Oregon’s star QB took the field for a nationally televised game last Thursday night knowing something just wasn’t right. What had appeared to be just a scare two weeks before in a game against Arizona State was, regrettably, far worse. What fans, and perhaps many of his own teammates, didn’t realize was that Dixon had torn his ACL in that game. All subsequent assurances about the severity, or lack thereof, of the apparent injury were just a smokescreen, at Dixon’s behest, to buy the young man some time to make the most important decision of his playing career.
Although doctors had cleared him to play, there was an ominous caveat involved. He could play on the damaged knee, but the injury left him vulnerable to much more serious damage. And given the violent nature of the game, that vulnerability represented a huge amount of risk. As a senior, Dixon’s pro prospects had sky rocketed this season as he dazzled the football world with his frenetic, dizzying style of play. When defenses pressured the line, he could step back and launch darts downfield, hitting his receivers in stride. His 85-yard strike to Brian Paysinger that broke the game open against Michigan was as perfectly thrown a pass as could be made on such a play. When defenses took his receivers away, he could simply outrun the pursuit and slash upfield for back-breaking gains. And his decision making on when to throw and when to run had been superb. He’d made so few mistakes that it was easy to see why NFL teams were starting to buzz louder and louder about his game.
So, his weakened knee not only put his current season at risk, it put his professional future at risk as well.
Yet, there he was – laughing with teammates during pre-game warm-ups Thursday night, running all of his offensive drills, and taking the field on Oregon’s opening possession. And all the while, he knew there was a time bomb ticking in his damaged knee.
However, his team was playing for the Holy Grail of college football – the BCS Title. Oregon had climbed all the way to #2 in the BCS rankings and really controlled their own destiny for a title opportunity. In fact, they were in one of the spots for a title game showdown at the moment of their match-up with Arizona on Thursday, and Dennis Dixon knew it. He also had to know that his team wasn’t going to get the rest of the way there without him. So, he stepped onto the field, assuming huge personal risk, mostly because his team’s dream season simply could not go on without him.
And on Oregon’s first drive of the game, things worked out beautifully. Facing a 4th-and-3, Dixon further showcased his lethal ability. Faking a pitch to Jonathan Stewart, he took the ball himself on a QB draw and raced 39 yards right through the heart of the Arizona defense for a score. It was an emphatic statement – you just don’t have enough to stop me.
But the time bomb never stopped ticking. No matter how much danger he showed to the opposition, more danger lurked in that knee. And on Oregon’s third series of the game, the time bomb finally went off. Planting on the weakened knee, he crumbled to the turf. The risk suddenly became horribly real.
Still, Dixon likely assumed that risk, because the dynamics of a locker room are far more complex than putting on the same uniforms and executing plays on the field. There is a unity, a loyalty among teammates, that supersedes the box score. With college football’s crown jewel to be had and with so much already invested in the chase, how could Dennis Dixon just walk away from all of that?
It is a heartbreaking tale. Yet, it is also a tremendously heartening story of honoring what it means to be a part of a team – what it means to sacrifice for something bigger than your own immediate desires.
In fact, it is reminiscent of another story about another athlete who gave his sporting life to help his team.
In 2002, the San Francisco Giants were in a desperate struggle to reach the MLB post-season. The team’s closer, Robb Nen, was one of the National League’s most feared gunslingers. He regularly kicked open the bullpen door with a 98-mph fastball and a logic-defying 96-mph slider in his holster, and that slider seemed to contradict physics. A pitch with that much break was simply not supposed to be thrown with that much velocity. Yet, Nen could, and MLB hitters seemed helpless against it.
However, down the stretch of the 2002 season, something wasn’t quite right. Nen’s fastball slowed, and his nuclear slider suddenly became human. With the Giants surging, Nen also had a secret.
His rotator cuff was in tatters, and the more he threw, the worse the pain got. However, his teammates kept turning to him every time a close game inched towards the ninth inning, and he simply refused to let them down.
So, he kept taking the ball, and he kept destroying his injured shoulder.
He still walked out to the mound with the same stoic demeanor, the same cool confidence of having toxic stuff that he could use at a moment’s notice to humiliate hitters, but it was false bravado. He was clinging to reputation and sheer guts to get hitters out, and they were starting to figure it out.
He helped the Giants get into the 2002 playoffs and kept closing games for them in the NLDS and the NLCS. Somehow, someway, he was practically willing his way through those final tense innings. And the pain was excruciating. With a World Series title just six outs away, things finally gave way. In Game 6 of the 2002 World Series, Robb Nen gave up the tying and, ultimately, game-winning runs on Troy Glaus’ 2-run double, vaulting the Los Angeles-Anaheim Angels past the Giants, 6-5.
That was the final inning Robb Nen ever pitched in the big leagues. It was later discovered that he’d destroyed his arm in trying to deliver a championship to his team.
