Posted: October 30th, 2007 | Filed under: Baseball, Essays | 23 Comments »
So this is how the news of Alex Rodriguez opting out of his contract was reported in the English version of the Asahi Shimbun here in Japan. It was just a four paragraph mention, but you know, you can squeeze a lot of information into four paragraphs.
– The first paragraph says he opted out of his $252 million deal (or, as reported here, 28.9 million yen, which sounds much more reasonable — they actually meant 28.9 billion yen).
– The second points out that his agent, Scott Boras, made the announcement just as the Boston Red Sox finished their sweep of Colorado in the World Series.
– The third paragraph says that he led the majors with 54 homers and 156 RBIs.
– And the fourth paragraph, well, I’ll give you the full version.
“The Yankees join the Seattle Mariners and Texas Rangers as former teams for a player who outperformed all others during the regular season but choked regularly in the postseason.â€
* * *
The A-Rod choking thing is now such a part of his character that it is simply reported as fact in a Japanese newspaper brief. Never mind that there is some reasonable evidence that he has not, in fact, “choked regularly†in the postseason. In his first four playoff series, he hit .371 and slugged .629. When his Seattle team played the 2000 Yankees in the playoffs — the last Yankees team to win the Series, if you’re scoring at home — A-Rod was the best player on the field.
Even now his LCS batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage are all WAY higher than Mr. November, Derek Jeter.
This is not to say he has not choked. I don’t know. Maybe he has. He was brutal his last three and a half playoff series (so bad that at some point you no longer even expected him to get a hit), and it’s not unlikely that at some point along the way the whole “A-Rod chokes in the playoffs†pressure got in his head. It’s also not unlikely that he simply slumped at the wrong time. The guy did hit .362 with 10 home runs this September while the Yankees chased down a playoff spot. You would think there was some pressure during that time.
It really doesn’t matter much to me either way. Anyone can be a postseason hero. Bobby Kielty is a postseason hero. Mark Lemke is a postseason hero. I’m not especially impressed by regular players who deliver in their big moment. I’m happy for them. Just not impressed. The whole playoff setup bothers me. I realize that I’m very much in the minority on this, but I never have liked the wildcard and three divisions, and I still don’t. I’ve argued this directly with Bud Selig. I understand the value of the extra playoffs. I appreciate how the extra playoffs creates popularity in the game. I’m not even saying that I would do away with them — they make good business sense. Bud got what he wanted.
I’m just saying that the extra playoff rounds skewer what, for me, is great about the game. It places too much importance on these five-game or seven-game series in cold weather. It diminishes the season. And to me, baseball is about the long season. It’s about all kinds of weather. It’s about overcoming seven-game losing streaks when you look like the worst team that ever played the game. It’s about those blistering streaks when every ball seems to drop and you wonder how long it can last (I remember Johnny Damon having a streak like that in 2000 — for two months or so he hit .415, and that included every kind of bloop, infield dribbler, seeing-eye single you could imagine). It’s about a pitcher having three or four consecutive starts when nothing is working, and there’s talk about moving him to the bullpen, only then he finds a new pitch or a flaw in his delivery or something and he runs off nine victories in a row.
It’s about looking at the back of the baseball card at the end of the season and seeing how it all turned out.
In this back-of-the-baseball card way, there have not been many players in the history of the game better than Alex Rodriguez. I get why people don’t like him. He has Scott Boras for an agent. He signed that insane money deal with the Texas Rangers and then wanted out of it after three years. He has that lackadaisical look. He has Scott Boras for an agent. He has performed poorly in October lately. He says some goofy things sometimes. His agent leaked that he was leaving the Yankees during the World Series, which was tacky (you know, he has Scott Boras as an agent). He seems to be all about the money. He doesn’t appear to have many deep thoughts. He has Scott Boras for an agent.
On the other hand, I don’t know, he seems like a reasonably nice guy for a big star. He moved to third without complaint (as far as I know) even though he had won two Gold Gloves at shortstop. He has, best I can tell, tried in his own way to be a stand-up guy when he failed. He has played hard through the boos. He has, I think, tried to live up to the obscene expectations. He had one of the great years in Yankee history though the town hasn’t exactly been super supportive and people with the Yankees occasionally made snide (and often anonymous) remarks about him.
I have a friend whose son is a huge A-Rod fan, and he said to me, “Oh man, I wish he had a different role model.†But when I asked him why, he had a hard time explaining. He finally said, “A-Rod doesn’t play for love. He plays for money.†Maybe. Sure. But if we limit the role model field to those players and people in American society who would do things for free (or for less than offered), there wouldn’t be many posters on kids wall (I guess I could be a role model for doing this blog for free — how do I get one of those fathead posters? Um, OK, sorry, that’s a horrifying image). Maybe A-Rod should play for less money, I don’t know. It seems to me a kid could do worse than having A-Rod as a sports hero.
(I have another friend, a Yankees fan, who is enraged that A-Rod is leaving. “He won’t get more money than the Yankees offered,†he grumbled in an email. I wrote back, “So wait a minute … one minute we’re mad at A-Rod for taking the money. The next minute, we’re mad he walked away from money. I’m confused. Why are we mad again?â€)
Then, all of that is subjective. I don’t know what makes A-Rod tick. He might be a miserable ogre, he might be Gandhi in cleats, heck, I don’t really know. I once sat at the table next to him at a Miami restaurant and I once sat a few tables away from him at a PF Chang’s in Kansas City, and I’ve sat in a few press conferences with him and I once had a 10-minute talk with him when he was with Texas, and you know what? That’s just not quite enough to go on.
Here’s what I do know: In the course of his crazy career, the guy has averaged .306 with 44 homers and 128 RBIs over 162 games (and that’s another thing — the guy plays every day. Since 2001, he’s averaged 159 games a year). He’s been successful 81 percent of the time he tries to steal a base. He’s averaging about 128 runs scored per season, which is more than Rickey Henderson, Ty Cobb or Pete Rose.
I realize that the A-Rod bashers don’t deny his greatness as an every day baseball player. They reach for the heart instead. They gripe that he has some sort of far reaching character flaw — he loves money too much (unlike, you know, us monks), he does not perform in the clutch, his numbers are empty, his motives aren’t pure. Whatever. Baseball’s ultimate cliche is that it’s a game of failure. The best hitters make outs more than half the time. The best fielders botch routine plays. The best pitchers lose. All that stuff.
And to me the way you judge a baseball player’s “character†— if that’s the word you want to use — is to determine who, day in and day out, succeeds most in what I believe is the most challenging game around. Of course, I don’t think it really comes down to character. It comes down to talent and endurance and concentration and work ethic and the ability to control one’s emotions and the game intelligence to anticipate how the other team will try to beat you. It comes down to the every day.
I worked in the warehouse of a sweater factory one summer. It was brutal work. I moved boxes in startling heat. I unloaded trucks of yarn. I handled barrels of dye. There was a guy who worked in the warehouse, and he was, best I could tell, not MIT material (you know, like I was). He hardly ever said anything, and when he did say something it was usually along the lines of, “I like my bacon crispy, you know?†He also offered various groans that, I suspect, meant he wasn’t particularly happy with his life choices. He hinted that he had been in trouble with the law, and it wasn’t hard to imagine.
But every single day, he came to work, and he moved those boxes. He was naturally strong, I think. He had a talent for hand trucks — he could scoop up the heaviest boxes like they were lighter than David Eckstein. He would work twice as hard as me every single day, and I really thought I was working pretty hard. And at the end of the summer, I must admit, I admired him. I didn’t admire him personally, and I certainly did not want to be like him, and I was perfectly glad to never see him again after that summer. But I admired that, day-in and day-out, he was damned good at what he did. That’s how I feel about A-Rod too. He’s damned good at baseball. And, in the end, I think that’s worth admiring.
Posted: October 30th, 2007 | Filed under: Baseball | 13 Comments »
The other day, I wrote a little bit about the MLB International broadcast that I heard here in Japan. I poked fun at the announcers because, well, this is what I do, and I got a comment from Dave O’Brien. I wanted to post it here in the main blog to give the man equal time.
(And I should add — I do think that Dave’s right — he and Rick Sutcliffe had a good broadcast. And it really was good to hear some voices from home while here in Japan, where, sadly, I have no idea what anyone’s saying. I was nitpicking because, let’s face it, I’m a smart ass. But good job Dave. Thanks for reading).
