Monthly Archives: July 2009

Ran across this from Bruce Weber in the Times yesterday:

It was in September 2005, just as I was starting research for a book about umpires, that the man who would become chief justice, John G. Roberts Jr., elevated my subjects to the central metaphorical role in American jurisprudence.

“Judges are like umpires,” Judge Roberts declared in the opening remarks to his own confirmation hearings. “Umpires don’t make the rules; they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role.”

Whadda ya think? Judges=Umps?

Oh, and if you haven’t read Weber’s book, it’s worth checking out. Here is an excerpt.

OK, I’m almost back from the DL . . . consider this post a “rehab assignment”.

Contrary to circulating rumors, I did not pull an oblique during vigorous typing, nor did I strain my vocal cords screaming at Girardi.  But thanks to you all for your concern!

Today’s news is powered by footage from LAST year’s All Star Game:

• PeteAbe has a rather telling stat on how good (or not) the Yanks may be:

But the Yankees have played four teams (the Angels, Red Sox, Phillies and Tigers) who lead their respective divisions at the break and they are 5-15 against those teams. That’s why you can’t just dismiss this weekend as just some bad luck.

• Joba Joba Joba Joba Joba Chameleon:

Is Joba Chamberlain the most confident pitcher in baseball, or the most delusional?

After another laborious outing on Friday night, Chamberlain stood at his locker and spoke about making good pitches. He talked about his stuff being as good as it’s been all season. If that’s the best Chamberlain has to offer as a starting pitcher, the debate over his future in that role is sure to rage on.

In his last two outings, Chamberlain has given up 13 runs – although only seven were earned – on 18 hits and two walks in eight innings, taking no-decisions in each game. The last part is nothing new for Chamberlain, whose 10 decisions through his first 29 career starts are the fewest in big-league history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. “The last two starts, that’s the best my stuff has been all year. It makes it even more frustrating,” Chamberlain said. “I felt I’ve been better in the last two but we came up against some good ball clubs.”

• Angel Berroa has been picked up off the scrap heap . . . by the Mets.  Baseball Prospectus’ Kevin Goldstein weighs in:

This is hardly a note to defend Angel Berroa, who stinks, but rather to defend the move itself. It’s easy to just see the name Angel Berroa and chuckle, but do people really think Omar Minaya is jumping up and down with joy over the signing? Really? Without getting into the real problem here, which is that for the last two years the Mets have assembled a roster with very little in the way of a backup plan, let’s just focus on the present facts, here and now.

1. The Mets have an injured Jose Reyes, and no shortstop at Triple-A.
2. The kid playing shortstop at Double-A, Ruben Tejada, is 19 years old and not near ready.
3. Last I checked, Hanley Ramirez wasn’t available.

So what were the Mets supposed to do? Teams need bodies, especially up the middle, and the signing of Berroa makes very good sense for New York, right here and right now, despite the fact that he’s not a good player . . .

[My take: We may bust on Cashman, but just take a look at what’s going on in Queens.]

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Remember the old gag from the Warner Bros cartoons when a plane or a car was racing at incredible speed and the speedometer read “Silly, Ain’t it?” That pretty much sums up another lost weekend for the Yankees in the City of Angels. The Yanks just can’t beat the Angels in California and on Sunday afternoon they found a new way to lose. The Angels survived some shoddy fielding and had lady luck on their side once again. John Lackey out-pitched CC Sabathia as the Angels held off several late rallies by New York to win 5-4.

Sabathia wasn’t horrible but he was tagged for four runs in the fourth inning putting the Yanks in a 4-1 hole. Cut to the seventh. The Yanks scored a run and loaded the bases against Lackey with nobody out.  But Lackey showed chutzpah and struck out Mark Teixeira on a full count curve ball. The pitch would have been a strike regardless–Teixeira whiffed–and it was the third slow curve of the at-bat. Then Alex Rodriguez turned over a pitch and hit a grounder to third. Chone Figgins made a slick pick fielding a tough hop, touched third and then fired a ball in the dirt to first. But Kendry Morales–who had made an error earlier in the inning–picked the ball clean and the Angels were out of trouble.

