Joe Posnanski

Start No. 7: Vs. California Anaheim Los Angeles Halos
Innings: 6 2/3
Earned runs allowed: 5.
Strikeouts: 3
Walks: 2
Homers: 1 (3-run shot)
Decision: Loss (3-4)
Number of pitches: 103
Number of strikes: 64
BABIP: .449 (13 for 29 — yikes!)
Season BABIP: .303 (43 for 142)

Well, I didn’t get to see this messy game because I was driving back to Kansas City.* It’s probably just as well. Banny’s getting hit pretty hard these days — Tuesday, it was Garret Anderson who was giving him the business — and it is again a reminder how sharp and how smart he has to be in order to get outs.

Let’s take a quick look at the critical third inning using MLB.com’s Pitch FX:

Lead off: Casey Kotchman. Gets ahead 2-1, and then Banny throws him an 84-mph fastball (really? A fastball? Maybe a changeup?) up. Kotchman rips it to right for a single.

Second batter: Torii Hunter. First pitch swinging, gets an 85-mph fastball (Maybe a cutter? A slider?) up and yanks a double down the line.

Third batter: Garrett Anderson. First pitch swinging, gets an 85-mph something on the outside corner and he pulls it over the right field fence for a three-run homer.

And there you have it. Five pitches. The Angels obviously came into this game ready to swing early and ready to swing at anything up. And the fact that they all hit pitches in that brutal 84-85 mph range tells me that Banny really did not have his stuff. He can’t get Major League hitters out at 85 mph (the only way you can is if your fastball is 97 mph and that’s your change-up or split-fingered fastball). Banny can get them out at 81 mph. He can get them out at 89 mph. But a Banny 85-mph fastball is no-man’s land.

*OK, so you will love this story. Well, maybe not, but I love it. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that I’m doing this book on the 1975 Cincinnati Reds. Big Red Machine. Did I mention that? Anyway, so I’m driving back home from Cincinnati Tuesday night as mentioned, and I really don’t think I’m speeding — I realize this has become something of a trend on this blog — and suddenly I see the red flashing lights behind me. I am just one of these people. I have friends who consistently drive way over the speed limit, and they never get pulled over — it’s like they’re driving Wonder Woman’s invisible plane or something. Me, if I go a few mph over the speed limit even for a moment, I will inevitably get pulled over. I’m really not complaining, I live a charmed life. Flashing red lights must be my penance.

Back to the game. Banny got in more trouble in the fifth. He walked Vlady,* Then gave up a single to Kotchman (on a 1-0 count), got Hunter to fly out on a high fastball, and then from what I can tell on Pitch FX, Bannister threw Anderson a pretty good slider on the outer half of the plate. Anderson singled and scored Vlady. I think Bannister just got beat there.

*You know, Vlad Guerrero has this reputation as a free swinger in the Roberto Clemente mold — and there’s no question that he swings and hits some crazy pitches just like Clemente. But he really has a lot more plate discipline than Clemente ever had. Clemente never walked 60 times in a season, and his career OBP was .359. Clemente struck out about twice as often as he walked. Vlady, meanwhile, has a .390 OBP and and has walked 629 times while striking out 757 times. I think the Clemente comparison is apt in some ways, but Vlady’s reputation as a hacker is not really right..

Then finally in the seventh, Vlady drilled a double on an 84 mph slider that caught too much of the plate. Then Kotchman swung at the first pitch (out), Hunter swung at the first pitch (out), Anderson swung at the first pitch (88 mph cutter way up) and banged it to center for a single. Brandon Wood then swung at the first pitch too (an 85 mph slider — Banny’s slider was obviously not sliding) and hit an infield single. That did it for Brian. He allowed five runs and all five came on Garrett Anderson hits.

So what’s the lesson? I’m not sure — I was in the car driving through Indiana at the time — but I’ll take a guess because, hey, this is Banny Log. It seems to me that the league has made a couple of adjustments. They’re swinging early in the count. They’re pouncing on pitches up. And for the moment Banny does not have enough definition on his pitches — the slider, cutter, fastball and even change-up all seem to be going about the same speed. You know the guy will learn from this*, and I’m betting here he has a few wrinkles his next start. We’ll see.

*Yep, we’re linking again, this time to Buzz Bissinger’s really good interview with The Big Lead. It is really good even if I am mentioned briefly in it. Ignore that part. In summary, Buzz regrets how he came across, and regrets that he threw all blogs into one pile, and regrets yelling at Will. He also regrets that his point got lost. Really, if you care about this, you should read the whole thing, it’s very good stuff.

So, no, I don’t think people have changed all that much — that’s good old days talk. But now after reading I think I have a much better understanding of where Buzz is coming from. You could call it ironic that Buzz came across so much better on a blog than he did on television, but I don’t think it’s irony at all. It’s just this crazy thing we call the future.

I’ve looked at this a little bit, and I’ve become convinced that the 1975 Boston Red Sox had the best young outfield in baseball history. I mean this in a very specific way. There are a couple of other outfields that, as a unit, have put up better career numbers. There are certainly other young outfields that put up better numbers over one season. But here’s where I think the ‘75 Red Sox outfield is different — I think all three guys have compelling Hall of Fame cases.

The key word to me is “compelling.” I don’t know that I would vote for JIm Rice, Fred Lynn or Dwight Evans as a Hall of Famer. But that’s not the point — that depends on individual standards, where you draw the line, etc. But the one thing that gets lost in the Hall of Fame arguments — and I lose this sometimes too — is that anyone you even mention seriously for the Hall of Fame was a really, really, really good player. Andre Dawson? Really good player. Bert Blyleven? Really good player. Jack Morris? Um. No, I’m joking, he was a really good player. If you are in the Hall of Fame discussion, you are one of the best to ever play this crazy game.

Everyone who cares knows where I stand on Jim Rice as a Hall of Famer, but I have not been as clear in saying that I believe Rice was a really, really, really, really good baseball player. He was a ferocious 1970s slugger, an underrated outfielder and, yes, it’s funny and cliche by now but he was an intimidating guy at the plate. It really is true that when I talk to a 1970s pitcher — not too long ago, I was having this discussion with Paul Splittorff — he will have some “Jim Rice hit a titanic home run off of me” story. Rice is going into the Hall of Fame next year, and that will make a lot of people happy, and it will make some people yelp, and lost in the noise will be this: Rice won’t be anything close to the worst player in there.

Dewey, in my mind, was a better all-around player than Rice. Their career numbers in many ways are awfully similar (same number of hits, Evans had more doubles, more homers, twice as many walks, 70 fewer RBIs but 200 more runs scored, his OPS+ is 127 to Rice’s 128) and Dewey was a better outfielder with that legendary arm. He also made one of the most famous plays in World Series history — that catch of the Joe Morgan blast in Game 6 of the World Series. I’m not arguing if he belongs in the Hall of Fame. My point is only this: Does he have a Hall of Fame case? Sure he does.

Then there’s Lynn. Because Fred Lynn was so good, so young, lots of people have a tendency to look at what his career could have been or should have been and maybe even would have been had it not been for the injuries and getting traded away from Fenway Park and all that. He got about 1,100 fewer career plate appearances than Rice, and because of this his counting numbers are not as good*, though his OPS+ is actually the best of the three at 129.

*Also Jim Rice himself has borderline Hall of Fame counting numbers which is, in my opinion, why he has been kept out of the Hall of Fame this long. I know people have argued that Rice has been kept out because some media members don’t like him, because he was occasionally surly, and all that. Others suggest he’s been kept out because his numbers were inflated by Fenway Park and his on-base percentage isn’t overly impressive. I think all that might be overthinking things. Rice had 382 homers not 400. He hit .298, not .300. He had 2,452 hits, not 3,000. You could even say he drove in 1,451 runs, not 1,500 — though that’s probably not a landmark numbers.

There’s a lot of talk about what the Hall of Fame is, but I think as much as anything it’s a counting house — and if you get 3,000 hits, 500 homers (non-steroid division), 300 wins, you’re in. If not, then your case will be reviewed. Rice has just been under review for a few years.

Interestingly enough, though, I think Lynn might have the most compelling Hall of Fame case of the three. Again — I’m using the word compelling.* Rice has better numbers and a big reputation. Evans has better numbers and an all-around game. But Lynn … well, I’ve been thinking a lot about him lately. I think he’s sort of a combination of the two. He was charismatic and respected like Rice, but he was a great all-around player like Dewey. He was the one guy of the three who I think was, in fact, the very best player in baseball for a stretch of time. Plus, he was the centerfielder.

*You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

For fun, let’s ask those Keltner List Hall of Fame questions that Bill James created a long time ago:

1. Was he ever regarded as the best player in baseball? Did anybody, while he was active, ever suggest that he was the best player in baseball.

Yes and Yes. In 1975 — though in retrospect Joe Morgan was clearly and quite overwhelmingly the best player in baseball — Lynn put up one of the great rookie seasons of all time. He won the MVP, rookie of the year, a Gold Glove and led the league in slugging, OPS, runs, doubles. You could argue plainly that he was the best in the game in 1979. And yes, many people regarded him as the best while he was playing.

2. Was he the best player on his team?

Yes … certainly those two seasons. The Rice-Lynn dynamic was interesting for a lot of reasons — it’s very rare for two players of that caliber to come up at precisely the same time (not even mentioning Dewey) and with one being white and the other being black in Boston in the mid-1970s … like I say, it was a very interesting dynamic. Someone could do a book about that outfield. I think Lynn when healthy was the best player on that team.

