May 26, 2012

The Ecstasy and the Agony

Two very quick things, in lieu of a proper post today.

First of all, an amazing feat of athleticism turns into what can safely be called one of the most amazing catches you’ll ever see. This is Derrick Salberg, playing for Lower Columbia College in the Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges tournament. This ended the game, and probably saved the game for his team, who was holding onto a 4-2 lead in the ninth with two out and one on. I can’t embed video in WordPress, apparently, but watch it.

The catch is pure athleticism. I want to quote something a friend of mine wrote on my Facebook wall, because it describes this just perfectly. So, hat tip to Matt for this:

I love it when people run down athletes with the claim that anyone could do it given enough time and training. The average person doesn’t have the reflexes and spatial awareness required to make that catch. He’s taken his eye off the ball before it hits his glove and his hand is still in the right place. He jumps at the exact right second without looking back at the fence. He’s keeping track of at least three moving variables in space while running backwards. Even at the college level that’s a kind of ability most people will simply never have. If I were the batter I wouldn’t even be angry. I’d just want to shake his hand.

Exactly.

Somewhat relatedly, there’s this piece in the New York Times from Bob Ojeda, which I came across via Metafilter. It’s about pain.

I don’t think anyone who is not a professional athlete, who does not go out and perform like this night after night over a 162-game season, can appreciate just what the body goes through. Ojeda puts it in perspective. His is a lifelong relationship with being hurt that goes back to when he was twelve. Twelve!

We all like to fantasize about being professional ball players. We all criticize them when they sit out a game. We start to question them when they miss time due to “back soreness” or some other nebulous ailment. Some players get stuck with being labeled “fragile.” What this essay clarifies is why some players are handled so cautiously. It’s also a testament to just how bad a player must be hurting for him to come out of the game, much less go on the disabled list. They know they are getting paid millions of dollars to play a game as much as we do, and I really do believe that most of them work hard to try to earn that money as best they can. And frankly, it’s not something that most of us could do. How many out there could sit back and say, honestly, that they’d put up with the pain that Bobby Ojeda dealt with, day in, day out, for years? And that’s not even considering the pressure put on each player every time the ball’s hit his way, he throws a pitch, or he comes up to bat.

Players get paid an often ridiculous amount of money. It’s not justifiable. I mean, in a sense, they’re not getting paid for how well they perform at all. They’re getting paid for their potential to make the team money. Each player’s a commodity that the owners sell the fans; if they win, that’s good because it makes the owners more money. Cynically, that’s about all there is. But at the same time, it’s hard not to read about Ojeda’s career, or watch Salberg’s catch, and think that maybe—even if only for a fleeting moment—they really are just that exceptional.

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May 24, 2012

The Thrill of the Grass

One of the things I had envisioned when first creating this blog was an occasional post on baseball fiction. Baseball, more than any other sport, has an impressive literary heritage. Walt Whitman extolled the virtues of the game in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1846; the fate of the ball hit by Bobby Thompson to win the pennant for the Giants in 1951 is a crucial piece of Don DeLillo’s Underworld; more recently, Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding was the subject of much critical fawning. The list could continue. Favourites of mine include, of course, Malamud’s The Natural but also Robert Coover’s metafictional work The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. A great deal of virtual ink could be spilled on how and why baseball attracts American authors, what it means as a symbol, the mutations and transformations that the idea of baseball has suffered through since Whitman first described “youngsters playing ‘base,’ a certain kind of ball” and deemed it a “glorious” and beneficial exercise. Much already has.

Shoeless Joe Jackson

Shoeless Joe Jackson

Lately, though, I’ve been reading some stories by one of the finest writers of baseball fiction, and he’s not even an American. If you’re a baseball fan, you probably know W. P. Kinsella’s work. He’s most famous for his novel Shoeless Joe, which is not nearly so famous as the movie that is based on it, Field of Dreams. I have a whole post—maybe more—on Shoeless Joe as a symbol, but I’ll save it for another time. Instead, I want to think a bit about Kinsella’s collection of short stories, The Thrill of the Grass.

