Former player and father of Barry, Bobby Bonds has lung cancer. This is very sad:

"My dad does have lung cancer,'' Barry Bonds said Friday before the San Francisco Giants played the Chicago Cubs in their first exhibition game. "It's not easy to deal with.''

Barry Bonds declined further comment. But the Contra Costa Times reported Friday that the elder Bonds was recovering well from his kidney procedure, only to be diagnosed with lung cancer during the winter.

Bonds was the leadoff man for the 1979 Pinto Hatchbacks strato-matic team, and although I know it's strange, I feel close to my former players. Let's wish him well and hope he recovers.

Phoenix is pitching to bring in more spring training tourists:

The point man for the Greater Phoenix Convention & Visitors Bureau couldn't have asked for better weather. In Kansas City, that is.

It was a frigid 19 degrees and snowing as MacKenzie explained the virtues of coming West to watch the Royals in their new spring training digs in Surprise, Ariz.

"We want them to know we are open, and we want their business," said MacKenzie, who planned to visit four other cities with Cactus League teams before spring training games started. "The Phoenix area should be their No. 1 destination."

I've thought about this myself. You can get there cheaply on Southwest, and once you are there, all the ballparks are close by, as this Catus League map shows. If you have a three day weekend, you could catch a lot of games without a lot of travel.

Bob Hohler of the Boston Globe discusses the third base situation in Boston. Bill Mueller comes off looking like a class act:

Mueller knew when he signed with the Sox that Hillenbrand might remain with the team on Opening Day.

''What happens when you get into a situation where they have an All-Star player in front of you or on the team already is, you look toward helping out and doing whatever it takes to build a winning team,'' Mueller said. ''At this point in my career, I'm not going to be looking back and saying I hit certain numbers. Nobody's going to remember how much I got on base. They're going to remember who won the World Series or the American League East. That's what I'm focused on, getting to a team that's committed to winning instead of worrying about numbers or other things that are pretty much selfish.''

Numbers figured prominently, though, in Boston's interest in Mueller. An above-average defensive player, Mueller also is a career .286 hitter with a .370 on-base percentage. Hillenbrand has hit .280 with a .313 on-base percentage, though he has shown much more power than Mueller, hitting 30 homers in 1,102 at-bats compared with Mueller's 41 homers in 2,674 at-bats.

However, general manager Theo Epstein appears to view Mueller's team-first attitude as valuable as his other attributes, just as the Sox consider Hillenbrand a team player. And everyone who has played with Mueller, including his former San Francisco teammates Doug Mirabelli and Alan Embree, have endorsed Epstein's evaluation.

Thus, no one snickers when Mueller says with all sincerity of his collegial competition with Hillenbrand, ''You shoot for winning the playoffs and World Series first, then let all the other stuff trickle down.''

After the last two years, I worry about Mueller's durability. But I think he would be a better offensive and defensive third baseman than Hillenbrand. The Red Sox have made a number of good moves this winter, and it will be interesting to see how they resolve this situation.

Quilvio Veras is attempting a comeback with the Dodgers:

Veras, who turns 32 on April 3, went 2-for-2 and stole two bases in the Dodgers' first intrasquad game Tuesday. He added a single in Wednesday's intrasquad game.

His performance caught the attention of Dodgers manager Jim Tracy, who said Veras looked much like the same player who wreaked havoc on the basepaths during the mid-1990s.

"This guy was a dynamic base stealer when he was in San Diego," Tracy said. "You really hated it when this guy got on base."

Veras certainly knows how to get to first: He owns a .372 career on-base percentage in seven seasons with the Padres, Braves and Florida Marlins. Shawn Green (.385) was the only Dodgers starter with a higher on-base percentage last season.

But he still faces an uphill battle in his quest to open the season on the major-league roster.

Rookie second baseman Joe Thurston went 6-of-7 with a homer and double in two intrasquad games this week. Alex Cora, who can play second base and shortstop, batted .291 with a .371 on-base percentage last year.

I've liked Veras for a long time. The Dodgers could certainly use the OBA at 2nd after having Mark Grudzielanek, who put up a .301 OBA for the team last year. Best of all for the Dodgers, they seem to have a number of good options at the position.

Larry Dierker is looking to get back into baseball:

One summer's vacation from baseball was enough for former Astros player, broadcaster and manager Larry Dierker. He's ready to get involved again.
''I didn't miss it so much last year because it was the first summer I'd had off since my junior year in high school,'' Dierker said Wednesday. ''Now I feel like I'm ready to do something. I've written a book. I could probably keep writing. I'd like to broadcast.''

Dierker served the team over a 38-year span before he resigned after the 2001 season. The club announced Wednesday that Dierker would be an occasional host at ''Larry's Big Bamboo,'' a new bar to be located at Minute Maid Park.

''I've kind of gotten a little anxious to get back into the flow of things and this is a little step in that direction,'' Dierker said. ''I hope there will be more steps in that direction.''

With Buck Showalter leaving ESPN, maybe Dierker can fill his shoes.

Kyle Nagel has an interesting article on the new surface at the new Reds ballpark.

The Reds are beating the Yankees 7-3 in the top of the fourth. Waiting for the first "Joe Torre's job is in trouble" articles to appear. :-)

According to Peter Schmuck of the Baltimore Sun, baseball is banning ephedrine-based supplements from the minor leagues:

Major League Baseball took another big step this week toward industry-wide restrictions on the use of ephedrine-based products by banning the use of the herbal supplement throughout the minor leagues.

The ban, which was implemented Monday and has been transmitted to the 30 major-league front offices over the past two days, covers all minor- league players not on 40-man major-league rosters.

Players on 40-man rosters are governed by Major League Baseball's collective bargaining agreement, which does not include restrictions on the substance cited as a contributing factor in the Feb. 17 heatstroke death of 23-year-old Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler.

The memo outlining the drug policy change, distributed by MLB deputy general counsel Jennifer Gefsky and obtained by The Sun, informs clubs that ephedrine, a stimulant found in over-the-counter dietary supplements, has been added to the list of substances prohibited in the minors and authorizes random testing to detect it.

The commissioner's office is expected to propose the ban be extended to major-league players, but figures to meet resistance from the Major League Baseball Players Association.

I wonder if someone at MLB is reading Baseball Musings. I suggested a minor league ban on the 21st.

This caught my eye this morning:

So Acevedo is competing for a spot. Manager Joe Torre will have 11 pitchers on the roster, and six starters will make it. So will the left-hander Chris Hammond and the right-handers Mariano Rivera, Steve Karsay and, most likely, Antonio Osuna. The left-hander Randy Choate will probably get the last spot.

Six starters? Does this mean a six man rotation for the Yankees? I don't know what to make of it. Given the age of the Yankee pitchers, it might be a very good idea. I remember in the mid-80's Bill James suggesting that the ageing Tom Seaver be used once a week. Seaver was still good, but there was some question as to his durability. If the Yankees go to a six-man rotation, it very well may benefit Clemens and Wells (Clemens has always needed full rest between starts anyway). It might reduce damage to Pettitte's elbow. Of course, they may just think that they'll get an injury right away, and really go north with five staters. Time will tell.

Exhibition season gets underway tomorrow (Thursday) and we start off with the Cubs and Giants in a home and home. The Sporting News talks about Baker adjusting to his new team, and what it will be like for Baker and his former charges to oppose each other:

Baker's past and present will collide Thursday, when exhibition games begin. Though the schedule was made out long before Baker was hired in November, the Cubs first two games are against -- who else? -- the Giants.

The Cubs play at San Francisco's park on Thursday, with the Giants coming to Mesa on Friday.

"I don't know how it's going to be," he said. "I've got a lot of guys over there I care about. I know half of the staff. It'll be a little different for me to come out of the other clubhouse."

It's going to be an adjustment for his former players, too.

"Yeah, it's going to look strange," Barry Bonds said. "He wore blue before, but when you're so used to seeing him in black and orange, it's going to be strange to see him in a Cub uniform. Dusty's a good manager, and the Cubs got a good one."

Nine games are on tap tomorrow, and Friday will feature a full slate. Play Ball!

Glenn Dickey of the SF Chronicle thinks that Ken Macha won't be intimidated by Beane the way Howe was:

Art Howe definitely was. Howe came to the A's with a philosophy from his playing days in the '70s in the National League, heavy on bunting, the hit-and- run, hitting to the right side to advance the runner, playing for one run. Little ball, in other words.

That was exactly the wrong philosophy for managing an American League club in the '90s, when offense had exploded for a variety of reasons: smaller parks, a livelier ball, wretched pitching. Giving up outs to score one run made no sense in games which were more often decided by 10-8 scores than 3-2 scores.

Beane hammered that point home to Howe so thoroughly that Howe forgot there were times when little ball still made sense. The A's became a station-to- station team, and remained one, even when they acquired some speed, such as Ray Durham and Mark Ellis.

Beane's philosophy is not original with him. When Earl Weaver managed the Baltimore Orioles in the '70s and '80s, he preached the virtue of the three- run homer and disparaged base stealers. Sandy Alderson, Beane's predecessor as A's GM, emphasized the importance of on-base percentage, combining hits and walks, as opposed to the outmoded measure of pure batting average.

It's a sound philosophy for the 162-game regular season. The exceptions to the rule aren't important because, even if they make the difference in one game or even a series, that's a very small part of a season.

But in the postseason, events get compressed and the opponents change. What works in the regular season against weaker teams doesn't work in the postseason against teams that match up physically.

Dickey thinks that in the post-season, you need to adapt your strategy. He's right. But I think he's wrong about Beane trying to intimidate Macha. My feeling is that Macha already has the respect of Beane. My guess is that they will work together very well.

Jan Bottone writes:

Anyway, just reading a quote from Ron Gardenhire in a piece by Howard Bryant, now with the Boston Herald, where the Twins' manager says: "If you look at my guy, Mientkiewicz, you can say he's only a .260 hitter. But if he's saving 40 runs a year with his defense and knocking in 60, to me that's a 100-RBI guy. I'd like to see how many of those big hitters out there are actually saving their teams runs. If you factor how many they give back, maybe the numbers don't look so good after all." -- Do you agree with Gardenhire? Thanks for your input, David.

I don't agree. First of all, what does he mean he's saving 40 runs a year? Versus whom? Forty more than Giambi? Forty more than Olerud? What's the standard? I think Gardenhire is just trying to talk up a player he likes.

But we can look at this. We now have win shares. Here are the defensive win shares at first base for all 1B's who played 100 games in 2002:

   WS     Name
--------  --------------------    
0.55  Vaughn    
0.79  Conine    
0.90  Klesko    
1.11  Casey    
1.14  Cox    
1.16  McGriff    
1.36  Thome    
1.55  Sweeney    
1.61  Konerko    
1.79  Spiezio    
1.94  Young    
1.99  Snow    
2.33  Delgado    
2.35  Lee    
2.37  Lee    
2.38  Bagwell    
2.42  Martinez    
2.62  Sexson   
2.68  Mientkiewicz    
3.07  Helton    
3.23  Olerud    
3.62  Karros

So first of all, Mientkiewicz wasn't event the best first baseman in the majors last year. Secondly, remember that 3 win shares equal 1 win. So the best defensive first baseman added only 1 win to his team with his defense. A rule of thumb is that 1 win equals 10 runs. So the best defensive first baseman (Karros) saved about 10 runs with his glove vs. the worst 1B (Vaughn).

Sorry Ron. Your calculations have nothing to do with reality. I doubt that there's a shortstop that saves 25 runs for a team! (Just checked. The difference between the best and worst shortstop is 2 wins, or about 20 runs.) Personally, I'd rather have the slugger at first base any day.

Baseball Crank has some thoughts on Bernie Williams in the post-season.

Seems under the new voting system, no one was selected by the veterans committee this year.

I'm not surprised. It's a much tougher voting system, and that's probably as it should be. Apart from non-players, I think the writers do a very good job of selecting inductees. As time goes on, we'll find that the vets have very few errors to correct.

I made a correction to the Rob Neyer post.

It's verteran committee day. Here's an article from ESPN.com explaining the new voting procedure (more like the other procedure, except living Hall of Famers get to vote). For the record, I think Marvin Miller should go in.

Gordon Wittenmyer of the Pioneer Press has a very positive article on first overall pick Joe Mauer:

The youngest player in the Twins' major league camp for the second straight year, Mauer, the No. 1 overall draft pick in June 2001, already seems a master of the science of hitting, and he's not likely to be out of Class A ball until at least the middle of this season.

In just the first week of camp this year, he has impressed Twins staff from the front office to the coaches with the progress he has made since an impressive 2002 camp.

"I see a lot,'' hitting coach Scott Ullger said. "He's getting the feel for pulling the inside fastball. … He has great balance, quick hands, good bat-head awareness, centers the ball on almost every swing. … But obviously, he's got to get some at-bats under his belt.''

That last quote seems to be the mantra of the Twins staff.

On the other hand, the kid rated by Baseball America magazine last year as the top minor league catching prospect hit .400 in a 110 at-bat debut at Class A Elizabethton in 2001, hit .302 with 23 doubles in 411 at-bats at Class A Quad City (Iowa) last year, and even in big-league camp as an 18-year-old last year went 5 for 12 (.417) before Twins brass averted the "Bring Joe North'' campaigns by sending him to the minor league side of camp.

