Idiots Write About Sports

A few years ago, back when the Oakland Coliseum was a 15-minute drive from my apartment instead of a five-and-a-half-hour one, I was attending a nondescript A’s-Rangers game with my good pal Gregg Wrenn. The Rangers had just fired Johnny Oates, since apparently he was the guy who drugged Tom Hicks and forced him to spend his vast fortune on awful pitchers, and replaced him, on an iterim basis, with career backup catcher Jerry Narron.

I believe Wrenn perfectly captured the significance of that managerial hire sometime during the sixth inning. “What’s the name of the new manager again?” he asked. “Johnny Nemo?”

Well, it wasn’t… but it was for Wrenn and me from that moment on. For the rest of that particular game — and indeed, the remainder of Narron’s tenure in Arlington — he became Johnny Nemo. “Damn you, Johnny Nemo!” we’d say, whenever the Rangers bested the A’s. Or, on the more frequent occasions when the Rangers were Fortune’s foe, we’d say, “Oh, Johnny Nemo — will you ever win?”

(That particular game was notable for more than just the genesis of Jerry Narron’s Johnny Nemo moniker. It was also the game where then-manager Art Howe decided to use Tim Hudson as a pinch-runner in the bottom of the tenth… and nearly lost his job on the spot when Hudson did the sort of belly-flop side into second that usually lands pitchers on the 15-day DL. “I don’t think I’ll ever do that again,” I remember Howe saying on the post-game show.”)

Johnny Nem… er… Jerry Narron is back in the news this past week when the Cincinnati Reds fired manager Dave Miley and inserted Nemo… um… Narron as the interim manager. Despite the usual fits of post-deck-chair shuffling optimism, you have to figure Narron’s time in Cincinnati will prove to be as fruitful as his Rangers stint. Which is to say, not very.

But one good thing could come out of this new managerial hire in Cincinnati — it allows me to take the Johnny Nemo nickname out of mothballs and spread it, Johnny Appleseed-like, across the landscape. Because if there’s one thing we do here at the Idiots on Sports weblog, it’s trying to get ridiculous nicknames to stick. We know you’ll do your part. Me, Gregg Wrenn and Johnny Nemo himself thank you.

Speaking of ill-advised Reds’ managerial decisions, Mike’s Baseball Rants wonders why so many ex-catchers seem to become managers. The post is certainly worth a read, as is one of the comments from some guy named “Philip Michaels,” who comes across as a brilliant, reasonable, and dare I say, ruggedly handsome kind of chap.

Funny, on that may it showed Clovis but not Fresno. Isn't that like showing Goleta and not Santa Barbara on a map?

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