Baseball posts

John Rosengren may not have seen a lot of baseball movies but he's written enough baseball books. He's the author of “Hammerin' Hank, George Almighty and the Say Hey Kid: The Year that Changed Baseball Forever” (Sourcebooks, 2008), which is about 1973, my 10-year-old, Baseball-Digest-reading, Harmon Killebrew-loving sweetspot; and “Hank Greenberg:  The Hero of Heroes” (New American Library, 2013), which is incredibly well-researched and sorts out myth from fact about the first Hammerin' Hank. John is white-haired, mild in temperament, and lives by Lake Harriet in south Minneapolis. He's a member of the American Society of Journalists, Society for American Baseball Research, and Internet Baseball Writers Association of America. But he really needs to see “Catching Hell.” And apparently I really need to see “The Perfect Game.”

John's Baseball Movie Rankings

1. Moneyball (2011)
2. The Perfect Game (2009)
3. Ken Burns’ Baseball (1994)
4. Bang the Drum Slowly (1973)
5. Field of Dreams (1989)
6. Bull Durham (1988)
7. The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (1998)
8. The Sandlot (1993)
9. Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story (2010)
10. Cobb (1994)
11. 42 (2013)
12. Bad News Bears (2005)
13. A League of Their Own (1992)
14. Angels in the Outfield (1994)
15. The Scout (1994)

John's Comment

Sorry. Haven't seen that many baseball movies, I guess.

Your turn

Rank the Baseball Movies.

David Schoenfield has been with ESPN.com since 1995 and has served as baseball editor, Page 2 senior editor, interim soccer editor, and now SweetSpot blogger. He grew up in Seattle, rooting for the Mariners, and believes that Edgar Martinez should be in the Hall of Fame.

David's Baseball Movie Rankings

1. Bull Durham (1988)
2. The Bad News Bears (1976)
3. Field of Dreams (1989)
4. Moneyball (2011)
5. The Natural (1984)
6. Eight Men Out (1988)
7. Sugar (2008)
8. A League of Their Own (1992)
9. 61* (2001)
10. 42 (2013)
11. Ken Burns’ Baseball (1994)
12. Major League (1989)
13. Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings (1976)
14. The Sandlot (1993)
15. Mr. Baseball (1992)
16. The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (1998)
17. The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977)
18. Bang the Drum Slowly (1973)
19. The Rookie (2002)
20. Little Big League (1994)
21. The House of Steinbrenner (2010)
22. Fear Strikes Out (1957)
23. The Pride of the Yankees (1942)
24. Pastime (1990)
25. The Babe Ruth Story (1948)
26. Cobb (1994)
27. Talent for the Game (1991)
28. For Love of the Game (1999)
29. Mr. 3000 (2004)
30. The Scout (1994)
31. Rookie of the Year (1993)
32. It Happens Every Spring (1949)
33. Major League II (1994)
34. Major League III: Back to the Minors (1998)
35. Angels in the Outfield (1951)
36. The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978)
37. Damn Yankees! (1958)
38. The Babe (1992)
39. Long Gone (1987)

David's Comment

Fun list. It's been a lot of years since I've seen many of these movies so it was a test to remember how much I liked — or disliked — some of them. I give Bull Durham the edge even though Tim Robbins didn't exactly have a believable pitching delivery. Still, he was better than the father at the end of Field of Dreams (the guy had one line; they couldn't find an actor who could throw a baseball?) and Robert DeNiro impersonating a catcher in Bang the Drum Slowly. DeNiro's lack of baseball ability nearly ruins what is otherwise a decent movie. Two horrible movies not listed here: Chasing Dreams (1982), which I rented once because it billed Kevin Costner on the VHS tape cover. He had a cameo at the beginning but the movie was dreadful. I think that one may have been shot as a high school project with a budget of $18. So that makes The Slugger's Wife (1985) even worse because it had real actors in it — William O'Keefe and Rebecca De Mornay — and a real director (Hal Ashby). A friend of mine in college made me watch it because the slugger plays for the Braves and my friend was a Braves fan. Which means he watched this thing at least twice. Unwatchable.

Your turn

Rank the Baseball Movies.

David's No. 1 movie ... even though, as a pitcher, Tim Robbins wasn't exactly No. 1 with a bullet.

After spending his early years in California and Arizona, Jack Bradbury arrived in the Pacific Northwest in 1960, at the age of 7, where the baseball cards he had begun collecting came to life with trips to Sick's Stadium in Rainier Valley. The Pacific Coast League Seattle Rainers had recently become a Boston Red Sox franchise, and Jack remembers watching the likes of Rico Petrocelli and Tony Conigliaro play ball. “Funny,” he says, “I still liked baseball cards better.”When the Seattle Mariners arrived in 1977 he went down to the Kingdome to watch, but it wasn't until the arrival of Ken Griffey, Jr., Edgar Martinez, Randy Johnson and company that the live game supplanted the thrill of baseball cards for him. “Sure wish my Mom hadn't chucked all my cards along with my comic books,” he adds. “Oh well.”

Jack's Baseball Movie Rankings

1. Bang the Drum Slowly (1973)
2. The Scout (1994)
3. Major League (1989)
4. Bull Durham (1988)
5. The Bad News Bears (1976)
6. The Rookie (2002)
7. The Natural (1984)
8. A League of Their Own (1992)
9. Eight Men Out (1988)
10. Bad News Bears (2005)
11. Mr. Baseball (1992)
12. The Sandlot (1993)
13. Ken Burns’ Baseball (1994)
14. Little Big League (1994)
15. Angels in the Outfield (1994)
16. Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings (1976)
17. Field of Dreams (1989)

Jack's comment

Man! There are a lot of baseball movies I haven't seen!

Erik's comment

“The Scout”?

Your turn

Rank the Baseball Movies.

Besides doing most of the dirty work on this site (with clean code), Tim Harrison draws a comic strip (“Cloud Five,” for when Cloud 9 isn't within reach), produces magazines (including “The Grand Salami,” the alternative Seattle Mariners program), and builds even more websites (examples). He has nuanced opinions on the virtues and failings of each iteration of “Star Trek.” He appreciates great indy comic books but his favorites are still Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four. He prefers a double-steal to a home run and a squeeze-bunt to a sac fly.

Tim's Baseball Movie Rankings

1. Bull Durham (1988)
2. The Natural (1984)
3. Ken Burns’ Baseball (1994)
4. Eight Men Out (1988)
5. Moneyball (2011)
6. A League of Their Own (1992)
7. Major League (1989)
8. 42 (2013)
9. Fever Pitch (2005)
10. Field of Dreams (1989)
11. Game 6 (2005)
12. Mr. Baseball (1992)
13. Sugar (2008)
14. The Perfect Game (2009)
15. For Love of the Game (1999)
16. American Pastime (2007)
17. The Bad News Bears (1976)
18. Major League II (1994)
19. The Sandlot (1993)
20. Mr. 3000 (2004)
21. Cobb (1994)
22. The Babe (1992)
23. The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977)

Your turn

Rank the Baseball Movies.

“Well, Nuke's scared because his eyelids are jammed and his old man's here. We need a live... is it a live rooster? ... We need a live rooster to take the curse off Jose's glove. And nobody seems to know what to get Millie or Jimmy for their wedding present.”

Uncle Vinny is mostly a dilettante, but also a software tester, a chess enthusiast, an erstwhile Starcraft noob, a sometime tap dancer, a man who will talk your ear off about early Christian history and taxi deregulation, but not much of a fan of baseball movies. As per below. But he's still game. That's a great compliment in this life: someone who's game. Plus, girls, he knows how to fold a fitted sheet.

Vinny's Baseball Movie Rankings

1. Moneyball (2011)
2. Bull Durham (1988)
3. Field of Dreams (1989)
4. The Natural (1984)
5. Damn Yankees! (1958)
6. A League of Their Own (1992)
7. The Bad News Bears (1976)

Vinny's Comment

This is like asking Pope Francis to rank the nightclubs in San Francisco. I have little data and not much interest. But I will say that Moneyball was by far the most interesting baseball movie I ever did see, followed at a respectful distance by #2-#4, with the last two roiling around fighting it out in the gutter.

Your turn

Rank the Baseball Movies.

Jerry Grillo is an editor at Georgia Trend magazine, a freelance writer, a husband and father and son and baseball fan and all-around mensch. His blog is “Notes from the Grillo Pad.” He is the creator and chronicler of “Joe on the Go,” an ongoing community-engagement project created by his wife, Jane, about their son. Here's Jerry's post on meeting Hank Aaron. He's been trying to get me to see “Long Gone,” his No. 1 pick, for a while now, but I can't do VHS anymore. I'll need to wait until the DVD. Or streaming. Netflix?

Jerry's Baseball Movie Rankings

1. Long Gone (1987)
2. Bull Durham (1988)
3. Ken Burns’ Baseball (1994)
4. The Natural (1984)
5. 61* (2001)
6. Eight Men Out (1988)
7. Moneyball (2011)
8. 42 (2013)
9. The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (1998)
10. Field of Dreams (1989)
11. The Rookie (2002)
12. A League of Their Own (1992)
13. Major League (1989)
14. The Bad News Bears (1976)
15. For Love of the Game (1999)
16. Bang the Drum Slowly (1973)
17. The Pride of the Yankees (1942)
18. Sugar (2008)
19. Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story (2010)
20. The Perfect Game (2009)
21. Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings (1976)
22. Fear Strikes Out (1957)
23. Cobb (1994)
24. Damn Yankees! (1958)
25. The Final Season (2007)
26. Pastime (1990)
27. The Scout (1994)
28. Talent for the Game (1991)
29. Angels in the Outfield (1994)
30. Mr. 3000 (2004)
31. Fever Pitch (2005)
32. It Happens Every Spring (1949)
33. Bad News Bears (2005)
34. Little Big League (1994)
35. The Sandlot (1993)
36. Rookie of the Year (1993)
37. Calvin Marshall (2010)
38. The Pride of St. Louis (1952)
39. The Jackie Robinson Story (1950)
40. The Stratton Story (1948)
41. Mr. Baseball (1992)
42. The Babe (1992)
43. The Babe Ruth Story (1948)

Jerry's comments

My list gets really fuzzy after the first 15 or 20, a lot of also-rans. For example, I might actually enjoy watching “The Babe Ruth Story” for the unintentional humor factor (45-year-old William Bendix playing 19-year-old Babe Ruth always makes me laugh), and that might elevate it from last place, depending on mood. “Pride of the Yankees” gets a good billing here because I'm feeling nostalgic, and it was always my dad's favorite. Some of the also-rans I barely remember. Also, loved the “When It Was a Game” documentaries, but not sure where I'd rank those. I like this baseball invention better than the aluminum bat. Way better.

Your turn

Rank the Baseball Movies.

The 1987 HBO movie, “Long Gone,” with William Peterson and Virginia Madsen, about players who never made it to the bigs, has never made it to DVD.

Josh Wilker is the proprieter of the Cardboard Gods website (“Voice of the Mathematically Eliminated”: best website tagline ever), in which he searches for meaning, both personal and historical, and often finds it, from his mostly 1970s baseball card collection. He's also the author of “Cardboard Gods: An American Tale,” one of the my favorite recent books, and a short, smart analysis of the movie “The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training,” part of the “Novel Approach to Cinema” series. His defense of the second, horrible “Bears” movie, his No. 1 pick below, is something close to a work of art.

Josh's Baseball Movie Rankings

1. The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977)
2. The Bad News Bears (1976)
3. Sugar (2008)
4. The Natural (1984)
5. Ken Burns’ Baseball (1994)
6. Bull Durham (1988)
7. Major League (1989)
8. Eight Men Out (1988)
9. The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (1998)
10. Field of Dreams (1989)
11. A League of Their Own (1992)
12. Bang the Drum Slowly (1973)
13. Fever Pitch (2005)
14. The Rookie (2002)
15. Fear Strikes Out (1957)
16. Bad News Bears (2005)
17. The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978)

Josh's Comment

Let them play.

Further comment via email

My #1 film is surely unique, but think about this--if all the full casts of all the movies (not counting documentaries) had to play a tournament, my film would coast to a championship (picture Kevin Costner trying to hit against JR Richard).

As for why “Breaking Training” is first on his list and “Go to Japan” last?

My memory of “Go to Japan” is pretty vague, but I remember it was the worst movie ever made. There was very little baseball, for one thing—it was mostly focused on a waxen Tony Curtis, who seemed to have very little connection whatsoever with the team. Tanner and Ogilvie were missing, as was “Breaking Training” catalyst Carmen Ronzonni, and Kelly was horribly neutered by a weak romantic subplot. I saw an interview with David Pollack (Rudi Stein) somewhere where he talks about how the first two movies were a blast to make, but the third movie was a joyless, pointless chore. It shows. 

Your turn

Rank the Baseball Movies.

Baseball fans! And movie fans! And fans of baseball movies!

As I promised yesterday, you can now rank your favorite and least-favorite baseball movies with our new interactive feature. Just several easy steps:

1. Drag the movies you haven't seen into the box in the lower right.
2. Drag your favorite movies into the first column and your least-favorite into the last column.
3. Organize.
4. Share.

Once you hit the “Share your rankings” button you can send them to me. Or you can simply cut-and-paste your list and share it with friends.

I'll probably post a few of the lists, as I did with the best-picture Oscar rankings, particularly if there's a good comment attached.

I've made several baseball-movie lists over the years (2004, 2011, 2013), but testing our interactive feature yesterday made me realize, yet again, some of the sad truths of baseball movies.

The greater the player, the worse the movie. At the bottom of my pile, you'll find these titles: The Babe Ruth Story (1948), The Babe (1992), Cobb (1994), The Jackie Robinson Story (1950). I.e., The greatest players to play the game. Apparently we make our worst movies about them. Which is the best baseball biopic about a great star? Probably Billy Crystal's “61*,” about Mantle and Maris and the 1961 season. “42,” mostly about the '47 season, is second. Stick to seasons, kids.

The best baseball movies are about losing: “Bull Durham,” “Moneyball,” “The Bad News Bears,” “Catching Hell,” “Sugar.” Read your Roger Angell: “You may glory in a team triumphant but you fall in love with a team in defeat.” It's a lesson Hollywood never seems to learn.

Don't incude the word “Mr.” in the title. Both “Mr. Baseball” (with Tom Selleck) and “Mr. 3000” (with Bernie Mac) are sad, obvious stories about egotistical assholes who learn the value of teammwork in middle age, and who, on the last day of the season, with self-aggrandizement on the line, sacrifice-bunt their team to victory. Spoiler alert.

Keep the kids away from the Majors. Movies about a kid coaching a big-league team (“Angels in the Outfield”), owning a big-league team (“Little Big League”) or playing for a big-league team (“Rookie of the Year”), are just godawful. Kids should be with kids (“The Sandlot”). Even better if you make them foul-mouthed (“The Bad News Bears” (1976)). Even better if you include Walter Matthau. And best? “Hey Yankees! You can take your apology and your trophy and shove it straight up your ass!” Tanner Boyle for Hall of Fame.

Finally...

Keep the Bad News Bears in Van Nuys, Calif. If you send them to Texas, or, worse, Japan, or even into 2005, you do so at your own risk. But if you have to go somewhere with them, make sure you take your Josh Wilker with you.

Now rank ball!

The Bad News Bears, North Valley League, 1976

I posted my rankings for the best (and worst) baseball movies the other day, and shortly you'll have a chance to do so yourself, but in the meantime I thought I'd list how baseball movies fare on IMDb.com.

I know i've done this kind of thing before, mostly with best-picture winners, but what caught my eye this time was the IMDb rating for Ron Shelton's “Bull Durham”—regarded by baseball fans as the best baseball movie ever made.

On IMDb it's got a 7.0 rating. Which isn't great. Here's how it ranks among baseball movies:

To be fair, most of the movies above it are good (“61*”) or considered to be good (“Pride of the Yankees”).

Even so: Tied for 16th? With “The Stratton Story”? Six points behind “The Sandlot”?

I get most of the early discrepancies between myself and the general IMDb user. “42” is still riding its newness; “Pride of the Yankees” was long-considered the best baseball movie ever made and still has its fans, who apparently vote; and “The Sandlot” gets a big push from the youngsters, who most assuredly vote. The younger you are, the more you like “The Sandlot.”

But whither “Bull Durham”? Thoughts?

Talkin' baseball/ Wrigley and Camden
Talkin' baseball/ Costner and Sarandon

I first posted this a year and a half ago. Here's the update. “42,” “Trouble with the Curve” and “The House of Steinbrenner” have been added and a few movies rejiggered. A lot of the rejiggering is based upon whether I want to watch the movie again now. You can tinker with this stuff all day if you're not careful.

Comments, feel free.

1. Bull Durham (1988): Still the smartest. Still the sexiest. Oh my.
2. Ken Burns' Baseball (2004): It's nearly a day long (22+ hours) and I think I've watched it four or five times. That's nearly a week of my life. Burns includes too many New Yorkers, not enough Pittsburghers (see 1960), and Stan Musial gets short shrift while Harmon Killebrew isn't even mentioned. It's the official baseball history now, which makes these ommissions more glaring.
3.  +1 61* (2001): Isn't it time for Billy Crystal to make his great Mickey Mantle documentary?  
4. +1 Moneyball (2011): I was turned off by the falsehoods but was won over by the poignancy. And if you want to read more, well, 3,500 words await.
5. -2  The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (1998): An unabashed paean and a joy to watch. Should be required viewing for all modern athletes who disregard their role-model status.
6. The Bad News Bears (1976): Should this movie have been in the Hall of Fame seven years ago? Should it be now? Haven't watched it in five years but I have fond feelings for it. Maybe I was the right age when it came out.
7. The Natural (1984): It's tough to transfer Bernard Malamud's Old Testament morality onto a Hollywood screen and give it a Hollywood ending, but Barry Levinson and Robert Redford (appearing in his first movie in four years) managed it in 1984. With caveats. Many caveats. Still, that homerun in the middle of the movie that stops time at Wrigley Field? Stops me every time.
8. +2 Catching Hell (2011): Alex Gibney has directed docs on torture (“Taxi to the Dark Side”) and failure (“Enron: Smartest Guys in the Room”), so it's only natural that he turns his attention to the Chicago Cub—in the person of Steve Bartman, the unluckiest fan of the unluckiest franchise. Bartman is the Chicago Cubs of Cub fans. In the end, that's pretty impressive.
9. -1 Eight Men Out (1988): “The written rules were rigid and righteous, while the real rules were often wide open and dirty.” That's from the book by Eliot Asinof on which the movie is based, and to which the movie pales. So is this: “America expected higher morals from ballplayers than they expected from businessmen.” Am I giving John Sayles and the movie too hard a time? Maybe I need to see it again. Maybe it's better than I remember.
10. -1 Sugar (2008): The Dominican players who saw this all said, “Yep. That's the way it is.” Always enlightening seeing our country through the eyes of others.
11. Major League (1989): The bottom-of-the-ninth-inning bunt to win the championship has since been stolen by enough movies (“Mr. Baseball”; “Mr. 3000”) that it's become as much a cliche as the bottom-of-the-ninth-inning home run to win the championship. But all-around dopey fun.
12. The Rookie (2002): In 1999, when I first read on ESPN.com about Jim Morris, a high school teacher in Texas who improbably made the bigs at the age of 35+, I said aloud to my Microsoft officemates, “Wonder how long before it's a movie?” But I assumed made-for-TV. Hollywood did better. Too much estranged father crap, of course, but otherwise a fairly straightforward narrative.
13. +1 A League of their Own (1992): Geena Davis can't play. Rosie O'Donnell can.
14. -1 Field of Dreams (1989): Speaking of estranged father crap... Most fans would put this top 10 or 5 or 3, but too much magic realism for me. In the original story, “Shoeless Joe” by W.P. Kinsella, the author retrieved from New England and taken to Fenway Park is ... J.D. Salinger. That's one way the movie improved upon the source material.
15. NEW! 42 (2013): Better than “The Jackie Robinson Story” but not as good as Jackie, or we, deserve. It's fairly accurate, but when writer-director Brian Helgeland tends to take dramatic license he does so undramatically. He takes undramatic license. Great Ben Chapman scene, though.
16. Pastime (1990): I saw this in the mid-1990s, liked it, and now remember nothing about it. Racial stuff, right?
17. Bang the Drum Slowly (1973): The second appearance in the countdown by Michael Moriarty. He was also a talking head in “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg” since his grandfather was a Major League umpire in the 1930s.
18. Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story (2010): Suffers in comparsion to “Greenberg.” But it means well.
19. For Love of the Game (1999): A fading pitcher thinks about his imperfect life between innings of the last game of the year ... then gradually realizes he's pitching a perfect game. Overlong, but I think the reaction against it was a reaction against Costner, which I'm tired of.
20. Fever Pitch (2005): How could Major League Baseball allow Drew and Jimmy on the field for the final out of the 2004 World Series?? How?????
21. Damn Yankees! (1958): Not much a baseball movie, more of a 1950s Broadway musical, but Ray Walston as the Devil livens things up. It's also the best titled baseball movie ever. Yankee haters everywhere unite!
22. Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976): Oh, the movie this might have been. There’s incredible talent here (Billy Dee, James Earl Jones, Richard Pryor, Stan Shaw), there’s a budget, there’s direction from John Badham. But the tensions within the film are puerile. The evil is overwhelmingly evil; the good is happy-go-lucky. The story meanders and then tucks its tail between its legs and heads home. Shame. Great title, though.
23. The Pride of the Yankees (1942): When I was a kid in the 1970s, this was regularly cited as the greatest baseball movie ever made. How far we've come. How far it's fallen.
24. -3 The Stratton Story (1948): I'm not sure why this made it into my “Majors” section in the MSN piece. When I think of it now, I think of it with slight distaste.
25. Game 6 (2005): The title game refers to the 1986 World Series. But there's no “going to see about a girl” for Michael Keaton.
26. Angels in the Outfield (1951): When the remake was released in '94 I didn't even know there'd been an original--and with the Pirates of all teams. Not a bad baseball movie for the period.
27. Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1949): Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra sing and dance and pretend to play.
28. NEW! The House of Steinbrenner (2010): Even the effin' NY Yankees deserve a better documentary than this.
29. Mr. Baseball (1992): Tom Selleck is an American asshole who must learn to be a team player in Japan. Doesn't suck.
30. The Sandlot (1993): And you thought “The Wonder Years” was nostalgic. For people who like sugar. (Not “Sugar.”)
31. Little Big League (1994): Kid becomes owner of the Minnesota Twins and makes the moves that put them in contention for the pennant. Ah, but the big, bad Seattle Mariners—with guest appearances by Ken Griffey, Jr. and Randy Johnson!—block their way...
32. Major League II (1994): I don't remember much about this one (and I didn't see the third), but, hey, gang's getting back together. Except for Wesley Snipes as Willie Mays Hayes. He's doing too well so they pull a Darrin-from-Bewitched on him and replace him with Omar Epps. Would be lower if not for Bob Ueker.
33. Fear Strikes Out (1957): I'll quote my father: “If Tony Perkins had handled a knife the way he handled a baseball bat, Janet Leigh would still be alive.”
34. Rookie of the Year (1993): Magic arm, annoying kid.
35. Mr. 3000 (2004): You are missed, Bernie Mac, but not for this.
36. Angels in the Outfield (1994): A clear violation of the 25-man roster.
37. -11 Cobb (1994): A hagiography would've felt like less of a lie.
38. The Jackie Robinson Story (1950): Dreary baseball shots accompanied by heavy-handed pronouncements about equal opportunity. The movie reveals how far we've come by showing us the inanities that passed for racial enlightenment in 1950.
39. The Babe (1992): At least Goodman has the charisma of the Babe. That's what makes it better than the other.
40. NEW! Trouble with the Curve (2012): My worst movie of 2012 isn't even in the bottom five? Yeesh. That's how bad baseball movies generally are.
41. The Scout (1994): I don't think I even made it through this one.
42. BASEketball (1998): Overwhelming juvenile. Whatever happened to these guys anyway?
43. Major League III: Back to the Minors (1998): Is there a sadder title?
44. The Babe Ruth Story (1948): The greatest player of all time in one of the worst movies of all time. Thanks, Hollywood.
45. Hard Ball (2001): This one's so low because the book on which it's based, “Hardball: A Season in the Projects,” written by Daniel Coyle, is fantastic.
46. The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977): Josh Wilker has written an entire book out about this movie? Which he loves? Or something? Well, he made poetry out of Rudy Meoli popping up so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. I'll probably even buy it. (I did: It's short and great.)
47. The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978): But Josh, don't push your luck.

Three of my top-10 baseball movies were never theatrically released.

Yesterday I heard Ben Revere made a great catch and I went to MLB.com to check it out. My search led to this catch, screen-captured below, which is a great catch but it's not yesterday's catch. The one below took place during a spring training game in March. The ads on the outfield wall should've been a giveaway.

I think MLB.com needs to work on its search queries.

No, yesterday's catch was more spectacular—aided by the reaction it got from Cliff Lee and the doubling of the dude off first. Here's a .gif of the catch:

Not sure why the Minnesota Twins traded Ben Revere in December. His numbers last year were certainly respectable, he was young and cheap, and he kept making great catches in center field. Seriously, there's nothing like a great catch in center field.

In March 2000, in a hotel lobby in downtown Seattle, I interviewed director Aviva Kempner, who was visiting Seattle to promote her documentary “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg,” which was showing at the Jewish Film Festival of Seattle.

This month, Ms. Kempner will be appearing with a friend, John Rosengren, author of “Hank Greenberg: Hero of Heroes,” at events in Washington, D.C. on April 4; in New York April 25; at the Yogi Berra Museum on April 26; and at the Jewish Community Center in New York on the evening of April 26. John’s full schedule can be found here. Here’s a link to his book. Here’s a link to her DVD. And here’s my review of the documentary from back 2000.

This is part III of my interview with Ms. Kempner. You can read part I and part II here.

How was the film funded?
A charitable foundation made the film. I think it’s how Dominici used to fund the great statues.

I could have made this entire film in three years. [But] it is ten years of fundraising. It’s just what it is. Because I wanted to make it my way. I’m still raising money for the music rights. I’m raising money for the P and A. I’m … You don’t want to know. I’m married to Hank.

My form of fundraising is based on a line from “A Streetcar Named Desire”: “I depend upon the kindness of strangers.” It was really wonderful people who thought the world of Hank, and some state humanities boards, that helped me. But I recently re-saw the movie version of “Streetcar Named Desire.” You know when Blanche says that line? At the end of the film. Carted off to the looney bin. So I keep telling my friends, “I hope that’s not going to happen to me.”

You made “Partisans of Vilna” with a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Why not again? I mean I would’ve think you’d established your credentials.
It’s called timing. When I was applying for the National Endowment for the Humanities on my Hank Greenberg film, which I would argue had some real humanities issues in it, there was a man named Ken Burns applying for his baseball movie. Need I say more? To this day I’ve never seen [Burns’ baseball documentary].

Was it a help or hindrance, the fact that he made it?
I think it’s two-pronged. I think I was the single filmmaker in the country most affected, funding wise, by Ken Burns. Because NEH went for him. When it went to PBS, they said, “Why do we need any more on baseball?”

On the other hand, I think he helped open up the door that, you know, baseball is a wonderful, glorious, American pastime, and there’s enough material there to make credible documentaries.

How did you get Walter Matthau?
Walter Matthau joined the Beverly Hills tennis club just to meet Hank Greenberg—is that great?

I had once seen a Walter Matthau movie, where, in the middle of the end credits, they have him in the bathtub. Funniest scene I ever saw. I thought, “I’m going to do that too.”

Then I realized the theme was what Hank still meant to these people: the kids, Arn Tellem, Maury Povitch, who comes out of nowhere...

And who screws up the history.
Oh, he got it all wrong! But that’s what’s so great. The three things Jews most say to me about Hank is: 1) he didn’t play on Yom Kippur; 2) they didn’t give him good balls [to hit when challenging Babe Ruth’s HR record] because he’s Jewish; and 3) he married a Gimbel. I try to give both sides.

Do you think they didn’t pitch to him that final week in ‘38?
Ira [Berkow] has done the math. It isn’t that way in terms of … I mean, maybe there was one pitcher … Actually, what hurt him most was the rain in Cleveland. And Bob Feller. Oh, who knows? But Jews totally believe it.

I come from a family that emphasized the arts and working hard. It was my awakening 20 years ago to first do a film about Jewish resistance against the Nazis and then do a film about Hank. And sort of my M.O. with my foundation is to counter negative stereotypes against Jews. I just feel like that’s what I’ve been put on earth to do. Don’t ever underestimate how important it is, the kind of childhoods we grew up with. My mother’s an artist, my stepfather’s a professor and my Dad was very political. And it formulated me. Where did you grow up?

Minneapolis.
Minnesota Twins? You stole them from my city! Did you see my dedication in the film? Dedicated to the return of Major League Baseball to Washington.

Well, you got another team right away. Then you lost them to Texas.
We can’t vote in Congress, we don’t have a baseball team. We’re a colony! I live in a colony. I’m third world.

You know, Camden Yards is just a train ride away.
Oh, don’t give me that.

What surprised you the most while making the doc?
Probably what a good person [Hank] is. I get criticized for making a love letter, so called, or that I don’t have any dirt or scandal? Guess what? There isn’t a lot of scandal. The worst things you can say about Hank is that in his managing years he’s really tough. But if fate gives me a story where Hank meets Jackie Robinson at the end of his career, you think I’m going to go beyond that? That’s the greatest ending. It’s what fate gave me.

Documentaries have beginnnings and middles and ends. I have this really dear friend who just saw the film in LA, and he comes out and says, “Act one was this, Act Two was this and Act Three was this,” and I just ate it up, because that’s what we were trying to do, my editor and I. Him being a theater person, he got it.

The other thing that gripes me: Where is it written that every documentary has to give a balanced report? Mine is a flaming love letter that’s humorous and makes you cry and that’s what I wanted to do. People loved Hank, there was a lot to love, and I want to make fun of it but I also want to tribute it. Exposes? Go watch “20/20.”

I was talking with Ken Holtzman who was with me last Saturday …

Ken Holtzman, the pitcher?
Here. Because you know baseball. The night before I opened in New York I’m with Ted Williams and Yogi Berra. Want me to tell you a Yogi Berra story? Yogi’s sitting there watching the film and I’m waiting for him to say something. I thought, “God, this great line I’m going to have from Yogi Berra! I’ll be able to quote it for days.” He gets up, and he says to Dave Kaplan, who runs the Yogi Berra Museum, “Boy, those seats are hard.” Doesn’t say one thing to me about the movie.

What did Yogi think of your film? The seats were hard. I mean, did you ever?

In March 2000, in a hotel lobby in downtown Seattle, I interviewed director Aviva Kempner, who was visiting Seattle to promote her documentary “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg,” which was showing at the Jewish Film Festival of Seattle. Here’s my review of the documentary and my profile of Ms. Kempner from back then. 

This month, Ms. Kempner will be appearing with a friend, John Rosengren, author of “Hank Greenberg: Hero of Heroes,” at events in Washington, D.C. on April 4; in New York April 25; at the Yogi Berra Museum on April 26; and at the Jewish Community Center in New York on the evening of April 26. John’s full schedule can be found here.

This is part II of my three-part interview with Ms. Kempner, edited and condensed. You can read part I here.

Where did you grow up?
In Detroit. I grew up always hearing about Hank Greenberg. My father was an immigrant—took my brother and I to games—he was crazy about baseball. I remember my father either watching baseball or listening on the transistor radio. Later when he moved to Isreal he always said he was going to miss two things: his children and baseball. But I was never sure of the order.

[Laughs]
I recently made that joke to someone and they looked at me and said “Oh, that’s awful. You think he missed baseball more?” And I thought: This woman has no sense of humor.

I think it’s pretty obvious from my film that having a sense of humor is a primary matter. People ask me who my influences are in making this film. The single most voice that was behind my head in making “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg,” style-wise, is Barry Levinson’s “Diner.” I think it is the perfect comedy. It so identifies how men love sports. He wouldn’t marry her until she knew the Colts. That’s what I wanted to capture. That wonderful obsession, adoration, involvement …

Pride?
It’s pride, too. When I decided to do the film, I was opening up my first movie, which I produced, called “The Partisans of Vilna,” about Jewish resistance to Nazis, and I heard Hank died. And I’m obsessed with the thirties and forties. I was born in Berlin after the war, ‘46, and Fascism obviously had a very negative affect on ... my family dynamics. I never knew a grandparent, I never knew an aunt, they were all killed by the Nazis.

But the day I heard Hank died, I knew I had to do it, because I wanted to deal with the anti-Semitism in America. My father talked about not being able to get into medical school, he talked about the anti-Semitism he faced in...

Your father is ... American?
No. My father was originally from Lithuania but he came here in the 20s.

And then...?
Joined the U.S. Army and was sent first to the Pacific and then to Berlin after the war, where he met my mother, who—I’m going to have a bagel, I hope you don’t mind—who’s ... My mother’s Jewish but passed as a Polish Catholic in [Nazi] Germany. Her parents and sister perished in Auschwitz. Then she was liberated by Americans and brought to Berlin. My Dad wrote a story about a brother and sister being reunited, and it was my uncle surviving Auschwitz and my mother surviving passing as a Polish Catholic.

I grew up in Berlin and I came to America when I was four. To Detroit, where my uncle lived.

Do you remember Europe at all?
Totally blanked. Even the language.

I grew up in Detroit, going to games with my father, and every time we passed “The Shrine of the Little Flower”—that’s Charles Coughlin’s Church—my father would point his finger and say, “That anti-Semite!” And every Yom Kippur I would hear about Hank Greenberg. I thought it was part of the Yom Kippur liturgy.

So you’re wondering why at age 40 when I heard Hank died that I didn’t know this was my next film? It was the culmination of everything that I had grown up with. And it’s my love letter to Detroit.

But I didn’t know when I started how far-spread Hank’s adoration was in the Jewish community. I thought maybe it was more a Detroit phenomena? But time and time again, older Jewish men, older Jewish women, say to me, “This is what Hank meant to me.” And then you have that guy who gets married with the Hank Greenberg card? Arn Tellem grew up in Philly. When I met Arn—he’s a big sports agent, his wife’s the VP of CBS—and he told me his stories, and how he joined his law firm because Steve Greenberg was there, I realized that I wasn’t the only second-generation [American] brought up like I was, that Hank was as powerful a figure to the Jewish community as Jackie Robinson was to the black community. And I’m just proud that I was able to bring it to the screen.

Look, if you look at the image of the Jewish male on the screen you think he’s a nebbish, you think he’s a nerd; and hopefully Hank, thirty feet tall in the movie theater, is going to counter that.

There’s a lot of heavy agendas I have in making my movie.

Did you ever think of using a narrator? You did in “Partisans.”
I never wanted a narrator, it’s just not my style. I think we took an extra six months to a year to edit just because I didn’t want to use a narrator.

But I do think there’s a narrator in the film, and that’s Hank’s voice. For his biography, “The Story of My Life” by Hank Greenberg, edited by Ira Berkow—hopefully it will be re-released very soon—Hank talks with the microphone. And if you look again at the film you’ll see that throughout the movie he really tells his own story. And I love that New York accent. And I love... He talks about “Some broad would come up to me...” I have a young assistant editor, who’s a woman, and she said, “You can’t use that!” And I said, “What are you talking about? That’s how the man talked.” And later on, after the film was finished, his widow said to me, “I love that you used ‘broad,’ because that’s how Hank talked.” I’m a flaming feminist but I’m not going to censor something that’s so much the nature of that period.

What else can I talk about?

Were there other talking heads you couldn’t get?
One that didn’t work out was Joe DiMaggio. He just declined. I don’t know why.

How about Ted Williams?
I approached Ted. I could not get an on-camera interview, I did it over the phone, and it didn’t work. But he did come out for my opening at the Yogi Berra Museum the night before I opened in New York. He loved, loved Hank, and he just gave the best quotes for the film.

Where did you get some of these other guys—like Bert Gordon?
As I said, I wanted to replicate “Diner,” but it’s really replicating my father. My father died in ‘76, I could never get him; but I grew up with his humor about being Jewish and being a fan. So I had to seek out fans. I think the everyday fan can be as funny as Walter Matthau.

Since I grew up in Detroit I had an advantage, I wasn’t going in cold. Bert Gordon is a family friend of my mother and my step-father’s best friends. So I knew about Bert right away and I went to him.

Bert Gordon is no longer with us; he never saw the end of the film. But Bert was the funniest man alive. There are two men that when I was filming I literally had to keep my mouth like this [clamps hand over mouth] so I wouldn’t start laughing? Walter Matthau and Bert Gordon. The day Bert said, “We were all five-foot-four, buzzing around … I never saw a Jew so big,” I thought I was going to piss in my pants.

And he said, “Well, you gotta interview the other people I used to go to games with, who Roger Angell has written about,” so…

Roger Angell?
In one of his New Yorker essays.

Wait, those are those guys? The Tiger fans in “Five Seasons”?
Oh, you’re good. Yeah, those are the fans: Max and Bert and Don. I started interviewing 10 years ago. I had to stop because I didn’t have the money. Bert had the horrible habit of smoking, and he had emphazema, so he died. He’s under the dedication. Actually most of the people in my film have died, three-fourths of them, all the old players.

It also helped opening up the film after America’s re-love affair with baseball. I think Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa helped me a lot, too. The adoration of Sammy Sosa by Dominicans is a total repeat of Jackie and Hank. Driving around New York, these gypsy cabdrivers, who are Dominican, soap their cars with how many homeruns he had. The big, big difference is I didn’t hear any negative catcalling because Sammy was black or Latin. We’ve come a long way as a nation. John Rocker aside. And even the way Rocker was pounced on really shows how much growth there is.

But my film shows you how insidious [racism] was. Can you imagine going to work everyday and get that catcalling? Based on how you were born? I just can’t imagine that. Joe Falls says there were Irish, there were Italians, but there was only one Jew. But as Hank said, it made him do better.

It was like all those rejection letters [I got, asking for money]. Today, I’m really having fun thinking, “All those guys who said no to me...” Actually one man wrote me and said, “I’m so sorry I didn’t send you money, you’re getting all this coverage, congratulations, you deserve it,” and I wrote him back, “But you did give me money.” It was so cute. He was feeling guilty he hadn’t—he was an older man—and he’d forgotten he had.

Part III of the three-part Q&A tomorrow ...

Don Shapiro and Bert Cohen in “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg” (2000): “You talk about the chosen people.”

In March 2000, in a hotel lobby in downtown Seattle, I interviewed director Aviva Kempner, who was visiting Seattle to promote her documentary “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg,” which was showing at the Jewish Film Festival of Seattle. Here’s my review of the documentary and my profile of Ms. Kempner from back then. 

This month, Ms. Kempner will be appearing with a friend, John Rosengren, author of “Hank Greenberg: Hero of Heroes,” at events in Washington, D.C. on April 4; in New York April 25; at the Yogi Berra Museum on April 26; and at the Jewish Community Center in New York on the evening of April 26. John’s full schedule can be found here.

What follows is the full Q&A with Ms. Kempner, edited and condensed.

There’s a scene in “Portnoy’s Complaint” that reminds me of what you do with immigrant parents and baseball in “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg.” As  a boy, Alexander Portnoy is at the park playing baseball with his father, who is calling out to him, “Okay, Big Shot Ballplayer.” But he’s gripping the bat with his hands reversed, and Alexander is overcome with sadness at how little his father, the great man in his life, knows. I’m curious if you tried to get Philip Roth for the documentary?
I wanted to but he said he wouldn’t be filmed. He’s very reclusive. [Notices a man at a nearby table lighting a cigarette.] Is that a smoking area? I may have to move.

What Roth writes about, which is the one thing I wanted on film, was how his grandfather, who was an Orthodox Jew, would get up every morning and pray. Do you know what tefillin is? Well, it’s a very Jewish thing. Orthodox Jews put on leather straps every morning. [Roth's] grandfather would lay tefillin every morning and pray and smell the leather straps. He would get up every morning, take his baseball mitt [smacks palm], and go like that.

That’s when I knew I was onto something. I had already been working on the film five years and when I read Philip Roth I realized that for the children of immigrants, and some immigrants themselves, baseball was the way you became American. It became a new religion.

Not just for Jews. This was true for Italian immigrants, Irish immigrants. That’s why I wanted the beginning of the film to be what baseball was to immigrants. Our parents spoke with accents, they could hardly understand the game. The scene in “The Pride of the Yankees” where Lou Gehrig’s mother, says “What are those pillows doing there?” with an accent.

A German accent.
It’s close enough to Yiddish. That and “Gentleman’s Agreement” were the first Hollywood clips I decided to use, and then after that it became a structure of my film.

Why use such clips?
Well, look it. I’m of the view that the most important source of footage in my film is the archival shots that were shown in the movie theaters: the MovieTone footage of the World Series and things. I paid an arm and a leg to get it and worked with my editor to craft it into the film.

But I’m also under the belief that feature films can be archival—can also connote an era or a feeling. When I’m talking about domestic anti-Semitism, well, I think “Gentleman’s Agreement” is the best and only great film out of Hollywood on domestic anti-Semitism [at the time]. That scene of checking into the hotel is a incredible personification of the social discrimination against Jews. There are other scenes where the Gregory Peck character uses the name Green or Greenberg to get access. Well, no one can tell me that when Laura Hobson wrote that book she wasn’t thinking of Hank.

Plus I can say that I have Gregory Peck in my film.

Any footage you heard about but couldn’t get?
We don’t know what we didn’t get. What I’m waiting to hear is … I’m going to be on this tour [for the documentary], and the film’s going to be out for the next year, and somebody’s going to come to me and say, “You know what I just found in my grandfather’s attic?”

There are a lot of stills I didn’t use. I love black-and-white. I just had to limit how much I had—there was once a three-hour version of the film—but I’m hoping to do a photo essay that accompanies the movie.

There’s a three-hour version?
A three-hour rough cut that will never be seen. I’m afraid to say that out loud. When I say it publicly someone always asks, “Can I buy the three-hour version?” Unlike a lot of new Hollywood movies, which are three hours, I think people have a capacity [for how much they can watch].

I’m fighting something greater: getting people in to see a documentary. I just had to make it quick and strong and fast, and that’s why it’s 95 minutes.

What did you hate to cut?
A lot of things. Hank’s first date. He was in North Carolina and he got fixed up and went on a date and we had footage—guy going into a shop with a girl—I mean it was an adorable scene. I tend, because I’m a female and very romantic, that’s why I have so much romance in my film. I think it’s part of baseball. I think women fans have big crushes on baseball players. Harriet Colman is me.

Men fans too.
Well, gay men probably...

Or even straight men. Little boys.
Well, that’s actually interesting …  Although I think the heroism is a little different. For us, it’s a real, romantic...

Actually there’s two first basemen--

You cut yourself off there.
This is a family movie, I don’t want to be quoted otherwise.

But the important thing is that crushes have always existed in sports. The single most-asked question I get is “Where did you find [Harriet Colman]? Where did you find the groupie?” The reason I met her is that someone came up to me in my synagogue seven years ago and said I know you’re doing a film on Hank Greenberg—you know I’ve been working on this for over 15 years—and says to me, “If you’re going to make a film about Hank Greenberg, you have to interview my mother. Hank was everything for her.” Luckily I listened.

The second-most asked question is, “Why isn’t Sandy Koufax isn’t in the film?”

Right. Why?
Steve Greenberg, Hank’s son, who is so eloquent and knowledgable in the film, I asked him about interviewing Sandy. He said he’d met Sandy through the years, and Sandy wasn’t really influenced [by Hank]—you know, it’s really 30 years difference. I also know Sandy’s a recluse so I never approached him. However, my month has been made because I recently received a message that Sandy saw the film and  loved it. A lot of things are making me float lately but that’s a top floater.

Part II of the three-part Q&A tomorrow ...

“Where did you find the groupie?” Harriet Colman in “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg”

I'm not a fan of starting the baseball season Sunday night on ESPN. Sorry. Opening Day for me is the Cincinnati Reds playing on a Monday and everyone playing a day later. But history and tradition are things we lose when they get in the way of revenue, so ... poof. Instead we get the game everyone's itching to watch, the Rangers vs. the Astros, tonight at 5 PM PST. Easter dinner in Texas, April Fools for the rest. Smart, Bud.

The AL West gets the Houston Astros this year. They and their $25 million payroll are in our division. Unrelated suggestion? The Angels should not be allowed to be called “The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.” It's the “Artist formerly known as Prince” of baseball names. Suggestions welcome. California Angels, maybe? 

Our season ticket group, led by a personal friend of Raquel Welch, divvied up the M's baseball tickets Tuesday night. I only have six, which seems plenty. Seeing Baltimore in May, the Yankees in June, Angels and Twins in July, Texas in August and Houston in September. August is my favorite month to go to games in Seattle. It's when you can get a hint of the summer swelter melting everyone else. April can be awful, weatherwise, which is why I skipped it. And if it's not? Just walk down and buy some. The perks of 10 years of losing teams and dwindling attendance.

OK, time to check out the active leaders (career ranking in parentheses).

Batting:

• Games: Derek Jeter, NYY: 2,585 (40th)
• At-Bats: Derek Jeter, NYY: 10,551 (16th)
• Hits: Derek Jeter, NYY: 3,304 (11th)
• Doubles: Todd Helton, Col: 570 (22nd)
• Triples: Carl Crawford, Bos.: 114 (T-110th)

This means Omar Vizquel has retired. I assumed so but missed the story last October. Godspeed, Little O. You are still my standard.

Three of the top four in at-bats are Yankees: Jeter, A-Rod, Ichiro. Only Ichiro is healthy. In hits, A-Rod is 99 away from 3,000. Don't think he's not thinking it. Ichiro is 394 away. Don't think he's not thinking it, either.

Jose Reyes, meanwhile, is within three of Crawford in triples. Reyes still hits them, too: 38 over the last three years. Crawford is slowing down: overburned with moola. The two now meet up in the same division.

Other retirees since last Opening Day: Ivan Rodriguez (April 2012) and Johnny Damon (maybe).

Jeter, looking for another single. Once he's off the DL in June. Or August.

• Home Runs: Alex Rodriguez, NYY: 647 (5th)
• RBIs: Alex Rodriguez, NYY: 1.,950 (7th)
• Runs: Alex Rodriguez, NYY: 1,898 (10th)

A-Rod is gone for at least half the season but he's only 47 RBIs from moving past Musial, Gehrig and Bonds for 4th place all-time. Runs scored is more difficult. Plus he's got Jeter on his ass: only 30 behind. Could Jeter pass him this year? If Jeter's in scoring position with A-Rod up, does A-Rod pause? Poor A-Rod. Front page of the NY Times today is all about him: “Hitched to an Aging Star: Anatomy of a Deal, and Doubts.” More to come, I'm sure.

• Walks: Jason Giambi, Cle., 1,334 (34th)
• Strikeouts: Alex Rodriguez, NYY: 2,032 (4th)

This means Jim Thome, 42, has retired. Or hasn't. But he hit only 8 HRs last year, for 612 career. Eighteen shy of Junior. Hey, if it's truly over, he wound up only 50 strikeouts from breaking Reggie Jackson's once invincible record. No worries. Here comes Adam Dunn (2,031 and counting).

Interesting seeing Giambi atop the active career walks, with A-Rod third. Fun fact: Willie Randolph, the light-hitting second-baseman with the Bronx Zoo Yankees of the 1970s, had more career walks than A-Rod has: 1,243 to 1,217. Another fun fact: Jason Giambi is with Cleveland now. Missed that story, too.

