Wayne Nordhagen

Here's Wayne Nordhagen in old Comiskey Park on a sunny day in 1980.  Perhaps this was the same day I saw him play against Kansas City from my seat in the upper deck behind third base.  Merely by coincidence, my dad and I happened to be in Chicago the same weekend the Royals were in town.  He carved out some time for baseball, and we headed to the South Side for the games on Saturday and Sunday.  Though I had been to Comiskey the year before, I had never seen the Royals play in person and was brimming with excitement.

The weather in Chicago on Sunday, August 3rd, 1980 was beautiful.  Our front-row upper deck seats provided a great vantage point of everything Comiskey - from the expansive playing field to the exploding scoreboard to Harry Caray broadcasting in the announcer's booth.  So close to the action, I have to agree with those who maintain Comiskey's upper deck offered the best seats in the house.

Looking back at the play-by-play 37 years later, it was indeed a good game.  At the time I remember becoming frustrated with the opportunities squandered by the Royals, such as in the 3rd inning when KC loaded the bases with one out but only managed to bring one runner home.  Or in the 4th, with one run across and two on and none out, the Royals going down in order with three anemic pop outs to the infield.  And in the 5th, after Hal McRae homered to tie the game 3-3, a George Brett single was promptly followed by a ground ball double-play to end the inning.

The play that sticks out in my memory, however, occurred in the top of the 6th.  Willie Aikens led off the inning with a deep drive to right field that I knew was destined for the lower deck and a 4-3 KC lead.  When the ball ricocheted off the wall, it was a huge letdown.  When Wayne Nordhagen fielded the ball cleanly and threw a strike to shortstop Todd Cruz to gun Aikens down at second, I was in disbelief.  In just a matter of seconds, the Royals, in my mind, had gone from leading 4-3 as the ball arced high in the sky, to having a runner in scoring position with nobody out after witnessing the ball rebound off the wall, to having the bases empty with one out after 2nd base umpire Larry McCoy's right arm shot in the air, signifying the runner was out.

Nordhagen was having his best season in baseball in 1980.  He was finally a regular in the Chicago lineup and responded by hitting .277 and leading the team in home runs.  In the strike-shortened '81 season Nordhagen hit .308 platooning in right field with the up-and-coming Harold Baines.  Unfortunately for the 33-year-old from Thief River Falls, Minnesota, the handwriting was on the wall in the spring of 1982.  Baines represented the future and would see more playing time.  When Baines did rest, White Sox manager Tony LaRussa made clear his intention of utilizing first baseman Tom Paciorek, acquired in a trade over the winter, in right field.

Nordhagen expressed his desire to be traded if the Sox planned to use him exclusively as a pinch-hitter.  "That's for later in my career," he told the Chicago Tribune early in spring training.  Regardless of whose uniform he would wear in '82, Nordhagen beamed with confidence.  "I'm going to have a good year.  That's fact.  It's a matter of getting playing time."  A month later the team shipped Nordhagen to Toronto for Aurelio Rodriguez.  He would be involved in a dizzying array of transactions that season but never received the playing time he sought.  Signed as a free agent by the Cubs before the 1983 season, Nordhagen would see only 35 at-bats with the city's North Side rival before being given his release on June 9th.  Fifteen months after telling the Tribune, "I'll never be content until I get on a team where I'm given a shot every day," his baseball career was over.

After Nordhagen, in clear violation of the natural order of the universe, threw out Aikens at second on what should have been - even for the lumbering Aikens - an easy double, the KC bats went dormant, save for a harmless two-out single by Aikens in the eighth.  Perhaps energized by his play in right, Nordhagen would provide the winning margin for the Sox, homering in his final two at-bats to propel his teammates to a 5-3 victory.

I just might have seen Wayne Nordhagen at his best that sunny Chicago day.  A professional through and through, he belonged in right field.  But what happens when your best is no longer good enough?  Do you demand a trade?  Do you become a free agent?  As a last-ditch effort to make peace with yourself, do you lower your expectations?

The book on Nordhagen was that he was slow and couldn't consistently hit right-handed pitching. For all his optimism in the spring of '82, Nordhagen's words betrayed his acceptance of an impending reality:  "I've had a good career, but I'll always feel I've been cheated somewhere along the line."  I admire Nordhagen's honesty.  Expressing those sentiments publicly often invites a deluge of stinging criticism from all fronts.  But if we're really honest with ourselves, who among us can say we've never felt the same way?       

Jon Matlack

On August 19, 1980, I was glued to the television set, which on this night was dialed to KAKE 10 in Wichita, a channel that oftentimes carried Royals games broadcast by an independent station out of Kansas City.  This was an exciting time to be a Royals fan.  With a record of 76-42, the team was walking away with the AL West crown and George Brett was making national headlines with his quest for .400.  Brett, who had eclipsed .400 for the first time two days earlier by going 4-for-4 against Toronto, carried a .404 average and 30-game hitting streak into the Tuesday night game, the second of a three-game series in Arlington.

