BP Idol Entry: I Miss Skip & Pete

Author's Note: Recently, the Baseball Prospectus website asked for submissions for a new contest, Baseball Prospectus Idol. The editors would pick the ten best submissions, and the BP readers would vote off one writer each week. Unfortunately, I did not make the cut. Still, I was very proud of my submission. Since it won't be shown at BP, I'd like to introduce it here.

"Eleven to four
That's the score
And now the Braves
Will try for more."
-- Skip Caray

I can only think of four times over the past five years that I have been "giddy." Please understand that I am not a naturally giddy person; my level of emotion ranks somewhere between "shy and reserved" and "Vulcan." But I remember vividly what it was that made me, Sam the Eagle, giddy with joy like a little kid. It's no surprise that it was usually something to do with baseball:

1. Yankee Stadium. April 19, 2007. The Yankees are losing to the Indians, 6-2, in the 9th inning. Cleveland turns the game over to its – for lack of a better word – closer, Joe Borowski. But after a homer (Josh Phelps), a single (Posada), a walk (Damon), a single (Jeter) and another single (Abreu), the score is 6-5, and A-Rod is up. Everybody knows what's about to happen, but that just makes it even more special. A-Rod comes through in the clutch and hits a three-run bomb to right-center. Yankee Stadium goes berserk, and so do I. Every other day of my life, I hate the Yankees. But I've never felt so much like I had been a part of something special.

2. August 8, 2007: my roommate catches a foul ball at the Reds-Dodgers game. Andre Ethier slices a foul over our heads. It bounces off the façade overhead and lands somewhere near us. My roommate, Jonathon, lifts up his hot dogs, and the ball is right there in his lap. I think I actually bounced in my seat. I should have been mad; I've been to dozens of baseball games and haven't even come close to catching a ball. My roommate -- who only came along to take advantage of $1 Hot Dog Day – catches a foul ball at his first major league game.

3. January 2009: this is my top non-baseball experience. I stop in at a Barnes & Noble in New York City without realizing that Jimmy Carter is there to sign his new book. I buy the book and stand in a line that stretches around the block. It was about 20 degrees and windy. My eyes were too frozen to read, so after an hour or so, I turned around to talk to the chatty blonde behind me. It was Renee Zellweger. I got to chat with Renee Zellweger for an hour. Apparently, though, I didn’t make much of an impression. Renee (I can call her that now) mentioned her Jimmy Carter experience in a USA Today interview and listed all the people she got to talk to in line . . . except for me. Ow.

I've got something of a passion for listing and ranking things (I am a baseball fan), so I had to figure out which of these experiences was the biggest for me. All things considered, I should go with #3, right? When else am I going to meet a president and a movie star on the same night?

But to be totally honest, none of the three events listed above top my list. It's event #4.

4. On two separate occasions, I got to run around the bases at the Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati.

How does a trip around the bases of a six-year old park rival the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet a Nobel Prize-winner and an Oscar-winner on the same night? Because, somehow, getting that close to baseball meant more to me than getting even closer to a former President. As much as I may have crushed on Renee "Roxie Hart" Zellweger in the past, it can't compare to the way I've felt about baseball since I was four years old. No, the most amazing that that's happened to me in recent years was that I, a common, ordinary fan and undistinguished internet blogger, got to reach out and touch baseball.

And unfortunately, that experience seems more distant and improbable now than my evening with Jimmy and Renee.

In my role as internet blogger, I spend a lot of time writing about what is wrong with baseball. But several times I've asked myself this hypothetical question: what one thing, more than anything else, is wrong with baseball? I could never come up with just one answer. Oh, I could come up with a few things, such as drug use and publicly-funded stadiums and the DHL Hometown Heroes. But I couldn't come up with anything big enough to answer such a big question. But the answer was there. I just needed to reflect on my time on a Cincinnati baseball diamond to put it into words.

Baseball has lost the common touch.

That's it. That's what really bothers me. The "giddy" baseball experience is becoming a thing of the past. What I mean is that sometime during the last half-century, when the MLB's business was booming, it started to lose the ability to make a legitimate connection with its fans. It's very hard to pin down a specific cause or a specific date when things went wrong, but you can see its effects all around us in the modern sports world.

The easiest place to see this is right there on TV. Baseball's problems with television have been well-documented by people with a better understanding of the business than I. Still, think about how manufactured and distant the TV product has become in recent years. As for an example, I don't know where to start: graphic designs copied directly from football without recognizing the fundamental difference between the sports, announcers who have become so bland and inane that even the casual fan is forced to mute, or maybe just the sense that what you're being shown is just a well-funded ad campaign with little or no sincerity. Some fans would point to the MLB's attempt to put the Spiderman logo on the bases as a tipping point. I'm more annoyed by the WebMD Injury Update, which uses 21st-century medical imaging technology to show me a "sore knee."

That's why I miss Skip and Pete -- that is, Skip Caray and Pete van Wieren. It was a sad day for me, a lifelong Braves fan, to watch TBS cancel an old favorite and replace it with the most generic baseball broadcast in recent memory. Gone was the familiarity, the coziness and the sincerity of a guy like Skip, my favorite announcer. My favorite Skip moment came during a game in the late 90's, when the Braves exploded for a ten-run inning. Skip asked when the Braves had last put ten runs across in one inning, and was told (I believe) that it was sometime in the late 80's. To which he responded, "Back then we didn't score ten runs in a week."

But it's unfair to focus the blame on television; it's merely a symptom of a wider problem. Ballparks today are built and priced for the upper-middle class, leaving a crowd of rich white people wondering why African-Americans are choosing to play basketball and football. The lyrical and inventive sports writing of Rice, Lardner and Runyon has been bequeathed to a narrow-minded and insecure minority, bent on opposing the few progressive voices that do emerge on the national scene.

Outside of a lucky chance for an autograph, the fans aren't getting that sincere experience from the players. They're not getting it from the owners or executives (where is Bill Veeck or Larry MacPhail when you really need them?). And they're especially not getting it from the Player's Union. Don Fehr seems like a very capable man, but his recent endeavors as the public face of the MLBPA have been disastrous.

In tough economic times, baseball needs to realize (and we need to remind them) what it is about the sport that makes it special to us. We need to tell them what we get from baseball that we just can't get anywhere else. It's not gone yet. Stand outside Wrigley Field and ask the fans. Go to the blogs and ask the writers. Pick up a book and learn from the historians. Make the effort; it's in your best economic interests.

Until that happens, I guess those few moments I have listed above are the only hope I can cling to that we can still find joy in the basic baseball experience and, as fans, demand more of it from the powers that be. It doesn't have to make me giddy. Maybe it could just make me happy. And maybe the next time I write about the subject, I'll have a top ten list instead of a top four list.

As for Skip, Harry, Ernie, Ring, Damon, Yogi, Casey, Bill Veeck and all the rest: I think they would have wanted it that way.

Baseball Book Review: Forever Blue by Michael D'Antonio

If any baseball figure represents pure evil in the hearts of longtime fans, it isn't Barry Bonds. Nor Alex Rodriguez, Pete Rose, Ty Cobb, or even the Chicago Black Sox. No, for many people, especially traditionalists, the most evil figure in baseball history is Walter O'Malley, who owned and operated the Dodgers for more than thirty years. What possible transgression could the owner of a baseball team commit that would surpass the damage done by the players listed above?

Simple. He moved the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.

It is this one act that has defined him -- and damned him -- for many, many years. But O'Malley's true impact on the game of baseball was quite vast and covered many different aspects of the game. In Forever Blue: The True Story of Walter O'Malley, Michael D'Antonio gets to the bottom of this familiar myth and tries to reveal the truthbehind it. Yes, O'Malley did, as owner of the Dodgers, make the decision to move the team to Los Angeles. However, the characterization of him as an evil manipulator who broke the hearts of a neighborhood and ripped a civic institution away from a passionate community is the utter fiction. That the myth has survived so long proves the persistence of true hatred, especially when it comes to baseball.

For the most part, Michael D'Antonio does a fine job with his biography of O'Malley. He offers a concise view of the years leading up to his involvement with the Dodgers, astutely noting the most relevant stories and putting them together to create a realistic image of this now-mythical man. Granted, the end leaves much to be desired, but I'll get to that later.

Walter O'Malley came to own the Dodgers in a very roundabout way. As part of his job with the Brooklyn Trust Company, O'Malley was assigned to keep close tabs on one of the bank's biggest debtors: the Brooklyn Dodgers. The "Daffiness Boys" of the 1930's were rarely winners, but they always entertained the fans and soon became a part of the Brooklyn cultural identity. Unfortunately, the Dodger "daffiness" also applied to the team's business dealings off the field. The team's financial affairs were a mess. Not only that, but decision-making at the executive levels was thwarted by squabbling among the heirs of the team's previous owners. It's hard to imagine a more hopeless situation for a young, inexperienced lawyer such as Walter O'Malley.

