2022 MLB thread

[Vic Mackey 46936]

Lulz 

[Beau Vine 54001]

^^^^^

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFUawXZhnlc&t=350s

 

[Beau Vine 54001]

This seems like a fucked-up situation:

Quote

When Freddie Freeman left the Atlanta Braves and eventually landed with the Los Angeles Dodgers, there was shock within the industry because of Freeman's long history with the Braves.

Now Freeman has fired the agency that represented him in his offseason negotiations, Excel Sports Management, according to multiple sources. Casey Close, who was the lead agent in Freeman's talks with the Braves and Dodgers, did not immediately respond for comment.

In a statement to MLB.com, Freeman acknowledged his status with his agent is "fluid," but did not confirm the firing.

"Last weekend in Atlanta was a very emotional time for me and my family," Freeman told MLB.com. "I am working through some issues with my longtime agents at Excel. My representation remains a fluid situation and I will update if needed."

The MLB Players Association sent an email to agents on Freeman's behalf Monday, ordering agents to not contact the player. This is common practice when players do not want to be besieged by agents. Freeman is listed within baseball's central system as currently being self-represented.

Freeman, 32, returned to Atlanta for the first time since signing with the Dodgers last weekend and was outwardly emotional, intermittently weeping from the time he first met with reporters before the three-game series began to when he was given a standing ovation by Braves fans near the end of Sunday Night Baseball.

Sources say Freeman indicated to some of his former teammates over the weekend that he was going to change agents, given his frustration with how his free agency concluded in March.

The Braves made a $135 million, five-year offer that was still on the table in the first days after the owners' lockout ended. As reported in March, Close -- the lead negotiator for Excel -- contacted Alex Anthopoulos, the head of baseball operations for the Braves, and presented two proposals on behalf of Freeman significantly higher than that $135 million offer, giving the team an hour to respond. The Braves bumped their offer to $140 million, not close to Close's proposals.

When that deadline passed, sources say, Close and Anthopoulos agreed that there were no offers on the table. The Braves -- believing that Close's deadline meant that Freeman was about to conclude a deal with another team, likely the Dodgers, quickly pivoted to make a blockbuster deal for Oakland Athletics All-Star Matt Olson and signed 27-year-old Olson to an eight-year, $168 million contract. That effectively ended any chance Freeman would return.

Freeman reached out to some of his former Braves teammates and expressed shock that his negotiations had played out as they had. Within a week, Freeman had signed with the Dodgers for six years and $162 million, although the deal contains $57 million in deferred salary. That deal, in the end, could be worth less than the total value of the Braves' offer, given the heavy deferrals and California state taxes.

Freeman was initially critical of the Braves' handling of negotiations. Subsequently, Freeman spoke with Anthopoulos about what occurred during the talks and apparently made his peace with the organization. He wholly embraced the ceremonies last weekend, which included a ring presentation from his friend and former manager, Brian Snitker; Snitker, seeing Freeman's emotion, encouraged him to relax.

Friends of Freeman in the Braves organization believe that his weekend-long emotion was tied, to some degree, to lingering anger and sadness that his negotiations concluded with him playing with a team other than the club that initially drafted him. Freeman was long considered the face of the Braves' franchise, won an MVP Award in 2020 and shared in the World Series championship last fall.

 

Edited June 29, 2022 by Beau Vine

[clapclapclap 9000]

How many baby birds died in the faceplant?

Edited June 29, 2022 by clapclapclap

[tx 3 putt 76371]

4 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

This seems like a fucked-up situation:

 

lololololololololololol

let me shed a tear for a guy making $160mil 

 

[WBT 20421]

If Freddie didn't want to leave Atlanta, it seems like he should have told his agents that.

I will say he managed to not get booed for leaving for the Dodgers, so good on him for that.

Edited June 29, 2022 by WBT

[Scraps 13542]

Yeah if he wanted to stay that bad you will cut a "hometown" deal to just stay.  Him and his agents tried to get greedy like the majority of these dudes and got burned.  He is lucky he is on the Dodgers and didn't have to go somewhere like uhhh....Minnesota? 

[Guest]

I don't have a problem with them maximizing their comp, but damn it's hard to feel sorry for them too.  I mentioned in the Astros thread that I will always cheer for Springer and Morton and could never hate them. I understand why they are no longer Astros. I honestly like Gerrit Cole too, but not on the same level as those 2. I know many Houston fans disagree with that stance.  Freddie was beloved in Atlanta, no doubt.

Some of the other guys who have left, hey, that's the business of baseball, no harm no foul.  I've moved multiple times for work and never cried because I got a big fat raise.  LOL

Edited June 29, 2022 by slorch

[Beau Vine 54001]

Are we sure he's not annoyed at that ugly-ass uniform?

[Helobious 9481]

Heh

 

[huge 3788]

I’m sure that % will stay that way

[Scraps 13542]

So they trail a lot

 

Sorry the Astros can't participate in your dumb statistic because they are in the middle of 9 games in a row where they haven't trailed at all during a game that they have a chance to come back and win 

Edited June 29, 2022 by Scraps

[tx 3 putt 76371]

7 minutes ago, Scraps said:

So they trail a lot

 

Sorry the Astros can't participate in your dumb statistic because they are in the middle of 9 games in a row where they haven't trailed at all during a game that they have a chance to come back and win 

it was a good mid season check for the Astros, 9 games vs the two best teams in MLB. Showed the Astros what they need to work on before the post season. Let the two best teams in MLB get used to being our bitch (one of those teams already knows, but it was their reminder). 
 

see you boys in Oct !

[Helobious 9481]

24 minutes ago, Scraps said:

So they trail a lot

 

Sorry the Astros can't participate in your dumb statistic because they are in the middle of 9 games in a row where they haven't trailed at all during a game that they have a chance to come back and win 

Nice little qualifier there. The Yankees are so fucking good they split a series with you even though they never took one at bat with a lead. Can’t wait for judge to slam his gavel dick across your faces at that juicebox tomorrow.

[TonyTexas 10482]

14 minutes ago, Helobious said:

Nice little qualifier there. The Yankees are so fucking good they split a series with you even though they never took one at bat with a lead. Can’t wait for judge to slam his gavel dick across your faces at that juicebox tomorrow.

Fortunately for you, Alvarez is probably missing tomorrow’s game so you’ll avoid

 

[ChickenSandwich 9798]

53 minutes ago, Helobious said:

Nice little qualifier there. The Yankees are so fucking good they split a series with you even though they never took one at bat with a lead. Can’t wait for judge to slam his gavel dick across your faces at that juicebox tomorrow.

Qualifier:

2022 Payroll

New York

$246 million

Houston

$164 million

Needed Neanderthal miracle in two games to salvage a win. 

[shadow_operative 15932]

Manoah just opened the game vs BOS by k'ing the side throwing nothing but fastballs. man i love power pitching like that. 

[Scraps 13542]

Manoah just opened the game vs BOS by k'ing the side throwing nothing but fastballs. man i love power pitching like that. 

Yeah not sure why all these dudes nowadays try to get so cute.

You know why Justin Verlander is a badass? Because he throws 100 pitches and 75 of them are strikes and 25 are balls consistently. Just pound the zone.

[shadow_operative 15932]

 

 

 

 

[TonyTexas 10482]

^^^
Didn’t you start a thread just for posts like that?

[WBT 20421]

Well this was a new one for me.

Video at the link.  I couldn't find it in a tweet so Beau will have to watch an ad first.

https://www.mlb.com/news/pirates-nationals-appeal-play-fourth-out-rule

Spoiler

WASHINGTON -- While there are three outs every half-inning, the fourth out rule was enacted during the fifth frame of an 8-7 Pirates win over the Nationals on Wednesday afternoon at Nationals Park.

With Hoy Park on second base and Jack Suwinski on third with one out, Nats reliever reliever Steve Cishek induced a lineout to first base off the bat of Ke’Bryan Hayes. After making the catch, first baseman Josh Bell fired the baseball across the diamond to third baseman Ehire Adrianza, who tagged Park to complete the double play and record the third out, prompting the Nats to return to their dugout thinking they’d escaped the jam.

Suwinski, though, had crossed home plate during the defensive flurry to score what was -- at the time -- the go-ahead run, all without tagging up at third. Hayes was credited with an RBI. Because the Nationals did not appeal at third before leaving the field, the officiating crew ruled the run counted, citing Rule 5.09(c)(4) regarding appeal plays.

 

What’s the rule?
Rule 5.09(c)(4) states: "Any appeal under this rule must be made before the next pitch, or any play or attempted play. If the violation occurs during a play which ends a half-inning, the appeal must be made before the defensive team leaves the field.

"An appeal is not to be interpreted as a play or an attempted play. Successive appeals may not be made on a runner at the same base. …

"Appeal plays may require an umpire to recognize an apparent 'fourth out.' If the third out is made during a play in which an appeal play is sustained on another runner, the appeal play decision takes precedence in determining the out. If there is more than one appeal during a play that ends a half-inning, the defense may elect to take the out that gives it the advantage.

