FIRE JOE MORGAN

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.

Gentle readers, welcome to heaven.

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.

Or if a Hall of Fame-bound manager were to get drunk and then drive his SUV out into the middle of an intersection and fall asleep at the wheel, I guess that would be a pretty huge deal, right? Oh, wait -- it turns out no one cares.

But there’s got to be a limit to this.

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"

Labels: embarrassment of riches, fjm heaven, food metaphors, HatGuy, liberal use of "food metaphors" label

For anyone who considers him/herself a Red Sox fan, the scene at Fenway last night was heartwarming and beautiful. Pedro Martinez, in full Mets regalia, was given a spontaneous and lengthy standing ovation by the faithful, after a video highlight package ran on the jumbotron between innings.

This was the only possible way to welcome the guy back. All he did for seven years was dominate the 'roided-up, DH-laden AL during its absolute most 'roided up and offensively-minded years, at a level that perhaps no one in history has ever dominated his league. He got the 1999 Sox team to the ALCS when Troy O'Leary was the 5-hole hitter. In Game 5 of the ALDS, unable to raise his arm above parallel-to-the-ground due to shoulder trouble, he came out of the bullpen and threw six no-hit innings against the most potent offense in years, in their home park. He threw 100 pitches, all basically side-arm. Something like 80 of those pitches were change-ups. Lofton, Vizquel, Alomar, Manny, Thome, Baines, Cordero, Fryman, Alomar...not one hit.

Earlier that year, he went to the Stadium for a crucial game against the Yankees. Chili Davis hit a solo bomb in the 2nd. Then Pedro struck out 17 Yankees and threw a one-hitter. By my recollection, he did not allow a ball to be put into play in fair territory after the fourth inning. His K/BB ratio in 2000 was 284/32. His ERA+ was 285. He was ridonkulous. He might be the best pitcher ever.

But HatGuy says: Fuck that noise.

For seven years, most of them brilliant, Pedro Martinez gave the Boston Red Sox everything he had and everything they could have wanted. He copped two Cy Young Awards, won 117 games against just 37 losses — a .760 winning percentage — and he won a game in the 2004 World Series in which the Red Sox broke their 85-year run of futility.

Considering all he’s done for Boston, there’s just one thing the Fenway faithful can possibly do when he scales the Fenway Park mound Wednesday night for the first time since chasing the free-agent bonanza to the New York Mets after the 2004 season.

They’ve got to boo him like no one not named Roger Clemens has ever been booed in Boston’s little jewel of a ballpark.

Here's a tip for HatGuy. When you are using that literary/rhetorical device where you have this long build-up in one direction, and then suddenly stop and do a 180 and instruct your audience that actually the solution is the opposite of what those facts suggest, the 180 has to be brief. For example:

Yes, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the defendant is an honorable man. He is a church-going man, with a beautiful wife and three lovely children. He is respected in the community, loved by his peers, and for the last twenty years has done an extraordinary job teaching our city's children how to read and write. But he also snuck into a wildlife reserve and raped a hippo.

So he should go to jail.

I say all this because after the endless build-up of pro-Pedro stats from HatGuy, the sentence "They’ve got to boo him like no one not named Roger Clemens has ever been booed in Boston’s little jewel of a ballpark" lacks a certain...anything. "They've got to boo him." That's the way to write that. Its own paragraph -- just one line. "They've got to boo him." Not, "They've got to boo him like no one has ever not un-booed a guy who was also once booed by them never didn't get booed louder than, and also Fenway is beautiful!"

But I am not here to teach HatGuy how to do his job. Oh wait -- yes I am.

They’ve got to hiss and scream and bellow until the air is congested with spittle.

Ewww.

They’ve got to boo his backside back to that mango tree in the Dominican Republic he once talked about sitting under.

Again, that last sentence...yikes. But enough syntax. Let's talk about your central point, HatGuy. I am eager to hear your defense of booing the greatest pitcher who ever pitched for this team. I believe in the theory that fans have a right to boo players toward whom they have ill feelings. I also happen to believe that it's kind of lame to boo people, especially when they brought you a tremendous amount of joy. But let's see what you think.

I’m just as confident that Red Sox Nation will come through on this one as I am that the coming fall lineup of network television shows will plumb new depths in personal abasement.

Yorps, is that a bad joke. HatGuy has exactly one move, comedy-wise: the ol' pop culture comparison. "Dusty Baker is about as popular in Chicago as Nick Lachey at a birthday party for Jessica Simpson." "Phil Garner was as mad as a mother who saw Britney Spears almost drop her baby." And so forth. This is bad joke telling. And bad writing. And HatGuy commits another sin within this sin, which is: his lame similes are also wordy and faux-intellectual. "...plumb new depths in personal abasement." I think he likes to imagine himself in a Victorian smoking jacket, smoking a long cigarette, trading barbs with Oscar Wilde and chortling world-wearily at the fools he must suffer. And he's still wearing the hat.

I’m equally confident that a majority of commentators will spend the next day talking about what a shame it is that Boston’s fans didn’t give Pedro the love and respect he is due for all the great things he did for the franchise.

How dare they theoretically do that!

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 shocked as I would be if the president let slip that his favorite newspaper is The New York Times and his favorite news channel is MSNBC.

What did I just say about wordiness? Look at that "joke." HayGuy typed that into the 14 year-old IBM word processor he still uses, and he stared at the little four-line LED screen, and the joke took up all four lines, and he looked at it and he read it again and again and he said, "Yep -- that is some good cookin'." Here's one more tip, man: punchlines usually have one punchline. As in:

Mugger: Your money or your life!
Jack Benny: (after long pause) I'm thinking it over!

not:

Mugger: Your money or your life!
Jack Benny: (after long pause) I'm thinking it over and also I am considering it!

I’d also 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.

I don't even know what to make of this. Why leave this in? You already made this point with the brilliant and incisive double-punchlined political commentary of the last sentence. Now we get...what? Round three in your personal battle against humor and brevity. This is like something a third-grader would come up with to amuse his parents. But not as charming.

For the fans, Pedro’s return to Fenway shouldn’t be about doing what’s right by their former hero. If sports started working that way, the entire player-fan dynamic would be turned on its head.

I would like to show HatGuy what happened when Orlando Cabrera came back to Fenway as an Angel soon after the 2004 World Series win. He was given a standing ovation every time he came up to the plate. The guy was on the team for three months.

He used to play there, and then he went to not just another town, but to the hated Big Apple. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t sign with the New York Yankees, because the Mets haven’t occupied a terribly choice piece of real estate in Boston hearts since 1986 and that episode with Bill Buckner.

