It’s a strange feeling to be a hero in Pittsburgh. But, well, there it is. For more than a week now, I have been receiving a flood of emails and phone calls and letters from people in Pittsburgh, all of them thanking me for the column I wrote off the Steelers-Ravens AFC Championship Game. Apparently it is making the rounds. I’ve heard from fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, grandfathers who said they cried. People have sent me songs they have written about the Steelers. They have sent me poems. They have sent me photographs. It has been quite an odd experience.
This began as a little side note to discuss Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon’s rather odd and unfortunate choice to let lefty reliever J.P. Howell hit for himself in the seventh inning just so he could face righty Pat Burrell the next inning. Then I got a few emails about a second-guess column written on the Kansas City Chiefs site … anyway it turned into this mess:
There is something dramatically unfair about the second guess. The second guess is unfair even when, as people like say, it is a first guess. I’m sure just about every brilliant reader of this blog was shouting “What the heck is he doing,” the very instant Joe Maddon allowed Howell to hit for himself.
But timing isn’t the unfair part of second guesses. Even a second guess made BEFORE the manager or coach makes a move is, I think, unfair. That is because a second guess lasts forever.
Think about this: In the dimension of second guesses, Dave Stapleton always fields the ground ball, Dan Marino leads the New York Jets to three Super Bowl championships, and the Boston relief crew shuts down the New York Yankees every time. In the dimension of second guesses Portland has the NBA team of the 1990s, Mike Dukakis never steps into that tank, Steven Spielberg decides there have been enough Peter Pan movies, I never ask the tough-looking dark-haired girl in the 10th grade if she wants to go roller skating*, and the Kansas City Royals, featuring Chase Utley, Albert Pujols and Tim Lincecum (heck throw in Carlos Beltran and Ryan Braun too), are the ones playing the Phillies in the World Series.
*Yes, roller skating. Man, you should have seen that turndown. Actually, I’m glad you didn’t see it. It was not a great experience. I mean, seriously, roller skating? That’s what I asked? What the heck was I thinking — that I lived in American Graffiti? Roller skating. And the worst part is that I didn’t even know HOW to roller skate.
Yes, the issue with second-guessing is that it’s a stacked-deck. You already know how first-guess turned out. It is like getting to see what you missed behind Curtain No. 1. But as far your guess goes, the second guess, you will never know if it would have succeeded, if it would have failed, if it would have changed the game at all. You will never get to see what was behind Curtain No. 2 — was it the trip to Puerto Vallarta* or was it the billy goat that eats beer cans?
*I always thought Puerto Vallarta sounded SO exotic when they would give away those trips on the various game shows. Wow. Puerto Vallarta. But then, I always thought that those four day, three night trips for two to scenic and romantic Reno, Nevada sounded great too. Since then I’ve been to Reno — scenic, romantic, not so much.
So, there’s a strand of dishonesty behind the whole idea of second guessing, there’s an undeserved assurance that your way would have worked in ways that the original choice failed.
On the other hand — a stupid decision by a manager or coach or GM or sportswriter or anybody else deserves to be ripped. And,it isn’t second guessing, I don’t think, to call the thought process BEHIND a decision dumb and wrongheaded. I had a couple of brilliant readers send along an article written on the Kansas City Chiefs Web site by someone who goes by the nom de plume of “Rufus Dawes,” an old Civil War hero*. The article, which is about second guessing, suggested that it was unfair for people to rip the Chiefs for going conservative in the final minutes of the New York Jets game last Sunday. Just so you know: The Chiefs led the Jets by four points with about five minutes left, and they got the ball. A couple of first downs probably would have put the game away. Instead, the Chiefs ran the ball three times, fell about a yard short of the first down, punted the ball away and watched Brett Favre drive right down the field and throw the game-winning touchdown pass.
*Yeah, I know. You don’t have to say it.
The argument there is that it’s unfair for anyone to second guess the Chiefs’ decision to run three straight times because it almost worked (almost!) and because there’s no way to know if a pass or two would have given the Chiefs a first down. Maybe a pass would have been worse — maybe it would have been incomplete (stopping the clock) or maybe it would have been intercepted and returned for a touchdown or maybe …
And I understand and appreciate the argument. But here’s why I think that point is flawed (and yes, I’m getting back to Maddon here, slowly): I don’t think anyone is second guessing the FOOTBALL DECISION to run the ball three straight times. I’m not. No, I’m second-guessing the PHILOSOPHY behind running the ball three straight times. The way I see it, the Chiefs were 1-5. They were going nowhere. They were playing at New York, where they were almost two touchdown underdogs. They were — because of a series of chance occurrences such as Jets coach Eric Mangini apparently taking the week off leading into the game — in position to win the game. And the Chiefs played scared.
