Baseball Archives

Maury Brown gathered writers from every possible corner of the baseball world to opine on the current state of the game at The Biz of Baseball.

Randy Sabia organized our annual outing to New Britain last night to see the Rock Cats, the Twins AA affiliate. They lost to the Binghamton Mets 3-2, but mostly we were four guys talking baseball and baseball history.

Meanwhile, the second round of interleague play started in the majors, although the first game I noticed was the 20-2 drubbing the Phillies laid on the Cardinals. When I saw the heart of the Philadelphia order hit four home runs, I assumed they were big ones. Only six of the twenty runs, however came on those four shots. If people were looking for the Cardinals to fall apart after all the injuries, that game pretty much says it all. Wellemeyer, one of their starters surprising people, was knocked around, as was most of the bullpen. The offense wasn't too bad, but couldn't turn ten hits into more than two runs. The Yankees won 2-1 on a Jeter homer in the eighth.

The other thing that caught my eye were a couple of high walk yet well pitched games. Joba Chamberlain and Shawn Chacon both walked four in about six innings, yet each allowed just one run. Worse was Zack Greinke, who walked seven in seven innings, but shutout the Diamondbacks during that time. Arizona took the game 1-0 in extra innings on a Chad Tracy homer.

Overall, the AL took 9 of the 14 games played against the NL last night.

Yesterday was pretty much the first day of the season I didn't pay attention to what was going on during the games. Here's what I missed.

The Chicago Cubs came back from an 8-0 deficit to defeat the Rockies 10-9. The ball was flying out of Wrigley as the two teams combined for seven home runs.

Chipper Jones went 0 for 5 to reduce his batting average to .409. Jay Bruce went 4 for 5 to raise his batting average to .571. The Braves lost another one-run game on the road as the Reds took the game 3-2.

The Phillies offensive machine is in full gear as they pounded the Marlins 12-3. Florida scored all their runs in the top of the first, but the lead was gone quickly as the Phillies scored seven in the second. Utley retakes the ML lead in home runs with his 18th of the season. More importantly, Philadelphia takes over first place in the NL East.

The Red Sox took 13 innings to defeat Baltimore 5-2. The Orioles left the bases loaded in the bottom of the 12th. The Orioles struck out 17 times in the game, 10 against Beckett in the first six innings.

Baltimore falls to last place in the AL East as the Yankees take down the Twins. Mike Mussina and a Shelly Duncan error led to a 4-1 Twins lead after one, but the Yankees fought back to take the game 6-5. Bobby Abreu hit two triples. and scored four runs. Matsui went 3 for 4 with two RBI as he continues to be the hottest hitter on the team.

The Boston and New York wins allowed them to keep pace with the Rays, who took another tight game at Tropicana Field. They defeated the White Sox 2-1 on a walk-off home run by Cliff Floyd. That's the Rays sixth win at home this year in which they scored two runs or less.

The Royals lost a close one 5-4 to extend their losing streak to 12 games. They blow an early four-run lead as Cleveland gains on Chicago.

The Rangers pick up ground on both Oakland and LAnaheim as they get a well pitched game from Kevin Millwood and win 3-1. The Angels lose to Toronto as Overbay hits two home runs, and now four games separate the top three teams in the AL West.

The Giants turned a triple play, but lose to the Padres 7-3 in the second 13 inning game of the night. The Giant fail to gain more ground on the Diamondbacks, who lose their fifth game in a row. They fall to Washington 7-4 as Micah Owings gives up six runs.

The Dodgers do gain as they hang a 9-5 loss on the Mets. Kershaw pitches poorly for Los Angeles, but the bullpen, led by Chan-Ho Park allows one run the rest of the way and the Dodgers score five in the 8th to win it.

In the Central, St. Louis keeps pace with Chicago as they withstand a three run rally by Pittsburgh in the ninth to take a 5-4 win, and the Brewers heart was beating strong as Fielder, Cameron and Braun homer in a 5-1 win over the Astros.

And so they don't feel left out, the Mariners wasted two Adrian Beltre home runs as they fell to the Tigers 7-4. Carlos Silva allows seven runs in the first inning and his ERA is now 6.00. Nice move by Bavasi there.

Russ Smith explains that while baseball isn't the same game the old timers played, it's still an extremely strong sport. Baseball Musings gets a nice mention in the article.