But the situation was not hopeless, and that is thanks chiefly to two men. One is Branch Rickey, baseball's "Mahatma," hired away from the Cardinals to recreate the formula of small-budget success that had worked so well in St. Louis.

The work of Branch Rickey in rejuvenating the Dodgers has been well-documented. He is noted not only for signing Jackie Robinson and breaking baseball's color barrier, but for creating a true dynasty out of the Dodgers, which would win four pennants with him as the team's General Manager.

But the role of Walter O'Malley in the Dodgers' turn-around has gone virtually unnoticed. If Rickey's greatest accomplishments came with putting talent on the field and building up a farm system, O'Malley (who finally bought out the squabbling heirs) managed to turn the once-laughable franchise into a profit-making enterprise. He was helped not just by the club's on-field success, but by the nationwide baseball boom that came after World War II.

The relationship between Rickey and O'Malley was thorny, undoubtedly. But despite rumors of a deep hatred, the two men managed to work with each other remarkably well. What ultimately brought about Rickey's departure from Brooklyn was not personal animus, but the Mahatma's princely salary. Rickey left to run the Pirates while O'Malley became the unquestioned leader of the Dodgers.

In Rickey's absence, the team managed to do the unthinkable: win a World Series. Having lost the fall classic to the Yankees in 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952, and 1953, the baseball world was understandably shocked when the 1955 Dodgers defeated the hated Yanks in an exciting, seven-game thriller.

The success of 1955 was undercut, however, by persistent reports that O'Malley was considering moving the team to Los Angeles. O'Malley asserted that he was committed to keeping the Dodgers in Brooklyn. But the Dodger faithful's worst fear was realized after the 1957 season, when the team confirmed the rumors that it would be moving to Los Angeles for 1958.

This decision has been the central factor of the O'Malley biography ever since. In the standard version of the story, O'Malley is evil, scheming owner, with the slicked-back hair and the big cigar. He became the symbol for all power-hungry business owners who would sacrifice anything for money.

D'Antonio devotes the bulk of Forever Blue to debunking this myth, with great success. It would be impossible to list here all the evidence offered in the book to counter the prevailing sentiment, but suffice to say that O'Malley was not the evil man of myth. On the contrary, he went to great extremes to keep the Dodgers in Brooklyn, including: sounding out prominent architects (including Buckminster Fuller) to design a new, domed stadium; offering to pay for the stadium entirely with private money; and even considering a compromise location in Queens (where Shea Stadium would eventually be built). We can never know exactly how devoted he was to staying in Brooklyn, but O'Malley was absolutely right when he said that he had tried everything to keep the team in Brooklyn.

O'Malley's sticking point was that he needed a new stadium, and to get a new stadium he obviously needed a place to put it. And there he ran into an insurmountable obstacle: Robert Moses, head of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority. Far from a lowly bureaucrat, Moses was quite simply the most powerful figure in city government. His rise to power (and his abuse of such) is chronicled in the tome The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro. O'Malley needed Moses to condemn a sizable area so that the Dodgers could construct their new, domed stadium. Moses refused.

In this, perhaps, we have found the true villain in this affair. Moses sabotaged the city committee to develop a plan for a new stadium and often set outrageous conditions which he knew full well O'Malley couldn't accept. After the Dodgers left, it was Moses (with the help of poison-pen baseball writers Dick Young and Arthur Daley) who cast O'Malley in the role of the evil businessman.

This is the account that has survived, more or less, to the present day. But it is simply not supported by the facts. Despite the league-wide boom in baseball attendance, the Dodgers actually saw their attendance decrease steadily from its peak in the late 40's. In 1955, the year they won the World Series, the team barely drew one million fans (The 1948 club drew nearly 1.4 million, despite finishing 3rd). If Brooklyn fans were hopelessly devoted to the team, they weren't too eager to watch them play.

O'Malley keenly recognized the trend and feared that it would only get worse. Ebbetts Field was falling apart. The "white flight" was on, as Dodger fans fled to the suburbs were replaced by lower-income fans, often immigrants, with less disposable income. This change in the racial and social climate of the neighborhood also made whites reluctant to attend games there, especially since there were laughably few parking spots around the ballpark.

On the other coast, gangs of public figures and civic groups were positively clamoring to bring baseball to California. They painted idyllic pictures of baseball in the sunshine and promised numerous economic and practical benefits in order to entice a major league team. Most importantly, though, is that the California boosters weren't committed to the Dodgers. If O'Malley didn't move to L.A., someone else would -- and soon. If O'Malley was beaten to the punch by Cal Griffith (who was desperate to move his Senators), then he'd have lost a chance at great glory and even greater profit.

Put in this light, it's hard to imagine what else O'Malley could have done to keep the team in Brooklyn. Was he self-interested? Sure. Was he hungry for profits? Absolutely. But Brooklyn's devotion to the Dodgers has been exaggerated with time. Time has also revealed that O'Malley wasn't alone; all business owners are profit-seekers, even baseball owners. People like Dick Young did not want to see baseball as a business, but that didn't change the fact that it was a business. Walter O'Malley was the first to publicly embrace the idea, and his image has suffered for it ever since. So Michael D'Antonio has attempted to set the record straight.

I have only two complaints with the book. The first is its strong tendency to interpret events in a light most favorable to O'Malley. It's troubling to read a biography detailing a number of disputes and disagreements where the subject is almost never at fault. I'm not arguing with the author's facts, per se, but rather his disarming tendency to take O'Malley at his word and ignore any interpretation that might suggest that he was either lying or telling the truth for selfish ends. O'Malley is depicted as an ambitious businessman with a keen ability for politics, but one with honest intentions and a devotion to do what was right by his employees. But there are many cases where that depiction of O'Malley rings quite false.

This brings me to my second problem: O'Malley's later years, after the team's move to Los Angeles, are given short shrift. Walter O'Malley is an important baseball figure for many reasons. It's not just the Dodgers' move to California that makes biography important to our understanding of baseball.

D'Antonio account of this period is troubling, mainly because it's confined to the last 20 pages of a 321-page book. Forever Blue devotes almost 95% of the book to O'Malley's life from birth to the construction of Dodger Stadium in 1962. The years 1963-1979 occupy about 6% of the text, and even then they're sharing space with the author's final thoughts and conclusions, not to mention a full-page anecdote about going on safaris.. O'Malley's role as the most powerful man in baseball during the development of the player's union and the arrival of free agency is discussed only in passing. That's a terrible shame.

And even then, D'Antonio makes O'Malley sound like a hero. D'Antonio admits to O'Malley's power over the other owners, but in an utterly harmless manner that suggests that O'Malley was king simply because he was the best and the brightest in baseball, not because of any backroom manipulation. He goes so far as to depict O'Malley as a genuine friend of the labor union and its leader, Marvin Miller. At no time does he suggest that O'Malley's attitude was paternalistic or calculated, despite a great deal of evidence to the contrary.

So we're left with a book that only partly succeeds in its mission. As "The True Story of Walter O'Malley," Forever Blue does an admirable job of talking about O'Malley's rise to power and his experience moving the Dodgers to Los Angeles. This puts O'Malley in a much more favorable light than is generally accepted, but D'Antonio does so with sound reasoning that effectively illuminates O'Malley's decision-making.

As to the rest of O'Malley's life, we're left unfulfilled. While the facts and quotes D'Antonio cites may be the true story, they are in no way the whole story. His decision to consign O'Malley's later career to the final chapter of footnotes and anecdotes is puzzling and leaves a very pivotal period of his life - and baseball history - unexplored.

So I have to say that Forever Blue is a book worth reading, but only to a certain point. If you're looking for the inside story on Walter O'Malley and the Dodgers' move to Los Angeles, then this is the best account I've come across. But if you really want the whole story about Walter O'Malley, I'm afraid this book does not suffice.

The 15 Greatest Baseball Books

I recently had a reader ask for my list of the best baseball books ever written. Keeping in mind that there are many important books that I haven't read, I was still excited to be able to share some of my favorites. Summer reading season is approaching, and what better way is there to show your commitment to baseball than to haul a 600-page statisical tome to the beach. Sure, the people around you reading 150-page light romance novels may think you're a big geek. But as someone who likes to write lists of his favorite baseball books, I've come to terms with my geekiness.



The reason that this is a Top 15 list is that I started with a Top 10 list but couldn't bear to exclude any more books. Even so, I'm going to include a small list of "recommended reading" for some books that still didn't make the cut.


