Welcome to my baseball Hall of Infamy Class of 2025. There's a wide variety of inductees this year. I recognize some real characters as players and managers, a fun quote, a frightening baseball trend, and of course, as I always find, some horrible human beings. Let's get started.
- Cindy Sandberg - Wife of Ryno. Infamous for: Getting to know her hubbie's teammates intimately. The baseball world suffered the loss of an '80s icon, Chicago Cubs HOF 2B Ryne Sandberg, during the '80s purge from a couple weeks ago that also saw the demise of Ozzy Osbourne, Theo from The Cosby Show, and Hulk Hogan. But Sandberg suffered infamy way back in the 1980s and '90s during his playing days thanks to his very popular wife Cindy. The rumors were that she was having affairs with players on his team, including young All-Star Rafael Palmeiro, who was surprisingly traded after the 1988 season, and OF Davey Martinez, also dealt in '88 after a couple seasons in Chicago. She was also rumored to be partying in Wrigleyville with fans on occasion. Ryno shocked the world on June 13, 1994, announcing his retirement abruptly at age 34 and coming off signing the richest contract in the sport only a couple years prior. The talk of the press conference was Cindy's choice of attire, a bright yellow dress adorned all over with large corncobs.
- Ozzie Guillen and Larry Bowa - shortstops - Chicago White Sox and Cubs. Infamous for: Wildly entertaining and quotable managerial and commentary careers. Ozzie and Larry had rather nondescript playing careers: Guillen was a light-hitting All-Star for the White Sox in the 1980s and '90s, and Bowa was a light-hitting veteran presence on the '84 Cubs, who broke a 39-year playoff drought in winning the NL East. It was their forays after their playing days that gave them new presence and the ability to provide something to talk about. Guillen of course went all the way to the top, managing the White Sox to the 2005 World Series championship while offering quotables seemingly every day, from calling the rats in Wrigley Field "big as a pig" to calling Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti "a fag" in 2006 to declaring love and respect for Cuban dictator Fidel Castro as Miami Marlins manager in 2012, which is the exact wrong thing to do in a city full of Cubans who immigrated from Cuba because of Castro. Bowa was always known as fiery and aggressive; he forced the trade from Philadelphia to the Cubs in 1982 because he felt like the Phillies didn't want him anymore. The Cubs asked Philly to throw in a kid in the trade named Ryne Sandberg, and the rest is history. But Bowa wore out his welcome everywhere--in Chicago, in San Diego where he got his first managerial gig and lost it in a year and a half, in Philly where he managed from 2000 to 2004, and in the media, where he has worked for ESPN, SiriusXM Radio, and MLB Network. Always quick to voice his opinions, Bowa even wrote an autobiography, appropriately titled Bleep! Both Guillen and Bowa have forged reputations as passionate voices of baseball who tell it like they see it no matter the consequences. Their antics have at times been costly, but they both wouldn't have done it any other way.
- The Thing, or The Yips. Infamous for: Derailing promising careers for years and years. It can happen to anyone at any time: You lose the ability to do what has come natural to you for your entire career. It happens to golfers' swings, it happens to basketball player's jumpers, and it happens to baseball players who throw the ball for a living. It can be a fielder, a catcher, or a pitcher, but when you get The Thing, you rarely get over it. There's a very long list of guys who got The Thing. Here I will list the most infamous ones in our lifetimes. Back in the 1970s an All-Star Pirates pitcher named Steve Blass lost his control and had to retire. A Mets catcher named Mackey Sasser lost the ability to throw a pitch back to his pitcher and was never the same. A couple of 2nd basemen got The Thing in front of major markets: Steve Sax of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chuck Knoblauch of the New York Yankees. Imagine making wild throws in front of those crowds. Braves closer Mark Wohlers lost his command in the 1990s, trashing a promising career. Longtime veteran SP Jon Lester could not throw the ball to 1st base; in fact, when fielding grounders later in his career, he often rolled the ball to 1st, and he hardly ever threw pickoff attempts. The most infamous case of the Thing has to be Rick Ankiel, who was a highly regarded SP when his Cardinals made the playoffs in 2000. He threw five wild pitches in Game 1 of the NLDS, he sailed multiple pitches over his catcher's head in his next start in the NLCS, and he walked 25 batters in 24 innings the next year before being sent to the minors. Ankiel was never a major league starting pitcher again, although he did make it back to the majors as a designated hitter, slugging homers and serving as an inspirational story. But he will always be remembered for that terrible WP spree that ended his pitching career before it could really get started. He and the other players that have fallen victim to The Thing will always serve as cautionary tales to other athletes to never take your talent for granted because you never know when it will disappear.
- Luis Polonia - outfielder - Yankees. Infamous for: Being imprisoned in the middle of his career due to jailbait. August 17, 1989 was a shocking day for a Yankees player who thought he just got lucky. Luis Polonia was arrested in Milwaukee that night and later freed on bail after the 24-year-old picked up a girl after a ballgame and took her to the Pfister Hotel. He claimed he thought the girl was 19, which is icky enough. She turned out to be only 15. He was sentenced in October to sixty days in jail. At the time Polonia said: "I'm a human being and anyone could have made the mistake I made." Umm. Polonia was regarded as a good enough player that the Yankees had just acquired him in June '89 along with some pitching in exchange for a guy you may have heard of, Rickey Henderson. But after the incident in Milwaukee, the Yanks dealt him to the California Angels less than a month into the 1990 campaign. He had some good years stealing bases and vying for the league lead in triples, but he never got over his tarnished reputation and bounced around for years, including a controversial brief return to the Yankees as a free agent. Polonia serves as a warning for anyone who believes their celebrity status will protect them from punishment when they swim in all the excess: Sometimes, the excess is too excessive. Just ask Wander Franco.
- Lee Elia Wing Of Quotes: Pedro Martinez's "Call The Yankees My Daddies." Infamous for: Giving the most obnoxious fan base in baseball a new catchphrase.
Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez wasn't used to getting knocked around when he pitched. He already had three Cy Young Awards and a slew of All-Star selections when he gave up six runs to the New York Yankees on September 24, 2004, as a member of the Boston Red Sox. At the time, the Red Sox and Chicago Cubs were the jokes of baseball, neither having won a World Series since before the invention of television, and maybe that led to Martinez giving serious sonning vibes in his postgame comments (seen above). The sight and sound of such a dominant pitcher calling another team his papa was shocking, and it gave the Bronx fanbase a rallying cry when Pedro came in to Yankee Stadium during that subsequent 2004 ALCS. (I play that sound in the podcast.) But the Game 7 shouting from the Yankee fans had an air of desperation because New York had led that series three games to nothing over the Red Sox before the most unbelievable, unprecedented comeback in baseball history. Boston was leading New York by a lot in Game 7 when Martinez was brought in as sort of a 7th-inning closer to make sure the Yankees wouldn't mount a miracle comeback of their own. And the fans let him have it full throat. Martinez lost Game 2 of that series in New York, and also gave up a run in this appearance, but it didn't matter. Eventually Boston closed out New York and became the only baseball team to win a seven-game series after being down 3-0. They went on to end their 86-year drought and win the World Series. Pedro returned to Yankee Stadium in 2009 for one last round of "Who's Your Daddy?" chants, this time as a Phillie in the World Series, which the Yanks won. But all those chants, helpfully urged along of course by the Yankee organist, originated with the Pedro quote after getting beat up in that regular season game. Who knew that a tossed-off statement in defeat would haunt him for years afterward. Who's your daddy, indeed.
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