12 Apr 2011, by Eric
I have written a poem about Manny Ramirez. It is a villanelle in honor of National Poetry Month and in response to Patrick DuBuque's challenge to write a baseball villanelle. You may recognize the form from better poets like Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath.
We cannot know his legendary head,
We cannot know his riddle-speak, his swing,
His heart that greets no consequence, no dread.
Oblivious (or publicly misread),
He went forth like a jester, like a king.
We cannot know his legendary head.
Ramirez never anguished, never bled.
Perfection seemed a right and simple thing.
His heart? It greets no consequence, no dread.
A paradox: collective joy and dread
Awash in pride and drunk on estrogen--
We cannot know his legendary head.
A selfish man and insecure, they said.
But maybe public shame can even sting
A heart that greets no consequence, no dread.
And maybe all the jokes had turned to lead,
The time had come to leave the center ring.
We'll never know his legendary head,
His heart that greets no consequence, no dread.
07 Apr 2011, by Ted
At least some part of the public persona of the Texas Rangers as a baseball club is rooted in the assumption that barrel-chested El Presidente Nolan Ryan is watching. The camera frequently finds him in his seat at games, beside his perfectly touched up Texas beauty queen of a wife, watching his team play like a ranch foreman overseeing his hands bring in a herd of cattle. The Ryan Express is, in my imagination at least, noting every lack of hustle and sign of weakness that he sees from his players, and recording it in a dusty card catalogue in his brain for later dressings down. No other MLB team executive commands such an authoritative presence, especially with Mr. Steinbrenner passed on.
The Rangers did right by Ryan last year, with their run to the World Series, and with an undefeated start to the 2011 season through April 6, they seem poised to take the AL West division again.
But there's a paradox in play. Where their most visible executive is an old school cowboy of a player who despises pitch counts, the Rangers themselves are a charismatic, crowd-friendly team with a cast of characters you'd more likely find at a bar at midnight than at the ballpark on a Sunday afternoon. The Rangers' best hitter, Josh Hamilton, is a recovering addict with flame tattoos up and down his forearms, Manager Ron Washington has tested positive for some pretty hard drugs, and lefty starter C.J. Wilson is an adrenaline junky who's hooked on Twitter. (Nolan Ryan's thinks twittering is what the ladies do when they get together after church. Hey-o!) The team developed a couple of hand signals just for fun, the claw and the antlers, to celebrate good plays on their run to the World Series. This would've gotten you shanked if you'd tried those kind of shenanigans in the Bob Gibson era. Just ask Robin Ventura about respecting the game. (Sidenote: Dave Sims let me know on the Mariners broadcast that the Rangers still play footage of Nolan Ryan mashing Robin Ventura's face before games.)
Madness without discipline is just madness.
This odd couple leadership structure, with austerity and tradition up top and playfulness further down the line, creates a nice push and pull between the traditional and the contemporary for the Rangers, of the sort that breeds success not only in baseball, but at companies like Google and even in artists. Creativity thrives in circumstances when creative energy is constrained by outward pressures. Madness without discipline is just madness.
The word I would use to describe the Rangers as a team is balance. The lineup has a fine ratio of speed and power, including a lot of power. Ron Washington's honest and likable approach balances out the big personalities on the team and in the front office. He doesn't go too far in one direction or the other even as the media tries to stir up stories. The hitters in this lineup are cool, comfortable, and unflappable, from Hamilton--who one imagines has seen corners of the country so dark that a major league strikeout is a chocolate milkshake in comparison--to fearless and friendly Adrian Beltre. Even the pitching on this team has outgrown the old big hit, no-pitch Rangers stereotype.
