Daily Archives: May 14, 2010

In each of the last two seasons, the American League Central was decided by one run in the 163rd game of the year. I don’t expect things will be quite so close this year. The Twins, who lost 1-0 to the White Sox in a one-game playoff in 2008 then beat the Tigers 6-5 in the 12th inning of Game 163 last year, are the clear class of the division, as much because of the backward steps taken by Chicago and Detroit (the Yankees’ just-completed series loss to the Tigers notwithstanding), as because of the slight improvements to the Minnesota squad.

In conjunction with their move into their new outdoor ballpark, Target Field, the Twins finally healed some of the wounds from the horribly-botched Johan Santana trade by ridding themselves of out-machine Carlos Gomez (who came over from the Mets in that deal and posted a .293 OBP in 963 plate appearances over the last two seasons) just in time for Santana’s supposed successor, lefty Francisco Liriano, to finally return to something resembling his his 2006 All-Star form three years after Tommy John surgery.

Liriano’s reemergence as the staff ace has been a key to Twins early success this year as the Twins have been the second stingiest team in the AL (albeit well behind the Rays and only slightly ahead of the Yankees[!]). While you’re still in a good mood from the mention of the Yankees right there I’ll add that another reason for that success has been Carl Pavano, who (brace yourself) leads the Twins in innings and K/BB (thanks to just seven walks in as many starts) and is second to Liriano with a 3.30 ERA.

The Twins also rival the Tigers for the junior circuit’s best bullpen. No Joe Nathan? No problem. Jon Rauch thrived as a closer for the Nationals in 2008 before being traded to Arizona, and he’s thriving in the role again for the Twins, posting a 1.93 ERA making like Pavano by posting a stellar K/BB largely due to a dearth of walks (just two in 13 appearances). That on top of typically fine work from Matt Guerrier and strong early showings from sophomore lefty Brian Duensing and veteran LOOGY Ron Mahay give the Twins an excellent end game.

At the plate, the Twins trail only the Yankees in all of baseball in on-base percentage with a team mark of .358. Credit defending AL MVP Joe Mauer (.413), major league OBP leader Justin Morneau (.486), center fielder Denard Span (.379), free agent second baseman Orlando Hudson (.369), and the man who eliminated the Twins with a solo homer in 2008 and has recently eliminated a struggling Jason Kubel from the lineup, 39-year-old Jim Thome (.384).

Unfortunately, despite finally going out and getting a qualified middle infield duo this winter, the Twins still have Nick Punto and Brendan Harris in the lineup. Harris because J.J. Hardy, the shortstop acquired from the Brewers for Gomez, was hit in the write with a pitch and is on the DL. Punto, because while they got Hudson and Hardy to fill the middle infield, they forgot to get a third baseman. Punto is now in his sixth (sixth!) season as a starter or replacement starter for the Twins. In that time, he has hit .250/.323/.328 yet the Twins still haven’t figured out that they win despite him, not because of him.

Nonetheless, with their pitchers keeping runs off the board and the bulk of their lineup keeping outs off the board, the Twins are on pace to post the second best record in franchise history and best since the original Senators went to the World Series in 1933. I don’t expect the Twins to keep up their 105-win pace (they haven’t faced the Yankees, Rays, or Rangers yet), but I do expect them to win the AL Central with ease.

Scott Baker starts tonight for the Twinks. The team’s best pitcher a year ago, he’s third in line this year despite little change in his own performance save some BABIP correction (from .277 to .311). In his last two starts, against the Tigers and Orioles, Baker has put up this line: 15 IP, 10 H, 4 R, 2 BB, 14 K. He faced the Yankees once last year and gave up five runs on eight singles, a double, and two walks in just three innings. He faces A.J. Burnett, who looks to get back on the ball after his failure at Fenway.

Francisco Cervelli starts for Jorge Posada, who gets a routine day off after two days on, which might be a pattern going forward. Brett Gardner continues to bat second (though I’m waiting for the Yankees to swap him and Jeter in the order). The lineup behind Robinson Cano is Nick Swisher, back from biceps tightness, Marcus Thames, in left against a righty, Juan Miranda at DH, and Cervelli.

(more…)

For Mr. Barra:

By Allen Barra

It’s a shame that Robin Evan Roberts couldn’t have picked a more fortunate day to die. His passing on May 6 Thursday was lost in the media swirl surrounding the arrest of former New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor on rape charges and the speculation over whether Lebron James would be playing next season in Cleveland or New York. Before his memory fades entirely, a few things about his life and career should be remarked on.

