While this article is a really interesting discussion of baseball-related deaths, from 1862-2007, be it semi-pro baseball or backyard catch, it fails to mention the one case of a death during a Major League game. Shame on the authors for failing to mention Ray Chapman and what is unquestionably the worst example of Yankee aggression ever
Apparently, Buck and McCarver aren't the only two who can't help but fellate the Yankees even when they are not (repeat: NOT) in the playoffs. Fortunately, FJM gives Hoch the appropriate treatment.
And seriously - how in the blue hell did Frank TV get a second season? And will TBS please please please PLEASE stop showing commercials for it every 15 seconds?
Last night, I turned on the local cable news channel (NY1), and caught their late-night sports program. The topic of discussion was (of course) the Yankees' elimination from the playoffs. I watched for about 10 minutes of pure pleasure while Yankees fans tried to explain why it wasn't fair that they weren't going to the playoffs and whose fault it was (suprisingly, Giambi got a decent amount of blame from the fans, while A-Rod did not). Pitching was also a culprit, according to the callers, and many callers and people who e-mailed cursed Brian Cashman for letting Johan Santana go to the Mets, who, upon last examination, were still in the playoff race.
In response to those condemning the failure to sign Santana, the host tried to talk his listeners off the ledge, but methinks his tact might have been a bit off. His logic as to why it was OK that the Yankees didn't get Santana? "He's great, but if the Yankees had signed him their team salary would have entered the ridiculous."
Let's see: the Yankees spent $209 million dollars to not go to the playoffs, with a payroll $71 million dollars more than the next team (Tigers), were paying 6 men in their mid- to late-30s more than $15 million each, but Johan Santana would have made their payroll "ridiculous." And he didn't even miss a beat while saying this.
I always enjoy watching the Yankees not win the World Series, but being in New York when they don't make the playoffs for the first time in 13 years has made the pleasure even greater.
Go Mets!
While it saddens me that Cliff Lee was mortal tonight, if he had to lose another game, there is no more noble cause than losing the game that insures the Yankees will not go to the playoffs this year. Life is good.
Let's see....Yankees sign (Sir) Sidney Ponson to a minor league deal with the hopes of bringing him up to Yankee Stadium. That's the (Sir) Sidney Ponson who is 32 and has a his history of on-field and off-field troubles (including 2 DUIs), weight problems, failed at being good enough for the Yanks in 2006, and whose presence was so terrible that, despite having a 3.88 ERA for the Texas Rangers, he still found himself kicked off the Texas Rangers for being a "distraction."
Yeah, I don't see how this could possibly fail.
The only way my first baseball post of 2008 could be better would be if it were theorizing about the chances of a Cleveland Indians repeat. However, as they discovered a strange new hell for me and countless others to suffer through last year (3-1?? YOU COULDN'T WIN ONE MORE FUCKING GAME?????), I'll have to settle for posting about Mr. Clutchiosity himself. A new study that evaluates defensive studies based on statistics confirms what many baseball fans who actually use their heads to THINK have always known: Derek Jeter's defense sucks.
While it's always fun to add to the arsenal of arguments against frothing Jeter fans ("look at his clutchness! But he's a captain! World Series! Clutch hits. clutch Clutch CLUTCH!!!!!!ONE!!!!111!!!!), I generally stay out of the fray because trying to convince Yankee fans that Jeter is not, in fact, the second coming, is like trying to convince my mother-in-law that Lula is not the devil - it's just not going to happen.
However, I can't help but jump in this time. Winter often provides us with a respite from the Yankeedolatry, and the first violent Yankee freakout each spring is like the sun breaking through again. And the sun has broken out, thanks to the New York Post's absolute freakout over this statistical, reasoned study. Refusing to believe a bunch of "professors" at some good "university" like "Penn," New Yorkers (and the Post) fall back on a bunch of typically arrogant-yet-whiny "what are they smoking"/"look at his character!!!!"/"But he's the CAPTAIN"/"YOU'RE WRONG YOU'RE WRONG I KNOW WHAT'S REAL YOUR PANTS ARE ON FIRE STOP YOUR LIES MISTER POOPIE HEAD!!!!" type arguments.
Who needs statistics when you have such STRONG arguments as to Jeter's greatness? In some ways, die-hard Yankee fans of this type (and there are Yankee fans who actually do follow stats and are aware that nobody is perfect, even if they are few) really remind me of the current Republican administration and its followers - "statistics" and "data" must be ignored at all costs if they actually put your sanctity and sanity in question.
(And as the guys at Fire Joe Morgan say, "Although I've learned nothing yet about this junky "science" study and of course I will learn nothing further by reading the rest of the article (thank you, Post!)." So for an actual explanation of the ratings system, see this article, via dday in this comment thread).
I have generally stayed away from the steroids/performance-enhancing drug issue in baseball, because quite honestly, I'm still too conflicted over the whole thing. It's not that I support it in any way, because I don't. But, as I imagine many fans do, I go from feeling angry, to betrayed, to fatalistic, to looking forward, to confused, without ever having been able to settle on one rational explanation for myself to figure out how I feel about this whole mess.
