Writ Large

Peter Gammons wins the J.G. Taylor Spink Award and joins fellow luminary Ring Lardner in Baseball Hall of Fame. Throw ya hands up!

So, will Flogging Molly be playing the induction ceremony?

You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch

Marlins spokesman Bruce Rubin on owner Jeff Loria recent meeting with Las Vegas officials: "These were social discussions, a get-to-know-each-other meeting. Simply, Vegas wants a baseball team and the Marlins are a baseball team. It was decided that the two sides should get together."

I think I threw up in my mouth a little when I read this published report. It's not the sentiment, it's the phrasing. You know, peanut butter tastes good on sandwiches and chocolate is a delicious treat -- why not put the two together and make something even more delicious? No one who witnessed Art Modell's dismantling of the Browns and overnight move to Baltimore will buy this line, and Jeff Loria's Machiavellian maneuvering as owner of Les Expos assures us that it's all about the dollar for him.

Sure, sure, the only thing more cliche than an owner crying poverty is a fan complaining that an owner is a greedy pig. But Loria is truly a piece of work. Is Montreal a bad town for baseball? Yes. Is Miami a bad town for baseball? Maybe. But for the same reasons that the White Sox struggle to fill the stands in the third largest market in baseball. If you build a good team, the fans will come. And if you dismantle a team, the fans respond in the only way they know how. That's the simple economics of a 162-game schedule. People support the Marlins -- inclement weather and tropical rainstorms aside -- when the team is good. And the team has won two World Series rings in the last seven years, which is pretty terrific.

By all accounts, Pro Player Stadium is an awful place to see a game. And what team hasn't tried to strongarm its host city into financing a new park in the post-Camden Yards/ Jacobs Field era? Loria's timing is terrible, though: the threat of a move is appalling when used as a negotiation tactic. Is all hope truly lost in Miami? Have the Marlins explored all their options for financing a new ballpark? Why do teams feel like they bear no responsibility in making capital improvements? It's not that Miami is lucky to have the Marlins; the Marlins are lucky to have Miami.

Into the Void

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My girlfriend used to work about a block away from a plaque commemorating the Haymarket Riots. Here in Chi-town, we've got public parks in the middle of nowhere dedicated to Eugene V. Debs. The City of Chicago built itself on the spirit of labor reform; the city's rise as a financial center is a natural outgrowth of a massive population explosion, but it still bleeds blue like Gary, Indiana or Kalamazoo, Michigan. I'll save my thoughts on labor unions for another day and another blog, but as someone who's paid dues for a union in the past (United Auto Workers) and has found himself employed a variety of mixed/ union/ non-union locations, all I can say is that the MLB Players Union is its own worst enemy right now.

MLB doesn't have a deep history of voided contracts -- Aaron Boone's basketball injury springs to mind immediately and a series of contracts were voided during some strange administrative reshuffling in the strike shortened 1994 season. And of course, Denny Neagle -- a poster-boy for salary bloat -- is all over the news wire right now for (literally) getting caught with his pants down. Forget about Boone, who was in obvious violation of the terms of his contract. And let's also not consider the aberration of '94, because so much of it flew under the radar. Neagle, though, is a warning sign for what happens when baseball half-heartedly attempts to enforce morals.

Let's set the record straight here: despite defaming him in the press, the Yankees did not terminate Kevin Brown's contract last season after a self-inflicted injury. Jason Giambi's job with the Yankees is probably safe, as is Barry Bonds' continued employment with the Giants; it's rough going from here on out for both, but their respective value to their teams is tied inextricably to their ability to place butts in seats. But what happens when you move on down the line to someone like Benito Santiago, who's been rumored to be on the 'roids and has a comparatively modest 2.5 million left on his contract with the Royals? Or The Neck that Ate Chicago? His trade value is less than nil in the wake of steroid allegations and the Cubs would love to take his contract and drop it like it's hot.

The MLB Players Union has zero leverage until it adopts a steroid testing policy. In the face of sharp criticism from bulldog Sen. John McCain, the Union is saying that it would be "open" to adopt a more stringent testing policy. Union boss Don Fehr has defended the current policy, wherein players were tested once between spring training and the end of the regular season. Once. So where's the statistical sample? And if everyone and their mom and their dog knew that Bonds and Giambi were on 'roids, then everyone knew about the prevalence of doping agents -- you could sleepwalk through the Summer Olympics and catch a fucking clue.

What the Players Union needs to understand is that its in their best interest to adopt aggressive testing measures, whether or not their interests fall in line with the "moral good" of baseball. Not because John Mc Cain or President Bush wants it or Bud Selig peeks out from under his desk to sheepishly agree, but because it's the only leg the players have to stand on when protecting their bloated contracts. What we'd definitely see is an impediment to owners/teams voiding player contracts, since all the Union reps would have to say is that Player A admits he has a problem, he will accept the attendant penalties and he will seek treatment and counseling to resolve the problems. Will testing drastically reduce the frequency of steroid use within the league? Hell no, baseball's too soft on crime and it'd take the threat of something like a salary cap to sort that one out.

Jason and the Argue-Nots

Seems like everytime I go visit my parents, Dave Littlefield dismantles the Pittsburgh Pirates. Folks, if you want to know what to get me for Christmas (er, Hanukkah) this year, it's really easy: make the bleeding stop! I spent 12 hours pacing nervously in O'Hare airport on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, wondering if I should just resign myself to camping out there over the entire weekend a la Tom Hanks. Heard the Jason Kendall-to-Oakland rumors swirling all week (with Mark Mulder possibly coming in return, yeah right!) and then -- boom! -- cracked open the paper on Saturday morning to read all about the twin salary dump the teams orchestrated.

If you scroll down a few posts to early November, you'll see that I feel pretty strongly about Kendall. Mark Redman was a decent catch -- in light on Kris Benson's $8 million contract with the Mets, he'll provide similar production with no illusions of being anything other than a #4-5 starter. His lone season in the NL was his best (Florida, 2003), so his numbers should roll back a little in the less hitting-friendly league. And if the Bucs can trade for Prentice Redman and get an endorsement from Red Man Chewing Tobacco, they'll have a monopoly on all the major league Redmen. Arthur Rhodes, the other guy involved in the deal, was a major dud for Oakland last season -- though the Pittsburgh front office knows they're dealing from a position of strength in terms of the bullpen, and they'll try to spin him for some hitting (one rumor has him being flipped to L.A. for Milton Bradley, yeah right!) or, more likely, release him during Spring Training. So no thanks there.

In short, they made out as best as they could. Just like the Brian Giles deal, which, given some distance to reflect, turned out amazingly for the Pirates. You won't see the same kind of returns here, because of the strict major league talent ratio. Oakland obviously felt than Rhodes and Redman have nowhere to go but down, and no surprise that the Pirates felt the same way about Kendall. Last time out, I took the high road discussing Kendall -- trying to get into Billy Beane's head to figure out Kendall's present-day value as an OBP and defensive threat. Right here and now, he seems like an awfully good fit for the A's.

And present value is what you think of when the wounds are still raw. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Ed Cook slammed the deal in a front-page piece the morning after, and who could blame him? It's painful anytime a player with a modicum of talent gets shipped out of town. My esteemed colleague One Man Band pretty much encapsulates my feelings on the trade: bad deal, leaves the Pirates vulnerable at catcher, doesn't really provide the financial flexibility that you'd assume, and the Pirates won't do anything with the few million dollars in savings except pad the war chest. Totally on the mark!

Cook's colleague at the PG, The Stats Geek, took another tack and tried to calm nerves by weighing Kendall's injury history and future durability against the examples of Johnny Bench and the major drop-off in service time most catchers experience after age 30. Of the top 20 catchers who caught the most games up through age 30, only 2 rank in the top 20 of games caught after 30. Offensive production is a corollary to health behind the plate, too Johnny Bench caught 539 games from ages 27-30 and 415 from 31-34; his OPS dipped from .836 to .794 in the same interval. How about Carlton Fisk? 522 games from 27-30 and 453 from 31-34 with an OPS slide from .853 to .761. Mike Piazza? 592 games from 27-30, 438 (541 games total -- he also played a lot of first base in '04) from 31-34 with a huge OPS slide.

Folks like Gary Carter and Roy Campanella held up pretty well, of course, but Kendall has already caught 1252 games through age 30 and the major drop-off begins after 1300 games. I still think he has a lot of life left in him; save his gruesome injury in '99, he's been very durable. And he has three years left on his contract, not coincidentally the age 31-34 period discussed above. Can Kendall catch a lot of games in that interval and hit for a high average? History says no for catchers with an extreme workload. Kendall has only caught 442 games over the least three seasons, though; he'll have no problem equaling that production.

On the money

Jayson Stark unpacks the mysteries of collusion in his recent column. Didn't realize that MLB offered "recommendations" for suggested "salary ranges," but that certainly explains the spate of 2 yr/$6 million OF contracts in 2004. Great piece. So are the MLB elders the true villains here? No no, it's still Scott Boras who's still taking his cues from Dr. Doom and the Red Skull.

He Hate Me



Rick Morrissey of the Chicago Tribune said everything there is to say about agent Scott Boras: "He is a very, very bad man. Exquisitely bad, in a foreclose-on-the-farm sort of way." Bryan Miller, in a thinkpiece on Slate, offered a more even-tempered assessment of the agent in 2001: "Scott Boras is the Marvin Miller of his age—the man the owners claim they can't afford, but the players can't afford to live without." Either way you cut it, no one likes the guy -- owners and GMs hate him with a passion, fans treat him like a human pinata, and I doubt highly that any player who has reaped the benefits on Boras' predatory tactics is inviting him to their next Christmas party.