Before I get into specific books, I want to talk about a few staples of the baseball library that don't really belong on the list, for various reasons:

• Baseball Encyclopedias. Baseball encyclopedias used to be an essential part of any fan's library. But with the emergence of the internet -- especially retrosheet.org and the online baseball eden known as baseball-reference.com -- fans can get most of the stats in the encyclopedias for free online. There's also a Sabermetric Baseball Encyclopedia developed by Lee Sinins and sold as a computer program. I bought my last real baseball encyclopedia in 2003 (picking up the last edition of the Total Baseball series), but recently bought Sinins' program, which offers more options than your average website.
  


• Annuals, or Season Previews: These are often fantastic and invaluable sources of information. But if I included them on the Top 15 list, they'd take up 5 spots. And an annual's value obviously isn't as timeless as that of any other book. Some exceptions would be the Bill James Baseball Abstracts published in the late 70's and early 80's. Now, the premier baseball annuals are those published by Baseball Prospectus every February. You can also get a great deal of info and analysis from The Hardball Times, which published two books this offseason: a recap of the 2008 season and a preview of the 2009 season.
  


• Magazines/Journals/Periodicals: I'll admit that my experience with baseball as a scholarly enterprise is new, so I have very little experience with journals. I do keep some old periodicals, not just for nostalgia but also if there's a particularly interesting article in it. And I do have a few newspapers from notable days in baseball history, as well.

And with that said, on to the books!

15. Eight Men Out
by Eliot Asinof

This book has earned its status as one of the most celebrated sports books of all time. Asinof does an admirable job of playing the detective and bringing a fascinating group of people from different places into one coherent timeline.
Even 90 years after the fact, there are still many aspects of the Black Sox scandal that are quite controversial. Some challenge Asinof's account, which is valid in some instances, but I would point out that Asinof is pretty honest about the murkiness of certain parts of the story.
This was turned into an excellent film by John Sayles that does a fairly good job of representing Asinof's book. The key to the film is not just the tight screenplay but an impressive list of actors, including John Cusack, Charlie Sheen, D.B. Sweeney, Bill Irwin, Studs Terkel, Sayles himself, Christopher Lloyd, Michael Lerner and an excellent David Strathairn.

14. The Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination with Statistics
by Alan Schwarz

Schwarz says that he wrote this book because he had always wanted to read it. His effort shows in his ability to take the pioneers of baseball statistics and examine their passion for the game as well as their understanding of it. Schwarz looks at great baseball insiders (and outsiders) and illustrates how their work paved the way for future generations and changed the way we view the game.
Schwarz's readable style makes some pretty abstract concepts accessible to the reader. Casual baseball fans shouldn't shy away from this book. If you're uncomfortable with ultra-modern stats but know your way around the back of a baseball card, you can understand this book.
The only drawback is that sometimes Schwarz is a little too casual in his approach. His efforts to humanize his subjects results in a sentence like this, which opens up Chapter 4:
"The Georgian Bay off Lake Huron lay peaceful and still, tall trees standing sentry over the scene's verdant tranquility."
Alan Schwarz may not be Wordsworth, but he is a good author. Check out the book.

#13: The Pitch that Killed
by Mike Sowell

Perhaps no other season in baseball was as much of a turning point as 1920. Interest in the game was booming following the end of World War I, the spitball was about to be outlawed, Babe Ruth joined the Yankees and hit an earth-shattering 54 home runs, baseball hired its first commissioner, rumors about a crooked World Series would result in the banning of eight baseball players in the middle of the pennant race, and en executive decision to use cleaner, whiter, and fresher baseballs helped usher in an offensive renaissance. The latter change was largely the result of the titular killer pitch.
Sowell does a good job of bringing together all of these disparate trends into his story, which mainly follows the Indians through their season, which hinged around the tragic death of shortstop Ray Chapman. My only problem is that Sowell spends a great deal of time talking about game stories. A certain number of them are necessary, but there were 154 of them in the 1920 season, and it's hard to get excited about all of them.

#12: Mind Game: How the Boston Red Sox Got Smart, Won a World Series and Created a New Blueprint for Winning
by Steve Goldman & the Baseball Prospectus Team of Writers

This is the first book (not counting the annuals) written as a team effort by the staff of BaseballProspectus.com. And in my opinion, it's still the best. The book consists of a series of essays and studies looking at different aspects of the 2004 Red Sox, including how they got where they were and what made them so good. It is pretty stat-heavy, though, so those uncomfortable with VORP and EQA might want to think twice before diving in.
However, my favorite chapter has very little to do with statistics at all. It argues that the racism that was endemic to the club for nearly 50 years was as much a factor in their failures as any "curse."

#11: Weaver on Strategy
by Earl Weaver with Terry Pluto

There are surprisingly few managing manifestos written by Hall-of-Fame managers. Perhaps it's because managers are paranoid about sharing secrets. This makes some sense, since it's not uncommon for a "retired" manager to become un-retired. So we should treasure what we have here: a guide to managerial strategy by one of the greatest. Weaver goes through everything, from how to run a Spring Training camp to how to argue with an umpire (he had some experience in that area).
I'm a bit biased here in that Weaver's views on managing are consistent with what modern performance analysis has told us. When Bill James came along in the 70's, or when Moneyball came along in the 00's, most baseball traditionalists said that these were impractical ideas thought up by outsiders and robots who didn't know the first thing about inside baseball. Of course, if those nay-sayers had done their homework (homework is for robots!), they would have realized that many of the theories these new statistical tools were telling us weren't new at all. Not only that, but some of their top champions, including Earl Weaver, were as "inside" baseball as you can be.
Weaver famously believed in pitching, defense and the three-run homer. More specifically, though, he liked players who could take a walk (Weaver's Orioles always drew their walks) and hit home runs (Weaver loved the homer in an era when it was falling out of style). He didn't reject incomplete players or those with a glaring weakness; he focused on what they could do and used an innovative approach to get as much as he could from each member of his roster. Also, Weaver wasn't afraid of the unorthodox (keeping the four-man rotation) or the downright heretical (he hated the hit-and-run and thought too much bunting was counter-productive). Any coach, fan, or analyst would do well to listen to what Earl has to say. Especially if you are a manager, whether it's in the Little League or the Major Leagues.

#10: Only the Ball Was White: A History of Legendary Black Players and All-Black Professional Teams
by Robert Peterson

This book was first published in 1970, and yet it's still the best book I've come across to introduce new audiences to the Negro Leagues. Peterson effectively covers the main points of interest in the history of all-black baseball, from the injustices faced by "Fleet" Walker to the great energy and acumen of Andrew "Rube" Foster, to the amazing feats of Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, "Pop" Lloyd and Oscar Charleston.
There has been a great deal of research done in recent years to fill the historical gaps in Peterson's book. Our anecdotal and statistical knowledge has helped flesh out the existing knowledge of many unjustly forgotten stars. Even so, the books that have been released in the years since haven't surpassed Peterson's work in offering such a valuable and accessible view of this unheralded portion of baseball history.

#9: Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Blunders
by Rob Neyer

This is the second of the three "Big Books" released by Neyer so far. Rob Neyer's column on ESPN.com has long been a favorite of those interested in performance analysis, not just for his sharp understanding of the subject but because of his great wit and gift for storytelling. He combines all three in this book.
Most fans will be familiar with most or all of these stories, and thus we're interested to hear Neyer's take on what was (or was not) a real blunder. Neyer defines a "blunder" as not just a mistake, but a mistake of choice (not just an on-field error or mental mess-up) where the poor consequences should have been evident from the beginning. For example: nobody really expected Curt Schilling to be a Hall-of-Famer, so we can't really pin the "blunder" label on the teams that traded him. But trading a 30-year-old Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas? That's a blunder.
Most of these stories are stories of front office executives or managers with a big, glowing "What Were They Thinking" sign hanging over their heads. Since blunders require forethought and decision-making, they're rarely made by players on the field. Unless, of course, you're caught stealing to end the World Series.

