Friday, September 28, 2007

Rambling Away On a Sleepless Night

It's 4:15 and I still haven't fallen asleep yet. That would be fine if I were in a Vegas casino right now, but unfortunately, I'm just sitting on the couch watching ESPNews. For about the 12th time, I've seen Hope Solo throw Brianna Scurry under the bus and a forlorn Willie Randolph at a loss to explain the Mets untimely collapse; and the whole time, my mind has chosen this as the soundtrack for those stories:



Sorry, I know that clip has nothing to do with sports, but Brandi McClain (the blonde) was a memorable part of puberty for me way back in 1989, and I thought it would be nice to see this vid when I wake up in a couple hours.

In a tepid effort to make this seem like an actual sports post, here is a quick trip in the wayback machine to the state of baseball in 1989, the year "Free Fallin'" was made:

The Mets finished 2nd in the NL East to the Chicago Cubs behind the bats of cork lover Howard Johnson, coke lover Darryl Strawberry, and chick magnet Lenny Dystrka. (Dykstra had been heard to meet women at a bar and greet them with this line: "I'm Lenny Dykstra. Want to suck my c*ck?"). Also top prospect and baseball card collection killer Gregg Jefferies finished the season with a batting average of .258.

The Royals were a legitimate baseball team, finishing in 2nd place in the AL West with 92 wins, thanks to guys like Brett Saberhagen, Bo Jackson, Danny Tartabull, and George Brett. That was their last 90+ win season.

The A's swept the Giants in the World Series; however, the series is better remembered for the earthquake which severely damaged the Bay Bridge and among other things, caused a 10 day delay in between games. Here's one interesting tidbit, courtesy of Armchair GM, from the day of the quake:
"Joe Torre...at the time working as a special guest analyst for ESPN...was given the task of playing roving reporter (interviewing players such as Rickey Henderson and Dave Parker) immediately following the earthquake. Torre was with Chris Berman in the upper deck section when the earthquake hit. Torre had to convince Berman about three times to walk down the steps for safety." I won't mock Berman for being shaken in an earthquake because I've been through plenty and seen people emotionally scarred by them, but I do find it telling that Joe Torre was level-headed and focused during a time of turmoil.

The Yankees, managed by Dallas Green and Bucky Dent, finished 13 games under .500. Fire Joe Morgan favorite Mike Pagliarulo hit .197 that year. Interestingly, Pags played alongside Bob Geren, who is now the manager of the Oakland A's as well as a longtime friend of GM Billy Beane. Beane is oftentimes a target of derision on Mike Pagliarulo's website. A more enterprising writer might look into that sometime.

A 24 year-old Barry Bonds looked like this:


It was a long time ago indeed.

Labels:

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home