Kinsella doesn’t write about stars. He doesn’t write about preternaturally talented men who are more demi-gods than athletes. They don’t take the field in the bottom of the ninth and win the game for the Giants, or make the clutch strikeout. Instead, he focuses on characters who the game has beaten down. He writes about minor league players, but these aren’t minor leaguers with aspirations of million dollar contracts. They are guys who have been shuttled around the dankest basements of professional baseball for years, no longer because they are waiting for their cup of coffee in the bigs, but because it’s their job. They are players who take a kind of workmanlike approach to the game. It’s not pretty; it’s not glamourous; it’s a living.

Close-up of artificial turf

Close View of Artificial Turf by Laurent van Roy. Image reproduced under Creative Commons.

This is pure nostalgia. In the title story, set during the strike of 1981, a disillusioned fan sneaks into a new, state-of-the-art baseball facility with an owner and, piece by piece, replaces the artificial turf with real grass, a fantasy that every Jays fan can appreciate. It’s a story that says the contracts and the egos of the players and owners are out of control, and the simple beauty of the game—the “thrill of the grass”—has been lost. In his nomadic minor leaguers, Kinsella tries, I think, to recapture baseball of a time past, when players didn’t have signing bonuses or agents. They’ve been chewed up and spat out by the game, but they come back each season not for money but for love.

Baseball, Kinsella says, has lost touch with its roots. It’s a common enough complaint among baseball fans. But coming from Kinsella it feels all the more poignant. His characters are tragic but sympathetic. The situations are all too relatable for anyone whose given too much to something for too long, who know that there comes a time to move past childish things but is unable to pull away from their orbit. This is, I think, what elevates Kinsella baseball writing above others who wax nostalgic about the game.

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May 21, 2012

Waiving Adam Lind

This weekend, the Adam Lind saga took a turn toward the mysterious for Jays fans.

Adam Lind. Photograph by Keith Allison. Reproduced under Creative Commons.

A few days ago, Adam Lind was optioned down to the minors by the Blue Jays organization. This was surprising and it wasn’t. It was because back in 2009, Lind had a monster year. He belted 35 home runs and hit for a .305 average. I don’t think anyone thought that it was sustainable, but he carried some of that power into 2010, hitting 23 and 26 home runs, respectively. This was enough for the Jays to make Lind one of the faces of the franchise. While they could throw Travis Snider down to the minors over and over again, it seemed like Lind had a pretty long leash, I think partly because his 2009 campaign gave him a fair amount of capital with the organization and the fans.

Clearly, though, he’s run out of leash. Since 2009, his average plummeted to more realistic terrain (his BABIP in his breakout year was .323, after all) and I think the Jays got a decent idea of what they had in Lind. In the tail end of last year, though, and so far in 2012, Lind turned into a liability on the field. The hitter who thrived under Cito Gaston has struggled under John Farrell. As FanGraphs points out, his line drive rate is worse, he’s swinging at terrible pitches, and isn’t seeing fastballs nearly as well as he did in 2009.

There are also rumours of work ethic issues. Callum Hughson at Mop-Up Duty breaks them down pretty well, and some of them are more ominous than others. I wonder if some of them are Lind trying to be funny. I don’t necessarily think that him saying that he doesn’t like the tough workouts that are expected from him as a ballplayer necessarily proves that he doesn’t participate in the workouts or give them his all, but it is a troubling admission. Being a professional baseball player is hard, demanding work. Players have to give 110% before, during, and after games or they’re going to hurt their team. If the Jays felt that Lind wasn’t doing enough, that’s a big problem. Not only might it impact his abilities on the field, it is also the kind of thing that can breed resentment in the clubhouse.

This is all to say that putting Lind in the minors was probably a bit of a no-brainer. What came next, though, is more of a puzzle.

