TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Saturday, June 19, 2004

A Nation That Cried "Foul Play!"

At first, I laughed. Sportscenter was showing their usual highlights of a Rangers-Cardinals interleague showdown, when they cut to the sorrowful tale of Nick and Edie O'Brien. For those of you who didn't catch the hoopla, basically a grown man by the name of Matt Starr (any relation to Ken?) leaped into the seats in front of him, knocking little Nicky out of the way, grabbing the ball in front of Edie, Nick's mother, and refusing to give the ball back. I laughed because the commentary from Tom Greive was priceless: "there's the biggest jerk in this park." You know he wanted to call him a few other names on the air. O'Brien and his mother Edie were immediately showered with gifts, including an appearence on Good Morning America. Nick becomes the next Jeffrey Maier.

While I agree that Starr should have given the kid the ball in the moment (he's since returned it along with a letter and a few tickets) or at least shown a tiny sliver of remorse, this is an example of foul ball greediness gone terribly wrong. But I found myself sitting at Shea Stadium on Wednesday night, in field level seats down the third base line, with a glove on my left hand, wondering, "Why am I sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for Cliff Floyd to send one my way?!"

Foul balls are more than souvenirs. Every man, woman, and yes, child, wants to able to have their version of "the fish was THIS big!" Or maybe it's ESPN culture taking over, where a great catch of a foul ball could make Top 10 Plays. In fact, that's just what happened last week: one of the top plays was a father with his one- or two-year-old in his right arm, jumping in the air to knock a line drive up in the air with his bare left hand and catching it as it came down...all with the kid in his arm. That didn't elicit a chuckle from me. What if the line drive was a few feet to the right? What if the ball had ricocheted? It didn't matter. He made Sportscenter. So did the guy who leaped across a woman in her 80s to catch a ball. And, as she should have, she gave him a whack on his back with her cane.

Maybe it's not the story or the highlight reel that has made us leap over children, push the elderly and bring the other guy to court over a milestone home run ball. It could be our fascination (or should I say obsession) with celebrities. What is a foul ball? It's, for example, a doorknob touched by Ben Affleck and J. Lo, right before they called the whole thing off. So, in this case, it's a ball thrown by Randy Johnson to Albert Pujols, scuffed by his bat and sent from the sacred field of play where cameras are trained on every moment and put right into our living rooms, which happen to be seats at a ball park. A relic from the religion of baseball.

So, yes, Starr was the biggest jerk in Arlington with his actions. But this story really makes us wonder what the big deal is with foul balls. Of course nothing will change. Just wait to see who catches Junior Griffey's 500th dinger. And will he/she give it back to Griffey? Look, everyone, if a ball is coming right at you, different story. But if it drops into the next row, little kids or not, you may end up vilified for the rest of your life for taking a flying body drop into the next row just to get a little meaningless slice of the American Pastime.

posted by Charles Curtis 8:28 AM

Friday, June 18, 2004

Diane Grassi returns to The Bullpen:

Hitting on All Cylinders
So far the 2004 Major League Baseball season has been an exciting one, and it needed to be, given all of the off-season controversies concerning the Yankees and Red Sox playoffs, followed up by the A-Rod trade, and the BALCO steroid investigation and indictments. Many of us have lauded the performances by many marquee players this season such as Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Mike Piazza, Jim Thome and of course Barry Bonds. Then there are the always consistent players and much heralded Alex Rodriguez, Scott Rolen and up and coming superstars with pitchers Mark Prior, Ben Sheets and Jason Schmidt, along with fielders Alfonso Soriano, Albert Pujols, Carlos Beltran, and Mike Young, to name a few.

Much overlooked during the course of this season have been the "fill-ins" for injured players, who have either been previous bench players, fairly new to the major leagues or are previously established players playing "out of position." They have been the glue that has kept teams in the hunt this season while other players rehab. They exhibit above all versatility in switching positions, with the added task of usually filling big shoes of a regular starting player.

That immediately brings to mind Pokey Reese of the Boston Red Sox, who was filling in for Nomar Garciaparra at shortstop until this past week. He has been a career 2nd Baseman and previous Gold Glove winner, with limited playing time at shortstop in the past. This season he has played like a Gold Glove winner at short, in Garciaparra's absence, and has been a catalyst on the base paths for the BoSox. He now resumes the season at 2nd base. At the very least, he has been able to showcase his versatility, and hopefully can add shortstop to his resume in the future, making him more marketable to other teams.

Chone Figgins, playing 3rd base for the Anaheim Angels, possibly for the rest of the season, as Troy Glaus undergoes shoulder surgery, has shown great agility in the infield. He started the season in the outfield, and has played some great defense at 3rd, making the most of his time there. Melvin Mora, playing 3rd base for Baltimore has also shown great defensive skills this season and in hitting for average. He has impressed the experts this season, although the shoes he must fill are only heroes of the past such as Cal Ripkin and Brooks Robinson. Mike Young in Texas is a young and eager shortstop and his hitting stats are only second to Ichiro in the American League. He changed positions from 2nd to shortstop this year to accommodate Alfonso Soriano in the A-Rod trade. He has not skipped a beat.

