The Newsroom

Je suis un inconditionnel de la série The Newsroom, une comédie créé pour la CBC par Ken Finkleman en 1996 et qu'on a fait revivre pour deux autres saisons récemment. Ce qui me frappe en regardant cette série se déroulant dans une salle de nouvelles peuplée de gens odieux, c'est qu'on n’a jamais vu de comédie aussi sèche et acide à la télévision québécoise.

De façon générale, les comédies mettent en scène des personnages sympathiques et truculents: Elvis Gratton la famille Bougon, les Paré de la Petite Vie... Les Bougons sont un exemple intéressant. Oui, ils sont sales. Oui, ils sont paresseux. Oui, il sont profiteurs Mais ce sont surtout des bons vivants qui forment une famille unie. Des «natures». Plus important encore : le point de vue de la série, c’est que les Bougons ont raison de se comporter comme ils le font. Raison de se rebeller contre un système encore plus pourri qu’eux. On ne le regarde pour les juger et les trouver horribles, comme on regarde Georges de Seinfeld par exemple. On rit plus souvent avec eux que d’eux.

À quand une série québécoise centrée sur un personnage aussi antipathique, morne et amoral que Georges, le directeur des nouvelles de The Newsroom?

Leon Durham

The most astonishing thing about Leon "Bull" Durham is how quickly he fell off the map. In 1987, at age 29, he had one of his best season with the Cubs, hitting a career high 27 homers and .273 AVG/.348 OBP/.513 SLG batting line. In 1988, Mike Grace took over his job at first base for the Cubs. Durham was traded to the Reds and his career derailed due to a drug problem. He hit .218 in 73 games that year and .56 (1 for 18) in 29 games with the Cards the following season. He disappeared from the Majors after that.

Durham was a left-handed hitter with a big swing who had trouble with the inside pitch. He had good speed at the start of his career and stole a career high 28 bases in 1982. He played three years in the outfield with the Cubs before replacing Bill Buckner at first in 1984. At his best, he was a .280 hitter piling up 20 homers, 30 doubles and 60 walks a year.

Dick Allen

In 1972, Dick Allen became the first bespectacled position player to be selected as MVP as a Chicago White Sox. In a strike-shortened season of 154 games, Allen hit .308 with 37 homers and 113 RBI. He collected 99 walks for a league-leading .420 OBP. He also led the league in slugging (.603). That’s domination.

Allen played 15 seasons in the Majors and hit .292 in an very difficult era for hitters. He has 351 career homers and many people thick he should be in the Hall of Fame. But he was a very controversial player who had difficulty fitting in everywhere he played.

1972 was his first season with the White Sox. It was a fresh start for the moody slugger and he blossomed under Chuck Tanner, an easygoing manager. Unfortunately, he got hurt in 1973 and the White Sox fell from 87-65 to 77-85. Allen rebounded in 1974, hitting 32 homers... but he retired with a month left to play without an explanation. The White Sox traded him after the season.

Bob Dillinger

Third baseman Bob Dillinger had a short career and is not very well remembered. But we owe him one of the funniest baseball story involving glasses. During a minor league game in 1939, Dillinger took a pitch that the umpire called strike two. Disgruntled, Dillinger took off his glasses and offered them to the umpire. Amazingly, the umpire didn’t eject him. Instead, he took the glasses and put them on under his mask. The next pitch came in, Dillinger didn’t swing and the umpire called strike three. Then he handed the glasses back to Dillinger.

Dillinger broke in the Majors with the Saint Louis Browns in 1946 at age 27. He was a speedy third baseman who led the American League in stolen bases in 1947, 1948 and 1949 (with 34, 28 and 20 steals). In 1948, he collected 207 hits, 34 doubles ,10 triples and 2 homers to finish the year .321 AVG/ .385 OBP/ .415 SLG. In 1949, he played only 137 games but was just as productive: 176 hits, 22 doubles, 13 triples, 1 homer, .324 AVG, .385 OBP, 417 SLG.

In 1951, Dillinger played 101 games with the Pirates and White Sox. He batted .292, but retired after the season at age 33. Apparently, he didn’t want to play baseball anymore. He'S a career .306 hitter.

