Good deal all around. Most pitchers give a 50/50 chance of victory. About a dozen shift the odds to 60-40. With Ben Sheets and Sabathia the Brewers can win the division as long as the 3-5 starters give them anything.
The Indians get years of outfield prospect Matt LaPorta in exchange for three meaningless months of C. C. Sabathia. In a perfect world the Indians could hold on to their best pitcher, but in this imperfect world the odds were against it.
And so the wheels turn and Rich Harden becomes a Cub. The A's get Matt Murton, who hasn't been able to crack what often has been a mediocre outfield. Throw in Sean Gallagher, who eventually will be 70% of the pitcher Harden already is, and Corey Patterson. Patterson is alot like the guys who go to plumbing supply conventions. A couple of trips a year to Chicago, alot of noise, nothing to show for it. Oh, and a catcher who isn't hitting in Peoria.
A real Dusty Springfield trade for the A's. As in, wishin' and hopin'. The worst part is they had Harden through 2009, during which time a better deal surely would have come along. Might as well pop the champagne corks in Anaheim, because the second best team in the AL West just conceded.
Then you have the Mets, who are on a 3 game winning streak. Woo hoo! Don't get too excited. Baseball games are won by the team that gets the big defensive play late in the game, the clutch pitching performance to break a three game slide, the shut down relief appearances in the critical 6th and 7th innings, and the occasional three run home run. The Mets might get the starting pitching part of that equation, but forget the other three parts.
I blame it on the hats. Those awful black caps with a blue bill. The Mets uniform IS the Mets, but A.O. (after Omar) they wear uniforms that look like something a metal band road crew would sleep in.
The Yankees compromised their heritage with the red, white, and blue NY the other day. Sure, it's to honor veterans, but raise the money another way. The Yankees uniform along with that of the Montreal Canadiens should never be altered. I guess if you're taking a wrecking ball to the House That Ruth built it's OK to patriotically pimp out the uniform. Maybe we'll see one of those snazzy red tops on Sundays next year. Anything for a buck.
Speaking of compromised heritage, when do the Yankees send Alex Rodriquez packing. Don't get me wrong. Ruth, Mantle, and Ford weren't choir boys. But they never were so willfully blind to the consequences of their actions and how it reflected on the team. If Alex Rodriquez is a New York Yankee I'm an astronaut.
A word about pitching. In 1968 the rules makers of baseball reduced the height of the pitcher's mound from 15 inches to 9 to put more hitting into the game. It worked. At the same time arm injuries to pitchers have reached epidemic proportions. Give the hurlers back three inches of leverage. It won't hurt the offense much and it will keep the game's best pitchers off the DL.
"And when they light up our town I just think, what a waste of gunpowder and sky." -Aimee Mann "4th of July"
It started slowly. A fastball that got by, he once would have turned on. Reporters he once would have eluded, catching him coming out of a strip club in Toronto with a woman not his wife. Reflexes which once would have turned from the camera, now caught like a deer in headlights. The numbness working it's way up, until finally the ability to think and see straight was lost. A once great athlete, now a shell of himself pursuing a broom factory test pilot old enough to be his stepmother.
So it was 69 years to the day after Lou Gehrig made his famous speech that ARod, Alex Rodriquez, made his way to the microphones.
Fans, for the past week you have been reading about the bad break
I got. Who knew apartment house doormen were such gossips? Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this
earth. I have been in ballparks for fifteen years and have never
received anything but ever increasing paychecks and an ever decreasing sense of personal responsibility.
"Look at you poor saps. Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight
of his career just to hang with me for even one day? Sure, I'm lucky.
Who wouldn't consider it an honor to have known Madonna? Also, Lenny Kravitz? What a guy. And so concerned about my wife. To have spent seven years in that
wonderful little town, Seattle, and set an example the Seattle Supersonics have emulated by running as fast as they can away from there? Then to have spent the next three
years with that outstanding leader, that endless bucket of cash, the
best owner in baseball today, Tom Hicks? Sure, I'm lucky.
"When the Boston RedSox, Los Angeles Angels, Detroit Tigers, and Cleveland Indians, all teams you would give your right arm to
beat, and vice versa, send you a gift basket of doughnuts for reasons I'm not entirely clear on-that's something. When everybody
down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats walk up to you so concerned and ask if you're crazy - that's something. When you have a wonderful ownership team here in New York who takes
sides with you when you're out doing things they would never tolerate being done to their own daughter - that's something. When
you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can end up being on TMZ more often than Lindsay Lohan- it's a blessing. When you have a wife who
has been a tower of strength and has never once registered to carry a concealed handgun (I know, my lawyers checked)- that's
the finest I know.
"So I close in saying that I may have had a tough
break, but I have a lot more to live for, assuming the checks keep rolling in."
Mrs. Alex Rodriquez: Keep your weight evenly distributed during the swing and make sure the trademark faces up. And you might want to consider one of those maple bats.
Brett Favre: Two words for you. Arena football. When was the last time you saw an arena football quarterback get hit? You could be making comebacks into your mid-40's.
Barry Bonds: There is a point in most episodes of Law & Order when the defense attorney leans over and, with a look of great seriousness, nods his head at the offer the DA just made. You can't see me, but I'm giving you that look. The feds don't care about Barry Bonds, they want to take down a network of steroid distributors. Give them what they want before you end up in some federal prison getting an asterisk carved into your back.
Ed Wade: Don't bother people while they're eating.
Manny Ramirez: Two words. Stub Hub.
Tiger Woods: You've got some free time. Shake up your image. I'm thinking some NBA style tattoos, body piercings, pimp up the old Buick. Get seen in public wearing that green jacket inside out with a sideways ball cap. Then go on the Golf Channel and tell them your one regret is that you'll always wonder how good you could have been if you'd actually enjoyed the game. You might want to wait until next April 1, but feel free to do it earlier if you get bored.
O.J. Mayo: Decide early on who you are and what your game is going to be about. You can be who Stephon Marbury is, or who he could have been.
ESPN: Get over yourself. The ESPY awards? Nobody cares. You're in danger of being what MTV is to music. A network about culture that forgot what its core business is.
LeBron James: Just go to New York already. The NBA will work something out. But if you do the dance of a thousand veils for the next two seasons you'll turn off the fans in Cleveland and alot of other places. Stay. Go. Just make a decision now.
