'Silent George' & Other Stuff

The New York Yankees are saying they want to play the Chicago Cubs in an exhibition game next April 6 at the new $1.6 billion [how about those numbers?] ballpark they're building.

That would be the first game ever played in the new Yankee Stadium [pictured above]. The regular-season opener there won't be until April 16 against Cleveland.

Frankly, I can see why the Yankees want to play the Cubs in the first game at the new park.

Neither team will be playing at the end of the season, so why not play at the start?

The Cubs never get to the World Series anymore, and wouldn't win one if they did advance that far.

The Yankees spend more money than the national debt every year and still didn't even get into the playoffs this season.

Besides, the Yankees would like Lou Piniella, the Cubs' manager, to show up at their new ballpark.

It might be the only time they ever see him there again. Sweet Lou isn't getting any younger, and his days as a baseball manager are definitely numbered.

After what happened to his team in 2008, Piniella's tenure in baseball is getting shorter all the time.

*

Incidentally, I don't think there's any way the Cubs can stand pat and not make some trades in the off-season.

Sure, they won the National League Central in a runaway over Milwaukee, Houston, St. Louis and every other ragtag team in that division.

But, just as in 2007, they collapsed in the first round of the playoffs.

They didn't fire a shot against the Dodgers this year, nor last year against Arizona.

Even if the Cubs manage to win the Central title again in 2009, there's no way I'd want them to go into the playoffs with the same team they had this year.

How many more times can we watch Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez, Alfonso Soriano and Kosuke Fukudome screw things up?

Lee has to go. I'd like to see Soriano out, too. Certainly the same with Fukudome, who was in the 2008 All-Star game, then was such a hapless hitter in the second half of the season that he was an embarrassment to himself and his team.

The Cubs need a left-handed hitting first baseman, but I'm not sure Micah Hoffpauir is the answer.

They need a left-handed hitting rightfielder, but not Fukudome [pictured at the right].

They need a left-handed hitting centerfielder, but not Jim Edmonds.

Now that general manager Jim Hendry has a new four-year contract, he's got time to find all of those parts.

*

I haven't spent much time lately wondering where George Hendrick was or is, but now I know that he's going to be in the World Series that starts tonight.

Hendrick [pictured at the left] is the first base coach for the Tampa Bay Rays.

Whether he talks to anybody these days is anybody's guess.

I covered the man they called "Silent George" in the late-1960s at what then was known as Sec Taylor Stadium, and should still be known as Sec Taylor Stadium, in Des Moines.

George was an outfielder for the Iowa Oaks, then an Oakland farm team.

Writing about that team wasn't my favorite thing to do in those days. It ranked right up there with covering the auto races at the State Fairgrounds on Saturday night.

And Gartner wasn't even there yet. At Sec Taylor Stadium, I mean.

I occasionally filled in for Bill Bryson at the ballpark because Bill, for some reason, thought he should have one night a week off.

After one game, I once asked Hendrick a question in the clubhouse, and he began shouting, "No! No! No!"

He wrapped a towel around himself and ran toward the shower.

That was the strangest response I'd ever gotten to a question since I asked an Iowa State basketball player whose name I've forgotten something after a game in Ames.

The guy stared at me and said nothing.

Not that night or any following night.

I don't think anyone had ever asked him anything previously.

As for Hendrick, I never again asked him anything.

I later heard he didn't talk to anyone in those days.

By the way, I didn't name him "Silent George." Somebody else did.

*

One reason I wanted to make sure I pointed out to my readers that Silent George will be in the World Series is so the copy editors in the sports department at the Des Moines Register are aware of his presence.

They're forever editing the fact into stories that some major leaguer is a "former Iowa Cub."

The trouble is, they only former Iowa Cubs they're aware of are guys who played since 2000.

There are a hell of a lot of baseball players who played in Des Moines before the turn of the century, and they're still hitting and pitching the ball pretty well.

*

By the way, among others who played in for the Iowa Oaks at about the same time as Silent George were Tony LaRussa, Joe Rudi and Vida Blue.

Pretty fair baseball names.