But shit, Boras gets results. Look at the A-Rod, Kevin Brown and Darren Dreifort contracts he engineered a few years ago. Woah. And then look at his cream-of-the-crop client list for this year's free agent class: Adrian Beltre, Carlos Beltran, Derek Lowe, Jason Varitek, Kevin Millwood, J.D. Drew and Magglio Ordonez. GMs and owners have already balked at his demands for Beltran (10 years, backloaded) and Jason Varitek, but those guys will get signed. Above market value. Because Scott Boras never loses. He's like Wile E. Coyote if the super-genius managed to get the better of the Road Runner and drop an anvil on his head every time.

Word out of Chicago is that White Sox GM Kenny Williams doesn't like the way negotiations with franchise cornerstone Magglio Ordonez have been going; Williams called a press conference to tell reporters that the White Sox "would not be signing any Scott Boras clients this year." Well, no shit, Sherlock -- isn't that why the Washington franchise pulled the trigger on deals with Christian Guzman and Vinny Castilla so quickly? No one wants to get stuck negotiating with Scott Boras as an act of desperation.

Still, what's going on here? Is this Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf's legendary cheapness rearing its head once again? The White Sox franchise has a nasty track-record of blackballing its highest-paid players as a way of keeping salaries at a manageable limit -- Big Frank Thomas got treated pretty badly in the midst of a prolonged slump and he just redeemed himself in the eyes of the fans last season. People were booing the guy at every at-bat because of Reinsdorf's carefully-orchestrated smear campaign. What Kenny Williams said should ring true in the hearts and minds of every baseball observer from the top of an organization to the fan sitting in the nosebleed section, sure.

But you don't owe it to anyone to tell them the truth unless you're sleeping with them -- Boras is a terrible bed-fellow of course, but imagine the whispers of collusion that might circulate if all teams took a stand against the Boras clients this year. Kenny Williams would be Exhibit A in that trial. So what you do is shut the fuck up and keep it behind the scenes. You don't need mommy and daddy to tell you that they're getting divorced after years of bitter arguments...you knew it all along.

Bump and grind

I'm pretty sure that I've already seen a movie or three about the Jayson Werth stalker case -- wife dumps high school sweetheart for guy who makes the big leagues, jilted lover blackmails the couple -- fifteen times. Seems like a cross between The Fan and Unforgettable and that one with Marky Mark carving Reese Witherspoon's name on his chest . Like, 4 eva. Not to make too much light of it -- the Werths seem like they just want to be left alone.

Here's an even more absurd story involving the wife of Gary Sheffield and R. Kelly and -- oh, what's that you say? -- a guy-on-girl-and-girl sex-video. I'm sorry. I just can't leave it alone. Tapes of Kelly making the beast with two backs with Sheffield's wife originated from Chicago, where community activist/ huckster Derrick Mosley attempted to give Sheff the shakedown for $20,000 in blackmail money. Here's the kicker: Sheffield's wife is 28. The tape is said to be at least 10 years old. R. Kelly has a predilection towards humping his proteges (Sheff's wife is a gospel singer), especially his underage ones. Bad timing for R. Kelly as it relates to his pending child pornography case, these days, it seems like he might as well take up permanent residence in a courthouse . I'm pretty sure I haven't seen this movie yet, but when art eventually decides to imitate life, it's going to be great.

Update: Is it a Yankee curse? Sheffield's stay in New York has been plagued with all sorts of difficulties . Read the article, it'll put hair on your chest.

Devil's Bargain/ Devil's Advocacy

Best part of checking in on the Hot Stove action for me has always been seeing who falls into disfavor/ is labeled as damaged goods/ lands in the Pittsburgh Pirates lap. And I suspect that it's the same way for everyone who still roots for the Pirates against the odds: the entire city of Pittsburgh practically got an erection when rumors of Travis Lee signing with the team surfaced last spring. Travis Lee, people. The worst part of it all isn't the whiskey dick sensation that goes along with watching a collection of rotten apples and turds thumb their collective noses at the Bucs, though.

No, it's seeing some variant on the "the team's gotta trade Jason Kendall in order to keep pace in today's market" cliche in every single off-season (and pre-season, and well, mid-season) report on the team's future. Because there's two things -- actually, four now that Torres and Mesa have been inked to deals -- that are absolutely certain about the Pirates next year. First, GM Dave Littlefield won't be increasing the payroll without an additional revenue stream; this team is almost at a point where adding a Troy Glaus would pay verifiable dividends, but nowhere near the bank-breaking bump it would take to wallow in mid-market mediocrity.

And more importantly, Jason Kendall isn't going anywhere this year. Dude's still owed $34 million/ 3 years on his contract and exactly one team (the Dodgers) are in the market for a catcher. The Bucs would get majorly rooked in any trade involving Kendall -- they'd have to fork over at least a 1/3 of the money owed over the length of the contract for any team to even listen to trade talks and probably a bit more to acquire anything beyond journeymen/AAA fodder. Say what you want about Littlefield, but he has too much pride in the organization to suffer the humiliation of letting Kendall go like that.

And I like Kendall. You like Kendall. Everyone likes Kendall. His OPS ranked fourth (behind Bay and the Wilsons) amongst team regulars and he's a marvel of consistency any way you slice-and-dice his stats (home vs. away, month by month). No more ink needs to be spilled on his offensive attributes; let's talk about his talent behind the plate. Here's Kendall measured against highly-regarded defensive types Ivan Rodriguez and Jorge Posada in some select fielding stats:

Kendall .991 FP/ 7.69 RF/ 1.000 ZR/ .363 CS%
Rodriguez .987 FP/ 7.04 RF/ .933 ZR/ .322 CS%
Posada .990 FP/ 7.25 RF/ 1.000 ZR/ .272 CS%

"FP" is Fielding Percentage (put-outs + assists divided by put-outs + assists + errors), a pretty solid statistical measurement of a player's defensive ability. "RF" is Range Factor (put-outs + assists divided by innings) and its fraternal twin "ZR" is Zone Rating, which measures how well a player performs in his "assigned" zone. "CS%" is the percentage of runners caught while attempting to steal. As you can see, Kendall's tops Rodriguez and Posada in all of these categories -- I haven't checked how he stacks up against the rest of the league's battery partners yet. But if the team ain't gonna dump any more money into the payroll and the mission of 2005 remains youth development, you want Kendall in there to make Kip Wells look good, guide Oliver Perez along the way and help to fix whatever's wrong with Ryan Vogelsong.

With apologies to the amazin' Jason Bay, Kendall's still the Pirates' best player. The contract hasn't gotten any less silly over the last three years, but I'd much rather have him on the team than the extra cash the Pirates would flush down the toilet trying to sign enough warm bodies to create a bargain-basement version of the Phillies.

Stonewalled

Long time readers (yeah, all four of you) know that I'd be the first guy to pull out a fiddle and dance a drunken jig if Wrigley Field burned to the ground, but news of veteran Cubs broadcaster Steve Stone's resignation at the end of October has still got me down. Steve Stone wasn't half bad as a player -- check out his amazing 25-7 season in 1980 for further reference. Note, as well, that it was enhanced by the four-man rotation Baltimore had in place during the season, but Stone was like the 70's equivalent of Woody Williams in his day.

I'm way too young to remember Stone as a player, though I can remember hearing the first game he called really well. It was in May 2004, before the players up and quit during the strike-shortened season. For my first trip to Wrigley, I tagged along with a guy who lived on the same floor of my dorm who just happened to be...Steve Stone's cousin. We sat underneath the broadcasting booth, within Budweiser-spilling distance of Harry Caray and Stone came out and greeted us during the 7th inning stretch. Quite an experience. The only other ballplayers I've ever that close were the 1995 Pirates (entire team) and this guy (also a relative of a friend), neither of which are anything to tell the future kids about.

I'm convinced that Steve Stone is one of the great unheralded geniuses of sports broadcasting and that time will unveil his 27-year run with the Cubs (with and without Caray) as deserving of Hall of fame consideration. Really, I apologize for the hyperbole -- the wounds are still raw -- but Stone got a raw deal. Apparently, Dusty Baker took issue with some of Stone's critical comments during a late-September game and that this year's team felt Stone wasn't really on their side.

The situation with the Cubs -- a team controlled by a monolithic media company, the parent organization of The Chicago Tribune -- is pretty complicated as it stands. The Chicago Sun-Times, despite its award-winning sports section, is engaged in a giant pissing contest with its competitor, and can't really be trusted to tell the truth about the Cubs. Stone was the guy I trusted to tell it to me straight -- he handled an ungainly, larger-than-life presence like Caray with ease and his commentaries were a perfect mix of erudition and regular-guy charm, unlike that obsequious boot-licker Chip Caray.

It's not a broadcaster's job to be a team booster when the team sucks. I had the opportunity to listen to all-time great Ernie Harwell call a late-summer Tigers game in his final season during an otherwise feverishly dull trip from Chicago to Pittsburgh. And it was great, no knocks on Harwell, but he was so good at masking his frustration with decades of sucky teams. The Cubs' freak pennant run in 2002 aside, Stone had the burden of witnessing the mishaps of a series of serially-underachieving teams. You have to bow to the party line to keep a job, though, and Stone ultimately realized this and drew his line in the sand. Stone's letter of resignation can be viewed in full here. The Trib didn't even have the guts to print it.

In case you're wondering, Chip Caray already left to take a job with the Braves and the booth remains open for next season and beyond. When asked if he'd be interested in assuming the mantle, Bob Costas politely demurred and said that he wouldn't be up to the challenge of -- get this -- "the greatest job in baseball." That, my friends, is the biggest lie in all of professional sports -- rivaled only by the idea that next year, any year, will hold more promise for the Cubs.

