The SoapBoxers

Taylor Teagarden, a catcher for the Texas Rangers, was 4th in the voting for American League catcher in numbers that were released on June 7th. In 10 games this year, Teagarden has 4 walks … and 1 hit. That sole hit – a ground ball in the 3rd inning of an April 24th loss to the Tigers – didn’t save his job. He was demoted to the minors and is currently working behind the plate in AA Frisco. Teagarden’s .037 batting average apparently endeared him to a lot of fans, though – his vote total of 247,248 was nearly 60,000 more votes than Mike Napoli of the Angels had received. Napoli has 40 times as many hits as Teagarden. I’m sure Teagarden is a great guy, but he’s not having an All-Star caliber year by any stretch of the imagination.

While I love the All-Star game and enjoy having the fans vote for the starters, there are some flaws in the system.

• The voting starts too early. Fans can begin voting for the All Star Game in late April. That would be the equivalent of voting for the NFL Pro Bowl after week 2 of the NFL season. It’s far to early see a fair sample size from players. This is particularly harsh on players who tend to start slowly. David Ortiz of the Red Sox had an absolutely horrible April before bouncing back with a fantastic May.  Maybe start the voting at the All Star break.
• The ballot is static. You’ll always see names on the ballot that don’t belong there (such as Teagarden). Once MLB sets the ballot, they don’t change it, even if a different player emerges as the starter for that team. Want to vote for the new guy? You’ll need to write him in.
• The ease of multiple ballots renders the process meaningless. You can cast 25 ballots per email address, and MLB makes it very simply to duplicate your ballot. I can very easily spawn new email addresses, and could vote thousands of times in the course of a day, if I wanted to. But what’s the point? Where does this cross the line from “fan” to “person who is trying to game the system”? Granted, ballot box stuffing goes back a long time, but this makes it even easier. It would be nice if voting was a bit more limited.
• Too much “homer” voting. Certainly fans should vote for their favorite players … if they are having a reasonably good year. Really, though, don’t vote for Teagarden just because you’re a Rangers fan or Ken Griffey Jr. (3rd in DH voting ahead of the aforementioned Ortiz) just because you remember The Kid being a stud in the ’90s. Seriously, Griffey was hitting .184 when he retired. I’ll return the favor by not voting for Dexter Fowler (demoted by the Rockies earlier in the month).
• The rosters are too big. In an effort to make nearly everyone an All-Star, rosters have been expanded to 34 players for each league. In a regular baseball game, rosters are 25 players. The unwieldly size makes life difficult for the managers, as they try to wedge as many players into the game as possible.
• The rule that each team must have a representative. Honestly, a lot of teams have sucky players by choice. Pittsburgh Pirates, I’m looking at you. Why reward player simply because a team’s bad personnel decisions have made him the best of a group of mediocre players? Sorry, but the tallest sunflower is not a redwood, even if it’s the tallest sunflower in the field.

Strasburg – It is FINALLY HERE
The hype is almost over … well it is still going on for a few more hours until the highly touted pitcher makes his debut for the Washington Nationals tonight at home in D.C. against the Pittsburgh Pirates. You have seen numerous articles mentioning Strasburg here on the Casual Observer, everything from talent to sports card prices. The place is sold out tonight, which is great for the home team. Here is hoping the kid has a good outing and does not get chased early.

Speaking of Nationals …
They also had the first overall pick in the “Live” draft that was conducted on Major League Baseball Network last night. Bryce Harper was not surprisingly taken as the #1 pick. He graduated high school early and spent this past year in Junior College where he tore the cover off the ball. Harper, according to an ESPN article, hit . 443 with 31 home runs, 98 RBIs and 20 stolen bases in 66 games, That is video game type of numbers. Looks like we have another super hyped Washington Nationals player to keep an eye on over the next couple years.

Speaking of Draft …
The draft coverage last night was definitely the worst coverage of such a type of even I have ever seen. Of course Bud Selig is about as exciting as reading the white pages in the phone book. The real disappointment was twofold. First of all, the “in studio experts” really did not add anything to the equation at all, and secondly the “ticker” at the bottom of the screen showed more historical information about a team’s draft pick from something like 8 years ago and rarely did they actually show the picks that had made THIS year. For reference when the NFL draft is run, the pretty much have the continuous crawl at the bottom of the screen, so if you happen to run to the fridge or the bathroom, you can come back and actually see who was picked over the last couple of minutes. MLB network only updated this what seemed like 4 times an hour … poor job MLB Network. Maybe you can learn from this next year.

