Hank Aaron has a good sense of perspective

The word out of Atlanta is that Hank Aaron is probably the person in baseball who is least upset by the Alex Rodriguez flap and talk of returning the home run record to him.

From Terence Moore's column (via Deadspin):

“If you did that, you’d have to go back and change all kinds of records, and the [home run] record was very important to me,” Aaron said. “It’s probably the most hallowed record out there, as far as I’m concerned, but it’s now in the hands of somebody else. It belongs to Barry. No matter how we look at it, it’s his record, and I held it for a long time. But my take on all of this has always been the same. I’m not going to say that Barry’s got it because of this or because of that, because I don’t know.”

I hope someone cuts this out of the newspaper and leaves it for the '72 Dolphins to read.

Well, it's here. No what?

It's official - instant replay has officially arrived for Major League Baseball. How long before these clowns screw something up?

From now on, home run calls -- and only home run calls -- can be reviewed to determine whether or not a ball was over the fence, fair or foul, or subject to fan interference.

Which is precisely where the command center comes in. When an umpire crew chief decides that a potential home run might benefit from a peek at instant replay, he will head to a replay kiosk constructed in a separate location at every ballpark. There, the crew chief will communicate with one of MLB Advanced Media's replay engineers, who will guide him through as many available replay angles as he desires.

OK, let's see if I have this right:

* In a game criticized for being "too slow" they are now going to allow umpires to stop play and review video.

* That video won't be on site - instead, it will come from a tech compound several states away.

* The league itself isn't very sure that they are up to the task.

Phenomenal.

"It needs to be instantaneous," said Bob Bowman, president and CEO of MLB.com, a subsidiary of MLB Advanced Media. "Taking a live feed and redistributing that is one thing, but taking a live feed, cutting it, slicing it, dicing it and sending it back to the park so an umpire can see it -- all in a relatively short period of time -- is frankly a skill set that we needed to develop."

Points for honesty, not so much for practicality.

I'll be a good soldier here and wait and see what happens, but several things trouble me:

* The league says this is it as far as replay goes. That's a load of crap. This is as far as it goes until they can prop it up as a successful venture. Then, they will use it as a test case to expand "just to close tags" or "just as long as it puts the Yankees and/or Red Sox into the playoffs.

* This isn't football - time matters in baseball. Part of the excitement of a late-inning homer in a close game (especially in October) is knowing that the other team's closer isn't ready to go yet. Sure, managers stall and the poor sap on the mound preens and waits and tries to give the bullpen more time, but eventually they have to pitch after giving up a backbreaking bomb. MLB hopes the replay process will take 2 1/2 minutes - how long do you think Mo Rivera needs to get ready? What about Bobby Jenks?

* I swear that I'm not going to play the "tradition" card here. I'm not that breed of fan who tries to place the honor of the game above all else. But again, this isn't football. Teams, players and fans have been at the mercy of the umpires for as long as there have been games. By now, it's part of the strategy - it's worth a manager's time to brush up on the evening's plate umpire, just as it's worth their time to brush up on the starting pitcher. Bottom line, the umps have been 300 feet away since the 1880s - a few missed calls weren't the end of the world.

* If the replays are coming from the networks, good luck. Even with the advent of HD, it's not very easy to see where the ball is or where it's going. They zoom and pan and try to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but it's really never that great. I have a bad feeling that there will be a day in the near future that will feature two umpires squinting at the screen, knowing that they stopped the game and that the clock is ticking and will have the same thought, "Crap, I can't see a damn thing."

* Out of every time that you have seen the announcers break down a fair/foul call, how many of those have fallen into the "definitive proof" category? Sixty percent? Sixty five?

* I don't trust the commissioner. I think he's an idiot caretaker. There, I said it.

(Image taken for Siberian Baseball)

Is small ball a little white lie?

It's pretty intuitive to write off the big swinging, big missing sluggers in baseball as being more trouble than they're worth some seasons when they put together games where they don't make contact in any of their at-bats until they crush one into the cheap seats.

Run down your mental checklist of players who have had that tag hung on them and it makes a lot of sense to lust after a few players on your team that grasp small ball and can grind out runs and make solid contact each time they grab a bat.

(I am currently having the shakes caused by the final two seasons that Sammy Sosoa spent with the Cubs after weighing this prospect.)

But, is it worth it?

I found this link to Dugout Central from a tip from another BallHype user, BrianDaubach7, which starts plugging in different numbers and seeing what would happen if a few players from Reggie Jackson to Barry Bonds had been playing station-to-station.

