Taylor Davis: Baseball Could Use A Guy Like This

I think it’s safe to say that after this off-season, Major League Baseball could use some levity. Even before the cheating scandals, you had a sport filled with a bunch of arrogant, entitled robo-players who can practically go a whole season without cracking a smile or looking up in the stands. It is difficult to root for people like that. Or for people who admit to cheating, get immunity, and then don’t think they need to apologize. And baseball wonders why it has a PR problem. That’s why baseball needs guys like Taylor Davis. If you are looking for someone to root for, he’s your guy.

Taylor Davis is fun. He loves to play the game. He smiles. He laughs. He talks to fans. He’s an underdog. He was drafted out of high school in the 49th round. The 49th round! He has spent nine years in the minor leagues. He is all of 5’9 and 190lbs.  He has a lumberjack beard. He was told his whole life he wouldn’t make the show. He made the show!

Once, before he was a professional, Davis was approached by a St. Louis Cardinals scout. The scout told him to be ready, that the Cards were going to draft him in the 14th round of the upcoming amateur draft. Not only was he not drafted in the 14th round, he wasn’t drafted at all. He never heard from the Cardinals again. Eventually, he signed with the Cubs. Last season, Taylor Davis hit a grand slam off of the Cardinals Michael Wacha for his first Major League home run. Sweet revenge. Fun.

During a blow out against the Oakland A’s the Cubs asked him to pitch an inning, to save the bullpen some work. Taylor Davis is a catcher. His fastball topped out at around 55mph but he retired the side without a run. The crowd at Wrigley Field roared. Fun.

There is a video floating around YouTube of Davis staring down the TV camera. Many TV cameras. It is a montage of Taylor Davis vs the camera. It’s pretty funny. Most professional ball players never acknowledge the camera, much less the fans. He embraces both.

Davis spent most of his nine years as a professional baseball player with the Iowa Cubs, Chicago’s AAA affiliate. A few weeks ago, he signed a minor league contract with the Baltimore Orioles. He was very popular in Des Moines. Some fans dubbed him the unofficial Mayor of Des Moines and he even had his own bobblehead night. After signing with the Orioles, Davis did an interview with the Des Moines Register thanking the fans for their kindness and support. How many Major Leaguers would have the class and thoughtfulness to do something like that?

So this season, when you see a player not run out a ground ball or ignore a kid in the stands, remember Taylor Davis and root for him. Sometimes the good guys win.

Casey Redmond
January 24, 2020

Rock N Roll Casey’s Website

Rick Waits: Yankee Killer

The Rick Waits File

—Rick Waits played twelve seasons in MLB with the Cleveland Indians, Milwaukee Brewers and Texas Rangers. He played nine seasons with Cleveland having his best year in 1979 going 16-13 with a 4.44 ERA.

—He is best known for beating the Yankees on the final day of the 1978 season thus forcing the infamous one game playoff between the Red Sox and the Yankees. Bucky Dent’s home run in that game still haunts Red Sox fans to this day. Without Waits’ performance, Bucky Dent would probably be remembered for...well,...probably nothing.

—He later was a player/manager in the Italian Baseball League with for the Rimini Pirates.

—Waits also played in the Senior League for the Fort Meyers Sun Sox, For those who don’t remember (or weren’t alive yet) the Senior League was made up of retired over the hill ex-MLB players who played a short season in cities around Florida. This is obviously pre Marlins and Rays. It only lasted a couple of seasons. Here is an interview with Waits during his time as a Sun Sox.

 —He coached in the Mets organization for many years and also coached in the majors with Seattle and for a year in Japan.

An accomplished vocalist, Waits sang the National Anthem before Indians games several times and showcased his vocal abilities on local and national TV including the Today show. I vividly remember watching him on the Today show but I can’t remember what he sang. I like to think it was “Feelings” but that is probably wishful thinking.

—Rick is also remembered for his boss Tom Selleckesque mustache and way cool seventies baseball hair.

—Written by Casey Redmond
     January 16, 2020

Rick Waits Baseball Reference Page

Rock N Roll Casey’s Website

Good Old Uncle Harry: Harry Redmond Major League Baseball 1909

My Uncle Harry played Major League Baseball. It’s true, you can look it up. Harry Redmond, Brooklyn, 1909. He actually was my father’s Uncle, my Grandfather’s brother. He played in six games and batted nineteen times, never got a hit. Still, he played in the Majors. He played in the Show. You could look it up.

