The ironies of Roy Halladay's perfect game

Go figure: Roy Halladay threw a perfect game without being a Toronto Blue Jay, or even being Roy Halladay.

A pleasant irony for a Jays fan is that Doc was not totally in vintage form when he retired all 27 Florida Marlins hitters for the Philadelphia Phillies last Saturday. An irony for Canadian ball fans is that Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria, the guy who killed baseball in Montreal, is actually selling thousands and thousands of unused tickets as keepsakes. Hey, there's profit to be had.

Halladay threw more pitches, 115, than he did in 38 of the 43 nine-inning (or more) complete games that he turned in for the Jays from 2002 through '09. For a Canadian point of reference, Dennis Martinez hurled 96 pitches when he was El Presidente, El Perfecto for the late and lamented Expos at Dodger Stadium on July 28, 1991.

So, Down Goes Brown was not woofing when it Tweeted, "Roy Halladay pitches a perfect game; or, as Jays fans call it, the fourth or fifth best game we've ever seen him pitch." That would make us Jays fans, to play off another Philly sports figure with a medical-profession moniker, the 2010 answer to hoops nuts who claim people only saw the real Julius Erving in the American Basketball Association instead of in the NBA with the 76ers, where he's more remembered.

Doc's perfecto has prompted the inevitable retrospectives on Hall of Famer and U.S. Senator Jim Bunning's perfect game for the Phillies in 1964. (Bunning needed just 90 pitches in that one.) Each did it in his first year with the club after coming over from an American League team. Each was credited with his seventh win of the season. Bunning is one of Halladay's comparables.

Beyond that, it's noteworthy that a few years back, it seemed like Halladay slotted into the Bunning family of pitchers who as Bill James wrote, "are the whole package ... (but) do lose sometimes because they throw strikes, and if you put the ball over the plate sometimes the batter is going to hit it." In 2006, it seemed like -- and perhaps this was giving in to pessimism -- that might work against Halladay's chances of twirling a no-hitter.

More balls in play meant more chances for someone to get a flare, a gork, a ground ball with eyes, one more dying quail. It was less apparent that at that time, Halladay was posting the lowest strikeout rate of his career in '06 (132 in 220 innings, an even 5.4 per nine). He had been sidelined the previous season by a broken leg, which perhaps affected his stamina and forced him to economize and try to go for those more democratic ground ball outs.

On Saturday, of course, Doc had 11 strikeouts. He was on top of the Marlins hitters. FanGraphs noted he did not allow a single line drive and had the highest single-game Win Probability Added in almost five years.

Because of the tight score, Halladay accrued a fantastic +.888 WPA. That mark is the highest for any pitcher since June 26th, 2005, when A.J Burnett and the Florida Marlins defeated the Tampa Bay Devil Rays 1-0.

All of that has to be tempered by noting a wide strike zone helped Halladay wriggle out of a few 3-1 and 3-2 counts.

Halladay's feat, as it did for Bunning, should add to his "recognizability quotient." That's awesome in the long run. It was always evident Doc had the goods to throw a no-hit, no-run game, as much as it's a logical impossibility to predict.

Point being, though, as a Jays fan, seeing that his pitch count hit an unsightly, un-Doc-like 115, is cause to smile. It shows which city and country is home to the gallery that best reflects his art.

DocTalk: The juice ain't worth the squeeze

Reading anything into the Blue Jays setting up their pitching rotation so Roy Halladay gets two starts at home before the July 31 trade deadline is a fool's play, likely.

It is just that if Halladay was throwing Friday against the Red Sox instead of Sunday, his next two starts would come on the road, assuming a normal five-man rotation with no one getting bumped. This way, with the temporary move to a four-man rostation, Halladay is in line to start a Friday home game on July 24 vs. the Tampa Bay Rays, so if Doc is headed out of Toronto (to possibly Philadelphia, San Francisco or St. Louis) that is the night to head down to Rogers Centre with a black armband fashioned out of hockey tape affixed to a powder-blue throwback jersey. (If they were still using a five-man, it would be July 25.)

Gut feeling: Richard Griffin's rationale that the Jays should hold on until the winter, do some fact-facing and say, "We're not gonna contend in the 2010 AL East," makes some sense. The media and fanbase will be on a less of a hair trigger.

The reasoned response all along was that Halladay was not going to be traded before the end of this season. By the way, the snappy answer to the question, "Where is Doc headed?" is, "Cooperstown." Those of you who like to feed two birds with one scone can say, "They'll trade him the same day the Ottawa Senators deal Dany Heatley."

During the all-star game telecast on Tuesday, FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal came off like he was backpedalling like a Pro Bowl cornerback when he reiterated that Halladay would be traded, and now he's admitting the St. Louis Cardinals and L.A. Angels are all but out of the running, although Cardinals fans sure were fawning over the right-hander. No doubt you read speculation that the Yankees could take Vernon Wells ludicrous contract off the Jays' hands. Of course, as Jason Rosenberg at It's About The Money, Stupid noted, adding Wells might be too rich even for the Yankees' blood, even with the extra revenue they're bringing in by streaming broadcasts online. It would potentially leave them with almost $170 million committed to nine players come the 2011 season.

"That's flat out insane. Of course, this doesn't include resigning Halladay or any other free agents. They might try to overpay Jason Bay (assuming he's not signed to an extension by Boston), sign Matt Holliday or any of the eventual Rays free agents. Bottom line, that money's gonna be spent.

"Wells might be another Bobby Abreu with a lower OBP and less SB; a solid player with 20 HR power. Is he 'worth' $23M? Not a chance. Is he worth absorbing that contract to land Halladay, assuming you don't have to give up Joba (Chamberlain), (pitcher Phil) Hughes, (outfield prospect Jesus) Montero? I'm not sure. I've been debating this for a long time and I've been staunchly saying that 'there's no way the Yanks take on Wells,' but maybe I am wrong. (Veteran outfielders Johnny) Damon and (Hideki) Matsui are gone after this year. (Xavier) Nady, too. Can you put Wells in CF for the next few years and have greater productivity than (Brett) Gardner and/or Melky (Cabrera)? Probably. Can you absorb Wells' abortion of a contract for the year and a half (at least) of Halladay's services? I'm not sure."

