April 7, 2013 · 3:38 pm

Ugly and Uglier

It’s difficult to gauge what was uglier at the Rogers Centre this weekend: what was happening on the field, or what was happening in the stands.

When I arrived at the ball park yesterday, I was pretty excited. When the Red Sox come to town, there’s usually a good crowd at the SkyDome. This time was noticeably different, though. Typically, Red Sox fans, if not a majority, are a visible presence around. There’s never quite as many Pedroia jerseys are there are Bautista, and it’d be an exaggeration to call the Rogers Centre Fenway North, but there’s enough of a contingent around that a Sox run will get an audible cheer. Not on Saturday. There were Red Sox fans around, but they were clearly in the minority.

It was good to see. As a fan who wears both hats–I’ll happily cheer for the Blue Jays when they’re not playing Boston–I was happy to see a lot of energy following this Toronto ball club. These fans had a lot to cheer about yesterday: J.A. Happ managed to keep the Red Sox batters off the bases. With a home run from JP Arencibia and a moon shot from Colby Rasmus, the Jays cruised to an easy win.

Some of that energy, though, got channeled in some pretty ugly directions. Toronto fans were taunting their former manager John Farrell all game long. I get that. Farrell didn’t leave Toronto under the best of circumstances, and I think that Jays fans are justified when they give him a hard time. If it continues during the next series, it’ll probably start to get a bit tired and excessive. But for now? Sure. Why not.

The problem comes, though, when that vitriol gets directed at other fans. Late in yesterday’s game, I saw at least two altercations where Toronto fans started to gang up on fans wearing Red Sox gear in the stands. I’m talking about a group of probably ten or twelve Jays fans hurling insults at a couple of people in Red Sox hats. It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen it, either. The worst thing I’ve ever seen at a ballpark was a group of young Jays fans up in the 500s throwing garbage at a family of Red Sox fans, including a couple of kids who were maybe seven years old at most. After the game, nobody would even let these Red Sox fans step out into the aisle to exist the ballpark. This isn’t being a Jays fan; this is being an obnoxious human being. This season, it’s only going to get worst as you get the bandwagon jumpers and fair weather fans coming out more often.

Indeed, today’s game has been even uglier. The score’s one thing. The Red Sox essentially won the game in the first inning, tagging R.A. Dickey for five runs. As the game went on, the Red Sox continued to treat the Red Sox pitching like they were throwing batting practices. Will Middlebrooks hit three home runs, and Daniel Nava and Mike Napoli added their own. Right now, it’s the bottom of the eighth and 13-0 for Boston.*

Worse than the score is the way fans are reacting. R.A. Dickey–new to the city, new to the team, and a guy who was more frustrated than anyone with his own performance–was hearing boos from the crowd. On Twitter, fans are already starting to treat the season like a failure, asking about how long Rogers will let the team struggle before giving the axe to Paul Beeston and Alex Anthopolous.

It’s utterly ridiculous. As any seasoned baseball fan recognizes that it is a long season. As the old axiom goes, in baseball, you know you’re going to win a third of the games, and you know you’re going to win a third of the games. A slow start, or a hot start, doesn’t mean much of anything. Just ask any Red Sox fan about September 2011.

But Toronto sports fans can be extremely fickle. Those fair weather fans–the ones who came out just to boo Farrell, the ones who harass fans of the visiting ball club–are going to get ugly. The real fans will have patience with the team and not over-react. I hope the latter group sets the mood in the Rogers Centre from here on out, otherwise watching baseball in Toronto is going to be much less enjoyable.

* Globe and Mail writer Jeff Blair suggested on Twitter that the Blue Jays pitchers during the game that it was time for the Jays pitching to start throwing at Red Sox hitters:

He was implying that the Red Sox were running up the score and that they deserved a good plunking. He argued (based on what?) that the Red Sox would if they were in the Jays’ position. Consider instead, though, that the Red Sox are themselves exacting a little revenge for the way their manager’s been treated all weekend. No blame on the Jays’ players themselves, but I think Toronto fans were asking for this all weekend. And Tweets like Blair’s only reinforce that point. It’s been kind of a shameful day to be a Jays fan. 

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April 6, 2013 · 9:19 pm

Fair Weather and Foul

Deep in the stands of the ballpark lurks a scourge to the game of baseball. These individuals suck the very life out of those who love the game for the game and watch out of admiration of the athletes on the field. They induce a shiver of disgust in those who enjoy being at the ballpark out of respect for the sport. They are the fair weather fans.

These miscreants are unfortunately all the more prevalent at the ballparks of teams who are enjoying newfound or renewed success. They are characterized by a cringe-inducing combination of exuberance, ignorance, and know-it-allism. They are the sort of person who, in the fifth game of the year, will roundly reject a player with a low batting average as a “bum” who should be traded immediately. They howl in derision when last night’s hero becomes today’s goat, all-the-while pontificating to anyone who will listen–and many who would rather not–exactly how a finely tuned athlete should have reacted differently to a ball moving at nearly one hundred miles per hour.