He'll likely start the season with the Twins' highest Class A club, in Fort Myers.

The soft-spoken Mauer looks more like a veteran among the big leaguers with every week he spends in their midst.

"I'm pretty much coming in trying to learn as much as I can. There's a lot to this game,'' said Mauer, who also threw out 42 percent (45 for 108) of attempted base stealers last year. "It's a lot more relaxed this year. I'm more confident out there. I know all the guys. Last year coming in, I knew of them but didn't know them. It's exciting to get this opportunity again.''

Mauer was in camp last year as a stipulation of the $5.15 million contract he signed after being drafted. This year, the invitation was earned.

"We expect him to get more of the same out of it, although he's prepared to take on more,'' general manager Terry Ryan said. "He's to the point where he's been through a full year as a pro. He kind of knows what's expected here and is getting familiar with the pitchers on the staff. He just needs repetition. He needs games. He needs experience.''

I think the Twins may be holding back too much here. The catcher can clearly hit A-ball pitching. I don't know what they think he's going to learn there. It will be interesting to see how impressive he is in spring training. If he's the natural he appears to be, he may start at AA (and I can see him in New Britian!), or who knows? I-Rod was in the big leagues at 19. Maybe Mauer will be, too.

Jayson Stark writes about Mike Hampton's attempted comeback with the Braves. Mazzone has the best line in the article:

It was so obvious that when Hampton first threw for his new pitching coach a few weeks ago in Atlanta, it took Mazzone barely a minute to see that Hampton's delivery of the sinking fastball was drastically different from his four-seam sailing fastball.

"I don't want to make it into any big deal," Mazzone says. "The only thing I saw was that, when he threw his (four-seam) fastball, he was fine. But when he went to the sinker, he was trying to really make it sink. He got out of sync trying to make it sink. That's the best way to put it."

The Braves have to hope he doesn't sink like 'NSync. That would stink. (Must resist temptation to channel Dr. Suess!)

Too late.

This one,
I think,
is called
a Yink.

He likes to wink,
he likes to drink.

He likes to drink, and drink, and drink.
The thing he likes to drink
is ink.
The ink he likes to drink is pink.
He likes to wink and drink pink ink.

SO...
if you have a lot of ink,
then you should get
a Yink, I think.

Craig Wachs of the ESPN research department writes me to say that Homer Bush has retired.

We aired this last night and figured somewhere you'd be smiling...we found your graphic from 1999 and updated it.

Most homers, one season, guys named Homer 
'99 Homer Bush     5<<    
'27 Homer Summa    4 
'26 Homer Summa    4 
'05 Homer Smoot    4 
'03 Homer Smoot    4 
>>11 career HR 

Most homers, guys named Homer 
Homer Summa         18 
Homer Smoot         15 
Homer Bush          11<< 
Homer Peel          2 

>>Career-high 5 in 1999 >>Six other "Homers" never homered

I was concerned about Homer's career here. Looks like the all-time Homer homer record is safe.

Batter's Box vents about the Blue Jays Dance troupe. Remember when Toronto sold out every game? That was because they had a great baseball team. Now they need dancing girls to bring in the fans.

Abben Maguire writes about baseball and other things at Abben.com. He'll be posting some of my better articles there.

Bob Montgomery points out that I'm wrong about Kauffman Stadium. They moved the fences in a few years ago, and last year it was the most extreme hitters park in the AL. So you can ignore this post.

Mike's Baseball Rant continues his series on relievers.

I'm linking to Rob's column today because he basically agrees with me. One point of contention, however:

There's another misconception about Steinbrenner's Yankees, which is that between their World Series appearances in 1981 and 1996 -- 14 seasons -- they were little more than a budget-busting joke. The truth, however, is somewhat more complex. In 1982 the Yankees did crash to a 79-83 record, their worst since 1967. But from 1983 through 1988, they won at least 83 games in every season. In 1993 they won 88 games, and in 1994 they had the best record in the American League when the strike hit.

So there were really only four years, 1989 through 1992, when the Yankees weren't the Yankees. And for the latter two of those four seasons, Steinbrenner was serving a suspension that somewhat limited his ability to meddle.

I think the suspensions actually helped the Yankees. During these periods (there was one in the early 70's as well), the Yankees laid the foundation for the championship teams that followed. That may not have happened if George was interferring in trades and drafts during those time periods.

Correction: In the first sentence above, Rob changed victories to appearances. I've made the same correction here.

Instapundit relays a problem at the NY Times.

Pete Rose was not elected to the Canadian Hall of Fame. I guess a partial season with the Expos isn't enough to get you elected, even if you did get your 4000th hit with the team.

Joe Carter, however, was elected. Maybe Canadians just prefer nice guys. :-) Kudos to Joe Carter, and kudos to the voters for not electing Rose.

The Brewers have been hit with an early season injury, and Chuck Carlson of the Oskosh Northwestern doesn't like the way the Brewers management is handling it.

Faster than you can say, “shaved labrum,” the Milwaukee Brewers are already facing their first disaster of the new season and they haven’t even had a chance to get sun-burned in Arizona yet.

Hotshot right-hander pitcher Nick Neugebauer has scheduled arthroscopic surgery on his funky right shoulder and it will likely cost him the entire season. Seeing as the Brewers may be staring down the barrel of another 100-loss season, this isn’t necessarily awful news for the 22-year-old kid, who now won’t be hit by any of the collateral damage that usually comes from a terrible season.

Here's the Brewers spin on how this will effect the team, and Carlson's response:

It may be all, or none, of the above but what will be interesting is how new general manager Doug Melvin and neophyte manager Ned Yost handle the first hiccup in their administration.

Already, Melvin has opted for the explanation that this won’t hurt too badly because, well, Neugebauer was never slated to pitch with the big club this season anyway.

Yeah, right.

The team has spent all winter trumpeting a new, young pitching staff that includes, among others, Ben Sheets, Glendon Rusch, perhaps promising young pup Ben Diggins and, yes indeed, Neugebauer.

What the Brewers have to offer — which is all they have to offer — is a titillating peek at the future and at players who, in time, could develop into legitimate big league talent. And make no mistake that Neugebauer is in the vanguard of the youth movement.

If he had found the strike zone with any consistency in spring training he would have taken his place easily in the Brewers starting rotation and everyone knows it. To deny he would have pitched with Milwaukee this season is disingenuous at best.

Compare this to the post on the Orioles' handling of the Bechler death.

When baseball reaches Mars, pitchers will have a hard time throwing curve balls, according to Orrin Judd. (Thanks to Jed Roberts.)

The Royals hitters are finding Surprise Stadium a breeze:

Outfielder Carlos Beltran put on an stirring power display Saturday when he and several other Royals got their first swings inside Surprise Stadium as part of a free Fan Fest for the public.

Oddly, Beltran then went and got his eyes checked. (The exam is part of the spring training routine for all players. He passed.)

Beltran wasn't the only player who routinely flexed his muscles at home plate. Just about everyone had fans scrambling for baseballs on the grass berm beyond the outfield wall -- even middle infielders Carlos Febles and Angel Berroa.

"It's going to be fun for us here," Beltran said. "This is the first time I've been in Arizona. The ball carries a lot."

I wonder if this is going to cause a problem for the Royals. Given their history of player moves, I can't say that they have a lot of sabremetric savy. There are going to be hitters who have great springs whose bats are going to disappear when they move to the pitcher's paradise of Kaufmann Stadium. The A's face a similar situation every year and it doesn't seem to affect them (May is their bad month). Maybe the A's are used to it (or maybe the management understands and adjusts for the problem). Still, I bet there will be a number of stories about the great springs the Royals hitters are having, and sometime in May some writer will wonder what happened.

Correction: See this post.

Paul Hoynes tells the story through the eyes of Alex Escobar. It seems baseball players have become targets because they have money:

"When the oil workers went on strike, the country shut down," Escobar said. "People are getting desperate."

The desperation has made some of Venezuela's big-league ballplayers and their families targets.

Houston's Richard Hidalgo was shot during a car-jacking attempt. Former player Chico Carrasquel was robbed. Anaheim pitcher Francisco Rodriguez said members of his family were robbed this winter.

Escobar and his family have been fortunate. They live in Valencia, which is about a two-hour drive from Caracas.

"Most of the trouble is in Caracas," he said. "Where we live is peaceful and quiet. But my parents don't go out much. They don't spend much time in the street. I'm always worried about them."

Escobar knows why players are being robbed and shot.

"It's hard for people to get a job," he said. "It's hard to get a loan. Inflation is outrageous. People have to feed their families. They see in the paper that some Venezuelan guys have signed for good money. They go after it. They don't care."

On the baseball side of things, Escobar is making progress in recovering from his ACL injury:

Doctors Mark Schickendantz and Lou Keppler of the Tribe's medical team performed the surgery. They took two muscles out of Escobar's left hamstring to repair the ACL.

"This is always a tough rehab, but Alex has done a great job," Schickendantz said. "From a pure medical standpoint, our goal is to get Alex out there and playing. The year after a surgery like this is usually an up and down one."

Escobar has been wearing a brace on his left knee through the first week of spring training. Schickendantz said Escobar eventually will be able to play without it.

"The approach we're taking right now is to get Alex as many at-bats as we can this spring," said John Farrell, Indians director of player development. "We know his timing at the plate is going to need work after missing last season."

Escobar is scheduled to open the season at Class AAA Buffalo. He came up as a center fielder with the Mets, but the Indians probably will start him in right field to protect his knee and arm.

"I haven't been 100 percent for so long that I don't know what it feels like," Escobar said. "But right now, I feel 100 percent every day because I'm so much better than I was last year. My swing feels good. I'm getting good jumps on balls in the outfield. I hope to be there on Feb. 28."

The Tigers have moved the fences in, and Damion Easley thinks he'll benefit from it:

No Tiger has deserved to feel more frustrated by Comerica Park than second baseman Damion Easley.

No Tiger has more reason to look forward to this season at Comerica than Easley, because the left-centerfield fence will be moved closer to home plate -- from 395 feet away to 370.

An eon ago, it seems, Easley made the All-Star team. That was 1998, when he hit 19 homers at Tiger Stadium. He has hit 13 homers combined in three seasons at Comerica.

But then, the left-center power alley at Tiger Stadium was a cozy 365 feet.

"It's pretty simple from the standpoint of 365 to 395," Easley said. "That's 30 feet that you back everybody up. I'm not a guy who's a ground-ball, low-line-drive kind of hitter. Would I like to be? To a certain extent.

"But I'm a guy who's quick with the bat, and I pull the ball a little more. So some balls that other guys who are spray hitters might hit -- that might go up the middle or to right-center field -- go to left-center or left for me. But I drive the ball a little farther.

"Well, with that extra 30 feet, that's everything. You figure 365, so the outfielder has to scoot in. Now my line drive that is head high gets past him because he's closer. Well, you back him up 30 feet, my ball is running out of gas by the time it gets to him.

"Now the balls I drive into left-center and left are outs. They're not hits anymore. I'm not able to make those up. I wish I was blessed with the ability to say, 'OK, they take this away, I'll just hit to right-center.' There's no doubt the park has hurt me because of my style. I drive the ball. That's what I do."

Of course, the problem here is that if you bring the power alleys in, you play to the weakness of your pitchers, as I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. The article goes on to talk about how Easley's OPS is 14% lower on the road. But through the wonder of computers, we can do a much better study.

STATS, Inc. keeps track of where every ball is hit (direction and distance), as well as what type of hit it was (line drive, fly ball, etc.). So for the last three seasons, I found all balls put into play in Tigers games that were in the left field power alley and traveled 370 feet or more, and were either fly balls or line drives (the distance measured is where the ball lands). Here's the home road breakdown, and it shows that Comerica has a tough leftfield power alley:

Power Alley Shots In Tiger Games

2000-2002              Road           Home

Total                   219            167

HR                      142             57

Outs                     38             50

Other non-outs           39             60

Percent non-outs        83%            70%

So the park kills HR, but a lot of those non-HR go for hits anyway. Yes, offense is reduced, but it's not eliminated. And the Tigers could in fact take advantage of this with some doubles/triples type hitters. Now, let's concentrate on the home games, and compare the visitors with the Tigers:

Power Alley Shots In Tiger Home Games

2000-2002          Visitors         Tigers

Total                    93             74

HR                       30             27

Outs                     30             20

Other non-outs           33             27

Percent non-outs        68%            73%

So the Tigers are to some extent taking advantage of their park, making a smaller percentage of outs on balls hit to the left field power alley. But look at the overall numbers. If you turn those outs into HR, instead of being out homered by 1 a year, they'll be out homered by 7 a year! This is looking like a big mistake.

Finally let's look at Easley. How much has this power alley hurt him? Well, in the three years he's played in Comerica, he's hit 11 balls 370 ft or more into the left-field alley! And on those 11 balls, he has 5 HR, 1 triple, 2 doubles and 3 outs. I'm sorry, I'll take that. Easley is crabbing over nothing, and the Detroit pitchers are going to pay a heavy price for this folly.

FoxSports.com has an article about Frank Thomas getting over his salary demotion. Of course, if you read to the end, you see the real problem:

Thomas didn't make a great first impression Saturday.

He showed up nearly 10 minutes late for the first full-squad meeting of the spring as the rest of the White Sox sat in the grass to listen to introductory comments from Williams and Manuel.

