Junior

One of the baseball players I could sit and watch for hours on end without ever getting bored: Ken Griffey, Jr., as seen by Thomas Boswell, (courtesy of Alex Belth over at Bronx Banter).

Being Nomar

Poor old Nomar Garciaparra - as soon as he turns his back, the rumours begin to fly. The Boston Globe has an article today on the possibility of Nomar moving to second base, thus leaving the shortstop position open for Pokey Reese, who is having a fine season as Nomar's replacement.

The Globe magazine ran an article on Nomar last week which profiles the Red Sox shortstop and examines his relationship with the ballclub. I like Nomar - he's a fine ballplayer and one of those guys on whom that white Red Sox home uniform looks perfect, but you always get the feeling that he seems to be out of sync with certain expectations of him. He's not the media recluse that Pedro is, neither is he the media manipulator (and I use the term in the kindest possible way) that Curt Schilling is - he's sort of stuck in the middle, always trying to say the right thing and convince the general public that he would like nothing more than to stay in Boston. As the article says:

So this is what we have in [Garciaparra]: a fierce, game-making competitor on the field who runs out every ground ball; a humble, reluctant star off the field who runs a respected foundation and steers clear of trouble.

"Isn't that enough?" he asks.

Not in Red Sox Nation, Nomar - you have to be willing to die for the cause...

Big bats

The Yankees exploded against the Orioles last night and swept the three-game series with an 18-5 win in Baltimore. The New York Times' Tyler Kepner likens the rout to letting George Steinbrenner loose on an XBox baseball game.

Things have gone a little sour for the Orioles, who were fired up going into this season after their high-profile free-agent signings. Thomas Boswell has a good piece on Orioles manager Lee Mazzilli, pointing out that becoming a big-league manager only really starts when your team starts losing. It's going to be a good test for Mazzilli - how do you keep everyone convinced that those half-empty glasses are really half-full and that better times are just around the corner?

This is more like it

The workday is over, the beer is cold, the chips are cheesy and I'm settling down to keep an eye on the Reds myself, who today finish up their series against the Florida Marlins.

Since I haven't latched onto any particular club this season, I thought I'd try to get to see as many teams as possible play on MLB.TV, so tonight I'll be adding Cincinnati to the list, and maybe Minnesota as well, if I feel like staying really late at the office. If all goes well, the next few days should allow me to expand the list to include the Mets, the Orioles and the Mariners - a kind of mini ballpark tour of the US, without leaving the comfort of my office chair...

Reds-hot

Whilst I'm gone, keep an eye on the Cincinnati Reds, who swept the Astros last night to take sole possession of first place in the NL Central. On top of that, Junior looks to be healthy, and has his eye on home run #500. Things are looking good in Cincinnati.

Keep the faith

As you might have noticed, there hasn't been much in the way of posts on here recently. This is not because I've suddenly decided to write only about historic baseball events (see post below), but simply because I'm snowed under with work and personal stuff. However, even though I haven't been posting, I have been keepng an eye on the blog's stat counter. I imagine that all of the blogs listed on the right get a lot more hits than I do, but it's still nice to see that even though there's been nothing new for a while there is a bunch of people (or maybe one very, very persistent individual) who keep coming back here in the hope that at some point there will be.

If you're one of those people, this is just to say thanks for sticking around. I'm off to the UK for a couple of days, but I'll be back (and posting) at the end of the week, so, as Peter Gabriel said: "Don't Give Up"...

Perfect!

It's one of those boxscores that has baseball fans' eyes lighting up like Times Square on New Year's Eve, and even though I didn't see it, this line:

AB 27 R 0 H 0 BB 0 E 0

has me grinning from ear to ear 4,000 miles away in an office building in Paris.

If Randy Johnson was looking for a way to prove those who said he was washed-up wrong, he couldn't have done better than this. He threw 117 pitches over the 9 innings, 87 for strikes, and the whole thing was over in 2 hours and 13 minutes.

I was talking to a friend about baseball last night and repeating my old mantra about the game - "You never know when you might see something you've never seen before" - and this is the perfect example: two teams languishing at, or close to, the bottom of their divisions, both with losing records (Atlanta 17-19, Arizona 14-23 prior to last night's game), and yet the game will nonetheless be talked about for years to come and will go into the record books as the 17th perfect game in history.

I've always liked the Big Unit, even when he was single-handedly crushing the Yankees in the 2001 World Series. I like the contradiction of a 6'8" flame-thrower who is scary and intimidating on the mound, yet reserved and awkward off it. This is definitely a game I'll be adding to my collection of downloads, one that I'll be able to dig out from time to time over the cold, baseball-free winter months to remind myself exactly why this is such a great game.

IBB (Involving Barry Bonds)

The latest baseball debate doing the rounds is the one regarding the ridiculously high number of intentional walks that Barry Bonds is drawing this year. The question being asked is: should we change the rules of baseball in order to limit the number of times a player can be intentionally walked?