Joe:
Glad you had the chance to hear our broadcast on MLB International.
All in good spirits, allow me to dig you back.
The phrase “one swing of the bat†on Kielty’s home run is dead-on and appropriate. What if he had fouled off 9 pitches before hitting that home run? He didn’t. It was his only cut. When a hitter takes one swing in his entire World Series, it should be reported for the highly unusual occurrence that it is. This is a common phrase in baseball announcing, and one also echoed by many of the people who later talked about it that night (francona, Lowell, etc.) You are wrong to wag a finger at me.
Also: I never said the game was over before Colorado mounted a comeback. The fact that in the end I was correct in assuming the game was all BUT over didn’t deter you from needling us. I’ve called 17 years of major league baseball, and although anything CAN happen, I was also aware that Papelbon was prepared to pitch and the chances of Colorado overtaking Boston were slim with a 3-run lead (at the time). You should also have credited me for saying, several times, “This one isn’t done†when Boston took the early leads. We committed no faux pas – we were there watching a superior ballclub sweep the Rockies aside, and if we felt their chances were small, you can believe that was the mood at Coors Field, too.
Again, this is all meant in a positive spirit – not to demean you. I would consider your comments nit-picky, and you may too. I thought we had a strong broadcast.
All the best, Dave O’Brien
Posted: October 29th, 2007 | Filed under: Baseball | 15 Comments »
So, I managed to watch the last few innings of World Series Game 4 here in my hotel room in Nagoya, Japan. Here’s something funny … after watching the game for couple of innings with Japanese announcers I realized there was a button on my remote control which allowed me to switch audio feeds. I pressed the button and, voila, I got the MLB International feed with Dave O’Brien and my fellow Kansas City guy Rick Sutcliffe.
It was like a little bit of home. True, O’Brien kept talking about how Bobby Kielty hit his home run with “one swing of the bat,†which seems to be the way most people do it. And they both made the major announcer faux pas of talking about the game like it was over in the eighth inning with the Red Sox up 4-1. They started talking about champagne in the Red Sox clubhouse and how it was still a good season for Colorado, and they were trying to place where this Red Sox team stacks up historically. Then Garrett Atkins cracked a two-run homer off Hideki Okajima (and this nation mourned) to make the score 4-3. And suddenly Misters O’Brien and Sutcliffe found themselves trying to build the drama back up. But it was too late. Once you let the air out of the balloon …
Of course, in the end, they were right. It was over. The Rockies were outclassed (as I sort of predicted here, kind of), and the Red Sox did put away the game without any real drama. Papelbon did give up a couple of decently deep fly balls, I guess. Anyway the guys sounded pretty good to me because they were speaking English. I knew what they were talking about most of the time.
I have watched three or four games with Japanese announcers since arriving in Japan. I don’t know how many times you’ve watched an entire baseball game with announcers speaking a language you don’t know — heck, I don’t know you at all — but it’s really a unique experience. A couple of years ago, I watched a couple of games with Spanish announcers when I was in the Dominican, but I took a little bit of Spanish and I watch Dora the Explorer with my daughters so I probably understood every 83rd word or so (“I think he said agua. That’s water, right?â€).
Meanwhile, my entire knowledge of Japanese, at least before this trip, I learned involuntarily from Styx.
So, I have NO idea what they’re talking about. My ear is so untrained to Japanese that I can’t even tell when they are saying players names. And yet — this is odd — I have grown sort of attached to hearing these Japanese voices while watching games. When I first got here, I turned down the sound … but I didn’t like that at all. It was too much like watching the no-announcer Jets-Dolphins game about 20 years ago. So it turned it back up.
And now, I really like watching these games with the Japanese announcers. I think it’s the rise and fall of voices — I think that’s what I love about announcers. I still get chills — can’t help it — when hearing Al Michaels shouting “Do you believe in miracles? YES!†at the end of the U.S. Hockey Team’s amazing victory over the Soviets, and it isn’t because of the words. It’s because of the tone of his voice. It’s pure joy. He could have yelled, “Did you consume this applesauce BESS!†and, while it may not have survived as a classic call, it would have been just as cool in the moment as long as he said it with the same passion and conviction.
That’s what’s so great about watching these games with the Japanese announcers .There’s great conviction in their voices. When a shortstop makes a great play, you can hear it in the way they yell. When a ball cracks off the bat, you can hear the anticipation, and then when ball dies on the warning track, you can hear their disappointment. It’s like really good World Music I guess — you sort of know what they’re saying, even if you don’t KNOW what they’re saying.
And you know what? I think I may be beginning to understand Japanese a little bit. The other day, a Chunichi Dragons player named Lee Byung Kyu smashed a long two-run homer that essentially put away the Nippon Ham Fighters in Game 2. The announcer said something in Japanese, and I’m pretty sure that, loosely translate, it means: “Lee hit that home run with one swing of the bat.â€
* * *
Well, the Sox are World Champs, and I’m very happy for my friends Bill James and Allard Baird, who work for the Sox. And, of course, I’m happy for Red Sox fans everywhere. It’s pretty good in Boston these days, isn’t it? You think the Patriots could be just a little bit better?
Sutcliffe brought up an interesting opinion during the broadcast — he said that the Red Sox are now the most popular baseball team in America. I think he said most popular team in the world, but I suspect he meant America because I know Rick a little bit and I don’t think he was in Luxembourg polling anybody.
Anyway, is it true? Sutcliffe basically used one statistic to prove his point — the Red Sox had the highest road attendance in baseball this year. They outdrew the Yankees by more than 1,000 per game on the road. Sutcliffe offered up that stat with the “case closed†emphasis in his voice. And it is true that two of the last three years, the Red Sox have drawn more people on the road than the Yankees (the three previous years, the Yankees led baseball in road attendance … in 2004, the Yankees drew almost 41,000 people per game on the road, which I believe is a record). When I first heard Sutcliffe offer up this statistic, I thought: That’s a pretty good point.
Then I thought a little more about it, and decided it really wasn’t that good a point at all.
First off, does road attendance really give you a good feel for how popular a team is? Let’s take a look:
This year’s Top 5 road teams: 1. Boston; 2. New York Yankees; 3. Chicago Cubs; 4. New York Mets; 5. Barry Bonds. You could certainly make an argument those are the five most popular/unpopular teams in the game right now.
Last year’s Top 5: 1. New York Yankees; 2. Boston; 3. Cincinnati (?); 4. Chicago Cubs; 5. St. Louis. Well, Cincinnati certainly is an odd one thrown in there, no? How did that happen? A blip? Maybe there’s a huge Cincinnati following out there (I sure hope so since I’m writing this Big Red Machine book). I mean at least it wasn’t Pittsburgh in the Top 5. That would throw things for a loop.
Two years ago: 1. Boston; 2. New York Yankees; 3. Chicago Cubs; 4. New York Mets; 5. PIttsburgh (!).
Whoa. The year before that San Diego was in the Top 5. The year before that, Arizona was in the Top 5. So, I’m guessing that while road attendance might give you a general idea about the most popular teams in the game (Boston, the Yankees and the Cubs are perennial top five teams), it isn’t a precise barometer. Attendance is based on so many things, such as what day the game is played, weather, promotions, etc.
Here’s something much more to the point, though. Did the Red Sox REALLY outdraw the Yankees on the road this year? Yes, it’s true, overall the the Red Sox drew about 150,000 more fans on the road than the Yankees. They did play one extra game on the road, but to keep it simple, let’s leave the number right there — the Red Sox drew 150,000 more road fans.
OK, now here’s the problem (I know you’re already way ahead of me on this … sorry, you know I’m slow with math) … the Red Sox and Yankees played EACH OTHER 18 times this year. All 18 games were sellouts. But Yankee Stadium is much larger than Fenway park.
In the eight games at Fenway Park, the average crowd was 36,653.
In the eight games at Yankee Stadium, the average crowd was 54,977.
So, basically, in just those Red Sox-Yankees games, about 165,000 more fans saw the games at Yankee Stadium. That would be more than the 150,000 listed above, wouldn’t it? Essentially the entire road advantage for the Red Sox was due to Yankee Stadium.
Now, I don’t know if the Red Sox have really surpassed the Yankees in popularity — I suspect they have not — but I do know that you can’t make the argument that the Red Sox are more popular than the Yankees because they sold out Yankee Stadium.
