The Olympics are starting this weekend, I doubt that I will watch very much. Maybe not at all. At one point in my life, I loved watching the Olympics. Over the past decade, I have watched less and less of the events. My loss of interest stems from the continued use of professional athletes in the games and the overly dramatic telecasts. I just want to see people swimming fast, not everyone has to have a backstory.
"Ryan Held was a well-off middle class kid from Springfield, Illinois. He got a scholarship offer to attend NC State where he met his future wife. They don't agree about their pizza toppings. Mike Tirico has more about what this couple does when they order pizza....."
Changing topics. I am going to write about Ben Sheets for a few minutes.
Yes, the Brewers pitcher.
The topic might seem really odd for my blog, but I promise you it's a relevant current topic with the start of the Olympics.
If you do not remember Ben Sheets, or do not know who he is, he pitched for the Milwaukee Brewers in the early 2000s. He was a good pitcher on a lot of not-so-great Brewers teams. Above-average pitcher, innings-eater who won his fair share of games while striking out a bunch of people. Sheets had a bunch of arm injuries late in his career and ended up pitching briefly for the A's and Braves for one season each.
I care deeply about Ben Sheets and have a pretty healthy collection of his cards. I have never really written about him in this space. I guess if you really, really pay attention on Twitter, you might have seen me harangue some USA Baseball types about him.
Yes, there will be baseball cards in this rant about Ben Sheets.
Ben Sheets has several USA Baseball cards.
Have you ever seen one?
Unfortunately, there have not been any made since 2013 when Panini included him in a few different products. It's criminal that he's not in every USA Baseball card product. The fact that Ben Sheets has not had an Olympic related card in almost a decade goes to show how little card companies research the players on checklists.
Some of you already know all about Ben Sheets and the Olympics. Here is another card. Keep reading anyway for the rant part of the post.
Ben Sheets was in the 2000 Summer Olympics on the USA Baseball team. The roster was made up of Minor League players. A few were serious prospects, but the majority of the team consisted of older players who had lingered in the upper levels of the Minors. Ernie Young was one of the players. Go look him up.
The team was managed by Tommy Lasorda. After losing out on the Gold Medal at the previous two Olympic games, the expectations for this team were really low. Sheets was selected for the team. At the time, Sheets was a high-end prospect in the Brewers system. He was a great college player at the University of Louisiana-Monroe and was drafted in the first round by the Brewers in 1999.
Sheets essentially jumped from college to the Majors in a season. There are not many Minor League cards of him. This is the only one in my collection. I know there are others out there, just have never tracked them down.
The Cuban National Team was the clear favorite to win the Gold Medal in baseball at the 2000 Olympics. They had a roster full of professional players. Yes, the USA Baseball team players were technically professional players, but the Cuban team was filled with players who would have likely been in the Majors had Cuba not been closed off at that time.
The two teams played in the preliminary round-robin and the Cubans beat the US team 6-1. Apparently the game was more lop-sided than the score indicates. However, the US team reached the medal round. After squeaking past a tough semi-final game against South Korea. the squad made the Gold Medal game against Cuba. A Cuban Gold Medal was all but a forgone conclusion. The team had won 21 straight Olympic baseball games entering 2000, including the Gold Medal games in both the 1992 Barcelona and 1996 Atlanta games.
Enter Ben Sheets.
Sheets was a Double-A pitcher throwing against a Major League roster. All Sheets did was pitch a complete game, three-hit shoutout. No Cuban baserunner ever got past second base. It was a great performance. In the modern world of the Olympic Games with professional athletes taking over, this is as close as we are likely going to come to having another great upset in a team sport.
At the time of this game, Sheets was very popular and got a few baseball cards out of this pitching performance. Upper Deck included him in several different end-of-year products.
There are also several 2001 Topps cards that show him wearing a "United States" jersey, but those pictures are actually from the 2000 All-Star Futures Game. The format of the Futures Game has always been the American players versus the International players. For the 2000 game, the US team wore these very Olympic looking uniforms.
