Tribe gets DeRosa for prospects
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This infield won't be set until spring training is winding down. Not only should Peralta be moved to 3rd, Cabrera to SS, and DeRosa to 2nd... but Victor should become the everyday 1B, with Shoppach everyday at catcher. Garko is crap, and the Indians now have several catching prospects coming down the pike. One problem is the LaPorta can play 1B, as well as OF. Definitely need to find a place for him when he's ready for the big leagues.
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Agree with both John and gcarl (though "crap" is a little strong concerning Garko - but not all that far off IMO).
Casto addresses much of this in his latest (hopefully not *last*) mailbag. He also touches on the Shin-Soo's military obligation, which is a pretty fascinating subject involving the AL Player of the Month award winner of last September:
Unfortunately, it is my duty to inform you that the Mailbag, as we know it, is no more. MLB.com is doing away with the feature on its club sites and going in a different direction with its content plan for 2009. We'll just take the easy way out and blame it on the economy, like everything else.
But because the Tribe Mailbag has become such a popular feature, I cannot, in good conscience, extinguish it entirely. For one, I had promised a new Mailbag on Jan. 5, and I refuse to be labeled a liar. While it won't run on Indians.com today, as previously scheduled, I can certainly run it here at CastroTurf.
I will, on occassion, continue to answer some of your questions in entries here. So please, by all means, keep them coming, and check back frequently.
E-mail your questions to [email protected], and please don't forget to include your first name, last initial and hometown.
Let's see what was on your minds this week...
Allow me to be a typical Cleveland sports fan. I think the Tribe has found a budding star in Shin-Soo Choo. He's a .310/25/100 guy. And in two years he'll be holding a gun for the Korean military instead of a bat for the Indians. Figures.
-- Josh H., Mansfield, Ohio
Your cynicism is understood in these parts, Josh. It's an innate part of the Cleveland condition.
Choo could avoid the obligation by becoming a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, or he could avoid it by helping South Korea to a baseball championship in the 2010 Asian Games (but that is, obviously, easier said than done). And while no one is saying it publicly, there is always the possibility that Choo simply does not return to his native land, thereby avoiding conscription.
Whenever the topic of his military obligation comes up, Choo says he's not thinking about that yet. And the Indians haven't shown the slightest bit of concern about the situation. The "typical Cleveland sports fans," as you call them, are the ones fretting, but this might amount to much ado about nothing.
I am a die-hard Cubs fan, and I just wanted to tell Indians fans the obvious: You guys got an insanely underrated player in Mark DeRosa. He may have been the Cubs' most valuable asset, and we are sad to see him go.
-- Scott P., Trevor, Wis.
I've heard nothing but good things about DeRosa, from a character standpoint. The fans and the media in Chicago loved him. I have no doubt that he'll be an asset to the Indians' clubhouse, and his numbers certainly lend themselves to the belief that he'll be an asset in the No. 2 spot of the lineup.
I'm less convinced about moving DeRosa to third, though I understand the Indians' rationale. I suspect the Tribe will work Jhonny Peralta in at third, on occasion, to get a better read on how he'd adjust to the position (his reflexes aren't exactly cat-like at shortstop, and that could become even more of an issue at the hot corner). It's reasonably safe to assume third base is in Peralta's future, but it doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense to move him to third permanently now, as DeRosa has the versatility to make the move in the interim.
If you can't tell, I liked this trade for the Tribe.
How do the prospects the Tribe received for Casey Blake in July (catcher Carlos Santana, right-hander John Meloan) compare with the prospects we gave up to get DeRosa (right-handers Jeff Stevens and Chris Archer, left-hander John Gaub)? How are these prospects valued internally by the Tribe, and what is your take on the net cost of obtaining DeRosa for one year? Is this worth it?
-- Craig A., Loughton, Essex, U.K.
Santana is already considered one of the organization's top prospects. The Indians couldn't be more enamored with his potential. They felt that Meloan and Stevens both could have competed for a bullpen job this season, but Meloan was probably higher on the pecking order because of his Triple-A experience. It was way too early to have a firm read on Archer and Gaub, who haven't spent so much as one inning above low-A ball.
All prospects are unproven commodities. I'd say the Indians received two unproven commodities in Santana and Meloan who are rated higher than the three unproven commodities given up in Stevens, Archer and Gaub.
But if you're really going to compare Blake and DeRosa, as so many fans seem inclined to do, the net cost issue is more about contract length than anything else. The 35-year-old Blake commanded a three-year deal in free agency, averaging out at $5.67 million per year. DeRosa, who turns 34 next month, is signed for one more year at $5.5 million. The Indians are much more comfortable with DeRosa for one year than Blake for three.
Is first base secretly at all a concern? Is Victor Martinez potentially going to start there, and, if so, will he still bat fourth? I would think Peralta should bat fourth. With last year's injuries and production, Martinez should be looked at as unreliable in the cleanup spot. And if you could choose between Kelly Shoppach or Ryan Garko getting regular playing time, who would it be? It has to be Shoppach, right?
-- Kevin H., Athens, Ohio
Kevin supplied the OU anecdote above, so he gets his question answered, too.
First base would be more of a concern if the Indians didn't have the perceived luxury of Martinez's flexibility and Shoppach's bat. When it comes down to Garko vs. Shoppach, the Indians are a better team defensively with Shoppach behind the plate and Martinez at first. Then again, I think Garko has more run-production upside than Shoppach, who strikes out too frequently for my liking. The Indians, for now, are just as indecisive on the matter, which is why I think you'll see both guys quite a bit.
I've always liked Garko, which made his '08 season all the more maddening. But what he did down the stretch was real, so that has to allay some of the Indians' worries. On the whole, the lack of power at first is a worry. If Martinez returns to his '07 form, it's less of a concern. But if not, that position is a glaring weakness, from the power standpoint.
As far as the lineups are concerned, I would be surprised if Peralta doesn't remain in the cleanup spot. You're right, Kevin, that the Indians can't exactly pencil in Martinez's old production until they see how he rebounds from all that missed time last year.
Well, the first Mailbag of the New Year, and it happens to be my birthday, as well! Maybe that's a good sign? Anyway, my question is on the farm system. I saw MLB.com's top 50 prospects and noticed that Matt LaPorta (No. 14) and Adam Miller (41) are on it. LaPorta I understand, but Miller? He is always injured. Do you think he deserves that ranking?
-- Aaron M., Erie, Pa.
