Daily Archives: May 20, 2008

Mike Mussina’s was the coin that flopped over tonight. After walking just three men in his last five starts, Mussina walked Brian Roberts to start tonight’s game. Moose then gave up two-out singles to Aubrey Huff and Kevin Millar to plate Roberts and put men on first and second. After that, he got of Luke Scott 1-2 and got Scott to ground to shortstop for what appeared to be an inning-ending groundout. Derek Jeter fielded the ball and looked to flip to Robinson Cano at second for the out, but Cano wasn’t on the bag. Instead, Jeter threw to first, but his throw was high and allowed Scott to reach safely, loading the bases for Ramon Hernandez. Mussina walked Hernandez on four pitches to force in a second Oriole run, then failed to retire any of the four men after him, finally being pulled with the score 7-0 Orioles and still just two outs in the first inning.

That thew a wet blanket on Alex Rodriguez’s return to the lineup. Rodriguez came through with a two-run homer into the Yankee bullpen in the sixth, but those were the only runs Baltimore starter Daniel Cabrera allowed on the night as the Orioles cruised to a 12-2 win.

The only other action of note stemmed from a third-inning Cabrera pitch which tailed in on Derek Jeter and hit him on the outside of his left wrist. Jeter left the game immediately, and LaTroy Hawkins cleared the benches by throwing at Luke Scott with none on and two out in the sixth, but Jeter’s x-rays were negative, which means that other than a coming suspension for Hawkins, the lasting effects should be minimal. The lasting effects of the Yankees losing six of their last seven while averaging two runs per game remain the greater concern.

The Orioles have the fourth-best record in the American League, but have been outscored by their opponents on the season. They have won seven of their last nine, but lost nine of 11 before that. They have the third-best ERA+ in the league, but the fifth worst OPS+. They’re having fun, but it won’t last, though given the way the Yankees have been playing recently, it may last a little longer.

The good news for the Yankees is that they’ll have Alex Rodriguez back in the lineup tonight, which will fill one of the three gaping holes in their lineup. (Man, this sure looks a lot better, don’t it?)

Alex and pals will be facing Daniel Cabrera tonight. Cabrera has turned in seven straight quality starts, posting a 2.50 ERA and 1.07 WHIP over that stretch. Most impressively, his walk rate has been a strong 2.68 BB/9 during those seven starts and he has allowed just four home runs, this after walking nine men and allowing four homers in his first ten innings on the season. Opposing Cabrera is Mike Mussina, who has gone 5-0 with a 2.76 ERA with just three walks and two homers over his last five starts.

There are a lot of coins standing on their sides at the Stadium tonight. The question is which of them will tip over.

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When I was a kid I received a copy of You Know Me Al from my uncle Sam Plummer, who was not really my uncle, but I thought of him as one all the same. The version I got was a collection of the You Know Me Al comic strips–it wasn’t until years later that I learned it was a book before it was a comic.  I loved the gift, not so much because I was especially taken with the strip, but because it combined comics and baseball and Sam was thoughtful enough to know that (a die-hard Cubs fan, Sam later introduced me to the records of Fats Waller).  Somewhere along the line I lost the book but a few years ago I saw a copy in a used bookstore. My heart skipped a beat and I nabbed it. For those of you who have never seen it, here’s a peak at a strip:

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Over at BP Unfiltered, David Laurila has a nifty Q&A with Brewers bench coach, Ted Simmons, who was one of the most vital figures in the Players Association back in the 1970s, and a near Hall of Fame catcher to boot.

Dig this:

DL: You played in the 1970s and 1980s. How different is the game now?

TS: The players are far more educated than they were when I first played. When I came up to the Cardinals in 1970, I had spent two years at the University of Michigan. Dal Maxvill had an electrical engineering degree from Washington University. We were really the only two, at least that I can recall, who had spent any time in a four-year institution. Today, almost all of these kids have formal educations — minimally at the junior college level. Almost all come from major educational backgrounds. That is the biggest change that exists in major league baseball with the players themselves. They’re far more educated and far more sophisticated; they’re a far different band of people.

DL: How does the game differ on the field?

TS: I think it has changed dramatically with the statistical analysis that’s come about and applied itself at the major league level and at the minor league level. You have a whole group of people who have identified, and recognized, statistical trends that are directly applicable to the field. Whether it’s offensively, pitching, or defensively, there are applications that exist now because of the ability to convey information quickly — things you can take on a daily basis and apply in a game. There’s no question that’s been the biggest change.

DL: Have you adapted well to the statistical revolution, or do you view yourself as more of an old-school baseball guy?

TS: I think that dinosaurs die hard, and they die fast. If one doesn’t take the best of the objective perspective, and the best of the subjective perspective, and incorporate the two into one place — however one has to do it — if you’re not prepared to do that, you’ll soon be out.

Simmons’ bit about dinosaurs brings to mind something that the Yankees have had me thinking about recently, the classic line from Annie Hall where Woody says, “A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.”

Hank continues to talk.

I won’t deny that the heavy majority of sportswriters, myself included, have been and still are guilty of puffing up the people they write about. I remember one time when Stanley Woodward, my beloved leader, was on the point of sending me a wire during spring training, saying, “Will you stop Godding up those ball players?” I didn’t realize what I had been doing. I thought I had been writing pleasant little spring training columns about ball players.

If we’ve made heroes out of them, and we have, then we must also lay a whole set of false values at the doorsteps of historians and biographers. Not only has the athlete been blown up larger than life, but so have the politicians and celebrities in all fields, including rock singers and movie stars.

When you go through Westminster Abbey you’ll find that excepting for that little Poets’ Corner almost all of the statues and memorials are to killers. To generals and admirals who won battles, whose specialty was human slaughter. I don’t think they’re such glorious heroes.

I’ve tried not to exaggerate the glory of athletes. I’d rather, if I could, preserve a sense of proportion, to write about them as excellent ball players, first-rate players. But I’m sure I have contributed to false values—as Stanley Woodward said, “Godding up those ball players.”

Red Smith

That said, the back cover of today’s New York Post screams: “HERE COMES A-GOD! Alex returns tonight to save inept Yanks.”

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