#8: Bang the Drum Slowly
by Mark Harris

This is the only fiction book on the entire list. There's not a wholt lot of baseball fiction out there, but there are some pretty notably books, namely: The Natural by Bernard Malamud, Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella and The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant by Douglas Wallop. I confess that I've read neither Malamud's nor Kinsella's book (I liked Wallop's book, which was the basis for Damn Yankees, but it didn't make the cut). I have very little inclination to read sentamentalist baseball literature.I don't intend to make "sentamentalist" sound like an insult; that genre just isn't my cup of tea. That's also why you won't find The Boys of Summer mentioned here, despite it's presence on nearly every other comparable list.
Keeping that in mind, you should be doubly surprised to see Mark Harris' book about a catcher dying of cancer on my list. It's hard to describe why this appealed to me so much. I think it's mainly because of the narrator, Henry Wiggin. Wiggin, nicknamed "Author" by his teammates, is the ace pitcher for the New York Mammoths. He's a very unique character in baseball fiction; he has an incredibly dry sense of humor as well as a very strong sense of detachment. This makes him a great observer of other people, in particular ballplayers, coaches and managers. And Harris gives Wiggin plenty to see and comment on (TEGWAR!).
And yet, Wiggin's closest friend on the team is quiet, slow-witted backup catcher Bruce Pearson. Pearson is a laid-back southern boy; he's not very intelligent, but he cares very much about hunting, fishing, his parents, and a prostitute that he keeps proposing to. Wiggin's relationship to Bruce (which is the heart of the book's development) is amazing. He sacrifices a great deal to make sure that the team doesn't find out about the cancer. As a player, Bruce is a scrub; if the team knew about the disease, he'd be replaced. The title refers to an Old West song, the poignance of which is not lost on Wiggin, or the reader.
This was made into a TV film in 1956 starring Paul Newman, and then remade as a theatrical release in 1973 starring Michael Moriarty as Wiggin and Robert DeNiro as Pearson. The film is good enough, but it loses a lot when we don't have Wiggin's voice guiding us through.
(Having expressed my personal dislike for baseball fiction I should note, as a postscript, that I haven't read the classic works of famed baseball scribes Ring Lardner and Damon Runyon. I'm looking to remedy that soon.)

#7: Cobb: A Biography
by Al Stump

My brother and I are both especially fascinated by Ty Cobb. We're intrigued by the player and the man, but moreso the man. So we both felt that, going into this book, nothing could possibly make us think worse of Ty Cobb than we already did.
We were wrong.
The book is the story of Stump's attempt to ghost-write Cobb's autobiography in the superstar's fading years. Stump's time with Cobb is beyond description. He basically claims (without exaggeration) that Cobb was a psychopath, and Stump had a higher opinion of Cobb than most.
Famed baseball writer Roger Kahn, author of The Boys of Summer, says that the book is "[t]he most powerful baseball biography I have read." I absolutely agree. The only reason I don't rate this book any higher is that it's hard to issue a glowing recommendation for a book that was in many respects very unpleasant to read.

#6: Veeck -- as in "Wreck"
by Bill Veeck & Ed Linn

In a sport that's teeming with eccentrics and compelling characters, Bill Veeck still manages to stand out. He's most famous for his wild publicity stunts, but he was also an innovator, an iconoclast and a winner.
Veeck is one of the game's great storytellers. Part of that reputation is that he tended to favor entertainment value rather over accuracy. But he's no bald-faced liar -- at least no more than any other baseball legend writing autobiography.
The most controversial (and fascinating) story in Veeck's book is his claim that, when baseball was still segregated, he tried to buy the hapless Philadelphia Phillies with the intention of stocking them with Negro League All-Stars. Veeck claims that he made the mistake of telling Commissioner Landis, and soon after that the team was sold right out from under him. However, there's never been any shred of proof uncovered to back up this story. Is Veeck telling the truth? I don't really know. But it's a great story.
Even more than storytelling, Veeck's greatest skill was as a crowd-pleaser, whether that crowd was in the bleacher seats, in the press box or in the courtroom. The only people he never pleased -- the ones that utterly detested him -- were his fellow owners. And the stories of his dealings with fellow owners are quite fascinating.
So come for the stories -- stories about his pennant-winning Go-Go White Sox, his integration of the American League and the subsequent World Championship won as owner of the Indians in 1948, and best of all, stories about the terrible St. Louis Browns, including the midget Eddie Gaedel, the tightrope walker and "Grandstand Manager" night.

#5: The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (2003 Edition)
by Bill James

James's new abstract is a make-over of his original Historical Baseball Abstract, published in 1986. The biggest difference in the new version is the use of James's new all-inclusive statistic: Win Shares. James uses Win Shares to update his rankings of the all-time 100 greatest players at each position. I've heard from several people that they prefer the 1986 edition, at least in part because they're not sold on Win Shares. Still, I very much enjoy the new edition, and the '86 version is out of print.
James' position-by-position ranking of the all-time greatest players is fuel for some serious arguing. Any attempt to re-examine history using statistics as a tool is going to seriously change our understanding of it. Even among those who do favor statistics, James' arguments remain hotly debated to this day. Was Darrell Evans really a Hall-of-Famer? Was Jeff Bagwell really the fourth-best first baseman of all time? Are Tinker, Evers, and Chance overrated simply because they were the subject of a poem? You simply have to read this book to find out the answer, and deal with even more questions.
Whether you agree with James or not, you have to respect his opinion as well as the evidence he backs it up with. You'll love the historical research done on a great many aspects of the game's evolution, as well as Bill's great sense of humor.

#4: Total Ballclubs
by Donald Dewey & Nicholas Acocella

Total Ballclubs looks at every major league ballclub in history, even those who were only around for a couple of years (or a couple of months). It focuses mainly on the activity behind the scenes of these franchises, and as such it constitutes an invaluable resource of information about the off-field history of each major league franchise and league.
Dewey and Acocella have compiled an excellent history of each major league franchise. Want to hear the story behind the rise (and fall) of all the big dynasties? Looking to find out how the best (and worst) teams of all time were created? This book is your answer, exhaustively researched with the background on every major move in the history of your favorite team, not to mention many more you never heard of.This would rank even higher except that I have two significant problems with the book. One, they provide no index. There are thousands of names, places and key phrases mentioned in a book like this, and it is infinitely tiresome to go flipping through several hundred pages looking for a single anecdote.
Two, there are no footnotes or endnotes. This is an even bigger problem, because it means that we have no idea where the authors are getting these quotes and this information. This is an even bigger headache for researchers, who are helpless to further explore the quotes and stories.Even with those two caveats, I would recommend Total Ballclubs in a heartbeat to any baseball aficionado. The serious fans can start at the beginning and dive in, and the more casual fans can skip the history of big-league ball in Altoona and just read about their favorite clubs.

#3: Ball Four
by Jim Bouton & Leonard Schechter

Ball Four was once SO popular that it has since generated something of a backlash. In the years after its release, it became a central part of the American sports experience, so much so that David Halberstam unleashed his hyperbole by declaring it, "A book deep in the American vein, so deep in fact it is by no means a sports book."
But if you pick up Ball Four as nothing more than a book (a sports book, despite what Halberstam says), I guarantee that you will not be disappointed. The book is famous for its shock and scandal, but it 2009 there is very little here that will take the reader aback (except, perhaps, for "beaver-shooting"). What makes the book such a thrill is its fresh view of baseball and its sense of humor. In a humorous way, Bouton is like a sane man in an insane world, and his observations are insightful even today. It's this unique viewpoint and "outsider" perspective that made the book so popular while also contributing to the demonization of Bouton after the book was released.
Baseball culture at the time was very insular; what went on in the locker room (and on the road, away from the wives) was not meant for outsiders. Bouton put a huge dent in that notion by injecting his book with a refreshing honesty. After years of being told that Mickey Mantle was an all-American boy who drank his milk and ate his Wheaties, the public was finally let in on the truth. And they did not enjoy the revelation that they'd been lied to for years upon years by a generation of sportswriters who might as well have been on the company payroll.
It's easier to understand this perspective when you consider that Ball Four was published in 1970, when a lot of other venerated American institutions were being challenged by both outsiders and insiders. One year later, another insider in the American establishment would publish a much more devastating expose, collectively known as the Pentagon Papers. Now, nothing written in a baseball book could ever be as groundbreaking as the information Daniel Ellsberg leaked to the press. But the situations are similar. Viewed in this light, Bouton's book wasn't just an expose, it was seen by many people (if not the author himself, exactly) as another shot fired in the culture wars. Halberstam's quote might seem hyperbolic today, but at the time, this book was seen as far more than just a collection of humorous anecdotes.
To me, though, that's the best way to enjoy the book. The culture wars of the 1970's have died down, but Ball Four survives as a humorous and insightful personal memoir.

