Tag: Stubby Clapp

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2017 Memphis Redbirds: Wisdom Prevails

The Memphis Redbirds are enjoying a season for the ages. In beating Las Vegas Sunday afternoon at AutoZone Park, the Redbirds improved their record to 65-35, reaching 30 games above .500 for the first time in the 20-year history of the franchise. With more than 40 games still to play, the team record for wins in a season — 83 by the 2000 Pacific Coast League champions — is all but sure to fall. The winning continues as the club continues to sacrifice talent to the parent St. Louis Cardinals.

No fewer than four of the eight position players who took the field for Memphis on Opening Day can now be found wearing Cardinal uniforms. Outfielder Tommy Pham and shortstop Paul DeJong are playing every day for St. Louis. (DeJong is just the second player to hit 10 home runs for both the Redbirds and Cardinals in the same season. The first was Rick Ankiel in 2007.) Slugger Luke Voit is playing some first base for the Cards and delivering right-handed pop off the bench. Just last Friday, St. Louis promoted Carson Kelly, the top-ranked catching prospect in baseball. Memphis has won all four games (through Monday) since Kelly’s departure.

What has kept this team so steady, so consistently strong despite the roster fluctuation? The first place you might look is third base, where 25-year-old Patrick Wisdom — in a supporting role — has put up numbers that could earn him team MVP honors by season’s end. Through Monday, Wisdom has clubbed a team-leading 22 home runs, driven in 66 runs (also tops on the team), while hitting .251 with a .506 slugging percentage. The power numbers are already career highs for Wisdom, a 2012 supplemental draft pick of the Cardinals. (He entered this season with a career batting average of .237 and hit 14 home runs in each of two seasons at Double-A Springfield.) 

Patrick Wisdom

Wisdom spent the 2016 season with Memphis, but missed 64 games with an injury to his left hand (broken hamate) that required surgery. He’s been healthy since spring training, though, and has focused on the same development priority of every Triple-A player from Pawtucket to Tacoma: consistency. Instead of muscle memory, though, Wisdom’s emphasis has been on the organ that controls muscle memory. “It’s being able to switch off from baseball once you leave the field,” he says. “Finding an outlet, whether it be reading, video games, hanging with the guys, a TV show. This game is so mental. Leave baseball at the field.”

Wisdom’s quick to credit Redbirds manager Stubby Clapp for instilling a don’t-quit, never-panic culture in the Memphis clubhouse. This has come in handy not just in game situations — the Redbirds are 7-0 in extra-inning contests — but in adjusting to the roster fluctuation as the Cardinals continue searching for a winning mix. “We just have an expectation to win,” says Wisdom. “Individually, we all bought into that mindset. We know what we need to do to be successful. When that comes together, you see the results. We have a lot of high-character guys in the clubhouse, and that carries over to the field. Whether we’re playing card games, or just sitting around the table, we’re laughing, having fun together. We come to the park ready to win. And we bounce back after a loss.”

Wisdom has heard stories of Clapp’s playing days in Memphis, which hasn’t hurt the rookie manager’s standing among the players he now must lead. “When he played, he played with a lot of grit, liked to get dirty on the ground,” says Wisdom with a smile. “He’s rubbed that off on us. Have fun, but play hard. He allows us to be ourselves, and that’s a big part of [our success].”

Barring a calamity of Hindenburg proportions, the Redbirds will return to the PCL playoffs in September, their first postseason venture in three years. And Wisdom offers a confident nod when asked if this team can win the franchise’s third PCL championship. “I like our team,” he stresses. “I like the way we play baseball. There’s no panic. Our pitching has kept us in games, we play solid defense, and we’ve been hitting the ball. I like our chances. It’s been a fun year.”

A native of California, Wisdom grew up rooting for the San Diego Padres and L.A. Angels. He confesses to having to do some research upon being drafted by the Cardinals. “I knew they were one of the two top franchises, along with the New York Yankees,” he says. If Wisdom continues to produce as he has in 2017, he may soon be able to continue that research in the clubhouse at Busch Stadium.

