Buck: Weekend Wrap-Up

What a weekend! This is it, folks. This is the biggest rivalry in sports, played right here on the most sacred soil in all of baseball. The Yankees and Red Sox.

Baseball fans don't need to hear the story. They booked their tickets for this one a long time ago, and out there in the center field bleachers some enterprising young men have taken advantage of the nice spring weather by painting an interlocking N-Y on their bare chests. Lookin' good, fellas! I'm not sure how the Yankees legal department would feel about that one, but you really have to admire the great legacy of possibly the most recognizable logo in all of pro sports.

But if you haven't been following along, let's point out that the games between Boston and New York have become known more for their senseless brutality over the past few years than their hard-nosed, gutsy baseball. The Yankees are Red Sox are like a couple of live wires out there, just lying around for somebody to step on and get zapped. There's no doubt in anyone's mind that when you put two electrifying lineups like these on one field, some sparks are going to be sparked. But nobody said anything about tension!

You had that idiot groundskeeper attacking those defenseless Yankee pitchers. You had that drunken Red Sox fan trying to attack Gary Sheffield. You even had the Red Sox' own captain, Jason Varitek, throwing punches at Alex Rodriguez.

I'll tell you, A-Rod was only wearing a batting helmet that day, and it's a miracle he didn't get hurt. Varitek should ask his new teammate John Olerud a thing or two about batting helmets!

And then you've got Derek Jeter. If you're wondering what separates Jeter from Varitek, besides all those intangibles that people like to read off in an ordered list, it's this: Varitek has that C on his chest, reminding people that he's in charge. Jeter doesn't need a C. He's his team's emotional leader as much as he is the anchor of its defense. If you'll let me paraphrase Richard Wagner here - Tim, I know how much you love Richard Wagner - to be a Yankee is to play baseball for its own sake. You'll never see a better Yankee than Derek Jeter.

And then there's Carl Pavano. What you may not know about him is that every time he goes out there and gets smacked around like my first wife - ha, I'm kidding, honey! - he takes a deep breath, looks at all the living history around him, and remembers that playing in pinstripes is the culmination of a life's dream. He grew up in a family of Yankee fans not far away in Connecticut. Every single night, he's pitching like he's twelve years old.

Here's the thing about Yankee baseball. You have to have a lot of heart to be a Yankee, and it shows every time they play ball. They hit the ball hard. They run fast. They clean up nicely, and they're the kind of young men you wouldn't mind taking home to dinner. In baseball, you can get a long way on charisma alone - like these Red Sox, with their rock and roll haircuts and radical new wave music. But millions of boys and girls all around the country - the world! - go to bed every night dreaming of being a Yankee. Just like Jeanne Zelasko, those girls' futures are in the kitchen, where they belong, and God bless them for that. But when you see those Yankees take the field, there's no doubt that the childhood dream is still alive in each and every one of them.

Week Eight

Many thanks to all of you for inviting me into your homes to talk about a scintillating, exciting week of baseball.

Let's look at the nightmarish situation developing within the wildcard races in both leagues. Now, if I was the commissioner, it's no secret that I would make changes to the wild card system. I'm not saying that I want to be the commissioner, because I believe that Bug Selig has performed admirably in an extremely difficult post. I must firmly state that I definitely do not want to be the commissioner. But if I was the commissioner, I would make the decisions that today's baseball executives are unwilling, or incapable of making. However, I'm not the person for the job. I'm not campaigning for the job. I'm just a fan. However, there's no mistaking the incontrovertible assertion that I know what is best for baseball.

Presently, several teams are making a mockery of the wild card system as it is presently configured. The principal weakness of the wild card is that it allows for good, but far from great teams to make the playoffs, get hot, and make a championship run. The fact that the last three World Series champions have been wild card teams clearly demonstrates the weaknesses within the system. This season, we're clearly headed down a similar path. Teams that wouldn't have had a chance under the old divisional alignments are now alive and have an excellent chance to make the playoffs.

For instance, the Colorado Rockies, who are a terrible team by nearly every objective measure, are merely 13.5 games behind wild card leaders Arizona. This is not a insurmountable margin by any means. Many teams throughout baseball history have come back from similar deficits and made the playoffs. The fact that a terrible team like the Rockies can remain in playoff contention clearly demonstrates the deficiencies in the present system.

Things aren't much better in the American League. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays, with their predictably horrid play, have continued to keep alive the spirit of the old St. Louis Browns. Nonetheless, the perennial cellar dwellars from North Florida are a mere eleven games out of the wild card. Should that deficit seem large to you, then I urge you to consider this: eleven games is roughly the same deficit that the Astros overcame to win the NL wild card last season. If poor teams such as the Devil Rays start making the playoffs, then it could cast a dark shadow over the credibility of America's favourite pastime. The game's reputation could take decades to recover, if indeed it ever does.

Excuse me, I need to go lie down. Then I must start composing an open letter to Bud Selig, whose job I admire and aspire to, yet do not covet. Enjoy the upcoming week of major league baseball, wherever you are.

Beasts of the East

Baseball’s natural order has been restored in the Bronx. As the 26-time-World-Champion New York Yankees await their bitter rivals from Boston, they ride the crest of a magical 15-wins-out-of-17-games stretch that has propelled them into second place in the AL East, a half-game ahead of the 25-21 Red Sox. Three weeks ago, the gap between the Yankees and Red Sox seemed insurmountable, the Yankees’ six-game deficit twice as large as the one that defined the difference between the Yankees’ annual AL East championship season and their perennial bridesmaids’ tidy little second-place finish in 2004. Now, it is the Yankees who look at the lumbering corpse of the Red Sox bullpen in their rearview mirror, eyes forever on the prize – an eighth successive AL East title, with only the Orioles between them and the true measure of baseball glory.

Talk to any Yankee loyalist, and they’ll tell you that the season is 162 games long, not 11. Postseason laurels may be all well and good to Johnny-come-latelies like those jelly-bellied fellows in red and blue, but the true measure of dynastic dominance occurs in these weekends in Tampa and Kansas City, far from the madding crowds and patriotic bunting of October nights past.

Across town, even the Mets tip their caps to their crosstown chums’ consistency. “The Yankees were just pullin’ the old okey-doke,” reported Mets Manager Willie Randolph, elaborating that a series of shrewd moves by George Steinbrenner were merely the baseball equivalent of “laying in the weeds.” Steinbrenner moved Tony Womack to left field, a position at which he was rated -31 runs defensively, and decided to pay erstwhile reliever Steve Karsay the remainder of his 2005 salary to sit at home and watch such family fare as “Britney and Kevin: Chaotic.”

Karsay’s $6 million, after all, is mere pocket change to Steinbrenner, a man who regularly sacrifices “virgins and other undesirables” for his own pleasure in his enormous underwater complex off City Island. Recently on the crosstown bus, a woman of a certain age remarked that she thought the Karsay deal was a sound cutting of ties, adding that “Unlike the Yankees, Karsay chose not to go the extra distance for his fans in New York.”

To be fair, the Red Sox are worthy competition. Yet they’ll never amount to anything but the Yankees’ sinecure unless they finally win an AL East title. If there’s one thing the Yankee players admit, it’s that they’re only glad to be playing this weekend’s series on home turf; the drainage system at Fenway Park is so outdated that Gary Sheffield compares playing right field on a rainy day to “surfing on a washcloth,” and New England has been pounded by rain and miserable temperatures for days on end.

Indeed, a dark cloud, courtesy of a freak springtime weather pattern, hung over Boston all week – perhaps an omen of the increasingly likely fact that dark clouds just hang over the miserable Sox by dint of some decree from a higher power. Perhaps God, Enlil, Zeus, or some lesser voodoo deity simply has it in for the Red Sox, in the middle of their frustrating decade-long quest for AL East gold.

Murray Chass, a baseball columnist for The New York Times, is a former New York Yankees beat writer who helped set the standard in print journalism for the position of national baseball writer. He has covered baseball for more than 43 years.

Rumblings and Grumblings (May 25)

Team Rumblings

The Arizona Diamondbacks continue to be the biggest surprise of the summer that doesn't involve Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Behind the pitching of the resurgent tandem of Brandon Webb and Javier Vazquez, as well as the slugging of Troy Glaus and Luis Gonzalez, the DBacks are sizzling in the Arizona heat and are in the thick of the NL West pennant race. What caused their spectacular turnaround? Compared to 2004, they're scoring more runs, allowing fewer runs to score, and have clamped down on allowing runners to reach first base due to catcher's interference. Last year, only the Brewers allowed more runners to reach base due to catcher's interference than the Diamondbacks did. And this season?

Thus far in 2005, zero runners have reached first base against the Diamondbacks due to catcher's interference. That's zero as in nada. Nil. No one. And which was the last team to win the World Series without allowing a single runner to reach first base due to catcher's intereference?

You don't have to look back very far -- that's right, it was the 2004 World Champion Boston Red Sox. Could this be a favorable omen for the Diamondbacks playoff hopes this season? We'll see.


Barry Bonds Rumblings

The Giants continue to struggle through the season in fourth place, and everybody in San Francisco wants to know only one thing: when is Barry Bonds returning to the lineup?

Rumours have been swirling around the baseball world. Bonds won't play this season. Bonds will have to retire. The Giants front office doesn't keep in touch with Bonds, as per the latters' request. Giants President Peter Magowan even appeared in the booth on Sunday Night Baseball and attempted to dispel these rumours.

But even rumours about a secret tryst between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie haven't had the staying power of the latest rumours surrounding Barry Bonds. What's more, they aren't going away anytime soon.

This is a loaded issue, featuring more conspiracy theories and political double-speak than a season of "24". The Giants management is saying all the right words, but their stance is too slick, too polished. It's just not believable.

Remember, Ronnie Cedeno, Terry Tiffee and Terrmel Sledge have collectively hit more home runs in 2005 (three) than Barry Bonds (zero). As long as this trend continues, the rumours will persist.


Shannon Stewart Rumblings

Through Tuesday night's games, Shannon Stewart is hitting .307 in May, which happens to be exactly the same batting average he had for his 2003 season. Of course, Stewart finished fourth in MVP voting that year, so is this a sign of things to come for the Twins' star outfielder?

Rookie Rumblings

Blue Jays third baseman/DH Aaron Hill was called up last week to replace the injured Corey Koskie. Toronto's #1 draft pick in 2003, Hill's debut in the major leagues has been anything but a steep climb to respectability. He's been tearing up major league pitching to the tune of a .438 batting average (through Tuesday's games). He already has more RBI's this season (five) than high-priced megastars such as Nomar Garciaparra and Tim Hudson, the same number of doubles (one) as respected veterans Carlos Baerga and Jose Offerman, and only one fewer triple (two) than the entire 32-14 White Sox team.

