I Soo-Choo-choose you

Wasn't this a scene from Major League 2? More importantly, why does Jacobs (a.k.a. Progressive) Field attract so much wildlife? My guess is that the site was once a thriving wetland ecosystem before us evil humans disembowled it to make way for our silly baseball games. Whatever the case, I'll get to the bottom of it.

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I've always loved Ozzie Guillen, right?

"I asked Peralta if that pitch was low and in, and he said yes," Guillen said. "They thought I was crazy because I wasn't protecting J.D. I was protecting the opposition. That means I was going to send the message that I wasn't here to protect my players. I was here to protect baseball."

This is a brilliant tactic. Why don't more managers do this rather than just lobbying for their own team? What better way to grease an ump than purporting to value fairness over all else, including your own team's success. If the ump buys it, he's likely to be more receptive to future protests by that manager, and if he takes offense--like DiMuro did--the manager still wins by making the ump look like a Sensitive Sally. I love it.

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Why Manny Ramirez is our hero

I'm way late on this because I've been too wrapped up in work and personal affairs to read the sports pages in the daily post, but I have to talk a little bit about Manny Ramirez's post-Game 4 remarks on Wednesday.

Let's just start by saying, Manny Ramirez is awesome in every respect imaginalbe. And his latest show of honesty gives me a sense of vicarious catharsis that I haven't felt since Gilbert Arenas told everyone to take the stick out of their ass and just enjoy some basketball.

"If we don't do it, we'll come back next year and try again . . . If it doesn't happen, who cares? There's always next year. It's not the end of the world."

Thank you, Manny Ramirez. Thank you for having perspective. Thank you for understanding that not everything is in your control. Thank you for knowing that your work is not defined by competetive structures. You are awesome.

Matt and I had a nice phone conversation last night (how I learned about this story--thanks Beck) on this topic--the proceding being a rehash of our thoughts on this topic.

People are upset because Manny doesn't seem to be taking his competetive duty seriously. But competition can mislead you. Competition can stray your focus. Competition can destroy you... when you direct it the wrong way.

Manny understands competition. Manny may be a flaky weirdo who exists and plays baseball in a vacuum, but I think that makes Manny the most perfect baseball competitor that we have ever seen because Manny doesn't care. He doesn't care that the purists are obsessed with competition, or that the fans and blowhard newsmen are the same. Manny just watches that silly white ball and hits the behayzeus out of it. And that's what baseball players are supposed to do.

He is phenomenally talented. He can watch an 0-2 slider miss the zone by three inches and not even flinch and then smoke a dead-center dinger on the 1-2. He may be the most talented hitter (at least top five) us twenty-something punks have ever seen. How has he done it? In order, 1) talent, 2) talent, 3) not giving a fuck, 4) not buying into the purist bullcrap.

As relayed to me by Matt, ESPN Radio invited Wade Boggs on the air to talk about Manny yesterday morning. Evidently, he was disgusted by Ramirez's words, as were--I'm sure--scores of other active and retired ballplayers.

But really, what's the big deal? Why the condemnation? Are you jealous, Boggs? Do you resent Manny because his talent is so phenomenal that he can excel at baseball without obsessing over it? Are you mad because Manny can dominate the game of baseball without worshiping it? Do you hate that you lost sleep and clumps of hair over your failures and ate chicken before evey game because you were so damned superstitious and worried about the game's outcome while Manny goes on smiling under his wacky braids and--heaven forbid--seems to enjoy himself on the field?

We've said it over and over: Baseball is not an effort sport. You don't try in baseball; you react. It is a game played most effectively in a purely instinctual, almost hypnotic, mindset--not with a busy mind and feelings of duress. One could argue that this is true of all sports and even many professions. Excessive effort and obsession with work are what give people ulcers, one-dimensional personalities, and strained relationships with their spouses and children. What a shame that Manny can't be like that.

Say what you will about Manny's track record as a defensive player. But if you think for one second that he isn't 100% focused when he's at the plate, or that he somehow exhibits a lack of regard for his at-bats, then you have never watched Ramirez hit. He is the epitome of the perfectly honed-in, perfectly reactive major league hitter.

So of course, Manny wasn't going to let the negative press worry him in Game 5. Instead, he scorched two hits and drew a walk, but undoubtedly, the Boston sports talk airwaves were filled with critics railing on his off-the-fence single last night. Such is the trade-off with Manny. But really, who's counting? I'll take the man on my team any day.

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Gyrations

A few moments ago during the Indians-Red Sox game, Timmy Mac referred to one of Dice-K's pitches as a "gyroball."

First of all, has anyone used this term since spring training? I thought we were all over this would-be sensation.

