Romney's 47% of dependent brain-dead spiritless slugs (that wasn't his terminology, was it?).
Oft over the past few years where and when appropriate I have linked here on the digital pages of Heavy Artillery assorted video clips of UKIP party leader Nigel Farage assailing the EU right from the lion's den in Brussels. This was done also, in part, to assuage my own discontent with a Republican Party recently bereft of anything resembling principle or a fighting spirit. One loyal subscriber to HA once referred to Farage in a private back-channel email as "a loon." Nigel Farage is a visionary with his finger directly on the pulse of England's man on the street, he is the true and righteous prophet for English sovereignty and the chief bulwark against the Euro-Leftist drive for Liberal fascistic dictatorial control.
Behold the prophecy!
Roll the credits!
Big Jeff will be surprised and disappointed to know that I was unable to locate for purpose of sharing here this sacred document amongst my extensive archive. What my paper proved in brief; While cultural and societal differences among the constituent parties would be an obvious and irritating pressure, the disparate historical precepts of government and governance would be just the second-most serious point of ultimate disunion whereas the primary force for dissolution would be the crushing economic burden which failing European states would place on those fellow European states tasked with keeping the entire misguided apparatus afloat.
As the Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher herself was known to assert at various times and with subtle variance, "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money to spend." [For further reference on the subject, see Venezuela.]
In the decades since, the EEC-cum-EU has morphed into a crypto-communist totalitarian bureaucratic regime the kind of which would appeal to the crypto-communist Islamists in our own country's administration, up to and including our Islamist-in-Chief BHO. How else to explain our President's position against independence for Great Britain? This is the country in which independence forms a bedrock core of its citizens' DNA.... or at least it did until multiple generations of oppressive Great Society so-called reforms have collectively turned us into Mitt Romney's 47% of dependent brain-dead spiritless slugs (that wasn't his terminology, was it?).
Oft over the past few years where and when appropriate I have linked here on the digital pages of Heavy Artillery assorted video clips of UKIP party leader Nigel Farage assailing the EU right from the lion's den in Brussels. This was done also, in part, to assuage my own discontent with a Republican Party recently bereft of anything resembling principle or a fighting spirit. One loyal subscriber to HA once referred to Farage in a private back-channel email as "a loon." Nigel Farage is a visionary with his finger directly on the pulse of England's man on the street, he is the true and righteous prophet for English sovereignty and the chief bulwark against the Euro-Leftist drive for Liberal fascistic dictatorial control.
Behold the prophecy!
Roll the credits!
June 19, 2016
Baseball, June 2016
June 2016 portends to be a big month in the vaunted history of professional baseball's oldest franchise. For fans of the mighty Redlegs, our long (National League) nightmare is over; In one week's time Peter Edward Rose will have his jersey number retired by the Reds and he'll be inducted into the team Hall of Fame. A lion's share of the credit must be split between Reds owner Robert (he lets me call him "Bob") Castellini for keeping up the unrelenting pressure applied to the Office of the Commissioner but also to Commissioner Rob Manfred for acceding to the cause of righteous justice and common sense.
In the spirit of using Heavy Artillery to remorselessly pound one's enemy into capitulative submission - and maybe mortal oblivion, take that A. Bartlett Giamatti, Fay Vincent and Bud "Bug" [sic] Selig.
On June 5th I took in the Reds game on a day that was sunny then cloudy and rainy and then sunny again. You know what they say about the weather in Cincinnati..... yes, correct, the same thing they say about the weather just about everywhere else. With all the talk this season about trading our savior (circa 2008) Jay Bruce and with the Reds in a desperate bid to unload Dat Showboat BP, I took what could be my last opportunity to get some photos of the Reds three veterans - Votto, Phillips and Bruce - together in one frame:
Here, Votto mans first base, a defensive shift has Dat Dude LOB playing deep in the hole (essentially in short right field) with Bruuuuuce out standing in his field in right.
Later in the game, the Reds loaded the bases with the same three All-Stars:
MVP on third, Dat Dude E4E4 on second and the Beaumont (TX) Bomber on first.
