Players of the Day: Ryan Howard, Philadelphia; Albert Pujols, St. Louis.

JUPITER, Fla. — Tony La Russa was on his cell phone Tuesday morning as he walked off the field and toward reporters for his daily give-and-give-more with the media. He seemed particularly engaged with the phone call. Reporters waited patiently until he hung up.

“Huh,” La Russa said with surprise in his voice. “That was Charlie Manual.”

“Really?” a reporter asked.

“No,” La Russa said with comic disgust in his voice. “Not REALLY.”

Not really. It’s hard to imagine a much more unlikely and unreasonable rumor than this week’s Albert Pujols for Ryan Howard trade talk. Well, from what I can gather, the rumor was never really a rumor — it appears to have come from a simple Buster Olney mention that the Phillies were having internal discussions about proposing a Howard for Pujols deal. I have little doubt this is true. People talk about all sorts of whacked out things “internally.” I’m sure that during late night meetings, people have had “internal discussions” about trying to talk LeBron James into playing baseball.

But, somehow, this mention of an internal discussion became a “rumor” and this rumor morphed into “talk” and talk transformed into actual questions of the the actual people involved, leading to either angry denials or comical ones.

The fact that this rumor got ANYWHERE gives you an idea about how hungry we in America are for dramatic trade talk, no matter how illogical. And this is as illogical as they get. Albert Pujols is the most popular athlete in St. Louis — probably the most popular athlete in St. Louis since Musial. If the Cardinals were bound by law to either (A) Trade Pujols or (B) Change the team name to the Budweisers and going with a drunken guy wearing a beer hat as their logo, they would lose fewer fans going with (B).

Beyond that, Albert Pujols is much, much, much, much (not enough here room for all the muches) better than Ryan Howard. This is not a knock on Howard, who is an excellent player. But the only thing that Howard does even as well as Pujols is hit with power — and Pujols did hit more homers last year. Howard hits for a much lower average, gets on base much less, is not as good a runner, is not as good a defender, and has become just about useless against left-handed pitching. I mean Pujols is the best player in baseball and Ryan Howard is a very good first baseman. There’s nothing wrong with being a very good first baseman. Tiger Woods is the best golfer in the world; Zach Johnson is a very good golfer. Tom Hanks is the most famous actor in the world; Jeff Daniels is a very good actor. It’s like that.

The difference between Pujols and Howard last year, based on Wins Above Replacement and Runs Above Replacement, was roughly, oh, about Jason Bay.

So, no, this never had any chance of happening. But even the mere mention of the Phillies talking about it internally sparked a couple of days worth of Spring Training jabber … the idea of trading one huge star for another is something that constantly intrigues us sports fan. You have no doubt heard that the Yankees and Red Sox came close one drunken night to swapping Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. In fact, Yankees GM George Weiss wrote that the deal was done … the Red Sox backed out. This is one of the great could have beens in sports because of how the change in parks might have changed baseball history. DiMaggio might have hit .400 with the Green Monster at Fenway Park, and Williams might have hit 600 home runs with the short porch in right field.* People often wonder if the Celtics would have won with Chamberlain at center instead of Russell. It would be fascinating to know what the Yankees and Red Sox would have been like after swapping stars. I suspect Williams’ reputation as a choker might have gone out the window with the Yankees talent around him.

*Though it should be noted that Williams often said that he never liked hitting at Yankee Stadium. John Updike wrote about this memorably in his famous “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu,” and he quoted Williams’ Yankee Stadium passage from Life Magazine: “There’s the bigness of it. There are those high stands and all those people smoking — and, of course, the shadows … It takes at least one series to get accustomed to the Stadium and even then you’re not sure.”

There have been other gigantic trade rumors — according to Bill James, around 1914 the Tigers and Red Sox had a deal in place sending Ty Cobb to Boston and Tris Speaker to Detroit. The deal fell through because Cobb got hurt. Could you imagine Cobb and Babe Ruth playing on the same team?

In late 1959, the Kansas City A’s were about to send Roger Maris to the Pirates in exchange for Dick Groat — and the Pirates pulled out at the last minute. The A’s quickly dealt Maris to the Yankees in a seven-player deal. And Maris and Groat won the MVP Awards in 1960.

In 1975, there was some serious talk about Kansas City sending George Brett to Cincinnati for Tony Perez; it fell through. Well, hey, if you talk to any baseball GM, they will tell you about some impossibly gigantic trade that “almost happened.”

Funny thing: These trades tend to work better as imaginary ”What might have been“ deals than they do in real life. Perhaps the most famous one-for-one trade ever happened on April 17, 1960 — two days before the season began — when Cleveland traded home run champ Rocky Colavito to Detroit in exchange for batting champ Harvey Kuenn. That seemed like a great and intriguing deal — power for finesse. It turned out to be a terrible trade for Cleveland — the cursed trade for Cleveland’s bard Terry Pluto. Colavito was 26 and still had six or seven productive years left. Kuenn was 29, and he never again played 135 games in a season. Colavito was especially good in that expansion season of 1961, when he hit .292/.402/.580 with 45 home runs and the Tigers won 101 games (but lost the pennant). Kuenn lasted in Cleveland one year, had a decent enough year, and then was traded away for Johnny Antonelli and Willie Kirkland.

In 1926 — in what was more or less a one-for-one deal — the Cardinals traded Rogers Hornsby to the Giants for Frankie Frisch (and a pitcher named Jimmy Ring). Hornsby was 30, about to turn 31, and was coming off the worst offensive season of his career — though .317/.388/.463 for a second baseman hardly seems like a tragic season*. On top of that, he was also manager of that team, which won the World Series. Hornsby stayed with the team throughout the World Series even though his mother died on the day of Game 1 — baseball was Hornsby’s entire life (except for playing the horses). He only hit .250 in the Series, and some among the Cardinals thought he looked old. And, of course, he always was a pain in the Hornsby. He had to go.

*A season like that only looks tragic when a player is coming off a .403/.489/.756 MVP season that, remarkably, wasn’t even as good offensive as the year before (in 1924, Hornsby had hit .424/.507/..696)

Frisch, meanwhile, was 28 and also coming off what was probably the worst offensive season of his career — .314/.353.409, a 105 OPS+. He had been a key part of four pennant-winning Giants teams between 1921-24, but he apparently had a savage argument with Giants manager John McGraw during the 1926 season and left for a little while. He returned, played out the season, but it was clear he had to go.

The trade cost the Cardinals plenty — they had to come up with a way to buy all of Hornsby’s shares in the team. But it was great for the Cardinals — Frisch’s presence, better defense and solid hitting made him a staple of the Gas House Gang. The Cardinals would play in four World Series with Frisch — the last with Frisch as a player/manager.

Meanwhile, the Hornsby thing didn’t work with the Giants. John McGraw was one of Hornsby’s rare friends — the two tended to see baseball about the same way. They also enjoyed going to the track together. Trouble is, nobody else could stand Hornsby — and this was especially true of Giants owner Charles Stoneham. Hornsby had a big offensive year with the Giants (he led the league with a 175 OPS+) and he filled in effectively as manager when McGraw fell ill for a month. But Stoneham traded him away after that year — according to legend without McGraw’s consent or knowledge. Hornsby was that kind of guy. He would hit .387 the next year with Boston — led the league — and at the end of the year he was traded again.

Point being, that in general when these preposterously big trades actually happens, one team will usually get a huge advantage. They Reds THOUGHT they were getting one of the best young pitchers in baseball, Milt Pappas, when they traded Frank Robinson to the Orioles. Didn’t work out that way. The Cubs thought they were getting a terrific pitcher, Ernie Broglio, when they traded Lou Brock to the Cardinals. Not so much.

The Phillies and Cardinals are probably the two best teams in the National League this year. Sure, the Dodgers and the Rockies are in the discussion, maybe a couple of other teams, but in seems, on paper at least, that the Phillies and Cardinals are the best. The Phillies have that combination of good starting pitching — especially with Halladay looking primed for a ridiculously good year — and stars throughout their lineup. The Cardinals have Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright at the top of their rotation, a nice mix of youth and experience in their lineup, and the best player in baseball.

They are going into the season looking just right. Their first basemen perfectly fit their clubs. There’s no real intrigue in how they would do anywhere else, at least not for me. Ryan Howard will slug 45 home runs because he always slugs 45 home runs. He will make Phillies fans happy with his 140 RBIs because in that lineup, with his power, he will always knock in 140. He’s good enough defensively and good enough on the bases to go mostly unnoticed there. He hits right handers so hard — last year he hit .319/.395/.691 against righties — that his left-handed splits will mostly just be a nuisance. He’s a terrific player who should always been close to the heart of Phillies fans.

And Pujols? He remains close to the perfect player for St. Louis fans — the staggeringly good hitter, the aggressive base runner, the intense defensive player, and a man respectful of the Cardinals past. This is not to say that Pujols would not be the perfect Phillies player or the perfect Royals player or, hard to imagine, the perfect Cubs player. With his talent and work ethic, he would be perfect anywhere. But he was drafted by St. Louis, and now he fits St. Louis; he fits better than the Arch. People wonder if the Cardinals will come up with the money to pay Pujols … I would suggest they have no choice. Trade him? Are you kidding? The Cardinals are entirely wrapped up in Albert Pujols.

OK, have you done that about five times in a week? I mean, first I started that “Do a different player every day” spring training project (and yes, they will be coming in rapid fire soon) and then, right in the middle, I decided to chase down the happiest songs for no apparent reason.

Well, here’s my list. And I want to make that clear: It is MY list.*

Update: It’s now 282 songs. And counting. Might get to 300. But no higher.

I took numerous suggestions. I listened to quite a few new songs … some are on here. But, these are the songs that, one way or another, have brought real joy into MY life. Some brought joy to me as a kid. Some brought joy to me in high school. Some brought joy to me in college, and in my younger days as a sportswriter, and some brought joy to me because they made my wife happy. Some, many of these songs, have made me happy because my daughters love them. I have not loved many songs more than Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me,” because I have a five and eight year old who light up every time they hear it. Same with “Hoedown Throwdown.”

A few of rules:

1. No act is allowed on the list more than once. So, there is only one Beatles song on here, only one Springsteen song on here, only one Elvis song on here. I have no doubt that Beatles fans may not have picked “Here Comes the Sun” and Springsteen fans may not have picked Rosalita and Elvis fans definitely would not have picked His Latest Flame … fill in your own there.

2. Don’t Worry, Be Happy is not on here despite the many requests. I despise that song … but that’s not why I left it off. There are other songs here I don’t like. I left it off because, deep down, I don’t think it’s a happy song. Landlord says your rent is late — he’s suing you. Guy’s got no cash, no gal … what the hell is he supposed to be so happy about? He’s not happy. He’s kidding himself. Song isn’t on here.

3. Some of these songs are not “happy.” But hearing them makes me happy.

4. I would love to go through each of these songs and tell you why they make me happy … but who am I kidding? I’ll never get to it. But if you would like to vote in the comments — pick a few of these songs that you love — I’ll put together a poll on the side, we can vote and try to come up with the happiest album ever. And I’ll comment on those songs. Remember, only the 269 songs here are eligible. I suspect you will despite many of these songs, maybe even most. But I would hope everyone would be able to find at least a few that make you smile.

Enjoy.

* * *

7 Stars, The Apples In Stereo

100 Years, Five For Fighting

1979, Smashing Pumpkins

1234, Feist

A

ABC, Jackson 5

AEIOU Sometimes Y, Ebn-Ozn

Accidentally In Love, Counting Crows

Ain’t Even Done With the Night, John Cougar

All Will Be Well, The Gabe Dixon Band

Angela (Theme from Taxi), Avenue 4 a.m.