However, I really just can't believe Roger Clemens' denials. It isn't just that his denials, including last night's appearance on 60 minutes (with important questions raised and compelling holes punched in his line of reasoning here, here, here, here, and especially here). Rather, it goes back to 2000 for me. That was the year that Clemens nailed Mike Piazza (then with the Mets) in the head for homering off of him in the regular season, leaving the latter with a concussion. Then, in the Subway Series (AKA "Worst World Series EVER"), Piazza hit that nubber that broke his bat, and Clemens threw the bat in Piazza's direction. His defense later? That there was "no history" between him and Piazza, and that he was just trying to get the bat back for the batboy to take off the field.
While the ball was in play. While he could visibly see Piazza running down the line. The guy who he creamed in the head with a fastball a few months earlier because Piazza owned him as a hitter.
I never bought it. The excuse was so lame, and while Piazza may be no saint, it was clear in the way he addressed the issue, and protested his innocence beyond necessary levels, that none of it was true. That he was caught up in the heat of the moment, and while he probably didn't want to hurt Piazza, he did give in to his anger. His insistence never was plausible to me.
And that how it seems to me now. It's the same over-the-top protestations of innocence that often defy any logic even among the most meatheaded human beings (how could he not know that BFF Andy Pettite had used HGH when it was his OWN trainer who gave Pettite the goods?) And his appearance last night, and now this slander suit against former trainer Brian McNamee, it just seems too much. He hasn't legitimately answered the questions, and while his protestations about how it's no longer "innocent until proven guilty" may be true, I suspect he hasn't had a problem finding other high-profile criminals guilty prior to their conviction.
But that is neither here nor there. At the end of it, it seems to me that Clemens' insistence to save face parallels that of 2000, when basically everybody saw he was lying and just chalked it up to a "heat of the moment" thing. Only now, instead of a World Series at-bat, it's his Hall of Fame credentials being questioned. And to me, thus far, he just hasn't come off looking too good.
So Joe Torre isn't coming back. While many people saw this coming, I doubt they saw how it would come - with Torre turning down a performance-based contract. Quite honestly, I don't blame him. Given how he spoke when it became public that Steinbrenner didn't think he'd bring him back if the Yanks won the ALDS, it was pretty clear how hurt he was by that whole mess.
Even with a lifelong hatred of Yankees (the consolation when I was being raised on Indians baseball in the 80s was that, even though the Indians sucked, so did the Yankees, so it was alright), I could never quite even build up anger towards Torre. He was always a class act, and he always dealt with Steinbrenner's clownery far more gracefully than any human being should be expected to deal (I also love the rumor, probably true, that Steinbrenner was resentful of the fame Torre got, feeling the Boss deserved at least some of Torre's attention).
Several of my friends and I have been dying for him to get fired the past several seasons, but not out of any ill will towards Torre - quite the opposite. We were (and some still are) very strongly of the opinion that, in many ways, Torre's presence helped the Yankees win more games than maybe they should have. I have no problem in saying that he probably got the Yankees farther than they belonged a lot of the times in the last several years, given that they weren't so much a team as a bunch of guys on a team. Torre was getting heat when they started poorly this year, and although it killed me to see them come back from .500 at the All-Star break, a not-insignificant part of that probably rests on Torre's coaching. He certainly wasn't the greatest manager ever, and some of his mistakes were very poor decisions indeed, but given the player-situations he has had to deal with the past few years (Steinbrenner's collection of 1st basemen/DHs that overloaded both positions, the relatively vacant bullpen), I'm not even sure all of his mistakes were his fault. In other words, I'm not sure he inordinately made more mistakes than most other managers, and I suspect he made fewer than a lot of managers, past and present.
It will be interesting to see how things go next year, whoever is in the seat. Regardless of who does (or doesn't) come back next year in terms of players, I suspect the Yankees may drop some (and I really really dream they will drop some) - I think Torre's presence is really going to be missed now that he's finally gone. Time will tell, certainly, but this will be.....interesting....
Scott over at LG&M points us to this great list (and it's not even a music list!) of 100 reasons to hate Jeter. There are some great ones in there, both in the humor department and in the actual, "oh, man....that's true" department (like #31). However, my favorite, most damning reason that Turner lists is number 15: "15. Salary - $19 million per year. Jeter has ranked in the top 5 in salary for the past 4 seasons. It's the only category in which he has placed in the top 5 for those four seasons. " Doubtless Jeter defenders will say, "it's the intangibles he brings!" Whatever.
Still, even if he goes ga-ga everytime he sees Jeter play like the list claims, it's nice to see what Pat Tabler has been up to lately.
This is typical. After giving up 8 (yes, 8) runs in the second inning in today's Yankee 13-9 loss to the White Sox, Clemens was booed............sort of. "When Torre replaced him [Clemens] with left-hander Mike Myers, the fans at Yankee Stadium booed loudly, but the boos faded to polite applause by the time the Rocket had trudged to the dugout." I suspect the Yankee fans remembered Clemens throwing the broken bat at Piazza in 2000, and had second thoughts as he entered throwing range. Pity he couldn't have taken a few of them out...
I guess this is the kind of classy ballplaying we should expect from a guy who tried to slap the ball out of a first-baseman's glove in 2004, and then claimed it was all part of his "natural running motion".
