RIP Joaquin Andujar

Those two help explain my 1.9 first-semester GPA ...

 

He and Mario Soto were quite the hotheads during the mid-80s.

 

I saw the Producers (the 1980s rock band) at the Note. Pretty cool. But it ain't no Road Apple.

 

In fairness to Joaquin, I'm not sure any umpire (or umpiring crew) ever had it coming more than that one did at the moment he exploded. That eruption was not based on that game's events nearly as much as it was the culmination of infuriating calls in several successive games (and, of course, the end of game 6 in particular), until someone finally snapped. Good god, what a weird World Series that was.

 

Plus Denkinger was behind the plate for Game 7.

 

Tell Jack Clark to catch the pop up by the dugout and Darrell Porter to keep the ball in front of him.

 

Neither of which should've mattered if the umps would've just made the right calls. But whatever ...not sure if I've still the energy to re-fight the 1985 wars 30 years later.

I'll just say RIP Joaquin. One of my favorites way back when. And the emotion and "hot-headedness" he was known for only made him more likeable in my eyes (just showed his competiveness and passion for the game, dammit!). I think today's game could use more unrestrained characters like that.

 

Definitely a weird World Series. Royals had no business beating Toronto and no business forcing the WS back to Kansas City.

My Royals fanboi is well-documented here. Yet I lived in St Louis in 1982 and 1985 but was never a big fan. Always a Royals fan.

In 1985, I am a sixth-grader seven weeks into junior high on a 30 minute bus ride with 7th and 8th graders. They all love the Cardinals and of course I wear my Royals hat and jacket every damn day during the series.

I remember being taunted on that Friday after Game 5 when the Royals stayed alive.

The following Monday, after Games 6 and 7, of course I wore my hat and jacket on the bus.

Of course I called the older boys in their jean jackets "bitches".

Of course I got the hell beaten out of me for three straight days on the ride home, with even the bus driver saying I had it coming.

My coming of age moment.

 

Stay classy St. Louis...

 

Nah, I totally had it coming. Deserved it.

 

All the St. Louis stuff indeed happened but my first and most lasting memories came when Andujar and JR Richard and Joe Niekro and young Floyd Bannister (and a really young whiz kid named Jeff Leonard) plus Jose Cruz and Enos Cabell and everyone else brought big optimism to the Astrodome for a couple of scattered seasons near 1980. The Astros were my team as a boy. RIP Joaquin.

 

A nice and fitting tribute.

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