both have their moments
Despite the best efforts of the Atlanta Braves and Toronto Blue Jays, I believe it’s safe to say that today, July 14, is the most boring sporting day of 2010. With that in mind, PnP recommends focusing your attention elsewhere.
Suggestions:
Somehow I ended up in a conversation with Carson Cistulli about home-run trot injuries, biblical misfortune, schlemiels, and schlemazels.
You can find it on Fangraphs.com.
And enjoy a brief excerpt here:
Carson: Eric, I know some things about you that the reader probably doesn’t — namely, that (a) until yesterday, the first baseman on your fantasy baseball team was Luke Scott, that (b) Scott is no longer your first baseman because he injured himself during a home trot last night, and that (c) the only reason you had Luke Scott in the first place was as a replacement for Kendry Morales, who also hurt himself after hitting a home run.
So, my hard-hitting question is: what the H, dude?
Eric: You could say I have the luck of Job, or maybe of Tagg Bozied. If not that, then perhaps I am the one causing these injuries. Perhaps there is something haunted about my team — Chase Utley went down this week, too.
Carson: I want to address the possibility of your superpowers momentarily, but first let’s discuss Tagg Bozied. Bozied, in the event that the reader isn’t familiar, is the outfielder who, in 2004, after hitting a walk-off grand slam to beat the Tacoma Rainiers, ruptured the patella tendon in his left knee while landing on home plate. In other words, it was a pretty similar injury to Morales’s. The difference is that Bozied was only — what? — 23 or 24 at the time, was raking in Triple-A, and has never made it to the majors despite still being around.
Do you think that’s the worst case scenario for a prospect? And also: what is it that’s so — I don’t know — tragic-seeming about Bozied’s case?
Eric: I don’t know if it’s the worst, but it has to be close. Bozied will always have the benefit of wondering what could have been. That has to be slightly better than never getting hurt, but also never being good enough. Or maybe it’s not better — maybe knowing you had the ability to play in the majors but were denied the opportunity by chance, or Fortuna, or whatever causes these things to happen is more painful.
200 in Roman Numerals is CC
This is our 200th post. So before we get to the Weekend Reading portion, Ted and I wanted to try something new: namely request feedback. This is both general and specific request. Generally, feel free tell us some things about the blog. How is it doing? What do you like/dislike?
Specifically, we want you to suggest topics for the podcast. We are always looking for relevant and interesting topics. If there is anything you’d like us to discuss, please post it into the comments section of any post, or shoot us an email at tips(at)pitchersandpoets(dot)com. Also, after listening to said podcasts, you are always free to tell us how dumb/smart/funny/lame we are by comment or email.
An example of this would be this (very minor spoiler alert): In yesterday’s Podcast 6: Jackie Robinson Day I bemoaned the Red Sox taking so long to integrate their team. I was, however, unable to recall the name of their first African-American player, Pumpsie Green. That’s the kind of thing we rely on you folks for: knowledge.
Onward with the links…
Had an update. Not really relevant anymore. Here’s the original post.
* * * *
First thoughts. Slightly jumbled:
Alex Rodriguez. Rafael Palmeiro. Jason Giambi. Barry Bonds. Roger Clemens. Gary Sheffield. Not one of those guys ever served a day’s suspension for steroid use. Tainted? Sure. But tainted in the shadows, in the off-season, in the clubhouse. Tainted never mattered for them on the field. Now, with Manny, it does.
My first thought, and I think still the overwhelming emotion, is betrayal. I feel betrayed in a way I never have by a ballplayer. As a Dodger fan, my disappointments have been with bad front office maneuvers, poor managerial decisions, underperformance, and all sorts of suspect player behavior. I’ve never felt so let down before.
Ironically, I was writing a post about heroism in baseball as the news broke. Craig Calcaterra had a nice write-up yesterday defending Zach Greinke from early deification. Borrowing from Bill James, he makes convincing and totally intuitive case for patience and sanity. I will now borrow heavily from Calcaterra. Money quote:
Before Greinke’s canonization, Alex Rodriguez was pegged to be the man to restore honor to the game by sanitizing the home run crown. Before A-Rod, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were the game’s heroic saviors. I recall an article from the late 80s talking about how Barry Bonds was the perfect antidote to the nastiness that the Strawberry-Gooden Mets unleashed into the public consciousness, and as James noted, Gooden was once thought of a fine young man poised to breathe fresh air into the game himself. I’m sure we could trace that trail back to the deadball era if we wanted to.
