Author Topic: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace  (Read 2143 times)

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Offline EasyAce

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Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« on: May 15, 2017, 05:59:41 pm »
By Yours Truly
http://throneberryfields.com/2017/05/15/steve-palermo-rip-courage-diligence-wit-grace/

Baseball celebrated the retirement of Derek Jeter’s Yankee uniform number on the same Mother’s Day during which
Steve Palermo finally lost a battle with cancer at 67. Something doesn’t seem right about that.

Palermo—the umpire shot trying to help two waitresses under attack outside a Dallas restaurant in 1991, leaving him
temporarily waist-down paralysed and forcing him to retire as an active umpire—loved the game and its meanings
almost as much as he loved life.

The young man who worked third base and called fair Bucky Bleeping Dent’s single-game 1978 American League East
playoff home run in Fenway Park would have observed and applauded Jeter’s amiable dignity now, accepting the honour
of being the reason the last single-digit Yankee uniform number was retired, and applauded. Even if Palermo grew up
in Worcester, Massachussetts, rooting for the Red Sox.

That wouldn’t be the last time he had to do his job at the expense of the Red Sox: it was Palermo calling balls and strikes
when Yankee lefthander Dave Righetti no-hit the Red Sox on the Fourth of July, 1983. More than a particular team, though,
Palermo loved the game itself played right,  and wasn’t averse to giving a rookie a boost if he thought it was needed.

In 1988, Palermo was the scheduled home plate umpire when he noticed the young Orioles starter preparing to face a
formidable team of Red Sox. He walked to the mound and handed the kid a fresh baseball. “You just get that first pitch
close, I’ll call it a strike,” Palermo said encouragingly. “And then we’ll get this game going.” Palermo kept his promise. You
can look it up: the first major league pitch Curt Schilling ever threw, to Wade Boggs, a Hall of Famer to be, was a called
strike.

“Palermo, a slender 6 feet 2, was mobile and graceful,” wrote George F. Will during spring training 1992. “Because he is
determined to be so again, his spring training began last July, when he could move only two toes on his right foot. Three
months later the world watched him walk. In last October’s humdinger of a World Series, one of the most stirring moments
occurred before the first batter stepped in, when Palermo walked, with the help of hand crutches and leg braces, to the
Metrodome mound to flip the ceremonial first pitch. Today canes have replaced the crutches and one brace has been put
away. Some April—not this one, but there is one every year—Palermo may be back where he belongs, looking at pitches
from the other end of the delivery. He is still many inches away, but they are all just inches.”

He got the next best thing, being named a supervisor of umpires by baseball government. It could not have been a simple
job for him, a man of uncommon forthrightness overseeing men who are not always as forthright or as diligent as he was
on the field.

Will told the story that an old umpire once told Palermo, when the latter was a young pup, that “even a good umpire” is liable
to miss twelve pitch calls out of 260 pitches. “Twelve a month,” Will cited Palermo as replying, “would be intolerable.”

A long standing major league umpire, Tim Welke, tells the Los Angeles Times, “He would say, `If you got to bark at someone,
know more than that manager or player is hearing it. There are guys in both dugouts watching and listening, and they’ll
remember that’.”

Palermo was married five months when he had the late evening’s dinner that changed his life. He and his companions saw
the two waitresses whose evening’s work just ended attacked in the parking lot. They went out to help, chasing down and
catching one of the attackers, when three more arrived and five shots were fired. One bullet hit Palermo in the torso, grazed
a kidney, broke a vertebra, frayed enough of his spinal cord.

That was all that bullet could fray. The shooter was sentenced to seventy-five years in the calaboose. He couldn’t sentence
Palermo—a man who’d say only, “I went to help people in trouble. How can that be a mistake?” about that night—to a life
of resignation.

Royals manager Ned Yost was a backup catcher during part of Palermo’s umpiring career. Palermo settled in Kansas City in
due course and visited Kauffmann Stadium frequently, being welcomed into the Royals’ inner sanctum where he loved talking
the game.

“As a catcher, some umpires are horrible to work in front of. They don’t want to talk. Steve was always good about being able
to talk and discuss pitches,” Yost says. “If you thought it was a strike, he would always engage. After the accident that left him
paralyzed, he worked so hard to get back. He was a huge resource for us here for umpire things. We would see Steve all the
time. He’s just a class guy, somebody we’re going to really, really miss.”