These lummoxes watch the game and can only compare the current line-up to one from the distant or not-too-distant past, whenever the team last fielded a championship roster. Their opinions are malformed summations of the kind of prevailing wisdom that is circulated on drive-time radio, pieced together from sugar packets and half-heard snatches of conversation. They shout cat-calls and witless insults at opposing players and, worse, the fans of the opposing team, imagining longstanding rivalries that are actually a novelty borne of the heel of a cup of over-priced beer.

Faithless and feckless, they will hang the stadium only until the first losing streak. Those whose manage to affix their attention for a bit longer will falter by August, enervated by the long schedule and the drawn out dog days of summer. But they’ll be back. They’ll always come back. And the rest of us can only endure.

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February 24, 2013 · 2:49 pm

Spring Training

I’m watching the Blue Jays play the Yankees on MLB.tv right now. It’s spring training, and the game could hardly matter less. Spring training isn’t about winning or losing, and it’s a wonder they even keep score. Relievers start games; starters pitch an inning or two before sitting down. All-stars give up their spots in the order to guys who have only the minor leagues to look forward to. Even the announcers approach the game with a loose carelessness, filling the air with stories about travel and restaurants as often as with baseball. The entire affair, especially in these early days, has the character of a family reunion more than work, or maybe the first day back at university after summer vacation. It’s easy to imagine a player missing a hit because he was captivated by the catcher’s anecdote rather than the pitcher’s curveball.

I’m watching the game from my couch in Ontario, where I had to brush snow off the car this morning and I take a toque and gloves when I make my way out the door.  For some reason, watching baseball in February is not incongruous in the least. On the contrary: watching spring training baseball is a welcome respite from the winter. The fans are in t-shirts and shorts, and though the sun’s not shining today it probably will be tomorrow. Spring training’s a preview of warmer weather ahead, of relaxed weekend afternoons in the sun. It’s a break. Tomorrow I may have to shovel the driveway again but this afternoon I’m in mid-season form.

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January 3, 2013 · 9:18 pm

More Hall of Fame Musings

I should say at the outset that I have no particularly strong feelings about Jack Morris’s Hall of Fame candidacy. There are very few players whose Hall of Fame candidacy I care all that much about, in fact. There’s one I’ll argue passionately about, but more on that in a second. Right now, I’m going to say something about Jack Morris, inspired by Murry Chass’s blog post about how he voted for Jack Morris and Jack Morris alone on this year’s ballot.

Chass is making a statement with his ballot, a kind of misguided last stand in protest of what he calls “new-age stats guys,” whom he dismisses as having BBWAA-envy. He says that Morris didn’t cheat by using performance-enhancing drugs. He also says that Jack Morris “willed the Minnesota Twins to win Game 7 of the 1991 World Series, refusing to leave as long as the game was scoreless.” This, Chass says, is symbolic of the failure of the statistic: “Numbers,” he says, “simply don’t tell the whole story.”

He’s right, of course.

First of all, let me say that I think this is an asinine piece of get-off-my-lawnism by a guy who—based on his smug dismissal of advancements in ways in which we understand the game and his decision to use his power as a voter to make a statement rather than actually showing respect to the Hall of Fame and what it is or should be—has no place near a Hall of Fame ballot. I’m glad it’s the last time he’s voting.

Chass’s dismissal of statistics is a terrible piece of argument. First of all, any argument that is based around a dismissal of its object as “new-fangled” is, to me, a rocky one to start with. If you don’t believe sabermetrics are a valuable tool, that’s fine. I disagree but you are entitled to that position. But don’t dismiss them as new-fangled. Nothing expresses more succinctly a fear of the present so much as the word “new-fangled.”

Chass further derides sabermetrics first as “new-age,” a poorly chosen adjective. “New-age” to me connotes a position that is touchy-feely, in-touch-with-your-emotions, ignoring reason in favour of a misguided sense of spirituality. In other words, everything sabermetrics is not. Sabermetrics is the opposite of “new age.” If anything, I’d criticize sabermetrics for occasionally erring too far into the cold, rational, abstraction of pure numbers, which is, I think, Chass’s larger point.

It’s too bad it’s buried beneath this poor excuse for an argument, because I think it’s a good point. If Hall of Fame ballots were based purely on numbers, I think they’d miss a significant facet of the game. More than any other sport, I think, baseball is a narrative game. I think that’s why people so obsessively document the game to begin with—to piece back together a story that happened some Sunday afternoon however many years ago. Of course, it’s a fool’s errand. No box score, no scorecard, no statistics can ever capture the totality of the game. It’s only ever an approximation, one that is missing some of the most beautiful parts of the sport. If you reduce, say, Jackie Robinson down to his numbers, you’re missing one hell of a story. Ditto Jack Morris—though I’m still not convinced that the particular story Chass tells is itself worth inclusion of the Hall of Fame.

