Did I mention this was 88 years ago?

The Lou Gehrig tributes by MLB this weekend made me go back to the New York Times archives to see how the events were reported at the time.  Sure enough, there was a story about plans to honor Gehrig including a reunion of the 1927 New York Yankees.

select.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F...

The 27' Yankees are regarded as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, teams of all time.  But over time they've become Ruth, Gehrig and twenty-two anonymous players.  By the time Gehrig made his famous speech, most of the supporting cast was already fading from memory.

Which is why New York Times writer John Kieran took the time to write an article featuring some of the lesser known Yankees from the 1920's like third baseman Joe Dugan, backup catcher Benny Bengough, and the talented (but not well known) Bob Meusel.

Meusel was a .300 hitter with power who occupied the #5 spot behind Ruth and Gehrig in 1927.  He was good enough to actually bat cleanup ahead of Gehrig in the 1926 World Series loss to the Cardinals. 

In the course of recounting Meusel's accomplishments at the plate and in the field, Kieran recounted this story:

"With the Yankees in those old days was a pitcher who was a bit boastful of his prowess as a strong man, an all around athlete, and a two gun guy from the wild Southwest.  He carried a gun in his suitcase, too.  One night in a Pullman scuffle this desparado declared himself mightily incensed and began to threaten some of the scufflers with the gun.  Bob Meusel stepped in, grabbed the gun slapped the alleged desparado across the face and promised to chase him off the club if he ever showed a gun again while he was with the Yankees."

Kieran named no names, so there the story sat.  Curiosity wouldn't let it stay there.

Who was the armed Yankee pitcher?  We know he was an "all around athlete" and from the Southwest.  How many pitchers could there be from the Southwest on the Yankees during the time Meusel played with them?

Just one.

Rip Collins real name was Harry Warren Collins.  He got the name "Rip" after a brand of whisky.  The big right hander played one season with Meusel (1921).  That was the year Ruth hit 59 home runs (then a record) and took the Yankees to the World Series for the first time.

Collins had been a college football player for Texas A&M.  He was well known for punting 23 times against Texas in 1915 for an average of 55 yards a kick.  Thirteen of the punts were fumbled and one of the fumbles lead to the only touchdown of the game, scored by Collins himself.  The Aggies upset Texas 13-0, which indeed would have made Collins the "all around athlete" of the story.

Not surprisingly, Collins disappears from Yankee history the next season.  The RedSox, Tigers, and Browns stuck with him long enough for Collins to post a 108-82 record but he never lived up to his potential.

What does a "desparado" do after baseball?  In Collins case law enforcement.  He found more productive uses for his fondness for fire arms and became a sheriff back in Texas.

What if this happened today instead of 1921?

For one thing, we would be blogging about it for months to come.  The authorities would have suspended Collins.  The New York Times would have used to incident to editorialize on gun control.  ESPN would post hourly updates, with grim faced reporters expressing shock and outrage.

Collins would have been filmed leaving Yankee Stadium behind a cordon of security and a team of lawyers.  Meusel would decline comment (which he apparently did in the best of times).  And the Babe?  Ruth would appeared on camera with his cigars chastizing reporters for making a big deal over nothing.

That was then, this is now.  The Yankees are a corporation, Steve McNair is shot dead by an automatic weapon, and the Iranians are working on getting nukes.

Makes you miss 1921.

Baseball is unbreakable.

Unlike the US economy, bad governance can't put a dent in baseball.  It has an internal consistency which not even a weak commissioner, steroidal malcontents, clueless owners, addled GM's, and Scott Boras can ruin.

But they do try.

Ignore the 300 pound transvestite at the family picnic that is the designated hitter.

The most ridiculous affront to baseball (and common sense) is the division setup which renders the regular season not meaningless, but not exactly entrancing.  A system by which we spend each September trying to whip up excitement over who will finish second.

The wild card. 

Fail to win more games than your hated rival?  Not to worry.  You can always be the Al Franken of baseball.  "I'm good enough.  And smart enough.  And I won one more game than the rest of those losers."  (Or words to that effect).

As an added bonus, since you've battled down to the wire in a "pennant race" your team has a sharpened edge going into the playoffs and just as much chance as the team which won more games than any other in the league.

Wild card teams have been to nine World Series and won four of them.  They have made the championship series roughly fifty percent of the time.

Baseball's response has been to rhapsodize about the number of teams whose fans have thrilled to the race for second place.  To point out how often "the little guys" get to the playoffs as a result.

Little guys like the Yankees and RedSox, who own nine of the fifteen wildcard (pennants?) in the American League.

Want to know how not to go to the World Series?  Have the best record in your league.  Only four times this decade has the team with the best regular season record in their league gone to the World Series.  And never, not a single time, have to two best teams in the regular season faced each other in the World Series.

So what is the World Series?

Nothing more than the last round of the playoffs. Which is a great thing if you are the NBA or the NHL but not so good if you play 162 games and want to finish the season before the first snow fall.

How to fix it.

You could, but it won't happen.

Simple reason.  Let's say you are the General Manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates.  If baseball had four "leagues" instead of six divisions someone (usually Pittsbugh) would be in 8th place.  Or, call it by it's proper name, last place.

Put a bad team in a small division and you're just two places out of fourth.  Place that same team in a smaller division and you can finish fifth (and last).  But fifth sounds much better than the abject mediocrity of eigth.

The wild card system, and it's occasional Tampa Bay Rays or Colorado Rockies intrusion into post season also allows baseball to ignore the ability of income heavy teams to buy a spot in the playoffs year after year, while fully one third of the teams are out of the running before the season starts.

