In the words of the man himself, "That is BS!"

A few minutes ago, the colorful, legendary voice of the Chicago White Sox, Ken "the Hawk" Harrelson made--in my estimation--a somewhat dubious claim.

He and partner Darrin "D.J." Jackson were discussing the incredible out-of-the-box speed of Royals outfielder Joey Gathright. According to Jackson, Gathright has been clocked at 3.3 seconds to first on a bunt and 3.6 swinging. Pretty fast, huh?

Not to be left out, however, Hawk, as is his trademark, invoked the exploits of a player from his day--just to make sure none of the viewers would get the crazy idea that players today might be as good, or better, than those of yesteryear.

According to the Hawkmeister, the great Mickey Mantle was clocked at "three seconds flat" out of the left-handed batter's box. That's right--3.0 seconds. That is, 0.3 seconds, or 9% faster than one of the speediest players in the game today.

Consider: That corresponds to a rate of 10 yds/sec (ok, maybe 9.8 when you subtract the distance between home plate and the lefty batter's box). Now let me ask you this: How many times have you heard of an NFL player running a 4.0-40? Though, when you think about it, a 3.0-30 would actually correspond to a 40 time below 4.0 since the last ten yards are run at a higher velocity than the acceleration distance shared by both a 30-yard and 40-yard sprint.

Am I finished? Oh no.

The 100-meter world record in 1956--about the same time as Mantle's prime--was 10.1 seconds. Today, it's 9.72 because--get this--people are faster.

Let's pile on some more. What, if you had to guess, was the error tolerance on a mid-20th century stopwatch? A hundreth of a second? A tenth? Note that the 100-meter records weren't measured to the second decimal place until at least 1961. And I really doubt that whatever bench coach or scout recorded this alleged 3.0 home-to-first did not possess the cutting edge stopwatch technology that was used in the Olympics.

(Still going.) The depth of scouting--and therefore the accuracy of scouting--in Mantle's time was not nearly what it is today. I'd fancy that a Yankees coach with poor reaction time could have "timed" Mantle by counting to three on his fingers like the owl in the Tootsie Roll Pop commercial with very few, if any, checks by opposing scouts.

Also...

No... No, I think I've finally had enough. This was totally not worth the effort.

(Also, I bet Mickey Mantle never did this:



Mercy!)

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Why it pays to have family connections

Royals shortstop Tony Pena, son of the former All-Star catcher and manager of the same name, remains employed by (and frequently starts for) a major league team despite hitting .154 (.177 OBP, .189 SLG) with O HR and 8 RBI in 169 AB this year.

As drawn to my attention by Baseball Prospectus Premium Newsletter Stat of the Day, Pena's VORP is -18.7 (which for the non-SABR people, means your average minor league lifer would have created 18.7 more runs of offense to this point in the season, given those 169 ABs). His OPS+ is -2. That's right--negative two. (For a guy to have a negative OPS+, his OPS has to be less than half of the league-average mark.) What's worse is that he's also a below-average fielder this year, going by the dubious FRAA metric (-5, though he was +13 last year, which still wasn't enough to offset his -25 BRAA).

Pena is 27, and his best OBP in a full minor-league season was .301 in high-A ball. His top slugging was .366 in AA, where he slugged a whopping 11 HR. Unless the fielding metrics wildly underrate his true defensive ability, Pena clearly does not belong in the majors.

Professional athletics is supposed to be one of the few meritocracies that exists in the world, but Pena is a pretty good example of why it helps to have a name.

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Shoe(s)-in of the Week

No, it isn't football season (anticipated rebuttal from Mike: "What about the EURO?"), but I'm bringing you a special baseball edition of the Shoe-in of the Week, where I share my expert gambling advice with odd-defyingly terrible results.

However, this time I'm putting my money where my ass can't cash. Wait... I think I did something wrong there. Anywho... My dad, who's in Nevada, called me to see if I wanted to bet on any of today's games. So I put a fin (five dollars, for you squares) on two of this afternoon's games.

I'm calling the Royals (+155) over the Yankees. The still-adjusting-to-starter's-innings Joba Chamberlain is going up against the excellent Zack Greinke, and the Yankees' bullpen has been horrible.

I'm also putting a fiver on the Orioles (+210) over the Blue Jays. I'm completely banking on the power of the unfamiliar, as the O's will be sending Radhames Liz to the mound to make his sixth major-league start against Roy Halladay (hence the lopsided line).

