Opening Day is March 28, just 17 days away.
Spring Training Prep: A good number of Hot Stove readers have been or will be in Arizona to check out the preseason Royals. They are filing reports with Hot Stove, and I will pass along some of their comments and photos in my next post. Click here for the Royals TV and radio schedule for spring training. Below, SI cover from 1960:
Hot Stove readers: I promise I will be back to baseball soon, but I need to get these thoughts down while fresh in my mind. SPOILER ALERT (in case you have not seen the movies).
The full squads have now arrived at the spring training camps. Let’s set the mood with an excerpt from a Dan Quisenberry poem (“Spring Training Dream”):
As we wait patiently for pitchers and catchers to report…
#42 – Jackie and Mo: This is a big milestone month for two players who wore #42. Tomorrow is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jackie Robinson. And last week, superstar reliever Mariano “Mo” Rivera was elected to the Hall of Fame, becoming the first player to ever receive a unanimous vote of the sportswriters.
[When my law firm added Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday in 2002, I began an annual message within the firm about why we celebrate the holiday. The distribution was later expanded outside the firm, and since 2016 the message has been circulated as a Hot Stove post. Below, my 18th annual MLK message.]
One of the best ways to appreciate Martin Luther King Jr. Day is to visit the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City. Not just for the memorabilia collection – although that is well worth the trip. There is also a compelling civil rights lesson. As one walks through the baseball exhibits, there is a parallel timeline along the lower edge that places Negro Leagues history in context with civil rights milestones.
Part 2 of this trilogy took us through 1968, the election of Tom Eagleton to his first term in the Senate. He quickly became a rising star in the Democratic Party, leading to…
1972 – McGovern and Baseball Commissioner: At the Democratic Convention in July of 1972, George McGovern picked Tom Eagleton to be his running mate. That did not go well, but it produced a couple of baseball stories that Tom liked to tell.
In the last Hot Stove, I began what has turned into a trilogy. The starting point was my first year in politics, 1968, when I met two “Washington Senators” from Missouri, Stuart Symington and Tom Eagleton. At that time, Symington was serving in his third term in the Senate and Eagleton was running for his first. In the last post, you read about Stuart Symington’s aid to the St. Louis Cardinals and the Kansas City Royals. This post (and the next one) will focus on Tom Eagleton’s baseball passion.
[Fifty years ago this month, Tom Eagleton was elected to his first term in the Senate. I have taken that fact and somehow expanded it to a couple of Hot Stove posts – about baseball, not politics. But in the wake of this past week’s elections, I want to pause a moment to thank my friend (and occasional Hot Stove reader) Senator Claire McCaskill for her lifetime of exemplary public service. As you will read below, the Senate seat once held by Harry Truman had a 24-year run with Stuart Symington. Republicans then had a good stretch, but Claire McCaskill took back the seat in 2006. She held it for two terms. Kudos to Claire who never stopped working hard for the people of Missouri. From her first race at age 28 to her concession speech Tuesday night, a class act. Below, Claire with husband Joe (a regular Hot Stove reader) at the 2014 Cardinals home opener.]
The key nostalgic note about the 2018 World Series has been that the Dodgers and Red Sox have been opponents in the Series only one other time – 1916. That’s when the Dodgers were in Brooklyn and known as the Robins. To put this in perspective, check out this photo of the parking lot for one of the 1916 games in Boston:
1916 and 2018 World Series – Red Sox v. Dodgers: The 2018 World Series matchup is now set. The Red Sox rolled over Houston in the ALCS, winning four games in a row after losing the first. Los Angeles eliminated Milwaukee in an exciting 7-game series in the NLCS. I will miss Moose and Cain now that Milwaukee is out. The Red Sox won 108 games this season and are the likely favorites over the Dodgers who won 92. But the Dodgers were riddled with injuries during the regular season and may now be peaking. The Series pits the teams with the highest (Boston) and third highest (LA) payrolls, and the games will be played in the oldest (1912) and third oldest (1962) stadiums in major league baseball. For those of you who want to know about #2, the Giants are second in payroll and Wrigley is the second oldest stadium (1914).