August 12- Toronto Blue Jays

I think the first thing that I need to point out is that it’s obviously not August 12, 2013. I’m not even sure why I’ve continued to keep up with the charade that I’ll be able to get back on pace of doing one blog post per day. When I started this mission back on January 1^st it seemed like it was going to be an easy thing to do. After all, the first month-and-a-half consisted of posts that were barely two pages long. Don’t get me wrong, I love researching, learning, writing and educating, and I am not throwing in the towel anytime soon. I didn’t feel I was doing you (the reader) or myself any favors by half-assing my posts. I’ve always been more of the longwinded type of writer, cramming in as much information that can possibly be conceived for the sake of not leaving anyone in the dark on even the smallest detail. My journalism professors at the University of Oregon can back me up in that assertion too.

When I started expanding my stories, adding in my personal details and stopped worrying about if it was too long I started to notice that I was enjoying myself more and connecting with a larger audience. What I didn’t expect was that after four-and-a-half months of doing that every single day I would break physically and mentally. I can pinpoint the exact moment too, it was right after I post my June 15^th story about LaTroy Hawkins that I quickly started to unravel. My follow-up post was a San Francisco Giants post on June 16th for Father’s Day, a story that dealt with the hardships my dad and I went through for well over a decade, my bouts with depression and thoughts of suicide and then the resolution of the two of us patching things up in the summer of 2012. The hard part wasn’t really writing it as much as it was the personal struggle of whether or not I should post it. After all, something that raw could potentially be a red flag for employers. But, like a lot of my posts after the middle of February, it was met with a lot of positive feedback, the kind of stuff that motivates me to keep going and keep improving upon what I do.

I don’t feel that I’ve thank you all enough for taking the time to read these posts that I care about so much. Even though I’m well over 100 days behind, I will be surpassing 100,000 total views on my blog within the next two days. I find that kind of funny because I thought writing every single day was going to be the key to achieving anything close to that. Turns out that re-posting at the right times was a huge factor, but also spacing things out, allowing people to fully-appreciate each post instead of cramming them down your throats every single day. It’s all a learning process I suppose. Most importantly though in the thanking department, I haven’t thanked you all enough for the experiences that you’ve shared with me. I love sharing New Era Cap stories, baseball stories and just stories about life with all of you. I’ve always been kind of a social butterfly, but I don’t really know how to show it sometimes. I love to laugh and joke, but sometimes I don’t know how to share my feelings unless I write it out. All of your relatable stories and appreciation for what I do is the best reward I take from my blog. Without all of you, this would be nothing. From the bottom of my heart I thank you all for sharing this journey with me. I promise to quit being a blubbery bitch now.

One person who has been a wonderful treat to meet and get to know is my friend and fellow #CrewEra13 New Era enthusiast and die hard Toronto Blue Jays fan Andrew Mitchell-Baker (@AMitchell_416). 

Andrew was born and raised in Toronto and has been an avid visitor of the Sky Dome/Rogers Centre since he was old enough to walk. He’s one of the few people I had the luxury of meeting during my trip to New Ere headquarters in Buffalo, New York. Like the rest of the gang, we met in the lobby of the hotel we were staying at, but we didn’t really hit off until we took the first leg of our trip to Niagara Falls. Andrew had been to the falls before, but only on the Canadian side, so it was a pretty cool new adventure for him. One of the first comments that Andrew bestowed upon me was that I look a lot like RA Dickey, something that I will leave up to y’all to decide with the photo above and below as your frame of reference. 

He is also not the first, nor the last person to make this assertion. On the inverse though, I said he looks a lot like Tim Duncan. You be the judge.

As we toured around the Falls we swapped stories about how we came up with our respective baseball teams. His story was a little bit more intriguing as he was there in the early days of the Sky Dome and was going to games during the Blue Jays’ most dominant years. I was six-years-old when the Oakland Athletics won the World Series in 1989, but I was living four hours away in Bakersfield when it happened. Andrew was getting introduced to the game in full on the back of the back-to-back World Series wins in 1992 and 1993. From there, it was a birthright. For the past 15 seasons he’s been in house for every season opener and almost every series against the New York Yankees because, well… everyone has an enemy. His shining moment at a game came on June 2, 2001 when Chris Carpenter; yes, THE Chris Carpenter, gave up an absolute muderstroke to Manny Ramirez that hit the wall at the top of the upper deck. Oh, and when I say upper deck, I mean upper deck. Watch this. Just to give you a little perspective of how far away that is, here…

 Deeeeeeeeeeeeeep!!!

I’ve been to four games at the now-named Rogers Centre, but I know I’ll be back for more, shooting the breeze with my friend, and sipping on only the finest Alexander Keith’s they have to offer.

Today marks a crazy day in Major League Baseball history as one year ago today one of the biggest trades in the history of the game was finalized between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Miami Marlins. The deal technically took place on November 13, 2012, but it took until November 19^th for MLB commissioner Bud Selig to approve it. The deal consisted of the Blue Jays acquiring shortstop Jose Reyes, pitchers Mark Buehrle and Josh Johnson, catcher John Buck, and infielder/outfielder Emilio Bonifacio from the Marlins in exchange for shortstop Yunel Escobar, pitcher Henderson Alvarez, catcher Jeff Mathis and four minor-league prospects including Adeiny Hechavarria. Cash was also sent to the Jays in the trade. Well, as you all know, the Blue Jays weren’t done yet. On November 16, 2012, they signed outfielder Melky Cabrera to a two-year, $16 million deal. On November 20, 2012, it was announced that the Blue Jays had re-hired former manager John Gibbons for the same position signing him to a two-year deal after the team had sent then-manager John Farrell to the Boston Red Sox along with pitcher David Carpenter for infielder Mike Aviles. Finally, on December 17^th the Blue Jays acquired the 2012 National League Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey in a trade with the New York Mets that sent prospects Travis d'Arnaud, Noah Syndergaard, minor leaguer Wuilmer Becrra and catcher John Buck to New York. Toronto also received catcher Josh Thole and minor league catcher Mike Nickeas in the trade. As part of the transaction, the Blue Jays signed Dickey to an extension worth a total of $29 million over 3 years with a $12 million fourth year option. In short, things went batshit insane in Toronto in a very short period of time. The crazy part in all of this is that I had predicted it seven moths earlier.