3. Was he the best player in baseball at his position? Was he the best player in the league at his position?

Yes and yes. Here’s a list for you — OPS+ for centerfielders from 1970 to 1993 (last year before the strike and the offensive explosion). Not that OPS+ is the end-all stat, but it gives you an idea of the competition:

1. Fred Lynn, 129.
2. Eric Davis, 128
3. Andy Van Slyke, 125
4. Rick Monday, 124
5. Kirby Puckett, 123
6. Cesar Cedeno, 123
7. Lenny Dykstra, 122
8. Dale Murphy, 121
9. Chet Lemon, 120
10. Amos Otis, 116

The point here is that after the great era of centerfielders — Willie, Mickey, Duke, the Clipper, Doby, all those guys — the 1970s and 80s did not have many Hall of Fame caliber centerfielders. What the 1970s and 1980s DID have were incredible DEFENSIVE centerfielders — Cesar Geronimo, Paul Blair, Garry Maddox, Gary Pettis, Devon White, Rick Manning. Lynn was one of the few who crossed over and was an offensive and defensive force.

4. Did he have an impact on a number of pennant races?

Not a great number of races, though he was obviously a huge factor in 1975, he had a pretty good year in the year of the Boston Massacre, and he was good in ‘82 when the Angels won the division. The guy does have a lifetime .407 batting average in his three playoff appearances. And his Red Sox teams consistently won 90+ games, though a lot of that was due to the guy to his right.

5. Was he a good enough player that he could continue to play regularly after passing his prime?

Tough question because Lynn’s prime happened so early — and injuries made him prematurely old. Still, he was an effective 400 at-bat guy when he was 34, 35 and 36 years old. At 37, he was below average, and he was done at 38. He stopped playing center field at 36.

6. Is he the very best player in baseball history who is not in the Hall of Fame?

No. There’s a pretty long list in front of him, but a lot of this is because Lynn crashed into a lot of walls and could not stay healthy.

7. Are most players who have comparable career statistics in the Hall of Fame?

No. None of his 10 comps on Baseball-Reference are in the Hall of Fame.

8. Do the player’s numbers meet Hall of Fame standards?

No. He has 1960 hits, 306 homers, and so on. His numbers do compare pretty favorably to some Hall of Famers — Chick Hafey, for instance, or Earle Combs or other players you had no idea were in the Hall of Fame. His numbers also compare favorably to to a few Hall of Fame middle-infielders and catchers. But no, the career numbers are not quite there.

9. Is there any evidence to suggest that the player was significantly better or worse than is suggested by his statistics?

I don’t know about “significantly” better but yeah, he was a terrific outfielder those early years, and he made a lot of amazing catches. And even though nobody really cares, we’ll mention here that he was also good in the All-Star Games, back when the All-Star Game was not a farce.

10. Is he the best player at his position who is eligible for the Hall of Fame but not in?

Hmm. Good question Bill. If you consider Andre Dawson a centerfielder then I’d say the Hawk is probably a better Hall of Fame candidate because of all those counting numbers. I’m a big Dale Murphy fan. Bernie Williams isn’t eligible yet … I would say Lynn is right there, though.

11. How many MVP-type seasons did he have? Did he ever win an MVP award? If not, how many times was he close?

He was MVP in 1975. He should have been MVP in ‘79, I think. He got votes in two other years, but wasn’t really a factor. The thing with Lynn is that at age 29, he got old. He still had some productive years in California and Baltimore, but only “productive.” As the line goes, he was too young to be so old. Is that a country song? And if not, why not?

12. How many All-Star-type seasons did he have? How many All-Star games did he play in? Did most of the other players who played in this many go to the Hall of Fame?

He played in nine All-Star Games and probably had that many All-Star years. I’m not sure where nine All-Star games places him in the Hall of Fame race … Rice had eight All-Star appearances. Dewey had three. I can’t find the list right not, but I’ll bet most of the players with nine All-Star appearances are in the Hall. Lynn did win the All-Star Game MVP in ‘83.

13. If this man were the best player on his team, would it be likely that the team could win the pennant?

The young Lynn — absolutely.

14. What impact did the player have on baseball history? Was he responsible for any rule changes? Did he introduce any new equipment? Did he change the game in any way?

I’m not sure … did they pad any walls for Fred Lynn? He hosted This Week in Baseball, I remember.

15. Did the player uphold the standards of sportsmanship and character that the Hall of Fame, in its written guidelines, instructs us to consider?

Absolutely. How could you not love Fred Lynn? I despised the Red Sox and even I loved Fred Lynn.

OK, so I’m in that fun stage of Big Red Machine book research where I plainly am losing contact with the real world. It isn’t that I don’t know what’s going on in the world … it’s flat that I don’t care. People will come up to me and say normal things like “Hey man,” or “You can’t park there” or “Dude you’ve got this giant hornet on your left ear,” and I will smile and nod mindlessly but I will be thinking, “Seriously, now, WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH MERV RETTENMUND?”*

*This sort of inane sportswriter tunnel-vision is best appreciated at the Olympics. There really is nothing quite like covering an Olympics. Two days before they begin, if the eight best 100-meter butterfliers in the world were competing in your BATHTUB, as a sportswriter you would be be like, “Hey, listen, I’m going downstairs to watch the third round of the Chrysler Classic, but can you guys clean up in there after you finish? You guys always leave such a huge mess. Water everywhere.”

Anyway, it’s easy to lose perspective.

So yeah, I’m totally zoned into the 1975 Cincinnati Reds, completely, utterly, and because of this everything out there is a blur. I guess this week the Rev. Jeremiah Wright came out and said that the AIDS virus was actually invented by Roger Clemens. Whatever. I guess Royals pitcher John Bale broke his non-pitching hand* by punching a door back at his hotel room. Well, that’s the story they’re telling. Personally, I think that replacement starter Luke Hochevar is going to help the Royals escape the camp through the sewers of Paris, and it was actually Michael Caine who broke Bale’s hand. Anyway. I guess Ozzie Guillen went off again. I guess America still hasn’t chosen Obama or Clinton.

*I did not set up this joke well. It was his left-hand that he broke. But both hands are non-pitching these days.

Don’t care. I’m figuring Will McEnaney stats at the moment.

So, this was my mindset as I went to the Reds-Cubs game Monday night. I was not there to see this game, I was there to see people about baseball played 33 years ago. It had been a long day, filled with lots of research drudgery, and I figured I’d strick around for a couple of innings, get a little baseball fix and then head back to the world of Gullett, Geronimo and Concepcion.

The game was OK. The Cubs kicked the ball around a bit. The Reds started Johnny Cueto, and this kid’s got some electric arm action, no? You know, some people throw hard, and some people look like they’re throwing hard, and a few (Bob Gibson comes to mind first, but other lesser lights like Jose Valverde too) are both — they LOOK like they’re throwing and they really ARE throwing hard. That was Cueto. He struck out seven in the first four innings and also gave up a cartoonishly hard-hit homer to Geovany Soto (although one inning later Adam Dunn would hit his homer even harder and even longer). It was entertaining enough, though after four and a half innings I needed to get back into Big Red unreality.

So, I started packing up and then I heard them announce Ken Griffey Jr. I will always take a moment to watch Junior swing the bat. It’s still a beautiful thing. Plus, he’s connected to my book. Plus he’s just three homers away from 600. I don’t ever want to get jaded enough where 600 homers becomes just another number. I sat back down.

So, Cubs starter Ryan Dempster threw a change-up for a strike — Junior seemed to be looking fastball. That’s how I am on this game. Give me fastballs up or I’m spitting on them.

The next pitch was a fastball up, I believe, and Griffey got it. Straight-away center field. Home run No. 598. He began that familiar Griffey slow trot around the bases, and the crowd was standing and cheering, and it was a sweet moment. One thing though … centerfielder Felix Pie did not seem to be giving up on the ball. As a baseball observer over time, you really do begin to sense the rhythm of an outfielder who knows he has a shot to make the catch. Pie was going back to the wall like he knew … and the ball was hit high enough that he was going to be able to set himself up at the wall and leap.

And so, for a beautiful instant … there was no way to know. Homer? Out? History? Web Gem? Reds fans? Cubs fans (and there appeared to be about an equal number in the stands). This to me is the coolest part of sports — that moment when the jump shot’s in the air, when the long pass is spiraling*, when the putt is twisting toward the hole. Baseball has it better than any of them.

*This is why NFL Films has come up with the kind of slow motion that suspends Terry Bradshaw and Roger Staubach bombs in the air for roughly 3 days.

Pie went back to the wall … and it’s worth saying here that TRUE home run theft is a rare thing. You will often see outfielder go back to the wall, leap, make great catches — but it’s clear from the replay that they only saved a double. The ball was not going to go over the fence. In fact, Griffey made a nice catch earlier in the game like that, and I suspect some people said, “He saved a home run.” But he really didn’t. The ball wasn’t going out.

This ball, however, WAS Going out. Pie stood at the wall, he leaped … he caught it. This wasn’t an especially graceful catch. This wasn’t an especially beautiful catch. But it was a bonafide stolen home run.

Then all the cheers turned to groans, all the groans turned into cheers, people standing sat, people sitting stood up, the stolen homer is the greatest reversal in sports. And suddenly I’m at this rather blah game in a half-empty stadium, and my mind is 99.44% pure mush … but I had a moment. I never argue with people who say baseball is boring because, well, baseball is boring, But then, suddenly, it isn’t. And that’s why it’s so great.

1. On W.C. Heinz: The classy and wonderful sportswriter writer Steve Wulf (who, among many other things, co-wrote Buck O’Neil’s autobiography “I Was Right On Time”) wrote in to confirm my theory that Heinz absolutely would be a prominent blogger in today’s new world.

He wrote: “Heck, in (Heinz’s) day, with multiple editions and lots of friendly competition, newspapers were the blog equivalents.”

This is really a great point, and one that just gets overlooked. There have always been blogs. What do we think Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” was? He wasn’t working for any mainstream media — there really wasn’t a mainstream media. It was a blog written long before the Internet. It was a published as a pamphlet and published anonymously — and James Chalmers (playing the role of Revolutionary Buzz) called him a “political quack.” You could certainly argue that Paine’s blog, more than any single work, spurred the Colonies to break from England.

What do we think Martin Luther’s “95 Theses“ was? A blog. Of course. There was no WordPress for him to post, so he nailed the 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg. The door, he found, was a better operating system than Vista.

