At least for a while. It's looking more and more like the Red Sox should have spent the money on A-Rod. At least Nomar gets to spend more time with his bride!

Mark Bellhorn will take over at 2nd base as Pokey Reese moves to SS. Bellhorn is the kind of player I'd expect the Red Sox to pick up as a role player. He doesn't hit much, but he's pretty good at getting on base. He's the kind of player you use to pinch hit leading off an inning when you're down a run or two. He's likely a lot more valuable offensively than Pokey Reese. It will be interesting to see how he plays for three weeks. If Bellhorn has a good offensive start a Pokey a poor one, there might be pressure to keep Bellhorn at 2nd base when Nomar returns to the lineup.

Looks like Mark Prior is going to be out a while. Luckily for the Cubs, they have a deep staff, and if they take advantage of days off, they would only need a fifth starter three times in April.

Meanwhile, Jason Steffens has some harsh criticism for Jack McDowell and Fox Sports.

I guess the Devil Rays are back to being the Washington Generals.

In two games now, the DRays have seen 214 pitches in 17 innings, and only drawn three walks. That's 12 1/2 pitches per inning. If they want to get into the soft underbelly of their opponents bullpens, they are going to have to work the opposition harder than that.

Steve Treder offers up his memories of Strat-o-Matic baseball at the Hardball Times. I started playing the game in college, where I was a proud member of the Thirteenth Floor Strat-o-Matic League. Later, I joined the Sombilla, and participated in two seven-game World Series (I lost both, you can read the summaries here and here). I also played in a play-by-mail league for a couple of seasons. I love the game, and many of my best stories are a result of Strat-o.

I'm not sure that this really fits in the category, but

The Yankees were so embarrassed by their showing, they refused to participate in the spirit award, which usually goes to a member of the losing team. And it's probably safe to assume principal owner George Steinbrenner didn't go right back to bed in Tampa after getting up early to watch his $182-million team get beaten so badly.

I heard during the Tampa broadcast of today's game that Giambi was going to get the spirit award but refused to take it. I have mixed feelings about this:

• You should be a gracious guest, and respect the customs of your host.


• If you accept an award for losing, that makes you a loser. I don't want losers playing for my MLB team.

So in the end, I can't fault Giambi for not accepting the honor(?). His competitive spirit is part of what makes him a great player. He doesn't want to be seen as a loser, and I can't blame him for that.

Jorge Posada just hit his 2nd three-run homerun of the game. He's also homered from both sides of the plate. The ESPN research in me wonders if anyone has hit three-run homers lefty and righty in the same game before.

Update: From David Vincent at SABR:

Most RBI in SHHR Game
Chili Davis         09/15/1993   6 RBI 3 3
Chili Davis         07/30/1994   6 RBI 4 2
Eddie Murray        08/29/1979   7 RBI 3 2 2
Eddie Murray        08/16/1981   6 RBI 4 2
Eddie Murray        08/26/1985   8 RBI 3 1 4
Ted Simmons         06/11/1979   6 RBI 4 2
Ted Simmons         05/02/1982   6 RBI 3 3
Roy Smalley         09/05/1982   6 RBI 3 3
Dale Sveum          07/17/1987   6 RBI 1 2 3
U L Washington      09/21/1979   6 RBI 3 3
Roy White           05/07/1970   6 RBI 3 3
Willie Wilson       06/15/1979   6 RBI 3 3
Todd Hundley        05/18/1996   6 RBI 3 3
Bernie Williams     06/06/1994   6 RBI 2 4
Bernie Williams     09/12/1996   7 RBI 3 4
Bill Mueller        07/29/2003   9 RBI 1 4 4

Note that Roy White was on the bench for this game. I'm surprised Mantle never did it. Update: Yes, I forgot Mueller hit two grand slams last year. That's the sort of thing I used to know when I was 17, but over the last 15 years or so I've stored less in my brain and more on my computer. It's a lot easier (and more accurate, I find) to look things up than remember them.

Kevin Brown is pitching a good game today. Through four innings, he's given up five hits, but no walks, and he's striking out a batter through inning. He's only thrown 50 pitches, 31 for strikes, a good ratio. He's getting ground balls, but I can't tell from the written play-by-plays if the infield defense is letting grounders through.

Jeremi Gonzalez, however, was not sharp. He's out of the game after 4 2/3 innings. He also gave up five hits, but added four walks to that. He was wild, with 39 of his 77 pitches outside the strikezone. Two of the five hits off him were for homeruns.

Damian Moss has picked up where Gonzalez left off. In facing four batters, he hit Giambi, walked Sheffield and gave up a three-run HR to Posada before striking out Clark to end the inning. It's a blow out now, Yankees up 8-1 in the middle of the fifth.

Just got up and am listening to the game on MLB audio. With Jeter on, Hideki Matsui just delivered a two-run HR to send the crowd into a tizzy. Godzilla also drove in the Yankees first run in the third. It's 5-1 Yankees in the 5th.

I'm working at the home office of Baseball Information Solutions, preparing for the new season. I had lunch with Steve Moyer today. Steve is the president of the company and an old friend from my STATS, Inc. days. Steve has been traveling around spring training sites, speaking to clubs, trying to see if there is a way we can help them with their analysis. While he was speaking to a Tampa Bay official, the Japan trip came up in the conversation. This Devil Ray exec said to Steve that Tampa really wanted to win the two game series, because they didn't want to be the Washington Generals.

In other words, Tampa felt it had been set up to lose to the Yankees in Japan. As Steve said, he doesn't put much stock in motivation in baseball. Over a season, there's just too many games. But in a situation like this, it can be a big factor. The Devil Rays didn't want to be the team that lost to the Yankees in Japan. And to their credit, they rose to the occasion.

Mark McClusky asked me to post this:

"We were down almost all day yesterday due to problems with our host, so we
moved the site to a new hosting provider this morning. The switch of the
domain will take a little while, but we're hoping to be back and posting by
tomorrow. We're sorry for the inconvenience and the frustration -- believe
me, no on is more frustrated than we are."

Let's hope they are back in business soon. Lots of good blogs over there.

NJ.com is looking for a new Mets blogger, as the old one has moved on to greener pastures. It pays $50 a month.

Beyond the Score has an interesting post on the Devil Rays capturing young Japanese fans by holding clinics for children on their far eastern trip.

A great win for Tampa Bay. A fine start by Zambrano, three 1 hit innings by the bullpen, and fifteen hit attack by the offense. I still think Tampa's aggressive swinging is going to hurt them in the long run (the Yankees only threw 112 pitches over 8 innings, 14 per inning). It seemed to me that Tampa's offense was most effective when it waited for Mussina to make a mistake, rather than going after his first pitch. The Yankees offense wasn't bad, as six of their seven hits went for extra bases. But they did not sustain a rally.

A fun game, and it's nice to see real baseball back.

Tampa Bay is just three outs away from first place in the AL East. It's 8-3 DRays heading into the top of the 9th.

Tino Martinez has made a great play at first to rob Wilson of a double. He's 2 for 2 with a walk and two runs scored. I can't wait to see the first story on how the Yankees shouldn't have let him go. :-)

Update: Giambi just let a pickoff throw go through his legs, and Huff follows up with a single to make it 6-3. The defensive comparison won't be good.

Update: Tino hits a two-run HR off Heredia. This is becoming a blowout. In addition to the Tino story, we'll have to keep our eyes out for the Torre is going to be fired story. :-) It's 8-3 in the bottom of the 7th.

Update: It was Tino's 300th HR.

Jose Cruz Jr. takes Mussina deep to tie the game at three. He knocked out a light with the ball. Mussina is not looking good. He was able to take advantage of Tampa's aggressiveness early, but he hasn't been sharp, and the Rays are catching up to him.

Update: Three extra base hits in a row puts Zambrano in line for the win. Torre is leaving Mussina in the game after a big meeting on the mound.

Update: A mistake by Torre. Hall gets the fourth extra-base hit in a row to give the Rays a two run lead. Now Mussina is out.

Update: Paul Quantrill comes in and gets three ground balls on three pitches to end the rally. But the DRays Zambrano outpitches Mike Mussina, and the Devil Rays lead 5-3 after six.

Gary Sheffield puts the Yankees ahead with a hit to right. Behind 0-2 in the count, Zambrano throws a high waste pitch. Sheffield is turns his head away and takes a short defensive swing, and ends up with a double down the right-field line to drive in Rodriguez.

Zambrano gets out of the inning on a great play by Lugo on a broken bat pop by Sierra into no-man's land in shallow center. Zambrano is likely finished for the game, as there is action in the TB bullpen. He throws 92 pitches, 56 for strikes while striking out four, against a very good offense. If he can pitch like this consistently, the Devil Rays will have a good #1 starter.

A-Rod leads off the 6th with a line-drive double down the right field line for his first hit as a Yankee.

For the 2nd time in the game, a Devil Ray went from 2nd to 3rd on a fly ball to Kenny Lofton.

I've seen A-Rod have three chances at third, and he's looked very good to me so far. He just stopped a ball from going down the line, but failed to get the runner at 2nd (Sanchez was running on the play). I did get a flashback of Nettles watching that play, and I didn't expect to get that from Alex.

It seems to be a tradition now to replace Rey Ordonez with Rey Sanchez. I guess going from the worst offensive player in the game to the 2nd worst offensive player in the game is considered an upgrade. Sanchez has his second hit of the game, meaning his offense is all down hill from here. :-)

Victor Zambrano is pitching a pretty good game. He just retired Lofton, Jeter and Matsui in order in the 5th. Unfortunately, he's already thrown over 70 pitches, so it's not going to be long before the Yankees get into the Tampa Bay bullpen.

Cruz and Martinez are selective with Mussina, draw two walks, and score on a Toby Hall single. The game is tied 2-2 after four. Mussina is not striking people out, only one through four innings.

Tampa Bay seems to have decided that they should swing at Mussina's first pitch. Sanchez singled leading off the inning, but Crawford and Rolls just fell behind in the count for a pop out and a ground out. Rolls' roller was A-Rod's first play at third. He ranged far to his left to throw out Damian.

Update: The first pitch swinging is playing into the Yankees hands. Mussina has only thrown 28 pitches through 3 innings. At this rate, he might actually get a complete game. More importantly, it's getting unlikely that the Yankees will have to use much of their bullpen. Mussina directly to Rivera is a deadly combination.

Although Victor Zambrano wears 47, he appears to have A-Rod's number today, striking him out for the 2nd time in the game, both looking.

Update: Zambrano has a 1-2-3 inning in the third. Zambrano has put up four K through 3 innings with nary a walk in sight.

Does anyone know of any Japanese Baseball blogs?

Aubrey Huff lines Mussina's first pitch off the right field wall for a single, Tampa's first hit of the 2004 season.

Update: Tino Martinez singles against his old club. Lugo flies out to center, and Huff takes advantage of Lofton's arm and takes third base easily.

Update: Hall grounds out to Jeter to end the threat. Mussina continues to be efficient, using 20 pitches over two innings.

According to the announcers, Lofton isn't happy about batting 9th. He seems to be channeling the anger well, lining a shot down the third base line. Lofton was running full out from the start, and when Crawford had trouble picking up the ball, Lofton went to third for a triple.

Update: Zambrano comes back from a 3-1 count on Jeter to strike him out on two nice pitches; the first on the outside corner that Jeter thought was ball four, the 2nd a nice breaking ball that Derek swung over.

Zambrano wasn't afraid to throw the ball in the dirt, either. One got by Hall, but not too far, so Lofton couldn't score, the other was blocked by Hall. Having a catcher who is good at blocking that pitch is a real asset to a pitching staff.

A bunt out, a ground out, and a strikeout of Baldelli on a wicked curve ball gives Mussina a 1-2-3 inning. It's 2-0 Yankees. Ten pitches, seven for strikes.

Carl Crawford tries bunting his way on with Mussina's first pitch. Posada throws him out.

A couple of interesting things about the Yankees lineup. Lofton is batting 9th, with Wilson 8th. I remember seeing a study using hidden Markov models that said you shouldn't bat your worst hitter ninth. I believe the rational is that although you are giving extra plate appearances to a poor hitter, you are setting up your number 3 hitter for more RBI. I wonder if the Yankees have seen that study.

What I don't understand is Matsui batting 2nd. Although he was a great on-base guy in Japan, he really didn't do a great job of getting on base last year. Given his stats, he would be much more useful in an RBI slot.

Of course, Matsui lines a picture perfect double into the right-center gap, and scores on an opposite field HR by Jason Giambi. Didn't look like the weight loss has hurt Giambi's strength any.

Victor Zambrano gets the first pitch over for a strike. Jeter leading off, grounds out to shortstop to start the game.

Sort of. The Yankees are about to face the Devil Rays, and even though the Yankees are the road team, they are wearing their home pinstripes.

Looks like ESPN2 is calling this game off video from the studio. It's going to be one big Baseball Tonight highlight.

JC Bradbury has started a baseball only blog called Sabernomics. It's devoted to baseball and economics. Stop by and say hi.

Blogging will be very light today, as I'm very busy and traveling. But I do plan on blogging the Devil Rays game tomorrow morning!

According to this article on ESPN.com, Brendan Donnelly is in the hospital because of nosebleeds:

Donnelly returned to a Scottsdale hospital late Saturday and underwent a third surgery on his fractured nose, which was broken in 20 places on March 9 while he shagged flies during batting practice.

"They told me I lost half the blood in my body," Donnelly said Saturday, adding that he'd lost seven pints of blood. "I didn't realize how serious it was."

I used to get nosebleeds quite often when I was growing up. Never this bad, but I would wake up with blood all over my pillow. The usually happen during the change of seasons with me. They are a bother, but I never realized they could be this bad. Let's all keep Brendan in our thoughts today.

