Why I Like Baseball

(Continuing my re-posts of old blog entries about the Oakland A’s. Now we’re getting into the Moneyball year. This post originally appeared on April 26, 2000)

I don’t mean to shock anyone, but I’ve always believed in "open relationships." Sure, of course I believe in true love and having a special partnership with that special someone, but I also think experiencing the fullness of life means leaving the door open to other things as well, so long as everyone involved agrees it’s okay. I know a lot of people disagree with me on this. Especially when it comes to baseball.

I have my first love–my deep, abiding, long-term love–and that is the Yankees. If I had to choose between the Yankees and another team, there would be no question who I would choose. I fell in love with the Yankees before I ever even looked at another team. When I was a fan in the seventies, I could name you the whole Yankees starting lineup, but I could probably only name you four or five players in the rest of the league. I’m more mature now, and have expanded my tastes a bit.

Last year, I had a summer fling with the Seattle Mariners. I had picked them during the offseason, when A-rod had jilted them for the Rangers’ money (more…)

ALDS Game 2: Tigers at Yankees: October 2, 2011

In the ninth inning, when it got dark and started to rain around the time the Yankees brought the tying run to the plate for the first time, I started writing metaphorical ledes for this story. Like “It was sunny all day for the Detroit Tigers… until it wasn’t.”

But, unfortunately, the rest of the ninth inning did not pan out the way I might have wanted. I feel sorry for the people who left early, because they missed the best part of the game, a thrilling ninth, even if the Yankees did fall short.

The day began, as I mentioned, not raining. It was partly sunny and quite windy in the Bronx today. When we took our seats for the first pitch the temperature was 61 degrees, but a stiff wind was blowing straight in from center field.

The wind was evident in the top of the first, when Brett Gardner moved to catch a high fly ball and ended up running almost all the way to the infield to get it. Not home run weather, despite the predictions, which were based on the facts that Max Scherzer was in the top three in home runs allowed this year and the Yankees were the top home-run hitting team. The only kind of homer that would go out with the wind like that would be a low line drive.

Unfortunately, that’s what Miguel Cabrera hit in the top of the first. (more…)

I’m actually still breathless and full of adrenaline from the whizbang finale of this season’s last day. I would have blogged about it but really what more could I say than “wow” multiple times? Wow.

I’m writing this post from the Bronx, where I am awaiting the opening of the ALDS in a few hours. End of the regular season, though, means End of Season awards. As a founding member of the Baseball Bloggers Association, I take part in the voting. We’re not as glamourous as the ink-stained wretches in the BBWAA. I suppose as bloggers we’re the eye-strained kvetches.

Here’s what we eye-strained kvetches award:

Connie Mack Award: top manager
Willie Mays Award: top rookie)
Goose Gossage Award: top reliever
Walter Johnson Award: top pitcher
Stan Musial Award: top player

Since Why I Like Baseball is ostensibly a Yankees blog (with a healthy side of Red Sox), I get to vote for the American League entry in each category. Here are my picks:
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I hear that Phillies infielder Wilson Valdez just became the first position player to win (as pitcher) a major league game since Brent Mayne did it back in 2000. This means Brent Mayne’s name is suddenly in the news again. Mayne was the backup catcher for the Colorado Rockies when he performed the feat.

I actually watched the crazy extra-innings Braves-Rockies game in which Mayne got the win on television from the Jersey Shore one night while on vacation. I wrote about it the following year, when I tried to get Mayne’s autograph one night in Seattle at Safeco Field, when he was playing with the Royals and I was there for a game. I never did get Mayne’s autograph, but I did get a batting practice ball that night, and the autographs of Mike Cameron and Brett Boone, back when they were both stars for the M’s.

So here’s the flashback post from August 16, 2001, in which I recount my trip to the ballpark and Mayne’s pitching performance along the way: (more…)

So, some of you may have seen via the SABR newsletters and my other social media things, that I’m editing the Fall 2011 issue of the Baseball Research Journal, aka BRJ.

BRJ is SABR’s main research publication, and has become one of the premiere places to publish ground-breaking research into both baseball history and statistical analysis. (SABR = Society for American Baseball Research).

SABR was founded in 1971, and it’s probably not a coincidence that the society’s formation came about just as many other changes were coming to the game. So this special themed issue will have some (not all) of its articles focused on baseball from 1971 to the present. Consider the following upheavals & changes we’ve seen in our lifetimes: (more…)

So I went to Opening Day at Yankee Stadium this year, on March 31st. While I understand and appreciate that MLB wanted to start the year four or five days earlier, so that there would be no chance of having a World Series game on November 4th (grrrrrr…. the reason I wasn’t there to enjoy the Yankees’ victory in 2009 was because I was on an annual business trip that NORMALLY would not come close to conflicting), in April it’s always a statistics game with the weather man. Each day closer to May the chance of having a warm day goes up.