Intuitively this seems incorrect. Everyone knows that strikeouts are more damaging than this. After checking (and rechecking) the math, I turned to Reggie Jackson. Reggie created 1,728 runs in 21 seasons. Turn all 2,597 of his strikeouts into pop outs and his runs created climbs to 1,754. The all-time strikeout leader only cost his teams 26 runs through failure to make contact.

It won't make it any easier the next time someone hacks themself back to the bench late in a close game, but it might help a little bit.

(Image from: Opiated.files.wordpress.com)

And another thing...

In what is becoming a rite of summer, my mind drifts to the All-Star Game and what a mess fan balloting creates with the skewed popularity contest consuming the league for a week or so as the voting window closes.

I'm hesitant to pin it all on being a baseball snob who feels those fans who don't spend inordinate amounts of time feeding a blog don't deserve a vote, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little worried about the impact of fans stuffing the hometown ballot box. On the other hand, I was once a little guy, furiously punching out circles of all the players on the Cubs - even Shawon Dunston - when we'd head to games in the pre-Internet era.

Know what the difference was? Those games didn't matter.

Now with the home field advantage hanging in the balance, the games count and it's a different story. While it's not the end of the world to lose the All-Star Game, especially with the recent World Series drubbings that aren't seeing seven games, it does have an impact it didn't have in the past and it's unfair to shoehorn the fan balloting into this new setup.

How does MLB go about fixing this? Let's take a look at the short list of problems (aside from the obvious of making the All-Star Games exhibition games again).

* Fans pick the starting lineups without picking the best lineups. Favorite players aren't necessarily the best players and no thought is put into picking the best starting nine within the constraints of a team sport. This is strange and counterintuitive.

* How do you solve the DL problem? In a National League ballpark, David Ortiz and his power hitting brothers are listed as first basemen to get them onto the ballots. The effectively cuts the talent pool for the AL when playing in an NL city.

* Every team needs a representative. This isn't summer camp. Everyone doesn't deserve to play. No, I don't care how many All-Star jerseys are sold to fans of all teams. Plus, if you don't have a player who can make the team on his own, chances are no one from that town is watching the game anyways.

* The best players are not always available. Injuries or the fear of injuries always plays a role. Players who need the days to rest should be allowed to take them in lieu of the dog and pony show.

* The whine of fans that the team's manager is out to get their players. Say Terry Francona leaves Mariano Rivera in a little too long. Is he trying to secure home field for the AL, or trying to cook the Yankees closer to keep him benched a day or two? There's no good answer here.

* If teams are really out to win, why are players used in an arbitrary manner? Starting pitchers asked to enter for an inning in the fourth and exit by the fifth. Part of the reason starters can't be used as cogs in the bullpen as conditioning - both mentally and physically - to plan for the long haul. Again, this is not summer cap - let your pitcher work a full game. Let the other starters practice their Oscar speeches about how it's an honor to be nominated.

So, are there any solutions? For some aspects, yes, but in the big picture, MLB needs to decide what is more important to the game - a competitive game with a real bearing on the season, or a showcase of the league's talent and an opportunity to sell crappy mechandise.

Here's my bare bones proposal:

* Fans pick their favorite nine players using the current voting system. You then have a record of the fans' favorite players for that season and they can go out and be presented with a plaque or gilded piece of baseball equipment. There's the gold glove, silver slugger, why not a bronze hat?

* Once those nine are picked, it's up to the manager to either sit or start from that list. In theory, fans could vote in three right fielders - currently they vote solely for "outfielder" on the ballot - which obviously doesn't equate to the best team on the field.

* Not every team needs to be represented.

* Pick two possible starters a few days early to allow their home clubs to adjust their rotations accordingly. This allows to Cubs to figure out how to best use Carlos Zambrano and the Diamondbacks to do the same for Dan Haren in case they are "the guy" for the game. The other starters can certainly ride the pine, but it keeps one game from depleting the league's pitching staffs. This also allows teams to load up on relievers for the late innings.

* Always use the DH. No one will complain if the NL's pitchers don't get at-bats. It makes the games more entertaining and we don't need to hear about how the NL manager is a great strategy guy for three or more innings.

* Finally, add at least one more off day for the players after the game to allow the stars to unwind, head home for a day, rest after the circus of the game. With the World Series now dipping into early November, it's not going to kill anyone to wait another day or two before diving into the second half of the season.

(Image from: NewsImg.bbc.co.uk)

If they won't allow a suit, what are the chances you'll see a laptop in a dugout?