"For the purpose of this rule, the defensive team has 'left the field' when the pitcher and all infielders have left fair territory on their way to the bench or Clubhouse."

What did the umpire say?
Crew chief Mark Wegner, to a pool reporter: “This is the first time I’ve been on the field for something like this.”

What happened? “... [Pirates manager Derek] Shelton originally came out saying that the ball wasn’t caught. So we got together to make sure that we had a catch by the first baseman. Then after that, we made sure that everybody knew what we had, and we had three outs and the run scoring … the defensive team could appeal for a fourth out -- [that] is what it’s called -- that the runner from third didn’t tag up. But they have to do that.

 

“So the pitcher and the infielders already crossed the foul line. So now they can’t even appeal for the fourth out. So that was that situation.

“The other part of it is -- and this is another important part, which it’s a crazy play, but it was ruled correctly -- is that any time there’s an appeal it has to be -- the player, the fielder, has to be doing it for the obvious intent of appealing.

“In the play that happened, when the third baseman tagged the runner, the third base umpire pointed and said, ‘He’s out. The runner’s out for the third out.’ Now at that point, if the third baseman wants to say, ‘I want to appeal that the guy that just scored from third left early,’ then we can call what’s called the ‘fourth out,’ and then he can step on the base for that. But it has to be an intentional-type thing.

 

If the third baseman had stepped on the bag without tagging the runner, even if the runner had crossed home first, would he be out at third for not tagging up? “Correct. Because in the way I’m envisioning it, he’s stepping on it, not even trying to tag this guy. So he would be saying, ‘He didn’t tag up.’ It wouldn’t be a bad idea to say that, but certainly we would all know that he’s just standing on the base saying he didn’t tag up.

“But his intent -- and we watched, to make sure -- was to tag this guy. So that’s the third out. But yes, correct, if he does that, or if he after tagging the guy says, ‘I want to appeal that this guy left early,’ you can do that, and then the run wouldn’t score.”

What did the Nationals say?
Manager Dave Martinez: “They deemed that Adrianza never touched the base, which he clearly did. He touched the runner and the base. So therefore, there was no appeal. So they say the run scores, in their judgment. We couldn’t appeal because we went off the field, being that they called an out. Inning’s over, so what do you do? Stand on the field? No. Then all of a sudden, when Shelton came out, they told Cishek to hold off. So there we stand with a run scored. I felt like we did everything right, we caught the ball, he threw it, he tagged the runner and the base. They said he didn’t touch the base. … 

“I’m not blaming them [that] we lost the game because of that one play, obviously, but it’s a big run. It’s a one-run game, right?”

Bell: “It was wild because [Adrianza] makes the tag, he touches third and it was one of those scenarios where we didn’t think that we had to do anything else. And it seemed as such the replay or the conference, the meeting that the umpires had, didn’t go in our favor. It seems like there’s certain scenarios in the game where if you can make a phone call and get the right call, the game’s the most important thing at the end of the day. But it stinks, especially to lose that game by one. It’s definitely telling that we’ve got to just be better about getting the right calls, no matter what it takes, going forward.” 

Adrianza: “I just thought about tagging the runner and tagging the base. When everything happens, the third-base umpire told me he didn’t see me when I touched the base, so that’s why I think they made that call … 

“It’s frustrating because I think we had a chance to appeal on that play and get the run they scored back. Right now, we should be playing a tie game.”

What did the Pirates say?
Shelton: “The rule is you have to have an infielder that stays on the field of play. You cannot get off the base line. And the umpires, to their credit, Jeremie Rehak tried to stop [Steve] Cishek three times, and I know that because I was on the field. …

“The fourth-out rule enters my mind all the time. We had a situation last year against the Giants at home on a walk-off, and they argued something very similar on an appeal. Now, this was touching a base, but the Giants have four veteran infielders and they all stayed on the field. So, as soon as anything like that happens, that’s why we always tell our pitcher to stay on that side [of the foul line], because if something does come back, especially with replay, you want to be able to go back and do it.”

Park: “I’ve never seen that play before. I was kind of confused. Everyone was confused about it. Finally we scored. I still don’t know what happened.”

 

Anybody ever seen or heard of this?  I knew that if a runner tagged up and scored from 3rd before another runner was doubled off for the 3rd out that the run would count but this one seems more bizarre.  I get hung up because I also feel like doubling a runner off should act as a force even though I know that's not the rule.

I guess I can see some consistency with the case of a batter flying out for the 2nd out and a runner leaving 3rd early and scoring.  The run would count if the defense doesn't appeal.  This case is similar but just has the defense making the 3rd out on a different runner after the runner from 3rd has scored. 

The other odd thing on this play is that he did step on 3rd but somehow the ump ruled he didn't intend to double off the runner from 3rd?  That part of it I don't get at all.

[Beau Vine 54001]

17 minutes ago, WBT said:

Well this was a new one for me.

Video at the link.  I couldn't find it in a tweet so Beau will have to watch an ad first.

https://www.mlb.com/news/pirates-nationals-appeal-play-fourth-out-rule

  Reveal hidden contents

WASHINGTON -- While there are three outs every half-inning, the fourth out rule was enacted during the fifth frame of an 8-7 Pirates win over the Nationals on Wednesday afternoon at Nationals Park.

With Hoy Park on second base and Jack Suwinski on third with one out, Nats reliever reliever Steve Cishek induced a lineout to first base off the bat of Ke’Bryan Hayes. After making the catch, first baseman Josh Bell fired the baseball across the diamond to third baseman Ehire Adrianza, who tagged Park to complete the double play and record the third out, prompting the Nats to return to their dugout thinking they’d escaped the jam.

Suwinski, though, had crossed home plate during the defensive flurry to score what was -- at the time -- the go-ahead run, all without tagging up at third. Hayes was credited with an RBI. Because the Nationals did not appeal at third before leaving the field, the officiating crew ruled the run counted, citing Rule 5.09(c)(4) regarding appeal plays.

 

What’s the rule?
Rule 5.09(c)(4) states: "Any appeal under this rule must be made before the next pitch, or any play or attempted play. If the violation occurs during a play which ends a half-inning, the appeal must be made before the defensive team leaves the field.

"An appeal is not to be interpreted as a play or an attempted play. Successive appeals may not be made on a runner at the same base. …

"Appeal plays may require an umpire to recognize an apparent 'fourth out.' If the third out is made during a play in which an appeal play is sustained on another runner, the appeal play decision takes precedence in determining the out. If there is more than one appeal during a play that ends a half-inning, the defense may elect to take the out that gives it the advantage.

"For the purpose of this rule, the defensive team has 'left the field' when the pitcher and all infielders have left fair territory on their way to the bench or Clubhouse."

What did the umpire say?
Crew chief Mark Wegner, to a pool reporter: “This is the first time I’ve been on the field for something like this.”

What happened? “... [Pirates manager Derek] Shelton originally came out saying that the ball wasn’t caught. So we got together to make sure that we had a catch by the first baseman. Then after that, we made sure that everybody knew what we had, and we had three outs and the run scoring … the defensive team could appeal for a fourth out -- [that] is what it’s called -- that the runner from third didn’t tag up. But they have to do that.

 

“So the pitcher and the infielders already crossed the foul line. So now they can’t even appeal for the fourth out. So that was that situation.

“The other part of it is -- and this is another important part, which it’s a crazy play, but it was ruled correctly -- is that any time there’s an appeal it has to be -- the player, the fielder, has to be doing it for the obvious intent of appealing.

“In the play that happened, when the third baseman tagged the runner, the third base umpire pointed and said, ‘He’s out. The runner’s out for the third out.’ Now at that point, if the third baseman wants to say, ‘I want to appeal that the guy that just scored from third left early,’ then we can call what’s called the ‘fourth out,’ and then he can step on the base for that. But it has to be an intentional-type thing.

 

If the third baseman had stepped on the bag without tagging the runner, even if the runner had crossed home first, would he be out at third for not tagging up? “Correct. Because in the way I’m envisioning it, he’s stepping on it, not even trying to tag this guy. So he would be saying, ‘He didn’t tag up.’ It wouldn’t be a bad idea to say that, but certainly we would all know that he’s just standing on the base saying he didn’t tag up.

“But his intent -- and we watched, to make sure -- was to tag this guy. So that’s the third out. But yes, correct, if he does that, or if he after tagging the guy says, ‘I want to appeal that this guy left early,’ you can do that, and then the run wouldn’t score.”

What did the Nationals say?
Manager Dave Martinez: “They deemed that Adrianza never touched the base, which he clearly did. He touched the runner and the base. So therefore, there was no appeal. So they say the run scores, in their judgment. We couldn’t appeal because we went off the field, being that they called an out. Inning’s over, so what do you do? Stand on the field? No. Then all of a sudden, when Shelton came out, they told Cishek to hold off. So there we stand with a run scored. I felt like we did everything right, we caught the ball, he threw it, he tagged the runner and the base. They said he didn’t touch the base. … 

“I’m not blaming them [that] we lost the game because of that one play, obviously, but it’s a big run. It’s a one-run game, right?”

