MLB Update (1974 edition)

It's 1974, and Roy Blount Jr. is on fire.

If Blount didn't know about himself before About Three Bricks Shy of a Load, he knows now. That book is coming out in November, and it is lights-out fantastic. And it's clear from the summer 1974 Sports Illustrateds that Blount wants the ball. He had that beautiful heap of a Reggie Jackson feature last week, and, now, in the June 24 edition, he's got another peculiar winner--about the Cincinnati Reds.

Not everybody gets to have sentences in their stories like, "The Reds' hard boys tend to prefer the hot months." First, not everybody allows themselves to write them. Second, not everybody has editors who will stand down from revising them. Third, not everybody writes them so effortlessly, unobtrusively ... something ... that we readers don't revolt and cancel our subscriptions.

But Roy Blount Jr. is not everybody (that Seinfeld episode where George tries Jerry's "move" is so, so great), and he's throwing them in from all over the court in this Reds story. He's got this great thing at the beginning of the story about how Pete Rose buys his shirts in bulk as part of an illustration of his confidence, and Blount does this really interesting ending where he describes a half inning in a win over the Phillies by pacing his paragraphs in such a way that we readers feel as though we're actually sitting through the at bats. Furthermore, Blount knows when to just go with the flow of the game and let his teammates score; he gets out of the way for five consecutive paragraphs of rich Sparky Anderson quotes in which the Reds' manager describes how much of a hothead he used to be.

Hard to describe. Easy (and a lot of fun) to read.

Also, I do want to point out one other sentence that illustrates an interesting thing that happens to folks who really dive into most anything.

"The Reds know who they are, and their self-confidence seems realistic even though they have won none of five from L.A. so far this year."

We come to believe that we know. (I'm pretty sure we've talked about this before at The Heath Post, but I couldn't find where.) Folks tend to ask the conventional wisdomers to talk forward about what might happen in whatever topic area they have qualified as CW; the problem is you get to be a voice of the CW not by learning skills of forecasting what might happen but by steeping yourself in what has happened. This seems to be a common dynamic in all sorts of stuff. Business, politics and crime-fighting, for example. It definitely happens in churches. Certainly happens in journalism very regularly.

Now, with zero false modesty, I will tell you that I was never a very good newspaper beat writer at all. But I will say that I did my best job covering the women's basketball team at WKU in the early 1990s. I went to all of the games. I went to a lot of practices. I hung around the offices some. I knew some of the people around the team socially. Also, beats don't come much cushier. I didn't have much competition; the sources were nice, and my slow-footed thinking and lack of skepticism didn't amount to as much of a negative covering the Lady Tops as they would've been had I been covering Carroll Hubbard's office.

By 1992 or '93, after two or three years of covering the team, I'd gotten into that little-knowledge/dangerous-thing zone. As it wasn't often called for or something I was particularly comfortable with, I ventured into the area of prognostication only twice that I remember. The first time was when Western had a game coming up against a pretty good Tennessee Tech team and I put together three or five detailed arguments how and why the Lady Toppers were going to win the game; they didn't. The second time was the following season, and a better WKU team had a game at worse Tennessee Tech. I good-naturedly recalled my poor prediction from the previous season and then went into an even more detailed analysis of why there was zero way the Lady Tops could lose to this team again. Alas, they did.

The point is that I'm not slamming Roy Blount Jr. for his confidence in the Reds. Cincinnati was, of course, a really good team, headed for even greater things. But, at the risk of spoiling the ending of this little MLB 1974 series, I will go ahead and reveal that it's not going to happen for the Reds in 1974. The fact that Los Angeles had swept Cincinnati so far might've been a pretty strong clue. It's interesting (and completely characteristic of the CW) that Blount even acknowledges such strong evidence in sticking by his Reds guns.

And fires them in a blaze of absolute glory. Five stars, highly recommended.



LA 43-20 CIN 7GB ATL 7
HOUS 11 SF 13 SD 19

(Yeah, I notice that I put them on the scanner in the wrong order.)

The Padres were 3-0 in one-run decisions last week, Jim Kaplan reports in this 1974 week's "The Week" column.



PHIL 33-28 ST. L 2GB MONT 3.5
CHI 6.5 NY 8 PITT 8

Meanwhile. in this 2011 week, I added six Pirates--Rich Hebner, Bruce Kison, Mario Mendoza, Paul Popovich, Jim Rooker and Frank Taveras--to my collection of 1975 Topps cards. One of the things I learned from reading these cards is that Hebner "provided excitement on 9-3-73 when he hit inside-the-park Homer to lead off 13th inning and win game." That's a heck of a game.

And then there's this little trivia question and cartoon on the back of Mendoza's card:



Um, ... OK.



OAK 33-28 TEX 1GB KC 2
CHI 4 CAL 6.5 MINN 6.5

Sports Illustrated's Kaplan reports that the Twins benched Harmon Killebrew in favor of Craig Kusick at first base this week in 1974.



BOS 34-26 CLEV 3GB BALT 3.5
DET 3.5 NY 4.5 MIL 4.5

Ex-Tigers manager Billy Martin returned to Detroit with his new team, the Rangers, and trashed a bunch of his former colleagues (who had been trashing him). Outfielder Jim Northrup (who moved on to Baltimore before the 1975 Topps cards were issued) was one of them.

Billy Martin and Jim Northrup. Harmon Killebrew. Sparky Anderson. All dead.

On a happier note, I love the booze ads from old magazines. This one occupies Page 31 in the June 24, 1974, SI.