SoB '06, Part I

In Game 5 of the NLCS, Tom Glavine was doing what he’s done for so long: in the simplest terms, living on the edge. And he, of all the pitchers in the league, has made a damn good living out there.

Glavine has a proven knack of dangling a pitched baseball just a fraction of an inch (or two) in the gray netherworld of the official strike zone. A place sometimes just to the left and sometimes just to the right of the plate, a place which when tickled incites ecstasy in his supporters and agony in his detractors, a place where the home plate umpire, his grotesquely plump body painfully bruised by the regular pounding of wild relievers or untrustworthy receivers and with eyes permanently blinded due to an overindulgent diet of crudely fermented liquors and undercooked red meat, can only shrug his shoulders and smilingly suggest that, well, yeah, maybe it was close enough, what the hell, whaddaya say we call it a strike!

Yes, fans, just so you know what’s to follow, I’m talking Baseball again.

Many moons ago, owing to my passionate interest in The Game, I began offering my end of season observations to some close friends. I admit my views on this game, while sometimes mildly amusing, are usually just like Glavine’s best pitch.

But for a shallow interlude, due to my life enduring a phase only loosely described as O.B.E. (Overcome By Events), I tied that old swayback horse to the hitching post and left him standing there alone for a few years. Today I’m saddling ‘er back up, curiously wandering off into parts unknown, thus giving you this, my Status of Baseball 2006.

I’ve spent the last couple months or so reviewing the replays, deciphering many poorly written bar napkins, and occasionally even attending a few live games. I confide that in the past I’ve spent much time glorifying this or that aspect of The Game. Strangely, this season anyway, I find myself picking at everything that’s wrong with it. And there is so much to report on that account.

But, in order to do this a bit more properly than I usually do, I present to you the following summary from the beginning. This S.O.B ’06 will highlight the three topics of The Designated Hitter Rule, The Office of the Commissioner, and The Hall of Fame.

Without further adieu, let’s get back to the game.

In the bottom of the fourth inning of Game 5 of the NLCS, starter Tom Glavine was still pitching and his team, the NY Mets, were leading 2-0. The series was then tied 2-2, a bold result which compared how evenly matched these two teams really were better than any other remarkable standard. In any typical closely fought 7-game series, as the average student of the game knows, the winner of Game 5 would be in a very, very good position.

With one out and nobody on in bottom of the fourth, Glavine was on cruise control and Mets fans rejoiced. They could see where this was going. Old Tom had regularly fooled the ump and urged the last six Cardinals to swing at his marvelously just-off pitches, historically recorded in a pristine box score of 3 ground outs, 2 strike outs, and 1 pop fly.

Enter from stage left a man named Albert Pujols. Admired by all pasty-reddish fans near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri, the heroic Pujols was slowed by nagging injury but obviously there to viciously wield his wooden hammer, break Glavine’s monotonous trend and get the Cardinal’s offense back in the game.

But, as big Albert waddled to the plate, he didn’t just carry the endless hope of an entire city on his broad shoulders. He also had an ugly little secret in the Official Rules of Baseball hidden his back pocket.

The unspoken secret was that if Albert was in the American League instead of the National, he would not be the starting first baseman for his team. As a franchise player, his nagging injury may have made that far too risky. Instead, he would be the Designated Hitter and perhaps not playing in this NL city game at all.

In the AL, Boston’s Ortiz lead the league during the regular season with 54 HR, 137 RBI, was second in slugging percentage, third in runs scored, sixth in on base percentage.

In the NL, Pujols was the man with 49 HR, matched Ortiz with 137 RBI, was the league leader in SP and OBP, and fifth in total runs scored.

Ortiz is often argued as the Most Valuable Player in the AL. Pujols enjoys the same debate within the NL.

The only outstanding concern in the debate is that Ortiz is a DH. Pujols is not.

If the Red Sox played the Cards in St. Louis, one is left to wonder how Ortiz would find his way into the lineup. There is no doubt how Pujols would do it.

But this foolishness is not about the men involved. It’s about the rules.