The Baseball Crank links to Jody Gerut on steroid testing. From Gerut:

MLB's drug program goes like this: last year a serious survey was done to determine if there was a problem with steroids in the game. If 5% or more of players tested positive then our drug deterrence program would be enforced and in 2004 we would have random, unannounced testing. Just over 5% of players tested positive but those test results were skewed. Problems occurred when those players who were randomly chosen to test more than once during the year and tested positive were counted twice, not once. Those players were counted as two positives not one, thus increasing the amount of overall positives and lifting the percentage of positive tests into the 5% range. Some players were mistakenly tested three times and if by chance they tested positive those were counted three times! 5% may not have been 5%.

That's not something I heard before. I'm surprised that the union would have agreed to such testing. Reading the basic agreement (page 161), I think Jody has this wrong. It says, "5% of players tested." That says to me, if you test 1000 individual players, 50 individuals have to test positive, not if you conduct 1000 tests, 50 have to be positive. I don't think the union would let management get away with that.

Update: In the comments below, Marty Cortinas of Across the Seams confirms Gerut with testimony by Donald Fehr. It seems to be that the union agreed to more stringent testing that the wording of the labor agreement would indicate.

With games starting Tuesday morning in this division, I thought it would be prudent to put up a brief preview. To get a feel for how the teams are stacking up, I drew up this table based on last years win shares and CBSSportsline depth charts.

2003 Win Shares	Baltimore	Boston	New York	Tampa Bay	Toronto
Starting 9	148	163	193	111	141
Starters and Closer	32	82	85	34	70
Total	180	245	278	145	211
Wins	60	82	93	45	70

My aim here is to get a feel for how well the core of a team is built. The total win shares and wins (win shares/3) should of course be taken with a large grain of salt. But it's a good starting point to ask such questions as, "What do the non-core players have to do to get the team to a certain point?" It obvious that the DRays need a lot of contributions from the bench just to get to 60 wins. On the other hand, the a healthy Yankees team needs very little from the reserves to have a 100 win season.

You can also see where these totals may be underestimating wins. For example, Pedro Martinez and Curt Schilling were both injured last year, and combined for 35 wins shares. If they are both healthy and combine for 50 win shares, that would move the Red Sox much closer to the Yankees. But also remember that the Yankees have a 0 for their fifth starter, whether you insert Osborne or Lieber there. So anything they actually contribute will be a bonus.

In the battle for third place, the Orioles have moved past the Blue Jays offensively, but the Blue Jays have added pitching to improve their defense. After Ponson, the rest of the Orioles rotation combined for 11 win shares last year. With the Orioles now using psychology to select their pitchers this may be an underestimation.

Still, it looks like the AL East will finish in the same order for the 7th straight year. Even with both the Yankees and Red Sox starting a 2 win share player at 2nd base this year, it will be difficult for the Blue Jays and Orioles to catch them. I hope I'm wrong about that, this division could really use a shakeup.

Bryan Johnson is writing Against the Grain, a mostly Milwaukee Brewers blog. Bryan brings some inside baseball information to the blogosphere. Stop by and say hi.

The Shea Hot Corner has a panel discussion with fellow Mets journalists, including newspaper reporters and fellow bloggers.

Hideki Matsui homered in his first AB back in Japan, which is just what the fans wanted to see.

With flashbulbs popping and small orange flags with his number "55" waving, Matsui stepped into the batter's box leading off the second to cheers of "Go Matsui!" Then, just after he fouled off a 2-2 pitch, the chant changed to, "Home run, home run, Matsui."

And on the very next pitch, he complied. He took a 63 mph hanging changeup from Hisanori Takahashi, leaned into it and sent it about three-quarters of the way up the bleachers in right-center field.

Fans jumped and cheered. A woman in front of the press box bowed to him.

Looks like Takahashi failed to fool him with the slow, straight stuff. :-)

Last night I attended a fund raiser in Northampton, MA, in which Edward Cossette's favorite cook, Rachael Ray, was competing against three top chefs from the Pioneer Valley. It was an Iron Chef like competition, and the secret ingredient was onions. Needless to say, the theater smelled great.

Rachael is a big Boston Red Sox fan, and one of the first thing she said to the audience was that she was happy to be in Red Sox country. At the end of the show she was going to throw an onion to the crowd, and explained how she had a good arm and threw out the first pitch at Fenway. She was very proud that she was able to reach the plate from the mound (she's a tiny woman) and was just giddy when she talked about getting a hug from Varitek and autographs from Pedro.

The Pioneer Valley chefs won the competition by two points. All the food looked and smelled absolutely delicious. There was lamb, tenderloin, salads, stuffed onions, scallops, egges and even an onion dessert. The judges loved everything.

The annual opening day parade will be taking place in Cincinnati on April 5th, starting at 11:30 AM. The parade will honor the memory of Marge Schott, and the grand marshal is Dave Parker, who had his own problems during his major league tenure, including with Marge:

The jacket with "Marge" sewn on the back will be part of a tribute to the team's late owner. Parker, a Reds outfielder (1984-'87) defamed by Schott's use of the N-word, will be the parade's grand marshal. Schott and Parker later reconciled.

And if you are a St. Bernard fan, there's something for you:

The parade's first division will feature a convertible carrying an enlarged photo of Schott. Two of her sisters, Lottie Crane and Bobbie Unnewehr, will ride in the parade. Part of the tribute to Schott will be a 21-dog salute featuring 21 St. Bernards.

Sounds like it will be a howling good time!

Baseball Widow reports that Stephen King will be chronicling the 2004 Boston Red Sox. As Count Floyd would say, "EEEW!, That's scary stuff!"

After a very quiet spring, there's starting to be some player movement. It looks like Urbrina will be a Tiger, and Juan Cruz was traded to the Braves yesterday. When Brian Hipp of Cubs Now! informed me of this trade, my first thought was, "The Cubs are relatively rich in pitching. Why didn't a team like Texas try to make this deal?" My second thought was, "Atlanta could turn Juan into a star." Cruz strikes out a lot of batters; his problem is control. If Leo can improve that, they'll have a valuable pitcher.

Reds Daily is not happy with the Todd Jones signing, and with good reason.

The Yankees had a little Lamb, but now he's an Astro. NY traded Mike Lamb to Houston today for minor league pitcher Juan DeLeon. I must admit I had forgotten Lamb was still a Yankee.

It appears that Mets fans will go to any length to rid the team of Roger Cedeno. :-)

Bruce Markusen, the manager of museum programs for the Baseball Hall of Fame recently sat down to interview Mudcat Grand and Al Oliver about the decline of African Americans playing the game today. He saw this post and thought I would be interested in a copy of the interview. He's allowed me to reprint the transcript here. It's a great read, full of history and humor. I love this passage:

Markusen: Mudcat, your thoughts on RBI?

Grant: I’m really disappointed in the RBI program. The intention of it was to promote baseball in the inner city. It hasn’t gotten very much promotion. And on top of that, for some reason, they will not use ex-African American ballplayers. We beg to be used. We’re not called for certain events; we’re not called for certain tournaments. I think if they use us more, the program will improve. I think right now it may be a semi-political thing. As long as baseball promotes the word ‘RBI,’ it would seem [in their minds] to be OK, but nothing is really happening in the inner city communities when it comes to RBI. We have to get the cities involved where the ballfields are, where the RBI players play. Take care of the field a little bit. You know, run that machine over there. Don’t let [the field] get so bad that the kids don’t want to play. So we have to get the cities involved; they’ve been ignoring where the inner city kids play.

But I’m more disappointed in the head of the RBI program because we don’t make a point [of getting former black players involved]. I think we are afraid to say that this is definitely an inner city program. Say it. And then do it. And then when you do the program, bring white kids in, too. Let them mix. Let them do things. But first do the job that the RBI program is supposed to do. It’s an inner city program; get these kids playing baseball. Call us, so we can motivate parents to be managers and so forth.

Oliver: Mudcat just hit on one key point when he said ‘inner city,’ but let’s bring in whites. Today’s society, in the inner city, you see whites as well. And what better way can we learn about each other. See, that’s where we need to be at in 2004. This is not 1804. We should be like this now. What better way to bring people together to learn about each other, and find out that, hey, we are all in this together.

"We're all in this together." These are two men who have a great grasp on the reality of the situation.

One other comment I'd like to make on this issue, and a tip of the hat to my wife Marilyn for suggesting it. Baseball has always been a game of shifting demographics. In the Bill James Historical Abstract (First Edition), James talks about who played the game in each decade. Different ethnic groups dominate various eras, then fade away. It could be that is what is happening to US blacks in baseball. Like other groups before them, as they grow more affluent, a risky career in sports becomes less of a draw.

The problem, of course, is that baseball has a history of segregation that makes people very wary of these types of trends. To his credit, Bud Selig does recognize this particular problem and at least makes an effort to confront it. I hope he will take the advice of these two veterans to improve the system.

Will Leitch at The Black Table has a team-by-team preview of the major leagues. He also links each preview to the best blog about each team, and suggests you'll get better coverage there than your local newspaper. Definitely worth the read.

James Joyer at Outside the Beltway links to a story about how releasing a player saved a life.

Jared Loos, the structural engineer for Citizens Bank Park, is profiled in this article.

Jared J. Loos thought nothing in his career as an engineer could top helping design a $300 million racetrack halfway around the world in Singapore.

But for someone raised in Shillington who used to listen to Philadelphia Phillies baseball games on the radio, nothing could be much bigger than being the lead structural engineer on his latest project: Citizens Bank Park, the Phillies' new home.

"That property in Singapore was great, but nobody (here) is going to see it," said Loos, a 1989 Gov. Mifflin High School graduate.

Here's some good news on Jose Reyes. He may be ready for opening day.

The New York Times has an excellent article on how the Yankees are preparing themselves for the trip to Japan.

Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, has a blog, blog maverick (hat tip, Bambino's Curse). He has a post on how referees call fouls based on situations, rather than the rule book. It's exactly how I feel about umpires and the strike zone.

Doug's Business of Baseball Blog notes a story about the commissioner planning to revive the Negro Leagues. According to the Onion, Bud thinks it can be a real money maker:

Selig cited the abundance of Negro League documentaries, books, web sites, and museums as proof of the public's interest in revitalizing segregated baseball.

"Baseball is all about the fans," Selig said. "And the fans are all about paying big money for caps and T-shirts with the cool old Birmingham Black Barons logo on them. They love buying mahogany-framed prints of those neat black-and-white Kansas City Monarchs team photos, too."

It appears Selig will do anything for a buck:

"A new generation will get to see the tragic majesty of Negro League play," Selig said. "Once again, baseball fans will be able to argue over whether or not a black player could make it in the majors, even if the player in question was already there. And maybe, just maybe, the brave Jackie Robinson of a new generation will dare to defy my color line and become a symbol of triumph. That'd really sell tickets."

Frankly, I'd be happy with an independent minor league system.

On a more serious note, Doug Pappas also notes that the sale of the Brewers is not drawing much interest. I've been saying for a while, this is the time to buy a major league franchise. Arte Moreno got it right. He bought the undervalued Angels, is marketing them right, and will increase the value of his franchise by hundreds of millions of dollars. You can get the Expos and the Brewers dirt cheap right now. It's not hard to imagine that with proper management, the value of both clubs would double quickly.

Update: Yes, I know the Onion is satire.

Darren Viola writes that the NY Post has picked up on Will Young's blog entry on John Dowd's lecture. The blogosphere had this story days ago.

Scott Brown of Florida Today has an excellent article on Omar Minaya. He explores his history and his philanthropy. Also, be sure to check out the portrait Zach Day drew of Omar.

Steve Bonner at The Midnight Hour takes a close look at Mariano Rivera's Hall of Fame credentials.

Chris Lynch links to this article on Playboy's web site. It's the story of the BALCO investigation, with extensive statements from the undercover agent who was shadowing Greg Anderson. This article has done more to convince me that these players really are using steroids than any other I've read. However, it also troubles me.

To White, Novitzky -- who did not participate in this article -- seemed to have an unusual interest in the ballplayer. He mentioned Bonds frequently after a sighting or a Giants game. One day at court Novitzky struck up a conversation with White that went beyond the usual talk-radio banter.

"That Bonds. He's a great athlete," White says Novitzky told him. "You think he's on steroids?"

White took a moment before replying, in his bourbon-and-cotton voice, "I think they're all on steroids. All of our top major leaguers."

Novitzky seemed to care only about Bonds. "He's such an asshole to the press," he said. "I'd sure like to prove it."

White is undercover agent Iran White. Novitzky is is Jeff Novitzky, an IRS agent. It was Novitzky who pressed the investigation. However, given his statement above, I wonder if it would have ever happened if Bonds had been a nice guy. It seems to me Novitzky, for some reason, was out to get Bonds, rather than catch criminals or clean up a sport.

The other interesting thing is that Iran White, just as he was closing in on Anderson, had a stroke. (The stroke was a result of a muscle that tore during weight lifting. I'm sure if that had happened to an athlete, someone would have blamed steroids.) So White never got the goods on Anderson, never made the drug deal he wanted to make, never got him to talk about juicing up Bonds or anyone else. So what does Novitzky do?

Shortly before noon on September 3, 2003, helicopters pound the air over BALCO's tiny offices. A pack of unmarked sedans surrounds the building. In a move other agencies would later question, IRS agents are told to place IRS placards on the dashboard of their cars. Nearly two dozen agents, several in black IRS flak jackets, along with a doctor the USADA has sent, crowd through BALCO's front door. Down the hall is a refrigerator for blood samples and a machine that resembles a mass spectrometer. A gym is farther back, its walls covered with framed signed jerseys of Bonds, Jones and other athletes.

...

Conte turns on Anderson, too, telling cops the trainer is supplying baseball players with testosterone cream and THG. He agrees to take investigators to a storage locker across the freeway, where they find THG, cream, human growth hormone, other steroids and files on athletes. As Conte leaves the BALCO offices a wave of news cameras and reporters engulfs him.

"Are these TV cameras?" he asks, clearly stunned. "How did this happen?"

