Herb Score
Posted: July 8th, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball, Cleveland, New Words | 60 Comments »
I’m feeling strongly now that “pixifood” could be my word-adding legacy. I’m very proud of the concept, to be honest — the food that tasted beyond delicious as a child and tastes like lightly sugared motor oil as an adult. The pixifood concept came from my watching my wife try — and I use that word loosely — try to eat cotton candy at a ballgame. Since she is the inspiration for it, I’m giving her the word (it’s better than flowers) and she plans to blog about it next week. I’ll let you know.
As for this blog … it has been a while since we’ve had a nice, long, rambling post. Well, here you go. Another new word has been bouncing around in my head the last few days, but I’m not sure it’s one that really represents a universal concept. The word is: Revemyth. And, loosely translated, I see a revemyth as something that at first is accepted as fact, then is utterly debunked, and THEN is once again accepted as fact. In every day life, you meet someone who you immediately think is a jerk. Then, a whole bunch of people tell you, “Oh, Bob? No, we went to a ballgame with him, he’s a GREAT guy.” And so you start to believe that. Only then you find that, yeah, he IS a jerk. That’s a revemyth.
I’d say that Jim Carrey’s acting talent is a revemyth. When he first began I’d say most people viewed him as, at most, a talented mimic who could not act his way out a high school “Our Town” performance. Then, he was impressive in The Truman Show, a dead ringer in Man on the Moon, and the talk was that, no, we were wrong, this guy can ACT, he’s versatile, he can play any role, he can EMOTE. And then, he was the Grinch, and Lemony Snicket, and Bruce Almighty and a bore in “The Majestic” and so on and so on, and while yeah, you might be able to point out a good performance here and there (Eternal Sunshine), I think we were all right the first time. The guy sucks.*
*See also: Smith, Will.
Mark Teahen’s power would be another revemyth. The thing about Teahen coming up was that he was a good hitter, he could hit the opposite way, he could get on base, but he probably was not going to hit for much power. And then, for a half season in ‘06, the guy went Kong on us, he banged 18 homers in fewer than 400 at-bats, he was rocketing balls all over the place, and suddenly the feeling was that, hey, Teahen’s got 30 homer potential. I’m thinking now it was a revemyth — everyone was right the first time. Teahen’s skills I still think should be working the count, getting on base, hitting 15 homers maybe (but 30-plus doubles) and making things happen with his athleticism. On Monday in Tampa, I saw him score from first on a single. The guy’s a plus-plus baserunner, a team guy, a good bunter, he has a history of walking (though not since he came to the Royals) and I wish, I wish with all my heart to fly with dragons and that the Royals would just TRY him in the leadoff spot and move David DeJesus down to third (hell, DeJesus is hitting something like .475 with runners in scoring position — seriously). Although, yeah, I’m getting tired of making lineup suggestions.
*OK, before I get really going on this, I have to pause and say something about Tony Pena Jr. TJ is a nice kid. He’s a good fielding shortstop. He’s the son of one of my favorite people. He’s also the worst Major League hitter I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I say “Major League” because, yeah, I’ve seen worse hitters who had brief and unhappy Major League trials — Gookie Dawkins comes to mind. I watched Gookie Dawkins take batting practice and I thought, “This guy could literally .000 in the Major Leagues.” He actually hit .163, but I’m telling you with that swing — it looked like a swing designed to kill a bug crawling on your kitchen table — I have no idea how he did that.
But Tony Pena is a very legit Major Leaguer — we’re talking about a guy who will have 1000 major league plate appearances — and I’ve never seen anything like him. And even though he had some balls drop in last year (and hit a soft .267, which may someday be viewed the same way we view Brady Anderson’s 50 homer year), he obviously can’t hit. He doesn’t walk. And he also can’t bunt.
It’s the last of these three things that can drive you insane … I mean, I realize that bunting is a skill, and it is certainly much harder than players make it look. But if you are hitting .155 like Pena is right now, wouldn’t you, I don’t know, spend day and night in the cage making sure that you can bunt? Wouldn’t you call up Rod Carew and beg him to spend like a week with you doing some sort of Mister Miyagi crash course on bunting? Wouldn’t you become such a good bunter that you could make a bunt stop one one of those little plates people try to land dimes on at the fair?
Monday, Pena was sent up to bunt twice, and the first time he popped out, the second time he struck out, and I’m sorry — I don’t even LIKE the bunt, but watching Pena not even come close on bunts again and again turns me into the all time Get Off My Lawn Charlie screaming about the kids today and their lack of fundamentals and in my day, and yeah Ray Oyler may have not been able to hit but he could get a bunt down and so on and so on and walking to school uphill, and I hate myself when I get like that.
Here’s my question: When is a hitter so bad that as a manager you just say “Aw, screw it,” and start DHing for him? I suspect a manager would never do that because of the embarrassment level — and TJ certainly does not need nor deserve to be embarrassed — but I also think it’s very clear now that, emotions aside, Zack Greinke is a better hitter than Tony Pena and Brian Bannister is probably better too. Pinch hitting for Tony Pena might be a good way to start a clubhouse mutiny, so I’m not saying that anyone should do it. I’m just saying that watching him pop-up bunts and swing nine seconds behind fastballs is enough to drive a man to some desperate measures.