In the bottom of the fourth, Pujols waited anxiously at the plate for Glavine to deliver, contorting a sore body into his familiar pre-swing ritual. Once released, he breathlessly unwound his torso, bat and ball all merged invisibly for a moment then a muddy white blur disappeared quickly into a red ocean beyond the left field wall. The house splashed in a wave of thundering cheers, the game was now 2-1 Mets, and the Cards were suddenly back in it.

Not visibly shaken, Glavine then encouraged Encarnacion to pop out. There were two outs and nervous Mets faithful everywhere believed the game was still in control.

But more was brewing and Rolen just stood there. He watched ball four and took first. Then a mean Edmonds reached out, placed his bat on another off the plate offering and poked a smart single into right field. The always disheveled-looking Ronnie Belliard, another sweaty waddler who rarely if ever keeps his shirt tucked in, somehow found his way to the batter’s box with men on first and second, two away.

Not to fear, with Glavine barely struggling to regain his composure, I was momentarily confident that a free-swinger like Belliard was exactly what the doctor ordered.

Then it happened, one of those unusual things that often unfolds during a tight series game. It’s something that you don’t normally see, something that I’ve learned to wait and watch for, something that changes the whole atmosphere of the game.

It’s like that scene when the poor Chicago man in the audience interfered with the play a few years ago. I remember I was watching that particular tragedy in a Cubs-infested bar in south Omaha. As soon as that scene went down, I put down my beer (a dark amber, I believe) and started laughing uncontrollably, instantly realizing that the game was over and the Cubs were done. The Baseball Gods had spoken and no mere mortal ever comes back alive from that kind of decision. Ahh, I think the Cubbies in the bar were not amused by an unrestrained Bamboo that night and I was forced to remove myself to other, friendlier confines.

Just as well, I suppose.

But this year, the first time I saw it live on TV, I couldn’t believe it.

”That didn’t just happen”, I said incredulously to myself.

Thank God for digital replay. Without it, I couldn’t be so confident in this story. I was turned onto the power of TiVo-like replay by an ex-pat pal who now suffers in Denver. Nice town, lovely ball park, real shitty baseball team. Hey, I can dig it. But he likes to play back televised close-ups, particularly of managers speaking with umpires and the like, to enhance his lip reading skills. Yep, there’s much to be learned by this technique.

Still watching this particular game, I paused for a minute to play back Belliard’s at bat and was thoroughly amazed by what I saw. It happened so fast in “real time”, I had thought maybe I was just seeing things, but I pressed slow-motion and witnessed the completely alarming sequence again and again.

In slow-mo, Belliard digs in and blinks while Glavine bends over preparing his delivery. Belliard blinks two or three more times. Each time he blinks, his eyelids appear to blink upwards, like an exotic lizard or something, and his eyeballs seem to turn up into his head. Very strange behavior, if you ask me. Perhaps, I thought, the Cards should reduce the “lead” in the dugout coffee pot. But then the real defining event occurs, the movement that sets off the true sequence to change the game.

Just as Glavine was beginning his pitch, Belliard took a half step forward towards the plate.

It wasn’t a full step. Maybe it was just a bit of a shuffle, perhaps only 2 to 3 inches forward. And it wasn’t even very sneaky. I mean, even my poor sight caught some slight indication of it during regular speed. Belliard is a large dumb target, his movement in one direction or another is rather hard to disguise.

Why wouldn’t Glavine see that as well? Noticing that dumpy old Belliard was crowding the plate, wouldn’t Glavine have changed his tack a bit on the fly, come a bit harder inside? Seems to me that would be an excellent counter move but Glavine, for whatever reason, continued on and laid his routine slider about 3-5 inches off and down the outside. Belliard, with lizard eyes presumably now opened, casually laid his bat out there in no-man’s land and the ball jumped effortlessly between the first and second basemen.

