Presented Without Comment

““I didn’t think he’d be that dumb about cutting hamburgers apart. I guess he proved me wrong.””

- Madison Bumgarner on Jeremy Affeldt and “the stabbing”

A Quick Dash Around Mets Training Camp

Ah spring training.  A magical place where all championships seem attainable, every player is in the best shape of their lives and left-handed pitchers earning a skillion dollars despite not having thrown a pitch in like eight years are closely examined with every bullpen session.  

It's been a long, tough winter for Mets fans, what with Jose Reyes running away to join Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus, the biggest acquisitions being a bunch of bullpen guys, and Jeff and Fred doing their best to run this whole thing into the ground, but there are a number of stories emerging from Port St. Lucie that suggest that this whole situation isn't as dire as it looks and that the Mets could actually surprise this season.  Let's take a look!

Oh what in hell's name?  

Ok, so there's not a lot to suggest that this year will be much different from recent ones.  The prognosticators seem to be split into two factions, one spewing doom and gloom about the drastic payroll cutbacks, David Wright's looming option status for the 2013 season, Santana's glass elbow and Reyes' departure.  Others are saying that with a full year from Ike Davis, a boost to Wright and Jason Bay's production after management went from All Star to Pro for them, and R.A. Dickey being both emotionally and physically invigorated after climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, the Mets might be better than people think.  

I like the bullpen help, since Terry Collins seemed to sap his relief staff for a week during every Mike Pelfrey start, and getting top line starters on the open market are almost impossible, but I'm really hoping that Wheeler, Harvey and Mejia eventually live up to their expectations and come into their own as a dominant staff so we can stop worrying about whether or not Dillon Gee or Niese (Nose) are the answer.  

Speaking of Niese, is there no end to Carlos Beltran's benevolence?  First he is used to obtain Wheeler, and then he immediately ensures that no Mets fan will ever second guess the deal by reverting back to 2005 form.  Now he's going to pay for a nose job for some second-rate pitcher on a team he probably hated.  He is truly a scholar and a gentleman.  

One more note on Ike Davis.  There are a number of people giving him sleeper status, saying that this year could be one of those where he makes huge strides, all that kinds of stuff.  While that would be super STOP IT EVERYONE.  

The San Francisco Giants And Their Underwhelming Offseason

The above picture shows Brandon Crawford, the man who is likely (I don't want to use the word "destined" as that implies a level of expectation or import that would be woefully inappropriate to bestow on the poor lad) to become the starting and/or everyday shortstop for the 2012 San Francisco Giants. Although I like Brandon Crawford quite a bit in general and adore his glove in particular, this seemingly-inevitable roster solidification pretty much encapsulates what has been an underwhelming offseason for the Giants.

I don't know how much time I'll be able to devote to writing about the Giants for Baseball Feelings in the coming season, for all six of you who read this blog (seven for the non-staffer who stumbled upon this post while googling "rubber glove fetish." Sorry to trick you), so while I had a few spare minutes, I thought I would put up my baseball feelings regarding the Giants moves that I should have posted a few weeks ago, probably.

The Giants started the offseason by giving a million billion dollars to Jeremy Affeldt and Javier Lopez, who I like just fine (particularly Lopez), but not that just fine. Still, a bullpen is important and this ensures that nearly the entire pitching staff will be returning for this year. I say "nearly" because the Giants then traded Jonathan Sanchez (he of the, shall we say, "frustrating inconsistencies") in order to acquire Melky Cabrera, who had a career year last year with the Royals, but let us be frank, is still Melky Cabrera. The next move was to trade away Andres Torres (one of my favorite players) to the Mets in order to acquire Angel Pagan, who I actually like just fine and shows a lot of promise, but is basically Andres Torres minus the ADD, but plus some pooping issues.

The Giants did not sign Jose Reyes, Jimmy Rollins, or Carlos Beltran, as we feared they would not. In their defense, they also did not sign Orlando Cabrera, instead opting for Brandon Crawford, who is a human with functioning legs and the ability to manipulate his hand in such a way as to close a glove around a baseball. This is a big upgrade. Also welcome is the decision to release Jeff "I'm Running As Fast As I Can, You Guys!" Keppinger and instead retain Mike "No. 3 Hitter" Fontenot -- who is about as endearing a tiny baseball player this side of Jose Altuve -- as a backup infielder. The Giants also picked up Ryan Theriot as a utility infielder, who seems destined to be one of those patented acquisitions in the mold of the Steve Finley-esque "guy who always seems to have clutch hits against the Giants but then becomes a Giant and does largely nothing."

That's the extent of what the Giants picked up. As far as what else they lost, they opted to not extend offers to Beltran or Cody Ross, who will likely someday have a statue at AT&T park where he's high-kneeing while Roy Halladay stares at the left-field fence. (I truly would weep with joy were such a statue ever to be commissioned.)

So the starting rotation will be Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner, Vogelsong and, for better or worse, Barry Zito. That is fine. That will be fine. The issue is not the pitching. The issue has never been the pitching. The issue is whether this team will score any runs. If statistics mean anything (and all my nerdy friends say that they do), it would be nearly impossible for the Giants to not score more runs than they did last season. So that is something.

Here are the storylines for 2012:

- Injuries. Posey is coming back from -- you know -- the incident and who knows how much he will be affected by all that business. You would think the Giants would split the difference between 2010's All-Healthy squad and 2011's "All-New, All-Injured" horror show, but in the first week of pitchers and catchers reporting, Vogelsong and Lincecum have already experienced back problems and Brian Wilson's elbow is still in question. That's not even mentioning the returning Freddy Sanchez. If Sanchez can't bounce back from both of his arms falling off, the backup options are Theriot, Fontenot and Emmannuel Burriss. We are all holding our breath over here, let me just tell you.

- Positional scuffles. Chris Stewart, Hector Sanchez and Eli Whiteside will be duking it out all spring (and likely, beyond) for rights to spell Posey every five days at catcher. I'm hoping either Stewart wins outright or Sanchez slugs a bazillion dingers and we laugh all the way to the bank (the bank in this case being "not one-run losses to Clayton Kershaw"). But the biggest positional kerfuffle of all involves, of course,

- Brandon Belt. This poor kid can't catch a single break. After his treatment last year, you'd think he'd be ready to be an everyday player this year, but no. The outfield looks like it's pretty set with Cabrera, Pagan and Schierholtz, and Bochy and Sabean are pretty adamant that the starting first baseman job is Aubrey Huff's to lose. Considering that Huff wasn't able to lose said job after batting .013 last year with 1,342 double-plays, that doesn't seem likely. You should also be aware that Bochy seemed to further sour on Belt when Bret Pill came up and hit an RBI. Those things win ball games, you know. So Belt is fighting four guys for one of two positions. Doesn't look good, but maybe the team will score so many runs that I won't notice Belt got optioned to the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in May.

- Pablo Sandoval. Fat, thin, or Yokozuna-level super-fat, just please keep hitting, Panda. Please please please.

