October 21st, 2006
Dan, Dan, he’s our man, if he can’t do it, no one can!
Tonight is Game 1 of the World Series. The Tigers, several years removed from one of the most futile campaigns in the history of baseball, are the prohibitive favorites. Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa is trying to prove he doesn’t always get swept in October. Jim Leyland, LaRussa’s chain-smoking former protege, is the toast of the sports world.
You’d think it’d be tough to find a way to twist this story so that it focuses on taking random potshots at the Sox. But then you’d be underestimating Dan Shaughnessy. Take a moment and savor these paragraph’s from his column this morning, titled “Smoke and Fire: Leyland has lit up Tigers by taking team back to the top.”
“There’s no computer on his desk. Jim Leyland doesn’t spend a lot of time looking at spreadsheets and percentages. He is not a numbers cruncher and he probably wouldn’t last long in a room with Bill James, Billy Beane, and Theo Epstein. He’d be gone even quicker if they were gathered in a non-smoking room. Leyland’s got to have his Marlboros. …
“There’s nothing political about Leyland. He wasn’t afraid to stand up to Barry Bonds when he managed the Pirates and he’s not worried about hurting players’ feelings when he makes decisions with the 2006 Tigers. He doesn’t have a Francona bone in his body. He’s a manager, not a baby sitter. If Manny Ramírez quit on him, he’d call him out. Or he’d quit himself.”
Ahh, yes. See? There’s no reason to wait until spring training for your daily dose of crystalized negativity.
October 20th, 2006
The battle of who could care less
Okay, fine, that’s not totally fair. But come on! Two hits off of Jeff Suppan? (This is the guy who threw up a 5.57 ERA with the Sox in ‘03 and didn’t even manage to make the playoff roster.) A game-winner by one of the Flying Molina Brothers? Somehow, I got wrapped in to rooting for the Mets, which means I shut off my TV in disgust and stomped around my apartment like a little baby. At least I won’t need to sit through endless replays of the ‘86 Series. You know, twentieth anniversaries and all. (On the flip side, now I’ll need to hear how this is the first time in more than thirty years that the home team lost a Game 7 after trailing 3-2…the last time being the 1975 Red Sox.) You can be sure of one thing: the folks at MLB were praying the Series wouldn’t be a Detroit-St. Louis match up; that’s sure as hell not gonna be a ratings buster.
Anyway. I’m heading out of town again — to the Berkshires in preparation for Saturday’s reading at the Lenox Athenaeum (and yes, this will be the first time I’ll be speaking at an Athenaeum). This means I’ll be spared a weekend of the Hell O’Clock News on SportsCenter. It also means that posting may be sparse until Monday, when I’m sure I’ll have plenty to say about the Tigers’ 2-0 Series lead.
P.S. Tony LaRussa still sucks ass.
October 19th, 2006
Don’t you dare ever say again that nobody pays attention to bloggers
Remember that unspecified threat made against NFL stadiums this Sunday? Don’t let it ruin your tailgating plans: it turns out the whole thing was a hoax perpetrated by two bloggers who were trying to outdo each other by coming up with the scariest terror threat.
October 19th, 2006
A heart attack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack
Hey Mets fans, remember Armando Benitez? Come on, I know you do: he’s the guy that a) blew Game 1 of the 2000 World Series, b) blew Game 2 of the that year’s NLDS. c) blew Game 3…actually, I’m not a sadist. If you want the gory details, you can read all about them on your own.
Bill Wagner was supposed to finally put an end to the Benitezes (and Braden Loopers) of the world parading through Shea. He’s a flame-throwing stud who has topped 35 saves in six of the last eight years, and he was injured the two other years. But since arriving in New York, Wagner has been anything but the Sandman; if anything, Billy Joel’s “Movin’ Out” would be more appropriate entrance music. I know: Wagner had a great second half. I know: he converted 21 straight save opportunities. I also know that in 1999, Benitez saved 42 games and had an ERA under 2.00.
It was only the fact that the Mets had a four-run lead that allowed the team to escape with a win last night, as Wagner did his best to make So Taguchi this year’s Chad Curtis (or Bucky Dent). (It’s never a good sign when a closer’s “diary” entry is headlined “This One Didn’t Get Away From Me.”)
The Mets might very well beat the Cardinals tonight and head to Detroit for Game 1 of the World Series on Saturday. Once there, Wagner likely won’t matter much; the Tigers are gonna smoke whichever one of these teams limps its way to the pennant. But Wagner’s struggles are a perfect example of why I think Omar Minaya is — and I’ll try to put this delicately — not the sharpest GM at the winter meetings. Wagner’s 35, and he’ll collect $11 mil a year until he’s 38. He’s also 5 feet, 10 inches (a full four inches shorter than Mariano)…which means Minaya the miracle worker is on the hook for another $62 million over the next three years for two pitchers (Wagner and Pedro) who are both shorter than I am and both weigh about the same as I do…and I’m not a big guy. If you could short baseball players, I’d put a lot of money on these two not being worth it in 2008.