Many agents -- everyone, in fact, who doesn't work for the IRS -- are angered by the publicity. The search of BALCO, which was supposed to remain secret for countless investigative reasons, now resembles an episode of Cops. Members of other law enforcement groups are furious at the publicity stunt. The search was designed as a pressure tactic, not as the end of the investigation; there are no plans to arrest Conte, who walks free.

So Novitzky jeopardizes the investigation with a poor search warrent execution. Why?

These days White wonders whether political headlines weren't grabbed over the possibility of larger and broader charges. Was Novitzky's intent to shape his investigative exploits into a book? Or did ego and one federal agency's desire to control the investigation determine the focus of what now plays across TV screens?

I'm eager to see how this plays out. I'm eager to see what names come to light, and how much evidence is againt them. I'm also eager to see if Novitzky profits from this investigation.

Gabe Kapler just made a great play at third base. He's filling in for the injured Bill Mueller, but on that play you'd think he was the regular third baseman. He charged a slow roller, fielded the ball with his glove hand waist high and made a perfect throw to first to catch the runner by a step. Got a great cheer from the crowd, too.

Devil Rays vs. the Red Sox on ESPN now.

The Yankees and Mariano Rivera have reached a deal that will keep the closer in NY likely through 2007.

In his rookie year of 1995, Rivera gave up 11 HR in 67.0 innings (he started 10 games that year). Since, he has given up 26 HR in 582 2/3 innings. Mariano does the three things you want a pitcher to do well. He strikes people out (although at 8.1 per 9 IP he's not overpowering), he doesn't walk too many (at 2.5 per 9, he's no Eckersley) and he really doesn't give up HR (about 1 every 18 innings). Unlike most closers of this era, Rivera is willing to enter with the game on the line in the 8th. He's a special pitcher.

As he sat at his locker on Monday morning, carefully etching his name across the sweet spot of two dozen baseballs, Mariano Rivera had history on his mind. He asked a group of reporters if they thought Goose Gossage, the former Yankees closer, belonged in the Hall of Fame.

Yes, Gossage belongs in the Hall. And if you define a Hall candidate as greatest at a position over a sustained period of time, Rivera will belong also.

I haven't been following the Dodgers very closely, so I was surprised to see how much animosity the McCourts have generated since buying the team.

In his first day on the job, Frank McCourt said, "I want to re-energize the relationship between the community and the Dodgers."

Since then, he has done nothing but damage that relationship with hollow rhetoric and public personnel battles that have threatened the beloved opening day buzz.

And the fans are writing in with their opinions (via Doug Pappas):

I can't agree with Bill Plaschke's March 17 description of the McCourts as "more naive than nasty." Ever since this pair of Boston carpetbaggers managed to leverage and finesse their little deal with Fox and Major League Baseball, they have shown themselves to be consistently arrogant in their posturing and empty talk.

They make only the slightest pretense of being here for any purpose other than putting our baseball team to sleep so that they can further their real estate plans for Chavez Ravine. There seems to be a real meanness to Frank and the not-so-charming Jamie, in the classic sense of that word.

Maybe it's time for them to start listening instead of talking so much. Perhaps then they'd realize that we don't really like what we've seen of them so far, and don't believe that they like or respect us, the baseball fans of Los Angeles.

Aren't the baseball fans of Los Angeles the ones who leave Dodger Stadium in the 7th inning?

The McCourts have not connected with the fans, and they look even worse when compared with Arte Moreno in Anaheim. I'm somewhat surprised that they haven't made a deal for a hitter yet. The McCourts coming in and giving the impression that they wanted to win this year, and then not doing anything to improve the team is poor public relations. Still, he hired DePodesta, and I find it hard to believe you'd hire someone that good if you weren't interested in winning.

Doug Pappas links to this article about the major league's concern with the declining number of African-American players.

Whatever the causes, Major League Baseball is treating the trend seriously, as a crisis of culture, if not relevancy. After all, what does it say about America's oldest, most tradition-rich professional sport that the best athletes from an entire segment of the American population have little more than a marginal stake, or passing interest, in it?

"When you think of the heritage of Jackie Robinson and (Larry) Doby and (Roy) Campanella and (Hank) Aaron and Willie Mays, it's stunning that it's fallen off like it has," Selig said. "We've gotten away from promoting baseball in the inner cities. I think there was a void there in the '70s, maybe back into the late '60s and going into the '80s. Now we're trying to make up for time. We're trying to do as much as we can to stimulate the game."

Already promoting baseball with youth in 185 cities through the Reviving Baseball in the Inner City program the past several years, along with programs that fund Little League fields, MLB has stepped up aggressively this year with a $3 million Urban Youth Academy under construction on the campus of Compton Community College in the Los Angeles area.

I have two comments on this. The first is that it's not obvious to me that this is true, because I can't tell the difference between US citizens of African decent and Latin American players of African decent. So, when the article says that

Besides the Twins, the only other possible all-black starting outfield in the majors on Opening Day is in San Francisco, where Barry Bonds and Marquis Grissom could be joined by Michael Tucker or Jeffrey Hammonds.

I wonder if they've bothered looking at the Chicago Cubs, where Alou, Patterson and Sosa all look black to me. In other words, I wonder if the total number of Afican players have declined.

I do however, find this disturbing:

Hunter, whose best sport was football as a kid, said he took baseball seriously after watching Andre Dawson hit 49 home runs for the Chicago Cubs in 1987 on WGN's superstation.

"I was like, 'Man, you can be successful at baseball as a black person?' " he said.

But the chances of that happening again in his hometown of Pine Bluff, Ark., already have dropped dramatically. By the time Hunter returned to his hometown two years after being drafted in 1993, his loosely-organized youth league had disbanded. Meanwhile, the more highly organized, expensive league in the mostly white area of town was still going strong.

I'm glad MLB is putting more money into the inner cities. I'm not sure that it's the solution, or even that there is a real problem here. But anything that gets more kids playing basebal is a good thing.

Update: There are some interesting comments to this post. I disagree with this one:

I also sort of wonder - and one always treads lightly when coming anywhere near race issues - if current baseball trends are part of the issue.
It's fairly accepted that one area that those of african heritage excel at is speed. And indeed, many of the great base stealers of days gone by are black.
As the stolen base becomes less important as an offensive weapon, as GMs start to value skills more than tools, doesn't that play a part? There's a certain kind of very physically gifted athlete that does a lot better at basketball or football than baseball, where one has to translate those tools into finely developed skills.
In other words, it takes a much wider range of traits, some of them mental, to excel in baseball than in other sports, so it makes sense that baseball would trend away from a skillset that was heavy in any one genetic population. Especially once we stop valuing those skill subsets that are favored in some genetics as much as we used to.
That, and basketball is extremely good at marketing to inner city youth (to the point of often isolating others who used to be fans, but can't relate to the basketball culture anymore.) And hey, if Selig wants to work on that, it's about the best use for him.

This is the argument that was made by the Toronto Sun last year as to why there were so few minorities on the Blue Jays. It ignores the fact that great black players have the same skill set as great white players; they get on base and hit for power. Jackie Robinson, Henry Aaron, Willie Mays, Joe Morgan, Rickey Henderson, Frank Robinson (name your favorite star here) all got on base and all hit for power. If they had speed, that was a bonus, but it wasn't the reason they were great.

I think Peter comes closest to getting it right:

If you ask the 50 and 60 year olds what they did during the summer as kids, odds are that they will tell you they "played baseball." In the 40s, 50s and 60s both city and suburban parks were filled with kids of all colors and persuasions playing pick-up ball from dawn to dusk.

Many of those parks have disappeared to development and most of the remaining ones are fenced and reserved for use by formal organizations of one sort or another.

There's probably a zillion variables involved but the bottom line is that American kids just do not play baseball as much as they did a generation or two ago. And in case you haven't noticed American kids come in every color and variety.

I'm only in my mid 40's, but we never played organized ball. There was an empty lot in the neighborhood. We played football on it in the fall and baseball in the spring and summer. Show up at 10 on Saturday and play. Or use the blacktop of the school playground. Or use the street for kick ball. If you don't have a glove, borrow one. And it didn't matter how many people showed up. We'd play three on three with the offense supplying the catcher, and anything hit to the opposite field was an out. We used imaginary runners (always with the number i). We played.

I seldom see kids playing pick-up games anymore. Do youngsters still play stick ball in the streets of NY? It seems that unless someone organizes a game, it doesn't get played. That's too bad, and certainly a part of the problem.

Update: Of course, basketball is a different game. (Hat tip, Instapundit)

The KC Royals have named Brian Anderson as their opening day starter. What's really interesting, however, is that it looks like the Royals will have four lefties in their rotation:

The Royals' top four starters to open the season will all likely be left-handers. Pena said there was "no question" that Jimmy Gobble, a 22-year-old left-hander, is the leading candidate for the fourth slot in the rotation.

If you're the Yankees and playing in Yankee Stadium, this is okay. I'll have to look at the makeup of the division at some point, but I'm not sure a rotation of lefties is the best strategy for the Royals.

Jose de Jesus Ortiz of the Houston Chronicle has been writing up a storm about the Astros bullpen. Check out his article about Mike Gallo trying to stay with the major league club, and about how the bullpen is shaping up in general.

If anyone is planning on attending a home opener this year, would you please let me know. I have a project in mind.

Edward Cossette waxes poetic on the destruction of the vet.

Juan Pierre has dislocated his pinkie. As my wife Marilyn said, "It must be annoying that something that small can lay you up." It's likely he'll only miss a few days, but if there's a chance he could miss six weeks.

Doug Pappas has redesigned his Business of Baseball Blog, and it now includes an RSS feed. This is one of the baseball blogs you should be reading daily.

Rick Helling is out after having his leg broken by a line drive:

Helling, who signed a minor-league contract with the Twins this season and was expected to be their fifth starter, was hit in the lower leg by a hard liner off the bat of Philadelphia's Shawn Wooten in the fourth inning Saturday.

Helling left the game with what he and the team believed was a bruise, but X-rays on Sunday morning revealed a fractured right fibula.

This might actually be a good thing for the Twins. Helling isn't that great a pitcher, and this might open the door for someone younger and better.

I'm watching the Padres-Cubs game, and the Padres have started Ryan Klesko in left field. It's been pretty ugly out there. He missed a short pop. Balls are ricocheting around him. And finally, a long fly was hit to the wall. Klesko went back, but had no idea where the ball would come down. Kingsdale, the centerfielder, came all the way over to left to jump and save a HR. If Klesko is going to be a regular in left, the CF is going to have to do a lot of work to take some pressure off Ryan.

Larry Walker, who spent the off-season rehabilitating from surgery, has once again injured his left groin.

With one check swing, Larry Walker ruined 11 days of rest. In his first game since March 8, the Rockies right fielder aggravated his strained left groin, creating the possibility he won't be available for opening day.

"Are we back to square one? I am not sure yet," trainer Tom Probst said.

Walker grimaced during his second at-bat while striding to swing. He grounded out to second base on the next pitch, jogged slowly down the line, then exited to the clubhouse, where the team doctor examined him.

Looks like that thinner body isn't any healthier.

The author of Welcome to Funkstown recently attended a lecture by John Dowd, and reprints his notes here. I didn't realize how much Dowd dislikes Bud Selig:

After losing the suit in the courts, Rose’s agent finally agreed to settle. Rose claims that there were negotiations with Giamatti, but Dowd insists that Giamatti only held one position. Throughout the entire discussion, Giamatti always was supporting the permanent ban of Pete Rose from baseball for his actions. Unfortunately, a week after the case was settled (and Rose agreed to the ban), Giamatti died and was replaced by Fay Vincent. For the next fourteen years, Rose constantly tried to drum up public support, and he finally found an ally in the “present stooge” in the Commissioner’s Office.

It's also interesting that the suspension of Rose did have an effect on at least one other player:

One of the lasting effects of the Rose case was the way it eliminated some other gambling problems in baseball. Lenny Dykstra, for example, had a gambling problem but only bet on cards. When John Dowd went to speak with him on behalf of Major League Baseball, Dykstra notified him that he had completely stopped gambling solely because Pete Rose was caught. In fact, Gene Orza tried to stop Dykstra from talking, but he was thrown out of the room.

(Hat tip Will Carroll.)

If you had any doubts, the Phillies have indeed played their last game at Veterans Stadium. The park was imploded today, leaving a cloud of dust and a pile of rubble. My guess is that everyone except Larry Bowa was happy to see it go.

Will Carroll has a new book coming out, Saving the Pitcher. You can pre-order it at the above link. Will tells me he's looking to do clinics around the release of the book, so be sure to look for those.

According to the column by Gordon Edes, Mark Shapiro thinks the Indians may be back on top this year (emphasis added):

"We're much further than last year," Shapiro said. "We have core players identified. We have a group of other guys we think potentially can be core players that we didn't know about a year ago. We're within 12 months [of contending]. We hope sometime in July or in the offseason, we'll be adding players with the intent of winning our division.

"I understand that it's a weaker division, but that's part of the strategy, and the first step for us, clearly, is to win our division and then the next step is to build a championship team by any standard. So the first step we have to take is to contend for and win our division, and I feel like that step, knowing the Central Division is an ally for us in the plans, is going to happen for us, either this season or next season."

That's a pretty strong statement. Maybe he's trying to get the Indian faithful back to the ballpark. Or, like the Twins of 2002, a very good farm system is about to burst onto the major league scene.

Adam Dunn is having a great spring, and his success is being attributed to new hitting coach Chris Chambliss. What may be most encouraging is that he's cutting down on his strikeouts. A healthy and hitting Dunn, Kearns, Griffey and Casey would give the Reds the core of a terrific offense.

