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Trevor Time

With  AC/DC’s “Hells Bells” playing in the background Trevor Hoffman enters the field (at Miller Park) to record his 600th save in Major League Baseball, to secure his spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame - "Oh Doctor!”

This summer will mark a historic day for Padres fans. On July 29, 2018 San Diego’s Trevor Hoffman will grace the podium at the annual induction ceremony held at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Only the third Padre, along side Tony Gwynn (2007) and Dave Winfield (2001).

From 1993-2008 Trevor Hoffman was the bullpens backbone for the San Diego Padres. Many a call was made by broadcaster Jerry Coleman ending in “Oh Doctor!” Why you ask? Trevor had the deadliest change-up in baseball history, or so it seemed.

“Some pitchers fool you, some guys overpower you, Hoffman embarrasses you.” - Mike Piazza.

In 1998, the Padres went to World Series, Trevor was unstoppable. With teammates Tony Gwynn, Ken Caminiti, Steve Finley, Greg Vaughn, Wally Joiner, and Kevin Brown. Trevor saved 53 games that year!

I vividly remember a scene during the inter-league play with the Boston Red Socks; Trevor summoned to the mound, Hells Bells rocking the stadium, images of fire on the giant scoreboard and video screens around the stadium. The Red Sox players came out of their dugout, a baffled look on their faces, wondering what the hell?

According to Mark Saunders, an ABC news journalist, the theme synonymous with Trevor Hoffman's career began on July 25, 1998, against the Houston Astros. “Hoffman is believed to be the first pitcher to enter a game with theme music before other future MLB greats started making their way to the mound similarly.”

When the Padres had the lead in the top of the ninth inning it was “Trevor Time"  and everyone knew it. Qualcomm Stadium and later Petco Park rocked, the city of San Diego cherished the sound of that dramatic entrance knowing the game was at hand and the man to close it out for the Padres was on the mound.

What can one say . . . Congratulations Trevor well deserved! 

So, as the 2018 spring training season gets underway tune into your favorite radio station and relish the poetry of the game . . .

Speaking of poetry, I love to re-read this excerpt at the beginning of each season, enjoy.

Excerpt from Ken Burns - Baseball

“It measures just 9 inches in circumference, weighs only about 5 ounces, and is made of cork wound with woolen yarn, covered with two layers of cowhide, and stitched by hand precisely 216 times.

It traveled 60 feet 6 inches from the pitcher’s mound to home - and it can cover that distance at nearly 100 miles an hour. Along the way it can be made to twist, spin, curve, wobble, rise, or fallaway.

The bat is made of turned ash, less than 42 inches long, not more than 2 3/4 inches in diameter. The batter has only a few thousandths of a second to decide to hit the ball. And yet men who fail seven times out of 10 are considered the games greatest heroes.

Baseball is played everywhere: in parks and playgrounds and prison yards, in back alleys and farmer’s fields, by small children and old men, by raw amateurs and millionaire professionals.

It is a leisurely game the demands blinding speed, and the only one in which the defense has the ball. It follows the seasons, beginning each year with the fond expectancy of springtime and ending with the hard facts of autumn.

Americans have played baseball for more than 200 years, while they conquered a continent, warred with one another and with enemies abroad, struggled over labor and civil rights and the meaning of freedom.

At the game's heart lie mythic contradictions: a pastoral game, born in crowded cities; an exhilarating democratic sport that tolerates cheating and has excluded as many as it has included; a profoundly conservative game that sometimes manages to be years ahead of its time.

It is an American odyssey that links sons and daughters to fathers and grandfathers. And it reflects the host of age-old American tensions: between workers and owners, scandal and reform, the individual and the collective.

It is a haunted game in which every player is measured against the ghosts of all who have gone before. Most of all, it is about time and timelessness, speed and grace, failure and loss, imperishable hope - and coming home.”

Oh, by the way, during live ball games you will find me tuned to 670, The Score (WGN) Chicago. It's what I grew up with, what I listened to as a boy - Go Cubbies . . . 

References:

Ward, Geoffrey, & Burns, Ken. (1994). Baseball. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
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