the sporting life

Baseball Notes

With the announcement of the postseason awards, we are pleased to report the 2006 baseball season officially over, and a pleasant ending it’s turned to be. We have, all of us, just narrowly avoided the reality of an MVP award for Derek Jeter, and so, this Thanksgiving time, as we all of us sit in reflection with our loved ones, lets all of us not fail to think of in gratitude whatever spirit or animal force that saved us from such a fate…


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A Word On Winning…

The Cardinals’ unexpected World Series win serves to underscore the vagaries of the postseason. As Cardinals’ manager Tony LaRussa put it, it’s not the best team that wins, it’s the team that plays the best. So St. Louis, perhaps the 6th “best” team of the 8 in the playoffs, was fortunate to be playing the best at the right time. Assigning too much blame or praise associated with postseason success or failure misses that point. Ripping the Yankees for not winning enough misses the point in exactly the same way ripping the A’s or the Braves does. Records over a whole season tell you how good a team is. Records over 7 games in October tell you how lucky.

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…Just to create a sense of how drastically the economic landscape in baseball has changed: the highest team payroll in 1991 was that of the small-market Oakland A’s…and the year before that it belonged to the Kansas City Royals…

…I can’t believe I’m saying this, but can we lay off A-Rod, please? Come on, a run of “soft” (huh?), somehow “un-clutch” hits, and the guy’s a bum? How many reigning MVP’s have gotten booed at home the next season? How many reigning MVP’s have batted 8th in a playoff game? None, never. Give the guy a friggin’ break. I mean, it’s not like he hasn’t produced for you. In three years with the Yankees, the guy’s hit 119 home runs, driven in 357, and won a league MVP. He’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Have some patience, for chrissakes…

…and yeah, yeah, I know, New York has no patience, and loves it that way ! O, New York and her vaunted aspirations, her celebrated refusal to accept failure! O, how she prides herself on her soaring expectations of herself! Whatever, shut up. I’m so tired of hearing about the Yankees’ lack of championships since 2000, as if 6 years with only 6 division titles, three ALCS appearances, and two World Series represents some kind of drought. Winning 4 titles in 5 years, that was the anomaly. And considering the 15 years prior that without a sniff of the playoffs, even New Yorkers should be capable of some dim appreciativeness of their current success, which by no means must continue indefinitely, even with the deck perpetually stacked in their favor. After all, even for New York, it’s a fine line between steadfast and irrational.

…It’s time for me to belatedly tip my cap to Detroit Tigers future-Hall-of-Fame catcher Pudge Rodriguez. I ripped Pudge when he followed the money from the playoff-regular Texas Rangers to the atrocious Florida Marlins, and kept ripping him…right up until they won the World Series in 2003. I ripped him again when even more money led him to the even more atrocious Tigers…who then, just a couple years removed from some of the worst seasons any team’s put up in the last couple decades, stormed to this year’s World Series, and were unlucky to lose it. Two cynical free agent moves to two terrible teams, and two World Series. While wary of giving any one player too much credit for an entire team’s performance, you have to give Pudge his due for his not insignificant role in two remarkable turn-arounds. Steroid accusations notwithstanding, Pudge has carved himself out a comfortable place in baseball history…


In Memoriam: What a strange death for Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle, plowing his private aircraft into a midtown Manhattan apartment tower, killing him and his flight instructor (um, how much was this guy charging you, Cory?), with many questions left unanswered. We remember him here in the Bay Area for his capable run as the A’s fourth starter for a time, and now, in light of this tragic circumstance, we may even be inclined to forgive him his disastrous playoff start against the Yankees in 2001. We will not forgive, however, his posthumous meddling in the league’s balance of power. Does it make me a cynic and perhaps a bit macabre if I point out that “mourners” in attendance at the California memorial service included Yankees Derek Jeter, Jason Giambi, manager Joe Torre, general manager Brain Cashman, photo-op lap-dog Reggie Jackson…and A’s uber-free agent Barry Zito? Maybe it does. Even so, sounds like a pretty good recruiting party, doesn’t it? You can just see the 3 or 4 other GMs vying for Zito’s services sitting in front of their tvs (what, I don’t know, the Celebrity Funeral Network?) watching Torre and Giambi hugging the coveted southpaw starter, and screaming Hey, I would’ve signed Lidle if I knew he was gonna die!…

…wait, wait a minute here!…Celebrity Funeral Network….That’s a great idea! Go on, tell me you wouldn’t watch it!…

…Zito, by the way, is generally considered to be only interested in/affordable for the four teams in the two big markets, and the four possibilities have wildly differing consequences and appeal from an A’s fan’s perspective. Yankees or Angels? Totally Unacceptable. Dodgers or Mets? Fun and Intriguing! Picture Zito marching into Pac Bell with Dodger Blue on, with his NL-style old-school knee high socks roll, stuffing that swooping curveball of his down the Giant’s throats, a perfectly delicious East Bay scenario! Let’s get Zito into the NL as quickly as possible…

...As the ink lay drying on Frank Thomas’ contract with the Blue Jays, the wild speculation putting Barry Bonds on the A’s had already leaped into full swing. And for good reason; strictly as a pure baseball move, it makes a lot of sense. A’s GM Billy Beane called Thomas the “posterboy” for the A’s type of hitter, but Bonds does all the things valued in Thomas better than anyone. In short, he walks and he hits for power, like nobody else ever has. Stepping out ahead of the buzz, the A’s quickly got the word out that Bonds was not seriously under consideration, that the fans were solidly opposed, that all the baggage and disruption in hosting the Bonds Traveling Circus (not the least of which being the supreme test Barry “clubhouse cancer” Bonds would impose upon the A’s carefully crafted carefree clubhouse chemistry…say that five times quick…) was more than management wanted to take on. An unsurprising stance; what else could they say? But with the subtraction of Thomas’ heavy bat from an already light-hitting team that desperately needs to add, and not lose, significant offense, it’s hard to imagine Beane genuinely having no interest. If he can stay healthy for a full season (a huge “if”, but much more plausible in the American League as a Designated Hitter, with no fielding responsibilities), Bonds is likely capable of at least as much production as Thomas contributed last year, and quite probably more. How many of the available players out there can you say that of? Alfonso Soriano’s already signed, as is Aramis Ramirez, and now so is Moises Alou, a name that had been submitted as a possible Thomas replacement. If the A’s intend to add a bat through free agency this year, well, the pool is drying up fast. Bottom line: with Bonds, they’re as good as last year; without Bonds, their impoverished offense gets even worse. He may not be the only solution for the A’s, but if you’re going to pass on him, you better have a pretty convincing Plan B. Like it or not, the A’s need Bonds…