Blog blast past: Hats off to our Ruthless capacity to live a lie

In the wake of George Steinbrenner's death, here's a piece on the closure of Yankee Stadium in from Sept. 22, 2008.

You can't talk about Yankee Stadium. There isn't any such place.

Cranky-panted Seamhead objections notwithstanding, it is impossible to not be touched on some level by the closure of the Stadium. One would have to be a sad bastard to begrudge anyone who gave in to the faux gravitas on Sunday night in the Bronx.

Look at it this way. A lot of people never visited the Montreal Forum, or maybe only got to do it once or twice. They still felt a sense of loss March 12, 1996, the day after the Canadiens played there for the final time. It's part of the understanding that pro sports would not exist without the glow you get from our shared existence as fans. I'm talking about the vibe that means two people can make plans to meet up with two other people they barely know after a game and already have the basis for a conversation.

That might be part of where the feeling of loss with the closure of the Stadium comes from, the loss of a first-hand experience. Speaking as a history buff who had the foresight not to study history in university and lose the ability to enjoy it, history is best when it's scuffed like one of Whitey Ford's pitches. Think about all the kids who'll never have the chance to be introduced to that now -- although with what the Yankees charge for tickets, plenty were denied that already.

Moving out of Yankee Stadium is another step closer to having our shared experience come even more prefab, sanitized and franchised.For instance, Maury Brown at The Biz of Baseball noted that Yankee Stadium III will have "a martini bar and a steakhouse on the inside – a ruse designed to recall the historic memory of the past while tapping into the wallets of those that come to a new stadium, not just to watch a game, but to be serviced in grand style."

In other words, you get Phil from Marketing's undercooked and watered-down notion of the 1940s and '50s passed off as historically based. Sterling Cooper would be proud; people think they are getting something, even if it's actually about as true to that bygone era as a typical Mad Men episode. Like, come on. Who has a martini and a steak at a ballgame?

So much for that famous ad that starred Humphrey Bogart: A hot dog at the ballpark beats a steak at the Ritz. And, of course, any baseball fan you'd want to watch nine innings of baseball with with drinks beers, always in the plural.

Enough about that, though. All in all, the Stadium sendoff owed more to George Orwell than to George Herman Ruth. This goes way beyond the Yankees ignoring their dismal 1986-92 era by not even having the common courtesy to bring out Steve "Bye-Bye" Balboni to wave bye-bye.

(Balboni was a laughably limited part-time DH who played two seasons in pinstripes and almost hit his weight over that time. In fairness, he weighed 225.)

Roger Clemens? To borrow Yankee TV play-by-play man Michael Kay's home run call, "See ya!" The disgraced right-hander was misremembered in the official record, even though it was just last season that the Yankees wanted him so badly that he signed a pro-rated $28-million contract for one season.

Ex-manager Joe Torre, who's now with the L.A. Dodgers, was similarly "disappeared." Never mind that Torre guided the Yankees to four World Series titles or that the image of him sitting stoically in the dugout is burned into my brain, thanks to Fox's death-by-a-million-quick-cuts style of presenting playoff baseball.

Torre won more titles than Hall of Fame Yankees manager Miller Huggins, who only had 15 other teams to contend with, and more than Ralph Houk, whose stature was such that he could only be portrayed in 61* by the guy who played D-Day in Animal House. However, he was fired and he's headed to the playoffs while the Yankees are not.

All of it rang a bit hollow, right down to the what-keeps-this-guy-alive Bob Sheppard's recorded player introductions. The Yankees ownership is likely feeling no pain over leaving. They have been trying to escape from that place since about 1981, when Snake Plisskin was appointed to the board of directors.

Remember the racially loaded innuendos George Steinbrenner perpetrated in the early '90s about the Bronx being too scary for his season ticket holders? It was all part of grand scheme:

"In truth, this was a happy occasion for everyone but the fans, who will need mortgages to afford tickets next year. The Yanks will finally own their own ballpark, the players will finally move from the utility closet in the basement into a real clubhouse, and the ownership will pocket fistfuls of cash from 60 luxury boxes.
-- Wallace Matthews, amNY.com

Translation: It mean the Yankees, whom you need to have in the playoffs so you can hate something and know that you're alive, are turning into MLSE with foul lines. (The closure occurred on the same weekend the Tampa Bay Rays, with a payroll just $5 million higher than perpetually injured Yankees pitcher Carl Pavano's contract, wrapped up their first playoff berth. By the way, Rays owner Stuart Sternberg grew up as a Mets fan.

All the "85 years" talk reveals is our admirable, Costanza-like ability to live, like, 20 lies at the same time. It neatly ignores that, as ShysterBall said, "For the record, the last home run in Yankee Stadium was hit by backup catcher Duke Sims. It happened on September 30, 1973 against the Tigers. After that game, New York played for two years in Shea Stadium and then 33 years in one of those unfortunate 1970s-era ballparks that are now finally and mercifully gone."

Then's there the reality that the Yankees' deal with New York City for public assistance for Yankee Stadium III stinks to the point that even proud Republicans are calling the baseball team "taxpayer-leeching pimps." Republicans using that language? You'd swear a Democrat was about to get elected president.

There is all of that and more. It's not a Yankee-hating thing (eh, maybe a little). Maybe all of this speaks to the general shallowness of modern life.

In the absence of clarity, the best way to deal is to give priority to the mythology of Yankee Stadium has value, too.

For pity's sake, it was the only place that could be called the Stadium without anyone asking which stadium. When Crash Davis went off on his "one more dying quail" rant in Ron Shelton's Bull Durham, he talked about how one more hit per week was the difference between being in the bush leagues and being in Yankee Stadium.

It was about as close to something anyone can understand as you're going to get in a Hollywood sports film.

Sure, as far as ballparks appearing in movies go, Kevin Costner also played a character who felt compelled to drag a famous author to Fenway Park. John Hughes knew Ferris Bueller's day off would be incomplete without a trip to Wrigley Field. That is only from a fan perspective.

What Shelton, the ballplayer turned writer meant, was that Yankee Stadium was the proving ground for a player. The media has dumbed that down over the years, but it does not make it any less true.

