I’m certainly not the first one to point out that the reputation of Tony LaRussa as one of the game’s most intellectually astute and capable managers might just be a lot of hype. For example, check out Deadspin’s take on LaRussa’s decision-making HERE.

And this just in from an article on MLB.com from August 25 titled, “LaRussa Defends Defense”:

“’You can say what you want to, I'll say what I want to,’ La Russa said. ‘I think we have an above-average defensive club. Don't try to talk me out of it, because it's not going to change.’”

Also in that same article:

“The Cards rank 15th out of 16 in the National League in fielding percentage with a .980 clip and have committed the second-most errors in the NL, despite playing the fewest games…

La Russa pointed out that their three players on the club who have won a Gold Glove at some point in their career…and there are four other players who the skipper considers "above average" in David Eckstein, Aaron Miles, Juan Encarnacion and Chris Duncan.”

Ultimate Zone Ratings as of 07-09:

·         Chris Duncan – 509th out of a total of 742 players rated with a projected -12 runs saved per 150 games, 31.4 percentile ranking; 94th out of 136 left fielders rated

·         Juan Encarnacion – 559th out of 742, -19 runs saved per 150 games, 24.7 percentile ranking; 66th out of 102 third basemen rated

·         Aaron Miles – 632nd out of 742, -33 runs saved per 150 games, 14.8 percentile ranking

·         David Eckstein – 330th out of 742, 55.6 percentile ranking, 3 runs saved per 150 games; 41st out of 82 shortstops rated

So, let me see if I have this correctly – the team is second to last in the entire league in fielding percentage, having committed more errors than all but one other team even while playing fewer games than any other team, is the same team that Tony LaRussa considers “above average.”  Not only that, he specifically mentions four players as above average, three of whom (Duncan, Encarnacion, and Miles) are demonstrably inferior defensively to the majority of players, and one (Eckstein) who is 41st out of 82 shortstops rated, by definition exactly average. According to the UZR nearly 70% of left fielders are an improvement over Duncan, and more than 75% of all third basemen help their teams defensively more than (or in this case, it would be more accurate to say that they don’t hurt their teams as much as) Encarnacion.

Now, we’ve all heard the saying about seeing the world through rose-#### glasses, but this takes things to an entirely new level. This is just plain delusional. Anyone who has watched Chris Duncan flail away in left field on routine plays could tell you that he is absolutely NOT A GOOD DEFENSIVE PLAYER. But it is more than that. This is not about judgment calls, or anecdotal evidence. This is about forming a conclusion on the basis of statistical evidence compiled over the first half of the season. Or, in LaRussa’s case, it’s about forming a conclusion in direct opposition to the available evidence, and then flatly refusing to even entertain the notion that you might be wrong. Just for the record, that’s not smart.

I was watching First Take on ESPN the other day before I rolled out of bed to start my day, and Skip Bayless, he of the most emphatic opinions based on the least amount of factual data possible, decided to spout more negative energy about a topic that he by his own admission has no first-hand experience with. If we can take him at his word, he has never played fantasy football, but yet he feels the need to rant about how much he hates it. He superciliously opines that fantasy football has somehow ruined the game for true fans (of which of course he is a charter member), and that Skip, as a connosseur of football, is one of the enlightened few who understand and appreciate the purity of the real game. For emphasis, he adds, "My HAIR hates fantasy football!"

Huh?? Is that supposed to make sense? Your hair hates fantasy football? What a coincidence! My fingernails just happen to be really down on fantasy golf. And now that you mention it, my hair is a little annoyed by NASCAR. But my toe jam just LOVES college basketball...

Now, I'm a big fantasy baseball addict, having played since the mid-80s when you had to wait for every Tuesday when USA Today would come out with the stats for the last week, and then wait another day or two for whoever was dumb enough to get roped into being the league commissioner to tally up the stats by hand in order to get your standings for the week. No real time scores, no up-to-the-second standings, no adds/drops with the click of a mouse. I'm pretty much in agreement with ESPN's Matthew Berry when he says that the single greatest thing about the Internet is fantasy sports (aside from porn, of course). But I digress.