One other quick Royals point, while we’re here: Monday, Joey Gathright also popped up a bunt. But unlike Pena, he did not run it out. So the Tampa catcher Dioner Navarro wisely let the ball drop, threw the ball to second, back to first, easiest double play you ever saw. Gathright did not even leave the batter’s box. And my point is that this was the SECOND time this year I’ve seen an opponent purposely drop a pop-up because the Royals batter was not running (the first time was Billy Butler) … it’s also the second time I’ve ever seen it. So I would like to say for the record that I NEVER want to hear Royals manager Trey Hillman say his team plays hard. No. They don’t. You do that not-running-to-first-double-play thing once, OK, maybe it can happen to anyone. You do it twice, and you lose all “We’re really playing hard,” privileges.
OK, sorry, back to the revemyth concept. Brilliant reader Rick reminded me that I have not written a post about one of my all-time heroes, Herb Score (and Lord knows I need reminders … apparently now I’m just rewriting posts that I had before. I could have sworn that I never put up that original post I did on Game 4 of the 2001 World Series. I guess I did. So now you have two posts on that game. Don’t ever say I don’t love Derek Jeter, people).
So here goes:
Herb Score was, of course, the Indians radio voice when I was young. I know I’ve written before (I know!) that people around town called him Herb “No” Score for the obvious reasons, but I firmly believe that with the weather, your mother’s spaghetti and meatballs and baseball announcers, quality is beside the point. It doesn’t really matter if someone else has 72 and sunny every day or someone else’s mother is Lidia Bastianich or some other kid’s listening to Vin Scully.
Herb was ours, and he forever will be the voice of summer for me. He gave us everything, he gave us the weather (“It’s a beautiful day for baseball”), he gave us the news (“Don’t forget Sunday is youth jacket day!”) and he gave us a feeling of what it was like to be at the ballgame even that meant (as it often did) being in a cavernous 80,000 person stadium with 2,400 people freezing their butts off while Don Hood gave up the lead in the seventh.
I don’t remember the precise time when I heard Herb Score’s sad story, but I’m sure it was not from him. Herb in my memory never talked about the old days on the air. I mean NEVER. I’m almost certain it was my father who one day said, “You know that Herb got hit in the face with a line drive. It ended his career.” I did not know that, in fact. I was still at that age I just assumed that everything was as it had always been — Herb Score had ALWAYS been the Indians announcer, the Indians had ALWAYS stunk, my father had ALWAYS worked in a factory and so on. When I heard that I became fascinated. Hit in the face? Ended his career? I began to research him.
Score signed with Cleveland in 1952, three years before the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Sandy Koufax. In fact, you can find newspaper stories from 1955 and 1956 where various Dodgers types would say that Koufax had the talent to become another Herb Score. Unlike Koufax, Score was not a bonus baby and so did not have to go right to the big leagues. He went to Indianapolis instead, struggled mightily, and then went to Reading and wasn’t much better. Score had the incredible fastball, of course — in that 100 mph range, probably — but his delivery was violent, and his control was nonexistent, and he basically, as he once told me, had no idea what he was doing out there.
Then in ‘54, he went back to Indianapolis was suddenly was brilliant. He won 22 games and struck out a billion. He started with the big league club in 1955 — just like Koufax. He was older than Koufax, though, more polished, more ready to show his brilliance. Even though he was second in the league with 154 walks*, he was incredible. Herb went 16-10 with a 2.85 ERA, a 140 ERA+ and a league crushing 245 strikeouts — nobody else was even close.
*Score’s 154 walks, impressively, was not even CLOSE to Bob Turley’s 177, which no one except Nolan Ryan has topped in the last 50 years. But here’s somethign even more impressive: Turley’s 177 was not good enough to lead all of baseball. That same year Sad Sam Jones walked 185, which is the most for any National League pitcher since 1900. Do you think the Rays are going to send their Defenders of the Game after me?
Score, of course, won Rookie of the Year in ‘55. I have his baseball card from that year, and I look at it sometimes … here was a guy who was young and unhittable and had to believe he had a chance to become one of the best who ever lived. Herb doesn’t really talk about that … he’s a humble guy. But there haven’t been too many first years like it. Almost 30 years later, Dwight Gooden would shake up the world when as a 19 years old he went 17-9 with a 2.60 ERA (137 ERA+) and 276 strikeouts. People thought Gooden would transform the game. Score was like that only left-handed.