First off, happy birthday, Aaron. May this Mailbag inclusion be, by far, your least-impressive birthday present.
It's a testament to Miller's raw stuff that he's still on that list, despite only pitching a grand total of 94 innings over the last two seasons. I expect him to make an impact in the back end of the bullpen this season, if he's healthy. But because that "if" is such a big "if," I personally would have put Santana on this list before Miller.
Why would Grady Sizemore play in the World Baseball Classic? Better yet, why does the front office permit him to play? At the end of last season, I recall management saying they need to give Grady days off during '09.
-- Bill, Cincinnati
Teams are at the mercy of their players' desires to play in the WBC, unless that player missed significant time due to injury in the previous season. So when Sizemore said he wants to participate, the Indians had no choice but to let him. But it should be a good experience for Sizemore, and he should be a valuable asset to Team USA.
And finally...
Why don't the Indians trade all of their good players to the A's? The A's are boss!
-- Sean M., Livermore, Calif.
I don't know why, but this might be my favorite Mailbag question of all-time. I'm imagining headlines of "Tribe trades Lee to A's -- for nothing" and subheads of "Shapiro said move was made because A's are 'so boss.'"
More than anything, I'm just rooting for "boss" to reemerge as part of our lexicon. That would be gnarly.
http://castrovince.mlblogs.com/archives/20...ry_service.html
Beanpot
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I don't get calling Garko crap. He did hit .273 and drove in 90, in a line up that was missing Hafner and Martinez.
Garko isn't gonna be a big time player or run producer like a lot of other 1B in the league. But he is gonna be playing and starting for a long time, whether in CLE or else where.
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I don't get calling Garko crap. He did hit .273 and drove in 90, in a line up that was missing Hafner and Martinez.
Garko isn't gonna be a big time player or run producer like a lot of other 1B in the league. But he is gonna be playing and starting for a long time, whether in CLE or else where.
Masters said:
I don't get calling Garko crap. He did hit .273 and drove in 90, in a line up that was missing Hafner and Martinez.That was harsh of me, I admit. I guess I view him as the odd man out. No way you take Victor's bat out of the lineup. However, he is not as good a defensive catcher as Shoppach, but did improve last year. One alternative is to put Victor at 1B. Although, Garko had a good year defensively at 1B last year (4 errors in 1123 total chances). And, Shoppach had good offensive numbers as well (but K's alot). Tough call.
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Masters said:
I don't get calling Garko crap. He did hit .273 and drove in 90, in a line up that was missing Hafner and Martinez.That was harsh of me, I admit. I guess I view him as the odd man out. No way you take Victor's bat out of the lineup. However, he is not as good a defensive catcher as Shoppach, but did improve last year. One alternative is to put Victor at 1B. Although, Garko had a good year defensively at 1B last year (4 errors in 1123 total chances). And, Shoppach had good offensive numbers as well (but K's alot). Tough call.
That was harsh of me, I admit. I guess I view him as the odd man out. No way you take Victor's bat out of the lineup. However, he is not as good a defensive catcher as Shoppach, but did improve last year. One alternative is to put Victor at 1B. Although, Garko had a good year defensively at 1B last year (4 errors in 1123 total chances). And, Shoppach had good offensive numbers as well (but K's alot). Tough call.
I agree with that. Not sure he is totally the odd man out. But he might become a rotation. Victor isn't exactly solid at 1st and will still see time catching. I am not sold Hafner will come back to form either. I am w/ you on wanting Shoppach seeing a good amount of time, but more for his bat. Victor struggles thowing out runners, but he calls a great game. Which sometimes is over looked in baseball. That is huge imo.
The plus side is CLE has options at 1B, DH, and C.
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@shepwrite said:
I don't follow baseball all that closely, but this sounds like a really deep batting order to me:Sizemore (30 HR projected)
DeRosa (20)
Francisco (20)
Martinez (20)
Hafner (who knows)
Peralta (20)
Garko (20)
Choo (20)
That one dude named Asdurbledrubal or something
I'm sure the order is wrong, but it seems like everybody before the unpronouncable has pop.
No question. Francisco and DeRosa are stretches for 20, but hopefully guys like Choo and Peralta will be closer to 25-30 (and that's not even counting Shoppach's 21 bombs). The perfect scenario has more to do with the table setting though. DeRosa gives us another great OBP guy, if Martinez bounces back and Garko gets closer to his .290 avg, we should be back near the top in run producing. Brantley at the top of the order (in time) would make us even better.
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@shepwrite said:
I don't follow baseball all that closely, but this sounds like a really deep batting order to me:Sizemore (30 HR projected)
DeRosa (20)
Francisco (20)
Martinez (20)
Hafner (who knows)
Peralta (20)
Garko (20)
Choo (20)
That one dude named Asdurbledrubal or something
I'm sure the order is wrong, but it seems like everybody before the unpronouncable has pop.
No question. Francisco and DeRosa are stretches for 20, but hopefully guys like Choo and Peralta will be closer to 25-30 (and that's not even counting Shoppach's 21 bombs). The perfect scenario has more to do with the table setting though. DeRosa gives us another great OBP guy, if Martinez bounces back and Garko gets closer to his .290 avg, we should be back near the top in run producing. Brantley at the top of the order (in time) would make us even better.
No question. Francisco and DeRosa are stretches for 20, but hopefully guys like Choo and Peralta will be closer to 25-30 (and that's not even counting Shoppach's 21 bombs). The perfect scenario has more to do with the table setting though. DeRosa gives us another great OBP guy, if Martinez bounces back and Garko gets closer to his .290 avg, we should be back near the top in run producing. Brantley at the top of the order (in time) would make us even better.
Well Fransisco and Choo gave the tribe 15 and 14 HRs last year. If they see more time instead of Deluchi, I don't see why they couldn't come close to the 20 HR.
I'd love to see someone be able to take over the top of the order. Grady would be a perfect 3 hole hitter.
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No question. Francisco and DeRosa are stretches for 20, but hopefully guys like Choo and Peralta will be closer to 25-30 (and that's not even counting Shoppach's 21 bombs). The perfect scenario has more to do with the table setting though. DeRosa gives us another great OBP guy, if Martinez bounces back and Garko gets closer to his .290 avg, we should be back near the top in run producing. Brantley at the top of the order (in time) would make us even better.
Well Fransisco and Choo gave the tribe 15 and 14 HRs last year. If they see more time instead of Deluchi, I don't see why they couldn't come close to the 20 HR.
