Bob Coluccio
March 14, 2008
I should have swung.
I should have tried harder.
I should have paid more attention.
I should have gotten laid more in college.
I should have been a beginner more often.
I should have not been so serious all the time.
I should have gotten over my fear of ostriches.
I should have struck up more conversations with strangers.
I should have brushed more thoroughly and flossed once in a while.
I should have made enough money to buy my aging parents a house.
I should have made enough money not to have to hit up my aging parents for a loan that one time when my year in the cabin came to an end with me in abject poverty.
I should have made better use of my year in the cabin, becoming pure or something instead of just a little lonelier and poorer and maybe a little more aware of the silence at the heart of everything.
I should have given up the world of what if, the world of someday, and worked as hard as I could every day, like my immigrant ancestors, those short gray toilers who sacrificed themselves for the future of their family, i.e., dreaming, lazing, napping me.
I should have just started writing whatever came to mind and pushed it as far as I could and discovered undiscovered lands within or something instead of trying to mimic my literary heroes with every timid word.
I should have volunteered at the homeless shelter or participated in voter registration drives or taught some fatherless kid to shoot a jump shot.
I should have become a teacher early on and taken my lumps and hung with it.
I should have just left Marv Albert alone that time at the airport.
I should have not said all the stupid things I said.
I should have said other things.
I should have said nothing.
I should have sung.
Cardboard Gods 
1. oh, shit.
(love that card, remember it well)
2. I thought I’d toss out the trivia question on the back of Bob Coluccio’s card:
“Which pitcher sang National Anthem at ’73 World Series?”
Also, there’s some commenter activity on some older posts–Mike Tyson (Cardinals), Bobby Valentine (Padres), Bruce Bochte (Mariners)–and some comments continue to trickle in on the recent Pentz-related posts.
3. “Hey Bob, why didn’t you swing at that last pitch?” Bob Coluccio’s ultimate regret in life. That one pitch may have changed everything.
4. Loved this one!
5. I should have spent less time reading baseball related blogs……nah.
6. Great card. Great write-up, Josh.
7. This guy Collucio actually began his career with a little promise, but then it was a quick path to total mediocrity.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/c/colucbo01.shtml
8. 7 : His numbers (flashes of power, low average)–and the befuddled, regretful photo–remind me somehow of Bruce Pearson. I just started rereading Bang the Drum Slowly, which I do from time to time, and so I’m naturally thinking about that doomed fictional benchwarmer who had the ability to, if he guessed right, hammer a pitch a long way. Wiggen on Pearson (and maybe Coluccio): “He had no science, then nor ever, but . . . plays ball . . . on hunches, which in some ballplayers are natural and their hunches usually never go wrong. But Bruce is not a natural.”
9. He kind of looks like Paul Molitor too.
10. I have a friend who likes to point out that, in online personals, if the picture on the site isn’t showing you someone who even looks decent, then you can’t image how horrible they look in person. He says to this hypothetical person, that’s the best picture you could put up of yourself?
What I love about this site is how many times you (Josh) point out the bizarre images that sometimes made it onto baseball cards. Not always the action shot showing the player in full glory, or a smiling, posed shot, but some moment showing the half-hearted, the bleak, the wincing moments for a player. Like, that was the best photo Topps had of Bob Coluccio?
Sure, the reality is that Coluccio doesn’t have a chance to say “no, no, use that one of me sliding into second base… it’s much better of me”. And, Topps had 500+ players to get their own photos of, and….
But still, that’s what this reminds me of.
11. I should have not said all the stupid things I said.
I should have said other things.
I should have said nothing.
Man, don’t we all have those shouldas.
12. Reminds me of the lyrics of “I Shoulda,” by Australia’s finest rock band, the Celibate Rifles:
“I shoulda exercised daily
I shoulda brushed after meals
I shoulda gone to church Sunday
I shoulda learned some ideals
I shoulda counted my blessings
I shoulda lodged an appeal.”
And yeah, you shoulda gotten over that fear of ostriches.
13. 8 “Arthur, I’m doom-ded. I’ve been handed a shit deal.”
I love the Mark Harris books — great stuff. And DeNiro was amazing as Bruce Pearson. I’m so glad that Mark Harris wrote the screenplay. Michael Moriarity tearing up the clubhouse was probably the high water mark of the film for me. Something about that raw energy and frustration just grabbed me.
14. “What I should have said, was nothing.”
-Mike Birbiglia
15. #12 – i thought Australia’s best rock band was You Am I?
rgds
will
16. you neglected to mention that if you had tried to eat more fruit you might not be suffering from that dastardly Vitamin C deficiency…
17. I think what I liked the most was the visual symmetry of the post. Almost like it was “the bell curve” post.
18. I think what I liked the most was the visual symmetry of the post. Almost like it was “the bell curve” post.
19. This post is normally distributed.
This is one of my all-time favorites. Great writing. Also, I should mention that all the on-field scenes in “Bang the drum…” were filmed at Shea Stadium. Just one more way Shea still lives.