Yesterday’s Gone

I’ve spent most of the past twenty-two years of my sports fandom with one team nearest and dearest to my heart. I’m not talking about the Yankees; by the standards of most fans I’m a front-running bandwagoneer. I’m talking about my original hometown NBA team, the Utah Jazz. The Jazz have made the NBA playoffs in each of the past 17 years and they’ve developed something of an annual custom. Each year, they fail to show up for one ballgame per series. I mean, their performance in that game is bad enough to make commentators like the annoying Bill Walton struggle for the appropriate hyperbole to describe how a team that wins sixty or seventy percent of its ballgames can get blown out by thirty or forty points. I refer to these games as their Publishers Clearinghouse Annual Sweepstakes, because on those days, they could have mailed in their performance.

The Yankees had a game like that on Saturday. After going up 2-0 in the first inning, courtesy of a Bernie Williams home run, the Yanks just fell apart. Once the Mariners broke through to tie the game in the fifth inning off of Orlando Hernandez, everything that could go wrong did. El Duque allowed a leadoff home run to John Olerud to start the sixth, and by the end of the inning, some 45 minutes later, the score was 9-2. From there, things proceeded to go from bad to worse, as the Mariner bats, mostly silent up to this point in the series, took out their frustration against the butt end of the Yank bullpen. The final score, 14-3, was the worst loss the Yanks have ever experienced in the postseason.

Yet just as the Jazz have continually shown, just as the Mariners showed after losing Game 3 of the ALDS last Saturday to Cleveland by the mind-boggling score of 17-2, an embarrassing loss still only counts one game toward the series. So it came as no surprise that the Yanks, still up 2-1 in the series, came out having put all of yesterday’s dreadful mistakes behind them. A gimpy Roger Clemens, considerably stronger than his two outings against Oakland last round but still a far cry from 100%, walked a tightrope through five innings, allowing only one hit and striking out seven while walking four. His opposite number, Paul Abbott, walked an even stranger tightrope to go with the eight batters (tying an LCS record) he put on base on his own accord–the man still had a no-hitter going through five innings when Lou Pinella removed him.

Piniella deprived Abbott of his chance to be the modern-day Bill Bevens. So this one came down to the bullpens, two of the best in baseball. The M’s Norm Charlton and Jeff Nelson pieced together the sixth and the seventh, putting Yankees on base (Charlton allowing a double to Tino Martinez to end the no-hit bid) but continuing to escape unscathed. The Yanks turned to Ramiro Mendoza, who continued his string of postseason effectiveness. He had put together 8.1 innings of shutout ball this postseason before yielding a solo home run to the Mariners’ top RBI man, Brett Boone in the top of the eighth.

Arthur Rhodes came on in the bottom of the eighth to protect the lead, set to face his nemesis, David Justice. He struck out Justice looking (and grimacing) before Bernie Williams took him over the right field wall to tie the game. Mariano Rivera shut the M’s down on three pitches, sending the Yanks into the bottom of the ninth to face the Mariners’ closer, Kazuhiro Sasaki. Sasaki retired Shane Spencer, then allowed Scott Brosius to reach on a hard grounder which shortstop Mark McLemore speared but couldn’t get rid of in time.

The stage was thus set for Alfonso Soriano, the Yanks’ talented rookie second baseman. Soriano has had his share of lapses in this series. In Game 1, he failed to run hard out of the box on a fly ball he thought might reach the seats. When it didn’t, he was held to a long single, and it took a face-saving steal of second base, followed by a David Justice single, to add the insurance run Soriano thought he’d already banked. He was scolded by his teammates and his manager for that lapse. In Game 4, his failure to cover second base on a force play in the seventh inning caused Mark Wohlers’ throw to go into centerfield, setting up another pair of runs.

But those gaffes might as well have been ancient history by the time Soriano stepped into the box against Sasaki. Drawing ahead in the count, he hit a juicy 1-0 fastball just hard enough to reach the right-centerfield fence and give the Yanks a thrilling walk-off home run, their first in postseason play since Chad Curtis ended Game 3 of the 1999 World Series with a dinger prior to snubbing Jim Gray’s request for an interview.

So now the Yankees find themselves one game away from ending the Mariners’ 116-win dream season and returning to the World Series for the fourth straight year. It’s comforting for Yankee fans to note that they have their two hottest starters lined up with a chance to put it away, Andy Pettitte in Game 5 and Mike Mussina in Game 6. Pettitte will face Aaron Sele, a pitcher the Yanks have made a routine of beating on during the last three Octobers. Sele has never won in the postseason, going 0-5 with a 4.73 ERA. Should the Mariners win, the Yanks are faced with yet another cross-country flight and a battle against Freddy Garcia on Wednesday.

Premature jocularity is out of the question. Yesterday’s gone, just like Soriano’s home run, and as Joe Torre reminded (referencing Earl Weaver), momentum is today’s starting pitcher. No one should believe that a 116-win team is vanquished until they watch it melt with their own eyes, a la the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. Lou Piniella’s team has their backs to the wall, and the Yankee fans have to like their team’s odds. But Yogi Berra’s maxim applies equally to all those still playing ball at this time of year.

Some more equally than others, perhaps.

[actual date of publication Monday, October 22, 2001, 6 PM]

Two Games, Two Stories

Given that it’s drunk and I’m late (tee hee), I’ll dispense with a full analysis of the Yanks-M’s series to date. Up 2-0 coming home from Seattle is a nice position to be in–certainly not enough to get giddy about (this ain’t Oakland, for those of you just tuning in), but it beats the alternatives. It is rather amazing that the Yanks have gone from down 0-2 and facing elimination against a 102-win team to up 2-0 over a team which won 116 games the span of six days. Credit the Yankees’ ability to win postseason games on the road during the Age of Torre: 29-7 since 1996, even better than their home record of 22-10 over that span. Whew! Andy Pettitte pitched an absolute gem in Game 1, once again showing his postseason mettle, and tonight Mike Mussina labored through a Granny Drinking Bird outing, escaping after having made only one real mistake, a 2-run HR to Stan Javier.

Beyond the pitching, the story line of this series thus far seems to be revolving around two batters–Chuck Knoblauch and Edgar Martinez–who may be in their final days with their respective teams. Knoblauch, if you’ll recall, was nearly traded to the Mariners in mid-June, for leftfielder/designated bigamist Al Martin and pitcher Brett Tomko. Reportedly, the Yanks nixed the deal because of the prospect that Knoblauch could come back to haunt them in the postseason. And reportedly, the Mariners were not all that eager to get him, either. Several Mariners–all unnamed–were quoted as being against the deal. Typical of the reaction is one Mariner quoted in the New York Daily News as saying “I don’t see that guy making us better.”

Now, Knobauch has had a rough season. He’s a free agent at the end of the year, and it was long rumored that he had a 2-year, $18 million handshake deal in place as an extension. But his throwing woes at second base necessitated a move to leftfield and his production tailed off to a career-low .339 OBP, 66 runs scored, and a lot of gray hair over his play in left (though not as much as the jury would have you believe). Repeadely over the course of the season, both he and the Yankee brass have denied that a deal is in place. He seems likely to leave the Yankees at the end of the season, though if you listen to him tell it, he hasn’t given that prospect much thought.