Assholes. 

EDIT - Now that I have a little more time than I did when I put the above together, (my wife and I lost the internet in the hotel room where we've been sequestered for the past two+ weeks for a 48-hour period which doesn't SEEM like that long a time until you figure out that we're basically living on the actual set of Coal Miner's Daughter where a "big night out" is driving our Kia across the four-lane "highway" that separates our hotel from the Walmart to get another plastic bag full of canned chili and premade salads) I can flesh out my thoughts about Gary Carter.  

Sadly, I can't write about a personal moment that I shared with him, as Bill so eloquently did, since I was only three years old when the top photo was taken, but every time I walked into Shea, (and now into Citi) the image, on an enormous banner, served as a reminder of happier times for this dumb, stupid franchise.  

Yeah, I'm angry, but it's only because most of the emotion that I felt from Carter's passing WAS anger at the way that management has, as usual, handled things in such a reactionary, tone deaf, completely clueless fashion.  

News about Carter's brain cancer broke during May of last season, and when it did, there was a large amount of debate as to whether or not the Mets should retire Carter's number immediately, so that he would have a chance to enjoy the experience.  Some people who disagreed argued that it could be seen as morbid, an insulting knee jerk reaction to the illness.  Personally, I thought it was more insulting that his number wasn't retired the second he went into the Hall of Fame, but what the hell do I know.  

Anyway, now the Mets are scrambling to find a way to honor Carter, and if his number IS retired, boy how dumb are they going to look, but we're used to that by now, aren't we.  This is a team that took OVER A YEAR to decide "Hey, we have this nice snazzy new park here, and a nifty TWO STORY ROOM in it dedicated to a team that now plays 3000 miles away, maybe we ought to paint the walls in the team colors and put some crap with our logo on it around." 

However, they still haven't gotten the hint that despite the fact that their team colors sport one of the most garish oranges in history - just the sort of color you might want to clothe people you wish to stand out in a crowd in - that maybe they shouldn't dress ushers, security personnel and other important team officials IN THE PRIMARY COLOR OF THEIR HATED RIVAL.  

"Durrrrr Ruben Tejada?  Is that that new Taco Bell Sandwich?"

I promise that at some point I will begin writing about the on-the-field exploits of the New York Mets, but I feel that with a more varied audience than typical pieces about the Mets garner, that I need to point out the fact that, yes, these rich idiots are so stupid and cherish your owners everyone and SEND HELP WE ARE BEING HELD CAPTIVE BY TERRIBLE PEOPLE.  

ZOMG

"And then I just let it go and it is like *fwooosh* smoke."

I thought nobody was going to show up until Tuesday! That's when Blue Jays pitchers -- and thus, understandably, catchers -- are supposed to "report" to Spring Training, "report" being the paramilitary verb that we have agreed to use to describe that act in which heavyset dudes with mustaches show up in Florida (or I guess Arizona for other, lesser organizations) and try to shake the shit off their arms before embarking on an arduous season of sitting with their feet up behind the left field fence drinking coffee and eating sunflower seeds and just generally fucking around out there. But a bunch of guys showed up early! So now baseball! And I love it. I could not possibly love it more than I do. It is maximally loved by me. Baseball is back. Eat shit, winter; you have been a dick. 


And you know what, this year could be pretty alright! As you will no doubt recall, the Blue Jays finished 81-81 last year, putting them very near the .500 mark on the season. The chief glory of the precisely .500 team is that you can totally you can totally you can totally remember ten games that they could easily have won last year, ten games that it is in fact completely ludicrous that they somehow managed to lose. It is therefore both perfectly obvious and obviously wrong to think that with even minimal improvement, a ninety-win season is just around the corner, and this is what I have chosen to believe. 


Hey, did you see or hear about the ESPN Insider thing that they called "Future Power Rankings" or something, where they had some guys rate every MLB team in a number of categories so as to say where they saw all of these teams in five years' time? The good news is that the Blue Jays were sixth in all of baseball; the bad news is that Tampa Bay, New York, and Boston were all ranked ahead of them. But whatever, man, whatever. I am less concerned with the 2017 season than the imminent 2012 "campaign" in which the Blue Jays are winning ninety. 


If I may however be somewhat sober for a moment: this is perhaps unfair of me, given that The Dear/Great Leader Alex Anthopolous actually managed to pull off the best trade of the offseason for the second consecutive year (more on that in a moment), but it's hard to say that this winter was anything but disappointing just because of the whole Yu Darvish thing. I mean, I have no real expectation that he's going to be the first Japanese starter to really be as awesome as he looks, nor do I think the Blue Jays really should have been willing to spend the kind of dollars it took Texas to seal the deal, but it would have been so cool and exciting, man, it would have been the best. Also even if Darvish only turns out to be kind of OK, that would still go an awful long way in this rotation, because who knows what we've got, exactly? There can be no question as to Ricky Romero's status as a boss (that being: he is one), but after that, things get iffy in a hurry: Brandon Morrow consistently underperforms like all of his peripherals to such an extent that one begins to doubt the reliability of certain modern nerd metrics; Brett Cecil might just be straight-up horrible; Henderson Alvarez impressed but one must be cautious; Dustin McGowan's arm is barely attached and so, again, caution; and Kyle Drabek is thus far a baffling ordeal of a guy. 


But how about that bullpen! The Sergio Santos trade was awesome, just awesome: AA gave up nothing of substance for a good, young reliever who has closed and not freaked out about it and who is "controllable" in the sense that he is not free to meaningfully negotiate the terms of his employment owing to the economic structure of professional baseball and also he has no access to the means of production so the ninth should be covered no problem. Darren Oliver is a smart pickup, and those few months without Jason Frasor were a dark era I never wish to see again, so it's cool that he's back. I am good with Carlos Villanueva and Casey Janssen and I am not about to start trouble about Jesse Litsch necessarily so what you've got here is a bullpen that has all of a sudden gone from being a hideous, untenable shit show to a strength! Bullpens are supposed to be easy to fix, but this looked really easy. Good job Alex Anthopolous!


An infield of Adam Lind (who can't possibly be that bad again, can he? I am going to assume "no") at first, Kelly Johnson at second (he is way better than you think relative to league average second base production, which sucks tremendously these days), Yunel Escobar at short (.369 OBP!), and Brett Lawrie (a douche, yes, but our douche) at third is going to be plenty interesting, especially since Brett Lawrie is probably going to be Mike Schmidt, basically. I am a strong proponent of E5 "Edwin" Encarnacion at DH, and if you look at last season, he was totally OK except for the part of the year where he was, according to the advanced metrics, maybe the worst player ever. 


And what about the outfield, you ask? That is reasonable of you. Well, I am not over the moon at the idea of Eric Thames being our everyday guy in left if that is what happens but maybe there's a trade out there or something. I have every expectation that Colby Rasmus is going to be fine, and in fact probably even better than fine. Also if it is cool with you I am going to just go ahead and pencil Jose Bautista in for another 1.000 OPS year of being the baddest motherfucker on the planet and project the haters to suck it. 


