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From My Seat Sports

An Athlete’s “Third Death”

Thirteen days before Christmas in 1980 — I was 11 years old — I received quite the opposite of a Santa Claus delivery. My dad came into my room, grim look on his face. “The Cardinals have traded Ted Simmons, son. I’m sorry.” Had my parents chopped up our tree, one limb at a time, it wouldn’t have been more painful. My favorite baseball team had told my favorite baseball player that his services were no longer required. Worse, my favorite baseball player would play for a team I cared nothing about (the Milwaukee Brewers). The mind of an 11-year-old doesn’t have programming for this kind of loss.

I’ve been thinking of Ted Simmons since July 4th, when we learned Zach Randolph signed a free-agent deal that will transform him from a Memphis Grizzly into a Sacramento King. (I can’t get over the irony of this, Z-Bo departing a city that loves its “kings” to become one himself in California.) It’s long been said that a professional athlete dies two deaths, the first when he is forced to stop playing the game that made him famous. From a fan’s viewpoint, though, you could say an athlete actually dies three deaths, the first when he departs a franchise that has embraced him for as many as eight years (as Memphis did Randolph).

This isn’t to say Zach Randolph is any less our Z-Bo. Not even close. Eight years of memories stack much too high for a change of uniform to erase a relationship. (When Simmons homered at Busch Stadium — for the Brewers — in Game 1 of the 1982 World Series, I couldn’t help but smile. And my beloved Cardinals were crushed that night.) Randolph’s next two years in Sacramento will do no more to tarnish his Memphis era than the years he spent prior to arriving here (largely forgettable seasons in Portland, New York, and L.A.). The Grizzlies have already announced that Randolph’s number 50 will be raised to the rafters at FedExForum, the most permanent love note a community can send a former player.

But there is a mourning period. Those of us “seasoned” fans have experienced versions of this separation, though it’s unlikely any Griz backer would compare Z-Bo’s departure to a previous player’s exit. He’s that special. And it’s the 11-year-old fans who surely hurt the most. I hate the image — and I’ve seen it — of a child shooting hoops in his or her driveway, wearing a number-50 jersey. Tugs at my heartstrings. The jersey should be worn with pride and for the happy memories, to say the least. But it now carries a component of loss. Past tense. Z-bounds gone by.

Larry Kuzniewski

Zach Randolph started the second half and almost made a miraculous comeback happen.

It could get 
worse, of course, for Grizzly fans this month. It appears the franchise is ready to part ways with 35-year-old Tony Allen, the Grindfather himself. Should Allen end up in a Clippers uniform — gasp! — the Memphis “core four” will have been reduced by half. In other words, the core four will be no more. If Randolph became the backbone the Grizzlies franchise desperately needed in 2009, Allen brought soul to a team that had been more buttoned-up than most things Memphis. He brought edge and humor with his All-Defense presence, and a region fell further in love.

The Grizzlies will play on. Few NBA teams can claim as talented a tandem as Mike Conley and Marc Gasol. The newly acquired Tyreke Evans is a kind of offensive threat Allen never was. Should Chandler Parsons regain his health . . . well, it’s possible. Right? The local NBA outfit will be very different next season, but this is no tanking.

And departures can bring new friendships. Almost precisely a year after the Cardinals dealt Simmons to Milwaukee, St. Louis shipped another of my favorite players, Garry Templeton, to San Diego in an exchange of shortstops. You can now have your picture taken next to Ozzie Smith’s statue in St. Louis.

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From My Seat Sports

“Star Wars” and Sports: Heroes for a Lifetime

An 8-year-old boy has heroes. I happened to be 8 years old in 1977 when Star Wars entered our galaxy and changed pop culture in ways no one unfamiliar with a Wookiee could have previously imagined. My heroes in 1977 were not atypical for the times: Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach. St. Louis Cardinals catcher Ted Simmons. Spider-Man. Paul Stanley of KISS. (The Starchild offered everything the Bee Gees did not. I signed up for the KISS Army long before my parents would have authorized.)

I’d like to think I was no more or less impressionable than my third-grade classmates that year in Knoxville, Tennessee. But I knew a hero when I first met Han Solo. And Luke Skywalker. And Princess Leia. And yes, R2-D2.

Fast forward (many years, but in a galaxy nearby) to this Friday when The Force Awakens hits local screens and the seventh chapter of the Star Wars saga becomes the most talked-about movie event of the year (decade?). I’ll be able to take my own daughters (ages 13 and 16) to see Han and Chewie on the big screen, their views of heroes shaped quite differently from the way I shaped mine 38 years ago. (Can Leia or Rey compete with Katniss Everdeen?) It will make for a cross-generational experience unlike many films can provide a person of my generation.

By the time The Empire Strikes Back was released (in 1980), my family had moved from Knoxville to Southern California. We lived in Vermont when the world was introduced to Ewoks in Return of the Jedi (1983). Staubach had long retired by the completion of this initial trilogy, Simmons was a Milwaukee Brewer, and KISS had removed their makeup. I entered high school with my Star Wars action figures confined to a drawer in the back of a closet. There were times it seemed a monthly Spidey comic was my only escape worthy of hero status.

But Star Wars never left, we know. Thirteen days after my first daughter was born in 1999, The Phantom Menace hit screens and viewers of my generation had to connect the dots between a mop-topped, pod-racing child … and the Darth Vader he was destined to become. Attack of the Clones followed in 2002, as did my second daughter (four months later). KISS was back in makeup, Spider-Man reached the big screen (also in 2002), and Albert Pujols did things for the Cardinals unseen since the days of Stan Musial. Heroes were alive and well.

