August 29th, 2006 → 11:28 am @ Seth Mnookin
Yesterday, David Ortiz was sent back to Boston after another incident of an irregular heartbeat. I didn’t want to do this, but it’s time: I’m available — reluctantly — to play either 1B, DH, or LF.
In the meantime, let’s take a trip down memory lane (and do check out that photo gallery) and revisit some recent history of that fist-smacking, Shrek-looking Superman.
* There was his poignant ad for erectile dysfunction.
* Speaking of deflated, there was a weak attempt to show that Ortiz was not a clutch hitter.
* There was this attempt to explain why he is.
* There was this look at what could be an historic season.
* There were these walk offs.
* And this one.
* There was this excerpt printed in the Phoenix about the emergence of Ortiz as a star.
* At the bottom of this page, there’s an audio link to a section about Ortiz’s Game 5 game winner off of Loiza in Game 5 of the ’04 ALCS.
* And finally, there was this excerpt about the Red Sox signing the most iconic player of the past three years.
There. That should keep you busy while you wait for the test results from Boston.
Post Categories: David Ortiz
August 29th, 2006 → 9:05 am @ Seth Mnookin
The last time Murray Chass lost all touch with reality, there were those who contacted one of the Times‘s sports editors, essentially asking “What the hell is up with this freak?” (I wasn’t one of those people.) The editors responded — wearily, it must be said — with half-hearted defenses, and it wasn’t hard to sense a feeling of frustrated resignation. A job at the Times is basically the same as getting tenure. Which means we — and they — are stuck with the guy. (His articles almost never appear on the first page of Sports — according to a Nexis search, only five of the 73 pieces he’s written since the beginning of the baseball season have been on the section front.) So let’s make it fun!
Like in today’s column, ostensibly about the Tigers’ tired pitching staff. Somehow, Chass brings this back to the Red Sox, his own personal white whale: “The possibility of a Tigers collapse was first raised here two weeks ago, when they had a five-and-a-half-game lead. If the Tigers wanted to take a positive approach, they could say they had lost only half a game from their lead in two weeks. At that rate, with five weeks left, they would make it. There is nothing positive in the Red Sox’ recent play to buoy their postseason hopes.” Chass also writes, “Imagine the Red Sox’ stress when they discover there’s no room for them in the playoffs.” Or imagine Chass’s stress: what will he write about in October?
Post Categories: Murray Chass
August 29th, 2006 → 8:36 am @ Seth Mnookin
You’re right: It is weak to rely on A-Rod to make me feel better about Papi.
But that doesn’t mean I’m letting A-Rod off the hook. After all, I have a history of pointing out delightful NYC headlines. Anyway, I’ll break this into two separate posts. Enjoy…
“But how do you ignore that the overflow caravan of futile support now includes John Wooden? How do you ignore that in the two weeks since A-Rod told us he had been hurt, refused to specify the injuries, but promised he was now healthy and ready to play his best, that he has instead possibly played his worst in the worst season of a great career?”
— Joel Sherman, New York Post, “You Simply Cannot Ignore Alex”
“There figures to be plenty of boos waiting for Alex Rodriguez at the Stadium tonight. That is what happens to players who struggle the way A-Rod has, going 2-for-20 with 14 strikeouts during the Yankees’ six games against Seattle and Anaheim last week.”
— Sam Borden, New York’s Daily News, “Jax Sees A-Rod Upside”
“That seems to be the eternal quest for Rodriguez, to show, somehow, what his gaudy career numbers really mean. This season, he is batting .279 with 26 homers and 93 runs batted in, yet a closer look shows mediocrity.”
— Tyler Kepner, The New York Times, “A Whiff of Futility, and Rodriguez Can’t Rest Easily
Post Categories: A-Rod & David Ortiz
August 29th, 2006 → 12:14 am @ Seth Mnookin
To put how bad things are for the Sox right now into perspective, check out this lineup:
Crisp CF
Cora SS
Loretta DH
Youkilis LF
Hinske RF
Lowell 3B
Lopez C
Pena 1B
Pedroia 2B
Gabbard SP
There are two — that’s right, two — position players fielding the positions they played on Opening Day: Coco Crisp and Mike Lowell. The starting shortstop began the season as a utility infielder. The DH is the team’s light-hitting second baseman. The cleanup man and left fielder is Kevin Youkilis, who’s best known for taking a lot of walks. The right fielder was a disappointment and the catcher a has-been; both were picked up through waiver trades. Today is the first baseman’s first day in a Red Sox uniform; so far this year, he’s been released by the Tigers and asked for his release from the Yankees Triple-A affiliate. (When the Globe announced the signing of Pena, the headline — no joke — read “Former NU star is added to the mix.”) Oh, and the starting pitcher? The starting pitcher started the year in the minors, and is only playing today because Jon Lester, who also started the year in the minors, is now on the DL.
