Why I Love Baseball (revisited)

"Some are like water, some are like the heat
Some are a melody and some are the beat
Sooner or later they all will be gone
Why dont they stay young"
--Forever Young, Alphaville

Real quick: I debated between this and the Rod Stewart song of the same name for about five seconds before I remembered how sweet the last line of the first verse is: "Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?" So good.
Now, on to baseball. You only needed to watch two games this week to understand how great baseball is right now, and fortunately, since I have a) every baseball game on TV at work every day and b) a subscription to mlb.com's package that allows me to watch every game on my computer (padres, obviously), I was able to watch most of these two showdowns.
SHOWDOWN 1: Devil Rays @ Twins, Tuesday night - Scott Kazmir vs. Francisco Liriano.
There hadn't been a matchup of 10-win guys younger than 23 in like a hundred years, and these are just two of the young stars that are killing opposing hitters these days (Jonathan Papelbon comes to mind). Liriano is filthy, and he gave up just three hits in 8 2/3 to get the win, improving to 11-2 (with a ridiculous 1.94 ERA). Kazmir fell to 10-7 (he is on a terrible team) with a 3.40 ERA. Both of these guys are lefties, so they're especially close to my heart (like Dontrelle Willis), but it's just awesome to watch pitchers--especially younger ones--deal like this.
SHOWDOWN 2: Astros @ Cubs, Wednesday night - Roger Clemens vs. Greg Maddux.
So this would represent the opposite end of the spectrum, right? Rocket is about to turn 44 (343 career wins) and Maddux is 40 (325 wins), and both guys are definitely in the hall of fame. It's unbelievable that both of them are still pitching at such a high level (though it's been speculated that it's not been entirely natural), and to see both of them mowing people down last night was great. Clemens picked up the win, tossing six scoreless innings, and Maddux gave up three in seven to get the loss (again, a terrible team). Clemens came back (again) to a team that can't hit for him--he's now 2-3 with a 2.43 ERA, and his team has scored just 20 runs in his six starts, which isn't helping their effort to get back to the playoffs.
BONUS SHOWDOWN: We have to go back to Sunday night, but this was Mariano Rivera making history in an incredibly difficult situation. Light is often made of the number of "easy" saves a closer gets, coming in with a three-run lead and having plenty of leeway to get three outs in the ninth. No such luck for Mo on Sunday as he chased career save number 400. Because the Yankees' bullpen is not good (an issue that has plagued them consistently since their last title), they had to Enter Sandman in the eighth inning against the defending champs with the bases loaded and nobody out (thanks, Kyle Farnsworth). So what does he do? He gets Juan Uribe to pop out, advancing no runners. He then gets leadoff man Scott Podsednik (Mr. Lisa Dergan to you) to ground into an innning-ending double play. No runs in, Yankees maintain their 6-4 advantage. Of course, he's not done, so he comes back for the ninth and lets the first two runners get on, just to make things interesting. Then comes another double play, from All-Star Paul Konerko, with the lead runner advancing to third. Fellow All-Star Jermaine Dye strikes out to end the game, putting Mo in some exclusive company and rescuing his Yankees yet again.
Here's the thing about Rivera: there is nobody even close to him in the history of his position. I'm a huge Trevor Hoffman guy, obviously, and even though Trevor has more career saves, he hasn't been close to the clutch, consistent performer that Rivera has been for a decade now. His postseason numbers are absurd, and one could argue that he's the main reason they won those four championships (and with a little more help in the 'pen, he'd have a few more). A couple of interesting observations I heard on the radio the other day:
- Keith Olbermann said that he submitted an All-Time 25-man roster to Sports Illustrated last week and had to put two closers on the list. He tried to do research on every position, but had incredible difficulty with the closers--not with the top spot, because that's Rivera's without hesitation, but with spot number two. He couldn't find anybody in the same galaxy as Rivera, nobody else even worth considering for the team.
- Rivera is THE difference between the Braves and the Yankees since 1995. Both teams have been in the playoffs every year since then, but Torre's boys have four titles in that span and Bobby Cox has none. Why? They've never had consistency from the closer position (except for a year or two from Smoltz, but that kept him from making the necessary impact as a starter). Mark Wohlers? Mental. John Rocker? Insane. Kerry Ligtenberg, Dan Kolb, Chris Reitsma. Terrible, terrible and terrible. Mo is the difference.
- If you had to pick one player from the last ten years of the Yankees to make the hall of fame, it would have to be Rivera, wouldn't it? Jeter's been incredible, A-Rod's numbers have been great (though for only two-plus years in pinstripes), and other guys have been solid (Bernie, Posada, etc.). But if it's just one, it's gotta be Mo. No question.