Ok, maybe I didn’t predict the exact specifics of the deal, but the exchange between the two parties was on the money. See, back in the early days of my MLB Fan Cavery I had been involved in a discussion about where the league was going over the next two-to-three years. This of course was right after the Marlins had “spent” a boatload of cash on new talent, Ozzie Guillen as the manager and was getting ready to open the door to their new stadium in the heart of Little Havana. One of two things were going to happen in 2012: the Marlins were going be incredibly successful OR they were going to fall apart; and not just fall apart, but have one of the worst meltdowns in MLB history. During the interview process in Arizona for the Fan Cave a question about the Marlins had come up from one of the executives as they were curious how I thought they would finish. My close-to-exact words were, “Based on the history of the Marlins I can totally see them making a solid World Series run because every time they reload their roster they’ve won the World Series (1997 and 2003). But, if they don’t even make the playoffs this year, expect the team to abandon ship and deal as many players as they can to one team who needs the talent and has the money to afford the contracts; someone like the Blue Jays.” I know, it all sounds like bullshit in retrospect, but I have yet to lie to any of you in these posts, and I sure as hell am not about to start. The reality in all of this is that it was a lot easier to predict than you might imagine.

The Blue Jays haven’t made the playoffs since they last held the Commissioner’s Trophy above their heads at the end of their second World Series victory in a row in 1993. 18 years, the second longest drought next to the Pittsburgh Pirates who finally broke their streak after 20 years in 2013. The Blue Jays may not have the biggest payroll in MLB, but they do have quite a bit to spend, especially when you have to consider that they play in the American League Eastern Division with the Red Sox and New York Yankees. With the emergence of Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Brett Lawrie, the Blue Jays were on the cusp of being able to assemble a star-studded team that would finally revive the glory days of the early 1990s. The only thing that had been missing was they key person to make such a deal a reality….

AA: Alex Anthopoulos, a native of Montreal, Quebec who is fluently bilingual in English and French, became interested in baseball in the early 1990s after seeing the Montreal Expos play at Olympic Stadium. He attended McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario where he studied economics. After his father's passing, he realized that he wanted to do something that he loved for a living. He proceeded to call several Major League organizations, looking for a foot in the door. His chance came when he got a direct line to the Expos GM Jim Beattie's office in Florida. He offered to work for free doing something he loved, and he was given his chance. He worked in the media relations department with the Expos, and moved to their scouting department in 2001. In 2003, when the Expos' days in Montreal were numbered, he accepted a lower-paying job with Toronto in order to remain in Canada. The job was as the scouting coordinator.

Anthopoulos quickly climbed the ladder. By the end of 2005 he was promoted to the position of assistant General Manager by then GM J.P. Ricciardi, which was then complimented with the title of Vice-President of Baseball Operations following the 2006 season. In 2004 he was a major reason why the Greek National baseball team was assembled for the Olympics which took place in Athens, Greece. For three years Anthopoulos waited in the wings, keeping an eye on how to conduct himself with the hope that he would move all the way to the top, either with the Blue Jays or another team who showed interest. When October 3, 2009 came rolling around Anthopoulos found himself in an interesting position as his mentor, Ricciardi, was fired after the team went 75-87 in former World Series-winning manager Cito Gaston's first full year back as the manager. Anthopoulos was promoted to General Manager, and got to work immediately.

On December 15, 2009 Roy Halladay was traded from the Blue Jays to the Philadelphia Phillies for minor league prospects Travis d'Arnaud, Kyle Drabek, and Michael Taylor. Hell of a way to break into the new role. Needless to say, Blue Jays fans were pissed, but Anthopoulos was just getting started. Soon afterwards, he sent Michael Taylor to the Athletics for Brett Wallace, and in July 2010, traded Wallace to the Houston Astros for center field prospect Anthony “Space” Gose. On December 22, 2009, Anthopoulos traded reliever Brandon League and minor league outfielder Johermyn Chavez to acquire Brandon Morrow from the Seattle Mariners. The move brought in a little bit of faith, but the reality was that the team was now down their ace and closer. On July 14, 2010 Anthopoulos made a deal with the Atlanta Braves to acquire Yunel Escobar, and Jo-Jo Reyes in exchange for Alex Gonzalez, and two minor league prospects: Tim Collins, and Tyler Pastornicky. The end result, the Blue Jays went 85-77 in what would be Gaston’s final year as manager. Bautista launched a franchise-record 54 home runs, Encarnacion was looking solid and he pitching was coming around. Things were certainly looking bright, but once again, Anthopoulos wasn’t done yet.

On January 21, 2011, Anthopoulos completed a blockbuster trade, shipping another longtime face of the Blue Jays franchise Vernon Wells and the remaining $86 million over the next four years to the Los Angeles Angels for slugging catcher Mike Napoli and veteran outfielder Juan Rivera. He then sent Napoli to the Texas Rangers for pitcher Frank Francisco and Rivera to the Los Angeles Dodgers for cash considerations. On July 28, 2011, Anthopoulos made two successive trades to acquire center fielder Colby Rasmus from the St. Louis Cardinals. In the first, the Blue Jays traded pitching prospect Zach Stewart and veteran reliever Jason Frasor to the Chicago White Sox for starting pitcher Edwin Jackson and infielder Mark Teahen. Jackson was then traded with relief pitchers Marc Rzepczynski and Octavio Dotel, outfielder Corey Patterson, and cash or three players to be named later to the Cardinals for Rasmus and relief pitchers Brian Tallet, P.J. Walters and Trever Miller. This of course all went down in the-manager/current Red Sox manager Farrell’s first season at the helm. Oh, but Anthopoulos still had one more major deal to make. On August 23, 2011, Anthopoulos traded infielders Aaron Hill and John McDonald to the Arizona Diamondbacks for second baseman Kelly Johnson. Even with all of these players getting swapped the Blue Jays finished 81-81. Before the 2012 Major League Baseball season, he was known to make trades in order to acquire supplemental draft picks. The most prominent example was when he acquired Miguel Olivo, a Type B free agent, and declined his club option the next day making Olivo a free agent. The Blue Jays gained a supplemental first-round draft pick when Olivo signed with the Mariners.

With Anthopoulos, the wheels were always turning. His days with the Expos taught him how to be sharp as the team was slowly being picked apart and eventually relocated. Anthopoulos loved the Expos, and vowed to bring a winning team back to Canada. In 2012 the Blue Jays went 73-89, their worst finish since Ricciardi’s final season in 2009. With his back against the way, so to speak, Anthopoulos took the call from the Marlins, talked to the higher ups and approved the blockbuster trade on November 13, 2012 (finalized on November 19).

Now, some of you may still be a bit confused as to how I could possibly know these two parties, of all the other teams in the league, could make that deal happen. It all lies within the Expos, the team Loria had first bought a 24% stake in back in 1999 until becoming the principle owner prior to 2002, right before he sold the team to MLB. So, for those of you playing at home, Anthopoulos worked for Loria for 2 ½ seasons. I’m not sure how strong their relationship is, but in the baseball world relationships like that are deep. Based on their history and Anthopoulos’s willingness to make the Blue Jays a winner, it was the only deal that ever made sense if it were to happen. Needless to say, when it did, I felt like a God damn genius… but I still don’t have a job working for ESPN or MLB. Drat!

