The goat, vs. Rocky Colavito

Is this destined to be the All-Loser World Series. The one between cursed ball clubs – in which the image of Rocky Colavito gets to beat up on a goat!
 

Whose 'curse'...

The World Series for 2016 has turned out to be a matchup between the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago Cubs. Both teams are charter members of their respective leagues, meaning they’re both over a century old.

BOTH HAVE ONLY two World Series victories in their histories (1920 and 1948 for Cleveland, as opposed to 1907 and 1908 for the Cubs). Both have old fans who have never seen their team win the whole thing, and have endured decades of horrendous baseball in the process.

 

... will prevail?

Meaning anybody who’s going into this week thinking that the Cubs just have to come out ahead is seriously misguided. It would be just as much of a moral victory for baseball if this were the year of the Indians.

Heck, one could argue that with the way the Cubs created an allegedly lovable image that makes some people think ivy-covered walls is what baseball is all about and that winning is secondary, the team hasn't suffered at all.

They never played home games in the “Mistake on the Lake,” as in the Lake Erie-based stadium of some 76,000 seats that could look absolutely desolate when only 6,000 or so were showing up to see the Indians contend for last place in their division throughout the years. The less said about “Dime Beer Night,” the better.

Which team will these two spirits...

ONE ALSO HAS to admit that the Curse of the Goat that Cubs fans also cite as the source of their losing teams has a contender in the Curse of Rocky Colavito – Rocky being the slugging ballplayer of the 1950s whom the Indians traded away to the Detroit Tigers for Harvey Kuenn.

It was supposed to be a home run hitter for a potential batting average champion. Rocky went to Detroit and played respectably, while Kuenn never played as well for Cleveland.

By the time the Indians reacquired Colavito in a trade in the mid-1960s, they had to give up a ton of young talent to do so. And by then, Rocky just wasn’t the same ballplayer himself.

...be rooting for this week?

I suppose Cubs fans could claim they have their own bad trade history, what with letting Lou Brock get away to the St. Louis Cardinals. But the point is that this World Series is going to be one in which a team gets to kill off its demons and finally give its fans the championship they’ve been waiting for; no matter who wins.

IT MAKES ME wonder how many cemeteries across northern Ohio are going to wind up with Indians pennants on the gravesites of now-deceased fans who never got to see their team win the whole thing?

Or is that sight destined to occur across the north side of Chicago. Because among those who are tied spiritually to the South Side, there will be those rooting for an Indians victory. I’m not kidding – I’ve talked to enough of them to know Cubdom doesn’t unite the city, no matter how much Cubs fans want to think the whole world is rooting for their ultimate victory.

Is having to play ballgames here enough reason ...

What does amuse me is that the 1948 Indians team that was the last to win a World Series for Cleveland has its Chicago ties. Its player-manager was Lou Boudreau – the prep sports star of Thornton High School in Harvey who later in life paired up with Jack Brickhouse in broadcasting Cubs games on WGN-TV.

And let’s not forget Bill Veeck, who owned that Indians team. It was his first major league team he ran outright, after having worked while a kid for the Cubs when his father was team president who helped put together the teams that won National League championships every three years throughout the 1930s.

YET EVEN THOSE teams always fell short come October. The Yankees of Babe Ruth, then Joe DiMaggio, and the Detroit Tigers were the teams that came out on top. While Cleveland has to live down the shame of being the team that let a second-rate wildcard like the ’97 Florida Marlins beat it in the World Series.

... to be entitled to break a 'curse?'

Thereby leading to our current predicament of seeing whether this is the year of the Cubs, or the Indians. Cleveland’s team this year isn’t a pushover – it whomped all over Boston and Toronto in the playoffs, and isn’t going to be intimidated by Cubbie lore.

So before North Siders get too cocky, keep in mind that it could easily be you come a week from now who will be agonizing aloud, “Why God? When will it FINALLY be our turn to win!”

  -30-

BARTOLO’S RETURN: Are the White Sox a dumping ground for aging stars?

I’m starting to wonder if there is something in the character of the Chicago White Sox that makes them a “dumping ground” of sorts for aging ballplayers past their prime.

The White Sox made an attempt to bolster their pitching rotation by signing aging hurler Bartolo Colon, who once was an aspiring star pitcher for the Cleveland Indians who also had some solid seasons for the Los Angeles Angels.

