I know I'm not posting much this summer, but I can not let this pass unnoticed.
The American Mustache Institute's "Best Sports Mustache of All Time" contest. I feel as if we have tread this ground before, but I can't find the more substantial posts on the subject of baseball and mustaches, and certainly the AMI didn't steal the idea from us. It must just be part of the zeitgeist (as it should be).
I like a good managerial rant now and then, and do think that sometimes (oftentimes, in fact), umpires take themselves far too seriously and purposely escalate disputes to exercise a bit of otherwise atrophied authority. Calling balls, strikes, and outs can get tedious, I guess, and as an ump, no one ever really enjoys your work. You're either unnoticed or thoroughly excoriated. Still, it's what you signed up for. On the other hand, this is far too much. It's mildly amusing before it gets plain stupid. Come on, Mississippi Braves manager Phil Wellman, you're a grown man. A double-A manager in Mississippi, yes, but still: a grown man. Act like one. Here's the tape:
Also, a question: are all the Braves minor league affiliates called the Braves?
Operation Shutdown is over, people. And it's ending with a team called Oil Can Boyd's Traveling All-Stars. Derek Bell returns May 18th in a game against the always tough New Haven County Cutters. The All-Stars are touring to celebrate Negro League heritage and the tradition of barnstorming, which is a great way to remember the past. They're also doing it with Derek Bell, which is an even better--though far less noble--way to remember the past. And if you can think of a better nostalgic name for barnstorming team filled with late '80s-early '90s ballplayers Oil Can Boyd kind of knows, you tell me. Because I can't. Pat of WHYGAVS and the AOL Fanhouse (is that supposed to sound like "funhouse" except sportsier?) provides the details.
According to his Wikipedia page, Derek Bell offered his famous "Operation Shutdown" ultimatum to the Pittsburgh Pirates on March 18th, 2002 after the Pirates informed him that his .173 average in 2001 coupled with his poor play that spring was likely to cost him his job. Bell left the team on March 29th and sailed away on his houseboat. If May 18th is the first game for Oil Can's All-Stars (believe it or not, it's hard to gather information on them), that will mean Operation Shutdown lasted five years, one month, and 19 days. Honestly? I can't believe someone wanted him this soon.
I like Michael Lewis, the author of Moneyball, but I think his suggestion that sabermetrics will account for steroids is ridiculous. I am also a firm believer in the value of sabermetrics, to the point that a snarky sabermetric-based blog is one of my favorite and most frequently visited sites (even if it is certainly not the most frequently updated of those sites). And I do think that steroids have negatively affected baseball, most visibly everything under the bill of Barry Bonds's now comically oversized batting helmet. But, as I always do when people ask me about steroids, I will point out a few things:
But I do believe that eventually we’re going to know a lot of people who did them. And it is going to be really interesting when those names and dates become available, what’s done with it to try to factor in steroids into the record books.
As Lewis points out, it has become common to register the exact number of feet a home run travels, so it may soon be possible for statistics gurus to come up with a reasonable number of feet to subtract from homers hit by players proven or suspected of juicing.
And, of course, once we have a number to divide by, there’s nothing to stop us from multiplying with it too, to estimate how many home runs players from earlier eras might have hit au jus. As Lewis says, “Babe Ruth might say, if he were looking at the game now, ‘Boy, think how many home runs I could’ve hit if I could’ve done those steroids,’ which he probably would’ve done.”
and before Chris Sabo and Horace Grant made wearing them cool for about 17 seconds, there were all these guys, Tom Henke's Army. That linked entry from Joe Sports Fan represents just about everything I stand for, athletically, intellectually, nostalgically, culturally, politically, romantically, religiously. Everything.
Here is Leon "The Bull" Durham:
Everything.
"I do at times, but it's a timely thing," Manuel said, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. "We're still hustling. We're still playing hard. We might be trying to do too much. For me to go in there and stand up and throw a fit, I can go in there and tear the whole ... locker room up. I could come here and throw every ... chair in here out. What the hell? I don't see how that's going to do me any good."
As for the the team's famously caustic fans? They mounted an "E-A-G-L-E-S, Eagles!" chant in the seventh inning, choosing to praise the city's successful NFL team rather than bury its baseball team.
For those who might care, or merely be amused, I'd like to share that I have just discovered that Gary "The Rat" Gaetti is the new hitting coach of the Durham Bulls.
No current information available on Kent Hrbek.
Via Deadspin, a new favorite website (and probably a book worth a look, as they say... somewhere), with images and analysis of "ridiculously blatant" cheating by Major League Baseball players. I love cheaters, especially multi-millionaire cheaters who are preternaturally talented at the thing they're cheating at. I wish someone would start a site devoted to tracking cheating in the high-stakes world of classical music performance, because I just know that weasel Yo Yo Ma has been doctoring his bows for years.
In sum: beautiful work, K-Rod and Mr. Zumsteg, and I recommend that Salomon Torres (3 Saves and counting! (This has been a "Stat that Matters"TM)) does a little homework with this game film.
UPDATE: K-Rod denies he cheats. Predictable. Also predictable is the fact that Yo Yo Ma continues his steadfast silence in the face of my charges against him. I take his silence as a tacit confession.
