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| MONDAY, APRIL 3 From time to time, I'm told by readers that I occasionally write as if I don't enjoy the game. This could not, I assure you, be further from the truth. My love for baseball runs wide and deep within me, though sometimes perhaps that love does not come through in this space as it should. Once or twice per year, something happens that brings my love for the game welling up. A couple of years ago, it was Barry Bonds getting intentionally walked with the bases loaded. Last fall it was my first game at Fenway Park. And the latest instance came yesterday, as I watched a new documentary titled "The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg." The film is not, it should probably be said, a masterpiece of the form. It's not quite as good as "Hoop Dreams" or "Roger and Me," and in five years it will likely be forgotten by anyone who's not Jewish, or an aficionado of baseball history, or a Detroit Tigers fan. Nevertheless, I spent most of the movie wiping tears from my cheeks, as I watched and listened to people whose lives were so profoundly touched by both Greenberg and, in a larger sense, the game itself. I'm no blind nostalgist; for a variety of reasons, I would rather be a baseball fan in 2001 than in 1941. At the same time, it's wonderful to watch the old film of players like Charlie Gehringer, Lou Gehrig, Bob Feller, and scores more. It's wonderful to see the gloves on the field, and Tiger Stadium in all its glory. I watch these things and I think of "The Natural," in which Roy Hobbs says from his hospital bed, "God, I love this game." "The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg" is playing all over the country, sometimes for a day, sometimes for a week or more. I suggest you check the web page that lists upcoming screenings. I also suggest that, if you love baseball, you see the movie. 50 bombs for Bags? Jeff Bagwell is, along with Tim Wakefield and Jeff Manto, one of my favorite players. Not because I think he's a great guy -- maybe he is, maybe he's not -- but simply because he's a wonderful player, a great hitter who does everything else well, too. That said, I've been reading a lot of silly predictions for Bagwell's 2000 performance. Namely, that he's going to explode for 50 or (gasp!) 60 home runs. Why? Because last year, Bagwell hit 30 home runs on the road, but only 12 in the Astrodome. I love facts. And that, my friends is a hard, cold fact. Unfortunately, to extrapolate from that fact the expectation that Bagwell will hit 50-odd home runs is ... well, it's some sort of faulty logic that I can't identify by name. I only know that it's faulty logic. Bagwell's home run splits last season were a statistical anomaly, plain and simple. From 1994 through 1998, Bagwell hit 91 home runs in the Astrodome, 77 on the road. I'll repeat that, just so we're clear on everything. From 1994 through 1998, Bagwell hit 91 home runs in the Astrodome, and 77 -- 14 fewer -- away from the Astrodome. And then last year, probably for no other reason than happenstance, Bagwell hit significantly more home runs on the road than he did at home. Now, should this one year count for more than all the previous years? Of course it should not. I suppose I should rejoice merely because someone's paying attention to home/road splits. But looking at splits can be worse than not looking at splits, if you don't look at enough of them. And in this case, it's quite obvious that one year's worth of home/road splits simply doesn't tell us all that we need to know. How many home runs will Jeff Bagwell hit this year? He will, most likely, hit around 20 bombs on the road, as he usually does. And if Enron Field is truly more homer-friendly than was the Astrodome, Bagwell will probably hit between 20 and 25 at home. Thus, I think we can expect him to hit somewhere between 40 and 45 home runs. And be, as usual, a fantastic player. Getting back to the opening of this column, I suspect some of you, in this discussion of statistics and logical fallacy, might once again find evidence that I don't love baseball, aside from perhaps the hard, cold statistical analysis that sometimes characterizes my work. John Keats believed that Isaac Newton, by reducing the rainbow to its prismatic colors, had also destroyed its poetry. But as Richard Dawkins recently wrote, "Keats could hardly have been more wrong ... Science is, or ought to be, the inspiration for great poetry." This is, I suppose, only tangentially relevant to the subject at hand. But my point is that knowing more about baseball need not make it less enjoyable. In fact, it's my great love for baseball that drives me to understand it, and greater understanding leads to even greater love. What's more, it's my great love for baseball that compels me to occasionally expose the shortcomings of the men who administer or play the sport. There is, in the end, absolutely nothing wrong with baseball that a little love, and a lot of common sense, couldn't fix. TUESDAY, APRIL 4 Yesterday I read, yet again, that Ken Griffey "is the best player of his era." One can, I suppose, make that argument. But winning that argument ... well, nobody's done it yet, at least not to my satisfaction. Is Griffey the second best? Perhaps, assuming that we exclude pitchers. But the best? Only if you're unwilling to accept the majority of the evidence that can be brought to bear on the subject. Let's look at the most compelling evidence, the basic building blocks of offensive production:
OBP Slug OPS
Young Bonds .409 .559 968
Young Griffey .380 .569 949
The difference here is, I hope, obvious if not overwhelming. Both men have been fearsome sluggers, but Griffey simply hasn't been quite as all-around productive as Barry Bonds. Or for that matter, Mickey Mantle. And the reason is that Griffey draws 70-80 walks per season rather than 100-plus.
What else is there?
Bonds has been the better basestealer, or at least the more prolific. In 11 seasons, Griffey has stolen 167 bases, at a fine 74 percent success rate. In 14 seasons, Bonds has stolen 460 bases, at a 78 percent success rate.
Intangibles? Hey, neither of these guys is considered a paragon of clubhouse leadership. For what it's worth, though, Bonds has three MVP trophies on his mantel, Griffey just one. And you know that MVP voters do love their intangibles.
Defense? Both Griffey and Bonds have been excellent outfielders. Junior's got a few more Gold Gloves, but I'm not sure he earned all of them. Still, a great defensive center fielder is more valuable than a great defensive left fielder. And it's certainly possible that Griffey's defense does indeed lift him above Bonds in career value.
I don't think that it does, however. I rate Bonds No. 1 of his era, followed by Griffey, Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens, with those latter three in no particular order. (Rickey Henderson could be placed in this group as well, but I excluded him because his best years don't really overlap with Griffey's.)