I’m not just saying that. I’m a SABR member after all, and part of what we do is analyze history based on the statistical record. Well, looking at that record, the chance for warm on March 31st in New York City was pretty slim. (more…)

Yes, today is BBA Day, the day to celebrate the existence of the Baseball Bloggers Association.

This coalition of baseball writers and enthusiasts includes everything from individual fan sites for teams to group blogs of analysis and specialized topics. I joined the group when it was first forming and have had a terrific time networking with this group of people who love the game of baseball in all its forms.

I started Why I Like Baseball in 1999, using old style hand-written HTML, just to express my thoughts and feelings about the game which I had followed avidly as a kid growing up near New York City, but had lost touch with in my early adulthood. The McGwire-Sosa home run race brought me back with a vengeance. I was a professional writer, so one way I expressed my love of the game was through writing. Next thing I knew, people were actually coming and reading the site on a regular basis. Advertisers began to offer me money. I happily took it and expanded what I wrote about to include not only the Red Sox and Yankees, but minor league ball, women’s baseball (which I then started playing), baseball history, baseball tourism (ballpark visits, gravesites, museums, etc…)

They say on the Internet you will always discover you’re not the only one. You’re never alone. The term “blog” was coined in late 1999 but didn’t enter common parlance until a few years later, but the concept of maintaining a readable online journal or zine existed long before that. What really came about around the turn of the millennium was the technology to make blogging easier and more ubiquitous. And so here we are, ten years after that, with a vibrant and growing network (over 200 strong!) for people like me.

So I encourage you to check out the central website: BaseballBloggersAlliance.com/ where many posts from BBA members all over the web are cross-linked. The BBA does our own version of annual baseball awards, and even a “what if we voted for the Hall of Fame”? every year. Many of the blogs are also involved in charitable efforts.

I read the news recently that Jim Leyritz’s trial for D.U.I. manslaughter is over (New York Times). If you’re in suspense, he was acquitted of the manslaughter charge but the jury did slap him with a misdemeanor, which could carry a few month’s jail time, but nothing as bad as the several years that the more serious charge would have carried. Among the mitigating circumstances, the woman who was killed in the accident was also driving while drunk, might have had her car’s lights off, and Leyritz’s blood alcohol level didn’t actually test as high as expected.

What irked me about this story was not the outcome, or even its existence — people including ballplayers making bad choices is nothing new. That the article points out that he is “former Yankee Jim Leyritz” is also nothing new. Heck, that’s what makes it a news story worthy of the Times in the first place.

But what rubbed me wrong is the final two paragraphs of the story:

Leyritz’s famous homer tied Game 4 of the World Series against Atlanta, a game the Yankees won in extra innings. The victory paved the way for their 1996 title, their first in 18 years.

Primarily a catcher, Leyritz also played for the Angels, the Rangers, the Red Sox, the Padres and the Dodgers. He had a career batting average of .264 and hit 90 regular-season home runs.

Is it just me, or does that all seem really… reductive and inappropriate? I think I could have lived with just the final sentence, but the “famous homer” one just feels absolutely muck-rakey to me when juxtaposed with the content of the story.

I know it’s there for those with short memories who read the article and said “Jim who?” but I just cringed when I read it. There’s an edge of sensationalism there (“World Series Hero Driving While Drunk!”) that is just unseemly for the New York Times… or for anywhere, really.

Just got my annual letter from the New York Yankees with my invoice for 2011′s season tickets.

The good news is that my seats are staying the same price, as they have for the past 5 years, going all the way back to the Old Stadium.

The bad news is that in 2010, with the economy still limping along, I didn’t come close to breaking even on the cost of my seats. I even ended up eating the cost of two postseason tickets I couldn’t dump except to a scalper outside the McDonald’s for less than half of face value.

I have been seriously considering either dropping my plan, or dropping from all 81 games to a partial season plan.

I’m sure I’m not alone, which is why the letter to me from the Yankees does things like praise my “unwavering loyalty.” Hoo-boy. Yes, they know better than any other sports franchise on earth that love = money.

At least they aren’t hypocrites, though. Here’s why: (more…)

It was a sad night at the Stadium tonight, and not just because of Cliff Lee and Josh Hamilton. Prior to the game the Yankees announced on the scoreboard that Freddy Schuman, aka Freddy the Fan or Freddy “Sez,” passed away yesterday at the age of 85.