As with Dennis Dixon, the tidal pull of loyalty to teammates, the honor of unity of the team, must have held sway with Robb Nen. How else could you possibly explain willingly tearing your body to pieces?
Perhaps, the even more remarkable thing in Dixon’s case is that he made such a sacrifice without the benefit o####uaranteed pro contract. In any event, I can only hope that such sacrifices don’t go unnoticed. In the rush to celebrate the transitory nature of scoreboard results, we shouldn’t forget to value the people over the games they play.
[Author’s note: Currently, Socratesofswat is holding a blogging contest where one blogger is assigned to “make a case” for their favorite team. See contest details, here. With that, I give you my case for my team, the San Francisco Giants.]
Chicks dig the long ball. In fact, if rule changes, park dimensions, and attendance figures are any decent barometer, apparently, so do the rest of us. And when it comes to hitting the long ball, few franchises have done it better over their collective history than the Giants.
The San Francisco Giants (and before that, the New York Giants) have nearly always been about power. Whether launching baseballs into the short right field porch at the Polo Grounds, the windswept bleachers at Candlestick Park, or the impossibly perfect scenery of McCovey Cove at AT & T Park, some of the game’s most prolific home run hitters have plied their trade for the franchise. As if to add an exclamation point to that, Barry Bonds passed Hammerin’ Hank this season atop the All-time home run list. However, he’s not alone in franchise lore. Before him, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, and Mel Ott combined to hit over 1,650 homers in their respective careers. Including Bonds, all are members of the 500-home run club, and Bonds and Mays rank number 1 and 4 on the All-time home run list. As if that weren’t enough, the team has always had other star players who could reach the cheap seats with some regularity as well. Although they weren’t top-tier greats like Bonds, Mays, and McCovey, they brought their share of venom at the plate.
The “Baby Bull”, Orlando Cepeda, got his start with the Giants. Cepeda made five All-star teams while with San Francisco and hit a career-high 46 bombs for the team in 1961. In 1951, Bobby Thomson hit one of the most famous home runs in baseball history (off the rival Dodgers, no less!) and gave Russ Hodges an excuse to make one of the greatest calls anyone has ever heard. The Giants win the pennant, indeed. In fact, Giants’ home run hitters have been around from the very start. Roger Connor, whose 138 career homers topped the category until the Bambino passed him in 1921, was a Giant. Bill Terry, the last NL player to hit .400, cranked out 23 homers and slugged over .600 that year (1930) as a Giant. The aforementioned Mel Ott spent all 22 of his big league seasons with the team and led the NL in home runs six times.
In 1986, Will “The Thrill” Clark homered in his very first MLB at-bat, an impressive blast to dead center in the cavernous Astrodome against the great Nolan Ryan. Three seasons later, he had an NLCS for the ages, hitting a blistering .650 with a pair of homers and 8 RBI in 5 games against the Cubs. (As an aside, one of my favorite Will Clark stories supposedly happened in the NLCS that year. Just before he sealed the deal with a go-ahead, run scoring base hit in Game 5, he was getting set to leave the on-deck circle when he was encouraged by teammates to “Just do it.” Clark responded by answering emphatically, “It’s done.”) Speaking of the postseason, Jeffrey “Hackman” Leonard hit 4 homers in 24 at-bats during the 1987 NLCS against St. Louis and proceeded to circle the bases with “one flap down” each time. In the 1954 World Series, a little known reserve outfielder and pinch-hitter extraordinaire named Dusty Rhodes launched a pair of homers in the team’s sweep of the Cleveland Indians.
And the list goes on. Names like Matt Williams, Jack Clark, Kevin Mitchell, and Jim Ray Hart conjure up yet more images of towering home runs for the team in Black-and-Orange.
You want pitching? Christy Mathewson won all but one of his 373 career victories with the Giants. In 1905, he started three games for the team in the World Series against the A’s and threw three complete game shutouts. 27 innings pitched and zero runs allowed, earned or otherwise. In 1908, he won 37 games with a 1.43 ERA and 11 shutouts.
“King Carl” Hubbell might best be known for striking out five of the game’s greatest hitters (Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, and Joe Cronin) in a row during the 1934 All-Star Game. However, his Hall of Fame career includes more than just that one spectacular moment. Armed with a devastating out pitch, the screwball, Hubbell dominated in the hitter-happy 1930’s. He routinely posted an ERA over a full run below the league average, leading the league in that category three times. He also won two MVP awards (1933 & 1936), a remarkable achievement for a pitcher.
The “Dominican Dandy”, Juan Marichal, was one of the first great Latin American pitchers. Before Pedro Martinez or Johan Santana, there was Marichal. With his signature high leg kick, Marichal set the standard for other great Latin American pitchers to follow. With 243 career wins (at a .631 winning percentage clip), a 2.89 career ERA, and 52 shutouts, it was an impressive standard.