#2: Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
by Michael Lewis

If Jim Bouton stuck a firecracker up the ass of the baseball establishment, then Michael Lewis at least gave it a scorching hot-foot. Moneyball didn't ignite a culture war as heated as the Ball Four fracas, but it came close. And just like Ball Four, readers in the years to come will read the book and wonder what all the damn fuss was about.
Upon its release, though, Moneyball was very controversial. Lewis, allowed access behind the scenes of the Oakland A's front office for an entire season, brought to light the revolutionary, iconoclastic and wildly successful tactics utilized by General Manager Billy Beane to build the A's into a perennial contender on a tight budget. The basic plot of the book is Beane (and his staff) looking for cheap talent, or, in financial jargon, "undervalued assets." They soon realized that the most undervalued asset was a player's ability to get on base, or to not make an out. That sounds very simple, and indeed it is the most important thing a hitter can do. Even more amazing, though, is how ignorant most baseball teams were to this very basic fact.
Lewis used the book as a chance to explore the great dichotomy between, on one hand, the A's: believers in OBP, stats and revolutionary thinkers such as Bill James, Pete Palmer and John Thorn, George Lindsay, Allen Roth and Eric Walker. And on the other hand, you have the baseball establishment: beholden to tradition, subjective analysis, the "five-tool player," the power of "intangibles," and the nobility of scouting.
It's no surprise that Lewis angered so many people, since his quest was to annihilate the basic conventional wisdom of baseball. Using the work of sabermetricians such as Bill James to back him up, Lewis supported the A's philosophy that, for example: OBP and home runs are underrated; a pitchers wins and losses are overrated; fielding is completely misunderstood; traditional scouting methods are incredibly flawed, and perhaps most importantly, that the concept of "intangibles" and "makeup" aren't quite as important as the beat reporters claim.
The hot-foot thus set off was immediately effective. Players, managers, announcers and executives rushed to fervently denounce Billy Beane, Moneyball, the A's and everything they stood for. (Oddly enough, Michael Lewis himself remained relatively uninvolved in the debate, due to a mistaken notion that Beane himself had written the book.)
It seemed as though there might be a baseball civil war approaching, and there were certainly many on the stats-friendly side who fought fire with fire. But the venom of the establishment turned out to be the last gasp of baseball's flat-earth movement. With a new generation of sportswriters and analysts given voice by the internet, the argument for statistical analysis won the battle -- if you could even call it a battle.
Because most of the theories put forth in Moneyball were essentially accurate and effective, they became adopted to a certain degree by almost every major league franchise. In fact, the arguments within Moneyball itself are fast becoming dated. On-base percentage is no longer underrated, pitchers don't get nearly as much credit for wins nor blame for losses as they used to, and the discipline of baseball scouting has incorporated (for the most part) statistical analysis, marrying the objective with the subjective, resulting in a much more effective hybrid model.
Moneyball has therefore receded into the past. Performance analysts have gained their own platform for expression, and they've also moved past the errors and mistakes of the book. The establishment's fear of the sky falling has been put to rest; no one wants to replace scouts with computers, and there's still room for them to argue on behalf of intangibles. Not only that, but some of the ideas (and figures) mentioned in the book helped the Boston Red Sox end the Curse of the Bambino in 2004. After that, even the deep wounds started to heal.
I guess the greatest success of Moneyball is that it helped fuel the very movement of baseball analysis and research that made the book largely obsolete in less than ten years.

#1: Lords of the Realm: The Real History of Baseball
by John Helyar

If I took every I've learned from every baseball book I've ever read and combined it, it might add up to what I learned reading Lords of the Realm. The book is quite simply monumental; it's absolutely unequalled in the pantheon of baseball literature. In fact, the book is full of so many details and so many vibrant stories at the very heart of the business of baseball that you start wondering why the hell you hadn't heard any of this before.
Okay, that may be an exaggeration. Its details aren't all relevatory. Although the book is a history of baseball owners and executives since the game's inception, the vast majority of the book deals with the free agent era of the 1970's and 1980's. Those who lived through the era and read the papers religiously may be less surprised than I was by the stories Helyar uncovers. Even so, I bet they'd still be drawn in by Helyar's expertise at recreating the many conflicts of the baseball era, or the great insight offered by bringing these events together, each in its proper place.
The author has a great journalist's talent for telling a story. Despite the incredibly dense and detailed ground he has to cover, Helyar keeps it entertaining by making it the human story of those involved; the book is so full of hilarious, insightful and pithy quotes that you simply can't keep track. His account of the free-for-all that ensued when Catfish Hunter was declared a free agent in 1974 is amazing reading.
But the most important section of this book, in my opinion, concerns the Collusion scandal of the mid-80's. It's the most important because it's the least-publicized and least-remembered. If the actions of the owners during the Collusion era were subjected to even a fraction of the moralizing focused on individual players (and the player's union) now, it would change most any fan's perception of the game, and not for the better.
It's for stories like these that baseball books need to be written. And for that, we have Lords of the Realm to thank.

Additional recommended reading:
Clearing the Bases by Allen Barra; Baseball Prospectus 2009 by The BP Team of Experts; The Juice by Will Carroll; The Black Prince of Baseball by Dewey & Acocella; Game of Shadows by Mark Fainaru-Wada & Lance Williams; Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame? by Bill James; The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers by Bill James; The Head Game by Roger Kahn; Sandy Koufax by Jane Leavy; Feeding the Monster by Seth Mnookin; I Was Right on Time by Buck O'Neil; Maybe I'll Pitcher Forever by "Satchel" Paige as told to David Lipman; Branch Rickey's Little Blue Book by Branch Rickey; The Glory of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter; I Never Had It Made by Jackie Robinson; The SABR Baseball List & Record Book by SABR; Baseball's Great Experiment by Jules Tygiel; Past Time by Jules Tygiel, and many more.

If you have a favorite baseball book that I didn't mention, please let me know. I have to get started reading some of the great baseball books that just came out this year . . .

When a Six-Run Inning Isn't the Pitcher's Fault

In Saturday's game versus the Rays, Jon Lester got off to a pretty good start. After giving up a two-run homer to Evan Longoria in the 1st, Lester regained his form and threw three scoreless innings. Until the 5th inning, that is, when everything fell apart. When the bleeding stopped, the Rays had scored six runs and had taken an 8-1 lead. The funny thing is, those six runs weren't really Lester's fault.
How can a pitcher give up six runs and not take most or all of the blame? You have to fault the defense, right? Nope, not their fault either. The Sox didn't commit an error in the inning, and they only made one little mistake that could be called a defensive "miscue". If not the defense, then, who was responsible for those six runs?
Luck.

Very few people are aware of the great role that randomness plays in baseball. Players and sportscasters like to pretend that every hit, homer, strikeout and double play is a function of skill, or at least 95% so. Sure, there are a few exceptions, but "luck evens out." So says the old cliche.
Well, no, luck doesn't always even out. Yes, the longer the season goes on, the less likely it is that someone is just lucky. It's easier to get lucky for 20 games than 162. But there's no magical point in the season where all luck disappears from the baseball stats. Some players have been able to maintain their performance based mainly on luck for a whole season, in fact.
Separating luck from skill has long been an obsession of baseball performance analysts. If a pitcher has a bad game, was it bad luck or was it a poor pitching performance? If a hitter goes on an 0-12 streak, does it mean anything? Is Emilio Bonifacio for real (well, okay, we know the answer to that one)?
A great leap forward in the study of randomness in baseball was made by amateur sabermetrician Voros McCracken, who proved that -- statistically speaking -- a pitcher has no ability to prevent hits on balls in play.
If you've never come across McCracken's theory, it could shatter your basic understanding of the game . Don't misunderstand; McCracken isn't saying that all pitching is random. He's saying that a pitcher's actual skills rely almost exclusively on strikeouts, walks, and keeping the ball in the ballpark. But if the ball is in play -- that is, put into fair territory without leaving the park -- the odds of a ball being a hit or an out are pretty even. Conclusion: A pitcher has almost no ability to limit hits on balls in play; it's almost all luck.
In the years since McCracken's discovery, some caveats have been added to his theory. It was found that knuckleballers have more of an effect on balls in play than do other pitchers. And pitchers do, as previously believed, have certain tendencies toward allowing more groundballs than flyballs, or vice-versa. However, whether you give up groundballs or flyballs, you still can't control where they're hit -- the rules still apply.
This knowledge was a great help in assessing which pitchers are really good and which ones are lucky. Pitchers who have a very low ERA, despite poor walk, strikeout and home run numbers, are almost guaranteed to see their luck run out. No one knows when; their luck may last for a season or just for a few weeks. But it will end. Many pitchers who "take a step forward" actually just get lucky one season, much to the chagrin of the team that drops a big free agent deal in their lap.
Another bit of baseball wisdom confirmed by McCracken's theory was that the best pitchers are those who get strikeouts. Limiting walks and homers helps as well. If you want to see a list of the greatest pitchers in the league at any given moment, take a look at the strikeout leaderboard; it's the most informative simple pitching statistic out there (better than wins and even ERA).