I think it a great shame that people who argue from the numbers and people who argue from the narrative have let themselves become so polarized. Accepting statistics as a way of comparing players doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate a good story, or an incredible or implausible accomplishment. Sometimes they’ll even help you appreciate all the more the rarity of an achievement. Similarly, loving the mythology of the game doesn’t mean you have to reject statistics as a means of evaluating a player.

These are different means to the same end, an enjoyment of the game. And they’re both part of the story of baseball, the story that is apparently supposed to be enshrined in Cooperstown.

Oh. And the person whose candidacy I’d argue passionately about? Joe Jackson, of course—but in a way that’s all about the story.

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December 24, 2012 · 11:05 am

DH and the Hall of Fame: Give Edgar Martinez a Chance

Barry Bonds. Photo by Galaksiafervojo.

Barry Bonds. Photo by Galaksiafervojo.

‘Tis the season… for various enfranchised baseball writers to outline and explain their hall of fame choices. This time around, much of the controversy surrounds the emerging class of HoF-eligible players who have been clouded by suspicion of using performance-enhancing substances, including guys like Jeff Bagwell, Roger Clemens, Mike Piazza, and, of course, Barry Bonds.

I’ve never felt entirely settled on that particular issue. At one point in my life, I wanted guys like Bonds excluded from the Hall of Fame. Since then, I’ve softened my stance, for a few reasons:

  1. The first was watching the Tenth Inning of Ken Burns’s monumental documentary Baseball. Burns made me realize that Barry Bonds was an amazing baseball player even before he hulked up. Burns also accomplished the incredible feat of making me feel sorry for Bonds and understanding just a little bit his decision to turn himself into The Thing.
  2. I realized that it was slightly hypocritical for me, who spent some of his brief academic career advocating an approach to history that includes warts and all, to help major league baseball perpetuate the myth that baseball in the steroid-era can somehow be purified, as though by selectively shunning certain star players baseball could protect its image. I realized, in part thanks to guys like Pete Abraham, that Cooperstown is a museum, and that a museum should reflect (though it can never reproduce) the history of the game. I’m a firm believer in baseball as a national institution, and I think that the history of that institution should record it all. PEDs are, for better or for worse, a part of that history—an essential part, given the role that they played in helping baseball rebuild its fan base after the 1994 strike. Besides, I’ve written before about the importance of keeping in mind baseball’s failures as well as its brilliance.
  3. There are people in the Hall of Fame who committed far more heinous acts and are of far more dubious moral character than those who injected themselves with a controlled substance.
  4. I realized that a major reason why I didn’t want Bonds or Clemens in the Hall of Fame was because they didn’t seem like particularly likeable people. That’s a personal, subjective response and hardly a good reason to keep somebody out of there. First of all, see point #3. Second of all, it means that pretty much every other reason I can muster to keep the PED users out is compromised.

Anyway, this morning I read another Pete Abraham piece, about his Hall of Fame ballot for the upcoming class of candidates. For the most part, I thought it was a well-reasoned rationale, if a little biased toward New England (and fair enough if it is; he’s publishing at Boston.com, after all). But one line struck me as especially odd, especially given his decision to vote for Bagwell, Bonds, Clemens, and Piazza:

Martinez, along with David Ortiz, ranks as one of the best DHs ever. But DH is a not a position.

Now, let’s think about this for a second: “But DH is not a position.” Well, no. It’s not a position on the field. But it is most assuredly a position in the line-up, and while I know it has its detractors, it’s been a part of the game in the American League for thirty years as of 2013.

Edgar Martinez Placque at Safeco Field.

Edgar Martinez Placque at Safeco Field. Photo by flickr user nonsequiturlass.

To me, it’s completely unfair to exclude Edgar (and eventually, I am sure, David Ortiz) from the Hall of Fame because they played DH. Abraham writes that “[w]ere he a third baseman, Edgar would be a borderline case.” Maybe so, but he wasn’t. He was a DH for much of his career. So, he should be evaluated as such. And as far as DHs go, Martinez was, by Abraham’s own admission, one of the best ever.

If you’re going to say that PED users belong in the Hall because it is a part of baseball history, you can’t exclude DHs. The DH is also a part of baseball history and has been for close to three decades. Don’t punish Edgar because he happened to excel at a position that limited his contributions elsewhere on the field. Are you going to exclude post-DH American League pitchers because they couldn’t get it done at the plate? Of course not. Besides, it’s not like there aren’t any other guys in the Hall of Fame who were amazing hitters but poor fielders.