• Stolen Bases: Juan Pierre, Mia.: 591 (19th)
• Caught Stealing: Juan Pierre, Mia.: 197 (7th)

The Juan Pierre experiment didn't quite work out in Philly, did it? But he improved his SB ratio greatly. Batting less often, he stole 10 more bases (37 to 27) and got caught 10 fewer times (17 to 7). Maybe, as I suggested last year, Chase Utley helped.

• Batting Average: Albert Pujols, Ana: .324 (T-41st)
• On-Base Percentage: Todd Helton, Col.: .418 (20th)
• Slugging Percentage: Albert Pujols, Ana: .607 (5th)
• On-Base-Plus Slugging: Albert Pujols, Ana: 1.022 (6th)

Albert may be a Prince but his percentage numbers are dropping like rocks. Since last year, he's lost four points in batting average, 10 in slugging, 14 in OPS. And he's signed thru when again? 2050? Talk about hitched to an aging star.

Helton is dropping, too. If he drops a bit further, Edgar, Our Man Edgar, currently 21st all time in OBP, will move into 20th place. Something to cheer for. M's fans have so little these days. Well, perfect games aside. I'll keep you posted.

• Offensive WAR: Alex Rodriguez, NYY: 112.2 (T-13th)
• Defensive WAR: Adrian Beltre: 22.1 (33rd)
• WAR for Position Players: Alex Rodriguez, NYY: 115.5 (12th)

Despite a bad year, or a vastly mediocre one, A-Rod's offensive WAR still went up. And the guy he's tied with? Lou Gehrig. But Lou went out a different way than A-Rod is going out. Unless there was a “Hitched to an Aging Star” NY Times headline in 1939 that we don't know about.

I still have a problem with WAR. There's no standard yet. Baseball Reference has their version of WAR, others have others. It's like they're still working on the formula. It's New Coke. Fans are wondering what was wrong with Classic Coke.

In 2012, both the Angels and SI said “Albert.” Did SI then say “Jinx”? For April, Albert had a .217 batting average, with no homeruns and 4 RBIs. He kinda turned it around, but not in Albert fashion. For the first time, he's not the best player on his team.

Pitching:

These categories are now wide open with the retirement, in every sense but the official announcement, of Jamie Moyer, who last year played for the Colorado Rockies (released June 1), the Orioles (three starts with its Triple A squad with a 1.69 ERA, released June 28), and Toronto (two starts with its Triple A squad, 8.18 ERA, released July 5). Dude surely has a coaching future ahead. Doesn't he?

Onward:

• Games Started: Andy Pettitte, NYY: 491 (49th)
• Innings Pitched: Andy Pettitte, NYY: 3,130.2 (113th)
• Wins: Andy Pettitte, NYY: 245 (T-51st)
• Losses: Derek Lowe, Tex: 157 (T-131st)

Milestone alert! Roy Halladay is one win away from 200. Tim Hudson is three wins away from 200. I remember seeing Hudson in Triple A as a youngster. Yes, it was a long time ago.

Here's an indicator of how hard it is to win 300 games these days. C.C. Sabathia has 191. Johan Santana 139. Cliff Lee 125. Justin Verlander 124. And King Felix of Seattle? 98.

• Strikeouts: Andy Pettitte, NYY: 2,320 (44th)
• Walks: Barry Zito, SF: 1,004 (T-109th)
• Homeruns Allowed: Mark Buehrle, Tor: 300 (48th)

Give this to Andy Pettitte: He's career leader in the categories you want (wins, strikeouts), and not the categories you don't (losses, walks). Yeah, he played for the 21st-century Yankees, which made it easier to win and tougher to lose; but none of that had to do with his strikeout-walk ratio.

P.S. Apparently Javier Vasquez retired. Or not. But he's out for the season anyway.

Pettitte, ready to pitch another 50 innings; 75 tops.

• Complete Games: Roy Halladay, Phi: 66 (T-644th)
• Shutouts: Roy Halladay, Phi: 20 (T-244th) 
• WAR for Pitchers: Roy Halladay, Phi.: 66.6 (40th)

Again, anyone who doesn't think complete games is the lifetime record least likely to be broken needs to look at the parentheses above. Halladay, the active leader, is 644th on the lifetime list. And he's not moving anywhere. Last year, he completed no games and threw no shutouts. So how about second in active CGs? That would be C.C. Sabathia ... with 35. Which is off the charts. The bottom of. C.C. would need three more complete games just to make the top 1,000 in this category. After a time, we won't even count these things. “Daddy, what does that mean—a complete game?” “Well, son, in olden times...”

Now to the Mo categories:

• Games: Mariano Rivera, NYY: 1051 (8th)
• Saves: Mariano Rivera, NYY: 608 (1st)
• WHIP (Walks/Hits per Inning Pitched): Mariano Rivera, NYY: 0.9978 (2nd)
• ERA (5 yrs. minimum): Mariano Rivera, NYY: 2.214 (13th)
• Adjusted ERA: Mariano Rivera, NYY: 206 (1st)

Trivia questions. Who is second on the active saves list to Mo's 608? Answer: Joe Nathan, Tex., with 298. Who is second in active ERA to Mo's 2.21? Adam Wainwright, 3.15. There's no one close to Mo. Whatever adjusted ERA is, he's No. 1 by far (second: Pedro Martinez, 154). He's second all-time in WHIP (to Addie Joss), and my favorite, being old school, is the career ERA thing. Everyone ahead of him was mostly a 19th century pitcher (Jim Devlin, Jack Pfiester) or the best of the early 20th century pitchers (Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson). The closest post-WWII guy is Hoyt Wilhelm in 45th place. The closest active player is the aforementined Wainwright in 228th. Again, the question isn't whether Mariano Rivera is the greatest closer of all time. The question is how far up do you want to place him among the greatest pitchers of all time?

Even so, it says something about how old these Yankees are. Of the 34 categories above, 18 are owned by Yankees. The Age of the Yankees has been replaced by the age of the Yankees.

Addie Joss of Cleveland is the only pitcher with a lower career WHIP than Mariano Rivera. This card, part of the Leonard Brecher Tobacco & Chewing Gum Card series, is also interesting for the words that are still compound words at the time: not only “base ball” but “team mates.” “Perfect game” was also not yet part of the vernacular. Via the Kentucky Digital Library.

It's been a hot hot-stove league for Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, who is often called A-Rod, which is just as often denigrated to A-Fraud, or A-Roid, and whom The New York Post now wishes A-Gone. Good luck with that.

Here are just some of the recent stories about A-Rod, and just from the staid New York Times:

• Rodriguez Has Hip Surgery: Yankees Expect Six-Month Recovery: Jan. 16, 2013
• Concern About Rodriguez on New Front: Yankees urge A-Rod away from previous hip doctor, Marc Philippon, who has ties to Anthony Galea, who has already pled guilty to distributing HGH among athletes: Jan. 26
• Rodriguez Linked Anew to Prohibited Drugs: Jan. 29
• Rodriguez Denails Put Yankees' Patience to Test: Jan. 29
• Yankees' Options Concerning Rodriguez's Contract Are Limited: Jan. 30
• Baseball Officials Navigate Puzzle of Anti-Aging Clinics: Feb. 1
• Steinbrenner Concerned About Drug Allegations Against Rodriguez: Feb. 8
• Alex Rodriguez to Stay Away as Yankees Report: Feb. 1

Etc.

With some implying his career is suddenly over at the age of 37, I began to think about the first and only time I met the man.

It was the summer of 2000, the Seattle Mariners second full year without Randy, our first year without Junior, our last year with Alex. But we were doing well. GM Pat Gillick had put together a good squad. We'd added John Olerud, Aaron Sele, Mike Cameron, Mark McLemore, Stan Javier. Plus we still had A-Rod, Edgar, Jay Buhner, Jamie Moyer, Freddy Garcia. We were good again.

Surprisingly, a few of these players were talking about me. At the time, I wrote the player profiles for an alternative M's fan magazine, The Grand Salami, sold outside Safeco Field, and I was beginning to hear distant grumbles. It began with Mark McLemore, who didn't like my implication that he couldn't hit lefties. (He was right: he batted .293 against them that year). To the Salami editor, Jon Wells, utility man John Mabry quoted my mostly negative profile of him almost verbatim. But the grumbles remained distant. As a monthly, the Salami only gets one press credential per homestand, and it usually went to Jon. In June, though, he offered me the chance to interview Edgar Martinez and I leapt at it.

At the ballpark that day, I felt like the new kid at school. What's the etiquette? When is it okay to approach players? Edgar was a gentleman, the beat writers were helpful, Stan Javier was classy. I'd decided to interview not only Edgar but other players about Edgar, for a sidebar, and in this regard was most interested in getting Alex Rodriguez's comments. Not only was he the star of the team, he often commented upon Edgar's professionalism. Unfortunately, for the hours I was there, he wasn't. He only showed up in the locker room, trailing a camera crew, as we were being shooed from it. Crap, I thought, missed my chance. Then I decided, What the hell. Worst thing he can say is no.

“Hi Alex,” I said. “Erik Lundegaard, Grand Salami. We're doing a cover story on Edgar Martinez next month and I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of quick questions about him.”

He shot me a look.

“You own that book?”

“Book?”

“That magazine. You own it?”

“I don't own it, I write for it.”

“You the one who writes all that negative stuff?”

Uh oh, I thought, here it comes. Hey everybody, here's the guy who writes all that negative stuff! I imagined noogies from McLemore, a headlock from Jay Buhner, a Lou Piniella Indian burn.

“What negative stuff?”

“That stuff about me striking out all the time. All the good things I do and all you can write about is strikeouts?”

Inwardly I groaned. What had I written about him this past month? I couldn't remember.

“Well, normally we write nothing but positive about you. We've called you Kid Dynamite, Superman...”

“You understand, don't you?” he said. “Why should I talk to you if you write that negative stuff all the time?”

In other words, I got bupkis out of him. Later, in the pressbox, I took out the latest Salami and read Alex's profile. This is what I had written:

A-Rod's career weakness has always been plate discipline. He struck out 100+ times three of the last four seasons and never walked much. This year he's still piling up the K's (him and everybody else), but drawing so many walks he'll shatter his career high (59) by the end of June. It helps that he doesn't have The Greatest Player of the 1990s batting behind him—no pitcher this side of Paul Assenmacher wanted to walk anyone to get to Junior—but it seems that A-Rod, an astoundingly mature 24 year-old, understands better than ever the value of going deep into the count. His reward? As of this writing, he's leading the league in OBP—a blistering .489—and is a serious contender to be the first man since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967 to win the triple crown.

At the end of that season Alex went on the free-agent market and signed a record contract with the Texas Rangers: $252 million for 10 years. The first time he returned to Safeco Field, in late April 2001, the place was packed, and angry, in a way that Seattle baseball had never been angry. We knew we'd been robbed of something and Alex bore the brunt. I'd never heard so much abuse heaped upon one man before. Three years later, he wanted out of his contract—he couldn't stand the losing in Texas—and wound up with the New York Yankees, where, if he didn't perform, particularly in the post-season, the boos rained down on him like it was Safeco Field all over again. He went through a divorce, various scandals, many girlfriends. He was on the outs with former friend Derek Jeter, who was beloved. 

I almost felt sorry for him—as much as you can feel sorry for a high-paid, superstar athlete. I used to call him the PR rep for Alex Rodriguez, Inc., because a phoniness eminated off of him and a need to please. He seemed to be aware that he was always being watched. You'd think he couldn't look at himself from the outside that way and still be as good as he was.

In 2009, Alex admitted to steroid use. But that was a comeback year for him. He had a great postseason and helped the Yankees to their 27th world championship. But he wasn't beloved. He was never beloved.

Then this.

I assume he has a different perspective on negative stuff now.

Alex Rodriguez playing shortstop for the Seattle Mariners in the late 1990s. Photo courtesy of Jon Wells and The Grand Salami.

“[The New York press] never let me forget it. They called me 'Sappy' and 'Playboy,' and when I said I loved baseball they saw fit to ridicule that, too, and when I had to chasten some of their heroes, people like Del Webb and Leo Durocher, they never failed to take their side. But I don't embarrass easily. If you are sober and diligent and forthright, there is no reason to be embarassed.”

--Albert Benjamin “Happy” Chandler, the 44th and 49th governor of Kentucky, a U.S. Senator from Kentucky (1939-1945), and the second Commissioner of Major League Baseball, as quoted in “1947: When All Hell Broke Loose in Baseball,” by Red Barber. Some say MLB would not have integrated in 1947 if Chandler had not been commissioner.

Commissioner 'Happy' Chandler, living up to his nickname, standing between Jackie Robinson and Don Newcombe.

The first time I went to ESPN.com's story on a Florida doctor injecting Yankees third-baseman Alex Rodriguez with performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), this was the ad that popped up along the right-hand side:

Two things about the ad cracked me up besides its placement in a tsk-tsking PED story:

1. “Cambridge” scientists. Why Cambridge?
2. “...one weird trick.” Why “weird” and why “trick”? Why not “ancient” and why not“secret”? Why not “ancient Chinese secret”? If it's because “one weird trick” appeals to a certain low-IQ browser, I then go back to my first question. Will someone to whom “one weird trick” appeals know where or what Cambridge is?

But mostly I love its placement in the middle of the A-Rod story. I like our umbrage at A-Rod and our interest in Cambridge. Is America beyond irony or are we just too stupid for it? Maybe Cambridge scientists can figure it out.

Try this one weird trick and hit 647 career homeruns.

“First off, there's probably not a damned thing the Yankees can do about A-Rod's contract. It was always a foolish deal, unless they had an unlimited budget and were willing to cut him when he stopped hitting. It seems that neither of those conditions apply. Not yet, anyway. Fortunately, the contract is good for Baseball, as it's ridiculous profligacy like this that keeps the haves from completely dominating the have-nots. So thank you, Steinbrothers, for paying your dreary third baseman a king's ransom. Now live with it.”

-- Rob Neyer, “Is it time for the 'A-Rod Rule'?” on mlb.sbnation.

Joe Posnanski, as always, has a nice, measured piece on the affair.

Encore.

How underrated was Stan Musial? When Ken Burns broadcast his 18-hour documentary on the history of baseball on PBS in 1994, he didn't get to Stan Musial, who debuted in September 1941, until after he'd dealt with the following subjects: World War II, Jackie Robinson, the failure yet again of the Boston Red Sox to win the World Series in 1946, integration, the death of the Negro Leagues, the rise of Casey Stengel, Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, Bobby Thomson's shot heard 'round the world, the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers, the movement of teams out west, the broken heart of Brooklyn, Maz's shot heard 'round the world (from a NY perspective), Roger Maris and 61*, and the rise, such as it was, of the New York Mets. Then it was 1963. Then he got to Musial.

I remember watching the doc back in Sept. 1994. When the words “The Man” flashed on the screen as we were in the early 1960s, I thought: “Wait a minute, we're just getting to him now? WTF?” Burns in his doc is like Alvy Singer in “Annie Hall”: He has trouble leaving New York. And Musial, with seven batting titles in the '40s and '50s, with more extra-base hits than anyone in baseball history upon retirement, is great, sure, but he plays in St. Louis. What's the story there? There's no story there. The story of baseball was always elsewhere in the mind of Ken Burns.

Then he gives him four short minutes. Short shrfit. At the least, we get George Will's great quote:

Baseball is rich in statistics but it's hard to find one more beautiful than Stan Musial's hitting record. Stan Musial got 3,630 hits: 1,815 at home, 1,815 on the road. He didn't care where he was. He just hit.

Where does Musial rank in various stats? Here:

• Hits: 4th with 3,630
• Extra-base hits: 3rd with 1,377
• Runs: 9th with 1,949
• Doubles: 3rd with 725
• Triples: 19th with 177
• Triples, post WWII: 1st
• Runs Created, 3rd
• WAR: 9th
• Offensive WAR: 7th

I like his K-BB ratio. In his career, he struck out 696 times against 1599 walks. He's 6th in games played and 578th in strikeouts. Ted Williams had fewer plate appearances but struck out more. Ted Williams. 

Musial, easy-going, had a smile that reminded me of Gene Kelly.

He's the reason why Ken Griffey, Jr. is only the second-best player to come out of Donora, Pennsylvania. He will be missed.

Stan Musial at the plate.

“On my tombstone just write, 'The sorest loser that ever lived.'”
-- Earl Weaver, manager, Baltimore Orioles, 1986

Did Earl Weaver, who died today at the age of 82, ever manage anyone but the Orioles? People talk of players no longer being with one club but what about managers? That's even rarer. Even before free agency, even with good managers, clubs let them go. Billy Martin managed the Twins, Tigers, Rangers and Yankees all before 1976. Joe Torre managed the Mets, Braves and Cardinals before his 12 years with the Yankees. Casey Stengel managed the Dodgers and the Boston Bees/Braves before taking over the Yankees in 1949.

Earl Weaver? Just the Orioles. Two stints: 1968-1982; and 1985-1986. He missed out on their last championship year, 1983, but according to him he wouldn't have had much to do with it anyway. “A manager's job is simple,” he once said. “For 162 games you try not to screw up all that smart stuff your organization did last December.”

I hated him growing up. I was in Minnesota, home of the Twins, who were one of the best teams in baseball in the late 1960s and early '70s. They would've been the best but for Earl Weaver's Orioles. We faced them in the playoffs in 1969 and '70, when I was 6 and 7, and never won a game. Best of five. Three and out. They were too good. I remember one playoff game when Killebrew and Oliva hit back-to-back homers, and my brother and I, alone in the house, tore it up in celebration, then had some 'splaning to do when my parents returned from volleyball and a picnic at Pearl Park. But we were losing... Killebrew and Oliva... The Twins still lost that game and Chris and I were grounded. October magic. 

Weaver was famously short and famously short-tempered. He was Billy Martin before Billy Martin without being such an asshole about it. He believed in good pitching, good “d,” and the 3-run homer. He got it all. He was the manager of the only team in baseball history, the 1971 Orioles, to have four pitchers win 20 games (Pat Dobson completes the set). He was the manager of some of the best fielders at their position in baseball history: Paul Blair in center, Mark Belanger at short, Brooks Robinson at third. Plus he had the pop: Frank Robinson, who retired fourth on the all-time homerun list; Boog Powell, who was like Harmon Killebrew's taller, fatter, less talented cousin; plus everyone else. They could all hit. 

I remember a game we went to once in ... 1971? We took our grandmother, my mom's mom, who was visiting from Finksburg, Maryland. That's in Carroll County for those who care. Jim Kaat pitching for the Twins. First pitch? Don Buford hit a homerun. Final score? 8-0. “A manager should stay as far away as possible from his players,” Weaver once said. “I don't know if I said ten words to Frank Robinson while he played for me.”

He seemed ancient then, as did another gray-haired manager of the time, Sparky Anderson; but Weaver, for all the white hair, was only 40, while Anderson was in his 30s. Did the white hair help them get managerial jobs despite their age? One wonders. A guy who's 40 takes over a ballclub today and I think of him as a punk kid.

I wonder what he did in his retirement? Did he still care about the O's? Did he watch the Jeffrey Maier game in '96? I would've liked to have seen Earl Weaver jumping out of the dugout at that call.

Eminently quotable, he said said one of my favorite lines about baseball. “Don't worry, kid,” he assured a young writer, Tom Boswell, who was worried he's done something wrong during the playing of “The Star Spangled Banner”; “we do this every day.”

The Baseball Writers Association of America announced the results of its Hall-of-Fame balloting the other day and no one got in. It's indicative of an age that is clouded by big numbers and PED accusations and admissions.

Here are the results from BaseballReference.com:

Some Twitter jokes about Aaron Sele's one vote. On the plus side, Jose Mesa, the bain of the Mariners relief corps in the late 1990s, and I'm sure still unforgiven in Cleveland for 1997 Game 7, got bupkis. Same with Jeff Cirillo, brought to Safeco in 2002 after four straight NL seasons over .300. He promptly delivered the following line at Safeco for two years: .234/.295/.308. We kept waiting for him to follow through. In some ways, we're still waiting for whoever has replaced him to follow through. We've been waiting for more than 10 years. Or 35, depending.

Now it's the players who are waiting. Remove the taint of PEDs, based solely on the numbers, and you have eight sure-fire Hall of Famers on this list: Biggio, Bagwell, Piazza, Clemens, Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro. No brainers. But they were too little brain, too much brawn.

I guess some didn't see Biggio's numbers as first-ballot worthy. Maybe. But he would've gotten my vote. Bagwell and Piazza have the taint on them without any proof, which feels awkward. They're guilty until proven innocent. Are others? Is Greg Maddux next year? Frank Thomas? Junior in 2016? Bonds and Clemens would've gotten in before their suspected use began. Should they go in anyway?

I don't agree with those who say that steroids, HGH and other PEDs are the same as greenies (1960s) and cocaine (1980s). Those allowed you to play a little longer at your natural state. PEDs warped your natural state. You hulked out, and the record books hulked out with you. It's now misshapen beyond belief. There's a taint on it: 73 and 762, for example. .609 and 1.421, for example. And those are just the numbers of Barry Bonds, the man who became, at the retirement age of 39, the greatest hitter of all time, better than Babe Ruth in 1920. It makes us angry, thinking about it. And Barry won't like us when we're angry. But then he's never liked us. 

As for my man Edgar? He dropped a bit in the voting: 0.6%. He keeps hovering mid-30s. Will he ever get higher? People are making cases. Joe Posnanski, prognosticating on the site SportsOnEarth, writes, “I'm still hopeful that people will appreciate just how good a hitter Edgar was as his time on the ballot begins to run out.” Amusingly, the art accompanying the article includes pics of 11 players and none are Edgar. Not only is he not making the Hall of Fame, he's not even making the list of guys who aren't making the Hall of Fame. So it goes. So it's always been.

My take on Edgar's quiet, glorious career can be found here. The Jim Lefebvre quote still astonishes me.

Edgar Who?

Marvin Miller, the labor lawyer who became Executive Director of the Major League Baseball's Players Association in 1966 at the age of 49 (my age), and who led the MLBPA out of the era of the reserve clause (a player bound to a team for llife) and into the era of free agency and riches, and thus revolutionized the game, died yesterday at the age of 95.

Most of the encomiums in the sports press come in the form of lamentations that Miller isn't in the Hall of Fame. Rob Neyer has a good piece on that as well: “Who Kept Marvin Miller out of the Hall of Fame, Anyway?” He suggests you cut back your anger at the owners; it was the players.

My favorite line about Miller, though, has always been Curt Flood's from Ken Burns' “Baseball” documentary: “The moment we found out that the owners didn't want Marvin Miller, he was our guy.” Would that every industry had its guy.

I read Miller's autobiography, “A Whole Different Ball Game,” in 1996 and wrote the following review, for no one, but I offer it here now. Rest in peace, Mr. Miller.

*  *  *

A Whole Different Ball Game

When discussing the history of the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) my mind tends towards the Danis Moore skit from “Monty Python's Flying Circus.” Danis is a Robin Hood figure whose theme song goes something like this:

Danis Moore, Danis Moore
Riding through the land
He robs from the rich
And gives to the poor
Danis Moore, Danis Moore, Danis Moore...

After awhile the rich he steals from have nothing, and the poor, surrounded by wealth, reject his meagre offerings. The theme song is then amended:

He robs from the poor
And gives to the rich
What a bitch!

Confronted by this fact, Danis (John Cleese) looks confused. ”This economics thing is a bit more complicated than I thought,“ he says.

Marvin Miller, executive director of the MLBPA, and the man most responsible for ending the reserve clause and bringing free agency to baseball, admits no such thing—and with some reason. Yes, the poor of baseball (the players) became rich as a result of Miller's leadership, but the rich (the owners) did not suffer a subsequent loss in income. On the contrary, their industry and individual franchises grew at the same astronomical rates as player's salaries.

So who suffered? The fans, perhaps. Baseball is still one of the cheapest entertainments around, but owners' tendencies to squeeze every ounce of juice from baseball has led to some increasingly suspect innovations. The DH rule. Night-time World Series games. Expansion teams. More divisions and playoffs, so the post-season is extended, so all prime-time World Series games are played in the cold and dark of late October rather than the sun and warmth of early October. And now we have interleague play.

Miller may try to talk like a fan, he may whimsically mention growing up in the shadow of Ebbets' Field and loving the Dodgers, but his position as Executive Director of the MLBPA from 1966 to 1984 necessitates a different perspective than that of the average fan. Mention 1981 and what do most fans think of? A strike. An awful, botched season. Asterisks in the record book. What does Marvin Miller think of? ”It was the most principled strike I've ever been associated with; it was the Association's finest hour.“

Does Miller even write about the fans in this book? Only once that I can recall. In the 1960s, Pittsburgh owner Dan Galbreath was urging Pirate players to sign more autographs and make more public appearances: to be more appreciative of the fans. Pirate star Roberto Clemente then relayed a dream he had the night before, about the days when he would be too enfeebled to play the game, and how the fans, unable to let him go, would buy him a rocking chair and sit him between the stands and the right field foul line where he could rest easy during his retirement.

”You know, Mr. Galbreath, was that dream is?“
Galbreath hesitated. ”No, what?“
Clemente replied firmly, ”It is bool-sheet!“

Granted, fans can be fickle. Granted, fan support is nothing next to a good retirement package. But without fans there would be no Major League Baseball.

It's ironic that this great union man, famous for finagling owners out of their secured and exalted position as Lords of Baseball, should, in his autobiography, convince me that a third group, the fans, have been barred from the labor-management table.

His autobiography is almost a disservice to the man. He keeps taking cheap shots at Bowie Kuhn (”Bowie was in the clouds, all right, but it was cloud nine“) when the actions of the former commissioner speak, in petty, retarded fashion, for themselves. Every slight bothers Miller. At his Hall of Fame induction, Catfish Hunter thanked the owners without mentioning the Players Association. Mike Marshall, an iconoclast, was the only rep to vote against free agency in 1976 and he has yet to explain himself. Reggie Jackson's autobiography fails to mention the Union. Miller can't abide any of it.

There are some interesting and surprising takes on different baseball matters. He rails against agents and the players who are foolish enough to give them astronomical amounts of money for what Miller considers a few hours of phone work. He blames Don Fehr for letting players lose touch with their own labor history. He also admonishes current players, some of whom are making more by themselves than all professional baseball players were making when Miller took over in 1966, to periodically reflect on how it all came about. Ever the pragmatist, he admits, ”it's unlikely to happen.”

The book itself is structured poorly. A chapter on Bowie Kuhn takes us all the way up to 1984 when we haven't gotten out of the early days of the Union yet. Surely, a chronological approach would have been more effective.

But there are small moments. I enjoyed his report on the difference between two presidents of the United States: being impressed with John F. Kennedy's command of facts and intelligent, curious nature; and being dispappointed when Ronald Reagan read a general greeting “that a 10-year-old could have mouthed off the top of his head” on 3x5 index cards. He's good on owner arrogance, on the cheapness of Calvin Griffith, and how the media was often in lockstep with the owners, particularly in the early days. He writes: “I was mocked in print before I even had the job with facetious questions, such as 'Will managers be forced to seek Mr. Miller's permission to yank a pitcher or send a utility man back to the minors?'”

Then there's his takedown of Commissioner of Baseball Bowie Kuhn:

Kuhn must be singled out as the most important contributor to the successes of the Players Association. His moves consistently backfired; his attempts at leadership created divisions. His inability to distinguish between reality and his prejudices, his lack of concern for the rights of players, sections of the press, and even of the stray, unpopular owner—all combined to make Kuhn a vital ingredient in the growth and strength of the union.

In his book, Marvin Miller has made me realize what should have been obvious a long time ago: that the Commissioner of Baseball is selected and paid for by the owners, and thus looks out for owners' interests. It made me wonder how other industries are regulated (surely not by the owners of the industry). It also made me hope that someday Major League Baseball will get itself a real Commissioner: someone who will look after, not only owner and player interests, but fan interests as well.

--November 1, 1996

Marvin Miller and Curt Flood, testing the reserve clause.

This popped up among my sponsored ads on Facebook this morning:

If only all trivia questions were this easy. 74,861 people are surely disappointed this morning. OK, at least 74,861.

The baseball season is over and the Gints [sic] of San Francisco, with a different no-name team than the one that won the championship two years ago, swept aside the Detroit Tigers. The team that crushed the Yankees in four were themselves crushed in four. I barely had time to blink. I didn't even have Tim or Jim over. Poof. Over. Blah.

For a time I wondered if the Tigers, with mucho muscle in the middle of the lineup, would surrender the way the Dodgers surrendered to the Orioles in 1966: without scoring a run in the final three games. But then Miguel Cabrera hit a fly ball to right field that carried over the fence for a 2-1 lead, their first lead of the Series. “Was this what the Tigers needed?” I wondered. “A sense that God is on their side?” If it was, it didn't last. Three innings later, Buster Posey, he of the 12-year-old face, went deep the other way for a 3-2 SF lead. Four batters later (two Giants, two Tigers), Delmon Young tied it up, 3-3.

And that's how it stayed. The Giants got lead-off men on in the 7th and 8th but never brought them around. The Tigers got the lead-off man on in the 8th, with the meatiest part of a meaty lineup coming up, but they got shot down by Jeremy Affeldt, a journeyman remade in San Francisco into a premiere set-up man. Affeldt faced Cabrera, Fielder and Young and struck them all out. It was a Carl Hubbell moment. In 10 games and 10.1 innings this post-season, Affeldt has allowed five hits, no runs, and struck out 10. Fans in KC must be wondering who the fuck this guy is.

In the top of the 9th, the Tigers' Phil Coke matched him: 3 up, 3 Ks. But in the 10th, with two outs and a man on second, Coke was forced to face Marco Scutaro, another journeyman (10 years, .276 BA, .731 OPS), remade at trade deadline in San Francisco (.362 BA, .858 OPS), and again in the postseason (.328 BA); and of course Marco Scutaro, who surely has the most musical name in baseball, lined a single to center to make it 4-3. In the bottom of the 10th, against Sergio Romo, the new bearded wonder in SF, Austin Jackson struck out swinging, Don Kelly struck out swinging, and Miguel Cabrera, the best hitter in baseball, the first Triple Crown winner in a generation, struck out looking to end it. God doesn't choose sides after all.

An anecdote in honor of Game 1 of the 2012 World Series, San Francisco Giants vs. Detroit Tigers, which starts tonight.

Last week Patricia and I were out to dinner at Cafe Presse with another couple and a friend visiting from Vietnam. I was relaying a story about the 2012 election (of course) and began in this manner. “The best explanation I can come up with is, I think he's doing what Willie Mays often did. Often...”

At which point I was interrupted by Myriam, one half of the couple, who asked the following question:

Who's Willie Mays?

I was stunned for a second. I didn't know how to answer. It was as if someone had asked me: Who's Abraham Lincoln? What's bubble gum? Where's the sky?

In Myriam's defense, she arrived in this country from the Philippines when she was 7, in 1977, when Willie's playing career was over.

On the other hand, her husband, Jim, is a big baseball fan, but he's mostly a Yankees fan, and Yankees fans are notoriously myopic when it comes to the rest of the sport. Myriam knows enough to root for the Yankees but not much beyond that. It's the New Yorker cover view of the world transplanted to baseball. At least she didn't ask, “Was he as big as Derek Jeter?”

Eventually I got on with my story but that was the bigger story to me.

Who's Willie Mays?

About broke my heart.

Since, as I mentioned yesterday, this is the first meeting in the World Series of two of the original 16 MLB teams, and since one of those teams, the Giants of New York and then San Francisco, have been to the World Series 20 times now, I was curious if they'd played every one of the eight original American League teams. The odds semed favorable. The results:

Nope. Seven of the eight, plus two expansion teams (Angels, Rangers). The original AL team missing to complete the set? It's in the COMMENTS field below.

The Gints, as they used to be called, are 1-0 against Texas, 1-0 against Cleveland, 0-1 against both the Red Sox and the White Sox and the Angels, 1-1 against the Senators/Twins, 1-4 against the Athletics of Philly and Oakland, their big rival in the early days of modern baseball, and a sad, sad, 2-5 against the Yankees. McGraw's Giants won the first two meetings; nothing but bad since. 

Over in the A.L., this is the Tigers' 11th trip to the World Series. Its history:

They're 2-2 against the Cubs, 1-2 against the Cardinals, 0-1 against the Pirates, 0-1 against the Reds (the telescopic-site Series), and 1-0 against the Padres. Missing from the original eight National League teams? The Dodgers, Braves and Phillies.

So has any team played all eight original teams from the other league in the World Series? Yep, and big surprise. The Yankees, with their 40 pennants, first played the Giants in 1921, the Cards in 1926, the Pirates in 1927, the Cubs (Ruth's called shot) in 1932. In 1939 they played the Reds. Two years later, they played the Dodgers for the first time, a team they would play a total of 11 times. In 1950, they met the Phillies. Seven years later, they completed the set by playing the Braves, now of Milwaukee.

Among expansion teams the Yankees have played the Padres, Mets, Diamondbacks and Marlins. So the only NL teams—expansion included—that they haven't faced in the World Series are anomalies, really: the Brewers, who came over from the AL in the 1990s; the Astros, who have been once and are moving to the AL next year; the Rockies, who are a recent 1990s franchise who have been once; and the Expos/Nationals, who have never been. Hard to complete the entire set with those odds.

Interestingly, the Red Sox, with a mere 11 pennants, almost have a complete original set as well: They played the Pirates in 1903, the Giants in 1912, the Phillies (the tough get, since they barely went) in 1915, the Robins/Dodgers in 1916, and the Cubs (another rare get) in 1918. Then they played the Cards in 1946 and 1967 and the Reds in 1975. That was seven. They're only missing the Braves, their original crosstown foe. Those old Beaneaters.

Tonight, we play ball. Go get 'em, Tigers. Trivia answer in the comments field.

This was a little mental exercise to see just how pathetic my Seattle Mariners have been.

I knew they were the only team in the AL, and one of only two teams in Major League Baseball, not to go to a World Series. But I also suspected that every AL team has gone to the World Series at least once since the M's were established in 1977.

Yep:

AMERICAN LEAGUE

• Detroit Tigers: 2012 (overall: 4-6, one series pending)
• Texas Rangers: 2011 (0-2)
• New York Yankees: 2009 (27-14)
• Tampa Bay Rays: 2008 (0-1)
• Boston Red Sox: 2007 (7-5)
• Chicago White Sox: 2005 (3-3)
• Los Angeles Angels: 2002 (1-0)
• Cleveland Indians: 1997 (2-3)
• Toronto Blue Jays: 1993 (2-0)
• Minnesota Twins: 1991 (3-3)
• Oakland A's: 1990 (9-6)
• Kansas City Royals: 1985 (1-1)
• Baltimore Orioles: 1983 (3-4)
• Seattle Mariners: NEVER (est., 1977)

The only teams matching the M's in eptitude are in the National League: the Expos/Nationals franchise, which has, likewise, never gone to the World Series, and they were established in 1969; and the Chicago Cubs, the hapless, hapless Cubs, who came close in '84 and '03, but who haven't been since two months after the end of World War II:

NATIONAL LEAGUE

• San Francisco Giants: 2012 (overall: 6-13, one series pending)
• St. Louis Cardinals: 2011 (11-7)
• Philadelphia Phillies: 2009 (2-5)
• Colorado Rockies: 2007 (0-1)
• Houston Astros: 2005 (0-1)
• Miami Marlins: 2003 (2-0)
• Arizona Diamondbacks: 2001 (1-0)
• New York Mets: 2000 (2-2)
• Atlanta Braves: 1999 (3-6)
• San Diego Padres: 1998 (0-2)
• Cincinnati Reds: 1990 (5-4)
• Los Angeles Dodgers: 1988 (6-12)
• Milwaukee Brewers: 1982 (0-1)
• Pittsburgh Pirates: 1979 (5-2)
• Washington Nationals: NEVER (est., 1969)
• Chicago Cubs: 1945 (2-8)

Two teams have never gone while eight teams have never won: Rangers (est. 1961 ), Astros (1962), Brewers (1969), Nationals (1969), Padres (1969), Mariners (1977), Rockies (1993), Rays (1998). Doesn't say much for the Class of '69, does it? Four teams: one of whom went twice and won once, one of whom went twice and never won, one of whom went once and lost, and one who hasn't come close. 

This year is the Giants' 21st pennant in the modern era (circa: 1903) and the Tigers' 11th. Oddly, for two of the original 16 teams who have spent a lot of time playing in October, this is their first World Series meeting. They kept missing each other. McGraw's Giants went in 1905 and '11 and '12, Cobb's Tigers in 1907, '08 and '09. Giants went in 1933, '36 and '37, Greenberg's Tigers in the intervening years: 1934 and '35.

Interestingly, they would've met in 1908, but that was the year of “Merkle's Boner,” the baserunning error, if you can even call it that, by hapless Fred Merkle, which cost the Giants the pennant and sent the Cubs to the Series. Their last victory, by the way. Cubs' fans talk all the time about the Curse of the Goat. How come no one mentions the Curse of Fred Merkle? That's a better candidate, isn't it?

Wednesday night. I'll be rooting for the Tigers.

As the MLB playoffs began last week I was rooting for the following:

• Washington Nationals (who have never been to the World Series) over the St. Louis Cardinals (who won last year)
• Cincinnati Reds (last won in '90) over the San Francisco Giants (won two years ago)
• Baltimore Orioles (last won in '83) over the NY Yankees (don't get me started)

Tigers ('84)/A's ('89) was kind of a toss-up. I thought I'd root for the A's, the underdog of underdogs, who came from nowhere with the second-lowest payroll in baseball, but found myself rooting for the Tigers, because of Miggy or Detroit or something. But I would've been just as happy with an A's victory.

So what happened? With the exception of the Tigers, every team I wanted to win lost. With the exception of the Tigers, baseball fans can now choose between the team that won it last year, two years ago, or three years ago. It's called diversity.

Admittedly, it's been a great post-season: close battles, come-from-behind victories, extra innings, great catches, walk-off homeruns. The St. Louis Cardinals are so good at come-from-behind victories, at waiting for the last second to stick the knife in, I'd almost accuse them of sadism. The Seattle Mariners had a slogan in 2001 that played off of their frequent two-out rallies: Two outs? So what? The 2011-12 St. Louis Cardinals slogan should be this: Two outs? Two strikes? Ninth inning? Do-or-die game? So what?

So who to root for now? You root for the team true baseball fans around the country always root for: whoever is playing the fucking New York Yankees.

Begins tonight. To pluralize Mary Jane Watson's thought, and resurrect the slogan of the 1968 Detroit team that won it all: Go get 'em, Tigers.

This postseason whenever I've seen Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira at the plate, with a look on his face like he's constipated or desperately trying to produce a thought, I've gone into a bad Sylvester Stallone imitation: Aydriaaahhhh. Something about him reminds me of something gutteral. But I make fun mostly because he plays for the Yankees.

Last night, though, watching the Yankees lose to the Orioles 3-2 at Camden Yards, I realized that, at least in looks, there's something of Bobby Cannavale about him. Cannavale is the New Jersey actor who's playing psychopathic gangster Gyp Rosetti (fictional) on “Boardwalk Empire” this season. Here:

Mark Teixeira (left), who plays for the Yankees, and Bobby Cannavale (right), who plays a psychopathic gangster on “Boardwalk Empire.”

Patricia wasn't buying it. But when Russell Martin, the Yankees catcher, came onscreen, maskless, she immediately made the comparison between him and British actor Stephen Graham, who plays gangster Al Capone (non-fictional) on “Boardwalk Empire.” Here:

Yankees catcher Russell Martin (top), in 1920s-style cap; British actor Stephen Graham (bottom) in Yankees cap, getting ready for his close-up.

I'm not saying the Yankees are necessarily gangsters and psychopaths. I'm saying that when we need to make the movie about the 2012 Yankees and their disastrous, empire-ending postseason performance, “Boardwalk Empire” wouldn't be a bad place to start.

I never thought I'd see another Triple Crown winner in Major League Baseball. I thought we were done with that. There'd been one in 1966 when I was 3 (Frank Robinson), one in 1967 when I was 4 (Carl Yastrzemski), and ... nobody since. Nothing for nearly half a century. Baseball had become too specialized, it was argued. Nobody can lead the league in homeruns and RBIs and batting average anymore because they require different talents. In the modern era, there had ony been 13 TC winners anyway, and some of the best hitters in baseball history had never done it: Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Frank Thomas, Barry Bonds.

Now someone else has done it: Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers, Miggy, who did it this year, hitting .330, slugging 44 homeruns, and driving in 139 runs. Makes me want to pump a fist. And I'm not even a Tigers fan.

It's come as a surprise, though, an annoying surprise and shock, that the baseball bloggers I read tend to think he shouldn't be the league's MVP.

Excuse me?

Their argument is all about Mike Trout, who was brought up in May and played the way Casey Stengel wanted Mickey Mantle to play in 1951: he hit .326, slugged 30 HRs, and led the league in runs scored (129) and stolen bases (49). Plus his WAR is 10.7. Miggy's isn't even top 5; he's sixth with 6.9. No contest.

Wait, WAR?

Yeah, I know. And I know you know. Wins About Replacement. But WAR isn't like almost every other baseball stat. There's no standardized definition for it. It tries to combine everything in a way that seems fair, and different orgs have different arguments for how to value this over that, or that over this. Baseball Reference's WAR rating seems to be the popular choice, as ESPN.com is using it.

In WAR, defense is included. Trout shines there. He's a fantastic defensive center fielder. Cabrera is a serviceable third baseman. But even offensively, Trout's WAR rating is 8.6 (No. 1) to Miggy's 7.5 (No. 2). So again: Trout.

You can keep going back and forth. Miggy led the league in runs created (133.6), while Trout was No. 2 (129.8). Trout is No. 1 in runs scored/9 innings (8.85) while Miggy is second (7.98). Miggy's first in OPS, Trout in OPS+. Etc.

To be honest, I've never felt like more of an old fogey in a conversation about baseball stats. I'm a Bill James guy, but to me this isn't even a question. The Triple Crown is hallowed.  I know guys who've managed the TC haven't always won the MVP--Chuck Klein in '33, Lou Gehrig in '34, Ted Williams twice in the 1940s (sportswriters hated him)--but every dude since has: Mantle, Robby, Yaz. And then it became impossible to do. And now somebody's done it. And these guys are talking WAR.

As for the defense argument I'll add this: Yes, Trout's amazing in the field and fun to watch. But Miggy's been playing out of positon all year. He's normally a first baseman. When the Tigers had the chance to grab Prince Fielder, however, who could only play first, he moved over to third. For the good of the team. The Tigers would not be in the post-season right now if they hadn't grabbed Fielder; and they wouldn't have grabbed Fielder if Miggy hadn't moved.

So he's not only the best hitter in baseball, he's a team player. That has some value.

Plus, and not for the last time, he won the frickin' triple crown already. Yeesh.

It's the last day of the regular baseball season and we know who the 10 playoff teams are—if not yet division winners. A's and Rangers are tied in the AL West. The O's are one game back of the Yankees (Suck) in the AL East. This isn't your last year's playoffs, either. The two wild cards play each other in a one-game death match and no team wants that so every team wants the division title. So they fight on.

Now that we've reach the near-end, here's the near-beginning: Each team's opening-day payroll, ranked by moolah, courtesy of USA Today. (Red, bolded teams = playoff teams):

The top third is well-represented, with five of the 10 playoff teams, including, of course, the “Hey Big Spender” team, the New York Yankees (Suck), which outspent every other team for the 14th year in a row. At least this year the gap between the Yanks and the No. 2 team isn't exorbitant. You couldn't fit the entire payroll of another team in the gap, for example. Just half of an entire team's payroll. So: progress.

The middle tier is well-represented as well, with four plucky teams.

The bottom tier? The dregs? Just one. Billy Beane's Oakland A's. 29 of 30. Even Borgs don't go that low.

How did Billy Beane of “Moneyball” fame do it again? Does anyone know? How did this team do it?

Pitching, mostly. And luck. There's always luck. This is baseball.

Beane is definitely not using the traditional “Moneyball” stats. The Oakland A's, as a team, rank 11th (of 14 AL teams) in OPS, 9th in SLG, and 12th in OBP. They're speedy. They're tied for 3rd in triples, tied for 5th in stolen bases, and 2nd in stolen-base percentage. They rank first in strikeouts (1,381) but second-to-last in grounded-into-double-plays (97). They rank last in ground balls and ground-ball-to-fly-ball ratio. They're speedy guys who hit the ball in the air and strike out a lot. No one knows their names.

The pitching is easier to understand. Sort of. The team ERA is second-best in the AL, to Tampa Bay's, who won't be continuing. Oddly, the A's pitchers don't strike out many: they rank 12th there. But they have the second-best batting average against. How often does that happen? A lot of balls are in play but they just don't land?

Either way, I hope the A's keep on. I want to watch them play. I want to know their names.

I have my rooting interests, which aren't solely based on inverse payroll. Goes something like this:

1. Washington Nationals (first post-season appearance since 1933)
2. Oakland A's (above)
3. Baltimore Orioles (from hapless to hopeful)
4. Detroit Tigers (Miggy)

Then there's the middle tier, about whom I shrug at this point. Maybe the Reds over the others.

Then there's the bottom tier. You know that one:

10. New York Yankees (Suck)

Talk soon.

The 2012 Oakland A's, at the start of the season, in Japan, against the Mariners. Who knew?

There's an unnecessary line I keep coming across in all the articles and blog posts (including mine) about Felix Hernandez's perfect game yesterday. Here's ESPN.com's version:

Felix Hernandez pitched the Seattle Mariners' first perfect game and the 23rd in baseball history, overpowering the Tampa Bay Rays in a brilliant 1-0 victory on Wednesday.

Here's the subhed on the Seattle Times front page:

FELIX HERNANDEZ DOES WHAT NO MARINERS PITCHER HAS EVER DONE IN SHUTTING OUT TAMPA BAY 1-0

Wow, that's a bad subhed, isn't it? Makes it sound like no Mariners pitcher has ever shut out Tampa Bay 1-0. As if that were the feat.

But that's not it. What's bugging me is the whole “first perfect game in Mariners history” line. It's so true it deserves a “no duh.”

There are 30 teams in Major League Baseball and Felix's was the 23rd perfect game thrown--21st, really, since I tend to draw the line at the 19th century, when foul balls caught on a bounce were outs and the two perfect-game teams were the Worcester Ruby Legs and Providence Grays. Some teams, too, the Yankees and White Sox in particular, have done it more than once. Basic math should tell you not every team has thrown a perfect game. So the fact that it's Seattle's first doesn't feel as newsworthy to me as it being the 21st overall.

In fact, assuming all teams being equal, it was more likely to be a team's first perfect game because only 13 teams (now 14) have seen pitchers pitch perfect games.

1. Chicago White Sox: 3
2. New York Yankees: 3
3. Cleveland Indians: 2
4. Oakland A's: 2
5. Philadelphia Phillies: 2
6. Arizona Diamondbacks: 1
7. Boston Red Sox: 1
8. California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels: 1
9. Cincinnati Reds: 1
10. Los Angeles Dodgers: 1
11. Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals: 1
12. San Francisco Giants: 1
13. Seattle Mariners: 1
14. Texas Rangers: 1

Which teams don't have one? In order of year established:

1. Atlanta Braves (1871)
2. Chicago Cubs (1876)
3. Pittsburgh Pirates (1882) *
4. St. Louis Cardinals (1882)
5. Baltimore Orioles (1894)
6. Detroit Tigers (1894) **
7. Minnesota Twins (1894)
8. New York Mets (1961)
9. Houston Astros (1962)
10. Kansas City Royals (1969)
11. Milwaukee Brewers (1969)
12. San Diego Padres (1969)
13. Toronto Blue Jays (1977)
14. Colorado Rockies (1993)
15. Miami Marlins (1993)
16. Tampa Bay Rays (1998)

*     Sorry, Harvey
**   Sorry, Armando.