Now a lot of people think this theory is hogwash. They will start naming lots of people who succeeded with control and command rather than strikeouts -- and Greg Maddux is usually at the top of the list. Maddux wasn't a strikeout king, was he? No, but he struck out more people than anyone remembers. Maddux topped 200 strikeouts once (1998) and struck out more than 150 batters in eleven seasons. People have a hard time accepting this argument, but if you've got the Baseball Encyclopedia with you, you'll win the discussion in no time.
Granted, you don't have to strike out 300 guys a year like Randy Johnson to be effective; but it's almost impossible to succeed as a pitcher with a below-average strikeout rate. Look at all of the great pitchers in history; even if they didn't lead the league in K's, they almost definitely struck out more than the league average.
This new theory of pitching also helps explain some of the great fluke seasons of modern times. Famous flukes like Greg Hibbard, Dave Fleming, Randy Jones and 1970 NL Rookie of the Year Carl Morton can now explain their flash in the pan as the cost of pitching with an unsustainably low strikeout rate. Such problems inevitably come back to haunt you (witness the downfall of Carlos Silva).
But there is a time, as I mentioned before, when neither pitching nor defense can explain a pitcher's failure to prevent runs. This is randomness; by that, I mean that it reflects the inconsistencies of baseball. A time, for example, when a player does everything right but gets a negative result. Examples include: a screaming line drive hit right at a fielder ("atom balls"), a perfect breaking ball on the outside corner that the hitter somehow punches into the hole, any play involving a bad hop or wet grass or Astroturf, "seeing-eye singles," a lazy 320-foot fly ball that lands in the "short porch" for a home run, or the 390-foot can o' corn hit to the deepest part of the ballpark.
We could probably think of a dozen more cases where the skill of the players involved is superseded by bad (or good) luck. True, it is rare that you'll have a lot of these happen to you in a row. But if you play 162 games a year, you're going to see some freaky things. All you can do is hope that the breaks go your way more often than not.
In other words, hope that you're not Jon Lester . . .

... back to the game. It's the top of the 5th inning, and Tampa Bay is leading Boston 2-1. Still, Jon Lester is doing a pretty good job. The 5th shouldn't be too difficult. First up is Akinori Iwamura. Iwamura takes a 2-1 fastball and grounds it up the middle for a base hit. Next up, Dioner Navarro punches a single through the hole on the left side, moving Iwamura to second. Shortstop Julio Lugo gets a glove on it, but just barely. It's ruled a hit, but could have gone either way. Still, this is not a huge crisis. Except for falling behind both hitters, Lester hasn't really done anything wrong. Both grounders just found holes.
The next batter, B.J. Upton, lays down a bunt. Lester takes a little too long getting there, and Upton is called safe on a close play at first. That's not a pitching mistake, but rather a defensive mistake.
Carl Crawford comes up and sends yet another ball past a diving Lugo into left field. Iwamura scores, making it 3-1.
Next up is Evan Longoria, who hits a towering fly ball to left field. It bounces high off the monster and plates two, with Longoria ending up at second.
The Rays lead 5-1, but how much can we blame on Lester? Longoria's fly was high but not very deep; by the time it hit the wall, the ball was coming almost straight down. With another ten feet of space in front of the wall, that ball lands cleanly in Jason Bay's glove. Similarly, if Longoria hits the same ball to right field (where the fence is much deeper), there's no way it's a double. Rocco Baldelli catches it and the Rays settle for a sac fly (if that; Dioner Navarro doesn't have much raw footspeed at third). Next, Carlos Pena comes up, and Lester finally records the first out with a three-pitch strikeout.
If you've read this far in the article, you can probably guess what happens to poor Jon Lester next. He induces another groundball (off the bat of Pat Burrell) and watches again as it rolls between the shortstop and third baseman into right field for a hit. Crawford and Longoria score, making it 7-1.
Next, in what can only be described as an ungodly coincidence, Jason Bartlett singles through the left side of the infield, moving Burrell to second. You can almost see the path being worn down on the infield grass by the flock of baseballs rolling by.
At this point, Terry Francona takes Lester out of the game and brings in Hunter Jones. The first batter Jones faces is Gabe Kapler who -- that's right, fans -- hits a grounder through the hole into left field. This loads the bases and proves that whatever deity Jon Lester pissed off is also mad at Hunter Jones.
Next, Aki Iwamura steps up for the second time in the inning and, as if you hadn't already guessed, hits the ball on the ground. By some miracle, though, this one is actually hit at a fielder, Julio Lugo. Lugo throws to second for the force out, but they can't turn the double play. So Burrell scores on the fielder's choice, making it 8-1 (all eight runs are earned and charged to Lester).
The misery ends for the Sox when Dioner Navarro pops out to short.

Let's recap this fifth inning:
HITS: 8 (Seven on the ground, one off the Monster)
HITS ON BALLS LOW IN THE ZONE: 4!
HITS ON BALLS OUT OF THE ZONE: 1 (Crawford)
HITS ON BALLS UP IN THE ZONE: 3 (1 on a bunt, 1 off the Monster)
WALKS: 0
STRIKEOUTS: 1
POP-OUTS: 1
LINE DRIVES: 0!
TOTAL BATTERS: 11
BALLS HIT ON THE GROUND: 9
RUNS ALLOWED: 6
RUNS ALLOWED ON GROUNDERS THRU THE INFIELD: 5
RUNS ALLOWED ON HIGH FLIES OFF THE MONSTER: 1
RUNS THAT CAN BE BLAMED SPECIFICALLY ON LESTER: 0?
That's not to say that Lester was perfect. He did leave some balls up, so there's that. And he did fall behind to the first two hitters he faced, which is especially bad when they're the #8 and #9 hitters in the order.
But other than that, didn't Lester do exactly what a pitcher is supposed to do? He got one strikeout and one pop-up. He also allowed a fluke double that would have been a fly out to the left fielder in any of the 29 other big-league ballparks. Other than that, he kept the ball on the ground. That's exactly what you want from a pitcher in this situation. It's what every commentator says a pitcher should do with runners on base. He got ground ball after ground ball; he just couldn't control where the ground balls went. He also couldn't pick the fielders behind him. Replace Julio Lugo with Adam Everett and maybe some of those grounders don't make it to the outfield.
No losing pitcher should ever face the media and say, "It wasn't my fault!" But you know, I really couldn't blame Lester if he did.

The larger lesson to be learned here is, I think, that we have to be very careful when we start making assumptions based on just a box score. It's something we statheads are often accused of, but everyone is guilty of it from time to time. Instead, start considering the randomness factor when you look at the game reports. Just because a pitcher wins the game (capital "W") doesn't mean he pitched well; it simply means that he was on the mound when the team took the lead for good. The same goes for the losing pitcher (capital "L"); a loss doesn't necessarily mean a bad game, it just means that he allowed what turned out to be the deciding run. In fact, wins and losses have such a loose connection with a pitcher's actual performance that I've all but given up on them. They're not utterly irrelevant, but there's nothing a win-loss record can tell you that another stat can't tell you with more clarity and accuracy.
Also, keep in mind that all of those warnings about luck also apply to ERA. ERA is a much better measure of a pitcher's performance than wins or losses, but it still isn't perfect. This is especially true this early in the season, when we're trying to judge a pitcher's skill by just eight or nine starts.
Although Voros McCracken's theory wasn't as absolute as it sounds, the basic idea is still as true as ever: if you want to learn about a pitcher, look at walks, strikeouts and home runs. If you look at those numbers and put them in context based on the situation, they'll tell you 80% of what you need to know about a pitcher's performance.
And here's the perfect example:
J. Lester (L): 4.1 IP, 1 BB, 6 K, 1 HR. This tells you how well Lester pitched. The 10 H and 8 ER, on the other hand, are a reflection on the defense and the luck as much as Lester. Something to remember the next time you're browsing the box scores.