Bell: “It was wild because [Adrianza] makes the tag, he touches third and it was one of those scenarios where we didn’t think that we had to do anything else. And it seemed as such the replay or the conference, the meeting that the umpires had, didn’t go in our favor. It seems like there’s certain scenarios in the game where if you can make a phone call and get the right call, the game’s the most important thing at the end of the day. But it stinks, especially to lose that game by one. It’s definitely telling that we’ve got to just be better about getting the right calls, no matter what it takes, going forward.” 

Adrianza: “I just thought about tagging the runner and tagging the base. When everything happens, the third-base umpire told me he didn’t see me when I touched the base, so that’s why I think they made that call … 

“It’s frustrating because I think we had a chance to appeal on that play and get the run they scored back. Right now, we should be playing a tie game.”

What did the Pirates say?
Shelton: “The rule is you have to have an infielder that stays on the field of play. You cannot get off the base line. And the umpires, to their credit, Jeremie Rehak tried to stop [Steve] Cishek three times, and I know that because I was on the field. …

“The fourth-out rule enters my mind all the time. We had a situation last year against the Giants at home on a walk-off, and they argued something very similar on an appeal. Now, this was touching a base, but the Giants have four veteran infielders and they all stayed on the field. So, as soon as anything like that happens, that’s why we always tell our pitcher to stay on that side [of the foul line], because if something does come back, especially with replay, you want to be able to go back and do it.”

Park: “I’ve never seen that play before. I was kind of confused. Everyone was confused about it. Finally we scored. I still don’t know what happened.”

 

Anybody ever seen or heard of this?  I knew that if a runner tagged up and scored from 3rd before another runner was doubled off for the 3rd out that the run would count but this one seems more bizarre.  I get hung up because I also feel like doubling a runner off should act as a force even though I know that's not the rule.

I guess I can see some consistency with the case of a batter flying out for the 2nd out and a runner leaving 3rd early and scoring.  The run would count if the defense doesn't appeal.  This case is similar but just has the defense making the 3rd out on a different runner after the runner from 3rd has scored. 

The other odd thing on this play is that he did step on 3rd but somehow the ump ruled he didn't intend to double off the runner from 3rd?  That part of it I don't get at all.

Saw it earlier.  You have to appeal the "4th out," IIRC.  It was a very popular umpiring trivia question back when I worked games.  

Tagging the runner was the 3rd out, which ended the inning, so stepping on 3rd is basically considered to have never happened because the inning was over.  If they had stayed on the field and appealed the 4th out of the inning, the run wouldn't have counted.  

Dumb rule, but the umps called it correctly by the rule book.  

[shadow_operative 15932]

someone please post the home plate umpire report card for this jays vs sox game when it's done. the zone has been moving around all night. 

Edited June 30, 2022 by shadow_operative

[closetohumping 17401]

15 hours ago, WBT said:

If Freddie didn't want to leave Atlanta, it seems like he should have told his agents that.

I will say he managed to not get booed for leaving for the Dodgers, so good on him for that.

At some point you gotta skip the agent and have a call with the owner.  Freddie just pissed on his current teammates 

[Scraps 13542]

Well this was a new one for me.
Video at the link.  I couldn't find it in a tweet so Beau will have to watch an ad first.
https://www.mlb.com/news/pirates-nationals-appeal-play-fourth-out-rule
Spoiler

WASHINGTON -- While there are three outs every half-inning, the fourth out rule was enacted during the fifth frame of an 8-7 Pirates win over the Nationals on Wednesday afternoon at Nationals Park.

With Hoy Park on second base and Jack Suwinski on third with one out, Nats reliever reliever Steve Cishek induced a lineout to first base off the bat of Ke’Bryan Hayes. After making the catch, first baseman Josh Bell fired the baseball across the diamond to third baseman Ehire Adrianza, who tagged Park to complete the double play and record the third out, prompting the Nats to return to their dugout thinking they’d escaped the jam.
Suwinski, though, had crossed home plate during the defensive flurry to score what was -- at the time -- the go-ahead run, all without tagging up at third. Hayes was credited with an RBI. Because the Nationals did not appeal at third before leaving the field, the officiating crew ruled the run counted, citing Rule 5.09©(4) regarding appeal plays.
  What’s the rule?
Rule 5.09©(4) states: "Any appeal under this rule must be made before the next pitch, or any play or attempted play. If the violation occurs during a play which ends a half-inning, the appeal must be made before the defensive team leaves the field.
"An appeal is not to be interpreted as a play or an attempted play. Successive appeals may not be made on a runner at the same base. …
"Appeal plays may require an umpire to recognize an apparent 'fourth out.' If the third out is made during a play in which an appeal play is sustained on another runner, the appeal play decision takes precedence in determining the out. If there is more than one appeal during a play that ends a half-inning, the defense may elect to take the out that gives it the advantage.
"For the purpose of this rule, the defensive team has 'left the field' when the pitcher and all infielders have left fair territory on their way to the bench or Clubhouse."
What did the umpire say?
Crew chief Mark Wegner, to a pool reporter: “This is the first time I’ve been on the field for something like this.”
What happened? “... [Pirates manager Derek] Shelton originally came out saying that the ball wasn’t caught. So we got together to make sure that we had a catch by the first baseman. Then after that, we made sure that everybody knew what we had, and we had three outs and the run scoring … the defensive team could appeal for a fourth out -- [that] is what it’s called -- that the runner from third didn’t tag up. But they have to do that.
  “So the pitcher and the infielders already crossed the foul line. So now they can’t even appeal for the fourth out. So that was that situation.
“The other part of it is -- and this is another important part, which it’s a crazy play, but it was ruled correctly -- is that any time there’s an appeal it has to be -- the player, the fielder, has to be doing it for the obvious intent of appealing.
“In the play that happened, when the third baseman tagged the runner, the third base umpire pointed and said, ‘He’s out. The runner’s out for the third out.’ Now at that point, if the third baseman wants to say, ‘I want to appeal that the guy that just scored from third left early,’ then we can call what’s called the ‘fourth out,’ and then he can step on the base for that. But it has to be an intentional-type thing.
  If the third baseman had stepped on the bag without tagging the runner, even if the runner had crossed home first, would he be out at third for not tagging up? “Correct. Because in the way I’m envisioning it, he’s stepping on it, not even trying to tag this guy. So he would be saying, ‘He didn’t tag up.’ It wouldn’t be a bad idea to say that, but certainly we would all know that he’s just standing on the base saying he didn’t tag up.
“But his intent -- and we watched, to make sure -- was to tag this guy. So that’s the third out. But yes, correct, if he does that, or if he after tagging the guy says, ‘I want to appeal that this guy left early,’ you can do that, and then the run wouldn’t score.”
What did the Nationals say?
Manager Dave Martinez: “They deemed that Adrianza never touched the base, which he clearly did. He touched the runner and the base. So therefore, there was no appeal. So they say the run scores, in their judgment. We couldn’t appeal because we went off the field, being that they called an out. Inning’s over, so what do you do? Stand on the field? No. Then all of a sudden, when Shelton came out, they told Cishek to hold off. So there we stand with a run scored. I felt like we did everything right, we caught the ball, he threw it, he tagged the runner and the base. They said he didn’t touch the base. … 
“I’m not blaming them [that] we lost the game because of that one play, obviously, but it’s a big run. It’s a one-run game, right?”
Bell: “It was wild because [Adrianza] makes the tag, he touches third and it was one of those scenarios where we didn’t think that we had to do anything else. And it seemed as such the replay or the conference, the meeting that the umpires had, didn’t go in our favor. It seems like there’s certain scenarios in the game where if you can make a phone call and get the right call, the game’s the most important thing at the end of the day. But it stinks, especially to lose that game by one. It’s definitely telling that we’ve got to just be better about getting the right calls, no matter what it takes, going forward.” 
Adrianza: “I just thought about tagging the runner and tagging the base. When everything happens, the third-base umpire told me he didn’t see me when I touched the base, so that’s why I think they made that call … 
“It’s frustrating because I think we had a chance to appeal on that play and get the run they scored back. Right now, we should be playing a tie game.”
What did the Pirates say?
Shelton: “The rule is you have to have an infielder that stays on the field of play. You cannot get off the base line. And the umpires, to their credit, Jeremie Rehak tried to stop [steve] Cishek three times, and I know that because I was on the field. …
“The fourth-out rule enters my mind all the time. We had a situation last year against the Giants at home on a walk-off, and they argued something very similar on an appeal. Now, this was touching a base, but the Giants have four veteran infielders and they all stayed on the field. So, as soon as anything like that happens, that’s why we always tell our pitcher to stay on that side [of the foul line], because if something does come back, especially with replay, you want to be able to go back and do it.”
Park: “I’ve never seen that play before. I was kind of confused. Everyone was confused about it. Finally we scored. I still don’t know what happened.”
 