You want defense? How about “The Catch”? You don’t even have to mention who made it or when it happened. It is one of the enduring images of the game, seared into the memories of baseball fans everywhere. The great Willie Mays, the “Say Hey Kid” himself, on a dead run with his back turned completely to the plate simply reached up and plucked Vic Wertz’ thundering drive out of the air with the ease of someone picking an apple off of a tree.
You want trophies and hardware? The franchise has 5 World Series titles and 20 NL Pennants. Their players have accumulated over 30 Gold Gloves, 13 MVP awards, and 5 Rookie of the Year awards. Barry Bonds, Willie Mays, Juan Marichal , and Willie McCovey alone have made 47 All-Star teams among them.
You want managers? How about John Joseph McGraw? McGraw, whom the playwright George Bernard Shaw once called “the one true American”, was an icon in the game. He was savagely competitive and baited umpires relentlessly. However, he was also was a supreme motivator and regularly molded his players into winners. So great was his ability to transform raw eager youngsters into confident, competent ballplayers that it was noted “he would take kids out of the coal mines and out of the wheat fields and make them walk and talk…and play ball with the look of eagles.” He managed the team for 31 seasons and won 2,583 games and 3 World Series titles while at the helm. Along with Connie Mack, McGraw remains probably the greatest combination of longevity and success ever to manage an MLB baseball team.
You want ballparks? People like to wax poetic about Fenway’s Green Monster or Wrigley’s ivy-covered walls, but the image of home run balls landing in the chilly waters of McCovey Cove at the Giants’ new home, AT & T Park, competes favorably on an aesthetic basis with any ballpark that was ever built. Add to that a perfect view of the Bay Bridge just over the left field bleachers and cable car bells ringing and fog horns blasting with every homer off the bat o####iants’ player, and you have an experience that is uniquely San Franciscan. By the way, the stadium’s actual address is 24 Willie Mays Plaza. Enough said.
Some may argue that the counterpoint to the outstanding ambience at AT & T is the Giants’ old home, Candlestick Park. A cold, concrete basin built in the middle of a wind tunnel, Candlestick achieved some degree of infamy for its lack of charm and equally inhospitable playing conditions. However, many locals will tell you that that was precisely what made Candlestick oddly great in its own twisted way. You didn’t go to watch a game there sipping lattes and getting a tan. You sat there with a cup of joe, freezing half to death solely because you wanted to watch a baseball game and were willing to put up with the elements howling in your face just to do it. And the more opposing fans and players groused about the conditions, the more the locals embraced the place. Yes, it was a dive, but it was OUR dive. In a brilliant bit of marketing, the team started to offer “Croix De Candlestick” pins to fans who stayed all the way through extra inning night games as a reward for their “bravery” in enduring the elements. Adding to the legend was the moment during the 1961 All-star Game when Giants reliever Stu Miller was allegedly forced into a balk by one of the ‘Stick’s infamous gusts. Though many have disputed how much Miller was actually affected by the wind that day, a balk was, in fact, called, and most who were familiar with the conditions at Candlestick had no trouble accepting the fact that the wind was definitely strong enough there to cause a pitcher to lose his balance on the mound.
Even the team’s New York home had tremendous character. The Polo Grounds were shaped like a horseshoe and included, in various incarnations, a daunting centerfield wall over 500 feet from home plate. However, that nearly unreachable distance was offset by the shallow distances directly down each foul line. Right field was particularly inviting, just 257 feet away from hitters. And it was the place where John McGraw presided like baseball royalty. It was the place Ralph Branca and Vic Wertz were made famous in anguish when guys for the home team made history against them. And, sadly, it was a place that met the wrecking ball in 1964 after the team left for the West Coast. Sometimes, we are in such a hurry to get to the future that we trample the past to get there.
However, in the Giants’ case, there is plenty to celebrate about one of baseball’s most storied franchises. The San Francisco/New York Giants are the team of Christy Mathewson and Willie Mays. They are the team of baseball’s All-time home run leader and a legacy of home run hitting legends. They conjure up images of “Splash Hits” and windblown infields and horseshoe configurations. They are unforgettable because of “The Catch” and “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World”. They are Russ Hodges screaming about won pennants in the broadcast booth and Lon Simmons telling home runs goodbye.
Mostly, they are about the cities they have played in. While in New York, they were McGraw’s tough guys, giving no quarter to the enemy. In San Francisco, they have been controversial but independent and resilient. And they are my team. Always have been and always will be. Perhaps, it is fitting that they play Tony Bennett’s “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” after every home game, because when he sings about cable cars climbing halfway to the stars it reminds me that sometimes certain things are so connected to certain places that they simply cannot be seen anywhere else. Like watching my favorite team play in my hometown.
It is probably a number worth repeating. 756. It is a number that has never been used in compiling the regular season home run total for a single player in Major League Baseball history. Until now.
