Sixty (starting) nines, dude: the all-time baseball league

Baseball is the intellectual's game since all the action takes place in the observer's head — which could also be why it takes nearly three hours to complete seven minutes of action.

That's the best way of introducing a fun little side project borne from a secret shame: creating a 25-player roster for all 30 current MLB franchises, plus another 30 historical rosters. Sixty nines, as it were.

This sort of ties with the concept of metafandom, along with having personal and professional obligations that proscribe any blogging on baseball. Talking about a game will never replace watching the best players in the world do their thing. However, there is a lot to be said for the idea a lot of Seamheads, as Craig Calcaterra put it recently, have come "to love or obsess about the game — through something other than actually sitting down and watching it."

For yours truly, the gateway drug into being a stat geek was a computer simulation from called Earl Weaver Baseball that was released in the late 1980s. There is general awareness that John Madden Football was catalytic for sports video games, but Weaver was innovative in its own right (you could play an entire season and it recreated different stadiums). Its era-specific rosters using Hall of Fame players, this being before people realized using one's name and likeness without compensation was probably actionable, was a better introduction to baseball history than Ken Burns' Baseball (not being hyperbolic, it really was).

From about 1989 through 1996, a shameful number of hours were wiled away playing games between, for instance the AL 00-30 team with its Ty Cobb-Tris Speaker-Babe Ruth outfield (and two .400 hitters, Harry Heilmann and George Sisler, sitting on the bench) and the likes of the AL 61-75 team, on which the 1961 version of Roger Maris was the fourth outfielder behind Mickey Mantle, Frank Robinson and Carl Yastrzemski. Even more time was pissed away typing in contemporary players' stats from the backs of baseball cards to make rosters of current players to make imaginary teams.

As a 15-year-old loner growing up in a rural area, it was either that or learn how to hunt or fish. Remember, this was before kids out in the boonies had the Internet or meth labs. Besides, who wouldn't have been curious to see what kind of power numbers Frank Thomas would have put up if he was 'created' and placed on a team that played in Fenway Park?

Suffice to say, that's always been there. So, if all this goes according to plan, by Opening Day each roster should be posted.

Here is a rough format:

• Franchises will be grouped by vintage. The Blue Jays and their 34-season history aren't competing with Red Sox and Yankees, whose lineups can be drawn from nearly a century. Feel free to read that as a protest against MLB wrecking a good thing, being a sport, no salary cap, with a bad thing, unbalanced schedules and too many divisions.
  
  That expanded playoff format cannot happen soon enough.


• No player may be used twice. Rob Neyer of sbnation.com, a few years ago, published his Big Book of Baseball Lineups. When it came out, I was all, "How dare he have the drive and work ethic to see to fruition an idea I never acted on!" However, Neyer's objective was just picking the best lineup. This exercise is under the guise that there's some realm where these teams would actually play, so Barry Bonds can't be on the Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants.
  
  A couple years ago, yours truly also managed the Blue Jays in a Seamheads.com sim league. Again, players could be used more than once. This is more pure.


• Each player will be chosen by his most representative season. The criteria is to use WAR (Wins Above Replacement) to pick a 25-player roster with a batting order using a designated hitter, bench, starting rotation and bullpen.
  
• Context counts. That's a way of dealing with suspect Steroid Era seasons or one-year wonders. For instance, Brady Anderson's 50-home run 1996 season (6.6 WAR) should get tossed out, but his '92 campaign (5.4) that better reflected his overall body of work is permissible. Some emphasis will be given to more contemporary players, since baseball has become more competitive over time. In other words, anyone from the pre-Jackie Robinson era or Dead Ball Era (before 1920) will have to be more exceptional than a latter-day player.

Here are the divisions:

AMERICAN LEAGUE

• Classic: The charter franchises — Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers.


• Modern: Teams that took their current form in the 1950s and '60s — Baltimore Orioles, Minnesota Twins, Los Angeles Angels, Oakland Athletics.
  
  
• Newbies: The under-40 (as in seasons) teams — Kansas City Royals, Texas Rangers, Seattle Mariners, Toronto Blue Jays, Tampa Bay Rays. Some allowance is being made for the Royals' small-market woes.

NATIONAL LEAGUE

• Classic: Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals.
  
  
• Modern: Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco Giants, Houston Astros, New York Mets, Atlanta Braves (dating from 1966).
  
  
• Newbie: San Diego Padres, Montreal Expos, Milwaukee Brewers, Colorado Rockies, Florida Marlins, Arizona Diamondbacks. The Milwaukee team would draw on seasons when that city had a NL team.

INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE

• North Division: Buffalo Bisons (Mets B), Lehigh Valley IronPigs (Phillies B), Pawtucket Red Sox (Boston B), Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees (Yankees B), Rochester Red Wings (all-time Washington Nats/Twins B), Syracuse Chiefs (players born in '40s).


• South Division: Brooklyn Dodgers, Charlotte Knights (Chisox B), New York Giants, Norfolk Tides (all-time Browns/Orioles B)


• West Division: Columbus Clippers (Cleveland B), Indianapolis Indians (Pittsburgh B), Louisville Bats (Cincinnati B), Toledo Mud Hens (Detroit B).

PACIFIC COAST LEAGUE

• American North: Iowa Cubs (Chicago Cubs B), Memphis Redbirds (St. Louis B), Nashville Sounds (Brewers AL-only, 1969-97), Omaha Storm Chasers (Kansas City B).


• American South: Albuquerque Isotopes (Dodgers B), New Orleans Zephyrs (players born in '50s), Oklahoma City RedHawks (Houston B), Round Rock Express (Senators/Rangers B).


• Pacific North: Colorado Springs Sky Sox (players born in '60s), Tucson (Padres B), Salt Lake Bees (Angels B), Tacoma Rainiers (Mariners B).
  


• Pacific South: Fresno Grizzlies (Giants B), Las Vegas 51s (Blue Jays B), Sacramento River Cats (Athletics B), Reno Aces (players born in '70s and '80s).

Hope this can be pulled off!

Blog blast past: The annual Tim Raines rant ...

Robbie Alomar should take his rightful place in Cooperstown on Wednesday when the Baseball Hall of Fame vote is announced. What of another table-setting switch-hitter who played in Canada? From Jan. 5, 2010 ... apologies to the people mentioned by name. The meds are doing their job, thank you for asking!

Seeing as, "Numbers can be presented so many ways, folded into so many origami shapes," so it's understandable a baseball writer might twist it around after being bombarded with an "avalanche of numbers" during the lead-up to Wednesday's Baseball Hall of Fame election results. Jeremy Sandler should get the BBWAA honour for being a wee bit off-base.

"The obsession over numbers 'proving' Hall of Fame worthiness also leads to inauthentic comparisons. Tony Gwynn was a first-ballot selection with a .388 on-base percentage, 1,383 runs and 319 steals. Thus, one could argue Tim Raines should not be languishing with 22% support with his .385 OBP, 1,571 runs and 808 stolen bases."

(Two paragraphs later)

"Every player needs to be evaluated on his own merits against the best players of his era and of all time. To do this, numbers will tell part of the story, but will never tell the whole story."

Did anyone else see that? It seems as if (and please don't read this as a personal attack, it just happens to be one article that came to attention) the argument is for wanting to one day live in a world where we rate each ballplayer against the best players of his era, but without making "inauthentic comparisons" such as one between Tim Raines and Tony Gwynn. You should just be able to find "what lies beyond what the mere calculations can show."

From the department of, "yeah ... no," you cannot compare Raines to Gwynn just because one was a National League outfielder born in 1959 and the other was a National League outfielder born in 1960, a whole eight months apart! You may not compare a player who was a MLB regular from 1981-98 with someone who was a regular from 1984-99 just because they each:

1. Played a corner outfield spot and some centrefield;
2. Spent their peak years in the NL at about the same time (1983-87 for Raines, '84-89 for Gwynn);
3. Usually batted in a similar place in the lineup (91% of Gwynn's career plate appearances and 90% of Raines' were hitting first, second or third);
4. Hit similarly well in the leadoff spot (Gwynn OPSed .823, Raines OPSed .813)
5. Hit similarly well in the 3-hole (Gwynn OPSed .860, Raines .856)
   
6. Had similar short-and-squat builds (Raines was listed at 5-foot-8, 178 lbs.; Gwynn, 5-11, 199);
7. Batted from the left side (Raines was a switch-hitter);
8. Had a son of the same name make the major leagues;
9. Had a son of the same name make the major leagues as an outfielder;
10. Went into coaching after retiring as a player. Yep, totally inauthentic.
    