It’s amazing to think Freddy outlasted Eddie Layton, Bob Sheppard, and George Steinbrenner himself, but still heart-wrenching to realize he’s gone. Freddy was a fixture at the Stadium (and even sometimes in Tampa during spring training), making his way through the entire stands in the course of a game to let as many kids (and the kids at heart) bang on his lucky frying pan with a spoon.

I banged on the pan just last week, before the ALDS clincher at the Stadium, and now I’m so glad I did. I never would have guessed that would be my last chance to do it.

I also wouldn’t have guessed it would be the last time the Yankees looked dominating this postseason. Coming into tonight’s game they are 1-1, but they could have easily been down 0-2. (more…)

Zombies are in these days. There are zombies in Jane Austen novels, in movie after movie, and even in romance novels now. Zombies are hip. That’s what I think every time I look back and see the Red Sox are still clinging on without completely fading this season.

This is remarkable given the sheer number of players they’ve had on the DL or lost for the season. With a 73-55 record, they’d be in FIRST PLACE in either of the other two American League divisions as of today! (And be only half a game back in two of the NL’s divisions, as well.) This is not exactly the usual showing of a gritty team barely holding it together.

Maybe it’s that Terry Francona finally picked up the Bigelow Green Tea sponsorship that Joe Torre started in New York. (more…)

Here we are at the SABR Awards Banquet. The eating is mostly over with, and now president Andy McCue is reading off the results of various awards that were given earlier this year, including some to high school students for historical society prizes and the like, and working up to the Seymour Medal. We’ve just been reminded that next year’s convention will be in Southern California, and that miraculously, we got a weekend when both the Dodgers and the Angels will be at home, and that a lower room rate than this year has been secured. What they didn’t do was announce what the actual date was, or I’d put it here.
(more…)

Do Batters Make Slumps Worse by Trying to Escape Them?
Jeff Switchenko, with several co-authors

Hitting with RISP: Real differences between players
by Eric Van

Are Outs Made on the Bases More Harmful than Other Types of Outs?
David W. Smith

(more…)

• RT @ed_price: When will Major League Baseball hold umpires accountable? Why can't they be demoted or fired like players, managers or GMs? #
• RT @BloggingBombers: Wow. The entire press box at Yankee Stadium is howling about the worst call ever made. #

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It’s not every day you get to talk to a major league umpire. Today I got a chance to have an extensive interview with Jim Reynolds who has been a major league ump for more than ten years, to help kick off the UMPS CARE charity auction online. (Auction kicks off today onlinewith some truly amazing items, including a #44 All-Star Game jersey signed by President Barack Obama, the 44th president.) I picked his brain on a lot of topics, from concussions and the recent firings of umpire supervisors to how statistical analysis has changed the game of baseball and umpiring in particular.

Reynolds didn’t initially plan to be an umpire. As a student at UCONN, he studied communications, and had a job all lined up with a television station after graduation… but peer pressure led him to give umpiring a try.

Peer pressure? Yeah. It was during a fire drill in his freshman year that Jim struck up a conversation with another student standing around waiting to go back into the building. They became good friends and he suggested that Jim take a one-credit class on umpiring that UCONN offered. The students in that class got to work the games for the college team and then in the summer Jim was able to work a regular daytime summer job and then make extra money calling a few games a night. Then his friend told him when they were getting ready to graduate, that he wanted to go to major league umpire school, and wanted Jim to go with him.

“450 kids go and only 40 make it, he told me,” Jim explained, “So my TV job was waiting, and they told me go ahead and give it a shot, and if you don’t make it, your job is here. So I went for it and not only did I make it, he and I both made it.”
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This has been an interesting decade to be a baseball writer.

Once upon a time, in a storied era of American history, sportswriters were the creme de la creme of all writers. New York City had dozens of newspapers and even smaller cities boasted multiple papers, often with multiple editions per day. Newspapers were the morning drive radio, and the evening TV news, and CNN and ESPN. Those now-iconic words, “Extra, extra, read all about it,” indicated some big news had happened that wasn’t in the previous edition of the paper you read already that day. Wire services carried the stories of the top writers to newspapers all over the country. Writing was the thing.

The biggest celebrities and and stories of the day were sports figures and the games they played. The Hollywood blockbuster film didn’t yet exist. The first commercial radio license in the USA was granted in 1920, and the first “gold record” for a music album wasn’t awarded until 1941. Think of Jim Thorpe in the 1912 Olympics. The Kentucky Derby has been run since 1875. Jack Dempsey won his first boxing heavyweight title in 1919. And there was baseball, baseball, baseball.