In other words, seven of the original 16 MLB teams, all of whom have been in existence since the 19th century, still haven't seen one. The M's have only been around since '77. Yet here we are.

The Seattle Times also made a big deal out of the number of games the Seattle Mariners played before Felix's perfecto:

5,698 Games
1 Perfect Game

Imagine how Braves and Cubs fans feel.

My friend Jim called me with the Ichiro news yesterday, and, as we began to talk it out, it occurred to me that the Yankees roster now included Derek Jeter with his 3,000+ hits, Alex Rodriguez with his 2,800+ hits, and Ichiro Suzuki with his 2,500+ hits. I wondered: Has any team in baseball history had more career hits on its active roster than this version of the 2012 New York Yankees?

I still don't know the answer to that. But the Stats & Info column on ESPN.com did include this interesting tid-bit in its Ichiro piece:

The Yankees have three players on their team with 2,500 or more hits-- Jeter, Rodriguez, and Ichiro.

The Elias Sports Bureau notes that this is the third time in major-league history that a team had three players with 2,500 or more hits play for them in the same season. The other two are the 1927 Philadelphia Athletics (Ty Cobb, Eddie Collins, Zack Wheat) and the 1928 Athletics (Cobb, Collins, and Tris Speaker).

The Yankees are playing the M's at Safeco Field this week--I'll be going to the game Wednesday afternoon--so I thought I'd compare career hits on the two active rosters.

Not pretty. Ten of their 13 guys have more than 1,000 career hits. One of ours does. And he sucks. And he might be gone by the end of August: dropped if he can't be traded.

With those kinds of numbers I can see why the Yankees carry 13 position players and we carry 12. We need our extra man in the bullpen rather than the bench. If things get dicey, we'll just send up Kawasaki and his career 14 hits. Problem solved.

How many times can Major League Baseball screw things up?

This morning I wrote a post about Matt Cain's perfect game, and included a link to a post I'd written three years ago about Mark Buehrle's perfect game and DeWayne Wise's catch within that perfect game. Back then, I'd also linked to the catch, which, of course, was on MLB.com. (MLB doesn't YouTube its videos.) I'm pretty sure I linked to the specific catch, rather than the general MLB.com/videos page. I try to be specific. Especially about perfection.

Now, though, the link took me to the general MLB.com videos page. Bummer.

Ah, but MLB.com has a search function! So I searched for DeWayne Wise, who's done one super-memorable thing during his mostly late-inning, defensive-replacement career: that perfect-game catch.

Here are the titles of videos 1-12 out of the 239 videos MLB.com offered me:

• Soriano earns the save
• Swisher's RBI double
• Teixeira ties it with a walk
• Granderson's RBI groundout
• Jeter's RBI single
• Ludwick's two-run double
• Costanzo's first career hit
• Heisey's RBI double
• Rodney earns the win
• Granderon's 1,000th career hit
• A-Rod's three-run blast
• Falu's first career hit

Wise is with the Yankees now, which is why all the dull Yankees highlights, and they're sorted chronologically. So I looked for a, you know, “sort by importance” function. Maybe something that included some aspect of the search (“DeWayne Wise”) within the title.

But there isn't any “sort by importance” function. There's only this. There's only what MLB offers you. Take it or leave it.

So I left. I wound up searching via Google. And even there, because MLB.com has such SEO problems, it was like the 10th video listed. And even there, the clip offered was one comparing Wise's catch during Buehrle's perfecto with Jackson's catch during Galaragga's near perfecto.

Later, on MLB.com, I plodded through all the DeWayne Wise pages. The catch was on the 14th page listed.

Thanks, Bud.

Seriously, MLB: I'm fine with going on your site to see your videos. I don't mind the 30-second commercials to watch a 15-second clip. Much.

Just help us out with our searches. Because what you've got now? Those are some clown answers, bro.

Jim Caple has a good piece on fans leaving the M's six-pitcher no-hitter before the final out last Friday night. Why would someone do that? he wondered. Don't they know what's going on? Don't they know this is the first no-hitter the Mariners have thrown since Chris Bosio's in 1993?

In their defense, these things are getting a little common. Another no hitter? Right. Wake me when someone throws a perfect game.

Someone should've woken me up last night.

With Matt Cain's perfecto against Houston, we've now had two perfect games this year. The decade isn't even three years old and we've had four thus far. That's as good as the 1990s, which is the most perfect games any decade has seen.

Perfect games used to be as rare as perfection. Now they're as common as Wil Ferrell movies.

I don't include the two from the 1880s, when fouls caught on a bounce were considered outs. That history is too old.

So there are now 20 perfect games in modern history: Four before expansion in 1961; 16 since.

I became a true baseball fan around 1970, when I was 7, and started paying attention to stats when I was about 8, probably because of the hoopla in Minnesota surrounding Harmon Killebrew's 500th homerun. I knew back then, as surely as I knew the numbers 714 and .367, that the last perfect game was thrown against my Twins, in 1968, by the A's Catfish Hunter. I kept waiting for the next one, to wash away this info, but no one threw a perfect game in the 1970s. It was our last decade without one.

Since then, these are the number of perfect games by decade: 3, 4, 2 and 4. And this decade would've had 5 if not for Jim Joyce's blown call. And we're only two and a half years into it.

What does this mean? What's going on? My friend Tim asked that on Facebook. “Is this steroid-era hangover?” he wondered. “Payback's a bitch,” his friend Matt replied.

The highlights of Cain's perfecto are fun. David Schoenfield has a good article here but I don't agree with him on “greatest catch ever” for Gregor Blanco's in the top of the 7th. Helluva catch. Beautiful catch. But I still give it to DeWayne Wise in the top of the 9th in Chicago three years ago. And by that I mean greatest catch ever in a perfect game. I woudn't presume to talk about “all time” here. Not at least without thinking about it for five minutes.

Anyway, congratulations to Matt Cain, Gregor Blanco and the San Francisco Giants. And congratulations to me, too. In the 1970s, I had to wait 13 years before the albatross of “last perfect game thrown” was removed from around my team's neck. This time I had to wait less than two months. There's something to be said for so much perfection.

Tyler Kepner in The New York Times is right. We're not used to seeing Mariano Rivera near the warning track. We're not used to seeing him in Kansas City. We're used to seeing him on the mound, mowing them down (or maybe Mo-ing them down), en route to another goddamned Yankees victory in another goddamned post-season. Any time you could beat him it was a story. Any time you could beat him in the World Series, it was one of the greatest World Series games ever played.

But yesterday his knee buckled shagging flies in Kansas City. Torn ACL. Out for the year and possibly the career.

Everyone knows I hate the Yankees but I've usually written about Rivera with admiration. I've reminded baseball fans, and even writers at The New York Times, that he is even better than we realize. I was there for his 600th save, too, at Safeco Field, with Ichiro Babe-Ruthing the final out. I posted the video. Don't expect Spielberg.

Rivera has 608 career saves now. I expected about 30 more.

He wound up with 42 career post-season saves. He's the last man to wear #42. He's 42. Someone call Douglas Adams.

Here are my Mariano Rivera posts. We won't see his like again. If we do, may he be wearing a different uniform:

• Dave Anderson of The New York Times suggests Mariano Rivera is honored by holding the all-time saves record. I suggest the all-time saves record is honored because it now belongs to Mariano Rivera. 
• That 600th careeer save, with video.
• If Rivera retires, we'll have new active leaders in the following pitching categories: Games, Saves, WHIP, ERA, Adjusted ERA. In Saves and Adjusted ERA, Rivera is first all-time. WHIP, he's second.
• Is it overkill, possibly downright cruel, to bring in Rivera to face a team with a 16-game losing streak?
• What modern-day pitcher has a career ERA close to Rivera's? None. Who is close to him? Just dead-ball pitchers and Walter Johnson.
• Why Rivera is always his team's World Series MVP.
• Which batter could hit Rivera like no one else? Hint: He's not in the Hall of Fame.
• The NYT offers up video of Mo's cutter. 
• From 2009: “10 earned runs in 125 1/3 innings pitched in the post-season.”
• Is this the last legitimate #42 we see in Major League Baseball history?

The post-season numbers: 141 IP, 110 Ks, 21 BBs, 86 hits, 42 saves, 8-1 record, 0.70 ERA.

Alex Rodriguez has now passed Ken Griffey, Jr. on the all-time homerun list. He hit his 631st in Boston today. He's now in sole posession of fifth place. Only Mays, Ruth, Aaron and Bonds are ahead of him.

I remember when Junior and A-Rod were on the same team—my team. I remember when they batted second and third in the order. Griffey was the heir apparent but the girls screamed for A-Rod like he was Sinatra. I remember one girl holding a homemade sign, a placard, about how heaven must be missing an angel. That was sweet back then. How far that angel has fallen.

I still think Junior got a raw deal. If he was clean, then he had his thunder stolen by the Mark McGwires, Sammy Sosas, and Alex Rodriguezes of the world. Junior was the heir apparent and got trampled on his way to 61, which he never quite made: 56 in ’97, 56 in ’98. In single-season numbers, that’s tied for 16th all-time with Hack Wilson. Of the 15 seasons above him, we can give a pass to all the pre-1990s guys: Maris, Ruth (twice), Foxx and Greenberg. And of the remaining 10? How many are clean?

Barry Bonds: 73

Mark McGwire: 70

Sammy Sosa: 66

Mark McGwire: 65

Sammy Sosa: 64

Sammy Sosa: 63

Ryan Howard: 58

Mark McGwire: 58

Luis Gonzalez: 57

Alex Rodriguez: 57

Seriously, who isn’t suspect on this list? Only Ryan Howard. Everyone else is or feels tainted. If Junior was clean, then he was doing something no one else was doing legitimately. He should’ve been all alone up there. Instead it was like December 23rd at O’Hare Airport. Even single-engine planes like Brady Anderson were getting in his way.

So hat-tip and all, but like most of us I have no love for A-Rod. Even if he hadn’t tested positive for PEDs, even if he didn’t always act like the head of public relations for Alex Rodriguez, Inc., even if he didn’t abandon the Seattle Mariners for all the big bucks in Texas, his homeruns were never things of beauty. He muscled a lot of pitches over the opposite-field wall. He’d hit it and you couldn’t believe it would go out… then it would. With Junior, after his perfect swing, the only question was second or third deck.

From a keyword search that wound up at my site the other day:

+OLDEST PICTURES/BEFORE JAMIE MOYER

Unless he meant Dorian Gray.

During the baseball strike of 1994-95 I read a lot of books on baseball, then wrote reviews of what I'd read. I did that all the time back then. I wanted to remember why I felt something rather than just what I felt. I suppose it's led to what I do here. This review, which I came upon while researching potentional Jackie Robinson Day posts, was written in April 1995, just as Judge Sotomayor was telling the boys of summer to shake hands and play ball already...

Don’t purchase I Never Had It Made, Jackie Robinson’s autobiography, expecting to read a lot about baseball. He’s retired before we’re halfway in. The 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers are given less than a page. I understand he wants to be known as more than just a ballplayer,  but, let’s face it, working at Chock Full O'Nuts isn’t exactly why Jackie Robinson is an important figure in American history.

And where’s the famous fire? Recounting the race-baiting from the dugout of the 1947 Philadelphia Phillies, which included racial epithets, black cats thrown onto the field, and the Phillies players leveling their bats at Jackie and making machine gun noises, Jackie comments thus: “It was an incredibly childish display of bad will.” That same year, Dodgers pitcher Hugh Casey, losing a poker game, said to Jackie, “‘You know what I used to do down in Georgia when I ran into bad luck?.... I used to go out and find me the biggest, blackest nigger woman I could find and rub her teats to change my luck.’” The reader expects an explosion but it’s as if Jackie, the writer, is still trapped in 1947, and turns the other cheek. “I don't believe there was a man in that game, including me, who thought that I could take that,” Jackie writes. “Finally, I made myself turn to the dealer and told him to deal the cards.” Really? That’s it? What was your relationship like with your teammate after that? How could you play on the same team? Did you seethe watching him pitch? Anything?

Not only is little said about his baseball life, but little is said about how his baseball life affected African Americans. Maybe he worried such a chapter would seem self-serving.

Instead we get advertisements for Chock Full O’ Nuts:

Soon Bill Black was in the restaurant business offering a limited number of rapidly prepared items at reasonable prices and with swift and polite service.

We get press releases for politicians:

The Nelson Rockefeller personal charm and charisma had now become legendary.

We get the bourgeois existence of Jackie and Rachel Robinson. They buy a house in Connecticut. Their children have problems with fame and drugs. Rachel, trying to establish her own identity, denies that she's married to Jackie Robinson, which so worries her she consults a psychologist.

For the most part Jackie seems to be justifying his post-baseball actions. Why did he support Nixon in 1960? Why did he support Nelson Rockefeller? How can he live in Connecticut? Wasn't he involved in a takeover at Freedom Bank?

Perhaps this is why the book seems unfairly weighted towards his post-baseball life. His baseball life needs no such justification.

--April 18, 1995

From 1998 to 2002 I wrote the Seattle Mariners player profiles for The Grand Salami, an alternative (which is to say: good) program and scorecard sold outside Safeco Field. Here's what I said about a 38-year-old Jamie Moyer for the June 2001 issue:

Jamie Moyer (50)
Position: Starting pitcher
Height: 6'0,“ Weight: 175
Throws: Left,  Bats: Left
Born: 11-18-62 in Sellersville, PA
Signed thru: 2002 season
Family: wife, Karen, and four children: Dillon, Hutton, Timoney, and Duffy
Major League Debut: June 16, 1986, with Chicago Cubs (victorious starting pitcher against the Phillies)
Acquired: from Boston, in exchange for Darren Bragg (July 30, 1996)
Quote: ”My job is to get another ground ball and get out of the inning."
When Jamie Moyer wins his 10th game this season he'll pass Mark Langston for second on the all-time Mariners win list with 75. If there's one thing Jamie Moyer knows how to do, it's win ballgames. Since he arrived in our evergreen state in the middle of the 1996 season he's gone 6-2, 17-5, 15-9, 14-8, and 13-10. Even this season, with his strikeout-walk ratio a not-so-hot 23-14, and his ERA an unhealthy 5.28, and the ball flying out of the yard at an alarming rate (11 dingers in 44+ innings pitched), he's still standing tall at 6-1. Which is fine, but we fear some of the other numbers might catch up to him. Has he healed completely from his shoulder injury last April? Is it age? He still worries us. As for becoming the winningest pitcher in Mariner history, well, that'll take some work yet: RJ holds the mark with 130.

Is-it-age. I've got my nerve.

Jamie won 20 that year and 21 two years later. By the time the M's traded him to the Philadelphia Phillies in August 2006 (for Andrew Barb and Andy Baldwin: Thank you, Bill Bavasi!), he'd set the team record for wins with 145, innings pitched with 2,093 and games started with 323. He was second in strikeouts to Randy (he's now third, after Felix), with the lowest walks-per-9-innings-pitched ratio: 2.25. That holds.

Jamie holds. He just won a game for the Colorado Rockies at the age of 49. He's the oldest pitcher to ever win a Major League baseball game.

Forty-nine. That's my age. He's actually two months older than me. Stunning. I've got no words.

Well, I've got these words: Keep the Aspidistra flying. That's a novel by George Orwell, describing an Asian flowering plant, but it might as well describe Jamie Moyer's fluttering, floating change-up.

I should add: I have a friend who's familiar with a lot of the players that have come through the Seattle Mariners locker room, and she's says most of those players are what you'd expect from highly skilled and pampered professional athletes. But two, she says, are class acts and gentlemen: Raul Ibanez and Jamie Moyer. Both are still in there.

Keep the aspidistra flying, Jamie.

I wrote the following for The Seattle Post-Intelligencer on the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking Major League Baseball's color barrier. He did it on April 15, 1947, this piece appeared in April 1997, and 15 years later only one MLB player still regularly wears No. 42: Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees, who may retire after this season.

Of course you can see No. 42, along with other retired numbers, in every ballpark across the country. You can see it on every ballplayer every April 15, when they all wear No. 42. It's also the working title of a Jackie Robinson biopic, starring Chadwick Boseman, currently in pre-production. But I still feel retiring No. 42 was a mistake. It's a hollow tribute to a great man...

Some friends and I were at the Kingdome a couple of years ago for a game between the Seattle Mariners and Boston Red Sox. We sat on the first base side and had a pretty good view of first baseman Mo Vaughn as he held a runner on. Specifically we had a good view of Mo's monumental back. And it made us wonder.

Did Mo wear No. 42 because of Jackie Robinson?

We began to notice the number on other ballplayers: Mariano Rivera of the Yankees, Tom Goodwin of the Royals, Seattle's own Mike Jackson. I admit that I assumed that the ballplayer shared the fan's sense of baseball history and chose the number for a reason; that everyone knew what it meant.

In no other sport are numbers so sacred. To the baseball fan, 3 means Babe Ruth. 7 Mickey Mantle. 21 is Roberto Clemente, 24 Willie Mays, 44 Henry Aaron. I wrote a short story once, a revisionist look at the Garden of Eden, which began, “On the 29th day, Adam and Eve were bored silly.” My writing class came up with various highfalutin reasons why I chose “29” but eventually I owned up to my pedestrian reasoning: it was Rod Carew's number. That's what 29 means to me. That's what 29 will always mean to me.

Similarly I associate 42 and Jackie Robinson.

Now it's gone. Major League Baseball, in attempting to honor the man who broke the color barrier, has retired the number across the board. No one will ever be issued No. 42 again. Players currently bearing the number can keep it for the time being. But once they're gone, it's gone.

This is true of clubs that weren't even around when Jackie Robinson played. The Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays don't even exist yet but they already have a retired number.

It's as if No. 42 is being erased from the game.

This wasn't true of the first retired number. That one belonged to Lou Gehrig, who, in the midst of a magnificent, gentlemanly career, was cut down by the disease that now bears his name. The circumstances were so heartbreaking that something special was required. But it wasn't Major League Baseball who retired No. 4; it was the New York Yankees. In effect, they retired his uniform. They were saying that no one else, no matter how good they are, will be fit to wear Gehrig's uniform. And they were right.

Number 4 for the Padres isn't Lou Gehrig. It may be Gehrig's number, it may even be a player wishing to emulate Lou Gehrig, but it's not Lou Gehrig. But at least the number, particularly on a good, stocky first baseman, will remind us of Lou Gehrig--the way that Mo Vaughn reminded us that day of Jackie Robinson.

This is what's so awful about the banishment of 42 from baseball. A link to baseball's past is being cut off. When Ken Griffey Jr. glides back to catch a ball, he evokes images of Willie Mays not simply because of his grace but because of the number on his back. Any number 44 sending one deep reminds us for a moment of Henry Aaron.

Listen to Mo Vaughn on the subject. He has been described by Rachel Robinson, Jackie's widow, as the modern player who most fully keeps her late husband's legacy alive. He is as ferocious on the field as he is charitable off it. So when Butch Huskey of the Mets, who also wears 42 to honor Robinson, asked what to do about pressure from the Players Union to stop wearing it, Vaughn told him to ignore them.

“Keep the legacy alive as long as you play,” Vaughn said.

Keep the legacy alive. Because once they stop wearing the number, the legacy is...dead?

Is this how Major League Baseball pays tribute to Jackie Robinson? With a hollow homage that prevents players from honoring Robinson in their own way? Some honor.

Jackie Robinson rounds first base in a game against the New York Giants in 1956, his last year in the Majors. Photo from the Roosevelts website. Further reading on Jackie Robinson can be found here.

Some nice comments on the Fred Wenz post from last Friday.

Josh Wilker, the voice of the mathematically eliminated, and author of the “Cardboard Gods” book and website, was nice enough to post the link on his Facebook page, which, I pointed out to him, had exactly 714 fans, and to which he responded, “I've also noticed the long tribute-like pause at 714 fans. Maybe a link to your piece will finally be the Al Downing fastball needed to get to 715.” Whatever the cause, by the end of the day he was at 715. Wilker's book is much recommended. So is liking it on Facebook.

I also heard from a few folks who suffered the same kind of Fred Wenz blues I did. My friend Dan:

I too was victimized by multiple Fred Wenzes in the summer of '71. And Chico Salmons, Wade Blasingames and Jose Laboys. Not exactly prime trade bait.

Bob, who grew up near LA, wrote:

The very first pack of baseball cards I ever bought was in 1971. My mom gave me a dime and I went over to the liquor store, the Cork 'N' Bib, next to the supermarket. My brother Tom helped me buy the pack. The very first card I saw when I opened the pack was Fred Wenz.

Mark explained away some of the mystery on the Cardboard Gods' FB page:

One of the tricky things about baseball cards in that period is that they were released in series. So the first series, which came out in April when everyone was excited about the new year and the new cards, included Wenz (card #92). If you were looking for Killebrew, he did not come out until series 5 (#550) probably in July or August when many people had stopped collecting for the year. Most kids (like me) did not really fully grasp what was happening at the time.

After 41 years, the clouds parted. So not a conspiracy at all but, what, poor planning? Excellent business model? Super annoying? Poor Dick Drago, #752. Did anyone get his card? Is it worth more now as a result?

Still doesn't explain why we kept getting Fred Wenz (#92), instead of, say, Willie McCovey (#50) or Reggie Jackson (#20). But it does explain Wade Blasingame (#79).

All Fred Wenz, all the time.

Helluvan opening weekend. Any opening weekend that starts with the Yankees 0-3 has got to be good.*

To be truthful, I didn't watch much this weekend. Friday night I was at F.X. McCrory's in downtown Seattle for Jon Wells' book signing, “Shipwrecked: A Peoples' History of the Seattle Mariners,” which coincided with the M's U.S. opener, in Oakland, against the A's. I left after the M's scrimped together a few runs. They won 7-3, then won again, 8-7, on Saturday. With the games in Japan, they now have a 3-1 record, which is three wins better than I thought they'd be at this point in the season.

Oh, and check out Jon's book. It's nice, cheap and necessary. It's a reminder, as if we need it, of all the eff-ups the M's front office have given us over the years, their astonishing commitment to not winning.** 

Saturday, I only caught highlights; Sunday, after an afternoon walk, I was able to catch the last innings of the Tigers/Red Sox game ... which Miguel Cabrera tied with a three-run homer in the 9th, and, after the Red Sox went ahead in the 10th, Alex Avilla ended it, with 2 outs and 2 strikes, with a 2-run homer in the bottom of the 10th. Wow. To paraphrase St. George: Baseball's back, baby!

Tigers could be fun this year. They obviously can't be this fun, otherwise Miguel Cabrera would hit 162 homers and drive in 432. But at this point, they look like the real deal.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox are 0-3, the Yankees are 0-3 (both teams haven't started 0-3 since 1966), and the Twins, my Twins, are also 0-3, against the Orioles, of all teams, which doesn't bode well.

But if there's any indication that the season's young, it's this: Mariano Rivera is 0-1, with a 54.00 ERA. 

159 to go.

Ball? Meet launching pad.

* Except for the last time the Yankees started 0-3, of course, which was 1998, when they went on to win 114 games and sweep the Padres in the World Series. According to Joe Torre and Tom Verducci in their book, “The Yanke Years,” they owe it all to a David Cone/Kingdome rant about 1) a Jamie Moyer beanball, and 2) Edgar Martinez swinging on 3-0. Exactly. Edgar being too ungentlemanly and Jamie's 79-mph “beanball.” Cone always was such a baby.

***

** As if to help prove Jon's point and boost sales, last week the M's front office even objected to Chris Hansen, a hedge-fund manager in the Bay area, spending $300 million of his own money to build an NBA arena located near Safeco Field:

“The proposed Sodo location, in our view, simply does not work,” wrote team Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Howard Lincoln, in a letter Tuesday to Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, King County Executive Dow Constantine and members of the Seattle and King County councils. “It would bring scheduling, traffic and parking challenges that would likely require hundreds of millions of dollars to mitigate.”

Local officials seem to disagree with the M's rationale:

County spokesman Frank Abe said Wednesday it's too early to draw any conclusions about transportation impacts, but noted “that after an extensive process the city zoned this area of SODO for stadium uses. Of the potential sites the Mariners suggest, Sodo is the only one served by high-capacity rail, not to mention access by ferries, buses and cars,” he said.

That hasn't stopped someone from engaging in push-polling to change public opinion:

Over the weekend, some local residents received telephone calls that seemed designed to erode support for an arena, said Brian Robinson, the head of ArenaSolution.org. Robinson, whose group has sought the return of the Seattle Sonics since they were moved to Oklahoma City in 2008, said some of his supporters received polling calls asking whether they would support a sports arena over public schools, or a sports arena over low-income housing.

“The Mariners have emerged as the No. 1 opponents to the new arena,” he said.

Classy.

In the 1950s the Topps company began using baseball cards to sell bubblegum, rather than vice-versa, but by the time I began collecting in 1971, at the age of 8, the gum was an afterthought: a thin, pink rectangle, sometimes coated with powdered sugar, increasingly not, with corners so sharp the thing could be used as a ninja weapon. Whenever I popped it into my mouth—standing in the parking lot of our local minimart, Little General on 54th and Lyndale in south Minneapolis—I’d let it soften before chewing to avoid scraping the insides of my cheeks. Just as often I’d toss it in the air and watch it shatter on the asphalt. It’s not like I didn’t want gum. I’d pay five cents, half the cost of a baseball pack, for a long rope of purple Bubs Daddy. I just didn’t want that gum. I didn’t know what gum was but I knew it wasn’t supposed to shatter.

If modern baseball cards were an accident of marketing they were a brilliant accident. They appealed to boys on so many levels

1. They represented something we admired.
2. We got to collect them.
3. Since we never knew what we were going to get, there was mystery and anticipation.

I anticipated and coveted Minnesota Twins in particular: Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Cesar Tovar, Rod Carew. Even the lowliest of Twins (Tom Tischinski, Bill Zepp) had a magic that future Hall of Famers (Jim Palmer) did not. Something about that Minne/St. Paul patch on the sleeve. Something about the crossed “TC” on the cap. When a Twin showed up behind a Dennis Menke or a Jerry McNertney, it was like the sun making an appearance from behind a bank of clouds.

There were 756 cards in the 1971 Topps series, so the odds of getting one of those 25 Twins in a pack of 10 were pretty slim. But one player kept worsening the odds.

I’m not sure when my friend Dave and I noticed we kept getting Fred Wenz but we definitely noticed. At first it was annoying. Then it got funny. Finally, and possibly for the first time in our lives, we were left with nothing but conspiracy theories. We talked about how the Topps company trucked all the packs with Fred Wenz to Minneapolis and all the packs with Harmon Killebrew to Philadelphia. We talked about how Topps manufactured 10 times as many Fred Wenzes as Harmon Killebrews to keep us buying. We talked about how Fred Wenz was probably related to the president of Topps. What else could explain his ubiquity? Because there he was again!

When I finally turned over his card to see if there was anything worthwhile about him I was startled to find ... pitching stats? Wasn’t Fred Wenz a catcher? On his card he was certainly crouched like a catcher. This merely added to his absurdity. Didn’t Fred Wenz know which position he played?

His career stats were pretty skimpy: 31 games, 42 innings pitched. A box in the middle of the card muddied rather than clarified matters:

FIRST YEAR IN PRO BALL — 1959
FIRST GAME IN MAJORS   — 1968

Since I didn’t differentiate between “Pro Ball” and “Majors,” I tried to wrap my 8-year-old mind around a player who spent nine years on Major League rosters without ever getting into a game.

Then there was the absurdity of his name. Just eight letters, two syllables, boom boom and out. It’s the cup of coffee of baseball names. So is Mel Ott, I suppose, but “Ott” ends on the hard consonant and feels strong. “Wenz” ends with a kind of soporific collapse. Wenzzzzz. Other players had musical names (Cesar Tovar), or stolid and majestic names (Harmon Killebrew), but Fred Wenz, who kept showing up, was stuck with this limp noodle of a name. Could a crappy player ever be named Harmon Killebrew? Could a great player ever be named Fred Wenz?

I don’t think we planned to do what we did. I think we were just goofing around, as boys do after a baseball-pack-buying binge at Little General, and somehow wound up on the Bryant Avenue bridge overlooking Minnehaha Creek. We were probably still chewing the hard, pink gum that came with the packs, and by this point, particularly in the cold weather, the gum was probably getting a little tough. So we spit it out toward the creek 100 feet below. Most of the creek was still frozen and snowed over, but there was one small patch, an ice hole, where we could see the dark waters rushing by. We tried to spit the gum into this hole.

Then it became a game. We grabbed what we could find—twigs, pebbles—and tried to drop them into the hole, too. But it was early spring, most everything was still covered with snow, and projectiles were hard to find.

Then Dave came up with a brilliant idea: Fred Wenz.

This would be trickier than pebbles or gum. This would require dexterity. Dave took off his gloves, leaned over the cold metal railing, and flicked the Fred Wenz card like a Frisbee, so that it arced away from and then back toward the ice hole. Missed! It stuck at an angle in the snow.

My turn. I was two years older than Dave, shorter, and more afraid of heights, so I probably didn’t lean out as far as he did. I didn’t come as close, either.

Fred Wenz began the game but I don’t think running out of him ended the game. I think we went with back-ups: the Wade Blasingames and Gene Brabenders and Dick Suches of the world. I hated the Baltimore Orioles, who were forever sweeping the Twins in the playoffs, so a few Orioles probably sailed off the bridge, too. Did Frank Howard? He was often second on the “A.L. Home Run Leaders” card to Harmon Killebrew. But on the 1971 card he had actually surpassed Killebrew. So long, Four Eyes.

Before long the creek was studded with baseball cards but we never managed a hole-in-one. The hole was obviously too small. So for a time we tried to widen it with snowballs and ice chunks and anything else we could find. Soon the creek, snowed-over and pristine when we arrived, looked like a battlefield, and afterwards, in my bedroom, I felt bad about all of those cards lying stuck in the snow. I had a fear of breaking through the ice of Minnehaha Creek and being swept away. Wouldn’t this happen to the cards once the ice melted? They’d get swept over Minnehaha falls, into the Mississippi river and down to the Gulf of Mexico. Forgotten.

The real Fred Wenz got swept away that spring. Before the season even started he was cut by his team, the lowly Philadelphia Phillies, and no one else picked him up. The year we kept getting his card was a year he never even played.

Is that why he’s smiling on the card? Was it the smile of a guy who had nothing to lose? Had he told the teammates “Maybe I’ll make the team as a catcher,” and smiled at their laughter, just before his photo was taken?

Fred Wenz remained an in-joke between Dave and I long after we stopped collecting baseball cards, a metaphor for the thing we never wanted but always got, but I’m older now and I identify with the man more. He spent nearly a decade making it to the bigs but at least he made it. He remained there for three years, head barely above water, with Boston and Philly. He appeared in 31 games, pitched 42.1 innings, struck out 38, walked 25. He was 3-0 lifetime, with a 4.68 ERA.

When we’re young we throw things away but as adults we just try to keep our heads above water. Once a promising prospect with the nickname “Fireball,” it came down to this: spring training in Florida, crouching in the sun for the Topps photographer, a brave smile.

Opening Day was actually last week, in Japan, when Dustin Ackley hit a homer and a double, Ichiro Suzuki had four hits, and the Seattle Mariners, my Seattle Mariners, beat no one's Oakland A's 3-1 in 10 innings.

But Opening Day on U.S. soil is Wednesday night. As per the tradition, my tradition, here are the active leaders in various batting and pitching categories. (I've included all-time rankings in parentheses.)

A lot of ex-Mariners on the list. Too many. It's sad. It's been nearly two decades since we traded Omar Vizquel and he's still playing. It's been more than a decade since Alex Rodriguez left us and he's still playing. It's been nearly six years since we traded a 43-year-old Jamie Moyer to Philadelphia and the dude's still fucking playing. At 49. That's actually a great story.

BTW: What's up with Baseball-Reference.com? Do they wait for a year of inactivity before de-activating a player? Because they have Jamie Moyer inactive, even though he made the Colorado Rockies' starting rotation this spring, and they have Tim Wakefield active, even though he announced his retirement this winter. Get with the program, dudes. Quit automating shit.

OK, here we go...

Batting:

• Games: Omar Vizquel, Tor: 2,908 (13th)
• At-Bats: Omar Vizquel, Tor: 10,433 (17th)
• Hits: Derek Jeter, NYY: 3,088 (20th)
• Doubles: Ivan Rodriguez, ???: 572 (20th)

Teamless I-Rod hasn't announced his retirement yet so he's still up there. The KC Royals either have or haven't expressed interest in case, depending on your source. But if you want someone with an actual team, the active leader in doubles is ... are you ready? ... Bobby Abreu. Never would've gotten that.

• Triples: Carl Crawford, Bos.: 112 (T-118th)
• Home Runs: Alex Rodriguez, NYY: 629 (6th)
• RBIs: Alex Rodriguez, NYY: 1,893 (11th)
• Runs: Alex Rodriguez, NYY: 1,824 (15th)

With his second home run of the season, A-Rod will pass former teammate Ken Griffey, Jr. and move into fifth place on the all-time list. He's 32 HRs from Willie Mays and fourth. After that, it's trickier.

• Walks: Jim Thome, Phi.: 1,725 (8th)
• Strikeouts: Jim Thome, Phi.: 2,487 (2nd)

Thome is a mere 110 Ks from tying the once invincible Reggie Jackson. A-Rod is second active, and seventh all time, with 1,916 Ks. I warned him.

• Stolen Bases: Juan Pierre, Phi.: 554 (16th)
• Caught Stealing: Juan Pierre, Phi.: 190 (8th)

Phillies ain't getting any younger, are they? Both Thome and Juan Pierre. Surprised they didn't keep Jamie Moyer. Pierre has led the league in caught stealings the last two seasons. Maybe he can learn something from new teammate Chase Utley, who has the best lifetimes stolen-base percentage ever: 89.4%. Pierre's is 74.4% and 176th.

• Batting Average: Albert Pujols, Ana: .328 (33th)
• On-Base Percentage: Todd Helton, Col.: .421 (17th)
• Slugging Percentage: Albert Pujols, Ana: .617 (4th)
• On-Base-Plus Slugging: Albert Pujols, Ana: 1.037 (6th)

Last year, all four of these categories belonged to Pujols'. Then he had an off year. For him. Will be fun to finally see him play in person.

• Offensive WAR: Alex Rodriguez, NYY: 106.8 (15th)
• Defensive WAR: Andruw Jones, NYY: 23.7 (2nd)
• WAR for Position Players: Alex Rodriguez, NYY: 104.6 (20th)

My problem with WAR? There's no standard yet. There's still a war among WARs. BR has theirs, others have theirs. That said, A-Rod added 1.8 to his offensive WAR to surpass Rickey Henderson. Next up, Joe Morgan. Andruw Jones didn't change much. He's second to Brooks Robinson. And does A-Rod's lower PP WAR mean his defensive WAR is negative? That doesn't seem right.

Uncle Albert's signature moment. Now he's coming to the A.L. Bienvenue.

Pitching: 

• Games Started: Jamie Moyer, Col.: 626 (16th)
• Innings Pitched: Jamie Moyer, Col.: 4,020 (40th)
• Wins: Jamie Moyer, Col: 267 (36th)
• Losses: Jamie Moyer, Col: 204 (T-42nd)
• Hits Allowed: Jamie Moyer, Col: 4,156 (33rd)
• Homeruns Allowed: Jamie Moyer, Col: 511 (1st)
• Walks: Jamie Moyer, Col: 1,137 (T-65th)
• Strikeouts: Javier Vazquez, Fla.: 2,536 (29th)

It's been all Jamie Moyer so far. That's what happens, kids, when you can play a boy's game at 49.

• Complete Games: Roy Halladay, Phi: 66 (T-644th)
• Shutouts: Roy Halladay, Phi: 20 (T-244th) 
• WAR for Pitchers: Roy Halladay, Phi.: 61.8 (40th)

Anyone who doesn't think complete games is the lifetime record least likely to be broken needs to look at the parentheses above. Halladay, the active leader, is 644th on the lifetime list. Every other category, save shutouts and triples, is in the top 100. Put it this way: Jamie Moyer has started fewer games (626) than Cy Young completed (749). In fact, only three pitchers have started as many games as Cy Young finished: Young, of course (815), Nolan Ryan (773) and Don Sutton (756). Right now, it would only take Halladay, the active leader, another 144 years to tie Young. Etc.

• Games: Mariano Rivera, NYY: 1042 (9th)
• Saves: Mariano Rivera, NYY: 603 (1st)
• WHIP (Walks/Hits per Inning Pitched): Mariano Rivera, NYY: 0.998 (2nd)
• ERA (5 yrs. minimum): Mariano Rivera, NYY: 2.214 (13th)
• Adjusted ERA: Mariano Rivera, NYY: 204 (1st)

Is Mo retiring after this season? There's been talk. He's hinted. He's got five World Series rings, the lifetime record for saves, the lifetime record for adjusted ERA, the second-lowest WHIP in baseball history (to Addie Joss).  What more could he want? Except... he keeps getting better. His WHIP has dropped every year for the last four years. His ERA has dropped every year for the last four years. He wants to get out on a high note but he's still singing an aria. The question isn't whether Mariano Rivera is the greatest closer of all time. That's a done deal. The question is how far up do you want to place him, a non-starter, among the greatest pitchers of all time?

Last year to see the likes of which we shall never see again?

Jason Varitek is retiring from Major League Baseball.

Most baseball fans associate Varitek with Alex Rodriguez because of this fight from July 2004:

He's the one smooshing A-Rod's face.

I associate him with A-Rod for another reason.

During the early morning hours of July 31, 1997, I had a bad dream. I was back in my father's house in south Minneapolis, and the window in my old room was open and there was a nice summer breeze billowing the curtains. On the radio I heard something about a baseball trade. It was fuzzy at first, then had startling clarity. The Seattle Mariners had traded shortstop Alex Rodriguez to the Chicago Cubs for shortstop Shawon Dunston and pitcher Steve Trachsel. The news was delivered in by-the-way fashion, without much commentary, because it was Minneapolis, not Seattle, and no one really cared. So I tried to contact my friends in Seattle who knew the National League better than I did. Dunston? Trachsel? What the fuck? Did this make any sense at all?

I'd like to say I woke up in a cold sweat but probably not. I did wake up relieved, however. Thank God! The M's still had A-Rod! General Manager Woody Woodward hadn't blown it.

Yet.

That happened later in the day when Woody traded our other budding superstar, Jose Cruz, Jr., to the Toronto Blue Jays for relief pitchers Mike Timlin and Paul Spoljaric.

Several years later, my punchline went something like this: “The worst part? That wasn't even Woody's worst trade that day.”

When we traded Cruz, Jr., he was young and had an OPS of .856 and it seemed the sky was the limit. Turned out .856 was the limit. He retired in 2008 with a .247/.337/.445 line. And while Spoljaric combusted, Timlin endured and won two World Series rings as a solid bullpen member of two Boston Red Sox championship teams.

No, the worst trade that day was to those Red Sox: Derek Lowe and Jason Varitek for relief pitcher Heathcliff Slocumb.

The 1997 Seattle Mariners, you see, had been forever blowing ballgames, and not in the manner of the 1919 Chicago White Sox. We had a lineup. A line-fucking-up. Griffey and A-Rod and Buhner and Edgar and Cruz, Jr. and Paul Sorrento. We scored tons. Then our bullpen always blew it. We seemed poised to go to the World Series, to be a dynasty. Then Woody Woodward blew it. At the trade deadline, he finally went for the bullpen help we needed and it wasn't what we needed.

At the time, it wasn't so much what we traded as what we traded for. We didn't know much about these kids, Derek Lowe, who'd had a cup, and Jason Varitek, who hadn't; but Heathcliff Slocumb had numbers. He was 0-5 with an ERA over 5.00 for Boston. Did we really want this guy on a team that was already forever blowing ballgames?

We didn't. We were smouldering, licking flames, and he was gasoline. In two years with the Mariners he went 2-9 with a 4.97 ERA. He would last in Major League Baseball only two more years, by which time Jason Varitek was Boston's regular catcher. By 2003, Derek Lowe would go 21-8 and finish third in the A.L. Cy Young balloting. He pitched the Game 4 comeback against the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS and then won Game 7 to seal the deal. He was the winning pitcher in Game 4 of the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals--the victory that finally brought a championship to Boston after 86 years of futility. He was that guy. The guy we traded. Him and Varitek. For Heathcliff Slocumb.

Varitek caught those amazing games. He caught the final strike in the 2007 World Series and jumped into the arms of closer Jonathan Papelbon. After the final out of the 2004 World Series he jumped into the arms of closer Keith Foulke. It made the cover of TIME magazine in October. Here it is:

Here's the 2004 World Series trophy:

That's Lowe is on the left. That's Varitek next to him. Together again and for all time.

In Seattle, we probe the wound. The Bleacher Report named Jason Varitek the 11th greatest player in any sport, and fourth greatest in baseball, who never played for the team that drafted him. ESPN's Page 2 named the Lowe-Varitek for Slocumb trade the seventh-worst deadline trade in MLB history.

In Seattle, at Safeco Field, we count our pennants flapping in the breeze.

Zero.

For Heathcliff Slocumb.

My unconscious was trying to warn me something in the early morning hours of July 31, 1997, but I didn't know what it was. I thought it was A-Rod; but it was the guy smooshing A-Rod's face.

Farewell, Jason. We never knew ye.

In the 1950s, among baseball fans across the country and New York City kids in particular, the question was “Willie, Mickey or the Duke?”

It turned out to be the wrong question. It was circumscribed by time and place—1950s, New York, center field—and anyway Duke Snider, who led the 1950s in homers, faded in the LA sun, and Mantle crumpled under bad knees, leaving only Willie and his .302 batting average and 660 career homeruns in the discussion—even if modern stats such as OBP and OPS have resurrected Mantle back into it.

No, the true argument was Willie, Mickey or the Hammer, as in Henry Aaron, another kid who arrived in the bigs in the early 1950s and rewrote the record books. They were the three preeminent players of their era.

In the last two years we’ve had well-received biographies written on all three: “Willie Mays: The Life, the Legend” by James Hirsch; “The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood” by Jane Leavy; and “The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron” by Howard Bryant. I’ve now read all three.

Leaving aside the publishing industry’s awful penchant for titular absolutes, for “The Last X” or “The End of Y” (Aaron wasn’t the last hero and Mantle certainly wasn’t the last boy); and ignoring, for the moment, which of the three was the better player (OK, I still choose Mays), a new question emerges: Leavy, Bryant or Hirsch?

I can’t go Bryant, which is too bad. Hank Aaron’s life and career, more than Mays’ (who was more insulated), spanned the great racial divide of our country. He began playing in the Deep South in an era of segregation and lynchings, and came to true national prominence in a post-civil-rights era of Wheaties commercials and Jesse Jackson press conferences. He's also the underdog: the great player left out of the discussion until everyone suddenly realized that he was the guy who was going to break the game's greatest record. It should be a fascinating story. Part of it is. But Bryant spends too much time pushing us toward a specific viewpoint, his “last hero” viewpoint, and becomes annoying. He makes excuses for Aaron. He doesn’t just let him be. He spends so much time trying to make us like Henry Aaron, I actually began to dislike Henry Aaron.

James Hirsch isn’t pushing us toward a particular viewpoint with his subject. But “Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend” is still a monumental book in the sense that we view Mays from a distance. It’s an authorized biography but apparently that didn’t mean much greater access. It meant, Yeah, go ahead, whatever. It’s a fine baseball book, and the chapter “Miraloma Drive,” about the difficulty Mays had buying a home in San Francisco in the late 1950s, should be made into a movie—either HBO or theatrical. But I still don’t get a true sense of the man.

Leavy is the best writer of the bunch, and she gets closest to her subject—colonoscopy close. Mantle was dead by the time she began writing but she did interview him in 1983 and gives us a scene of Mantle making a late-night, drunken pass, hand up her skirt, then passing out on top of her. It’s pretty sad. She gives us Mantle’s positives and negatives but lets us make up our own minds. She’s basically saying: This is the way some people saw him; this is the way other people saw him. Here’s some good he did. This is destruction he left in his wake. This is how he acknowledged that destruction.

Some folks want to prop up our heroes; they want us to return to the era of ghost-written hagiographies. They miss the point. I keep returning to something actor Philip Seymour Hoffman told critic David Edelstein in 2005. He was talking as an actor toward his character but he could have been a biographer, or any writer really, talking about his subject:

The way toward empathy is actually to be as hard as possible on this character. The harder you are, the more empathy you'll gain, ultimately, by the end. ... [Because] I think deep down inside, people understand how flawed they are. I think the more benign you make somebody, the less truthful it is.

The Aaron bio is benign and thus other. The Mays bio is distant and thus other. The Mantle bio gives us the flaws and joys and horrible, horrible moments but what feels like the whole man. I always thought Mantle was a dull boy: stolid and strong and sun-bleached and stupid. I came away from “The Last Boy” with admiration and empathy. I came away grateful.

Is this the only photo of the three of them together? It's the only one I could find--and Mantle was retired by the time it was taken. No photog got a shot of them in some All-Star Game in the late 1950s or early 1960s? We get Mays and Mantle (at All-Star Games and before the '62 World Series), and Mantle and Aaron (before the '57 and '58 World Series), and of course Mays and Aaron (all the time), but not all three together. Except for this. For now. Someone out there, some newspaper, some magazine, some photographer, has a better shot. I know it.

“Many would argue, if they ever had cause to think about it, that one Bad News Bears movie was enough. But no nine-year-old baseball-loving boy in 1977 would agree, not even one who had, unlke me, seen the first movie. The sequel came out that summer, after Little League season had ended all over the land, and who wouldn't want the season and the summer to somehow go on and on?

”The makers of the Bears sequel keyed in on this need to go on and on. Really, the premise of another Bears movie couldn't have been otherwise: there would have to be another game. But whether by design or happy accident, or some combination of the two, the sequel not only centers on the idea that the season can go on but continually frames it as an urgent question: can the season go on? It is, in a way, the prototypical sequel. Its plot mirrors the very question of its exisence. One story has ended. Can there be another?“

-- from ”The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training,“ by Josh Wilker, part of the ”A Novel Approach to Cinema“ series edited by Sean Howe.

I think ”Breaking Training“ one of the worst baseball movies ever made; but Wilker's short book, with its asides to the American myth of the road, the catchphrases of ”Happy Days,“ Jimmy Carter's ”malaise“ speech, the ”USA! USA!" chant, and the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, and how they all intertwine with this horrible, horrible movie, is something close to a work of art.

“Mantle's might inflicted damage on bats, balls and egos. ... Billy Pierce, then pitching for the White Sox, recalled a July night at Yankee Stadium in 1959 when Mantle KO'ed a rookie outfielder with a line drive. '[Jim McAnany] went to catch the ball, and it hit him right in the chest,' Pierce said....

”'Just to the right of the breastbone,' McAnany said. 'I just went down like I was shot. It knocked me off my feet.'

“Jim Kaat of the Minnesota Twins sought divine intervention when he fell behind on The Mick. 'Two-and-oh on Mantle, Earl Battey would wave his arms and make the sign of the cross.'”