Further, Topps did not have a license to produce USA Baseball cards in the early 2000s. That production license was held by Upper Deck. I am sure that it was not an accident that Topps used this photo.
Also, while it is not clear on the Topps Finest card above, Sheets is wearing a Milwaukee Brewers hat in the picture. Doubtful that you'd be allowed to wear that in the Olympics. There were plenty of other prospects in these sets who also appeared at the Futures Game, but managed to be photographed in their regular uniforms.
Paging Barry Zito.
So we are to the rant part of the post. (Deep breath)
Sheets performance against a heavily-favorite Cuban baseball team in the 2000 Gold Medal game was the best performance by a member of a US Olympic team sport in modern history outside of the 1980 hockey game against the Soviet Union. Although, the "Miracle on Ice" game was actually in the semi-finals, not the Gold Medal game. I am also excluding sports where competitors can win individual events and medals.
THIS WAS A GREAT PERFORMANCE.
No matter though, nobody is paying attention to Ben Sheets. He's an average Major League pitcher. Ben is retired and has probably returned to Louisiana where he sitting around doing who knows what.
You know what Ben Sheets hasn't done since he won a Gold Medal? Well, he has barely been acknowledged or recognized for a great performance during an Olympic Gold Medal Game.
Do you know what USA Hockey has done to recognize the members of the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" team?
+The team and all of its members are in the US Hockey Hall of Fame.
+The team lit the Olympic flame at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City
+The rights to the story were sold to Disney and made into a movie.
Those were the three items I found by Google Searching the team, reading just the little snippet on the first link, and not actually clicking on it to read any further detail.
Ben Sheets?
Surely he has some sort of recognition somewhere by USA Baseball. Somewhere there is a plaque or a spot for him in a Hall of Fame or his number is retired? The answer to those questions:
No, there is not a plaque. I have looked for one at the USA Baseball facility. It's not there.
Yes, there is a USA Olympic Hall of Fame, but Sheets has not been inducted.
Yes, USA Baseball has retired jersey numbers, but not Sheets. These are the retired numbers at USA Baseball. All of them have a plaque in the stadium.
Before I start yelling, I am fine with Stephen Reich having his number retired. This is not about Stephen Reich.
Now for the yelling part of the rant.
MARK MCGWIRE HAS HIS NUMBER RETIRED!!!
MARK FLIPPING MCGWIRE.
He was not even the best first baseman on the 1984 Olympic team.
Why is Will Clark's number not retired? He out hit McGwire by almost 40 points with 10 more home runs and nearly 20 more RBIs. Look at Bobby Witt. He had an ERA under 1. I'd say Scott Bankhead, but he went to UNC. Plus, Bobby Witt was signing autographs at USA Baseball once and eye-rolled me for mentioning that he played for the Cardinals.
He was old and not very good. Still gave me the autograph though.
Let me continue besmirching Mark McGwire as an Olympian.
Baseball was a demonstration sport in the 1984 Olympics, these guys were not even playing for a Gold Medal. Further, if they had been playing for a Gold Medal, they lost to Japan in what would have been the Gold Medal Game.
You know who did win a Gold Medal in the Olympics and pitched his ass off in the Gold Medal Game?
Ben Sheets.
I think Ben Sheets is in the first row, closest to the camera. He's not holding his flowers.
Can Ben Sheets have his number retired?
I have tweeted at USA Baseball. They have ignored me.
Can Ben Sheets get a USA Baseball baseball card?
It's been nearly a decade since he's appeared in one of their sets. Kris Bryant has more than 80 USA Baseball cards during that time. Kris Bryant also has 0 Olympic Gold Medals. Two years ago, Roger Clemens got a USA Baseball card. He appeared in zero Olympic Games and has 0 Gold Medals.
During the next week, if you are watching the Olympics, take a few minutes to mute Kenny Albert's backstory about the hard-knock life hockey players who went to Harvard, and look into Ben Sheet's 2000 Olympic performance.