And That Happened

Angels 10, Dodgers 2: Most of us have heard that old saw about sinker ballers maybe being a bit better off going on short rest. I've never heard a satisfying explanation as to why people think that, nor have I seen any statistical studies giving any credence to the theory. Joe Torre believes it, however. Remember when he started Wang on short rest in Game Four of the ALDS last year? Before that game he was quoted thusly: “The fact is he’s a sinkerball pitcher,” Torre said, “and sometimes being a little tired isn’t all that bad. Probably better than being too strong.” Despite the fact that Wang got rocked by the Tribe (1 IP, 5 H, 4 ER), Torre did it again yesterday with sinkerballer Derek Lowe. Didn't work out for him either (5 IP, 10 H, 7 ER).

Cubs 4, Pirates 3: Soriano didn't hit a homer in this game, but he's been on fire lately, jacking seven out in the past week. Funny thing, though: five of those came with nobody on, as have seven of the ten he's hit all year. Imagine the damage he and the Cubs would be doing if he were batting behind Fukudome (.416 OBP), Aramis Ramirez (.402), or Geovany Soto (.429).

Reds 6, Indians 4: Cliff Lee turns back into a pumpkin, at least for one game (5.2 IP, 10 H, 6 R, ERA skyrockets up to 1.37). Adam Dunn has homered in four straight games, and is 5-13 with seven RBIs. This sort of thing drives the Brennamans crazy because it doesn't fit into their "Adam Dunn is the font of all evil" world view.

Royals 9, Marlins 3: They're not going to make anything approaching real noise this year, but it's worth noting that the Royals are hovering around .500 way later than they have in the recent past. In 2007, they were 16-27 at this point. In the three years before that they were 10-33; 12-31; and 15-28. Are things perfect? Of course not, but give Trey Hillman some credit for a job better done.

Red Sox 11, Brewers 7: As is usually the case on Sunday afternoons, I watched this one while chasing kids. The score had changed every time I looked up from a tea party, some spilled milk, or a diaper change, and the game seemed just as sloppy as whatever it was I was doing. The inning I watched the closest was the fourth, when Carlos Villanueva struggled mightily. I've never understood why some guys slow the hell down when they're struggling and find themselves in jams. Villanueva was psyching himself out before each pitch. Catch ball/get sign/throw ball. Don't think. It can only hurt the ballclub.

Astros 5, Rangers 4: It's rare that I run down every single game in this feature. Time is a factor to some degree, but as much as I hate to admit it, interest is too, and I'm simply not that interested in the Rangers. It's for this reason that I hadn't noticed that the Rangers are 12-5 in May and playing some pretty decent baseball. Not that Rangers fans should get too excited, as most of their games have been against Seattle and a cooling, offensively-challenged Oakland squad. All the wins count though, so good for the Rangers.

Braves 5, A's 2: Yunel Escobar (3-4, 2 RBI) is having a nice season at the plate (.308/.385/.428). The A's had 11 hits and 3 walks but only scored 2 runs. That's the kind of thing the Braves usually do on Sunday afternoons.

Blue Jays 6, Phillies 5: Another reason to hate interleague play. With this being the only time the Jays will be in Philly this year, they had to endure nearly three hours of rain delays in order to get this one in. As a result, you get funky stuff like Roy Halladay coming in to pitch two and a third innings after getting the start on Thursday.

Nationals 2, Orioles 1: Elijah Dukes is 1-24 this year as he and the rest of the Reclamation Squad (Dimitri Young and Lastings Milledge) go a combined 0-9. OK, Milledge isn't a reclamation project, but I am obligated by the Baseball Writers' Code to lump him together with Dukes when discussing the Nationals' "problem" players.

Cardinals 5, Rays 4: You're simply not going to win a lot of games when you walk 10 guys, which is what the Rays' pitchers did.

Mariners 3, Padres 2: I'm struggling to think of two teams I'd be less interested to watch play right now.

Rockies 6, Twins 2: A good game for Todd Helton (2-4, HR, 3 RBI). He needed it, as he has continued his descent into Doug Mientkiewicz land (.274/.383/.402). I hate the parlor games as much as anyone, but is there a player whose power fell off as precipitously as Helton's has over the past few years? Yes, he's getting older, but a guy who slugged in the high .600s should be declining through the .500s right now, not struggling to stay above .400.

White Sox 13, Giants 8: San Francisco drops their 5th straight, this time with Matt Cain on the hill. Brian Sabean still thinks they can contend this year, though.

Diamondbacks 4, Tigers 0: Randy Johnson pitches seven innings of shutout baseball to pick up win number 288. Jim Leyland's creative lineups continue, this time with Ivan Rodriguez (.302 OBP) leading off. It can't get any uglier for Detroit, can it?

Mets 11, Yankees 2: A pretty pathetic display by the Bombers, as they only put on five base runners the whole game. Taking two of two from the Yankees following last week's ugliness puts the Randolph death watch on temporary hiatus. Woof the next four in Atlanta, however, and we're right back where we started.

The Best Game Ever

My review of Mark Bowden's new book about the 1958 NFL Championship Game can be found in today's New York Post.

My grousing the other day notwithstanding, I kind of like writing these. The only problem is that they tend to cut off the part where I actually, you know, review the book, which makes these things read more like promos than anything else. No complaints, though. It's hard enough to find book reviews in newspapers these days, so even less-than-rigorous ones are welcome.

Fastballs vs. Changeups

No, this has nothing to do with pitching. It's about writing.

I've been a bit slower than usual the past couple of days because I've been working on a book review. I've written four or five of them now, and I find them way harder than blogging. In blogging, all of the exposition you need is supplied by the link, which you can simply put up by itself if you want to or, as is usually the case, block quote to supply the gist.

Writing articles -- or in my case, a book review -- is not the same. Sure, the opinions about the author's style and how successful he was come quickly, but I struggle to supply the paragraphs which, in theory anyway, simply and plainly tell what the book is about (especially when the editor only gives you 750 words). Same thing goes for the articles I used to write back in the Bull Magazine days or for legal publications or what have you.

Chloe Veltman, in her blog, Lies Like Truth, has a nice post today about the difference between blogging and article-writing. They're all pretty much thoughts I've had for a long time, and I'm glad to see I'm not the only blogger struggling with these kinds of issues.

Sorry for the meta/inside post, but I know a lot of you out there are writers yourself, so Veltman's piece may be of interest.

Link via Sullivan

God, I Love Baseball

From Splice Today's Russ Smith:

I went to the Bosox/Orioles game on Wednesday afternoon with my two teenage sons and older brother. Camden Yards, although drawing a paucity of fans for teams not located in New York or Boston, is a still a splendid park to watch a game. After the fourth inning, in a close contest, I slipped off to an outdoor concourse for a smoke, when a younger guy asked for a light. We spoke for five minutes or so and he, noticing my Sox hat, said, "You know, I hope the O's win today. I just can't stand all this losing." Fair enough, I said, and we chatted about past great O's teams and the era, which he caught the tail end of, when Baltimore was the elite of American League East, both in play and class. We then heard the crowd roar and before heading back to our seats, shook hands and wished each other well.

Can you imagine that happening at Fenway or Yankee Stadium, where hostility is often the reigning emotion? After the game, in which the O's stunned the Sox with a grand-slammer by Jay Payton, I saw this fellow again. He smiled, and just said, "Man, that was a heck of a game." And I agreed, despite the fact my team lost. It really was an eye-opening moment; two serious fans talking without rancor about baseball.

For what it's worth, I think what Russ is describing is pretty common east of Baltimore, but yes, it is nice to see collegiality at the ballpark. As George Carlin once said:

In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there's kind of a picnic feeling. Emotions may run high or low, but there's not that much unpleasantness.

In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you were perfectly capable of taking the life of a fellow human being.

Carlin wrote that in the early 80s. I get the sense that the difference these days is less stark than it used to be, at least along the east coast. Sure, drunken loutishness is way down from where it was in the 70s, but the intense emotion normally reserved for face-painting football fans is far more common than it used to be. Sometimes I think this is a good thing, sometimes bad, but as long as it isn't personal, I'm more or less fine with it.

Caveat Emptor

Ken Rosenthal reports that the Rockies may shop Matt Holliday:

The Rockies, 10 games back in the NL West, almost certainly would consider trading Holliday, knowing they stand little chance of keeping him long-term. Holliday, 28, could be this year's Mark Teixeira — a Scott Boras client traded with a year-plus remaining on his contract by a team seeking value for a franchise-type player . . .