Yankee Stadium was Oz-like -- a fantasy world full of odd creatures with names like Billy, Mickey, Whitey, Yogi, Reggie, Jet-ah and Mariano. On one night in 1996, thanks to Jeffrey Maier and an egregious case of craven home-team officiating, it was more like the shower room in Oz for the Baltimore Orioles. (Yeah, I went there.)

Whatever you think of the Yankees, there is a sense of loss when you know that here on out, Aura and Mystique are likely just the nom de peel of A-Rod's, um, casual acquaintances.

All of that is being left behind in the greater name of greed. Sports is big business, but it still sucks.

Zen Dayley: Notes on Buehrle's perfect game!

It's not for nothing Chicago White Sox Mark Buehrle would throw a perfect game vs. the Tampa Bay Rays, wait for it, 27 months after he pitched a no-hit, no-run game.

Twenty-seven is numerically symbolic of the number of outs in a baseball game. Seamheads get off on this, especially with the catch one-time Blue Jay Dewayne Wise made in the ninth inning, robbing Gabe Kapler of a home run and then securing the catch with his bare hand after the ball popped loose.



Some other fun facts below the jump:

• Some say Buehrle is a left-handed Roy Halladay, a pitch-to-contact ace who's automatic for 200 innings a season, except he has a World Series ring. In 2007, Buehrle pitched a game against the Blue Jays where he did not have a single baserunner and lost 2-0 to, wait for it, Halladay, after giving up two solo home runs.
  
  
• Who do Tampa Bay Rays hitters have to face on Friday? Roy Halladay.
  
  
• Buehrle broke with baseball code by talking about the no-hitter in the dugout between innings.
  
  
• It was not the fastest perfect game on record. Mike Witt's (Sept. 30, 1984) and Tom Browning's (Sept. 16, 1988) were both over in less than two hours. Buehrle, though, apparently spent only 32 minute on the mound.
  
  
• The last left-handed pitcher to have two no-hitters in American League was Dutch Leonard. He was a pretty good pitcher with the Boston Red Sox when one of their other main arms was some guy named George Herman Ruth, so you know it was a long time ago.
  
  
• Buehrle had the same home plate umpire that he did in his no-hitter in April 2007, Eric Cooper. He went 27-up, 27-down in that game since he picked off the only baserunner.
  
  
• Wise's saving catch came right in front of an outfield-wall mural which honours 1950s White Sox ace Billy Pierce. On June 27, 1958, Pierce lost a perfect game with two out in the ninth inning.
  
  
• Steve Rosenbloom at Rosenblog: "It’s not a matter of whether the Sox ever retire Buehrle’s number. It’s a question of whether it’s done by morning."
  
  
• Wise was in the opposing dugout for the previous perfecto, Randy Johnson's vs. the Atlanta Braves on May 18, 2004.
  
  
• White Sox catcher Ramon Castro had never caught Buehrle before. He's not the first to do so. Current Pittsburgh Pirates manager John Russell caught one of Nolan Ryan's no-hitters the first time he caught him.
  
  
• No left-hander ever went 27-up, 27-down in the American League until 1994 (Kenny Rogers). Buehrle's was the third by an AL lefty in the past 16 seasons.
  
  
• The cross-town Chicago Cubs are still waiting for their first perfect game. (Are there any other baseball feats that have eluded the Cubs in the past, oh, 100 years?) In a 1972 game, Milt Pappas lost the 27th hitter on a full count when he was squeezed by umpire Bruce Froemming.
  

Zen Dayley: Cito and the DH thingy

Plus more Vernon Wells vitriol and a short dissertation about tradition...

Just another day from the "Cito Gaston is not the brilliant tactician I thought he was" files. The same manager who complained about pitchers having to bat in National League parks after closer Scott Downs injured his big toe running out a ground ball almost ended up running out of pitchers on Thursday because he did not double-switch in the eighth inning in order to, wait for it, avoid the pitcher's turn in the order. As Mike Wilner put it:

"The Baseball 101, incredibly obvious, only correct move - especially since the Jays only had two pitchers left in the bullpen ... was to bring Rod Barajas in to catch as part of a double-switch, with (Jason) Frasor coming in to bat in the 8th spot and Barajas, the new catcher, batting ninth and leading off the ninth.

"Instead, Gaston only brought in Frasor, with the intention of having him lead off the ninth inning if he had been able to hold the lead." (The Phillies tied the game.)

" ... It was a ridiculous non-move to make, and almost cost the team the game. If Gaston didn't realize that the double-switch was the move, then one of former National League manager Nick Leyva or former National League coach Brian Butterfield should have been screaming in his ear. Just terrible.

You know the rest of the story. The Blue Jays ended up winning, 8-7, by the margin of Barajas' pinch-hit home run in the ninth inning (a fastball up and away that he hit over the centrefield fence 401 feet from home place). The dude who replaced the dude who was replaced by the dude who hurt himself running to first base (duuuuude, just say Jeremy Accardo got the save) ended up getting the save. The Jays won the damn game to complete a series sweep of the World Series champions (which was probably just an evenout since they could not be as bad as they were last weekend vs. the Florida Marlins), so what is it to anyone if the manager and his coaches flunked Baseball 101?

There is much less receptiveness for playing armchair manager when the team ends up winning the game. However, talk about a manager flirting with disaster The amusing part, speaking personally, was arriving at work shortly after 4 p.m., having forgotten the Jays had a day game and assuming it was over. It took all of 10 seconds to establish that the score was tied and, hey, what was regular catcher Barajas doing batting .in a day game after a night game? It seemed strange it had come to that point. It was even stranger that Gaston, after saying, "My pitchers don't take batting practice every day and don't run, so things like this are going to happen," would risk putting another pitcher in that situation only two days later. But hey, he is the manager.

To be fair, he did have a point

Gaston's rant did blow the dust off the DH debate. Whether it should be in both leagues, or just used for all interleague games (there is no political will to change it, since the AL is dominating once again in the interleague play contagion).

Not to over-intellectualize it, but one's position might hinge on a working definition of tradition. It seems like to some tradition connotes doing something the way you believe it's always been done just because. Tradition, though, means something is handed down, passed over to another generation. It's more like a trust to keep and if there's a way to improve on it without making a radical change, you do it.

