The Many Losses of Large
I have to confess that reading the news yesterday that Eddie Sutton is returning to coaching brought only one major thought to my mind - God I hated Don Sutton. I mean, I really HATED the guy.
This led me to think about an argument I once lost, one that still burns me. It was with this gravelly-voiced asshole of a Dodgers-fan bartender at Teddy's in '98, the year that Don Sutton got elected to the Hall. I was sitting there bitching and moaning about Sutton making the Hall and saying how I thought he didn't deserve it, etc., and this mamaluc actually came around the bar with his Baseball Encyclopedia in hand (he was exactly the kind of jerkoff who keeps a Baseball Encyclopedia nearby at all times) to set me straight.
I got slaughtered, the acid-reflux memory of which led me to other such memories of defeat, and in the interest of purging them I thought I would share my ignominy with the No Mas community. So without further ado I bring you The Top Five Baseball Arguments Ever Lost by Large in a Bar. It should tell you something about the list to know that the above Don Sutton donnybrook didn't even make the cut.
5. Dave Winfield v. Dave Parker
Teddy's - Brooklyn, NY - 1996
Lost this one to a Teddy's bartender as well, and again it wasn't a throwdown I was looking for exactly - I was just there at the bar mouthing off and the next thing I knew I was getting taken to the mat. I was on the Winfield side of things, and in retrospect I still think I'm right about that on the whole. Then again, as we all know, bar arguments have nothing to do with being right. It's a lot like a bar fight really - the timing and force of your first punch is nearly everything. In this case, I just happened to be up against a Pirates nut who was loaded for bear and came out throwing bombs. Later on, when the argument was mostly over and I was all bitter I tried tweaking the guy about the overall crap-liciousness of the Pirates as a franchise and he started talking about how historically they could field the second best team in the bigs next to the Yanks, and I was like bullshit no way, and the next thing I knew he's hitting me with "Paul Waner." I mean, when you're in a bar baseball argument and your opponent busts out a name like "Paul Waner" without even giving it a second thought, you know you're about to drink an ice-cold can of asswhup.4. Rod Carew v. Don Mattingly
Trump Plaza - Atlantic City, NJ - 2002
This is the only one of these arguments that I could nail down to a specific date, because it was the night of the Lennox/Tyson bout. I was down at my folks' place in Brigantine and I went over to AC to watch the fight on the big screen. Later on, I was eating at the bar and I struck up a conversation with a Yankee fan who was going on about how Mattingly belonged in the Hall, a point that I took issue with. He said something like, "name some first basemen who've gotten in the Hall lately," and admittedly there had been some weak ones right around that time - Tony Perez, Orlando Cepeda - but then I hit on Carew (inducted a decade earlier, and perhaps more a second baseman than a first, but still...), which really set him off. "You're gonna compare Rod Carew with Don Mattingly?" We went back and forth for a while, and of all the arguments listed here, this undoubtedly was the best contest, which is the reason I include it in the top five. And though I do feel like I lost in the end (again, another one where I feel like I was completely in the right, but just didn't execute), unlike so many bouts of bar-blathering, it was one of those sound competitions that ennobles rather than degrades the participants.
3. 1980 Phils v. 1998 Yanks The Harvard Club - Manhattan, NY - 2003?
I'm a little iffy about the date on this one, but it was sometime in the early part of the millennium when I used to meet my friend Ed at the Harvard Club to play squash. Then we would eat dinner and watch baseball games at the bar. I'm just ashamed of this thing all around - in retrospect I was just ridiculously wrong and in the moment I lost a humiliatingly quick exchange when I thought I was going to sound all erudite and creative and ended up sounding like some out-of-town mook who probably had a hard time tying his shoes that morning. And let me tell you something people - that shit will happen to you in the Harvard Club. Best to keep your mouth shut up in that motherfucker unless you got the nuts.
2. Al Kaline v. Al KalineThe Brooklyn Nights - Brooklyn, NY - 1994
Oh my brothers and sisters this is a bad one. I don't really remember much of what transpired but I am told that I ardently defended the honor of Al Kaline against a professional wrestling sized ringer from Detroit who evidently thought that Kaline was overrated, but who also (I'm told) didn't give much of a shit either way. It's funny really, because I hardly know the first thing about Al Kaline other than that he played for the Tigers and he had 3,007 hits (I pretty much had the 3,000 hits club memorized when I was a kid). I never saw him play and I have absolutely no strong feelings about the man or his game, but on this night, fueled by alcohol and youth, I was passionate on the matter. This one, I'm sorry to say, turned into a fistfight, which I also lost, lost it badly. Al Kaline, wherever you are, I want you to know that I went to the mat for you sir, was prepared to give my life for the cause of your honor, and to this day I have no idea why. Someday perhaps you will return the favor.
1. Joe Carter's Walkoff v. The Heartbreak of an Entire Borough
Turkey's Nest - Brooklyn, NY - 1995
I want to begin by pointing out that this is back when the Turkey's Nest was a dive, and not a "dive." This one right here is no doubt the most efficient KO I've ever swallowed in my career of arguing about baseball in bars, and I have to say it was the most satisfying too, sort of like getting knocked out by Joe Louis or Rocky Graziano, a piece of history you're proud to be a part of even on the losing end. I was in the Nest one night watching a Knicks game and when it was over everyone left and I was solo with the crusty old bartender who had a facial tic and seemed like he was a bit touched on the whole. SportsCenter was on the tube with the sound down and for some reason they showed a highlight of the Joe Carter walkoff in the '93 Series, and I, deep in my cups and melancholy as an Irishman out on bail, said out loud to no one in particular, "that... was the worst thing that ever happened." My barman made straight for me then, stood in front of me with a froth of a look and yelled, "the worst thing that ever happened! the WORST THING that ever happened? THE WORST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED WAS THE DODGERS LEFT BROOKLYN!" Then he poured me a buyback and walked to the other end of the bar, a neutral corner. No need to even count me out. He'd finished me with a single blow.
posted by Large at 1:40 PM
9 Comments:
Sutton returning to coaching just made my annual trip to the USF-Gonzaga game* that much more exciting.