Joe Nossek was supposed to be Ozzie Guillen's bench coach. He was going to be Zimmer to Guillen's Torre; the guy who would whisper in the manager's ear to remind him of strategy and personnel changes. But Nossek is gone for health reasons, and the White Sox are scrambling for a replacement:

Guillen indicated he wants to stay within the White Sox "family." The most logical choice is Jeff Torborg, who managed the Sox in 1989-91 and was Guillen's boss with Montreal in 2001 and Florida in 2002 and part of `03.

Torborg might not know the American League like Nossek_no one does_but the former catcher has managed almost 1,400 big-league games and watched perhaps another 1,400 as a broadcaster.

Carlton Fisk, who talks about getting back into baseball as a manager or coach, would be a big risk-big reward type of hire. He has a brilliant baseball mind but, like Guillen, never has run games.

Is there anything Guillen could do that would be more popular with the fans? It's true Fisk and Reinsdorf are not on good terms, but Reinsdorf probably could fix that with a one phone call (albeit a long phone call).

Fisk's presence on the bench would be huge. He certainly could tutor Miguel Olivo and probably help the pitching staff along the way. He has said he's not sure if he wants to tackle the grind of a 162-game season, but this would be a chance to take the job for a test drive.

Harold Baines, who serves as a special-assignment instructor, would be an easier choice. He already knows the Sox players, and vice versa. He and Guillen have a bond. But, as with Fisk, his lack of managerial experience is a drawback.

My feeling is that Torborg would be the best choice of the three. Fisk or Baines would be so popular that they would overshadow Ozzie.

Howie Beardsley has the latest on Mark Prior's right Achilles. While Prior is the best of that staff, it is certainly nice to have a staff so deep that you could lose Prior for a considerable length of time and still win.

Nomar Garicappara and Trot Nixon have both been sidelined with injuries. Enough injuries like these to the Yankees and Red Sox, and suddenly you don't have that strong a division. That's why if I'm a fan of Toronto or Baltimore, I'm optimistic going into the season. The right balance of good luck for those teams and bad luck for NY and Boston, and suddenly you have a Cinderella situation.

Here's a story on the LSU sports site about former LSU Tiger Mike Fontenot. He's a 2nd base prospect with the Orioles, and the injury to Jerry Hairston has given him an opportunity to play. Hitting coach Terry Crowley has noticed:

With limited playing time since, Fontenot is 8-for-24 (.333) with six RBIs, second most on the team. That's an achievement for a guy generously listed at 5-foot-8 and wearing No. 73 who was considered an afterthought.

"I like his approach," Crowley said. "I like his quick bat. He's got some juice -- the ball flies off his bat. As a young player, he's selective at the plate and that's something you always like to see. If he stays selective -- because he's not a big guy -- he's going to get good pitches to hit."

I like a coach who sees selectivity as a positive, rather than as a lack of aggression. Mr. Fontenot looks promising.

According to Dave Krieger, retirees aren't the only old people living in Phoenix.

It appears that Shawn, "The Wilting Man" Estes has won the job as the Rockies #1 starter.

Squaring off against Randy Johnson and the Arizona Diamondbacks would complete quite a whirlwind for Estes. He signed a $600,000 minor-league deal with the Rockies when no other teams showed interest. He arrived in camp in the best shape of his career, and further along than most pitchers after throwing all winter.

Maybe Dusty's comments got to him.

The A's have decided that Eric Chavez is worth a long term contract, and have signed him to a $66 million deal over six years.

Why Chavez and not Tejada? Both put up 25 wins shares last year. And Tejada does play the tougher defensive position. But Chavez is a year younger, so at 26 he is still improving. He has a higher career OBA (.350 to .336), so he's improving from a higher level. My guess is the A's could only keep one of them at this point, and they chose younger player with the better OBA. I believe they made the right decision.

In comments to yesterday's post on a balanced schedule, Dean writes:

Do you think that by being in the AL East, they will ever be a strong team in a weak division, barring moving to another division or revenue sharing? That is, will the Yankees or Red Sox ever be a weak team?

My answer is yes, but not very often. The Yankees in particular are approaching a tipping point in terms of age. They are putting out an old starting lineup, and an older pitching staff as well. I can easily see age decline + injuries lessening the impact of that team this year. In other words, lots of things can go wrong. If they go wrong for both the Yankees and Red Sox, the other teams in the division would be at an advantage in a balanced schedule, because they would get to play those weakened teams often. Now, both those teams have money and good management, so I would expect they could plug holes, but stranger things have happened. I remember a season in the mid-70's where the Yankees came into spring stocked with outfielders, and by mid summer they were playing two catchers in the outfield.

An interesting sidelight in this story on Angels starting pitchers competing for jobs. Moreno is trying to create an Angels brand:

Owner Arte Moreno's goal to brand the Angels name was evident with the release of the club's media guide. Even though they added the best free agent pitcher and position player in baseball and feature an emerging star in Garret Anderson, no players grace the cover.

Instead, the cover simply features the "A' logo with a red backdrop that includes the word "Angels' inscribed 80 times.

Unlike last year's guide, the City name of Anaheim does not appear on the cover, which dovetails with Moreno's decision to remove Anaheim from road uniforms and almost any literature associated with the team. The Angels' lease with the city requires them to keep the city name on the home stadium, which is why it is Angel Stadium of Anaheim.

"It was determined that the brand is the most important thing right now,' said Tim Mead, the Angels vice president of communications. "That's a theme we'll see throughout the year.'

This makes me wonder if they'll go back to being the California Angels at some point. Maybe Moreno wants them to be the LA team, so he wants to distance them from Anaheim? If anyone has any ideas about this, please let me know.

Athletics nation has set up a Q&A with A's rookie Bobby Crosby. You can leave questions for Bobby here (deadline, noon PST). Crosby is having a very good spring. However, looking at the A's stats, I was reminded of a pet peeve; no walks are listed for batters. Walks are not in the AP boxscores, so they are not in the stats. They have HBP and SF, so you'd think they could find a way to list one of the more important numbers. And of course, since they don't have walks, they don't have OBA. This omission needs to be corrected.

Stephen at Mariners Wheelhouse asks a deep philosophical question.

Roy Halladay is developing a changeup, and he likes the way it's coming along:

Roy Halladay is putting the final polish on his new pitch. Since the start of spring training, Halladay has been working on a changeup and yesterday against the Minnesota Twins he was throwing it to near perfection.

"My changeup was real good (yesterday), my curveball a lot better," the Blue Jays right-hander said of his four innings during which he gave up one run on five hits.

"The cutter wasn't very good in the bullpen, so I was trying to overcompensate on it and I was pulling it off the plate too much."

Baseball is a game of adjustments. I'm impressed Halladay is developing a new pitch. A lot of players would have sat on their Cy Young laurels and done nothing to improve themselves, believing they were good enough to win again. Halladay's not content with that; he's trying to increase his odds of repeating.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays would prefer to go back to a balanced schedule:

This is not the Rays whining. This is not a team looking for special favors. Naimoli insisted on playing in the AL East when Tampa Bay was being awarded an expansion franchise and he's living with that decision.

So, yes, it is Tampa Bay's responsibility to beat Boston and New York if it wants to be a division champ. That's not the issue.

The problem is the Rays are at a disadvantage when it comes to competing for the wild card. Because the Rays play almost half their games against AL East teams, they have a more difficult schedule than a team from the AL Central or AL West. Thus, they are unfairly handicapped.

At this point in their history, it doesn't matter what kind of schedule Tampa plays. They are not going to compete with anyone. However, they should be careful what they wish for. It could be that someday they are a strong team in a weak division, and then they will be very happy to have an unbalanced schedule.

I like the unbalanced schedule because it makes the an under .500 division champion less likely.

The Sports Economist and Daniel Drezner each link and comment on an MLB.com article about Bill James. It turns out Bill was studying to teach economics, but kept applying what he learned to baseball. I, for one, am glad he chose the path he did. The Sports Economist also talks about a paper by Gerald Scully on how he used K/BB to predict how underpaid pitchers were before free agency.

This story makes me very apprehensive.

Will commissioner Bud Selig stiff-arm baseball's collective bargaining agreement in order to implement a more aggressive testing plan for performance-enhancing drugs?

An industry source told the Houston Chronicle that Selig is contemplating such a move. Unless significant progress is made in negotiations between the owners and the MLB Players Association, Selig may act within the next 10 days, the source said

To do so, the paper reports, Selig would use his far-reaching "best interests of the game" clause in an attempt to bypass the collective bargaining process and establish a testing plan similar to the one used in the minor leagues. That plan, the paper notes, would include a zero-tolerance policy in which one positive test will result in an immediate suspension of approximately two weeks. Additional positive tests would result in longer suspensions.

I have no doubt that if Selig tried this, the union would call for a strike. What would happen next would be very interesting. ESPN Insider (link requires subscription) has an article by an anonymous player that indicates players want tougher testing. Now, I don't put a lot of stock in anonymitiy, but if true, Selig may have found finally found a wedge to drive between the players and the union leadership. Can you imagine Fehr calling for a strike and the players refusing to ratify it? But Fehr knows if he gives ownership and inch they'll take a yard. Afterall, look where the testing program implemented has brought them so far.

Update: Doug Pappas relieves my worries about a strike. I had forgotten about arbitration. He also makes a very good point about the players:

And however divided the players may be on the subject of random testing, it's hard to imagine any issue unifying them faster than Bud Selig's asserting the unilateral authority to replace collectively bargained terms with those more to his liking.

I agree with that. But I do wonder how vocal the players will get about this subject.

Dave Metz at Talking Baseball is rating the caps of the major league teams. It's all very scientific, in a subjective sort of way. Part 1 brims with talk of the NL East and Central and part 2 examines the heads of the NL and AL West.

Kay McFadden reviews the new Mariners TV ads. I like the clapper, myself. :-)

Hee Seop Choi is having a good exhibition season, having hit his third HR of the spring today. He came into the day with five of his eight hits for extra bases and a slugging percentage over .600. The Choi-Lee deal, I suspect, will serve both clubs very well. The Cubs needed a proven slugger at first base, and the Marlins wanted someone who could be great and cost a lot less. So far, so good.

Edward Cossette finds evidence of both at Bambino's Curse.

John Molori takes the media to task for their coverage of the steroids scandal.

Colby Cosh links to two interesting articles here. The first is on Coleman Griffith, the first baseball psychologist and his tenure with the Cubs. The second is an interview with the last living pitcher to face Babe Ruth.

Jason Schmidt believes the baseballs they are using in spring training are bigger this year.

If the ball looked bigger to Schmidt at the plate, it also felt that way as he gripped it on the mound.

"It's not the same size," Schmidt said. "Every guy in here has said it. We play catch with (last season's) All-Star Game balls, and they're smaller. I don't know if the position players have noticed but we have"

Schmidt hypothesized that the dry air in Arizona might cause the balls to expand. He was curious whether pitchers in Florida have picked up on the difference.

"I can tell you I've noticed," he said. "When you're throwing 115 pitches every five days and playing catch every day, you notice."

Balls are allowed to vary in size, between 9 and 9 1/4 inches in circumference. (Rule 1.09). So the balls could very well be bigger, and still be legal balls.

The Aztec Invitational, a college tournament was held over the weekend at PETCO Park. David Hammel talks to the participants to try to determine if the new stadium will favor the pitchers or the hitters.

I think it's so cool that the Pirates have a player names Bobby Hill. Bobby Hill was a character in Hill Street Blues, which was based on an area of Pittsburgh.

Reading the rest of the article, however, one is struck by how this is a team of castoffs. Blake Stein, Raul Mondesi and Jose Mesa all saw action for Pittsburgh today.

One reason I like watching minor league and spring exhibition games is that they remind you how difficult it is to play baseball at a major league level. I have the Braves-Cardinals on in the background, and every once in a while a I look up and see plays you seldom see in a regular season game. A slow roller goes through the infield for a double when the shortstop misplays the hop. A play at the plate allows two runs to score when the catcher can't handle the ball and the pitcher, backing up, can't pick the ball off the ground. It just makes you appreciate the skill of real major leaguers.

Reggie Sanders just did a header into one of the ads covering the chain link fence at the St. Louis spring ballpark. It looked bad on the replay, but he got up and is still in left field, no worse for wear.

A new, exciting web site debuts today, The Hardball Times. It's written by some of the best baseball bloggers on the web, and I'm sure it will quickly become the place to go for baseball news on the web. Stop by and check it out!

This article relates some worries about the Phillies offense so far this spring. And yes, it's way to early to get too worried about their lack of runs. But one thing did strike me as interesting:

One of Bowa's stated goals this season has been to cut down on strikeouts. So far, so bad. The Phillies have whiffed 92 times in 12 games.

"That's a lot," Bowa said. "And Thome's not playing. You expect home-run hitters to strike out a lot and that's all right, because you expect them to do a lot of damage, too."

Will Bowa be able to achieve this goal by the end of spring training? If not, will Bowa blame the players or his own poor coaching for the phailure?

Update: Link works now.

I accidentally deleted this post. Here it is again.

Glenn Berggoetz and Jeff McBride have done some research on managers and found what is to me a suprising result. They've asked me to publish this on my website. Here's the article.

Do Catchers Really Make the Best Managers?

For the last hundred years, the baseball world has accepted as fact that former catchers make the best managers. But do statistics prove this out?

Adding up the wins and losses of every manager from 1871 to 2003, and categorizing the managers into eleven groups based upon the position they played the most games at as a major leaguer (the tenth and eleventh categories cover outfielders as a whole and those managers that did not play in the majors), reveals the following winning percentages by position:

              Pos          WP
               LF         .510
               1B         .506
               3B         .506
              DNP         .503
               2B         .502
               OF         .502
               P          .502
               RF         .499
               SS         .497
               CF         .496
               C          .490

As you can see, the statistics reveal that catchers make the WORST managers. In fact, catchers are far and away the worst managers, with the largest gap from any one position on the list to the next coming between centerfielders in tenth place and catchers in last place.