End of the line

A few days late and dollar short with the analysis of the World Series here at McClendon's Folly, but the truth is that I sort of lost interest after the drubbing St. Louis got in Game Two. Everything after the first game was, well, pretty dull. Manny Ramirez was one of the most boring MVPs in recent memory, too -- he hit for the highest average in the series (.429) but didn't do anything spectacular at the plate or on the field. Curt Schilling emerged as a hero after his airtight start, surgically-repaired ankle and all, but then he turned Judas and endorsed the wrong candidate.

From The Girlfriend: "The Wrigley Curse makes sense, because it involves a goat, and goats are evil. But Boston has a curse because they sold a player in 1918? That candy bar sucks, anyway." Sing it, sister. That's the main reason I'm glad that Boston pasted the Cards in the final three games of the series and finally put the skeletons of The Babe, Bill Buckner and the longest history of institutional racism in MLB behind itself. And that's about it. It's good for the Red Sox. It's good for baseball. It wasn't the Yankees.

The New York Times picked up on the whole root-against-the-Yankees vibe the following day with four solid pages of coverage on the final game of the Series. All stories and headlines basically pointed to the same conclusion: where was the drama? Extract the buffet lunch of sour grapes and humble pie and you can't argue with the writers' tack. The main story here was Boston's perfect 8-game win streak from the ALCS through the World Series and how the Yankees and Cards wilted under the spotlight.

Still, even the Cardinals-Houston NLCS run would've been more intriguing as a coda: high and lows, ebbs and flows, rookies and veterans, one swirling mix. The Cardinals just couldn't bring it against the Sox; St. Louis was the best team in baseball this season, but the Red Sox were the best team in baseball in October. In the advent of a 162-game season, that month makes all the difference.

Big in Japan



Here's Diamondbacks washout Alex Cabrera celebrating after launching a two-run blast during Game 3 of the Fall Classic. No, not that championship series. The other series...in Japan, where the Seibu Lions just sealed up a championship in a tense series against the Chunichi Dragons. Would that fly in America? Only in the NFL, but Cabrera can still claim full jackass rights after a monster series which saw him knock two home runs (including a grand slam) in Game 3 and a pivotal two-run shot in Game 7 to rally the Lions in the final game of the series.

What's cool is that the Lions became the first Japanese baseball team to win the Japan Series by besting their opponents in the final two games on the road. So there's some hope for the Cardinals in all this, I suppose, if they could only win a goddamn game. Team's MVP was starter Takashi Ishii, who finished the series with a sterling 0.00 era after going 1-5 during the regular season.

I don't pretend to know a lot about Japanese baseball, short of what I've read in Robert Whiting's excellent and informative chronicle You've Gotta Have Wa. I'd like to know more, mind you, but Japanese baseball remains woefully underexposed here in the U.S. Just think: Hideki Matsui has a team of journalists following him around and waiting for him to squeeze out a fart so it can make top headlines in Japan. And then Alex Cabrera goes over to Japan, does his best impression of David Ortiz, and no one seems to care.

I'm not concerned with that particular inequity, because Japanese leagues have been employing foreign (mot just U.S., but Korea and Taiwan) players with a much greater frequency for a much longer period of time. But with seventeen different ESPN channels on the dish, there's no room to air this series? C'mon: less teams, parity between the teams and a smaller talent pool to draw from -- the seven-game stretch sounds like it was a lot more intriguing than what's going on here right now.

Boston's up 4-0 as I write this. Go Lions!

Pretty ugly

The Las Vegas bookmakers called it right before Game 1 -- I can't see Boston steamrolling St. Louis in four games (or 3 1/2 as our man Bill "Spaceman" Lee might hope), but it may be the safest best to throw money on the Sox on the basis of momentum and a (slightly) deeper pitching staff and bench. I mean, La Russa had to start So Taguchi in left field last night in order to cover the DH slot. And while the move worked out fine -- Taguchi's ok defensively and went 1-for-3 at the plate -- Boston has the distinct advantage of being able to play the unflappable David Ortiz and Kevin Millar on home turf.

Peter Gammons says that the Cardinals outplayed the Red Sox last night, but I'm not sure that's true. Yes, the Sox were a mess defensively. Manny Ramirez continues to be his own worst enemy with some terrible plays. Did you see him dive for that ball and miss? Yikes. But Trot Nixon was the only Sox starter who failed to collect a hit, whereas the deepest part of the St. Louis order -- Pujols, Rolen and Sanders -- went a combined 0-11 and a 1/3 of the Cardinals' runs came courtesy of their opponent's errors. So offensively -- edge to the Red Sox. The old saw about pitching separating the contenders from the pretenders in the post season hasn't held true during the entire run of the playoffs, so why start now? Ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourselves for some smashmouth baseball; Vinny Testaverde couldn't score this many runs with a Philadelphia offense behind him.

Back to the Future

From now on, I only want to hear Bill "Spaceman" Lee commenting on the postseason. During last year's Red Sox-Yankees match-up, Lee went on NPR and offered this gem:

"Uranus is in an 84-year cycle, and the last time Uranus was in this position after a loop around the sun was in 1918" -- the Sox' last World Series victory, beating (who else?) the Cubs -- "so the moons are positioned that, you know, in -- they're suspending all weddings in India right now in the Hindu religion because of the proximity of Mars and the way things are going. You know, things are really agitated."

Last night, NPR brought Lee back to discuss Boston's triumphant Game 7 victory, breaking the curse of the Bambino and the possibility of meeting the Cardinals again in the World Series. Lee went on to unpack a sensible theory about how the Yankees owe all of their historical postseason success to the Red Sox. But it wouldn't be a Lee commentary without some flighty nonsense, as he weighed in on karma and how the Red Sox and Cardinals are destined to meet each other in preordained intervals. And the inevitable outcome of the series? "The Red Sox will finish them off in 3 1/2 games. We'll beat them so badly they'll forfeit the last 4 innings."

This man could win you the election, Senator Kerry.

The Tigers Have Spoken

A friend in Detroit sent me a link to the following article about Cecil Fielder's recent struggles with a gambling addiction and it hit me like a ton of bricks. The guy's destitute, his family hasn't really heard from him, and he's had this outrageous fall from fortune that makes MC Hammer's Behind the Music reveal look trivial.

Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote a poem about the dual nature of greatness and fall from grace around 200 years ago and it's stuck with me since I first encountered it in 9th grade. Even those who have a weak stomach for poetry (as I do) would be hard pressed to argue that "Ozymandias" isn't lyrical perfection -- 14 lines that say everything that needs to be said on the subject with unflinching beauty and masterful economy. I think the author of the Detroit News postmortem must've had Shelley trapped in the recesses of his mind, too, particularly in the way he describes how Fielder's Florida mansion has suffered from neglect in the intervening years. Here's that poem for reference:

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

You could stick those lines in a post about, say, Pete Rose or any other fallen idol for that matter -- but we're constantly reminded of Rose's greatness on the field. It's amazing how well the poem fits Fielder's legacy, though, especially since the memory of his 1990-93 run with the Tigers has fallen into a state of disrepair and neglect. Fielder's 1990 season, in particular, was electric -- he became the first major leaguer to bash 50 home runs since Big Red Machine cog George Foster in '77 and led the league in rbi, slugging percentage and total bases. Only Rickey Henderson did more damage at the plate.

Fielder's biggest impact on baseball, I think, remains unrecognized. His success in 1990 was directly responsible in motivating big league execs to look towards Japan as a viable source of talent for the major leagues. Before Fielder came back to the States, Japan was the place to go for the twilight of your career. Leon Lee played there. Bob Horner, too. But no one ever came back from the Land of the Rising Sun and kicked ass like Fielder. The Marlins took a cue and signed reclamation project Orestes Destrade to a plum contract in the immediate aftermath; a few years later, Hideo Nomo came to the Dodgers and busted the seal wide open. For me, Fielder's one of those guys -- like Curt Flood, I guess -- where his big contribution came from kicking off a chain reaction of important events. Pity it had to end up like this.

The fat lady has been muzzled

Over in the Lone Star state, Brandon Backe and Woody Williams flirted with perfection. Backe ran a no-hitter 'til the 6th and and both pitchers rang up goose eggs on the ol' scoreboard in 15 combined innings of work before Jason Isringhausen coughed up three runs in the bottom of the ninth. This is what we usually expect from a championship game -- two competitors running neck-and-neck, challenging each other inning after inning. This was postseason perfection.

And back under the shadow of the Green Monster, there was imperfection. Loads of it. Longest ALCS game ever, as a matter of fact -- took 14 innings and 14 pitchers just to sort this mess out. Moose came out triumphant over Pedro to kick it all off, but the game belonged to the Red Sox after the 6th inning...even if these guys couldn't catch a break until Tim McCarver exhausted every last one of his shot-calling aphorisms.

There was Bronson Arroyo, he of the golden cornrows, stepping to the mound after a disastrous Game 3 start and fooling the best part of the Yankees' order with filthy stuff. And Mike Myers, whose sidearm delivery moves s-l-o-w-e-r than a lady of leisure unfolding an Chinese fan, rattling off four pitches of molasses. And Alan Embree finishing off the inning by striking out two straight batters. And Tim Wakefield scaring the bejeesus out of everyone but the Red Sox Nation hopefuls with what seemed like at least sixteen straight passed balls. Varitek couldn't even restrain Wakefield's knuckle.

Don't doubt for a second that David Ortiz said what you thought he said after the ump called him out on a what-game-were-you-watching checked swing, though. Ortiz clearly turned to the camera and mouthed "That's bullshit!" before returning to the dugout and finding himself at the receiving end of a series of bad calls that deserved far greater expletives. Who could blame him? Dude was so enraged that he ripped a soft Esteban Loaiza pitch right into center with two outs in the 14th to bring Johnny Damon home and send the Yankees back to New York licking their wounds.