* * *
I spent the other night watching baseball at Hillman’s Hangout, a bar in Sapporo that has photos of new Royals manager Trey Hillman all over the place. It’s a fun place, but what was really fun was trying to find it. I went to the hotel lobby to ask people there for direction, and there was this very nice young woman who helped me. She did not know where it was, but she went on the Internet, found it, wrote down the directions in Japanese, walked me out to the cab and told the driver how to get me there. She was very nice.
But here was my favorite part: While walking out the cab, she turned to me and said in her best English … “You go to Hillman’s Hangout?â€
I said: “Yes.â€
And she said: “You go to consume alcohol?â€
I smiled and said, “No. Believe it or not I’m going to work.â€
She smiled back and said: “I think you go to consume alcohol.â€
Posted: October 28th, 2007 | Filed under: Baseball | 4 Comments »
OK, so I’m writing daily blogs for The Kansas City Star while I’m here in Japan, which figures to cut into my blogging here. How many blogs, after all, can one man write?
Meanwhile, Boston just went up 5-0 on the Rockies in Game 3. I’m watching it with Japanese announcers, and my body is so sleep-depravated that they are making sense to me. More sense, anyway, than those TNT announcers.
Posted: October 25th, 2007 | Filed under: Baseball | 14 Comments »
So here’s how I found out about the Hall of Fame honoring Buck O’Neil: I was in the Tokyo Airport desperately trying to figure out how to get to Sapporo for the Japan Series. I was beyond exhausted, of course, jet lagged out of my mind, and a certain airline had screwed up my ticket, and 57 very nice Japanese people were trying (and generally failing) to help me. The world cell phone I had ordered specially for the occasion was not dialing out (well, it was dialing, but I kept getting this recording of a Japanese woman telling me, “Oh no, you may not call out of our country, you silly American†— well, that’s what it SEEMED like she was saying).
And generally, I had this feeling that absolutely nothing was right in the world. People sometimes ask me what the worst part of my job is, and I always tell them that there is no worst part of being a professional sports writer, but that’s a bit disingenuous. Travel sucks. It doesn’t suck once you get to the place, but the actual process — dealing with screwed up airline tickets, canceled flights, last minute arrangements, lost luggage, hotel mix-ups, impossible-to-park situations, etc. — sucks because you are entirely helpless. One person’s incompetence can leave you sweating through your shirt in a Tokyo airport and furiously dialing your phone again and again into the recording of the peppy Japanese woman who is saying something you don’t understand but is definitely not letting you dial out.
So I tried to get on the Internet. You might think that Japan, being Japan, would have the greatest Internet access on earth. You might think that in a country this advanced you don’t even need a computer, you just think real hard and you get on the Internet. Well, it isn’t true. Wireless Internet, apparently, has not been a big priority here, which means that there’s only one wireless provider at the airport in Tokyo and it — let me speak technically here for a moment — doesn’t work. Well, it works for a minute, and then it goes off, and then it works again, then it goes off again. And every time the wireless comes back to life, it charges you several hundred Yen to get back on. So for a good 30 minutes or so, I had managed to spend about 200,000 yen and once almost made to my email account before the wireless died again.
You hear people say it all the time: How did we live before the Internet and cell phones? I’ll tell you how: We screamed a lot. All sorts of bizarre thoughts were rushing through my mind while I kept trying to dial out on my cell phone and kept trying to sign on to the Internet, all while the clock ticked and those nice Japanese women from the airline offered moral encouragement by way of smiling and mouthing, “I’m so sorry,†every time I looked over. The main thought was that I was going to die in the Tokyo Airport.
And then, finally, I broke through, Apparently there was some sort of Internet malfunction, and I was able to stay on line for a good 10 minutes before the signal faded out. That was all I needed. I furiously typed in about 900 different things, managed to single out where the screw up came from, isolated it, got my phone cleared, made some calls, got my ticket, I mean, seriously, I was like Ed Harris in Apollo 13. Work the problem, people. It’s amazing what a person can do when their flight in Japan is about to leave them behind — it’s sort of like the technical equivalent of the super-strength you are supposed to get when you find yourself crushed under an extremely large object such as a car or Jon Favreau.
(I kid Jon Favreau because I love the guy and, let’s be honest, he’s looking more and more like me every day. Look at this picture. Seriously add some glasses, maybe a few pounds … I’m wondering if I could get Heather Graham to dance).
Anyway, I got it all cleared up, raced to the gate, signed on to the Internet one more time because I had not spent quite enough Yen getting on the Internet, and that’s when I saw the email from my buddy Mike Vaccaro of The New York Post. It said, simply, “I assume you saw what they did for Buck tonight.â€
Of course, I had not (I had also missed Game 1 of the World Series — real shame. I’m sure it was closer than the 13-1 score might indicate. Wow. I had already predicted that the winner of Game 1 would win the Series, and that if Boston won Game 1 then it would not go more than five games. Of course, as Joe Garagiola says, “Baseball is a funny game,†and as Joe Nuxhall says, “If you swing the bat you’re dangerous,†and as Bob Brenly says, “Warm up Oscar Villarreal again — no, I don’t care that he pitched the last five days.†In other words, anything is possible. But I think there’s a pretty good shot now that the Red Sox roll, and then we all remember one very important thing about the Rockies amazing streak … it was against National League teams).
So, I looked up the news on Buck and saw that not only will the Baseball Hall of Fame folks put up a statue honoring Buck, but they will take the advice that several of us have offered and create a new “Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award†that will honor people who made baseball a better game.
I was already pretty emotional before I saw the news. But when I saw the news, yeah, I felt a little bit like I do at the end of “Brian’s Song.†Good on ya, Baseball Hall of Fame.
You know, the Hall of Fame always wanted to honor Buck O’Neil. I know some people there, and I’ve talked with them, and I know they genuinely appreciated Buck’s impact as a successful player in the Negro Leagues, successful manager in the Negro Leagues, brilliant Major League scout, first African American coach in the Major Leagues, pioneer and spokesman for the game. Heck, he had been involved with the Hall of Fame for about 30 years. They got it. They appreciated him.
I believe this was the main reason that in 2005 they created a special committee of academics and historians to elect forgotten and overlooked Negro Leaguers into the Hall of Fame in the first place. Hey, the Hall of Fame is, above all else, a museum that celebrates baseball. They want visitors. They want attention. They want to make people feel good about the game. I don’t think, to be brutally frank about this, that they created that committee so that 17 dead people that America had never heard of would get their day.
No, I think they expected that Buck O’Neil would get voted in. And I think they got blindsided. The committee, of course, did not vote for Buck. That’s well-covered (and yet still mysterious) ground. They voted in those 17 dead — some very deserving, some not so much. There was some public outrage. But not from Buck. On the day of the induction ceremony in Cooperstown, who led the congregation in song? Who else? Buck O’Neil. That’s just the kind of guy he was. He was already sick by then. I don’t think I’ve written this before — maybe I have, I can’t remember — but the day after Buck spoke on behalf of the 17 Negro Leagues inductees in Cooperstown, I was master of ceremonies at an event in Kansas City. Buck — being Buck — was there.
I went up to give him a hug and to tease him a little bit. You know, Buck always began his speeches with the same bit, a shortened version which goes like this: “I’ve been a lot of places and done a lot of things that I liked doing. I hit the home run. I hit the grand slam home run. I hit for the cycle. I got a hole in one in golf. I shook hands with President Truman. I shook hands with President Clinton. And I hugged Hillary.â€
That always got them laughing, Republicans, Democrats, Independents — the “I hugged Hillary†part was his guaranteed laugh line. Well, you may or may not have noticed it, but on that day in Cooperstown, he went through the bit only he said: “I shook hands with President Truman. I shook hands with, uh, er, that other President. And I hugged Hillary.â€
So the next day, at the event, I said to Buck: “I cannot believe you forgot President Clinton’s name after all the times you’ve said that intro.â€
He looked at me blankly, He had no idea what I was talking about. It was a scary look — the only time I ever saw it on the face of Buck. And that’s when I knew something wasn’t right. A week later he was in the hospital for the first time. About two months later, he was gone.
The timing of his death made a lot of people think that the Hall of Fame snub had something to do with it, and I just never bought into that. He was 94 years old, almost 95. He had lived. He had survived much greater disappointments. He had not been allowed to attend Sarasota High School. He had been turned away at restaurants and hotels for the first half of his life. He not been given the chance to play in the Major Leagues or (I think this bothered him) manage in the Major Leagues. He had more than survived.