Tony Stewart: Hire a weather guy. No excuse for coming in at New Hampshire when everyone could see rain was going to hit the track. All that stood between you and your first victory was not having some kid with a laptop and the URL of NOAA looking at the nearest radar. For the want of a nail...
The City of Seattle: Take the NBA's $75 million and let the Sonics go. Then look into creating an ABA for the new millennium. Eight team league to start, four overseas, salaries about half of what the NBA offers but a league bounty to go after a few big name stars. Emphasis on old school, fundamental basketball. The anti-NBA. Just crazy enough that it might work.
And finally.....To the New York Mets. Get rid of those awful black and blue caps. They symbolize everything wrong with the current direction of the team. The Mets are supposed to look like the likable alternative to the Yankees, not Brittany Spears roadies.
Changing channels I heard someone talk about how long it had been since a player had tasted victory. What does victory taste like? Chicken? Really good Gatorade?
If you're a Cubs fan it would be really smooth. It should, seeing how it's aged for one hundred years. Yankee championships taste like cigars wrapped in thousand dollar bills.
I like hearing the NASCAR announcers talk about a driver being able to smell victory. There's Dale Jr. coming into the last lap, talking to his crew chief. "Don't worry Dale, that's not the transmission, just the smell of victory. You probably don't remember it. Just give us one more lap."
The smell of defeat hangs on like Scott Boras trying to leach out the last five million in a seven year deal. Kobe Bryant probably is tired of hearing his kids ask him why the house smells like the New York Knicks.
Animals can smell fear. I'm betting the horses at the Belmont could smell Big Brown coming. They were probably rolling their eyes at each other when he came onto the track. "This ought to be good, he smells like the Mets in September".
Gene Mauch, the Phillies manager during their epic 1964 collapse, said he knew the season was lost when he looked into the eyes of his closer and saw fear. I imagine Joe Girardi looking into Sidney Ponson's eyes and seeing the Golden Arches.
Some sports images are gruesome. College coaches are fond of saying "My guys played their hearts out tonight." Imagine the phone conversations. "Mrs. Smithers, I'm sorry but we were down two touchdowns to State late in the 4th quarter and your son played his heart out. What's that? Yes, mam, I know it was a non-conference game, but your boy was a real competitor."
Most college coaches are deluded. They see things none of us see. Bobby Ray Jim Bob may have residue in the ash tray, an automatic weapon under the front seat, and a hooker in the back but somehow you know his coach will say "I looked in his eyes and saw a young man who needs athletics to put his life back together." Just once I'd like to here the coach say, "I looked in his eyes and saw "Law & Order" reruns. I wished him well and sent him home."
Then you have the phychic broadcaster. "I can feel the momentum changing, Bob." I'm skeptical, because it seems like they always say this right after some team has run off eight straight points. There may be one or two who can actually feel momentum shifting. I feel sorry for them. Their social lives have to be a nightmare. "I was out with Linda last night and suddenly I felt the momentum shift, so I dropped her off at the curb and went home."
Some poor guys can feel the electricity in the air. It's a little known fact that #### Vitale once threw himself on top of Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski during warmups of a Duke-Carolina game when he felt too much electricity in the air at the Dean Dome. Unfortunately, it was just accumulated static from Mike Shulman's scalp.
Finally, who are these guys who play for "pride". "No, no, you keep the $7.5 million I'm owed this year, I'm playing for pride." Does this mean there others who play because of deep seated self-loathing? "Mike, in the 4th quarter we were down 18 and I just hated myself so bad I threw myself under Tank Johnson and prayed the end would come quickly."
Gotta go. I smell victory. Or bacon. I get confused sometimes.
A GM, J.P. Ricciardi of Toronto, publicly bashing Adam Dunn of the Reds on a call-in show. Not something you see every day. If there is an opposite of tampering, this was it.
Here's Ricciardi on Dunn:
"We've done our homework on guys like Adam Dunn and there's a reason we don't want Adam Dunn."
"Do you know the guy (Dunn) doesn't like baseball that much? Do you know he doesn't have a passion to play the game that much?"
Should Ricciardi have been that candid with a Blue Jays fan? Of course not. It did nothing for the Toronto Blue Jays. And agents of future free agents probably didn't admire his candor.
But this was a rare glimpse into how big league general managers view players. And even though Ricciardi apologized afterward, it raises some interesting questions.
Since, as Dunn pointed out, Ricciardi doesn't know him, where did the damning evaluation come from? Here's a hint. Dunn has only played for one organization in his career. The Cincinnati Reds.
Who defended Dunn, a free agent after this season, afterwards? Not Reds GM Walt Jocketty.
"I'd rather not comment. You look at his
run production. But it's not my position to give a scouting report on
him. I like him as a player. He's someone we're going to have to decide
on. He's still young, so that's not a factor."
Nothing about how hard Dunn plays, or doesn't. Not a word about his passion for the game, or lack thereof. Dusty Baker did manage to describe Dunn as a "gentle giant".
How does Ricciardi know Dunn "doesn't even like baseball that much"? Ricciardi's information comes from somewhere. And while Dunn has every right to be mad at the Blue Jays GM, he should be more concerned with who in Cincinnati believes the Reds slugger isn't that into the game.
Who are these "players like Adam Dunn"? Are we talking about power hitters with an all or nothing approach to hitting? Players with low batting averages and good on base percentages? Physically large players? Players with questionable attitudes?
Who knows? But it is safe to say there are a lot of teams who will be interested in a player like Adam Dunn when he becomes a free agent. Just not the Blue Jays or Reds, apparently.
Here's the balance sheet on Dunn:
Four straight seasons at 40 home runs and at least 90 RBI, should make five this season.
One hundred fourteen walks per 162 games and 181 strikeouts.
A lifetime on base percentage of .381.
A range factor in left field substantially above the league average.
Twenty-seven years old, and no noticeable decline in stats.
Relatively healthy throughout his career.
What's not to like?
It comes down to this. Dunn easily fits a stereotype. The big swinger who goes for broke.
If you believe home runs are the big guns in an offense's arsenal, and walks are as good as hits, you have a place on your team for Dunn. If you think a strikeout is a momentum stopping offense killer and that baseball is about putting the ball in play, you hate Dunn.