I know it’s possible (albeit difficult) to spend a buttload of money and still lose a buttload of games without any previous success to show for it (see Knicks, New York); Minaya seems intent on demonstrating how easy it is to spend a boatload of money as a way of crippling your team for years to come. And when they don’t win this year’s World Series, all he’ll have to show for it is the fact that his team played further into October than the Yankees.
October 18th, 2006
For those of you who didn’t have a free two hours in the middle of your day…
The Gather.com chat is done and gone, but as far as I can tell, you can access the whole thing even if you’re not a member of the site. So if you’re curious about: how I write, why I write, what I write, if I’ll ever write a novel, if there’s anyone more paranoid than Nomar, if a $20-million-a-year salary affects your perspective on the world, whether or not Dan Shaughnessy and I have had any heart-to-hearts recently, the mood in the clubhouse during the ‘04 playoffs, the mood in the clubhouse during the ‘05 playoffs, and whether I wanted to deck Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore for making out on the field in St. Louis…well, it’s all in there.
October 18th, 2006
Today at one: watch as the author gets heckled
Beginning at 1 pm today, I’ll be doing a two-hour online chat on Gather.com about Feeding the Monster. From what I can tell, you need to be a member of the site — described in their promotional literature as “a place where you can share the things that matter to you with the people that matter to you, too” to actually ask questions, but I could be wrong on that one. In any event, it should be interesting, or amusing, or possibly both.
October 18th, 2006
“History,” managers, money, and Murray
Ah, yes: the burden of getting back into the swing of doing “work” work. It allows time for that flurry of midnight-on-Sunday posts, but some weekdays are tougher…
Which doesn’t mean there’s not time for some thoughts and updates. (Drumroll, fanfare, etc).
* The Mets loss last night has Jayson Stark claiming that a Cardinals NLCS victory would make history: “When the calendar says it’s October and a team that won 83 games is on the verge of beating a team that won 97 games, that’s more than just an upset. It’s an upset that slips instantly into the realm of myth and legend.” I call bullshit. Wild-card teams have won the World Series three of the last four years. The Mets are missing their ace, their starter, and one of their starting outfielders. The Mets were favored, with most of the ‘experts’ giving them the series in six or seven games, but no one expected a route. Coming back from an 0-3 deficit? That’s history. Beating the Mets in a seven game season? If it happens, it’s a good story for another week or so, or until whichever NL team makes it gets its ass handed to them by the Tigers.
* In his ESPN.com Insider column, Buster Olney discusses what makes a successful manager. (It’s clearly more than simply winning 95 games. See Little, Grady.) Olney puts “Can he lead/does he engender respect” first, with in-game strategizing third (out of four). I’m with Buster on the lack of importance of in-game management, and I generally agree with the “can he lead” thing, although I think the single most important job a manager has is getting a bunch of rich, indulged, jealous, back-biting man-children to stay inspired during the course of an exhausting, numbing, 162-game season.
* For those of you actually interested in how the publishing industry wastes money, Monday’s Journal article (”Dream Scenario: In Era of Blockbuster Books, One Publisher Rolls the Dice”) is well worth reading. Unfortunately, it’s only available to online subscribers. It’s essentially a summary of how Holt managed to put all its eggs in an incredibly leaky basket; the most amazing thing about this article is that the book’s editor, who charitably can be said to have cost his company more than a million bucks, decided to cooperate with the reporter.
* And, of course, there’s good old Murray. The Chass-man has been on a roll this week; such a roll, in fact, that the mere thought of discussing each and every one of his articles makes me feel slightly ill. But here are some quick highlights:
In Monday’s column, Chass writes that while it’s “difficult to imagine a worse performance” than the one Steve Trachsel turned in on the mound for the Mets, the Elias Sports Bureau — Chass’s handy substitute for, you know, reporting — tells him that actually, some pitchers have fared worse in the playoffs.
Then, on Tuesday, Chass acknowledges he was wrong, but naturally he’s not to blame: “Although it said here yesterday that Trachsel’s outing wasn’t the worst start in a postseason game, Elias Sports Bureau determined that by one measurement it was.”
Finally, in today’s Times, Chass helpfully explains that players want higher batting averages: “Going 2 for 17 means Wright is hitting .118. That beats .063 (1 for 16), but it is nevertheless a minuscule average…”
As always, Chass’s columns are free to the reader, unlike the paper’s other sports columnists…