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Memphis Redbirds Revival

In mid-May, not long after the Memphis Redbirds reeled off a franchise-record 11-game winning streak, I asked first-year manager Stubby Clapp about the secret sauce he’d concocted at AutoZone Park. Once a blue-collar player, the blue-collar manager responded with a blue-collar answer: “Our pitchers attack the strike zone and our hitters grind through every at-bat.”

It was an understated evaluation, to say the least. Using even fewer words, Clapp could have responded: “We have a lot of talent in this clubhouse.”

Redbirds manager Stubby Clapp is head over heels about his team’s success. (This shot, of course, is from Stubby’s playing days.)

Not since 2013 — when Baseball America ranked the St. Louis Cardinals’ farm system the best in the business — has Memphis been stocked with the kind of talent we’re seeing these days at the corner of B.B. King and Union Avenue. You’ll recall that 2013 club included outfielder Oscar Taveras, second-baseman Kolten Wong, and a pair of top pitching prospects, Michael Wacha and Carlos Martinez. Taveras died tragically in 2014, but the other three are now regulars at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. (If you read last week’s column, you’ll know performance this season hasn’t matched projection with the exception of Martinez.)

The 2017 Redbirds have featured three everyday players who will soon be seen in big-league batter’s boxes. Infielder Paul DeJong (who turns 24 in August) enjoyed a 12-game cup of coffee with St. Louis recently when Wong landed on the disabled list, returned to Memphis for less than a week, and can now be found again in the Cardinals’ dugout (Wong back on the DL). He became the sixth former Redbird to homer in his first major-league at-bat and has played stellar defense at second base. Here in Memphis, DeJong has it .299 and hammered 13 home runs, the kind of pop that increases a middle-infielder’s value exponentially. (DeJong homered 22 times and drove in 73 runs at Double-A Springfield last season.)

When I watch centerfielder Harrison Bader (23) play, I see a shorter (and whiskers-free) version of Charlie Blackmon, the Colorado Rockies’ All-Star. The former Florida Gator brings speed and a dose of power (12 home runs) to the Redbirds lineup. And he’s perfectly willing to crash into walls to rob opposing hitters of extra bases. It will be interesting to see how the Cardinals manage Bader’s rise in light of the multiyear contract their new centerfielder, Dexter Fowler, signed last winter.

Then there’s catcher Carson Kelly. Yadier Molina’s presumed heir will turn 23 next month but handles backstop duties with the aplomb of a 30-year-old big-league veteran. Kelly’s offensive production — .290 batting average, 7 home runs — feels like a generous bonus package. He could be catching every day for a few major league clubs. Similar to Bader, Kelly’s rise is blocked somewhat by a Cardinal player with a multiyear contract manning his position. For now, he simply helps the Redbirds win baseball games, the man Clapp trusts with those pitchers tasked with attacking the strike zone.

And those pitchers? Three members of the Redbirds’ current starting rotation — Luke Weaver (24 in August), Marco Gonzales (25), and Jack Flaherty (21) — have been ranked among the Cardinals’ top-10 prospects (Gonzales topped the list in 2015). Among all position groups and across all levels of the farm system, the Cardinals enjoy their greatest abundance in starting pitching. Which means flexibility between Memphis and St. Louis and bargain chips should the Cardinals remain in contention when the trade deadline arrives in late July. (As noted in last week’s column, the Cardinals lack “The Guy” in their batting order.)

Prospects don’t necessarily translate to winning baseball. (The 2013 Redbirds finished 69-75.) But this year’s club has a supporting cast that steals the spotlight one win after another. First-baseman Luke Voit has been a right-handed-batting Matt Adams (and then some), belting 12 home runs while putting up a slash line of .322/.404/.572. Healthy and manning third base has been Patrick Wisdom (12 home runs, 41 RBIs). Through Sunday, the Redbirds are 42-27 and five-and-a-half games ahead of second-place Nashville in their division of the Pacific Coast League. Triple-A baseball may be about development first, but take this as gospel: Winning spurs development.