This is half about a fondly remembered former Expo getting his due (Jeff Blair: "... the lack of support for Raines is embarrassing") and half about media types who, present company included, get uber-defensive whenever something complex crops up. It is understandable. Some people don't like trying out new ways of seeing. Some cannot wait to see what's next.

Staying barely on-point, the argument is not that Tim Raines was better than Tony Gwynn.

The point is that they had contemporary careers where they each fulfilled the same role about equally well. Except Gwynn was not just a first-ballot inductee, as Sandler describes it, he was elected with 97.6% support three years ago. If you picture the Baseball Hall of Fame as the trendy new nightspot, Gwynn was let inside the velvet rope post-haste. Raines is standing out in the cold while the doorman pretends to scan a clipboard. Raines ... Raines ... Raines ... don't see it.

As Joe Posnanski, whom Sandler cites in his column without even a hint of irony, noted," ... there are only 26 players in baseball history who have received 90% of the vote, and that list does NOT include: Frank Robinson, Joe DiMaggio, Al Kaline, Mickey Mantle, Sandy Koufax, Yogi Berra, Bob Gibson, Walter Johnson and Warren Spahn."

Gwynn had the high batting average and the 200-hit seasons (a hitting feat you know is vital since Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth and Ted Williams accomplished it a combined never). Raines had the bases on balls, sick stolen-base success rate and scored more runs. Same aims, different means.

Raines' argument is not airtight; no one's is. However, the same out clauses that are applied to him have been overlooked for other players. For instance, one sympathetic sportswriter said of Raines, "Should get more votes than he does, but unfortunately his peak years were mostly spent on mediocre teams." Raines' teams finished above .500 in 12 of his 15 seasons as a regular, compared to 8-of-16 for Gwynn. For pity's sake, Ryne Sandberg played on only three winning teams in his whole career. No one ever mentioned that when he was on the ballot, since he played for the Chicago Cubs and was a clean-cut white guy.

Anyway, the song remains the same with Tim Raines. He received 24.3% support in 2008, 22.6 in 2009. Billy Williams, the 1960s and '70s Chicago Cubs outfielder, received similar support (23.4%) in his first go-around in 1982 and was elected five years later. For some reason, he kept gaining about 10% each year. It has not happened for Raines. It needs to this year or next.

The second part of this is feeling personally frustrated at working in the media and being surrounded by people who are rigid when fluidity is needed, especially when people can call BS so conveniently. It is disappointing to hear Jeff Blair, who is always a great read, say he "will not vote for a player on subsequent ballots if I didn't vote for him on the first."

There are issues with how some ballplayers have crept up to around 20% support to eventually getting the necessary 75% (Jim Rice was a classic example), but come on, Jeff. What, no one should ever re-evaluate their critical opinion, especially if new shit has come to light, man? In other fields, academe, film and literary criticism, people change their minds all the time. They decide they liked a book or movie, or that they hated it. about a book or movie they didn't like the first time around. It's called being human.

Getting back to baseball, you have to be careful not to beat people over the head with sabremetrics. It has found its rightful place. It is just a gas to see poor Jeremy Sandler projecting that he's threatened. Sorry to come off like a graduate of the Harry Neale School of Knowing What Everyone Is Thinking, but here is a grown man who says, "People do not live and die with their favourite players because of mathematical formulae. Adjusted ERA or VORP never made a kid put a poster on his wall." One, as if that proves anything and two, did anyone argue that we should hang our arses on trying to see the world through a child's eyes?

Yeah, when you were a kid, you were drawn to specific ballplayers for all sorts of reasons, but no one voted to put George Bell into the Hall of Fame because he had an awesome Jheri-curl and once tried to do a flying karate kick on a Boston Red Sox pitcher named Bruce Kison.

You grew up, kind of, and you learned to use your mind, instead of losing it when faced with complexity.

Enjoy election day. Please keep an eye on how big a leap Mark McGwire takes. By 2 p.m., Roberto Alomar should be a Hall of Famer. Sweet.

100 favourite movies ...

So, the assignment is to list 100 favourite movies without explanations or research, no checking Rotten Tomatoes, no making sure that a great film is on there. Arrange them in alphabetical order, but once you have 100, no takebacks.

Here's what came out:

1. A Beautiful Mind
   
   
2. Absence of Malice
   
   
3. Airplane!
   
   
4. Almost Famous
   
   
5. American History X
   
   
6. American Splendor
   
   
7. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
   
   
8. Any Given Sunday
   
   
9. All The President's Men
   
   
10. Bamboozled
    
    
11. BASEketball
    
    
12. The Big Lebowski
    
    
13. Blazing Saddles!
    
    
14. Bull Durham
    
    
15. Boogie Nights
    
    
16. Boyz n The Hood
    
    
17. The Cable Guy
    
    
18. Casablanca
    
    
19. Casino
    
    
20. Chinatown
    
    
21. Dazed and Confused
    
    
22. Dead Man on Campus
    
    
23. Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb
    
    
24. Drowning Mona
    
    
25. Eight Men Out
    
    
26. Election
    
    
27. Eurotrip
    
    
28. Fargo
    
    
29. Fahrenheit 9/11
    
    
30. Fast Times at Ridgemont High
    
    
31. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
    
    
32. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
    
    
33. Fever Pitch (original UK version)
    
    
34. Fletch
    
    
35. Full Metal Jacket
    
    
36. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
    
    
37. The 40-Year-Old Virgin
    
    
38. Gandhi
    
    
39. Glengarry Glen Ross
    
    
40. Goodfellas
    
    
41. Grosse Pointe Blank
    
    
42. Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle
    
    
43. High Fidelity
    
    
44. Hoop Dreams
    
    
45. Hoosiers
    
    
46. Hot Tub Time Machine
    
    
47. Inglorious Basterds
    
    
48. The Jerk
    
    
49. Just Friends
    
    
50. Kill Bill Vol. 2
    
    
51. The Last Waltz
    
    
52. Little Miss Sunshine
    
    
53. The Longest Yard
    
    
54. Lost In Translation
    
    
55. Love And Death
    
    
56. Mallrats
    
    
57. Master & Commander
    
    
58. Mean Girls
    
    
59. Million Dollar Baby
    
    
60. National Lampoon's Animal House
    
    
61. Network
    
    
62. North Dallas Forty
    
    
63. Not Another Teen Movie
    
    
64. Office Space
    
    
65. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
    
    
66. Owning Mahowny
    
    
67. The Paper
    
    
68. Platoon
    
    
69. Pulp Fiction
    
    
70. Raging Bull
    
    
71. Reservoir Dogs
    
    
72. Rocky
    
    
73. Rushmore
    
    
74. Say Anything
    
    
75. The Shawshank Redemption
    
    
76. Slap Shot
    
    
77. Smokey And The Bandit
    
    
78. Snatch
    
    
79. Sometimes In April
    
    
80. Stand By Me
    
    
81. Star Wars
    
    
82. Stripes
    
    
83. Superbad
    
    
84. Swingers
    
    
85. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
    
    
86. Taxi Driver
    
    
87. There's Something About Mary
    
    
88. This Is Spinal Tap
    
    
89. The Truman Show
    
    
90. Top Secret!
    
    
91. The Untouchables
    
    
92. The Usual Suspects
    
    
93. V For Vendetta
    
    
94. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
    
    
95. Wall Street
    
    
96. Whale Music
    
    
97. What About Bob?
    
    
98. Without Limits
    
    
99. Wonder Boys
    
    
100. Youth in Revolt

Zen Dayley: Mauer could be another Ted Williams, but .400? No ... no

In the box marked It's Not For Nothing, please note that Joe Mauer had his first 0-for-5 all season on Tuesday, dropping his average down to .395.

