Does it really all come back to baseball?

A-Rod was supposed to be the guy who saved baseball from the steroid era. When Barry Bonds was on his way to breaking the home run record, people were whispering (in some cases, not bothering to whisper) “The record will have that steroids monkey in its back until A-Rod breaks it. A-Rod may represent lots of what’s wrong with baseball, but at least he’s not juiced!” Now A-Rod is nearly all of what’s wrong with baseball (the only saving grace for him, in my eyes, is that he hustles). He was juiced. I disagree with Roy Oswalt when he says that all the guys who were juiced cheated him out of the game. I’m not convinced that steroids make you a better baseball player; they don’t increase your bat speed, they don’t help you read pitchers, they don’t help your reaction time, they don’t make you a smarter baserunner, they don’t remind you who you’re supposed to back up when the play is away from you in the field.

But they represent cheating and cheaters. They weren’t against the rules when a lot of guys took them, I know. But that doesn’t change the fact that not a single player ever would have said if asked publicly, “Yeah, I’m on steroids. So what?” Granted, many substances are illegal in the literal sense of being against the actual law as it applies to jail and courts and stuff, not just baseball, but I believe that no one would have admitted it anyway. If someone doesn’t admit something, it’s because they are afraid of the repercussions; you wouldn’t be afraid of repercussions if you weren’t doing anything wrong! All those guys knew what they were doing was wrong, whether technically against the rules of the game or not, and they did it anyway. Including A-Rod.

Steroids are against the spirit of the game. Baseball is about a perfect mix of practice and hard work and loving to toss a ball around in a park (well, except for DHs. I don’t know how you can enjoy baseball without ever putting a glove on). Baseball is guys who can throw curveballs and beat out hits, guys who are not physical specimens (see: Dustin Pedroia). Steroids make people into freakish physical specimens (see: any of the age-defying substance abusers; Bonds, Clemens, etc.). It’s the former that should be the heroes for kids in the sandlot, not the latter.

Steroids and other PEDs are now disallowed in baseball with a penalty of a 50 game suspension on your first offense, and I believe banishment on your third (I can’t verify that because I’m currently on an airplane). I think the first time you’re caught, and if the appeal that you should be allowed is not upheld, you are gone for life. Betting on baseball is considered one of the worst offenses you can commit against the game and the punishment for it is banishment for life. The steroid era is more than a serious black eye for the game of baseball – it has fundamentally changed the way we will forever look at a period of great players, all of whom are now under suspicion – and the punishment for those who are keeping it alive should be banishment for life.

As I mentioned, A-Rod was supposed to be the guy who made us forget about the statistics marred with asterisks and pulled us out of the juiced era, and he failed. Barack Obama was supposed to be the guy who made us forget about “politics as usual” and pull us out of the mess left behind by the last administration, and he is stumbling out of the gate. He closed Guantanamo without planning where all the detainees would go; perhaps a different camp with a different name, so the public will feel better. That’s for a future committee to decide, his people have said. I see – much like how we are going to pay for this stimulus bill and the various bailout bills will be figured out by future generations.

Why on earth did he pass the responsibility of writing the bill to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid? I hope that it was because he was overwhelmed by suddenly being president and he was unprepared for coming up with the solution. That’s sound counterintuitive and is certainly not the dream we all had in mind when he was elected, but at least being overwhelmed is something that he can get over. Giving the House the bill as a way to make sure a very, very expensive spending spree was written without his name on it so that if it doesn’t work he can say “I didn’t do it!” is a bad sign, and is likely an MO that cannot be overcome. Making the honest mistake of gift-wrapping the bill for the House liberals can be learned from; using the House liberals as a measured ploy to shaft the conservatives is a firm step deeper into politics as usual.

Perhaps it’s the unfulfilled promise of success that has made it so much harder to accept the problems Obama has had in his first month. The 2008-9 Cardinals reached the Super Bowl and are considered a huge success even though they lost the big game; the 2007-8 Patriots went 18-0 before they lost the big game and are seen as a resounding failure. The 2008 Rays reached the World Series but lost and are considered a huge success; the 2008 Yankees missed the playoffs for the first time in over a decade and are considered a resounding failure. Maybe if John McCain had been elected and we were in a very similar mess, which is likely, people would be saying “Yup, here we go, we figured this would happen.” But John McCain wasn’t elected, Barack Obama was, so people are insisting that something wrong must be happening; we didn’t sign up for this, we were promised success! (To be fair, many, and I believe most, of these expectations were manufactured by the media and rabid, blind Obama supporters. I think his inaugural address was a clearer into his true feelings: that we have a long road ahead, and that we need to bear together, which I appreciate as being terribly realistic.) Some in the media, who are clearly experts in everything, have already deemed Obama’s presidency a failure. His presidency, which is barely a month old, will last at the very least 4 years, barring a catastrophe, if memory from civics class serves. What are these people talking about?