I simply believe that Bonds' edge in OPS (especially when you consider their home ballparks) and steals gives him the slightest edge over Griffey. And speaking of OPS, I do believe we're making some progress. Witness the following:
Though one could argue that the Opening Day took place in Tokyo, and our Opening Day took place yesterday, my Opening Day finally arrived yesterday when the Mariners hosted the Red Sox. As I'm sure you've heard, Pedro Martinez simply took up where he left off last fall. The Red Sox pitching had better be great, because that lineup they've got against left-handed pitchers looks pretty pathetic. Of course, without Carl Everett last year it looked even worse, and all the Sox did was win 94 games. But I still say the Old Towne Team is at least one bat short of a full roster. Oh, something weird happened as I was entering Safeco Field. In the old days (i.e. last season), as you went through the turnstiles some old guy would tear off the bottom part of your ticket, and you would keep the upper section. No longer. Now as you're spinning the turnstile, a young person with a scanner "reads" your ticket, and you keep the whole thing, perforations be damned. It was strange, and in a way I'm not still sure if I actually went to the opener. After all, I still have the whole ticket, don't I? At the risk of sounding negative, I would now like to write something negative about attending baseball games in Seattle. Last night, the pre-game festivities included a ceremonial opening of the roof. So far, so good. Unfortunately, before long the P.A. announcer ominously intoned, "Fans, storms are moving in. So the roof will now be closed." Let's hope the Mariners are better at scouting amateur players than forecasting the weather. Because for the next three hours, the sun shone off Seattle's downtown, visible to us between the left-field bleachers and the roof that should not have been there. This was pretty much par for the course, as the M's spent much of last July and August making stupid decisions about the roof. They apparently didn't learn much. Nor did they figure out how to run concession stands. Swear to God, during my post-game walk from Safeco Field to ESPN.com's secret skyscraper lair, I ran across three acquaintances, and all three of them had horror stories about the concessions. Shortages, health violations, long waits, incompetent personnel ... you name it, and I heard a complaint about it. I've got my own horror story ... OK, so it's not really a horror story. But it might give you the willies, if you're prone to such things. Anyway, it was chilly at Safeco Field, and for some reason I settled in my seat an hour before game time. I don't drink coffee, I don't eat meat, and hot chocolate is real hard to find at Safeco Field, which doesn't leave much in the way of possibilities when it comes to warm food. So that left ... (drum roll, please) ... ballpark nachos! All right, so that cheese they use is somewhat questionable, but at least it warms the stomach, right? Not at Safeco Field, it doesn't. The first bite was merely lukewarm, and the meal went downhill from there. And you know what really made me mad? That I was stupid enough to fall for this gag again. I bought nachos at Safeco last summer -- after giving up on the "pizza." And that's what is so frustrating about Safeco Field. The dunderheads who run the place are still more worried about pre-game fireworks and similar silliness than the simple things, like making sure the number of hot-dog buns equal the number of hot dogs, and not putting a roof over our heads when the sun is shining. In the long run, of course, the Mariners will sink or swim according to the product they put on the field. But last night, people weren't talking about Jamie Moyer or Alex Rodriguez, they were talking about the concession stands and the roof. And they weren't saying nice things about either, which makes you wonder if running a ballpark is really that difficult. A few notes from the Department of You Might Have Missed This: Some stuff I saw on the way over here ... A few columns ago, I off-handedly mentioned that I'd rather be a baseball fan in 2001 than in 1941, and the next day I offered a couple of reasons. Well, here's another one: the Internet. Yesterday at around 12:20 Pacific Time, I was fooling around with my computer. Started with the Royals' box score (yea, team!), and then took a virtual trip through the rest of the games ... and discovered that Francisco Cordova had a no-hitter through six innings. After shooting off the obligatory e-mail to friends and colleagues, I settled down to enjoy the festivities. First, I clicked on ESPN.com's GameCast of the Pirates and Astros, where aside from the play-by-play, one can find the all-important pitch count. Why all-important? Because of Cordova's history. On July 12, 1997, Cordova threw nine no-hit innings, but was lifted from a scoreless tie after throwing 121 pitches. Coincidentally, that day he faced, just as he did Thursday, Chris Holt and the Astros in Pittsburgh. Having thrown only 76 pitches through six innings yesterday, Cordova looked to be in pretty good shape, though of course many pitchers are put on a short leash this early in the season. Aside from needing nine pitches to dispatch Caminiti, Cordova breezed through the seventh. Then I got a message from Keith Law, reminding me that I could listen to the radio broadcast over the Web (D'oh! Why didn't I think of that?). So a few seconds later, there I sat on a kitchen floor in Seattle, listening to the Pittsburgh Pirates play the Houston Astros through a tiny speaker on a computer that fits in an attache case. Mitch Meluskey broke up the no-hit bid with a double off the center-field fence, but it was still a thrill to hear it happen, as it happened. (By the way, Tim Bogar followed with another double, and almost as quickly as the no-hitter died, so did the shutout.) Other stuff From the Department of It's About Time, we have Oakland Athletics infielder Frank Menechino. He won a utility job in spring training and has been starting at second base due to the injury that's shelved Randy Velarde. He's also hit two home runs in three games, which is a fluke. Menechino, on the other hand, is no fluke. He's 28 and is just now getting a chance to play, but that doesn't mean he's not a player. Menechino, even if you assume that that he's not good enough to play every day, is the perfect bench player, and frankly I don't understand why it took him this long to win a major league job. Menechino's career on-base percentage in the minor leagues is .407. And no, he's not a skinny little slap hitter; his career slugging percentage in the minors is .442, which is plenty respectable for a guy who can play in the middle of the infield. Menechino spent most of his professional career in the White Sox system as a second baseman, but they had Ray Durham so he never really had a shot at a regular job there. So a year ago, the Athletics grabbed Menechino in the Rule 5 minor league draft -- that's one smart move -- and then they turned him into a utility player, another smart move. Now the A's have themselves a guy who can play six or seven positions and get on base 35 percent of the time. Like I said, he's the perfect bench player. Most bench players can do just one thing well, or one thing well and one thing passably. But in Menechino, the Athletics have a guy who does two things well, and I suspect he'll have a career something like Rich Amaral's, but better because Amaral didn't really get his start until he was 30. In response to an item in yesterday's column, a good number of you took me to task for taking the Padres to task for taking Bruce Bochy to the nearest bank vault. Look, I'm not saying that Bochy's not a good manager. I'm just saying that four years is too long an extension for anybody that's not a great manager, and aside from anecdotal "evidence," I see little proof that Bochy is great. To be a bit more precise -- and this is not an original idea -- most managers are good in some situations, and not so good in others. So unless you know which situation your team will be in three or four years from today, it doesn't make sense to sign your manager that far ahead. And where's the benefit? Wouldn't a two- or three-year extension have sent the same message, that Bochy will be here for the long haul? And yes, I know that the Padres can always fire him if things change, but that means eating $1 million per season, and the club is already blowing enough millions on Randy Myers. And finally, yesterday I announced the Panicky Manager Contest, and today I want to clarify something. To be eligible, our panicky manager must do something based on insufficient data that also is stupid. Thus, if Jimy Williams releases Gary Gaetti after only 17 at-bats, that wouldn't qualify because releasing Gaetti would be a smart move. By the same token, if Bobby Valentine gives Jon Nunnally a regular job next week, that also does not qualify. Remember, it has to be panicky and stupid. And please, no more predictions or nominations. Hold the e-mail until something actually happens. (P.S. I'll be visiting Tacoma tonight to see Ryan Anderson make his first Triple-A start, and I'll have a full report in this space Saturday morning.) SATURDAY, APRIL 8 In 1997, a tall and skinny kid named Ryan Anderson