In short, I am surprised and delighted at just how surprised and delighted I am that there are Toronto Blue Jays grab-assing around Dunedin, Florida right now, several full days before I thought they were going to begin even the most preliminary grab-assing. Internet propers for this thrilling revelation go out to the Blue Jay Hunter Tumblr, which I totally would not know about were it not for the indispensable Drunk Jays Fans, finest of all team-specific blogs in my estimation. Oh yeah finally: Fangraphs Audio was really good today, as baseball writer and stay-at-home dad Dayn Perry (*strange background noise* "don't do that, bud" *further noise*) joined published poet and renowned hipster Carson Harrington Cistulli and together they established that irony began in the early nineties, which is not what my own calculations suggest, but which is worth considering. 


Hey why not close by posting other pictures from Spring Training BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT IS GOING ON IT IS SPRING TRAINING CAN YOU EVEN BELIEVE IT


KS 

Adam Lind (centre) is chubby.

Balk, imo.

Please don't suck Kyle Drabek come on man.

I like Ricky Romero even more than John Farrell does in this picture.

Brett Lawrie, who is probably a dick but who is awesome so you don't really mind, and Adam Lind, who is kind of awful but who seems nice so you don't really mind.

Rajai Davis, as seen through Scott Richmond's crotch.

Peace Out, Gary Carter

Thanks to Find the Swagger for the image.

Gary Carter is involved in one of my most vivid live baseball memories. I had just gotten into the whole "Beckett Baseball Card Monthly" thing and had learned about how players will sign autographs before games, during batting practice. We had tickets to a Mets vs. Giants game at Candlestick Park, so I rounded up some baseball cards of Mets and Giants players and a couple of baseballs. (It would take me a few years to realize that people generally went with brand-new baseballs for autographs, not ones that were well-played with, scuffed, and grass-stained.)

We got there during Mets batting practice and I scrambled down to the dugout. Gregg Jeffries was signing autographs, and he was the new hotness because he was a "Rated Rookie" and his card was worth serious bucks so everyone clamored around him. He signed a few autographs and departed, with many people (including me, I'm sure) looking disappointed. Who should step to the wall next but Gary Carter, wearing his signature flapless Mets helmet. The dude was a catcher, after all. The throng was less intense for him, but I knew he was a great catcher, one of the best in the majors (because my baseball cards said so). I didn't have a Carter card with me, so I handed out my scuffed ball and a ballpoint pen. He signed it and handed it back. I said thank you. I walked back to my dad, trying to play it off like it was no big D. But it was. It was my first autograph from a baseball player. I got one of those cheap plastic ball display cases for it, the one where the ball part always topples over if you nudge it. I put my ticket stub from the game in with the ball and it stayed on one of my shelves for a decade or so.

A few years after that autograph was signed, Carter actually came to the Giants and immediately became one of my favorite players. Because of our bond, you see. When he was elected to the Hall of Fame, I felt more pride than I probably should have. But how can you not love Gary Carter, even if you never had him sign your baseball before a Giants game?

I'm actually not sure whether I still have the baseball somewhere. I hope I do. Even though I sold a lot of that sort of stuff a few years ago, it's likely I held onto that. To this day, it remains the only autograph I've ever gotten at a baseball game. Everyone should be so lucky.

- Bill

I Worry the Mets Might be Sending Mixed Messages

Anyone heard these Mets are broke rumors, have you heard about this?

With spring training just nine days away and preseason expectations at their lowest point since that one year everyone thought the Mets were getting Juan Gonzalez and they didn't (lol), there has been a lot of talk in the Mets blogosphere about the reasons why this team could suck on ice.  Naturally, everything circles back to the fact that the Wilpons are a bunch of clowns who would probably be taken in by any scam artist with even the most half-baked of nefarious ideas.  

Ladies and gentlemen, the new part owners of the New York Mets!

I've never heard of GOOD NEWS coming in the form of "Hey guys, we might only owe $83 million dollars because we did business with a sketchy businessman and definitely knew about/were so stupid that we were taken in by his glorified pyramid scheme.  At least it's not like $800 million, right guys?"  Nevertheless, that's where the Mets stand as the court ruling that stated they owed less than $100 million was portrayed in the papers as a major victory for the franchise.   Never mind the fact that the team reported a $70 million+ loss last season, needed a $40 million bridge loan from Bank of America to keep the lights on, had the greatest payroll drop from one season to the next in MLB history and was basically begging for people to shell out $20 million apiece for part-ownership stakes.  

This week, a story got around the Mets blogosphere saying that Lo Hud Mets Blog editor Howard Megdal had been informed by Mets brass that his access to the Mets clubhouse was being revoked.  When asked why, the reason he received from the Mets PR department was that the club "didn't like his reporting."  The issues seemed to stem from the publication of Megdal's book "Wilpon's Folly" which detailed the financial and legal issues stemming from the Wilpons' association with Bernie Madoff.  

That's why Alderson's Twitter account (which he opened yesterday) really made me mad.  In the same week that a blogger was barred from the clubhouse for detailing a situation that has crippled the team for the foreseeable future, no less than THE TEAM'S GENERAL MANAGER shows up on Twitter writing late night talk show jokes about that very situation.  

Alderson's job; rebuilding a team that just lost its best player, restocking a oft overlooked farm system, and trying to energize a fan base that has suffered five-plus years of figurative nut punching is unenviable, and nobody ever said that he couldn't have any fun with it.  As always seems to happen with the Mets though, the timing is awful and it portrays a certain level of tone deafness.  I know that nobody hits my little brother but me, but taking him out and pushing him off a cliff is a bit too far.  

ALSO:  

lol no

The Whitening of A's Brand Baseball

"Honey? Great news. The A's are moving to San Jose! It's safe for us to watch baseball again!"

The Oakland Athletics have reportedly been granted permission to move to San Jose, and upper middle class white folks are all atwitter. Am I overstating the situation? Yep. Am I using race in an inappropriate manner? Most assuredly. Doesn't make what I'm saying any less true. Yes, A's fans are not strictly white. I know that. But the ones who would be willing to drive to and afford tickets to the San Jose A's would, by and large, be white. I know what you're saying, "Well, where are all the A's fans at right now? They have to move to survive!" I'm well aware of that. Here's the thing: I know that the A's playing in front of huge crowds in a city whose fans have deeper pockets is good for the franchise. I know that having a huge TV contract will enable them to keep their free agents, rather than selling them off to the highest bidder. I know playing in a nicer, potentially more hitter-friendly ballpark will make them a destination free agent sluggers will consider, rather than one they have their agents put into writing in their no-trade clauses. I will still go to 3-5 games a year, despite the extra hour of drive time each way. I'll still watch games on TV more often than not. I will still be an A's fan. But here's the thing: Just because a move to San Jose will be a game changer for my team that will enable them to drastically change the way the franchise operates, doesn't mean I can't hate it. Nowhere is it written that I can't bitch and whine about my team picking up and leaving behind the city where they won 4 World Series titles. I get that it is vital, I just don't like it, and likely never will. Why? Because now Lew Wolff has succeeded in accomplishing his one goal he's had since his first day of ownership: He's killed off the poor fan.