Africa, Toto

All of Your Love, Hellogoodbye

Always Something There to Remind Me, Naked Eyes

American Saturday Night, Brad Paisley

Anthem, Filo & Peri

Artificial Flowers, Bobby Darin

At the Edge, Jonathan Elias

B

Babylon, David Gray

Bad Day, Daniel Powter

The Ballroom Blitz, Sweet

Basketball, Kurtis Blow

Beautiful Day, U2

Beautiful World, Colin Hay

Beer, Reel Big Fish

Benton Harbor Blues – Again, The Fiery Furnaces

The Best of What’s Around, Dave Matthews Band

Birdhouse in Your Soul, They Might Be Giants

Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream), The Icicle Works

Blinded by the Light, Manfred Mann’s Earth Band Version (Bruce Springsteen)

Blister in the Sun, Violent Femmes

Blue (Da Ba Bee), Eiffel 65

Blue Sky Mining, Midnight Oil

Blueberry Hill, Fats Domino

Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen

Bossa Per Due, Nicola Conte

Brian Wilson, Barenaked Ladies

Burnin’ For You, Blue Oyster Cult

Buddy Holly, Weezer

Bust A Move, Young MC

C

Canned Heat, Jamiroquai

Cantaloupe, Us3

Cars, Gary Numan

Catch My Disease, Ben Lee

Cheek to Cheek, Mel Torme

Chevy Van, Sammy Johns

Chicago, Surfjan Stevens

Christmas in Hollis, Run-DMC

Classic Battle, Sam Spence for NFL Films

Cleveland, Luke Doucet and the White Falcon

The Coffee Song, Frank Sinatra

Come Dancing, The Kinks

Come on Eileen, Dexy’s Midnight Runners

Crazy, Gnarls Barkley

Crazy, Patsy Cline

Crying at the Discoteque, Alcazar

D

Daylight, Matt & Kim

The Devil Went Down To Georgia, The Charlie Daniels Band

Digging Your Scene, The Blow Monkeys

Do You Believe in Love, Huey Lewis & The News

Do You Remember, Jay Sean

Don’t Bring Me Down, ELO

Don’t Stop ‘til We Get Enough, Michael Jackson

Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right, Bob Dylan

Dream Like New York, Tyrone Wells

Drops of Jupiter, Train

Dry The Rain, The Beta Band

Duke Of Earl, Gene Chandler

E

East Asheville Hardware, David Wilcox

Elvira, The Oak Ridge Boys

Empire State of Mind, Jay-Z

Excuse Me, Amy Arena

Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, The Police

Everyday, Buddy Holly

Everything’s Beautiful (In It’s Own Way), Willie Nelson

F

Fairy Tale of New York, The Pogues

Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop, Landon Pigg

Far Away, Ingrid Michaelson

Fell In Love With A Girl, White Stripes

Feeling Good Again, Robert Earl Keen

Fight the Power, Public Enemy

Forca, Nelly Furtado

Freedom 90, George Michael

Freetime, Kenna

Friends in Low Places, Garth Brooks

Forever, Chris Brown

Friday I’m In Love, The Cure

Funky Cold Medina, Tone-Loc

G

Gathering Crowds, John Scott (This Week In Baseball song)

Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It, Will Smith

Gimme Three Steps, Lynyrd Skynyrd

Go Your Own Way, Fleetwood Mac

Going To California, Led Zeppelin

Gravity Rides Everything, Modest Mouse

Groove is in the Heart, Deee-Lite

The Guy Thats Say Goodbye to You is Out of His Mind, Griffin House

H

Happy Hour, The Housemartins

Have a Little Faith in Me, John Hiatt

Have a Nice Day, Stereophonics

Hawaii Five-O, Countdown

Headlock, Imogen Heap

Heart of Glass, Blondie

The Heart of The Matter, India.Arie version

Heaven, John Legend

Here Comes The Sun, The Beatles

Here Comes Your Man, Pixies

Hey Ya, Outkast

Hoedown Throwdown, Hannah Montana

Hollywood Nights, Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band

Hyperactive, Thomas Dolby

I

I Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down, Elvis Costello

I Don’t Know a Thing, Lucy Schwarz

I Got You (I Feel Good), James Brown

I Gotta Feeling, Black Eyed Peas

I Know I’m Not Alone, Michael Franti & Spearhead

I Only Have Eyes, The Flamingos

I Second That Emotion, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles

I Will Follow You into the Dark, Death Cab for Cutie

I Will Survive, Cake Version

I Won’t Say I’m in Love, Susan Egan (from Hercules)

Ice Cream, Sarah McLachlan

If I Can’t Change Your Mind, Sugar

If I Only Had a Brain, Harry Connick Jr.

In a Big Country, Big Country

In Da Club, 50 Cent

In Your Eyes, Peter Gabriel

I’m A Believer, The Monkees

I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles), The Proclaimers

Insomnia, Craig David

It’s A Great Day to be Alive, Travis Tritt

It’s A Miracle, Barry Manilow

It’s Not Unusual, Tom Jones

I’ve Been Everywhere, Johnny Cash

J

Jackie Wilson Said, Van Morrison

Jai Ho, A.R. Rahman

James Brown Is Dead, L.A. Style

Jerk It Out, Caesars

Jesse’s Girl, Matt the Electrician Version

July July!, The Decemberists

Jump, Van Halen

Just Breathe, Pearl Jam

Just Can’t Get Enough, Depeche Mode

Just One of Those Things, Nat King Cole

Just the Two of Us, Grover Washington Jr.

K

Keep it Loose, Keep it Tight, Amos Lee

(Keep Feeling) Fascination, The Human League

Kids In America, Kim Wilde

King of the Road, Roger Miller

Kiss the Girl, Samuel E Wright

L

Lay Down Sally, Eric Clapton

Let Go, Frou Frou

Let’s Get It On, Marvin Gaye

Let’s Fall in Love, Diana Krall

Life in a Northern Town, Dream Academy

Life in Technicolor, Coldplay

Linus & Lucy, Vince Guaraldi Trio

The Lion Sleeps Tonight, The Tokens

Little Red Corvette, Prince

London Calling, The Clash

Love of Mine, Richard Julian

Love Plus One, Nick Heyward and Haircut 100

Love Will Keep Us Together, Captain and Tennille

M

(Marie’s the Name) His Latest Flame, Elvis Presley

Mayor of Simpleton, XTC

Me and Julio Down By The School Yard, Paul Simon

Me and Bobby McGee, Janis Joplin

Melt My Heart To Stone, Adele

Melt With You, Modern English

The Metro, Berlin

Minnie the Moocher, Cab Calloway

Missing You, John Waite

MMMBop, Hanson

More Than A Feeling, Boston

More Than This, Roxy Music

My Girl, The Temptations

N

The Natural, Randy Newman

Near Wild Heaven, R.E.M.

New York, New York, Ryan Adams

Night Fever, Bee Gees

Night Parade, Robbie Robertson

A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, Tony Bennett

No Such Thing, John Mayer

No Woman No Cry, Bob Marley

Nothing Compares 2 U, Sinead O’Connor

O

One Fine Day, The Chiffons

One Thing Was Missing (That’s You), Janet Jackson

Ooh Child, The Five Stairsteps

One Man Guy, Rufus Wainwright

The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide is Press Coverage, Panic! At The Disco

Our House, Madness

P

Paradise City, Guns N’ Roses

Perfect Way, Scritti Politti

Play That Funky Music, Wild Cherry

Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want, The Smiths

Pretty In Pink, The Psychedelic Furs

The Promise, When In Rome

Pulling Mussels (From the Shell), Squeeze

Q

Quiet Town, Josh Rouse

R

Ray of Light, Madonna

Regulate, Warren G

The Remedy (I Won’t Worry), Jason Mraz

Rich Girls, The Virgins

Right Here, Right Now, Jesus Jones

Rhapsody in Blue, George Gershwin

Rock and Roll All Nite, Kiss

Rock Lobster, The B-52s

Rosalita (Come Out Tonight), Bruce Springsteen

S

The Safety Dance, Men Without Hats

Save the Last Dance for Me, Ben E. King

Save it for Later, The English Beat

Secret Agent Man, Johnny Rivers

Send Me On My Way, Rusted Root

(Shake Shake Shake) Shake Your Booty, KC & The Sunshine Band

Skinny Legs, Lyle Lovett

Sir Duke, Stevie Wonder

Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana

Smells Like Teen Spirit, Tori Amos Version

Snow (Hey Oh), Red Hot Chili Peppers

Somebody’s Baby, Jackson Browne

Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Israel Kamakawiwo’ole

Spaceman, The Killers

The Spirit of the Radio, Rush

Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand, Primitive Radio Gods

Starry Eyed Surprise, Paul Oakenfold

Such Great Heights, The Postal Service

Sultans of Swing, Dire Straits

Summertime, The Sundays

Super Freak, Rick James

Surrender, Cheap Trick

Sweet Kentucky Ham, Rosemary Clooney

Swing Life Away, Rise Against

T

Take Five, Dave Brubeck Quartet

Take it to the Limit, Eagles

Take Me Out to the Ballgame, Steve Goodman

Tear the Roof Off the Sucker (Give Up the Funk), Parliament

Tenderness, General Public

This is the Last Time, Keane

These Are Days, 10,000 Maniacs

Time After Time, Cyndi Lauper

Tighten Up, Archie Bell & The Drells

This Must Be The Place, Shawn Colvin version (Talking Heads)

Tiny Dancer, Elton John

Today, Zero 7

To Nem Ai, Luka

Too Darn Hot, Ella Fitzgerald

Try a Little Tenderness, Otis Redding

Turn the Beat Around, Vicki Sue Robinson

Turning Japanese, The Vapors

The Twist, Chubby Checker

U

U Can’t Touch This, MC Hammer

Unbelievable (I Am Jen/JCPenney Remix), Sleepy Rebels

Uncle Walter, Ben Folds Five

Under The Boardwalk, The Drifters

Under The Milky Way, The Church

V

Valentine, Nils Lofgren

Video Killed the Radio Star, The Buggles

W

Walk on the Wild Side, Lou Reed

Walk Like an Egyptian, Bangles

Wake Up, Arcade Fire

Walking on Sunshine, Katrina and the Waves

Walking in Memphis, Marc Cohn

What A Wonderful Word, Louis Armstrong

The Way Young Lovers Do, Jeff Buckley

We Close Our Eyes, Go West

We Got the Beat, The Go-Go’s

We Will Become Silhouettes, The Shins

West End Girls, Pet Shop Boys

When All is Said and Done, ABBA

Where Its At, Beck

What’d I Say, Ray Charles

While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Jake Shimabukuro

Whip It, Devo

Who Can It Be Now?, Men At Work

World, New Order

Wouldn’t It Be Nice, The Beach Boys

Wrong Impression, Natalie Imbruglia

Y

You Are My Sunshine, Sara Gazarek

You Belong With Me, Taylor Swift

You Can’t Always Get What You Want, The Rolling Stones

You Might Think, The Cars

You Send Me, Sam Cooke

You Shook Me All Night Long, AC/DC

(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher, Jackie Wilson

You’re So Damn Hot, OK Go

You’ve Got a Friend In Me (Wheezy’s Version), Robert Goulet

I’m going to admit to you, right up front, that this doesn’t have a lot to do with Johnny Damon. But I am falling behind on my ill-advised Player of the Day plan, and so this will have to count. It was while watching Johnny Damon hit a home run in Lakeland that I came up with this idea to really break down the 2009 season. What follows is really and truly a technological miracle … and by that I mean that it is miraculous that someone as inept as I am was able to figure out a way to do this.*

*A couple of weeks ago, I installed a new toilet in our basement bathroom. I did this because … at some point I decided that I HAD to do it. I could not let that toilet beat me. Now, I have a toilet installed in the basement, and it works, and I’m overly proud of this achievement, and I have absolutely no doubt that at some point it will cause a basement flood that will cost me thousands of dollars. No doubt. If I had any sense at all, I would call someone and have them come over and fix that thing immediately. But I will not call anyone because that is admitting defeat, and I cannot admit defeat, not yet, not until I see the leak. I must admit I had no idea I had this ridiculous stubbornness gene in me. You learn a lot about yourself in fatherhood.