But Thomas had a legitimate excuse for straggling down the hill from the clubhouse - he was the last player to get a physical and was getting treatment for a strained back muscle.

"It looked odd," Thomas said, adding he'd hurt his back while working with personal hitting guru Walt Hriniak. "I was not trying to be late or stir something up."

I've never been a big fan of Hriniak. I think his philosophy is to make everyone hit his way, rather than working with the strengths of a particular player's swing. But Thomas seems to like him, as this article implies:

DH Frank Thomas is working with Walt Hriniak again. Hriniak, the team's hitting coach when Thomas made his debut in 1990, was fired after the '95 season. The two reunited in 2000, and Thomas responded with the best year of his career: .328 batting average, 43 homers and 143 RBIs.

Adam Kennedy doesn't have to worry about winning a job this year.
"There was a lot of uncertainty last year, with me personally and the team," he said. "But everything we worked for the last couple of years came together."

Both the Angels and Kennedy took advantage of their time in the national spotlight in spectacular fashion.

The Angels captured their first World Series. Kennedy hit four postseason home runs -- three during Game 5 of the ALCS against Minnesota. Less noticeable was the fact that Kennedy's .312 batting average was 52 points higher than his average set a year earlier.

This spring, the Angels have the solid-hitting second baseman they thought they had acquired for Jim Edmonds in March 2000.

It's interesting that Kennedy's improvement seemed to come from being more aggressive at the plate. His walks went down from 27 to 19, but his BA and OBA went up 40 and 30 points respectively. I wonder if that will hold up.

Johnny Damon likes the new look of the Red Sox:

Clean-shaven Johnny Damon may not have fit in standing next to the mullet-faced Jeremy Giambi and Kevin Millar.

But Damon is looking forward to what the self-dubbed "Boston Mulletmen" will mean to the Red Sox when the season starts.

"Our team is a lot deeper this year," Damon said. "A lot of people say they could have used a day off here or there.We have the guys who can do it this year. With this lineup, every team around the league should fear us."

Seems like the Revolution all over again, with the Mulletmen trying to defeat King George. :-)

Laura Vecsey of the Baltimore Sun postulates that the way the Orioles management has handled the Bechler situation show things are getting better in the organization:

If the Orioles of the past five seasons were mired in anything, it was a lack of communication, a lack of organizational pride, a lack of top-to-bottom accountability, trust and respect.

If the Orioles of last September's dismal losing streak and slide into oblivion proved anything, it was that nothing was working. The organization's chain of command was too rusted and broken to even give the appearance of functionality.

It might be terrible to think that something as horrible as Bechler's death has given the Orioles an opportunity to so quickly demonstrate that they are operating under a new, better system, but this is what can be easily perceived, even after one day at training camp.

Read the whole thing.

Rick Ankiel appears to be making early progress. You wonder when he might pack in pitching and concentrate on hitting. I guess that would make him the reverse of Tim Wakefield.

Another good medical story. Nick Bierbrodt of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays has recovered from being shot twice last year and is in training camp.

The 24-year-old left-hander was shot twice in the chest last summer while on a minor league rehabilitation assignment in Charleston, S.C., and on Friday faced batters for the first time since the life-threatening incident.

"He threw the ball easily. He threw strikes. He seemed very comfortable out there," Devil Rays manager Lou Piniella said.

"I'm sure he's been waiting for that. It's a first step, but it was extremely encouraging. If you watched him, you wouldn't know anything had happened."

Bierbrodt was the victim of a pedal-by shooting.

The pitcher, sitting in the back seat of a car in the drive-through line of a fast-food restaurant, was shot twice by a man on a bicycle. Both bullets passed through his chest and settled in his liver, where they remain.

Bierbrodt was released from the hospital nine days later and began throwing again in early October. He's one of 39 pitchers in Devil Rays camp, competing for 12 jobs on the opening day roster.

I knew liver was a good source of iron, but Nick's at least is also a good source of lead!

I was going to blog about Nefi Perez, but Only Baseball Matters has done the job for me!

Rob Ramsey, a pitcher for the SD Padres, is undergoing chemotherapy for a brain tumor. Despite this, he's out practicing with the team. A brave man. Let's all hope for the best.

This article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer describes a drill Rene Lachman use to make the Oakland catcher do:

Lachemann, then and now assigned to work with the catchers in the spring, came up with a great workout drill. He had a pitching machine set up to deliver throws in the dirt near home plate. Each catcher had to take a dozen or so throws. While the ball was coming in, one of the other catchers would throw a football tackling dummy at the plate.

It was a way to simulate home-plate collisions. It was brutal, said Steinbach, visiting the Mariners as part of a tour he is doing for CapCare, a group that uses baseball to publicize the need for prostate health awareness.

"We went at it pretty hard," Steinbach said. "(Former Seattle bullpen coach) Matt Sinatro was there then, and he hurt his neck and finally had to have an operation a couple of years later."

Lachemann, back in the American League for the first time in a dozen years, has not said if that drill would return this spring. But manager Bob Melvin said, "We might have to try something like that. It's hard to simulate that play otherwise."

Seems like the balls in the dirt would be a good drill all by itself for practicing blocking bad pitchers. The tackling dummy just adds another level of pain.

I now have a webcam. From time to time, you can tune in to watch me blog (I know, how exciting). The link is in the title above. The camera will update every 30 seconds when I'm live, otherwise, you'll just see the last image. I'm going to try to do a lot of blogging tonight so you can check it out.

Carlos Delgado hit his peak at age 27 in 2000 (just where you'd expect). He's played well since then, but 2000 put expectations very high. He's hoping to do better this year:

At this stage, Delgado said he would prefer to contribute to more victories. The Jays won 88 games in 1998 and then steadily declined to 78 last season.

"[2000] was fun and I enjoyed it, but I want to do more stuff to help this team to become a better ball club," he said. "I want to win more games."

Delgado and the Blue Jays finished last season strongly. Toronto went 44-32 after the All-Star Game break and Delgado batted .330 (.363 in September) with 15 homers and 46 RBIs in 57 games after the break, despite a stint on the disabled list with a sore back.

After the season, Delgado underwent arthroscopic surgery on his left knee to clean up some scar tissue. He arrived in Dunedin early in February to get in a week of work at the complex.

After coming off the DL in late August, Delgado made an adjustment in his batting stance, standing more erect, which gave him a better path to the ball. His and the team's late success has a prompted a sense of optimism.

"Our guys were so young, we still didn't know how good we can be," Delgado said. "We've got a long way to go. It was exciting. It was fun. It was good for the ball club but at the end of the year we were still in third place [in the American League East]. We've got to play well for six months."

I like Delgado's attitude. He's taking the positives from last year and trying to build on them. And he's more concerned about wins than his own stats.

A nice summary article on a conference on baseball economics Bobby Ross of the AP is at OnlineAthens. Alderson points out that bad outside investments are hurting some owners:

Sandy Alderson, executive vice president for baseball operations in the commissioner's office, cited ''lousy investments'' by Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks and the difficulty of AOL Time Warner Inc., the parent of the Atlanta Braves.

''I can tell you Tom Hicks is probably a lot more conservative than when he signed Alex Rodriguez,'' Alderson said Friday at a conference on baseball economics. ''Part of that is the recent history of the Rangers, given their success or failure on the field. But also a part is perhaps lousy investments in telecommunications. His investments have suffered dramatically.''

Nick Johnson's wrist does not appear to be healed from an injury last year:

Nick Johnson's left wrist is hurting again, and based on his history with hand problems, there has to be concern even if the MRI exam taken Thursday was negative.

Johnson, who came to Yankees camp early in order to rehab the wrist that cost him 24 games last year, saw a hand specialist yesterday and will undergo a bone scan Monday. He didn't hit yesterday and won't hit this weekend.

"It's sore, very sore," Johnson said. "When I swing and stay inside the ball, which is the right way, I feel it."

Wrist injuries always seem to be the worst for hitters. It seems to me they really need a year to come back from them, and when they try to come back too soon, it makes the injury worst.

I like Nick Johnson, but this is a big setback to his career. I also think that the replacements (White and Zeile) are nothing to write home about. It's bad for the Yankees all around.

Two stories. First, this NY Times article by Buster Olney talks about baseball doctors wanting to take a stand about amphetamines and dietary supplements that act as stimulants, but were warned against it by Gene Orza of the players union. Orza has not had a chance to defend himself.

Second, Selig wants to talk to the union about banning ephedra.

I think the real problem is that uppers have been part of baseball for a long time, and that if players address the issue, they are going to shine a very poor light on themselves. From the Times article:

Amphetamines have long been used in major league baseball, as a way for players to perform better or to help them get through the long season. Many players accept their use as a part of the baseball culture, in the way they would accept a cigarette smoker or a beer drinker. They have jokingly referred to the amphetamines as greenies, for the color of some pills, or beans. A player who takes an amphetamine in preparation for a game is said to have "beaned up."

I think to get baseball players to stop with these drugs, MLB is going to have to do what it's done in the minor leagues with chewing tobacco. They've banned the use there, and send around people to educate the players on the dangers of smokeless tobacco. It's going to be tough to get a star to quit, or even accuse a star of abuse. But if minor leaguers are busted and thrown out of baseball, maybe they won't get started in the first place.

I think the ball is really in the union's court at this point. I'll be interested to see how they come down on the civil liberties vs. health issue.

A baseball related tongue twister from Amish Tech Support.

Sandy Koufax has ended his relationship with the Dodgers because a Murdoch newpaper questioned his sexual orientation:

Hall-of-Famer Sandy Koufax, perhaps the greatest living pitcher and a symbol of personal dignity, has ended his longtime relationship with the Los Angeles Dodgers because of a story in the New York Post, which, like the ballclub, is part of Rupert Murdoch's vast business empire, the Daily News learned Thursday.

Koufax has told club officials he would not appear at spring training, work with pitchers or the coaching staff, and did not want his likeness on any Dodgers products.

His anger was communicated to the team's management after an article in the New York Post that ran Dec. 19.

The Post, like the Dodgers, is owned by Murdoch's News Corp., which also owns the Fox Television Network, Twentieth Century-Fox studio, and a vast global entertainment, media and communications empire.

I get the feeling the author, Brian Dohn, is close to Koufax, or at least doesn't want to antagonzie him, because he buries the reason for Koufax being upset way down in the article:

A private man who rarely talked to the media and shied away from any publicity, Koufax agreed to give access to a writer for a book titled "Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy." Although Koufax's name was not mentioned, the Post reported that a Dodgers Hall of Fame left-handed pitcher who was recently the subject of a book had given access to the author with a promise that the book would not question the pitcher's sexuality.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. But the evidence seems to put Sandy in the heterosexual camp, which doesn't help because that camp needs a shortstop, real bad.

Leah Garchik of the San Francisco Chronicle called The Word last week to further scuttle the recent whispers elsewhere that Dodger great Sandy Koufax, is a closeted homosexual. More proof that he is neither: Garchik reminds us that in 1969, Koufax married Anne Widmark, daughter of actor Richard Widmark. After their divorce in the 1980s, Koufax married and divorced again before hooking up with his latest flame. Last week, they were together in Tortola.

Levity aside, I think Koufax is punishing the wrong people. My experience with the Murdoch empire, of which I was briefly an employee, was that they let their pieces pretty much manage themselves, which is the way it should be. Sandy should ask for an apology, but I don't think he should punish the Dodgers. Besides, who really cares?

From the Miami Herald:

Former baseball great Bob Gibson has been sued by an Omaha man claiming the Hall of Fame pitcher punched and kicked him last year in an act of road rage.

Gibson's attorney, David Herzog, said the man's version is inconsistent with the facts.

Duh. Everyone knows Gibson would have thrown a ball at the guy's head.

Gibson was guest analyst on Baseball Tonight once during it's first year in 1990. I have never seen the staff in Bristol so in awe of a person. Gibson sat there all day watching games, and one by one, people would go up and shake his hand and express their respect for his accomplishments. Gibson was polite about it, but I think he would have rather been left alone. The other thing I noticed about Gibson was that he was still in great shape. I had seen him the year before at an old-timers game at Fenway, and thought his fastball was still really good. Seeing him in person confirmed that this was a powerful human being. I think if Gibson had clocked this guy, he would have given him more than a black eye.

Here's a nice long article on how Griffey isn't talking. Can you imagine how long it would be if Griffey said something?

Griffey at this point is on the Hall of Fame bubble. If his career ended tomorrow his getting in would depend on how much the sports writers like him. My experience is that writers don't like him, and his not talking in the above article is one reason why. If he comes back and finishes his career with 600 HR, it won't matter what the writers think. But if he plods on for five more years with injuries, I don't think they'll give him the benefit of the doubt. He'll end up in the Canceso category.

Sorry to bring up the supposed Steinbrenner-Jeter war of words again, but it gives me a chance to discuss a pet peeve:

Steinbrenner's words were a tad softer than the ones he used Wednesday, when asked if he felt his message had been received.

"It better have. I got my message through," he told The New York Times. "If I'm paying a guy $16 million, I want him to listen.

"I think (manager) Joe Torre will get that across to him. I think (Jeter's) going to be fine. He always gives 100 percent. But I need 110 percent."

