th s “ la c th s T ru s h a e T g c G w c By Mary Craft I play golf with a group of guys every Sunday rotating courses each week. We play Oso, Padre Isles, Lozano, Gulf Winds at he base and Newport Dunes. River Hills in Calallen and Northshore were in the mix until hey recently became private clubs. Twice a year we travel to a golf resort outside the area and our most recent trip took us to Tapatio Springs Resort in Boerne. Tapatio came into existence when Clyde Smith of Smitty’s Grocery Store chain fame developed he course in 1981. He still lives in a cliffside glass-walled home overlooking the course. It s a very secluded resort that you must drive hrough four miles of winding forested hilly roads to get to. Along the way you see many animals including lots of deer. The clubhouse is very posh with rich woodwork and marble. The large outside patio has lattice roofing for shade and a huge fireplace that keeps t comfortable on the cool evenings. Why just 18 when you can play 27? There are three nine hole courses that each offer a unique golfing experience. The toughest s “The Ridge” which is definitely not walkable. Some of the cart paths are so steep you wonder f the cart will make it up. The fairways are bordered by walls of rock and if you are lucky your ball will bounce off and back into the fairway if you should hit there. This nine tends o eat the most balls because there are also rock gorges in the center of the fairway on some holes. Our group decided to keep track of lost balls after 18 holes with the one losing the most buying a round. The winner, or should I say oser, lost 12 balls. The Lakes nine has the most water both to get across and bordering fairways. It played much easier for us than usual because of the drought. A 2 handicap hole was made easy because the arge pond in front of the green was dry. The Valley is the easiest and has many beautiful homes along the fairways. We saved this one to play our last nine and were charged only $16 each to play the extra nine. Double occupancy room, golf with cart for 18 holes and breakfast brunch was $140/person on a Saturday. The restaurant had pretty good food but the brunch was awful. You are better off ordering breakfast from the menu. All the rooms were large and modern with a balcony. How I Tee It Play Golf Amongst Oak Trees instead of Palm Trees Tapatio Springs Golf Resort just a 3 hour drive Tapatio by morning........ During the years the resort hit some hard times as did many golf resorts due to the economy. The upkeep started to slip and it was not the pristine course it once was until 2011 when George Strait bought it and brought it back to its former glory. It is a popular destination for golf outings for groups that come from all over Texas. There was a large group from Houston that were spending four days while we were there. Their club was called GTYP which stands for Golf Till You Puke and three of the days they played 36 holes. The tournament winner was the one with the lowest score at the end. Their matching polo shirts for the event had “T.I.T.S.” above the pocket that stood for Tournament in Tapatio Springs. Obviously a fun group that does not take the game too seriously. There was one 6’6” player who was particularly fun but that’s another story.It is great to have a golf resort with such a different landscape than ours that is just three hours from the Island. Close enough for even just a one nighter and heck you can still play another 18 before you head back. If you go, tell them you heard about them from the Moon. Maybe that will get me a free round. It can’t hurt.
Transcript
May 16, 2013 Island Moon A 13
SPORTSOne Short At-Bat
This is an eyewitness account of the story of Eddie Gaedel as told by Detroit Tigers pitcher, Virgil “Fire” Trucks. “I was sitting in the Detroit dugout when a
midget popped up off the St. Louis Browns bench and walked up to home plate to pinch hit for Tigers outfielder Frank Saucier, at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, Missouri. Twenty-six year old Eddie Gaedel was swinging four miniature bats in the on-deck circle, the kind they give away on bat day at the ballpark for kids,” said Trucks. Eddie was 3 feet 7 inches tall and he had instructions from St. Louis owner Bill Veeck to hold the bat on his shoulder. “Do not swing,” instructed Veeck. The date was August 19, 1951, and Eddie was
the first batter for the St Louis Browns against the Detroit Tigers in the second game of a doubleheader. He was wearing a jersey with the number 1/8 written on the back. “Nobody thought he was really going to get in the batter box. When he did step into the batter’s box, our manager “Red” Rolfe called timeout and went out to the home plate umpire and said, ‘They can’t put that guy in to hit,’” said Trucks. “That’s when Zack Taylor, the Browns manager ran up and handed the umpire a contract signed by Will Harridge, the President of the American League,” explained Trucks. Sure enough, Eddie Gaedel had been signed
to a Major League contract by the Browns. So Gaedel stepped back in the box and Detroit pitcher Bob Cain got ready to throw. “That’s when Eddie yelled at Cain, ‘Just get
the ball over; I’m gonna murder it.’ Detroit catcher Bob Swift called timeout and went to the mound and said to Cain, ‘His strike zone is only an inch and a half; keep it low.’ Cain started laughing so hard he almost fell off the mound. After Cain collected himself, he threw four straight pitches that would have been called strikes on anybody else, but were called balls on Gaedel, because they were too high. So Gaedel went to first base where he was replaced by a pinch runner, Jim Delsing. That was the end of his professional baseball career; his one and only at-bat,” laughed Trucks. Cain later admitted that he had feared for