If you’re a voter and you don’t think that Edgar belongs in the Hall because of his numbers, fine—it’s your decision. But don’t blame the DH. It’s a part of the game, like it or not. So give Edgar a chance.

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December 15, 2012 · 10:48 am

Jays Ordering a Knuckleball Sandwich

Nothing’s certain yet, but the rumour mill has it that it won’t be long before last year’s National League Cy Young winner, R. A. Dickey, is a Toronto Blue Jay. I should acknowledge from the outset that there are still a million ways this could go wrong. Though according to some sources the players have been agreed upon and the Jays are just reviewing Dickey’s medicals, that’s still a long way from a done deal. Dickey’s 38, after all, and it’s quite possible they won’t like what they hear from the doctor. Or, the Jays could be counting on getting Dickey with an extension, something Dickey might not agree to.

I have mixed feelings about the deal. First of all, I like Dickey. I like Dickey because I love the knuckleball. I love that a knuckelballer won the Cy Young. I like that Dickey seems committed not jus to throwing the pitch but to innovating with it, too. I’d love to be able to go watch him throw in Toronto. Also, if we can pretend for a second that fantasy baseball is an indicator of anything, Dickey was largely responsible for my fantasy baseball success over the last couple of seasons. So, I’m pre-disposed to like the guy, simply on the level of being a fan.

He also had a fantastic season last year. Not only did he win 20 games with a lacklustre Mets team, his meaningful stats were pretty good as well: 8.86 k/9 versus 2.08 bb/9; 1.05 WHIP; 4.6 WAR; and 72 ERA-. Last year was an outlier, but in past seasons, he’s done pretty well, too. In 2010 and 2011, his ERA- was 73 and 89, respectively. His opponents hit a bit better in those two years—closer to .250 than 2012′s .222—and his K rate was much lower, but he was a serviceable enough pitcher. If nothing else, he devours innings. Obviously, the Blue Jays are hoping he repeats 2012. He’s pretty old, of course, but with a knuckleballer that’s less of a factor than with other pitchers. Still, it’s difficult to figure out how much he’s worth. If 2012 was an outlier, you don’t want to overpay and end up with 2010 Dickey. But on the other hand, as Dave Cameron points out, you can’t assume that he’ll regress, either.

So, I think it is understandable that some Jays fans are nervous about what their team will give up for Dickey. The latest has Travis d’Arnaud and Anthony Gose, two of Toronto’s top prospects, headed to New York. That’s a very steep price, if Dickey is the only guy who heads north. d’Arnaud is probably the top catching prospect in baseball right now, and Gose is pretty promising in his own right. That would be an awful lot to pay to roll the dice on a pitcher who has had one very good season and has only a year left on his contract. If Dickey had another year or two of control, that’d be one thing. But the Jays face either getting just one year of a pitcher who might be great, or negotiating a contract extension with a pitcher who is at the peak of his value. It’s a risky move either way.

But maybe this is the time to take that risk. The AL East is probably going to be more vulnerable in 2013 than it has been for a long time. The Yankees are more or less the same team as last year, but they are old. Very old. They have a number of injury-prone players. I doubt A-Rod will ever even approximate the player he once was. Jeter had a very good season last year, but will be coming off an injury himself. Also, he’s old, too. The front of the rotation is also aging. Boston’s not playing for next season right now, either, and still has a lot of holes to deal with. Tampa’s trade with Kansas City made them a lot stronger a year or two in the future, but made them a bit weaker for 2013. If Toronto can stay healthy, they have to be the de facto favourite in their division going into 2013, with Baltimore a possible contender as well, based on their 2012 campaign. It’s a good time to go all-in for the Jays. So maybe they should make this deal.

Of course, it is going to come down to what they pay. My hope’s always been that Anthopolous would build the kind of team that they have in Tampa. Develop strong players from within, sign the emerging stars to contract extensions while they are cheap, and don’t mortgage the future on high-priced free agent or trade talent. That clearly went out the window this off-season with the John Buck trade. I admit that I am a little bit disappointed. But I guess that if this is what the Jays want to do—if they are committed to bringing playoff baseball back to Toronto in 2013, then go for it. Go all-in. I just hope that it won’t mean that Jays fans will have to wait another 20 years before it happens again.

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November 13, 2012 · 7:59 pm

The Trade That Was Too Big to Tweet

It’s been a while since I posted here, in part because transitioning to a new job in a different field has taken what mental resources I’ve been able to muster. But how could I not comment on the news coming out of Toronto and Miami today?

Miami basically sent everybody they owe a paycheque to to Toronto. The details are still hazy, but as of the time I’m writing this, here’s the trade:

To Toronto

Jose Reyes
Josh Johnson
Mark Buehrle
Emilio Bonifacio
John Buck

To Miami

Yunel Escobar
Adeiny Hechavarria
Henderson Alvarez
Justin Nicolino
Anthony Gose OR Jake Marisnick
JP Arencibia, Bobby Wilson, or Jeff Mathis
Anthony DeSclafani
$4 million

It’s what they call a blockbuster.