In 2005, the final prequel was released (mercifully, say many in hindsight). In Revenge of the Sith, we saw the final descent (not quite death) of Luke Skywalker’s father, his black mask as familiar a symbol of evil as any Hollywood image before or since. That same year, my own father died. If there’s a life event that kills heroes in the heart of a man, it’s his father’s death, the most intimate collision with mortality a human being will experience. I’ve been reluctant to identify anyone — real or fantasy — as my “hero” since my dad’s passing.

But I’ll be in line this weekend. And like everyone else my age (and millions younger), I’ll anticipate the first appearance (the return!) of Luke and Leia. I’ll relish the comedic (and loving) interplay between Solo and Chewbacca, the best Hollywood tandem since Butch and Sundance. And I’m looking forward to meeting the new soldiers: Finn, Rey, Poe, Kylo Ren. (And yes, BB-8 is adorable.) The world is so much scarier today (at least for me) than it was in 1977. I’m grateful there’s still room for Star Wars. And still room for heroes.

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From My Seat Sports

MLB’s Dog Days Delights

I happen to love what some call “the dog days of summer.” These are primarily August days, of course, with temperatures approaching scald factor in some parts of the world, school back in session(!) or the first day approaching like a heavy-breathing predator. But this is also the last month for baseball to occupy the sports world’s center stage before football steals at least four nights of the week. So here are some random baseball thoughts to make your dog days heel.

No franchise is more serious about winning the 2015 World Series than the Toronto Blue Jays. Having acquired a perennial MVP candidate (shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, when he’s healthy) and a Cy Young Award winner (David Price) before the nonwaiver trade deadline, the Jays intend to end baseball’s longest current playoff drought. (Toronto hasn’t played a postseason game since winning the 1993 World Series.) They’ve had not one, but two 11-game winning streaks since Memorial Day (before the two big trades). The Blue Jays now have a pair of horses at the top of their rotation (Price and Mark Buehrle), each with World Series experience. They lead the American League in runs scored (622) by a healthy margin, with thumpers like Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista, and Edwin Encarnacion reminding the world the American League East has a few stars not wearing Yankee or Red Sox colors. Having dropped two of three to the Yankees over the weekend, Toronto trails New York by a half-game, setting up a nice race for the AL East title, one I think the Blue Jays will win.

Ted Simmons is finally in a baseball hall of fame. My family was among the crowd of 44,000 last Saturday night at Busch Stadium in St. Louis when the Cardinals saluted the 2015 induction class for the franchise’s hall of fame. The four new inductees: Bob Forsch, Curt Flood, George Kissell (each inducted posthumously), and the finest catcher of the 1970s not named Johnny Bench.

Simmons will never generate the Cooperstown debate that Pete Rose does, or Barry Bonds, or Roger Clemens. But the fact that Simmons didn’t receive enough votes in 1994 (3.7 percent) to even appear on the ballot a second time may be the most egregious oversight by Hall voters in the modern era. This is a man who retired (after the 1988 season) with more hits than any catcher in history. More than Bench, more than Berra, more than Dickey or Cochrane. And he can’t get into the national Hall of Fame without a ticket. The reception Simmons received at Busch Stadium was, as you’d expect, passionate and appreciative. He’s a hall of famer, whether or not a population of baseball writers knows it.

When Ichiro Suzuki singled in the top of the first inning Saturday night in St. Louis, the crowd at Busch Stadium gave the future Hall of Famer a partial standing ovation, one long enough for Ichiro to doff his helmet in appreciation. For those with memories of a certain Cincinnati Red legend in 1985, this is familiar, and to be expected after a player’s 4,192nd hit … one more than the great Ty Cobb had at the end of his career. Trouble is, the line drive to rightfield was merely Ichiro’s 2,914th hit, if you’re counting those he’s accumulated in the major leagues. The Japanese great also had 1,278 hits in Nippon Professional Baseball before crossing the Pacific to join the Mariners in 2001.

I love the influence Asian players have had on the big leagues this century, but let’s not go so far as to confuse achievements on diamonds half a world away with accomplishments on MLB fields. To suggest Sadaharu Oh (868 homers in NPB) belongs above Hank Aaron or Babe Ruth on the home run chart would be lunacy. Based on the acknowledgment Saturday night, Ichiro (with another hit in the same game) is now only 63 behind baseball’s “hit king,” Pete Rose. Should Ichiro come back next season and get those 63 hits, it would be interesting to see how MLB handled the milestone. He’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer, but still shy of 3,000 big-league hits.

The age of Mike Trout and Bryce Harper is upon us, and it would be healthy for baseball to see Trout’s Angels and Harper’s Nationals make the playoffs, even better for L.A. and/or Washington to make a run to the Fall Classic. Trout won last year’s AL MVP, of course, at the ripe old age of 23. Harper seems a virtual lock to win this year’s NL MVP, and he turns 23 in mid-October. As I write, the Angels are three-and-a-half games back of Houston in the AL West, but in position for one of the league’s two wild-car berths. Washington’s climb to postseason play will be steeper, as the Nats are four-and-a-half back of the Mets in the NL East, and even further back in the wild-card chase. The sport needs familiar stars playing in its biggest games. Two outfielders — each in red hats but on opposite coasts — are primed to headline.