Think that anyone over 6'1" is a lumbering Neanderthal who isn't hustling and doesn't care about the game, or that quiet equals disinterested and you have a reason not to spend on Dunn. Or, maybe, to hope nobody else does and you can bring him back to the Reds at a discount.
You can make a case for or against Adam Dunn. J.P. Ricciardi has made his decision, and I'm guessing the Reds have. But before they publicly bash Dunn or give him luke warm support, they ought to consider that someone will sign him in 2009. It might even be a team that comes to Cincinnati or Toronto in a key series.
Greatest players in each sport. Twenty seconds to think. Ready set go.
Odds are many of you named Ruth in baseball, Michael Jordan in basketball, Jim Brown in football, Gretzky in hockey, Pele in soccer, Tiger Woods in golf, Pete Sampras and Martina Navratilova in tennis, and Dale Earhardt in NASCAR. OK, throw in Secretariat in horse racing with Willie Shoemaker along for the ride.
Miss anyone? Most of it is conventional wisdom which changes over time. But is it right? And if these guys are number one, who is number two? And who on that list makes a good claim at possibly being the best?
Baseball. Barry Bonds wrote himself out of this spot. Who can say what he's guilty of? Who can say what he isn't? Ty Cobb? Madison Avenue hasn't invented the PR firm which could reform his image. Not much power, either. Don't talk to me about Alex Rodriquez. We don't have that much time. Ted Williams? Not a complete player. Hank Aaron? Wagner, or a man who might well be the best ever, Nap Lajoie?
So, who's in second? I'll take Christy Mathewson. Before Ruth came along, Mathewson made New York fall in love with baseball. Mathewson set all kinds of records, but more than that gave baseball respectability with the upper class (and the chattering class-the media). Quite possibly the best pitcher of all-time, a master of control who never stood taller than in the spotlight of the biggest games. Erudite, largely a cipher, and the coolest customer of them all
Football. People get sentimental about Unitas, and he was the first great TV quarterback. But not as good as Elway. Jerry Rice is Cal Ripken. Joe Montana the definition of a professional. Lawrence Taylor a force of nature. Maybe Manning or Brady? Before it's over that argument will be made for one or both.
I'll go with #### Butkus. Taylor had more talent, but Butkus was football. If you ever get a chance to watch one of his games on video, keep an eye and an ear open. Hard to describe, but a Butkus tackle sounded like a car wreck. Forward momentum ceased. Strong men flinched. Butkus and Brown had the hearts of lions.
All that aside, it always bugs me that Terry Bradshaw's name isn't higher on these lists. The man worked hard to harness enormous talents and won Super Bowls. The Steelers without Bradshaw would not have been any where near successful. Put aside the laughing image. This was a great, great quarterback.
Basketball. Russell for all the banners in the old Boston Garden, Chamberlin for how he changed the game. Jabbar for the sustained excellence. Bird and Johnson, linked forever in time as competitors and showmen. All were great.
I'd throw two other names in, along with a qualification. I don't believe Jordan was the best. Maybe not even in the top three. I've seen Julius Erving play and Doctor J. would eat Jordan's lunch. Heresy aside, the best all-around player the game has seen may be Oscar Robertson. He had it all. Scorer, tremendous assist man, solid rebounder, tenacious defender. If not the best, then certainly no slouch at #2.
Hockey. Gordie Howe and Bobby Hull were tremendous scorers. Rocket Richard maybe the most glamorous player ever. Too many goalies to name.
This is easy, though. It has to be Bobby Orr at #2, maybe even #1. The pure excitement of Orr rushing out of the Boston zone into open ice is perhaps unmatched in sports. Fifteen thousand people catching their breath at one time. Pure magic. Skills rivaling Gretzky's from a defenseman. Hard to explain to anyone brought up on today's game. There may be another Gretzky. There will never be another Bobby Orr.
Soccer. A subject I know little to nothing about. I don't put Beckham in Pele's league, however, and someone who knows more history might even suggest two or three better. Pele dominated his sport in the way Ruth did baseball for a time.
Golf. Palmer or Nicklaus. Toss a coin. I'd take Nicklaus on talent. If they somehow could be matched in their prime I'm not sure Nicklaus wouldn't have beaten him if the played just once. Over a stretch Woods is better, but he never had other great players to press him the way Nicklaus did.
Tennis. I suppose you're supposed to say Rod Laver, who may have been the best. I'd go with Bjorn Borg. And if I had to have someone go out and win one match, not sure that Jimmy Conners wouldn't find a way to win. The women's side of the coin is much clearer. If not Navaratilova then Evert.
NASCAR. I think we forget RIchard Petty all too easily. Behind the image o####ood natured man in retirement is a record of unparalleled excellence. Earnhardt had the advantage of being around when the rest of the country discovered stock car racing. Petty was there at the beginning of the climb and won on guts and smarts.
Horse Racing. Secretariat may not be the greatest horse of all time, but he had the greatest film clip, pulling away from the field by what seemed like miles. Man of War, though, could easily be the best. What I wouldn't give to have seen them race.
Jockeys? I'll put one name in. Pat Day. Here it may be sentiment on my part, having seen Day ride and admiring his work for years. He perfected what is simply known as "the Pat Day ride", always knowing exactly when to make his move. Was he the best? I don't know, but he's the best I ever saw.
Number two is not a bad place to be. We don't remember number two, but we can always argue number one. It part of what makes sports so much fun.
"Let's do something, even if it's wrong.." Roy Drusky
Something must be done!
And so it was, and so Willie Randolph joins the ranks of the unemployed. And the question you have to ask, the only one that matters, is whether the Mets are better off.
Absolutely, positively, well, probably not.
Because the problem is not Randolph, but General Manager Omar Minaya. The man who assembled the defective machine which failed to deliver a pennant last year or even the hope of one this year. A team with no head or heart.
And no bullpen.
Make no mistake, keeping Randolph wouldn't have changed the situation. Randolph was Gamelin, in charge of the French Army of 1940. On paper he had an edge, in the field, alas, a different story.