It cannot be stressed enough that all of this is just a fan's futile attempt to, in the parlance of those MacLean's promos which are played ad nauseam on Blue Jays radio broadcasts, make sense of it all. The best one can do is try to offer some guidelines:

• Baseball Prospectus believes the Jays should act with Halladay and the left side of the infield, 34-year-old third baseman Scott Rolen and 33-year-old shortstop Marco Scutaro. A lot of people have fallen in love with those two, instead of merely falling in like.
  
  
• One should shudder at hearing any rumours about a deal with the Yankees that would send Chamberlain, Hughes, Gardner and Shelley Duncan to Toronto. It's not out of the realm of possibility that Chamberlain has plateaued as a pitcher. Also, he's shown a lack of durability in his career to date, which would make the optics of dealing Halladay even worse.
  
  
• It should have been stressed from the get-go that using the 2008 Erik Bedard trade, where the Baltimore Orioles got all-star outfielder Adam Jones and closer George Sherrill (among others), is a poor baseline. That was more of an anomaly and the GM who signed off on that, Bill Bavasi, has since been fired.


• Meantime, the San Diego Padres' story arc with their ace Jake Peavy is pretty germane. That franchise has overriding internal issues (change of ownership), not unlike the Blue Jays (an interim CEO, a meh attitude in their local market and questions about their uninterested ownership). The Padres were unable to get anything done with Peavy, and are now on course to finish with about 97 losses. The gist of it the Jays probably have to act, but there's a time and place for it and that time is not in the next two weeks.
  

Anyway, you know it's not my style to rubberneck rumours (better to dilettante around committing to nothing, that's how it's done in Sageritaville, right?), but this one was rich:

"The Phillies remain 'very, very interested' in acquiring Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay and are currently putting together a package of prospects that may actually also include recently-signed P Pedro Martinez. The Cardinals are also a favorite to land Halladay if, and only IF they are willing to part with blue-chip prospect, OF Colby Rasmus, along with several other prospects. The Dodgers remain in the action as well and a late entry into the field are the San Francisco Giants who are unsure of the availability of Randy Johnson for the rest of the year. Their package is said to include former AL Cy Young winner Barry Zito and the highly-touted Jonathan Sanchez, who threw a no-hitter in his last start right before the All Star Break.

Halladay and Tim Lincecum in the same starting rotation in San Fran? At least that would be ironic. Another irony for an Ottawa-based Jays fan: Michael Taylor, the one outfielder whom the Phillies are said to have dangled, just got promoted to Lehigh Valley. Oi, a thousand times, oi.

(There's no graceful way to segue into it, but Bart Given has a post up at Inside The Majors explaining what a travelling secretary does in major league baseball. He managed to dig out a picture of George Costanza and Wilhelm from Seinfeld. Kinger referenced Seinfeld when Given was a guest on his CFRC sports show several weeks ago.

Roy Halladay with a nod to the gods

Thank goodness for Roy Halladay. He removes the need to get too deep about baseball.

The big appeal of Halladay's night on Tuesday, beating A.J. Burnett and the Yankees 5-1 with a complete-game five-hitter, was that it feels like it's taking one back to when pitching a ball game was like giving a performance, a real art. It is probably better articulated recently by blog post the veteran broadcaster and former pitcher Jim Kaat wrote last week about today's hurlers not knowing how "to pitch to the scoreboard and to the count."

"Pitchers today should be less cautious early on, and try to throw as many strikes as possible to avoid long counts and keep hitters from seeing and deciphering too many pitches. When it's tied in the seventh, and the pitcher has not been more economical and the pitch count stands at 108, managers are forced to take him out. However, if it's the sixth inning and he's only thrown 75, he's got enough to finish the game."

That seems to sum up Halladay in a big bloody nutshell. He needed just 56 pitches (only 16 for balls) while facing the minimum 18 Yankees batters across the first six innings.

To build off Kaat's point, he had more than enough to cruise home across the final three against the Yankees, who extended him to a 24-pitch seventh when they got their only run. There really wasn't even much trepidation when Johnny Damon got a one-out double in the seventh inning with the 3-4-5 hitters coming up and the score only 3-0, since you had to figure Halladay would give the Yankees enough rope to get one runner in, but no more. That might be saying more about how the Yankees can't push a train up a dirt road these days, even with a $200-million payroll, but that's their problem. Honestly, Kaat's piece and Halladay's piece of work speak better to the seamheaded lament about pitchers being unable to go the full nine:

"I wanted to try to knock out every hitter in three or less pitches and/or try to make him get hits on all of them. The great Sandy Koufax, a good friend of mine, said he was the most successful pitcher because he tried to get hitters to hit the ball, not miss the ball. Let's face it; the best hitters get three hits out of 10 at-bats. I remember times when I used to tell the catcher to call just fastball after fastball, and get as many out as possible in the early innings. Then when it came down to the last few innings, I could use my other weapons more effectively. Curveballs, sliders, and everything else I had in my arsenal. That was when it really counted.

"... Pitching is tougher these days. With smaller stadiums, a smaller strike zone, a tighter wound ball, and lighter, laminated, harder bats, there is little opportunity to keep hitters from diving into the ball without a fight, a warning or an ejection. And hitters are bigger and stronger than ever. Watch some of the World Series highlights on the MLB Network and check out the size difference in the players then and now. But, even with that said, sooner or later you have to throw it over the plate.

"There's plenty of data out there to support throwing aggressively early on. If the hitter is behind in the count 0-1, 1-2, 0-2, he likely hits under .200. If it's 1-0, 2-0, 3-1, he's usually over .300. Today's pitchers need to challenge hitters early in the game and trust their stuff and maybe they'll pop a few up or hit them at one of the fielders. Only then will the pitcher be around to enjoy the thrill of trying to get hitters out with the game on the line in the eighth or ninth — and, as an added bonus, teams won't have to carry 12 pitchers on a staff and use four or five pitchers a game."

