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The GMS curse: The NL wins one

On the heels of the announcement of George Steinbrenner’s passing, the National League finally win an All-Star game… their first since I was in my early 30s.

It was a simple win with good pitching and a nice clutch hit by sub Brian McCann who was responsible for all three of the NL’s runs. Indeed, all of the NL’s offense came from the bottom of the order, much from the substitutes. The top four in the order were a combined 0-11.

Kudos goes to my Cub Marlon Byrd who was one those runs McCann drove in during the seventh inning. More importantly, Byrd gunned down David Ortiz at second for a 9-4 assist. Byrd can probably be thankful it wasn’t anyone else besides slow-footed Ortiz but nonetheless it was a ninth inning rally killer.

Final score NL 3 AL 1

And thought you have most likely have seen the box score already, check out the one done by Baseball Reference. It’s the most comprehensive and interactive out there.

New patches will be worn in memory of Yankee legends

In light of the recent deaths of Yankee legends Bob Sheppard and George Steinbrenner, the New York ballclub’s graphic designers have been busy coming up with a patch that will adorn the uniforms of the Yankee players.

Both are stark black and white to match the Yankee uniforms. The Steinbrenner patch includes his full name plus his initials “GMS”. At the bottom, it says The Boss”. Nice touch.

Sheppard’s patch is a nicely done graphic of an old time PA mike within a baseball diamond and simply says, “Bob Sheppard The Voice of Yankee Stadium”.

The GMS patch will be worn above the NY on the left breast on the home jerseys and above the YORK on away jerseys.

You’ll find the Sheppard patch on the Yankees’ left sleeves.

Steinbrenner changed baseball (for better or worse)

Truly a rough week for the Yankee faithful. In the last three days, two iconic figures who represented the Bronx Bombers in two very different ways, passed away

On Sunday, PA announcer Bob Sheppard passed on at the ripe age of 99. His time with the Yankees goes back to the days of DiMaggio and Mantle. His voice was long lived. It could be heard as late as 2007.

Then today the Boss was finally dragged kicking and screaming from this dimension into the next life. George Steinbrenner, the shipbuilder turned baseball team owner who swore he would not get involved in his team’s business died at the age of 80.

Steinbrenner was controversial, aggressive, intrusive and yes, sometimes mean. But he won, too. Under his ownership, the Yankees won eleven championships and seven World Series.

A friend posed this question to a few of us over email: “Which had more effect on player salaries, George Steinbrenner or Curt Flood’s free agency case?”

Truly an academic question which has no real answer. But it does give one pause to think. Other owners were skeptical of free agency, not wanting to shell out the big bucks for players. Meanwhile, Steinbrenner, who inherited a sub-par Yankee team in the early 70s, wasn’t afraid to adapt his business model to include the concept of Flood’s idea of free agency. With the acquisition of Catfish Hunter and so many others, Steinbrenner changed the way, for better or for worse, how baseball owners approach acquiring on-the-field personnel.

The results,in Steinbrenner’s case, speak for themselves.

Latino expert Burgos interviewed by UI press

Author, University of Illinois history professor, and local Latino baseball expert, Adrian Burgos was interviewed by the U of I News Bureau on the immigration issue. The topic of SB1070 as well as documentation issues came up in relation to baseball.

Burgos is the author of Playing America’s Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line.

Are sports’ officiators losing their hold of the game?

At the risk of sounding like old man played by Dana Carvey on SNL it didn’t used be like this. We watched our sports and took it like a man.

Bill Klem, a Hall of Fame umpire who worked the game for 37 years, was known for saying, It ain’t nothin’ till I call it”. Not anymore. Everything is held in the court of public opinion and if the public is lucky, that will sway the sports’ organizations decisions.

Just in the past month, we’ve had some close calls. Baseball fans are going mental calling for the reversal of Jim Joyce’s last call of Armando Galaraga’s near perfect game. (I don’t agree with Bud very often but I’ve come around to his thinking on this. Can you imagine the precedent this would set?)

Earlier this month, umps at the Women’s Softball College World Series were called into question a couple of times… enough that it was brought up in the media.

And now during the 2010 World Cup (after USA’s unfortunate departure), FIFA is coming under fire for their officiating. Guess what? They’re now considering high-tech solutions to solve their problems.