When I was a kid there was this book called the Baseball Encyclopedia. This is the seventies, obviously pre-internet (prehistoric times). The Baseball Encyclopedia was a giant book that contained the stats of every player who ever played a game in the Major Leagues. I found this astounding. It was a monster of a book that cost around fifty dollars, at the time, an obscene  amount of dough. Every time I visited Burrows bookstore in the mall, I would open the Encyclopedia and checkout Uncle Harry’s stats. I was very proud I had a great Uncle in that book.  I still am.

The 1909 Brooklyn baseball team was known as the Superbas. They wouldn’t become the Dodgers for a few years yet. The Brooklyn Superbas. A Superba, I believe, was another word for super or superb or something.

1913 Edmonton Graybills. Harry Redmond is in the back row the fourth from the right

Harry was playing for the Winston-Salem (North Carolina) Twins when his contract was bought by Brooklyn on July 28th.  He debuted on September 7, 1909 going 0-1 against Philadelphia. He played second base and was the backup to Whitey Alpermann. He played his last Major League game on September 14th, again, against Philadelphia going 0-3. Although he never played another game for Brooklyn, he remained on the team for the rest of the season and was on the roster in early 1910 but was released before the regular season started.

The 1909 Superbas were not a very good baseball team. They were led by player manager Harry Lumley and finished the season 55-98 for sixth place in the National League.  They played their home games at Washington Park which was located at First and Third Streets. The park was abandoned in 1913 but one of the walls still remains standing as part of the Brooklyn Con Edison complex. That must be some wall.

1909 also saw the debut of future Hall Of Famer Zack Wheat.

Zack Wheat

Brooklyn bought his contract from the Mobile Sea Gulls and he played his first game on September 11th, four days after Harry made his debut. Considering they were both rookies, the same age (21) and came up around the same time, you would think they may have hung out together. (They actually both played in the Southern Association in 1908. Harry for Memphis and Wheat for Mobile, so they may already have known each other.) Wheat would play nineteen years in Major League Baseball all but one of those years with Brooklyn. He had a lifetime batting average of .317 and was elected to the Hall Of Fame in 1959.  He still holds the Dodger franchise records for hits, doubles, triples and total bases.

While the Superbas had one of the future greats on their roster, they also had catcher Bill Bergen who arguably is the worst hitter to ever put on a Major League uniform. In 1909, Bergen batted 327 times and hit  a paltry .139. Over his eleven year career playing 947 games and batting 3,229 times he hit over .200 only once (.227 in 1903 with Cincinnati) and had a lifetime batting average of only .170. He is considered one of the best defensive

Bill Bergen

catchers in the history of the game which is obviously why he stuck around for eleven years.  As a weird and tragic side note, his brother Marty played in the Majors for four seasons with the Boston Beaneaters (1896-1899). He suffered from severe mental illness and on January 19th 1900, he killed his wife and two children and then took his own life.

Although Harry only played one season in the Major Leagues, he played for at least six seasons in the minors.  Starting in 1907 he played for the Vicksburg Hill Billies (Cotton State League), the Memphis Egyptians (Southern Association), the Winston-Salem Twins (Carolina Association), the Springfield Ponies (Connecticut State League), the Galveston Sand Crabs  (Texas League) and in 1913 he played for the Edmonton Graybills (Western Canada League).

According to Baseball Reference, Harry’s professional career ended in Edmonton in 1913. But records are sketchy from the deadball era and he may have played elsewhere. I have some material from the 1910 census stating that he was employed by the Ohio State

1913 Edmonton  Graybills. Harry is sitting in the front row second from right

League but there is no record of him appearing in a game in that circuit. Also, he played in 1911 and 1913 but there is no record for 1912. Was he out of organized baseball that year or have his stats for that year been lost to time?

Harry was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1887 and died there in 1960, five years before I was born. My dad described him as a jovial guy who loved to have a good time. Supposedly, he was a popular bartender for many years at various establishments in Lakewood, a Cleveland suburb, But his obituary in the Cleveland Plain Dealer stated that he was a VP at a company owned by his brother.. Who knows? The truth is lost to time.

He married late in life (to the outrage of some of his siblings) and had no children. He died on July 10th 1960. He is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Cleveland.

Uncle Harry RIP.