First of all, it’s hard to not be excited about this trade simply because it is a huge, huge trade, the sort we don’t see very often. It’s the biggest trade in baseball since the Red Sox / Dodgers trade of a few months ago, which was maybe the biggest trade in decades. The Marlins dropped close to $85 million in salary commitments. The Jays, meanwhile, suddenly have a lineup full of players whose names are recognized outside of Toronto, and that might actually get them on Sunday Night Baseball at some point in the near future.

I think this is especially exciting for Toronto fans. The team’s not often involved in blockbusters like this, especially when it involves Toronto taking on salary. Usually it’s going the other way (see Halladay, Roy). This could be interpreted as a sign that Alex Anthopolous, Paul Beeston, and Rogers see the Jays as contenders in 2013, and are willing to reach into their pocketbooks a little bit more than they have been in the past. There’s no guarantee that the team will contend in a stacked AL East next year, but they certainly got a bit stronger in the short term.

For Miami fans, this has to hurt. Marlins fans are by now used to the team having a fire sale every few years, but they usually come after a bit of success. Already, fans are pointing fingers at Jeff Loria and remembering what he did to the Expos, to the point that some speculate that Bud Selig will nix the deal because of the long term impact it could have on Miami as a baseball market. Even Giancarlo Stanton voiced his displeasure, tweeting earlier tonight that he was, and I quote, “pissed.”

With that said, the Marlins aren’t getting nothing here. They picked up a few strong young players from the Jays’ farm system. Down the road a few years, more understanding fans might look back on this trade with rosier glasses than they have on today. Only time will tell.

Insofar as trades have winners and losers, this one is a toss-up. The Jays got the names, that’s for sure. But there are some aging names there, as well as a couple of players who aren’t be under team control for too long. The Jays are stronger in the short term, but the risk is very high, as well, that they’ve over-burdened themselves with Jose Reyes’ salary, which is going to break the $20-million mark as of 2015. That’s an awful lot of money to commit to. Nevertheless, fans should also consider that none of these players have any sort of no-trade clause, and that’s worth something, as well. My evaluation will also depend on which catcher the Marlins get—Mathis is far less valuable, I think, than Arencibia.

I don’t know if, on the whole, I like the trade or not. I like Emilio Bonifacio, who is flexible, speedy, and young. I’m leery of Josh Johnson’s DL history, and of Mark Buehrle’s age and salary. Ditto Jose Reyes (who isn’t particularly old yet, but he will be getting up there when his contract expires.) But I do know that, all of a sudden, the Jays have a pretty intimidating batting order and pitching staff, especially if Ricky Romero gets it together for next year.

Regardless, it’s going to be exciting to watch.

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October 15, 2012 · 12:58 pm

On Baseball, Loyalty, and Rivalry

Baseball fandom is a funny thing.

Two pieces of anecdata:

1. The other night, the New York Yankees faced the Detroit Tigers in game one of this year’s ALCS. In the bottom of the ninth inning, the Yankees scored four runs on the strength of a home run by Ichiro Suzuki and then another one by Raul Ibanez to tie the game and send it to extra innings.

I was watching the game and felt a range of emotions. On the one hand, I was frustrated. Like many Red Sox fans, I tend to root for any team that is playing against the Yankees. I’m not a big Detroit booster, but I certainly don’t loathe them, and I fully admit I’m pulling for them. I had been hoping for Oakland to prevail over Detroit in the divisional series, but desperate times in the league championship call for desperate measures, so I’m hoping on the Detroit bandwagon now. (It doesn’t hurt that Detroit is close enough that I could conceivably attend a World Series game being played there.)

At the same time, though, the bottom of the Yankees ninth was pretty impressive. I love Ichiro, and I wish him success. His home run brought the Yankees back into the game but didn’t beat the Tigers, and so I didn’t feel too bad in admiring his efforts. When Ibanez hit his home run, my reaction was even more conflict. On the one hand, I was mad—I did not want the Yankees to prolong the game, much less win. But how could you not be impressed? Ibanez has been—dare I say it—clutch in this post-season. Twice he’s saved the Yankees with timely home runs in the ninth inning, as well as hitting a game winner in one of those games. It’s the stuff of legends. As a fan of the game of baseball, how could you not love it?

Well, apparently if you are a fan of the Red Sox, you’re not allowed to. At least, that’s what Cody Ross and Will Middlebrooks found out. Ross and Middlbrooks were watching the game and, as fans of the sport, they were suitably impressed by Ibanzez’s derring-do. “Ibanez!” proclaimed Cody Ross. The backlash was immediate. Red Sox fans accused two of the brightest spots in a dismal 2012 season of being traitors.

