February 24th, 2007 → 12:30 pm @ Seth Mnookin
On ESPN.com, Jayson Stark has a column about how the Red Sox wish Jonathan Papelbon would remain as closer. “Under ordinary circumstances,” Stark writes, “no team moves men who are that good at a job that important to some other job. You sure won’t see the Red Sox trying Manny Ramirez at shortstop this spring. And David Ortiz won’t be hitting leadoff.” More to the point, regardless of how effective Ortiz is at moving runners from first to third, you won’t see him punching the ball to the opposite field instead of swinging for the fences, which is exactly what the Red Sox wanted him to do when they signed him.
And, as Papelbon himself knows (“the Red Sox drafted me as a starter,” Paps told Stark, “and that’s what I’m going to be”), he’ll be most valuable in a spot in which he can pitch the most innings. It’s common sense that 200 innings is worth more than 70. That’s why mid-level starters get $12 million a year and, in ’06, Mo made $10.5 mil. Unfortunately, common sense isn’t a lot of sportswriters’ strengths.
There are plenty of exceptions out there, and regular readers of this blog are well aware that of I think Rob Bradford is one of them. It’s obviously good news that Bradford has a new blog, Bradford on Baseball. If you haven’t already, check it out. You’ll be glad you did.
Post Categories: Jayson Stark & Jonathan Papelbon & Rob Bradford
October 23rd, 2006 → 11:40 pm @ Seth Mnookin
“[N]ow we’ll always be left to wonder what Kenny Rogers had on his hand. And here, in what’s supposed to be the best of times in his sport, that’s what stinks the most about this unsavory World Series evening.
“See, it wasn’t just his pitching hand that Rogers soiled on Sunday night. It was, regrettably, his whole sport. And that’s a stain that will take a lot longer to wash off.”
— Jayson Stark, October 22, 2006
“From the tenor of this discussion, you’re probably catching on that it didn’t take long yesterday for Dirtgate to transform itself into the kind of topic that nearly every baseball subject in history has ever morphed into — i.e., raging talk-show controversy on one hand, an irresistible clubhouse-comedy opportunity on the other hand.
“It was a healthy sign that the sport will undoubtedly survive Dirtgate. Not to mention a sign that this World Series will undoubtedly survive Dirtgate.”
— Jayson Stark, October 23, 2006
Post Categories: 2006 Playoffs & Jayson Stark & Kenny Rogers & Sports Reporters
October 23rd, 2006 → 10:14 am @ Seth Mnookin
The lead story on ESPN.com’s baseball homepage is a Jayson Stark piece titled “Rogers’ dirty hand overshadows his Game 2 brilliance“. After writing that the controversy surrounding what appeared to be some dirt on Kenny Rogers’s hand in the first inning of last night’s game would overshadow the game itself, Stark puts a new spin on the innocent until found guilty thing: “[I]f Rogers was so darned innocent, how come he was trying so hard to deny everything except his pitch count?” That makes sense. Rogers is guilty because he said he was innocent; try figuring out what that would mean if he said he was guilty of using pine tar. The piece ends with this weighty pronouncement: “See, it wasn’t just his pitching hand that Rogers soiled on Sunday night. It was, regrettably, his whole sport. And that’s a stain that will take a lot longer to wash off.”
Wow. This must be all the talk of baseball. Look at what the St. Louis Post Dispatch had to say: “‘Somebody said they saw pine tar on it. That’s about it. He obviously got rid of it or he never had it in the first place,’ said [Cardinals] second baseman Aaron Miles. ‘The stuff looked about the same as it did at the beginning. I’m not sure what difference it made.'”
“Had the umpiring crew discovered pine tar or some other intentionally applied foreign substance, they could have ejected Rogers from the game. Intentionally applying dirt to the ball is also grounds for ejection. Major League Baseball director of umpires Steve Palermo said ‘there was not an inspection, there was an observation.’
Palermo referred to ‘a noticeable dirt mark’ but said it in no way met the definition of ‘deliberately doctoring the ball in some regard.'”
Huh. Okay, well how about the Detroit Free Press:
“‘It was wet out there tonight, so you get a compound of water and dirt, and it’s going to create a little bit of mud,'” Palermo said. “‘And Kenny may have had that spot on his hand or whatever it was when he left the bullpen.'”
They’re the hometown boosters, so that’s to be expected. What about over at MLB.com?
“‘Kenny,'” [home plate umpire Alfonso] Marquez told the pitcher, “‘also that dirt thing that you’ve got on your hand, if you’ll do me a favor and just take it off.'”
“After the game, La Russa said, “‘It’s not important. I wouldn’t discuss that about someone who pitched like that. I wouldn’t want to take anything away from anybody.'”
So you’ve got Cardinals players, the Cardinals manager, the home plate umpire, and the umpiring supervisor all saying it was no big deal. And you have Jayson Stark, who feels that because Rogers is “a pitcher who, a mere three weeks ago, was carrying around the highest career postseason ERA in the history of baseball” and goes on to “spin off his 23rd consecutive scoreless October inning, you want to tell the world how he finally rewrote the script of his lifetime. But we’re having trouble with that angle, too.” The Gambler also has thrown a perfect game, has been in the league’s top ten in wins six times, and has the ninth most wins among active pitchers. Compare that to, say, Don Larsen, who threw the only perfect game in postseason history in the 1956 World Series against the Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, Jackie Robinson Brooklyn Dodgers. Larsen finished his career with an ERA above the league average and a career record of 81-91. Must of been the pine tar.