Anybody ever seen or heard of this?  I knew that if a runner tagged up and scored from 3rd before another runner was doubled off for the 3rd out that the run would count but this one seems more bizarre.  I get hung up because I also feel like doubling a runner off should act as a force even though I know that's not the rule.
I guess I can see some consistency with the case of a batter flying out for the 2nd out and a runner leaving 3rd early and scoring.  The run would count if the defense doesn't appeal.  This case is similar but just has the defense making the 3rd out on a different runner after the runner from 3rd has scored. 
The other odd thing on this play is that he did step on 3rd but somehow the ump ruled he didn't intend to double off the runner from 3rd?  That part of it I don't get at all.

Seems dumber than Helobious

[Beau Vine 54001]

Dave Martinez has never seemed like the brightest bulb in the chandelier, and he lucked into a WS ring, seems like the bloom should be off him like Maddon.  

[ztejas 43265]

15 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

Are we sure he's not annoyed at that ugly-ass uniform?

Here's a fuller breakdown. 

 

 

[Guest]

Regarding the Nats play, baseball absolutely loves some bullshit bureaucracy and legalism as opposed to getting the right fucking call made.

That human element, not the umps this time, is just so fucking endearing.

 

Edited June 30, 2022 by slorch

[closetohumping 17401]

Ok so now freeman’s agent or ex agent may sue Doug Gottleib.  Doug had tweeted that Close didn’t present final offer to Freemen

[VirginiaLonghorn 4750]

9 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

Dave Martinez has never seemed like the brightest bulb in the chandelier, and he lucked into a WS ring, seems like the bloom should be off him like Maddon.  

Don’t leave out GM Mike Rizzo who opted to OVERPAY a verifiably broken Stephen Strasburg

which ultimately made Rendon, Tre Turner, and Scherzer unaffordable.  Soto is next in the door.  Didn’t take them long to revert to the Washington Senators …

[shadow_operative 15932]

didi gregarious just botched a tailor made double play when stepped on second and then didn't throw to first because he thought there were two outs. the hitter was like 25 feet from 1B when didi tagged second. didi immediately realized his mistake, and apologized to aaron nola.

question: should this be an error in your opinion? i know i know- never assume the double play. but come on. that's an easy call. i think baseball needs to get with the times on klaus like that and call them what they are. 

[Beau Vine 54001]

4 minutes ago, shadow_operative said:

didi gregarious just botched a tailor made double play when stepped on second and then didn't throw to first because he thought there were two outs. the hitter was like 25 feet from 1B when didi tagged second. didi immediately realized his mistake, and apologized to aaron nola.

question: should this be an error in your opinion? i know i know- never assume the double play. but come on. that's an easy call. i think baseball needs to get with the times on klaus like that and call them what they are. 

I honestly think baseball needs to get rid of the concept of errors, unearned runs, all that shit.  It's just so damned stupid.  

Edited June 30, 2022 by Beau Vine

[Valmy77 13094]

6 minutes ago, shadow_operative said:

didi gregarious just botched a tailor made double play when stepped on second and then didn't throw to first because he thought there were two outs. the hitter was like 25 feet from 1B when didi tagged second. didi immediately realized his mistake, and apologized to aaron nola.

question: should this be an error in your opinion? i know i know- never assume the double play. but come on. that's an easy call. i think baseball needs to get with the times on klaus like that and call them what they are. 

I don't think so. Errors are for fielding mistakes not mental ones.

[Valmy77 13094]

2 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

I honestly think baseball needs to get rid of the concept of errors, unearned runs, all that shit.  It's just so damned stupid.  

Nah. Fielding % is a very important concept. Unearned runs? Maybe. I don't know.

[Vic Mackey 46936]

[Helobious 9481]

Anti-Aaron Nixon moment

 

[Beau Vine 54001]

Yuli should have swung at that and nailed the catcher, who was standing on top of the plate.

[WBT 20421]

Padres - Dodgers on FS1.  Hopefully this will be a good series.

[Beau Vine 54001]

A League of Their Own came out 30 years ago tomorrow, and is still one of the most perfect movies ever made, and I'd be willing to fight you if you disagree.

Marla Hooch lives in Spring and can still swing the bat:

Quote

SPRING, Texas — It was 1:38 p.m. on a sweltering Thursday afternoon when a silent distress signal went out from inside a row of batting cages.

Apparently, one of the greatest hitters in baseball movie history had taken so many off-balance swings that her Apple Watch detected a fall and auto-dialed 9-1-1.

“Hang on,” the former Rockford Peaches second baseman said as she put the bat down hastily. “Let me take my watch off so they don’t think I’m dying.”

No, there’s no dying in baseball. Not today, at least, and in a way not ever. Cinematically speaking, Marla Hooch will live forever.

Everybody’s favorite misfit from “A League of Their Own” is still going strong as the movie barrels dirt-in-the-skirt style toward its 30th anniversary this week. Megan Cavanagh, the actress behind the awkward, saucer-eyed slugger is here, at age 61, wearing a batting helmet and tuning up for an anniversary game this weekend.

The movie about the bygone All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) hit theaters on July 1, 1992, and quickly found its way into the cultural bloodstream of sports cinema. “A League of Their Own” is the best-earning baseball movie of all time, at $132.4 million worldwide, and was selected in 2012 for preservation by the National Film Registry.

 

This imprint ensures that Marla Hooch still gets recognized on the street about once a week, at least in non-pandemic times. Never mind that she was the least glamorous player on the diamond. That only served to make her the most relatable. The Tao of Marla Hooch is that she’s the metaphor for all those girls who lacked confidence before finding it playing sports.

“This character is so beloved,” Cavanagh said in late June as we spent the day tooling around her Houston-area neighborhood. “She was a good ballplayer but felt ‘less than’ when it comes to the boys.

“I think she would take a lot of shit. She was teased. She didn’t have very much self-esteem, even though she was an amazing ballplayer, which I think is the story of so many women, myself included. My self-esteem was not great. I mean, the last five years maybe, now that I’m an older woman, I realize ‘I’m OK.’”

On this day at the cages, Cavanagh took more than 200 swings: some righty, some lefty, all rusty. Every once in a while, though, she’d pop a searing liner into the netting across the way and evoke that signature line: “Marla Hooch, what a hitter!”

She took so many cuts that we paused halfway through so that The Athletic could buy her some batting gloves. In exchange for that $27.01, we got her best behind-the-scenes stories from “A League of Their Own,” including memories of castmates Geena Davis, Tom Hanks, Madonna and Rosie O’Donnell.

It was a good trade. We wound up flipping through her scrapbooks and original script, revisiting the tumultuous days of early casting and learning just how difficult it is to buy a birthday present for her co-star. “I mean, what do you get Madonna?” Cavanagh said.

---

 

Megan Cavanagh, who grew up near Chicago, still gets recognized as a hard-hitting Marla Hooch roughly once a week in non-pandemic times. (Photo: Dan Brown/The Athletic)

But first, barbecue.

Cavanagh moved to this Houston suburb of The Woodlands three years ago to help care for her nonagenarian parents. Now, as an adopted Texan, she arrives curbside to pick me up while blasting country-folk music on John Prine Radio and speaking of brisket. She knows a place.

There, Cavanagh remembers how the role that would change her life arrived while she was a 30-year-old waitress still hoping to be a serious dramatic actress, more Hepburn than Hooch. Then she answered a call intended for her roommate, Jeff Hermanson, a former 49ers training staff summer intern. The female voice on the other end explained that she was hoping Hermanson could coach her up for an audition “because there’s this movie where you have to play ball before you can even read.”

Cavanagh took the message, but just before she hung up the woman stopped her. “Are you from Chicago?” she asked. “They’re looking for Midwestern gals who can play ball.”

Cavanagh indeed grew up in a Windy City suburb, where she was deeply involved in the hotbed of a theater scene. Consider that she was in a high school musical with Dan Castellaneta, the future voice actor for “The Simpsons.” Yes, that’s right: Marla Hooch and Homer Simpson were once in “Oklahoma!” together. (Also in that loaded cast at Oak Park and River Forest High: Kathy Griffin and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.)

Later, Cavanagh played softball in a Chicago theater league, where she honed her switch-hitting skills by playing pepper against her boyfriend’s no-mercy pitching. So, when the phone rang that day for the 49ers trainer who wasn’t home? It might as well have been destiny calling.

“I read (the script) and I was naive enough to go, ‘God, I want to be Marla,’” Cavanagh said. She also started posting little affirmations around her house, tiny scraps of self-inspiration that she would say out loud over the course of each day:

• I am the greatest baseball player.
• I’m happy and successfully working as Marla Hooch in the film “A League of Their Own.”
• This or something better now manifests for me in totally satisfying and harmonious ways for the highest good for all concerned.

On that last one, “I would say, ‘for all concerned’ twice,” Cavanagh said. And when the time was right, she summoned the courage to call powerful casting director Amanda Mackey who, in a Hollywood rarity, picked up herself.

“That never, ever, ever happens,” Cavanagh said.

Their chat ended with an invite to a tryout game on Feb. 2, 1990.

---

Cavanagh recognized her competition while warming up. She remembers seeing Brooke Shields, Lea Thompson, Paula Poundstone and Marla Maples. Two others, Téa Leoni and Janet Jones Gretzky, would make the movie, but as bit players. Apparently, none of them had a swing like Cavanagh, who put on a display not all that different from her tryout scene in the movie.