Herb’s next year, he was even better. He went 20-9 with a 2.53 ERA, and his 263 strikeouts was the most ever for a SECOND year player (and it was 70 more than anyone else in the league). He had a 166 ERA+, which is amazing, and he cut down his walks by about 20 percent, and he led the league in shutouts, and he allowed an incredible 5.85 hits per nine innings. He wasn’t about to become the best pitcher in the league, no, he WAS the best pitcher in the league, and he had just turned 24, and it had been a while since baseball had seen something like him.. Later, there would be Koufax and Sam McDowell and Frank Tanana and Unit and Scott Kazmir and all that, but in 1956, there had not been a dominating, strike-em-out, flame throwing lefty in a while. Some called him another Lefty Grove, but it had been 20 years since Grove. You couldn’t go back to Rube Waddell. There was Hal Newhouser, but Score was different. Score was like something new. The Red Sox reportedly offered a million bucks to get him. The Indians said no.
Score came out in ‘57 like he would be even better. His first outing he went 11 innings against the White Sox, gave up two earned runs (despite walking 11 — ELEVEN!). He struck out 10. He shut out the White Sox his next time out on four hits, then beat Detroit in a three-hit, one-run performance his next time out. He was rolling. He struggled a bit against Washington, giving up five runs in 6 1/3 innings, but he struck out 12. His ERA was 2.04. He had not given up a home run all year … had not given one up since yielding a homer to Ted Williams on Sept. 14 of the previous year.
Then the fateful day: May 7, 1957. The Indians faced the Yankees. Hank Bauer led off with a groundout to third. Up stepped Gil McDougald, a good player who would finish fifth in the MVP voting that year. The count worked to 2-2, and that’s when McDougald hit the line drive that would forever haunt him … he blasted the ball right back at Score, who did not have time to get his glove up. The ball smashed into Score’s right eye. Most people don’t know that McDougald was thrown out on the play … third baseman Al Smith took the rebound and threw out McDougald, who would say he wasn’t really running. He was scared. Everyone in the house — about 18,000 people — was scared. Witnesses would say you could hear the ball hit Score’s eye echo all over the gigantic ballpark.
Everyone rushed to the mound to help — Indians, Yankees, trainers of all kinds. The public address announcer said: “If there is a doctor in the stands, will he please report to the playing field.” Score’s memory of all these things was always sketchy when I talked to him … either it was sketchy or he had already told the story so many times that he simply did not have anything left to say about it. He was conscious the whole time. The New York Times would report that after he left the field and waited for the ambulance, he said, “I wonder if Gene Fulmer felt this way.” Fulmer had just been knocked out for the first time in his career by Sugar Ray Robinson.
His nose was broken, his right eye swelled so much that doctors would not know for days if he would ever see out of it again. McDougald was so shell shocked by the experience that he talked about retiring.
And that’s where the story ended for me as a kid. Herb Score, this brilliant young pitcher (“He would have been better than Feller,” Cleveland old-timers said) got hit by a pitch and was never the same. A tragic tale. My friend Terry Pluto blamed the Indians agony of the last five decades on the curse of Rocky Colavito, but I always thought that curse of Herb Score fit better*. He’s one of baseball’s all-time could have beens, and it seems at least possible that with a healthy Score in ‘59, the Indians and not the Go Go Sox might have won the pennant. And then … who knows?
*Anyway, it doesn’t matter, it’s really the curse of Chief Wahoo, it’s been nothing but heartbreak since the Indians went with the red-faced Wahoo … not that I’m getting into THAT political hornet’s nest again.
Well, it turns out that the story DOES NOT end on the day of McDougald’s liner. And here’s where the revemyth begins. Score recovered. He started pitching again. He made the club out of spring in ‘58. He had a terrible outing his first time out … naturally. Some people suggested that he had changed his delivery. They said his velocity was down. He pitched pretty badly his first three times out. But his fourth outing of the year, Herb Score was back. he threw a three-hit shutout against Chicago, struck out 13, it was a masterful performance, and led people to believe that Score was all the way back.
Then his next outing he would pitch reasonably well against Washington … but it was during that outing he had to leave in the ninth inning because he felt some sharp pain in his left elbow. The doctor called it a “strained and inflamed” ligament back then, in those years before Tommy John surgery, and it seemed like he might miss a couple of starts. Herb told reporters he was doing better the next week.
But it wasn’t better. Score missed six weeks. And here’s where it really ended … he was never again a great pitcher. Oh, Score had a couple more high strikeout games. He struck out 13 Yankees in May of 1959, including Yogi twice. He struck out 14 Kansas City A’s two months later. But these were just warm days in December. In ‘59, Herb dealt with some more arm issues and went 9-11 with a 4.71 ERA. The Indians traded him to the White Sox then, and he went 5-10 with a decent 3.72 ERA, and then he was done.
And so the second version of the story went that Score WOULD have come back — in fact, WAS all the way back — when the arm troubles really destroyed him. Herb himself has suggested this was true. In those dark ages of arm surgery, bad elbows ruined many a great player, and in the second version it was this and not the McDougald hit that ended Score’s bright career. And I think for people who follow the game closely, this became the more accurate version of Score’s tale.