After the Angels scored another run against Sabathia, the Yanks loaded the bases with nobody out in the eighth too. They scored a run and then Jorge Posada–who entered the game late as a pinch-hitter–hit a sacrifice fly scoring another, pushing the score to 5-4.  Nick Swisher pinch-hit for Brett Gardner and smoked a line drive back through the box. Reliever Darren Oliver stuck his glove out and made the Look-What-I-Found catch. Then he turned and picked Melky Cabrera off first for the double play.

And that’s how it goes for the Yanks in L.A.

Rodriguez struck out to end the game in the ninth. He had a great hack at the second pitch–a fastball–but missed it, fouling the ball back. He whiffed on another fastball.

So the Yanks end the first half on a down note. They have played well. They have been fun to root for but they go into the break with a bad and all-too familiar taste in their mouths. The Yanks are now three games behind the Red Sox who won again against the Royals.

Well, that’s okay. Whadda ya gunna do? Gives ’em something to remember. We’ll see if they’ve got it in ’em to do something about it.

The Yanks have played well in the first half but have still not found a way to conquer their two rivals the Red Sox and the Angels. That is something they’ll need to fix in the second half, ain’t it?

In the meantime, the Bombers turn to their big ticket, CC Sabathia, to remedy the weekend blues in Cali.

Let’s see what he’s got…and let’s go Yan-Kees!

Remember Friday night’s game? Saturday afternoon’s was the same, but worse. The Yankees built an early lead, thanks in part to an Alex Rodriguez homer, but Angels chipped away and took the lead in the fifth, bouncing the Yankees’ starter in the process, then just kept adding on against the bullpen, keeping the game out of reach of the offense’s modest attempts to come back. Déjà vu all over again.

The Yankees actually hit five home runs in the game. Alex Rodriguez caught, then passed Rafael Palmeiro to move into the all-time top ten with a two run shot in the first and a solo shot in the eighth. Eric Hinske, making just his second start as a Yankee, went deep twice as well, with a solo shot in the third off Angels starter Jered Weaver and a two-run jack in the seventh off lefty Darren Oliver.

Just as they led 5-1 heading into the bottom of the fifth on Friday night, the Yankees led 4-1 heading into the bottom of the fifth on Saturday, but just like Joba Chamberlain before him, Andy Pettitte only managed to get one out in the frame. Five of the six batters Pettitte faced in the fifth got hits, starting with a single by Yankee-killer Howie Kendrick and a home run by Brandon Wood, who just returned from Triple-A Friday night.

David Robertson replaced Pettitte with one out and men on the corners and proceeded to allow four more runs to score, putting the Yankees in an 8-4 hole. With Joe Girardi apparently refusing to use his better relievers either that early or, ultimately, facing a large deficit, Robertson returned in the sixth and struck out the first three men, but one reached on a wild pitch on strike three and came around to score on a two-out triple. It was that kind of game.

Johnny Damon was playing in on Erick Aybar, who hit that triple to left field. Retreating after Aybar’s hit, Damon got to the wall just after Brett Gardner scooped up the ball. With nothing else to do, Damon simply sat back on the lip of the padding under the Plexiglas window, visibly expressing his frustration. That about summed it up.

Hinske’s two run homer made it 9-6, but Mike Napoli homered off Brett Tomko in the bottom of the seventh to make it 10-6. Alex Rodriguez and Hideki Matsui went back-to-back in the eighth off Jason Bulger to get it within 10-8, but when Girardi finally felt the game was in reach and went to Phil Coke, Coke gave up four more runs in an inning that included a wild pickoff throw and another wild strike three that allowed a batter to reach on a strikeout. That ran the final to 14-8. Together, Robertson, Tomko, and Coke allowed eight runs in 3 2/3 innings and threw 91 pitches. Mix in Pettitte’s work in the fifth and the Yankees allowed 13 runs in the last four innings and threw 112 pitches in those four frames.

Ugly.