That being said, I don’t know who is to blame for the extremely negative outlook being bandied about by everybody. I’m not even sure that anyone needs to be blamed; that just seems to be the American way, and who am I to condemn that? Let us please not forget that most of us, an astronomical proportion of us relative to those in other parts of the world, let alone in all of history, still have access to bread and milk and emergency medical care and the privilege of living in a country that, while it is plunging into a debt that it can’t afford, still affords us the freedoms and protections that it does, arguably the greatest and most plentiful in the history of mankind. Just consider that; it’s actually not that easy to wrap your head around without really thinking about it.

Not to mention, spring training is right around the corner.

Morning Quickie

I finally got around to reading this interview with former German Chancellor Schröder that Matt J passed along to me yesterday. The Chancellor talks about the Georgia-Russia fiasco, what it means for Russia, and what it means for the West. He seems pretty frank. I wonder if he was like that when he was still in office. That would be refreshing.

Major League Baseball cannot institute instant replay this season. If you start a season with the rules a certain way, you have to play the season out that way. And the fact that MLB seems more concerned with the instant replay rule than with shattering bats is a little absurd.

There’s a chance that Melky Cabrera may never re-emerge from the minors. I still like my T-shirt.

On ESPN, fans voted and elected the greatest player of all time for each team. I didn’t vote because I hate these things. Fans chose Jim Kelly for the Bills. He won very much with a mere plurality, getting only 37% of the vote, in front of Bruce Smith, O.J., Darryl Talley (!), and Thurman Thomas. I’m glad the vote was so close, but it’s obvious only a minority of the voters were over 30, otherwise O.J. would have gotten more votes. People forget how great he was. 2,003 yards in 14 games! Plus, I love Darryl Talley, but him getting more votes than Thurman Thomas is just plain wrong.

I assume Matt J will not object to the Original and the Only LT (a healthy 84%) beating out the likes of Michael Strahan, Phil Simms, Frank Gifford, and, uh…Carl Banks. No Eli! Where’s the outrage?

Obama’s pick for Veep reported to come early tomorrow. Obama’s keeping it quiet so his supporters who have signed up for this super-cool, super-neat, super-insider, clap-your-hands-because-you-get-a-text-message-from-Barack-and-can-show-your-friends-how-involved-you-are notification can find out before the media and the masses who he has chosen. My money is on Drudge getting it before any text message gets sent out.

I learned this morning that the incumbent party hosting their convention last is a tradition that has held steady since 1956, and is one that is steeped in history, a lot of which goes back to the 1864 and 1868 elections. Also, in 1868 the chairman of the Democratic convention was Horatio Seymour. There was a deadlock in the voting among other potential candidates. Suddenly, Seymour himself was being mentioned as a strong possibility to be the nominee. He got up in front of everyone and declared that they could not vote for him, and he wasn’t being humble. He really meant it: he didn't want it. They voted for him anyway, and he reluctantly went on to get crushed by Ulysses S. Grant, who remains the President with the coolest name. Anyway, can you imagine anyone in politics today saying “No, don’t vote for me”?

Yankees Take Down Mighty Rays

Just when I was getting ready to write a post about how, even though I’m not happy about it, I’m willing to accept this year as a non-playoff year and focus on next year. That would mean being happy about Cashman not making any big moves, or any at all, before the trade deadline, keeping the prospects, not acquiring any more aging veterans, etc. And I hope that still happens. But as far as being a team that may sneak into the playoffs, the Yankees aren’t out of it. Last night’s win in Tampa was impressive. Pettitte pitched real well and the bats kicked Kazmir out of the game pretty early, and he’s no slouch. It was the Yankees’ eighth shutout of the year; they had five all of last year. In fact, this was their fifth in the past 21 games. Melky, who finally homered for the first time in about a month, has matched his total from last year. Remember I had mentioned that Jose Molina had a great stealers caught ratio? Last night’s Michael Kay-less YES broadcast confirmed that it is by far the best in the bigs. His 12 consecutive runners thrown out matches a streak last achieved in 1993…I’m just sayin’ they’ve been playing well lately, and with a ton of injuries. That’s all.

Jeter said about last night’s game: "People make a big deal, obviously, because it's Tampa.” Is this a parallel universe? New York slashed their deficit to Tampa in the loss column to, uh…8. Yikes. Tonight: Edwin Jackson vs. Gentleman Sidney Ponson.