Speaking of MLB ….
It is shaping up to be another exciting year in baseball. We have already had a number of events happen. Griffey Retiring, Ubaldo Jimenez winning 11 games and being pretty much unhittable, and what seems like everyone in the American League East winning most all of their games (except the Orioles)

So for you baseball aficionados out there … grab your favorite beverage, and a snack and kick back tonight and see what the kid can do … a lot of people will be watching.

For the last year, a serial killer had been slaughtering stranded motorists on the night of the full moon.  The Marauder had carved up twelve victims.  A motorist stumbling across the body of his fourth victim had glanced up and noticed a maroon car escaping into the distance.  This tiny scrap of information was the only clue to the identity of the killer.

From his home three states away, Dallas Roberts had been closely following the activities of the Marauder.  Dallas was unhappy with his own life.  He had failed to make any sort of mark upon the world.  He had failed in his career and failed in love.  On this night, he was determined to become famous.  He had driven six hundred miles to be in place for his destiny.

Roberts was parked on the side of the road with his hazard lights on.  The clock inside the car showed that the time was 1:45 AM.  Dallas was sure that his wait would be short – the Marauder always attacked between 1:57 and 3:48 AM.  Tonight, he would achieve fame – becoming the thirteenth victim of the Moonlight Marauder.

Dallas was shaken from his thoughts by lights in his rear view mirror – a vehicle was pulling up behind him on the shoulder.

A moment later, a form appeared next to his window.

“Need some help?”  Dallas looked up and saw a tall, blonde woman in her early twenties.

“Got a flat,” he explained.  “I’m waiting for a friend to get here.  Can’t very well change the flat with this broken wing,” he explained, showing off the arm sling that he was using as a prop.

“No need for you to wait.  Pop the trunk and I’ll change it for you.”

This woman was ruining Dallas’ perfectly laid plans – but he couldn’t think of a good way to get rid of her.  Dallas popped the trunk and jumped out of the car.

The woman effortlessly grabbed the spare tire and jack.  She loosened the lug nuts on the tire and quickly jacked up the car.

After changing the tire, she grabbed a flashlight from her back pocket and inspected the tire.

“Wow.  You’ve got a big chunk of metal in this tire.  I’m afraid you’re going to need a new tire, sport.”

Dallas was well aware of the magnitude of the damage to the tire.  After all, the damage was his own handiwork – to ensure that that Marauder wouldn’t sense a staged scene and pass him up as a victim.

“Name’s Megan White.”  The woman held out a dirty hand for Dallas to shake.

“Dallas Roberts,” he said, shaking the extended hand.

“What sort of work are you in, Dallas?”

“Unemployed at the moment, I’m afraid.  I’m a web developer when I can get work.”

“Oh?  What sort of web development?”

“Mostly PHP, but I dabble in Java from time to time.”

“Give me a call in the morning.  I run a small web consulting company, and we’re a bit short staffed on the PHP side of the house.  I wouldn’t mind seeing more of you,” she said as she smiled broadly and gave Dallas a wink.  Megan pulled a business card out of her pocket and handed it to him.

Dallas’ heart jumped in his chest.  Was she flirting with him?  He would definitely take her up on the offer.  He’d love to have the opportunity to start earning money again, and he thought he’d enjoy working with the smart, athletic, attractive woman.

“Keep safe,” she shouted, as she got back in her truck.  “The Moonlight Marauder has been known to strike in these parts.”

Dallas had a smile on his face as he jumped back into his car.  He pulled back onto the interstate and started looking for a motel that was open at this time of the night.  The few places he passed had “NO VACANCY” signs buzzing atop the inns.

Twenty minutes later, Dallas noticed a vibration and then felt a tire blow out.  He pulled to the side of the road and ditched the useless sling.  As he popped the trunk to grab the spare tire, he came to the realization that Megan had put on the spare to replace the perfectly good tire that he had carved up.

As Dallas pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and wandered around trying to find a signal, the sound of scattering gravel told him that another car was approaching.