But damned if Knoblauch hasn’t been the Lil’ Bastard of old in the postseason, probably making the Mariners wish the Yanks had been willing to complete the deal (which Yankee GM Brian Cashman reportely nixed) if only to get him out of the way. He hit well against Oakland and keyed a run in Game 5 on a single and a Jason Giambi error on a botched pickoff . And in the LCS he’s been as pesky as a scorpion in a sleeping bag, going 5-for-10. In Game 1, he scorched a hard grounder off of Mariner third baseman David Bell’s glove, driving in Jorge Posada with the game’s first run. In Game 2, his blooper into centerfield just barely eluded Mike Cameron (who tried to sell a catch, though the umps–as replay confirmed–got the call correct), allowing Scott Brosius to score the third and final Yanee run.

On the other side of the coin is the Mariners’ designated hitter, Edgar Martinez. Martinez has owned the Yankees ever since he drove the game-winning run in Game 5 of the epic 1995 ALDS saga between these two teams. He is one helluva hitter, with a career .319 AVG/.425 OBP/.530 SLG–as tough an out in baseball as you could want. His stats against Yankee some Yankee pitchers coming into the series were unreal:

vs. Mike Mussina: .377 AVG, 1122 OPS

vs. Andy Pettitte: .382, 1147 OPS

vs. Orlando Hernandez: .364 AVG, 1136 OPS

vs. Mariano Rivera: .818 AVG, 2492 OPS (no, that’s not a misprint)

Pettitte struck out Martinez in the second inning, allowed him a single in the fifth (the clearly hobbling Martinez came around to score on Mike Cameron’s double and John Olerud’s groundout. But in the seventh inning, with the M’s down 3-1 and with a runer on first, Pettitte struck out Martinez again before Cameron grounded into a double-play, ending the inning and the Mariner threat. In the ninth, Edgar came up again, this time against Rivera, with a runner on second and still a two-run defecit after the Mariners had gotten a ninth-inning run back. He grounded to first baseman Tino Martinez, ending the game. Amazingly enough, the embarrassingly bad Fox TV crew of Steve Lyons and Thom Brenneman (a.k.a. “Psycho” and “The Other Dumb Guy,” respectively) made no mention of Martinez’s history against Rivera.

In Game 2, Edgar’s woes played a huge role again. He grounded into a double play with two on and one out to end the first inning, flied out to end the third inning, and struck out leading off the sixth. He managed a single in the eighth, after which manager Lou Piniella lifted him for a pinch-runner whom Rivera erased on a forceout. For the series, he’s now left five baserunners on, more than any other Mariner. Clearly, he looks to be struggling with lower-body woes; it’s possible they’re affecting his swing. As writer Jeff Fogle, subbing for Jim Baker in the daily Baseball Previews mailing list, writes, “[B]ecause he’s nursing a groin injury, Martinez runs like Greg Luzinski carrying Boog Powell on his back.” Ouch.

Still, the Yanks are obliged to treat him with some well-earned respect; sooner or later, he’ll probably come through with a big hit. The 38-year old has hinted at retirement several times over the past two seasons, though he did sign an extension earlier this year. The Yanks will have to settle for retiring him three or four times a night. Right now, the story of his missed opportunities is one of the key stories of the series.

Score one for the Old Guard

The New York Yankees completed their comeback against the Oakland A’s in the AL Division Series Monday night, taking their third straight game from the A’s and coming from two runs down against the man who baffled them in the Series’ opening game. By now you know all this, and if you’ve been reading this web log for any length of time, you must know that I’m a happy man today.

With the vultures circling their dynasty, the three-time defending champions won their third game in as many days, enduring a cross-country red-eye flight before the final game and luring the upstart A’s to the killing-est floor in all of sports, Yankee Stadium. The White Elephants’ graveyard, if you will. In the deafening roar of the Bronx, the A’s imploded with three errors in the early innings, all of them because the Yanks kept the pressure on the A’s defense to make the plays.

In the third inning, catcher Greg Myers threw wildly to first base as Bernie Williams ran out a dropped strike three, allowing Williams to reach base. Four batters later, third baseman Eric Chavez bobbled a Scott Brosius grounder just as baserunner Tino Martinez entered Chavez’s immediate field of vision. Williams scored the go-ahead run on that play. In the fourth inninng, Chuck Knoblauch was picked off of first, but first baseman Jason Giambi’s errant throw allowed Knoblauch to reach second with no outs. The Yanks sacrificed him into home on Randy Velarde’s bunt and Derek Jeter’s fly ball.

The defensive collapse added to the woes of Mark Mulder, whose riddle the Yanks seemed to solve with 7 hits and 2 walks over 4.1 innings. Tim Hudson came on in relief and yielded a pinch-hit home run to David Justice after the A’s had narrowed the gap to 4-3.

By then, Roger Clemens, the Yankee starter, had also left the game, lasting only 4.1 innings himself. But Mike Stanton kept the A’s at bay, pitching out of the mess the gimpy Clemens had left behind–two on, one out, and Jason Giambi at the plate. Stanton’s performance echoed a similar appearance in last year’s Game 5 between the two teams, and one of my favorite images of the Yanks 2000 postseason run–the lefty, out of the pen early to protect a slim lead bequeathed by a struggling starter, with all of the money on the table and the fort under siege. Both times, Stanton delivered big. When he and Ramiro Mendoza shut down the A’s through the seventh inning, Joe Torre had the luxury of the surest bet in October: Mariano Rivera with a lead. Rivera has now converted 20 consecutive saves in the postseason, 16 of them longer than an inning.

Nearly all of the levers Joe Torre pulled in this game yielded jackpots: the decision to start Velarde at DH and bat him second for his bat-control abilities, the decision to lift him for pinch-hitter Justice in the sixth (a move I was in the process of second-guessing–I thought Justice should sub for Shane Spencer because he could play defense as well and because Spencer’s D in the game had already proved dicey–when Justice parked Tim Hudson’s pitch in the right-field bleachers), and the decision to suffer Clemens’ struggles until he could get through the game with his three most reliable relievers. Contract extension, anyone?

As for A’s manager Art Howe, he was left with the knowledge that his pre-series assessment–that the Yanks would have to play at the top of their game to beat his A’s–had become bulletin board fodder for the Yanks. It was yet another echo of last year’s series, as A’s third baseman Eric Chavez prematurely applied the past tense to the Yankees’ run in an interview broadcast over the Oakland Coliseum PA before Game 5. Deja vu all over again, anyone? It’s worth noting, and somewhat gratifying to Yankee fans, that Chavez looked more lost than any other A’s batter during the series, going 3-for 21 (.143) with a 333 OPS.

Howe was gracious in defeat, but the future of his team is uncertain. Jason Giambi is a free agent with a yen for big bucks and perhaps the bright lights of New York City. Centerfielder Johnny Damon is also a free agent, and even if the A’s can iron out a contract with Giambi (they reportedly had a tentative agreement on a 6 year-$90 million dollar contract that fell apart over the exclusion of a no-trade clause), there’s probably no way they can sign both. Howe and the rest of the A’s are also left to ponder whether the result would have been different with Jermaine Dye, felled by a broken tibia in Game 4, in the lineup. Ouch. Still, the A’s pitching nucleus of Mulder, Hudson, and Barry Zito has a bright future ahead which includes several years locked in at reasonable salaries. So long as General Manager Billy Beane remains creative (and he resists the overtures for a more high-profile job), this team will be in the hunt.