’13: I had marked up the cap the day the deal was finalized and couldn’t think of anything better to capture the craziness that was my prediction and the season to come for the restored faithful Blue Jays fans. This cap especially is a memento of where the Blue Jays and their fans have gone in the last 19 years, a fixed mistake that never should have been altered in the first place. When this cap was introduced in 2012 it brought back a lot of warm feelings for die hard Blue Jays fans like Andrew and my other good friend and 2012 Fan Cave hopeful Dave Barclay. As Dave said, “It was like starting over again, getting back to the winning ways of the former Jays. Would you like a hot dog?” Those were his exact words. 

I still have quite a few Blue Jays posts to go, and if you learn anything from these posts, as I always mention in the Blue Jays posts, if you’re a team on the bottom and y’all decide to change the uniforms, be sure to expect good things. When you’re on top, expect some dark years. The Blue Jays finished the 2013 with a record of 74-88, only a one win improvement. Perhaps good things will be in store for Anthopoulos and the Blue Jays in 2014. Hopefully. 

As for the Marlins, they made out like bandits, but not because they made a ton of money on the deal. They only finished seven games worse than they did in 2012, but they got stellar showing from the players that the Blue Jays had dealt them. Hechavarria played in 148 games, hitting .227 with three home runs and 42 RBI and boasts a dandy glove. As for Alvarez, he went 5-6 with a 3.59 ERA and 57 strikeouts in 17 starts. He also had one shutout and one complete game, which both came on the final day of the season when he no-hit the Detroit Tigers. I don't want to elaborate too much on that story though. Patience.

August 11- New York Mets

The New York Mets have been an on-going joke in the New York metropolitan area as well as on social media for the better part of the last 20 years or so. It’s come in the form of subway signs

television shows

and even if the form of logos created by the team which resemble that of Domino’s Pizza.

Nonetheless, a lot of it comes in the form of good fun while other times it appears to be a cyclical internal habit by the Mets themselves. One moment in particular I wrote about on May 4th with now infamous “ice cream” uniforms. At the end of the day though, the Mets should be given a lot more credit. After all, they did win two World Series titles in 1969 and 1986 and they’ve also drafted, brought up, traded for and signed a lot of talent over the years.

And of course there’s also that time Bobby Bonilla became the smartest man to ever sign a Major League contract.

I for one will admit that I haven’t been the most pleasant person to critique the Mets and financial decisions, but I assure you that none of it is done with malice as the intent. The Mets will always have a soft spot in my heart because of Gary Carter and their title run in 1986, my first conscious memory of watching a Major League Baseball game on television. For me, it’s hard to watch a team with so much money and talent come up short every year, even if it is a New York team. Hell, for the last 20 years of my life I’ve had to deal with heartbreak coming from a team who has no money and a vast crop of talent every season, only to see it broken down and rebuilt year after year. That team of course is the Oakland Athletics. The Mets are different though. There are elements of their decisions that are reminiscent of the Athletics teams of the late 1980s and early 1990s in that they have a lot of money, but work with a lot of homegrown talent on top of a few key signings. Unfortunately for the Mets, most of their signings haven’t really panned out. But there is a more specific reason why the current Mets team reminds me so much my beloved A’s teams, their general manager Sandy Alderson. Only time will tell if Alderson can right the slowly sinking ship in Flushing, but his first few major moves are definitely an indication that he’s in it to win.

One deal in particular that is a reflection of the Mets’ willingness to win took place on December 5, 2012 when the team re-signed their 2001 draft pick and multiple All-Star spot-winning third baseman David Wright for an additional eight years on top of his then-current contract. The most interesting aspect of this announcement, for me at least, came during the winter meetings when the Mets took the opportunity to unveil their new All-Star Game uniform patches, a few new jerseys and lastly, this cap.

When I first saw it I didn’t now what to make of it. I either had missed the formal announcement and the unveiling of the cap or the Mets didn’t say anything at all as Wright sat up on the stage to field questions while it sat on his head. The 2013 batting practice cap photos hadn’t been released yet so I just assumed that’s what he was wearing. Not at all. The new Mets hat that Wright was sporting is in fact the Sunday/special event alternate cap that the team has been rocking all season long, and to be honest, I actually dig it.

I was super bummed that the Mets decided to retire their road cap at the end of the 2011 season, but they certainly made a strong effort to make up for it with this cap. The color combo is kind of interesting as it has the same appearance as the Citi Field logo up above, but that’s not exactly a bad thing. Orange is an odd color to work with, especially when it comes to the bill, but it works swimmingly against the royal blue crown. Also, the addition of the orange over the white on the “NY” logo helps keep the focus off of one specific area. Even though it didn’t get much play in 2013 it was still one of the better additions for any team over the last six or seven years.

I’ve written many times about how uniform changes can make or break a team and unfortunately for the Mets this was one of those times where it broke them. They finished with the same record as they did in 2012 under Terry Collins (74-88), but they got a lot of performances out of Wright and a few other up-and-coming stars. I did my best not to pick favorites, but the obvious choices were right in everyone’s face. 

#5- Wright was born in Norfolk, Virginia and raised in Chesapeake where he attended school at Hickory High School and worked extensively with Coach Gregory Friedman of Bellmore JFK. Wright was the 2001 Gatorade Virginia High School Player of the Year and earned All-State honors in 1999, 2000 and 2001. He was also named Virginia All-State Player of the Year in 2001. Over his four-year career at Hickory, Wright hit .438 with 13 home runs and 90 RBIs. Upon graduation Wright planned to attend Georgia Tech and major in engineering, but the opportunity to make the pros stepped into the light.

Wright was chosen 38^th overall by the Mets in the 2001 amateur draft during the supplemental round as compensation for the Mets' loss of Mike Hampton to the Colorado Rockies in free agency. Wright was selected after future teammate Aaron Heilman who had been selected with the 18^th overall pick. Wright progressed steadily in his first three years of minor league play, winning the Sterling award for best player on the class A St. Lucie Mets in 2003. In 2004, he quickly rose from the AA Binghamton Mets, to the AAA Norfolk Tides, to the Majors when he made his short-awaited debut on July 21^st.

I’m still not sure why, but Wright somehow managed to not even receive a vote for the 2004 National League Rookie of the Year Award despite hitting .293, 14 home runs and 40 RBI in 69 games. Granted, the winner, Jason Bay, did have a great season for the Pittsburgh Pirates, but he also played in 120 games. Either way, over the next six years Wright flourished. He made the All-Star team five years in a row from 2005-2010, won back-to-back Gold Glove and Silver Slugger Awards in 2007 and 2008 and finished in the top-10 for the NL MVP three years in a row from 2006-2008.