It isn’t that I miss what people don’t like about the blogosphere. I get it. There are some dirty words out there. There are some rather embarrassing photographs*. There are some nasty and unfair rips out there. Hey, I would love to see the tone lighten up a bit. I would love to see people enjoy sports more and scream less. But that’s not the blogosphere. That’s just America. It’s been that way for a long time. In 1975, people vented by throwing whiskey bottles at players and fighting on 10 cent beer night. Now, they write angry blogs. I think that’s an improvement.

*You know, I keep hearing people rip Will over at Deadspin for running those photos of quarterback Matt Leinart in the hot tub. Look, this is worth a much longer discussion about privacy and good taste and all that but in this context … give me a very small break. People have been running these sorts of photos before Internet Founder Al Gore was even BORN. This is not a new Internet thing. Do I need to see any more photos in magazines and papers of a messed-up Britney Spears? There have been tabloids, sure, but newspapers have created entire pages dedicated to photos of people partying. Of all people, John Salley made this point when he talked about Joe Namath. Well, papers CONSTANTLY ran photos of Joe Namath partying, right?

Now with cell phone cameras and everything — you’re always on Candid Camera, people. It’s reality, folks. You’re famous, you’re out, people will take your photograph and put it on the Internet. Here’s a weird thing: Every so often someone will write something about me, and they will run a photo of me, and I will have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA where they got it. These photos have not been of me in a hot tub, and I think we all can be thankful for that.

2. I hate the Internet: I see a couple of you — dammit, I thought you people were my FRIENDS — went back to find the horrendous, embarrassing, humiliating article I wrote for The Charlotte Observer about the Bob Costas game. See, this is why the Internet sucks. Nothing ever disappears.

So, fine. Here it is. My first big article ever for the Observer. I was 21. Mock away. Friend. Feh.*

*It turns out it was not gymnast Kurt Thomas, but gymnast Bart Conner who was there. I apologize to whichever one of them I offended.

By Joe Posnanski
Staff Writer

Without any stars, a little bit of nostalgia came to Salisbury.

They came to watch and play baseball, celebrities and children, college players and legends. A game in a busy grandstand in an old-time park with wooden benches and brick dugouts; a tiny radio booth - maybe big enough to hold three people - behind home plate, and a scoreboard with cardboard numbers in right field.

It was NBC sportscaster Bob Costas`s team, the Washington Senators, against Catawba College. On the Senators, a celebrity team, N.C. State basketball coach Jim Valvano played shortstop, NBC football analyst Paul McGuire was at third. NBC Sports executive producer Michael Weisman played first. Olympic gymnast Bart Conner was in the outfield, along with comedian Robert Klein, basketball analyst Bucky Waters and David Letterman writer Jeff Martin. From the building near right field, Mickey Mantle limped toward the plate. He didn`t look like the Mickey Mantle who played with the New York Yankees. He walked slowly, deliberate in each step. He smiled for the fans as they stood and applauded, but he couldn`t do much more. The fans didn`t want more. Willie Mays and Catfish Hunter were scheduled to appear but didn`t make it. The fans didn`t seem to mind.

Mickey Mantle was in Salisbury.

“Hey, that looks like Tom Watson,“ a fan yelled, pointing at a reporter.

For a day in Salisbury, everyone looked like a star.

* * *

The players met at the Holiday Inn in Salisbury a few hours before game time.

It is a basic Holiday Inn - small rooms, a swimming pool, pink flowers and green bushes.

It`s a modest hotel in a small town. To get to the Holiday Inn, you get off I-85 and turn right on Holiday Inn Road. From the swimming pool, you can see the highway, where many more cars pass than stop and take a look at Salisbury. “I just have a nice feeling about Salisbury,“ Costas said. “It just seems to have a Southern hospitality, a gentle charm.“

Two years ago, Costas, who was in Salisbury to pick up his award as sportscaster of the year, saw the baseball field on the Catawba campus and told Catawba coach Jim DeHart he`d like to play there. DeHart told him to get up a team. Costas did.

Last year, he brought in a group of celebrities, including comedian Joe Piscopo, and former major-leaguers like Jim Kaat and Al Hrabosky, and played the Catawba team.

So he did it again this year. He had hoped to play with Mays and Mantle and Hunter, but one by one, he watched them become no-shows. It hurt him; baseball is special to Costas.

Still, the team played. He named his team the Senators after the old Washington Senators of the American League. He handed out uniforms at the Holiday Inn, white with Senators scripted across the front in red letters. He put shoeblack below his eyes and put on four batting gloves.

“I don`t know about our pitching,“ Costas said after learning Hunter wouldn`t play. “I suppose we just want to last the game, and end it by nightfall.“ He smiled and looked over to his team. McGuire played catch with a beer in his right hand.

Valvano was talking to some players. “If I don`t play shortstop,“ he screamed, “I don`t play.“

Klein was laughing about how badly the team would lose. Others concentrated on the food, the swimming pool and the uniforms, which were so hard to put on. “Mickey Mantle looked at this team and said, Are you kidding, this is what I have to work with?` “ McGuire said.

Mantle sat in the dugout during the game, wearing his old No. 7 from Yankees days, signing autographs for a line of people that seemed to go on forever.

“How does it feel to put on the old uniform Mick?“

“It don`t fit anymore,“ Mantle said. “It`s kind of embarrassing.“

* * *

Mantle was the hero of so many. The long, quick strides, the power from both sides of the plate. He was Costas`s hero, Klein`s hero, Valvano`s hero. In his old uniform, the pinstripes, the Yankees hat, you could almost see the old black-and-white highlights, the old magic. Almost.

“I`m rarely speechless,“ Valvano said, sitting next to Mantle. “I`m speechless now.“

Now Mantle sat in the dugout, tired, old - unable to play in the game the young enjoy. Mantle was supposed to be designated hitter. He wasn`t. No reason was given to the fans, but as he gingerly walked to his place during introductions, they knew he wouldn`t play. They had to know.

Still the game went on. It was too nice a day not to play baseball.

Without the stars of the past, the field was filled with laugh-makers and kids grown up. McGuire, a former NFL player, hit a short pop-up to the pitcher then charged out to the mound and knocked the pitcher down before he could catch it. Valvano kicked dirt at the umpire`s leg after a close call. Costas let his 2-year-old son, Brian Michael Kirby - as in the Twins` Puckett - hit during the game.

But beneath it all was baseball, the highlights Costas dreamed as a child. This was his game. He once said baseball was the surest sign of God`s existence because “Man could not have created something so perfect.“ Now he went into the old ballpark and played.

There were moments. Conner drilled a double down the left-field line. Valvano made several tough plays at shortstop. Weisman made a diving catch in foul ground.

And sometimes, between the laughs and the pranks, the game brought out dreams long forgotten.

“The last time I played organized baseball was 30 years ago,“ Klein said as he practiced his batting swing. “It was in Police Athletic League in New York. I was 14 or 15. God, it`s been a long time.“

The Catawba pitchers weren`t throwing hard - taking it easy on the celebrities, but the Senators still found the ball hard to follow. Catawba would win 9-5.

But as the game went into the late afternoon and fans started leaving, Valvano grabbed a tough grounder and threw out a Catawba runner and Costas slapped him on the back and McGuire cheered.

Costas worked his way into the on-deck circle with the bases loaded, hoping, just hoping, for a chance to knock in some runs. His eyes lit up with hope. Perhaps he remembered running out to the car as a child and listening through static to old Yankees games. He took some hard practice swings.

And Mickey Mantle slowly limped off the field.

3. Ugh. I cannot believe I just posted that. What I won’t do for my brilliant readers.

4. Facebook: So here’s a good idea … if you create a Facebook entry, don’t mention that on your blog unless you want 549 people to immediately email you and ask to be your friend. I don’t even know HOW to confirm all these friendships. And I don’t know the etiquette of friends on Facebook (do you just take in everyone?) And I don’t know what being a friend on Facebook means (can you ask a Facebook friend to lend you money or bail you out of jail or what?).

But hey, it’s always good to have more friends, right? I should just make the qualifier: If you buy my current book, and promise to buy The Machine (you don’t have to promise in blood — a DNA sample will suffice), you can be my Facebook Friend forever.

5. Moderation: Someone asked if moderate comments here. I want to make this point: Mostly, no, I do not. I have erased probably five comments since starting this thing because they seemed libelous or too mean (I may have erased a couple more thinking they were spam … man, this site gets a lot of spam).

I want to say this because, frankly, this blog has definitely given me a very different view of the Internet than some might offer on certain HBO shows. That is … the commenting on here never seems to drop below testy (that’s usually over Jim Rice), and is mostly funny, thoughtful, well-written, well-spoken. It really is something. People tell me this all the time.

I mean this. I would love to say that it’s just because my writing draws the most thoughtful and brilliant sports fans in this great country — and I’m sure you would agree. But more, I think it says that the nastiness some people are constantly complaining about is really the vast, vast, vast minority on the blogosphere.

At least that’s what I think.

We all know that I’m not much for linking here — just because I’m too lazy to do the work — but my comrade Aaron Barnhart has a terrific interview up with Bob Costas on the Bissinger screed and his own thoughts about blogs. It’s really good stuff.

And, quickly, I have to tell you my Bob Costas story. I believe I put a version of this up on my last blog, but let’s do it again. So I was like 21 years old, and I was working as an agate clerk for The Charlotte Observer. Agate clerks, at least in those days, were the people who coded up the standings and boxscores and typed in various other types of statistical information, such as high school track meet results. Needless to say, I was terrible at this, legendarily bad, I believe the paper gives out an Agate Plaque of Disgrace in my honor.

The problem, as you will no doubt understand, is that I wanted to be writing, and so I would spend pretty much all my time writing long and rambling blog posts, but this was long before Al gave us the Internet, long before Drudge gave us the blog, and so basically those long and rambling blog posts were officially known as “complete wastes of time.” I constantly badgered editors for the chance to write actual stories in the actual newspaper, and they constantly told me that the hockey standings were all screwed up, and so it was in the year of 1987.

