Hello Fans,
Yesterday was both a fabulous and famous day in MLB history. R. A. Dickey of the Mets went from being perhaps mildly disappointed following a one-hitter last week to excited after throwing a 2nd consecutive one-hitter last night. And earlier in the day, Roger Clemens went from being understandably anxious following his defense team resting in a perjury trial to calmly relieved after a jury’s six ‘not guilty’ verdicts in his favor. Two different pitchers on two different fields in two different events on one regular Monday.
R.A. joined Rube Marquard, Lon Warneke, Mort Cooper, Whitey Ford, Sam McDowell, and Dave Stieb as the only pitchers in the Modern Era (1900) to pitch back to back one-hitters. We’ll keep Johnny Vander Meer on a separate platter, as he should be, since he’s the only man to throw consecutive No-no’s (the 2nd one on June 15,1938). I’ll bet that record won’t be beaten! R.A. now only has ten more one-hitters to tie Nolan Ryan and ‘Rapid Robert’ Feller for most career One-Ones, we’ll shall now call them. He also needs two more this season to tie Grover Alexander’s season record of one-ones set in 1915 (Stieb also chucked three of them in ’88 by the way). R.A. is hotter than hot as he is 6-0 with a high school-esque ridiculous ZERO point ONE-EIGHT ERA in his last six outings! WOW!! And on top of that, his krazy knuckleball has racked up 63 K’s in 48-2/3 innings in those same six starts. The 37 year-old really is making a run at the Cy “Not That” Young award as the season approaches the half way mark. He leads the majors in W’s, ERA, WHIP, and K’s. UNREAL!! What can he do for another encore this Sunday night against the subway rival Yankees and C.C. Sabathia (ESPN, 8:00 ET)?
R.C. got his lone no-no from a jury in about ten hours on six counts of perjury and the like. What will happen to the seven time Cy Young award winner in terms of the HOF ballot that he becomes eligible for later this year? Does he get the same treatment other ‘alleged’ enhanced performers have gotten thus far? I’m not saying he is completely innocent and that’s mostly because I’m not actually sure, but other than sustaining the great numbers (which can be largely credited to the addition of a nasty splitter later in his career), what do we convict him on in the court of public opinion? A one-time flare-up of throwing a broken bat at rival (and nemesis) Mike Piazza in the ’00 Series surely is not enough to convict on, it just puts in Ty Cobb’s category of being despised. OK, how about Brian McNamee? The Feds tied their case to the defeated, convicted liar and that didn’t work even in real court. You can’t tell me that McNamee was actually genius enough to save paraphernalia with R.C.’s D.N.A. on it and then at the same time dumb enough to save it in a beer can. That guy was as desperate as desperate gets. I’m not hanging my opinion on that malarkey either. Plus, R.C. has always been a big, strapping power pitcher from Texas (just like Ryan). There was no gross and obvious size change like many sluggers, just the filling out any middle-aged man noticeably has compared to pictures from his early 20’s. And his conditioning workouts were legendary too.
Even in the court of public opinion there seems to be more than enough doubt to let R.C. get plenty of votes this fall. He may not be a real fan favorite or have the best personality on t.v. Surely, that could cost him him a first-ballot election that his awards, 354 victories, and 4,672 strikeouts deserve. And here’s one more aspect of doubt toward enhancers; look at his baseball card throughout his career. There are several ‘pockets’ of ridiculously low ERAs that came in bunches of two and three year runs, just as other ‘pockets’ exist of ERAs approaching and north of 4.00, which were common in his era. Check it out.
Hopefully, R.A. has plenty of magic in that pulsating pitch of his and continues to dominate major leaguers while entertaining us big MLB fans and even the less than casual fans. On the other pitch, R.C. probably won’t get more than 25% on his first HOF vote and that is because people will be weary of setting a precedent, which it doesn’t have to be anyway. A case by case basis will suffice. Besides, sooner or later, like a tumbling, fluttering R.A. knuckler, the writers’ votes will land in the catcher’s mitt to make a collective decision on players like R.C. who face suspicion of enhancement. Innocent or guilty? Ball or strike? We’re waiting in the balance.
Later Fans.