Retro Baseball

“Four or five us are in Cincinnati,” says Johnstone. “It’s Sunday morning. We can walk over to the Catholic church, which is a short walk over to stadium. Steve Garvey is there. Bill Russell. Burt Hooton I think was there. And myself. We’re in the Catholic church. We walk in and sit in the back.”

“One of the guys notices that John McNamara, the Reds manager, was sitting in the front pew up there on the right-hand side. We’re sitting back on the left. Before the Mass is over, Lasorda is watching him and says, ‘Russell, go see what he’s doing.’

“Russell says, ‘He was down there lighting a candle, skip.’

“Lasorda says, ‘Show me. Which one did he light?’

“Russell says, ‘The top spot, upper right.’” He pointed at McNamara’s chosen votive.

“Lasorda says, ‘You sure?’

“‘Yeah, skip!’

“Lasorda walks up and he blows it out.”

Johnstone continues, “Now, we go to the ballpark. The dugouts are pretty close in Cincinnati. You could hear each other. And by the second inning, Lasorda’s yelling at McNamara, ‘It isn’t going to work, John! It isn’t going to work!’”

I was trying to hit him,” the Philadelphia left-hander said after the Phillies’ 9-3 win. “I’m not going to deny it.” Major League Baseball rewarded Hamels’ candor by suspending him Monday for five games. “That’s something I grew up watching, that’s kind of what happened. So I’m just trying to continue the old baseball because I think some people are kind of getting away from it,” Hamels said Sunday. “I remember when I was a rookie the strike zone was really, really small and you didn’t say anything because that’s the way baseball is. But I think unfortunately the league’s protecting certain players and making it not that old-school, prestigious way of baseball.