Wright had a bit of a down year in 2011, mostly due to injury, but bounced back in 2012 with a sixth place finish for the NL MVP and another nod to the All-Star team. For his career Wright has a .301 average and could potentially be a member of the 3,000 hit club if he’s able to grind out a few 200+ hit seasons along the way. The most impressive thing about Wright is that he holds the franchise record for 11 offensive categories in only 10 seasons of work including hits (1558), runs (853), doubles (345), RBI (876), walks (671) and sacrifice flies (60). He is also a substantially wealthy individual, most of which didn’t come on the baseball field. See, back in 2007 Wright became a spokesman for Vitamin Water which was a product of the Queens, New York based company Glaceau. Rather than receive one paycheck, Wright negotiated a 0.5% ownership of the company. It may not seem like much until Coca-Cola bought Glaceau for $4.1 billion. Athletic AND business savvy!

#28- Just like Wright, Daniel Murphy is a homegrown talent who was plucked from the swamps of Jacksonville University in Florida in the 13^th round of the 2006 amateur draft. Murphy’s time in the minors only lasted two years, the first of which was spent in St. Lucie where hit .285 with 11 home runs and 78 RBI in 135 games in 2007. The following season Murphy played at all three levels but made a jump to the Majors on August 2^nd after an injury to Marlon Anderson made room for him as the most viable replacement. In his first major league at-bat, against three-time All-Star Roy Oswalt, Murphy hit a single. Later in the same game, he made a difficult catch against the left field wall, throwing out Hunter Pence at second base for a double play to end the inning. As of August 9, 2008, Murphy was only the 5th Mets rookie to record 10 hits in his first 20 at-bats. Murphy hit his first home run in the bottom of the 6th inning against the Florida Marlins at Shea Stadium on August 9. According to Major League Baseball rules, players are no longer considered a rookie if they have had more than 130 at-bats in a single season. Murphy had 131 at-bats for the Mets during the 2008 season, thus making 2008 his rookie season by a single at-bat. He finished the season batting .313, with 2 home runs and 17 RBI.

Murphy, a natural third baseman, moved around in the field, getting a few starts in left field and other in the infield. Since 2009 Murphy has been a regular fixture in the Mets lineup with the exception of 2010 when he missed the entire season due to a MCL tear while trying to turn a double play during a rehab game with the then-AAA affiliate the Buffalo Bisons. Murphy had hurt his knee during a Spring Training game. In 2011 Murphy’s season ended after 109 games after injuring the same MCL that had been repaired. In 2012 he came back at full-strength as the full-time second baseman. His .290 career average is one of the best on the team over the last few years including his 2011 campaign in which he was hitting .320 before his injury.

While I didn’t have the opportunity to meet Wright during my time in the MLB Fan Cave (missed it by two days), I was able to meet and have a few words with Murphy. That day in particular was kind of interesting because Murphy inadvertently violated one of the biggest rules of the Fan Cave: no clothing items from any of the other professional leagues allowed… ESPECIALLY THE NFL.

Even though I knew it would cause beef with the executives I just had to snap a photo, which I was told to never post on social media. In the mean time, one of the interns was sent downstairs immediately to grab a jersey for Murphy out of the “supply closet,” a room full of MLB gear including hats, shirts, autographed baseball and other cool trinkets. 

After that, the mood was a bit more relaxed. Murphy kicked it on the couch for a social media interview while we all waited for our second special guest, Arsenio Hall.

If there’s anyone who I have ever met that wasn’t built with an off switch, it’s definitely Arsenio, and I don’t mean that as an insult. With every question asked him he had a fantastic joke. He was genuine and polite with everyone who came up to talk to him, but he was honest and humble anytime someone asked him about coming up in the comedy game. The concept that the production crew had brought the two of them in for was a fishbowl Q&A, where basically there was a fishbowl filled with strip of paper with questions on them that the two asked one another. The responses were pretty natural, which made for a good segment. Unfortunately most of the best footage was left on the cutting room floor due to language and subject matter. Does that surprise you?

July 31- Tampa Bay Devil Rays

I had a lot of illusions going into the 2012 Major League Baseball season, especially considering how naïve I was thinking that my MLB Fan Cave experience was going to be all gumdrops and puppy dogs. While there were certainly a lot of moments of positivity from my experience, it was certainly met with a lot of heartbreak. I’ve focused a few of my prior New Era Cap posts on the darker sides of my experience and I assure you that this is not going to be another one, but there is one moment in particular that I need to get off of my chest, man up and admit to as it plays heavily with the story.

Flashback

It was March 29^th, the second game of Opening Day Series in Tokyo, Japan between the Seattle Mariners and my Oakland Athletics. The first game of the series didn’t exactly go as I wanted I it to, but things were certainly starting to look optimistic. In the bottom of the seventh inning the Athletics were down 0-1, but the bats were finally coming to life as Yoenis Cespedes clubbed a two-run shot to give the Athletics a 2-1 lead which was then followed by a solo home run by Josh Reddick immediately after. With a solid lead I was feeling a bit more at ease about things, well… until Jonny Gomes came up for his fourth at-bat in the bottom of the eighth inning. Jonny had struck out twice and flew out in his third at-bat, so I wasn’t really expecting much from him. In fact, I even turned around and said, “Here comes another strikeout to Tyler Hissey, the man who runs all the social media content for the Fan Cave. We talked for a quick moment about this as he was a bigger fan of the deal the Athletics had made to bring him in than I was. Of course, I was basing a lot of my knowledge about him off of his time with the Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals. Just as I said, “Yah, just not sure he was a good pick-up,” Jonny crushed the deepest home run of the series into left-centerfield. As stoked as I was to take the trip down the Home Run Slide for the third time in the early hours of the morning, I couldn’t help by look back at Tyler with a facial expression saying, “Yup! I screwed up on that one.” I’ll never forgive myself for that moment of ignorance. I’ve never been the kind of guy to look at a person’s negative qualities on the ball field as opposed to focusing on the things I know they’re more than capable of. Thus, the theme of the 2012 season; rather, the theme of my baseball fandom was established right then and there.

Jonny was born and raised in Petaluma, California, about an hour outside of San Francisco. His parents divorced when he was a toddler. His father was around, but not engaged. His mother raised him and his older brother Joey, who I wrote about on January 16th, on a home health-care worker’s salary. Times were so tough that he and Joey used to scavenge camp sites to retrieve beer and soda cans to recycle them for any cash they could. When it came to baseball, their mother was the biggest supporter, giving them the choice of basic needs like electricity or new baseball cleats. In almost every case the boys chose baseball. After all, candles work just as well, and when you have something to help keep you motivated in succeeding at life, that will always trump. Most of the Gomes’ lives were spent moving from house to house, sometimes staying with friends or their mother’s patients when they were evicted for not being able to pay rent, something Jonny never forgot.