Had a chance to visit Yankee Stadium over the weekend, and though Mariano didn't pitch (the Yanks put a 14-3 drubbing on the defending champs), there were several highlights...
- Walking around monument park before the game, with just a handful of people allowed in after it had been closed to the public. So cool to see all those guys who have worn the pinstripes over the years--I finished up a book by David Halberstam called "October 1964", about the pennant races and World Series that year, Cardinals over Yankees for the world championship, so a lot of those names were fresh in my mind--and even the more recent entries, like Donnie Baseball.
- Watching batting practice from the booth with Tim McCarver doing his pre-game preparation. A-Rod was up there, just killing the ball, and McCarver put down his notes to watch the show. Each swing sent a ball further than the previous one, and each one evoked a cry of admiration from McCarver. "Oh my goodness! Take some of the shine off that thing! Are you kidding me?! He just killed that ball!" Pretty cool to see a guy who's been around the game as long as he has still getting excited about something like that.
- Getting a visit from Keith Olbermann in the booth. He often visits the press box at both Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium (evidently a huge fan of Dan Shulman and Soup Campbell, the Mets' announcing team), and he came by to say hello to Tim and Joe Buck. I didn't speak with him personally, but I still enjoy his sarcasm, getting on Buck for his Fox Sports shirt and the fact that he's now sold his soul for eternity (Fox having extended their deal with MLB for another seven years).

Upcoming destinations include Dallas, Texas for the Evander Holyfield comeback fight (while I don't agree with the concept, I definitely had to be a part of it) and Birmingham, Alabama for an outdoors show that will hopefully include Alabama natives Bo Jackson and Charles Barkley, among others. Hopefully I'll be able to find the time to write about those...

Big and Ugly

"But wait, I hear big footsteps
Thud, thumbing out of the past
Sure enough, that big dumb guy is here at last
That big dumb guy is here at last"
--Big Dumb Guy, Carly Simon

There's a lot about the NBA off-season that I love. With nothing officially allowed to happen until July 12, there's still been a crazy amount of activity, starting with draft day, and most of it makes sense--max deals for D-Wade and 'Melo, a pending max deal for LeBron, extension for Dirk, big money for Jason Terry (he earned it with a great post-season), new destinations for Radman, Tim Thomas and others, and trades involving T.J. Ford, Charlie Villanueva, Shane Battier, Shane Battier's wrinkled dome, and various draft picks. However, there are still a few moves that leave me scratching my head. So scratch along with me:
- The Bulls sign Ben Wallace to a four-year, $60-million deal. On the surface, this would seem to be an amazing coup for the Bulls. It was a foregone conclusion that Big Ben would re-sign with Detroit, allowing the league's most consistent starting five to remain intact for another couple years, but alas poor Dumars, 'twas not to be. Here's why the deal isn't actually such a great thing. Wallace will be 32 when the '06-'07 season starts, his rebounding averages have decreased in each of the last four seasons (15.4 down to 11.3), his blocked shots have declined in each of the last five seasons (3.48 to 2.21), and his scoring, never wonderful to begin with, fell to 7.3 last season (after 9.5 and 9.7 the previous two years). He still can't shoot free throws (career .418--for comparison, Shaq's career mark is .528) and even though he was the NBA's defensive player of the year this year, the consensus is that the award was based much more on reputation than actual execution. Meanwhile, the Bulls led the league in field goal percentage defense and were right in the middle of the pack offensively. They certainly don't get any better at putting the ball in the hoop with this deal (and isn't that the ultimate goal?), and they might be better on D for a year or two, but with Miami, Cleveland and New Jersey still above them in the Eastern Conference pecking order, will it be worth it? Pretty soon, Ben's going to be 34-35-36, getting paid $15 million to average 5 points and 10 rebounds a game, and to miss free throws down the stretch. The Bulls were already unbearable to watch (they've been exactly that since June of 1998), and this just makes it worse. This hurts Detroit a great deal more than it helps Chicago, I'm afraid, and I still have no desire to watch either team play.
- Teams were battling to sign Joel Pryzbilla. Seriously, am I missing something here? He's played in the league six years and has yet to average double figures in points. In fact, his career high was 6.4 per game, back in '04-'05. He doesn't really rebound that well for a seven-footer either (5.6 per game for his career, 7.0 last season), and though he's a pretty good shot-blocker (2.32 per game last season, 7th in the league), he's another terrible free throw shooter (.492 career).
- Similar battles are underway for Nazr Mohammed, Jackie Butler (?) and Darius Songaila. I'm not an NBA GM, and for good reason, but just having a guy who's tall doesn't make your team better--just ask Isiah how that Jerome James deal is working out for him...