You see, the O.co is one of the last big league ballparks where you can walk up to the ticket window 5 minutes before the first pitch and get seats on the 3rd base line for less than $40. You and your kids can sit in the bleachers for less than $40. The downtown cookie cutter stadiums have taken over, and there's no turning back. Gone are the days of a family of 4 being able to go to a game for less than the average monthly car payment. How many working class stiffs will be able to afford a night out at the new, shiny, named after some corporate entity or another ballpark that the people of San Jose will end up building? Not many. No, instead of being the "blue collar" team in the Bay, the A's will have decided to do the right thing from a business perspective and chase the almighty dollar. They will become pale impersonators of the Giants, and be glad to sell suites and boxes to their sloppy seconds. The Coli stood firm as the last of the concrete, dilapidated shit heaps from the 60's; a remnant of simpler times. And now, her death warrant has all but been signed.

I have no doubt the A's will be successful in San Jose. I've always wondered what Billy Beane could do with a payroll, and now we're about to find out. And while I will be cheering them on, my heart will never be all the way into it, like it was at 7000 Coliseum Way.

Hey Guys, What's Going on in this Offseason

Hi everyone, and happy holidays!!  I apologize for the long absence, but life has dealt me a few curveballs in recent months, some great and some awful.  My wife and I are in the process of adopting a baby in late February that I will immediately attempt to brainwash into liking the Mets, at least until protective services takes them away from me for extreme abuse. 

Speaking of the Mets, when all of the news about their dire financial straits started coming out, it got me all worked up, but now that the first band-aids have been ripped off the scab (Reyes leaving, them SHUTTING DOWN ONE OF THEIR MINOR LEAGUE TEAMS LOL) I've actually bought in whole-heartedly into watching everything unfold to see how hilariously awful this can get.  

I'm running through scenarios in my head where Fred Wilpon mistakenly left $750 million in a newspaper that Ruben Amaro happened to pick up when they ran into each other at a local bank and then ransacking his office for two months before forlornly throwing himself off the Whitestone Bridge, but more likely either he'll just sell the team at some point (best case scenario) or find some suckers to buy into the minority ownership situations.  (Come on, you get MR. MET ACCESS HOW CAN YOU TURN THIS DOWN.)

In all seriousness, I've gone to great lengths about my appreciation for Reyes, and it will suck not having him around, but I still feel worse for Cardinals fans.  In New York you have comically inept ownership, a field that was built around your speed but hastily edited to give more power to the right-handed batters, (and take away some of the deep alleys that made so many Reyes triples possible) and no signs of competitiveness on the horizon.  In St. Louis, Pujols left a team that had just won the World Series, from all accounts some of the best fans in baseball, and a place where he was deified to go to LA to play for a bunch more money.  It didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, but baseball is a strange and wonderful sport!

I hope you're all enjoying your offseasons!  Go Mets 2017!

Now This Is How You Tumbl

Sideburns sharper than the razor that sculpted them.

This is more a comment on the way that I enjoy baseball in the offseason than any kind of remark on the actual goings-on of the baseball winter meetings -- which were actually plenty eventful, what with Reyes and Buehrle to the Marlins, and Pujols and Wilson somehow to the Angels, among other things -- but the best thing I've seen in the last couple weeks is the Retro Jays Card tumblr (tip of the cap to Drunk Jays Fans, without which/whom I would be utterly lost, for the link). The tumblr's author describes the project thus:

I go to a bunch of Jays games. Each time, I empty my loose change to get random retro Blue Jay baseball cards from the vending machine. When I was a kid I remember these cards were some of my most prized possessions. Now they are 25 cents. 

This is, of course, exactly what needed to happen. I myself have bought old Blue Jays singles for a quarter from many a 500-level vending machine. Now, I buy old Topps team sets for no money on eBay, and can't believe my luck -- like seriously can't believe it -- when they even include cards from the Traded/Update series. 


So yeah, what I was saying is that Retro Jays Cards interests me right now much, much more than the fact that the Blue Jays just traded, Nestor Molina, a hot Double-A pitching prospect with an amazing name, for young, quite possibly legit, eminently affordable closer Sergio Santos, even though that is totally a move worth thinking about. But in the offseason, for whatever reason, I am not at all about the future; I am in fact all about the past. I could grope around trying to explain why that might be, or I could just quote Roger Angell and save us all a lot of trouble:

Baseball has one saving grace that distinguishes it -- for me, at any rate -- from every other sport.  Because of its pace, and thus the perfectly observed balance, both physical and psychological, between opposing forces, its clean lines can be restored in retrospect.  This inner game -- baseball in the mind -- has no season, but is best played in the winter, without the distraction of other baseball news.  At first, it is a game of recollections, recapturings, and visions. 

And that's just at first. For more like that, I totally typed up all of "The Interior Stadium" a while ago if you'd like to read it. I read it every winter and get overcome. It's kind of pathetic, but it totally happens every winter! Give it a try!