Mauer is a wicked player, but the idea of him hitting .400, really? One should stay on the stathead side with respect to the Sports Illustrated cover story about Mauer being the literary device in Tom Verducci's argument that, post-Steroid Era baseball's "most iconic, captivating pursuits are of hitting streaks and a .400 batting average." The snark has already been covered off Tommy Craggs ("Tom Verducci has found his latest anti-drug mascot: Joe Mauer").

The Mauer meme was probably started by Joe Posnanski. Poz wrote a column a month ago where he noted most of the highest batting averages recorded in recent times where by players who almost never struck out, like 4% of the time. Using that 4% strikeout rate, he figured that Manny Ramírez might have hit .416 one season and that Canadian Larry Walker might have hit .400 a couple times for the Colorado Rockies (and .398 in another season).

This is not an attack on two writers who have put out/will put out a book this year every baseball fan will likely want to read (Verducci's The Yankee Years and Poz's The Machine, which is about the 1975 Reds). The problem is that one guy is ignoring math and the other was ignoring intent.

The question about whether we will ever see another .400 hitter was answered by the late, great Stephen Jay Gould. Chris Lynch at A Large Regular dug out a great quote from Full House:

1. Complex systems improve when the best performers play by the same rules over an extended period of time. As systems improve, they equilibriate and variation decreases.
   
2. As play improves and bell curves march toward the right wall, variation must shrink at the right tail. (Emphasis mine.)

Like Lynch says, "The disappearance of the .400 hitter is seen as basically a measure of an overall improvement in play."

League batting averages, give or take a few percentage points, have been relatively stable over time. In 1941, when Ted Williams hit .406, the entire American League hit .266. You know what the league average was in 1977, when Rod Carew hit .388? The exact same, .266.

Three years later, when George Brett took his run at Williams and wound up at .390, the AL hit a collective .269. Last season, it hit .268, with the highest average in the league being Mauer's .328.

You can pretty much go back to any season from the wayback era when the .400 hitter was commonplace (when black athletes were barred from playing and scouting and player development was next to nonexistent) and find similar support of Gould's theory that the best players don't lap the field by as much because there are more good players.

Take 1911, when Ty Cobb hit .420 and Shoeless Joe Jackson was runner-up at .408. Twenty-one players (i.e., those who batted enough to qualify for the batting title) hit at least .300 that season, almost three per team in an eight-team league. In the first post-Dead Ball season, 1920, when George Sisler hit .407, there were 26 .300 hitters in the AL. There were similar totals throughout the heavy-hitting '20s, the last decade where .400 hitters appeared with any regularity.

By '41, though, when Williams turned the trick, 15 players hit .300 in the AL, less than two per team (the eight-team NL had only 11). Fast-forward ahead to 2008 and only 17 everyday players in the 14-team AL hit .300, just one per team on average.

Those are only randomly gathered examples, but you should see the trend. The more competitive the game gets, the less likely you are

There also (sorry, Poz) does not seem to be any correlation between batting averages and strikeout rates. His aforementioned column certainly did stimulate thought, but it ignored intent. Players do not intend to strike out. Even a world-renowned space cadet such as Manny Ramírez does not say, "Okay, this will be one of my 100 strikeouts for the year, it's just a cost of doing business." He is trying to make solid contact and sometimes he misses because the pitcher he is facing is better than him that day.

Pitchers generally go for strikeouts more than their decades-ago brethren, who were often expected to pace themselves to last the full nine innings and did not have to worry the threat of Dr. Longball. Besides, as I'm sure someone much smarter long ago pointed out, there is no relationship between strikeout rates and overall batting averages.

Last season, when the entire AL hit .268, Jack Cust led the league with 197 strikeouts. Sixty years earlier, when only one player in the AL (Pat Seerey, remember him?) struck out 100 times, the entire league hit .266. The year after that, the entire league hit .263 without a single player joining that dubious Century Club.

This is not meant to be ad hominem. Verducci and Posnanski both write like a dream. Baseball fans are blessed to have them writing about the diamond game. They and their editors are smart to understanding it's all in how you package a story. Any baseball fan would be stirred if Joe Mauer was hitting .410 deep into August, even those who know batting average is a bunko stat. What Verducci says about Mauer is good writin', Dickie:

"Here is where Mauer comes in. With home runs having gone the way of junk bonds, derivatives and no-document mortgages, the most iconic, captivating pursuits are of hitting streaks and a .400 batting average, in part because of their daily drama and the stirring of the ghosts that come with them. Not since the Reds' Pete Rose hit in 44 straight games in 1978 has a hitter come within 15 games of Joe DiMaggio's single-season record of 56 straight. Not since the Rockies' Larry Walker and the Padres' Tony Gwynn, in 1997, has anyone hit .400 even as modestly deep into a season as June 22 — until Mauer."

A counter-point might be, who said Mauer has to hit .400 for the average casual sports fan to be regarded as an awesome ballplayer? FanGraphs has him down to finish this season with rate stats of .354/.433/.579 and he plays catcher, the most demanding fielding position. That hardly needs any high gloss.

Related:
Tom Verducci has found his latest anti-drug mascot: Joe Mauer (Tommy Craggs, Deadspin)
Joe Mauer Will Serenely, Politely Crush You (Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated)

Randy Johnson joined the 300-win club: Now let us never speak of it again

(It would be a good idea to get this post up before Randy Johnson pitches again. — Ed.)

Judging a pitcher on his win total is like judging a marriage solely on its longevity.

It's a nice milestone, nothing more. It has taken a few days to make order of some half-thoughts, but there was no joy in Sageritaville after watching and reading the coverage of Randy Johnson's 300th career win. All the fuss played into the useless fetish baseball broadcasters and writers have with arbitrary round numbers.

It's long past time to get weaned off that dependency. The media has a job to increase understanding or stimulate thought, not just say what happened. They punt on that responsibility when they use 300 wins, a .300 career batting average or 3,000 hits for a hitter or 500 home runs (pre-Steroids Era) as a crutch. A player should be judged on what he did in his peak seasons, not on the final totals.

The irony here is that the same mindset that leads to Randy Johnson being feted has worked against Bert Blyleven taking his rightful spot in the Hall of Fame since he won only 287 games (but pitched 60 shutouts, struck out 3,771 batters and was nails in post-season for World Series-winning teams in Minnesota and Pittsburgh).

Another irony is that it has sunk the candidacy of the man who tagged Johnson with the nickname "The Big Unit," former Montreal Expos leadoff hitter Tim Raines. Raines hit only .294. He had only 2,679 hits (but he on-based .385, 16 points higher than Paul Molitor, and scored 1,500 runs. Almost every player who's done that has been elected to Cooperstown, nice contradiction, eh).

Besides, we no longer need a pitcher's win total to know what we need to know about him. There are better tools. It is understood that earned-run average, thanks to the work done by Voros McCracken (the creator of DIPS, defence-independent pitching statistics), is not even a tell-all. Baseball broadcasts now include on-base percentage for batters and WHIP for pitchers. Yet here we are, in 2009, putting emphasis on a statistic that's less a reflection on the man and more on how the game is played. It's mind-blowing.

Batting averages and pitchers' win-loss records still have value as conversational shorthand, since it's easily understood. Saying the Blue Jays' Roy Halladay is the majors' first 10-game winner this season will not die out. Nor will saying, "the guy's only hittin' .245," not, "he's on-basin' .285."

However, wins are mostly a function of how the game was played during a particular timeframe, like all baseball statistics. It's why you don't see anyone bat .420 anymore as was commonplace before 1930. No one is belting 36 triples in a season, like Owen Wilson did for the 1912 Pittsburgh Pirates.

Johnson unwittingly pointed out as much when he joked to Yahoo! Sports that he had, "Two-hundred-and-eleven more (wins), to catch Cy Young," who pitched 100 years ago.