But, the timing DID make you wonder what the Hall of Fame could do. On the day of his funeral, the Hall released a statement saying they would find a way to honor Buck. Those of us who were close to Buck — and I’m talking about hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions — hoped they would do the right thing. It would not have been right to just induct him into the Hall, I don’t think. For one thing, it would have smacked of being some sort of celestial makeup call, which is the last thing in the world anyone wanted. Buck never wanted to be a token, and he never wanted anyone to feel sorry for him. Also, it would not have meant anything — the whole reason so many of us wanted Buck O’Neil to go into the Hall of Fame was so that Buck himself could know that feeling and hear the cheers. With him gone, a Buck O’Neil induction ceremony would have been like a wake.
The Hall of Fame folks, to their credit, realized this. It took a year, but they came up with a beautiful compromise. They will put up a statue in his honor. And it doesn’t matter if its not in the official “Hall.†In fact, it’s better that it’s not. Buck was set apart. People will see it, kids will see it, and his name will live on. That’s the point.
Then they will have this Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award to give to those people who have dedicated their lives to the game and deserve to be remembered and honored. I have, in my mind, a long list of scouts and coaches and writers and baseball lifers who deserve that honor. I’ll write about them sometime. For now, it’s worth just saying that — once again — something good will happen for people because of the good name of Buck O’Neil. That, to me, is the best way to honor the man.
I’m in Sapporo now, it’s 4 a.m. (jet lag’s killing me), and I’m getting ready to go watch the Japan Series. I wish my friend Buck was with me. He would get such a kick out of this. But, sappy as it sounds, he is with me.
The Soul of Baseball, I Was Right On Time, Hall of Fame Announcement.
Posted: October 23rd, 2007 | Filed under: Baseball | 29 Comments »
One day later, I’m no longer mad at Joel Skinner. It just seems silly to be angry at a third base coach for one gross misjudgment when the rest of his team utterly collapsed. Yes, I still think Skinner’s stunning timidity which prevented Kenny Lofton from scoring was one of the worst bits of third-base coaching I have ever seen. Who am I kidding? It was the worst. Period. It was so bad that any third base coach who holds up a runner in an obvious scoring situation should from this day forth be said to have “skinned the runner.â€
But here’s the thing: I sort of get the feeling that being mad at Joel Skinner when Boston outscored Cleveland 30-5 in the final three three games is a bit like being mad at the chef of the Titanic for undercooking the chicken. It’s bad, yes, it will make you really sick, sure, it might even kill you … but honestly, you have bigger things to worry about.
Someone asked me if it was fair to put Skinner in the same Cleveland category as Sipe, Byner, Ehlo and Fernandez, the Four Horseman of the Cleveland Apocalypse. I’ve thought about this a lot and the answer is no. It’s not fair. Because there’s one quality those four have that Skinner does not share. All four of those players were really good.
Brian Sipe — a Horseman for his Red Right 88 interception against Oakland in the playoffs — was actually the league MVP that season. He was terrific all year. He brought the team back all year. He was the biggest hero in town. That’s what made the interception hurt so much. Had Paul McDonald thrown it, well, yeah, expected that.
Ernest Byner — a Horseman for his last second fumble against Denver in the AFC Championship Game — was not only a great running back, he was especially great THAT DAY. He almost singlehandedly brought the Browns back from a huge deficit with his runs and catches. It was sport-tragic that he ended up being the goat.
Craig Ehlo — a Horseman by default (he just happened to be the poor sap who had to defend Michael Jordan when he hit his first really famous game-winning shot) — was a good player who had scored the go-ahead basket on a brilliant out-of-bounds play. In fact, he had scored TOO FAST which was why Jordan got his shot.
Tony Fernandez — a Horseman for making the game-changing error in extra innings in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series — had, up to that moment, been a candidate for Series MVP. He hit .471 in that World Series, and he drove in both the Indians runs in that very Game 7.
In other words, the biggest goats in Cleveland sports history had all been heroes as well. That’s part of the point. It’s a star-crossed town, what can I tell you? Anyway, Joel Skinner doesn’t fit the profile.
* * *
I love it when color commentators and newspaper reporters do their, “Keys to victory†before a game. Each announcer/newspaper has its own stupid name for this (newspapers usually put the keys at the end of their “match-up chartsâ€), but they’re all the same. The announcer/reporter comes up with one or two basic things each team needs to do to win.
The reason I like these is because it forces us to make a hard choice. We have to narrow down everything to one pithy “key to victory.†It’s especially fun to watch television announcers deal with this challenge. Some simply try to cheat and turn their one key into some broad and vague statement (“The Rockies key to victory today will be good pitching and timely hitting. If they can get those things, and play their usual sound defense and maybe create a little havoc on the bases, I think they’ve got an excellent chance todayâ€).
Others offer up the same kind of broad and vague statement, but use a pun to cover up the banality: “Today, the Rockies need to be PH balanced … the ‘P’ standing for Pitching and the ‘H’ for Hitting).
PUNNY INTERLUDE: Speaking of puns, Tim McCarver … well, you knew it would be about him. During Game 7, he was talking about Boston reliever Hideki Okajima and his unusual head movements while he goes through his windup. McCarver was saying that in Japan, they were — “pardon the pun, trying to keep his head on straight.†McCarver actually said, “Pardon the pun.†Which would be fine, except you KNOW McCarver had come up with that line like three weeks earlier. You know he was just DYING to get it into a broadcast. Pardon the pun? The pun was the whole point. He should have said, “Pardon the point.†He should have said “Pardon the bizarre contortions I need to do to get to this stupid pun†(which as, a couple of readers have already pointed out, wasn’t even a pun to begin with). It“s like that joke I heard at camp one year that has the punch line, “Silly Rabbi, kicks are for Trids.†The setup is too convoluted to make the joke worthwhile.
Then, some of us use buzzwords as our keys to victory. It will come down to leadership. Confidence. Momentum. Character. McCarver (not to pick on him) said Game 7 would be won by the team breathed easier. Do we believe any of this? I doubt it. The Red Sox did not have more “character†than the Indians in Game 7. They had a lot more hitting. But hey, we all do it. I remember some years ago when Jimmy the Greek used to do his NFL picks, and he would match up the two teams in a number of categories — Offense, Defense, Special Teams — and then he had one category called “Intangibles.†Even back then I wondered — how could one team has MORE intangibles than the other team. They’re intangible. That’s the point. Their intangibility.
Well, I’m going to give you now my Keys to Victory for this World Series — Boston v. Colorado — and I’m going to offer no buzzwords, no vague statement, no puns. I’m going to make it real simple because I’m about to the leave the country and don’t have time for anything complex. Here you go:.
– Colorado’s key to victory: Beat Josh Beckett in Game 1.
– Boston’s key to victory: Don’t let Colorado beat Josh Beckett in Game 1.
That’s it. I’m making the call right now. Game 1 winner takes it all. It’s not really that bold, I know, but here’s my thinking:
FOR COLORADO: The Rockies already beat Beckett once. On June 14 at Fenway, they crunched Beckett for six runs in five innings – Matt Holiday and Garrett Atkins both homered. It was Beckett’s worst outing of the season (or at least his lowest game score) and you can’t tell me that anyone has forgotten.
Now in my opinion, Beckett, more than anyone else, won the ALCS. His dominating performance in Game 5 turned everything around. The Indians could not touch him, and I suspect that was the game when the Indians batters all realized at once, “Oh man, this is serious now.†It’s like the moment when Gil Morgan was leading the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. Then he hit a bad shot and was staring down at one of those impossible to stop chips with water on the other side and he thought, “Oh oh.†He was never heard from again.
If Colorado can smack Beckett around again — even a little bit — and win the game, I think that does two huge things. One, it really convinces the Rockies players that they are unbeatable. They already have some of those feelings now. Two, it pierces the whole “Josh Beckett is the greatest big game pitcher ever†invincibility shield. With a mortal Beckett, the Red Sox are not nearly as scary. Suddenly, they’re down a game and coming back with the 88-mph Curt Schilling and Rollin’ the Dice-K. I think Rockies win it all.