“I played the most inspirational ball of my life,” she said of her audition game. “I have never played that well, before or since. And they came up to me afterward. And they were like, ‘Now, who are you and who’s your agent?’”

That last one was tough to answer. “I didn’t have an agent,” she said.

Higher up on the marquee, casting sometimes looked like the transaction wire around the trade deadline. Sean Young was an early contender for Dottie Hinson, while director Penny Marshall’s first choice for the lead was Demi Moore. Cavanagh remembers Daryl Hannah being attached early, with Jim Belushi in line for the alcoholic has-been manager Jimmy Dugan.

During one of Cavanagh’s auditions, she read lines with a lineup that included Debra Winger as Dottie. “When I was leaving that audition, Rosie O’Donnell followed me out,” Cavanagh recalled. “She said, ‘You’re the best Marla we’ve seen so far.’ And in my stupid brain, all I heard was the ‘so far.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, well, that was pretty good for me.’”

She was therefore floored later when, while on the phone lamenting to her best friend that she’d tried the best she could, the operator interrupted with an emergency call. Her new agent shouted: “YOU GOT THE PART!”

“I immediately start to cry,” Cavanagh said. “I’m thinking my career is over because I haven’t booked anything by the time I’m 30, right? Anyway, they said, ‘You start tomorrow.’”

 

Megan Cavanagh flips through her original script from “A League of Their Own,” which hit theaters 30 years ago this week on July 1, 1992. (Daniel Brown / The Athletic)

But first, practice. Long before the cameras started rolling, the wannabe ballplayers worked out spring-training style under the supervision of coaches such as Rod Dedeaux, who won 11 national titles at USC.

“Unpaid training,” Cavanagh said. “For like, a couple of months. This was in May, and in July we started shooting. I mean, you were there Monday through Friday, starting at 8 o’clock in the morning.”

One of the standouts in those early days was Winger, who was best known for “Officer and a Gentleman” and who looked like an angel and played like an Angel. Cavanagh said that Winger was also utterly plausible as Lori Petty’s big sister because the two had a chemistry vital to the sibling rivalry at the heart of the movie.

“They were both super competitive,” she said. “Lori ran really fast and would (later) have to pretend to run slower than Geena for some of those shots. She didn’t have to do that with Debra. But then Debra comes to us one day crying and says, ‘I’m not going to be able to do this part, you guys. I’m gonna have to leave.’ We were devastated. Captain, oh my, captain. Gone.”

Winger reportedly bailed from “A League of Their Own” after learning that Madonna would be joining the film. Cavanagh is aware of that account but felt unqualified to confirm or deny. At any rate, the sting of losing Winger subsided when Davis, with an Oscar to her credit, took the role of the catcher who “plays like Gehrig and looks like Garbo.”

“I was in awe of her,” Cavanagh said of Davis.

But that was nothing compared to the mega-watt jolt to the set when Madonna came strolling in. “Like, here comes the Washington Monument. She’s at the height of her career,” Cavanagh said.

 

A snapshot during a break in filming with Téa Leoni and Madonna under the umbrella. That’s Marla Hooch (Megan Cavanagh) on the right. (Photo courtesy of Tracy Reiner)

Marshall put Rosie O’Donnell in charge of shadowing Madonna and making sure there were no issues. It was one of the best decisions the director made.

“Because Rosie didn’t take any of Madonna’s shit,” Cavanagh said with a laugh.

For example: On long days of filming, O’Donnell would entertain the extras in the crowd to keep their spirits up as they otherwise suffered in their 1940s costumes under the brutal Indiana sun.

“One day she comes out and she goes, ‘Hey, everybody! Madonna’s gonna sing for you! And everybody says ‘Oooohhh!’” Cavanagh said. “And Madonna’s just like sitting in the dugout going, ‘Fuck you, Rosie. Fuck you.’

“So Rosie comes back out and tells the crowd, ‘I’m sorry, she can’t right now. … So I will!’”

O’Donnell then broke into a rendition of “Holiday,” nailing every word.

“Afterwards, Madonna goes, ‘Don’t you ever fuckin’ sing my song ever again,’” Cavanagh said.

Any guesses as to what happened the next day? O’Donnell came out again and told the crowd the same thing, eliciting the same breathless reaction. Again Madonna fumed, so this time O’Donnell launched into a stirring version of “Vogue,” complete with impeccable cover girl choreography. And just like that, the two became best friends.

“She didn’t let Madonna’s status or anything affect her,” Cavanagh said. “And that’s what I think Madonna loved about her. Because everybody was treating her like the queen. We’d have waiters fighting over who was gonna wait on her table. She’s like, ‘Can we just get service?’ She hated that. She just wanted to be a person.”

When Madonna celebrated her birthday that August, she had the whole team come over to the Indiana house she’d rented while filming. They had Rice Krispie treats and Cavanagh, after much deliberation, settled on spicy candy as the perfect gift for the Queen of Pop.  “I knew she liked Hot Tamales,” she said. “So I bought a bunch of boxes of Hot Tamales.”

---

On set, Cavanagh was at the opposite end of the Madonna-o-Meter. One was the Material Girl, the other wasn’t even girl material, at least according to the script. The photo above shows how writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel introduced the world to their cleanup hitter.

They filmed that scene at a gym in New Harmony, Indiana, pop. 789. Cavanagh remembers this because getting there was freaking terrifying.

“Penny had called for me and they put me in a non-teamster car, a BMW convertible with a police escort. And we were going 100 mph to get from wherever we were — I forget — to the set,” she said.

But when she arrived, Marshall was intent on shooting the batting scene using Cavanagh’s double (side note “double” is a terrific term for hitter’s understudy). Cavanagh pushed back, having spent countless hours preparing for precisely this moment. She had learned to hit against the highest velocity the batting machines had to offer, even the ones marked 85 mph, nearly as fast as her police escort.

“I said, ‘Penny, you just raced me here at 100 miles an hour. I’ve been working so hard in the cages, you gotta give me a chance,’” Cavanagh recalled.

Marshall relented, with a caveat: She’d better damn well hit every ball thrown her way.

“OK, I don’t think she knows what she’s asking for because who can do that? It was a college pitcher!” Cavanagh said. “So, I get up there and I’m reaching and doing anything I can to make contact with the ball. And I mean, I did this for hours. They ran out of film; they had to put a new canister in.”

After it was done, after the last line drive stopped clattering around the walls of that vintage high school gymnasium, Marshall announced immediately that none of the footage from the double would be used in the film.

The next day Marshall presented her Marla Hooch with a trophy inscribed: “Megan Cavanagh, Batting Champion.”

---

Hitting was only half the reason her character remains so indelible 30 years later. The other half can be seen in that same scene. After being summoned by smarmy scout Ernie Capadino, portrayed by Jon Lovitz, the mighty slugger reveals the depths of her debilitating insecurity.

Hooch takes off her cap and looks up, haltingly, to meet Capadino’s gaze. The close-up becomes a dive into the oversized hazel eyes swirling with terror, uncertainty and heartbreaking vulnerability. Capadino, who isn’t exactly Valentino, recoils.

Capadino: I can’t use her.

Dottie: She’s great. Why not? What’s the problem?

Capadino: You know General Omar Bradley?

Dottie: Yeah.

Capadino: Well, there’s too strong a resemblance!

Dottie and Kit, on the behalf of the movie-viewing audience, drop their suitcases to protest the injustice of Capadino discriminating based on looks. Capadino folds instantly under the threat and soon they’re off to Harvey Field for tryouts.

In real life, the awkwardness hardly stopped there. All these years later, Cavanagh struggles with well-meaning fans who don’t know quite how to talk about her performance.

“I get, ‘You look like that girl who played that part. I hope I’m not offending you.’ Or I get, ‘Oh, my God, you’re so much prettier in real life! What did they do to you?’” she said with a laugh. “All kinds of stuff like that. It’s really hilarious.

“I say, well, I believe they call it acting. I did put spit in my hair and I tried to be my most homely self. I was laughing all the way to the bank.”

Nothing makes her happier, therefore, than when she hears from young girls inspired by the movie. It happened on this day, too, at American Pastime batting cages in Spring, Texas, where she was chatting with Alyssa, the teenager working behind the counter wearing a Panther Softball shirt.

Cavanagh asked her if she played ball. Yes, the girl said, she was a second baseman and left-handed hitter.

Cavanagh looked at The Athletic. The Athletic looked back at her.

“OK, I’ll tell her,” Cavanagh said. And then she revealed her secret identity, Batman-style, much to the delight of a ballplayer who had seen the movie. Of course she had.

 

Megan Cavanagh meets a young ballplayer named Alyssa who has seen “A League of Their Own” many times. (Daniel Brown / The Athletic)

---

Perhaps the wildest twist in the Megan Cavanagh story is that after years of searching for her big break, after attending acting school in London and moving to Los Angeles and who knows how many auditions, she wound up filming the most famous scene of her career about 3 miles from where she grew up.