Word came out on Saturday night that Lind’s name was popping up on the waiver wire. The Jays, apparently, had put Lind on irrevocable waivers. This means 1) that he has been removed from the 40-man roster and 2) that any other team that wants him can have him and the Jays can’t pull him back or try to negotiate a trade. The team that claims him would assume the rest of his salary and contract as well.

But the plot thickens. On Sunday, news came out that neither Lind nor John Farrell had been told about the move. The line everyone was being given was that Lind needed some time in Vegas to work some stuff out and he’d be back with the team. Whether or not the Jays are trying to drop Lind altogether is one thing, but just the fact that he’s off the 40-man roster puts a significant barrier between Lind and the big leagues. He can’t just be called up to fill in when somebody gets on the DL.

Fans, reporters, and pundits were at a loss to explain. Why take Lind off of the 40-man? Why didn’t anyone tell John Farrell, let alone Lind? Why did Alex Anthopolous tell reporters that it was a temporary move just hours before putting Lind on waivers?

My initial reaction, one I shared with many others, was that they were trying to open up roster space for Vladimir Guerrero, who played his first game of the year in the minor leagues the other night. However, the Jays could have cleared the same 40-man roster spot by transferring pitcher Dustin McGowan to the 60-Day Disabled List. Moreover, it’s unlikely Guerrero’s going to come up to the Jays without a little more seasoning, making the timing suspect.

It seems as though the Jays really are interested in getting rid of Lind if they can. I don’t think it’s terribly likely that anyone will claim him—his value is far below his contract right now—but it sure looks like the Jays are putting him out there just in case the same lightning that got Alex Rios off their hands strikes twice.

Kevin Youkilis. Photograph by Googie Man. Reproduced under Creative Commons

Also, the move opens up space for some roster flexibility. Amidst the Lind news, there were more rumours that we could expect more developments to the Jays roster today—something bigger than Guerrero getting called up. With Alex Anthopolous, you never know. There could be a trade in the offing, and the Jays certainly have their needs at first base. I’m not sure who they’d be talking to, but I have to admit that Kevin Youkilis comes to mind. It’s not a trade I like for the Jays. As much as I love Youk, he’s a big injury risk and a big salary to take on. From the Sox’ perspective, his value is at the lowest it has ever been and they’d probably be wise to let him show how well he’s recovered from his ailing back before dealing him. Plus, there’s the fact that neither the Sox nor the Jays are likely eager to trade within the American League East.

But, stranger things have happened. I, for one, will be paying close attention to MLB Trade Rumours today, and hopefully there will be more news laster.

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May 18, 2012

Disciplining Umpires, Redux

Since my last post on the whole Brett Lawrie thing, there have been some doings a-transpiring. Lawrie was handed a four-game suspension, which he was going to appeal, and then didn’t. More to the point of my comments, the discussion of umpire discipline has blown up a little bit.

Umpire Bob Davidson

Bob Davidson. Photograph by UNCCTF. Reproduced under Creative Commons.

Fox Sports’s Ken Rosenthal has been pretty good about providing a few facts about umpires and league discipline. Now, hot on the heels of all this discussion, Major League Baseball has announced the one-game suspension of umpire Bob Davidson for his little dust-up with Phillies’ manager Charlie Manuel a few days ago.* I don’t believe the timing of this is coincidental. Not that it isn’t justified: I happened to be watching that Phillies game and Davidson quite audibly swore, certainly within the hearing of the first few rows of fans, and gave it to ol’ Charlie as good as he got. I suppose that qualifies as “violation[] of … standards of situation handling,” or, in other words, behaviour unbecoming of a Major League umpire.

