Author: Frank Murtaugh

If you’re looking for a ballplayer who personifies the relationship between the Memphis Redbirds and St. Louis Cardinals, you might start with number 27 in the Cards jersey: Placido Polanco. The 26-year-old infielder was the very first shortstop in Redbirds history, starting the Redbirds’ inaugural game on April 9, 1998, in Omaha, Nebraska. In the four years since, he’s become an invaluable member of the parent club, twice batting over .300.

For a measure of Polanco’s worth to Tony LaRussa’s Cardinals, you might consider the impact the slap-hitting native of the Dominican Republic has had on Albert Pujols, another former Redbird who last year became only the fourth rookie in major-league history to bat .300 with 30 homers, 100 runs, and 100 RBIs. Despite LaRussa’s off-season plans to lock Pujols into his natural position of third base in 2002, the reigning National League Rookie of the Year will move to left field once again … to make room for Polanco.

Redbirds fans who recall the team’s first two seasons at Tim McCarver Stadium will remember Polanco as a scrappy, good-glove, average-bat utility player who wasn’t going to lose many games but wasn’t apt to win many on his own either. He hit .280 in 70 games with the ‘Birds in 1998 and spent some time with the big club after St. Louis dealt their former shortstop Royce Clayton to Texas. In 29 games with Memphis in ’99, Polanco hit .275 but drove in only 10 runs in 129 at-bats. With St. Louis that year, his average remained steady (.277), but he accumulated a mere 19 RBIs in 220 at-bats. Not the kind of numbers you expect from an everyday third-baseman.

It was during the 2000 campaign — as Cardinals third-sacker Fernando Tatis spent much of the season on the disabled list — that Polanco punched his major-league ticket for good. He established himself as the team’s most consistent contact hitter, striking out only 26 times in 323 at-bats on his way to a .316 average. By the time the playoffs arrived, Polanco was in LaRussa’s lineup at third while Tatis took a spot on the bench. Then, last season, an everyday player in the Show for the first time, Polanco hit .307 (43 strikeouts in 564 at-bats), led the National League with 20 three-hit games, and put together six hitting streaks of six games or more, including a team-high 20-game run in July and August. Now those are the kind of numbers that make you an everyday third-baseman, RBI machine or no.

“[Polanco] is the same every day,” says LaRussa. “He’s a very smart player. He’s never been intimidated by the big leagues. One of the things that really pays off in the big leagues is consistency. You will not see a difference in Polanco’s play, day in and day out. He’s really got a strong mind.”

And how has Polanco mastered the fine art of consistency? Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan, a guy who makes his living trying to get hitters out, describes the secrets to Polanco’s steady play as good discipline in the strike zone and a nice, short swing. “I try to play the game the way it’s supposed to be played,” says Polanco. “Every day, I focus on my hitting, my defense. I try and get better every year, work harder every year. When I come to spring training, I’m ready for anything.”

As Pujols, J.D. Drew, and Jim Edmonds stockpile RBIs this season, you might pay attention to whom they’re driving in. You’re sure to see a lot of number 27.

The Score

NOTABLE:

According to Sports Business News, ticket prices for the Tyson-Lewis fight will range from $400 to $2,000, plus tax. One source reports that the $400 seats are designated as “Super-Savers” for Grizzlies games, where they sell for $5.

Grizzlies point guard Jason Williams broke three assist records Saturday with his 19 assists against the Golden State Warriors: his personal career best, the franchise single-game assist record, and the franchise single-half assist record.

Grizzlies rookie forward Pau Gasol has scored in double figures in 62 of 72 games this season. He has scored over 20 points 28 times and has had more than 10 rebounds 34 times. Gasol also leads the team in double-doubles, with 30 for the season.

The Memphis RiverKings continued their skate toward the CHL league championship by beating the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs last Friday and Saturday night at the DeSoto Civic Center. The wins give Memphis a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series, with the next game at Bossier-Shreveport on Friday, April 5th.

