Warning. Before you click on this link, make sure you’ve had breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Make sure you’ve used the toilet, and make sure you’ve set your DVR to record anything that you might conceivably want to watch for the next two weeks. That’s how long this thing is. (And while I’m not absolutely sure there’s a link, I did come down with the flu within hours of receiving this on Friday night, so beware).
I would call this a manifesto, but “manifesto” fails to do it justice. It’s a 16,000-plus word rant on everything that is evil about UH baseball coach Rayner Noble, as written from the somewhat-biased viewpoint of a parent whose son played (though not often enough) under Noble. And it’s got everything one could want in such an internet missive, including changing font sizes, bold print, underlined print, ALL CAPS, different colors, non-sequiturs, conspiracy theories, a complete lack of objectivity, and — despite saying to look at the facts countless times — an almost complete lack of facts.
Our hero is Vinny Raviele, a genius who claims to have invented the vehicle anti-theft device. And he addresses his rant to UH President Renu Khatur and the new AD Mack Rhoades. It begins modestly: “This story is about a University of Houston baseball player whose college career (2006-2009) was destroyed by the head baseball coach (Rayner Noble) at the University of Houston.” (Emphasis in the original.)
The player was Vinny’s son Jimmy, who just completed his senior year at
Houston. And through the next 16,000-plus words, Vinny expounds on how
his son was the greatest pitching sensation since Greg Maddux —
seriously, dad compares Jimmy to Maddux. And he expounds on how Coach
Noble — who is a false Christian because he cusses like a sailor —
set out to purposefully destroy Jimmy’s career because Jimmy was not
one of Noble’s chosen ones.
But before we can get to this point, Vinny tells us about how Little
League parents and coaches tried to destroy Jimmy and then how the JV
high-school coach tried to destroy Jimmy. Oh, and I need to tell you,
Vinny is a baseball-talent expert because he was the head of Lamar
National Little League.
Then comes the time for college. First, Jimmy’s so good that there are
major league teams that want to draft him, but Vinny says only if
Jimmy’s a top pick. Then Jimmy’s trying out for colleges — he doesn’t
need a scholarship though because Vinny’s rich — and he selects the
University of Houston because he’s told by the coach that he can pitch,
and when he’s not pitching, he can play first base because he can hit
tape-measure home runs. (For good measure, Vinny also notes that Jimmy
broke a college record by running the mile-and-a-half 22 seconds faster
than anybody’s ever run it, and that he did so on a badly sprained
ankle.)
But wait, it gets crazier. From the first day of practice, Noble tells
Jimmy he can’t play first base. And then he only uses Jimmy from the
bullpen. Then he tells Jimmy to junk the knuckleball — Vinny says
Jimmy’s knuckler was as good as the one thrown by Boston’s Tim
Wakefield. And Jimmy only gets to pitch a total of three innings in
his freshman year.
Here’s where it gets weird. It seems that many of Jimmy’s teammates
leave to go to other schools because they don’t like playing for Noble.
And these pro scouts keep appearing to tell Jimmy to leave. But Jimmy
never leaves. He sticks it out for the four full years. No matter how
often Noble cusses at him — this is a big evil to Vinny. No matter
how often Noble lies to him. No matter how often Noble mistreats him
and refuses to make him one of his golden boys, Jimmy sticks it out.
Which is where I call bull on this whole entire story — as if the rest
wasn’t enough. But if Jimmy was so damn good, other schools should
have been beating down the doors to get to him. After all, it’s not
uncommon for athletes to transfer schools — it appears to be a pretty
common occurrence with Jimmy’s teammates. But Jimmy, despite all of
this, despite a coach who hates him, who is deliberately trying to
destroy him, sticks around.
Maybe, just maybe, it’s because Jimmy wasn’t that good.
For all I know, Rayner Noble is the worst baseball coach in the history
of baseball coaches — which means that he’s probably on Drayton
McLane’s speed-dial to be the next Astros coach — but there’s nothing
in Vinny’s angry missive to convince me that his son was mistreated and
that Noble needs to be fired.
What I read are 16,000-plus words from a wealthy and angry parent who
couldn’t buy Jimmy a spot in the starting rotation. It’s nice that
there’s a father out there who believes in his child — especially a
daddy who has his very own private jet — but sometimes, there’s this
world called reality. From reading this, reality appears to be a world
that Vinny hasn’t visited in a very long time, at least where Jimmy is
concerned. And maybe, just this once, Vinny should have listened to
Jimmy — because Jimmy asked his father not to write this.
For the curious, you can find Jimmy’s freshman-through-junior year
stats here.
This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2009.
