#39 - Marty Barrett

This is an odd photo. How many times to see a second baseman throwing from second with his foot actually on the bag? Usually he's straddling the bag, but in this shot, Barrett has his foot squarely on the base. He also has a goofy look on his face that makes him look about 80 years old. I wonder if the guys ever got together after a day game to play basketball on the court in the background.

There's not much to say about Barrett's career, so I go with a story instead. When I was in college, Sean McDonough, former TV voice of the Sox and national voice of many CBS sporting events, was speaking for a sports psychology class I was taking. I remember very little of the speech, but I do recall his answer to a student who asked, "Did you ever say anything on air you regretted?" McDonough couldn't think of anything he said on air (which I find hard to believe), but he told the story of the time when Marty Barrett was nearing the end of his tenure with the Sox. Dealings between the team and player got a little nasty and Barrett had Jody Reed breathing down his neck, so the Sox had all the leverage.

Anyway, around that time, McDonough was an up and coming announcer, as some people were comparing him to Bob Costas, who was becoming a star play by play guy for NBC. McDonough had made some critical comments about Barrett recently, so one day when Barrett ran into McDonough in the hallway, Barrett said, "I hear all these people talking about you being the next Costas. That's bullshit. You're about as close to Costas as I am to Ryne Sandberg."

To which McDonough replied, "At least you know how far you are from Ryne Sandberg."