Stephen Strasburg might have pitched his most important and best

baseball game as a Major Leaguer in his great performance Friday that helped keep the Nats alive in the 2019 MLB season, says this old sportswriter Paul Heidelberg. (Once a sportswriter, always a sportswriter?)  Scherzer was also charging strong.


Strasburg had moves on his fastball like...will not attempt the analogy...Holy merde. Didn't realize until watching rebroadcast on MLB network today he was carrying a perfect game as far as he did.


He had bags under his eyes like he was worrying like hell about finally coming through late in the season; and with that beard, he looked like Honest Abe on the mound. As a sportswriter you learn to look at athletes as if you were sizing up a side of beef hanging in a meat locker. I always did that, including while covering world championship prizefights on Miami Beach back in the day.


Watching Strasburg in his last outing, I thought, Man, this guy has huge thighs and legs -- that must have something to do with how he hurls the ball, as well as his height -- there's the Honest Abe comparison again. So, I am posting a photo of one of the best beers in the world, taken in Leipzig, Germany, to toast Strasburg's wunderbar performance: ein prosit, salud and cheers.


After all, the Real Oktoberfest runs until tomorrow, Oct 6. in Munich (at The Miami Herald we used to say there is no tomorrow at The Herald, it was always the date, as in Oct. 6). And I will also post a photo of a pretty fraulein bicycling near a famous landmark in Berlin.


Finally, I hope the L.A. Times article theorizing this may be Strasburg's last season in Washington is not correct. Some of the best times I ever had with my late father were sitting in the seats in the old Griffith Stadium -- mere feet away from my favorite player Mickey Mantle, standing on first base after a walk.


My father would have loved to see how Strasburg pitched to help keep Washington alive in the playoffs. It was a truly remarkable performance.

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writing and photographs (c) Copyright Paul Heidelberg

THE MASTERS TOURNAMENT BEN HOGAN STORY

(Back here Monday for final, succinct remarks on this after saying, didn't that course look beautiful and green? What a great Masters. Period. -- PH 4/9/2018)


Many years ago, during my high school years my family moved from San Antonio to the residential neighborhood that surrounded the Champions Golf Club northwest of central Houston, which had two 18-hole courses overseen by golf legends Jimmy Demaret and Jackie Burke. I had often played golf in San Antonio and may have legitimately broken 100 for 18 holes once or twice.


I could get home from school, grab my clubs and pick up one of the courses located behind houses across the street. Well, the hole I would always play was a ferocious one -- a par 3 dog leg to the left that crossed a Grand Canyon-looking ravine that had to be at least 150 feet deep. The only way to the green was across “The Grand Canyon."


Well, that monstrous hole and my embarrassment at showing my poor form at the practice range and on the links made me give up golf for good. Later, as a sportswriter I covered many tournaments at courses in South Florida, from the Doral in Dade County to the PGA courses in Palm Beach County. That wicked par 3 back at Champions was a distant memory.


Imagine my amazement decades after I had last lived in Houston when I read this in a golf magazine: The great Ben Hogan played his final round of professional golf on those links I used to play after school at Champions. That damned par 3 across the Grand Canyon had gotten to him as it had always gotten to me -- he had a five over par 8 and gave up professional golf.




That monster hole had kicked both our butts -- this hack and one of the greatest golfers ever.

Schulberg, Phillies' Enzmann and Josh Gibson (c) Paul Heidelberg

Keith Williams, Jr: : Prescription for relief from disgusting political mess when he sung the National Anthem

at several LA Dodgers ALCS home games. This is what is at stake in Presidential politics -- protection of our flag and our country, which I did in the USAF when that was not a popular or likely thing for someone like me to do -- enlist.


I went into the Air Force thinking it was the Boy Scouts. Nope. I learned damned soon in Basic Training only two branches of the military then had what they called Motivation for those enlistees who screwed up really badly. The U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Marine Corps. Think Prison, or worse. Just like the PC flight, guys got beaten all the time.


And I remember doing a ceremony at my NATO base in Greece in which we stood in front of the raised Star-Spangled Banner and saluted as the National Anthem blared from a rusty old speaker a la MASH. I felt proud I guess you could say.


And those who never served in the military have no idea what is involved. I often thought our country used totalitarian means to fight the totalitarian USSR.
Back to that National Anthem singing by this hero that seemed to wash clean the mess made by these politicians, I certainly felt proud when the Brother sang at that last Dodgers game.


As editor in Sports at the Miami Herald and Sun-Sentinel Craig Stanke would say, Holy Merde!
Pardon my French.


But what an admirable and remarkable job Williams did on all the nights he sang.


BRAVO.


Baseball-wise, how about Jon Lester's performance in that Fifth game. As he was exhausting the batters he faced in his final inning, I thought. that is it. I figured the momentum he had built would carry on to the relievers, and it did.


BTW, Tony DeMarco, the great baseball writer I worked with in South Florida always said it was the pitching, not hitting, Stupid. He was right.


Also, when we covered minor league baseball in South Florida with such teams as the Fort Lauderdale Yankees, we often also had the job of being official scorekeepers.


If the ball got anywhere near a defensive player's glove, DeMarco would proclaim "Error."
I would usually say give the guy a break DeMarco. He would likely have called that one play last night an error. The guy got his glove on the ball, didn't he?


Ah! Sports. Always provides relief from an often screwed up world.


Tell 'em Heidi said that.