Roberts pitched in relative obscurity for most of his 19 big league seasons, and his death at age 83 was relegated to the status of second-tier news. Now, after some reflection, we can put his career in perspective: he was baseball’s greatest pitcher since World War II and one of the most important men in baseball history.

He was also scandalously unappreciated. In 1960 the Associated Press conducted a survey of “164 Top-Flight Sportswriters” and “76 Nationally-Known Public Figures” to determine “The All-Star Team of the Past Decade.” Roberts didn’t make the team. He finished second to the Yankees’ Allie Reynolds. Allie had a fine career, but he was only great after coming to the Yankees in 1947. He won 131 games over the next eight seasons, and that was pitching for the New York Yankees, who won six World Series over that span.

Pitching in seven seasons from 1948-1954, Robin Roberts won 137 games, and that was while pitching for the Philadelphia Phillies, who won one National League pennant in that time. For most of those season, the Phillies were the worst team in their league, or at least would have been if it hadn’t been for Robin Roberts. From 1952-1954, Roberts won 74 games and lead his league in victories each year. (He also lead the league in 1955.)

Three decades after the AP’s poll, I talked to Bob Broeg of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who had voted for Reynolds over Roberts, and asked him why. He told me that he had voted for Reynolds mainly because he had beat Roberts in Game Two of the 1950 World Series (2-1 in 10 innings on a Joe DiMaggio home run.)

In 1976 Roberts was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in his fourth year of eligibility. Whitey Ford, practically his exact contemporary, retired a year after Roberts and was elected in 1974 in his second year of eligibility. Mr. Ford, an undeniably great pitcher, won 236 games in his career, 50 fewer than Roberts. Needless to say, Mr. Ford pitched for the Yankees.

Rich Ashburn, the only other Phillies player of note during the 1950s and later a popular sportscaster in Philadelphia, once asked me rhetorically, “With all due respect to Whitey, if he had pitched for the Phillies and Robin had pitched for the Yankees, who do you think would have made it to the Hall of Fame first?”

The Yankees, always the Yankees. After Roberts was passed over in the 1974 HOF voting, novelist James Michener wrote in the New York Times, “If he [Roberts] had pitched for the Yankees, he would have won 350 games.” I wrote pretty much the same thing in my 2004 book, Brushbacks and Knockdowns, except I projected 340, which would have made Roberts one of the seven winningest pitchers in baseball since 1901 and one of the four winningest since 1945.

But James Michener and I were both wrong. If Roberts had pitched for the Yankees, he would never have won that many games. For the best team in baseball, the Casey Stengel era Yankees had very few 20 game winners; Stengel seldom went with a regular rotation and often held his best pitchers out for important games. (There was also a rumor that the Yankees front office liked to limit the win totals of their starters so they could hold their salaries down.)

If, however, Roberts had pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers of his era, that would have been a different matter. “Robin Roberts on the mound,” says Roger Kahn, author of the definitive book on the Brooklyn Dodgers, The Boys of Summer, “Forget it. Backed by Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges? Put Robin Roberts on those Dodgers teams and they’d have been the New York Yankees.”

Not that Roberts had anything to be embarassed about. He won more than 20 games six times, including going 28-7 in 1952 for a Phillies team that played under .500 ball when he wasn’t on the mound. He lead the National League for five consecutive seasons in innings pitched and complete games. And, amazingly, he is only in the record book now for allowing the most home runs (505) of any pitcher and for having the lowest batting average (.167) of anyone with more than 1500 at-bats.

His greatest contribution to baseball, though, came off the field in 1966 when he helped recruit a former economist for the steelworkers union named Marvin Miller as executive director of the players union. “I don’t think any former ballplayer,” says Mr. Miller, “with the possible exception of Jackie Robinson, had the respect and gratitude of more players.”

In the end, Roberts had no regrets. He once told me, “I had a tremendous career, and I pitched for a whole decade in front of some great fans.” Surely he is the only player in baseball history to accuse the Phillies fans of the era of being great. “Let me tell you,” Mr. Ashburn said. “The Phillies fans in that time were the booingest bunch in the major leagues. But they never booed Robin Roberts.”

Allen Barra’s latest book, Rickwood Field: A Century in America’s Oldest Ballpark (Norton), will be published  in June.

Ted Berg chats with Kid Gleeman:

In case you haven’t heard, salt is bad. Harumph. Still, Heinz is changing their ketchup recipe to include less salt. 

Will that mean less flavor? We’ll find out this summer.

[Photo Credit: Bright Lights Dim Beauty of Chicago]

LeBron James had a poor series against the Celtics and a disappointing game last night as he turned the ball over nine times. The Cavs lost, their season is over. Think Alex Rodriguez is over-analyzed? What’s-Wrong-With-LeBron just bumped you out of the top spot, Papi.