The Chicago Cubs announcers sparked my curiosity Friday night when they touched on a subject that's been troubling me for some time now - what's the big deal with a little technology in a major league dugout?

They spoke a bit that evening about the need for Lou Piniella to leave the dugout during the previous night's game to talk to the umpires and check on the status of his bullpen when the phones at Dodger Stadium went down and cut the line of communication between the dugout and the bullpen.

The announcers - Len Kasper and Bob Brenley - dipped into the rules behind the communication breakdown:

Kasper: "I guess it wouldn't ring in the pen and they were trying to find out - I think it was Marmol at the time - if he was ready.

"Now, this is an interesting point, but some may wonder, 'Why didn't somebody just get on a cell phone or text message?' You can't have any sort of communication device anywhere in that dugout, right? Other than the official phone that goes from the bullpen to the dugout?"

Brenley: "That's correct and on occasion if the phone does go down, they've allowed teams to use walkie talkies."

Awesome. If a technology from the 1870s breaks down, they let you use one from the 1930s. Who says baseball is afraid of change?

This only furthered a question I've been kicking around since the beginning of the season - with so much being done in terms of statistics and probability in baseball, why don't you ever see a laptop in a major league dugout? While I'm sure there are plenty of managers who would bristle at the mere thought of some snot-nosed stathead e-mailing him mid-game to tell him what to do with his bullpen, when he'd rather rule with his gut, there'd be at least one manager open to having that information at his fingertips, right? Doesn't this seem like something Joe Maddon would try? He's got hipster nerd glasses, after all.

After a minimal amount of digging, I had an answer in the form of a Popular Mechanics article from four years ago. Jim Kaat of all people wrote for the magazine, pointing out the new technologies in baseball for the year.

Not surprisingly, there are reams of paper in countless binders in each major league dugout to keep track of matchups on the field. In a slightly more sophisticated variation on the time-honored tales of pitchers who keep notes after every inning from college through the major leagues, the binders give managers extra information at a (few) moments notice.

All the information packed into that loose-leaf binder is gathered by a team's scouts and outside scouting services such as Inside Edge Scouting Services of Minneapolis, MN. Managers can check not only the history of a particular hitter/pitcher matchup, they can break it down to the fine details such as what kinds of pitches were thrown, which ones were hit and to where. Some of the reports available from Inside Edge include Hitter Profiles (hot zones, chase zones and power zones), Hitter By-Count (performance on each count), Hitter 1st Pitch and Pitcher Profiles (pitch selection on each count).

Know what else would do that? A laptop computer.

To no one's surprise, MLB hesitates to allow laptops in the dugout to allow faster access to the same information found in the binders - presumably printed from a computer out of sight 15 feet away.

Hey, for a league that is tearing through wooden bats like they were toothpicks at the cash register in a diner, I'm guessing they don't sweat wasting a little paper.

(Image from: PhiladelphiaAthletics.org)

Yes, it must have been the bats

The Year of the Broken Bat is taking on a new wrinkle as Major League Baseball launches its second investigation into maple bats and why they break the way they do and why it happens so often.

Watching big league games this season has been like playing NHL on the Sega Genesis the year after they first introduced breaking glass when you hit it with a slapshot - it's something that used to be a strange occurrence that now seems to happen once a game.

The fact that there are more broken bats this year isn't all that remarkable, and anyone who has seen it happen has probably noticed that the bats are becoming more and more dangerous. Part of this is because maple bats seem to break off in such a manner that leaves a sharp point and part is coming from the frequency of the breaks.

The voice of reason in the story from the East Valley Tribune in Phoenix? Chicago's own Ozzie Guillen:

Stressing "something is wrong here (and) it's dangerous," White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen already has talked to MLB officials.

"What are they going to do about it? Nothing," he said. "The only thing they can do is (autograph those that broke), put them on eBay and make money back and buy more bats."

Guillen recalls players from his era using "one dozen or two dozen" bats in a year.

"Now I go to the bat room and (Paul) Konerko has 40 dozen, all these guys have three-, four-, five-, six-dozen bats."

But the question remains, "Who is to blame for this plague on the league's first base coaches? Why Barry Bonds, of course.

Maple bats became popular in the late 1990s and then exploded into popularity after Barry Bonds blasted his record 73 home runs in 2001 with maple. On some teams as many as three-quarters of the hitters use maple.

Yes, it was the maple bats that turned Bonds from a slap-hitting singles and doubles guy to the master of the moonshot.

Now I see why this story appeared in print - no one on television would be able to deliver that theory with a straight face, regardless of how many takes you gave them.