In the end, though, I’ve come to believe that everyone had it right the first time. Thus the revemyth. Yes, Score did come back and look good for one game. Yes, he had arm trouble which never really let him go. But, you know, I was talking with Ken Griffey the other day — did I mention I’m writing this book about the ‘75 Reds? Griffey was talking about how when he was young and in the minors he was a brilliant base stealer. He stole 43 bases in 107 games in Triple A. He was perhaps the fastest player in the National League in ‘75 and ‘76, a guy with 80 stolen base speed. But he really didn’t steal a lot of bases for reasons that … well, hope you are saving up for the book.
Anyway he said that over those those couple of years, he LOST it. He just lost that ability to steal — whatever it is that makes up the ability. He lost that combination of nerve and awareness and burst and whatever else. He was a GOOD base stealer, but he was never again a great one. The moment was gone.
And I think that could be what happened to Herb Score too. We can never know for sure what it is that drives an athlete. I’ve always thought that for every great baseball player there is probably a domineering or missing father, a discouraged best friend, a pretty face in the crowd or a fear of silence. But what do I know? Motivations are personal, and they are hard to explain … hell, I don’t even know why i write this blog.
But I do think that when McDougald’s line drive hit Score, something changed, it HAD to change, Score could never be the same again. Maybe, as some suggest, he did change his delivery, which caused the arm trouble. Maybe the long layoff and then throwing as hard as Score threw caused the arm trouble. Maybe Score had lost that little edge, that sense of invincibility. Or maybe because of his violent delivery, he was an elbow injury waiting to happen. I don’t know, for sure.
I just think that whatever happened to Herb Score happened because, at the height of his power, a line drive came back too fast. I think it’s just like I heard it when I was 9 or 10. The young Herb Score pitched just about as well as any young pitcher who ever played this crazy game. Then he got hit in the face with a line drive. And he never pitched great again. And it’s the saddest kind of sports story, that story of what Roger Kahn called unmade music.
There’s one more thing I want to say about Herb Score: He has not lived a sad life. He was the Indians announcer for 35 years, and he retired as one of the most beloved men in Cleveland, and when he got into a car accident in 1998 people were praying for him all over. He said something once that I think about all the time, something that I think is much bigger than baseball. Terry Pluto asked him why he would never say something like, “Well, this is a pretty obvious bunting situation” or “He will probably try to steal second here.”
And Herb said this: “No, that’s a Dad’s job.”
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Many of the undying memories of my adolescence were at Jacobs Field…one World Series game, one All-Star game (I was 20 for that one), and that Memorial Day game in 1995 where the Indians came back to beat the White Sox.
There were a dozen of us from high school making the drive from Youngstown, and we were seated all over the stadium (four in the bleachers, four in the mezzanine and four in the section right above the press box).
We went to the seats above the press box and loudly professed our undying love for Herb Score.
He waved. We all felt special.
“And the Indians are going to the World Series! … Maybe!”
I know you are the king of making up words but I have one for you. It was actually made up by a friend of mine. Since you cover the Royals, I’m sure you’d find many uses for it.
The word is “rectumfy.” It is when you provide a solution to a problem but the solution actually makes the situation worse.
Example 1: I complained about the low interest rate I was getting at my bank so they rectumfied the situation by switching me to a no-interest checking account.
Example 2: Kevin McHale couldn’t put win a title with Kevin Garnett so he rectumfied the situation by trading him to the Celtics.
Man, Joe….as grateful as I am to be able to read this, I find your blog to be the single most frustrating one in the universe.
Because you are continually making points here, such as the paragraph that begins “One other quick Royals point” and ends “you lose all ‘We’re really playing hard’ privileges”, which desperately, violently need to be made in….the only major newspaper in Kanas City. By the sports opinion columnist nationally known for covering the Royals.
If only you had the clout to get things like this into the Star.
There was a great article in the NY Times Magazine about three years ago dealing with the changes in the game due to steroids and increased power numbers and of two players who refused to change the way they hit to become big-league stars. One of them was a kid named Steve Stanley (who retired in 2006 never making it to the bigs) and the other was Mark Teahan. Both were drafted by the A’s in 2002, I think. And both were OBP machines…at least in the minors.
It went on to say that even George Brett couldn’t coax Teahan to muscle up and pull the ball into the seats. He learned to hit the baseball the other way when he was a kid, and he wasn’t going to change that just because he grew into a guy who looks like a slugger. Admirable, I guess. But when I look at Teahan I see a guy who could be a great hitter…but just comes up short for some reason or another.
“When is a hitter so bad that as a manager you just say ‘Aw, screw it,’ and start DHing for him?”
Never, because you can’t. The DH rule specifies the pitcher.
I don’t think you can DH for anyone but the pitcher. From the MLB.com website:
The Designated Hitter rule:
A hitter may be designated to bat for the starting pitcher and all subsequent pitchers in any game without otherwise affecting the status of the pitcher(s) in the game. A Designated Hitter for the pitcher must be selected prior to the game and must be included in the lineup cards presented to the Umpire-in-Chief.