Sun Media's Bob Elliott, to whom this author is very indebted, wrote a follow-up column on the skipper's comments. Elliott quite rightly pointed out that it was a bit of a CYA move to complain about Downs getting hurt. As he noted, the Jays knew interleague was coming. Downs had also hit before, plus running to first base should not be beyond a pro athlete's grasp. Plus, the Jays had left a lot of runs on the table.

"Gaston had every reason to be angry, but not at the National League designated hitter rules.

"He could have been angry at Alex Rios having a brain cramp and neglecting to tag with the Jays down 3-2 in the eighth when Marco Scutaro lined to left-centre.

"Or he could have been angry at the Jays hitting 2-for-17 with men in scoring position, or leaving 15 men on base in regulation."

Those were all good points. The rub is eight of those 15 stranded runners were a byproduct of starting pitcher Ricky Romero batting in a real game for the first time in his professional career. Romero struck out three times. On eleven pitches. José Bautista or Kevin Millar would have stood a far greater chance of driving in a couple of those runners.

The craw-sticker, though, was the closer, "Pitchers hit in the NL, and it's how baseball was created." That is very well and good. However, the counter to that is that the players would still go without gloves if everything was done according how baseball was created.

Games and sports evolve. Football pays a lot of lip service to tradition. However, with regard to specialized roles, they stopped asking the quarterback to double as a free safety generations ago. You don't see the starting split end (as wide receivers used to be called) coming off the field to get his kicking shoe on before he tries a field goal, straight-ahead style.

The best compromise as an American League guy is that the NL is free to keeps its antiquated rules. It's not necessary that the so-called senior circuit swings with the times. It just can't impact on any meaningful game affecting an AL fan's favourite team, or any game of significance. Sound fair?

P.S. ... about Vernon...

What was that about how Vernon Wells' production (his OPS is down to .676) might be about as good it gets?

"Of course, there was no mention of something most sentient Jays fans have already contemplated, that maybe this is as close to as good it gets for Wells. Five minutes of reading The Hardball Times or FanGraphs combined with a willingness to reason will show anyone that 40% of the way into a major league baseball season, a player's production has usually close to finding its own level, just like water."

Take it away, Fangraphs:

"ZiPS doesn’t see Wells improving all that much this season with the bat, ultimately finishing with a .254/.310/.400 line. The projected 15 HR and 18 SB help elevate the wOBA to .316, but a below average rate like that coupled with a UZR perhaps on pace to be worse than -15 runs makes Wells a replacement player. In a full season in 2007, Wells produced just 1.2 wins. He added another 0.8 more last year albeit in just 108 games. This year: -1.0 wins. Rios is proving that he can be a good, not fantastic player, while Wells is showing that he does not deserve a starting spot in the big leagues, let alone one at such an important position." (Emphasis mine.)

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.
    
    
    
    

Zen Dayley: About that college pitcher who threw 12 hitless innings

Texas Longhorns pitcher Austin Wood was so awesome the state capital has been renamed after him.

It's been Deadspinned. Nevertheless, it is impossible to resist passing along word about the longest college baseball game ever player, a 25-inning marathon between Texas and Boston College in a NCAA Regional game on Saturday Wood (pictured), Texas' senior closer, threw 12 1/3 innings of no-hit ball on a night when the game-time temperature was 95 F. He came on in the seventh inning and was pulled in the 20th after Boston College finally reached him for two hits. Austin Dicharry threw 5 2/3 innings of one-hit ball to earn credit for the 3-2 win.

"With the game tied 2-2 in the 20th inning, the Longhorns finally decided it was time to lift Wood, who was visibly trying to stretch out because of cramps in his leg. But when he left the field, the 5,000 or so fans still at UFCU Disch-Falk Field gave him a standing ovation. Even the Boston College players got into the act." — Rivals.com

That's pretty cool, for lack of a more profound word, to see that kind of sportsmanship.

Wood threw 169 pitches (John Gibbons joke goes here), 120 for strikes, fanning 14 Boston College hitters. Guys on basketball message boards were hanging on every out. Rivals.com's Kendall Rogers called Woods' performance "one of the best ever by a UT pitcher," and before you spout back, "Gee, ya think?" please keep in mind that Roger Clemens is a Texas alumni.

The game was played a couple thousand miles away, in another world, really (Texas), but it was easy to imagine what it must have been like. It scarcely matters that college baseball, at least to a Canadian, has always seemed like a foreign curiosity.

There's that unsettling ping when someone makes contact with those metal bats that help entire teams hit .340 and lead to games being decided by football scores such as 19-10. That backdrop throws Wood's performance into even sharper relief. Throwing 13 shutout innings in high-run conditions such as that is like throwing back-to-back no-hitters at the new Yankee Stadium, on consecutive days.

Regardless, Austin Wood gave Seamheads everywhere something to marvel over. He's not a big-time prospect. He was a 36th-round draft choice by the Houston Astros last spring. Left unsaid is that major-league clubs are often wary of pitchers from top-ranked college teams. A big reason is that a head baseball coach (not manager, what's up with that?) will do something like letting a young pitcher throw close to 200 pitches in a weekend, since they put winning ahead of the health of young arms. (Wood threw 30 pitches in Texas' win Friday.) Who knows, perhaps Wood's performance shouldn't even be celebrated, but criticized.

Meantime, as Chris Lynch pointed out at A Large Regular, people should not forget this was made possible by some great pitching by Boston College. Reliever Mike Belfiore pitched the equivalent of a complete-game shutout, entering in the ninth and coming out after the 18th with the score still tied 2-2. He struck out 11 with no bases on balls.

However, there are times when you have to let up a little on the wonder-why and just get into the spirit of the thing. It was such a game that Boston College's head baseball coach, Mik Aoki, didn't even seem too bummed that his team lost. It was as if he realized a 25-inning game was bigger than anyone on the field.