It's this whole 110 percent thing. I know it's just a figure of speech, but people can't give 110 percent. If you are giving 100 percent, you are giving all you have. If you can give more than 100 percent, why stop at 110? Why not demand 120% of Jeter? A-Rod's getting a lot more money. Should we demand 200% from him? I have never heard someone say that a ballplayer gives less than 100%. But if they are capable of 110%, is 100% really 91%? (That's 5B% Hex, for you programmers out there.)

Let's face it. Steinbrenner thought Jeter wasn't trying his hardest last year. That's fine. But let's not sugar-coat it. If a manager or owner thinks a player isn't performing to his or her full potential, say so. Ask for 100%. But asking for anything beyond that is ludicrous and impossible.

Rob Neyer has a good two part column today, and I'm posting about the 2nd part. It appears that Bob Boone wants to use Adam Dunn as his leadoff man. Rob appears not to like the move much, mostly because Dunn has a high OBA and power.

So the question becomes, is this really the best lineup that Bob Boone can come up with?

Without running every reasonable lineup through a computer simulation a few hundred times, my answer is, "Probably not. But it's probably not far off, either."

Based on projections -- and what most of us think anyway -- Dunn is the best hitter the Reds have. And it's odd to see a team's best hitter at the top of the lineup, especially when he stands six-feet-six and weighs 240 pounds.

Rob correctly points out, however, that there is a lot of power in the Reds lineup. So I really question, then if you are wasting Dunn's power in the leadoff spot. Griffey, Kearns and Casey need someone to drive in. Why not put your best OBA guy in front of them. So what if he's slow, with that kind of power behind him, he won't need to be fast.

Nate Silver has an excellent piece on player turnover on ESPN.com. He points out that due to free agency (and baseball wealth) that turnover among veteran players is higher than it's ever been:

What has caused the high rate of player turnover in the Selig Era? Most of the period has been characterized by rapid economic growth, both of the Alan Greenspan boom economy in general and of baseball revenues in particular. In a market as dependent on local sources of income as is baseball, a greater surplus of wealth can very easily create greater differentiation in the ability to generate marginal revenue, especially when accentuated by profound differences in front office smarts. Jason Giambi is worth more in New York than he is in Kansas City, and the gap is greater than it was in the early days of free agency.

And so, Selig and his cronies have it half right; although recent seasons have been characterized by high turnover of veteran players, these conditions have arisen not out of any economic struggle, but out of baseball's abundance of wealth.

It's not for the squemish, but this article tells about how Ted Williams was frozen.

Not a good week to be an Orioles pitcher. At least Jason Johnson recovered from this.

Just saw this article about Miguel Tejada missing the voluntary reporting time due to his daughter's illness. Why is this a big deal? Or more importantly, why are there two different reporting dates? Is it just to embarass players? Is it a way for the owners to thumb their nose at the owners? How much spring training do these players really need.

No one's late until the mandatory reporting date. I wish these stories would stop.

Part II of Bronx Banter's Burns Bloggerview is up. :-)

Will Carroll, the host of Baseball Prospectus Radio writes:

Greetings,

Hi David - love your site. I'm curious where the "Baseball and Medicine" material comes from. It's reasonably accurate, but doesn't seem to have a good grasp of how diagnoses are made and the process that both teams and players go through. While the players have no incentive to reveal injuries, they have little disincentive to do so. With contracts structured as they are, with medical care completely at the whim of the player, and with injury not considered in arbitration, spending a season on the DL isn't as bad as it should be for the player. Where the player has an incentive is in preventing injuries before they occur. Once players realize this and are combined with an owner who sees players as an investment rather than a cost, some team will get a serious advantage. The A's are almost there and there are a couple others close behind.

Will, thanks for the insights, and I encourage all to read Will's team health reports.

Bonds' elbow is hurt, but it's not a big deal (move along people). Looks like an internal suture has become an irritant. According to the article, he'll only miss a few days of spring training.

Robert Saunders writes:

I was wondering what your thinking was on the issue of owners' obligations to assess medical problems of their players. Obviously, the most recent baseball death spurs the note, but it's not limited to deaths. Year after year, you read about players who are injured during the season but postpone surgery decisions to the off-season, considering surgery all off-season, then not going through with surgery until after the next season begins. If they had just had the surgery in the first place (or if they had done more comprehensive testing and diagnosis that would lead to a surgery), they might have been ready sooner. I know some surgeries are not 100% effective and may cause other complications, but conditioning exercises apparently are not 100% effective either (though they avoid surgical complications).

Oakland seems to be doing great things by working with the orthopedists in Birmingham to maintain arm mechanics and prevent arm injuries for their staff. I wonder if there will come a time when teams will go beyond the standard physical (e.g., take full body MRIs). Texas apparently did more than the usual once-over of R.A. Dickey--a Tennessee grad who seemed a sure bet for big $ as a high draft pick--when the Rangers discovered he was born without an elbow ligament and used the info against him in negotiations.

I guess that's part of the problem: players have no incentive to reveal health problems because they are hurt financially; and, owners' incentives to discover them are limited because they have to pay for the surgeries (directly or through insurance).

Still, it seems players and owners in all sports could make better judgments about the timing of surgeries and being more aggressive in discovering problems. And they could take a more active interest in policing their players, whether for illegal drugs (Mets) or legal drugs (the ephedra cases), given the investment they're making in the players. But, I guess that's where the Union's opposition and the owners' plantation mentality (players are essentially replaceable) come into play.

I think it's in the owners best interests to keep players healthy, especially the ones who have long term contracts. That's one reason you see players going on the disabled list more often that you used to. It's not that there are more injuries, but players are less likely to play through them.

Some teams are doing more. Oakland is mentioned above. A good friend from college who is a radiologist has spent time the last two years at the Phillies camp performing ultra-sounds on pitchers elbows and shoulders. His group is developing ways of using ultra-sound to do less invasive surgery to remove bone spurs and fix rotator cuffs. On the other hand, I've heard that the Yankees have a poor conditioning program for their pitchers, which may be one reason Andy Pettitte spends his winters working out with Roger Clemens. And surgery is a tough thing to agree to. I assume players get more than one opinion, and I would hope that these opinions give them probabilities of success. When there are other choices, surgery should be a last resort, since so much can go wrong on the table, even in minor, simple surgeries.

The ultimate responsibility for health lies with the player. It's up to him to make sure that he's not increasing an injury by playing hurt, but also that he's not getting railroaded by a team doctor who might not have his best interest at heart. In the best of all worlds, it would be a cooperative process, but I'm afraid we're a long way from that with most teams.

I thought this was interesting:

Sheffield, reporting a day ahead of position players, said he dropped out of winter workouts with his good friend Barry Bonds in November to focus on strength work with a personal trainer. He arrived in camp weighing 218 pounds, seven pounds less than he weighed at the end of last season and 12 pounds lighter than he reported to camp last spring. He said he cut back on his running and improved his eating habits.

(Bonds') workout got me 25 home runs," Sheffield said. I'm not doing that any more. I feel like I needed to change the scenery, get my own trainer, and do my own thing. I feel I came to camp in shape this time. I went back to what made me successful in the first place, just living good.

I don't know if (Bonds) was happy or not, but I had to do what I had to do."

Sheffield, 34, said he plans to continue playing until he's 40. That would give him enough time to hit another 160 home runs and reach 500.

That's why I'm training, so I can get to 500 home runs and win a couple more World Series," he said.

I wonder if he blames Bonds work out for his injuries? Barry's workout doesn't hurt him any, it seems.

Keeping with the theme of recovering pitchers, Kazuhiro Sasaki appears to be making great progress recovering from elbow surgery.

Pitcher comeback stories seem to be very popular this week. Here's one about the Reds' Scott Sullivan:

The right-hander's 2002 season went downhill after he was struck on the elbow May 13 by a ball off the bat of Milwaukee's Richie Sexson. Sullivan was 3-0 with a 2.10 ERA at the time, then went 3-5 with a 7.98 ERA.

``All the problems he had last year go back to getting hit on the elbow,'' Reds manager Bob Boone said.

Sullivan isn't worrying and believes he can again be a premier setup man.

He led the majors in relief innings pitched for four consecutive years, from 1998 through 2001. He averaged 106 1-3 innings pitched each year during that time.

He lives in Auburn, Ala., and has been working with athletic trainers at Auburn University, his alma mater. He also hired a personal trainer for the first time.

``I made it a priority,'' he said.

The Reds are watching his progress closely this spring. Boone, a former catcher, wants to see whether Sullivan has regained the rhythm that enabled him to become a day-to-day workhorse.

``He's a hard guy to judge,'' Boone said. ``You can't look at the (radar) gun with him. Last year, he was throwing too hard at times. With him, it's more of a rhythm.''

Sullivan not only led the majors in relief innings between 1998 and 2001, he led by 60 innings. There was a greater distance between Sullivan and #2 than between #2 and #12. That's a lot of innings for a reliever, and one has to wonder if that didn't have something to do with the slow comeback.

You have to scroll down through sailing and cricket stories, but if you read the whole thing, you'll find this gem from Paul Oberjuerge:

Makes you wonder about the baseball acumen of commissioner Bud Selig when the team he bought and once ran, the Milwaukee Brewers, is working on a streak of 11 consecutive losing seasons.

Indeed.

FRAN BLINEBURY has written a very glowing article about Roy Oswalt. My favorite paragraph:

It is, as they say, how you play the game. Oswalt plays it like a member of the bomb squad, certain of which wire to snip.

A great way to look at pitchers is to turn their stats into opposition batting stats. For his career, batters against Oswalt have a .242 BA, a .289 OBA and a .366 slugging percentage. Would you keep a hitter like that on your team? I didn't think so. Oswalt turns hitters into the current Vinny Castilla.

You know not much is going on when a batting practice HR is big news.

On the other hand, I think Phillies supporters are rightly excited about this season. It's not every year you add the talent of Thome and Millwood to your team.

Update: Michael Blake comments:

This article about Thome's homerun isn't a one-time thing, sadly enough. I have counted about 5 or 6 different articles (mostly in the Philly papers) solely about the power shows that Thome has put on since he started hitting on Friday. The Philly papers appear to be following his every move -- understandably -- and it's hard to read an article around here that doesn't mention him more than 5 lines in. And you get the impression that after the last few days, the beat writers around here are expecting 60 homers from him this year. It's insane.

Thanks, Michael.

Seems he wasn't mad at Steinbrenner. And you heard it here first.

Since I started the Extreme Tracker in September, I've gotten 52 hits from the Czech Republic. If you are from there and reading this, drop me a line. Is baseball popular there, or are you an American ex-pat? Hits from the Czech Republic rank 5th among countries without an MLB team. I would not have expected that.

Ted claims his shoulder is healed. That's good news. I like Lilly. He's a lefty that strikes out people, rather than finessing them. Last year he started to get his waks and HR under control. With the A's philosophy, I suspect that will get even better, and the Yankees are going to be sorry they let him go.

Jason Isringhausen continues to recover from this surgery. He's playing long toss, and right now the Cardinals look for him to start the season on the DL, and will use him sparingly when he gets back:

Pitching coach Dave Duncan said Friday that Isringhausen likely will open the season on the disabled list as he recuperates.

Duncan stressed that even when Isringhausen has recovered, the Cardinals likely will devise a maintenance program for him, and a strong recommendation against using him more than two days in a row.

Kline looks like he'll get the first shot at the job. He doesn't have the K numbers that Izzy does, but he does have some success in save situations, converting 15 of 18 over the last two years.

I know what you are thinking, "I liked Baseball Musings before it went commerical." Fair enough. But I think the ad strip to the right will be a nice way to bring in some income from the site. If you run fantasy games, sell collectibles or have a blog that you want to be seen, consider taking out an advertisement. It's really quite inexpensive and you'll reach an audience of die hard baseball fans. My policy of linking to any baseball blog that asks has not changed, and I'll continue to link to any article or post that I enjoy or with which I'd like to argue. But you can get added exposure to the right, so feel free to take advantage of it.

Looks like the Braves and Greg Maddux split the difference and settled on $14.75 million for this year.

Good for Greg. I love the way he pitches. Since joining the Braves in 1993, he's first in the majors in wins (178), 2nd in shutouts (21), 2nd in games started (327), first in innings pitched (2308.1) and first in ERA (2.51). In those ten years he only allowed 273 unintentional walks. That's less than one per start. He gives up 1 HR every 18 innings, the best in baseball, and that during one of the biggest power decades of all time. He's been the most efficient pitcher in the game over that time, throwing only 12.9 pitches per inning, over 1 less than his nearest competitor, Bob Tewksbury (14.1). He throws strikes, makes batters put the ball in play on the ground, but can get the K when he needs it. And he stays healthy. I couldn't think of a better way to spend nearly 15 million dollars.

Steve was a young pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles. According to this story, heat exhaustion got the best of him. A very sad way to start the season. My sympathy goes out to his family and teammates.

Update: It's worse. According to this on FoxSports.com, his wife is seven months pregnant.

Update: I'm sorry, I had Steve's name misspelled earlier. Thanks to Ben Jacobs for pointing out the error. Ben also points out that an article ran last night that Bechler did not report to camp in shape. This Washington Times article points that out, and also claims Bechler had ephedrine in his locker.