I have to admit, I've never been attracted to fantasy football. Football itself just doesn't strike me as a game that lends itself to statistical quantification nearly as well as baseball. Plus, I'm just a bigger baseball fan. But you know what? I don't care if somebody wants to play fantasy football. As a lifelong baseball fan, I don't care if somebody does or doesn't want to play fantasy baseball, either. What does it matter? It doesn't change my experience o####ame. When I see Ichiro take an absolutely flawless route to a ball hit in the gap, and marvel at the perfection of his footwork as he pivots to make a laser-like throw to second base and turn a certain double into a single, I could care less if some guy cares that Ichiro just cost his batter an extra base. It doesn't diminish the spectacular athleticism one single iota. Why does Skip Bayless give a rat's behind if a few million people want to engage in a perfectly harmless pasttime? Why is it so seemingly impossible to appreciate the excitement and athleticism of the actual game and at the same time revel in the vicarious competition of fantasy football?

The only explanation that I could come up with is that Skip Bayless is just a bitter, twisted, crotchety #### who somehow thinks that only his idea of what is fun should be the standard by which all others should be judged. He's like a wine snob in a beer bar, trying desperately to belittle everyone that doesn't share his personal taste, and worse than that, trying to make people feel badly for enjoying something that they really love. Again, I ask, what's the problem? Skip Bayless does not have a monopoly on good, clean, sports fun. Never having played fantasy football, I am at a loss to understand how he can make such judgments. Maybe we'll have to start calling him Sam-I-Am Bayless. And until he tries those Green Eggs and Ham, he should sit down, stop whining, and let everybody have their fun.

Now, don't get me wrong - as a professional historian, I understand perhaps as well or better than anyone that history is a creative process, one informed by the perspective of the historian, the audience, and the social, intellectual, and political contexts. However, what Steve Phillips suggested on the Sunday July 22nd edition of BBTN is simply ridiculous, insulting, and perhaps even pernicious. In case you missed it, Mr. Phillips insisted that Bonds MUST break the all-time home run record in San Francisco, and that if he doesn't accomplish the feat on the upcoming home stand, the Giants should bench him for the following series against the Dodgers and the Padres until they return home to San Francisco. His emphatic insistence was based upon the claim that such an important record would be tainted by an unfriendly reception at a hostile ballpark, and that baseball history cannot afford to remember such an important event in a negative light.

This point of view seems to me to be completely without merit, for any number of reasons:

 First, the fact is that if Bonds surpassing Aaron's mark has been tainted, that it is the actions of Bonds himself that have done so, and that an unreceptive visiting ballpark will do absolutely nothing to change for good or ill whatever negative sentiment is attached to this achievement.

Second, there is no guarantee that any audience will react with the disdain that Phillips expects. According to Steve Phillips, if Bonds breaks the mark on the road, it will be met with booing, objects thrown on the field, and other heinous and unsightly behavior that he could only hint at. No one knows exactly how he has come to possess this kind of foresight, especially when recent evidence completely contradicts this gloomy forecast. In fact, when Bonds homered twice in one game in Chicago recently, despite being booed for his plate appearances, the crowd cheered wildly when he connected on both home runs. It is possible, in fact, that even if this were to happen, that history would applaud Bonds for his single-minded pursuit of the record in the face of adversity. After all, much has been made of Aaron's continued quest of Ruth's then-record, despite the desires of many to see him fail.

Third, Phillips claimed that benching Bonds against the series with the first-place Dodgers and second-place Padres would have no impact on the standings, seeing as how the Giants are hopelessly out of the pennant race. Again, one wonders as to how exactly Mr. Phillips obtains his precognitive abilities, but fellow BBTN commentator John Kruk was quite right to point out that the above-.500 Diamondbacks (3.5 games behind the division-leading Dodgers and 2.5 games behind the Padres) and the .500 Rockies (5.5 games behind the Dodgers and 4.5 behind the Friars) might feel differently that the single best player on the Giants would be held out of games against both teams ahead of them in the standings. In fact, one could very easily argue (and Kruk did) that this would pose a very tangible advantage for the Dodgers and Padres, and therefore indeed has the potential to alter the playoff picture.