"Hill is the real deal" says one AL front office executive. "He'll be a huge star, no doubt. Hill's head is in the clouds, but this kid is grounded. Without question, Hill has lots of upside. It's anything but lonely at the top for this Hill. Hill is showing no signs of leveling off. The view from this Hill-top is very bright. The Blue Jays are glad to be running up that Hill".

Thus far, Aaron Hill's major league career is full of nothing but peaks. But for how long can this Hill avoid the valleys?

Cafardo Variations

"If they were cars, John Smoltz would have been the gas-guzzling SUV while Matt Clement would have been the economical, efficient, precision driving machine." - Nick Cafardo, Boston Globe, May 23, 2005.

If they were roaming about the Great Plains in pioneer times, Matt Clement would have been the noble Lakota, boiling even the smallest bones of the buffalo for precious tallow, while John Smoltz would have been the white man, leaving the carcasses to rot in the Fenway sun.

If they were Victorian-era industrialists, John Smoltz would have been William Randolph Hearst, indulging in grandiose displays of pitching profligacy, while Matt Clement would have been Andrew Carnegie, efficiently using his considerable means to enhance and enrich society.

If they were rappers, John Smoltz would have been M.C. Hammer, erecting a gaudy mansion high in the Oakland hills and hiring an enormous entourage, while Matt Clement would have been Master P, parlaying his success with No Limit Records into a global media empire.

If they were Roman emperors, John Smoltz would have been Caligula, wallowing in the excesses of his own bloated pitch counts, while Matt Clement would have been Claudius, shrewdly conquering the middle third of the Braves' lineup like so much of southern Britannia.

If they were competitive eaters, John Smoltz would have been William "Refrigerator" Perry, foolishly equating wasteful mesomorphy with success, while Matt Clement would have been Takeru Kobayashi, employing his trademark Solomon method to divide and devour the Atlanta Braves' potent bats.

If they were lead guitarists for 1980's hard rock bands, Matt Clement would have been Angus Young, playing clean, economical riffs over the boogie-based backing of the hard-nosed Jason Varitek, while John Smoltz would have been Eddie Van Halen, even though nobody likes that power drill "Eruption" bullshit besides Valerie Bertinelli and guys who work at Daddy's Junky Music.

Fantasy Baseball Advice

Ed. Note:Welcome to another installment of Fantasy Baseball Advice here at Yard Work. Our guests this week are a couple of Oakland A's stars -- 2002 Cy Young winner Barry Zito and first baseman/"Moneyball" hero Scott Hatteberg. We caught up with them on the afternoon before Zito's Sunday night start against the Giants.



Q: A GM in my league wants to take Jake Peavy off my hands in exchange for Keith Foulke. I could use a better closer but other than his save numbers, I don't think Foulke is pitching well. I rejected the trade but he offered it again a few days later. I rejected it again, and yesterday he offered it for a third time. He's insisting that Peavy is young and therefore more unpredictable, whereas Foulke is a consistent year-to-year performer and therefore isn't as much of a risk. Should I rethink this deal?

Tom H., Milwaukee, WS

Barry Zito: Your friend is seriously uptight, man. He's pestering you all the time and that negative energy isn't healthy for you, or for your team. You can't talk baseball with this dude until he chills out a bit. Tell him to veg, listen to some Ben Folds, and relax for a while. Once that happens, you guys can work on improving your teams together.

Scott Hatteberg: Unfortunately, you haven't provided us with much information here. So I can't make a fully informed decision, but I can give you some useful advice. You didn't say what the GM's name is, so I'll call him Joe. You'll need to gather information on every trade that Joe has made over the last three or four years. For each previous trade between you and Joe, assign a number based on the following ranking system:

0 - trade worked out strongly in his favour
1 - trade worked out mildly in his favour
2 - trade worked out evenly
3 - trade worked out mildly in your favour
4 - trade worked out strongly in your favour

You'll need a minimum of five or six trades between you and Joe in order to have a meaningful sample size for the calculation. Average the ratings for all trades between you and Joe. Then, assign similar ratings for Joe's trades with everybody else in the league, and take the average. Now, subtract the league average score from your average score, and normalize the result by dividing by 2.0 (since the rating for all trades by all GM's in the league must necessarily average out to 2.0). This final number represents your Baseball Upper-Normalized Trade Scores (BUNTS) with Joe (for future reference, you should also determine your BUNTS between you and every other GM in your league).

If your BUNTS are positive, then relative to the rest of the league, you are faring well in your trades with Joe. Therefore, you should continue to trade with him. Anything over 0.5 is excellent. If your BUNTS with Joe are greater than 0.5, then you should certainly accept any trade he offers you. On the other hand, if your BUNTS are negative, then you should think twice about making any deals with him.

Obviously, you should give trading preference to GM's based on high numbers of BUNTS. There are a lot of fantasy baseball trade strategies, but BUNTS are almost always a winning strategy. Good luck.

Q: My outfield has been decimated by injuries. I've been scouring my league's waiver wire for a short-term pickup, and I'm trying to decide between B.J. Surhoff and Reed Johnson. Johnson has played very well so far this season, but he might be hitting above his head because his OBP and SLG are way above his career numbers. Should I gamble on the youngster or play it safe with the veteran?

Norman J., New Orleans, LA

SH: Johnson has some "hidden value" in that he gets hit by a lot of pitches. If HBP is a stat in your league then you should lean toward selecting Johnson. On the other hand, Surhoff can ... [Ed. Note: at this point, Mr. Hatteberg abruptly stopped talking in mid-sentence and approached a member of the grounds crew]

BZ: (following a very long pause ) I guess I'll give my answer until Hatty comes back. But yeah, I agree, I'd go with Johnson. He's got that soul patch and he looks like a laid back guy. I'm liking the vibes from him.

SH: [returning three minutes later] ... help your counting stats, provided he gets ample playing time. He'll probably finish with more RBI's than last year because of that great offense they've got in Baltimore. And I'm sorry for leaving you a few minutes ago, but the groundskeeper is my neighbour's best friend's uncle. I had to tell him my story about Jeremy Giambi and the green-eyed chihuahua. I've been meaning to tell him for months.

Q: I'm preparing for the draft in my midseason league. In a league with fifteen teams, do you see Jon Garland getting picked in the first two or three rounds? He must be due for a 2nd half dropoff, at least that's my feeling. Also, will Ben Sheets come back strong from the DL in the second half? I'm thinking of making him my first pitching draft pick if he's available.

Luis B., San Bernadino, CA

BZ: (extremely long pause ) Sheets, man, he's a wild dude. Totally cool. He's a funny guy, too. I'd much rather hang out with him than Garland. Does that answer your question?

SH: This is a tough call. When was Garland drafted last year? Were you involved in a full-season draft this spring with any of the same GM's, and if so, when was he drafted? You'll need to acquire the video from past drafts and study the events leading up to his selections. For any given draft, before Garland was picked, how long was the pause between his selection and the previous selection? If it was shorter than seven or eight seconds, then he was queued up on somebody's preranked list and likely will be again. If his selection took sixty seconds or more, then that GM may have taken a flyer and Garland's draft position is probably due to luck, particularly if it was in the first four or five rounds.

Q: Barry Zito is single-handedly killing my pitching staff. I selected him in the third round of our draft, thinking that he would step up his performance after the Hudson and Mulder trades. It was a dumb hunch, I know, particularly considering his steady decline since the 2001-2 seasons. Anyhow, I've tried to trade him for anything ressembling a real pitcher, but no other teams want this decade's Steve Avery, and to be frank, I can't blame them. Zito has one win, his peripherals are bad, and I don't see much upside. Is it time to give up and put him on waivers? Or do you think I should hang on for a little while longer? I might be able to trade for a decent utility player or long reliever if Zito can put together a couple of quality starts.

Horace P., Trenton, NJ

SH: Er, I think ... hey Z-man, do you want to take this one?

BZ: (cavernously huge pause lasting approximately seventeen minutes) Hey man, that's cool. Totally understandable. You're frustrated, and I can sympathize. But there may be a greater power at work in your league this year. There are some bad spiritual demons working against you right now. If you don't win this year, then it wasn't meant to be, and it's out of your control. Set your lineups for the next two weeks and just head to the beach for a while. Waking up on the beach, man, watching the sun rise in the morning, feeling the surf coming in and washing over your toes, it's the best feeling. It's a much better feeling than winning some fantasy baseball league. Come to think of it, I just might do the same thing myself.

Ed. Note: thanks for reading, and keep your eyes peeled for future editions of Fantasy Baseball Advice!

More Cowbell Than You Will Ever Need II

I've been "on hiatus" from work for a couple of weeks but believe me, I've been busy. Between the Red Sox trying to catch the Orioles while holding off the charging Yankees, three exciting 2nd round NBA playoff series when none were expected, and biting my nails in anticipation of tonight's season finale of "The OC", my plate is full. Oh yeah, I've been occupied with that whole fatherhood thing, as well.

Once you've had kids, your friends without kids look at you differently. They shake your hand, pat you on the back, and offer their sincere congratulations, but their faces say "you've got a kid now -- so much for taking spontaneous trips to Vegas! We'll have to go without you next time because you've just lost a large chunk of your freedom!". Expectant fathers think those thoughts a thousand times in the last weeks before the birth. It's just like the Colts losing at Foxboro in January -- you mark the date on your calendar months ahead of time, you know it's coming, and there's nothing you can do to stop it from happening. And when the big day finally comes, you can do two things. You can walk around looking bewildered, wearing a Peyton Manning "I can't believe I lost in New England again" face. Or you can realize that you haven't lost freedom, you've gained freedom. Look at it this way -- I've got a readymade excuse for attending any baseball game I want. What's the point of having kids if you can't take them with you to Fenway Park?

The most interesting thing about the baseball season so far has to be the confirmation of the Ewing Theory with respect to closers. Granted, closers aren't exactly superstars, but they get treated like it by their teams. Closers lose their jobs all the time, year in and year out, and yet every time a guy get appointed as his team's closer it gets treated like a coronation. When James Eckhouse left 90210, he wasn't replaced. Like a closer, he played a small, but high profile role on the show. He got two or three minutes with which to put his stamp on each episode, and nobody complained. In fact, he was quite often praised for it. So the producers were smart enough to know that they couldn't make a big deal about trying to replace him because the fans wouldn't a) accept an incoming father figure as though he was a big deal, and b) respect him. Case in point -- five years later, they inexplicably tried to parachute Joe E. Tata into the father figure role, attempting to transform a bit player into the wise sage of the show and worthy of his own spot in the opening credits. Look how that turned out. See what I mean?