Jered Weaver has been the Angels’ best starter this year but inconsistent of late. He was 7-2 with a 2.08 ERA on June 14, but in his four starts since then, he’s posted a 7.23 ERA with the Angels dropping two of those games. He’d not allowed a home run in his previus six starts, but has allowed five taters in those last four. On the season, Weaver’s home ERA has been more than a two and a half runs lower than his road mark, but he’s been succeptable to lefty bats, allowing them to slug .484.

That’s one reason that Eric Hinske is getting the start in right field this afternoon and Brett Gardner is starting in center, though both are replacing switch-hitters. The rest of the Yankee lineup behind Andy Pettitte is the usual suspects, with Hideki Matsui batting fifth followed by Jorge Posada.

Andy Pettitte starts for the Yankees. Andy’s been alternating good and bad starts since May and is due for a good one after walking five and giving up six runs in six innings to the Blue Jays in his last outing. Pettitte’s road ERA is three runs better than his home mark, which is another reason to feel good about his chances this afternoon.

Pettitte and Weaver faced off in the Bronx on May Day. Neither was sharp as they combined to walk seven men and strike out four. Weaver was slightly better, but the Yankees came out on top by scoring six runs in the final two innings for yet another walk-off win. Of the three Angel relievers who gave up those six runs, only closer Brian Fuentes is still on the Halos’ 25-man roster.

Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering Rally Monkey; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.

Nothing stops a Yankee winning streak like the heavenly hosts of Anaheim, and tonight they overcame a four-run deficit to beat the Yankees 10-6. This Joba Chamberlain start was, unlike the last one,  not a complete disaster, but he once again threw too many pitches, worked too slowly, and didn’t get out of the fifth inning on a night when the bullpen very much needed a break. He had a 5-1 lead when he allowed a couple of singles, A-Rod made a throwing error, and Kendry Morales hit a three-run shot to tie the game; one double later, Joe Girardi pulled him.

The shorthanded Yankee bullpen, in the form of Melancon and Bruney, was no better – but about the only other arm available tonight was Brett Tomko’s, so I guess things could have been even worse. Meanwhile the Yankees hit Joe Saunders fairly hard – at one point Alex Rodriguez somehow launched a home run with an awkward swing at a calf-high changeup – but once he left, they scored just once off of five Angels relievers.

Forget it, Joe. It’s Anaheim.

Coming into the season, I didn’t think the Angels had the offense to leave their division in the dust the way they did last year when they greatly overachieved relative to their run differential. Thus far, however, the offense has been there, but the pitching hasn’t, and poor team defense (hello Bobby Abreu) isn’t helping. Or so it would appear.

Only two Angels starters have made their full slate of starts this year. Of those two, Jered Weaver, who starts Saturday’s game on FOX, has been excellent, but Joe Sanders, who starts tonight, has been no better than average, adding a run to his ERA of a year ago, seeing his walks and strikeouts converge, and allowing a league-leading 20 homers in just 17 starts.

After starting the season on the DL, John Lackey, who starts Sunday, has gone 3-4 with a 5.18 ERA in 11 starts. His poor performance can be traced to a .353 opponents’ average on balls in play, which would seem to be attributable to that poor team defense. Ervin Santana has been on and off the DL all year and has a dismal 1-5 record to go with his alarming 7.81 ERA. Again, one looks to the defense as Santana sports an absurd .385 BABIP.

So who are the culprits in the field? That’s hard to figure. Going position-by-position, the Angels are rarely more than a tick below average anywhere on the field. Torii Hunter’s not as good as he used to be, but Bobby Abreu’s not nearly as bad as he was for the Yankees last year. Juan Rivera, another former Yankee, who has rebounded from nearly two seasons lost to a broken leg with a strong showing at the plate, has actually been a significant plus in the pastures. The middle infield grades out to about average, and better than that when Howie Kendrick plays, and the corners have been solid.

Gary Matthews Jr. has been awful on both sides of the ball, but most of his playing time came in the outifeld before Lackey and Santana returned from their initial DL stays; it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which he alone could be blamed for their struggles. So maybe it’s not team defense that is the problem. Maybe Lackey and Santana are just all kinds of hittable right now. Either way, it’s bad news for the Halos, who are struggling to stay atop their division and enter this final series before the All-Star break a half-game behind the Rangers in the AL West and four-games out of the Wild Card race.