I cannot begin to describe to you the ridiculous pains I went through to get these rather pointless statistics. I worked and worked and worked the Excel Worksheet — this spreadsheet now looks like something you would see in a really bad inventors workshop. You can see exposed wires and duct tape everywhere. Why does this column feed to that thing? What were you trying to do with that number? I feel quite certain that people with a facility for numbers and spreadsheets could have done the following work in about 3.2 minutes. I feel quite certain that somebody else had already FIGURED these numbers and if only I had tried I could have found the numbers on the Internet. But I decided that I had to do it myself, and it took me two days of trial and error and more error and another trial and another error and a stupid mistake and I have to start all over and … ugh. Hell, doubleheaders set me back three hours.

But I did it, and I’m pretty sure the following numbers are accurate or, anyway, close enough that I’m really not interested in hearing complaints.

Periodically, I’ll try to throw in some Johnny Damon and Detroit comments to keep the thing honest.

* * *

OK, so, the other day I reprinted Bill’s stat about how in the 2009 season: the team that got the most hits won 80.3% of the time. And it was while watching Johnny Damon hit in a spring training game against the Yankees, that I wondered if there was a way to break down other statistics. For instance, how often in 2009 did a team win when they hit the most home runs? How often did they win when they hit into the fewest double plays? How often did they win when they got the most men on base?

It was at that point that Damon hit a long home run — carried long by a howling Lakeland wind — and I thought: Hey, that’s a sign. Well, no, actually I didn’t think that. First, I thought how Damon, no matter how many years go by since his years in Kansas City, no matter how many teams he plays for or how much fame he gains, always goes out of his way to talk with me. During the World Series, he made a specific reference to me* during his press conference. There is no greater meaning to that — it’s not like Damon’s general friendliness to me has anything to do with how good a player or teammate he is — but I think about it. I like people who do not forget where they came from. I like people who connect to their past. I think most of us like people like that.

*I don’t know if you happened to watch the Big 12 Championship Game Saturday night … I was watching it in Fort Myers, and to be honest with you I was kind of nodding off. Not sleeping, you know, just kind of dozing. When all of a sudden I heard Brent Musburger say: “Joe Posnanski, one of the great sportswriters in America …”

I snapped awake. Wait. What? Wait, BRENT MUSBURGER said what? Huh? Wait, Brent Musburger is talking about me? It was this odd moment … hell, I’ve been watching Brent Musburger on TV since, well, frankly as far back as I can remember. I have mentioned here before — Musburger has been such a big part of my life as a sports fan that frankly he has crossed beyond that point of “Is he or isn’t he good?” He’s bigger than such questions. He’s the voice. To hear him just blurt out my name Brent Musburger! — well, it was a bit like this Mel Brooks bit about Cary Grant:

Second, I started to battle an Excel spreadsheet in order to get some answers. Finally, I was able to make it work … and Bill’s numbers about hits are (of course) exactly right.

More Hits than opponent: 1766 wins, 433 losses, .803 winning percentage. (Also: 231 ties).

So what about Times on Base? Well, it turns out, if you get more people on base you actually win quite a bit more often even than when you get more hits.

More Times on Base: 1880 wins, 393 losses, .827 winning percentage (Also: 157 ties).

That’s pretty good — get on base more often, you win about 83% of the time. Now, by my calculations, Washington lost 24 times in 2009 when the Nationals had more men on base. I cannot tell if this is hopeful sign or a discouraging sign. There are a lot of things I can’t tell about the Nationals. I can also tell you that the Nationals lost a game to Atlanta when they got 23 men on base, a very difficult thing to do. What’s even more amazing … they lost the game 6-5. To score five runs with 23 men on base is a pretty tough trick — teams will, on average, score a run for ever three or four runners they get on.

But the Minnesota Twins lost a game with 25 men on base (although at least they lost 14-13). The Marlins twice lost game — once to Arizona and once to Chicago — with 24 men on base.

I believe I mentioned this before: The White Sox got 16 men on base in a 1-0 loss to Seattle. But that’s not even close to a record. In 2001, the San Francisco Giants got 20 men on base in 18 innings against seven Arizona pitchers, and did not score.

More Home Runs: 1250 wins, 414 losses, .751 winning percentage (Also: 766 ties).

Seven teams — including Houston twice — lost when hitting five home runs in a game. Since 1954, the most home runs hit in a loss is seven — and it was done twice by the Detroit Tigers. In 2004, the Tigers hit six home runs off of Boston’s Tim Wakefield and another off Mike Timlin, but Wakefield got the win and Timlin got a hold. In 1995, the Tigers hit seven home runs off Chicago four pitchers — including Rob Dibble — but lost 14-12.

Fewest Left on Base: 951 wins, 1322 losses, .418 winning percentage (Also: 157 ties).

I guess this shouldn’t be too surprising … after all, leaving men on base means that you are GETTING people on base. But when I ran these numbers, I was surprised. I was really surprised. Maybe it’s because we have it jammed down our throats that you can’t win when you are leaving players on base. You have to take advantage of your opportunities!

But what this stat tells me is that scoring runs more about creating opportunities than cashing in on them — I think this takes us back to the whole RBI discussion. The RBI is a tempting stat to love because it feels tangible and heroic — to score runs, you usually need to someone to drive ‘em in. But what the numbers consistently seem to show is that if you create enough opportunities, SOMEONE is going to drive in those runs.

And if you don’t create as many or more opportunities as your opponent — no player and no team is consistently clutch enough to make up for that gap. Not over a long season. My evolving theory about baseball is like my evolving theory about life. Sure, there are heroics in baseball and in life. But you can’t count on ‘em. You’re better off banging on a lot of doors.

Five teams in 2009 left 17 men on base — that was the most in a game. Four of those teams won.

Fewer Grounded Into Double Plays: 884 wins, 673 losses, .568 winning percentage (Also: 873 ties).

Probably doesn’t mean much except to reiterate, perhaps, that outs are precious.

More Total Bases: 1926 wins, 347 losses, .847 winning percentage (Also: 157 ties).

In 2009, total bases was a better indicator of victory than times on base. Every team with 32 or more total bases won except those unlucky Minnesota Twins in their 14-13 loss to Oakland.

I ran a few more semi-advanced stats to see which one best predicted victory. I was surprised with the answer:

Teams that had more Runs Created: 2064 wins, 366 losses, .849 winning percentage.

Teams that had more Base Runs: 2071 wins, 359 losses, .852 winning percentage.

Teams with more Super Total Bases (total bases + walks + hit by pitch + stolen bases): 1994 wins, 332 losses, .857 winning percentage (Also: 104 ties).

And teams with the higher OPS: 2094 wins, 335 losses, ..862 winning percentage.

Yep, that surprised me. OPS won? I think it’s pretty well accepted among people who understand such things that OPS is a badly flawed statistic because it gives too much credit to slugging percentage and because you are not supposed to add fractions with different denominators and other stuff that, to be honest, goes a bit over my head. But unless I figured it wrong*, OPS was the strongest indicator of wins and losses I could find without inventing my own version of OPS**.

*A good possibility.

OK, more stats coming, but I just had another thought about Johnny Damon. You know, he only once finished in the Top 5 in batting average — and that was in Kansas City, 10 years ago, when no one except me and a few Royals fans were paying attention. That was long before his Idiot days and his hair days. Damon has only led the league in runs scored once (that same year) and in stolen bases once (that same year). His .355 lifetime on-base percentage is good but hardly legendary. He has never hit 25 home runs in a season. He has only made two All-Star teams. His arm tends to be the punch-line to many baseball jokes.

And still, there’s a pretty decent chance, if Johnny Damon stays healthy for another four or five years, that he will get 3,000 hits in his career. He will 100 triples. He will hit 500 doubles. He will steal 400 bases. He will hit 250 homers.

Do you know how many players have made that stat bouillabaisse? Take a minute. Think about it: 3,000 hits, 500 doubles, 100 triples, 250 homers, 400 stolen bases. Paul Molitor? Willie Mays? Rickey Henderson? Craig Biggio?

Here you go: Nobody. As in: Nobody.

I know, you can create a stat line that will separate any layer: Who is the only player in baseball history to get more than 800 hits while hitting only one home run? You betcha: Duane Kuiper! But my point is that Johnny Damon, who has not put up many jaw-dropping seasons in his career, can collect a series of numbers unlike any in baseball history. And on top of that, he looks to be on pace to finish somewhere in the Top 20 all-time in runs scored. And he will pass 1,000 RBIs this season.

And you know why? Because he has been unsinkable. Because he has played 140-plus games every year since 1996, because his average is usually somewhere close to .300, because he battles pitchers for long at-bats, because he runs the bases hard and intelligently year after year, because even with that weak arm he tends to play a solid corner outfield, because he often will take the media questions which allows his teammates to avoid all that stuff. He’s always there. And teams are happy to have him there.

Of course, it also could end quickly for Damon. He’s 36. He has taken a beating. You never know what will happen with players in their late 30s. But Bill James recently did a fascinating study on players who got the absolute most out of their careers and out of their talent. He did not do active players … But I suspect that no matter how the rest of his career turns out, nobody of his generation has gotten more out of his talent and his body than Johnny Damon.

OK, a few more team victory stats. Here are three core stats that we use here all the time BA/OBP/SLG

Higher Batting Average: 1963 wins, 434 losses, .819 winning percentage. (Also: 33 ties)

Higher On-Base Percentage: 2003 wins, 395 losses, .835 winning percentage. (Also: 32 ties)

Higher Slugging Percentage: 2,016 wins, 393 losses, .837 winning percentage (Also: 21 ties).

What does any of this mean? Probably not much that we don’t already know. To win, you need to get on base. To win, you need to move runners around bases. To win, you need to prevent the other team from doing the same. No deep insights there.

But the beautiful thing about baseball is even if you do the right things — even if you have MORE hits than your opponent and get on base MORE times than your opponent and hit MORE home runs than your opponent … you still might lose. In fact, in 2009 teams that outhit their opponent AND got on base more often AND hit more home runs still lost 33 times. Colorado did it and lost four times, the Yankees and Rays did it and lost three. There are still mysteries in this game.

In fact, teams that had more RBIs lost 15 times in 2009. The San Diego Padres lost three times with more RBIs. And another 90 times, the winning and losing team had the same number of RBIs.

But, it should be noted that the team that had the most runs scored finished 2,430-0.

“Little Red Corvette,” Prince.

“Eye of the Tiger,” Paul Anka.

OK, so you ask: So what? Well … there’s no real point except that when I heard those songs I was really, really happy. I can’t explain it. Well, actually, I probably can. LIttle Red Corvette was the song that made me fall in love with Prince’s music, and it still makes me ecstatically happy every time I hear it. And Paul Anka’s version of Eye of the Tiger makes me laugh at first but then I find that I really l enjoy listening to it (I feel the same way about Matt the Electrician’s version of “Jessie’s Girl.”)

Anyway, it made me think: I need to make an iPod list of the 15 happiest songs ever recorded. I don’t mean the songs have to be happy — I mean they have to make the listener happy. For instance, I think Midnight Oil’s “Blue Sky Mine” is not a happy song — it was inspired by people people in the asbestos mines. But it SOUNDS happy, and it makes me happy, which might make it a failure on some level but not the level I’m hearing.

