Phenomenal Smith

1983 Donruss #586

2011-03-12T20:59:00.002-05:00

Buyer’s remorse can be common when you shop on ebay after you’ve had a few drinks, and while this money probably would have been better spent on paying down debt or buying food or stuffing underneath my mattress, I can’t complain too much about the deal I got on these three cards; $10.25, including shipping.

The odd thing about baseball cards these days is that they’re far cheaper than they were when I was a kid. Growing up, if I wanted a good baseball card, it would’ve taken several weeks (or months) of allowance-saving to get what I had my eye on. This Wade Boggs rookie card would’ve cost me at least $15 twenty-some years ago, but thanks to the power of internet auction sites, I got three of them for the same price. Factor in inflation, and it’s even cheaper than what it would’ve been a long time ago.

It seems a bit silly for a full-grown man to decent money on things he wished he had when he was a kid, but this money would’ve just been spent on a queasy cab ride home after drinking whiskey three neighborhoods away anyway. Now I’m going to put these cards in top-loaders and into a shoebox and forget I even own them to begin with.

The back of this card tells us that Wade Boggs was the Red Sox’s regular 1B by the end of the 1982 season. Baseball-reference tells us that he spend exactly 2 innings at 1B for the rest of his Boston career, which is only interesting to those of us who find little else but Baseball interesting.

1976 Topps #480

2011-03-04T22:12:00.000-05:00

I do not remember when or where I acquired this card. All I know is that when it came into my possession, the pinhole on the north end was already there. Since it was clearly not in mint condition and there was no way of ever salvaging it, I decided to re-use the pinhole and pin it to my bedroom wall when I was a late teen. My father came into my bedroom one day, saw it tacked to my wall, and expressed something very close to disgust in seeing that I was desecrating a vintage card of a Hall of Fame player. I argued that the pinhole was already there, and I may as well have some fun displaying a card of one of my athletic idols, much like he probably did when he was a boy, back when Baseball cards were all but relatively worthless. “At least put it in a sleeve,” he said, but I declined, and he shook his head.

You see, my father takes Baseball cards very seriously, and this, to him, was a violation of the highest order. It is rare when he expresses grave disappointment in me, like when I took his car for a joyride when I was 15, or when I overdrew my bank account by a couple hundred dollars and needed him to bail me out. But this account, judging by the tone in his voice, was just as severe as either of those incidents. This card is scuffed and creased and faded, but I love it anyway, and it’s still tacked to my shelf despite my being 32 years old.

The back of this card tells us, “Roger Conner hit the 1st grand slam in National League history, Sept 10, 1881.” I have no idea who Roger Conner is but good for him.

My Boring Fantasy Team #1

2010-06-09T08:56:00.003-04:00

Last week I made two fantasy trades that sent a couple tremors through the rest of the league. First, I sent 2B Daniel Cooley Uggla and 1B Paul Konerko to my friend Kyle in exchange for 2B Brandon Phillips, OF Michael Bourn and Zack fucking Greinke, arguably one of the top three pitchers in the game right now. It stings to give up Uggla when I've had middle infield problems but Phillips is probably a net upgrade when you consider his stolen bases and I have not pointed out to my trading partner that Phillips doesn't have such a drop-off in the power counting stats. Kyle is sorely in need of power, and Konerko is a better CI than any of the guys he's been playing there so far. And he's frustrated enough with Greinke's winless ways that he's willing to offer him for an otherwise replaceable CI. Power is hard to come by on the wire, but I plucked Konerko off waivers and I can play Justin Smoak or Chipper Jones or Daric Barton until I find a stable solution. I'll lose a bit in power, but gain serious stolen bases and upgrade to an ace starter when I'm in the middle of the pack in ERA/WHIP.

What I'm betting on is Kyle not realizing the damage he will do by giving me so many stolen bases. I'm next-to-last in SB, and he's third from the top, but there's only 5 stolen bases separating us in the standings. With Phillips, Bourn and Jimmy Rollins soon coming off the DL for me, I expect to race up the charts. I also expect to take Kyle down a notch in ERA/WHIP, now that he's lost a key source. Kyle is so far behind me in power that what I've given him will hurt others more than it will hurt me. Greinke got bitch-slapped for 6 runs last night, so his tenure on my team is not off to a good start.

My other trading partner was The Guy We Don't Know. I flipped C Gerald Demp "Buster" Posey for closer Brian Wilson. With Bill and Andy nipping at my heels in saves, my 2nd placing in the category is getting precarious. What better way to fix that problem by trading a surplus catcher to the only guy ahead of me in saves? In a two-catcher league, the position is at a premium and I had scooped up Buster when an extra roster spot presented itself. I was already playing Joe Mauer and Miguel Olivo (to replace Jorge Posada and his hairline-fractured foot) so I looked around for teams hurting for catchers. The Guy We Don't Know was employing Dioner Navarro, he of the putrid 46 OPS+. He was quick to pounce the chance to upgrade his catcher, even at the expense of losing ground to his biggest competition in saves.

The season will tell who wins these trades. I'm sitting in 2nd with competition, but I think I've systematically eliminated Kyle from the five or so contenders.

Aramis Ramirez is a problem.

2010-05-10T16:00:00.001-04:00

The Cub third baseman is slashing .160/.226/.261 in 133 plate appearances this year. The counting stats are pretty crappy, which would be tolerable in early-season fantasy baseball if the walks and doubles were there. It would mean a guy is seeing the ball well and hitting it hard; it's just a matter of time before he progresses back to the mean and the doubles start falling over the fence a bit more often and some of his slumping teammates start helping him create more runs. But Aramis Ramirez is not doing anything with the bat these days, especially with a dude who hasn't slugged less than .491 in seven years. So what's wrong with him? I don't watch a lot of Cub games so I have no idea. He's not that old; this is Age 32 season and historically speaking, his power shouldn't be disappearing this rapidly, even though he wasn't all that good the last two months of 2009. He is striking out 23% of the time, a lot higher than his usual seasons, but his walk rate has actually been a bit better. He's definitely capable of a rebound but what's going on? Is he pressing a bit too much in the early going? Is he just really really unlucky with his .176 BABIP? Is he hiding an injury?

This guy theorizes that it's possible his Dominican upbringing may affect his play, and that Aramis has trouble playing baseball in Chicago in the colder months. The linked article is outdated by several years and while Aramis's numbers in the Aprils and Mays of his earlier career back that up, it wasn't like that the last few years. Have there been unusually warm springs for Chicago recently? I really don't know.

But Aramis is simply too good to drop, and if an impatient leaguemate has released him, you should consider picking him up. In the meantime, I'll be benching him, and pick up a replacement until he starts showing some signs of life. There's a few not-unattractive options on the waiver wire for a CI if I shift the eligible Kevin Youkilis to replace Aramis at 3B and plug in Paul Konerko at 1B, a waiver wire pick-up of mine who has done no wrong for me so far.

1974 Topps #284

2007-07-24T21:01:00.000-04:00

Dave Duncan has a lot to be proud of these days. Son Chris has hit .294/.384/.569 for the Cardinals so far this year, and even if he is a little butchertastic in the outfield, he's certainly shut up some of the nepotism cries heard last fall when he was called up from Memphis to join the big league club with dad for good.

Shelly Duncan, however, had to wait a little while longer with the Yankees. He tore up AAA ball this year to the tune of a .957 OPS to force his way on the Yankee roster this month and has hit 3 home runs in just 17 at-bats. I was telling Will recently that I'm not worried about the Red Sox's recent .500ish record or the Yankee's recent surge but Shelly Duncan is exactly the kind of hitter Kevin Maas was in 1991 or Shane Spencer was for 27 games in 1998. It's easy to point out that those hitters starting falling off a cliff the following April because pitchers soon figured out how to get them out. But while the rest of the AL East is trying to figure out Shelly Duncan out, they'll pitch to him and when he's pitched to, he can hit a ton. It's not hard to imagine a Massesque rest-of-the-way from Shelly and bringing him up was vintage Brian Cashman, the kind of brilliantly useful filler moves he used to make all the time before George Steinbrenner started making more executive decisions. Bringing up Shelly plus giving Andy Phillips a full-time job instead of dicking around with some putrid combination of Miguel Cairo/Josh Phelps/Whatever's Left of Douggie Mientkiewxyz at first has been paying off for the Yanks, when you consider that an upgrade from a collectively shitty first baseman to a merely average one is still a pretty good upgrade in and of itself.

Me, I'm encouraged by what I'm now convinced is Dave Magadan's brilliance as a hitting coach. First, he fixed Covelli Crisp and according to this, he's fixed David Ortiz's swing as well. Has he cured Julio Lugo, too? The shortstop is finally hitting like the player the Red Sox signed, with a 14-game hitting streak as of blog time. The pitching rotation is 7 deep with Jon Lester's comeback completed, the bullpen has been stabilized with Manny Delcarmen's promotion and Prince Theo has a valuable trading chip in Wily Mo Pena to net something before next Tuesday's trading deadline.

Know who's actually a bit underrated? Daisuke Matsuzaka. There are over 75 starting pitchers in the American League but you can't name a dozen better than what Daisuke has been this year. Go on, try and name a dozen.

1976 Topps #550

2007-07-24T20:47:00.000-04:00

It won't be much longer now, Hank. Enjoy it while it lasts.

That's My Bush!

2007-07-16T23:12:00.000-04:00

President Bush Likes “Zumala” of the Tigers

1989 Topps #49

2007-07-05T15:05:00.000-04:00

In what was one of the more shameless pursuits of meaningless individual goals by a team player in recent memory, Craig Biggio finally hit his 3,000th career hit last week. If he retired 5 years ago, he would still make the Hall of Fame, considering that this was once a great player whom Bill James convincingly argued was better than Junior Griffey. But his performance over the last couple years has been borderline pathetic and if you're hip to new-fangled stats like VORP, then Biggio is ranked 31st among all Major League second basemen, which is amazing when you consider that there are only 30 starting second basemen jobs to be had in Baseball. A .400 slugging percentage is acceptable if you're playing that position in the NL, but not if you're barely OBPing .300.

