Recently in Rocky Rhodes Category

After losing Tuesday's series opener at Fenway Park, the Yankees are 0-6 this year against Boston, a mark of futility they hadn't achieved since before World War I. So I thought it would be instructive to get some perspective on that era from a man who was there: America's oldest living sports writer, Rocky Rhodes. His weekly sports column, "The Cat's Pajamas", still appears in 7000 newspapers nationwide when not bumped for "The Lockhornes Meet Drabble" or "Classic Police Calls".

Frankie, my favorite orderly here at the rest home, let me watch SportsCenter in the break room last night (all it cost me were a couple of Vicodins), and I saw that the Yanks had their worst start against the Sox since 1912. I remember that time like it was yesterday, because in my advanced state of dementia, I'm often convinced that it's still 1912. I also frequently fear that giant squirrels will steal my medicine, but that's another story.

Back then, the Yankees were still called the Highlanders. That's because one of their alternate home uniforms had a kilt instead of pants. To this day, the 1912 Highlanders have the lowest steal total for a year: one. That one base was stolen by Frank "Crazy Legs" Doogan, who was immediately rushed to the hospital thereafter with an injury I won't describe here, though it still haunts my nightmares.

The Highlanders were a colorful bunch. They were always joking around and playing pranks, like hitting each other with cream pies and setting fire to the neighborhood stable. They had guys like Joe "Shaky Lips" Miller. Hans "Vinegar Arm" Schaefer. Steve "Hominy Grits" Jones. Fred "Lackawanna Hoodoo" Smith. Nate "Shoe Stealer" Arden. They also had a great utility player, Luigi Russo, who was known affectionately as "The Fucking Wop".

Their best pitcher was Mike Hagerty, also known as The Giant Mouse. He loaded up the ball with a special mixture of spit, licorice, tobacco juice, castor oil, and his own blood. It was sure hard to hit, because batters didn't want to come within ten feet of the mess he put on the ball. One guy hit a homer off of him and was laid up for the rest of the season with hepatitis.

The Highlanders had a patented double-play combo where second baseman Harry "Ol' Knobby" Hooper would feed the ball to shortstop Billy "Tiny Toes" Tyler for the first out, then Tyler would zip the ball at the head of the guy running to first. Back then, if you were knocked unconscious, regardless of the cause, you were called out.

That's why so many catchers had mitts made of brick or cinder block. They caused a lot of passed balls, but nothing was better for knocking a runner at the plate out cold. In a few years, though, they had to ban the really hard gloves. So many skull-crushings at the plate slowed down the game, because you had to call the morgue to remove the body, which took forever in the day of the horse-drawn hearse. Not to mention all the grieving widows laying wreathes at the plate and whatnot.

A fun bunch, the Highlanders were, but they were no match for Boston. The team wasn't known as the Red Sox yet. Sometimes they were called the Beaneaters, sometimes the Pilgrims, sometimes the Ralph Waldo Emersons. Then, the Henry David Thoreaus, or the Nathaniel Hawthornes. That was eventually shortened to a more convenient, catch-all nickname: The Transcendentalist Literature Enthusiasts.

Within a few years, they started wearing crimson stockings, and I referred to them in my column as the "Boston Encarnadine Foot-Coverings". The name stuck! Albeit in a different and far less unwieldy form.

Boston had some great sluggers, like Bobby "The Robert" Tompkins, who clubbed 8 four-baggers in 1912--and only one of those bombs was cow-assisted! Back then, if the ball was eaten by an animal grazing in the outfield, it was scored a home run. The sports world lost a real star when he was gored by a bull at Briggs Stadium in 1921.

Boston also had Jim "Occasional Lighning" Brady, who hit 45 triples that year. He was an expert at pulling the ball all the way into the left field corner. Then, when the fielders ran after the ball, he would run from first to third in a straight line. He'd usually jump-kick the shortstop on his way there, for good measure.

Was it legal? Absolutely not, but back then nobody played by the rules. That's what made it so damn fun! Pitchers would lob balls made of dry clay to the plate. Batters used to stand 20 feet from the mound and dare the ump to move them back. It was a like a marvelous chess game, but with a lot more heavy drinking. And punching. And the occasional on-field suicide.

But those days are gone forever, and nothing's gonna bring them back. Except for my senility-induced time-slippage. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to shoo a giant squirrel away from my Flomax.