--from Jane Leavy's “The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of Amerca's Chlldhood”

People keep saying “Poor St. Louis” but I say “Poor Houston.” They’ve had to suffer in the same division with Albert Pujols, the best player in baseball since 2001, and a man whose career OPS currently ranks sixth all-time, fifth if you discount Barry Bonds, just a hair behind Jimmie Foxx, leaving only the holy trinity of baseball hitting—Ruth, Williams, Gehrig—ahead of him.

Not only have the Houston Astros had to suffer Pujols—whose team, the Cardinals, they play more often because of baseball’s unbalanced schedule—they had to suffer his most famous homerun, that 3-run moonshot off of Brad Lidge in Game 5 of the 2005 NLCS. There weren’t two strikes on him or anything—it was an 0-1 count—but almost everything else was absurdly, almost comically, dramatic. The Astros were leading 3 games to 1, and were ahead 4-2 in the ninth inning, with two outs and nobody on and the best closer in the National League, Lidge, on the mound. Then David Eckstein squeaked out a groundball single to left. Then somehow Lidge walked Jim Edmonds to get to Pujols. That’s gotta be the dumbest walk in baseball history.

Still, the ‘Stros were one out away from its first World Series. One measly out.

Then Albert did what he did.

I was watching the game in my apartment in south Minneapolis near Lake of the Isles, chatting via email, pre-Facebook, with several baseball-loving friends around the country. I might’ve even been on the phone with one of them when Lidge left his slider up on 0-1.

The post-season is full of dramatic homeruns—Thomson, Mazeroski, Bench, Carbo and Fisk, Hendu, Gibson, Puckett— and some were come-from-behind, and some were in the ninth inning, or extra innings, or with two outs in an elimination game for the batting team, as this game was for the Cardinals, but none of them was ever so powerfully punctuated. I remember when the ball banged off that upper facade in left field, I began to laugh. It was the most absurd homerun ever hit. It was Hobbsian, as in Roy, as in mythical. Who does something like that? Before Albert Pujols, only fictional creations.

The Astros lost that game, 5-4, but wound up winning the next game and going to their first World Series in franchise history; but it’s the Pujols homerun we remember.

So poor Houston Astros.

The good news is that, per this year’s winter meeting, the team is being sold and is moving, in 2013, to the American League to balance the leagues. They’re moving to the A.L. West, home of the Rangers and Angels and A’s and my awful Mariners. So now the Astros only have to get past four teams to get to the post-season, rather than five as they had in the National League Central. And now they’ll be rid of having to play against Albert Pujols all the time.

Which, of course, is when Pujols signs with the Angels. When the Houston Astros finally arrive in the A.L. West in 2013, Albert will be here waiting for them.

What to make of the Pujols signing?

A part of me is bummed. I like the completeness of a guy staying with one club his entire career: Ripken, Puckett, Gwynn. Edgar Martinez and Stan Musial. Lou Gehrig and Ted Williams. Albert won’t be on that list.

A part of me is anticipating schadenfreude in a few years time. A 10-year contract for a 31-year-old? A-Rod was only 25 when he signed his 10-year deal with the Texas Rangers, and, in baseball terms, if not most terms, 25 to 35 beats 31 to 41 easy. I don’t want to underestimate Albert—remember: Ruth, Williams, Gehrig, Bonds, Foxx, Pujols—but A-Rod is already falling apart, at 36, and that’s the mid-point of Albert’s new contract.

But mostly I’m excited. I’ve never seen Albert play in person. Now that he’s a member of the division-rival Angels, I’ll have nothing but opportunities. It’ll be at Safeco, where the air is heavy, and balls don’t fly out to left field well. But then it’s Albert. Air schmair.

Welcome, Albert. See you this summer.

After a long week of work and illness, I plopped onto the couch Friday night to watch a bit of the MLB Network to cheer myself up. Usually works. One of their “Prime 9” shows was on, this one about the best players to never play in the World Series, and so, despite the awful MLB Network commercials, I stuck around to the end. I wanted to see if Ken Griffey, Jr. was their No. 1. As he was mine.

He was. Their list:

9)  Phil Niekro
8)  Ryne Sandberg
7)  Luke Appling
6)  Ernie Banks
5)  Ferguson Jenkins
4)  Gaylord Perry
3)  Frank Thomas
2)  Rod Carew
1)  Ken Griffey, Jr.

Chicago is well-represented: Three Cubs, Two White Sox.

I’m well-represented. No. 2 on the list is the guy I watched growing up in Minnesota. No. 1 on the list is the guy I watched living as a young adult in Seattle. I guess I’m bad news. (Speaking of: Where will we put Ichiro on this list? How about Edgar Martinez?)

All of which is a little sadder than I wanted for a Friday night after a long week of work and illness.

But then Prime 9 did something I’d never seen before. They went beyond the list to provide editorial comment on one team. No, not the White Sox or the Cubs. My Mariners. My 1990s Mariners.

Here’s what they said:

Griffey is just one reason why it’s hard to believe those Mariners teams of the late 1990s never reached a World Series. For beyond Junior, who was arguably the best player in baseball at that time, they also had the game’s premiere designated hitter. (Cue footage and audio from Dave Niehaus: “Edgar Martinez with another home run! Unbelievable!”)

There was also a precocious talent emerging as one of the game’s superstar shortstops. (Cue Niehaus: “That’s going to be...CAUGHT BY RODRIGUEZ! An amazing catch by Alex!”)

And on the mound, Seattle had the Big Unit, one of the most dominant and successful pitchers baseball has ever seen. (Cue announcer: How good is this guy? One of the best.”)

There was a wealth of riches in Seattle in those years. But there was one jewel missing from this gem of a team: A ring.

And that’s our Prime 9. What’s yours?

Well, that is my Prime 9. I'd already written about it back in June 2010 when Ken Griffey, Jr. retired from baseball:

I wasn't there at the beginning but I was there at the end. Not Junior's last game on Memorial Day, but the first Major League Baseball game without Junior on a roster. As he drove home to Florida, M's management played the tribute video they'd probably had in the can for 14 months and the grounds crew created a “24” in the dirt out by second base, and me and my friend Jim watched this team, once mighty, once a potential dynasty, now as weak and characterless as the day he arrived to save them, eke out a win in extra innings. But there was nothing electric about it. There was no future in it. The M's are still a backwards-looking franchise that doesn't even have a definitive victory to look back on. In the 1990s they had three of the greatest players ever to play on the same team, Junior, A-Rod and Randy, and they couldn't get past the ALCS. Two of those players now have rings from other franchises. The last will go down as the greatest player in baseball history never to be in a World Series.

But any baseball fan in Seattle could tell you the same. We know. The rest of the country may be waking up to this just now, but we’ve known since 1998 or ’99. We even know who to blame. From the same post:

Moreover, Junior’s team, the lowly Mariners, who stormed ahead in '95, and seemed, in '96 and early '97, on the verge of a dynasty, was already being undone by awful relief pitching and awfuler moves. Omar Vizquel for Felix Fermin. Tino Martinez and Jeff Nelson for Sterling Hitchcock and Russ Davis. In July '97, with Norm Charlton and Bobby Ayala forever blowing ballgames, M's GM Woody Woodward went out and got three relief pitchers: Bad (Mike Timlin), Badder (Paul Spoljarec) and Baddest (Heathcliff Slocumb). To get them he gave up what felt like the future: another Jr. (Jose Cruz), catcher Jason Veritek and pitcher Derek Lowe. It didn't even work short-term. The M's got killed by Baltimore in the '97 ALDS, three games to one, and from the right-field stands I watched Junior flub a chance at a great play. The ball went off his glove. I'd never seen that before. I thought: “What is that? He normally gets that.” The next season was worse. We lost Randy Johnson in July, and while Junior was blasting homeruns it wasn't at the pace of the two testeronic monstrosities, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, who ruled the summer. Junior was a diminished figure in the steroids era. The M's were a diminished team in the Yankees era.

I still contend that if the M’s hadn’t made that ’95 trade to the Yankees, if they’d just been smart about their trades in ’97, if they’d just spent a little more for relief, the great baseball dynasty of the late 1990s wouldn’t have been the effin' New York Yankees. It would’ve been my Seattle Mariners.

But ownership’s purse remained tight, the front office continued to fumble, GM Woody Woodward continued to play golf.

In Ken Burns’ “Baseball” documentary, talking head Billy Crystal says that the Yankees defeat to the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1960 World Series still hurts. But Billy Crystal doesn’t know from hurt. The Big Hurt was No. 3 on MLB’s list but the biggest hurt of all was there at No. 1. It’s a hurt that hasn’t healed in Seattle. It probably never will.

Safeco Field, the night after the day Ken Griffey, Jr. retired from baseball. (Click here for more posts about the Seattle Mariners.)

I watched “Cobb” the other night because I mistakenly thought a friend suggested upgrading its standing in my list of the best and worst baseball movies ever made. He'd actually suggested downgrading “Cobb.” He was right.

WARNING: GODDAMN C**KSUCKING SPOILERS

A common conversation among movie buffs and egotists is naming the actor you’d like to play you in the movies. A less common conversation is who you wouldn’t want for the role. I’ll start that one. I wouldn’t want Robert Wuhl to play me.

Case in point: “Cobb,” written and directed by Ron Shelton of “Bull Durham” fame. It’s 1960, and Al Stump (Wuhl), a sportswriter on the rise, is hired to ghostwrite the autobiography of aged and dying baseball legend Ty Cobb (Tommy Lee Jones). Yes, he’s heard the rumors about what a bastard Cobb is. But it’s Ty Cobb. So he drives to Cobb’s home, near Lake Tahoe, buoyant and practically whistling a tune.

Turns out the rumors were off. Cobb isn’t a bastard. He’s a pistol-shooting, morphine-shooting-up, racist, sexist, reckless, abusive and criminally prosecutable bastard.

Stump keeps realizing this for the first hour of the movie. Let me repeat that: He keeps realizing this. Cobb does crazy shit (shoots his gun at Stump) and Stump looks dumbfounded and says “He’s crazy!” Then Cobb does more crazy shit (drives Stump off a mountain road) and Stump looks dumbfounded and says “He’s crazy!” Here’s where a better actor than Wuhl might have helped, might have given us something more than dumbfounded, but that’s all Wuhl’s got. He traffics in dumbfounded.

Why doesn’t Al Stump just walk away? Does he need the gig that much? Not really. Does he need to be near greatness? Maybe. Could the movie have explored this need? Sure, but then it would’ve been a better movie. Instead: in this corner, Crazy, in that corner, Dumbfounded. Ding ding.

It gets worse. In Reno, on stage with Louis Prima, Cobb insults blacks, Jews, women and Louis Prima. Meanwhile, Stump has hooked up briefly, and, under the circumstances, tenderly, with cigarette girl/hard-luck case Ramona (Lolita Davidovich, Shelton’s wife), and the two are slow dancing in his hotel room when Cobb, like a vengeful fury, bursts into the room, decks Stump, and literally drags Ramona to his own hotel room, where he forces her to strip at gunpoint and attempts to rape her. “Now you take off them goddamned clothes,” he says. “Get on the bed,” he says. “Lay down and turn around,” he says.

Not exactly “Pride of the Yankees.”

So what do you do if the hero of your story is really a villain? That’s the dilemma for both Al Stump, writing Cobb’s autobiography, and Ron Shelton, writing and directing “Cobb.”

Stump’s solution is to write two books: 1) the hagiography he shows to Cobb but plans to throw away once Cobb dies; and 2) the real book about their experiences together that exposes Cobb for what he is. Question: Could this second book have even been published in1961? “Ball Four,” which blew the lid off of the pretty lies of Major League baseball, is nine years and a cultural tsunami away.

(For the record, the real Al Stump ultimately published two books: the ghostwritten autobiography, “My Life in Baseball: The True Record,” shortly after Cobb’s death in July 1961, and “Cobb: A Biography,” more than 30 years later, in 1994, in which he revealed the less heroic elements of the Georgia Peach. No indication, in the movie, on the 30-year delay.)

Stump’s solution isn’t great but Shelton’s is worse. First, he makes Cobb almost cartoonish in his villainy. In a flashback scene to his playing days, we see Cobb get into a fistfight at every base (at every base), while in present-day 1960 Jones cackles and grins like Mephisto. It makes his performance as Two Face in “Batman Forever” seem subtle.

Against this, Shelton attempts to evoke our sympathy. Ah, Cobb’s got cancer. Ah, Cobb can’t get it up. Ah, Cobb helps out destitute ballplayers like Mickey Cochrane, who later turn their backs on him. Those guys are mean.

Plus Cobb is always right—and Stump is always wrong—about almost everything. Cobb shoots at a deer with a shaky hand and claims to have hit it in the neck, which Stump denies ... until Stump comes across the dead door in the woods. Cobb says he has final say on his autobiography, which Stump denies ... until he phones his agent and discovers Cobb does have final say. Etc.

Most important, Cobb is honest. “By writing two versions I was becoming what Cobb was not,” Stump says in melancholy voiceover halfway through the film. “I was becoming a liar.” Cobb goes for what he wants—whether it’s that deer in the woods or Ramona in his hotel room—while Stump, poor bastard, poor everyman, equivocates and assumes the best in others. He’s accommodating. And the world shits on an accommodating man. That’s the lesson here. Stump thinks he and his wife, separated for a few months, are working things out, which Cobb laughs at; and sure enough, late in the film, in a cabin in the middle of the night, Stump is served divorce papers. Cobb was right again! So what does Stump do? He pistol-whips the poor bastard serving him. He uses Cobb’s accent and waves Cobb’s gun in the injured man’s face. It’s a worm-turns moment that the movie views positively—or at least comically. See? Accommodating Stump crazy; crazy Cobb counseling caution. Funny.

Awful.

The true insult in the film is the “Citizen Kane” analogy. The movie begins with a “New of the World” feature, like “Kane,” and it’s also, like “Kane,” a movie-length attempt at uncovering the childhood secret that explains the man. For Kane, it was “Rosebud,” his dying words, and the symbol of his innocent upbringing. For Cobb, it’s the death of his father, a great man, who is killed by this mother. The father apparently suspected the mother of infidelity and returned early from a business trip to spy on her. The mother apparently suspected the shadowy figure outside her bedroom to be a burglar, or worse, and shot him dead. That’s the story we get from Cobb halfway through “Cobb” but near the end he adds a wrinkle. The father was right. The mother was cheating. And it was her lover, her very naked lover, who shoots the father dead. “The last thing my father saw was the face of the man fucking his wife,” says Cobb in Tommy Lee Jones’ plaintive voice. “That what you want to know?”

The scene takes place at the Cobb mausoleum in a Georgia cemetery. And why are they at this cemetery? It just happens to be the place they’re driving by when Stump, after months of abusive behavior from Cobb, finally gets fed up, demands the car stop, and walks out on him. And what sets off Stump after months of abusive behavior from Cobb?  Well, Stump has just tried to broker a meeting between Cobb and his estranged daughter, who refuses to see him; then he lies to Cobb, telling him that the woman in the window wasn’t his daughter. Cobb gently calls him on this lie and this sets off Stump. This. Not being shot at. Not being run off the road. This.

A hagiography would’ve felt less like a lie than “Cobb.”

One of the two dozen books I bought at Powell's Books this summer was written by Barry Levenson, a former assistant attorney general of Wisconsin, and called “The Seventh Game: The 35 World Series that Have Gone the Distance.” It was published almost a decade ago, in 2004, but it was still up-to-date because there had been no Game 7 since 2002.

That changes tomorrow.

Crazy, beautiful game tonight. Full of errors and bad managerial moves (why take out Feliz in the 10th?) but incredible comebacks. Twice. Or thrice. How many lead changes or ties? I count 10. Back and forth, back and forth. I'm beginning to believe in these Cardinals. From, what, 10 1/2 back, down against the Phillies, down against the Brewers, down against the Rangers. Down by two with two strikes in the bottom of the 9th. Down by one with two strikes in the bottom of the 10th. But as soon as Ron Washington pinch-hit for Scott Feldman, I knew it was over. That seemed like the wrongest of moves in a night of wrong moves for both managers. When it went to the bottom of the 11th, with former Mariner Mark Lowe on the mound for Texas, I said aloud, to Jim and Tim and Patricia, “It's over. Cards will win it here.” A few pitches later ... boom. 

This presents a dilemma for me. Wednesday morning I bought tickets to Susan Orlean presents RIN TIN TIN: THE LIFE AND THE LEGEND at the newly updated SIFF Uptown Theater on Friday night. I'd just finished Orlean's book on Rin Tin Tin so it seemed a natural. For a moment, though, I paused before buying the tickets. “What if,” I thought, “one of the World Series games is postponed and the Cardinals win Game 6? Then Friday night will be Game 7!” But I dismissed the thought. It seemed so unlikely that both things would happen.

How about that trivia question FOX asked during the game? “How many Game 6s have ended with a homer?” Jim and Tim and I got it in about 30 seconds: Fisk, Puckett, Carter. “Odd that they asked it, though,” I thought, then aloud: “Wouldn't it be weird if...?”

Fisk, Puckett, Carter ... Freese.

David Freese homers in the bottom of the 11th inning to send the World Series to a 7th game for the first time since 2002.

The other day I posted a 2004 MSN piece ranking baseball movies into four categories: 1) Hall of Fame, 2) Majors, 3) Minors, and 4) Not Fit to Carry Kevin Costner's Jockstrap. Made me wonder how I would actually rank these suckers. What's my favorite baseball movie? Least favorite? How do you factor in documentaries?

Only one way to find out...

1. Bull Durham (1988): Still the smartest. Still the sexiest. Oh my.
2. Ken Burns' Baseball (2004): It's nearly a day long (22+ hours) and I think I've watched it four or five times. That's nearly a week of my life. Burns includes too many New Yorkers, not enough Pittsburghers (see 1960), and Stan Musial gets short shrift while Harmon Killebrew isn't even mentioned. It's the official baseball history now, which makes these ommissions more glaring.
3. The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (1998): An unabashed paean and a joy to watch. Should be required viewing for all modern athletes who disregard their role-model status.
4. 61* (2001): Isn't it time for Billy Crystal to make his great Mickey Mantle documentary?
5. Moneyball (2011): I was turned off by the falsehoods but was won over by the poignancy. And if you want to read more, well, 3,500 words await.
6. The Bad News Bears (1976): Should this movie have been in the Hall of Fame seven years ago? Should it be now? Haven't watched it in maybe five years but for some reason I have fond feelings for it.
7. The Natural (1984): It's tough to transfer Bernard Malamud's Old Testament morality onto a Hollywood screen and give it a Hollywood ending, but Barry Levinson and Robert Redford (appearing in his first movie in four years) managed it in 1984. With caveats. Many caveats. Still, that homerun in the middle of the movie that stops time at Wrigley Field? Stops me every time.
8. Eight Men Out (1988): “The written rules were rigid and righteous, while the real rules were often wide open and dirty.” That's from the book by Eliot Asinof on which the movie is based, and to which the movie pales. So is this: “America expected higher morals from ballplayers than they expected from businessmen.” Am I giving John Sayles and the movie too hard a time? Maybe I need to see it again. Maybe it's better than I remember.
9. Sugar (2008): The Dominican players who saw this all said, “Yep. That's the way it is.” Always enlightening seeing our country through the eyes of others.
10. Catching Hell (2011): Alex Gibney has directed docs on torture (“Taxi to the Dark Side”) and total failure (“Enron: Smartest Guys in the Room”), so it's only natural that he turns his attention to the Chicago Cubs--in the person of Steve Bartman, the unluckiest fan of the unluckiest franchise.
11. Major League (1989): The bottom-of-the-ninth-inning bunt to win the championship has since been stolen by enough movies (“Mr. Baseball”; “Mr. 3000”) that it's become as much a cliche as the bottom-of-the-ninth-inning home run to win the championship. But all-around dopey fun.
12. The Rookie (2002): In 1999, when I first read on ESPN.com about Jim Morris, a high school teacher in Texas who improbably made the bigs at the age of 35+, I said aloud to my Microsoft officemates, “Wonder how long before it's a movie?” But I assumed made-for-TV. Hollywood did better. Too much estranged father crap, of course, but otherwise a fairly straightforward narrative.
13. Field of Dreams (1989): Speaking of estranged father crap... Most fans would put this top 10 or 5 or 3, but too much magic realism for me. In the original story, “Shoeless Joe” by W.P. Kinsella, the author retrieved from New England and taken to Fenway Park is ... J.D. Salinger. That's one way the movie improved upon the source material.
14. A League of their Own (1992): Geena Davis can't play. Rosie O'Donnell can.
15. Pastime (1990): I saw this in the mid-1990s, liked it, and now remember nothing about it. Racial stuff, right?
16. Bang the Drum Slowly (1973): The second appearance in the countdown by Michael Moriarty. He was also a talking head in “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg” because his grandfather was a Major League umpire in the 1930s.
17. Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story (2010): Suffers in comparsion to “Greenberg.” But it means well.
18. For Love of the Game (1999): A fading pitcher thinks about his imperfect life between innings of the last game of the year ... then gradually realizes he's pitching a perfect game. Overlong, but I think the reaction against it was a reaction against Costner, which I'm tired of.
19. Fever Pitch (2005): How could Major League Baseball allow Drew and Jimmy on the field for the final out of the 2004 World Series?? How?????
20. The Stratton Story (1948): I'm not sure why this made it into my “Majors” section in the MSN piece. When I think of it now, I think of it with slight distaste.
21. Damn Yankees! (1958): Not much a baseball movie, more of a 1950s Broadway musical, but Ray Walston as the Devil livens things up. It's also the best titled baseball movie ever. Yankee haters everywhere unite!
22. Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976): Oh, the movie this might have been. There’s incredible talent here (Billy Dee, James Earl Jones, Richard Pryor, Stan Shaw), there’s a budget, there’s direction from John Badham. But the tensions within the film are puerile. The evil is overwhelmingly evil; the good is happy-go-lucky. The story meanders and then tucks its tail between its legs and heads home. Shame. Great title, though.
23. The Pride of the Yankees (1942): When I was a kid in the 1970s, this was regularly cited as the greatest baseball movie ever made. How far we've come. How far it's fallen.
24. Game 6 (2005): The title game refers to the 1986 World Series. But there's no “going to see about a girl” for Michael Keaton.
25. Angels in the Outfield (1951): When the remake was released in '94 I didn't even know there'd been an original--and with the Pirates of all teams. Not a bad baseball movie for the period.
26. Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1949): Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra sing and dance and pretend to play.
27. Mr. Baseball (1992): Tom Selleck is an American asshole who must learn to be a team player in Japan. Doesn't suck.
28. The Sandlot (1993): And you thought “The Wonder Years” was nostalgic. For people who like sugar. (Not “Sugar.”)
29. Little Big League (1994): Kid becomes owner of the Minnesota Twins and makes the moves that put them in contention for the pennant. Ah, but the big, bad Seattle Mariners—with guest appearances by Ken Griffey, Jr. and Randy Johnson!—block their way...
30. Major League II (1994): I don't remember much about this one (and I didn't see the third), but, hey, gang's getting back together. Except for Wesley Snipes as Willie Mays Hayes. He's doing too well so they pull a Darrin-from-Bewitched on him and replace him with Omar Epps. Would be lower if not for Bob Ueker.
31. Fear Strikes Out (1957): I'll quote my father: “If Tony Perkins had handled a knife the way he handled a baseball bat, Janet Leigh would still be alive.”
32. Rookie of the Year (1993): Magic arm, annoying kid.
33. Mr. 3000 (2004): Bernie Mac, you are missed, but not for this.
34. Angels in the Outfield (1994): A clear violation of the 25-man roster.
35. Cobb (1994): A hagiography would've felt like less of a lie.
36. The Jackie Robinson Story (1950): Dreary baseball shots accompanied by heavy-handed pronouncements about equal opportunity. The movie reveals how far we've come by showing us the inanities that passed for racial enlightenment in 1950.
37. The Babe (1992): At least Goodman has the charisma of the Babe.
38. The Scout (1994): I don't think I even made it through this one.
39. BASEketball (1998): Overwhelming juvenile. Whatever happened to these guys anyway?
40. Major League III: Back to the Minors (1998): Is there a sadder title?
41. The Babe Ruth Story (1948): The greatest player of all time in one of the worst movies of all time.
42. Hard Ball (2001): This one's particularly egregious since the book on which it's based, “Hardball: A Season in the Projects,” written by Daniel Coyle, is fantastic.
43. The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977): Josh Wilker has written an entire book out about this movie? Which he loves? Or something? Well, he made poetry out of Rudy Meoli popping up, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. I'll probably even buy it. 
44. The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978): But Josh, don't push your luck.

They starred in two of the worst baseball movies ever made but got to hang with the original Charlie's Angels. I'd make that trade.

ADDENDUM: Upon another viewing, “Cobb” has been downgraded from 24 to 35.

I wrote this piece for MSN seven years ago, for the 2004 post-season (that glorious post-season), but it's no longer available in uncut form. The site used it for spring one year, fall the next, and eventually trimmed away the negative. It turned it into this. Below you'll find the pure uncut stuff. Just in time for the first game of the 2011 World Series.

Question: Where would you rank recent baseball movies, including “Moneyball,” “Sugar,” “The Perfect Game,” “The Bronx is Burning,” “The Benchwarmers,” “Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story,” and “Fever Pitch”? In the Hall of Fame? In the Majors? Minors? Not fit to carry Costner's jockstrap? Feel free to add thoughts in the comments field.

Arguing with the umpire is encouraged.

This may be the best time ever for fans of baseball movies. Early versions of the genre tended to be black-and-white hagiographies where the actors weren’t athletic, the baseball wasn’t exciting, and kids with names like Jimmy or Timmy were forever stricken with crippling diseases that could only be cured by homeruns hit by big-name sluggers. After the publication of Jim Bouton’s Ball Four in 1970, baseball heroes were finally allowed to appear less heroic—and usually seemed moreso as a result.

But what makes a good baseball movie? After immersing myself in the genre, and seeing more than my share of called shots, key strikeouts, and bottom-of-the-ninth-inning-on-the-last-day-of-the-season homeruns, I’ve come up with the following guidelines:

• It’s better to focus on a season than a career. Probably because the rhythm of a season is closer to a dramatic arc than the rhythm of a life.
• Employ actors who look like they can play. Please.
• Be passionate about your subject. Check out Billy Crystal’s 61* and Aviva Kempner’s The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg for an indication of what passion can do.
• Yankees suck! (OK, not a guideline. Just fun to say.)

The movies below are divided into four categories of descending importance. Play ball!

Hall of Fame

Bull Durham (1988)
Written and directed by Ron Shelton.
The sexiest and wittiest baseball movie is also the most real. Nice triumvirate. It’s less concerned with how a team matures than how people mature. Millie gets married, Annie falls in love, and Nuke Laloosh, so hopeless he needs two teachers, becomes…a little less hopeless. The movie suffers when he leaves. I love Crash and Annie, but they’re both teachers, and when they get together the best parts of her character are subsumed by the dullest parts of his. (This could be every wife’s lament.) But this is just in the last five minutes of the movie. The first 103 are still brilliant.
Heroes: Sexy women and Walt Whitman.
Villains: That one extra hit per week (a flair, gork, a dying quail) that doesn’t fall or get through, and that keeps the .250 hitter from becoming a .300 hitter.
Verisimilitude: Costner’s swing is the prettiest of any actor in any baseball movie. (Redford and Tom Selleck come close.) Robbins’ motion ain’t in the same class but it’s workable. But no A-ball pitcher – I don’t care how good – leaps past Double-A and Triple-A for the majors. Just doesn’t happen.
Baseball cameos: Max Patkin, the clown prince of baseball.
Awards: Best screenplay from all the major film critic groups. The Academy gave the Oscar to Rain Man.
Quote: “Oh my.”

61* (2001)
Directed by Billy Crystal. Written by Hank Steinberg.
OK, so Billy Crystal is a spoiled little shit of a Yankees fan who, in Ken Burns’ “Baseball,” laments the Yankees’ 1960 World Series loss with The Whine Heard ‘Round the World: “I still hurt about it. I still feel bad about it.” Billy, you grew up watching the most dominating team in sports history – 14 pennants in 16 years – and you still feel bad about this one season? Shut up already! … And now his due. With a fantastic script from Hank Steinberg, the little S.O.B. has directed a great baseball movie. The verisimilitude is unparalleled, right down to those odd, fuzzy-looking batting helmets they wore in the sixties. His lead actors (Barry Pepper and Tom Jane) are uncanny, and can act. He doesn’t skimp on supporting cast either: Richard Masur; the always-fascinating Bruce McGill; and Billy’s daughter, the very sweet Jennifer Crystal. Best of all, there’s dramatic tension. It’s about an ordinary man under extraordinary pressure. It’s about a decent man who’s treated as a villain, and an often indecent man who’s treated as a hero. It’s about the friendship between the two. I hate the Yankees as much as Billy loves them, but man I love this movie.
Heroes: Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle.
Villains: Ford Frick; sportswriters; punctuation.
Verisimilitude: You’d need a time machine to get a more exact rendition of the 1961 New York Yankees.
Awards: 12 Emmy nominations. Won two: casting and sound editing.
Quote: “We’re chasing a ghost, Rog. You go into that clubhouse, he’s there. At homeplate, he’s there. In the outfield, he’s there. The fat fuck, he’s everywhere! We’re playing in his house!”

The Natural (1984)
Directed by Barry Levinson. Written by Roger Towne and Phil Dusenberry, based upon the novel by Bernard Malamud.
Author Bernard Malamud condemned his characters for the slightest breach of morality (Roy Hobbs, for example, strikes out at the end), and his novel was an amalgam of real myths and baseball myths, so its transfer to a 1980s movie screen with requisite happy ending feels forced at times. I mean: the whole good luck/bad luck thing? Pop is jinxed but Roy overcomes his jinx. Memo is bad luck but Roy can’t overcome her bad luck. Iris is good luck so she counteracts Memo. Why? And why the gambler if there’s no “Say is ain’t so, Roy”? And enough shots with the kids in the stands already. … So with all of these complaints, why is The Natural still in my Hall of Fame? Because every time I see the effin’ thing I start to cry. It’s our An Affair to Remember.
Heroes: Roy Hobbs; golden light from the setting sun.
Villains: Sexy women and the dark. Which is odd because this combination is usually a plus in my life.
Verisimilitude: Redford is completely believable as a baseball star but not as a teenager. It was the last time he played one.
Awards: Four Academy Award nominations. 0-4. Hardly Hobbsian.
Quote: “Some mistakes I guess we never stop paying for.”

Also inducted: Ken Burns’ Baseball (1994); The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (2000)

Major Leagues

The Bad News Bears (1976)
Directed by Michael Ritchie. Written by Bill Lancaster.
The script is unfair to minorities – blacks, Mexicans, Iowans – and the journey of Coach Buttermaker from thesis (doesn’t care about winning) to antithesis (cares too much about winning) to synthesis (cares about the kids) is a little extreme. But it’s still the movie for anyone who ever failed athletically. Which means most of us.
Heroes: Misfits and underdogs.
Villains: Businessmen and the North Valley League Yankees.
Verisimilitude: The Bears look like every kid who ever had trouble catching a pop fly; that’s its charm.
Awards: Matthau was nominated for a BAFTA.
Quote: “Hey Yankees, you can take your apology and your trophy and shove it straight up your ass!”

Major League (1989)
Written and directed by David S. Ward
The quintessential Hollywood baseball story concerns a team of misfit underdogs who, through some galvanizing force (and with or without spinning newspaper headlines), rise from the cellar and contend for the pennant on the last day of the season. This conceit describes everything from Bang the Drum Slowly to Angels in the Outfield, but its purest example is Major League. The misfits here are all colorful and memorable, each is given equal time, and the subplots are kept to a minimum. Best of all? It’s funny.
Heroes: Misfits and underdogs.
Villains: Ex-showgirls and the New York Yankees.
Verisimilitude: Charlie Sheen’s pitching motion is the best I’ve seen from an actor. The others look pretty good, too.
Ballplayer cameos: Pete Vukovich and Steve Yeager.
Quote: “Juuuust a bit outside.”

The Stratton Story (1949)
Directed by Sam Wood. Written by Douglas Morrow and Guy Trosper
This is a simple story simply told. It’s about a country boy who makes the bigs, suffers a horrible injury, and then begins to explore the limits of his new circumstances. What can he do now? How much of his former life can he reclaim? The film relies heavily upon the considerable charm of its star, Jimmy Stewart, and when his character turns bitter and quiet the movie flags. But this is only temporary. Worth watching for the shot of Stratton’s one year-old son learning to walk, with Stratton, beside him, doing the same.
Heroes: Monte Stratton.
Villains: Shotguns and the New York Yankees.
Verisimilitude: A good pitching motion is probably the only area of acting where Charlie Sheen could’ve given Jimmy Stewart pointers.
Ballplayer cameos: Bill Dickey.
Awards: Academy Award for Best Story.
Quote: “A man’s gotta know where he’s going.”

Also in the show: Bang the Drum Slowly (1973); Eight Men Out (1988); Field of Dreams (1989); Pastime (1991); A League of Their Own (1992); The Rookie (2002)

Minor Leagues

The Pride of the Yankees (1942)
Directed by Sam Wood. Written by Jo Swerling, Herman J. Mankiewicz and Damon Runyon
I can hear the complaints already. For decades this biopic of Lou Gehrig was considered the best baseball movie ever made, but time hasn’t been kind. Gary Cooper’s cutesy-pie acting? The idiotic “Tanglefoot” business? Gehrig learning to hit with power from a nerd at the county fair? Slugging two homeruns in the World Series for a crippled kid who’d already been promised a homerun by Babe Ruth? MGM’s weird dance interlude with Veloz and Yolanda? How about this awful line from manager Miller Huggins after Gehrig plays the first of his 2130 consecutive games? “What do we have to do – kill you to get you out of the lineup?” No, not kind at all.
Hero: Lou Gehrig
Villain: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Verisimilitude: They both had shy smiles, but long, lean Gary Cooper had the wrong body to play the sturdy Iron Man of baseball. He couldn’t swing, either.
Ballplayer cameos: Babe Ruth and Bill Dickey.
Awards: Ten Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Writing, Actor and Actress. Won Film Editing.
Quote: “Today I consider myself the luckiest man (man man) on the face of the earth (earth earth).”

Damn Yankees! (1958)
Directed by George Abbott and Stanley Donen. Written by George Abbott, from the novel, “The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant” by Douglass Wallop.
There are two big baseball musicals and each lacks what the other has. Take Me Out to the Ball Game has personality (Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra), but the story’s no great shakes and the songs aren’t memorable. Damn Yankees! has a great story (Faust) and great songs (“You gotta have heart”; “Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, MO”) but no personality. Ray Walston and Jean Stapleton are delightful, but Tab Hunter just doesn’t cut it. Gwen Verdon’s a fine dancer but not someone you’d sell your soul for. And the team? Well, they’ve got heart anyway.
Heroes: Faithful wives and faithful husbands.
Villains: The Devil and the New York Yankees. Not necessarily in that order.
Verisimilitude: My Sunday softball team could beat these guys.
Awards: Academy Award nomination for Best Musical Score.
Quote: “Wives! They give me more trouble than the Methodist Church!”

For Love of the Game (1999)
Directed by Sam Raimi. Written by Dana Stevens, from the novel by Michael Shaara.
With tighter editing this could’ve made the bigs. It’s got a cool lead character who thinks over his life as he pitches a meaningless game near the end of a meaningless season. And he’s got reasons to think over his life. He’s lost his woman and maybe his career. Halfway through he suddenly realizes he’s pitching a perfect game.
Hero: Billy Chapel
Villains: The past and the New York Yankees
Verisimilitude: John C. Reilly’s got the mug but not the chops to be a catcher. Apparently Costner can play any position.
Awards: The Razzies nominated Costner. It’s time they stopped riding his ass.
Quote: “How do you like to be kissed?”

Also grabbing pine: Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1949); Fear Strikes Out (1958); Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976); Mr. Baseball (1992); The Sandlot (1993); Cobb (1994); Little Big League (1994); Major League II (1994)

Not Fit to Carry Kevin Costner’s Jockstrap

The Babe Ruth Story (1948)
Directed by Roy Del Ruth. Written by George Callahan and Bob Considine, from the book by Bob Considine and Babe Ruth.
The Babe (1992)
Directed by Arthur Hiller. Written by John Fusco.
The greatest baseball player of all time has been the subject of two of the worst baseball movies of all time. In the Bendix version he throws like a girl, hits infield pop flies that magically leave the park, and gets in dutch with his manager for taking a sick dog to the hospital. In the Goodman version, he throws like a girl, hits infield pop flies that magically leave the park, and is hugely fat from the start – when Babe was in pretty good shape for much of his career. At least the nineties version is honest about Babe’s drinking and womanizing, but then they try to make his excesses and tantrums the stuff of tragedy. Both movies have him hitting homeruns for sick kids in the hospital. Both have him calling his shot in the 1932 World Series. The Bendix version actually combines the two: Babe calls his shot for a sick kid in the hospital. I’d call it ruthless efficiency but there was too much Ruth in it.
Heroes: Babe Ruth, and the people who put up with him.
Villains: Hot dogs, booze, and Colonel Ruppert.
Verisimilitude: For the next movie about the Babe? Try hiring a lefty.
Baseball cameos: Mark Koenig played himself in the ’48 version.
Quote: “How can you manage a baseball team when you can’t even manage yourself?”

The Jackie Robinson Story (1950)
Directed by Alfred E. Green. Written by Arthur Mann and Lawrence Taylor.
Jackie Robinson plays himself in this low-budget film full of dull apple pie pronouncements and paternalistic back-patting. There’s odd comic relief from a character named “Shorty,” baseball is presented as Jackie’s best, favorite sport – when it wasn’t either – and at the end Jackie delivers a sudden, embarrassing anti-communist speech. And where’s his famous fire? Only visible for a second when Branch Rickey (Minor Watson) gives him an example of the kind of abuse he’ll face. In a way the movie confirms how far we’ve come by revealing what passed for racial enlightenment in 1950.
Heroes: Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey.
Villains: Southern “lodge” members.
Verisimilitude: You’re not going to get a better ballplayer than Jackie Robinson, but you could get a better actor.
Quote: “We’re dealing with rights here. The right of any American to play baseball, the American game. You think he’s our boy, Clyde?”

The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977)
Directed by Michael Pressman. Written by Paul Brickman.
The Bad News Bears Go To Japan (1978)
Directed by John Berry. Written by Bill Lancaster.
In the first sequel they lose Matthau and O’Neal, and in the second they lose Tanner (“Crud!”) Boyle. The first sequel insults Texas, the second Japan. The first sequel includes a Fonzie rip-off, the second goes for the cute black kid. Rudi Stein keeps getting taller. Kelly Leak keeps getting creepier. Yet the filmmakers insist that Kelly’s a cool kid who deserves his own subplots: estranged father in Breaking Training, romance with a Japanese girl in Japan. Apparently they’re re-making The Bad News Bears with Billy Bob Thornton in Matthau’s role. If it happens, I’d advise them to stop right there. These sequels are as unwatchable as movies get.
Heroes: Misfit underdogs.
Villains: Jocks and businessmen. And the New York Yankees. OK, I’m making that up.
Verisimilitude: Anyone who thinks Jackie Earle Haley is a stand-out player can clear out their locker right now.
Awards: The Razzies hadn’t been invented yet.
Quote: “You’re really just a second place team from the Van Nuys League.”

Also unfit for jockstrap-carrying duty: Rookie of the Year (1993); The Scout (1994), Angels in the Outfield (1994); BASEketball (1998); Major League III: Back to the Minors (1998); Hard Ball (2001)

I think David Schoenfield is doing a great job in Rob Neyer's spot on ESPN.com. I also like his latest column, “What to Watch in the World Series.” But its last line?

In the end, history will remember only which team wins that final game.

We'll be lucky if history remembers baseball, David, let alone the World Series, let alone its 2011 incarnation.

But if by “history” you mean “baseball fans,” well, then I think you're not giving us enough credit. Off the top of my head:

Texas Rangers, Philadelphia Phillies, Tampa Bay Rays, Colorado Rockies, Detroit Tigers, Houston Astros, St. Louis Cardinals, New York Yankees, San Francisco Giants, New York Yankees, New York Mets, Atlanta Braves, San Diego Padres, Cleveland Indians, Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians, Philadelphia Phillies, Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Braves, Oakland A's, San Francisco Giants, Oakland A's, St. Louis Cardinals, Boston Red Sox, St. Louis Cardinals, San Diego Padres, Philadelphia Phillies, Milwaukee Brewers, New York Yankees, Kansas City Royals, Baltimore Orioles, Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets, Cincinnati Reds, Baltimore Orioles, Cincinnati Reds, Baltimore Orioles, St. Louis Cardinals, Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees, New York Yankees, San Francisco Giants, Cincinnati Reds, New York Yankees, Chicago White Sox, Milwaukee Braves (I think), New York Yankees (I think), Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Yankees, Cleveland Indians ...

Then I get lost during those string of Yankee victories from '49 to '53. I think '52 and '53 were against the Dodgers, '51 obviously with the Giants, and '50 with the Phillies. Was '49 also the Dodgers? And who did the Indians beat in '48?

Feel free to correct my math, by the way.

None of this, of course, is any consolation for the Cards or the Rangers. Both want to win. But no matter who wins or loses, baseball fans will remember that they both played.

ADDENDUM: If the Rangers lose, they'll be the first team to lose consecutive World Series since the '91/'92 Braves, who were the first to do it since the '77/'78 Dodgers, who were the first to do it since the '63/'64 Yankees. It's not that common in the expansion era. Winning consecutive World Series is a little more common. It's happened six times during the expansion era. Can you name the teams?

At the start of the league championship series, with the 30 Major League teams down to four (Brewers, Cards, Rangers, Tigers), my ideal World Series would've looked like this:

1. Milwaukee Brewers vs. Detroit Tigers

Two Midwest cities, good baseball towns (particularly Milwaukee), who ain't won shit recently--and in the Brewers' case, never. My second choice:

2. Milwaukee Brewers vs. Texas Rangers

Both teams had never won a World Series. We would've been guaranteed a new winner. (At the same time, it's tough to root for Texas because, you know, they're Texas.) Third choice was admittedly a bit weak, a replay of the very, very boring 2006 World Series:

3. Detroit Tigers vs. St. Louis Cardinals

But at least it was better than the fourth option, where you could either root for a team that had won 17 pennants and 10 World Championships, more than any team besides the Yankees (who suck), or you could root for George W. Bush's team:

4. Texas Rangers vs. St. Louis Cardinals

Bummer.

Did anyone watch Ken Burns' “Prohibiton” doc on PBS last week? It's good stuff. I like the overview of the types of movements we had, and have, in this country: what inspires them, what drives them, what ultimately causes them to succeed. You could argue that Prohibition succeeded, or at least was passed into law, for three reasons: 1) the creation of the U.S. income tax in the 1910s (meaning the U.S. government no longer needed to rely on taxes on the sale of liquor); 2) anti-German sentiment during and after WWI (since the big breweries were all German-American); and 3) the usual feelings about human perfectability. Plus misconceptions about what the Volstead Act entailed. Many didn't think prohibition would apply to beer, for example.

There's a good section on Seattle, too, which I never knew was a bootlegging hub. But it makes sense. There's proximity to Canada, with all its booze, and the islands and coves of Puget Sound, with all its places to hide.

There's good stuff on Assistant Attorney General Mabel Walker Willebrandt, the most famous woman outside of Hollywood in the 1920s, and the rise and fall of George Remus, perhaps the biggest bootlegger in the country, who was done in by, of all things, a dame. Plus Al Capone.

But I was most amused by this shot. You could argue it's merely a generic shot of New York City in the 1920s. But there's no way that Ken Burns, official documentarian of Major League Baseball, doesn't know the true meaning of “No No Nanette.”

I'm disappointed that we didn't get better articles about the Yankees' quick postseason exit from stalwarts Rob Neyer or Joe Posnanski. But the Internet's a big place and good comments could be found. My favorite is listed last. Enjoy.

“It hurts. It hurts for the Yankees to lose in the playoffs and for their season to end. I once knew a therapist who said that sports were a leading cause of depression among men – trailing behind events like losing a loved one or being fired from one’s job. I take these losses seriously. I also know that the closer your team comes to winning it all, the harder it is to have them lose. I remember 2001. I know this might sound like self-entitled nonsense to fans of teams like the Cubs who haven’t sniffed a World Championship in eons. But every Yankee fan is also a fan of less successful teams. My California Golden Bears haven’t seen a Rose Bowl since Eisenhower was President, but it didn’t hurt that much when they gave up 29 unanswered points to Oregon last night.”

--ItsAboutTheMoney.Net, “A Rational Goodbye to the 2011 Season”

*  *  *

Dear Mr. Manners,
I'm really enjoying the fact that the Red Sox choked to miss the playoffs and that the Yankees lost in the first round. Is it poor manners to root against them and mock the teams and their fans?

-- United S. (of America)

Dear United Schadenfreude of America,
Normally it is poor manners to find joy in the failure of others, but rooting against the Yankees and Red Sox is as American as mom, apple pie and baseball teams trying to buy championships. I have no problem reveling in their defeat. However, I would encourage you to balance your ridicule with a positive comment to show that you are a person of refined manners.

Say: “Keep your chin up ... so you can see the scoreboard, which is the official record of you being a loser.”

Or: “Hey, no one wins them all. In fact, some teams only win one of them in 11 years, which is almost impossible if you think about it, considering they had the biggest payroll in every one of those years.”

--D.J. Gallo, “Mr. Manners' Etiquette for Sports World”

Keep your chin up...

*  *  *

“Not enough fans understand that the baseball playoffs are a crapshoot. Since 1990, you know how many teams with the best regular-season record have won the World Series? Three — the '98 Yankees, '07 Red Sox and '09 Yankees. If you make the playoffs, you essentially have a 1-in-4 chance of reaching the World Series. If you get to the World Series, you have 1-in-2 chance of winning. So if you make the playoffs every season you should win a World Series once every eight years. In their past eight trips to the postseason, the Yankees have reached two World Series and won one. Exactly what the odds would predict.”

-- David Schoenfield, “The Day After: Yankees Postscript”

*  *  *

And my favorite...

To the Sports Editor:

The Yankees’ postseason failure over the last two years suggests the possibility of another Curse of the Bambino. Its predecessor never made sense: why would the Babe have been anything but thrilled to be sent from Boston to the greatest sports stage of the era? Overshadowing Ruth’s monument with the huge tribute plaque to George Steinbrenner? Well, that just might be cause for vengeance. So here is the new curse: the Yankees will never win another World Series until the plaque is moved to a more appropriate site.

-- Charles E. Knapp, Scarsdale, N.Y., “At a Loss in the Bronx”

Magic, Maier, gone.

WARNING: NO RUNS, NO HITS, LOTSA SPOILERS

I had trouble with the falsehoods but was won over by the poignancy.

The falsehoods begin immediately. The movie opens on Oct. 15, 2001, Game 5 of the American League Division Series between the Oakland A’s and the New York Yankees. A’s lose. But that’s not a falsehood.