I would love to see a study of how much a player in pursuit of a second-rate record or a milestone can directly impact a team's attendance. After all, if it's counter-productive to play Biggio at second when you have other (and better) internal options, then you should at least be getting a bit more coin out of it, right? But since I'm not aware of any such study, I guess I'll have to conduct one of my own.

Attendance for Games Minute Maid Park, June 2006

06/08 - 35752
06/09 - 37097
06/10 - 41808
06/11 - 39523
06/16 - 36328
06/17 - 39048
06/18 - 39867
06/20 - 32713
06/21 - 33243
06/22 - 43769

The sudden spike for the last home game of June, in case you were wondering, was for Roger Clemens's season debut. The average attendance per game comes out to 37,915. If you determine that Rocket's first start was an abberation, then it averages out to 37,264 per.

Attendance for Games at Minute Maid Park, June 2007

06/01 - 36784
06/02 - 39234
06/03 - 40483
06/12 - 33637
06/13 - 34611
06/14 - 42024
06/15 - 37322
06/16 - 41974
06/17 - 42019

At this point, the Astros went on a 9-game road trip, with Biggio stuck at 2989 hits. Biggio collected 8 more and upon their return to Minute Maid, Biggio went 5-6 to put him over 3,000. The last three games:

06/28 - 42537
06/29 - 42861
06/30 - 43071

It would be safe to assume that many fans purchased advanced tickets during the days before in anticipation of witnessing history but at any rate, there's clearly an attendance increase when Biggio was closing in on that arbitrary number that people think is so great because it's a "3" with a "0," a "0," and another "0" after it. But how much difference does it really make to the Houston's bottom line?

The average home attendance for June of this year is 39,713, a 1,798 difference from last year. The average ticket price at Minute Maid is $26.66, which translates to an extra $47,934.68 for the month of June. You can add a few dollars when you consider money spent on parking and hot dogs but we can't really add any extra revenue from fans who purchased Biggio jerseys to remember the experience by; the new Collective Bargaining Agreement declares that all money made from merchandise gets divided into 30 and shared among all teams. And I have no idea how much revenue they gained through advertising and television. But really, a measly extra 50 grand? Especially when you consider that more people showed up for Clemens's debut last year than for any of the games where Biggio was anticipated to hit his 3rd thousand.

Attendance for Games at Minute Maid in July 2007, So Far.

07/01 - 35260
07/02 - 28973
07/03 - 37993
07/04 - 39993

And now people are back to caring less about the Astros.

A Different Kind of an Identity Crisis

2007-06-25T11:33:00.000-04:00

So I was digging around the waiver wire in my fantasy league, looking for strikeout middle relievers to shore up my pitching staff when I came across Oakland's Santiago Casilla, who's struck out 14 in 12.1 innings of work this year. My first thought was, "Why the hell haven't I heard of this guy before?" But then I found out I have.

This isn't unusual in Baseball. Sometimes a guy like David Arias decides that after being traded to a new team, he wants to be henceforth known as David Ortiz. And for some reason, a guy like Ian Oquendo goes by his babymomma's last name until he reverts back to Ian Snell. And sometimes a guy like Rafael Furcal comes along and steals 40 bases in his rookie year and everyone thinks he beat Ty Cobb's record for most by a teenaged player...until they learn that Furcal was born in 1977 instead of 1980.

But it's rare that a player has both a drastic name change and a drastic birthdate change. The former Jairo Garcia stepped forward last year and revealed that he signed using false documents with a fake name and a fake birthdate, rechristening him as Santiago Casilla and adding 2 years and 10 months to his birthdate.

This cleared up a lot for me, seeing how as I have heard of Jairo Garcia and wondered whatever became of him. Of course, I promptly picked him up and he blows a save situation against the Mets Saturday.

1987 Topps #512

2007-06-20T15:43:00.000-04:00

I've always wondered just how much a good hitting coach can contribute to a winning team. On one hand of the spectrum, you have Charlie Lau, who wrote The Art of Hitting .300 and is often credited for turning George Brett and Harold Baines into the hitters they eventually became. On the other hand, you have guys like Jim Rice who, according to Scott Hatteberg in Moneyball, couldn't understand why no one could hit the way he did. The best hitting coaches (according to Scott again), are the ones who used to suck because they don't try to make you hit the way they did.

Will calls it "intense nerdery" and while I don't disagree, I'm finding all the before and after split screens and YouTube videos of Coco Crisp's new hitting stance on the Sons of Sam Horn message boards fascinating to no end. The changes are a bit subtle but still obvious to the naked eye; he's standing taller and his stance is less open than it was. Red Sox hitting coach Dave Magadan tells us that:

He's standing a little taller. A little less stride. And getting the feeling like he's above the ball instead of like landing with that front leg bent. Just trying to get him taller, both ways. If he's not going to load, at least keep him where he holds his position instead of leaning toward the baseball. You don't want to swing around your body. If you get all spread out, with your legs and the weight of your upper body, you swing around it, which slows up your bat and you hit a lot of balls weakly. It gets him in a better position where he can generate some bat speed.

Since June 15th (when the adjustment was reported in mlb.com), Coco has been on a tear, going 11-20 with 3 home runs as of blog time, adding more than 80 points to his OPS. Combined with his fantastic defense in center field and cheap contract, I can't decide if all this makes Coco less expendable or more tradeable. Or maybe all of this means nothing and it's just a mirage from smacking around National League pitching for a few days.

Though Dave Magadan's lack of power prevented him from being the star the Topps oh-so-boldly predicted 20 years ago, his high on-base percentage and batting average made him one of the better bench players in the league. That may only seem like damning with faint praise but it wasn't too long ago that Kevin Youkilis was not only being compared to Magadan, but it was meant as a compliment.

Oh, hey, did you know that Dave is also Sweet Lou Pinella's cousin? I didn't.

A Golden Sombrero?

2007-06-15T21:44:00.000-04:00

So I'm watching the Mets-Yankees game and after Carlos Delgado struck out for the 4th time in the game, they announce the event as a "golden sombrero." At first, I actually thought it was some sort of vaguely racist slam that I wasn't quite getting. But it turns out that I had just never heard of it before. Wiki tells us that:

The term derives from "hat trick" and since four is bigger than three, the rationale was that a four-strikeout performance should be referred to by a bigger hat, such as a sombrero. The "Olympic Rings" or platinum sombrero applies to a player striking out five times in a game, while a horn or titanium sombrero is bestowed upon a player who strikes out six times in a single game.

Huh. I guess you learn something new every day but this just sounds like some shit that somebody made up or something. A golden sombrero? Really? God, what a stupid game. No wonder everyone hates Baseball.

1982 Topps #783

2007-06-15T18:08:00.000-04:00

It isn't often that I've actually heard of a guy who gets selected in the 45th round of Baseball's Amateur Draft but I've been excited by Pat Venditte for quite awhile, ever since Alan Schwartz profiled the kid in The New York Times in April. Though the jaw-dropping video within the article that shows the Creighton switch-pitcher slipping his ambidextrous glove to his opposite hand has since been removed, I shat my pants when I first saw it (you, however, can check him out on YouTube). After putting on fresh underwear, I tried to dig around and find some independent scouting reports on him (other than his profile on the Creighton website) but gave up after like a page of Google searches. So then I had to go all the way the hell over to Baseball Prospectus and hang out in their chat room while I waited for prospect maven Kevin Goldstein to answer my question about him. He said:

He's going to go for sure. His numbers are good, his stuff isn't. He's in the mid-80s righthanded and drops to sidearm when he pitches lefty, and only in the upper 70s. Nobody is thrilled with him, but somebody in the teens is going to take a shot and see what happens.

Kev was way off base, but only because Venditte scared everyone off by announcing that he will return for his senior year at Creighton and develop his left side for another season. Of course, it should go without saying that he should expect to be drafted much higher next year and even if it doesn't have much of a career, he'll still be a trailblazer just for letting the rest of us know it can be done. It may take a generation or two, but your favorite team will be employing a switch-pitcher in their bullpen soon enough.

However, this isn't unprecedented. Greg A. Harris (not to be confused with Greg W. Harris), who long wanted to switch-pitch in a game, was finally allowed to do so in the next-to-last game of his career on September 28, 1995. He came in to pitch a shutout 9th against Cincinnati, grounding out Reggie Sanders with his left hand, walking Hal Morris and grounding out Eddie Taubensee with his right and finally switching back to his left to ground out Brett Boone to end the inning. If you're the sort that finds poetry in box scores, then check out the play-by-play from that night's game because you likely won't see it again for years.

1991 Topps Traded #45

2007-06-14T07:37:00.001-04:00

Of all the things this author has forgotten from a constitutional law class he once took at a community college years ago, ex post facto is the only thing that his memory retained, despite finding no use to apply such a term to anything (much less Baseball) until now. But it was the first thing that popped into my head when I heard the latest rumor that Jason Giambi may face suspension from Commissioner Bud Selig if he doesn't tattle on his fellow union members in Senator George Mitchell's ongoing investigation of steroids in Baseball.

It should be rather telling that all you really need is a community college education to know that there isn't a legal leg for Selig to stand on if he decides to suspend Giambi. Simply put (for those without a community college education), ex post facto means you cannot punish a person retroactively for breaking a rule that wasn't a rule before it became a rule, so I don't think Jason has anything to worry about.

It is in the best interests of baseball for everyone, including players, to cooperate with Senator Mitchell in his investigation.

So said Selig. First, why isn't Mitchell referred to as a former Senator? I wrote out this long-ass sentence about how it would be in the best interests of Mitchell's constituents to not waste taxpayer money trying to find out which grown men put what in their grown bodies back when you were actually allowed to do so and then I find out that he hasn't held a public office in over 12 years. Is this some sort of scare tactic on Buddy's part? As if he's trying to say, "Confess more than you've already have, Jason, or I will sic a former Senator on you and then you'll be sorry!"