The Designated Hitter named in the starting lineup must come to bat at least one time, unless the opposing club changes pitchers. It is not mandatory that a club designate a hitter for the pitcher, but failure to do so prior to the game precludes the use of a Designated Hitter for that game.
Pinch hitters for a Designated Hitter may be used. Any substitute hitter for a Designated Hitter himself becomes a Designated Hitter. A replaced Designated Hitter shall not re-enter the game in any capacity. The Designated Hitter may be used defensively, continuing to bat in the same position in the batting order, but the pitcher must then bat in the place of the substituted defensive player, unless more than one substitution is made, and the manager then must designate their spots in the batting order.
A runner may be substituted for the Designated Hitter and the runner assumes the role of the Designated Hitter.
A Designated Hitter is “locked” into the batting order. No multiple substitutions may be made that will alter the batting rotation of the Designated Hitter.
Once the game pitcher is switched from the mound to a defensive position this move shall terminate the DH role for the remainder of the game. Once a pinch-hitter bats for any player in the batting order and then enters the game to pitch, this move shall terminate the Designated Hitter role for the remainder of the game.
Once a Designated Hitter assumes a defensive position this move shall terminate the Designated Hitter role for the remainder of the game.
I have no idea how he defensively, but instead of trying to circumvent the DH rules, wouldn’t the solution to Tony Pena Jr. problem be to play Mike Aviles every day? I haven’t gotten around to watching a Royals game since April, but what you may lose in scrap and pluck*, it’s possible it might be made up for in slugging.
*I’m assuming he’s scrappy and plucky because he’s small and can’t hit, which is usually how it goes
*how he -is- defensively
Michael,
Per the unofficial baseball writers’ guide, Pena cannot be scrappy or plucky because he is not white. For the same reason, he cannot be gritty.*
*This is the ultimate proof that Derek Jeter is the God of baseball, unparalleled by all who came before or who will follow. He has managed to overcome his mixed racial heritage and be a gritty player.
BR says Tony Pena Jr. has 3 IBB….anyone know how?
Hey Joe,
I’ve been didactic and combative about certain points….
And not always exrpressly appreciative about your free (did you mention there was finished literature in the offing, then and soon?) services. But, let it crystallize, your clutch with history is where i find it all haunting, like ratliff in faulkner’s the hamlet. The old, imagined, rehearsed, invented, lost, ghost-driven, mad seller-rider.
What a post. I could honestly say I knew this was going to be great as soon as I saw the title, and I didn’t even know you were a Herb Score fan.
I think the enthusiasm for this particular blog entry should foment the creation of the occasional “this guy was one of the ‘coulda-been-greats’” story.
What a great blog this is.
Having been the recipient of a line drive to the face myself, I have a great deal of empathy for Mr. Score. The fact that he returned to pitch at all is amazing to me.
I think the same sort of thing happened to Dickie Thon after he got hit by that Mike Torrez pitch early in the 1984 season. He was coming off a great year in ‘83 with the Astros when he had hit 20 homers back when that really meant something, especially as a SS who played half of his games in the huge Astrodome. He was set to be an All-Star for years in Houston. He eventually came back and even had a decent year one year in Philadelphia, but he was never the same.
Snowman,
I realize the mainstream baseball writers haven’t caught on –what with their East Coast biases, racism*, and whatnot– but what’s not to love about a middle infielder that slugs .204? Give them time, they’ll come around, especially once they realize that he’s losing time to some chump that’s all about hitting selfish, boring home runs.
*Speaking of non-white winners, I just referred back to the Cohn and Cohn definitive list of Gamers and Non-Gamers: http://cohn.pressdemocrat.com/default.asp?item=2182510&mode=blog Torii Hunter, who I believe is African-American, made the list of Gamers. To his credit, since 2001, he’s only OPS+’ed under 100 once in addition to all of the potential game-saving home run balls he’s been able to catch (more than Baseball-Reference is able to count!). It’s not his stats (what fool would look at those to judge a man’s value to his team?) or his 2 All Star appearances (the fans should be stripped of their votes if they can’t appreciate what he’s bringing to the table year after year) that have earned him his $18 million a year (number may or may not be accurate) it’s his heart, courage, soul, branding, aura, and heart. Also, his enjoyable interview segments on the Dave Dameshek radio show. If I had a daughter and only one man could impregnate her, and Derek Jeter were somehow unavailable, it would be Torii Hunter that I would proposition and Tony Pena Jr. who I would talk to in case Mr. Hunter declined.
And, yes, what I’m saying is, I will settle for a less than talented grandchild if it means their jib will be cut in a way that I can respect.
*See Also: Timberlake, Justin
And is anybody else like me and think that Will Smith is a terrible (I mean TERRIBLE) actor?? Every time he is in a serious scene, the look on his face says, “Look!! I’m being serious!! This is a serious acting scene!!” *Acting face*
Just because you are marketable over, like, 5,000 different Demographics, and Grandmothers in Akron, Ohio find you non-threatening does NOT make you a good actor.