One more word about the A’s. I’ve watched this team grow for the past four seasons, and have pulled for them to get to this point. Had they beaten the Yanks, I would have had no problem rooting for them to go all the way. Despite their overly brash predictions and their fans’ premature jocularity after Game 2, this is a class organization with classy support. Doing this web site has put me in touch with several A’s fans whom I’ve enjoyed chewing the fat with over the course of the year. To them I say, keep supporting your team, especially at the box office. In this age of economic disparity, baseball needs the A’s to remind us of the possibilities (and occasionally the limitations) of a well-run, low-budget team. And to them I also say those famous last words: wait ’til next year. Despite my Yankees cap, I know how it feels, both from the twenty years I spent with the Dodgers as my favorite team and the twenty years I’ve spent rooting for the Utah Jazz in the NBA. Trust me, folks, I know how it feels.

As for the Yankees, they now face a series with the Seattle Mariners rich in subtext: a rematch of last year’s LCS, in which the Yanks beat the M’s in six games, a defense of the 1998-model Yanks’ legacy of 125 wins, including a World Championship, and, on yet another personal note, a clash with both sides of my own family tree thanks to all of my relatives in the Pacific Northwest. The early line shows some favorable pitching matchups for the Yanks: they face Aaron Sele, whom they’ve beaten each of the past three postseasons, in Games 1 and 5; they face the M’s ace, Freddy Garcia, on three days rest in Game 2, they’ve got Mike Mussina, their hottest pitcher, in Games 2 and 6, and their weakest link (due to injury), Roger Clemens, slated only in Game 4.

It promises to be a helluva series. Am I bold enough to pick the Yanks again? The longer the series goes, the better the Yanks’ chances. You think I’m ready to jump off the bandwagon? Read every word I wrote about the Division Series and tell me. The Yanks have question marks up and down their offense and their pitching staff. To paraphrase what the sportswriters used to say about the old Dodger infielder Jim Gilliam, they can’t do anything except beat you. Yanks in six.

Notes on a Playoff Weekend

Between watching the games, reading about them, and writing about them, I’ve been so absorbed with the Yankees-A’s series (which I’ll get to in my next post) that I haven’t had a chance to say much here about the other three postseason series. Not that I saw all that many of those games–I do work for a living, and I had my parents in town this past weekend. But I have to say that we’ve had one hell of a week of baseball–three deciding Game 5’s in the space of two days, decided by a total of five runs, one of them won in a final at-bat, three 1-0 gems, and several unforgettable defensive plays, including two by Derek Jeter. I went 4/4 in my predictions, and got the Game 5 part right on two of them as well. Anyway, here are few notes about those series:

• Atlanta over Houston 3-0. I didn’t actually get to watch more than 10 minutes of this series due to its daytime schedule. But it didn’t take an astrophysicist to see this one coming; an Astro physician could have done the job just fine. With half of their rotation down with injuries, the poor Astros continued the slide that watched them lose nine out of their final 12 regular season games. Once again, the Astros Killer B’s, Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio, proved anything but killer in the postseason. The Astros are now 0-4 in postseason series with those two, and they’ve combined to hit .178 with 0 HR over the course of that run. Baseball Prospectus’s Joe Sheehan points out that the ‘Stros have faced some seriously great pitching in those appearances, which explains a good portion of their woes. Baseball Axiom #1 of the 6000 or so my father taught me as a tyke is that Good Pitching Will Beat Good Hitting, Especially in October.

I’m not a Braves fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I do think their run of 10 straight division titles is an underappreciated level of success. And since I’ve always had such great respect for their Big Three, I’m heartened that my favorite of the bunch, John Smoltz, has made an amazing comeback from Tommy John surgery by reinventing himself as a closer. Smoltz closed out all three games in the series, and was reportedly throwing as high as 98 MPH. Thanks to the trade of John Rocker, the Braves now have a bullpen as good and as deep as any in baseball east of Seattle. And while their offense was decidedly inferior to all of the other postseason teams (see the analysis at Mostly Baseball, a brand-new web site run by two frequent contributors to the discussions over at Baseball Primer), they hit the Astros pitching to the tune of .303 AVG/.333 OBP/.545 SLG. Battle-honed thanks to a three-way race for the NL East title (they played the Phillies and the Mets, their competition for the crown, 13 times in their final 20 games), they seem a lot closer to the Braves of old than the less-than-dominant team they resembled this year.

• Arizona over St. Louis 3-2. Back in the 1993 postseason, I fell for the Phillies, thanks largely to the gritty performance of Curt Schilling. Shilling won the NLCS MVP award despite not getting a decision in either of the games he started, though he posted a 1.69 ERA in 16 innings and the Phils won both games in extra innings. He got roughed up by the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 1 of the World Series, but with the team down 3-1 in games, he tossed a 5-hit shutout to keep the Phils alive. I never forgot that performance, and so I was pumped to see him pitch in the postseason. He didn’t disappoint in his first shot, winning a 1-0 gem of a duel against the Cardinals’ ace and fellow 22-game winner Matt Morris. And he almost topped that Sunday, with a 1-run complete game in the finale. He’s now 3-1 with a 1.82 ERA and 46 strikeouts in 49.1 innings. Money, man.

I didn’t see any of his fellow ace Randy Johnson’s performance, or much else of the series except for a few innings here and there. But it did seem to me that the D’Backs made some huge plays on defense–the Game 3-ending 5-3 double play by Matt Williams, those line drives speared by Tony Womack and Craig Counsell on consecutive batters last night, for example.

As for the ninth inning of Game 5, I was glad to see Williams make a positive contribution toward the series’ winning run (though technically it was his run that was cancelled out in the form of Tony Womack’s missed squeeze play). I’ve had a soft spot for the man since 1994, when he hit 43 HR in 112 games and had a legitimate shot at Roger Maris’s record until the strike hit. He’s had his struggles with injuries, but I’ve never heard the guy complain about missing out on the chance to make history. Anyway, while I didn’t think much of Womack’s execution on the squeeze, the important part of the play was that the trailing runner, Danny Bautista, alertly advanced himself into scoring position. In the end, Womack’s redemptive base hit made for a feel-good story, especially when he dedicated the hit to his late father.

As for history-makers… if it ends here for Mark McGwire, that’s a sad thing. The man is, by his own admission, physically and mentally worn down, but no one can say he didn’t give us, as fans, our money’s worth of thrills. Even looking as bad as he did at the plate during the series, he did seem to make several good defensive plays, and he handled his woes with class. While Barry Bonds has already eclipsed McGwire’s single-season HR record, McGwire seemed to bring much more joy to the Great Home Run Race, both in his own demeanor and the hearts of fans. I hope he uses the offseason to recuperate and gives it another go.

• Seattle over Cleveland 3-2. I didn’t watch too much of this series very closely due to my own schedule. But I rooted for Cleveland in this one, mostly because I’m a spiteful bastard. I admit it, I was looking for the outcome that best helps my rooting interest, the Yankees–the current model and its chances, and the 1998 team and its place in history. Yes, the M’s have an awesome team, and yes, I like that team, by and large, especially manager Lou Piniella, and yes, I like the fact that A-Rod and Junior can kiss their collective asses from their second-division vantage points. But if the M’s want the World Championship and the “Best Team Ever” moniker (as the ’98 Yanks so brashly put it on their rings), they’ve got to earn it just as the Yankees did in ’98, by sweating out one playoff game at a time and seating all comers. And if somebody comes along and bumps them off, well, fair play to them.