Frank Howard

I'm sure Frank Howard was a very fun player to watch. He was a giant (6'7", 255 lbs) with a mighty swing that produced a lot of homers and a lot a spectacular strikeouts. Despite his size and his lack of speed, he spent the vast majority of his career in the outfield. Watching this hulking man chasing fly balls and line drives had to be entertaining.

Howard came up with the Dodgers was the rookie of the year in 1960, batting .268 with 23 homers and 108 strikeouts in 117 games. He continued along these lines for a couple of years. In 1964, he hit a paltry .226 and whiffed 113 times, but he showed better plate discipline by drawing 51 walks. In the offseason, the Dodgers traded him to the Washington Senators.

The big guy really blossomed after that, though he never did curtail his strikeouts. In 1968, the year of the pitcher, he belted 44 homers to lead the American League. He had a monster season in 1969, batting .296 with 48 homers. For the first time in his career, he piled up more walks than strikeouts (102 to 96). His OBP for the year was .402. 1970 was eerie similar. He batted .283 with 44 homers. Once again, he piled up more walks than strikeouts (132 to 125). His OBP for the year was .416.

Ken Phelps

Ken Phelps was slow, had no defensive value and didn’t hit for average. But he had two very valuable tools: power and the ability to get on base. He was a very selective hitter who walked a lot, so he was a good OBP guy (.374 for his career) despite a low career batting average (.239). His patient approach also produced a lot of strikeouts and a lot of homers. During his career, he slugged .480 and averaged 26 home runs per 162 games.

Hitters like that are always underrated because they have a low batting average and they look bad striking out one hundred times a year. The funny-looking glasses certainly didn't help Phelps either. As a result, he had to wait a long time to get regular playing time in the Majors. Originally drafted by the Royals, Phelps was traded to the Expos after two shorts stints with Kansas City in 80 and 81. He responded to the trade by hitting 46 homers at the AA level in 1982. But the Expos didn’t think they had room for him. Before the start of the season, the Expos had addressed their need for a left-handed slugging first baseman (which is exactly what Ken Phelps was) by trading third baseman Larry Parrish to the Rangers to get the aging Al Oliver.

Phelps was sold to the Mariners before the start of the 1983 season. For the Expos, he was a missed opportunity. I’m pretty sure they could have plugged him into their lineup as early as 1983 and get good production for next to nothing, freeing up money to address other needs.

With the Mariners, Phelps didn't play right away either. Despite hitting 24 homers in 290 at-bats in 1984, he didn’t play much the next year. But in 1986, at age 31, Phelps played 125 games and did very well despite batting just .247. He hit 24 homers and walked 88 times, posting a .406 OBP and a .526 slugging average. In 1987, he played 120 games and did even better: 27 homers, 80 walks, .410 OBP, .548 SLG.

In 1988, he was traded to the Yankees during the season (for young prospect Jay Buhner) but posted similar numbers: 24 homers, 70 walks, .402 OBP, .549 SLG. He declined rapidly after that, something the Yankees should have anticipated considering his age. It’s just too bad he had such a late start.

Bob Watson

"Park effect" can really distort the perception of a hitter, for the better or for the worse. Bob Watson is a great example of this. Watson spent his first 13 seasons with the Houston Astros, from 1966 to 1978. During that period, the Astros played their home games at the Astrodome, a very tough park for hitters. His production really suffered because of this. As Bill James notes in the New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, Watson has the same number of career home runs on the road as Ted Kluszewski (117). At home, though, Kluszewski holds a 162 to 67 advantage.

I don't think Watson wore glasses on the field at the start of his career. But I know he did wear them on May 12th 1974 in Cincinnati. Playing left field, Watson crashed head-first into the outfield wall and shattered his glasses. As he lay on the ground, Reds fans bombarded him with cups, beer and insults.

In 1979, the Astros traded Watson to the Red Sox. Watson immediately took advantage of his new surrounding, blasting 13 homers in 84 games for the Sox. In 1980, Watson played his last productive season with the Yankees and hit 16 homers. He became a part-time player after that and retired as an Atlanta Brave in 1984. During his career, he played 1088 games at first base, 570 in the outfield and 54 as a DH. He’s a career.295 hitter with a .364 OBP. He scored the 1,000,000th run in major league history in 1975.