Grant "Rocky" Rhodes is America's oldest living sportswriter. He first rose to prominence in 1916, when he declared Yankee Stadium "The House that Ruth Built," even though Ruth still played for the Red Sox and Yankee Stadium didn't exist. He holds the world's record for most consecutive days spent in a hat. His weekly sports column, "The Cat's Pajamas", appears in 7000 newspapers nationwide when not bumped for "Hints from Heloise" or "Funky Winkerbean". Today, he graces Scratchbomb with his nine decades of sports wisdom to comment on baseball's latest scandal.

Been a while since I took up the ol' Underwood. I been outta commission for almost a year. It all started when my favorite attendant, Frankie, took a little vacation. Frankie's my favorite because he always throws in a little extra something in your daily meds.

Unfortunately, the home brought in some numbnuts to take his place, and this schmuck gives me exactly what it says on my chart. Little did I know I'd developed a bit of a chemical dependency on one of my pills, a little blue one that makes my liver pain slightly less unbearable.

So one day, I ask this guy for some extra, and he says no dice. What happened next is kind of a blur, but apparently I went insane with rage over being denied my fix. I remember poking him in the eye with my cane, and throwing my colostomy bag in his face, but the rest is kinda hazy. Next thing I know, they got me in detox to get the junk outta my system.

Y'ever see The Man with the Golden Arm? Yeah, it's nothing like that. Frank Sinatra, you let me down a third time. I'd give you a piece of my mind if you weren't dead.

* Long-time Rocky readers know the first time was when Frank convinced me to buy an Edsel. I won't spill the beans about the second. Just know that it involves Jilly Rizzo, and I will take it with me to my grave.

Bottom line is, I ain't exactly one to talk when it comes to drugs. And I'm sick as hell about writing up this Alex Rodriguez fella. The guy's a head case. Back in my day, they would have locked him up on general principle. This country really started going to hell when FDR repealed the Lock 'Em Up on General Principle Act.

I'll tell you one thing, though. I just don't understand this generation of athletes, shooting themselves up with steroids and horse semen and whatnot, trying to gain an advantage. In my day, athletes didn't take performance enhancers. They took performance limiters.

Babe Ruth ate everything that wasn't bolted down. Jim Thorpe drank high-test gasoline before track meets. Bobby Jones had his caddy whip him with a cane in the back the thighs before he hit the links. (I heard some nasty rumors about that last ritual, but I won't repeat them here.)

You know why Lou Gehrig had to retire? It wasn't because ALS robbed him of his ability to play. It's because the disease actually made him more able-bodied than most other players. Back then, it was considered cheating if you didn't come to the plate full of bathtub gin and missing at least one toe.

It was a badge of honor to succeed while handicapping yourself. Why did you think the Black Sox threw the World Series in 1919? They wanted to see if they could still win the thing while actively trying to lose it. They weren't the first team to throw a game, not by a long shot. They were just unlucky enough to get caught. And to accept thousands of dollars from gangsters in order to do it.

I just wish all these kids involved with this stuff would come clean. That's what we did back in my day--someone catches you with your hand in the cookie jar, you fess up. Or, alternatively, you stonewall the cops, then catch the next steamer bound for Brazil.

I guess it's no use complaining about the way the world has changed. While I was getting clean, this guy from NA taught me a prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change, the carriage to something about the weather, and the gonads to know what's what.

I got no idea what that means, but it still makes twice the sense of anything else in this crazy world. At least until Frankie gets the med shift again.

Grant "Rocky" Rhodes is America's oldest living sportswriter. He first rose to prominence in 1921, when he struck an early blow for civil rights with his groundbreaking article on the Negro Leagues ("Colored Players Not Totally Inhuman"). His weekly sports column, "The Cat's Pajamas", appears in 7000 newspapers nationwide when not bumped for "Hints from Heloise" or "Gardening Weekly". Today, he graces Scratchbomb with his nine decades of sports wisdom to talk about Sunday's NFC Championship game.

We got this one attendant at the home, Frankie. A little stupid, but a good kid. So this morning he tells me that the Giants are playing the Packers in the NFC championship game. "That probably reminds you of old times, huh?" he says. "Back in the days of Vince Lombardi and stuff like that. I bet Lambeau Field was a pretty exciting place to be back then."

Sure, it was exciting, if your idea of exciting is freezing your nuts off in the middle of Ass-Nowheresville. Ask a sportswriter his idea of hell, and he'll say "Green Bay." That place makes Amish country look like Weimar Berlin. I knew a guy who cut off his pinky rather than go there for the '61 NFL Championship. A week of eating nothing but cheese and brats and I couldn't get unblocked if I stuck a stick of dynamite up my rear end.