Second, I would like to believe that former Senator Mitchell, a graduate of Georgetown Law, already knows about that whole ex post facto thing and appreciates that nothing can really happen to Giambi if he doesn't rat. But with the way our government has stuck their tentacles in Baseball since Jose Canseco's book came out, I get the feeling that Washington would much rather be playing Baseball than senatoring anyway and (mis)governing it much like they (mis)govern their own states is the closest they'll ever get, when they obviously should be investigating a million other issues a million times more pressing than What's Wrong with Baseball.

B-b-b-but what about our innocence?

Fair enough, then. Let's talk about our innocence. Remember 17 years ago, back when it was all bubble gum and lollipops and sunshine and playing catch with Jeremy in the backyard and weighing 40 pounds lighter and not getting injured all the time by intestinal parasites and Topps sponsorships? Me too.

O sun-kiss'd youth! How I yearn for thee!

1982 Topps #695

2007-06-12T17:14:00.000-04:00

Oh, Warren.

1989 Topps #343

2007-06-06T17:58:00.000-04:00

This is the most punk rock Baseball card ever, and a bit of a reminder of why people hate Gary Sheffield to begin with. Here, the then-19 year old shortstop's arrogance is already apparent; he shows up for his first Topps card portrait with bling around his neck and enough of a smile to show off the "G" and the "S" inscribed in his two front teeth. A Future Star, indeed. Of course, dressing like an extra from an N.W.A. video probably doesn't endear yourself to the white Baseball-watching public, especially if you've already gained enough notoriety just by existing as Dwight Gooden's nephew. It would be sufficient to say that Gary Antonian Sheffield has not had the best relationship with media and the fans, and the latest thing that he has to say certainly hasn't helped.

It's really too bad that everyone is a little too busy responding by calling Gary Sheffield a "raving racist" or recounting the ways they hate him instead of acknowledging that his opinion about an issue that should be taken seriously should be taken seriously. There was nothing racist about what Sheffield said. He was asked his opinion on an issue and gave it. Instead of thinking about the reasons behind his response and contribute our own thoughts to the discussion like a good little roundtable should, we all decide to just yell HAY U RAAVING RACIST STOP SPEAKING OUT OF TURN THAT'S WHY YOU GOT TRADED TO SEVEN DIFFERENT TEAMS BC NO ONE LIKES U U RAVVING RASICT.

So I guess I'll just be alone in all this and add my own three cents.

Why American Black Kids Don't Play Baseball by Phenomenal Smith

MONEY

There are precious few spaces in urban areas where kids can play a respectable game of Baseball. If there are, there's very little chance that there's even any kind of consistent groundskeeping, like cutting the grass once a summer or something, because many cities can't (or won't) put (much) money into them. In addition to the community's lack of funds, many individual urban black kids (and their friends) don't have money for the gloves, bats and balls, leaving very little Baseball in the streets and alleys of urban areas. Furthermore, they usually don't have the money to play organized Baseball if their neighborhood Little League requires a registration fee, which brings us to:

THE LEARNING CURVE

Many middle-class white kids growing up in the suburbs have been playing some kind of organized Baseball from a very young age, from t-ball to that one league where everybody bats .689 because the only thing the pitching machine spits out is 65 mph fastballs to Little League. If they never gain any athletic maturity and learn nothing else, middle-class white kids at least know the fundamentals of the game because every spring, there's a new coach to scream at them until they learn. By the time they reach high school, they've already have up to 10 more years of polished experience than most black kids who decide to try out for Baseball for the first time. If they decide to try out, which brings us to:

NIKE

In what could very well be the most successful advertisement campaign in media history, Nike spent untold millions of dollars telling untold millions of kids to Be Like Mike. And untold thousands of kids earned college scholarships doing their best imitation of Mike. American black kids in urban areas were drawn to the instant gratification of Basketball and many young black urban males (perhaps in part without elder male figures in their lives to romanticize it for them) didn't really play all that much Baseball. Tying back to money, Basketball is also inexpensive; all you need is a basketball. It's also a lot more accessible in urban areas; hoops and pick-up games can be found everywhere. It isn't hard to imagine that perhaps a generation ago, Allen Iverson would've turned out to be a shortstop instead, or Dwayne Wade a centerfielder, but they're not and neither are their contemporaries. As evidenced by the 8.4% of Black Americans playing Baseball today, black kids just aren't growing up playing Baseball. While it's certainly a shame and there are things that can be done about it, it is what it is. The individuals that make up the system may not exactly all be racists but many of the factors that created the system has resulted in a certain socio-economical demographic's exclusion from Baseball. It isn't anybody's fault, really. It's just what happened.

But what the hell do I know, right? I'm just talking out of my ass like Sheffield did and writing it out on an anonymous blog, as if Jon Heyman is going to write in and be all, HAY PEHNOMENAL U SHOULD SHUTUP U RAVING RACISST THATS WHY NO ONE READS JOOR BLOG BC NO ONE LIKES TO TALK TO U BC UR NOT WHATS PURE ABOUT BASEBALL.

A Fanasty Player's Best Trade.

2007-06-04T17:29:00.000-04:00

For the 3rd time this season, after spending most of a weekend with my girlfriend and away from my 6 fantasy teams, I arrive home to discover that I had benched Johan Santana again out of neglect. Each time, my first reaction is to literally slap myself in the forehead. My second reaction, however, is to remind myself that as a manager of 6 fantasy teams, I should consider myself very lucky to even be getting laid on a consistent basis to begin with. So then my forehead-slap turns into a shoulder-shrug and I go about the rest of my day and never think of it again.

1987 Topps #227

2007-05-27T16:20:00.000-04:00

On April 12, 2007, Jamie Moyer dueled Tommy Glavine as the two elder statesmen combined to be the oldest left-handed starters to face each other in Baseball's history, totaling 85 years and 163 days between the two. Several weeks later, on May 9, Moyer would break that record again facing the Arizona Diamondbacks and Randy Johnson. The two lefties combined were 88 years and 48 days old. Two starts later, Moyer beat the Atlanta Braves for the first time in exactly 20 years and 2 days, leading to a heightened appreciation of the crafty southpaw's distinguished career, which spans 21 years and 7 franchises.

In what has turned out to be a rare astute move of the Pat Gillick regime in Philadelphia, he traded a couple of minor-league warm bodies to employ Moyer's services to shore up the rotation for a run at the playoffs. As with most Philadelphian runs at the playoffs, it was, of course, ill-fated, but not without Jamie doing exactly what was expected of him, going 5-2 with a 4.03 ERA the rest of the way. Gillick, already having convinced Moyer to waive his no-trade clause to switch to the National League, promptly signed the 43 year-old to a $10.5 million two-year extension after the season. So far, Jamie has been reliable, if not exciting, posting an 4.18 ERA in a hitter's park and making a contract issued to a pitcher through his Age 45 season an unusual bargain.

I'd like to think that Jamie approved the move to Philadelphia because after 122 career starts and nearly 10 years of owning Safeco Field, he had long mastered the confines of his home park, how American League hitters hit there and grew a bit bored of it. Though it may be a bit insulting to call Jamie Moyer a poor man's Greg Maddux, the comparison is certainly apt. Both spend countless hours studying the flaws of opposing hitters and keep copious notes on their tendencies and weaknesses, using their intelligence, outstanding control and secondary pitches, rather than blazing fastballs, to exploit those flaws. Although Maddux will retire with 5 Cy Young awards and a first-ballot invitation to Cooperstown, Moyer will have to settle for just one All Star appearance, and an invitation to the Baseball Hall of the Pretty Good, if such a shrine should ever be built. Which, if you've ever seen Jamie Moyer pitch, should be just fine for a man who has survived in the big leagues for 21 seasons almost by sheer virtue of being the second-smartest pitcher to ever play Baseball.

Above is a portrait of the control artist as a young man, probably looking off to the distance to then-teammate Greg Maddux and almost (almost) biting his bottom lip, as if in anticipation of how he'll measure up to the first-smartest pitcher to ever play Baseball.

1989 Topps #291

2007-05-14T20:04:00.000-04:00

Darryl Strawberry: Here you go, rook.

Kevin McReynolds: Hey, Darryl, look, man, I appreciate your being discreet about this, what with you incorporating hand-offs after three-run home runs and all, but I don't want any drugs. Also, I'm not a rookie.

Keith Hernandez: Cut the crap, rook and shut up and take the drugs.

Kevin McReynolds: But I already told you a million times, no. I mean, I don't care if you guys do but please, man, just leave me out of it. I just want to play ball. And for the last time, I'm not a rookie. I've been in the league since '83.

Keith Hernandez: Bullshit. We have The Baseball Encyclopedia in the dugout and you're not in it yet.

Kevin McReynolds: Yeah, but that's from 1982. Neither is Darryl.

Darryl Strawberry: ssh! don't say my name, man. c'mon, take it! 48,000 people are watching, rook.

Kevin McReynolds: I'm not a rookie! I led the team in hits and doubles last year!

Keith Hernandez: Bullshit, rook. Darryl lead the team in everything last year.

Darryl Strawberry: What he said.

Kevin McReynolds: Look on the back of this card if you don't believe me!

Keith Hernandez: I'm not going to let facts get in the way of this, rook. Now fill me and Dwight and Darryl's vials and put them in our back pants pockets for tomorrow's game. And Lenny Dykstra wants a fistful of beer and a six-pack of amphetamines.

Kevin McReynolds: W...?

Keith Hernandez: And wash out my moustache comb; it's too coked up with cake to brush my moustache with. And Roger McDowell needs matches to set Kevin Mitchell's jheri curl on fire. And Davey Johnson wants the new The New Yorker.

Kevin McReynolds: This is crap.

Keith Hernandez: Let's go, rook!

Kevin McReynolds: Goddammit, I'm not a rookie! I set a record last year stealing 21 bases without getting caught! I led the league in outfield assists! I was 3rd in the MVP voting last year!