Taking the mound for the Rangers on this night would be Jon Matlack, a 9-year veteran of the major leagues, the majority of those years having been spent with the New York Mets.  Not quite 10-years-old at the time, I didn't know anything about Jon Matlack.  But, judging from Brett's career .455 batting average against Matlack, it's safe to assume he knew a thing or two about him.

The Royals wasted no time getting to Matlack when U.L. Washington scored on a two-out single by Amos Otis in the top of the first.  Matlack gave up three hits in the inning, but not to Brett, who was 0-for-1.

Matlack was a first-round draft pick by the Mets in 1967 and the 4th player selected overall.  In 1972 he broke north with the Mets out of spring training and finished the season 15-10 with a 2.32 ERA, good enough for NL Rookie of the Year honors.  He also has the distinction of having been the pitcher whom Roberto Clemente tagged for his 3,000th and final hit before his untimely death in 1972.

The summer of 1980 was brutally hot, and on what was surely an uncomfortably warm Tuesday evening in Texas, Matlack was settling in nicely after a choppy first inning.  He retired 10 Royals batters in row before allowing a lead-off single to Willie Aikens in the fifth.  Aikens would stay at first, however, as the next three batters went down weakly against Matlack.  Brett was 0-for-2.

The Mets advanced to the World Series in 1973 by besting the Reds 3-games-to-2 in the NLCS.  Matlack was the Game 2 winning pitcher in Cincinnati, blanking the Reds on just 2 hits in the complete game victory.  In the Fall Classic, Matlack started three games, pitching a total of 16 2/3 innings and allowing 4 earned runs against the A's, who would ultimately win the Series, their second of three consecutive championships.

Matlack walked Brett in the 6th but receiver Jim Sundberg promptly threw him out on a stolen base attempt.  The 30-year-old lefthander from West Chester, Pennsylvania remained in total control as he cruised into the top of the ninth with a 4-hitter intact and a 3-1 lead.

Selected to the NL All-Star squad in each of the years 1974-1976, Matlack led the league with seven shutouts in '74 and six in '76.  As part of a complex trade involving four teams, Matlack joined the Rangers for the 1978 campaign, during which he won 15 games while tossing a career-high 270 innings.  Though elbow surgery limited his action to 13 games in 1979, he was in good repair for 1980.

Standing on the mound with a 2-run lead in the ninth, Matlack needed to get through the 2, 3, and 4 Royal hitters (Washington, Brett, McRae) before celebrating.  A fly ball error charged to Rangers shortstop Dave Roberts put Washington on first with Brett at the plate representing the tying run.  George Brett hit 24 home runs in the 1980 regular season, his personal best at that stage in his career, but he would not go yard on this occasion.  While I don't remember this particular at-bat, just as I don't remember any of the details about the game, I do remember witnessing Brett's 30-game hitting streak coming to an end.  After his last at-bat, an unassisted ground out to first base, the fans in Texas demanded a curtain call.  Brett was hesitant at first but ultimately obliged.  Said Matlack after the game: "The hell with George Brett."

With one out in the ninth, the Royals weren't done, and neither was Matlack, though he would be after McRae doubled home Washington.  The Rangers would go through three pitchers in the 9th in an effort to stop the bleeding, but to no avail.  With three runs in the ninth, the Royals would go on to win the contest 4-3. 

Matlack received a no-decision for what was largely an impressive performance.  Does that make his outing a success or a failure?  I'll let the sabermetricians debate that, but Matlack did put an end to Brett's hitting streak, which was no small triumph.  However, because the Rangers lost the game, he wasn't 100% successful in meeting his primary objective.  Of course, no one player has absolute control over the outcome of the game, even if it is the pitcher who statistically shoulders the wins and losses on the team's behalf.  It isn't necessarily fair; it's just the way it is.  As in life, success and failure isn't always so neatly defined.                                  

Jason Thompson

A random baseball memory I've carried in my mental briefcase for 33 years includes the tall left hander featured above, presumably ripping the ball to the right-hand side of the synthetic-turfed Three Rivers field.  I always pulled for Jason Thompson, and that may be why I remember watching in awe the Sports Center highlight reel from Tuesday, June 26, 1984 showcasing Thompson launching an incredible four home runs in a single afternoon - two dingers during each game of a Wrigley Field double-header versus the Cubs.

Only 29-years-old at the time of this impressive display of power, Thompson seemingly had many more years of baseball ahead of him.  He was a three-time All-Star, having made his most recent appearance in the mid-summer exhibition just two years prior.  However, Thompson's production dropped each subsequent year after that stellar 1982 campaign in which he hit .284 with 31 home runs and 101 RBIs.  Three years later Thompson was a mere shadow of his former self, combining a .241 batting average with 12 home runs and 61 RBIs.  By June 1986, only days away from turning 32, Thompson's playing days were over.