Zen Dayley: Ex-Lynx catches on with Bucs

It's great how someone else's good news can cause you to perk up: Case in point, Jason Jaramillo, the last starting catcher for the Ottawa Lynx, had a happy homecoming last night with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

" 'This is an amazing dream come true,' said the 26-year-old Jaramillo, a Franksville native who becomes the first position player from Racine County to start for a major league team since Case graduate Duane Kuiper started 18 games at second base for the 1984 San Francisco Giants. 'All the blood, sweat and tears, I guess they say, about battling and working hard to achieve your dream is coming true.' "

Jaramillo, 26, is starting for the Pirates and his manager for the Lynx, John Russell, and doing a bang-up job in Ryan Doumit's absence. The job is his to lose until Doumit's projected return around the all-star break and the Pirates are 11-8, with a NL-best 3.36 ERA under Russell and former Expos pitching coach Joe Kerrigan.

Jaramillo is mostly backup-catcher timbre, the catch-and-throw guy who can hold on to a major-league job just for a receiving skills and occasionally. It's mostly beside the point whether he and the Pirates can sustain such a start. It's just nice, for lack of a more original word, to see him get a chance to play every day. He represented the late and lamented Lynx in the Triple-A All-Star Game in 2007. The offensive numbers (he had the exact same on-base-plus-slugging, .711, in both '07 and '08) were depressed somewhat by pitchers' parks in both Ottawa and Allentown, Pa., so the change of scenery helped. It's a pleasant surprise, to say the least.

"And from a defensive standpoint — and defense is Jaramillo's forte — he has yet to commit an error and has thrown out two baserunners, one of which was a SportsCenter highlight.

"So delighted is Pirates manager John Russell, who managed Jaramillo with the Class AAA Ottawa Lynx in 2007, that he only could think of one complaint.

" 'The only knock I have on him is he's from Oklahoma State,” joked Russell, who was a catcher for arch-rival Oklahoma from 1979-82.

"Jaramillo has been no laughing matter. Wearing the No. 35 three-time All-Star catcher Manny Sanguillen wore for the Pirates from 1967-80, Jaramillo has filled a huge hole in Doumit's absence.

" 'I knew he was a good player when he was with the Phillies,' Russell said. 'He was a top prospect and they kind of rushed him through the system a little bit. But he struck me as a very good defensive catcher and he really became a student of the game with switch-hitting. He showed flashes of potential with his batting, as well, so he has a lot of tools.

" 'He made the team because of his defensive abilities, but some of his offensive skills are starting to show up.' "

(Link via Rattler Radio, which has regular updates on B.C. baseball phenom Brett Lawrie, who's playing for a Milwaukee Brewers' Single-A team.

Related:
Jaramillo reaches MLB's top floor (Peter Jackel, Racine Journal-Times)

Zen Dayley: Designated hypocrisy...

The next stop along the Long Tail could be a blog that tracks pitchers getting injured trying to hit.

The St. Louis Cardinals lost their ace, Chris Carpenter, after the lifetime .091 hitter injured himself while batting. Future Hall of Famer Tom Glavine, at age 43, might never pitch again after injuring his shoulder while batting in a minor-league game.

It Is About The Money, Stupid, have noted that this has been an occasional column trope for more than a year. It does no harm to join the chorus. Watching National League pitchers try to hit, and putting up with the craven semi-intentional walk to the No. 8 hitter whenever he comes up with two out and first base open, harkens back to H.L. Mencken's line about he hated sports as rabidly as those who like sports hate common sense,

Rob Neyer of ESPN.com had his say, "I still say the game's just a little more interesting if there's a difference between the leagues. So, no."

There is some truth to that. College football often has more novelty than the NFL, since on a given Saturday, you can see one team trying to move the ball with the run-oriented option or and another using a pass-wacky offence like Texas Tech's. The difference there is you're seeing different approaches to doing something well.

Pitchers hitting goes against that grain. Think about it. Tom Glavine, over the run of his 20-plus season, has had a rep for knowing how to handle a bat. His career average is .186, with a sub-McGlovin .454 on-base-plus-slugging (OPS). This is a good-hitting pitcher. Like Jason at IIABTMS says:

"I'd rather watch a skilled hitter work against the opposing pitcher. I think a league with uniform rules is better than a league with half the teams playing by different rules. Especially a rule as major as the DH, particularly when it comes to the World Series."

There is some mild hypocrisy on the part of the National League dinosaurs. The DH is used in the minor leagues, except when two NL-affiliated teams play each other, so they don't mind using it for the purpose of player development. NL teams regularly use the DH during spring training games.

Baseball tends to be progressive as a business (case in point: the MLB Network, not that we'll ever know in Canada, thanks again, Rogers) while liking the illusion of permanency on the diamond. Don't expect the National League to add the DH. Even borrowing the minors' rules, which allow the DH to be used in all interleague games, is probably too radical.

That doesn't mean we can't point out this idiocy, time and agan.

Damn, the Jays

• One game never proves a whole lot, but you could have set your watch to the Jays coming from ahead to lose 8-5 to Oakland on Friday. It just felt like an evenout was due after that 8-3 start fashioned against the AL Central, and the Jays have lost the season series. vs. the Athletics in seven of the past 10 seasons.

Zen Dayley: You can't tell who cares, even with a program

Congratulations to Bud Selig for turning something heartfelt and sentimental into, well, a Remembrance Day ceremony back in high school:

"By request of Commissioner Bud Selig, as Major League Baseball celebrates the 62nd anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking its color barrier on Wednesday, all big league players and uniformed personnel have been asked to wear the late Hall of Famer's famous No. 42 on the field when the 30 teams celebrate the occasion.

" 'April 15, 1947, is a day that resonates with history throughout Major League Baseball,' Selig said. "With all Major League players, coaches and umpires wearing Jackie's No. 42, we hope to demonstrate the magnitude of his impact on the game of baseball. Major League Baseball will never forget the contributions that Jackie made both on and off the field." — MLB.com (emphasis mine)

How is something meaningful if everyone is asked to do it? A fan watching baseball on April 15 has the right to know who put on No. 42 out of respect for Jackie and Rachel Robinson and who's just going along to get along.

MLB should always take time April 15 to recognize the Robinsons, needless to say. They're also backing this up by contributing to a scholarship foundation.