Besides, it wouldn’t be unprecedented. By now, you’ve probably seen the following chart, which shows where the M’s fit in. Note that two of the top four teams in terms of wins didn’t win the World Series:

Team 	          W-L 	  Pct. WC?

1906 Cubs 	   116-36 	.763   

2001 Mariners	116-46 	.716   

1998 Yankees 	114-48 	.704   Y

1954 Indians 	111-43 	.721     

1909 Pirates 	110-42 	.724   Y

1927 Yankees 	110-44 	.714   Y

1961 Yankees 	109-53 	.673   Y

1969 Orioles 	109-53 	.673 

1970 Orioles 	108-54 	.667   Y

1975 Reds    	108-54 	.667   Y

1986 Mets   	 108-54 	.667   Y

I have a large number of family members who live in the Pacific Northwest and who I know are pulling for the Mariners, especially against the hated Yankees (I’m the black sheep of the family with my rooting interests). Should the M’s win, I won’t begrudge them their happiness, but should they lose, well, that’s baseball.

• One other note, only tangentially related to the playoffs. Minnesota Twins manager Tom Kelly retired the other day after 15 seasons and two World Championships. As someone who took great pleasure in those two championships (see the Department of Anything Can Happen in a Short Series), I’ll drink a few toasts to the man who guided those teams. Any manager with the balls to send his ace out for the 10th inning of a scoreless World Series Game 7, as Kelly did for Black Jack Morris in 1991, has earned my respect and given me a story to tell my grandkids.

The early favorites to take over from Kelly include Twins coaches Paul Molitor and Ron Gardenhire, which brings me to yet another tangent. Back when I decided to do this web site, the phrase “futility infielder” had been kicking around my head for awhile. It was an instant fit in my mind for the name of this site, and an instant hit among my focus group of friends and family. I’d never heard anybody else use the term, which was another plus. I had no visions of an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary, however, and to futher disabuse myself of that notion I did a web search for the term. Two entries came up, one of them this piece on Gardenhire from the Naples (Florida) News, March 12, 2000:

“He bounced up and down between AAA and the big club. In 1986, major-league rosters reduced from 25 to 24 players, and Gardenhire began the season at AAA Tidewater.

“‘I was what you call a futility infielder,’ Gardenhire said.”

The other reference was from a Sporting News feature on a baseballl roadtrip back in 1997. One of the writers referred to the Mets’ Luis Lopez as a”futility infielder who misplays grounders at every position.” That doesn’t rate as highly as a good self-deprecating description, so you’ll forgive me for reserving a special place for Gardenhire in my personal pantheon alongside Luis Sojo as the standard-bearers of the Futility Infielder brand name, and for rooting for him to get the Twins job over a classy player who racked up 3319 hits and was one of my favorites for 21 seasons.

Still Open for Business

The team they still call World Champions is in the house, y’all! The New York Yankees, whose dynasty was on the brink of crumbling a mere 72 hours ago, have evened their Division Series with the Oakland A’s in emphatic fashion. With literally no margin for error, they won a 1-0 thriller on Saturday night. On Sunday, they pounded the A’s for 9 runs in an epic that felt, to a Yankees fan, like an all-day sucker. Four hours? Six hours? Who cares?

I didn’t see most of Saturday night’s game; my parents were in New York City for the weekend and we had 7:30 PM dinner plans. I couldn’t have timed my entry into the ballgame better, arriving home and flicking on the TV to find Mike Mussina in the middle of a matchup with Terrence Long, the A’s hottest hitter. On the first pitch I watched, Long lined a shot into the rightfield corner, where Shane Spencer struggled to chase the ball down, then overthrew two cutoff men. But Derek Jeter, in one of the most incredible displays of instinct I’ve ever seen manifested on a diamond, picked up the errant throw as he cut across the infield toward the first base line. Like an option quarterback, he shovel-passed the ball to catcher Jorge Posada in time to tag Jeremy Giambi as he lumbered into home plate standing up.

As the play unfolded, I was standing in front of the TV. When Jeter got to the ball I started jumping up and down, screaming, “OUT! MOTHER******! OUT MOTHER******! OUT!” so loud that my voice cracked, pumping my right arm (recently strained in some mysterious exercise mishap) so frantically that it was throbbing deep into the night. But what a play! I watched the replays several times, still barely believing what I’d seen. The replays looked conclusive only from the angle where one could see Giambi from the back, tagged on the inside of his right leg by Posada before his left one reached the plate.

Mariano Rivera came on in the eighth inning to preserve Mussina’s 1-0 lead, keeping things interesting by allowing baserunners in both the eighth and the ninth. But he shut the door successfully, allowing the Yanks to finally record a win in the series.

That win did more than allow the Yankees to avoid the indignity of a sweep. It put the pressure back on the A’s to close out the series or face a long cross-country flight to play the deciding game in the home of the World Champions–a mirror image of last year’s series, when the Yanks couldn’t close out the A’s in Yankee Stadium and had to head to Oakland to play the deciding game.

Having finally caught a break or two the night before, the Yanks appeared much more confident on Sunday. They ran up long at bats against Oakland starter Cory Lidle, who performed effectively as the A’s fourth starter this season but who is clearly a notch below their young trio of heralded hurlers. They manufactured not one but two runs in the second inning without benefit of a hit–two walks, an error by Oakland second baseman F.P. Santangelo, and a groundout. Then they added two more on a Bernie Williams double in the third inning, and bled Lidle for another run in the fourth after a Paul O’Neill double and a timely single by Alfonso Soriano.

Coming into the game, the big question was how effective Yankee starter Orlando Hernandez would be. Hernandez started the season 0-5 before missing two months on the DL, but he finished with a strong 4-1, 2.88 ERA September. Still, he was removed from his final start in the second inning, unable to gain command of his pitches, and only four innings of shutout relief on the season’s final day guaranteed him a roster spot for the series. El Duque has excelled in the postseason for the Yanks during this run, with an 8-1 record and one of the Yanks’ biggest wins along the way (1998 ALCS against Cleveland, down 2-1, he hung a 4-0 shutout on the Indians in Jacobs Field). He didn’t have nearly that kind of dominance today; instead he gave the Yanks what my friend Nick Stone refers to as a “Granny Gooden” outing–one watched with all of the trepidation reserved for witnessing an elderly woman navigate an icy staircase, so named for a certain former Yankee starter.

But Granny Hernandez, despite throwing 30 pitches in the first inning and allowing two runs in the third, got stronger as the epic (two hours old in the third inning!) progressed. He allowed only one baserunner in the fourth and fifth innings combined, and when he departed up 7-2 in the sixth with two runners on, not a single Yankee fan could complain that this wasn’t the equal of his past clutch performances. Mike Stanton, as he is prone to do with the dynasty’s foes at the gate, beat back the A’s threat in the sixth, and yielded to Ramiro Mendoza in the eighth inning with the game under control.

So in one afternoon, the Yanks totaled more runs than the A’s had for the entire series, and more tripled their own offensive output. Meanwhile, the A’s woes with runners in scoring position, an oversight as they raced to a 2-0 lead, have now become dire: 1-for-31 through four games. Worse, they’ve lost their fine rightfielder Jermaine Dye for the season. Dye, whose arrival in Oakland via trade set the tone for a remarkable 48-14 run (he drove in 59 runs in those 62 games), fractured his tibia in the third inning by fouling a pitch off of the leg, then crumpling awkwardly to the ground in obvious agony. Ron Gant, whose solo home run paced the A’s in Game 2, will fill in for Dye, a serious downgrade both offensively and–in the spacious outfield of Yankee Stadium–defensively.