I could go on. Alright, fine: I’ll go on. For the first time since October 2004 (when the Sox had already clinched a playoff spot), neither Manny Ramirez or David Ortiz is in the starting lineup. On Opening Day, the starting 9 had a collected 1186 home runs; today’s lineup, even adding on five extra months, has hit 450 less round trippers. The Opening Day lineup, even with all that time on the DL, has 147 homers on the season; the team has 169, good for the sixth best in baseball. Today’s lineup has 59, good for…last. The 3-6 hitters — the meat of the order — have a combined 44 home runs on the year. (There are 20 players with more than 30 HRs so far this season.)
You still want more, you sick little masochist? Fine. Hinske’s playing right field because the team’s right fielder and its backup right fielder are injured. Lopez is catching because the team’s catcher and its backup catcher are injured. Gabbard is pitching because Tim Wakefield and Jon Lester are both on the DL (to say nothing of Matt Clement). The starting shortstop is on the DL. The DH was hospitalized for exhaustion. The left fielder’s has a knee so balky he can’t slide…or even run.
Yeah…I don’t think Bobby Abreu would have been the tonic for what ails this club. Hell, I don’t even know if Abreu and Roy Oswalt would have been enough. Sometimes everything goes your way. Sometimes it don’t. This is one of those times when it don’t. But this wheel will come back around. In the meantime, look for something good and uplifting to read (like, say — shameless plug alert — a New York Times bestseller about a happier, simpler time). Or try to figure out how to use your pasts (or, rather, my past) as a rock critic to come up with inscrutable headlines to blog posts. (Blog posts!) Or just read through a pile of magazines. Or look something good…oh, wait. I already tried that.
(I do believe I’ve had enough: it’s 5-0 in the bottom of the fourth and ESPN2 just showed a Red Sox fan with a bag over his head. I’m calling it a night. Tune in tomorrow for updates on this month’s Wired and this week’s New Yorker.)
Post Categories: Losing streaks & Obscure references to Bob Dylan lyrics
August 28th, 2006 → 5:09 pm @ Seth Mnookin
From the “things you learn when promoting a book” department: there is, in publishing, something known as a clusterfu, er, radio tour. These are not “tours,” per se, but a series of staggered phone calls, one after another after another, with stations around the country. They’re a surprising amount of fun, although the only other time I did one — right after Feeding the Monster came out — I did get a little slap happy by the end. Anyway, tomorrow there’s another, proving either that the gods of scheduling have a perverse sense of humor or the rest of the country wants to wallow in Boston’s misery. In either case, here’s the schedule. And yes, for all you fans in Nashville, you’ll actually have three chances to hear me tomorrow. Because Tennessee is a hotbed of Sox fanaticism.
Also, coming up in September, a brand new series of readings, including stops in Manhattan, Providence, Newton (home of the Tigers), and Burlington (MA, not VT). For those of you who won’t be able to heckle me in person but would still like a signed book, I can offer personalized, signed bookplates, sent to you free of charge in a lovely Simon & Schuster envelope.
Post Categories: Feeding the Monster Readings & Oblique references to Grateful Dead lyrics
August 28th, 2006 → 4:15 pm @ Seth Mnookin
Chris Dial over at Baseball Think Factory has computed the defensive rankings for all AL players who’ve played a minimum of 500 innings. And guess what? Among center fielders, Coco comes in dead last, holding down the bottom of the order with Texas’s Gary Matthews, Jr. (Just a coincidence, but one that’s fun to point out: within a couple of days, Crisp (on June 29) and Matthews (on July 31) made two of the most memorable catches of the year.)
Crisp, according to BTF, will cost the Sox about 11 runs over the course of 150 games. This assessment is more or less backed up by ESPN’s Zone Ratings, which ranks Crisp last among regular center fielders.
