The Summer Score – Updated for June 13, 2019

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It is time to update The Summer Score. For an explanation of The Summer Score, click HERE.

No change today.

The Astros, Twins, Rays, Yankees and Rangers are from the American League today.

The Dodgers, Braves, Phillies, Brewers and Cubs are from the National League.

SUMMER SCORE RANKINGS FOR JUNE 13, 2019

AMERICAN LEAGUE

HOUSTON ASTROS – 17 (May 28 – June 13)
MINNESOTA TWINS – 17 (May 28 – June 13)
NEW YORK YANKEES – 17 (May 28 – June 13)
TAMPA BAY RAYS – 17 (May 28 – June 13)
TEXAS RANGERS – 12 (June 1 – June 13)
BOSTON RED SOX – 9 (May 28 – June 1, June 5 – June 8)
OAKLAND ATHLETICS  – 5 (May 28 – June 1)

NATIONAL LEAGUE

ATLANTA BRAVES – 17 (May 28 – June 13)
CHICAGO CUBS – 17 (May 28 – June 13)
LOS ANGELES DODGERS – 17 (May 28 – June 13)
MILWAUKEE BREWERS – 17 (May 28 – June 13)
PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES – 17 (May 28 – June 13)
SAN DIEGO PADRES – 1 (June 1)

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Larry Cox 1978 Topps – Sully Baseball Card of the Day for January 22, 2017

Larry Cox looked like he was going to become a baseball lifer. Maybe Cox was destined to be a major league manager. But either way, he was compiling one of those coaching resumes that he was going to be ubiquitous in the baseball landscape.

His baseball life ended when his own life stopped.

The Ohio native signed with the Phillies as an 18 year old high school grad in 1966. He would log 8 years in the minor leagues before finally playing one single game for the major league Phillies in 1973.

Along the way, the young catcher played in Huron, Spartanburg, Tidewater, Raleigh-Durham, Reading, Eugene and Hawaii before getting the call. He was living the Johnny Cash song “I’ve Been Everywhere.”

A few cameos with the Phillies over 1974 and 1975 interrupted stints in Toledo and ultimately played for the Twins team in Tacoma.

Cox was part of the original 1977 Seattle Mariners where he was Bob Stinson’s backup. That winter he was traded to the Cubs for minor leaguer Steve Hamrick, resulting in this airbrushed hat for his 1978 Topps card.

They could have kept the hat intact because Cox was traded BACK to Seattle the next year.

In 1979 and 1980, Cox played 100 games each year but could not make much of an impact with his bat. On June 14, 1980, he had one of his best overall games, reaching base 4 times and hitting a critical 3 run homer to give the Mariners a 9-8 win over the powerhouse Baltimore Orioles.

Soon he added a cool beard to go with his bad ass 1970’s mustache in time to be thrown in with Rick Honeycutt and Willie Horton in an 11 player deal to Texas involving Richie Zisk.

He played only 5 games in Texas and in 1982 played a pair of games for the Cubs before retiring and focusing on coaching.

Like his playing days, Cox bounced around the minor leagues as a manager. He remained a skipper in the Cubs organization until Don Zimmer, another baseball lifer, made him part of the major league coaching staff in 1988.

Cox was a big league coach when the Cubs won the 1989 National League East but fell short in the NLCS to the San Francisco Giants.

But all the knowledge of catching in the minors and big leagues and managing in the farm was coming to fruition. Larry Cox was in his 40’s and established as a major league coach. Who knows how many more coaching staffs he would have been a part of, like Zimmer who coached deep into his life. Maybe a big league club would have given Cox a shot as an interim manager.

Think of all the catchers, like Torre, Scioscia, Bochy and Melvin, who become managers in the show. Many people who did not make much of an impact in the majors became legendary managers like Lasorda, Weaver and Leyland.

Could that have been Cox’s fate? We will never know because he died of a heart attack shortly before spring training of 1990. A baseball life was cut short but worth at least a salute on this blog.

Mets… get out of that New York state of mind

After the Mets lackluster 2009 season, I wrote a blog post that said they should dismantle the team.

I urged them to trade away veterans and play young kids. Yeah they would stink for a few years. But I argued that they were going to stink anyway. Why not stink with young kids for a few years and put together a new young Met team that fans could embrace?

I made the point that the Yankees hit bottom in 1990 and by 1994 were pennant contenders and 1996 put together the greatest sports dynasty since the Big Red Machine.

I made the case that it was time to discover their Bernie Williams and Derek Jeter and Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada.

And I came across resistance.
And I heard a familiar refrain. “You can’t rebuild in this market.”
“You’ll lose the fan base.”
“Fans won’t accept a loser.”

So here we are two years later.

Two more losing seasons. And they are the WORST kind of losing seasons. The kind where the team is old hurt and boring. The kind where they are irrelevant and going into this season (which would have been the third year of a rebuilding process) they are banged up and can’t realistically aim any higher than fourth place.

