RRS: Time for Bucs to bury Vince Lascheid

Going to the Pirate home opener tomorrow? Not me. I hope to make it to The Pond where Dave still makes a big deal out of the day for those of us not attending. There will be premium Nathan’s foot-long hotdogs, nachos and beers that cost about 90 percent less than what they’re paying at PNC Park.

One thing Dave won’t have that PNC will, is the ghost of Vince Laschied, which makes The Pond more tasteful than the ballpark. Lascheid’s been dead since 2009, but they still use tapes of the legendary organist. In this 2012 post, I said they  should retire V.L. and hire a new guy.

Big home stand at PNC Park starts tonight. The Pirates are playing the world champion St. Louis Cardinals. Forecasts call for decent weather. Gangbuster crowds are expected.

That’s good. I love baseball and I want the Pirates to succeed.

So I hope to see everyone there at the ballpark.

All but one.

That would be Vince Lascheid.

Never heard of him?

A two-sport protege, it could be argued he’s the greatest -- and only -- player to earn cheers at PNC Park, The Civic Arena and Three Rivers Stadium.

In the last three years, he’s become one of the greatest comeback performers in city history. He died in March 2009 and he’s still coming back, a JumboTron Lazarus resurrected every seventh inning.

The Pirates play a film and audio clip of Lascheid, the beloved game organist for the Pirates and Penguins for more than 38 years, playing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” for the seventh inning stretch.

They do this, they say, in tribute.

As a long-time cynical observer of Pirate ownership, let me offer another motive.

These bastards are cheap.

Rather than hire a talented and creative organist to embroider the game with snippets of musical wit, they prefer to nightly conjure Lascheid’s ghost and try and fool people into thinking the gesture is noble.

In fact, the recording only diminishes a legacy that’s best measured in just four or five notes.

That’s all it took him to engage and delight discerning fans who were alert to Lascheid’s deft and devastating humor.

When a player’s name was announced, Lascheid would, sneak in an often subversive little ditty that added so much subtle sparkle to a day at the ballpark.

Benny Ayala would hear “Tie (Ayala) Ribbon 'round the Old Oak Tree.”

Future Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith got “We’re Off To See The Wizard.”

Padre catcher Chris Gomez heard the theme from “The Addam’s Family.”

After Met Bobby Bonilla split our Bucs for bigger bucks, he was greeted with a lickity-split version of Steve Miller’s “Take The Money and Run.”

The week pretty boy Dodger Steve Garvey was tabbed by a national magazine for being one of America’s most beautiful people, he’d sashay up to the batter’s box listening to the same iconic song they play for Miss America. Garvey complained. He said it was insulting and demanded Lascheid cease playing it.

Fair enough, Lascheid said, and next time Garvey came up to bat, Lascheid played “Isn’t She Lovely.”

He had free reign to musically editorialize on every on-field situation.

An opposing player striking out heard a jiffy little blast of Queen’s “Another One Bite’s the Dust.”

When a dangerous Astro hitter named Jesus Alou hit into a inning-killing double play, Lascheid played the musical hallelujah, “What a Friend We Have In Jesus.”

A huddle of umpires gathering to discuss a controversial call was sound-tracked with “Three Blind Mice.”

“Send in the Clowns” filled the ears of opposing managers who strolled to the mound to change pitchers. The same situation involving the Pirates inspired a more encouraging melody, the theme from the Alka Seltzer commercial: “Plop! Plop! Fizz! Fizz! Oh, what a relief it is!”

When brawls broke out, he’d appeal to gentler natures by serenading the bloodied combatants with “Let There Be Peace on Earth.”

His contributions to Penguin lore are no less indelible and earned him induction into the club hall of fame in 2003.

That such genius is irreplaceable doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

Beloved Cubs icon Harry Caray was considered irreplaceable, too. He’s honored with a statue outside of Wrigley Field, but his signature moment, his drunken slurring of the “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” is vanquished, replaced by a great tradition of various celebrities taking the mic.

The Pirates should consider a similar move. They should audition lively local organists to fill the Vince Lascheid bench.

It would add buoyant atmosphere to an event that, like so many others, is numbed by high-decibel pop hits played because teams mistakenly believe the familiarity will lure young fans whose access to that very music is now without limits.

