Comments on: Alan Ashby

By: ramblinpete

ramblinpete — Sun, 17 May 2009 15:45:51 +0000

yeesh…the Ault story is right out of a Greek tragedy.
Sad. I remember his name, for some reason, embodying those early Blue Jays.

I was also surprised to realize that the pathetic, almost irrelevant ‘post-Seaver-trade’ Mets never quite sank to the 100 loss level. I mean, those were some dark years over at Shea.

Apparently, in the neo-biblical seven season draught following Tom Terrific’s initial deportation,(and concurrent metaphoric End of My Childhood), the Mets lost between 94 and 99 games every single year, except, of course, the strike-shortened 1981 campaign, where they dropped 62, and were on pace (percentage-wise) to lose 97.

Gee, I guess things weren’t so bad after all.

By: 68elcamino427

68elcamino427 — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:46:43 +0000

16. But there must be in this photo evidence of a tenacious will, too. Is that a hint of a smirk on his face that I see? Eye brows slightly perked, corners of the mouth drawn in. Is he say'in "Go ahead - bring it - you can't touch me ..." 7 by Wabi-sabi reinforces this belief in me. Great post Josh - This is why I voted for Johnny Bench.

By: Hendu

Hendu — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:29:31 +0000

15. Got a chance to work with Alan Ashby in the Texas-Louisianna League in 1995. Very nice and knowledgable baseball man. I was partial to the expansion Mariners while my brother adopted the Jays that summer of 1977. Even at 11 years of age it was interesting to see 2 teams being built right before your eyes.

By: Ennui Willie Keeler

Ennui Willie Keeler — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 14:18:22 +0000

14. spudrph, I'm glad that I'm not the only one who noticed the resemblence. Roel also occasionally writes for the Hardball TImes.

By: immouch

immouch — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:35:50 +0000

13. great piece: my sister had a series of apparently fragile hamsters in that era, and she named one of them ashby. she wasn't a baseball fan, so the name had nothing do with the catcher. but because of the name, i very clearly remember noticing ashby's in the paper. my grandma was serving scrambled eggs and letting her cigarette ashe get long enough to make everybody nervous, and i was looking in the LA Times box scores and, boom!, there was an ashby. i sort of followed him, vaguely, from then on. i caught, too, and when he went to houston he seemed to kill my dodgers. it seemed like three of his annual eight homers would come against us... i'd have to look it up to see if that impression is fact-based, but that's what i remember.

By: spudrph

spudrph — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 03:06:21 +0000

12. Josh- There is a guy named Raol Torres writing on Bill James' site (billjamesonline.net) who reminds me of you. Unfortunately, it's a pay site, but if you can, you might enjoy his work.

By: Peanut

Peanut — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 02:27:15 +0000

11. 5 Rick Honeycutt wasn't an expansion draft guy (the Mariners traded for him during the 1977 season) but he kept going until 1997.

By: Ennui Willie Keeler

Ennui Willie Keeler — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:41:00 +0000

10. http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Baseball/MLB/Toronto/2005/04/07/986237.html

I was going to make a crack about how maybe the losing got to Ault, but then I read that story, found out what really happened, and felt depressed. I didn’t even realize that it was so close to the holidays.

By: sb1902

sb1902 — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:52:57 +0000

9. Could somebody post a link to that Doug Alt story? I just tried searching for it and couldn't find it. I remember he had a little trophy on his first card indicating he was a Topps Rookie All Star (or whatever the exact designation was) and assumed he was Something Big on the rise and wanted to keep his name in mind so I could claim to have been there from the start as he rose to the heights of the game.

By: sb1902

sb1902 — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:45:51 +0000

8. In those days, I'd open the pack of cards an start shoving through them, and you'd see "Blue Jays" or "Mariners" and you'd feel they were useless, almost a place holder. Seeing those teams on the cards from that era (like the '78 one Josh shows) still makes me flinch.