Barry Bonds is Major League Baseball’s All-time Home Run Leader. That is not a statement of advocacy. Or a condemnation. It is now simply a statement of fact.
The instant bat met ball last night at AT & T Park Barry Bonds’ moment in history was distilled to its most basic element: a baseball player hitting a baseball. And if only for that instant, what actually happened in between the lines of a baseball diamond took its place above all else.
And in focusing squarely on that pitch at that moment in that park and the reaction and technique Bonds used to drive it out of the ballpark, one can appreciate the richness of the act of a home run itself.
Balance, speed, the proper timing of the hands, the correct angle of the bat, knowing a pitcher and what pitches he throws at what speed and with what degree of movement, considering the count and game situation and how that might effect pitch selection – a hitter needs all of that all at once, all in the time it takes to blink. And if he is fortunate enough to square the ball and hit it solidly, he then has to watch to see if the defense makes a play on the ball. If after all of that, he’s driven the ball solidly and squarely enough for it to leave the ballpark, then, and only then, can he relax and complete his circuit around the bases.
Fans see home runs hit every day, and most likely underestimate the difficulty it takes to produce just one.
Multiplied by 756 against the highest level of competition in the world, Bonds’ home run yesterday has to create some pause, some momentary suspension of the circus. With the maelstrom swirling about everything that led up to Bonds’ moment in history and everything that will undoubtedly follow it for the foreseeable future, I thought, for just this instant, it might be refreshing just to consider the moment. Not the character of the player in question. Not the validity of allegations of back room dealings and mystery elixirs. Not the significance of bronze plaques and lines in record books. Rather, just consider the simple perfection of a hitter squaring up a fastball and sending it into the heavens.
In that sense, baseball is still a beautiful game. It is still principally about a pitcher, a hitter, 60’6”, and the pitched ball. And what happened last night was still principally about that as well: a pitcher, a hitter, and a pitched ball. In this case, the hitter just happened to hit it out of the ballpark and was able to round the bases. For the 756th time in his big league career.
And if anyone says that’s something they’ve seen before, it wouldn’t be true. Certainly not as true as who MLB’s new All-time Home Run Leader is.
Most people know that pouring gasoline on an open flame is a highly volatile, potentially catastrophic activity. They also know that such an act is almost always destructive in nature.
Apparently, major league pitcher Armando Benitez is unfamiliar with the concept.
Benitez, until recently, was the unreliable, abrasive closer for the San Francisco Giants. In just over two seasons with the team, he converted 45 of 59 save opportunities (76%). Though, few, if any, of those saves seemed to happen easily. Most featured walked batters, ringing line drives, and tying or go-ahead runs tantalizingly close to completing their circuit to the plate. When water was needed to put out a blazing ninth-inning rally, Benitez predictably trotted out to the mound with a shiny can of unleaded.
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However, baseball’s most famous arsonist wasn’t always this prone to pyromania. In fact, he had had some tremendous seasons along the way, 1999 with the Mets (1.85 ERA, 22 saves, 128 k’s in 78 IP) and 2004 with Florida (1.29 ERA, 47 saves) chief among them. However, he had largely made a name for himself by throwing high 90’s heat and a brutal, knee-buckling splitter. By the time he reached the Giants in 2005, the heat had cooled to a rather pedestrian 90-91 mph and the splitter had developed an unnerving roundness to its break (that is, when it was even thrown anywhere near the strike zone in the first place).
Unfortunately, his loss of stuff wasn’t the only thing that had changed about Benitez over the years. His attitude had taken on a disturbingly indifferent tone once he walked into the Giants clubhouse. Losses were shrugged off. Teammates were blamed. And he just kept showing up for work with that damn gas can.
A closer is the baseball equivalent of an old West gunslinger - standing in the center of town with a blank stare, a holstered gun, and one chance to take care of business. The last thing a team needs is for their gunslinger to shoot himself in the foot. Repeatedly. In San Diego, they have no such worries. Ageless Trevor Hoffman and his eternally perplexing change-up just notched career save #500. Hell’s Bells, indeed. Hoffman has proven himself to be as reliable as a Swiss watch. By comparison, Armando Benitez has been the kind of watch that is offered by suspect looking pitchmen that begin their spiel , “Hey, buddy, you wanna buy a watch?”
Last week, the Giants finally relented and sent the mercurial closer, his trusted supply of gasoline, and his zippo to the Florida Marlins for middling reliever Randy Messenger. In addition, the Giants agreed to pay over $4 million of Benitez’s $5 million pro-rated salary. Messenger, who will turn 26 in August, had been effective with the Marlins this season (2.66 ERA in 23 appearances but had allowed 36 base runners in just over 23 innings as well). However, his career ERA is 4.89, and he has yet to show he can consistently command his pitches.
So, the Marlins get a closer with a career 2.99 ERA and 289 saves for the league minimum, and the Giants get a wild young reliever with a 4.89 career ERA plus they have to shell out over $4 million to cover a majority of the traded closer’s salary.