My response: are you kidding me? These guys are baseball players. That means that they are fans of the sport. And sure, Boston has a longstanding rivalry with the New York Yankees. But this doesn’t mean that the players on either team are obligated to denigrate or deride the accomplishments of their historic foes. I mean, this isn’t a cartoon. These are human adults who are quite capable of competing against other individuals without actively hating them.

I appreciated Ross’s and Middlebrooks’s comments. It reminded me that baseball players, whatever else they might be, are fans, too. They like to watch their peers excel in high pressure situations. They feel for other players when they struggle. And most of all, they enjoy watching a good game of baseball in which exciting things happen, and they cheer for the players who make those things happen. It doesn’t matter if they are wearing a Yankees jersey, a Dodgers jersey, or a Red Sox jersey.

2. I post on an online community that talks occasionally about baseball. I said something about Toronto’s ballpark, currently called the Rogers Centre but still lovingly referred to by many Jays fans by its old name, SkyDome. I usually call it that, too, actually, though I have no particular issue with the name “Rogers Centre.” It’s not like it is a corporate sponsorship deal; they own the stadium and the team and are the people responsible for the team that’s on the field.

On this particular occasion, though, I happened to refer to it as Rogers Centre. Now, on this forum, it is known that I am a Red Sox fan. There’s a little Red Sox picture that gets attached to all of my posts, and you can’t pick multiple logos so I go with my first baseball team love.

Seeing this, some genius felt obliged to call me out, telling me to call it by its right name and instructing me to stop “invading” their ballpark. This turned into a conversation where I said that I was a Jays fans, too, and that I didn’t “invade” the ballpark but went there to watch baseball, regardless of who was playing the Jays. I said that my rule was simple: if the Jays were playing the Sox, I’d cheer for the Sox; when they play any other team, I support Toronto. (Except, maybe, when the Mariners are playing, in which case I probably cheer for whatever team does something good.)

Some people were incredulous. They did not understand how you could cheer for both teams. One person said they didn’t believe you could possibly cheer for two teams in the same league, much less the same division. Others seem to think that Boston and Toronto have some kind of rivalry that make the teams, and their fans, inimical to one another. (They really don’t.)

It’s weird. I understand Red Sox fans and Yankees fans getting on each other. It’s part of the team lore. If you go to Yankee Stadium in a Red Sox shirt, or Fenway in a Yankees shirt, you know what you are in for. And to be honest, that’s probably why you’re doing it.

But if you go to see the Jays in a Red Sox shirt? I dunno. I get that fans of other teams get frustrated when their stadium is populated by people not cheering for the home team. But when I go to a Jays game, I’m not obnoxious. I sit in my seat. I cheer when good things happen. And I watch the game. That’s what I am there for.

Unfortunately, this is unacceptable to a certain class of Jays fans. (I say a certain class because most Jays fans are quite nice. I’m talking about a vocal minority.) They don’t abide Red Sox fans in the ball park. They have a few overpriced beers and the alcohol and hormones start talking and it leads to ugly things happening. The worst I saw was when I went to a game and, in the row in front of us, there was a family of Red Sox fans. All ages, from young kids up to middle-aged adults. And Jays fans were throwing things at them. At the KIDS. That, to me, is unacceptable. That’s not what baseball’s about.

I guess the point of this story is that rivalry and often enmity in this game can go a bit too far. I’m happy that most of my friends who are baseball fans are like me. They are fans of the game first and foremost. They admire the players for their athleticism and talent, managers for their strategic acumen, and teams for the stories they tell us each and every season and post-season.

Isn’t that the way it should be? I would hope that, if you’re a baseball fan, you’re a fan of baseball. That is, you appreciate the beauty of the game. If you’re in it because you like to spit venom at fans of other teams, please do the rest of us a favour and just stay home. Leave those seats to people who will better enjoy them. We’ll all be better off.

P.S. In that Yankees / Tigers game I was talking about earlier, Derek Jeter broke his ankle. It’s a serious injury and if he requires surgery he’ll not just miss the rest of the Yankees’ postseason but part of 2013, as well. Jeter’s a guy I love to hate. I think he’s smug and defensively overrated. But he’s put together an amazing career and even if I don’t like the guy, I sure have to respect him. So here’s hoping for a speedy recovery to the Yankees’ captain.

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October 13, 2012 · 8:01 pm

Guest Post: Maybe I Don’t Want My Expos Back…

A special treat: a guest post by Andre over at Londonlestrygog Bites who shares his thoughts on the Nationals’ untimely departure from the postseason.
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You may hear the media declare, in the aftermath of the Washington Nationals collapse in game five of their NLDS meeting with the St. Louis Cardinals, just how ironic it was that Ryan Zimmermann made the final out. No, it’s mere “coincidence” that the face of the franchise had to face down that final out. And it certainly wasn’t ironic to see Roger Bernadina, Washington’s final, tired thread sewing them back to the Expos, pinch hit in the game that ended the franchise’s first post season run since its first (and until this year) only appearance 31 years ago. “Fitting” would be more appropriate, but make no mistake: Baseball lives off of irony, and at the professional level, it does so professionally.