More bad news hit Anaheim today as both Hunter and Vladimir Guerrero hit the DL. Guerrero, who might be the oldest 34-year-old in baseball, is on the shelf for the second time this season. Meanwhile, Hunter’s replacement in center will be none other than Matthews, the team’s $50 million mistake.

Tonight the Yankees face lefty Joe Saunders, who has allowed 14 runs in nine innings over his last two starts. Saunders has really been hit or miss all season, with his two worst starts coming against the Rangers in Arlington (seven of the 20 home runs he’s allowed came in those two starts). At home, he’s posted a 3.43 ERA, though he was touched up by the Orioles at home his last time out. In addition to the Rangers, Saunders has been particularly susceptible to right-handed hitters, who are slugging .505 against him. That’s good news for the heart of the Yankee order.

He’ll face Joba Chamberlain, who got an ego check his last time out when he allowed eight runs in 3 2/3 innings. Joba’s been a bit obstinate about his performances thus far this season, often giving too much credit to the opposing lineup as well as to his own ability to make good pitches, when in reality he’s been inefficient, nibbly, and his velocity has lacked consistency. He’s still been valuable, but his lack of progress is becoming disturbing. Part of me almost wants him to get his ass handed to him tonight so he has to ugly outings staring him in the face through the All-Star break. The hope being that might put a crack in some of his delusions.

Mark Melancon rejoins the bullpen tonight with Jonathan Albaladejo getting optioned out despite his fine work in yesterday’s game. Derek Jeter gets a half-day off at DH with Cody Ransom, who drove in a pair of runs yesterday, playing shortstop against the lefty Saunders. Nick Swisher bats fifth ahead of Robinson Cano. Melky’s in center, and Jose Molina makes his first appearance since being activated, catching Chamberlain and giving us a chance to see just how much Francisco Cervelli and Ramiro Peña really are going to be missed in the short term.

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That’s it. Just listen.

I know we’ve covered pizza plenty here of late but I couldn’t let this pass without sharing…the Times ran a great feature on NYC pizza this week.

Dig it, dogs.

How to quantify fielding? That is the question. Statistics are often revealing when discussing hitting but fielding is harder to pin down. For instance, how can you accurately determine a fielder’s range when players are often positioned by their coaches? Well, in today’s New York Times, Alan Schwarz takes a look at the future of fielding metrics:

A new camera and software system in its final testing phases will record the exact speed and location of the ball and every player on the field, allowing the most digitized of sports to be overrun anew by hundreds of innovative statistics that will rate players more accurately, almost certainly affect their compensation and perhaps alter how the game itself is played.

Which shortstops reach the hard-hit grounders up the middle? Which base runners take the fastest path from first base to third? Which right fielders charge the ball quickest and then throw the ball hardest and most accurately? Although the game will continue to answer to forces like wind, glaring sun and the occasional gnat swarm, a good deal of time-honored guesswork will give way to more definite measurements — continuing the trend of baseball front offices trading some traditional game-watching scouts for video and statistical analysts.

As much as I value baseball’s history, from landmark moments such as Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier all the way down to tacky embarassments such as the White Sox’s short pants and Ten-Cent Beer Night, I’m glad the Yankees have played their last game at Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. It’s not that the Yankees didn’t do well there, they finished with a 77-64 (.546) record in the dome and went 4-0 there in the playoffs. It’s not that the place was devoid of history; it hosted two World Series Game Sevens, including the legendary extra-inning Game 7 in 1991, as well as an ALCS, three ALDS, an All-Star Game, Dave Winfield’s 3,000th hit, all of Kirby Puckett’s Hall of Fame career, three Cy Young seasons (by Johan Santana and Frank Viola), and a pair of Rookie of the Year campaigns (Chuck Knoblauch and, uh, Marty Cordova). The problem wasn’t what took place there, it was the place itself. Baseball simply wasn’t meant to be played indoors, on artificial surface, under a baseball-colored roof that disguised fly balls, in front of huge air conditioning vents that mysteriously blew harder when the home team was batting, with a oversized Hefty bag for an outfield wall.