A continent away, Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), general manager of the A’s, listens, then doesn’t; listens, then doesn’t. He’s at the park, alone. He’s in the cavernous underground of what was then called Network Associates Coliseum. Does he toss chairs? I forget. He’s a fairly mellow guy compared to the intense, dictatorial Billy Beane that Michael Lewis portrayed in his 2003 best-seller. Is it Pitt? Is it director Bennett Miller? Miller also directed “Capote,” and both are patient movies about cerebral men (Truman Capote; Billy Beane) dealing with vicious killers (Hickock and Smith; the New York Yankees). Call it a theme.

But this change in Beane’s demeanor is not the falsehood I’m talking about.

Billy Beane’s A’s won 102 games in 2001, second-most in the American League, but they’re losing three top players to free agency: closer Jason Isringhausen (replaceable); center fielder Johnny Damon (replaceable); and first baseman Jason Giambi (irreplaceable). All three are signing with teams with more money. Most teams have more money than the A’s. Its 2001 payroll is $33 million, second-lowest in the Majors, while three teams, the Dodgers, the Red Sox (who nab Damon), and the Yankees (who grab Giambi), each spent more than $100 million. “It’s like we’re a farm system for the New York Yankees,” Beane says in the movie.

That’s definitely not a falsehood I’m talking about.

Beane says this as he sits down with his team of scouts, who are, for the most part, daft old men focusing on the inconsequential. This guy’s got a good face, that one’s got a good jaw, the other, nah, not him, he’s got an ugly girlfriend; means no confidence. Beane tries to focus them. “What’s the problem?” he keeps asking. He has to answer his own question. The problem is money. The problem is that the A’s are the runt of the litter. “We are the last dog at the bowl,” he says. “You know what happens to the last dog at the bowl? He dies.”

Good line. Do we credit screenwriter Steven Zaillian (“Schindler’s List”) or screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (“The Social Network”)? Feels like Sorkin.

So Beane tries to get more food in the bowl. He asks the A’s owner for more money. No dice. He asks the Cleveland Indians for this or that player. Fat chance. But he notices the dynamic in the Cleveland GM’s office. Another runt, Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), whispers in one man’s ear, who whispers in the GM’s ear, who makes the decision we’ve already seen cross Brand’s face. Afterwards, Beane tracks Brand down. “Who are you?” he asks.

Brand, it turns out, is a guy who studied economics at Yale. He likes numbers. And he sees the important numbers, called sabermetrics, hidden by a more traditional reading of baseball statistics. These numbers give us a truer reading of the talent of players. The Oakland A’s don’t need to buy players, Brand tells Beane; they need to buy wins, which you do by buying runs, which you do by buying on-base percentage, which is a stat other teams aren’t paying attention to in 2001 and thus can be had for cheap. In essence, Brand tells him the lesson of “Moneyball,” which is the lesson of the stock market, which is where Michael Lewis began his career: Beane needs to buy what is undervalued and sell what is overvalued. In this way, a team with a $33 million payroll can compete with a team with a $110 million payroll.

So what’s the first thing Beane buys? Brand. He makes him assistant general manager. And off they go with their grand experiment.

Nice. But it means this: Billy Beane didn’t know about sabermetrics until the 2001-02 off-season.

That’s the falsehood I’m talking about. It skews everything.

In reality, Beane learned about sabermetrics from the previous A’s GM, Sandy Alderson, who learned about it from Bill James, a security guard out of Kansas who forever changed the way we look at baseball statistics. I became a Jamesian in ’93, late to the game, 15 years late, which is about the time Billy Beane became a Jamesian, too. And by the time he took over as general manager of the A’s, in 1998, he was ready. Within two years, his last-place team with no money was in the post-season. And by the 2001-02 off-season, Beane and his assistant, Paul DePodestra (read: Brand), were so deep into the numbers they could hardly see light. Or maybe they could see nothing but light. Either way, Beane knew.

So: “Moneyball,” the book, is about a guy who, over a decade, revolutionized the way Major League baseball teams are run.

“Moneyball,” the movie, is about a guy who listened to another, smarter guy, for one season, then gets all the credit for revolutionizing the way Major League baseball teams are run.

Doesn’t sit right.

At the same time, it has to be one season, doesn’t it? I wrote as much seven years ago in an MSN piece ranking baseball movies. “It’s better to focus on a season than a career,” I wrote. “Probably because the rhythm of a season is closer to a dramatic arc than the rhythm of a life.”

So Miller and his All-Star screenwriters, Zaillian and Sorkin, focus on the rhythm of a season. And to get everyone in the audience up-to-speed on sabermetrics, they reduce the protagonist, the sabermetrics expert, Billy Beane, to a blank slate regarding sabermetrics. As Beane learns, so do we.

All of which makes cinematic sense.

But if you know the story, it still doesn’t sit right. It’s like watching a movie about FDR in which, during his second term in office, an assistant gives him the bright idea of starting, say, a “New Deal,” to help get America out of the Great Depression. You can’t help but wonder what the cinematic FDR was he doing during his first term.

*  *  *

But what’s done is done, right? Let’s go with it. Onward.

As Brand teaches Beane about sabermetrics (recreating Jason Giambi “in the aggregate”), Beane teaches Brand about the ballsier aspects of baseball and life: how to stand up to scouts and managers; how to ignore the press, which is to say conventional wisdom; how to fire people. Beane is comfortable in the macho world of baseball players because he was once a baseball player himself, which we see in flashbacks with an actor who doesn’t much look like a young Brad Pitt. Beane was a first-round draft choice back in 1980. He wanted to go to Stanford, he would’ve gotten a free ride to Stanford, but the scouts paid attention to him and waved money in front of him and so his life changed. For the worse. Because he wasn’t that good. He wasted 10 years of his life trying to become what they thought he should become. In this way Beane knows more than anyone how wrong scouts can be.

Much of the charm of the movie is in the back-and-forth between the wide-eyed Brand and the amused Beane. Hill is good, better than I thought he would be, but Pitt is a marvel. He’s loose. He’s charming. He seems to be improvising—not sure if he is—and continues the tradition, first noticed in the “Oceans” movies, of forever stuffing food in his face. He seems like he’s having the time of his life playing this role.

Critics, by the way, who thought “Moneyball” couldn’t be made into a movie either didn’t read “Moneyball” or know nothing about movies in general and baseball movies in particular. Yes, the book is about sabermetrics, which is a big word, but it’s also about the triumph of the underdog, which is what most movies are about. It’s about gathering a group of misfits—Scott Hatteberg, a catcher who could no longer throw, and Chad Bradford, a relief pitcher with a goofy, submarine motion—who coalesce into a winning team, which is what most baseball movies are about. (See: “Bad News Bears,” “Bull Durham,” “Major League.”)

And as with most baseball misfit movies, the A’s begin the season poorly—which is true, they sucked for the first two months of 2002—and the sports press, or at least sports talk radio, circles around Beane and his “experiment.” Manager Art Howe (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) isn’t using the team properly, starting the wrong guys and bringing in the wrong relievers, but Beane gets the blame.

This is another thing the movie doesn’t get quite right: how polite and deferential Beane is to Howe. You don’t get that feeling in the book. The A’s in the book, the real A’s, talk about how the organization was unlike any other Major League organization in this respect: It was run by the GM on a day-to-day basis. It was Billy Beane’s show, they said. Everyone knew it. Even Art Howe knew it. Yet in the movie, Beane is polite and deferential to Howe, while Howe is disrespectful to Beane. He doesn’t listen.

So Beane makes him listen. He trades Jeremy Giambi, Jason’s ne’er-do-well brother, to Philadelphia for John Mabry (bad deal), then trades Howe’s favorite first baseman, Carlos Pena, who plays in place of Beane’s guy, Hatteberg (bad deal). So now Howe has to play Hatteberg at first.

In reality, these trades were made months apart. More, Howe didn’t bench Hatteberg. Hatteberg played consistently throughout the 2002 season. His plate appearances by month: 99, 92, 101, 89, 97, 90. Consistent.

But we’ll go with it. Onward.

So Beane makes his trades and the team begins to win: 10 in a row, 15 in a row. What’s the record? 19 in a row. They tie it. This team of misfits that no one thought would go anywhere has actually tied the Major League record for consecutive victories. Can they set the record? Can they win their 20th game in a row?

Let’s talk about that 20th game. I’ll describe the action as we see it in the movie and I want you to find the falsehoods. It’s instructive. We can learn a lot about Hollywood and baseball by figuring out what Hollywood felt it needed to add to increase the drama of baseball.

As the game begins, we see Billy Beane driving away from the park. He never watches the games—they make him too nervous—and besides he has things to do. But then he gets a call from his daughter, Casey (Kerris Dorsey), who is watching the game, and she tells him he needs to watch it, too. It’s amazing, she says. So he turns around, enters the park, and sees the A’s are up 11-0 in the third inning. And they’re playing one of the worst teams in baseball, the Kansas City Royals, a team without money, like the A’s, but without smarts, either. Plus the A’s have their best pitcher, Tim Hudson (15-9, 2.98 ERA), on the mound. Done deal.

But just as he arrives it all begins to unravel. The Royals score five runs in the top of the 4th to cut the lead in half and five more in the top of the 8th. It’s now 11-10 and Beane is no longer watching the game. He’s in the cavernous underground of Network Associates Coliseum, cursing. And in the top of the 9th? With two outs and a guy on second? Closer Billy Koch gives up a single that ties the game.

Awful.

But it’s still a tie game. There’s still a chance. And in the bottom of the 9th, Art Howe points to Scott Hatteberg, the converted catcher whom Billy Beane thought could Jason Giambi at first base, but who isn’t playing this game, and tells him to pinch hit. And he does. And with one out in the bottom of the 9th inning Hatteberg hits a homerun to win this incredible, improbable game, and the A’s, these misfit A’s, set the Major League record for consecutive victories with 20.

Wow.

So where’s the falsehood? The homerun in the bottom of the 9th inning? The fact that it was Hatteberg? That he pinch-hit? That the A’s lost an 11-0 lead to the worst team in baseball only to pull it out in the end?

Nope. The falsehood is Casey calling her father to tell him to watch the game. In reality, at least in the reality of Michael Lewis’s book, Beane was in Art Howe’s office, talking to Lewis, and Beane phoned her to tell her to watch the game, but she wasn’t interested. She was too busy watching “American Idol” to care about her father’s team.

How is this instructive? In this way. Baseball, with its come-from-behind chances and bottom-of-the-ninth-inning homeruns, will always be more dramatic, more improbable, than what the best minds in Hollywood can imagine. That’s why it’s a great game. Meanwhile, whatever the best minds in Hollywood can imagine is lost on most of us, because we’re too busy watching crap like “American Idol.” That’s why we’re a lost cause.

*  *  *

As I’m watching “Moneyball,” as I’m seeing these few falsehoods mixed in with attention to detail and concern for veracity, I keep wondering: How are they going to handle the ending?

I knew the ending. The 2002 Oakland A’s, after losing Jason Giambi, et al., won one more game than the 2001 A’s but still lost in the first round of the playoffs—this time to the small-market Minnesota Twins. Which means the ending is like the beginning. We begin with Game 5 failure and end with Game 5 failure. All that work for the same result. It won’t resonate.

I also knew this: Nothing Billy Beane did during the next 10 years helped his team to the World Series. The A’s, a powerhouse in the early 2000s, haven’t even sniffed the post-season since 2006. They’ve fallen back with the also-rans.

So how do you make this dramatic? How do you make it resonate?

Bad baseball fan. I forgot the first, great rule of baseball drama, which was delineated by Roger Kahn in “The Boys of Summer,” his nostalgic memoir about covering the early 1950s Brooklyn Dodgers. Kahn wrote:

You may glory in team triumphant, but you fall in love with a team in defeat.

It’s the horsehide equivalent of Shelley:

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

So the A’s lose the 2002 ALDS—a mere, slow-mo blip on the movie screen—just as they lost the 2001 ALDS, and Billy Beane, who struggled so hard to make this work, is left alone with his thoughts. He’d already said that the sabermetrics experiment means nothing unless they win it all. They didn’t so it didn’t. And director Bennett Miller pauses and let’s it all sink in.

Bennett Miller is good at pausing and letting it all sink in.

Not everyone, of course, thinks the experiment means nothing. Sure, there are naysayers out there, people who forget how little Beane had to work with, and who blast the “Moneyball” experiment; but the Boston Red Sox, with money to burn, think Billy Beane is onto something. In fact, they invite him to Boston, give him a tour of historic Fenway Park, the oldest park in Major League Baseball, and offer him their GM position (which he ultimately turns down). They offer to pay him more than $12 million over several years. And Boston’s owner, John Henry (Arliss Howard), tells him the following: “You’re the first guy through the wall. You always get bloody.”

Nice line.

Then Paul Brand meets Beane at Network Associates Coliseum. He takes him to the video room to show him footage of a college player named Jeremy Brown. Both the video room and Jeremy Brown figured big in “Moneyball,” the book, but neither is much mentioned or seen in “Moneyball,” the movie, until this moment.

In the footage, Brown, a fat catcher out of Alabama, gets hold of a pitch and drives it and rounds first base. He’s thinking double or triple. But he’s overweight and not graceful—that’s why the scouts dismiss him, and part of the reason why Beane, who was slim and graceful as a young player, doesn’t—and Brown actually stumbles. He falls flat on his face. Then he struggles, like a drowning man, to get back to first base before he’s thrown out. Which is when the others on the field, holding back their laughter, tell him. The ball wasn’t a double or triple. It went over the wall. And he gets up, dusts himself off, and rounds the bases.

“He hit a homerun and didn’t even realize it,” Brand tells Beane.

Then he pauses, looking at Beane, and a beautiful thing happens. He adds, “It’s a metaphor,” and Beane, half-annoyed, says, “I know it’s a metaphor.”

How perfect is that? Our All-Star screenwriters, by using the personalities of their main characters— Brand, wide-eyed and endearing, but presuming to teach the teacher, Beane, who is savvy and impatient—manage to inform the less-savvy among us the point of the scene without insulting the rest of us. While charming the rest of us.

Afterwards, Beane gets into his car, drives home, and listens to a CD his daughter Casey made for him. Earlier in the movie, when they’re in a music store, she sings him this song. It’s called “The Show,” originally by Lenka, an Australian singer, but its lyrics, not to mention its tone, fit into this story as easily as a hand fits into a baseball glove.

Casey sings:

Slow it down
Make it stop--
Or else my heart is going to pop

Slowing it down is something Moneyball players do with the game. It’s what Scott Hatteberg does with the game. He slows it down. He takes his pitches. He makes the game come to him rather than trying to impose himself on the game.

Casey sings:

I am just a little girl lost in the moment
I'm so scared but I don't show it
I can't figure it out
It's bringing me down I know
I've got to let it go
And just enjoy the show

All the while the camera closes in on Beane—the man who’s lost in the moment, who’s scared and doesn’t show it. He’s the first man through the wall and he’s bloody. He’s hit a homerun and doesn’t know it. And now this simple advice from his daughter: Just enjoy the show. “The Show,” what players call the Major Leagues, and “the show,” what we call the movie, and what we sometimes call life. And the camera closes in on his profile, driving, looking straight ahead, caught in this moment of indecision and tension but possible epiphany and release. And I thought: Please end it here, at this everyman moment, this moment of simple advice possibly listened to for at least this day. And they do. That’s where they end it.

I came to “Moneyball” with a lot of baggage: a fan of the game, a fan of the book, a fan of the theory behind the book. Yes, I had trouble with some of the ways the filmmakers falsified the book. Yes, I felt the misfit theme could have been dramatized better. But Miller and Zaillian and Sorkin took the most difficult part, the inconclusive ending, and made it touching. They made it resonate. They gave us something beautiful to carry with us from the theater. Why can’t more movies do this? Why can’t movie people realize that we don’t want what we say we want. We want this. We want the exact feeling “Moneyball” leaves us with.

Facebook conversation last night:

Me: I hate the Yankees like I hate Republicans, but man that was a helluva catch by Granderson.

FB Friend 1 (Yankees fan, Democrat, affronted): Is there a bluer fan base in baseball than NY? Just sayin.

Me: Is there a richer 1% in baseball who fight to keep the system tilted in their favor? Just sayin.

FB Friend 2 (Mariners/Rockies/Cardinals fan, Democrat): I would venture a guess that the Bay Area is a bluer fan base. And Granderson had two great plays tonight, I really like that guy. Was a sad day when he was traded to the Yankees.

Yep. See the catch (or catches) here.

ADDENDUM: Nice piece by Grant Brisbee on Granderson's two catches, and the one Austin Jackson couldn't quite make.

Sixty years ago today, in the third game of a best-of-three playoff between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Giants, who had been 13 games out of first place in August but came storming back in September to tie the Giants on the last day of the season, were down 4-1 in the bottom of the ninth when Alvin Dark singled off starter Don Newcombe. Then Don Mueller singled. Monte Irvin fouled out but Whitey Lockman doubled to score Dark, send Mueller to third, and put the tying run, himself, in scoring position. A well-placed single would now tie the game. Which is when Brooklyn manager X called for reliever Ralph Branca to face Bobby Thomson, who was, by modern stats (OPS: .948), the best hitter for the Giants that year. Branca threw two pitches. The first was a strike on the inside corner. The second was the shot heard 'round the world:

That's Russ Hodges' voice. I have a clip of it, from the Ken Burns' “Baseball” soundtrack, and I used to include it at the end of mixed tapes I made for friends, even if they weren't baseball fans. There was just such joy in his voice. I wanted to share it.

I first remember hearing about the Thomson homerun when I was 10. It was the summer of 1973, and as part of our almost annual trip from Minneapolis to the east coast—to visit friends in New Jersey, dad's parents in Philadelphia, Mom's mom in Finksburg, Maryland, and Rehoboth Beach, Del., for fun—we spent a few days at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Was it a way for Dad to extend his vacation? Because it was work. He was writing a feature on Ken Smith, the director of the Hall of Fame, for the The Minneapolis Tribune. I believe we even stayed in Ken Smith's house.

From Ken Smith, my older brother Chris and I got a transcript of Abbott and Costello's “Who's on First?,” which we then memorized and performed (me as Abbott, he as Costello) for several years thereafter. I still remember most of the dialogue.

My father got a great anecdote, which went something like this. Ken Smith was at the Thomson game as a sports reporter, but he had to leave early to visit someone in the hospital. Was it his wife? Was she having a baby? As he rushed to get there, as he rushed inside, he asked passersby, New Yorkers all, about the game. And everyone had the same answer: The Dodgers won. None of the people he asked knew the true outcome of the game. Thus the so-called “shot heard 'round the world” wasn't even heard in the city where it took place.

That anecdote might be hard to believe; but it's a lot less hard to believe than Bobby Thomson's actual homerun. We'll give it a pass.

It's the end of the 2011 regular season in Major League Baseball, and what an end, and before the postseason begins and we all root, root, root against the much-hated Yankees, here are my picks for the following awards. Major League Baseball won't announce its winners until November but you get mine here and now. Who loves ya, baby?

• AL MVP: More words have been written on the word “valuable” in the phrase “Most Valuable Player” than Norman Mailer wrote in his lifetime, but I toss the semantics argument to the side without even resorting to e.e. cummings. MVP is just a fancy way of saying “best” so just pick the best player in the league and move on already. For me, it's Jose Bautista. Led the league in HRs, walks, OBP, SLG, OPS. Tenth in batting. Walked more than he struck out. And while similar sluggers like Adrian Gonzalez, Miguel Cabrera and David Ortiz made extra outs by topping the league in grounding into double plays, with 28, 24 and 23 respectively, Bautista is tied for 77th in this category with a mere 8. The argument I'll listen to: Miguel Cabrera.
• NL MVP: Matt Kemp. Led the league in HRs, RBIs and runs. Second in OPS, SLG, stolen bases (yes) and hits. A homerun shy of the 40-40 club. The argument I'll listen to: Ryan Braun.
• AL Cy Young: Do we do this? Is it necessary? Does anyone not know this already? League leader in ERA, strikeouts, wins, innings pitched and WHIP is the Tigers' Justin Verlander. That's your man. I don't think there's another argument.
• NL Cy Young: An argument here is apparently more necessary. The NL pitcher who leads all the above categories except for innings pitched is Clayton Kershaw, but some (Rob Neyer) have suggested that various sabermetrics numbers favor Roy Halladay, who already has a passel of Cy Young Awards. I passel on Halladay (and Neyer). Kershaw all the way. (Question: Has any team had both MVP and Cy Young Award winner on their club and not gone to the postseason?)
•  AL Rookie of the Year: An argument could be made for Eric Hosmer of KC, with his .799 OPS, or Mark Trumbo of the Angels, with his 29 homers, but both guys struck out tons against not many walks, which doesn't bode well for careers. It's really a pitchers' year in this category, and most voters will go either for Jeremy Hellickson's ERA (2.95) or Ivan Nova's wins (16-4). But, admittedly biased here, I opt for Seattle's Michael Pineda, who led the other two in strikeouts (173 vs. Hellickson's 117 and Nova's 98), K-BB ratio (more than 3:1 vs. less than 2:1 for the others), and WHIP (1.10). The big man tired as the season progressed, and he played for the Lousies so he didn't win a game after July. But he's still the man. Now straighten out yer hat, kid.
• NL Rookie of the Year: Not as versed in the NL but it seems to be a battle of the Braves, right? First baseman Freddie Freeman vs. closer Craig Kimbrel and his 46 saves, 2.00 ERA and 1.00 WHIP. He gets extra points for rounding. Kimbrel.
• AL Manager of the Year: I don't know how you pick anyone but Joe Maddon of the Rays.
• NL Manager of the Year: Kirk Gibson. In his first year, his team goes worst to first. Pump that arm, Kirk.
• 30-30-30-30 Offense of the Year: The Seattle Mariners. For the second year in a row.

Which is a good segue into the more personal awards...

• My best game: I went to about a dozen, most at Safeco Field; and while it was nice seeing Michael Pineda get his first Major League win, and it was nicer seeing the hapless M's beat the mighty Yankees on four ground-outs at the end of May, giving me a 4-0 record on the year, I mostly saw them lose in the second half of the season (I wound up 6-5), and it left a bad taste. So I'm going with the sunniest game of them all: July 4, Target Field in downtown Minneapolis, with Dad and a Hamon Killebrew Root Beer. Twins won, 7-0, over the Tampa Bay Rays, who were obviously going nowhere.
• My most historic game: Mariano Rivera's 600th save. With video to prove it.  
• My worst game: Larry Bernandez Bobblehead Night at Safeco Field: Saturday, August 27. My rant here.
• My favorite player: I might be too old for this. I was happy every time Pineda pitched or Dustin Ackley stepped to the plate. M's are going young. That's the way to go. But if I have to choose I'll choose Brendan Ryan. He's a good defensive shortstop, he's a character, and he's scrappy. Plus he does things like this. Plus he makes things like this.
• Farewells: Dave Niehaus and Harmon Killebrew.

2011 Fan Appreciation Night: M's management appreciating that they still have fans.

I was out last night with friends at a bar called “Still” on Capitol Hill, where I'd periodically check my iPhone for scores. Baseball scores. It was the last game of the regular season and the fates of four teams were yet to be decided. None were my team, or teams, but I'm a fan of the game and not just my teams. This is my time of year.  

At one point it all seemed over: The Tampa Bay Rays were down 7-0 to the New York Yankees in late innings and the Boston Red Sox were beating the Baltimore Orioles 3-2 in the 7th. That game was delayed. It looked like Boston's epic collapse would stop here, on the last day of the season, and Boston would squeak into the playoffs after all.

Even when I left the bar it seemed over. I was checking the scores via ESPN's website, which is notoriously unfriendly to iPhones (anyone know of a good baseball-score app?), and, though the Rays had managed to score six (six!) in the bottom of the eighth, the site had given them a “0” in the bottom of the ninth. “Game over,” I thought. “So much for that,” I thought. Some part of me, the Yankee-hating part of me, roots for the Sox, even though, financially speaking, David-and-Goliath-speaking, I should be rooting for the Rays; but I still felt a touch of sadness. The Rays were so close. Plus it would've been nice if the Yankees had ended the year losing four straight.

By the time I got home and turned on the MLB network, it was all back on. ESPN was wrong with their zeroes (zeroes): The Rays had tied the game with a two-out, bottom-of-the-ninth homerun by Dan Johnson (a guy with a .389 OPS) and were battling the Yankees in extra innings. The BoSox, meanwhile, seemed to be battling themselves: they had nothing but scoring opportunities in the 8th and 9th and got bupkis. Meanwhile over in the National League, the wild card race I thought was over (because I thought the St. Louis Cardinals began the day a game up, and they'd killed the Houston Astros earlier in the day) was, in fact, still on: Cards only a half-game up on the Braves, who were battling the Phillies in the 13th. 

Holy crap.

Braves went down first. No biggee. They never really had a chance. Not against the Cards but against the Phils, whom they'd have to face sooner or later in the postseason.

Over at Camden Yards, after the Sox failed to score with men on first and third and nobody out in the top of the ninth, closer Jonathan Papelbon came in to close the door. He got two outs, strikeouts, Adam Jones and Mark Reynolds. Then Chris Davis, a third baseman, a man who started the day with exactly 1,000 career at-bats and a .301 on-base percentage after four years in the bigs, and who was batting eighth in a pretty crappy Orioles line-up, stepped to the plate.

Do the butterflies of a million fans a thousand miles away affect the players? Affect the ball? Make it tail in toward the middle of the plate? Does our nervousness, our assumption of loss, make loss more likely for events we're merely watching?

Because Davis doubled down the right field line.

Now Papelbon faced the no. 9 hitter with the unlikely name Nolan Reimold. Another part-timer. A guy with eight doubles on the year. Two balls, two strikes. One strike away. Papelbon was doing a good job keeping the ball away, and Reimold looked like he had no shot. For a moment it seemed the Red Sox Nation, not to mention the Red Sox themselves, could heave a sigh of relief, and turn to one another and say, “Wow, I can't believe that almost happened.” Which is when it happened. The ball drifted over the center of the plate and Reimold smashed it into the right-center gap for his ninth double of the season, his 44th RBI of the season, and a tie game.

At the exact same time, the Yankees, who had men on first and third with nobody out in the top of the 12th, began to blow it. Ground ball to third and the lead runner was caught napping by Evan Longoria. One out, men on 1st and 2nd. Chris Dickerson struck out. Two outs. Brett Gardner grounded out. End of inning.

At the exact same time—and the guys at the MLB Network were going a bit nuts here—Robert Andino, the Orioles lead-off hitter, stepped up. A former Marlin, 27 years old, with a career .302 on-base percentage. He was the guy, the other night, who hit the sixth-inning, two-out, three-run inside-the-park homer against the BoSox—the first inside-the-park homer by an Oriole at Camden Yards ever. Now here he was again. He swung and connected. Line drive to left field. Carl Crawford, the BoSox hugely disappointing $142 million off-season signing, from the Tampa Bay Rays of all teams, slid to catch it. He didn't. He trapped it. As if, yes, in a nightmare, he picked it up and threw it in but too late, Reimold scored, and the O's won and the Sox lost and they could only wait to see what happened in Tampa. To see if there was anything of their season worth salvaging.

Meanwhile, in Tampa, B.J. Upton was at the plate when the scoreboard flashed the final score in Baltimore and the crowd, even in this sad-ass, no-fan town, began to cheer and whoop it up. Did it distract Upton? Maybe. He went down swinging.

Longoria wasn't distracted. I forget which pitch it was. The second? Third? No, wasn't it a 2-2 count? Either way, off the bat, I thought it was a double. He swung and the ball rocketed to left field and I assumed it was a double in the corner. Then I noticed the corner. It juts out at the Dome in Tampa. When Dan Johnson hit his homer in the bottom of the ninth, it went to right field, and squeaked over the portion of the fence that juts out in the right-field corner. If an outfielder had been standing there, it looks like he could've caught it without much jumping. He could've caught it nonchalantly. But nobody was standing there and the ball squeaked over and tied the game, and that's what Longoria's ball did, too, in the bottom of the 12th, on the exact opposite side of the field. It squeaked over the portion of the fence that juts out in the left-field corner ... and resonated. The moment suddenly had meaning and finality. It solidified everything. It happened.

The ball squeaked over the wall in the 9th. It squeaked over in the 12th. It squirted out of Carl Crawford's glove. David Ortiz squibbed it in front of the plate.

It's a long season. 162 games. This season started horribly for Boston and well for the Orioles. It ended horribly for Boston and well for the O's. The Yankees stood to the side, paring their fingernails, as they seemed to in this final series, losing all three games, with scrubs, mostly. But you can't blame the scrubs. Look at the other teams' scrubs. Look at Chris Davis and Nolan Reimold and Dan Johnson. 162 games, more than $1 billion spent on players, and the season tottered one way or the other on the journeymen. Remember Doug Strange? Remember Alex Diaz? Mariners fans do. That's part of the joy.

The real joy is this: 9 games back in September, 7 runs down in the 8th, two outs in the bottom of the ninth.

How could the postseason be more exciting than this?

Go Brewers. Go Diamondbacks. Go Tigers. Go Rays.

Dan Johnson, rounding first.

This past week, for obvious reasons, I've been reading Michael Lewis's  “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game” for the first time since I reviewed it for The Seattle Times back in 2003. 

Being a fan of Bill James, who, in the 1980s and '90s, revolutionized the way we looked at baseball statistics, I never doubted the efficacy of what Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane, the first Jamesian in a Major League Baseball front office, was doing. I.e.,:

• To compete in an unfair game, in which your opponent has three times your payroll (now: five times your payroll), you have to find what is undervalued and buy it, and what is overvalued and sell it.
• What was undervalued, in 2002, was on-base percentage, which is a more reliable measure of a hitter's potential to score runs, and thus help win games, than batting average, the measure of hitting prowess for most of baseball history.
• The plate discipline necessary to create a high on-base percentage was a less teachable trait than people believed. At the same time, it was translatable from the college to the professional level: a guy with a high OBP in college would tend to have a high OBP in the Majors. Thus college-level players with high OBPs were players worth drafting.

Since 2003, whenever anyone's disparaged “Moneyball” and Beane, and it's happened a lot (here, for example), I've defended. If the Oakland A's were having a hard time of it recently, I argued, it's not because the concepts of “Moneyball” failed; it's because they succeeded all too well and were adopted by other, richer GMs, such as Brian Cashman of the much-hated New York Yankees, who made OBP his touchstone, too. That particular market inefficiency, which Beane had exploited for years, had corrected itself. Thanks in large part to Michael Lewis's book.

*  *  *

But the Jamesian stuff is only one aspect of the philosophy conflated into the term “Moneyball.” Beane also attempted to upend long-standing baseball traditions because of his own sad experience with the national pastime.

In 1980, he had been a prized, five-tool, high school player, a first-round draft pick with a “good baseball body” who never quite panned out, even as less-talented but gung-ho teammates such as Lenny Dykstra became stars. From this, Beane, the GM, concluded the following:

• Scouts are overvalued.
• Body type doesn't matter. (“We're not selling jeans.”)
• High school players, particularly pitchers, aren't worth a first-round draft pick.

Basically he never wanted to draft himself.

Reading in 2003, a part of my brain went, “Wait. Ken Griffey, Jr. and Alex Rodriguez were drafted out of high school.” But such thoughts were pushed aside as Michael Lewis's narrative propeled me along.

Re-reading in 2011, these thoughts weren't pushed aside.

There's a big set piece in the book, the June 2002 draft, and reading it in 2003 one accepted Lewis's interpretations of Beane's assumptions because the drafted names were just that: names. They meant nothing. Now they do ... or don't. Now they're superstars ... or not.

This, for example, was Billy Beane's wish-list for the 2002 draft:

Just names back then. Now they have numbers, too.

Nick Swisher was Beane's baby, and he took him with the 16th overall pick, and Swisher has panned out more or less: first for the Oakland A's, then for the Chicago White Sox, and now, most famously (and ironically), with the New York Yankees. His career batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage are: .254/.360/.467. Not stellar but pretty good.

Meanwhile, Prince Fielder, who was disparaged in the book as “too fat even for the Oakland A's,” and was picked 7th overall by the Milwaukee Brewers (saps!), is having a better career: .281/.388/.537. He's a star. Swisher's a character but he's not a star.

Obviously the A's, with their 16th pick, couldn't have chosen Fielder; but here's the thing: they wouldn't have chosen him anyway. He was a high school player. And that was too close to Beane's own experience.

How about the player who went after Swisher? The 17th overall pick belonged to the Philadelphia Phillies who chose, yep, a high school pitcher (saps!), named Cole Hamels, who, after making the bigs in 2006, has gone 74-54, with a 3.54 ERA and a 3.75 K/BB ratio.

I don't doubt the efficacy of the basic Bill James lessons from “Moneyball.” But, re-reading, I'm beginning to doubt the efficacy of the lessons Billy Beane culled from his own sad experience with the national pastime. Maybe scouts are more necessary than he thinks. Maybe high school players should be considered in the first round.

*  *  *

Let's check.

In the five years after the “Moneyball” amateur draft, from 2003 to 2007, 189 players were chosen in the first round of the draft. Of those 189, 85 were high school players. Of those 85, eight have become Major League All-Stars, including current NL MVP candidate Justin Upton, current NL Cy Young candidate Clayton Kershaw, and Pittsburgh Pirates center fielder Andrew McCutchen.

Of the remaining 104 first-round draft picks, all out of college, 17 have become All-Stars, including current AL Cy Young candidate Justin Verlander, current NL MVP candidate Ryan Braun, and former Cy Young award winner Tim Lincecum.

The odds of drafting a future All-Star are greater with college players, at least in this small sample size, 16 percent to nine percent; but given the chance on a Justin Upton or Clayton Kershaw, not to mention a Ken Griffey, Jr. or Alex Rodriguez, why not take it? Why ask to see the B.A.?

The A's were one of only two teams—the White Sox were the other—who didn't draft a high school player in the first round during these five years. Here's who Beane chose instead:

• Brad Sullivan, Brian Snyder and Lauren Geminder in 2003
• Landon Powell and Richie Robnett in 2004
• Cliff Pennington and Travis Buck in 2005
• No one in 2006
• James Simmons in 2007

Only the three hyperlinked names made it to the bigs. Of those three, none has a career OBP above .325.

*  *  *

So is Billy Beane misreading the lessons of his own life? If so, he wouldn't be the first.

What was the problem with Beane as a young player? Was it his body type? His five-tool talent? The fact that he was merely a high school player? Not really. The real problem, delineated by Lewis but subsequently ignored by Lewis for the larger narrative, was his personality, which didn't handle failure well. He obsessed over it. He began assuming he wouldn't succeed and wound up not succeeding. Guys like Lenny Dykstra? They never doubted. (Which ultimately, after baseball, brought Dykstra down, too.)

And for those with doubt? There are coaches like Ron Washington, “Wash” to his friends, who, during the 2002 season, took a former catcher, Scott Hatteburg, necessary because he came cheap and had a talent for getting on base, and turned him into a “pickin' machine” at first base. Wash is now manager of the Texas Rangers, who won the American League penannt last year, something Beane's A's (and my sad, sad Seattle Mariners, for that matter) have yet to do.

The scouts in the book come off as daft oldsters who pay attention to the inconsequential (“a good baseball face”) and miss the bigger picture (the Jamesian stats). But maybe sabermetricians like Beane and his assistant, Paul DePodestra, are missing the bigger picture, too. Maybe the point isn't upending conventional wisdom so much as balancing it with their own unconventional wisdom. Maybe the point, as in so many areas of baseball, is simply balance.

*  *  *

There are a lot of ifs associated with “Moneyball.” If only Tim Hudson had pitched up to his usual standards in the 2002 ALDS and the A's had gotten past the Minnesota Twins and eventually to the World Series. If only Jeremy Brown, the fat Alabama catcher with the gaudy OBP drafted in the first round by Beane, had panned out. (Jerry Crasnick suggests the attention from “Moneyball” did him no favors, but, to his credit, he did retire with a .864 OPS.) If only Brian Cashman was like most Yankees fans and didn't read.

The book feels poignant now. It's full of regrets.

Does Michael Lewis have any? Billy Beane helped change the game but so did Lewis. His best-seller stabilized the market inefficiencies Beane had been exploiting. It was as if Lewis had shown David's playbook to Goliath. When the two returned to the field, Goliath had a slingshot of his own.

More, does Lewis regret the following analogy? It is, without a doubt, the most shocking thing about reading “Moneyball” in 2011 rather than 2003.

First, a little backstory. Baseball is often about luck. A pitcher may make a good pitch, a batter may mistakenly swing at that pitcher's good pitch, but it still might result in a bloop single to left. Old baseball hands say such luck evens out over a season, and a career, and maybe it does, but the stats people would still like to remove it from the equation. They would like to get a truer picture of past performance and thus a better indicator of future performance. They would like to minimize risk.

In Chapter Six of “Moneyball,” Lewis writes about a company that is doing just that: AVM Systems, run by two former Chicago stockbrokers, Ken Mauriello and Jack Ambruster. These guys take a baseball field, divide it up into thousands of mini-grids, then track every baseball hit during a game by velocity and trajectory and landing point (point #643, for example), and place value judgements on every action. Was the hit a true hit? Was the right fielder properly positioned? Would an average right fielder have caught the ball? Etc.

These guys are part of Moneyball strategy, too, and Lewis writes about them in glowing terms. He even compares what they do—the cutting up a baseball field into thousands of meaningless fragements—to what was then a very successful, very lucrative, and virtually riskless area of Wall Street: derivatives. The cutting up of stocks and mortgages into meaningless fragments, and bundled together to minimize risk.

The kinds of people who were transforming baseball for the better, in other words, were thus just like the kinds of people who had transformed Wall Street for the better. Both were minimizing, or, in Lewis's words, “more accurately” pricing, risk. He writes:

The chief economic consequence of the creation of derivative securities was to price risk more accurately, and distribute it more efficiently, than ever before in the long, risk-obsessed history of financial man.

If only that had been the chief economic consequence of the creation of derivative securities.

Now that Mariano Rivera has become the career saves leader, surpassing Trevor Hoffman's 601 last week, The New York Times' Dave Anderson, in a special YANKEES SUCK article entitled “Mr. Young, Mr. Ryan, Mr. Rivera Will Be Joining You,” sees something historic in the stat. He writes:

His record 603 regular-season saves deserve a monument alongside those honoring Cy Young’s 511 victories and Nolan Ryan’s 5,714 strikeouts and 7 no-hitters.

Why does Anderson feel this way? You have to dig to find it. Cy Young's victory total is far ahead of the no. 2 man, Walter Johnson, who won 417, while Nolan Ryan's strikeout total is far ahead of the no. 2 man, Randy Johnson, by 839 Ks. Each dominated his stat. They had no rival. Just like Rivera.

But wait. Isn't Mo only 2 saves ahead of Trevor Hoffman? That's hardly “far ahead.” Both relievers, to be sure, are far ahead of the no. 3 man, the former saves leader Lee Smith, who retired with 478. But Rivera isn't out there by himself. Hoffman is with him.

Anderson solves this with a bit of subterfuge:

... even if the 41-year-old Rivera were to retire soon, his postseason numbers would separate him from any and all bullpen challengers.

It's a stupid article. The objective greatness of Mariano Rivera isn't in the career saves stat; it's in his career ERA, for which his only rivals are dead-ball pitchers from 100 years ago, and in his post-season record, which is unprecedented.

Anderson actually downgrades the man he's trying to elevate. Rivera isn't honored because he has the career saves record. The career saves record is honored because it now belongs to Mariano Rivera.

It's tough for me to be around the Internet this weekend because I get distracted by these kinds of things. “Moneyball” gets released and so every site has its baseball movies article. In the above link, Salon goes to the experts—Nicholas Dawidoff, Roger Kahn, Joe Posnanski, et al.—and asks two questions: 1) What's your favorite baseball movie?; and 2) Why aren't there better baseball movies?

I answered both questions in 2007 for MSNBC.com without being asked. Here's my lede. No, screw it. Here's the whole freakin' piece.

Two years ago, people were scratching their heads over the idea of “Moneyball” as a movie. Stats? Sabermetrics? What the? But I knew. It's not only a classic Hollywood story—underdogs triumph—it's the classic baseball narrative of the last 30 years. Misfits band together, and, through knowledge, teamwork and that one guy, and against all odds, begin to win.

But I'll still take sex with Susan Sarandon.

Play Ball!
Baseball Movies From “Pride of the Yankees” to “Fever Pitch”

When Bobby Thomson hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning to lift the New York Giants over the Brooklyn Dodgers and into the 1951 World Series, sportswriter Shirley Povich wrote the following: “The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again.”

When Kirk Gibson hobbled to the plate and hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning to lift the Los Angeles Dodgers over the Oakland A’s in the 1988 World Series, broadcaster Jack Buck shouted the following: “I don’t believe what I just saw!”

And that’s the problem with baseball movies. The unbelievable in a game makes you stand up and cheer. The unbelievable in a movie makes you stand up and walk out.

Storytelling is about making life more dramatic; yet if the best of baseball is already too dramatic to be believed, where does that leave storytelling? How does Hollywood dramatize it?

Here’s what they’ve tried.

“The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! And they're going crazy! They're going crazy!”: Try to do that in a movie.

Hitting a home run for little Timmy in the hospital
Initially they produced biopics where the point wasn’t the baseball so much as the lack of baseball. Something always had to get in the way of playing.

Consider “The Pride of the Yankees” a template. Sure, Lou Gehrig was a great player — 2,130 consecutive games, third-highest slugging percentage of all-time — but Hollywood could care less from slugging percentage. They made his life into a movie because he died of the disease that now bears his name: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. His life, and the subsequent movie starring Gary Cooper, had a classic dramatic arc: rise (Yankee stardom), fall (ALS) and resurrection (“I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth”).

Most baseball biopics in the 1940s and ’50s followed suit. In “The Stratton Story,” Monty Stratton, played by Jimmy Stewart, is a solid pitcher for the Chicago White Sox (rise); then his leg is amputated after a hunting accident (fall); but with a wooden leg, he makes a comeback, and pitches well enough to make the minor leagues (resurrection). Same arc for Dizzy Dean in “The Pride of St. Louis” (pitching star/arm injury/radio broadcaster) and Jimmy Piersall in “Fear Strikes Out” (taciturn outfielder/nervous breakdown/recovery).

Then feature-film baseball biopics disappeared for decades. They returned in the early 1990s with a couple of mediocre attempts: “The Babe” with John Goodman, and “Cobb” with Tommy Lee Jones. More recently, there was “The Rookie,” a good, quiet film starring Dennis Quaid as Jimmy Morris, a high school science teacher who makes the Tampa Bay Devil Rays squad at the age of 35. But “The Rookie” is in a different category: Less the fall of a titan to mortal status than the rise of a mortal to titan status. It almost belongs with the recent glut of films about fans: “Everyone’s Hero,” “Game 6” and (someone please get Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore off the field already) “Fever Pitch.”

An autographed ball isn't enough. A home run isn't enough. No, little Timmy's one greedy bastard.

Hitting a home run for the broad in the second row
Why did Hollywood abandon the biopic? Jim Bouton is partly to blame (or thank). In 1970, he published his memoir of the 1969 season, “Ball Four,” and it blew the lid off the game, revealing, amid the day-to-day commentary of a guy just trying to fit in, the smallness of management and the stupidity of players. These guys weren’t hitting home runs for little Timmy in the hospital; they were popping “greenies” and trying to look up women’s skirts. Hard to fashion a feel-good biopic around that.

Yet Billy Crystal’s “61*” did just that. The HBO film — not quite a biopic — gives us a warts-and-all account of the 1961 Yankees, and the friendship between Mickey Mantle (Thomas Jane) and Roger Maris (Barry Pepper) as they battle for the single-season home run record. What makes the movie powerful — besides the fact that Crystal, a lifelong Yankee fan, gets every freakin’ detail right — is that Maris’ rise and fall occur simultaneously. The more home runs he piles up (the rise), the more the press and public turn against him (the fall), because he’s not “the right Yankee” to break the mark. Extraordinary pressure is thus created, and that pressure is felt in Pepper’s performance, and in the release we feel when No. 61 flies out and the sparse hometown crowd finally, finally gives the man the standing ovation he deserves.

This shouldn’t need saying but fallibilities make characters more interesting, not less, and great baseball biopics are waiting to be made if studio execs only get off the schneid. You’re telling me you can’t make an interesting movie out of the life of Satchel Paige or Hank Greenberg or Roberto Clemente? Why not ignore the career for the season? Give us Jackie Robinson from the time he signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in the fall of 1945, through the ’46 season with the Montreal Royals, and end the film on April 15, 1947, the day he broke the color barrier. Talk about extraordinary pressure! There wouldn’t be a dry eye in the house.

Barry Pepper as Roger Maris in Billy Crystal's “61*.” More complicated heroes of the modern era.

Misfits win! Misfits win!
So what’s replaced baseball biopics? This formula, mostly: A team of misfits keeps losing; then they find a way to win; then they play for the championship at the end of the season.

This describes everything from “The Bad News Bears” to “Major League” to “Angels in the Outfield,” with films differentiated by: a) how teams start winning, and b) that final game.

How do they start winning? For some, it’s the myth of the one guy. Team sucks, this one guy wanders in the locker room, everything changes. Often he’s associated with magic. Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) has a kind of mystical lightning about him in “The Natural,” while Joe Hardy (Tab Hunter) is the work of the devil in “Damn Yankees!” An annoying little kid with a 100-mph fastball (Thomas Ian Nicholas) turns the hapless Cubs into winners in “Rookie of the Year.” You could even say the turnaround for the Angels in “Angels in the Outfield” is the work of one guy. The big guy. Which seems to me a violation of the 25-man rule.

Other teams begin to win through the myth of teamwork. This rationale is big in movies where the lead character is a selfish S.O.B.: Jack Elliot (Tom Selleck) in “Mr. Baseball” and Stan Ross (Bernie Mac) in “Mr. 3000.” Once the S.O.B. subsumes his gargantuan ego to the group, they start winning. Hollywood, with its above-the-line talent, relates.

Finally there’s the myth of knowledge. The players don’t know what they’re doing wrong, so it’s up to someone, generally an outsider, generally a kid, to set them straight. In 1953’s “The Kid from Left Field,” it’s the batboy, Christie (Billy Chapin), who’s getting tips from his ex-big league dad. By 1994 and “Little Big League,” the studios knew how to pander to kids. Thus Billy Heywood (Luke Edwards), who inherits the Minnesota Twins from his grandfather, is fatherless and turns the Twins around on his own. Daddies? We don’t need no stinkin’ daddies.

The best baseball films tend to combine rationales. The Bears in “The Bad News Bears” need Coach Buttermaker to care enough to impart his knowledge, they need to work together, and they need that one guy, Kelly Leak, to get them over the hump. They get it all. The beauty is it’s still not enough. That’s why the film resonates after 30 years. Read your Roger Kahn: “You may glory in a team triumphant, but you fall in love with a team in defeat.”

The best of the misfits. “Hey Yankees! You can take your apology, and your trophy, and shove it straight up your ass!”

Hitting a home run with Susan Sarandon
Which brings us to the final game of the season. How do you end it with a bang as big as Bobby Thomson’s and still be believable? “The Natural” got away with it by making their home run bigger than any home run could ever be. They made it mythic.

Other films play smallball. Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger) wins the big game in “Major League” by majestically calling his shot, a la Babe Ruth, and then bunting in the winning run. Jack Elliot wins the big game in “Mr. Baseball” by selflessly giving up the chance to set a Japanese home run record ... and bunting in the winning run. In “Mr. 3000,” Stan Ross selflessly gives up his chance for his 3,000th hit by — you guessed it — bunting in the winning run. You could call it a theme.