Yes, baseball is the Joey Chestnut of irony eating competitions, and after the outcome of game four in this Nationals/Cardinals series, I and every other baseball fan should have known how game five would end.

With game four tied at the end of the sixth, Nationals skipper Davey Johnson uses a trio of pitchers to get his team to the bottom of the ninth: starter Ryan Zimmermann, set-up man Tyler Clippard, and closer Drew Storen. Eight of their nine outs recorded were strike-outs. So game five’s script was, naturally, the opposite of what we might expect: starter Edwin Jackson gives up a run, set-up man Tyler Clippard allows a home run, and closer Drew Storen allows four earned, blows the lead, and the Nats receive a season-ending loss. Here’s further proof of the baseball God’s love of that difficult to stomach rhetorical term: the Nationals regular season team ERA was 3.33, the lowest era in the National League. Its relievers had their own mark of 3.23, third best, and best of the remaining teams in the National League play-offs.

But the American League (really, baseball markets in Maryland) were not exempt from the cruelty of the game as well: Baltimore set well-documented records in one-run and extra-inning contests this year. In the former their regular season split was 29-9, in the latter, 16-2, including sixteen straight wins. The Yankees snapped that streak in devastating fashion, with two Raul Ibanez home-runs, one in the ninth, one in the twelfth, both of which allowed the Yankees to win. . .by one run. Ibanez was also hitting for his team’s higest paid—and I’ll remind you—its most accomplished hitter (no matter how we might feel about A-Rod, he still had no real business being on the bench just then). In conversation with my other baseball friend, I told humpbackliner to expect Baltimore to lose its games in close contests, even in extra innings, because, well, it would be “fitting” and no “coincidence” for the game’s gods to betray them in the very way they fueled them throughout the course of the season. It wouldn’t have been strange to see them get swept, losing all three games in extras by one run, ‘cause that’s just baseball.

And if you can apply that kind of “sound” logic to baseball, then you can rely on gut feelings too. In speaking with another baseball friend, he admitted to being quite late for an event, even as he couldn’t draw his eyes off Jayson Werth’s ninth inning, seven-minute, thirteen-pitch at-bat because he, like so many other fans, knew that something magical was going to happen. That home run was expected. And yet, Jay Bruce puts together a twelve pitch at-bat, and he flies out? Come on, baseball gods? Why must you be so random, so hard to explain? What’s that you say? You gave Bruce no less than four centre-cut, elevated, 87 mile-per-hour fastballs, with no tailing action, to see during that at-bat. Ah, point taken. It ain’t the game: it’s Jay Bruce.

When I saw Werth’s home run live, I scared myself and the upstairs neighbours with a yell I had not employed since, well I can’t be sure. In that moment, I was back watching Vlady swing at balls scraping the ground, back watching Livan get the last he could from his arm throwing curve after curve, back watching F.P. play for the Lynx in Ottawa when the city held the Expos’ farm team. The game of baseball waited for me to truly come back, to have the expos (quite literally) on my sleeve, and the Nationals (quite literally) on my mind. . . before crushing me.[i]

And you know, the baseball gods mustn’t really settle for much. If they settled for “coincidence” then the Nats would have won 6-0, a lead they held in game five, and a lead that represents the final score of another game five shown in prime time. If they settled for “fitting,” they would have protected Washington’s hopes of a World Series right through to that game seven, a game scheduled to be contested on Nov. 1, the eve of the American presidential election. Of course, in a sport where you’re meant to expect the unexpected, I suppose the game’s irony would actually reveal itself when things occur. . . exactly as they should, as when a team who wins the most games in baseball wins the World Series, but that’s only happened twice since 2000. So what the hell in the game is actually ironic? The game could have had the Cardinals losing to be its ironic feast last night. The team had, after all, won five consecutive elimination games while added a to-be-expected sixth last night. And if we all say that we know what’s going to happen by thinking about what’s exactly not supposed to happen, is there any iron. . . Oh well, smarter people than this guy have struggled with the term’s usages and definitions longer than this blog post is long.

Regardless, my desire to see the Nationals win, culminating in a head-holding, standing-when-I-could-be-sitting moment in my living last night means, I’m a Nats fan. Well how about that? And it means I’m still a baseball fan, reveling in the unexpected, in the best part about the game, its predictable unpredictability, even a day after a gutting loss that proves the point on the most personal of personal levels. I just hope the game ended too late to have my day relieve memories of Blue Monday. Put another in the bank, papa; it’s gonna be another good one next year.