So have at it: We’re taking nominations here in the comments. Happiest songs ever.

The idea remains the same: I pick the 63 NCAA Tournament games in 64 seconds. The reason? Well, for one thing, I believe in Malcolm Gladwell’s concept of Blink — it’s better in situations like to go with your instinct. Two, more importantly, doing the whole thing in 64 seconds frees me up to watch this Jabba The Hutt video a few dozen more times …

… and it frees me up to finish the most intense breakdown you will ever see of the 2009 season. No, seriously, I’ve been working on this thing for two days. It’s intense.

So, anyway, let’s get to it … a tournament bracket destroyed in 64 seconds. And, go:

First round (Elapsed time 29 seconds)

As always, I move the top two seeds through … they almost never lose. Well, the No. 1 seeds have never lost*, and the No. 2 seeds have lost only four times. None of the No. 2s feel vulnerable to me, though Villanova has been getting beat up lately. Every other year or so, a three gets beat … and I took an extra second to think about that Oakland (Mich) game against Pittsburgh. Oakland has won a 20 of its last 21, not that I knew that when I considered picking them (nor did I know their nickname was the Golden Grizzlies). In the end I stuck with Pittsburgh.

*The No. 1 seeds have won all 100 games played against No. 16 seeds. Right: The top seeds are 100 for 100. And they usually win by 30 or 40 points. You know, that seems pretty compelling evidence that we don’t need to ADD teams to the tournament.

A four-seed usually loses, and I’m going with the obvious upset choice, picking Purdue to lose to Siena. You have to feel terrible for Purdue having lost Robbie Hummel. The 5-12 game is almost always hottest upset match-up of the tournament — last year THREE 12 seeds knocked of No. 5s — and I pick No. 12 UTEP to knock off Butler, which might find itself confused because usually Butler is the 12 seed playing underdog. And even though Temple has been playing great, I’m picking No. 12 Cornell to win because I really like Cornell coach Steve Donahue saw the Big Red scare the heck out of Kansas in Lawrence and because Andy Bernard went to school there.

More upsets: No. 6 Old Dominion beats Notre Dame; No. 6 Minnesota led by Tubby Smith takes out Xavier; No. 10 Missouri outruns No. 7 Clemson; No. 10 St. Mary’s beats giant killer turned favorite Richmond. And in the 9-8 games, I got a split, with the “favorites” No. 8 Texas holding on against Wake Forest and No. 8 Gonzaga beating Florida State.

Second round (Elapsed time, 49 seconds — yikes!).
My bracket is disintegrating. I’m picking too many upsets. This is a mode I get into when I start running out of time and panicking. I should pick the No. 1s through to the Sweet 16 … but I can’t help myself. I pick Louisville to knock off Duke. It’s too perfect — Rick Pitino with an underachieving team exorcising the ghost of Laettner with a mighty upset. As soon as I write it down, I regret it … I know Louisville will not really upset Duke. In fact, I suspect Duke is a real Final Four contender with those three big scorers. But once I write it down, it’s too late. With 64 seconds, once you write it down, you’ve got to go. Duke is out.

All the twos go through, though I see Oklahoma State scaring Ohio State, with the winner getting to claim for a year that it is the true OSU (poor Oregon State, but being out of the tournament, is automatically disqualified). I have a couple of No. 3 teams getting upset … like I say, I’m picking too many upsets. I have Tennessee beating Georgetown. I know Georgetown is the darling of a lot of prognosticators but when that Tennessee team is good, they can (and have) beat anybody. I also have Marquette beating New Mexico because, well, I don’t know. I think I got confused there.

And rounding out the Sweet 16, I have No. 5 Michigan State beating No. 4 Maryland; I have UTEP upsetting No. 4 Vanderbilt, I have No. 11 Minnesota beat Oakland in the Cinderella ball game, and I have No. 5 Texas A&M knocking out Sienna.

Too many upsets. And I’m taking too much time.

Sweet 16 (elapsed time: 54 seconds — back on track)

I don’t have time to mess with things, so I try to fix my bracket by having order restored and the favorites winning. The only upset I pick is No. 9 Louisville over No. 5 Texas A&M — I don’t even LIKE this Louisville team. You ever have that happen to you in a bracket? You keep picking a team you don’t particularly like because, well, the momentum has already started.

Interesting games in my bracket include Kansas against Michigan State … a semi-rematch of last year’s tournament game, though not really. College teams fluctuate way too much for their to be a true rematch. Either way, it’s hard to take out a team coached by Tom Izzo. I picked Michigan State to go to the finals last year basically because I thought last year’s tournament was wide open and in those tournaments I would bet on the best coaches. I don’t think this year’s tournament is that wide open. I think there are six or seven really good teams and the rest are a step below. I know people some people think Kansas got a raw deal with Ohio State, Georgetown, Maryland and Michigan State in their bracket, not to mention Oklahoma State and Tennessee, the two teams that beat the Jayhawks this year. But let’s face it: Kansas is better than any of those teams. If they Jayhawks play good basketball, they’ll go to the Final Four.

Villanova has been pretty mediocre lately, but I expect Villanova to be pretty tough to beat in the tournament. They have a great backcourt with Scottie Reynolds and Corey Fisher, throw Corey Stokes in there too, and coach Jay Wright seems like the kind of coach who can take his team on a run.

Final Eight (elapsed time: 58 seconds)

I take one second for each pick. That’s probably not enough because I think each of these games has a chance to be epic. I think Ohio State’s Evan Turner is the best player in the country, even a touch better than Kentucky’s John Wall, but I think Kansas is just too deep and too good on both ends of the floor. So Kansas goes to the Final Four.

I think the Syracuse-Kansas State game has chance to be the game of the tournament — two intense and tough teams. I think people still don’t appreciate just how good Kansas State is … when Kansas State coach Frank Martin was hired, I thought (and wrote) that it was a mistake, that the school was only hiring Martin to keep a couple of big time recruits. Not long after, I wrote that while I still think that’s the reason the school hired Martin, I was rooting for the guy because he’s a good guy, he worked his way up through the coaching ranks, he never had anything handed to him. He has a great story. I wrote that I hoped he would be successful.

Well, he is successful. And he is a terrific story. Martin’s great ability is to get his players to play preposterously hard — not surprisingly this is also the great ability of the guy he coached under, Bob Huggins. Some coaches can draw art on a chalkboard, and some coaches can teach players a system, and some coaches can just recruit great talent and let them go. What Martin does is something different: He convinces his players that they can be better than what other people think and better than what they believe themselves. It has been a great year for Kansas State.

Of course, after all that, I think the Syracuse zone will be too much and Kansas State will lose.

On the other hand, I’m picking a related upset: I’m taking Bob Huggins’ West Virginia over Kentucky. I have a long and somewhat tortured history with Huggs going back to the days when I wrote newspaper columns in Cincinnati, columns (it’s fair to say) he did not always agree with. And we all know about Huggins’ various troubles. Still, I’m not sure people appreciate this: He’s one heck of a basketball coach. His teams play ferociously. And this West Virginia team is probably the best example of a true Bob Huggins team I have seen since his early days in Cincinnati. They have trouble shooting, and they don’t have a lot of size. But man oh man will they clamp on some defense, and they will get every loose ball, and they will get so many offensive rebounds that teams lose themselves in frustration. Kentucky is terrific but young; I’ve got West Virginia going to the Final Four.

And finally, I have Villanova ending that Louisville run that went on way too long in my bracket. I should have had Duke play through.

Final Four (elapsed time: 61 seconds).

I take two seconds on Kansas beating Syracuse. No offense to Kentucky, but I think that’s a match-up of the best two teams in America. The thing I’ve seen with Kansas, though, is their ability to adapt to different styles and beat teams different ways. I think the Jayhawks win this game.

And in the other bracket … Villanova vs. West Virginia. Whew. How did I lose control over my own bracket? I’m picking Villanova.

Final Game (elapsed time: 64 seconds).

OK, so, you probably knew a while ago that I am picking Kansas to win the national championship. The thing everyone understands is that the tournament can go so many different ways. To win six games in three weeks under intense pressure … so many things can happen. A team can hit 15 3-points against you and just shoot you right out of the tournament. And your team can go ice cold and not be able to hit any open shots. A certain style can baffle and frustrate your teams. As Kansas coach Bill Self says, “It doesn’t take but a second to find yourself on your heels. It happens fast and then it’s really hard to turn things around.”

So, I’m picking Kansas because I think the Jayhawks are the team best built — because of senior leadership, depth, shooting ability, defensive intensity — to handle the various challenges. But I also know I might come up with a different answer if I had another 64 seconds.

Which of those two options would give you a better chance of winning?

* * *

There are many things I love about reading the words of my friend Bill James. But I think the thing I love most is that whenever I read anything by him — an essay, a blurb, an email, whatever — I find that it sparks me to write something. I’ve never really talked with Bill about this, but to me that is a unique quality of his writing: A reader feeds off it. To read Bill is to have a conversation with him. He writes interactively.

I thought about this again the other day when I was reading an essay in The Bill James Gold Mine 2010, and I came across the most perfect sentence I’ve read about the problem with RBIs.

As you probably know, the problem with RBIs and the similar problem with pitcher wins have been two of the hotter topics on this blog for a long time. Bill actually begins the essay — which is called “The Attribution Problem (in Baseball and in Life) — by talking about pitcher wins. He writes:

We attribute the victory won by the team to the individual pitcher — and then conclude, based essentially on that attribution, that the pitcher is the key to victory.

That sums it up pretty well, doesn’t it? The win is all about sleight of hand. Pitchers don’t win games, and pitchers don’t lose games — that should be obvious to everyone. But people decided a long time ago just the opposite: That pitchers do win and lose games. We actually credit them with wins and losses. And based on that decision we have made many suspect judgments through the years based on little evidence — such as the dubious idea that pitchers can “pitch to the score,” or the concept that some pitchers are “Just winners,” or the various calculations that estimate pitching is 60% of baseball or 75% of baseball or 90% of baseball.

Similar thing with RBIs — though I think the attribution problem is even more stark with RBIs. At least with wins and losses, hey, a pitcher does have quite a lot of control over the run prevention half of baseball. He doesn’t do it alone, not even close to alone. He will rely on his defense, and he will rely on his ballpark, and he will rely on his catcher, and he will rely on whoever is calling pitches, and he will rely on luck and countless other things, but few would argue with the premise that when it comes to stopping the other team’s offense, you begin with the pitcher.

The RBI guy, though, is not necessarily the most important guy when it comes to scoring runs. It SEEMS that he is because that’s what we are conditioned to believe. We are taught, throughout our baseball fan lives, to lionize the big-time RBI players. We have been conditioned — by MVP votes, by fantasy baseball, by all the stories in newspapers about “productive” hitters, by announcer voices that celebrate the clutch hits — to believe that runs, for the most part, come about because of the hitter who drives them in.

But it really isn’t so. Take this situation: One out, Rick Manning cracks a line drive single. Duane Kuiper hits a high chopper in front of the plate, he’s out, but Manning takes second. Jim Norris, with first base open and two outs, works for a walk. Manning and Norris move up on a wild pitch. Pitcher works around Andre Thornton, and he walks. Then, with a 3-1 count and the bases loaded, the pitcher has to throw a fastball that catches too much of the plate, and Rico Carty rolls a single between short and third, scoring two runs.

That’s a fairly typical sequence, I would guess. In our mind and in our statbook, Carty is the hero — two RBIs. He is, in fan and media shorthand, RESPONSIBLE for those runs. But he isn’t. Carty’s single didn’t make those two runs happen. Those two runs scored because of a series of events, and Carty’s single was just the last of those events.