Back in the back of the pitching staff, behind Johan Santana and John Maine, stands a fire brigade of arsonists. A bullpen that has yielded 25 home runs. And a surprisingly weak rotation. Grim indeed is the question Nelson Figueroa or Claudio Vargas is the answer to.
Minaya, and not Randolph, rolled out the duct tape which binds this fetid assemblage. It seems he has a rolodex somewhere of every past prime pitcher in the universe. The height of this depth plumbing approach was four horrendous starts by Jose Lima in 2005. Seventeen innings, 25 hits, 19 earned runs, 10 walks, 12 strikeouts and four losses. Pregnant women who watched those games will have children who spend their lives flinching at the sound of bat contacting ball.
The signing of Pedro Martinez, for which Minaya has been widely hailed, has been a mixed blessing. The Mets tied up over $52 million in payroll to procure the services of a pitcher widely known to have a bad arm. It paid off in one good season, much less so in three others where the team's rotation and planning have been disrupted by his presence and absence from the roster.
Minaya's other acquistions? Carlos Delgado. A study in decline. Carlos Beltran. A player who is probably not up to the unique pressures of playing in New York City. A past his prime Luis Castillo. The dreadful Jorge Sosa who, if one man can cause another to lose his job, more than anyone did in Randolph.
The John Maine trade has to go into the plus column. Xavier Nady for Oliver Perez is starting to look a net loss. Moises Alou, an aging illusion. The loss of Heath Bell, Matt Lindstrom and Dan Wheeler from the bullpen has been a source of constant grief, and likely cost a pennant last year. Billy Wagner is the classic blessing and curse.
Mostly, though, the Minaya Mets are less than the sum of their parts. A team which finds a way to lose, the double play not turned, the weak grounder with two out and men on in the late innings. It is a team no manager could win with.
Was Randolph to blame for not lighting a fire under a listless pile of kindling? Probably. Should he have held pitching coach Rick Peterson to account for the team's pitchers failing at inopportune times? Absolutely. Should he have found a way to get through to Jose Reyes? Of course.
But did Randolph deserve to twist in the wind for weeks while Minaya vacillated and the Wilpons schemed? And does it make sense to replace Randolph with one of his coaches?
Jerry Manuel won't fix the Mets. Nor will anyone else. It is not a time to hope for miracle comebacks, but a time to gut the interior of a badly damaged house and start over.
I love baseball, study baseball, spend hours on hours watching it. But some things I don't understand.
If a starter's arm will fall off after 100 pitches, why waste so many between innings? These guys are throwing 90 pitches plus another 50 between innings, albeit not at full speed. So another 20 late in the game are going to result in injury and ineffectiveness? Absolute nonsense.
Why does nobody pitch high in the strike zone? If you miss by three inches trying to put the ball under the batter's belt the ball is now right in his wheel house. Put it three inches above his shoulders and he probably isn't quick enough to make solid contact.
Why not hit the first pitch if it's the one you want? "Money Ball" is a good concept, but how you implement it depends on the situation. If the pitcher is aiming the ball over the plate to get ahead in the count, there are going to be times when the appropriate response is to smoke the ball. And it never hurts to keep pitchers and catchers off balance.
If Willie Randolph is a dolt who needs to lose his job in 2008, and was a genius in 2005 when they won 97 games, at what point did he get stupid? Was a head injury involved? Did he wake up in the opposite of a Holiday Inn and forget everything he knew? Or was he not that smart when the team was winning and the Mets front office has just now noticed?
Why do teams give the ball so often to their fifth starters? With off days in season there are plenty of opportunities to skip that spot, but teams keeping running out guys who are one step from AA. If there was a baseball version of the glue factory, most of these guys would be sent there. Want to win? Pick a rotation, stick to it, and skip #5 at any and every opportunity.
If it is important for teams to carry twelve pitchers to gain match up advantages in late innings, doesn't logic dictate it would also be a good thing to have an extra bat on the bench to turn around the situational pitcher? In which case why doesn't some team go back to 10 pitchers and spend serious money on fastball eating bench players?
Suppose relief pitchers are right. Suppose those cheesy little goatees are intimidating hitters. Who are the psychologically impaired batters who tremble at the sight of poor grooming? I want the name of the hitter who goes to the plate, looks out at a bad case of 5 o'clock shadow and waves helplessly at three 85 mile and hour fastballs.
While we're on the subject of relievers, what's with the entrance music? Welcome to the jungle? What jungle? It's a baseball game! Actual lyrics. "If you've got the money, honey, we got your disease"? What does that even mean? Are they saying closers are infected male prostitutes?
What of all the dedicated followers of fashion who wear their pants down over their shoes? I suppose it is supposed to look cool. What it actually looks like is an old man playing ball in his street clothes at a company softball game.
Who do the umpires work for? Not the people who wrote the book on the strike zone. Today's umpire can't be spoken to, can't have dirt kicked in their direction, can't position themselves to call the actual strike zone, can't hustle to get a fair/foul call right. The pre-1980 umpires would have chewed these prima donnas up and spit them out.
Finally, what will we have to do to be rid of the DH? Steroids are a problem. The designated hitter is an abomination.
Or is it "accursed"? I like accursed better. It conjures imagines of King Lear sitting in front of his TV with Tom Glavine pitching. Old Lear is thinking, "Aye, a quality start tis' mine." Then down goes Glavine and it's all "Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires."
That's what I said when Glavine's elbow gave out against the Cubs. Or something like that. I couldn't hear from the roaring sound in my ears. I think it was the ocean. Or my brain melting.
I had just picked him up Glavine on waivers after another owner dropped him. So there I was with the newly acquired Glavine, feeling like Dillinger after a bank job. And there is Tom Glavine grimacing in pain and been lead off by assorted men with worried looks.
I talk to the TV. It doesn't answer.
Then I read the news today. Oh, boy. Albert Pujols is going on the DL. The heart of my team's lineup carved out with a rusty spoon. Down with a calf injury. Who gets calf injuries? You don't go to work and here somebody say, "Hey, too bad about Herb, his calf is acting up and he'll be out of work for three weeks." No, your boss screams at him on the phone to drag his sorry self to work and he does.
Does anyone have Pujols' phone number?
Like they say on TV ads, "but wait, there's more!"
