Have you ever seen umpires warm- up their arms before games so they can throw the ball to the pitcher? — LARRY, Piqua.
No, because they don’t. Mostly before games they rub Delaware mud on the baseballs to remove the gloss or they warm up their lungs in front of a mirror. Some umpires, the young guys, like to throw new balls to the pitcher. The older, wiser guys merely hand a new ball to the catcher and let him throw it. I’ve never heard of an umpire undergoing Tommy John surgery.
The Pete Rose statue at Great American Ball Park is awesome. Will the next statue be of manager Sparky Anderson pointing to the bullpen in his Captain Hook pose? — CHARLEY, Centerville. QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Is there any chance Bronson Arroyo hangs around in some kind of coaching role for the Reds? — MARK, Dayton.
If you believe Bronson, and the guy is a walking, human lie detector, there is no chance. He tells anybody who asks that he is not interested in doing anything in baseball when his pitching career is over. He will take his guitar and fade away, probably on a boat somewhere near Key West. And that’s too bad because he would make an outstanding pitching coach, especially for young players who can’t throw 98 miles an hour. When healthy, Arroyo made great hitters look silly with his offspeed pitches delivered in about 49 different ways.
GABP has almost as many statues as Rome or Athens, and the pigeons love it. The Reds love to live in the past because, as Pete Rose said, “The past is rich.” And it distracts from the mess they are in right now. Adding Sparky makes a lot of sense, but before you know it they’ll be adding one of Champ Summers.
I enjoyed watching Bronson Arroyo pitch for the Reds over the years, but who was the greatest pitcher you ever saw? — JAY, Englewood.
In my time the Reds have had few outstanding pitchers, but the ones who stand out are Don Gullett, Mario Soto and Jose Rijo. But the greatest pitcher in my time was, without hesitation, Nolan Ryan. He pitched for 27 years, struck out 5,714 batters, threw seven no-hit- ters and I am amazed he never threw one against the Reds. He was throwing pitches over 100 miles an hour in his 40s. And as Robin Ventura discovered to his dismay, a player should never charge the mound with Ryan standing on it.
Do batters ever ask umpires if a pitch was a strike after the batter swung and missed a pitch or would umpires consider that a challenge and eject them? — DAN, Beavercreek.
They do it all the time. I’ve seen Joey Votto do it, although he seldom swings at a pitch out of the strike zone. And umpires answer that, yes, it was a strike or, no, it wasn’t. It isn’t considered a challenge because the batter swung and missed so the strike was not a bad call by the umpire. Now if the batter says, “I swung at that pitch in the dirt because you’d probably call it a strike,” that player might be standing under the showers in the third inning.
Didn’t Johnny Bench hit three home run in one game against John “The Count” Montefusco? — JEFF, Troy.
Not three, just one. But it traveled 500 feet. Before the game, the brash San Francisco pitcher predicted he would strike out Bench four times. Bench hit the ball 500 feet. While Scooter Gennett is the only Red to hit four home runs in a game, Bench once hit four in four at-bats. He homered in his last at-bat on May 8, 1973. Then the next day, facing Cy Young winner and Hall of Famer Steve Carlton, he hit three in his first three at-bats. Amazingly, the year before, Bench hit three in one game off Carlton. That’s why, to this day, Bench calls Carlton “my cousin Steve.”
If they used brightly colored baseballs