Kris Bryant’s dad analyzes the Assist Heard Round the World
It was the Assist Heard Round the World.
On TV, Joe Buck said it was going to be a tough play.
Kris Bryant made it look easy. Although it did appear he might have slipped a little on the wet grass.
Mark it 5-3 on your scorecard. With a giant asterisk and multiple exclamation points. Next Year had finally arrived.
“First thing I thought when the ball was hit to Kris was he is going to make the last play of the World Series,” Bryant’s father, Mike, said Friday shortly after returning to Las Vegas from what he called “Cubstock,” a parade and victory celebration in Chicago that attracted a delirious throng estimated at 5 million.
Mike Bryant broke it down like A-Rod, Pete Rose, Frank Thomas and the other guy on the Fox set out front of Murphy’s Bleachers.
“Never crossed my mind that he wouldn’t field and throw it cleanly to (Anthony) Rizzo,” he said of his superstar son. “He slipped after he threw it because it was still wet from the rain delay. He never took his eyes off the ball, and he knew he had to have a quick release because (Cleveland’s Michael) Martinez was fast. But he whipped it over to Rizzo, and bam! Cubs are world champs!”
This was the moment Cubs fans dropped to their knees and silently thanked Mike Bryant for teaching his youngest son how to hit with a slight uppercut like Ted Williams, and how to run the bases, and how to always run hard to first base on routine ground balls and pop flies, because you never know when the wind might blow or the grass might be slick from a brief rain delay.
Kris Bryant hit .308 during the postseason (20-for-65) with three home runs, eight RBIs, 11 runs scored and nine walks.
Mike Bryant said Cubs fans who made the trip for historic Game 7 seemed pretty enthused about all of that.
“We had 20,000 fans in Cleveland. The place went nuts as if we were at Wrigley,” he said, reliving the final out. “People cryin’ and huggin’ and laughing. There was a total release of tension.”
You might have seen the tension on his face, too, had he not grown a Jake Arrieta-model playoff beard. I told him now that the Cubs have finally won it, it was OK to shave, but Mike Bryant said he going “full-out Duck Dynasty, and life will never be the same.”
GENTLE (AND GRACIOUS) BEN
Andy Kaye, the former Las Vegas radio personality who has thrown out more than 100 first pitches at Las Vegas 51s games, and his older brother John were cruising around the Wrigleyville neighborhood they grew up in on Friday, basking in the afterglow of the Cubs’ first World Series victory since 1908 and not wanting it to end, when big brother asked little brother if he wanted to see where the World Series MVP lived.
When they arrived, there was a ruckus on Ben Zobrist’s front lawn.
The neighborhood kids and a lot of grown-ups had come around to say thanks for a beautiful season, and for hitting that beautiful double in the 10th inning in Game 7, and gracious Ben, overwhelmed by the show of support, came out of the house to sign autographs and pose for photos.
One of which was with Andy Kaye.
It was a cool souvenir of a once-in-108-years occurrence, he said, way more cool than a little plastic batting helmet that once held ice cream or a miniature baseball bat.
I live by Ben Zobrist. Here he is signing autographs for fans outside his home. #WorldSeries pic.twitter.com/eI7RP2kxqW
— Lauren Niz (@laurenniz) November 3, 2016
LUNCH ON LESTER
I would like to thank Cubs pitcher Jon Lester for picking up lunch on Wednesday.
Because Lester cannot throw to any base but home plate, which he does extremely well, it enabled the Indians’ Francisco Lindor to steal second base without a throw during the first inning of Game 1 of the World Series, which entitled Taco Bell patrons to a free Doritos Loco Taco.
The kid behind the counter of the TB on Pecos Road said a lot of baseball fans had been coming in to take advantage of Lester’s yips.
I asked if I also was entitled to a free Chalupa because Cleveland outfielders Tyler Naquin and Lonnie Chisenhall let Addison’s Russell routine fly ball drop between them in the first inning of Game 6.
The kid gave me roughly the same look that home plate umpire Joe West gave Willson Contreras when the Cubs catcher went to the mound for a ninth-inning chat with Chicago way ahead and the bars in Cleveland about to close.
AARON IT OUT
A lot baseball people forget that Aaron Kurcz, the former Durango High and College of Southern Nevada baseball standout who had a nice season pitching for Triple-A Nashville in the Oakland organization, was the player to be named in the deal that sent Theo Epstein from Boston to Chicago to become president of baseball operation for the Cubs.
After Epstein completed the rebuilding job that resulted in Chicago winning the World Series for the first time in 108 seasons, Kurcz took to Twitter to inquire about receiving a full playoff share.
“So do I get anything for being the PTBNL???#epstein”
Probably not. But if he finds himself wandering around Wrigleyville some night and he knocks on Ben Zobrist’s door, I’ll bet Ben would be happy to come out and pose for a selfie.
So do I get anything for being the PTBNL??? #epstein
— Aaron Kurcz (@AaronKurcz) November 3, 2016
MEL LARSON REMEMBERED
One of the particulars was Robert Goulet’s longtime publicist; the other was close friends with Ernest Borgnine and handed out business cards with his face morphed onto that of a cat.
So you knew Norm Johnson would have a neat story about Mel Larson, his friend and fellow auto racing pioneer and fellow hotel-casino marketing executive — and a lover of felines — who died Tuesday at age 87.
In 1968, the famous Mint 400 that Johnson co-founded was only a dusty glint in the eye. He thought if he could coax Larson, who was living in Phoenix and still driving in NASCAR, into entering it would be a big shot in the arm for the fledgling off-road race.
“He said, ‘What’s an off-road race?’ ”
Johnson told him.
“What kind of car would I need?”
A dune buggy, Johnson said.
“I don’t have a dune buggy.”
Johnson said he would get him one, if Mel would come to Las Vegas for a test drive.
Larson drove the dune buggy. He uttered an expletive about how much fun it was to drive a dune buggy in the Southern Nevada desert.
“We gotta get Parnelli,” Mel Larson told Norm Johnson.
And so they got Parnelli Jones, the great Indy 500 champion, and entries for the Mint 400 went from a trickle to a flood.
It was a couple of years later when Hunter S. Thompson showed up at the start-finish line all gonzoed up.
The rest, as they say, is history, with a liberal dose of fear and loathing and an occasional joyride with Ernie Borgnine in a pink helicopter.
Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow@ronkantowski on Twitter.
