In the 1970s, the Baltimore Orioles used to have a relief pitcher named Don Stanhouse, who was — to use baseball vernacular — a flake.
Stanhouse’s nickname was “Stan the Man Unusual” — a name he earned by being such a strange duck. He aggravated manager Earl Weaver to no end (then again, pitchers in general irritated Weaver, so much so that Jim Palmer, his all-time ace, used to say “the only thing Earl knows about pitching is that he couldn’t hit it).”
In case anybody doesn’t understand the genius of that name, it’s a play on the nickname given to Hall of Famer Stan “the Man” Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals.
But there was another reason “Stan The Man Unusual” gained glory as well his Andy Warhol-esque 15 minutes of fame: as a relief pitcher, he made Weaver exceptionally nervous. Weaver to summon Stanhouse into the game and then proceed to duck up the runway and chainsmoke. He used to joke that Stanhouse was his “three pack a day” man.
I thought of “Stan the Man Unusual” over the weekend when I had to sit and endure Joe Kelly of the Red Sox blow one game and darn near blow another.
For those who were in a cave last week, Kelly came into Thursday’s game against the Tampa Bay Fay Wrays (which is what we were led to believe they’d play like this season). To that point, the Rays had one hit while Chris Sale played King Kong.
Enter Kelly, a/k/a “Gas Can” Kelly. So named (by me) because he comes to the mound with is own can of gasoline to pour onto the fire rather than put it out (which is what he’s supposed to do).
Anyone who follows baseball knows that relief pitchers have to have nerves of steel. They also have to have an ability to instantly forget failure and focus on the next task at hand.
You wonder, though. How does Kelly get what happened Thursday out of his head? How does he forget that he walked the ballpark and was the central culprit in the bullpen blowing a 4-0 lead and losing 6-4?
After being given two merciful days off by manager Alex Cora, Kelly was back in action Sunday, given the task of saving a 2-1 game.
He got the first two outs, but even in doing so, he gave a Bob Stanley-esque performance. By that I mean they weren’t to easy outs. They were fraught with tension. Even with the guy he struck out, he danced around the plate before finally whiffing him.
What followed was pure “three-pack-a-day” material. Kelly gave up two singles and went 3-2 on the next hitter before finally fanning him on a changeup that bounced about five feet in front of home plate. If you were watching, you were a raging tiger pacing in front of your TV by the time that game ended.
For the first 13 years of my life, the Red Sox were terrible. They were one of the worst teams in baseball. But for a few years during that truly wretched spell, they had the best reliever in the game — Dick Radatz. He was 6-6, weighed somewhere north of 280 pounds, and was nicknamed “the Monster” after blowing away Mickey Mantle on three pitches and having The Mick say “that monster struck me out.”
When I was 14, the Red Sox went from being the worst team in baseball to the pennant. There was no gradual buildup. No two or three season for fans to get used to the idea that the Red Sox were a real team and not a laughable bunch of pretenders waiting for enough service so they could retire with full pensions.
But once they got good, The Monster came up with arm trouble and that was the end of him. Periodically from that point on, the Red Sox would try to find the right closer, and most of the time fail. They signed Bill Campbell and he hurt his elbow. They turned Bob Stanley into a closer and he was a walking, talking horror movie. Horrible things happened when he got on the mound (ask anybody who watched Game 6 in 1986).
They thought they had a power pitcher in Calvin Schiraldi until he shriveled up like a $3 suit in that very same Game 6.
On and on. Their bullpen was so dysfunctional in 2003 that Grady Little chose to leave a spent Pedro Martinez in the game rather than risk using any of his relievers to keep the Yankees off the scoreboard in Game 7 of the ALCS. Pedro coughed up the lead.
One of the pitchers on that team was Alan Embree, a lefty to who couldn’t wait to give up runs.
They finally won a World Series with Keith Foulke as the closer, but soon enough Foulke was roadkill. Jonathan Papelbon had a few good years and he met the same fate.
The Sox practically broke the bank to rebuild their bullpen in 2013, and every single front-line reliever they signed got hurt. The Tommy John surgeons got rich. It fell to Koji Uehara to rescue them, and boy did he ever.
This history lesson proves two things. First, there’s no rhyme or reason to relievers. They are here today, gone tomorrow. You find very few Mariano Riveras in this world, and Lord knows the Red Sox have never had one. Craig Kimbrel, right now, is as nasty as they come. But history tells you that one wrong step off the mound and Kimbrel joins the roadkill strewn all over the Major League highway.
The second thing you learn is that it takes a certain mindset to be a closer in the Major Leagues. And sorry to say, Joe Kelly doesn’t have it. Please, for the love of all that’s holy, refrain from using him when the game’s on the line!