I will speak for Red Sox fans, knowing that some may disagree.

Yes, Sox fans hated the Mets, because they beat us in the World Series. But then, 18 years later, we won the World Series, and a large part of the ensuing catharsis was being able to look at anything colored blue and orange without dry-heaving. The Mets are just another team now. We don't like them, but we don't stay up nights hating them, either. We "who cares?" them, like we do every other team, except the Yankees. So, yes, it does matter that he didn't sign with the Yankees.

It also doesn’t matter that he left Boston because the Mets offered him more money for more years than the Red Sox were willing to pay. Nor does it matter that a substantial number of Boston fans felt the team was making a good move by letting him go.

Oh but wait just a cotton pickin' minute here, HatGuy, it absolutely does matter. Why? Well, I'll let you answer.

He did, after all, have a talent for saying annoying things, and, as everyone knew, his shoulder was damaged goods, and his arm was probably going to fall off within the next month or two anyway. The really, really smart baseball people said that the Mets were fools to give a guy like that four years, when the odds were high he wouldn’t last that long.

I take it from your tone that you are about to blast the Boston front office for this, but the fact remains that he was 33, had worn out his welcome, and required a massive investment (on an aging team) to stick around. Let the record show as well that everything Pedro said and did indicated that he wanted out of the brutal AL East, where he had to face the Yankees, Jays, DRays (a great hitting team in 2004), and even O's for like half his starts, and into a division where he could get paid more and face a pitcher once every 2-3 innings. This move was a win-win. The Sox freed up payroll, Pedro left town a hero and got pizz-aid, and although the Sox lost a once-in-a-lifetime pitcher, they also lost a guy whom they would have had to pay $15 million at age 37, and that might not have been such a smart idea. But you know that:

The jury’s still out on whether four years was a wise investment. All that matters now is that the Red Sox thought he was on the downside of his brilliant career and it was better to let somebody else take the risk. That happens to be similar to the thinking when Roger Clemens was allowed to leave after 13 seasons in Boston — he was almost through and there wasn’t any sense keeping him around. That brilliant bit of thinking was professed 10 years ago.

Yes, that was a mistake. Made by Dan Duquette, who made a lot of mistakes. Different FO, different situation. Just because Roger Clemens, who is like 6'3" with legs like sequoias, has managed to stay fit and strong and good, doesn't mean 5'nothing" Pedro will, too, forever.

The point is that he left for another team, and no matter how justified he was in doing so, as long as he continues to perform at the highest level, the fans will see that as abandonment.

No, we won't. It's sad, but it's okay. We have 22 year-old Jon Lester and 25 year-old Jon Papelbon and 22 year-old Craig Hansen, all of whom are cheaply under our control for the next six years. So, we're good. Thanks.

Plus, cheering for a team is really cheering for laundry, as someone wiser than I once said. In San Francisco, they still love Barry Bonds, not because he’s a swell fellow, but because he wears the uniform and still hits the ball out of the park now and then. And the greater the body inside the familiar upholstery, the more he’ll be hated when he leaves.

The "familiar upholstery?" Is Barry Bonds a couch? Seriously, man, just because a word is longer doesn't mean it is better. Or correct.

It has nothing to do with decency or logic. It’s an emotional thing that operates in the deepest levels of our cluttered brains. Pedro was great, and now he’s being great for those cursed Mets. Therefore, he has to be booed.

Yes, it is an emotional thing. But that emotional thing, for many of us, is: the guy was amazing. Best ever in our lifetimes. Carried us through some dark years. Ended his career in Boston by winning Game 3 of the World Series, shutting down one of the best offenses in baseball. Gave us hundreds of wonderful memories. Won a ring. Moved on. God bless him.

Reviling old heroes is what makes the game fun, and few are bigger than Pedro. Red Sox fans have already shown what they’re capable of when they booed Johnny Damon on his return. Now it’s Pedro’s turn.

Johnny Damon went to the Yankees. Everyone on the Yankees gets booed. Also, a lot of people cheered. Also, what is the point of this article?

They’ve got to give him everything they got. To do otherwise would be an insult to what he meant to Boston and a travesty of what it means to be a fan.

This is just nuts. You're nuts, HatGuy. I can't be any more specific or insightful than that. You're bonkers.

They can cheer him whenever his career is finally winding down and he’s making his last stop. Until then, it’s full hiss ahead.

Or, they can cheer him loudly and show that they respect and love what he did when he was here. Which they did. And which they will probably mostly do again tonight. And which I would do, if I were there, regardless of what upholstery he's wearing.

Labels: food metaphors, HatGuy, mike celizic, pedro martinez, red sox

First of all, thank you all for your concerned e-mails as to our whereabouts. No, we were not assassinated by a Joe Morgan-led attack squad, nor were we beaten to death by a 1980 New York Yankee Bat Day Commemorative Bobby Murcer Model Bat wielded by HatGuy Celizic. Dak is in San Francisco, and Junior, Murbles and I were simply working at our real jobs, which, though they dramatically cut down on the time we spend trawling for idiocy on the World Wide InterWeb of Data, are what allow us to feed and shelter ourselves while we trawl for idiocy on the World Wide InterWeb of Data. But thanks for the concern.

More importantly, good news! Our beloved self-same HatGuy, the President and CEO of Let's Yankee It Up! Inc., L.L.C., has, and this is going to come as a shock to many of you, I think, written an article about the Yankees.

But here's the kicker: it's not just an article. It's a stupid article! Double bonus! In fact, it is so stupid, it is called "A-Rod is great — but not in the clutch." Excited? Me too!

Disappointingly, Celizic makes some good points. Undisappointingly, he also lays down some huge boners.

[After the recent Red Sox series] A-Rod went home with his reputation intact as a hitter who doesn’t produce in the clutch and doesn’t win games. We’re hearing more about that reputation in New York these days as the depleted Yankees struggle to score runs.

The Yankees have scored 259 runs this year. That is third in all of MLB.

After a while, you start to wonder what people thought he was when the Yankees traded for him before the 2004 season. He had that huge salary, true, but you can’t judge a player by his paycheck — at least you shouldn’t. You go by what he does on the field. A-Rod was sold as the premier player in the game, and he’s been that, winning a second MVP trophy last season. He hits for power and for average. Once the game’s best shortstop, he moved to third to accommodate Yankees captain and hero for life Derek Jeter and became one of the game’s best third basemen.

The Yankees got what they paid for and what everyone should have expected. What they didn’t get was what A-Rod never was — a great clutch hitter. You heard it when he was with the Mariners and then the Rangers. Both teams failed to win when he was there and got better when he left. Therefore, he’s not a good player.