The RiverKings have the top six CHL playoff point scorers: Michal Stastny with 14 points; Luch Nasato with 13 points; Kahlil Thomas with 11 points; Robb Palahnuk with 10 points; and Don Parsons and Jay Neal with nine points each. Hockey points are a combination of goals scored and assists handed out. The RiverKings also have the top four playoff goal scorers: Parsons and Palahnuk with seven goals each, and Stastny and Thomas with four goals each.

QUOTABLE:

“Everybody keeps asking what me and my partner could have done differently. No one asked, ‘What could the community have done differently; what could the political leaders have done differently?'” — Ray Woolridge, part-owner of the Charlotte Hornets. The franchise has applied to the NBA for a move to New Orleans.

“The will [to win] is always there. Tonight was one of those nights when we could execute. Our guys were determined to finish it and not give it away.” — Grizzlies coach Sidney Lowe on his team’s win over the Golden State Warriors.

“You still wish you had gone to Ole Miss.” — Crowd member to Golden State Warriors forward Erick Dampier. Dampier played for Mississippi State.

I’ve got a quote on my office wall from Rogers Hornsby, the St. Louis Cardinals’ Hall of Fame second baseman and the finest righthanded hitter ever to lace up a pair of spikes: “People ask me what I do in the winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do, I stare out the window and wait for spring.” The Rajah’s spirit is certainly giddy these days, as the dawn of a new baseball season is upon us. In his honor, let’s try and answer nine questions — we’ll call it a batting order — for the upcoming season.

(1) Can the Arizona Diamondbacks repeat? Only if Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling do…which isn’t likely. The D’Backs are an old team. Key contributors to last year’s champs include Luis Gonzalez (34), Mark Grace (37), Matt Williams (36), and Steve Finley (37). As brilliant as Johnson (38) and Schilling (35) were last year in finishing one-two in the Cy Young race, the law of averages says this team is due a letdown. Now, if they manage to stay healthy and get into the postseason, well, there’s no more deadly a tandem than Arizona’s pair of aces.

(2) Can one Jason Giambi equal 11 World Series rings? The Yankees are counting on it. Say what you will about the addition of Rondell White, Robin Ventura, and David Wells. They’re window dressing in George Steinbrenner’s world. The Boss will need the former Oakland MVP to pump out his usual offensive numbers and fill a sizable leadership void left by former Yanks Paul O’Neill, Scott Brosius, and Tino Martinez.

(3) Will anybody actually watch Expos baseball? After 33 seasons, Montreal will be playing what amounts to a 162-game swan song. The franchise that gave us Andre Dawson, Gary Carter, Tim Raines, Randy Johnson, Larry Walker, and Steve Rogers (remember him?) will find itself in Washington, D.C. or a victim of contraction come 2003. Been to a Memphis RiverKings game recently? That’s the kind of crowd you’ll see at Olympic Stadium this season.

(4) Is there a rookie out there to match last season’s phenoms? Short answer: no. Seattle’s Ichiro Suzuki last season became the first rookie in 26 years to earn MVP honors. St. Louis’ Albert Pujols merely made Mark McGwire expendable. The only name that might approximate this kind of impact in 2002 is San Diego’s rookie third baseman, Sean Burroughs. The son of former American League MVP Jeff Burroughs, Sean hit .322 last year for Portland in the Pacific Coast League.

(5) Is there life after Cal, Tony, and Big Mac? You want to find a hotel room near Cooperstown, New York, in the summer of 2007? Better call now. Baseball lost a lot of its spirit with the retirement of these three legends. But let’s be realistic…they were shadows of themselves last season. Barry Bonds has 600 homers in his sights. Randy Johnson is going for a fourth straight Cy Young. The Braves are aiming for an 11th consecutive postseason berth. Baseball will be just fine.

(6) Is there a scarier lineup than that of the New York Mets? Roberto Alomar, Edgardo Alfonzo, Jeromy Burnitz, Mo Vaughn, Mike Piazza…yikes. If these five stay healthy and the Mets get reasonable starting pitching, well, the Braves are playing for second.