Rafael Furcal's back resembles that of a 72 year old man. First he was out for a week. Then 10 days. Then the DL. Now, there are dark rumors of a horse van pulling up in front of Dodger stadium and attendants talking about "putting the big fellow down". LA says he may be back in July. They don't say which year.
Then there are injuries to the psyche. Every year I resist picking up Ian Snell of the Pirates for two reasons. First, he isn't tall enough to be a power pitcher. Second, I don't like the name Snell. What the heck, somebody always picks him up and he does well. Until this year. Snell couldn't find the plate if Vanna White stood beside it and did that little sideways thing she does with her hands on "Wheel of Fortune".
I'd draft Vanna White. Granted, for all the wrong reasons. Where was I?
Then there is Tom Gorzelanny. Tom, if you're reading this, just let me say I know what's going on here. After I suffer through 8 starts, an 8.67 ERA, 2.01 WHP I finally cave in and give up. Then you come back today and beat the Nationals. And Jason Bergman, who I replaced you with.
This obviously has gotten personal.
J.R. Towles, we hardly knew ye. Hope you are enjoying Round Rock. Send a postcard.
Has anyone seen Dave Roberts? I understand he's hitting off a tee. If I had been drafting for a tee ball league I'd be sitting in the cat bird seat.
No more Garciaparra. Please, no more. Fare thee well Bill Hall. Best wishes Barry Zito. Send a heating pad to Odalis Perez for his arm, a knee brace to Omar Vizquel.
And the name o####ood mental health provider to the poor roto owners who suffer with you.
Greensboro is not a big league town. We almost got there once, completely screwing up a chance to bring the Minnesota Twins south. One of the local restaurant guys rallied the locals against a very minor restaurant tax that would have financed a stadium and we lost out.
But I have gotten around to a few games over the years and seen some good players. These are the best I've seen so far.
Catcher-I want to say Choo Choo Coleman as a joke (an original Met I saw in the minors when I was much, much, younger). Truth is I haven't seen any great catchers, just a number of good ones. Pencil in Mike Lieberthal of the Phillies. In Martinsville, Virginia when he first signed he was so small he looked like he should be holding a lantern and standing in someone's yard. But he already had a great arm and good mechanics.
First Base-Mark McGwire. Jeff Bagwell was a better player and hitter, with a violent uppercut you never forgot. But McGwire was a monster. In Pittsburgh I saw him hit a liner over the shortstop's glove by maybe two feet that ended up striking the outfield wall with such force it sounded like a shell impacting a target. Whether he earned that power on the level is for someone else to decide.
Second Base-Joe Morgan. When you saw Morgan play it felt like you should give the ticket money directly to him. Inspired pure panic among pitchers and catchers with his base stealing. Not a great hitter, but smart enough to turn himself into a threat. Craig Biggio was a pleasure to watch, an honest worker who played with everything he had. But Morgan was a show.
Shortstop-Derek Jeter. Saw him in the minors. Wouldn't sit behind first base with him playing short. Made something like 50 errors in one season. He was already a polished hitter, though.
Third Base-Cal Ripken. Saw Ripken hit a line drive home run late in his career, at the stage when he was being worshipped in Baltimore. I never joined that particular cult, but you appreciated the moment and the crowd reaction to him. You sensed he was smarter than talented, getting alot of bat speed from an unusual stance. Never understood why he isn't managing somewhere today.
Left Field-Has to be Bonds. For all the criticism, I really am glad I got a chance to see him play. Forget the home runs. He may have been the best hitter since Ted Williams. And when he came to bat you knew exactly what it was like to have been in the crowd and seen Babe Ruth. There was an electricity every time he came to the plate, like when Gretzky touched the puck in hockey. Saw Stan Musial in an old-timers game, still had that sweet swing. If I was a GM and could have built a team around one hitter it might have been Musial.
Center Field-Cesar Cedeno and nobody close. I was fortunate enough to see Cedeno before the injuries and off field problems robbed him of his gifts. Leo Durocher, who tended to exaggerate, said Cedeno could have been in a league with Willie Mays. I don't disagree. He had such great speed he just ate up ground in the outfield without looking like he was running. On the bases he was explosive. The very definition of the 5 tool player. Eric Davis was another from the same mold. Loved to watch him, even if he did nearly hit me with a line drive into the upper deck one night in Baltimore.
Right Field-Hank Aaron. Aaron was regal. Baseball royalty. It wasn't so much exciting to see him as it was an event. I saw him toward the end of his career in Atlanta, but you could still see the pitchers coming at him like an ordinance disposal technician approaches a bomb. The best outfielder I've seen, in terms of his throwing arm and fielding technique, has to be Dwight Evans. The funny thing is, I saw him in Winston-Salem when he was probably 20 and he already looked like a big leaguer. If I wanted to teach someone how to be an outfielder, I've have them look up Evans.
Pitcher-There is alot of really bad pitching and I feel like I've seen most of it. I'm the guy who always shows up when the #5 starters face off. I'm going to say Mark Mulder, mainly because he was so good the day I saw him pitch. It's a shame injuries have kept him from achieving his potential.
One of the joys of baseball, maybe more than any other sport, is the memories. The game you see might be good or bad, but if you luck out and see a great player you have something to hold in your mind's eye for a lifetime.
OK, now we have film of a space alien in Denver peering in to a guy's house. A guy with two teenage daughters. That's the claim made Monday at a press conference anyway.
I've seen the still photo that's been released. First, let me just go on record as saying while it does not appear to be Roger Clemens the circumstances leave open the possibility. Steroids do strange things to the shape of your head and one of the girls had expressed interest in becoming a country singer.
Second, we need to be afraid. Very afraid.
People have this image of the cute little alien in ET who just wants to phone home. Of highly evolved creatures who come to earth to tell us to save the world, put away the nukes, and set fire to our SUV's.
No, wait, that's Al Gore.
But what if the guys from Gribwack turn out to be old school baseball fans from another planet?
Oh, at first things would go well. They'd meet with the guys at the UN, high twos all around. "What? You have baseball on your planet? We have baseball on our planet! The Yankees are playing today and you can even throw out the, well, forget about that, but it will be fun and the crowd will love to see you guys in the pale gray flesh."
Then it happens. "Batting sixth for the Yankees, number 25, the designated hitter, Ja-son Gi-am-bi!".
