FJM is a closed forum, but we welcome reader feedback. We're especially interested in corrections of our work, and research (usually number-crunching) that we may not be able to do ourselves. Please check the comments section as well, where we often post readers' opinions, and, less frequently, announce that we were wrong about something.
You can e-mail dak,Ken Tremendous,Junior,Matthew Murbles, or Coach individually.
In FJM Heaven, every writer complains that high-OBP sluggers clog up the basepaths. In FJM Heaven, every article trumpets David Eckstein as an MVP candidate based on his grit, his heart, and the fact that he sleeps in a child's race car bed. In FJM Heaven, A-Rod is a worthless choker, wins matter more than WHIP, "it's not called the Hall of Very Good," and all bloggers live in their mothers' basements.
And in FJM Heaven, HatGuy writes about food for an entire column, every column.
No more candy cane lane? Say it ain't so, Joe! Yankees manager goes too far by banning goodies in the clubhouse
This is just a delight. I mean, I'm not even going to be an asshole for this one. Okay, maybe a little. If Braveheart
-- topical -- were playing for the Yankees in 2008 instead of the underdog Scottish Nationalists in 1305, he’d have climbed on a table in the Yankees clubhouse and delivered a line that would resonate through time: “You can take my life, but you can’t take my Reese's peanut butter cups!”
All of you readers who e-mail me to add the "food metaphors" label on every single post I write, this post is for you. You are legion, you are persistent, and I appreciate every e-mail.
HatGuy, Jesus...he's not even veiling his gustatory fascination with the aforementioned food metaphors anymore. This baseball column is just straight up about food. Think about that. Also, countdown until he mentions ice cream. 5...4...3... Alas, there is no William Wallace on the Yankees and no plans for Mel Gibson to play the brave rebel who leads the team against manager Joe Girardi, who has imposed a reign of health food on his team.
No Mel Gibson joke? You disappoint me, HatGuy. Hell, "sugar tits" even has a food in it. You definitely could have awkwardly shoehorned a dated, unfunny Gibson reference in there. Next time.
No candy in the clubhouse, Girardi has decreed. And no ice cream.
There it is. For the uninitiated, I refer you to what reader Zac once wrote us:
June 28, 2006, Mike Celizic writes "Sox Fans must boo Pedro heartily," and makes a choppy, hot fudge sundae/whipped cream joke:
"If anything else happens — the fans cheering wildly or the commentators congratulating them for booing boisterously or no one taking notice of the occasion at all...[I'd] be as disappointed as I’d be if I set out to construct a hot fudge sundae and discovered I was out of whipped cream."
July 7, 2006, Mike Celizic writes "Not Time for Yankees to Panic" and makes eerily similar whipped cream reference:
"It’s hard to make panic seem banal, but that’s what the Yankees have accomplished over the years... [blahblah] ...Panic should be saved for special occasions. For the Yankees, a day without panic is like a hot fudge sundae without whipped cream."
Yes, HatGuy -- we keep track of food metaphors and similes you made nearly two years ago. That is the kind of people we are. Food metaphor enthusiasts.
It’s not just at Yankee Stadium, either. By Girardi’s orders, stadiums the Yankees will visit this year have been asked not to provide M&Ms, Dove bars, or any other sweet succulence to his Yankees.
Forget FJM Heaven. This is HatGuy Heaven! The Yankees, food, sweet food, creamy food, chocolate, dessert, Yankee stadium, candy, ice cream, Dove bars (ice cream inside candy)! Instead, Girardi wants granola, nuts and dried fruits for his players to snack on. My guess is there won’t even be salt on the nuts.
d:(
(That's a HatGuy frowny-face.)
It makes you wonder why he doesn’t go all the way and ban apple pie and motherhood.
Because he wants his players not to eat junk food? Multi-million-dollar athletes whose bodies are finely-tuned machines designed to perform extraordinary physical tasks on an everyday basis? Yes, this man is Stalin because he doesn't want his players looking like this:
I understand his motivation — promoting healthy choices in all things. But no chocolate? No nougat and caramel? No Heath bars? Not even a roll of LifeSavers?
How many times do you think HatGuy stopped to eat something while writing this column? Fifteen? Twenty? I'm guessing he ate at least one of each and every food he mentions.
Girardi came to the Yankees with a reputation as something of an extremist, but this is ridiculous. We’re talking about grown men here. We’re talking about a freaking Reese's peanut butter cup.
Well, to be fair, you were the one who brought up the peanut butter cup.
It wasn’t that long ago — within the past 20 years — that baseball clubhouses were among the last refuges from a world that was becoming obsessed with inflicting “healthy” living on everyone — by law if necessary.
Yes, 'twas a fine time. The baseball men would laze about, drunk on molasses moonshine, cheeks puffed with tobacco crabgrass. No coloreds were allowed, and the only women were the Lace Tutu Girls, whose sole purpose was to light your cigar and freshen your martini -- toplessly, of course. Ah, 1988.
Once upon a time, players arriving for work could load up on free chewing and spit tobacco to get the nicotine that kept their engines running.
People say a lot of things about baseball. But one thing I think just doesn't get enough play is that it doesn't have enough mouth cancer.
Next to the tobacco was a rack of gum and candy. Coffee urns dispensed a brew so strong you felt you could slice it and eat it in a sandwich.
Food...metaphor? No. Yes. No, wait. No. Brain twisting...screw it, I'm adding the "food metaphors" label and the "liberal use of 'food metaphors' label" label. You happy, "food metaphors" label crazies? You're welcome.
Out of sight from the public but no less readily available were amphetamines — “greenies” — for those who needed to kick-start their games.
So you're pro-greenies? What? I'm lost.
When their work was done, the tired heroes foraged through a postgame buffet that included at least three items from the all-important grease food group. Coolers harbored all manner of soda pop and enough beer in the players’ favorite brands — Free and Free Lite — to get a fraternity house through rush week.
Yeah. That's partly why I bet a team of modern players would kick these lard-assy gentlemanly layabouts' asses. Just a guess.
Except Wade Boggs. Dude would drink 70 beers on a cross-country flight and still go 3 for 5.
It wasn’t something that the American Heart Association (or your mom) was going to endorse, but when you threw in the magazine collection — heavy on hunting, cars and women who had forgotten to bring their clothing to their photo shoots – it wasn’t surprising that ballplayers liked to get to the park early and stay later than absolutely necessary. Clubhouse life was as good as it got.
HatGuy's new rallying cry: Bring back Car & Driver & Porn & Guns magazine!
And then the health police started getting involved.
I think HatGuy is confused. You can still eat all of these things. Relax. Breathe deeply. Look in your pantry. They're still there. All of them: the Three Musketeers, the Butterfingers, the Snickers, the Milky Way Darks. Now look in your freezer. See the ice cream? Yep, it's still there. Hey, here's an idea: what if you crumbled up some of those candy bars on top of the ice cream? That's good, isn't it?
Now isn't that more fun than writing a column about there being no chocolate in the Yankees' clubhouse? Aw, he fell asleep. The little HatGuy's all tuckered out. Isn't that cute?
The first thing to go was free tobacco for reasons that should be obvious. Then teams started to get more healthy choices in the buffets. In some clubhouses the beer also disappeared.
There were good reasons for all of the decisions. Tobacco can kill you, and so can excesses of grease.
Or chocolate. Or -- gasp -- hot fudge sundaes with whipped cream. It's all fun and games when you're just making metaphors about sundaes, but when those metaphors become reality, it's your arteries that pay.
And if a player were to get drunk in the clubhouse and then get in an accident, the team could face heavy liability.