Next year, the Twins will be playing outdoors, on grass, in an actual ballpark rather than a multi-purpose dome. Had that been the case on Thursday, the game would have taken place on a lovely, warm, sunny afternoon. Instead it took place inside under gloomy artificial light. Not that it cast much of a gloom over the Yankees dominance of the Twins.

With Chien-Ming Wang on the disabled list, Joe Girardi tabbed Alfredo Aceves to start on Thursday, but saddled him with a 65-pitch limit that gave him no room for error. Unfortunately, error showed up in the second, when Jason Kubel led off with a homer to dead center and throwing errors by Aceves himself and Cody Ransom, starting at third base, plated a subsequent walk to Mike Cuddyer. Aceves got into trouble again in the fourth when Cuddyer connected for a one-out double which was followed by a Brian Buscher single. Aceves then hit Mike Redmond with pitch number 65, putting him at his limit and handing a bases-loaded situation over to the team’s middle relievers.

Girardi called on rookie David Robertson to get out of Aceves’s jam despite the fact that Robertson has the highest walk rate of any of the men in the Yankee pen. Robertson got the second out by striking out Nick Punto with a 3-2 fastball, but then walked Denard Span and the woeful Matt Tolbert to force in a pair of runs before getting Joe Mauer to groundout on a curveball.

Fortunately, the Yankees had already scored five runs off Nelson Liriano by then, the first two of which came without the benefit of a hit in the second inning. That frame began with a walk and a steal by Alex Rodriguez, a pitch that hit Jorge Posada’s foot, an error by Tolbert that loaded the bases, a walk to Ransom, and a RBI groundout by Brett Gardner. Derek Jeter then drove in the third run with the Yankees’ first hit of the game.

With the Yankees clinging to a one-run lead in the fifth, Mark Teixeira, who set a personal record with his 95th homerless at-bat in the third, broke the streak with a solo shot to left. Robertson then returned to strikeout Justin Morneau, but after a walk to Jason Kubel, Girardi got fed up and called on Jonathan Albaladejo who combined with the Phils and Mariano Rivera to shut the Twins out the rest of the way to preserve the 6-4 win.

The win completed the Yankees’ dominance of the Twins this season. After winning four games against them in May by a total of just five runs, they outscored them 20-9 in these three games and never trailed in Thursday’s finale, sweeping the season series in the process. I didn’t much like the Metrodome, but it gave the Yankees a very fond farewell.

Barring a moderately unlikely post-season matchup against the Twins, the Yankees will play their last game at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome this afternoon. The first came back on May 28, 1982, when Ron Guidry matched up against a similarly diminutive and mustachioed righty named Bobby Castillo.

Giving early credence to the new stadium’s “Homer Dome” nickname, the two starters combined to give up seven home runs as the lead changed hands four times in the first six innings. Rookie third baseman Gary Gaetti, future Yankee Gary Ward, and rookie right-fielder Tom Brunansky (twice) all connected for solo shots off Gator. Lou Piniella, Oscar Gamble, and Roy Smalley, who had been acquired from Minnesota for reliever Ron Davis and shortstop Greg Gagne that April, went deep off Castillo.

With the game knotted at 4-4, Gaetti led off the top of the seventh with a double, prompting Yankee manager Gene Michael to go to his bullpen. George Frazier, the 1981 World Series goat, retired the next three batters, stranding Gaetti, after which the Yankees pushed across a fifth run in the top of the eighth on an Oscar Gamble triple that bounced Castillo and a two-out RBI single by Bobby Murcer.

With a 5-4 lead, Michael went straight to Goose Gossage in the eighth, but Goose blew the save, starting with a lead-off walk to Larry Milbourne, who had been traded from the Yankees to the Twins earlier that month in the deal that netted catcher Butch Wynegar. Milbourne was singled to third by Brunansky and scored on a sac fly by pinch-hitter Randy Johnson (not that one, or even the other one, this one).

In the ninth, Twins skipper Billy Gardner turned to Gossage’s former set-up man, Ron Davis, who came over in the Smalley trade the previous month. With one out, Willie Randolph and Dave Collins singled. Randolph then stole third and scored on Gamble’s subsequent single. After getting John Mayberry to fly out for the second out, Davis walked Bobby Murcer to load the bases, then gave up a back-breaking grand slam to Graig Nettles.