I bet the Cubs got docked for their urinals

Sports Illustrated has released the results of their recent online fan survey, which set out to rank the overall baseball experience for each team in the majors.

The big winner? Cleveland. Who knew?

One strange piece to this puzzle is that they ask the home fans for each team to rank their experience, which is fine, but then questions are posed in a manner that ranks the response on a below average/average/above average basis.

Take the giveaways section as an example. Let's say a Twins fan is asked to rank the Minnesota giveaways - what are they being compared to? It's a small thing, but I'd have been happier just asking fans if they were satisfied or not and by how much. If the whole point is that the home fans weigh in, it doesn't make much sense to have them rank their team like that without any real control of the baseline.

Put simply, when Frankie and I went to Sox and Cubs games on the same day, the Southsiders gave us nothing and the Northsiders gave us cool ski caps. If that's the only day I head to the Cell, then the Cubs are much, much better in my eyes. Now, how am I supposed to know if they're average or above when compared to a ballpark I've never been to?

Also, wouldn't this penalize teams whose fans were honest with regards to fan knowledge or hospitality? I guess it's not a competition, but there are a few questions I had reading through tonight.

That aside, it's a fun survey and has a few surprises. The older ballparks, lauded for their old time charm are knocked in the rankings for failing amenities.

The White Sox are given top marks for traffic - with a 47.9 percent ranking for public transit options - which struck me as odd, especially compared to other cities where I've driven to the ballparks. Proving that it's all relative, the Cubs were 23rd, but had better marks for public transportation options which are pretty much exactly the same as they are at The Cell.

Rounding out the rest of the crosstown rivalry, the White Sox took second in the league for food, eighth for atmosphere and fourth for fan IQ and promotions.

The Cubs were third for tradition, sixth for atmosphere and eighth for fan IQ. The Cubs blew out the Southsiders in the neighborhood, ranking second to 23rd for the Sox.

I'm sure I'll revisit this later in the week, because there are all sorts of gems to be mined here - for now, I'll just leave it with a wise fan who was commenting on fan hospitality at the Friendly Confines - "by the bleachers, they are farm animals."

(Image from: Syracuse.com)

Jackie Robinson Day is getting out of control

The rumblings started last year when Houston fielded an all-white team in matching 42's and Torii Hunter spoke up about how that defeated the purpose of the day.

This year, I got to see Nick Swisher and the entire Oakland A's lineup sporting 42's, in addition to Jermaine Dye on the South Side and Derrek Lee, Daryle Ward and Ken Griffey Jr. wear the special jerseys on the North Side.

Given the choice, less is more.

In addition to being confusing as hell in the middle of an infield pop-up (Frankie was pretty upset for the scorekeepers who had to try and sort out a mess on a flubbed catch) you really lose any sort of impact by flooding the field with "special" jerseys.

There are a few options here:

1.) Make the players earn the right to wear Robinson's number. Go old school and have an essay contest if it comes to that. I'd love to see "Why I should be able to wear No. 42, by Junior Griffey" in all it's double-spaced glory.

2.) Vote on it. We all know that MLB loves, loves, loves to open things up to online voting from the final spot on the All-Star Team to the Batboy of the Year. What better way to get fans back into baseball every spring than to have a few days to allow them to vote for the player they think is most deserving of the honor?

3.) Limit the usage of the the number to the starting first baseman for each team. That's it. One 42 at first base for each team in each ballpark and leave it understated.

The only minor exception I can see here is for the Dodgers themselves, if for no other reason than to allow Vin Scully to tell this story. Aside from that, it just makes the commissioner's office appear too lazy to figure out who should be allowed the honor of wearing the number.

(Image from: MLB.com)

What's the going rate for good will?

Sam Zell, you blockhead...

With a few quick sentences, Zell has raised the ire of bloggers, fans and dead chewing gum tycoons. It seems the new owner of the Cubs has no problem selling off the various assets piece by piece.

You know what? That's his prerogative. He's free to do whatever he'd like with his property, but I'm surprised that a man so renowned for his business sense has failed to grasp the lessons learned by Macy's in Chicago.

The short version of the story goes like this: Macy's buys Marshall Field's and despite a public outcry, renames the store. Burly Midwesterners accustomed to trudging to work in the dark despite negative double digit temperatures and other situations requiring mental toughness vow to boycott Macy's for what they've done to our fair city.

Macy's loses money by the truckload as Chicagoans take a degree of pride in trying to torpedo the retail giant.