KS

2011 Payroll per Victory Nonsense

So the winter meetings have fired up, which will bring about the normal offseason nonsense parade of high-dollar contracts, non-sensical mathematical equations, and off-season dreams (and delusions). The trades and free agent promises will start to fly, and the whole nerd world of baseball will fire up with the wonderful offseason drama of "what if"s. But I had been keeping my yearly spreadsheet of MLB teams, with their payrolls divided by actual victories during the regular season, plus postseason victories as well, to calculate - in a completely non-scientific and means-absolutely-nothing sort of way - the rankings of teams according to payroll per victory that counted during the 2011 season. And after completely forgetting to update it after the World Series, I started reading baseball bullshit inside the vast interwebz this past week and was like, "Oh yeah, that thing..." So here is that thing:
#1: TAMPA BAY RAYS ($446,234.47 per victory) - The Rays snuck their way into a wild card spot in dramatic end-of-the-season fashion, but blew their psychic wad by that point and failed to advance beyond the advancement to postseason play. I would like to note that my friend and brother-in-chaos The Necro Butcher is a huge baseball fan and has adopted the Rays as his team ever since whenever he decided to do such a thing. He may be the only terribly scarred, balding man with pot leaf tattoos and a hillbilly beard who purposefully goes to St. Petersburg to see Tampa Rays games at least twice a year on earth. I hope not, but you know, law of averages says otherwise.
#2: KANSAS CITY ROYALS ($508,816.90 per victory) - A perennial bottom feeder who feeds top-shelf talent to other teams that apparently is on an upward swing due to a TON of PROSPECTS which won't mean a fucking thing in four years, other than they maybe flirt with .500 one season.
#3: ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS ($558,748.26 per victory) - They won the NL West, and nothing else, and are probably my least favorite baseball team because I don't even believe they exist. At least I can hate the Yankees and know they are real. The "Arizona Diamondbacks" could be something completely made up for season 3 of East Bound & Down for all I know.
#4: CLEVELAND INDIANS ($614,882.08 per victory) - Never been any good since Wesley Snipes' tax problems. Oh man, a new Major League (I lost count of the bad ones) with Snipes and Charlie Sheen re-uniting to coach a minor league team of misfits to misfit glory would be awesome, wouldn't it? Probably not, but hey, I have to meander through some sort of thought here, don't I?
#5: PITTSBURGH PIRATES ($625,652.78 per victory) - Remember when the Pirates were having their best season ever in forever and it was such a wonderful tale? They finished 72-90. Go back to the Dave Parker yellow jerseys and weird striped hats with the stiff sides bros.
#6: SAN DIEGO PADRES ($646,044.23 per victory) - Being I only casually pay attention to MLB at large, and most of my uniform knowledge stopped not long after I stopped buying baseball cards at the Big Lots (mid-'90s I think), the Padres are one of those teams who when I see their uniforms, my mind has a string of nine exclamation points go off above it while I pretend to type "WTF WTF WTF" with my fingers against my leg. Because their uniforms are so stupid looking.
#7: TORONTO BLUE JAYS ($772,441.98 per victory) - The gentle soul of KS who is the sort of pitching coach of Baseball Feelings loves the Blue Jays, so I can say nothing snarky or negative about them. So I will move on.
#8: FLORIDA MARLINS ($790,888.89 per victory) - The Marlins have previously perennially been at the top of this list, for years, but have made the hugest splashes this offseason by getting a crazy manager, changing their name to something more stupid than what it already was, unveiling uniforms that looks like an EA Sports video game imagineered them, and then signing everybody possible to exorbitant contracts to eventually position themselves as a contracted team candidate in five years once the World's economy continues to plummet.
#9: WASHINGTON NATIONALS ($798,211.60 per victory) - I am so excited for this coming year. Only one game below .500 this past year, and perhaps Strasburg's arm will not fall off, and perhaps the 29 hot prospects we have now will start to enter my daily paper's box scores, and perhaps perhaps perhaps The Ultimate Harper will make his major league debut and be completely insane but hopefully not get addicted to crack like Josh Hamilton: The Early Years, which is a thing I legitimately fear when I see the cursive tattoos he keeps getting for his self.
#10: MILWAUKEE BREWERS ($846,508.25 per victory) - They do not get so highly on this list by signing Prince Fielder to a royal contract. Pretend it's ten years in the future: Did you know it's a little known fact that the Brewers actually made the NL Championship Series in 2011?
#11: TEXAS RANGERS ($870,747.77 per victory) - I am still very very sad that Ron Washington did not win the World Series and instead stupid fucking Tony LaRussa did, but at least LaRussa retired, hopefully forever, because fuck that guy. Also, Ron Washington is the greatest and I think the best thing any up-and-coming baseball team could do is let a foul-mouthed, drug-addled black dude who walks like the funky chicken through the dugout is a good thing to do be their manager. When we get to the point in baseball history that guys like Ron Washington are the GMs, then we will be in a glorious age.
#12: OAKLAND ATHLETICS ($899,141.89 per victory) - I like to type out "Athletics" because I fear eventually all MLB teams will have their nicknames down to three letters or less.
#13: CINCINNATI REDS ($961,356.13 per victory) - Remember when the Reds were briefly relevant last year too? Or was that the year before? Does Ken Griffey Jr. still play for them? Is there a Ken Griffey III yet?
#14: ATLANTA BRAVES ($977,558.34 per victory) - The Braves are - to me - the Yankees of the National League (which means a slightly less evil version of an ultimately evil thing) so when they did not get the NL wild card, it caused me great joy. My father was an alcoholic and smelled of Winston cigarettes and loved the Braves, and I have nothing terrible to say about my dad because all in all he helped shape me into what I am, but perhaps I hate the Braves because I cannot hate my father. But also perhaps fuck the Braves.
#15: ST. LOUIS CARDINALS (1,043,896.75 per victory) - Here are things that make baseball as painful as the most female of all complaining types could claim it to be: Bob Costas soliloquies, slate.com pieces of baseball, "sabremetrics", pitching changes for a single batter, "not on the first ballot", St. Louis Cardinals World Series champions.
#16: DETROIT TIGERS ($1,057,002.31 per victory) - Being Neil is the drunken soul of Baseball Feelings, and also my brother from another motherfucker, I would never speak negatively of the Tigers either. And I wouldn't tell him how when going to a Goochland High School football game I talked to people who suggested that the Verlander boy who had made good from that locality was a crazed steroid abuser who loved nothing more than engage in homosexual-ish behaviors with Russian men dressed as Bigfoot.
#17: COLORADO ROCKIES ($1,207,507.82 per victory) - Whatever.
#18: BALTIMORE ORIOLES ($1,236,290.41 per victory) - There is a girl who worked where I work and was under my tutelage and she was a sweet, simple girl with a great upward trajectory in life, and she was a baseball fan, specifically the Orioles, and growing up her and her father would watch the Home Run Contest and bet M&Ms on it, and she told me of this this past summer and how she was making her boyfriend bet M&Ms with her while watching the Home Run contest during All-Star festivities, and it made me love her like an uncle loves a niece.
#19: HOUSTON ASTROS ($1,262,392.86 per victory) - If you go look at what I wrote about the Padres, that applies here as well. J.R. Richard striped star jerseys til I die, fuck you if you disagree.
#20: LOS ANGELES DODGERS ($1,270,597.55 per victory) - The Dodgers almost comedically went bankrupt during the season to where they weren't gonna pay players. But baseball is better than ever. Personally I would like it if it were less regulated and pretty much any rich guy who wanted a team could have one, and then every year there'd be anywhere from 16 to 48 MLB teams. We as Americans (and our sort of American neighbors to the north) should learn to embrace chaos, not be afraid of it. Chaos is fun, especially when there are more than two naked women involved.
#21: SEATTLE MARINERS ($1,291,411.94 per victory) - I am on the other side of the country from this and it is raining here and plus cold and I wish it would go back over there to the other side of the country because I could not sit in my pigpen with my pigs and train them to lay at my side while I scratched their belly sort of like that japanese shit where they massage the beef except with pork and only I eat them.
#22: SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS ($1,374,399.22 per victory) - Tim Lincecum is a dude, there is no doubt about it.
#23: NEW YORK METS ($1,543,471.55 per victory) - The Mets seem to usually be the most second or third most disappointing team on this list every year. Like there's always some other interchangeable team that shows up to be the most disappointing, but the Mets are always near the top, and never disappear from it. They could easily be the worst team in the NL East for years to come, which is enjoyable to me on long truck rides at night because you can usually pick up 660 The Fan anywhere on the east coast and you can listen to weird dudes complain about them and be like, "Lololol, my life is better than this guy, that is for sure."
#24: LOS ANGELES ANGELS ($1,610,967.05 per victory) - Remember when they were officially the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim? Wasn't that just the stupidest thing ever?
#25: CHICAGO WHITE SOX ($1,617,582.28 per victory) - No Ozzie Guillen, no peace.
#26: PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES ($1,663,234.41 per victory) - The greatest thing about the Phillies winning 102 games but failing to make it past the divisional round of the playoffs is when you know people who are Philadelphia sports fans and they are your friend and they are always a generally miserable person anyways but that made them even more miserable in a highly comedic way for a few weeks and it's so much fun to be around so long as you do not get yourself drawn into their misery.
#27: CHICAGO CUBS ($1,761,229.99 per victory) - I feel like the Theo Epstein era of Chicago Cubs is like an elaborate trick the Universe is executing slowly to cause Cubs fans even more pain and suffering. Whereas one can enjoy the comedic misery of Phillies fans, watching a Cubs fan suffer is like watching a crippled kid die of leukemia. That is to say, you don't feel good about it, but if somebody slaps a funny lolcat type comment ("picture me rollin" for example on a picture of a crippled kid in his wheel chair), yeah, it's funny enough. Plus, if you go through that list of terrible things about baseball I wrote above under the Cardinals, that applies as well to the Cubs, which is why they are such hated rivals. They are battling to be the greatest Kingdom of Nerds.
#28: MINNESOTA TWINS ($1,789,476.19 per victory) - Wow, Joe Mauer's contract really screwed them, hunh? They used to always be low on this list, and made the playoffs. Now they are the opposite.
#29: BOSTON RED SOX ($1,797,360.83 per victory) - I can not think of a more perfect thing than a Bobby Valentine managing a Boston Red Sox. Drago being a Russian boxer was not more perfect than this. I can't wait for them to fail.
#30: NEW YORK YANKEES ($2,047,363.92 per victory) - When I started doing this years ago, the Rangers always were the worst team when Alex Rodriguez was on their team. And then he went to the Yankees and they have always been the worst for payroll per victory. If there is ever a time where we get to sit around together and reflect upon everything ever through out all of history, at some point while we are sitting there, we will get to baseball, and we will all agree, "You know that A-Rod, he never really was worth it, was he?"