Now, at this point, if you're like me, and I think you are, you are thinking: "I hate Mike Celizic." Because: "clutch" hitting either doesn't exist or exists in some intangible way that is nearly impossible to measure, and also (as plenty of previous posts on this blog and plenty of Baseball Prospectus articles and the like have shown scientifically) ARod is really really really good at baseball, in every inning, and has plenty of "clutch" postseason hits and HR and everything else. Thus: the previous boldfaced paragraph is one of the dumbest things ever written.

But here's the kicker: HatGuy, out of nowhere, suddenly reveals that he was writing it ironically. Which is an even bigger "what the hell?" moment. Check it out:

That’s nonsense, too. You don’t average 40 home runs, 120 RBIs and 120 runs a season without helping to win games. And three-run home runs that get your team off to what becomes a 12-4 victory aren’t meaningless. If the Mariners and Rangers got better when he left, it was because they got better pitching and more balanced lineups.

So now HatGuy has journalistically like reversed course without warning. I frankly don't think it's very artful, either. I think he just doesn't know whether he believes that ARod is clutch or not-clutch, and is trying to cover all of his bases. Because he flip-flops back again:

Anyway, Seattle is bad again, and whose fault is that? Probably still A-Rod’s. He is, as a recent Star-Ledger piece by Dan Graziano was headlined, “A Lightning Rod.” The $25 million salary draws the attention. And his numbers in clutch situations galvanizes opinion.

Now I'm really confused. Is ARod clutch? Not clutch? Overpaid? Are his teams better when he leaves? What does this guy believe?

There is evidence to back up the claims that he’s not the greatest clutch player in the game. A-Rod has relatively modest numbers batting with runners in scoring position late in close games, numbers that look humble next to those of the Red Sox’ David Ortiz. People remember his failure to produce last year in the playoffs against the Angels and in the final four games of the seven-game loss to the Red Sox the year before in the ALCS. When he hit into an inning-ending double play late in a recent game against the Mets, it was mentioned high in every game story.

I can't believe I have to do this again.

ARod, postseason:

118 AB, .305/.393/.534. 6HR, 9 2B, 19 R.

That's pretty good.

And yes, he has had some high-profile postseason failures, but anyone who saw the Mariners-Yankees series in 2000 when he hit .409/.480/.737 in 22 AB and hit a HR off the top of the left-field foul pole at the Stadium and was basically the only Mariner hitter who showed up...any of those people laugh at junk like this.

On a side-note, has anyone ever looked at Emmy Award-Winning Sportscaster Joe Morgan's lifetime postseason numbers?

181 AB. .182/.323/.348. Now that's bad. But back to HatGuy:

"It'll never stop until I win five or six world championships, and hit a Joe Carter home run to win one of them," Rodriguez said, the New York Daily News reported. "I don't take anything personally. I think it's comical. Anyone who drives in 130 runs has to hit in the clutch. I've done a lot of special things in this game. For none of that to be considered clutch is an injustice."

Any psychoanalysts in the house? I'm guessing this is some hard-core inadequacy coming out in the form of overblown self-confidence. But what do I know?

When he was in Seattle, Edgar Martinez and Ken Griffey Jr. were the guys who carried the team. A-Rod was the complimentary weapon who made Martinez and Griffey that much more fearsome.

.316/.420/.606. 41 HR, 134 R, 132 RBI, 100 BB. Those are Alex Rodriguez's 2000 numbers.
.324/.423/.579. 37 HR, 100 R, 145 RBI, 96 BB. Those are Edgar Martinez's 2000 numbers.
.285/.384/.576. 48 HR, 123 R, 134 RBI, 91 BB. Those are Griffey's 1999 numbers (his last season in Seattle).

Someone tell me how ARod, playing SS, was less a guy who "carried the team" than he was a "complimentary weapon" who "made Martinez and Griffey more fearsome." What kind of retarded claim is that? Don't make me do a WARP analysis to prove that those numbers from a SS are more valuable than those from a DH. Please.

But he never has been a guy to put a team on his back and drag it out of a slump or through the late months of a season. He wasn’t with Seattle, wasn’t with Texas. There was never any reason to expect he would be in New York.

So, we are back to arguing that ARod is not a clutch hitter?

And also, what exactly could this guy have done in Seattle or Texas that he did not do? He played every day and put up MVP numbers every year. You can't just say "he never put a team on his back" without explaining what you mean. What do you mean? You are a bad journalist. Speaking of which, it's been five seconds, so you should stop saying that ARod isn't clutch and go back to saying that the claims that ARod isn't clutch are short-sighted.

Yet, he’s the person everyone points at when things go wrong. In that game against the Mets, the Yankees left 17 runners stranded, but A-Rod got the blame for his late-game double play. In the Monday loss to Boston, A-Rod did more than any of his teammates, but the home run he hit gets devalued because of the game situation.

Nicely done. Now, quickly go back to saying that ARod isn't clutch.

It could be that his deep desire to prove himself worthy is what holds him back in those clutch situations. Derek Jeter can walk to the plate with the pressure ratcheted up to crushing levels, say to himself he has to get on base, and do it. A-Rod can walk up in the same situation, say the same thing, and end the inning, 6-4-3.

Great. Thank you. Now quote a meaningless statistic to prove...nothing, and then explain it with unscientific babble:

And it could also be that his tendency to try too hard may prove to be his undoing in New York. This year, under pressure from the owner and the fans and the media, his average is mired in the .270s, nearly 30 points below his lifetime average. If he were somewhere that didn’t demand as much, he might be giving more.

Batting average? Even for you, HatGuy, that's stupid. So far this year ARod is 47-172. If just six -- six -- bleeders through the infield, or line shots at infielders, or flairs behind second, had fallen in, he'd be at .308, above his lifetime average. So...shut up about BA. And shut up about how NY is such a pressure cooker. ARod played there last year, I think, and won the goddamn league MVP. And by the way, shouldn't you be flip-flopping on whether ARod is clutch by now?

But none of that should say he’s been a failure or even a disappointment. The numbers are there. The MVP plaque is on the wall. The team continues to win the AL East and get into the playoffs, and, if it hasn’t gone to the World Series, it’s hardly his fault alone. Before he got to New York, the Yankees had already gone three years without a World Series win. Since then, all they’ve done is go two more years without a title. But it’s been a total team effort.

What point are you making about ARod right now? Do you even know?

The Yankees could win without him, but that doesn’t mean they should move him.