FOR BOSTON: Boston players and management types will talk on and on about how much they respect Colorado, but seriously, they KNOW that they are a lot better than the Rockies. Hell, the Rockies played in the horrendous National league and until there were two weeks left in the season they weren’t even a particularly good team in the National League. I like the Rockies as much as anyone, but come on, their No. 2 starter is Josh Fogg and away from Coors they didn’t hit a lick.
But what the Rockies have going for them is this absurd streak — 21 victories in 22 games — and that irrepressible “We are blessed†feeling. Well, actually that feeling is quite repressible. That feeling goes bye bye real fast if Beckett sticks it in their ears for seven or eight shuotout innings, and then Jonathan Papelbon closes the door with 97-mph heat and a little Lord of the Dance. Yes a 7-0 destruction would end the Rockies Can’t Lose momentum real fast. And after that, it’s a five-game victory for the Red Sox, or a sweep, depending on Game 3.
There you go. I don’t care what Dane Cook says. You only have to watch Game 1.
* * *
Sadly, I won’t be around even for Game 1. As I so delicately hinted in the title and in the previous section, I am going on an assignment far, far away. OK, I’ll give you a hint: I’m going to Japan to write about the Japan Series and new Royals manager Trey Hillman. Good hint, eh?
Yes, this was quite sudden and unexpected, and I’m still trying to figure out how it’s all going to work. If any of you happens to be in Sapporo or Nagoya or knows a lot about those places and has some hints to offer, hey, I’m here to listen. And, you bet, I’ll try to keep you updated on the Japan Series right here — I’m pretty sure that will send my bloggy numbers through the roof. Especially if I go after Chief Wahoo again.
Posted: October 21st, 2007 | Filed under: Baseball, Cleveland | 38 Comments »
Friends will tell you that I’m an optimistic person by nature. It’s true. I keep buying REM albums even though I haven’t liked any of them since Automatic for the People. I am not afraid to drive with the low-gas warning light on because I believe that a gas station will emerge when I really need one. I lost an iPod and a 2000 Olympic watch in a New York hotel room like three years ago, and I still feel sure I will find them someday. I believe in my heart that someday everyone in America will have health insurance, someone will invent a car that can drive itself and a weight-loss diet made up of fries, pasta and chocolate cake, and the the Royals will win. Someday.
And yet, all day Sunday, I knew that Cleveland was going to lose to Boston in Game 7. I knew it. This wasn’t about optimism or pessimism or any other ism. This wasn’t paranoia. I knew it like I know the sound of my youngest daughter’s crying. There was never even the slightest doubt in my mind. We’ve been here before, us Clevelanders. We’ve lived with Cleveland sports pain for 40-plus years now, and we know the telltale signs. We all have HM — Heartbreak Meters — mine was growling on Sunday.
“How do you feel about tonight?†I emailed my hero Scott Raab during the day. This is one thing we do when the HM starts raging. We reach out to other Clevelanders for a little hope. Scott may be significantly more cynical than me about any number of things, but he believes in the Indians. Hell, the guy’s got Wahoo tattooed on his arm.
“I feel confident in the Tribe’s chances tonight,†he wrote back. “I truly do.â€
I appreciated him saying that. It didn’t help though. I still knew the Indians were going to lose. I knew it. I felt it throughout my body.
So the defeat was certain. The only thing that I wondered — and I wondered this all night Saturday and all day Sunday — was this: How would the fates get me this time? How would they trick me into believing?
There’s a story I once heard (don’t ask me where or when) about a Rabbi who was trying to cheat death. I’ll probably get the details wrong, but I guess there’s some sort of old Jewish legend that death cannot take you when you are in the midst of praying. So this Rabbi somehow found out what day he was supposed to die, and he spent the whole day praying so that the Angel of Death could not get him.
Well, it worked for a while. The Angel of Death kept trying to grab the Rabbi, but he kept on praying. Thing is, you don’t get promoted to Angel of Death without knowing a few tricks. So AOD called for the Rabbi to come outside. The Rabbi, hearing his name called, walked outside — praying all the way — then he walked down some stairs, only the Angel of Death had removed one of the stairs. The Rabbi slipped, he stopped praying for that instant, and the Angel of Death got him.
All of which is a long way of saying, I kept wondering how the Dark Angel of Cleveland Sports was going to get me this time. Because I came into the game determined not to fall for things this time around. I wasn’t going to let another Cleveland team break my heart. Not a chance. When I was 20, sure, I was vulnerable then, and I clearly remember sitting on the floor in our living room, nose inches away from our 19-inch color TV (colors included blue and yellow, maybe something resembling red) and watching Brian Brennan (or as Don Criqui called him, “The-undersized-overachieving-wide-receiver-from-Boston-College-Brian-Brennanâ€) pull down a pass from Bernie Kosar and then pull away from his defender, run into the end zone, touchdown, Browns led 20-13 in the wind and cold at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The Broncos muffed and fumbled around with the ensuing kickoff and ended up with the ball at their own 2-yard-line.
And I was never so sure of anything in my whole life: The Browns were going to the Super Bowl. It was one of the five happiest moments of my life — if, you know, you could freeze that moment right there. Which you can’t.
Then, of course, John Elway drove the field, the game went into overtime, Denver’s Rich Karlis kicked the game-winning field goal (that even now, 20 years later, I KNOW was wide left) and I silently and unwillingly promised myself that I would never, ever get my hopes up again for a Cleveland sports team.
The very next year, the Browns and Broncos played in the AFC Championship again, and I knew the Browns were going to lose, I knew it, and this time the Broncos more or less dominated the game from the start. So it was easy to just sit back and mope about the fate of being a sports fan born in Cleveland. At least they hadn’t broken my heart.
Only then, stunningly, unexpectedly, the Browns started to come back. It’s quite a thing when your team surprises you. They came all the way back, and they were about to score the game tying touchdown, and (I couldn’t help it) hope returned, that feeling came back, the Browns really were going to the Super Bowl this time …
Then Ernest Byner fumbled going into the end zone, and I went into a depression coma. I kicked myself for a whole year after that for allowing myself to get fooled again.
And so on. It was always the same thing. I knew the Cleveland teams would lose. And yet, something always happened during the games that would cause me to drop my hands and take yet another right-cross to the chin. That wasn’t going to happen Sunday. No. I’m a grown man now, kids of my own, a lawn that needs to be cut, and I KNEW the Indians were going to lose, so, move on. Two friends I greatly admire — Bill James and Allard Baird — work for the Red Sox. I would try to be happy for them.
Then the Red Sox took the 3-0 lead early off of Jake Westbrook, and I almost smiled to myself. “This is too easy,†I thought. “The Cleveland fates aren’t even bringing their A game.†I suspected the Red Sox would pull away to a huge victory, and I just wasn’t going to get worked up about it. I’m proud to be from Cleveland. It’s a real city with real people. Losing sports just happens to be the cross we bear.
And then … well, you know what happened. The Indians started showing some backbone that, frankly, I did not think they had (maybe this was because C.C. Sabathia was nowhere near the mound). Westbrook toughened up. Ryan Garko had a terrific at-bat and he whacked a bomb high off the wall near center field. The score tightened up to 3-2.
And then Boston — unbeatable, untouchable, unshakeable Boston — blinked. With one out in the seventh, Red Sox shortstop Julio Lugo dropped a pop-up. Flat dropped it. Kenny Lofton limped/jogged/strutted into second. A Cleveland friend of mine instant messaged me immediately: “That’s how you lose Game 7s.†He was right. The Red Sox suddenly looked a little shaky. The crowd suddenly looked a little nervous. And that was my missing step. I started to believe. It was an impulse. It was an involuntary reaction. Cleveland’s Franklin Gutierrez ripped a ball down the left field line. FAIR BALL! A run scores. It’s tied up. I’m off the chair. I’m wondering if Gutierrez reached second. And then I look up …
Lofton was still at third base.
I kept blinking and looking back at the television, like maybe there was something in my eye, maybe a speck of dust that looked exactly like Kenny Lofton. But no, it was real, Lofton was still at third base. It was not even remotely possible. How did that happen? They showed a replay. And it was just like I saw live. Gutierrez whacked a ball down the third base line. It was fair. Definitely fair. And the ball whacked off a signboard or something, rolled into left field and the run scor … oh no.
Oh no.
Third base coach Joel Skinner held him up.
