When the St. Louis Cardinals recorded the last out of the last game to clinch the 2011 World Series, it brought an official end to the baseball season. Fortunately for us baseball fanatics, that final out also signaled the beginning of “The ‘Hot Stove Season.”
The Hot Stove Season, or simply The Hot Stove, refers baseball talk during the off-season. I have often imagined the phrase was coined back in the old days of the Gas House Gang or Murderer’s Row even when a group of die-hard fans huddled around an old radio and a wood-burning stove to keep the baseball fires burning during the long cold winter.
It really does NOT take long at all for Hot Stove to “heat up” after the official baseball season ends. Within a couple days, players who are not longer under contract to their former team can file for free agency and begin negotiating new deals. The New York Yankees, for example, already re-worked the contract of ace pitcher C.C. Sabathia.
Trades, too, fire up the Hot Stove. On Monday of this week, the Braves traded veteran pitcher Derek Lowe to the Cleveland Indians for a minor league pitcher (and some budget relief). As an aside, our family saw Lowe pitch against the Cardinals in Atlanta this year – the one time the Bravos managed to beat St. Louis in 2011. Holly was particularly happy to be at the ballpark that day.
I can’t help but wonder how things might have been different for Atlanta if they could’ve won at least one more additional game in the season series. Or 2.
Back to the offseason for just a second. During the Hot Stove time period, managers and coaches can be fired or can quit or retire. The Cardinals, themselves, are now in the market for a new manager. Within 72 hours of the El Birdos winning the World Series, manager Tony LaRussa announced he was retiring. Nothing quite like going out on top.
All of these kinds of moves will keep baseball fans interested and talking about baseball from November until February.
Also in November, baseball will unveil individual awards for players for 2011. Already, we’ve learned who won the Gold Gloves for the ’11 season (rewarding defensive excellence in the game). Coming up, we’ll learn who were the managers of the year, rookies of the year, Cy Young Award winners (best pitchers) and MVPs for ’11.
Usually, these come one day at a time – carefully doled out to help us baseball fans make it safely from Halloween to Thanksgiving.
Meanwhile, teams will be making trades, filling gaps through free agency, hiring coaches and making plans for when spring training starts next year.
But, it’s tough.
The late MLB Commissioner and scholar, A. Barlett Giamatti once wrote very eloquently about the lonely offseason for fans.
Of this great game of baseball, he wrote “It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.”
What a beautiful quote. I can think of no better way to express the sentiment all true baseball fans feel this time of year.
And that’s why we love The Hot Stove.
JG
Originally posted 11/2/2011
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