“Help you, son?” asked a tall, grandfatherly man.  Dallas glanced up and noticed that that the car parked behind him on the shoulder was a maroon Taurus.  When his eyes shifted back to the right, he saw the light of the moon glinting off the blade of the Moonlight Marauder’s knife.

Last week Armando Galarraga, pitcher Detroit Tigers, almost threw a perfect game against the Cleveland Indians.  Perfect; no walks, no errors, no man on base for the entire game.  Almost; there was a bad call at first base on the supposed 27^th out.  Now Kosmo is officially the baseball analyst on The Soap Boxers, but there has been so much discussion on this topic that I want to get my two cents in.

On most of the radio talk shows and sports programs, there is an overwhelming push to have the commissioner of baseball overturn that final call and put the game down as perfect in the record books (even the President of the United States has supported such an action).  I strongly disagree.  The umpires’ calls are part of the game.  If we look at just that one call, sure we can say it was wrong, but that was not the only play of the game.  Up until that point, there had been 82 pitches, 22 were called strike, how many of those were bad calls?  Armando only had 1 called strike out, the other two recorded were at least on swings.  Also up to that point, there had been 13 ground outs, how many of those were close calls?  I did not actually watch the game so I cannot answer these questions.

The game is at it was called at the time.  Are we going to go back and review any other “almost perfect” games to see if another pitcher was wronged?  Are we going to give equal study to every other play in the game in question?  For that matter are we going to review the other perfect games on record to make sure they really were perfect?  In this day of instant and repetitive media, it is hard not to form an opinion and feel that you have to defend it till death.  We have to remember that this is just a game.  Sure it is a profession for Armando, and he is very good at it, but this perfect (or not) game will not make or break his career, will not hurt anyone, and in the long run will probably be more memorable for those who played in and saw it than any other game.

This hullabaloo reminds me of a single play in Super Bowl XIII.  Jackie Smith, tight end Dallas Cowboys, dropped a sure touchdown pass in the end zone.  Dallas had to settle for a field goal and went on to lose to the Pittsburgh Steelers by 4 points.  Most of pundits, even today, blame the loss on Jackie.  I disagree.  There was a lot more that happened in that game.  The drop occurred in the 3^rd quarter.  A lot of football had been played up to that point, and a lot more followed.

Although in the current discussion, not much happened after the blown call.  Armando kept his cool and finished off the last (unfortunately the 28^th) batter.  I think that Armando should be praised and held up as a true sportsman to our country and especially our children.  When the call did not go his way, he played on.  He did not whine and complain.  The umpire’s apology was fine, but we must move on.  If this drives instant replay for Base Ball, so be it, at least any overturned calls will be while the game is played, not by talking heads in the days following the event.

Stephen Strasburg will make his major league debut on Tuesday against the Pittsburgh Pirates.  The Pirates were originally scheduled to have Monday off.  However, a rained out game pushed a game against the Cubs to Monday, meaning that they won’t have the extra day of preparation.

Judging from all the hype around Strasburg, some fans may be disappointed with anything less than a no hitter and 20 strikeouts.  My own expectations are a bit lower.  I do think he’ll win the game, but I also expect some rookie jitters.  After all, he IS a rookie – and is facing immense pressure as the face of the Nationals.

17 year old Bryce Harper will become the second face of the franchise when the Nationals pick him with the top pick in this year’s draft.  Harper skipped his final two years of high school and is attending community college in order to gain eligibility for this year’s draft.  He’ll actually turn 18 in October, so he’s not substantially younger than some of the high school seniors in the draft.

Harper’s high school years were spent criss-crossing the country competing in All-Star tournaments.  This year, he led his school to the Community College World Series.  Harper was ejected from his final game (which his team lost) after drawing a line in the sand with his bat to indicate that a called strike was actually out of the strike zone.

This brings more attention to the issue of Harper’s maturity.  Many observers say that Harper is quite immature and vain.  While I’m not going ton condone these behaviors, it is important to remember that he’s just 17.  Think back to high school – was the star athlete a bit immature and vain?  Did he grow out of it later in life?