Second, the pitch was, what I'd call, either a tailing changeup (81 mph on the gun, dropping away from a lefty, released with a "turning-it-over" motion) or perhaps a borderline screwball. Back in spring training, I remember watching some Youtube videos tagged "Gyroball" where he throws this same type of pitch. This is not proprietary technology. Many good pitchers--Maddux, for one--have been throwing this for years.

Now to those of us gullible dreamers believing there was a magical new pitch out there, a Gyroball was supposed to be a pitch with changeup speed and a vicious, late, right-to-left lateral break. It sounded impossible, and evidently, it is. Or at least Dice-K doesn't throw one.

One more random observation for those of you watching this game: Is the NFL Films-style effect employed in the head-on pitcher close-up intentional, or is some FOX engineer just screwing with the technology? I missed the first inning, so maybe this was explained as FOX's newest gay gimmick. Help me out, folks.

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Stick to the NBA, Sports Guy (Part XVILVLXXIIII)

When I saw that Simmons answered an all-MLB mailbag this week, I just had to see what Bosto-centric lunacy this unearthed. It wasn't the gold mine I'd expected, but it did offer a few ignorant opinions that I had to address.

2. Manager Eric Wedge stuck to his guns, started Paul Byrd in Game 4 (I thought Wedge was crazy, like so many others did) and pitched his embattled closer in the ninth when he easily could have brought out a lights-out Rafael Betancourt for a second inning, announcing to everybody, "This is our team, this is what we did all year, I'm not changing now." And it paid off. They won. You have to hand it to him.

(Wedge didn't get enough credit for dusting off the Artist Formerly Known as Trot Nixon, then starting him in Game 3 for the simple reason that Trot has ALWAYS owned Roger Clemens. As soon as I saw Trot in the lineup, I thought to myself, "Wow, I don't care how washed-up Trot is, he's hitting a homer in this game." And it happened. Sure, Trot ended up blowing the game open with an outfield error a few innings later, but it happened. Let's make sure that Trot ends up in Clemens' nursing home 50 years from now. Assuming Clemens has retired by then.)

More on his first point following bullet-point 4.

But first, the Trot Nixon thing.

The hindsight provided by the Nixon error aside (managers can't anticipate such things), I'm not sure the hindsight of the homer entirely justifies the start.

Granted, Nixon's career line against Clemens is impressive: 16-40, 8 BB, 5 HR, 5 2B. But pitcher-batter matchups are funny things. 1) They rely on small sample sizes, obviously. 2) As players age, their games change and adapt to the loss of physical abilities, creating an entirely new head-to-head dynamic. I mean, would anyone say that Dwight Gooden vs. Rafael Palmero in 1987 meant anything in 1997? I think the same goes for Nixon-Clemens. Most of those matchups took place when both were in their primes. Both players have seen their skills diminish considerably.

Who does that favor? Hard to say. Consider that Tony Gwynn absolutely owned the greatest pitcher of all-time (no bias), Greg Maddux--39-94, (.415), 11 BB, .997 OPS. Against John Burkett, a decidely less talented pitcher, he went 9-39 (.231), 3 BB, 2 2B, .561 OPS; vs. Ken Hill: 14-52 (.269) .700 OPS.

So sometimes a player will hit much worse against a worse pitcher (in terms of overall numbers) than against a great pitcher. My point being, Clemens's dimishing skills could actually make him more effective against an individual hitter who has also aged, and who is--I don't know--55% as effective as he was in his prime.

4. Joe "Never a Doubt!" Borowski slammed the door on the Yanks with one of those classic Borowski saves -- he gave up one homer and another potential homer that curved foul before whiffing Posada to end the series. I never thought a baseball closer could match the "no, no, no ... yes!!!!" dynamic of Antoine Walker in his prime, but Borowski has to be the most compelling guy in the playoffs right now, a potential successor to Calvin Schiraldi, Mitch Williams, Jose Mesa and everyone else of that ilk. Can you win a World Series with a closer who makes the '96 John Wetteland look like Eric Gagne during his 84-save streak? If you remember, the 2001 World Series champs survived two Byung-Hyun Kim meltdowns in the same series. So it's definitely possible. It's just that Indians fans might be throwing up blood for the next two weeks.

I swear--I'm not out to trash Jo-Bo. As I've already mentioned, I loved him in '03. I admire his perseverence (not getting a real major league gig til he was 31). But he is not good. B.H. Kim has nothing to do with this argument.