The fact that he has been nominated for two (yes, TWO) Oscars almost made me sick, until I realized that Tom Cruise has been nominated for three.
You know, as tragic as these situations are, I’m kinda glad they happen. Don’t get me wrong, I feel for Herb and what he could possibly have done (if anything could have been different) but these tragedies allow the imaginations to run wild. Just think what numbers Herb could have put up, just imagine what Jeff Buckley could have written…
Our dreams don’t get marred by reality and it makes you appreciate those guys that don’t get injured or don’t have that strange moment that changes things forever, that much more.
Oh, and I’ve already used revemyth in conversation. It needs to become official at urbandictionary.com
Thank you so much for the Herb Score words.
Herb was the voice of my youth as well, and I wouldn’t trade his (sometimes) confusing calls for anything.
One of the most moving things I’ve seen in recent years was the Indians HOF induction ceremony … when Herb was honored along with his longtime roomie, Rocky Colavito.
Sadly, the years have taken Herb’s ability to speak … so Rocky talked with tears in his eyes about his buddy. It was so that these guys shared a deep, long friendship …
I would have dared anyone at the ballpark that day to not shed a tear.
“No, that’s a Dad’s job”.
I just got chills.
Great blog post. I still remember listening to Herb when the Indians clinched the pennant. I think it’s pretty hard to match the duo of Score and Tom Hamilton.
What really bothers me is that the proper motion of bunting is pulling the bat back to deaden the ball, so how does an umpire ever determine a strike in that situation? It’s a swunt or something. Maybe that sounds more like a Baltimore chop, not to be confused with the Baltimore crab position one takes to achieve proper bunting technique.
I’ve always called the portion of the guitar string above the fretboard by the tuning pegs the pixie strings. My girlfriend was taking guitar lessons a some years ago and was quite distressed that her teacher’s reaction was of great scorn for that apellation and tried to convince her they had no merit to the accomplished player, when bemusement would have been the more obvious response.
I think it’s been four years since she last played the stupid thing.
Those pixies have powers we do not understand, Joe. Tread lightly.
Back in the day, I pitched for my high school team. I wasn’t great, I had good control, but my fastball wasn’t really – ahem – fast, so I relied on breaking pitches and a sidearm curveball. Anyway, in my sophomore year I took a line drive off the side of my head, and I was basically done as a pitcher after that. The fear of getting hit again was something I couldn’t overcome, and right away it affected my delivery, my follow-through, everything, really. Almost every pitch I threw inside so the hitter had no choice but to pull it, and of course I was missing inside too much. I only pitched four games after getting beaned, and that was probably four games too many.
You get hit, and it’s always in the back of your mind that you’re going to get hit again. I see pitchers get hit by line drives, and I don’t understand how they can keep pitching after that. With Herb Score, I think that the fear never left him, and it’s embarrassing and unmanly to admit this, so I understand why he wouldn’t want to talk about it. He also might have been dealing with post-concussion symptoms like dizziness and nausea that weren’t very well understood back then. His arm injury may have resulted from unconsciously altering his delivery to try and be more prepared to defend himself against line drives.
Joe,
“No, that’s a Dad’s jobâ€.
I’m with Noel. That line brought tears…and a lot of pressure.
I grew up in Kansas City so actually Fred White is the my Voice of Summer. I enjoy Denny as much as the next guy but when I hear Fred it brings back great memories and emotions.
Joe, In 1959 I was 9 and and a huge Yankee fan. I was watching my team play the Indians on Uncle Howie’s round TV set. I remember seeing the ball ricochet toward third base. I remember seeing the players milling around the infield, centered on the mound. Your post brought that night back to me. By the way, I was watching on Uncle Howie’s TV because he would give me Coke which my parents did not allow in our apartment. Thanks, Kevin
great post Joe … but why did Herb Score have trouble pitching with pain in his right elbow?
“Then his next outing he would pitch reasonably well against Washington … but it was during that outing he had to leave in the ninth inning because he felt some sharp pain in his right elbow.”
Also, I just bought the book.
The thing I appreciate most about this post is the investigation, beyond the obvious, of what made Herb Score “lose it”, or Ken Griffey “lose it”. That would be a fertile field for a book…but I don’t have the time. You?
Sorry to be dense but I don’t get the last line.
That’s a Dad’s job? What is? Speculating on baseball strategy is a dad’s job? Or did he mean teaching the game to the kids who are listening? He must have meant that.
Just to offer a different view, one of my good friends grew up in St. Louis listening to Jack Buck. This guy lost his dad when he was very young so he mostly learned baseball from listening to the Cards on KMOX. Many years later he said that Buck came to be a kind of “surrogate father” to him. He really used those words. So for that guy, his childhood would have been diminished if Jack Buck had thought that explaining baseball was somebody else’s job.
Wow. That last line really knocked me out. Thanks, Joe.
“But these were just warm days in December.” That’s a gem. I don’t know if that is a JOe’riginal or a well-known-to-everyone-but-me saying, but I’ll now use it whenever possible.
Thanks Joe!
