Wednesday, May 25, 2011

The King Of "A Day Late & A Dollar Short"

The last two days I have talked about Toms River’s Todd Frazier and the developments that led to him reaching the major leagues at the age of 25 this week. This morning’s segment is how professional sports can truly be a cruel business while at the same time crowning myself the king of “a day late and a dollar short.”

As I said yesterday I was planning to watch Todd and the Cincinnati Reds last night as they played the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park. My son Brandon is a close friend and had to work some magic with his job for a public relations firm in New York because he vowed that no matter when and where when his former Toms River South classmate and teammate made it to the majors he would be there.

I then worked some magic on my end to secure tickets for not only us and two
of Todd’s other friends but my daughter and two of her friends. Everything was in place and just as we were getting ready to leave my daughter gets a text that the Reds have sent Frazier back to the minor leagues. I of course dismiss this with a chuckle as a very bad rumor. However she gets more information via another text and this time it includes the name of the player who is coming up from the minor leagues to replace Todd. Now I’m starting to get a bit curious and immediately call my son who just boarded his bus in New York. Moments later he calls me back to say it’s true but the bus has left and he can’t get off. This my friends is turning out to be one giant cluster______.

Within a few minutes we have determined that amazingly Todd Frazier’s first major league call-up has lasted less than 24 hours. We decide to go to the game anyway, in large part because my son is on a bus heading that way and I have the tickets. I won’t bore you with the details as there is nothing worse than being at a game in which you have no rooting interest as because of the way Frazier was treated I kind of hate both teams. I left in the 6th inning and my son ended up staying in the city with friends and is actually going to tonight’s game because he had tickets and was meeting up with other friends. Todd while disappointed will take the high road, spend a couple of days at home in Toms River and then re-join the Triple A Louisville Bats. He’s now in the Baseball Encyclopedia, having played one game and struck out in his one at-bat. His chance will come again and we’ll be there.

On a somewhat related note. Congratulations to Tommy Ruscitti, who threw a perfect game in the Berkeley Little League Tuesday night as his Yankees beat the Red Sox. Ruscitti needed just 68 pitches to retire all 18 batters he faced.

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