(7) Is Moises Alou the answer for the Cubbies? George Bell (a former MVP) wasn’t. Andre Dawson (an MVP with Chicago) wasn’t. The only way the Cubs avoid another year as “The Sammy Sosa Show” is for Kerry Wood to burst out, injury free, and carry his fellow starters along for the ride. The North Siders better hope for another 20 wins from Jon Lieber.

(8) Will anyone hit 74 home runs? Let’s hope not. Barry Bonds was incredible last season, particularly in light of the way he was pitched (he wasn’t). But who cared? Whether it was the personality involved or the proximity to the summer of ‘98, the home run race became ancillary in 2001. It’s a team game, folks. Check the standings.

(9) Is there a better place to watch a baseball game than the Wrigley Field bleachers? Absolutely: the leftfield bluff at AutoZone Park. Picnic blankets, toddlers, dads playing catch with sons and daughters, visits from Rockey… and a chance to catch a home run ball every single game. Go Redbirds!

Everybody remotely connected to St. Louis Cardinals baseball — or Memphis Redbirds baseball for that matter — seems to have a solution to the Rick Ankiel crisis except the one person whose solution matters: Ankiel himself. That’s the trouble when an athlete’s ailment appears to be more between the ears than in an ankle, knee, elbow, or shoulder. Were Ankiel recovering from, say, elbow surgery, there would be a team of pitching and medical specialists devoted to mapping his road back to peak health and performance. A mental problem? You can find a shrink around every corner, in every seat at AutoZone Park.

The Cardinals have decided to send Ankiel down to Jupiter, Florida, for something called extended spring training. They feel the next step in the kid’s recovery is his removal from the arena, big-league or otherwise. The fewer eyes seeing him struggle, the theory goes, the better he’ll be able to regain his pitching faculties.

I don’t want so much to offer my own solution to getting this “phenom” back to the level where he broke Dizzy Dean’s Cardinal record for strikeouts by a rookie (194 last season). The only idea I have more than likely flies in the face of reason for an organization that’s invested millions already in this 21-year-old’s left arm. What I can do is remind every Cardinal and Redbird coach, every fan and media type, and yes, every shrink why none of us — least of all the Cardinals — should give up on Ankiel.

Simply put, you cannot teach what Rick Ankiel can do with a baseball. A curveball that falls off a table. A fastball, regardless of its direction, that hums into the mid-90s. A changeup that has big-league sluggers falling out of their spikes. I once heard it said of Larry Bird that his jumpshot could not have been learned or developed, no matter the hours of practice the legendary Celtic invested. No, that shot was God-given. Such is the case with Ankiel’s pitching ability. What can be taught — especially to a person as young as Ankiel — is an acumen for demon-wrestling. The ability to control the mental monsters that torture so many to the point they forget how to do what they do best, whether it be manage a stock portfolio or deliver a pitch 60′ 6″ into a catcher’s mitt.

Make no mistake, Ankiel has demons, whether or not he will discuss them publicly. (Would you?) To begin with, his father spends his days and nights behind bars in Florida, serving a prison sentence for drug trafficking. The fact that Ankiel’s father played the largest role in the pitcher’s development through high school only compounds his absence now. Ankiel has also had to wrestle with being the “next Koufax” since the Cardinals selected him in the second round of the 1997 amateur draft. He shot through St. Louis’ minor-league system in two years. Shortly after his promotion to Memphis during the ’99 season, Sports Illustrated ran a feature story asking why he wasn’t already in the big leagues. He was not yet 20 years old. At a time when most of his peers are trying to figure out how to get three meals out of their minor-league per diem, Ankiel was answering questions about when he’d replace Bob Gibson atop the Cardinals’ pitching pantheon.

