By Mile High Mouth
BaseballBigMouth.com baseball news   

I don’t know if I can vie for the title of laziest writer at Baseball Big Mouth, but it’s definitely been a while since I’ve written for you guys. In case anyone liked my articles, my apologies. I’ll hopefully be writing more as my school year winds down (I’m a P.E. teacher in my day to day life). The school year ending is not all that’s been changing in my life. I’ve finished all my classes for my teaching license, and field day is now behind me. I’ll also be starting my summer work soon (maintaining trails in the foothills of the Rockies). However, the biggest change I am making to my life is the subject of today’s article.

Here at Baseball Big Mouth I have identified myself as a Red Sox fan. I can’t identify myself as that anymore. Yes folks, after taking up with the Red Sox upon my arrival in New England in September of 2000, I am renouncing them as my favorite team. The reason why can be summed up in one trip to Coors Field.

Red Sox nation now minus one, says Mile High Mouth

I get a text message during class. It’s my good buddy Dan. He wants to know if I want to come see the Rockies tonight. Of course I do! I love going to Coors Field, and nothing is as much fun as seeing a live baseball game regardless of the park. I check the schedule. The Twins are in town to take on the 2007 NL Champs. Being a man who has two favorite out of town teams, there are rules I follow. They went like this. Cheer for your favorite teams over the hometown team. If one of the favorite teams isn’t in town, you cheer for the home team. Since I had no particularly strong feelings about the Twinkies, I go home and put on my Rockies cap. I do like the Rockies after all.

I meet Dan at a bar just outside of Coors field and we hang out. Dan tests my intestinal fortitude as far as alcohol is concerned, and the group we’re with heads off to Coors Field. This is where it begins. As I’m walking I see them. Red Sox fans. How do I know they’re Red Sox fans? Hats. Shirts. And they’re talking about Fenway Park. They might have been wearing Red Sox underwear for all I know, but I didn’t check. I have to back track for a second here.

Since I moved to Denver, I kept on hearing (but not believing) the same line. Red Sox fans now are just as bad, if not worse, than Yankees fans. I hate Yankees fans. I consider them rude, callous, and obnoxious. I still do. To be compared to a Yankees fan is not something I take kindly to, but I just talk myself out of the idea. The 2007 World Series comes along, and the stories keep coming. I even have a friend who tells me he has to host his next door neighbor during Red Sox games because her husband (a Sox fan) becomes so obnoxious, that she can’t take it. I think that’s where this all started.

So there I am watching these people in their Sox gear, and Dan asks me a poignant question.

“Are the Twins in the same division as the Red Sox?”

“No,” I say “The Twins are AL Central. The Sox are AL East.”

This is when it hits me. These Red Sox fans are not nice fans. Here they are at Coors Field wearing the colors of a team that has robbed this town of it’s only potential World Series victory, and the team isn’t even in the same state that night. It’s rude, callous, and obnoxious. It dawns on me. They are just as bad as Yankees fans. But it gets worse for me. As the evening winds on, I see only a handful of Yankees hats in the stands that night. I see lots more people wearing the garb of the Fenway faithful. Then something else occurs to me. When I wear my Red Sox shirts….this is what people see. They don’t see someone supporting a team they love. They just see a jerk.

Frankly, I don’t view myself as a jerk and I have no interest in hurting other people’s feelings over baseball. I love baseball, but at the end of the day, it’s a game. It’s a great game, but it’s just a game. Baseball is something that’s supposed to make me happy. If it doesn’t it’s pointless. After the game I realize, being a Red Sox fan doesn’t make me happy. It just lumps me in with a crowd of people I can’t relate to anymore. So I renounce the Red Sox, but the aftermath to me is even funnier.

