The Brief Wondrous Life of Angel Berroa
41Things were magical in Kansas City in the spring of 2003. Up was down. Red was green.* Rain fell on sunny days. For a few beautiful weeks, Tony Pena Sr. led the Kansas Royals into first place armed only with a boxful of “Noostros Creemos” T-shirts and the bizarre stuff going round in his mind.
*Making a lot like Miami traffic.
Looking back, there were actually some very good players on that team, led by Carlos Beltran,* of course. Mike Sweeney could still hit then — he was coming of a year when he hit .340/.417/.563 — though he only 392 at-bats. Raul Ibanez got 500 at-bats for the first time in his career, Joe Randa was a certainly a solid third baseman, it’s not too hard to see why the Royals finished fourth in runs scored that year.
*That mention means downing a drink according to this game. Thank you to Royals Review. I’m blushing. Really.
But the fun of that year was the out-of-nowhere stories that just seemed to pop up daily. Aaron Guiel, plucked out of the Mexican League, hit 30 doubles and 15 homers in 354 at-bats, and it seemed like for a while there he would hit one or the other every single day. Darrell May, a studious looking left-hander the Royals had found in Japan, went 10-8 with a 130 ERA+, and if that doesn’t sound like much to you it’s because you don’t follow the Royals closely — the ERA+ is the best for any Royals starter since the “Holy cow, I haven’t thought of that guy in YEARS” Jose Rosado toed the rubber in 1999.
Of course, there was Lima Time. They found Jose Lima in the Independence League wilderness; he had decent numbers and so they sent the Royals wonderful old scout Art Stewart to take a look. Art might just be the best-known man inside baseball circles, I’m not kidding, EVERYBODY knows Art, and everybody loves Art, and everybody appreciates that Art is passionate about the game and is not opposed to breaking out a few Sparky Anderson type superlatives.
Example: When the Royals brought in first round pick Chris Lubanski to take a little batting practice, Art wandered over to us and said, “Boys, you’ll remember this day for the rest of you life.” That’s Art … impulsive, hopeful, passionate beyond words about the great game of baseball.
So Art goes to New Jersey, sees Lima pitch, and he calls the Royals brass and says, “I think this guy can help us.” Well, they know Art too , they know he can get a bit carried away. But they sign Lima anyway, start him in a game against San Francisco. It was that desperate. He didn’t pitch all that great, but he did go six innings, and the Royals brain trust thought — “Yeah, maybe he can be a stopgap for us until some of our pitchers get healthy.”
Lima promptly won his next seven starts, and punched up a 1.65 ERA. It was preposterous. It was like watching one of the Raiders of the Lost Ark movies every time he pitched, one minute he’s running away from a boulder, then he’s getting through a pit of snakes, then he’s riding his horse through a a firestorm of arrows, then he’s making it through Brian’s Song without crying, the man was tough. And of course, being Jose Lima, he was awesome, he’s still one of my three favorite kooks in sports. The next year, one Royals employee went to the Dominican to scout some games or whatever. And in the middle of the day, he hears someone call his name. He turns around and it’s Jose Lima … WEARING A FULL ROYALS UNIFORM. Everything. Pants. Socks. The whole bit. During the offseason. In the middle of the day. In the Dominican Republic.
There were others too. For a while Desi Relaford was playing better than anyone on the club. For about three weeks Michael Tucker was freaking Ted Williams (.382/.453/.671 with five homers and 19 RBIs in 22 games). At the All-Star Break, Mike MacDougal had 24 saves and a 2.59 ERA*.
*And man it ended RIGHT at the All-Star game. His first time back he gave up five runs to Seattle and he career has never quite turned back.
But my favorite guy on that 2003 team, without a doubt, was a young shortstop (thought not as young as we thought, it turns out) called Angel Berroa. He had come over from the A’s in the Johnny Damon deal, and Royals general manager Allard Baird was hopelessly in love. Allard spent a disproportionate amount of time in his Royals career trying to secure a shortstop. He made a staggeringly large multi-year offer to Rey Sanchez which, even more staggeringly, Sanchez and Scott Boras turned down. Allard traded Jermaine Dye for Neifi Perez in one of the more baffling moves of recent years.