Given a reprieve, Gossage retired Gaetti, Ward, and Tim Laudner in order in the bottom of the ninth, punctuating a wild game with a strikeout of Laudner to give the Yankees a 10-5 win.

The loss ran the last-place Twins’ losing streak to nine games, which explained why just 18,854 showed up to see the Yankees’ first visit to the new building. Despite all that scoring, the game took just 2 hours and 29 minutes to play.

That was the first game the Yankees played in the Metrodome. The most significant were the four playoff games they won in the dome in 2003 and 2004:

2003 ALDS: After splitting the first two games in the Bronx, the Yankees win Games 3 and 4 at the Metrodome to defeat the Twins in the series. The combined score of the two games in the dome is 11-2. Jason Giambi, Bernie Williams, Hideki Matsui, and Nick Johnson all double off Johan Santana in the fourth inning of Game 4 as the Yankees score six runs and bounce Santana from the game.

2004 ALDS: Repeating the previous year’s pattern exactly, the Yankees win Games 3 and 4 at the Metrodome to defeat the Twins in the series. The Yankees enter the top of the eighth down 5-1, then score four runs to tie the game, the key hit being a game-tying three-run home run by Ruben Sierra off Juan Rincon. The game goes into the 11th inning, when Alex Rodriguez doubles, steals third, then scores on a wild pitch with what proves to be the winning run of the series.

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It was a tight game tonight, and A.J. Burnett was a bit nervous-making. Wild pitches left and right (and then left again), seven hits in 6.1 innings, four walks and just two strikeouts. But Burnett was stubborn, too, and he controlled the damage: the Yankees won, 4-2. At a few points he was stalking around the mound and muttering to himself; “I got upset a couple times, but just tried to stay within myself and make the next pitch,” he said after the game. Ah, that’s a golden oldie, stay within himself. Joe Torre used that one all the time, and while I don’t think it actually means anything (staying within yourself is just what you do while you’re taking it one day at a time and giving 110 or even 120%), it invokes fond memories.

In the postgame scrum, a reporter asked Burnett how he settled himself during games. “Anything that can calm me down,” he said. “I’m joking out there with myself, I mean if y’all could read my mind out there y’all would crack up.” Am I the only one imagining Nuke LaLoosh’s inner monologue from Bull Durham right now? Anyway, as I’ve seen a number of Yankees fans say this season, Burnett’s been a lot more likable than I expected. He always used to annoy me. Partly it was his squinty, short-tempered demeanor on the mound – like with my old favorite Paul O’Neill and his temper tantrums, that stuff’s a lot less charming when the player in question isn’t on your team. Plus there were some very questionable hair choices over the years. But hey, so far this season, he’s been downright endearing.

Anyway, Burnett’s outing (dare I call it “gritty”?) and another pretty solid night for the Yankee bullpen – including a 1.1-inning save courtesy of Mo – were enough, barely, to back up the Yankees’ four runs. Anthony Swarzak started for Minnesota tonight, and the Yankees got to him early, scoring three runs in the second on a RBI groundout from Nick Swisher and a two-run Brett Gardner single. Swarzak, who sounds like a creature from Land of the Lost, made a good recovery but his pitch count puffed up fast. He was out of the game in the fifth, though  not before giving up what turned out to be the game-winning run – which came when Alex Rodriguez knocked in Derek Jeter. (Ain’t that the way it’s supposed to be?).

I’ve always liked the Twins, and now that they have a player named Span, of course I have to pull for them even more. My guy Denard has a very fine .377 OBP, though admittedly he is not exactly slugging up a storm. And I think it will take a few more series before I stop doing a double-take every time Ken Singleton says “Span is smelling like a rose” (thanks Kenny!) or David Cone remarks that “Span’s just caught flat-footed”.

The Yanks have won 12 of their last 14. Excelsior.

AJ Burnett looks to stay burning hot tonight against the Twins.