Who said anything about moving him? He's one of the three best players in baseball, even playing out of position to satisfy Jeter's ego. He makes $25m a year. Who would take him? Why would they trade him? What are you talking about?

He’s still a great player, one who will help a team win a lot of games over the course of the season.

Uh huh...steady now...that's good, Mike...keep it together...

He never was the player who will carry a team to a championship, and probably never will be. But that’s what he’s always been and what the Yankees accepted when they traded for him. If they want a great clutch hitter, it’s not fair to carp about A-Rod. They’ve got the money. Let them buy one.

All together now:

What????????

Labels: arod, clutch, HatGuy, mike celizic, yankees

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.

Take...that?

But on the whole, it’s a heck of a town.

Yes it is, my friend. Yes, it is.

Now what the fuck is your point?

Labels: boston vs. new york, food metaphors, fremulon insurance, fuck the heck, HatGuy, mike celizic

It's all happening at once, people. Let's savor this, the day after the final day of baseball, before we all begin obsessively following Memphis Grizzlies basketball and Columbus Blue Jackets hockey and Columphis Blue Grizzlies Lazyjokemashupball.

HatGuy, your entry please?

The Red Sox had generations of teams that were characterized by 25 players taking 25 cabs. No wonder they spent 86 years between championships. Now, they’ve won twice in four seasons by becoming a band of brothers who seem to genuinely enjoy each other’s company. They have stars, but you think of them as a true team.

Of course! Fuck! Why'd they wait 86 years? Friends are what win in baseball! Friendshipball! Watch out, Red Sox. Your 2008 favorites for the championship: my uncle Steve and his friend Mike. So what if they're only two guys instead of twenty-five and Mike has a shriveled left arm and Steve drinks crystal meth dissolved in Mountain Dew Game Fuel, the Halo 3-themed Mountain Dew. They go deep-sea fishing on the weekends! They're friends!

Now let's readjust our monocles and look at the bread around this idiocy sandwich:

That’s why he won’t end up in Boston. The Red Sox had generations of teams that were characterized by 25 players taking 25 cabs. No wonder they spent 86 years between championships. Now, they’ve won twice in four seasons by becoming a band of brothers who seem to genuinely enjoy each other’s company. They have stars, but you think of them as a true team. To add a person who has never had many friends in the clubhouses he’s inhabited doesn’t make sense.

Zero guesses as to whom HatGuy is referencing. Negative three guesses. Yep, you got it, and I took guesses away from you before you made any. There you have it. Not enough friends = no deal. I like the image of A-Rod calling up his old teammates, begging them to tell the Red Sox that yes indeed, I, Hank Blalock/Jay Buhner/Bobby Ayala/Hideki Irabu, was A-Rod's friend you better believe it.

I am undecided whether A-Rod will be worth the hundreds of millions of dollars he will be seeking, but the number of friends he has on Facebook will be low on my priority list.

Now you, Jon Heyman, sally forth with your offering!

The Red Sox disproved the old "crapshoot'' theory espoused by a lot of folks who keep losing in the playoffs. The best team won in 2007, and that is no fluke.

Look, I'm not losing in the playoffs. My favorite team isn't losing in the playoffs. Joe Torre has won a lot in the playoffs. Joe Torre often disagree, but he and I agree on two things: Top Chef is now more enjoyable than Project Runway and as long as the series remain as brief as they are, the playoffs are distinctly, perversely crapshootish. The best team probably won in 2007, but how about just last year? 83-78 sound right to you, Jon? Was that a fluke?

And finally, we grow closer to the emergence of our special guest star for the evening, who appears courtesy of Bob DiCesare:

Rodriguez appeared in the American League Championship Series twice with the Mariners, once with the Yanks, and distinguished himself in none of the three.

Exactly right. None of the three except for the first two, in which he slugged .773 and .516 and slammed a combined 4 HR and 10 RBI. And hey, in that last one he OBP-ed .353 and hit a horrible, team-damaging solo home run.

One number echoes within the mountains of glorious statistics compiled by Rodriguez throughout his career:

13.7, his earth-shattering WARP3!

zero, his number of accrued World Series at-bats.

Oh.

Fact is, the Yankees are in far greater need of a Scott Brosius, a Bernie Williams, a Paul O’Neill than an uninspired (and uninspiring) A-Rod.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Brosius nostalgia tour continues. May his glorious name live on throughout the offseason and for all offseasons throughout eternity!

Labels: a-rod, HatGuy, jon heyman, mike celizic, red sox, scott brosius

Today, I'm going to talk about HatGuy talking about people thinking about whether A-Rod's sleepovers with Jeter are important. So many operators! (Math guys, you know what I'm talking about. (I am not a math guy, no emails about math please.))

A-Rod must learn it’s not about getting along

I don't fundamentally disagree with him there. "Must" is a bit strong.

Alex Rodriguez thinks it’s important that he and Derek Jeter don’t get along.

And you think it's so unimportant you're going to write an article about why his thinking that it's not important is important enough that he "must" change for the good of the team? More "important"s in the next sentence? No problem -- this is so unimportant I can't believe I'm bothering to critique how important he thinks it important is important important.

As he said in his first interview in Yankee camp, relations are so strained that the two superstars, who were once fast friends, don’t even do sleepovers any more.

Sleepovers? The word conjures up visions of little A-Rod’s mom calling little Derek’s mom to arrange a play date.

Here HatGuy is extremely charitable about what visions of A-Rod sleeping over at Jeter's place actually conjures up. Kudos on the restraint. Joke grade, though: C.

Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth, the two greatest players on the first Yankee dynasty, didn’t speak to each other, and the Yankees just kept on winning titles. In the 1960s, most of the Dodgers had no use for Don Drysdale, but none of them called press conferences to whimper about it.

Yes. Slap a fedora on me -- HatGuy is making an argument against chemistry!

Every athlete who’s ever played a game realizes that there are going to be teammates who aren’t going to like each other. Everyone would love for every team to be one, big happy family, but it’s not as important as winning.

This paragraph is like the cherry on top of the whipped cream on a hot fudge sundae that I'm eating out of my hat!

A-Rod’s stature is born of the same reality. If his teammates tend to be annoyed with him, it’s not because of how much he makes — they all make plenty — but because he doesn’t come through nearly often enough in the clutch.

Oosh. You had me at "no such thing as chemistry" and then you had to go run your mouth about clutchyclutchness. I think the Yankees probably don't like A-Rod because he's a weird, aloof dick. (And also the clutch thing. They all believe in that stuff, so it's definitely possible.) People hate Barry Bonds because he's a weird, aloof dick -- a much bigger one than A-Rod. Has nothing to do with clutch or not clutch with Barry (not anymore at least).