You can't just name somebody as the closer and expect the fans to accept it. Like with Britney Spears, she can't name some trashbag guy as her husband and expect her fans to accept him and watch a reality show centred around their daily minutiae. By the way, did you *see* "Chaotic" on Tuesday? The Unintentional Comedy scale doesn't come close to covering it. This past week, I think we saw the dawning of a new era of bad reality TV. My favourite part was Britney's huge 300 pound bodyguard saying that his first impression of Kevin Federline was that he was interested in her for the fame and nothing else. My head exploded when I heard that and my insides leaked into the pile of diapers on the couch next to me (oh no, I promised that I wouldn't be one of those columnists who talked about fatherhood all of the time). On second thought, maybe my favourite part was Britney taking inspiration from cinematography of "The Blair Witch Project" and using it as a vehicle to tell us about art appreciation. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. Who thought that it would be a good idea to put this stuff on TV? Did Ian from Survivor:Palau negotiate the TV deal on behalf of the network? And despite all of this, why can I hardly wait for next week's episode?

So, in line with the principles of the Ewing Theory, closers are treated like royalty in baseball and yet teams are managing to win without them. The Cards are running away with the NL Central despite injuries to Jason Isringhausen. The Dodgers have been near the top of the NL West all year without Eric Gagne. NL saves leader Brandon Lyon is about to go on the DL -- imagine how good the Diamondbacks will be without him! My buddy Hench heard the news about Lyon and immediately got 3-1 odds in Vegas that the Dbacks will have the league's best won-loss record by June 1. Baseball GM's have countless different strategies for assembling a winning team, but from what we've seen so far this year, I think that Joe Garagiola Jr.'s "lose 110 games, start strong the following year, injury to closer" method is ready to take off.

The Braves are ready to claim their annual pennant even with Danny Kolb as their closer. Kolb's ERA has been struggling to stay below Barry Bonds' hat size all year, and yet the Braves keep winning. He's so awful, they might as well not even have a closer. This was obvious to seemingly everyone except for the Braves, but finally they wised up and removed Kolb from the closers role this week. Look for them to run away with their division from here on in.

And in Boston, you'd think people would be concerned with injuries to Schilling and Wells, Manny Ramirez hitting .230, and Rob and Amber's wedding. But they're not, because all anybody talks about is how much Keith Foulke is struggling. The whole year has been a race between Foulke's ballooning ERA and the pathetic ratings for "The Contender", but the Red Sox are six games over .500 regardless. Tom Cruise's flying skills improved after the Goose went down, so why can't the Red Sox improve without Foulke? We don't have to seriously hurt him. One day, maybe he could fall against a table while pulling on a pair of cowboy boots? Can somebody see to it that he has a nightmare about spiders and sleepwalks through a plate glass window, pitching hand first? Are there any hypnotists out there who can make this happen?

Ball Five Pt 2

Editor's Note: John Rocker, the maligned former closer for the Atlanta Braves, has signed a book deal with Regnery Publishing (publisher of such bestsellers as Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry) to chronicle his comeback attempt. Regnery and Mr. Rocker have graciously agreed to post some of the pitcher's entries here, as they happen. Expect a new entry each week.

Things are looking up for me after a couple of tough outings. In only one week, I've lowered my ERA by nearly four runs. Nobody else on our pitching staff can claim that they've improved so much in such a short time. Hopefully Don McCormack, our manager, appreciates this and will get me into more ball games.

The morning of Saturday's game, the hurlers worked out with our pitching coach Dave LaPoint. We had just lost a couple of close games against Camden and Newark and he wanted to speak with the bunch of us. He said "you guys have to concentrate when you're on the mound", but I just had to roll my eyes. Believe me, we're not dummies, we're concentrating out there. Well, except for that lunkhead Todd Erdos, I'm not so sure he's with it. But he's a dumb lightbulb changin' Kowalski, so he can't help but be stupid. Anyhow, we all give 100% when we're out on the mound and sometimes we scan the stands for teenage jailbait between pitches but we don't let it affect our performance.

Well, LaPoint kept going on and on about concentration and discipline and crap. Finally I'd had enough so I decided to lighten the mood a bit. I told them that I had a question and squinted with my eyes as if I was concentrating really hard while trying to read something off the pitch charts. Then, in my best Jackie Chan accent, I said "Hideo Nomo say dat first pitch strike -- velly important!". The guys didn't laugh but I think they were stifling a few chuckles because they didn't want to embarrass the coaching staff. But a team has to stay loose to be successful. They'll learn that lesson from me as the season wears on. It's a long season.

Today I got some letters from my John Rocker Fanclub of Macon, Georgia. Having my very own fanclub in my hometown makes me so proud. This one kid wrote to say how much he admired me. He had just read my Sports Illustrated article from 1999 and agreed with everything I said. He also said that his brother was sent to Iraq a few months back and his family had no idea when he'd be returning. I wrote him back to clear up a few things. I mean, I'm flattered that he liked that SI piece, but I've grown up a lot since then. Some of the things I said weren't cool, and I needed to make sure that the kid knew that. Also, I can't believe that a member of my fanclub got sent to Iraq. My fanclub members are great kids and the ragheads don't deserve them, particularly when there are so many spics in this country who aren't doing anything useful. For instance, our utility infielder Cesar Tovar is hitting about .150. If they need somebody over there, they should send him because he's not helping our team.

Diamond Notes

When it came time to negotiate a new contract this off-season, Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek told his agent Scott Boras to play hardball, but in his heart Varitek knew that there was only one place for him - manning the plate in Fenway Park as he's done for the past seven years.

And if you're wondering why the Red Sox signed Varitek to that monster contract before the season began, they can sum it up in one word: intangibles. Intangibles. "He does all the little things, and makes them seem so easy," gushed one Red Sox executive recently - and this was before Varitek hit that walk-off homer against embattled A's closer Octavio Dotel last week. People in the know about intangibles report that it isn't a surprise that the Yankees are struggling to play .500 ball while Varitek is near the league lead in hitting. With such a limited supply of intangibles in this world of steroid testing, and Varitek may be staking his claim to the territory once intangibly occupied by the likes of Derek Jeter.

Without Varitek, the Red Sox would be a good team, but not the powerhouse they've proven themselves to be over the last couple of weeks. He's a versatile switch-hitter with serious home run clout, a good baserunner for a big man, but his real talents lie in preparation and pitcher management. He has a real rapport with everyone on the Red Sox staff - even ladies' man David Wells. Although closer Keith Foulke is struggling, the Red Sox aren't concerned; they think they can win the AL East outright, and Varitek is the reason.

-- If Dotel's collapses are a harbinger of anything, it's that these Oakland A's are going to have their work cut out for them in the AL West. It might be tempting to count them out if they played in any other division, but let's not forget that nobody in their division is flawless. "Anaheim can't hit, Texas can't pitch, and Seattle's bullpen anchor is J.J. Putz," reports a scout. "And the A's finish every year faster than Brady Anderson on his wedding night." Barry Zito is probably cooked, however, and the A's might be better off starting the actual LaMarr Hoyt every five days than the once-dominating lefty whose career arc resembles Hoyt's more and more.

• Privately, the Marlins have no regrets about trading Derrek Lee and Hee Seop Choi, not with big bopper Carlos Delgado making the transition to the NL smoothly, but somewhere in that front office, someone's got to be second-guessing the moves that sent two of the most patient and intelligent hitters in the league to greener pastures in Chicago and Los Angeles. They know the true extent of Mike Lowell's decline, and it might not just be an early-season slump; the problem is that staff ace A.J. Burnett's impending free agency makes him Priority Numero Uno on the Marlins' off-season slate.

Finding a capable third baseman (maybe Bill Mueller?) for insurance in case Lowell's lost his smile may be too much for Florida's limited budget to bear, especially with so much dinero tied up in Delgado's deal; some Miami brass think that Lowell may have simply lost his ability to produce on a stage bigger than "People en Espanol," but replacing his once-potent bat could be muy complicado in this competitive market.

• As for Choi, the same Dodger higher-ups who were recently decrying him as a "useless sack of s---" are now hailing his pitch selection and power to all fields. Making the transition to Dodger Stadium is hard for any hitter, but for Choi, a still-young prospect, it was doubly so. He didn't spend long in Marlin teal before being dealt, and he didn't have much time to acclimate himself to the quirks of Wrigley Field before that.

In LA, though, the wounds of the Lo Duca trade are still fresh, and Dodger fans' lingering distrust of Paul DePodesta affects the reputations of players like Choi and Brad Penny. Old-line manager Jim Tracy, reluctant to change his stubborn ways, might be served by remembering an ancient Chinese proverb: "Jade requires chiselling before becoming a gem."

• How excited is Nationals star Brad Wilkerson about the upcoming "Star Wars" prequel? Following the lead of Washington lobbyists, Wilkerson has hired a proxy to wait in line for him at the Uptown Theatre in Cleveland Park before Friday's midnight premiere. Following the Nats' Thursday matinee game against Milwaukee, Wilkerson will rush home, change into full Luke Skywalker gear, and replace his stand-in. Wilkerson says he's "psyched" about the movie, adding that he showed up at the midnight screenings of the first and second prequels during his previous stints in Harrisburg and Montreal.

• Boston prospect Cla Meredith failed mightily in his first big-league game, issuing a grand slam to Richie Sexson in a loss to Seattle, but don't fear, Sox fans; the experience will help him immeasurably, either next year as a replacement for aging reliever Mike Timlin or as a possible trade chit in a deal for a first baseman (perhaps Lyle Overbay?). Meredith also won accolades when he threw himself into Commonwealth Avenue traffic to shield a family of ducklings from oncoming traffic as they crossed the road. Meredith was feted by the local chapter of noted humane organization Friends of the Ducks, although three pedestrians died in the subsequent pile-up. Reached for comment, clubhouse manager Joe Cochran said, "Meredith's a great kid. He really gave 110% out there; it's just a shame that God was batting in the bottom of the ninth."

• Don't look now, interleague fans, but this weekend's Brewers/Twins series ought to be more exciting than "Battle of the Gridiron Stars" on ESPN. Wes Obermueller is quietly turning into a gamer. Gamer.