threw 51 innings of high school baseball. In those 51 innings, Anderson allowed seven hits. In those 51 innings, Anderson struck out 133 hitters. That summer, due mostly to concerns about his personality, his coachability, and any number of other ilities, the tall and skinny kid tumbled in the draft, tumbled all the way to No. 19, when the Mariners took a flier (yeah, right) on the tall and skinny kid. Now it's almost three years later, and the tall and skinny kid's not in high school any more ... but you sure couldn't guess that from last night's performance. In his first Triple-A start, Anderson threw six-plus innings. In those six-plus innings, Anderson allowed two hits. And in those six-plus innings, Anderson struck out 10 hitters. I hadn't seen anything like it since the summer of 1989, when I watched Andy Benes make his last minor-league start before getting called up by the Padres. Benes wasn't close to perfect that night, and I think he even lost the game. But you could just tell he didn't belong there, that he was essentially playing a different game. That's Ryan Anderson. Last summer in Wichita, I watched Eric Gagne and Chad Durbin engage in a wonderful pitcher's duel. Both eventually jumped straight from Double-A to the majors, and both have a good chance at long and profitable major league careers. But while both Gagne and Durbin were outstanding in that game, they never looked unhittable, even though each of them allowed just a few hits. Ryan Anderson, on the other hand, was essentially unhittable last night. Yes, he did allow two hits. The first of them, off the end of Doug Mientkiewicz's bat, was a pathetic little line drive, hardly deserving of the name, which squeaked through the infield. And the second was a grounder in the hole that the shortstop fielded after taking a circuitous route to the ball that didn't leave him enough time to throw out the hitter. But Anderson had no-hitter stuff, and if he's allowed to make 24 starts for Tacoma -- he won't be -- he'll throw a no-hitter this year, pitch limits notwithstanding. There simply aren't many 20-year-old pitchers who can take the mound and make Triple-A hitters look like orangutans trying to play baseball, yet that's exactly what Anderson did. And if he does it a few more times, it's going to be awfully hard to keep him down, just as it was hard to keep Andy Benes down. So what do you do with him? Remember, the Mariners already have a pretty good rotation, and their Triple-A rotation is stocked, too. (Some have suggested that the Tacoma rotation is better than the Milwaukee rotation. They exaggerate, but not by much.) This is the first chance for Pat Gillick to show his mettle. His hands were pretty much tied in the Griffey situation, John Olerud came to Seattle wrapped up in a bow, and the signings of Mark McLemore and Stan Javier were, though perhaps canny, not particularly exciting. So here's where Gillick finally gets to earn his keep. The Mariners currently have seven legitimate major league starters (or eight if you count Ken Cloude, who's back in Tacoma but could easily be a No. 4 starter with the proper instruction). What does Gillick do with all these starters? Does he hold them as insurance, like a poker player with an ace or two up his sleeve. Or does he convert that surplus talent into something he can use, now? Gillick's No. 1 priority, at this particular moment, has to be the care and feeding of The Giant Who Could Pitch. At some point, the welfare of Anderson might be superseded by the effort to win a division title, but right now Anderson's gotta be No. 1. And if things go well, these two imperatives might meet and, after a short courtship, live happily ever after. I think Anderson should make three or four more starts for Tacoma, just so everyone knows that he's as good, or nearly as good, as he looked last night. Once that's been proved to everyone's satisfaction, there's not much point in keeping him down. My impression is that Jim Slaton, the pitching coach in Tacoma, is very good at his job. But it looks like Anderson's just about got stuff figured out, so he might as well get used to his next pitching coach and (a bit more ominously) his next manager in Seattle. (I think Lou Piniella will like Anderson, whose first pitch last night was aimed a few inches from leadoff hitter Chad Allen's chin.) So assuming that he continues to pitch well, the M's might as well promote him in early or mid-May. Then, I suggest, they should work him out of the bullpen, two or three innings at a time. Given the run production these days, I don't think it would be too hard to get Anderson some steady work. And if that goes well for a month or two, that's when you trade Brett Tomko or Gil Meche or John Halama. Tomko's the most likely to go, because he's not one of Piniella's favorite baseball players. And then Anderson slides into the rotation -- on a strict pitch count, we can only hope -- and everyone can start filling the newsprint and the Internet and the airwaves with the Randy Johnson comparisons. To be sure, there are similarities. Both pitchers are nearly seven feet tall, both pitchers often remind you that they're not Rhodes Scholars, and both pitchers feature mid-90s fastballs and nuclear sliders (though their sliders are slightly different pitches, Anderson's being almost slurvish). But Anderson and Johnson are not exactly the same. For one thing, Anderson is much further along in his development than was Johnson at the same age. Anderson's just this far from being a Rookie of the Year candidate. When Johnson was 20, he was still pitching at USC, and in fact he didn't enjoy his first productive major league season until he was 26. Also, you know how Johnson scares the bejeezus out of so many left-handed hitters, because he throws from a low three-quarters delivery? Anderson's arm angle is slightly higher, closer to true three-quarters, so the lefty hitters stand in there and take their hacks. It doesn't really do them any good, but at least they're not terrified. And finally, Anderson's already got a credible change-up. He threw seven of them last night, including one that completed a strikeout. In a nutshell, if Ryan Anderson doesn't get hurt, he could be the next Randy Johnson. But with a five- or six-year head start. And speaking of Tacoma pitchers ... Melvin Bunch, who pitched in Seattle for a moment last year and wound up leading the Pacific Coast League with a 3.10 ERA, is currently pitching in Japan for the Chunichi Dragons. And when we say "pitching," we mean pitching. In Bunch's first start, he tossed seven-plus shutout innings. And in his second start, a few nights ago, Bunch became only the fourth American pitcher to throw a no-hitter in Japan, blanking the Yokohama Baystars. MONDAY, APRIL 10 News and notes in response to shouts and rumors ... Oakland center fielder Terrence Long had a .615 slugging percentage in spring training but was sent to Class AAA because he went against the organizational demand for disciplined hitting. He had 67 at-bats before finally taking a walk.Perhaps I'm reading too much between the lines, but I sense that the author of this nugget finds something Draconian in this "organization demand" (which does, to some extent, exist). Or perhaps Long's demotion is meant to send a message to the other young players in the organization: "Mind your balls and strikes, fellas, or it won't matter if you slug .615 or .815, you'll still be carrying your own luggage this summer." I'm not inside Billy Beane's head, but Long's failure to stick was probably not designed to set some sort of example for any farmhands considering blind impatience. Rather, Long was sent down for a very simple reason -- if he can't control the strike zone, it's unlikely he'll be a productive hitter in the major leagues. It is, of course, highly unlikely he would maintain that .615 slugging percentage during the regular season. At this stage of Long's development, .400 would be a welcome surprise. Throw in a .300 on-base percentage, which is what you get if you don't draw any walks, and you've got a guy who shouldn't be in the major leagues. And that's why Long is not. Monday night at Enron Field, the Astros and Cardinals combined to hit eight home runs, two more than had ever been hit in a major league game in Houston before. On a related note ...
NOTE (a) Any playing field constructed by a professional club after June 1, 1958, shall provide a minimum distance of 325 feet from home base to the nearest fence, stand or other obstruction on the right and left field foul lines, and a minimum distance of 400 feet to the center field fence.At Enron Field in Houston, it's 315 feet down the left-field line. At Pac Bell Park in San Francisco, it's 307 feet down the right-field line. How do the new ballparks square with the rulebook? Obviously, they don't. What they do square with is MLB's rapacious desire for greater revenues. It's generally believed that baseball fans enjoy home runs more than they enjoy deep fly balls, and it's a general working principle in the Selig Era that revenues trump rules. So MLB granted waivers to the Astros and Giants, simple as that. The Commissioner's Office might not be able to institute revenue sharing or a salary cap, but ignoring the rulebook is something that appears workable. Let's dip once more into the ol' e-mailbag ...