That’s said about a man who was once engaged by Lou Piniella, then a Yankee outfielder, over a strike call: “Where was that pitch
at?” Palermo suggested a Yankee in front of thirty thousand people had no business ending a sentence with a preposition. “OK,”
Piniella shot back, “where was that pitch at, a$$hole?” Perhaps umpires aren’t properly equipped to levy the syntax.

It’s not that even an umpire as agreeable and intelligent as Palermo could avoid occasional ugliness. Even he had to contend with
the human slings and arrows machine known as Earl Weaver. “That little [expletive] called me names that would get a man killed
in other places,” he once recalled. “And that was on days I didn’t throw him out.”

Palermo’s appreciation for players who played the game the right ways led to a faith that the most professional players rarely if
ever complained about strike or out calls. Unapologetically, he admitted to loving it when he worked first base during Brewers
games and Robin Yount got aboard. He loved, Will wrote, “watching Yount on the base paths doing the small things right, the
things seen only by the game’s initiates.”

The challenge, Palermo believed, was trying to do what human imperfection rejects, getting everything right. This umpire got
more right than wrong in baseball and an awful lot more than that right in life. Especially, he got marriage right. Whenever the
pain got the better of him, which couldn’t have been too often considering his spirit, she’d remind him, “Inch by inch, life is a
cinch.”

Debbie Aaron Palermo met her future husband when he happened into a Checker’s restaurant in Kansas City. Her brother, Steve,
asked her with whom she was going out. “An umpire,” she replied. Steve Aaron didn’t skip a beat: “I hope it wasn’t the second
base umpire who blew two calls last night.”

Palermo—who also spent the years following the shooting raising millions for the National Paralysis Foundation, when he wasn’t
fielding and answering thousands of letters of love and hope—wanted only one thing more from life. He wanted to umpire one
more game. For a man who balanced dignity and diligence with wit and grace, that should not be considered an unreasonable
wish.
« Last Edit: May 15, 2017, 06:00:15 pm by EasyAce »


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Online DCPatriot

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Re: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2017, 08:14:35 pm »

Are you Tom Boswell, @EasyAce

That's whom I thought I was reading.

Fantastic read!   :beer:
"It aint what you don't know that kills you.  It's what you know that aint so!" ...Theodore Sturgeon

"Journalism is about covering the news.  With a pillow.  Until it stops moving."    - David Burge (Iowahawk)

"It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living" F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Hello Darkness, my old Friend...stood up too fast once again! Paul Simon 2024.

Offline EasyAce

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Re: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« Reply #2 on: May 15, 2017, 08:37:24 pm »
Are you Tom Boswell, @EasyAce

That's whom I thought I was reading.[/quote]
That's the nicest compliment I ever received about my baseball writing!  :beer:


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.

Online DCPatriot

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Re: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« Reply #3 on: May 15, 2017, 09:44:46 pm »
That's whom I thought I was reading.
That's the nicest compliment I ever received about my baseball writing!  :beer:

And I meant every word.    :beer:
"It aint what you don't know that kills you.  It's what you know that aint so!" ...Theodore Sturgeon

"Journalism is about covering the news.  With a pillow.  Until it stops moving."    - David Burge (Iowahawk)

"It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living" F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Hello Darkness, my old Friend...stood up too fast once again! Paul Simon 2024.

Offline catfish1957

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Re: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« Reply #4 on: May 15, 2017, 09:54:35 pm »
And I meant every word.    :beer:

You know umps are an incredibly under appreciated lot.  They do their job day in day out, and the best indiction of their success is that no one notices.

As a hard core baseball fan, I'll say that there are 2 or 3 bad apples in the MLB umpire crew that need extraction.  But by, far, the vast majority do a pretty dang good job. Kudos to them.

Mr. Palermo...  You were one of them..... RIP
I display the Confederate Battle Flag in honor of my great great great grandfathers who spilled blood at Wilson's Creek and Shiloh.  5 others served in the WBTS with honor too.

Offline EasyAce

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Re: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« Reply #5 on: May 15, 2017, 10:14:28 pm »
You know umps are an incredibly under appreciated lot.  They do their job day in day out, and the best indiction of their success is that no one notices.

As a hard core baseball fan, I'll say that there are 2 or 3 bad apples in the MLB umpire crew that need extraction.  But by, far, the vast majority do a pretty dang good job. Kudos to them.

Mr. Palermo...  You were one of them..... RIP
More than just a few dubious apples in the umpiring barrel. I imagine Steve Palermo as supervisor of umpires had his hands
full with the like of Country Joe West, Angel Hernandez, and C.B. Bucknor.