And he fell hard for Berroa. He thought Berroa had everything — some speed, some power, great range, good arm, a quick bat. I remember we went to the Dominican that fall, and on a hot afternoon I watched Tony Pena hit a ground ball to his left, then one to his right, then one to his left, then right, it was like watching someone run baseball suicides, and finally, inevitably, Berroa started to throw up. Pena yelled something at him in Spanish.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“I asked him, ‘You had enough, fatty?’” Pena said.
And then Berroa braced himself and, like Rocky Balboa, waved for Pena to start again. It was impressive. Berroa was all about energy in those days, energy and what the old-timey guys liked to call pep. He bounced around while at shortstop. He was a bundle of movements in the batter’s box. Look at the rookie numbers of two shortstops.
Player A: .314/.370/.430, 25 doubles, 5 triples, 10 homers, 14 steals, 48 walks, 102 Ks, 101 OPS+.
Player B: .287/.338/.451, 28 doubles, 7 triples, 17 homers, 21 steals, 29 walks, 100 Ks, 101 OPS+.
You already know that Player A is Derek Jeter, the 1996 Rookie of the Year, and Player B is Angel Berroa, the 2003 Rookie of the Year. Looking back, sure, you might have suspected that Berroa’s staunch anti-walk platform could cost him in future years. Looking back, sure, you could have suspected that since he was two years older than originally thought (25 instead of 23) that the good would not last. Looking back, yeah, maybe we should have seen imminent disaster approaching. But, honestly, no one in Kansas City was looking for signs of the apocalypse in 2003. Those were heady days. Angel Berroa could have worn a T-shirt on the field that read, “Enjoy me now because man oh man am I going to suck starting next year,” and we would not have noticed it. That’s the beauty of sports logic.*
*I’m in Providence right now getting ready for Sunday’s much anticipated Chiefs-Patriots game, and on the way to the hotel I was talking the cabbie who is a HUGE Boston sports fan — seriously, it was like getting driven around by Bill Simmons — and said that he (and a whole bunch of his buddies) are now boycotting the Don Shula Steakhouse. Now, I’m sure you’re already way ahead of me and know exactly WHY they are boycotting Shula’s steakhouse. But I want you to see just how many steps of sports logic you have to cross:
Step one: Don Shula was the coach of the Baltimore Colts and Miami Dolphins.
Step two: When Don Shula was coaching the Dolphins he had a very famous team in 1972.
Step three: The very famous team in 1972 won every game it played. The undefeated Dolphins.
Step four: No other NFL team won all it’s games and th Super Bowl.
Step five: The Dolphins are — rightfully so — quite proud of their undefeated season.
Step six: They are so proud, in fact, that they celebrate (formally or informally) whenever the last undefeated team falls.
Step seven: Last year, the New England Patriots went undefeated during the season.
Step eight: The Patriots were, in fact, undefeated all the way to the Super Bowl,
Step nine: The Patriots lost in the Super Bowl to the New York Giants.
Step ten: Don Shula was openly happy when the Patriots lost their game.
Step eleven: This guy and his Patriots fans friends now boycott Don Shula’s steakhouse.
Man, that’s some serious Riddler logic from the old Batman TV shows. “Riddle me this, Batman: What is it that no man wants to have and yet no man wants to lose?”
The Royals started that year 16-3, and Berroa had his early ups and downs. He was hitting .251 on June 1st, with little power and he was making a lot of errors. Still, there was something likable about the guy and the energetic way he played. Hey, I’ve always understood why people like players like, say, David Eckstein. True, Eckstein was always wildly overrated — he’s like a how-to manual for how to overrate someone by lavishing him with screams of the underrated — and now he just plain sucks (last year he punched up an 86 OPS+ and was a -14 defensive shortstop — that’s flat unplayable. He’s even worse this year). But even though the Eckstein stuff can get annoying, I would hope there would always be room in the game for cheering someone who is clearly squeezing out all the juice of talent in his body.