In early 1988, I got word that Bob Costas was bringing a celebrity baseball team down to Salisbury, N.C. to play a game against the local college. The baseball team really had a lot of pretty good celebrities — I remember Jim Valvano was on the team, Robert Klein, Chris Elliot, Gymkata star Kurt Thomas (or some other male gymnast, I can’t remember) and others. Also, word was that Mickey Mantle AND Willie Mays would play in the game. It was the biggest thing to his Salisbury since, um, steak.

And, I have to be completely honest. I was DYING to write about it. Why? Was it because I liked Kurt Thomas? Reasonable guess, but no. Was it because I got a big kick out of Robert Klein’s comedy? I did, yes, but no, that’s not it. Was it the opportunity to see two of the greatest players in baseball history, Mantle and Mays, playing again? That should be the reason. But no.

The reason: I was an overly enthusiastic Bob Costas fan.

Well, hey, I’m not going to lie to you people. I loved Costas. Loved him. He was an inspiration to me. And why not? Smart. Funny. Thoughtful. Awesome on baseball. All my life, I have chosen my heroes based on one simple theme: They are the person I would like to be. That’s why I chose Duane Kuiper as a hero, why I chose Brian Sipe and Ozzie Newsome and Mark Price and so on. They were great, and they were also within reach somehow. When I was 21 years old, I wanted to be Bob Costas — and it’s funny, I didn’t want to be Costas on TV or radio. I just wanted to be him.

So I begged and pleaded for a chance to write about this celebrity game, and after much taunting (“I just don’t think you’re quite ready for this assignment,”) they gave me that chance, in large part because, I’m sure, nobody else wanted to drive to Salisbury for an exhibition game of celebrities. I didn’t care why. I showed up hours and hours before the game, and I went to the hotel, a Holiday Inn, and I remember this because I stopped for directions, and the guy told me, “Yeah, that’s on Holiday Inn Road.” And it was. Nobody was there when I arrived, of course, but the guy at the front desk said everyone would arrive in a while.

I sat. I waited. I was so excited. This was it, my first big-time assignment, my first big moment as a sports writer, and soon the celebrities began to arrive. Costas may have been the first … I know he was early. I nervously approached him, told him who I was and what I was doing … and he could not possibly have been nicer. He was everything I could ever have hoped. He talked to me for a long time, invited me into the room where all the celebrities were hanging out (I remember Robert Klein was doing a Babe Ruth impression, and Jim Valvano was telling jokes; it was pretty cool, really). Costas was so great. He had lived up to everything I could ever have hoped.

Then the game began. And Costas turned to me and said, “Hey, if you want to write what this is like, why don’t you sit on the bench with us?” SIT ON THE BENCH? I sat right next to Mickey Mantle while the game went on (and while angry television reporters stood on the other side of the fence and pointed at me and groaned, “Why is HE on the bench?”) Costas would come over every few minutes to talk, to share some thought, to offer some funny line … it was one of the greatest professional days of my life.

Then I went back to the office and … wow, now I had to write this story. As it turned out, Mays could not make it, and Mantle was too hurt to play, and I was given the impossible task of chronicling this historic event. And … sure, I choked. Well, come on, I was 21, I had just been given a whole day with my hero, and Mickey Mantle, and famous comedians, and I wrote that article like it was War + Peace + Great + Gatsby + Moby + Dick + Hamlet. If I had overwritten that article any more, it would have come to life and strangled everyone within its reach. If I had laced it with anymore purple prose in it, the article would have been Prince. I don’t recall specifically saying in there that this game was roughly more important than World War I, but I’m sure the thought got through. I could not have been more proud of it.

The article appeared on the front page of the sports section the next day, a big moment for me, and people were coming up to congratulate me (if you consider, “Hey, uh, Joe, read your article today” to be congratulations). I was on Cloud 9. That afternoon, I called Costas in Salisbury to thank him for giving me this incredible opportunity. And I remember this, he said, “Oh, yeah, sure, hey, actually, I’d like to talk with you about that article. I can’t right now, I’ve got to go to this dinner, but I will call you next week.” Wow! I mean, hey, I knew Bob Costas wouldn’t really call me, but so what? Just the thought was overwhelming to me.

The next week, Bob Costas called me. I was thrilled. He said hello, and I said hello, and then there was this rather awkward pause. And I said, “Oh yeah, hey, you said you wanted to tell me something about the article.”

The words he said after that are forever seared in my mind. I know them precisely. He said, “Well, I wasn’t going to say anything, but you asked.”

Friends, these are not promising words. You do not begin a compliment with “Well, I wasn’t going to say anything, but you asked.” You do not give someone a raise, or say yes to a marriage proposal or applaud a baseball article after that introduction. No sir. Bob for the next few minutes — I don’t know if it was 3 minutes or 294 — ripped my article. I’m sure it was constructive ripping, I’m sure it was good-hearted ripping, I’m sure it was not intended in any way to shatter the will of a young writer. But I pretty much stopped hearing actual words about 20 seconds in. All I heard in my mind was, “YOU SUCK! YOU SUCK! YOU SUCK! YOU WILL DIE JOBLESS, POOR AND ALONE! AND DID I MENTION THAT YOU SUCK!”

This was, of course, not at all what Bob was saying. He was saying in a very calm and professional way that I had overwritten the story, and tried too hard, and missed the point, all true things looking back as a 41-year-old. But to a 21-year-old listening to his hero, it was pretty much YOU SUCK AND YOU SUCK. When the phone call ended– and that’s the right word, it pretty much just ended — I noticed that everything in the whole world suddenly looked a lot bigger. Either that or I had shrunk to roughly the size of a ballpoint pen.

Well, hell, now what? I mean, you don’t really have anywhere to go as a college kid who has just been told by the most respected man in sports journalism that you suck. I honestly started to think: OK, so what job could I get now? Could I drive an ice cream truck? I could see myself i that job. How do you get that job? Maybe I could sell furniture on lawns in front of strip malls. I had done a little of that, and it was quite lucrative, you know, if anyone bought the furniture, which no one ever did. A few people came up to me and asked me what was wrong … I couldn’t even speak.

So, I did what I always do … I wrote. In this case I wrote a long, long, long letter to Bob Costas. You can only imagine based on this blog, how long it was. I have written before that i hope to never, ever see this letter — Costas could blackmail me for everything I’m worth, though admittedly that would pretty much include my copy of the Bill James Historical Abstract and a (more or less) complete set of Cleveland Indians cards from 1962 to 1990. Probably not worth it.

The letter made the article in question seem tame and detached. I don’t remember much — the human mind does spare us pain — but I do remember that I told him that I wanted to be a successful sportswriter someday, and I needed to write what I saw, and God knows what else. Before I could chicken out, I sent the letter to Costas. When I told a friend what I had done, he called me a few choice names — idiot being the kindest of those.

Life went on. A few months later, the Charlotte Observer hired me in the Rock Hill Bureau (which, by coincidence, is where my friend and fellow columnist Jason Whitlock began). I had more or less forgotten about the letter — the human mind does spare us pain — and I was working when my phone rang. I had a friend pick it up — I was on the phone with a high school volleyball coach, I recall — and he whispered, “It’s Bob Costas.”

I hung up on the volleyball coach, picked up the phone, and it WAS Costas. And he said he got my letter. Man was I ready to get ripped. Only he said, “And that letter told me more about you than 100 articles could. That letter was great. When you’re working at The New York Times, I’m going to tell people I knew you when. That letter is on my refrigerator door.”

. I’ve spoken many times with Costas since then, and I still have the same admiration for him that I did long ago. It might not quite be a hero worship — we do grow out of those things — but I still think he’s as decent and thoughtful a voice as anyone in broadcast journalism. I thought he should have cut off Buzz the other day, but that’s an easy second guess. No one else on TV would have even tried to have that discussion. I think Bob does have his problems with blogs — and some of them are quite understandable — but I also think he sees the bigger picture.

Anywhere, that where the story ends. It was 20 years ago. I’ve had a lot of people help me in my career — both knowingly and unknowingly — but I can tell you making Costas’ refrigerator door … yeah, that was scary. But cool. You know?

Start No. 6: Vs. Texas Rangers
Innings: 3
Earned runs allowed: 7.
Strikeouts: 3
Walks: 2
Homers: 3 (Yikes!)
Decision: Loss (3-3)
Number of pitches: 90
Number of strikes: 52
BABIP: .538 (7 for 13)
Season BABIP: .265 (30 for 113)

Well, that was bad. There’s not really a whole lot else to say about it. Bill James says that when he was watching Royals games in the 1980s he could always tell in the first inning how good pitcher Danny Jackson would be that day. I don’t know if I can make that claim about Banny yet but … I could tell you during his battle with leadoff batter Ian Kinsler on Wednesday that Banny was off. He started off Kinsler game with two balls, and then he threw a third ball that the home plate umpire for inexplicable reasons decided to call a strike. It was, all-in-all, an eight pitch at-bat, and even though Brian got the out, I don’t think Brian hit his spot one time, and with any pitcher (but especially with Banny) that’s a bad sign.

He just has to be fine to be successful. Now, I think he will be fine most nights. But every so often, he’s going to have one of these nights, especially in a hitter’s park with the wind blow out. First inning, after getting Kinsler, he gave up a single to Michael Young, and he gave up a hard line drive to Josh Hamilton, and he threw an 88-mph fastball over the outside half that Milton Bradley* poked the other way for a home run. It wasn’t a terrible pitch — Bradley sort of dove over the plate and hit it up into the wind and it carried out — but again I think it missed the spot, caught a little too much plate, was a little high. I’m sure Banny would have liked it to be a little better. He then had a 10-pitch battle with David Murphy. It clearly wasn’t his day.

