Today, the Cincinnati Reds continued the all-out rebuilding of the team that started at last season’s trade deadline with deals of Mike Leake and Johnny Cueto and has continued during the off-season with the departures of Todd Frazier and Aroldis Chapman.  Today, Reds Executive Management announced a three team deal that will send Mr. Red, Mr. Redlegs and Rosie to the Milwaukee Brewers.  The Brewers in turn will send Bernie Brewer to the Philadelphia Phillies who, in turn will send the Phillie Phanatic to Cincinnati.

A Red’s spokesman stated that it was just no longer feasible for a small market team like the Reds to carry four mascots.  The Philadelphia Phillies, like the Reds, finished last in their division in 2015 and, also like the Reds are looking to rebuild.  The Reds are hoping to achieve a great deal of synergy by pairing the Phanatic with Gapper in an effort to both bolster the popularity of Gapper as well as revive the career of the Phanatic.  While the Phanatic has had an iconic and Mascot Hall of Fame Career, his popularity has waned in recent years as the Phillies have slipped in the standings.

Philllies Management stated that, while they appreciated the long and distinguished career that the Phanatic has had, they felt it was just time to change direction.  The new direction for the franchise is actually a retro approach with Bernie Brewer stepping into a role similar to the one played by Philadelphia Phil, the more traditional mascot of the team prior to the arrival of the Phanatic.

While the past few seasons have been disappointing for the Milwaukee club, they have high hopes for the upcoming season and due to some transactions made during 2015 have freed up enough salary room where they believe an expansion from one to three mascots will only add to the excitement of the game experience.  Brewer’s Management was not yet ready to commit on which one of the three new arrivals will be the one to take the post home run slide or if, perhaps, that duty will be shared in some fashion.

When something fits very well or snugly, we might say that it “fits like a glove.”  But does a glove always “fit like a glove”?  I have found myself pondering this very question from time to time when I am watching a baseball game.  I’ll notice a batters routine in-between pitches.  Many times, the batter will take a step out of the batter’s box to quickly collect his thoughts and determine his strategy for the next pitch.  Often, he will then take a practice swing or two.  Next, for a number of batters, he will first tighten one batting glove and then the other batting glove before settling back in for the next pitch.  I am a bit perplexed, especially by the last item and ask myself why does he need to tighten his batting gloves?

It has probably been less than a minute since he last stepped out of the batter’s box and adjusted his batting gloves.  The only thing that has happened in the interim is that he either a) watched one pitch go by, b) swung at the pitch and missed, or c) fouled the pitch off.  Not one of those three things would seem to make a batting glove loosen significantly.  So, what has happened that caused his gloves to get so loose?  Is it really that difficult to get a batting glove that does indeed fit like a glove and it is due to both gloves being ill-fitting that it requires the constant adjustment of both gloves.  Perhaps there is only one size of batting glove manufactured and the “one-size-that-fits-all” only fits a man with hands the size of Goliath?  Or is the Velcro defective thus causing the gloves to loosen with the slightest of movements (which includes eye movement of watching a pitch go into the catcher’s glove)?  It remains a mystery to me.

I can remember when baseball players did not wear batting gloves at all.  Then came the advent of wearing one glove and then two.  Now once they get on base, a runner will exchange his batting gloves for running gloves.  I will have to watch to see if the running gloves also require adjustment after every pitch.  I also remember a catcher/first baseman/designated hitter in the 1970’s and 1980’s by the name of Cliff Johnson.  If my memory serves me correctly Mr. Johnson, who may have hands larger than Goliath’s,  did not tighten his gloves after every pitch, in fact he never tightened his batting gloves at all.  You could see the Velcro strips flying in the wind as he would take one of his mighty swings.  I would also bet you that Mr. Johnson never owned a pair of running gloves.

If you know me or if you have been reading this blog for any time, you have probably figured out that I have an affinity for baseball.  As a child I caught a bad case of baseball fever and it has never let go.