Sure, it almost worked. Lots of stuff almost works in football — almost is the beauty of football.
Yes, the alternative might have been worse. But what in the hell did they have to lose?
Think about this simply for a minute: There is absolutely no question whatsoever that if a coach needed a first down to save his soul, he would not run the ball into the line three straight times. If running the ball into the line three straight times was a team’s best shot at getting a first down, coaches would run the ball every single down for the rest of their lives.
That’s just who they are. Football coaches, as a rule, are conservative people by nature. They want to control things, they NEED some sense of control, they want to eliminate chance, they want to strip away as much risk as they possibly can. You know the axioms of football coaching. Hold on to the football. Eliminate penalties. Make the smart pass. Don’t try and do too much. Protect the quarterback. Stay in your gap. This is why coaches, before every game, jabber endlessly and nervously about special teams. A special teams play is a quagmire, an uncontrollable situation, a kicked ball, 11 men running the length of the field, 10 men blocking and one trying to negotiate his way through, there are so many things that can go wrong, blocked kicks, fumbles, penalties, injuries … it’s no wonder coaches lose sleep thinking about special teams.
Point is: Herm Edwards, the Chiefs coach, and Chan Gailey, the Chiefs’ offensive coordinator, knew full well what they were doing. They didn’t run the ball three time because they thought that was the best way to win. They ran the ball three times into the line because it was safer that way. There was less chance of turning over the ball or losing big yardage. Sure they would have LIKED to get the first down, but they were only willing to risk so much in the effort — they could always punt the ball away and count on the defense. THAT is what I second guess. I do not understand what the heck they were so afraid of.
Now, we move to Joe Maddon — he had a different situation. Maddon had convinced himself before Wednesday’s game conclusion that he heliked, really liked, the J.P. Howell vs. Pat Burrell matchup. I mean he REALLY liked it. Now, to start, I am trying for the life of me to figure out what he liked … all I see is:
– Pat Burrell this year hit 39 points higher, on-based 55 points higher and slugged 53 points higher against lefties.
– Pat Burrell in his career hits 25 points, higher, on-bases 58 points higher and slugs 77 points higher against lefties.
– J.P. Howell this year was very effective against both lefties and righties, but righties did do slightly better.
– J.P. Howell, over his still short career, has allowed righties to hit 17 points higher, on-base 26 points higher, slug 49 points higher.
– Best as I can tell, Howell had only faced Burrell one time in his entire life, and he walked him.
So I literally have NO EARTHLY IDEA why Maddon made his move — I’m sure he had some sort of complicated match-up theory working. He must have really believed in it because, remember, he not only allowed Howell to pitch against Burrell but he wanted that matchup so badly he actually LET HOWELL HIT in the seventh inning. Maddon called it a “crazy thing” after the game, and it was all that and then some.
Again, I don’t want to second guess the move itself because, yes, we know what happened. Howell bunted Jason Bartlett to second, but the Rays did not score. Then in the bottom of the seventh, Howell hung a curve, Pat Burrell whacked it off the center field wall (on another night, it would probably have been gone) and his pinch-runner scored the game-winner on Pedro Feliz’s single. We know that.
But my second guess here is not about the move itself. My second guess is — and I appreciate this greatly because I know I would be the same way – that I think Joe Maddon fell in love with his own thinking. I think this happens to all of us: You think about one thing too much, and it grows in your mind, and you start to lose a little focus on reality.
I think it was Robert Klein who talked about how sometimes, when you lose your keys, your mind will start to play tricks on you. You will start to think, “OK, let me think here, I was downstairs, and I had my keys in my hand, and I was making a tuna sandwich, and I had some leftover tuna, and I remember I put the leftover tuna in a bowl, and I put some plastic wrap over it, and, you know what, of course, I’ll bet that I put I put my keys in the tuna bowl, I’m sure that’s what I did, I’ll bet the keys are right in the tuna.” Then you go to the fridge and open it up and, of course, the keys are not in the tuna, how stupid was that, why in the heck would your keys be INSIDE THE TUNA BOWL?