That was Berroa. He was diving for every up-the-middle grounder, stretching every hard-hit ball into the hole, he was doing all he could at the plate (meaning he was swinging at more or less every pitch), he was running hard all the time, high energy, no, it wasn’t always reflecting in the numbers, but he represented something new in Kansas City, or better yet something old, a throwback to the Royals of the late 1970s and early 1980s, when you knew that Royals team would come after you.
Then Berroa suddenly got hot, he hit .422 with four homers the next two weeks, and he stayed pretty hot the rest of the year, he popped some home runs, he stretched singles into doubles, he stretched doubles into triples, he stole bases without getting caught much, he made some spectacular defensive plays, it was so much fun to watch.*
*And there is one more thing worth mentioning: The Royals were coming off a 2002 year where Neifi Perez had what I still consider the most awful-to-watch year I have ever seen a baseball player have.
Sure, there have been shortstops who got 550 at-bats and put up OPS+ worse than Neifi’s 44 that year (well, one — Billy Hunter in 1953).
Yes, there have been shortstops who got 550 at-bats and put an on-base percentage lower than Neifi’s .260 (in fact there have been five of them including the already mentioned Hunter and also the Ted Williams of horrendous shortstops Andres Thomas, who in 1989 punched up a .228 on-base percentage in 554 at-bats. Hard to do).
Yes, there have been shortstops — a whole bunch, in fact — who slugged less than Neifi’s .303 (that’s 40th on the all-time punchless list).
Absolutely there have been any number of shortstops who were caught stealing more often than they were successful (Neifi had eight steals, nine caught stealing).
Of course there have been terrible defensive shortstops who hardly seemed to try. In fact, not trying was sort of a theme for Neifi Perez in 2002. I’m pretty sure he had his own T-shirts made with “No Intentar” on them. Feel free to correct my Spanish on that one, brilliant readers, I’ve never had much touch for language.
I say when you put it all together, Neifi Perez was the single least fun player in the history of baseball to watch. Watching the young Berroa play after that season was like that moment in the Wizard of Oz when the black and white film jumped into full color.
Berroa won rookie of the year over New York’s Hideki Matsui when the season ended — there’s another bullet in the “there is NO New York bias” gun — and let’s just say there were all sorts of good feelings about the guy.
And then, the calendar turned, and it was no longer 2003, no longer a year of wonders. Tony Pena had another T-shirt made, but the magic was gone and he found himself jumping in the shower with his clothes on in order to pump some life into the team. Surprisingly, it didn’t work. Carlos Beltran got traded, Mike Sweeney got hurt again, The beloved Brian Anderson was so bad that on July 19 he gave up three runs in five innings and his ERA WENT DOWN ELEVEN POINTS (from 7.23 to .712).
Wow was that a bad team. Jeremy Affeldt led the team with 13 saves. Darrell May led the team with nine wins. Mike Sweeney led the team with 79 RBIs. The incomparable Ken Harvey — who would get hit in the back with a throw from the outfield, who would throw a ball into Jason Grimsley’s face, who would have a losing fight with the tarp — was the Royals lone All-Star. The Royals lost 104 times.
And Angel Berroa began his slow but steady descent into the Land of Neifi. Man. His on-base percentage — not his strongest suit to start with — dropped thirty points, his slugging percentage dropped seventy, he looked about nine steps slower, his defense went into the land fill. The Royals believed then that it was a simple case of sophomoritis, and they signed Berroa to a long-term deal. It wasn’t that much money, certainly not compared to the deals other players were signing around the game, and there was enough leftover buzz from the rookie year to make it seem like a relaitvely sane signing.
It wasn’t a sophomore curse. The next year, he was about the same — lousy offensively, lousy defensively — and we all started to realize that Berroa was not going to be a star like we had hoped, and he probably would not even be a good player, but the Royals had so many problems in 2005 that we missed out what was coming next. The next thing was: Doom. In 2006, Berroa hit .234/.259/.333. His strikeout to walk numbers: 88-14. He had become the worst player in baseball, so bad that, I believe, Baseball Prospectus determined that the Royals would win three more games if they replaced Berroa at shortstop with a duffel bag.