Every once in a great while I get to feed this fever in a special way by attending a major league baseball stadium at a venue that I have never been to.  Tonight was one of those nights as I made a pilgrimage to see the Chicago Cubs at venerable Wrigley Field,  “The Friendly Confines” has been the host to major league baseball for over 100 years now.  The place is just dripping with history.  Yes, there have been night games for many years now, yes there is now a state-of-the art giant scoreboard towering above left field.  But this is still the place where Billy Williams, Ron Santo, Don Kessinger, and Ernie Banks played.  This is the place that was the site of Babe Ruth’s “called shot” in the 1932 World Series.  This is where Pete Rose had hit 4,191 tying him with Ty Cobb.  This is where Gabby Hartnett, Greg Maddux, Fergie Jenkins, and Ryne Sandberg played their way into the hearts of the loyal fans.  My evening at Wrigley took me to the past as I watched the emerging Cubs stars of the future.  The names keep changing, but the game remains, essential the same:  three strikes are an out, four balls are a walk, the bases are ninety feet apart.

Yet the evening also made me feel a bit old.  It got me thinking about the other palaces of baseball that I have visited.  There is Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, The New Bush Stadium in St. Louis and Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg.  These, in addition to Wrigley are the stadiums currently in use that I have been too.  What makes me feel old are the stadiums that I have seen major league baseball games in that are no longer in use.  This list is composed of Crosley Field AND Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, the old Busch Stadium in St. Louis, the old Comisky Park in Chicago, Exhibition Park in Toronto, Arlington Stadium in Texas and The Kingdome in Seattle.  If I have been to seven stadiums that have been replaced, I must be old.  If I have been to three different stadiums in Cincinnati to see the Reds, I must be getting really old!

But the game goes on and the fever remains no matter how old I get.

We can now officially put a very long and very cold winter behind us because the baseball season is underway.  I have enjoyed baseball for as long as I can remember and I was fortunate to grow up in Southwestern Ohio during the days of the Big Red Machine.  So, of course, I dreamed of playing for the Reds.  Of course that never happened, I never even managed to make my high school team.  

But I did play Little League Baseball as many years as I could  – from age 8 through 15.  I was on some good teams and some really bad teams.  I think in 1971, the team I played on  was 2-14.  The next year, we doubled our wins to 4-12.  According to my records, in 1974 as a pitcher, I won 5 games and lost 4, posting an ERA of 1.14 and even managed to pitch a no-hitter and lose 1-0!  The last two years I played baseball I pitched 132 innings  walked 53 and struck out 202.

Probably the best baseball team I had a chance to play with was the 1975 Shiloh – Ft. McKinley Senior Division All-Star Team at the conclusion of what was my last year of Little League Baseball.  I pick this as the best team I ever played on because we actually managed to win our first game in the double elimination Little League tournament. (It was also one of those rare times when I was not the only “Leonard” on a team.)  I had made the “all star” team the previous four years but we had never won a game in the Major Division or the Senior Division tournament and were quickly dismissed.  

But 1975 was our year.  Tucked away in an old red notebook I came across a clipping from the Argus-Sentinel by Sports Editor Ken Palen that recaps the highlight game of my brief and not quite illustrious baseball career.    The headline, from the Englewood paper proclaimed “Englewood Seniors One-Hit in Opening Tourney Game.”  Mr. Palen mentions the old baseball adage that “good pitching stops good hitting.”  That was definitely the case this day as we scored 8 runs and our ace pitcher, Jeff Mitrisin, allowed only one-hit and that was with one out in the seventh and final inning.

We scored 5 runs in the second inning on our way to victory.  If I recall correctly, I led off that inning and drove the ball the tremendous distance of about twenty feet, the ball stayed fair and just died on the first base line, a classic swinging bunt for a single.  I scored the first run as we batted around that inning highlighted by doubles by Larry Olevitch and Chris Pulos.  Englewood changed pitchers for the third inning and I got to lead off again.  In what may have been the best sentence ever written in the history of amateur baseball, Mr. Palen noted that the next pitcher “was the victim of a third inning home run by Lenny Wagers that easily cleared the 307 ft. sign in center field.” 