(Ambassador Googlewark) Mr. President, we have baseball on our planet. It's order and balance provide the fundamental concepts behind our society. Who are we kidding, we invented this game. But I'm afraid I am not familiar with this 'designated hitter'? Is that some kind of pinch hitter?
(Commissioner Selig) Sort of, Ambassador but the designated hitter bats instead of the pitcher.
(Alien) Excuse me, but the holy traditions require the pitcher to bat ninth. If there is a hitter for the pitcher....
(Selig) But only in one league..
(Alien) Wait a minute. You violate the sanctity of the fundamental laws on which civilization is founded,, strip reason naked of all we deem pure and good, and then apply this so-called rule to only one of your leagues?
(President Bush) Pretty much, but they have great nachos. You want to stay away from the dip here, though.
(Alien) Silence. I was talking to the Supreme Ruler!"
(Bush) #### isn't here, out hunting quail in Nebraska....
(Alien) I mean the Lord High Commissioner. The keeper of the great game.
(Bush) You little fellas seem to take your baseball awfully serious.
(Alien) What about the records? Your records handed down to record man's progress from generation to generation. They are meaningless if your warriors play in leagues with different rules.
(Selig) Well, after the steroids we don't put much stock in the records.
(Alien) Drugs! You allow your warriors to cross into the exalted space under the influence of DRUGS!
(Selig) No, no. Now we have testing, you see each season you can randomly show up unannounced and require the player to urinate into a cup...
(Alien) Urinate into a cup! Unannounced searches of the warriors were outlawed bleams ago on our planet. Don't you people have a Constitution? Clearly this would be an unreasonable search without probable cause. We picked up signals from your planet that showed you had a highly developed criminal code. Something called 'Law & Order'.
(Bush) Ah, Angie Harmon...
(Alien) Yes, yes, Angie Harmon is fine, but on our planet S. Epatha Merkerson is worshipped as a goddess.
(Bush) You boys aren't from around here local, right?
(Alien) Selig, silence this clever man. The more he talks the more confused I become. Now, back to the law. Let's say the pitcher strikes an opposing player. If the pitcher does not bat, how can justice be rendered?
(Selig) Well, the other pitcher could throw at an opponent's hitter, but then we would have to suspend him.
(Alien) Why, in the name of the galaxies, why? Is it not justice itself to exact swift retribution? It is right, proper, and unchangable. Just as the strike zone runs from the armpits to the knee...
(Selig) Now, you're probably not going to like what I'm about to say...
(Alien) Oh, no, no, no. I knew we should never have come to this place. You people are animals. I would call in a full attack from our fleet of ships and turn this place to dust if it weren't for the presence in this city of one of the early temples. Let us leave this place now. I demand to be taken to Ebbetts Field.
Start with this. In baseball the season can be over on June 1. April 1 if you live in Pittsburgh.
June 1 is a good time to assess where teams are at and what it would take to get into the playoffs. For example, while nobody is wandering around the Mets clubhouse singing "To Dream The Impossible Dream", they aren't humming "We Are The Champions" either.
So here they are. The dead cert locks, the contenders and the pretenders:
NL EAST
Last year it took 89 wins to grab the East. This year, let's raise the bar by 2. The Phillies would have to play .558 ball, or a little less than what they are doing now. Is that reasonable? You're #2 in baseball in runs scored, in the top half for ERA, Chase Utley is hitting like Hornsby, and Brad Lidge is the wildest thing to hit town since, well, the Wild Thing. Count Philadelphia in.
Florida is intriguing until you look closer. Here is the tell. Only 15 save opportunities, five blown, and 216 walks in 491 winnings. Walks are like partying with Keith Richards. It won't kill you the first night out, but sooner or later your rotation starts to look like Gram Parsons. Hendrickson, Olson, and Miller are a good law firm but a lousy big 3. Hanley Ramirez is a great, the rest merely good. The Fish get 91 at their current win rate, 86 once reality sets in.
What of the Mets? To get to the wild card (insert manager's name here) team would have to win 56% of their remaining games. Possible, maybe even probable, but with a slugging average of .401? The fate of the Mets lies in the hands of Omar Minaya, not Willie Randolph. Can he acquire a big bat? When the answer to your biggest question may be Barry Bonds you know the odds are not with you.
Don't forget the Braves. Fourth in ERA and 9th in runs, Atlanta just has to kick it up a notch. How come nobody questions Cox the way the New York media does Randolph? He has the players to get it done, but it isn't happening. The offense is too good not to contend, maybe for the division title. It would take a .590 run the rest of the way, but IF Smoltz is healthy, and IF Chipper Jones stops hitting .400 and starts slugging, and IF Gonzalez provides reliable relief, and IF they get enough offense from Blanco while Diaz is out, well you get the idea. A lot of if's, but a lot of possibilities.
NL CENTRAL
Da Cubs. First in runs, 6th in ERA. All Lou Pinella has to do is what Dusty Baker never could, manage the pitching and entertain the locals. Even if Kerry Woods spontaneously combusts on the mound, the bullpen is deep enough that it won't be a problem. I don't think Jim Edmonds is the answer, but holding hands and singing "All we are saying, is give Pie a chance" wasn't working either. Expect a few volcanic eruptions from Pinella and wins. Many, many wins.
St. Louis. The power of two. LaRussa and Pujols. First off, LaRussa may be the best manager in baseball, pulling the Cards back together after a tough 2007. Pujols has picked the team up and carried it on his back. The downside is they are in the Cubs division and some of the starters (read, Ryan Ludwick) are playing above their ability. They'll come back to the pack, but stay in the hunt for the wild card as long as Pujols keeps going.
A night watching the Astros pitching is like a night spent with a fire bug in an oil refinery. Sure, you can get a crowd out to see the results, but the next morning nothing but smoke and charred wreckage. If the Cubs win 95 (and they could), Houston has to make like Big Brown the rest of the way and turn in a .625. Not going to happen. But go watch Berkman and say hi to Miguel Tejeda, a nice man and really good baseball player.
What about the Brewers and Reds? The Brewers are interesting because they have a player named Jason who wears a mask and, that's about it. You come away from a Brewers game wondering, was that bratwurst bad or was it just from watching the relievers? The Reds have Jay Bruce, Johnny Cueto, and Edison Volquez, which will make the rest of the season interesting and next season very interesting. Now, if Bruce had come up in April.....