There are whole libraries devoted to the chemistry of great baseball teams, insisting that planets of personality align perfectly to activate some kind of mystically ordained success. But this Rangers group--which I'll stop short of calling great and call very good--may prove the anti-theory, played out in Little League and the major leagues, that winning teams have good chemistry because they are good, and that bad teams have bad chemistry because losing sucks. The Michael Young mini-saga, for example, evaporated in the Arlington heat as soon as Nelson Cruz hit a home run in each of the first four games of the season, the minute Ian Kinsler popped a few out himself and stole a base or two, and just as quickly as Neftali Feliz ambled out to the mound and closed out a ballgame as calmly as your average cubicle jockey finishing off a Friday afternoon.
Two of the iconic teams in baseball, the Yankees and the Red Sox, play in a crucible of scrutiny and fanaticism, from the front office to the highest seat in the nosebleeds. In those climes, jocularity is a kind of blemish, a sign of weakness in the face of the game's most unrelenting pressures.
In Arlington, jocularity is a badge. The smiles rise as the baseball flies. The only one who isn't smiling is Nolan Ryan. He doesn't pay himself to smile.
05 Apr 2011, by Ted
Bryan Harvey, contributor of the thought-provoking Situational Essay below, is a high school teacher and poet, who writes for The Faster Times and The Lawn Chair Boys. His poetry has appeared in the Cold Mountain Review and DeckFight Press is releasing his eBook this Friday, Everything That Dunks Must Converge.
My Southern blood told me it was too cold for baseball. The gray clouds and crisp air set a mood more in tune with the gridiron than the baseball diamond. Then the gray clouds turned to black and rocks started to fall from the sky: it was hailing.
The game was in the bottom of the fourth and the Braves were down four to one. Winter was not yet over in the nation's capitol. The players still stood on the field like statues; they didn't take one step toward either dugout. They stared intently at the pitcher's mound, the batter's box, and the umpire, stubbornly insisting on playing this game of summer through the forty degree weather that now sent fans running for cover, in hoods and coats and scarves, begging concession workers for coffee, hot chocolate, and chili.
My fiancee, bundled up in her hood like a Gloworm, tugged at my hand, but I didn't want to leave our seats just yet. I wanted to watch Jason Heyward blow pink bubbles of gum in a dark hail storm, his brim pulled down low, his legs crouched for the next play. He looked like he had a balloon in his mouth. The sight was mesmerizing. It made you wish that he was at bat, mocking the pitcher with an act of pure youthfulness.
...the ferocity of his swing, cutting through the humidity, will have already remodeled the plains of our imaginations into deep valleys and sharp mountains
But he wasn't. He was in right field, far from the batter's box, far from the action, far from one of his iconic Opening Day home runs. But still he was the most intriguing individual on the field. It was like seeing folk hero John Henry channeling his mythic determination and perseverance into brushing his teeth or clipping his toenails, rather than hammering down railroad spikes: the ordinary appeared extraordinary. Standing in a green field became inspirational. I realized that legends commit to every moment, even the moments that don't matter in any measurable way, when nobody (besides an obsessed fan) is watching.
A few years ago during a weather delay, my eyes would have studied my boyhood baseball hero, Chipper Jones, but my interest in him has been eclipsed by the possibilities that rest in a twenty-one year old. What's so exciting about Jason Heyward is that no one knows what is to become of him: no one knows whether the steam engine will kill him or if he will tame the great American wilderness.
Chipper Jones, on the other hand, is a finished book, or an epic movie that has been syndicated on cable television. Number ten is Red from Shawshank Redemption, biding his time, protecting and hoping, while number twenty-two is Andy Dufresne, illuminating a drab world so that he can find a way out of it. Cold beers on a hot rooftop, we want him to stay in prison so that he can continue to inspire us with his physical presence. But it's just as possible that Heyward will disappear from the game tomorrow through any of baseball's proverbial sewer pipes, without saying a word, leaving us to question the spiritual significance of athletic talent not fully realized, leaving us to wonder what worlds exist beyond an outfield wall, or a prisonyard.
So often the legends of tall tales lose out to the machines of the world. John Henry suffers a heart attack. Pecos Bill watches his true love grow as distant as the moon. Mighty Casey strikes out. Bobby Cox doesn't bring home the World Series. Jason Heyward loses the division to the Phillies, or in the Playoffs to the Giants.