The thing that was so sad is that Berroa didn’t even look the same, he looked old, he looked tired, he looked disinterested, all the energy of his younger self wasn’t just gone, it was long gone, sapped so completely it was like those younger days had never happened. He had aged 21 years in three — you can call dog years “Berroa” years. The Royals had hired Dayton Moore in 2006, and unlike Allard he had no personal attachment to Berroa. He traded for Tony Pena Jr., to play shortstop, and in many ways this was a literary way to complete the circle. Berroa and his weighty salary was sent to Omaha for good.
I bring all this up because, you might know, that Angel Berroa is back in the big leagues. He’s more than back: He’s become the starting shortstop for the Los Angeles Dodgers. And, amazingly, against all odds, you can see some of the old Berroa again. Of course, he still can’t hit: .240/.310/.329 in 167 at-bats. True, he didn’t get any faster in Omaha.
But you know … he’s dropped some of those Berroa years. It’s great. The last seven games, he’s hitting .391, he’s banged a homer, he’s made some nice plays, and the Dodgers have won every one of those games. It’s wild to think, but Angel Berroa along with the now-impossible-to-get-out MannyBManny, are driving the Los Angeles Dodgers pennant drive.
It’s so awesome to see. And yeah, it’s also bittersweet because when I see Berroa — and for that matter other ghosts of Royals past like Jeremy Affeldt and Carlos and Sweeney and Raul and the rest — it’s hard not to think about how much baseball fans wanted to believe in those guys. Over the years, I know I have have invested so much baseball hope into Rick Waits and Chris Bando and Cory Snyder and Mark Lewis and Dee Brown and Angel Berroa. What happens to all that hope once players fail? I guess it just gets reinvested in Alex Gordon and Brian Bannister.*
*By the way, the answer to the Batman riddle is: “A lawsuit.” And the title is indeed an homage to the brilliant book “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz.
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Joe,
Out of all your fantasic posts, this one may top them all. You cut right to the heart of the matter with the last paragraph.
Being a member of the age group old enough to vote but not old enough to drink, my happiest times as a Royals’ fan were, sadly, that 1/2 a season in 2003. I loved Berroa, he was a firecracker. When we signed him to a long-term deal, I was estatic, I thought that things were going to be different.
When he went down in flames, it was like a small bit of my childhood hope went down as well.
That’s why I latch on to Gordon and Butler, because maybe, just maybe, if they pan out, the stars align, and the Royals become the team of the past, then I can bury the memories of Berroa and 2003.
Until then, I run from them, like the zombies they are.
Thanks for reminding me when it was fun to be a Royals fan and why it is so depressing to be a Royals fan all in the same article.
I came to my own as a baseball fan in 1996, the same year the Royals finished last for the first time in franchise history (and also the same year the hometown Kansas City Star hired a new columnist named Joe Posnanski). So the Royals has been futile as far as I can remember. I remember how excited we were in 1998 when the Royals actually finished THIRD.
I remember getting caught up in the excitement of the miracle Royals of 2003. I was no longer living in the Kansas City area, but still considered the Royals my hometown team. I was blown away by their 9-game winning streak to open the season, and they had a seven game lead by the All-Star break. I went back to visit that summer, and the atmosphere towards the Royals was one of sheer optimism, a feeling I never felt when living in Kansas City. I relished in it by catching a game at Kauffman for the first time since 1998. Of course, the Royals were on their downswing by then and lost to the then-hapless Devil Rays. Jose Lima left the game and ended up on the DL, and the relievers blew a one-run lead.
However, one moment I will remember came when the Royals were down 4-3 in the bottom of the first. Berroa came up and hit an inside the park home run. I think that moment exemplifies the sheer energy that Berroa brought to the team. I remember how excited I was after hearing that Berroa beat Matsui for the Rookie of the Year award. And then came 2004.