Had Belliard received some pre-game advice on that pitch? It looked like the same pitch and the same swing that Edmonds had used to get on just prior to that at bat. Two different consecutive batters, same pitch, ended with the same result. Belliard just doesn’t look smart enough to do it on his own. Was it something that everyone expected? Had La Russa told the Cards to be ready for that point in the game when Glavine would be up to his old tricks and to take advantage of it when possible? Had the whole deadlocked series been a sham, Cards players just waiting for their meeting with Glavine’s off the plate slider to turn the tables in their favor?

Beats me but Rolen scored, men on first and third, two outs, tie game, new game, fresh start, Glavine was finally exposed, the Mets lost their bats, and the Cards went on to take Game 5 and the series in 7.

Incredible!

Good luck with all of that but it’s significant to note that none of Belliard’s odd game changing sequence in the NLCS would have any meaning if Pujols hadn’t hit his homer. And he probably wouldn’t have done that if the NL had the DH rule. He wouldn’t even have had the opportunity to bat and then he couldn’t have set up Belliard to shuffle up and tie the game.

Cheers,
Mb

SoB '06, Part II

I am an old time, old school AL guy. I grew up with the DH. For that reason, I once assumed that the DH was a natural progression of the game. I accepted the Charlie O’ line of thought that it brought more offense to the table and made the game more exciting. Growing up, I hated watching NL games because of the dreadfully redundant pitcher’s at bat.

But the DH rule bothers me now. It goes beyond an occasional exception to the rule, more than the blind injustice of an ump’s nod to an outside strike by Tom Glavine. It is a wedge issue, dividing the league, making the World Series champion arguably decided by something other than honorable play under common conditions.

If I was organizing a baseball league today, I seriously doubt I would agree to allow two divisions within the league to play by different rules. It’s simply not fair to expect two teams to play all season under opposing rules and then force them to contend with the conflict during the championship. The argument that limited regular season interleague play prepares these teams for the reality of two different rule books during the series just doesn’t wash, in my opinion.

Remember what we learned from day one in The Game: it’s not about winning but it’s about how you win. MLB is violating the “how you win” law with the DH.

It’s suggested that Commisioner’s office accepts the idea of two leagues playing by different rules. The DH controversy is characterized by a “What’s wrong with it?” logic.

If that’s the case, what’s wrong with the NL outfielder playing without gloves? If that’s the case, what’s wrong with leveling the pitcher’s mound in the AL? All these kinds of absurd things would improve the hitter’s chances and increase the team’s offensive potential.

But these rules wouldn’t be fair to the teams in either league and they wouldn’t enhance the game or even protect the vague “integrity” of the game.

No. It’s time for MLB to end the experiment. The DH rule must be terminated now.

But if this rule is retained, presumably through the ineptitude of the Commissioner or the petty and short-sighted demands of the Players Union, then the most important thing is that all teams in both the NL and AL play by the same rule. Enough already!

Easy to say but is such common sense even possible?

Only the Office of the Commissioner of MLB can say.

“Baseball has had nine Commissioners since first electing Kennesaw Mountain Landis to the post in 1921 …”

Err-umm, yeah, I tell ya, so far I made three swings at trying to describe the Office of the Commissioner of MLB. I struck out each time, trashing each and every one of those attempts. So, let me cut to the chase here.

Allan H. “Bud” Selig will step down as Commish on December 31, 2006. The new guy, whoever he is, will probably be just like Bud. He will still be far more the CEO of Baseball rather than some impartial judge who gallantly protects the integrity of The Game. Being “elected” to serve sounds really cool but he will be chosen not by fans, not by players, but by the owners. His marching orders will be to steadily improve the income of the league, up the attendance figures, increase the stock of baseball teams wherever possible.

That’s it in a nut shell.

The new Commish won’t dwell too much on trivial rule changes and the like. He has no reason to be concerned with who actually plays the game or anything like that. He’ll be more focused on controlling realignment and revenue sharing. And in his journey to protect the league’s anti-trust exemption, he has to do something about illegal drug use among the players.

After Jason Grimsley was cornered with HGH this year, other names of players who he knew to be using this drug or that began to surface. Quickly, the Commish issued an open letter response on MLB.com that said, in part, that he was "disappointed and angered by revelations that a major league player had acknowledged using human growth hormone."

