A rainy day tale of two Dempseys

It’s Day 3 of torrential rains here in the Boston area and I’m thinking about signs of the apocalypse: there shall be days of torrential rains and Bill Chuck will have a new Billy-Ball.com website. Yes, they have both come to pass. Wouldn’t you know it, there is finally a great new Billy-Ball.com and we are all going to be washed away in the great floods?

The new site has come about because a person who I have worked with in my past decided to step up and become a great friend. His name is Tim Dempsey and out of the blue Tim decided that a new Billy-Ball site was needed and he created it. And it is magnificent.

It features some treated photography of another great friend and talented colleague of mine, Ralph Lucier, and between their two talents, at a time when Billy-Ball was closer to the brink than you can ever imagine, we live on and experience a new beginning, forging a path that will hopefully lead to success.

Please understand the site is new and there are loads of kinks that need to still be worked out and features to be added, but what greater focus group is there than the Billy-Ball community? Please leave comments or email me at Bill@Billy-Ball.com. Just be patient because like life itself, the website is a work in progress.

I told you it was raining here. It’s pouring. In fact, I’m snoring. And when it rains this hard for so long I think of rain delays. A couple of years ago I shared with you my thoughts during a rain delay at Fenway and how I always think of another Dempsey, former catcher Rick Dempsey, who played with a number of teams, but memorably with the Orioles, in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Dempsey was a lifetime .233 hitter and had some key moments at the plate, but it was his antics during rain delays that making him a candidate for the ultimately-to-be-established Billy-Ball Hall of Fame. Dempsey played from 1969 to 1992 with the Baltimore Orioles, Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees, Cleveland Indians, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Milwaukee Brewers. Now it wasn’t the 20 stolen bases he had in career that I remember, nor his 1983 World Series MVP.

You see, Dempsey felt that if the fans stayed at the park during a rain delay, they deserved to be entertained. What Dempsey would do would be take off his cleats, stuff a few towels under his jersey and…well, here’s how his former manager Earl Weaver described it, ”He did an exaggerated Babe Ruth home-run trot around the bases and slid into the huge puddle at home plate, spraying water almost to the stands. Rick rose, tipped his cap, and held it up as he minced into the dugout. Those fans responded the way an audience does when it has seen a brilliant pantomimist perform. Rick Dempsey is that, and a good man to have on your ball club.”

George Vecsey of the New York Times back in 1982, wrote a column about Weaver and Dempsey in which he described a 1980 dugout tantrum between the two in which Dempsey was tossing bats, Weaver was tossing bats, Dempsey stomping on one shinguard, Weaver stomping on the other.

”The thing that gets me is, Earl says I made a base-running mistake,” Dempsey told Vescey. ”What happened was, I moved to second on a bad throw and Larry Harlow decided to go back to second. I got off the base because I figured they’d rather have Larry on base than me. And Earl yelled at me. Besides, right after Earl took me out of the game, I tore off my uniform and was taking a shower in my shoes and my underwear. You should have seen that part of the fight.”

Dempsey performed his rain dance a number of times sometimes wearing his underpants over his uniform, making fun of teammate Jim Palmer’s advertisements for Jockey brand briefs and once in a September 1982 game at Milwaukee when he wore a Robin Yount jersey and mimicked hitting a home run before circling the bases. He then often led the crowd in a rendition of “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.”

Has anyone tried this since? Well, during the second of two rain delays in the White Sox 6-4 victory over Toronto in 4.5 innings in April of 2006, when “Mr. Perfection,” White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle entertained the rain-soaked masses by walking out to the field and gliding across the tarp on his stomach after taking a running start from right-center. He followed that graceful move with another dive toward home plate as the rain poured down.

Baseball needs more Rick Dempsey’s just like the world needs more people like Tim Dempsey. People who, when the weather is bad and times are tough, step up and do something to bring a smile to your face and a reason to persevere.

So with just three weeks to go until baseball counts, go and do something that counts for somebody. It doesn’t need to be a Slip ‘n Slide on a tarp or building a new website, it could be giving someone a ride, showing a little patience when there is none left to show, making a referral, or even helping a little old lady in a parking lot with her shopping cart. It’s easy to put someone’s psyche on the DL, but it doesn’t require a lot of effort to make someone feel really good.

In my case, I decided I would issue a public thank you. So, thanks again Tim and thanks to the entire Billy-Ball community for being such great and loyal fans.

Tagged as: Babe Ruth, Baltimore Orioles, Bill Chuck, Cleveland Indians, Earl Weaver, George Vecsey, Jim Palmer, Larry Harlow, Los Angeles Dodgers, Mark Buehrle, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, New York Times, New York Yankees, Ralph Lucier, Rick Dempsey, Robin Yount, Tim Dempsey