Somehow in the back of my mind I knew that Berroa wouldn’t quite become an All-Star, although his fall was worst than I could have ever predicted. I saw him play for the Dodgers when they came to Nationals Park. He made a few pretty good plays, but was only a shell of what he was five years ago.
I guess after what happened to Brady today, those guys aren’t going to any Kansas City barbecue joints soon either.
I’m glad to see Berroa back up in the Majors, and more glad that he gets to be teammates with someone SO much like him - I’m not at all surprised to hear that Berroa and MannyBManny have become fast friends.
As a person, I loved Berroa dearly in Omaha, but it was hard to ignore what type of player he had clearly become. I still do wish him the best in LA.
And don’t forget, Opening Day of 2004 consisted of (a) Mendy Lopez (!) tying the game with a 3-run shot against the White Sox, followed by (b) Beltran hitting a walk-off shot to win it. I thought it was going to be their year. I’m a sucker.
That was the year that should have proved once and for all that Kansas City is a great baseball town. Consider the situation: No playoffs for almost 20 years at that point, no winning season for a decade, coming off the first 100-loss season in franchise history, a cheapskate owner, a bunch of no-name players, and a perfectly viable alternative for spending their sports entertainment dollars right across the parking lot in the high-octane 13-3 Chiefs. Fans had every reason in the world to ignore this team.
But what happened as soon as the Royals got off to that infamous hot start? The fans returned. No, they didn’t sell 30,000 tickets to each game, but they did see a 35% increase in average attendance over the previous season, a level they hadn’t seen since they they were charging hard for the AL West title when the strike hit in ‘94. This wasn’t Miami, where they seem incapable of selling tickets no matter how good the team is. This wasn’t Atlanta, where playoff games weren’t sellouts. KC proved itself to be a town where just the chance of meaningful baseball brought back a huge number of fans.
Here’s hoping they get the chance to prove that again soon. They deserve it.
Another answer to the Batman riddle may be “a bald head.”
The Red Sox broke the curse of the Bambino. The Cubs are trying to break the curse of the billy goat, How long until the Royals break the curse of Eduardo Villacis?
Though I don’t think very highly of him, Eckstein doesn’t COMPLETELY suck…. he can at least punch the ball to the other field and get hit with enough pitches to post league average OBA’s, so he can be an ok bencn guy as long as he’s not the best player on the bench (doesn’t make sense? i know)
COMPLETELY suck = Eugenio Velez
and yet still among the top 1000 baseball players in the world
I took my youth baseball teams to an independant league game earlier this summer, with our seats being right next to the visiting bullpen. Who is hanging out on the rail but Jose Lima, who couldn’t have been more gracious and opening to the kids. One asked if he was good and Lima instructed him to use the internet to look up his stats, that Google would probably work. Lima spent the entire game (he pitched the previous night) either hanging by the rail to talk with fans, regaling the relievers with stories, or being the first guy on the top step to greet the team as they came off the field. This for a former 21-game winner who is playing in the Atlantic League of all places and surely knows that his days of ML glory are done (yet he still shows a love for the game). What a treat.
Was just reminded of the schedule — Tuesday night, Brian Bannister gets the start against Ron Gardenhire’s Twins in Minneapolis.
The Banny Log for that game should be fascinating.
Wow. Jose Rosado. I saw him go up against Ponson in Baltimore in 98 or 99 and thought I’d just seen the beginning of two HOF careers.
Hope and optimism indeed.
I loved Berroa in Kansas City (not becuase he was great, but that he gave us hope for awhile) and loved watching him in Omaha.
He had the high energy level in Omaha that he had in the early KC days. I was glad to see someone give him another chance since he was no longer wanted in KC.
I hope he continues to do well the rest of the year.
Hmmmmm….lawsuit. My guess was “temper.”
On the subject of Eckstein, you always hear about players who you have to watch on a daily basis to appreciate what they bring to the table. I’m convinced that wee David is the exact opposite of this.