It's also easy to pile on Bud Selig, who is probably doing the best job of any commissioner out of the four ball-and-stick leagues, but the gesture loses meaning when people just adhere blindly without consideration.

There were others who pushed for greater diversity in baseball, such as Larry Doby, the first black star in the American League, and Roberto Clemente, the first Latino star. (Did you know that Clemente's early baseball cards listed him as "Bobby Clemente," even though he never asked to be called by that name?)

The Remembrance Day comparison might be a bit much (although, as a side point, there was always cognitive dissonance between being expected to wear a poppy on and around Nov. 11 while not being expected to learn anything about Canada's military history, which is why I'm part of a generation which thinks Vimy Ridge is a wine). Maybe it's more like the Seinfeld when Kramer gets beat up for declining to wear an AIDS ribbon.

Either way, it would be a lot cooler if wearing Robinson's number on April 15 was limited to a few players per team. Recommending it defeats the purpose, since it just reinforces the same jock culture that leads the New York Yankees to stand behind Alex Rodriguez without giving a second's thought to what he's done to the sport's reputation.

It also gets in the way of really trying to understand, as someone who wasn't there, the full measure of Jackie Robinson. He wasn't perfect. For pity's sake, he was complicit with the Paul Robeson persecution that the great actor Paul Robeson endured during the 1950s and '60s. Regardless, he did manage to change the world.

As a general point, it is problematic when the impression is given that you have to be superhuman to change the world. It leaves everyone else with a permanent sense of insecurity and inadequacy. It's better to know that transcendent figures did have their human flaws; that's why it's great to know President Obama smokes.

(This is written with the full awareness Canada lost a soldier, Trooper Karine Blais, on Monday in Afghanistan. Pointing out that people are often superficial about contemplating the fallen doesn't dishonour it.)

Related:
Bud Selig Interprets The Term 'Uniform' A Little Too Literally (Walk-Off Walk)

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)

Zen Dayley: Angels pitcher, agent die in crash

Nick Adenhart rates more than a bullet point.

The Los Angeles Angels right-hander died in a hit-and-run collision last night, one of three young people killed by an apparent drunk driver. The others, who are bound to get less attention, were a young woman named Courtney Stewart and a young man named Henry Pearson, who as it turned out is a childhood friend of Matt Clapp from Sharapova's Thigh, who wrote a must-read tribute.

The point is the world of sports is not good at dealing with this, not that it necessarily should since grief and overcoming pain and wrong and death is personal. Running over the franchise's history, which seems to include a disproportionate high number of people connected to the Angels who have died young, does no one any good. It doesn't dilute the troubled waters, doesn't moot the unspeakable, a 22-year-old — a teenager, practically — dead. Scott Boras broke down during the press conference, so keep that in mind next time someone complains about him.

It is senseless to evoke Donnie Moore or Lyman Bostock. It probably means the people who were connected to those earlier events have to relive it, so spare a thought for them.

A ball club, like anything else, constantly evolves, on the field, in the front office, even in the stands. At the end of the day, there's a young man's family, his teammates and the people who believed they had a connection because they knew his height, age and jersey number. It's brutal, although statistically speaking, it happens every day.

Adenhart figured to have an excellent chance at a long and productive career, as did Pearson. No doubt this will become a first point of reference with how L.A.'s season plays out, although that's of secondary concern.

(Of all the things to happen the week you finally read Douglas Coupland's The Gum Thief, where dying young is a big theme.)

Damn, the Jays

• Ricky Romero was all right, eh? Two earnies across six innings.
• As you probably heard, Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi is no longer making his regular post-game Wednesday radio appearances with Mike Wilner. One wonders if that was Adam Dunn fallout, some corporate edict from Rogers, although the official word is he just didn't want to do it anymore, like someone else who you're reading right now.
  
  For the Jays, It's also more expedient if Ricciardi is no longer so visible.
  
  
• Sports figures can have selective memories. The FAN 590's Alan Ashby touched on his memories of his major-league debut during the Tigers-Jays game today, since it was a matchup of two debutantes, Ricky Romero and Rick Porcello (fortunately for the Jays, they got Porcello in his first start, not his 15th, not unlike a game in 2007 when they hit around some skinny San Fran right-hander named Tim Lincecum).
  
  Ashby said he recalled coming in for defence in a home game and making his first start at Tiger Stadium against a Detroit team that had Al Kaline, Norm Cash and Willie Horton, et al. He didn't mention that his first start came on July 4, 1973, Independence Day in the U.S.
  
  That's the difference between athletes and the civilian population. You would remember if something momentous in your life came on a major holiday. Alan Ashby's focus, back as a 21-year-old catcher, was calling pitches for Milt Wilcox and Tom Hilgendorf, who checked the Tigers on eight hits in a 5-2 win for the Clevelands.

Zen Dayley: How do you spell relief? A-u-m-o-n-t

Paraphrasing a Seinfeld rerun that was on yesterday, "That's a hell of an organization they're runnin' up there. I can't understand why they haven't won a pennant in thirty-two years."

Bleeding Blue And Teal is apoplectic over the Seattle Mariners moving Hull native Phillippe Aumont to the bullpen. A real red flag, which comes via Geoff Baker:

"Aumont is said to be quite anxious to get to the big leagues. So, he's apparently on-board with this plan.

" 'If he's going to start, then he'll have to learn a whole bunch of other pitches,'' (Mariners GM Bob) Zduriencik said. "He'll have to perfect a bunch of different pitches and that could take some time. Going this route, we'll see if it's his ticket to getting there and doing something much more quickly.' "

The point is why the Mariners would do this with a 20-year-old with only one year of minor-league ball under his belt and limiting his ceiling. It seems odd.

Bleeding Blue and Teal ain't happy, pointing out the Mariners have three recent first-round picks who have been converted to the 'pen:

"Brandon Morrow is the closer right now and Josh Fields should be big league ready next season. You’ve also got a promising young arm in Shawn Kelley who just made the big club, and a couple other young-ish power arms currently in the ‘pen. Why do you need Aumont on the fast track? Who cares if he takes four years to get his secondary stuff worked out? This is just dumb.

Zduriencik told the Seattle Times that they believe Aumont has a chance to be "one of the big bullpen arms" in the game.

