On Friday night in Los Angeles, I sat next to my father inside Dodger Stadium. My dad, Mike Lengel, is a 75-year-old lifelong fan of the Dodgers, who grew up in New York city watching Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider and the team of his childhood play in Brooklyn: until that night, he had never been been to LA or visited Dodger Stadium, where the team landed after leaving in 1957.
For nearly 60 years there was always an excuse not to travel the 2,778 miles between the site of old Ebbets Field in Flatbush to Chavez Ravine, but with baseball’s longest and most cherished broadcasting career coming to a close, we finally made the family trip west for Vin Scully’s tribute night.
To me at least, it seems impossible to measure the importance of the 88-year-old Scully, but you could try this: perhaps no other baseball personality, on or off the field, has enjoyed such wide ranging impact or universal love and admiration. And so those fortunate enough to listen to Scully at any point during the roughly 9,000 games he called will feel a stinging void in their lives after his final game on Sunday in San Francisco.
Technology had brought my father the last few years of Scully to late east coast nights, and now we were in Los Angeles as our own personal tribute to Scully and to hear him address the crowd.
“It’s not fair, you made me cry once tonight,” said Scully to the crowd.
Fans in the stands were crying with him. We cried because we were part of an audience of baseball fans that helped his own dreams come true. Because we were losing the comfort of his storytelling. Because after 67 beautiful seasons, there were no more tomorrows for baseball’s familiar voice. Because he was leaving our parents to whom he brought joy, and because our children would never share the same experiences.
And then, 48 hours later, my father and were failing to reconcile the news that José Fernández was killed in an early morning boating accident, and the contrast could not have been more stark.
Fernández’ death was the opposite of Scully’s departure. The baseball world cried because he was just 24. Because he fought so hard to get here from Cuba. Because, unlike Scully, he’ll never get to take his potential to the next level or live out his dream to completion. Because he will never be a father to his daughter. Because he left so many behind that loved him. And because he was a beautiful player who played a game many fans wished they could.
It was all too early to think about of course, but baseball fans might have one day travelled to watch the great José Fernández pitch in his final season. To give their tributes to a player that meant the world to them, and to witness a pitcher who impacted their lives in some way, shape or form. Fernández would have also been able to say goodbye, on his own terms, just as Scully wished my father and I well, from the booth up into the grandstand.
Now, tragically, Fernández has moved permanently into our baseball memories, and all too soon.
The have nots
After nearly six months and 2,430 games, the start of the all-consuming battle for a World Series title is just days away. Before we thrust ourselves into who will become the 112th champion, here’s a look at who we know won’t be playing for a ring this October.
New York Yankees
The Yankees handbook says every season without a title is a disappointment: if they should be eliminated from contention, and they’re hanging on by a thread, this may be the best-tasting bitter pill in baseball history. New York’s aging ballclub, defined by Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira type, suddenly became youthful and promising. A-Rod was ushered out, while prospects were promoted and acquired after shipping away the likes of Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller and Carlos Beltran. Then the Yanks somehow managed to hang in the playoff race, with great thanks to Gary Sanchez’ historic home run streak. Their young roster will likely suffer its share of growing pains, but if prodigious winning should return, the summer of ‘16 will be recalled as a key transition point.
Tampa Bay Rays
Tampa Bay, seemingly forever pitching rich and hitting poor, were fourth in the AL in home runs, led by Evan Longoria and Brad Miller, who combined for 63. Unfortunately, they had issues scoring in other ways, and the Rays fired their hitting coach Derek Shelton in September. Tampa had the third best rotation ERA in the AL, but Chris Archer let down. Alex Cobb didn’t pitch until early this month and the bullpen was among the worst in the league. They suffered through a 3-26 stretch, and will end 2016 with their worst record since they lost the “Devil Rays” moniker nine years ago.
Kansas City Royals
The champs lost Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain and Alex Gordon to injuries for chunks, and their contact-based offense crashed out, falling to 14th in the league. While starter Danny Duffy was superb, the big-picture formula of mediocre starting pitching bridging to a blistering bullpen didn’t pan out this time around. They ranked 12th in ERA, just as they did last season. Except this in 2016, that translated to a quarter run more per game. With a thin offense, wins were elusive, Ned Yost seemed less genius, and the champs surrendered their crown.
Chicago White Sox
They look pretty good early on, until they didn’t. From 9 May on, the 23-10 start, the six-game lead, the lights-out bullpen, the surprising starting pitching from Mat Latos and the improvement of Avisail Garcia all went away. They released Latos, picked up James Shields, whose ERA is approaching seven, watched Todd Frazier either strike out or hit a home run, and marveled at the tailoring skills of Chris Sale, who provided their most memorable moment of 2016 by far.
