Category Archives: Skitch Hanson

Football, Skitch Hanson

Up the Middle with Skitch Hanson: Saints and Sinners (But Mostly Saints)

We welcome back Skitch Hanson to the Scratchbomb pages. You may know him from his nationally syndicated sports column, “Up the Middle”. You may have also seen him on the ESPN roundtable discussion show, Mouth-Talkers! Or you may have read one of his 79 books, such as The Greatest Game You Never Saw and Possibly Didn’t Happen at All. Without further ado, here’s Skitch to talk about The Big Game.

Are there any more exciting words in the Sports Universe than “Super Bowl”? Not to this reporter! Except maybe “free buffet” or “case dismissed”. There is no word too big to describe this event. Any newspaper man worth his salt, regardless of beat, must be there to take in the whole spectacle.

Sadly, my editor does not agree with that point of view. He thought my talents were better served trying to write a Super Bowl-related human interest story. “The farther away from Miami, the better,” he said. I guess he’s still peeved at me for what I did the last time I was in Miami for The Big Game.

As you may recall, that was a historic game that pitted two African-American coaches against one another for the first time in Super Bowl history. During the first Media Day press conference, I asked Lovie Smith if he beat Tony Dungy and the Colts, would that be considered Black-on-Black Crime? Some people took offense, but I think Lovie thought it was great. He even ran after me with his arms extended, his fingers grasping toward my throat, as if trying to give me a hug!

I protested my editor’s decision, but there was no budging him. Sometimes, talking to him is like trying to get a word edgewise with my wife! Except my editor doesn’t chuck whiskey bottles at me!

aints.jpgSo I thought to myself, who would make a good human interest story for this Super Bowl? I can’t go to Miami, so that eliminates any of the players actually participating in it. So how about players from the past? And who better to interview than ex-Saints players? Men who had to endure The Aints Years, decades of futility and embarrassment and golden tights.

Unfortunately, other folks had beaten me to the punch. I know it’s hard to believe such an ingenious idea had already been taken by several dozen reporters, but it’s true! By the time I started my research, nearly every person who’d ever put on a New Orleans uniform had already been profiled in one paper or another.

The more obvious targets were not an option anyway. Archie Manning won’t speak to me after that time I accidentally shocked him with a pocket tape recorder and burned off all his hair (look, it grew back, didn’t it, Archie?). And that kicker with the club foot refused to speak to me because I couldn’t remember his name. But even the most obscure former Saints had already been taken by other writers.

The whole process was slow going, because I still do my research the old fashioned way: with a whole lot of elbow grease and shoe leather! And asking the secretary at the office where I can find some out-of-town phone books. The internet may be faster, but it can’t make up for a determined, old school reporter. Plus, the last time I tried to look up something on the internet, I destroyed my computer. If a hard drive can break so easily, it doesn’t sound so “hard” to me! Unless you’re talking about the price to fix it, because that was definitely hard on my wallet, since the newspaper deducted the cost from my paycheck.

Finally, I found a forgotten tight end named Tommy Smith. He was drafted in the third round by New Orleans back in 1987, but never played a single down in the NFL, and retired from the league a few years later.

What a story! Can you imagine the frustration of not being to able to play for one of football’s worst teams? What torture must this man have endured? How did it feel to get so close to his dream and yet still be so far away? Did he lay awake at night thinking of what might have been? And also, how is the postgame spread at The Superdome? Because I’ve heard mixed things.

So I visited Tommy Smith at his home in Abilene, Texas, a ramshackle little cottage on the edge of town. He had an old Chevy up on blocks, and a few sickly dogs running around his weed-filled backyard. It was certainly a hardscrabble existence for Mr. Tommy Smith since leaving the glory of the NFL, if this was his home.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t his home. Turns out it was the home of a Tommy Smith, but not the Tommy Smith I was looking for. In retrospect, I had little evidence I was visiting the right address, or even the right town. But to be fair, I had no evidence that I wasn’t.

The Tommy Smith I found was a shirtless, bearded man who told me to go away because he was too busy “tweakin'”, then used a few words that I can’t reprint in a family newspaper. I asked him who he was rooting for in the Super Bowl, and I think he said “Colts”, but it might have been a burp. Then he slammed his screen door on my fingers and threatened to grab his shotugun.

Still, I think there’s a valuable lesson in here for all of us. My journey to Abilene was a lot like the journey the Saints took to get to the Super Bowl. Years of missteps and blunders and testing the patience of their fans, who wondered if they’d ever pull themselves together. But lo and behold, the Saints have made it to the Super Bowl, and are one big step away from Valhalla.

I did not exactly succeed in my quest to find Tommy Smith, but I did succeed in not getting shot by a meth-crazed indigent. And in a way, I’ve made it to my own Valhalla. A small town named Valhalla, Texas, that is, and its Fresh-Aire Motel on beautiful route 27. They have wi-fi at only $17 a night, and an Applebee’s right across the street. Jackpot!