It seems somewhat illuminating that another 300-game winner, Greg Maddux, is said to have been pretty blasé about getting to the milestone. One of the beat reporters who covered Johnson's so-called milestone win also covered Maddux's, related:

"When Greg Maddux won his 300th in San Francisco, it was one of the most anticlimactic events I've ever witnessed. Maddux didn't even come out on the field to shake hands with his Cubs teammates.

At least Johnson really embraced the significance of the accomplishment, tipped his cap to the few hundred fans in the ballpark, celebrated on the field and offered plenty of thoughtful things to say to the media. It felt like an important day, and that sensation was lacking when Maddux joined the club." (Emphasis mine.)

Far be it to suggest that a 300th win isn't a big a deal if Greg Maddux didn't think it was a big deal when he was the guy getting his 300th win. Maddux is pretty smart, probably smarter than a lot of journalists who covered his career. (His brother, Mike Maddux, is also a very intelligent baseball mind, having made over the Texas Rangers pitching staff despite the difficulties posed by their home ballpark.)

Perhaps that is one of those instances where the journos need to use a little more intelligence. That probably is the frustrating part, admittedly. Everyone ought to know better. Winning 300 is more of a footnote to Johnson's career. Resetting the bar for Hall of Fame induction at 275 or 250 is no better It still amounts to putting emphasis on an almost meaningless statistic. You might as well say a NFL quarterback must complete 60% of his passes to earn induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

A better question than, "Will we ever see another 300-game winner?" is, "Will we continue to care about winning 300 games?" Besides, as Joe Posnanski pointed out Sunday in a much better-written post, all of us seem to have forgotten Mike Mussina retired with 270 wins last fall.

Point being, the sooner those round-number milestones are jettisoned, the better. People have the ability to make a reasoned decision about how good someone was. The crux of it is that focusing on 300, .300, 500 or 3,000 means a a career is being evaluated based on someone's willingness to stretch out the crummy, wind-down portion of his career, the way Craig Biggio did in 2007 so he could get to 3,000 hits. (Three thousand hits is something that really has to go, since it completely ignores the value of the base on balls as an offensive weapon.)

Mussina left on his own terms when he was still capable of pitching for 2-3 more seasons. It seems like Mussina did a cost-benefit and decided leaving the game on his own terms trumped pitching with diminished skills for the sake of giving sports media drones something to write about.

That's completely understandable, especially if an athlete is a perfectionist. Blue Jays fans adore Roy Halladay not just because he's nails, but because of what he does to be so nails — the dedication, the focus. Halladay, who's at 141 wins at age 32, has an outside shot at 300. There will come a day though when he won't be able to pitch as effectively. Picture a 44-year-old Doc chucking for some mediocre West Coast National League team in 2021, trying to get his 300th win (although you can't assume that's what he would want). Now does it seem so special?

Besides, last Thursday is not even among the top 10 Randy Johnson moments, for Pete Toms' sake.

1. His first career no-hitter with the Mariners (June 2, 1990, Seattle). It established him as a pitcher to look out for. You know the joke, too: His father was upset that he walked six batters.
   
   
2. Striking out Rickey Henderson three times in one game (May 16, 1993, Oakland). Mariners fans might remember this since Johnson took a no-hit bid into the ninth inning before Lance Blankenship broke it up with a single to shallow right field. In the long run, it might be more noteworthy that he struck out Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson three times on his way to a 14-strikeout night.
   
   Now, quickly, do you know what Floyd Bannister, Jim Clancy, Roger Clemens and Mike Flanagan have in common? The correct answer is not, "They all pitched for the Blue Jays," because Bannister didn't, nor is it, "Who are four people who have never been in my kitchen?" Those are the only other pitchers who ever whiffed Rickey Henderson three times in one game when the greatest leadoff hitter of all time was in his prime. That's a great trivia question.
   
   Clancy did it Sept. 23, 1981, Bannister on Aug. 11, 1982, Flanagan on (Sept. 30, 1985) and Clemens did it twice on Sept. 9, 1987 and Sept. 15, 1988.
   
   For all intents and purposes, Henderson's prime is assumed to have ended some time before May 31, 1995, when the immortal Erik Hanson turned the trick.
   
   
3. Scaring the poop out of John Kruk in the 1993 All-Star Game (July 12, 1993, Baltimore). Give a rare chance to deal to a left-handed hitter, Johnson took full advantage when John Kruk came up to bat. The video is priceless. The first pitch was over Kruk's head. Second pitch, fastball down the middle. Kruk waved helplessly at the next two, just to get out of there.
   
   
4. Pitching the Seattle Mariners into the 1995 playoffs (Oct. 2, 1995, Seattle). Johnson fired a complete-game three-hitter to help the Mariners beat the California Angels 9-1 in a one-game AL West playoff, capping one of the great late-season comebacks in . The Mariners overtook the Angels after being 12½ games out as late as Aug. 20, winning the last 11 games Johnson started.
   
   
5. Coming out of the bullpen on one day's rest in the Mariners' series-deciding win vs. the Yankees in the '95 playoffs (Oct. 8, 1995). It might as well have been the point where the term "nails" was coined. The Mariners were playoff first-timers going up against the Yankees, who were in the post-season for the first time since 1981. New York won the first two games at Yankee Stadium. Johnson, on three days' rest, won Game 3 and the Mariners won the next night to force the decider. Tied 4-4 in the ninth in the Game 5, manager Lou Piniella summoned him out of the bullpen and he went three innings until Edgar Martinez hit the winning two-run double. Piniella later said he'd asked Johnson if he would be available to pitch to one batter, "just as a gentleman's way of getting him in there."
   
   
6. Striking out 19 batters in a game twice in one season (June 24 and Aug. 8, 1997, both at Seattle). He lost the first time he did it, so it was almost like he had to do it a second time.
   


7. Striking out 20 batters in a game (May 8, 2001, Arizona). It's cool to a Seamhead because it required a special ruling before it was clear it would count as tying the record for a nine-inning game. Johnson came out after the ninth with the score tied, having struck out eight of his last nine hitters to get to 20. Since the game went to extras and since baseball takes its record book so damn seriousl, it wasn't clear if he would be considered to have tied Clemens' and Kerry Wood's record for most strikeouts in a nine-inning game. A couple days later, the powers-that-be did the right thing.
   
   
8. Winning three games in a single World Series (Nov. 4, 2001, Arizona). A great feat since it reaches across time to the days when pitchers would start three games in a World Series, to Bob Gibson in 1967 or Christy Mathewson in 1905. Johnson won games 2 and 6, and then came back to win Game 7 in relief of Curt Schilling, with whom he shared Series MVP honours.
   
   
9. Pitching a perfect game (May 18, 2004, Atlanta). Struck out 13 of 27 Braves hitters, including future Hall of Famer Chipper Jones all three times.
   
   
10. If it has to be included... That time he killed the bird.
    
    
    
    

Jays: NL rules, not so Fabio

Roy Halladay's pitching line last night in Atlanta was pure pro-DH dynamite.

7 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 0 R, 1 BB, 6 SO, 95 pitches, 63 for strikes

You know the rest: Halladay came out for a pinch-hitter with a runner on second and two out in the top of the eighth inning. The Atlanta Braves scored off lefty reliever Jesse Carlson in the home half for a 1-0 win on the first night of interleague play.

There isn't a manager alive who doesn't pinch-hit when the game is tied in the eighth inning. That is precisely the point. The self-described purists say they love all the strategy that goes on in the National League. It's not strategy when the decision is automatic. Praising the strategy in the NL is like praising an NFL coach who opts for a 99.9% automatic extra-point kick instead of going for a two-point conversation in the first quarter.

What happened last night also puts the lie to one of the big sells with interleague play. Major League Baseball, back when this contagion was introduced in the late 1990s, said it would help fans to gain an appreciation of the stars in the other league. Well, Roy Halladay, baseball's best right-handed pitcher, was removed through no fault of his own after facing only 26 batters and throwing just 95 pitches. They didn't get the full measure of the Good Doctor.

One objection here is that most of the people who were at the game barely noticed. Fans in Atlanta went home happy because their Braves won. That's fine and dandy like sour candy, but not addressing something just because most people wouldn't notice either way is kind of dumb. Why try to do anything better, in that case?