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.

Offline catfish1957

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Re: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« Reply #6 on: May 15, 2017, 10:26:35 pm »
More than just a few dubious apples in the umpiring barrel. I imagine Steve Palermo as supervisor of umpires had his hands
full with the like of Country Joe West, Angel Hernandez, and C.B. Bucknor.

Wasn't going to name name names, but the initials CBB are a blight on this great game.
I display the Confederate Battle Flag in honor of my great great great grandfathers who spilled blood at Wilson's Creek and Shiloh.  5 others served in the WBTS with honor too.

Online Lando Lincoln

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Re: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« Reply #7 on: May 16, 2017, 12:59:51 am »
And I meant every word.    :beer:

You are right, DCP.  Exquisite piece.  Thank you @EasyAce
There are some among us who live in rooms of experience we can never enter.
John Steinbeck

Offline EasyAce

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Re: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« Reply #8 on: May 16, 2017, 02:06:26 am »
You are right, DCP.  Exquisite piece.  Thank you @EasyAce!
:beer:


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.

Offline catfish1957

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Re: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« Reply #9 on: May 16, 2017, 02:16:50 am »
:beer:

Enjoyed too.

Managers in our early days put the ones today to shame as far as dealing with umpires.

Weaver, Durocher, Alston.  All masters of the "hook and snag"

You know, I obviously don't have proof, but you wonder sometimes if the umps "subliminally" gave favorable plate calls to teams who had managers like these guys.  I know I wouldn't have wanted to argue with Leo the Lip.
I display the Confederate Battle Flag in honor of my great great great grandfathers who spilled blood at Wilson's Creek and Shiloh.  5 others served in the WBTS with honor too.

Offline EasyAce

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Re: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« Reply #10 on: May 16, 2017, 03:08:04 am »
Enjoyed too.

Managers in our early days put the ones today to shame as far as dealing with umpires.

Weaver, Durocher, Alston.  All masters of the "hook and snag"

Then there was Gil Hodges. He never said a word when he retrieved the ball that hit Cleon Jones in the foot
and brought it to the umpires. He merely showed the shoe polish stain and the umpire awarded Jones first
base.

You know, I obviously don't have proof, but you wonder sometimes if the umps "subliminally" gave favorable plate calls to teams who had managers like these guys.  I know I wouldn't have wanted to argue with Leo the Lip.
It goes the other way around, too. You could ask Leo the Lip about how getting under umpires' skins worked out for him in
1969:

He tried to use umpires as a tension target. One day he got umpire Shag Crawford so mad, by dancing around him helling
"Dummy! Dummy!" that Crawford offered to fight him right there. But in the end, his umpire-baiting worked against the Cubs.
They were the victims of some outrageously bad calls, and there was no place to turn; the league had become polarised
against Durocher and the Cubs. Once, Leo was overruled by the league president, Warren Giles, on a protest involving a play
that cost the Cubs a run and, conceivably, a ball game. (It was a judgment call on how many bases a runner could advance on
a ball thrown into the stands.) Less than two weeks later, exactly the same play developed again, but with the team situation
reversed, so that the Cubs---on the basis of the previous precedent---would save a run and perhaps a game. "They can't
have it both ways," Durocher crowed of the umpires' decision. He was wrong. They could and they did. Not only that, the
league upheld them when Durocher protested. Whether or not Leo ever united the Cubs against the umpires, he certainly
united the umpires against the Cubs.

---William Barry Furlong, from "How Durocher Blew the Pennant," Look, January 1970.

How else did Durocher blow it in 1969? Let me count the ways:

* He refused to use a decently assembled bench until or unless one of his regulars got hurt; nearly
every close observer of the 1969 Cubs noticed the team was gassed when the real heat of the stretch
drive arrived.

* Anyone who did get injured on the 1969 Cubs was loath to reveal it---fearing Durocher would
denounce them as quitters, which he did to several injured players.

* Durocher had a fine bullpen but made himself so dependent on Phil (The Vulture) Regan that
by the end August Regan was completely spent and the rest of the Cub pen was underworked enough
to be ineffective when Durocher did deign to go to them.

* When August arrived and it became more obvious that the Cubs' regulars were beginning to tire
from overuse, Durocher exploded a depth charge in the clubhouse: he fined any player saying he
was tired $500, then fined them $500 if he found out they were tired but didn't speak up.