Tickets still available, dude.
* - I think this will make the fourth year in a row. There's a good bar within walking distance and it's always been good (Turiaf stinking it up and the nationally ranked Zags losing, Morrison absolutely bananas in front of a packed gym aaaand okay, last year didn't have that much going for it other than us continuing to refer to David Pendergraft as Rusty Fingerbang).
What about Large vs. 60 pushups?
Doesn't that rank in their somewhere? I was not actually there myself, but our friend Bud enjoys spinning a yarn about Dave in his drinking and arguing prime. It started out with Large insisting he could strike everyone out without them touching a single pitch. Since it was in the wee hours and a lighted field was not redily avialable, the disagreement reached its inevitable conclusion with a bet over whether or not Large could complete sixty pushups.
He reached eleven.
This is all a lie.
And it wasn't about baseball, except the part about me being able to strike out everyone in the bar, and I didn't lose that argument. It wasn't even an argument. It was a simple statement of fact. I threw a lefty curve that dropped off the side of the planet.
11 pushups.
oh boy.
stick to guitar Lear.
I did like 37 and just stopped. It was like stealing money.
I've got to weigh in here. I was a witness to this history. I and aforementioned Pirate fan were behind the bar that Friday night of yore, and in his defense, a younger, brasher Large did in fact swill down most of the contents of a Jamison bottle. What began w/ playfull boasting by our boy ( beating us both in a game of basketball, at the same time mind you, systematically destroying either of us in golf, tennis, ping-pong and yacht racing) had taken on dimensions that could no longer be ignored. C.I. is correct in that a push-up contest broke out in Brooklyn that night as the morning sun slowly made its approach. The number was indeed 60 and a confident and heroically shit-faced large made his way across the empty bar and assumed the position above the filthy floor. I think most of us have learned that doing anything that requires strength, stamina or dexterity while plastered is a losing propisition; on this night, Large learned as well. While C.I.'s count of 11 is a bit off, it was somewhere around that number when Large's over-taxed muscles began to spasam out of control. The end was near. I'd put the final tally between 24 and 32. A matter of conjecture, but, since this was one of the few times that dave and I were in a room together and he was drunker than me, I feel pretty good about my recall. None of us reached the number that night. As Large veered out the door I could see that he felt he'd been robbed somehow. I half expected him to return an hour later for a rematch. That my friends is one competitive son of a bitch.
P.S. If there is a clamoring for more tales of Don Grandes exploits, I will answer the bell. They are the stuff of legend.
Happy New Year Dave.
I've got to weigh in here. I was a witness to this history. I and aforementioned Pirate fan were behind the bar that Friday night of yore, and in his defense, a younger, brasher Large did in fact swill down most of the contents of a Jamison bottle. What began w/ playfull boasting by our boy ( beating us both in a game of basketball, at the same time mind you, neither one of us so much as fouling off a pitch from him, systematically destroying either of us in golf, tennis, ping-pong and yacht racing) had taken on dimensions that could no longer be ignored. C.I. is correct in that a push-up contest broke out in Brooklyn that night as the morning sun slowly made its approach. The number was indeed 60 and a confident and heroically shit-faced large made his way across the empty bar and assumed the position above the filthy floor. I think most of us have learned that doing anything that requires strength, stamina or dexterity while plastered is a losing propisition; on this night, Large learned as well. While C.I.'s count of 11 is a bit off, it was somewhere around that number when Large's over-taxed muscles began to spasam out of control. The end was near. I'd put the final tally between 24 and 32. A matter of conjecture, but, since this was one of the few times that dave and I were in a room together and he was drunker than me, I feel pretty good about my recall. None of us reached the number that night. As Large veered out the door I could see that he felt he'd been robbed somehow. I half expected him to return an hour later for a rematch. That my friends is one competitive son of a bitch.
P.S. If there is a clamoring for more tales of Don Grandes exploits, I will answer the bell. They are the stuff of legend.
Happy New Year Dave.
All right, all right, I will NEVER live this down. And in that Morty B's recitation is much kinder than it might have been, I will fess up to the crime.
Somewhere between 24 and 32 pushups does sound about right, and though there is precious little about this infamous evening that is clear to me in retrospect, I do vividly recall the sensation, somewhere around 15, of my triceps starting to shake and being acutely aware of the fact that I was about to make a complete fucking fool of myself.
As for my legendary competitive-ness, I have no defense. I don't know whether I am proud or ashamed of the fact that in the aftermath of this debacle I started doing pushups on a regular basis just to be ready for a rematch that never came. I was up to about 80, doing them every day. I was obsessed. Of course, vengeance was never mine.
I still believe, however, that I could smoke Morty and The Pirates Nut in ping pong, basketball and judo, and I could yacht the shit out of them blindfolded.
Happy New Year to you, Morty - we should catch up soon. And Don, wherever you are, Happy Holidays my friend.
dave,
al kaline, yeah, what was that about, i cannot remember either. but it was the afternoon, perhaps a weekday, as it should be. we yelled something down to the old tigers fan at the other end of the bar (the guy who would drunkenly make fun of the 'pillies') and demanded that he come and defend something or other to us. he staggered down to our end of the bar, you talked about al kaline, and i started pontificating about gates brown (?).
the guy next to us took issue with your opinions on al. that's all i'll say.
but we did together win an argument with jimmy the bartender that: "dude, [the flintstones] dino was totally purple."
highlight of a terrible era
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