Whether he knew it or not, in the summer of 1984, Thompson's 11-year major league career was winding down.  Also in 1984, my baseball card collecting days were coming to an end.  Tired of trekking to the local QuickTrip to find they were either sold out of cards or, worse yet, suffering the disappointment of opening pack after pack only to be left with a stack of nondescript duplicates, in 1984 I bought two complete sets via the U.S. mail.  This, in what would be my last serious year of collecting, is how I acquired the Topps' Jason Thompson card pictured above.

The Pirates split the double-header with the Cubs that summer afternoon on Chicago's north side.  Knowing only that Thompson had crushed four homers, I assumed he must have felt like the king of the world post-game.  But life is seldom so easy and headlines never tell the full story.  Recounting the 9-8 Pirate second-game loss, Thompson told the press,  ''I had a chance to tie the score in the seventh inning, but struck out.  In the ninth I hit a weak ground ball that just about killed our chances of at least tying the game.''

That's life.  We strive for success and sometimes, with a little luck, we achieve it.  When we don't, we have to be careful not to dwell on our failures.  After all, there's always tomorrow.  Until there's not.

June 30, 1986 was Jason Thompson's last tomorrow in Major League Baseball.  An article from April 1987 catches up with Thompson, who appears to be living the life of Riley in southern California.  But what he really wants is another shot at baseball, a second chance for The Show that would never come.  Toronto's executive VP at the time and 2011 Hall of Fame inductee, Pat Gillick, was quoted as saying this about Thompson: "He's a hard guy to play.  The only thing you can do with him is DH him.  As far as his skills, he's a tough guy to play at first base.  He can't move.  You've got to pinch run for him.  He can't go from first to third.  He can't score on a sacrifice fly.  He's a very limited guy.  Based on our reports, we felt the guy was finished."

Ouch.  What do you do when prospective employers are quick to highlight everything you can't do?  We're told to never give up, to not be quitters.  So we fight back by working hard to prove those naysayers wrong.  This is what Thompson was doing in 1987.  But if the phone still doesn't ring after sweating in the cage for months on end, fielding hours upon hours of ground balls, and submitting letters of interest to every last potential employer, you just can't create your own baseball league from scratch and install yourself at first base.  At some point reality sets in, and you realize there is no tomorrow in your current field of expertise.  In order to survive, you part ways with what's no longer working and forge a new, better way ahead.
                

Jerry Grote

I have only one memory of the baseball player featured in the 1979 Topps card above, which was years after the picture for this card - his last, I believe - was made.  The memory involves one swing of the bat, insignificant really, in baseball and in life.  But for whatever reason, the memory remains.  The setting, as were many of my early professional baseball memories, was my bedroom adjacent to the carport.  Over 36 years later I still remember the rush of excitement I experienced hearing Royals radio announcer Fred White relaying to fans throughout the Midwest that the batter, whose image is shown above wearing a Dodger cap, had just hit a grand slam home run for the home team.

Maybe this moment resonates in my mind because the Royals did not hit many home runs in the first place, and Grote, who hit only 39 home runs over 16 major league seasons, was perhaps as unlikely as anyone in the Royals lineup to hit one out on this particular evening.  In my 10-year-old mind, his homer with the bases loaded injected a certain amount of heroism to the occasion.  It was the ultimate feat, better than pitching a no-hitter.  Fans in the larger markets were spoiled, I thought.  Their teams were just as likely to ground out to second as they were to smash grand slams, or so it seemed.  To have the home team pull it off and hear it live as it happened 180 miles away was indeed a special moment.   

With time, memories fade.  I have no recollection what I did on this day other than listen to the Royals game on the radio that evening.  I remember no other details of the game and even the central figure of this post - Mr. Jerry Grote himself - was at some point washed from my memory and replaced with Johnny Oates, even though Oates, I recently discovered, never played for the Royals.  In those days, in Wichita, Kansas, big-league baseball was heard more than it was seen.  For my friends and me, MLB was viewed primarily through our baseball cards.  Because Oates and Grote were both catchers on the Dodgers' roster in the late 70s and I undoubtedly viewed their cards many times over, it is conceivable how Oates could have stolen Grote's identity in my mind.

Thanks to the Internet, I was able to restore Grote to his proper place of prominence in my memory and trace his grand slam to a game against the Seattle Mariners on Wednesday, June 3rd, 1981. Playing in his final season as a professional baseball player, this would be Grote's best performance of the year.  Between the grand slam, a double, and a single, Grote knocked in a total of 7 runs.  The unquestionable star of the game, he also stole a base and threw out Tom Paciorek, who was trying to steal 2nd off of Royals' starter Rich Gale.  Most importantly for me at the time, the Royals won the game 12-9.

Jerry Grote appeared in 1,421 major league contests, primarily as a member of the New York Mets.  Playing in only 22 games as a Royal, his tenure with the team represents little more than a footnote to a career that spanned three decades.  Had I not been listening in the bottom of the fifth when Grote went long with the bases full, there is no doubt I would be oblivious to this bit of meaningless trivia. But with one swing, as described through the tiny speaker of an alarm clock radio 36 years ago, there is meaning still, no matter how trivial it may seem.