I Finally Get Mail
It only took four weeks to get my first piece of feedback. This is far better than I did in my weeks of writing a music news column. That took six weeks.
Nick Kostos: The Closer is the most important job in baseball? What kind of crack are you on? The closer is easily the most overvalued position, not only in baseball, but in ALL sports. You bring a guy in with nobody on base and with a lead – while middle relievers and set-up men are brought into FAR more difficult situations, usually with men on base.
This is one of those arguments up there with “Should we Keep the DH” and “What’s better, the AL or the NL. Personally, while I agree there are situations where a reliever or a set-up guy comes in with worse situations, the closer tends to be the guy in the highest stress spot the most consistently. When he blows a save, you know it. When a set-up guy blows a game, he doesn’t usually get first page treatment. Maybe the closer is the “fake Hallmark holiday” of baseball, but regardless, he’s there.
Robby Ho: Uh, Trevor Hoffman? West Coast? San Diego? Closing in on the all time save record? If you want to talk about guts and confidence, how about a guy who’s still closing 40 a year without a real fastball?
Yeah that would totally be my bad. I forgot Trevor Hoffman.
714*
It’s finally over… for a little while. Tonight, while I’m watching Sunday Night Baseball, I won’t have to worry about ESPN breaking in to a David Wright or a Jason Giambi at-bat, regardless of the situation, to show me Bonds trying to catch Ruth. Maybe Sunday Night Baseball won’t have to be a Giants game every week. Maybe, just maybe, fifteen minutes of Sportscenter and Baseball Tonight each day won’t have to be dedicated to Bonds’ 0-3 the from the previous night, followed by an analysis of just why he went 0-3, what the pitch sequences were, and a preview of who he’s facing tonight with his history against that particular starter. It’s gotten old. It was old at the beginning of the season.
Saturday night, the hyperbole was in full effect. This was the most important record to break. This was a huge day for Bonds. Everyone in the world was watching. I understand it… just yesterday I was watching a show where someone was being celebrated for coming in second. People have spent their whole lives striving for the silver medal. In fact, my next goal in life is to make it into the Guinness Book of Almost Records.
I understand what Ruth meant to the sport, I do… but tying number 2 is just not something for someone to get all excited about, especially these days. 714 is a huge number, and I don’t really want to take away from the accomplishments of being in the 700 club since there’s only 3 guys in it. With medical science being what it’s become, and ballparks getting smaller, and the fact we’ll probably end up with a 165-game season before it’s all said and done, someone will eventually play long enough and be successful enough in the genetic jackpot to join the 800 club. Eventually, someone will be the 1HR/11.76AB hitter that Ruth was. It might not be in my lifetime, but it will happen.
There’s a reason baseball is downplaying Bonds passing Ruth. Some of it is certainly political. Some of it is certainly PR related. No, none of it is latent racism that so many sports columnists and Sunday Night Baseball’s Joe “Yes, I actually did seriously say ‘wasn’t beer illegal back then’ and thus made myself an embarrassment to baseball and ESPN” Morgan have fallen over each other to point out in the last few weeks. (As an aside, if anyone out there actually is ignorant enough to buy into the racism aspect of this instead of steroid allegations and Bonds’ attitude in general, please email me to make an argument. That people are so desperate to find racism in everything fascinates me.) Baseball is downplaying this because it’s not a record. There wasn’t a huge celebration when Trevor Hoffman passed John Franco on the All Time Saves List, and there won’t be one when Mariano gets to second place either. Comparing Bonds passing Ruth is like comparing Granny Smith Apples with Red Delicious Apples. It’s basically the same thing, but there are subtle differences. Ruth had 900 less at-bats, 5 less seasons (no I’m not counting the years he was primarily a pitcher), and fewer games per season. Yes, someone has to have the biggest number and, for now, that’s still Hank Aaron. When someone beats that, I’ll be interested.