A’s manager Art Howe made one questionable change in his lineup, subbing lefty-hitting utilityman F.P. Santangelo at second base for righty regular Frank Menechino. Santangelo’s error in the second inning opened the door to the first Yankee runs; it was his first error this season, but it cost the A’s big time. On the other hand, Howe managed to spread the workload throughout his bullpen, using five pitchers after Lidle departed, notably sparing both setup man Jim Mecir and closer Jason Isringhausen.

Torre’s lineup decisions paid off for him on Sunday. David Justice, batting third once again, reached base three times out of five, battling for walks in the middle of two rallies and hitting a triple to key the Yanks’ final two runs. Paul O’Neill, batting seventh after sitting Saturday night, hit the tough grounder which tied up Santangelo for the error, then doubled and scored in the fourth inning. What’s more, when O’Neill grounded out in the fifth with the Yanks already up 7-2, he spent the rest of the inning visibly cursing a blue streak at himself, displaying the fiery defiance which had seemed absent in days past.

Suddenly this rematch has achieved the fever pitch we all hoped for. Never mind the broom-speak, here’s an elimination game. The big question mark is the health of Roger Clemens. Is the hamstring problem which forced his removal after four lackluster innings in Game 1 sufficiently healed to allow him to pitch effectively Monday night? Clemens’ throwing session on Sunday was good enough for the Yanks to send him back to New York ahead of the rest of the team, allowing him a relatively restful night. The Yanks will likely have all hands on deck, including Andy Pettitte, to bail him out should he falter.

As for Torre, the Yanks’ resurgence in this series should offer some vindication for the manager’s critics. While many folks–Yankee fans and Yankee haters alike–would have liked to bury Torre’s future with the team after the first two games of the series, news of a contract offer of a two-year extension worth $10 million dollars clearly shows he’s still in the driver’s seat. The fact is that Yankee owner Steinbrenner needs Torre now more than ever. With his new network in place to start next season, Steinbrenner needs to protect his flagship property, and that means having Torre at the helm. The economic climate being as lousy as it is means a scramble for advertisers for the new network, and far more advertisers are likely to come on board with the known commodity of a Torre-managed team that looks as if it can still contend for a World Championship. Anything less, especially with the retooling the Yanks appear headed for (likely no O’Neill, no Martinez–two underperforming but popular players), is a less bankable commodity.

So the Yankee dynasty lives to fight at least another day. And after sitting, standing, pacing, high-fiving, wincing, and writing my way through nearly NINE HOURS of intense playoff baseball (a few words about Curt Schilling’s performance are certainly in order, but time doesn’t permit right now), I can hardly wait for more. Bring it on.

(Sigh) Young A’s Rotation Pushing Old Yanks Around

It didn’t take long for the Oakland A’s to push this year’s model of the New York Yankees to the brink of elimination. Quite simply, the A’s are beating the Yanks at their own game. Their hitters are using their discipline at the plate to work deep into the count, exacting a toll from the pitcher even when lose a battle, collectively outlasting the starter and breaking into the soft, creamy center of the opposition’s relief pitching to increase their margin. The A’s pitchers are getting ahead in counts and controlling the at bats, forcing the Yanks into weak tappers and infield popups.

In the two games, the A’s hitters have forced the Yankee pitchers into throwing 329 pitches, an average of 4.83 per plate appearance. The Yanks, who once excelled in this category, are down at 4.04, slightly above the major league average (3.78) but clearly not good enough against the A’s fine young starters. The A’s have drawn seven walks to go with their 19 hits, while the Yanks have only two, and it took them until the fifth inning of Game 2 to draw their first one.

Mark Mulder looked like the one in the catalog on Wednesday night, the man who racked up a 21-8 record in only his second season. In the harsh environment of a Yankee Stadium playoff, he had no shortage of poise or control, and dominated the Yankee hitters. Roger Clemens, on the other hand, didn’t look right from the start, and left after four grueling innings with an ailing hamstring. Sterling Hitchcock pitched credibly in relief of Clemens, but Joe Torre stayed with him too Long (as in Terrence, the A’s leftfielder who clubbed his second HR of the game off of Hitchcock in the 8th). The Yanks had a shot against setup man Jim Mecir, thanks to Tino Martinez’s 2-run HR, but closer Jason Isringhausen slammed the door on their fingers in the 9th.

Last night, Andy Pettitte pitched a typically gutty game, allowing only one run, but he threw 115 pitches in only 6.1 innings and was out of bullets. Tim Hudson’s 113 pitches, by contrast, took him through 8 innings, and he was simply brilliant, as the Yanks could barely manage to get the ball out of the infield until late in the ballgame.

Thus far, the thing that’s driven me and nearly every other Yanks fan up the wall is Joe Torre’s lineup selection. Starting two gimpy lefties, Paul O’Neill and David Justice, against A’s lefty Mark Mulder looked like a bad idea on paper and an even worse one on TV. Justice’s at bats, in particular, looked wretched. He was either way out in front or about five minutes late on each swing, with a little hop thrown in there to insure his bad timing. O’Neill, likely playing his final days, just doesn’t seem to have fire anymore. I’d kill to see that helmet-throwing intensity, the defiance in his eyes, one more time, but he looks like a golfer in search of the clubhouse after a rough back nine.

As Rob Neyer pointed out, righty Shane Spencer would have been a much better option for either of those two against Mulder. Not only is Spencer healthy, but he also hits lefties LAMF: .313 AVG/.348 OBP/.563 SLG this year (though in only 64 ABs), and .335/.361/.616 for the previous three. Hello, Joe?

Torre’s unswerving loyalty to those who brought him to this point has manifested itself up and down the Yankee lineup: from the decision to start Roger Clemens (who had lost his last two starts to Tampa Bay) over Mike Mussina (his hottest pitcher) in Game 1, to using Knoblauch in the leadoff spot (one decision that’s working, at least, as the Lil’ Bastard is 3-for-8 with some good at bats), to playing the struggling lefties, to the last-minute decision to fill his final roster spot with good-luck charm Luis Sojo over spot lefty Randy Choate (who pitched well against Oakland this season) or rookie first baseman Nick Johnson, whose keen batting eye could come in handy in the late innings.

Considering Torre spent so much time agonizing over the selection of his bench, it seems amazing that thus far he’s been so reluctant to use it. Anybody, including Sojo, who stumbles into clutch hits like a blind squirrel with a nose for acorns, could have given Torre a better at bat in the late innings of Game 1 than Justice. Brosius has looked fairly lost as well, and with FOUR potential third basemen on the bench– Velarde, Wilson, Sojo and Bellinger–there’s no excuse for watching him pop out every damn time up. Brosius, O’Neill, and Justice thus far are a combined 1-for-24 with 15 men left on base. C’mon, Joe, take a risk, play a hunch, pull a lever once in awhile just to see if the result changes and to prove that you’re not a statue waiting for the birds to land on you.