I’ll still go with how my favorite baseball movie, “Bull Durham,” handles the big game. The Durham Bulls start out, typically, as misfit losers, but thanks to the wisdom of Crash Davis (Kevin Costner), the arm of Nuke LaLoosh (Tim Robbins), and that magical quality where everyone suddenly starts playing well together, they begin to win. And they seem headed for the big game ... when Nuke is called up and Crash is cut loose and he and Annie (Susan Sarandon) spend a glorious sex-filled weekend together before he heads out to find another team where he can quietly set the record for minor league home runs. Afterwards he and Annie talk about their future and, amid quotes from Walt Whitman and Casey Stengel, the summer, the season and the movie ends.

The big game? There is no big game. And for most teams ending their season this week, not to mention most of us, that’s the most believable ending of all.

It ain't the big game, but it'll do.

--Erik Lundegaard sees great things in baseball. It’s our game, the American game. It will repair our losses and be a blessing to us. You can look him up at http://www.eriklundegaard.com/index.php

My friend Tim invited me to the Mariners game Saturday at 4:00, Fan Appreciation Night, or Day, or Fan Appreciation Overcast Late Afternoon, and I went more for Tim than the M's. I'm higher on the team than I've been in years, since they're doing what I urged them to do in 2004--get young--but it's a long season, and manager Eric Wedge is still trotting out the likes of Adam Kennedy (.234/.276/.354), who is 35 and has no upside, rather than some September call-up who does. But it's still fun to sit at the park, see the action, talk baseball.

I was hoping for sun but that was the previous weekend. The walk down provided its own form of gloom, too. Elliott Bay Books relocated more than a year ago, closer to where I live, but its former locatioin is still unoccupied:

The former Elliott Bay Books: a half-hour before gametime.

I found Occidental Avenue, the road to Safeco, also surprisingly unoccupied, even though it was 25 minutes before gametime.

Occidental Avenue: Many of the few fans there were Sounders fans, too, whose game started two hours after the M's game.

Even the left field gate on Royal Brougham, usually bustling, is far from it 15 minutes before gametime.

Russ Davis glove on the right; the faithful few on the left.

The game was an oddity: high-scoring, lots of pitching changes, yet surprisingly fast. Clutch hitting put the M's up 4-1 in the 2nd, but in the top of the 3rd M's starter Anthony Vasquez gave up three homers on four pitches, all blistered, and punctuated by former Mariner Adrian Beltre who practically dented the upper-deck facade in left field with his blast. The ball was just rocketing off Rangers' bats and squibbling off ours, which may explain why, down just one run in the 5th, 7-6, the game felt lost. Which it ultimately was.

Tim and I didn't win, either. Fan Appreciation Night is also giveaway night—autographed jerseys and balls, suites and seats, flat-screen TVs and planetrips, and “much much more” as they say—and Tim and I got bupkis, as per normal. The year before, sitting in the seat I now occupied, Tim's friend Bill won a suite for a game, which we all attended last April, so Tim figured our seats were shot for another few years, if in fact the giveaway is that logical. But a woman three rows in front of us won a luxury cruise for two, which was pretty cool, and Tim and I had fun riffing on some of the giveaways. Working with the Mariners groundscrew? Sounds more like unpaid labor. What next? “A chance to scrub Mariner urinals!” We imagined the winner of that imaginary giveaway being approached by the winner of a real giveaway, an autographed Chone Figgins baseball: “Wanna trade?”

7-6 was the final, putting me at 6-5 on the year. Hoping for better next year. Until then, God bless, Mr. B, wherever you are.

Long-suffering Mariners fan, Mr. B, center, takes tickets at the left field gate.

Yesterday I gave the New York Times' David Waldstein a hard time for his column complaining about the lack of attention paid to Mariano Rivera, who was closing in on the all-time saves record: 601 by Trevor Hoffman. Rivera was at 598 at the time the article was written. (Specifically, I gave Waldstein a hard time for his “even Jim Thome” comment.)

Was Waldstein at Safeco Field for Mo's 600th tonight? I assume so. He wrote up the game for the Times. I was there, too, one of 18,306 announced, but probably half that from the empty seats, and my friend Jim and I began talking up the possibility around the 6th inning, when the Yankees went up by a run. Initially, we weren't sure if Rivera would be going for 600 or the tie (601), but a quick iPhone search gave us the answer. And even though it was the Yankees, who deserve 100 years of hand-wringing and despair, come-from-behind losses, last-place finishes and rending of pinstripes, it would still be baseball history.

But we were the only ones talking it up.

No one seemed aware that baseball history was being made: not the fans around us, including many Yankee fans in their idiotic Yankee paraphernalia, who said nothing (some even left early); not Ichiro, who was thrown out attempting to steal second to end the game (taking the bat out of the hands of the M's best hitter, Dustin Ackley); and apparently not the Mariners organization, since no acknowledgement was forthcoming. After Ichiro went down at second, the scoreboard lit up with THANKS FOR ATTENDING. The PA announcer gave us the details of the game thus:  “Save, Mariano Rivera, his 41st.” The ushers smiled their thanks as we walked up the steps and onto the concourse and out onto Royal Brougham.

600? What 600?

And it's not like the M's never talk up the opposition. Every game, the second time through the opposition lineup, we get inconsequential tidbits on the scoreboard such as “Derek Jeter is hitting .329 over his last 12 games.”

But 600? What 600?

The Yankees most certainly suck. But so does the Mariners organization.

More on Mo here.

No. 600. Apologies for the quality. I was surprised by Ichiro's attempted steal.

Apparently Mariano Rivera, the great closer for the New York Yankees, is nearing the career mark in saves, and the sports press isn't jumping up and down. The New York Times, in the person of David Waldstein, scratches its head:

... there is little national focus on his accomplishment. The baseball world seems to be taking the event for granted.

He makes a few guesses. Is it because Mo has already been crowned the king of closers? (Eh.) Is it because saves is a relatively new stat, added in 1969, and people don't care about it so much? (Bingo.)

Then he puts his foot in it:

[Being first in saves] does not carry the cachet of home runs or hits, so the attention surrounding Rivera’s quest to become the saves leader is mild compared with Derek Jeter’s drive to become the 28th player with 3,000 hits, or even Jim Thome’s quest to become the eighth player with 600 home runs.

“Even” Jim Thome.

It's one thing to receive less attention than Derek Jeter, a fellow Yankee, and the 28th man in baseball history to do a thing (get 3,000 hits); but for a career Yankee to receive less attention than even Jim Thome, who was the 8th man in baseball history to do a thing (hit 600 homeruns), but who was never a Yankee, well, that's just not cricket. Or baseball. Or Yankees baseball.

Of course Waldstein never questions why the 28th man to do a thing would receive more attention than the 8th man to do a thing, because that would require thinking outside the box. Or the Bronx.

Mathematically, it reads like this: 1/28 > 1/8 <==> YANKEES SUCK.

Rivera's saves are receiving less attention than “even” Jim Thome's 600 homeruns.

It’s a long walk back to First Hill from Safeco Field—two miles according to Google maps, uphill mostly, a little more than half an hour usually—but last night, after the Mariners 3-0 loss to the Chicago White Sox, it seemed longer than usual.

It’s not just that our starting pitcher, rookie Michael Pineda, struck out eight in 6 innings and gave up only three hits, all singles, but left the game down 2-0. It’s not just that the only three hits for the M’s included an infield single by Ichiro that should’ve been scored E5 and an excuse-me double by Miguel Olivo, nor that our last two innings contained no loft of hope (strikeout, strikeout, groundout/ groundout, groundout, strikeout), nor that rookie sensation Dustin Ackley looked less than sensational while the starting lineup included only three guys from our opening day lineup (Ichiro, Olivo, Ryan) way back on April 1st, April Fools Day, when we beat the A’s 6-2. In fact, I like that last fact. I like the team going young. I’ve been urging it on M’s management since 2004.

No, what’s depressing is that disconnect between the sketchy world outside Safeco and the false cheer within Safeco. You walk down James Street and through Occidental Park, with its homage to fallen firefighters, and are eyed by the men on the sidelines, the homeless, as if you might be their last meal, then past King Street onto Occidental Avenue, where you’re accosted by the scalpers, hoping to sell, hoping to buy, and you wonder why the two groups, buyers and sellers, don’t get together; but then you assume they do: that the men wishing to buy are with the guys pushing to sell, and you wonder what the profit margin for such an enterprise could possibly be. Who, these days, would buy an M’s ticket for more than face value? And you look around at the vendors urging fatty foods on fatty people and hawking jersey T-shirts with ... whose name? Who’s left? Ichiro, sure, and Ackley, yes, and is it too early to get a Mike Carp or a Trayvon Robinson? Is it too late to get a Justin Smoak? How reduced is that Chone Figgins M’s jersey? In what landfill did the Bradley and Bedard and Fister jerseys wind up? And you look at the sign advertising upcoming concerts at WaMu Theater at CenturyLink Field, which used to be Qwest Field, which used to be Seahawks Stadium, which was paid for with mostly public money, $360 million, but is now named after a private company you didn’t know existed until this year. But at least this crappily named theater is offering the equivalent, crappy concerts, haggard noisemakers (Iron Maiden) and a teenage provocateur so talentless it makes you fear for the younger generation (Ke$ha).

Inside it should be better, it should be clean, but they push false, family-friendly cheer on you until you want to puke. Here are the ballgirls. Here’s Timmy with the rosin bag. Here’s Susie announcing “Play ball!” Here is all the between-innings crap, the bloopers and hydro races and “Find the ball under the M’s cap” shite that keeps your mind off the lousy team and the lousy area and keeps you “entertained,” and thus passive; and since you are so passive, here are your scoreboard cues for the game itself, admonitions to “Put your hands together” and “Make noise” and “LOUDER,” and it works, you passive Pavlovian idiots, you actually make noise when you’re told.

But then you’re at the game, most of you, not for the game but for the freebie before the game, the bobblehead doll made in the image of a fictional creation, Larry Bernandez, a lame gag from a TV commercial in which it’s implied that Cy Young winner Felix Hernandez loves to pitch so much that on off days he puts on a wig and glasses and muttonchops and pretends to be “Larry Bernandez.” This is what Mariners fans, who once had Ken Griffey, Jr., Alex Rodriguez, Randy Johnson, Edgar Martinez, Jamie Moyer and Jay Buhner on the same team, this is what they hold onto this year: Larry Bernandez. Of course it's not that Felix Hernandez loves to pitch; it’s that M’s PR people have so little to pitch. So they pitch him. He’s not a pitcher, he’s the pitchee. A curve ball that misses the plate by a mile. M’s fans swing anyway.

You sit with a couple of these dullards, people who make more noise for the hydro races—screaming “Green!”—than they do for the team, and who crow about getting a Larry Bernandez bobblehead from Larry Bernandez himself. He looks normal at first, this fan, maybe someone you can actually talk baseball with; but that’s before he begins babbling about bobbleheads and you notice the shopping bag full of them, and you know, no, not this guy. Meanwhile, four rows behind you, four boys, late teens or early twenties, hold up their homemade signs, one of which reads, “Who’s goin’ to DREAMGIRLS after the game?,” and that may have been the most depressing sign of all. Dreamgirls is a gentleman’s club that recently opened a half a block from Edgar Martinez Drive, where men-without-women go to watch women-they-can’t-have undulate. And you wonder what’s more depressing: that these boys are proud that they are without women; or that they agree to shill for Dreamgirls for nothing. Unless they’re plants. Which would be sadder still. A fake leer insinuating itself within the fake smile of the stadium. Even our libidoes are false.

So you hope for something clean to wash away all of this—a clean single, a clean double, a clean homer—but the M’s can’t even manage a dirty run. It’s a pitcher’s night, like most nights at Safeco, where even the White Sox three runs are dirty, full of infield and bloop singles, and homeruns that barely escape the park, but you stay to the end, the dirty end, hoping for something clean that never comes. And as you and your girl leave by the left-field gate you notice the signs, the latest PR campaign, the “Celebrate the Tradition” banners all along the entryways. They're filled with shots from the 1995 and 2001 seasons, winning seasons, but you know the true Mariners tradition—how it took 15 years before they even had a winning season; how the M’s are one of two teams who have never even been to a World Series; and how for the last two years they’ve been last in every major offensive category in the Major Leagues—and you find your friend Mike, who works the left-field gate, and who’s been a hapless M’s fan since ’77, and you point back at the “Celebrate the Tradition” banners and say, “I believe we just did,” before escaping into the night.

Celebrate the Tradition.

This essay was originally published in The Grand Salami in September 2004 on the occasion of Edgar Martinez's retirement from baseball.

If Edgar Martinez worked a 9-to-5 job he’d be the guy who arrived early, performed, excelled, was slapped on the back by the boss, and when the time came for that big raise or promotion … someone else would get it. At meetings he’d be silent while loud-mouths took over. He wouldn’t complain even as lesser-talents were elevated past him. He’d just keep doing the work, quietly and efficiently, and eventually he’d retire with an afternoon party, a slice of cake, and maybe a parting watch for his decades-long efforts. The quintessential company man: underutilized and underappreciated.

In baseball, thank goodness, we can quantify talent. We just look at the stats. Yet even in baseball—one of the purest meritocracies around—it took the Seattle Mariners years to figure out what kind of talent was toiling away in their mail room.

Reputations are made quickly and are hard to shake, and Edgar made his in 1983 in Bellingham when he hit a paltry .173, and again in 1985 and ’86, at Double-A Chattanooga, when he led Southern League third-basemen in putouts, assists, and fielding percentage. As a result, even after he hit .329 with Triple-A Calgary in 1987, director of player development Bill Haywood said the following about him when he was called up in September: “His glove is his strength. Hitting over .300 is a pleasant surprise.”

Translation: We have no clue what we have here.

Other people’s reputations are even harder to shake. In 1985, Jim Presley, a 23 year-old third baseman, set a Mariner record with 28 homeruns, and fans licked their chops imagining what this kid might do when he reached his prime. Except, it turned out, that was his prime. Three years later, when good-glove, no-hit Edgar was leading the PCL with a .363 batting average, Presley slumped to .230 and 14 homers. But he still had his rep, and Edgar had his, so even in 1989 Presley played twice as many games as Edgar; and even when Presley was finally traded before the 1990 season, Edgar still wasn’t part of the Mariners’ plans.

“I think Darnell Coles is going to surprise a lot of people,'' manager Jim Lefebvre told The Seattle Times in February 1990 about his new starting third baseman. “He knows there is no one in the wings, just Edgar Martinez to back him up. I think it is time for him to realize that he belongs at third, because to play that position you have to be an athlete. And Darnell Coles is an athlete.”

Translation: Edgar Martinez is not an athlete. He’s just a back-up. He’s no one in the wings.

Yet the numbers were there. Mariner management just had to look at them with a clear mind. Stats guru Bill James did, and in 1990 wrote, “What a sad story this one is. This guy is a good hitter, quite capable of hitting .300 in a park like Seattle, with more walks than strikeouts. Martinez has wasted about three years when he could have been helping the team.”

A month into the season Coles lost the job, and Edgar was finally allowed to help the team that never helped him.

In 1991 Jim Presley retired from baseball with the following batting average and on-base and slugging percentages: 247/.290/.420. Darnell Coles managed to hold on until 1997 with these lifetime numbers: .245/.307/.382. When Edgar Martinez retires on October 3, 2004, he’ll be only the 15th man in baseball history to retire with a batting average over .300, an on-base percentage over .400, and a slugging percentage over .500. Who didn’t make this list? How about Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Joe DiMaggio (they didn’t walk enough); Wade Boggs and Jackie Robinson (they didn’t have enough power); and Mickey Mantle (he didn’t hit .300).

More importantly, all but one of the .300/.400/.500 guys are in the Hall of Fame, and it would’ve been a clean sweep except Charles Comiskey was a cheap bastard and Shoeless Joe Jackson went looking for money in all the wrong places. So does this means Edgar will go into the Hall of Fame? Probably not. His percentages are out of sight but his raw numbers aren’t high enough to justify making him the first DH to be enshrined. If only he’d been able to play a few more good seasons. If only he’d been brought up earlier. If only Bill James had been running the team.

The man has reason to complain but that’s just not our Edgar. In a world of look-at-me swagger, Edgar is egoless and uncomplaining. His calm is almost comical. He’s been his own straight man for years in a series of very funny Mariners commercials. “Yes, we have a coupon.” “What's that all about?” “That’s a problem.” The ad campaign told us “You gotta love these guys,” but none was more lovable than Edgar. “I think he's a guy,” Mariner broadcaster Dave Niehaus once said, “that every grandmother likes to have around to cuddle. Just to say ‘He's my grandson.’ He's that type of guy.”

It’s more than grandmothers. When I was going to all those amazing games in September and October 1995, my girlfriend, who wasn’t a fan, began to watch them on television, and Edgar quickly became her favorite player. “He has all this pressure on him,” she said, “yet he stays so calm.”

Grace under pressure. Men want it and women dig it and Edgar has it. And of course, famously, he came through, with that double down the left field line, the most famous swing in Seattle history. But it wouldn’t have even been possible if the game before Edgar hadn’t driven in seven runs to force the deciding fifth game. I know a Yankees fan who recently admitted the following: “When Edgar came up in Game 4, bases loaded, none out, I knew from my Yankee perspective the game was lost. There was an absolute-zero possibility that Edgar would not come through. He was too hot, too good. Thus when he hit the grand slam I thought the hysteria was completely irrelevant, because the Mariners had already won the instant he stepped into the batter's box.”

It was Ken Griffey Jr. who wound up on the cover of Sports Illustrated with the nom de guerre “Yankee Killer.” I’m sure SI had their marketing reports about who appealed to the proper demographic and who didn’t. News wasn’t news anymore but marketing. Junior appealed. Edgar who? Other Mariners eventually graced the cover of SI: Randy, Bone, A-Rod, Ichiro. Edgar who? He was A.L. Player of the Month five times but that didn’t matter. He won two batting titles but that didn’t matter. He kept ringing up .300/.400/500 seasons but that didn’t matter. He’d been overlooked before—by us—and now the national media was overlooking him, even as we were finally celebrating him. In April 1991 Mary Harder began bringing a sign to the games: “Edgar esta caliente!” Others caught on. The Diamond Vision screen caught on. Senor Doble. Senor Octubre. Gar. Papi. Eddddgrrrrrrrr… Edddddgrrrrrrr….

One by one, other players left us. They felt they weren’t appreciated. We didn’t pay them enough money or attention or love. Mostly money. Edgar stayed. Edgar doesn’t leave. In a business where players upgrade agents the way CEOs upgrade wives, Edgar has had the same agent since Double-A ball. He was raised by his grandparents in the Maguayo neighborhood in the town of Dorado, Puerto Rico. They were poor, and his grandfather ran a transport business, and when Edgar was 11 his parents reconciled and he had to choose between moving back to New York or staying in Puerto Rico. “I felt my grandparents needed me,” Edgar told Larry Stone in 2001. “I remember all the work they needed to do.”

The Mariners had work to do, too, and they nearly did it in 2001, when they won 116 games but got clobbered in the ALCS by the Yankees, whose management loves winning more than ours. So no World Series ring, or even a World Series, for Edgar, who got into baseball watching his hero, Roberto Clemente, triumph in the 1971 World Series. Edgar could’ve jumped ship. He could’ve gone over to the Yankees, like so many great players before him: Wade Boggs, Chuck Knoblauch, Roger Clemens, Mike Mussina, Jason Giambi, Alex Rodriguez. Quick! I need a World Series ring! But Edgar doesn’t leave. Not for something as frivolous as jewelry. There was work to do.

Mariner records fell before his steady, blistering bat. In 1996 he passed Alvin Davis for most career doubles, and in 1997 most career walks. He passed Junior for most games played in 2000, most at-bats and hits in 2001, most runs and extra-base hits in 2002, and most RBIs and total bases in 2003. The Mariner record book is his now. This season he sliced his 500th double and clobbered his 300th homerun. In his first at-bat after announcing his retirement he went deep into the left field stands. The place went crazy. Such pandemonium this calm man causes.

It was from his grandparents that Edgar learned his famous work ethic. Former Mariner Dave Henderson:

He starts with the simple hitting off a tee: one-handed left-handed, one-handed right-handed, then flips [hands], then two hands. Then he goes into batting practice. And this is in January…When he gets into the batter's box, he's all done with his work. He's just applying it.

Former Mariner Stan Javier:

I've never seen anybody—maybe Don Mattingly—work as hard as Edgar Martinez. I'm talking about eyes, hands, feet. He spends hours and hours in the batting cage. He probably does more stuff for his eyes than for his swing.

The players know. The way other writers know who the good writers are, other players know who the good hitters are. In the end this may be his best chance for Cooperstown. Because if the Baseball Writers Association of America won’t vote him in, maybe the Veterans Committee will. Eventually. Good things come to those who wait, and Edgar is good at waiting. Just ask Jim Presley. Just ask Jim Lefebvre. Just ask any pitcher who tries to get him to nibble at something outside the strike zone.

As he limps into retirement, slower than any professional athlete has a right to move, the recipient, surely, of no infield hits since 1992, attention must be paid. So let’s turn September into one joyous retirement party. You see no. 11 striding to the plate? Get off your seat. Put your hands together. Point him out to the kids. Chant his name. Enjoy these last lingering moments. Because for a man who was no one in the wings, Edgar Martinez turned out to be the most special someone who ever put on a Mariners uniform.

Larry Bowa: And the thing is, he did it the right way--without steroids.
Mitch Williams: He did it with hay. Oats and hay.

--MLB Network announcers, and former Major Leaguers, reacting to the news of Jim Thome's 600th career homerun.

My reaction? Thome is the 8th player in baseball history to do this. Derek Jeter was the 28th player in baseball history to reach 3,000 hits. Which got more press?

The last time I was at Safeco Field, June 25th, the M's lost to the Florida Marlins but were flirting with (standing next to, pretending to know, engaging in conversation with but totally being dissed by) .500. They were only a few games out of first place, and, among fans, there were crinkled noses and thoughts of “Really? This team? No. Yet there they are...” We assumed they wouldn't stay there but hope began beating its tiny wings anyway. That 17-game losing streak earlier this month stilled those wings. In a way it was a relief. We knew, no matter what the standings said, that a team with the worst offense in baseball could only go so far.

Yesterday afternoon, a beautiful Pacific Northwest afternoon, I returned to Safeco and watched the M's win for only the second time in 20 games, 3-2 over Tampa Bay, behind two rookies: Michael Pineda, who pitched no-hit ball into the sixth, and Dustin Ackley, who hit a 2-run homerun in the 1st inning, a line shot over the 405 sign in right-center, then a 2-out, ringing double in the sixth (almost to the same spot), which led to the M's third and final (and winning) run when Mike Carp lined a single to right to plate him.

I'm now 5-2 on the season.

Pineda, with the usual snap to his fastball, wasn't quite as sharp as the numbers indicated. He threw 46 balls with his 64 strikes, and walked four while striking out 10. His strikeouts, inning by inning, indicate he probably tired: 7 Ks through 3 innings, then 3 Ks for the final 3 1/3. He only gave up one hit, a single, but left with two on, both walks, in the 7th. The bullpen, though, Jeff Gray and Brandon League, didn't give up a hit, either. So a combined one-hitter! Not bad. Gray added two strikeouts, too. Meanwhle, the Rays starter, Alex Cobb, another rookie, struck out 9. So close. How often do both starting pitchers, both rookies, wind up with double-digit strikeouts? Can't be common. I was almost bummed when they took Cobb out in the 7th.

I sat with my friend Jeff R., between old folks to our left and young folks to our right, talking old UBS shit and housing prices. The guy to my immediate right, who had the slouching posture of a teenager on a bus, kept dissing Jack Wilson. The M's crowd, near 25,000, kept dissing Chone Figgins ... even though no one else (besides Ackley and maybe Carp) are hitting. The future star of spring, Justin Smoak, is now 12-for-July, a .146 average, dropping his season totals to .218/.313/.385. Again: Is he injured? Should he be rested? Most of the rest of the team has OPSs hovering in the mid-.600s: Brendan Ryan: .650; Ichiro: .633; Miguel Olivo: .631. Those are our better guys, too. Jack Wilson? .509. Chone Figgins? .479. Franklin Gutierrez? .457. Eech.

Despite the game's good news—Pineda, Ackley, Carp—the best news might have been this: The M's are no longer stuck with the 30-30-30-30 label! They are still last in the Majors in runs scored, on-base percentage, and batting average; but are, for the moment, and by a hair's breadth, 29th in slugging percentage. Thank you, San Diego!

I wrote about the Mariners fall from grace a week ago (“The 30-30-30-30-Club”), when they'd lost nine in a row. Now it's 17. A loss to Oakland on July 6th. A four-game sweep by the Angels. All-Star break. A four-game sweep by the Rangers. A three-game sweep by Toronto. A three-game sweep by Boston. Now the first two games to the Yankees. They've been outscored 101 to 47 during the run. In eight of the games they've been shut out or managed only one run.

Joe Posnanski posts about their sad streak here.

Tonight was the worst. C.C. Sabathia had a perfect game going into the 7th. Then Brendan Ryan singled with one out. At .264, he's nearly our best hitter. Dustin Ackley, a June call-up, and our best hitter, struck out. Miguel Olivo, our home run leader (he's got 13), struck out. It was Sabathia's 14th strikeout of the game.

In the 8th, Sabathia loaded the bases on walks with nobody out and was promptly relieved. A chance! Followed by strikeout, groundout (for a run), strikeout. And the groundout should've been a double play.

For some reason, maybe to give him work, the Yankees brought in Mariano Rivera in the 9th. Seemed overkill: strikeout, line out, strikeout. Final line for Yankees pitchers: 9 innings, 18 strikeouts, one hit. That was no. 17 for the Mariners. As if in a cartoon, it rained on them, too.

The Mariners' season came undone while I was visiting family in Minneapolis in early July. They were getting by, as my friend Jim said, with Smoak and mirrors, and on July 5, despite getting swept by the Nationals and Braves in late June, they were 43-43, .500 exactly, and only a few games out of first place in the weak American League West.

On July 5 they beat Oakland 4-2 in 10 innings. The next day they lost to the A's, 2-0, but still won the series, 2-1.

They haven't won since.

The Angels swept them in four games in Anaheim. The Rangers swept them four games here. That's a nine-game losing streak. Now they're more than 10 games back. Season over.

It's not just that they lost, it's how they lost. In the four games here, the M's gave up 17 runs and scored two: one on Saturday night, one on Sunday afternoon. In 36 innings, they not only never had the lead, but, since Texas scored in the first inning in three of the four games, the M's actually trailed for 34 of those 36 innings. Even though every game starts out 0-0, they can't even hold onto the tie.

Last season, the M's set a record for fewest runs scored by a Major League team in a non-strike-shortened season since the advent of the DH rule. They were last in almost every offensive category. Runs: 30th. Batting Average: 30th. OBP: 30th. Slugging: 30th. So it is again. They're the sole members of the 30-30-30-30 club. They don't seem interested in sharing that dishonor.

So how could it get any worse? This way: We're down to just mirrors. Justin Smoak, who currently leads the team in HRs (12) RBIs (43) and OBP (.324), is in a downward spiral. Here are his numbers, month-to-month:

Ouch. Remember that Springsteen song, “I'm going down”? I'm going down down down down, I'm going down down down down ... That's what we've got here.

Is he injured? Are fans talking about it? Are there fans?

M's management is doing the right thing. I have to say that. They're going young now. They're building from within. But the team is suffering from the bad moves and worse picks from earlier in the 2000s. The question is how long they—and we—will be suffering.

Taylor Halperin of Pro Ball NW gave the mid-season report for the Seattle Mariners on ESPN.com. Since he seems to do this full time, and since I'm mostly a movie guy, not a baseball guy, I should pause, long and hard, before criticizing any or all of his synopsis. Unfortunately it's the Internet so here we go. His column with my annotations...

Seattle Mariners (43-48, -18)

What needs to be fixed or accomplished in the second half?

The M's aren't really gunning for a playoff berth this year, but a poor showing by Texas has allowed for a tight AL West race. If this team wants to contend, the front office needs to do something about manager Eric Wedge's affinity for the hapless Carlos Peguero, who has arguably the worst plate discipline in the majors.

We have an offense that's last in the majors in every conceivable category and you blame ... big Carlos Peguero? That's like pinning Watergate on little Don Segretti. Yes, Peguero is hitting .199 with the ninth-most at-bats on the team, but two guys with more at-bats (Franklin Gutierrez and Chone Figgins) actually have worse batting averages. More importantly, Peguero is tied for the third-most homeruns on the team. As for “...who has arguably the worst plate discipline in the majors,” you should really stop using “arguably.”

Top item on shopping list?

GM Jack Zduriencik would love to nab a left fielder with some pop, and he might be willing to deal Michael Saunders in a package for a veteran such as Ryan Ludwick or Luke Scott. Hunter Pence would look awfully svelte patrolling Safeco's left field, though he would command a big return.

GM Jack Zduriencik would love to nab Ryan Braun, too, but it ain't gonna happen. And might be willing to deal Michael Saunders? In 45 games, at the age of 24, dude had an OPS of .471, then got sent down. Who's gonna want him? Better question: Do we really want a Luke Scott? 33 years old with a .305 OBP? Your advice seems to indicate a chance in hell, but since we're in the 30-30-30-30 club, I don't think we have that chance.

Player to watch.

Ichiro, who's hitting significantly worse than ever before, needs to heat up if the M's have any hope of contending into September. Time will tell if the uniquely effervescent outfielder will break out of his slump — or if his career is quickly winding down.

“Time will tell”? Didn't Garry Trudeau mock that journalistic phrase 30 years ago? But, yes, Ichiro, with the best batting average among regular players on the team, does need to heat up. On the other hand, if he doesn't, it makes the argument about whether we should re-sign him after 2012 so much easier...

-- Taylor Halperin, Pro Ball NW

Apologies. — Erik.

When I was a kid, I thought the refrain in the baseball and 7th-inning stretch anthem went:

So let's root-toot-toot for the home team
And stay away from the shade

Because that was always my inclination. Why would you want to be way back there in the dark? The sunny seats were better seats. Sunburn? What was that? I tanned naturally.

Yesterday, at Target Field in Minneapolis, I was root-toot-tooting for a little shade. Went with my father, who bought some great seats in the Legends Club--second deck behind homeplate--and when we walked down to the fifth row and looked up, the sun, high in the cloudless sky above us, seemed merciless. I was sweating after two minutes. I looked down at the Twins mascot, TC Bear, cavorting on the field.

“If I'm sweating,” I said to my father, “What's that guy doing? How much weight per game does he lose in sweat?”

“I can't imagine.” 

“What's that costume smell like after a game like this? Five games like this?”

Dad calculated we'd be in the sun half the game, tops. Turned out to be eight innings. He calculated--we all calculated--that the Twins (36-46) would have trouble against the Tampa Bay Rays (46-38), and their ace, David Price, whose ERA was a run better than Twins starter Brian Duensing. Seemed that way after one inning, too. Duensing loaded the bases and only got out of it with a double play. Price took about eight pitches to retire the hapless, overmatched Twins.

Then baseball happened. All the guys my father complained about before the game came through. Tsuyoshi Nishioka hit an opposite-field double with the bases juiced and Michael Cuddyer hit a mammoth, second-deck homerun in the third. (When it left his bat I did my Pauly Walnuts imitiation: “Aoh!”) Later, Cuddyer made a great catch in right, and Danny Valencia added a three-run homer in the eighth. Duensing went the distance. Final: 7-0, Twins.

One game out of 162 but what a nice July 4th. We ate hot dogs, drank beers. I had an ice cream cone (because I was hot) and a Killebrew root beer (because you have to). We talked to the guys in front of us, who wore jerseys, recently purchased at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, with “Who 1” and “Idontknow 3” on the back. We stayed away from the shade.

At least we saved ourselves a half inning.

In other words, yes, it was cool that because of a scheduling conflict with a U2 concert, the Florida Marlins had to abandon their own stadium and play their home series against the Seattle Mariners here, at Safeco Field, under National League rules—meaning the M's wore road grays, batted first, and pitchers hit. All of that was cool to see. But the best part of the game may have been that, for this Mariners loss, we got to leave a half inning early. If you're going to see a home loss, better to see one that lasts a mere 8 1/2 innings instead of the full 9.

My sixth game of the season was an altogether unthrilling affair. In the bottom of the first, the Marlins got their first three batters aboard on solid base hits and plated them all. The Mariners only scored two the entire game. That's pretty much it.

But for the first time in a long time, I did get to see the game with both Tim and Mike, with whom I shared a 20-game package back in '94, '95, '96, etc. It was throwback night for us and we trotted out some new Chris Bermanisms to go along with the old standards: Bobby “I Am Curious” Ayala; and Bob “With Six You Get” Ayrault. Mike came up with: Omar “Au Revior Les” Infante. I came up with: Dustin “Heart attack, ack, ack, ack, ack” Ackley.

OK, so we're rusty.

Final score was 4-2, Marlins, which is also my score this season. Not final.

In the battle of the water-themed teams, the Mariners couldn't catch themselves some Marlins...

* Does not include Game 7s of a Best-of-9 series.

1900s: 1 (1909)

1910s: 1 (1912)

1920s: 3 (1924, 1925, 1926)

1930s: 2 (1931, 1934)

1940s: 4 (1940, 1945, 1946, 1947)

1950s: 5 (1952, 1955 1956, 1957, 1958)

1960s: 6 (1960, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1967, 1968)

1970s: 5 (1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1979)

1980s: 4 (1982, 1985, 1986, 1987)

1990s: 2 (1991, 1997)

2000s: 2 (2001, 2002)

It's almost perfectly balanced, isn't it? Does this mean we'll only get one Game 7 this decade, one the next, and then bye-bye World Series in about 2027?

I've been thinking about this a little more than ususal (I usually wait until October) because I picked up Barry Levenson's book, “The Seventh Game: The 35 World Series That Have Gone the Distance,” at Powell's Bookstore in Portland, earlier this month. Published in 2004, the book is still up-to-date since we haven't had a whiff of a Game 7 since. If you do the math, 35 Game 7s since 1903 give us an average of one every three years. Since 1924, the longest gap we've had between Game 7s has been six years (both 1934-40 and 1991-97). Except for now. We're now on 8 years and counting.

Where have you gone, Bob Gibson?

I didn't know I was growing up in a Golden Age ...

There goes my perfect record.

The Mariners, 4-0 in my previous appearances at Safeco Field—against, chronlogically, the Blue Jays, Rangers, Twins and Yankees—lost last night to the Los Angeles Angels, 6-3. It was less the Angels winning than the odds winning. I didn't think I'd see four wins all year, let alone to start the season.

It was also less the Angels winning than the Mariners losing. M's were up 2-1 in the 3rd, with two outs, when Vernon Wells stepped to the plate against Jason Vargas. “Scoiscia's got Wells batting clean-up?” I said to my friend, Jeff. “Dude's batting .180-something.” A second later Wells hit it out to tie the game. M's go up 3-2 but in the 7th, the Angels get a leadoff double and a ground out to move the runner, and Torii Hunter, who's batting second despite having the lowest batting average on the team (what's Scioscia doing? I wondered), grounds to Chone Figgins at third. The throw to the plate arrives in plenty of time to preserve our lead. Except--no!--there goes the white ball, squiggling loose between catcher Miguel Olivo's legs. Tie game. An out later, which, if Olivo had held on, should've ended the inning, Vernon Wells again steps to the plate. “I still say he shouldn't be hitting clean-up,” I tell Jeff. A second later, homerun no. 2. Angels add another run in the 9th on a two-out balk, two-out single off of Chris Ray and that's your ballgame.

On the other hand, when was the last time I saw anyone hit two homeruns in one game at Safeco? Years.

The attendance was recorded as 20,238, but it was half that, if that. The area around Safeco feels increasingly abandoned, sketchy, and desperate, as more people fight over less people.

Eventually I'll get around to how many of MLB's “20 Greatest Games of the Last 50 Years” I feel deserve the honor. In the meantime I'm curious just how many of the games made me happy at the time. Did my team win? Did it lose? Did I not care? What's my record in these 20 games?

20. May 17, 1979: Philies 23, Cubs 22 (10 innings). Didn't care. Didn't watch. Didn't even register, to be honest. (0-0-1)

19. 2003 NLDS, Game 4: Marlins 7, Giants 6. Rooting for the Giants just because they're one of the original teams, hadn't won a World Series since '54, and the Marlins were upstarts who already had one Series title, in '97, and no personality. Watched it on TV. (0-1-1)

18. 1980 NLCS, Game 5: Phillies 8, Astros 7 (10 innings). Was probably rooting for the Astros as an anti-Pete Rose kind of thing. I hated Pete Rose even before the gambling allegations became known. (See: Ray Fosse, Bud Harrelson, Moe haircut, etc.) Don't think I caught the game, though. I was an A.L. guy. (0-2-1)

17. 2004 ALCS, Game 4: Red Sox 6, Yankees 4 (12 innings). Oh god yes, totally for the Sox. I admit I thought it was pointless. Sox were down three games to none. Even if they won this one, no one had ever, ever, come back from three-zip to win a 7-game series. And against a team that had hurt them so badly for so many years? And yet... And yet... If they ever do a greatest series countdown, this one will be higher up. And, yes, watched it. (1-2-1)

16. Game 163 of the 2009 season: Twins 6, Tigers 5 (12 innings). Born and bred in Minnesota, baby. Watched it all. That was a good afternoon. (2-2-1)

15. 1995 ALDS, Game 5: Mariners 6, Yankees 5 (11 innings). I was at this one: 300-level behind homeplate. I'd been to all of these M's games throughout September and October. Refuse to Lose. The best part of my best baseball year ever. (3-2-1)

14. 1993 World Series, Game 6: Blue Jays 8, Phillies 6. Rooting for those hapless Phils. Somehow, when Mitch Williams came in, I knew. I guess everyone knew. (3-3-1)

13. 1997 World Series, Game 7: Marlins 3, Indians 2 (11 innings). Indians. They've had nothing since '48, and the Marlins were upstarts. Jose Freakin' Mesa. Painful. (3-4-1)

12. 2001 World Series, Game 4: Yankees 4, Diamondbacks 3 (10 innings). God, no. Screw 9/11, screw Jeter, screw the Yankees. (3-5-1)

11. Game 163 of the 1978 season: Yankees 5, Red Sox 4. God, no. And, yes, I ran home from school to watch the second half of this afternoon ballgame. Oh, Yaz. Where was your '67 magic, Yaz? (3-6-1)

10. 1988 World Series, Game 1: Dodgers 5, A's 4. Yep. Dodgers were big underdogs here. I'd just returned from a year in Taipei, Taiwan, was watching the game sitting on the floor in the living room of my father's house. When Gibson hobbled to the plate, I think I actually said aloud, “What do they think this is? The Natural?” It was. (4-6-1)

9. 2001 World Series, Game 7: Diamondbacks 3, Yankees 2. Mark Grace, Tony Womack and Luis Gonzalez made me happier than maybe any three men ever have. And seriously, this game should've been up higher. (5-6-1)

8. 1986 ALCS, Game 5: Red Sox 7, Angels 6 (11 innings). Mixed loyalties here. I'd never liked the Angels, an organization without flavor, who had spent years trying to buy a championship with the likes of Minnesota's own Rod Carew. But poor Gene Mauch. He deserved a Series. I probably began rooting for the Red Sox, and then, when they began to win, tried to put the brakes on. They didn't come on. (5-6-2)

7. 2003 NLCS, Game 6: Marlins 8, Cubs 3. Cubs. Awful. Who roots for the Marlins? Unless they're playing the Yankees. (5-7-2)

6. 2003 ALCS, Game 7: Yankees 6, Red Sox 5 (11 innings). You have to ask? (5-8-2)

5. 1986 NLCS, Game 6: Mets 7, Astros 6 (16 innings). Hated this Mets team at the time. Doesn't Ray Knight look like Derek Jeter's old brother? That hate has dimmed with time and with the Mets' historic ineptitude ever since. (5-9-2)

4. 1992 NLCS, Game 7: Braves 3, Pirates 2: Wanted the Pirates because they hadn't been in 13 years, the Braves had been the year before, and I hated (and hate) the tomahawk chop. (5-10-2)

3. 1986 World Series, Game 6: Mets 6, Red Sox 5 (10 innings). See no. 5. (5-11-2)

2. 1991 World Series, Game 7: Twins 1, Braves 0 (10 innings): No-brainer. My team, my main team, my mother team. Crack out a homerun/Shout out hip-hooray!/ Cheer for the Minnesota Twins today! (6-11-2)

1. 1975 World Series, Game 6: Red Sox 7, Reds 6 (12 innings). Red Sox. Never liked that Reds team, but appreciate them now, just like, as a Twins fans, I never liked the 1969-71 Orioles but appreciate them more than ever now. BTW: Did you see their show on this game on the MLB Network ? Who knew Johnny Bench talked so much? (7-11-2)

7-11-2. Not bad, considering I perpetually root for the underdog.

Other stats:

• Eight of the 20 games are World Series games, including the top three.
• Four are NLCS games, including no. 4.
• Three are ALCS games, including no. 6. (Which is too high.)
• Two are LDSs, including M's over Yankees at no. 15, the only game on the list I attended.
• Two are one-game playoffs, including no. 11, the Bucky Dent game.
• One is a regular season game. No. 20.
• 13 of the 20 games went into extra innings, including the top three.
• 13 of the 20 games were won by the home team, and all of those were won on the final at-bat.
• Of the seven visitor victories, two were at Wrigley Field, two at the Astrodome. (Bummer, dudes.)
• Six of the 20 games entered the bottom of the final inning (the 9th, or what became the final extra inning) with the home team behind. ('95 Mariners, '93 Blue Jays, '88 Dodgers, '01 Diamondbacks, '92 Braves, '86 Mets)
• Of these six, the final swing in four of the games changed the home team from losers to winners ('95 M's, '93 Jays, '88 Dodgers, '92 Braves)
• Of these four, two of the final swings came with two outs. ('88 Dodgers, '92 Braves)
• Of these two, one ended a series. ('92 Braves)

Final inning? Check. Home team behind? Check. Final swing reverses fortunes of teams? Check. Two outs? Check. Ends series? Check. And mate.

I went to the M's game Friday night at Safeco Field. It was my fourth game of the year. I'd only anticipated going to one game by this time but apparently I have friends, monosyllabic friends with tickets (Bill, Joe and Tim), so I'd seen the M's three times already, all on overcast evenings with temps in the 50s, and seen them go 3-0. But now we were playing the Yankees, the hated Yankees who famously suck; and even though we had the kid on the mound, Big Michael Pineda who'd been tearing up the league, it was still the Yankees, the hated Yankees who famously suck, so I was anticipating a loss. The odds alone, my 3-0 odds, seemed to demand it. 

I was also anticipating Yankees fans. The M's aren't drawing M's fans, who want winning, and the other tickets, I assumed, would go to all those losers who need to flock to winners to feel like winners, no matter how the winners win.

What I didn't anticipate was seeing this on Occidental Avenue, the road leading to Safeco:

No, no, no.

Really?

Did this caravan follow the Yankess around, city to city, to sell to those losers who needed to feel like winners? All the bald, flat-assed Derek Jeter fans of the world?

It was actually local, the nearby sporting good shop, Sodo Sports, also of Occidental, who were rubbing M's faces in it on the way to the game. Apparently they do this all the time when big teams come to town: Red Sox, Blue Jays (Canadians), Dodgers for interleague games. This season they're getting ready with Phillies and Braves memorabilia in June. They figure they'll sell more Phils stuff than Miguel Olivo or Michael Saunders jerseys. They're right.

Still stung. Still pissed me off. It was like seeing my local credit union selling Bernie Madoff T-shirts in the lobby. Shouldn't we be better than this?

Worse, Pineda didn't have it that night. He gave up a solo homer to Mark Teixeira in the first. He kept walking guys. His fastball began to pop but his control for his breaking ball wasn't there. He would've given up another homer in the fourth to Nick Swisher but Franklin Gutierrez went over the wall, bad stomach and all, to rob him. Then in the fifth with two outs: walk, single, wild pitch (passed ball, Miguel) to plate one, single to plate another. Now we were down 3-0. 

I turned to Tim. “So much for that.” He laughed.

A funny thing happened on the way to that loss. The M's, the team with the worst offense in the Majors, came back and won. They scored four runs without an RBI hit.

In the bottom of the fifth, we got a clean single from Brendan Ryan, a weak, left-field chalkline double from Ichiro, a groundout to plate Ryan, another groundout to plate Ichiro.

In bottom six, Kennedy singled, Olivo singled, Peguero walked. Bases loaded for Ryan. Who grounded out to plate Kennedy. Then Ichiro grounded out to plate Olivo.

Four runs on four groundouts. Ha!

And that's how we beat the mighty Yankees. Ha!

4-0. The odds rage. My next game at Safeco is scheduled for June 13th against the Angels, if you're a betting man.

I've been a fan of the MLB Network's 20 Greatest Games series, as you can tell from this post, and this one, and this, and thought it would be cool to see the ultimate standings for the series. Who has the best record in these games? Who's shown up the most? Who hasn't shown up at all?

Here are the league standings for the 20 teams (9 A.L., 11 N.L.) that made the cut:

My Twins on top in the A.L. (Tigers in '09, Braves in '91), while Florida, of all teams, rules the N.L. (Giants in '03, Cubs in '03, Indians in '07). Only three undefeated teams in each league. More losing than winning in baseball.

The bigger question, though, is who's shown up the most. No surprise there:

Boston Red Sox: 6

New York Yankees: 6

Florida Marlin: 3

Philadelphia Phillies: 3

Arizona Diamondbacks: 2

Atlanta Braves: 2

Chicago Cubs: 2

Houston Astros: 2

Minnesota Twins: 2

New York Mets: 2

California Angels: 1

Cincinnati Reds: 1

Cleveland Indians: 1

Detroit Tigers: 1

Los Angeles Dodgers: 1

Oakland Athletics: 1

Pittsburgh Pirates: 1

San Francisco Giants: 1

Seattle Mariners: 1

Toronto Blue Jays: 1

Yanks and BoSox again sucking all the air out of the room. Half their games are with the other, in which the Yankees are 2-1, winning the Dent and Boone games, losing the Dave Roberts game, Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, surely one of the greatest series ever played. 

So who isn't even represented on a list in which the Florida Marlins make it three times? Count 'em:

Baltimore Orioles

Chicago White Sox

Colorado Rockies

Kansas City Royals

Milwaukee Brewers

Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals

St. Louis Cardinals

San Diego Padres

Tampa Bay Rays

Texas Rangers

No Orioles? And no Cardinals? In the last 50 years? So no Gibson or Brock or Brooks or Palmer or Ozzie or Ripken?

And no Royals? I'm thinking of those great ALCSs against the Yankees from '76 to '80. The original list of 50, from which the final 20 were chosen, had two of those games on it, Game 5 in '76 (the Chambliss game) and Game 5 in '77 (Yanks score 3 in top of 9th, win 5-3).

I mean look at this line score:

That's the Chambliss game. Royals up 2-0. Yanks tie it 2-2. Royals up 3-2. Yanks go ahead 4-3. Yanks widen lead 6-3. In top of 8, Royals score 3 to tie it, 6-6. Yanks win it in bottom of 9 with Chambliss homer.

I'm also partial to this game:

Look at that. Royals up, Yanks tie, Royals up, Yanks tie and go ahead, Royals tie and go ahead, Yanks tie and go ahead. But this one didn't even make the 50 nominees. It's Game 3 of the 1978 ALCS. The George Brett three-homer game.