I'd love to see someone be able to take over the top of the order. Grady would be a perfect 3 hole hitter.
Masters said:
I'd love to see someone be able to take over the top of the order. Grady would be a perfect 3 hole hitter.I was really disappointed the the Indians didn't bring Lofton back for 2008. Yeah, he's up there age-wise, but who the hell cares? He had a fantastic last half of 2007 and a great postseason.
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@shepwrite said:
Yeah, I was thinkin'... if Sizemore's a 30 HR kinda guy, put him in the 3.I have been saying for a while he'd be the second coming of Robbie Alomar when he hit there. He can hit for power to drive in runs, hit the gaps, or drop down the bunt to move the runners. He can do everything you really want in the 3 hole.
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@shepwrite said:
Yeah, I was thinkin'... if Sizemore's a 30 HR kinda guy, put him in the 3.I have been saying for a while he'd be the second coming of Robbie Alomar when he hit there. He can hit for power to drive in runs, hit the gaps, or drop down the bunt to move the runners. He can do everything you really want in the 3 hole.
Masters said:
I have been saying for a while he'd be the second coming of Robbie Alomar when he hit there. He can hit for power to drive in runs, hit the gaps, or drop down the bunt to move the runners. He can do everything you really want in the 3 hole.It's fun to look at lineup construction. The variables and dogmas attached to the subject make it a silly exercise, but there are a few tools out there that look into the topic. Baseball Musings does such a thing here - http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/LineupAnalysis.py
Essentially, it only takes into consideration OBP and SLG percentage and then determines which lineup would score the most runs given those numbers.
I plugged in the 08 numbers for every starter last year (I used Shoppach behind the plate, Garko at first and Martinez as DH) and the lineup which scored the most runs featured....Casey Blake as our lead off hitter. Actually, he was the lead off hitter in the top six lineups that would have scored us the most runs per game (5.049-5.044 - we were at 4.96 last year). Sizemore is in the two hole in all of the top six lineups and Shoppach was at clean-up in all but 6 of the 30 generated line ups. Garko was in the 8th spot in every single simulation.
For 09, I just used career numbers and replaced Blake with DeRosa, Gootz with Choo and Garko with Hafner. Again, this doesn't take into count aging patterns, injury history and the fact that there's no way in hell that Eric Wedge (or most any other manager) is going to ignore history and construct his lineup in such an unorthodox way. That said, here's the *best* lineup the Indians could construct next year:
Martinez
Hafner
Peralta
Choo
Sizemore
Francisco
DeRosa
Shoppach
Cabrera
Such a lineup would score 5.586 runs a game, according to the model used.
So, yeah. It'll never happen. But I was surprised to learn that Sizemore in the three hole produced an optimum lineup only twice in 60 models.
Here are a couple of links that show the tables:
http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/Lin...365&Model=0
http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/Lin...534&Model=1
Beanpot
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@shepwrite said:
Yeah, I was thinkin'... if Sizemore's a 30 HR kinda guy, put him in the 3.I have been saying for a while he'd be the second coming of Robbie Alomar when he hit there. He can hit for power to drive in runs, hit the gaps, or drop down the bunt to move the runners. He can do everything you really want in the 3 hole.
Masters said:
I have been saying for a while he'd be the second coming of Robbie Alomar when he hit there. He can hit for power to drive in runs, hit the gaps, or drop down the bunt to move the runners. He can do everything you really want in the 3 hole.Man, I was so tempted to say something snarky about the idea of Grady "bunt(ing) to move runners over from the 3 hole." But you know Masters, you're right. I hope like mad it won't happen often, but Sizemore is just the guy for that kinda thing.
Speaking of bunts, here's a great passage from a book I've never read. Deals with Robbie, Grover and the '97 ALCS. Just terrific writing:
It was October baseball at its best, played in the lengthening shadows of late afternoon and in the shadow cast by the long season that had led to this dramatic moment. An autumnal sense of winding down pervaded Baltimore's Camden Yards, with the light and warmth of summer seeping away amid hints of winter. The lights were on and so were sweaters and game six of the American League Championship Series was scoreless in the bottom of the seventh inning.
During the 1997 regular season the Orioles had become only the third "wire to wire" team in American League history -- in first place from game 1 through game 162. But the Indians were leading the Series three games to two when shortstop Mike Bordick led off the seventh for the Orioles with a single. The next batter was Brady Anderson, who, on the first pitch, squared as though to bunt, but took a breaking ball for ball one. He did not want to bunt, but he wanted the Indians' pitcher, Charles Nagy, and catcher, Sandy Alomar, to think he might be bunting and to pitch to him with that in mind. Perhaps they did. The next pitch was a high fastball, a pitch easier to hit than to bunt. Anderson slapped it into right for a single. Bordick stopped at second.
If the Orioles could score Bordick, they would be six outs from forcing a seventh game. It would be a home game, so if they could advance Bordick 180 feet they would be favored to advance to the World Series. However, the Orioles were 0 for 8 with runners in scoring position in this game. The next batter, Orioles second baseman Roberto Alomar, Sandy's brother and one of baseball's better hunters, would try to move Bordick the 90 feet to third base, from which he could score on a sacrifice fly.
The inning, and perhaps the game, and even the season were coming down to one taut moment, a test of anticipation and execution by Roberto Alomar, and by brother Sandy and the rest of the Indians. Would Roberto Alomar drop down a bunt? And if so, where? That would depend on which bunt defense the Indians chose, and that choice would depend on what the Indians thought Roberto Alomar and the Orioles were thinking. So the first task for both teams was to get some information.
To that end, after Alomar got set in the batters box, Nagy, a righthander, stepped off the mound and looked to second. He was signaled to do so from the Indians' bench. Nowadays, managers call for "step-offs" -- for the pitcher to step off the rubber -- and throw-overs to first base, and pickoff plays. (Until relatively recently, managers did not involve themselves in such micromanagement of games. In 1948, the Indians won the American League pennant and the World Series under a player-manager, shortstop Lou Boudreau, who had a spectacular season, batting .355 with 18 home runs and 106 RBI. It is inconceivable that he could have called step-offs and throw-overs while playing shortstop.) Usually a step-off is called to see if some motion by the batter or by a base runner betrays the intentions of the team at bat.