In the mail, Working at the Ballpark: The Fascinating Lives of Baseball People from Peanut Vendors and Broadcasters to Players and Managers by Tom Jones. Tom sits down with a wide variety of people, from the owner of the Giants to a ticket hustler from Fenway. All the stories are told in the subject's own voice, and Tom does a great job bringing out what they love about their jobs. A nice addition to your baseball library.

My final article at Baseball Prospectus is available to subscribers of that fine site.

This has to be the greatest game recap story I've ever read.

Bugs & Cranks takes a look at how sandwich picks ruin July.

Vegas Watch figures the odds of all the teams winning the World Series. The Devil Rays are a real long shot.

And finally, Lion in Oil promotes Michael Vick Animal Awareness day.

Armchair GM says baseball players are just like us.

Sports Club Stats presents a new playoff odds calculator.

And Bugs and Cranks looks at the players who started out as poor fielders and worked their way into fine fielders.

Ozzie Guillen makes the most intelligent response to Gary Sheffield I've seen. It's not race, it's economics:

Guillen also told the newspaper that he believes there are more Latin players in baseball than African-Americans because players from Central and South American and the Caribbean can sign as free agents while American players have to go through the draft.

"It's not that they can control us; maybe when we come to this country, we're hungry," Guillen told the newspaper. "We're trying to survive. Those guys sign for $500,000 or $1 million and they're made. We have a couple of dollars. You can sign one African-American player for the price of 30 Latin players. Look at how many Latin players have won Cy Youngs or MVP awards the last couple of years, how many Latin players have been in the All-Star Game; it's quantity and quality."

For Baseball Prospectus subscribers, my latest column concerns dynamic pricing in baseball.

With my connections to the Connecticut legal community, I get to enjoy a New Britain Rock Cats game once a year with William O'Sullivan. He's penned an article for Connecticut Lawyer, tracing the history of the reserve clause in baseball.

I absolutely love the Bad Ruth picture that adorns the first page. It Babe still in his youth with the Yankees, the lean mean Ruth who would post consecutive slugging percentages over .800, not the fat Ruth we see so often in movie footage of that era.

Dan Larson writes:

Buster Olney linked this weekend to a Hal McCoy article in the Dayton Daily News that discusses minor leaguer Jerry Gil being able to throw a ball four hundred feet, even over most centerfield fences from behind home plate. This brings to my mind a question about velocity. Since I have no understanding of physics beyond the most basic principles, I'd like to know if there are other factors involved in the distance of a throw than the speed (like, for instance, force ??). Like, for instance, if Jerry Gil can throw 400 feet, does that mean he's throwing 100 mph? Or am I wrong to assume Joel Zumaya could make the same throw only because he can hit 102 over 60 feet? I've always assumed pitchers turned position players, like Rick Ankiel who hit 95-96, must have the strongest arms in the league but am wondering if there's a factor I don't understand once distance is involved.

So I guess my assumption has been: whoever throws fastest also throws farthest (and the reverse, of course--Jerry Gil must be throwing 100 over 60 feet if he can outthrow the rest of the league)? Is this true?

My response that the two things that matter are the initial speed of the ball and the angle of launch. Since a 45 degree angle gives you the most distance for a particular initial velocity, I figured out the minimum speed it would require to get a ball 400 ft (133 meters). It worked out to 36 meters per second, or 80 MPH, neglecting air resistance. My guess is that a 90 MPH throw launched at a 45 degree angle will clear the fence no problem. Maybe a physics wizard can confirm that.

John Lowe contrasts the start and end of the baseball season:

It begins in the sunshine of February mornings in Florida and Arizona. Today, the Tigers' bus for their first spring-training game was due to leave their base in Lakeland at 7:30 a.m.

The baseball season ends in the near-midnight chill of late October evenings. You remember staying up well past 11 o'clock for those frustrating World Series games from St. Louis last fall.

Eugene O'Neill wrote, "Long Day's Journey Into Night." His title fits for the eight-month trek that is every baseball season.

And both are concerned with drug use!

My daughter and I shared a delightful day touring a couple of colleges in the Boston area. (The Harvard tour guide, however, didn't deliver the punch line to the story of the John Harvard statue.) Readers sent me a number of articles and interviews, so here's the collection for your evening reading.

Joel Jacobsen notes that life imitates Major League as Jhonny Peralta corrects his vision with eye surgery.

Jan sends this article on congressional hearings about the DirecTV deal.