*Plenty has been said and written about the joyous attitude of Milton Bradley, but he was especially wonderful this game. He cracked his helmet after grounding out to second base … which is no big deal except this was with the Rangers holding a 7-0 lead and it was one batter after Josh Hamilton had hit a grand slam. Then he went to the outfield and just moped. Later he struck out with his team up 9-1 and he broke a bat over his knee. Then he took himself out of the game because, apparently, he wasn’t feeling great. A banner day.

The second inning was a lot worse — the worst inning for Banny this season. Some of it was the wind, which was really howling pretty good. Some of it was a frustrated Rangers team swinging out of their shoes. But most of it was just Banny being off. He was trying to throw an 88-mph fastball outside to the immortal Brandon Boggs (career numbers: .667/.714/1.167, 407 OPS+ — I mean, you are a Jedi, young Brandon) and he missed his spot by about eight inches, which is a bad miss, and Boggs yanked it over the fence. With the bases loaded, Banny again missed his spot to Josh Hamilton, caught too much of the plate, and Hamilton crunched a home run to left-center. That was a weird one — off the bat it definitely looked like a pop-up. But Hamilton is really strong, and as mentioned the wind was a blowin’, and the ball carried out.

That pretty much sums it up. Mama said there would be days like this. Banny is terrific about breaking things down, coming up with a good attack plan, pitching to batter’s weaknesses and so on. But he’s a contact pitcher with an 88-mph fastball — he’s got to be really good, really sharp, and it doesn’t hurt to have the wind is BLOWING IN. Chalk it up to a bad day. “I knew it,” Banny told our Star’s baseball maven Bob Dutton. “I honestly felt like I was pitching on the moon tonight.”

* * *

I want to go off on a crazy, unorganized tangent about statistics for a moment here. It is all over the map, but hey, I’m told that’s what blogs are all about.

There is a certain kind of person who will say, quite often, that there are things statistics cannot measure. Much of this, is BS, of course. For instance, they will say, “You can’t measure a player’s heart.” But, of course, it depends what they mean by “heart.” We CAN measure how often that player gets on base, how often he gets to ground balls, how often he goes first to third on a single, how many pitches he takes per at-bat, how often he swings at pitches out of the strike zone, how successful he is sacrificing runners (where is our “sacrifice percentage” stat anyway?) how often he strikes out (and why is the stat “strikeouts per at-bat?” Shouldn’t it be “strikeout per plate appearance?” Shouldn’t it count as a non-strikeout when a batter works his way for a walk?), how often he hits into double plays (and how often he doesn’t), how often he hits in clutch situations — runners on base, runners in scoring position, runners in scoring position with two outs, runners in scoring position two outs in tie game, runners in scoring position two outs in tie game late innings, and so on. We can, from the numbers, extrapolate lots of pretty meaningful information about a player’s ability to stretch singles into doubles*, doubles into triples, his ability to cut off balls hit in the gap, his talent for moving runners over, on and on. And this doesn’t even get into the information we have about pitchers which is, needless to say, voluminous.

* Not to get off on another Pete Rose distraction but … why not? DId I mention the book? I saw that someone wrote a comment about Pete Rose that made some interesting points, though I would tend to disagree with them. The writer was trying to say that there was nothing special about the way Rose played the game, that everyone plays hard (I don’t agree with this), everyone slides headfirst (now), that you need speed not will to stretch singles into doubles (though Pete wasn’t fast), that looking and acting disgusted after striking out does not mean you care more. He also threw out a David Eckstein comparison, which is low.

The question was raised: Would you want your kid to be like him? Of course not. But that’s not the right question. Would I like my kids to attack life with just a little bit of Pete Rose’s intensity? You bet.

So, anyway, getting back to statistics — we can measure a lot of things. It is true, we can’t precisely measure what a player means in the clubhouse or how much his cheering in the dugout fires up his teammates or the effectiveness of a player in a team meeting. There are definitely things that unmeasurable, and because they are unmeasurable their value tends to be overstated by some and understated by others, depending on how they feel about the guy.*

My mathematical formula: The value you find in Derek Jeter’s gamerness is in direct proportion to how much you like Derek Jeter. I’m sure that’s worded incorrectly, but you get the point.

But I think most of the time when someone says that you “can’t measure someone by their stats,” I think they mean that the statistics do not say what they want them to say. They know — intuitively, logically, naturally — that the player is more (or less) valuable than the statistics show. There is something lost in translation, something emotional and real that the statistics do not measure. I think this is a very human response to things. Bill James will tell you that baseball is way too complicated to be summed up easily, by numbers and calculations*.

*Of course, it’s also way, way, way, WAY too complicated to be summed up easily by pithy manager quotes or nonsensical lines about a player’s “courage” or ridiculous cliches like “baseball is 75% pitching” or wildly incomplete statistics like batting average — this is why Bill got into this racket in the first place.

I think the poll to the right — facing off George Brett and Mike Schmidt — might get to this point. By statistics, especially some of the more advanced metrics, Mike Schmidt was the better of the great players. He had the higher OPS+, the better Eqa, more Win Shares and so on. He also won three MVPs (to Brett’s 1), 10 Gold Gloves (to Brett’s 1), he mashed 548 homers (to Brett’s 317) and so on.

Brett has his statistical advantages too — 250 more doubles, 75 more triples, more total bases, much better postseason performances, much higher batting averages (meaning that his OPS+ are much less walk-based) and so on. Still, when you look at this dispassionately, Schmidt seems the better player. They were both outrageously good — we always lose sight of this when comparing two great players. They were both INCREDIBLE players. But Schmidt was the better fielder, the more powerful hitter, the more likely to get on base, and as such he would be considered better.

There’s only one problem with that: I’m entirely convinced that Brett was the better player.

Why? Well, I am tempted to go into great detail about stuff the stats don’t show — the energy that Brett played with (Schmidt was, for all his great qualities, more of a moper and self-doubter), the way Brett always seemed to rise to the occasion (who could forget the game against Toronto in ‘85?), the way he carried punchless Royals teams like the 1985 team all those victories (Schmidt’s teams couldn’t win pennants until Pete Rose came along). You can’t see it in the stats!

But the truth is, I just like Brett’s game more. I love stats, I don’t think I need to say that to this audience, but I’d rather have Brett. I honestly believe that if I was starting a team, I’d take Brett. Is it because he hit a huge player homer in ‘76 (that was forgotten after Chambliss hit his homer), because of the three homers off of Catfish in the playoffs, because of the upper deck shot off Goose in 1980, because of the one-man wrecking crew game against Toronto in ‘85, because he hit .337/.397/.627 in nine postseasons (while Schmidt hit .236/.304/.386 in eight — SMALL SAMPLE SIZES!), because Brett was better in 1980 than almost anyone ever …

Sure. It’s because of all of those things. It’s because I live in Kansas City. It’s because a good friend of mine, a Phillies fan, never liked Schmidt all that much. It’s because I’m a contrarian by nature, and the conventional wisdom is Schmidt was better. It’s because while I like watching left-handed hitters more than right-handed hitters. It’s because my middle name is Michael. It’s because I’ve had long conversations with Brett about a thousand things. It’s because I grew up an American League fan. It’s because while I love stats and put a lot of faith in stats, I’m as bullheaded as the next guy. I could tell you the core numbers don’t make a fair case for Brett. But the closer truth is that I just like Brett more.

I remember way back in high school, I was at a bible study — not to get all religious on you, but there was this girl and, well never mind — and the person leading it was ranting about the impreciseness of science. He was making the case for faith over fossils. Then someone asked him a great question, one I’m sure you’ve heard many times. She asked, “If there was a scientific discovery tomorrow that proved persuasively that everything the bible happened exactly as described, would you quote that discovery?”

And the guy was honest. He said: “Yes. I would quote it. But I would believe my heart.”

A few bloggy, Bissinger thoughts as we prep for another exciting Banny Log!

* * *

A couple of weeks ago, I was alerted by a friend that I was on a “short list” for a Bob Costas panel discussion on “the future of blogs and sports journalism.” Now, like George Bailey, I’m not a praying man, but you better believe I hit my knees that night and every night thereafter for days … and my prayer went something like this:

Dear God. I’m not a praying man, but if you’re up there, and you can hear me, show me the way. I have not asked for anything at all in a long time, probably since college, you know, that girl who always sat near me on the city bus, and, well, you kind of let me down on that one, but no matter, you’ve been good to me, I have no complaints, but I would like to ask a favor. Please, please, please Lord, do not allow anyone from the Costas show to call me.

The Lord is good. The Lord is just. The Lord had the Costas people bizarrely call Braylon Edwards. The Lord worketh in mysterious ways.

You may think I’m joking — and one level, I am — but I am deadly serious when I tell you that I was scared almost to tears that they would call me to be on that show, and I would not have the boldness and good sense to say no. There are a lot of reasons why I would rather cut every lawn in the neighborhood with a manual lawnmower than appear on that panel, one being that I totally suck on radio and television. I should tell you sometime about my six-week radio show sometime.

More, though, there’s this: I have no idea about the future of sports journalism. Man, I don’t even know when I’m going to get my car’s oil changed. I don’t even know if my youngest daughter is going to have a good potty day. I don’t even know if Jim is going to really propose to Pam. Dammit, I know nothing about nothing, and I cannot imagine five things more terrifying than going up in front of a national audience and trying to pretend that I have something meaningful to say about the future of sports journalism, or the meaning of blogs, or the point where it will all come together.

I can tell you this though: One of those five terrifying things would have been having Buzz Bissinger scream at me.

The Lord is good. The Lord is just. The Lord is my Shepherd.

I did not watch live the already famous Costas Now segment where Pulitzer Prize Winner Buzz Bissinger went cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs on Deadspin’s Will Leitch. I was, at that time doing some research on the 1975 Reds and Pete Rose* and watching the Royals and Texas play rather entertaining ball. I was happily unaware of the whole thing until this morning when I woke up to about 20 emails demanding that I weigh in. I took it from those emails that Buzz had been rather harsh in his assessment of the blogosphere and in particular Will.