Even with Mussina, their hottest hand, going for the Yanks tomorrow, the outlook for the Yanks is not good. The A’s are tough at home, they’re loose, and they’ve got another young lefty, Barry Zito, going for them. Zito’s only won 9 straight starts. The Yanks have no choice but to get past him and hope that El Duque can pull a win the magnitude of his ’98 ALCS Game 4 start against Cleveland. Can it be done? Yes. Will it? Ask Joe Torre, he’s the one with the lineup card.

Yankees-A’s: Measuring the Rotations

I don’t have enough time to do all of the in-depth analysis I’d like to regarding the playoff matchup between the Yankees and the A’s. But I did want to take a look at what is probably the series’ most important aspect, starting pitching.

There’s a lot of talk about how good the A’s top 3 pitchers (Mark Mulder, Tim Hudson, and Barry Zito) are. They’re young, they’re successful, and with two out of three lefties, they’re likely to give the Yanks plenty of trouble. But looking at their combined stats compared to the Yanks big 3 (Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, and Mike Mussina), I don’t see a distinct advantage. Both have impressive Won-Loss records, and their ERAs are virtually a wash. The Yanks trio has better strikeout-related ratios and better durability (I excluded Andy Pettitte’s recent 3-pitch outing from the IP/GS calculation because it’s such an obvious fluke, but they still come out ahead if you factor that in). Both teams play in pitchers’ parks, but Oakland’s is a more extreme one, which leads me to give the Yanks trio a slight upper hand.

Yanks Big 3 combined:

52-24 (.684), 3.53 ERA, 649.2 IP, 6.70 IP/GS, 1.21 WHIP, 3.88 K/W, 8.18 K/9

A’s Big 3 combined:

56-25 (.691), 3.43 ERA, 678.2 IP, 6.53 IP/GS, 1.20 WHIP, 2.66 K/W, 7.14 K/9

The key here is bases on balls: both Mussina (1.65 walks per 9) and Pettitte (1.84) are very stingy with the walks, as is Mulder (2.00). Hudson (2.72), Clemens (2.94) and Zito (3.36) are considerably higher in this department. Given the emphasis both teams place on drawing walks, an advantage here could be significant. It isn’t too big a stretch to say that the Yanks have been known to turn a postseason series around on the basis of a single base on balls.

As it stands, both managers are planning to use four-man rotations, and on the surface it would appear that Oakland has an edge. Unless the two managers deviate from their plans, Cory Lidle (13-6, 3.59) opposes Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez (4-7, 4.85). But El Duque was 0-5, 5.14 when he went on the DL for two months, and he finished the season looking like the one in the catalog, going 4-1, 2.88 in September and October. Of course, he’s been nothing but money for the Yanks in Octobers past: 8-1, 2.20. If he’s healthy–and at the very least he should be well-rested–that’s a big plus in favor of the Yankees.

Looking at the home-road breakdowns of the pitching matchups, with Games 1 and 2 in New York, Games 3 and 4 in Oakland, and Game 5 back in da Bronx:

Game 1: Clemens (10-1, 3.10 at home) vs. Mulder (10-6, 4.12 on the road)

Game 2: Pettitte (10-3, 3.16 at home) vs. Hudson (11-5, 3.33 on the road)

Game 3: Mussina (6-6, 3.19 on the road) vs. Zito (9-3, 3.71 at home)

Game 4: Hernandez (3-4, 4.74 on the road) vs. Lidle (8-5, 4.03 at home)

The Yanks have the better ERA in 3 of the four matchups. But the most interesting thing about these breakdowns is two splits that aren’t shown because they’re not scheduled to come into play: Mulder was dominant in Oakland (11-2, 2.69); Andy Pettite has struggled away from Yankee Stadium (5-7, 4.97). That combination of non-occurrences definitely favors the Yanks (still with me?). Based on this, I’d conclude that the Yanks rotation is better optimized for the venues and the schedule.

As I see it:

* The key for the Yanks starters is simply the health of Pettitte and Hernandez. With serious question marks hanging over their heads, both pitched well in their tuneups last weekend, but Pettitte has been very

spotty in the second half (6-6, 5.22).

* The key for the A’s starters is whether the extra innings they’ve thrown this season will catch up to them. So far there aren’t any signs of that; like the rest of the team, they are, dare I say, en fuego: a combined 14-3 with a 2.81 ERA since the beginning of September. But their big three all three set career highs for themselves in Innings Pitched, by a wide margin, and they’re in uncharted territory now.

* The Yanks rotation has a huge advantage in postseason experience, with 51 starts and 23 postseason wins versus 2 starts and 1 win.

It’s a classic experience-vs.-youth showdown, and of course I’m not addressing the other aspects of both teams. But this one’s probably going 5, and if I had to pick, I’d take the Yanks because of the home-field advantage and because their rotation is better set up for the venue. That may be an analysis that comes more from the heart than the head–after all, I could dig through statistical splits until the cows come home and end up proving entirely the opposite of what I’m arguing here. But these Yanks have shown me too much over this extended championship run to ever count them out.

Other picks:

Seattle over Cleveland in 4 (I’ll admit, I revised this from my post earlier today on Baseball Primer, after the Indians surprised everyone by taking Game 1)

Atlanta over Houston in 4

Arizona over St. Louis in 5

Right now, I don’t see the Yanks getting past Seattle even if they should survive Oakland, but the time to worry about the nuts and bolts of that matchup is a long ways away. As for the National League, I’d love to see Houston finally shed their postseason jinx, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. My money is on whoever wins the Arizona-St. Louis matchup going to the World Series and losing to the American League representative, no matter who shows up.

Bye Bye Bauman

With his 73rd dinger yesterday, Barry Bonds capped one of the most remarkable performances in baseball history. He set single-season records for Home Runs, Slugging Percentage (.863), Bases on Balls (177), and Home Run Percentage (15.34 per 100 At Bats). And don’t forget the share of the National League record for Extra Base Hits (107), a share of the major league record for OPS with 1379 (tying Babe Ruth’s 1920 mark), and an On Base Percentage of .515, the first man over .500 since Mickey Mantle in 1957.

But there’s one other record Barry broke. Not only did his 73 homers set a Major League record, they also broke much less well-known record for HRs at any level of professional baseball. In 1954, Joe Bauman, a 6’5″ lefty first-baseman slugged 72 HRs for the Roswell (New Mexico) Rockets of the Class C Longhorn League. Playing in some small parks (the Sporting News article places the dimensions at 340 to left, 385 to center and 330 to right) and aided by high elevations (Roswell sits at 3570 feet above sea level–not as high as Denver, but higher than any other Major League city), Bauman put up a remarkable line for the year, batting .400 with 72 HR, 224 RBI, and 456 Total Bases in 138 games. Bauman, who was 32 at the time, won 4 minor league home run titles but never reached the majors. According to Bill James’s Historical Abstract, he finished his minor league career with 337 HRs and a .337 average.

Incidentally, the Longhorn League, which covered New Mexico and western Texas, featured some colorfully-named teams in 1954: the Artesia Numexers, Big Spring Broncs, Carlsbad Potashers, Wichita Falls/Sweetwater Spudders, Midland Indians, Odessa Oilers, and the San Angelo Colts, along with the Roswell Rockets. The league operated as a Class D league for the first few years of its inception (1947-1950), then became a Class C league from 1951-1955. It evolved into the Southwestern League (1956-1957) and finally the Sophomore League (1958-1961) before going defunct (all of this info comes from Mike McCann’s Minor League Baseball Page, an complete list of minor leagues and their franchises).