PTI - May 16

I'm Tony Kornheiser ... Wilbon, I'm ashamed of you. ASHAMED! You thought you could HIDE on this blog and avoid the ridicule. How's this for ridicule:

BYE BYE BABY BULLS BYE BYE BABY BULLS BYE BYE BABY BULLS

So much for remaining inconspicuous, huh Mike? Posting in tiny letters on a blog isn't inconspicuous. You know what's inconspicuous? The Whizzinator is inconspicuous. I'LL TEACH YOU SOMETHING ABOUT BEING INCONSPICUOUS!!!

Happy trails to E$PN's own Joe Morgan, who recently won the Emmy for Best Sports Event Analyst. Apparently, winning an Emmy these days is as easy as retiring to a life of memorabilia shows and golf, and endless diatribes about why everybody on the 1970's Reds should join you in the Hall of Fame because they "knew how to win" and drive in runs when it counted the most. HA!! (Just kidding Joe. Love ya!)

Happy 50th Birthday wishes to Jack Morris. Morris was the winningest pitcher of the 1980's, and the ace on three different World Series-winning clubs. Many people think that Morris should be in the Hall of Fame, even though his career ERA is just barely better than that of Chan Ho Park and Shawn Estes. Pitching to the score? Bah! You want to talk about scoring? How about scoring with this:



HOW ABOUT SCORING WITH J4MIE $ALÉ? HOW ABOUT THAT??

Glorifying the Thugs

ESPN got it right.

In referring to Eric Anduri, the goon who hurled a beer at Yankee hero Jason Giambi, as an “attacker,” the cable network did their part in refusing to downplay the horrific significance of the vile assault upon Giambi on Saturday night.

Anduri, you might have heard, is the son of the mayor of Lafayette, CA. Meet the enemy, Yankee fans: he’s enjoyed the good life, being born with a silver spoon in his mouth in ultra-posh Contra Costa County, but a life of privilege and wealth apparently wasn’t good enough for Anduri. He chose to take his frustrations out on #25.

If you haven’t noticed, this is a deplorable trend. Because of their success and their success alone, the Yankees are easy targets for the kind of odious violence perpetrated upon Giambi and Gary Sheffield by thugs in Oakland and Boston. Like Giambi, Sheffield took his beaning in stride, maintaining confidence and class in the face of the sickening actions of jealous Red Sox fans. As the bleacher creatures in Boston hooted and hollered, Sheffield summoned up his bottomless reserves of class and dignity, putting on a stoic face as family-unfriendly insults rained down upon him.

In typical fashion, WFAN jock Mike Francesa took it upon himself to pooh-pooh Anduri’s ugly, classless deed, focusing instead on Giacomo’s hopes in the Preakness and another hopeless weekend for the Mets. Francesa ought to be ashamed of himself. If it’d been Mike Piazza shaking watery McAfee Coliseum beer out of his disheveled locks, Francesa would have read Anduri the riot act; as it stood, WFAN’s refusal to give the attack the attention it deserved practically dignified it.

True sports fans would have booed Anduri and fellow miscreant Chris House out of their respective stadiums, but in Oakland and Boston, they’re folk heroes. Mike, the Mad Dog, and their apologist ilk would like you to believe that the assaults on the pinstripes are isolated incidents, and that the actions of two fans shouldn’t stand in for the civility of thousands.

Baloney. Anduri didn’t grow up far from American Taliban John Walker Lindh, and like Lindh he represents the sickening face of moral decline in this nation – the lifestyles of the rich and clueless running rampant over the bedrock of society. If there were any justice, they’d throw the book at that California coward – instead, he’ll get a slap on the wrist and a couple of aisle seats the next time the Yanks are in town. Let’s see him and his buddy House pull the same disgusting stunts in the Bronx.

Phil Mushnick is a columnist for the New York Post.

Mechanics of Pitching

In his two most recent starts, Colorado Rockies pitcher Shawn Chacon has walked sixteen guys in ten innings, but he's given up only four runs. That's two runs each game! But the fact is, Shawn Chacon hasn't been struggling with his control lately, regardless of what it may look like when you read the box score.

Let me break it down for you. One of the first things you learn in the big leagues is that hitters like to see pitches they can hit. But if you threw the ball down the middle of the plate every pitch, you wouldn't last long in baseball! Ha! Pitchers need to be creative and realize that sometimes, throwing balls is better than throwing strikes.

When I pitched for the '87 Cubs, I walked 106 guys in 237 innings. That may seem like a lot, but I was an All-Star that year, so clearly, I was doing something right! What I realized is that it's okay to walk a ton of guys, as long as you have enough confidence in your team to get the outs. For one thing, walking a guy means that you don't have to deal with balls in play. When you walk a guy, you know where he's going - first base. When a guy hits a ball in the air, you don't know if Andre Dawson's going to get stung by a bee or see a pretty girl in the stands or what! (Nothing personal, Hawk. It's strategy.)

The other thing to consider is how it affects hitters. It's in nobody's best interest to walk every time at the plate; hitters don't get the big money for leaving the bat on their shoulder, and you don't even want to know how the guys in the clubhouse would treat Ryne Sandberg when he'd take a bunch of pitches instead of trying to bring the runners home. So if you're throwing garbage and hoping to walk guys, you might actually get them to swing at some bad pitches. If they know they aren't going to see anything they can hit, they're gonna swing at something!

Look, the Rockies didn't actually win either of those games, but they could have. It's hard to succeed in Colorado, and Shawn Chacon's never going to be an All-Star like me. But in baseball, a lot of things don't matter as much as you think they do - and nobody cares about walks except the Oakland A's, and we all know how good the A's are. If Chacon keeps doing his job, walking guys and keeping them on base at the end of the inning, he might be on to something - and the Colorado Rockies might be taking their first steps toward a pennant.

Rick Sutcliffe is a color commentator for ESPN Baseball. He won the Cy Young award in 1984.

Pay Rickey

Rickey got paid!

Rickey was chilling on Saturday night when the phone rang. It was some dude from San Diego. "Yo Rickey! We want the greatest leadoff hitter in baseball history to come get that paper and show all the suckers in San Diego how to play baseball like a man!" he said, or something like that. It didn't take much to convince Rickey. Rickey got on a plane.

Rickey has to say, even though this is the minors, they treat you good. They flew me and my agent Jeff out there on some JetBlue sh-t with the little TVs in the back of the headrest, and as many bags of pretzels as you want! Damn! Once I got into San Diego they had a Kia Rio reserved for "Mr. Henderson," and a room at the La Quinta. Rickey don't speak Spanish, but "La Quinta" must mean "five in the goddamn morning," because that's when Rickey's wake-up call came.

Rickey has such star quality that everywhere he goes, people recognize him. So Rickey rolled up at six in the morning to go hit the treadmill, and in the gym the guy was like, "Rickey! Yo!" Rickey comes prepared - he pulled out his Sharpie to sign some autographs, but the guy said, "Rickey, there's some algae and sh-t in the Jacuzzi, man!"

So Rickey went to work out for the Surf Dawgs. First thing Rickey saw was this big sign: "Tony Gwynn Stadium." Rickey was like, "Man, this place is called Tony Gwynn Stadium? For real? Tony Gwynn?" It's just another example of the conspiracy, man. People hate on Rickey even when Rickey's not around. It's not Rickey's fault that God chose him to be his baseball emissary on Earth.

So Rickey ran some wind sprints and hit some BP. And then in the clubhouse, the manager goes, "Rickey, do you want to be a Surf Dawg?" And Rickey looks at him and he goes, "Terry Kennedy?!"

"What?"

"Man, didn't you play for the Giants in '89? Man, we whooped y'all ass!" He tried to change the subject, but I remembered that! Terry Kennedy was like 2-12 that year! Every time he tried to hit against Dave Stewart he had his eyes closed! He struck out once and Kevin Mitchell looked at him like he was his girlfriend's cat or some sh-t.

And when that earthquake hit, Terry Kennedy started crying like a little girl, right there in the stadium. Damn! You had to be a player to have a cell phone in those days, so Rickey called his girl to make sure that she was up in El Cerrito, but he couldn't hear her over Terry Kennedy. Jose Canseco looked like he was ready to slap the taste out of his mouth, right there in Candlestick.

For some reason, Terry wasn't laughing, but Rickey was finally like, "Yeah, I'll play for y'all. I was chosen to play baseball, and this is the first step on my long road back to major league superstardom." Rickey signed the contract, got his money, and went back to the La Quinta. Rickey went to go chill poolside and look for some fine b-tches, but it was all closed because of the algae.

Rickey couldn't sleep on the flight back, so he was eating some Gardetto's and watching that movie "Mr. 3000" with Bernie Mac. Jeff was all, "Rickey, this is a metaphor for your career renaissance." Rickey don't know what that means, but Rickey hopes Angela Bassett's waiting for him once spring training's done.

Rickey Henderson appreciates the love. Pay Rickey!

PTI - May 11

Pardon the interruption, but I'm Mike Wilbon, and I haven't been myself for the past few days. I want to vent about it, but I've got to be as inconspicuous as possible when broaching the subject. You know what I'm on about -- I'm embarassed about what happened to my, uh, baby bulls and I'm not up to facing the ridicule from my colleagues. So I'm trying to keep a low profile by staying in Miami and covering the NBA playoffs because there's no better way to avoid those baby bulls jokes than by covering a series that nobody cares about. Talk about a foregone conclusion. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the baby bulls were up 2-0 in their series too but this time it's different. Why? Because everybody loves Shaq, that's why. And make no mistake about it, when Miami avenges the baby bulls by annihilating Washington, I'll be the first one on the court to thumb my nose at the Wizards as they sulk back to the locker room.

I can't even be happy about -- my boy!! -- Ozzie Guillen and the White Sox because nobody in Chicago cares about the White Sox. It's a Cubs town, period. Their fifth starter, Jon Garland, is 6-0 but all anybody talks about in Chicago is Kerry Wood and Mark Prior, who are always injured and have a measly four wins between them. They want to talk about Derrek Lee and his nine home runs but there's not one drop of love for my boy Paul Konerko and his nine home runs.