Maybe this was more irritating to a Jays fan since they lost the game. However, they could have won while removing a starting pitcher while he was still fresh, which is also wrongheaded on a certain level.

The National League dinosaurs have their conceits. Their league is the aggressive, get-after-'em brand of baseball. The average AL team this season has actually stolen more bases than the average NL team (31-25). It would be neat to know if that is a reflection of being able to have nine hitters in the lineup who have all learned to hit and run the bases (relatively speaking) instead of eight (two big reasons are the two most steal-happy teams, the L.A. Angels and Tampa Bay Rays, are in the AL, while the most station-to-station team going, Milwaukee, is a NL team).

Then there's the great double switch. Far be it to point out that it can often mean taking out either the leadoff or No. 2 hitter and at least ostensibly, that can mean losing a player who is good enough to hit higher in the lineup than all the other starters.

As previously noted, National League teams don't have a problem with their minor-league affiliates using a DH (the pitcher only bats in games between two NL-affiliated teams) in order to get their farmhands more at-bats. They don't mind using a DH in spring training games to get someone more chances to fine-tune his swing.

More strategic thinking goes on in the AL. The manager has to decide to change pitchers based on effectiveness, not when the No. 9 spot is due up in the order. Weighing the benefits of pinch-hitting one position player for another, or whether to pinch-run for the catcher and run the risk of an injury to the other catcher, that actually involves some thinking.

The NL rules are as dishonest as The Sporting News headline which says Atlanta's pitcher, Kenshin Kawakami was able to "outduel" Halladay. Kawakami was full value for the effort with eight shutout innings, but he would have come out for a pinch-hitter earlier if Halladay hadn't been so darned effective, or if the Braves hadn't had last bat.

At the heart of the matter is that the way baseball has evolved over time has gone against pitchers being able to swing the bat competently. The Blue Jays pay Halladay a pretty handsome salary to pitch. He still had another inning, maybe two in him last night, and he was denied that because one league, for whatever reason, doesn't half to play be late 20th/21st century baseball rules.

Point being, things change, people accept them, get used to them and move on. There is something disquieting about sports fans who can't accept the designated hitter almost 40 years after it was adopted.

(As sidebar, one idea that has been floated out for interleague play is to use the visiting team's rules. Let the fans see a different style of game. That's not a half-bad idea.

Speaking from self-interest, that would mean Matt Stairs would not get to start at DH when the Philadelphia Phillies come to Toronto for an interleague series in June. Nuts to that.)

The Vegas shuttle

The moves the Blue Jays made over the 48 hours reflect how they have a pretty sharp front office and less-than-swift ownership.

It is a wise move to ship out pitchers Brett Cecil and Bobby Ray, God's gift of sunshine Travis Snider and bring up Casey Janssen (who starts tonight vs. Atlanta), a rehabbed Ricky Romero and utilityman Inglett, who's good at being average at a lot of things. A key bit of understanding is that (unnecessarily) expanded pitching staffs lead teams to run a constant shuttle between the major-league team and Triple-A to effectively create what Bud Selig would never a allow: A 28- or 29-man roster instead of 25. Of course, that would be a lot easier for the Jays if their top farm club wasn't 3,597 kilometres away in Las Vegas.

Fabio Castro (pictured), as most diehard farm system-studying diehards know, had a 24-inning scoreless streak in Las Vegas. Castro, who was an Ottawa Lynx in 2007, is a curiosity since he's only 5-foot-7 (if that) and he's also on his fourth organization while still only being 24 years old. He might be good lefty-reliever timbre if Jesse Carlson falters.

MLB Trade Rumors figures Travis Snider might stay down in Triple-A until after the all-star break in July. It has to do with keeping him from becoming eligible for arbitration and free agency, all that fun stuff.

Drunk Jays Fans also laid waste to any notion of an attitude problem:

"(Assistant GM Alex) Anthopoulos also gave Snider credit, when the delightful Mike Toth threw down some hockeyish bullshit and asked if Snider's request to Cito to stop giving him so much information in-game suggested that maybe there was a problem with 'coachability,' saying that he did it in a very respectful manner, and that they thought it was a positive that Snider wasn't intimidated to go into the manager’s office."

Getting back to the point, Rogers should have tried a little harder to get a Triple-A team located in the Eastern time zone. It is tempting to point out there is a 10,332-seat ballpark located a 4½-hour drive away in Ottawa that was built for Triple-A and is less than 20 years old. That ship has sailed, though, since the International League just doesn't want teams to have to come to Canada in April and May.

It's convenient to point out the closest Triple-A team to Toronto, the Buffalo Bisons, are dead last so far in their first season as the affiliate of the New York Mets. (The Jays' farm club in Las Vegas is 10 games below .500, but that's neither here nor there.)

Zack Greinke: Depression is still a four-letter word, for now

There was a time fairly recently when you wouldn't have heard about Zack Greinke and his depression, so having it out in the open is a step forward.

It is curious, though, that the Sports Illustrated cover story on the Kansas City Royals ace, get this, omits the word "depression." Greinke's condition is referred to only as "social anxiety disorder." Two years ago, when Greinke was making his comeback, the same publication referred to his "debilitating case of depression."

That speaks to how depression is a touchy topic. The mere mention strikes at the heart of the way society has been going for the last 30 years. It is understandable to look at Greinke and see this as an upbeat story about a pitching phenom who has an 0.00 ERA heading into his start tonight vs. the Toronto Blue Jays. No one is expecting sports journalism to save the world, but at the same time, that goes to show why a best-selling book about male depression was entitled, I Don't Want To Talk About It. Like it or not, you live in this world, you have to see how this world contributes to depression.

It is progress that the Kansas City Royals were sensitive to Greinke's condition (it's beside the point that they had a lot of money tied up in him). Like Joe Posnanski says:

"Baseball is not a game known for understanding or compassion. The gentle relief pitcher for the Royals, Dan Quisenberry, wrote a poem about his manager Dick Howser, the refrain being Howser's quote for every occasion: 'Piss on it.' That was Howser's answer for losses, for slumps, for bad pitching performances, for anything gone wrong. Piss on it. Get 'em tomorrow.

"And that's the image of the big league game: cold, hard, rub some dirt on it, walk it off, there's no crying in baseball, Texas manager Billy Martin once telling Mike Hargrove that Hargrove could not take off to attend his father-in-law's funeral because "that's not immediate family."

"That's the game (then-Royals GM Buddy) Bell and (then-GM Allard) Baird grew up in. But on that February morning, they saw a young pitcher in pain, and they told him to go home and stop thinking about baseball. 'There's business and there's personal,' says Baird, now a special assistant with the Boston Red Sox. 'And most times in the game, business comes ahead of personal. But I think in this situation, we were talking something bigger than business. There's right and wrong, and I don't think there was any gray area here.' "

At the same time, though, only seeing this in terms of Greinke fighting through the mental health equivalent of Tommy John surgery smacks of stopping halfway.

As Sharapova's Thigh noted, Greinke dealing with depression should command more attention than Texas Rangers slugger Josh Hamilton overcoming drug addiction. Who's the bigger underdog, really? The young man who overcomes a genetic predisposition toward depression, which will be one of the world's top five public health problems by 2050, or the one who overcame addiction? Maybe that is apples to plantains, but it's clear whose story the public would prefer to hear, since drug addiction has a higher tsk-tsk factor. Most sports likers know about Hamilton, while many are only now hearing about Greinke.

This is just a layperson's understanding, but 21st-century life is a major exacerbator of depression, and that really wasn't in the article. There are a lot of factors: Diet, poor sleep patterns, social isolation (the contradiction that the more people who live in cities, the more cut off from each other we feel). The biggest might be the focus on the individual (the "You Sell," as it's called), which has eroded our social bonds. When everything is MySomething, that can be scary if you have problems. It's reasons like that which mean, although it sucks if you're unemployed, that a recession is not something to be completely feared.

It is curious that Greinke, as Poz detailed, is that he was often "talked with friends and family about becoming a full-time position player so that he could get to hit," so he wouldn't have to be out there alone on the pitcher's mound. It was like he wanted to disappear into a more group setting, being in the dugout with the boys sizing up the opposing pitcher.