Manny Ramirez Suspended 50 Games by MLB

Manny Ramirez, the popular but mercurial slugger for the Los Angeles Dodgers, has been suspended 50 games for violating Major League Baseball's Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program.
The suspension was announced Thursday afternoon. A statement from Manny Ramirez claims that he received the substance in question from a physician in Florida. He claims that his use was not recreational, and that he was unaware that the drug was banned.
Early reports indicated that Manny would appeal the suspension, and there were even arrangements made for a hearing to be scheduled in Los Angeles. According to ESPN's Peter Gammons, though, Manny backed off at the last minute and declined to appeal. Ramirez has taken public responsibility for using the substance, saying: "LA is a special place to me and I know everybody is disappointed. So am I. I'm sorry about this whole situation. "
There has been no official word on what the substance was that triggered the suspension. But ESPN writers T.J. Quinn and Mark Fainaru-Wada -- famous for writing the Barry Bonds/BALCO expose Game of Shadows -- are reporting that it was hCG, a women's fertility drug. According to the American Pregnancy Association's website, hCG is produced during pregnancy by cells that form the placenta. WebMD states that hCG levels can be tested to determine pergnancy but may also be affected by tumors.
That sounds innocent enough, but it fails to explain what an otherwise healthy adult male such as Ramirez would need them for. T.J. Quinn, speaking on an ESPNews broadcast, states that despite its uses as a female fertility drug, hCG is used almost exclusively by steroid users. hCG helps renew the body's ability to make testosterone. This is made necessary when steroid users have been doping for a certain period of time, inhibiting their body's ability to produce testosterone naturally. Not only does hCG seem to indicate steroid abuse in the vast majority of cases, but the substance itself is banned under baseball's drug policy, since it does enhance the body's testosterone levels.
Despite an official statement both from Ramirez and the MLB, there is some confusion as to how the substance was detected. It may or may not have come as part of baseball's random drug testing. Quinn reports that the hCG wasn't actually detected at first; his sources report that the only abnormality that registered was elevated levels of testosterone. This led investigators to determine what was responsible for the high levels of testosterone, and the use of hCG was indicated, reportedly, through documents uncovered during the process. It was this lack of a smoking gun, so to speak, that fueled speculation that Ramirez would lodge an appeal. His last-minute decision not to has raised some questions, with some speculating that Ramirez feared further incrimination during the appeals process. By declining an appeal, the matter is settled as far as the MLB is concerned.
This revelation has produced an instant outcry from the sports media. Peter Gammons tells us Ramirez's side of the story (in a manner that makes him sound more like Ramirez's agent than a journalist), whereas Fox Sports contributor Ken Rosenthal has nothing but contempt for Manny, not only for using but for getting caught at a time when a player's bodily fluids are under incredible supervision.
Ramirez's suspension casts a harsh shadow over a Dodgers team whose 21-8 record is the best in baseball. Not only that, but the Dodgers recently set a new record by notching 13 straight wins at home to begin a season. They've won seven straight and sit a comfortable 6.5 games ahead of the second-place Giants. Ramirez was the engine behind the Los Angeles offense, hitting .348 with 6 homers, 20 RBI and an incredible .492 on-base percentage. The bulk of the playing time in left field will likely go to Juan Pierre, a prospect that should send a cold chill up the back of Dodger fans.
There are still many unanswered questions surrounding this story. We'll have to keep looking to learn more and get some confirmation of the early reports coming from ESPN and T.J. Quinn. Either way, though, it looks like "Mannywood" will be out of action for nearly two months.

Shut the f*** up about HGH

"There is no evidence that steroid use has altered home run hitting and those who argue otherwise are profoundly ignorant of the statistics of home runs, the physics of baseball, and of the physiological effects of steroids." -- Professor Arthur DeVany, "Steroids, Home Runs and the Law of Genius"

Quoted on http://steroids-and-baseball.com/actual-effects.shtml

"A review of clinical studies among healthy, normally aging individuals found that hGH supplementation does not significantly increase muscle strength or aerobic exercise capacity." --http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080617160837.htm ( American Medical Association )
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_48/b3961105.htm

(http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080320132224.htm), Stanford Medical School

The Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia(http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080617113743.htm)or

The Mayo Clinic: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/growth-hormone/HA00030

Slate.com: http://www.slate.com/id/2162473/nav/tap1/

J.C. Bradbury: http://www.sabernomics.com/sabernomics/index.php/2007/04/i-dont-worry-about-hgh-in-baseball-and-neither-should-you/

Bradbury's follow-up: http://dberri.wordpress.com/2007/04/24/rumors-experts-and-human-growth-hormone/

Annals of Internal Medicine: http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/0000605-200805200-00215v1?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=athletic+performance&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT

&

MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23677433/

ABC NEWS: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/06/04/1941168.htm

First-hand comments: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=6916111

Reaction to Newsday article no longer online: http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/discussion/newsday_doctors_hgh_alone_doesnt_help_athletes/

Where's the on-field proof that they actually work ... : http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/22/opinion/22cole.html?_r=1&ex=1356066000&en=38ae29f2075786cc&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

... for pitchers?: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/29/AR2006042901195.html

And the New England Freakin' Journal of Medicine (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/348/9/779).

Pretty much every website that says HGH works is trying to sell it to you.

You better be damn sure about something before you stick a needle in someone's arm.

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. --Max Planck

Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. --John Kenneth Galbraith

Major h/t to Eric Walker

Know When to Move 'Em

This past Saturday, I got a chance to watch my Braves maul the Reds to the tune of a 10-2 loss. I managed to get good seats to the ballgame, right down the left field line. As I sat there baking in the afternoon sun, I got a close look at the Cincinnati ballclub. Unfortunately, getting a close look at Reds baseball is a mixed blessing.
Case in point: third baseman Edwin Encarnacion. Encarnacion is a 26-year-old, good-hitting fellow whose biggest problem is a tendency to throw the ball not quite close enough to the big fellow with a glove standing at first base. Currently in his fifth major league season, Encarnacion has none the less committed 77 errors in his big league career. He’s the only player in the league who gets his defense recorded on a spray chart.
His erratic arm is a serious problem, but I didn’t realize how serious it was until I got a new statistical take on it. John Dewan, with the help of Baseball Info Solutions, has developed a new method of rating defense: the plus-minus ratings. It’s much more accurate than simple fielding percentage, but is still simple enough for even a casual fan to understand. A player’s plus-minus rating is the number of plays the player makes that an average player at that position would not normally make (a positive number is good, zero is average, negative numbers are bad). The newest set of plus-minus ratings were published in The Fielding Bible: Volume II, the sequel to Dewan’s groundbreaking 2006 book The Fielding Bible. Simply put, Encarnacion doesn’t look good.
According to Dewan’s system, Encarnacion was the worst full-time defensive third baseman in baseball in 2008, with a plus-minus rating of -21. The next-worst was Melvin Mora, at -13. Encarnacion is also the worst in the MLB over the last three seasons; his rating of -51 is worse than Garrett Atkins (-42) and ex-third baseman Miguel Cabrera (-40). Dewan’s listings only go back to 2003, and it should be said that Encarnacion isn’t considered the worst defensive third baseman over that period (2003-2008); he’s the second-worst (Ty Wigginton’s -75 is far worse than Encarnacion’s -46).
His defense is so bad that it seriously counteracts what good he does at the plate. Even though he does hit in a hitter-friendly park, Encarnacion is a decent hitter; he compensates for a low batting average (.261 career) by drawing some walks (career .343 on-base percentage) and hitting some homers (career .445 slugging percentage). The problem is that, in order to stay at a key position with such poor defense, you have to hit like Derek Jeter. Needless to say, Edwin does not, making him a big drag on the Reds.
What I wonder, though, is what the Reds are waiting for. When he first came to the majors and was wild, that was understandable; he was in his early 20’s and was still getting a hang of his admittedly strong arm. But it’s four years later, and Edwin hasn’t shown any signs of improving at all. If a player is still this bad at age 26, there’s no use in waiting around for divine intervention. Sure, he might get better over time, but the Reds just don’t have the luxury of losing that much defense every year hoping for a miracle.
Now, Encarnacion is one of the better hitters the Reds have (although that’s not saying much these days), so they don’t need to get rid of him. They can simply move him to the outfield. There’s no one blocking him in left field (Chris Dickerson and Darnell McDonald are stop-gaps at best), so he can move out there and give third base over to someone who won’t do as much damage. Granted, we can’t be certain he’ll be that good in left field, either, but we can be certain that he will do less damage there. The Reds could stand to learn from what the Brewers did with Ryan Braun.
So why in the world don’t they move him? That’s a fantastic question, and I don’t really have the answer. They didn’t move him last year because he was blocked by Adam Dunn in left and Jay Bruce in right. Now that left field is open, why aren’t the Reds rushing to take advantage of an opportunity to limit the damage Encarnacion can do to them?
I think there are two main reasons, one of them understandable and the other not. The understandable reason is that Encarnacion’s bat doesn’t play nearly as well in left field as it does at third. A career 261/343/445 batting line is good for a third baseman, but for a left fielder it’s sub-par. But even this is faulty reasoning. The Reds can only play with the players they have, and right now they don’t have a good left fielder; the best they have is Edwin Encarnacion. Dusty Baker can only make out a lineup with the 25 players GM Walt Jocketty gives him, and right now that’s a poor bunch of hitters.
An even worse reason to explain the Reds’ inaction is a misunderstanding of team defense. The reason that guys like Chris Dickerson end up holding a bat in their hands at all is that they’re good defensive outfielders. More specifically, they are fast. Encarnacion is not particularly fast, so he doesn’t fit the mold of a left fielder. So Dusty Baker (the NL Central’s poster-boy for faulty reasoning) will keep playing the Dickersons and McDonalds of the world until someone forces him to stop. Witness his work in Chicago with the likes of Tony Womack and Corey Patterson. Baker doesn’t look at team defense in the sense of fitting the right man to the right spot regardless of their “type.” Just the opposite, really. Baker prefers type over substance. He puts fast players in the outfield even if they can’t hit, and he puts a strong-armed guy like Edwin at third, even if his throwing is woefully inaccurate. Dusty constructs his lineup in the same way, putting fast, hit-and-run guys in the #1 and #2 spots, even if they get on base slightly less often than the re-animated corpse of Ted Williams. But that’s another story.
I think the Reds just don’t understand the best way to construct a team defense, which is especially problematic if you’re a small-market team that has to do everything right in order to contend. But Baker is only somewhat to blame, since Jocketty’s off-season solution to the Reds’ outfield problems was to sign Willy Taveras, adding another center fielder to a team that already had four of them. Offseason rumors that the team might pursue Rocco Baldelli, or some other legitimate corner bat, proved unfounded. This was a shame, especially considering that corner outfielders are a very cheap commodity in the current market.
My guess is that the Reds release Encarnacion or just let him walk away rather than do a better job of utilizing him. He’s not a star on the level of Ryan Braun, so there’s no pressure on them to keep him in the lineup. But he is, unfortunately, one of their best assets. The only three hitters the Reds have that are better than Encarnacion are Joey Votto, Jay Bruce and Brandon Phillips. The Reds don’t have a guy like Ryan Braun, which is why they simply have to settle for the likes of Encarnacion until somebody else comes along. And if they think that putting three or four clones of Tony Womack in the lineup will help them contend, they’re very mistaken.
A question for the readers: is there anyone else in baseball that you think is trapped at the wrong position? I’m not talking about expensive veterans like Jeter or now-former shortstop Michael Young, whose very status (and inexplicable Gold Gloves) stand in the way of a position shift. Instead, I’m thinking of young players who still have time to develop and thrive in a new role. The only one I can really think of is Rickie Weeks in Milwaukee, but I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.