Then they showed it from another angle. And another angle. But no matter what angle they showed it from — and no matter how much I WANTED to see something else — Joel Skinner kept on holding up Kenny Lofton at third base. Now, from what I can tell, Joel Skinner is a good man. I sort of liked him as a player — as much as you can like a light-hitting backup catcher — and I’ve always heard good things about him as a coach. But when you hold up the tying run at third base in the seventh inning of Game 7 with MannyBeingManny still chasing the ball, well, here’s what I instant messaged my friend instantly …
Sipe. Byner. Ehlo. Fernandez. Skinner.
If you’re from Cleveland (or read my oppressively long email about being a Cleveland fan) you know that list. It’s like the Cleveland most wanted. It hurt to put Skinner in that group. But not as much as it hurt watching the play itself. Another baseball writer emailed me to argue that it wasn’t so clear cut — that Manny might have thrown out Lofton at the plate. I think he was just baiting me. It’s clear from every replay that Manny would not even have thrown home (I liked MBM’s quote after the game, actually: “I would have thrown it to the cutoff man and let him deal with it.â€)
Anyway, after the replays, I felt that feeling in the pit of my stomach again. Heartbreak. The fates had gotten me again. Damn them. Of course Casey Blake immediately hit into the double play. Of course Blake followed that with an error (how often do you see it) which was followed by Dustin Freaking Pedroia’s home run over the monster, which was followed by a complete and utter collapse by the Indians. Of course. Of course. And no one can talk to a horse, of course.
I’m not saying Cleveland wins the game if Lofton scores. I have nothing logical to stand on there. They Indians were outscored 30-5 the last three games. They got to the brink of the World Series and then suddenly they were not ready for prime time. I don’t know if it would have made any difference if Lofton scores.
All I know is Lofton didn’t score. He was held up. Incredible.
After the game ended, I sat slumped in my chair and tried to feel happy for Bill and Allard. I wasn’t too successful, but hey, it’s the thought that counts. Then I got another email from my man Scott. It was a condolence email, the kind Cleveland sports fans have become used to sending. It ended like so:
“I think I’ll continue weeping now.â€
Posted: October 20th, 2007 | Filed under: Baseball | 15 Comments »
OK, so my mind is a bit scrambled here in Kansas City with Priest Holmes about to play a game on Sunday and the Royals having made what I think is an absolutely fabulous hire in Trey Hillman. Plenty more on both of those items later (there’s a big surprise coming from your local correspondent here), but first I wanted to do a little breakdown of the Indians and Red Sox.
This rambles all over the place, but to the commenter who wanted his money back because the blogs were getting too short … here you go.
I’m interested in how teams get good. I don’t mean the process of building a team — though that is interesting too. I’m talking here about the last climb, the thing that they called “the push over the cliff†in “Spinal Tap.†Last year, the Red Sox were mediocre. They won 86 games, but they were actually outscored for the season. They had a pretty miserable finish, They were 11th in the AL in ERA.
Last year, the Indians were mediocre. They finished below .500 (even though they outscored their opponents by 88 runs. They were 33-20 in the so-called blowout games (games decided by five or more runs) which means they were 45-64 in games decided by four runs or less. Which ain’t good.
This year, the Sox and Indians are probably the two best teams in baseball.
So how did it happen happened? I know it’s a different year, different players, different injury situations, all that, but I’m curious: What is it that separates a talented but ultimately disappointing team (I think Boston and Cleveland both fit that category in 2006) and a truly outstanding team?
Boston Red Sox
2006: 86-75, 820 runs (6th in AL), 825 runs allowed (11th in AL)
2007: 96-66, 867 runs (3rd in AL); 657 runs allowed (1st in AL)
Well, the obvious here is that Boston, despite having the best hitters/worst pitchers park in baseball,, gave up 168 fewer runs in 2007. That’s more than a run per game, which is an astonishing drop. Best I can tell, there are three big and fairly obvious reasons for this.
1. The improvement of Josh Beckett.
2. The addition of Dice-K.
3. The complete turnaround of the bullpen.
– Josh Beckett was definitely a whole lot better in 2007. He pitched almost exactly the same number of innings, but his strikeouts were way up, walks way down, he gave up an amazing 19 fewer home runs and his ERA dropped from 5.01 to 3.27. Maybe you could chalk this up to maturity (though from what I can tell about Beckett, I’ll say “noâ€) maybe to him adapting to Boston, maybe to health. Whatever, he alone had a 44-run drop, more than one run per start.
– Matsuzaka had a disappointing finish (his last six starts he had a 7.53 ERA) but considering he was more or less taking the starts that in 2006 had belonged to Matt Clement (6.61 ERA), Kyle Snyder (6.02 ERA) and Jason Johnson (7.36 ERA), he without a doubt had a huge stabilizing effect on the Red Sox pitching staff. He didn’t have to be great (though he was on occasion). He just had to be good.
General manager often talk about “innings eaters†and I think that’s overrated if those guys have high ERAs. Jose Lima ate 169 innings for the Royals in 2005, but since he had a 6.99 ERA, those were more or less useless innings. You can’t tell me Lima helped the team in any way that year — there are dozens of Class AAA pitchers who could have done that.
However, Matsuzaka threw 205 innings with an above-league ERA of 4.40, and that was just a huge addition. I know there are those who thought Dice-K has been a disappointment — and since people were calling him Dice Koufax-Gibson-Feller-Johnson before the season began, yeah, there was some disappointment. But, having a reliable above-average starter going every fifth day was critical for the Red Sox, I think.
– I know there are different opinions about the importance of a bullpen, and I’m not smart enough to really argue one way or another. But I can tell you this. In 2006, the Red Sox bullpen gave up 275 runs in about 500 innings. This season, they gave up 103 fewer runs in 56 fewer innings.
Obviously the drop in innings tells you the starters were pitching more — again this is mostly because of Matsuzaka. The drop in runs is mostly because of the acquisition of Hideki Okajima, who stepped into the Mike Timlin role and pitched great (69 innings, 2.22 ERA), and the newfound ability of Manny Delcarmen to get people out (his ERA dropped from 5.06 to 2.05, mainly because he stopped giving up hits — the league hit .309 against him in ‘06; hit .183 in ‘07, even though he had more or less the same strikeout-walk ratio).
Funny thing is that’s about it. There are a few other smaller factors — Javier Lopez threw more innings, Kyle Snyder pitched a lot better in relief, etc. But mainly the Red Sox went from the 11th best ERA in the AL to No. 1 because one young starting pitcher really emerged, one expensive free agent pitcher pitched about as expected (or perhaps even a tad worse) and the bullpen was shored up by a Japanese import and a hard-throwing righty. That’s really not that much, if you think about it. In a way it’s encouraging to think how quickly you can turn things around.
Meanwhile, the offense scored 47 more runs and not to oversimplify it, but this seems to be mostly because of the excellent year that Mike Lowell had. It wasn’t ALL Lowell, but I would say he’s more than half of it. His OBP went up almost 40 points, his slugging went up 26 points, he drove in 40 more RBIs, in large part because his batting average with runners in scoring position jumped from .268 to .358. This leads to a little side discussion on clutch hitting I had recently with the Detroit Free Press’ brilliant columnist Michael Rosenberg.
SIDE DISCUSSION ON CLUTCH HITTING: Michael cannot help but believe in clutch hitting. He understands that clutch hitting is hard to find in the statistics. He appreciates this. Michael is not someone who pooh-poohs statistics. But he believes in clutch hitting. He cannot help it.
Michael’s reasoning is both simple and, from a purely logical perspective, persuasive: How can there NOT be an ability to hit clutch situations? There is no question that some people perform better under pressure than others. Even in our business, sports writing, there are some people who consistently write better under intense deadline pressure than others. I imagine you can see this in all walks of life. Some waiters/waitresses handle extremely busy restaurant nights better than others. Some doctors certainly perform much better under Emergency Room intensity and time constraints than others. Some comedians perform better in a hot room with drunken taunters than others.
And, perhaps most revealing, some pitchers clearly seem to PITCH better in the clutch than others. Michael brought up this whole discussion after Thursday’s game, when Josh Beckett once again dominated an October game, while C.C. Sabathia once again plotzed around and pitched like there was a big, ugly spider staring at home from bottom of the pitcher’s mound.
I offer two thoughts about this, and both might be complete nonsense because I have not really organized my thoughts here. But, hey, when has that stopped me? It’s my blog, so I’ll throw them out there.