Obviously, with that approach, there are times when a pitcher's best stuff gets hit and he's going to lose. The point is, though, perfection is the enemy of good, and as a fan you can sort of see that in Halladay. He made the Yankees look ineffectual in something that was far from the best-pitched game of his career or in the majors this season (his game score was 78, so it wasn't even in his top 10). The upshot is the Blue Jays are pretty much automatic when Halladay is throwing against the Yankees (12-2 dating back to the start of the 2005 season). He is going to lose sometimes, since like Kaat says, major league hitters will eventually hit the ball where a fielder can't get to it.

Plus, yeah, it was schadenfrelicious that he obliterated the Yankees while starting opposite A.J. Burnett, on a day when the Yankees' old aura took another beating. Between one of their executives defending the "caste system" at the new Yankee Stadium and ex-Yankee Roger Clemens continuing to run his mouth when he and fellow vainboy Brett Favre would better serve humanity by signing on to herd sheep together in Wyoming, Halladay's gem was just a cherry on the sundae.

(For those of you who missed it, Lonn Trost, a Yankees executive, defended the team's practice of keeping fans with lower-priced tickets, relatively speaking, from going down near the field during pregame workouts.

"On the issue of allowing regular fans and kids to watch batting practice from the field level, here is what Trost had to say: 'If you purchased a suite, do you want people in your suite? If you purchased a house, do you want people in your house?'

"Wow. That’s pretty much all the evidence you need about the caste system at the new Stadium. There is a Stadium for the wealthy and there is a Stadium for everybody else.

"You know what is really sad about the whole thing? None of those people even watch BP. The entire area is largely empty before the game."

Far be it to point out Yankees fans are more than welcome to go down during pregame workouts at Rogers Centre should they want to get a good look at a first-place ballclub. Who knows how much longer Jays fans will get to say that, eh?

Incidentally, according to baseball-reference.com, here are Roy Halladay's top 5 performances, by game score:

• 93 — May 29, 2005 vs. Minnesota: Went the route on a two-hitter with no walks, getting 10 strikeouts against nine different Twins hitters.
  
  
• 91 — Oct. 5, 2001 vs. Cleveland: A two-hit, no-walk shutout over a playoff-bound Clevelandteam that took all of one hour, 57 minutes. Cleveland played most of its regulars that day except for future 500-home run man Jim Thome. That might make Thome the first player to come down with what the FAN 590's Mike Wilner has termed the "RH32 flu."
  
  
• 90 — July 11, 2008 vs. the Yankees: A two-hit shutout with one walk and eight strikeouts, coming right before the. Jeter and Alex Rodriguez had the only hits.
  
  
• 90, Sept. 6, 2003 vs. Detroit: This probably needs an asterisk since it was against a Tigers team which would have had trouble winning the Governors' Cup that season (if you get that joke, you're an incurable Seamhead or a very good Googler). Halladay pitched a three-hit shutout to win 1-0 in 10 innings, with 21 ground-ball outs. It came just five days after he pitched a four-hitter to beat the pennant-winning Yankees.
  
  
• 89 — April 29, 2005 at New York: A three-hit shutout to beat Randy Johnson and the Yankees. Both struck out nine on a Friday night in the Bronx, but Halladay was doing it vs. Jeter, Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, Jason Giambi and Bernie Williams, whereas the Big Unit was blowing third strikes by Frank Menechino, Reed Johnson, Eric Hinske and John McDonald before he became McGlovin. You get the idea. To be fair, Hinske did hit the game-winning two-run homer.

(Much obliged to Jason Rosenberg at It Is About The Money, Stupid for the Yankees links.)

Blog blast past: Doc, taking dead aim on the rich boys

The best way to sum up how good it feels to be a Jays fan during this 24-hour news cycle is to remember when it didn't feel so good. From July 15, 2008, please keep in mind that this grew out of sitting at home alone watching "the last All-Star Game ever at Yankee Stadium" that also dragged on for 14 innings, here's a post written for Epic Carnival expressing separation anxiety about one Harry Leroy Halladay.

Roy Halladay, you might be on B Squad, but you're the B Squad leader.

On Monday, Halladay likened playing for my perennial also-ran Toronto Blue Jays to being "like a little bit of Groundhog Day ...You want to talk about why we're succeeding, what we've done to help us get to the point of where we're at, and we just haven't done that ... It's hard to keep talking about the same thing."

To a diehard Jays fan, that's the equivalent of, in the last two hours, having lost your job, your apartment, your car and your girlfriend. And then depression set in. There's only one way to respond — with an open letter pieced together from Bill Murray movies. It's the best way to get inside this guy's pelt and crawl around for a few days.

Dear Doc,

So it's true. A commenter on Drunk Jays Fans a while back claimed you'd been overheard wondering over dinner in a Toronto eatery if you were doomed to play your entire career in Toronto and never make the playoffs. It must make your lips numb just to think about it.

If this was coming from someone who isn't the god of ground-ball outs, people would be saying, right about now, his bladder feels like an overstuffed vacuum cleaner bag and his butt is kinda like an about-to-explode bratwurst.

This is a letdown. In the grand scheme of Blue Jays baseball, a high-dollar hurler betraying any trace of human emotion is really more of an A.J. Burnett thing. You're the Doc. You can chew your way through a concrete wall — or the New York Yankees' high-priced lineup, as you did with a two-hit shutout last Friday at Rogers Centre, the world's only 50,000-seat video-rental outlet — and spit out the other side covered with lime and chalk and look good in doing it.

As a bonus, you usually finish the job in less than 2½ hours.

This can be forgiven. You forgot that your cross to bear is putting up Cy Young-worthy stats while throwing for a team owned by Rogers Communications. Rogers' baseball philosophy: A hundred-dollar shine on a three-dollar pair of shoes. That kind of explains why the Jays have given 205 at-bats this season to Kevin Wench.*

You saying you're unhappy and "one thing I really want to accomplish in the rest of my time, is win a World Series," could mean Toronto is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions, real wrath of God type stuff — human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

Up until now, the impression was that you were cool with being the best Roy Halladay you could be. That was enough for us, even if it never was with Mats Sundin during NHL season. You taking the mound every fifth day was one reason not to look at the long winter and see a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope — but enough about the Toronto Maple Leafs.