And this is the point: Teams don’t score runs because they have uniquely talented RBI men. Teams score runs because more often than their opponents, they put together a string of useful offensive plays — walks, hits, stolen bases, hit-by-pitch, beating out double play grounders, taking extra bases, advancing on throws , on and on and on. That, most of the time, is what lead to runs.* The RBI guy cannot do it himself except with solo home runs. And teams don’t win games by hitting solo home runs. No, really, they don’t. I looked it up. In 2009, offenses that scored all their runs on solo home runs were 24-193. Houston lost a game to Cincinnati 6-5 while hitting five solo home runs. For the decade, teams relying entirely on solo home runs went 267-1837.**

*You can reduce the confusion and make it pretty simple, really. Here’s a Bill James stat to think about, and it focuses only on hits: How often does a team win when they get more hits than their opponents? Well, in 2009 the answer: 80.3% of the time. Teams won four out of five games when they got more hits than their opponents. How remarkable is this? Well, I’m glad you asked — we go back to the trivia question at the top. You’re a manager of a baseball team, and before the game the genie gives you the choice: You can either outhit your opponent tonight or you can hit three or more homers tonight … which one would be more likely to bring you the victory.

Teams that outhit their opponents won 80.3% of the time.
Teams that hit three-or-more homers won 78.4% of the time.

**And for the record: Only one team in baseball since 1954 scored exclusively on six solo home runs in a game — the 1991 Oakland A’s. They lost 8-6 to Minnesota.

So, my point is, that people have through the years counted RBIs and celebrated RBIs and given too much credit to to the men who knock them in. And, as a result, many people have come to determine that RBI men are the most valuable part of an offense. That’s the circular thinking we have here.

Well, I have been bouncing around this topic for a long time, never quite getting to the heart of things. And it wasn’t until I read the following sentence from Bill that it all snapped into place for me:

If you add a low-average power hitter to a bad team, the low average power hitter will lead the team in RBI — and the team will score fewer runs, not more.

Bingo. There it is. All this time, I’ve been wondering, for instance, why Jose Guillen’s 97 RBIs for Kansas City in 2008 bothered me so much. I mean, sure, I knew Guillen was mostly crummy that year (a 95 OPS+ despite two extremely hot months). And I knew that those 97 RBIs just felt pointless. But, hey, I’m not immune to the seductive powers of RBIs. I will see 97 RBIs, especially for a Royals player, and think “Well, hey, that’s a lot.” The Royals had not had anyone with more than 86 RBIs since Carlos Beltran and Raul Ibanez left town. So, hey, at least Guillen did that, right?

But it bugged me. And as soon as I read that Bill statement, I instinctively knew why. I went to Baseball Reference, and confirmed what I was thinking.

The Royals without Guillen scored 706 runs in 2007.
The Royals with Guillen’s RBIs scored 691 runs in 2008.

That was it all right. Guillen’s RBIs were an illusion. He did not make the team’s offense any better at all. He may have contributed RBIs — giving the Royals someone to credit for their lousy offense — but he did not contribute any actual improvement to the offense. Frankly, he made the Royals offense worse. Several players — Alex Gordon, David DeJesus, Mike Aviles — had markedly better years than in 2007. But the Royals had Jose Guillen and his dreadful .300 on-base percentage hitting in the middle of the lineup. He drove in runs. But he did not help.

This is not an uncommon theme in baseball history. Bad teams (and, to be fair, mediocre and good teams too) often will fall for the allure of the RBI guy. A middle of the order bat. A producer. And, hey, it can help you if you get an RBI guy who is also, you know, a GOOD HITTER, you know, someone who hits for an average and gets on base and slugs and all that. But the teams aren’t necessarily looking for good. No. They are looking for “productive.” They are looking for RBI men.

After winning 89 games during the 1989 season, San Diego felt like it needed a middle-of-the-order bat, so the Padres traded for RBI guru Joe Carter. And Carter did exactly what they hoped he would do — he drove in 115 RBIs. Unfortunately, he also punched up an 85 OPS+ … and the Padres dropped from fifth to eighth in runs scored and and finished 75-87.

Just before the 1992 season started — I mean just before, on March 30 — the Chicago White Sox determined they needed a middle of the order bat to make a run. So they traded for George Bell, a guy who had driven in more than 85 RBIs for eight straight seasons. And it worked: Bell drove in 112 RBIs for the White Sox. Trouble is, he had a 99 OPS+. He was a below average hitter. The White Sox scored 20 fewer runs and won one less game.

And, of course, one of the players they included in that deal: Sammy Sosa.

In 2004, the Montreal Expos signed Tony Batista to a contract, and then batted him third or fourth, and why not? He bashed 32 home runs! He drove in 110 RBIs! Great year! Unfortunately, his on-base percentage was .272, and the Expos scored 76 fewer runs than they had the year before.

I’m not doing a full study on this … I’m sure there are some counter-examples of low-on base percentage guys with a lot of RBIs who helped a team. Maybe. But there are probably not many. It’s pretty well documented that scoring runs is a process of getting on base and advancing on the bases. There are more accurate ways to figure it, like Base Runs, but if you simply multiply on-base percentage by total bases — that basic version of runs created — you will come pretty close to the number of runs a team scores. This really isn’t a mystery.

So, no, low average, low-on-base guys simply do not help the offense very much, even if they have a lot of RBIs. They just don’t. In their case, the RBI numbers is a deception. Now, it should be pointed out that the most big RBI men are also good or great hitters. But I would argue that RBIs are a by-product of their greatness, not the root. Willie Mays wasn’t great because he drove in 100 runs 10 times. He drove in 100 runs 10 times because he was great.

All of which (finally) brings us to Houston’s new third baseman Pedro Feliz. You know the Astros signed Feliz during the off-season for $4.5 million — he was the big offensive acquisition for a team that finished 14th in the league last year in runs scored. Now, I should start by saying the Feliz is not without value. He is an excellent defensive third baseman. He has never won a Gold Glove, but I think he should have won in 2007 for sure, and he had a strong case the previous two years. He does not seem quite as mobile now — he used to be the best in baseball at charging the bunt; now, not so much — but he’s still awfully good defensively. And he has a great arm. And, by all accounts, he seems a very good guy.

Also, every now and then, his bat will run into a fastball.

OK, those are the positives. Now, the downside: Feliz is a terrible hitter. No, really, dreadful … historically dreadful. The last five years, Feliz has not had an OPS+ of better than 85 in any season. The last four years, his combined OPS+ is 80. His batting Runs Above Replacement? Minus-70.9 for his career. He isn’t just worse offensively than a replacement level player, he’s A LOT worse. His .293 on-base percentage … worst in baseball for the decade (4,000 or more PAs).

Feliz isn’t a bad big league hitter … he’s an atrocious hitter.

BUT … yep, he has some decent-looking RBI numbers. Feliz is the only player in baseball history to have three 80 RBI seasons with sub-85 OPS+. So he’s got that going for him. Among all players with career OPS+ of less than 85 (min. 2,000 plate appearances), only Craig Paquette has more RBIs per plate appearance. Bob Boone used to say that the ball “exploded” off of Craig Paquette’s bat. He said that a lot.

So Feliz is a poor hitter who got enough at-bats on good teams to drive in runs. Pretty obvious, right? Nobody inside baseball would fall for that illusion. Right?

Here’s what it says about Feliz in The Sporting News:

“The Astros moved quickly to sign free-agent third baseman Pedro Feliz who has four 80-RBI seasons on his resume …”

Um. Oh oh. And in The Houston Chronicle:

“Astros general manager Ed Wade is direct with his expectations of Feliz, saying the team projects third base to produce 85 to 90 runs.” This is followed by the writer adding: “A career .254 hitter with a below average on-base percentage of .293, Feliz nonetheless has forged a reputation as a consistent run producer.”

Oh no. And in USA Today, quote after quote about how Feliz’s championship experience in Philadelphia will bring happy intangibles to Houston. And then there’s something in there about how Feliz’s .301 batting average in Houston is the highest he has in any park with at-least 25 at-bats. Not to even get into the silliness of small sample size … do you know what Feliz’s numbers are at Minute Maid Park the last three years? Yep, he’s hitting .250/.298/.295. That’s about what you can expect.

Of course, people have to say nice things … but I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. I think the Astros realistically expect Feliz to help them offensively this year. And I think that is as good sign a sign as any that the Astros are going to have a rough year. It never fails to amaze me how baseball people trying to turn around bad teams have this amazing knack for seeing what they want to see and drawing unlikely conclusions and creating unrealistic happily ever afters. Pedro Feliz cannot hit. At all. He hasn’t been able to hit the last five years, and now he’s getting old which could mean he will hit even less.

But if the Astros hit him 5th or 6th all year, which seems to be the plan, he might drive in 80-plus RBIs. Some people will point to the RBI number and maybe feel good about things. Maybe there will be pressure to bring Feliz back — you can’t let go of a third baseman with 80-plus RBIs! And it will remain a mystery why the Astros don’t actually get any better.

Torii Hunter says he’s not racist; his comments were taken out of context in the USA Today article that appeared on March 10 as part of a roundtable series on how to improve baseball.

What did he say? “People see dark faces out there, and the perception is that they’re African American … They’re not us. They’re impostors.” He then clarified: “Even people I know come up and say, ‘Hey, what color is Vladimir Guerrero? Is he a black player?’ I say, ‘Come on, he’s Dominican. He’s not black.’”

Now, Mister Hunter wants us to understand he meant no ill-will by his comment, but he is not apologizing. “I’m not apologizing to nobody because I didn’t do anything,” Hunter told Los Angeles Times sportswriter Mike DiGiovanna. “I didn’t say anything like that.… I’m upset.… And people wonder why athletes don’t talk to the media. … They took one negative thing and ran with it.”

Torii was just trying to illuminate a problem that Major League Baseball has had in attracting (and developing) “black” talent. His motivation apparently is to get MLB to invest more in baseball in African American communities; part of the problem here is that Hunter is defining black just to mean African Americans and thereby exclude black Latinos

So, in seeking to shed light on one problem, Hunter has cast a spotlight on another, one that is a perhaps longer-lingering matter that afflicts not just baseball but U.S. society as a whole: how to talk about Latinos and race, and, even more challenging, what to do with Afro-Latinos.

Indeed, this issue is not a recent one when it comes to baseball, Latinos, and racial matters. And Torii is not alone in lacking the language and historical understanding of how we got here in U.S. professional baseball.

As I write in my book Playing America’s Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line, there is a long history of black Latinos experiencing racism and discrimination in U.S. professional baseball.

The overwhelming majority of Latinos played in the Negro Leagues versus the Major Leagues (by approximately a 5-1 ratio) before Jackie Robinson initiated the dismantling of the color line. Once the wall of separation began to crumble, black Latinos such as Orestes “Minnie” Miñoso or Vic Power recount at times being ostracized by African American teammates for not being black (or “black enough”). Even the great Roberto Clemente dealt with that, and once stated to a sportswriter that he was a double n—– because he was black and because he was Puerto Rican (Latino).

So, part of the problem as Hunter’s words bear out (as did Gary Sheffield a few years back), is that there remains an incapacity on the part of African Americans and white Americans in how to distinguish between ethnicity (African American or Latino) and race (black) or the complexities of how identities intersect (e.g., Afro-Latino).

But even to Torii’s point about MLB lack of investment in US urban centers, this issue does not just affect blacks as he defines it. It also affects U.S.-born Latinos. The data bears this out: You are much more likely to make it to MLB if you are a foreign-born Latino playing baseball than a U.S. born Latino, and even the percentage of Puerto Ricans, who are US citizens, has declined over the past two decades.

Finally, it must be noted that Torii’s words are not the only affront here.  USA Today’s roundtable of eight experts included managers, players, agents, scouts, and team execs but not a single Latino, U.S. or foreign born; this although, when combined, Latinos today represent close to a third of MLB players. This exclusion is typical of English-language media and not just of sportswriters—recall the lack of Latino talking heads in the mainstream media’s coverage of the Presidential campaign.