. . . The trade market for Holliday, meanwhile, likely would be robust, especially from teams in the suddenly offense-starved American League.

I could see this ending really, really badly for whoever trades for Holliday. I know we're in some brand new shiny humidor-impacted era and everything, but Holliday's splits are pretty much par for the course for Rockies' players over the years:

2008
Home: .364/.440/.697
Road .287/.380/.414

Career
Home: .364/.426/.664
Road: .274/.337/.445

Rosenthal compares Holliday's situation to Teixeira's last year. That's accurate insofar as contract situation goes. If any team gives up the kind of package the Braves gave up for Teixeira, however, they will have made a very, very poor baseball decision.

Pomp and Circumstance

With the way the Mets and Yankees are playing right now, you're probably not going to see anything this exciting in the Stadium this weekend:

Newly minted NYU grad William Lopez turned a day of pomp and circumstance at Yankee Stadium into a day of cop and gown when he took off his pants, dashed onto the field and tried to steal home.

Ignoring warnings to stay off the field, Lopez gave in to a spur of the moment impulse and, wearing just boxers, beige socks and brown laceups under his purple gown, he hopped the fence behind first base and raced across the diamond.

Lopez tagged third, hung on to his cap and chugged down the baseline toward home - cheered on by many classmates.

A security guard tackled him before he reached the plate.

"As I was on the ground and they were holding me, I was literally trying to crawl toward the plate," Lopez told the Daily News. "What I think is really funny about this is I got arrested for trespassing at my own graduation."

After the ceremony, Hank Steinbrenner was quoted as saying that he wanted his team to "play the Lopez way."

Edmonds' Debut

I didn't get to it in the recaps, but Jim Edmonds made his Cubs debut yesterday, against the Padres of all teams. 1-4 with a strikeout. He stranded seven and Cubs fans booed him, but it didn't matter because the Padres were the Padres and didn't score any runs. Embarrassingly, San Diego intentionally walked Fukudome to get to him in the bottom of the fifth, and it wasn't to set up a double play or anything (there were already two outs). They just knew -- as their release of him implied -- that he can't hit anymore.

And That Happened

Nationals 1, Mets 0: New York is shutout by a guy who gave up 16 runs in his first two starts, a reliever who had an ERA around six coming in, and a closer who, while OK, ain't exactly Bruce Sutter. Then Billy Wagner goes off. You gotta love the Post's account: "There are losses, and then there are soul-crushing nightmares that send teams spiraling and get managers fired." Sounds about right actually. The Mets open up interleague play against the Yankees tonight, followed by three games against the Braves. I'd say that if they don't go 4-2 through this stretch, Willie Randolph is a goner.

Rays 5, Yankees 2: I'm guessing all the highlight shows are going to lead with "Oh noes! Yankees in teh last place!" this morning. I'm also guessing that none of them will note that at the same point last season they had one fewer win than they do now and were 10.5 games out of first place. They still made the playoffs. Nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Diamondbacks 8, Rockies 5: I guess Brandon Webb (9-0) just isn't going to lose another game.

Phillies 5, Braves 0: I guess the Braves just aren't going to win another road game. Cole Hamels pitches a four hit shutout. Chipper Jones missed the game due to a sore groin. Sore groin, sore groin, sore groin. If you say that several times in a row the words start to lose their meaning entirely.

Dodgers 7, Brewers 2: Ben Sheets gets rocked, and says after the game that there's nothing wrong physically. I'm dubious, as anyone should be when one of the home runs he gave up was to Andruw Jones on a fastball.

Indians 4, A's 2: Technically the Cleveland starters still haven't given up an earned run, but the one unearned one that came off of Aaron Laffey was due to his own throwing error, so we should probably stop counting this little streak. The starters may very well have to keep this up, though, because Rafael Betancourt has shown no signs of the pitcher he was last year. He came in to the game in the ninth to get the easy three-run-lead save, promptly loaded the bases and got yanked. Masa Kobayashi saved his bacon with only one of the inherited runners scoring, but the fact remains that the Indians still have no reliable closer.

Pirates 11, Cardinals 5: Closing wasn't working for Isringhausen. Setting up doesn't seem too kind to him either (0.1 IP, 2 H, 2 BB, 4R). Ron Villone was even worse, and a 5-4 lead turned into a laugher for Pittsburgh.

Blue Jays 3, Twins 2: Over the last couple of days Minnesota got swept by Toronto, sank to .500, and got passed by the Indians in the standings. I'd say the flirtation with contention is on its way to being over. Twelve pitchers were used in a 3-2 game. Yikes.

Brian Sabean is Delusional

He thinks the Giants can contend . . . . .this season:

"I think we've come a long way," Sabean said. "When you consider some of our challenges in spring training and some of the question marks, we've got to be considered one of the most improved teams in baseball."

Of course Sabean fails to mention that the "challenges in spring training" and the "question marks" are attributable to his failure to develop talent, clear dead wood, and correctly evaluate where his team is on the success cycle.

But what else is he going to say? His champion -- Magowan -- is being pushed aside, and I'd bet my second born (my firstborn just learned how to fetch beer from the fridge so she's currently indispensable) that Sabean's butt is going to be on the unemployment line before the All-Star break.

He probably knows it too, and is looking for a way to spin the Giants' ultimate, ugly demise this season in his favor. Assuming he's fired, look for a quote from him come October along the lines of "well, things looked promising in the Spring. If the ownership group had stayed the course and let make the moves I had in mind, maybe things would have turned out better."

UPDATE: Lest you think I'm some lone nut railing against Sabean, check this out, by frequent ShysterBall commenter John Peterson. And for more on the whole Sabean-Magowan poop sandwich, check out the latest from Maury Brown.

Ryan Braun Extension

It's apparently happening today. Details coming in over at MLB Trade Rumors. Eight years (including 2008, because there's a bonus to be paid immediately) totalling something like $47M, with fancy-schmancy escalator clauses and other NFL-sounding things. Upshot: two years of free agency bought out for the Brewers, riches secured for Braun, and everyone can now commence having the same conversation about risk vs. reward that we had when Longoria and Peavy and all of the others signed their deals.

Meanwhile, Prince Fielder is busy painting a "Will Mash For Food" sign.

Magowan Out

It's more or less official: Peter Magowan is going to step down as head of the Giants' ownership group.

I had heard something about this a couple of months ago via a friend of a friend kind of thing, but I'm not a reporter so I really didn't have a way of confirming it in any responsible way. For what it's worth, though, my source conveyed a second part of this at the time, and that's that Sabean is a dead man walking as well, with the plan being for the new owner to couch it in terms of him simply wanting his own guy. The reality, though, is that the ownership group has wanted him gone too.

Not that it matters, really, because (1) A new leader probably does want a new guy anyway; and (2) there are plenty of reasons to can Sabean separate and apart from an ownership change.

Hire DePodesta. Now. Yesterday.

Kornheiser Takes a Buyout

This has nothing to do with baseball, really, but I just wanted to tell somebody that when I lived in D.C. back in the mid 90s, Kornheiser wrote a column about how he bought a spiffy new Cadillac Catera. To this day, I can't read his name or see his face without thinking about that.

Rah-Rah

Joe Girardi held a closed door meeting before the game last night. What happens in these meetings? It's one thing if there's been a team incident that needs to be addressed or something like that, but when a team is simply playing bad baseball, what does a manager say to them that they don't already know? This isn't like a football or basketball halftime where some fiery motivation or the installation of a quick new scheme or adjustment might help. The best you could possibly do, it seems, is to repeat the lollygagging speech from Bull Durham, and it's not like that's going to work with a veteran-laden team like New York.

My guess? Girardi closed the doors and said "guys, I'm just doing this so Hank thinks we give a crap about what he says and to get the media off your back for a few minutes. Who's got the cards?" Or at least I hope that's what he did. It's a long damn season. Motivational speeches probably don't help all that much, and getting A-Rod and Posada back will cure the Yankees' ills more than any words will.

No matter the case, don't expect the meeting to help all that much.

And That Happened

Indians 2, A's 0: Mercy. I'm sure Jayson Stark or someone will soon be posting some mind-bending statistical breakdown of the Indians' starters' five game scoreless streak, but this is the kind of beauty that should simply be enjoyed rather than analyzed. I've watched most of these games, and the pitchers have all been so locked in it's ridiculous.