I'm not saying that fans would cut off their noses to spite their faces - and even if they did, there's a line that starts in Iowa to grab up any empty seats that such a stupid move would produce - but I don't think this is the best plan for the owner of a newspaper that is facing an industry-wide slowdown and a need to start fighting back in an online world.

At the end of the day, the team and the ballpark are still Zell's, and he strikes me as the type of guy who would be more likely to sell the team and its assets piecemeal to maximize profit and cause a stir. This just reminds me to hug my kids every day when I have them to try and prevent this personality type.

So, where does that leave Cubs fans?

In the car this morning, WXRT's Lin Brehmer was asked what he would name Wrigley if he had the money as part of a larger conversation about who the listeners would like to see buy the naming rights. Brehmer didn't miss a beat and said he'd buy the naming rights to keep the name the same.

This has me asking why that wouldn't work. If the idea is to build brand loyalty in the town where you purchase the naming rights - I don't drink any more orange juice because Tropicana owns the rights in Tampa, nor did I rush out to open a checking account with Bank One when they set up shop in Arizona - what better way to do that than to buy the rights and save the name?

If you figure that non-baseball fans won't care one way or another, don't you stand a better chance of pulling in new customers both in Chicago and beyond by that sort of goodwill gesture? Why not have one of the Chicago institutions step up and try this?

The initial media blitz when oh, let's say, McDonald's buys the name and grandstands about tradition and respect for the fan base and baseball fans worldwide would surpass the ink spent to mention another name change in the era of corporate sponsorship.

I'm not saying this is a can't lose proposition, but isn't it at least worth exploring?

At the very least, it would probably piss off Zell.

(Image from ESPN.com)

Ten long years

It was 10 years ago today that Harry Caray passed away after becoming ill following a Valentine's Day dinner with his wife. It seems like much longer for his thousands upon thousands of fans.

Known for his goofy television delivery and his glasses more than anything else, I miss Harry and his perspective on the sport - mainly that it's supposed to be fun and everything else could go to hell.

Whether he was salivating over the women in the bleachers or butchering names of the visiting (and sometimes the home team's) players, Harry embodied Cubs baseball in my formative years. My parents would have been just as well off sending the checks meant for our babysitter to Caray, seeing as he was the one who kept me out of trouble and in one spot for at least a few hours during the summertime.

I remember watching his funeral on WGN from my dorm room and trying unsuccessfully to keep my emotions in check. Logically, it made no sense to be driven to tears over the death of a man I'd never met, but I can't imagine I'm alone on that count.

After an exhausting off season marred by scandal and speculation, I'll especially miss him this spring. I don't necessarily think he'd have any profound insight into the whole mess, but I suspect he wouldn't spend more than a few minutes throughout the course of the season dwelling on Congress or any of the knuckleheads who spend a king's ransom in legal fees to defend or attack former players.

While it's oversimplified to put Harry on a pedestal and deem him the protector of all that's right and quaint about the game, he comes as close as you can get in my mind.

While the 80's and 90's were certainly not free from big salaries and internal politics, Harry made you forget about all of that taking place on the outskirts of the game. He did, however draw the attention back to the field, the joy of a lazy summer afternoon and always seemed to be enjoying himself in the sunshine at Wrigley.

Oversimplified, yes. I'm OK with that.

* Check out this link to Home Run Derby, where he remembers a phone call with Harry years ago. This is exactly why I read Home Run Derby and not just to borrow photos from their posts.

* As another bonus, here are excerpts from Harry's last print interview that were re-posted today.

T-minus Clemens

I'm not going to dig myself too big of a hole here, but we're on the cusp of Roger Clemens on 60 Minutes, where smart money says he'll say, well, nothing.

I have major problems with Clemens as a player - most of it lingering bitterness from his departure from the Red Sox - so we won't get into that right now.

I think it's funny that on ESPN's morning show today, they ran an extended piece on lies that have been told to the American public via the media. In between Bill Clinton's, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman..." and Rafael Palmiero looking positively ridiculous pointing at a Congressional panel and denying his steroid use weeks before his suspension for steriod use, there was also a run of other athletes denying their involvement with steroids.

Like him or hate him, Clemens doesn't have the easiest sell regarding his innocence.

Hope he's got a good lawyer. And maybe a solid PR firm, too. You'd have to drink gallons of the Kool Aid to buy that song and dance at this point.

They just ran the preview at the top of the show and Mike Wallace is asking for the old lie detector test. Clemens does not seem pleased. It's always nice to counter steroid allegations with anger. That's just the basis for a rock-solid case.