Yes, Kim was a little kid in '01 and may have been spooked by postseason play. Or maybe he was just hurt by good hitters getting good wood on decent pitches. But revisionists who believe that Kim was not an effective reliever that year, or that his '01 WS appearance ruined his career are sadly mistaken. He had an excellent '01 season (98 IP, 58 H, 113 K, 1.04 WHIP) and followed that up with an '02 of 84 IP, 64 H, 92 K, 1.07 WHIP. All excellent.

Borowski has done nothing of the sort in his career. Will that mean he'll have a series like Kim had? Of course not. But does he slightly hurt the chances of the Indians winning this series? Undeniably. (Also, Schiraldi was awesome in '86--something Simmons's Buckno-centric mind forgets.)

Anyway, that was about it for refutable comments. Sports Guy spends the rest of the column sticking to the only thing he knows better than the NBA: non-sports topics.

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Not another save rant!

Sorry, but I just can't take it.

Joe Borowski sucks, plain and simple. He's not--as so many broadcasters (including Buck and Timmy Mac tonight) have implied--a wily escape artist with a penchant for bending but not breaking. He is simply a bad relief pitcher who personifies the meaninglessness of the save and, moreover, how easily a major league pitcher can compile saves given the opportunity.

I don't mean to badmouth Joe personally. How could I ever forget the way he pitched in '03? (Aside: Dusty Baker's going to an NL Central team not the Cubs or Brewers! How long before he benches Adam Dunn for walking too much?) I don't think the guy ever missed the catcher's glove that year. That backdoor slurve that barely broke but still fooled the lefties was awesome. But guess what? That pitch breaks even less now, and his super-straight low-90s fastball is now a super-straight high-80s fastball.

It's hard to be a quality major league pitcher when you have you zero quality major league pitches.

Here's Joe-Bo's line this year: 65 2/3 IP, 77 H, 9 HR, 17 BB, 58 K, 1.43 WHIP, 45 Sv

Now a sane person would look at that and say, "Wow, a 1.43 WHIP is really high--especially when it's so heavy on hits. Just goes to show that saves are really an accidental product of opportunity, not a reflection of performance."

But if you're a 115 year-old baseball writer with a full-grown moustache over each eye, you might say, "That just shows he might give up a few hits but buckles down when it counts."

I just can't understand how a halfway intelligent person could let such a flawed, convoluted stat trump all other measures--including one's eyes--in judging a reliever's ability. It boggles my mind and makes me angry.

And as I've pointed out so many times, Borowski isn't a first-time phenomenon.

Antonio Alfonseca, 2000: 70 IP, 82 H, 24 BB, 47 K, 1.51 WHIP, 45 Sv
Todd Jones, 2000: 64 IP, 67 H, 25 BB, 67 K, 1.44 WHIP, 42 Sv (5th in CY voting)
Jose Mesa, 1999: 68 2/3 IP, 84 H, 40 BB, 42 K, 1.81 WHIP, 33 Sv

If anyone but Jose Mesa put up that line, he would be fortunate to have a job. But because he was already firmly entrenched in the Sacred Fraternity of the Closer after his dominant '95 season, the Mariners kept giving him the ball in the ninth.

I truly believe that Jones and Mesa are two examples of guys who've made lengthy careers on one or two good seasons and facial hair. I'm 100% serious about that. It's the "closer face" phenomenon. All they needed was one year with a high save total, and people would continue to say things like "He has a closer's mentality" about them because of their facial hair.

For a guy like Mesa, I can understand why the "closer" rep sticks. He's always thrown hard, even as he's gotten old. But Jones hasn't thrown hard in years. Borowski never has. Nothing about him fits the mold. Yes, many guys (Hoffman, Saito, Foulke, Quisenberry, Jones, Wilhelm, etc) have succeeded as closers without throwing hard, but just about every one of them had an exceptional changeup or some other exceptional offspeed pitch (i.e. Wilhelm's knuckler). Borowski does not. Borowski is all reputation, and you'd be hard-pressed to convince me otherwise.

P.S.: How many times is FOX gonna play "Dirty Water" in this series? We get it. It's about Boston.

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Most vaguest trivia question EVER!!!!!

Sonic Trivia Question from tonight's Yanks-Indians game:

What happened on this date in MLB history that never happened before and has never happened since?

What??! I think that's one of those questions they'd ask people on the gallows to save their lives back in the old days. I mean, seriously, without any bounds, that could literally be anything. Lonnie Smith homered off Bob Welch on a 1-2 count with two outs in the fifth? Willie Mays called Leo Durocher "daddio" in the dugout?

Answer: Don Larsen pitched a perfect game in the World Series. Wow. Did he? Never heard that one before. Imagine that. A perfect game. In the World Series. I'm surprised no one's ever mentioned this rare occurrence before.

YAWWWN.......

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