Manny Ramirez never, ever, fit into this category. All he ever saved were the playoff chances of his teams. Hero? Ha. I was going to make a point for blemished heroes. I was going to say that baseball needs heroes to lift the game from mere routine and repetition to cultural consequence. Baseball’s figures are a big part of what make the game such a weighty institution etc. etc. Next point would have been that flawed heroes are okay. Mickey Mantle was a drunk, Ted Williams (a real war hero) was a prick, etc. etc. etc. An imperfect game deserves imperfect heroes; to a little kid that stuff doesn’t matter much anymore. Waiting For Berkman had a great post on baseball’s nostalgia for villains in regards to A-Rod’s alleged pitch-tipping.
Anyway, Manny is not a villain. He was excessively imperfect in his pre-steroid suspension incarnation and I suppose that won’t change. He’s already come out with a nice, humble apology that reads to me (and I spend a lot of time reading statements like this from politicians at work) as an implicit admission of guilt:
“Recently I saw a physician for a personal health issue. He gave me a medication, not a steroid, which he thought was okay to give me. Unfortunately, the medication was banned under our drug policy. Under the policy that mistake is now my responsibility. I have been advised not to say anything more for now. I do want to say one other thing; I’ve taken and passed about 15 drug tests over the past five seasons.
“I want to apologize to Mr. McCourt, Mrs. McCourt, Mr. Torre, my teammates, the Dodger organization, and to the Dodger fans. LA is a special place to meand I know everybody is disappointed. So am I. I’m sorry about this whole situation.”
He got caught cheating (and it’s cheating now so no technicality defenses about the lack of MLB rules here), and he and the Dodgers will suffer the consequences. It’s a pretty big surprise to me. My friend Ross said, “I didn’t know he even cared that much.” I kind of agree with him. I knew Manny cared about hitting and winning, but baseball never seemed important enough to Manny for him to use performance enhancing drugs. Maybe that’s why this is a lot more disappointing to me than Bonds or Clemens or A-Rod or even the retroactive knowledge that Dodgers like Gagne and Lo Duca were using. Or maybe it’s the idea of Juan Pierre in LF for the next 50 games.
Maybe this is just another chapter in the endless saga of Manny Being Manny. At the very least, I’m not that worried for the Dodgers. If he was out for 50 games with injury, it would be considered a big blow but not insurmountable. I think same thing applies here.
1. A funny Spanish Corn Flakes commercial from the 1980s with P&P mascot Fernando Valenzuela:
(via Big League Stew by way of Dodger Thoughts)
2. Jonah Keri published a link this morning to George Plimpton’s legendary April Fools story The Curious Case Of Sidd Finch. I read it when I was 12ish in a book of collected baseball writing from Sports Illustrated that my parents gave me. These were the days before internet killed my attention span and fate determined that I would never have a reliable permanent address, so I read every issue of SI all the way through. Anyway, Sidd Finch is all I remember from that book. The story was unbelievable, yet I believed every word of it for at least a couple of years. The story is a pleasure to read, and you’ll probably come to the same conclusion I have The only person trickier and more clever than Geroge Plimpton was his animated Simpsons self:
*Will Alex Rodriguez go down like Julius Caesar? Is Derek Jeter his Brutus? Find out tomorrow as I try and put this A-Rod Tragic Hero thing to rest.
The horrifying near-death of a Portland Oregon area girl has resulted in perhaps the funniest baseball related headline I’ve ever read. The lead ain’t half bad either:
PORTLAND, Ore. — A 9-year-old girl playing baseball on city land Wednesday was suddenly swallowed by a sink hole and was rescued by the children playing with her.
The child’s grandmother said it’s a miracle her granddaughter is alive after she fell through the top of an old septic or cesspool system in a vacant lot owned by the city of Portland.No one knew it was there and the city filled the hole Thursday afternoon. City workers said the hole was anywhere from 16 to 20 feet deep.What seemed like a carefree game of baseball Wednesday turned scary for three children when Paje Wiklund, 9, disappeared under the ground as she was running to first base.
Meanwhile, ESPN The Mag has a nice profile on the gaping sinkhole that may or may not exist inside Manny Ramirez’s head. As usual, the story’s best insight comes from Russell Branyan:
When Manny talks to mere mortal hitters, his advice can be as frustrating as it is enlightening. “When I was playing with him in Cleveland,” says Branyan, “Manny was trying to help me, and he asked, ‘Why do you swing at inside fastballs when you can’t hit them?’ I’m thinking, Because I’m geared up, and by the time I realize it’s an inside fastball, it’s too late to stop. And Manny would say, like it was easy, ‘I don’t swing at that pitch unless I’ve got two strikes. And then I just try to foul it off.’ So, basically, he’s playing a different game.”