Home Run Derby is a new blog dedicated to the home run. Rich Braasch, who runs the site also points out that MLB players will be sporting new chapeaus this season. I hope this means the end of those ugly sweat stains.

Dan Hauptman recommends Alan Schwarz's site, especially this Marvin Miller interview.

DRays Bay interviews David Price, someone they'd like to see Tampa Bay pick up in the draft.

Full blogging will resume tomorrow.

Jon Weisman asks at his blog:

Do you need major leaguers to play in order to enjoy watching a baseball game?

My answer is no, but I certainly notice the difference in quality of play. I go to a number of AA games a year and probably a couple of independent games. The place I notice the biggest difference is in the fielding. AA players make errors you seldom see in the big leagues. Watching AA ball is akin to taking a time machine back to the level of play (at least in fielding) seen at the start of the 20th century.

Phillip Scott asks if baseball needs saving. He's worried that a small number of teams are buying up all the good players and wants MLB to be more like the NFL.

Baseball needs to be fair. Baseball needs parity. The best way to do this without changing the system to much is to institute a hard-cap, similar to that of the NFL. If that happens, we might be able to see a day when the Yankees do not make the playoffs. What a beautiful day that will be.

Since 1978, there have only been three years in which the World Series winner repeated. (1993, 1999 and 2000). In the same time period, there were five Super Bowl repeats. And while there were 20 different baseball teams winning championships in that time, only 13 different NFL franchises did. When has an NFL expansion team made it to the Superbowl championship quickly? The Jets won in 1969 after being created in 1960, but they were not a traditional expansion team. The Mets, Diamondbacks and Marlins all won a World Series in less time.

And I'd say the reason is a lack of forced parity. Baseball teams, if they decide they want to win, can take any avenue they choose, including buying a team. While any NFL team may be able to beat any other NFL team on any Sunday, very few win the Superbowl. Baseball teams, with their freedoms of choice, can build long term or short term, and both can lead to winning.

The View from the Bleachers offers this Cubs Christmas poem.

The Biz of Baseball offers contributions from 30 people involved in the game on what's right and wrong with baseball today.

I'm doing my civic duty today on jury duty, although I haven't been in a court room yet. We were marched to the door, but the sides settled. That's a big reason we're there.

I took a quick look at my RSS feed on the way to lunch and noticed the Baseball Crank wrote a comparison of the 1964 Phillies and today's Cardinals, and Sabernomics looks at Joe Girardi for Moy. Two good topics.

Phillies Nation is in London and reports on a game between Great Britain and Ireland.

The game was played at the Finsbury Park Cricket Ground in Finsbury Park, north London. The cricket grounds have two baseball diamonds carved out, one for the amateur leagues I mentioned earlier and the other is home to the Little League London Mets. I arrived that Saturday afternoon just as the second game was ending. Ireland took the first one and Great Britain came back to tie up the series; both games finished 6 to 5. I found my seat on the grass just next to the Ireland bench as the players were returning from their between-games hot dogs and hamburgers. The third and final game, besides being the day's rubber match, also held special significance for the aforementioned Josh Chetwynd. Josh, who is American, also happens to play for the British National team and this was his final game. He is a solid ballplayer, I'd have to say, and graciously ended his career with a hit in his final at bat.

Let's hope the game continues to grow in popularity around the world, bringing more talent and revenue to the major league game. And let's hope that leads to expansion around the globe.

Can't Stop the Bleeding provides the bottom stories of the day.

Via MetsBlog.com, a quiz to test your knowledge of baseball and literature. I got all 21 right!

The Indians/White Sox game is still in a rain delay, but so far it's demonstrated just how much luck and play in scoring. In the bottom of the third, Michaels leapt for a ball, and the drive ticked off his glove for a double. A better leap might have caught it. If it were a foot closer to centerfield he might have caught it. Instead, it sets up a big inning for Chicago.

In the top of the fourth, the Indians third base coach sends Hafner, from first to home on a double off the wall in right. The relay throw should have one-hopped into Pierzynski's glove, but it hit a hard spot and bounce up and over the catcher's head. The Indians get a run there, and a follow up home run ties the game.

A little bit of luck went a long way for both teams tonight.

Andrew Godfrey attend his grandson's first game of the season and beams at the results of the seven-year-olds hard work.

Baseball Musings is conducting a pledge drive in March. Click here for details.