It’s not as if modern ballplayers are Babe Ruth wannabes who train on hot dogs, beer, cigars and babes. (Well, maybe the babes, but not the other things.) These guys work out year-round and many have nutritionists and trainers at their beck and call.
So they probably don't care that much about not scarfing down Turtles for three hours straight before the game.
Sure, you’ve got your C.C. Sabathias carrying on the weighty tradition of David Wells and other noted gourmands, but for the most part, these guys are as healthy and fit as anyone could ever want to be.
So is it that modern players are all so in shape that it doesn't matter if they eat junk in the clubhouse or that it was more fun back in the old days when all guys did was eat junk in the clubhouse?
Also, not really sure how fit Joba Chamberlain is. Maybe he's like the Kingpin and it's all solid muscle.
A Dove bar or a bag of M&Ms is not going to hurt them, and it just might make them feel better — and therefore perform better.
Oh, I get it. It's neither. It's that Chocolate Makes People Better At Things! You think the chocolate lobby has gotten to HatGuy? Look, we've all been tempted by the money Big Chocolate throws at us, but I've always thought of HatGuy has an incorruptible lone kook-type.
Chocolate can, in fact, be very good for you. Dark chocolate is full of anti-oxidants and contains a chemical that elevates your mood.
Yarrrgggh!!! Corporate synergy -- they wrote chocolate into the storyline!
Right here is probably where HatGuy sticks in some hard scientific evidence proving that chocolate improves your WARP3 -- This is well-known at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where Harry Potter and his posse frequently were ordered to eat lots of chocolate to help them heal after a busy day battling Dementors.
Best part of an already unbelievable gold mine (of gold chocolate coins) of an article.
Chocolate isn’t junk food.
WE GET IT.
Some would argue it’s the best food nature ever contributed to our diet, a food loaded with anti-oxidants and imbued with a mood-elevating substance called theobromine, from which comes cacao’s scientific name — theobroma, the “food of the gods.” Was ever any product of nature more aptly named?
Holy f-ing s. He's really lost it, hasn't he? I'm worried. I'm honestly, no-kidding, 100% worried about Michael Celizic's mental state. Call me, Mike. Well, no. Don't do that. Just write an article about A-Rod faking his injury so he can avoid those high-pressure May at bats so I know everything's all right.
And now, just for the fun of it, I will now list each and every food (including repeats) or other consumptible (I made that word up to mean something you put in your body in a food-like manner) found in the column:
candy cane Reese's peanut butter cups candy ice cream M&Ms Dove bars granola nuts dried fruits salt nuts apple pie chocolate nougat caramel Heath bars LifeSavers candy bar Reese's peanut butter cup chewing and spit tobacco gum candy coffee sandwich greenies buffet grease soda pop beer tobacco beer grease hot dogs beer amino acids vitamins ginseng Dove bar bag of M&Ms chocolate dark chocolate chocolate chocolate best food nature ever contributed to our diet cacao "food of the gods"
Reader Bruce sent us this beauty from Richard Griffin's latest mailbag.
Let's start with the letter to Richard, sent by Casey in Vancouver: I found the outpouring of support for Reed Johnson in last week's mailbag to be somewhat laughable. Fans seem to think that Johnson is the superior player simply because he has a superior throwing arm...I am more interested in another stat, runs. According to baseball-reference.com the 162 game average for Reed Johnson is 85 runs scored. For Shannon Stewart the number is 102...if history tells us anything Stewart would almost certainly get 10-20 more runs in a season than Johnson would. Do you seriously think that Johnson's arm would save the Jays more than 10-20 runs in year?
We're all thinking roughly the same thing, right? Casey kind of cherry-picked his stats, and using runs alone as an offensive stat really doesn't do much for his case. The whole math of the situation doesn't really work; there's like 400 other variables that he's ignoring in this equation. And, of course, why does someone in Vancouver care about the Blue Jays?
Oh, Canada. You motherfuckers.
I'm hoping we can all at least agree at this point that Casey's use of stats leaves something to be desired. Maybe we should all pitch in and get him a subscription to BP? No? How about an Icelandic Buckless Belt?
Anyway, let's see how Richard Griffin responds to Casey's question. I find the general attitude of seamheads and stat geeks like yourself towards real, human, flesh and blood players that don’t measure up to your computer-generated ideals to be sad.
Holy dick!
Seamheads and stat geeks like Casey? The guy who...wait -- say that again? I find the general attitude of seamheads and stat geeks like yourself towards real, human, flesh and blood players that don’t measure up to your computer-generated ideals to be sad.
That's what I thought you said! Yay! Richard Griffin's crazy!
Do yourselves a favor: go back and re-read Griffin's opening remark, but in your mind, pretend that it's being read by Col. Nathan Jessup from "A Few Good Men." I think you'll be happy with the results.
The so-called outpouring of love towards Reed Johnson from fans and from this mailbag last week has nothing to do with Reed’s throwing arm or the fact that some statistical proof can be generated from a website that shows Shannon Stewart capable of producing 17 more runs than Johnson in a 162-game season. It has to do with the fact of dealing with a decent human being that has not been treated with the same respect he has shown the game he has chosen as his profession.
A truly staggering amount of crazy, packed into one sentence. I like "generated from a website," as if baseball-reference.com is just making stuff up.
And, again: "It has to do with the fact of dealing with a decent human being..."
Interesting piece of trivia: Richard Griffin composes his mailbag responses by painstakingly writing tiny words on the sides of strands of fettuccine, using the the tip of a guitar string dipped in ink. He then boils the fettuccine, throws it against the wall, and lets the pieces fall to the floor. The order of the words in his responses is determined by the order in which the strings of pasta fall. "fact...of...dealing...with...a...decent...mmm!"
Griffin follows this up with some weird anecdotal shit that's supposed to make us think that Reed Johnson somehow got dicked over by the Blue Jays, which is totally possible but sort of boring. And then, more pasta!
I don’t blame you for your immaturity. It’s easy for someone on the outside looking in to disregard the humanity of players. But it’s difficult for someone that has been in the major-league game for 35 years to do the same.
Casey gets attacked for being immature? Man alive. Disregarding the humanity of players?
Just to sum up, this is apparently where we're at in the year 2008. It doesn't really matter where you fall on the Joe Morgan / Bill James spectrum. If you so much as use any numbers to defend your argument, then it's safe to say that you have a total disregard for the humanity of players.
Just making sure we all understand the ground rules. There will never be any apologies from my part for caring about players as human beings, no matter how flawed their skills may seem when run through a computer.
Reader Eli points us to this dank little nugget from Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times:
Felix Pie: His biggest accomplishment of the spring is hitting two home runs, which is fine. But after having it pounded into his head for years to play the little-man's game, it's not the kind of skill he needs to show to be of any use to the team.
Got that, kids? Homers = no use. He actually said that! If you're small, stay small, and do small things. Don't try to hit home runs. Hasn't it been pounded into your head for years to play the little-man's game?!
I like to think that Wittenmyer prefers the novel version of The Natural over the movie. Not because it's better, but because Hobbs strikes out at the end, instead of hitting a useless home run. "At least Malamud knew how to write a good Hollywood ending," he says to himself, every time he finishes re-reading the last page, eyes welling up with tears of joy.
Gordon also plays in a fantasy league where home runs are worth negative four hundred thousand points. His list of top 3 useless players of all time? Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, and Sadaharu Oh. (Interesting that he would include Oh; I guess you have to give him some credit for non-xenophobia-ness.) In one of his most time-consuming efforts, Wittenmyer has painstakingly re-edited his VHS copy of Major League so that Willie Mays Hayes does ten pushups everytime he hits a home run.