You could imagine them rolling their eyes at this latest confession by their third baseman and wishing he’d just forget about his image and go out and pound the baseball. That’s all anyone’s ever wanted from A-Rod — performance.

Deep, deep sigh. How many times do we have to go through this? Statistics are a record of what happens on a baseball field -- a measure of "performance," if you will. Certainly, they're an imperfect measure, but a measure nonetheless.

As a New York Yankee, Alex Rodriguez has posted EqAs of .311, .354, and .318. He's hit 119 home runs. He may have been the best player in baseball for one of those seasons. These are great performances. Not historically great, perhaps, but great.

What’s funny is that A-Rod has the reputation for being slick, but it is Jeter who is slicker than snot on a doorknob.

Snot on a doorknob? Snot on a doorknob? That's it. I'm done. Not worth it. I'm out of here. See you later.

[door slam]

[car driving away]

[weekend on private island in Dubai shaped like part of a palm tree]

Okay, I'm back.

Fine, one more section.

What they want is for A-Rod to hit the ball when it counts. They don’t care what he does or doesn’t say, as long as he does his job, which is to get big hits in big games, to carry the team when it’s down, to forget about his image and use his enormous talents to take the game by the throat and not let go.

They don’t care about stats or all-star appearances or endorsement deals. And they absolutely don’t care about his feelings.

They care about what the fans care about — performance.

They don't care about stats, they care about performance? Stats are a measure of performance.

STATS ARE A MEASURE OF PERFORMANCE.
STATS ARE A MEASURE OF PERFORMANCE.
STATS ARE A MEASURE OF PERFORMANCE.
STATS ARE A MEASURE OF PERFORMANCE.
STATS ARE A MEASURE OF PERFORMANCE.
STATS ARE A MEASURE OF PERFORMANCE.
STATS ARE A MEASURE OF PERFORMANCE.
STATS ARE A MEASURE OF PERFORMANCE.
STATS ARE A MEASURE OF PERFORMANCE.

They're not made up numbers that have nothing to do with baseball. They're a pretty good measure of how valuable you've been on a baseball field. Consider this: if you watched all 162 Yankee games last season, could you rank the Yankee players in order of most to least valuable? I bet you'd be pretty wrong in several cases. But stats -- numbers -- can give you a better, more accurate picture. Because you can't catalog, quantify, and remember everything you've seen. You have no idea if A-Rod went 166-572 or 148-593. That's why we write things down. It helps our brains out, it doesn't hurt them. Sure, you can add in things that you observed that are difficult to quantify to your overall evaluation of a player. But I can't stand when people say "stats" are that grossly different from "performance." They're a reasonably close approximation. They just are.

Of course, he pretty much sucked in the last two playoff seriees he played.

P.S. He wasn't that bad in the playoffs before those series.

Labels: arod, arod-jeter sleepovers, f(f(f(x))), HatGuy, mike celizic, yankees

Yay Hatguy!

There is consternation in Yankee Nation. On Wednesday night, Mariano Rivera lost his second game of the season and saw his ERA climb to 4.91.

I'm not saying Mariano Rivera is going to be lights out this year. He might be a little worse than he's been in the past. I don't know.

I do know that Mariano Rivera once called Michael H. Celizic's child "a raging homo." You know how I know this? Because there is no other way to explain MHC's one-man crusade against Mariano Rivera. Here's last year's Rivera's-sky-is-falling article. Rivera's numbers by the end of 2005? How about: 1.38 ERA / .87 WHIP / 80/18 K/BB. Forty-three saves.

No one asked the real question, which isn’t, “Why did Mo blow the game,” but, “What was your most valuable player doing pitching two innings in a tie game against Tampa?”

In other words: "Who finally had the common sense to pitch Mariano when it really mattered instead of throwing him out there for 3 outs with a 3-run lead?" Right? No.

Torre extemporized that Rivera hadn’t been pitching a lot and needed the work. But he didn’t need two innings of work. Soon enough, there will be plenty of opportunities for Rivera to pitch. Better to let him get a tad rusty than to burn him out by pitching him for two innings in tie games in April against the Devil Rays. The Yankees have been down this road before, and it leads to nowhere good.

During the game in question, Rivera threw 38 pitches. Four of those were in the form of an intentional walk, so we're really talking about 34. He threw 18 in the first inning of work, and Torre sent him out for another inning. Thirty-four pitches is not exactly short relief, but it's also damn well worth it if you're trying to get a victory. And in a tie game, with an offense that's likely to score 1,000 runs this year, that's what you're hoping for. Throw Mo for two innings, and give yourself two shots at a victory. It didn't work out that way, which is going to happen sometimes.

And if "nowhere good" is a place where my closer throws 78 innings of dominant relief, as it was last year, I'll take it.

So the last thing you want to do is burn him up by pitching him in non-save situations or using him for more than one inning at a time.

All hail The Save! Most arbitrary of statistics!

Chien-Ming Wang pitched seven solid innings, leaving with a 2-2 tie. Farnsworth, as the script calls for, pitched a brilliant eighth — three up, three down, two strikeouts, 12 pitches thrown.

If anyone has written a script involving both Chien-Ming Wang and Kyle Farnsworth, I want to read it right now.

Rivera’s job is to get three outs in the ninth and save wins. When he is given that job, he’s spectacular. When things fall apart is when Torre uses him to pitch two innings or brings him in with a five-run lead or uses him to preserve a tie when he has other options.

Get it right, Joe Torre. I am Michael Hatguy Celizic and this is what you do with Mariano Rivera. You throw him in save situations. You throw him when you're up three runs in the ninth. You do not throw him when you're up five. Unless you are up five and the bases are loaded, and then (of course) you can bring him in to pitch because it's a save situation.

But with Torre, who has never shown any confidence in any reliever except Rivera, even something that simple becomes complicated. So he gave up on Farnsworth, who was brilliant. And he went to his security blanket, Rivera.

Sometimes, a guy who just pitched a brilliant inning of relief is also a giant fucking question mark. And sometimes, your security blanket is a guy who struck out 80 dudes and only walked 18 the year before.

I wonder what he keeps under that hat, anyway. Can't...stop...looking...at...hat...

HatGuy. Oh, HatGuy.

I don't know what to say anymore. But I have to say something, because: You wrote another article about the Yankees.