1. It isn’t that I don’t believe in clutch hitting — I do believe in it. You have to believe in clutch hitting; it’s like gravity or Britney Spears. It’s there every day. Man on second, two outs, tie score, late innings, base hit, that’s a clutch hit. Strikeout in same situation. That’s NOT a clutch hit.
No, the question is not : Does clutch hitting exist ?The question (or at least the first question) is: Are some players consistently BETTER at hitting in the clutch than others?
To me the answer is: Of course. David Ortiz is a lot better hitting in the clutch than Joey Gathright. But this is the point: David Ortiz is ALWAYS a lot better at hitting a baseball than Joey Gathright. Of course I believe that there are players who hit better in the clutch than other players. However, in almost ever case, with very few exceptions (and these exceptions might be statistical anomalies, or there might be a very occasional freak of nature or they might not exist at all) these are the same players who hit better than other players in ALL situations.
This leads to the second question: Are some players consistently BETTER at hitting in the clutch than they are when not hitting the clutch? I think this is what a lot of people believe — that some people raise their game when the chips are down and the game’s on the line and the cliches are flying.
But, when you think about it that way, it’s pretty absurd, isn’t it? See, turn this argument upside down, the logic changes.
Yes, some sports writers write better on deadline than others. But how many sports writers consistently write a lot better on deadline than they do when NOT on deadline? None. At least I don’t know any. How many waiters/waitresses serve BETTER when they have 20 tables rather than 10 or 5? How many doctors perform better in an Emergency Room setting than they do in a quieter, more relaxed setting?
George Brett was a great clutch hitter. He’s the one guy that Bill James has said seems to make a case for the idea of clutch hitting. Brett hit .307 (with a .410 on-base percentage) with runners in scoring position throughout his career. He was almost always good in the playoffs (he hit nine homers in 27 playoff games, including some very memorable ones). He almost singlehandedly carried the Royals to the 1985 World Series — his Game 3 performance against Toronto in the ALCS remains one of the greatest game anyone has ever played under pressure.
But was George Brett — the ultimate example — BETTER under intense pressure than he was at other times? Maybe. Maybe 1% better. Maybe .03% better. Maybe not better at all. Brett hit .307 with runners in scoring position (and was walked significantly more) but he hit .304 with runners NOT in scoring position. He’s one of the greatest postseason hitters ever, but in back-to-back playoff series — 1981 and 1984 — hit went 5 for 25 (all five hits were singles) without a single RBI or run scored.
And this is GEORGE BRETT. The guy who hit three homers off of Catfish Hunter in a playoff game. The guy who took Goose Gossage deep in 1980 to finally put away those Bronx is Burning Yankees. The guy who hit two homers and made a miraculous defensive play to beat Toronto in that famous Game 3. The guy who hit .370 and .375 in his two World Series appearances. He will be the first to tell you. He choked too.
2. OK, even if I don’t believe that players consistently perform better in the clutch than other times, what about the reverse? Do some players choke more often in the clutch? Do some players hit worse when the game is on the line, when the pressure is at its hottest, when the postseason is at its height? Wow, this is turning into a Dane Cook soliloquy. There is only one Actober.
Yeah, it seems likely that, every so often, nerves will get to a player. Maybe nerves is the wrong word: Hitters will press. Hitting is all about reaction — and many hitters have said they are at their best when relaxed, when their mind was blank, when it was really all about (as Doggie Tony Perez always said) “See the ball hit the ball.†So, sure, it seems a lot more likely that some players hit a little worse in those clutch situations than they would at other times — especially young players — because they have a little noise going on in their heads.
As much as I though the whole A-Rod thing was blown out of proportion, he did look DIFFERENT in the postseason, especially after he started to struggle.
BUT, just being around these guys, I doubt this is much of a factor. For one thing, baseball is about the long season, you will get so many at-bats — thousands and thousands of them if you stay in the big leagues — and after a while the whole thing becomes second nature. After all, you come to the play 600 times in a season, maybe half of those with men on base, a good number of those with the game close, I’ve got to believe that you couldn’t perform at all if you got significantly more nervous in some situations than in others.
And that brings up another part: I’m sure there ARE players out there who fold under pressure. We call these men: “Minor league players†or “insurance salesmen†or even “general managers.†You could not survive as a player in the big leagues for any length of time, it seems to me, if nerves or pressure caused you to perform poorly. I’m not saying players don’t have something resembling nerves. I’m saying those nerves do not paralyze them the way they might paralyze you or me.
Now is it different for pitchers? Just my opinion, but, yeah, it’s possible that it is slightly different. Pitching is “action†while hitting is “reaction†and though I haven’t studied it at all, I was reading somewhere that nerves tend to have a greater effect on the action (hitting a golf ball, making a jump shot, pitching a baseball into a strike zone) than the reaction. Maybe. I don’t know. I could have misread that too.
Josh Beckett has been great in big games. But you know what? He’s been pretty damn good all year.
Cleveland Indians
2006: 78-84, 870 runs (2nd in AL), 782 runs allowed (7th in AL)
2007: 96-77, 811 runs (6th in AL), 704 runs allowed (3rd in AL)
The Indians’ story is obviously very different. For one thing, it seems apparent they REALLY underachieved in 2006. Look: They actually scored 59 fewer runs than they did in 2006. True, they also gave up 78 fewer runs, but the point is their overall run differential wasn’t significantly better in 2007. Still, they won many more games. Why?
Well, from what I can see, maybe this is John Madden obvious, a lot of it comes down to simply winning more close games. In 2006, the Indians were 18-26 in one-run games. In 2007, they were 29-24. That’s 11 more victories and two fewer losses in those one-run games — which seems to explain a large part of the Indians improvement.
In 2006, the Indians were 5-3 in extra innings. That’s a very low number of extra inning games. In 2007, the Indians were 11-8.
Why did the Indians play so many more close games in 2007 (and why did they play better in those close games?). Most if comes down to better pitching. And I’m going to throw out a goofy theory for you to laugh at: I think it was all about the sixth and eighth innings.
I had a manager tell me once that the two most important innings in a game are the sixth and eighth innings. He was drunk at the time (or at least I suspect he was drunk) and I have to say that I thought he was also a bit crazy. But, looking back now, there may be some logic to this. The sixth inning could be crucial because, these days, that tends to be when your starter faded. I believe the average start in baseball is 5 2/3 innings, but I can’t find that statistic now so that could be wrong. But it’s around there. The sixth inning is that shaky inning where you generally have either a tired starter or a scary middle reliever out there.
And the eighth could be crucial because teams these days use their closers — supposedly their best relievers — almost exclusively in the ninth inning (when leading). That means a team’s second, third, fourth or fifth best reliever might be pitching the eighth, even in a close game. In rare rare cases, a starter might still be in there too.
In 2006, the Indians gave up 130 runs in the sixth inning. They gave up 87 runs in the eighth.
In 2007, the Indians gave up 99 runs in the sixth inning. They gave up 53 runs in the eighth.
There you go: That seems like a pretty good formula to stay in more games. In just those two innings, the Indians gave up 65 fewer runs. I’m not saying the WHOLE story is there. It’s almost all there, though.
Why were the Indians better in the sixth? Not to oversimplify things, but I suspect that a lot of it comes down to Fausto Carmona. He emerged and became one of the best starters in baseball. Considering he took up starts that in 2006 were being made by Cliff Lee and Jason Johnson (yeah Jason Johnson was bad for BOTH Cleveland and Boston in 2006) you can see the difference. Also, C.C. Sabathia pitched a little bit stronger into the late innings in 2007. Also, Cleveland middle relief with Tom Mastny and Aaron Fultz may have been better than their 2006 counterparts. I think Carmona is the biggest factor.
(Carmona actually did not pitch that great in the sixth — it was his worst inning. He gave up 18 runs in 30 sixth inning appearances. But he was a lot better than what Cleveland had, plus he helped save the bullpen).
The difference in the eighth inning obviously comes down to the dominating performances of Rafael Perez (60 2/3 innings, 41 hits, 62 K, 1.78 ERA) and Rafael Betancourt (79 1/3 inning, 51 hits, 80 K, 1.47 ERA). Against those two, the league hit .173 in the eighth inning this year . I believe dominant setup men are HUGE for success.
Offensively, the Indians were down overall in 2007, in large part because of a huge drop of production from Travis Hafner. Pronk may have been the best hitter in the AL in 2006 (.308/.439/,659, 42 homers, 117 RBIs) and he was somewhere in the realm of below-adequate in 2007 (.266/.385/.451 — he still got on base, but yikes, how about a TWO HUNDRED POINT drop in slugging? — 24 homers, 100 RBIs in 23 more games, bad news).