It was nothing like the championship games of the real old NFL. I mean, the real Paleolithic days, when there were no helmets, cheerleaders, or common sense. Guys sacrificed their bodies and minds every Sunday, for little money and even less notoriety. But I'm sure all of them would do it all over again if they could, and if their softened brains could still grasp the concept of decision making.

You wanna talk about a championship game? In 1937, I saw the Providence Steamroller beat the Chicago Cardinals 2-0 in the parking lot of a Studebaker dealership in Davenport, Iowa. It was definitely the best damn football game I've ever seen, and I'm sure my fellow spectators, all three dozen or so, would agree.

1937 was the year the NFL tried to increase scoring by changing the ball's shape to oblong. Before that, it was angular, metallic and sharp. Of course, the old shape was totally impractical, but the league held on to it for a long time because they paid a lot of money to some fella named Calder to design it.

Of course, they hadn't started filling the balls with air yet. No siree, they still filled 'em up with good ol' fashioned concrete. The only score in the game came when the Cardinals' quarterback dropped dead from exhaustion in his own end zone. A linebacker tripped on his corpse and fell on it to record the safety. He was the championship's only casualty, which was quite rare in those days. Most every game back then would end with at least three guys in the morgue.

Providence's star player was Stan "Running Back" Wisniewski. He was the perfect man for the team's patented "run straight up the middle" offense. Stan only averaged 1.2 yards per carry, but he still led the league in yardage every year--mostly because they handed him the ball on every single play.

Back then, you were allowed to call one play in your first game of the year, and you had to stick with that same play all season. It would be another few years before Weeb Ewbank invented something called "strategy".

"Yup, you really missed out by being born so late," I told Frankie. "Those were the days where men were men, and football was football. You'll never get to see something like that in your life so long as you live."

"Yeah, but I also don't have to pee in a bag," he said.

Touché, Frankie.

Grant "Rocky" Rhodes is America's oldest living sportswriter. He first rose to prominence in 1918, when he declared in the Pittsburgh Courier-Picayune that "the Red Sox' dynastic juggernaut shall never be stopped". Thanks to an exemption granted by Congress in 1973, he remains the only journalist still allowed to refer to Muhammad Ali as Cassius Clay. His weekly sports column, "The Cat's Pajamas", appears in 7000 newspapers nationwide when not bumped for "Love Is" or "This Week in Bridge". Today, he graces Scratchbomb with his nine decades of sports wisdom to comment on Hall of Fame voting.

Like every other old bastard, I look forward to getting my mail each afternoon. It's fun to wile away the few hours I have left on this earth flipping through a direct mail appeal from some nut jobs who want to destroy the United Nations. I'm also eagerly awaiting a response to my latest series of threatening letters to Chris Matthews.

But there's one piece of mail I wait for with baited breath each year, and that's my annual Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. I treasure my status as a lifetime member of the BBWAA, because this ballot is my chance to make a mark on baseball history. It's also my chance to totally screw all the players who ever looked at me funny.

That is the greatest thing about this time of year. Any baseball writer who says differently is lying through his teeth, Jack. There's nothing sweeter than getting that ballot and seeing the name of some schmuck who wouldn't talk to you after a tough loss, or brushed off your autograph request. To know that his shot at immortality rests in your cold, bitter hands, and to think that you could be the guy to keep him out--if it weren't for that yearly thrill, I woulda turned on the gas a long time ago.

Of course I'm just kidding, folks. We don't have our own gas ranges at the Shadywood Assisted Living Facility. Or reliable heat, for that matter. My point is, there ain't no adrenaline rush like the kind you get from a big fistful of sour grapes.

You know why Gil Hodges never got in the Hall of Fame? Because he once recommended an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn to me, but it turned out to be sub par at best. Why didn't I vote for Bert Blyleven? Because I knew a guy named Bert in high school, and he once took my best girl down to the drug store for a cherry phosphate. I could never look at Blyleven and not think of that sneaky son of a bitch.

Should a possible Hall of Famer have to suffer for a bad meal, or my teenage frustrations? Well, somebody should!

You know what baseball writers talk about when they get together? It ain't great games or legendary players. Nope, it's always a game of can-you-top-this to see who has the pettiest excuse for not voting for someone. My favorite of all time has to be Dick Young. He once told me he didn't vote for Rod Carew because he once hit a single to tie up a spring training game in the bottom of the ninth. Dick was all set to hit the Early Bird Special at the Steer and Stein, but Rod's hit meant he had to stay at the game, which didn't end for another five innings. If there's one thing you didn't do, it was get between Dick and a discount meal.

"I'll never forgive that jerkoff for making me miss $4.99 prime rib," Dick told me, and he meant it, brother.