His nickname for Harold Reynolds (stay with me now) is "4-3", since, in his mind, grounding out to second base is the real "HR." For this same reason, he correctly-by-way-of-incorrectly refers to groundouts to second as "rally killers."
In hindsight, I kind of regret writing that last part, but it's too late now to hit the delete button or anything.
Hey, everybody, look! Pie taters = food metaphor!!
We salute you, Brian. Here's hoping that one day, historians will think of you as the Dick Fosbury of baseball. I know I do. Then again, I have a very rare and specific disease which prevents me from thinking of modern baseball players in any terms other than legends of track and field.
Anyway, did you guys see Sergei Bubka hit his third Grapefruit League tater today? That kid can flat out rake.
If we're getting super liberal, any mention of the Grapefruit or Cactus League should qualify as well, right? Look, guys. I just want to live in a world where every FJM post has a "food metaphors" label. Is that so much to ask?
Larry "Hungry" Dobrow Fills Our Bellies With Nutritious Food Metaphors
Meet Hungry Dobrow, our new favorite food metaphor chef and very possibly the near-pinnacle of stale sportswritingmanship. His first sentences:
Finally, some consummation in the Johan Santana derby. My God, it's like finally being allowed to eat after staring at the cold-cuts spread for 11 hours.
Sex metaphor, other sport metaphor, food metaphor!
I was bullish on the Mets' chances before they grabbed Johan for 55 cents on the dollar. Now, I'm double-bullish, with butterscotch and a cherry on top.
Animal/financial metaphor, straight financial metaphor, weird metaphor, food metaphor! How about some intangible buzzwords? I know the Phillies still have the "we-done-did-it!" swagger in their step.... Just book my ticket for any town where Santana leads off a three-game series.
* Game 1: Johan and his swagger.
Who's "hungry" for some cliches?
...vaulting the Mets past the Diamondbacks, Cubs and the rest of the unwashed masses... ...major metropolitan areas with a massive media presence offer more in the way of marketing opportunities than smaller burgs; and that grass is, indeed, green...
Now a plain ol' typo! Poor Mr. Smith simply had the back [sic] luck to have come along at the precise moment that the Bronx boys developed a backbone.
Gonna professionally throw the word "retard" professionally into your professional article?
He plays for the Yankees. "Dealing with mouthy, delusional retards" is part of his job description.
Yes!
Gonna trot out the tired truism that playing in New York is like playing under a huge... The pressure of being tagged as the guy who coulda/shoulda been traded for Johan Santana is no more or less suffocating than the pressure of performing day-in, day-out under the harsh New York spotlight.
...spotlight, correct!
Okay, how about you finish us off with some old-fashioned flip-flopping? You know, like a pancake! Or a fried egg! Or a salmon (also edible)!!! Twins GM Bill Smith isn't the boob he's being made out to be... Hell no, I wouldn't have done that deal if I were Smith... Poor Mr. Smith simply had the back [sic] luck to have come along at the precise moment that the Bronx boys developed a backbone... Unless at least two of the four prospects become legit contributors or Santana blows out his arm within the next nine months, Smith goes down in history as That Guy Who Traded The Great Johan Santana And Only Got A Few Warm Bodies In Return...
One more time:
Hell no, I wouldn't have done that deal if I were Smith. Come on. Be serious.
Mr. Hungry, sir, well done. Nothing egregious here. Just a bountiful muffin basket full of mediocrity! Bon appetit!
Does the statistic "RBIs per 100 at-bats" really measure how valuable a hitter is? You have cited that stat in at least two stories comparing Brian Schneider to Paul Lo Duca.
Schneider is a strong defensive catcher, and a below-average hitter. The RBI as a stat is not nearly as telling about a player's ability to be a productive hitter as are on-base percentage, slugging percentage, home runs, extra-base hits and even the vastly overrated batting average stat. I just feel that citing that statistic adds little, and is somewhat insulting to students of the game. -- James K., no hometown given
Good question, James. And more restrained than we stat-minded basement dwellers usually are. Very well done. Who can argue with such logic?
Oh. Marty Noble can.
I beg to differ, and I guess I'm obligated to explain my use of RBIs per 100 at-bats because yours is one nine [sic] e-mails I've received that have questioned it. To me, it is a fundamental and quite legitimate means of measuring run production.
Obvious thing:
Player A and Player B both have 500 AB. Both have 65 RBI. Player A and Player B are the same, in terms of run production, right? Wrong! You fell into my trap. I am a diabolical genius who totally just outsmarted you so bad.
Because what you don't know is that Player A hits clean-up for the Awesome City Crushers, and the three guys in front of him all have .950 OBPs, so in his 500 AB he had like 1450 guys on base and only drove in 65. He struck out like 400 times, never walked, and generally acted like a sullen dick. He is terrible. The only reason he is hitting clean-up is that his dad owns the team. It's totally unfair.
Player B hit lead-off for the North Suckington Suck-Bears. He was an excellent baseball player who walked all the time and hit like .450 with a .700 OBP, but in his 500 AB, his stupid sucky teammates had only gotten on base 20 times, total, in front of him, and he was so good he drove all of them, and also hit 45 solo bombs. (Why was he batting leadoff, am I right? Maybe it's because his manager saw that the Cubs were hitting Soriano leadoff and followed suit.)
Anyway, here's the undeniably true thing: Player B is better than Player A. Player B will create more runs than Player A 10 seasons out of 10, assuming their seasons were not total flukes.
Now here's something that will blow your mind. Player A is Mickey Mantle. Player B is Dustin Pedroia!!!!!!
(Just kidding. I made them up.)
Computers have contributed to a current glut of statistics that, to a degree, distort the picture. We have so many now that we lose focus on what is most important. The objective of the game is to win, and to win a team must outscore its opponent. Nothing, therefore, is more important than runs -- both producing and preventing them.
Wow. I am being taught a very valuable lesson here. Color me: chagrined. No -- ashamed. In all of my stat-mongering, I forgot that the idea of baseball is to win. I further forgot that in order to win, a team must outscore its opponent. Mary Noble's condescending spoonful of proudly provincial bullshit has jolted my RobotBrain™ back to earthly reality. Thank you, sir. Or, as my people say,
Runs and RBI totals provide insufficient information because neither tells us how many opportunities a player has had to produce. And in the case of catchers, who are unlikely to play every day, the number of opportunities helps us understand how they produce.
What's amazing is that he acknowledges a problem with RBI here. He even goes so far as to say that the problem is that RBI as a raw stat doesn't work because it ignores RBI as a percentage of RBI opportunities. Then explains his method of using RBI, which does little or nothing to fix the problem. It's like saying, "Throwing money into your toilet is bad, because if you throw money in your toilet, you won't be able to use it to buy food, or furniture. Instead, you should set it on fire, and toss the ashes into the toilet. That way, the toilet won't clog."
Knowing the potential rates of production affords us a better sense of what a player does, particularly if the rates are compared, as they were in the two instances you cited.
RBIs per 100 at-bats measures run production as ERA -- earned runs per nine innings -- measures pitching. It's a quite legitimate means of determining who does what.
Last year, Lo Duca had 487 plate appearances, and Schneider had 477. Pretty damn close. Given this fact, RBI/100 AB is essentially exactly the same thing as just asking "who had more RBI?" (Plus, you should use PA instead of AB, probably, since AB don't count walks.) If the difference were huge -- like 100 or more PA -- it might shed a little more light on the subject. But 10 PA? Two games?