Most Giants fans will tell you that it was absolute steal for the home team.
Now, Benitez may very well get back on track at the scene of his best MLB season. He might even find a way to trade his gas can in for a sparkling jug of Alhambra. No matter. All Giants fans can hope for is that the scorched earth Benitez left behind at AT & T Park will start to revert back to a place where a pitcher can go to work without the fumes of gasoline in the air.
I know. The San Francisco Giants are old. They have a roster full of players as likely to wind up on the DL with a broken hip as a pulled hamstring. They have prune juice in the Gatorade coolers in the dugout. They have spring training in Arizona, because that’s where most other senior citizens spend February and March. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
However, an interesting twist on the same old, same old has started to take place at AT & T Park in recent weeks. The Giants have actually, gasp, gotten younger. And I’m not talking about the supposed rejuvenating effects of HGH. I’m talking about actual major league players in their 20’s playing for the black-and-orange.
Sure, there were a number 20-something pitchers who were expected to play key roles for the team from the very start of the season. Matt Cain (22) has been thought of as a future ace, Noah Lowry (26) already had two full seasons in the starting rotation prior to 2007, Jonathan Sanchez (24) showed promise as a useful bullpen arm after a mid-season call-up last year, and Kevin Correia (26) was the team’s best reliever in 2006. Even the Giants’ biggest free agent acquisition of the off-season, Barry Zito (29) is among that group.
However, a decidedly rarer species of baseball player (at least for the Giants’ organization of recent vintage) has been spotted around the old ballpark for San Francisco lately, the 20-something position player. With an offense built around Barry Bonds, Ray Durham, and Rich Aurilia, any infusion of youth was welcomed.
Though Bonds is still a dangerous and feared hitter, he’s also 42, has a pair of creaky knees, and is dragging around enough personal baggage to fill a #### trunk. Oh, and if all of that isn’t enough, he’s also probably viewed by most sports fans, fairly or not, as the biggest villain in the game. Durham is 35, had a career year in 2006 (26 homers, 93 RBI), and is far better suited to being a solid, complimentary hitter than a go-to guy batting clean-up. Aurilia is also 35, also had a nice bounce-back season a year ago (.300, 23 homers for Cincinnati), and is also far better in a supporting role than center stage.
So when 26-year old Fred Lewis hit for the cycle a couple weeks ago in Colorado, it was like a bolt out of the blue for a team with an offense mostly on the wrong side of 30. For Giants fans, who had gotten so used to seeing their star hitters sporting a touch of grey, seeing a young guy who could actually swing the bat was a bewildering experience. It was almost like a UFO sighting. Or rather a UBPO, an unidentified baseball-playing object.
Most Giants fans had the same two questions: who’s Fred Lewis and why hadn’t we heard of him before?
Turns out, Lewis wasn’t exactly tearing up the minor leagues before his big league call-up. In 2006, he hit .276 with 12 homers, 18 steals, and 105 k’s at AAA-Fresno. In 2007, he was going along at about the same pace (.263 with 4 homers and 22 k’s in 114 AB’s). He hadn’t shown up on many people’s radar simply because he hadn’t produced much to show up on radar.
But there he was, going 5-for-6 with 4 RBI against the Rockies on Mother’s Day, just four days after being called up from Fresno. And he looked for all the world like a guy who could make some noise at the MLB level – a slashing hitter with blazing speed and good defensive range.
However, the biggest surprise in the Giants’ 15-3 thumping of the Rockies was that Lewis wasn’t the only young hitter to make a splash in the San Francisco lineup that day. Utility man Kevin Frandsen (25) collected four hits and drove in three and outfielder Dan Ortmeier (26) added a pair of hits and a pair of RBI.
That’s three, count ‘em, three young players fresh off the farm who were all making loud noises from the batter’s bax. UBPO’s, indeed.
Of the three, Frandsen was the most well-known by Giants fans. A scrappy infielder with a head-first mentality on the diamond, Frandsen was being groomed to be the Giants’ starting 2B until Ray Durham channeled his inner Rogers Hornsby and prompted the team to re-up their newly found slugger. Frandsen’s recent call-up came with the caveat that his playing time would be based on his ability to adapt to other places on the field. Defensively, the results have been mixed, though he’s shown some impressive natural ability in the outfield. At the plate, his pesky, slap-hitting tendencies have translated much better. Through 18 games, he’s hitting .294.
Ortmeier has apparently taken Todd Linden’s place as Barry Bonds’ designated omni-replacement. Whether spelling Bonds late in games as a defensive sub or pinch-runner, it is now Ortmeier’s responsibility to take the field once Bruce Bochy has decided the big fellah has had enough. Linden had that job for 30 games before sputtering to a .182 average which led to a demotion to Fresno, and, eventually, his release from the team. To his credit, Ortmeier has fared much better (.364), albeit in limited duty (22 AB’s).