One time, Ramirez laid it all out for Branyan, gave him the whole hitting equation. “He told me that he put 70 percent of his weight on his back foot and 40 percent of his weight on his front foot. And even though I knew the numbers didn’t add up, I thought for a second, I’ve got to try that.”
And most importantly, Josh Wilker at Cardboard Gods shines a light on the internet’s newest sensation: Big Lebowski Baseball Cards:
I may well have this wrong, but I believe the project got its start at Achiever Card Blog and Cheese and Beer and then got a boost from the photoshop master at Punk Rock Paint along with other contributions from Tastes Like Dirt and White Sox Cards.
Anyway, if anybody sees an Arthur Digby Sellers card sitting around, please let me know. I’m in the market.
Dayn Perry had an excellent post this morning, “The Case Against the Case Against Barry Bonds.” In terms easy for a legal novice like me to understand, he explains the main elements of the federal case and simultaneously cuts it to shreds. He also seamlessly uses the phrase “many-tentacled:”
Barry Bonds’ terminally looming jury trial has been postponed, perhaps until the fall. At some point, though, he’ll probably be dragged in front of his peers on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. All of it, of course, traces back to the many-tentacled BALCO scandal, which has been too much with us for the better part of a decade. But it’s going to end soon, and this will almost certainly be the closing scene: Bonds’ walking out of the federal courthouse in San Francisco a free man.
Maybe I found the post so informative because I haven’t followed the Bonds case much. I’ve been burnt out on steroid and PED stories, and anyway the jury in my head convicted Barry Bonds about five years ago. Perry’s post leaves me asking an important question. Who cares? Aside from the purely legal aspect (Bonds probably broke the law), I don’t see how the outcome of this trial does anything to significantly affect his legacy. He’s guilty in the public conscience, and it will take a hell of a lot more than some court decision for him to regain his footing. It will take a lot of humility, some profuse apologies, and maybe a little bit of groveling. None of those are going to happen here.
The example I can’t help but turn to (noting the difference between killing someone and cheating a little) is OJ Simpson. Most people think OJ did it. Obviously that brings up a lot of racial implications i, but Bonds can easily be substituted for Roger Clemens or Rafael Pameiro who their own legal swamps, and the question doesn’t change. A major sports star betrays the public’s trust, refuses to own up, and devolves into some kind of sad parody of his former existence.
How long before Barry Bonds coauthors If I Juiced: The Mystery Novel? How long before Bobby Estalella, the career .216 hitter who owned up to his own steroid use, is held as a model of dignity beside his former teammate?
Two funny baseball anecdotes passed on by friend Josh:
New goal: find more comics, links, stories that do what this strip did: take old golden baseball cliches and turn them on their heads.
…and this priceless exchange between Ichiro and Tommy Lasorda, as reported in the NY Times Bats Blog:
Tommy Lasorda, the tournament’s official mascot, held court during batting practice with several Japanese players. Ichiro Suzuki stopped by and spoke passable English with Lasorda, who in turn spoke passable English with Suzuki. Ichiro kept pointing to Lasorda’s circumferentially-challenged midsection and saying, “How many months?” Clearly unfamiliar with certain idioms, Lasorda answered, “I’m 82 years old.”
‘Soccer Is Ruining America’ says Steven Webb over at First Things, it corrupts our youth. The answer? More Baseball. He’s really serious, and Britain is none too pleased. (h/t on all this to Andrew Sullivan.) Everybody just needs to look to Nomar and Mia.
A father on NPR wonders if the steroid era will somehow contaminate the apple pie innocence of his son’s passion for baseball. Apparently oblivious to baseball’s history of corruption, racism, labor abuses, and other generally wily misbehavior. (h/t Shysterball).
Josh Wilker at the painfully-honest-perspective-on existential-questions-factory Cardboard Gods: What a grim one-direction-only conveyor belt is life!
Also, feel free to go back and read Tuesday’s poem of the week. It’s got some childhood baseball action going on.
Bonus Material: The young and the very old.
Michael Phelps calls certain unnamed youthful indiscretion ‘bad mistake.’ No word on whether he was referring to the bong or the fact that there was a camera in the room.
92-year old Senator Robert Byrd, is on Twitter and apparently in the hands of a powerful jelly bean lobby. (Editor’s note: this blog is on twitter too, but only just barely).
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