Ashby Lumber
Tonight is the A’s home opener against the Mariners. I should be over the moon, but for the likelihood of a rainout and a heavy heart over the loss of a favorite. Mighty Jack Cust didn’t make the team this year.
A’s fans learn to root for laundry. Studs and charmers come and go and we try not to get attached. My friend Scott and I, forgetting ourselves for one shining day game last spring, confessed our Cust love to each other. While old timers cursed his copious strikeouts and low “ribbies”, we delighted in his immaculate patience and massive no-doubters. Here we had one of the game’s coolest anomalies, the three-true-outcome player, and on the relatively cheap. We fondly awarded Jack the nickname Ashby Lumber, after the A’s perennial advertising client on the a.m. dial. I expected him to be around for a while; now I feel like a Dickensian adolescent who’s made the mistake of befriending and naming a favorite barnyard goose a few days before Christmas.
The A’s dfa’d Cust in deference to a fellow lefty slugger, a goose long since nicknamed and nuzzled by fans and front office. Eric Chavez’s heartbreak story is on a different order of magnitude, or a different astral plane, or something, than Cust’s winding tale of grit and redemption. This spring Chavez has been healthy and productive. It’s an important mental health rule for an A’s fan not to get too excited about Eric Chavez, but everyone breaks this rule, every year, even while trying to de-jinx the situation with phrases like “when his back eventually explodes…”. Anyway, I’m really and truly happy he’s going to get the time at the plate he and the A’s deserve, at least for a while.
But will the spider web holding that shoulder together allow him to punch hanging offspeed stuff through the marine layer and deep into opposite field bleachers? Cust’s homers were majestic, floating storybook creatures, clubbed vertically through the soggy air with a force and ease that no other Athletic will now match. A Chavez-Jake Fox DH platoon may yield similar power numbers over the season (or whatever part of the season they may happen to endure), but that power isn’t going to look as awesome.
Cust’s winding tail! The porcine slugger?
I think you may be jumping the gun on mourning Ashby Lumber. I bet he’ll clear waivers, spend a month clobbering “splash hits” into the Sacramento River, then gravitate back to Oakland for the resumption of his life’s work: chipping away at Mount Davis, bit by bit.
I can’t wait to witness a game with you this season, amigo, and see what you guys do here with Bump Bailey.
this is a great article. it makes reading about baseball fun; especially this line:
“Cust’s homers were majestic, floating storybook creatures, clubbed vertically through the soggy air with a force and ease that no other Athletic will now match.”
will be reading again!
Porcine slugger, ha! Tail/tale, fixed. I do agree that he’s a better than even bet to clear waivers (translation: I admit this post was melodramatic). If he does then I’m triply likely to head up to Sac to see the Rivercats…wanna go?
Well of course I wanna go; Cust, Carter, Taylor? I Got The Power!
I was dissapointed to hear that Cust was released as well. Not being much of an A’s follower, it was a bit of a shock. It seems like too much of a gamble to trust that Chavez can remain healthy, though I do agree with it in the sense that now, Chavez has a higher chance of remaining healthy.
I’m intrigued by a guy like Cust who strikes out a ton, yet still leads the team in OBP. To me, this means that if I watched the team every day, this would not be the guy who’s constantly hitting into double plays, killing rallies.
It would be interesting to see a stat on the negative vs. positive influence on winning of a player like Miguel Tejada who always has great offensive numbers, but makes so much negative contact, that he leads the league in double plays.
Anyway, I guess we’ll see where Cust ends up. I hope someone picks him up, but I bet you guys are right, and he probably will end up clearing waivers.
Looks like Mr. Cust is back in the fold!