He attended Casa Grande High School in Petaluma and quickly became one of the standouts on the team, right behind his best friend 16-year-old Adam Westcott. On May 23^rd, 1997 Westcott and Jonny, as sophomores, were playing for the Sonoma County League Championship. With the score tied in the top of fifth inning with the bases loaded (Jonny on third) and two outs, Westcott came to the plate. As Jonny described in an interview for ESPN’s E:60, “Adam’s up. Best player, best hitter, the game is on the line, what’s going to happen? It was like a movie, all you have to do is press play.” With the swing of the bat Westcott lobbed a single into shallow left-centerfield which allowed Gomes and the runner on second to score. The championship was theirs.

The next night the two boys went out with a few female friends joyriding. Both of them wanted the back passenger seat and ultimately decided to leave it on a coin flip to see who would be riding on the window, and who would be stuck in the middle. Westcott won the toss. That night on a usually deserted stretch of road know as “the roller coaster,” the teens almost hit head on with a car coming in the opposite direction, in an attempt not to hit one another the driver swerved and lost control of the car on a gravel bed on the side of the road. Due to their speed the car juked ferociously into a telephone pole. Most of the passengers walked away with a few scrapes and bruises, Westcott took the full force of the impact. He died two days later. To honor his friend Jonny got his first tattoo, Westcott’s initials (APW) wrapped in barbed wire.

After graduating from high school in 1999, Jonny attended Santa Rosa Junior College where he continued to play ball. His hard work and dedication to his craft paid off as he was selected in the 18^th round of the 2001 amateur draft by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. From 2001-2004 Jonny moved through the minor league ranks, even making a stop in my old home town of Bakersfield, California for a full season with Joey in 2002. Jonny played in 135 games that season in heat that is borderline the closest one can ever come to playing in the first ring of Hell. He crushed 30 home runs for the Bakersfield Blaze that season and hit .276. On Christmas Eve of that year Gomes experienced persistent chest pains, which he was originally going to try and sleep off. Instead, he checked himself into the hospital. A cardiologist charged a deliberator just in case and explained to Jonny that he was suffering a heart attack, an anteroseptal myocardial infarction (widow-maker) to be more specific. As a result of the heart attack, the Rays' team doctor had to keep nitroglycerin pills on-hand in case Gomes suffered a second heart attack.

In 2003 and 2004 Gomes got called up for a total of 13 games, but spent the majority of his time in AAA with the Durham Bulls routinely hitting dingers. In 2005 Gomes was finally called up for his longest stretch and played in 101 games that season, the highlight of which took place on July 30, 2005. This cap was only used for that one season as an alternate style, mostly Sundays. The July 30th game happened to fall on a Saturday. Close enough.

7/30/2005: The Devil Rays were hosting the Kansas City Royals that day with future American League Cy Young-winner Zack Greinke on the mound. Gomes was already having an exception July, the kind that any rookie would love to build a career on. In Gomes’s first at-bat in the bottom of the second inning, he went down on three straight pitches, Greinke’s first strikeout of the game. This would be the last time Gomes didn’t make contact with the ball. When Gomes’s came up in the bottom of the third inning he worked a 2-2 count on Greinke. When Greinke threw the hanging slider, Gomes turned on it, knocking it into the far corner of the left-centerfield stands at Tropicana Field. In his next at-bat, same results. For his fourth, and final at-bat of the game the Royals put in reliever Mike MacDougal and; sure enough, it was gone. Gomes had become the first player in franchise history to log three home runs in one game. The rest of the season went pretty well for Gomes. He finished with a .282 average, 21 home runs and 54 RBI which was good enough for a third place finish for the AL Rookie of the Year Award.

Jonny’s career became a bit odd after that as he and Devil Rays/Rays battled over what his role would be with the club. Gomes was immediate fan favorite, he hustled every game and always came to the defense of his teammates; however, his playing time diminished as players like Carl Crawford and Ben Zobrist were called up. He was sent up and down from AAA numerous times, but could never string enough hits together to keep face and stay up in The Show. At the end of the 2008 season Gomes and the Rays parted ways. He was immediately picked up by the Reds on a minor league contract, was cut after spring training, but stuck in AAA with the Louisville Bats where he was called up in May. Jonny spent three years with the Reds. During his time he had another three-home run game on August 13, 2009, the first two of which came off of former Nationals’ pitcher, my friend Colin Balester. Gomes also played 148 games in 2010, the most in a  season of his career, but he was also one of the lowest paid players at $800,000. I know that seems like a lot in terms of baseball dollars, but reflect that upon his skill level and the road he took to get there. In the middle of the 2011 season the Reds traded Gomes to the Nationals where he hit .204 with eight home runs and 12 RBI in 43 games. At the end of the season he was granted free agency where a hopefully Billy Beane was waiting with a $1 million contract.

Back to reality

Sorry, had a lot that I needed to cram in about the man before I could continue, it’ll all make sense in the end. In the month after I was eliminated from the Fan Cave I had two choices:

1. Wallow in my misery and not watch baseball.

2. Get my ass on the road and watch as much baseball as I possibly could.

Needles to say, option two was way more satisfying. The first leg of my tour took me to Seattle to meet up with my friend, and Mariners fan Tommy Bentley (@RealTomBentley). 

He allowed me to crash with him for a few days so I took care of all the tickets and beer (fair trade). On the first game of the series we each grabbed a beer and crushed them during batting practice, then we headed over to the Athletics’ side dugout for batting practice so we could grab a few pictures. A few of the guys were stretching, a few were in the cage, but the one thing I wasn’t expecting, nor was I paying attention to, was Jonny walking over to me. “Hey!” he said. “What the hell are you doing here?” Not ay any point in time before this moment had I ever met Jonny, nor did I have any clue that he knew who I was, but for the next few minutes we talked about why I wasn’t in the Fan Cave anymore, how my time was and what I was up to now. He didn’t have to do it, I certainly wasn’t expecting it, but I was truly appreciative of the fact that he took the time to get to know me as I was the Athletics representative in the Fan Cave.

The next day Tommy and I kept to the beer chug and batting practice routine, and sure enough Jonny came back over to shoot the breeze until it was his time in the cage. The thing that I never took into consideration that he finally mentioned was that he became genuinely interested in me because of the articles that Yahoo!, Deadspin and NBC Sports had written, as well as the MLB Tickets commercial I was featured in. If you haven’t noticed, Jonny has a lot of ink, and much like myself, people with ink generally like to talk to other people with ink. At the time I hadn’t planned on sticking around for the last game of the series, but I did mention that he would probably see me in Oakland. We shook hands and he went back to practice, but only after making a pit stop behind the cage  to play catch with one of his friend’s kids.