On a day when it was too cold for baseball, he lost to the lowly Nationals, too. But it was not in vain. No matter what happens in his career, from here on out, Jason Heyward's presence did change us. His Braves may never win a World Series, much less the NL East, but the ferocity of his swing, cutting through the humidity, will have already remodeled the plains of our imaginations into deep valleys and sharp mountains. I say this because I've already seen it happen. I've seen him blow a pink bubble in the middle of a hail storm, while the crowd ran, ducking, up the aisles towards cover, and the ground's crew unrolled the tarp.
And afterwards, the hood was pulled back, and the yellow bubble of the sun shined over everything, even Atlanta's six to three loss against the Nationals.
04 Apr 2011, by Eric
Today on SportsCenter Michael Wilbon and Jon Barry (?) hosted a mocking segment about whether the Red Sox had reason to panic after starting the season zero and three. It was right at the top of the show. It lasted just a couple of minutes. I had just eaten a great deal of ice cream and peach cobbler. I wanted to un-eat it.
If any team besides the Yankees and Red Sox starts zero and three, that segment does not happen. Welcome to the AL East, where baseball just matters more. The microscope, the East Coast bias, the New York Media. All that stuff. On its surface, West Coast baseball fans hate it. We are diminished by it. But at the same time, we need it. It defines our “otherness” and makes Barry Zito Barry Zito and gives us the chip we so cheerfully lug on our collective shoulder.
Another thing: AL East baseball is really exciting. This may seem like a trite and obvious statement, because everybody's always writing about how the AL East is the best division in baseball, but best does not always mean most entertaining. The Yankees have a lineup that crushes the souls of NL West fans. So do the Sox. So do the Rays. So do the Blue Jays. Hell, so do even the Orioles.
Bright lights. Big bats. Let's get into it.
I think the teams will finish in this order:
1. New York Yankees
2. Boston Red Sox
3. Tampa Bay Rays
4. Toronto Blue Jays
5. Baltimore Orioles
I realize everybody has the Sox winning the World Series and that they have Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez but I have a hard time picking against the Yankees. For one, the Yankees continue to be the Yankees. For all the shiny pieces playing in Boston now, there are comfortable and less shiny ones in New York. As long as the Rivera/Posada/Jeter trifecta exists I don't think I can expect the Yankees to be anything but great. And they haven't been. Even at their Giambi-bloated worst.
The Red Sox are loaded and not at all in panic mode. The Rays are a perpetual motion machine – fascinating and far too mystifying to write about with any brevity. These are not surprises. The top of this division is like a rock paper scissors game. Only geniuses and idiots think they have it figured out.
But the bottom is nothing like that. The Blue Jays are a home run-bashing sabermetric dream. The Orioles are a ragged band of leftovers and craftsmen and yesterday's hottest prospects today. The division may not be competitive all the way through, but the balance of entertainment value is evenly divided. I care as much about whether Jose Bautista repeats himself and whether Buck Showalter continues to do be far more awesome than he ever was on ESPN as I do about who wins the games. It may be that the Jays and Orioles benefit from the exposure and challenge that comes with playing 50 games a year against the big three (and it is a big three now, at least qualitatively). But I appreciate them for making the most of that opportunity.
I eager await the travails of Brandon Morrow, the frightening xenophobia of Luke Scott, and yes, greatness, no shame in saying it, of the Yanks, Sox, and Rays this year. If there wasn't an AL East, baseball wouldn't be what it is today. In other words, let's appreciate it.
03 Apr 2011, by Ted
Predicting things is hard, and it's wearing on me, even as I work on just my second set. Writing a sports prediction is like putting a helmet on a school of fish. You have to ignore the intuitive voice whispering that a prediction is a false, futile handhold in a slippery world.