No one needs more Selena Gomez. Everyone needs a little more novelty.

We can best honor Vince Lascheid by giving a talented organist a chance to be Vince Lascheid.

Centerfield

(751 words)

Being a gentleman invested with proper humility, I rarely talk about it but I was once the centerfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

It was back in 2001.

My professional baseball career lasted about 20 minutes.

I was in Florida doing this story about the demise of the carnival side shows. I encourage you to check it out. It’s a good example of how I write when someone pays me to do so. And it, of course, has me wondering why so few ever seem to ask much anymore.

The story involved spending about a week in Gibsonton, Florida, aka “Freaktown USA,” home to Lobster Boy, The World’s Tallest Man, The World’s Strangest Couple and enough other unusually formed humans to satisfy a year’s worth of Weekly World News front pages.

Gibsonton is on the Gulf Coast, not far from Bradenton, spring training home of the Pirates. It was March so I dashed just up the coast to catch some spring ball, as soul-refreshing an activity for winter-weary baseball lovers like me as there is.

Too bad the day I was there the Bucs weren’t.

They were on the road, which meant just a few guys for the grounds crew where there at McKechnie Field.

If you today have a difficult and stressful job, I’d encourage you to consider quitting it to go mow grass at some southern ball field.

His name was Ben and he couldn’t have been more pleasant. He was sitting on a mower out near the home bullpen. 

We talked for half an hour about the Bucs, our favorite players, memorable games we’d been to and how, guaranteed, that was the year the Bucs would finally produce a winning record.

Wrong. Last year marks 20 years and counting that they’ve been pathetic losers. Their record of losing seasons is on the verge of being old enough to walk into a bar and legally buy itself a drink. 

It’s a tribute to the game that guys like me and Ben still love Pirate baseball and yearn for the days when the Pirates again contend to the end.

He could sense it in me when I started to say goodbye.

“What’s your rush? Go ahead and take a walk out on the field. It’s a beautiful day. Enjoy yourself.”

What ensued were about 20 of the most compressed minutes of my entire life.

Because in those 20 minutes I hit 40 home runs, stole 40 bases and told about a 100 baseball Annies, sorry, girls, I’m a married man while me and the Pittsburgh Pirates were on our way to winning the World Series.

My favorite Pirate other than Roberto Clemente -- every fan’s favorite Pirate -- has always been centerfielder Andy Van Slyke. I swear I looked up in the stands and saw him cheering some of the catches I made in his old stomping grounds.

Understand, I didn’t do all this just in my mind. I raced all over that field. I ran the bases, mimed throwing pitches from the mound, zipped across the outfield and reveled in the blessing that I was a then 38-year-old man who never gives a shit what he looks like to strangers when he’s determined to have some fun.

Well, beat the drum, and hold the phone

The sun came out today!

We’re born again, there’s new grass on the field

And roundin’ third and headin’ for home

It’s a brown-eyed handsome man!

Anyone can understand the way I feel

So put me in coach! I’m ready to play today

Put me in coach! I’m read to play today

Look at me, I can be Centerfield.

Baseball’s the only game that has and deserves it’s own anthem. This is the time of the year when I can’t get the John Fogerty song out of my head. It’s perfectly euphoric.

Our 12-year-old and I are spending many evenings watching baseball movies (“The Natural,” “Bad News Bears” and looking forward to sunny afternoons at the ballpark.

The older I get the less enamored I am with professional football and the more I am with baseball.

It’s never more acute than this week when the newspapers start once again showing pictures of pitchers and palm trees. Outside my window, it’s 50 shades of grey but with ice, mud and sludge instead of kinky sex, which I’d much prefer.

But inside my mind, everything is turning green. I know spring’s almost here because baseball’s back.

I can only hope that this year, finally, all the Pirates play for one full season as well as I did 12 years ago when I for 20 glorious minutes played centerfield.

Related . . .

Taking pregnant women out to the ol’ ballgame

Roberto Clemente, Mr. 3,000

Time for Bucs to bury Vince Lascheid

Time for Bucs to bury the great Vince Lascheid

I got about halfway through this and thought, hmmm, this is probably how I’d write if I was paid to wear a tie to work. I thought this had the heft to deserve consideration for publication at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which sometimes runs my stuff on the Sunday Forum pages.