White Sox 6, Angels 1: Good news: John Lackey comes back and pitches seven strong innings. Bad news: He gives way to Scot Shields. Single-single-walk-grand slam-over.

Royals 2, Tigers 0: In the past few years we saw a lot of bad starts by the Yankees, only to have them turn it around as the weather grew warm and wind up with 95 wins regardless. The Tigers aren't the Yankees, though, and I don't think it's premature to call their season over.

Yankees 2, Rays 1: New York learns to "play the Rays way." Reports of Mike Mussina's death were greatly exaggerated (6-3, 3.99 ERA).

Nationals 5, Mets 3: When you're locked in a tie game with the worst team in your division and your starter begins to tire, where do you turn? If you're Willie Randolph, you turn to Aaron Heilman: (.1 IP, 3 H, 3 ER, BB, allowed inherited runner to score).

Dodgers 6, Brewers 4: I think the problem here is that Ned Yost didn't ask Guillermo Mota (1 IP, 2 H, 3 ER, BB, blown save) if he was "ready to close." Andruw Jones -- hitting second -- turned in only his second multi-hit game of the season.

Braves 8, Phillies 6: Glavine gets his first win of the season. He's clearly only a five inning starter anymore, however (5.2, 4 H, 4 ER, only 1 hit through 5 innings) so don't expect boatloads more.

Reds 8, Marlins 6 Reds 7, Marlins 6: You'd think that if you're winning 6-0 entering the ninth inning that you're going to win the game easily. Not so with the Reds, whose bullpen coughed up the lead in the final frame in regulation. The big bad expensive Closer Francisco Cordero came in the ninth with the bases loaded and nobody out (thanks Mike Lincoln!) and a 6-1 lead. He promptly allows all of the inherited runners and two of his own to score. One lesson to take away from this is that the Reds may have overpaid for a guy with gaudy save totals but who might not be the true kind of shutdown reliever they were hoping for. I'm sure the lesson the Reds will take away from this, however, is that you shouldn't mess with Cordero's precious Closer chi like that, and he will now only enter games at the start of an inning when the pressure is low.

Cubs 8, Padres 3: You don't see Jake Peavy roughed up like this every day (4 IP, 7 H, 4 ER), but then again, the Cubs have a pretty good lineup.

Mixed Feelings

Sometimes I wonder if I'm a self-hating sabermetrician or simply a member of the reformed sect. I mean, on the one hand, I know and appreciate all of the arguments and I've internalized all of them in my understanding and analysis of baseball. On the other hand, however, I have cut way back on the extent to which I speak in the unadorned language of objective analysis (example: instead of simply saying that Baker doesn't understand what a leadoff hitter is supposed to do, a year ago I might have broken out charts and linked to people's work on run expectancies, etc.)

This is partially because the audience around here has grown far beyond the core of statheads that formed my initial readership and I don't want to alienate anyone, but a lot of it has to do with an independent relaxation of orthodoxy on my part in which I've allowed myself to enjoy the simple pleasures of baseball, even when they involve less-than-optimal play. I mean, I'll never endorse a sacrifice bunt in the early innings of a 0-0 game, but I sure as hell enjoy them from time to time.

Against that backdrop, I link to a post by MGL from the Inside the Book blog, in which he lists all of the things he'd do if he worked for a team and was given free reign over on-the-field strategy. In it, MGL (a) makes a lot of good points about strategy; while (b) providing a pretty good example of just about everything traditionalists and casual fans hate about sabermetricians.

I'm with you on the merits, MGL, but if your post goes wide, you're going to be a punching bag for stathead-bashing traditionalists. It probably doesn't matter, but I get tired of the fight from time to time and would prefer not to have it again.

Great Moments In, wait, I need a tissue; there's something in my eye

A reader by the name of Drew -- who maintains a borderline scary Will Clark fan site but I like Will Clark so it's all good -- writes in with a touching story which may, if everything breaks just right, turn into a tearjerker. Drew writes:

I've loved baseball for a long time, and, as the son of a librarian, my bookshelf is overflowing with books about the sport - the regulars that I pull off the shelf every year, the spot-starters that can never quite finish the game and bench players that are still waiting for their shot. I pick up used books all the time, and several years ago I found a nice, hard-cover version of Roger Angell's Late Innings. I knew of Angell's work, but probably haven't read anything at that point. As I flipped through the book, I noticed the book was inscribed. I knew I had to have the book after reading only a few words of the inscription:

To Andy-

Baseball is a jewel of many facets. It is the innocence and energizing skills of a Cub Scout softballer. It is the cavorting delight of a pick-me-up neighborhood sandlot game. It is the semi-comic adult intensity surrounding a Little League contest, and the sub-conscious adult affectations of the Little Leaguers.

It is the hopes and expectations on Opening Day of an otherwise amorphous horde, unified & partially civilized by their allegiance to a common dream.

It is the bitter-sweet experience of attendance at a late September game of two teams who are by then running not in a pennant sprint, but only out the season's
clock.

It is a harmony of mind and body-like ballet-except that baseball's skills are forged and honed in a furnace which demands not only grace, but victory, and in view of
millions.

It is something which enraptures even as it saddens.

It is something which uplifts even as it frustrates.

It is subjective, and yet it is honest.

It is something we have shared, and I am grateful.

Dad.

9-2-84

I read this inscription a few times a year, and it never fails to really touch me. While I'm honored to have it on my bookshelf, I'm more than a little saddened to know that such a meaningful book found its way to a used bookstore. I can only assume that someone's mother cleared out her son's bedroom while he was at college or after he'd moved away. Either way, I'll keep it safe for a very long time. Unless that son somehow reads this and gets in touch with me, in which case I'd be thrilled to return it to its rightful owner.

Excuse me a moment. I, I seem to have something in my eye. There. That's better.

Drew says that he got the book at a store in Madison, Wisconsin. It's a million to one shot, but if anybody has any leads on the original owner we'd have ourselves the heartwarming story of the frickin' century. I'd even let Casey Kasem come in and narrate the resolution like a long distance dedication.

A Complete Lack of Evidence: The Surest Sign a Conpiracy is Afoot.

Dave Zirin wants to know where the outrage is over Barry Bonds' absence from a major league roster, and he doesn't mince words in wondering:

He has been blackballed in a blatant and illegal act of Major League collusion, a bosses’ boycott . . . In this case of blackballing so obvious it would shame a Dartmouth frat house, one would think the media would be raising hell. But they have largely been yipping collusion lackeys . . . The idea that baseball owners would ruin their own team’s chances because they have collectively agreed to “turn the page” is a violation of Bonds’ rights and the unwritten social contract they have with fans. And when one considers the absence of saints on Major League Baseball teams, even on the God Squad in Colorado, it is all the more drenched in hypocrisy . . .

. . . Good questions. Bonds deserves far better than to be forced into retirement and have his history coarsely expunged. The overriding ethos of the sports world is that of the meritocracy. If you are good enough, then you get to play. Yet a man who can get on base 48% of the time, has been told to go home and a new generation of fans will never see the Mozart of the batting cage. This is about more than a baseball player. It’s about people in power deciding on utterly unjust grounds, who gets to take the field, who gets to be heard, and even who gets to be remembered. Somewhere, Stalin smiles.

I'm not sure what the Stalin equivalent of Godwin's Law is, but I'm guessing there is one. Anyway, Zirin needs to come down out of the bell tower and think about a couple of things other than Bonds' potential .480 OBP.

For starters, he should think about the fact that Bonds is old, and we can be 100% certain that he won't continue to have a .480 OBP for the rest of his life. Could he this year? Maybe. Indeed, he'd be likely to have a well above-average OBP. But maybe not. He's going to be 44 years old in a couple of months and at some point, he will fall off just as Rickey and Roger and every other player in their mid-40s has since the advent of the game. Indeed, the longer he goes without being signed, the rustier he becomes and the more likely the falloff is to occur sooner rather than later. This, as all risk does, limits Bonds' allure as a signee because teams have various tolerances for risk.

He should also think about the fact that there are, at best, a half dozen suitable landing spots for Bonds (I think only four). This because Bonds can't play defense anymore. He really can't, which eliminates more than half of the teams in baseball as potential suitors. As for the AL, there are only four teams who both (1) need a DH because theirs really sucks and (2) aren't already making a major financial commitment to one already. That second part is important here because, the concept of sunk costs notwithstanding, signing someone as controversial as Bonds is going to double the political heat a GM feels when he normally benches a high-priced guy (which teams are already loathe to do). Those teams are Toronto, Kansas City, Seattle, and (maybe) Minnesota. Only Toronto and Seattle seem like remotely decent fits.