Anyhow, I'm trying to think happy thoughts, so here is some baseball news that makes me smile:

• George Steinbrenner's horse -- his horse!!! -- losing worse that his baseball team. At least the Yankees are in fourth -- the horse finished seventh.
• Manny Ramirez getting beaned on a daily basis. Once is a fluke, twice is a trend, and the trend is funny.
• The possibility that Jason Giambi might take a trip down to the minors. Pushed out of New York by his own ineptitude and by my boy Tino. During the preseason, people were talking about all the "pressure" on Giambi -- whatever happened to all that? Whatever happened to people saying that Giambi would be playing under more scrutiny than anyone since Jackie Robinson? I'll tell you what happened -- the Yankees are so bad overall that everyone has forgotten about Giambi and his steroids and the fact that they owe this guy 80 million. Nobody even cares about Giambi anymore.
• People in Boston are sweating with Wells and Schilling on the DL and nobody knows exactly when they'll be back, or if they'll even be effective when they are back. We heard so much offseason talk about Big Unit and Schilling and how great these pitching staffs were. And now, the season is going to come down to the Yanks and Sawks begging ... grovelling for the services of Roger Clemens and his dumb-looking frosted highlights.

Yeah, the woes of the Yanks and Sawks are putting big stupid grins on my face each and every day. And why not? I'm tired of hearing about the Yanks and Sawks. Somebody talk about the White Sox. The first place White Sox with the best record in baseball. Talk about the Braves finding a way to win again after everyone wrote them off again. Talk about the D-Backs, in contention in the NL West despite losing 111 games in 2004. I don't want to hear another word about the YANKS and SAWKS.

All right, I'm gonna head out so I can show off my tan to the beautiful ladies of South Beach. I'll be lying on the sand, daydreaming about what the Heat are going to do to the Wizards. See you knuckleheads later!

His Personal Commodus

Red Sox pitcher Bronson Arroyo attracted a small measure of controversy last week when pictures of him cavorting with nubile young lasses at a Boston-area college surfaced on the Internet. The very married Arroyo, plastic cup of keg beer in bejeweled hand, was seen smiling pleasantly with a young babe perched eagerly on his lap; fellow Red Sox hurler Lenny DiNardo lurked somewhere in the background, beatifically musing, no doubt, on how good his life has become in the last year: from languishing in the Mets' farm system to becoming a Rule 5 pickup for the Red Sox, to winning a World Series ring, to making time with Huskie honeys on Huntington.

Arroyo and DiNardo should be commended for their ambition, but Arroyo's lapse in judgment calls his morals into serious question. TMQ thinks that the wives of this world have no problem with him objectifying and denigrating women by comparing them to unrealistic archetypes of physical beauty, just so long as TMQ's hands do not go a-wanderin'. Arroyo should be ashamed of himself. Like Potter Stewart, TMQ knows misogyny when he sees it, and TMQ knows that it is one thing to ogle, coo, and obsess over babes, and quite another to actually interact with them.

Stat of the Week #1

On Friday, the Cincinnati Reds' Paul Wilson gave up eight runs in the first inning - before a single out had been recorded. Wilson's nightly pitching line is gruesome:

0.0 IP, 8 ER, 5 H, 1 BB, 2 HR.

Ye gads! TMQ's unpaid intern searched long and hard for the last pitcher to start a game so inauspiciously, and found...Paul Wilson! July 10, 2002, Wilson gave up eight runs on 41 outless pitches against the Astros; three years later he managed to be shellacked in a comparably thrifty 25 pitches, meaning that his arm is still relatively fresh for the next beating. Of the Mets' vaunted Generation K, only Jason Isringhausen has had anything approaching a solvent pro career; both Wilson and Bill Pulsipher have bounced around from club to club like the bulging mammaries of starlet Devon Aoki (here pictured modestly splayed across the hood of a car). TMQ is a fan of the chesty Aoki, and found himself watching "2 Fast 2 Furious" on Cinemax late Friday night. In a tribute to co-star Paul Walker's driving skills, TMQ was moved to compose a haiku:

Unlike swarthy namesake
Reds' Paul Wilson is neither
Fast nor furious.

(Entranced by Aoki's massive boobage and unnecessarily low-cut costumes, TMQ failed to notice that "Paul Wilson" is not actually the same as "Paul Walker." C'est la vie, as our cowardly French allies might sneer.)

Stat of the Week #2

In six starts for the Oakland Athletics, rookie starter Joe Blanton's team has provided him with exactly 14 runs of offensive support. Blanton has had a fine season so far, ranking near the top of the AL in ERA all year, but has an 0-2 record to show for it. Blanton's young, but TMQ worries that he might be resigned to a career like that of Mark "Galangalangalanga" Langston (as Chris "DC" Berman might put it): outstanding stats, but mediocre win-loss records pitching for lousy, offensively inferior teams.

Stat of the Week #3

Having discovered the joys of walking on May 3, New York/B shortstop Jose Reyes, apparently newly informed that it is possible to get to first base without swinging his bat, has managed to do so four times in one week. This has happened exactly once before in Reyes' pro career. Apparently, Reyes' reputation as a base-stealing phenom is enough for New York/B manager Willie Randolph to bat him at the top of the order. TMQ is moved to note that Reyes' season on-base percentage is exactly .287. The baseball gods do not smile upon thee, New York/B.

Stat of the Week #4

Reyes' counterpart in on-base futility, Tampa Bay's Jorge Cantu, has meanwhile managed to draw exactly one walk in 107 at-bats this season, putting him on pace for exactly five walks in a full season. Stop him before he swings again! Devil Rays manager Lou Piniella, a sage baseball lifer, knows exactly where to bat Cantu - dead last. That Cantu has decent speed isn't the issue - stealing bases requires batters to get on base in the first place! Tampa Bay is years away from contention and in the wrong division to boot, but the baseball gods smile upon sensible team management. Piniella's squad is in much better karmic shape than New York/B.

Sweet Play of the Week

May 3, Cuyahoga Watershed Region Fighting Penobscot vs. Minnesota Hunahpu (see note below). Endomorphic Penobscot closer Bob Wickman is pitching with a 4-2 lead in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and Hunahpu third baseman Michael Cuddyer on second. Fearful that Cuddyer might be relaying pitch locations back to Hunahpu batter Shannon Stewart, Wickman casually sidles off the mound. It's a balk! Cuddyer moves to third.

Over at Baseball Think Factory, a poster writes, "Down by 2, man on 2b, 2 out, chance of winning is .052. Move him to 3B, and it's .053. That's a +.001 win change, or the equivalent of +.01 run change in a random situation. i.e., virtually useless."

Wickman wasn't thinking about sabermetric analysis on the mound. He was thinking about the balk in terms of cost-benefit analysis, and his actuarial sense prevailed over conventional baseball wisdom. Naturally, he then promptly walked Stewart, who immediately stole second, but Hunahpu DH Matthew LeCroy struck out to end the game - and Wickman, who worried about perennial MVP candidate Stewart's power to all fields, was vindicated.

The baseball gods look fondly upon this sort of creative playmaking. Expect the Penobscot to recover from their slow start.

Sour Play of the Week

The nadir of the Yankees' season (or their sacking by the Gauls, depending on your view of late-90's-Yankees-as-Pax-Romana) may have been their series sweep by the Devil Rays. Formerly fearsome slugger Jason Giambi may well be the Marcus Aurelius of the Yankee empire, although reports that he has been pressing Brian Cashman to hire his younger brother Jeremy to serve as his personal Commodus are unconfirmed.

There may be no individual play to sum up the Yankees' shocking decline, although the sight of a depleted, shrunken Giambi uselessly waving at pitches is the most pathetic on display in the majors. Reader S. Cook offers this typically plaintive haiku:

a swing and a miss.
then a slow dribbler to third.
Jason's off the juice.

Stop Me Before I Bunt Again!

Chicago/B versus the Lame Duck Monarchy of Kansas City. Young Zack Greinke (looks 15, pitches 45) enters the bottom of the 8th with a slim 1-0 lead, having thrown under 80 pitches in holding the shockingly successful Chicago/B squad to two hits and no walks. The two hits: an AJ Pierzynksi single in the 3rd (erased on a line-out double play to end the frame), and a Scott Podsednik single in the 4th (erased on a caught stealing, followed by Ks of the next two hitters).

Young Greinke walks Paul Konerko (.194), the Chicago/B clean-up hitter, to start the 8th inning. A pinch runner comes in for Konerko. Aaron Rowand is now at the plate. Rowand, struggling so far this year, was a bright light beaming through the malaise that weighted down Chicago/B last year, hitting 38 doubles and 24 home runs. With a runner on 1st and no out, an average of .783 runs are scored. With a runner on 2nd and one out, that average drops slightly, to .699. Unless the hitter at the plate is underqualified to swing at a major league pitch, statistics show that you should save the out, especially with on 6 left to use. Also, with your 5th place hitter, it would make sense to - IT'S A BUNT!

Rowand does his job, sacrificing to the pitcher to advance the pinch runner to 2nd base. The next batter, perrenial underachiever Jermaine Dye (once known as "underrated superstar Jermaine Dye") is hit, thus ending Greinke's day. 85 pitches, 53 strikes. Whatever manager Tony Pena saw in Greinke's performance to make him panic, TMQ cannot say. Nevertheless, Greinke turned the game over to who-dat reliever Andy Sisco, a Rule 5 pick-up who has proven to be one of the better Royal relievers this year. Sisco gets a runner-advancing ground-out, then walks the ultra-patient Joe Crede (his 5th, in 88 ABs) and Juan Uribe (his 5th, in 69 ABs) to allow the tying run to score. Out comes Manager Pena to replace Sisco with young-closer-in-training Ambiorix Burgos.

Burgos, a recent call-up from AA, is faced with a bases loaded, 2 out situation. In such situations, .798 runs are scored on average. The White Sox manage to better that number by 1.202 runs, as Burgos, known more for his good heart and eager smile than pinpoint control, walks Scott Podsednik to drive in what would prove to be the winning run.

Burgos manages to strike out the next hitter, but the damage is done. The White Sox score two runs on zero hits, four walks, and a hit batsmen. Zack Greinke, while sitting in the dugout after throwing his 85 pitches, is tagged with the loss. His ERA rises to 3.38. The ERAs of both Sisco and Burgos decrease. And the productive out comes out from under the bed to scare children that dare believe it doesn't exist.

Obscure Minor League Player of the Week

Angels' prospect Ervin Santana, currently pitching for their Arkansas Travelers AA affiliate (whose Web site conveniently notes that they are the "only team in minor league baseball named after an entire state"), is a dazzling 5-1 with a 2.45 ERA in six starts so far. The sky is the limit for Santana, who, until a year or two ago, was found not only to be older than advertised, but not, as claimed, named "Johan Santana."

Whaaa? Yes, readers, it seems that it is easy for international prospects not only to falsify their dates of birth but their identities as well when being scouted abroad. Increased scrutiny and stringent visa restictions post-9/11 turned up dozens of discrepancies in players' ages and names.

