TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Saturday, September 25, 2004

BUD SELIG'S FINAL TASK OF THE SEASON

By Diane M. Grassi

The final week of the 2004 Major League Baseball regular season is upon us and many questions will not be answered until its very end. The National League West, National League Wild Card and the American League West titles are still up for grabs. The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants are battling it out for the division title and the Cubs or the Giants still battle for the National League Wild Card with Houston still not out of it. The American League West favors the Oakland A's, with the Anaheim Angels and Texas Rangers holding on by a thread.

MLB has lived up to its billing in many ways this season. From its individual feats to team rivalries renewed and as contentious as ever, fans hope for the last minute suspense. It's just a part of baseball. From the 1st inning in April to the last inning of the last game of the 162, there will be some clubs this week that will continue to hope.

Baseball is meant to be played until the last out, and it is always never too late to get back in the game. However, procrastination is not supposed to be the motto for the Commissioner's office, which Bud Selig's office has given new meaning. In fact the Commissioner's Office usually gets involved with weighty issues, most of which require expediency.

In the case of the Montreal Expos' relocation, Commissioner Bud Selig is not expected to announce any decision, which has been percolating for over two years now, until the last day of the season. He was to have done it a year ago. And now it has come down to the last hour of the last day of the season once again.

More upsetting about the Commissioner's anticipated announcement is that it most likely will land the Expos in Washington, D.C.'s RFK stadium, which is what was proposed last year as the most likely spot, but then put off. But what has held up the decision was not necessarily finding the best location in the best interests of the Expos, but the negotiations between MLB and Baltimore Orioles owner, Peter Angelos, who has opposed the Washington, D.C. move ever since it came up over two years ago.

It took little imagination to come up with RFK stadium, which would only be used as a temporary home for the Expos anyway until a new stadium is built. There was a team called the Washington Senators which played there in the 60's but never took off. And if RFK is only to be used temporarily then why not do so and then permanently move the club to Northern Virginia where it would be farther from Baltimore and cater to a quickly growing population to fill a stadium? Northern Virginia is the only other locale still on the list for consideration.

But we are not talking logic, here. What this whole debacle, in the way it has been handled by MLB, has come down to is what is best for the Commissioner and his friend Peter Angelos. The fact that the Expos are collectively owned by the 29 other clubs and MLB is bad enough, but to placate Peter Angelos and keep players and the future of their organization in limbo for over two years is inexcusable.

MLB is supposed to be concerned about the integrity of the game. But making side deals with particular owners and compensating the Orioles' owner for the trouble the Expos would cause his club in terms of revenue comes close to impropriety. And if there is such a problem with drawing enough fans so that it will entail millions of dollars in compensation to an owner who himself is on the Relocation Committee, it is a proposal meant to fail. How about compensating the Expos in order for them to put a winning team on the field so people will show up?

The Montreal Expos were never to have been owned by MLB for over two years. The club has not been able to make any decisions concerning money matters since that time. And according to Gene Orza of the Players' Association this too infringes upon the integrity of baseball.

But because the Commissioner’s Office has once again dragged its heels, it has forced the Expos' players to play a third of their home games the past two seasons in Puerto Rico. They have lost all of their veteran players because no free agents are willing to play for a team without direction, let alone without a stadium or revenues to compensate them. And additionally, the remaining players cannot even purchase their own permanent homes, not knowing where they will live.

In sum, since the Montreal Expos have waited so long for a decent chance in getting back to be a contending ball club, putting them in a vulnerable position to begin with is only setting them up for failure once again. Additionally, Selig during this whole time has yet to take bids on ownership of the club. So what the Montreal Expos will ultimately wind up with on October 3rd, provided that date is met, is playing in a provisional stadium in a crowded market without ownership and a fledgling 2005 roster.

If someone can articulate that this is good executive decision making and leadership on behalf of the Commissioner's office, then state your case.

posted by Diane M. Grassi 4:23 PM

Thursday, September 23, 2004

Another Crazy Barry Stat
Last night Bonds was walked intentionally four times. This was the fourth time this season that he's been give 4 easy ones. How nuts is that? Here are all the people in baseball who have 16 or more IBB:

111 Barry Bonds
26 Jim Thome
18 Todd Helton
17 Ichiro Suzuki

That's it folks. Only three men have drawn as many IBBs in the entire season as Bonds has drawn in four games.

By the way, for all those who bag on Ichiro for being a glorified singles hitter, isn't interesting that he might take the AL IBB crown?

posted by David 9:13 AM

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

Washington Insiders Back Inside Washington

It looks like old Cranky was wrong once again: the Expos will not be awarded to Northern Virginia, but instead to one of the Washington D.C. groups. You can go to official web site of the Washington DC Baseball Club and suggest a name for the new club: in honor of its racist football cousin, I sugggested the Washington Whiteskins. But The Washington Insiders may be the most appropriate name.

Who's behind the new ownership group?

Why, Frederic Malek, former Nixon aide and campaign manager of the Bush/Quayle 1992 campaign, and a former partner with -- guess who? -- in the Texas Rangers. (Malek is alleged to have been the Nixon aide entrusted with compiling lists of jews in various federal agencies.) Just so everything's bipartisan, Vernon Jordan is included among the limited partners.

Why, will this new stadium be publically financed at taxpayer expense in a time of record deficits, just like the Texas Rangers' stadium, you ask?

Why, yes, why do you ask?

posted by The Crank 1:16 PM

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Insert Foot in Mouth, Chew

I've got a fearless prediction to make in the NL wildcard race: the Marlins, despite being four back. Two weeks from now I'll either be seen as eerily prescient or forgotten, which is why it always pays to make off the wall predictions.