A Good Day for Great Leftfielders

It was a pretty eventful day yesterday for three of the best leftfielders ever to play the game:

• Barry Bonds set a record, but it wasn’t the record he’s been gunning for, the single-season Home Run record. Bonds broke the major-league record for Bases on Balls in a season, with his 171st free pass. It was the second of three walks Barry drew from the Astros pitchers, who obviously wanted no part of him. Their pitch plan might as well have read: “Away, awayer, awayest.” In the poetic justice department (if you’re a Giants fan, which I most certainly ain’t), Bonds scored all three times he was walked, and then blooped a run-scoring single when he finally did get something to hit, and the Giants won 11-8.

• Rickey Henderson tied the career record for Runs Scored when he came all the way around from first base on a double by Ryan Klesko. The run was Henderson’s 2245th, which tied Ty Cobb’s all-time mark–at least according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Total Baseball has Cobb’s total at 2246 based on additional research, with the extra run coming in 1912. While Total Baseball is “The Official Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball” (as it’s subtitled), Major League Baseball recognizes the Elias total as the record. Go figure.

In any event, as I write this Rickey has scored again to either break the record or tie ol’ Ty yet again. He hit a home run (his 2998th hit) and then slid into home plate to punctuate his feat. Though he was unable to yank home plate out of the ground and hold it aloft, as he did when he broke the record for Stolen Bases, he was presented with a gold-plated replica of the plate by Tony Gwynn.

Here’s a head-scratcher: if indeed Rickey gets his 3000th hit before the end of the season and joins Gwynn in that exclusive club, will it be the first time two 3000-hit members have played for the same team AFTER having done so? I know several teams have featured multiple players who went on to get 3000 hits–the Milwaukee Brewers with Robin Yount and Paul Molitor come to mind, as do the Baltimore Orioles with Eddie Murray and Cal Ripken Jr.

• Tim Raines Sr. was traded by the Montreal Expos to the Baltimore Orioles so that he could join his son, Tim Raines Jr., in the lineup against the Toronto Blue Jays. Little Rock started in centerfield and went 2-for-4 with a double, while Rock the Elder entered the game as a pinch-hitter and went 0-for-1 with a sacrifice fly. The duo thus joined the Ken Griffeys as the only father-son tandems ever to play simultaneously for the same team in the majors.

This story makes me warm all over. It’s been quite a season for the Raineses. After sitting out the entire 2000 season recovering from lupus, Tim Sr. started the season where he began his career, with the Expos. He tore a biceps tendon and missed about three months, but got a chance while on his rehab assignment to play against his son in a AAA game, the first time a father had ever opposed his son in a pro game. He made it back to the Expos and has been pinch-hitting and drawing spot duty amid their lost season–and doing it pretty well: .304 AVG/.424 OBP/.430 SLG in 79 ABs. Meanwhile, Tim Jr. has spent time at four different levels, from the Class A Frederick Keys on up the ladder, and was promoted last week when the injury-depleted O’s placed their 10,000th player of the season on the disabled list (or something like that).

Given his performance this year, it’s a distinct possiblity that Rock could catch on as a pinch-hitter somewhere next year. Will the O’s keep him around to tutor his son and provide a strong veteran presence? They could do a hell of a lot worse.

Anyway… I’m off to Baltimore this weekend, after all–my Ripken tix went unbid upon. After all is said and done, I’m happy to be going to this historic finale. I’m even happier that not only will the Rainses also be there, but that David Cone is slated as the starting pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. Could this be Coney’s finale as well? Damn, I’m full of questions today. I suspect Cone would probably rather have rotator cuff surgery without anesthesia than return to the disheveled and disgruntled Sox. My hunch is that he’ll end up with an offer from the Mets. I’d love to see it.

Oh, and as for Bonds–he’s walked three times tonight against the Astros, and it looks like he’ll go into the final series of the season still one shy of Mark McGwire’s record. Wonder of scheduling wonders, the Giants’ final opponent is the Dodgers, who were eliminated earlier this week. Now, I’m all for Barry setting the record at this point–in theory. I hold no grudge against him, and even if he doesn’t his season should be recognized for what it is, one of the greatest single-season offensive performances ever. But I relish the fact that the Dodgers have an opportunity to play the spoiler, not only for Bonds’ record, but also for the Giants’ slim playoff chances. Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the Shot Heard ‘Round the World, and as I figure it, every Giants-Dodgers matchup with something on the line is a chance to exact some revenge. Don’t be surprised if Tommy Lasorda himself comes in in the 9th inning to plunk BB in the ribs. After all, it’s still Payback Time.

Oh Rickey, What A Pity They Don’t Understand

Against the backdrop of Barry Bonds’ quest to break Mark McGwire’s single-season Home Run record, Rickey Henderson’s own pursuit of a record hasn’t received much attention. But it should. Henderson, already the all-time leader in Stolen Bases (a mark he’s held for a decade) and Bases on Balls (a record he broke early this season), is poised to break Ty Cobb’s record for the most Runs Scored in a career, at 2245 (or 2246, depending upon who’s counting).

Think about that one for a moment. What’s the object of baseball? It’s not to accumulate more hits than your opponent, or more home runs. It’s to score more runs than the other team. And Rickey is about to become the man who’s done that more than anybody else. So why, outside of the stathead circles, is the record flying so far under the radar? I believe it’s a combination of several factors, and I wanted to examine some of them in detail.

First, the Runs Scored record hasn’t been threatened in quite a long time. Cobb, who last played in 1928, has held it since sometime in 1925, when he passed Cap Anson. Anson last played in 1897. It looks to me as if Anson broke Jim O’Rourke’s record, in 1894. The record has changed hands only twice in the past 107 years, and the trail takes us back to players who were playing baseball at inception of the sport’s professional era. Wow. Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth are–get this–tied for third on the list, at 2174. Pete Rose is fifth at 2165, then Willie Mays at 2062, then Anson, who finished with 1996. Aaron, Ruth, and Rose at least got within shouting distance of the record–one solid season could have broken it, but of course all of them were well beyond putting together solid seasons at that point and thus never really threats.

Second, there’s the somewhat passive nature of the runs record–when we watch a ballgame, our attention is generally focused on the batter-pitcher confrontation and the connection of bat with ball. When a hit drives in a runner, it’s only rarely–a throw to the plate or the opportunity to score the winning run–that we focus on the physical act of a player crossing the plate. With the exception of home runs (of which Rickey’s hit 289, including 78 to lead off a ballgame), Rickey’s runs took place with help from the rest of the team’s offense, something Henderson has pointed out:

“It’s more of a team record than an individual record, and I could never score as many runs as I have without my teammates,” Henderson said. “If you play as a team and win as a team and lose as a team, you score the runs as a team. Maybe I’m the one that gets the number that goes with the record, but the team is most important.”

In general, Runs Scored is an undervalued statistical category. It’s not one of the so-called “Triple Crown” categories of Batting Average, Home Runs and Runs Batted In which the public identifies with, the numbers which are flashed on scoreboards and TV screens across the country when a player steps into the batter’s box. Statheads (myself included) tend to rail against RBI as a meaningful statistic, saying that it has much to do with the neighbors one has in the batting order. But Runs Scored is simply the other side of the same coin, so isn’t it a bit hypocritical for the same statheads to be the ones trumpeting this record? Probably so, though it’s worth mentioning this difference: one can drive in a run while making an out, but one can’t score a run having done so. Given that the statistical revolution of the past twenty-odd years values On Base Percentage (which is really the percentage of times a player doesn’t make an out) so highly, it’s understandable that the same people would celebrate the Runs Scored record.