When we met up in Oakland it came on the afternoon when the Athletics had invited me to throw out first pitch, July 18, 2012. I wrote about this portion back on April 1^st, so I’ll try to keep in succinct. I was actually the second person who was going to be throwing out the first pitch. Roberta Gonzalez, a local Emmy Award-winning news broadcaster, was the first to go. She was way more nervous than I was, mostly because she would be throwing to Josh Reddick, her favorite player. She asked me if I wouldn’t mind warming up with her, I obliged needing the practice myself. What I wasn’t expecting was having to do three interviews with a few people on the field before my throw; thus, I wasn’t able to get loose. Jonny then spotted me, came over and chatted it up with me while the first lady took the mound. We both watched in awe as she threw a laser right down Broadway into Reddick’s glove. Jonny then turned to me, nudged my arm and said, “Well… don’t fuck it up.” Truly inspiring.

We saw each other again in Toronto when the Athletics took on the Blue Jays, you may remember this series as the time that Reddick did his Spider-man impersonation and the A’s dealt the Jays their worst home defeat in the franchise’s history, 16-0. I was only able to make it to the second game (the 16-0 game) and the final game of the series which the Athletics ended up losing despite home runs from Reddick and Brandon Inge. Prior to the game Jonny had spotted me as my seats were right behind the dugout, so we chatted it up again. It was at this point I had asked him about his version of “The Shark” he had been doing which I wrote about in my post from June 24^th. For him it was called the Mahi-Mahi, and it was something that he and Kurt Suzuki were doing. Even with that, I still needed a photo.

I touched on quite a bit of this in my post on Travis Blackley and the Australia World Baseball Classic cap, but I left a bit out. Prior to the first game in Cleveland against the Indians almost all of the pitchers had spotted me and came over to say hello and thank you for being so supportive of the team. There was a rain that had pounded down throughout the day which was looking like it might postpone the game so batting practice was canceled. But, as luck would have it, everything cleared up and the game was on. My tickets were a few rows behind the Athletics dugout and I really had nothing to do before the game so I kicked it in my seat. Shortly thereafter Jonny and the gang emerged from the dugout for warm-ups and stretching. At one point Jonny and I locked eyes and I gave him one of my “wink and finger point” hellos, he then became very animated and summoned me over to the rail. “Dude! I’m so glad you’re here, “ he said. “There’s someone here you have to meet.” He then walked with me headed toward home plate and called out to a dude named JJ. Like Jonny is Seattle, I wasn’t expecting JJ to know who I was. Jonny gave us a quick introduction before he headed back to the field, and I immediately knew this was somebody I needed to get to know.

JJ, a die-hard Reds fan, is a tattoo artist in Cincinnati at Doll Star Tattoo. Jonny and JJ had become acquainted during his time with the Reds and built a string relationship from it. In fact, most of Jonny’s ink that has been featured was done by JJ, including Jonny’s American History tribute piece on his leg. JJ was even featured in the E:60 piece. JJ knew who I was because

1. He’s a tattoo artist.

2. He’s a baseball fan.

In my travels I soon found out that reason number one was way more prevalent as tattoo artists love to talk and show off their creations. Anyway, JJ and I kicked it together and watched the game. Jonny unfortunately didn’t get any playing time that night, or throughout the series. The conversation started out about the Fan Cave, but it then led into all of the work that he had done on Jonny as well as a anti-Chicago Cubs piece he was doing for a Milwaukee Brewers fans which featured Bernie Brewer with an assault rifle blowing the Cub away. And people think my tattoos are weird. 

We grabbed some beers, some hot dogs and I also grabbed a cup of this buffalo chicken macaroni n’ cheese which was legendary. The Athletics won the game 3-0, which made for their third straight win. There wasn’t a very big crowd at The Jake that night, but there was a father and son who were sitting right behind us that we talked to occasionally throughout the game. The kid was about nine or 10 and kept hollering for a ball in between innings. I was a bit surprised that he never got one, seeing as there weren’t that many kids around, but I assured him that he would get one by the end of the game. When that time came he was a bit bummed out, so I reached into my backpack and pulled one out for him. For some reason Ryan Cook developed a tendency to throw baseballs at me anytime we met up, I’ll go into more detail in a future post about that, so I had one on me to give to anybody who wanted one. JJ and I thought this kid had been super cool so I was more than happy to give it to him.

JJ and I swapped numbers and said he would hit me when the two of them headed out. What they and I weren’t expecting was that in the hour between when the game ended and when I ran into them I was going to be four beers and a shot it. Long story short, I ran into a few of the TV crew for the Athletics who I had met randomly up in Toronto as well. So, we caught up. When I met up with JJ and Jonny they were only about two beers in, which was totally fine with me as I needed to stop or I would be sleeping in my car as I had to drive back to Pittsburgh that night only to have to drive to Buffalo, New York the next morning for a visit to New Era Headquarters only to then drive back to Cleveland for the next game and finally drive back to Pittsburgh again. Yah… so I enjoyed another beer on the next round, of course! Jonny and JJ had been talking about a design for another tattoo that Jonny was going to get at which I asked if I could sit in on it. I think it was the alcohol that gave me the courage to ask. Both of them were totally cool with it and said that they would be doing it the next day. In the meantime, since the bar was pretty dead we just chilled and engaged in conversation with the waitress which somehow broke out into a discussion about a party that she was going to head to where a “Jungle Juice-type” concoction was going to be served, except she didn’t call it Jungle Juice, but all three of us called it that. For the life of me, I can remember every detail of that conversation, venue, etc, but I can’t remember what she called it. No matter. It was late and they needed to rest so we parted ways until the next day. At this point I was sobering up significantly and felt that I needed to get something greasy in my belly. What I wasn’t expecting was to run into the TV crew again which of course ended with more beer and eventually some pizza. Needless to say, it was a miserable drive to Pittsburgh and Buffalo when I woke up in my car the next morning.

Jonny had left tickets for me at Will Call for the next game, and I was still in a bit of a cloudy mood after somehow making it to New Era in Buffalo 10 minutes before my meeting. Not wanting to let those tickets go to waste, as well not wanting to leave Cleveland without saying good-bye to everyone, I forged ahead and drove the two and-a-half hours to the game and kicked it with JJ. The A’s won 7-0 despite being struck out 16 times by Indians pitchers. This only aided my theory on strikeouts: Strikeouts don’t matter as long as they’re not all consecutive. 27 outs will happen, as long as you’re able to put runs on the board and get the win it shouldn’t matter how they occur.