Again, it's complicated. Greinke is not the first young athlete who needed time away before coming back, although this was more than simple burnout. Hall of Famer Robin Yount toyed with ditching baseball for golf when he was 21 years old and as Bill James once argued, that was part of him making a commitment to baseball. Greinke had to make a commitment to being a pitcher.

The point today is that there is a lot which has to change about the way we're leading our lives in order to meet the challenge of depression head-on. It was a well-written SI cover story, a perfectly good read on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, but leaving out the D-word was a bit of a downer.

Related:
Zack Greinke Is In Total Control; The rise of the young Royals ace has been as spectacular as his fall was chilling. His anxiety disorder now in check, he's unleashed the full range of his remarkable talent (Joe Posnanski, Sports Illustrated)
Greinke to appear on this week’s cover of Sports Illustrated (Kansas City Star, April 27)
Greinke Has Been Perfect, but He Is Trying to Do Better (The New York Times, April 23)
Zack Greinke Has The Admirable Story, Not Josh Hamilton (Matt Clapp, Sharapova's Thigh)

Zen Dayley: Harry and the Bird ...

Ball fans were still absorbing the news about Nick Adenhart — and now comes word about Mark Fidrych, of mid-1970s Detroit Tigers fame, and Harry Kalas, the longtime Philadelphia Phillies play-by-play voice, have left us on the same day.

The form calls, as a unreformed baseball nut, to try to do justice to both men.

Firstly, Fidrych. (Joe Posnanski, who had benefit of actually being alive in 1976, will have more later, so you can skip reading from this point forward and wait for his take). One way of summing up The Bird if that if he hadn't existed, Richard Linklater might have had to invent him for the generation which wishes it had been young in the free-spirited '70s, instead of the nervous 1990s, where just saying hello could get you charged with a hate crime.

The timing and tide was right for Fidrych, "with his Framptonian nest of hair." (Steve Rushin, Sports Illustrated, July 2, 2001). From this vantage point, he stands as the last folk-hero American athlete, who barely got paid more than the people sitting in the stands (the stage ledge in Michigan even passed a resolution to try to get his salary raised above the major-league minimum, $16,500). The state of Michigan, then as as now, was down on its luck on its 1976, the auto industry leaking oil three lanes wide. He provided some very necessary solace, so maybe it's not for nothing he would go when the city and state which embraced him so is up against it once again. It's a reminder that whatever comes up, we've been there before.

Meantime, as the story went, he was without airs to the extent that he lived in an apartment with no telephone. Perhaps there was some lesson in there, an argument that modesty is overrated.

"He was almost too down to earth. "He was just a wonderful guy to be around. I think the antics on the field were never an act. I think it was his true feelings. He was just a simple guy, lived a simple lifestyle and just brought that lunchpail mentality to the pitcher's mound every four or five days."
— Pawtucket Red Sox president Mike Tamburro, via The Associated Press

Fidrych was also kind of a poster child for the abuse of young arms. The double edge of his runaway success was that the Detroit Tigers allowed a pitcher just two years out of high school to throw 24 complete games — a career for some pitchers — in 29 starts, including five extra-inning games. Using Tom Tango's pitch count estimator, one can guesstimate that Fidrych had several games where he threw 150 to 175 pitches. For instance, in his fourth career start, he pitched an 11-inning, 5-4 win, with four bases on balls; he probably threw in the area of 176 pitches.

That would never happen today. These days, a smart organization would probably have shut Fidrych down in September once his team was out of the hunt (the '76 Tigers finished 74-87, fifth in a six-team AL East). Really, every time you hear some sports-talk radio reactionary going on about pitchers being babied, you should be entitled to find him and staple a printout of Mark Fidrych's career stats to his forehead.

Fidrych represented the innocence of youth. Well, innocence has a down side. Be that as it may, he'll always be the answer to a great question, what would you do if you were told you would be a major sports star for a year, but only for a year? By most accounts, he handled that question with his own goofy kind of aplomb.



Harry Kalas

Greater minds have already commented on the relationship which forms between a good baseball radio play-by-play voice and her/his audience, so spare a thought for Phillies fans today. They've lost two good ones in just more than a decade, since Kalas' analyst, the Hall of Fame leadoff hitter Richie Ashburn, died unexpectedly in 1997.

Kalas was known for his work with NFL Films, but he was Philadelphia's guy through and through.



Bill Baer of Crashburn Alley, a fine Phils blog, said it best about Kalas several weeks ago.

"I could listen to Kalas talk about anything — knitting, different types of leaves, flossing techniques — for hours on end. His voice and delivery are incredibly captivating, no doubt why he is a legend among legends in the broadcast booth. To boot, he is one of the most genuinely humble people you will ever have the privilege of hearing."

Harry Kalas, according to his Wiki, was actually a catalyst for a change in MLB broadcasting policy. In those days, the hometown radio broadcasters were always shunted aside for the national guys during the World Series. There was such a stink over Kalas being bounced off the broadcast in 1980 that starting the next year, the locals were able to call the game. That speaks to what Philly had with Harry Kalas and what Harry Kalas had in Philly.

R.I.P., Harry. R.I.P., Bird.

Related:
Kalas: 'His substance was his style' (Pro Football Talk)
Goodbye, Harry (Brian Joseph, Baseball Daily Digest)
In 1976 the Bird flew into baseball, free of guile, a little bit gullible and absolutely lovable. Twenty-five years later he's the same rare Bird. (Sports Illustrated, July 2, 2001)

All-Time Jays: Playoffs!

One of us is owner of the the all-time Toronto Blue Jays team — the ATJs — in the Seamheads.com Historical League (SHL). So how about those Blue Jays?

Said it before, say it again: All the Blue Jays need is to get out of the American League East and the time-space continuum.

The All-Time Jays have captured the division flag, holding off the Arizona-Colorado D-Rocks to win by four games, with an underwhelming 79-75 record.

It's the most which could have been hoped for, especially after they began September by losing eight games in a row to fall three games back. However, from that point forward, they won 15 of their last 25 games, clinching on the penultimate day of the regular season when Roger Clemens hurled a three-hit shutout to beat Seattle. That sets up a first-round playoff matchup vs. the Cleveland Poz Buttons, the Midwest division champions (94-60 record). It will be best-of-5, with Clemens, Roy Halladay and Jimmy Key set to start, since they're about the only viable options.

It was tense (well, not really, it is imaginary baseball). One of the tendencies of the Out of The Park baseball-sim franchise is that players will go in the tank just randomly. The pitching staff more or less fell apart and whatever shuffling and shuttling of players that would have worked is, frankly, beyond my ken. Jonah Keri coaxed the Montreal Expos to an 83-71 record (the 'Spos went 46-32 from July 1 on, nearly .600 ball), but he's a lot smarter than this general mangler.

It looked doomed on the night of Sept. 9 after an 8-2 shellacking in Kansas City, where David Cone (who could have helped the Jays based on his two partial seasons in Toronto) threw a complete game and George Brett went 4-for-5. The next night, was the breakout game of all-time. It was 1-1 in the second when David Wells, validating the LaRussian strategy of having the pitcher bat eighth, smacked a two-out single, which snowballed into a nine-run rally, bookended by Wells (lifetime average: .129) getting his second hit of the inning to bring in the ninth run.

Ernie Whitt, who finished the season hitting a superb .293/.365./.488 while making 117 starts behind the plate, had the big blow with a three-run homer. (Amusingly, that prompted the Royals to bring in the Mad Hungarian, Al Hrabosky, who immediately plunked Joe Carter.) The eventual 17-3 win, followed by a 10-5 blowout the next night, got everything turned around. The story of the stretch drive, in brief vignettes.

• Halladay and A.J. Burnett came through Sept. 17-18 in a two-game sweep of the Orioles, 6-2 and 5-2, trimming the lead to one game entering a four-game set at the 'Dome vs.the D-Rocks. Devon White hit a game-winning home run off Jim Palmer in the second game.
• The All-Time Jays then took the first three games of that series, 10-3, 8-1 and 4-2, with Halladay throwing four-hit ball over eight innings in the tense third game. Doc has had a rough season, but is going into the playoffs having won three of his last four decisions.
  