But maybe straight-up winning percentage paints a false picture. Not hardly. Catchers rank low just about any way the numbers are broken down. For instance, when comparing the percentage of managers that managed at least 1000 games and posted a winning percentage of .500 or better, catchers come in last - again, far out of tenth place. Here's the breakdown in this category:

               Pos     .500+       %
                P       4/5      80.0%
                1B      7/9      77.8%
                3B      7/9      77.8%
                LF      5/7      71.4%
                SS      6/9      66.7%
                OF     17/26     65.4%
                CF      7/11     63.6%
                RF      5/8      62.5%
                2B      8/13     61.5%
               DNP      7/12     58.3%
                C      11/24     45.8%

Catchers also rank low in many other categories. When it comes to the percentage of all managers that have posted a .500 record or better, catchers come in seventh (leftfielders are first). Catchers come in sixth for number of games managed per World Series championship (rightfielders are first). They also only place sixth for percentage of managers by position that captured a World Series title (secondbasemen come in first here).

Yet catchers dominate in other categories. They are first in total number of games managed. First in total number of managers. Fourth in length of tenure (secondbasemen lead this category). All this despite their consistently poor performance.

The only stat catchers can be even mildly proud of is the total number of World Series they have won as managers, where they place second behind the outfielders. Considering, however, the number of games catchers have managed compared to the other positions, it's hardly a stat catchers can brag about.

For example, firstbasemen and rightfielders have combined to manage 22 World Series championship teams, while managing a total of 48,949 games by 94 different managers (an average tenure of 521 games). Catchers have managed 20 World Series winners while having 111 managers manage 71,208 games (an average tenure of 642 games). Once again, catchers display nothing special when directing a team.

An interesting comparison to make comes when comparing catchers' managing statistics against the position that is generally accepted as making the worst managers - pitchers. Let's compare the two positions in six major categories: total number of managers, total number of games managed, average tenure (in games), winning percentage, percent of managers with a winning record, and percent of managers that have managed at least 1000 games and posted a winning record.

                           Pitchers       Catchers
   Number of managers         53             111
   Games managed            24,454         71,208
   Average tenure             461            642
   Winning percentage        .502           .490
   Percent with winning 
        record               43.4%          35.1%
   Percent with winning 
        record (1000 games 
        managed)             80.0%          45.8%

For the last 133 years, pitchers have consistently outperformed catchers in the managing arena, yet pitchers are routinely overlooked for managing posts (not a single former pitcher managed even a single game in 2003 while ten former catchers led teams), and are fired sooner while winning more often. A look at the numbers leaves little doubt that the belief that catchers make the best managers is a myth. The obvious fact is, catchers make the worst managers.

Given this data, my question is, why did catchers become so popular to hire as managers? Was there a great early manager who was a catcher? Do catcher just talk a good game?

My other question is, how much does Connie Mack, as a managerial outlier, effect this research? Mack is credited with managing 53 seasons. His record in that time is 3776-4025, a .484 winning percentage. So he's going to drag down catchers by giving them a boost in longevity while taking down their winning percentage. From looking at the charts presented, I don't think it makes a big difference. Connie, of course, couldn't be fired because he owned the team. I would be interested to see what the first chart looks like with Mack taken out.

Since I opened up comments on this site a few months ago, I've been extremely impressed with the level of discussion that goes on within that section of the web site. If you're not reading the comments left on this weblog, you're missing out on interesting information and ideas. And remember, the trackback links will take you to other blogs that have linked to that particular post, providing another way to find opinions on those issues.

Thanks to all those who have taken the time to leave their thoughts. I enjoy them all.

Elephants in Oakland wonders about the health of Mark Mulder. It seems that Ken Macha won't let his pitchers swing the bat in spring training games, and this has raised a red flag.

The Expos announced they will retire Tim Raines number on June 19. Raines was the NL's Rickey Henderson during the 1980's. Tim got on base, and stole with abandon. And he stole successfully, swiping 808 bases while only being caught 146 times, and .847 success rate.

His best year was 1987. He was a victim of collusion; as a free agent, no one appeared to want him, despite the fact that he was one of the best players in baseball. He could not re-sign with the Expos until May 1, so he missed the first month of the season. Despite that, he set a career high in HR and scored over 120 runs. He also put up career highs in OBP and Slugging Pct. In my opinion, he's the greatest player in the history of the fanchise, and it's nice to see him recognized before the team leaves Montreal.

Torii Hunter criticizes his owner, Carl Pohlad through his praise of George Steinbrenner.

"Steinbrenner knows what he's doing," Hunter said. "You can't hate that guy. He spends the money. I don't hate him. We've got other owners who could do the same thing, but they don't want to be like Steinbrenner."

The Milwaukee Brewers are off to a 9-1 start this spring, the best record in the majors so far. I don't get to write too many positive things about the Crew, so I thought that I would mention that KC has a surprisingly good Spring Training last year, and a suprisingly good season followed. Maybe the Brewers can follow suit.

James Joyner of Outside the Beltway sent me a link to this Slate article by Josh Levin on why baseball is always dying.

Perhaps baseball's latest scandals will cancel each other out—if Giambi and Sheffield are forced off the juice, the Damn Yankees' satanically bloated roster looks a lot less formidable. But even if these scandals melt away over the summer, you can be sure that the game will be perched on death's door once again next year. Loving baseball is hating what it has become, then falling in love all over again. No other American sport or institution is caught in such a cycle of death and rebirth.

I'm pretty immue to this kind of talk. 1994 Was the most potentially devestating year for baseball, and it survived that it will survive this drug scandal. Let me disagree with Levin's last paragraph, however:

While baseball dies a new death every time it shows human frailty—money-grubbing, drug-taking, lying, cheating—moralizing partisans show their human sides too, perpetually forgiving America's prodigal game for its latest transgression. The columnists and fans who finally had their illusions crushed by this winter's scandal will be back in their seats by Opening Day, just in time to be crushed by the next one. Since there's no Babe Ruth—not even a Babe Ruth on steroids—to save the game this year, perhaps we should look to Steve Howe as our baseball totem. Howe is the former Dodgers and Yankees reliever who was suspended for drug use seven times before finally being banned for life in 1992. A few months later, he was reinstated. An arbitrator said the penalty was too harsh.

Just because there isn't an obvious Babe Ruth doesn't mean that one won't emerge. Albert Pujols is young enough that he should still be improving. Who knows what kind of numbers he'll wow us with this year. Mark Prior and Josh Beckett are still not mature pitchers. Maybe their stikeout artistry will entrance us this summer. Most likely, we don't know who or what the savior will be. That's what keeps us in love with the game; there's always something new and unexpected.

Chris at A Large Regular has compiled a list of milestones we may see reached in 2004.

Darren Viola sent me a link to an interesting weblog, Management by Baseball. Jeff Angus, a former baseball reporter writes about what managers can learn from baseball managers. Check out this post on how Chris Chambliss has resurrected the game of pepper to improve both the Reds hitting and fielding.

I met Jacques at the Pizza Feed the other night. He has a Yankees blog, The Weblog that Derek Built. Stop by and say hi.

It's been a busy couple of days, so I haven't had time to address these two articles on baseball and steroids.

The first is a column by Thomas Boswell that appeared in the Thursday Washington Post. From the tone of the column I would say that Boswell favors the tougher testing called for by the Senate committee. However, I can't believe Boswell wrote this (emphasis added):

That was the last straw for McCain, who interrupted incredulously, "And you don't believe that 'further compromises' [by the union] are necessary?"

Fehr's voice was soft in the hearing room. He explained that his gall bladder had been removed two weeks ago, but he appeared to have a bit of gall left. In defense of baseball's current (improved but still weak) drug-testing policy, Fehr invoked the highest of American ideals: invasion of privacy and the presumption of innocence.

"We believe that testing of an individual, not because of something he is suspected to have done, but simply because he is a member of a particular class, is at odds with fundamental principles of which we in this country have long and rightly been proud," said Fehr. "It is not up to the individual to prove he is innocent, especially of a charge of which he is not reasonably suspected."

Thus do low goals, such as protecting rich cheats and their union-backing agents, produce lofty rhetoric.

So constitutional rights don't apply if you are rich? A presumption of innocence doesn't apply to MLB players? If a few are guilty then all are guilty? Aren't these the sort of excuses that led to the detention of Americans of Japanese decent during World War II? What will Boswell have us do, insert nanoprobes into ball players that detect any foreign susbstance that enters the body and immediately report it to the police? Just so he can be sure each and every home run hit is legit? Please. If the constitutional rights of a reporter were at stake, Boswell would take a much different tone, even if the reporter helped in the committing a crime. If Boswell believes there is a problem that needs tougher enforcement, fine. But don't dimiss someone's rights, just because they are rich. That's loathsome.

Speaking of loathsome, the second story concerns Reggie Jackson mouthing off over steroids. Reggie plays the role of the old-timer who can't believe the younger players are better than his generation.

"Somebody definitely is guilty of taking steroids," the former slugger told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for Thursday's editions.

"You can't be breaking records hitting 200 home runs in three or four seasons. The greatest hitters in the history of the game didn't do that," said Jackson, who hit 563 home runs.

San Francisco's Barry Bonds is just two home runs shy of tying his godfather, Willie Mays, for third place on the career home run list with 660. Babe Ruth is second with 714 and Hank Aaron first with 755.

"Henry Aaron never hit 50 in a season, so you're going to tell me that you're a greater hitter than Henry Aaron?" Jackson said. "Bonds hit 73 [in 2001], and he would have hit 100 if they would have pitched to him. I mean, come on, now. There is no way you can outperform Aaron and Ruth and Mays at that level.

"There is a reason why the greatest players of all time have 500. Then there is that group that is above 550. There is a reason for that. Guys played 19, 20, 25 years. They had 9,000 to 10,000 at-bats, and it was the same for everybody.

"Now, all of a sudden, you're hitting 50 when you're 40."

Last I checked, no 40 year-old had hit 50 HR. But you know, Aaron had his greatest five-year stretch of HR hitting between the ages of 35 and 39, inclusive. In other words, Aaron broke Ruth's HR record because he performed better when he was old. Now, I know that one big reason for this was the move from Milwuakee to Atlanta, from a tough HR park to an easy HR park. But I could easily traffic in the kind of speculation that's going on today.

• There were (are?) a lot of amphetamines used by baseball players.


• Aaron's performance late in his career was abnormal for someone his age.


• Aaron must have used amphetamines to keep himself going.


• Aaron's HR record, therefore, should have an asterisk.

And I believe there were a lot of people who would have loved to use this excuse to knock down Aaron's record. But enough speculation. Let's look at a factual case.

Pete Rose used speed. I know this from an eyewitness source. That is, I was in on a conversation where a former ballplayer said that he saw Rose with a greenie on his tongue (Rose had stuck his tongue out at this ballplayer to show off the greenie). As Rob Neyer wrote:

I know a lot of people think he's admirable because he hustled for 24 seasons, but I think that admirable quality is more than balanced by the credible allegations that he gulped amphetamines ...

Amphetamines are a performance enhancing drug. They allowed major leaguers to party all night and play the following day. So would Pete Rose have been able to break Cobb's record without amphetamines? Should there be an asterisk next to his record? It's too bad Reggie has been gagged by the Yankees. I'd love a reporter to ask him about the use of speed in the 60's, 70's and 80's and if Aaron's and Rose's records, and for that matter, his 500 HR are tainted at all by that.

I like the idea of this bill. The Wisconsin Senate is trying to get a cut of the Brewers sale price as reimbursement for financing Miller Park. I think this is a great idea and I hope more governments try to implement this.

Roger Clemens, whose contract allows him to miss road trips where he's not scheduled to pitch, will make the trip to Mexico City and start for the Astros against the Marlins this weekend:

"We're going to take quite a few guys, and the Astros asked me to be a part of that. I said, 'Well, if I'm going, I'd rather pitch than go and just wave and shake hands and look for some Mexican food."

One player glad to stay home was Marlins closer Armando Benitez, one of the Mets' stunned pitchers last year.

"You can't breathe. I'm glad I don't have to be there."

The Dodgers and Mets combined for 57 runs in two games when they played at Estadio Foro Sol last year. Clemens better have his strikeout pitch working. :-)

Our puppy had an adventure while I was away. Seems at one o'clock in the morning, a white stripe was accidentally painted down her back. Another spieces mistook her for one of his own, and tried to seduce her with, "Mon cheri, we will make beautiful music together." Needless to say, my wife and daughter had an eventful night. :-)

Actually, my wife let her out at 1 AM on Thursday, and while Phoebe was relieving herself, Marilyn noticed a skunk in the middle of the yard. She shined a flash light to try to scare it away, but Phoebe took that as a signal to attack. She chased Pepe out of the yard, but got sprayed for her trouble. All I can say is I picked the right day to go to NY.

I attended the Baseball Prospectus Pizza Feed in NY last night. It was great meeting so many ardent fans, and a number of fellow bloggers. If you have the opportunity to attend one in the future, I highly recommend the event.

Douglas Calhoun sends this link to a Chicago-Sun Times article in which Dusty Baker gives his opinion on offensive walks. He doesn't like them.

Cubs manager Dusty Baker has some advice for young players who are encouraged by coaches and parents to wait out pitches and try to draw a walk: Swing away.

''It's like when I see kids in Little League, the small kid, and they make them go up there and try to get a walk,'' Baker said. ''It's not any fun. It's called hitting; it's not called walking. Have you ever seen like a Top 10 walking? The name of the game is to hit.''

Just for the record, I have seen a top 10 walking. Baker then digs himself into a hole:

''Walks help, but you aren't going to walk across the plate,'' Baker said. ''You've got to hit across the plate. Who has been champions quite a bit the last seven, eight years?''

Told the New York Yankees, Baker used them to prove his point.
''Now, have you ever heard the Yankees talk about on-base percentage and walks?'' he said.