So we have, what, 2-4 teams that make sense? Being charitable, I'll give you six (Bonds could help the Yankees and Angels, but the politics of those places make the possibility exceedingly remote). If that's all we were up against -- six teams not calling Barry -- you'd already have a pretty poor case of collusion. But that's not all we have. We have the fact that -- rightly or wrongly -- Bonds is the game's biggest pariah, and is an indicted one to boot.

As I've said previously, I think the indictment is weak and the criminal case against him won't interfere with the season. But that doesn't matter, because I'm not the one putting my career on the line to sign him. Bill Bavasi or J.P. Ricciardi are. Assume for a minute that they believe Bonds can still put up that .480 OBP and sign him. What happens if they're wrong? This isn't like taking a flyer on Jim Edmonds. This will be a highly scrutinized signing, and if Bonds can't deliver, a loudly derided one by both the local and national press. Anyone who signs Barry Bonds only to have him tank has, in all likelihood, made their last move as a general manager. Ask yourself: would you risk your career and reputation on Barry Bonds? I've done more than my share of Bonds apologizing over the years and I sure wouldn't.

Any one of these three things -- age, strategic fit, or controversy -- provide a team with a plausible, legal, and even justifiable reason to steer clear of an otherwise attractive free agent. In Bonds you have the perfect storm of all three, and that's without even going down the team chemistry or salary roads, which may also be a factor in the minds of GMs.

Does any of this prove that there hasn't been a conspiracy against Barry Bonds? Of course not. But it does make a pretty compelling case that any charge of collusion wouldn't be all that compelling. Zirin is outraged that the media hasn't been "raising hell." Hey, I'm a big fan of muckraking, but if I'm an editor I need my reporter to provide me at least some evidence of a conspiracy before I let the hell raising commence. This is especially true in the face of a lot of reasons why Bonds isn't playing right now that don't require a conspiracy to exist.

So no, I'm not buying Zirin's Stalinist rebop. I wouldn't even buy a Reinsdorfian one.

Love and Baseball

A Q&A with the founder of a "sports learning site for women," who says that women should get into baseball "as a possible way to make a love connection." Her advice, which more or less puts the women's movement back about forty years, has to be seen to be believed:

Q: How can a woman go about learning the rules of the game?

A: If you go to the bar with some basic knowledge, talking to fans around you, making it plain that you're taking up the game and look at it as a journey full of fun, the guys will be encouraged to help out. But if you go in without knowing a single thing, you might get lucky to find a guy that isn't interested in the game who'd rather pick up a great lady.

And really, ladies, isn't all about being "picked up?" What else ya got?

Q: Why do you think sports bars are a good place to make a romantic connection?

A: The 3 Cs, as I like to say: commonality, comfort and chemistry. Men are in their comfort zone in sports bars, and if you provide the common interest (knowing about sports), you can determine more easily if there is chemistry. It beats an old photo of someone on an Internet site who writes a snappy e-mail.

Plus, there's less Golden Tee and fewer beer farts on eHarmony, so you're truly not getting a good read on a guy that way.

Q: Should a woman wear gear for the team she's rooting for?

A: There is no doubt that you will be taken more seriously with gear on; I get men talking to me at the car wash, at stoplights, in the bank and elsewhere just because I have on my gear.

"Man, Drew. I'm really into Stacy, but she's all fluff. Sure, she's a politically-active architect who spends time volunteering at the hospice, but I've never once seen her in a Fisk throwback jersey, so I just can't take her seriously, ya know?"

Q: If a woman meets a guy who is rooting for the opposite team, is a connection still possible?

A: Yes! Sports fans love nothing more than disagreeing about their preferences. Couples who root for the college teams they attended love nothing more than trash talk and wearing the gear around the house all year long. It is exciting, gets the juices flowing, a little bit of a racing heartbeat ... sounds like foreplay to me!

Take it away Jezebel!

"Crisis" is just another word for "opportunity"

Jeff Keppinger breaks his kneecap.

Dusty Baker looks longingly at his office telephone, telling himself he doesn't remember Neifi Perez's number. He can't remember. Reaching -- no -- he can't let his heart be made a plaything again. Surely there's a solution in Louisville. Or Brandon Phillips. Yeah, Phillips . . .

"Christ, who am I kidding," he says. "I'll call him. But it will be different this time."

And That Happened

Indians 4, A's 0: The Indians' pitching staff has had enough. Enough of Hafner overthinking every at bat. Enough of Jhonny Peralta's hacktasticness. Enough of Franklin Gutierrez, Casey Blake, and Ryan Garko pretending to be Major League hitters. They have gotten to the point where they simply can't stand to lose any more games because their lineup has gone from second, to sixth, to ninth in runs per game over the past three years. Their solution? Never give up another goddamn run again. They haven't since Friday, now. At least the starters haven't, and even on Friday it was Sabathia giving up a single run. The Indians' starters' collective line for those five games: 39.1 IP, 29 H, 1 ER, 26 K, 9 BB. Maybe it's not sustainable, but the 1995 Braves won a World Series title this way.

Phillies 5, Braves 4: Death by a thousand Werths (3-4, 4 RBI, all on singles). The Braves' run differential now stands at 185-142, yet there they sit at .500, looking up at everyone except the Nats.

Mets 6, Nats 3: Ryan Church (2-4, 2B, HR, 4 RBI) and Brian Schneider (3-4, 2B, RBI) are makin' the trade for Lastings Milledge (0-4, 3K, error) look pretty good for the Mets at the moment. I bet those stupid bloggers are eating their words now!

Orioles 5, Red Sox 4/Rays 2, Yankees 1: and with that, the Rays are your leaders in the AL East, and they do it by getting three hits and a run -- an honest to goodness run -- off of Mariano Rivera.

Reds 5, Marlins 3: I've been hearing some rumblings from the blogosphere about Dusty Baker abusing Ed Volquez like he was Mark Prior's stepchild or something, but let's come down from the ledge on that one, shall we? In 2003, Prior was 22, and was trotted out for 120-130 pitch outings on multiple occasions. Volquez is two years older, and has yet to have even one 120 pitch game. Moreover, if I remember correctly, Prior was rode pretty hard down the stretch in college, whereas Volquez has had a relatively light load shuttling back and forth between the majors and minors over the past couple of years. Different stories altogether, I think, and I think it represents an instance in which people probably need to give Baker the benefit of the doubt. Especially considering that there are so many legitimate things about which to criticize him.

Royals 3, Tigers 2: How many different lineups have the Tigers used this year? 35? Too bad they still haven't found one that has worked. I don't want to make constant reference to Zack Greinke's psychological struggles over the past couple of years, but something tells me that the 2005 Zack Greinke would have crumbled and burned if he had an outing in which he gave up nine hits and couldn't strike anyone out. As it stood last night, he didn't have his best stuff, but he gutted it out for six innings and gave his team a chance to win. Joakim Soria, by the way (0.00 ERA in 16 appearances), laughs at Mariano Rivera's relative ineffectiveness.

Brewers 5, Dodgers 3: Ryan Braun's May entering last night: .326/.380/.804, and he goes 2-4 with a double and a triple on top of that. Maybe the Brewers had the right idea waiting to call him up late last year? As for the Dodgers, man, talk about a yo-yo team. They rode an eight game winning streak into May, and now have dropped five in a row.

Angels 2, White Sox 0: Is it just me, or has there been an unusually large number of excellent pitching performances lately? Add Jered Weaver to the list, as he shuts the White Sox out over seven while giving up only one hit. Doesn't get the win, though, as his offense decides not to score any runs until after he's gone. Nick Swisher (.206/.331/.316) and Jim Thome (.209/.350/.419) are killing Chicago right now.

Giants 4, Astros 2: The Giants intentionally walked Lance Berkman in the first freaking inning with two out and one on. Don't tell Posnanski.

Bonds Re-indicted

The feds went back and fixed their flawed indictment. Nothing new here -- no new lies charged, no new charges brought. Which is fine by me, because that means my original handicapping of Barry's chances still stands. Upshot: if Bonds' lawyers are smart and raise doubt as to the context of the questions and answers given during Bonds' grand jury testimony, Bonds wins. If they allow things to get muddled and the government is allowed to make this case about whether or not Barry ever took steroids -- which, technically, it is not -- Bonds will lose.

