In anticipation of the coming baseball season, we will be previewing all 30 teams over the next month. Since no one gives a shit about the Astros, we decided to just run an old preview. It’s not like anyone reads these anyway. The original preview was written by Mark Bechtel. I added some notes.
Astros third baseman Ken Caminiti would seem to be one of the least likely people to have a fluffy show dog named Charmaine, a petit basset griffon vendeen. (CRM: Awwww) Caminiti looks more like the owner of a bulldog or a Great Dane. He’s often scowling, and if his uniform isn’t dirty by the third inning, it’s because he’s not playing. Take a look at his forearms, and you half expect to see Olive Oyl in tow. (CRM: Fun fact: His arms were huge on account of the steroids he took.) His haunts once included tattoo parlors and still include garages, where he likes to hang out and restore cars. He is, in a word, tough.
Caminiti will tell you that Charmaine, who finished second in her group at the Westminster Kennel Club show in February, is tougher than she looks. “That dog has attitude,” he says. Caminiti might be the opposite. Under his gruff exterior beats the heart of a softy. (CRM: I’m not touching that one.) His most prominent tattoo, on his chest, bears the names of his three daughters, on whom he dotes. When he was deciding where to sign as a free agent in the off-season, he turned down bigger bucks from the Tigers ($21.5 million for three years) to accept a two-year, $9.5 million deal from Houston, for which he played from 1987 to ‘94. (CRM: I just lol’d in my pants when I read that salary.) “That’s where my daughters go to school,” says Caminiti, who was a member of the Padres last season. “I only got to see them two months last year. And my two best friends, Bags [first baseman Jeff Bagwell] and Bigg [second baseman Craig Biggio], are here.” Read the rest of this entry »
This morning I received an urgent message via the MLJ Batline. We had two previews left to do and only a week and a half to do them. So I volunteered to preview the Orioles. Then fetch jumped in and said, “But Hef, you’re a moron. I did the Orioles at some previous point in the offseason. Why are you so dumb?” Of course we all joined in to a chorus of “Hef sucks” and then went on with our days.