I tried - mostly in vain - to capture with my trusty Android Galaxy S8000 the June 10th post-game fireworks display down at the old ball yard. A few photos turned out moderately well:
Most of my efforts were rank amateurism:
One was so bad it might qualify as modern art:
The preceding serves as prelude, of course, to this weekend's upcoming dual celebration of The Hit King's HOF induction/number retirement as well as this weekend's concurrent 40th anniversary commemoration of the Big Red Machine's 1976 World Championship team. '76 was a magical year and the power of that number permeated Reds Country this summer in unexpected ways:
Old habits die hard and on the eve of Peter Edward's big weekend certain elements in and around baseball have continued in their campaign to marginalize Rose and erase his name from the record books. Watching MLB Tonight on the MLB Network one evening a few weeks ago, the commentators were discussing a player whose consecutive game hit streak reached 20 games. The on-air talent, in discussing just how difficult is a consecutive game hit streak of that length, then tried to recall the longest streaks. Of course they cited the all-time record of 56 games held by The Yankee Clipper Joe DiMaggio. Then the discussion went something like this:
Uh-huh.
That deafening roar emanating from Reds Country arose from multitudinous Reds fans shouting at their 800-inch 4D high-def televisions that Pete Rose holds the all-time National League record of 44 consecutive games with a hit. MLB Network, don't act like you don't know that. Speaking of Jimmy Rollins, you'll recall the controversy surrounding his streak was that it carried over into a following season, something that Major League Baseball had never before counted as official. In the early 1990s, Reds first baseman Hal Morris ended a season on a lengthy hit streak of his own and it was vociferously asserted by MLB that Hal's streak ended with the final game of that season. But that was before the 25-year saga of Pete Rose created so many enemies of Peter Edward in MLB and among sports writers/commentators.
Last week, the effort to erase Pete Rose from the record books came in the guise of Ichiro Suzuki attaining 4,257 combined Japanese League and Major League hits. Assorted voices proclaimed Ichiro as the new all-time [small caps, here] hit king. Since his 2001 debut in the American League I have been a massive fan of Ichiro. Still am. I think he's great. He's my favorite non-Red in baseball today. We know that MLB likes to have their cake and eat it too, particularly in the case of Pete Rose; He's banned from baseball, but he can take part in on-field activities for the All-Century Team, the All-Star Game, etc., and one doesn't have to look any further than the Dutch Leonard Affair to see examples of allowing some players guilty of wagering games to continue playing while banning Rose.
Yet this whole Ichiro situation might be the flimsiest of efforts.
MLB recognizes Barry Bonds with his 762 home runs as the all-time home run king and not Sadaharu Oh (with his 868 Japanese League home runs) as the all-time home run king. Pete's all-time hit record is the Major League record. The Major Leagues consist of the American League and the National League. That's it. No Japanese League team plays in the A.L. or N.L. Ichiro was awarded the A.L. Rookie of the Year Award following his 2001 season with the Seattle Mariners. If Ichiro truly was a rookie in 2001, then how - one should ask - on Opening Day 2001 did Ichiro have 1,278 (Japanese League) hits? Either he stood for the first time in the batters box on Opening Day with the Seattle Mariners as a rookie, and thus with zero hits, or he wasn't a rookie having obtained over twelve hundred hits and should be stripped of his 2001 ROY award. Ichiro can't have been a rookie and simultaneously have over 1,200 hits.
Of course, we in Reds Country know the answer that MLB wishes wasn't true.
In the end this latest episode of trying to marginalize Rose only hurts Ichiro, an innocent party to the whole disgraceful effort who gets dragged into an unnecessary and wholly fabricated controversy and whose own unique achievement becomes overlooked and underappreciated.
Roll the credits!
In the spirit of using Heavy Artillery to remorselessly pound one's enemy into capitulative submission - and maybe mortal oblivion, take that A. Bartlett Giamatti, Fay Vincent and Bud "Bug" [sic] Selig.
On June 5th I took in the Reds game on a day that was sunny then cloudy and rainy and then sunny again. You know what they say about the weather in Cincinnati..... yes, correct, the same thing they say about the weather just about everywhere else. With all the talk this season about trading our savior (circa 2008) Jay Bruce and with the Reds in a desperate bid to unload Dat Showboat BP, I took what could be my last opportunity to get some photos of the Reds three veterans - Votto, Phillips and Bruce - together in one frame:
Here, Votto mans first base, a defensive shift has Dat Dude LOB playing deep in the hole (essentially in short right field) with Bruuuuuce out standing in his field in right.