*I see a couple of commenters and emailers have griped about Reds manager Pete Rose penciling himself in the lineup at the end of his career so he could break the hits record, and I don’t disagree entirely with the anti-sentiment. I can see the argument that by playing himself he hurt some younger players, in particular my buddy Jim’s favorite guy, Nick Esasky. Anyway, I believe Rose was a different man and a different player by the 1980s … I’m really much more concerned with the Pete Rose of 1975, when I think he really was a force of nature.

You can blast Pete Rose for a lot of things, but I don’t think the whole “He played himself so he could get the record” is fair. For one thing … what would you do? The guy was fewer than 150 hits away from the seemingly unbreakable all-time hits record — OF COURSE he played himself. More, though, he was not entirely without value as a player leading up to the record.

I didn’t actually see the Costas segment until a few minutes ago. It is 10 minutes I wish I could have back, except for this entirely brilliant exchange between Costas and the aforementioned blog expert Braylon Edwards.

Costas: Braylon, do you blog?
Edwards: Uh, no.
Costas: Do you have any teammates who blog?
Edwards: Uh, no.

Succinct. The rest of the conversation seemed to me to be Buzz hitting Will about the head with an umbrella, and Will saying, “Would you please stop hitting me with the umbrella,” and Buzz continuing to hit Will about the head with the umbrella, and Will saying, “Damn it, ow, stop hitting me you crazy old man,” and Buzz hitting him about the head some more with the umbrella. I love the phrase “about the head.”

Now, I don’t know Buzz Bissinger at all. I don’t really know Will Leitch either, though we have exchanged a couple of emails and we are apparently friends on Facebook, though what that means is beyond my 41-year-old computer comprehension level. I respect and like their work. I think Friday Night Lights is one of the best sports books ever written. I think Deadspin has changed the way we watch sports, and I think a lot of it is funny and edgy and perceptive, which is more than I can say about this blog.

So, with that said, here’s how I judged the exchange: It looked to me like Buzz had decided to prepare for his appearance by not eating red meat for several days. You know a conversation might not go Lincoln-Douglas when one of the debaters breaks out the “I really think you’re full of sh..” line like 22 seconds into it. That was Buzz. He then went into a rather curious rant about the great old writer W.C. Heinz, who died recently. I wasn’t sure exactly where that was supposed to go … but I’ll get back to that in a minute.

Then, it looked to me like Buzz and Costas — who, I have mentioned here before, is one of my heroes — teamed up on Will, who apparently without his knowledge had been named the official representative of “all crazy lunatics who post nasty comments on the Internet.” It reminded me of the time the comedian Bobby Slayton was on a talk show about prejudice — because I guess he makes fun of ethnic groups in his act. He was on there with various professional haters, I mean, the A Team of talk show hate, a Neo Nazi, Mister Klan Guy, a Black Panther (are there still Black Panthers?), Darth Vader, Anton Chigurth, Kramer, whatever. And about halfway through the show, Slayton suddenly realized that he had been penciled into the haters lineup, you know, hitting third behind the guy from the Klan. And he was like, “Whoa! Whoa! I’m on the WRONG TEAM.”

Will was being given the fun task as defender of the nastiest and most absurd comments written by anonymous strangers on the Internet. Buzz did read part of an article about mainstream media vs. blogs that was written on Deadspin — I originally thought the section was from a comment, but I was confusing this with Costas reading a Deadspin comment later. The section read out loud was about Rich Garces’ man-boobs. I’ve since gone back and read it — it was written to make a point about how Bill James did not need to go into the locker room (and see Garces’ chest) to write baseball. It was rude and pretty funny, actually, and there was a point to it, though I’m never really in favor of ripping man boobs for all the obvious reasons. Anyway Buzz hated it so much he read it out loud on national TV so it could reach a larger audience.

I really thought Will went in there to have a real discussion about real things. He really did seem eager to do this. Instead the conversation mostly involved Will covering up while Buzz screamed and swore and screamed and swore and and screamed at him for lowering the level of discourse in America.

“I think blogs are dedicated to cruelty,“ Buzz said just before he started screaming and swearing at Will, and this is so weird because I was actually thinking for a long time about calling this blog ”Dedicated To Cruelty“ or DTC (you know, for the kids). Come on. Is journalism dedicated to lies because a couple of pretty famous writers made up stories? Are books dedicated to murderous anti-semitism because Hitler wrote ”Mein Kampf?“ Is music dedicated to demeaning women because Flo-Rida sang “Low?” How are you going to judge blogs and the Internet because some anonymous jerk on a message board or in a comment section decides to tell poo-poo jokes about Tony LaRussa?

Anyway, it was emotional, and I get that. Sure, there are a lot of objectionable things happening in sports journalism today. There are a lot of strange things happening. This causes a lot of anger and fear and disgust, and absolutely I get that. Still, because of the emotion I think the whole point was missed, and the point is this: What are we even ARGUING about? Blogs aren’t going anywhere. Comments aren’t going anywhere. The Internet isn’t going anywhere. Stupid people aren’t going anywhere. Angry people aren’t going anywhere. And, for that matter, funny people, talented people, brilliant people, they’re not GOING AWAY just because some people don’t like technology and have gone all Barry Corbin on us.**

**Remember in War Games, at the end, when it looked like the danger was over, and then Joshua the computer decided to find the launch codes. They went to Barry Corbin, the general, to tell him and he said, ”Well just unplug the damn thing!“ I suggest that whenever someone starts ranting about the Internet and blogs and people writing in their mother’s basements, we say that he’s ”Corbinating.“

What is a blog anyway? The question itself is ridiculous … it’s like asking, “What’s an article?” or “What’s a book” or “What’s a song?” It’s a vehicle, that’s all, a way to communicate, a way to spread ideas, a way to entertain, a way to gripe, a way to spew hate, a way to make fascinating points. Some are short. Some are long. Some are curiously long. Some are profane, some are fascinating, some are stupid, some are irresponsible, some are genius, some are not read by anybody except immediate family members.

Remember Buzz’s W.C. Heinz reference? Buzz was saying that Heinz had a whole lot more to say (and could say it a lot better) than, I guess, most people who comment on blogs. Sure. That’s probably true. Heinz was a brilliant writer. Wonderful. Thoughtful. Funny. Tough. I couldn’t be a bigger fan. His piece on Bummy Davis is one of the all-time greats. He wrote a lot of great pieces.

But guess what: If Heinz was young today, if he was 25 years old in 2008, or 30 years old, you know what he would be doing? Yeah. He would be WRITING A FREAKING BLOG. Of course he would. If you love to write, if you want to be heard, if you feel like you have something to say, this is what you do. Your print outlets are shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. You know, Heinz wrote his famous, ”In The Morning They Shot Spies“ piece for True Magazine. Same thing for that great Bummy Davis piece I just mentioned. He wrote sports columns for “The Sun.” He wrote for Madison and Argosy and LIfe and so on.

You know what these magazines and newspapers have in common? Yeah. They’re gone. There aren’t many magazines and newspapers left. It’s corny, sure, but I feel honored and thankful every day to work for The Kansas City Star, not only a paper that is still in business, but more a paper that still cares a whole lot about being good. There’s a hard reality here, and it will only get harder over the next few years. Newspapers are shrinking. Magazines are shrinking. Opportunities in the mainstream are shrinking. Shrinkage is the word.

But the Internet is wide open. If Heinz was young, he would be writing words on the Internet just like everyone else, and he would probably have his own blog, and it would be wonderful, and cranky old people would be screaming about Heinz in pajamas.

The point is … this is here. This is now. I’m sure as heck not going to defend every crazy thing on the Internet, and I’m also not going to defend every ridiculous thing that appears in the mainstream media. Some of the Internet stuff is criminal. Some of it is hysterical. Some of it is brilliant. Doesn’t matter. It ain’t going away. The Internet is here, it’s real, it’s big, it’s got enough room on it for everything, enough for screeds about man-boobs and nastiness about Barack Obama and hateful words about Hillary Clinton and pleas to fire managers and message boards with phrases and thoughts that would make the hair on your neck do the Macarena.* It also has wonderful essays and remarkable thoughts and brilliant ideas and hysterically funny gags. That’s why they call it surfing. You find your own wave.

*I was just thinking about the Macarena today … first time I ever saw it was at a Beach Volleyball match at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Suddenly, everybody was doing this ridiculous dance, and I had never heard of it, and I’m like, “Oh my God, did I fall asleep 20 years ago and wake up into a crazy world?”

Anyway, I don’t get the argument. I can’t imagine that anyone — even the most anti-Internet person on earth — believes that it’s going away. What do the Corbinators really think should be done here? Close down the Internet? Make people take decorum courses when they write nasty and stupid stuff? Take away picture phones from all Americans and restrict the blogging rights of anyone who has not read the complete works of W.C. Heinz, Jimmy Cannon, Jim Murray, Red Smith and both the Lardners? This is where we are. IThe blogosphere is messy and rude and funny and silly and idiotic and pointless and literate and everything else that we are as Americans. I wish there wasn’t so much nastiness out there. I wish it wasn’t so easy to be anonymous. I wish people would stand behind what they say. Maybe we can reel some of that in. Let’s talk about that.

In the meantime, I had two overriding thoughts watching Buzz yell at Will about blogs.

My first thought was that I hope that Bob Costas — who I believe is as sensible and thoughtful a sports commentator as anyone ever on television — tries this again, tries to have a serious discussion about blogs and sports journalism and where this whole thing is heading rather than inviting the poor guy from Deadspin to get yelled at by a very angry Buzz.

The second thought: Thank God it wasn’t me.

