...It's all relative...

                             Back when I was in 7th grade, I sat next to this girl named Isabel who was absolutely hilarious; Really, she'd crack me up on a continuous basis with a wise ass style of joke telling that makes for a great comedian.  One day, her dad decided to come to class and it all made sense.  Her dad was Luis Tiant, who by that point was retired, but it was the first time I had ever met a ballplayer outside of a ballpark.  In 1993, I ran into Clemens twice; Once in the men's room at the Hard Rock cafe in Boston, and second at Bill's bar on Landsdowne street, right across the street from Fenway Park...He was trying to get into the bar, but forgot his I.D., and the hipster kid out front didn't recognize him...so to try and save the day, I went into my car and got his baseball card and showed it to the kid; he was so embarrassed, he let him in.  I also met Brian Daubach at the Comedy Connection...nice guy; He liked my set (ha).  However, there are 2 friends of mine related to Major Leaguers...


                  First, there's Rick Jenkins, owner of the Comedy Studio.  Recently, Rick wed Kirsten Sims, daughter of Duke Sims, a catcher who played about 10 years in the majors,  mostly with the Cleveland Indians; but he is best known for being the last man to homer in the old Yankee stadium in 1973, when he was briefly Thurman Munson's back up in New York.  His best year was probably 1970 with Cleveland when he hit 23 homers and 56 knocked in....runs.  Mostly though, he was a back-up catcher, but again, someone I know was related to a ballplayer, and that fascinates me...now for the final baseball connection, and it's a doozy..........


                 My friend Steve Mulcahy, who I've known for almost 25 years is related to not one, but TWO big leaguers;and they couldn't be more different from each other. First, on his father's side, he's distantly related to Hugh "Losing pitcher" Mulcahy, nicknamed that because of the amount of times his name appeared in the loss column.  Actually, Hugh wasn't a bad pitcher, he just happened to play most of his career with some wretched Phillie teams.  One time, he lost over 20 games and STILL made the All Stat team.  My dad always said he was pretty good; He also told me that Hugh was the first ballplayer to be drafted for WWII, which is what he's probably most famous for.


           However, on his mother's side, he is related to none other than Hall of fame pitcher, Don Sutton.  Sutton had a long and storied career, winning over 300 games and pitching in four World series;3 with the Dodgers in the '70s and one with the Brewers in 1982.  But alas, he was always on the losing side of those contests.  I always liked his competitive nature, too; he once said about Bob Gibson: "He hated me and I hated him"...He was also on that '86 Angel that should have won the pennant, but Boston's Dave Henderson had other plans...

           Will other people I know come out and admit they are related to a major leaguer? Will Adam Cooper find out his grandmother had a love affair with Dick Allen?...Will Jon Cullen look in his family tree and see that his 5th cousin twice removed is Wally Joyner?...Probably not, but you never know.  The closest I ever came to playing with a big leaguer was Mike McGwire (No relation to steroid boy), who was a left handed pitcher in the Pirates organization,  but never got above AA (The league, not alcoholics anonymous ).  As for the most famous player from my home town of Milton Ma., I guess it would be Rich Hill, he pitched for the Cubs and Red Sox recently;He pitched for Milton high, the very same team that I played for, and who's uniform I wear in my profile pic...anyway, if any of you have a similar story, I'd love to hear it...