Reflecting about that play, Davey Johnson, the Orioles' manager, recalls thinking that the Indians might be looking for evidence that the Orioles were going to try a hit-and-run. Such evidence, betrayed just before Nagy stepped off or in response to his doing so, might be some slight lean or start by Bordick or Anderson, or some adjustment by Alomar of his stance, or some slight movement of his bat.
The bat control that makes Alomar a deft bunter also makes him adept at the hit-and-run. Besides, Johnson does not often call for a bunt. On the other hand, in situations like this Alomar sometimes bunts on his own. He has been in baseball since he was in diapers (his father had a fifteen-year major league career) and he has abundant confidence in his situational judgments. Furthermore, he spent his first three seasons in the National League (with the Padres). In that league, for a number of reasons (principally, tradition, and bigger parks, and the absence of the designated hitter) there is somewhat less of an emphasis on "big bang," long-ball baseball, somewhat more willingness to give up an out to advance a runner 90 feet.
In any case, when Nagy stepped off, neither Bordick nor Anderson nor Alomar did anything that looked like evidence of a hit-and-run, or a bunt. But Mike Hargrove, the Indians' manager, was not suspecting a hit-and-run and did not doubt what Johnson had in mind and what Alomar was going to do. "The situation," Hargrove says, "was screaming bunt." If ever there was a time to play for one run, this was it.
Thinking back on this minidrama, Hargrove says the rush of decisions concerning Alomar's at bat is "a little bit of a blur," but he says the Nagy step off might have been part of a pickoff play at second: The shortstop breaks for third, and perhaps the runner on second thinks he can and should lengthen his lead. The second baseman darts in behind the runner to take the throw from the pitcher. However, the pitcher does not have to throw to second when that play is put on, and Nagy did not throw.
Now it was time for the first pitch to Alomar, and it was Alomar's and the Orioles' turn to try to learn something. Alomar shortened up and partially squared to bunt, but he took the first pitch, a buntable breaking ball. His eyes were less on the pitch than on the left side of the Indians' infield, third baseman Matt Williams and shortstop Omar Vizquel. Both are among the best defensive players at their positions; both have won Gold Gloves. Together, they give a manager confidence to put on the "wheel" or "rotation" play in a situation like this.
But Mike Hargrove had not done so. Yet.
On the "wheel" or "rotation" play the third baseman charges the bunt, as does the first baseman, as the pitcher covers the middle of the infield. The second baseman sprints to cover second. And the shortstop breaks toward third, racing the runner on second and arriving at third -- if all goes well -- in time to force the lead runner. However, on the first pitch to Alomar, Williams had, in Johnson's words, "played it regular." Playing it "regular" means, Johnson says, that "the third baseman doesn't come until he sees [the ball] coming toward him." Williams had not charged. He had been edging in toward Alomar as Nagy prepared to deliver the first pitch, but then had held back.
So what information had the Orioles acquired? Precious little. They had learned that the wheel play was not on. Not on the first pitch, at least. Which did not surprise Johnson: "Our reports were that they did not run the wheel." When told that Johnson had assumed the Indians did not use that play, Hargrove said, laughing, "That's what you get for assuming."
The trouble is, in baseball, as in the rest of life, we live by assuming. We act all the time on assumptions about how children, the weather, stocks and other things are apt to behave. And in fact the Orioles' reports had been basically right. Hargrove says the Indians only use the wheel play "two or three times a year." But, he says, "we work at it all the time." They were about to work it for what Hargrove thinks was only the second time in 1997.
After Alomar took that first pitch, Williams looked in to the Indians' dugout on the third-base side of Camden Yards, then turned toward his teammates and went through a series of signs. Next, he went to the mound and, with his glove over his mouth to frustrate any lip-readers in the Orioles' dugout, spoke to Nagy. As Johnson said later, "Williams is a National League guy." He had spent the ten seasons prior to 1997 with the Giants, and the wheel play was a routine part of his defensive craftsmanship. So Alomar and the Orioles had to wonder whether Williams had signaled a new play -- the wheel -- or whether all this was just a charade to get the Orioles thinking that the Indians would not play the second pitch the way they had played the first. If the Indians were not going to use the wheel, Alomar's job would be to bunt the ball toward third hard enough that Williams, not Nagy, would have to field it, drawing him away from third, leaving the Indians with only the option of getting Alomar at first as Bordick and Anderson advanced.
Alomar bunted the second pitch toward third, and he and the Orioles instantly, and to their sorrow, had the answer to their question. This time Williams was charging and Vizquel was on the run to his right, toward third. Williams fielded the ball about 25 feet in front of the plate, whirled and threw to Vizquel, who beat Bordick to third by at least 15 feet for the force-out.
The time that had elapsed between Anderson's single touching the rightfield grass and Williams' throw touching Vizquel's glove: one minute and fifty-nine seconds.
The Orioles still had a threat going, with Anderson -- who is a lot faster than Bordick is going from second to home -- on second and Alomar on first. But the Indians, having been challenged to anticipate correctly and execute flawlessly, had done so. The next batter, Geronimo Berroa, grounded the first pitch into a double play with Roberto Alomar out at second. The game remained scoreless until the eleventh inning, when the Indians' second baseman, Tony Fernandez, lofted a home run over the right-field scoreboard.
That, and one more inning of good relief pitching, sent the Indians to the World Series. However, the hinge of the game was the play four innings earlier.
It was not a baseball fan who said that God gave us memory so that we could have roses in winter. Roses are all very well, but real fans are warmed between the postseason and the preseason by the afterglow of episodes like Alomar's bunt and the Indians' businesslike but beautiful 5-6 putout in the seventh.
Bunts are modest and often useful things, although they are not always well understood, even by those who are supposed to know when and how to lay them down. In a baseball story in McClure's magazine in 1917, back when the ball was dead and bunting was an essential and admired skill, a manager marveled at a player's misconceptions:
"So I asks him, 'Young man, can you bunt?' 'Mr. Ryan,' says he, 'I don't like to brag about myself, but I can bunt farther than any other man on the team.' Them's his very words. Can you beat it?"