Sunday MLB Recap: No Need to Panic

There's a scene in King Kong vs. Godzilla where Godzilla appears over the horizon and attacks a train, knocking it to pieces. Of course, as the travellers are mobbing the exits, there's a train conductor standing in the middle of them, yelling, "Please! Don't panic!" I felt like that conductor this week as I watched baseball columnists and Yankee fans wailing and gnashing their teeth at the horrors that befell the team in its opening homestand. You'd never have known that the Yankees, instead of being eaten by Godzilla, went 2-2 against a pretty good team, the Indians. Granted, there's no good way to spin a 22-4 loss, and this could be a sign that the pitching (especially Chien-Ming Wang) isn't as good as we thought. But the new Yankee Stadium is a sturdy piece of architecture; it can withstand worse.
With that in mind, here's a recap of some busy Sunday action with a look at what this means for the coming season.

Yankees 7, Indians 3: Carl Pavano silenced more than a few critics with six solid innings of work with just one run allowed. A.J. Burnett, on the other hand, issued seven walks (!) in six innings, yet somehow only gave up three runs.But the real story of the game was a two-run, pinch-hit homer by Jorge Posada. We got to see the first instant replay review of the season. The umpires did, in my opinion, make the right call. It was very doubtful that Trevor Crowe would have caught the ball, even if the fans hadn't reached for it. And it wasn't clear that the fans were reaching onto the field of play. So that's a homer, which led to the Yankee victory. Good news for the Bombers, especially if Posada can provide more of the same.My biggest problem with the play had nothing to do with the umpires. I just got sick and damn tired of hearing TBS announcers Thom Brennaman and Ron Darling discuss it non-stop for the rest of the game. Instead of getting commentary on the Yankees' big comeback against the Cleveland 'pen, we got 995 replays of the homer (from the same 3 angles, of course) and a short history of contested home runs and instant replay. It's times like this I wish I had an SAP button on my TV, and I don't even know much Spanish.
Blue Jays 1, Athletics 0: Two good pitchers and two weak offenses give us a heck of a pitchers' duel. Win or lose, both teams have to be thrilled to get such good starts out of their young hurlers (Ricky Romero for Toronto, Dallas Braden for Oakland).
Brewers 4, Mets 2: The Brewers enjoy a rare good start from Jeff Suppan, aided by the fact that the Mets were starting Nelson Figueroa. It's also worth noting that Todd Coffey threw 2.2 innings of scoreless relief, using just 30 pitches. It's nice to see Ken Macha thinking outside the box in the absence of Trevor Hoffman. Here's hoping he keeps an open mind when Hoffman returns.
Braves 11, Pirates 1: Javier Vazquez made another strong start, and this time the offense supported him. I think Vazquez will really enjoy the shift to Atlanta. As for the Pirates, hey, Andy LaRoche got another hit!
Red Sox 2, Orioles 1: Jon Lester throws a gem, and Takashi Saito makes the Boston front office look good. The good news for Baltimore is that Koji Uehara pitched quite well (7 IP, 2 ER, 1 BB, 5 K). It would be more comforting for Boston fans, though, to see somebody in the lineup besides Kevin Youkilis catch fire.
Marlins 7, Nationals 4: Neither team is as good (Marlins) or as bad (Nationals) as they've looked so far. With everyone rushing to congratulate the Florida pitchers, I must point out that ten games isn't much of a test for a group with so much trouble staying healthy. The good news for the Nats is ... uh, Elijah Dukes is hitting well!
Phillies 5, Padres 4: After suffering from a rare blown save by Brad Lidge, the Phils returned the favor on Sunday with a late-inning rally capped off by a walk-off homer by Raul Ibanez. For Padres fans ... well, you'd better get used to this.
White Sox 12, Rays 2: The Rays continue to struggle. On Sunday it was Matt Garza getting hammered, for 7 ER in 5.2 IP. Granted, his five walks allowed didn't help. The Sox looked good, and goodness knows they need more starts like this from Gavin Floyd.
Reds 4, Astros 2: The Astros recently re-upped manager Cecil Cooper for another year. I haven't a clue what could happen in 11 games to convince them one way or another. To be fair, though, Cooper can only work with the roster that's given to him. No one expected Felipe Paulino to out-pitch Edinson Volquez, but he did; then the Houston bullpen blew it. It was another high-stress outing for Volquez, who threw 104 pitches in six innings, striking out seven but walking five. Volquez and Cueto both need to be more efficient on the mound if the Reds want to contend.
Twins 3, Angels 1: Glen Perkins was masterful on the mound for Minnesota, needing just 84 pitches to get through 8 IP, allowing just four hits and one walk. The Twins will live and die by their pitching (and Joe Mauer's health), so Sunday's game is encouraging.
Rangers 6, Royals 5: Kyle Davies, like Volquez, labored his way to a quality start. Davies threw 111 pitches through six innings, striking out eight against five walks. But the Royals bullpen blew it, letting the Rangers tie it in the 8th and win it in the 9th on a walk-off home run by Michael Young. Kyle Farnsworth, to no one's surprise, took the loss. One wonders what in the $%*& manager Trey Hillman was thinking to send Farnsworth out there with the game on the line.
Giants 2, Diamondbacks 0: Randy Johnson's early work had the Giants very worried. Then, on Sunday, the unit returned to form, striking out seven and only allowing one hit through seven. He had a no-hitter going into the 7th inning. This was win #296 for Johnson.
Dodgers 14, Rockies 2: Apparently the Dodgers don't need to go to Coors to beat the Rockies by 12. It was all good for L.A., who got two homers from Matt Kemp to push their record to 10-3. The only downside was that starter Jason McDonald went just 4.1 innings despite throwing 96 pitches. That's not a good way to win a spot in the rotation. As for the Rockies, the closer's role is still up in the air between Huston Street (9.64 ERA) and Manny Corpas (6.75). For the sake of the fans, the Rockies might have to bring in a third candidate just to stop the bleeding.
Tigers 8, Mariners 2: Seeing Carlos Silva struggle in Seattle was no surprise. But the Tigers have to be thrilled to see top prospect Rick Porcello go seven strong innings, with only a solo homer by Ronny Cedeno counting against him.
Cubs vs. Cardinals: Rained out.

I saw an article recently that said that walk rates in baseball were pretty high so far this season. I'm not sure if that's just a fluke, and I'm not sure what it means if it's not. What I do know is that Sunday's games offer an object lesson on the dangers of too many walks. Even among some of the winners, we saw some pitchers getting by despite issuing a lot of free passes. That means reaching 90 or 100 pitches in the 5th or 6th inning, which is bad news for the rest of the team, especially if they've got bullpen problems.
Here's hoping that next Sunday has better weather. The bad weather knocked out the power to my house yesterday. But the utility company came right out to work on it. I don't know much about electricity, but when the utility guys are up there working on the box, and you hear a boom so loud it falls somewhere between a really big gun and a really small cannon, it means what they're trying isn't working.
Just FYI.

FAIL @ Men's Journal

I'm amazed that a seemingly respectable magazine would actually print this. This is terrible on every possible judgment of the "terrible" meter. It's the sort of article a drunken moron would piss out after a bad day at Yankee Stadium. There is no fact in this article, not nearly enough to justify the anger. The writer's utter cluelessness and ignorance about the game of baseball and, apparently, life, is enough to make me optimistic about a career in baseball writing. I sure as hell can't do any worse than that, an article for which Matt Taibbi was presumably paid good American currency.

Yeesh.

(h/t Shysterball)