There is nothing to stop al-Qaeda and our other enemies from enlisting top-notch baseball players in their global campaign against America. Thus, TMQ urges Congress to pass the "Real ID" legislation, conveniently attached to a defense spending bill currently working its way through the Senate. No laws are on the books to stop would-be MLBers from co-opting the identities of their better-known professional counterparts. If convicted hijacking conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui had possessed a dynamite knuckle-curve and a passport that read "Zacarias Mussina," there's no telling what havoc he could be wreaking on the Brooklyn Cyclones right now, in more ways than one.

Errata

F. Smith of Brooklyn, NY writes, "It is ironic that TMQ has decided to rename the Cleveland Indians after a tribe (and river) in Maine. Gregg, I hate to burst your bubble, as you seem to have consulted with a real expert on the history of the Tribe. The Penobscot are not native to the Cuyahoga region. They are from what is now Maine, members of the Wabanaki confederacy, the hated enemies of the Iroquois. (The Penobscot and the Mohawk were particularly antagonistic.) The Penobscot tribe is still located in Maine, where both a river and a bay are named after them. Indeed, Sockalexis is buried in Old Town, Maine on the reservation on Indian Island -- an island in the Penobscot River." Indeed, Sockalexis' lineage is not in question; Baseball Reliquary notes:

"Born on October 24, 1871 on the Penobscot Indian reservation outside of Old Town, Maine, Sockalexis displayed incredible athletic talent in his youth. Tales abounded of his great throwing arm, with descriptions of him hurling a baseball over 600 feet across the Penobscot River. He went on to become a star pitcher and outfielder at both Holy Cross and Notre Dame, where life and legend continued to intertwine. One of his colossal home runs was estimated at 600 feet, while another reportedly broke a fourth-story window in the Brown University chapel. He stole six bases in one game; pitched three no-hitters; and one of his outfield throws, measured by two Harvard professors, traveled 414 feet on the fly.

Sockalexis was signed to a professional contract in 1897 by the Cleveland Spiders baseball club of the National League and was an immediate success, hitting an impressive .338 with eight triples and 16 stolen bases in his first 60 games. He appeared to be on target to fulfill the enormous promise predicted for him by New York Giants manager John McGraw, who described Sockalexis as the greatest natural talent he had ever encountered in the game. But his rookie season and his professional baseball career were soon ground to a halt. A drinking problem that had begun in his college days resurfaced, and on July 4, 1897, during a party, an inebriated Sockalexis jumped from the second-story window of a brothel, severely injuring his ankle. He played only sporadically during the next two years, and his last game in the major leagues came in 1899 at the age of 27."

Last Week's Challenge

Last week, TMQ challenged readers to come up with new, appropriate names for MLB teams.

S. Cook of the Cuyahoga Watershed Region, perplexed by the relationship of Selig pere and fille, suggests the "Milwaukee Anti-Trust Exemption Test Cases." An anonymous reader writes, "The Oakland Athletics, last in the league in runs, are anything but. Perhaps 'Oakland Anaerobics' would do if the A's continue to show such a dazzling aversion to physical activity."

On the same note, TMQ suggests the "Kansas City Hibernating Bats," since the Royals' appear to still be caught up in their winter reverie, perched slothfully on the shoulders of all but dutiful slugger Mike Sweeney.

The winner, however, must be the aforementioned Minnesota Hunahpu.

"In the lore of the Quiché Maya, One and Seven Hunahpu were the first generation of hero twins. These boys were passionate ballplayers. They were so good at it, and so noisy about it, that they came to the attention of the Lords of Death. The rulers of the Underworld sent messengers to summon them to a ballgame. They were told to bring their rubber ball and their protective gear. Instead, they hid them up under the rafters of their mother's house.

Then they set out for Xibalba, the kingdom of the Lords of Death. At the bottom of a cliff, they made it safely across a river of spikes, then a river of blood and a river of pus. When they came to the throneroom of the Lords of Death, they greeted them by name. Only these weren't the Lords of Death at all, but carved wooden replicas. This was a test, and they had failed it. 'No hard feelings,' said the Lords of Death. 'Have a seat.' The twins sat right down on a burning bench and shot right back up again. For failing tests like these they were sacrificed. Their bodies were buried under the ballcourt in Xibalba."

The Twins, despite building one of baseball's best farm systems under the austere rule of miserly owner Carl Pohlad, were nearly sacrificed to contraction three years ago, and their continued success in the face of baseball's Lords of Death (namely Pohlad, who would apparently like to redirect all shared revenues right back into his wallet) speaks volumes as to the fruits of small-market teams' labor. The Twins may look like tattered beggars, playing in the grim Metrodome, but they are odds-on favorites to make the playoffs yet again, and top-notch pitchers like Brad Radke and Johan Santana routinely turn down megabucks to stay in Minnesota.

The editors of Profane Existence would surely be proud of the ultra-gory tale of the mighty Hero Twins. Hunahpu it is.

This Week's Challenge

After reading Jose Canseco's lamentable autobiography "Juiced," which appears to have been composed without the aid of an editor, fact-checker, proofreader, or ghostwriter, TMQ thinks that steroid abusers ought not to face 50-game bans for their first offense, but should instead write autobiographies not to exceed Canseco's in quality.

There is debate within baseball as to which of the immortal records is the hardest to break - hitting in 56 straight games? Seven no-hitters? 4,256 hits? TMQ argues that the hardest feat may be writing prose worse than Canseco's. Consider:

"[What] happens to your testes has nothing to do with any shrinking of the penis. That’s a misconception. As a matter of fact, the reverse can be true. Using growth hormone can make your penis bigger, and make you more easily aroused. So to the guys out there who are worried about their manhood, all I can say is: Growth hormone worked for me."

Readers are invited to submit their alternative steroid punishments for consideration in this space. Send all inquiries this way.

Rumblings and Grumblings

More Steroid Rumblings

Bud Selig's new steroid plan has garnered considerable attention over the past couple of weeks. So much attention, in fact, that it's almost completely obscured the fact that home run totals are considerably down from last year. Surprising? Not really, considering how many big leaguers showed up at spring training sporting more sudden weight loss than Anna Nicole Smith.

Many of the game's suspected former juicers are experiencing power draughts. Jason Giambi? Only three homers so far this year. Not-So Pudge-y Rodriguez? Also just three home runs. Sammy Sosa? Four home runs. And tellingly, Barry Bonds has yet to play this season.

Rafael Palmeiro, 10th on the all-time career home run list with 552 (through Friday's games), has just one home run this year, which ties him with noted sluggers Michael Restovich, Humberto Cota and Chris Magruder.

The modest threesome of Justin Morneau, David Wright, and Jason Lane started the season with 49 career home runs combined, compared to 1828 homers for the trio of Palmeiro, Bonds, and Sosa. And yet, this season, through Friday's games, each of them has hit as many home runs (5) as Palmeiro, Bonds, and Sosa combined.

Overall, home run rates are down 14% this year compared to 2004. The last time home run rates fell by as much as 14%? You have to go back to 1988, when home runs fell by 28% compared to the previous year. And who led the major leagues in home runs in 1987?

That would be Mark McGwire, with 49 long flies. That would be the same Mark McGwire who was so deft at dodging questions during recent congressional hearings that former Enron employees were seen taking notes.

You can be sure that we haven't heard the last of this. The ball is in Donald Fehr's court now.

Team Rumblings

Through Friday's games, the White Sox lead all major league clubs with a 22-7 record. They're hotter than the new iPod Shuffle, and what's more, they're winning despite ranking just 18th in MLB in runs scored. But that's not all that's confusing about the 2005 White Sox. They're leading the A.L. in stolen bases despite placing last in the league in triples.

For a team heralded for playing "small ball", it's curious to find them excelling in one speed category while failing so miserably in another. How curious is it? To find the last big league team to win a pennant while finishing first in stolen bases and last in triples, you have to look back to the 1890 Louisville Colonels of the now-defunct American Association. So can the White Sox defy history and do what no other team has done in 115 years?

"Sure, why not", said Giants GM Brian Sabean. "Who gives a crap about teams that finish first in stolen bases and last in triples?".

Player Rumblings

Shannon Stewart is starting to turn things around in May after a slow start in April. Stewart was plagued by injuries last season, preventing him from returning to his MVP-calibre form of 2003. Twins manager Ron Gardenhire was optimistic. "When he's healthy, Shannon is one of the best outfielders on our club, no question" stated Gardenhire proudly.

Does he foresee a repeat of Stewart's magical 2003 season?

"Hopefully", laughed Gardenhire. "Shannon's willing to do whatever it takes to help the team win".

Devil Rays talent scout Marty Martins has a more unorthodox opinion on the subject. "Frankly", he scoffed, "Stewart's just not that good. His trade to the Twins in 2003 just happened to coincide with Radke and Lohse getting hot during the second half. It also happened at the same time that the Twins' management finally figured out that Johan Santana belonged in the starting rotation."

To say that Martins' opinion is a bit on the fringe is like saying that Paris Hilton's cell phone getting hacked caused her a bit of embarassment. "Stewart can play" said one NL GM. "He can energize a lineup". Said another: "He's a solid outfielder, no question". Royals bullpen coach Brian Poldburg agrees. "He's been very consistent throughout his career".

Maybe "Moneyball" was right after all -- what do scouts know? In particular, the Devil Rays -- who have averaged 62 wins per year over the last four years -- might want to put their scouting money where their mouth is.

Week Five

The White Sox continue their winning ways, big trouble in the Bronx, and the feel-good saga of the surprising Milwaukee Brewers -- all in Week Five of the MLB season!

The White Sox have the best record in the majors, in large part due to outstanding pitching. So far, Jon Garland's year falls between great and Somewhere Over the Rainbow with his perfect 6-0 record. Right behind him are Mark "Mother of" Buehrle and Freddy Garcia "And Cake" with four wins apiece. How long can they keep up their level of play?

Shocking lineup moves in the Bronx have resulted in the apparent benching of Bernie "Deep in the Hoopla" Williams, with Godzilla Matsui taking his place in center, and Tony "Fleetwood" Womack taking Matsui's place in left. Can the Yankees possibly rebound from last place in the AL East? Or is this the end of the Yankee dynasty once and for all?

The Brewers shocked the baseball world last week by winning seven straight and vaulting to within three-and-a-half of the mighty Cardinals. And they've done it without injured ace Ben "Shake the" Sheets. Can the hitting of Carlos "Lobos" Lee and Lyle "Shakin' All" Overbay help carry them to the top in the NL?