I'd say yes. They've finished first in the AL in walks three times from 1998 on. 2001 Was the only year in which they drew less than 600 walks. After that they replace Brosius and Martinez with Ventura and Giambi, two players who draw a lot of walks. Dusty seems to know as much about offense as he does about heat.

Douglas comments:

I was particularly amused (and disappointed, as a Cubs fan) by the last quote. No, you might not hear about the Yankees taking walks. But I guess Dusty didn't bother to look up that the Yankees consistently lead the league in that category. Maybe he's just sticking up for his free-swinging players, but it would be nice if he would focus on improving deficiencies rather than relying on played-out, "old-school" macho attitudes.

Right on, Douglas.

In response to my post about the Senate hearings on steroids, Frank made the following comment:

I don't understand why so many of you hold such cynical views about this. Look, the MLB exists only because Congress is willing to grant it an exception from anti-trust laws. Congress does this because it believes that the benefits of baseball outweighs the evils of a monopoly, right? So what happens when baseball becomes disgraced sport played by many players who cheat by taking illegal substances?

MLB's anti-trust exception gives Congress the right and the responsibility to make sure that baseball remains a public good. That's why senators are getting involved in this controversy. Besides, isn't it possible that these senators are baseball fans who care about the game?

It's clear that the union has no desire to fix this issue and the owners are too weak to fight them on it. I think Congressional pressure is the impetus that baseball sorely needs to institute a rigorous testing regime.

MLB wouldn't exist without the antitrust exemption? If anything, Major League Baseball would be stronger without the antitrust exemption. It would have to compete against independent minor leagues. We would have seen free agency sooner without the antitrust exemption, and free agency is responsible for the growth in the game over the last 30 years. There's a high probability that if the antitrust exemption had not been in place, the players would have never formed a union to protect them from the evils of drug testing! Look at the NFL. Lousy union, tough testing rules.

Also, Congress did not grant the exemption, the Supreme Court did. When people tried to challenge the decision, the Supreme Court punted and said it was up to Congress to resind it. So Congress is now responsible for a rule that it had no hand in forming.

I don't think it's clear that the union has no desire to fix this issue. The union is run by very smart men, who I suspect understand the steroid issue much better than the Senators questioning them. They understand that tests consist of false positives and false negatives, as well as real results. That's why players are only being reprimanded after long term failures, and why the players privacy is protected. The program they put in place may not be intrusive enough for a lot of people, but I think that the fact that 5 to 7% came up positive instead of the 70% that some people speculated about means that testing may be working.

At Home Plate has an interview with Bill James. Here's an example:

2) How does your input influence decisions with Theo Epstein and ownership?

Well, here's an example. When you're in a position where you HAVE to overspend for a player--you HAVE to pay more for a player than he really is worth--how do you know when to stop? It's a very serious question for every baseball team, and I have a way of deriving an answer. Theo needs an answer, and ownership needs an explanation. Theo doesn't HAVE to buy my answer, and ownership doesn't have to buy my explanation. Theo is free to ignore my calculations; ownership is free to reject my approach. But. . .they need an answer; I have an answer. So I have a certain degree of influence on the discussion.

Hat Tip: William Bragg.com

Donald Fehr got an earful from all sides today. Senator McCain, Bud Selig, Paul Tagliabue and Gene Upshaw all agree that baseball should have a tougher drug enforcement policy. Fehr stood on principle, however:

Fehr said that he couldn't commit to any changes in the 2002 collective bargaining agreement, which called for anonymous tests last year for the first time. Five to 7 percent of those survey tests came back positive for steroids, which triggered testing with penalties this year.

McCain and other senators on the panel called the policy inadequate, noting that a player doesn't face a one-year suspension until the fifth offense. The NFL, by contrast, has a year-round random testing program for players and imposes immediate suspensions on those who test positive for banned substances.

"I believe that the program that we instituted has had some effect," Fehr said.

I have a feeling this is all theater. The Senate has better things to do than worry about steroids in baseball. I also wondered if Selig had donated to McCain. He hasn't. You can see his political donations here. Looks like he gives to Democrats. If you can scroll down, you can see Wendy's donations as well, also to Democrats. I guess there's no direct payoff here.

Jon at Talking Baseball alerts us to a potential struggle between good and bad coming up in August (scroll down to the end of the post). Reminds me of the time Tim Teufel faced Jim Gott. I also believe there was a Castro-Batista matchup at some point. :-)

Seth Speaks takes a look at the Twins playoff history and picks his all time Twins playoffs team. One thing I disagee with:

Zoilo Versalles won the 1965 American League MVP award. He had a really great season. Believe me, if it happened now, SABRmetricians would probably take issue with that decision.

Of course that's nonsense. Versalles had 32 win shares that year. The only AL player that I can find with more is his teammate, Tony Oliva. Versalles was a shortstop, which would probably put him over the top. I can't think of a sabermetrician who would argue against his receiving that award.

Gary Sheffield's injured thumb does not appear to require surgery. Sheffield is going to play with the torn ligament, much as Jeter did in last year's playoffs. Who says today's players are soft?

Greg Skidmore at Sport Law Blog links to a Wall Street Journal article about the asterisk that wasn't there.

What you see in the Sporting News Complete Baseball Record Book are records broken down for 162 and 154 game seasons, if the 162 game record is higher. My guess is that they would have done it even if Maris had not broken the record in 1961. It just makes sense. It got a lot of publicity because people didn't want Maris to break the record.

I'm not a big Royce Clayton fan, but it appears he's willing to tutor the next generation of players on defense. He deserves praise for that. Looking at Clint Barmes minor league statistics, however, I don't see him ever being any better offensively than Clayton was or is. Unless he's a defensive wizard, I doubt he's the long-term future for the Rockies at shortstop.

Is there something I'm missing about Brandon Inge? It seems everytime I go to the Detroit Free Press web site there's an article about him. Today, it's how he's trying to play centerfield. Does anyone on the Free Press staff understand that this guy can't hit? Why are they devoting so much space to someone who shouldn't be playing in the majors?

Vlad Guerrero and Jose Guillen just went back-to-back to give the Angels a 3-1 lead over the Mariners in the fifth. You could see on the replay of Vlad's HR that he got great extension on a low pitch, just a perfect swing. Afterward, they had a shot of Moreno on his cell phone with a big smile on his face.

Ichiro just beat out a roller in the hole. Eckstein had to range to get to the ball, but Suzuki beat the throw by a country mile.

Sam Ryan just interviewed Arte Moreno during the Angels-Mariners game. It was short, and nothing he hasn't said before. But when asked about spending money, he said that he was investing, not spending. Love that attitude.

Looks like Gary Sheffield has a serious thumb injury.

Cashman said the worst-case scenario would be that Sheffield requires surgery, meaning he would be out two to three months. The best-case scenario, Cashman said, would be that the right fielder could return for spring training games.

This is what I mean when I say teams like Toronto just have to stay competitive to have a chance against the Yankees and Red Sox. If Sheffield is out for an extended period, that hurts the Yankees offense. One or two more injuries like that and the Yankees suddenly look less like a super team and more like one can beat with a few lucky breaks.

The Angels and Mariners are facing off on ESPN at 2 PM EST.

The Cincinnati Reds had two youngsters sustain serious ankle injuries last year. Felipe Lopez has made a very quick recovery and is vying for the job at shortstop. Jose Acevedo is recovering from ankle surgery and pitched well in his quest to make the rotation.

Ozzie Guillen is definitely trying the positive thinking approach to winning ballgames:

Getting off to a good start may be even more important considering it's Guillen's rookie season at the helm.

"It's a period for me to learn to show myself and my team," Guillen said. "I want to show them what kind of team we're going to have."

Not only does Guillen want to instill a winning attitude in the Sox, he also wants that attitude to spread all the way to Chicago.

"It's special for the fans to start to believe what kind of team we have," he said. "This year we came here to win as many games as we can and get the people excited back in Chicago."

Winning in Arizona is important to Guillen for this reason. It that way he seems to be taking a page out of Tony Pena's book. Pena and the Royals had a great record in the Cactus league last year (best in the majors), and turned that into a strong start and a winning season. However, I do worry about Guillen's baseball strategy.

Nonetheless, Guillen has shown glimpses of how he plans to manage. He's going to put runners in motion and try to make something happen at every opportunity.

"I'm excited. I'm already seeing hit-and-runs and bunts," Wunsch said. "That stuff pumps me up because that's what makes baseball exciting."

Exciting yes, but will one-run strategies win games?

Tom Bridge has been taking pictures of his spring training adventure in Arizona.

The Cubs are trying to get around the restrictions on clubhouse visitors:

Cubs president Andy MacPhail reiterated Saturday he was confident Julian Martinez would be retained as a member of the team.

MacPhail made that statement after commissioner Bud Selig vowed earlier in the day during a visit to HoHoKam Park that there would be no exceptions to his new restrictions on clubhouse and field access as Major League Baseball tries to eliminate any possible evils that unsanctioned outsiders might bring in.

I think this is a very bad time for clubs to be trying to find loopholes in this rule. If the Cubs want to hire the guy full time as a trainer, fine. Otherwise, they should keep him out of the clubhouse.

You can get tickets for today's Yankees-Red Sox game for under $500. :-)

Tyler Kepner has a very interesting article on Gary Sheffield today. I knew Sheffield and Gooden were close relatives, but I guess I hadn't realized how much Dwight had worked with Gary when they were young:

Sheffield has always been a supremely confident hitter. He grew up in the same Tampa house as his uncle Dwight Gooden, who is four years older. Gooden would rouse Sheffield before 8 a.m., eager to get outside and play "strikeout." Gooden, who would become a phenom with the Mets at 19, would fire tennis balls at Sheffield from close range, trying to strike him out so he could get a turn at bat.

Gooden said he never held back, zipping fastballs or spinning curves to Sheffield when he was 8 or 9 years old. It was often futile.

"I would hit him, knock him down, do everything I could," Gooden said. "But he still would hit it on top of the house. It got to the point where I would make him go on top of the house and get the ball. And once I got the lead, I quit."

Gooden was a merciless teacher, Sheffield said, hitting him grounders on rocky infields and making sure Sheffield stayed in front of the ball. For neighborhood pickup games, Gooden would bring Sheffield along because Sheffield was the only player who could catch for him. Sheffield did not wear a mask.

"You'd get foul tips and get hit right in the face with a rubber ball," Sheffield said. "Right in the face. That's what made me not scared of the baseball. Making it to the big leagues was like life or death with me: either I'll get hit in the nose with this ball or I'll be poor the rest of my life."

If you could hit a young Doc Gooden, you can probably hit anybody. It reminds me of the stories of Ken Griffey Jr taking batting practice against his father. Dad was a lefty thrower, so Griffey has no problems against lefties.

There is one thing in the article that I find confusing:

Jason Giambi, who will probably bat fourth this season, one spot in front of Sheffield, struck out 140 times last season and marvels at Sheffield's approach. Giambi is a vastly different hitter, taking pitches, waiting for a pitcher to make a mistake. Sheffield is so aggressive, Giambi said, that he essentially makes his own mistakes.

Darren Bragg, a Yankees outfielder who played with Sheffield in Atlanta, illustrated that point. Asked about Sheffield's strike zone, Bragg moved his hand above his head, down by his shoetops, far out in front of him and in toward his chest.

"He doesn't miss any fastball," Bragg said. "You can put it anywhere, and he'll get to it."

Unfortunately, that flies in the face of Sheffield's walk totals and his .401 career OBA. Yes, he may go after fastballs outside of the strikezone, but he must be taking something to draw 1110 walks in 6729 career AB. If that's aggressive, it's exactly the type of aggressive hitter I would want on my team.

Jeremy Senderowicz writes:

According to Tyler Kepner of the NYT, the Yankees have signed El Duque to a one-year deal: 500K guaranteed, with a chance for $1M in incentives. They don't expect him to be ready before May or June, and expect to use him as a reliever - possibly a one-batter guy.
Comments:
1) For him to sign for that little money, it seems like his health is still pretty shaky. That's practically tip money for the Yankees.
2) Yes, he's mercurial, mysterious and injury-prone. But El Duque is an exceptionally heady & gutsy pitcher on the mound. Remember Bill James' take on Howard Ehmke from the Book on Baseball Managers, and how it might work again? In a short series, if he's assigned to focus on a few righthanded batters (say Nomar and Manny), wouldn't you trust him to come up big?

I don't know. This seems more like George's typical "let's bring back an old former player so I look like a nice guy" deal.

Connors reported back to Steinbrenner that El Duque was about two months away from being ready, which was more than enough to convince The Boss. Two days after the workouts, Steinbrenner said, "I've always liked El Duque ... He's got courage, and I'm not afraid to take a chance with him."

If he works out, a great deal. If he doesn't, the Yankees haven't lost that much money. I don't see him as having a huge impact.

The Baseball Widow starts revealing her fantasy team.

The Bench Coach really likes James Loney. In the same post, he's also impressed with Tim Wallach's approach as a batting coach.

Shallow Center links to a report about Jim Thome breaking the middle finger of his right hand. It looks like Thome will get March off at least. The real question, however, is what is he going to do if someone cuts him off in traffic? :-)

The Baseball Desert has it's slogan for 2004. :-)

The Detroit Tigers Weblog points out that the Detroit News has columnist Tom Gage writing a blog called Tigers Weblog. It will be interesting to see if Tom starts linking to other bloggers. I don't see any of that so far.

Mike Thompson at Mariners Weblog points out that the Mariners are the fourth richest sports franchise in the US in terms of revenue. Maybe they could have afforded to keep A-Rod after all.

Brian at Red Sox Nation is looking for historical underrated teams. He proposes the Blue Jays of the early 1990's as one.

Ya Gotta Believe has a nice summary of the pitchers competing for jobs in the Devil Rays rotation.

Geoff at DuckSnorts got to tour PETCO Field and has posted a review with pictures.

The Twins Geek looks at how April would be an ideal time for the Twins to try a four-man rotation. There's only one day in April on which they would need a fifth starting pitcher.