So if you happen to read this in the next twenty minutes before these games start (almost 100% sure not to happen), follow my advice. I'm never wrong!

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Hawk Harrelson just used this phrase twice this inning, both times making absolutely no sense

The phrase?

"That's why they call it baseball."

The first time it was, "There's exceptions to every rule. That's why they call it baseball."

The second time it was, "Every [trend] goes through cycles. That's why they call it baseball."

Last time I checked, the game is called "baseball" because it's played with both "bases" and "balls." Drop the pluralizations, and you get "baseball." You're much too folksy for your own good, Hawk.


FYI: As I write this, the Royals' Joey Gathright just perfectly illustrated what Matt, Nate, and I always say about the "balls out" approach to baseball. Going for a foul pop in shallow left, he nearly killed himself (or at least seriously injured himself) by running full speed and tumbling into the front row of seats. And yes, Aaron Rowand's name has been heavily dropped by Hawk and DJ in the aftermath of the play.

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YCS On Location IV: Can we tour all 30 parks collectively?

It began with an opening day trip to Miller Park in Milwaukee, then a brief layover in Dallas, then hit the Nation's capital when Matt recently continued YCS's version of [Insert name of favorite traveling pre-game show here], aka: Not broadcasting anything, drinking beer, watching baseball, and telling you about our exploits. Following Matt's report on a trip to RFK in Washington, it's time to bring you a YCS On Location report from another ballpark that I'd be willing to bet most of our readers have never visited: Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Mizzurah.

I spent the weekend in Kansas City for the weekend to visit the girlfriend and meet her family at a graduation party. It was there that I was introduced by her crazy 83-year old great aunt as her "fiancee" which just about caused everyone in the kitchen to do a spit take before order was restored. With my leading lady playing tour guide around her home town for three days; sadly, things to do in KC ran thin very quickly. Ask yourself. After getting yourself some decent BBQ, as a tourist, what would be the first 5 things YOU would do in Kansas City?

Luckily, the Royals were at home Friday night to play against the Phillies, where it was "1980 World Series Rematch Night" so we all got lapel pins that I have no idea what I'm going to do with. I found it a little odd to be coining it a "rematch" when that series took place before the birth of a good portion of today's rosters.

Kauffman Stadium (or "The K" as the public address announcer referred to the structure several times) is in the middle of bufu [expletive deleted] nowhere and is a solid 20-30 minute drive in rush hour traffic from downtown Kansas City. About the only thing it is convenient to is Arrowhead Stadium, however, since the Chiefs and Royals rarely if ever play on the same day, any sense of convenience is lost. Arrowhead shares the parking lot and the same early-1960s cement molded exterior architecture with Kauffman that marred many a ballpark untill baseball's recent building boom. Tickets start at 7 bucks and as far as I could see, even in the upper deck there wasn't a bad seat in the house.*
* = read on and you'll see.

In a little bit of Soldier Field in KC, the stadium that is ghastly from the parking lot is gorgeous in the stands. The much-famed fountains in the outfield are pretty sweet and shoot off and light up different colors in between innings and during pitching changes. The Royals have also introduced their own version of the Brewers sausages/Pirates pierogies/Nationals Presidents races, with blood rivals Ketchup, Mustard and Relish. Three costumes that looked like they were made at the last minute with mattress foam, masking tape, and finger paint. Relish won on Friday night. I'm told that he never wins, so I feel like I witnessed something truly special.

Speaking of special things that I witnessed, I got to see former Cub Mark Grudzielanek knock one off the left field foul pole to put the Royals ahead and send the 19,121 in attendance into mild delight. *Late in the game, in one of the more bizarre features of the park (besides the fact that they advertise in the fountains for the cheap off-brand hot dogs that I ate in college when I had no qualms about putting anything of questionable composition into my body), reared its ugly 5 million heads. Remember how I said how the upper deck had a great view of the field? That is untill about the 8th inning when thousands of moths descended on "the K" and were inexorably drawn to the shining lights. Needless to say, it kinda took the magic out of a summer night at the ballpark, but a decent post-game fireworks show fixed that.

All in all, aside from some small scoreboard technical difficulties , Kauffman isn't a terrible park to watch a game in. The interior was lucky to escape the dreary cookie-cutter effect of many stadiums buit in its time, and has a fairly knowledgable fan base (aside from the kid who asked his dad "Is is halftime?" during a pitching change). So if you've got 7 bucks, and don't mind being in the middle of the Missouri hills, "the K" is "OK" [rimshot].

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