Too often Latinos are shut out, not given the opportunity to have a voice in such discussions, but rather are the subject of the calls for reforms. In this instance, USA Today is approaching a 21st century problem with a 1960s approach of calling in just white and black experts.

Yet, Latinos have long been a part of America’s game, since the 1870s: Esteban Bellán and Vincent Nava participated before organized baseball formed its color line; a few were escorted into the segregated Majors by white team and league officials (e.g. Washington Senators’ Clark Griffith and Joe Cambria) while the majority including the likes of Martin Dihigo, Cristobal Torriente, and José Mendez participated in the Negro Leagues; and others like Minnie Miñoso and Ozzie Virgil pioneered integration on different Major League teams in the 1950s.

The problem remains is how to reconcile the economic imperatives of talent-seeking MLB organizations to acquire foreign-born Latino talent and these same organizations’ unwillingness to invest in and cultivate baseball in the United States (especially its urban centers). The national pastime has become predominantly a middle-class sport. And that is a discussion from which Latinos ought not to be shut out of.

But to me, when you look at the whole coaching package — coaching, recruiting, building a program, selling the program, dealing with the media, building an atmosphere — Self is as good as anyone. The thing about coaches and managers (with Gardy being Exhibit A) is that you can always argue that it really isn’t about them. It’s about the players who actually do. A coach with great players should win. A coach with lousy players should lose. There will always be some serious questions about the worth of any coach because it’s hard to define what the coach actually does … and whether or not the team would have won or lost anyway.

In any case, I think Bill Self is terrific. And I find him fascinating. And so, I wrote the following insanely long piece about him.

* * *

Sometimes, when you walk into a locker room or a coach’s office, you will see signs on the wall. And, as often as not, those signs will have something to do with confidence. For instance, you might wander into a baseball clubhouse or a college football locker room and see a sign like this:

“Besides pride, loyalty, discipline and heart, confidence is the key to all locks.”
– Joe Paterno

Or, for the more historically inclined, you might see:

“Whether you think you can or you can’t — you are right.”
– Henry Ford.

If the person hanging the signs has a literary ear, you might see something from the Bard:

“Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie
Which we ascribe to heaven”
– William Shakespeare

Or the sign might reflect the words of an extraordinary woman:

“We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.”
– Marie Curie

And the coach who wants to reach back into his inner child might go with a sign this:

“Be who you are
Say what you feel
Because those who mind don’t matter
And those who matter don’t mind.”
– Dr. Seuss

What do these signs do? Maybe nothing. But, coaches put them up anyway because they know: Confidence is sports’ elixir. Confidence is what can make a bland team good, and a good team great, and a great team legendary. Confidence is what can lift us up in the final seconds, on the 18th hole, with two outs in the ninth. No, the shot does not always fall, the putt does not always drop, the hit does not always go through. But that’s not the point. There is no “always” in the games people play. No, sports are about something else …

“Guys,” Kansas coach Bill Self tells his players as they enter the most important basketball tournament of their lives. “There’s gonna come a moment in time when we’re going to have to make a play. So you have to ask yourself a question, and you’re the only one who can answer it.”

He glares at them: “Are you ready for that moment?”

* * *

This is about Bill Self, but it really is not. It’s about confidence. More to the point, it’s about how a small-town Oklahoma kid, son of coach, became America’s leading exporter of confidence. It’s about how an OK college basketball player with no burning desire to coach has coached at four different colleges, four different levels, four entirely different experiences, and won at all of them. It about how a nice guy with a slight stutter and hair that people on the Internet love to question has once again built a Kansas team that can win that national championship.

It is about … well, first you have to hear the Larry Brown story. You may have heard this one before. Bill Self was going into his senior year at Oklahoma State, where he was a decent player for mediocre teams. That summer, he went to Lawrence to help coach at Larry Brown’s basketball camp — this is when Larry Brown was coaching at Kansas. Self was playing ball up there, and he blew out his knee. Well, anyway, it SEEMED like he blew out his knee — it turned out he was fine. But in that moment, it looked like a blowout, and there was panic everywhere. An Oklahoma State starter blew out his knee at a Kansas coaching camp? Nobody in the world felt worse than Larry Brown.

“If there’s anything I can do for you, you just tell me,” Brown told Self, and the look on Larry Brown’s face suggested that he meant ANYTHING.

Stop here. What would you do? What would any of us do? We might thank Brown for his kindness, maybe, tell him that we might just take him up on that someday.

Bill Self said: “Well, you could hire me as a graduate assistant coach.”

Who is that guy? Where does that come from? Well, of course Larry Brown said yes, he had just promised, well, “anything.” Only it gets better. Self took Brown at his word. Self had not shown much interest in coaching — he was going to go into business — but he was no dummy; the opportunity to coach for Larry Brown made him think coaching might be a fine life. He goes back to Oklahoma State for his senior year, and he writes Brown a letter every month, telling him again and again how excited he is to be the next Kansas graduate assistant coach. He does not get one letter in return, not one. He calls a Kansas assistant coach he knew, R.C. Buford, now the GM of the Spurs, and said: “R.C., does Coach Brown ever mention me?”

And Buford told him: “I’ve never heard him say your name one time.”

So Self’s senior season ended, he still had not heard one word from Brown. Stop here. What would you do? What would any of us do? We might adjust our plans, call around, see if there’s a chance to coach elsewhere or a business opportunity for a recent college graduate …

Bill Self packed up everything he owned, put it in his car, drove up to Lawrence, and walked into Larry Brown’s office and said, “OK, I’m here. What do you need me to do?” And Larry Brown, beaten, said: “Go sit over at that desk and start working.”

And that’s how Bill Self became a basketball coach.

* * *

“I’m gonna tell you something about Bill,” he longtime friend Barry Hinson says. “In his senior year in high school, he made seven buzzer beaters to win games. Seven! You know how you do that? You have no doubts, that’s how.”

See, the thing that strikes you about Bill Self as coach is how he’s good at all of it. He coaches. He recruits. He sells. He inspires. He tells jokes at Kiwanis’ clubs. This is a guy who won at Oral Roberts when the school was coming off its worst basketball season ever. Then he won at Tulsa, following the coaching powers of Nolan Richardson and Tubby Smith and Steve Robinson. Then he won at Illinois, won the Big 10 Title his first year by building the most physical team in the most physical league. And then he went to Kansas, replaced a legendary coach named Roy Williams, and in five years won a national championship — beating Roy Williams himself along the way.

Every one of those stops demanded something different. He had to coach up his talent at Oral Roberts, and create an us-against-the-world aura at Tulsa, and coach his players to overpower people at Illinois and create a place for himself in the crowded tradition room at Kansas. And he did all of that, did it all because, well, because …

“Look, everybody here in the upper echelon of college basketball can coach,” Self says. “Everybody. And everybody works hard. And everybody has good kids. I really don’t like it when I hear people talk about all that stuff, how good a coach someone is or how hard they work or whatever. Everybody’s doing that. That’s now what it’s about.”

It is about … well, wait, you should hear the Leonard Hamilton story. So, you know, Self coached for a year under Larry Brown, and he loved it. He loved everything about Larry Brown, even when Brown ripped him. Especially those times. Like once, Self helped himself to the training table food after the game and before the players arrived. Brown said: “Oh, I didn’t know you had worked that hard during the game.” Lesson 1: A coach NEVER eats before the players. Lesson 2: Withering irony can be a very effective teaching tool. Self learned both lessons well.

So, sure, he now wanted to coach. And he figured the best place to start would be to apply for an assistant job at his school, Oklahoma State, where Leonard Hamilton had just taken over. Self managed to get himself an interview, and he talked about how hard he would work, and how relentlessly he would recruit … and he noticed Hamilton’s eyes’ glazing over.

Stop here. What would you do? What do any of us do when a job interview starts going bad, when it is clear that your talk is not getting through and your dream of getting the job is drowning. Maybe we panic. Maybe we try harder. Maybe we stand up and say, “I see I’m wasting your time here.”

“I’ll tell you why you should hire me,” Self told Hamilton. “Because if you hire me, I’ll get you your point guard for this season and you won’t need to give up a scholarship.”

That stopped Hamilton. “You’ll get me a point guard?” he asked.

“Yep,” Self said. “But he won’t play unless you hire me as a coach.”

And there it was. Hamilton said that if Self could really deliver a point guard, no strings attached, then he had the job. And when Self left the office he called an Oklahoma State senior named Jay Davis, a close friend who had played at his high school, and said: “Hey man, you’ve got to play basketball for Oklahoma State this year.”

Davis had been a very good high school player, but he was happy with his college life — happy as the best fraternity basketball player at the school. He had absolutely no interest at all in playing organized ball and getting yelled at and all that. He said: “No way.”

And Self said: “Um, no, you don’t understand. You have to play. I won’t get the job unless you play. So, you’re playing.”

So, Jay Davis played basketball for the 1986-87 Oklahoma State Cowboys. The team was 8-20 and lousy (“Well, what do you expect, we had a walk-on as our starting point guard,” Self says), but you can still look it up: Jay Davis led the team in assists, steals and fouls. Self was an assistant coach at Oklahoma State for five more years and was there for the rebirth of Oklahoma State basketball.

Not long after that, Self and Davis were best men at each other’s weddings.

* * *

Here’s something funny about Bill Self, something you can miss if you are not paying attention: Self will always try to answer the question. At first blush, that may not seem funny or interesting at all — doesn’t everyone try to answer questions? Isn’t that the whole point of question and answer, Q&A?

But if you think about it for a moment you will realize that, no, most people in sports, in politics, in entertainment, in just about any field with a lot of questions will only SORT OF give you answers. It’s natural for people to only answer half the question, or use the question (whatever it is) as an opportunity to say exactly what they want to say, or misunderstand the question because they weren’t really listening. If you listen to an interview, really listen, you will be stunned to hear how often the answer doesn’t really have all that much to do with the question.

But Self answers questions. If you ask Bill Self how he thinks his team played in a game, he will tell you exactly how he thinks his team played. Played well at times. Had trouble attacking the zone. Needed more energy at the start of the second half. And so on. If you ask him something goofy — such as when one reporter asked him whether he would prefer to go on a 22-2 run in the first half or in the second half — he will laugh and say that he’d prefer both but then he will think about it for a moment and decide that, yes, a second half run probably would lead to more victories. If you ask him how his life changed after he led Kansas to the national championship in 2008, he will refuse to fall back on the safe answer, the “it really didn’t change my life at all” numbness that coaches will generally say without thinking.

“I think it gives you a little more credibility on the practice court,” he says. “I really think that’s the big thing. When you win one, it’s not like the players can look at you and say: ‘Well, this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’ And let’s face it, that’s what players always want to believe about their coaches, isn’t it?’”

Self’s answer-every-question-directly style is not something you notice right away. It’s something you pick up over time, over years. It’s something you notice when Self gives blunt and interesting answers during what are typically pointless television halftime interviews. It’s something you notice when a kid from a college newspaper asks a question — Self will answer it with what seems to be the same earnestness with which he answers questions from the NCAA Division I all-time winning coach Bob Knight. It’s something you notice day-after-day: Bill Self always seems to be trying.*

*You know who else is like this — always answering the question directly and specifically? Jack Nicklaus. You will not see Nicklaus listed on many reporters “all-time great interview” lists because he’s not exactly funny, and he’s not a particularly great story teller, and he’s not going to say many controversial things because he does not appear to think controversially. But Nicklaus will answer your question, exactly as you ask it. In a sport with comedians, agitators and philosophers, Nicklaus is the most quoted golfer ever, not only because of his greatness but because, time and again, he just answers the question.

