Joe McDonnell Becomes Louis Brewster
Even Inland Empress may not know that Louis Brewster is a Daily Bulletin sports editor who always begins his columns by "wondering whatever happened" to some local sports star from years ago.
Well, after Game 2 of the White Sox - Angels series, Joe McDonnell posted the following:
**Don Denkinger lives. He's just changed his name to Doug Eddings........
**You'll remember Denkinger as the umpire whose call in Game Six of the 1985 World Series gave Kansas City life in a game they would have lost had Denkinger called out Jorge Orta at first base. The Royals won the game...tied the series.....and came back to destroy the St. Louis Cardinals in Game Seven to win the title. Denkinger--if he's still alive, I don't know--probably breathed a tornado-sized sigh of relief......
After a bit of searching, I found a 1998 article on Denkinger:
Last Tuesday, while Americans went to the polls to elect 435 members of Congress and one-third of the Senate, an Associated Press story quietly came over the Sports Wire. It seems that American League Umpire Don Denkinger announced his retirement. The 62 year old veteran umpire is hanging up his spikes due to bad knees.
St. Louis baseball fans certainly know Don Denkinger. In October, 1985 and years to follow, Denkinger became Public Enemy #1. In the Gateway City, his name is right up there with local villains such as Bill Bidwill, Mike Keenan, and Paul Tagliabue....
Don Denkinger was a very good umpire who will be best remembered by one call he got wrong.
Denkinger's umpiring career spanned over forty years. He arrived in the Big Leagues on opening day,1969 in Kansas City. His final game was June 2 of this year, again in Kansas City. How ironic. It was in KC where Denkinger earned his fifteen minutes of fame....
Incidentally, Joe McDonnell went on to predict the following in his Thursday, October 13 post:
**Nonetheless..don't expect the Angels to fall apart because of one bad moment. This team just doesn't give in to bad circumstances. In fact...don't be surprised to see the Halos send the White Sox back to Chicago on Sunday night--alone........
Well, that was blown call on McDonnell's part. Why did the Angels lose? Here's what Joe Florkowski says:
I think if you’re an Angels fan you can’t help but feel cheated by this series.
Sure, the White Sox starting pitching was dominant. And the White Sox batters got key hits when they needed it. And the Angel offense - inconsistent all year - disappeared all series.
But the calls.
Oh, the calls....
Some of his commenters disagreed with him:
Dissect all the calls/non-calls that went against the Halos. The real culprit was abominable offense.
Posted by: weegipup at October 17, 2005 02:10 PM
Wow. What a sore loser. How about that high priced Vladimir Guerrero batting .050? The umpirers may have (but doubtful) effected the outcome of game 2, but you're going to complain about one call in a game the Angels lose 8-2? Don't worry, the Angels will spend more money this offseason and easily win the AL West next year. Hopefully by then you'll stop crying.
Posted by: Crabb at October 17, 2005 02:28 PM
The horrible calls did not have half the weight of the horrible offence. (You wonder, though, what Guerrero might or might not have done if a) his left shoulder was fully sound; it emerged during the series that he had been icing it far more than normal for awhile; and, b) the rest of his actual or alleged lineup protection had not left whatever they had in the Yankee series.)
And for all we know the best offence you could mulct from the Hall of Fame, incumbent or in waiting, might have come undone at the hands of the Four Marksmen of the Apocalypse. The way Buehrle, Garland, Carcia, and Contreras pitched, you could have sent them a lineup of Rickey Henderson (the Man of Steal would be your designated hitter), Ryne Sandberg, Willie Mays, Mike Schmidt, Lou Gehrig, Roberto Clemente, Yogi Berra, Honus Wagner, and Henry Aaron, and the Four Marksmen probably could have gotten them out the way they were pitching the last few days.
Posted by: Jeff at October 17, 2005 03:32 PM
And McDonnell's old buddy, Doug Krikorian, had this to say:
[I]n light of the methodical manner the Chicago White Sox dismantled the Los Angeles Angels in the American League Championship Series to win their first AL pennant since 1959, they just might be headed for their first world title since the early part of the 20th century....
But it wasn't Doug Eddings who beat the Angels.
It was the artful pitching of Messrs. Buehrle, Garland, Garcia and Contreras and the slugging of Paul Konerko and the clutch hitting of Joe Crede and Jermaine Dye and Carl Everett and Aaron Rowand and the wiliness of A.J. Pierzynski and the managing of Ozzie Guillen that overwhelmed a team that never regained its form after Eddings' weird edict....
But, if I were handing out individual honors, I'd give the top one to the White Sox manager, Ozzie Guillen, who made a mockery out of the Tony LaRussa-instituted, mix-and-match pitching scheme and allowed his starters to finish what they commenced, as it was done routinely in baseball until LaRussa and a host of subsequent managerial imitators began their widespread usage of relievers.
"The White Sox outplayed us and they deserve to move on," said Mike Scisocia, whose team actually was competitive Sunday evening until Scioscia replaced Escobar with Rodriguez, who faltered badly and yielded the White Sox their two insurance runs in the ninth after allowing that go-ahead single to Crede in the eight.
The Angels will now move on to the offseason, and you can be sure the team's owner, [Rita] Moreno [of Arte], will beseech his general manager, Bill Stoneman, to locate some people who know how to hit a baseball.
It was thought the team's supposed superstar, Vladimir Guerrero, had such knowledge, but he never displayed it against the White Sox pitchers, who exploited Guerrero's indiscipline and limited him to one harmless hit and nary a RBI in 20 plate appearances.
But he wasn't the only Angel malefactor with a bat. He had plenty of accomplices, including Garrett Anderson (3 for 17, .176), Chone Figgins (2 for 17, .118), Bengie Molina (2 for 17, .118) and, natch, Darin Erstad (4 for 17, .235)....
Comments