U.S.S. Mariner analyzes one of the greatest games ever played by one of baseball greatest, but banned players:

The exclusion of non-human players like Bunny is another shameful example of the long history of injustices done by baseball's racist policies. That black and rabbit players could only play against white players in non-sanctioned exhibition matches deprived the game of some of the best talent to ever play, and from what we've seen, robbed scientists of a chance to better study phenonema with wide applicability to questions of physics that could have greatly benefited all residents of the earth, be they human or Leporidae.

Although I've seen replays of this game hundreds of times, I never appreciated the physics lesson before. :-)

Baseball Musings is conducting a pledge drive in March. Click here for details.

Thanks to Randy Sabia (who is too sick to make it tonight), I'm off to the UConn Baseball Dinner. Brian Cashman of the Yankees and Ben Cherrington of the Red Sox are scheduled to speak. I'll do my best to get in a question.

The Seattle Mariners will hold their fan fest next weekend. It will a chance to get a look at new catcher Kenji Johjima, and his battery mate Felix Hernandez will be there, too. The last fan standing triva contest sounds like a lot of fun. Will any of the Mariners bloggers be participating?

Humbug Journal finds the geographic center of MLB, the leagues, divisions and rivals. The best one:

Mets/Yankees: On Rikers Island.

Yes, really, it's true...if you meet the Mets and Yankees halfway, you end up in prison.

One of the fun things about writing this blog is hearing from people the world over. I recently received this e-mail from a softball player in Iran.

my name is mahdi golmohammadi.iam the member of tehran baseball team i have been the member of national team for 5 years.i had 6 championship of the country and i was the best outfielder for 3 times and for one time the best batter.for one time participated for phillipin asian competition.and i attended in 9 american trainers classes and three major league players(don gordon-shawn boskie-jet hansen).iam prepering for 2006 doha(qatar).iam studying in sport sciences at tehran university.i intend to continue my sport activity in newer field.if you would like i will send you my pictures and my documents.( thank you)

I didn't know they played any type of baseball in Iran. So today Medhi sent me some photos that I'm happy to share with you (click on an image for the full picture).

Here's his award for the 2005 season:

Here's his certificate from the Manila tournament:

Here's his team at the Asian games:

And here's Mahdi with his American trainer Glenn Johnson.

And here's a story from Iran Today explaining how baseball came to Iran.

Alex Belth remembers a dear baseball friend as he guest writes at Baseball Analysts.

The regular season games are over. San Diego, San Francisco and Oakland all pick up victories to put a cap on a fun year. There was plenty of controversy as a new steroid policy sent players into suspensions. New stars emerged. Some old stars had unbelievable seasons, while others nursed injuries.

There was baseball in Washington for the first time in over 30 years. Washington finished in last place, but with a .500 record. For a few weeks, it looked like they might make the playoffs. They made a good impression on the city, enough to bring major league baseball a nice profit when they auction the team.

Some things were back to normal. For the 7th time in 8 year the AL East finished NY, Bos, Tor, Bal and TB. The Orioles got off to a great start and were leading the division in early July. The Orioles lost their power, however, as their slugging percentage was 75 points lower after the break than before the All-Star Game. The pitching slowed down also, leading them to play 22 games under .500 after the in the second half.

Mostly though, this season showed that game early in the season matter, too. The White Sox, Cardinals, Angels all got off to great starts, and those great starts allowed the White Sox and Angels to hold on as Oakland and Cleveland made impressive comebacks. All the early losses hurt the charging teams.

We came close to a sub-.500 division winner, but San Diego managed to finish two games over .500, the worst finish for a first place teams since baseball split into divisions in 1969. (For some reason, baseball doesn't count first place teams from 1994 as division winners. The Rangers were under .500 when the players went on strike). The seventh best record in the National league is going to the playoffs.

The Braves, Athletics and Indians all showed that good young players can perform as well as expensive old veterans. The Royals showed that players can be bad at any age. The Rockies showed that pitchers with unusual arm angles might be the answer to Coors field.

All in all, a fine season. The Padres and White Sox are here to bring some new blood into the playoffs and we have four more weeks of fun ahead.

It's a good day to watch Nine Innings from Ground Zero. My review is here.

Graham Knight runs two good sites, that while not blogs, are a great resource for information. Red Sox Connection features links to everything you'd like to know about the Boston team. Baseball Pilgrimage tells the stories of his visits to ballparks around the country. Stop by and say hi.

Balls Sticks and Stuff has a nice set of illustrations showing how Bobby Abreu uses a golf grip. If he keeps hitting like this, I'm sure others will adopt it as well.