People will ask me why I am writing this book about the 1975 Cincinnati Reds. Well, OK, wait, that’s not technically true — people haven’t really asked me much about that. It’s more of a “writer’s device” designed to get into this blog entry and, at the same time, promote my upcoming book about the ‘75 Reds (March of 2009, save up now, but first you can buy this book which is already out and has a five star Amazon rating!). But if people ever did ask why I am writing this book, I would probably offer the top three reasons, in no particular order:

1. Money.
2. That incredible team haunted my childhood*.
3. I still love Pete Rose.

*I am entirely fascinated by the people and teams that have haunted my sports experiences. I’ve always thought, in a modest way, that I could write a good John Elway book because I cannot stand that son of a gun. He has stuck so many knives in me through the years that my blood has gone orange. I believe my own fan relationship with Elway — the guy who broke my heart over and over again — could be more interesting than the view of some big John Elway fan. Anyway, it would be to me.

The first reason I’m writing the book is obvious. The second reason is pretty obvious too — I grew up in Cleveland when the Indians were dreadful and decked out in the most gruesome red uniforms yet invented. Four hours away the Cincinnati Reds (immaculately dressed, always) played the best baseball in the entire world. I had a complicated relationship with that Reds team — every so often my mother would get me Reds clothes by mistake, and I was mortified, and I would shout, “No MOM, I’m an INDIANS fan, I HATE the Reds,” but I would also wear those clothes with a strange sense of pride. I did despise that Reds team, only I didn’t, I knew the lineup backward and forward, pretended sometimes to be Jack Billingham, and basically knew about as much an 8-year-old kid could know about the Reds, including (for some reasons this has always stuck with me) that Joe Morgan wanted to be a Junior College coach after he finished playing.*

*I cannot remember where I first heard that — but I remember being confused by the Junior College concept. What is a Junior College anyway? Is it like a regular college only smaller? Did they only allow small people to attend? I was the shortest kid in my class, and I can remember thinking: Would I grow tall enough to go to a Senior College or would I be stuck at a Junior College being taught baseball by a Little Joe Morgan? I would pump my elbow like Morgan at the plate, just in case.

The third reason, though, probably stands out. I still love Pete Rose. I know — probably as well as most — his flaws, his failings, his mistakes, his obsessions, his addictions. Here’s the thing: Even his most hostile and venomous critic will concede the guy came to the ballpark to play every day. Maybe some of the hustle was show. Maybe he needed to pop a greenie now and again to keep going. Maybe he turned his back on things and people in his life that should have been more important. Maybe he was so consumed by the need for action that he got lost. Maybe at his core Pete was so much about Pete that he simply did not have anything left to give to anyone else. Maybe he just didn’t give a damn.

No matter what, though, none of that changes the singular truth of Pete Rose’s baseball career: He banged out more hits than any man who ever played this American game of baseball, and he did it by never relenting, never stepping down, never treating another game like another game. To me there’s greatness in that, in trying harder, in caring more, in pushing beyond, in not backing off even when the stakes seem absurdly low. You always hear about those guys who would to beat you even “in a game of tiddlywinks.”* There are a lot of tiddlywinks stories about Pete Rose.

*For some reason, it’s always tiddlywinks. It’s never “He’s competitive, he’d want to be you at a game of backyard croquet.” Or Yahtzee. Or a heated game of Gnip Gnop. I mean, do people even still PLAY tiddlywinks? DIdn’t tiddlywinks go out of date like a billion years ago — when guys would get together for a little tiddlywinks, then wander around the neighborhood singing “Buffalo Gals” and then split up so they could get their surry and take their sweethearts to the ice cream social?

Rose had that tiddlywinks intensity — no matter how much you wanted to win, he wanted to win more. If he was 4 for 4, and the score was 11-2, and the crowd had already filed to the exits, and the other regulars were out of the game, and even the umpires just wanted to go home, Pete Rose damn well wanted ONE MORE HIT, and he didn’t just want that hit, he wanted it with the sort of white hot ravenousness few people ever feel for ANYTHING. Remember when the Terminator wanted to kill so badly that after he was blown up in to a liquid droplets, those droplets came back together? Yeah, that’s how much Rose wanted the next hit.

None of this makes Pete an especially honorable or admirable character, necessarily, but I can’t help but love the guy anyway for what I call his heightened sense of caring. People always talk about how, if they had the talent (and they were making that kind of money), they would play just like Pete Rose, run to first on walks, take extra ground balls for hours, stretch singles into doubles, slide head first and all that. But it’s only after you live for a while and are disappointed a few times that you see just how hard it is to give everything you have every day, to play through pain, to not let failure or misfortune shut you down, to avoid the unmistakable feeling that you have accomplished enough and put up with enough stuff and should be allowed to rest for a few minutes.

Pete never rested. Never. To get 4,256 hits, you need to get 200 hits when you are 21, and 200 hits when you are 41, and 200 hits every single season in between — and even then you will not quite get there. There are no wasted at-bats when you’re trying to get to 4,256. No empty games. I love Pete Rose because, in my mind, he gave more of himself to the game than anyone; no, it didn’t make him a well-rounded person, but are any truly obsessed people well-rounded? Doesn’t this cut to to the very definition of obsession? Pete Rose liked (and likes) cars and women and gambling and money and sports and fame. He loves baseball, though. He loves baseball with all the madness in his soul.

All that leads to the real purpose of this essay: Bruce Springsteen. I saw him in concert in Charlotte on Sunday, It was the fifth time I saw Springsteen, which might seem like a lot for anyone out there who casually likes Springsteen or does not like him at all, but it’s a pathetic badge of dishonor for the real Springsteen fans who would consider anyone who does not see Bruce five times on EACH TOUR to be a piker. I tend to be more ashamed that I have seen him only five times than proud that I have now traveled to five different cities to see him.

In any case, Springsteen is now 57 years old, almost 58, and he’s been putting on America’s most labor intensive rock shows for almost 40 years now. Everyone who saw Springsteen in the 1970s can share some absurd concert story about the Boss playing nine hours at a bar in Des Moines, then driving to Ames that night and performing for another three hours for free for the few people who happened to be in the bar. The concerts have shortened over the years, of course, but they are still epic. Sunday he still went hard for 2 hours and 45 minutes with only one short encore break, which is beyond the capacities of pretty much any young performer out there. It’s inhuman for a 57-year-old man.

I’m not going to offer a detailed concert review because, by now, you have no doubt decided whether or not you like Bruce Springsteen, and there’s nothing I could possibly add. The Boss has now reached that level of weather — you either like the weather in Phoenix or you don’t. My saying “it’s a dry heat” won’t sway any votes.

But I will tell you this: I watched Springsteen very closely when he performed “Born to Run” toward the end of the show. I watched the close-ups of his face on the video screen, and I watched the way he moved around the stage, and I listened carefully to the pitch of his voice. My God, how many times has Bruce Springsteen performed this song by now? The album “Born to Run” came out in 1975, almost 33 years ago, and he performed the song even before the album came out. So has he performed it live 5,000 times? I’ll bet it’s been more. Maybe 7,500 times? Maybe 10,000 times?

There are certain professional things we have all done thousands of times. I know truck drivers who have driven more than three million miles. We all do. We know doctors who have delivered thousands of babies, and mechanics who have fixed thousands of cars, and chefs who have grilled thousands of steaks and all that. But Springsteen’s repetitions is a little different, and not just because Springsteen gets paid a lot more money to sing “Born to Run”, and not just because he gets many more perks and shrieking women and whatever. It’s because every single time Bruce Springsteen performs that song, there are thousands and thousands of people in the crowd that want a transcendent moment. That’s his song, but it’s also our song, it has meant something important to countless people. We will know if he means it.

And yet … how can he mean it? How many times can a man sing, “It’s a death trap. It’s a suicide rap,” and mean those words like he did when he was 22 years old? Springsteen is a much different man now. He’s rich. He’s famous. He’s had letdowns. He’s had triumphs. He’s had children. He’s political now. He’s an icon now. He’s a lot of things now that he was not 33 years ago. And yet people still have a hunger for that song and for the feeling we had when we first heard it. Girls comb their hair in rearview mirrors and the boys try to look so hard. We don’t want Bruce Springsteen to grow old for that most cliche of reasons. We want him to sing Born to Run like he wrote it yesterday. We want it to BE yesterday.

I watched him. I listened to him. And I have to tell you — he played the hell out of that song in Charlotte, North Carolina, at the end of a long American tour. I kept looking at him, trying to figure out his motivation. It could be money, I suppose, though he has plenty. It could be the cheers, but honestly, has any man ever heard more cheers? It could be a generosity of spirit; a sense that he still wants to make people feel. Isn’t that at the heart of music? Sports too? Pete Rose used to tell people — like Joe DiMaggio said before him and Michael Jordan said after — that he had to give everything because there was someone in the crowd (some father and son probably ) who were seeing him for the very first time, and he could not stand the thought of leaving them cold. Maybe there is some of that driving Springsteen.

Or maybe there is something else driving him, something that we would not understand. Motivation is a tricky thing. I asked Pete Rose why he played so hard for so long, and he said that came from his father who had told him that the way to win a fight is to hit first. Maybe that makes sense to you. Maybe it doesn’t. I thought about Rose and how much baseball mattered to him as I listened to Springsteen wail those familiar words for the 10,000th time in his life — runaway American dream, stepping out over the line, guide your dreams and visions, strap your hands ‘cross my engines, baby, I’m just a scared and lonely rider, I want to know if love is real. I can’t say he sang it like it was the first time, but he sang it like he meant it, he still hit first, and I just think there’s something inspiring about that.

One thing I know about myself is that I would be a horrendous baseball owner. I have thrown enough Strat-o-Matic Cards across the room to know that. I would demand trades, second-guess decisions, make outrageous statements to the media, orchestrate player revolts … I mean, seriously, how much fun would it be to be an owner if you DIDN’T do stuff like that?

I say this because on Friday night, if I owned the Toronto Blue Jays, I would have done something that I have envisioned many times … I would have fired a baseball manager right in the middle of a game. It would not have been fair. It would not have been right. They would have ripped me in all the Canadian newspapers. There would have been ”Steinbrennerski Strikes Again“ headlines from Toronto to Vancouver. But I can tell you right now that I would have fired Blue Jays skipper John Gibbons when he intentionally walked Tony Pena in the eighth inning.