James did record a triple double. Guy I know called it “hollow” this morning. How 19 rebounds are hollow I don’t know but James didn’t shoot the ball well and played tight (and he could well be injured).

Anyhow, the loss puts the LeBron-to-the-Knicks-Hype Machine at center stage round these parts. It might be a longshot, but it sure would be great to have a star like James playing in the Garden every night, wouldn’t it?

I have to admit that I was completely stumped as to what I should write about in this week’s edition of “Card Corner.” Having already exhausted the futility and frustration of the 1990 Yankees, I found myself searching for a new theme. Yet, nothing came to mind.

Then came a barrage of Reggie Jackson-related material in Tuesday’s editions of The Banter. Well, Reggie is always ripe for interesting discussion. I then remembered that I needed to correct an item from a “Card Corner” that appeared in this space back in December of 2007. I had written that Jackson, when he showed up to work for Oakland in the spring in 1972, had become the first major leaguer to sport a mustache since Wally Schang of the old Philadelphia Athletics in 1914.

Wrong. Dead wrong. It’s just not true that Jackson was the first man since Schang to go the mustachioed route. As friend and researcher Maxwell Kates has pointed out, Richie Allen (as he was called back then) actually wore a mustache with the St. Louis Cardinals during the 1970 season. (Felipe Alou might have also worn a mustache with the A’s in 1970, but that is less certain. Another possibility is Richie Scheinblum, who might have grown a mustache with the Cleveland Indians in 1969.) In fact, Allen’s 1971 Topps card, which was photographed after he was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers, shows a mustache in clear view. So Jackson did not set a new trend. He merely continued what Allen had done over the previous two seasons.

With that cleared up, Jackson is good fodder for conversation, especially when a new in-depth biography about his life has just hit the Internet bookshelves. I have not yet read Dayn Perry’s book, but I’m sure that he has touched upon the following subjects in far greater depth. In particular, the start of Jackson’s professional career, along with his overlooked years in Oakland, have always fascinated me. So let’s take a closer look.

By all rights, Jackson should have started his career in New York, but with the Mets, not the Yankees. In 1966, the Mets owned the No. 1 pick in the June amateur draft. They faced a choice of drafting Jackson, a young African-American outfielder out of Arizona State, or a left-handed, power-hitting catcher named Steve Chilcott. With Jackson destined to make the major leagues within two seasons, the Mets would have formulated one of the game’s best and most athletic outfields: smooth-swinging Cleon Jones, who would bat .340 during the miracle season of 1969; Gold Glover and power-hitting Tommie Agee in center; and the rifle-armed Jackson in right field. I can’t think of any outfield in that era that would have combined such speed, defensive range, and power, with the possible exception of the early 1970s Giants outfield that featured Willie Mays in center flanked by a young Ken Henderson (look up his early numbers) in left field and a budding Bobby Bonds in right field.

As we all know, the dream outfield of Jones-Agee-Jackson never materialized at Shea Stadium. Instead of taking Jackson, the Mets chose Chilcott, who would play seven minor league seasons but never play a single game in the major leagues. Rumors have always swirled that the Mets opted not to take Jackson because he liked to date white women. I tend to believe the rumors, especially given the presence of George Weiss as Mets general manager. Weiss was the same man who had decided to integrate the Yankees at a snail’s pace during the 1950s.

The perception of Jackson’s talent has also been a source of controversy, though for less incendiary reasons. I’ve long contended that the portrayal of Jackson as a one-dimensional slugger is overly simplistic–along with being just plain wrong. As a member of the A’s, Reggie was a well-rounded four-tool talent. In addition to the established power, Reggie could steal bases, range far in right field, and heave cannon shots toward the infield. With the A’s, Jackson had enough athleticism to make more than token appearances in center field. From 1967 to 1974, Jackson played 172 games in center field for the A‘s, including 92 appearances for the 1972 world champions. He wasn’t a particularly good center fielder–he was probably a bit below average, let‘s call it a ‘3‘ on a Strat-O-Matic card–but he was often the best available candidate for managers Dick Williams and Alvin Dark.

By the time that Reggie joined the Yankees in 1977, the idea of playing him in center field was unthinkable; I suspect that in addition to becoming too muscle bound, he had problems with his vision and depth perception that made outfielding a major chore. But for the first seven to eight seasons of his career, Jackson was a true triple threat as a power hitter, capable defender, and proficient base stealer.

And he was pretty good at growing a mustache, thought not exactly the trendsetter that I had originally portrayed him to be. Somehow, I think Reggie will get over it.

Bruce Markusen will present a program on baseball cards at the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture June 2-4.