Still haven't found the quote I was looking for, but Alex Belth wrote me about that winter:

The bub-bub around Yankee camp this spring is mild in comparison with 1982. I think I found what you were looking for with regards to George's Great Speed Experiment:

According to Bill Madden and Moss Klein, in their excellent account of the Bronx Zoo years, "Damned Yankees" (1990):

'[Davey] Collins had no business coming to the Yankees. He was a well-paid victim of George Steinbrenner's panic-button plan to turn the Yankees into a speed" team for 1982---defying the tried-and-true tradition of building Yankee teams around left-handed power.

Although Collins didn't sign with the Yankees until December 23, 1981, the official begining of his Yankee career was October 28, the night the World Series ended with the Yankees losing to the Dodgers. Before the game had ended, a grim Steinbrenner prepared a terse statement: "I want to sincerely apologize to the people of New York and to Yankee fans everywhere for the performance of the Yankee team in thos World Series. I also want to assure you that we will be at work immeditately to prepare for 1982."'

Which brings to mind, a comment Nettles made in "Balls:"

"George has never learned how to lose. He thinks being a good loser is a sign of weakness. And that's not how life is. You're going to lose sometimes."

Madden and Klein continue:

'The next day, Steinbrenner called a press briefing and explained his newly hatched plan. "I'm tired of sitting around and waiting for someone to hit a three-run homer," he said. "To be a big-inning team, you have to have speed. And we'll be going for more speed."

Thus, Steinbrenner embarked on a mission to turn the Bronx Bombers into the Bronx Burners. Home runs were out, speed was in. First he traded for potential free agent Ken Griffey...His next step was the signing of Collins.

Basically, Steinbrenner just overwhelmed Collins...a whopping $2.475 million, three-year package that was ludicrous even in those free-spending free-agent days for a player of Collin's limited ability. Collins was both overwhelmed and confused. He knew the Yankee outfield was overcrowded with talent. Dave Winfield, Griffey, and Jerry Mumphrey all had spots, and Lou Pinella and Bobby Murcer were still around as reserves. What's more, Steinbrenner still had not officially let Reggie Jackson go as a gree agent. First base was occupied by Bob Watson.

So even though Collins was eager to take the Boss's generous offer, he also wanted to play. He called Steinbrenner directly to ask him about the situation, and Steinbrenner responded with a promise. "You'll get more at-bats than Winfield," the Boss said. "Don't worry about it."

Would you believe that spring traing was a zoo in 1982?

"Meanwhile, the camp had been turned into a circus by Steinbrenner. Consider the development of March 2, less than a week before the exhibition games were to begin.

The Yankees showed up for the workout, only to be informed there would be no workout---at least not in the usual sense. Instead of hitting, throwing, pitching and base-running drills, the players were told to don their sweat suits and head to the back field to run 45-yeard sprints under the direction of Harrison Dillard, the former Olympic hurdling champion, who had been imported by Steinbrenner as a special spring training instructor. Dillard's assignment was to teach the Yankees to run. He was to scutinize the running styles of all the players and then offer tips on how to improve each one's technique.

"You can't underestimate the importance of speed," said Steinbrenner, who reminded his players that he had been a champion hurdler in his college days at Williams.

"They must have used ankle high hurdles in those days," cracked Craid Nettles.

The Yankees' "Day at the Races" was a fitting sequel to the Marx Brothers comedy. Bobby Brown, the talented young outfielder, turned in the best time, sprinting to the finish line in 5.18 seconds to beat Jerry Mumphrey...

Collins, meanwhile, had come through with flying colors for Steinbrenner in the sprint. He was paired againt Winfield and edged him out, even though Winfield jumped Yogi Berra's command of "Go!" and had a head start. Steinbrenner went out of his way to congradulate Collins, who was now beginning to realize this was anything but your ordinary baseball team.

"I don't think any team ever had a spring training workout like this one," Collins said, shaking his head.'

Collins, of course, was traded after the 1982 season, just in time to make way for the likes of Steve Kemp.

Thanks, Alex.

If nothing else, Cubs reporters should get a lot of good quotes out of Dusty Baker. From the funny:

"I've been told a lot of things about him, mostly negative," Baker said. "When you are 26, good looking and single, you have a lot of temptations."

To the serious:

"Has he been here for a while with quality or has he been here for a while because he throws 100 mph?" he asked of Farnsworth.

Farnsworth has had one outstanding season, 2001. Otherwise, his K numbers aren't that impressive for someone with his velocity. Baker's putting pressure on Kyle, and rightfully so, since the payoff may be a reliever who can blow away the opposition.

Randy Johnson wants to keep pitching. And he's working very hard to stay in shape.

Johnson took October off, then began his workout routine, which eventually included twice-weekly sessions with a trainer.

"Sometimes I think anybody needs to get pushed a little bit to, not necessarily get motivated, but just to get where you need to be," Johnson said.

He spent two days in San Diego with House, who also was working with 22-year-old Mark Prior of the Chicago Cubs.

"He showed me I could get six or seven more inches out of my height and my delivery," Johnson said. "I didn't believe him at first, but we were doing tests in throwing, and I was doing that."

That could add even more velocity to Johnson's pitches, and make that long left arm release the ball even closer to the batter.

Now I get scared whenever there is a closeup of Johnson on the mound. Think how a batter must feel, and think how much more scared they are going to be if they think the Big Unit is going to throw even harder.

Johnson's seasonal age last year was 38. He now has 3746 career strikeouts. At the same age, Nolan Ryan had 4083 K's, and would have 1631 over another 8 seasons. Johnson is striking out a lot more batters than Ryan did over the same stretch. He needs a little under 2000 K's to break Ryan's record. If he can hold up as long as Ryan did, and put up 1000 K's over the next three years, I'm thinking he has a good shot at it. There is no sign of Johnson breaking down. I thought that record would be rather untouchable, but Randy is making me change my mind.

Steve Megargee of TCPalm.com writes about how Odalis Perez wants to win 20 this year. And Perez understands why it may be possible:

Perez ranked fourth in the National League last year with a 3.00 ERA. He won 15 games even though the Dodgers scored three runs or less in 17 of his 32 starts.

"We have a lot better team than last year," Perez said. "Last year we had one real power hitter (Shawn Green). on the team. This year Brian (Jordan) is healthy and we've got (Fred) McGriff with (Paul) LoDuca and Shawn Green. We should score a lot of runs."

So Perez realizes that with the same ERA, more run production will mean more wins. Interestingly, Perez' run support was 4.9 per 9 IP last year, better than the Dodgers overall runs per game. But his distribution of run in support isn't normal; he pitched in 5 games where the Dodgers scored 9 or more runs (and won all five), but in over half his starts (17), the Dodgers scored two or fewer runs (he was 3-9). So even with the same run support this year, if the distribution is convex rather than concave, Perez should win more games.

One other thing Perez could do to win more games in start more often. Perez averaged 94 pitches per start last year. He's efficient. Of his three complete games last year, two were under 100 pitches. Tracy should consider using him on a five-day rotation, rather than a five-man rotation, as the Diamondbacks do with Schilling and Johnson.

It's nice to see players with winning attitudes (especially on the Dodgers) coupled with a realization about how teams win games. I think with 32 starts 20 wins will be tough for Perez, but I would expect him to improve to 18.

This AP article interviews Gerry Hunsicker about the Astros. I thought this was interesting:

Hidalgo struggled last season after a career year in 2001. He suffered a gunshot wound to his left arm when robbers tried to steal his car in his hometown of Valencia, Venezuela, last November. Hidalgo bats and throws righthanded.

"He's a man on a mission," Hunsicker said. "He's determined to come back and have a solid year after the carjacking. He's bounced back miraculously from that. He's down to 215, which is as light as he's been in three years. I think he's going to surprise a lot of people this year."

Sometimes a non-sports injury can spur a player on to improve him or herself more than they otherwise would. Nancy Kerrigan was a good example of this. In rehabing his left arm, Hidalgo has probably picked up good training techniques and strengthened his right arm at the same time. No way it's a blessing in disguise, but it may help him have a better year.

The Red Sox have finally obtained Kevin Millar from the Marlins for cash. I assume that Giambi, Millar and Ortiz will form some kind of lefty-righty first base/DH platoon.

Millar is a good doubles hitter, and I would think Fenway would enhance that.

The Giants are in trouble. Alou is talking about speed:

This team will be aggressive on the basepaths, Alou said.

"We're introducing more speed," he said. "With Jeff Kent gone, we might not have the one-two punch we had with him and Barry (Bonds), but we can be as effective with our speed."

There are, in life, a few signs that accurately portend a rough road ahead. Experts declaring that there's a new way to value companies. Large armies massing at your border. And managers compensating for power with speed.

I knew the Yankees had finished their great run of the 70's when George Steinbrenner signed Dave Collins. I can't find the quote, but I remember Steinbrenner announcing something like "this was the age of speed." That sent the Yankees into a twelve year slump. Speed is nice, but it's going to take an awful lot of it to replace Kent's power.

P.S. If someone has a source for the Steinbrenner quote I'm thinking of (news conference signing Dave Collins), let me know.

This AP article on the Tigers shows how in flux this Tigers team is. Seems that only two pitchers are guaranteed jobs, and the middle infield may be up for grabs. Looks like the new manager certainly has his work cut out for him.

In looking at the Tigers from last year, the one thing that really stands out is the number of HR given up by the pitchers. They allowed only 61 at home, but 102 on the road. Meanwhile, the offense was evenly split (61 home, 63 road). The Tigers, in putting this team together have to realize that no matter what they do they aren't going to score much at home, and build the team for the road. They were 22-59 on the road last year, a .373 winning percentage. The Tigers have to build a team that can homer on the road offensively, and at the same time keep the ball in the park. If they take the tack that their ballpark stifles offense, and build a small ball team like the Astros used to, they'll never win. They have to be willing to play long ball to win on the road, and hope that the pitching staff is good enough at home that 3 or 4 runs will win games for them.

I've often thought that extreme pitcher parks (like the Astros in the Dome) needed home/road platoons. They'd have sluggers for the road games, and speedy bunters for the home games. Maybe someday some clever manager will try it out.

Looks like Jose will be arrested soon:

Circuit Judge Leonard E. Glick issued the warrant after being told Canseco has failed to begin community service, take anger control classes and not leave Florida for longer than 30 days. Those were among the conditions of his probation, as well as the payment of court costs and sending monthly reports.

"The subject does not appear to take probation seriously," probation officer Ileana Ortiz told Glick in a report. Ortiz said Canseco has been in Los Angeles since Dec. 20.

From what I remember, he didn't take baseball seriously either.

Michale Blake is now blogging about the Phillies at View from the 700 Level. His current post is about how the lineup, rotation and bullpen of the Phillies will look.

Scott Jeffries has started Buck and a Half, a blog concentrating on managing, studied by watching Buck Showalter. Right now he has an interesting post on the difference between pitchers training in Florida and training in Arizona.

Joe Posnanski of the KC Star doesn't like Mike Sweeney's negativity:

A word for Mike. Anybody who has ever even glanced at this column knows how I feel about Mike Sweeney. He's one of the great hitters in baseball. And he's one of the best people I've met in sports.

But Mike has been pretty whiny this off-season. He has complained about the team's direction. He has said that he can't imagine playing in October. He has suggested again in the last few days that the Glass family misled him when they said they would spend money to build a winner in town.

He has let frustration and losing get the better of him.

A word for Mike: You're better than that. This isn't doing anybody any good.

Look, we all know why Mike Sweeney is frustrated. The Royals lost 100 games last year. They lost their two best pitchers. They did not sign one marketable, established player. They cut payroll. Mike isn't the only guy frustrated around here. Everybody around here feels pretty discouraged.

Here's the difference: The Royals aren't paying everybody 11 million bucks this season.

Basically, Joe wants Mike to be a cheerleader:

Mike Sweeney needs to see hope where everybody else sees darkness.

Here are some hints: You know, Royals prospect Ken Harvey could win Rookie of the Year this year. Why not? The guy can flat hit. He hit almost .500 in the Arizona Fall League. He has a minor-league batting average of .340. This guy can smoke it.

You know, another prospect, Mike MacDougal, threw 103 mph in Puerto Rico. Get that? They may have hopped-up radar guns down there, but 103 is 103.

How about Jeremy Affeldt? Might be the most talented young lefty in baseball. Big-time fastball. Big-time breaking ball. Big-time future.

This is what Mike Sweeney needs to be talking about. Say that Mark Quinn will stay healthy and have the breakout year. Say that Runelvys Hernandez has pretty remarkable guts for a kid. This guy went into Yankee Stadium in his fourth major-league start, threw five shutout innings and didn't want to come out. That's someone you can believe in.

Say that the bullpen could have four guys throwing in the upper 90s. Say that the young pitching is finally coming. Say that the middle of the lineup right now - with Carlos Beltran, Mike Sweeney, Raul Ibanez and Joe Randa - is better than defending champion Minnesota. Say that Angel Berroa, before he got hurt, looked like the next great shortstop. He's healthy again.

Say anything. But get people fired up. Inspire. Bring the city on board.

So the Royals sign Sweeney, convincing him they are trying to move in the right direction by putting clauses in his contract that if they are not over .500 in 2003 and 2004, he can bolt. A new CBA is negotiated that is supposed to bring more money to clubs like KC, but the Royals cut salary. Now, if I were in Sweeney's shoes, I'd be a little miffed. But Posnanski is right, at this time of the year you should be positive, because strange things do happen in baseball. If the Royals are 20 games under come July 1st, complain about management all you want. But spring is the time to look at the bright side of things.