Darryl Strawberry: F'real, rook? I was 2nd! Let's do drugs together!

Kevin McReynolds: sigh. No.

Keith Hernandez: Fuck'm Darryl. Let's go back to the dugout. Rookies can't come because they don't belong there.

Darryl Strawberry: ?

Keith Hernandez: I mean women.

1982 Topps #527

2007-05-09T17:18:00.000-04:00

I told you already, Horshack, I can't skip the math test with you and Epstein to egg Mr. Kotter's car cuz if I don't pass, Coach says I can't pitch against the Orioles tonight.

1987 Topps #320

2006-05-28T17:28:00.000-04:00

Barry Bonds hit a home run today.

"The hell do you mean 'Where have I gone?' I just did a Mr. Coffee commercial."

2006-05-09T02:22:00.000-04:00

So said Joltin' Joey DiMaggio to Paul Simon. I was reminded of the second-best DiMaggio quote when it was reported that the highest-priced autographed baseball ever sold, signed by Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio himself along Norma Jean Mortensen, just went for $191,200 at a Dallas auction. When Marilyn visited the troops during the Korean War in 1954, she returned to report to her new husband:

"It was so wonderful, Joe. You never heard such cheering."

To which he stoically replied:

"Yes I have."

Man, what a wonderful thing to be able to say.

What Keith Said Just Now.

2006-04-30T13:56:00.000-04:00

Right now, in the second inning of the Braves-Mets contest, there was a shot of a little boy in his Little League uniform and sitting with his grandmother. She was shaking a carton of Goldfish crackers into his cupped hands, whereupon Keith Hernandez said,

"Are those Goldfish crackers? At the ballpark?"

And then his play-by-play partner, Gary Cohen, goes,

"Well, they have sushi at the ballpark in Anaheim, I understand."

And then Keith goes,

"Yeah, that I understand. But Goldfish?"

Has he been saying stupid shit like this all this time and we should be taking whatever he says with a grain of salt? Or maybe an entire salt shaker? Or did Keith run out of blow and he's been using the foul lines and the batter's box as a poor substitute?

1982 Topps #210

2006-04-25T00:44:00.000-04:00

Keith Hernandez was a terrific first baseman back in his day. He was an 11-time Gold Glove winner, the 1979 National League co-MVP with Pops Stargell and a 5-time All-Star who smacked a shitload of doubles and took a shitload of walks, the kind of player the Lyle Overbays and J.T. Snows of the world aspire to be. But when Mike Piazza high-fived some chick in the dugout after a home-run during the Mets-Padres game last Saturday night, broadcaster Keith broadcasted:

"Who is the girl in the dugout, with the long hair? What's going on here? You have got to be kidding me. Only player personnel in the dugout."

When he was informed that the chick was the massage therapist for the Padres and a member of the training staff since 2004 and therefore, was player personnel, Keith was unfazed, saying,

"I won't say that women belong in the kitchen, but they don't belong in the dugout."

But then he tried to laugh it off and be all like,

"You know I am only teasing. I love you gals out there - always have."

Naturally, this kind of cements his already-cemented reputation of being a dickhead blowhard, pun intended of the "blow" part of the word "blowhard." He famously feuded with Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog over his coke habit, which presumably led to being traded to the Mets for some guy named Neil Allen and some other guy named Rick Ownbey, where Keith would top even Doc and The Straw by setting a team record in 1986 for Most Blow Blown in a Single Season. He was also nicknamed "Mex" despite his non-Mexican heritage, is a spokesman for Just for Men hair products (which, it should go without saying, women are not allowed to use) and once put Jerry Seinfeld in a very uncomfortable position by asking him to help him move even though they barely knew each other.

As of blog time, the team has reprimanded Blowhard Hernandez but has yet to officially fine or punish him for his remarks and I'm also pretty disturbed by the 39% of Espn.com readers who actually agree with him. Padres manager Bruce Bochy, who expressed incredulity that her gender was even an issue, certainly isn't one of them and really, it should go without saying that so is the rest of the free-thinking free world. I mean, it's not that he crossed the line because there really isn't even one to begin with, although that's probably because Keith already snorted it.

You can't just turn on Ichiro like that and leave him unsatisfied.

2006-04-15T13:27:00.000-04:00

Schilling leaves Mariners all wet.

Red Sox Nation is also creaming their jeans after his 3-0 start with a 1.64 ERA and 1.44 BAA.

1971 Topps #2

2006-04-11T22:56:00.000-04:00

In an era that was full of them, Dock Ellis was the ultimate counter-culture athlete. To retaliate for a moonshot home run at the All-Star game five years earlier, he beaned the great Reggie Jackson in the face, resulting in Mr. October being carried off the field on a stretcher. He wore curlers in his hair during pre-game warm-ups, which infuriated Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn to no end. On May 1, 1974, because he refused to be intimidated by The Big Red Machine like the rest of the National League, he set a Major League record for consecutive hits batsmen to start the game by pelting Pete Rose, Joe Morgan and Dan Dreissen in the top of the first inning. The next batter, Tony Perez, managed to dodge Ellis's headhunting and draw a walk, scoring The Gambler, and Dock would throw two more pitches directly at Johnny Bench before being lifted by his manager. But for all his antics, that doesn't even come close to what he once accomplished to begin a doubleheader one afternoon in 1970.

The most significant events in the history of Man, in chronological order as well as more or less in the order of its importance are:

The Birth of Christ - December 25, 0000
The Death of Christ - Friday, 0033
Man Walks on the Moon - 1968 or '69 or so.
Ellis throws a no-hitter under the influence of LSD - June 12, 1970.

I'm not sure if people can really understand and appreciate the difficulty of accomplishing something like that under those circumstances. Hell, when I'm under the influence, I forget how to watch TV, let alone pitch a ballgame. To clarify, remember back when us kids used to stuff our faces with hallucinogenic substances during Little League practice and then proceed to shag flies and play pepper? Wasn't that absolutely difficult as hell? Now try picture doing the exact same thing only during an actual major league game. Against actual major league hitters. And then you end up throwing a no-hitter. Granted, it was one of the more sloppy no-hitters in Baseball history, with 8 walks and a HBP. But still. Throwing a no-hitter while tripping your ass off? I wish I could eloquently explain just how Dock found himself in such a position but others have beaten me to it, like this terrific piece that appeared in the Dallas Observer last year, or, if you're the illiterate type that can only handle a couple simple paragraphs, these guys also have an effective, abbreviated version. Either way, I, for one, simply cannot fathom the exhilaration Dock must've felt on the mound that day.

Look, I don't want to seem like I'm promoting recreational drug use but everybody knows that parties are more fun when you're drunk, the love you feel for your friends when you're on estasty can literally make you weep with joy and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is actually tolerable when you're stoned. Delivering a no-hitter on acid? I'm sorry, but next to literally walking on the moon, that has to be among the single greatest feelings any human has ever felt in civilized civilization, however artificial.

Dock Ellis claims to have never pitched a major league game without the aid of substances, mostly amphetamines. But in a day and age when all a player has to do is grow out a grizzly beard to be considered a rock star, Dock's punk rock aesthetic and brutal honesty about the sociological nature of Baseball is severely missed. And because Fate sometimes appreciates irony more than Irony herself, Dock Ellis now works as a drug counselor for the Victor Valley Penitentary in California.

What Alex Said the Other Day.

2006-04-10T23:45:00.000-04:00

The Yankees are in last place at 2-4 right now as Boston's dashing and brilliant decision to hand the closer's job to Jonathan Papelbon (who has already saved 3 games) over Keith Foulke has contributed to a quick 5-1 start. It's worth noting that Foulke's contract calls for a $7.5 million option for 2007 to automatically vest if he finishes 53 games this year so this move might have every bit to do with cash as it does with winning baseball games. It's also worth noting that the Yankee pitching and hitting, Pythagorean-wise, is on pace with Boston so far but anyway, whatever, did you hear what Alex said the other day in the New York Times?

When they give you lemons, you’ve got to make lemonade, and when they give you oranges, you’ve got to make orange juice. Tonight, we tried to make tomato juice out of lemon juice or something. It just didn’t work out. I don’t know if that’s a good quote.

Actually, Alex, yeah, that's a great quote.

I had no idea civil rights leaders were nostalgic for Jeff Kent.

2006-04-06T22:34:00.000-04:00

Jesse Jackson: Bonds needs protection.

Well, of course. Opposing pitchers will just keep walking Barry unless he has a good hitter behind him.

1976 Topps #101

2006-04-04T00:38:00.000-04:00

Or as the French are wont to say, "Pierre the Penis."

Philadelphia is still Phtupid: The Sequel.

2006-04-01T00:23:00.000-05:00

It really oughta be the third installment, since I was too caught up in catching Coco's train to Boston to discuss its byproduct, the Jason Michaels-for-Arthur Rhodes deal.

But 28 year-old Jon Daniels, the new Texas Ranger wunderkind GM, has masterminded some sweet deals this off-season, trading overrated hacktastic malcontent Alfonsoriano for run-producing machine Brad Wilkerson, which is already starting to gray some hairs on Jim Bowden's crown, now that Alfonsoriano has rightfully bitched about having to learn a new position so close to Opening Day. Daniels managed to convince Philadelphia to give him Vincente Padilla for nothing more than a PTBNL. Granted, Padilla is no Pedro Martinez. He's barely Pedro Astacio. But he is a useful pitcher for a team that has little choice but to throw shit against a canvas, see what sticks and hopefully get lucky enough that some of the shit won't stink. This time Jon Daniels has sucker-punched the Phillies once again by giving up outfielder David Dellucci for Robinson Tejada, plus nepotic prospect Jake Blalock.