--Casey Redmond
   May 10, 2019

Here is a song I wrote in Harry’s honor, “Uncle Harry’s Ghost”

                                           Uncle Harry's Ghost

Harry Redmond's Major League Statistics

Harry Redmond's Minor League Statistics

Baseball A Go Go Facebook Page

Play-By-Play Man: The Shawn Tiemann Interview

Shawn Tiemann is the play-by-play announcer for The Great Falls Voyagers of the Pioneer League.  The Pioneer League is a short season rookie circuit that plays a seventy-six game season from mid-June through early September.  Shawn can be heard all summer long on KXGF 98.3 FM/1400 AM and on the TuneIn radio streaming service.  The Voyagers open the 2019 season June 14th.

CASEY:  When did you first become a baseball fan?

SHAWN: Being a St. Louis native, my love affair with baseball probably began right out of the womb.  It actually started with playing tee ball around four or five years old and that quickly developed into becoming a life-long Cardinals fan.  Growing up in St. Louis, it's a sacrilege to not be a Cardinals fan.  I played baseball in high school and fell in love with the smell of the dirt, the grass, equipment and gloves and all of it. It seeped into the subconscious of my mind.  I tried to emulate the infield moves of Ozzie Smith, Tommy Herr and Terry Pendleton.  I desperately wanted to be as fast on the bases as Vince Coleman.  Of course, my skills were nowhere near the ballpark of those guys.  As a young child of the nineteen-eighties, little did I realize all those nights I turned my radio on to listen to Jack Buck broadcast games on KMOX, that I was also super-charging my batteries.  On my dad's side of the family my Grandpa Tiemann also had a profound influence on my love for the sport.  He grew up in Illinois, not far from St. Louis, and was a Cubs fan! We had some wonderful times.

CASEY: What is your broadcasting background?

SHAWN:  I'm twenty years into my broadcasting career and a

Shawn Tiemann

proud graduate of the University Of Missouri-St. Louis.  I spent my first thirteen years working full-time at radio stations as a news and sports reporter, all the while doing play-by-play for various sports.  I only recently joined the ranks of minor league baseball, serving as an independent contractor the last six years doing football, basketball and baseball. I started doing minor league ball in the independent American Association in 2013.  I worked as a broadcast assistant for the Laredo Lemurs in Texas that season.  I had the same duties in the same league in 2014 for the Sioux City Explorers in Iowa.  My first lead play-by-play job was in 2015 for the now defunct Joplin Blasters in Missouri, also in the American Association. My first affiliated minor league gig is the current one I hold and that's with the Great Falls Voyagers (White Sox-Pioneer League, advanced rookie).  I started with the Voyagers in 2016.  I am also currently the radio voice for Bixby High School football in the Tulsa area and the voice of Rogers State University men's and women's basketball (NCAA Division 2).

CASEY:   What sports broadcasters had an  influence on you?

SHAWN:  I've already mentioned the heavy influence of Jack Buck on me, as far as baseball broadcasters go. I was also a St. Louis Blues hockey fan growing up and Dan Kelly made a major impact on my listening ears until he passed away in the late eighties when he was radio voice of the Blues.  A lot of the old guard baseball radio men have come and gone.  At present, I really like listening to Ted Leitner of the Padres, Bob Uecker with the Brewers and Greg Schulte of the Diamondbacks.  The best play-by-play person on the planet right now does not work in baseball.  It's Doc Emerick doing the NHL on NBC.  His radio style call still resonates extremely well on TV because it's a rapid-fire sport.

CASEY:  How long do you prep before a game and what do you do to get ready?

SHAWN:  I'm also the media relations person during the season

for the Voyagers.  Part of that means I produce stat packs for home dates and daily game notes for home and away games.  The statistics are pulled from the MiLB website portal, so that takes a little bit of time every home game.  Copies of stat packs are made for each team's manager, the press box and visiting radio.  Most MiLB broadcasters or media relations personnel produce game notes which are individually stylized.  My notes for the Voyagers are twelve to fifteen pages in length and include a cover page that has written items and more detailed team stats.  They feature that game's pitching match up and the current/upcoming series schedule.  My notes also include individual trends/stats like hitting streaks along with team trends/stats.  They also have player's and coaching staff bios.  Those duties eat up most of the prep time every game day.  I also field requests for interviews with players, coaches and team staff from TV stations and local newspapers. Part of the everyday prep includes watching batting practice at the cage with the coaches and recording a pre-game interview with random players or coaches. I always find a small amount of time to eat a late lunch as my pre-game meal.  That usually is a sandwich with fruit or soup. I love soup, even in the summertime!