Really. Fired him. Right then and there too. I would have called him on the dugout phone and said, ”I need to see you right now.“

Now, I need to say up front that I hate the intentional walk. Hate it. Loathe it. Despise it. I appreciate that there are times for it, and I expect that it ”works“ more often than it fails because pitchers get outs more often than they allow hits and walks. Runners on second and third, one out, tie score, ninth inning, I get the intentional walk there. When managers were walking Barry Bonds every day, it was infuriating to watch, sickening to watch, pathetic to watch, but I at least understood — Bonds had, for any number of reasons, crossed some line where he was officially too good. And so on.

Still. I abhor the strategy in almost every instance except the most obvious ones. It goes counter to every single thing I believe about baseball. The game is about challenging people. The game is about pitcher vs. hitter. The game is also about entertaining millions of fans — let’s not get away from that. And finally, I’d say most of the intentional walks I see are INCREDIBLY STUPID strategic moves. The kind that make my teeth hurt.

I’ve never seen a more offensive walk than Friday night. Never. Toronto trailed the Royals 5-4 in the eighth inning. The Blue Jays trailed 5-4 because that gutty shortostop David Eckstein dropped a double-play throw from the pitcher. No matter. They trailed 5-4, and the Royals had runners on second and third, and there was still one out, and Tony Pena Jr. was at the plate. I mentioned this in the last blog post, I believe — I like Tony Pena a lot. Great kid. Got a lot of the energy and joy for baseball his old man has. And he’s a terrific fielder. And he’s smart enough to adjust, at least I think so. But facts is facts: Tony Pena Jr., at this moment and time, is the worst everyday Major League hitter I’ve ever seen. I mean the worst. There are numbers to back this up — .148/.172/.164 would be three of those numbers — but this is truly a case where seeing is believing. His swing is now longer than the Bill Clinton autobiography. He starts it on a Tuesday, it ends on a Thursday. It lasts longer than that ”Deal or No Deal“ show. It’s a long, long swing.

And with that sort of swing, he’s an out. That’s all. An automatic out. Every so often when a pitcher lets his mind wander, Pena Jr. will fights off a bad pitch, bloop a hit the other way, but it is almost always a mistake pitch. I assume (and hope) that he will make those adjustments I mentioned, shorten the swing, punch a few balls into gaps, and all that. But right now, at this moment, if you don’t make a mistake to Tony Pena Jr., he’s out. Period.

And John Gibbons, after pitcher Scott Downs fell behind Pena 2-0 count, had him walked.

I’m just telling you … I’d have fired somebody. I’m just telling you that intentionally walking Tony Pena Jr. or any other light-hitting middle infielder hitting .150 would be a fireable offense on my team. I’d have that written on a clubhouse sign.

And Gibbons (or whoever) would tell me how the walk set up the double play, tell me how by walking Pena they got the lefty-lefty matchup they wanted, tell me that in that situation, down two balls, you HAVE to walk Pena because any major league hitter becomes dangerous ahead 2-0 in the count and blah blah blah. Thank you. Please have your desk cleared by 9 a.m. tomorrow morning.

In this case, the Baseball Gods were as offended as I was, and the next batter — David DeJesus — scoffed at the whole leftty-lefty thing and drilled a single that scored two runs. Then Alberto Callaspo hit a single that scored another. The Royals snapped their losing streak and won 8-4. It was just. It was right. I’m not an owner, and it’s good thing. All I can say is: I implore you, Canada. Somebody stop John Gibbons before he walks again.

Start No. 5: Vs. Cleveland Indians
Innings: 6 2/3
Earned runs allowed: 2.
Strikeouts: 4
Walks: 0
Line drives off left shin: 1.
Decision: Loss (3-2)
Number of pitches: 87
Number of strikes: 59
BABIP: .200 (4 for 20)
Season BABIP: .230 (23 for 100)

When a baseball team loses seven games in a row — and I think I have a little experience with this as a columnist in Kansas City — you really can start to wonder if the team will ever win again. The Royals are playing that kind of scary baseball that really, really bad teams play — as seen on Thursday in a doubleheader against Cleveland. In the first game, the Royals banged out 14 hits in the first game, hit two homers (only the fourth time all season the Royals have managed two homers in a game), scored six runs for only the second time all season … and they were never even in the game. The Royals gave up 15 hits, committed a couple of errors, grounded into three double plays, stranded 10 runners and lost the game 9-6. It wasn’t that close.

So that was a crummy performance, the third straight crummy performance for the Royals, the sixth straight loss. Then they had Banny pitching in the nightcap, and that was MORE disconcerting. So what happened? He pitched six amazing innings — he retired 16 batters in a row — he allowed just one hit, and it was a cheappie. He had the Indians hitters swinging at shadows, which is what Banny can do when he’s really on. Then in that sixth inning, Cleveland catcher Kelly Shoppack hit a line drive whack off Banny’s left leg. Banny immediately gave the Royals the universal signal for: “It’s OK; I’m all right!” He got Andy Marte to fly out, he struck out Grady Sizemore, and he did seem to be all right.

Only … he was not quite all right. Loyal readers of Banny log understand that our hero is working with no safety net. None. He can be dazzling when he’s doing the cliches — hitting spots, changing speeds, working batters in and out. For six innings, he had the Indians chasing shadows. But, if he’s just a little bit off — if he misses his spots by inches, throws his fastball two mph slow or his cutter doesn’t come back quite enough — he’s going to get hit. In a sense, this is true of all pitchers, but I think Brian would say it’s ESPECIALLY true of him, and I would tend to agree. He was probably at about 85% in his last start against Oakland, and they hit him pretty good.

Well, Banny’s leg hurt enough that — as he would explain afterward — he could feel some pain when he landed on it. I have not yet asked Brian, but I would imagine that it bothered him mentally more than physically — he could not land exactly right. After some time in the dugout between innings (the Royals went 1-2-3 in the sixth to help him out), I’m sure his leg swelled up a little bit too. That’s all it took. First pitch, seventh inning, he threw an 87 mph fastball up, heart of the plate, a meatball, and Delucci did not miss. He cracked the first home run of the year off of Banny. That made the score 1-0 Cleveland.

Next batter, Travis Hafner, Banny’s cutter caught too much of the plate, and Hafner banged an opposite field double. Three batters later, he threw a pretty decent cutter to Cabrera, who just beat him by yanking a double down the line to make it 2-0 Cleveland. And that’s when Trey Hillman took Bannister out of the game.

Here was the important part of the inning, though: When Delucci hit the home run, everybody in the stadium, everybody in both dugouts, every fan watching, listening, Gamedaying KNEW the game was over. Over. The umpire might as well have stopped it right there. There was NO WAY, the Royals were going to score a run at that point. None.

They did not score, of course. That’s what bad teams do. They hit the ball all over the park one game, and lose a sloppy high-scoring game. They get a great pitching performance the next game and can’t score at all. I don’t think the Royals are going to be a bad team this year, I really don’t. I’ve already gone over all the good signs, and I’m on record. That’s said — at this particular moment in time they are a very bad team. The bottom third of the lineup is an automatic out. the defense has lost its sharpness. Jose Guillen is … well, let’s just say it has been suggested to me by Rob Neyer that a “Guillen log” could be in order. Opening day starter Gil Meche is really struggling, which is unexpected, and Brett Tomko is really struggling which you may have seen coming.

And when a team is playing this badly, like I say, it’s just hard to imagine them snapping out of it.*

*This could be because the imagination has a very hard time looking beyond the moment. I’m reading an interesting book called “Dear Pete Rose …” no, wait, I am reading that too, but I’m reading ANOTHER book called “Stumbling on Happiness” (one I bought entirely because of the Malcolm Gladwell recommendation, so maybe those book blurbs do sell books), and it talks about the limits of our imagination. Interesting stuff.

Back to Banny. He only got three swing-and-miss strikes the entire game,* but one of them struck out Travis Hafner and another struck out Grady Sizemore. But with Banny, I’m finding more and more, it isn’t the swing-and-miss pitches that show his stuff, but the “bad swings.” In the seventh, when he was battling the left leg an diminishing stuff, he fell behind Jhonny Peralta 2-0. There was a man on third, one out, this was a sure sac fly situation, if not something more.

And then Banny threw a great pitch; the kind of pitch that makes him so much fun to watch. This was an obvious fastball situation, especially because Brian throws probably 70% fastballs anyway.** Instead, Banny threw the slider, outside corner, working away, a couple mph slower, and Peralta — in total swing mode — hit right over the top, grounded out to third base, the run did not score then. That’s Banny at his Banny Log best.

*The Royals — and this is rather disconcerting — had 15 swing-and-miss strikes against Cliff Lee. I mean FIFTEEN; this offense is in absolutely freefall. We might have to write a little something about Tony Pena Jr. at some point because right now, at this moment, he could be the most confused hitter I’ve ever seen. The numbers are telling enough — .136/.148/.153 with 1 double, 0 triples, 0 homers, 15 strikeouts, 1 walk. But it’s more than the numbers … I have to do a post on him. My plan on cutting down on posts is working about as well as my plan for taking a book sabbatical from work. I need to be in one of those Southwest commercials. I HAVE to get away.

** Brilliant reader Roarke points to a cool Web site that shows that Banny has been throwing about 37% fastballs this year and 32% sliders, 16% curve, 23% change-ups. I have no reason to doubt the numbers, but I think from watching him that some of those sliders are actually cutters — and his fastball has a natural cutting motion anyway so those two blend together. When I say “throws about 70% fastballs,” I really was combining fastballs and cutters in my mind. About 70% hard stuff — upper 80s to 90 mph stuff. What was interesting is that on Thursday, according to MLB Gameday, Banny threw exactly zero change-ups. That’s what I’ve seen most of the year — I don’t think he throws his change-up that much. From my point of view, he changes pace with the curveball and slider.