The Suds Bucket bar scene from “A League of Their Own” took place at FitzGerald’s, a watering hole in Berwyn, Illinois. The producers did a nationwide search to find the best location and landed on the nightclub built in the 1920s. “I was like shut up. My brother’s band plays there,” Cavanagh said, recalling when she heard the news.

The location became the sacred grounds where Marla Hooch memorably slurred “It Had to Be You” to a smitten Nelson in a love-at-first-sight moment. To play it properly drunk, Cavanagh went all “method” and downed some non-alcoholic beer, “just to sort of have the taste and the smell. And I have been drunk enough in my life, I’m sorry to say, that I have some sense memory.”

Dottie: Marla, come on. We gotta go.

Marla: I’m singing to Nelson. Ain’t I, baby?

Nelson: You sure are.

Movie secrets revealed: In shooting that scene, the band only pretended to play while Cavanagh sang along with an earpiece connected to a battery pack taped to her left leg. Nelson, meanwhile, proved that dorky balding white guys in khakis aren’t as easy to find as you might think.

“They read a ton of guys for that role — they even read my ex-husband,” Cavanagh said. “And Penny said it seemed like if she went home with any of these other guys, they would have had sex with her when she was drunk. Alan Wilder was the only actor who Penny said you knew would be respectful of her.”

For those wondering about the fate of Nelson, things turned out to be just fine. Wilder remains a serious actor at the prestigious Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago.

---

We are at the home that Cavanagh shares with her aging parents and she is searching through a bank of cabinets filled neatly with every script she’s ever been cast in, including “Friends,” “The West Wing,” “Home Improvement,” “Jimmy Neutron” (she’s the voice of Jimmy’s mother) and Mel Brooks productions’ “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” and “Dracula: Dead and Loving It.” There are thousands of pages in here, all owing to her comic turn as Hooch.

“Before ‘League,’ I couldn’t get arrested. Agents didn’t know what to do with me,” she said. “I didn’t fit a particular niche. And I like to think that I kind of helped create the niche that is now the young character actress, because there really wasn’t one.”

It takes some anxious searching through these cabinets before Cavanagh says, with an air of finality. “Here it is.” Then she held aloft her original script from “A League of Their Own.” Harps played and doves fluttered, if only in my head.

One of the glorious things about this script is it offers a peek into an alternate universe. For one thing, it helps explains the mystery of why nobody blinked when Hooch got married and ran off at the hour-mark of a two-hour film. Why would the slugger with “an eye like DiMaggio” abandon the league at a key juncture?

“She had a whole other story that happened after she got married that all got cut,” she explained. “And she would never leave the league to get married. That’s not who Marla was.”

As these pages show, there was a second-half plotline that involved Hooch being traded to Racine so she could be close to her husband Nelson, a cheesemaker. In a surprisingly dark scene, Dottie crashed into a newly pregnant Hooch on the basepaths, sending her to the hospital.

There’s a surviving scene in the movie in which Dottie sobs over her soldier husband. That’s the footage they shot for her reaction to fearing that Hooch might lose her baby as the result of their collision.

“It was this huge thing. We did all the stunts. I mean, we filmed all of this,” Cavanagh said. “But later, Penny was like, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m really sorry about that but it didn’t fit in with the story.’ She had to cut something because she had like a four-hour version at one point. I thought well, ‘I’m lucky to be in the movie at all.’”

Later during this visit, Cavanagh points to a framed photo on the wall. “That’s me and Tom Hanks right there,” she explains, needlessly. She is in curlers while Hanks is in full Dugan uniform. Hanks hadn’t won his two Oscars for best actor yet; those would come in soon enough, for “Philadelphia” (1993) and for “Forrest Gump” (1994), but he already had a reputation for being a down-to-earth star. “We joked about how he was ‘Mr. Hanks,’” Cavanagh said. “He was so funny and so playful.”

 

Megan Cavanagh, Tom Hanks and Cavanagh’s sister, Mary Cay (left to right). (Courtesy of Todd Erickson)

---

Mercifully, nixing the plotline of the dangerous pregnancy meant the Marla Hooch story stayed delightful from beginning to end. She is hilariously inelegant in the charm school scene, in which she proves so inept at walking gracefully or looking refined that the overmatched instructor surrenders and suggests “more night games.”

That bit of acting came easy. “Penny said, ‘Just be awkward’ and, you know, I did,” Cavanagh explained.

Later, in a baseball scene when Dugan and Hinson give repeatedly conflicting suicide-squeeze signs from the dugout, Hooch tiptoes in and out of the batter’s box like the world’s most confused tap-dancer. (You can see it at the 1:28 mark of this clip.)

“I am a comedian, but I fought it for years,” Cavanagh said. “I had a teacher in college who said to me, ‘Go to Second City.’ And I was like” — dramatic voice — “‘I want to be an actress! Like, Second City was beneath me.”

One of the things that pleases her most is that the real AAGPBL players came to embrace the film for its accurate portrayal of the women who played baseball as wartime entertainment back home. Cavanagh became dear friends with, among others, Lavone “Pepper” Paire, a longtime catcher and infielder in the league who died in 2013, at age 88. It is because of “A League Of Their Own” that so many people came to appreciate what Paire and her contemporaries did.

And it is why Hooch is tuning up for her anniversary game at the original home of the Peaches, as part of a legacy that shows no signs of abating. This summer “A League of Their Own” gets a reboot as an Amazon Prime series, and hopefully, it lasts longer than the six-episode sitcom adaptation Cavanagh starred in back in 1993.

As things are wrapping up at the batting cages, we watch a man in his mid-30s and wearing a Budweiser shirt, take a few mighty swings against the “slow” machine to show his young son how it’s done.

“Nice hitting,” Cavanagh says to the man as he exits the cage.

The man smiled sheepishly and said it’s been 12 years since his prime.

“I know, right?” Cavanagh replied.

Then quietly, practically under her breath, Marla Hooch celebrates a major anniversary.

“It’s been like 30.”

Quote

SPRING, Texas — It was 1:38 p.m. on a sweltering Thursday afternoon when a silent distress signal went out from inside a row of batting cages.

Apparently, one of the greatest hitters in baseball movie history had taken so many off-balance swings that her Apple Watch detected a fall and auto-dialed 9-1-1.

“Hang on,” the former Rockford Peaches second baseman said as she put the bat down hastily. “Let me take my watch off so they don’t think I’m dying.”

No, there’s no dying in baseball. Not today, at least, and in a way not ever. Cinematically speaking, Marla Hooch will live forever.

Everybody’s favorite misfit from “A League of Their Own” is still going strong as the movie barrels dirt-in-the-skirt style toward its 30th anniversary this week. Megan Cavanagh, the actress behind the awkward, saucer-eyed slugger is here, at age 61, wearing a batting helmet and tuning up for an anniversary game this weekend.

The movie about the bygone All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) hit theaters on July 1, 1992, and quickly found its way into the cultural bloodstream of sports cinema. “A League of Their Own” is the best-earning baseball movie of all time, at $132.4 million worldwide, and was selected in 2012 for preservation by the National Film Registry.

This imprint ensures that Marla Hooch still gets recognized on the street about once a week, at least in non-pandemic times. Never mind that she was the least glamorous player on the diamond. That only served to make her the most relatable. The Tao of Marla Hooch is that she’s the metaphor for all those girls who lacked confidence before finding it playing sports.

“This character is so beloved,” Cavanagh said in late June as we spent the day tooling around her Houston-area neighborhood. “She was a good ballplayer but felt ‘less than’ when it comes to the boys.

“I think she would take a lot of shit. She was teased. She didn’t have very much self-esteem, even though she was an amazing ballplayer, which I think is the story of so many women, myself included. My self-esteem was not great. I mean, the last five years maybe, now that I’m an older woman, I realize ‘I’m OK.’”

On this day at the cages, Cavanagh took more than 200 swings: some righty, some lefty, all rusty. Every once in a while, though, she’d pop a searing liner into the netting across the way and evoke that signature line: “Marla Hooch, what a hitter!”

She took so many cuts that we paused halfway through so that The Athletic could buy her some batting gloves. In exchange for that $27.01, we got her best behind-the-scenes stories from “A League of Their Own,” including memories of castmates Geena Davis, Tom Hanks, Madonna and Rosie O’Donnell.

It was a good trade. We wound up flipping through her scrapbooks and original script, revisiting the tumultuous days of early casting and learning just how difficult it is to buy a birthday present for her co-star. “I mean, what do you get Madonna?” Cavanagh said.

Megan Cavanagh, who grew up near Chicago, still gets recognized as a hard-hitting Marla Hooch roughly once a week in non-pandemic times. (Photo: Dan Brown/The Athletic)
But first, barbecue.

Cavanagh moved to this Houston suburb of The Woodlands three years ago to help care for her nonagenarian parents. Now, as an adopted Texan, she arrives curbside to pick me up while blasting country-folk music on John Prine Radio and speaking of brisket. She knows a place.