I had to go run and meet up with a friend before the game ended so I regrouped with JJ and Jonny after the game. The hotel was only a few blocks away so Jonny elected to walk back with the two of us with a sack of Bud Lights rather than take the team bus. When we arrived JJ had the valet bring his truck up so we could get his tattoo gun and other supplies out of the back. Right at about the time the valet returned, the A’s team bus arrived. For some reason the feeling of “I want to be anywhere but here” washed over me. It’s not that I was nervous about being there or anything, I just felt out of place, like I was intruding. I had touched on this in my Blackely piece in that I’ve always done my best to not violate the line between the fans and the players. Tonight, I was clearly pole vaulting over it. JJ had his hands full with his equipment so I brought up the chair. Based on the time it took us to get everything I thought all of the players would have been up the elevator by the time we strolled inside. Nope! We caught the next elevator with winning pitcher Tommy Milone, Derek Norris, Coco Crisp and Evan Scribner. Norris elected to stand at the back of the elevator with his face against the wall; it was hard not to laugh. What I also didn’t know about this hotel was that the elevator only takes you to the sixth floor. From there you have to take another elevator to get to the floor that your room is on. Sooooooo… when we got to the sixth floor the entire team was milling about, waiting for their next elevators. That feeling of not wanting to be there grew stronger. I did my best to keep my eyes on the prize and not acknowledge anyone’s presence when JJ and I both heard Josh Donaldson yell, “Hey! Aren’t you that guy from the Fan Cave!?” I slowly turned my head, smiled and said, “Yah!” To which he responded, “Sick!!!” That was the extent of any conversation I had with anyone in that room. It took one more elevator with Chris Carter, Milone and Scribner and a walk to JJ’s room before I could let out my laughter from Donaldson’s reaction. “Sick!” has thus been incorporated into every conversation JJ and I have had since that night.

A few minutes after we got in the room Jonny rolled in with the bag of Bud Lights and passed them around before turning on he TV to MLB Network. We all chatted for a bit while JJ set up his machines, I did what I could to make myself useful. The commercial I was in for MLB Tickets came on at which Jonny, with a swig of beer in his mouth, pointed at it, swallowed and said, “This is how all of us first found out who your were.” Pro ball players watch MLB Network as often, if not more often than the fans do, and the first time most of them saw the ad was in the clubhouse of the Coliseum when someone noticed that hat I was wearing, the tattoos and yelled out, “I saw that dude in Deadspin!” This then evolved into “Fan Cave guy” after everyone finally saw me in person on July 18^th (redundant, I know). Regardless, it was still a weird feeling. Jonny then put all of the beers in the fridge and called room service to bring us up a few more. For some reason I asked him, “What about all the beers in the fridge?” To which he responded, “What happens when we run out of those?” You really can’t argue with that logic. It was in this time that I got to know him a little bit better. I asked him about his time in Bakersfield, to which he told me the story about the new guys and the bridge that I mention in my Hank Aaron piece from April 13th. He also told me about how Dusty Baker looks out for every one of his players and that Jayson Werth is one of the smartest, most dedicated players in the game; so much to the point where Werth has used his own money to help make that a winning ball club. He then had to take time out to give his wife and kids a call back home. Everything I ever felt that I needed to know about the guy had occurred within a 24-hour time frame: He’s loyal to his team, his family, his friends and especially his country after he showed off his “Tribute to the USA” tattoo that JJ had done for him. Tonight they were working on a piece for the inside of his right arm above the elbow of a heart with the date of his wedding inside. 

Seriously. How could you not love this guy?

 About an hour in I realized what time it was and also remembered that I had to drive back to Pittsburgh as to drop off my rental car and catch my train to Detroit the next morning. I said my good-byes, thanked both JJ and Jonny for their time and walked back to my car. I grabbed some food, took a light snooze and hit the road. I never saw the finished piece, as something as personal as that really isn’t my place to be nosey. When I rolled to Cincinnati in the middle of September JJ was unfortunately too busy to make it, but he was still able to pull some strings and get me a ticket for the game. One of these days I’ll get back and pay him back for that.

As for Jonny, I’ve only seen him once since that night; October 3, 2012, right after the A’s beat the Texas Rangers on the last day of the season to win the AL West Division crown. One of the guys from the TV crew, the ones I met up with in Toronto and Cleveland, had hooked me up with a media pass for that game. I’ll save most of the details for a later post, but I hung around until Jonny came out so I could tell him congratulations in person. We hugged it out, bro-style, and wished each other well. He had his family with him and plenty of celebrating to do, so I didn’t want to slow him down on that front.

I was both sad and happy for him when the offseason came around. The A’s had offered him a nice one-year deal, but the Boston red Sox upped the ante and gave him a two-year $10 million deal. For a guy who made roughly $1 million per year on one-year contracts, not to mention having gone through all the experiences that life had thrown at him, I didn’t once question why he signed that deal. The man has literally given his heart, and almost died in the process because of it, to play this game. He has always been at the forefront of local charities in and around the Bay Area, and wherever he has played professionally. He was the biggest supporter and mascot for the Petaluma baseball team who almost won the Little League World Series. While it’s a bummer that we couldn’t have his presence in the A’s clubhouse anymore, we all couldn’t be happier for him that he has moved on to greener pastures and still gives his all for the team, the fans and the city he plays in.

July 29- Houston Astros

The 1994 Major League Baseball season was an odd year for more than just the players’ strike that took effect on August 12^th. Several teams like the Montreal Expos had dug themselves out of the cellar and were on their way to potentially winning their first World Series title in the franchise’s history. Tony Gwynn was batting .394, becoming the first person since Ted Williams in 1941 to potentially hit for .400 or better in a season. Matt Williams was rapidly approaching the 62 home run mark for the San Francisco Giants as he already had a league-leading 43 on the season at the time. But most important, 11 teams introduced, changed or added new pieces to their uniforms/caps which were already boosting merchandise sales. Those teams were: the Giants (jersey), Oakland Athletics (hats/jerseys), Chicago Cubs (hat), Texas Rangers (hats/uniforms), Detroit Tigers (hat), Seattle Mariners (hats/uniforms), Milwaukee Brewers (hats/uniforms), Philadelphia Phillies (hat), Cleveland Indians (jersey), Toronto Blue Jays (jersey) and the Houston Astros (above- hats/uniforms). So, for the season to come to just an abrupt end was especially peculiar as there really wasn’t any kind of a warning sign, besides players wanting more money, to see it coming. And without a doubt one of the biggest companies potentially affecting by the strike was New Era.