* At various points he even accused his two best pitchers that year, Ferguson Jenkins and Ken
Holtzman, of being quitters---in Holtzman's case, it was because Holtzman lived on off-speed
pitches and effective changeups, and Durocher had lost any taste he had for such pitchers.
(Durocher was once heard to holler "gutless Jew" at Holtzman.)

* Even when he knew a regular was spent but stubborn enough not to want time off, Durocher
didn't force the issue, particularly with bull-like catcher Randy Hundley. When he most needed
to be a boss, Durocher wasn't always a sharp boss. When he didn't need to be a boss, Durocher
dropped the hammer almost wantonly.

* That and more probably contributed to a syndrome that developed as the season wore on, one
relief pitcher Rich Nye remembered to David Claerbaut for Durocher's Cubs: The Greatest Team
That Didn't Win
: "There were individuals on that team, while the Mets were really together.
Al Weis still talks about the family atmosphere they had."

* The Cubs unexpectedly became one of the "in" teams in baseball in 1969, and Durocher barely
stopped them from letting it get to their heads---yet he'd bawl them out when they enjoyed their
celebrity a little too much from time to time. Which sure would have exposed Durocher as a kind
of hypocrite, since even the most raw Cub rookie had to know Durocher was as famous for his
own thirst for hanging with celebrities as for anything else in his baseball life.


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.

Offline catfish1957

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Re: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« Reply #11 on: May 16, 2017, 03:39:53 am »
Nice write up.  As a kid and an Astros fan I despised Durocher.  He had the gall to accuse the team of turning on the Astrodome AC, only when the cubs were up to bat.

Then came 1972, and the Astros hired him.  My father teased me all season relentlessly

I guess the manager I most respected in that era, was Sparky Anderson.  It was uncanny the ways he could beat us.  He was one master tactician And it didn't hurt that he was blessed with some of the best players of that era too.
I display the Confederate Battle Flag in honor of my great great great grandfathers who spilled blood at Wilson's Creek and Shiloh.  5 others served in the WBTS with honor too.

Offline EasyAce

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Re: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« Reply #12 on: May 16, 2017, 04:09:52 pm »
Nice write up.  As a kid and an Astros fan I despised Durocher.  He had the gall to accuse the team of turning on the Astrodome AC, only when the cubs were up to bat.

Then came 1972, and the Astros hired him.  My father teased me all season relentlessly

I guess the manager I most respected in that era, was Sparky Anderson.  It was uncanny the ways he could beat us.  He was one master tactician And it didn't hurt that he was blessed with some of the best players of that era too.
Sparky Anderson was a solid manager. If only he hadn't been bedeviled while winning with the Reds by what
bedeviled the Reds in the 1950s and 1960s: their pitching staffs were always having arm and shoulder issues.

On the other hand, Leo Durocher was (using his word) a maiden compared to Billy Martin. Who was once so
relentless in abusing umpires regardless of the umps' actual performances that---famously, once---the umps
were prepared to crack down on him specifically. Martin wasn't as great a manager as he's remembered to be:
for the game you needed to win yesterday he was as good as it got, but for the long haul he was the
last one you wanted in the dugout, particularly the manner in which he overworked pitchers.

Just ask the 1980-82 Oakland Athletics, who had a young pitching staff with arms liable to throw as much
as 140-150 pitches a game . . . and who all came down with one or another arm or shoulder misery that
shortened or ended their careers. One of them was Steve McCatty---who eventually turned up as the Washington
Nationals pitching coach for a few years, including the year the Nats raised eyebrows with the so-called
Strasburg Plan, a plan to limit Stephen Strasburg's innings in his first full season back from Tommy John
surgery. It prompted me to write extensively about that ill-fated Oakland rotation:

The Rise and Demise of the Five Aces


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.

Offline catfish1957

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Re: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« Reply #13 on: May 16, 2017, 04:42:31 pm »
Great read.  I'll spend a good bit of the afternoon browsing your blog.

BTW, have you seen the documentary on Netflix, about who was the fastest pitcher of all time.  It takes  account technological aspects of the issue.  Venturing through Johnson, Feller, even to Chapman.

According to that doc, my favorite baseball player of all time Nolan Ryan was the fastest.  Between '80-'87, I probably saw 75% of his starts.  I'd make it a point go to the foul lines at each game and watch him warm up.  It was a unique sound hearing the whistle and pop of the mitt.