Of course, since I haven't been in a locker room since Watergate, it gets harder and harder to come up with reasons to deny candidates entry with each passing year. Luckily, I can rely on the two sharpest tools in a sportswriter's arsenal: hate and snap judgment.

Goose Gossage, Rock Raines: Dumb nicknames. No dice. What about the old, dignified nicknames of yesteryear? A solid moniker, like Frank "Excellent Fielder" O'Leary.

Jim Rice: They serve us mashed, unsalted rice every day in this godforsaken place. It tastes like wet socks. Even though it's the only thing my stomach can digest now, I'm not inclined to vote for anyone named Rice.

Jack Morris: I hated his commercials. Why couldn't he just eat the cat food his owner gave him? I would never vote for him or the snooty cat in the Sheba ads.

Andre Dawson: The Hall of Fame should not be sullied by a French-sounding name.

Tommy John:   What, I'm supposed to vote this guy in because he got some fancy surgery? I've had 73 medical procedures performed on my body, and that's just in the last month. My skin is now held together with only a few pieces of well-placed gaffer's tape.

Grant "Rocky" Rhodes is America's oldest living sportswriter. He rose to prominence with his 1921 column "Eight Men Way Out", in which he proposed that the White Sox who threw the World Series should be publicly immolated. His weekly sports column, "The Cat's Pajamas", appears in 7000 newspapers nationwide when not bumped for "Love Is... " or "This Week In Bridge ". Today, he graces Scratchbomb with his nine decades of sports wisdom to comment on the stewing Alex Rodiguez controversy.

Everyone needs to lay off Alex Rodriguez. I ain't gonna call him A-Rod, because that's not a proper baseball nickname. Baseball nicknames should be no nonsense and to the point, like a good pair of slacks. Killer Killebrew. Hamerrin' Hank. Stan The Man. "A-Rod" sounds like a nickname for some god damn Brazilian model, not a third baseman.

Still, the press needs to get off the man's back. Whatever went on in that Toronto "gentleman's establishment" is between him and his wife. Or perhaps between him, a thong, and a strategically placed towel.

In my day, this kind of garbage would never make its way into the papers. Not because it could damage a man's marriage, or because it might tarnish a player's reputation for all the wide-eyed kiddies out there. Screw the kids, I say. Let 'em learn about life the hard way, the way I did--by having every one of their illusions shattered like Faberge eggs.

And if you think that ballplayers were more moral back then, I got three words for you: HAR DE HAR. They were the same wife swappin', dog fight organizin', wife and children threatenin' sons of bitches they are now.

But in my day, athletes knew how to play ball. And I don't mean on the field.

True story. Jack Dempsey's restaurant, 1932. The Yankees just finished sweeping the Cubs in the World Series, and the whole team's waiting around for the Babe to show up and join the party. At a quarter to midnight, Babe finally breezes through the front door, three sheets to the wind, wearing a raccoon coat and a straw hat. He's got two chorus girls under each arm. "Boys," he says, "the missus is at home with the kids, so tonight, I'm gonna take these chippies over to my suite at the Ritz and stuff 'em all like Thanksgiving turkeys!"

The guys in the press laughed, and then they launched into their questions. "Hey Babe," said some squeaky-voiced cub reporter, "did you really call your home run in game 3?"

The Babe snickered and said, "Nah, kid. I was just pointing out the place on Waveland Avenue where I once punched a nun in the throat."

Then The Babe reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a funny looking, ivory-colored pipe. "Ah, there's nothing like fine Chinese opium," he said. "I love it almost as much as I love Satan. Yes, all of my home run power comes straight from The Dark Lord himself."

Sounds like a juicy story, huh? Sure, until the Babe started throwing twenties around like Kleenex. Then our memories got real hazy real fast. "Listen, all you boys in the press," he said, "the first one of you that writes up another 'Ruth hits home run for sick kids' story gets The Babe's sloppy seconds." Lucky for me, I brought along my portable Underwood that night.

That's why I can't cotton to today's athlete. Not because they're rich and spoiled, but because they're so god damn cheap. They make millions of dollars a year, and they can't peel off some change to buy off the beat reporters? It wouldn't take a lot of scratch, trust me. I once helped Rocky Marciano dispose of a body in exchange for a slice of rhubarb pie.

My advice to you, Mr. Rodriguez, is to loosen them purse strings and take care of the boys in the press corps. It ain't too late for you to turn your image around. Invite the beat reporters to come with you to the Brass Rail, buy them a few lap dances. The next thing you know the press forgets about the whole "bush league play" angle.