Here's why: unique among the wildcard contenders, the Phish and Cubs are playing no other wildcard contender down the stretch. And while that makes it the Cubs to lose, I now have the feeling they will, somehow.

The Giants and Astros have three against one another, then the Giants have six against the Dodgers (who may yet be playing for the wildcard instead of the division crown) and three against the Padres, who have six against the DBacks, and three against the Dodgers. LA gets four against the Rockies, in LA, on top of all that. Houston has the SF series, three against the Brewers, three against St. Louis (no doubt a little toned down while prepping for the playoffs, but still formidable) then finishes off three with Colorado thanks to the bizarre unbalanced NL Central.

The teams all have weaknesses, of course, or they would've run away with it by now. The Dodgers have a rotation of No. 3 guys that still isn't set, and their offense has been asleep at the switch for two weeks. The Giants don't have a rotation after Schmidt, Brett Tomko notwithstanding. The Padres have lost both Sean Burroughs and Khalil Greene and never have found a centerfielder. Roy Oswalt of the Astros has a pulled rib cage muscle, leaving only Clemens as a real anchor in the rotation, although the Astro offense has been spectacular this month.

Oh, the Cubs still have the easiest schedule on paper: three with Pittsburgh, three with the Mets, four with Cincinnati, and three with Atlanta. But they're the Cubs. It's not just karma working against them. They've been playing flat for weeks -- weak defense, overly-aggressive hitting and running, mediocre relief, spotty starts from Prior and Wood and Clement.

What does a mixture of strengths and weaknesses suggest? Lots of great baseball in the next two weeks, and lots of split results among teams with head to head matchups. Since Florida doesn't have any, that means when they lose, it won't benefit their adversaries individually or in the aggregate more than a half game.

Florida has six against Philly, whom they've completely owned the last two years, three against the Expos, and three against Atlanta, which is having major problems with its rotation right now. Pavano and Willis have been faltering, Burnett is hurt, and Beckett, while great of late, has been inconsistent and prone to minor injuries taking him out of the game. Oh, and the offense has been sputtering. So it's not exactly a shoo-in.

Finally, a word on Philly. The team is not in great shape, but because of the other teams playing one another, if they sweep both Marlins series and take half the other games they can sneak in there, as long as the other teams above split head to head. It's a longshot, but not as long a shot as being seven back with fourteen to play might seem.

PS OK, I know in my heart of hearts the Phish are probably going nowhere but to Hialea on Oct. 4th, but the wildcard race is really down to a series of coin flips, for why not pick the all-tails team?

posted by The Crank 2:47 PM

Monday, September 20, 2004

More Untrivial Bonds Trivia

Boy, baseball sure knows how to ignore some of the bigger milestones. Even as we're gawking at Bonds' walk total for the year and Ichiro's pursuit of George Sisler, as I write this Bonds is sitting on 2061 runs scored in his career. One more and he's tied for sixth, all-time, with none other than Willie Mays. He seems a mortal lock to pass Ruth and Aaron, tied at 2174, and if he has two more years comparable to this one or three decent years, he's going to be passing Ty Cobb and closing in on Rickey Henderson (assuming Rickey doesn't come back once again) at 2295. Yes, yes, I've written about this already this year, but here we are at passing Mays, and nobody's paying that much attention.

In looking up the career runs leaders, I'm reminded again of two greats from a previous era. Lou Gehrig retired with 1888 runs scored, at age 36. Of course Gehrig retired ill, and in the normal course of things back then players rarely played until 40, but if you assume three more decent seasons from Gehrig without the illness, we'd've been talking about him as the all-time runs leader (or not talking about him, apparently) right now.

Mel Ott seems to be fated to be the forgotten man of the inner circle of the Hall of Fame forever. 511 homers seems much less impressive than it actually was given modern totals. To put that number in proper perspective, when Ott retired, that was the NL career HR record. Only Jimmie Foxx and Babe Ruth had more career HR. He did benefit a bit from the Polo Grounds, but probably not that much given how deep center and the gaps were; he also had three years during WWII with poor competition. But the stat that impresses me is he's still 12th on the all-time Runs Scored list, with 1859. Only seven players, counting Barry, have passed Ott since his retirement. Ott died after a car wreck in 1958, and of course the Giants had just left New York; without Ott's presence at Hall of Fame induction ceremonies and old-timers' games and so forth, his memory seems to have fled from the collective consciousness. I suspect he may yet be more familiar to fans of the New York Times crossword puzzle than today's Giants' fans.

Bonds has already broken Ott's pre-Willie Mays franchise HR record this year, sitting on about 524 dingers as a Giant. But Barry still has 470 runs scored to go to break Ott's (New York) Giants' franchise record for runs scored as a Giant, and I'm not going to bet any hard cash that he won't do it. (Mays of course has the combined New York-San Francisco record...not that these distinctions are necessarily germane). But it would be nice for Ott's memory if he could keep a record or two on the books somehow.

Trivial Bonds Trivia

OK, back to the little stuff. Bonds walked in a pinch-hitting appearance Sunday, breaking a streak of two games without a walk. That's the longest he's gone all year without walking. He's had as many streaks of games with three or more walks as streaks of not walking -- three each. Wow.

Stretching for Immortality

Why is it we remember '714' so much more easily than '755'? The Babe had his record number for 39 years. Aaron's had his for 30. But 755 isn't quite ingrained as much. My theory is that 14 is twice seven, so in the way our minds order things, it simply resonates more. Here's my advice for Barry to assure he's remembered forever even if A Rod manages to pass him in about ten years: stop at 777 homers. With 7 MVPs under his belt (assuming he gets it this year), that will be all it takes.

posted by The Crank 4:02 PM