Smallthoughts: Old School Tuesday …Bombo Rivera

At the age of 7 his youth baseball manager started calling him “Bombo”, which meant “fly ball,” and the nickname stuck. Bombo Rivera signed with the Montreal Expos in 1970. During that first season in the Expos’ farm system, while playing for Bradenton, Rivera and his teammates took a trip to see the major league club play. The game

Smallthoughts:Old School Tuesday…Gaylord Perry

He pitched from 1962 to 1983 for eight different teams. During a 22-year baseball career, Perry compiled 314 wins, 3,534 strikeouts, and a 3.11 earned run average. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991. He was best known for throwing a spitball, and while everyone swore he threw it all the

Smallthoughts: Old School Tuesday …Kevin Appier

Appier’s solid pitching during his first full season in the majors earned him several rookie acclades in 1990. His fastball, tight slider and nasty forkball contributed to impressive pitching statistics, distinguishing himself as one of the American League’s top right-handed starting pitchers throughout much of the 1990s Appier enjoyed the most success with the Royals

Smallthoughts: Old School Tuesday…Bret Saberhagen

What do Bret Saberhagen, Amos Otis and Kevin Appier have in common?  All three played for both teams in this year’s world series the Kansas City Royals and the New York Mets, and now all three on spotlighted here on Smallthoughts: Old School Tuesday… Bret Saberhagen was drafted out of high school by the Kansas

Smallthoughts: Old School Tuesday …Amos Otis

What a player…Amos Otis could hit, run , hit for power steal bases and  play defense and could have played more of his career in a Met uniform but …it was not to be. Otis was initially drafted by the Boston Red Sox in 1965 as a shortstop. However, he spent time in the outfield,

Smallthoughts: Rants and Raves

Rants : Detroit Tigers …for firing General manager Dave Dombrowski shortly after the trading dead line. The timing of it made no sense. Dave Dombrowski was with the Tigers for nearly 14 seasons. He guided Detroit to two American League pennants and four Central division titles. About the only thing Detroit didn’t do during his tenure

Smallthoughts: Rants and Raves

Rants: Colin Cowherd…On his show Thursday, Cowherd while talking about the Miami Marlins and ended up proclaiming that baseball can’t be “too complex” since it’s played by so many Dominicans. His actual quote is the following: It’s too complex? I’ve never bought into that ‘baseball is too complex.’ Really? A third of the sport is from

Smallthoughts: Rants and Raves

  Rants: Medi Abalimba… was arrested and will now begin a 4 year termin jail for posing as Chelsea Player Gael Kakuta. He ran up a small fortune while claiming to be Kakuta. He got out of paying a tab of champagne by claiming :I left my wallet in my limo”. Here is the rub

Smallthoughts: Rants and Raves

Rants: NFL… for penalizing Husain Abdullah for knelling down to pray after scoring a touchdown in the Chiefs 45-14 win over the New England Patriots. The NFl to it’s credit tried to correct the problem by issuing a statement through NFL spokesman Michael Signora who told USA Today’s Tom Pelissero that religious expression is not

Royals beat A’s in Wild Card Game

The last time the Royals made the post season was 29 years ago. They made up fpr the long drought not only by finally getting there, but beating the Oakland A’s in a wild game 9-8. It took 12 innings but the Royals won the game and advance to play the Los Angeles Angels. Congratulation