Best way to combat indifference and doubt? If you're the Braves, you fold and regroup. But in Boston and Houston, you stay hungry. I don't think there's every been a postseason performance to match what Carlos Beltran is doing for the Astros. He's en fuego, with a home run in, like, every third at-bat -- he is the team. And Ortiz? He keeps saving the day, too. He's not going to carry Boston like Beltran with the Astros, but he's doing collateral damage with that .500 postseason average. And he's pissed off. Walk him, pitch around him, trick him into a ground ball out, whatever -- just stay the fuck out of his way.

The Tide is High



I don't get it. But look at the guy in the picture with his shit-eating grin, ready to prostrate himself for George Costanza's longtime employer. I mean, it makes no sense -- maybe we've moved from the usual hyper-misogynist depictions of the "other" team and its fans as "ladies" and on to forced infantilization. What a slap in the face to all those adults I've seen strolling around in Huggies and bonnets on the Jenny Jones show? Seriously, what would Vice magazine say about this? Yikes.

Game 3 of the ALCS moves to tonight after Bud Selig canceled last night's contest for fear of inclement weather. What a drag for Houston and Stl, who can't catch a break with the scheduling when there's a Yankees or Red Sox around to grab a larger network share. And the Red Sox? Still in the fetal position, no matter what the Boston-area message boards would lead you to believe about momentum, changing heart, et al. Boston's irresistible force can't knock the Yankees' immovable object out of the way. Brown vs. Arroyo tonight and Hernandez vs. Wakefield tomorrow; both games are at Fenway, but both pitching match-ups favor the Yankees. Or do they?

Brown has no decisions against the Red Soc this year, and hasn't pitched against the division rivals since April, when he faced Boston in two unimpressive starts. And Hernandez, who had an otherwise fine last half, only faced Boston once in September and got knocked out after 3 innings. Arroyo has four no decisions in four starts against the Yankees, though the Red Sox cruised to victory in all of the games he started with not much help from him. Wakefield moves to the top of the leader board in wins, because unlike the other three, he actually nailed down a win against the Yankees.

The crystal ball is as cloudy as the Boston skyline, though, and I'm going to have to go with my gut. I'll guess that the Yankees show Boston who's their Yankee Daddy in tonight's game, while Boston fearing the humiliation of being swept, turns on the juice and takes game four. Key to this weekend's contests = Manny Ramirez, doing a marvelous impression of Barry Bonds in the postseason. Wake up, dude.

Babies Got Backe

The Astros deserve so much more. Here's a team that was six games under .500 at the All-Star break and waffled over trading Carlos Beltran to a contender like our man John K on America's continuing involvement in Iraq. But it's a war, man, and the 'Stros soldiered on through the second half of the season, against their better judgment -- against anyone's better judgment -- and came up with a wild-card berth.

And now? Andy Petitte's on the shelf and Roger Clemens and Wade Miller have to wait 'til games #3 and #4 to make a mark. So the Astros are throwing out two guys named Pete Munro (who starts the big game tonight) and Brandon Backe (whose success has a pitcher has been so waaaaayyyy out of leftfield that he, uh, actually started in that position). Didn't work well in the first game as Backe went backe to the clubhouse, but maybe Munro can pull a Tim Wakefield and make some noise in the big postseason start.

I don't like his team's chances, though. And that's a no-brainer. My god, can the Cardinals rake. It doesn't even matter how many times Carlos Beltran can go yard. It doesn't matter that year's comeback kid Chris Carpenter went down for the rest of the season. It doesn't matter that Scott Rolen's performance against L.A. was worthy of a Mr. Yuk sticker. St. Louis is so good off the bench and in the bullpen than all of the puzzle pieces are right there. And this team's cauldron bubbles over with personality like the '93 Phillies or the '87 Twins -- you can't root for the Astros without feeling a little sorry for them, but you can get right behind the Cardinals.

And either way -- though a World Series berth for the Cardinals has been written in stone since May -- this'll be the first time a NL Central team will advance to the World Series since the introduction of the wild card. And that feels electric, considering how much pride people have taken on hating on the NL Central over the last couple of years. St. Louis has angels in the outfield and divine right on its side. Watch Edmonds-Pujols-Walker destroy the Yankees for their fallen Astros comrades. Watch them do it for the also-rans and never-weres in Pittsburgh and Milwaukee and Cincinnati. And watch them do it for the good of baseball.

Frying pan or fire?

Hadn't watched a lick of baseball for a month preceding last night's Yankees-Red Sox match-up. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to deduce that from my lack of posts at the end of the season. Is it mid-October already? The last month has seemed like an out-of-body experience as I've been doing my best impression of my father-as-burgeoning-workaholic, burning the candle at both ends. And something had to go and it looks like I missed out on a lot of fun games, as well as the Astros remarkable half-season sprint towards the playoffs (more on this next time).

Baseball's not basketball and it sure as hell ain't hockey; only a choice few teams make the playoffs, teams with mediocre attributes never advance on to the postseason and the disconnect between the regular season and the post-season is much less than in any other professional sports league. Which is to say: there's a purpose to actually watching regular season games, whereas there's no reason to watch hockey until all but two teams make the playoffs and duke it out for what seems like two solid months of contests. I dunno; up until the introduction of the wild card a few years ago, I actually never even saw a point to getting down with the playoffs until the World Series -- even with a personal stake in the proceedings during The Pirates' near-miss runs between 1990-1992.

So: last night. Not a bad game. 6 innings of what seemed like an analog for the regular season, with the Yankees chasing Schilling out of the game early and asserting dominance in every way (though the BoSox retain their slight edge in moral superiority and a massive lead in stupid haircuts). Then: a spark, a fire, a full-on blaze as the Sox pound out 5 runs in the 7th and 2 more in the 8th to pull within one run of the Evil Empire before Bernie Williams knocked two more runs in to widen the gap.

And this, my friends, is what Joseph Campbell was talking about with the power of myth. Bill Mueller -- who the Fox commentators delighted in reminding us has made Mariano Rivera his bitch this season -- up at the plate with two men on and a chance for some more of his regular season heroics. One long ball is all it takes to tie the game and shift the dynamics of the game. Ball, whiff, ball, foul...and Mueller hits into a double-play to end the game. Mueller's no goat, but Rivera's back to being top dog. NY fans rejoice, Boston fans head to the nearest Irish pub. And it ain't over by a long shot.

Howe now, brown cow

Rob Neyer got a lesson in ethics this week. Texas Rangers reliever Frank Francisco now has more time for those inevitable anger management classes. I'm thinking Jim Duquette might want to consider sensitivity training during the offseason, as his plan for firing Mets manager Art Howe at the end of the season leaked early and he had to put the spin control in motion in order to worm out of yet another PR disaster. Art Howe seems like a stand-up guy, though; he agreed to stay on for the remaining 17 games of the season after meeting with Duquette. A generous move, I'd say, as the inconvenience of replacing Howe for the last couple of weeks of the season is the last thing the Mets need to cap off a dreadful season.

And to be fair, it's not Howe's fault. I mean, in his two seasons of managing the Mets, he has barely cracked a .400 win percentage, which means he might as well have been managing the Brewers. Actually, I'll bet he wishes he had inked a deal to manage the Brewers two years ago -- there's promise for the future with a nice core of young talent on that team, while the Mets don't have anything to look forward to without massive restructuring.

Ultimately, it's all about the talent. A great team (like Howe's A's teams) can succeed without a great manager (and Moneyball would have you believe that Howe is not one, though I'm not sure I agree with that assessment). A great, or good or even competent, manager can't do much without a team that has the tools to succeed: here's Lloyd McClendon, patron saint of this here blog, floundering year after year with the Pirates. So what role does a manager play? Filling out those line-up cards, for one, and giving a team a reason to believe and motivating them when they need a swift kick in the ass (Jack McKeon to the Marlins '03; Phil Garner to the Astros '04).

Also, it should be mentioned that the only thing worse than Mets management is the team's luck this year. Jose Reyes and Kaz Matsui did impressions of Samuel L. Jackson in Unbreakable and forced Jeff Keppinger and Wilson Delgado into the starting line-up. Piazza waffled about playing first base, so now Todd Zeile is there. Trades -- Hidalgo, Benson, Zambrano -- did absolutely nothing and seemed like profligate excuses for spending money better served in a roth IRA or stuffed inside a mattress. Starters dropped like flies, and then their replacements dropped like flies, and then the 3rd string replacements couldn't keep healthy.

And Art Howe? He'll still have his dignity at the end of the season. No one else affiliated with the Mets can say the same.

Fresh meat

The NL Rookie of the Year race just got interesting. No one's come close to having a season like Henry Rowengartner had for the Cubs in, oh, '93. But this season, it has been neck-and-neck between Pirates OF Jason Bay (The Outfielder Formerly Known As The Brian Giles Trade Throw In) and Padres SS Khalil Greene (The Only MLB Player Who Practices The Bah'ai Faith). Jason Bay missed nearly two months to open the season -- but collected Rookie of the Month honors in June and July -- which some pundits decided was enough to disqualify him from consideration. But, oh wait -- Khalil Greene broke a finger on Monday night and now he's out for the rest of the season. So injuries took their toll on both seasons.

Here's Khalil Greene's season numbers:
484ab /66r/ 132h/ 15hr/ 65bi/ 4sb/ .273ba/ .349obp/ .446slg/ .795ops

And here's Jason Bay through Wednesday 9/14/04:
350ab/ 55r/ 103h/ 23hr/ 72bi/ 3sb/ .294ba/ .372obp/ .571slg/ .943ops

I don't think we even need to consider the 50 or so at-bats (and handful of home runs and rbi) Bay will have over the rest of the season to do a point-by-point comparison. 300 abs is all that should be needed to qualify for consideration -- that's plenty to make a mark. And isn't it odd to see the same folks who rushed to anoint Dontrelle Willis (who came up later in the season than Brandon Webb) last year's NL ROY using the same criteria to argue that Greene would be a better choice?

