He's still Super Joe
It was good to see Joe Charboneau prior to Thursday night's game between the Wild Things and Chillicothe Paints. Charboneau is the Paints' hitting coach, a position he held with Washington in 2002 and '03.
Charboneau was a legend in Clevelanden route to winning the 1980 American League Rookie of the Year Award. He became known as "Super Joe" Charboneau and had a song written about him. A serious back injury, however, turned Charboneau into a one-year wonder, though he remains one of the memorable characters in baseball.
Charboneau also is one of the game's nice guys. He always has a story about his playing days. After batting practice Thursday, the subject of conversation turned to the velocity of pitches in the Frontier League compared to the major leagues. Charboneau said the velocity difference isn't much, but it's the movement on the pitches and craftiness of the pitchers that is the biggest difference. An example of the latter, Charboneau said, is Dennis Martinez. Martinez was always tougher to beat at home, and Charboneau says it was because of the right-hander's changeup and home uniform.
Martinez, Charboneau says, had a nasty changeup that was difficult for a hitter to pick up. Martinez would make it more difficult when he was pitching at home by, after releasing the pitch, quickly stepping to the third-base side of the mound. The hitter would momentarily lose sight of the ball againt the background of Martinez's white uniform.
Another bit of information from Super Joe: When playing for the Indians, Charboneau asked a groundskeeper at Boston's Fenway Park how far it really is from home plate to the Green Monster wall in left field. The Red Sox claim its 310 feet but Charboneau believed it to be considerably shorter. The groundskeeper said it was only 278 feet. The Indians later used a tape to measure the left-field line and came up with, you guessed it, 278 feet.
Charboneau was a legend in Clevelanden route to winning the 1980 American League Rookie of the Year Award. He became known as "Super Joe" Charboneau and had a song written about him. A serious back injury, however, turned Charboneau into a one-year wonder, though he remains one of the memorable characters in baseball.
Charboneau also is one of the game's nice guys. He always has a story about his playing days. After batting practice Thursday, the subject of conversation turned to the velocity of pitches in the Frontier League compared to the major leagues. Charboneau said the velocity difference isn't much, but it's the movement on the pitches and craftiness of the pitchers that is the biggest difference. An example of the latter, Charboneau said, is Dennis Martinez. Martinez was always tougher to beat at home, and Charboneau says it was because of the right-hander's changeup and home uniform.
Martinez, Charboneau says, had a nasty changeup that was difficult for a hitter to pick up. Martinez would make it more difficult when he was pitching at home by, after releasing the pitch, quickly stepping to the third-base side of the mound. The hitter would momentarily lose sight of the ball againt the background of Martinez's white uniform.
Another bit of information from Super Joe: When playing for the Indians, Charboneau asked a groundskeeper at Boston's Fenway Park how far it really is from home plate to the Green Monster wall in left field. The Red Sox claim its 310 feet but Charboneau believed it to be considerably shorter. The groundskeeper said it was only 278 feet. The Indians later used a tape to measure the left-field line and came up with, you guessed it, 278 feet.
posted by Chris Dugan at
3:03 PM
2 Comments:
I wonder if Joe is still a Marlyn Monroe fan?
Remember the night Ricki Rich dressed up like Marlyn and sang happy birthday to Joe.
Or the time the first year where the players went to Goodwill and bought 70's era clothing and wore the clothing on the bus trip to Johnstown for Joe's benefit.
Arnold the bus drive in his outfit looked like a pimp!!!!
Joe was another reason to come out to the ball park. Joe wanted to stay in the dugout and not be a base coach. I think it would have been interesting to see his antics as a base coach. He might have out done Speedy Roy Jacobs!!!!
Too bad Washington could not get him back as a coach!!!
Is Arnold still the team driver for the Wild Things? If he is, out side of the ownership, he is the only origional one left....
Arnold is still the bus driver. One of the horses in the between-innings video race is named after him, Arnold Edwards.
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