What do you think? What's missing? It's obvious the '60s and most of the '70s got short shrift here. The oldest game on the list is the no. 1 game of the list, Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, the Fisk game, which has grown in stature over the years as the other great games of the period have unfortunately faded.

Some of the teams not included in the 20 greatest games of the last 50 years.

“One thing that stood out about Harmon [Killebrew] was that he always had his hand out to shake your hand when you were a young man. I know, when I came up as a rookie, he had a conversation with me. ...

“He, Richie Allen and Frank Howard hit the high balls that just kept going. It looked like it would be a pop-up. You’d come in for it. Then you’d have to look in the upper deck for it.”

--former Detroit Tigers' slugger Willie Horton on Minnesota Twins slugger Harmon Killebrew, who died of cancer this week.

I thought I was going to write about each of the final four of the 20 Greatest Games of the last 50 years, as per the MLB Network and its fans, but life has gotten in the way. I've been watching, though.

At the end of my last post on the subject, about No. 5 on the list, Game 6 of the 1986 NLCS, I wrote, “Four more to go. Fisk, Buckner, Twins/Braves ... Reggie?” The first three were no-brainers. But what was the fourth? I assumed Reggie because the promos always touted Reggie. But No. 4 on the list turned out to be ... the Sid Bream game, Game 7 of the 1992 NLCS between the Pirates and Braves. Or should this be the Francisco Cabrera game? It should, shouldn't it? But Bream's slow-motion run to the plate stands out. His slide just before the throw from Barry Bonds in left. Touching the plate just before the Pirates catcher tagged him. Bob Costas, co-host of the show with Tom Verducci, says that if they filmed it in Hollywood, it would've taken umpteen takes to get it as exciting as reality made it. He's right. I was happy it was no. 4—particularly over Reggie oblitering the Dodgers with three homeruns. That's a great achievement but it's not a great game. The Braves thing had never happened before, remember. The final game of a championship series had never ended in the bottom of the ninth, with two outs, and the visiting team ahead by a run, and then with one swing of the bat the home team wins. Never before, never since.

The Bream game being no. 4 also meant the top 3 were now known quantities. It was only a matter of their order. And though no 1 hasn't aired yet (they're doing it Sunday), we know what it is:

3. 1986 World Series, Game 6
2. 1991 World Series, Game 7
1. 1975 World Series, Game 6

Buckner, Morris, Fisk.

The MLB Network has also managed to get the three players identified with these three games to show up and talk about them. Expected, perhaps, with Fisk and Morris, both heroes, but getting Buckner must have been something of a coup. It actually made no. 3 tough to watch. I put it off for weeks. It was like making someone revisit the worst moment of their life—then showing them video of it and filming their reaction to it. It was an Albert Brooks moment.

And Buckner's reaction?

Buckner: That really happened, huh?
Mookie: It really happened.

Mookie. That's the best you got? That's the most solace you can give? After 25 years?

We've gotten that throughout the series, though, haven't we? Mitch Williams in no. 14, watching his younger self being interviewed after giving up the Series-ending homer to Joe Carter; Dave Henderson in no. 8, the hero of the game, having to talk about the subsequent suicide of Donnie Moore, the pitcher who gave up his ninth-inning homerun; Andy Van Slyke, in no. 4, talking about the heartache of it all.

But this was different. This was Fred Merkle or Fred Snodgrass; this was a very good Major League player, with more than 2,700 career hits and a batting title, who would forever be known for the quintessential Little League mistake, the ball between the legs, that would help prevent a team that hadn't won the World Series in 70 years from not winning it again. Baseball can be a cruel game. I like one of the lines Costas quotes, I believe, in no. 2: losing hurts more than winning feels good. That's true. Unless it's the Yankees losing.

At least players like Buckner have the solace of having their game on this list. That's something, I suppose.

Returning to the scene of the crime: Bob Costas, Tom Verducci, Bill Bucker, Mookie Wilson and Bob Ojeda on Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.

Bill Buckner today: more brave than me; more gray than you.

There's a lot of great writing out there on Harmon Killebrew, the Twins slugger who died yesterday, at the age of 74, of esophageal cancer. Here are a few favorites:

• The New York Times has a well-written obituary by Richard Goldstein, with a photo that feels like the quintessential Killebrew swing: balanced, extended, all out. They get the story right--born in a farming community in Payette, Idaho, recommended to the Washington Senators by a U.S. Senator, the quantity and quality of the homeruns, the quality of the man--but they also dig up quotes from Fay Vincent's oral history, “We Would Have Played for Nothing.” Then there's this gem:

He made sure that his autographs for young fans were legible.

“I had a doctor’s signature,” the former Twins outfielder Torii Hunter told The Star Tribune in recalling the time Killebrew looked at his autograph several years ago. “I had a ‘T’ and an ‘I’ and a dot-dot. He said, ‘What the hell is this?’ He said, ‘If you play the game this long, make sure people know who you are.’ ”

The bat Harmon used to hit homer #573. (As a Royal, against the Twins.)

• As if on cue, Jim Salisbury tells us why it matters that kids can read your autograph, as he recounts a day outside Fenway Park in 1973 when he met Killebrew. Salisbury got to meet him again in 2007, this time as a professional, and regaled him with the story:

Killebrew could not have been more of a gentleman. He laughed when I told him I thought he was the trainer. He smiled when I thanked him for being so kind to me during that brief 1973 encounter in the underbelly of Fenway Park. “That makes me feel good,” Killebrew said. “I'd hate to think I wasn't nice and respectful to someone.”

A '60s bumper sticker ... now under glass at Target Field.

• Here's that 1963 Sports Illustrated cover story on Killebrew that everyone's been quoting lately—particularly the line about what kind of hobbies he has: “'Just washing the dishes, I guess,' says Harmon, trying to help.” Irony: SI talks up how ignored Killebrew is ... even as their cover story on him doesn't really put him on the cover. The cover is bat and ball. You gotta open the fold-out to see the man himself.
• You can also go to the SI vault and read old articles on the man. I'd always wondered whether, on the heels of Damn Yankees, and with the rise of Killebrew the homerun hitter, if someone made the inevitable Joe Hardy allusion. They did. Then we get this great quote:

“People have been comparing me to Joe Hardy, the hero of the musical Damn Yankees,” Killebrew told the group, referring to the George Abbott-Douglass Wallop hit show of a few years back. “You might be interested to hear what Bob Addie told me the other night after I had struck out against the Yankees to end the game. 'You may look like Joe Hardy to some,' Addie told me, 'but today you were more like Andy Hardy.' ”

• A nice photo gallery from CBS News. But they fail to mention, in photo 11, that those three players—Robinson, Jackson, Killebrew—weren't just 500-homerun guys. They all hit homeruns in that 1971 All-Star Game.
• The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, in their slideshow, gets it right. But who knows what the story is behind the photo of Killebrew and Hank Greenberg. Plus... I mean, The New York Times has been hawking its photos of Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, et al., for years now, and I always thought the Star-Tribune should do the same, from their extensive archive, with photos of Killebrew, Oliva, Carew, Tovar, etc. So far nothing. What—don't you guys need the money?
• Also from the Strib: the fans who gathered at Target Field yesterday. I'm with Kevin Lindquist: “I've never been so sad about [the death of] someone I didn't know.”
• I'd never heard this song, “Harmon Killebrew,” by Jeff Arundel, until today. Jeff: I, too, wrote a letter to Harmon Killebrew about the time you did. That's how I got that autographed photo. That's what came back. BTW: Where did you get the Bob Casey recording? So cool.
• Stats & Info, on ESPN.com, give us of some of Killebrew's stats. They remind us that no one hit more homeruns in the deadball 1960s. Not Aaron, not Mays, not anyone.
• Rob Neyer, over at Baseball Nation, reminds us of the length of those homeruns. It makes me think again that if Killebrew played in a bigger market, a New York or Boston, oh, the stories we'd all know. Oh, the stories we woud've heard on Ken Burns' Baseball (instead of nada):

In 1962, Killebrew became the first player to hit a ball over the left-field roof at Tiger Stadium; only three others would accomplish the feat before Tiger Stadium closed 37 years later.

In 1964, Killebrew hit the longest-ever measured home run at Baltimore's Memorial Stadium.

In 1967, Killebrew hit the longest-ever measured home run at Minnesota's Metropolitan Stadium (today the landing spot, 520 feet from home plate, is commemorated by a stadium seat inside the Mall of America).

I had a Twins/Killebrew pennant just like this one in my room when I was a kid. This one is under glass at Target Field.

• ESPN's tribute. Some nice quotes, including this one from Killer: “I found out early in life that I could hit a baseball farther than most players and that's what I tried to do.”
• One of my favorites, of course, which I linked to last week, is Josh Wilker's 2007 post about his 1975 Harmon Killebrew card:

I was just learning the basic language of baseball statistics in 1975, and so took in Harmon Killebrew’s long litany of 40-homer, 100-plus RBI years with the pure and enthusiastic fascination of the true beginner. I have an attraction to anonymous players, to failure and ignominy, to the fallen and the wilkerized, but I am as drawn to the players whose feats stand in bold opposition to the general entropy of the universe as any other baseball fan. I am sure that I found this card soothing. There is greatness in the world. There are things that won’t be forgotten.

• Jim Caple, always a pleasure to read, gives us another nice remembrance.
• Once again, with everyone writing about the same baseball subject, Joe Posnanski again manages to write about the best piece out there. He gets to the heart of the baseball story: those first five fruitless years with the Senators as a bonus baby; how most were resigned to the idea that he would go nowhere; and how, during a 17-game stretch in May 1959, he changed their minds. Posnanski brings up the fact, ignored at the time, that for a six-year stretch, from 1966 to 1971, despite his low batting average, Killebrew led the American League in On-Base Percentage with a .401 mark. Posnanski ends with the great battles between Killebrew and ... George Brunet? Yep! Oh, and there's this choice take on the Idaho Senator who discovered him:

Harmon Killebrew had been recommended to the Washington Senators by an actual senator, Idaho Republican Herman Welker, who would mainly be known to history for two unrelated things:

1. Being so closely allied with the reckless demagogue Joe McCarthy that he became known as “Little Joe from Idaho.”

2. Recommending Harmon Killebrew.

• Finally, here's a nice ESPN piece on reaction, mostly player reaction, to Killebrew's death:

Rod Carew:
Harmon Killebrew was a gem. I can never thank him enough for all I learned from him. He was a consummate professional who treated everyone from the brashest of rookies to the groundskeepers to the ushers in the stadium with the utmost of respect. I would not be the person I am today if it weren't for Harmon Killebrew. He was a Hall of Famer in every sense of the word.

Jane Forbes Clark, chairwoman, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
Since joining the Hall of Fame family in 1984, Harmon was a beacon of light among his fellow Hall of Famers, always smiling, always enjoying every moment that life delivered at his doorstep.

Tommy John
He never showed you up, no flaps down or anything, just that little number 3 — like Babe Ruth — trotting like he hit 'em before and he would hit 'em again.

Bert Blyleven
He was a bigger Hall of Famer off the field.

Harmon Killebrew during Camera Day at Met Stadium, circa 1969. Note the band-aid on his forearm and the airplane in the background. This photo has been on my wall in one room or another, in one city or another, for the last 20 years.

“Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

I first read that phrase in reference, not to Teddy Roosevelt and his vision of America at the turn of the last century, but to my childhood hero, Harmon Killebrew, the Minnesota Twins first/third baseman during the 1960s and '70s. It was the title of a chapter on him in the book Baseball Stars of 1967. So much of life is like that: We learn the allusion before the reference point. But even when I learned a bit of history, of Roosevelt and the Monroe Doctrine, even then “Speak softly and carry a big stick” reminded me more of Harmon Killebrew. It fit Harmon Killebrew better. America never really spoke softly. There was always something loutish about our country. But Harmon Killebrew? In baseball, no one spoke more softly. No one carried a bigger stick.

Growing up in mountainless Minnesota, he seemed like a mountain to me: big and powerful and silent and ever present. Back then every August we’d have “Camera Day” at Metropolitan Stadium, in which, before the game, fans would line the warning track and get their pictures taken with their favorite players, who moved slowly around the field, in uniform, carrying bats or gloves. I’ve got photos of myself with Tony Oliva and Rod Carew and Cesar Tovar and Leo Cardenas but not with Harmon Killebrew. Photos with Harmon weren’t allowed. The Twins organization felt there would be such demand, the promotion would bleed into gametime. Instead, he’d moved slowly around the field, alone, his face placid, and we’d watch him from a distance, the way we’d watch a mountain from a distance. Invariably during that game he’d hit a homerun. Or two homeruns? Memories are faulty but I remember that a lot. We’d go to the park, sit in the sun on the wood benches along the left field foul line, and Harmon Killebrew would hit two homeruns.

This was around 1969, the year the Twins won the first A.L. West division championship, the year Harmon Killebrew won his first and only MVP award. He led he league in homeruns (49), RBIs (140), walks (145), intentional walks (20), and On-Base Percentage (.427). It was the seventh time in his career he hit over 40 homeruns in a season. He would do it once more, in 1970.

He deserved that award. He probably deserved to win it earlier. In 1962, he led the league in homeruns, with 48 (no one else was even in the 40s), and RBIs with 126, but he came in third in the balloting to two Yankees: Mickey Mantle, who had better percentage numbers but 200 fewer at-bats and 18 fewer homeruns, and Bobby Richardson, who hit .300 but never walked and never had much power. Folks focused so much on batting average back then. Bill James hadn’t come along yet to correct matters.

How much was he overlooked by the national press? He retired fifth on the all-time homerun list with 573, with only Aaron, Ruth, Mays, and Robinson ahead of him, and it still took him four years to get into the Hall of Fame. I was in college by then, focused on other matters, but it still bugged me. He played way away in Minnesota, where we speak softly, and so the Baseball Writers Association of America gave him only 59.6% of their vote in 1981, then dropped him to 59.3% in 1982, but ratcheted up to 71.9% in 1983, the year Brooks Robinson, in his first year of eligibility, and Juan Marichal, in his third year of eligibility, made the cut. Harmon would have to wait another year. And even then he finished behind Luis Aparacio and his .653 OPS. Harmon’s was .884.

By the 1990s I was living with several other people in Seattle, and one day, in the room of my friend Mike, I watched an ESPN rebroadcast of the 1971 All-Star Game in Detroit, which is memorable for the towering homerun Reggie Jackson hit off the transom in right field—one of the longest homeruns ever recorded for television. But the game turned out to be memorable for another reason. One after another, famous players, Hall of Fame players, hit homeruns: Johnny Bench in the 2nd, Hank Aaron in the 3rd, Reggie Jackson and Frank Robinson in the bottom of the 3rd. In the top of the 6th, Harmon entered the game, replacing Norm Cash at first base, and I was excited enough by that, happy enough to see that. Then in the bottom of the 6th, against Fergie Jenkins, Al Kaline led off with a single and Harmon came up and promptly hit a homerun to left. I went bananas. To Mike’s amusement, I began cheering as if the game were new, as if it weren’t 20+ years old. Roberto Clemente added another homerun in the 8th, and that was all the scoring, all on homeruns, all by six Hall-of-Fame players, including no.’s 1, 4, 5 and 6 on the then-all-time homerun list. Clemente’s homer went to center but all the others went to right, because the wind was blowing out to right. Only Harmon went deep to left, where the wind was blowing in. It felt like a piece of my childhood, watching that homerun. It always feels like a piece of my childhood when I see Harmon Killebrew swing.

Harmon died this morning, at the age of 74, of esophageal cancer.

A gentleman. You’re going to hear that word a lot in the next few days. In Bob Showers’ book, “The Twins at the Met,” that’s the word the other players use for him again and again:

Jim Kaat
Harmon was a gentleman, he was easygoing and he never lost his temper.

Frank Quilici
Harmon was the first guy to shake my hand when I joined the Twins. He exemplifies class. Although he never sought the leadership role, Harmon was the quiet leader of the ballclub. He is probably the most respected Hall of Famer in baseball.

Rod Carew
You want Harmon to be the role model for your child, because that’s how special he is. Even today, he’s still the same Harmon Killebrew that I met for the first time in 1964. He hasn’t changed at all.

Bert Blyleven
When you talk about class, Harmon has to be no. 1. He’s the nicest gentleman I’ve ever been around.

Tony Oliva
Harmon is so nice—he’s too nice to be a ballplayer.

My friend Jim Walsh provided a link to an old promo for the local Minnesota show “Kent Hrbek’s Outdoors,” in which Herbie went fishing with Killebrew; and Killebrew, to the camera, says something you don’t hear many people, let alone ballplayers, say. He says: “The reason we’re here on Earth is to love and help one another.”

Jim adds, “Turns out there is crying in baseball.”

My father, 79, gives tours at Target Field, and he says he already chokes up when talking about Harmon. He quotes Harmon’s Hall of Fame acceptance speech. As a kid, Harmon's mother complained that the boys were running around too much and ruining the grass. “We’re raising boys, not grass,” his father replied. That’s the line that gets my Dad. Now he worries how he’ll handle himself on upcoming tours. He hopes he doesn’t break down.

This is a sad month in a sad year for me. I attended a memorial in Minnesota in January, and two more this month in Seattle, all for friends who died too young. At some point you think you’re inured, particularly to the deaths of people you never knew personally, but that’s not that way. That’s not the way now anyway. This one still hurts.

Kent Hrbek, who provided his own Minnesota memories, was one in a long line of “Next Harmon Killebrews” the Minnesota Twins organization trotted out in the 1970s to try to make up for the void Harmon left behind. Craig “Mongo” Kusick was another. But the organization should have known. There is no next Harmon Killebrew.

Rest in peace, Harmon. Touch 'em all. And thank you.

On the wall during the Target Field tour.

My nephew Ryan, 7, goes deep next to the statue of Harmon Killebrew outside Target Field in downtown Minneapolis: May 2010.

“The Mariners are doing it with Smoak and mirrors.”

—my friend Jim McCloskey sitting with me at the M's game last night, which the M's won 5-2 over the Minnesota Twins. It's Jim's contention that the Mariners only have two Major Leaguers in their everyday lineup—Ichiro Suzuki and Justin Smoak—and yet we got to see another victory. Ringing doubles, solo homeruns. Back-to-back homeruns by Adam Kennedy and recent call-up Carlos Peguero. When was the last time I saw the M's do that at Safeco? 2003? Another great pitching performance by Michael Pineda, who's a top tier rookie-of-the-year candidate. In the 9th we saw some shoddy defense and overmanagement by Eric Wedge as he needlessly went to his bullpen to relieve a reliver. But still a victory.

Smoak now has the 8th-best OPS in the American League: .933. The next-best Mariner is 58th, Ichiro, with .700. Among the bottom seven in the league you'll find three Mariners: Miguel Olivo at .535, Brendan Ryan at .525, and dead last, Michael Saunders at .483. Smoak and mirrors, indeed. 

Oddly, I'm 3-0 at Safeco this year. The law of averages salivates at the thought of my return.

Tyler Kepner had me smiling with the first part of the first sentence of his Sunday New York Times article about Johnny Damon and the pursuit of 3,000 hits:

Reverse the letters on the back of Johnny Damon’s jersey...

I did it mentally. “Nomad,” I thought. “Nice. He's been with so many teams over the last few years.”

Kepner then lost me with the first sentence of the third graph:

Damon has played for six [teams], but he will always be identified mostly with the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, his teams for four years apiece.

Really? No one thinks of him with the Kansas City Royals anymore? His rookie team, and the team he played on for six seasons? Am I that old? Is Tyler Kepner that young? That New York-centric?

As for the thrust of the article? Damon has his eye on 3,000 hits and then the Hall of Fame:

If he gets 150 hits this season, he would have 2,721. Two more years of 140 hits each would then put him at 3,001.

Damon turned 37 last November. So he'll have to do this at 37, 38 and 39. It can be done but he'll have to remain healthy and in the American League, where he can DH. He'll also have to hit well enough for a team to want him. In the last four years, his batting average has gone from .303 to .282 to .271 to, so far this season, .254. His On Base Percentage this season, perhaps reflecting his drive to get hits and only hits, is an abyssmal .289.

But the most interesting aspect of the article is Damon's talk about how the pressure of playing in New York might have kept previous Yankees, before Jeter, from getting to 3,000 hits:

“I mean, I commend people who can play in those markets [New York and Boston] their entire career. I guess that’s why there’s never been a 3,000-hit guy for the Yankees. The city adds a couple of years on them. Even though it’s the best city in the world, there’s that grind. When you leave for the ballpark, you’re like, ‘O.K., it’s time to be on.’

Initially I blanched at this, too. C'mon, I thought. Ruth didn't do it because he pitched for Boston for five years and then as a position player walked all the time, and Gehrig, of course, stopped playing at the age of 35, and DiMaggio lost years to World War II, and Mantle, he had all those injuries, plus he drew walks as well, and Mattingly, I guess he never did come close, did he, and Bernie Williams was never really close, either, and ...

I stopped for a moment. Is it the pressure? Or is it the fact that getting 3,000 hits for any one team is pretty difficult? Only 27 players have managed 3,000 hits in baseball history—many are recent additions aided by the DH rule—and of those 27, only 15 accumulated more than 3,000 hits for any one team. Two of those teams are twice represented—the Pirates (Wagner and Clemente) and the Tigers (Cobb and Kaline)—which means only 13 of the 30 Major League teams have had a player who accumulated 3,000 hits solely for them. Less than half. Not easy.

Of course the Yankees are one of the original 16 teams, and a storied franchise. One would think they'd have had a player do it by now. But you'd also think that of the Dodgers, too. And the Phillies. And the White Sox, Athletics, Indians and Senators/Twins. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope and nope. Of the original 16, just nine have had 3,000-hit players. Jeter, with the Yankees this year, will be the 10th.

After that, no team is close. Vizquel split playing time. Same with I-Rod and A-Rod. Maybe Ichiro with the M's but that's still a long haul. Maybe Pujols with the Cards but he's a free agent at the end of the year. Plus they're already covered. Musial.

So I don't know if it's tougher in New York — although I wouldn't be surprised since many things are tougher in New York. At the least, though, highly touted prospects should keep this in mind before signing with the Yankees. They should keep in mind Johnny Damon's thoughts about leaving New York after the 2009 season:

“Being in Detroit last year kind of made you sit back and say, ‘Wow, baseball could be actually pretty fun and enjoyable.’"

A bit of an odd post from Rob Neyer today. The headline asks “Does MLB Have an Attendance Problem?,” to which Neyer answers, “No.” But it's the way he answers no.

He's reacting to a Sports Biz post by Darren Rovell, who saw empty seats all over the league and concluded that attendance was a disaster. Then he crunched the numbers and relayed his findings:

If you average every team’s attendance so far and compare it to that exact amount of games last year, Major League Baseball is only averaging 304 fans fewer per game than last year. While that 1 percent drop is significant, it’s not as much as I would have thought from some of the pictures I’ve seen.

Rovell goes on to say that the situation is still worrisome since MLB attendance has decreased every year, and 8 percent overall, from its record high in 2007. But Neyer didn't seem to read that far down. In his post, Neyer writes:

[The one-percent drop is] worth mentioning, but certainly might be attributed to lousy weather or a particular team's issues.

Lousy weather I'll buy. But a particular team's issues? There are only two issues with baseball teams, winning and losing, so there's always parity there. As one team begins to lose (and attendance drops), another team begins to win (and attendance rises).

Then Neyer writes something worthy of Bud Selig:

But I'm highly confident that ticket prices increased by more than one percent this season, and for that and many other reasons I'm extremely confident that MLB's revenues will be up once again. Which is most of the thing, really. If revenues are up, everybody's happy and nobody's agitating for some idiotic stance in the labor negotiations.

Which is most of the thing? Since when did Neyer start writing from a revenue perspective, which is the owner's perspective? It's clear that attendance is down because the economy's down, and has been since 2007. But it's also down because MLB's fan base isn't made up of baseball fans anymore. Look at postseason ratings, which are abyssmal. For most of the last 20 years, MLB has worked to make a day at the park a kind of sportsotainment outing, with loud music, crazy food, video races, and fuzzy mascots. That game between the lines? Whatever. Now MLB has the kinds of fans it deserves.

Real baseball fans can't abandon baseball no matter the economy. Non-fans, sportsotainment fans, can do so easily, and are doing so. To me, that's most of the thing.

No surprise: The second-biggest drop in attendance this year is in Seattle: -23%

Bob Costas: So you acknowledged the standing ovation [by tipping your cap to the crowd], but as you walk off—mixed emotions?
Bob Knepper: No, not mixed at all. I was really ticked.

Part of the joy of this series on the MLB Network is not only reexperiencing the ebb and flow of great games, missing when they are reduced to highlight reels, but this kind of back-and-forth between journalists—Costas and Tom Verducci—and players and managers who participated in the games.

There's an early discussion in this episode, for example, the fifth greatest game, Game 6 of the 1986 NLCS, about Mike Scott, the Astros pitcher who won the Cy Young Award in '86 and the NLCS MVP (for the losing side: a rarity), and how he shut out the Mets in Game 1 and allowed only 1 run in beating them in Game 4, and how he loomed in a potential Game 7, a fearful figure for the Mets. Darryl Strawberry, the other player sitting with Costas and Verducci, admits as much. He was in our heads, he says. Then the discussion winds to the topic of Scott scuffing the ball. Strawberry feels there's no doubt he did it. Knepper circles around the issue until Costas asks him point blank: Do you think he scuffed the ball? Knepper admits as much. I like the point-blankness. Costas is perfect for this kind of thing: both eminent baseball fan and true journalist.

MLB's 20 Greatest Games: Great back-and-forth between athletes and journalists.

In the footage from 1986, Knepper does look ticked off as he leaves the game. He took a 3-run lead into the ninth inning but gave it all back, or most of it back, leaving with one out, the score 3-2, and a man on second. The Mets would tie it, the game would go into extras, the Mets would go ahead in the 14th, the Astros would tie it in the bottom of the 14th, the Mets would score three seemingly insurmountable runs in the top of the 16th, and the Astros, bless 'em, would come back with two, and have men on first and second and two outs with Kevin Bass at the plate and Jesse Orosco on the mound. That's why this game is number 5.

Knepper actually got a raw deal. Dykstra's triple and Hernandez's double, both to right-center field, looked like catchable balls. It looked like Billy Hatcher misplayed them. Costas even asks Knepper of the triple: Did Hatcher misjudge the ball? Knepper refuses to say so. It feels like The Code more than The Truth. It feels like you don't badmouth teammates even 25 years later. He takes it all on himself. But that was the game, and probably the series, right there. Mookie's single was a little dinker, not even a dunker, that went off the glove of a drawn-in Bill Doran at second. Bad luck. But Knepper still blames himself. He's still ticked at himself.

Knepper today. “Keep me in the game,” he thought in the ninth. “Put me at first base for a batter, then bring me back.”

I mean look at the line score of this game:

I didn't watch it live. I was in college at the time, studying every night, and gave myself time for only the ALCS and Dave Henderson's heroics. But I did experience it through literature, Philip Roth's memoir, “Patrimony: A True Story,” about his father.

Herman Roth, 86 and a widower, is dying of a brain tumor. He's depressed, sure he's in the last chapter of his life. But Philip gets him interested in the Mets in 1986, and that October they have transatantic phone calls (Philip's in London) about Game 5 of the '86 NLCS. Then he phones the next night for the Game 6 synopsis.

“Well, what happened,” I said.

“It's still on. You wouldn't believe it. Thirteenth inning.”

“My God.”

“They were behind three one in the ninth but it's now the thirteenth inning and it's tied score. I'm watching it now. I didn't even eat.”

“One game's closer than the other,” I said.

“It's beautiful,” he said.

Half an hour later, he called back.

“Still playing?”

“The Mets went ahead four three just after you hung up. Strawberry--and I think Dykstra got him around. And then this guy hit a home run in the Houston bottom of the fourteenth. And now it's the top of the fifteenth. It's four four and there's some fat Mexican pitching.”

“Oh, yeah, that very attractive fellow.”

“The Mets have got this very young shortstop up, who can only strike out ... No--pop-up. He popped up. Well, that isn't a strikeout. Hey, I'm giving you this pitch by pitch in London, it's going to cost you a fortune.” ...

“Go ahead, Herm. I'm a rich man. Pitch by pitch. Who's up?”

I'll always love this game for this scene, for this bond, even if in the end the good guys lost.

Ray Knight, looking like Derek Jeter's older brother, ties the game in the top of the ninth.

Billy Hatcher ties the game in the bottom of the 14th.

Here's numbers 20 through 10 of the series.

Here's numbers 9 through (cough) 6.

Four more to go. Fisk, Buckner, Twins/Braves ... Reggie?

Went to my first M's game of the year last night. I actually got to sit in a luxury box behind homeplate (the Hank Greenberg luxury box, “Jews and Baseball” lovers), because my friend Bill won it for the evening.

“How did Bill win this again?” Patricia asked during the third inning.

“Sitting on his ass,” I responded.

I.e., He won it the previous September during Fan Appreciation Night. Sitting in the right seat.

So: Free game. Luxury box. Ivar's fish n' chips und beer. A big kid on the mound, Michael Pineda, with a mid-90s fastball that just pops. He kept the Blue Jays hitless through three, scoreless through seven, and left the game, to applause, with a 3-2 lead and one out in the eighth--a lead that was preserved when 1B Justin Smoak ran into short right field to catch a foul ball, wheeled, and nailed the runner trying to score from third at the plate. Exciting! M's won it, 3-2. Pineda's first MLB victory.

And yet...

Maybe I'm getting jaded.

Maybe the problem is the luxury suites and its hallways, which are plastered with team photos and headlines from the M's glory days, approximately 1995 to 2003, and so walking them reminds you how good this team used to be and how not-so-good it is now.

Maybe it was the cold weather, about 50 degrees, and the sparse crowd, about 15,500 announced, so I was reminded, several times, of an amusement park during the last days of summer before it shuts for the season. A time when you get hard-core fans, stragglers, and not much else. A time when imperfections hidden by sun and crowds are suddenly apparent.

We won. But this is not a team going anywhere anytime soon. Seattle knows it. That 15,500? That was the big crowd for the Jays series. Monday night we set a record low for Safeco Field with a paid attendance of 13,056. Wednesday afternoon's game? 12,407.

Sodo Mojo, 2011 style.

“And to make sure no one steals them en route, I'll put 'ATTENTION: MARINERS TICKETS!' prominently on the envelope.”

--Our season-ticket coordinator Stephen Manes sending out tickets to the hapless Seattle Mariners, who already look like the worst team in baseball ...

Josh Wilker, voice of the mathematically eliminated, and author of one of my favorite recent books, “Cardboard Gods,” was interviewed a few weeks back by Shelf Awareness, who asked him, among other things, to name his five favorite authors. He did them one better: he gave them a starting nine.

On his own site he asked, a la the MLB Network, “What's your starting nine?”

That's my kinda question.

First, I went with American authors only, partly because it's our national pastime, and partly because I couldn't figure out positions for Tolstoy and Kundera. Then I tried to pick my most-read authors. This is what I came up with:

James Baldwin, CF: Great range—from novels to essays to memoir to plays. (.312/.401/.405)

Tobias Wolff, 2B: Never hits the ball far but always hits it cleanly; good at moving the man over. (.293/.397/.372)

Ernest Hemingway, 1B: The legend. Opposition pitchers quake when he steps up. (.302/.384/.557)

Norman Mailer, C: Big mouth behind the plate; big bat at the plate—he’s always swinging for the fences. (.264, .374, .531)

John Irving, 3B: Another big hitter, not as naturally talented as Mailer, but he's put together some incredible seasons. (.274/.359/.514)

Philip Roth, RF: A line-drive hitter, he sprays it all over the park. (.282/.367/.482)

E.L. Doctorow, LF: Just what the world needs, Edgar, another left fielder. (.275/.353/.455)

J.D. Salinger, SS: A lot of heart and soul; plus poetry on the glove. (.266/.353/.422)

Kurt Vonnegut, P: Crazy lefty. (2.88 ERA)

My starting nine.

This means a lot of talent on the bench, of course: Cather, DeLillo, Morrison, Updike. Serously: Updike? I'm not starting Updike? Don't I want to win this thing?

Originally, by the way, I had Gore Vidal pitching, so I could have a battery of Vidal-Mailer, but then I remembered Doctorow wasn't on the team so someone had to go.

It's a tough, fun exercise. Now what's your starting nine?

At what age do I stop imitating baseball players?

I'm 48 now and I find I'm still doing it. While biking, no less.

When I'm about to begin a ride I find myself clapping my gloved hands together. Took me a few weeks before I figured out what it reminded me of: David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox, Big Papi, who spits into the palm of both gloved hands and claps them together before each pitch. (Parodied in this SportsCenter ad.) Sometimes I'll even mime the spitting before the clapping. One time, I believe, I forgot the mime and brought the spit. Ick. This is a recent innovation, by the way. Not sure why I began doing it. Maybe as a way to kick myself in the ass? A here we go, about to ride! kind of thing.

Then in the middle of the bikeride, particularly at stoplights, particularly in the less harsh months when I'm wearing fingerless gloves, I'll often fiddle with the velcro around the wrists, tightening each glove. Yeah, exactly like Nomar Garciaparra used to do between every pitch. That's two Boston Red Sox. What the hell, right? I'm a Twins/M's fan. But I've been doing this one for a while. I think because both me and Nomar are a little OCD.

Finally, lately, at the end of my ride, I'll take off my helmet with both hands and bend down to touch my toes in one smooth (or its close proximity) motion. Reminds me of when a player, say, grounds out to end an inning, and takes the helmet off and reaches down to unstrap, say, shin protectors at the same time. 

Now if for the rest of the ride I only imitated Lance Armstrong ...

Last month I counted down, with MLB.com, 20 through 10, of the 20 greatest games of the last 50 years.

Now, as Kasey used to say, on with the countdown.

9. Game 7 of the 2001 World Series: Diamondbacks 3, Yankees 2. Yeah, I know I'm a Yankees hater, so I glory in this game, but I think for aesthetic and storytelling reasons alone it should be higher. For these reasons:

1. It was Game 7.
2. Of the World Series.
3. The winningest team in baseball history, which had won the World Series three years in a row, was leading 2-1 in the bottom of the ninth inning.
4. That team, the winningest team in baseball history, had the best closer in baseball history on the mound.

Plus this from the D-back side: No team in baseball history had ever been losing in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7 of the World Series, then won it that same inning. It had never been done.

Mazeroski's homer in '60? Tie game. Carter's homer in '93? Game 6 (and the Jays were essentially the Yankees of the early '90s). Marlins vs. Indians in '97? Marlins tied it in the bottom of the ninth (against a crappy closer: Jose Mesa), and won it in extras (against a hapless franchise). Yet the Diamondbacks did it. Against the best closer in baseball history pitching for the winningest franchise in baseball history.

This may be my no. 1. And yet it's stuck at no. 9. Plus the MLB Network really needed to bring on some Diamondbacks (or me) to hoorah a bit. Poor Joe Torre's talked enough, hasn't he? And with Tom Veducci. Let him rest. Let him rest.

8. Game 5 of the 1986 ALCS: Red Sox 7, Angels 6. The Dave Henderson/Donnie Moore game. But I'd forgotten that Hendu hadn't started this game, and that he'd helped over the fence a two-run homer earlier in the game. Classic goat to hero stuff. I'd also forgotten the back-and-forth. Boston 2-0 after 2. Boston 2-1 after 3. Angels 3-2 after 6. Angels 5-2 after 7. Red Sox 6-5 after top of 9. Tie game after bottom 9. (Angels came back!) Red Sox 7-6 after 11. (Angels didn't come back.) “You're looking at one for the ages here!” Al Michaels said. Heartbreak for the ages, too. Poor Gene Mauch. One strike away.

7. Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS: Marlins 8, Cubs 3. Speaking of heartbreak. Bob Costas is pretty poignant on Steve Bartman here. He points out it wasn't fan interference. He points out he didn't lean over, as Jeffrey Maier did in '96, to give Derek Jeter a homerun. He talks about the problem of Moises Alou's reaction. He points out how Bartman hasn't, in our cruddy culture, tried to cash in on his notoriety. He talks about Alex Gonazalez's error a few batters later. Me, I'd talk about Dusty's Baker's culpability in the pitch counts for Mark Prior—in this game and his previous game. But as interesting as all this is, I wouldn't have this game this high. 8-3? Is any game's final score in the top 10 going to be less close?

6. Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS: Yankees 6, Red Sox 5. They'll be airing this next week, so video isn't available yet. Doubt I'll be posting it. Or watching it. Consider it a protest. The Aaron Boone game? Seriously? The sixth greatest game of the last 50 years? Did Yankees fans stuff the ballot boxes?

So what are the remaining five games? These four, one assumes:

• 1975 World Series, Game 6: Fisk.
• 1986 NLCS: Mets in 16.
• 1986 World Series, Game 6: Buckner.
• 1991 World Series, Game 7: 0-0 in the 10th.

Plus ... 1972 NLCS Game 5? Chambliss' homer? Reggie's three homers? Sid Bream in '92? Halladay's no-no? Game 7 in '62? I'd love to see this last one. What game inspired a greater cultural artifact? (R.I.P., Sparky.)

“Why couldn't MLB have picked the D-backs game just seven places higher?”

Mike Schmidt was standing behind a batting cage, still as trim as during his playing days. A handsome, middle-aged man with swept-back, silvery hair and a thick mustache. I asked him what he thought of the four Phillies pitchers

“Well,” he said, “now when the Phillies come to town, the other team knows they’re being challenged by four No. 1 pitchers. They have to amp up their mental game. I used to see my at-bats the night before a game when I laid my head down on the pillow. Gibson, Seaver, Ryan. I had to have a plan. When I went to Houston, they had three good pitchers. The fourth was Nolan Ryan. I could go to sleep with the other three, but Ryan kept me awake. Ryan! Ryan! Ryan! My plan was, don’t miss his fastball if he threw it over the plate. If he got two strikes on me, I’d have to face his curveball.” He turned and looked at me with his small blue eyes, which had fear in them. “Ryan was scary!” he said. He shook his head, as if seeing Ryan on the mound. Ryan began his motion and fired the ball at his head. Schmidt had a split second to make a decision. Was it a 100 m.p.h. fastball that could kill him if it hit him in the head, or was it that wicked curveball? If he dove away from the plate and the pitch was a curveball that broke over the plate, he’d look like a fool and a coward. But if it wasn’t a curveball, if it was that 100 m.p.h. fastball, and he didn’t dive away from the plate . . . well, he didn’t even want to think about that.

“Ryan, Gibson, Seaver, they made you defensive,” he said. “Does that make sense? You were afraid of the ball. There’s no fear of the ball today with cutters, splitters and changeups.”

“What about the Phillies’ four pitchers?” I said.

“They’re not scary,” he said. “Even if they all win 20 games, the Phillies don’t have a pitcher who strikes fear in a hitter.”

----from “The Phillies Four Aces” by Pat Jordan in yesterday's New York Times Magazine

I asked [Cliff Lee] which batters gave him the most trouble. Punchy hitters, he said, who foul off a lot of pitches, then slap the ball the other way. “Like Ichiro,” he said. “Sometimes you just want to let him hit his ground ball and hope someone catches it. He’s gonna get his hits. The quicker he does, the better for me. The more pitches a batter sees, the better hitters they become.”

--from “The Phillies Four Aces” by Pat Jordan in today's New York Times Magazine

Ichiro, who set the Mariners club record for hits, with 2248,
surpassing Edgar Martinez, Saturday night.

It's Opening Day, which means the Seattle Mariners are tied for first place! Last place, too. You take what you can get.

So let's ring in the new season with a celebration of the old: the active leaders in various batting and pitching categories. I've added a few new ones this go-round, primarily some of the WARs, which I don't quite get yet, by which I mean I don't know how to calculate them yet. First batting, then pitch. I've included the active leader's all-time ranking in parentheses.

Safeco Field in Seattle. The Nie-haus. Probably won't look this nice until July, by which time it won't be nearly this filled.

Batting:

• Games: Omar Vizquel, CWS: 2,850 (T-15th)
• At-Bats: Omar Vizquel, CWS: 10,266 (20th)
• Runs: Alex Rodriguez, NYY: 1,757 (20th)
• Hits: Derek Jeter, NYY: 2,926 (36th)
• Doubles: Ivan Rodriguez, Wsh.: 565 (21st)
• Triples: Carl Crawford, Bos.: 105 (140th)
• Home Runs: Alex Rodriguez, NYY: 613 (6th)
• RBIs: Alex Rodriguez, NYY: 1,831 (17th)
• Walks: Jim Thome, Min.: 1,679 (9th)
• Strikeouts: Jim Thome, Min.: 2,395 (2nd)
• Stolen Bases: Juan Pierre, CWS: 527 (30th)
• Caught Stealing: Juan Pierre, CWS: 173 (15th)
• Batting Average: Albert Pujols, Stl: .331 (29th)
• On-Base Percentage: Albert Pujols, Stl: .425 (12th)
• Slugging Percentage: Albert Pujols, Stl: .624 (4th)
• On-Base-Plus Slugging: Albert Pujols, Stl: 1.050 (5th)
• Offensive WAR: Alex Rodriguez, NYY: 105 (16th)
• Defensive WAR: Andruw Jones, NYY: 23.70 (2nd)
• WAR for Position Players: Alex Rodriguez, NYY: 101.90 (20th)

What's the takeway? Omar Vizquel don't stop, triples don't start, Jim Thome's only 200 strikeouts from toppling Reggie, Jeter's half a season from 3,000; and, in the battle of the superlative Als, Alex leads the cumulative categories (HRs, RBIs, WAR) while Albert leads the percentages (BA, OBP, SLG, OPS).

How about that defensive WAR for Andruw Jones? Second all-time to Brooks Robinson. At the same time ... I don't want to sound like Murray Chass here, or Olaf glad and big, but I don't know how much I'm buying WAR. The three greatest defensive WAR seasons, according to Baseball Prospectus, all occurred within the last 25 years. Any guesses? Nope, not Ozzie. His best season is tied for 16th. Nope, not Junior. His best season is tied for 13th, and he has a negative career defensive WAR. Ready? The greatest defensive season ever (ever, mind you) belongs to Adam Everett, Houston, 2006. Second is Barry Bonds with Pittsburgh in 1989. Third is Jose Cruz, Jr. with San Francisco in 2003.

I think someone needs to work on the formula and get back to me.

Pitching:

• Games: Mariano Rivera, NYY: 978 (17th)
• Games Started: Livan Hernandez, Was.: 445 (T-79th) *
• Complete Games: Roy Halladay, Phi: 58 (T-724th)
• Shutouts: Roy Halladay, Phi: 19 (T-270th)
• Innings Pitched: Tim Wakefield, Bos.: 3,071.2 (121st) *
• Hits Allowed: Livan Hernandez, Was.: 3,242 (97th) *
• Homeruns Allows: Tim Wakefield, Bos.: 393 (14th) *
• Walks: Tim Wakefield, Bos: 1,158 (61st)
• Strikeouts: Javier Vazquez, Fla.: 2,374 (40th) *
• Wins: Tim Wakefield, Bos.: 193 (T-131st) *
• Losses: Tim Wakefield, Bos.: 172 (43rd) *
• Saves: Mariano Rivera, NYY: 559 (2nd)
• Walks/Hits per 9 innings: Mariano Rivera, NYY: 1.00 (3rd)
• ERA (5 yrs. minimum): Mariano Rivera, NYY: 2.23 (13th)
• WAR for Pitchers: Roy Halladay, Phi.: 54.30 (62nd)

* All of these are assuming Jamie Moyer, who underwent Tommy John surgery last December, and is supposedly eyeing a return to MLB in 2012 at the age of 49, is in fact retired for good. Otherwise, if you count Jamie active, he leads in Games Started with 628 (16th), Innings Pitched with 4,020 (40th), Hits with 4,156 (33rd), Homeruns with 511 (1st), Strikeouts with 2,405 (36th), Wins with 267 (36th), and Losses with 204 (42nd).

My favorite active category is always complete games, because we're so far removed from its heyday. Roy Halladay's 58, the best among active pitchers, ties him for 724th all-time, a mere 691 away from Cy Young's record of 749. And Halladay's a machine compared to the rest of the Majors. Livan Hernandez is second to him, with 49 CGs, but next on the list is Tim Wakefield and C.C. Sabathia and then you're out of the 30s. Only 14 Major Leaguers have 20 or more. Will we soon reach the day when the complete games of all active Major League pitchers don't equal Young's 749? Last season there were only 129 complete games in the Majors; and that number keeps dropping.

In the meantime, let's take a moment to appreciate Mariano Rivera. I know, Yankees suck, etc., but you gotta give credit. Mo's only 42 saves from tying Trevor Hoffman for first place all-time in that category. Last season he saved 33 games, the year before 44, so he might do it this year. Oh, and if he duplicates his games from last year (61), he'll move up to 9th place all-time there.

But it's the career ERA that amazes me: 2.23, 13th all-time, just behind Walter Johnson (2.16). More amazing? Every guy in front of him was born in the 19th century. Of the 12 in front of him, in fact, it's Johnson who played most recently: in 1927. There's no one who is close to a contemporary who's close to Rivera. Even if you look at the top 50, there's only one other guy who was born in the 20th century: Hoyt Wilhelm in 45th place (2.52). And even he ended his career (1972) about the time Mo was born (1969). More amazing? Rivera's ERA, which should go up as he gets old, has actually gone down for the last three seasons.

Wow.

Now play ball! And Yankees suck!

How good is Mo? In terms of ERA, he's from another era.

One of the joys of my late winter, in this late winter that needs its joys, is the MLB Network's countdown of the 20 greatest games of the last 50 years. The 20 were chosen from these 50 games by fans who bothered to vote. I didn't bother to vote but I'm intrigued by the countdown. I tend to dismiss countdowns but ever since Kasey Casem I've been drawn to them. They reveal something anyway, although not what necessarily what we want to reveal.

This is what we have so far:

20. May 17, 1979: Philies 23, Cubs 22. Went 10 because the Cubs tied it up, 22-22, with three runs in the bottom of the 8th. Here's the stat I like. After five innings, it was 21-16. After five!

19. Game 4 of the 2003 NLDS: Marlins 7, Giants 6. J.T. Snow thrown out at the plate by Jeff Conine. Pudge holds on, shakes ball to crowd. Marlins advance ... eventually all the way to the World Series championship.

18. Game 5 of the 1980 NLCS: Phillies 8, Astros 7. Phillies battle back with 5 runs in the top of the 8th against Nolan Ryan, but Astros battle back with 2 in the bottom of the 8th against Tug McGraw, and extra innings. (For the fourth time in the 5-game series.) Phils win it in the 10th and go on to win the World Series, the Tug McGraw series, against the Royals.

17. Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS: Red Sox 6, Yankees 4. This is the Dave-Roberts-stolen-base-in-the-9th-inning game. The beginning of the greatest comeback of all time. Any Yankee loss is a great loss, and this is the beginning of the greatest string of losses of them all.

16. Game 163 of the 2009 season: Twins 6, Tigers 5. The back-and-forth that sends the Twins to the ALDS when Carlos Gomez scores from second on a single by Alexi Casilla in the bottom of the 12th in the last MLB game played at the Metrodome.