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Grizzlies and Tigers and ’Birds, Oh My!

Certain times of the year are peak season for football fans. Others rev the engine for basketball junkies or baseball enthusiasts. This week in Memphis, Tennessee, it’s a special week for all three types. If you dress yourself in homage to your favorite local team — Grizzlies? Redbirds? Tigers? — open your closet wide. It’s gonna be a fun week.

• The Redbirds open the home portion of their 20th season Tuesday night at AutoZone Park. This year’s club features a trio of prospects the 2016 team couldn’t claim. Catcher Carson Kelly (the Cardinals’ 4th-ranked prospect, according to Baseball America) and centerfielder Harrison Bader (7th) will be in the lineup every day. Pitcher Luke Weaver (2nd) will lead the Memphis rotation once he returns from the disabled list (back tightness).

Better yet, franchise icon Stubby Clapp is back in the Redbirds’ dugout, now conducting things as manager. “We’ll play good Cardinal baseball,” said Clapp before his team’s exhibition game with the St. Louis Cardinals on March 30th. “Run the bases hard, good solid defense, fundamentals, pitch to contact, and challenge the other team. Those are the principles. Now it’s a matter of us executing.”

As far as returning to the franchise where he played four years — where he got his call to the big leagues in 2001 — Clapp doesn’t hold back. “There are a lof of overwhelming feelings,” he says. “Sitting at Chief’s desk. I can’t even refer to it as mine; that’s Chief’s desk. [Clapp’s manager in Memphis, Gaylen Pitts, was affectionately called Chief.] In the end, though, it’s not about me coming home. It’s about getting these guys ready for the big leagues.”

The Redbirds will enter play Tuesday with a winning record, have taken three of their first four games at New Orleans. (They play Monday night in NOLA.)

• The day after the Redbirds open their home schedule, the Memphis Grizzlies will close their 16th regular season at FedExForum with a game against the Dallas Mavericks. And for the seventh year in row, the regular-season finale will serve as mere prelude to a Griz playoff run. Only two other NBA franchises can claim such a current streak. One is the team Memphis will face in the first round, the San Antonio Spurs. (The NBA would not conduct playoffs without the Spurs.) The other is the Atlanta Hawks. Wednesday’s game may be meaningless in the standings, but what an opportunity to salute, in particular, Mike Conley, Marc Gasol, Tony Allen, and Zach Randolph. You can’t win an NBA title without making the playoffs. Somehow, the Grizzlies’ “core four” have made the postseason feel routine in these parts.

• Then the Memphis Tiger football team plays its annual spring game — Friday Night Stripes — to end the workweek. This year’s event should bring a healthy dose of optimism, the Tigers coming off a third consecutive bowl season. (Tiger football would seem to occupy the other end of the community-mood spectrum from Tiger basketball these days.) Not since quarterback Danny Wimprine and tailback DeAngelo Williams returned for the 2004 season has a Tiger team welcomed back the kind of tandem star power it has in senior quarterback Riley Ferguson (3,698 passing yards and 32 touchdowns in 2016) and senior wideout Anthony Miller (95 receptions for 1,434 yards and 14 touchdowns). Coach Mike Norvell has a season behind him and knows the community landscape in ways he didn’t a year ago. The U of M is another year closer, astonishingly, to being “a football school.”

Last week was a downer, with the news the Racquet Club of Memphis is losing its annual tournament, a staple on the local sports calendar since 1977. But there’s so much left to cheer in this town. Three events over four nights this week — baseball, basketball, and football — will remind us the games do, in fact matter. Dress up, Memphis. Your teams are here to play.