I'll be glad to do it, Alex. My rates are reasonable. At my age, a lap dance won't do me any good. But I'd pen a piece on you building orphanages in the ghetto if you could promise me a good BM.

Grant "Rocky" Rhodes is America's oldest living sportswriter. He first rose to prominence in 1917, when he thumbwrestled Ty Cobb into submission to settle a bet between Babe Ruth and Al Capone. In 1958, for reasons that remain murky, he stole Paul Hornung's Heisman Trophy and dared the quarterback to retrieve it; Hornung did not accept the challenge. His weekly sports column, "The Cat's Pajamas", appears in 7000 newspapers nationwide when not bumped for "Hints from Heloise" or "Funky Winkerbean". Today, he graces Scratchbomb with his nine decades of sports wisdom to comment on an exciting weekend of athletic action.

May 5 will be the best damn day in sports in a long, tired time. Both The Sport of Kings and The Sweet Science will hit the town in their Sunday best, even though it's a Saturday. We've got the Kentucky Derby and the Floyd Mayweather/Oscar de la Hoya fight. Nothing could keep me away from either event, except that I'm not allowed away from the assisted living facility for more than six hours at a time.

Plus, I can't fly to either event because my doctor says a pressurized airplane cabin just might crush my hips to a fine powder. So I'll have to park myself in front of the TV in the common room and hope no one wants to watch "Touched By An Angel".

Of course, you snot-nosed punks out there won't watch either of these epic battles. You'll tune in to the NBA playoffs or the NHL playoffs or some damn baseball game or something. Fine, go ahead. We don't need you. You wouldn't know a real sport if it spit in your eye.

I know what you're gonna say: I know plenty about football..., and I'm gonna tell you to shut your ugly girly mouth. If you think football's a real sport, I'll eat my fedora, and that damn thing hasn't left my scalp since LBJ was sworn in.

Football players wear pads. You know who else wears pads? Women. And I know this isn't a politically correct thing to say nowadays, but women are no good at nothing. Except for one thing, and you red-blooded fellas know what I'm talking about.

That's right--making pot roast.

My judgment of a Man's Sport is this: Can I smoke a cigar while watching it live? By that definition, only two sports qualify. Boxing and horse racing, end of story.

You kids raised on ESPN wouldn't know this, but boxing and horse racing were once among America's most popular spectator sports. A 1937 poll in Collier's ranked them second only to baseball, and way ahead of golf, hoop-hitting and stick-retrieving. It was a more innocent time, when people didn't need video games or fancy coffees to entertain themselves. No, they were fine with the simple spectacle of two grown men smashing each other's faces to a bloody pulp.

Boxers used to be enormously influential. Back in my day, the biggest show on the air was Chesterfield Presents Joe Louis! Radios all across the nation tuned in every Wednesday night to hear Joe punch stuff for 90 minutes.

Horse racing was even more important. Why, Tennessee sent a horse to Congress in 1942. I think Senator Hot-to-Trot could've run for president, too, if he hadn't broken a leg climbing the Capitol steps.

So what happened? Everything happened. Television. Dope. Hippies. Jane Fonda. Designer jeans. Boy George. Pasteurization. Godzilla. Ralph Nader. President's Weekend. Lawnmower races. The concept of flight. Bran muffins. Eve Arden...

Christ, I lost my train of thought.

My point is, boxing and horse racing aren't just sports for old men. After all, auto racing's more popular than ever, and there's no damn difference between NASCAR and a horse race. Except the horses are made of metal and have internal combustion engines and run on gas instead of oats and synthetic hormones. But in both sports, the "vehicles" are driven by tiny, angry men with enormous egos.

As for boxing, since when did punching go out of style? Look at all this crazy ultimate fighting that's on TV all the time. Hell, if it wasn't for UFC, Spike TV would just be a Pros vs. Joes marathon followed by a Deep Space Nine marathon. If young folks today will watch two tattooed freaks kick each other on basic cable, why won't they watch a non-title welterweight boxing match on pay-per-view for only $60?

If getting old has taught me anything, it's that everything gets worse every god damn day. And yet, I still hold out hope that boxing and horse racing will return to their heydays as the premier sports in this country. Tastes ebb and flow. Things once consigned to obscurity can hit the big time once again.

They once said that newspapers would die, thanks to the fax machine. Now, the fax machine is deader than vaudeville and the newspaper is bigger than ever! Records were supposed to disappear once "blank tapes" were invented, but last time I checked, people were still dropping their hard-earned cash on LPs. There's no reason boxing and horse racing can't follow the same glorious road back to the top!

And if boxing and horse racing don't make a comeback, you can bite my wrinkly ass, America