Sean Kirst, a columnist with the Post-Standard in Syracuse and author of The Ashes of Lou Gehrig, pens this powerful column on how the cheers of little leaguers brings back memories of a son lost in Vietnam.

There's a good discussion going on in this post from yesterday about the relative merits of high offense on attendance. Let me sum up my feelings more consicely than I did there; yes, too little offense is boring, but too much is boring also. The drop in offense this season (so far) is to an historically normal level (if not a bit high), so I don't see a big hit in attendance based on runs scored this season. There's a difference between lower offense and low offense. This is lower, not low.

This is simply the pendulum of baseball swining back. We've had twelve years of high offense in which time the men who run baseball have been trying to figure out how to find an advantage in such an environment. They've mostly tried using a lot of pitchers, each in for a specific situation. Instead of helping, adding more pitchers lowered the overall quality of the staffs, keeping runs at very high levels.

In 2005, we're starting to see a movement away from the automatic use of relief pitchers. Complete game have almost doubled compared to the same period last year:

First Four Weeks	2004	2005
Complete Games	15	28
Games Started	702	700
CG Percentage	2.1	4.0

You saw a good reason why complete games are up yesterday in New York. Joe Torre followed conventional wisdom and brought in his setup man with a lead in the 8th, despite the fact that his starter had not thrown many pitches and was still effective. Gordon gave up a game tying home run. The increase in complete game reflects a "if it's not broke, don't fix it attitude" among some managers.

I'm going to need to do the research, but pitchers are being more efficient as well. I haven't really noticed high pitch counts in these complete games, but I'll need to gather the data to make sure that's true. Managers are not abusing pitchers to get them to go the distance.

Which leads to the question, is this better pitching or worse hitting? Most teams this offseason seemed to concentrate on acquiring better pitching or defense. The moves the Red Sox and Yankees made were geared toward cutting down on runs allowed rather than increasing runs scored. Remember the big story of the off season? It was decent pitchers getting big contracts. There wasn't a huge market for either Carlos Delgado or Beltran. By thinking the offense is fine, teams don't make moves to cast off the dead wood, and you end up with players like Mondesi, Jordan, Womack, Dye and others on major league rosters.

So the drop in offense was the inevitable result of competition. Teams are no longer trying to build the most powerful lineups; they're trying to build pitching staffs that can win games. With money flowing to the arms, there's less to spend on the bats. I don't know how far it will swing toward pitching, but if it stays at 9.0 runs a game, I'll be happy.

The Boston Pops are at Fenway, and as the played Also Sprach Zarathustra, banners were unfurled over the Green Monster for each previous World Series victory. As the Pops reached the end of the piece, a banner the size of the wall was unfurled over the smaller flags, covering them with World Series 2004 Champions. A well choreographed moment.

Update: Terry Francona just came out to get his ring. They have an image of each ring on the scoreboard in center. The name of the individual player is in the side of the ring. It's not clear what order they're using, as Francona is followed by Burks, then Wakefield, then Nixon.

Update: Derek Lowe is actually there, in a Red Sox shirt, and the crowd is giving him a big cheer.

Update: Johnny Pesky just got his ring. This has to be a huge moment for him. He connects the playoff disappointments that started in 1946 with the victory of 2004. It's good he lived long enough to see this day.

Update: They just raised the banner in centerfield. They had a number of Red Sox greats there to help hoist the banner as they played Hail Red Sox Nation. Pesky and Yaz had a big hug after the banner went up.

Update: Now the Yankees are being introduced, and you can hear some fans booing the equipment manager. I guess A-Rod is really going to get it.

Update: Mariano Rivera gets a big cheer from the crowd. He seems to be taking it in good humor.

Update: Torre gets cheered. Seems everyone respects Joe. The rest of the order is getting booed. Jeter, A-Rod and Posada got the biggest boos.

Update: For the first pitch, the Sox brought in other Boston champs; Bobby Orr, Bill Russell, Richard Seymor and Teddy Bruschi. The fans are real happy to see Teddy, and he looks pretty healthy.

First pitch coming up on ESPN2 in a few minutes. What a great way to start the season. Boston at the New York Yankees, Wells vs. Johnson, A-Rod and Varitek, Giambi off steroids, Jeter and Manny, bombers vs. idiots. I'll be live blogging the game.