The part about Aumont being onside with the move because he's "anxious" to get to the big leagues is troublesome. He got a big bonus from the Mariners in the 2007 draft and ultimately good things will come to him in time, right?

He only turned 20 on Jan. 7. Aumont, one would think, has plenty of time to refine his command and control and become a front-end starter. Granted, as most of you saw during the World Baseball Classic, he offers some unique possibilities as a reliever.

Related:
Intro to Aumont Debacle (Jon Shields, Bleeding Blue And Teal)
Aumont to bullpen role (Geoff Baker, Mariners Blog)
More Zdurencik on Aumont (Geoff Baker, Mariners Blog)
New Front Office Trying To Make Us Stop Saying Nice Things (U.S.S. Mariner)

Zen Dayley: Schilling was one Hall of a pitcher

History will probably be kind to Curt Schilling, who was often kind to history.

No doubt some of the hagiography for Schilling, who announced his retirement this morning on 38 Pitches, will note he was always grateful to those who came before him. He had the good sense to at least position himself as someone who still evoked what it was like to be a fan (use Alex Rodriguez as a straw man right here).

He named one of his children after Lou Gehrig. he once proudly owned a Brooklyn Dodgers jersey of his pitching coach, Johnny Podres. He also tried to bridge the jocks vs. nerd divide through his involvement in the Seamheads Historical League. There was also his stand, which might have been a bit preachy, that Roger Clemens should have had to prove his innocence when he said he didn't use steroids. He also campaigned for George W. Bush (win some, lose some), but a lot of people would like to take that one back.

The question becomes if a pitcher with just 216 career wins, who received Cy Young Award votes in only four seasons, will find favour with Baseball Hall of Fame voters. There might be a halo effect if he's perceived as someone who pitched during the Steroids Era and came out clean as a bean. Having played in Boston and having been on playoff teams in six of his last eight seasons won't hurt, either. Give us a hour, and we'll run a Keltner test.

Was he ever regarded as the best player in baseball? Did anybody, while he was active, ever suggest that he was the best player in baseball?

No.

Was he the best player on his team?

He was probably the best player on the 1997 Phillies, because someone had to be (they finished 68-94). He was on the same staff as Randy Johnson in Arizona, which answers that question.

Was he the best player in baseball at his position? Was he the best player in the league at his position?

No. Schilling was runner-up for the Cy Young Award three times, in '01-02 behind Johnson and in 2004 to Johan Santana in the American League. He only received five first-place votes in his career. He won his only ERA title in 1992 with the Phillies.

Did he have an impact on a number of pennant races?

He was on seven playoff teams ('93 Phillies, 2000-02 D-Backs and '04-'05-'07 Red Sox). He was exceptional during the stretch drive in '93. Schilling went 7-1 with 3.71 ERA after August 1, and the Phillies won 12 of his last 15 starts as they hung on to finish three games ahead of Montreal.

Schilling was only so-so in 2000 after going to Arizona in a deadline deal. In '01, when Arizona won the NL West by two games, from Aug. 1 on he won seven of his last eight decisions, posting a 2.74 ERA with 101 strikeouts (and just 11 walks) in 82 innings.

In '02, the Diamondbacks won the division by 2½ games over the Barry Bonds San Francisco Giants. Schilling won six starts in a row during a stretch in June and July. He also beat San Fran three times out of four that season, including a game in early September which gave Arizona an 8½-game lead with just 23 remaining.

Was he a good enough player that he could continue to play regularly after passing his prime?

Yes. He pitched effectively (15-7, 3.97 ERA, 1.216 WHIP) as a 39-year-old for the Red Sox in 2006, working more than 200 innings. At age 40, he was half-decent in 2007 (9-8, 3.87, 1.245) and helped win an elimination game in the league playoffs against Cleveland.

Is he the very best player in baseball history who is not in the Hall of Fame?

No. Among eligible players, Tim Raines is ahead of him.

Are most players who have comparable career statistics in the Hall of Fame?

Yes, with a but. Only three of his 10 comparables are in the Hall of Fame, and it took some intense lobbying to get two of them, Don Drysdale and Catfish Hunter, inducted. The most comparable player to Schilling is actually Kevin Brown, who's probably not electable.

Schilling pitched 3,261 innings and ERA-plused 127 (i.e., his earned-run average was 27% above league average over his entire career). Brown pitched 3,256 1/3 innings with the same ERA-plus, and he won't get within a hundred miles of being elected when he goes on the ballot in 2011. He wasn't exactly Mr. Congeniality.

However, first-ballot Hall of Famers Bob Gibson and Tom Seaver each ERA-plused 127, the same as Schilling did in a higher-scoring era. Schilling outperformed the league average by more than his contemporaries Mike Mussina (123) and Tom Glavine (118), whom he'll be measured against when he appears on the Hall of Fame ballot. He's tied with John Smoltz, whose ERA probably benefited from the four seasons he spent as a one-inning reliever.

It is odd how Schilling and Mussina's career arcs dovetail. Schilling had 216 career wins but had three 20-win seasons. Mussina, who got an earlier start and avoided injuries, had 270 wins, but won 20 only once.

Do the player's numbers meet Hall of Fame standards?

Yes, but it's complicated. Schilling toes the line on three of the four Jamesian tests, but kills it on the HOF Monitor, scoring 171 (100 means the player is a worthy candidate and 130 says he's a lock).

Voters will also be asked to consider that Schilling is one of only two pitchers to amass more than 3,000 strikeouts with fewer than 1,000 bases on balls, the other being Hall of Famer Fergie Jenkins. Schilling's strikeout-to-walk ratio, 4.38, is the highest for anyone who pitched after 1900. Wins are a

Is there any evidence to suggest that the player was significantly better or worse than is suggested by his statistics?

This is a chance to swing the question around to his post-season performance, though we need not mention the Bloody Sock. Schilling deserved the reputation Jack Morris had a post-season performer more than Jack Morris. He was 10-2 with a 2.23 ERA in 19 post-season starts, striking out 120 and walking just 25 in 133 1/3 innings. He was MVP of the National League playoffs in 1993 (Mitch Williams blew the save in both of his starts, but the Phillies won both games) and co-World Series MVP with Johnson in 2001.