This, by the way, is something I don't really understand about how clubs use their rotations. If a pticher needs four days off, then why push them back another day by starting your #5 guy if you have a day off? Someone is likely to blow up in the 2nd inning, so in that time frame, just use the #5 guy as your long reliever.

Update: Redbird Nation and Go Cardinals agree that a four-man rotation would improve the Cardinals.

The Orioles are launching a PR blitz to attract more fans from the Washington area. It appears they are doing this not only to increase attendance, but to show that a team in northern Virginia would eat into their ticket sales.

I think Gene Orza did a bad bit of PR here when he compared steroids to cirgarettes.

"Let's assume that (steroids) are a very bad thing to take," said Orza, who was speaking on a panel at The Octagon World Congress of Sports. "I have no doubt that they are not worse than cigarettes. But I would never say that to the clubs as an individual who represents the interests of players, 'Gee, I guess by not allowing baseball to suspend and fine players for smoking cigarettes, I am not protecting their health.'

"Whether it's good or bad for you, it's a far cry to say that because it's bad for you, you should participate in a structure which allows your employer to punish you for doing something that you shouldn't be doing," Orza said. "That's not my understanding of what unions do for their employees."

I don't think anyone accuses cigarettes of being performance enhancers. Orza's really does seem to believe that the effect of steroids on performance has been greatly exaggerated. Seems what we really need is a good double blind study.

A double blind is a study in which neither the subjects, or the people directly studying them know if they are getting a drug or a placebo. (I believe placebo was Steve Martin's drug of choice in the 1970's. :-)) Let's get 200 ballplayers, and send them to camp next off season. Half get a dosed with a steroid, half with placebo. All undergo the same vigorous training regimen. Everyday, the players would undergo some strength test. At the end of a month say, the two groups would be evaluated to see if there is any difference. Does anyone know if a study like this has ever been conducted?

John Smoltz appears to have recovered just fine from his fourth elbow surgery. However, that was his last surgery:

"He couldn't do any better than he's doing," manager Bobby Cox said. "From what I hear, he's the strongest he's ever been. He's super-strong."

But there's also a bit of apprehension surrounding one of the game's most dominant pitchers. Smoltz's elbow has been through reconstructive surgery, plus two arthroscopic procedures. The latest operation left him with a nasty, three-inch scar running along the inside of his right arm.

He doesn't plan to go through another major surgery. If the elbow acts up again - and history says it will at some point - Smoltz plans to retire.

"I'm not afraid to go out there pitching hurt," he said. "But I don't anticipate doing this again. I've had too good a career."

It seems Smoltz develops a lot of scar tissue. That helps him heal fast, but the buildup leads to other injuries. We'll see how long he lasts this time.

Tomas Perez goes ddep for the Phillies to put them on the board, a two run shot.

Twenty-year-old Cole Hamels of the Phillies strikes out the side in the fifth. He has a nasty changeup. He's someone to watch. He has 147 career minor league strikeouts in 100 minor league innings.

Jorge Posada gets his 2nd hit of the game, a solo HR in the 4th. The Yankees have scored all seven of their runs on HR. We're going to be seeing a lot of that this year.

The Yankees have given Donovan Osborne the number 46. He's pitching, and with his delivery, I keep thinking it's Pettitte out there.

Victor Alvarez comes in to get Giambi. He falls behind and Jason takes a fastball over the fence in right for a grand slam. It was a hard line shot. Some of the swings Giambi has taken today remind me of how bad he looked at the end of last season. But the HR was hit about as perfectly as you can. It's was one fat pitch, but Giambi did showed he can still muscle the ball out of the park.

Correction: Spring training for me, too. It was Victor Alvarez, not Wilson Alvarez.

Harold Reynolds was talking about how Ruben Sierra doesn't think he should be hitting 8th, and Sierra trys to prove his point with a 2-run HR off Millwood over the centerfield fence. Sierra is lucky the Yankees don't have a 2nd baseman, or he'd be batting ninth.

Update: A-Rod walks to load the bases. Millwood is having a tough third, and he's out of the game. Giambi up with the bases loaded.

Kevin Millwood looked very good in his first two innings, retiring all six batters and striking out Giambi and Matsui.

I'm seeing the potential problems Kevin Brown is going to have this summer. Balls are being hit on the ground, and they are not being handled cleanly. The Phillies have four hits, only one on a line drive. Two outfield assists have kept the Phillies off the scoreboard, but you can't depend on your opponents making baserunning blunders during the regular season. Yankees infielders should be taking a couple of hours of ground balls each every day this spring.

A-Rod is batting third in the Yankees lineup. 3-4-5 is Rodriguez, Giambi and Sheffield, which I think is right (not that it really matters). A-Rod grounds out to shortstop in his first AB as the Yankees go 1-2-3 in the first against Millwood.

The first ball in play is hit to A-Rod at third. He didn't look too smooth, backing up and taking the ball on an in-between hop, but he made the play.

Update: With Rollins on first, Michaels hit a shot past A-Rod at third, but Matsui threw out Rollins trying to take an extra base. Jeter makes a high throw, but in plenty of time, to end the inning. Brown faced four batters in the inning, got four ground balls but the defense was less than stellar.

Scott Jeffries sends me this article on signing young players to long term contracts to avoid arbitration. When it worked so well in Cleveland, I was surprised other clubs didn't adopt the strategy. Good to see Hart is still employing it.

Phillies-Yankees is starting on ESPN. Looks like Sean McDonough is doing the play-by-play, which means we'll get a Red Sox view of the game. :-) John Kruk and Harold Reynolds are doing color commentary.

Eric McErlain of Off Wing Opinion writes me on the issue of steroids:

Been reading a lot of the stuff on steroids with growing alarm. While I can understand the libertarian point of view regarding every adult's right to ingest whatever they like (and generally believe that people can take care of their own business), that changes when it comes to terms of employment. MLB has every right to put steroids on the table with the union membership -- a membership that seems to be deeply divided over this issue (witness Schilling and Wendell's comments for starters).

As for the health issue, I've read a lot of the current stuff -- enough to say that I'm almost ready to concede that the issue is in serious dispute. But health issues aside, aren't you concerned with the effects on competitive balance within the sport? Health issues aside, isn't regulating the use of steroids in baseball a lot like the rule outlawing aluminum bats? It isn't about personal freedom, it's about the terms of competition, and how a number of players are attempting to leverage a clear and unfair advantage over others.

And if an individual player decides not to use steroids for reasons of his own health (after all, it's his decision, isn't it?), why should he be placed at a competitive disadvantage vis a vis his fellow union members?
Shouldn't his choice be supported?

Interesting in hearing what you have to say. If you'd like to take this offline, that's fine too.

Here's my reply:

I agree with you in principle, but I don't know that your statement that a person who doesn't use steroids is placed at a disadvantage is true. That is another assumption that just hasn't been proven.

If steroids were allowed, I would want full disclosure. I would want to know who is using and who isn't. Then we can tell if steroids really make a difference. It very well could be that the ability to hit a ball squarely is much more important than how much bat speed you are generating. It could very well be that strength training without steroids does just as much as strength training with steroids. Right now, we suspect that steroid training does help. We know from body building that it helps make muscles large, but that's not the same as knowing it helps in baseball.

(As an aside, I am surprised that the people who get the most attention are Bonds, Sheffield and Giambi, who were great players before suspected steroid use began. I think the poster child should be Bret Boone. Boone was someone with a lot of potential whose career was a disappointment. Then he got bigger and became great. I would love to know what he did that off-season before he joined the Mariners. Was it a super physical training regimen, or was it steroids? If it were steroids, I'd be solidly in your camp. If it wasn't, I think my current position would be stronger.)

So we're facing our own version of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. To judge how steroids are affecting the game, we need to know who is using them. But knowing that would mean that there would be no more testing, since player privacy would be violated, and the union would stop the testing. We would go back to being in the dark. Not knowing, we have to trust the union and MLB to clean up the game, something I'm not very confident about. And of course, there's always the problem of the biochemists being ahead of the testers, as new and better drugs come on line and are undetectable.

My idea is regulation. It allows the use of steroids in a controlled way, for short periods of time, only in the offseason. I'm worried that players health is being hurt by not using these substances properly. I don't think testing will stop the use. So I would rather see players monitored under a doctors care.

To sum up, we don't have enough information right now to know what speculation is true and what isn't. I think my idea is a way for us to get that information.

To quote Donald Rumsfeld,

We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know.

There is way too much we don't know here. We don't know who used steroids and who didn't. We don't know which drugs were used. We don't know how much the results of a weight training/steroid regimen are attributable to steroids. We don't know if the doses taken can be severely reduced with the same results. We don't know if there is a level of use where health risks are acceptable.

I want to know these things. Until we do, I believe that monitored, public use is the best way of dealing with the situation.

Update: You can find Eric's posts on steroids here.

Update: Eric reponds to my reponse here.

Jack McKeon will be interviewed on CNBC at 11:45 AM EST.

Update: McKeon tells his players that they have to be salesmen. They have to sell themselves to the fans, press, scouts, etc. by hustling and playing hard. People will overlook weakness if you sell yourself well.

John Perricone at Only Baseball Matters has a number of posts on the steroids issue. Start here, and work your way forward in time.

Arte Moreno has rapidly become my favorite owner in all of baseball. Doug Krikorian sat down with the Angles chief, and I loved everything Moreno said.

When I asked him the other day if he would have pursued Alex Rodriguez had he known he could have been had from the Texas Rangers for $16 million a year, which is what the New York Yankees are paying him, he didn't hesitate in his answer.

"Yes,' he said. "Definitely. Why not? Alex Rodriguez is one of the great players in baseball.'

If you can get a great player cheap, why not? That's why Vlad Guerrero is in the Angels camp.

Moreno has turned into the West Coast version of George Steinbrenner without the meanness to employees and the condescending bluster.

He also is willing to go after high-priced personnel to bolster his ballclub, with his only bottom line being the success of his team and the comfort of its patrons.

"What we're trying to do with the Angels is to produce a good enough product to get people to come to the show, and also to make it an affordable experience,' he said. "We're always going to try to field a strong team. This is our aim, as well as to take care of the fans.'

And taking care of the fans he is:

His first major move with the club was slashing the price of beer by almost a third, from $6.50 a cup to $4.50, an act of pure sacrilege by a baseball owner that was greeted with joy by the long- gouged fans.

"Ridiculous that a cup of beer was so high,' said Moreno.

He has made the purchase of Angels caps more affordable, with the cheapest now going for $11 compared to $22.50 in the past.

"We've sold more than 60,000 of those $11 caps,' he said proudly.

On top of all of it, he's realistic:

"Your popularity is staggering in Southern California after you signed Vladimir Guerrero in the wake of signing Bartolo Colon,' I said to Moreno as we sat in the stands at Diablo Stadium after an Angels spring training workout.

Moreno, wearing tinted brown glasses, blue jeans, black cowboy boots and a red Angels jacket, shook his head slowly.

"I'm just on a honeymoon period,' he said. "Down the road, I'm going to have to make some tough decisions that I'm sure some people won't like. That's the nature of this game. There comes a time when you might not bring back a player who's been popular, and I'm sure I'll be criticized for it.'

And he seems to know to balance the desire for new fans with the needs of long-time patrons:

"We're, of course, always seeking new fans to come to see us play, but we must never forget to take care of long-existing customers,' he said. "I've always felt the key to success in business is to treat people with consistency on a long-term basis. If they have complaints, you listen to them and do something about it.'

Moreno has installed a couple of new scoreboards at Angels Stadium, and fans throughout the ballpark will now find it easier to pick up the ball-and-strike count and out-of-town scores.

When people ask me which team I root for, I say I like to cheer for good organizations. The Angels are one team I'll be happy to root for this year.

A couple of interesting items in this article. The second is on the popularity of baseball:

Here's one example of what bad trouble baseball is really in: Fox will kick off its coverage April 16 with a broadcast of the Yankees-Red Sox game at 7:05 p.m. It will be the first national prime-time broadcast of a regular-season game since Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris' home-run record in 1998. Here's another: ESPN says ad sales for its regular-season games are up 15 percent over last year.

Baseball was front page news a lot this winter. Between the trades, aborted trade, high profile free agent signings and steroids, baseball had a ton of publicity. And there's no such thing as bad publicity. Add to that the great playoffs, and interest in the game appears to be growing.

The first part of the article talks about how the BALCO case has turned into a witch hunt. This paragraph made me think:

The second is that for all of Selig's public protestations to the contrary, I am betting that immediate public testing is the last thing he wants. Suppose Bonds, Sheffield, Giambi and the rest are found to be using steroids. What does baseball do then? Fine them? Suspend them for a certain period? Kick them out of the game? And would these public revelations quiet the current blood lust or exacerbate it?

If Selig had the chance to punish the Yankees by suspending Sheffield and Giambi, would he do it? Other teams seem to be upset that the Yankees are so far over the luxury tax limit. Getting rid of Jason and Gary would take the Yankees down a notch. I don't think the player's union would allow it, but if Selig tried such a move, I would not be surprised at all.

Greg Auman of the St. Petersburg Times look at how the Blue Jays are getting better despite spending less money.

In a division that is home to baseball's biggest spenders, the Blue Jays have spent the past two seasons going in the opposite direction of the Yankees, Red Sox and Orioles.

Not in the standings, but rather in the checkbook. The Yankees' payroll now tops $180-million, the Red Sox also clearing nine figures, and the Orioles spent big to bring in free agents Miguel Tejada and Javy Lopez.

The Blue Jays, meanwhile, have trimmed their payroll from a projected $88-million when J.P. Ricciardi became general manager in 2002 to a svelte $50-million for this season. And despite those cuts, last year's Jays finished 86-76, eight games better than a year earlier.

"This is probably going to sound foolish, but we don't really pay attention to what the Red Sox and Yankees do," Ricciardi said. "We pay attention to addressing the things we need to do, and we think we have a better club than last year."