And speaking of Bonds, let's put an end to the collusion talk, because there are plenty of reasons why he isn't on a team's roster right now.

(thanks to Jason at IIATMS for the link)

Dusty Being Dusty

If:

A. Dusty Baker won't take Corey Patterson out of the leadoff spot because "He's going to get going. Usually guys end up where their average always is"; and

B. Corey Patterson's average "always is" around a walk-free .250; then

C. Dusty has admitted he doesn't understand the purpose of the leadoff postion and should be fired immediately.

Not that I needed to tell you that. As a lawyer, though, I always try to use party admissions over mere argument whenever possible.

Return of the Deadball League. Relatively Speaking Anyway.

Last week David Pinto made a case for the rise of the NL. Today William Burke and Joe Sheehan break it down and conclude that what we're really seeing is the fall of the AL. They throw a lot of spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks, but this strikes me as a pretty satisfying explanation:

I think there may be some selection effects happening here. I’ve written about this when it comes to playoff baseball. Playoff games are generally lower scoring than regular-season games. However, part of the reason for that is that managers play as if they will be lower scoring, using more one-run strategies than they normally would and emphasizing defense to a greater extent. It becomes, if not a self-fulfilling prophecy, one that gets helped along.

Over the last year or so, we’ve heard a lot about teams getting away from the style of baseball played during the peak of the high-offense era, and trying to play better defense. Personnel decisions along the lines of playing Tony Pena Jr. or Asdrubal Cabrera add up, and they start to impact the league’s statistics. Teams have been choosing defense over offense, and that is probably the biggest reason for the drop in offense in the AL: personnel selection. Managers and GMs are putting lesser hitters on the field in an effort to prevent runs, and they’re getting just that result—for themselves and the opposition.

Well, that and the fact that a lot of the big names in the AL are old and declining.

DePo on Petco

Forgive me for what I guess is the third DePodesta link in as many days, but the guy I'm going to tout as the next Giants GM until someone gives me a reason to think otherwise has a breakdown of how bad -- or not -- Petco has been to the Padres over the past four years:

Given the difference in batting lines between the Padres and their opponents, one would expect the Padres to have had a winning record at home, which has been the case. The Padres worst home record in Petco came in the inaugural season when the 2004 team posted a 42-39 record at home (interestingly, that team had the best home batting stats of any Padres team in Petco). The total record at Petco for the Padres, including this season, is 186-156, which pro-rates to an annual record of 44-37 at home. Does anyone happen to know what the average record at home has been for all Major League teams since the beginning of 2004? Drum roll....

44 and 37.

That relatively superficial analysis tells me two things: one that is discouraging and one that is encouraging. The encouraging takeaway is that the Padres are solid at home, and the way Petco plays in terms of wins and losses is on par with other home ballparks. So our fans have plenty of reasons to come to Petco to enjoy the best atmosphere in all of Major League Baseball while also watching a winning team. The discouraging takeaway is that I'd rather be on the high end of the spectrum rather than the middle.

I get the sense from the post that DePodesta is doing that analysis in response to Padre fans who ask why they can't move the fences in or something. Here you see the limitation of his inherent conflict of interest. If he's being honest, he doesn't go through this exercise. Rather he says something like:

"Fences?! I have a third baseman who hits like a 1970s shortstop, a shortstop who hits like a pitcher, a left fielder who hits like a backup catcher, and a catcher who only looks good compared to our centerfielder. Oh, that centerfielder? He frickin' died three weeks ago, only nobody had the decency to tell me until the other frickin' day! Fences?! Jeez."

Mr. Redlegs, Recovering Nicely

My office is on the seventh floor of a building at the corner of Broad and High Streets in downtown Columbus, Ohio. For reasons that aren't clear to me -- and obviously have nothing to do with my productivity as an employee -- I have a beautiful corner office with a view of the Ohio Statehouse.

Today, while gazing out my window, I noticed a big to-do on the Statehouse lawn. Seems it was the Ohio Tourism Month Celebration. I didn't walk over because it's too depressing to be reminded of what passes for attractions in Ohio, but I could see Mr. Redlegs -- no longer decapitated -- walking around Capitol Square, saying hello to all of the state employees on their smoke breaks. Best part: Mr. Redlegs and his handlers left about 15 minutes ago, making their departure in a tricked-out Lincoln Navigator festooned with all kinds of Reds stuff.

Based on the gas that vehicle is burning on its way down I-71 right now, the Reds will likely have to play tonight's game with the lights off in order to maintain their carbon-neutral rating.

Private Lives, Glass Houses, and Bling

Anyone who has read Russ Smith's work over the years knows that he's not short of opinions. They extend to baseball too, and yesterday he let loose on what he sees as a disgusting level of coverage of athletes' private lives:

New York’s Daily News has been on a tear of late in its campaign to crush Roger Clemens, issuing daily revelations of his reported adultery and pathological hypocrisy, and the rest of the sports media has been glad to climb aboard the bulldozer aimed at the now smaller-than-life Texan. This is not a defense of Clemens’ apparently reckless and extraordinarily selfish lifestyle—and the allegations of his affair with a teenager when he was a 28-year-old Red Sox pitcher are truly creepy—but I’d rather not know the details. Unfortunately, if you follow baseball as closely as I do, in particular the ups and downs of the Red Sox (thumbs up) and Yankees (big toes down), it’s impossible to escape the almost daily denunciations of columnists posing as priests. Another recent unnecessary “news” story was that Alex Rodriguez passed out while his wife was in labor with their first daughter in 2004. Who cares?

While I can be found gawking myself on occasion, I tend to agree with Smith. It's one thing if the private behavior is truly reprehensible, criminal, or causes an impact on the performance of the team, but I simply can't get too worked up about someone having an extra drink or two, getting squeamish at an inopportune time, being caught performing an unfortunate song at a karaoke bar, or most of what else passes for coverage in the minds of some editors. A quick mention of such silliness? Fine, especially if it's accompanied by true wit. But it's not the sort of thing on which to base five-piece investigative reports (or entire blogs for that matter).

Read to the end of Smith's piece, by the way, for some fun spleen about player jewelry. At first glance you might think focusing on that sort of thing runs contrary to his plea to focus on the game, but at least giant chains are an on-the-field issue.

Back in MY day . . .

The Goose, quoted as he toured Cooperstown for the first time as a Hall of Famer:

"Nobody could tell me how the role of the relief pitcher changed because I did all the jobs," Gossage said. "The closers today are so dominant in that role that people kind of forgot what we used to do, the number of innings that we pitched, the jams we used to come into. Now, it takes three guys to do what we used to do. We were kind of abused."

I cut him some slack on this back when he was being unfairly excluded from the Hall, but can someone please tell Gossage that he's in already and that he can stop the fogeyish lobbying?

The Roof At Miller Park

Leitch files a dispatch from Miller Park and notes something disturbing:

A word, however, on Miller Park, and that retractable roof. The roof has been closed for every game so far this season, and we asked about 15 different people why that was — it didn't rain either day — and got about 15 different answers. (The Brewers have had tons of problems with their roof anyway.) Some said it was because it takes forever to open, some said it has to be a perfect day, some said the ball carries better inside and the struggling Brewers offense needed all the help it could get. But no one seemed to really understand why, and that includes several reporters who could, conceivably, ask.

I've only been to Miller Park once. There were storms in the area so the roof was closed and I didn't think anything of it. If this is true, though, and they just never open the roof, I would be truly sad. Miller Park has its good points and bad ones, but I had an awfully good time the one night I was there. It seems like a great, knowledgeable fan base -- I watched the Brewers-Pirates on a weeknight after both were out of the race and everyone still had fun -- who deserves the best they can get.

One of the only redeeming qualities of Midwestern weather are the nice summer nights, and it would be a shame if the Brewers never let their fans enjoy them properly.

And That Happened

They played two in Pittsburgh and Cleveland yesterday. Each series was a split in which the teams took turns looking awful. I wonder if teams that do that sort of thing head back to their homes or the charter jet contemplating the Sisyphean nature of it all.