Unfortunately we lost our next game 4-3 in 11 innings and followed that with another loss.  We were eliminated again and my baseball career was over.  I suppose it is a little sad that I peaked at 15 and was washed-up and out of organized baseball at 16, but 40 years later, I still have some great memories.

Well it is time to put another softball season to rest and, according to my lovely wife, it is also time to put another softball shirt to rest as well.  She tells me that the shirt is old and misshapen.  She said she soaked it for a week and still the dirt stains refuse to come out.  Apparently she thinks I care about playing softball in a clean shirt which, of course, I don’t.  If I came home from a softball game in a clean shirt I think my wife would be asking for eyewitness confirmation that I really played.  I am kind of like Pig Pen from Peanuts when it comes to softball, no matter what I do, I tend to get dirty.  A sure sign that I have played a good softball game is that I need to hose off my shirt and socks in the driveway before even coming inside.   Those ground-in brown splotches on the shirt may be seen as a challenge to my wife.  To me they are little badges of honor, reminders of bases slid into and tumbling attempts to deny line drives admission to the outfield grass.  I suppose that I have been through a number of shirts and jerseys over the years and I am confident none of them left my possession clean.

I admit I am a bit reluctant to let this shirt go.  We have been through a lot together and I am a lot like that shirt.  It has been with me in the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat (and the agony of sore muscles), through trials and errors (lots of errors), though thick and thin (well mostly thick and thicker).  Like this shirt, I am a bit used up, a bit misshapen and a bit stained.  But I keep going out and giving it a shot even though I know my best days are behind me.  I guess as long as it is only the shirt getting tossed and not the wearer along with it, I shouldn’t put up too much of a fight.  I can always find a nice, new, clean shirt.  I just know that it will not stay clean for long.

For as far back as I can remember, the coming of spring has meant the coming of baseball.  The cut off dates were different for school and Little League and I can still recall how disappointed I was in second grade when most of my friends could sign-up and play baseball, but I could not.  The next year I could sign-up for “minors” and I did.  I also signed up the next year and the next year and the next year until I have almost lost count.  I believe that outside of 1986 and 1987, I have played baseball or softball every year since 1968.  If I think about the years that I played on more than one softball team, I guess I have been playing for more than fifty seasons.

This evening I had the opportunity to play my first game of 2014.  A decade ago, I joked that I was going to play long enough to play softball with all three of my boys.  That happened several years ago and I have already been asked if I am going to play long enough to play with my grandson. 

Across the years a few dreams as well as a few bones have been broken on the diamond.  I played on some good teams and some bad teams, some undefeated teams and some soundly defeated teams.  Over the five years I made the Shiloh-Ft. McKinley Little League tournament team we won one game and lost six.  As a fourteen year-old, I managed to pitch a no-hitter and lose 1-0.  One year I stuck out almost fifty percent of the time and the next year I hit over .600.  But my baseball “career” was over when I turned sixteen.

But I just could not stay away from the game I enjoyed so much and so I turned to slow pitch softball.  I have been playing at church ever since with the occasional work team thrown in as a bonus.  I can still recall the day I looked at around on the Citizens Bank softball team and realized I was the oldest guy on the team, that was in 1997!

Why, at my age, do I keep playing?  For fun, when it quits being fun, it will be time to quit. But the anticipation of stepping into the batter’s box, the adrenaline of running down the first base line still trying to run out a hit, those rare instances when I can “see” the ball coming my way just as the batter begins to swing – those things keep me coming back year after year.  The hits may not be as frequent and there may be a lot more bobbles between the good plays but every once in a while there is the hit right where I want it to be or the lunge at just the right second that snags the ball and as long as those still happen occasionally, spring will find me once again longing to grab my glove and bat and head out for another game.