I always liked Tom Hamilton’s story when he first became partners with Herb. Hamilton said the only things Herb told him it is always “Indians” or “Tribe” not “we” or “us” and not to be too hard on the ballplayers because it is harder than it looks.
Hamilton waited for more, but that was it and it was enough.
a little statistical trivia for indians’ fans who may be hurting this week:
grady sizemore stole the 100th base of his career last night, after hitting the 100th home run of his career on saturday.
since he made his major league debut on july 21, 2004, the only other player to hit 100 home runs and steal 100 bases is alfonso soriano.
grady hasn’t even turned 26 yet, he is one of 8 players in major league history to hit 100 home runs and steal 100 bases while while so young:
vada pinson
bobby bonds
cesar cedeno
darryl strawberry
barry bonds
alex rodriguez
andruw jones
grady sizemore
let us pray the tribe never has to trade grady (no matter where he’s batting in the line-up)!!!
I have never seen a TJ Jr at bat, but just reading about him on your site for the past few months I can’t shake the memories of Felix Fermin.
Does anyone but me even remember Fermin? You know, the days before Omar?
Ah, Joe M. liked that big hole on right-side of the infield, didn’t he? So, no base stealing, Kenny Sr.
Not really baseball but as long as you are coining new words, my daughter created one a while back that I think is exceptionally precise. That word is “nonversation”. It means the kind of meaningless interchange that often happens when people meet but have nothing to say to each other.
Hi
Howya doing?
great, you
great?
gee, it’s good seeing you
yeah, same here
so, how’s it goin?
Terrific, how’s it goin with you?
Great. Good to hear
So, what’s new?
You know, same old, same old. You?
same old, same old.
Yeah, I know
Nothin changes
You ain’t kidding
And so on and on and on. Nonversation.
Terry Cashman paid tribute to your post’s subject in “The Ballad of Herb Score.” Catchy little ditty.
Herb Score, Pete Reiser, Dickie Thon, Ray Chapman (sort of), Lyman Bostock…
There are a whole lot of what-of stories in baseball, aren’t there?
One that is usually forgotten is another Indian, Hal Trosky. Great hitter who suffered horrible migraines and had to retire early.
My goodness this is a phenomenal blog.
I am honored to be the one to provide your own personal wake-up call to write about Herb Score. I don’t disagree with your sentiment that perhaps it was the line drive that caused him to change his motion (or how he finished pitches even more likely) that could have led to the arm injury that changed him from a high-powered mowing machine to the push mower (and by push mower, I mean a mower with blades that would spin when you push it, not a gas mower that you have to push — talk about your get-off-my-lawn-Charlie … ).
As a personal side note, I like to imagine that you had to write-up the one or two sentences back in the early ’90s for the local college baseball games whilst employed at the Charlotte Observer. I played at Davidson (then was SID for eight years), so now I am imagingin you have come full circle by typing my name again in your blog. While no revemyth, it could simply be a myth of my own mind. But that’s my story …
Joe, I always enjoy reading your posts…especially the detours. Then again, I like to take the back roads, not the highway.
Your detour on bunting resonated with me, because the other night they were showing a compilation of Jerry Remy* game footage on NESN (did I mention I’m in the Boston area?), and I would estimate that over half the clips were of Remy laying down bunts – not sacrifice bunts either, but sweet drag bunts down both first and third way for hits. I never particularly appreciated this back in the day, but at this point I think it does almost amount to a lost art (much as free throw shooting is in the NBA and college).
It makes some sense, because the players that will eventually make it to the big leagues have probably never been encouraged to bunt at lower levels, since they have been run producers. I would think, though, that major league organizations would be able to identify the guys who could really benefit from some bunt hits and spend some significant time working on it.
*By the way, being able to watch the Red Sox on a nightly basis isn’t enough, we also get the pleasure of experiencing a great analyst in Jerry Remy. I would put him up against any analyst in broadcast television when it comes to baseball.**
**Gee, too bad I can’t format this in italics.
Hey Joe–
I’ve been reading your blog for many months now. Really enjoy it especially the ones about Cleveland which is where I grew up in the sixties. I always enjoyed listening to Herb Score on the radio. But he did not say ‘It’s a beautiful night for baseball!”. Herb always did the pregame show right up to the first pitch. As the pitcher was setting to pitch that first pitch Herb would say something like “And now here is Joe Tate to tell you. . .” And Joe would say “It’s a beauuuuutiful night for baseball and the pitch was. . . !” I left Cleveland in 1976 and always missed listening to the games on the radio.
I read The Soul last year and loved it. I’ll probably read your new one when it comes out (since your are such a good writer and it is about the greatest series of my lifetime) in spite of the boring and shameless (or is that shameful) constant mentions of it.