Interesting choice of words, suggesting his disappointment or anger is reserved for the revelation rather than the truth of the matter. Maybe the Commish should hire some sharper PR folks.

Substances like HGH are high profile but apparently used by those who wish to heal faster than normal. Steriods, in essence, are generally employed to speed up the body’s natural chemistry. I really can’t imagine why the Commish would be disappointed by any such honest revelation.

News for the Commish, I guess, but the Rules violate the “How You Win” law with the DH and the Players violate that law with stimulating drugs.

Rather than Superman Drugs, the word is out in numerous articles and stories around the league about players using stimulants that are harder to detect. See Dave Sheinin’s Washington Post, 8/25/06, or go find Will Carroll’s "The Juice: The Real Story of Baseball's Drug Problems", or even better, go way back and read Jim Bouton’s “Ball Four”.

If the new Commish really wants to soothe his anger on this, he’s going to have to bone up on how modern non-amphetimine stimulants or “mood-brightening psychostimulants” like Modafinil really effect players today. These are all Class IV type drugs, legally identified in the Controlled Substance Act as non-addictive.

I am just sure George Mitchell’s investigation will help illuminate such revelations to further enhance the Commish’s present disappointment. While he’s at it, Mr. Mitchell should offer an informative chapter to shed light on the questionable ingestion of espresso and Red Bull, as well.

Anyway, there’s really no reason to expect the new guy to be any different than Bud Selig. The owners will protect what they already have and see to it that the status quo will continue to rule.

“The status quo is not working…There is a competitive balance problem in baseball, and there is no question about it.”

Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig 7/2002

Competitive balance … no question … yeah, that’s the ticket.

In spite of any perceived imbalance, tickets to The Game were sold like hot cakes in 2006. Attendance was up again, expected to top 75 million for the regular season. The top teams, the most profitable teams, should be no surprise to anyone. It’s the same old story of huge payrolls and gross local cable television deals. See the ESPN MLB 2006 Attendance Report for all the ugly details.

According to MLB.com, more than $165 million has been “transferred” from the profitable teams to unprofitable teams during Bud’s 8-year reign. Did that help with the competitive balance problem?

"There's work to be done. I'm not suggesting there isn't. There are still inequities. I want to make that point very carefully. But revenue sharing has really leveled the playing field. If a person left baseball in 1998 or 2000 and came back today, they would be stunned at the difference."

Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig 7/2006

Inequities … leveled playing field … stunned at the difference … oh, such soft, soothing words.

Judging by the teams that always seem to make it into the playoffs each year (you know who I’m talking about), perhaps Bud was talking about something other than a competitive balance problem within the league. Maybe the inequities and the stunning differences are to be found somewhere else. Well, I tell ya, Bud, I was here between 1998 or 2000 and now, and I, like you, definitely remained stunned at the inequities and the differences.

I’d love to see a sheet of hard words, stats and numbers showing how revenue sharing has “really leveled the playing field” but I can’t do that. MLB doesn’t have to share any of this data with me, the public or even Congress. We just have to take the Commish’s word for it.

I heard through the grapevine that KC Royals received something like $10 million in revenue sharing last year. No, no, that can’t be possible. They lost another 100 games in 2006, hitting that inglorious mark for the third time in four years, and their whole team payroll was only a bit over $47 million. Now, the Royals still haven’t received their share of the millions Jackson County taxpayers agreed to pay to upgrade Kauffman Stadium and, hey, it’s going to be several months until they see any small benefit from raised ticket prices for next year. That’s right, they are raising seat prices for next year. They have to raise the prices since, as the Royals ticket director was quoted in the KC Star, it’s a “show of faith of the direction we think the club is going.” Yeah, right, what direction is that, anyway? According to Bud, these little inequities require these kinds of “shows of faith” and are exactly why losing teams like the Royals are struggling to make ends meet. In spite of increased attendance, in spite of revenue sharing, in spite of tax paying communities bending over to pay the bills, the Commish says contraction is still a possibility and anti-trust is a necessity and, and …

HEY! ANYBODY STILL OUT THERE?