Porsche-powered (equivalent) '67 VW Bug/Update to getting TBS MLB games in English

Important update for having problems with such games as tonight's Playoff contest, October 17, 2016
It isn't the SAP button. I don't have one. What does work with my DISH remote for Channel 139:


Go to Menu
click system setup
click alternate audio
be sure English is checked.
Bueno!
For previous writing, See Below

HEIDI-MOBILE FAST-ASSED 67 BUG

First baseball: Let me start by saying I lived in Espana por dos anos y dos mesas from 2004-2006 and I used to watch several hour live bullfighting broadcasts on Spanish TV -- Yeah, Wow, right? -- but this beisbol in espanol is frigging annoying.

Is Turner saving money by doing this, screwing the sports fan once again or is there some other stupid-assed reason? I "googled" this last year and found no reasonable explantion -- no it is not the SAP setting. This applies to the games on Channel 139 of Dish I get here in New Mexico.

Back here. I have used computers for years, including during my first job in Sports in Texas and later at The Miami Herald and the Sun-Sentinel in South Florida and computers, and their not working, or not working right never ceases to amaze me.


I am in some weird font I have not encountered on my BlogSpot blogs since starting them about nine years ago. I feel as if I am on deadline and will just roll with  the punches. That is fitting as I was thinking today of a reporter I worked with in Lifesyle who would say, "I can't talk I'm on deadline." I would tell her in Sports you are always on deadline, as in the night I met Don King covering a fight on Miami Beach one of the fighters managed by his son was fighting in. When the fight ended, how long did I have to finish my story using the old Radio Shack computers we called Trash 80s? Eight minutes.


OK I want to get this published and get onto my VW story. That car is like an old girlfriend, for sure. But first, why the hell the Spanish for these beisbol games...But it fits well. I told a Hispanic friend Pat Ortiz last year I could not believe all the Hispanics in baseball now. Then last night the Hispanic pitcher for the O's gave up the game winning homer to the Hispanic batter from the Blue Jays. OK I want this published -- will make corrections later. BTW, I like the two broadcasters for the Spanish language broadcast and I understand the damned language. Entiendes, Mendes?


Back here to finish, whatever problems I am having with style and font today. Now that car: my excellent mechanic Marshall Painter of Davie, Florida, just west of Fort Lauderdale told me my '73 Super Beetle engine he put in as a replacement for the one that finally leaked its last quart of oil, had more horsepower than a '55 Porsche 356. I had a Kadron exhaust system on it that made it sound neater than hell and helped it move faster, too. And it would move...I was covering IMSA sports car racing at the time and took a ride with Michael Andretti in a 950 HP Porsche 935 Turbo the first time he drove anything more powerful than a circa 140 HP Super Vee race car.


We got up to about 160 MPH in a matter of seconds. WOW. Then Andretti braked hard for a series of turns before accelerating again and I began to learn about the thrill of auto racing. So, I took this photo of an old photo of my VW today and wanted to get it on the www. I have been meaning to put it on this blog as I wrote about auto racing before and needed a photo.


This is It.


And I wanted to complain about beisbol en Espanol aqui en NM/USA. I think I read a year ago about TBS running some Sitcoms in Spanish irritating the hell out of viewers. But, hell, this is important -- this is Major League Baseball playoff games we're talking about,  right, Sports Fans?


CIAO PER ADESSO..I LEARNED THAT WHILE LIVING EN ITALIA FOR A YEAR AND A HALF DOING INTELLIGENCE WORK IN THE US AIR FORCE. -- HEIDI AKA PAOLO AKA PABLO. ALSO
DAMNED GOOD GAME TONIGHT -- GIANTS VS. METS. THIS TIME ON ESPN AND EN INGLES...MUCHAS GRACIAS.  

WORLD SERIES 2015 AND MORE...HAROLD REYNOLDS BAR NONE BEST TV BASEBALL COMMENTATOR

by far.


was going to write this months ago but did not.


hearing Harold The Man call a certain starting pitcher in tonight's second WS game The Man with the Hair, I had to fire up this writing implement and write.


fyi, like Verducci, who also knows his stuff, I too have written for SI.


Go to www.si.com/vault and search for Paul Heidelberg Ernest Hemingway for my SI Sportsman of the Year story on Hem's Key West Years, when he regularly sparred with two guys I interviewed in Key West years ago, James Roberts and Kermit Forbes aka Geech. Geech took a punch at Hemingway when Hem was refereeing a Key West prizefight. Great story Geech told.


OK Harold is speaking well of the hairy one as I write; time to get back to the game.


Ciao y A...I learned that years ago while living in Italia.


Go Astros. They represent the city where I graduated from HS a few years ago.


once a sportswriter always a sportswriter I guess. here's to my old boss fred turner who hired me and mitch albom about the same time at the sun-sentinel newspaper in fort lauderdale.


btw my novel COOK'S RETURN A NOVEL OF THE LATE 20TH CENTURY is being published this year.


it is about art and artists not sports but there are similarities.


P.S. mention on tv of guy in AA earlier this year and now in world series...wow baseball.


Heidi aka Pablo aka Paolo aka Paul

Triple Crown Celebratory Bike Ride

Today for me, first "Post" bike ride in "many moons."


As first Triple Crown winning jockey in 37 years, great Sports Desk Editor Craig Stanke and this writer like to say:


HOLY MERDE (avec Frenchie-language clean-up [hyphens "in honor" of Stanke's and Heidelberg's "service" at  The Miami Herald before our stints with the always-great Sun-Sentinel "Top Dog" Sports Editor Fred Turner]).


PH/NM Monday, Ocho de Junio -- Espanol in tribute to the big not little Mexican jockey, and isn't that a remarkable and most memorable horse, American Pharoah.