AB H 2B 3B HR BB SO RBI Avg OBP Slug 38 7 2 0 1 3 2 8 .184 .244 .316There were, it must be said, hitters who fared even more poorly against Koufax. But the numbers above could hardly be described as anything better than awful. If you're looking for somebody who really> owned Koufax, then Hank Aaron is your man ... AB H 2B 3B HR BB SO RBI Avg OBP Slug 116 42 6 3 7 14 12 16 .362 .431 .647Uecker and Aaron were teammates in Milwaukee for two seasons, so maybe somebody just confused them. They do look so much alike. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12 Yesterday, I quoted Tex Hughson referring to himself as a "stopper" in 1948 while remembering his performance in a pennant-clinching game in 1946, thus proving (in my mind) that this first known use of that term referred to a relief pitcher. Unfortunately, I had Hughson's 1946 season confused with his 1949 season. In '49, Hughson pitched in 29 games, all but two of them in relief. He pitched poorly (5.33 ERA), but I remember him from that season because he plays a role in David Halberstam's book, "Summer of '49." Unfortunately for my credibility, in '46 Hughson rarely pitched in relief: 39 games, 35 starts. And Hughson started (and won) on September 13, the pennant-clinching game that served as fodder for that aforementioned quote. So it turns out that our first known reference to relief pitchers as "stoppers" actually came in 1954, from the pages of "Collier's" magazine. I've decided to leave this in your hands. As I see the issue, it breaks down like this. We can use "stopper" to describe ace starters, those who stop losing streaks, or we can use "stopper" to describe relievers who stop rallies. There are, it must be said, problems with both of these. If you're talking about starting pitchers, there's really no difference between a "stopper" and an "ace." It's not like some great pitchers have magical abilities to stop losing streaks, and some don't. So if we use "stopper" like this, essentially we're merely creating a synonym for "ace," a synonym that's probably not necessary. Speaking of synonyms, if you're talking about relief pitchers, "stopper" means the same as "closer" (the Cincinnati Reds notwithstanding). As I mentioned yesterday, I'd love to see teams use their best relievers when most needed, rather than to protect three-run leads in the ninth. But I'm not holding my breath. So in today's game, we really have no use for "stopper." But the word isn't going anywhere, so let's pick one definition and stick with it. Rather, I'd like you to pick one definition, and then I'll stick with it. Vote early and vote often. A few readers pointed out my mistake with Hughson, and all of them have my thanks. Next, I'll print an e-mail that does not make me look stupid ...
Adam Steinberg It happened once. I didn't say anything. It happened twice. I didn't say anything. But now it's happened three times, and I have to say something. For the third time in three nights, the Kansas City Royals won a game with a "walk-off" home run, something that likely happens once or twice every decade, although the Arizona Diamondbacks did pull off the feat last May. Monday night, it was Johnny Damon with a solo shot in the bottom of the ninth. Tuesday night, it was Brian Johnson with a two-run blast in the bottom of the 12th. And Wednesday night it was Rey Sanchez (Rey Sanchez?) with a three-run bomb -- just the 12th home run of his 10-year career -- in the bottom of the ninth, giving the Royals a 7-6 win over the Orioles. So if I were in Kansas City, tonight I'd proceed to Kauffman Stadium with all due haste. Because sometime around 4:20 Central Time, Mark Quinn is going to hit a grand slam to beat the O's, 11-9. The 7-3 Royals have taken a new nickname, "The Blue Wave." I don't think they've got the talent to really compete for a postseason berth -- 75-80 wins is more realistic -- but one of the nice things about baseball is that occasionally even the bottom-feeders will enjoy their day in the sun.
ESPN has created a monster. In addition to "walk-off homer," in the last 24 hours I've heard or read, for the first time, the terms "walk-off single" (Carlos Beltran yesterday) and "walk-off win" (the Royals in general). Call me a geek if you want, but I love watching the language being created like this, so obviously and so quickly. Three days ago, many of us had never heard "walk-off" used at all, and now it's impossible to check out SportsCenter or ESPN.com without running into the term. Will it last? I suspect that it will because, contrary to some opinions I've seen, we need "walk-off." Well, perhaps we don't need that exactly, but we do need something like it. And while "walk-off" might not be perfect, it has the virtue of being firstest with the mostest. Let's back up for a moment, as you might be asking, "Why do we need 'walk-off'?" We need it because there's no other term that's quite so specific. Yes, people have been using "game-winning" whatever for a long, long time, but that's simply not specific enough, or at least it's not specific enough in modern usage. Hits in the top of the last inning are sometimes described as "game-winning," and sometimes even hits before the last inning are described as "game-winning." Meanwhile, "walk-off" is both specific and evocative, and I suspect it's here to stay. That said, I would prefer that "walk-off" be reserved for home runs -- when the team in the field can only walk off the field, heads hanging in defeat. A lot of people have been asking me about the origins of walk-off. Surprisingly, it's been around for some years, Dennis Eckersley apparently having coined the term "walk-off piece" in the early 1990s to describe a game-winning homer. As in, "Kirk Gibson once hit a walk-off piece against me." Its first known appearance in print came six years ago. And why its sudden popularity now? I don't really know, but I do know, friends, that you underestimate the power of ESPN at your own peril. One final point, from reader Chris Hirth, who points out that a game-winning home run in the last at-bat in Japan is called "sayonara home run" or "sayonara hit." A game won in the last at-bat is a "sayonara game." About the Royals ... let's wait a few more weeks before we award them a wild card. They've been great in close games lately, but the fact is that great teams are characterized by their success in games that are not close. Like it or not, there's a significant amount of luck involved in winning the close ones, and the Royals could almost as easily have lost their last four as won them. And nobody would be talking about what a genius Tony Muser is. Just before the season, I predicted 77 wins for the Royals. Based purely on their 8-3 start, I happily revise that upward, to 80 wins. Perhaps that sounds pessimistic, but 80 wins would represent a 16-win improvement over last season, and jumps that big are pretty rare. A .500 or near-.500 record this season would be a wonderful accomplishment given the franchise's current handicaps (financial and organizational). And if things break right and the pitchers stay healthy, they've got a chance to contend in 2001. Before you start the weekend, gotta tie up a few more loose ends from old columns: IP H W K R ER 11.2 3 3 20 2 2Anderson permitted just two runs Wednesday night against Sacramento, which arguably features the best lineup in the Pacific Coast League. Those two runs came on one hit, a two-run homer from Roberto Vaz, a non-prospect who was the only left-handed hitter allowed in the lineup against Anderson. Two or three more games like this, and it'll be real hard to keep the kid on the farm, no matter how well the big club is playing. In case you spent the weekend in a cabin in the mountains, here are some highlights from a pretty incredible Sunday afternoon: This column was supposed to be about Billy Beane and Chuck LaMar, but after sitting down I realized I've already written so glowingly about Beane that you're probably tired of reading what I have to say about him. Still, in summary let us note that in 1999, Beane's $25 payroll million bought 87 victories; and Oakland's farm system is considered among the top three or four in the game. You want more? Hey, I'm just getting warmed up ... The joke among baseball writers is that the A's are little more than a slo-pitch softball team. And if you spend much time watching them, as I just did in Boston, you can't help but think the same thing. After all, the A's are a bunch of slow white guys who, patient as herons, lounge in the batter's box waiting for a pitch in their happy zone. If they don't get one, they jog down to first base. If they do get one, they take mighty cuts and jog around all of the bases. But doctor, what about defense? Score eight runs and call me in October. This is either the 21st century or the next best thing, and either way you have to score plenty if you're going to win plenty. And with the all the small ballparks, who needs speed anyway? The Athletics' success may well hasten the WWF-ization of baseball, but don't blame Billy Beane. His job is to build a winning team, not to preserve the legacies of Phil Rizzuto and Vince Coleman. Chuck LaMar's job is to building a winning team, too, but to this point he hasn't showed us even the slightest ability in that particular area. Let's go back to the beginning. Early on, LaMar vowed to build the Tampa Bay franchise on those two pillars of organizational