Harper has always been the biggest star, and life has been a bit of a whirlwind for him.  On Monday, this will change.  A day after he is picked, he will largely be forgotten as the media flocks to cover Strasburg’s debut.  This should serve to reinforce the fact that he is playing second fiddle with the Nationals, not lead guitar.  Getting into the routine of a minor league system should also help him.  I am convinced that Harper will mature as he ages.

With all the attention given to the top pick in the draft, it can be easy to forget the other 1499 players picked in the draft.  I’ll give a nickel to the first person who can tell me the name of the player picked second in the 2009 draft.

Do you you give up?  It was Dustin Ackley out of the University of North Carolina.  Ackley was an outfielder for most of his career before being relegated to first base during his final season as he recovered from Tommy John surgery.  The versatile Ackley is now playing second base in the minors.  So far this season, Ackley is hitting just .244 for Mariners AA affiliate West Tennessee – but he has walked 38 times in 49 games.  I’m sure Ackley’s numbers will improve by the end of the year.  Even the best prospects usually struggle a bit in their first minor league season.

I’ll start with a note to the regular readers – we had no article yesterday for the first time in many months.  I simply ran out of time and energy and didn’t get the chance to write anything.  For those of you who read the RSS feed, you didn’t see anything new on Thursday OR Friday.  That’s because Thursday article leaked out a day early (oops) so you saw it on Wednesday, along with the article from Wednesday morning.

We’ve been a bit sports-heavy lately, and we’ll be mixing up the variety of articles soon.  Today, however, is another sports article.  We hear a lot of bad things about many of today’s sports figures – today we’ll focus on some positive role models.

A Perfect Game

On Wednesday night, Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers came tantalizing close to one of the rarest feats in baseball – a perfect game (in which no opposing runners reaches base via any means).  Major League Baseball has been around since the formation of the National League in 1876.  In this span of 135 years, there have been 2o perfect games (including, oddly, 2 this year).

Galarraga had retired the first 26 batters.  With two outs in the ninth inning, Jason Donald of the Cleveland Indians hit a ground ball that was fielded by Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera.  Miggy tossed to ball to Galarraga (who was covering first base on the play).  Replays show that the throw beat the runner by a step – but umpire Jim Joyce ruled Donald safe – ending the perfect game and no-hitter.

This situation could very easily have taken an ugly turn, with the umpiring insisting he was correct and the pitcher lashing out angrily.  But that’s not what happened.  When the game finished after the next batter made an out, umpire Joyce immediately went back to the umpire’s locker room and had the play cued up so that he could watch the video.  He immediately saw that he was wrong.  He sought out Galarraga and apologized.  Galarraga accepted the apology.  Honestly, if you didn’t know better, you’d think it was Joyce who had the perfect game taken away from him – he looked much more distraught than Galarraga.

There were calls for Bud Selig to overrule the call and deem the feat a perfect game.  While Selig made the comment that he would consult with advisors regarding the possible expansion of instant replay, he decided not to overturn the call.  For longtime baseball fans, this was hardly a surprise.  Out/Safe and Ball/Strike calls are judgment calls by the umpires and are not subject to being overruled in the same manner as a rules interpretation (such as the George Brett pine tar incident).

On Thursday, the citizens of the United States, in the form of General Motors, gave a gift to Galarraga – a brand new Corvette.  I suspect that this is the first time that a pitcher has ever received a Vette as a reward for a one-hitter.  The Detroit fans even seemed to be accepting Joyce’s apology – aside from a handful of nuts who have apparently never made a mistake in their lives and feel justified in lashing out at the umpire.

The Wizard Moves On

The sports world lost a legend on Friday night when John Wooden passed away at the age of 99.

The Indiana native first made his mark on the game of basketball as a 3 time All-American at Purdue.  His coaching career completely overshadowed his playing career, but the fact is that he is one of only three people enshrined in the Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach.

Wooden, of course, is legendary for his success at UCLA.  To say that his feats are unmatched is a gross understatement.  The 1963-1964 season was Wooden’s 16th season at UCLA and 18th as college head coach.  His team the NCAA championship that season.  UCLA also won the title in 1965, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, and 1975.  That’s a total of 10 championships in a span of 12 years – including seven straight.  No other coach in history has more than four championships.