Ricciardi appears to be patient enough to wait for good things to happen:

"We'd like to be better than the year before, and every year if we can do that, it's all we can ask at this point," Ricciardi said.

"Hopefully, we're good enough that when that little break happens, we can take advantage of that opportunity."

Ricciardi knows that luck can play a big role over the course of a season. If he can keep the Blue Jays near the 90 win level, luck can take that total to 95. And that's in the range where injuries to the Yankees or Red Sox would put his team in the playoffs.

He's from BALCO, and will be holding a press conference at 5 PM EST on ESPNews.

Update: Here's a link. It's Victor Conte's lawyers, not Conte himself. Conte is the founder of BALCO.

Update: Conte lawyer denies leaking information.

Update: The lawyer is saying that statements were taken from Conte and others during the initial search of BALCO. There is no audio recording of those statements, only the written record of the agents. He's insuating that the information being leaked is from those transcripts, and that information is being spun to smear the athletes.

Update: I think you can sum up their line of reasoning as "don't trust an unnamed source."

Jeffrey Hammonds hits a grand slam HR in the 7th to turn the game into a blow out. It's 8-1 Giants.

Looks like JT Snow hurt his foot while trying to catch a foul ball. His foot caught on the edge of the grass and warning track near the tarp. It's been raining there, so the wet ground may have something to do with it. Doesn't look serious, but he came out of the game.

Correction: As pointed out in the comments, it was Lance Niekro, not Snow. Snow would have made the play, which should have been my first clue.

Giants and Cubs starting on ESPN. Bonds and Sosa are both in the lineup, so we should hear a good dose of steroid news.

Update: It looks like both teams are starting their likely opening day lineups.

Update: Corey Patterson takes a high Rueter fastball over the 390 mark in right-center.

I find this story hard to believe. :-)

Dr. Manhattan is back and blogging about the Yankees.

Ryan Wilson speculates on how steroids could have helped Randy Velarde hang on to a job.

Travis Nelson debunks the notion that moving a team into the nearby area of an existing team hurts the existing team. Seems attendance has more to do with winning percentage than anything else.

Brian Gunn of Redbird Nation posts his thoughts on the steroid issue.

ESPN is about to interview Paul DePodesta. I'll let you know if he says anything interesting.

Update: DePodesta was asked what would be the difference between LA and Oakland, and Paul said that moving to LA opened up a world of opportunity because the whole poplulation of players was available to him. He was also asked if he was going to use the pitching depth to acquire a right-handed bat. He said that was a possibility, but would not commit to that strategy. He also praised the scouting and player development of the Dodgers for laying a good foundation for building the team back.

Jason Anderson, pitcher for the Mets, started the bottom of the third by walking opposing pitcher Jose Lima. He's now walked him twice in this inning. Dodgers lead the Mets 7-3, still batting in the third.

Mets-Dodgers are about to start on ESPN!

Update: Nomo pitching for the Dodgers today. I just love watching his delivery. The first pitch Nomo threw was for a strike, and it was given as a gift to Frank McCourt.

Update: Back-to-back doubles by Reyes and Floyd plate a run for the Mets. I'm sure NY fans hope to see a lot of that this year.

Update: Cameron goes deep in his first AB for the Mets, a 2 run shot.

Fox is going to broadcast the first Yankees-Red Sox game of the season in prime time:

The heated rivalry between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox has emboldened Fox to move up Major League Baseball's over-the-air national debut five weeks and into prime time on Friday night, April 16.

The game, at Boston's Fenway Park, is a rematch of the two teams that came down to the last pitch of the American League Championship Series when Aaron Boone won Game 7 and the pennant for the Yankees with his 11th-inning home run.

The game also marks the first time Alex Rodriguez will play for the Yankees against the team that tried to acquire him last year. The telecast is scheduled to start at 8 p.m. ET, an hour later than it was to air in New York and Boston on local CBS affiliates.

So Fox believes that there is enough interest in this story line to justify a broadcast on a Friday night. Wow.

People wonder if the trade was good for the game. This is a big check mark under yes. There are many ways of making teams competitive, and one is to make the National TV rights so valuable that they once again dwarf local revenues. It used to be that teams could afford 2 or 3 top flight free agents with the money they received from national broadcasts. Now they can barely buy one. If this game is well watched, and the trend continues, MLB can ask for a lot more money next time the contract is renewed. That's what drove the competitive balance of the 80's. And it can happen again.

Soccer Dad comments on the Mike Cameron fly ball article.

Joe Duellman writes:

Are you planning on commenting on the extension Geoff Jenkins signed with the Brewers today? There seem to be no shortage of Brewer jabs in the media today, but this seems to be good news in my mind. Management shows a committment to one of its best players and signs him to a pretty reasonable deal. It's interesting that he will actually earn less money in each of the three years in this extension than he does this year (8.55 million I think in 2004). He's had problems with injuries his whole career, but they always seem to be strange accidents. He broke a finger crashing into a catcher, dislocated his ankle trying to get back to third on a play, etc. When he avoids such mishaps, this guy can really hit. He's also one of the best defensive left fielders out there, although I'm not sure if you're probalistic model of range would agree. I'll have to look through your archives and check it out.

Anyways, it would be nice to see you say something nice about it - that is if you think there is something nice to say about it...

Chuck Carlson of the Oshkosh Northwestern thinks it's a good move. Looking at Jenkins' career stats, he's good but not great. And what he got was a good, but not great contract. If he plays well and doesn't get injured, it's a good deal for the Brewers. If he's injured all the time, it really isn't that much money to eat. What intrigues me is, however, is that the contract is low enough that if Jenkins plays really well, he becomes extremely tradable. So if Jenkins' numbers are similar to 2003 in July, and the Brewers are out of the race, look for the contenders to offer Milwaukee a slew of prospects for Geoff.

San Diego Padres: Home of the fat, bald dudes.
Correction: Fixed a typo.

Steve Bonner cites a post of mine in his post on today's naming of players. Let me just say that I don't think players should be breaking the law to take steroids. I think the laws and rules of baseball should be changed in order to allow them to take them under a doctor's care.

Would I prefer they not take them? Of course. But I'm trying to be realistic. There's too much money at stake, so players are going to try to get that extra edge. And as Nick Schulz points out, the physical downside may be exaggerated. (Make sure you read all of Nick's entries on the subject.)

Marge Schott has passed away.

TangoTiger has a neat project at BaseballStuff.com. He wants fans to evaluate different attributes of players defense based on what you've seen at the ballpark and on television. I think this is a great idea. Collections of humans can act like a giant multi-processor computer, where each processor is doing the same task in a slightly different way. The aggregate of these opinions is usually the right answer. (That's why football point spreads are so good. They are set by the betting of an enormous group of experts.) If you've seen players enough that you have an opinion about their defense, stop by and fill out the survey. I can't wait to see the results, and how they might compare to other statistical measures of defense.

Randy Booth at The Real Deal is shifting his emphasis from all sports to just baseball, and he needs you to help him decide if he should just concentrate on one team.

Tony La Russa is going to try to limit Matt Morris' innings early in the season:

With the bullpen reeling last April and May from closer Jason Isringhausen's absence, Morris threw more than 100 pitches in 11 of his first 13 starts last season and at least 115 pitches in five of those 13. He worked at least eight innings in six of his first 11 outings, including a 125-pitch complete game May 4 in a 6-2 win over the Montreal Expos.

Morris is also working on a changeup.

"It's a testament to how talented and competitive he is to have the kind of success he's enjoyed," La Russa said before Monday's workout. "Everybody will tell you: If you have two pitches, smart hitters will subtract one. He needs that third one. It's really important."

La Russa referred to a recent conversation with Florida Marlins manager Jack McKeon about the opportunity spring training provides a proven pitcher to build his arsenal.

"If Matt is working on an eephus (pitch), throw it, throw it, throw it, throw it. If you struggle, so what," La Russa said. "You definitely need that third option. You can't tell that with somebody working to make the team. Matt's going to be there with Woody (Williams). Give a great effort but work on expanding your repertoire."

A 22-game winner in 2001 while relying on a fastball and devastating curveball, Morris says he has tinkered with a change-up since high school.

"The more pitches you have, the better off you are. That's obvious," said Morris, who will make his third consecutive Opening Day start when he faces the Milwaukee Brewers April 5.

Morris is also getting to the age when a pitcher's fastball starts to fade, so deception becomes even more important.

David Gerstman sent me this article in the NY Times about how Mike Cameron goes about chasing down flyballs. I found this part very interesting.

As a safety on the LaGrange football team, Cameron could watch a quarterback wind up to throw and guess within about a 5-yard radius where the ball would land.

Coming up in the White Sox organization, he played alongside Michael Jordan, and tested better in almost every category. But Cameron failed to reach some flies because he was trying to watch the ball while in full stride.

Cameron has since learned to trust his football instincts. When the ball leaves the bat, he immediately estimates where it may end up. Then he puts his head down and takes full advantage of his speed. Cameron appears faster on the field than on the basepaths because, unlike many center fielders, he hardly worries about tracking the ball when it's in flight.

"I just know where it's going to be," he said. "I have developed a sense of the trajectory of the baseball. The sound of the bat can sometimes be a mirage, but the trajectory gives you an exact sense of where the ball is headed."

The interesting thing is, that's not how it's done normally. There was a very interesting study done that was published in Science in 1995 showing how players follow fly balls. (I believe they attached cameras to the fielders heads.) The summary of the article is here. Cameron appears to be able to figure out this trajectory without looking, which would be a great advantage.

It sounds like Marge Schott is not long for this world.

There are a lot of strong opinions about Marge, and you can see a discussion here at Baseball Primer that dates to her entry into the hospital. I always find it interesting that the worst of people often get praised on their deaths. It will be interesting to see how the media, which did plenty to help bring her down, responds when she passes.

Update: Marge Schott has passed away.

Looks like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a regular column by Brian O'Neill that takes a good statistical look at players. Today he examines Craig Wilson. He even links to baseball-reference.com! I wish my local paper had something like this.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Sheffied, Bonds, Giambi, Santiago, Marvin Benard and Randy Velarde all received steroids.

The baseball stars allegedly got the illegal performance-enhancing drugs from the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative through Greg Anderson, Bonds' personal weight trainer and longtime friend, according to information furnished the government and shared with The Chronicle.

The Chronicle is very quiet about the source. The informant doesn't know if these players actually used the substances:

The information shared with The Chronicle did not explicitly state that the athletes had used the drugs they were said to have obtained. Bonds, who is baseball's single-season home-run king, and Giambi, who won the American League Most Valuable Player award when he was with the Oakland Athletics, have publicly denied using steroids. So has Sheffield. All three declined to discuss the matter Monday.

The biggest charge in article is that Bonds used Human Growth Hormone during the 2001 season, the year he broke the HR record. The players continue to deny using these drugs.

Update: In the comments, John Gibson asks:

Why the distinction between obtaining and using? Would anyone on this planet actually believe they obtained steroids but chose not to use them?

I think the distintiction comes in using the word "obtained" vs. "received." The way it's being portrayed in the media, I get the impression that the trainer gave these substances to the players, as opposed to the players asking for them. Sort of, here try this, it will make you stronger. Maybe the players took the drugs and didn't use them. Or maybe they were told the drugs were not illegal. I know it's farfetched, but it's something to consider.

Now I could believe that BALCO used the pitch, "This is new, it's not a steroid so it's legal." If so, the ballplayers would be no more gullible than the people who buy the herbal supplements I see in my e-mail spam all the time.

All-in-all, I'd like to hear these allegations from a named source.

Update: Off Wing Opinion picks up on something I missed. And through that link, Stick and Move finds the humor in Velarde using steroids. I guess you have to be good in the first place for these drugs to earn you a lot of money.

The Phillies are not only getting a new stadium for the regular season, they have a brand new facillity for spring training as well. According to this article, it's a real beauty.
Bright House Networks Field features a spacious locker room and state-of-the-art training facilities, access for autograph hounds and stargazers, corporate suites, easy highway access, and more than twice the parking spaces of the old stadium.

Back spasms and minor injuries seem to be dogging the A's pitching staff this spring. Mulder and Bradford each suffered from the spasms, but both are throwing now.

The 2nd BloggerCon will be held at Harvard Law School on April 17th, 2004. If you are a blogger, or just interested in blogging, I'd recommend that you attend. It's free, so you can't beat the price. The Yankees are in town that weekend, so if enough baseball bloggers show up, we can skip out on the afternoon session and watch the game (or better still, have a session where we watch the game and talk about how we can blog it). You can register here.

I like this. Joyce Sun becomes a baseball fan, and starts a blog to help her learn about the game. I'm sure you'll all stop by to lend a hand.

It doesn't look serious, but you hate to see any injury with the word "Achilles" in it.

Skip gets it right. As I've said before, the owners and players need to form a partnership of trust. Then salary and other issues will be much easier to handle.

The Journal News has a nice article about NY baseball bloggers today. Nice to see the medium is getting some attention!

I see ESPN will broadcast three exhibition games this week, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons. It's great to be working at home.

T.R. Sullivan of the Star-Telegram looks at Texas' needs and decides on an obvious trading partner:

The Los Angeles Dodgers have the greatest need for offensive help and are loaded with pitching prospects. But they're unlikely to give up their two best prospects, right-hander Edwin Jackson and left-hander Greg Miller, even for Soriano. If the Rangers want to discuss pitching with the Dodgers, they'd most likely have to talk about Odalis Perez, their 26-year-old left-hander who has won 27 games during the past two years.

How fast do the Dodgers want to win? The Angels are the hot team in southern California right now. With a new owner, will it be worth it for the Dodgers to build up the offense around an already fine pitching staff to try to win this year? The NL West appears to me to be the most wide open division in the majors. An offensive boost could easily put the Dodgers on top. We'll see if DePodesta sees any opportunities in Texas.