With the 2004 season continuing to evolve and weave new stories as we proceed, we should not forget the importance of the roles which players like these fill. There are many utility players used during the course of a season, who become an integral part of the team's fabric. Much like the long reliever, in often not getting enough recognition, the role players need to be celebrated and bestowed a lot of credit when warranted, as they can make the difference as to whether a team makes it to the playoffs. They can be counted on in a pinch, have winning attitudes, and make the game of baseball a more enjoyable experience. Baseball is a collaborative effort, which sometimes gets lost in the mix, and is only at its best when it is hitting on all of its collective cylinders

posted by David 10:48 AM

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Milestones Around One's Neck

Yesterday there were only three major league games, and in one of them we had the possibility of two milestone home runs being hit -- Cincinnati at Philly. Junior Griffey Jr. was sitting on 499 career dingers, and Jim Thome was sitting on 399.

Thome hit number 400 in the first at-bat of the game (an at-bat I'm actively considering for an at-bat of the year nominee; yes yes I'm working on LeCroy vs. Wagner). Junior sat the game out, allegedly for a day of rest, but the rumour was he wanted to hit the milestone at home (and to spare his family the off-day trip to Philly for a make-up game.)

These milestones don't mean what they once did, in the sense that with 37 members (and counting) of the 400-homer club, and 19 (and counting) in the 500 club, getting to what used to be specific magic numbers seems a little less special. In my market, the ESPN game was Prior vs. Clemens, not the miletstone-laden game, which to me seems like a much better decision about which game to broadcast.

I have a mild objection to Griffey sitting this one out. He's hot, and his team lost the game despite several situations where a left-handed power hitter would've been called for with men on base. The Reds have another off-day scheduled for later this week. Did the Reds pooch this game because they wanted to script a milestone? To goose attendance in the next home series? If so, this is a threat to the integrity of the game: the Reds might not have been doing all they could to win a game. That's cheating the fans.

Fred McGriff isn't shy about saying he wants to get to 500 home runs, and when asked directly about it, he more or less said it was because he thought 500 homers would guarantee his entrance into the Hall of Fame. That may be so: but once upon a time 400 homers was guaranteed entrance into the Hall of Fame, and a Darrell Evans (414) and Dave Kingman (442) later, that milestone was re-evaluated. While I strongly suspect McGriff's career value is greater than, say, Orlando Cepeda (379), I'm sure he wasn't as good a player as Jim Rice (382), who has no chance of getting into the Hall at this point. In fact, speaking of players finishing out their nine DHing for Tampa Bay, I'd say Jose Canseco (462) was a more dominant and more valuable player than McGriff - remember when 40/40 was considered something really amazing?

The quasi-mathematical problem with milestones, of course, is that either the bar has to be continuously raised (HR, for example), or they become unpassable (300 wins?) as the ggame evolves. This makes a particular milestone inherently instable.

We love our milestones, of course, because they're fun. They provide false benchmarks at arbitrary round numbers that allow us to play the apples-and-oranges debate of today's players vs. the all-time greats without having to get out the slide rule. Players get sucked into thinking they're actually meaningful.

If, god forbid (I have him on my rotisserie team), Junior, say, has an epiphany and decides to quit baseball tomorrow to work building houses for Habitat for Humanity, he'd still be a Hall of Fame player based on what he already has done. Sticking around for a milestone 500th doesn't make McGriff any more (or less) a HoFer than, say, if Harold Baines had stuck around for his 3000th hit. Except that, of course, the milestones are used for the second-tier players to argue they should be in or out. Rice suffers from having fallen off .300, and from having failed to play a couple of years below his maximum capabilities just to pass 400. I still find it hard to put Jim Thome in Jim Rice's class, as good a player as Thome is.

The milestone is an ugly impediment to enjoying baseball, and a lousy way to judge players. It's the kind of thing that gives statistics a bad name. But I don't see the obsession of players and fans alike with them abating anytime soon.

---

On a related note, it's really time to change the rather arbitrary rule concerning player statistics in games that end in a rain-out prior to the game becoming official. Had yesterday's game been rained out -- there were three long rain delays -- Jim Thome might've had to hit career homer No. 400 twice. That's kind of deflating. Starters who pitch well but are rained out after 4 innings lose an entire start, but it's never in their statistical record. These games are real games, even if they end in a no-decision: let's count the statistics. The statistics for tie games, which are rare enough, count as long as the game has gone 5 IP. And often rainouts are not made up, which seems a bit unfair to players' statistical records in another way.

A game's a game, if we're going to obsessively count statistics, let's count every game that's been played.

posted by The Crank 11:45 AM

Sunday, June 13, 2004

More on Lance and Roids
There are more more rumblings concerning Lance Armstrong and doping. See the posts here discussing Gwen Knapp's column and Armstrong's response.

posted by David 3:23 PM