And oh yeah, their ownership has entangled the team in an embarrassing financial scandal.

So I have having a conversation with Jason Keidel of WFAN in New York.

He lives breathes and defecates New York sports and knows it better than I’ll ever know it. We were talking about the Mets attendance woes and wondering about their prospects of drawing as many as 2 million fans without Reyes and with Wright hurt.

I said “The Mets HAVE to rebuild.”
And he pulled the same line. You can’t rebuild in New York. You’ll alienate the fans. The fans won’t come back. You can’t act like a rebuilding team with the Yankees in the same market… etc etc etc.

So more of the same?

For a New Yorker to say “I won’t accept a loser” is as much to the point as someone laid off from a job saying “I won’t accept being unemployed.”

It doesn’t matter what you accept. The reality shows something very clear. The Mets have had three straight 4th place finishes and three straight losing seasons since moving into CitiField.

Does ANYONE see them having a winning season this year? Finishing ahead of Philadelphia, Miami or Atlanta?

The fan base is already alienated. They are already disillusioned.
And the Yankees ARE better.

No amount of putting your hands over your ears and screaming LA LA LA LA LA will suddenly turn the Mets into contenders, make the fan base thrilled and over take the Yankees.

There’s a reason why Jose Reyes skipped town and it wasn’t all because of the dough. If YOU wanted to win, where would you rather go? A team loaded with young talent and excitement for the new season?

Or a bloated old team with no hope for contention?

The Marlins know a thing or two about rebuilding. Yeah they do firesales and put a team on the field that probably has a lower payroll than the Yankees AAA team from time to time. Then they emerge with an exciting team filled with stars.

And they have matched the Mets in World Series titles.

And when the time comes, they rebuild.

Ahhh… but there is the rub! That’s Miami. In New York you have to feed a beast of tons of money and unreasonable expectations on return. No wonder the Wilpons fell for the Madoff scheme.

I may have left Manhattan 7 years ago, but I witnessed first hand New York sports for a decade and a half and saw a disturbing trend with two and now three once proud teams.

I saw the euphoria of the Rangers Stanley Cup and the Knicks Finals run of 1994.

Madison Square Garden was a magical place filled with amazing memories and teams that even this Native New Englander couldn’t help but root for.

The Knicks were THE unifying team of the Tri State area and Rangers fans rejoiced in a way that I never saw again until the Red Sox won in 2004.

Then those teams got old.

So what did the franchises do? They didn’t rebuild. Why? Because New York DEMANDS a winner. So they made cosmetic changes bit by bit trying to keep the team at championship caliber.

And what happened when the Rangers picked up Fleury, Lindros, Bure, Kovalev, Jagr and Holik? They missed the playoffs EVERY SEASON between 1998 and 2005. Often times they were the most expensive team in the league, but by the spring, they were playing golf.

The Knicks in the post Ewing years have had one disgrace after another. The likes of Antonio McDyess, Stephon Marbury, Eddy Curry, Amar’e Stoudemire and Carmello Anthony have all shown up. The result? 2 playoff appearances since 2001, both first round sweeps.

The spring of 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2010 saw zero playoff games in Madison Square Garden.
It doesn’t matter if New York fans would accept a losing team. They had two.

Would the Rangers and Knicks have been better off playing young kids those years and building up a winner from within instead of constantly pushing their chips in the center of the table?

The results of that mindset has been a grand total of two post September 11 playoff series wins in Madison Square Garden. (The Rangers won first round series in 2007 and 2008 before being dispatched.)

The New York mentality is an addiction. MUST WIN NOW!
What good does that do if you aren’t winning now?

A little cosmetic change here and there can lead to an ugly result. Do you think Jocelyn Wildenstein said “I’d like to look like a freaky cat lady?”

No she made little change after little change.

The Knicks and the Rangers avoided rebuilding and tanked an entire decade!

The Rangers finally are climbing back to elite status but the Knicks are still barely a playoff team.

Guess what?

The Mets are doing THE SAME DAMN THING!
They are taking the Knicks and Rangers model from the 2000s and said “I’ll have what they are having.”

Why? Because they are New York!

The ironic thing is New Yorkers seem to embrace hometown players above imported stars. New Yorkers seem to love players who play hard (like Jeremy Lin, Victor Cruz and Nick Swisher) above famous guys cashing big checks.

If the Mets were loaded with young kids who might not be contenders but offering hope for the future, I think that team would capture more fans attention than the current ER unit wearing blue and orange in Queens.

It has taken the Rangers nearly 2 decades to put together another team that will make a run at a title. The Knicks are nowhere near it.

Don’t let New York pride get in the way of what you need to do, Mets.
New Yorkers are tough and resilient and have a good B.S. detector.

New Yorkers will only accept a champion?
Fine.
Build one.