  Arizona won the last game of the series, 12-3, leaving town only a game off the lead after coming in up one, but the damage had been done.
  
  
• From April to August, Joe Carter accumulated more Air Miles and splinters than RBI, shuffling between Triple-A Las Vegas and a seat on the bench. He came to life over the final five weeks, slugging .500 in 126 times at bat with nine homers and 22 runs scored, including a go-ahead grand slam homer in the win that clinched a tie for the division.
  
  Earlier, Carter raked during a six-game stretch following the D-Rocks series. The Jays only had to face the Yankees and Whitey Ford, the Red Sox and Cy Young, and the Twins and Walter Johnson, but they managed to go 3-3, all one-run wins.
  
  Carter homered, doubled and drew a leadoff walk off Ford to set up the winning run in a 5-4 win, on Sept. 24.
  
  B.J. Ryan, a late-season saviour of out of the bullpen, was a deserving winner after facing the minimum six hitters over the final two innings, getting Derek Jeter, Joe DiMaggio, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Mickey Mantle in order. (Ryan walked Gehrig to start the nervous ninth, but got Mantle on a liner and then picked the Iron Horse off first base.)
  
  The next night, Carter doubled in the bottom of the ninth and came in via a passed ball and a ground ball, clinching a 4-3 victory for Jimmy Key. The left-hander's valiant effort seemed to have gone for naught when he gave up a Ruthian home run that put the Yankees ahead in the eighth inning.
  
  However, in the home half, Robbie Alomar beat out an infield hit on a grounder between third and short (although one can only imagine Jeter showed outstanding intangibles on the play). The Yankees couldn't turn off a double play off a Tony Fernandez two-hopper (again, despite the Captain's outstanding intangibles). That kept the inning alive for Troy Glaus to smack a game-tying double.
  
  
• Glaus also started the club back when it beat the Big Train, 7-6 on Sept. 29. Johnson, who was going for his 25th win, had a 5-3 lead, but Glaus touched him up for a leadoff double in the seventh. Pinch-hitter Fred McGriff won an eight-pitch battle with a RBI single that cut the margin to 5-4, and Devon White, Lloyd Moseby and Carlos Delgado followed with run-scoring hits off one the imaginary-baseball incarnation of one of the game's greatest all-time pitchers. Johnson ended up finishing 25-8.
• Another great piece of two-out lightning came in a 9-2 win over the Dodgers on Oct. 3 (a day that lives in Blue Jays infamy). It was a one-run game through six. Hershiser got the first two outs in the seventh, before being bled drier than a kosher chicken by six straight singles, including a two-run single by Halladay on an 0-2 pitch, no less.
  
  
• Nevertheless, the lead was still a very shaky two games heading into a season-ending four-game set vs. Seattle. For one game and 5½ innings of the second, it seemed like a choking situation.
  
  A.J. Burnett failed on two fronts; his Toronto self couldn't stop the spoiler-minded Mariners, who won 8-5. while his Florida self took his 20th loss of the season at the hands of the D-Rocks in an 8-0 curbstomping.
  
  Seattle built a three-run lead vs. Jimmy Key the next night, on early homers by Raúl Ibáñez and Alex Rodriguez.
  
  It was white-knuckle time heading into the bottom of the sixth. Robbie Alomar, though, waited out a leadoff walk off Erik Hanson, who suddenly reverted to form. With the bases loaded and two out, Carter crushed a full-count fastball off Windows restaurant to stake the Jays to the lead. Key, who went the distance in the 5-3 win, and Clemens, with his shutout, took it from there.

Now the hard part: Plotting playoff strategy

Playing the Clevelands will not be easy. Poz's pounders scored 885 runs, most in the league and were second in on-base-plus-slugging (.806).

Albert Belle had a massive year, 36 homers and 125 RBI, while four players on-based in the .400 range: Jim Thome (.409), Tris Speaker (.407), Joe Sewell (.406) and Shoeless Joe Jackson (.396). Their catching tandem, Johnny Romano and Sandy Alomar Jr., combined for 21 homers and 103 RBI.

They had three players with at least 100 runs scored and 200 hits: Jackson, Speaker and leadoff man Napoleon Lajoie. This merely proves that they played their regulars way too much and will be tired, far as this Eastern Ontario country boy is concerned.

Most impressive of all, GM Posnanski managed to get Duane Kuiper his one at-bat. He swung at the first pitch and grounded out, but the fact he got to do that was victory enough.

"This is very important, I’ve got to get Duane Kuiper at least one at-bat. There is absolutely no point in even being in this league if I’m not going to get Duane ... his at-bat." -- March 11, 2009

If this wasn't totally for fun, one would treat that as an act of arrogance. You didn't see the far less famous GM of the All-Time Jays putting Rob Butler on his 40-man roster and trying to sneak him into a September game.

Cleveland isn't so formidable on the mound. Their top three starters are Addie Joss (3.50 ERA, 1.32 WHIP), left-hander Sudden Sam McDowell (4.57, 1.50) and ol' Rapid Robert himself, Bob Feller (4.83. 1.64). It seems wise to bank on those three getting the call over Hall of Fame fourth and fifth starters, Gaylord Perry (4.22) and Stan Coveleski (4.25). Cleveland is so stacked that Bert Blyleven and CC Sabathia are middle relievers, for crying out loud.

The Jays can counter with Clemens (3.35, 1.31 WHIP 248 strikeouts, fourth in the league), Key (5.17, 1.38) and Halladay (4.47, 1.37).

Offensively, it seems best to dance with what got you here:

• White (.336/.384/.578) stays in the leadoff spot despite the temptation to move him into the middle of the lineup to take advantage of his power. Don't mess up a good thing.
• Alomar (.298/.348/.417, 100 runs, 38 steals) probably hits in the 2-hole. Tony Fernandez (.289/.340/.373) has been in a funk for a while.
• It's a tough question to figure who should hit third. Delgado led the league in slugging at .618, on-based .408 and led the team in the Triple Crown stats (.316 average, 40 homers, 114 RBI). Putting him third, with either the red-hot Carter (four homers in his last five games) in the cleanup spot) or lefty-masher Glaus (11 of his 17 homers) batting cleanup keeps the two lefty power threats apart.
• Speaking of which, Ernie Whitt may have to stay in the lineup because his bat is so valuable. Platoon partner Pat Borders hasn't been much with the stick, but he saves the team a lot of runs.
  
  Whitt, as noted, had a great year. He was second on the team in homers (17) and on-base percentage (.365), slugging percentage (.488) and OPS (.853). There was some reluctance to hit him in the 5-hole, but it worked out well.
• Lloyd Moseby cooled off in the second half of the season (he OPSed about .600 after Sept. 1). He started every game, playing at all three outfield spots, and scored a team-high 110 runs. Still, he might have to be dropped down to balance out the lineup.
  
• Neither Orlando Hudson (.290 on-base, .348 slugging) or Rance Mulliniks (.338/.333) has offered much as a platoon third baseman. Mulliniks will probably get a chance in the playoffs after delivering some key pinch hits late in the season.
• Tom Henke had a couple blown saves down the stretch. B.J. Ryan is the club's hottest reliever, but do you change the closer this deep into the season? The mind reels.
  

Batter up: Cincinnati Reds

It's that mystical, wonderful time of year where you commit to a team which you know fully well won't win. This season, in honour of an popular Internet meme, we'll present 25 things about each team. Any wagering or fantasy baseball advice is for recreational use only. At bat: The Cincinnati Reds.

1. Some would-be Mistress Cleo is probably trying to tell you that Cincinnati can make a run at its first playoff berth since 1995. Do not listen. The Reds (74-88 last season) are at least one year and two starting pitchers away.
2. Toronto's own Joey Votto is probably not long for first base. The top Reds hitting prospect, 22-year-old Yonder Alonso, the No. 7 overall pick in the 2008 draft, will be mashing with authority before too long and first base is his only position (saying he plays it might be a stretch; most first basemen just kind of stand there and catch the ball). Votto will probably end up in left field, but you'll probably hear breathless speculation of some big trade going down with his hometown Blue Jays (or not).
   