David Cone has signed a minor league contract with the Mets:

"David Cone's record and accomplishments speak for themselves," said Mets General Manager Steve Phillips. "We are interested to see if he can fit into our plans for the upcoming season."

Since the Mets' plans at this point seem to be to have a losing season with an aging pitching staff, Cone should fit in quite nicely. :-)

On the ESPN front page they currently have this headline:

Angry Jeter lets critical Steinbrenner have it

But when you click on the link, you get this headline.

Jeter bothered by questions about his work ethic

Which fits the piece much more appropriately. In my reading of the AP article, it seems Jeter is mad at the press for blowing his social life out of proportion after Steinbrenner made the comments:

"He's the boss and he's entitled to his opinion, right or wrong, but what he said has been turned into me being this big party animal," Jeter told AP national columnist Steve Wilstein in a phone interview from the Yankees' spring training camp in Tampa, Fla. "He even made a reference to one birthday party. That's been turned into that I'm like Dennis Rodman now.

"I don't think that's fair. I have no problems with people criticizing how I play. But it bothers me when people question my work ethic. That's when you're talking about my integrity. I take a lot of pride in how hard I work. I work extremely hard in the offseason. I work extremely hard during the season to win. My priorities are straight."

Also, there's a side bar about how the Yankees aren't paying Giambi strength coach anymore.

This is probably the first time in his career that Jeter has to endure negative press from the NY media. It probably hurts, but that's life in the big city. Up until now I thought he was handling it well. Jeter's best bet is to just ignore things for a while and get off to a good start when the season comes. Nothing like a high batting average to turn the press in your direction.

The Cubs have a year to settle with rooftop seating owners, according to this AP article on FoxSports.com.

I think this is one of those situations that was handled badly by both sides. I believe the rooftops used to be a party place. Someone would set up a grill and cook and have friends over to enjoy the game. Then someone came up with the idea of putting seats up there and selling tickets, acting like a good capitalist. However, whoever did this crossed a line from enjoying a free game to profiting off someone else's hard work. Are these people really suprised the Cubs are upset by this? I think the copyright violation is a stretch, but I'm not surprised the Cubs are angry that someone else is making money off their product without any of the risk.

Given that the Cubs have a case, however, I don't think they should make it. Cubs attendance has been very good; the 2002 average was 34,526, down slightly from 2001 but still the 2nd highest average in Cubs history. So it's hard for me to believe these roof seats are really hurting the Cubs. In fact, they are probably helping the Cubs. They make the experience of a game at Wrigley unique. You can sit in the stands and look at the cool rooftop seats. It makes you more interested in the Cubs, not less. If the Cubs were really smart, they would work out a deal where they promoted the roof seats in exchange for a piece of the action. That would help both parties, and not make the Cubs management look like whiney Frenchmen.

Eric Carra reports:

I'm happy to say that I attended the "Not-quite-as-grand-as-the-previous-night-but-pretty-darn-grand" Opening of the "Baseball as America" exhibit at the Chicago Field Museum on Wednesday, 2/5/03. A relative is a "Friend of the Museum," and got special tickets for it (the previous night was THE Grand Opening, with hall-of-famers, etc).

The Field Museum always does these things up right. They served honest-to-gosh baseball food (hot dogs, popcorn, nachos and the like) beforehand, had a very good speaker (according to my cousin; I didn't attend the speech. I could have given the speech, by all accounts), and then, of course, there was the exhibit itself.

Baseball Heaven. From the "Doubleday Ball" (a lot smaller than we're used to) to a Babe Ruth Celebriduck, just about anything you could imagine was there. I walked around the exhibit with a goofy grin on my face.

The exhibit is self-guided, so you can take your time on the topics that interest you, and it's set up so that each area is self-contained, without being confining. Over here, advertising and endorsements involving players. Around the corner, Jackie Robinson and the breaking of the color barrier. Just past that, evolution of baseball equipment (I got to explain just why Steve Yeager invented the flap under the catcher's mask to a rapt audience).

Interspersed you come across video monitors with informative and entertaining films. By far the best was baseball in the entertainment field, from "Casey at the Bat" to Bugs Bunny, Charlie Brown to "Field of Dreams."

It was hands-on, as well. There were examples of bat weights through the ages (how Ruth swung his bat is a mystery to me... my wrists ache just thinking about trying to check my swing with it), and an clever device that showed rotation on various pitches.

Simply an incredible experience, it was. Short of actually going to Cooperstown, I can't imagine a better museum display. I'm sure it'd be even better during the season, when you could go to the museum, spend a few hours there, then go catch a game, to boot... which I fully intend to do.

Congrats to Greg Gajus, who turned the counter to 100,000. Greg wins a mention in the blog! Thanks to all my readers who have made this first year of Baseball Musings so successful.

The counter to the right is about to hit 100,000. If you are the person to turn it over, please send me an e-mail so I can give you a mention on the blog!

Rickey Henderson is looking for a minor league contract. He's still better than a lot of players out there. Someone should take the $300,000 risk.

Alex Belth at Bronx Banter has an interview with Ken Burns, the documentary film maker. Well worth the read.

And Al's Ramblings has an interview with Mike Gimbel of Red Sox infamy. Mike has a comment that I agree with:

Every single MLB team has the possibility of contending immediately, even the worst organizations. I think that was proven both in Montreal and Boston when I was a consultant to Dan Duquette. There were numerous players available to fill holes. The first step is to decide what players are valuable and what players might have more value in trade than actual value on the field. All other players are expendable.

Read the whole thing. Gimbel rubs people the wrong way, but he makes a lot of sense.

From these two letters, published today, Portland residents seem to be wary to attracting a major league team. This would rather see real businesses come to town, while this one worries about essential services.

John Hunt of the Oregonian has a nice preview of the Mariners as they start spring training. And I'm going to be watching the progress of one player in particular:

The Mariners also will closely watch the progress of left-handed Independent League signee Bobby Madritsch as well as hard-throwing J.J. Putz (pronounced "Pootz"), Aaron Taylor and Allan Simpson, who has reached 99 mph on the radar gun and has been cleared for participation by a vascular surgeon despite suffering from lupus.

If my name was Putz, I'd make up another way to pronounce it, also.

Melvin seems to be making a project out of turning around Cirillo:

In handicapping the AL West race, one set of numbers jumps out: 30, 34 and 6.

Those are the home run totals of Anaheim third baseman Troy Glaus, Oakland third baseman Eric Chavez and Seattle third baseman Jeff Cirillo, respectively.

Cirillo struggled severely, hitting .249, although his career batting average is still above .300. His statistics were even dwarfed by David Bell (20 home runs for San Francisco), the man he replaced at third for the Mariners.

Melvin, who coached Cirillo in Milwaukee, threw to Cirillo two weeks ago in Arizona and still can't believe Cirillo's slide.

"I didn't see the struggles," Melvin said. "The guy is a lifetime .300 hitter and a great defensive player. I expect that just to be a bad year for him. I think it kind of snowballed on him a little bit."

Cirillo, who has family in Seattle, was clearly pressing last year and often clashed with manager Lou Piniella, who has since moved to Tampa Bay. Not only does Melvin have history with Cirillo, he also has a kinder disposition than Piniella. Melvin probably won't be seen throwing up his hands in the dugout, much less kicking dirt on the plate.

"I know I'm going to be very positive and upbeat, and I know I'm going to stick up for our players," Melvin said. "How upset I'm going to get and what I'm going to do is uncharted waters, so we'll take that one step at a time."

The problem, of course, is that Cirillo has two straight years of decline. And if you count his first year in Colorado where there was no improvement from Milwaukee, possibly three. What I find odd about Cirillo's decline is how his walks have fallen off. He's always had a good OBA, so unless he can turn that part of his game around, he's only going to be valuable for his defense.

If you are in Chicago, get out to the Field Museum for an exhibit from the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The BC women's basketball team just tied UConn at 61.

Update: Never mind, UConn just ripped off 5 straight points.

I found this site due to the fact that they link to mine. My friend David Aceto will be very happy. :-)

Actually, my friend George Parker and I used to have seats in center field in Fenway Park, the seats that are now closed during day games to give the hitters a better background. It's where all the bleacher season ticket holders sat. The two sections never did the wave, and booed if any visitors to the section did. So I hope this site has a lot of success.

Due to an oversight on my part, I did not have a link to this wonderful baseball site in the links on the right. This has been rectified.

Rays add defense with signing of first baseman Travis Lee

Most teams look to add offense at first base, but the Rays are trying to add defense. Does this make sense? It does seem to be part of a plan:

Lee, 27, has played the outfield before, but most likely is going to be at first base. New manager Lou Piniella has said repeatedly he wants to "put the best defensive club we can on the field every day."

General manager Chuck LaMar said late Thursday: "We think Travis Lee is an outstanding defensive first baseman who can rebound offensively. We also think he's a good enough athlete, depending on how things shake out, that if we need him to play right or leftfield he's capable of doing so."

Is this the right course to take? The Devil Rays were in fact very bad defensively last year. My favorite measure of team defense is the defensive efficiency record (DER). The DRays had a DER of .688 last year, tied for fourth worst in the AL. And there is a lot of evidence their first basemen were poor fielders. STATS, Inc. keeps a statistic called Zone Rating, that attempts to measure balls fielded per fieldable ball. They can make this estimate because the direction and distance of each batted ball is recorded. Although there is some subjectivity associated with the calls on these batted balls, it can be used as one more piece of evidence when evaluating fielding records. The case of the DRays first basemen is a perfect example. The DRays first basemen had the fewest chance in the AL last year. Now, there can be numerous reasons why this might be so:

1. The DRays pitchers strike out a lot of batters.


2. The composition of the pitching staff is such that not too many balls are hit to first base (lots of lefties).


3. The DRays allowed a lot of baserunners, so the first baseman was always holding, limiting his range.


4. Luck

We can test some of these reasons. For example, a quick look at pitcher strikeouts show the DRays near the bottom of the league. The DRays had 374.2 innings pitched by left-handed pitchers, which is not extreme at either end. The Rays were near the top in hits+bb allowed, which gives some credence to the third possibility. But, the Rays were last in the AL in zone rating, which given all the other evidence would lead you to believe that the first basemen were indeed poor defensively.

Doing all this research, I believe the DRays are going in the right direction. They have a pitching staff that doesn't strike out a lot of batters, so the ability to turn a batted ball into an out is extremely important to them. They were horrible defensively at first, so getting a good fielder there is okay. As for Lee bouncing back offensively, I think there are some positives there. From what I've heard of Travis, the complaint isn't about his talent, it's about his lack of drive, a lack of competitiveness. I think it's going to be difficult to play for Lou Piniella and have a bad attitude. (By the way, if Piniella had had the Phillies, which player do you think he would have complained about, Rolen or Lee?) On top of that, Lou is an excellent hitting coach, so if there is a flaw in Lee's mechanics, Piniella may very well find it. And finally, Lee took a big pay cut this year, and missed an opportunity to play for a division champion:

Lee will get a $500,000 salary this season with the chance to make another $500,000 in incentives. There is a mutual option for 2004 at $2.5-million, with a $500,000 buyout, and another $500,000 available in incentives.

Lee was let go by the Phillies after the signing of Jim Thome and turned down an offer of at least $1-million from Atlanta. "I didn't know it would take this long, but that's the way the market has been going," Lee said. "I'm just relieved to have a team. ... I'm excited to come down there and help turn things around."

Travis Lee has wasted his career thus far, and it's come back to hurt him. He's one of the really nice guys in baseball, so I'd like to see him turn his career around. Maybe this was the wakeup call he needed.

There's a discussion going on about the playoff format posts at Baseball Primer.

Bob Montgomery (watch out, Monty) writes on the post below:

The post on a possible round-robin league playoff is interesting, and pretty cool, but...

I see one fatal flaw: what to do in the case of ties?

Take this example:

AL 2002
#1 seed is Yankees
#2 seed is Athletics
#3 seed is Twins
#4 seed is Angels

So, say the Yanks sweep the Angels, take 3 of 5 from the Twins, and 2 of 5 from the As, and
the As sweep the Angels, take 2 of 5 from the Twins and 3 of 5 from the Yanks
The Twins sweep the Angels, take 2 of 5 from the Yanks and 3 of 5 from the As
The Angels get swept by everybody.

Final standings: Yanks: 10-5, As: 10-5, Twins: 10-5, Angels: 0-15

Who goes to the WS? The Yanks have the advantage over the Twins, cuz they beat them head-to-head (in the round-robin tourney), but the As have advantage over the Yanks for the same reason, and the Twins have advantage over the As for the same reason. Would Selig throw up his hands and declare a tie?

Any tie-breaker method is going to be ugly, I think - if you have more games, it increases the already long schedule (under this system, a WS that goes 7 games would force the two participating teams to play a 184-game season - 3 games longer than the longest currently possible [162+5+7+7=181]) and, with three teams tied, you could remain tied indefinitely - if you take head-to-head records or some complicated points system, someone will definitely feel robbed.

I don't really like the current playoff system either but, as it currently stands, it has the enormous advantage that every possible outcome will be decided on the field. I don't think you can say that about the round-robin system (though, admittedly, my scenario is fairly unlikely, I suppose).