That’s confidence. People who write about Self will almost always point out — and rightfully so — how nice a guy he is off the court, and how tough he is coaching on the court. People will point out how easily he moves in a crowd of big-money boosters, and how natural he looks surrounded by students, and how comfortable he will be speaking in front of big crowds, and how dogged he is on the recruiting trail. He’s the natural chameleon. He is whatever he needs to be at the moment.

“I guess I’ve always been that way,” Self says, though he looks uncomfortable answering the question. Then again: He can’t help it. The question was asked.

“To me,” he says, “to be successful you need to respond to whatever the situation calls for. I tell our players that all the time. You win games by making plays. I know that’s a cliche, but it’s true. You don’t win games with the best offense because sometimes your shots don’t fall. You don’t win games with the best defense because sometimes the other team just keeps making shots. You win games by making plays in that moment, responding to that exact challenge.”

It is about … well, OK, you have to hear the Oral Roberts story. Bill Self was hired to be coach at Oral Roberts when the basketball program was at a low point. Self took the job and believed he would turn it around because, well, that’s just how he ticks.

So, the day came when he was going to be introduced … only this being Oral Roberts University, it is done a bit differently. Self was brought to the giant chapel, where every student in the school was present. And, understand, Oral Roberts University is an evangelical school; it was built, Oral Roberts himself always said, because God told him to build it. Self grew up in a quiet Methodist home.

Stop here. What would you do? What would any of us do thrown into that chapel, 4,000 kids in the pews, all of them wanting to know a little something about the new coach?

Bill Self preached. He preached that he was going to bring a winner back to Oral Roberts. He preached that he and his staff was going to work night and day to make it happen. “It was unbelievable,” says Hinson, who as there as an assistant coach. “He transformed himself.” In time, after a rough first two years, Self and Hinson and the team did become winners, did go to their first postseason tournament in a decade. But perhaps the most lasting memory happened that day in the chapel, when quiet Bill Self preached and preached, and the students swayed with him, and he made everyone believe and that when he finished everyone in the place, everyone, including Oral Roberts himself, said “Amen.”

* * *

When Self was introduced as the new basketball coach at Kansas — replacing Roy Williams who had taken Kansas to four Final Fours — there was a special seat with the Kansas logo on it for him to sit on. But before he did sit on it, he felt it with his hand. “Feels hot,” he said.

Everybody laughed. Self laughed. He will laugh at his own jokes, just to let you know he is joking. But it wasn’t a joke. It was the perfect thing to say. Self knew that’s exactly what everyone was thinking — he was on the hot seat. He had come to Kansas to replace Roy Williams, who had taken Kansas to four Final Fours and had coached Kansas to No. 2 or No. 1 in the polls 11 of his 15 years. Williams had gone home to North Carolina, and he had left behind angry and bitter Kansas fans who felt like Williams had betrayed them. He left behind sky-high expectations.

It’s never easy at Kansas anyway. There really isn’t a school in America that has quite the same basketball tradition of Kansas — no other school that can say its first first basketball coach was James Naismith, who, you know, invented the game. And the funny thing is, that his replacement and disciple, Phog Allen, was almost as influential in his own way. Allen was instrumental in creating the NCAA tournament. He was the driving force behind putting basketball in the Olympics. And he also taught the game to a couple of Kansas kids named Adolph Rupp and Dean Smith. This year, three schools won their 2000th game — Kansas, Kentucky and North Carolina. Phog Allen was instrumental in all three. Phog Allen also recruited to Kansas a big man from Philadelphia named Wilt Chamberlain.

Anyway, basketball tradition at Kansas is like air, it’s everywhere, it gets into everything, only the truth is that when Self took over Kansas had not won a national championship since 1988. And before that, you had to go back to 1952. There was an impression — not entirely without merit — that the Jayhawks played soft in the biggest games. There seemed this national impression that Kansas was a good program but not great like North Carolina or Kentucky or Duke. Bill Self knew all of this when he took the job. That’s why he reached over and touched the seat and said “Feels hot.” He wanted everyone to understand: He knew exactly what he was getting himself into.

That’s Bill Self too. He has an almost pathological need for there to be no misunderstandings. He cherishes confrontation. He demands clarity. He does not mind if his players dislike him — that’s part of the deal — but he will be sure, damn sure, that they know exactly where they stand at him at all times. They WILL know. Self will gather them together in the locker room, and he will go around the room, and he will say to his players, plainly, directly: “You are too selfish with the ball … And you don’t trust your teammates enough … And you try to take too much of the credit … And you will slack off when you start feeling too good about yourself.”

“That, to me, is a bit part of what coaching is about,” he says. “I mean everybody does it differently. But for me, there shouldn’t be any secrets. They have to know exactly what where they stand, what I think about them, what they have to do to become better players, what their strengths and weaknesses are. We have to be clear. If I hear a player say that they don’t know where they stand with me, with our coaching staff, that would really bother me. Because I know how hard we work to make sure they know exactly what we think.”

It’s telling to watch Self coach practice. Most college basketball practices look the same — with players’ energy levels drifting up and down and coaches trying to modulate things by screaming at the top of their lungs an so on. Self is no different. Take a typical practice in February, and Kansas’ seven-foot freshman Jeff Withey apparently does not run hard enough to get back on defense.

“That,” Self yells, “was the most pathetic thing I have ever seen in my entire life.”

And while Self may have waited 47 years to see something that pathetic, he only has to wait two more minutes before he catches another freshman, this time Thomas Robinson, loafing on his way back to defend. This strikes Self as even MORE pathetic, especially when Robinson insists he was not loafing (“Do you want me to show you the tape?” Self screams).

Self sends those two off to the treadmill to run off his anger. And while they run, Then he watches another freshman, Xavier Henry, go to the wrong place in the trap offense, and, sure, that becomes the most pathetic thing he has ever seen. And when junior All-American Cole Aldrich throws the ball away, and senior All-American Sherron Collins follows that up with a turnover of his own, well, Self’s face goes from burgundy goes maroon, and he just stands there speechless, his fingers digging into the sides of his forehead like he’s trying to keep his head from detonating.

“NO!” he shouts, an all-encompassing “No,” that stops everyone cold.

Yes, pretty typical stuff. But the odd part is that when the practice ends, Self seems pretty happy. “That was a good practice, wasn’t it?” he asks, and when I tell him that it seemed pretty good except for the yelling and the various levels of pathetic, he smiles and shrugs.

“I’ve got to stay on these guys,” he says. “That’s what they need.”

* * *

Here is Bill Self’s one word philosophy of life: Unstoppable. He loves that word. He will tell his players, again and again, that they are unstoppable, that unstoppable is what they need to be, that unstoppable is their path to success, that unstoppable is the only way to live.

This Kansas team is ridiculously good. Self knows it. There are different opinions about what makes a tournament tough team, but most coaches will take their chances with a gritty senior point guard (Sherron Collins), an All-American big man who can score inside and change the game defensively (Cole Aldrich), a 6-foot-6 wingman with a pure shot (Xavier Henry), the fastest player on the floor (Tyshawn Taylor) and 6-foot-8 twins — yeah, twins — who can demoralize teams with their offensive rebounding and ability to create shots in the lane (Marcus and Markieff Morris). This is a different kind of tournament with big name schools like Connecticut, Arizona and North Carolina out. Sure, there are good teams out there. Kentucky’s freshmen are incredible — John Wall is an NBA star playing college basketball. Syracuse has come together beautifully and the Orange play that killer zone. Duke seems to have gotten its mojo back. There are others. But it does seem like Kansas is the team with the best shot at greatness.

Self doesn’t back off of this — quite the opposite. He knows that this team can do only one of two things: Win or disappoint. “Yeah, that’s the deal,” he says cheerily.

So, how do you win with the best team? Self thinks there is only one way: You make them believe in unstoppable. You make the players believe that going cold and missing shots is a GOOD THING because, as he tells them. “That gives us a chance to show how tough we are.” You make the players believe that no pick is strong enough to stop them and no defense crafty enough to contain them. You make the players believe that the game is already won, and the only thing that’s left to do is show everybody.

Yes, it’s about confidence again. You know, it hasn’t always been easy for Self at Kansas. That first year — with remnants of those excellent Roy Williams teams — Kansas went to the Elite Eight and lost to Georgia Tech in overtime. The next two years, Kansas lost in the first round of the tournament to the Bucknell Bison and Bradley Braves, the killer Bs, and Self beat himself up. He found it difficult to change the culture at Kansas and would later wonder if he should have been more adaptable. “I didn’t coach very that first year,” he says. “And the Bucknell loss especially, obviously I carried that with me for a long time.”

The next year, Kansas lost to UCLA in the Elite Eight — Self’s third time losing one step away from the Final Four. And then came the magical run — early round domination, a hard-fought victory over America’s Choice Davidson in the Elite Eight, an absolute obliteration of Roy Williams’ Carolina and all the ghosts, and finally that wild comeback victory over Memphis for Kansas’ second national championship in more than 50 years.

Self will tell you, will insist, that championship didn’t change him. It may have changed people’s perceptions about him — you remember that whole bit about how players have to listen to him even more now — but Self will tell you, inside, he always felt like he could recruit well enough and coach well enough to win a national championship. He had that confidence. He doesn’t know where it came from. He didn’t learn it from books or gain it from great quotations from great people. He just … had it.

And in the end, it is about … well, here’s one final Bill Self story.

In the final two minutes of that national championship game against Memphis, Bill Self found himself furiously trying to pump confidence in his team. Memphis led by nine. You don’t come back from nine points down, not with two minutes left, not against a great team, not in the national championship game. Self shouted, “You got to believe,” again and again, as trite as anything, but he could not think of anything else to say. Those were the words banging in his head. This, basically, was what he knew. You got to believe.

Darrell Arthur made a long jumper, just inside the three-point line. The deficit was 7. Self quickly called timeout. He sketched out a full-court press defense. You got to believe. Sherron Collins stole the in-bounds pass, appeared to step out of bounds, there was no call, he got the ball back and nailed a three-pointer. The deficit was 4. You got to believe. Memphis’ Chris Douglas Roberts made two free throws. Mario Chalmers made two free throws. The clock was ticking down. You got to believe.

Then, Douglas-Roberts missed two free throws. Arthur made a shot in the lane. The deficit was two. Self was going crazy on the sideline. Douglas-Roberts missed two more free throws. Kansas called its last timeout. You gotta believe. Derrick Rose made one of two free throws. And that led to Mario Chalmers’ three-point shot, Mario’s Miracle, and Kansas won the game in overtime.

Bill Self was dizzy from joy. People kept asking him if he really thought his Jayhawks could come back from nine points down, and he admitted that he didn’t know, but he wanted to believe, he needed to believe, you gotta believe.

Later, I saw a tape of the pregame speech Bill Self gave his team before the Memphis game. He told them: “The reason I feel so confident about us winning Is because we don’t have to change one bit who we are. … All we got to do is be ourselves.”

And then he told his players this: “Most every day — if not every day — for the rest of your life, you will be reminded, or think of, this night. And I want to thank you in advance, right now, for the great memories it’s gonna be. Let’s go have some fun.”

Maybe it’s isn’t pithy. Maybe it isn’t deep. Maybe it isn’t Lombardi. Shoot, maybe it isn’t even grammatically sound. But there is Bill Self in 15 words — all of his Oklahoma charm, all of his certainty that thing will work out, all of his ability to inspire confidence in people:

“I want to thank you in advance, right now, for the memories it’s gonna be.”

There’s Bill Self. Make it a sign. Put it up on the wall. Believe. And then, enjoy the memories it’s gonna be.