If there’s another lesson here from the story of me and Saints, it’s this: don’t be too hasty. Stay slow and steady, and success will come. You don’t have to go chasing after the first name that resembles that of the man you’re looking for, especially if that first name is found in a police report.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I hear a Super Bowl calling me–a super bowl of Russian dressing to accompany my bloomin’ onion, that is!

Baseball, Skitch Hanson

Up the Middle with Skitch Hanson: All Hail the Hall!

Scratchbomb hands over the reins to nationally syndicated sports columnist Skitch Hanson, as we’ve done many times before. It’s great to hear from him, because the last time I spoke to Skitch, he was getting lost and possibly assaulted at Yankee Stadium.

You may know Skitch as the author of the highly popular syndicated column “Up The Middle.” You may have read his best-selling book Playing Stickball with Mickey Mantle, and Other Weird Dreams I Had. He’s also a frequent guest on ESPN’s sportswriters panel show Mouth-Talkers! You can follow Skitch on Twitter here. Without further ado, here’s Skitch.

Each winter, I have a great responsibility. And no, it’s not shoveling the driveway! And no, it’s not picking up my wife from the drunk tank after the office Christmas party!

No, I’m talking about my Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. It is quite an honor to participate in the voting every year and help decide who will be immortalized in Cooperstown. There are no halls in the history of halls that are more hallowed than the Baseball Hall of Fame. Perhaps The Halls of Medicine in the old Halls cough drop commercials, but those ads haven’t been on the air in several years. Or perhaps the Halls of Justice, but that’s more of a concept than an actual place.

No, for an actual, physical set of halls, the ones in Cooperstown are the best. But those halls would mean nothing without the people who inhabit them. Not literally, of course. I mean the legends immortalized there in plaque form, or in a video loop on a TV in the lobby. That’s why I take my voting very seriously. I think long and hard about who gets my vote and who does not, because I know I have a hand in solidifying baseball history.

Unfortunately, this year I was less serious about mailing my ballot in, since I accidentally dropped it behind the Xerox machine some time last month. I would have dug out my ballot, but me and electronic equipment do not get along! Like the time I dropped my laptop in a koi pond and electrocuted several hundred fish! Boy, the people at Benihana’s were not happy about that!

andredawson.jpgI did intend to vote for Andre Dawson, and I’m very glad that he made it in. You could argue there were more deserving candidates than him, and his career was hampered by injuries, and I never got to see him play too often, now that I think about it. But I do remember “Hawk” having one unbelievably awesome year where he won the MVP. You certainly can’t argue with that! At least not until I remember exactly what year that was.

I’m very disappointed that Jack Morris still has not made it to Cooperstown. Because when you talk dominant starting pitchers of the 1980s, you have to talk about Jack Morris. Sure, you have to talk some about other guys first, like Fernando Valenzuela. And Doc Gooden. And Roger Clemens. And Jimmy Key and Frank Viola and Nolan Ryan and Orel Hershiser and Bret Saberhagen and Steve Carlton and Bruce Hurst and Dave Stieb and John Tudor and Mike Scott. But eventually, you have to talk about Jack Morris.

Morris may not have had the gaudy stats that some of those other guys did. But he did have that wonderful 10-inning duel against John Smoltz in game 7 of the 1991 World Series. That’s one of the most famous pitching performances of all time. Plus there were three or four other really great games he pitched whose details escape me right now. That’s good enough for the Hall in my book.

Remember, we’re talking about The Hall of Fame, not The Hall of Obscure Statistics. Bert Blyleven had a great career, but I can’t think of a famous moment involving him. Same goes for Tim Raines, Edgar Martinez, and Barry Larkin. Until those guys have a transcendent moment, I can’t in good conscience vote to enshrine them. Unless somebody reminds me of a moment I couldn’t recall. In which case, welcome aboard, fellas!

How do you define a moment? I can’t say. Can you define a beautiful sunrise? The wonder in a child’s eyes? The magic of Christmas? (I hope the folks at Hallmark won’t mind; I adapted those last few lines from a “To a wonderful great-aunt” birthday card.) A moment is a lot like pornography: you know it when you see it. Most moments don’t involve hardcore nudity, of course. At least not in baseball. But I think you get my point.

alomar.jpgAs for Roberto Alomar, who missed The Hall by a few votes, I think that is fair punishment for spitting on an umpire many years ago. I’m aware that the umpire, John Hirschbeck, forgave Alomar publicly for his actions. But to simply let him into Cooperstown on the first ballot would be a slap in the face to all those other players who did not spit on umpires. I’ll be perfectly happy to vote for Alomar on the next ballot, after he’s had a full year to think about what he did.