What else is there for a baseball geek in Canada, aside from fulminating at the brilliant bits of misinformation that periodically spew forth from GM J.P. Ricciardi, even if he's actually a decent GM? Since you pitch for a team that hasn't been anywhere near the playoffs since both of us were in the eleventh grade, the satisfaction of a job well-done is supposed to be enough to keep you happy.

Who knew? You're always so concerned about your reputation. Einstein did his best stuff when he was working as a patent clerk!

You're not alone in having a weak moment in Jays-land. In the spring, there's always the wild thoughts, imagining a real Cinderella story, came out of nowhere, to lead the pack in the cutthroat AL East. By the time summer heats up, it's usually obvious that even if you guys play so far above your heads that your noses bleed for a week to ten days; even if God in heaven above comes down and points his hand at our side of the field; even if every man woman and child held hands together and prayed for us to win, it just wouldn't matter because all the really good-looking girls would still cheer for the Red Sox and the Yankees because they've got all the money and for the Tampa Bay Rays because they have more brains, and those teams will go to the playoffs!

It just doesn't matter we win or we lose. It just doesn't matter!

You're needed in Toronto to take dead aim on the rich boys. Get them in the crosshairs and take them down. Just remember, the Red Sox and Yankees can buy anything — and the Rays have a much better drafting record** than the Jays have under Ricciardi — but they can't buy backbone. Don't let them forget it.

The pathway to salvation is as narrow and as difficult to walk as a razor's edge — which more or less sums up your team averaging only 3.8 runs in your starts this season.

That is your burden. If you could pitch in a hair shirt, you would. Having to have a World Series ring to be validated is some screwhead fetish. You're pitching for the doomed, otherwise known as diehard Jays fans. They're lost, they're helpless, they're somebody else's meal, they're like pigs in the wilderness.

They — we — need a leader every fifth day. An army without leaders is like a foot without a big toe. And you're always gonna be here to be that big toe for us.

Of course, you'd like a little something, you know, for the effort, you know. Oh, uh, there won't be any October glory, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness.

So you got that goin' for you, which is nice.

(There are 17 quotes from Bill Murray movies buried in this post. How many can you find before resorting to checking IMDb?)

(* An amalgam of the Kevin Mench/Brad Wilkerson platoon, let us never speak of it again. Travis Snider, God's gift of sunshine, does look like he could stand go out to Las Vegas and crush a few pitches out of those high-altitude Pacific Coast League parks, though.

** Plus the Rays have one of MLB's best owners.)

Liveblog: How about those Blue Jays?

It's a liveblog: Yankees-Jays.



Incidentally, how about the play the team got from Jerry Crasnick at ESPN.com?

"The Jays' superb play is putting a new slant on a tired storyline. Instead of assaulting general manager J.P. Ricciardi with the question, 'When are you going to trade Roy Halladay?' inquiring ball writers can feel free to ask 'Who the heck is Scott Richmond?'

"If Boston, New York and Tampa Bay had broken out of the gate quickly and left the Blue Jays in their dust, contending clubs everywhere would be assembling trade proposals for Halladay, who will enter the "walk year" of his three-year, $40 million contract this winter.

"Quietly, subtly, the question has been turned sideways: If Toronto contends for a playoff berth or makes the postseason, could it improve the chances of re-signing Halladay before he approaches free agency?"

Let's not go nuts (although Halladay might just want to be a career Blue Jay, who knows).

Batter up: Toronto Blue Jays

It's that mystical, wonderful time of year where you commit to a baseball team who you know fully well won't win. This season, in honour of an popular Internet meme, we'll present 25 things that are tangentially about each team. At bat: The Toronto Blue Jays.

1. Harry Leroy Halladay reduces journalism's Old Gray Lady to using normal-people language: "Halladay is just really good at everything."
   
   Now, please, don't trade Doc to the Yankees, but do realize that trading him this season would be wise, since he's in the second-last year of his contract and it saves a new GM having to do next season, should there be a change.
   
   Seriously, a Sunday New York Times feature called Roy Halladay "the best pitcher in baseball."
   

   "The movement on Halladay's pitches can be seen in numbers compiled by the Inside Edge scouting service. Batters swung and missed at only 15 percent of his strikes, about the major league average. But they made solid contact only 7 percent of the time, one of the better rates in the league — the pitches looked good, but they flitted from the bat barrel at the last second."
   

2. Only in Ontario: The Jays have been barred from selling beer at two early-season games, including the day-after-the-home-opener contest when there's not going to be anyone there. How are people going to wash down those $1 hot dogs?
   
   
3. The unofficial theme for this season: "This is what you wanted."
   
   The Jays actually are positioning themselves to try to build an organization instead of signing free agents to squeeze out another 83-79 season. Embrace it. This season is a write-off, but it will serve a purpose, getting back to inconspicuous consumption. It's what helped make the Tampa Bay Rays great.
   
   
4. Travis Snider, God's Gift of Sunshine, is Newsday scribe Ken Davidoff's pick for American League Rookie of the Year. The Globe & Mail's Jeff Blair noted that Snider squares up to the ball better than any young hitter he's watched since Vlady Guerrero, no faint praise.
   
   
5. Would it have really made sense to get tied down to a couple free-agent pitchers and have a surfeit of arms when Shaun Marcum and Dustin McGowan return from their injuries? David Purcey rates a shot at a full season in the bigs.
   
   
6. Left-hander Ricky Romero is in the rotation partially since the Jays can't afford to admit he was a mistake (never, ever, draft based on the current roster).
   