Yeah, ok, here’s the point. The Office of the Commish does not serve the community of baseball fans or even the loose federation of baseball people. The Commish serves at the pleasure of the owners committee. The Commish is no more connected to the fan base than the CEO of Exxon is connected to his customers. The Commish has no reason to consider dramatic changes to the game or even contemplating the true inequity of the DH rule as long as people continue to buy tickets to the game.

And we continue to buy them, no matter the cost.

Whoever the next Commish is, he may have an opinion on the inequities, he may be aware of the imbalances, he may even dislike the DH, but he will have little substantive to say about it as long as he serves as the voice of the owners.

Hell, I’m convinced the only way Pete Rose will be reprieved and given an opportunity for the Hall of Fame is if the Commish can square away a deal to increase league revenue because of it. That’s the real bottom line there, folks.

Even with all his Congressionally-protected power, Cooperstown is still the one area in the world where his vote doesn’t count anyway. Not that it matters, but the Commish has nothing to say about his own place in a Hall that will one day honor him, the Hall that baseball fans everywhere love to talk about.

And that brings me to the final, sobering topic of this SoB ’06.

At first, my reaction to the last year’s events led me to believe that the bronze busts displayed in the Baseball Hall of Fame were forever tarnished. Somehow, they cut Buck O’Neil from that line-up.

There’s no way, I thought, that I could ever hold the institution or the people within it in such high regard ever again. “They” made a horrible mistake. They overlooked a wonderful, beautiful man and an important key to the long tradition and symbolic relationship between the history of baseball and American society.

I know it’s not the first time they made a mistake. They’ve put some real rascals in the Hall, some old guys like Buck once described being “a little meaner than what they said.” But this time they ignored a truly good character of the game whose chapter gave credence to the power of hope and fairness in a world too often maligned by the human realities of hopelessness and foul play.

I thought Buck would get the honor he deserved. I thought that, in some small way, his selection would be like that singular game changing moment I’m always waiting for, a short step forward to the plate for our society that would signify a new atmosphere while paying homage to the struggles of the past.

I don’t understand how or why Buck was left out. There are some good rumors out there about that. But I still don’t get it.

Well, it’s done. That’s that. It can’t be changed. They knew the pitch was coming, they knew exactly where it would be, but they just didn’t take advantage of it and now it’s too late. To go back and honor him now would be wrong, it would only add to the injustice and, for me at least, the ignorance.

Like I said, I want to be pissed off about all that but instead I choose to remember the simple words Buck spoke after he got the bad news earlier this year.

“God's been good to me. If I'm a Hall of Famer for you, that's all right with me. Just keep loving old Buck. Don't weep for Buck! No, man, be happy, be thankful!"

John Jordan “Buck” O’Neil, 1911-2006

Ok, Buck, I’ll try. I’ll try to just be thankful.

Cheers,
Mb

Department of 100 Years Ago

Comrade Bob and Comrade Sally hugged each other as they stood among an anxious crowd in their front yard. The freight train sound coming from the ground rumbled softly at first then exploded to shake the houses and the trees and everything around them.

Tears pooled in Bob’s eyes as the two multicolored rockets rose in magnificent sequence from their underground silos in his back yard, a white hot cloud of exhaust boiling and trailing behind them. He had waited his whole life, so long for this moment, overcome by the joy of living to see an event he had dreamed about since he was a kid.

“They are so beautiful!” he exclaimed to Sally. “And it’s just like he said, so damn wonderful to have them pointed somewhere else instead of raining down on us!”

Bob had heard a rumor that the rockets were destined for somewhere on the west coast, perhaps San Francisco or even Salt Lake City, some hot bed location where the instability was too far out of hand. Bob knew it was for the best, the pain would be over quickly and he was confident this effort would quiet things down for a while.

Their future would be brighter, thought Bob.