And here's another, more specific, problem. On May 13 (check the archives below) we posted about your Yankees article, in which you wrote that the Yankees should try to trade three young players for Alfonso Soriano. Here are some words you typed:

The Yankees are suddenly without two thirds of their outfield. The offense is hobbled. Something’s got to be done.

And now, two months later, you write an article titled:

Panic in Bronx? It's not time yet
Yankees still have time to catch BoSox, so no need to make rash trades

Now, maybe, to be fair, you don't title your own articles. But later, you write:

...they’re probably still the favorites to win the division. So throwing away a few more prime prospects to get more high-priced veterans doesn’t make any sense.

So, I just...I don't know what to do anymore. Read his whole article if you want -- it's rambly and weird and silly. But that's the gist.

On a total side note -- are there any Yankees fans out there who remember when Jim Kaat (or maybe Ken Singleton, though I think it was Kaat) tried for like two months to give Alfonso Soriano the cool nickname "AlSo," like a companion piece to "ARod," I think, and it sounded terrible and totally didn't catch on and everyone was just embarrassed for him?

I remember. It was awesome.

Labels: HatGuy, mike celizic, yankees

But I think I have to do it anyway.

Settle in.

Regarding this increasingly hard-to-get-into baseball shrine of ours:

[Super over-the-top sarcastic; leaning in as if transfixed] Uh huhhhhhh?!?!?!?!?

A monument to the greatest ballplayers who ever lived, it is about to bar its doors and deny admittance to baseball's all-time leader in hits (Pete Rose) and home runs (Barry Bonds), as well as to the third-best batting average in history (Joe Jackson's .356) and quite possibly to the gargantuan feats of Clemens, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire.

Rose: cheated/lied
Bonds: cheated/lied
Jackson: cheated/maybe didn't/made an example of
Clemens: seems to have cheated/seems to have lied/not voted on yet
Sosa: cheated/lied
McGwire: cheated/lied/lied to Congress*

Let me give you a prime example of the absurdity of it all:

[so over-the-top sarcastic I now have a British accent] Would you please?!!?!

Harold Baines received a mere 28 votes in the recently tabulated Hall of Fame election. The former White Sox outfielder fell 380 shy of the 408 required for induction. Fourteen other players from this year's ballot alone received more than Baines did.

OK, are you ready?

Ready!

Harold Baines has more hits than Brooks Robinson, Charlie Gehringer, George Sisler, Luke Appling, Lou Gehrig … (keep going) … Billy Williams, Luis Aparicio, Nellie Fox, Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams, Reggie Jackson, Ernie Banks … (don't stop now) … Joe Morgan, Tony Perez, Richie Ashburn, Ozzie Smith, Lloyd Waner, Pie Traynor, Mickey Mantle … (tired yet?) … Ryne Sandberg, Carlton Fisk, Orlando Cepeda, Eddie Mathews, Kirby Puckett, Mike Schmidt …

Who on blog's green earth would evaluate HOF inductees solely by hits? What kind of insane cherry pick is that? Not any other stat. Not longevity or era...not even taking position into account. Just: hits. Hits! That's like evaluating pitchers based on saves and deciding Pedro Martinez doesn't get in because he only has three.

I guess the answer is: Mike Downey of the Trib. He would evaluate HOF inductees solely by hits.

So, here's where it gets annoying.

Baines: 120 OPS+

Gehringer: 124 OPS+ (as a 2bman)
Sisler: 124
Appling: 112 (as a SS. .399 career OBP)
Gehrig: 179 (4th all-time)
B. Williams: 133
Aparicio: 82. (I know he was a great fielder, but what the hell is he doing in the HOF? Look at his 1959 season. That must be the worst #2 finish in the MVP voting ever. Can someone who knows a lot about that guy please email me and explain it? I'm willing to learn.)
N. Fox: 93. Must have been a hell of a second baseman.
Foxx: 163
T. Williams: 191 (2nd all-time)
R. Jackson: 139
Banks: 122 (for a guy who played a lot of games at SS)
Morgan: 132 (2B)
Perez: 122 (and probably doesn't belong)
Ashburn: 111 (and probably doesn't belong)
O. Smith: 87, for maybe the best fielding SS ever.
L. Waner: only 99 for Little Poison. But he had like 2450 hits in 2200 fewer AB than Baines, and a .316 career average.
Traynor: 107, but he hit .320 career and had 2400+ hits in 7500 AB.
Mantle: 172
Sandberg: 114 as a very good-fielding 2Bman.
Fisk: 117 as a catcher
Cepeda: 133
Mathews: 143
Puckett: 124
Schmidt: 147

The few people he's named who have career OPS+s lower than Baines are either middle IF or C or something, and/or had far higher BA (and thus many more hits in far fewer AB).

And now he's going to name some more people.

(We're almost done now) … Joe DiMaggio, Kiki Cuyler, Joe Cronin, Joe Medwick, Bill Terry, Pee Wee Reese, Yogi Berra, Duke Snider, Harmon Killebrew, Willie McCovey, Johnny Bench, Gary Carter, George Kell, Bobby Doerr, Bill Mazeroski, Johnny Mize, Bill Dickey, Gabby Hartnett, Jackie Robinson and a couple of dozen other "immortals" whose busts are in the Hall of Fame.

I am so annoyed right now.

DiMaggio: 155 OPS+
Cuyler: 125 (and a .386 OBP)
Cronin: 117 (.390 OBP primarily as a SS)
Medwick: 134
Terry: 136
Reese: 99 as a SS (and a .366 OBP)
Berra: 125
Snider: 140
Killebrew: 143
McCovey: 147
Bench: 126
G. Carter: 115 (might not belong)
Kell: 111 (.306 career, elected in by Veterans Committee)
Doerr: 115 as 2Bman. Voted in by VC.
Maz: 84. Voted in by VC. Probably doesn't belong.
Mize: 158
Dickey: 127
Hartnett: 126
J. Robinson: if you have to defend Jackie's inclusion by any measure into the HOF you're an idiot. But his OPS+ is 132.

So there you have it. Very few of the people Downey has listed had a lower adjusted OPS than Harold Baines. The ones that did either played a much tougher position, or racked up tons of hits in a much shorter amount of time, or were Wizards defensively, or were voted in by that big softie of a teddy bear the Veterans Committee, or probably shouldn't be there at all.

How could you begin to explain who is worthy and who is not?

By using something other than "career hits" to evaluate them. Do you really not know the answer to that question?

How do you justify to people why Goose Gossage and Bruce Sutter are in Cooperstown, with their humble stats, whereas Lee Smith is not and Clemens with his colossal 354 victories might never be?

