When Ted Turner Was Manager of The Atlanta Braves For a Day

(AP Photo)

Ted Turner, best known for establishing CNN & changing the way the world watches news, passed away today at the age of 87.

Yet when I think of Turner, I think of sports - the Americas' Cup, World Championship Wrestling, the Atlanta Hawks and, especially, the Atlanta Braves.

Turner purchased the Braves in 1976 as a means to place programming on his TV station, WTBS. In the early days of Turner's ownership, there wasn't much worth watching.

In 1977, mired in a 16-game losing streak, Turner decided to place manager Dave Bristol on "a 10-day scouting trip" and appointed himself manager of the club. 

Turner thought there was nothing to managing a ballclub claiming, "Managing isn't that difficult; you just have to score more runs than the other guy."

Well, runs proved hard to come by on May 11, 1977 (almost 49 years to the day) when Turner suited up to manage the team against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Three Rivers Stadium. Turner did have future Hall of Famer Phil Niekro on the mound. The knuckleballer gave up only 2 runs over 8 innings pitched. However, one of those runs was a HR by Dave Parker, another future Hall of Famer.

However, John Candelaria pitched better. The Candy Man gave up a single run over 8.2 innings pitched before future Hall of Famer Goose Gossage got the final out. This was Candelaria's career year when he won a career high 20 games and led the NL with a 2.34 ERA. The only run the Braves managed to get off the Candy Man was a RBI single by Barry Bonnell in the top of the 2nd inning. The Braves lost 2-1 and extended their losing streak to 17 games.

National League President Chub Feeney issued an edict against Turner continuing to manage due to a rule not allowing persons with a financial stake in their clubs to work in an on-field capacity. Turner appealed to MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, but to no avail. Turner was livid:

They must have put that rule in yesterday. If I'm smart enough to save $11 million to buy the team, I ought to be smart enough to manage it.

Of course, Connie Mack owned the Philadelphia A's for more than half a century and managed the team sporting a suit and a tie leading his club to five World Series titles. However, before becoming an owner Mack also played in major leagues for a decade during the 1880s and 1890s as a catcher.

Simply put, Ted Turner was no Connie Mack. 

The Braves would snap their 17-game losing streak the following night under interim manager Vern Benson besting the Bucs 6-1 with 3 RBI from Braves starting pitcher Max León. Ironically, Benson had played for Connie Mack as a member of the A's in both 1943 and 1946.

Bristol would return to the club, and the Braves would lose 100 plus games for the first time since 1935. Turner would fire Bristol after the season and replace him with Bobby Cox. However, it wasn't until the second time that Turner hired Cox that things started to turn in the Braves favor. Perhaps not coincidentally, it was around the time Turner decided to let baseball people run the Atlanta Braves. 

After the Braves won the World Series in 1995, Turner stated, "For the 10 years I ran [the team], it was a disaster.... As I relinquished control of the Braves and gave somebody else the responsibility, it did well."

At least Ted Turner learned from his mistakes. Some people never do. R.I.P.

With Bob Skinner's Passing, Vernon Law is The Last Surviving Member of the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates

Former MLB player, coach, manager & scout Bob Skinner passed away yesterday at the age of 94.

With his passing, Vernon Law is now the last surviving member of the 1960 World Series champion Pirates. Law turned 96 in March. 

Skinner is the third member of the 1960 Bucs to die this year with both Elroy Face and Bill Mazeroski passing away in February. 

Born and raised in and around San Diego, Skinner signed with the Pirates in 1951. He would miss the next two seasons due to military service before making his MLB debut in the 1954 season joining a Pirates club that would endure its third consecutive 100 plus loss season. Skinner would spend all of 1955 back in the minor leagues.

Splitting his time between the outfield and first base, it took a while before Skinner learned how to hit big league pitching. But the Bucs' patience paid off as he would hit .305 in 1957 following by a career best .321 in 1958 with his first NL All-Star Team selection. That .321 average was good enough for 5th in the NL that season ahead of future Hall of Famers Ernie Banks and Orlando Cepeda and behind future Hall of Famers Hank Aaron, Stan Musial, Willie Mays and Richie Ashburn, who would his second NL batting title.