I think Maddon fell for the key-in-the-tuna factor. I think he’s a terrific manager, and I think he’s a great guy, and I think that sometime during the 46-hour delay (probably at 3 a.m. one night) Maddon started to convince himself that for some convoluted reasons he would be better off not sharing with anybody Howell was the perfect matchup against Burrell, that Burrell simply would not be able to handle his curveball, that there was nobody in the entire world who was more qualified to get Pat Burrell out than J.P. Howell.
And I think Maddon just lost focus, just lost the forest. Burrell was relatively useless the whole series. He had not gotten a single hit, not one. He had not scored a run or driven one in. He had walked three times (once by Howell, of course) and generally speaking he looked like the easiest out in the Series (which is saying something considering how Longoria and Pena played the first four games).
Then, for reasons that defy logic, Maddon went way out of his way to give Burrell a curveball-throwing lefty to face in the late innings of the decisive game of the World Series. Burrell knew what a gift looked like. He bashed the ball off the wall. There were no second guesses necessary. He did not miss the first time.
No, not everyone loves the Lovable Cubbies. Meet Bart Goatman.
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You know, I hear that TNT is going to have some sort of Frank TV show coming up or something where Frank Caliendo does, you know, like impressions. I mean, shouldn’t they publicize this or something? I mean if you’re already going to invest in a show like that, it seems to me that you should let people know it’s coming.
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Interesting stat on TV: Apparently American League teams that win Game 1 of the ALDS are 12-14, but National League teams that win Game 1 of the NLDS are 23-3. It’s an interesting statistic in that, “Wow, that’s interesting but I suspect it’s just a small sample size and means absolutely nothing” sort of way. So while the stat was interesting, the relatively long discussion about how maybe the American League has more depth and maybe the American League has more resilient teams didnt’ do much for me.
But it does make you ask*: Are the Cubs mortally wounded by losing Game 1? I say no — the Cubs are still the better team. BUT they obviously need a big performance from Carlos Zambrano, and man oh man, it’s scary to put 100 years of pain and the passion of Cub nation on the Red Bull himself. My only prediction is this: Zambrano will either be utterly dominant or he will absolutely suck. I don’t think there’s an in-between, not tonight, not for Carlos.
*I originally and thoughtlessly wrote “beg the question” there, even though I can honestly say I have never used that expression in my entire life. Fortunately, a couple of brilliant readers were available to rip me for it.
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OK, we all know Fire Joe Morgan is beyond hilarious. But THIS might be the funniest thing that has ever been on that site, and that’s a bit like picking your favorite Richard Pryor bit. I don’t like picking on MLB.com — I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that half my wedding party works there — but holy cow, this is funny. Savino Stallone. My side hurts.
If you don’t have time to read through the link, you can also go to precisely 7:36 on the following clip. It’s more or less the same thing:
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A little more on that odd statistic that shows that in the American League Division Series that team that won the first game more often than not LOST the series. This thing has happened at least once every year — until last year.
1995: The Yankees beat Seattle in the first two games — the second in 15-innings — but they were discombobulated because of a lack of Joe Torre leadership*, and the Mariners won the next three.
1996: The Rangers beat the Yankees behind a complete game from John Burkett. The Yankees sweep the next three.
1997: The Yankees beat the Indians as Jeter, Tino, Paulie and Tim Raines all homer. The Indians, though, win in five because, being the Indians, they had a World Series to blow.*
1998: The Red Sox pound the Indians 11-3 in Game 1, and the Indians sweep the next three.
1999: Red Sox revenge. Cleveland beat Boston in Game 1, the Indians scoring on Travis Fryman’s game-winning single in the ninth, but the Red Sox win in five.
2000: Yankees lose Game 1 to Oakland but win Series in 5. This will be repeated.
2001: Cleveland beats Seattle 5-0 in Game 1 — Colon throws 8 shutout innings — but Seattle comes back to win the series in five.
2001: Take 2. A’s beat Yankees in first two games and then, by the grace of Jeter,* the Yankees come back to win the series in five.
2002: Yankees beat California in first game — Bernie hits the big three run homer — but the Angels win the next three.
2003: The Twins — Santana and four relievers — beat the Yankees in Game 1 then get swept away. This too will be repeated.