I don't see this as a really fatal flaw. There are ways of breaking ties in the regular season that could be applied here. However, I think the big flaw is that at some point, a team gets eliminated but has to continue playing. Will teams really want to play on if they are just spoilers? Even when you are down 0-3 in a series, there's still a chance that you can win. Do we really want teams in post season who have nothing to play for?

Ken Peters of the AP writes about how the Angels haven't changed much from last year:

Just about everybody will be back for the Anaheim Angels this year, including the Rally Monkey.

"It's really going to be neat, having the same guys back," right fielder Tim Salmon said. "Our biggest moves - uh, move - was signing back Brad Fullmer. We also got Eric Owens, and other than that, we haven't done much.

"That's a testament to the club we have. We've got a good club, and we've got everybody signed."

This is a typical way of reacting to winning. We won last year with this team, so why not again? Unfortunately, teams that don't win tend to try to improve themselves, so even though the team may be as good as last year, the people you beat may be better. The one team that seems to have successfully fought this lethergy is the Atlanta Braves. Every year during the 1990's they made small but significant changes, each designed to address a weakness from the previous year.

For example, in looking at batting stats by position, the Angels could use an upgrade in offense at catcher and center field. Do they think that Erstad will bounce back to his 2000 season, even though that looks like an anomaly in terms of his whole career. A smart GM might find a way to move a player like that for someone good.(Remember Roberto Kelly for Paul O'Neill?) Also, if you want Bengie Molina for his defense, why not have a back-up who can hit, so you don't waste a pinch hitter? Yes, the Angels still have a good team, but so do Oakland and Seattle. The smart organizations constantly address their weaknesses. They don't stand pat.

All day today, CNBC is doing reports on how to get a job or how to get a raise. At 4:00 PM, they are having Alex Rodriguez and his agent on to tell us how he got Alex so much money. I can just see it now. "First, become the best shortstop in the game..."

Doug Purdie and I have been exchanging e-mails about division setups and wild cards, and in doing so Doug proposed an interesting idea for the playoffs:

I hereby offer a revolutionary idea for the League championship playoffs involving the existing wildcard scenario. I think it's a win-win for all parties. Please pick it apart. I can't see many holes in the idea, but then again, it's my idea and I am biased.

Have a 15 game round robin mini-season where all four teams are scheduled. Every team plays every other team five times. Stack it in favor of the higher seeded teams by awarding lopsided home field advantage. The top seeded team, the division winner with the best record, plays the lowest seeded team, the wildcard team, 5 of 5 at home. They play the #3 seed 4 out of 5 at home and they play the #2 seed 3 out of 5 at home. The top seeded team gets 12 of the 15 games at home overall . The #2 seed gets nine home games, etc. The wildcard only gets three home games, but at least their fans get to see three games.

It would last not much longer than the current league tournaments - 20 days to be exact. It does not devalue those teams who succeeded the most during the long, arduous, 162 game regular season. The networks and owners would love it too, because there would be at least one game in each league every day, most of the time two games, throughout the playoff. More games means more revenue both at the gate and in broadcast advertising.

Maybe it seems a nightmare to schedule. It really isn't. I've already done it. See the attached Excel file showing a schedule based on last season's four National League playoff teams.

I have the spreadsheet. If anyone wants it, let me know and I'll mail it to you.

I think this a real interesting idea. It does a number of things well:

1. It cuts down on good teams being eliminated in a short series by luck.


2. It avoids the long stretches between series when there are sweeps.


3. It rewards depth.


4. Teams that are good over a season (the Braves) are likely to do better in this type of scenario.


5. All the playoff teams make more money.


6. We get to watch more baseball, and there will probably be more afternoon games.

Now how to we get this into the main stream conversation?

Update: See this post for a flaw in this playoff scenario.

Dave Justice has retired.

Justice was a very good player who couldn't stay healthy. He had a career .378 OBA and a .500 slugging percentage. Those are the sort of numbers that can get you in the Hall of Fame if you play full seasons for 15 to 20 years. Justice, however, only had two season where he even came close to playing every day. Maybe the most impressive thing about Justice is that his teams made the playoffs every year from 1991 to 2002, sort of the anti Ernie Banks.

Bill James once wrote in an Abstract a piece about what players you should use in a sacrifice situation, and which players you shouldn't. At one extreme was Babe Ruth (don't bunt) and the other was Mario Mendoza (bunt). My roommates and I thought the same scale could be applied to issuing intentional walks. So in a perfect baseball world, those little walk/don't walk signs you see at street corners would flash a green "Ruth" or a red "Mendoza."

Daniel Shamah defends Stark on pickoffs:

While Mike makes some good points with respect to Stark's suggested rule changes (specifically the intentional walk stuff), he's way off on his response to limiting pickoffs. He writes: Do we really need to legislate away bad decision-making?

(6) I believe it was Bob Gibson who said that the best pickoff move is the one that's never (or rarely) seen. Excessive pickoff attempts are a sign of a faltering pitcher and usually just add to the wear on his arm. There is no way to say with any degree of authority since pickoff attempts are not recorded and successful pickoffs appear as caught stealing, but I would think that throwing to first more than a couple of times is a bad idea. The runner gets to see more of your move and, I believe, is usually more successful because of it. Let the pitcher learn from his mistakes.

The point of rule changes is to avoid over-managing and getting back to playing the game. That's why the NBA instituted the 3-point line: too many teams were just finding the biggest guy out there. The NBA wanted to reward good jump shooting, a fundamental part of basketball. It's also why they brought in a 24-second shot clock. Inferior teams were just grabbing a 2-0 lead and dribbling around for minutes at a time, killing clock. This forced teams to stop screwing around, and get back to playing basketball.

I think limiting pickoffs and pitching changes is an exact analog to those cases in the NBA. Yes, pickoffs are an effective strategy for limiting stolen bases. But so was killing clock in the NBA. The whole lefty-righty matchup game that micromanagers like La Russa and Valentine play in the 7th inning of every game not only represents a tiny advantage, it's actually poor managing more often than not.

Let's remember this game is about entertainment. I can't imagine anyone finds 12 consecutive pickoffs or pitching changes entertaining. I'm not advocating full-contact baseball to appease fans: I'm just saying, stop screwing around and play baseball. And there's nothing wrong with bringing in a few new rules to help with that.

One of the most interesting early work that STATS did was in counting pickoff throws. The research they did back in 1990 showed that one pickoff throw was enough to reduce base stealing success. More than one had no effect. It appears that first pickoff sends enough of a message, keeps the runner close enought that no others are needed. Of course, not many have picked up on this fact.

Actually, I like the way pitchers like Jim Palmer and Dwight Gooden approached base runners; they didn't care. If you get the batters out after allowing a man on first, the likelihood is that runner isn't going to score. So Palmer and Gooden concentrated on that, rather than worrying about giving up a stolen base. I think that's the right strategy.

Tim Schultz write me and defends eliminating the intentional walk:

David-

Though I don't take credit for the "Abolish the IBB" mini-movement, Jim Baker posted my suggestion on ESPN Insider last year, and Gammons ran something about it the week after I mailed him. The chief objections to the proposal seems to be these, and I find them both wanting:

I. "We Don't Change The Rules for One Player"

This has added salience since that one player happens to be a hated player. But I fear that the Walk The Slugger strategem will be employed with greater frequency, because 1) Managers saw it "work" with Bonds, and will confuse a causal relationship between the stratagem and the Angel's success; and 2) In high profile games, the "We Didn't Let (Sammy/Barry/Alex) beat us" is likely to become conventional wisdom, because it's essentially irrefutable.

a) "Improve the players around him." Fine. But even if that player has a 950 OPS (Kent), the IBB will apparently continue. Short of Thome, Giambi, or Sosa, it doesn't seem like *anyone* is good enough to deter the walk.

And remember, the *reason* we want to scrap it is because it's Aesthetically Repugnant. The Hack-a-Shaq strategy was ended not when Shaq became Rick Barry (or even Vlade Divac) at the line. It ended because the NBA did not want the last two minutes of each game to degenerate into "Grab the Other Guys Center, if He Happens To Shoot Less Than 70%" Because it would be aesthetically repugnant to let the Hack Device mestastasize, the NBA nipped it in the bud.

II. "It's Unworkable."

I agree that it's unworkable if the only three options are those that Stark presented. But a *hybrid* of the two could be quite effective.

Here's my Rule:
1) A player may veto any four-pitch walk. (Obviously, managers would have some say in this)

2) The veto option ends when a strike is thrown.

3) Seven consecutive balls to any batter triggers a "Two Base Walk."

Advantages:
1) The Four Sinkers in the Dirt IBB doesn't work.
2) It would eliminate Stark's fear of the "92 pitch at-bat"
3) It would leave would be Mike Sciosia's with a choice: throw the Slugger one Strike, or Concede the equal of a Ground Rule Double, after your pitcher has upped his count by 7 (because the nibble pitches would need be with effort, lest the pitcher miss over the plate with a fat one).

In Practice, 4-3 game, Barry up in the 8th with 1st and 3rd, one out:

1) Pitcher just misses on 4 straight sliders.
2) Manager faces choice...he says "keep nibbling."
3) Pitcher just misses on 2 straight slitters.
4) Manager faces terrible choice: groove one or walk him.
5) If pitcher misses again, Bonds goes to 2nd, one to 3rd and the other scores.

I believe that this *possibility* would greatly deter the IBB in the first place.

And we wouldn't miss it.

Tim makes a good case. However, I'm still not convinced. One thing I'd love to see is how the press reacted to Babe Ruth's intentional walks. As you may know, IBB were issued back then, but not recorded. Even when he was a pitcher, the other team realized what a dangerous hitter he was.

At the Polo Grounds, Babe Ruth and the traveling Red Sox stop the Yankees, 7–1. Today's game is the last stop on a 29-day road trip for the Sox. Ruth allows five hits and bangs his 2nd ML homer, a 3-run shot, again connecting off Jack Warhop. After his 2nd inning drive, the Babe is given two intentional walks. Ruth ends up kicking the bench and breaking his toe, sidelining him for two weeks.

Now, we don't sit around talking about all the times the bat was taken out of Ruth's hands. Having Gehrig behind him probably didn't help much, since Gehrig set the record for grand slam HR, and you have to think a number of those came after Ruth was walked with men on 2nd and 3rd (if anyone has info on this, I would be very interested). People like Bonds and Ruth come along twice a century. I think we can tolerate the IBB rule for that.

If you wanted to get rid of the IBB, then get rid of it. Then if a team wants to risk throwing four balls out of the strike zone to a squatting catcher, that's fine. There's more risk there, more chance of a wild pitch or passed ball. I think that would be the right balance. Don't change the 4 balls or 3 strikes rules.

Both Mike's Baseball Rants and Elephants in Oakland have posts on Jayson Stark's columns on rule changes. They are not kind to him.

Dr. Manhattan has a very nice piece at Blissful Knowledge on baseball, politics and Bill James. He links to an Eric Neel piece about how early Abstracts affected him. I had much the same experience, although it started with the 1982 Abstract and I was graduating from college at the time. I would love to see Bill James do something on politics. I know it's a subject that interests him from various writings I've seen. A few years before the 2000 election, and the red/blue America paradigm set in, Bill postulated that the US would eventually break up the way eastern Eurpoean countries were doing. While I disagree with this thesis, it was well thought out, and I don't discount the possibility that James (as he so often is) could be right.

Jim Baker on ESPN Insider alerted me to this article on the Giants batting order:

New manager Felipe Alou said he prefers Alfonzo to bat behind Bonds and prefers Bonds to bat fourth. Alou called Cruz a likely No. 3 hitter and is tinkering with a lineup of Durham, Rich Aurilia, Cruz, Bonds, Alfonzo, Grissom, J.T. Snow and Benito Santiago.

I've always worked under the assumption that your #3 hitter should be your best all-around hitter. He can either drive in the table setters, or get on base for the big slugger in the #4 spot. Cruz has a career .330 OBA and has only slugged over .500 once (2001). At best, he's someone who should be finishing off the offense, not batting in the middle of it. It's ideas like this that make me sure that Alou is overrated as a manager.

The best way to protect Bonds is to have as many men on base in front of him as possible. That means Durham and Alfonzo batting 1 and 2, and Bonds 3rd. Cruz batting 3rd means Bonds will be leading off a lot of innings next year.

Looks like the Baltimore Orioles, unable to land a big hitter during the winter, are going to waste a spot on BJ Surhoff. Surhoff has had one good year in his career, 1999,and a partial good year in 1995. Yet, a lot of people consider him a good hitter. At age 38, he might be a good pinch hitter, but the Orioles shouldn't waste a 40-man roster spot on him until he proves he can play.

The Onion scoops all other sports news outlets. Thanks to Josh Schulz.

Jayson Stark has a piece on ESPN.com about intentional walks, and ideas to eliminate or reduce them. This comes from his (and others, I assume) belief that Barry Bonds walked too much over the last couple of seasons, and somehow this is ruining the game. He talked to both La Russa and Alderson about this, and they had interesting comments. From Alderson:

"First of all," Alderson said, "I don't totally agree that those intentional walks (in the World Series) created some kind of black hole of excitement. As I was watching those games, to me, there was a lot going on.