Later in the game, the Reds loaded the bases with the same three All-Stars:
MVP on third, Dat Dude E4E4 on second and the Beaumont (TX) Bomber on first.
I tried - mostly in vain - to capture with my trusty Android Galaxy S8000 the June 10th post-game fireworks display down at the old ball yard. A few photos turned out moderately well:
The preceding serves as prelude, of course, to this weekend's upcoming dual celebration of The Hit King's HOF induction/number retirement as well as this weekend's concurrent 40th anniversary commemoration of the Big Red Machine's 1976 World Championship team. '76 was a magical year and the power of that number permeated Reds Country this summer in unexpected ways:
Old habits die hard and on the eve of Peter Edward's big weekend certain elements in and around baseball have continued in their campaign to marginalize Rose and erase his name from the record books. Watching MLB Tonight on the MLB Network one evening a few weeks ago, the commentators were discussing a player whose consecutive game hit streak reached 20 games. The on-air talent, in discussing just how difficult is a consecutive game hit streak of that length, then tried to recall the longest streaks. Of course they cited the all-time record of 56 games held by The Yankee Clipper Joe DiMaggio. Then the discussion went something like this:
"I know that guys have gotten close to DiMaggio. Paul Molitor had 38 or 39 games, Jimmy Rollins had 38 or 39."
Uh-huh.
That deafening roar emanating from Reds Country arose from multitudinous Reds fans shouting at their 800-inch 4D high-def televisions that Pete Rose holds the all-time National League record of 44 consecutive games with a hit. MLB Network, don't act like you don't know that. Speaking of Jimmy Rollins, you'll recall the controversy surrounding his streak was that it carried over into a following season, something that Major League Baseball had never before counted as official. In the early 1990s, Reds first baseman Hal Morris ended a season on a lengthy hit streak of his own and it was vociferously asserted by MLB that Hal's streak ended with the final game of that season. But that was before the 25-year saga of Pete Rose created so many enemies of Peter Edward in MLB and among sports writers/commentators.
Last week, the effort to erase Pete Rose from the record books came in the guise of Ichiro Suzuki attaining 4,257 combined Japanese League and Major League hits. Assorted voices proclaimed Ichiro as the new all-time [small caps, here] hit king. Since his 2001 debut in the American League I have been a massive fan of Ichiro. Still am. I think he's great. He's my favorite non-Red in baseball today. We know that MLB likes to have their cake and eat it too, particularly in the case of Pete Rose; He's banned from baseball, but he can take part in on-field activities for the All-Century Team, the All-Star Game, etc., and one doesn't have to look any further than the Dutch Leonard Affair to see examples of allowing some players guilty of wagering games to continue playing while banning Rose.
Yet this whole Ichiro situation might be the flimsiest of efforts.
MLB recognizes Barry Bonds with his 762 home runs as the all-time home run king and not Sadaharu Oh (with his 868 Japanese League home runs) as the all-time home run king. Pete's all-time hit record is the Major League record. The Major Leagues consist of the American League and the National League. That's it. No Japanese League team plays in the A.L. or N.L. Ichiro was awarded the A.L. Rookie of the Year Award following his 2001 season with the Seattle Mariners. If Ichiro truly was a rookie in 2001, then how - one should ask - on Opening Day 2001 did Ichiro have 1,278 (Japanese League) hits? Either he stood for the first time in the batters box on Opening Day with the Seattle Mariners as a rookie, and thus with zero hits, or he wasn't a rookie having obtained over twelve hundred hits and should be stripped of his 2001 ROY award. Ichiro can't have been a rookie and simultaneously have over 1,200 hits.
Of course, we in Reds Country know the answer that MLB wishes wasn't true.
In the end this latest episode of trying to marginalize Rose only hurts Ichiro, an innocent party to the whole disgraceful effort who gets dragged into an unnecessary and wholly fabricated controversy and whose own unique achievement becomes overlooked and underappreciated.
Roll the credits!
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