I appreciate this case because it lets us abstract the issue of umpire accountability away from the Lawrie incident. There’s no question: Lawrie acted like an idiot. He can justify it all he likes with platitudes like “It was just my passion for the game,” but the truth is he couldn’t control his temper and deserved to be reprimanded for it. He behaved unprofessionally and needs some time to think about what he’s done. I think there’s some bad luck involved—if the helmet hadn’t hit the ump in the leg, the conversation would have been very different—but it’s probably a good thing that Lawrie learns there are consequences to his jacked-up, “aggro” style of baseball. But by focusing on whether or not Lawrie was in the right or in the wrong (and he was clearly in the wrong), we risk missing a more profitable discussion about accountability among the league’s on-field officials. The Davidson case, maybe, will let us talk about it a bit more.

Brett Lawrie, September 1 2011. Photograph by Keith Allison. Reproduced under Creative Commons.

As Jayson Stark said on Twitter, this is actually a pretty big deal. Stark writes, “If any ump has ever been suspended for improper ‘situation handling’ either I don’t recall it or MLB has never announced it. Big story!” It sure is, and it’s a move I applaud. As I suggested previously, umpires have an awful lot of power in the game, and it is gratifying to see baseball take steps to remind them that we are trying to play and watch a civilized game here. Davidson’s being made an example of here, and hopefully other umpires take heed.

With that said, I don’t think this actually addresses the issue that’s been raised eloquently by Cody Ross and less eloquently by Brett Lawrie. That issue is simply that some umpires are sometimes not very good at their jobs. Last night, Alex Aviles was ejected from the Red Sox / Rays game for arguing balls and strikes, including some very, very questionable calls. As Rosenthal points out in his video, umpires are human, too. I accept that. But how human are they allowed to be?

One of the things that Cody Ross said that I think bears repeating is that if he, as a player, strikes out repeatedly, or can’t produce hits or runs or outs, his team has recourse against him. It can be tough but they can get rid of him. They can put him on the bench, send him back down to the minors, trade him, or even release him outright. This provides a pretty strong incentive to perform. And, for players, there’s an incredible amount of hard data to justify a decision to keep a player up or to sit him down. Adam Lind hasn’t been playing very well lately, and so he’s in Las Vegas, not Toronto this weekend.

Is there a similar disincentive for umpires? Do umpires get sent up or down from the minors? I think that if it doesn’t already have that power, baseball should. In the very least, it is a matter that Major League Baseball should be more transparent about. They should tell the fans what kind of system they have in place to deal with umpires who consistently make bad calls or cannot consistently call balls and strikes. I think the fan base, and the player, for that matter, deserve it.

* Forgive Toronto fans if they delight in Davidson’s suspension more than most. Davidson was responsible for denying Kelly Gruber what seemed like a clear triple play in Game 3 of the 1992 World Series.

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May 16, 2012

The Wrath of Brett Lawrie

EDIT: Sorry the embedded video’s not working. Trying to figure out why.

In last night’s loss to the Rays, Jays’ third-baseman Brett Lawrie took exception to a couple of calls made by home plate umpire Bill Miller in the ninth inning:

http://mlb.mlb.com//shared/flash/video/share/ObjectEmbedFrame.swf?width=400&height=254&content_id=21468797&property=mlb

First of all, I’d never, ever want to make Brett Lawrie angry. That wasn’t quite as terrifying as John Rauch’s blow-up last year, but probably only because Lawrie’s not a giant.

Second of all, the incident led to two discussions, one of which is more interesting than the other. The first discussion was the degree to which Lawrie will be punished. He got very, very angry, and we can assume that he let loose a series of expletives the kind of which few of us will ever by subject to. He also threw his helmet, and it bounced up and hit Miller in the leg. I agree that Lawrie deserves disciplinary action. However, I hope that Major League Baseball doesn’t over-react. From my vantage point, the fact that helmet hit Miller was purely accidental. Lawrie threw it down to the ground with great force, and he’s a strong guy; I think it’s a bit of a stretch to even consider that he was trying to hit Miller on the rebound here. He probably should be suspended, but at most for a couple of games. This is not the Delmon Young bat-throwing incident. I don’t care to speculate what Major League Baseball hands down—there’s no hard and fast rule for these kinds of things. I just hope, for the Blue Jays’ and Lawrie’s sake, that they don’t over-react.