I tell a few friends, a fellow baseball writer, my sister, and some co-workers. I get a range of reactions. Some friends tell me that it’s interesting, others don’t care, most act like I was renouncing my religion. How do my friends in Boston feel? I haven’t told anyone. I have a serious fear that some people will stop being my friend over this decision. But to me, it doesn’t deter me from making the decision. In fact, it just reinforces it. Most people ask who will be my top team now. The Atlanta Braves of course. I’ve always loved the Braves, but I just liked the Red Sox more. However, I don’t feel like a Braves fan. I don’t feel like a Red Sox fan either. My sister asked me (without me mentioning the above part) “Are you in baseball limbo right now?” I guess I kind of am.

I don’t feel like a Red Sox fan anymore. I had a whole wall of my house dedicated to the Red Sox. Baseball hats hung on the wall surrounding a picture of Jason Varitek leaping into Keith Foulke’s arms after the 2004 victory and a wanted poster with the face of Johnny Damon on it. All of it’s gone now. I just hung Colorado sports hats up there (CU Boulder, Broncos, Avs, Rockies, and a hat from the school I work at). Why didn’t I make it a Braves wall? I’m not there yet. It’s an odd feeling. It’s like I lost a friend who got too into something they shouldn’t have. I don’t even recognize the Red Sox anymore. They aren’t the fighting underdogs with the hearts of gold. I remember Otis Williams of the Temptations said “Success makes you the person you really are.” The Red Sox fans have shown their true colors. I guess the same is true for me. We’ve parted ways, and all good things must come to an end. I just hope the Red Sox fans remember that when they are at the bottom again. All baseball teams go there sooner or later.

photo used with permission of Early Era Baseball Photos.com

All other photos/content copyright Baseball Big Mouth and The Heckler
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“People will come…They’ll watch and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces. The one constant through all the year has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This game, this field, this ballpark: It’s part of our past. It reminds us of all that was once good and could be again. Oh, people will come my friend. People will most definitely come.”

-James Earl Jones “Field of Dreams” 1989 

What once seemed a distant, dreaded vision is now down to days: Tiger Stadium today truly stands within the shadow of death — not to mention the wrecking ball — as the contract for the Tiger Stadium demolition has been officially awarded.

As soon as work crews are organized, the former home of greats Ty Cobb, Hank Greenberg, Charlie Gehringer, Mickey Cochrane, Hal Newhouser, Harry Heilmann, Al Kaline, George Kell, Willie Horton, Mickey Lolich, Alan Trammell, Jack Morris, Lou Whitaker, Kirk Gibson and Cecil Fielder — not to mention visiting grounds for Cy Young, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Lou Gerig, Joe DiMaggio, Bob Gibson, Bob Feller and virutally every other Major League Baseball Hall of Famer who ever played the game between 1895-1999 — will be no more.

Even saving a corner of the stadium from dugout to dugout is now in peril, with no guarantee even that will be left standing once the dust settles. For those that live in the Metro Detroit-area, it might not be a bad idea to take a drive over to the corner of Michigan and Trumbull to get one last look at her. This time, the end is truly nigh for the former Bennett Park, Briggs Stadium and Navin Field.

Forever in our hearts, you will never be forgotten. Like a fine wine, your memory will grow ever-sweeter within the confines of our nostalgic rembembrances. Time stands still for no man, or stadium. Long may people remember. Long may they remember . . .

- The Heckler

Top photo used with permission of Early Era Baseball Photos.com

All other photos copyright Baseball Big Mouth and The Heckler
- All rights reserved -

CLICK HERE for MLB preseason talk!

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Mirror, mirror, on the wall, which one is the biggest liar of them all? As the Roger Clemens steroid/performance-enhancing drug scandal came to a head today during the Cogressional Hearings, BaseballBigMouth thought it only apt to pause a moment to remember a more romantic time for fans of Clemens, in particular the editor of this very site, The Heckler. The time was June 29, 2006. The setting? Comerica Park, Detroit, MI. Everything good about baseball was on display. As the game gets more dirt thrown on it today, take a moment to remember the things that make it grand — no performance-enhancement required . . . or was it? I suppose we’ll never know for sure. Nonetheless, it will never taint The Heckler’s special evening, regardless of how sullied Clemens’ reputation becomes, and believe it, it’s now as sullied as it comes. Enjoy.

