Tuesday, April 06, 1999
Casey's good gap-to-gap, ear-to-ear
BY PAUL DAUGHERTY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
He wears the face of Opening Day. Bright, new, expectant. Impossibly wide. Can you believe this? Isn't this great? Are we lucky or what? Sean Casey even liked the camels.
Marge Schott brought them in. Some openers it's elephants, others it's camels. Schott's circus-like reign is ending, but not without pet tricks.
Casey, bless him, enjoyed the whole camel experience. “Kinda neat to see a camel walking by at Cinergy Field,” he offered, without sarcasm. “I don't get to the zoo very often.”
You can complain about Opening Day '99 if you want. The Reds bullpen went up in flames, Brett Tomko didn't challenge enough hitters, the game wasn't on free TV. Cincinnati battled back twice, but when your pitchers are burning down the house, it's tough to keep cool.
But really, so what? Opening Day is baseball for dreamers. Hardball begins today. Only 161 games to go. If you want to have fun this summer, catch the expression on Schott's face when she looks at the Jeff Wyler billboard on the right-field wall.
Right attitude
If you really want to have fun, fall in like with this kid Casey. Jack McKeon said Casey would challenge for a batting title “in the very near future.”
Watching Casey slash line drive after line drive in batting practice, the manager said, “Give him a couple years, he'll be as popular here as Pete Rose.”
Whoa. No need to burden him with that. It's enough to say that Casey is a full-time smile, a guy who never met a day he didn't like. He looks the way you did, when you played baseball.
Every day is not Opening Day for Casey. (Three days after last year's opener, he got his face smashed by a thrown ball.) It just seems that way.
As far as the batting title hype, well, Casey did have three hits Monday.
“You know what? If I'm ever in a bad mood, I try to smack myself out of it,” Casey said. “The last bad one? Maybe last year, when I went 0-for-27. I feel fortunate to be out there. If I can just keep up the enthusiasm, try not be a moody guy, I'll be all right.”
Casey hit a two-run homer in the sixth inning. It started out as a big pop-up to the opposite field, then just kept going, as if winged. San Francisco left fielder Barry Bonds backed up on the ball, seemed to settle under it near the warning track, then leaped as it cleared the wall.
That gave the Reds an 8-6 lead. “I'm crossing the plate and (Barry) Larkin says, "Attaboy, Case,'” Casey said. “That was a big moment. I look up to Barry a lot.”
Mood is right
Opening Day is the only day the game is secondary. It's the only time the game means less than the weather and the pomp. In the last few years, the opener here has been clouded by lousy teams with fill-in players, and by Schott's unwillingness to step aside and let the franchise breathe.
Now that she's being forced to sell her part of the team, the mood is lighter. Everywhere. Clubhouse, front office, among the limited partners. There is a sense of getting back to getting it right.
It hasn't been right here since 1990. There was the strike, Schott's running off of Lou Piniella and Davey Johnson, the Tony Perez fiasco and so on. There was also Schott herself, and her unmatched gift for making bad situations worse.
Baseball isn't just entertainment here. It's not just a night out. People take it personally. They've been personally put off by all that's gone on here.
It could be changing. Schott's power is fading. She is a little woman, shrinking before our eyes, facing the music for a thousand indiscretions. Payback is hell.
Sean Casey liked the camels, though.
“I'm going to go gap-to-gap,” he said. He's not a power hitter, merely a hitter. Left to right, up the alleys, off the walls. Where they ain't. “I'm going to hit my share of doubles.”
He will be fun to watch, as the city tries to revive its love for the game.
Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at 768-8454.
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