Is it too late to follow Sammy Sosa's lead and insist you don't speak any English?

The big list

The list is up on MLB.com.

Just one more voice shouting

Before the Mitchell Report is released in a half hour, I figured I'd check in and lay some ground work before everything gets turned on its ear.

I still think that the majority of the hype will fall apart pretty quickly - the easiest parallel to draw is the release of the Starr Report - but that this day will color the view that fans have of this generation of players in history.

If you scour the sports sites this morning you'll see a lot of the same viewpoints, mainly that this will forever tarnish the sport, but will be ultimately unpunishable. I tend to agree with that and think that while it sucks that we'll now have a rash of names - many of which will be difficult to prove - that we can kick around and speculate about, there's too much going on here to actually have any sort of justice.

Baseball can't start taking wins away from teams aided by those on the list and shaving stats from individuals. This is nothing more than a fresh start.

This gives baseball a clean break to turn to its fans and say, "There, we're all better now. No more users after the 2007 season," and then they hold on and pray that the offseason cools everything off. I'd expect nothing less from Bud Selig.

In trying to process what's about to happen, I've tried to draw the lines for myself of what is and what is not acceptable to me. Not for all fans or for the game, but where my loyalties are and what it would take to change my opinion of a specific player or a team or the league.

Worst of all, what would I have to hear to turn me away from baseball forever?

It's the same set of questions from the steroid busts that pop up from time to time and especially with the Barry Bonds circus.

At the risk of setting out the loony bait again by discussing Bonds, I'm not upset that the home run record holder appears to have used steroids, I'm upset that someone so talented felt the need to juice up because he wanted the spotlight.

More than that, he allegedly used steroids out of spite. I hold Bonds to a higher standard - and I believe this bears itself out in old posts - because of his pedigree and what should have been a degree of respect for the game. There, I've now let my inner whiny sports columnist out.

I don't think I'm alone in feeling more sympathetic towards the Kevin Millar's of the baseball world who appear to be scraping to keep themselves in the majors. I'm not defending it or saying it's acceptable, but that's where my line is drawn.

I guess that's why the name Alex Sanchez can float in and out of my mind, while Sammy Sosa will be there forever.

Now, at 12:53 p.m., the hard copies of the Mitchell Report are being passed out by a burly gentleman in New York. There's no audio, so I can't hear if he's singing.

Enjoy the spin cycle.

Not natural

Thanks to Ballhype user Emmett Jones for finding this today from Sports Business Digest today.



It's a different point than those which have been made lately. I thought it was pretty interesting, even if I don't totally agree with it.

It's really not a story without Sir Charles

The indispensible Bugs & Cranks pulled this interview with Charles Barkley from ESPN and it's worth a listen.

Barkley does his best to break down the argument without playing the race card, citing Bonds' fan-unfriendly reputation as the big reason that he's worn such a target on his back.

I need to do some serious digging here to see exactly what the other big players in the current steroid scandal said under oath, because that's the crux of the argument in my opinion.

While everyone had a good laugh at Jason Giambi's non-committal apology for unnamed and unknown sins and Mark McGwire's desire to speak about the future - not the past - under oath, it appears that those two had the good sense not to deny drug use that could come back later to bite them in the ass.

From what I'm reading, Bonds and his lawyers didn't think that was such an intelligent path.

Done to death

It's all been said.

All the names have been thrown at him in opposing ballparks all season, the home run king snubbed him on the national stage and his career has become so radioactive that the commissioner of his sport wouldn't go near him as he neared the home run record.

I suppose this is the logical conclusion of this part of Barry Bonds' story, but I'm not taking a great deal of pleasure in the result. If anything, I'm happy for the published indictment to finally shut down the Bonds Fan Club antics of a slice of fans who defended him for years.

Here is the copy of the document - I think the big piece that was missing is here as Point 9.

There, he tested positive for anabolic steroids. Can we just leave him behind now?

For such a simple game, it sure is hard to explain

While I don't even pretend to be a baseball expert - I fall squarely into the "Smarter than the average bear" category - I'm no dummy, either.

I take for granted the basics of the game and thank my lucky stars that my wife had a good working knowledge before we met, sparing me hours of infuriating conversation. So, imagine my confusion when I realized that a friend in from Ireland had no clue what was going on as the World Series got underway last night.

Just take a moment and realize how many odd little rules are in play for baseball. In addition
to arbitrary strike zones, fair and foul balls, fly balls and grounders, force outs - this list can go on for pages - you have park-specific ground rules like Wrigley's ivy, Fenway wall balls or fly balls hitting speakers or catwalks in domes.