However, the more interesting discussion that’s emerged out of this incident is less about Lawrie than it is Miller and the issue of umpire accountability. With the mounting clamor for video reply on close plays (much louder ever since Jim Joyce’s blown call cost Armando Gallaraga a perfect game) more and more players and fans are wondering why umpires are never disciplined for their own poor decisions on the field. Red Sox outfielder Cody Ross articulated it best:

If I’m going up there and striking out every at-bat, I’m going to get benched. But it’s not that way with [umpires]. They can go out there and make bad calls all day, and they’re not going to be held accountable for it. It’s tough. It’s such a tough situation. Believe me, I’ve umpired before. It’s tough. It’s hard. But at this level, I don’t know what to say. You’ve got to bear down.

Umpire "Cowboy" Joe West

Umpire “Cowboy” Joe West. Photograph by Keith Allison. Reproduced under Creative Commons.

I’m one of those people who has argued against the expansion of video reply in the game. I don’t do so because I’m afraid of it being a time suck or anything like that. Rather, it’s because I love the organic, human factor of umpiring. I appreciate that umps will sometimes make terrible calls. Sometimes it will hurt my team; sometimes it will help. I like that a pitcher has to figure out an umpire’s strike zone to really get in a groove. Part of the beauty of baseball is the way that, even in a game that is so rigidly monitored, there’s an element of unpredictability. Just like every park has its own nooks and crannies, so to does every umpire. I like that.

But Ross has a valid, and important, point. The human factor has its downside. It’s easy to watch the Lawrie call and think that he was being punished for running to first a bit too quickly on strike two. That kind of reprisal is not fair: the umpire has too much power. There is nothing a player can do in response.

I don’t want to see computers calling balls and strikes. I really don’t. But I do want to see Major League Baseball institute some kind of system whereby umpires can face disciplinary action when they don’t do their job well. I realize it’s a tough job. I’ve umpired before, and when it’s a close play, the pressure can be tremendous. You have to make a call, decisively, and sometimes you make a bad one. Fine. But there are bad calls, and then there are bad calls.

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May 14, 2012

Baseball Bats in an Era of Mechanical Reproducibility

I’ve been neglecting this blog over the last week, without any good excuse, really. There’s been enough to talk about. The big story in baseball over the last seven days was the offensive clinic put on by Josh Hamilton. He hit nine home runs, including four in one game.

Photograph by Keith Allison. Reproduced under Creative Commons.

In his final at-bat last night, Hamilton hit a little single to left field that cracked the bat. It didn’t shatter dramatically. No part of the bat went sailing into the stands. There were no explosions or fireworks. Just a minor crack. But I love this part of the story. Hamilton used the same bat for all of his at-bats over his historic week, and it’s quite fitting that at last, its magic spent, the bat finally gave out. As Hamilton himself put it, “She died a hero. She was tired, she was getting as little weak.”

The bat’s now headed for Cooperstown, of course, where it will join other storied bats, of which baseball has its share. However, I’m disappointed that it doesn’t have a name. Not many bats do. Players go through them all too quickly to get attached to just one. In fact, the only named bats I can think of are either fictional (Roy Hobbs’ “Wonderboy” in The Natural, or Homer Simpson’s “Wonder Bat”) or belonged to “Shoeless” Joe Jackson (Black, and later Blonde, Betsy). It’s a shame. Every mythological hero needs an Excalibur, and Hamilton’s week was certainly the stuff of legends.

For now, though, it will probably just be labeled “Josh Hamilton’s bat from his historically good week in May 2012″ or something equally prosaic, probably exhibited alongside “George Brett’s bat from ‘The Pine Tar Incident’” and “Bobby Thompson’s Bat from ‘The Shot Heard ‘Round the World.’”

I’m inclined to read this singular lack of imagination as symbolic of something in the game itself. I like to think that growing up, every player has a favourite bat that, if he or she owns, is given a name, even if it is never uttered aloud. Major League Players, of course, go through them at an average rate of 100 a season. It’s hardly long enough to get attached.