What's especially curious is that the Phillie's starting pitching is a mess and Tejada was a rare bright spot for them last year. After Jon Leiber and Brett Myers, really, who's left? Can they count on Gavin Floyd? Or Ryan Madson? Or Cory Lidle? Or, God forbid, Ryan Franklin? Now, I like Dellucci. I like Dellucci a lot. But if the Phillies wanted a fourth outfielder, then why didn't they just keep Jason Michaels instead of giving up a much-needed arm for Dellucci? Not to mention that A) J-Mikey can hit lefties unlike Dellucci, giving Chuckie Manuel less reason to play him and B) with recent acquire Aaron Rowand, a center field platoon is far, far less necessary than it was last year. Where is Dellucci going to find at-bats? It just seems like such a waste of a good bat, a decent arm and a bench spot, especially when they already have International League MVP Shane Victorino. It's just all so phtupid. Phtupid phtupid phtupid phtupid. By the way, if you haven't already, you may as well get used to me busting on Philadelphia because it's going to go on all season long.

Oh, hey, look, a dead horse. I'm going to go beat it.

50 x up the ass - Cy Young = 0.

2006-03-30T23:25:00.000-05:00

I don't mean to start a trend with consecutive posts about the love lives of New York (or recently-formerly New York) pitchers but Anna Benson just filed for divorce from her husband, Orioles pitcher Mr. Anna Benson. Why is this noteworthy to me at all? Well, if you've seen the recent baseball "preview" issue of FHM (which is a lesser version of Stuff, which, in turn, is a lesser version of Maxim, which is still a shitty, if guilty-pleasuresque magazine), there's something of a frank interview between the soon-to-be-ex-spouses Benson where he and she discuss his potential reward if he should ever win a Cy Young. Anna says:

If you win one, you can do anything you want to me. I'll do anything...That's 50 free times up the ass for real. I'm just saying.

To which Kris replies:

Jesus.

Which is kind of exactly what I thought. But I find it especially curious that this should occur right after being traded to Baltimore, who recently hired Leo Mazzone, probably the best pitching coach the game has seen. He's squeezed great years (well, great for them) out of the likes of Kevin Millwood, Denny Neagle, Jaret Wright, John Burkett and Damian Moss, to say nothing of the Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz trifeca, all whom have at least a rational Hall of Fame argument. While I don't expect Benson to win any Cy Youngs, if anyone can push him above the averageness he's been mired in, it's Mazzone. I actually expect a step or three forward for the guy who usually hands in a BABIP that's better than the rest of his numbers suggest. I just hope for his sake that the advantages of bachelorhood and living up to the potential that made him the #1 overall pick in 1996 is more of a motivation to improve than fucking Anna Benson 50 times up the ass.

1989 Topps #647

2006-03-27T21:44:00.000-05:00

Because everybody knows that celebrities are better people than the rest of us, they deserve to have the most mundane details of their lives broadcasted for public consumption. Furthermore, if you have any kind of chink in your celebrity armory, your shortcomings will be exposed and magnified in such a way that the reporting of such shortcomings will be given front-page treatment by media members who suddenly get a Woodward & Bernstein complex and act as if their discovery were the second coming of Watergate. This is especially true in New York City, where the New York Daily News published a story on the bastard love child of celebrity fireballer Randy Johnson. If you'll forgive such indulgence in criticizing the private lives of people better than me, what I don't understand is why Johnson, who will have made not a penny less than $143,687,500 by season's end in his career, is suing his baby momma for a paltry 97 grand for back day care payments plus interest. Granted, I don't purport to know all the ins-and-outs of this case but let's go over the facts. First off, checking in at 6'11", he's the tallest player in Baseball's history. Add that with his freakish ability to hurl 100 mph fastballs and statistically speaking, he's literally a freak of nature. Not to overuse a baseball cliche, but that's strike one. Second, scroll back up and look at what he looked like in 1989, around the time this child was conceived. Dude is ugly (and let's not even get into his pre-Yankee mullet years. On second thought, let's.). Plus he still hasn't learned how to shave, which doesn't bode well for potential post-coital snuggling and spooning. Strike two. Now, it's 1989 and RJ has yet to learn how to harness that fastball into becoming The Greatest Left-Hander Who Ever Walked the Planet. He's an ugly-ass 6'11" nobody who's not yet famous enough to get laid. Strike three. Who in the hell is going to sleep with him? Let's be honest. This woman, whoever she is, has done him a giant favor just by giving it up. And now Randy is suing her for being goodly enough to sleep with him? For 97 grand?

Apparently, this all started when his baby momma asked him to front the cash for his daughter's car and to pay her tuition for community college. I supposed Big Unit (by the way, let's ask her to verify that nickname) is trying to make a larger point by proving that she shouldn't be allowed to get away with extorting him. But is this really extortion? Depending on the kind of car they were trying to get their hands on, I guess this could be construed as being a bit extravagant. But he can't cough up the $87.42 it costs for his daughter to take algebra classes at the local community college? Even putting aside the obvious moral and legal obligation to be financially responsible for passing on your freak-of-nature genes, shouldn't he be more than happy to write out a check just to have her shut the fuck up and not be on the front page of every paper in the city?

Oh, by the way: George Clooney was totes seen at 57th and Madison likeohmigodforrealnowayshutthefuckupseriously!

The end of the arroyo.

2006-03-24T20:36:00.000-05:00

What an interesting week for the Red Sockings.

First, two-time MVP Juan Gone Gonzalez signed a minor league contract to shore up the lack of outfield depth. He's a kind of no-risk, high-reward signing, as his last two seasons have been something beneath sad and pathetic. Unhealthy since 2001, he found no takers for his services in 2004 until the lowly Royals came calling, which lasted all of 138 plate appearances. Last year, his season lasted literally three pitches, as he re-aggravated his strained hamstring grounding out.

Also, Hee Seop Choi was snagged off the waiver wire after he was discarded by the new and dumber Dodger regime. This was especially irresponsible on L.A.'s part because really, does anyone expect Hamon to play all 162 games at first? How much Choi will play is anybody's guess, especially with Jack Thomas Snow sharing first base duties with The Greek God of Walks. But he's the best kind of player that you can get for free and even if his tenure in Boston ends up like Roberto Petagine's, it's better to have him and not need him than to need him and not have him.

But the big splash they made was trading Bronson Arroyo (plus cash) straight up for Wily Mo Pena. I don't want to say I already predicted this, but he did go against his agent's advice but signing too cheaply and thus making him that much more appealing to crappy teams with no real hope for contending. Needing a platoon mate for Trot Nixon's crappy performance against left-handed pitching and realizing that the likes of Juan Gone, Dustan Mohr, Adam Stern and Fleet Willie Harris will only help so much, Prince Theo went out and scored 24 year-old lefty-murderer Pena, whose power is about as raw and unrefined as it comes. Still, as young and cheap as he is, he could make a very apt replacement for Trot once he lives via free-agency after this season. The Fenway Faithful are likely to mourn the loss of a fan favorite and bitch about the front office but it's easy to forget that Theo is largely responsible for Bronson having a major-league career at all. If he hadn't been astute enough to pluck him from the waiver wire in 2003 (when none of the other 29 wanted him), Bronson would've been exiled to journeyman purgatory or worse yet, out of baseball completely. Now he's a pseudo-rock star multi-millionaire and with the rotation seven deep (eight, if you count Jon Lester), he was the most expendable of the 40. Personally, I think being traded out of Boston is punishment for putting out that cringingly embarrassing grunge cover album. I mean, c'mon, Bronson, really. The Verve Pipe?

1988 Topps #18 (error), #18 (corrected)

2006-03-20T23:23:00.000-05:00

Al Leiter handed the ball off for the last time in his storied career in spring training last week, capping a...Oh, wait, hold on.

Haha. Whoopsie. See what I did? Silly me. I made the same mistake Topps made in 1988 when they put the picture of some guy named Steve George and called him a future star. I'm sure Stevie was pretty stoked until they also started calling him Al Leiter. But there are far more insulting things to be mistaken for than Al Leiter, who ended his major league career by getting Eduardo Perez to ground out to third in a spring trainging game. I'm sure he had thought of much more romantic endings to his life's work but the two World Series rings (Toronto in 1993 and Florida in 1997), his no-hitter against the Rockies on May 11, 1996, the two trips to the All-Star Game and topping 200 strikeouts a year twice is a career Baseball should be toasting to. Though he played much of his prime in a pitcher's park, any team in the game would've found a place for Al Leiter in their rotation. He was better at throwing a baseball than most of us will ever be at anything and he'll be the only reason not to turn the channel when he's articulately describing the physics of a slider in the booth while Timmy McCarver is sticking the sharp end of pencils up his nose and Joey Buck is coloring pictures of ligers on the back of his placemat.

As if apartheid wasn't embarassing enough.

2006-03-12T18:26:00.000-05:00

A phenomenal congratulations is in order for the United States. Facing elimination from the WBC after being defeated by Canada, the U.S. and A rallied and showed South Africa the true meaning of oppression by bitching-slapping them 17-0 in yesterday's contest. Of course, this is very much consistent with the history of Canada doing something better than the United States and the United States responds by beating up a country much, much smaller than them. Nevertheless, Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter, Junior Griffey, Alex Rodriguez, Chipper Jones, Derrek Lee, and Chase Utley did their country proud by doing away with those pesky Afrikaners. Roger Clemens, 7-time Cy Young winner and arguably the greatest pitcher who ever lived lead the way by pitching 4 1/3 innings of shutout ball against a bunch of 19 year-old kids who have almost no professional experience playing baseball and didn't even know the sport existed until about eight days ago. Way to go, Rocket!

17 cheers for the red, white and bleu!

March 14, 1960 - March 6, 2006

2006-03-07T17:38:00.000-05:00

"Kirby Puckett's going to be all right. Don't worry about me. I'll show up, and I'll have a smile on my face. The only thing I won't have is this uniform on. But you guys can have the memories of what I did when I did have it on."