So How Is Your Offseason Going?

Mine's going great! In the twenty days since the end of the World Series, I have effortlessly -- indeed, one might say, almost gracefully -- transitioned from my baseball season-specific baseball interests (chiefly baseball) to my baseball offseason-specific baseball interests (simming things on Mogul; extending Carlos Delgado's contract indefinitely in MLB: The Show so that I can continue to be with him; reading recent baseball fiction [more on that soon]; messing around with my baseball cards; yearning). It's been fun! I have of course been keeping abreast (lol) of all recent signings and happenings, although the biggest transaction of note so far is only that Jonathan Papelbon will occupy a significantly smaller portion of the part of my brain that minds things next season, which, while not nothing, isn't much. And there is the realignment and expansion of the playoffs/play-ins, which is more of a 2013 thing. But I am convinced that awesome things are going to start happening any day now.


An awesome thing that totally did happen today: new Blue Jays uniforms! I like them! I recognize that it would be too much to ask for the team to simply start wearing the exact same uniforms that they wore in 1993, and so I accept this new look for what it is: a bold step in the right direction, and totally better than anything I could have honestly hoped for given the abominations of recent years. Is the design-savvy and awesome Craig Robinson of Flip Flop Fly Ball right when he says, "While, of course, the new logo shits all over the one they were using, it is pretty badly executed"? He may very well be, sure. Robinson posts an image in which a design-type picks the new logo apart, and I can't argue with any of the particulars, honestly. However, on the whole, it is the "shits all over the one they were using" part that is really sticking with me today, so join me, won't you, in enjoying the heck out of these pictures I totally lifted from Drunk Jays Fans.

Joseph Bats

If Adam Lind is still our first baseman next year then I don't even know.

Ricky Romero: A Boss

The split numbering splits my heart

Pretty neat!


KS

Cardinals 6, Rangers 2: The Loathsome Cardinals Win the 2011 World Series, But At Least It's Winter Now

A fifth World Series ring for the great catching Molinas

There was no way that even a genuinely remarkable Game Seven could have equaled the mad splendor of Game Six. We knew that going in, and we pretty much got what we expected all the way around: Chris Carpenter, starting on three days' rest but only starting at all because rain pushed these final games back, pitched into the seventh, the only trouble coming early on two runs in the first (back-to-back doubles from Micheal Young and the prophet Josh Hamilton); and the Rangers, as it turned out, used up all of there chances to win the World Series the night before, just like we'd figured. 


The 2-0 first-inning Texas lead evaporated later that same inning on MVP David Freese's two-run double, and Allen Craig's solo home run in the third put the Cardinals out in front for good. The game didn't feel well and truly over, though, until the sad debacle of the fifth. Reliever Scott Feldman, for whom we can only feel sympathy at this point, walked Craig, hit Pujols, and, after a Berkman ground out, was asked to put Freese aboard to load the bases with two away. A bases-loaded walk -- which is totally the worst kind -- on a close pitch brought Craig home, Washington to the mound, and C. J. Wilson in from the 'pen. With his first pitch of the game, Wilson plunked Rafael Furcal to plate another run. It was brutal


And that was pretty much that. After the best thirty-one days of baseball in my lifetime, the St. Louis Cardinals walked away with their eleventh World Series championship, perhaps the unlikeliest of them all. Good for them. You can't help but feel for the Rangers, the first team to drop back-to-back World Series since the Atlanta Braves of 1991 and 1992. Ron Washington is getting absolutely murdered in the papers and on the blogs, fairly or not, and you've got to wonder if he'll even be back after this. But there's no reason to think the Rangers can't survive the odd free agent loss and remain the class of the AL West for the foreseeable future; and with their young talent coming to the fore this postseason, and with the Brewers about to take a step back, the Cardinals look like they're going to remain relevant for a long time, too, with or without Albert Pujols. It's not inconceivable that these two teams could end up here again in a couple of years. It's almost entirely inconceivable, though, that they would be able to put together a series like this again, a seven-game thriller that featured the best single-game World Series performance in a generation, and one of the strangest and most compelling games we've ever seen. 


This one was a honey. Baseball is awesome.

KS   

Cardinals 10, Rangers 9 (F/11): Greatest Bad Game, or Baddest Great Game?

Mike Napoli, seen here dying inside, would have been World Series  MVP

Only a few short hours after the utterly ridiculous conclusion of last night's mad game, it became clear that Game Six of the 2011 World Series had joined the pantheon, and taken its place alongside all the familiar candidates for greatest game in World Series history. I mean, as soon the late innings began to take their strange shape, I was pretty sure that this was the best World Series game since at least Game Seven in 1997, and probably since Game Seven in 1991, so it's not like I needed to have that impression confirmed by outside sources, but I was struck by how widespread the agreement was, especially for a non-New York, non-Boston game, and how quickly it all came out: last night, it would seem we all agree, we probably watched one of the greatest games, if not the greatest game, in the one-hundred-and-seven-year history of the World Series. How about that! 