The pinnacle of his career came in 1960 when Skinner drove in a career high 86 runs earning two NL All-Star Team selections while earning his first World Series ring as the Bucs upset the heavily favored New York Yankees. Alas, Skinner's contributions were limited. Although Skinner did have an RBI single in the first inning of Game 1, he would injure his thumb sliding into third base and was then subsequently hit by a pitch and was replaced by Gino Cimoli. Skinner would return during the climatic Game 7. 

Skinner would regress during the 1961 season see his RBI cut by more than half (86 to 42) while hitting only 3 HR as compared to the 15 HR he hit during the glorious 1960 season. In 1962, Skinner would rebound hitting .302 while belting a career best 20 HR along with 75 RBI. 

In May 1963, Skinner's tenure as a Pirates player came to an end when he was traded to the Cincinnati Reds for outfielder and pinch-hitting specialist Jerry Lynch. Ironically, Lynch began his big-league career with the Bucs and was teammates with Skinner in 1954 & 1956. 

While with the Reds, Skinner was relegated to the bench. In June 1964, the Reds sent Skinner to the St. Louis Cardinals for a minor leaguer and cash. While Skinner continued to ride the pine with the Redbirds, his stay in St. Louis was considerably more pleasant as he would earn yet another World Series ring and another 7-game triumph over the Yankees. Used mainly as a pinch hitter, Skinner would get an RBI single off Yankees reliever Steve Hamilton in the 9th inning of Game 6 in an 8-3 Yankees win. Skinner would share in his World Series glory with Dick Groat who was his teammate with the 1960 Pirates as well as the NL MVP.

After two more seasons in St. Louis, Skinner ended his playing career. In 1381 regular season games over 12 seasons, Skinner collected 1198 hits for a lifetime batting average of .277 with 103 HR and 531 RBI. 

In 1967, Skinner returned to his hometown of San Diego to manage the San Diego Padres who were at this this time part of the Pacific Coast League as the Triple-AAA affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies. Skinner would lead the Padres to the PCL championship. 

In June 1968, Skinner would replace Gene Mauch as manager of the Phillies. Unfortunately, Skinner did not replicate his success in San Diego and would resign in August 1969. Aside from managing a single game for the Padres during the 1977 season after the team fired John McNamara and before hiring Alvin Dark, Skinner would not manage another big-league game.

In 1970, Skinner joined the coaching staff of the Padres who were by this time a big-league club. After serving two seasons as the team's hitting and third base coach, he would concentrate exclusively on batting instruction from 1972 to 1973. 

In 1974, Skinner would reunite with the Pirates as their hitting coach where he would spend the next three seasons. Skinner would join the Bucs in the post-season in 1974, but they would fall short to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS. In 1977, Skinner returned to the Padres for his second stint as hitting coach before performing the same duties with the California Angels in 1978. Skinner returned to the Pirates for the third time in 1979 where he would serve as hitting coach for the next seven seasons. In his inaugural year with the Bucs, Skinner would earn his third World Series ring as part of the "We Are Fam-a-Lee" Pirates.

In 1986, Skinner would join longtime Pirates skipper Chuck Tanner in Atlanta serving as the Braves hitting coach. He would also become the team's first base coach under being relieved of his duties early in the 1988 season. 

In 1989, Skinner would return to managing at the minor league level for the first time in over two decades when he managed the Tucson Toros, the Triple-AAA affiliate of the Houston Astros. Skinner would serve in this role for four seasons before joining the Astros scouting department before retiring after the 2009 season.

Skinner's son Joel played for 9 seasons in MLB as a backup catcher with the Chicago White Sox, New York Yankees and the Cleveland Indians and would manage the Tribe during the second half of the 2002 season. After George and Dick Sisler, the Skinners became only the second father & son to manage at the major league level.

While Bob Skinner was not a star player, he got to enjoy the glories of baseball during and after his playing career. R.I.P.

John Sterling Was the Voice of The Yankees; But Many Fondly Remember Him for Calling the Rick Camp HR

This morning, former New York Yankees radio broadcaster John Sterling passed away at the age of 87.

Sterling was the voice of the Bronx Bombers for more than 35 years before health issues forced him to abruptly retire early in the 2024 season although he would return for the post-season to say a proper goodbye. The Yankees would win the AL pennant fall short against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.

Naturally, Sterling is remembered for his personalized home run calls. To name but a few:

Alex Rodriguez ("An A-Bomb for A-Rod!!!")

Curtis Granderson ("The Grandy Man Can!!! Oh, The Grandy Man Can!!!)

Melky Cabrera ("The Melk Man delivers!!!)