There, Cavanagh remembers how the role that would change her life arrived while she was a 30-year-old waitress still hoping to be a serious dramatic actress, more Hepburn than Hooch. Then she answered a call intended for her roommate, Jeff Hermanson, a former 49ers training staff summer intern. The female voice on the other end explained that she was hoping Hermanson could coach her up for an audition “because there’s this movie where you have to play ball before you can even read.”

Cavanagh took the message, but just before she hung up the woman stopped her. “Are you from Chicago?” she asked. “They’re looking for Midwestern gals who can play ball.”

Cavanagh indeed grew up in a Windy City suburb, where she was deeply involved in the hotbed of a theater scene. Consider that she was in a high school musical with Dan Castellaneta, the future voice actor for “The Simpsons.” Yes, that’s right: Marla Hooch and Homer Simpson were once in “Oklahoma!” together. (Also in that loaded cast at Oak Park and River Forest High: Kathy Griffin and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.)

Later, Cavanagh played softball in a Chicago theater league, where she honed her switch-hitting skills by playing pepper against her boyfriend’s no-mercy pitching. So, when the phone rang that day for the 49ers trainer who wasn’t home? It might as well have been destiny calling.

“I read (the script) and I was naive enough to go, ‘God, I want to be Marla,’” Cavanagh said. She also started posting little affirmations around her house, tiny scraps of self-inspiration that she would say out loud over the course of each day:

I am the greatest baseball player.
I’m happy and successfully working as Marla Hooch in the film “A League of Their Own.”
This or something better now manifests for me in totally satisfying and harmonious ways for the highest good for all concerned.
On that last one, “I would say, ‘for all concerned’ twice,” Cavanagh said. And when the time was right, she summoned the courage to call powerful casting director Amanda Mackey who, in a Hollywood rarity, picked up herself.

“That never, ever, ever happens,” Cavanagh said.

Their chat ended with an invite to a tryout game on Feb. 2, 1990.

Cavanagh recognized her competition while warming up. She remembers seeing Brooke Shields, Lea Thompson, Paula Poundstone and Marla Maples. Two others, Téa Leoni and Janet Jones Gretzky, would make the movie, but as bit players. Apparently, none of them had a swing like Cavanagh, who put on a display not all that different from her tryout scene in the movie.

“I played the most inspirational ball of my life,” she said of her audition game. “I have never played that well, before or since. And they came up to me afterward. And they were like, ‘Now, who are you and who’s your agent?’”

That last one was tough to answer. “I didn’t have an agent,” she said.

Higher up on the marquee, casting sometimes looked like the transaction wire around the trade deadline. Sean Young was an early contender for Dottie Hinson, while director Penny Marshall’s first choice for the lead was Demi Moore. Cavanagh remembers Daryl Hannah being attached early, with Jim Belushi in line for the alcoholic has-been manager Jimmy Dugan.

During one of Cavanagh’s auditions, she read lines with a lineup that included Debra Winger as Dottie. “When I was leaving that audition, Rosie O’Donnell followed me out,” Cavanagh recalled. “She said, ‘You’re the best Marla we’ve seen so far.’ And in my stupid brain, all I heard was the ‘so far.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, well, that was pretty good for me.’”

She was therefore floored later when, while on the phone lamenting to her best friend that she’d tried the best she could, the operator interrupted with an emergency call. Her new agent shouted: “YOU GOT THE PART!”

“I immediately start to cry,” Cavanagh said. “I’m thinking my career is over because I haven’t booked anything by the time I’m 30, right? Anyway, they said, ‘You start tomorrow.’”

Megan Cavanagh flips through her original script from “A League of Their Own,” which hit theaters 30 years ago this week on July 1, 1992. (Daniel Brown / The Athletic)
But first, practice. Long before the cameras started rolling, the wannabe ballplayers worked out spring-training style under the supervision of coaches such as Rod Dedeaux, who won 11 national titles at USC.

“Unpaid training,” Cavanagh said. “For like, a couple of months. This was in May, and in July we started shooting. I mean, you were there Monday through Friday, starting at 8 o’clock in the morning.”

One of the standouts in those early days was Winger, who was best known for “Officer and a Gentleman” and who looked like an angel and played like an Angel. Cavanagh said that Winger was also utterly plausible as Lori Petty’s big sister because the two had a chemistry vital to the sibling rivalry at the heart of the movie.

“They were both super competitive,” she said. “Lori ran really fast and would (later) have to pretend to run slower than Geena for some of those shots. She didn’t have to do that with Debra. But then Debra comes to us one day crying and says, ‘I’m not going to be able to do this part, you guys. I’m gonna have to leave.’ We were devastated. Captain, oh my, captain. Gone.”

Winger reportedly bailed from “A League of Their Own” after learning that Madonna would be joining the film. Cavanagh is aware of that account but felt unqualified to confirm or deny. At any rate, the sting of losing Winger subsided when Davis, with an Oscar to her credit, took the role of the catcher who “plays like Gehrig and looks like Garbo.”

“I was in awe of her,” Cavanagh said of Davis.

But that was nothing compared to the mega-watt jolt to the set when Madonna came strolling in. “Like, here comes the Washington Monument. She’s at the height of her career,” Cavanagh said.

A snapshot during a break in filming with Téa Leoni and Madonna under the umbrella. That’s Marla Hooch (Megan Cavanagh) on the right. (Photo courtesy of Tracy Reiner)
Marshall put Rosie O’Donnell in charge of shadowing Madonna and making sure there were no issues. It was one of the best decisions the director made.

“Because Rosie didn’t take any of Madonna’s shit,” Cavanagh said with a laugh.

For example: On long days of filming, O’Donnell would entertain the extras in the crowd to keep their spirits up as they otherwise suffered in their 1940s costumes under the brutal Indiana sun.

“One day she comes out and she goes, ‘Hey, everybody! Madonna’s gonna sing for you! And everybody says ‘Oooohhh!’” Cavanagh said. “And Madonna’s just like sitting in the dugout going, ‘Fuck you, Rosie. Fuck you.’

“So Rosie comes back out and tells the crowd, ‘I’m sorry, she can’t right now. … So I will!’”

O’Donnell then broke into a rendition of “Holiday,” nailing every word.

“Afterwards, Madonna goes, ‘Don’t you ever fuckin’ sing my song ever again,’” Cavanagh said.

Any guesses as to what happened the next day? O’Donnell came out again and told the crowd the same thing, eliciting the same breathless reaction. Again Madonna fumed, so this time O’Donnell launched into a stirring version of “Vogue,” complete with impeccable cover girl choreography. And just like that, the two became best friends.

“She didn’t let Madonna’s status or anything affect her,” Cavanagh said. “And that’s what I think Madonna loved about her. Because everybody was treating her like the queen. We’d have waiters fighting over who was gonna wait on her table. She’s like, ‘Can we just get service?’ She hated that. She just wanted to be a person.”

When Madonna celebrated her birthday that August, she had the whole team come over to the Indiana house she’d rented while filming. They had Rice Krispie treats and Cavanagh, after much deliberation, settled on spicy candy as the perfect gift for the Queen of Pop.  “I knew she liked Hot Tamales,” she said. “So I bought a bunch of boxes of Hot Tamales.”

On set, Cavanagh was at the opposite end of the Madonna-o-Meter. One was the Material Girl, the other wasn’t even girl material, at least according to the script. The photo above shows how writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel introduced the world to their cleanup hitter.

They filmed that scene at a gym in New Harmony, Indiana, pop. 789. Cavanagh remembers this because getting there was freaking terrifying.

“Penny had called for me and they put me in a non-teamster car, a BMW convertible with a police escort. And we were going 100 mph to get from wherever we were — I forget — to the set,” she said.

But when she arrived, Marshall was intent on shooting the batting scene using Cavanagh’s double (side note “double” is a terrific term for hitter’s understudy). Cavanagh pushed back, having spent countless hours preparing for precisely this moment. She had learned to hit against the highest velocity the batting machines had to offer, even the ones marked 85 mph, nearly as fast as her police escort.

“I said, ‘Penny, you just raced me here at 100 miles an hour. I’ve been working so hard in the cages, you gotta give me a chance,’” Cavanagh recalled.

Marshall relented, with a caveat: She’d better damn well hit every ball thrown her way.

“OK, I don’t think she knows what she’s asking for because who can do that? It was a college pitcher!” Cavanagh said. “So, I get up there and I’m reaching and doing anything I can to make contact with the ball. And I mean, I did this for hours. They ran out of film; they had to put a new canister in.”

After it was done, after the last line drive stopped clattering around the walls of that vintage high school gymnasium, Marshall announced immediately that none of the footage from the double would be used in the film.

The next day Marshall presented her Marla Hooch with a trophy inscribed: “Megan Cavanagh, Batting Champion.”

Hitting was only half the reason her character remains so indelible 30 years later. The other half can be seen in that same scene. After being summoned by smarmy scout Ernie Capadino, portrayed by Jon Lovitz, the mighty slugger reveals the depths of her debilitating insecurity.

Hooch takes off her cap and looks up, haltingly, to meet Capadino’s gaze. The close-up becomes a dive into the oversized hazel eyes swirling with terror, uncertainty and heartbreaking vulnerability. Capadino, who isn’t exactly Valentino, recoils.