So the best-known writers were the sportswriters, in particular the baseball writers.

But time has marched forward (more…)

Joe over at Baseballisms interviewed me recently about The 50 Greatest Yankee Games, a book I really would like to revise now that there is another championship to add to the tally…

He recaps the interview in text here: http://baseballisms.com/podcast-author-cecilia-tan.html and then you can listen to the podcast of it, which runs about an hour I think.

We could have seriously talked for two more hours. I told the tales of Jack Chesbro, Bill Bevens, Ralph Terry… gee, do you think I like pitchers? And we talked about the “Jeter flip” game and much more.

I’ll go back for another round later this off season to talk about the Red Sox!

It’s time to talk about signs and magic. In other words, do the Yankees have fate on their side? Every championship year seems to have its thread strung with some gems that presage special things happening.

In 1996 the magic moments were things like Dwight Gooden pitching a no-hitter after all the adversity he had gone through personally, and with his father on the verge of heart surgery. Of course, we have the perfect games in 1998 and 1999 from Wells and Cone.

This season had a plethora of special moments if we count the fifteen walk-off wins (which I certainly do!), and how about Melky hitting for the cycle? The first Yankee to do it since Tony Fernandez, who you may have forgotten but he was the starting shortstop before the arrival of a certain rookie named Derek Jeter. Jeter taking the lead in the all-time hits list certainly ranks up there, too.

And then there is New Stadium mojo to be taken into account. The Yankees were in the doldrums from 1965 until the renovation of the old Yankee Stadium, after which the Yankees returned to the postseason three straight years and won back to back World Series in 1977 and 1978. In 1996 they had a new stadium, too, in Tampa, as Legends Field debuted as a miniature of the big ballpark in the Bronx. And now, of course, we have the brand new cathedral. Will the ghosts come across the street?

And then we have the White House factor. Since the original Yankee Stadium was demolished, each time the Yankees have gone to the World Series, if a Republican was in office, they lost, but if a Democrat was in office, they won. Barack Obama is even an AL fan, a follower of the White Sox. Will the pattern keep up?

Only time will tell.

Year     Par  President
1976  L  Rep  Ford
1977  W  Dem  Carter
1978  W  Dem  Carter
1981  L  Rep  Reagan
1996  W  Dem  Clinton
1998  W  Dem  Clinton
1999  W  Dem  Clinton
2000  W  Dem  Clinton
2001  L  Rep  Bush II
2003  L  Rep  Bush II
2009  ?  Dem  Obama

It was a game in which 280 pitches were thrown, but it was the very last one that decided it.

It was a game in which no pitcher was happy. In tonight’s game, Phil Hughes took the loss, and in postgame interviews put all the blame on his own shoulders, but the Yankees’ six-run uprising in the seventh inning was made necessary by A.J. Burnett’s dismal start out of the gate, and possible by Mike Scioscia yanking his protesting starter with two outs in the seventh only to see his bullpen melt down.

At first blush, it looks like Lackey was the one who was going to struggle. Derek Jeter, suffering from a cold but ever eager to play, singled on the first pitch of the game. Two pitches later, Johnny Damon pulled a ground ball to right for another base hit. But Lackey bore down, caught Teixeira looking, got A-Rod to pop up harmlessly, and then Matsui to ground weakly to first.

Then it was Burnett’s turn on the hill. He walked Chone Figgins on five pitches to start the game, then gave up four consecutive hits within the space of seven more pitches, and not a soft one in the bunch. That’s right, it took only 12 pitches for it to be 4-0 Angels. (more…)

You could start a club this winter for elite closers whose blown saves sent their teams to early ends. Jonathan Papelbon, Huston Street, and Joe Nathan can start a therapy group. Or maybe they just need one more to make a golf foursome.

What people are forgetting is that Mariano Rivera could join that group. Rivera’s hall of fame credentials and consistency over so many years have softened the sharp facts that he, too, has several high profile blown saves in his career.

Take a look at 1997. It was his first year as closer. After spending 1996 being the 7th and 8th inning guy in the “Mo and Wett Show,” Mariano moved into the closing role when the Yankees let World Series hero John Wettland (who was always a heart-attack closer) move on. At that point, there was no dynasty yet, just a World Championship in 1996, the first since the 1970s, and the team could have faded back into the doldrums of mismanagement that had crippled them for so long. Instead, they managed to win the Wild Card and then faced Cleveland in the ALDS.

Going into game four, the Yankees held a 2-1 series lead and needed just one more win to advance, and they held a 2-1 lead in the game going into the 8th (more…)