Blue Jays 3, Indians 0: If I'm Eric Wedge, I give Cliff Lee one free kick to the raisins of each of his teammates for allowing him to pitch nine innings of shutout baseball with nothing to show for it. Sure, Shaun Marcum pitched eight shutout innings of his own only to get a no-decision, but at least his team won the damn game. The Cleveland offense -- 3-33 with zero walks over ten innings -- may have turned in the worst performance by a lineup this season, and right now are getting nothing from anyone not named Victor Martinez. Sign Barry. Trade CC for corner infielder. Just do something, because the Tribe is going nowhere with these bats. Update: I read now that Asdrubal Cabrera turned an unassisted triple play in this game. That's nice and all, but I bet Lee would have preferred a couple of hits.

Indians 3, Blue Jays 0: Strike that -- reverse it. Nine more shutout innings from an Indians starter, this time Carmona.

Pirates 5, Braves 0: After this game, the Braves stood 14-4 at home, and 4-14 on the road. Thankfully that unfortunate symmetry only stood for a few hours because later it was . . .

. . . Braves 8, Pirates 1: Tim Hudson is having a quietly fantastic year (6-2, 2.54 ERA). Chipper Jones, who is still having a pretty smokin' month by human standards, is now down to .406, which makes you realize just how silly the recent talk of him hitting .400 really was. I'm sure someone has written about this somewhere, but my guess is that loose talk of talent dilution aside, there are simply far fewer tomato can pitchers now compared to the 1920s -- not to mention well-groomed playing fields and fair-and-square official scorers -- for a player to hit .400 as easily as one could back in the old days.

Twins 7, Red Sox 3: Question: why does ESPN beam the same matchup into my living room on Monday night that it did on Sunday night? Question #2: why do they have a totally different announcing team doing it? OK, I suppose Jon Miller had to get back to San Francisco, but you'd think that could have been negotiated, no? Oh, that thing I said last week about the Rays not getting any closer to the Red Sox this year? I was misquoted. Allow me a chance at redemption, however, with this idea: an All-Star Game commercial featuring Clay Buchholz, Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes sitting in the living room of some nondescript condo with a pizza box and a six pack in front of them watching the game.

Rays 7, Yankees 1: The Rays have given up six runs in the past four games and are now knocking on the door in the AL East. May has made for a pretty brutal schedule for Tampa Bay -- Red Sox, Angels, Yankees, Cardinals, A's -- so if they make it past Memorial Day in good shape, watch out.

Reds 8, Marlins 7: The Mariners are scouting Ken Griffey, eh? Well I hope they saw him drop a fly ball in right in the eighth inning for a two-run error!

Brewers 8, Cardinals 3: Ryan Braun has his second two-homer game in a row, so maybe Milwaukee isn't dead yet. By the way: there were seven pitchers used in this game. As of tonight, four of them have been closers at some point in their careers.

Nats 10, Mets 4: According to the AP recap, "Before the game, Mets manager Willie Randolph praised the Mets as looking "hitterish." If there wasn't a good reason to fire him before, I think we have all the evidence we need now.

Cubs 12, Padres 3: And the world waits with bated breath, wondering what Paul DePodesta has to say about it.

Rangers 13, Mariners 12: This looked like an ugly game. Bedard squandered a five run lead in the first inning, then C.J. Wilson coughed it back up in the ninth. I'm sitting here this morning, struggling to recall what anyone saw in Seattle before the season started.

Angels 10, White Sox 7: A win is nice, but activating John Lackey after the game is nicer.

Astros 7, Giants 3: Barry Zito is not simply some $100M+ bullpen arm. With outings like this one (6 IP, 3ER) he's much more than that. Why, he's a $100M+ fourth starter!

The Zen of Bobby V

Andrew Jenks, the filmmaker behind The Zen of Bobby V -- scheduled to premiere tomorrow night on ESPN2 -- talks about his subject and his project over at the Huffington Post:

Bobby has immersed himself into the Japanese culture. He loves Japanese food and studies Japanese for at least an hour every day. In the spring, he frequents Japan's much-adored cherry trees. In July, during his first weekend off in nearly four months (it was the All-Star break), he climbed Mt. Fuji. When the season was over, and it seemed as if Bobby would head back home for his month and a half off, he instead took a three day jaunt across Japan: from a boy band concert in southern Japan (he appeared in a music video with the band) to a fire festival in Osaka.

Bobby has become notorious for riding his bicycle everywhere. After only a year of coaching in Japan, Bobby's coaches picked up on his love to ride and bought him a bike that he could bring everywhere the team traveled. It was always a sight to see the team bus being loaded/unloaded: there were bags, bats, gloves, and Bobby's bike. We quickly caught on. In the summer, we imported a tandem bicycle from Hawaii: this enabled one of us to peddle in the front and one of us to sit in the back to film Bobby riding.

As I've mentioned before, Bobby Valentine sounds like a really neat guy. Regardless of what he was when we all knew him back when he was with the Rangers and Mets, he seems to have had a life-changing experience since moving to Japan. I think I'm gonna watch this thing.


Thanks to Osmodious for the link.

"So's your mom!"

I always tell my clients never to type anything -- anything -- in an email that they wouldn't want to see blown up onto a 4'x6' poster board, placed on an easel, and shown to a jury. I think maybe somebody should have told that to Carlos Delgado's agent. Of course in this case the jury doesn't have 12 people on it, it has millions.

Mainstreaming Sabermetrics

Reader Chris Heer wrote in with a God, I Love Baseball submission, but I'm going to use it to springboard into something else:

So I attended the Cardinals/Brewers game on Friday (5/9/08). As the game went on, I started making comments about the OBP and SLG of various hitters. My friend is a sports fan but knows almost nothing about sabermetrics, so he started asking me questions about why I was ignoring batting averages. As I began explaining, I leaned forward and noticed that, on the digital display behind home plate, they actually showed OPS for the batter and WHIP for the pitcher! I pointed this out and began explaining it to my friend.

Within fifteen minutes there was a whole group of fans leaning in, joining the conversation. Within 30 minutes, there was a sizable crowd of newly-born stat geeks arguing about who the Brewers leadoff hitter really should be. And in the bottom of the ninth, as Isringhausen loaded the bases, none of that mattered because everyone was standing, cheering, yelling. The stadium actually shook with the noise as Rickie Weeks stepped to the plate and drove a single to LF, driving in two runs to win the game. High fives all around, and I found myself screaming my lungs out as I normally only would for my Cubs.

God I love baseball.

A couple of things to take away from Chris' story. The first one is the obvious, but still worthy-of-repeating point that analyzing the game statistically and whooping it up like a lunatic are not mutually-exclusive modes of enjoying baseball. I and every geek I know do the same thing all the damn time, so the notion that statheads are somehow missing something is patently ridiculous.

The second thing worthy of mention is the way in which sabermetric principles are slowly but surely integrating themselves into the mainstream media and, subsequently, into the minds of the casual fan. Between the casual inclusion of OBP on a TV broadcast's statline or on the scoreboard behind home plate in Milwaukee, the establishment is starting to come around. The latest example: just yesterday, as I was reading my hometown Columbus Dispatch, I came across an article by writer Scott Priestle about teams locking up young players. The linked article doesn't have it for some reason, but the print edition included the chart to the right which breaks down recent free agent signings by VORP.

The important thing about it is not that Priestle used VORP in and of itself -- he's a smart guy who reads BP, so it makes perfect sense that he would use it -- but that he did so without making a huge honking deal about it. No long explanation which assumes the readers are idiots and, more importantly, no hacky disclaimers apologizing for using it in the first place, which I've seen on numerous occasions. It's just an instance of a baseball writer using information in service of a story, the same way we expect reporters to do on any beat.

I think the larger point here is that, as is the case with any evolution or advance, the grand statements (Moneyball) and initial confrontations (Neyer and Law being kept out of the BBWAA) get all the headlines, but don't lead directly or immediately to enduring change. Rather, they serve to create an environment in which people feel that it's safe to do things or think about things in new ways on their own timetable and in their own way. Rosa Parks and Curt Flood knew this, and I'm guessing Bill James was talking about this over cocktails a decade or two ago.

The stathead-traditionalist battles still flare up from time to time, but the war is over and the good guys* have won. It just may take a while for it to become apparent how successful the hearts-and-minds campaign really was.


Good guys = the ones who realize that each "side" is right about a great many things and successfully integrate those things into their enjoyment of the game.

Great Moments in Data Visualization

A designer/engineer by the name of Ben Fry has an awesome site on which he posts interesting maps, charts, and other graphic delights. Of interest to this crowd are his graphs illustrating the connection between team payroll and performance. Key: a downward blue slope is good and an upward red slope is bad. Nats' fans will be happy to see that they are getting almost exactly what they paid for.