Still clutching each other, the Comrades silently returned to their homes when the streaking missiles had finally vanished in the distance. Of course, the power was out everywhere and all the phones lines were now down. Just as well, thought Bob, since he had never liked talking on the phone in any case. Plus, nobody would be able to call ahead and warn their enemies or loved ones of the approaching threat. Better that they all sat in the dark for a while and pondered what to do next, he thought.

Just then there was a knock at the door. Comrade Sally snuck up quietly to the window and looked out to the porch.

“Yoo-hoo!” a vaguely familiar voice intruded from outside, “Are you all up yet? Is anyone home?”

“Christ!” whispered Sally, “It’s your mother and your sister. They’re carrying luggage.”

The “Yoooo-hooo!” grew louder and was followed by rude pounding on the front door.

“Might as well let them in,” sighed Bob. “Thing’s could always be worse, ya know...”

… That was a nightmare that I hadn’t had in years. But it all came back to me so easily, so complete and vivid in detail, as if it had never even left me. Oddly, this was not a screamer. It only jolted me awake, giving me a strange shiver of lingering fear that seemed to be stronger in the past but leaving me all the same in that uncomfortable place where I know sleep won’t be any good for the next few nights.

And for a while there it was a bad dream that I truly hoped would never return, a vision that I foolishly believed my children would not suffer. Man, that solitary thought didn’t last very long at all. Looking back, I think now there was no reason for me to trust that it wouldn’t return as clear and obvious as it did.

This frighteningly mad dream is so real yet so incomprehensible. I want to compare it to something but there’s nothing to compare. Empty and pointless, illogical, no known end to the game describes it perfectly.

It’s precisely at these times when I expect someone to ask, “Well, what would they have done 100 years ago?”, as if there is an ancient clue to surviving our own madness hidden somewhere in our dusty closets. It makes me yearn for a special agency or federal Department of 100 Years Ago where I can find the lessons and answers to that question.

But, to my knowledge, no such department exists.

If we do look back to 1906, then we can only be amazed at how short-sighted and silly people were back then. They actually thought the San Francisco earthquake was a big deal with only a few thousand dead and a few hundred million dollars lost. Emerging from that destruction were all sorts of cries about government ineptitude, the lousy treatment of the city’s poorer immigrants and constant public swindling by deceitful contractors.

We have learned so much since then.

Those old timers wouldn’t have known a real national life-threatening disaster if it hit them squarely in the face. They paid little attention to the rapid growth of the Japanese fleet or the political shenanigans engaging Moscow. Those 06’ers simply had no idea what kind of wicked presents they would find in their stockings over the next 60 years or so. They just couldn’t get passed the mud and muck on the west coast.

Surely, as modern people, we’ve advanced beyond that austere stage.

We know now that by 1966, during the heydays of my own childhood nightmares, short-sighted views had quickly expanded and technology was given its modern foundations. Courageous astronauts were sacrificing themselves for a nation’s vision of the future, artificial hearts were being implanted in the breasts of our luckiest citizens and only the occasional H-bomb was temporarily lost in waters off the Spanish coast.

Oh, those were the glory days, boys! Cold war with the USSR, endless battles of attrition in the jungle, nut cases hunkered up on water towers with high powered rifles, ahh, those were all just minor set backs, temporary speed bumps on the road to success. It was a time when we all learned to look ahead for the latest trends, ignore the ugly details in the mud and prepare for the next best thing.

Only 40 years later, things may be a bit different today. Maybe we’ve momentarily misplaced our innate ability to see the good things that lie ahead. We may have lost sight of the thickly layered prize, suddenly overcome by trivial events of the day and unable to see much beyond our own temporary suffering.

I suppose we shouldn’t let all this modern sense of dooming tragedy and disaster get the best of us. These recurring dreams are bothersome but there’s still plenty of life to be lived on this earth. We shouldn’t let some surreal dread prevent us from stepping forward and learning from our past mistakes like we once did. And if the different attitudes and reactions between 1906, 1966 and 2006 tell us anything, it’s that things could always be worse.

Cheers,
Mb