WHY WE LOVE: COREY HART

Hello, friends. Ted of A Price Above Bip Roberts back at cha on another Sunday night. Today, interestingly enough - or boringly enough, depending on how you perceive us - Neate actually wrote over at my site and, as per Sunday tradition, I'm writing over here.




My little ditty on Sundays is "Why We Love," a look at reasons to appreciate a generally undervalued diamond worker. Neate and I discussed doing an All-Star Snub this week, seeing as how the game is 2 days away, but in our foresight in bringing you this column weekly, we actually have already covered the main ones. The exception might be Kevin Youkilis and his market probably cuts him off from being included in this little project.



So we went down a different path: the Milwaukee Brewers' Corey Hart. This is relevant to me because just yesterday, as I sat alongside the Connecticut coastline, some friends and I had a debate on the best karaoke song of all-time. Notable favorites crept into the mix -- R-E-S-P-E-C-T never gets old, although some of my personal favorites are If I Ever Fall in Love Again by Shai and Just a Friend by Biz Markie. One that kept coming up? Sunglasses at Night. Uh huh, and of course. Corey Hart didn't sing that, but with how cool the Brewers are right now - they appeared on a soap! - he might as well have. Aside from that little name ko-wink-eeee-dink, why should you love him?

1. Love him because he's fast. Despite being the tallest Brewer at 6-foot-6, Hart also runs the fastest 60-yard dash of anyone on the team (that's twice the length to first base, mind you). He proved this during spring training this past year.
2. Love him because he's a Kentucky boy. He's from Bowling Green, home of such notables as pro wrestler Hillbilly Jim, the Nappy Roots (they of Po Folks fame, another karaoke-proven ambling tune), and film director-horror maven John Carpenter.
3. Love him because like many, he's been through Ogden. I actually once wrote a pilot for Showtime -- that they would never pick up, of course -- centering on Ogden. Multiple current Brewers played for the Ogden Raptors and Frank Robinson played for the Ogden Reds back in the day. Ah, sunglasses at night in Utah. A concept only Carlos Boozer could pull off, I suppose.
4. Love him because he burst on the scene. Hart's first career home run came in his second start, and it was a three-run jack against a divisional opponent (the Reds).
5. Love him because of versatility. Despite starting as a 1B/3B, Hart morphed into an OF after a while. OK, sure -- the Brewers moved him to the outfield because of defensive shortcomings as an infielder. But how many guys is that tried with who utterly flop? Hart did not, and when you succeed, your shortcomings can become a word like "versatility."
6. Love him because he prompted this anecdote from Neate: "This actually happened.... about 10 years ago I'm in auniversity residence and as students do, we werematching MuchMusic (Canada's lamer ripoff of MTV). Corey Hart was trying to make a comeback and his videocomes on... someone joked, "He looks like he's giving head," and I remark, "How would you know?" only to be nailed in the back of the head with the remote about 2 seconds later. Good times."