Just as quickly, though, I'll hedge my argument and support the pointless prediction, because predictions get you to exercise your intuition muscle. Analyzing a team and a division is a way to make public one's intuition about the way a team is built, its players, coaches, and competition, like a Rorschach test for the baseball brain.
When I predict that the Chicago Cubs will win the division, for example, which I have just done, I'm announcing my tendency to value players that others have scratched as unreliable, like Carlos Zambrano, Alfonso Soriano, and Kosuke Fokudome. I'm also announcing that I'm something of a contrarian, unwilling to go along with the more trendy picks in the young Reds and bolstered Brewers. And finally, I'm revealing myself to be something of a sentimentalist. Sure, I'd like to see the Cubs win the division and the World Series as the current holder of the Crown of Haplessness, and that's reflected in my irrational prediction that they will win the division.
Specifically, they have have stable rotation if Zambrano returns to form--which I believe that he will to a degree--supporting Ryan Dempster, Matt Garza and Randy Wells. If Aramis Ramirez and Carlos Pena thump in the middle of the lineup, and Geovany Soto, Soriano, Marlon Byrd, and Starlin Castro perform adequately, I really think there's a shot here. The bullpen is solid, with Carlos Marmol slinging lightning, and Kerry Wood and Sean Marshall holding together the mid-late innings. I'm convincing myself! Is that derangement? Cubs win!
Cubs sleeper: Kosuke Fokudome, who had an .809 OPS last year.
This division race could, of course, go any direction.
The Milwaukee Brewers have a thrilling lineup of hitters, and Rickie Weeks is a favorite pick of mine to perform well again this year after one of the fellows on the CBS Sports Fantasy Baseball podcast pointed out what a good fastball hitter he is, then I saw a Spring Training game in which he hit such a fastball really far. Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, these are great hitters. But after that, the lineup falls off quickly, to players like Carlos Gomez, Yuni Betancourt, and (shudder) Mark Kotsay.
Further, I think the Brewers' rotation is overrated, with the slightly goofy Zack Greinke, a somewhat overrated (in my opinion) Shawn Marcum, and a pretty good Yovani Gallardo. A wild card bullpen may not be enough to bolster those starters, and we've already seen some cracks early in the year.
Brewers sleeper: Takashi Saito, whose experience and cunning could be a bright spot in the bullpen.
The Cincinnati Reds are the team with the gleam. An MVP in Joey Votto anchors their lineup, alongside the rising Jay Bruce, the powerful Jonny Gomes, the speedy Drew Stubbs, and the kinetic Brandon Phillips. Again, though, this starting rotation has some worrisome holes. Edinson Volquez and Jonny Cueto have yet to string together good seasons simultaneously or consecutively. Mike Leake and Travis Wood are young and unpredictable. Bronson Arroyo is solid, and will likely deliver the same eating of innings he does every year. I think the Reds come up short.
Reds sleeper (not actually a sleeper): Aroldis Chapman. The Cuban Missile!
The St. Louis Cardinals can always play well, and I've learned not to count them out under very many circumstances. The loss of an ace may be one of those circumstances, to go along with a questionable closer and some week infield hitting. Colby Rasmus could take his game to a higher level this year, though it'll be a stretch for him to join the stratosphere of the studs on this team in Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday. If Lance Berkman can return to form, this could be a pretty potent lefty-righty-lefty-right lineup, which will be important given the punchless infield with Ryan Theriot, David Frees, and Skip Schumaker.
Cards sleeper: /sound of grasshopers.
Enough has been written elsewhere about the Houston Astros, I don't need to pile on. I'm more optimistic than most, but that's because I'm a homer. This should be a tough division, and someone has to pay the price.
Astros Sleeper: Brett Wallace. See #BrettWallaceHaterWatch2011 on Twitter.
Pittsurgh Pirates: see Astros, Houston. (Yes, I forgot they existed and I had to add this later. Let's just say I don't blame myself for it. Sorry, Pirates fans, but as an Astros fans I don't have much pity left for you.)
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