The origin of the word "bunt" is lost in the mists of history, which of course does not inhibit either speculation or certitude. In the Church of Baseball, the mere absence of conclusive evidence is no impediment to belief. Baseball fans are forever in the grip of originitis, a mild mental illness that manifests itself in a powerful craving for usually unattainable knowledge of when this or that practice originated. Baseball's most venerable "knowledge" is the most preposterous: It is the Abner Doubleday myth, the story that in the summer of 1839 young Abner sashayed into Farmer Phinney's pasture at Cooperstown and said, "Let there be baseball," or words to that effect. There is even a theory about the origin of the use of batting gloves. It is that in 1968 Ken Harrelson, then with the Bostons (concerning that way of speaking, see the essay about Bill Rigney in this volume), assumed he was not expected to play in a particular night game. So he played 36 holes of golf before going to the ballpark, where he arrived with blistered hands and found his name on the lineup card. (That is what you get for assuming.) So he wore his golf gloves to bat.
One theory about the origin of the word "bunt" is that it evolved from the word "butting," which is what Tim Murnane of the Boston Red Stockings called it when he used his flat-sided bat -- such bats were legal back then -- to put a ball into play without swinging. Another theory is that "bunt" derived from "buntling" to designate a baby hit. That is a particularly charming theory, so let's accept it until some spoilsport refutes it.
I have titled this collection of baseball writings Bunts because they are mostly small, most of them having been written for newspapers, magazines and book review publications. Baseball, unlike basketball or hockey or soccer, is a game of episodes, not of flow, and so lends itself to snapshots. These essays are verbal snapshots taken of baseball during a quarter of a century of usually exhilarating, sometimes exasperating but always affectionate observation of the game. The subjects of these essays range from the nobility of Curt Flood, to the torments of Billy Martin, to the self-destruction of Pete Rose. They range from what baseball has done exquisitely right -- Camden Yards, for example -- to what it has done ruinously wrong -- labor relations. Two of the longer essays, the one on broadcaster Jon Miller and the concluding survey of the game at the end of the century, were written for this volume.
Connie Mack, who spent sixty-four years in Major League Baseball -- fifty-three of them in dugouts, and fifty of those wearing a business suit and necktie and stiff collar and managing the Philadelphia Athletics -- said near the end of his life, "I have never known a day when I didn't learn something new about this game." There is indeed a lot to learn. The writings in this volume contain much of what one fan has learned from a lifetime constantly refreshed by sips from the meandering stream of baseball's life.
I am sometimes asked when it was that I first came upon that stream which irrigates my life. I answer that I do not know, because I have no memory of life before baseball. My mother recalled that at age six, after listening to a broadcast of a 1947 World Series game that the Yankees lost, I asked her if the Yankees' mothers would be sad. (She said, "No." She should have said, "Not for long.") My interest in baseball was fed by radio. I grew up in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, a university community, and radio was my connection with metropolitan America. As we lived more or less midway between Chicago and St. Louis, the family Philco crackled with the broadcasts of the Cubs (Burt Wilson), White Sox (Bob Elson), Cardinals (Harry Caray) and Browns (Buddy Blattner). Baseball was in the air.
For half a century, and especially in the almost quarter of a century covered by the columns and other essays in this volume, the national pastime has been a full participant in the three great dramas of the nation in that period. These dramas have concerned relations between the races, the temptations and stresses of prosperity and the aggressive assertion of new rights. In this period I have come of middle age, and baseball has grown up.
These rites of passage are supposed to be tinged with melancholy -- farewell to innocence and all that -- and baseball has in fact paid a price for its growth into an institution more complex and less intimate than it was. In a sense, baseball has become both more and less close to those of us who care about it. It is closer to us in the sense that we know more about its internal workings as a business, and we know more about (and there is more to know about) what the players and managers are doing during games. On the other hand, a certain social distance has opened up between the people on the field and the people in the stands. Players and managers are highly paid celebrities, with all the attendant demands on them, and often a certain wariness from them. The stakes of success and failure are much higher than they were.
So much has changed, but the most remarkable thing is that the essential feature -- the enjoyment fans derive from a close connection with the game -- has not. The following writings wend their way through the delights and, yes, exasperations of one fan's experiences with this American delight. The volume ends with a summing-up, an examination of baseball's evolution through the century. It is nice to know that my last words in this volume will not be the last word on anything, because baseball is a work in progress. If you don't believe me, just remember -- and heed -- the fan's familiar cry: "Wait 'til next year!"
Copyright
1998 by George F. Will http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/w/will-bunts.html?_r=2
Beanpot
-
Masters said:
I have been saying for a while he'd be the second coming of Robbie Alomar when he hit there. He can hit for power to drive in runs, hit the gaps, or drop down the bunt to move the runners. He can do everything you really want in the 3 hole.Man, I was so tempted to say something snarky about the idea of Grady "bunt(ing) to move runners over from the 3 hole." But you know Masters, you're right. I hope like mad it won't happen often, but Sizemore is just the guy for that kinda thing.
Speaking of bunts, here's a great passage from a book I've never read. Deals with Robbie, Grover and the '97 ALCS. Just terrific writing:
It was October baseball at its best, played in the lengthening shadows of late afternoon and in the shadow cast by the long season that had led to this dramatic moment. An autumnal sense of winding down pervaded Baltimore's Camden Yards, with the light and warmth of summer seeping away amid hints of winter. The lights were on and so were sweaters and game six of the American League Championship Series was scoreless in the bottom of the seventh inning.
During the 1997 regular season the Orioles had become only the third "wire to wire" team in American League history -- in first place from game 1 through game 162. But the Indians were leading the Series three games to two when shortstop Mike Bordick led off the seventh for the Orioles with a single. The next batter was Brady Anderson, who, on the first pitch, squared as though to bunt, but took a breaking ball for ball one. He did not want to bunt, but he wanted the Indians' pitcher, Charles Nagy, and catcher, Sandy Alomar, to think he might be bunting and to pitch to him with that in mind. Perhaps they did. The next pitch was a high fastball, a pitch easier to hit than to bunt. Anderson slapped it into right for a single. Bordick stopped at second.
If the Orioles could score Bordick, they would be six outs from forcing a seventh game. It would be a home game, so if they could advance Bordick 180 feet they would be favored to advance to the World Series. However, the Orioles were 0 for 8 with runners in scoring position in this game. The next batter, Orioles second baseman Roberto Alomar, Sandy's brother and one of baseball's better hunters, would try to move Bordick the 90 feet to third base, from which he could score on a sacrifice fly.
The inning, and perhaps the game, and even the season were coming down to one taut moment, a test of anticipation and execution by Roberto Alomar, and by brother Sandy and the rest of the Indians. Would Roberto Alomar drop down a bunt? And if so, where? That would depend on which bunt defense the Indians chose, and that choice would depend on what the Indians thought Roberto Alomar and the Orioles were thinking. So the first task for both teams was to get some information.