Minnesota Twins
Their 33-58 first-half mark was the second worst in franchise history. That’s the kind of start that gets your GM fired, which is what happened in July when Terry Ryan got the axe and all the good of their surprise 2015 season was evaporated by May. The Twins lost over 100 games while starting 11 pitchers this season: just one, Ervin Santana, had an ERA of below five. Too bad, because, overall, the offense was a tick better than last season, even if some of their younger players, Byron Buxton and Eddie Rosario didn’t capitalize on their playing time and Miguel Sano struck out over 170 times. Brian Dozier is the bright spot, cracking 42 home runs in a season where second baseman out-slugged outfielders for the first time in history.
Houston Astros
Like the Yankees, the Astros are on the cusp of elimination. Should they not come up with what would be nothing short of a miracle, Houston can look at their play against the Texas Rangers as one of the main reasons why they’ve failed to make the playoffs for a second straight season. Their AL West rivals to the west whipped them in 15 out of 19 contests all season long. Yes, you can also blame the poor play of the outfielders: Colby Rasmus struggled and Carlos Gomez stunk it up while Jake Marisnick and Preston Tucker failed to pick up the slack. And Dallas Keuchel did fail to approach the production of his 2015 Cy Young season. But really, all Jose Altuve and company really needed was a few more measly wins against Texas and they would be in the thick of it heading into the final weekend.
Los Angeles Angels
Bad seasons are piling up for Mike Scioscia and his Angeles of Los Anaheim Angels: since 2009, they’ve visited the post-season just once. Is it time for Scioscia to move on after 17 seasons? Quite possibly, but when your rotation is so banged up that you need to test-drive Tim Lincecum mid-season, it becomes harder to blame the manager. Garrett Richards, Andrew Heaney Tyler Skaggs and Matt Shoemaker all missed time, while CJ Wilson, who was supposed to return from surgery, woulnd up undergoing another surgery. It’s messy, and it may be that way for awhile. Meanwhile Mike Trout, the best player on the planet, rots in the orange groves.
Oakland Athletics
Billy Beane’s A’s have lost a lot of games since going all in on the 2014 season and dealing away reigning AL MVP Josh Donaldson. Like so many other rotations across baseball, injuries caused significant issues and only Rich Hill was able to combine health and quality. As with most Beane teams there is a developing core: this season starter Sean Manea, third baseman Matt Chapman and shortstop Franklin Barreto have emerged to show promise, while Jharel Cotton, one of three prospects acquired in Hill’s eventual move to the Dodgers, has looked good in a handful of starts. Yes, the A’s slumped in 2016, but there’s always tomorrow in Oakland.
Arizona Diamondbacks
Arizona looked as bad as their deep grey uniforms during a 2016 season that blew up early. Winter acquisitions Zack Greinke and Shelby Miller, dealt for No1 pick Dansby Swanson from Atlanta, were shelled regularly before Miller was sent to the minors. Prior to their roasting, star outfielder AJ Pollack suffered an injury in spring training that would keep him out until September. So really, it was all over before it began. Tony La Russa recently fired senior VP of baseball operations De Jon Watson, and La Russa and GM Dave Stewart could be next. Bright spots were with the bats: as always, Paul Goldschmidt was superb, while Jean Segura, Jake Lamb and young Brandon Drury, whose crazy September OPS of over 1.000, brought some measure of solace to Chase Field.
San Diego Padres
There was the good AJ Preller: turning a breakout season from Drew Pomeranz, and solid performances from Fernando Rodney, Matt Kemp and Melvin Upton into strong prospects, moves that could ultimately become a successful reversal of the failures that followed their aggressive off-season of 2014-15. The bad AJ Preller got caught withholding medical information during in his dealings with the Boston Red Sox in the Pomeranz deal: the controversial GM got a wrist slap 30-day suspension, the Pads got a stain on their season. In between, minor league afterthoughts Ryan Schimpf, a second baseman, and reliever Ryan Buchter become legitimate big league players, while rule 5 pick Luis Pedromo showed promise as a starter despite never pitching above Single-A ball.