What may be most remarkable about the kid’s story is that, until last October, he answered every last one of those questions with a smile and, as often as not, a strikeout. Which brings us to his current walk on the wild side. In his three outings for the Redbirds since his demotion from St. Louis, Ankiel managed to pitch 4 1/3 innings, walking 17 and throwing 12 wild pitches. Those balls he slung to the backstop with no one on base weren’t even included in the wild-pitch count. If anything, he’s deteriorating. (Keep in mind that Ankiel beat none other than Randy Johnson and the Arizona Diamondbacks in his first start of the season for St. Louis.) So what to do? I’d go a step further than the Cards’ latest prescription.

If I were St. Louis general manager Walt Jocketty, I’d call this young man and deliver him a paid holiday, a season’s worth if necessary. Go home to Florida, Rick. Stay away from Jupiter, and find a way to remind yourself why you first climbed a pitching mound. Rediscover the elements of pitching that made you smile. If I’m Jocketty, I insist that he report to the Cardinals on a regular basis, that he stays out of trouble, and that he picks up a baseball now and then, if only to have a catch with friends. Visit your dad, Rick. Find the people who mean the most to you and listen to them, instead of the countless coaches and “experts.”

Don’t give up on Rick Ankiel. He’s no Steve Blass. (Blass, the former Pittsburgh Pirate, was 32 when his sudden puzzling loss of control forced him to retire.) The Brooklyn Dodgers wrestled with how to handle their own left-handed prodigy in the mid-Fifties. The kid had all kinds of stuff, seemed to have a sharp mind, but simply could not find the plate. Over his first two seasons, he struck out 60 and walked 57. The Dodgers resisted the urge to trade him, refused to cut him from their roster, and waited patiently for the magical “control cure.” You’ve heard of the kid? Sandy Koufax.

You can e-mail Frank Murtaugh at murtaugh@memphismagazine.com.

No matter how much my stomach turns as the Yankees and Mets clash in this stop-the-presses Subway Series — a New York team has to lose, I remind myself — there remains a transcendent quality to the World Series from which I simply cannot turn away. The Super Bowl is a one-day extravaganza, to say the least. The Final Four, the Kentucky Derby, even the Daytona 500, all have their virtues as classic championships. But for the most sports-intoxicated country on earth, the definitive American contest is still the World Series. (Remember Jack Nicholson’s impassioned plea in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? “It’s the World Series, Nurse Ratched! The World Series!!”)

The time has come — we’re actually overdue — for a national sports holiday. After all, how can a country so wrapped up in celebrating games not have a date on the calendar devoted to just that? And I have just the date: Game 4 of the World Series. Now hear me out on this.

Sadly, America is generally falling out of touch with its national pastime. This is due in part to outrageous salaries, superstars jumping from team to team, and the saturation of the sports page by the likes of the NFL, NASCAR, and the NBA. Whatever the reason, the most important step baseball must take to return to the front of the line is to re-establiish the connection with its very lifeblood: children.

As almighty network television currently has it, every World Series game begins in prime time. The final out is often recorded well beyond midnight on the east coast. Ten-year-old boys and girls have to be in bed by the third or fourth inning for crying out loud. Money makes the TV world go round, though, so how to get the Series back under sunshine? This is where our holiday comes in.

Every fall, on the Wednesday of World Series week — typically when Game 4 is played — Americans should get a day off from work. Government offices close for the day. Banks close for the day. And, most importantly, all schools close for the day.

With our holiday — let’s call it National Baseball Day — television would have no excuse for forcing the World Series into prime time. We’ll see the first pitch of Game 4 no later than two o’clock Eastern. Baseball with shadows, eye black, outfielders with sunglasses . . . the way the game should be seen. And with a nationwide audience of children able to watch every last pitch.

We’d have to really make it an event. Perhaps the season’s batting and home run champions could be honored before Game 4. Instead of mind-numbing analysis from media types, maybe the pre-game festivities could include an annual legends tribute, where each league can be represented by a hero of days gone by. (This year? How about Whitey Ford and Tom Seaver?) Something, anything to remind us all that baseball is a part of this country’s fabric.