And what a mess it was: five errors, including balls just straight-up dropped out there; Micheal Young's continued inability to field any of the positions he is asked to field (heck of a hitter, but a true futility infielder); Matt Holiday's amazing trick of dropping an easy fly ball in left and getting picked off of third base (on a great throw by Mike Napoli and a crafty block of the bag by Adrian Beltre) at what was, at time, a crucial moment in the game and injuring himself in the process, thereby requiring the Cardinals to use up a bench player who should have been available to pinch hit; Tony La Russa running out of bench players completely, and burning two pitchers in the same at-bat, an at-bat that ended with a sacrifice bunt that was popped up and could easily have been turned into a triple play had Beltre been a shade less aggressive in his charge from third; Josh Hamilton hitting a two-run home run, his first of the postseason, in extra innings after God told him he would (nice of him to check in!); Ron Washington somehow leaving Scott Feldman in there to pitch to Berkman, which went about as well as you might expect; and a dozen other crazy things you can revisit in Steve Gardner's estimable and workmanlike live blog.   


And of course there was David Freese, whose two-run triple with two strikes and two out in the bottom of the ninth tied the game, and whose solo shot to leadoff the eleventh won it. Should the wall-shy Nelson Cruz been able to make a play on that lined shot to right in the ninth? It looked tough but playable, that's for sure. Had he gone all out for it and missed, though, it could easily have gone for an inside-the-park home run, as Hamilton didn't seem to be backing the play up at all (Ian Kinsler probably had a better shot at it at second base, given the way it came off the wall). In the end it was fitting that it was Freese who tied and won it: earlier in the game, in the fifth, actually, a Josh Hamilton pop up bounced off of Freese's head and fell to the ground for an error. As went Jeff Freese's night, so went everybody's. There's been a lot of vague talk about theatre in the papers today, which we can probably narrow in on a little: the game started out as a baffling absurdist play where the suffering, though at times comic, seemed not just situational but existential, and it ended with Henry V-levels of righteous slaughter if you're the Cardinals and some serious gouge-your-eyes-out shit if you're not. I have thought that sentence over for exactly as long as it took to type it so I'm pretty sure it's completely right.


Anyway, to conclude: best game ever, man.


KS   

why baseball is the game of the nerds

This was in my morning paper, written by Tom Boswell (the dad from Happy Days) about this year's World Series...

The best World Series develop their themes and isolate unexpected key protagonists as they progress organically.

And sadly enough, that makes sense to me - even though there's like three "intellectual douchebag" red flags contained within. Baseball truly is the ultimate sport for wasted genius.

Rangers 4, Cardinals 2: La Russa Manages Worst Game Anyone Can Remember, Millions LOL

"oh shit that one was like a foot outside bro also hold on I am throwing out yr dude  for a sec" -- Mike Napoli

Something that keeps getting said today is that we really shouldn't let the truly unbelievably historically bad managerial performance turned in by widely celebrated baseball genius/arrogant aggravating mushmouth Tony La Russa completely obscure the fact that Ron Washington made some awfully odd moves last night, too. But my position is that we should totally let that happen, absolutely. Should Wash have put the potential winning run on with an intentional walk? Did he really need to IBB Pujols three times? Should he be batting Mike Napoli eighth? The answer to all of those questions is almost certainly no, but none of those tactical mistakes -- if that's what they are (note: yes, that is what they are) -- come anywhere close to the Bryan Clutterbuck crafted by TLR's expert hand. It was, in short, a masterpiece.


Forget sac bunting in the third inning ahead of Albert Pujols, thereby taking the bat out of the hands of the finest hitter in baseball since the gone-too-soon retirement of the gloriously enhanced Barry Bonds; that's nothing compared to what would follow. Nothing. Nuh.Thing. 


The eighth inning is where it really started to go downhill. Somehow, the game was tied at two at this point, despite C. J. Wilson walking pretty much everybody, and Chris Carpenter having pitched as well as one could have reasonably expected, really. La Russa shut Carpenter down, and brought in Octavio "Don't Ask" Dotel, a move that, in the frenzy of disapproval that has swept through the baseball internet in the last twenty-four hours (even more than usual amount!), has itself come under scrutiny, but I have absolutely no problem with bringing Dotel in at that point, none at all. Just because Michael Young doubled to open the inning, that doesn't make Dotel the wrong pitcher to have gone to in that moment, you know? I would like to know how many people thought it was nuts to bring in Dotel at the moment he was brought in; it could not have been many. La Russa did enough wrong last night -- more, in fact, than any other manager in a high profile game in living memory -- that there's no reason to make up extra stuff, in my view. Let us be content with what we have.


Anyway: a leadoff double to Young, and Dotel answers back with a big strikeout of Adrian Beltre. Then, madness. La Russa orders an intentional walk of Nelson Cruz. Really, Tony, you don't want Dotel, who has been money as hell, to go after this right-handed batter? Seems kind of crazy to put another runner on in a game this tight in this situation with Dotel on the hill, but OK! La Russa had determined that it was Rzeppin' time (he gets on extra grind when it's when it's Rzeppin' time), and it almost worked out: David Murphy hit one right back to the mound, and an excellent play by Scrabble could have turned that grounder into two outs, but instead it ricocheted away and all hands were safe. 


So. Bases loaded, tie game, eighth inning, reliable lefty -- that's reliable lefty -- Mark Rzepcyznski on the mound, and slugging catcher Mike Napoli comes to the plate as one of the best lefty-mashers in baseball this season (as measured by both conventional and advanced lefty-mashing metrics). And La Russa is apparently fine with this. Fine with it! Inexplicably, right-handed fireballer Jason Motte is nowhere to be seen. I can't imagine what Rzepcyznski is thinking at this moment beyond "fuck." A lined double to centre later, the Rangers are ahead 4-2. Scrabble, who is a mensch, strikes out Mitch Moreland, and is at last pulled in favour of a right hander out of the bullpen, but it's not Motte; it's Lance Lynn, who everybody thought was unavailable for Game 5. He comes into the game, issues an intentional walk to Ian Kinsler (hell of a player), and is replaced, finally, by Motte. That's right: Tony La Russa brought in a reliever to issue an intentional walk, and then leave. The manager most responsible for the senseless shape of the modern bullpen, loathed by all who are -- quite tragically, really -- capable of loathing anyone over, you know, the shape of the modern bullpen, had finally taken things not just too far, not just beyond too far, but beyond beyond too far: he'd brought in a righty reliever to issue an IBB while another righty finished his warmup. The broadcasters were baffled. The internet was bubbling like the sea itself when Poseidon, its master, rides atop it in his golden chariot drawn by golden horses and bridled in their golden reins and whatnot (look it up). "Fuck's sake," I may have uttered aloud. 