I found this via a link to something even cooler: a map he did of all of the streets in the United States which is going viral this week. Click over there and prepare to waste a hell of a lot of time today.


Link via Sullivan and Fark and a bunch of other places.

Backman

Bats' Jack Curry tells of what sounds like a fascinating documentary featuring Wally Backman's odyssey through the independent leagues:

Backman was so desperate to work his way back onto a major league team’s radar that he managed the South Georgia Peanuts of the now defunct South Coast League, an independent minor league, last year. Backman is managing the Joliet Jackhammers in the Northern League, another independent league, this season.

John Fitzgerald, an award-winning filmmaker, chronicled the first and only season of the Peanuts. His reality series, which is called “Playing for Peanuts,” will air its first episode on SportsNet New York at 6 p.m. on Sunday and will follow in that time slot for nine more episodes.

I know basically nothing about YES or SNY, but I think it's interesting that YES is famous for running hagiographies of Yankee heroes while SNY shows warts-and-all stories about semi-disgraced former Mets.

Is this common? Call me crazy, but I'd have to think that a documentary about what, say, Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson are doing now would get better ratings than "Paul O'Neil: Fire of a Champion" or whatever.

The Patient Is Suffering Needlessly

The latest on the delayed demolition of Tiger Stadium from NYT's Joe LaPointe. Though I love the place like my childhood home, I'm on record as wishing it would have been imploded in 2000 or 2001. One look at the weed covered grass in LaPointe's story will tell you why.

The Evils of Blogging

From Peter Abraham's LoHud Yankees' Blog:

Yankees-Tigers: 1:05 p.m.

Flight from Detroit from Tampa: 9:24 p.m.

Game called: 1:17 p.m.

Stories finished: 2 p.m.

Time to kill: 7:24.

Ah, the exciting world of sportswriting. As I write this, I’m sitting on the floor at the gate, my laptop plugged into the only outlet within seven miles and I’m watching old episodes of the West Wing.

Does Peter realize that there are casinos in both Detroit and Windsor? If he had adhered to the code of the old timey sporting press, he would have been sitting in a cocktail lounge yesterday afternoon, wondering if he should (a) play a few more rounds of blackjack; or (b) get a lap dance. Instead he was busy lowering the level of the sporting discourse by writing an evil, evil blog.

Kids today.

And That Happened

Yankees-Tigers/Braves-Pirates/Jays-Indians: All the games within a three hour radius of chez Shyster were rained out yesterday, which tells you that the weather was pretty crappy at chez Shyster too. This was fairly disastrous, in that in honor of Mother's Day, I took charge of the kids, which allowed Mrs. Shyster to go shopping all day. There's nothing more dire than seven or eight hours with a 4 year-old and a 2 year-old and no way to get them out on the playground or a busy street or something to let them run and blow off steam. What's worse, there were no afternoon baseball games to provide pleasant background noise either, because the only two scheduled to show up on my TV -- Tigers-Yankees and Indians-Jays -- were canceled. I thought about turning on the radio to catch the Reds, but after last week's experience, I couldn't risk Marty again.

The point of all of this is to tell you that I think I lost my mind somewhere between the Play Doh and the 153rd rendition of "On top of Spaghetti," so please forgive me if this morning's recaps are somewhat sub par. Anyway:

Brewers 5, Cardinals 3: All-hail the bullpen-by-committee. The Brewers have actually gained a game in the standings since I slagged on them on Friday. I wonder if the Gagne-drama is enough of a distraction to save Yost's job for a while should things continue to be mediocre in Milwaukee. It'll be an academic question if they get more games like this one out of Ryan Braun (2-4, 2HR, 2 RBI).

Royals 4, Orioles 0: Brian Bannister rights the ship (8 IP, 2, H, 0 ER). Tony Pena, Jr. was a defensive replacement. He didn't play on Friday and was a defensive replacement last Wednesday as well. Could it be that Hillman has finally figured out that it's not 1966 anymore and that this is a guy who can't get 500 at bats?

Mets 8, Reds 3: You have to wonder if Johnny Cueto's first couple of starts aren't going to end up screwing him up for a long time. If he had simply been passable out of the gate instead of dominant, his recent stretch of awfulness (4.2 IP, 8 H, 6 R, 2 HR) could be addressed by a move to the bullpen or some time in Louisville or something. As it stands, though, there are probably a lot of people convinced that he just needs to be run out there 25 more times this year, assuming that he'll somehow return to being Bob Gibson soon enough. Instead of simply being a kid with great stuff but a lot of trouble with concentration and the gopher ball, he's under the microscope. An issue to be tackled on talk radio. A problem to be solved by anyone with a field pass and an idea about how to fix pitchers.

Rays 8, Angels 5: If the season ended today, the Rays would be in the playoffs and the Angels would not be. Just thought that was worth mentioning. All the more impressive is that Tampa Bay has been doing this while getting virtually nothing from their big money (for them anyway) corner infielders Carlos Pena (.716 OPS) and Evan Longoria (.711). I'm guessing each of them are eventually going to hit this year, which should make life pretty uncomfortable for the other wild card wannabes in the American League.

Marlins 5, Nationals 4: I'm guessing that if back in March you told Manny Acta that his best hitter come Mother's Day would be Aaron Boone, he would have reached for the Alka-seltzer. This one is all Luis Ayala's fault, though, as he came into the game in the 8th and gave up a single and a couple of homers in the process of wasting a nice start from Shawn Hill (7 IP, 5 H, 2 ER). Dan Uggla had a big day for the fish (2-3, 2 HR) on a day when it seemed like 17 guys hit two home runs.

Cubs 6, Diamondbacks 4: Everyone was ready to crown Arizona last week and then they come to Chicago and drop three straight. Yesterday's may have been excusable, though, as it was under 50 degrees and rainy, which isn't exactly the kind weather anyone can get all that enthused about playing in.

A's 12, Rangers 6: Rich Harden makes his first start since April 2nd. It wasn't a good one: 3.2 IP, 8 H, 5 ER, 4 BB. Thankfully for him, the Rangers sent out a slate of pitchers that were thought to be decent, oh, a decade or so ago, they got shelled, and Harden was off the hook.

Padres 3, Rockies 2: Yes, I know this was Saturday night's game, but (a) yesterday's game was pretty nondescript; and (b) this game was Maddux's 350th win. My man crush of two decades goes six innings, giving up three hits and one unearned run. All I ask is for five more wins so that he can retire with more than Clemens, and after that I will stop bargaining with God in an effort to protect his health and well being.

Mariners 6, White Sox 3: At the end of April, Ichiro was hitting .250 or something. An 11 game hitting streak to kick of May has him all the way up to .292 now, so I guess we can stop worrying if he'd lost something. And, yeah, I know they won the game and he got a couple of RBIs and everything, but can anyone explain to me what Miguel Cairo is doing starting at 1B for a team that, a month ago, had aspirations of making the playoffs? I mean, I know Seattle is having trouble with attendance, but I don't think having an original Devil Ray batting second is going to do anything to help it. You laugh, but the freak show rationale beats the baseball one.

Giants 4, Phillies 3: How happy do you think Ryan Howard is to have Andruw Jones around this year? Sure, he has a few more home runs, but they're both making eight figures are basically hitting .170 with a .280 OBP. He somehow hit a triple in this game. I didn't see the replay, but I have to assume that this was a blown call by the official scorer.

Astros 8, Dodgers 5: Somebody probably needed to wake up Joe Torre before he allowed Jonathan Broxton to give up his fifth consecutive hit without retiring a batter to start the eighth inning. I mean, the Dodgers did have the lead entering the frame, so there was something worth paying attention to.

Twins 9, Red Sox 8: This was probably the first time I've ever watched a Major League game and honestly thought, "yeah, I could probably hit this guy." Not the knucklers, but Wakefield threw a heck of a lot of his "fastballs" which, as Morgan pointed out, were essentially batting practice pitches. Speaking of Morgan, I realize he gets a lot of crap thrown his way (and that he deserves an awful lot of it) but at least while I was watching, he made probably five or six good sharp observations that added to my experience as a viewer. Just thought it was worth noting.

DePodesta Starts a Blog

The Padres Special Assistant for Baseball Operations (read: Giants' GM-elect) Paul DePodesta, started a blog late Friday night:

I began thinking about hosting a blog about a year ago, and back in January I took the first big step by starting an internal blog for employees of the Padres. The idea all along was to someday create an external blog to engage in a direct dialogue with our fans. Well, given the events of the past few weeks, that "someday" is now . . .