[i] If you can’t visualize it, I was one of the few human beings yesterday wearing his Expos jersey and his Nationals cap.

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October 7, 2012 · 11:30 am

A’s run a vindication of Moneyball? Who cares?

There’s a tedious argument that takes place all too frequently on baseball websites and forums. Somebody will comment on how good a player is. Another will disagree. It will turn out they’re arguing from different perspectives: one player is a “statshead” who knows the difference between all of the different versions of the Wins Above Replacement stat, thinks pitcher wins are useless, and would never bring a statement about “heart” or “grit” to a player evaluation fight. The other guy, meanwhile, trusts his or her eye, talks about how good his guy is in the clutch, and sneers at the thought of “moneyball” pointing with glee to how the A’s tanked in the 2002 playoffs.

Oakland As Yoenis Cespedes and Josh Reddick

Yoenis Cespedes and Josh Reddick. Photo by Keith Allison. Reproduced under Creative Commons.

It’s an annoying argument because all too often it supposes that being interested in advanced metrics somehow makes a fan less appreciative of qualities that aren’t easily measured by numbers. “He’s got hustle! How can you put that into numbers?” or “He’s got the intangibles.”

The idea of that “moneyball” and “traditional baseball” are mutually exclusive is just silly, though, and often these debates can never be settled because the fans are talking about two different things: aesthetics and statistics. And it is entirely possible, maybe even likely, that somebody who loves the latter loves the former as well. I’m one of them.

When it comes to baseball, I’m really a romantic at heart. I love the stories and I love to believe in the magic of a rally cap and a good underdog story. But that doesn’t meant I can’t appreciate the value statistics brings to the game.

It’s a value that has nothing to do with how enjoyable the game is and is all about evaluating things that have happened and comparing them to other things that have happened. Sabermetrics can’t settle who is fundamentally better, Babe Ruth or Ted Williams or Albert Pujols. There are too many x-factors. They can settle questions such as who was more valuable to his team in a given year or who, objectively speaking, had a better stretch or performed better in certain scenarios. That data’s interesting and valuable to people who need to know these kinds of things.

Anyway, I bring all this up because of how excited I am about the Oakland As’ season. They improbably won the American League West this year, becoming the first team ever—ever—to get into first place for the first time on the last day of the year.

Oakland GM Billy Beane

Oakland GM Billy Beane. Photo by flickr user Leaders Event. Reproduced under Creative Commons.

Naturally, the 2012 A’s are being compared to their 2002 incarnation, who were also unlikely successes. I’m sure most of you have heard the story or seen the movie. After losing a number of key pieces in the off-season, GM Billy Beane and his assistant Paul DePodesta cannily used statistics to identify players who were being undervalued by the other teams. They signed these players and produced a winning team for far less money than, say, the New York Yankees did. Ultimately, the story is that they paid less for each win than the other teams they competed against in the playoffs.* This year, the As’ also gone farther on less money than most teams in baseball. Only the San Diego Padres paid less than the Athletics’ $55,372,500 for their on-field talent.

So are the A’s moneyballing their way into the playoffs this year? Or are “intangibles” paving the way? I guess it depends on how you define the term. If moneyball is just about winning games with a small payroll, then sure.

But what’s interesting is that, in some ways, the Athletics are changing the usual moneyball script. Some results from looking at how the A’s rank in various “moneyball” stats:

The Oakland Athletics

The improbable Oakland Athletics. Photo by Keith Allison. Reproduced under Creative Commons.

  • OBP: .310, good for 24th in all of baseball and 12th in the American League
  • SLG: .404, 15th in all of baseball and 9th in the AL
  • WAR: 23.8, 13th in all of baseball and 4th in the AL

This isn’t the be-all, end-all of course, but it is curious that the team most synonymous with these terms and who were instrumental in the proliferation of these metrics throughout baseball aren’t even close to leading in any of them, compared to the other 29 ball clubs in major league baseball. The Athletics are winning their games not because they are dominating in on-base percentage.

I imagine somebody out there is doing a statistical breakdown of how this is working. Maybe the Athletics’ statisticians have found another market inefficiency to exploit. Or maybe these Athletics just have more heart than their opponents.

Frankly, I don’t care all that much. For me, it’s a good underdog story, and I love that the A’s, along with the Orioles, are making this post-season very entertaining.

* Please note: the story is not that the A’s proved that paying attention to on-base percentage is superior to listening to scouting reports. It’s entirely about spending money efficiently and finding assets that are undervalued by others in the market. That’s all. A team can win with guys who only get on base when they hit, and they can win with guys who only get on base when they walk. “Moneyball” just recognized that the guys who get hits tend to get paid more than the guys who get walked and took advantage of it. Now, every team in baseball recognizes that a walk has more value than it might have had before 2002.

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