1985 Topps #47

2006-03-06T16:48:00.000-05:00

Hey, ladies. How you doin'? I'm Dave. Dave Rozema. So, uh, come to Tiger Stadium often? No? Because I was going to say, I've never seen you around here before. What's that? I look too old to be the batboy? Ha, ha. Oh, no, I'm not the batboy. I'm a pitcher. Yes, I'm serious. Yes, really. Oh, since '77. I went 15-7 that year and I placed 4th in the Rookie of the Year voting. I even lead the league in walks per 9 innings. Only 1.4! Yeah, I had pretty good control in my day. Dunno what happened to it, though. Hey, did I mention we won the World Series last year? Yeah, we had a pretty good team. Lance Parrish, Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker, Jack Morris, guys like that. Did I play? No, I didn't see any action in the playoffs. No, I don't know why. I guess Sparky thought the other pitchers were better or something. I would've done good, though, totally. I really would have. They did give me a ring, though, for being on the team. You wanna see it? No? You sure? Because I can just run back into the locker room and get it. It's really neat. No, that's okay. No, I understand. You have to get back to your seat, that's cool. Yeah, I know, the game's almost starting. Hey, maybe after the game, we could go somewhere a little more private. You know. Get to know each other and stuff. No? That's okay, I understand. I mean, it's probably best, now that I'm not starting anymore because I need to be ready at a moment's notice out of the bullpen so I can't stay out late and party all night. It's not like the old days when I went 15-7 and placed 4th in the Rookie of the Year voting. Are you sure you don't wanna, like, hang out and stuff after the game? Because I'm only going to be playing for two more years. I won't even make it to my thirties. You sure? Because pretty soon it'll be too late. No, that's cool, I totally understand. I have stuff to do anyway. I told Sparky I'd get him a ham sandwich and I promised the clubhouse attendant I'd help him pick the dirt out of everybody's cleats. See you later. Nice meeting you. I guess.

1981 Topps #372

2006-03-05T21:31:00.000-05:00

John William Johnstone Jr. was a not-bad role player for eight teams over twenty years but I'm sure he is perfectly content being his generation's answer to Jimmy Piersall who, not so incidentally, was Jay's first roommate in baseball when he came up with the Seattle Angels in 1966. He made life interesting for his teammates, visiting the stadium's hot dog stand during games in full uniform, assisting groundskeepers between innings, leading the league in hotfoots every year and once locked Tommy Lasorda in a hotel room. Though his numbers were far from Hall-worthy, who else in any profession has managed to stretch not one but three autobiographies out of such a career? I mean besides Abraham Lincoln. Booker T. Washington had two but Gandhi only wrote one and Benjamin Franklin never even finished his.

I have a fond memory of attending a book-signing for his then-just-released Over the Edge at my local mall when I was eight years old and I specifically remember him as nothing less than good-humored, warm, cordial and most refreshing of all, unpatronizing, an important character trait that did not escape a third-grade lad who had already begun to develop a healthy contempt for adults in general and authority figures in particular. He even personalized my book with the inscription, "Good luck and don't forget to get good grades in school," advice that I followed to the letter up through about seventh grade or so. Also, somewhere in my mother's crawlspace is a signed baseball my younger brother kept throughout his own childhood and whenever chance presented itself, he added another signature to the ball, resulting in what I'm sure is the most mediocre collection of autographs ever collected on a single ball. But what I most remember about this particular ball was that the sweet spot was graced with Mr. Johnstone's signature, as he was the first person to sign. Subsequent ballplayers would notice Jay's autograph and their reactions ranged from eyerolls to a condescending sneer, as if Greg "Not a Very Good Player" Gross contributed more to Baseball's landscape and Larry "What an Asshole" Bowa wasn't an absolute asshole.

What I never understood is whatever happened to Jay Johnstone. He spend a year as a Yankee broadcaster and another year for the Phillies but because morons like Timmy McCarver and the nepotic Joe Buck are clogging up precious air space in the booths, Jay was never able to convert that Colgate smile and brilliant sense of humor into something more than just roles as the lead-off Seattle Mariner hitter in the original "Naked Gun" or Booth Announcer #2 in the seminal Rowdy Roddy Piper classic "Body Slam." Why all that natural charisma didn't at least translate into a role as The Father in a long-running sitcom about a snotty wise-cracking English butler in the suburbs is simply beyond the comprehension of this author.

1986 Topps #345

2006-02-24T21:29:00.000-05:00

Baseball has the power to mortalize men as much it can do the opposite. Herb Score, Dickie Thon and Tony Conigliaro had promising careers derailed when they were struck by balls, either pitched or lined. Ray Chapman was famously killed by a pitch thrown by Carl Mays in a 1920 game. In 1940, Willard Hershberger filled in for an injured Ernie Lombardi. Though he played rather well, his teammates whispered that a particular game versus the New York Giants would not have been lost if Lombardi were playing instead. Two days later, after Cincinnati lost again to an inferior Braves team in extra innings, Hershberger slit his throat and wrists in a Boston hotel. Lombardi himself would attempt the same in his old age.

In Game 5 of the 1986 American League playoffs, Donnie Moore came in the ninth inning of a 5-4 game with two outs to shut down a rally against Boston. Literally one strike away from sending the Angels to the World Series, Dave Henderson promptly smacked a home run for the lead and the Red Sox were able to win the game and eventually the pennant. Two years later, the former All Star was out of baseball and in 1989, he shot his wife three times during an argument before turning the gun onto himself.

By many accounts, Donnie Ray Moore was not a happy person. He battled depression, alcoholism and drug abuse and it would be irresponsible of us to single out that one pitch to Hendu as the source for all his misery, however tempting it may be after seeing the devasted look on his face in the locker room afterwards. But since athletes are sometimes branded by their crushing failures more than they are by accomplishing feats the rest of us can only name, there are those who say that Moore was simply never able to put the incident all the way behind him. For some, the boos they hear as the result of one game can completely negate the rush of cheers they heard in the 375 games before.

Shut up shut up shutupshutup.

2006-02-23T15:28:00.000-05:00

Dear A-Rod,

My admiration for you as a ballplayer is already teetering on reluctance, even though in the past I've actually defended you when people were bitching about how you were sinking the Texas Rangers with your $252 million contract. After all, I reasoned, if you were going to overpay for anybody, it may as well be the guy who is about to enter the prime of the greatest career ever from a weak-hitting position. It wasn't your contract that was the problem; it was (among other examples) paying Chan Ho "Shitty Pitcher" Park $12 million a year and Darren "How the Hell am I Worth $7 Million a Year?" Oliver $7 million dollars a year. People are also fond of saying that you signed with a last-place team just for the money while conveniently forgetting that the Rangers had made the playoffs in three of the previous four years you joined. Therefore, you had every reason to believe that they would continue to be competitive.

When you won the 2003 AL MVP, people asked, "Well, how valuable can he really be if his team finished in last place?" and I'd say, "Because, dummy, what could be more valuable than a Gold Glove shortstop who hits 50 home runs a year?" Even after the infamous fallout of the non-trade of you for Dumb Blonde Ramirez with the Red Sox, I still didn't blame you for wanting to join the Yankees. I mean, who wouldn't want to share the left side of the infield with their girlfriend for the most storied franchise in sports history? And still, even after all that, I had to objectively agree that you deserved the MVP last year over Cookie Monster Ortiz. While he had a sick 1.001 OPS and didn't field at all, you had a slightly sicker 1.031 OPS while playing outstanding defense.

But now? With this whole WBC thing? At first, I thought it was funny how you were walking on eggshells by trying to be patriotic to two countries at once. But like most things that were originally funny, now it's getting annoying. I mean, have you really listened to what you said the other day?

"Just to make it clear, I only spoke once and then I spoke again three months later. All the garbage in between was Major League Baseball. I didn't go back and forth. I said once I wasn't playing, and then at the end I said, 'So OK, I am playing.'"

What? Not-uh. Last year at the All-Star Game, you totally said:

"I am going to play for the Dominican Republic and I am going to make the Dominicans feel proud...I want to say it out loud: I am Dominican...I am Dominican, and that's the flag I will represent in the World Classic...We will have a great team and we will try to win the title so that all the Dominican people will feel proud of their ballplayers and of their own nationality."

Five months later (not three but who's counting? Besides me, I mean.), you were all,

"When faced with the decision to choose between my country, the United States of America, and my Dominican heritage, I decided I will not dishonor either."

And then you were all,

"In recent weeks, following dialogue with caring friends and players, both Dominican and American, I reached the conclusion that if I played in the Classic, I would play for the United States and honor my American citizenship."

And now you're trying to tell everybody you didn't say what you really said and that Major League Baseball was "leaking information" when it was really you saying what you said the entire time? Whatever. Stop acting like a passive-aggressive pussy already. You're being a total bitch.

"The game of baseball has been my whole life. It's given me everything I have. If I didn't think this was better for the game, the growth of the game, I wouldn't be playing. I felt that I owe this to the game. I've made the right decision. I'm very proud to be playing for the USA team. I plan to enjoy it."

Shut up. I don't want to hear it anymore.

"Most people are not going to understand. They're going to ridicule me and make fun of it. Unless you understand my background and where I come from-"

I said shut up! God.

1988 Topps #468

2006-02-18T11:10:00.000-05:00

When this author was but 11 or 12, his father took him, his younger brother and his then-best friend to a Phillies game at Veterans Stadium, a concrete coliseum that resembled a cross between a toilet bowl and an unflushed toilet bowl with humongous turds floating in it. The Phillies of those years were, of course, those turds. However, no one sucked worse than Darren Daulton, whose abysmal sublevels of suckitude were so legendary in Philadelphia that they were almost unimaginable. No one could possibly suck this bad and still be good enough to be on a non-Philadelphian major league roster. In 1985, he batted .201. He made progress in 1986 by batting .225, only to undo such improvement by batting .194 the next year. In 1988 and 1989, he batted .208 and .201 respectively but suddenly, he took a giant step forward in 1990 with a very unDutch-like line of .268/.367/.416. These numbers for a catcher would be much more appreciated in the Moneyball era of the now but he sucked anyway. Almost as if he were trying to prove that he sucked, he went back to batting .196 the following year.