   
7. The relievers had a league-best 2.94 ERA last season. B.J. Ryan seems to have a dead arm. As for the rest of the group (Jesse Carlson, possible fill-in closer Scott Downs, Brandon League, Casey Janssen when he's healthy), they could be decent, emphasis on could be. The Baseball Prospectus 2009 says, "While it's great when a bunch of your marginal relief arms come through with a strong season, it's a bad sign for the following year, because they're likely to regress."
   
   
8. It's Alex Rios' and Vernon Wells' misfortune to play in a city (and it's like this everywhere) where there's no buffer zone between a marginal athlete scrapping by and a transcendent superstar. They're both complementary types of players, no more, and Wells didn't pay himself $126 million over seven years.
   
   
9. The marriage of convenience with Triple-A Las Vegas is off to a roaring start:

   "The Dodgers are one of baseball’s most famous franchises. Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Sandy Koufax, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Don Drysdale, Billy Grabarkewitz ... OK, not Billy Grabarkewitz (although he did make the 1970 All-Star team). But the list goes on and on.
   
   "The Blue Jays, on the other hand, are almost recognizable in Toronto. At least when hockey season ends. I mean, you can’t put Rance Mulliniks or Garth Iorg on a bobblehead doll, can you?
   
   " 'They haven't even retired anybody’s number,' sniffed a member of the 51s' extended family."

   The Jays honour numbers. The greatest coach who ever lived, John Wooden, didn't retire numbers when he was coaching UCLA. "What about all the other players who wore it?" he reasoned. That seemed to have worked out pretty well for everyone.
   
   The 51's will hold Blue Jays Tuesdays where O Canada will be played and discounted Canadian beer will be sold. Oh, and can they have the play-by-play guy drop the u in out?
   


10. What's more par for the course? Finding out that one of Toronto's most respected baseball writers once passed on watching the deciding game of the World Series to go to a Madonna concert, or finding out that in 1993, the Montreal Gazette didn't send Jeff Blair to a World Series being played in Philadephia and Toronto? (People in Montreal acting provincially? That's never happened.)
    
    It's all in good fun, Blairsy. You did what you had to do.
    
    
11. Former No. 1 overall pick Matt Bush was released two days before the release of the movie Adventureland, which includes a character who goes around punching people in the crotch for no reason. The actor who plays the character is also named Matt Bush. Crazy.
    
    Seriously, one hopes Matt Bush gets help.
    
    
12. The Tao of Stieb already has the post of the year, about Sportsnet analyst Rance Mulliniks getting kicked out of a game while coaching a college team:

    "Rance always struck us as a mild-mannered pacifist. Or maybe it only seems that way because he is being lulled to sleep by Jamie Campbell all season long."

13. On TSN just now, manager Cito Gaston just said, "We really don't have a No. 2 hitter." Second baseman Aaron Hill is going to be tried there to start the season.
    
    
14. Veteran Sun Media baseball writer Bob Elliott, who was on CFRC 101.9 with Kinger on Friday afternoon, related that a fellow journo on the Jays beat had claimed Marco Scutaro was the best shortstop the Jays have ever had.
    
    Tony Fernandez only won four Gold Gloves and hit .300 or higher four times for the Jays.
    
    
15. Brett Cecil is not the Anglo version of Gustavo Chacin.
    
    
16. It's just a gut feeling, but former second baseman Robbie Alomar is probably not going to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. This came on before that tabloid poop storm, by the way.
    
    
17. The Facebook group Brad Mills Will Pitch In The Bigs has only 76 members, but left-hander Brad Mills will pitch in the bigs, maybe in September. Please don't click to see who's the first person who comes up when you click to see who they are. Please don't.


18. Nicknaming backup shortstop John McDonald "McGlovin" never caught on. This pains me.
    
    
19. Catcher of the future Jonathan Paul "Good J.P." Arencibia will be up in September, when his free-agency clock will be turned off.
    
    
20. Pete Toms figures there is an ownership crisis in Toronto. Check out the piece he wrote in February for the Biz of Baseball.
    
    
21. The Jays' Las Vegas AAA team plays in a stadium which had a park factor of 109, very hitter-friendly. Try not to get too excited if Russ Adams is suddenly among the Pacific Coast League leaders in home runs. The park there also lacks batting cages. What do the players do, head down to Funland and feed quarters into the pitching machines?
    
    
22. Please stop mentioning that Jesse Litsch was a batboy for the then-Devil Rays like you're the first one to say it. This means you, Baseball Daily Digest.
    
    
23. The best advice for anyone who got on the Jays bandwagon in the halcyon days of '92-93 is to either like it and lump it, or shut your cake hole and realize no one cares which team you support. It's better to do that than pull an Adam Owen and write something embarrassing that you deserve to get asked about at every job interview you go to for the rest of your life:

    "Leaving the team you grew up with behind is more like falling out of love than anything else. Sometimes the breakup is messy, and sometimes it takes years to fully get over your first love. You feel guilty watching other teams or wearing other hats. You check the sports page regularly with both a sigh and a jealous groan, and you feel awful. It’s worse than falling out of love, though. You will never have another first, and you’ll never get over that moment; your hand in your dad’s, walking through the tunnel and seeing the green field or the white ice or the brown hardwood, hearing the growing roar rise exponentially as the walls around you abruptly end and the bright lights blind you and cover you in the purest of light. It’s like fucking, and you never forget the first time. It’s the closest thing you’ll ever come to losing your virginity before ten."

24. Anything you hear about two members of this site having a 20-dollar bet on whether the Blue Jays or Orioles finish last in the division is filthy, scurrilous lie.
    
    It's a 25-dollar bet. Get your facts straight.
    
25. If this isn't beautiful in a lame way, I will fight you:
    
    
    
    

The ATJs: Hey, nineteen (wins, against only nine losses)

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? At this writing, they are 19-9, having opened a four-game lead in the SHL's Expansion 3 division.

Fair play to Pittsburgh Pirates owner Curt Schilling for reaching deep into the recesses of time and coming up with a stopper in Jesse Tannehill, who denied the All-Time Jays a chance to tie for the best record in imaginary baseball.