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Memphis Sports Resolutions for 2017

Let’s make 2017 the right kind of year. A few suggested goals for local sports figures:

• Dedric Lawson — Ten assists (or blocks) in a game.
In the long, rich history of Memphis Tiger basketball, exactly two players have achieved a triple double: Penny Hardaway (twice) and Antonio Anderson. The Tigers’ sophomore star has already come within three assists of the feat (on December 13th) and on another occasion, within two blocked shots (on December 10th). The points and rebounds will come in metronomic regularity. If Lawson can achieve the right kind of outburst in passing or blocking the basketball, he’ll turn an exclusive Memphis duo into a trio.

• Zach Randolph — Win the NBA’s Sixth Man Award.
Z-Bo graciously accepted his new role — off the Memphis Grizzlies’ bench — when new coach David Fizdale announced a significant rotation adjustment in the preseason. Why not turn the new supporting role into a major award? Through Monday, Randolph has averaged 13.3 points and 7.7 rebounds. When he missed seven games after his mother’s death in late November, the Griz went 4-3, each of the wins by less than five points, each of the losses by at least nine. The 35-year-old remains integral to the Grizzlies’ big-picture ambitions. A trophy presentation at FedExForum during the playoffs would be a career highlight.

• Anthony Miller — Make first-team All-America.
After catching 95 passes for 1,434 yards and 14 touchdowns in 2016 — all new Memphis records — the Tigers’ junior wide receiver didn’t so much as make first team all-conference. In the American Athletic Conference. It’s unlikely Miller would be taken in the first two rounds of this year’s NFL draft. So why not rejoin forces with quarterback Riley Ferguson, do to the Tiger pass-catching record book what DeAngelo Williams did to the rushing charts, and gain some overdue accolades?

• Stubby Clapp — Make Redbird fans stop talking about backflips.
When a fan favorite returns, the honeymoon becomes saturated with memories of a player’s achievements during his initial tenure. For the new Redbirds manager, this means countless photos and video clips of a second baseman going heels up as he takes the field. Assuming his first managerial gig above the Class A level, Clapp will be focusing more on replicating the achievements of his 2000 Redbirds team, a club that won the Pacific Coast League championship in AutoZone Park’s inaugural season. Winning baseball games — to say nothing of developing prospects — has little to do with pregame acrobatics. It will be fun to see a man called Stubby take baseball seriously (he always has) and assume a leadership role in the St. Louis farm system.

• Tubby Smith — Make it six for six.
Smith would become the first man to coach six teams to the NCAA tournament if he can guide Memphis to the Big Dance. Why not this year? The Tigers have three wins over teams from Power Five conferences (two more than they had, combined, the last two seasons), but must earn tournament consideration in league play. The guess here is that January and February will be the veteran coach’s wheelhouse, when player roles come into focus and the rhythm of a two-games-per-week campaign toward the postseason feels rather familiar. Who knows if Dedric Lawson will be back for a third college season? His coach should make the most of a prime asset.

• Mike Conley — Establish the Grizzlies’ 700 club.
The Grizzlies somehow won six straight games with their $30-million point guard sidelined by broken bones in his back. Don’t be fooled. Memphis needs Conley like Conley needs a healthy back. He’s 39 games from becoming the first Grizzly to play in 700 regular-season games. If he reaches the milestone this season, count on Memphis extending its playoff streak to seven years. And count one more reason no future Memphis player will wear the number 11.

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Boca, Bartow, and Backflips

As “Group of Five” football program, the University of Memphis stands little chance of playing in one of the prestigious New Year’s Six bowl games. Exactly one of 12 slots is guaranteed for a “Group” team, the best among five conferences (those not classified as “Power Five”). With that the case, it’s hard to envision the Tigers landing a better postseason ticket than the Boca Raton Bowl, where they’ll play Conference USA champion Western Kentucky on December 20th.