"What problem.  Look at the Rays.  See, small market teams can compete."

Nonsense.

Which brings us to another reason MLB will never fix the broken division system.

The leagues are unbalanced.  Fourteen teams in the AL and sixteen in the NL. 

Why?

Probably because major league owners are as capable of coming in out of the rain and agreeing to fix an obvious problem as Manny Ramirez is of being a good teammate. Plus, the odds of finding two more suckers to join the club to make thirty-two teams is getting slimmer as the economy worsens.

The best thing for baseball would be four eight team "leagues" aligned geographically.  The Mets and Yankees, Cubs and WhiteSox, Reds and Indians, Dodgers and Angels, Giants and A's should be in the same division and fans should get a full schedule of these matchups instead of the "treat" of "special" interleague games.

Four leagues (and no interleague play) would make the post season matter.  A shorter playoff system would make baseball's postseason mean something again and drive up TV ratings.  As it stands now, owning the rights to broadcast the first round of the playoffs is owning the rights to a whole lot of nothing.

There is only one way things will change.  That is for the TV networks to force the issue.  When the ratings finally get low enough that the networks refuse to pay for the farce the playoff system has become, then something will happen.

Until then, just remember, the 2009 World Series is coming soon.

October 28, 2009.

Who would you invite to dinner if you could pick from anyone in all of history?

It's one of those "what if" questions designed to get people talking.  The usual response is naming great thinkers, religious figures, and politicians.  Nobody really would want to meet Shakespeare or Lincoln, but if we said who we'd really want to meet we'd appear shallow.

I don't have a problem with appearing shallow.  When they compile the list of the 500 deep thinkers of 2009, my name won't be on the list.  I've got cable TV.  Why would I want to waste time solving global warming when ESPN 2 has the Division III croquet championships?

I have two lines of thought about the whole question of who to invite to this hypothetical dinner.  There's the people I'd like to meet, and the people I'd like to put together in a room to watch the fights break out.

I'd put Jim Brown, with his robes and attitude, next to Ty Cobb.  Bobby Knight would probably enjoy that show.  He'd be there, right next to Stephon Marbury.  They could talk about the virtues of team play and defense.

Maybe I'd invite Brett Favre and sit him next to the guy who played the insurance salesman on "Groundhog Day".  "You're probably thinking about retirement.  Two words for you Brett.  I can call you Brett?  Term life.  Am I right, or am I right."

Kobe and Shaq would make good dinner companions.  Shaq could tell Kobe how great LeBron James is, and Kobe could show him his ring.  That he won.  By himself.

You'd invite Randy Johnson, Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro, and Mark McGwire and then listen to the sound of the clock slowly ticking away the long, silent hours.

But if I had to play it straight up and invite four people I'd really like to have met it wouldn't be difficult to pick them out.

It isn't a party without Babe Ruth.  The one guy who the other three famous guys would be in awe of.  And the least pretentious man in the room.  I think it would be fun to be called "Kid" by the Babe.  The bar tab and food bill would be enormous, but who would care?

Don Meredith.  How could a Cowboy fan not invite Meredith?  The stories he could tell.  Landry, the title games with Green Bay, Monday night football with Cosell.  And when we all would end up a little worse for wear, he could lead us in a few country songs.

Roberto Clemente.  Why? Because he's the biggest mystery among the Hall of Famers.  The press knocked him for most of his career, and he wasn't that open with them.  I'd want to ask him how it felt to play the game.  To be able to do things nobody else could on a baseball field. 

Charles Barkley.  I know, I know.  He's everything his worst critics say about him.  But he's never at a loss for words.  And you know you'd end up laughing hard before the evening was over.

There's only one thing I'd have to be sure of before I'd agree to this mythical dinner party.

Nobody tells Howard Cosell where we're meeting up at.

Catcher Brad Ausmus has resigned with the Astros for $7.5 million dollars.  Tim Papura, the Astros GM who inked the two year deal with the 37 year old .253 hitter, made the announcement at a press conference in a Howard Johnson's conference room he rented for $375,000 an hour.  Afterwards, he showed reporters his newly obtained 1978 Dodge Dart, which he "stole" for a mere $563,000.  To understand the deal, Papura said, "You need to get a good look at the cup holder.  I got it free, and the salesman said it's normally a $4,500 option."

When questioned about the Ausmus deal, Papura explained that without Ausmus the ball would have rolled to the back stop when Houston pitchers were on the mound, delaying the game and giving opposing teams freedom to roam the bases at will.  "I just couldn't take that sort of chance.  Great teams are built around strong defense."

In a busy day for the Astros, Papura also announced the resigning of backup catcher Raul Chavez for $400,000.  Through a spokesman, Chavez blamed himself for his paltry contract saying "When Brad came out of Papura's office with $7.5 million dollars, his family photographs, and the pants he was wearing I should have known there wouldn't be much left for me."

The Astros, reportedly in serious negotiations with the agent for the late Cy Young (who is seeking a 6 year, $45 million dollar deal) also signed free agents Rafael Landestoy (2 years, $5 million dollars and the title to Papura's home),  Bert Roberge (3 years, $10 million, and the train atop the left field fence), and Norm Miller (1 year, $2.4 million, and Papura's new big screen TV).

This should close out the Astros winter moves.  Papura will be unavailable until May, recovering from the removal of portions of his shoulder, which will be implanted in Jeff Bagwell as part of a contract extension signed by the veteran Astro.  Butlers and valets will report to camp on February 23rd.

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