Jesse Tannehill? Nope, never heard of him, until yesterday. He was a lefty control artist who pitched for the Pirates, New York Highlanders and Boston Americans at the turn of the 20th century. Score one for Schilling. The old-timey moundsman flung a three-hit shutout to top Roy Halladay and Co. 5-0 in a matchup of the top pitchers on the celestial circuit. Doc's ERA took a beating, shooting all the way from 0.90 to 1.25, which still leads the league (thank you very much).

That was just a temporary setback; at 19-9, the ATJs are rolling, with the rest of the offence starting to pick up the slack behind the Mad Men of Moseby, Alomar and Delgado. Sun Media's veteran baseball writer (and fellow Kingstonian) Bob Elliott, captured the spirit of the thing yesterday with a post on the SHL for his indispensable Canadian Baseball Network. Missing a chance to sweep one of the established franchises, especially Schilling's, should not sting too much.

That 19-9 record is the best among the 12 franchises which began play in 1961. The ATJs are holding their own with 9-7 record vs. the charter franchises. Far from letting down against lesser teams as their real-life counterparts have been known to do (perception is reality, friends), they're 10-2 vs. the franchises who began play in 1961. Here's some highlights:

Clutchitude: It's a word, look it up. The ATJs are 9-2 in one-run games, which, reasonably speaking, means they are overdue for an evenout soon. In the here and now, utilityman Kelly Gruber picked a perfect time for his first home run, a walk-off job off Big Bob Veale in a 5-4 win over the Schilling's stacked Pirates on May 7. They won't being calling him Kelly Buber.



Gruber's big blast made a winner of Dave Stieb, who hung in vs. a Pirates lineup with seven Hall of Famers in the starting lineup (every position except catcher and pitcher).

Express this: A player can appear on more than one team, so the ATJs got to lay a lickin' on one Lynn Nolan Ryan twice in one week. On April 29, Texas Nolan didn't get past the third inning in a 10-2 romp, going to an early shower after the good guys put a 7-spot up on the board. Four days later, Houston Nolan did better, but couldn't match, Harry Leroy Halladay scattered seven hits across eight innings in a tense 3-1 game.

The two-Martinez lunch: Since players can appear on more than one team, the Boston version of Pedro Martinez and his Montreal incarnation are each tied for second in the SHL in strikeouts, with Toronto Roger Clemens.

Mad Men: Hughsy will probably hate seeing his all-time favourite show co-opted by an extreme nerd, but the all lefty-swinging top of the order of leadoff man Lloyd Moseby, No. 2 hitter Robbie Alomar and Carlos Delgado in the 3-spot deserve a nickname. They are carrying the offence:

Moseby: .333/.387/.447, 21 runs scored
Alomar: .325/.366/.439, 24 runs, 15-of-19 on steals
Delgado: .284/.373/.642, team-high eight homers

Mushy middle: Third sacker Troy Glaus is batting a brilliant .147 with zero home runs (at this rate, he'll be hitting behind the pitcher). Gruber and Rance Mullliniks might yet re-create their job-sharing role at third base.

Injury report: None. It's a miracle. The Cardinals have already had Stan Musial and Dennis Eckersley each go down; the Eck apparently "was hurt while cutting a brownie out of a pan and sustained an undisclosed injury."

Looking ahead to May: Thirteen of the next 19 games after against those expansion teams, including a three-game set vs. Johan Keri's Montreal Expos next week.

Thanks again to Seamheads' Mike Lynch for organizing the league, and to Bob Elliott for writing a nice article. You know what would have been even nicer? Winning both games vs. Schilling's team, but bloggers can't be choosers.

Seamheadedness: Even in a sim league, Poz has more talent

Nerd alert: You might remember that this proprietor of this site is the owner of the all-time Toronto Blue Jays team — the ATJs — in the Seamheads.com Historical Baseball Sim League. If no one objects, there will be some periodic updates.

Competing in the AL East is a cakewalk compared to facing teams that can draw from a history that goes back decades.

It was back to reality for the ATJs in their home opener, as they slipped to 2-2 after an 8-3 thumping in their home opener against Joe Posnanski's loaded Cleveland Indians. The 50,437 on hand at Rogers Centre expressed their displeasure through public intoxication and property damage and the Toronto sportwriters are already writing this team off.

For heaven's sake, it's four games in. In the words of Paul Maurice, "Go home. Drink some tea." Poz's Tribe has a top of the order of Napoleon Lajoie, Tris Speaker and Shoeless Joe Jackson. The ATJs have a third-base platoon which includes Rance Mulliniks. Let's have some perspective, shall we? Lajoie, the Grey Eagle and Shoeless Joe went 10-for-14, helping give ATJs starter Dave Stieb got an even rougher ride than he did from Cy Young Award voters in the mid-1980s, giving up six runs over an inning and a third.

The opening series in Seattle went a little better. Not unlike the real-life Jays, they took the first two of a series but couldn't get the sweep, as the all-time Mariners (ATMs) touched up Jimmy Key and Duane Ward in an 8-4 romp.

However, Roger Clemens — hey, a team which has only been around 32 seasons doesn't have the luxury of being selective — and Harry Leroy Halladay, were a more dangerous combination than Jack Daniels and I.W. Harper. Dumb and Doctor, as some wags have dubbed them, each held Seattle to a single, solitary run.

Doc pitched a complete-game, 8-1 win and even contributed a RBI single to open the floodgates (there's no DH in this league). George Bell, thanks to some fine table-setting by Roberto Alomar (.500 OBP with six steals in the first four games) and others, had five RBI with a double and a home run.

Clemens went eight strong, striking out 12, in the 3-1 win on Opening Day. He finished off striking out his last three hitters, Jay Buhner, Ichiro Suzuki and Edgar Martinez in home half of the eighth. The bluebirds responded with two in the ninth, working a double steal for the go-ahead run after Ernie Whitt worked a leadoff walk off shaky reliever Mike Schooler and Alex Rios went to third on Mulliniks' pinch-hit single. Rance's younger self took off for second and Rios scored when the throw sailed into centrefield, since Seattle shortstop Alex Rodriguez had failed to cover the bag after becoming transfixed by his own picture on the Safeco Field video screen.

