Sports at Lunch: Dick Enberg & his play "McGuire"
Oh, Doctor! August 12
- On parity in the dog days of August, 2007
- By Jerry Coleman, San Diego Hall of Champions
The late Pete Rozelle was a football man smart enough to spend his retirement years in San Diego with a home in Rancho Santa Fe.
To the NFL commissioner, August meant football training camps and preseason games, but I’m guessing the dog days of baseball in August in 2007 would have made a baseball man out of him.
Take a look at the races all around the National and American Leagues. As the Padres head home from a disappointing 3-4 road trip in the suffocating heat and humidity of St. Louis and Cincinnati last week, they trail the Arizona Diamondbacks by three games in the NL West heading into Tuesday night’s series opener against the Colorado Rockies.
As close as the NL West is, with the Rockies five games back and the suddenly fading Los Angeles Dodgers six games back, the races in the NL Central and AL Central are closer; the AL East, NL East and AL West are nearly as close.
And I won’t even try and sort out the wild-card races. In the NL, the Padres are one of six teams not in first place but within range of a playoff berth with 60 or more wins.
The dogs days of August are heating up for more teams than usual with the close races, but at least the players today don’t have to wear wool uniforms and the can go back to an air conditioned hotel room when they’re on the road.
I remember we might change our uniform three or four times in a game. Hot, sweaty wool uniforms can get pretty icky. Another trick we did to keep cool was wear cabbage or lettuce under our hats. It wasn’t just Babe Ruth who did that.
Even as late as the 1950s with the Yankees, there were only two hotels we stayed in with air conditioning. One was the old Chase Hotel in St. Louis and the other was in Philadelphia.
Guys would do a lot of odd things to beat the heat. Some would sleep in the bathtub. I never slept in the bath tub, but I would throw pillows on the floor and sleep there.
I think the reason for the increased parity that Rozelle would have loved -- despite the lack of a football-like salary cap in baseball -- is it’s become so common in baseball in recent years to not only make moves before the July 31 trading deadline, but many more moves than were made in the game’s past.
When I played, you might see one move made before the deadline. But look at how many moves the Padres made, beginning with catcher Michael Barrett and outfielder Milton Bradley at midseason. Before the trading deadline, they also added Scott Hairston, Morgan Ensberg, Rob Mackowiak in the field as well as pitchers Will Ledesma and Joe Thatcher.
And the Padres, with all the smart moves made by general manager Kevin Towers, aren’t alone.
We also saw the departure of pitchers David Wells and Scott Linebrink. David was a fun guy and a wonderful guy to have in the clubhouse. He was always quick with a jibe. Why he got suspended the way he did, I’ll never know. I think it was overkill.
It’s hard for old-time baseball fans to understand what’s going on with all the moves you see in baseball these days, but one result is it has created the kind of parity Pete Rozelle would have loved.