Capadino: I can’t use her.

Dottie: She’s great. Why not? What’s the problem?

Capadino: You know General Omar Bradley?

Dottie: Yeah.

Capadino: Well, there’s too strong a resemblance!

Dottie and Kit, on the behalf of the movie-viewing audience, drop their suitcases to protest the injustice of Capadino discriminating based on looks. Capadino folds instantly under the threat and soon they’re off to Harvey Field for tryouts.

In real life, the awkwardness hardly stopped there. All these years later, Cavanagh struggles with well-meaning fans who don’t know quite how to talk about her performance.

“I get, ‘You look like that girl who played that part. I hope I’m not offending you.’ Or I get, ‘Oh, my God, you’re so much prettier in real life! What did they do to you?’” she said with a laugh. “All kinds of stuff like that. It’s really hilarious.

“I say, well, I believe they call it acting. I did put spit in my hair and I tried to be my most homely self. I was laughing all the way to the bank.”

Nothing makes her happier, therefore, than when she hears from young girls inspired by the movie. It happened on this day, too, at American Pastime batting cages in Spring, Texas, where she was chatting with Alyssa, the teenager working behind the counter wearing a Panther Softball shirt.

Cavanagh asked her if she played ball. Yes, the girl said, she was a second baseman and left-handed hitter.

Cavanagh looked at The Athletic. The Athletic looked back at her.

“OK, I’ll tell her,” Cavanagh said. And then she revealed her secret identity, Batman-style, much to the delight of a ballplayer who had seen the movie. Of course she had.

Megan Cavanagh meets a young ballplayer named Alyssa who has seen “A League of Their Own” many times. (Daniel Brown / The Athletic)
Perhaps the wildest twist in the Megan Cavanagh story is that after years of searching for her big break, after attending acting school in London and moving to Los Angeles and who knows how many auditions, she wound up filming the most famous scene of her career about 3 miles from where she grew up.

The Suds Bucket bar scene from “A League of Their Own” took place at FitzGerald’s, a watering hole in Berwyn, Illinois. The producers did a nationwide search to find the best location and landed on the nightclub built in the 1920s. “I was like shut up. My brother’s band plays there,” Cavanagh said, recalling when she heard the news.

The location became the sacred grounds where Marla Hooch memorably slurred “It Had to Be You” to a smitten Nelson in a love-at-first-sight moment. To play it properly drunk, Cavanagh went all “method” and downed some non-alcoholic beer, “just to sort of have the taste and the smell. And I have been drunk enough in my life, I’m sorry to say, that I have some sense memory.”

Dottie: Marla, come on. We gotta go.

Marla: I’m singing to Nelson. Ain’t I, baby?

Nelson: You sure are.

Movie secrets revealed: In shooting that scene, the band only pretended to play while Cavanagh sang along with an earpiece connected to a battery pack taped to her left leg. Nelson, meanwhile, proved that dorky balding white guys in khakis aren’t as easy to find as you might think.

“They read a ton of guys for that role — they even read my ex-husband,” Cavanagh said. “And Penny said it seemed like if she went home with any of these other guys, they would have had sex with her when she was drunk. Alan Wilder was the only actor who Penny said you knew would be respectful of her.”

For those wondering about the fate of Nelson, things turned out to be just fine. Wilder remains a serious actor at the prestigious Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago.

We are at the home that Cavanagh shares with her aging parents and she is searching through a bank of cabinets filled neatly with every script she’s ever been cast in, including “Friends,” “The West Wing,” “Home Improvement,” “Jimmy Neutron” (she’s the voice of Jimmy’s mother) and Mel Brooks productions’ “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” and “Dracula: Dead and Loving It.” There are thousands of pages in here, all owing to her comic turn as Hooch.

“Before ‘League,’ I couldn’t get arrested. Agents didn’t know what to do with me,” she said. “I didn’t fit a particular niche. And I like to think that I kind of helped create the niche that is now the young character actress, because there really wasn’t one.”

It takes some anxious searching through these cabinets before Cavanagh says, with an air of finality. “Here it is.” Then she held aloft her original script from “A League of Their Own.” Harps played and doves fluttered, if only in my head.

One of the glorious things about this script is it offers a peek into an alternate universe. For one thing, it helps explains the mystery of why nobody blinked when Hooch got married and ran off at the hour-mark of a two-hour film. Why would the slugger with “an eye like DiMaggio” abandon the league at a key juncture?

“She had a whole other story that happened after she got married that all got cut,” she explained. “And she would never leave the league to get married. That’s not who Marla was.”

As these pages show, there was a second-half plotline that involved Hooch being traded to Racine so she could be close to her husband Nelson, a cheesemaker. In a surprisingly dark scene, Dottie crashed into a newly pregnant Hooch on the basepaths, sending her to the hospital.

There’s a surviving scene in the movie in which Dottie sobs over her soldier husband. That’s the footage they shot for her reaction to fearing that Hooch might lose her baby as the result of their collision.

“It was this huge thing. We did all the stunts. I mean, we filmed all of this,” Cavanagh said. “But later, Penny was like, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m really sorry about that but it didn’t fit in with the story.’ She had to cut something because she had like a four-hour version at one point. I thought well, ‘I’m lucky to be in the movie at all.’”

Later during this visit, Cavanagh points to a framed photo on the wall. “That’s me and Tom Hanks right there,” she explains, needlessly. She is in curlers while Hanks is in full Dugan uniform. Hanks hadn’t won his two Oscars for best actor yet; those would come in soon enough, for “Philadelphia” (1993) and for “Forrest Gump” (1994), but he already had a reputation for being a down-to-earth star. “We joked about how he was ‘Mr. Hanks,’” Cavanagh said. “He was so funny and so playful.”

Megan Cavanagh, Tom Hanks and Cavanagh’s sister, Mary Cay (left to right). (Courtesy of Todd Erickson)
Mercifully, nixing the plotline of the dangerous pregnancy meant the Marla Hooch story stayed delightful from beginning to end. She is hilariously inelegant in the charm school scene, in which she proves so inept at walking gracefully or looking refined that the overmatched instructor surrenders and suggests “more night games.”

That bit of acting came easy. “Penny said, ‘Just be awkward’ and, you know, I did,” Cavanagh explained.

Later, in a baseball scene when Dugan and Hinson give repeatedly conflicting suicide-squeeze signs from the dugout, Hooch tiptoes in and out of the batter’s box like the world’s most confused tap-dancer. (You can see it at the 1:28 mark of this clip.)

“I am a comedian, but I fought it for years,” Cavanagh said. “I had a teacher in college who said to me, ‘Go to Second City.’ And I was like” — dramatic voice — “‘I want to be an actress! Like, Second City was beneath me.”

One of the things that pleases her most is that the real AAGPBL players came to embrace the film for its accurate portrayal of the women who played baseball as wartime entertainment back home. Cavanagh became dear friends with, among others, Lavone “Pepper” Paire, a longtime catcher and infielder in the league who died in 2013, at age 88. It is because of “A League Of Their Own” that so many people came to appreciate what Paire and her contemporaries did.

And it is why Hooch is tuning up for her anniversary game at the original home of the Peaches, as part of a legacy that shows no signs of abating. This summer “A League of Their Own” gets a reboot as an Amazon Prime series, and hopefully, it lasts longer than the six-episode sitcom adaptation Cavanagh starred in back in 1993.

As things are wrapping up at the batting cages, we watch a man in his mid-30s and wearing a Budweiser shirt, take a few mighty swings against the “slow” machine to show his young son how it’s done.

“Nice hitting,” Cavanagh says to the man as he exits the cage.

The man smiled sheepishly and said it’s been 12 years since his prime.

“I know, right?” Cavanagh replied.

Then quietly, practically under her breath, Marla Hooch celebrates a major anniversary.

“It’s been like 30.”

 

[ztejas 43265]

50 minutes ago, WBT said:

Padres - Dodgers on FS1.  Hopefully this will be a good series.

I'm with ya. House sitting and wondering why my parents never use this badass outdoor TV.

[WBT 20421]

Muncy going to be out for coming off the bag.  I don't get how guys haven't learned to slide yet after a couple of years of replay.

[ztejas 43265]

Musgrove throwing a gem so far. 

[WBT 20421]

1-1 at the 7th inning stretch.  Good game.

[ztejas 43265]

Musgrove is dealing. Just now at 80 in the B7 - 1 hitter still I believe. 

[ztejas 43265]

Shiiiiit he jacked another one. 

[UTexasFight 9380]

Can’t keep Turner in the yard 

[ztejas 43265]

Honestly fuck Tatis' dumbass for getting hurt riding a golf cart. These games could be so much better with him in the lineup. 

[ztejas 43265]

What a fucking at bat. 12 pitch walk Voit came back from 0-2. 

[ztejas 43265]

Fucking atrocious call for the first out T9. Handing LA the game. 

[Guest]

11 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

I honestly think baseball needs to get rid of the concept of errors, unearned runs, all that shit.  It's just so damned stupid.  

They should assign errors to umps who give a batter 4 strikes or a team 4 outs in an inning though.