Since his headline-grabbing day in Colorado, Lewis has predictably cooled off. However, he’s still hitting a fairly robust .326 in 46 AB’s and has shown that his dangerous, slashing swing is, apparently, for real.
So, what to make of the three anomalies in black-and-orange? Are they hidden gems who just needed an opportunity to make their mark at the MLB level? Or are they middling prospects riding a short hot streak before a stumble back to mediocrity? Granted, their collective 2007 MLB sample size is as miniscule as the limited freebies handed out at the end-cap of a local supermarket. So, it’s difficult to know what, if anything, to make of this smattering of MLB games.
What I do know is that Lewis looks the most likely to have any long-term impact with the team. His speed is impressive, and he’s shown some ability to use the whole field when he’s at the plate. He probably needs to take some of the venom out of his swing to speed up his bat, but the potential is there. Frandsen looks like a player who can and will do all of the little things a good team needs its role players to do. There’s likely no stardom in his future, but there could well be several more seasons of MLB service time ahead of him. Ortmeier probably ought to get used to what he’s doing right now. If he stays on an MLB roster, it is likely to be as a late-inning backup who does just enough right to be a safety net on the bases and in the field.
Of course, the team’s highest-ceiling youngsters are still a pair of 22-year old pitchers, Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum. Lincecum, in particular, has bounced back nicely from his shaky MLB debut. However, that is another story for another day.
Today, the focus is on the rare bird that is a San Francisco Giants position player in his 20’s and the fact that the team actually has three of them making a little noise right now. And speaking of noise, in the words of the World's Loudest Rock Band, the kids are, for the moment, alright.
I have seen the future of the San Francisco Giants, and it has an 10.38 ERA.
Ok, in fairness to the Giants’ 22-year old pitching phenom, Tim Lincecum, that unimpressive ERA is the result of only a single start. Further, that start was Lincecum’s MLB debut in a nationally-televised game against a dangerous offensive team, the Philadelphia Phillies. So, if it is normal for a young pitcher to have butterflies before his MLB debut anyway, Lincecum likely walked out to the mound last night with small birds flying around in his stomach. However, the hoopla and anticipation of Lincecum’s maiden voyage in MLB waters was well-deserved.
Lincecum, the Giants’ first-round draft choice in 2006, was leaving the AAA Pacific Coast League in smoking ruins. The PCL, notoriously a hitter-friendly league, was proving no challenge for the Giants’ prized prospect. In five starts with Fresno this season, he was 4-0 and had only allowed a single run in 31 innings for a ridiculously low 0.29 ERA. That number is probably worth repeating, the kid’s ERA was 0.29. And it was no great surprise that his peripheral numbers were equally impressive: 12 hits, 11 walks, and 46 strikeouts in those 31 innings.
However, success was nothing new to Lincecum. In his senior season at the University of Washington, he went 12-4 with a 1.94 ERA, struck out 199 hitters in just over 125 innings, and won the 2006 Golden Spikes Award as the nation’s best amateur baseball player. San Francisco made him the 10th pick overall in the 2006 MLB amateur draft and sent him immediately to rookie ball in Salem-Keizer and then to A-ball in San Jose. His combined minor-league numbers in 2006 seemed to justify his draft status – 2-0, 1.71 ERA, 14 hits, 12 walks, and 58 strikeouts in 31 2/3 innings.
So, Lincecum, who bears an eerie resemblance to Ferris Bueller’s sidekick Cameron, stepped on the pitcher’s mound last night at AT & T Park with a minor league stat sheet that read like something out of Walter Johnson’s scrapbook - 6-0 record, 1.01 ERA, 101 strikeouts in just over 62 innings. And it took him exactly one inning to find out that The Show isn’t easily impressed.
After Jimmy Rollins bounced a single up the middle to lead off the game, Lincecum flashed his high-90’s fastball by Shane Victorino twice to get ahead in the count, 0-2. Now, he’d probably been able to get away with a bad pitch or two at lesser levels, but when his 0-2 curveball hung in the fat part of the strike zone, Victorino hit it all the way Sausalito. And just like that, Lincecum had already given up more runs than he’d given up all year at AAA. Welcome to the big leagues, kid.
To his credit, Lincecum ended up striking out the side, including zipping a nasty outside fastball by reigning NL MVP Ryan Howard. However, one thing that Lincecum will learn is that big league hitters can hit big league fastballs if they eat up too much of the strike zone, even those that are thrown in the high-90’s. So, in the third inning with two out and a man on, he missed on a pitch at the belt to Ryan Howard, and the big fellah crushed it. If Victorino’s first-inning blast ended up in Sausalito, Howard’s third-inning bomb probably went all the way to Santa Rosa.