Third, Henderson’s chase has simply been overshadowed by Bonds’ chase. The single-season Home Run record is a record, like Joe Dimaggio’s 56-game hitting streak, which transcends the normal boundaries of baseball, one whose numerical achievements are recognized by even the most casual of fans–60, 61, 70… The 1998 Home Run chase between McGwire and Sammy Sosa made those two men household names and icons whose fame extends beyond the diamond. The man they surpassed, Roger Maris, was more infamous than famous when it came to breaking the HR record–he got death threats in 1961 when he chased Babe Ruth’s record. Hank Aaron got death threats when he was chasing Babe Ruth’s career Home Run record. The only threat Rickey seems to have gotten in his chase is the threat that it may escape notice altogether, the buzz surrounding it drowned out by a loud yawn.

Fourth, Henderson, like Bonds, isn’t exactly the type of personality ready-made for a highly publicized pursuit of a record. Not that Rickey’s ever been shy about self-promotion–who can forget his “I am the greatest” speech after breaking the steals record, in the presence of Lou Brock, the man he surpassed. But Rickey’s complex personality also includes elements of surliness–his attitude has run him out of more than one baseball town–and the purely cryptic–talking to himself, referring to himself in the third person, and the various malapropisms and controviersies with which he’s been (mis)credited.

Ah, yes, controversy. Rickey has seemed to find his share of it in the latter stages of his career. There’s the story that Rickey was playing cards in the clubhouse with teammate Bobby Bonilla during the Mets extra-inning loss to the Atlanta Braves in 1999, perhaps the breaking point in a series of clashes with Mets manager Bobby Valentine. Henderson was pretty much run out of town after that one, though it took the first month of the 2000 season for that to happen (Henderson, in this sympathetic USA Today piece, refutes the card-game story). There’s the Davey Lopes stolen base incident from earlier this season, in which Henderson stole second base in a game the Padres led the Milwaukee Brewers by seven runs. Manager Lopes came onfield and told Henderson that Brewer pitchers were going to drill him if he came to bat again.

Then there are the malapropisms and other verbal gaffes–the “tenure” story, and the Olerud helmet story, for example, both of which are detailed in the USA Today article and which I won’t repeat here. Stories like these cast Henderson in the light of someone both unsophisticated and self-absorbed, hardly flattering traits for a superstar.

And then there’s a story which combines both, and which sheds some light on the way Rickey has been treated by the media as his star has waned. Peter Gammons, in his August 3 column, reported this:

“What precipitated the Davey Lopes-Rickey Henderson blowup was that Rickey was sick and had been sleeping in the clubhouse when he was told he had to pinch-run for Tony Gwynn. Henderson, who is trying to get the career runs record, went to first base not knowing the score…”

The problem is that the story is false, and proving its falsehood is no more difficult than simply glancing at the box score and noting that Rickey was the starting leftfielder and leadoff hitter, and thus already in the game. Furthermore, given that one of Rickey’s hits drove in the pinch-hiting Gwynn, he probably would have been aware of the game’s score. Did Gammons ever retract his story, which was buried at the bottom of one of his notes columns? No, but that’s nothing new with the self-styled dean of baseball columnists (for more about that, read this piece from the beginning of the season in the New York Press). Shoddy “journalism” like this, whether it’s mean-spirited or simply devoted to adding to the Henderson lore, makes clear the possibility that Henderson, to paraphrase Yogi Berra, didn’t say everything he said.

Fifth, baseball in general has been overshadowed by the events of September 11. No one really seems to be in the mood for records. The lack of enthusiasm over Bonds’ historic chase is a better barometer of this; the previous record-breaking effort was surrounded by a media circus the likes of which this one hasn’t seen.

Finally, there’s the notion that Rickey’s simply been hanging on just to get the record, not to mention surpass the 3,000th hit mark (he’s three hits shy right now) before the end of the season. Henderson’s critics point to his .232 batting average as evidence that the man is no longer worthy of a major league job. But a closer look at the numbers is revealing. Yes, Henderson’s only hitting .232, but his On Base Percentage is .369, only 34 points off of his career OBP, and much higher than the leadoff hitters of several contending team. Does anyone really think that contending teams like the Dodgers (.304 OBP for their leadoff hitters), Giants (.309 ), Phils (.312), Braves (.321), Cubs (.324), and Diamondbacks (.327)–for example–couldn’t have used an extra 30-40 times on base at the top of their lineup to separate themselves from the pack?

Hell, half the teams in the majors would benefit from having their leadoff hitters strapped into chairs with their eyes pried open, Clockwork Orange-style, and being forced to watch tapes of Rickey working pitchers for a walk. Yes, America, you can steal first base, through a little-known technique called “plate discipline.”

Henderson was a free agent when the season began and could have been had by any of the aforementioned teams for a minimal price; of course, not every one of them could have made it work, given that Henderson’s a leftfielder with below-average defensive skills, and some of those teams have pretty good LFs in place–guys like Bonds and Gary Sheffield and Luis Gonzalez.

Leftfield is in fact one of the prime offensive spots, and so while Henderson’s sabermetric stats this season are respectable and show him to be above-average for a major league hitter [his Offensive Winning Percentage is .541 (ESPN), his Equivalent Average is .276 (Baseball Prospectus)], they also show him to be below-average for a leftfielder. The Equivalent Average/Equivalent Runs methodology used by Baseball Prospectus (which takes into account things like playing time, league context, and park effects), shows Rickey to be 4.4 runs below his positional average. Still, that’s not too bad, given that the “average leftfielder” baseline includes Bonds’ performance, quite possibly the Greatest Season Ever. It’s also not too bad given the performance several contending teams have gotten out of their LFs (all totals rounded to the nearest whole):

Seattle: Mark McLemore is 17 runs above average, but the plethora of players Seattle has run out there this year drag their overall total down to 5 runs above average.

New York Yankees–Knoblauch and Spencer, combined 19 runs below average

Oakland: Damon 15 runs below average, with a hell of a lot of work just to get there

Cleveland: Cordova and Cabrera, combined 6 runs below average

Boston: O’Leary -15 runs

Anaheim: Anderson -10 runs

Minnesota: Jones -19 runs

Again, to suggest that every one of these teams could have found significant playing time for Henderson this season–or next, given that Rickey has indicated his desire to continue playing–is not my point. But Rickey should have a job somewhere in the big leagues next year if he wants one; it may not be as an everyday leadoff hitter, but there’s not a ballclub out there who couldn’t use him on their roster in some role.

So we’re left with one of the game’s all-time greats (albeit an underappreciated one), about to break one of the game’s most important all-time records (albeit an underappreciated one). If you’re a fan of great players and great records (and why the hell have you read this far if you’re not?), do yourself a favor and pay attention to this one–it’s as worthy as Bonds’ home run chase.

Note: I’ve repurposed a good portion of what I’ve presented here from my contribution to two Rickey-related threads on Baseball Primer’s Clutch Hits discussion boards. My thanks in particular to Rich Rifkin, Robert Dudek, and someone known to me only as “jdw” for helping to shape my views on this topic through our spirited debate.