Bay's not flawless, mind you: he strikes out at a much greater clip than Greene, has been thrown out stealing more, and has hit into more double-plays. Fair enough. Defense gets thrown out there a lot as a reason why Greene's the superior candidate, and of course he's playing a much harder defensive position, and he's made some Sports Center highlight reel plays this season, but check it out: Greene has 20 errors on the season and a fielding percentage of .965. Mr. Bay (in half of the "chances") has exactly one error and a fielding percentage of .995. Translation: he does not suck in the field.

Beyond that, the leads in all power categories should nail the door shut. Especially that .943 ops -- not Barry Bonds ungodly, but amazing. Hammer says: u can't touch that. I mean, that's it. End of story. Jason Bay has been the most consistent performer on the Pirates this year; Greene is...playing a role. Better than Ramon Vasquez, sure. But he's no Jason Bay.

Don't Worry, Lo Duca

Montreal's all tied up for a motocross racing event, so it's the Marlins vs. Expos at a neutral location on Monday and Tuesday. I'm soooo there. Is this a first? I mean, the Expos have obviously played a large number of games at Hiram Bithorn Stadium over the past couple of years, Las Vegas has hosted regular season games, and season openers have occurred in Monterey and Japan -- but has inclement weather or some other hardship, in combination with a lack of availability at either "home" or "away" fields, ever forced a neutral-location game(s) between two opponents during the regular season?

P.S. Carl Pavano will be robbed if he doesn't collect the NL Cy Young this year. I'm still sad he broke the engagement with Alyssa Milano off, ending all hopes for a hyphenated Milano-Pavano married name.

Update 9/12/04: Both games start at 1:05, and *sniff* I'll be chained to my desk at work. Tickets are $15, the whole stadium will be general admission, and a third of the gate receipts go to disaster relief. Kudos to MLB.

Also, the answer to the question I posed above is that the Yanks played the Angels in Shea Stadium for one game in '98 while Yankee Stadium was undergoing mandatory repairs. Also, Oakland played 6 games in Las Vegas to open the '96 season -- but what I was really searching for was something like the Yankees-Angels-Shea Stadium example.

Chi-town follies

While the whole world waited for Barry to join the 700 club (it'll happen this season, and he'll surpass Ruth the next and then Aaron the next because of a little thing called T-E-N-A-C-I-T-Y), Gobo rolled into town for a conference and we headed over to Wrigley Field to watch a Cubs-Expos game from the (sorta) cheapie section. Big fun -- hanging out with Gobo, at least. He came prepared for the party with a Cubs jersey with his own name imprinted on the back of it, probably because he shares a name with a certain obsessive-compulsive relieverwho likes to chew on, like, bark and trace circles on the pitcher's mound. When I see this guy pitch, all I can think of is Tony Shaloub in Monk.

And the game itself? To quote Iggy and the Stooges: no fun, no fun, no fun. Greg Maddux kept it on lockdown through 7 innings before everything went boom and the Expos pounded out 5 runs in the 8th. Wasn't Maddux's fault, though -- he only ended up with two earned runs on his line, due in part to Derrek Lee booting a throw to first and catcher Paul Bako wildly misplaying a shouldn't-have-done-it-under-any-circumstance throw to second base.

And the Cubs could not put together the hits against Montreal starter Scott Downs (once traded from the Cubs to the Expos for Henry Rodriguez, a hero in Montreal back when folks cared enough to throw O Henry! candy bars onto the field), who came into the game with a 7.00+ era. Sammy Sosa looked mortal for the first time since he donned a Cubs uniform in 1992 and just hacked, hacked, hacked away at the pitches. Nomar Garciaparra (back in a Cubs uniform in '05? We couldn't decide) grounded into two double-plays and stranded four runners on base. And Mike Remlinger came in to relieve Maddux for a third of an inning and coughed up another run, prompting a huge Bronx cheer from the largely disinterested crowd.

On the plus side, a few fans walked away with Ryne Sandberg autographed baseballs. On the other side, this was the game where the Astros overtook the Cubs for the Wild Card lead...and then lost it again. So we've got the Cubs tied with the Astros and the Giants, with Florida and Philly within spitting distance, at this writing. Florida has more games to make up (including some which may be moved to the South Side of Chicago because of Hurricane Ivan -- how strange is that?). That's my pick. Philly's not fooling anyone and the Marlins are the only team that has the pitching to compete in the playoffs. Watch the Cubs take a dirt nap in October and please be sure to congratulate me on the fact that my commute time coming home from work is sure to reduce by 50%.

Stinkees


 

How therapeutic is this? Very. For one, it gives me an opportunity to figure out how to post images to this here blog. Beyond that, though, it gives me a chance to relive the glory of the Evil Empire's worst defeat...EVER. How bad was it? To find a shutout as lopsided as Cleveland's crushing victory on Wednesday evening, you'd have to hop on the time machine with Mr. Peabody and Sherman and go all the way back to 1900, a Pittsburgh team comprised of folks with curly mustaches and sissy knickers pounded the pepper out their Cubs competitors.

The press seemed to be really concerned with A-Rod and Babyface Jeter's reactions after the game. But what about Kevin Brown, all 10-4 up in this bitch, breaking his hand in a fit of frustration two nights ago and jeopardizing the rest of his season? It's as hard to comprehend as Steinbrenner's post-game motivational schtick where he likened the plight of the Yankees to the plight of New York after the events of September 11, 2001.

Barring a spectacular collapse, the Yankees will at least qualify for a Wild Card spot. Minnesota and Oakland appear to have it locked up in the other divisions, but the Yankees-Red Sox dogfight is the only race that matters in the AL right now. As of this writing, the Yankees are 5-5 in their last 10 games, while Ben Affleck's team has cruised to a 9-1 record. What part does momentum play? It's huge if you've ever played Def Jam Vendetta. The Yanks lead has crumbled to 2.5 games in the AL East; similar records over the next 10 could flip-flop the standings and have the Sox pull ahead.

My pal Albert likes to say that rooting for the Red Sox is a vain and hopeless pursuit because the Red Sox try to parry and thrust along with all of the Yankees' moves and they're still not good enough to beat the Yankees. Steinbrenner was right, though: the Yankees are the City of New York's problem. Boston's 8-5 record against the team that broke Scrooge MacDuck's bank vault? 8-5. No problem.

Indie rock and baseball

Had hoped to post more this month -- I've had a post on what the Dodgers' deadline moves mean for the pitching staff for the rest of the season floating around my head for the past week -- but you know how it goes in the world of blogging. Personal life always gets in the way. Rough week. Anyway, this is what folks in the "industry" like to call "filler" -- a little stop-gap post to keep the juices flowing until I can sit down and get, like, thoughtful and shit.

Since I've spent the past week doing nothing but listening to CDs (it's a job and a lifestyle, I guess), I've been thinking a lot about a 7" record I picked up in college by Barbara Manning called The Baseball Trilogy. I think it's out of print at the moment, which is a pity. Manning is a huge baseball fan: the cover of her record One Perfect Green Blanket depicts and refers to a baseball diamond and Manning named her longtime band SF Seals in honor of Joltin' Joe DiMaggios very first pro team. The Baseball Trilogy, in particular, is a real treat: I have a soft spot for it because she devotes one of the songs to my favorite ball player of all time.

Just got word from my "sources" that noted crank Steve Albini (the guy that produced, er, recorded Nirvana and the Pixies and...everything) TiVos "Baseball Tonight" while he's in the studio and watches it obsessively. That didn't surprise me too much, when I recalled the Albini's band Shellac did a baseball-themed tour in support of their 1994 record At Action Park. This one got me, though: Gerard Cosloy, proprietor of Matador Records, has been working incognito on a sports blog with a heavy baseball emphasis. Interesting in hearing what the guy who signed Liz Phair and Pavement and Cat Power has to say about Steve Kline or the latest foibles of the Mets? You betcha.

More fun with the OBR

Nothing more to add to the topic of OBR 9.01(c), but no discussion of the Official Baseball Rulebook would be complete without digging into OBR 8.02( b) -- especially after Julian Tavarez got booted from a game for his very dirty hat. Hey, what's on that hat anyway? Could it be pine tar...? Tavarez denies it, of course, and says that it's simply dirt from him touching the cap after each pitch. But the article I linked to has umpire crew chief Joe West saying that Tavarez and Tony LaRussa "admitting" that it was pine tar. Pirates manager Lloyd McClendon is no bad guy for calling him out on it -- Bobby Cox and Larry Bowa have made the same complaints this season -- and it ain't like he's the first guy to fuck with his pitches.

OBR 8.02 (b) doesn't get employed that much either, but it sure breeds controversy when it does. Here's the full 8.02 rule for context:

The pitcher shall not…(a) (6) deliver what is called the "shine" ball, "spit" ball, "mud" ball or "emery" ball. The pitcher, of course, is allowed to rub the ball between his bare hands. PENALTY: For violation of any part of this rule 8.02 (a) (2 to 6) the umpire shall: (a) Call the pitch a ball, warn the pitcher and have announced on the public address system the reason for the action. (b) In the case of a second offense by the same pitcher in the same game, the pitcher shall be disqualified from the game…(e) The umpire shall be sole judge on whether any portion of this rule has been violated.

And the billowy structure of the rule extends to anything a pitcher might have on his person or in his possession -- basically, any foreign substance is cause for immediate ejection. Consider Expos starter Zach Day, who got booted from a game last year after it was discovered that he had used krazy glue to cover a blister on his pitching hand. The bone of contention with the Day example last year was whether he was actually trying to put anything on his pitches with a substance that's sold on the basis of his quick-drying properties. Probably not; pitchers putting glue on their fingers/hands to cover sores/cuts is a common enough practice. But someone on the field complained, prompting a decision from the umpire crew, forcing the invocation of OBR 8.02(b). And if you don't agree with that decision, our old phantom friend OBR 9.01(c), justifies the ruling just as well.