To begin with, there’s the destination. South Florida in December is good for the mind, body, and spirit. The Tiger players, coaching staff, administrators, and fans should relish a few days on the east coast of the Sunshine State. (Let’s go ahead and say it: This beats Birmingham, five days before Christmas.)

But the opponent and timing of the game could make this a significant event in the continued development of coach Mike Norvell’s program. The Tigers and Hilltoppers will have the football world to themselves, the game kicking off on a Tuesday night and relatively early (7 p.m. on the east coast). And while the rest of the country may not initially be revved by a Memphis-Western Kentucky showdown, football fans enjoy scoring, and the Boca Raton Bowl should have between 80 and 100 points on the board before the night is over. Western Kentucky has scored at least 44 points in 10 of its 13 games and ranks second in the country in scoring with 45.1 points per game. The Tiger offense has been potent itself, averaging 39.5 points, good for 17th in the nation. Only the Peach Bowl (a national semifinal between Alabama and Washington) will have two teams as highly ranked in scoring this season.

A “Group of Five” program has to be seen to attract recruits. And it has to put points on the board. The 2016 Boca Raton Bowl offers Memphis much more than a sun-splashed vacation.

• There are too many empty seats at FedExForum for Tiger basketball. Tubby Time is here, but the new coach has yet to see 10,000 fans in his new home arena (one that will hold more than 17,000). Memphis athletic director Tom Bowen simply has to secure regular appearances from non-conference rivals. And this Saturday’s matinee against UAB should be considered a small step in that direction.

Gene Bartow created the UAB basketball program. On the gridiron, the Tigers and Blazers once competed in “The Battle for the Bones,” the prize a massive bronze rack of ribs. For more than 20 years (1991-2013), the teams played at least twice a season on the hardwood as conference rivals. It will be good to see UAB back at FedExForum.

Let’s bring Louisville back. And Arkansas. And Tennessee. Along with UAB, Memphis should aim to host two of these four programs every season. This simply has to happen. It’s a matter of relevance in a city that’s come to be foremost a Grizzlies town. Savannah State, McNeese State, and Jackson State will not move the attendance needle, no matter the strength of the Tiger roster or the popularity of the Tiger coach.

• The Memphis Redbirds made some late-fall news with a pair of announcements last week. The franchise is welcoming back perhaps the most popular player in team history, Stubby Clapp. After 14 years away (most recently as hitting coach with Double-A New Hampshire in the Toronto Blue Jays system), Clapp will be the Redbirds new manager in 2017, succeeding Mike Shildt (who took a bench job with the St. Louis Cardinals). Clapp spent four seasons (1999-2002) as a player with Memphis and was an integral member of the 2000 Pacific Coast League champions. He endeared himself to fans with his scrappy play and backflips as he took the field to start each home game. (The backflips were in tribute to one of Clapp’s favorite players, Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith.) Modern folk heroes are hard to come by. AutoZone Park and manager Stubby Clapp should be a nice fit.

The Redbirds also announced that team president Craig Unger has joined the team’s ownership group, led by Peter Freund. The significance? A former executive with the St. Louis Cardinals, Unger and his family have been in Memphis three years now. He and his wife are raising three daughters here. The Redbirds can now be said to have local ownership. (Freund lives in New York and Montana.) Unger presided over a significant renovation to AutoZone Park and has embraced the challenge of attracting — and keeping — new fans for minor-league baseball. (Attendance last summer was 17 percent higher than the previous season.) Any concerns about a disconnect between ownership and management at AutoZone Park should be reduced significantly with Unger’s new stake in the franchise.

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A Memphis Redbirds Wall of Fame

The St. Louis Cardinals do history well. Their marketing slogan this season is “Tradition Meets Today.” With no fewer than nine statues of Cardinal greats just outside Busch Stadium — two for the greatest Cardinal of all, Stan Musial — a blindfolded fan might literally bump into a bronzed Hall of Famer on his way into the ballpark. Once inside the stadium (blindfold removed), that fan can count the retired uniform numbers of Cardinal heroes in two different locations. The team’s 11 world championships? There are 11 flags flying high above the rightfield stands, and 11 pennants painted atop the Cardinals’ dugout with every championship year from 1926 to 2011.