Sutter was a weak choice. Gossage was somewhat more defensible, and he had years where he threw like 134 innings. I'm not sure what the argument is against Lee Arthur -- he had roughly a K per inning, and his WHIP is just about the same as Gossage's, though Gossage threw like 600 more innings. And Clemens might not be voted in because he seems to have cheated, lied, and then lied again on 60 Minutes, and then (theoretically) lied to Congress. Did you not hear about that? It was in all the papers.

How do you point out to the public—or, for that matter, to the voters—that Baines stands 40th on the all-time hits list? That he had seven fewer hits than Babe Ruth?

Well...you could start by saying that Harold Baines was a very good, but not great, hitter, who is 27th on the all-time at-bats list with 9908. And if a guy is a very good, but not great, hitter who has 9908 AB, he will probably get a lot of hits, but that doesn't necessarily make him one of the greatest players every to play the game. You might cite Al Oliver (9049 AB, 2743 H) as another of these people. Or Craig Biggio (10876 AB, 3060 H).

And then someone might say "But Craig Biggio should be in the Hall of Fame!" and you might say, "I think I agree with you, because although he had a tremendous number of AB, which helped him get those 3060 hits, he played very tough positions -- catcher, 2B, CF -- which make his statistical accomplishments more impressive than Harold Baines's, since Baines played more than 60% of his games as a DH and the others as a corner OF."

And then -- your voice straining, your hands shaking from having to explain these incredibly simple concepts to a grown man -- you could also maybe say that Babe Ruth was the greatest fucking hitter in the history of baseball, that he hit more HR in 1921 than eight entire teams, that he is the all-time leader in OPS+, that he hit .342, that he had those seven more hits in 1600 fewer AB than Baines, that he hit 714 HR playing in an era where there was a HOFer whose nickname was "Home Run" who never hit more than twelve HR in a season, and that comparing Harold Baines favorably to Babe Ruth in anything except "months lived after the year 1948" is the biggest and most disingenuous waste of fucking time anyone could possibly fucking imagine.

Would that help explain it?

Couldn't they contend that Bill Buckner's 2,715 hits also are more than the likes of Ted and Billy Williams had, more than Reggie and Mickey, more than Fox and Foxx, more than Mr. Cub and Joe D and Yogi and the Duke? But that by no stretch of your imagination would Billy Buck strike you as worthy of the Hall?

Couldn't they say that Jose Guillen is a better baseball player than Barry Bonds because Guillen has more hit-by-pitches? Yes -- but they would be insane.

How do you argue with Ron Santo's rabid supporters that, good as he was, he ranks tied for 140th place in hits, 80th in home runs, 82nd in RBIs and that his .277 lifetime average was not exactly the stuff of legends?

You say: "He was really good, but not quite good enough." Or, you don't argue at all, but rather agree. Either way is valid.

Roger Maris is not in the Hall of Fame. As you well know, Maris not only broke the Babe's single-season home run record of 60, he did it on a diet that included beer and cigarettes, not human growth hormone.

What is the point? What are we even talking about? Did I die? Am I dead? This seems like hell.

More and more, you hear nostalgic baseball purists rue the fact that Maris never was deemed worthy of the Hall, the same way a lights-out hitter like Jim Rice repeatedly has been denied entry … this week for the 14th consecutive year.

Who hears this? No one seriously believes Roger Maris is one of the all-time greats, really. I think I'm dead.

Well, permit me to remind these folks something about Mr. Maris.

He had 1,325 hits. That ranks him in a tie for 731st place all-time.

Right. Doesn't deserve it. There's no argument here. (I'm definitely dead. Someone murdered me. And this is my penance. I am consigned to reading and commenting on this article for the rest of time.)

Players who already have more hits than Maris did in his entire career include these giants of the game: Jose Valentin, Tony Womack, Neifi Perez, Cliff Floyd, Juan Pierre, Rondell White, Royce Clayton, Ray Durham, Jason Kendall and Mark Grudzielanek.

No one fucking thinks Roger Maris should be in the Hall of Fame. If they do, they're wrong. You are not proving anything by just citing hit totals. (I think I know who did it. I think it was HatGuy. You know how no one's heard from HatGuy in a long time? He's been laying low and planning my murder.)

I see occasional references to "can't-miss" Hall of Famers among active players. Yet so many can't-missers have missed.

Luis Gonzalez, a fine individual, certainly no immortal, currently stands 85th on the all-time hits list. Did you know that? He has more hits than Mantle and DiMaggio did, more than Sandberg and Sosa and Frank Thomas, more than Rice, a guy Boston Red Sox fans continue to adore.

Who adores Luis Gonzalez? Anybody?

Not for the Hall of Fame, no, dummy, no one does.

Steve Finley has more hits than Gonzalez. Is anyone likely to vote for Finley a few years from now? Not many, if any.

So when those of us who cast ballots are asked to weigh every factor—total hits vs. average vs. power vs. fielding vs. durability vs. character—you can see how we might become discombobulated at times, trying to sort it all out.

You didn't do that. You cited their hit totals. You said nothing of average, power, fielding, durability, or character. Nothing. You talked about hits.

Bert Blyleven is not a Hall of Famer. That is a fact as well as an opinion. I have friends and colleagues who all but crusade for Blyleven's candidacy, year after year, citing his very impressive shutout and strikeout counts.

Yet I cannot bring myself to deem Blyleven any better or more worthy than Jim Kaat, Tommy John, Jack Morris and so many others who have failed to gain admission to the Hall. I can't find the discrepancy in their careers.

I just can't bring myself to do this again. Look at Blyleven's best ERA+ and WHIP seasons, his Ks, his shutout totals, his 15 seasons of 200+ Ks (Morris had 3), his postseason record, whatever you want. Then consider that if the teams he played for, or their bullpens, were just very slightly better, like 1% better, he would have won 300 games instead of 287 and no one would ever for one second consider not voting for him. Do you realize that? If he had won 300 games, he would have been a first-ballot guy. People would have said, "300 wins, 5th all-time in Ks, 13th in innings, awesome postseason pitcher -- he's a lock!" Instead, he has 287 wins and people fall all over themselves telling you why he is not in any way a HOFer. It's insane.

There are three kinds of professional baseball players: good, great and immortal. You need to be a good one simply to reach that level, no matter what kind of Mario Mendoza-like batting average you might have beside your name. Hundreds have been excellent, but how many have been truly legendary?

About 280 or so.

Gossage is the 61st pitcher to gain induction. He won 124 games. Clemens very well could be barred from the Hall because of performance-enhancing drug use that has not been proven. He has won 354 games.