Football is pretty simple to give someone a working knowledge of in a minute or so - take the ball, run that way to score - while basketball and hockey are really easy - soccer on ice and hardwood - but baseball is a lot trickier than it seems.

The real kicker is that after all of that excitement last night, we're having lunch today and talking about the confusion last night and she says, "Oh, kind of like rounders, right?"

Honestly, I thought that sport had been dead for decades.

(Image from Amherst.edu)

RIP, Phil Rizzuto

While Phil Rizzuto is on record saying that his induction to the Hall of Fame was the proudest moment of his life, I like to think this ran a close second.

He seemed like a guy with a sense of humor to appreciate this.

RIP, Scooter.

The Glove Whisperer

Watch enough baseball - and particularly in the late innings of a blowout - and chances are you're going to hear an announcer cracking wise about pitchers and catchers having a discussion while keeping their gloves over their mouths.

"Har, har," the announcer will say, "I didn't know that we had so many lip readers in the big leagues."

If they're feeling particularly spry, they'll also throw in, "Apparently the Rays/Yankees/ Cardinals have hired someone on the staff to monitor what's being said on the mound."

This never ceases to annoy me. It tells me two things: 1.) That these announcers are morons or incredibly naive to think that a league that sees stolen signs, complete tear downs of signal systems after a player is traded and a new breed of cloak and dagger pitch selection (see Varitek, Jason) wouldn't stoop to trying to lip read in key situations; and 2.) they never read Ryne Sandberg's autobiography, Second to Home.

In it, Sandberg writes about the 1989 Playoffs against the Giants and what transpired in Game 1. The Cubs were down 3-0 early, rallied back and were down 4-3 in the fourth with the bases loaded and Will Clark coming to the plate.

Greg Maddux was struggling, and (Don Zimmer) had the lefty, Paul Assenmacher, ready in the bullpen when he went out to see Maddux with the bases loaded, two outs and Will Clark due up.

...

As they were speaking, Will Clark walked back to the visitor's on-deck circle and stood next to Kevin Mitchell. And while Zim and Greg spoke, Clark read Greg's lips. Clark already had a double and a homer off Greg, but he saw Greg repeat what Zim said: Fastball in.

Clark knew what the pitch was going to be and sure enough it was a fastball in - but not far enough in for a guy who knew what pitch was coming. Clark was looking for it, got it, fully extended and hit that fastball in, out onto Sheffield Avenue for a grand slam.

It was 8-3 and Game 1 was basically over.

...

After we heard about what Clark had done, we were amazed. We've all tried it before, but I don't know anyone who has known for sure what the pitch was going to be by reading someone's lips...

I know one thing: Since that day, Greg Maddux has never had a conversation on the mound without putting his glove over his mouth.

So, there it is, hidden on page 143 of a pretty bad autobiography, where one of the game's premiere pitchers was burned by a lip-reading stroke of luck. I can't imagine that once Maddux started adopting the practice it took long for others to start mimicking him, regardless of the reason.

So, the next time some color commentary-spouting knucklehead asks that great hypothetical question, "When has that ever worked?" you'll know.

Game 1 of the 1989 playoffs at Wrigley Field when Will Clark put the game away with a back-breaking grand slam.

(Image from BostonDirtDogs.com)

Just this once, I'll talk about Bonds

I've already spent too much time and energy on the whole Barry Bonds record-breaking home run in the months leading into it, so if you really need my opinion for guidance, feel free to browse the archives.

I'll say one thing in closing, however after someone brought up a good point on sports radio this week.

Assuming that Bonds took steroids (yeah, yeah... allegedly) and did so for their ability to help athletes recover more quickly from injury - especially with an aging body - what's the difference between Bonds and Brett Favre who is on record regarding his addiction to painkillers?

When classified as a "performance enhancer" painkillers and steroids taken to allow athletes to stay on the field and off the DL or trainer's table are pretty much one in the same.

So why is Favre seen as a hero and Bonds as a cancer in his sport?

I'm still working on that one.

Cute league you've got there

It's no secret that the storyline for the two leagues as far as Major League Baseball is concerned is as follows: The American League is a tough, big-time league and the National League is the scrappy younger brother.

See the recap of last year's Home Run Derby where because of the NL's "dominance" the announcers were all over the NL and caught a lucky break with the Cardinals winning the World Series to help support their bullshit reasoning.

Add in a multitude of factors from the existence of the DH providing a cushy job for aging or injury-prone NL sluggers to big-market, big-budget teams from the AL in the Yankees and Red Sox and there isn't a single baseball fan alive who would make a serious argument for the NL being the superior league.