He’s not a part-timer who gets exposed the more he’s out there; he’s a guy who (usually) goes out there more or less every day and has reporters (and fans) fall in love with his “hustle” and “grit.”
Add to this the incessant but ultimately meaningless media paeans (”everywhere he goes, he wins!”, “he makes everyone around him better!”), and it’s no wonder he’s always been so overrated.
Of course, after a few days, anyone remotely observant starts to realize that he doesn’t bring much to the plate (he admittedly has a decent OBP, but no power of which to speak), he doesn’t have even passable range anymore and it takes him six steps and a full windup to throw the ball to first.
When he first signed with the Blue Jays this past offseason, there were a ridiculous number of pieces penned about how he was the missing piece, how he’d instill a winning culture in Toronto, how the team would benefit in ways that don’t show up in the scoresheet. There was even an ill-informed ad campaign that listed him as “part human, part highlight reel” or something to that effect. Five months later, the lasting memory of Eckstein in a Blue Jays uniform is the thought of him barreling into Aaron Hill, ending the second baseman’s season and, possibly, his career.
If Eddie Gaedel were around today, there would be no way a team could use him as a publicity stunt. He’d be too highly esteemed by a lot of writers for his “heart” and would probably garner some MVP votes, based on the media’s general love for all things short and ineffectual.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Angel Berroa…
Bookmarked your post over at Blog Bookmarker.com!…
Man, that summer of 2003 was magical. I remember being at a PACKED K for an afternoon game in late July, when the Royals were still in first by about two games. I was in the old LF GA seats when, in the second inning, I believe, it was either Brent Mayne or Mike Difelice* was kicked out of the game for arguing a close strike call. The catcher in question proceeded to take the contents of the entire dugout and litter the field with bats, balls, and helmets to the joy of the home crowd. Awesome.
*(I can’t for the life of me remember who…I tried looking this up on BR, but alas, am not nearly as adept as many of you out there)
Then, later in the game (again…can’t remember the score or situation), we noticed that there was a stir amongst the crowd along the first base side. When we looked to see what the commotion was, there was Lima Time standing on the top step of the dugot twirling a towel around his head and whipping the crowd into a frenzy. Doubly awesome. that summer was great. I have never felt so much electricity in the crowd at the K. I KNOW we have great fans in KC that are just starved for a winner. I can’t wait until we’re good again…I also can’t wait to marry Rihanna…
2003 was a special year, I got married that year and moved to KC that year for the summer. My in-law’s neighbors had season tickets and would often give them to me and my wife to see a game that magical summer. It was amazing. We must have gotten 2-3 free boxes of donuts back when Krispy Creme gave a free dozen if the Royals got 12 hits. And then college started again, the Royals started to falter, and we moved back to college. I’m still hoping to get back to Kansas City soon, maybe the Royals can put together another improbable season.
See, Eckstein is always poked fun at because the MSM writes so much wildly untrue hyperbole about him, but most of the people who expose this denegrate little David with….wildly untrue hyperbole. BB Prospectus has Eckstein as an exactly league average fielder this year (0 FRAA) and he’s an ABOVE average hitter for a SS (3 BRAA), which isn’t surprising because he has always posted a good OBP for a SS. Joe says that Eckstein was “flat unplayable” last year and then says he is even worse this year, which simply isn’t true.
Berroa in 2006 was flat unplayable. Eckstein in 2008 is a league average shortstop.
Eckstein may not have been the answer to the 2008 Blue Jays but he was surely the answer to the World Champion Angels. He may be overrated by the pundits but at the end of his career he will have two rings from each league, as a starting shortstop, and a MVP World Series trophy to go along with it. How many other major league Shortstops can make that claim in the history of the game?