Of course, BTF’s rankings, like all defensive metrics, must be taken with a grain of salt. For all the energy put into finding new ways to collect and analyze fielding data, no one has yet come up with a good way to factor Fenway’s Wall, resulting in negatively skewed numbers for any Boston left fielder. (Manny’s bad, sure…but not 41 runs bad.) In John Dewan’s fascinating Fielding Bible (worth getting just for Bill James’s essay on why Derek Jeter may be the worst fielding shortstop in history), Crisp is ranked as the second best left fielder in all of baseball for 2005 (when he played left for the Indians), and the second best in 3-year plus/minus rankings (behind Carl Crawford). And in this year’s BTF rankings, Mike Lowell comes out on top among AL third basemen, while A-Rod is dead last. Lowell’s had a good year, and his baby-soft hands and deadly accurate arm makes for fun viewing, but his range is pretty miserable. A-Rod’s made a boatload of errors, but his range is decent to good. I can buy Ichiro as the league’s best right fielder…but Vlad, hobbled as he is, as second worst? Behind Trot? (The Fielding Bible ranked Trot as the best right fielder in baseball last year and the second bet over the last three years; this, I suspect, has as much to do with Fenway’s expansive right field as Manny’s negative numbers have to do with the truncated left field.)
Anyway. Check it out. It’ll be more fun than counting down the hours to tonight’s game.
Post Categories: Coco Crisp & Defensive metrics & oblique references to Jackass
August 28th, 2006 → 10:33 am @ Seth Mnookin
One holdover from the days when I was a media reporter is the overwhelming amount of magazines I receive: Wired, Men’s Health, Shape, Vibe. (If a marketer ever tried to craft a profile based on my mail, he’d think I was schizophrenic or leading a double life. Or both.) Most of the time, said magazines sit around my apartment until the piles become overwhelming. Then I recycle them.
But every now and then (read: in the middle of an epic losing streak during which I can’t sleep), I end up reading through a whole slew of said magazines. So it was last night. And let me say: GQ confuses the hell out of me. A recommendation for a lamp begins, “That black halogen floor lamp your mom bought you freshman year isn’t going to cut it anymore.” The advice column features this question: “I just graduated and I have a bunch of job interviews coming up at various magazines in New York City. I’m confused by the whole business casual thing.” And then there’s an article on $500 hand-made shirts made in Paris and a photo spread of Zach Braff wearing $4000 suits. I understand aspirational, but that’s a serious disconnect.
By the time I got to page 384 and John Jeremiah Sullivan’s “The Final Comeback of Axl Rose,” I was experiencing a pretty intense case of vertigo and basically just flipping through the remaining 25 pages so I could move on to last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. But Sullivan — whom I hadn’t heard of but later discovered is the author of Blood Horses: Notes of a Sportswriter’s Son — pulled off an increasingly rare feat: a glossy magazine article that had me laughing out loud and nodding my head at the same time. (It’s not as difficult as making circles on your stomach with one hand while tapping the top of your head with the other, but it’s close.)
The story was written in the first person and done without the benefit of an actual interview with Rose, which is probably a good thing; celebrity interviews, as it were, are usually carefully scripted events meant to convey a sense that said star of the moment and said writer are longtime friends instead of two people who just met each other and will never speak again. (“When I first saw John, he was sitting next to the pool at the Chateau Marmont. I walked over to our table, and he looked up. ‘You hungry?’ he said, eyeing me from beneath his vintage Wayfarers. ‘Let’s grab a bite.'”) Sullivan’s piece gleefully dispensed with this kind of formulaic tripe in favor of passages like:
“When he first came onto the scene, he often looked, in photographs, like a beautiful, slender, redheaded 20-year-old girl. I hope the magazine will run a picture of him from about 1988 so the foregoing will seem a slightly less creepy observation and the fundamental spade-called-spade exactitude of it will be laid bare. But if not, I stand by it. Now he has thickened through the middle — muscly thickness, not the lardass thickness of some years back. He grabs his package tightly, and his package is huge. Only reporting. Now he plants his feet apart, ‘You know where you are?’ he asks, and we bellow that we do, we do know, but he tells us anyway. ‘You’re in the jungle, baby,’ he says, and then he tells us that we are going to die.”
or laconically pithy observations, such as:
“He was nervous, but nervous in the way that any decent person is when you sit down in front of him with a notebook and are like, ‘I have to make a two-thirty flight. Can you tell me about the heaviest things in your life? And order more spinach-‘n’-artichoke dip. I can expense it.'”
Indeed.
I know I’m supposed to come up with a epigrammatic ending here, but I’m tired, late for an appointment, and still reeling from a 3-11 record over the last 14 games (to say nothing of a starting lineup that would have been more appropriate for a spring training game than a late-August match). If you’re looking for a diversion, spend the $3.99 and grab the September GQ. Lord knows you could use something that makes you laugh out loud.
Post Categories: Axl Rose & GQ & John Jeremiah Sullivan & Media reporting
