Atlanta Braves Team Picture 1980 Topps – Sully Baseball Card of the Day for November 27, 2017

In the Christmas spirit and with the holidays upon us, let me send out this Yuletide Message.

FUCK BOBBY COX.

Fuck him in his fat ugly face. He is a piece of shit as a human being. I have no respect for him.

When that worthless pile of slug fecal matter mercifully leaves this world and goes into his rightful place of being an All You Can Eat Buffet for Worms, life will be a little bit better.

No, I have no reverence for him.

No, I have no respect for him.

No, I don’t see him as an ambassador of the game. Hell, I just declared his death will make the world a better place.

The legacy of Bobby Cox, who was the manager of the Braves back in 1980 when this card was issued, was cemented in 1995.

In most people’s eyes, that was cemented by his long awaited for World Series title. The Braves finally won it.

For me, that was when he fucking beat his wife. She called 911 that he hit her and pulled her hair and called her a bitch after spilling wine on the carpet.

Later, everything was dropped. She was red in the face from crying. It turns out he didn’t hit her, according to Pamela. It was all a big misunderstanding. And off we went to worshipping this vile bucket of piss.

Anyone who has studied domestic violence knows that fear from the victim causes them to reverse their story. Fear that the abuser will do more harm makes them back down. They are in a situation where they are afraid many times literally for their life. And if their abuser is a celebrity with people worshipping them, they know it will be even harder to get anyone to talk them seriously.

Best retreat. Anyway, as many abuse victims rationalize, it is partially “my fault anyway.”

And Bobby Cox got away with it. People don’t abuse their partners only once. And it isn’t “a mistake.”

It is an intentional crime to harm, control, belittle and dominate someone they profess to love.

The culture of celebrity, both in sports and entertainment, allows abusers to get away with so much because we do not want our heroes to be villains. O. J.’s abuse of Nicole was in the public record long before she was murdered. People spoke out for over a decade about Bill Cosby. We’ve known about Johnny Depp for a while.

But we love the Juice! We love Dr. Huxtable! We love Captain Jack Sparrow! They can’t be bad!

And in sports, the blind eye pointed towards domestic abusers and enabled them for decades. And Cox’s isn’t something we found out after the fact. We learned about it before the 1995 World Series.

Since then his number has been retired, his plaque is in the Hall of Fame, he had a farewell tour and standing ovations. His domestic abuse is an obscure footnote brushed away with “it was a misunderstanding.”

Bullshit.

There are some crimes of which there is no forgiveness. These are the crimes that cause irreversible harm to others. No amount of apologizing, repenting, asking for forgiveness nor good deeds performed can erase the effects of murder, rape, child abuse nor domestic abuse. Those are permanent scars. They can never be totally healed.

I have been vocal about my distain for domestic abusers in sports and a retort I have received from time to time is “Are you perfect?”

No. No I am not. I have made many mistakes. Some have even hurt my family. And I have done my best to ask for forgiveness and if I receive it, great and if I do not, then that will be my burden.

But I have never caused physical harm to someone I love. I have never raped, murdered, molested or committed battery to my wife. And so I have THAT over that decomposing rat anus also known as Bobby Cox.

So let me point this out. WHEN Bobby Cox dies, I will not include him in the In Memoriam montage I make every year. I will not honor him.

I wonder how many people who booed Bonds, Palmeiro, Clemens, Sosa, McGwire, Giambi, A-Rod, Ortiz, Ramirez and anyone else who did steroids also gave Bobby Cox a standing ovation.

If the number is more than one, then that is an illustration of the messed up priorities of sports fans.

So in review: Fuck Bobby Cox. He is a worthless pile of shit. The world will be better off when he is dead. Have a wonderful Holiday Season.

California Angels Team Picture 1977 Topps – Sully Baseball Card of the Day for November 26, 2017

Dick Williams was the manager of the Angels when the 1976 season began.

Winning teams sprung up wherever he went before Seattle with one exception: The California Angels. Dick Williams became the manager of the Angels in 1975 a year after sitting out the 1974 season. He had resigned from the A’s after clashing with Charlie Finley. He left on top with the A’s as back to back World Series champs.

He couldn’t go manage another team for a year because of his contract, even though George Steinbrenner wanted him to take over the Yankees.

In 1975, he took over the Angels, a team that had never finished in second place between their creation in 1961 and the 1974 season. They only had 4 winning seasons despite the support of owner Gene Autry.

Dick Williams became manager in 1975 and they had a disappointing 89 loss season. He was the manager going into 1976. You will notice the manager listed on this 1977 card is of Norm Sherry and NOT Dick Williams. Spoiler Alert: Dick didn’t make it through the season.