Stay tuned to E$PN for all the latest news and highlights from Major League Baseball!

Pay Rickey

Who would you rather have in left field - some chump with furry eyebrows like Tony Womack, or the greatest left fielder of all time?

Rickey Henderson is asking that question rhetorically, because you know the answer. Tony Womack is a punk. Tony Womack can't even play second base! Mel Hall is a better left fielder than Tony Womack. Rickey Henderson is a Hall of Famer. Tony Womack can't even make the Wall of Fame at that restaurant with the big hamburgers.

Rickey reads the papers. Rickey ain't blind. Rickey rides the PATH train every night and listens to guys talk about the Yankees. Rickey knows what's going on, and what's going on is that the Yankees are a bunch of losers. Rickey only knows about winning, though. Ask the 1990 Yankees about winning!

Rickey doesn't have anything against the Yankees. They traded him to Oakland back in the day, Rickey got his ring, Rickey got his money, Rickey got his Hammer pants with the little Oakland A's logo on them, and that's cool. Rickey can't think of a better place to display his magical talents than Yankee Stadium. People say Rickey this and Rickey that, and Rickey's old and Rickey has an attitude problem, but as long as Billy Martin's dead and Bobby Valentine's getting his teeth whitened in Tokyo, there ain't no problem.

Here are some more Yankee players that Rickey Henderson is better than:

Alex Rodriguez: A-Rod talks about getting up in the morning and running the stairs and not taking his kids to school. What do you think Rickey's doing? Man, f-ck taking a kid to school!

Bernie Williams: Bernie Williams is disgraceful. Rickey Henderson's hands are God-given instruments of precision, and Bernie Williams should be ashamed of himself for playing that classical guitar and messing up his arms. "Tendinitis in his elbows." Yeah, right. Rickey knows what's up. Rickey watched the Esteban special on QVC. That's corny! It ain't worth sacrificing the prime years of a baseball career to go play "Classical Gas" at some nursing home.

Jorge Posada: Jorge Posada tried to steal third base tonight and I damn near busted out. Jorge Posada runs like a little girl. Rickey Henderson is a poet on the basepaths. Rickey could have gotten to third base running backwards faster than that peanut-head.

Look, Rickey knows that George Steinbrenner has a big weekend, so he's just going to chill, play some "RBI Baseball 2," and maybe run on the Power Pad. Steinbrenner understands the value and importance of veteran leadership, and he knows he has to make the call. If Rickey ain't in your Rolodex under Henderson, man, look under L - Left Fielder of All Time, comma, Greatest.

Rickey Henderson appreciates the love. Pay Rickey!

Public Service Announcement

Good afternoon fans, I'm Reggie Jackson, one of baseball's all-time greatest home run hitters, but you probably know me better as Mr. October. I'd like to thank the editors of the BBTN blog for inviting me to discuss a matter of utmost importance that is facing the game of baseball. This is about more than just winning and losing, or big market teams vs small market teams, and it might even be more important than having reliable fire insurance. This is about the very fabric of the game itself.

Ballplayers are always looking for a little something more, that extra edge, something to boost their performance on the field. I was instrumental in pioneering this practice over thirty years ago when I was winning championships with the A's and Yankees. Without it, I would have been far less successful as a ballplayer, there's no doubt about that. I hit 563 home runs during my storybook career and I would have hit a lot less had I not had that extra edge. But due to recent developments, this practice is in serious danger of being eliminated from the game, and it should that come to pass, it would be a crushing blow to everyone who plays the game of baseball. It would significantly affect the integrity of the game and we must not allow that to happen.

Of course, you all know what I'm talking about -- the terrible sunflower seed shortage of 2005. Prominent newspapers such as The Washington Post have picked up on this story and are giving it the attention it richly deserves, but it is not enough. If you love baseball as much as I love my automobile collection, then I urge you to write to your local baseball team and your congressman and voice your opinion. Something needs to be done and a solution must be found before it is too late.

Thanks for reading, and I'll be signing autographs for $125 a pop at the Taladega Card and Collectables Show this Saturday from 2-4 PM. Once more, I'm only there until 4 PM so don't be late because I won't stay a minute longer.

Mike Piazza's Political Soapbox

Hey, I'm Mike Piazza, All-Star catcher for the New York Mets. And I'd like to talk to you about the filibuster.

Before I met my old lady, I was out hunting for poontang with Ted Nugent, and the Nuge turned around and asked me, "P, why do gun-grabbing nutjob liberals find it necessary to prevent the invocation of cloture when their colleagues filibuster to forestall the approval of Republican-nominated judicial appointees?"

I didn't know what to say. It seems that even though prominent Democrats like Zell Miller think the filibuster is a bad idea, their party leadership is so out of touch with mainstream America that they won't get rid of it. But what was I supposed to tell the Motor City Madman? He looked pissed, and rightly so. "Hit one for the Nuge," he said, and we didn't talk about the filibuster again.

The next day, I hit two huge bombs, and I went out and had a righteous bro-down with Kerry King and Tom Araya from Slayer. We were sitting in my studio shotgunning brews and jamming to "South of Heaven," and when the killer track "Silent Scream" came on, Kerry got quiet. "P," he said, "shouldn't the abortion debate be settled by active bipartisan dialogue, not four-day speeches by angry elitist Democrats any time there's a judge who remotely disagrees with them?"

Look, I didn't get to be a career .315 hitter and set the all-time home run record for catchers by arguing balls and strikes or playing defense. And we didn't get to be the greatest nation on earth by using the filibuster. The Mets trust me to go out every day, look good for the ladies, and hit huge bombs. That's what I'm good at. That's what I do. Let's trust Congress to do their job too.

I'm Mike Piazza, and I approve this message.

The Art of the Ejection

Yeah that's right, you goddamn bastards: Sweet Lou here to talk about the art of the ejection. I was approached by the fellas over at Baseball Tonight to touch on one of my favorite subjects and you bet your goddamn ass I jumped on it.

Some interesting facts for you sons of a bitches:

I have been ejected 57 times as a manager, 71 times overall and 7 as a Devil Ray. Among active managers, only Atlanta's Bobby Cox has more (112). I was ejected three times last season. Hall of Famer John McGraw was ejected 131 times, believed to be the all-time leader. The Earl of Baltimore, Earl Weaver, another Hall of Famer, was ejected 98 times. Why the hell do you think I'm still sweating my goddamn ass off down here in Tampa? It's not for the talent, that's for sure — it's so I can break the goddamn ejection record. Earl Weaver... that asshole has nothing on me.

Basically you got three moves to get yourself ejected. I'll break them down:

1. Easiest trick in the book — argue balls and strikes. You're sure to get a reaction out of an ump. Usually I'll start off with something like, "Hey Ump, why don't you bend over and call the game with your good eye!"

2. If that doesn't work, you might try having a player take off someone's head with a a fastball. Usually works, and usually starts a little brouhaha to go along with it. But be careful if you have to come out of the dugout, just ask Zim. He got tossed by that no good "Soul Glo" son-of-a-bitch.

3. If all else fails, argue any call. Then come storming out like you got flames shootin out your asshole and go ballistic. Rip bases out, kick dirt, tell an ump you had sex with his wife. Whatever works.

And that's how Lou does it. If you don't like it, you can kiss my ass.

The 3 Shuns: Preparation, Visualization, Execution

Well, look at that high school photo, why dontcha! Where did all the hair go?

As you can tell from the other photo (that's me, Kirk Gibson, next to Tram and Cluckin' Chicken), I have a sit-down job. More specifically, I am the bench coach for the Detroit Tigers. I am not the hitting coach. That position is held by an experienced veteran of the minor leagues named Bruce Fields. We'll get more in-depth about this issue in my next 3 Shuns column. For now I'm just saying hello. Just to give you the head's up, Bobby Higginson will sit in for me whenever I can't contribute. He gets lots of questions from little leaguers and is eager to answer some of them here.

And now Kruk, you cheeseburger, I'm calling you out. You said a couple weeks back on Baseball Tonight that hitting a golf ball is harder than hitting a baseball. Are you out of your mind? Is the dip getting to you again? I cannot count how many times these past couple springs that I've had to get behind a player and show him to bunt while helping him hold his bat. This is just bunting! Catching the ball with your bat! Granted, I'm talking about a club that might not be playoff caliber, but I'm still talking about professionals. (I know I just said that I'm not the hitting coach, but bear with me. And this instructional drill is demeaning as hell, by the way, for both coach and player. I have to chase off photographers whenever we go through it. Just picture it, grown men playing what looks like a very gentle form of leapfrog.) Back on topic: I don't care how much bigger a baseball is. Hitting something that's coming at you at a 90 MPH clip versus something just sitting there, waiting for you to drill it into sweet oblivion. You've got to be kidding me. I hope you were just being surly to be surly, you tree trunk.

9th Inning Wood

A lot of people come up and ask me what I think about the possibility of Kerry Wood as the new Cubs closer. Now I have a lot of experience pitching, and I have a lot of experience pitching for the Cubs, but I never know what to tell the fans when this question comes up. Well Wood is hurt again and won't throw for at least three weeks, so now is a good time to take a closer look at the facts of the situation !!

• Like Dennis Eckersley, Wood started his career as a starting pitcher for the Cubs. Eckersley showed that power pitchers can make the transition to the bullpen.


• I pitched with Eckersley during the Cubs magical pennant run in 1984, and we used to sit in the bullpen on days we didn't pitch. Now Eck was a guy who loved his fun, let me put it that way. So we'd be sitting there in the pen and he'd bet me ten Red Baron pizzas that he could throw harder than I could. He was clever with his bets !! So we'd both get up and find Jody Davis, he was usually over by the cooler in the dugout just sitting quietly. We'd have him come out to the bullpen mound and we'd both wind up and fire our best heat at him. Jody would tell us which fastball got there first. Well nine times out of ten Eck would blow my fastball away, and it wasn't just because of my legendarily slow delivery home. Eck just had the stuff, there was no doubt in my mind. I remember joking with him after one of these contests that he shouldn't let Lee Smith see him warming up down here, he'd fear for his job security !! Well if you want to find if he took my advice, just call up Cooperstown and ask for Dennis. Point is, he was made to be a closer even though he was a starting pitcher for much of his career.
  

So there's a lot to be said for Kerry Wood filling in the Cubs obvious hole at closer when he fully recovers from his injury in a month or so. A hard-throwing Texan with attitude could be just what the Cubs need to finish games out in the rough-and-tumble NL Central this year.

Rick Sutcliffe is a color commentator for ESPN Baseball. He won the Cy Young award in 1984.