ESPN's Jayson Stark suggests five different ways of altering the rules, some feasible, some less so, but Only Baseball Matters points out that all of the proposed solutions rely on being able to clearly define the difference between an unintentional walk and an intentional one (not the 'four pitches lobbed into the opposite batters' box' kind, but the 'just missed the outside corner four times' kind), and has an interesting debate on alternative solutions to the problem.

My own reaction to the problem is a very simplistic one - why are we talking about adapting the rules to suit one player (yes, just one player, because, despite what everyone says, if Barry Bonds were taken out of the equation, we wouldn't be having this debate at all)? Shouldn't the onus be on, say, the Giants to provide at least some semblance of offensive support which would make walking Bonds a less attractive proposition? El Lefty Malo points out that maybe Giants' catcher A.J. Pierzynski - quoted in Stark's article - hits the nail on the head:

"There is no solution to the problem," said [...] Pierzynski, one of the guys who has had the thrill of hitting behind Bonds this year, "except for me and Fonzy (Edgardo Alfonzo) and (Pedro) Feliz to hit -- and hit well."

It's Lima Time!

Here at the Baseball Desert we were already fans of Jose Lima for his great comeback with the Kansas City Royals in 2003 (8-3 record in 14 starts), but yesterday at Dodger Stadium, Lima moved up yet another notch on the Baseball Desert "We Love This Guy" ratings.

We knew that Lima could pitch as a starter, and yesterday showed that he could also be effective in relief - he came in and threw 5+ scoreless innings after the Cubs had kicked the crap out of Hideo Nomo (1 1/3 IP, 3 H, 6 ER) - but we raise our hats to the man because he was also able to stand in front of the crowd at Dodger Stadium before the game yesterday and sing tuneful renditions of both "God Bless America" and the national anthem.

Talk about making yourself useful to the ballclub! I can't wait to see what he does next: roam the aisles selling beer and hot-dogs? play the organ between innings? do a little colour commentary alongside Vin Scully?

Jose Lima - the ultimate utility man...

Stayin' alive

Classic baseball situation: number eight hitter up at the plate - ball one, strike one, ball two, foul ball (strike two). Four pitches, 2-2 count, nothing extraordinary about that - happens dozens of times a day in ballparks across America. However, you could watch baseball for another fifty years and never, ever see again what followed in Alex Cora's at-bat against Matt Clement in the Dodgers' 4-0 win over the Cubs: after taking the count to 2-2, Cora then fouled off another thirteen consecutive pitches (making it fourteen in total), before taking Clement deep for a two run home-run.

Motto of the day? All things come to he who waits...

Rocket's 7-11

Since his retirement lasted about three-and-a-half minutes, it shouldn't come as that much of a shock that Roger Clemens has simply picked up with the Astros where he left off with the Yankees. There were those who wondered whether the move to the National League would have an effect on Clemens' pitching - well, so far the answer is an emphatic 'no'. Last night Clemens gave up just three hits and one earned run in a seven-inning, eleven-strikeout performance against the Marlins.

Clemens now has the best pitching record in baseball this year (7-0) and he's ranked third in strikeouts (52, behind Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling) and third in ERA (1.99, behind Al Leiter and Jake Peavy), which is pretty good going for a guy who was supposed to spend this year playing golf.

Over the winter Clemens said that he intended to use his Astros' season ticket this year and catch a few games as a spectator, but that's not how it worked out. When Houston signed Andy Pettitte, Clemens was persuaded to head on down to Texas for one more season in the sun, and so far the two of them have given the Astros value for money. They're 10-1 combined for the season and have helped propel Houston to a 21-11 start and put them firmly atop the NL Central.

Boring, boring baseball

As well as being a passionate baseball fan, I'm also an avid reader, and I'm always delighted when these two passions converge and I discover a great baseball book.

Last night, having finished the book I've been reading recently and not wanting to make a start on the one I plan to read next, I thought I would have a kind of baseball interlude, so I went to my bookshelf and picked out Arnold Hano's A Day In The Bleachers.

For those who don't know the book, it's an account of the opening game of the 1954 World Series between the New York Giants and the Cleveland Indians. It is, of course, a game that is best known for "The Catch" - Willie Mays' legendary over-the-shoulder grab - but Hano's book is much more than just a record of what went on on the field - he describes the sights and sounds of the Polo Grounds on that day. It's very much of a specific time and place, but it's a fantastic book.

The account of the game is fascinating, but in my opinion Hano is at his best when he goes beyond the specific details of that one game and writes about basbeall in general. When faced with friends who find baseball games long and boring, I've often tried to explain the appeal of the rhythm of the game and its intrinsic beauty, but I don't always have the right words. Hano has them:

"The eight Giant shots had now been reduced to seven and the game was entering that lull period which some people find boring but which I find lengthens the buildup before the final crackling climax or climaxes. The longer and more quiescent the lull, the more emphatic seem the climaxes; it is the tightening of the screw, the technique of suspense that is stamped so firmly on all Hitchcock films.