When Howard came up again with one out and one on in the fifth, his mammoth blast two innings earlier earned him an intentional walk with first base open. An unintentional walk to Pat Burrell loaded the bases, brought Lincecum to the 100-pitch mark, and ended his big league debut when Vinny Chulk was summoned from the bullpen. The Giants ended up losing the game, 8-5, but Lincecum did not figure in the decision.
So, the Giants’ potential future staff ace headed off to the showers with the following pitching line: 4 1/3 innings, 5 hits, 5 earned runs, 5 walks, 5 strikeouts, and a no-decision. Not exactly the stuff of Walter Johnson.
However, what Lincecum did show was that he belongs in the major leagues. His fastball is as nasty as advertised, but his command and pitch pattern needs some work. Experience and some growing pains should allow that to work itself out. His curveball can be a great off-speed weapon, but command (or lack thereof) is again a key. In all, he pitched better than the numbers indicate. He was hurt by the walks but was really stung by the two bad pitches to Victorino and Howard. And since Howard hit 58 round-trippers in 2006, there’s no real shame in allowing a homer to such a prodigious power hitter.
If anything, last night was a fairly ringing wake-up call to a talented young pitcher who may have had things going a little too perfect in his favor. If he’s smart, and he appears to be, he will learn from his mistakes and keep improving each time out by applying that experience to each of those situations. In fact, he needs only to look in his own dugout for inspiration.
Matt Cain, who’s actually two-and-a-half months younger than Lincecum, came into the league in 2005 with nearly as much fanfare and had to work on some of the same issues that Lincecum is now facing - controlling an overpowering fastball, learning to mix pitches to keep hitters off-balance, and limiting mistake pitches in dangerous parts of the strike zone.
To Cain’s credit, his hard work has paid off. He already has 275 innings of MLB experience on his resume and an impressive 3.70 ERA over that stretch.
If Lincecum should work out as well, the Giants would have a one-two punch that would be the envy of the league. So, Lincecum’s future is still bright, but it’s probably safe not to have to wear shades for the time being.
With the first month of the MLB season in the books, I've noticed an alarming number of celebrity lookalikes on the baseball diamond so far this year. Last month, I did a college basketball "Separated at Birth" post (here) of collegiate hoops players and their celebrity lookalikes. This month, here are some MLB players and their "Separated at Birth" twins.
Exhibit 1 - Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Brad Penny and Larry the Cable Guy
Do you think Penny asked the Dodgers if he could cut the sleeves off of his jersey?
Exhibit 2 - San Francisco Giants pitching phenom Matt Cain and Bobby Hill from the animated TV series "King of the Hill"
I wonder if Cain says, "I said, 'Good Day, Sir!' " to each batter he strikes out.
Exhibit 3 - Boston slugger David Ortiz and stand-up comic George Wallace
Big Papi seems like a pretty funny guy, so if he were to switch places with Wallace, people probably wouldn't notice. However, I'm guessing if Wallace were to don a Sox uniform, things might not go as well.
Exhibit 4 - Phillies slugger Ryan Howard and Rapper KRS-One
The Teacha meets the Hittah.
Exhibit 5 - Arizona manager Bob Melvin and former "America's Funniest Home Videos" host Bob Saget
I'm guessing that showing a bunch of videos of people getting hit in the nads is easier than being a Major League manager.
Exhibit 6 - New York Yankees outfielder Johnny Damon and the Geico caveman
Geico, so easy even a New York Yankee can do it?
Exhibit 7 - Former journeyman reliever Will Cunnane and the kid from "Deliverance"
Brings new meaning to the term "banjo hitter", I guess.
Exhibit 8 - Arizona closer Jose Valverde and former "Fresh Prince" star Alfonso Ribeiro
Carlton Banks throwing 90+ mph cheese. It just doesn't look right.
Exhibit 9 - Reds reliever David Weathers and Tackleberry from the "Police Academy" movies
I wonder how many times a day Weathers gets called "Tackleberry" or if he can sit and watch a "Police Academy" movie without wanting to throw his TV set out the window.
Baseball, sunny summer afternoons, frosty beer, and pitchers who look like Larry the Cable Guy. What more could you ask for? Play Ball!
Unknown players tend to own MLB Spring Training. Names and faces you’ve never heard of seem to rule all of the March box scores. These unfamiliar players with the jersey numbers of football linemen are crushing the ball, stealing bases at will, and flying all over the field making sparkling defensive plays. It’s dizzying. And misleading.
Since most of MLB’s star players use the annual trek to Arizona and Florida as an excuse to play a little baseball and a lot of golf, there’s not much need for them to spend much time sharpening their already razor-sharp skills on the diamond. So, a majority of the games in March are being played by fringe players hoping to claim the last few remaining roster spots. And whether it is a raw rookie looking to bypass a minor league stop or two on the way to The Show, a so-called “Quad-A” player who has nothing left to prove at the Triple-A level but hasn’t shown quite enough skill to stay in the big leagues for good, or an aging veteran just hoping for a few more moments in the sun, they all take March baseball very seriously.