Here in Memphis at AutoZone Park, the Cardinals could teach local fans a history lesson or two. And now that the parent franchise has an ownership stake, it’s time to crack the books.

Deep in the bowels of the 15-year-old stadium, next to a batting cage, Memphis baseball championships are painted on the wall. This is the only place you’ll see any indication the franchise has two Pacific Coast League titles (2000 and 2009) to its credit. The red Pujols Seat remains — now a solitary chair — on the rightfield bluff, just inside the foul pole where Albert Pujols’s championship-winning home run landed on September 15, 2000. (The chair needs a small plaque for those oblivious to the most famous hit in franchise history.) As for the heroics of other former Redbirds, good luck.

Baseball history fades entirely at Third and Union, some of the fading intentional. Stubby Clapp’s number (10) was retired in 2007, but the back-flipping face of the 2000 PCL champs had his name removed from the bullpen wall last winter, the Cardinals asserting the number had been retired for Hall of Fame manager Tony LaRussa, negating the same honor — for the same uniform number — elsewhere in the farm system.

There have been too many good players — popular players — to wear a Memphis Redbirds uniform for the stadium to remain devoid of any form of tribute. My proposal: A wall of fame — presented where any ticketed fan can see it — with a photo or plaque saluting former Redbird heroes. Borrowing from the Cardinals’ own Hall of Fame, a new member of this wall of fame would be announced near the start of each season. And Memphis baseball tradition would, finally, meet today at AutoZone Park.

We’ll need an inaugural class, of course, so here are the five Redbirds that would receive my vote. Let’s establish a minimum of 100 games played with the team for position players, and either 50 games or 10 wins for pitchers. Apologies to the likes of Pujols and Yadier Molina. Great Cardinals, to say the least, but Redbirds all too briefly.

• Rick Ankiel — His two stints as a Redbird were Ruthian. As a 20-year-old flame-thrower in 1999, the lefty won seven games and struck out 119 hitters in 88 innings pitched. He was the last Memphis baseball star at Tim McCarver Stadium. Eight (long) years later, having lost his ability to throw a baseball over the plate, Ankiel returned to Memphis as a centerfielder and led the Redbirds with 32 home runs and 89 RBIs in just 102 games. There will never be another like him, for good or ill.

• Stubby Clapp — His backflips (a tribute to Cardinal great Ozzie Smith) are memorable, but Clapp was the heart and backbone of that 2000 championship team, leading the club in runs, hits, and dirty uniforms. He remains third in franchise history in games played (425) and hits (418). Stubby was the Gashouse Gang by way of Canada.

• Skip Schumaker — He’s the only player to appear in 200 games as a Redbird and 500 games as a Cardinal. Never a star, he merely played solid baseball, in the outfield and at the plate, then at second base for a team that won the World Series. In trying to define the fabled “Cardinal Way,” Schumaker would be good source material.

• Nick Stavinoha — The Redbirds’ career leader in games (479), hits (531), home runs (74), runs (531), and RBIs (316). Stavinoha was a slugger without a position, but not quite enough slugger to find his way to an American League team where the DH lives and breathes. He played in 72 games for the 2009 PCL champs, but was with the parent club when Memphis reeled off six straight playoff wins.

• Adam Wainwright — Waino was a .500 pitcher (14-14) over two seasons with Memphis, though he led the PCL with 182 innings pitched in 2005. Since then, though, he’s won 121 games with the Cardinals and climbed to second on the franchise strikeout list behind Hall of Famer Bob Gibson. As a rookie out of the bullpen, Wainwright was integral to the Cards’ 2006 World Series win.

History matters in baseball. It should be given life at AutoZone Park