15. Game 5 of the 1995 ALDS: Mariners 6, Yankees 5. The one I was at. Should it be higher? I know, I know, it's the one I was at. Of course I think this. But look at the lead changes. M's up, 1-0 (Cora homer). Yanks go up 2-1 on a Paul O'Neill homer. M's tie in bottom of 4. Yanks get 2 in the 6th on a Mattingly double. 4-2 in the bottom of the 8th and Junior hits a homerun. 4-3. M's load the bases and Doug Strange gets the bases-loaded walk. 4-4. Yanks go up, 5-4 in the 11th off Randy, but then Joey bunts, Junior singles, Edgar doubles. Game over. Basically eight lead changes/ties. Impressive. Kudos to Cone, btw, for sitting for this. Class act.

14. Game 6 of the 1993 World Series: Blue Jays 8, Phillies 6. The Joe Carter homerun. Should it be further back on the list, since you just knew the BJs would win it, or should it be further up, since it was only the second time a WS was won on a homer? (I'm of the former mind.) Kudos to Mitch Williams, btw, for sitting for this.

13. Game 7 of the 1997 World Series: Marlins 3, Indians 2. Mesa blows it, the series goes to extra innings in Game 7 (ah, I remember Game 7s), and Renteria wins it on a single up the middle with two outs in the bottom of the 11th. Not bad. For a team with a shoddy history, a lot of Marlins in this countdown. I'd forgotten about the Tony Fernandez error.

12. Game 4 of the 2001 World Series: Yankees 4, Diamondbacks 3. The Derek Jeter “Mr. November” homerun. 'Nuff said. Seriously, enough said. It just set the stage for a greater, much greater, much more humiliating Yankees loss. Nice going, Jeter. Poor Tino's tying homer in the 9th, btw, so overshadowed by Captain Underpants.

11. Game 163 of the 1978 season: Yankees 5, Red Sox 4. The Bucky Dent game. It was actually fun reliving this one. Lou? In the 9th? That stab? You are one lucky bastard.

10. Game 1 of the 1988 World Series: Dodgers 5, A's 4. The Kirk Gibson homerun. I'd just returned from a year in Taipei, Taiwan, was watching the game sitting on the floor in the living room of my father's house. When Gibson hobbled to the plate, I think I actually said aloud, “What do they think this is? The Natural?” It was. After Gibson shocks Eckersley, Dodgers go on to shock A's, and, as they say, the world.

Eleven down. Thus far: One regular season game, two one-game playoffs, four division playoffs (three of which ended the series), and four World Series games (two of which ended the Series). The Yankees are 2-2, the Phillies 2-1, the Marlins 2-0. My Twins and M's are 1-0 each. Twins have a shot to be 2-0 before the end.

As for the rest of the top 10? Any guesses? This is what's left, chronologically, of the original 50. The ones in bold are the ones I think should be included:

• 1962 World Series, Game 7. “If only McCovey had hit it two feet higher!”
• July 2, 1963: Marichal over Spahn in 16.
• 1963 World Series, Game 4: Dodgers sweep Yankees.
• September 9, 1965: Koufax perfect game.
• October 1, 1967: Red Sox, Yaz, beat Twins, win pennant.
• 1969 World Series: Miracle Mets
• 1972 ALCS: Tigers beat A's (but A's win LCS and Series)
• 1972 NLCS: Bench's homer beats Bucs.
• 1975 WS, Game 6: Fisk.
• 1976 ALCS: Chambliss.
• 1977 ALCS: Yanks over Royals. For a change.
• October 18, 1977: Reggie, Reggie.
• 1980 World Series: Tug.
• Oct. 3, 1982: Dodgers end Giants season.
• June 23, 1984: Cubs trail throughout but Ryan Sandberg hits two, one in the 9th and one in the 10th, and they win it.
• 1984 NLCS: Padres advance to World Series over Cubs on Ray Durham's error, etc.
• July 4, 1985: Braves, Mets play until 4 a.m.
• 1985 NLCS: Ozzie Smith's improbable 9th-inning HR puts the Cards on top of the Dodgers, 3 games to 2.
• 1985 World Series, Game 6: Denkinger.
• 1986 ALCS: the Hendu game.
• 1986 NLCS: Mets win in 16.
• 1986 World Series, Game 6: Buckner.
• 1988 NLCS, Game 4: Scioscia ties it in 9th, Gibson wins it in 12th, to tie Series at 4.
• 1991 World Series, Game 7: Braves and Twins, 0-0 in the 10th.
• 1992 NLCS: Sid Bream beats Bonds' throw, sends Braves to World Series.
• 1993 World Series, Game 4: 15-14, Blue Jays.
• 1996 World Series, Game 4: Yanks down 6-0, rally. Leyrtiz, etc.
• 1999 ALDS, Game 5: Indians score 3, 2 and 3 in the first three innings; then Pedro comes in and doesn't give up a hit for six innings.
• 1999 NLCS, Game 5: Ventura's grand-slam single sends it to Game 6.
• 2001 World Series, Game 7: Womack rips one, Rivera falters, America cheers.
• 2002 World Series, Game 6: Angels rally to win game, and, the next day, the Series.
• 2003 NLDS: The Bartman game.
• 2003 ALCS: Aaron Boone.
• 2005 NLDS, Game 4: Burke homers in 18th, sends Braves home.
• 2006 NLCS, Game 7: Endy Chavez's catch goes for naught as Cards advance to WS.
• October 1, 2007: Rockies win one-game playoff against Padres, cap remarkable comeback.
• 2008 World Series, Game 5: Phils win after rain delay.
• 2009 ALDS, Game 2: A-Rod busts Twins.
• 2010 NLDS, Game 1: Halladay no-hits Reds.

Too 1986 heavy? I'd be willing to trade a Hendu for a Chambliss. That one was pretty wild. I also know my preferences aren't general fan preferences. I tend to favor the all-or-nothing games, but fans, I'm sure, voted for the famous and infamous games. Reg-gie in '77 and Bart-man in 2003. Probably Boone, too. Yuck. Fans also have short memories, but, for me, recent = dull. Call me when we get another Game 7.

Your picks?

It's Jeter in the background that really makes the photo.

Erik,

Remember how we both dislike “arguably” as a meaningless cliche? Well, Dave Anderson raised it to new heights yesterday in his tribute to Duke Snider. The Duke, he said, was “arguably a better fielder than Mays or Mantle.” Say what? Well, I guess you could argue that. You could also argue that I'm a better tennis player than Roger Federer.

To make it even better, there was a listing of the trio's lifetime accomplishments accompanying his column. One of Willie's was “4-time All-Star.” Someone omitted the 2 in front of the 4. How could a mistake of that magnitude get by the copy desk?

Lovingly,
Dad

P.. S. Hope Patricia's feeling better.

**

Dad:

Wow. Anderson uses “arguably” twice in that article. That's arguably the worst use of arguably since journalists began to overuse arguably—which I pin to about 1993.

The “4-time All Star” thing turns out to be a little fuzzy. Here's the infographic as it appears online:

My first thought: “Jesus, they didn't even fix it. It still says ”Four-time All-Star. And wait! They forgot his MVP award in 1965! WTF?“ Then I saw the heading ”WHILE IN NEW YORK,“ paused, and shook my head. Why limit things in that manner? Because if it doesn't happen in New York it doesn't happen? Because the infographic was put together by a Mickey Mantle fan, and Mickey looks better in this one? Or because the Duke seems more on par with Willie Mays in this one?

The worst part? The Times STILL got it wrong. Mays didn't go to the All-Star Game as the rookie-of-the-year in 1951, then he served in the military for the next two years. But starting in 1954 he went to the All-Star Game every year he played, including twice from 1959 to 1962, when they played the All-Star Game twice, for a record 24 times. In other words, Mays went four times as a New York Giant, 18 times as a San Francisco Giant, and two times as a New York Met. So Mays was actually a SIX-time All Star ”while in New York."

Say hey.

And R.I.P., Duke.

Scene: The Barnes & Noble on the Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis three days before Christmas. I enter the store for the second time in the span of an hour to buy a DVD (“How to Train Your Dragon”) for my nephew Jordy. That's when I spot an author table near the door. The table is small, the author ready, no one is paying attention. Too bad, I think. Wonder what the dude wrote? Then I see the book propped up around the table:

Me: Whoa.

I go over, pick up the book, leaf through it. I exchange pleasantries with the author, Bob Showers. He begins to explain how the book came about.

Bob: I contacted the Twins organization for official photos from the period. See these? I got all of these from the Twins. Then I brought them along when I interviewed the players to jog their memories.
Me: Oh, so it's an oral history, too. Wow, you interviewed Killebrew?
Bob:  Yep.
Me: Hey, has anyone written a biography of him?
Bob: Well, biographies have been written, back in his playing days, but...
Me: I'm talking about a big bio, like Mays and Aaron just got, but about Harmon. There'd be less interest nationally, of course, but ... I don't know. All the more reason to do it. I'd like to read it anyway. Hey, the Beatles!
Bob (nodding): Beatles played at the Met in '65, Eagles in '78.
Me: I remember that concert. The Eagles, not the Beatles. God, great photos. Cesar Tovar, Rich Rollins, Ted Uhlander. Love the '60s uni. That “Twins” script and the TC caps. Hated it when they went to the red cap and the beltless stretch pants in the mid-seven- ... Holy crap!
Bob: What?
Me: It's ... me.

I'd come across a photo that I knew well but hadn't seen in decades: Dave Edwards, on June 13, 1979, bounding toward the Twins dugout after hitting a late-game, two-run homer to give the Twins an 8-6 lead over the New York Yankees. The shot is from behind so you can see his name and number (33), the Twins players in the dugout, including Kenny Landreux and Johnny Castino, smiling and ready to congratulate him, and about ten rows of cheering fans. The photo made the front page of the sports section of The Minneapolis Tribune the next day, and I kept it for years, because I was in it. Me, my father, and my friend Dave Budge sat in row 8 that night.

Bob: Where?
Me: Right there.
Observer #1: That's you?

I look up. By now we've drawn a crowd.

Me: Yep.
Observer #2: Right. Sure, that's you.
Me (vaguely amused): Why would I make that up?
Bob: The guy in front of you is wearing a CheapTrick concert T-shirt. When was the photo taken? June 1979? I bet he was at that CheapTrick concert at the Met around that time.

I flip through more pages. I'd planned on buying it anyway. Now it's a done deal. Me and two other guys start talking about the last Twins game at Met Stadium. Turns out we were all there.

Me: How odd. Because that crowd was, like, sparse.
Observer #1: Less than 25 thousand.
Bob: 15 thousand.
Observer #1: That low?
Me: Right? So it's weird that 30 years later three of those 15 thousand would be in the same Barnes & Noble at the same time. Weird but cool.

If you're at all interested in the book, you can buy copies here or here. Bob Showers' Web site is here.

And remember to check out author tables. I'm not saying you'll find yourself but you never know.

“There is no reason to believe [Cliff] Lee will forgo free agency, and when he hits the market, other teams might as well back off. Every factor points to Lee’s joining the Yankees.”

—Tyler Kepner, “Waiting for Lee, Maybe Until Winter,” New York Times, June 29, 2010

“Lee was their guy, and the Yankees believed he had the stuff, the makeup and the experience to succeed in pinstripes. But, really, Lee was never their guy. He wanted to go back to the Phillies all along, and has taken far less money to do so.”

—Tyler Kepner and Michael S. Schmidt, “Cliff Lee Accepts Late Bid by Phillies,” New York Times, December 14, 2010.

Mea culpa? Nowhere. Not even on Twitter, where, on Dec. 10, he wrote, “Still think Lee will go for highest offer, which is Yanks' 7 yrs/$161M. But sense I get from people involved is he feels pull toward Texas.”

So the Texas Rangers and their $55 million payroll beat the New York Yankees and their $207 million payroll to advance to their first World Series rather than the Yankees’ 41st.

Sometimes there’s something approximating justice in the world.

I didn’t watch the game live. I would’ve watched it live but it was a friend’s birthday, and a bunch of us went to Sitka & Spruce on Capitol Hill for a lovely dinner interrupted only by me repeatedly checking the score on my iPhone. (Mlb.com has a good app; Espn.com, not so much.) At one point, I attempted to get deeper into the play-by-play, and the comfortable score I’d been looking at (5-1, Texas, in the 7th: Yay!), suddenly shifted to the horror of a 6-5 Yankees lead. (WTF!?!) It took a moment before I realized I’d click into the scores of all six games of the ALCS, and “6-5, Yankees,” was the final score of Game 1. Scrolling down, I hit the “5-1, Texas” score again, clutched my chest, breathed a sigh of relief, and decided to stay put. Moving around was apparently bad luck. Even when it wasn’t.

So I didn’t see it live. But I did DVR the game and watched it when I got home. My perceptions of the game are thus colored by foreknowledge.

I knew, for example, that when the Yankees tied it up in the top of the 5th, the Rangers immediately responded with 4 runs, so I was excited, practically rubbing my hands, when the bottom half began.

This is what I saw: infield single, groundout, groundout.

“Really?” I thought. “They get 4 runs out of this? A man on third and two outs?”

But then the Yankees intentionally walked Josh Hamilton, who was having a great series, to get to Vlad Guerrero, who wasn’t. And Vlad impaled them. He doubled over Granderson’s head in deep center to plate two.

But it was still two outs, man on second. “Really?” I thought. “They get 2 more runs out of this?”

Then Joe Girardi went to the ‘pen and brought in David Robertson. And Nelson Cruz promptly unloaded one into the seats for two more. And there’s your 4 runs.

Question: Do these two moves by Joe Girardi seem inconsistent to anyone else?

With the first move, the intentional walk, he seems to treat ALCS numbers as if they matter more than regular season numbers. He avoids the guy who’s having a great ALCS (Hamilton) to face the guy who isn’t (Guerrero), even though this means putting the first guy, who’s got speed, on the basepaths. Admittedly Hamilton had a great regular season, too, and Vlad’s not getting any younger. Plus the move worked in the bottom of the 3rd inning. But I doubt in a similar situation during the regular season—two out, man on third, bottom of 5—Girardi would’ve treated Hamilton as the second-coming of Barry-Bonds-on-steroids. It’s just not a situation where you intentionally walk a guy. Unless you think ALCS numbers matter more than regular season numbers.

Girardi’s move to go to Robertson, meanwhile, seems the opposite of this. It seems business as usual. In Game 3, in the top of the 9th, with the Rangers leading by 2 and a man on second, Girardi went to Robertson, who promptly gave up a single, a single, a strikeout, an intentional walk, a single, a single and a double, before leaving with the game out of hand: 7-0. Now if you’re treating ALCS numbers as if they matter more than regular season numbers, as Girardi did with Hamilton, you wouldn’t have gone back to Robertson in a similar situation. But Girardi did. In almost the exact same situation: the Rangers leading by 2 with a man on second. And Robertson promptly gave up a homerun and a double before leaving with the game nearly out of hand: 5-1.

So Girardi feared facing the Ranger who was having a great ALCS (SLG: 1.000), but didn’t fear putting in the Yankee pitcher who wasn’t having a great ALCS (ERA: 19.29). Feels like a contradiction in there somewhere.

After that, the Yankees seemed to deflate. They had 12 outs left and sent 14 men to the plate. Lance Berkman hit a two-out triple in the 7th, Brett Gardner drew a two-out walk in the 8th. Nothing else.

They looked old, too. Even Mariano looked old. He came in in the 8th and got ‘em out 1-2-3, but the balls were hard hit. It was also odd seeing him on the mound with the Yankees down by 5. It was like seeing the guy who normally plays Hamlet playing Guildenstern.

Jeter looked really old. He looked like he was ready to leave. After Gardner walked in the 8th, he struck out flailing. Everyone is going to focus on that final A-Rod at-bat to end the game, the series and the season for the Yanks, but their season truly ended with that final flail from Jeter. Worse, in his final two games, he didn’t even get the ball out of the infield. In Game 5: He ground out to short three times, walked, and reached on a grounder to the pitcher. In Game 6: He ground out to short, to third, to the pitcher, and struck out. Flailing. The captain went down with his ship.

Bon voyage.

Tonight is Game 1 of the 2010 American League Championship Series. While some of my baseball-watching friends are shrugging their shoulders, unable to support a team like Texas, which is affiliated with a former president like George W. Bush, I know who I'm rooting for. In particular I know who I'm rooting against. I have three favorite teams: the Mariners, the Twins, and whoever is playing the New York Yankees. One of these teams, unfortunately, is still alive in the post-season.

Nearly 10 years ago, for the Mariners alternative program The Grand Salami, I wrote a piece listing off “61* Reasons Why The Yankees Suck.” I'm going to update it soon but suggestions are welcome. (You can always check out the “Yankees Suck” section of this blog.)

I'll probably begin similarly:

• They win: 40 pennants and 27 World Championships in the 90 years since 1921.
• They spend tons more money than any other team to ensure that they win.
• They keep in place a system that allows them to spend tons more money than any other team to ensure that they win.

Look at that: 40 out of 90. Nearly half our time we're watching the Yankees in the World Series. Nearly a third of the time they win it all. In a rigged world, in which sports like baseball are supposed to provide a level playing field, they play a rigged game, then act like they've done something special when they win.

How rigged is it? I'll probably list off the following, too:

• A payroll $45 million more than any other team in baseball (2010)
• A payroll $52 million more than any other team in baseball (2009)
• A payroll $72 million more than any other team in baseball (2008)

That gap is shrinking but it's still a Snake-River-Canyon-sized gap. Even Evel Knievel would have trouble jumping it. Put it this way: the 2010 gap between the Yankees, at no. 1, and Boston, at no. 2, is almost the entire payroll of the team the Yankees are playing in the ALCS: the bankrupt Texas Rangers, who have a $55 million payroll. Maybe that's why baseball is our national pastime: it's as unfair as any other aspect of American life. Rooting for the New York Yankees is like rooting for Goldman Sachs.

Other thoughts for the list:

• That sense of entitlement
• Steinbrenner's monument
• GMS patches
• “Got rings?”
• “He'll look good in pinstripes next year.”

That last one is the one that really pisses me off. It's an acknowledgment of the Yankees' real power, money, even though the Yankee fan saying it, or taunting another fan with it, will dismiss the monetary argument by bringing up the Mets or Cubs: teams that, yes, spend a lot, but a good $60-75 million shy of what the Yankees spend. They don't spend enough, in other words, to make up for their own stupidity or bad luck, as the Yankees do.

Looked at a certain way, though, no matter what happens in the next few weeks, we can't lose. The Yankees are Goliath, strutting around and beating their chests against baseball Davids. If they win, it's hardly news. If they lose, it's delicious. And Yankee fans, toadies to the last, supporters of illicit gains and rigged pastimes, will never know that feeling.

“Cardboard Gods,” Josh Wilker’s coming-of-age memoir as revealed through his baseball card collection, should have immediate resonnance for the following groups:

1. Baseball lovers.
2. Baseball card collectors.
3. Folks who grew up in a dysfunctional family.
4. Folks who grew up in the 1970s and remember what it was like when the more anarchic elements of the counterculture lapped up to your front door, and then inside, and then washed away your world.

That first group isn’t as big as it used to be, but if you’re 1), and you’re a boy, you were probably 2). The fourth group is obviously tied to a specific time. It’s the third group that’s the mother lode. That’s most of us.

Wilker hit the jackpot with me. I’m all four—with the proviso that I collected baseball cards in the five-year period before Wilker did: Topps 1970-1974, rather than Topps 1975-1980. We’re almost a tag team. Just as I got done, he started.

Question: Does this make me an easy mark? Or a tougher sell?

The latter, I think. Rob Neyer pushed the book on his ESPN blog, and he has a to-die-for blurb on the front cover (“Josh Wilker writes as beautifully about baseball and life as anyone ever has”), but I still picked it up with skepticism. What does Neyer know? What can Wilker tell me about my times that I don’t know?

That skepticism died on page 9.

Wilker’s subtitle is “An All-American tale told through baseball cards,” and the first chapter is called simply “Topps 1975 #533: Rudy Meoli,” and includes what we used to call an “in action” shot of Meoli at the plate. Wilker writes:

Behold the uniformed maestro at the center of everything, his head thrown back in awe, his arms outspread as if to proclaim: Behold.

We look back at the card to see if we’ve missed something, to see if we’ve misread what’s going on there. We haven’t. Five-year-old Josh Wilker has. The adult Wilker writes:

For a long time, I lived in an angelic state of stupidity and grace. ... For a long time, years, I didn’t understand that I wasn’t witnessing the occurence of something magnificent in Rudy Meoli’s card from 1975, my first year of collecting. I didn’t understand that all I was looking at was some little-known marginal who’d just squandered one of his rare chances to reveal any previously undiscovered magificence by hitting a weak foul pop-up, the easiest of outs.

But the writer in him doesn’t end with the adult mea culpa; he pushes on toward an angelic state of understanding and grace:

Even to this day there’s a faint residue on my inability to interpret the blatantly obvious in this picture. On some level, perhaps the only level of any importance in this life, I still think of Rudolph Bartholomew Meoli, a backup infielder with a .212 lifetime average and more career errors than extra base hits, as one of the most thrilling performers of his era, a superstar in the reign of happiness and confusion.

That was the moment when I thought, “OK, this is going to be good.”

Baseball cards turn out to be a brilliant framing device. Not because Wilker’s childhood was idyllic. Because it wasn’t.

His parents were more-or-less happily married until his mother took a bus from their home in Willingboro, N.J., to attend a peace rally in Washington, D.C. in 1969 and wound up falling for her hippyish seatmate, Tom, who, by 1973, had moved into their home. He was, in fact, sleeping with the mother while the father took a smaller room down the hall. In his own home. In which he paid the bills.

What baseball card could possibly represent such family trauma? A 1976 Mike Kekich card. That year, Kekich was with the Texas Rangers, and he would end his career a year later with the nascent Seattle Mariners, but he’s famous, or infamous, as one of two 1973 Yankees pitchers—Fritz Peterson is the other—who traded entire families: wife, kids, dogs. After several weeks, Kekich tried to call off the switch, but by then Peterson and his wife were cozy and wanted to make the switch permanent. Peterson basically told him what we kids told each other when we wanted a baseball-card trade to be permanent: “No backs.” Kekich wound up in the metaphoric smaller room down the hall. Hell, he wound up with the Seattle Mariners.

Wilker’s story gets worse before it gets better. His mother and Tom, dragging along five-year-old Josh and his more aware, older brother Ian, moved to backwoods Vermont expecting paradise. They wound up in a shitty home surrounded by shitty neighbors. They wanted to live off the land but the land was harsh. They tried to start a non-competitive school, which only increased the contempt of the neighbors. The family was isolated and ostracized, and poor Josh could barely make it down to the grocery store and back without being picked on. That’s part of the reason for the baseball cards. He needed something certain. He needed big men he could hold in his hand. He needed cardboard gods.

Wilker frames this chapter on social experiment gone awry with “Topps 1975 #407: Herb Washington,” that great baserunning experiment of Charley O’Finley’s that went awry: the professional pinch-runner who was caught stealing more than half the number of times he stole. The adult Wilker remains understanding. In the face of a more affluent acquaintance named Wendell who scoffed at the idiocy of the family experiment, Wilker writes:

Whether the useless innovation of Herb Washington signaled the apotheosis of the A’s dynasty or foretold the team’s impending descent at champion-sprinter speed into abject late-1970s suffering is beside the point. The point is that life is not to be methodically considered and solved like a math equation. Life, fucking Wendell, is to be sprinted toward and bungled beyond recognition.

Beautiful.

In this manner, the book continues. Wilker’s childhood confidence falters and there’s Mike Cosgrove with a face full of faltering confidence. Girls make him self-conscious of his clothes and there’s the 1977 Chicago White Sox team card, the players wearing collared shirts and shorts, the most embarassing uniform in a decade of embarassing uniforms. He discovers death and there’s Lyman Bostock.

Because Wilker is a Red Sox fan, one anticipates the one-game playoff with the hated New York Yankees in 1978. Yet for some reason the representative card is “Topps 1975 #299: Bucky Dent,” back when Dent was with the Chicago White Sox. Wilker explains, sympathetically:

...here’s the tragic figure of Bucky Dent, the mildly promising, light-hitting young Chicago White Sox shortstop who after being named to the Topps All-Star Rookie Team in 1975 was killed in a horrific wood-chipper accident.

Sure, Wilker says, there’s that odd rumor that Dent didn’t die during the ’75 off-season; that he was eventually traded to the Yankees, and, in that one-game playoff, came to the plate with two on and the Yanks down by two, and after a delay, and after a new bat, he hit a homerun over the Green Monster in left field to put the Yankees ahead, and the Yankees would go on to win the game, the ALCS and the World Series, all on the back of the puny Dent, who, himself, would become a shirtless pin-up boy and lousy TV actor (see: “Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders”). But then Wilker writes reasonably:

Clearly, the stronger Bucky Dent theory is the one in which Bucky Dent was tragically chopped into pieces, then minced into bits, then pureed into a mush of flesh and feathered hair and eye black by a ravenous, extemely efficient wood chipper before he was ever able to make any significant impact on baseball history or on the innocence of, say, a ten-year-old Red Sox fan in East Randolph, Vermont on October 2, 1978.

Wilker is particularly excellent on that childhood. He watches “The Incredible Hulk,” tags after Ian, yearns for Yaz. “Go with me, Josh!” young girls ask and he thinks “Go where?” Bullies descend:

“Hey, doofus,” the second one, Denny, said. “How many hours in a day?”
“Hey, yeah,” Muskrat said. “How many days in a week?”
“He doesn’t know. They don’t know shit.”
“Hey, how do you spell dog? How do you spell cat?”
“Why is your hair so curly and long?” Denny said. “You must be a woman.”
“Why are you a woman?” Muskrat said.”

He is less excellent on his dissolute twenties and thirties, but that’s a tougher sell. Children are powerless and thus sympathetic. By the time you hit 25, if you can walk and talk, you need to get a life. Wilker, the character, doesn’t even sprint towards his bungling as his parents did; he wanders, shuffles, meanders. One loses patience with him, as he does with himself. But in that wandering, drop by drop, comes the wisdom to write this book.

My own baseball card collection is long gone, sold to Joe Roedl in sixth grade for a few dollars, but I can’t see any of the Topps series from that period—or, more, from the coveted period preceding mine, particularly the 1965 series with the team name embedded in a pennant in the lower left corner—without a yearning to have. Those cards look the same—as immortal as gods. But I’m 47 now, not 8, and the places I bought baseball packs, Little General and Salk’s Drugs on 54th and Lyndale in south Minneapolis, don’t even exist anymore. We said it to each other when we were trading baseball cards back then but time says it better to us: No backs.

I'm sure this has been done elsewhere but what the hell.

Here are the career stats, regular and postseason, of a current Major League player. We'll call him Player A:

The postseason numbers are remarkably similar to the regular season numbers. A little more pop. Otherwise, almost identical.

And here are the career stats, regular and postseason, of another current Major League players. We'll call him Player B:

Again, remarkably similar. A little less pop in the postseason than in the regular season, but still more pop than Player A—in either the regular or postseason. In fact, even with the power dropoff, he's exactly .100 percentage points better in OPS than Player A in the postseason. Nothing to sneeze at.

Who are they?

Player A is Derek Jeter, who is known as one of the greatest postseason clutch performers of his era.

Player B is Alex Rodriguez, who is known as one of the great postseason chokers of his era.

Overall, Alex has played about a third of a season in the postseason (57 games, 210 at-bats), while Jeter has played almost an entire season in the postseason (141 games, 573 at-bats), so he's had that many more chances for memorable clutch performances. And he's certainly delivered. The catch in the stands, the shovel pass to nab Jeremy Giambi, the homerun on Nov. 1st. Was that all in 2001? All in a losing effort, ultimately.

Alex also suffers because his greatest postseason, until last year, was in 2000, when he was off-stage, as it were, with the Seattle Mariners.

The numbers, looked at one way, support those who believe there's no such thing as clutch performance. Given enough time, the players put up the numbers they always do.

Looked at another way, both of these guys seem clutch, since, even facing what one assumes is the superior pitching of postseason teams, they put up the numbers they always do.

Where the numbers leave no doubt? The rep of Derek Jeter as an October hero, and the rep of Alex Rodriguez as an October goat, are both greatly exaggerated.

Yankees Suck but it sucks to be the Twins and their fans right now.

This is the fourth time in seven years the Yankees have eliminated the Twins in the post-season—always in the ALDS, lately in a sweep—so, inevitably, I'm reading how the Twins "choke" in these games. I've read how the Yankees get in the Twins' "heads."

This would make sense if the Twins beat the Yankees during the regular season. But they don't. In six games this year, the Twins won two, the Yankees four. And this was a good year for the Twins.

Sure, in previous division series, the Yankees, with the best record in the American League, hosted the Twins, who had the worst record among division leaders, while this year the Yankees were the wild card, giving the Twins home field advantage. But the Yankees still had the better record—95-67 to 94-68—despite playing an unbalanced number of games in the Eastern Division, the strongest division, against the Rays, Red Sox and Blue Jays. That's where the money is and that's where the wins are. The Twins, in fact, had a winning record against every team in the American League but four: the Rays, Red Sox, Blue Jays and Yankees. Put the Twins in the East and they probably wouldn't even have contended.

The Twins had the 10th highest payroll in the Major Leagues, $97 million, which isn't bad, but it's not even half the Yankees payroll, $206 million, which is $45 million more than the next highest payroll (Red Sox) and $60 million more than the third highest payroll (Cubs). In terms of money, the Yankees are in another league. They can spend as much as they need to, and do. The playing field isn't level, and hasn't been for some time.

You need to know this going in. You can't fool yourself about what you're up against.

Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, I think, fooled himself. In the first inning of the first game, his lead-off hitter, Denard Span, lined a single to left. What did he do? He had the next batter, Orlando Hudson, bunt. He sacrificed. He gave up one of his 27 outs to put in scoring position a runner who didn't score. He thought small, played small ball, even though he was going up against a team that averaged 5.3 runs a game, the most in the Majors. And in the three games of the Division Series? The Yankees averaged 5.6 runs a game. The same, more or less. You can't fool yourself about what you're up against.

The Twins front office fooled itself. By May, everyone knew the Seattle Mariners weren't contenders, so everyone knew their pitcher, Cliff Lee, a free agent at the end of the year, would be on the trading block. Lee wasn't just a good pitcher, he came with a pedigree: He beat Yankees. In the World Series last year, the Philadelphia Phillies only won two games against the Yankees, the two games Cliff Lee started, so if you were looking ahead to the post-season and a possible rematch with the Yankees, Cliff Lee was exactly the guy you wanted. Hell, the Yankees nearly got him. Instead he went to the Rangers. For not much, really. Couldn't the Twins afford not much? You grab your chances when you have them, and the Twins have chances now, but they didn't grab them. They let Cliff Lee go. They fooled themselves about what they were up against.

The New York Yankees represent a monstrous unfairness in the national pastime. They are the wealthiest team by far, rich enough to make up for their mistakes, and they carry a sense of entitlement. They think it's theirs. This makes it delicious when they're defeated but hardly news when they win. Yesterday was hardly news.

I've bitched about this before. And before. And before. But nothing's been done. I'm a bear of little voice and small perch.

Time to bitch again.

If the World Series goes to a Game 5 this year—that is: if one team doesn't sweep—it goes into November. If it goes to a Game 7 it lasts until November 4th. Assuming no rainouts. Or snowouts. In which case it'll go longer.

Boys of summer, indeed.

No one wants this but everyone accepts it as a fait accompli. "We have an extra tier of playoffs now." "Nothing can be done." "It's baseball."

But it's not baseball. We're only reaching this point because the post-season is being scheduled in a different way than the regular season.

How many days off did the Yankees have in September? Three: September 9, 16, and 30. All the other days they played. Because that's what baseball is. "Don't worry, kid," Earl Weaver told a young Tom Boswell. "We do this every day."

If the Yankees make it to the World Series, how many days off—at minimum—will they have between the end of the regular season (Oct. 3) and the start of the World Series (Oct. 27)? Eleven. That's at minimum. That's assuming the ALDS and the ALCS go to the max. They'll play 12 days and rest 11. That's what's built into the schedule.

What does this mean? It means they can rest older players. It means they can ignore lesser bench players, and relief pitchers, and fourth and fifth starters. It means the game they played for 162 games—the whole reason they're here—is not the game they're playing now.

It also means, every day they don't play, the further we get into October and November. The days grow shorter and the nights grow colder and the game becomes less like the game they played for 162 game—the whole reason they're playing now.

So what can be done?

Easy. Eliminate off days.

Season ends Sunday, Oct. 3rd? Start the post-season on Tuesday, Oct. 5th. For all eight teams. Yes, baseball fanatics, this means there will be a scheduling conflict. Boo hoo. That's what DVR is for.

Then play through—as teams do during the regular season. No off days. In this way all Division Series will end, at the lastest, on Saturday, Oct. 9th. Take Sunday off. Start the Championship Series on Monday, Oct. 11th. Play through. In this way the LCS ends, at the latest, on Sunday, Oct. 17th.

Start the World Series on Tuesday, Oct. 19th. That's eight days before it's scheduled now. Because I'm eliminating eight off days they have scheduled now. Because I'm making the most important baseball games more like baseball.

This is not rocket science, Bud.

If the problem is the networks, then you screwed up by allowing the networks to schedule your games. Your games. Work it during the next negotiations. Work it like a used car salesman.

This is baseball. Make it like fucking baseball.

I still can't decide if the second half of Ken Burns's "Tenth Inning" doc, about the 2000s, made up for some of the problems in the first half, about the 1990s, or if, because the aughts corrected some of the '90s excesses (performance enhancing drugs; Yankees world championships), such a turnaround is inevitable.

What Burns does works. But he's still presenting the narrative of the time ("Wow, look at all these homeruns!") with only a bit of foreshadowing (psst: chemicals may be involved). John Thorn still says with a straight face: "You can forget about the debate... the greatest pitcher in the history of baseball is Roger Clemens." Tom Veducci still says of Barry Bonds: "This is the most feared hitter who ever lived." The metaphor I brought up last time still works. It's as if Burns is reveling in the Cincinnati Reds amazing upset over the Chicago White Sox in the 1919 World Series before coughing and adding the historical perspective: "Oh, by the way: the Sox were paid to lose."

None of the talking heads are angry enough about steroids, either. The record books are meaningless now. Trust in the game is meaningless. There's a discussion at the end about the asterisk next to Bonds' homerun record, the career one, 762 homeruns, and most of the talking heads—not wishing to sound like Ford Frick on Roger Maris—say of course not, no asterisk, before adding that, yes, there is a metaphoric one. "The asterisk is whatever exists in the minds of fans," Dan Okrent says (dismissively?). Yes, it is. But it's not just with Bonds' record; it's with the entire era. The last 20 years of baseball has an asterisk. What's legitimate and what isn't? What counts and what doesn't? Albert Pujols has the best first five seasons of any player ever. Is he juiced? Jose Bautista, this year, at the age of 29, hits 54 homeruns, when his career-best had been 16. Do alarm bells go off? Did anyone in the pre-steroid era make such a leap? The tragedy isn't Barry Bonds, it's all of baseball. Everything is tainted. And the taint ain't over.

For a time I thought Burns's narrative should've focused on the great players who didn't partake (Ken Griffey, Jr.; Frank Thomas), and who were subsequently overshadowed by those who did (McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, A-Rod), but of course we're back to the impossibility of proving a negative. We don't know that Griffey and Thomas didn't partake; we just assume it from their career trajectories.

But if they didn't, isn't that the tragedy? The overshadowing of the legitimate by the illegitimate? The doc says the inflated players were a reflection of the inflated times (stock market; housing market) and excuses them. That's a cop-out. Baseball should not reflect the worst of our society; it should be an oasis from the worst in our society.

Other problems:

• The hyperbole: Pedro Martinez "made himself into one of the greatest players the game had ever seen." Mariano Rivera became "the most successful closer of all time." Randy Johnson was "the most feared left-hander of all time." The Yankees were led by Derek Jeter, "one of the most popular and respected players in baseball history." It's not that I don't agree with some of these statements; it's that they're a) hard to prove (and thus meaningless), and, b) a bit much when strung together. It feels like lazy writing.

RJ: feared. Pedro: great. Jeter: respected.

• Turning the New York Yankees into underdogs: Here's Tom Boswell on the 2001 World Series: "Johnson and Schilling are more dominant now than anyone in the history of baseball. And that's what the Yankees are up against." I suppose this could go under hyperbole, too. (More dominant than Koufax/Drysdale?) But it's worse than the average hyperbolic statement because it's turning a team that has won three World Championships in a row, and 26 overall, and has the highest payroll in baseball, into the underdog.
• Turning the New York Yankees into "America's team": Voiceover on the 2001 World Series: "The New York Yankees, the team much of America was rooting for, had lost." Another narrative of the time that I didn't buy at the time and don't buy now. Where's the evidence? Maybe among the general population, maybe among non-baseball fans—the kind of people who only know from Willie Mays and Derek Jeter—sure, why not? Post-9/11, with all the NYPD caps and NYFD caps and shots of Rudy G. sitting in the stands, the Yankees were probably less hated than normal. But among baseball fans? Who had just suffered through three years of Yankee celebrations and 26 in all? Who suffered through Yankee fans talking up rings as if they owned them? I remember bottom of the ninth in Game 7 when Mark Grace led off with a single and David Delucci pinch-ran for him and then Damian Miller laid down a fat bunt in front of Rivera who opted to go for the force at second. Delucci came in hard, safe, and Jeter, covering the bag, grabbed his ankle, which was already injured. And I got up close to my TV set and yelled, "Writhe, Jeter, writhe!" Admittedly I'm a special case. But America's team? Only in the way that Goldman Sachs is American's investment bank: big and bloated and known and despised.
• Turning the spectacular losses of the New York Yankees into tragic events: Burns did this in his original doc with the 1960 World Series. Bill Mazeroski hits one of the most famous homeruns ever hit and who do we hear from? The Pirates and their fans? No. We hear from the Yankees and their fans. Billy Crystal: "I still hurt," etc. Same here. On 2001, do we hear from the Diamondbacks and their fans about this improbable, beautiful, spectacular, bottom-of-the-ninth-inning victory over Mariano Rivera and the New York Yankees? Nope. Cue Billie Holliday's "God Bless the Child" and cut to Joe Torre saying, "That night was about as sad as it gets." Oh, boo hoo, motherfucker. Just four rings in your pocket instead of five. If Ken Burns, a supposed Red Sox fan, doesn't realize that every Yankees loss is a moment for celebration then he shouldn't be baseball's documentarian. I mean: Billie Holliday? The song's about poverty, Ken. God bless the child that's got a $200 million payroll.
• VORP? OPS? One of the biggest stories of the 2000s was the acceptance, after decades of knocking at the baseball door, of Bill Jamesian stats, by Oakland GM Billy Beane and others, which helped transform the game. It's part of the reason why the Yankees stopped winning and the Red Sox started; and it's part of the reason why the Yankees began to win again. Brian Cashman did his work. He read Moneyball and changed his ways. So why not an interview with Bill James, Rob Neyer, Michael Lewis? Why not Billy Beane or Theo Epstein or Brian Cashman? Instead we get Jon Miller channeling Sid Dithers. Vas you talkin' to me? It's like Ron Paul explaining why big government is necessary.
• "The popularity of the sport is just enormous." This is Commissioner Bud Selig, one of Burns's talking heads, trotting out his company line. And measured by attendance, sure, there's some truth in it, but that's only because baseball has been turned into a family event. The appeal is as much the mascot and the fireworks and the various races (hydro/presidents/sausages) as the game itself. Maybe it's more than the game itself. The answer to his comment is in World Series ratings, which drop and keep dropping, in a way that, even in this fragmented, internetted age, the ratings for the Super Bowl don't. The Super Bowl is still central to our culture. The World Series isn't. In baseball, fans root for their team but not for the game, and that's part of the problem. Maybe that's the whole problem.
• "Bonds hits it high! He hits it DEEP! It is...outta here!" I didn't need to hear this as often as I heard it.

But the doc got right that dispiriting, record-breaking 756th homerun. "The whole thing was a joyless march toward the inevitable," Bob Costas says. "Baseball powerless. Selig with his hands in his pockets..."

It was smart tapping ESPN's editorial director Gary Hoenig as a talking head. He had great comments throughout but my favorite was on Mark McGwire's testimony before U.S. Congress: "And you could just see him deflate like a giant balloon in a Thanksgiving Day parade..."

And it got right the sheer, magical joy of the Red Sox thumping the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS. "It was," announcer Keith David intoned, "the greatest comeback in baseball history."

And for once, that wasn't hyperbole.

Quick impressions of the 2010 baseball season:

• In mid-April I trotted out my postseason predictions based solely upon payroll. So much for that. Only three of my eight made it (Yankees, Phillies, Giants) while the others (Angels, Tigers, Red Sox, Mets and Cubs) finished 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 4th and 5th. Rob Neyer, who actually, you know, worked on his predictions, got three of the four right in the A.L. (missing only the Rays), and two of the four in the N.L. (Phillies, Braves), but went with the Rockies in the West and the Cards in the Central.
• In terms of opening-day payroll, the post-season teams are all over the place, ranking 1st (Yankees), 4th (Phillies), 9th (Giants), 10th (Twins), 15th (Braves), 19th (Rays), 20th (Reds) and 27th (Rangers). Really? The Rangers had a $55,000 payroll at the start? I guess bankruptcy will do that to you.
• The Mariners ranked 14th in payroll and last in every offensive category in the Majors. That includes teams in the N.L., where the pitchers bat. We scored 74 fewer runs than the next-worst-team, the Pittsburgh Pirates. We were last in hits, doubles, triples, homers. We were the only team in the Majors with an OBP below .300 (.298), and we were 23 percentage points below the next-worst team (Houston) in slugging percentage, winding up at .339. Ick.
• Ichiro led the league in hits for the 7th time, tying Pete Rose's record, but he had a .300/.300/.300 season: .315/.359/.394. That adds up to the 86th-best OPS in the Majors. Yet, no surprise, he was the best offensive player on our team.
• But it was still a better season than Derek Jeter had, who wound up with a .710 OPS: 115th in the Majors.
• Then again, Jeter did beter than Franklin Guitierrez, who started out so strong in April (.326/.378/.483), but wound up with the mark of the beast: an OPS of .666. F-Gut, we hardly knew ye.
• Awards picks? I assume the BBWAA will go with Josh Hamilton for American League MVP, but, to me, he's the second-best pick. I'd go with Miguel Cabrera, even though his team, the Tigers, finished third in the A.L. Central. Hamilton got injured in September, playing Pete Reiser in the outfield. Cabrera kept going. He finished 1st in: Runs, RBIs, OBP. He finished second in: batting average, slugging, OPS. He finished third in homeruns. Basically: He and Hamilton had comparable percentage numbers but he had 26 more RBIs and 16 more runs scored. That's why I'd vote for him.
• N.L. MVP? Joey Votto. The only other argument is Pujols, but Pujols has won it three times. 
• A.L. Cy Young? King Felix. The only other argument is David Price.
• N.L. Cy Young? Roy Halladay.
• Dialogue of the year? Jim. From an M's game in April after Griffey, starting from first on a double, got thrown out at home by 10 feet after being waved home:

Jim: Do you think if we were given enough time during spring training we couldn't do that?
Me: What?
Jim: Be a third base coach. I've often wondered. It looks like not much.

• Welcome back, Ken Burns.
• Fun reading about you, Willie.
• So long, King George.
• Hello, Target Field.
• Keep going, Daddyo.
• Good-bye, Junior.

So that's our narrative: The rise and fall of Barry Bonds.

Bummer.

As soon as I heard about “The Tenth Inning,” Ken Burns' extra-inning look at what's transpired in major league baseball since his “Baseball” documentary premiered on PBS in September 1994, I wondered how Burns was going to do it. How do you handle this last 18 years of baseball history? Last night, in part one, we got part of our answer.

Barry Bonds will be viewed as a tragic figure. Talking heads will make excuses for him. He did what he did because his dad played in the South and was called names, or because young Barry overheard his godfather Willie Mays telling his father Bobby to look out for no. 1, or because “he didn't play the hero game,” or because too much attention was lavished on Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in that crazy summer of '98 and so Barry, who knew he was better than these two guys, had to go out and get himself a swelled head. He had to go out and besmirch his bad name. And that's the tragedy of our baseball time.

Here's Allen Barra writing for The Daily Beast:

Bonds' trajectory in the National League is juxtaposed with that of Ken Griffey, Jr., the best player in the American League at this time, about whom there has never been a whisper of scandal.

Indeed. In the first half hour of the doc, we get 10 minutes on Bonds and one minute on Junior. That's the juxtaposition. Junior gets the cover but not the content.

Admittedly I'm biased in the matter. Admittedly the steroids scandal is the big story of baseball for the last 18 years. But: a) this seems to be rewarding monstrously bad behavior, and b) it still isn't doing the steroids scandal right.

How much time is spent on the McGwire/Sosa homerun chase? Another 10 minutes? Fifteen? And for how much of this time does Burns treat the HR chase as if it's a legitimate thing? Wow, look at those homeruns flying out. Wow, he broke Maris' record and kept going. Such excitement! Sure, we get the sidebar on Steve Wilstein and andro, and how no one wanted to know (including me), but then it's back to the homerun chase and all of those balls flying out of the yard. This feels wrong. It's as if Burns had spent as much time on the Cincinnati Reds fantastic upset over the Chicago White Sox in the 1919 World Series, “one of the greatest upsets in World Series history,” as on the fact that the ChiSox threw the Series.

The story is the fix. It's not what resulted from the fix.

Worse, everyone's making excuses for these guys. Among the talking heads, only Bob Costas—who chastises the Major League Baseball Players Association for ignoring steroids for so long, to the detriment of its clean players—waggles a mild finger. The others shrug or joke or make grand pronouncements about our culture: “You'd do it,” “This is the time we live in,” etc. Steroids, in Burns' vision, is like the curve ball, the '51 Giants, Gaylord Perry, Albert Belle's corked bat. Everyone cheats.

Except everyone doesn't cheat. Some players presumably didn't down that Jose Canseco milkshake.

Burns keeps doing this. He gives us the narratives of the time, many of which I didn't agree with at the time, as if they are still the true narratives.

Remember all of that fan anger after the '95 strike? How fans said they weren't coming back? We know they came back. But their anger, which, to me, always felt prissy and spoiled and misdirected at the players, who didn't want a salary cap thrust upon them by ownership, is still seen as legitimate. Excuses are still made for it. Hell, it's almost celebrated.

And what brought these fans back? Who “saved” baseball? Again, Cal Ripken breaking Lou Gehrig's consecutive game streak in September '95 is trotted out without any statistical backup whatsoever. I guess it's just a feeling people had. I guess it just makes a good narrative.

And did the '98 homerun chase really distract us from the Monica Lewinsky scandal? I thought the Monica Lewinsky scandal was distracting us from other, more important matters. I thought that was its point. How many distractions does a mighty nation need anyway?

And, seriously, all that time on the '96 Yankees and not one shot of Jeffrey Maier?

Who are some of these talking heads anyway? Does Sacramento Bee columnist Marcos Breton really deserve all of that air time? Should the doc really have begun with Keith Olbermann intoning, forever intoning? Where's Bill James, Rob Neyer, Joe Posnanski? Where are my guys?

Not to mention all of that “The X of Y from Z” thing: “The fifth child of an Italian immigrant...”; “The shy son of a dentist from southern California...” Burns is turning into a parody of himself.

Apologies for the rant. We're only through the top of the 10th. Maybe the home team can rally.