2003: Oakland beats the Red Sox in the first two games but because Moneyball is not a viable playoff system* the A’s blow it and lose the next three.
2004: The Twins — Santana and one reliever this team — beat the Yankees in Game 1 then get swept away.
2005: The Yankees beat California in the first game, but the Angels win the series in five. Another pattern.
2006: The Yankees beat Detroit in the first game, but the Tigers win the series in four.
*This is irony. Or sarcasm. Whatever it is called.
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Survey says: Bad Carlos.
Sigh. I cannot believe the Cubs are going to get swept out of the playoffs. Well, of course, I can and do believe it. I just mean that as an expression.
I will say that the Dodgers, with MannyBManny, with a reasonably healthy Furcal, even with the sturdiness of Casey Blake, are a much better team than their record. Lowe-Billingsley give you a really good 1-2, there are some big-time arms in that bullpen … does New York explode if Torre leads the Dodgers to the World Series title?
I love the Brewers because I love Milwaukee. I love Milwaukee because it reminds me of Cleveland. So it is with that in mind that I watched with horror and yet more than a pang of understanding while watching Philadelphia’s Cole Hamels retire the first 14 Brewers. It had been, what, 26 years since the Brewers had been in the playoffs, and their first game they have to throw a 22-year-old kid who had started four games all year and they did not reach base until the fifth inning. Yeah, that could happen to Cleveland.
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I know this is wrong — by all accounts Brad Lidge had a terrific and dominant year (how about 92 Ks in 65 innings), and he seems like a really good guy, and I just couldn’t be happier for him. But when he comes into a playoff game, like he did in Game 1, I can’t help but think, “Yeah, he could blow this.” Not he WILL blow it. Just htat he could.
It’s sort of like this: A great closer has this air of invincibility — he comes into a game, and everyone drops shoulders just slightly. Remember how in Little League, the kid with the best fastball would come into the game and everyone on the bench would shout, “Come on! We can get this guy!” But nobody really believed that. Yeah, that sort of invincibility.
And when Albert Pujols hit that ball 983 feet, well, how could it not puncture Lidge’s invincibility?
I pretty much hope I’m wrong, and Lidge doesn’t give up another hit the rest of the playoffs. I like the guy. But I just sense doom.
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I was asking Bill James if he believes there is a difference between clutch HITTING performances and clutch PITCHING performances, especially in the playoffs. And he was inclined to say that yes, he does feel like there COULD be a difference based on pitching being an action and hitting being a reaction.
I bring this up because I think that something happens to C.C. Sabathia in big games. In this case, I’m not going to bring statistics into it because I think it involves a small sample size — obviously his postseason numbers are lousy. But I’m a big C.C. fan and I’ve seen many of his games. And I just think he LOOKS different in the postseason. His body language changes. His control wavers. He does not seem to throw with the same confidence and his pitches seem to lack the same depth. I think it’s harder to tell when a hitter looks nervous.
Today, of course, he was pitching on three days rest AGAIN. I guess you could blame his performance on that. But I thought Sabathia looked just like he did last year against Boston — unsure, uneasy, nothing at all like the overwhelming presence he was in Milwaukee all yeah. When he walked Brett Myers, you just KNEW bad thins were coming. And bad things came.
Is there an easier word in the English language to lip-read than the F-word? I suspect not. I suspect the F-word is like the speed of light when it comes to lip-reading, nothing can ever surpass it so you can only measure other words against it. Like, “Dadgum” would be a fairly easy word to lip-read — I’d rate it about a .4 F.
This of course is brought up again as the cameras closed in on Calfiornia Angels pitcher John Lackey after he walked Dustin Pedroia, and he unleashed a full-fledged, all-out, why-me-world F. I imagine he’s not the first man to do that after losing Pedroia.
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I do wonder how you can have a lineup with Mark Teixeira, Vlady, Torii Hunter and hot-hitting MIke Napoli and find it unable to score runs. The Angels were 10th in runs scored. TENTH! Only team in baseball history to win 100 and finish 10th in runs scored. Buck Martinez explained it without necessarily meaning to explain it. He said something like, “Well, Erick Aybar (84 OPS+) and Chone Figgins (84 OPS+) are what make this offense go.” Yes. Quite. I sense disaster looming.