In Julian Tavarez's case, the fact that he's such a sensitive guy probably doesn't help.

Five-finger discount, man

I missed it the first time around on the ESPN homepage, but just discovered that Tim Kurkijan wrote a fine overview on the art of stealing signs, including interviews with Jimmy Leyland and Paul Molitor and yet another hilarious Rickey Henderson anecdote. Tom Candiotti wrote a companion piece from the pitcher's perspective, but I haven't had a chance to compare and contrast; if anyone has ESPN Insider access, lemme know.

This article from the August 2002 issue of Baseball Digest delves more deeply into the ethics of stealing signs. And Paul Dickson wrote a whole book on the subject called The Hidden Language of Baseball, which looks like a must-read. So: legal or no? Hadn't considered it much before, though I know there's nothing specific in the Official Baseball Rulebook that covers this area. The only red flag the rulebook raises is OBR 9.01(c): Each umpire has authority to rule on any point not specifically covered in these rules. I'm guessing that this rule hasn't been enforced in regards to stealing signs, but I think it's so strange in principle: it offers umpires an opportunity to be the moral arbiters on anything that isn't explicitly covered within the rulebook AND a perfect escape clause should they run into any trouble.

All Greek to me

Haven't watched a lick of the Olympics yet, though I was already aware that the American team got downed by Mexico in a qualifying tournament in November and won't be participating in Athens -- the reason Roger Clemens is in an Astros uniform right now. You can't count Cuba out, but Japan ought to be the favorite for the gold medal after narrowly failing to capture a Bronze in 2000: Japanese professional baseball is on virtual hiatus this month and the Olympic team's now stocked with the best of the best with an all-pro line-up. Remember, the Japanese national team destroyed the Americans during the last MLB goodwill tour of Japan. Canada has a fair shot at something shiny, too.

Former Mets manager Davy Johnson (who's helping coach the Dutch team this year) was pretty upset about the exclusion of the U.S. team during this CNN/SI interview: "We're the leaders in pro baseball and you'd love have the U.S. players in it...It's kind of sad."

Fair enough, but them's the breaks. And the Greek team (who gained an automatic berth as the Olympic host) might as well be the American team. Organized baseball in Greece is a reasonably new development, and the country's still toying with an amateur league; in a funky twist, U.S. players claiming Greek ancestry were invited to join the team as ringers and only two members of the final squad are Greeks actually living in Greece. Of course, invite the Americans to join your squad and you've got to be prepared for a doping scandal: two members of the team have already tested positive for banned substances. And there was some danger that the Greek team wouldn't be able to make it back to Greece from a shortage of funds. And don't forget that the team's original manager died and had to be replaced.

And baseball doesn't exactly breed the fanatical devotion of, say, soccer: you're not going to see people waking up early or staying out late to go to the local sports bar and go to work all bleary-eyed and mealy-mouthed just to catch a match. You might tune in to the final medal match on August 25th and the respectable time of 1:00pm eastern, but after a series of tournament games at 3:30am and 4:30am, why bother?

Looks like our swim teams are pretty decent, though.

The Ken Griffey, Jr. Timeline

2/6/05: Kicked in groin by enraged fantasy baseball team owner who fell out of the money during the 2004 season resulting in minor bruising and loss of dignity.

3/1/05: Strains right hamstring in charity kickball event, misses all of spring training.

3/6/05: Allergic reaction to cortisone shot.

6/1/05: Chafes skin from overly starched uniform in first game back.

7/15/05: Tears right hamstring once again after All-Star break, out for season.

9/27/05: Hamstring replaced in world's first human hamstring transplant.

12/24/05: Gets food poisoning from fruitcake that Davy Concepcion gave to father on Christmas Day, 1975.

6/1/06: Long-rumored trade for Phil Nevin is completed during Cincinnati-San Diego match. Both players lost for season after game after simultaneously tearing rotator cuffs by giving each other a hi-five on the walk to the other dugout.

9/7/06: Accidentally sits on piping hot churro while watching NLCS from stands, sears left thigh

1/15/07: Takes son to offseason vacation at Disneyland. Enters Hall of Presidents and is actually shot with animatronic bullet by Alexander Hamilton statue.

6/1/07: Leads all players in home runs during months of April + May. Excessive praise from the press requires Joe Morgan's lips to be surgically removed from his butthole.

7/8/07: Late-night meal at Jack-in-the-Box requires quarantine for smallpox, ends season.

10/1/07: Begins to feel violent, irrepressible impulses. Sealed records reveal hamstring donor to have been serial murderer convicted to death in 2005.

11/1/07: Team physicians concoct plan to "rebuild him and make him stronger," replace evil hamstring with bionic hamstring.

2/06/08: Gets fitted for orthotics to compensate for limp from bionic hamstring.

4/9/08: Imbalance from orthotics and bionic hamstring aggravate vertigo.

7/1/08: Spirits from Native American burial ground under house angered by poor fantasy league baseball team position, curse him with insomnia.

8/30/08: Finishes season leading league in HBP after getting beaned approximately 117 times after falling asleep at plate.

10/22/08: Officially retires from MLB

7/23/13: Hoists Cooperstown plaque high in the air while exclaiming "Holy shit, I can't believe I held on this long!" during first-ballot Hall of Fame induction, placed on disabled list for entire body sprain.

....welcome back, kid.

J'accuse!

I want to recant something I wrote way back in May when I was lightly sparring with a non-plussed post my homey Gobo wrote on the proposed MLB/ Spider-Man tie-in that got squashed after much public outcry. Gobo's point was that stuff like this might make economic sense as a way of keeping ticket prices down -- and that it's already happening in other professional leagues throughout the world anyway. Here's what I wrote then:

But there's a huge, huge disconnect between what happens off and on the field within the microcosm of the professional sports area -- you could (with some effort) tune out the advertising that's all around you and simply concentrate on what's happening on the field, though that's an impossibility if your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man has left his sticky fingers all over 1st, 2nd and 3rd base...I don't like the idea of paying 20 bucks to see a game and having to be subjected to MLB teams padding their coffers in such an overt and repellent way.

Here I was two months ago, accusing Gobo of making a reductive argument -- and then something happened at the White Sox game last night that totally blew my argument out of the water. See, I'm totally inured to stuff like the "Cingular Wireless Call to the Pen" -- before US Cellular grabbed the naming rights to the stadium, Cingular actually paid money to have an annoying cell phone ring pipe through the speakers whenever a pitcher got the hook. Fine. And the Connie's Pizza race (which, I should point out, is always more popular than the game on the field)? Yeah, ok.

But they actually projected a fucking advertisement for Frosted Flakes on the jumbotron last night, in which Tony the Tiger led a group of young children on a training regimen, set to a jingle with a throbbing, hypnotic pulse. Nevermind the fact that the phrase "You can be a Tiger!" should never be uttered outside of Commerica Park -- Tony the Tiger is assembling his own Hitler Youth Brigade! An advertisement on the jumbotron? Not even tangentially related to baseball? Boo. Forget what I said -- bring on the advertising on the bases.

On the other hand, my companions Mark A. and Shawn (well, mostly Mark) were surprised to find out that US Cellular leads all parks in home runs this season. Yep, US Cellular even has a slight edge on Coors Field: teams have combined for 178 home runs on Chicago's South Side, as opposed to 176 in the oxygen-deprived Colorado air. Dunno what's doing it -- though air seems to circulate strangely in US Cellular -- but balls are leaping off bats at an amazing rate. Joe Crede, Carlos Lee and Paul Konerko all hit commanding blasts into the outfield stands last night; Da Sox now have six regulars (not including monsters Frank Thomas and Magglio Ordonez, mind you) with 14+ home runs on the season, a line-up that compares very favorably to the Yanks' $200 million albatross.

Ham 'n' eggs

Celebrated Greg Maddux's 300th career victory with a late lunch of ham and eggs at the local diner, or maybe it was the other way around and Mr. Maddux just wanted to make my lunch special. Either way, the win and the lunch were one and the same: a workmanlike creation that sits ok and gets the job done. Nothing special. No frills. 83 pitches and a couple of close calls -- Maddux had a little too much grease on pitches thrown to Edgardo Alfonzo and A.J. Pierzynski in the 3rd inning.

But Maddux gets the notch in his belt; he's now the first National League pitcher to reach the milestone since Steve Carlton did in 1983. Did it almost as fast as Roger Clemens, too -- in his 594th career start -- and it'll be a long time before we see another 300 game winner in the bigs. The next-closest pitcher, Tom Glavine, has 259 career victories -- but he's 38 and has only won a combined 17 games in his last two seasons. Glavine has won 20 or more games in a season 5 times in his career; he'd have to do it twice in a row to go the distance. Randy Johnson's 40 and still has 241 career victories -- and is also coming off a career-low 2003 win total.

Sure, plenty of 300-gamer Hall of Famers -- Sutton, Seaver, Niekro, Perry -- have pitched reasonably effectively beyond 40, but Maddux's career is pretty special. Of course, no one's preparing a ticker-tape parade through the city or anything like that because everyone expected him to get there and the Cooperstone plaque was etched years ago. But I'd be awed to see anyone reach 300 again in my lifetime, not that more careers in the vein of Jim Palmer are anything to sneeze at. S'ok, too.