Gleyber Torres ("It's Gleyber Day!!!)

Aaron Judge (All rise!!! Here comes The Judge!!!)

He is also remembered for his emphatic declaration after every Yankees victory, "Yankees win!!! Theeee Yankees win!!!"

Alas, this didn't go over very well in Boston especially when the Yankees beat the Red Sox.

But John Sterling's calls were, well, sterling.

Yet when I think of John Sterling, I think of his time with the Atlanta Braves during the early to mid 1980's. 

To be precise, I think of one game in particular. It took place on the Fourth of July 1985 between the Braves and the New York Mets. The Mets were leading 11-10 in the bottom of the 18th inning with the Braves one out away from defeat that appeared all but certain. Because coming to bat was relief pitcher Rick Camp, a career .074 hitter.

From here, I'll let John Sterling and Ernie Johnson set the scene.

John Sterling: Now two outs and no one on, the Mets are waving their outfielders in. The whole Met team waving their outfielders in. 

Here's Rick Camp the game on the line, two outs and no one on base.

And at least he took a good cut and followed it off.

Ernie, if he hits a home run to tie this game....

Ernie Johnson: Laughter!!!  

John Sterling: This game will be certified as absolutely the nuttiest in the history of baseball.

Ernie Johnson: Well, they could go to another pitcher but after 18 innings they've used just about everybody. 

John Sterling: Well, the only three guys left are Bedrosian, Perez, and Zane Smith. 

There's a strike 0 and 2.

Ernie Johnson: So they've researched that and they figure that Camp is the best hitter of the three left.

John Sterling: Right! It'll be an 0-2 pitch.

And he hits it to deep left!!! Heep goes back!!! And it's gone!!!

Holy cow!!! Oh, my goodness!!! 

I don't believe it!!! I don't believe it!!!

Rick Camp!!! Rick Camp!!!

I don't believe it!!!

Remember what I just said. If he hits a home run. That certifies this game as the wackiest, wildest, most improbable game in history.

On an 0-2 pitch, Rick Camp hit it over the left centerfield wall. I don't believe it!!!

If you only knew on the Braves, we kid Rick Camp about his hitting more than anything.

Ernie!!!

Ernie Johnson: Nobody can believe it!!! 

John Sterling: Camp makes it 11-11!!! His first major league homer!!!

I mean that is the most improbable act!!! Let's see it again!!! Ernie!!!

Ernie Johnson: We got to look at this another 50 times!!! Back goes Heep. It's out of here. 

John Sterling: And it hit the football bleachers. 

I mean if you told me John Sterling's gonna run for President and win that would be any more improbable. And I got to tell you that's improbable.

Unbelievable!!!

Well, John Sterling being President of the United States doesn't sound like a such a bad thing.

But it illustrates the odds of Rick Camp hitting a home run moments after Sterling mused about such a possibility. Such a notion was inconceivable. And yet it happened.

The serendipity and sheer joy in John Sterling's voice is why this is one of my favorite baseball clips which I play several times a year. It never fails to improve my mood even on this sad day. R.I.P.

On Being Ignored at Restaurants

On Friday evening after work, I ended up walking all the way home from South Station to Cambridge due to prolonged delays on the T.

While walking along Hampshire Street, I saw the S&S Restaurant across the street, a sight I have seen many times in the nearly five years I have been back in this area. I made a note to myself that I needed to check this place out. It has been in business in Cambridge for over a century.

Then yesterday, while reading a Facebook post from a friend, I learned that the S&S Restaurant would be closing next month. So, I decided to go there this afternoon.

As I was by myself, I was offered a seat at the bar. However, no seats were available at the bar. So, after a few minutes, I was given a table by one of the windows. This was at 2:40 p.m.

It was the last time anyone from the restaurant acknowledged my existence. At 3 p.m., I got up from the table and left the premises. 

The place had a crowd but was not busy. Indeed, I heard someone from the restaurant state that things had "died down." Under the circumstances, I think 20 minutes is more than a reasonable amount of time to wait for service. Five minutes into my wait, I had a feeling something was amiss. I'm inclined to think that I was deliberately being ignored. For what reason, I cannot say. But sometimes you just know something is up and it isn't good.

Well, if they don't want my business then that's fine. I'll spend my money elsewhere. I would have liked to have shared my experience about dining at the S&S Restaurant. Perhaps it would have conjured up childhood memories about dining at the Hoito in Thunder Bay. But since I didn't do any dining, this has conjured up other thoughts.