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Well, here’s an interesting story about how the Angels do not plan on being any more selective today against Dice-K just because he walked 1.3 million people this year. The money quote from swinging coach Mickey Hatcher:
“You want them to step in the box and be able to do something,” Hatcher said. “You don’t want them to step in the box and say, ‘We’re going to take a pitch, and then we’re going to swing.’ “
You know, on the one hand, I don’t entirely disagree with Hatcher’s general point. I mean, it’s stupid to not take pitches against Dice K, but let’s be blunt: You ain’t changing now. The Angels have played 163 real games, not to mention all the spring training games, not to mention all of last year’s stuff and the year before that and the year before that. I suspect that it might be a little bit late now to say, “Hey, you know what guys? Let’s start taking pitches.” The Angels finished 12th in the league in walks this year, and that’s only because Seattle and Kansas City happened to be in the league*. Dice K or not, the Angels are the Angels.
*Holy cow, the Royals walked fewer than 400 times this year. That’s pretty hard to do. I had a long chat with Royals GM Dayton Moore this week — that column will run in The Kansas City Star on Sunday — and he must have used the words “on-base percentage” about 239 times. That was good to hear and also inevitable. This was the sort of year, I think, that can make an OBP believer out of anyone. There are no free-swinging atheists in a 392-walk foxhole.
So, no, I would not expect Mickey Hatcher or anyone on the Angels to say, “Yeah, we’re going to change our philosophy tonight because of the pitcher.” But I will say this: The Angels are really, really, really close — maybe even over the line — when it comes to what I would like to now call: “Diloneism.” Yes, another new word!
Diloneism (Dee-lo-NAY-izm) noun. The misguided belief that your success is directly attributable to what is actually your biggest weakness.
I’ve named this after the obscure (to most) Miguel Dilone, who slapped and ran his way to a .341 average in 1980 while a member of the Cleveland Indians. He stole 61 bases, scored 82 runs despite missing 30 games and playing for a pretty brutal offensive team in a low-run scoring time. He was useful then. He also hit zero home runs. That’s who he was. But from what I could gather as a fan, Miguel Dilone did not see himself that way. He viewed himself as a guy who could hit with some power. He seemed to change his swing to accentuate his power, which might have been a good move if he had ANY power, but he did not, and five teams and five years later he would out of baseball.
Which takes us back to the Angels. They are a very good baseball team. Why? They have good starting pitching. They have an often dominant bullpen. They play fair defense. And they have some offensive speed and two or three good (and high priced) middle of the lineup guys. All this made them good in close games (80-42 in games decided by four runs or less) and as such they deserve a lot of credit.
BUT there is a real danger of Diloneism now — this personal sense that the reason the Angels are good is BECAUSE they don’t score runs, because they have an astonishingly bad offensive approach, because they don’t get on base and swing free and don’t get caught up in, you know, WALKING or whatever. I’m not saying the Angels are there yet, but I hear tones of it in many of the quotes. The Angels win IN SPITE of not scoring many runs. And yet you hear it here and elsewhere: “Heck no, we’re not going to change our approach.”
So we’ll try something new here based on a few brilliant reader suggestions. We’ll put up open-ended posts for the four playoff series and try to add little tidbits throughout the weekend.
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You can’t get any better than this: The brilliant Marty Fennelly interviews Tampa skipper Joe Maddon about, among other things, his favorite Godfather character and how to propose to your girl in a liquor store parking lot. Maddon seems like pretty much the most awesome guy in the world though he does do the ultimate guy thing, which is to credit Mark Twain for a quote he may or may not have said. The “Dance Like No One Is Watching” quote he mentions has been credited to many people, including Twain (of course) and also Satchel Paige. Remember the rule: If you like a quote, credit it to Twain, Abe Lincoln, Confucius, Satchel Paige or Yogi Berra.
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I’m thinking more and more that if Evan Longoria had not gotten hurt, he might very well have become the third man — after Ichiro in 2001 and Fred Lynn in 1975* — to win the Rookie of the Year Award and the MVP in the same season. Look: I think there is no runaway candidate this year, and voters would have bent over backward to give the award to somebody from the best story in baseball. Plus, as we saw tonight, Longoria is a really good player.
*I forgot to the add this Pozterisk last night, but you already knew what it was going to say … Did I mention I’m writing a book about the 1975 Cincinnati Reds?
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