The AL West was kind of up for grabs in 1976. The A’s were in flux and new teams like the Royals and the Rangers had images of the AL West dancing in their heads. So why not the Angels? Besides, they had a 1-2 punch at the top of their rotation of Frank Tanana and Nolan Ryan.

The season could not have started worse for the Angels. They were swept by the A’s in the opening series of the year. April featured a 4 game losing streak and a 6 game losing streak. They finished the first month 5-12.

Dick Williams kept his “My way or the high way” approach to managing which is terrific on a team loaded with All Stars and future Hall of Famers like he had with Boston and Oakland. In California, he had a bunch of OK players, washed up players and Bobby Bonds in a slump.

He held a practice in the hotel lobby during a road trip using a whiffle ball and bat. Mainly he did this to humiliate the team and show how they couldn’t break anything.

Eventually the players had enough and made their displeasure known to management.

96 games into the season, the Angels were 39-57, 20 games out of first place and in the cellar. Dick Williams was out. Norm Sherry was in.

The team responded with a 3 game winning streak. Under Sherry they were 37-29 and climbed out of last place to finish the season 76-86.

The honeymoon with Sherry was short lived. This card was issued in 1977. By the time the season was over, Sherry was out and Dave Garcia was in. Garcia started the 1978 season as manager but was replaced by Jim Fregosi.

Man, Mr. Autry never had Steinbrenner’s reputation of switching managers at an alarming clip but there seemed to be a Merry Go Round in Anaheim!

Fregosi was the Cinderella fit, leading the Angels to the Division Title in 1979 and was going to be the Angels manager for good… or at least until 1981 when Gene Mauch took over.

Lots of skippers in California but so few won there. Not even the great Dick Williams could pull it off. Maybe it had more to do with the players.

Boston Red Sox Team Picture 1980 Topps – Sully Baseball Card of the Day for November 25, 2017

Sometimes a picture can bring me back to a certain time in my life, a time of simplicity and innocence. And it can cause that oh so inaccurate notion that the past were “the good old days” when people were better and more respectful.

This picture, that shows the 1979 Red Sox, sparks amazing nostalgia and yet has a dark sinister side to it. This was the first team I remember following day in and day out. I knew all of these players.

But two of the faces on the picture were part of a shameful, unforgivable and destructive episode of Red Sox history. I am not talking about balls, strikes, home runs or strikeouts. I am talking about one of the worst crimes a human being can ever commit and the cover up within the organization.

I was 7 years old in 1979, straddling first and second grade that year in Weston, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. The team, coming off the Bucky Dent fiasco in 1978, went back to the blue hats and the traditional uniforms.

Yaz got his 3000th hit and 400th home run that year. Fred Lynn was the batting champ. Fisk, Evans, Hobson, Burleson, Remy and Eck were all still there. Bill Lee and Luis Tiant were gone and eventually George Scott would be dealt to Kansas City. Bob Watson made his Boston cameo and injuries led to playing time for Jack Brohamer, Gary Allenson, Ted Sizemore and Jim Dwyer.

The team finished with 91 wins, a solid year but far behind the AL East champion Orioles. It was a fun year in Boston without a prospect for October. Most years I spent following the Red Sox followed that pattern.

In this picture, they have the players, the coaches plus trainer Charlie Moss and the clubhouse attendants, Don Fitzpatrick and Vince Orlando. I knew nothing about them. They were the guys who ran the clubhouse and seeing that they both were in the organization forever, they must have been good guys.

In 2002, it was revealed that Fitzpatrick admitted to sexually abusing children. That is a euphemism for he raped kids.

The Boston Globe broke the story around the same time of the Spotlight stories on the Boston Catholic Church rape scandals. The parallels were hard to dismiss.

Over a decade and a half of Fitzgerald raping kids in Red Sox facilities, including their spring training home in Winter Haven, Florida, occurred.

As early as 1971, his acting in a sexual manner to under age boys was reported. A bat boy was molested by Fitzgerald. He informed Vince Orlando, the other clubhouse manager. So what did he do? He admonished the bat boy for causing trouble and fired him.

The rapes continued. People wonder why child rape is not reported when powerful predators and protected. How do you take on the Catholic Church when an entire region will side against you? How can you report against Penn State when they live for football there?

Who would believe a bat boy against the Red Sox organization in Boston? The Yawkey family, miserable pieces of shit that they were, and did nothing.

Here is the team picture, taken 8 years after the first reported piece of child rape, and Fitzgerald is still there.

Fitzgerald confessed to raping boys as late as 1985, 6 years AFTER this picture was taken. The Red Sox enabled this. He is just a pleasant looking Irish guy with a Red Sox cap on, standing along side the heroes of children all over Boston.

I had that picture hanging up in my room. I am sure many kids he raped did as well.

A picture of my childhood has a dark secret standing in plain sight. And the team of my youth did nothing to stop it.