As Baseball Digest Daily noted, Schilling's teams never lost when he started in a game where faced elimination. He pitched 39 1/3 innings when his team had to win to keep its season going and posted a 1.37 ERA, just four bases on balls and 33 strikeouts.

BDD's Craig Brown, did the initial number-crunching but omitted Oct. 21, 1993, when Schilling shut out the Blue Jays 2-0 in Game 5 of the World Series, buying Philly another 48 hours' life before "touch 'em all, Joe." Schilling scattered five singles and three walks over nine innings. This came against a team which hit .335/.405/.568 in the series' other five games, and he shut them out.

Is he the best player at his position who is eligible for the Hall of Fame but not in?

The temptation is to go with Blyleven.

How many MVP-type seasons did he have? Did he ever win an MVP award? If not, how many times was he close?

Not, he didn't; he's a pitcher. He was 14th in the NL balloting in 1997, 10th in both 2001 and 2002 and 12th in the American League voting in 2004. Please keep in mind that since the wild-card era began in 1994, only one starting pitcher (Pedro Martinez in '99) has had a top-three finish in MVP voting.

How many All-Star-type seasons did he have? How many All-Star games did he play in? Did most of the other players who played in this many go to the Hall of Fame?

He had seven such seasons — 1992, when he won the NL ERA title but was overlooked despite a 2.75 ERA at mid-seasoned. He was picked from from 1997-99 and again in 2001-02 and '04.

A gut instinct says that's a bit low. It Is About The Money, Stupid noted Mike Mussina was selected to only five all-star teams. John Smoltz is looked at a legit HOF candidate and has been selected for eight All-Star Games. Pedro Martínez has been selected for eight.

If this man were the best player on his team, would it be likely that the team could win the pennant?

Not likely, although he and The Big Unit were the best the 2001 Diamondbacks had when they won the World Series.

What impact did the player have on baseball history? Was he responsible for any rule changes? Did he introduce any new equipment? Did he change the game in any way?

Well, he was an early adaptor when it came to interacting with fans.

Did the player uphold the standards of sportsmanship and character that the Hall of Fame, in its written guidelines, instructs us to consider?

By all accounts, yes. Major League Baseball has three awards for, loosely paraphrasing, players who combine on-field performance with strong work in the community: The Hutch Award, the Roberto Clemente Award and and Lou Gehrig Memorial Award. Schilling has received all three. That probably will work in his favour.

Zen Dayley: Koskie overcame long odds

Corey Koskie will be a remembered as a ballplayer for playing Canadian.

Good Kingston lad Bob Elliott of Sun Media and the Canadian Baseball Network explained it in his book The Northern Game. The defining trait of Canadian ballplayers is they go all out, dive for balls, play hurt. Maybe it has to do with growing up where you can't take baseball for granted because of the shorter summer, maybe the hockey mentality rubs off a bit. Koskie was that kind of player, but that can only go so far:

"Look at the facts. I'm 35. I still can play. On the other side of it, if I play, I want to be 100 percent. I don't want to be thinking about, 'What if I do this? What if I dive? What if I do this?' It might be a little different if I was 23 and had my whole career ahead of me and I didn't have any kids, didn't have a family, didn't have a wife. It might be a little different. Really, what am I trying to squeeze out for two more years?"

There really isn't much more to add. Koskie did manage to be one of the few Canadian-born and -trained position players to become an everyday player in the major leagues at a position other than first base or the outfield, and he did it while coming from a province, Manitoba, which hasn't produced many major-league ballplayers (for a time, Manitobans were able to say they say had a player in four major leagues, since Todd McCulloch was still in the NBA when current Chicago Bears D-lineman Israel Idonije was just starting out in the NFL.)

There are going to be more in the future. Russell Martin is catching for the L.A. Dodgers; Brett Lawrie is moving through the Milwaukee Brewers system. Koskie, in that sense, was a little ahead of his time, and was a big part of the Minnesota Twins winning three straight division titles from 2002-04, typically hitting 20 homers and stealing 20 bases. He played a position which extracts a lot of wear and tear from a ballplayer, but please remember that at his peak with the Twinkies, Koskie was exceptional. Jeff Blair sees him as a scout, so why not.

Zen Dayley: The '09 Blue Jays; this is what you wanted

Fist-bump to The Ack at The Tao of Stieb for this pick-up, from a spring training feature on the Jay's youngins. They might actually go over slot for top-end prospects:

"The Blue Jays, under interim CEO Paul Beeston, intend to become even more aggressive in that regard by employing a new willingness to pay signing bonuses above Major League Baseball recommendations. That was a big no-no under old president Paul Godfrey and the shift in philosophy may help (GM J.P.) Ricciardi secure more high-end talent.

" 'That's definitely going to be an area we look at differently," said Ricciardi. "The gloves are off." — Shi Davidi

It would be welcome news and it would represent a welcome break from what has prevailed during Rogers' uninterested ownership. This scrap of news is in keeping with a feeling toward the Jays' '09 season and the accompanying cynicism, which boils down to five words: "This is what you wanted."

(Digression: Jeff Blair's latest, in a sentence: Lyle Overbay and Scott Rolen out, Orlando Cabrera in, maybe.)

The vox populi of Toronto sports fans can be a huge bunch of knee-jerkers who expect everything and make no effort to understand anything, which means they have no functioning memory. Perhaps it's like that in other places too; one big problem is Toronto tries to act like it's New York when it comes to sports, when it's really a snowy Atlanta, a regional hub which by sheer size and affluence, rates a team in every major sports league (except the NFL).

The common refrain with the Rogers Jays over the past few winters was that they were throwing too much at free agents (A.J. Burnett and B.J. Ryan in '05-06, Frank Thomas in '06-07, David Eckstein in '07-08). At least two of those four were spot-on. This winter, everyone whined when, alone among the 30 MLB teams, they didn't sign a Type A free agent. It is human nature to carp, but at least be consistent in your kvetching, eh. A middle-class team such as the Jays has to focus on bringing guys up through their minor-league system, instead of going for the quick fix:

"Over slot is Seamhead-speak for paying a high draft choice more than MLB's suggested signing boni, which tend to fall on the low side. More teams are realizing that lavishing a big bonus on a top-end prospect is cheap at twice the price, since there are ceilings on young players' salaries.

