Since the days of the
Babe and Sweet Lou, baseball players have been at the forefront of fashion. Like the guy who I stole this picture from said, “Oh man, look at those jive ass shoes!”
From Barry’s
pimpstache to CC’s
crooked bill, ballplayers love to try to be at the center of the fashion universe. Hell,
weren’t A-Rod and Derek
Jeter once named some of People’s “Sexiest Men Alive?” And I swear
Thome’s
high socks set off a
fashion craze and inspired this pop sensation of the 1990s—not that I’m complaining.
However, one ballplayer who dared to blaze his own trail never quite gained the fame he deserved. I’m talking about a man who laughed in the face of tradition, a man who dared to go left when everyone else went right.
I’m talking about
Ramon Romero and his blue glove.
Back in the Tribe’s “Mistake on the Lake” heyday of the mid 1980s, the Sons of Geronimo went through mediocre pitching like Barry Bonds went through hat sizes. We’re talking the
crème de la
crème of some of the worst pitchers ever to put on stirrups and a cup. And
Ramon Romero stands alone atop this mountain of
suckitude.
A string bean of a player, standing 6’ 4” tall and 170 lbs soaking wet, this crappy…er, crafty southpaw intimidated no one, especially while wearing that ridiculous glove. In 11 career appearances, all for the Tribe in 1984 and 1985, Ramon
el Azul went 2-3 with a remarkable-for-the-era 6.28 ERA.
The Tribe must have had high hopes, at least at some point, for Romero. In his lone appearance in 1984, he showed a glimmer of promise, giving up no runs over 3 innings, striking out 3 and hitting a batter. Needless to say Gabe Paul and the Indians penciled him in for a shot at the team after the season.
However, 1985 turned out to be a disaster for Big Blue. He somehow found a way to scrounge up 2 wins despite giving up 69 hits and 48 runs, 47 earned, in just 64.1 innings pitched. Counting his 38 walks and 5, count ‘em, 5 hit batsmen, that’s an average of almost 2
baserunners per inning.
Seriously, why did they keep throwing this jobber out there?
Couldn’t Tom
Waddell or Vern
Ruhle chew up a few extra innings to keep this guy in AAA? Christ, I’m pretty sure that Jose
Canseco had a better WHIP in his pitching career than Romero.
Romero does have his own place in Indians history for being part of the trade that brought the legendary Ken
Schrom and former first round pick Bryan
Oelkers, the first player to be born in Spain to make it to the Majors, to the Tribe.
He would have been allowed to return to the Dominican Republic lick his wounds and fade into baseball obscurity if he
wouldn’t have stood in that ridiculous beer league softball pose with that goddamn blue glove for the
Topps photographer sometime in 1985. But, despite Romero’s piss poor stats, at least we remember him for something. Only one question remains—what kind of jive-ass shoes do you wear to match a blue glove?
by: J-Neg