"You were always thinking about what happened with (Kenny) Lofton, what happened with (Rich) Aurilia and (Jeff) Kent, about what was going on ahead of Bonds. Obviously, it deprived people of the opportunity to see Bonds swing the bat. On the other hand, it created a lot of interesting strategic considerations, which I think most baseball fans would appreciate." No one, of course, appreciates a good strategic consideration more than a manager. But La Russa, whose team walked Bonds 10 times in only 21 trips during the NLCS, wasn't so sure he wanted to appreciate these particular considerations.

And from La Russa:

One intentional walk per player per game
This was a suggestion advocated by Giants owner Peter Magowan during the World Series: Just legislate a limit to how many times a team could hold up those four fingers every night. Sounds easy, right? Uh, not so easy.

"The biggest hole in that one," La Russa said, "is, you can walk a guy intentionally in an unintentional way. Just have the catcher sit out there and throw four sinkers in the dirt."

No one knows how many of Bonds' 130 "unintentional" walks last year were oozing with intent. But it was closer to 100 than zero. And most of them were so obvious, Darren Baker could have seen them coming. But "clearly," Alderson said, "there's an enforcement issue, having to distinguish between intentional and unintentional."

I think La Russa has it right. If you eliminate IBB, then teams will just carefully pitch around players like Bonds. Besides, I really don't think teams realize the huge penalty they are paying by walking Bonds so much. Any time you trade a runner for an out, you are putting yourself in the hole. And if you really want to see the IBB go down, Alderson has a great solution:

"And the way it stands now, the best solution with Bonds is just to find a better guy to hit behind him. And not just in the fifth spot, but in the fifth and sixth spot. That's how you make teams pitch to him. You don't have to change the rules."

The Giants, in fact, have spent their winter doing just that, adding Ray Durham, Edgardo Alfonzo, Jose Cruz and Marquis Grissom to deepen their lineup all around Bonds. And that's fine. That's what they could do about it, and they did it.

Marge seems to be in a dispute with the current owners of the Reds over the seats she's getting in the new stadium:

Schott's lawsuit says she had use of a private box at the Reds' old stadium, Cinergy Field, and 21 blue-level seats that were grouped together and near the playing field. But in the new ballpark, the seats allocated to Schott are scattered about the stadium and are at the back of the premium section.

I believe what happened was that Marge sat in what she thought were her seats. An usher came by and said, "Wrong seats, buddy," to which Marge replied, "I must be in the front row!" Little did she know that she would end up in the last row of the bleachers. :-)

Jeter and Steinbrenner have worked things out:

Derek Jeter isn't about to get into an argument with George Steinbrenner about the owner's accusations that the New York Yankees' shortstop isn't focused enough on baseball.

"One thing you realize is, the Boss is the Boss," Jeter said Monday. "Right or wrong, he can say what he wants to say."

In an interview with the Daily News in December, Steinbrenner said that Jeter was staying out too later and spending too much time on non-baseball activities.

"I want to see Jetes truly focused," Steinbrenner told the paper. "He wasn't totally focused last year. He had the highest number of errors he's had in some time. He wasn't himself."

Jeter, a four-time All-Star, hit .297 with 18 homers and 75 RBIs last season. He made 14 errors.

"We met, we talked about it and it's pretty much over with," said Jeter, who added that he won't change.

As he does each season, Jeter is among the players participating in early workouts. The sessions include batting practice and fielding grounders.

So Jeter is doing what he's always doing. And George is doing what he's best at, lighting a fire under the troops.

The Phillies have signed Pat Burrell to a six-year, $50 million contract.

Ed Wade, the team's general manager and vice president, said the deal wasn't the easiest to negotiate, but that he was glad to get it done.

"As we've stated many times in the recent past, our goal is to draft, sign and develop championship-caliber players, bring them to the big leagues and then retain them for the long term,'' Wade said. "I can't think of a single player who better exemplifies that plan and commitment than Pat Burrell.''

It seems to me the Phillies don't want another Scott Rolen incident. Burrell is a good player who had a major improvement last year at the age of 25. It's the perfect time to sign him to a six-year deal. The Phillies will get the best years of his career, and $8 million a year for someone of his caliber is very reasonable. It's a good deal for Ed Wade, and it looks like the Phillies continue to be very serious about winning. 2004 Is shaping up to be a great season for them.

J Lentner points out this article on Baseball Prospectus and he has these comments:

You might want to alert your readers to the article in Baseball Prospectus regarding the “study” MLB is doing on an expansion of the playoffs. For people who love the game it is alarming to think the 162 game schedule will be rendered even less meaningful than it already is. I don’t know what is worst: a three game round in which any team, from the Devil Rays to the Angels has close to an even chance of winning, or another round of five games resulting in the World Series regularly ending around November 7th.

I really have a hard time getting excited about middle of the division teams, and I have no problem with a great team not making the playoffs. I think you can get the same pop in attendance by having smaller divisions with competitive teams. I would still like to see baseball expand to 32 teams with eight four-team divisions. Then have the winner of each division make the playoffs. Yes, some great teams will be left out, but that just gives them that much more desire to improve and win the next year. Also, if you go to another round of playoff games, you have to shorten the season. One hundred sixty two games is not written in stone. Either shave a week with scheduled double headers, or go back to a shorter season.

This is something baseball should be doing all over the country.

Seems like players have been lying about more than their ages.

Doesn't that usually go the other way? :-) The Cardinals signed Ochoa and Orlando Palmeiro to increase their outfield depth.

The Cardinals intensified interest in Palmeiro in the past two weeks. Based on the respective deals, Palmeiro represented a more attractive commodity than the righthanded-hitting Ochoa, whom the Cardinals targeted shortly after last season. For the first time since last season, the Cardinals' major-league roster stands at the 40-man limit.

Palmeiro, a lefthanded bat, can play every outfield position and is a potential leadoff or No. 2 hitter. He is also a contact hitter who last season saw 4.43 pitches per plate appearance, second-most in the American League, and struck out once every 14.29 plate appearances, the AL's fourth-best ratio among players with at least 300 plate appearances.

Palmeiro started 63 of 110 games played last season. He did not homer despite batting .300 in 283 at-bats. The lack of power slots him as a part-time player.

Palmeiro is a part time player, but in most of his seasons he has done a good job of getting on base. His lack of power is severe; his career slugging percentage (.348) is lower than his career OBA (.361). Definitely someone you want starting an inning, not finishing it.

Our friend sent us an e-mail. I thought I'd share a couple of things with you.

I would just like to pass on some words, that Dave had told me, for I know that he would had liked for all to hear. One of my many conversations that Dave and I have had over the last few months was about if something should happen to he him during this mission As he turned towards me and looked right into my eyes, he said "that I want you to find the person that caused the accident, go to them and tell them that I hold no animosity for the decision that resulted in the lost of the vehicle. But also tell them that I died doing what I loved to do..... and I hold no regrets.

We all know that Dave was at the pinnacle of his life.....He had fulfilled his dream.

For the people that did not get Dave's last e-mail, I would like to share part of that as well....

I will make one more observation - if I'd been born in space I know I would
desire to visit the beautiful Earth more than I've ever yearned to visit to
space. It is a wonderful planet.

As regular readers may know, I attended the launch of the shuttle Columbia a little over two weeks ago. I didn't write about it because it didn't have much to do about baseball, but since this tragedy happened I'd like to get some thoughts down.

My sister's best friend has worked on the shuttle project for well over a decade. A little over three years ago, she ran into an astronaut named Dave Brown, and they began dating. I met Dave at my sister's house during Christmas, 1999. He was a doctor and navy pilot. He had trained in medicine on his own, then joined the navy, and since the navy will teach you one thing, he wanted to learn how to fly. He became a flight surgeon and also flew planes off aircraft carriers. He autographed business cards for all the children, and we all thought if he ever launched, we'd go down to watch.

As far as I can tell, he was what you would think of as a typical astronaut; calm, cool, ready for every emergency. He was flying our friend back from California one day when his engine lost power. We asked her later if she had been afraid, and she said she took her cues from him. He was in control of the situation, found an emergency place to land and put the plane down without incident. Just what you would expect from a navy pilot.

This flight had been delayed a number of times. We had plane tickets and hotel reservations last summer when the fuel line cracks pushed everything back. We finally headed down on Wednesday, Jan. 15th, and got to NASA in time for the pre-flight reception for family and friends. Dave held his in conjuction with Laurel Clark. Dave and Laurel had come into the program together, both were M.D.s, and had become very good friends. Each had a videotaped presentation thanking every one for their support and telling how excited they were to be going into space to conduct science. Laurel's husband addressed the crowd, and he spoke of how proud they were of Laurel.

In the same buidling as the party was an exhibit on the early space missions, from Goddard to Apollo-Soyuz. One thing that particulary struck me was the Gemini capsule on display. I don't remember which mission it was from, but two things jumped out at me:

1. How small it was. I don't know how Lovell and Borman survived two weeks crammed in like that.


2. How little protection they had against the heat of re-entry. The heat shield appeared to be an asbestos blanket. You could see where it had been burned during the fall to earth, and I thought to myself how much scarier it must be to come down than go up.

We got to the hotel later that night, and as we pulled in our van was stopped and searched by bomb sniffing dogs. At first we thought it was just shuttle security, but as we saw that Jersey barriers were set up to prevent any cars getting close to the hotel, I figured we had the Israelies staying there. Sure enough, the members of the consulate were in our hotel, and we later found out there were snipers on the roof. At least we were in the safest place in Cocoa Beach!

We got up at 5 AM the next morning and made our way to the Kennedy Space Center. From the visitors center we were bused to a spot 3 to 5 miles from the pad. NASA had guides on each bus, friendly folks who answered all our questions, and knew the space program inside out. As a person who's been watching launches since I was 4 years old and am a space geek, I was in heaven. From on observation area, we could see the top of the shuttle. The countdown went off without a hitch. At 10:39, we saw smoke (steam, actually) engulf the shuttle. A few seconds later, we saw the shuttle rise above this cloud and make it's way into space. We were all nervous that something bad would happen, but incredibly excited as the flight wore on. I've always wanted to see a rocket launch, and I had gotten to see a great one.

So this morning I woke up and blogged a little and watched the NASA channel. A little before 9 AM eastern I woke my wife and daughter so they could see the landing. I wasn't paying that much attention as we all talked, but I heard something about losing signal, but thought it was from the heat. But then I noticed it was 9:15, and we weren't seeing anything. I flipped over to CNN, and they started showing the film of the shuttle breaking up. I knew they hadn't made it.

My sister has talked to our friend, and she's numb. Our friend talked to Dave Brown's parents, and they hadn't realized the seriousness of the problem yet, so she had to tell them. However, she had talked to Dave quite a bit during the flight, and he was having the time of his life. She's glad he got to fulfill his dream of working in space. Here's a picture Dave took and e-mailed to our friend. It's a picture of her floating in the space shuttle. As she said when she forwarded it, "This is the closest I'm going to get to being in space."

My thoughts go out to all who suffered from this loss. I hope your thoughts will be with them, also.

Update: Our friend sent an e-mail last night. Some of the contents are in the next post, above.

Eric Wedge seems to be impressing the Cleveland fans:

The 35-year old Wedge worked the Tribe faithful into a partial lather Thursday afternoon at the R&L Recreation Center during the annual Indians Press Caravan stop. The major league's youngest skipper was joined by prospects John McDonald, Ben Broussard and Milton Bradley.

"I can't predict the future, but I feel like the Cleveland Indians are in a great place," Wedge said. "I'm in the loop on this (rebuilding) plan. I believe in it and I know that it's going to work ... I demand a lot from myself and I demand a lot from my players.

"I've done it at the minor-league level and I'm going to do it at the major-league level."

He clearly has enormous confidence. It will be interesting to see if he can transfer that to his players, and more importantly, into wins.

Brian Giles has told the Pirates that he would be willing to move to center field to help solve their outfield problems. Of course that would have them looking for a left-fielder who can hit, which should be easier than a centerfielder who can hit. However, as Giles points out:

"If we're going to go out and get somebody who can help us out and make us a better team, I'll move to center," Giles said. "Like I said, center field is my most comfortable position and left field is probably my least comfortable."

Especially in PNC Park, where a huge gap in left center field gives Giles more ground to cover in left than center.

"Left field is bigger here than center field," Giles said. "It might be better for me to move to center."

So you just can't get a lumbering slugger to play left here. You'll still need someone fast who can catch the ball, which are traits you usually look for in a CF. So this move doesn't really solve that much.

Pirate CF ranked 24th in the majors in OPS last year at .675. However, that was better than the Giants (.654) who made it to the World Series. The difference, of course, is that the Pirates are also weak at 1b, 2b, 3b, ss and rf. They have a great player in Giles, but they are going to have to find a number of decent players to put around him, or it won't matter what position on the field he's playing.

This looks like good news for the Rockies.

The White Sox are selling the naming right to Comiskey Park. It will be U.S. Cellular Field. It's a 23 year deal. The way communication companies are going, especially ones that name ballparks, I would expect them to be out of business in a year or two.

Crunch time is over at work. I was writing a paper that had to be submitted yesterday. The last two weeks of writing is always stressful to me. If the paper is accepted, I'll get to travel to Toronto in late July. I checked yesterday, and the Blue Jays will be home. Since they'll be playing the Devil Rays, I shouldn't have a problem getting a ticket. :-)