What kind of message would it send to our kids to let Alomar into the Hall right away? Spitting is never okay. Unless you’ve ingested poison or sour milk, in which case you should expectorate discreetly into a napkin or paper towel.

It’s hard enough to get kids to stop spitting without seeing major league baseball players doing it. My son has been spitting at me ever since Alomar attacked Hirschbeck with his saliva. And he’s 32! He’s still mad at me for missing several birthdays in a row to cover the XFL championship game. I told him that as a reporter, I have a responsibility to cover my beat, and that responsibility doesn’t disappear just because the league hasn’t existed in several years.

We all need to teach our kids–to show our kids–that responsibility is important. We must meet our responsibilities head on, whether they involve voting for the Hall of Fame, or keeping nasty spitters out of that Hall of Fame, or filing stories on sports leagues that have folded, or making sure my wife doesn’t jump bail again. And we must not foist these responsibilities on others, like when I begged the cleaning lady to get my Hall of Fame ballot from behind the copier with her broom.

Being responsible may not get you into Cooperstown. But it will earn you a trip to the Hall of Respect of Your Fellow Humans. That may be an even greater place to be. Except for the fact that you don’t get a plaque and it doesn’t literally exist.
Baseball, Skitch Hanson

Up the Middle with Skitch Hanson: Making the Right Call on Wrong Calls

Scratchbomb hands over the reins to nationally syndicated sports columnist Skitch Hanson, as we’ve done many times before. You may know him as the author of the highly popular syndicated column “Up The Middle.” You may have read his best-selling book Brett Favre’s Top Ten Best Retirements. He’s also a frequent guest on ESPN’s sportswriters panel show Mouth-Talkers! You can also follow Skitch on Twitter here. Without further ado, here’s Skitch.

This is one of my favorite times of year. Watching the leaves change color. Seeing the kids off to school again (the ones still in the house, anyway, and the ones still talking to me). The fun of not knowing if my Kia will start once the temperature drops below 55 degrees.

Best of all, I love October baseball. But my enjoyment of the first round of the playoffs was ruined this year. And no, it wasn’t because those darn Yankees won again! And no, it wasn’t because my wife knocked over the TV when she stumbled home in the dark at four in the morning. In fact, something about the way it hit the ground made all the colors on the tube turn different shades of dark purple, which was kind of interesting.

phillcuzzi.jpgThis year, I couldn’t enjoy the postseason because so many people were complaining about the umpiring! Everywhere I turned, it was “how could you possibly blow that call” this and “these umps should be fired” that. Maybe I’m just a forgiving sort, but I’ve always believed that those who have never called a guy out at first who was safe by a foot should cast the first stone.

I’m not saying mistakes weren’t made. But I’ve heard some people say that we need to expand instant replay, and that’s just insanity. They added instant replay to the games this year on home run calls, and it totally ruined the mystique of the game. There used to be intrigue on every long ball hit down the lines, as you wondered whether the umps would call it correctly or not. And it wasn’t just on close calls, either. No, you had to hold your breath on homers hit seven rows deep on the second deck! I guess that mystery is gone from the game forever now!

Some people say that umpiring mistakes could be overturned quickly and definitively with instant replay. As if the point of umpiring is to get things right! The umpire’s job is to act as the authority figure on the field, and serve as the thick black line between baseball and chaos.

Umpires have to call the plays as they see them, or think they saw them, or as they think should have happened while they were daydreaming. And then, when the manager comes storming out of the dugout, they must stand there and insist they are right, no matter how unsound their reasoning might be. And if the manager presses the issue, they must eject that manager, so that he can go back to the dugout and punch a Gatorade cooler with all his might and wind up on SportsCenter.

This is the majestic ballet that makes the sport we love possible.

I think we’ve all forgotten something in this modern world of speed and convenience. Umpiring mistakes are a time-honored baseball tradition. Don Denkinger in 1985. Richie Garcia in 1996. Rick Reed in 1999. Can you imagine what would have happened if we robbed ourselves of these treasured memories, just because we were in such a rush to get things “right”?

And even if we do institute replay, who’s to say it will even work? I hate to make sweeping generalizations, but technology has never done anything good ever. Take my newspaper, for instance. A while back, they started compiling all the stories and images and ads “electronically” on something called a “server”, instead of typesetting all this stuff by hand. It was supposed to be quicker and make everything easier, they said.

Well, what do you guess happened? One day, without warning, the server shut down and we couldn’t put the paper out for a week! And all because I tried to forward the editor-in-chief this important-looking email from some Nigerian prince.

Instant replay could work well every time. Then again, it might not. But when it comes to umpires, I know that they blow calls. We could take a system that is definitely imperfect and replace it with one that just might be imperfect. Can we really take that chance?