If they didn't, they are playing devil's advocate or a Grade A moron.

It's really no big surprise, then that of the two starting lineups - AL roster is here; NL roster is here - there's a huge gap in All-Star experience.

As far as first-time All-Stars on the AL's starting squad, the list starts and ends with Detroit's Placido Polanco. The next "greenest" player is Boston's David Ortiz, making his fourth appearance. In all, 18 of the 20 named players for the AL have been All Stars in the past.

Compare that to the NL, where two players are All-Star rookies, with Russell Martin of the Dodgers and the Brewers' Prince Fielder making the cut.

Philadelphia's Chase Utley and New York's David Wright Jose Reyes will all make their second appearance.

This means that over half of the starting lineup for the NL will be making their first appearance this week, while the AL will fill their roster with the usual suspects. I have no idea what accounts for this - considering that the fans account for the voting here, it's not like this is a league conspiracy or anything - but thought the numbers looked interesting at first blush.

I'll be sure to post pictures when Twins fans start small, easily managed fires in protest tonight when word spreads that Joe Mauer is not on the squad.

MLB.com has posted the Final Vote nominees, with pitchers only representing both leagues. According to their press release:

Roy Oswalt is back on this NL ballot and bidding to be the first two-time Final Vote winner, joined by Tom Gorzelanny of the Pirates, Brandon Webb of the Diamondbacks, Chris Young of the Padres and Carlos Zambrano of the Cubs.

The AL nominees include Jeremy Bonderman of the Tigers, Kelvim Escobar of the Angels, Roy Halladay of the Blue Jays, Pat Neshek of the Twins and Hideki Okajima of the Red Sox.

(Image from: SportsEcyclopedia.com)

Cheating in moderation

Ted Williams' batting eye has become the stuff of legend - even coverage by his contemporaries in the media tended to border on Bill Brasky level storytelling.

Williams had some of the best vision of all pilots in WWII. Williams could see the seams on a baseball as it approached the plate. Williams could read the record label on a '45 as it played.

According to Leigh Montville's biography, Williams used to do a slow burn whenever he'd hear these stories. He'd prefer that people give him credit for hour upon hour spent honing his swing, not to mention all of the mental prep work he'd do to try and figure out what the pitcher would try to throw next.

The way Williams saw it, it wasn't superhuman vision, reaction time or strength that made him a great player, it was the work he put in. When people only focused on his vision, he felt it took away from everything he'd worked so hard for.

It made his efforts cheap.

I've been thinking of this story a lot as two storylines swirl this week. The ongoing Barry Bonds circus is a source of mild irritation, while the Jason Giambi drug test rumors serve only to highlight the remaining vestiges of the Steroid Era.

So where do the differences come in? What made Williams recoil from any hint that he had an unnatural advantage over the other players and Frank Robinson chastise Giambi for speaking for all of baseball?

Is it a matter of socially-acceptable cheating where you scuff a ball here or there to try and control the breaks in the game versus an intensive, premeditated cheating regimen? Stories of catchers scuffing balls with sharpened buckles on their gear or helping to wet down balls for their pitchers are now looked at with a wistful smile, while old-timers like the late Buck O'Neil never believed in the existence of a split-finger fastball - contending that it was the same old spitter with a new name.

That's still cheating, right?

I know that baseball, more than the other sports, holds dear its past and is subject to more nostalgia than the average, but when did the game cross the line from players who took personal offense to any type of shadow cast on their stats to where we are today?

If it's true that Bonds began to bulk up following the hype generated during the chase for Roger Maris' home run record, where was that issue of pride in modern baseball?

I've had a couple of days to mull this over and I suppose that's my best guess about why I think Bonds' act has gotten so old. It's a case of trying so hard to do something that there's no stopping to think if you really should. It's not gaining an extra edge as needed for a pitch or two, it's seen as trying to kill a housefly with a handgun.

past a hitter - he was doing it to be better all the time, without discretion.In short, Bonds wasn't allegedly cheating to beat the Dodgers in the 9th or to slip a 3-2 fastball It's pretty American logic - it's fine to cheat, but only for as long as I need to win.

If nothing else, it opens a new can of worms to the argument that the only reason no one took steroids in baseball before was because there weren't any.

Granted, in the heydays of Williams and Robinson there's a case to be made that just showing up sober most days meant you held an advantage. At the end of the day, is an illegal spitball any better or worse than a post-workout injection? You tell me.

(Photo from Boston.com)