strength, pitching and defense. As part of this brilliant plan, LaMar traded Bobby Abreu to Philadelphia for shortstop Kevin Stocker. If you're reading this column you probably already know this, but that deal may wind up as one of the most lopsided in the game's long history. But let's play along for a minute. All that pitching and defense resulted in a 4.35 ERA for the Devil Rays in their first season, fourth in the American League, perhaps the most impressive defensive performance of any expansion team ever. Unfortunately, the hitters were historically awful, the Rays ranking 14th in scoring despite a pretty good park for offense. Oh, and they actually were outscored by every National League team as well. In 1999, the Devil Rays improved the offense, all the way from 14th to 11th. But of course, the pitching/defense decline erased the offensive improvement. In spades, too, as they allowed 913 runs, 13th most in the league and just eight fewer than Kansas City. The solution? Of course, simply sign some sluggers with the patience of kindergartners and the defensive mobility of French military fortifications. And when it turns out that you can't score enough runs to compensate for the lousy pitching, fire the pitching coach two weeks into the season. LaMar tried to duplicate Beane's philosophy -- get a bunch of sluggers, sacrifice defense and watch the runs pile up. However, while Beane has Jason Giambi (.422 OBP in 1999), John Jaha (.414), Rich Becker (.395), Randy Velarde (.390), Matt Stairs (.366) and Ben Grieve (.358 OBP), LaMar has Fred McGriff (.405), Jose Canseco (.369), Greg Vaughn (.347), Gerald Williams (.335), Miguel Cairo (.335) and Vinny Castilla (.331). You see, the A's score a lot of runs (third in the AL last season) not because they hit a lot of home runs, but because they hit a lot of home runs with guys on base. The Devil Rays simply won't have enough runners on base to score enough runs to lead the league in scoring, which is what it looks like they'll have to do with their pitching staff. Tampa Bay had the 10th-highest Opening Day payroll at $62.7 million. Oakland had the 25th-highest, at $32 million. The mark of a lousy general manager, my friends, is the lack of vision with which LaMar is so obviously afflicted. Hey, I'm not saying that GMs should necessarily stick with what hasn't worked. One of the marks of a good general manager is flexibility. The problem is that when LaMar changes his mind, he doesn't carry out the new plan with any particular intelligence. You want to score more runs? That's a wonderful goal. But bringing in a bunch of old, multi-millionaire sluggers with low on-base percentages? That's not wonderful at all. Acquiring ex-stars just because they were born in Florida? That's not wonderful, either. Did McGriff and Wade Boggs really add anything to this club, aside from a (relatively) few extra fannies in the seats? Is Dwight Gooden really the answer to the pitching problems? I have now strayed into something that bears little resemblance to responsible journalism, and for that I apologize to you and your family, along with Chuck LaMar and his dog. But you see a situation like this and you can't help but wonder, Where's the accountability? How does LaMar earn not one, but two long-term contract extensions? The ballclub doesn't win, the ballclub doesn't draw, the ballclub doesn't have any reasonable hopes of doing either in the near future. I'd just like to see LaMar achieve something before his next contract extension. But, hey, that's baseball. God love it. This column would normally end with the above. But, inspired by my friend Jayson Stark, I'd like to continue with a different subject. Don't hate me because I'm verbose ... Here's a letter, one of many I received on the subject of fan interference ...
Thoughts that have been thunk since yesterday ... Inning Hit W K ERA 17.2 6 6 28 1.02Because I've taken a somewhat personal interest in Anderson, having been essentially the only member of the media (such as I am) in attendance for his first Triple-A start, I may run a regular Needle Update from now on. And if you live in the Pacific Northwest, I recommend that you get to Tacoma this Sunday for Anderson's next scheduled start. It might be one of your last chances to see this great pitcher, up close, for a great price. A plague is spreading across the land, my friends, as inevitably as tonight's sunset. One day soon, nearly every ballpark in the game, Class A through the major leagues, will be named not after a team or a man, but after a corporation. This is, of course, simply another symbol of our times and should perhaps not be a point of fixation. But while I'm generally able to avoid the negative aspects of the new parks, their names intrude upon my thoughts every day. Corporations are amoral at best, immoral at worst. And in my experience, the latter is more often the case. Simply put, being compelled to inject the name of a corporation into every discussion of a ballpark is distracting at best, obnoxious at worst. And in my experience, the latter is more often the case. With the older parks, there was an easy way out. You could just ignore the corporate name, and continue referring to Candlestick or Riverfront or Three Rivers. But with the new mallparks, we simply don't have that option. Enron Field is Enron Field, and there's nothing to be done about it ... or is there? What I suggest is that we quickly adopt nicknames for the new parks, and stick with them to the point where they're more commonly used than the official names. It's still early, but Karl Ravech (among others) is already referring to Enron Field as Homeron Field, for obvious reasons. Another good one: Comerica National Park, supposedly coined by Bobby Higginson in honor of the spacious green spaces in the new Detroit Park (that one still includes the corporate name, of course). I've not been able to find (or create) a nickname for Pac Bell, but surely one will present itself before long. And speaking of Comerica National Park, aside from all the grass, two things struck me last night while watching the Tigers get shut out for the second straight game. One, the dugouts are huge, as if the club tried compensating for the tiny dugouts in Tiger Stadium. But if you see the new ones, you'll see that they have seriously overcompensated. Two, there aren't a whole lot of people in the stands. I know the weather's been pretty awful, but it's been awful in some other northern cities, too. The Tigers currently rank 19th in attendance, almost exactly what they did last year (20th). If this continues -- mark my words -- the Tigers will respond, next year or the year after, by converting their singular pitcher's park into a typical hitter's park. Oh, and here's a third thing ... the Tigers, as one might well have predicted, aren't scoring any runs, and it's not because of their ballpark. They're last in the American League in run production because they don't have anybody who gets on base, and they don't have anybody who gets on base because Randy Smith doesn't know what he's doing. It's likely Smith will be fired sometime this year. Today, I was going to run a poll asking all of you to select a suitable nickname for one of the new ballparks. But after thinking about it, I decided it's simply too early. It's all well and good to call Enron Field "Homerun Field" or "Tenrun Field" or whatever, but what if all those homers in the second series were an anomaly? Let's wait and see how these new parks play before we slap a nickname on them. That said, I would be remiss to completely drop this subject, because scores of readers took time out from busy (?) schedules to message me with their suggestions. So while it's perhaps too early to settle on nicknames, we can at least forward the discussion a bit. First, Pacific Bell Park in San Francisco. A lot of people have apparently taken to calling it "The Phone Booth," which relates both to Pac Bell and the park's relatively cozy dimensions. There is a problem with "The Phone Booth," however; it's already taken, by the MCI Center in Washington, D.C. (yes, another negative effect of telecommunications companies running the world). There are two other suggestions that seem appropriate. The first is "China Basin," which refers to the plot of land on which Pac Bell Park was built. "Basin" doesn't exactly conjure up images of baseball, but China Basin does remind one of Polo Grounds and Camden Yards and Baker Bowl. I have a hard time imagining this catching on with the fans, though. So my favorite, suggested by Carl Johnson, is the simplest: Pacific Park. While it's essentially a truncation of the official name, it evokes a completely different set of images, images that are appropriate given the ballpark's proximity to salt water. (Alternately, Bay Park, or even Bayview Park, would also work, benefiting from a connection to the nearby San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.) As for Detroit, the nickname for Comerica Park is apparently a fait accompli, with many fans and media types already calling it "the Copa." I know that name reminds many of Barry Manilow, but let's just agree to make the best of it. When I think of "the Copa," short for the Copacabana, I also think of the famous New York night club, featured so brilliantly in the movie, "Goodfellas." There's a baseball connection, too. In 1957, Billy Martin was traded from the Yankees after an incident at the