But in 1992, something amazing happened. Right before our very eyes, Dutch not only stopped sucking but became a great player; one of the best catchers in the game. To this day, I don't know what happened that offseason. Maybe he caught onto to the benefits of exercise and nutrition a bit earlier than everybody else. Maybe he starting eating Wheaties. Maybe he starting eating steroids. But Dutch clubbed 27 home runs, became only the 4th catcher in Baseball history to lead the league in RBI and his fantastic .908 OPS was 4th-best in the National League. He repeated such success the next year and part of a pretty good (if slightly flukish) line-up of Phillie hitters that went to the World Series. He became a three-time All Star, helped the Florida Marlins win a ring by hitting .389/.455/.667 in the 1997 World Series and from a performance/position perspective, was one of the most valuable players in the game during his prime. He even married a one-time Hooters spokeslady, which is more than enough to make any man feel redeemed for batting .194. Perhaps no one in the history of any sport has salvaged the suckiness of his career as well as Darren Daulton did.

But while reversing his own fortunes is admirable, he has been arrested several times for DUI, speeding, refusing to take a Breathalyzer test, failing to appear in court and for beating his poor wife. I mean, isn't it bad enough that she wasn't blessed with the smarts to not work at Hooters? Which brings me to the point I've been digressing from since the second sentence of this post. Coming home from John Kruk's bachelor party one night, he and Lenny Dykstra drunkenly wrapped a car around a tree. Sometime shortly before that aforementioned game my father took us to, the three of us were walking the complete circle (much like turds whirlpooling down a toilet) above the 300 level of the stadium and came across the bullpen where Dutch was warming up one of their crappy pitchers. With my kid brother in tow, my friend and I leaned over the railing, got his attention and shouted, "Friends don't let friends drink and drive!" Dutch promptly chucked a rosin bag at us but not before we were able to run like hell and self-congratulatory laugh our fools heads off over our ingenious wit. It is a story I have nostalgically repeated numerously ever since and I was shocked to find this article from Sports Illustrated. I am disappointed to report that it was not a rosin bag Darren threw at our heads but rather:

...just a mirage of innumerable particles constantly speeding up or slowing down. But the Fourth and Fifth Dimensions remain unseen by most people. Their vibrations are at a lower frequency.

I mean, wow. So if a tree falls and no one hears it, does it make a sound? If that rosin bag ended up hitting one of us, would we have been hurt? If a man hits .194 and every newspaper reports that it happened as millions of people witnessed it, did it really happen after all? Say what you will about Daulton becoming Baseball's answer to Tom Cruise but frankly, I think this article explains a lot. If you don't believe me, scroll back up and look at his baseball card from 1988, particularly the top left-hand side. Where is the rest of the bat? I always thought it was accidentally airbrushed by some hack intern in the Topps art department or maybe Dutch had been hitting with only half a bat for the first half of his career before he realized he could triple his home run total by hitting the same way everyone else does. This has been bothering the hell out of me for 17 years but now I see because all this time, I wasn't using my sixth sense and my vibration was at a lower frequency. The rest of the bat just isn't fucking there.

I don't know what to believe anymore.

Oh, Coco!

2006-01-28T20:36:00.000-05:00

Finally.

After weeks of yes-no-maybe-wait-I-don't-know trade talks, Prince Theo and Mark Shapiro finally hunkered down and the Sox of Boston got their center fielder. Guillermo Mota failed his physical (which shouldn't be surprising if you heard about this) and Boston had to throw in a PTBNL or cash to sweeten the already-pretty-sweet pot. Meanwhile, Cleveland had to wait out the formalities on the Arthur Rhodes-for-Jason Michaels trade to Philadelphia. Y'know. Just in case they should suddenly need a left fielder who can also beat up cops. I'm not sure if that's the kind of slugging teams look for but whatever. He's still a heckuva fourth outfielder.

For all the players exchanged, this is basically a challenge trade of two terrific young players so it may take upward of five years to see who wins out. Though I'd be reluctant to forfeit Andy Marte (possibly the best prospect in the game), the Red Sox desperately needed a replacement for Johnny Metro and found a great one in Covelli Loyce Crisp. In addition to being a speedy leadoff hitter who will be younger, oh-so-much cheaper and (dare I say it? Yes. I dare.) better than their last speedy leadoff hitter, Coco Crisp has one of the best names in Baseball since me. Because of this, the Sox should recoup half his salary in jersey sales alone.

As for the other guys, they serve as slight upgrades for the Indians. I like Mota ever-so-slightly better than David Riske, who will be pelted by tomatoes all summer long as he comes out of the bullpen to give up lead-blowing home run after lead-blowing home run in Fenway. I like Kelly Shoppach less than I did a couple years ago but the exact same thing could be said for every single prospect in the history of ever that doesn't live up to my expectations, however modest. Still, I'd recommend him more than Josh Bard, who will battle John Flaherty in spring training for the miserable privilege of catching Tim Wakefield's knuckler.

It's hard to miss somebody who didn't even really leave.

2006-01-20T20:20:00.000-05:00

Prince Theo of Boston has shedded his gorilla suit and returned to preside over his loyal subjects. His retirement was short-lived and by many accounts, wasn't even all that retired, as he was reportedly still making phone calls on their behalf. Still, while this is certainly good news for the front office, it's not like they were in the shambles that many believed it to be and they weren't worse off without him. In his kinda-sorta absence, co-GMs Ben Cherington and Jed Hoyer snagged Josh Beckett, Mike Lowell and Guillermo Mota for prospects they were never really going to use, fleeced an All-Star second baseman for a back-up catcher and cut their losses on Edgar Renteria by trading him for grade-A prospect Andy Marte. They have no center fielder or regular shortstop, though I think the latter can be filled with a creative platooning of Loretta, Tony Graffanino and Alex Cora until Dustin Pedroia is ready, which could be much sooner than everyone expects. Still, I can't imagine them doing things much different than Theo would've done; for all his boyish charm and people skills, even he wouldn't have kept Johnny Damon from bolting. At any rate, a formal announcement to his official title is expected in a few days and in the meantime, I have complete faith of their ability to replace their old caveman-turned-metrosexual center fielder.

In other Boston news, Bronson Arroyo signed for the low, low price of approximately 3 years, $12 million. Considering what the Mr. Anna Bensons and Alyssa Milano's Ex-Boyfriends of the world are making, this is a terrific deal for Boston. On the other hand, Arroyo's agent is right in thinking that this is somewhat naive of the guy named after one-seventh of The Magnificent Seven. It's one thing to pledge your allegiance to Red Sox Nation but it can be another thing to make yourself cheap enough so you'll be more vulnerable to be traded to a crappy team. In terms of dollars versus performance, Bronson is one of the better values around and could find himself on a crappy non-contender if the right deal presents itself. If I were his agent, I would've told him the same thing. But I also would've advise him to keep the white-boy cornrows and to not put out shitty cover albums of shittier mid-90s grunge songs, so I might not be the best guy to ask.

Isn't it presumptuous to call it a classic if it hasn't even happened yet?

2006-01-20T00:14:00.000-05:00

In the great debate over the relevancy of the World Baseball Classic, Buster and Jimmy offer their collective four cents. No one cares about the opinion of an anonymous blogger posing as a dead 19th century ballplayer but for the record (as long as I'm recording it), I've been having my own internal debate and here is the full, unedited transcript of my Point-Counterpoint on the subject:

Point: I don't care.

Counterpoint: Me neither.

Point: Let's play video games.

Counterpoint: Okay.

In a perfect world, it would be a nice idea but it's just going to be a glorified spring training exhibition. Not all of the best will be playing and those who are will be mailing in half-assed performances in their completely-justified paranoia of getting injured in a meaningless game. Not to mention pitch counts will be monitored more closely than the Bush Administration does your telephone. But if it makes a couple people happy I just might ended up paying a little attention to it.

Still, there's been a humorous (if you're the type to find humor in poking fun at the weaknesses of others) subplot to all this and I agree with B & J on one thing: A-Rod is a passive-aggressive pussy.

Philadelphia is still Phtupid.

2006-01-18T11:25:00.000-05:00

You can call Pat Gillick brutally honest if you want to and I realize he's only had the job for 77 days but I'm wondering if his tenure in Philadelphia is going to be just like his one in Seattle; a series of non-moves and missed opportunities to better the team and push them over from coulda-shoulda-woulda almost-contenders to actual perennial contenders. I mean, they don't call him "Stand" Pat for nuthin', folks. Like a guy in a poker game who doesn't want any more cards because he likes the hand that he already has. Y'know. Stand Pat. That's why they call him that. Because that's what he does.

Phil Sheridan from the Philadelphia Inquirer sez:

The new GM rightly says that it will all come down to his ability to find a true No. 1 starting pitcher. Not somebody else's carefully sheltered No. 2 and not a No. 3 with delusions of grandeur, but a legit top-of-the-rotation ace.
"I'm talking about a guy with power, a guy who can stop a losing streak, who can strike people out," Gillick said yesterday.

What? Like who? Even if they use Bobby Abreu as a bargaining chip as rumored, who the hell is available on the market that can bring that to Philadelphia? Nevermind that Abreu is easily the best player on the Phillies, arguably the most complete all-around hitter in the game and has a complete no-trade clause. Who can they get? Barry Zito? Possible, but Oakland can't afford the $28 million Abreu is guaranteed through this year and next. Even if Patty-Cakes agrees to eat even more salary than he's already chewing for Jim Thome, Zito has been continuing his steady decline since his 2002 Cy Young campaign, with his strikeout rate going down at the same rate his walks are climbing. He doesn't have power and he won't strike people out. Dude'll get hammered in Citizens Bank. Matt Clement? Another maybe, in a package deal, but he's certainly not the top-of-the-rotation star that Philadelphians have in their eyes. I've also heard the oh-so-low Mark Prior rumblings but while Jim Hendry has made some dumbass moves, trading Prior will not be one of them.