To that end, after Alomar got set in the batters box, Nagy, a righthander, stepped off the mound and looked to second. He was signaled to do so from the Indians' bench. Nowadays, managers call for "step-offs" -- for the pitcher to step off the rubber -- and throw-overs to first base, and pickoff plays. (Until relatively recently, managers did not involve themselves in such micromanagement of games. In 1948, the Indians won the American League pennant and the World Series under a player-manager, shortstop Lou Boudreau, who had a spectacular season, batting .355 with 18 home runs and 106 RBI. It is inconceivable that he could have called step-offs and throw-overs while playing shortstop.) Usually a step-off is called to see if some motion by the batter or by a base runner betrays the intentions of the team at bat.
Reflecting about that play, Davey Johnson, the Orioles' manager, recalls thinking that the Indians might be looking for evidence that the Orioles were going to try a hit-and-run. Such evidence, betrayed just before Nagy stepped off or in response to his doing so, might be some slight lean or start by Bordick or Anderson, or some adjustment by Alomar of his stance, or some slight movement of his bat.
The bat control that makes Alomar a deft bunter also makes him adept at the hit-and-run. Besides, Johnson does not often call for a bunt. On the other hand, in situations like this Alomar sometimes bunts on his own. He has been in baseball since he was in diapers (his father had a fifteen-year major league career) and he has abundant confidence in his situational judgments. Furthermore, he spent his first three seasons in the National League (with the Padres). In that league, for a number of reasons (principally, tradition, and bigger parks, and the absence of the designated hitter) there is somewhat less of an emphasis on "big bang," long-ball baseball, somewhat more willingness to give up an out to advance a runner 90 feet.
In any case, when Nagy stepped off, neither Bordick nor Anderson nor Alomar did anything that looked like evidence of a hit-and-run, or a bunt. But Mike Hargrove, the Indians' manager, was not suspecting a hit-and-run and did not doubt what Johnson had in mind and what Alomar was going to do. "The situation," Hargrove says, "was screaming bunt." If ever there was a time to play for one run, this was it.
Thinking back on this minidrama, Hargrove says the rush of decisions concerning Alomar's at bat is "a little bit of a blur," but he says the Nagy step off might have been part of a pickoff play at second: The shortstop breaks for third, and perhaps the runner on second thinks he can and should lengthen his lead. The second baseman darts in behind the runner to take the throw from the pitcher. However, the pitcher does not have to throw to second when that play is put on, and Nagy did not throw.
Now it was time for the first pitch to Alomar, and it was Alomar's and the Orioles' turn to try to learn something. Alomar shortened up and partially squared to bunt, but he took the first pitch, a buntable breaking ball. His eyes were less on the pitch than on the left side of the Indians' infield, third baseman Matt Williams and shortstop Omar Vizquel. Both are among the best defensive players at their positions; both have won Gold Gloves. Together, they give a manager confidence to put on the "wheel" or "rotation" play in a situation like this.
But Mike Hargrove had not done so. Yet.
On the "wheel" or "rotation" play the third baseman charges the bunt, as does the first baseman, as the pitcher covers the middle of the infield. The second baseman sprints to cover second. And the shortstop breaks toward third, racing the runner on second and arriving at third -- if all goes well -- in time to force the lead runner. However, on the first pitch to Alomar, Williams had, in Johnson's words, "played it regular." Playing it "regular" means, Johnson says, that "the third baseman doesn't come until he sees [the ball] coming toward him." Williams had not charged. He had been edging in toward Alomar as Nagy prepared to deliver the first pitch, but then had held back.
So what information had the Orioles acquired? Precious little. They had learned that the wheel play was not on. Not on the first pitch, at least. Which did not surprise Johnson: "Our reports were that they did not run the wheel." When told that Johnson had assumed the Indians did not use that play, Hargrove said, laughing, "That's what you get for assuming."
The trouble is, in baseball, as in the rest of life, we live by assuming. We act all the time on assumptions about how children, the weather, stocks and other things are apt to behave. And in fact the Orioles' reports had been basically right. Hargrove says the Indians only use the wheel play "two or three times a year." But, he says, "we work at it all the time." They were about to work it for what Hargrove thinks was only the second time in 1997.
After Alomar took that first pitch, Williams looked in to the Indians' dugout on the third-base side of Camden Yards, then turned toward his teammates and went through a series of signs. Next, he went to the mound and, with his glove over his mouth to frustrate any lip-readers in the Orioles' dugout, spoke to Nagy. As Johnson said later, "Williams is a National League guy." He had spent the ten seasons prior to 1997 with the Giants, and the wheel play was a routine part of his defensive craftsmanship. So Alomar and the Orioles had to wonder whether Williams had signaled a new play -- the wheel -- or whether all this was just a charade to get the Orioles thinking that the Indians would not play the second pitch the way they had played the first. If the Indians were not going to use the wheel, Alomar's job would be to bunt the ball toward third hard enough that Williams, not Nagy, would have to field it, drawing him away from third, leaving the Indians with only the option of getting Alomar at first as Bordick and Anderson advanced.
Alomar bunted the second pitch toward third, and he and the Orioles instantly, and to their sorrow, had the answer to their question. This time Williams was charging and Vizquel was on the run to his right, toward third. Williams fielded the ball about 25 feet in front of the plate, whirled and threw to Vizquel, who beat Bordick to third by at least 15 feet for the force-out.
The time that had elapsed between Anderson's single touching the rightfield grass and Williams' throw touching Vizquel's glove: one minute and fifty-nine seconds.
The Orioles still had a threat going, with Anderson -- who is a lot faster than Bordick is going from second to home -- on second and Alomar on first. But the Indians, having been challenged to anticipate correctly and execute flawlessly, had done so. The next batter, Geronimo Berroa, grounded the first pitch into a double play with Roberto Alomar out at second. The game remained scoreless until the eleventh inning, when the Indians' second baseman, Tony Fernandez, lofted a home run over the right-field scoreboard.
That, and one more inning of good relief pitching, sent the Indians to the World Series. However, the hinge of the game was the play four innings earlier.
It was not a baseball fan who said that God gave us memory so that we could have roses in winter. Roses are all very well, but real fans are warmed between the postseason and the preseason by the afterglow of episodes like Alomar's bunt and the Indians' businesslike but beautiful 5-6 putout in the seventh.