Ryan was amazing.  Think about it it would take a pitcher throwing 280K's for 21 years to break his record.  Someone else breaking his record and throwing 8 no-hitters?  Think again.
I display the Confederate Battle Flag in honor of my great great great grandfathers who spilled blood at Wilson's Creek and Shiloh.  5 others served in the WBTS with honor too.

Offline EasyAce

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Re: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« Reply #14 on: May 16, 2017, 05:07:34 pm »
Great read.  I'll spend a good bit of the afternoon browsing your blog.

BTW, have you seen the documentary on Netflix, about who was the fastest pitcher of all time.  It takes  account technological aspects of the issue.  Venturing through Johnson, Feller, even to Chapman.

According to that doc, my favorite baseball player of all time Nolan Ryan was the fastest.  Between '80-'87, I probably saw 75% of his starts.  I'd make it a point go to the foul lines at each game and watch him warm up.  It was a unique sound hearing the whistle and pop of the mitt.

Ryan was amazing.  Think about it it would take a pitcher throwing 280K's for 21 years to break his record.  Someone else breaking his record and throwing 8 no-hitters?  Think again.
The very thing that made Nolan Ryan amazing was also the thing that kept him from being the greatest starting
pitcher of all time: his extremes. Bill James wrote this, in The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, in 2001,
when he ranked Ryan number 25 all-time:

Quote
The mystique of Nolan Ryan was based on two things. First, the other players were somewhat
in awe of Ryan. The hitters were in awe because they couldn't hit him; the pitchers were in awe because
they understood how difficult it was to do what he did.

Second, while Ryan was certainly not the greatest pitcher of his time, he was one of the most unusual
pitchers of his time. Ryan tried to throw unhittable pitches, one after another, even to weak hitters,
even when he was behind in the count. The "ease up and let the fielders do their work" software had
never been installed on his machine. From the beginning of his career to the end, a Nolan Ryan game
featured strikeouts, walks, and very few hits.

This could be perceived in two ways. On the one hand, it could be perceived as a "no compromises"
position, that Ryan never gave in to the hitter, even in situations when any other pitcher would have.
But on the other hand, it could be seen as a sort of permanent compromise. Ryan was saying to the
hitters, in essence, "you can have a walk if you want but I'm not giving you anything to hit." Giving
the hitter the walk, in some eyes, was enough.

Sportswriters could have portrayed Ryan either as a heroic pitcher who never compromised, or as
a pitcher who was constitutionally compromised. Ryan was so respected by the other athletes, the
option of portraying him as constitutionally compromised was shut off to sportswriters, who were
unwilling to present Ryan in a manner that might not have set well with the other players. Sports-
writers---not all of them, but many of them---often seemed anxious to sent the message back to the
athletes that, "We get it; we understand. We understand how remarkable Ryan really is, and we
would never portray him any other way."

But the other option, the option of portraying Ryan as a very flawed pitcher, was quite obvious,
and loomed like an elm over all discussions of Nolan Ryan. And this led to a lot of nonsensical
information being generated on behalf of Ryan---for example, sportswriters would write that Ryan
added 10,000 fans to the gate every time he pitched, when in reality 500 was a generous
estimate, or point out that between 1972 and 1978 Ryan was 107-1 or something when he
entered the eighth inning with a lead. (Which is a meaningless stat, because managers never
allow a starting pitcher to lose the game in the late innings. Everybody wins almost all his
decisions when entering the eighth inning with a lead, because if you're going to lose that game,
you'll let the bullpen lose it.)

The struggle between these two views of Ryan propelled him out of the class or ordinary players
and lifted his image to a plateau beyond . . . Ryan's list of spectacular accomplishments is as
thick as Bill Clinton's little black book; his list of flaws and failures is lengthy but dry, and will
never make for good reading. He rates as well as he does here, in part, because my method
compares a pitcher to zero; he ranks not nearly as well if he is compared to the average.
For my part, if I needed one pitcher above anyone else to win the game I need most to win to
stay in the race, win the pennant, or win the World Series, I'd pick from among these first:

* Sandy Koufax
* Juan Marichal
* Randy Johnson
* Bob Gibson
* Lefty Grove
* Whitey Ford
* Tom Seaver
* Greg Maddux
* Curt Schilling
* Madison Bumgarner

Koufax and Ford tangled in the 1963 World Series, Koufax beating Ford twice in the Dodgers' sweep.
After the Series, Koufax flew to New York to accept a 1963 Corvette as the Series' MVP. The organisers
parked the car on the sidewalk outside the building, and Koufax went down to the car to discover a
$15 parking ticket on the windshield. It prompted Ford to crack, "Sandy has only two flaws: He can't
park and he can't hit."