Will Smith is a genuinely terrific actor, and that’s after filtering out his obvious box-office appeal. His work in Pursuit of Happyness is quite solid, and his performance (at least in the first half of) I Am Legend was one of the best of last year. He’s as resourceful as Hanks in Castaway (another “lone man” movie), and in his most emotional scene (you know what it is if you’ve seen it; I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t) he’s able to pull off about 3 different motivations at once, which is very difficult for an actor. Add in the fact that he’s relaxed and charming as hell (much closer to early Harrison Ford than, say, Tom Cruise, who always comes across to me as stiff and overly studied), and you’ve got yourself a perfectly decent actor. Hell, I didn’t even like Hancock, but very few actors could play such a surly character without losing the audience, but somehow Will Smith pulls it off. Suck he does not.
Just got back from the Tigers game (nothing – but nothing – beats a walk off homer; the last time I was at a walk-off homer game was in 1984, when Dave Bergman hit one in extras after fouling off about 10 pitches in a row).
Anyway, I was there with my dad, so I mentioned that I was just reading about Herb Score (here, natch). “I remember that game – I was watching it on tv!” he says. I’m always a little leery of how many classic baseball moments my dad purports to have seen on tv back in the day, because there are so many that he’d have had to had MLB Extra Innings, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t have satellite…And then, in a moment of recognition, he blurts out: “son of a gun – that was Gil McDougald that did that!”
i don’t understand how anyone can possibly defend tony pena jr’s right to play.
his ops+ right now is ONE. ONE !!!!! ONE POINT !!!!!
i would imagine just about any replacement player, no matter his (relative lack of ) fielding prowess can make up for that.
I loved Herb Score, whatever his faults. When I was kid we didn’t have cable. I didn’t have a tv in my room. Nobody had computers. I had an AM only clock radio in my room and summer nights were all about listening to the Indians, playing it low enough that my mother maybe wouldn’t notice that I was still awake well after bedtime, struggling to stay awake for west coast games… I wouldn’t want to go back to that. I love my cable and internet, but they’re sweet memories all the same and Herb is a huge part of them.
Please don’t forget Tony Conigliaro, who may be the perfect example of revemyth. He’s the youngest player to 100 home runs, got beaned at age 22, missed the rest of the season and all of the next season. He came back to have a couple of good seasons, including hitting 36 home runs with 116 rbi’s at age 25, but had only 266 at bats the next season before retiring (excepting an aborted comeback attempt in 1975 at age 30, lasting only 21 games). He was never the same after his beaning, despite the partial comeback.
“He gave us everything”
But did he give you excellent spaghetti and meatballs? Aha!
Another revemyth would be George Paletta, the quack that masquerades as the St Louis Cardinals physician, not being qualified to operate a butter knife, much less a surgeon’s scalpel. Oh no, wait, that’s just plain reality.
Great story Joe. It’s sad how many pitchers get beaned in the head and don’t seem to recover from it fully. And who can blame them?
I often wonder why pitchers don’t wear a Schnozzeroo, like Rip Hamilton. Sure, the concussive force of the baseball would still break something, but at least it wouldn’t hit you right in the eye.
That last quote is priceless.
“his ops+ right now is ONE. ONE !!!!! ONE POINT !!!!!”
That just makes me giggle.
Great story, Herb Score helped me go to sleep hundreds of times as a kid with a transistor radio and earplug, listening to the Tribe when I should have been sleeping. He and Joe Tait were perfect together
I’m only 23, but Herb Score also impacted me deeply as a baseball fan. Terry Pluto’s story about Herb forgetting what city he was broadcasting from always puts me into a laughing fit.
Hammy is great, but the Indians radio team has never been the same since Score left.
And his departure led to six months of purgatory when Davie Nelson entered the booth…
Talking to a friend in nothern Mn. this weekend, he said they go down to Brainerd and watch baseball. I didn’t know they still had a team. It’s not called the Braves anymore though. My dad used to take me to Braves games in the 50s. I remember Herb Score. He had a fastball that nobody could hit but had trouble gitting it across the plate. More than a few times he would throw one so high and fast it would stick in the grandstand screen. He was hell on catchers. They had to add more padding to their mitt and he still hurt them. I didn’t follow him much after he went to the Indians. I did remember him gitting hit in the face but didn’t know he went on to announce. Cleveland scout Cy Slapnicka brought him up up here from FL. in 51 after his junior year in high school to hide him from other major league scouts. I’m sure the Brainerd Daily Dispatch web site has other info on him.
Gordy Coleman played for the Braves in 51 & 52 and played for the Reds 60-67.
Jerry
How do we get the Hall to vote him into the broadcasters Hall of Fame before God takes him off the earth…it is so deserved!
[...] – bookmarked by 4 members originally found by grugru on 2008-08-27 Herb Score http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2008/07/08/herb-and-the-revemyth/ – bookmarked by 4 members [...]
RIP Herb
A part of my youth died with Herbie. I offer condolences to his family, and friends. Many a night, I feel asleep listening to that little 9 volt AM radio. Very nice write up about Herb, and I appreciate having read it today.
[...] days, but if you’re looking to read up on the man right now, you need to look no further than this piece that Joe Posnanski wrote over the summer. For someone who knew Score as only a name in the baseball [...]