What matters more is -- obviously -- how many guys were on base when they got their PA, and how successful they were driving them in. Schneider had 331 guys on base in his 477 PA. Lo Duca had 307. So Lo Duca drove in the same number of guys, in almost exactly the same number of PA, but there were 24 fewer guys on base for him. Now, 24 isn't a ton, but it's something, and the only thing a rational, non-condescending person could possibly conclude is that Lo Duca was more efficient in terms of driving in runs last year than Schneider was.
Now, this isn't the be-all, end-all of a batter's worth. Clearly, OBP, SLG, and myriad other things should be checked out. But Noble concerns himself solely with RBI, so that's what we're doing, here, on our Saturday, is looking through BP's sortable stats to determine that Lo Duca drove in runs at a higher rate last year than Schneider. (He also had a higher VORP -- 9.2 to 2.4.)
I'm too lazy to do this for the last three years, but it actually doesn't matter. It's the methodology I object to. Sorry -- mis-typed. It's the methodology logic objects to.
That Lo Duca might have had a higher on-base percentage or slugging percentage means less to me than the number of runs he produced. The next time a team wins a game because it produced a higher on-base mark and scored fewer runs than its opponent, please alert me.
This is hard-core boneheaded. The more guys are on base, the more chances they have to score. That can't be hard to grasp. Why fight it?
OBP, OPS, et al, are the ingredients in the recipe for offense. Runs are the meal.
"Food metaphors" label? Today is your lucky day.
Next question for Marty?
C'mon, Marty. Jerry Koosman must be considered for the Hall of Fame, given what we are witnessing today. He must be considered.
-- Ray, Matawan, N.J.
Must he, Ray? Must he really? A .500 pitcher with a 110 ERA+? With a 1.26 WHIP and barely a 2/1 K/BB ratio? Must he be?
I'm not quite sure if you're referring to something specific that I've written about Koosman or just making a general comment. I wish there were a place for Koosman in the Hall. He's a personal favorite. When he was healthy, he was as effective as almost any Hall of Fame pitcher and nastier than most of them. [...]
This bold claim might -- might -- be defensible in 1968, 1969, and 1976. I guess he wasn't healthy in any of the 16 other seasons.
Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax and Morris are popular answers to the question, "Which pitcher would you choose to start a must-win game?" Koosman wouldn't be a bad choice, either.
Homework assignment: name 100 pitchers since 1960 you would rather have start a big game then Jerry Koosman. (Don't really. Or if you do, don't send them to me. Print them out and post them on your wall, and look at them every day and say to yourself, "I am so happy Jerry Koosman is not in the Hall of Fame." And then say to yourself, "No one should ever use 'Who would I want to start a big game?' as a criterion for Hall of Fame induction." And then say to yourself, "I can't believe I spent an hour making this list. I should read more."
At least Noble doesn't actually say Koosman belongs in the HOF. That's something, I guess.
How can Aaron Heilman not be given a real shot as starter? He pitched a one-hitter. At least it'll stop him from wondering. And if it works? Remember, what good is relief if you're down by six or seven runs all the time? -- Charles F., Brooklyn, N.Y.
That one-hitter didn't make Heilman a lock to produce a 15-victory season as a starter. And making him a starter would affect one game in five. Losing him as a reliever might affect three or four games in 10. Chances are Heilman working as a starter wouldn't prevent being "down by six or seven runs all the time."
Noble's solution: make every pitcher a reliever. That way, they all get to affect the most games.
Not sure if you know this or not but you're binary code translates to THANkyou. "Thank you" would be: 0101010011010001100001110111011010110010000011110010110111101110101.
But, okay, I'll be baited. Because the bait is a delicious juicy worm of an article about Boston vs. New York, pierced on the lure of an expert sportsman who looks like this:
I've missed you old buddy. Welcome back. How does Boston compare to N.Y.? It doesn’t
Big Apple superior to Boston in nightlife, atmosphere, and especially sports
Let me begin by agreeing, agreeing, and saying: "Fuck the heck?" Among even the most ardent supporters of Boston, MA you will find few who think it is a "better" city than New York. New York is much larger, has many more people and things, and stays open very late. New York is awesome. Boston is also awesome, but in a smaller, more ornery way.
This is why I believe that this is one of those fun sports journalism articles designed to rile people up, get them screaming and yelling on the comment boards, make them send the link of the article to their buddy Weebs in Rehoboth with a note that says "Look at this fucking guy who thinks Boston sucks!" and drive traffic to the site. It's pretty transparently concocted to drive Boston fans nuts. Having said that, and knowing that I am 100% on to you, HatGuy, let me now spend two hours of my life reprinting and dissecting it. Then you'll see who's boss!
Beantown? That’s it? Beantown?
There may be a city with a worse nickname somewhere, although I’m not sure what it could possibly be. Is there a Phlegmville out there?
Well, thanks to the fine people at this site, I can offer you some options:
Annapolis, Maryland is "Crabtown." That's pretty bad. Beaver, OK -- already a terrible name for a place -- proudly self-identifies as "The Cow Chip Throwing Capital of the World." Well done. Birmingham, AL can't even really distinguish itself, when it announces that it's "The Pittsburgh of the South." Lyons, KS, about 30 miles due north of me here in Partridge, advertises itself as "The Unexpected Pleasure." Dubious, if you've ever been to Lyons. Santa Rosa, NM boasts that it's "The SCUBA-Diving Capital of New Mexico," which: isn't NM a land-locked desert? Noxubee County, Mississippi, waves on its flag: "Home of the Dancing Rabbit Festival and Magnolia Pilgrimage," next to which "Beantown" looks pretty effing good.
Boston also has: The Athens of America, The City of Kind Hearts, The Cradle of Liberty, The Hub of the Universe, and Puritan City, which are all pretty good.
On the one hand, you got Beantown. On the other, you got the Big Apple, Gotham, the City that Never Sleeps. Did Sinatra ever sing a song about Boston? Did anybody? Even the old rock group “Boston” never sang a song about Boston.
I don't love "The Big Apple," particularly, though it did lead to a truly excellent moment in rock music history when Mick Jagger exhorted: Go ahead / Bite the Big Apple / Don't mind the maggots. Gotham is okay, the City that Never Sleeps is wonderful. As for Sinatra, no, I don't believe he did ever sing about Boston. Though the band Boston certainly did. They even mention Hyannis, which is like Sinatra adding a line to "New York, New York" about how fun it is to hang out in Amagansett.
What were we talking about? Oh right -- nothing.
No wonder Boston has such an inferiority complex. Compared to New York, it really is inferior.
Again, in terms of cities qua cities, not a lot of dissent here. Not proving anything. Not getting anyone riled up. New York City, population: 8.2 million or so, the cultural, economic, and all-night society capital of the country/world, is "superior" to Boston, small/ancient/ provincial whaling town, population 600,000+. You really know how to take a controversial position.
This is like saying: "Benin? Fuck that. America is the superior country."
You want to put Boston in a good light, pick a comparable town. Like Cleveland. Or Sacramento. Maybe Minneapolis.
This is probably a good idea, actually. Comparable cities and climates (except Sacramento). I think Boston rates pretty favorably here, though the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra is among the finest in the world, and Minneapolis has an excellent music scene. Anyway, all fine cities, all better comps for Beantown than New York, which should only be compared to like London, Paris, Rome, Tokyo...places like that.
Now let's get to the really stupid part: sports.
OK, Boston’s won two World Series in the past four seasons and the Foxborough Patriots have won three of the past six Super Bowls. Even a New Yorker will admit that’s a nice little run. But can we have a little perspective here?
