The Fergus Falls Daily Journal

The brotherhood of the F.O.G.

By Tom Grout

May 12, 2008

3 comments

The other day there was a picture of Matt Stairs in the sports page. Stairs is an outfielder/first baseman who has played a number of years now and has been quite useful. He has hit 245 career home runs, and still counting, and has had a couple of 100 rbi seasons.

Stairs has been a favorite of mine because he has always reminded of a slo pitch softball player. I don’t want to offend slo pitch softball players here, I myself played for 37 years, but Stairs has always been a little chunky and he has the look of a guy who likes a few beers after the game.

A number of years ago there was a team in my softball league that called themselves the F.O.G. which stood for, Fat Old Guys. The name really didn’t fit these guys because they weren’t all that old and they weren’t all that fat, but I did like the name.

Through the years there have been a lot of F.O.G type players playing major league baseball. The ultimate F.O.G. was the Sultan of Swat, the King of hot dogs and beer, Babe Ruth. Ruth looked like a softball player, and acted like a softball player and was one of the greatest baseball players of all time, which should say something for us softball players.

This got me to remembering other F.O.G type players that played Major League baseball. I thought about this rather quickly so I know I have forgotten some, but here are a few of my chubby heroes.

Mickey Lolich, the pitcher from the Tigers in the 60’s and 70’s, is always the first one to come to mind. He had himself a gut that hung down over his belt and was a heck of a pitcher. He had 217 career wins and over 2800 strikeouts. He also won 3 games in the 1968 World Series. When he retired he continued to be my hero because he opened up his own donut shop and he baked the donuts himself.

Smokey Burgess was a catcher for a few teams in the 50’s and 60’s mostly with the Pirates. He was a portly guy who was a 6 time all star and had a career batting average of .295. In the mid 60’s he was a pinch hit specialist with the White Sox and always needed a pinch runner when he got a hit which was quite often.

Coming up to the 70’s and 80’s we have Rick Reuschel a pitcher for the Cubs. He was the chunky pitcher who pitched for 19 years and was a 3 time All Star. He won 214 games and had a lifetime ERA of 3.37. Another guy to come out of this time period was Cecil Fielder. Cecil was the well rounded slugger for the Tigers who was a 3 time All Star and owner of 319 career home runs. He is also the father of current 1st baseman of the Brewers Prince Fielder. Prince would be a member of the F.O.G. too but he went and became a vegetarian. That’s a no-no on this club.

Other members of the F.O.G. are Kent Hrbek, Gates Brown, Kirby Puckett, Steve Bilko, Earl Battey and Boog Powell. I know there are others so maybe you guys could help me out.

All of these guys prove you don’t have to look good to play good. Today with all the personal trainers and weight lifting the members of the F.O.G are starting to dwindle, but as you can see the club is well represented.

If you are a F.O.G. you can always find a job as a manager. especially in the Northern League where the Redhawks play. Redhawk manager Doug Simunic’s profile would match Alfred Hitchcock’s any day. There also was another manager in that league one time named Doc Edwards. Doc was a former Major League catcher and by the time he was managing his team in the Northern League he became quite large. In fact I’m not sure I ever saw him walk, I just saw him sit in the dugout taking up three spaces.

So I raise my greasy cheeseburger in one hand and my fries and beer in the other, to the F.O.G., may we all stay cholesterol free.