The D-Rox (the Diamondbacks and Rockies) are off to a 4-0 start to take the early lead in the Expansion Three division, which includes the ATJs, Seattle and Florida/Tampa Bay Marlins/Rays.

Alomar has been on base 10 of his first 20 times up to pace the offence. The media has also questioned the choice to go with Lloyd Moseby as the Opening Day centrefielder and the Shaker, installed in the leadoff spot, is off to a 3-for-18 start. He seemed like a good compromise between no offence, all defence Devon White and some offence, some defence Vernon Wells. Moseby just needs a month to prove himself, gosh darnit.

Zen Dayley: Veni, vidi, vici for Vin

It's a trip, on a December afternoon, to watch Vin Scully speak outlined against the backdrop of Dodger Stadium.

Next season will be Scully's 60th calling Dodgers games, and judging from what he's saying, it could be the last one: "Certainly I'm very aware that the wolves are getting closer to the campfire, and I know that I've spent a lot of yesterdays and I have just a certain amount of tomorrows," he said. "I'm taking it day by day and year and year, so God willing, I will go through 2009 and then we'll just have to wait and see."

It's probably too glib by half to say that he is kind of the broadcast booth's equivalent to Johnny Carson, someone whom everyone knew and respected, even if they didn't tune into him all the time. In Scully's case, he even staked out Southern California 14 years before Carson, since the Dodgers moved west in 1958, 14 years before The Tonight Show.

Hearing Vin Scully string out the word "marvellous" brightens the day, that's for sure (hope this clip embeds properly). Broadcasters have to learn to read and write before they learn to speak (just like writers have to learn to watch and listen), and Scully, in his word, is a marvellous example.

Something is up

The cryptic sentence of the day, from Brew Crew Ball:"The Padres and Blue Jays both might sell for less than the combined contracts of CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett." (Emphasis mine.) What are you guys saying?


Very Brave

Bringing in the veteran Rafael Furcal and having him displace 26-year-old Yunel Escobar at shortstop seems too chancy by half.

Someone was bound to take a chance that Furcal can play a full season. Escobar, who's going to get moved to either second base or traded, drew good reviews for his fielding last season. His .288/.366/.401 slash stats would have looked better if he hadn't gone in the tank in July.

Furcal is the better player if he can play a full season, but that's a big if to contemplate.

This, that and the other

• Langley, B.C.'s Brett Lawrie is rated as the third-best prospect in the Milwaukee Brewers system. Minor League Ball notes that he was taken down a peg due to his lack of a defined defensive position, but the Brewers haven't done too badly with bringing along hitters and moving them around in the field (Ryan Braun, Bill Hall).
• If it's any consolation, Rob Neyer didn't like the Yankees giving a five-year deal to A.J. Burnett: "(Burnett)'s not reliable, and the Yankees have pretty obviously overpaid. Too many dollars, too many years. If the Yankees wanted an impressive fifth starter, they probably could have spent a little less money for a slightly better pitcher. But what's a few million dollars to the Yankees?"
• The Yankees probably still need to sign Mark Teixeira to really challenge in 2009.
  
• The best takedown you will ever read of the sportswriters who are lobbying for Jim Rice to get into the Hall of Fame.
• A six-word argument for why the Blue Jays should not try to trade Roy Halladay: "The Padres couldn't trade Jake Peavy."
• No word of a lie, Hall of Famer Rollie Fingers' mustache actually has scared small children.
  

Zen Dayley: Balsillie and strikeslie

Did you know the TBS postseason coverage is brought to you by BlackBerry? You can feel the Waterloo pride throughout this Zen Dayley.

The cult of Rays
Rays 6, White Sox 4 (Rays lead 1-0)

I saw Raymond speak one time. He said hello. He also said that baseball lends itself to endless trivia. One such example is the list of players who homered twice in their first postseason game. Evan Longoria became the ninth member of this obscure club with his two homers yesterday at the first meaningful baseball game ever played at Tropicana Field.

Yes, the Rays are awesome. It remains to be seen whether they'll be trapped by the White Sox, who aren't so bad themselves. Tonight it's Mark Buerhle and Scott Kazmir. Watch this game.

From the file of Former Blue Jays You Thought You'd Never Hear From Again ... Dewayne Wise homered for three of the four Chicago runs.

A bigger hole to Phill
Phillies 5, Brewers 2 (Phillies lead 2-0)

Once again the Phils put up a crooked number early on as the Brewers' starter was knocked out before the fifth. This time, however, Brad Lidge had little trouble closing it out (only 12 pitches, not 35). The final out was caught by Shane Victorino, the Flyin' Hawaiian who hit a grand slam in the second and overwhelmed the poor TBS sideline reporter with another slam of you-knows* once the game ended.

* In an e-mail, Neate said Victorino was Boomhauer from King Of The Hill. How soon we forget the departed John Gibbons.

Win probability leaders on the night: 37% for Victorino, 14% for Philly starter Brett Myers, and 9% plus a neat diving play for J.J. Hardy in a losing cause.

It comes down to David Bush, former Jay, to keep Milwaukee alive on Saturday night. And I guess the other eight guys in the lineup, too.

Too little too late, but we don't say no
Dodgers 10, Cubs 1 2 3 (Dodgers lead 2-0)

In the words of Krusty the Clown: ohhh...that just kept going, huh?

Missed the fun part, the first six runs, because of the debate. No, our debate. Great thing about baseball is that it can be summed up in one word: youneverknow. The best defensive team in the league can make two errors in an inning, leading to four unearned runs. The NL's best offence -- by a wide margin -- can be held to two measly hits over the first six innings. (Credit to Chad Billingsley for keeping them off the board for that long.)

And the top team in the National League can be a game away from elimination, losing 2-0 to the Dodgers, a team that won fewer games in an easy division than the fourth-place finisher in a tough division. It's too much to feel.