Most days of my life recently have included someone -- friend or new acquaintance -- saying some version of this to me: "Wow -- life is pretty good for you right now." And they are right, and they are not talking about my recent promotion to Associate District Director of Claims Oversight here at Fremulon Ins., Inc. What they are talking about is my love of New England-based sports franchises. And they are saying it because -- if you don't closely follow sports but somehow closely follow this blog -- the NE Patriots are about to play in their fourth Super Bowl in seven years, and feature a quarterback who is somehow handsomer at the end of each game than he was at the beginning; the Boston Red Sox have won two of the last four World Serieses; the Boston Celtics are 33-6; and also there is a hockey team.
That's a pretty amazing run, by any city's standards.
And since we are pretty clearly heading for a HatGuy history lesson, allow me to add for the record that the Yankees haven't won a World Series since 2000; the Giants are currently in the Super Bowl (the ostensible point of this article, I guess) but haven't generally been that good in the last several years; the Jets are the Jets; the Mets are the Mets (and were doubly the Mets last year); the Knicks, one suspects, are about to be disbanded after what will most likely be some kind of like RICO-style Federal intervention; and also there are two hockey teams.
In the first decade of this young century, there can be absolutely no question that Boston is the all-sports center of the universe. That's not fanboyism. That's just the situation. Soon, the ride will end, and maybe New York, or Dallas, or San Francisco, or Atlanta will emerge. But 2000-2008, so far, taking all sports into consideration, it's Boston, and anyone who says differently is stubborn or weird or looking for a scrap. Or HatGuy.
The Yankees won the World Series five straight years from 1949-53 and went to the World Series in 10 of 11 seasons. More recently, they won three straight and four out of five. The Red Sox have, what, six titles? Call me when you get to 26, which is what the Yankees have, and then I’ll start adding in all the titles won by the Giants, Dodgers and Mets and you can slink back up I-95 and comfort yourselves with a nice, warm pot of beans.
As far as baiting goes, this is pretty tepid stuff. My blood can boil, friends, and right now I'm maybe at like 98.7 or so. History doesn't concern me so much. England ruled the world for hundreds of years, but I'd invest in China right now over the UK if given the choice, no matter how many pro-Henry IV essays you might churn out. It also doesn't help your case so much when you point out that New York has had four professional baseball franchises, since it only highlights how absurd the comparison is between the two cities. (You think the Peruvian army is awesome? How about I send the US Marines, Navy, Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, and various state militias! Then we'll see how good Peru's army is!)
I’ll grant you that nobody has ever dominated any sport the way the old Celtics did back when the NBA wasn’t important enough to get its playoff games broadcast nationally. And the Bruins were a pretty good hockey team back when the Knicks, which used to be a basketball team, were also pretty good.
Thank you for acknowledging that the Celtics (still) have the most NBA titles. Bill Russell has more rings than fingers to put them on.
But what have you guys really done? Three football titles, which matches the three that the Giants and Jets have won — not counting pre-Super Bowl championships, of which the Giants have four.
What have you guys done? Three football titles, which is barely the same number as these two teams have when added together! Pathetic.
A couple of World Series wins after 86 years of nothing, zip, nada.
Yes, those were bad, dark days. Fortunately, they are over now, and the team has now won two of the last four. So things are looking up, I'd say.
A basketball team that could win a title again — 22 years after its last one. In the immortal words of former Net Derrick Coleman, whoop-de-damn-do.
It will be its seventeenth, if it happens. Why are you allowed to cite Yankee championships of the 1940's, Jet championships of the 60's, and Giant championships of the 80's, but all previous Celtics championships are disregarded with a pithy Derrick Coleman rebuff? As Mark Eaton once said, "What the fuck is your point?"
And when you get done feeling good about all of that, what’s left? New York has Broadway and Wall Street and Fashion Avenue and Harlem and Spanish Harlem and more museums than you can shake a palette knife at. Boston has, well, I’m not sure what it has. I was going to say Harvard and M.I.T., but those aren’t really in Boston; they’re across the river in Cambridge.
Burned! Boston, you got burned. Hard. That is a hard burn, man. Wow. That is some cold, cold shit right there. Damn! Burned to a crispy carbony ash. Bam. Shut down. Down for the count. TKO, HatGuy.
HatGuy is schizophrenically having the kind of argument two five year-olds might have about their dads.
"My dad has won a lot of sports championships recently." "...Well...but...my dad has a Porsche." "What does that have to do with sports championships?" "...My house is bigger."
Anyway, even if we give Boston Harvard, when all of those movers and shakers take delivery of their sheepskins and go out into the great world, they don’t stay in Boston. They go to New York or Washington or somewhere else important.
Some of them stay in Boston. But yes, many of them do leave, so they can be in much bigger cities with more cultural, political, and economic advantages, like New York. You are so totally proving an awesome point!
Now, it may be that Boston has charms that I haven’t seen during my many visits to that town. And given the condition of the local streets, I never will see them.
Have you ever tried to get anywhere in Boston? There’s not a single 90-degree intersection in the entire city. And the next time someone stops for a red light will be the first.
New York -- and I say this having lived for several years in both places -- is a far more dangerous town for pedestrians. This might be due to the fact that it has 7.6 million more people, and people walk a lot more. I would put Boston navigation on the far end of the bell curve for difficulty, yes, but you really haven't seen difficult until you emerge drunkenly from a bar deep in the West Village at 4:18 AM and try to find Seventh Avenue.
OK, so there are subways, but they close down at night. What good is that?
It's not terrible. For a city of its size, Boston's T system is pretty clean, safe, and effective. And not surprising that New York's subways remain in operation for more hours, given, again, the 18.4 million person/tax base advantage they service.
Speaking of subways, have you ever wondered why in New York the subways are identified by letters and numbers, while in Boston they go by colors? Could it be that when they built their systems, people in New York could actually read and count? Just asking.
Am I most upset by (a) how bad a joke this is, (b) how lame a dig it is, (c) how clumsily it is presented, (d) how transparent an attempt to get Bostonites angry it is, or (e) that he ended it with "Just asking," as if that's like the final twist of the knife after this devastating indictment of Eastern Massachusetts's intelligence level? Oh -- or (f) the fact that Boston is famously like hyper-literate, rendering the whole dumb gambit nonsensical, to go along with lame and sad?
I'll say: (a).
I’ll grant that Boston was a great city as recently as 220 years ago. And while New York was coddling Tories because that’s where the money was, Boston was off firing the shot heard round the world and starting the Revolution. (Of course, once Boston started it and fought a battle or two, it shipped the whole thing off to New York, New Jersey and Philly and finally to the Carolinas and Virginia and took the rest of the war off.) Back then, the only city with as much cachet as Boston was Philadelphia.
Can anyone effing believe how long an article this is?
But when it came time to choose a capital for the newly formed United States, George Washington rode up to New York City. And when the Founding Fathers were looking for a place to put the National Treasure, they put that in New York, too — or was that just a movie?
I honestly wonder whether HatGuy knows that the U.S. Capital is currently not New York.
Anyway, it’s been a while since the days when if you said “Adams,” people didn’t automatically think of beer. Boston’s a fine little town, one that I have had many wonderful times in. But it ain’t New York, not in sports and not in anything else.
No, it is not New York in many many aspects. But it is far superior to New York in sports, 2000-present. And you are a poor flame-fanner.
I admit it’s not perfect in New York. We do have to put up with Donald Trump, and Rudy Giuliani refuses to shut up and go talk family values with his third wife.
Peter gets a gold star for being the first to point out that HatGuy's dig about the Pats' home town actually being Foxborough is DoubleDumb, because (a) they are called the New England Patriots, and Foxborough is in New England, and (b) you can't nail them for not "counting" as a Boston franchise in a pointless Boston-NY article because both NY NFL teams play in New Jersey.