NL WEST
The Diamondbacks magic number is yesterday. The rest of the division is a disaster area. The D-Backs are deep, the pitching awe inspiring (who knows, this could be the season Randy Johnson gets his second bird), but something is missing. Like a cleanup hitter. Getting Chad Tracy back helps. Playing against the NL West will hurt in the long run. Can they stay interested while running away? Maybe the most playoff ready team right now in baseball.
Cubs Win! Cubs Win!
Mark it down. This is the year of the Cub. Jinxes are for sports writers. The Cubs are a complete team with the pitching needed to win it all. Arizona is strong. The Cubs are stronger and will beat the some team with Sox (Red or White) in the name in the World Series. Mark it down.
Now for a quick review of contenders, imposters, and already cooked geese. AL EAST
First, let us dispose of the New York Yankees. Last season it took 96 wins to capture the AL East. The Bronx Bunglers enter June with 28. To get those other 68 wins will require a team that is16th in runs and 19th in ERA among all MLB teams to play at a .642 pace the rest of the season. Alex Rodriquez may be Super Man, but the Red Sox have a pocket full of kryptonite. Write New York (and Brian Cashman) off.
Tampa Bay? Three of their top 5 RBI guys are hitting less than .250. The pitchers keep control of the game, but Troy Percival's injury is a heavy blow. A good showing, but no ring. The better bet here is the Toronto Blue Jays, a carbon copy of the Rays with a healthy closer in B.J. Ryan.
You can pick your perspective on Boston. Be concerned about a 14-19 road record, or (more realistically) be in awe of the 21-5 mark at Fenway. Too good, too deep, and a contender for the whole ball of wax.
AL CENTRAL
When I was a kid my parents played cards alot with the neighbors. My dad had a expression, "Who dealt this mess?" That about says it for the AL Central. You want to believe a team as talented as the Tigers can come back, then hear yourself making this statement. "The team with the worst ERA in the AL is about to put it together and play .626 baseball which will get them to 90 wins." Ah, no.
There are no atheists in fox holes, they say, but there are the Cleveland Indians. They are hunkered down next to the Tigers waiting for the shelling to stop. Ryan Garko has to hit to give them even the longest of long shots.
How to choose between the Twins and WhiteSox? Easy. The Twins pitchers have gone about 500 innings and only struck out 300 batters. Strikeouts are just outs, but they are outs that don't put the ball in play. Over a long season you need those. Chicago gets them, Minnesota doesn't.
The WhiteSox have more talent than the Twins, maybe even more than under performing Detroit. They also have Ozzie Guillen. He's nuts, that's a given. But I've finally come to the realization there must be a reason for keeping a manager who is a few twinkies short of a snack pack around. The guy is sneaky smart, and keeps pressure off his players by being the focus of attention.
AL WEST
I'm sold on the Los Angeles Angels of Pasadena, or whatever they call Anaheim these days. Except for their lack of power, lack of speed, and inability to get on base they are a great team. I keep looking for a reason this team is 9 games above .500 and it's not there. Call it the Yankee effect. Back in the early 60's New York won games based on the other team looking at all that talent in the other team's batting cage. Only in this case you have to believe Guerrero, Hunter, Matthews, and Anderson will hit their stride at some point later this season. Until then, having Francisco Rodriquez and a solid rotation doesn't hurt.
Quick, name the Oakland A's starting position player hitting .260 or better. Trick question, there is none. If anyone thinks Oakland is going to parlay a 30-27 start, some pitching, and a handful of magic Beanes into the playoffs they need to cross the bridge and see if there's anything left in Haight Ashbury that can get you there. A real dog of team with the potential to get much worse by season's end.
Which leaves us with the Texas Rangers. Their pitching rotation looks like a K-Tel Records compilation. "Order now and you get what's left of Kevin Millwood's career. But wait, there's more! Sid Ponson. Jason Jennings. Vincente Padilla. And if you're one of the first 900 callers, we'll even throw in Eddie Guardado and this versatile Jamey Wright that has a thousand and one uses. It starts. It relieves. It even gets hitters out."
The pitching masks what is actually an acceptable little team. Josh Hamilton is putting up MVP numbers. The fuse on Milton Bradley's annual explosion has some time left, and the middle infield is solid. But at 29-29 we're talking .600 baseball to get to 92 wins. Not going to happen.
THE END OF AN ERA
Don't want to hear anymore talk about American League supremacy. On June 1st the races are about over, and there are really only four serious contenders (Boston, Toronto, Chicago, Los Angeles) left. That's not a great league, that's a garage sale.
Jay Bruce, the Reds phenom made his big league debut. Went 3-3, scored two runs, drove in two, stole a base. I say he should quit now. True, no Hall of Fame, no huge contracts, but he could tell his grand kids, "Nobody ever got me out."
What's the opposite of perfection? Oh, that would be "umpire". Watched the Nationals and Brewers the other day (lay off, somebody had to) and Don Sutton made the comment the umpire's strike zone was low and it would benefit the two starting pitchers. Assuming he was right, and watching the game it sure looked that way, who gave individual umpires the right to adjust the rule book strike zone? Want to know why games last three hours? Because umpires call the game their way and assume the players should adjust.
It could be worse. You could have a whole league structure trying to hand one team the championship. Start with the mysterious trade of Pau Gasol from Memphis to the Lakers. The Grizzlies didn't even try to get another offer and ended up with Kwame Brown and some draft choices who won't be around when the team goes broke, which is a distinct possibility. David Stern must believe he's commission of the ABA. At least that league had decent officiating, which after the Lakers (who else) were gifted Game 4 against San Antonio on a last second no call is more than you can say for the NBA.
Speaking of the Grizzlies, notice how many NBA teams are on life support? Eight teams drew less than 15,000 a game this season. The league wants to kill of Seattle. The Bobcats are slipping beneath the waves. Indiana is about ruined for the pro game by the player's antics. New Orleans should go out of business, but the league will keep the Hornets afloat rather than suffer the bad press from abandoning the Big Easy post-Katrina.