In the case of the younger players, they’re not just hungry. They’re starving.
So, most of the crooked numbers that will show up in the box scores over the next few weeks in Arizona and Florida are being produced by players who, if they even make the big league roster at all, are likely only to make minimal contributions to the team once the regular season starts. And those Spring Training numbers will only be gaudy, because they are largely being compiled against a bunch of guys who won’t even make big league rosters. Of course, there are instances of the rare phenom, an unknown talent that seems to burst onto the scene out of nowhere. However, the far more common scenario is that a marginal player gets into a two-to-three week groove against equally marginal competition. Lest one put too much emphasis on impressive Spring Training numbers from an otherwise unknown player, I have two words of caution.
Randy Elliott.
Those people on the floor are SF Giants fans who have fallen out of their chairs.
During Spring Training in 1977, Randy Elliott was Jimmie Foxx playing in a slow-pitch softball league. He was a right-handed home run terror crushing baseball after baseball in the Arizona desert. He was also a career minor leaguer who had all of 82 at-bats of MLB experience, a .207 career average, and exactly one big league homer.
However, at 26, there was still time for him to reach whatever MLB potential he had. And with each towering home run or wicked line drive he hit for the San Francisco Giants that spring, he started to convince more and more people that he could get there. While the Giants were also banking on a hard-hitting 21-year old rookie outfielder named Jack Clark to provide some power, the thought that Elliott might also help to bolster the offense was encouraging. Elliott was found money to the team, and how much value he would ultimately register climbed with every vicious swing he took in Spring Training.
With Clark in RF and Big Bad Randy Elliott bombing homers in LF, the potential of the Giants OF suddenly brightened. However, a funny thing happened on the way to baseball stardom for Elliott. Though he may have been Superman in the Arizona desert, he was Clark Kent in San Francisco. Maybe he left the cape on the plane (though, after the spring Elliott had in Arizona, Giants fans wouldn’t have been surprised if the guy flew to the Bay Area without a plane). More likely, the mirage of Randy Elliott, home run hitting hero, was quickly exposed by the brutal reality of major league pitching.
Whatever the reason, Elliott hit .240 with 7 homers and 29 RBI for the Giants in 1977 and was out of baseball entirely four seasons later.
So, beware of the unknown player making a big splash during March baseball. The numbers don’t necessarily lie. They just might not tell the entire truth.
He must have thought things would turn out differently.
As a high school baseball phenom, he played alongside Darryl Strawberry at Crenshaw High, was drafted by the San Francisco Giants, and quickly climbed the team’s minor league ladder. Although Straw made it to the Show first, his Crenshaw teammate wasn’t far behind. And when the Giants finally promoted their prized rookie to the big leagues, he made the transition seamlessly.
In 1986, 24-year old Chris Brown played in the MLB All-Star Game, representing the San Francisco Giants and the National League. Three years later, he was out of baseball.
However, Brown’s life was filled with curious twists and turns. Even during his playing days, he was an enigma, talented enough to be an All-star but with enough questions about his effort and desire that he drifted through three teams in a six-year career before fading from the scene entirely.
Even in his lone All-star season, he hit .317 and swiped 13 bases but missed over a quarter of the season with a myriad of injuries. And there were whispers that much of that missed time was due to minor aches and pains rather than any sort of debilitating injury. Though Brown insisted he was hurt, the whispers just kept getting louder.
In 1987, Brown missed more time, playing in only 38 games heading into July. And his production was slipping. So, the Giants cut him loose, trading him to San Diego as part of a seven-player deal that netted the Giants 3B-OF Kevin Mitchell, P Dave Dravecky, and P Craig Lefferts.
Although Brown hit 6 homers in just 44 games with the Padres, he continued to spend as much time in the trainer’s room as he did on the field, and his average dipped to .232. In 1988, he lost more time to injuries. However, because his effectiveness even when healthy was also waning, there seemed less pressure and willingness to free up playing time for him. In 80 games, Brown hit only .235 with a pair of homers, and the Padres had seen enough.
However, at 27, Chris Brown still had the Siren’s Call of potential clinging to him. So, the Detroit Tigers sailed right into the rocks, still hoping that Brown was going to somehow transform into Mike Schmidt. Or at least, Mike Pagliarulo.
The Tigers traded for Brown prior to the 1989 season but lasted less than two months in the Motor City. In 17 games, he hit just .193 with no homers and four RBI. On May 19, Detroit decided it would be better off without a 27-year old former All-star 3B than with him.
And well before his 30th birthday, Chris Brown’s dreams of baseball stardom were over. The rest of his life beckoned without a hint of the game he loved even remotely in the picture. And his post-baseball years proved every bit as enigmatic as his playing days.
A devoted family man, he resurfaced in the news in 2004 for accepting a job with Halliburton that sen
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