The Real McCoy

About The Real McCoy

Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy has retired from the Dayton Daily News after covering the Cincinnati Reds for 37 years. Hal's blog, though, will continue to be a must-read for Reds fans. He'll share his thoughts on the team this season and will file updates from Great American Ball Park. You also can catch Hal in print every Sunday in his popular Ask Hal column

Get more from Hal

Hal's e-mail newsletter is the only place you can get his weekly commentary on the Reds. Sign up

February 2012

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29

RSS Syndication

XML The Real McCoy
XML More 'DDN' feeds

More recent entries

• Some humorous tales from spring trainings
• Giving Jocketty grades on his off-season deals
• Madson, too, is in the 'produce' business
• How the Reds nearly missed out on Larkin
• Reds agree on terms with closer Madson
• Barry Larkin: The humble Hall of Famer
• Larkin elected to baseball hall of fame
• All is quiet down on the Riverfront
• Are the Reds trying to go 'all-in' in 2012?
• Reds trade: Was it too one-sided?
• More entries...

Archives

• January 27, 2012
• January 22, 2012
• January 20, 2012
• January 13, 2012
• January 11, 2012
• January 9, 2012
• January 5, 2012
• More archives...

Home > Blogs > The Real McCoy | Cincinnati Reds baseball news > Archives > 2012 > January > 27 > Entry

Some humorous tales from spring trainings

By Hal McCoy | Friday, January 27, 2012, 04:06 PM

There is no better time in baseball than spring training, especially for snowbirds who are exhausted from digging out from under snowstorms and from trudging outside in heavy coats, gloves and mufflers (Ask your grandpa what a muffler is — and tell him you don’t mean the muffler on the exhaust system of his 1998 Buick).

The entire six weeks is relaxing for everybody, even the players. Nothing counts. Wins and losses don’t count. Batting averages and ERA’s for veterans mean nothing.

It is all downhill after spring training.

But a lot of humorous things unfold during spring training involving the players, who are loose (for the most part — unless they are a rookie trying to win a spot on the roster or are battling injuries).

SOME OF MY favorite stories come out of spring training. In fact, sons of baseball writers even contribute in ways even they didn’t understand.

There was the day in Plant City, Fla., an outpost of pickup trucks with gun racks and strawberry growers and pickers, where the Cincinnati Reds once trained in a cow pasture that stunk the way cow pastures are supposed to stink.

There was a large retaining pond behind the right field wall at Plant City Stadium, complete with an alligator named Marge (more on that later) and an abundance of water moccasins.

One night Reds pitcher Rob Dibble couldn’t get anybody out during an exhibition game and was pulled before his inning was over. Robbie Hunter, young son of Columbus Dispatch writer Bob Hunter, was outside the clubhouse when Dibble came in. The game was still on and the writers remained in the press box.

After the game, young Robbie told his dad, “When Dibble came into the clubhouse, he came out with a bunch of chairs and threw them in the pond. And he went in and out a bunch of times for more chairs.”

Dibble, always a volatile but lovable guy, was taking the chairs from in front of players’ lockers and drowning them in his sorrow — and disturbing the alligator.

Because of Robbie, we had a good spring training yarn and a good follow-up when Dibble was fined. We had hoped, for an even better story, that the club would make Dibble wade into the pond among the snakes and gator to fetch the chairs.

MY YOUNGEST SON, Brent, accompanied me to spring training when he was a youngster and he, too, furnished the writers with a story when the Reds trained in Tampa, Fla. in old Al Lopez Field.

The press box was awful there, splintery board for seats and splintery working surface, endangering both hands and rear ends. So the writers (most of us) sat in the left field bleachers during games, suntan lotion slathered generously. The clubhouse door was close to the bleachers and we sent my son, Brent, inside the clubhouse to grab some soft drinks.

He came back with the drinks and a tale: “Paul O’Neill is in the locker room throwing shoes all over the room, everybody’s shoes. And gloves and whatever he can pick up.”

Turns out O’Neill discovered that despite a great season at Triple-A the year before and a great spring training he was being sent back to the minors. It was fun watching the players trying to find and match their shoes.

THE ALLIGATOR in the Plant City retaining pond never bothered anybody, mostly sunning itself on the far bank. Clubhouse personnel playfully named it Marge, in honor of former team owner Marge Schott, an animal lover.

And that’s the way it stayed until one day Mrs. Schott came to camp and saw the gator sunning itself on the far bank. When somebody looked up, Mrs. Schott was about 20 feet from the gator, hoping to see it up close and personal.

That was the end of Marge — the gator, not Mrs. Schott. It was ‘processed’ the next day, meaning gator control personnel removed it and Marge right now is probably somebody’s pair of shoes.

THE REDS drafted pitcher Jack Armstrong No. 1 in 1987 and he is pretty much a forgotten guy from the 1990 World Series team. He began the season 8-1 and made the All-Star team. But he finished 12-9.

The next spring he was a holdout, wouldn’t sign a contract, because he thought he deserved more than the Reds offered. He was in Plant City at a condo, but wouldn’t report to camp.

So Cincinnati Enquirer beat writer Mike Paolercio and I decided to visit Armstrong at his condo for an interview. During the interview, he told us, “I can make more money as a tuna boat captain that for what the Reds are offering me.”

