One of the ironclad rules of journalism is you don’t play favorites.
I have tried to adhere to that rule since I first began in the business as a 14-year-old in 1978 covering high school football for the now-defunct Beaver Falls News-Tribune. However, we’re also human beings and it is hard not to run across some people for whom you develop a fondness.
That is why it was so good to see Jason Bay on Friday night as he and his family attended the Pirates’ 2-1 win over the Padres at PNC Park.
“We’re on the ‘your dad used to be somebody tour,’” Bay said with a laugh.
It has been six years since Bay finished his career with the Mariners in 2013. Seattle made an interleague visit to Pittsburgh that year and it marked the last time Bay had been in the city until Friday.
It is a family trip for Bay as he and his wife, Kristin, now have three children. The Bays first flew to Akron, Ohio to visit his sister before driving to Pittsburgh. They will spend the weekend in Boston watching the Red Sox play at Fenway Park.
Bay’s children aren’t old enough to remember him playing for the Pirates and Red Sox, the two teams for which he had his most success.
Bay broke into the major leagues with the Padres in 2003, playing three games before being traded to the Pirates later that season. He was the National League Rookie of the Year in 2004 and remains the only Pirates player to win the award.
He stayed with the Pirates until the trading deadline in 2008, when he was sent to the Red Sox in a four-team trade that wasn’t one of Neal Huntington’s best moves. The Pirates got little production from any of the four players they received in the deal – Craig Hansen, Andy LaRoche, Bryan Morris and Brandon Moss.
Bay’s career went downhill quickly after signing a four-year, $68-million contract with the Mets as a free agent prior to the 2010 season. He sustained a concussion when he flipped over the short outfield fence in Dodger Stadium while trying to catch a fly ball and was never the same.
However, Bay was certainly a bright light during a dark period in Pirates’ history, batting .281/.375/.515 with 139 home runs in 719 games over six seasons.
Yet that wasn’t why it was so good to see him. Bay’s fine track record with the Pirates pales in comparison to the person.
The native of Trail, British Columbia is a good guy. In fact, I will never forget the kindness he showed my wife during spring training in 2005
Bay was a big deal that spring after winning Rookie of the Year. He was a guest one night during Paul Alexander’s old talk show on KDKA-AM that was broadcast from a hotel in Bradenton, Fla.
Bay was scheduled to be on from 7-8 p.m., and I was to follow from 8-9 p.m. Once Bay was finished, it would have been easy for him to leave. Instead, he and his wife saw my wife sitting alone at a table and spent at least a half-hour chatting with her while I was on the air.
Those types of things stay with you long after the home runs stop coming, and the awards begin gathering dust. And that is why Friday was a good night at the ballpark.
• Josh Bell is one of three finalists in the All-Star Game voting among National League first baseman along with the Braves’ Freddie Freeman and Cubs’ Anthony Rizzo.
Bell certainly has the credentials to get to Cleveland for the game July 9 and not just because he has E-Z Pass to bypass the toll gates on the turnpike. He is hitting .312/.379/.642 with 20 home runs and a major-league-leading 66 RBIs in 73 games.
However, he might have a hard time beating out Freeman who has helped carry the Braves to first place in the National League East. Freeman is a more recognizable name nationally as the face of the franchise and is having a strong year with a .314/.401/.605 line, 21 homers and 56 RBIs in 75 games.
Rizzo is also better known as he plays for a team that seems to be on national TV three times a week. However, it is hard to make a case for Rizzo over either Bell or Freeman as he is batting .277/.387/.545 with 19 homers and 53 RBIs in 71 games.
The online voting begins at noon Wednesday and concludes at 4 p.m. Thursday at MLB.com. It’ll be interesting see if Bell becomes the first Pirates first baseman to start in an All-Star Game since Dale Long all the way back in 1956.
• It’s easy to pick on the Pirates for bad fundamental play. Yet poor fundamentals are rampant throughout the major leagues in 2019.
Whether it’s poor coaching at the youth level, kids not playing the game enough or whatever, blunders abound in the sport.
However, it’s tough to give a pass to Elias Diaz for what he did in the early innings of Friday’s game.
Diaz dropped Hunter Renfroe’s routine foul pop to begin the second inning. Fortunately, Joe Musgrove was able to work around the miscue to strike out Renfroe and pitch a scoreless inning.
With one out in the third, Diaz was on second base when Kevin Newman hit a ground ball to the shortstop. Diaz inexplicably took off for third base and was easily thrown out.
Inexplicable and inexcusable. One of the first things they teach – or at least used to teach – in youth baseball is not to run on a ground ball to the left side of the infield with less than two outs.
Now get off my lawn and let me go back to watching This Week In Baseball reruns.
• One of the tactics Clint Hurdle has long employed to get a slumping hitter back on track is to “unplug” him. In other words, keep him out of the lineup for a few days.
Hurdle is currently doing that with Gregory Polanco. The right fielder sat out for the third game in a row Friday.
The Pirates certainly need more production from Polanco than he is providing. He is hitting .242/.301/.425 with six home runs and 17 RBIs in 42 games. Furthermore, he has had a string of bad at-bats recently in which he has swung at numerous bad pitches.
Polanco is going to have to earn his at-bats because the Pirates have two good alternatives in right field in Bryan Reynolds and Melky Cabrera.
• Manny Machado’s double error led to the Pirates scoring the game-winning run in the seventh inning. No wonder the Pirates did not pursue him in free agency.
