Press Box Battle

Baseball blues

Where have you gone, Rob Deer?

I don't know about you, but I sure miss watching Deer, who still has an online fan club, play professional baseball. I also miss Pete Incaviglia and Steve Balboni, too.

These guys were 1980s classics- overstuffed sluggers who couldn't hit their weight yet managed, every so often and usually with no one on base, to crush one way over the fence and deep into the stands.

Get a load of these amazing stats from Wikipedia: Deer "is the only player since 1910 to have a batting average less than .220 in at least 400 at-bats in at least four seasons. A notorious free swinger, Deer still holds the American League record for strikeouts in a season (186 strikeouts in 1987), and had at least 140 strikeouts on seven occasions."

That's my kind of ballplayer! Balboni hit a whopping .229 during his career, which officially ended in 1993 with the Texas Rangers- reality remembers it being over way before that. He had 181 home runs, good for a tie for 325th place on the all-time list.

EXTINCT- You won't find all-or-nothing sluggers like Rob Deer in this year's World Series between Boston and Colorado.

Incaviglia, or "Inky," could barely fit his massive arms into his uniform, yet he somehow managed to crush 100 longballs during a three-year college career at Oklahoma State and another 206 as a pro. Unfortunately for Inky, he also struck out 1,277 times in the majors and, for a time, had a wicked mullet.

The point here is that watching the World Series this week, it's clear neither team, the Colorado Rockies or the Boston Red Sox, has a Deer or an Incaviglia or a Balboni on the roster. I need a guy with the potential to go 1-for-17 in a five-game series with 13 strikeouts, one home run and one RBI, but he's nowhere to be found.

It seems like all of today's players who compete for good teams are pretty much real athletes- except David Wells, and he's a Dodger; they haven't played a meaningful game in months.

Boston's Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz look like my brand of professional slugger, but they're too darn good to qualify as Deer-esque. Too bad the Rockies still don't have Dante Bichette. If Bichette was a Rockie and Jose Canseco was still a Red Sox, Canseco could've pitched to Bichette in the Game 1 blowout. Now that would've been fun, just like the good old days.

Random stuff

Red Sox Nation + Tom "Terrific" Brady + Boston College being ranked No. 2 + a reloaded Celtics team = a nightmare for sports fans outside of "Baaaaasten." These people are about to become totally unbearable.

The San Diego UnionTribune was reporting Thursday afternoon that the Chargers could still host the Houston Texans Sunday. The Chargers' home field, Qualcomm Stadium, is currently serving as a shelter for those displaced by the fires.

Being from San Diego- my mom was evacuated on Monday- it would be nice to see the Bolts play at home to give those folks something to cheer about, but if they've got to go somewhere else, so be it.

ESPN.com reported Thursday that Grady Little could be in peril as manager of the Dodgers. Apparently the Dodgers are considering Joe Girardi, formerly of the Florida Marlins, as a possible upgrade on the bench.

Rudy Carpenter, of Newbury Park and Westlake high schools, is getting the job done for Arizona State. The Sun Devils (7-0) are ranked No. 4 in the BCS standings entering Saturday's homecoming game against No. 21 Cal (5-2).

Carpenter has 1,730 passing yards and 16 touchdowns for ASU. He's thrown only seven interceptions and has completed 66.3 percent of his passes. Samson Szakacsy, a Camarillo High graduate, is a freshman quarterback for Arizona State. Perhaps Carpenter will one day pass the torch to another local signal-caller.

- Contact Stephen Dorman at sdorman@theacorn.com