Jim Konstanty

Journeyman pitcher Jim Konstanty had a magical season for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1950. The righthander pitched 152 innings in 74 relief appearances, a record number at the time. Posting a 2.66 ERA, he led the league in saves with 22 and notched 16 wins. The Phillies won the NL pennant and Konstanty became the first bespectacled player to be selected league MVP. He probably didn’t deserve the trophy. I don’t even think he was the most valuable pitcher with the Phillies since Robin Roberts pitched 304 innings that season and went 20-11 with a 3.02 ERA.

One thing is certain: Konstanty was not overpowering. In 152 innings, he struck out just 56 batters and walked 50 guys. This is not a good ratio. Apparently, he had a very good palm ball. He probably got a lot of groundball outs with that pitch.

Konstanty pitched exclusively out of the bullpen during the season, but he was a surprise starter for he Phillies in game one of the World Series against the Yankees. He pitched 8 strong innings, giving up one run on 4 hits and 4 walks. But Vic Rashi was even better and the Yankees won 1-0. Third baseman Bobby Brown scored the only run of the game in the 4th inning. He doubled, advanced to third on a fly ball and scored on a sac fly by Jerry Coleman. The Yankees went on to sweep the series in 4 games.

Clint Courtney

During his career, catcher Clint Courtney was known as a very intense competitor and a brawler. Well, he had a good reason to be in a bad mood. He played most of his career with really bad teams and lost a staggering number of games.

Courtney started his career by playing just one game with the 1951 Yankees, a team that went 98-56 and won the World Series. In the offseason, he was traded to the lowly Saint-Louis Browns. With the Browns, he had the chance to play regularly… and to lose regularly. In 1952, the Browns finished 64-90. In 1953, they sinked to 54-100. In 1954, the team became the Baltimore Orioles... but ended up 54-100 once again.

During the winter, the Orioles traded Courtney to the White Sox, a much better team at the time. But the bespectacled catcher played just 19 games for Chicago and then was traded to the Washington Senators, another perennial bad team. The White Sox finished the 1955 season 91-63. Courtney and the Senators ended up 53-101.

Courtney played for the Senators from 1956 to 1959, suffering through 59-95, 55-99, 61-93 and 61-93 seasons. The deliverance came in 1960. Traded to the Orioles just before the start of the season, Courtney played 83 games as a backup catcher and pinch hitter. The Orioles finished 89-65. Finally, he was a winner. During the off season, the Orioles traded him to Kansas City A’s, yet another perennial losing team. The A’s went 61-100 in 1961, but Courtney didn’t have to live through that. He played just one game for the A’s and then was sent back to Baltimore. He didn’t play much for the Orioles, was released in July and retired. The Orioles finished the season 95-67.

Courtney wasn’t a bad player. He’s a career .268 hitter with a .339 OBP, just about league average for his era. Being a lefthanded hitting catcher, he was a useful platoon player. In 1960, he was the first catcher to use an oversized mitt to catch a knuckleballer, the great Hoyt Wilhelm.

Claude Raymond and Eric Gagné

I have to talk about those two guys because they’re both from Quebec, just as I am, and because of their similarity. Claude Raymond was a bespectacled reliever with a bulldog attitude and so is Eric Gagné. They’re clearly the two best Quebec-born ballplayers ever.

Of course, Raymond was not as good Gagné. But he pitched for twelve years in the Majors, logging a very respectable 3.66 ERA and 83 career saves. He made the All-Star team as a Houston Astros in 1966. The most memorable moment of his career occured on May 16th 1969, when he pitched for the first time against the Expos in Montreal as an Atlanta Brave. He came in relief with two men on in the bottom of the ninth The crowd gave him a tremendous ovation and he started to cry on the mound. But he pulled himself together and got out of the inning. The Braves won the game in the 12th inning and he was the winning pitcher.

The Braves traded Raymond to the Expos later that year. In 1970, he had a Field of Dream season with his hometown team. At age 33, he pitched 83 ½ innings, won 7 games and notched 23 saves, a very good total at the time. He retired in 1971 and was a Expos broadcaster for a long time after that. He's moderatly famous for having his fly open on his 1967 baseball card (shown above).

Eric Gagné is one of the most overpowering closer ever. He’s a big guy with three nasty pitches (fastball, curve, change-up), which is a luxury for a relief pitcher. He won the National League Cy Young Award in 2003, logging 55 saves and 137 strikeouts in 82 1/3 innings, with an 1.20 ERA . But he’ll never pitch for the Expos in Montreal...