. . . So, I'm here, and I'd like to be a part of the conversation. I'll do my best to reply to comments/questions, though I can't promise punctual responses or regular posts. After all, just like everyone else out there, I already have a job. :-)

Hit me with whatever you have and let's get out of this slump together.

Welcome to the conversation, Paul! And good move keeping the neutral color scheme/title. That way you won't have to change anything once you move up to San Francisco!

SaberPolitics

Pardon the politics for a moment, but reader Howard Horn writes in with a link to a choice story. Howard writes:

Maybe this is beating a dead horse, but at least this has more practical implication to many of your readers than soccer or cricket. Apparently, Obama has a person on his team who applies an almost sabermatical analysis for courting delegates.

The general parameters of the story -- a quiet unknown puts his head down and figures out how nominations are really won while the so-called experts ignore the manifest logic of it all -- tracks the Bill James/sabermetrics profile pretty closely, right down to the salt-and-pepper beard and blunt talk. Basically, delegates = runs, and runs are all that matter. James is even given a quick name check in the article.

Curve Balls

Doug Glavnville's latest column is up at the NYT. As always, it's good reading and, as always, it's not just about baseball.

There is a constant debate among baseball hitters who deal with the question, “If you could know what pitch was coming, would you want to know?” Since there are all kinds of tricks to figuring that out, it is a very real possibility that you can, at times, know what is coming . . .

. . . But do you still want to know? Many players don’t. Because as the hitter, you might try to hit the ball to the moon from the excitement of knowing what’s coming, and end up destroying your mechanically sound swing in the process. I guess some people would go to psychics to find out their fate; I’d rather let fate be just that — fate.

I would love to hang out and talk with Glanville about stuff -- any stuff, really -- for like three days.

Insert Andruw Jones/Flop Joke Here

The Dodgers' James Loney, Gary Bennett and Scott Proctor take part in a charity poker tournament at an Indian casino in Highland, California:

The San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino was abuzz Thursday night as celebrities from both the entertainment and sports world took part in the first annual Ante Up for Africa poker tournament to aid survivors of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur . . . It just so happened to be a rare night off for the Dodgers, so three of their players, James Loney, Gary Bennett and Scott Proctor, drove about 70 miles down the 10 freeway to take part.

Remember when this sort of thing would get guys banned?

Reader Email of the Week

I don't normally run a lot of reader email, but once in a while I get one that makes me laugh or think. This one, from reader Royce Newman, is of the former variety:

Shyster,

I have to vent here, because this whole Clemens thing has reached the point of saturation with one aspect of my life, and ruined a perfectly good arrangement in my house. I should preface this entire thing by saying I really never have been a huge fan of Clemens – having caught wind of his sorriness long ago. However, when it came to bringing the goods, and as a fan of The Great Game, you have to respect what he brought with him when he took the mound. I think if George Foster had been a pitcher, he would have pitched like Clemens. And, like myself, he’s a Houstonian, so he got the benefit of the doubt.

That said, I had to buy a new clothes dryer last year. I jumped into my truck, went to Best Buy, bought a new one, brought it home, and hooked it up. As I was going over the manual on the unit I decided I had a much better way to mark the heating gradients on the dial. I pulled out my handy label making contraption and made out three replacements to affix over the factory indicators. The standard "Low", "Medium" and "High" markings were replaced accordingly: "Oprah," "The Allman Brothers," and "Roger Clemens." Having a more real-world nomenclature to work from made the drudgery of laundry an improved experience. And it spawned exchanges in the house like this:

Daughter: “Daddy, do jeans go on, ‘The Allman Brothers”?

RBN: “For jeans Honey, you better call up Roger – you need to bring the High Heat”

You see what I mean? Even domestic situations will, at times, demand you bring it in as hard as you can. It all made sense.

However, I had to remove the labels over the weekend, as I could no longer stand having Roger’s karma foul up my laundry room. And, more importantly, it really wouldn’t be the same with another pitcher replacing him. I thought about using Nolan Ryan originally, a pitcher who every red-blooded, baseball-loving Texan idolizes. Even though history will defend that Nolan never hesitated to bring it in higher, harder and more inside than completely necessary, (Robin Ventura will attest to this), Nolan is widely regarded by most as a soft-spoken, country gentleman. Clemens is regarded as a thug. And when you’ve got dirty work to do, you want a thug doing it.

So I had to return my dryer back to the banal, factory indicators, and doing laundry on Cheyenne Drive is just like doing it everywhere else. Roger and his selfish antics have ruined everything – the bastard.

I agree 100%, Royce. Clemens is history's greatest monster.

"My sh*t doesn't work in Twenty20 Test Matches!"

A couple of weeks ago the Guardian ran a story about Billy Beane's interest in applying sabermetric principles to soccer. Now the Guardian's Sport Blog asks whether cricket wouldn't make a better fit, and points to a blog devoted to cricket stats called Pappus' Plane. There's even a cricket Moneyball (sorta) called Best of the Best, in which author Charles Davis devotes some space to debunking cricket's versions of clutch hitting, team chemistry and all of that:

It is fascinating reading (for a cricket fan). Amongst other things, Davis objectively proves that using a nightwatchman is fundamentally flawed (you can read his analysis here). Ultimately though the book led me to think that there is a third major factor hindering cricket sabermetrics. Cricket is excessively obsessed with its past, and the majority of Davis's book is spent comparing players from different eras and trying to determine who is best. Which is all good fun, but it means that the statistical innovations he makes - such as the calculation of an 'under-pressure average' for batsmen - are squandered on pub-table debate. What Billy Beane did - by contrast - was to take such stats and actually apply them to team training and selection.

I guess the advantage to cricket's version of sabermetrics starting in the pubs instead of in mothers' basements is that when one of their statgeeks actually starts making decisions about teams -- which is inevitable -- it won't be met with as much resistance as a result of general familiarity.

Neat sporting stuff if you're into cricket. Neat sociological stuff if you're not.

(Thanks to Laurence Davison for the link)

Maple Bats

Jeff Passan takes a look at the dangers posed by the shatteriffic nature of maple bats.

Lugo's Blowup

Steve Buckley reports on Julio Lugo's frustration with all of the questioning about his error in Wednesday night's game. Actually, that didn't bother him so much, it was the questioning about other errors in addition to that one that did:

“It was a soft-hit ground ball and I thought I had a chance to go to second,” Lugo said, softly but clearly. “I was a little overaggressive. Instead of getting one out, I was trying to get the lead runner and I bobbled the ball.”

In Lugo’s opinion, nothing more need be asked. Yet we asked anyway, with one writer posing a question that was intended to connect what happened last night in Detroit with what happened last month in Toronto, when Lugo committed three errors in one game. And for those of you keeping score at home, the shortstop has committed 10 errors in 33 games played.

Lugo’s response to the question: “You’ve seen it.”

He then walked out of the clubhouse, down the hall, up a flight of stairs and into a parking garage. It was there, in the garage, that Lugo wanted to know what a May game in Detroit has to do with an April game in Toronto.

“I don’t care, but sometimes it would be nice to say something positive,” he said. “But all the time it’s negative things, you know? Sometimes, you know, people should say something that’s positive. But every time it’s something negative . . . bring it up, bring it up, bring it up. Why?

“I understand you (the media) are going to write whatever you want . . . but I come here every day and bust my ass . . . if things don’t work out sometimes, that’s the way it’s going to be. You understand? But sometimes you bring up the same things . . . You get tired of that.”

Buckley's take -- which is probably the right one -- is basically that Lugo knew what Boston was all about when he signed there. He knew that he was coming to a place where the media never forgets a mistake. He knew that when you're a goat in Boston, you're a goat in technicolor. There are expectations in that town that are different that Tampa or Houston and, of course, the press has the right to ask about whatever it wants.

Still, I empathize with Lugo. Whether or not he should know it going in and whether or not reporters have a right to ask whatever they want, I fail to understand the necessity for that line of questioning. What is he possibly going to say about making an error that is all that insightful? It's not like there was some premeditated tactical decision which led to his mistakes, he basically just screwed up. He knows it. The reporters know it. The fans know it. What else is there to add on a primary source reporting basis?

The story, it would seem, about Lugo's errors is one for the columnists and opinion guys -- what to do about shortstop -- not one for the beat guys.