Keep in mind: I don’t care about the steroid thing in general. I think it’s terrible that Bonds stained his career by using them and sullying his records, but the fact he took them doesn’t put me off. I just don’t care that he’s number 2. I’m not going to care when (barring injury) A-Rod passes Ruth and Bonds. I will have this same argument when (barring injury) Pujols passes Ruth, Bonds, and A-Rod. Passing number 2, even if he’s an icon in the sport, is still just becoming number 2.
And, let’s talk about who’s getting screwed out of the media’s collective orgasm over Barry Bonds. There’s 3 people:
1) Albert Pujols. .317 avg, 1.250 OPS, 43 R, 21 HR, and 53(!!!!) RBI before Memorial Day… and he’s still got days left. Pujols is having an incredible start, on pace to hit 80, and the baseball media has a collective hard-on for a guy about to become the second best homerun hitter of all time while hitting .229 and has yet to clear 20 RBI. Let’s not cover probably the best young player in the game, who probably isn’t on steroids and could be the best hitter in the league; let’s cover the guy who no one likes save for Joe Morgan and the state of California who’s breaking a record that isn’t a record and no one cares about because everyone thinks he’s a cheater. People aren’t ever going to accept Bonds’ records. We should be moving on.
This week, a lot of people have been talking about conspiracies related to 9/11, specifically about a missile hitting the Pentagon in lieu of an airplane on 9/11. These people are insane. If you want to follow a conspiracy, watch this season of Major League Baseball. Do you think there’s any chance that Bud Selig hasn’t called Bonds yet to tell him: “We’ll give you Ruth, then you retire at the end of this season before breaking Aaron. We’ll do an investigation and find nothing. You play next season, we find something and ban you from the hall of fame.” In the same vein, I’m reasonably sure all MLB managers have gotten a secret memo from Selig threatening them with personal injury if they intentionally walk Pujols in any inning other than the ninth.
2) Lebron James. Has had one of the great post-seasons in NBA history in his first playoff appearance. Through seven games he’s averaged 26 points, 9 rebounds, and 7 assists. He threw up a triple-double in game 3. He led the team back from 2-0 to 3-2 in three straight games. They came within a rebound of eliminating the Pistons in game 6. Yes, they lost in the end but… well… it’s Cleveland. Cleveland teams lose in heartbreaking fashion regardless of the sport. It’s just what they do.
3) The NBA. The NBA hasn’t been interesting for years. There hasn’t been anyone to get behind, there hasn’t been a franchise face, and there has been a complete lack of awesomeness. Basically, there’s been no Jordan/Magic/Bird/Kareem for people to go out of their way to watch. There’s been no Cinderella or drama in the NBA playoffs for years. This year has given us a first round unlike any other first round in history. There’s been one-point games a-plenty. There’s been last second shots. There’s been everything you need to make what should be an exciting game even more exciting. You have Lebron James, mentioned above, who has all the tools and the right attitude to be everything Kobe Bryant wanted to be, but proved he couldn’t in game seven against the Suns. Kobe wants to be the savior of the game. The first round of these playoffs proved why he’ll never be that guy.
Kobe’s meltdown aside, we’ve seen a perennially awful team in the Clippers come up to pose a legitimate threat to knocking off the two seed tonight. Sam Cassell, Cuttino Mobley, and Elton Brand have shown what an incredibly solid nucleus they make up and also proved again why a solid team playing as a unit will almost always defeat a team that revolves around a single player. Even Jordan’s Bulls weren’t that good until Jordan figured out that he didn’t need to take every shot. There’s a lesson there.
As for now, let’s all congratulate Bonds on being number two, where he’ll retire… and let’s hope Sportscenter can find something else to focus on… something people who don’t live in the Bay Area of California care about. Somehow, I don’t see this happening as they have to market Bonds On Bonds for the next thousand years.
Two game sevens and Yankees/Sox tonight. Great week in sports.
Thanks for reading.