Gaedel’s life if he had hit him, so he took it easy
on him. Eddie reaped the benefits of his 15 minutes of fame by appearing on several TV shows in the following weeks. In fact, he earned over $17,000, a large sum of money in those days. His playing contract with Veeck had only been for $100. It’s a funny story with a sad ending. Eddie Gaedel spent the next ten years boasting
he had been a Major League baseball player. He was constantly in and out of scraps and drank to excess on most occasions. Eddie Gaedel died in his room of a heart attack on June 18, 1961, at the age of 36, after suffering from a terrible beating by an unknown assailant. The mugger robbed Eddie of his life and the $11 he had in his pocket. The fisticuffs left him bruised up with whelps
on his face, chest, and knees. He had suffered earlier in his life from high blood pressure and an enlarged heart. It was classified as a murder, but the case was never solved. Only one guy from Major League baseball
attended Eddie’s funeral. Detroit Tigers pitcher, Bob Cain, drove 300 miles to be there. Cain was shocked that no one else from baseball attended. To add insult to injury, Eddie’s mother was
down and out and broke. She claimed she had been swindled out of Eddie’s bats and his St. Louis Browns uniform by a man claiming to be representing the Baseball Hall-of-Fame Museum. The only items that the Hall of Fame now has are the pictures of Eddie Gaedel at bat during that game. Andy Purvis is a local author. His books “In
the Company of Greatness” and “Remembered Greatness” are on the shelves at the local Barnes and Noble, at Beamer’s Sports Grill 5922 S Staples, and online at many different sites including Amazon, bn.com, booksamillion, Google Books, etc. They are also available in e-reader format. Contact him at www.purvisbooks.com, or [email protected]. Special thanks to ESPN Corpus for creating
Uncle Andy’s Sports Blog. You can go to www.espncorpus.com and click on BLOGS. New story each week. Also access via “Dennis and Andy’s Q&A” when that comes up on site. Click on it and then go to Blog. You may also go to www.purvisbooks.com and please leave comments!
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How would you like a job as a major league
baseball instant-replay umpire? Sounds like a great job…do you think you could handle the pressure?
The Oakland Athletics’ overruled home run this week shows again that subjective on-field rulings are numerous.
Inaccuracy is inevitable in a game with as many intricacies as unreliable, often unfair ways to officiate MLB games. Balls will be called strikes, checked swings will be debated, and the infield fly rule will confound fans forever. But one of the goals of Major League Baseball is to ensure the game is officiated as correctly as possible and offer an effective in-game remedy for the human mistakes of umpires. Last week’s debacle at Cleveland’s Progressive Field showed once again that the MLB is failing at that goal.
With two outs in the ninth inning between the Athletics and the Indians, Oakland infielder Adam Rosales hit a game-tying home run that was incorrectly ruled a double on the field. The ruling was upheld even after four umpires, including crew chief Angel Hernandez, reviewed the replay.
Catastrophe in ClevelandThat’s the short version of the “Catastrophe
in Cleveland.” The larger takeaway is that baseball’s instant-replay system, introduced in 2008 to prevent the type of missed call that occurred on
Wednesday, is not working. Baseball needs a replay umpire, or more games will be decided by human error.
It’s still unclear how exactly Hernandez and his crew missed what everyone in the stadium—including both teams, both sets of announcers, and everyone in the press box—clearly saw. Rosales’s hit bounced off the railing about nine inches above the yellow home-run line at the top of the padded wall in left field and ricocheted back onto the outfield grass. That couldn’t have happened had the hit not been a home run, because the ball would have hit the soft padding below the line. After the game, Hernandez told a reporter that the crew did not believe there was “100 percent certainty” to overrule the call on the field, which sounds ludicrous to anyone who’s watched even one replay of the “double.”
Joe Torre, the league’s executive vice president of baseball operations, released a statement Thursday afternoon that unwittingly identified the basic problem with baseball’s current replay system:
“In the opinion of Angel Hernandez, who was last night’s crew chief, there was not clear and convincing evidence to overturn the decision on the field. It was a judgment call, and as such, it stands as final.”
Torre’s statement, like the MLB’s current rule book, conflates an objective fact with a subjective review. Whether a ball crossed the home-run line is an objective question, and a review system that allows subjectivity to so easily override objectivity is fatally flawed.
Imperfect gameThis isn’t the first time in recent years that a
game has been marred by inept umpiring that could not be properly reviewed. Armando Galarraga’s perfect game on June 2, 2010, was ruined when first-base umpire Jim Joyce called the last out of the game safe. And after
Use Instant-Replay Umpires to End Baseball’s Epic Officiating Screw-ups
erroneously ruling that then-Yankee Nick Swisher left third base too soon in the 2009 American League Championship Series, umpire Tim McClelland said: “In my heart I thought he left too soon... after looking at replays, I’m not sure I believe the replay.”