I’m sure Rogers’s “caramel covered mark” will continue to be discussed and analyzed — especially after ESPN analysis showed that Rogers appeared to have similar discolorations on his pitching hand during his two previous postseason starts. And Rogers certainly doesn’t have a the best reputation. But Stark’s presumed guilt piece is going a bit overboard, and is in marked contrast to his colleagues Buster Olney (who focuses on the ever-fiesty Tony LaRussa’s apparent wimpiness vis a vis Rogers), Keith Law (who doesn’t talk about Dirtgate at all), and Gene Wojciechowski (who focuses on the fact that the controversy will continue…at least until a possible Game 6, when Rogers is would pitch again). Finally, the Globe’s Gordon Edes — day in and day out, one of the best baseball guys out there — has a more clear-headed take on the whole thing: “Kenny Rogers, who has been master of any neighborhood he has occupied this October and showed no letup last night…evidently didn’t resort to anything underhanded in pitching the Detroit Tigers to a 3-1 win last night that evened the 102d World Series at a game apiece. To suggest otherwise would besmirch a reputation that has undergone a major renovation this postseason, one in which Rogers’s performance is approaching historic levels. And last night’s umpires did not take it upon themselves to do so, electing not to make an issue out of it, although the rules stipulate that any pitcher detected with an illegal substance on his person is subject to automatic ejection. And neither would opposing manager Tony La Russa.”
That sounds about right to me. Is whatever’s going on with the man putting together an historic postseason run worth investigating more? Of course. But at the moment, it’s a bit much — a lot much, actually — to say that the whole sport is soiled and this stain will take a lot of time for baseball to wash off.
Post Categories: 2006 Playoffs & Gordon Edes & Jayson Stark & Kenny Rogers & Sports Reporters
October 18th, 2006 → 8:42 am @ Seth Mnookin
Ah, yes: the burden of getting back into the swing of doing “work” work. It allows time for that flurry of midnight-on-Sunday posts, but some weekdays are tougher…
Which doesn’t mean there’s not time for some thoughts and updates. (Drumroll, fanfare, etc).
* The Mets loss last night has Jayson Stark claiming that a Cardinals NLCS victory would make history: “When the calendar says it’s October and a team that won 83 games is on the verge of beating a team that won 97 games, that’s more than just an upset. It’s an upset that slips instantly into the realm of myth and legend.” I call bullshit. Wild-card teams have won the World Series three of the last four years. The Mets are missing their ace, their starter, and one of their starting outfielders. The Mets were favored, with most of the ‘experts’ giving them the series in six or seven games, but no one expected a route. Coming back from an 0-3 deficit? That’s history. Beating the Mets in a seven game season? If it happens, it’s a good story for another week or so, or until whichever NL team makes it gets its ass handed to them by the Tigers.
* In his ESPN.com Insider column, Buster Olney discusses what makes a successful manager. (It’s clearly more than simply winning 95 games. See Little, Grady.) Olney puts “Can he lead/does he engender respect” first, with in-game strategizing third (out of four). I’m with Buster on the lack of importance of in-game management, and I generally agree with the “can he lead” thing, although I think the single most important job a manager has is getting a bunch of rich, indulged, jealous, back-biting man-children to stay inspired during the course of an exhausting, numbing, 162-game season.
* For those of you actually interested in how the publishing industry wastes money, Monday’s Journal article (“Dream Scenario: In Era of Blockbuster Books, One Publisher Rolls the Dice”) is well worth reading. Unfortunately, it’s only available to online subscribers. It’s essentially a summary of how Holt managed to put all its eggs in an incredibly leaky basket; the most amazing thing about this article is that the book’s editor, who charitably can be said to have cost his company more than a million bucks, decided to cooperate with the reporter.
* And, of course, there’s good old Murray. The Chass-man has been on a roll this week; such a roll, in fact, that the mere thought of discussing each and every one of his articles makes me feel slightly ill. But here are some quick highlights:
In Monday’s column, Chass writes that while it’s “difficult to imagine a worse performance” than the one Steve Trachsel turned in on the mound for the Mets, the Elias Sports Bureau — Chass’s handy substitute for, you know, reporting — tells him that actually, some pitchers have fared worse in the playoffs.
Then, on Tuesday, Chass acknowledges he was wrong, but naturally he’s not to blame: “Although it said here yesterday that Trachsel’s outing wasn’t the worst start in a postseason game, Elias Sports Bureau determined that by one measurement it was.”
Finally, in today’s Times, Chass helpfully explains that players want higher batting averages: “Going 2 for 17 means Wright is hitting .118. That beats .063 (1 for 16), but it is nevertheless a minuscule average…”
As always, Chass’s columns are free to the reader, unlike the paper’s other sports columnists…
Post Categories: 2006 Playoffs & Book Publishing & Buster Olney & Jayson Stark & Murray Chass