There was only a 4% chance of the Cubs winning by the time Steve Paikin said good night from Ottawa and tens of televisions across Canada turned to baseball. That was in the bottom of the fifth. Nearly two hours later, the Cubs were hanging on to their seven-run deficit like it was the only thing not losing a tenth of its value in one day.

WPA leaders: Billingsley at 17% and Russell Martin, 14%, basically all because of his double in the second that turned a 2-0 lead into a 5-0 lead.


Damn, the Jays

• USS Mariner's #2 candidate for Seattle GM is current Jays assistant (to the...) GM Tony LaCava. The Seattle Times has claimed that a guy like LaCava, "who hasn't had the big chair before," is more likely to get the job.
  
• Sticking with the Times, their baseball writer formerly of the Toronto Star, Geoff Baker, is voting for Roy Halladay because Halladay deserves it more. From this corner, the fact that a Quebecer like Baker supports the Toronto player is enough to pass over Cliff Lee.

Ils se souviennent

• Head over to the Central Maine Sports Blog for their Expos Appreciation Week. Interviews with Bill "The Spaceman" Lee, Dave Van Horne, Mike Marshall, and other notable Expos are available.

Snark break...

What's that falling figure shooting past your window .... why, it's the Tampa Bay Rays!

It would make sense if Oakland Raiders coach Lane Kiffin was not wearing the "GU 63" pin that all NFL coaches during the late Monday Night Football game last night. Given how the Raiders have been looking, not wearing the pin was probably the best way to honour Gene Upshaw.

It sort of says it all that the 10-year anniversary of Mark McGwire breaking Roger Maris' home run record passed almost without comment.

What's worse: Supporting for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, who tied the can to Charlie Taaffe on Monday, or supporting the only CFL team the Tabbies can beat, the other one in Southern Ontario? (They fired their coaches on the same day -- crazy. Bucholtz has more on the Don Matthews hiring over at Sporting Madness.)

The U of T Varsity Blues are having the best season so far among the five pro and university teams in the GTA. Let that roll 'round your mind for a bit.

(Former Ottawa Gee-Gees coach Marcel Bellefeuille is the interim coach for the duration of the season. The Ticats are fast becoming the Cradle of Coaches for CIS football.)

What happened to Ottawa radio host Glenn Kulka recently -- suffering a broken orbital bone after being hit in the face with a puck while reffing a charity hockey game -- should not be wished on anyone. Even the Coen brothers are kinder to their characters. Having something so random visited upon someone who went public in 2005 about how turning to religion to deal with his guilt over abusing steroids, then suddenly goes into MMA looking exceptionally buff and cut than most men his age -- clean living, exercise and Vitamin Church, rihgt? -- does make one wonder about karma, however.

Go get 'em, Kulkster.

Stuff that's semi-halfway important:

• On MNF, Ron Jaworski referred to Brett Favre as "probably the best quarterback ever."
  
  No disrespect, but when the all-time leaders in yards per pass are factored in -- and Bart Starr is eighth and the Gunslinger is tied for 75th, despite playing in an era of domes, the no-bump rule on defence and holding being legalized for offensive linemen. Favre isn't even the best Packers quarterback ever.
  
• Vikes Geek did the demolition work on that soul-sucking season-opening to the Green Bay Packers. (Two 50-yard-plus gains allowed on defence, a punt return for a touchdown, one tackle for Jared Allen and Brad Childress' characteristically unimaginative playcalling -- hey, let's run it up the middle again, they can't be expecting it this time! -- and they still only lose by a touchdown. Arrrrrgh.)
• Via Drunk Jay Fans comes an argument that runaway American League Cy Young Award winner Cliff Lee has built his 21-2 record and 2.28 ERA against some lightweight opposition. Roy Halladay might be more of a real deal.
• Kingston's K-Rock Centre will host two pre-World Junior Hockey Championship exhibition game. Apparently the tournament is in Ottawa or something.

First they trade Burnett; then they lose the Doc

"I don't know if move on, but I want to play for a team that can win a World Series. That's the one thing I really want to accomplish in the rest of my time, is win a World Series…I've got two years to decide That's still a ways off for me, but I definitely want to keep moving in the right direction and I hope we do in these next two years. I'd like to get something accomplished and then after that, readjust and see where we're at."

--Roy Halladay

Anyone want to lay money that he re-signs in two years? Halladay doesn't strike one as a guy that speaks out (however subtle it may be) without serious thought behind it. That he would refuse to issue a tired cliche when about his future with the Jays is telling. He's practically screaming from the hilltops -- get me a winning team or watch me come back in pinstripes ('cause, really ... who else will be able to afford him).

It's difficult to see how the Jays can restructure themselves into a winner in the two years that Halladay has left. J.P. Ricciardi has hitched the team's fortunes to a core that doesn't have a ton of trade value and doesn't seem quite good enough by half.

Unless you think the Jays are going to go 47-20 the rest of the way (what they would need to do to get to the 94-win total that the average AL wild-card team has had since its inception), or you think a No. 4 hitter suddenly going to fall from the sky, you might want to make sure you get down to the Dome every five days or so for the next couple months. You never realize how good you have things until you lose them after all.

I'm not about to look it up, but I'm pretty sure that last time the Jays went 47-20 they were winning World Series. Since that doesn't seem likely, it's vital that something be done with the assets they have to trade now. And, there is no bigger asset than A.J. Burnett. A lot of people like to suggest that the Jays would be better off keeping him and collecting the draft picks they will receive when he opts out of his contract at year's end. I'm sorry, but two compensation picks aren't going to cut it with Burnett. And since keeping him is next to useless (again -- 47-20. Show me evidence that the Jays could go 47-20 and I'll listen), it's pretty clear that he needs to be moved. If Ricciardi is as good as he thinks he is, he needs to find a position player that will contribute to the team in 2009 or sooner.

He better, because his job likely depends on it.

(Update: As for the story about the topless woman in one of the Rogers Centre hotel rooms, could everyone try to act like they've seen bare breasts before? Jeebus.)

BTW - the title is a bad Leonard Cohen reference in case you were confused...