No scrubs

Generally speaking, it's just like Left Eye, Chili and T-Boz said: I don't want no Cubs, a Cub is a guy that can't get no love from me. Don't like 'em, never will -- and the longer I stay in Chi-town, the more tired I get of constantly looking at their dead-beat pinstriped asses. But I'm genuinely feeling sorry for Todd Wellemeyer this week, because he got demoted to AAA Iowa to open a roster spot for rehabbing n'er-do-well Ryan Dempster. Wellemeyer hurt his chances this year by going on the DL with a right groin strain, but did everything right since his return. In limited work this season, he has shown flashes of brilliance:

12 g/ 16ip/ 11h/ 4r/ 14bb/ 18k/ 10.13 k/9 /1-0 W-L/ .196 BAA/ 1.56 WHIP/ 2.25 ERA

I've highighted the trouble spots -- walks and ratio -- but everything else is solid for the small sample size. And I'd like to add the caveat that he pitched a lot of junk innings, because sparing work didn't let him get into a groove and he just wasn't Dusty Baker's go-to guy. Tough call, but the guy Baker kept in his place, Jon Leicester endeared himself as the Cubs best middle reliever in July with 2 wins and 2 holds. His seasonal stats in limited work are pretty good, too:

14 g/ 19.2ip/ 14h/ 4r/ 3bb/ 16k/ 7.32 k/9 / 3-0 W-L/ .194 BAA/ 0.86 WHIP/ 1.83 ERA

And besides the obvious edge in walks and ratio and wins, what the stats (at least the ones I've picked out to showcase) don't tell you is that Leicester has been a much more economical pitcher so far. Wellemeyer tossed 338 pitches in 16 innings for an average of 21.1 pitches per inning. Leicester threw 299 pitches over 19 2/3 innings for an average of 15.2 pitches per inning. It's a substantial enough difference that I don't doubt Baker's move. Wellemeyer does all his shopping at K-Mart, but Leicester comes correct with the pitch location.

There are, however, two-million reasons Ryan Dempster's back up in the majors. No idea how he'll work out -- he served up a hit and a walk in 2/3 of an inning in his first appearance since coming off the DL -- but the Cubs brass seems to think he'll be able to sub for LaTroy Hawkins to close out games. Well, actually: Dempster has a 5.00+ ERA in 964 career innings -- enough of a sample size to determine, unequivocally, that he absolutely blows. And Dempster fancies himself to be a lot better than he has proven to be so far, mouthing off in the press about how he's not interested in pitching in that role. So yes, I'd much rather see Wellemeyer pitching in middle relief until he falls flat -- even if the rookie doesn't have the intangible of veteran hoo-doo mystique in his favor.

Fuzzy Math

I was planning on withholding comment on the flurry of late-July deadline deals entirely, since I played with matches and got burned by pronouncing Richard Hidalgo a turd. All the guy did in July was hit at a .294 clip (with an excellent 1.017 OPS!) with a home run every 10 at-bats. Of course, Hidalgo decided to turn it on and impress his suitors at a time where nearly everyone else on the team switched off the lights to take a long nap. It's not Hidalgo's fault that the team has gone 18-20 since his acquisition and hasn't moved an inch in the standings.

I wasn't off the mark, I think, with questioning the direction of the Mets in making this move -- especially when a significant payroll boost is concerned with a guy who isn't exactly Carlos Beltran. But I already said my piece on that, which is why I'll refrain from commenting on the Benson and Zambrano deals, except to say that a) the Mets didn't improve their team a lick, and b) gosh, I hope they loose money hand over fist this season.

The thing I'm having trouble wrapping my head around is all of the Dodgers moves at the deadline. There's no doubt that the Marlins improved themselves with their moves. Jayson Stark anoints The Fish as the biggest winners in his latest column, and I'm in complete agreement with his sentiment. They addressed their two biggest needs with catcher Paul LoDuca (replacing fast-starter Mike Redmond) and top-notch reliever Guillermo Mota, a guy who has the tools to fill in for Benitez while he's on the disabled list. Ismael Valdez doesn't offset the lost of Brad Penny, but Heep Sop Choi for Juan Encarnacion (who might turn it around in the familiar confines of Pro Player) is mostly a wash, and the Marlins can go far enough with the front four in their rotation. Plus, the Dodgers gave them money to take LoDuca off their hands. Wha....?

I'm going to side with Stark's view -- that GM Paul DePodesta tried to fit too many puzzle pieces into place at the deadline -- of the Dodgers as the deadline's biggest belly-floppers, as well. No Randy Johnson, no Charles Johnson, Howard Johnson isn't coming out of retirement...DePodesta got his johnson caught in his own zipper. The Beane school of three-way trades really only works when you get all parties together with a conditional agreement, and there was no way L.A. would give up what it needed to get to maybe kinda sorta get The Big Unit in Dodger Blue. Steve Finley's an upgrade over Encarnacion, no doubt, and Penny's playoff experience will be great if the Dodgers hold on until October.

But any team that's trotting out Hideo Nomo (3-10, 8.06 era, 14 starts) and/or Kazuhisa Ishii (1.50 whip, 21 starts) on a regular basis needs someone to pitch the 8th. And if Peter Gammons could stop for a second to wipe that brown spot off his nose, he'd realize how scary it is that the Dodgers just sent situational lefty Tom Martin and unhittable flamethrower Guillermo Mota (who led all Dodgers relievers in innings pitched) packing.

So Darren Dreifort stepped into the role on Saturday...and blew the save. He acquitted himself yesterday by picking up the save after Eric Gagne tossed three scoreless innings, but damn, it's a leap of faith to put so much trust in a guy with a bionic elbow. I like Duaner Sanchez a lot, but it's not like the Dodgers have a deep well of live arms like, say, the Cubs (more on them later this week) to throw out there. Gagne hasn't pitched 3 innings since 2002; if he's Superman, the Dodgers rotation is green kryptonite.

Mea maxima culpa

We've slashed prices on everything at the end of the month! Get a gently-worn 2004 blog at a discount price before the new 2005 model rolls in! This blog is worth $1.15 per share on the open market! No serious offer will be refused! Act now and you can have my 7th place rotisserie team thrown in as an extra bonus! I'll send you a fabulous set of steak knives! You can have the Omar Moreno commemorative statue that my father just gave me! The 'fro sculpt would make Oscar Gamble green with envy!

And if you act right now, Mr. Anthony Darrell Womack, I will even throw in an apology. Because after watching Braves SS Rafael Furcal misplay two more grounders (pushing his error total for the season to 18!), I know understand that I willfully underestimated what you've done for the Cardinals this season. I know that shortstop is a much harder position defensively (Jack Wilson, who consistently makes amazing plays, has 10 errors this year), but your 8 errors on the season isn't terrible. All that shit I said about hyperbole when I dissected that AP Wire profile line-by-line? I was straight up hating. And I clearly owe you the aforementioned Omar Moreno statue, because I just realized the strangest thing: you and he are exactly the same player.

We believe

Mr. Clutch Rob Mackowiak shined as the Pirates rolled to a 8-4 victory over the Braves tonight, proof that his wife doesn't need to be delivering babies for him to come up big at the plate. Still, Atlanta catcher Johnny Estrada -- who was his usual monster self in the batting box -- ought to have been voted the game's #1 star for a series of teeth-clenching gaffes that sealed the victory for the Pirates. The seventh inning, in particular, was one of the strangest baseball things I've ever had the opportunity to see in person:

Paul Byrd gives up two singles to Bobby Hill and Abraham Nunez and gets yanked in favor of reliever Kevin Gryboski. Kendall gets on base with a clean single. Jack Wilson comes up next with a dismal grounder, but SS Rafael Furcal bungles the play (and gets charged with the inning's first error) as Hill scores and the bases are loaded. Up next: Rob Mackowiak. A chorus of fans chanting "grand slam! grand slam!," praying for some of his patented late-inning heroics. And then Mackowiak drives a fastball to left field. It's on the warning track! It could be his third slam of the season! But...it drops down for what looks like a double. Nunez scores, Kendall scores. Then Wilson slides across the plate and Mackowiak moves to third while Estrada mishandles the relay throw, and then -- miraculously -- the ball pops out of Estrada's hands towards the Pirates' dugout and Mackowiak scores.

Final damage: Estrada gets charged with one error (he also allows a run to score on a passed ball later in the 8th) and Mackowiak gets three rbi with his not-really-an-inside-the-park-home-run-but-too-strange-to-be-an-average-double trip to the plate. To quote Family Guy Peter Griffin: "It was freakin' sweet." I should also mention that the Pirates are now 48-50 for the season, hovering around the marks of "wild-card contenders" like Houston, the Mets and the Marlins. All this after falling to 15 games under .500 just a month ago. July has totally been Pittsburgh's bitch. 

Hate the players, love the game

Hmm. Three posts that reference the Astros, Cubs and the Cardinals all in a row, and my Pirates bias has been exercised more than I'd care to admit. I'm in a NL Central kinda mood with a trip to  the eighth wonder of the world in my near future. Should I tune into WKRP and try to make a clean sweep? Nah...wouldn't want to spill a precious drop of virtual ink on the Big Red Boredom Machine.

In the meantime, meet my new favorite writer. So: working for peanuts or selling peanuts for work?

Slow news day

You may have missed it yesterday, sandwiched in between workmanlike headlines that read "Ruth's Historic Bat on Display in Cleveland" [about an upcoming auction of one of the Babe's bats] and "Big Tex: Not an All-Star, but huge for the Rangers," [about Mark Texiera's fine season] but occasionally something interesting seeps through the ESPN news wire that doesn't get any play on the front page of the site. In this case, I'm thinking about this AP News Wire softball, which discusses how valuable free agent pick-up Tony Womack has been to the Cardinals this season.

The unattributed author goes to great lengths to rationalize and explain -- and at times, offer apologies for -- Womack's stats this season. This isn't a criticism of Womack per se; in truth, he's been a lucky pick-up, a bargain, and probably LaRussa's best option in the lead-off slot. But the language in the piece is a little loaded:

Despite a 2-for-26 slump since the All-Star break, he is batting .299 with a slap stroke and a patient eye that has produced an on-base percentage of .351.
 