original Copa. Let's just hope that, if this nickname really does catch on, the people in charge of the sound system don't feel compelled to play that damn song. Before the naming rights to Houston's new park were sold, it was generally called The Ballpark at Union Station (what is it about Texans?), which naturally was shortened to just "the BUS." But while some still use that nickname, it's got absolutely no panache, and it won't stick now that "Ballpark" isn't part of the official name. In a variation of that last one, from Enron Field at Union Station we arrive at EFUS, pronounced EE-fus. Like "Copa," this one has something of a baseball connection, too, bringing to mind Rip Sewell's famous "eephus pitch" of the 1940s. Later on, Bill Lee threw a "Leephus" pitch in the 1970s (ask Tony Perez about it), and Dave LaRoche the "LaLob" in the 1980s, both pitches being derivations of Sewell's original. Also, Bob Tewksbury fanned Mark McGwire with a lob pitch a couple years ago. (Sad to say, other than that incident, it's been years since a pitcher had the courage to throw such a pitch, though it's hard to imagine how some of the current hurlers could do any worse.) Apparently a fair number of people have taken to calling Enron Field "the Gashouse" or "the Powerhouse." The first is nifty if only because, like EFUS, it brings to mind a bit of baseball history, in this case the mid-1930s St. Louis Cardinals. I cannot, in good conscience, endorse any of those, so I'll wait to see what the public has to say in the coming months. There is a problem, though, with nearly all of the nicknames mentioned thus far -- nearly all of them are based on the actual names of the corporations who paid the big money. And what happens when the contracts run out? Right, some of those ballparks will change their official names, leaving the nicknames with little relevance to anything. This probably is, at this point, perhaps insolvable, Bayview Park notwithstanding. But I believe most of the names will be around for at least a decade, so maybe we should just not worry about it. God knows MLB never thinks that far ahead. Before we leave the subject of ballpark names, a few words about truly horrible appellations ... When the Orioles opened their new ballpark and somehow arrived at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, I was both amused and disgusted. At least you could just choose one or the other, and that's what people do (they choose Camden Yards, mostly). And then the Rangers came up with something far, far worse, The Ballpark in Arlington. What do you shorten that to? The Ballpark? To which ballpark are you referring? Arlington? To which Arlington are you referring? Just a horrible, horrible name. There are some lousy ones in the minor leagues, too. Wilmington (Delaware) has Judy Johnson Field at Daniel S. Frawley Stadium, which is the result of having your Negro Leaguer and eating your politician, too. And in Oklahoma City, they've got Southwestern Bell Bricktown Ballpark. Sheesh. Before I let you go, I thought you might enjoy the following e-mail I received, especially if you've had a chance to read Billy Beane's recent ESPN.com chat ...
The Cubs are not a good team, and it doesn't help that Don Baylor manages a team playing in Wrigley Field in 2000 as if he were managing a 1970s team in the Astrodome. But today's column isn't about Baylor and the Cubs, as I don't particularly enjoy kicking men when they're down. Rather, I'd like to discuss a particular moment from Saturday's first game, one of four the Cubs lost to the Mets this weekend. In the bottom of the eighth inning, with the Cubs losing 3-2 and a runner on second base, Eric Young batted against John Franco. One of Franco's slow breaking pitches crowded Young, who dropped his elbow ever so slightly, with said elbow sustaining a glancing blow from the ball. Young dropped his bat and began trotting to first base, but he was quickly summoned, in no uncertain terms, back to the batter's box by plate umpire Paul Schrieber. Rule 6.08(b) tells us that a batter becomes a runner and is entitled to first base when: He is touched by a pitched ball which he is not attempting to hit unless (1) The ball is in the strike zone when it touches the batter, or (2) The batter makes no attempt to avoid being touched by the ball ...There are hundreds of times each season where a batter makes no attempt to avoid being touched by the ball. So I have, in this space, argued for a more vigorous enforcement of Rule 6.08(b) ... but upon further reflection, I'm not so sure. It's problematic to the extreme, asking umpires to determine intent. In fact, to my knowledge they have never attempted that difficult task; if they had, Ron Hunt and Don Baylor wouldn't have been awarded first base as often as they were. And if they did now, Mark Grace would not have been awarded first base in the second game of Saturday's doubleheader, when he stood stock-still and let a Dennis Springer knuckleball hit him. No, Schrieber did about all an umpire can do. Grace just stood there and was allowed to take his base (with a different umpire behind the plate, by the way). But when Young actually made that slight move into the ball, he was told to get back in the box and hit. I suppose I would like to see the umpires be strict with incidents like the one involving Grace, but you can't really blame them if they don't. The real problem, as I have written any number of times, is the body armor that allows players to crowd the plate with impunity. People are finally starting to talk about this, but I don't expect any action from Major League Baseball in the foreseeable future. Scooped! Kay McFadden, TV columnist for the Seattle Times, beat me to it. I have been meaning, since the season started, to write something about the change we've seen on ESPN with the spelling of Latino names. You probably know what I'm talking about. Anyway, as McFadden related in her column last week, it seems that Jan Reeves Thomson, a freelance writer and baseball fan who lives on Whidbey Island, north of Seattle, noticed that nobody ever uses the accent mark. And for whatever reason, she decided to do something about it. She wrote letters to Bud Selig's office, and she sent copies of the letter to all of the TV networks. Selig didn't do anything, and neither did any of the networks ... except ESPN. (And if it sounds like I'm proud of my co-workers in Bristol, Connecticut, it's because I am.) Tim Scanlan is the coordinating producer for baseball at ESPN, and as he told McFadden, "It was a very accurate comment about a topic I realized was important. We've always thought of ourselves as being very attentive to Latin American players and the international story of baseball, but here was something we'd completely missed." Scanlan got the copy of Thomson's letter last October, and on April 4 suddenly all the Latino names were spelled correctly on the ESPN graphics. And this makes so much sense that it's only a matter of time before the other networks follow suit. I know you're asking yourself, "If it's such a great idea, will ESPN columnist Rob Neyer start using the accent marks?" All that Rob Neyer can say is that he'll work on it. He's been reading and writing Martinez and Sanchez for a long, long time, and it'll take some time to get used to writing Martínez and Sánchez. The best thing about all this is that now we can, if we choose to bother, pronounce players' names correctly, just like Jon Miller does. Tony Pérez's last name is not pronouced puh-REZ, but rather PEH-dess, with the accent on the first syllable and the "r" sounding more like a "d." José Cruz's first name is not pronounced HO-zay, but rather ho-SAY, or at least something close to it, with the accent on the second syllable. Like I said, just pay attention to Jon Miller on Sunday Night Baseball if you care. And if you'll pardon a brief editorial comment, it's a simple measure of respect to pronounce someone's name the way he would like to hear it pronounced. Just imagine what you'd think of someone who mispronounced your name if he knew better. And now that we know better, we ... and when I say "we," I mean anyone who hasn't been pronouncing names correctly ... we really don't have any excuse. The only criticism I have is that ESPN seems to be applying the new rules across the board, though it's likely that some players actually pronounce their own names in the Anglicized style. I mean, I've never talked to Alex Rodriguez, but does he really place the accent mark over the "i" as ESPN now does? Of course, the problem is that asking each and every player with a Latino-type name for a correct spelling would be a major task. In the meantime, it's probably better to err on the side of excess. They will slow down Let me close with a fairly typical argument that you'll hear this time of year. In deference to a colleague who works four blocks from my apartment, I'll not tell you who wrote the following: "Imagine the damage the Cardinals may do when McGwire is healthy again and Ray Lankford ... begins swinging like he's capable." I've been writing this column for four years, so I hope that most of you have already spotted the fatal flaw in the above "analysis." While it's true that McGwire and Lankford have not contributed as much as they quite likely will, it's also true that any number of Cardinals have been swinging better than should be expected. Let's look at a few of them.