Orignally published June 29, 2006

By the Heckler
BASEBALL BIG MOUTH
baseball blog

Sometimes you walk into a ballpark and just hope the home team doesn’t get blown out – again. Believe me, as a lifelong Detroit Tigers fan, more times than not lately, avoiding a five-run defeat was all the Heckler hoped for on many occasions. Sometimes you walk into a ballpark and hope to see a member of your team do something special. Again, even as brutal as the Tigers have been before this year, I was there to see Cecil Fielder hit his 49th homerun off the Boston Red Sox Dennis Lamp in 1990 (back when 50 homeruns was still a big deal). Heck, sometimes you walk into a ballpark just looking to kill a few hours, down a dog and a cold drink and soak up the sun for a few hours. That’s cool, too.

Sometimes, however, you walk into a ballpark just to get a glimpse of a living legend. No disrespect to Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker, Jack Morris and other Tiger greats I was fortunate enough to see many a time in my lifetime, but Roger Clemens most-assuredly fits that description, by anyone’s definition. On June 27, 2006, I finally got a chance to see this sure-fire Hall-of-Famer strut his stuff – before a packed-house, the majority of which were there to see the same, despite the fact that the Tigers currently have the best record in baseball.

The buzz began early for the crowd as Clemens was spied taking the rubber in the visiting Comerica Park bullpen, his number 22 stretched across his broad, crimson-colored uniform back. Cameras clicked, people clapped in appreciation, and memories were cemented before he even took the hill to begin the actual game. Slowly, he strode out the gate, through the spacious centerfield, onto the infield and finally to the mound. Grabbing the rosin bag, he looked around slowly, tossed it down, and strode to the center of diamond to begin his latest command performance.

On this night, like many other in his legendary career that has taken him to Boston, Toronto, New York and finally Houston, he was masterful. Even the league-leading Tigers could muster only a mere three hits off of him (all of them weak) during Clemens’ 6-1/3 innings, all the while striking out three while walking only two – both of which would eventually score and be charged to the Rocket, thanks to Astros’ reliever Dan Wheeler who promptly dished up a double to Craig Monroe. On this night, he would actually be out-dueled by Detroit’s Nate Robertson. Nonetheless, also on this night, he once again showed why this 43-year-old Rocket is nowhere close to being permanently confined to the NASA graveyard, at least not yet. Saddled with the ‘L’ thanks to another start with zero run support from his mates, Clemens sent notice to all National League foes that he is back – with all boosters firing.

“I tip my hat to the fans, they were great when I came off,” Clemens said afterward. “It’s fun to see great crowds here again, rooting their Tigers on.”

Indeed. Even if a great percentage of them were rooting, silently perhaps, to see the man originally from Dayton, OH – the same pitcher with 341 wins, a record seven Cy Young awards and more than 4,500 career strikeouts – do something special against their favorite team. In the end, he still pitched great, the Tigers still won, and everyone went home happy. Sometimes you enter a ballpark, and everything turns out just right. Sometimes, you walk out with memories that will last a lifetime.

One other special note from this night, the Heckler’s wife of one-year (and counting) surprised him with one of the coolest gifts ever given to him: his name on the scoreboard in the middle of the sixth inning, wishing him a happy anniversary, love Kathryn. You can see it below (with my secret identity retouched via Photoshop). Man . . . Roger Clemens, the Tigers beating him and remaining in first place, and a woman beside me who loves me enough to do something like that? It doesn’t get much better than that, gang. Sometimes you walk out of a ballpark with far-more than you could have even imagined possible . . .

All photos copyright Baseball Big Mouth and The Heckler
- All rights reserved -