Bunts are modest and often useful things, although they are not always well understood, even by those who are supposed to know when and how to lay them down. In a baseball story in McClure's magazine in 1917, back when the ball was dead and bunting was an essential and admired skill, a manager marveled at a player's misconceptions:
"So I asks him, 'Young man, can you bunt?' 'Mr. Ryan,' says he, 'I don't like to brag about myself, but I can bunt farther than any other man on the team.' Them's his very words. Can you beat it?"
The origin of the word "bunt" is lost in the mists of history, which of course does not inhibit either speculation or certitude. In the Church of Baseball, the mere absence of conclusive evidence is no impediment to belief. Baseball fans are forever in the grip of originitis, a mild mental illness that manifests itself in a powerful craving for usually unattainable knowledge of when this or that practice originated. Baseball's most venerable "knowledge" is the most preposterous: It is the Abner Doubleday myth, the story that in the summer of 1839 young Abner sashayed into Farmer Phinney's pasture at Cooperstown and said, "Let there be baseball," or words to that effect. There is even a theory about the origin of the use of batting gloves. It is that in 1968 Ken Harrelson, then with the Bostons (concerning that way of speaking, see the essay about Bill Rigney in this volume), assumed he was not expected to play in a particular night game. So he played 36 holes of golf before going to the ballpark, where he arrived with blistered hands and found his name on the lineup card. (That is what you get for assuming.) So he wore his golf gloves to bat.
One theory about the origin of the word "bunt" is that it evolved from the word "butting," which is what Tim Murnane of the Boston Red Stockings called it when he used his flat-sided bat -- such bats were legal back then -- to put a ball into play without swinging. Another theory is that "bunt" derived from "buntling" to designate a baby hit. That is a particularly charming theory, so let's accept it until some spoilsport refutes it.
I have titled this collection of baseball writings Bunts because they are mostly small, most of them having been written for newspapers, magazines and book review publications. Baseball, unlike basketball or hockey or soccer, is a game of episodes, not of flow, and so lends itself to snapshots. These essays are verbal snapshots taken of baseball during a quarter of a century of usually exhilarating, sometimes exasperating but always affectionate observation of the game. The subjects of these essays range from the nobility of Curt Flood, to the torments of Billy Martin, to the self-destruction of Pete Rose. They range from what baseball has done exquisitely right -- Camden Yards, for example -- to what it has done ruinously wrong -- labor relations. Two of the longer essays, the one on broadcaster Jon Miller and the concluding survey of the game at the end of the century, were written for this volume.
Connie Mack, who spent sixty-four years in Major League Baseball -- fifty-three of them in dugouts, and fifty of those wearing a business suit and necktie and stiff collar and managing the Philadelphia Athletics -- said near the end of his life, "I have never known a day when I didn't learn something new about this game." There is indeed a lot to learn. The writings in this volume contain much of what one fan has learned from a lifetime constantly refreshed by sips from the meandering stream of baseball's life.
I am sometimes asked when it was that I first came upon that stream which irrigates my life. I answer that I do not know, because I have no memory of life before baseball. My mother recalled that at age six, after listening to a broadcast of a 1947 World Series game that the Yankees lost, I asked her if the Yankees' mothers would be sad. (She said, "No." She should have said, "Not for long.") My interest in baseball was fed by radio. I grew up in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, a university community, and radio was my connection with metropolitan America. As we lived more or less midway between Chicago and St. Louis, the family Philco crackled with the broadcasts of the Cubs (Burt Wilson), White Sox (Bob Elson), Cardinals (Harry Caray) and Browns (Buddy Blattner). Baseball was in the air.
For half a century, and especially in the almost quarter of a century covered by the columns and other essays in this volume, the national pastime has been a full participant in the three great dramas of the nation in that period. These dramas have concerned relations between the races, the temptations and stresses of prosperity and the aggressive assertion of new rights. In this period I have come of middle age, and baseball has grown up.
These rites of passage are supposed to be tinged with melancholy -- farewell to innocence and all that -- and baseball has in fact paid a price for its growth into an institution more complex and less intimate than it was. In a sense, baseball has become both more and less close to those of us who care about it. It is closer to us in the sense that we know more about its internal workings as a business, and we know more about (and there is more to know about) what the players and managers are doing during games. On the other hand, a certain social distance has opened up between the people on the field and the people in the stands. Players and managers are highly paid celebrities, with all the attendant demands on them, and often a certain wariness from them. The stakes of success and failure are much higher than they were.
So much has changed, but the most remarkable thing is that the essential feature -- the enjoyment fans derive from a close connection with the game -- has not. The following writings wend their way through the delights and, yes, exasperations of one fan's experiences with this American delight. The volume ends with a summing-up, an examination of baseball's evolution through the century. It is nice to know that my last words in this volume will not be the last word on anything, because baseball is a work in progress. If you don't believe me, just remember -- and heed -- the fan's familiar cry: "Wait 'til next year!"
Copyright
1998 by George F. Will http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/w/will-bunts.html?_r=2
Beanpot
Man, I was so tempted to say something snarky about the idea of Grady "bunt(ing) to move runners over from the 3 hole." But you know Masters, you're right. I hope like mad it won't happen often, but Sizemore is just the guy for that kinda thing.
Speaking of bunts, here's a great passage from a book I've never read. Deals with Robbie, Grover and the '97 ALCS. Just terrific writing:
Beanpot
Great stuff Beans
"The Wheel" Man that was great situational baseball, I remember sweating through that 1 minute and 59 seconds
As I was reading it I vividly saw it in my mind's eye as it was just yesterday.
I remember the tenseness, with Nagy stepping off et al
thanks
JG
-
Masters said:
I have been saying for a while he'd be the second coming of Robbie Alomar when he hit there. He can hit for power to drive in runs, hit the gaps, or drop down the bunt to move the runners. He can do everything you really want in the 3 hole.Man, I was so tempted to say something snarky about the idea of Grady "bunt(ing) to move runners over from the 3 hole." But you know Masters, you're right. I hope like mad it won't happen often, but Sizemore is just the guy for that kinda thing.
Speaking of bunts, here's a great passage from a book I've never read. Deals with Robbie, Grover and the '97 ALCS. Just terrific writing:
It was October baseball at its best, played in the lengthening shadows of late afternoon and in the shadow cast by the long season that had led to this dramatic moment. An autumnal sense of winding down pervaded Baltimore's Camden Yards, with the light and warmth of summer seeping away amid hints of winter. The lights were on and so were sweaters and game six of the American League Championship Series was scoreless in the bottom of the seventh inning.