The two men became friends in later years, a friendship that proved a benefit for poet Robert Pinsky,
whose "Night Game" was a poem about Ford and Koufax. Pinsky was a young man when he watched an
exhibition game in which Ford pitched for the Army, during his military service, and Pinsky waited
after a game to get Ford's autograph. Ford replied, "Not now, kid." Decades later, Koufax's biographer
Jane Leavy discovered "Night Game" while researching her book and mentioned the poem and the
earlier incident between Pinsky and Ford. Koufax paused and asked, "Do you think he'd like a ball?"

Two weeks later, Pinsky received a small package: a ball Koufax signed that included, "There was
never a better night game!" on the sweet spot, and a small note saying, "Whitey's really a good
guy." Not long after that, Pinsky and Ford met, and Ford explained that soldiers weren't allowed
to give autographs. Ford also redeemed himself with Leavy when he called her to ask for a copy
of "Night Game," saying, "He wrote nice about Sandy? I'd like to see that."

Ford had in mind the final verse of the poem:

Quote
The emerald
Theater, the night.
Another time,
I devised a left-hander
Even more gifted
Than Whitey Ford: A Dodger.
People were amazed by him.
Once, when he was young,
He refused to pitch on Yom Kippur.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2017, 05:24:01 pm by EasyAce »


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Offline GrouchoTex

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Re: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« Reply #15 on: May 16, 2017, 05:17:36 pm »
Great read.  I'll spend a good bit of the afternoon browsing your blog.

BTW, have you seen the documentary on Netflix, about who was the fastest pitcher of all time.  It takes  account technological aspects of the issue.  Venturing through Johnson, Feller, even to Chapman.

According to that doc, my favorite baseball player of all time Nolan Ryan was the fastest.  Between '80-'87, I probably saw 75% of his starts.  I'd make it a point go to the foul lines at each game and watch him warm up.  It was a unique sound hearing the whistle and pop of the mitt.

Ryan was amazing.  Think about it it would take a pitcher throwing 280K's for 21 years to break his record.  Someone else breaking his record and throwing 8 no-hitters?  Think again.

I would do the same, at the Dome, and actually, I got to see Ryan start for the Angel's, in Anaheim, in the early 70's.

Offline catfish1957

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Re: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« Reply #16 on: May 16, 2017, 05:27:37 pm »
This could be perceived in two ways. On the one hand, it could be perceived as a "no compromises"
position,

I'll grant that....

I will respectfully disagree on some of the detraction.  Ryan played for many losing teams during his career (ex. 8-16 with a 2.76 era one year). His W-L record reflected accordingly.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIZB9O24BEE&t=47s
« Last Edit: May 16, 2017, 05:27:58 pm by catfish1957 »
I display the Confederate Battle Flag in honor of my great great great grandfathers who spilled blood at Wilson's Creek and Shiloh.  5 others served in the WBTS with honor too.

Offline EasyAce

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Re: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« Reply #17 on: May 16, 2017, 06:03:39 pm »
I'll grant that....

I will respectfully disagree on some of the detraction.  Ryan played for many losing teams during his career (ex. 8-16 with a 2.76 era one year). His W-L record reflected accordingly.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIZB9O24BEE&t=47s
* Ryan actually pitched for fourteen winning teams in his 27-season career.
* He had his only two 20-or-more-game winning seasons for a pair of losing teams.
* He started 305 games lifetime in which he had three to five runs from his own teams to work with and a .644 winning percentage in them;
   he started 180 games in which he had six or more runs to work with and a .908 winning percentage in those games. In games when he
   had two or fewer runs to work with, he had a .177 winning percentage. Basically, Ryan won the games he should have won. Now:
   his ERA in games where he had two or less runs to work with: 3.28. In games where he had 3-5 runs to work with: 2.88. In games
   where he had six or more to work with: 3.55.

Nolan Ryan was a great pitcher, but I'm not entirely convinced that he was that much better than his statistics. For a pitcher
remembered as a strikeout machine, a lifetime 2.04 strikeout-to-walk ratio isn't very impressive.