AB OBP Slug
Drew 27 .514 .889
Howard 18 .400 1.000
Marrero 23 .393 .793
Matheny 48 .439 .521
Polanco 32 .402 .688
Viña 78 .443 .513
I mean, Eli Marrero and Mike Matheny have combined for a .606 slugging percentage in 71 at-bats! Does anyone with cranial functions really think this will continue? And I left off players like Fernando Tatis and Jim Edmonds, who are doing even better than we should expect.
They've got a good lineup, these Cardinals. Perhaps even a great one. But they're not going to continue scoring 7.6 runs per game, no matter how capably Lankford swings.
TUESDAY, APRIL 25Sunday afternoon against the Blue Wave, Alex Rodriguez drew five walks. Given the free-swinging ways that have characterized much of his career, a healthy percentage of fans in Safeco Field must have been surprised by this turn of events, and a few might even have been disappointed. Not Rodriguez, though. "It's like getting five hits. If they walk me five times every day, we're going to be all right," he said. "Last year or three years ago, I wouldn't have allowed myself to get five walks. I would have chased some bad pitches. To me, it's a great accomplishment to get five walks." This statement, hard on the heels of another statement Rodriguez recently made about the importance of on-base percentage, should scare any American League pitchers not employed by the Mariners. Here are Alex's walks per 162 games since his first full season:
W/162
1996 65
1997 47
1998 45
1999 70
2000 171
On-base percentage aside, is it a coincidence that Rodriguez's two best slugging percentages came in 1996 and 1999, when he did a better job of controlling the strike zone than in '97 and '98?
Obviously, Alex is not going to draw 171 walks this year. I'll be pretty surprised if he gets close to 100. But the simple fact that Rodriguez is apparently happy to take the walk, he's going to not only post a high OBP, he'll also get plenty of good pitches to hit. And it's quite possible that six months from now, only New Yorkers and Bostonians will bother with the "Who's the best shortstop?" debate.
The Annals of Rules and RegulationsSunday night in a tie game, with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 11th, Olmedo Saenz hit a long fly ball to deep center field. With Brady Anderson playing quite shallow, the ball flew over his head, bounced off the ground and over the fence. Automatic double, two runs, and two RBI for Saenz, right? Nope, just one run (the game-winner) and an RBI single, and a number of you wanted to know why. I won't spend a lot of time on this because I went into some depth on the subject a year or two ago. Suffice to say, that's simply the rule. A hitter gets full credit for a game-ending home run, but on a game-ending automatic double, he gets only a single if that's all it takes to win the game. There is, perhaps, a tiny bit of poetic justice in this. Sunday night, if the bases had not been loaded with nobody out, Anderson would have been playing deeper in center field, and may have caught Saenz's drive. And finally -- I've saved this for last in case you're sick of the subject -- a bit more on Spanish surnames. Yesterday, I mentioned the problems that might arise if the accent marks, etc., are applied without actually talking to the players themselves. One example is Eric Chavez, whose name might reasonably be spelled Chávez and pronounced CHAH-vez, and has been by ESPN. But Chavez was born in Los Angeles, doesn't speak Spanish, and pronounces his name "shah-vez," like "Chavez Ravine." A number of readers pointed out the difficulty of native English speakers trying, often quite clumsily, to pronounce Spanish names correctly. I think one reader has a good take on this ...
At the risk of sounding like an old curmudgeon, I think all this has gone too far. When I was a boy, my eyes would widen when I heard that a team had scored in double digits. I couldn't wait to pore over the box score, see which sluggers had done the most damage. Wait a second ... when I was a boy? What about just two or three years ago? Yep, then too. But that pleasure is now, in large part, gone. Last night, five teams scored at least 10 runs, and I was too busy yawning to check their boxes. And I'm not the only one. Granted, the great majority of broadcasters are even older than I, but lately it's been impossible to watch a baseball game on TV without hearing talk of all the home runs ... and then more talk, a few seconds later, of raising the mound three to five inches. Friends, raising the pitcher's mound is a terrible idea, and if that talk becomes truly serious I will make this my No. 1 crusade, ahead of all the others that so often fill this column. Raising the mound would mean, more than anything, more strikeouts. A classic case of the cure being worse than the disease. Strikeouts, as Crash Davis once said, are boring. Yes, there are exceptions. I enjoy watching Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez as much as anybody. But we certainly don't need more strikeouts, any more than we need more home runs. So what's to be done? Everyone's been talking about the baseball. This is, of course, nothing new. Someday I'm going to take a month of vacation and write a history of the so-called "rabbit ball." I guarantee that I could find stories about a "different" baseball in every season from 1999 back through 1987. The problem is that whenever somebody checks the baseball -- and I mean checks, with real scientific instruments and everything -- they don't find anything. Or rather, they find that the ball from this year is exactly the same as the ball from last year and the year before, and the year before that. It's been reported that Commissioner Bud has appointed a committee of GMs to -- yes -- check the baseball. And it's quite likely that the new committee won't find anything. But whether it does or does not, what's the difference? It's a simple equation. Or perhaps it's a complex algorithm. Either way, there are three variables that matter: the ballparks, the hitters and the baseball. The ballparks aren't going to get bigger. The hitters aren't going to get smaller. That leaves the baseball. If the Lords of Baseball decide, in their wisdom that approaches infinity, that scoring should be lowered, then at some point they will simply have to deal with the baseball. And from a practical standpoint, it's relatively easy to build a new ball that will, for example, travel 10 feet fewer when struck on the nose by a piece of Kentucky ash wielded by a 240-pound slugger. We have the technology. Of course, we also have the technology to land men on the moon, and that hasn't happened in nearly 30 years. Baseballs, like space travel and just about anything else worth doing, are bound up in money and politics. Nothing's going to change unless the owners think that it's in their economic interest. And even if they do, they'll have to convince the players. Why the players? Because in many ways they run the game, even when they're not really supposed to. First off, any change to the playing rules -- and the baseball presumably falls under this heading -- must be submitted to the players a year ahead of implementation. Now, technically the players do not have any rights beyond that, but in reality the union is consulted on just about everything that happens in Major League Baseball. And I suspect that if you poll current major league players, you'll find that roughly 54 percent of them are quite happy with the status quo, which frequently gets them featured on Baseball Tonight and, not coincidentally, also gets them even more money than they would make otherwise. Is 54 percent enough to put the kibosh on a new baseball? Not necessarily. But it won't help. That said, I do believe that we'll reach a critical mass, if not this year then the next, or perhaps the year after that. The pitchers took over the game in 1963, but it wasn't until things got really ridiculous in 1968 that the Lords of Baseball decided that enough was enough. Similarly, perhaps it will take something truly silly, like five or six players topping 60 home runs, and/or average game times closer to four hours than three, for the current Lords to take serious action. But barring action, those things will happen. THURSDAY, APRIL 27 Wednesday's column wasn't perfect, and a bit later I'll count some of the reasons why. But first, I would like to run a letter, an amalgamation of a few that I received, altered so as not to offend anyone in particular.