The championships were no fluke.  During that 12 year span, Wooden’s teams lost a total of 22 games – and 12 of those losses came during the two non-championship years.  Four times Wooden’s teams finished the season undefeated – including consecutive seasons (1971-1972 and 1972-1973) in the midst of a record 88 game winning streak.  After the 1974-1975 season, Wooden walked away – the very definition of leaving at the top of your game.

It has been 35 years since Wooden coached a game, but he has never been forgotten.  After his coaching career was over, he continued to share his thoughts with those fortunate to spend time with him.  He autographed a voluminous amount of items for fans – until failing health forced his family to ask that fans refrain from sending him any more items.  The daily work of signing the items was causing him physical pain, and Wooden himself would never dream of denying a request.

The Kid Retires

On Wednesday, Ken Griffey Jr. retired from the game of baseball (and was subsequently overshadowed by the Armando Galarraga game).  I immediately felt very old.  I’m 35 years old, and I can very easily remember Griffey breaking into the minors as a 19 year old kid in 1989.  How can he possibly be old enough to retire?

A generation of fans will remember Junior as the greatest player they ever saw.  During his younger days, Griffey won four home run titles and a shelf full of Gold Glove awards.  In spite of the fact that injuries marred the latter years of his career, Griffey still ended his career with 630 home runs – 5th most all time.

During an era when nearly every power hitter came under suspicion for performance enhancing drugs, there was never a whisper of this with Griffey.  The biggest controversy of his career may have been this year, when a reporter wrote an article saying that Griffey had fallen asleep in the clubhouse during a game (in which he was not playing) and was thus not available to pinch hit.  This report was denied by everyone in the Mariners organization – but even had it been true, would it have been that big of a deal?  Trust me, he wouldn’t have been the first unused player to catch a nap during a game.

Griffey, along with Alex Rodriguez and Randy Johnson (and, lest we forget, Jay Buhner) revived baseball in Seattle.  Without Griffey, would there still be a team in Seattle?

At the start of each season, each team sends its ace to the mound on opening day, squaring off against the other team’s top pitcher. The next day, the second best pitchers on each team face off, and so on. At some point in the season, this does get disrupted by rainoff and off days so that the pitching matchups no longer align.

But I’ll pose this question: is this the best strategy, anyway?

Let’s look at the rotation of two teams.  Note: the ERAs are exaggerated for the sake of illustration.

Good team:

• Pitcher 1: 1.00 ERA
• Pitcher 2: 3.00 ERA
• Pitcher 3: 5.00 ERA
• Pitcher 4: 7.00 ERA
• Pitcher 5: 9.00 ERA

Bad Team

• Pitcher 1: 2.00 ERA
• Pitcher 2: 4.00 ERA
• Pitcher 3: 6.00 ERA
• Pitcher 4: 8.00 ERA
• Pitcher 5: 10.00 ERA

If the teams were to play five games, with the top pitchers facing off in the first game, the second best pitchers in the second game, etc, the bad team would be the underdog in all five games.

But if the bad team makes a slight adjustment to its rotation, it would be the favorite in four of the games. How? Let’s look at this:

• Good pitcher 1 (1.00) vs. Bad pitcher 5 (10.00): Advantage Good
• Good pitcher 2 (3.00) vs. Bad pitcher 1 (2.00): Advantage Bad
• Good pitcher 3 (5.00) vs. Bad pitcher 2 (4.00): Advantage Bad
• Good pitcher 4 (7.00) vs. Bad pitcher 3 (6.00): Advantage Bad
• Good pitcher 5 (9.00) vs. Bad pitcher 4 (8.00): Advantage Bad

It’s important to note that this is a very extreme example.  In the real world, the ERAs would be much closer together.

If you’re a card player, you probably understand what’s going on.  It’s a situation where your opponent has an Ace, Queen, Ten to your King, Jack, Nine.  You lose all three tricks if you throw your King against the Ace, your Jack against the Queen, and your Nine to the Ten.  However, if you discard the Nine against the Ace, you can take the Queen with your King and the Ten with your Jack.

I’m not advocating this strategy for everyone.  It basically involves surrendering one of the games to your opponent.  If you feel that your pitchers are close to the same level of the opponent, this might not be the best strategy.  However, if the opponent has a record of 22-1 with a 0.99 ERA, throwing your ace against him might be a waste of a good pitcher.  The teams that would benefit most are teams whose pitchers are a bit inferior to the opponent.