Of course, it’s not really an equal opportunity. Best I can tell, there really aren’t many “Gardy is Awesome” websites out there. This seems to be one of the closest things. On the other hand, there is the FireRonGardenhire Blogspot. There’s the apparently more official FireRonGardenhire Website. There’s the more informal firegardy.com. My dear Kansas friend Ken Tremendous wanted to know if Gardenhire was the worst manager in baseball, an astonishing question considering that was the year the Twins would go on to win 96 games and Dusty Baker’s Cubs, with the third biggest payroll in baseball, would lose 96.*

*Not to say that Ken and the boys failed to take Sir Dusty to task from time to time.

I’m not entirely sure why there isn’t much Gardy appreciation out there. Yes, I understand that Gardenhire will make his share of bizarre decisions — for instance he is the guy who keeps giving Nick Punto a staggering number of at-bats. Yes, I feel confident that if I watched him every day, point by point, I would be annoyed by many of his managerial habits. Yes, I feel sure that people who follow Gardy on a daily basis can send me a long, long list of Gardy transgressions — I feel sure about this because my email is filled with such lists.

But, I don’t know, it seems to me that the guy has managed the Twins to five division titles in his eight years, or, to put it another way, THE GUY HAS MANAGED THE TWINS TO FIVE DIVISION TITLES IN HIS EIGHT YEARS. I mean, sure, you would expect a good manager to manage the Twins to at least six division titles in eight years, but, doesn’t he get SOME credit for this? He’s done this even though the Twins have never in those years had a payroll in baseball’s top half. And only once in all those years, in 2003, did the Twins have even the highest payroll in the low-paying division. Last year, the Twins had the lowest payroll.They won. Gardy won a division title in 2002 and a division title in 2009, and he did not have any of the same starting players. It seems pretty good to me.

Sure, you could say that the Twins success comes from their scouting, from their player development, from their star players, from anyone BUT Gardy, and I would not be able to prove you wrong. Maybe the Twins win year after year despite Gardy. Maybe he’s the guy who keeps making the $40-$60 million payroll Twins underachieve year after year. I don’t know. I don’t see it that way.

I bring this up now because in my recent post about Joe Nathan, I mentioned — just mentioned — that I would not doubt Gardy’s ability to find a solution. After all, his team did win the division title last year even though Joe Mauer missed a month, Justin Morneau missed a month and the starting rotation was basically dreadful. This led to the following comment from Brilliant Reader Chris …

I know this isn’t a post about Ron Gardenhire, but I have to comment on this.

I know you love Gardenhire, but this argument did nothing for me. Mauer was out for a month, but for the rest of the year he was unbelievable. Losing Morneau hurt, but the last month of the season was only set up by the Tigers’ collapse. And starter’s ERA doesn’t do anything for me without context. How does that compare with other teams, specifically the Tigers? Again, I know this wasn’t a Gardenhire post, but that paragraph bothered me as being lazy, from a writer who usually is not.

Now, I’m not going to lie to you. I found this comment to be exceedingly grating. And one of the reasons I found this to be exceedingly grating is because it seems to me that these are the paper thin arguments people typically make against Gardy.

FIrst, we don’t ALL agree that the Twins won simply because the Tigers fell apart. The Twins won 17 of their last 21 games including the one-game playoff against the Tigers to win the title. Yes, the Tigers did fall apart. Yes, the Tigers went 8-10 in their last 18 games. Yes, if the Tigers had played better they would have won the division. So what? They didn’t play better. The Twins were virtually unbeatable at the right time. The Twins won 87 games. The Twins won the division.

Secondly — I have no idea what the Mauer point is. Joe Mauer was really good the rest of the year so the fact he missed the first month doesn’t matter? I would think that makes it matter MORE … the point is that the Twins were without the best player in the league for a month and still won the division. Yes, looking back, I’m pretty sure that was the point.

Also, I’m not sure what you mean by saying that Mauer’s great season had NOTHING to do with Gardenhire. I mean, I’m not saying that you have to give Ron Gardenhire any credit for Joe Mauer being a great player. You don’t. But why the hostility? Mauer has blossomed into the best player in the league, and Ron Gardenhire has been his big league manager the whole time.

Thirdly, I have no idea how losing Justin Morneau was in any way set up by the Tigers’ collapse. I don’t follow that. What I do know is that Justin Morneau is a very good hitter, a star, and he missed the last month or so with an injury and the Twins won 17 of 21 games without him to win the title. That seems pretty straightforward.

Fourth, the Twins 4.84 starter ERA is lousy — it’s lousy on its face, and it’s lousy compared to the Tigers starters (which was a half run better) and it’s lousy compared to league average.

I don’t mean to pick on one comment — the point is we get a LOT of seemingly angry anti-Gardy stuff like that around here. And a lot of it just seems petty to me. Look, I think he’s a great manager. A lot of people think he’s a fraud. That’s fine. I can point to five division champions. A lot of people can point to his weak division and playoff failure. That’s fine. I can point to a team that has consistently won and players who consistently play well for him as the season goes along. A lot of people can point to Gardy’s bizarre individual decisions and they would rather credit other people for the Twins’ success. That’s fine too.

And I’m not saying I’m right. But I’m not saying I’m wrong either. I guess the Gardy anger just seems a bit out of place to me. I’m just telling you, he could manage for me any day.

Player of the Day: Jose Reyes, shortstop, NY Mets

Of course, different people have different ideas about what makes an exciting baseball player. But, in general, the blueprint would look an awful lot like Jose Reyes.

In fact, not that long ago, Bill James and I plotted out formula (admittedly the formula is a lot more me than Bill — he just offered suggestions) to try and determine the most exciting players in baseball. I lost that original formula, but I tried to recreate it, taking into account triples (the most exciting play in baseball!), stolen bases, batting average, defensive excitement (subjective) and a couple of other things. I’m pretty sure I created the most wildly flawed formula to appear on the Internet today.

Here then, according to this wildly flawed formula, are the 11 most exciting seasons of the last 25 years:

1. Jose Reyes, 2006.
2. Jose Reyes, 2008
3. Jimmy Rollins, 2007
4. Ichiro Suzuki, 2001
5. Carl Crawford, 2004
6. Jose Reyes, 2007
7. Chuck Knoblauch, 1996.
8. Hanley Ramirez, 2006
9. Tony Gwynn, 1987
10. Tim Raines, 1985
11. Carlos Beltran, 2001.

Obviously, you can create your own formula — and I hope you will — but the point is that at least according to one fairly standard view, Reyes defined exciting baseball. He hit lots of triples. He also hit doubles and a few home runs. He led the league in stolen bases three years in a row. He made dazzling plays at shortstop. Sure, there were always people who thought Reyes needed to get on base more and could have been a touch steadier defensively. But that stuff would come! The point with Reyes was excitement. He was exciting. The Mets were exciting.

Anyway, that’s how it was in 2006, when Reyes was 23 years old and the Mets won 97 games. That’s also how it was in 2007, when Reyes stole 78 bases — most in 20 years — and the Mets led the National League East by seven games in mid-September, you know, before losing 12 of their last 17 and blowing it to the Phillies.

Oh well, there was excitement even then. The Mets signed the best pitcher in baseball, Johan Santana. Reyes has probably his best season — led the league with 204 hits and 19 triples, stole 56 bases. And the Mets led the National League East by 3 1/2 games in mid-September, you know, before losing four of their next five and never again getting back into first place.

Sure, the late season fadeouts hurt. They hurt a lot. But — and it’s easy to forget this — the Mets still looked to be in awfully good shape. Reyes was exciting. Santana was dazzling. Third baseman David Wright was one of the best players in baseball. Center fielder Carlos Beltran was one of the best players in baseball. Carlos Delgado had hit 38 home runs — the 11th time in 12 years he hit 30-plus homers. Francisco Rodriguez came to New York after he had set the single-season save record in Anaheim — finally, the Mets had their answer for the Great Rivera.

So, how did it all go so wrong? Just look at the Mets now. They are now arguing over Jose Reyes thyroid. That’s the big story at Mets camp these days. The Mets seem to believe — based on what they’re hearing from doctors — that Reyes has an overactive thyroid. Reyes seems to believe — based on what he’s hearing from doctors — that his thyroid is fine. Everybody is waiting for the results from the latest tests. These days, Jose Reyes’ thyroid has the third highest Q-Rating in New York, behind only David Paterson and David Letterman. It could get its own show by the weekend.

Of course, the thyroid talk is just an emblem of the Mets issues — of Carlos Beltran’s knee surgery, of David Wright’s power outage, of Carlos Delgado’s hip injury, of the surgery Johan Santana had to remove bone chips, of the Mets abominable 70-92 record last year*

*The Mets became the first team in baseball history to spend $140 million (well, $149 million and some change) and have a losing record. Here is a list of all the teams to spend $140 million on payroll in a season and their win total:

2009 Mets: 70 wins
2009 Yankees: 103 wins
2008 Yankees: 89 wins
2007 Yankees: 94 wins
2007 Red Sox: 96 wins
2006 Yankees: 97 wins
2005 Yankees: 95 wins
2004 Yankees: 101 wins
2003 Yankees: 101 wins

In other words, the thyroid talk is just the latest in a whole bunch of really weird things to happen to the Mets. Of course, Mets fans — at least the ones I hear from all the time — seem to think this is all just part of being … Mets fans. The It’s all part of the tradition. The Mets have a proud history of “The Mets Being The Mets” that, of course, goes back to the 1962 team that most people would agree was the worst baseball team of the last 100 years.

The teams that followed were not much better — until the 1969 Miracle Mets and the 1973 Ya Gotta Believe Mets. Then, the late 1970s, another dreadful lull, that time when Joe Torre came to understand that it’s hard to be a genius with Lenny Randle at third, Doug Flynn at second and Craig Swan as your Opening Day starter.

Then, came the great mid-80s Mets that didn’t win quite as much as they should have won. Then came the dreadful early 1990s Mets, the good-but-not-good enough late 1990s Mets, the dreadful early 2000s Mets, and finally this team dealing with a spotty lineup, a spotty rotation and a thyroid problem.

The thing is, that if they could stop the bad momentum … this Mets team has talent. Johan Santana, if he’s healthy, is as good as anybody. Beltran appears to be on the mend after knee surgery — he says that he’s feeling better about his knee than he has in years. You would like to believe that David Wright, having worked out whatever swing problems he had last year, will return to being a terrific player. Jason Bay gives the Mets a strong middle-of-the lineup bat. The rotation — with 20-somethings Mike Pelfrey, John Maine and Oliver Perez — could be OK, and K-Rod is still a top closer no matter what Goose Gossage may have said about him.*

*I guess Gossage called K-Rod a “clown” because of his theatrics on the field, and K-Rod responded by saying he had never heard of Gossage. So, that went well. Gossage also suggested that while Mariano Rivera is the best “modern reliever,” he prefers himself and the 52 saves he got where he got at least seven outs. Rivera, he points out, only has two of those. Case closed.

1. Rollie Fingers, 74 saves
2. Dan Quisenberry, 65 saves
3. Gene Garber, 64 saves
4. Hoyt Wilhelm, 61 saves
5. Mike Marshall, 57 saves
6. Sparky Lyle, 56 saves
7. Goose Gossage, 52 saves
8. Lindy McDaniel, 51 saves
9. Bill Campbell, 49 saves
10. Bob Stanley, 48 saves.

And then there’s Jose Reyes. He was hurt for almost all of the 2009 season. He has had a rough camp with his thyroid issues and with the FBI questioning him about his connection to Canadian doctor Tony Galea, who has been charged with conspiring to smuggle HgH into the U.S. But here’s the thing. He’s only 26 years old. He says that he feels healthy. He still has the talent to be one of the most exciting players in the game. And he and the Mets are due for something good … it has to happen one of these days.