So either a) officiators are somehow getting worse, b) the fans are getting more picky about their officiating, or c) the media doesn’t have anything better to cover.

My guess is that it’s a combination of b and c.

Quite simply, what’s happening now is that the men in blue are stuck in an era where there have been some high profile missed calls. As a result, the spotlight is on them where is shouldn’t be. You know an umpire is doing a good job when you don’t remember him and can’t recall his name. THEN he’s doing his job.

Now however, this issue is stuck in neutral and everyone is looking for the umpire to make a mistake. And when he does, here come the typical articles in press/blogosphere… “SEE SEE!! We need to institute/expand instant replay!!”.

As I feel with most things in life, baseball should not make snap decisions based on high profile mistakes or media-driven policy.

To me, it ain’t nothin till an ump calls it.

Number crunching Jamie Moyer’s homers

RBI Magazine brings us Ten Things About Jamie Moyer’s 505 Home Runs…

…and one more reason to not like George W. Bush:

221
For his career, Jamie Moyer has given up a home run during five different presidential administrations…the most being 221 during the 2001-2008 run of George W. Bush. The other presidents that occupied the White House while Moyer toed the rubber…Ronald Reagan (58 home runs), George Bush (21), Bill Clinton (164) and, of course, Barack Obama (41 and counting).

Effective use of closers

Lee Panas of Tiger Tales makes a good case for better use of MLB’s premier relievers. He uses his Tigers’ Jose Valverde as a case study but it goes for all closers of high talent.

This is the basic crux of his argument:

Instead of having Valverde enter a dozen or more games in very low impact situation just to get work, wouldn’t it be better if Leyland picked his spots using him only when the game was on the line? I’d rather see him enter a tie game in the eighth inning or with the bases loaded in the seventh than see him get a three out save with nobody on base and three run lead.

I’ve pleaded similar arguments to my baseball friends to no avail. There’s something simple about the “save” rule and there’s no getting around managers desire to saving their best guy for the ninth inning regardless of the actual impact the closer will have.

I know Lee isn’t the only one exploring this issue. Is the Save a dying stat? Perhaps not. But once we stop relying on it as the sole value of a closer, maybe they will be used in a more effective manner.

Mark looking for a Prior commitment

After four years (has it really been that long?), Mark Prior wants to prove to MLB teams that he can pitch in the bigs again. He’s pitching at USC this week where plenty of teams will be scouting him.

Wouldn’t it be hysterical if the Cubs took a flyer on him?

Answer: Most certainly, but not in a funny way. I got off the Prior bandwagon pretty early in his career and never regretted it.

Guide to vintage base ball

For those who have heard about vintage base ball or seen me post articles about our local team, the Vermilion Voles and not really have a clue what it’s all about, here’s your answer.

The Voles have posted an all-encompassing guide to vintage base ball. It’s complete with the 1858 rules that vintage ballplayers adhere to, a glossary of game terms so that you’ll fit in when you watch a game and even photos of some of the vintage base ball teams playing the game.

The guide was written by Dave “Beans” Heim of the St Louis Unions. I’ve been a fan for three or four years and still found the guide quite informational. Well done!

Here is a direct link to the guide in pdf format

Zambrano placed on restricted list… NOW?

So the Cubs will place Carlos Zambrano on the restricted list so he can receive “treatment”? Pardon me for seeming a little cynical but why now?

Why not all those years before when it seems like he could have used it (read: the Barrett incident etc)? Maybe his 3-6 record and 5.66 ERA has something to do with it.

I don’t know why but it reminds me of the Crash Davis quote from Bull Durham:

Your shower shoes have fungus on them. You’ll never make it to the bigs with fungus on your shower shoes. Think classy, you’ll be classy. If you win 20 in the show, you can let the fungus grow back and the press’ll think you’re colorful. Until you win 20 in the show, however, it means you are a slob.

…only sort of in reverse and this has to do with attitude.

The Cubs and let’s face it, MLB in general, were willing to put up with Zambrano’s antics and eccentrics as long as he was the #1 starter and winning 10+ games. Once he stopped doing that, I guess the oddity lost it’s allure.

Have a nice break, Carlos.