   Alonso is in down in Double-A, probably not for long. (At the same age, Votto played in the same league and on-based .408 and slugged .547.)
3. FanGraphs rates the Reds as the 24th-best organization in baseball, leavening it by saying they are closer to 15th than 30th. The guts of a good young team are in place, but they lack depth and need to figure out what mix a team needs to win at Great American Ball Park, which is hell on pitchers.
   
4. Many tears were shed in fantasy baseball circles when 22-year-old phenom Jay Bruce was consigned to rightfield when the Reds picked up Willy Taveras ("apparently their taste for quality in centre was ruined by Corey Patterson," Baseball Prospectus 2009, p. 163). Bruce would be worth more in centre than at a corner spot.
   
   Bruce's OPS-plused 96 as a 21-year-old rookie. Those who produce an average performance despite being so young are usually going to be good sooner rather than later.
5. The Reds' pitching is better than that 13th-best ERA (4.55) in the National League indicates. Maybe you and your friends should see how well you could do with bad fielding and a launching pad for a home ballpark (Great American Ballpark comes by its nickname, the Gap, quite honestly).
   
   Johnny Cueto and Edinson Volquez, at ages 23 and 25, are blossoming. Homer Bailey is still thrower rather than a pitcher. The Beep says batters hit .391 off him on two-strike counts, more than double the league average of .185, suggesting he needs to try something different beyond rearing back and trying to hum the ball past hitters (it works in Little League, not so much in the majors). If Bailey ever learns that (most likely with another team, albeit), the Reds could have a decent rotation for the first time in forever.
6. The best description of Reds manager Dusty Baker's approach to run production from BTF commenter: "Unclog the bases with home runs, but don't risk clogging them with walks in the first place."
7. The Reds bullpen produced a tidy 3.81 ERA in 2008, no mean feat in their ballpark. Give them some starting pitching, some fielding and a few more bats, and they'll be close to turning the corner.
   
8. Every preview should contain something on the economy. Ohio's jobless rate is at a 25-year high. It might be notable that the Reds, who were a powerhouse in the 1960s and '70s, nosedived during the recession of the early '80s. Or it could be a coincidence.
   
   Major League Baseball is vulnerable like every other industry, but it's cushioned itself better than other ball-and-stick leagues. This is mostly due to MLB Advanced Media (BAM, for short) and the creation of the MLB Network, which thus far is proving a greater success than the NFL's lame counterpart.
9. Shortstop used to be a given for the Reds. For 35 years, 1970 to 2004, their starter was either Dave Concepción or Barry Larkin, save a for few weeks in 1986 and when Larkin was fighting injuries in the second half of his career.
   
   Alex Gonzalez is probably the guy for the Reds, bearing in mind he's 32, coming off microfracture surgery and hasn't played since '07.
   
10. This might be indicative of the chasm between ballplayers and the game's literary chroniclers. All three beat writers who cover the Reds are lefties, but their presumptive starting rotation consists of five right-handers: Bronson Arroyo, Edinson Volquez, Johnny Cueto, Aaron Harang (who's being shopped) and either novelty act Micah Owings or prospect-turned-suspect Homer Bailey.
11. Lefty screwballer Danny Ray Herrera is a feel-good story, since he's trying to stick in the majors as a 5-foot-8, 145-lb. pitcher. (Some sources list him as "Daniel Ray," which is a little too serial-killerish). Herrera could be the Reds' equivalent to the Jays' Jesse Carlson. He also attended Permian High School in Odessa, Texas, which is famous for some book-, movie or TV show-related reason.
    
12. Jonny Gomes, who's trying to catch on with the Reds as a lefty-masher, has that "I fear to watch, yet I cannot look away" quality about him. He has power and speed, but a seeming lack of a baseball brain that has kept him from finding a spot in the field or controlling the strike zone. He's struck out 413 times in 1,264 career at-bats, meaning he's a lifetime .327 whiffer, as opposed
    
13. Venerable southern Ohio baseball scribe Hal McCoy has his critics, but you have to love that he calls relief pitchers "bullpenners." That one has to catch on, as part of a global movement to invent new position names for sports in order to confuse the Chinese -- "corner infielders" for first and third basemen, the LOOGY (Lefty for Only One Guy), the "combo forward" in basketball, using d-man for defenceman in hockey.
    
    
14. Aug. 24 marks the 20th anniversary of Pete Rose's banishment from baseball for gambling. He should be in the Hall of Fame, you know.
    Barry Larkin will be on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot for the first time in 2010. Former Jay Robbie Alomar was a better player, but ultimately, Larkin, a one-team player who never made waves, is more electable and yes, it sucks to use political jargon while talking about sports.
    
15. Joe Posnanski has a book coming out about the 1975 Reds, the greatest National League team since World War II. For some reason he doesn't like to talk about it, though (kidding, Poz).
16. The Reds' projected 2011 starting outfield is probably Bruce, Votto and centrefielder Drew Stubbs, who might have some Gold Gloves in his future. How much Stubbs will hit remains open to question.
    
17. Third baseman Edwin Encarnacion is a Ty Wigginton-type of player: He hits 20-25 home runs a season, but never when it matters. The Reds have a hot prospect at third base, Neftali Soto, so their fans will not have Encarnacion to kick around much longer.
18. Right-hander Dallas Buck bears tracking down on the farm. He's coming off Tommy John surgery and unlike the player he was acquired for, Adam Dunn, it's presumed he actually likes baseball.
    
19. Remember the name: Minor League Ball is all over a righty pitcher named Juan Carlos Sulbaran, whom the Reds drafted in the 30th round last season.
    
20. David Wells pitched for the Reds during the 1995 stretch drive, when the team still had its famed facial-hair ban. This was in the first season after the '94-95 strike when interest in baseball was at an all-time low, so almost no one was paying attention during the only time of his career when David Wells was clean-shaven. It's almost better to not try and find a photo.
21. Cincinnati never won more than 85 games in a season during Ken Griffey Jr.'s run in his hometown. It never won less than 88 during Ken Griffey's time with the team (not counting the '81 strike-shortened season, when the Reds had the game's best record but missed the playoffs).
    
22. The Reds are more famous for hitters (Rose, Joe Morgan, Frank Robinson, Johnny Bench) than pitchers, so maybe it's not surprising that the greatest Opening Day start in franchise history was authored by the obscure Frank Pastore (lifetime record: 48-58, 3.72 ERA). On April 9, 1980, he hucked a three-hit, no-walk shutout to beat Atlanta 9-0.
23. A favourite piece of trivia is that every team in the National League played in the post-season at least once in the '80s except the Pirates and Reds; the Pirates beat the Reds in the 1979 playoffs and won the World Series and the Reds beat the Pirates in the 1990 playoffs and won the World Series.
24. The late, great George Carlin once wondered, "If the Cincinnati Reds were the first professional baseball team, who did they play?"
25. The bottom line is the Reds have a better GM, Walt Jocketty, than the two who preceded him, Dave Krivsky and Jim Bowden. They should get better in time.

Not yet on the side of the majority, but time to Poz and reflect

This conversation, really, should be over, thanks to Poz.

"Baseball folks just do not seem to get that the people who get into baseball statistics often do it BECAUSE they love the game, because they want to understand it better, because they want to celebrate the greatest players, because they want a more specific answer than 'We had great team chemistry' or 'John just knows how to come through in the clutch.' "

Long story short, some of the I-played-the-game, don't-question-my-authoritah baseball flat-earthers resurrected that rubric on the otherwise awesome MLB
Network over the weekend.

At this point, it's best just to hope as time rolls along, sabermetrics will just continue to slowly seep into the mainstream. Good friend Neil Acharya always makes the point that 20 years ago, you never heard on-base percentage cited on a baseball broadcast. Today, it is displayed every time someone comes up to bat. These things take time.

Related:
Straw Hats and Calculators (Joe Posnanski)