In the meantime, the AL East is the only division in baseball without a team that has a negative run differential. (Yesterday everyone was in the black but Baltimore didn’t do so well last night and is now at 0.) Does this mean anything? I’m not sure, but it’s interesting. I wish I had time to research it.

The NL West only has its two top teams in the black in run differential, and they’re at +5 and +6! (Diamondbacks and Dodgers, respectively) Arizona is leading the division at exactly .500, which will probably be enough to win it at season’s end. The Orioles are at .500 and are in 4^th place, 10.5 GB. There are 15 teams in the majors with better records than the Diamondbacks – half of MLB! Again, I don’t know what any of this means, except that the NL West stinks.

Via Email

From: Jersey Matt
To: Virginia Matt

OK Yankee fan, are you worried yet?



From: Virginia Matt
To: Jersey Matt

Again, yes and no. It would be easy to be worried given the abysmal team performance with RISP and the pitching. But you have to remember what happened last year. I'm not saying that having a poor April and May isn't going to hurt you, of course it is. However, we were worse last year at this point and came back, and that was after a hotter Boston start and no real significant Boston collapse (which is always a possibility). The other thing is the injuries. There are more this year, and more significant ones. This is also a "yes and no" event. Injuries are bad because they could be long term or linger (everyone is a year older, after all), but they also may be a legitimate reason for the early futility that may get turned around when (if) everyone gets healthy. So in short, yes I'm worried but no I'm not hopeless yet.

Also, I honestly have no problem with this turning into a true rebuilding year, which it in a small way already is. Kennedy and Hughes have obviously been taking their lumps, which is really hurting the team. But you know, thinking long term, that's what it takes. I hope they don't panic and go out and make some ridiculous signing, but instead stick to the plan. I'd be up for a veteran-for-veteran trade though (Giambi).

Last night at the Nats game someone (drunk) was yelling at Felipe Lopez for making an error on a true routine play. "FELIPE! I am PERSONALLY DISAPPOINTED IN YOU! HOW COULD YOU FLUB SUCH AN EASY BALL!" to which some guy in my row replied "Hey! He can't speak English!"



From: Jersey Matt
To: Virginia Matt

Can that entire email be posted?

As Requested

Last night, in anticipation of a rain storm, Joe Girardi kept scheduled starter young Ian Kennedy in the bullpen, replacing him with long reliever Brian Bruney. This sort of move is not unheard of. The reasoning behind it is to “save” Kennedy’s start. If he had started and then there had been an extended rain delay after only a couple innings, it would have then been unwise to return the young arm to the game. Most pitchers, especially 23 year old pitchers, are likely to hurt their arms if they allow them to cool for a long time then return them to action. Some pitchers are even adversely affected by their offense having an exceptionally long half inning at bat (especially in the AL – lazy bastards).

That being said, if Kennedy had started and there had been a long rain delay, Girardi probably wouldn’t have let him continue after the delay and would have to then relieve him anyway, wasting his start. If the game had been called, his start also would have been wasted, obviously. Girardi didn’t want to waste a few of what are going to be carefully monitored Kennedy innings.

I don’t see anything wrong with this move. As it happened, there was no rain and Kennedy ended up coming in in relief late in the game anyway, pitching three fairly ineffective 3 innings, giving up 2 runs and only throwing 32 of his 52 pitches for strikes. This is the part I don’t understand. If you’re going to save the start, save it! Bringing him in late in the game against Zach Greinke, who pitched a great game, doesn’t make much sense to me. I didn’t watch the game, so I don’t know how much Kennedy had actually been throwing and whether or not he ruined himself for starting tonight. Maybe Girardi was looking ahead to the Boston series this weekend and was thinking about matchups there. But in that case, wouldn’t he just have started Kennedy anyway?

Managing pitching to win today versus managing pitching to win tomorrow: an interesting dilemma that the old Joe had issues with. It will be interesting to see how the new Joe handles these sorts of things going forward.

Being a former catcher he must know the psychological impact that bringing a young starter in in relief late in the same game he was scheduled to start must have. That’s for a later post, I suppose. I just hope Joe knows what he’s doing.

In the mean time, formerly 0-7 Detroit pulled it together for their first win, against Boston and overhyped Jon Lester. Papi continues his dismal start, going 0-4 and dropping his BA to .091. I was taking delight in this last week but am now forced to wonder if he’s hurt. Something must be going on with him that we don’t know about.

Tonight: Marlins at Nats. Forecast: beautiful, 67 at game time. Tickets: None yet, will buy at box. Pondering infield gallery, will take pictures. Bonus: free curly W and schedule magnet.