The Dodgers also had Lima time and it is embarrassing that he has won the only home Dodger playoff victory since 1988. For any fan who went to that playoff game it is probably the most memorable game of the last 20 years unless you happened to stay for the 4+1 game. Going into 2004 I felt Lima was a PR joke but at the end of the year I realized how wrong I was. In all the 40 years I’ve been going to baseball games, Jose Lima loves the game more then anyone I’ve ever witnessed. When the 2004 season started he was in the bullpen and he never stopped talking to the fans. When he became a fixture in the rotation, he would still hang out in the bullpen until the game started. He’s the only starter I can ever remember doing that. He’d throw a gazillion baseballs into the stands, all over the stadium.
As far as Berroa goes, I thought he was a terrible stopgap signing by Ned, and for most of the year he was, but we have to give him credit, he’s been okay for the last two weeks and has had some big hits during the 8 game winning streak.
“Tony Pena had another T-shirt made, but the magic was gone and he found himself jumping in the shower with his clothes on in order to pump some life into the team.”
I always loved this story, I could just see him trying to cheer his losing pitcher up by breaking a beer bottle on his own head (like Belushi in Animal House), or using hand puppets when arguing a call w/the ump.
Just wanted to mention that while in Houston I ate at the Home Plate Bar & Grill (http://www.homeplategrill.com/) and in a case of signed memorabilia the Royals were respresented by none other than Angel Berroa. It was enough to almost make me forgo lunch and eat ballpark hotdogs. In the end we had an enjoyable lunch, but I am still embarassed that Berroa is the epitome of Royalty in Houston
2003 was so much fun. About 2 weeks into the season, I was emailing my buddies telling them how fun baseball was again.
But the high point for me was later in the year. I live in Chicago, so I pretty much see the Royals when they play the White Sox and that’s it. However, that year, ESPN decided to show them on national TV later that summer. And it was against the Yankees, of course, at Kaufman Stadium. And who was pitching for the Royals? Just a guy named Kevin Appier. And what happened? The Royals won 11-0 (as a Royals fan that is a wonderful score for a baseball game and if you are too young to know why, well I feel sorry for you), despite the Yankees ripping line drives all over the park (that kept landing in Royals’ gloves). My two year old (at the time) was cheering for the Blue guys. It was great.
Of course, that was just about the high point of the season. A week later they were out of first place for good. Appier got shelled in every other start he had. And when my daughter and I next watched a game between blue guys and another team, I had to explain to her that the Blue Guys in this case were Cubs and we were rooting for the Red Team now (Yeah, I am Cards fan too, gotta keep my sanity somehow)
Hey Bellweather, I’m pretty sure it was DeFelice. I was at that game and had just walked onto the first level concourse behind the Royals dugout when the show began. The crowd started buzzing and when I looked out on the field, all I saw were coolers and bats flying out of the dugout. Like you said…..Awesome.
Ah 2003!
I moved over the winter of 02-03 and took a week off in the spring to do some yard work in my new yard. It was the first week of baseball season, though I hadn’t planned it that way, and I spent that week working long days with the radio next to me and one win after another. Made those days shoveling and digging and heaving fun!
I was thrilled. New house. New team. New reality.
Well, I still like the house.
Speaking as a New Englander by birth, the Don Shula boycott makes perfect sense to me. Is this evidence that we’re crazy, or that the rest of you don’t love your teams enough? Kidding, kidding.
I’m not even a football fan, but I would boycott out of deference to the fans who do, hoping that football-but-not-baseball fans in New England might have my back some day.
I was watching a game on TV in, like, 2000 and the Sox fans were booing Jesse Orosco. The announcers had to explain it was because he was on the 1986 Mets, as if it was strange that we were all still rooting against that team. I mean, of course we don’t let it go.
Honestly, it’s a little surprising that there’s a Shula’s in Rhode Island at all.
I’m booing my monitor right now just on READING the words, “Jesse Orosco.”
I’m surprised to hear that Eckstein’s considered league average for a shortstop, given how pronounced his defensive limitations appear and how poorly he fares in zone rating (as imperfect as that stat is). Anecdotally, even, he seemed light years below John McDonald (who IS unplayable on a regular basis, given his bat or lack thereof).