This is not the first time I have been ignored at a restaurant. In recent years, I have been similarly ignored at The Burren in Somerville's Davis Square as well as at the former R.F. O'Sullivan & Sons also in Somerville. When this occurs, I'll just leave quietly like I did today. However, the latter occurrence resulted in a confrontation as I was leaving. When I told the waitress I had been waiting for service for 20 minutes she told me, "We're a busy restaurant." To which I retorted, "Apparently too busy to serve me," and walked out. A short time later, R.F. O'Sullivan & Sons closed their doors.

In most of these instances, I cannot help but think these incidents are more a product of malevolence than incompetence. If this is the case, then it's not the end of the world. I simply won't do any further business with the establishment since they don't seem to want mine in the first place. In most instances, there is a Plan B whether it is finding another establishment or just going back home. 

Nevertheless, it is one of the occasional annoyances of life that I come across more often than I would like. It's the sort of thing which makes me lose my appetite for dining out.

Celtics Blow 3-1 Lead to 76ers in First Round of NBA Playoffs

The Boston Celtics had the Philadelphia 76ers where they wanted them with a 3-1 lead in the First Round of the NBA playoffs.

Tonight, the Celtics' season is over after the 76ers bested them 109-100 in Game 7. Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey led the 76ers' offense with 34 and 30 points, respectively.

It didn't help the Celtics that Jayson Tatum could not play due to a knee injury. Yet truth be told, the Celtics lost their mojo in a fourth quarter collapse in Game 5 and never truly got it back.

The Celtics owned the second-best record in the NBA Eastern Conference, and it wasn't enough. The Sixers now advance to the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the New York Knicks.

It's been a bad week for Boston sports. Less than 24 hours ago, the Boston Bruins were knocked out of the first round of the NHL playoffs by the Buffalo Sabres although the Bruins were thoroughly outclassed in this contest. The Red Sox are still reeling over the abrupt dismissal of Alex Cora a week ago. Meanwhile, The Sword of Damocles hangs over the head of New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel due to his alleged affair with NFL sports reporter Dianna Russini who was forced to resign from The Athletic. 

Well, there is never any shortage of drama when it comes to Boston sports.

Bad Signs in JP

 

For as long as I have been in the Boston area, I have attended the Wake Up the Earth Festival which is held on the first Saturday in May in Jamaica Plain. Sponsored by a non-profit organization called Spontaneous Celebrations, the first such festival took place in 1979 after the community in both Jamaica Plain and neighboring Roxbury saw to it that the I-95 didn't raze these areas.

When I arrived in Boston in the spring of 2000, JP was my first home, and the Wake Up The Earth Festival was among the first bit of fun I had living here. After 8 years living in the Fenway, I would move back to JP and call it home for a decade before I left for New York City. Fortunately, my exile was only temporary.

I mention all of this because the Wake Up the Earth Festival is a blend of food, music and a hodge-podge of left-wing causes typically of an environmental nature. However, back in 2024, there were a whole bunch of signs concerning the Palestinians highlighted by a mural called "Palestinian Loss of Land 1947 to Present". 

Last year, following the release of the remaining hostages, there were a few small Palestinian flags, but it was far less noticeable. The same could not be said this year. One of the first things I saw was a huge sign which read "JP for Palestine".

There was another sign from Massachusetts Peace Action which read "We All Agree - No Taxes to Starve Palestinian Children". It's the sort of dubious claim which gets Jews stabbed in the U.K.

It must be said that this matter is front in center due to the War in Iran. There was an exhibit called "Eyes Wide Open - A Place to Reflect on the True Cost(s) of War" sponsored by Veterans for Peace, Massachusetts Peace Action and several other organizations. A basketball court was strewn with shoes and backpacks representing the schoolgirls killed in an U.S. airstrike at the outset of the war. There were signs which read "Remember the Children" and "In memory of the Iranian schoolgirls who were killed in an U.S. airstrike 02-28-2026".  

Indeed, those schoolgirls did not nothing to deserve their fate. The same can be said for the 118 children who were killed by the Iranian government during protests in January 2026. But where is the sign for these children? The people responsible for this exhibit are here to pillory the U.S. and Israel while turning a blind eye to the savagery of the Iranian regime not to mention its proxies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

What worries me is the possibility that future gatherings of the Wake Up the Earth Festival could devolve into overt support for Hamas and Hezbollah accompanied by the calling for the murder of Jews (re: Zionists) as we are witnessing in the U.K.