After the game, La Russa would mumble an explanation about the wrong message being received in the bullpen: he'd asked for Motte to be warmed up alongside Rzepczynski, and it hadn't happened, etc. He'd asked for Motte twice, he claimed, and hadn't gotten him either time. This was not his fault, he made clear to us. Apparently Joe Sheehan, in his subscriber-only email newsletter that I totally meant to sign up for a couple weeks ago but didn't, strenuously made the case this morning that La Russa's story does not add up, and that he is not to be believed on any of this, and that may very well be. But I would argue that even if things unfolded exactly as La Russa claims they did, this situation is still utterly his fault. It's not the fault of his bullpen coach Derek Lilliquist, nor the fault of the bullpen phone (only days after the New York Times' piece on bullpen phones, last bastion of the land line!). It's La Russa's. And part of being the guy in charge is just going out and saying, "We didn't get the right guy out there. It's on me. We're going to get it right next time." Don't bring anybody else into it; don't even mention Lilliquist's name. Take responsibility for the situation that is obviously the manager's responsibility: which pitcher is on the mound. To do otherwise looks, just, so shitty. 


Nearly as shitty: sending Allen Craig with Albert Pujols at the plate, and running into ridiculously costly outs in the late innings of a tight game. Word is that Pujols put the hit-and-run on with a sign in the seventh, and that's a horrible call, but OK, you can't exactly pin that one on La Russa (although you can question how wise it is to allow players, even all-time great players, to be making tactical decisions like that at crucial moments -- is it true that Tim McCarver said Dick Groat had that privilege with the old Cardinals? I have read that he said it but I am not a man of FOX so I have to take it on faith). But sending Craig again in the ninth, when you're down by two, could not possibly make less sense. The word "literally" has of course taken on a figurative meaning in recent years, particularly on these very internets, but I mean it in its original and true sense when I say that there is literally no justification for sending Craig three-times in a row on that 3-2 count with Pujols batting, down by two with nobody out in the ninth. La Russa offered something about wanting to blow that inning open by starting the runner and reduce somewhat the chance of the double play, but this is absurd. It is simply absurd. Craig wasn't helped by Pujols reaching for a pitch probably a whole foot off the plate, but there is nothing about this play that allows you to say "interesting idea, poor execution." That's not what happened. This was poor execution of an idea so terrible that no one who watched it live will ever forget how awful it was. Whether you subscribe to the old school of baseball strategy or the new, whether you are pre- or post- Bill James, you instantly knew how crazy this was. There is no approach to the glorious game of baseball that allows anyone to rationalize any of these decisions. Because they are all awful.


It was the worst managerial performance in a World Series game in my lifetime. And it made me so happy.

WHO COULD HAVE KNOWN???

KS

Rangers 4, Cardinals 0: OMG Game Five Is Already Underway And I Have Not Yet Shared Feelings RE: Game Four So This Will Have To Be Quick

DEREK HOLLAND'S MUSTACHE EIGHT-AND-A-THIRD MIKE NAPOLI GO WASH I HATE TONY LA RUSSA


KS

Cardinals 16, Rangers 7: I Think I Hate Narrative

guess where this one's going

So, after Game 2, which apparently St. Louis totally lost because Albert Pujols made a whisper of an error cutting a ball off on a bad throw from right in the ninth, Pujols, along with a couple of other Cardinals veterans, declined to speak with the media. This meant we were in for a couple of days of the dumbest possible stuff, if you are foolish enough to read the papers, which apparently I am. Here are the two things I learned about Albert Pujols in the last few days: (i) he is selfish, and (ii) he is definitely not a leader. These things we now know, because Albert Pujols did not make himself available to answer "how did it feel when you . . .?" questions after an awesome game where everybody should have had more than enough to write about. The biggest unanswered question coming out of all of this, in my view, has nothing to do with why Pujols misplayed the cutoff; it's why anybody would ever want to ask Pujols about anything in the first place, since he is amazingly uninteresting even by the lofty standard of uninteresting set by professional athletes. He's a proselytizing evangelical who is sure as can be that "everything happens for a reason," which is all well and good for him, I suppose, except that it means that there is only really one answer to every single question the man has ever been asked, and at this point we've heard it. "Albert, talk about [thing that occurred in a baseball game]," he is invariably asked, to which he reliably replies, "Well, everything happens for a reason and [brushes off rest of question]." And that's fine. I don't care that he's a bad interview. I don't care that he espouses a worldview that I do not share or that he spoke at Glenn Beck's big stupid thing. None of that matters to me in the least for one simple reason, and that reason is dingers (or, if you prefer, taters); he hits them, and they are awesome. 


And last night, of course, Pujols dingers were in glorious abundance, but it is clear that we are not going to be allowed to just enjoy those dingers qua dingers, but instead as part of a narrative unfolding between Albert Pujols and the media, in which media members themselves now get to be part of the story, which seems to run like this: "Albert Pujols was silent after his decisive error in Game 2, but his big bat spoke volumes to us last night and answered many of the questions we had about him and so maybe he is indeed a leader of some kind even though we were sure a minute ago that he wasn't and that he was instead a fraud of some type PS this is still totally about us." Please note that in the previous sentence I am at once quoting both nobody and everybody. Even my main man (well, he is certainly among my mainest of men) Dan Shulman couldn't avoid this kind of nonsense last night on the ESPN Radio broadcast, which was a little dispiriting (though I will not hold it against him, and in fairness he did preface the matter a couple of times with words along the lines of "not everybody will care about any of this, but . . ."). Anyway, there's nothing interesting here, really. I don't know why I'm carrying on. Sportswriters have long been the worst; they continue to be the worst; here they are being the worst, etc. 



But hey, how about Albert Pujols! Before last night, nobody in World Series history had ever had four hits, two home runs, and five runs batted in the same game. Pujols, last night, went 5-6 with 3 HR and 6 RBI. The only other players to ever hit three home runs in a single World Series game are of course Babe Ruth, who did it twice, and Reggie Jackson with his cool glasses and earflapless batting helmet, as well you know. It was easily the most amazing single-game World Series performance by a batter in my lifetime, and it totally felt that way while it was going on. It was still totally a game until Pujol's three-run shot in the sixth, too: 8-6 is workable, whereas 11-6 is entirely not. So while this was not Jackson's three home runs on three pitches in a 4-3 game, it wasn't an utterly empty three-homer World Series game (if such a thing is even conceivable). And fourteen total bases? Totally a record (wordplay).


Hey, you know who had an awful night? Mike Napoli: a swipe tag at first that should have been a double play had Ron Kulpa not missed it (great call on the Kinsler slide in Game 2; horrible call here), a two-run throwing error, and thrown at the plate (click here to see that play, and watch the clip all the way through to see Ron Washington, like gallop in sympathy and anticipation). That sucks.   


Finally, tremendous propers to ESPN Radio's Bobby Valentine, who mentioned early on, when Pujols was hitting but lowly singles, that Albert looked totally dialed in and was right on the ball. Valentine was of the opinion that sooner or later, Pujols was probably going to hit one out last night. Good eye, Bobby V!


KS