Still, there’s something lost there, an aura, a mystique, that was present in the game long ago but is lost in twenty-first century baseball. We still have our heroes and legends, Hamilton among them, but without a weapon to call his own, it’s hard to imagine him standing shoulder-to-shoulder with somebody like Shoeless Joe. It’s the same thing that is lost with the proliferation of uninspired nicknames, like A-Rod, K-Rod, and, I heard this morning, S-Rod. Whatever happened to Hammering Hank? The Yankee Clipper? Spaceman?

I guess, at bottom, I’m worried that one of the things I most love about baseball is itself getting discarded, like so many hundred Louisville Sluggers. Baseball needs its stories. It needs its myths. It needs its characters, lest it lose its own.

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May 8, 2012

Playing Bean Ball

On Sunday, Bryce Harper came up to bat for the first time against one of the Phillies many, many fine pitchers, Cole Hamels. That Harper’s been a lightning rod for criticism and commentary is no secret. At just 19, he’s already attracted his share of attention for both his prodigious skill and his brash, even cocky demeanour. He hits a monster home run, and then blows a kiss back at the pitcher as he rounds third.

After his first at-bat on Sunday, he was once again put in the middle of controversy, though this time not of his own creation:

Hamels admitted after the game that he deliberately threw at Harper and has been censured with a five-game suspension that will do very little to disrupt the Phillies’ rotation. It will cost him some money, yes, but it’s pretty safe to say that Hamels will lose little sleep over it, especially with the pay-day he’s due to receive as a free agent this coming off-season.

What likely stung Hamels more than the suspension was the in-game response: The Nationals’ Jordan Zimmerman responded in kind, hitting Hamels in the knee in his first at-bat of the game. Of course, Harper didn’t need anybody fighting his battles for him: he went first to third, and then stole home.

It probably should have ended there. This is baseball. Hamels wasn’t trying to hurt Harper. He threw at the most fleshy part of Harper’s body. This was a message, and after the game, Hamels was candid in what he was trying to say: “It’s just, `Welcome to the big leagues.’” Harper’s a rookie, and Hamels a veteran. Hamels was recognizing Harper’s presence, acknowledging that he’s probably here to stay, that he’s been identified as a ballplayer. The beanball was not a gesture of disrespect, nor was it an attempt to hurt Harper. On the contrary, it was a sign of Hamels’ regard for Harper.

I’m pretty sure Harper would agree. And I’m pretty sure that Harper felt pretty comfortable with the way things ended after the Nationals’ half of the first. One of the reasons why Harper’s so exciting to watch (and I think this is true of the Blue Jays’ Brett Lawrie as well) is that they play in an old-fashioned way. They run everything out. They play hard. And, they play to win. What Hamels did was a nod to that brand of baseball. Harper’s response was in kind, and I bet that at the end of the first inning, they probably would have gladly shaken each other’s hand. I got you, and you got me. We’re even. Now let’s play baseball.

The trouble is that these days, nothing’s allowed to be left on the ball field. Instead, we had Davey Johnson making ridiculous comparisons between Hamels’ pitch and the NFL’s headhunting scandal. We have Jim Leyland, who I generally like, saying that Hamels should have had a far more severe suspension.

It’s unfortunate, really. This isn’t headhunting. This isn’t even the same as Ubaldo Jimenez throwing at Troy Tulowitzki earlier in 2012. That came out of malice. That was a pitch thrown out of anger. This was a pitch thrown out of respect—respect for the Harper, and respect for an old-fashioned, down-and-dirty style of baseball that’s growing more and more distant in this era of carefully monitored pitch-counts, situational match-ups, and a general coddling of players.

So, honestly, I applaud Major League Baseball for giving Hamels what amounts to a slap on the wrist. Harper already had his revenge, and Hamels his punishment, before the first inning was even over.

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