There are only a few times a year when teams would have the ability to use this strategy without seriously disrupting the preparation of the pitchers – the start of the year, the beginning of the second half (after the All Star break) and on days when there is a doubleheader.  If your ace is going to pitch one of the games of a doubleheader, it may make sense to pitch him opposite the other team’s ace, if the other team’s ace is a super-hero.

When I was a younger kid growing up in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, collecting baseball cards was something that most of the kids in the neighborhood would do.  We would run to the local grocery store in my small town to pick up the newest Topps cards of guys like Reggie Jackson, Tom Seaver, and who could forget the 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson card.

In those days, sports cards packs were still relatively cheap, and most people collected cards for the enjoyment, and of course to maybe make a buck or two.  Starting in the early 1980’s all of that changed as Topps Company had their monopoly broken up and Fleer and Donruss entered the marketplace also producing baseball cards.

Seemingly overnight hundreds of sports card shops and dealers were opening on corners in cities everywhere.  Flea Markets and Baseball Card shows were suddenly happening every weekend.  Weekly magazines started to be published indicating the relative market value of cards.

This simple hobby was turning from one of fun and collecting to one of investment and opportunity.

Fortunately for me, this was also the time that my interests turned to other things in my mid to late teen years and I held onto and then sold most of my Baseball Cards about the time I started college.  I made an absolute killing as it was the peak of the “sellers” market.  Matter of fact a couple of nice Michael Jordan Rookie cards paid for my wife’s engagement and wedding ring with some of those proceeds!

I recently had the chance to read a new book by Dave Jamieson titled MINT CONDITION – How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession.  I would highly recommend it to anyone of you out there who has collected cards at any point in your youth or even now.

The sad story is that sports cards have now really turned into a two horse game.  One for the “middle aged collector”. A guy like me.  Who still yearns to put together some old sets from their younger days, but will often now utilize third party grading companies to make sure that the cards they are collecting are “authentic” and of a “certain grade”

The other side of the hobby has been around for many years and it is much more scary in my opinion.  It is basically nothing more than impulse gambling.

Sports cards store depend on this “impulse gambling” type of buyer.  With Millions and billions of cards produced throughout the 80- and 90’s most of that inventory they have is completely worthless.  While they will occasionally get the “old school” collector coming in looking for some football or baseball cards from the 50-s and 60’s, most of their business is derived from selling of packs costing anywhere from $5-$250 each, with “guaranteed odds” of pulling things such as fancy autographs, “authentic game used pieces” of jerseys, balls, hats, etc that have been cut up and placed onto cards, and even the occasional factory produced limited #’d cards.  Many times which are numbered to 1 of 1 made, thereby implying extra scarcity that you have the only one like it in the world.

This year is a great boon so far in the baseball market for basically none other than Washington Nationals Pitcher Stephen Strasburg.  He has yet to make a big league appearance, but you would not know it based on all of the baseball card industry hype.  I mean it appears this guy is projected to be a multi 30 game winner, pitch 12 no hitters, and have over nine thousand strikeouts.

He has already had a card produced by Topps under the Bowman name, a 1 of 1 numbered Superfractor card, sell for $16,093 just a week or so ago on EBAY (see the auction here).  Various other examples of Strasburg short printed refractors numbered to 25 or even 250 can be seen up for auction for multiple thousands of dollars right now.  Not bad for a guy that has not even played in a MLB game yet.

Of course the lucky ones are the guys who spend $100 for a box of these cards, and essentially hit the lottery.  With other players such as Jason Heyward from the Atlanta Braves having a great year, there is usually more than one rookie to be chasing.  But here in 2010, Strasburg is clearly leading the pack.

Scary thing is that there really has not been that much product released yet from Topps, who is now the exclusive licensed dealer for Major League Baseball cards period.  As Topps produces some of their more “premium” sets later this year, which will include, cards including autographs, actual “patches” from jersey etc, and you can bet there will be more of these one of one cards made….and you can also bet that thousands of potential sports card lottery winners will be out, spending some disposable income in hopes of hitting their big ticket Strasburg card and flipping it for a quick profit on a site such as eBay.

It is just too bad that for every one that gets lucky, there will be thousands that don’t.

Happy Collecting!