BUT AFTER HAVING an injury-plagued season in 2008 with the Boston Red Sox (he only got into 7 games out of the 162-game season), he found himself unemployed to the point where he was willing to listen to the White Sox – who are hopeful his arm can recover to the point where he can be a useful ballplayer in ’09.

But it was similar logic that caused the White Sox to take on other aging stars, all of whom clearly showed that their best days were in the past and that no one would remember their careers for anything that was achieved on the South Side.

Take the career of Sparky Lyle. He was once one of the best relief pitchers in the American League, and combined that skill in throwing a slider with a prankster nature (Sparky’s derriere and birthday cakes had unusually close relationships on many occasions) to make him one of the most notable ballplayers of the 1970s.

Fans of the New York Yankees remember him as one of their team’s all-time stars, while Red Sox fans remember him as a would-be star who got away (does anybody remember Danny Cater?)

BUT LYLE’S CAREER included a stint in Chicago. In fact, this is where it all ended for Sparky as a major league ballplayer.

The White Sox picked him up for the latter half of 1982, and about all that was proved was that the Philadelphia Phillies (who employed him the first half of that season) were justified in getting rid of him.

In 11 games, he pitched 12 innings, and managed to get the final save of the 238 he managed to build up during his career. Otherwise, it was a forgettable stretch of time.

Is something along those lines what we’re likely to see from Colon? An aging star for the Indians will give the White Sox nothing, except some speculation in future years about what the White Sox could have achieved had they not let him go following one year he was with the Sox in 2003 (winning 15 games that season)?

IF THAT IS the case, the Colon is the latest version of Rocky Colavito.

For those too young to remember Rocco Domenico Colavito, he was a star slugger in the 1950s and early 1960s who entertained Indians fans of that era. In fact, the more irrational of them (perhaps it’s something about drinking water from the Cuyahoga River) talk of the “Curse of Rocky Colavito,” which refers to his trade to the Detroit Tigers and the fact that the Indians have not won a World Series championship since.

On a side note, that is the difference between Chicago Cubs fans and fans of real baseball clubs. Indians and Red Sox (Babe Ruth) fans talk of curses caused by the trading away of star ballplayers, while the Cubs think they’re cursed because some Andy Frain usher had the sense to kick a fan with a goat out of the ballpark.

Eventually, Colavito wound up with the White Sox. It was 1967, the year they lasted in the pennant race to the final weekend of the season, before getting swept in a season-ending series to the last-place Kansas City Athletics (who departed the Midwest a few weeks later for their current home in Oakland).

COLAVITO WAS A part of the reason the White Sox couldn’t rise above the pennant race pack consisting of the Red Sox, Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins.

When a Colavito bat was supposed to be a major factor in their pennant drive, the fact that he hit only .221 with three home runs and 29 runs batted in over 60 games is worthy of blame.

It is awful.

Are we destined to see something similar from Bartolo this season? Will those of us White Sox fans who are hoping the ball club can once again contend for a division title someday be blaming Colon’s girth and age for failing to inspire the Sox?

AGE 35 IS not old in real life. But when it comes to athletics, it borders on ancient – even in today’s era where physical conditioning enables some devoted athletes to play ball well into their 40s.

The problem is that Colon has never been a conditioning freak.

The 235-pound weight indicated by baseball officials is likely a generous estimate. I remember the one time I interviewed him coming away thinking this was someone whose girth was larger than mine.

So Colon will be remembered as the guy who managed to win 150 games thus far during his 12-season career pitching in the major leagues, and he got 135 of those wins during a span from 1998 to 2005.

ONE CAN ARGUE he was once one of the best pitchers in baseball.

But a combination of age, physical conditioning and the sense that anything that can go wrong to a Chicago ball player will makes me wonder if the White Sox are destined to be the team that allows him one last game pitching in the major leagues – in between stints on the disabled list.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: After getting White Sox fans to briefly believe he was returning to Chicago in 2008, Bartolo Colon signed a contract to play ball on the South Side (http://www.upi.com/Sports_News/2009/01/15/Bartolo_Colon_returns_to_White_Sox/UPI-62431232051556/) during 2009.

Colon is considered one of the best Los Angeles Angels ballplayers ever. Somehow, I doubt (http://www.halosheaven.com/2008/12/27/702907/top-100-angels-bartolo-col) he will achieve the same status in White Sox history.