He does have a fine postseason jacket, though. His best performances were probably in the 1969 National League Championship
Series (he came on early when rookie Gary Gentry surrendered back-to-back inning opening hits in the third with the Mets in the
hole 2-0 and went the rest of the way for the win as the Mets came back for 7-4 win to finish the sweep), his Game Three save for
Gentry in the 1969 World Series (he helped Gentry finish a shutout with two and a third shutout relief innings), and his 1979
American League Championship Series start for the Angels. Overall in the postseason, Ryan was only 2-2 but with a 3.07 ERA
(it might have been lower but for a rough 1980 NLCS against the Phillies and the Mets prying six runs out of him in two NLCS
starts in 1986) and a 0.90 WHIP.


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.

Offline catfish1957

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Re: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« Reply #18 on: May 16, 2017, 06:30:04 pm »
* Ryan actually pitched for fourteen winning teams in his 27-season career.
Team records as him a pitcher were 2171-2151 .502, so essentially .500.  But consider what the records would have been w/o him, esp in the days if the 4 man rotation.  Also realize, the list of great pitchers you cite earlier all, pretty much were associated with a franchise dynasty, and associated much higher winning pct%.  (Which btw, I am shocked you didn't include Carlton.

I am not saying he is the greatest pitcher of all time, but IMO belongs easily in that category you list.  How do you really define "great". That is subject to much interpreatation.

[/color]
« Last Edit: May 16, 2017, 06:30:48 pm by catfish1957 »
I display the Confederate Battle Flag in honor of my great great great grandfathers who spilled blood at Wilson's Creek and Shiloh.  5 others served in the WBTS with honor too.

Offline EasyAce

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Re: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« Reply #19 on: May 16, 2017, 07:10:32 pm »
Team records as him a pitcher were 2171-2151 .502, so essentially .500.  But consider what the records would have been w/o him, esp in the days if the 4 man rotation.  Also realize, the list of great pitchers you cite earlier all, pretty much were associated with a franchise dynasty, and associated much higher winning pct%.  (Which btw, I am shocked you didn't include Carlton.)
On a lot of those teams, there were other excellent pitchers who might have helped pick up some of the slack if you
removed Ryan. Until his shoulder mounted a rebellion, Frank Tanana was such a pitcher on the Angels, to name one.

By the way, I didn't choose the pitchers whom I'd pick to pitch the game I needed most to win based
on franchise considerations, I chose them based on a) their records in the heat of the pennant races in which
they pitched; b) their records based on how they pitched against contending teams; and, c) their records
based on how they pitched against the one team their teams most needed to beat to stay in the races or
nail the pennant. Combined, the pitchers I chose excelled in the heat of their pennant races when their
teams were in the races, they excelled against all other contending teams, and they excelled when called
upon to nail the pennant. Remember: a lot of franchise dynasties don't always have top-to-bottom great
pitchers in their rotations. (What did the 2014 Giants have other than Madison Bumgarner? The 1959-66
Dodgers had Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale---who actually wasn't as good in the pennant races as
he's remembered to have been---and assorted not-quites such as Johnny Podres and Claude Osteen.)

Maybe the prime example of those was Koufax, especially when he was forced to do it on the last day of
1966: The Dodgers went into a season-ending doubleheader against the Phillies---who weren't a team
the Dodgers most needed to beat that year, but whom they were playing that final weekend with the
Giants nipping at their heels---needing to win one of the two to clinch the pennant. Manager
Walter Alston's preference was to start Don Drysdale in the opener, then send up anyone else as a
sacrifice in the nightcap the better to save Koufax to open the World Series on his regular rest.

So much for that idea. The Phillies jumped Drysdale and the Dodgers lost the first game, forcing Alston
to do what he didn't want to do and ask Koufax for the nightcap. Koufax did what he was asked to
do, winning his 27th game and nailing the pennant, but it changed the Dodger game plan for the
Series. Drysdale lost Game One in large part because nondescript Orioles reliever Moe Drabowsky
picked that day to pitch the game of his life, striking out eleven in six innings' relief, and Drysdale
wasn't always sharp on less than his normal rest. Koufax was cruising in Game Two until Willie Davis's
three errors in the fifth inning undid the game and Alston removed him anticipating he'd be well
enough rested to pitch the fifth game if there'd be one. But Claude Osteen and Drysdale in Game
Four were no match for those Orioles, who swept.

