Source: Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kyle_Drabek_with_his_father_Doug.jpg)
Today is opening day for the 2019 baseball season. We’re finally done with all that ‘pace of play‘ nonsense! I’m going to write a bit about a question I sometimes get: Drabek? Have I heard that name before? Are you related to that baseball player?
Why, yes! Or, at least, kinda. We’re distant cousins. Both our families are from Texas, and specifically the Houston area. But we don’t know each other. My family holds a reunion each year, and as far as I know, Doug Drabek doesn’t attend. Neither do I, for that matter.
Drabeks and Major League Baseball
Some of you aren’t baseball fans, so here’s the quick family history. About a decade ago, Kyle Drabek was a promising young pitcher with the Philadelphia Phillies. He ended up playing a few seasons for the Toronto Blue Jays and Arizona Diamondbacks. Unfortunately, he ran into some problems with injuries, and he’s not currently on a team roster. He’s a few years younger than me, so he’s not too old to play. Bummer.
But his father, Doug Drabek, was a very good pitcher for about a decade. He won the Cy Young Award in 1990 with the Pittsburgh Pirates. After a 12 year major league career, he won 155 games, which puts him just a few more great seasons away from a serious contender for Hall of Fame status. As things stand, he actually did receive 2 votes when he appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot in 2004.
You can see them in the photo up at the top of the page. Kyle Drabek’s on the left, and his father is on the right. Doug Drabek had quite the mullet-and-mustache combo in the 1990s.
Baseball and Childhood
Baseball was a huge part of my childhood. I played from about age 6 to age 16. At some point from circa 1989 to 1999, I played on probably every field in southern Indiana. Like my distant cousins, I was a pitcher. And, yes, I typically wore Doug Drabek’s number (which was 15).
I guess there’s not a lot left of any of that now. Though I was good, I was never good enough to move on and play professionally. Pitching requires a special combination of mental and physical skills. Outsmarting a bunch of teenagers wasn’t a problem, but my body was a little less cooperative. I was never really athletic enough, and never threw the ball hard enough.
I do still carry around an old hat and uniform I wore in my baseball days.
The 1992 National League Championship Series
Doug Drabek never made it to the World Series, but he got about as close as anyone who’s missed. The story is sort of a great tragedy of childhood. I was 9 years old at the time.
In 1992, he was still the staff ace for the Pittsburgh Pirates. And he was at the end of Game 7 of the NLCS, which would decide who goes to the World Series. Drabek pitched a fantastic shutout game for 8 innings, and the Pirates led 2-0. He went out for the 9th, it all fell apart, and the Pirates lost 3-2. No World Series.
We live in an era where the Internet doesn’t let us forget anything, so you can watch the whole 9th inning meltdown on Youtube right here. I watched it again before writing this post, which I hadn’t done in probably 25 years. It’s a bad piece of baseball, and lots of guys effed up. But Doug Drabek actually doesn’t look as badly as I remember, and he pitched an overall fantastic game.
Baseball and Names
Again, these are two baseball players I don’t know personally, even though we’re distantly related.
If you have a common American last name, like Smith, Davis, or Williams, it’s not hard to find famous people with the same name as you. Even just thinking about baseball, if you’ve got a common American baseball name like Carpenter or Ramirez, there are plenty of people with your name. But if you’ve got an uncommon central/eastern European name, not so much. In that case, it’s sort of neat to see someone on TV with your name.
