JOHN GRANATO

My apology to the people of Houston

My apology to the people of Houston
Jimbo Fisher appeared on The Bench with John and Lance. Bob Levey/Getty Images

It has come to my attention that I have disappointed some of you out there and for that I would like to apologize. On Tuesday we had Jimbo Fisher on the program like we do every Tuesday at 7:15 AM.

I made the decision to not ask him about the facemask incident. That was my decision. Not Lance’s. Not Del’s. Their credibility should remain intact. It is my credibility that should be in question here because I was the one who they asked to not mention the issue.

Make no mistake this was not a Mike Gundy situation either. For those of you that missed it, the Oklahoma State coach threatened the media that they would lose their player interview privileges if they asked them about a player who was transfering. That was a bully move. I abhor coaches who bully the media. That was not the case with Jimbo.

This was a simple statement by someone on his staff who said that the coach answered the question about the facemask incident and is moving on.

One more question about it certainly wouldn’t have hurt but by the same token what would have been added to what he had just said the day before? It was asked and answered.

Maybe I could have uncovered some pearl that would have shed new light on the issue but I didn’t. Maybe that one question would have changed the player-coach relationship and made the world a better place for them to coexist in love and harmony. Maybe. I don’t know. That will haunt me now until I die.

Trust me I’m not afraid to ask the tough question. When I was in Green Bay I asked head coach Lindy Infante about death threats to his family one particularly bad Packer season. I had the Green Bay police department in my office that afternoon trying to figure out where I’d heard that and how they could prevent it.

At the opening of Enron Field (now Minute Maid Park) I asked manager Larry Dierker if his pitchers might be afraid to pitch inside because of that short porch in left. He literally fell to the ground screaming that I asked unanswerable questions. (By the way, about midway through the season he was quoted as saying that his pitchers were probably afraid to pitch inside because of the short porch in left).

Gary Kubiak was so sick of my badgering him about who was his starting offensive line that he told Steve McKinney to tell me to get off his back.

If this was the Urban Meyer situation I would have asked about it. If this was the Penn St. or Baylor situation I would have asked about it. This was not. In my opinion this is a non-story. Your opinion may be different than mine. I appreciate that but I don’t think it’s a big deal.

I have a son playing college football. If he’s acting the fool and a coach grabs him by the facemask to get his attention I would have absolutely no problem with that. I’d encourage it.

I know this is a different world than the one I grew up in but I don’t think that world was all that bad. My high school defensive line coach, Coach Conrath, would walk around with a baseball bat and hit any of his guys that were misaligned. I guarantee you they paid attention to where they were lined up every snap.

Our basketball coach was also our P.E. instructor and he had a giant wooden paddle with holes in it that would make nice indentation marks on your butt when you caught a fresh one. Guess who didn’t fool around during gym? This guy.

But I digress. The real issue here is my credibility as a journalist now. It’s gone forever. You can no longer trust me when I call myself dark meat or when I tell you that I dreamed about Gary Pettis sending the runner. I’ve lost your trust and that hurts.

I will tell you that I should never have had that trust in the first place. I do not consider myself a journalist. As Del’s dad once so eloquently told him “The man is a clown, and you are his court jester.” It is who I am: morning radio clown and I’m OK with that.

I did the journalist thing back in the day. I was once the sports director at the NBC affiliate in Green Bay. I remember standing outside the Packers locker room on cut day. All of us huddled there like vultures waiting to pounce on guys coming out one by one after they’d been released by the team. I’d never felt so scummy. Here are these guys whose hopes and dreams had just been shattered and all we could worry about was getting some five second sound bite on the six o’clock news.

No thanks. If that’s journalism I don’t want any part of it.

So once again I apologize for losing your trust, as misguided as that trust was. We have had more coaches and will continue to have more coaches on our show than any show I know of. One of the reasons is that we are civil, another is that we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We like to  have fun with them which is something that’s rare these days. It seems to me that the media-coach relationship in this country is at an all time low.

Maybe we’ll ask Jimbo about that next Tuesday.







 

 


 

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Get your popcorn ready! Composite image by Brandon Strange.