Juan Marichal is a unique case. His only World Series was when he was a young sprout not yet come into his
own, and he never got another chance to pitch in the postseason because his Giants were usually going
hammer-and-tongs with the Dodgers---especially in 1965-66---and coming up just that short. (Gaylord
Perry was part of those teams but he really didn't begin coming into his own until after that generation
of Giants ceased to be contenders as much of the team began to age.) Steve Carlton was a great pitcher,
but I don't see him as having been that much better in the heat of a pennant race or in the postseason
than the other pitchers I named, and his postseason jacket actually isn't as good as Nolan Ryan's.
Carlton was good in the heat of the pennant races, but it's no disgrace to say he wasn't Koufax,
Grove, Marichal, Ford, or Gibson---and he was Gibson's teammate on the 1967-68 Cardinals. In
fact, Carlton's best postseason game ever was the first one he got to pitch, in the 1967 World Series:
he faced the Red Sox's Cy Young Award winner-to-be, Jim Lonborg, in Game Five, and surrendered only
one unearned run in six innings' work; the bullpen gave up two more in the ninth while the Cardinals
couldn't touch Lonborg that day; the Red Sox won the game, 3-1.



"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

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Offline catfish1957

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Re: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« Reply #20 on: May 16, 2017, 07:23:07 pm »

Great points.  Great to get to speak to someone who knows more about the game than I do.

Maybe my machismo gets me to equate greatness and intimidation.  That is why I so much of BB childhood and young life idols were Ryan, Carlton, Gibson, and Marichal.

Still, you wonder how well those pitchers you listed would have done if they had played for consistently bad teams.  I am guessing their status would not have been so elevated.
I display the Confederate Battle Flag in honor of my great great great grandfathers who spilled blood at Wilson's Creek and Shiloh.  5 others served in the WBTS with honor too.

Offline EasyAce

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Re: Steve Palermo, RIP: Courage, diligence, wit, grace
« Reply #21 on: May 16, 2017, 08:06:27 pm »
Still, you wonder how well those pitchers you listed would have done if they had played for consistently bad teams.  I am guessing their status would not have been so elevated.
Think of Steve Carlton's 1972, when he was a 27-game winner for a team who didn't win, really, except when
he was on the mound. The great pitchers will do that. As a matter of fact, Tom Seaver (yes, you can look it up)
was the one pitcher above all in the post-World War II era who did the most to drag his teams to win. (Walter
Johnson was the best pre-World War II pitcher to do that.)

Think of this, too:

* When Sandy Koufax was lost to the Dodgers in August 1964 because his arthritic elbow came manifest
after an awkward baserunning play, the Dodgers fell out of the race. After he retired, the Dodgers didn't
contend again the rest of the 1960s.

* When Juan Marichal was suspended ten games over the Roseboro fight (which Roseboro actually provoked;
you can read the complete story in John Rosengren's The Fight of Their Lives: How Juan Marichal and
John Roseboro Turned Baseball's Ugliest Brawl into a Story of Forgiveness and Redemption
), the
suspension included two starts down the stretch. The Giants lost the pennant to the Dodgers by two games.
You do the math. ;)

* Truly great pitchers will show it no matter how good or bad their teams are. Walter Johnson pitched for
a lot of terrible Senators teams even if he did finally get to win a World Series in 1924. Lefty Grove pitched
for the second Philadelphia A's dynasty but also some none-too-great Red Sox teams. You know about Ryan
and Seaver and Carlton, though Carlton also pitched for several NL East-winning Phillies teams. Marichal
hung in with some Giants teams that weren't quite up to the level of the 1962-66 Giants, before his back
compromised and then eventually ended his career. Bob Gibson remained a great pitcher even after his
Cardinals teams quit being contenders. Ferguson Jenkins pitched for how many Cub and Ranger also-ran
teams? And look at how many not-quite Mariners teams Felix Hernandez has pitched for.

* One of the oddest of great pitchers when you look at his record closely was Warren Spahn. He has almost
no considerable peak value---in comparison to his career value. Most great pitchers have both; some of
the greats (Sandy Koufax, Dizzy Dean, a few others) have off-the-chart peak value and career value that
wasn't half of that. Spahn is an anomaly, the inverse of Koufax and Dean: off-the-charts career value and
peak value that wasn't half. The height of his career was maybe three stories but the breadth of his career
was about six long city blocks, if that makes sense. (Lew Burdette, his rotation mate and partner in comedy
crime, wasn't the pitcher Spahn was though he was a great pitcher for a number of seasons, yet Burdette
out-pitched Spahn and everyone else in the 1957 World Series. Go figure.)


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.