Put it on the blog... YES!

Hawk here.

Just a quick note of entry before I hit the links on this wickedly chilly Windy City afternoon. I must admit it's an honor to be in the company of such distinguished gentlemen and I hope to not plug up too much of this precious space with my own thoughts.

Within the next couple weeks or so I hope to post a list of my favorite medallions in the business of rap music. I was recently stuck in a Detroit hotel room one night with a TV that only had two channels, BET and Skinemax. Now I'm a family man, so I naturally chose the former. More than anything I was impressed by a lot of the neckwear I saw, so DJ suggested I make a list of my favorites. Some of you older readers might recall that I had some flashy neckwear of my own in the sixties. I was pretty hip, Nehru jackets, long flowing locks, the whole nine yards. And I'd like to think that I'm still pretty with it. Don't let DJ or any of my family members tell you any different!

So look for that list in the near future. Alright, folks.

Belated condolences go out to the Tigers, not only for dropping a recent three-game series to the Ozzieballin' Good Guys, but also for losing Ozzie hating Magglio Ordonez for so long. Ouch. Grab one bench, Maggs.

The Mechanics of Hitting II

I want to clear up some misunderstandings over the issue of walks and OBP. I've gotten a lot of feedback from my recent posts, particularly the one written by me and HR. People are writing things like "Joe, you led the NL in walks four times! How can you say that walks aren't important?" Listen folks, I never said that walks aren't important. It depends on the situation and a player's role on his team. On the Reds, I was the table-setter for Bench and Perez. My job was to get on base any way I could so that those guys could drive me in. If I took a walk, my first thought was to figure out a way to steal second so that I could get into scoring position. In turn, Bench and Perez needed to find a way to get me home. That was their job. A lot of 4-5-6 hitters in the game today approach the plate thinking that if they take a walk, they've gotten on base and done their job. That's not true. I never saw Tony Perez approach the plate prepared to take a walk with men on base. You don't drive in 1650 runs during your career by taking walks with runners in scoring position. His job was to swing the bat and drive in runs.

That's what bugged me about the Hall of Fame discussion surrounding Perez a few years ago. He should have been in the Hall many years earlier, but a lot of writers looked at his stats retroactively and said "he wasn't a .300 hitter!" or "he didn't have a great OBP, he didn't walk enough!" Those guys weren't around to watch Tony play, because if they had been, they'd have known that hitting .300 wasn't his job. In his prime, Tony Perez was one of the most feared RBI men in baseball, and he retired in the all-time top 20 in RBI's. If that's not a Hall of Famer, I don't know what is.

Today, look at a player like Jason Giambi, who hits under .250 but walks a lot. The Yankees aren't paying Jason Giambi millions of dollars to take walks. It doesn't do the team any good for a guy like Giambi to take a walk because that leaves the bottom of the order with all the work of driving in the runs. If Giambi hits a home run, then he can jog around the bases and take his time. If he walks, then not only is he clogging up the bases due to being a slow runner, but he has to run hard once he's on base, and all that running can tire out a big man like Giambi over the course of the season. That's the sort of thing that HR and I were talking about.

So you see, folks, a player has to play to his strengths. On the pre-game show for the Sunday night game between the Mets and the Nationals, I said that Jose Reyes was key to the Mets' success this year. It didn't take long for us to get confirmation of that — nine innings, to be exact! Say what you want about his OBP, but without Reyes' speed, the Mets might not have won last night. If Reyes doesn't beat out that bunt in the 9th, then maybe the Nationals get out of the inning and Carlos Beltran never gets a chance to hit with runners on base and break the game wide open. Anyone else on his team would have been thrown out at first on that bunt play. Reyes played to his strengths and used his speed to help win the ballgame. That's what a ballplayer needs to do.

It's always great getting feedback on these blog posts, so if you have any other questions, send them in! And I'll see you next time.

STOP ME BEFORE I BUNT AGAIN!

One of the great failings of Major League Baseball is, quite simply, the appalling lack of cheerleaders. Go to any April night game at Fenway Park. You'll find mile-long lines at the hot chocolate stand and grown men huddling under promotional stadium blankets. You won't find Red Sox-sanctioned cheerbabes leading the crowd in the wave and the Electric Boogie.

Baseball is a staid, outdated game, but it can change with the times. TMQ sees no reason why the New England Patriots, who ply their trade in the frosty environs of Foxboro, Mass, can have a dozen scantily-clad babes gleefully jiggling their enormous cans in front of 70,000 screaming yokels in subzero weather, while the Red Sox can't even see fit to put their ballgirls in something more form-fitting in the middle of July. If the Red Sox braintrust reads this, TMQ would like to point out that the Patriots, surely in part by dint of their world-class cheerbabes, are among the greatest dynasties in NFL history. The Red Sox, bereft of cheesecake, only recently won their first championship in 86 years. Coincidence? TMQ thinks not, and is moved to submit a haiku:


Cheerleaders with boobs,
How I love to stare at them,
Global warming lies.


Sweet Play of the Week

Athletics vs. Mariners. 5th inning. Up 5-4, A's starter Joe Blanton is lifted for who-dat reliever Justin Duchscherer after walking Bret Boone and allowing a single to Raul Ibanez. Randy Winn steps up with the tying run 90 feet from the plate and lofts a little looper into foul territory. Out of nowhere comes left fielder Eric Byrnes, who makes a full-extension diving grab to end the inning and hold the lead.

Relief pitchers get credited with holds in all kinds of head-scratching circumstances – giving up grand slams with eight-run leads, intentionally walking muscle-bound sluggers – but there's no such meaningless designation for excellent defensive plays made by fielders. If Byrnes was Derek Jeter, he'd have a 60-foot bronze statue of himself erected in Monument Park by now, and you'd be able to buy the Eric Byrnes cherry-almondtini at any number of monosyllabic Manhattan oxygen bars. Playing for small-market Oakland, Byrnes could barely hear the round of disinterested applause from the 23,288 on hand, and almost certainly had to pay to park his own car.

Sour Play of the Week

New York/B versus the Atlanta Native Americans. 1st inning: Jose Reyes walks. (Yes, I know.) Kaz Matsui singles to left field, with Young Reyes going to second. Carlos Beltran is up. The chances of scoring a run with runners on 1st and 2nd with no outs are 85%. Carlos Beltran is one of the 10 best hitters in the ... IT'S A BUNT! Beltran squares around on the first pitch, and bunts the ball straight to the pitcher. Runners advance, Beltran out at first, one out. Cliff Floyd swings at the first pitch and pops up to the shortstop. Doug Mientkiewicz fights off a few two-strike pitches, but grounds meekly to the first baseman to end the inning. 1 hit, 1 miracle, 2 left on base, 0 runs.

The baseball gods do not reward feckless cowardice. Expect New York to be once again shut out of championships in 2005.

Stat of the Week

The Arizona (CAUTION: MAY CONTAIN BASEBALL-LIKE SUBSTANCE) Diamondbacks, at 15-10, are on pace to win 97 games – a full 46 more than they did in 2004. TMQ's former ESPN colleague Bill Simmons had an intriguing "Ewing Theory" – namely, that ridding oneself of one's star player might lead to unexpected success. Randy Johnson, the epitome of a me-first guy, is currently stinking it up in Yankee Stadium, where New York/A is a mere 10-15. The Diamondbacks, led by two former New York/A castoffs in Brad Halsey and Javier Vazquez, are 15-10. Coincidence? TMQ thinks not.

Stat of the Week #2

The baseball gods punish hubris and feckless cowardice in equal measures. New York/A's struggles are well-documented thus far, but TMQ theorizes that their woes may be a direct result of the lavish spreads bestowed upon their subpar starting rotation. New York/A has proffered a sum of money exceeding $64,000,000 – more than fully half the league's teams' entire payrolls – upon its starting five, and thus far the New York/A starters have a total of seven wins to show for it. That's nearly ten million per.

TMQ ought to be more sympathetic – after all, who-dats Jaret Wright and Carl Pavano must be the ultimate capitalists for parlaying a solitary year of success in the pitcher-friendly NL into mucho Yankee bucks – but he does not wish to incur the mighty wrath of the baseball gods.

Stat of the Week #3

The tastefully named Gregg Zaun, underpaid anchor of the Toronto battery, has a .884 OPS on the season – third in the bigs among catchers behind only perennial kajillionaires Jason Varitek and Javy Lopez.

Stat of the Week #4

The Atlanta Native Americans are 10-2 in games in which Danny Kolb pitches and 5-8 in games in which he does not.

In keeping with the TMQ spirit, TMQ suggests that distastefully named Atlanta Native Americans manager Bobby Cox ought to change his last name to something less explicit. There is no place for Cox in baseball.

Stat of the Week #5

In their new District digs, the Washington Nationals are a respectable 13-12, despite their minuscule payroll and stiff NL East competition. Upon moving south from Montreal, the Nationals made a point of keeping their old colors of red, white, and blue – which is, not to put too fine a point on it, the most successful color scheme in world history. The laundry will serve them better in the nation's capital, where the forces of patriotism and American pride, as ever aligned with the baseball gods, will no doubt smile upon the plucky Nats. After all, the tricolore of France is also red, white, and blue, but you don't see the chicken-hearted French national equipe de baseball winning any World Series.

Obscure Minor League Player of the Week

Minnesota Twins prospect Boof Bonser legally changed his name from John to Boof after the 2001 season, reports the 2005 Twins media guide. TMQ thinks Bonser, at 6'4", 260 lbs, ought to try out for the Vikings' tight end vacancy. It'd certainly give the skittish Daunte Culpepper a large target across the middle.

Official Inaugural TMQ Baseball Challenge

A Cleveland historian writes, "Since it was a portage point, the Cuyahoga River watershed was considered 'neutral ground' by native tribes, especially Shawnees, Senecas, and Mingos. The Ottawa settled here for a while, as did what is known as the Whittlesey culture. The Whittlesey people predated the other named tribes. However, the Indians are (supposedly) named for Louis Sockalexis, an early star of the then Cleveland Spiders. He was a Penobscot."

Therefore, in honor of the great Sockalexis, TMQ redubs the patently offensive Cleveland Indians the Cuyahoga Watershed Region Fighting Penobscot. In the inaugural TMQ Baseball Challenge, readers are encouraged to propose new, geographically-appropriate nicknames for the rest of MLB's 30 teams. Victors will be awarded a small token gift not to exceed the infinitesimal recognition bestowed upon Eric Byrnes on Saturday night.

Send all TMQ-related correspondence this way.