Colorado Rockies
The Rockies rode a 14-5 hot streak ride out of the All-Star break and into wild card contention. Then they lost 10 of 12 games and that was that. Still, 2016 seemed positive, even if Coors Field always makes winning difficult. They actually pitched reasonably well, away from home of course, posting the sixth best road ERA in the NL. At home? Well, at least Arizona finished with a worse team ERA. Offensively, DJ LeMaheiu will win the batting title, Nolan Arenado is an MVP candidate and rookie Trevor Story surprised all by homering in seven times of his first eight games. The two Tyler’s, Chatwood and Anderson pitched well despite their environment and the Rockies were competitive and fun, more than their fans bargained for this season.
Atlanta Braves
By the time the season was done, Atlanta didn’t look like a 90-loss team, finishing with a flash, torturing the Mets and compiling a 16-9 mark down the stretch. That was mostly thanks to a lineup featuring a formidable one through five lineup that includes former No1 pick Dansby Swanson who was fleeced from Arizona and proved he was ready for the bigs and h hot Freddie Freeman on a 30-ga,e hitting streak. The mid-season acquisition of Matt Kemp also worked out well with the vet posting strong numbers and defense in left field. The bullpen has a handful of elite arms while the Braves GM John Coppolella says they’ll have $50m to upgrade the team, including the rotation, which is led by Julio Teheran. With few starters available, look for Atlanta to take on salary via trades as they gear up for opening day in their new Cobb County ballpark.
Philadelphia Phillies
Pete Mackanin’s Phillies couldn’t have had lower expectations coming off a 99-loss season, but by 18 May they were 4-0 in extra innings, had won 11 games by scoring three runs or less, were 15-3 in one-run games and were just a half game out of first place in the NL East, all despite being 14th in NL runs scored. Their lucky streak would soon end and the sort of losing that a rebuilding franchise can expect took over. There are signs that the growing pains of a youthful starting rotation group – Vince Velasquez, Aaron Nola and Jared Eickhoff – will eventually yield a steady core. When prospects including JP Crawford, Mickey Moniak, Nick Williams, Roman Quinn are ready to join the likes of current Phills Maikel Franco and Odubel Herrera, Philly could potentially become one of the more complete offensive clubs in the NL, could being the key word. It won’t happen next season, or perhaps the season after that, but at least a blueprint is in place: all that’s needed is plenty of patience.
Miami Marlins
The 2016 will always be remembered for the tragedy surrounding the death of José Fernández. His loss continues to overwhelm Miami and the baseball world as we struggle to understand how a young person can be gone, just like that, long before his time is up. The frustrations of an organization struggling to compete for a post-season spot matter little at the moment, and so any mention of their on-field issues are for another time.
Pittsburgh Pirates
It took 20 long years for the Pirates to find a place into the playoffs: the question now is, how long will it take for the Buccos to get back to the post-season? Holes require filling in the starting rotation: in 2016, fairy dust flew off Francisco Liriano, Jonathan Niese flopped, Gerrit Cole managed just 21 starts and JA Happ put up ace like numbers, for the Blue Jays. Offensively, Andrew McCutchen declined for the second straight year, but Starling Marte, Gregory Polanco, Jung Ho Kang provided enough offense, and really, a half-decent rotation would’ve been enough to get them to a fourth consecutive playoff appearance, considering the competition. Instead, Bucs fans are left wondering if their two tough wild card game losses will remain the legacy of this era.
Milwaukee Brewers
The Brewers continued to sell during their rebuild, dumping catcher Jonathan Lucroy, relievers Jeremy Jefress and Will Smith for promising prospects including catcher Andrew Susac. Ryan Braun, one of the last vets on the roster, nearly wound up in Los Angeles before a deal for Yasiel Puig fell through. Milwaukee won more games than they did a season ago and rather amazingly, drew over 2.3m fans in 2016. Shortstop Jonathan Villar is flirting with a historic tally of 20 homers and 60 stolen bases, while utility-man Hernan Perez became a bona fide regular, Zach Davies showed signs of breaking out and Keon Broxton was an athletic and productive contributor. Still, any turnaround is distant and Miller Park will continue to be a safe place for Cubs fans in 2017.
Cincinnati Reds
Just when you thought that a 6.25 April ERA amongst Reds relievers was rock bottom, along came May where the bullpen topped seven. And while injuries continued to derail catcher Devin Mesoraco, and Homer Bailey bombed after returning in July, there was Anthony DeSclafani emerging to post a sub-3.50 ERA, Joey Votto approaching a .400 post all-star break batting average, Adam Duvall breaking out with over 30 homers and the emergence of 22-year-old shortstop Jose Peraza. Still, despite a decent set of prospects seasoning in the minors, competing in a division with Chicago, the Cardinals and Pirates should bring more misery in 2017.
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