I hyperbolically set the population of NYC at 19 million, but it was (understandably) confusing people, so I have changed the figured to accurately reflect the 2005 census.
Blue Hole Santa Rosa�s Blue Hole is an 81-foot-deep artesian well bordered by a ring of sandstone featuring azure waters in a soda bottle-shaped configuration.
The well was once used as a fish hatchery, but it now serves as a dive-training and recreational site for those with water on their minds.
Because the water has a stable temperature of 61 degrees F, you can dive here year-round (winter is the busiest season) with just a quarter-inch wetsuit as thermal protection. Down in the well, the scenery is surreal.
The cylindrical sides are as wide as 130 feet in places, and the gray rock walls are covered with a thin film of algae. The water itself is a deep, clear blue, with visibility up to 80 feet. A metal grate covers the opening to the spring, which feeds the well with a flow of 3,000 gallons of water per minute. The Santa Rosa Dive Center is open on weekends to rent gear and provide air fills. The shop opens midweek only by appointment for certified divers and groups.
I take no issue with your picking apart of Hat-Huy's article, but me being a Mississippi boy, I must take issue of making fun of Neshoba County and Dancing Rabbit. Remember, that is where the Choctaw Indian Reservation is located and Dancing Rabbit Country Club features two Tom Fazio designed courses. One of those courses was named in Golf Digest and Golf Magazine as one of the top 100 places to play in the country.
Yeah, there's Silver Star and Golden Moon Casinos as well. And it's really nice, come on down from Partridge and let's play a few holes and gamble some.
Let's also note that the Giants, pre-Super Bowl, lost in the Championship game a whopping eleven times. So those four victories kind of look embarrassing in retrospect.
What disturbs me about the Hall of Fame is that it appears to have morphed into a numbers honor. Benchmarks have been set for automatic entry: 3,000 hits, 500 homers, and 300 wins. Blogs allow more analysis from the world of sabermetrics. Pure statistical breakdowns are here to stay in baseball front offices. And they have earned their place. But the view here is their role in the Hall-of-Fame voting should be limited to clarifying one’s achievements, not defining the achievement.
I'm going to go ahead and agree with this. The Hall of Fame should not be just about numbers. But it should kind of be about numbers, right? Because, you know...they're numbers. They tell us things. In fact, it's numbers that should define a player's achievements, and anecdotal reporting that should clarify and elaborate on the numbers. So: you are exactly wrong, Ted Robinson.
Players must only be compared against their peers and within their eras. No number can be truly compared across generations for reasons so obvious they need not be offered here.
Except that there is ERA+. And OPS+, EqA+, and WARP3. And others. So, the reasons aren't so obvious to me.
If a deep study is needed to buttress a player’s case, it is most likely an unworthy argument.
First of all, nice use of "buttress," which is a fancy word that makes people sound smart. Second of all, saying that studying is lame is usually reserved for dumb jocks in John Hughes movies. So, good work aligning yourself with them.
Bottom line: the Hall of Fame is about quality, not quantity.
Why are these things mutually exclusive? Why not say: The Hall of Fame is about quality and quantity? What bad thing would happen if someone wrote that? Hell, I just wrote it and I seem to be -- my eyes!!! No!!! What is happening?!?!?!?1/?!?
Leonard Koppett, the late New York sportswriter who has been honored by the baseball and basketball Halls of Fame, told me repeatedly that his Hall-of-Fame voting standard was simple: if he had to think about the player’s candidacy, then the vote was no. To Leonard, a Hall of Famer was obvious.
Excellent. A new criterion for HOF induction: induce the right answer in a game of word association with Leonard Koppett.
I have immense respect for the passion displayed by those who analyze baseball in new ways.They often present fresh and compelling arguments on Hall of Fame candidates, Rob Neyer being the best of the group. But I hold firmly that my 22 years of traveling with MLB teams provided the best perspectives and judgments on players.
Quick diversion coming up.
Every beat writer/broadcaster has had the greatest education baseball can provide -- the daily intimacy through which we learn about the unique rhythms of the game, the people who play it, and what makes them succeed or fail. Dispassionate analysis can support but never replace or supersede that education. Is there emotion and subjectivity in such an approach? Most likely, but that’s a price well paid in determining an honor so important.
Some diversionary things:
This may neither be here nor there. But. It is, in my opinion, the utter lack of objectivity amongst the entire BBWAA that led to the biggest scandal in pro sports in decades -- widespread, in-plain-air doping amongst a significant portion of the players' union -- going unreported for more than a decade. Emotion and subjectivity are nice if you're you, Ted, and you get to hang out with baseball players who call you "Teddy" or "Slim" or "Thunder Boner" or something. But if you're me, and you rely on the BBWAA for news, information, and judgments about a sport you love, then emotion and subjectivity suck ass.
They are not charming or cool or things to be celebrated and valued. They are a shitty trump card that writers use to tell the world that you just don't understand. You had to be there. I know stuff you don't. You can look at all the numbers you want, but guess what, computer boy. I sat at Jack Morris's feet when he was soaking in the whirlpool before game 7 of the Series and held a plastic tobacco-juice cup to his mouth. And I asked him, "Jack, how do you feel?" And he leaned over and spat into the cup, and some of the juice got on my hand and shirt and stuff, and that juice smelled like...victory. And I stared into his eyes, and he had a look about him that said: I'm gonna throw a shutout. And that: that is the only piece of information I need to know that Jack Morris is a Hall of Famer.
So fuck you, guy who didn't do that.
(My guess is, he didn't hear the question, and the look in his eye was, "Why is this dude sitting so close to me when I'm naked?)
I like subjectivity and emotion. I am a Red Sox fan, and when I watch Red Sox games I get pretty effing subjective and emotional. Before 2004, I often accused Major League Baseball of planning and enacting a conspiracy to keep the Red Sox from winning a World Series -- a conspiracy that included the umpires' union, stadium construction firms, Fox TV, Curt Gowdy, whoever invented the Weather Machine that pushed Bucky Dent's ball over the Monster in 1978, and thousands of others, reaching into the upper tiers of our nation's government. Once, during a Sox-Yankees playoff game in 1999, I emotionally subjectified a glass duck through the window of my apartment. But when it comes to things like permanent enshrinement in the Hall of Fame, can't we tone down the emotional subjectivity? Can't the basis for enshrinement be career numbers, with emotional subjectivity serving as the final dash of icing on top of the delicious objective cake?
No? Okay. Keep going.
With that background, Tuesday can bring legitimacy to the electorate if Goose Gossage and Jack Morris are voted in to the Hall of Fame.
Uh oh.
Let me start by saying I have never met Gossage but he is being dealt a great wrong by not being in the Hall of Fame.
So: recap:
A. You can't really know whether someone is worthy of the Hall of Fame unless you cover baseball and travel with the teams...unless you hang out with the players during their careers...unless you lick the sweat off their foreheads after a game...unless you personally hand-wash their undershirts, deeply breathing in the pungent fumes left by their dirty, subjective bodies. That's the only way you can truly know a man well enough to determine whether he is a Hall of Famer.
B. I have never met Goose Gossage, but he is definitely a Hall of Famer.
Dennis Eckersley and Bruce Sutter belong, but so does Gossage -- the most feared reliever since the closer role developed.
Every time someone makes an argument about a player by saying that player was the "most feared," I barf a little on myself.