CASEY:  What are some of the most memorable games you have called?

SHAWN:  In the Pioneer League, every season seems to feature, at least, a wild game or two. Last season the Voyagers played a home game against the Orem Owlz where they trailed 10-0 after two and a half innings.  Great Falls came back to win the game 15-10.  Corey Zangari clubbed a career high three home runs.  It was the most exhausting game I've broadcast in my three seasons with Great Falls.  The Voyagers played a 15 inning game at Ogden that lasted just under five hours in August of 2016.  Great Falls had a no-hitter until it was broken up with two outs in the seventh.  It finished 2-1 Ogden.

CASEY:  What is the travel like, do you travel on the bus with the team?

SHAWN:  I do travel with the team on the bus.  We broadcast all seventy-six home and away games on the radio in Great Falls and online, including any playoff games.  Great Falls won the league championship last season.  The Pioneer League features four

Lindquist Field, Ogden Utah

teams in each division.  The North also includes Billings, Missoula and Idaho Falls.  The South features Orem, Ogden, Grand Junction and now Colorado Springs.  The previous Helena team in the North moved to Colorado Springs after the 2018 season.  The league pushed Idaho Falls to the North from the South and Colorado Springs now has rookie ball instead of triple-A.  The triple-A team moved to San Antonio.  The new rookie team in Colorado is called the Rocky Mountain Vibes.  Our travel within the division isn't all that bad.  Idaho Falls is the farthest trip .  That's about a five hour drive from Great Falls.  Ogden and Orem are in the Salt Lake City area and that roadie takes about nine hours.  Grand Junction is a thirteen hour bus ride back to Great Falls.  Add a few hours to that for the Colorado Springs trip.  The league schedule will change with the upcoming season and opposite division teams will only make either the Utah trip or the Colorado trip each season and then alternate going forward.  It's some of the best scenery in the country when you're out on the open road and you see one mountain range after another.  Lindquist Field in Ogden probably has the best ballpark view in all of the minor leagues.  I love being on the road in general but my least favorite part is the body atrophy that sets in when you sit on a bus for an extended period of time.

CASEY:  What is Great Falls like?

SHAWN:  Great Falls is the quintessential Montana town.  I love it.  The Missouri River runs right through the heart of the city and the countryside is breathtaking.  Great Falls gets it's name from a series of waterfalls along the river, which is where the Lewis and

Clark expedition of 1805 rolled through the area.  The falls now have hydro-electric dams and give the city its nickname, The Electric City.  In fact, prior to the Great Falls Giants of the nineteen seventies, the team name was the Great Falls Electrics from 1948 to 1963.  The baseball fans in Great Falls are boisterous and bring a ton of energy.  The die-hards really love their team.  Baseball has a long and storied history in Great Falls.  They've been affiliated with the Dodgers, Giants and the White Sox.  Pedro Martinez mentioned Great Falls in his Hall Of Fame speech recently.  A ton of Major League players have made their way through Great Falls including Bob Brenly and Raul Mondesi.  It's a great place to broadcast baseball in the summer.

CASEY:  In addition to broadcasting games, what are your other duties?

SHAWN:  The work never really ends, even following the final out.  After the post-game show sign-off , I have other duties before I hit the hay.  I write a game recap for the team's website that is also e-mailed out to various media.  Some in the media will post the recap on their websites.  I also handle posting relevant team information and game recaps along with feature stories on the Voyagers social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook.  If I'm not too exhausted, I try to find audio highlights to post on the team's Twitter for fans that didn't catch the broadcast on a given night.

CASEY:  Who are some of your favorite players that you have covered through the years?

SHAWN:  Since I have only worked in the affiliated minor leagues for three seasons at this point it's hard to pin down some of my favorite players.  Most of the guys in rookie ball are still a few seasons away from potentially reaching the big leagues.  I really enjoy learning about the players and coaches and diving into

Centene Stadium. Great Falls, Montana

their backgrounds and lives away from the diamond.  It's been a wonderful experience overall.  I've had the chance to meet some of the White Sox player development staff, as well.  It's cool when you see guys like Joel Booker, Alec Hansen and Bernardo Flores advance in the system.  All three have reached the double-A level in Birmingham after they played for Great Falls in 2016. Outside of first round draft picks, the White Sox typically send high-end picks to start their careers in Great Falls.

CASEY:  What advice would you give someone interested in pursuing a career in broadcasting?