But interestingly enough, the Indians scored a few more runs in the eighth and ninth innings this season, and that might have made the difference in some close games.
* * *
So to sum up, I think the Red Sox became a great team because Beckett got good, Dice K was a big addition, the bullpen got some people out and Mike Lowell had a good year.
I think the Indians became a great team because Carmona got good, the two setup men were dominant, and the Indians already high-powered offense came through in the late innings to help the Indians win close games.
I don’t think there’s anything too ground-breaking there. But it proves a point that I have long believed and that is that the difference between a good team and a great team isn’t much. The Brewers, for instance, had an OK year and faded late. But to me, if Ben Sheets has a Beckett/Carmona like year next year, pitchers like Manny Parra and Derrick Turnbow break out and, say, Bill Hall or J.J. Hardy or someone like that has a big year, they could win 95 games.
And as for the Royals …
We’ll get back to them in a bit.
Posted: October 19th, 2007 | Filed under: Baseball | 14 Comments »
So, for fun on another baseball day off — they really did a nice job scheduling this ALCS didn’t they? — I want to break down the Indians and Red Sox a little bit. We’ll try to get to that this afternoon. But before we do that, let’s talk a little MannyBeingManny.
Thursday, with the score tied 1-1, and David Ortiz at first base, and the Red Sox perhaps beginning to get frustrated, MBM hit a long fly ball to right field. It did not look like anything special coming off the bat, and I’m pretty certain that MBM did not think he got it. He walked out of the batter’s box — he tends to do this all the time, but this was more the, “Awww man, I just missed that,†walk rather than the, “I am conquerer of all the land you see!†walk.
Anyway, MBM does not know his own strength. The ball carried and carried and carried until it either (A) Hit the very, very, very top of the wall at Jacobs Field and bounced back in or (B) slipped just over the wall and bounced back in. It was impossible to tell live. On television, live, it looked to me like it slipped over the wall. Blown up replays later seemed to indicate that it hit the tippy-top of the wall. For our purposes here, it doesn’t really matter. The umpires said it hit the top of the wall.
Well, Ortiz took off as soon as the ball was hit (there were two outs) and scored standing up. MBM, meanwhile, made it to first base. And that’s it. He had never really started running, and then he thought the ball was a home run and he actually went DOWN a gear. So because of a fairly appalling lack of hustle he had turned a double into a single. The announcers, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, went ape. Buck called it the longest single in baseball history. McCarver was so upset, he was sputtering. They could not believe that in an elimination game for the Red Sox that Ramirez would fart around and not hustle at all. They were beside themselves, especially McCarver. You would have thought MBM had just spit in the eye of the Queen of England.
Now, hey, I’m enough of a baseball traditionalist to be appalled myself by a grotesque lack of hustle. It drives me nuts to watch Waltzing Manny in action. But I also know: Those are aesthetics. It’s an accepted fact among baseball people that when it comes to MBM you put up with the atrocious moments to get the .313/.409/.593 that he gives you at the plate. You deal with his wild mood swings and bizarre choices because his batting comparables through age 35 include Frank Robinson, Mickey Mantle and Barry Bonds. You accept that he often won’t run out double play grounders and he will daydream in left field and he will have plenty of long singles through the course of the season — because you know that most of the time, that stuff won’t cost you games. It looks bad, sure. It can drive you crazy, absolutely. But at the end of the season, 40 homers, 40 doubles, 130 RBIs, 100 runs scored and a 150 OPS+ will make up for a whole lot.
Here’s my point: Buck and McCarver and other announcers generally get this. All through this postseason, they’ve been giggling about the MannyBeingManny stuff. They have talked constantly about how, despite the silly MBM act, he’s one of the great hitters in memory. They have defended some of his most absurd acts — throwing his hands up in the air after he hit a homer to make the score Cleveland 7, Boston 3; pointing at his teammates and giggling after he got on first base; telling reporters that if the Red Sox lose, well, who cares? They have generally seen and understood the big picture, that while MBM exasperates us baseball fans and offends our sensibilities, the guy hits the crap out of the ball.
BUT, when the moment came, the true MBM moment, they sounded as shrill and irritating as any DiMaggio-era fan griping about now nobody knows how to bunt these days. They fell for the trap. yes, MBM turned a double into a single. Yes, he lost his mind. Yes, he could have cost the Red Sox a run (probably not — Mike Lowell struck out to end the inning). Yes, it was precisely the wrong message to send to young baseball-playing kids out there. Yes, yes, yes. It was irritating (and hilarious) for me to watch too.
Still, what was the REAL story here? Manny Ramirez drove in what proved to be the game-winning run. He did something that, what, two or three right-handed hitters in baseball could have done (Pujols? Vlady?). He hit an opposite field bomb off C.C. Sabathia that scored Ortiz all the way from first base. He came through with the biggest hit of the night. He, as much as anybody (perhaps excepting Josh Beckett) sent this series back to Boston.
And the announcers missed it. Totally missed it. They didn’t even talk about the go-ahead run. What can you say? MannyBeingManny strikes again.
Posted: October 19th, 2007 | Filed under: Baseball | 6 Comments »
Whoops. I mistakenly killed the live blog I was doing during Game 5 of the ALCS. I would have mistakenly killed the game itself, but that was beyond even my almost limitless lack of computer skills.
I would normally have been upset about the computer kill, but there really wasn’t anything worth reading in there. A few shots at erectile dysfunction commercials. I have no idea why those are allowed to appear on television. They erectile dysfunction lobbying group must offer some very nice gifts. I also wrote about my dislike of Coco Crisp’s game, my odd sympathy for George Steinbrenner in this Joe Torre deal, and added a few jokes about how old Kenny Lofton is (a friend of mine, the New York Post’s resident genius Mike Vaccaro, and I have been calling Lofton “Cool Papa†for quite some time … apparently, according to our own Paul White, Sports Guy Bill Simmons called him Cool Papa in a column a couple of days ago. I had not read that yet but, hey, great minds and all that).
But I guess the main point is that Eric Wedge had his first major blunder of the postseason. Personally, I think Wedge has made numerous questionable moves that could have backfired on him, but did not. This one did. The Indians were losing 2-1 going into the seventh inning, and by then Sabathia had thrown 106 pitches. He had been laboring all night. He had been lucky. From afar, it was clearly time to take him out.
But Wedge sent him out there, which I think was a shaky move but certainly forgivable. Sabathia has been the Indians horse all season. He threw 241 innings. One of Wedge’s most prominent traits as a manager is his unshakable faith in his players. That is what he believes got the team this far, so he sent Sabathia out there to start the seventh.
Then Dustin Pedroia led off the inning with a double.
And that to me is when Wedge made a move that is almost impossible to defend. I know I just wrote about how it’s generally silly to second guess managers but I don’t even understand how this happened: Wedge left Sabathia in there to face Kevin Youkilis. Think about this for a second. Pedroia is the whole game. Everybody understands this. Josh Beckett was dominant. Virtually unhittable. Jonathan Papelbon was fresh. If Pedroia scores, the game’s over. Wedge certainly understood this. He knew that at this point, he needed to do whatever he could to prevent Pedroia from scoring.
Wedge decided his best chance to do this was to leave Sabathia out there to face Youkilis. I have no idea how he could have come to this conclusion. Youkilis has always hit Sabathia hard (including the home run he hit off Sabathia in the first inning). Plus Sabathia was clearly done. Plus he had thrown 110 pitches. Plus, he hadn’t been that good all game. Plus, he’s a lefty facing a righty (righties hit .275 with 46 doubles against Sabathia this year). Plus he’d thrown 110 pitches. Plus Rafael Betancourt, who had been unhittable all postseason, was in the bullpen and ready to go.
There was no way that Wedge could leave Sabathia out there. And yet, that’s exactly what he did.
Of course Youkilis tripled, but the point is not the result. I don’t think this in any way cost Cleveland the game. The way Beckett was pitching, the Indians were not going to win this game no matter what. Here’s what mattered, I think: This was a bizarre decision by Wedge, and a disconcerting one. It had a little bit of Grady Little in it. Look, it’s great that Wedge has faith in his players. But he was also one game away from the World Series. He remains one game away from the World Series.
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