Don't say it can't happen here because it certainly can.

Is Starmer's Intervention Against Anti-Semitism After Golders Green Stabbing Too Little, Too Late?

(YouTube screenshot)

Following the stabbings of two Jewish men in the London neighborhood of Golders Green earlier this week, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer declared the following:

Of course, we protect freedom of speech and peaceful protest in this country. But if you are marching with people wearing pictures of paragliders without calling it out, you are venerating the murder of Jews. If you stand alongside people who say globalize the Intifada, you are calling for terrorism against Jews and people who use that phrase should be prosecuted.

I watched Starmer's full remarks. He said all the right things:

And yet the truth is while we can and we will bring the full power of the state to bear on this, this is about society every bit as much as it is about security. Moments like this we often say, 'This is not Britain,' That these attacks are an affront to British values, to British tolerance, British decency. But they keep happening, don't they?

And so today, instead, I will simply say that our values are not a gift handed generation to generation. They are something we earn each day through action. They come from us. 

Anti-Semitism is an old, old hatred. History shows that the roots are deep and, if you turn away, it grows back. Yet far too many people in this country diminish it. They either don't see it or they don't want to see it. 

Given his efforts to root out anti-Semitism when he succeeded Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader, I am inclined to believe him. Yet this be may very well be too little, too late. 

When Starmer visited Golders Green prior to his remarks, he was heckled with some calling him "Starmer, The Jew Harmer!!!"

Of course, the surge in anti-Semitism in the U.K. didn't begin under Starmer's watch. But it has certainly accelerated. Consider this summary by Jonathan Sacerdoti:

This comes after the Yom Kippur terror attack at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation in Manchester, where a car was driven at people outside a synagogue and worshippers were stabbed, leaving Adrian Daulby and Melvin Cravitz dead and three others seriously injured. It comes after four Hatzola ambulances, run by a Jewish volunteer emergency service, were set alight in Golders Green, oxygen cylinders exploding and nearby windows shattering. It comes after petrol bottles and a brick were thrown at Finchley Reform Synagogue; after an attempted firebombing at Kenton United Synagogue; after counter-terror police arrested eight people over suspected arson plots against Jewish-linked sites; after a suspected security incident near the Israeli embassy in Kensington Gardens; after an arson attack on a memorial wall in Golders Green; after Jewish schoolboys were assaulted at Belsize Park station; after a Jewish man was attacked by teenagers in Hendon; after a Jewish father was abused on the Northern line; after Israelis were attacked in Leicester Square for speaking Hebrew; after a man in Wembley was asked whether he was Jewish and then punched in the face; after Jews leaving a West London synagogue were abused and assaulted; and after Gail’s in Archway was daubed with red paint and anti-Israel slogans because a bakery had somehow become another acceptable proxy for Jewishness.

The list is ugly because the facts are ugly. 

Synagogues. Ambulances. Schoolboys. Restaurants. Shops. Tube stations. Memorial walls. Men in their seventies. Men wearing kippot. People speaking Hebrew in public.

One could make a case that the U.K. is the most dangerous place on Earth to be a Jew. In which case, the U.K. might as well as be Gaza.

In order for Starmer to effectively combat anti-Semitism, he will need to borrow a phrase from one of his predecessors, Tony Blair. Starmer will need to "say what he means and mean what he says" and punish those who support violence against British Jews.

The problem, of course, is that anti-Semitism is now tolerated in the U.K. Which means Starmer would have to stand firm against any pushback up to and including the risk of Labour supporters defecting to the Green Party and their openly anti-Semitic leader Zack Polanski (despite the fact he is Jewish).

Indeed, following the Golders Green attack, Polanski made a retweet which accused the authorities of excessive conduct against the suspect without mentioning the attack. Polanski would apologize for the tweet which he said was made "in haste" but he did not condemn the attack itself. This is not surprising considering several Green Party candidates have called for violence against "Zionists". It would seem that British voters who want to kill Jews have a home in the Green Party.

So, it remains to be seen if Starmer will have the wherewithal to mean what he says about combatting anti-Semitism in the U.K.

And even if he does, anti-Semitism might be so deeply entrenched in British society that even the full force of the state might be powerless in excising it