Would everybody tune in for the game on National Baseball Day? Of course not. And that’s fine. Go to the lake. Picnic with your family. Visit a museum. Take the dog to the park. Just remind yourself, however you enjoy the day: baseball — and the World Series — got you there.

(You can write Frank Murtaugh at murtaugh@memphismagazine.com)

Troy Aikman should retire. Now. Not at the end of the Dallas Cowboys’ season. Not after the next concussion. Now.

To fully appreciate my stance on this much-debated issue, you need to know with how heavy a heart it’s taken. I’ve been a Cowboy fan since I could tell the difference between a football and a frisbee. And my loyalties to “America’s Team” are due largely to the man whose career Aikman’s has so uniquely paralleled, up to and including his current physical crisis: Roger Staubach.

In 1980 Roger Staubach was no different from Spiderman or Han Solo in the heroic pantheon of my 11-year-old consciousness. Spidey beat up the Green Goblin, Han commanded the Millennium Falcon, and Roger the Dodger hurled touchdown passes for the mighty Cowboys. Then on an otherwise drab afternoon shortly after the ’79 NFL season had come to pass, I learned about the word “concussion.”

Mortality is a helluva thing when it comes to your heroes. My dad explained– as best he could– that Staubach had announced his retirement because of a series (pattern?) of head injuries that threatened far more than his football career. It didn’t stop my tears, but it forced me to see my quarterback hero for the first time as a human being. One with a loving family and a future beyond Texas Stadium. I also had the first profound sports-related thought of my young life, that there would never again be a player like Roger Staubach. Then along came Troy Aikman.

We Cowboy fans take a lot of grief, much of it deserved. There is a swagger to all things Cowboy that tends to rub the legions of Cowboy haters in an especially sensitive area. And considering the number of legal transgressions by Cowboy players– from Bob Hayes to Michael Irvin– the vitriol is accepted by fans like myself as part of the package. But even ignoring the five Super Bowl wins, find me a franchise that, merely a decade apart, fielded a pair of quarterbacks as special as Staubach and Aikman.

Which brings me to the lump in my throat as I argue for Aikman’s retirement. It’s simply an issue of risk versus reward. What might the rewards be should Aikman keep playing? As clearly exemplified in the whipping they took in their season-opening loss to Philadelphia, the Dallas Cowboys are on their way down (way down), not up. Furthermore, with an aging offensive line, they appear to be a team for whom a quarterback will have to be mobile to stay alive, let alone move the team down the field. Even in his best years mobility wasn’t one of Aikman’s strengths.

Does Aikman need to cement his standing in NFL history? Please. Start with three Super Bowl victories, a club whose membership counts three (here’s to Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana). He has broken every Cowboy passing record (standards originally established by Staubach). And despite the series of concussions, Aikman has remained a remarkably durable quarterback. Few men lead their team in passing, as Aikman has, for 11 consecutive years.

A Hall of Famer? You decide.

As for the risks, you don’t need a medical degree to understand when the injured part of one’s body is the brain, it’s time to take pause. That nasty word I learned 20 years ago has been in the headlines of late, as his own concussions led to San Francisco 49er Steve Young’s retirement earlier this year. Hockey superstar Eric Lindros is on his way to a liquid diet after a series of on-ice collisions benched the Philadelphia Flyer center. However horrific a knee or shoulder injury might seem, imagine the pain when it’s between your ears? Every day. When the act of thinking itself is hindered.

My old hero Roger Staubach now runs an extraordinarily successful real estate firm headquartered in Dallas. Closing in on 60, he’s as sharp as ever, and still looks like he could thread the needle on a slant pattern. Aikman needs to recognize his career’s parallel to Staubach’s . . . and to take it one more step. He’s newly married, articulate, good in front of the camera. Who knows what adventures remain?

This gallant Cowboy needs to ride off into the sunset, before he finds his horse replaced with a gurney.

(Frank Murtaugh is the managing editor of Memphis Magazine. You can write him at murtaugh@memphismagazine.com)