SHAWN:  My advice for aspiring broadcasters is fairly simple, have fun.  Jump into it with passion.  Don't give up on yourself when job openings don't land in your lap.  Don't be afraid to make mistakes.  The best of the best make their fair share of mistakes, as well.  Learn.  Read.  Sleep. Bring energy.  Listen to others.  Study the craft.  Expect to be rejected and frustrated.  It's part of the beast.  Ask for advice.  Seek out criticism of your work.  Criticize your own work.  It's the only way to improve.  Don't have visions of grandeur in terms of income.  If you want to work in play-by-play sportscasting specifically, remember one main point...The game is out in front of you, describe it!

Shawn's Website

The Great Falls Voyagers Website

Baseball A Go Go Facebook Page

The Legend Of Willians Astudillo

Willians Astudillo plays baseball for the Minnesota Twins.  After many years in the minor leagues, he was promoted to the Twins last summer and became a sensation in Minnesota and to baseball fans around the country.  Known for seldom striking out or walking, he is the antithesis of the modern MLB player.  A catcher by trade, he also played third base, second base, outfield (including center field) and he even pitched an inning.  Add in his portly physique (his nickname is La Tortuga, The Turtle), his wild curly mop of hair and his hustle and joy for the game and Astudillo has become a baseball folk hero.

Astudillo dresses for dinner in Rochester at the game!

Here are some highlights of La Tortuga in action.

The bellyflop heard ‘round the world. Astudillo throws out runner and trips over his pitcher.

Willians throws out runner at first without even turning his head.  He even fakes out the television announcers and the camera person.

He homers and goes to his knees and calmly admired his work.

Walking it off in Minnesota. Crazy celebration ensues.

Hidden ball trick.

Willians Astudillo Baseball Reference Page

Rock N Roll Casey’s Website

1965 New York Mets

The Mets were a terrible baseball team in 1965. They lost 112 games. Still like all seasons, 1965 was an interesting year. Here are some of the highlights and lowlights of the campaign.

The Mets finished the season 50-112 for a .309 winning percentage.  Finishing in 10th place (last) in the National League, 60 games behind the first place Dodgers.

Their 112 loses are the sixth most losses in a season in MLB history. They share the honor with the 1952 Pittsburg Pirates.

They had an eleven game losing streak, two ten game losing

streaks and an eight.

The Mets longest winning streak was four games from May 31st to June 4th taking two from the Cubs and two from the Pirates.

In late August, they took three of four from the league leading and eventual pennant winning Dodgers.

In '65, the Mets didn't win a series the entire season and were 4-14 against the Houston Astros. The 'Stros lost 97 games.

It was Casey Stengel's last season as a MLB manager. On July 25th, at a Mets' party at Toots Shor's, Stengel fell and broke his hip. He retired on August 30th. His record with the Mets was 175-404. He was replaced by Wes Westrum.

Greg Goossen, a rookie catcher/first baseman, came up from the minors for a cup of coffee. He batted thirty-two times and hit a respectable .290.  Stengel was unimpressed. 'This is Greg Goossen' he said one day to a group of reporters. 'He is twenty years old and in ten years he has a chance to be thirty'. He played a few seasons for the Mets and went on to play for the Seattle Pilots, Milwaukee Brewers and Washington Senators.  After baseball,
 he worked as a private detective, boxing trainer and a Hollywood movie actor. Some of his roles include, Officer #1 in "The Heist", Drunk #2 in "The Replacements" and  Vietnam Veteran in "The Firm". He also was a stand-in on many pictures for actor Gene Hackman.

Three future hall of famers were on the roster. In addition to Stengel, Yogi Berra and Warren Spahn played that year for the Mets. Both were player/coaches. Berra only played in four games and the forty-four year old Spahn went 4-12 and was released in July.

Jack Fisher and Al Jackson lost 24 and 20 games respectively.

Jackson lost 73 games in four years with the Mets. In 1966, he was traded to the Cardinals for Ken Boyer. He returned to the Mets for one more season in 1968.

Future Mets stars Tug Mcgraw, Ron Swoboda and Bud Harrelson were all rookies in 1965. Swoboda hit 19 home runs, the most by a Mets rookie until Daryl Strawberry hit 26 in 1983.  All three would go on to play key roles on the 1969 World Series winning team.

The Mets drew 1,768,389 fans, third best in the Majors.

--Casey Redmond
   September, 22 2018
   Shangri-La, Ohio

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