Of course, sometimes the lull extends too far, and the last out has been recorded before any crackling climax can occur. We have then watched what amounts to a dull game. But even within the structure of a dull game, there is so much to be seen - the pitching, the unfolding of defenxive patterns, the mobility and unbelievable coordination of a double play - that most lovely of all defensive feats of athletic collaboration. Just the sight of a routine grounder to shortstop is exciting. The ball must be played perfectly - not just pretty well, but perfectly - otherwise a swift runner will have an infield hit. The moving to the ball, the scoop, the set position, the throw - and the first baseman's stretch into the diamond, all this must be executed with a minimum of activity and cover a minimum of time. And nine innings full of such stuff! Routine is surely the wrong word, and so is dull."

Classic stuff...

Get thee behind me, Spidey!

The powers-that-be at MLB have decided that Spider Man will not after all be featured on the bases over the weekend of June 11-13.

Thomas Boswell gives his reaction both to the original decision and to the uproar that followed. As usual, he waxes a little lyrical ("On our American list of "perfect things," the baseball diamond has always held a high place. Even those who don't love the game understand the combination of power and peacefulness in a ballpark [...] Each logo would have been like a gob of tobacco juice in the eye of every fan who has an ounce of feeling for the spirit of the game"), but that's why I like him so much.

Caught in the spider's web

[Note: this post is brought to you by "Le Rustique" camembert]

I don't like this at all. I'm not against advertising per se, or even advertising within sports, but my thought is - and always has been - that the advertising should stop short of the field of play, whether it's ads painted on the field, printed on the bases or featured on uniforms.

I remember back in the early '80s, when advertising started to appear on the shirts worn by soccer players in the UK - I didn't like it back then, and I don't like it now, for several reasons. The first reason is simply aesthetic: the easiest way to spoil the effect of a really cool shirt or uniform is to stick advertising on it. Still, at least the shirt in question is that of a major club and advertises a well-known international brand - there are around 90 professional soccer clubs in the UK, and most of them feature advertising on their shirts, but the smaller the club is and lower the division the club is in, the more likelihood there is of seeing some horrible logo for "Joe's Pizza Parlour" or "Alf's Garage" stuck on the front of the shirt.

I suppose I should be grateful that UK soccer teams tend to stick with one single sponsor / advertiser - here in France it's even worse: teams sometimes have two or more sponsors on their shirt (front and back) and on their shorts as well, particularly for televised games. The impression you get is no longer that of a soccer match but rather some kind of mobile advertising seminar. It's not a pretty sight.

The second reason is more economic than aesthetic - as I said, I can accept advertising within the stadium or on hoardings around the field (I'm even willing to put up with those ads Fox shows during the World Series for TV shows I can't even see, let alone want to watch), but I don't want to see any kind of advertising plastered across those legendary pinstripes (I know - I'm not really a Yankees fan, but they do have one of the coolest and most recognisable jerseys in the world) or indeed any other jersey.

[Just a thought in passing - there is a baseball gear 'geek' hidden just below the surface of this ordinary Englishman, to which my growing collection of MLB caps bears witness. When I have a little more spare cash, that collection could well expand into the area of replica jerseys, and if and when it does, I'll be glad that my interest is in baseball and not soccer - I would hate to have to shell out $130+ for a replica jersey, only to become a walking advertisement for Pepsi or Pizza Hut or Geico Direct...]

One of the advantages that baseball has over soccer is that most front of the jersey is already taken up with the name of the team, so any proposed advertising would have to be more discreet (on caps, helmets etc.), but even if it's discreet, I still don't like it. I paid to get into the ballpark (or to suscribe to my local cable operator or, in my case, MLB.TV) - once I'm there, I'm bombarded with ads all over the place, whether inside the ballpark or between innings on TV, and I don't want to see any on the field. I hear the reassurances from the powers-that-be at Major League Baseball that there are no plans afoot to go beyond advertising on the bases, but that's already too much - once the door is open, it will be hard to resist the lure of all that lovely advertising revenue to be gained from selling space on the field or on players' jerseys. After that, the sky is the limit - we could have individually sponsored players, for example (imagine Bob Sheppard announcing ""Your attention please, ladies and gentlemen... Now batting for the Yankees, the shortstop, Derek Jeter ... No. 2....who is brought to you by Chevrolet Trucks"...).

So, a word to MLB president and COO Bob DuPuy: putting Spider Man ads on the bases or Ricoh logos on players' helmets is not good for baseball. Outside of the foul lines, advertise whatever and however you want, but please leave us to enjoy what goes on on the field as it was meant to be enjoyed.

Update: Paul over at Nice Guys Finish Third shares his thoughts on the subject and has a couple of good examples of "how to..." and how not to..." as far as shirt advertising goes.

Update: Dave Pinto at Baseball Musings weighs in with his two penn'th as well. It would seem that nobody out there - outside of Bob DuPuy - thinks that this is a good idea.