The strike left a sour taste in the mouths of a lot of the fans and sales for anything took a bit of a dive. Hat culture was seemingly in its prime, but clearly not as much as it is in today’s times. Back then if you wore a cap it was no doubt a baseball cap, and the important thing to remember about baseball caps is that if you were wearing a fitted one, it was a New Era cap. New Era had won the MLB manufacturing contract prior to the 1993 season, making them the only company to design, produce and sell every Major League cap. So, when 1994 came around and eight new teams introduced new caps, things got a little bit crazy when the business of baseball came to a standstill. That’s not to say that people didn’t still buy caps, but the sheer volume wasn’t as high as it could have been. It’s funny to look back on all of it now because, as a cap collector, I know how hard it is to find a lot of the caps that were introduced that season. Of the eight teams listed above I have been able to track down and buy seven of them (including this one obviously), the only one that still remains a challenge is the alternate Phillies cap that I mentioned in a previous post from March 28^th.

Anyway, I’ve strayed slightly off topic. The Astros, besides the Brewers, had the most dramatic change of all. Rather than change maybe just the hat or something about the logo like a lot of teams do, they overhauled everything. They went from this…

To this.

And, unlike most teams, it proved to be a little bit of a game changer when it came to the success of the team.

At the end of the 1993 season then-Astros owner John McMullen sold the team to Drayton McLane, Jr. after McMullen’s attempts to move the team to Washington, D.C. were shot down by the other National League owners. McMullen was no impressed with low attendances even after the Astrodome had been completely renovated for the benefit of the Houston Oilers whom they shared the facility with. In McLane’s case, the timing couldn’t have been any better as Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell were on the verge of having breakout careers. Coinciding with the change in ownership, the team switched uniforms and team colors after the 1993 season in order to go for a new, more serious image. The team's trademark rainbow uniforms were retired, and the team's colors changed to midnight blue and metallic gold. The "Astros" font on the team logo was changed to a more aggressive one, and the team's traditional star logo was changed to a stylized, "flying" star with an open left end. It marked the first time since the team's inception that orange was not part of the team's colors. Despite general agreement that the rainbow uniforms, which most identified with the team, had become tired (and looked too much like a minor league team according to the new owners), the new uniforms and caps were never especially popular with many Astros fans. This cap in particular was the least popular of the three that were brought out, but this one was worn for the most games as it served as the game cap from 1994-1999.

The Astros faired pretty well under this cap including three straight National League Central Division titles under Larry Dierker after the team fired then-manager Terry Collins following the 1996 season when the team went 82-80, his only winning season. Dierker’s second season (1998) was met with the team’s best regular season record of 102-60, the only time the team has ever hit triple digits in wins; however, Dierker and the Astros never made it beyond the first round of the playoffs during his tenure.

On of the problems that has come up with writing these posts is not having enough material or even cramming too much material into one post. I’ve been doing my best to find a balance and if there is clearly one post that I have written that could have been a lot more it has to be my post on the Astros from January 19^th. With one cap I wrote about three of the most notable players in the team’s history and I honestly feel like I didn’t do it justice. I could have gone with different players, possibly even written about Biggio and Bagwell with this cap, but that was my mistake. I didn’t really know that my blog would evolve into something so big so quickly, so I apologize to you, the readers and especially the Astros fans who don’t get a lot of credit anyway. So, without further ado, I think my marking selection for this cap is more than worthy.

#12/20/’98- It’s funny how certainly numbers follow a player throughout their career and no one knows more about this than Ricky Gutierrez. A native of Miami, Florida, Gutierrez was the 28^th overall pick by the Baltimore Orioles back in 1988 out of American Senior High School in Hialeah. For five years he worked his way through the Orioles’ minor league system and was even traded to the San Diego Padres as a Player to be Named Later in 1992. On April 13, 1993 Gutierrez made his Major League debut batting .251 with 110 hits, 76 runs scored, five triples, five home runs and 26 RBI which were good enough for an 11^th place finish for the NL Rookie of the Year. Even though baseball had been shut down Gutierrez still found himself getting traded to the Astros in a blockbuster 11-player deal which also sent Derek Bell and Craig Shipley to Houston while the Padres received Steve Finley and future NL MVP Ken Caminiti as the centerpieces. For five years Gutierrez would play in Houston, the longest stint of his career, while wearing the #12. His stats weren’t really that impressive: .266 average, seven home runs, 13 triples and 132 RBI, but it’s the two moments in 1998 (’98) that involve the number 20 that are most identified with his career.

May 6, 1998- Gutierrez was batting in the seven-hole when the Astros were playing the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. Rookie sensation Kerry Wood took the mound for the Cubs, making his fifth start of his Major League career. Wood had gotten the first five outs by the way of the strikeout and got the last out of the second inning on a flyball to centerfield by Dave Clark. When Gutierrez came up to bat to lead off the third inning Wood worked the count in his favor getting Gutierrez to a 1-2 count after four pitches. On the fifth pitch, a fastball down the pike, Gutierrez smacked a hotshot grounder in between Kevin Orie (third base) and Jeff Blauser (shortstop) for the first hit of the game for the Astros. That early into the game very few had any comprehension of what was about to happen, not even my friend and Oakland Athletics 2013 MLB Fan Cave Top-30 representative, who happened to be at the game. Wood would go on to strikeout 15 more Astros while only allowing one more base-runner for throughout the rest of the game, a hit by pitch to Biggio. 20 times the Astros had fallen victim to the K, tying the regulation game record set by Roger Clemens twice in 1986 and 1996 while with the Boston Red Sox. Gutierrez was the only person able to slap wood on any of Wood’s pitches and could have easily have been victim number six.

June 28, 1998- The Astros were on the road in Cleveland at Jacobs Field, squaring off against the Indians in the second year of Interleague. Gutierrez squared off against pitcher Bartolo Colon to open the top of the eighth inning. Colon's first two pitches were strikes, but over the next 17, Gutierrez took three balls and hit 14 fouls. With the 20th pitch of the at bat, Gutierrez struck out. This single match up accounted for 18% of the pitches that Colon threw in the game and it went down as the modern-day MLB record for seeing the most pitches (20) in a single at-bat.

The most interesting thing about Gutierrez’s career is that it improved significantly after the 1998 season as he joined both teams which helped make him a trivia answer for years to come. He signed with Cubs after the 1999 season and played in 125 and 147 games respectively in his two years there, batting .284 with 21 home runs and 122 RBI. He played two years with the Indians in 2002 and 2003, but got hurt throughout his second year despite hitting .275 in his first year. In 2004 the Indians sent Gutierrez to the New York Mets as part of a conditional deal, was later released to be picked up be the Cubs who then dealt him to the Boston Red Sox. This would turn out to be Gutierrez’s final season in the Majors, but at least it came with a World Series ring at the end.