Cuban Baseball Stew
Aroldis Chapman: I can’t face the future.
April 18, 2010
Like a pie in the sky, last weekend I launched my baseball season by driving 460 miles round trip from Chicago to Toledo, Ohio to watch the professional debut of Cuban pitcher Ardolis Chapman.
During the off season the Cincinnati Reds snuck up on all the big shooters and signed the left-hander to a six-year $30 million deal. He was assigned to the Class AAA Louisville Bats who visited Toledo.
I’m a huge fan of the passion behind Cuban baseball—I visited the island in the late 1980s to watch games in Havana—and I wanted to see what Chapman was all about. I knew he would be different than the tricky Cuban pitchers of my generation. He does not have the screwball of the late Mike “Crazy Horse” Cuellar the herky jerky hesitation of should be Hall of Famer Luis Tiant or even the sneaky moxie of Livian Hernandez and his half brother El Duque. Chapman, 22, was pretty magnificent.
The Mud Hens scoreboard kept a radar gun on Chapman and he hit 100 MPH on five pitches. Chapman struck out 9 and walked 1 in 4 2/3 innings. He threw 85 pitches overall, 55 for strikes. [The Mud Hens batting coach is former Cub Leon Durham.]
Besides his terrific fast ball Chapman froze out several Mud Hens with a nifty slider and change up. The only run Chapman surrendered came on a Brennan Bosch infield single when Chapman failed to cover first base.
My mind drifted, too.
Like why don’t the Cubs ever get a guy like this? Unless he gets hurt, Chapman should be with the Reds by June. Chapman cost the Reds $30 million. Its been reported that the Ricketts family spent $10 million in off season upgrades at Wrigley Field. That’s one-third of the way to Chapman. Besides, the only thing done to the bathrooms by my seats in Sec. 242 was some extra lighting and linear drink shelves. Big deal. I think Ricketts is just smiling and setting us up for big hurts down the way—-like PSLs. They’re part of the plan at the new Target Field for the Minnesota Twins where they go by fancy pants names like “Legends Club Memberships.”
So instead of enjoying Chapman on a beautiful spring day, I stewed about my Cubs. I’m fairly sure the up-and-coming Reds and even the Pirates could eclipse the Cubs in the N.L. Central Divison. We’ve got a leadoff man like Ryan Theroit, who gets cut a lot of slack because he gives good press like Mark Grace. Capt. Lou finally saw the light today and announced “The Riot” would be dropped to the 8 hole against left handed pitchers.
It’s no “Riot” watching Theriot take called third strikes or swing at the first pitch to ground out with the bases loaded—-as I witnessed this week. Did I tell you about the Reds AAA shortstop Zack Cozart? The speedy 24-year-old got three hits and the game winning RBI as Lousville beat Toledo 2-1. There’s no escaping the reality of the Cubs, even in Toledo, Ohio.
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