So I wrote this without silly asides, odd tangents or stabs at humor.

If you came here today for fart jokes, this is bound to disappoint.

But if you love Pittsburgh sports and remember the great Vince Lascheid, you might enjoy this. As a small consolation, I do include a mild profanity which I’ll delete before submitting, but swearing’s always fun.

Big home stand at PNC Park starts tonight. The Pirates are playing the world champion St. Louis Cardinals. Forecasts call for decent weather. Gangbuster crowds are expected.

That’s good. I love baseball and I want the Pirates to succeed.

So I hope to see everyone there at the ballpark.

All but one.

That would be Vince Lascheid.

Never heard of him?

A two-sport protege, it could be argued he’s the greatest -- and only -- player to earn cheers at PNC Park, The Civic Arena and Three Rivers Stadium.

In the last three years, he’s become one of the greatest comeback performers in city history. He died in March 2009 and he’s still coming back, a JumboTron Lazarus resurrected every seventh inning.

The Pirates play a film and audio clip of Lascheid, the beloved game organist for the Pirates and Penguins for more than 38 years, playing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” for the seventh inning stretch.

They do this, they say, in tribute.

As a long-time cynical observer of Pirate ownership, let me offer another motive.

These bastards are cheap.

Rather than hire a talented and creative organist to embroider the game with snippets of musical wit, they prefer to nightly conjure Lascheid’s ghost and try and fool people into thinking the gesture is noble.

In fact, the recording only diminishes a legacy that’s best measured in just four or five notes.

That’s all it took him to engage and delight discerning fans who were alert to Lascheid’s deft and devastating humor.

When a player’s name was announced, Lascheid would, sneak in an often subversive little ditty that added so much subtle sparkle to a day at the ballpark.

Benny Ayala would hear “Tie (Ayala) Ribbon 'round the Old Oak Tree.”

Future Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith got “We’re Off To See The Wizard.”

Padre catcher Chris Gomez heard the theme from “The Addam’s Family.”

After Met Bobby Bonilla split our Bucs for bigger bucks, he was greeted with a lickity-split version of Steve Miller’s “Take The Money and Run.”

The week pretty boy Dodger Steve Garvey was tabbed by a national magazine for being one of America’s most beautiful people, he’d sashay up to the batter’s box listening to the same iconic song they play for Miss America. Garvey complained. He said it was insulting and demanded Lascheid cease playing it.

Fair enough, Lascheid said, and next time Garvey came up to bat, Lascheid played “Isn’t She Lovely.”

He had free reign to musically editorialize on every on-field situation.

An opposing player striking out heard a jiffy little blast of Queen’s “Another One Bite’s the Dust.”

When a dangerous Astro hitter named Jesus Alou hit into a inning-killing double play, Lascheid played the musical hallelujah, “What a Friend We Have In Jesus.”

A huddle of umpires gathering to discuss a controversial call was sound-tracked with “Three Blind Mice.”

“Send in the Clowns” filled the ears of opposing managers who strolled to the mound to change pitchers. The same situation involving the Pirates inspired a more encouraging melody, the theme from the Alka Seltzer commercial: “Plop! Plop! Fizz! Fizz! Oh, what a relief it is!”

When brawls broke out, he’d appeal to gentler natures by serenading the bloodied combatants with “Let There Be Peace on Earth.”

His contributions to Penguin lore are no less indelible and earned him induction into the club hall of fame in 2003.

That such genius is irreplaceable doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

Beloved Cubs icon Harry Caray was considered irreplaceable, too. He’s honored with a statue outside of Wrigley Field, but his signature moment, his drunken slurring of the “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” is vanquished, replaced by a great tradition of various celebrities taking the mic.

The Pirates should consider a similar move. They should audition lively local organists to fill the Vince Lascheid Bench.

It would add buoyant atmosphere to an event that, like so many others, is numbed by high-decibel pop hits played because teams mistakenly believe the familiarity will lure young fans whose access to that very music is now without limits.

No one needs more Selena Gomez. Everyone needs a little more novelty.

We can best honor Vince Lascheid by giving a talented organist a chance to be Vince Lascheid.