At-Bats Ks AB/K
1967-1968 217,827 38,556 5.65
1969-1970 263,427 44,847 5.87
They didn't go down much -- 3.97 percent, to be fairly precise -- but they did go down. In '67-68, batters struck out once for every 5.65 at-bats; in '69-70, they struck out once every 5.87 at-bats.
So, my gut still tells me that if you raise the mound, you also raise the strikeouts.
For another perspective on this, yesterday I asked Bill James if he enjoys watching all the walks and home runs that typify today's game. He responded about as I thought he might, writing, "I enjoy watching it, yes, because I'm committed to enjoying the game however it is played, rather than bitching about it not being played like it was in my day, when I was striking out Joe Morgan."
But Bill continued, "The question, I think, is 'Is this the optimal form of the game, from the standpoint of the fan?' And the answer is, 'No, it's not (but then, no actual form of the game ever was).' The optimal form of the game, from the fan's standpoint, would have fewer strikeouts, higher batting averages, and more balls in play. Sitting around, waiting for somebody to draw a walk, waiting for somebody to reach the seats ... this is not great entertainment, in my view.
"It would be a very simple thing to make the game more fan-friendly, more entertaining from the fan's standpoint:
2. Move the batters off the plate four inches; 3. Put a "minimum thickness" on the handles of the bats -- or, alternatively, make a rule that the bat must balance at least 12 inches from either end. Wednesday night, we saw the best in Tony La Russa and we saw ... well, not exactly the worst in Tony La Russa, but something other than his best. First, the best. Everyone's favorite Rookie of the Year candidate, Rick Ankiel, was cruising along with a 7-0 lead over the Brewers. Yet La Russa yanked him after seven innings. Why? Because he'd thrown 99 pitches, one under his theoretical limit. "His body is still developing," La Russa said. "You saw the max today. He might go five or 10 pitches more than that sometime, but not too often." There are two things about this that particularly interest me. The first is that after he arrived in the majors last year, Ankiel's limit was 110 pitches. So now it's a season later, yet the Cardinals are being more cautious with him. Notwithstanding pitchers recovering from injury, I certainly can't think of anybody who was put on a shorter leash when he got older. And it appears that Ankiel is happy with the program. "I know I'm on that count," he said after Wednesday's game, "and it's in the best interest for me. But nine innings can be pitched in 100 pitches." The second thing that struck me was La Russa's comment that Ankiel's "body is still developing." This echoes something that my pal Rany Jazayerli wrote in "Baseball Prospectus 2000": It's simple, really. Throwing overhand is not a natural act. Throwing overhand repeatedly can be damaging to the arm. And throwing overhand repeatedly before the shoulder and elbow have completely matured -- the plight of the young star -- can rob a pitcher of his gift, completely and irrevocably.As Rany notes later in that essay, "The word is out," and La Russa's willingness to limit Ankiel's pitch count reinforces the point. And you have to give the skipper some credit. Anthony La Russa Jr. is 55 years old, and he's been managing professional baseball teams for 23 years. It would be easy for La Russa to simply manage like he's always managed, sneering at pitch counts and anyone who thinks they're worth a thought. In other words, he could manage like Lou Piniella and Dusty Baker. But La Russa's smart enough to understand that times change, or at least our knowledge changes. And while there's still no definitive proof that limiting a young hurler's pitch counts will result in a better career than otherwise, the anecdotal "evidence" is strong enough to suggest that caution is the wise course. Just think how much money Rick Ankiel's left arm is worth, and then try to argue that the Cardinals shouldn't be careful with it. And then there's the other La Russa. Not an evil twin, but perhaps a somewhat eccentric cousin. This fellow does some strange things. Bizarre things. The latest of these odd occurrences also involved Rick Ankiel. Wednesday night in the fourth inning, the Cardinals led 1-0 and they had runners on first and second with no outs. La Russa ordered No. 8 hitter Mike Matheny to lay down a sacrifice bunt. No. 8. As in, just ahead of No. 9. The pitcher. Who just happened to be the aforementioned Rick Ankiel. Ankiel hit a three-run homer, thus making La Russa look like Brainiac and Einstein all rolled into one. Now, I do believe that Ankiel will prove to be a good-hitting pitcher; just from what I've seen on TV, he really does have a quick, compact swing. But will he, in the long run, be a better hitter than Mike Matheny? I sure don't think so. I think this is another example of La Russa trying to outsmart the game. Or perhaps La Russa is so brilliant that he saw something in that particular situation that no one else could see. The Cardinals are in first place, so I guess he gets the benefit of the doubt. Anyway, it'll be fun to see if Ankiel ever gets to bat No. 8 (or higher) in the lineup. You'll remember that La Russa batted all of his pitchers eighth late in the 1998 season and early in '99, based on the notion that doing so would result in more RBI opportunities for McGwire, and hence more runs for the team. On a related subject ... Gertrude Stein said two famous things: "Rose is a Rose is a ..."; and, of Oakland, "There's no 'there' there." But it struck me this morning that when it comes to baseball, there is almost everything there in Oakland. Think about it. Tony La Russa is, if not the best manager in the game, certainly the most interesting. He made his fame managing the Oakland Athletics. Sandy Alderson is now the most intelligent man allowed to work for Commissioner Bud. He built Oakland's dynasty of the late 1980s and early '90s, and in fact had a hand in the success of the current club. Alderson would be my pick as the next commissioner; unfortunately he's far too honorable to ever be elected by the owners. And everyone's favorite Wonder Boy, Billy Beane? As Beane is always quick to mention, he learned his trade from Alderson, and of course succeeded Alderson as GM of the Oakland Athletics. Back in the early and mid-1990s, when Alderson and La Russa were still there, just imagine how great it would have been to be a fly on the wall during a meeting that included those three guys. Oh, and let's not forget Mark McGwire. He was drafted by Alderson, managed by La Russa, and played with Beane. I believe that in 1989, when all four of these men were there, the most interesting spot in the baseball world was, indeed, Oakland, California. Before you take off for the weekend, a brief word on the suspensions and fines levied against the participants of the big brawl in Detroit last weekend ... Bully for Frank Robinson! I know there's some small segment of the public that enjoys watching baseball players throwing punches rather than baseballs, and even I get a kick out of the "I was at the ballpark and a hockey game broke out" jokes. But just as there's no crying in baseball (unless you just lost the World Series), there shouldn't be any fighting in baseball, either. The reasons are so obvious that I won't bother belaboring the point. And as some of you might remember from old columns, I would take it even further. I don't believe that there's a place in baseball for virtually any contact. If I were in charge of things -- don't worry, it'll never happen -- collisions at home plate would be mostly outlawed. The suspensions are a great start. Hold a guy out for five games, and he just might think twice next time. But the fines? Dean Palmer was fined $3,000. His contract pays him $8 million this season. If you make $50,000 this year, fining Palmer three grand is like fining you $18.75. Unfortunately, the Players Association takes a dim view of fines, so Frank Robinson is powerless to do any real damage to the players' wallets. So from a disciplinary point of view, the fines serve no purpose. What they should serve, however, is charity. To this point -- a few fines haven't been announced, and of course there will be appeals -- the total amount is $25,000, and that should go to some worthy cause rather than MLB's coffers. |  | ||||