Michael Gee in the Boston Herald looks at Baseball's popularity:

Baseball is just like Broadway. Both look like dying businesses until you try to buy a ticket.

Motion pictures, radio, and TV were all going to ruin live theater. High costs spelled doom for stage shows in 1905 and 2005. Broadway was called ``The Fabulous Invalid'' over 50 years ago.

Those who tried to score orchestra seats for the original cast version of ``The Producers'' found the invalid in robust health. Either they paid a bundle or more often they were out of luck.

Baseball's no different. The big leagues have existed for more than a century in which their demise was always right around the corner.

``Go back as far as you want,'' Players Association head Don Fehr once said. ``Two things are always true. No team ever had enough pitching and no team ever made any money.''

Baseball Musings is holding a pledge drive during March. Click here for details.

Mr. Snitch pens a long and thoughtful post on the national pastime, fate and deception.

Baseball Musings is holding a pledge drive during March. Click here for details.

Scott Craven pens a nice essay on the hold of baseball over its fans.

There are other sports that may be considered more popular than baseball when judged by the numbers. TV ratings for football are almost unapproachable. NASCAR races routinely draw more than 100,000 fans to ovals across the country.

But numbers are too logical to explain our romanticism with baseball, Bellamy says.

"If you go by metrics, by statistics, baseball doesn't do very well," he says. "But the sport is about much more than that. It brings about feelings that are hard to quantify."

Baseball is Coca-Cola. It may not win the taste test, but it's fans are deeply loyal.

Baseball Musings is holding a pledge drive during March. Click here for details.

The Washington Times looks at the declining interest in baseball in Puerto Rico. Some blame the Expos.

Puerto Rico has long been known as a baseball-mad country with an enduring legacy that runs from Orlando Cepeda and Clemente — an icon on the island — through Roberto Alomar and Bernie Williams and on to Carlos Beltran and Nationals second baseman Jose Vidro. That legacy, however, has languished in recent years, with other sports growing in popularity and the overall level of baseball declining.

Bringing the Expos to San Juan seemed the perfect remedy for that lagging interest, as well as an opportunity for Major League Baseball to showcase its Latin fan base. But rather than resuscitating the sport there, the Expos left a baseball vacuum in their wake.

"It has had a devastating effect," Puerto Rican Winter League president Joaquin Monserrate said of the Expos' two-year stay. "Major League Baseball deflated this market without any kind of warning or cooperation with the Winter League."

Others blame the winter league itself.

Edwin Rodriguez, however, places the blame at the feet of Winter League officials. Rodriguez, a former Carolina general manager, runs www.hitboricua.com, the league's unofficial Web site. He said the problem is not with the Expos' departure but with a league that operates only five months a year and has not done enough to showcase players.

"Saying the Expos are the reason for the poor attendance — that's not true," Rodriguez said. "People who say that are looking for an excuse."

For years, any notion baseball could lose its foothold on the island was unthinkable. Puerto Rico dominated the Caribbean World Series — played among the top teams from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic — in the 1950s, won four titles in the 1970s and took three of four from 1992 through 1995. The World Series was not played in the 1960s.

That background led many to believe that, although the Winter League had been in decline since the mid-1990s, Puerto Ricans would rally behind the Expos and draw baseball back into the national consciousness.

It hasn't happened.

Others go on to blame a growing interest in basketball, the ability to watch big league teams on cable TV and a growing list of activities for youngsters for the decline. All are probably right in one way or another. It's a problem the US minor leagues have had for years. How do you draw fans to an inferior product when the superior one is so easily available?

Dan Lewis asks five questions about the Mets signing Pedro at Armchair GM. He's also trying to make money off steroids. :-)

The Baseball Desert explains why.

It's snowing in Western Massachusetts today, and that can only mean that winter ball is around the corner. Gabrielle Paese rounds up who will be staying warm in Puerto Rico this season. Roberto Alomar will be playing for Carlos Baerga, who owns the Santurce Crabbers. Alomar and Baerga were both 2nd base prospects for the Padres in the late 1980's. Looks like there will be a good mix of veterans and prospects on the island. Seems like a good place to escape the snow and catch a ball game.

Update: Gabrielle writes with some links to Winter Ball web sites.

You might also want to alert your readers who follow winter ball that former player and Triple A coach Edwin Rodriguez has a website, www.ebaseballpr.com that keeps the day-to-day statistics updated. The website is in Spanish, but the numbers need no translation. Also for stats (of all four winter leagues), you can access (for free) www.baseballamerica.com and click on statistics and the winter leagues. All of the league's stats are done by SportsTicker (formerly Howe).