Here’s hoping he has another good outing.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

Or something like that…

Tom Verducci has a nice long profile of Earl Weaver in the current edition of SI:

As we are watching this 21st-century game in Fort Lauderdale, I ask Weaver if he has ever heard of moneyball.

“Moneyball?” he says, bewildered. “No.”

I tell him it’s shorthand for how Oakland gained a competitive edge by understanding, among many other things, the value of on-base percentage. “Ohhhhh, wait … a … minute!” Weaver bellows. “That was my favorite right there, on-base percentage! Don Buford wasn’t getting to play under Hank Bauer [Weaver’s predecessor]. He’d get in a ball game every now and then and feel like he had to get three or four hits. I told Buford, ‘I’m willing to play you as long as you have a .400 on-base percentage.’ All of a sudden he becomes a regular, and he’s walking a hundred times and hitting right around .300.” Buford had played 669 career games before Weaver was named Orioles manager on July 11, 1968. His OBP was .335. He played 617 games over the rest of his career, all for Weaver. His OBP under Weaver was .388.

Before Moneyball, before Beane, before Bill James—but not quite before Copernicus—Weaver, a white-haired gnome who never played a day of major league baseball, knew what worked. The most recent generation of general managers, armed with their computer printouts and Ivy League–educated assistants, all channel something from the Earl of Baltimore.

“I’ll tell you one thing he did that we all learned from,” Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein says. “He would develop arms on the big league level by bringing up a young pitcher and putting him in the bullpen, mostly out of long relief. Once he got some experience he could move into the rotation. The Twins did it with [Johan] Santana to perfection.”

And Now For Something Completely Different…

In case you’ve missed Ron Artest’s tribute to Michael Jackson, well, you just shouldn’t miss it. Bless him, Ron Ron’s heart is in the right place, but this clip ranks up there with Jesus is My Friend as the 3,653rd reason why You Tube is too good to be true.

The first person that came to mind when I heard that Steve McNair was dead was his wife. And not just because he was found in a car with his mistress. It was because of an old episode of HBO Real Sports I recall watching. McNair’s wife talked about the anxiety she had watching her husband play hurt repeatedly over the years. She came across as loving and sympathetic.

Now this.

Yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, Allen Barra had a nice, brief appreciation of McNair:

One of my mentors, Jerry Izenberg, who recently retired after more than half a century of sportswriting for the Newark Star-Ledger, offered me a nugget of wisdom: “If you’re in this business long enough,” he said, “you learn that if you’re a sportswriter — a serious, dedicated full-time newspaperman — then you don’t have a job. What you’ve got is a mistress.

“And mistresses make demands. You’ll pay for her one way or another. I paid her price in tons of coffee gulped on the run from plastic cups and in holidays spent away from my family while I was on the road. Mostly, though, I paid her price in loss of innocence through exposure to the evil side of sports in America.”

…There are some, for instance columnist Jay Mariotti of Fanhouse.com, to whom the circumstances of McNair’s death provide “a lesson to all of us about the differences between a façade and reality.” But McNair’s career was a reality, not a facade, and so were the hundreds of hours of commitment he gave to community service. The hours he and his wife spent loading food, water and clothes onto trucks for Hurricane Katrina victims (McNair himself arranged for the tractor trailers) and the three children’s football camps he personally paid for this year weren’t façades.

His death was a shock, and the manner of it cost me innocence I didn’t know I still had. But it didn’t take more from me than Steve McNair’s life and career gave back.

CC Sabathia allowed a run on three hits over seven innings last night and had more than plenty of run support as the Yanks pounded the Twins 10-2. Carlos Gomez robbed Alex Rodriguez of a grand slam and the game still wasn’t even close.

Photo by Jim Mone/AP courtesy of ESPN.com.

Every starter in the Yankee line-up got a hit. Mark Teixeira, who has been struggling offensively, had four, Brett Gardner had three, and Robbie Cano and Frankie Cervelli each had a couple. With Jose Molina set to come off a rehab assignment, Cervelli will return to Triple A.  But he sure has been fun to watch, eh?

Oh, and Alfredo Aceves will take Chien-Ming Wang’s turn and start tomorrow afternoon.