Here’s what I know. In 1980, I stood just outside the Oakland dugout as Gossage entered in the ninth inning with a one-run lead. Billy Martin, the A’s manager, turned to summon pinch-hitters but he couldn’t find any. The lefty hitters, most likely to be drafted, had scattered. No one wanted to face Gossage in his prime. Not one batter was anywhere near the bat rack. Martin’s coaches had to round up the available men. I have never seen a similar moment.
I'm calling bullshit here. When a team's closer comes in for the ninth, do you often find tons of guys lingering around the bat rack hoping to get a chance to jump into the game cold against a (usually) really good pitcher? That's a common sight in baseball? And what were the other circumstances? Had one of the A's pitchers hit a Yankee the day before? Was Gossage drunk?
Now, obviously, I wasn't there. Gossage was an awesome pitcher, and guys fear awesome pitchers with fu manchus. But: I just don't think the entire team was cowering under the bench and fainting like a bunch of Southern belles when Sherman's armies closed on Atlanta.
Here's where things get really good.
I spent many hours with Morris during the 1991 season and developed an intense admiration for his pitching as you’ll read below.
I was pleasantly stunned to read a glowing endorsement for Morris in the Sunday New York Times. All the sensible reasons that Morris should already be an inductee were presented. Simply, he was the best pitcher of his time (this seems to surprise some but wins and losses are the prime currency of baseball and Morris was the winningest pitcher of his full decade, the 1980s).
1. If he was the best pitcher of his time, why didn't the hallowed BBWAA -- the selfsame organization you seem to hold in such high esteem because they travel with the players -- ever vote him the best pitcher in his league? Ever? Once?
2. For that matter, why didn't they ever vote him second-best?
3. Morris started pitching in 1977. There were a lot of good pitchers hanging around at that time. Ron Guidry was pretty good in 1978. Bret Saberhagen debuted in 1984. Roger Clemens enters stage left in 1984 and kicks things into high gear in 1986. Maddux didn't show up until 1988, really, and Jim Palmer's last good year was 1982. So, Morris just happened to show up at the right time -- hitting his stride at the age of 25 in 1980 -- to have a very good 1980-1989.
He (-slash his team's batters and relief pitchers) won 162 games in the 1980s. Excellent job. Is your old buddy Jim Kaat a Hall of Famer, Ted? Because from 1966-1975 he won 162 games. That's a decade. From 1962 to 1971 he won 159. That's also a decade. Why aren't we hearing about how Jim Kaat won a ton of games from 1966-1975? Oh -- right. Because completely randomly, 1966-1975 isn't a stupidly arbitrary "clean decade."
Saying that Jack Morris should be in the Hall of Fame because he won the most games in the 1980s is like saying that lots of crazy shit is going to happen the second the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 31, 1999. Because it's the year 2000!! A round number!!! That is significant!!!!!
He was a good pitcher who won a lot of games = okay argument.
Those games are more meaningful as a group because they occurred during years that begin with 198 = irrelevant irrelevant irrelevant stupid stupid come on people we're better than this.
And his postseason exploits in a culture that reveres winners and humbles the runner-up (check on that with Fran Tarkenton, Bud Grant, Jim Kelly or Marv Levy) should be indisputable.
Postseason:
7-4 with a 3.80 ERA overall. 64 Ks and 32 BB in 92.1 innings. Not bad. 3-2 with a 4.87 ERA in LCS play. 0-1 with a 6.57 in the 1992 ALCS in 2 starts. (But he made up for it in the World Series, though, when he went 0-2 with an 8.44 ERA in two starts.)
Jack Morris pitched really really well in several postseason games, including one truly great 10-inning outing. But he also pitched crappily in several postseason games. His postseason exploits, therefore, are eminently disputable.
(Also, Fran Tarkenton, Bud Grant, Jim Kelly and Marv Levy were "humbled" to the tune of: all of them are in the Football Hall of Fame. Weird choices.)
Somehow the numbers folks have dissected Morris and point to his 3.90 career ERA (3.73 if you eliminate his final two over-the-hill years)
Do you get to do that now? It's like figure skating judging? You get rid of the two worst years? Then let's also get rid of his two best years. So, subtract 42 wins and like 450 Ks from his totals. Also, a minor drop in ERA from 3.90 to 3.73, when you get rid of his two highest year totals, highlights the fact that he was pretty consistently between the mid-upper 3's and 4's over his entire career.
or his 254 wins (the benchmark factor. [sic]
Not the benchmark factor if you are a thinking human being.
([sic] is for inexplicable lack of close parens.)
I often read pieces that degrade the presence of players already inducted to inflate another’s candidacy. That tact is distasteful. If you care, just compare Morris with his peers, including those already in the Hall of Fame. In every measure of quality, Morris is a no-brainer. In measures that are more significant to the analysts (ERA, WHIP, etc.), Morris can be tainted.
So:
If you look at "every measure of quality" (or: wins, I guess) he gets in.
If you look at "measures that are more significant to the analysts" (or, by elimination, things that are not "measures of quality") he does not.
Thus: he does not.
Problem with that thinking is that Morris was the top dog on three World Series title teams. Find me a peer who matches that claim.
So, here's your plan: first, challenge me to find a man who was lucky (and skilled) enough to be on three teams that made the World Series. Hard to do, right? And then use that like a club to beat me over the head when I say that Jack Morris might not belong in the HOF.
Also, call Morris the "top dog" of the 1992 Blue Jays Postseason despite the fact that he lost both of his WS starts, including giving up 7 ER in 4.2 IP with a chance to close out the Series in Game Five.
Indisputable!!!!!
Morris wasn’t a stat man’s lover, he just won. Let’s make sure everyone has that one more time. Morris was the number one guy on three World Series winners. And he pitched one of the two greatest postseason games in history.
Bert Blyleven's career postseason #'s: 5-1, 2.47 ERA, 38/8 K/BB ratio in 47 innings. Fuck him.
And if you're going to use that one awesome game 7 to bludgeon me with a pro-vote, I will use that one stinky Game 5 to bludgeon you with my anti-vote. He gave up 7 runs in 4 2/3 innings in a clinching game! He's one of the worst choke-artists in starting pitching history. He let his team down. He blew it. He's Jean Van de Velde. He's worse than Ralph Branca. He doesn't belong in the Hall of Anything. He sucks!!!!!
(Crazy, right? It's what you're doing, only from the opposition party. So cool it.)
But here’s what I remember: late September 1991 and Minnesota is trying to clinch the AL West. The Twins are in Toronto where the Jays are looking to finish off the East. Morris was in the throes of a divorce throughout the summer. Often his mind would wander and the pain that can only be known to those with like experiences would surface. That weekend in Toronto seemed to be a time when the cumulative weight of his personal life crashed down upon Morris. Yet, on a Saturday afternoon, he calmly went to the SkyDome mound and tossed a shutout at Toronto that clinched a division tie for the Twins.
Here's what I just looked up on a computer: Morris's 105 career ERA+ ties him for 460th all-time, with (among others) Zane Smith, Denny Naegle, and Paul Byrd.
After that, Game 7 of the World Series, one month later, was no surprise. And it’s why Morris passes the Leonard Koppett test --no thought needed. He is a Hall of Famer.
Even if I afford you the opportunity to apply the excellently-reasoned Leonard Koppet Test, Jack Morris demands a ton of thought. A fucking ton. He was a very good pitcher who did some great pitching things, but cold hard indisputable facts tell us that his career just does not measure up to "no-brainer" HOFers. Greg Maddux -- no thought. Tom Seaver, Walter Johnson, Steve Carlton, Pedro Martinez, Bob Gibson -- no thought.
Jack Morris? Are you kidding me? No thought?
And by the way, you started your argument with this:
If a deep study is needed to buttress a player’s case, it is most likely an unworthy argument.