Also, the Manati Athenians, owned by former Chicago White Sox infielder Jose "Tony" Valentin, have their own website, www.atenienses.com (also in Spanish).

I'm back from my bicycle tour of Cape Cod. Not only did we get to see almost every town on the Cape, we got to experience almost every type of weather the area has to offer; hot and humid, drizzle, rain, delug and wind. It was the most challenging of the five rides I've done, but I survived (at times I thought I wouldn't) and am back home safe and sound.

Congratulations to Barry Bonds who hit hits 700th and 701st HR over the weekend. The Babe Ruth watch starts next. My Tivo kept the game; it wasn't his most impressive HR, an opposite field shot that just got over the fence. But it was nice to see the fans who sit behind him every game get a chance at the valuable ball.

Congratulations also go out to the St. Louis Cardinals, who wrapped up the division over the weekend. They have plenty of time to get injuries rested and their rotation in order for the playoffs. Their four man murders row is going to pose a difficult challenge to any opposing staff.

The Twins can clinch their division tonight with a win against the White Sox. The Twins starting pitching has a strength that works against their other three likely opponents; Twins starters don't issue walks. Since the Yankees, Athletics and Red Sox are all selective teams, it will be difficult for them to use the walk as a weapon against the Twins.

Finally, the Yankees took 2 of 3 from the Red Sox. Game 3 had to especially encouraging to Yankees fans and discouraging to Red Sox fans. The two aces, Mussina and Martinez are going in completely different directions. After struggling all season, Mussina is now 3-1 with a 1.20 ERA in September. His biggest problem, allowing HR, has vanished as he's given up 1 in his last 30 innings. Meanwhile, the HR bug has bitten Pedro. He's allowed five this month in only 24 innings. He's also walked 12 in those 24 innings. That's not Pedro Martinez. It should also be noted that Martinez is now at 204 innings, the first time he's gone over 200 IP since the 2000 season. Could it be that he's been overused? The Red Sox have done their best over the years to make sure the fragile pitcher is not seriously hurt. But maybe he's just not a 200 IP pitcher.

More later!

Hi everybody! My name is Jim Storer, and as the author of this blog has already noted, he and I have been the best of friends since our freshman year in college, the year that the Yankees' shortstop officially changed his name to Bucky "Bleeping" Dent in Boston. We watched The Game on tv together since, to listen to multitudinous story-tellers, the Red Sox must have sold about 3 million tickets to that one game, based upon the number of people who claim to have been there!

I'll be guest blogging (sorry but I still think"blog" is an ugly word, much like "mucilage" or "foment", and somehow it's even worse as a verb) while Dave is away. I am flattered to have this opportunity and certainly won't be able to match his volume of material, and I can only aspire to match his standard of excellence in content.

Now that I've finished sucking up to him, on to the business at hand. My perspective about most baseball issues is very similar to Dave's, because he's right almost all the time. I'm a huge fan of the minor leagues and the independent leagues and enjoy studying the legal and economic aspects of the game. (I am an attorney in private practice). Turn-offs include the Designated Hitter Rule, Bud Selig and artificial turf.

This week I'll be prattling on about some strange official scoring decisions, the evolution of relief pitching and why Larry Bowa should have been fired a long time ago.

One quickie just to get started: in yesterday's 12-inning affair with BALCO Barry and the Giants, the Mets won on a fly ball that RF Dustan (Don't call me "Dustin") Mohr just plain dropped. Ouch, poor guy. In what had to be one of the ugliest games ever, the teams combined for 16 walks, 3 errors and a record-setting 10 double-plays. Interesting...Kaz Matsui's been taking a lot of heat in the greater New York metropolitan area for his supposed defensive shortcomings - yesterday Wilson Delgado played the entire game at short and the Mets turned 4 DP's...

Jim

Daniel Drezner posts about a survey by the Chicago Tribune of baseball players. One of the most interesting things to Dan (and I agree) is that 74% say having a gay teammate would not be a problem. I guess the players are more open minded than we think.

There's a World Cup of baseball in the planning, and Scott Jefferies is writing a blog devoted to this subject, Baseball Cup. There are some interesting politics and financial dealings going on.

I'll be at the Baseball Prospectus Pizza Feed tonight in Boston. I hope to meet some of you there.

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.

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.