... Rogers' corporate cynicism dictates that you raise the major league club's payroll just high enough to defeat any charges of not wanting to win. 'But the payroll is $100-million!' Add anyone who was pretty good back in 2003 and whom casual fans know from years of sports highlights and their fantasy league, and stir." — June 7, 2008

It does stand to be a long baseball season in Toronto. No one wants to hear that if the Jays end up losing 90 games (which they probably won't thanks to pitching and defence) it would be only their third 90-loss in 25 years (counting 88 losses in a 144-game season in '95). They probably are a near-mortal lock to lose 90, but at least they're not the frickin' Kansas City Royals or something.

However, shifting to bringing along homegrown talent, although it will take years and a complete overhaul of the scouting system which Rogers gutted in the early 2000s, is what people might have wanted, deep-down. They might not be willing to admit it just yet, but hey, sometimes it takes time to come around.

The draft in June (where the Jays pick 20th overall) will be more proof of whether there has been a change of heart in the Jays' headquarters. It is always an easy out to say you're rebuilding and or shifting your focus to player development when you have little else going for you this season, but it's one of the first bits of good news to come out of Dunedin, failing a switch to another division.

Zen Dayley: Carlos and the Bagman

It's been around the blogosphere and back, but a pre-eminent baseball writer batting out a column calling ex-Jay Carlos Delgado "the lost slugger of the Steroid Era" demands a response, especially when you totally called this spin:

"It's been hard, as a Jays fan, to shake the idea that Carlos Delgado's reputation might improve even though there's no way to presume anyone was clean as a bean."
-- Feb. 10, 2009

Discretion seemed like the better part of beating the Delgado drum two weeks ago.

It is zero-sum to play the guessing game of who was clean and who was juicing in baseball in the 1990s and 2000s. Tom Verducci, though, makes six figures writing about baseball (oh, the envy is just dripping off the computer screen), so maybe he can feel a little safer stepping out on to that ledge. The rest of us, who don't have editors and advertisers to answer to so much, can, as Jason at It Is About The Money, Stupid did, call this a "fool's errand." There is no way of knowing, so you can't turn Delgado into this smiling, ebullient bald-headed beacon.

It is also curious, mildly, whom Verducci doesn't seize upon as the Lost Slugger as he did his tour of spring training camps, carrying a lantern in the daytime. Delgado hit the ninth-most home runs in baseball from 1996 to 2003, which is taken to be the full run of the Steroid Era, to which Jules in Superbad would say, "Wow, that's a bit of an oversimplication there." Another first baseman of that period, Jeff Bagwell, is tied for sixth on the list (with Mark McGwire, who actually didn't play in two of those seasons).

Bagwell was not forgotten. He was simply underrated. He is also retired as a player, plus there was a New York Daily News report last spring that a trainer supplied drugs to him, Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte when all three played in Houston. It didn't have much of stickiness factor, perhaps since "the rules of American sports journalism prohibit steroid allegations from being directed at average-sized Caucasian ballplayers on teams based in Red States." (OOLF, Dec. 15, 2006.)


Point being, Jeff Bagwell is not as good a literary device as Delgado. He's also not as a big skin to hang on the wall compared to Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa or Clemens and Mark McGwire. Being underrated and playing your whole career in a football state has its perks. (As an aside, someone claimed the spike in Bagwell's home-run rates was fishy, failing to point out he hit only four homers in his Double-A season in 1990 because he played in an extremely pitcher-friendly league; no one on his team hit more than five homers, and Bagwell led the league in doubles, which is an indicator of a burgeoning home-run stroke.)

Getting back to Delgado, it's easy to see why he would put on such a pedestal. He plays for the other New York ballclub and he could soon be in rare company when it comes to his counting stats.

"This season, be it anything close to ordinary for him, Delgado will become only the 11th player in baseball history with 500 home runs, 500 doubles and 1,500 RBIs. It is a club with no back door. The others: Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, Eddie Murray, (Ken) Griffey, (Manny) Ramirez, (Rafael) Palmeiro and (Barry) Bonds. And yet Delgado never is talked about as a first-ballot Hall of Famer, and is rarely discussed as a Hall of Famer at all."

It's a fun thought, although piling up the big career hit, home run and RBI totals is somewhat a combination of longevity and the era where someone played. The first five names on that list are all-time greats beyond that doubt. The next five involve a guy who played forever and four who had the benefit of playing in the ArenaBall era, including two whom most people would call drug cheats.

Delgado should not be turned into a hero after the fact. He was a terrific hitter in Toronto. The vibe with him was the same as it has been with Roy Halladay since the start of the 2005 through on or around July 31, 2009,. He made it feel like the Blue Jays would always have some hope as long as he was as around. Perhaps Hall of Fame voters, who tend to give a lot of credence to someone having won a MVP award or Cy Young Award, will consider looking at it as if he won in 2003, when he was edged by Alex Rodriguez.

The bottom line, as ShysterBall noted, it's really hard to except people to believe who was clean and who was dirty.

"Look, I appreciate what Verducci is trying to do here. He, like so many of us, wants to bring some kind of certainty to bear on steroids' impact on baseball. He wants to draw a line around certain players and statistics so we can at least have some kind of a foothold for assessing the era in which we find ourselves. The fact of the matter, however, is that no analysis, such as it is, like this one going to achieve that certainty or allow us to separate the wheat from the chaff. Rather, it's going to take a lot of time and a lot of reporting and scholarship. In the meantime, we're just going to have to live with our vague senses about this stuff and have some faith that the enduring nature of the game -- and the work of history -- will sort all of this stuff out for us."

In the meantime, Carlos Delgado is 31 homers from 500. He'll probably achieve the milestone in September. Sure, it would have been great if he could have done it in a Blue Jays uniform.

Bloggers can't be choosers, though. Only Sports Illustrated gets make such choices.

Related:
Appreciating Carlos Delgado, the lost slugger of the Steroid Era (Tom Verducci, SI.com)