Fourth, and perhaps most significant, what Phillips suggests is to actively "stage" history. He seems to think that by deliberately creating an environment in which Bonds is met by a cheering multitude as he rounds the bases after breaking arguably the most hallowed record in baseball, perhaps even all of sports, that this is somehow a net positive for baseball. Isn't it possible that such a deliberate and obvious act of spin control would have the opposite effect? Doesn't it seem plausible that in retrospect, watching Bonds round the bases to cheering San Francisco fans after he was held out of the preceding road trip would ring hollow and only serve as a reminder of the crass and shallow artifice that would go into arranging such an event?

I have this to say to Steve Phillips - Let the events unfold as they should, without staging and without meddling. That, after all, is one of the great attractions of sport, namely the unpredictability and spontaneity of what happens on the field of play. By attempting to choreograph what happens, you will be contaminating the essential virtue of sport. Remember, later generations have a way of remembering the past in ways that are often impossible to predict. If the Giants attempt to become architects of history, rather than simply remain bystanders in it, they will run the risk of doing more damage to its remembrance among future generations than anything that Bonds may or may not have done.

Now that it appears that Ichiro Suzuki has agreed in principle to a five-year, $100 million contract with the Mariners, it's only a matter of time before some people start falling all over themselves to laud Ichiro for his generosity in giving the M's some sort of home team discount. Before that takes place,  I just wanted to try, probably futilely, to inject some perspective.

Ichiro, if the deal is consummated as expected, stands to make close to $125k per game, and that's assuming he plays all 810 games over the course of the contract. In addition, there will undoubtedly be performance incentives that will almost assuredly earn him even  more money for the sake of doing what he's going to be paid $100 million to do in the first place.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't begrudge any athlete making whatever money a team is willing to shell out. After all, I certainly wouldn't be kicking and screaming if my employer decided they wanted to throw that kind of money my way. Plus, it's not like there is no precedent. A-Rod, for one, averages $25.2 million a year, AND he has a performance bonus for making the All-Star Team. Shouldn't the highest paid player in all of professional baseball be expected to make the All-Star Team? I mean, if I'm The Boss, and I'm shelling out that kind of cash (and remember, the Yanks are over the salary  limit so A-Rod's salary essentially incurs an additional 40% excise tax), I would be outraged if Rodgriguez didn't make the team. In addition, if you can argue that A-Rod is worth $25.2 million (and everybody expects that he will opt out of this contract and his agent Scott Boras will attempt to argue that he's worth even MORE), and you can say that Zito is worth $126 million for seven years, then you can definitely make the case that Ichiro is worth $100 million for five years.

I'm convinced that in the next few days or weeks that somebody is going to claim that Ichiro is somehow doing the Mariners a favor by not testing the free agent waters and SETTLING for $100 million over five years for a guy who relies heavily on his foot speed and will be thirty-six years old by the end of the contract. With all of the big-name free agent center fielders hitting the market at the end of this season, who's to say that Suzuki would be able to get that much?

Again, I'm not criticizing Ichiro for taking the money. I mean, wouldn't you take it if you could? I know I would. I'm just saying let's not canonize him as a saint for his generosity in accepting such a measly amount. He's a unique talent, and he brings a skill level on both the offensive and defensive sides that is almost unmatched. However, he has also been openly critical of some of his teammates in the press, and there is ample reason to speculate that he had a role in prompting the abrupt resignation of Mike Hargrove. That's not exactly behavior that I would associate with Mother Theresa. Let's enjoy watching him bring his singular abilities to the field every day, and let's congratulate him on his apparently imminent payday, but let's stop short before we thank him for doing the Mariners the favor of accepting a salary more than 400 times the median household income in our country.