I used to be pretty consistently surprised at apparent ground ball base hits where McDonald would appear from out of nowhere to stab them, but after a while, it became regular. It actually got to the point where I would get surprised when a ball would get through the infield. With Eck, it seemed that on similarly-hit balls, he wouldn’t even wind up in the vicinity of the ball. I’d have been shocked that he’d made those plays, if he ever made them.
Granted, this is all anecdotal, and I have to defer to Dewan, but I suppose I see now why some members of the MSM are so skeptical of statistics. It just seems wrong that Eckstein and McDonald would rank anywhere close to one another defensively.
As for Eck being the missing ingredient with the ‘02 Angels and ‘06 Cards, he was certainly decent enough in ‘02, and better than Benji Gil. Still, it’s hard to argue that he was more crucial to their season than their outstanding starting staff, phenomenal bullpen or hitters such as Glaus, Salmon, Fullmer…
In ‘06, he was mediocre at best in the regular season, but did have one really good game in the WS, which was enough to get voters licking their chops over the possibility of choosing him World Series MVP.
In any case, someone being part of two Series-winning teams as a measure of their quality as a player, that just doesn’t wash. Like him or hate him, Bonds was by far the greatest hitter of this generation (particularly in his PED days) and he hasn’t won a ring. Ted Williams never won a ring. A-Rod hasn’t, Griffey hasn’t (and if he does with the White Sox this year, some people will fall over backwards trying to explain his contributions, neglecting the fact that back when he was a megastar, he never won the big prize).
Maybe - just MAYBE - WS wins have more to do with entire rosters and dumb luck (to a certain extent - see ‘06 Cards) than with individual players.
Wow. I’m verbose. I should really get a blog or something.
Justin:
Ty Cobb has my vote for the best player ever to not win a ring. People forget that about him, since our vision of him is the guy who couldn’t stand to lose, yet he not only didn’t win a ring, he played pretty poorly in the 3 WS he was in.
And I wouldn’t say the 06 Cards were lucky as much as they got hot and played like the 2004 and 2005 Cards at the right time.
Bellweather Johnson, Here ya go:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/KCA/KCA200307050.shtml
I looked up 2003 gamelogs for Brent Mayne and found the home game in July where he played a partial game. He replaced DiFelice in the middle of an inning. I would have guessed injury.
Justin: I’m positive that McDonald is a much better defender than Eck. However…
Eck’s 2008 OBP (in Toronto): .354, above average for a shortstop
Johnny Mac’s 2008 OBP: .260, below average for any position (except possibly NL pitchers)
That’s why 2008 David Eckstein is a league average shortstop while 2008 Johnny Mac isn’t.
Hey - as a former Browns and now Chiefs fan - I stopped drinking Coors the minute I saw their first commercial with John Elway!!!
Whatever happened to Andres Blanco? And “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”?
I’m sorry to hear that Angel Berroa died. I think he and Andujar Cedeno (another deceased ballplayer) had a lot in common.
I thought the answer to the riddle was “a job”
Not that anyone is still reading these comments but THE answer to the riddle is:
A full head of gray hair.
[...] More: The Brief Wondrous Life of Angel Berroa [...]
Steve from Cleve:
I wasn’t touting Johnny Mac as anything other than a defensive replacement-type. I pointed out in my comment that he’s unplayable because of his poor offense, and I should have been more specific that I was talking defense-only in my remarks.
According to the Fielding Bible, however, the system shows that both he and Eck are right around league average, fielding-wise. That just seems impossibly wrong to me (and to pretty much anyone who’s watched the two play much at all).
I do think that Eckstein has some value, but he’s still seen in some circles as the glue that won a couple of teams World Series rings.
And Brent: Cobb never winning a ring should be yet another (huge) arrow in the common-sense quiver, to be used against anyone who points out that Jeter, Eck or any other player of their ilk is a “winner” because they were on teams that won it all. Individual players contribute to those teams, and obviously some contribute much more than others, but the ongoing insinuation that some players win the whole shebang on their own is patently false (as most of this blog’s readers, yourself included, obviously know).