Given their needs and a prolific-ish offense, I can see how Abreu is expendable in the right deal. But if it's pitching they were after, then why didn't they make a run at the Let's Overpay for A.J. Burnett Sweepstakes? He wouldn't have been the stopper they're looking for, but at the very least he would've continued Philadelphia's fine-honed tradition of compiling a rotation full of #2 and #3 starters. Going into 2006, their rotation options consists of a guy who could actually be pretty darn good, followed by a guy who's just okay, two guys who suck, one guy who's out until at least July with Tommy John surgery, a completely unpredictable 23 year-old, a guy they can't figure out a role for, and some guy named Robinson Tejeda, who somehow started 13 games for them last year without my noticing.

Is it really necessary for the Phillies to play this year? I mean, can't we just award them third place and get it over with?

Haaaaaamon!

2006-01-14T15:57:00.000-05:00

Nomar to play for Mexico in World Baseball Classic.

Funny, I thought he was Jewish. What with the nose and the cheap contract and all.

1986 Topps #649

2006-01-11T00:58:00.000-05:00

Y'know, Ronny boy, you might've gotten the starting job over Kid Carter if you're weren't so busy congratulating the opposition on their run-scoring abilities, especially when they were actually in the middle of scoring a run.

Korrection.

2006-01-09T01:18:00.000-05:00

Since I don't want to be one of those illiterate bloggers shooting off at the mouth and presenting things that aren't true as facts, I would like to retract my last post about available pitchers and note that two days before I had opened my big stupid mouth, Al Leiter had signed a minor-league contract with the Yankees and Byung-Hyun Kim re-signed with Colorado. I also completely neglected to mention Jeff Weaver as an available option, which he should take as an insult since he's a pretty good pitcher who should make plenty of teams happy with his performance, if not the dollars he'll eventually get.

Unlike, oh, say, everyone else, I'm still a believer in Kim. People forget that the kid is only 27 and probably the hardest-throwing submariner in Baseball's history. When Prince Theo traded one of the most overrated players in the game for him during the 2003 season, I remember wondering just how drunk he must've gotten Arizona to screw them up the ass like that, to say nothing of trading nothing for Curt Schilling when he finally decided to call them in the morning six months later.

Alas, it didn't work out for Boston. Though he helped stabilize an otherwise shaky bullpen with a 3.16 ERA in 79.1 innings of work, he blew a 12th inning save in Game One of the 2003 playoffs against Oakland, which preceded flipping off the booing Fenway faithful as he was introduced before them a couple days later. Closing championship games clearly isn't Kim's strong suit, as he also blew two 9th inning saves for the Diamondbacks at Yankee Stadium during the 2001 World Series. And that was when he was just 22. That said, you'd have to wonder about the emotional psyche of a kid who has clearly demonstrated not only the inability to handle high-pressure situations but also the public humiliation that comes in its aftermath. Fucking up three different crucial games in front of a televised audience of millions by the time you're 24? That's enough to make any man sensitive enough to give the middle finger to anyone else that boos him for it.

Psychological evaluations aside (which I won't pretend to be smart enough to accurately make), Kim is more than talented enough to justify the $1.5 million he's guaranteed in 2006. He's still young enough to get his shit together and have a damn good career but unfortunately for all the natural talent they may possess, some people just aren't mentally wired to handle being professional athletes and Kim may be one of them. Which is kind of exactly why I root for him.

Another Philadelphia Pholly.

2006-01-07T21:33:00.000-05:00

Because the Phillies are dumb, they signed pitcher Ryan Franklin to a one-year contract worth $2.6 million. It isn't the dollars that I'm concerned with (in fact, that's damn reasonable money for a fifth starter these days); it's that they signed him at all. I mean, are they aware that the man has given up 95 homes runs in the past three years, all while calling Safeco (a notorious pitcher's park) home? I realize that the pickens on the FA table are slim these days, what with Byung-Hyun Kim, Kevin Brown and Al Leiter being your best options. But why, why, why, why, why, WHY in hell would Pat Gillick make such a dumbass move as to sign the most flyball prone hurler in the game to play in Citizens Bank Park? Look, Pat, getting Aaron Rowand to cover center and gobble up those extra flies was a nifty move but the fact remains that he can only catch balls that fall INSIDE THE PARK. Anything that goes over the wall is pretty much out of his hands. I also realize that moving out the fences a few feet will help as well but if I haven't said this before (and I'm too lazy to scroll up a couple lines to see), Safeco Field is a notorious pitcher's park. If it didn't make any difference there, why should it make any difference in Philly?

1979 Topps #324

2005-12-18T17:09:00.000-05:00

I don't care if it's not the same guy or not I'm still not fucking with him.

1988 Topps #717

2005-11-30T18:38:00.000-05:00

The porn 'stache? The jheri curl? The jungle of chest hair? The mesh jersey? Two layers of cheap bling? And his last name is Baller? Amazing is the man who manages to be 10 years behind the times and 10 years ahead of the times while still accurately representing the times in which he lives.

1987 Topps #321

2005-11-18T09:56:00.000-05:00

March 21, 1987

Busch Stadium
250 Stadium Plaza
St. Louis, MO 63102

Dear Mike,

Don't you ever fucking show up to play for my team wearing a pink jersey ever fucking again.

Best,
Whitey Herzog,
Manager - St. Louis Cardinals

Marathon Postscript

2005-10-13T01:22:00.000-04:00

See, this is why I love this game. You can't make this shit up.

Quite possibly the Luckiest Boy in the World.

1985 Topps #706

2005-10-12T00:20:00.000-04:00

In 1984, Rickey Henderson was incredulous to discover that he was named to the American League All-Star team instead of the Hall of Fame.

Instead of playing two, let's play one twice as long.

2005-10-09T19:04:00.000-04:00

Holy crap, what a marathon. 18 innings and 14 pitchers. This is playoff baseball. I mean, when was the last time Rocket came out of the bullpen in the 16th inning? If box scores are poetry, then this is goddam Homeric.

In other news, the guy with the single greatest pitch ever recorded his 7,326th post-season save. I think that's some sort of record or something.

Paul Punk-Ass Konerko.

2005-10-08T12:06:00.000-04:00

Doesn't quite roll off the tongue as well as Bucky Fucking Dent or Aaron Bleeping Boone but the Sox season came to a near-abrupt halt last night. I'd be a lot more devastated if they kept me teetering on the brink like the last two years but now it feels like a mere shoulder shrug away from getting over it.

On the other hand, I do take much perverted pleasure in Randy Johnson's line last night in Game 3 against the Angels:

3.0 IP, 9 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 2 HR.

Yummy. Thanks, Randy.

1987 Topps #481

2005-10-07T17:31:00.000-04:00

Von Hayes: Okay, guys, I didn't want to bring this up around the rest of the team but just between us three, who do you think sucks the worst?

Glenn Wilson: Oh, it's Steve Jeltz. Definitely Steve Jeltz.

Juan Samuel: Really? I was thinking Rick Schu.

Von Hayes: Those are good answers but I'd say Darren Daulton.

Juan Samuel: Darren Daulton? He's a three-time All Star! He once lead the league in RBI!

Von Hayes: Dude, it's not 1992 yet.

Juan Samuel: Oh, right.

The Comeback Kids.

2005-10-07T01:49:00.000-04:00

Ken Griffey Jr. just may be the most root-able player in the game. Of all the top sluggers in the 1990s, he's virtually the only survivor who has escaped the "is-he-or-isn't-he?" whispers of witch hunt finger-pointing frenzy that steroids ignited in Baseball. True Class Acts are rare in sports; what athlete is without some sort of controversy? And what athletes are impossible to hate? I think we all root for the Cincinnati Kid, a bizarro pedigree of his Big Red Machine father and another certain left-handed outfielder born in Donora, Pennsylvania on November 21st, because he plays the game like we did when we were 9.

If he retired today, he would be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. As he is now, 2005 was the closest year he's had to a full season since 2000. Like Andruw Jones today, we used to forget how young Griffey really was. Now we're forgetting how old he's really getting. But in his Age 35 Season, Ken Griffey Jr. smacked 35 home runs in 128 games on his way to a fantastic .945 OPS, good for 14th in the majors. Giving the freak injuries that have numbed his decade so far, Junior's 2005 is a welcome return to form for fans and is exactly the kind of player this award was invented for.

Jason Giambi, on the other hand...Well, of course, he had a torrid July-on, re-establishing himself as a force in the deep Yankee lineup. But isn't it obvious what he was coming back from? Considering how steroids has revealed itself as a stain on Baseball's blouse, what's the lesson they're teaching to ballplayers and the public at large here? Look, I actually pride myself on not really giving a shit about the morality issue concerning steroids but does this bother anyone else? I mean, giving a $13,428,571 first baseman who can't play first base an award for not doing drugs anymore? I know his OBP was sick and all but come on, now...

P.S. - Because they just couldn't pass up an opportunity to be involved with another one of McCain's suspects, Viagra, in conjunction with Major League Baseball, is now sponsoring the Comeback Player of the Year Award. One performance-enhancing drug company rewards another performance-enhancing drug user. Horray!

Phenomenal Smith's Guide to Baseball

2005-10-06T01:26:00.000-04:00

My name is Phenomenal Smith and I used to play baseball. I was a journeyman pitcher from 1884 to 1891, playing for the Philadelphia Athletics, Baltimore Orioles, Brooklyn Grays and the Pittsburgh Alleghenys of the American Association League. I don't even know what an Allegheny is. I also spent time in the National League, playing for the Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Alleghenys and the Detroit Wolverines. That's right, there was once a team called Detroit fucking Wolverines of the National League. Things were very different in 1886.

On the margains of history (baseball and otherwise), there are men who have had the misfortune of not being able to live up to their names. I was anything but my moniker, and I was out of the game at 26. But I was there and you weren't, which makes me a poet. Us players, we're all poets, and the sum of our poems have given you more drama than Shakespeare, more sadness than Dostoevsky and more absurdity than Miguel de Cervantes. This is my diary of baseball history.