Don't you wish there was a Charles Barkley out there who could walk up to the real Charles Barkley and ask him what he could possibly be thinking? It's time to get Sir Charles out from behind the mike and give him a distraction so he won't feel the need to gamble. In all seriousness, the answer is coaching. Too bad nobody has asked the question yet.
Heard a rumor there is still hockey being played. It's almost June. Has to be a hoax.
Here's a first. Tony Stewart compared to Alfonso Soriano. Why? They both had it and dropped it in the same week. I don't buy Bob Brenly's knock on Soriano. He's not that bad an outfielder and what happened to him against the Pirates has happened to the best outfielders in the game at one time or another. Besides, if not left field then where? As for the Stewart, the glass half full crowd will tell you it's a good sign he was in it with a chance to win at the end. And they're right.
A better blogger would have answers. All I have is questions.
For instance, why are sports segregated? If you go back to the 70's there were alot of African-Americans playing baseball. And white guys starting in the NBA. And, as hard as it is to imagine, white running backs.
Now African-Americans don't play baseball and whites can't be found in the NBA. And white running backs? You see them about as often as someone sights the Loch Ness monster.
But is that a bad thing? Something that requires a remedy? Just one of those things?
Start with soccer and work up the sports food chain. Soccer in this country is day care for white kids. Let them go out and run around for a couple of hours until the ritalin kicks in. The rest of the world, everybody plays "the beautiful game". Here it's different. Why is that?
A part of me wants to give African-Americans credit for not taking an interest in soccer. What the world calls "football" reminds me of the punishment drills we used to run in school where you had to sprint to the top of the circle then back, then to mid-court then back, and on until your will to live was gone. Just with a goal at one end.
It could also be a question of space and where people live. Land is not plentiful for recreation in the inner cities. A basketball court fits just about anywhere, a soccer field requires real estate. But if space is the issue why is tennis not a bigger thing? After the Williams sisters, diversity among the big names in tennis is almost non-existent.
NASCAR is great at marketing and has opened up to places and demographics once untouched by the sport. Why no black drivers? Maybe because you have to start young at lower levels of the sport and it is a sport that requires an investment in not just time but financial resources. Can NASCAR bypass that part of the process and come up with an African-American driver on a major team? And would that draw any interest? Don't know, but we may find out eventually.
The NHL? Forgetaboutit. Or maybe not. Canada is becoming more diverse and basketball doesn't provide much competition. Here in America it's a matter, black or white, of having access to the relatively few available youth hockey programs. But hockey, played well, is a sport that combines many of the elements of football. Speed, skill, hitting. If football can be popular outside of white America, maybe within 30 years hockey could catch on. But not if you have to pay $60 for a decent seat.
Ah baseball. So much potential, so much decline, so much effort to change. I'll make what may seem to be an outlandish argument. This is our most integrated sport (and no, it isn't football despite what you may think). If you factor the wide range of foreign born players in, and the lack of stereotypes as to position (see the NFL) it is a remarkably diverse sport.
Here the drop in participation among African-Americans is part voluntary. It was there at one time and has faded. Basketball and football are the destinations of choice for black athletes. The shame is the odds are stacked against ever making a dime in either one. A good athlete has a much better chance of making money, big money, in baseball.
Culture kicks in. The youth culture embraces basketball. It is no accident rap and basketball intersect so often. Baseball is viewed as a "white" game even if no barriers were to exist to keep other groups out. The game itself is slower, equipment expensive, space to play limited. But there is nothing there which can't be overcome and to baseball's credit it is trying.
I have to bring up Barry Bonds. In retrospect, Bonds should have been baseball's Michael Jordan. If Michael Jordan had been surly, arrogant, self-absorbed, and chemically enhanced. To some degree baseball missed the boat in not promoting Bonds the way basketball did Jordan. But Bonds wanted to be the Godfather. RIch, respected, attended to. He wasn't interested in promoting the game. And so an opportunity was lost.
Now basketball. And the stickiest questions. Let's take as an assumption baseball is not diverse enough. That it has programs to reach out to inner cities. Should do more, and is criticized for not doing more.
Then about about round ball? At its highest level, the NBA, it is a reverse image of hockey in terms of diversity. Sure, there a few European white players, even a smattering of bench warmers from the states. But African-Americans own basketball.
If diversity is supposed to matter in other sports, if leagues are supposed to be working on fixing the problem, what is the NBA doing about its situation? Well, nothing, if you're watching the NBA finals. But is that such a bad thing?
Nobody is barring whites from courts. Nobody is keeping them from practicing hard and learning the skills they would need to advance. Whites do, in fact, participate in large numbers at lower levels of the game. So why even ask the question?
Well, there is this. The answer to the question of why America's most popular participant sport isn't beating out the NFL for #1 is simple. The TV demographics say that white America is losing interest in pro basketball. The ratings are way down from even ten years ago, and the demographics have shifted.
Walking out on a limb, some of this is cultural. Whites still watch college ball in record numbers. Is it because there are more white players? Or is it because the NBA is so strongly identified with African-American culture there is some sort of subtle "no whites" sign on the door nobody put there, nobody talks about, but everyone sees?
Another heretical question. Did white America watch Jordan and Magic in numbers which dwarf those of today's NBA ratings because they accepted them as "white" culturally? Is there a difference, even now, in how Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony play in the suburbs?
Have we crossed the Rubicon in basketball? And will the divide get bigger in the future? And, bizarre as this sounds, should the NBA be attempting with white kids what baseball is doing in the inner cities? I'm not at all advocating it, but there is a certain logic.
Finally, the big guy on the block. Football. Ah, you say, the exception to the rule. Maybe yes, maybe no. Quick quiz. Imagine a player at each position and tell me are they black or white. Offensive line, defensive line, linebacker, secondary, tight end, wide receiver, running back, quarterback, kicker?
I bet I know your answers. I'd wager also in twenty years quarterbacks, tight ends, and offensive linemen will be all have different answers. Not because of any genetic differences, simply because historically immigrant groups and the poor in general have embraced athletics as a way up and out. (That and another 30 years of white soccer moms forcing kids to play non-contact sports).
Last question. Does any of this matter? Should we ask the questions or just embrace the differences? Will individual sports become more segregated in the future, or will we look back in 50 years and laugh at it all (which I surely hope will be the case)?