Pay attention, people. A new low has been reached. A new god-damned all-time son of a bitching low, in the history of journalism. Not sports journalism -- journalism of any kind. This last paragraph is worse than the worst war reporting, the worst economic reporting, the worst paragraph from the worst article about the most inane party during the worst Hamptons season by the worst society reporter from the worst Hamptons-based magazine.

Mike Downey discussed Goose Gossage's HOF legitimacy by citing his win total.

Forget for the moment that wins are stupid for pitchers, because pitchers rely on at least 8 (and usually like 12-14) other people in order to be credited with a win. Also please forget for the moment that if a pitcher throws 5 innings and gives up 18 runs on 27 hits, but in those 5 innings his team scores 19 runs, he could get a win. Also, forget that a pitcher can come into a game in the seventh inning with a 3-run lead and the bases loaded, give up a triple that clears the bases, then get one out when his CF robs the next batter of a HR, then have his team score runs in the bottom of that inning and he gets credited with a win. Forget all of that and realize this:

Goose Gossage is a fucking relief pitcher.

He's a reliever.

Relievers don't usually gets wins.

Most people know this.

He's a reliever.

In the words of Jean-Paul Sartre: "Hell is -- other [sports journalists]."

Goose is an immortal but the Rocket is not? What kind of Hall of Fame is this going to be, anyhow? One that excludes the greats but includes the merely good?

1. Again, Gossage was a reliever, so his "immortality" has nothing to do with wins. (Although the fact that he had 124 wins is pretty incredible, when you think about it -- in fact, it probably serves to highlight how many innings the guy threw, and how good he was in those innings.)

2. The "Rocket" is quite cockfaceingly obviously one of the greatest pitchers of all time. The fact that he might not get in -- and of course you know this, you sniveling little muckraker -- has nothing to do with this win totals.

3. The Hall of Fame will include the very best players of all time who didn't cheat and/or lie about stuff.

See you in hell, Downey.

Labels: babe ruth, bert blyleven, craig biggio, goose gossage, hall of fame, harold baines, jean-paul sartre, lee smith, mike downey, roger clemens, roger maris

Someone's been reading too much HatGuy.

SI.com's Dr. Z (Man, has this guy been around a long time. I think he's written for SI longer than I've been alive.) is hungry, and he's going to kick off his latest column with a food metaphor bang.

I am constructing this column as one would build a first-rate lasagna. First the pasta, which would be all those nasty letters I got from Bear fans. (Andrew assures me that there were hundreds and hundreds of these noodles). Then the assortment of cheeses, leading off with ricotta. Then my sauce, heavy with meat and spices. That will be my E-mailer of the Week entry. No fair eating the column. This is merely an analogy.

What?

As reader Jack notes, "There are multiple problems with the first paragraph, but the one that bugs me is that he doesn't even use the ricotta as an analogy to anything. He suggests that a portion of his article might consist of physical ricotta cheese."

Not only that, but this is half-assedery at its worst. What does pasta have to do with nasty letters? Your "sauce, heavy with meat and spices" is your E-mailer of the Week entry? That's really "mailing it in," Dr. Z. Ho ho ho!

Also, the more you look at it, the more the analogy falls apart. Since he leaves the cheese alone, you realize that Dr. Z's lasagna column really only has two ingredients -- letters and an e-mail. Which, if you think about it, are pretty much the same thing. Lasagna. One thing.

Lasagna isn't even a Chicago food.

Seriously, though, what the fuck. It's total nonsense.

My conclusion is that sportswriters just fucking love food.

Labels: dr. z, food metaphors

Always a good thing.

However, there has been a weird lack of terrible sportswriting recently...at least that I have seen. I thrilled a little to find that ARod and Jeter used to have sleepovers five days a week back in the day. That's embarrassing, for everyone, I think. But as far as articles go, I haven't found many HatGuy-level insanities in the first days of Spring Training. So keep those tips coming, if you got 'em.

For now, to help pass the time, here's a snippet of wisdom from Maury Wills, in re: Juan Pierre. When you read the quote, remember two things: first, remember that Juan Pierre is one of the most prodigious out-makers in all of baseball. He makes tons of outs. Last year he made 526 outs! In fact, mostly what he does when he plays baseball is: make outs. And second, remember that the job of a leadoff hitter is to not make outs. Got it? Remembering those two things? Now read the quote!

As for the question of whether Pierre should bat leadoff or behind Rafael Furcal in the No. 2 spot, Wills has an opinion.

"I'd be willing to bet [Pierre] bats leadoff," he said. "He's a natural leadoff hitter."

Labels: arod-jeter sleepovers, juan pierre

First it was Joe and the Sports Emmys. Now FJM favorite Bill Plaschke has won his second APSE sports column writing award in three years. That's right. The fucking APSEs. The big one.

Later today it will be announced that HatGuy is simultaneously being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry while France is busy replacing the Eiffel Tower with a 90-foot statue of John Kruk.

Labels: fjm reverse curse

Please remember that one of the men who gets to decide whose plaques will grace the Hall is none other than Hatguy.

Happy Chanukah!

Labels: hall of fame, HatGuy

So, we're in the process of enrolling in Google's Ad Sense program, which means, yes, there will be advertisements on the site. They should fit in pretty seamlessly and hopefully won't get in the way of your favorite HatGuy criticisms, or ramblings about Jason Bay's EqA.

Guys, come on. Why?
Well, mostly to pay for the small costs of running the site, the domain name (firejoemorgan.com), and all the e-mail accounts. These things add up over time and, listen, we're not going to get rich off this.

Now that you're going to see some income, shouldn't you pay someone to design a better looking site?
Nah, I'm good.

But dak, don't you subscribe to Adbusters and everything?
Yes, I do. Believe me, I have mixed feelings about the situation. But we hope you'll visit our sponsors and continue to support us.

Hey, this isn't totally relevant, but since we're doing this whole Q and A thing...I keep e-mailing you guys and I never get a response. What in Robinson Cano's codpiece is up with that?
Yeah. I'm sorry -- we're not the best at getting back to people. We read every e-mail though and often use suggestions from readers. I will say one thing to keep in mind: we're just not going to publish anything unless we can verify that it was said or written verbatim. What that means is, we'll totally read your account of what that Mariners' color guy said about Jamie Moyer's incredible poise or whatever, and we'll probably enjoy it, but we're not going to post any paraphrasing e-mailed to us.

Also one of the Angels announcers just described Coco Crisp as having a "calm, confident swagger." At the time Crisp was standing on first base following a foul ball.

Labels: ads, coco crisp, fjm readers