Then you talked about Jack Morris's divorce, calculated his ERA if you drop his two worst seasons, referenced Fran Tarkenton, Bud Grant, Jim Kelly and Marv Levy, and cited a game Morris pitched on September 28, 1991. This isn't a deep study?
Congratulations to Goose Gossage, an excellent pitcher who probably deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. My condolences to Jim Rice, who probably does not belong in the Hall of Fame, and was not elected. My congratulations to the BBWAA for not stretching like crazy to elect Jack Morris into the Hall of Fame. And my "Fuck the Heck?" to the one dude who voted for Todd Stottlemyre.
Because this post isn't long enough, let's go to Steven for some follow up. This is from his site (link at bottom):
According to Baseball-reference.com, there is only one game that matches Robinson's description (Gossage against the A's, 1980, 9th inning, one-run lead). The game in question took place on June 14, 1980. Gossage entered the game with two outs, runners on first and second.
I took a look at the A's roster in 1980. During that season, the A's had eight players who either batted left or switch-hit. Two of those eight were not on the roster at the time of the game in question. Five of the eight were already in the game, including Wayne Gross, a left-handed batter who was the player due up when Gossage entered. That left one player ... not quite the "lefty hitters" (plural) that Ted remembered "had scattered." No, just one guy. His name was Mike Davis.
On June 14, 1980, Mike Davis had been 21 years old for three days. Yep, if he celebrated the way many Americans do, he had his first legal drink three days before. I'll assume that Mike was already shaving ... don't want to tart up the anecdote too much. Point is, he was extremely young, especially for a major-league baseball player. He was so young, in fact, that at that point he had only compiled 30 at-bats in the majors, hitting .233 with no walks and one homerun (it would, in fact, be more than two years before he hit his second major-league homerun).
Now, let's pretend that Ted got his anecdote mostly right. OK, there weren't multiple lefty hitters crying like babies because the Goose was in town, but maybe he's right about Davis. Maybe Ted looked in the dugout and saw Mike Davis was nowhere near the bat rack. Maybe Ted is right, and Mike Davis was a little nervous about facing Gossage.
Let's pretend Ted's right. As far as I can figure, this is how Ted Robinson's thinking works. Because Goose Gossage could make a 21-year-old hitter nervous, he belongs in the Hall of Fame. Nice going, Ted!
Morris wasn’t a stat man’s lover, he just won. Let’s make sure everyone has that one more time. Morris was the number one guy on three World Series winners.
Hey, here's a funny thing:
1984 Detroit Tigers SP ERA+ 121 Dan Petry 113 Juan Berenguer 109 Jack Morris
1991 Minnesota Twins SP ERA+ 143 Kevin Tapani 134 Scott Erickson 124 Jack Morris
1992 Toronto Blue Jays SP ERA+ 156 Juan Guzman 116 Jimmy Key 102 Jack Morris and heck, David Cone pitched 8 games with a 161 ERA+ (and on the year he recorded a 128)
So let's rewrite the paragraph:
Morris wasn’t a stat man’s lover, he just won. Let’s make sure everyone has that one more time. Morris was no better than the number three guy on three World Series winners.
is hilariously mal-conceived. He means: "Morris wasn't a stat-lover's man," or "Morris is not a guy who racked up stats" or "If you're a stat lover, Morris isn't your guy." Instead, he posited that Morris was not having a gay affair with a man who loves stats.
I thought I read somewhere that Bob Welch had some of the best numbers of the 80s.
Keeping it simple (from 1980 - 1990 to offset that strike year)
Welch: 164-99 W-L, 3.18 ERA, 1584 Ks (2.13 K/BB ratio ... 6.14 K/9) ... and two WS appearances (one ring ... still mad I lost $40 over that 1990 sweep ... )
Morris: 177-137, 3.73 ERA, 1791 Ks (1.87 K / BB ratio ... 5.98 K/9) ... and a ring.
Not sure "they" have me convinced about Morris's "best pitcher of the 80s argument." And, no one's clamouring for Bob Welch's induction.
Willie writes in with something that is more important than all of this HOF nonsense:
When I first read your post entitled "The Hall of Oh Buh-rother," there was a sentence, roughly a little before halfway through the article that read: "Can't the basis for enshrinement be career numbers, with emotional subjectivity serving as the final dash of icing on top of the delicious objective cake?"
Upon reading it, I assumed you wrote that as a lame excuse for using the food metaphors tag. After all, absolutely any reason to use that label usually works. But for some reason, there was no food metaphors tag, which was obviously very disappointing. I assumed that there would be emails flooding in regarding the need for a label addition, and I didn't want to be one of the douchebags who writes in demanding that a post gets labeled, so I figured that I would just sit back and let the FJM readers do what they do.
But not only did you miss that, but I'm assuming readers did as well, since to this day, almost two weeks since that article was posted, there is still no food metaphors tag. I'm extremely disappointed in both the FJM staff and readership for overlooking this.
Now, I had no choice but to write in. I didn't want to do it, but you left me no choice. A food metaphors tag must be added.
Single-Subject Mini-Gallimaufry: Don Mattingly Edition
Hi, everyone. How are you. Good? Awesome. I'm good too. But enough small talk. I'd like to meta-discuss an email I got in some form or another from several persons who shall remain gallimaufry-nameless, after I posted this (in re: should Don Mattingly be inducted into the Hall of Fame of Baseball Players): Don Mattingly gets into the Hall of Fame, I quit. Everything. I quit everything. He is nowhere close to being in the ballpark of being in the discussion of people who might possibly begin to be considered as potential people who might someday be on a long list of people who should be considered as people who might someday be considered to one day be part of the discussion of who are the players who maybe should be thought about as potential people who might one day be considered by the Committee to Discuss People Who Should Maybe Be Thought Of As Potential Hall of Famers Someday.
I will distill the emails I got into one general email, which went something like this:
Dear Ken,
You are a douche. Mattingly is awesome. Look at this [statistical evidence that shows that Don Mattingly was awesome.] Don Mattingly is at least as good as [man who is in the Hall of Fame]. Don't you think you should apologize to Don Mattingly, his parents, me, my friends, and everyone who has ever read your blog? I do. I think your post was a poorly-baked soufflé.
And for the record I don't even care that much about Don Mattingly qua Don Mattingly -- I just wanted to point out that you are wrong.
Let me say a couple things. First of all, .tv? Get a real email address, am I right? Second, nice use of "qua," hypothetical distilled amalgam man. Third, thanks for the soufflé mention -- food metaphor tag! And fourth, here's the thing:
Don Mattingly had some excellent baseballing years. But to me, a few excellent baseballing years does not get you into the Hall of Fame. It just doesn't. You have to be one of the very very best players in the game for a very long time. You have to be extraordinary. You have to get lucky and avoid injuries, yes, but once you avoid them, you have to excel, and you have to excel for a very long time. Mattingly just didn't play well enough, long enough. He just didn't. Neither, I think, did Jim Rice. Or Albert Belle. Jesus -- go look at Albert Belle's numbers from 1992 to 1998. The guy had a 193 OPS+ one year. He had 100 XBH in a season. He was a monster. He was to Mattingly what Mattingly was to Luis Polonia. But here's the thing: he was out of baseball at 33 because of injuries. So...he doesn't quite make it.
And yes, there's Kirby Puckett. (Shows you what some high-profile postseason moments do for you.) And yes, there's also like Phil Rizzuto and people like that whose numbers stink. But in my mind, you don't judge someone's candidacy based on "Who is the worst player currently in the HOF, and is Player X better than he?" If you judge any candidate fo