Filed the column early this week with Astros’ baseball that counts arriving Thursday! Ideally that arrival occurs with Minute Maid Park’s roof open under sunny skies with temperature in the mid-70s and only moderate humidity (that’s the forecast).

As they ready for their season-opening four game series, the Astros and Yankees enter 2024 with streaks on the line. The Astros take aim at an eighth consecutive American League Championship Series appearance while obviously aiming ultimately higher than that. The Yankees are a good bet to fail to make the World Series for the 15th consecutive season, which would be a new Yankees’ record! At its origin in 1903 the franchise was known as the New York Highlanders. The name became the Yankees in 1913, with the first franchise World Series appearance coming in 1921. So that was 18 years of play without winning a pennant. Maybe that gives the Yanks something to shoot for in 2027.

On the more immediate horizon, the Astros and Yankees both start the season with question marks throughout their starting rotations. It’s just that the Astros do so coming off their seventh straight ALCS appearance while the Yankees are coming off having missed the postseason entirely for the first time in seven years. Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole can spend time Thursday chit-chatting about their days as Astro teammates because they won’t be pitching against one another. Cole’s absence hurts the Yankees more than Verlander’s should the Astros. Cole was the unanimously voted AL Cy Young Award winner last season, and at eight years younger than Verlander the workload he was expected to carry is greater. Cole is gone for at least the first two months of the season, the Astros would be pleased if Verlander misses less than one month.

Whoever does the pitching, the guy on the mound for the Astros has the benefit of a clearly better lineup supporting him. The Yankees could have the best two-man combo in the game with Aaron Judge batting second ahead of offseason acquisition Juan Soto. Two men do not a Murderers’ Row make. Gleyber Torres is the only other guy in the Yankees’ projected regular batting order who was better than mediocre last season, several guys were lousy. The Astros have six guys in their lineup (Jose Altuve, Yordan Alvarez, Kyle Tucker, Alex Bregman, Chas McCormick, and Yainer Diaz) who were better in the batter’s box than was Torres last season. The Yanks have hopes for a healthy and huge bounce back season from the brittle and 34-years-old Giancarlo Stanton. Good luck with that.

Man with a plan

We have to see how things play out over the season of course, but it is exciting to see new manager Joe Espada’s progressive outlook on a number of things. Acknowledging that Astros’ baserunning has too often been deficient, Espada made improving it a spring training priority. The same with Astros’ pitchers doing a better job of holding opposing base runners at first with base stealing having occurred with the highest success rate in MLB history last season. Tweaking the lineup to bat Alvarez second behind Altuve is a strong choice. Having your two best offensive forces come to the plate most frequently is inherently smart.

Opting to bat Tucker third ahead of Bregman rather than the other way around also seems wise business. Let’s offer one specific circumstance. An opposing pitcher manages to retire both Altuve and Alvarez. Tucker walking or singling is much more capable of stealing second base and then scoring on a Bregman single than the inverse. Or scoring from first on a ball hit to the corner or a shallow gap. I suggest in a similar vein that is why the much older and much slower Jose Abreu should bat lower in the lineup than Chas McCormick and Yainer Diaz. Though Espada giving Abreu veteran deference to get off to a better season than Abreu’s largely lousy 2023 is ok. To a point.

Eye on the prize

The ceiling for the 2024 Astros is clear. Winning a third World Series in eight years is viably in play. The floor is high. Barring an utter collapse of the starting rotation and/or a calamitous toll of injuries within the offensive core there is no way this is only a .500-ish ballclub. That does not mean the Astros are a surefire postseason team. The Rangers may again have a better offense. The Mariners definitely begin the season with a better starting rotation. In the end, other than when it impacts team decision-making, prognostication doesn’t matter. But these two words definitely matter: PLAY BALL!

To welcome the new season we’ll do a live YouTube Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast about 30 minutes after the final out is recorded in Thursday’s opener.

Our second season of Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast is underway. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics weekly. On our regular schedule the first post goes up Monday afternoon. You can get the video version (first part released Monday, second part Tuesday, sometimes a third part Wednesday) via YouTube: stone cold stros - YouTube with the complete audio available at initial release Monday via Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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