Uh oh. Is Womack falling apart? Like a lot of speedy guys, he always catches fire before the All-Star break and trails off after. The OBP is wayyyyy better than career average (and better than a lot of the guys who bat behind him), but I'd be nervous if the Cardinals' ultimate fate was tied into Womack's, ahem, patient eye.

Womack got off to a blazing start with three steals in the opener and seven by April 20. He said his modest count since is irrelevant, blaming the decline on pitchers' quicker moves to the plate.

Ok, well, Womack has only had 7 steals in the last three months. No one on the Cards is stealing all that much -- it's not the game they're playing now, though LaRussa could revert to a traditional hit-and-run if he chose. His success rate is around .800, which is fine, but "quicker moves to the plate"? That's strange. Womack is on pace for 24 steals, which is consistent with the numbers he put up in his last two seasons with Arizona, and what he might've amassed in a full-time role last season. The guy's also 34, which is past prime for a break-out season, suggesting his fastest days are behind him.

Womack said [he's] getting stronger "by the week" and he's determined not to let it affect his game, even though he's bounced a lot of double-play relays to first.
 
Defense is a concern, which is why the Pirates dumped him on Arizona for next to nothing, and why Womack found himself in three unis last season. Womack's fielding percentage has always been below league average, and he has 8 errors on the season -- not so good. I'm also willing to bet that some of Albert Pujols' 7 errors relate to Womack's misplays in the field.

Cardinals fans seem to have eased off of Womack's case since the start of the season, because Womack has played a huge role in keep the House of Cards together. Still, he's a part-time player exceeding expectations in a full-time role. I see "Cecil Espy," while Tony LaRussa sees "The ESPYs." Dusty Baker, take note: he could've been yours. Watch out for falling concrete.

New boss = same as old boss

The folks in Chicago are almost ready to give up on the Cubs; Mark Prior's protracted -- and very mysterious -- arm fatigue is a (no pun intended) sore point, and no one on the team seems to be able to stay healthy for long. Barring an acquisition of Nomar Garciaparra or, more likely, Orlando Cabrera (rumored, but he's been awful this season) to shore up the middle infield, it's not looking like the Cubbies will have a repeat of last season's excitement. Oh, the ballpark is still crowded as hell and tensions run high whenever the Cardinals are in town, but as of this writing, they're 10 games behind St. Louis in the enigmatic NL Central, playing a game of one steps forward, one step back while sandwiched between surprise teams Milwaukee and Cincinnati. And maybe it's just the native Pittsburgher in me talking here, but the Bucs have been the best team in the NL Central in the month of July and, well, the Cubs are the only team in the division who don't look like they're trying.

Over on the other side of the city, just south of Chinatown and west of Mayor Daley's palatal manor, the city's red-headed stepchildren the White Sox are in the midst of a pennant race. The AL Central's pretty mediocre, too: here in the Midwest, we don't get excited about anything too easily. It's frustrating pinning your allegiances on the Sox sometimes; no one expects the Cubs to do anything in this lifetime as long as the ghost goat is reinforcing the curse and braying behind the ivy. But the Sox -- well, they've had three 1st place finishes since 1993 (compared to the Cubs only one last year) and -- though looks can be deceiving -- have finished in second place six other times. So the talent has always been there to, at least, tease.

This year, though, it's a great pennant race -- and I'd implore anyone reading this in Chicago to forget about the Scrubs (they also have beer in U.S. Cellular Field) and throw support to the White Stockings. They need it, and they're actually in a dog fight with Minnesota for the lead.  As of the current writing, the Twins are 0.5 games up in the standings; no doubt, next week's Mon-Tue-Wed series in Chi will have a leveling effect.  Still, some problems: Magglio Ordonez is still out and Big Frank's down for two months with a foot injury -- that's the two biggest guns out of the line-up and you've got problems. Chicago's 9-9 since acquiring Freddy Garcia (who's 2-1 with a 3.38 era for July so far), too -- an indicator that they've got the pitching for the playoffs, but need a hitting boost to float through August and September.

To that end, Kenny Williams recently dipped into his endless bag of (generally mediocre) pitching prospects and reacquired gloomy gus Carl Everett (who hasn't reacquired his stroke) for some dude named Gary Majewski and the tallest player in major league history, Jon Rauch. Montreal needed to clear Everett's $7.5 mil/ 2 yr contract off the books, and all of the Sox players seem to be excited about the acquisition -- but what to realistically think about the team's chances from here on out? Three factors seem to be in Chicago's favor: first, Minnesota has a surplus of talent to reconfigure the team with trades, but the front office has zero balls. Next, the White Sox have the best W-L record in their division (16-8 to Minnesota's 25-22). And the other intangible? Scheduling.

ESPN's Buster Olney on the White Sox: "Twenty-six of their last 74 games are against sub-.500 teams, and eight of their last 11 games are against the Royals -- a chance for a late-season feast."

ESPN's Buster Olney on the Twins: "They have 35 games left against teams with records of .500 or better, second most in AL, and fewest home games remaining among AL contenders."

I love me some Minnesota, too. Ron Gardenhire is the most underrated manager in MLB, and the team has an impressive talent pipeline from the minors. Still, this year it's the first round of the playoffs for the Sox. I think. I hope.  Crack open the magic Old Style and make it happen, Ozzie.

Smackdown!
 
Jimmy Williams became the second MLB manager to get the ax this season, after Arizona skipper Bob Brenly got the boot earlier in July. In both cases, additional changes were made to support and justify the moves: pitching coach Chuck Kniffin and bench coach Robin Yount (who resigned out of loyalty) joined Brenly on his extended vacation, while the Astros gave pitching coach Burt Hooton and hitting coach Harry Spilman their walking papers, too. It's a step up from the drastic purge last year, when 6 guys faced the firing squad before the All-Star break -- leading to Jack McKeon's appointment and magnificent finish with the Marlins...and not a whole lot else.  Unsatisfactory records prompted the Williams and Brenly moves, though I think impatience and unreasonable expectations had a lot more to do with it than managerial incompetence.
 
In the case of Brenly, he compiled a 303-262 record (and tell me that doesn't bear an eerie resemblance to knuckleballer Phil Niekro's career numbers) in 3 1/2 seasons with the Diamondbacks, including a World Series victory in 2001 and a playoff run in 2002. Brenly didn't do much in 2003 with a 3rd place finish and seemed to get called on the carpet for a series of questionable calls, but success spoils you, doesn't it? Richie Sexson's season-ending injury (after the D-backs traded a handful of major-league level players to Milwaukee) really signaled the death knell for Brenly: the team just couldn't put it together this year and puttered to a 29-50 record at the time of his dismissal. Really quite bad. And managers almost never have the luxury of working through a slump. Well, actually, there is an exception to that rule -- but we'll get there in a second.
 
In the case of Williams, he replaced Larry Dierker, whose Houston teams made the playoffs in 4 of his 5 seasons as manager and got dumped in a year (2001) the team went 93-69, simply because he couldn't light a fire under his players' asses to get beyond the first round of the playoffs. Williams was not the guy to replace Dierker, especially if the agenda in Houston was to go out and grab the jewel-crusted World Series ring. His Toronto (1986-88) and Boston (1997-2001) put together respectable enough records, but never made it past 2nd place in their respective divisions. Except, of course, when Williams was fired mid-season in 1989 and Cito Gaston engineered a turn-around and top finish for the Jays. Williams isn't the guy to take you to the playoffs -- he's the guy you fire to motivate the players to get there. 
 
Back to the exception to the rule -- which I like to call the Phil Garner Rule: managers will have the luxury of working through a slump if there is an awareness that they don't have the resources to succeed.  Garner, a universally well-liked guy, went 563 -617 in eight seasons with the Brewers between 1992-1999, with only one season (his first) above .500. Add two more in Detroit in 2000 and 2001 when -- this is very important, so I'm going to italicize it -- the teams had no reasonable expectation of contending and Garner cruised to 3rd and 4th place finishes. I love Lloyd McClendon so much that his name's the subject of this blog, but do you ever wonder why he's been allowed to continue to manage the Pirates this long? The Phil Garner Rule, of course. The same rule has just been invoked by Arizona; Brenly's replacement Al Pedrique is 2-9 since taking over the job and it would take a minor miracle for the Diamondbacks not to punt on the season entirely and move into rapid rebuilding mode. At the very least, Randy Johnson and Steve Finley will be gone -- so we know Pedrique's job will be safe for awhile.
 
Oddly enough, the Phil Garner Rule even applies to the hiring of Phil Garner as the interim manager in Houston -- even though there's an emphasis on winning NOW, a ton of older players on 1 year contracts on the team and Drayton McLane rented Carlos Beltran expressly for a pennant drive.  See, if Garner can't lead the slumping Astros to the playoffs, it's not his fault. He won't be back as the Astros manager, but it certainly won't be his fault. And if he puts it all together and kicks the Astros in the high gear, he's a light version of Jack McKeon; the media is beating the "Garner was saddled with bad teams before, lets see what he can do with talent" drum an uncomfortable amount. Not sure what's up in Houston; between the Killer Bs -- Biggio, Beltran, Bagwell and Berkman -- and the Clemens/Miller/Pettite/Oswalt rotation, they should be able to stomp on the competition.  I think people certainly want Garner to succeed -- we feel sorry for his Milwaukee-Detroit experiences because he's a likeable guy and a player's manager (as is Pedrique, who was well loved in AAA Tuscon). And maybe, if Prior's elbow doesn't heal and Milwaukee and Cincy stop surprising and the Cardinals stop snorting fancy pixie dust to get that high in the standings, Phil Garner might even be an exception to his own rule.