A few days later, Armstrong signed. When he came to camp, he found his locker stuffed with some strange items — a fishing pole, yellow rain slickers, a creel, wading boots, a large compass, a nautical map and a sign that said, “Welcome back, Captain Jack.”

From then on he was known as Captain Jack Armstrong (the tuna boat captain), which was somehow apropos because he was from Neptune N.J. He was only 7-13 that year and the next year he was traded to the Cleveland Indians ¬— forever remembered (or forgotten) as a No. 1 draft pick half-year wonder.

REMEMBER WHEN Tony Fernandez played second base for the Reds in 1994? General Manager Jim Bowden decided to take a chance on him after he had knee surgery in the off-season.

When the exhibition games began that year, Fernandez didn’t play. His knee hurt. But he could be found every day before a game slurping vegetable soup or chicken noodle soup while seated face-in at his locker.

I approached him one day and asked, “How’s the knee coming along?” His one-word answer, as he sucked soup off his spoon: “Fine.”

I approached the next day and asked about the knee. “Don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “Talked about it yesterday.” He blew on his soup spoon and that was the end of the interview, although I wanted to say, “Why are you eating soup? You had soup yesterday?”

Later on, we walked into the clubhouse one day and Fernandez was standing on a chair reciting Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech at loud decibels. Not even his teammates knew why.

A PITCHER NAMED Scott Scudder found out it wasn’t nice to mess with the Nasty Boys — relief pitchers Norm Charlton, Rob Dibble and Randy Myers.

As a gag one day, Scudder sneaked a pair of cowboy boots out of Charlton’s locker. He immersed them in a Bucket of water and froze them solid in the water bucket before putting them in front of Charlton’s locker.

But, as they say, payback is hell.

A few days later, it was pouring outside. When Scudder ran to his jeep to leave the complex, he found his vehicle sitting on four cement blocks with all four tires and wheels stacked on top of the Jeep. The Nasty Boys watched Scudder struggle to put his Jeep back together while they stood inside the dry clubhouse, laughing heartily.

MY OLD BOSS, Si Burck of the Dayton Daily News, used to drive his big boat of a Pontiac to spring training in the 1970s. The media parking lot was right behind the left field wall at Al Lopez and Burick always grabbed the spot right behind the left field foul pole.

One day he wrote gleefully in the press box about a young player named Johnny Bench hitting a home run down the left field line. The proof was when Si went to his car and found a hole in his windshield and the baseball nestled neatly on the seat.

AS I WROTE earlier, we writers liked to sit in the left field bleachers. And sometimes we sat on the benches in the bullpen with the relief pitchers. Once in a while I’d play catch with the Reds left fielder to warm him up between innings.

As a gag one day, I took a pen and autographed the ball with which left fielder George Foster and I played catch. He didn’t notice anything on the ball the first two times he caught and returned it to me. On my third toss, he dug the ball out of his glove, looked at it, saw the signature, turned his back on me and threw the ball over the left field wall.

Fortunately it missed Burick’s car.

SPEAKING OF Johnny Bench, after his knees gave out from years of pounding behind home plate, he decided to play third base. During spring training, it wasn’t pretty. Al Lopez’s infield was as lumpy as a cheap bed and ground balls took hopes left, right, up and down. Several balls went through Bench’s legs and I cruelly wrote one day, “Johnny Bench is doing a great job at third base of imitating a croquet wicket.”

Fortunately, after a few days he forgave me.

ONE OF MY favorite stories involving writers also happened in Plant City. In those days, the St. Petersburg Times sent young, inexperienced interns to cover the Reds’ exhibition games.

When an exhibition game began, the Reds media director would say, “First pitch, 1:05,” telling everybodu that the first pitch of the game was at 1:05 p.m.

One day, The Times sent a young lady to cover a game that Tim Belcher started for the Reds. In the next day’s paper, there was headline: “Belcher throws a pitch 105 miles an hour.”

We asked the writer the next day where she got that information and she said, “The Reds PR guy announced it: ‘First pitch 105.’” Belcher cut out the article and had it hanging on his locker the rest of the spring.

HOW MANY out there remember that Jack Morris tried to end his career with the Reds? It was one of the saddest days I’ve ever encountered.

GM Jim Bowden liked to sign an abundance of pitchers every year, many of them coming off injuries or coming to camp with sore arms or shoulders. Bowden’s theory was that if you threw enough pitchers again the wall, some might stick (as did Pete Harnisch and Pete Schourek).

In 1995, Bowden brought Morris into camp, hoping the future Hall of Famer (he should be in the Hall right now) might stick.

But midway through spring camp, I arrived one morning and my timing was impeccable. As I walked in the door, Morris was on his way out, toward the players’ parking lot. Something was wrong.

I turned and trotted to the lot just as Morris had started his Corvette convertible to leave. I asked, “Where are you going?” With tears streaming down his checks, he said, ‘I’m done. I can’t do it any more. I’m out of here.’ And I stood in the parking lot and watched one of baseball’s all-time great players pull out of the parking lot and disappear over the horizon, his career finis

Permalink | Comments (17) | Post your comment |

Tweet