The MLB instituted its current instant-replay system precisely to avoid the unreliable subjectivity that has tainted so many games over the years. But even given the opportunity to rely on that failsafe Wednesday night, Hernandez and his crew doubled down on the wrong call instead.
A replay umpire could solve many of the problems that plague the current system. Right now, field umpires must head into the clubhouse to watch the replay, often on a tiny monitor, facing intense pressure to complete the review as quickly as possible to keep the game moving. And replays are only used when there’s reason to believe an umpire made the wrong call the first time, which sometimes causes umps to stubbornly stick to the original call in the face of opposing evidence—as Hernandez did on Wednesday.
But put a replay umpire in a room with a large monitor that gets the feeds of both teams’ television broadcasts and the ability to quickly communicate with the umps on the field—similar to the system currently in use in college football—and those problems will go away.
Skin in the gameA replay ump would have no skin in the
game, access to more replay angles, and the impartiality of being at least one step removed from the action. That way, all disputed calls that should be based on objective results—fair/foul balls, disputed home runs, safe/out tag plays on the bases—could be funneled through a single observer with a mandate of impartiality and access to replay technology befitting of the 21st century.
Detractors may argue that adding another umpire would only complicate an already thorny process, but it would actually make things simpler. Despite what the umpires’ union might say, a replay ump could keep the men in blue from making destructively bad calls they have to live with forever—just ask Joyce how that feels. It would benefit teams and players, who could trust that a bad rapport with an ump or a fuzzy picture on a replay screen would not cost them any more games. It would certainly benefit the fans, who don’t want to see their team miss the playoffs in October because of a horrendous call in early May. And it would benefit the game by removing a layer of potential inaccuracy.
It’s worth noting that Rosales’s hit would have only tied the game, and Cleveland could have prevailed in the bottom of the ninth or in extra innings. Ultimately, though, that’s not the point. We have the technology to almost completely eradicate objective errors from baseball. Until the MLB installs a replay umpire or makes some other tweak to its obviously compromised review system, the stain of games like last night will linger over the sport.
Do you remember the “pine tar” incident? Tim was the rookie umpire behind the plate when this happened.
Tim McClellandInterested in applying to be an instant replay
I play golf with a group of guys every Sunday rotating courses each week. We play Oso, Padre Isles, Lozano, Gulf Winds at the base and Newport Dunes. River Hills in Calallen and Northshore were in the mix until they recently became private clubs. Twice a year we travel to a golf resort outside the area and our most recent trip took us to Tapatio Springs Resort in Boerne.
Tapatio came into existence when Clyde Smith of Smitty’s Grocery Store chain fame developed the course in 1981. He still lives in a cliffside glass-walled home overlooking the course. It is a very secluded resort that you must drive through four miles of winding forested hilly roads to get to. Along the way you see many animals including lots of deer.
The clubhouse is very posh with rich woodwork and marble. The large outside patio has lattice roofing for shade and a huge fireplace that keeps it comfortable on the cool evenings.
Why just 18 when you can play 27?There are three nine hole courses that each
offer a unique golfing experience. The toughest is “The Ridge” which is definitely not walkable. Some of the cart paths are so steep you wonder if the cart will make it up. The fairways are bordered by walls of rock and if you are lucky your ball will bounce off and back into the fairway if you should hit there. This nine tends to eat the most balls because there are also rock gorges in the center of the fairway on some holes. Our group decided to keep track of lost balls after 18 holes with the one losing the most buying a round. The winner, or should I say loser, lost 12 balls.
The Lakes nine has the most water both to get across and bordering fairways. It played much easier for us than usual because of the drought. A 2 handicap hole was made easy because the large pond in front of the green was dry.
The Valley is the easiest and has many beautiful homes along the fairways. We saved this one to play our last nine and were charged only $16 each to play the extra nine. Double occupancy room, golf with cart for 18 holes and breakfast brunch was $140/person on a Saturday. The restaurant had pretty good food but the brunch was awful. You are better off ordering breakfast from the menu. All the rooms were large and modern with a balcony.
How I Tee It
Play Golf Amongst Oak Trees instead of Palm Trees
Tapatio Springs Golf Resort just a 3 hour drive
Tapatio by morning........During the years the resort hit some hard times
as did many golf resorts due to the economy. The upkeep started to slip and it was not the pristine course it once was until 2011 when George Strait bought it and brought it back to its former glory.
It is a popular destination for golf outings for groups that come from all over Texas. There
was a large group from Houston that were spending four days while we were there. Their club was called GTYP which stands for Golf Till You Puke and three of the days they played 36 holes. The tournament winner was the one with the lowest score at the end. Their matching polo shirts for the event had “T.I.T.S.” above the pocket that stood for Tournament in Tapatio Springs. Obviously a fun group that does not
take the game too seriously. There was one 6’6” player who was particularly fun but that’s another story.It is great to have a golf resort with such a different landscape than ours that is just three hours from the Island. Close enough for even just a one nighter and heck you can still play another 18 before you head back. If you go, tell them you heard about them from the Moon. Maybe that will get me a free round. It can’t hurt.