During the 1997 regular season the Orioles had become only the third "wire to wire" team in American League history -- in first place from game 1 through game 162. But the Indians were leading the Series three games to two when shortstop Mike Bordick led off the seventh for the Orioles with a single. The next batter was Brady Anderson, who, on the first pitch, squared as though to bunt, but took a breaking ball for ball one. He did not want to bunt, but he wanted the Indians' pitcher, Charles Nagy, and catcher, Sandy Alomar, to think he might be bunting and to pitch to him with that in mind. Perhaps they did. The next pitch was a high fastball, a pitch easier to hit than to bunt. Anderson slapped it into right for a single. Bordick stopped at second.
If the Orioles could score Bordick, they would be six outs from forcing a seventh game. It would be a home game, so if they could advance Bordick 180 feet they would be favored to advance to the World Series. However, the Orioles were 0 for 8 with runners in scoring position in this game. The next batter, Orioles second baseman Roberto Alomar, Sandy's brother and one of baseball's better hunters, would try to move Bordick the 90 feet to third base, from which he could score on a sacrifice fly.
The inning, and perhaps the game, and even the season were coming down to one taut moment, a test of anticipation and execution by Roberto Alomar, and by brother Sandy and the rest of the Indians. Would Roberto Alomar drop down a bunt? And if so, where? That would depend on which bunt defense the Indians chose, and that choice would depend on what the Indians thought Roberto Alomar and the Orioles were thinking. So the first task for both teams was to get some information.
To that end, after Alomar got set in the batters box, Nagy, a righthander, stepped off the mound and looked to second. He was signaled to do so from the Indians' bench. Nowadays, managers call for "step-offs" -- for the pitcher to step off the rubber -- and throw-overs to first base, and pickoff plays. (Until relatively recently, managers did not involve themselves in such micromanagement of games. In 1948, the Indians won the American League pennant and the World Series under a player-manager, shortstop Lou Boudreau, who had a spectacular season, batting .355 with 18 home runs and 106 RBI. It is inconceivable that he could have called step-offs and throw-overs while playing shortstop.) Usually a step-off is called to see if some motion by the batter or by a base runner betrays the intentions of the team at bat.
Reflecting about that play, Davey Johnson, the Orioles' manager, recalls thinking that the Indians might be looking for evidence that the Orioles were going to try a hit-and-run. Such evidence, betrayed just before Nagy stepped off or in response to his doing so, might be some slight lean or start by Bordick or Anderson, or some adjustment by Alomar of his stance, or some slight movement of his bat.
The bat control that makes Alomar a deft bunter also makes him adept at the hit-and-run. Besides, Johnson does not often call for a bunt. On the other hand, in situations like this Alomar sometimes bunts on his own. He has been in baseball since he was in diapers (his father had a fifteen-year major league career) and he has abundant confidence in his situational judgments. Furthermore, he spent his first three seasons in the National League (with the Padres). In that league, for a number of reasons (principally, tradition, and bigger parks, and the absence of the designated hitter) there is somewhat less of an emphasis on "big bang," long-ball baseball, somewhat more willingness to give up an out to advance a runner 90 feet.
In any case, when Nagy stepped off, neither Bordick nor Anderson nor Alomar did anything that looked like evidence of a hit-and-run, or a bunt. But Mike Hargrove, the Indians' manager, was not suspecting a hit-and-run and did not doubt what Johnson had in mind and what Alomar was going to do. "The situation," Hargrove says, "was screaming bunt." If ever there was a time to play for one run, this was it.
Thinking back on this minidrama, Hargrove says the rush of decisions concerning Alomar's at bat is "a little bit of a blur," but he says the Nagy step off might have been part of a pickoff play at second: The shortstop breaks for third, and perhaps the runner on second thinks he can and should lengthen his lead. The second baseman darts in behind the runner to take the throw from the pitcher. However, the pitcher does not have to throw to second when that play is put on, and Nagy did not throw.
Now it was time for the first pitch to Alomar, and it was Alomar's and the Orioles' turn to try to learn something. Alomar shortened up and partially squared to bunt, but he took the first pitch, a buntable breaking ball. His eyes were less on the pitch than on the left side of the Indians' infield, third baseman Matt Williams and shortstop Omar Vizquel. Both are among the best defensive players at their positions; both have won Gold Gloves. Together, they give a manager confidence to put on the "wheel" or "rotation" play in a situation like this.
But Mike Hargrove had not done so. Yet.
On the "wheel" or "rotation" play the third baseman charges the bunt, as does the first baseman, as the pitcher covers the middle of the infield. The second baseman sprints to cover second. And the shortstop breaks toward third, racing the runner on second and arriving at third -- if all goes well -- in time to force the lead runner. However, on the first pitch to Alomar, Williams had, in Johnson's words, "played it regular." Playing it "regular" means, Johnson says, that "the third baseman doesn't come until he sees [the ball] coming toward him." Williams had not charged. He had been edging in toward Alomar as Nagy prepared to deliver the first pitch, but then had held back.
So what information had the Orioles acquired? Precious little. They had learned that the wheel play was not on. Not on the first pitch, at least. Which did not surprise Johnson: "Our reports were that they did not run the wheel." When told that Johnson had assumed the Indians did not use that play, Hargrove said, laughing, "That's what you get for assuming."
The trouble is, in baseball, as in the rest of life, we live by assuming. We act all the time on assumptions about how children, the weather, stocks and other things are apt to behave. And in fact the Orioles' reports had been basically right. Hargrove says the Indians only use the wheel play "two or three times a year." But, he says, "we work at it all the time." They were about to work it for what Hargrove thinks was only the second time in 1997.
After Alomar took that first pitch, Williams looked in to the Indians' dugout on the third-base side of Camden Yards, then turned toward his teammates and went through a series of signs. Next, he went to the mound and, with his glove over his mouth to frustrate any lip-readers in the Orioles' dugout, spoke to Nagy. As Johnson said later, "Williams is a National League guy." He had spent the ten seasons prior to 1997 with the Giants, and the wheel play was a routine part of his defensive craftsmanship. So Alomar and the Orioles had to wonder whether Williams had signaled a new play -- the wheel -- or whether all this was just a charade to get the Orioles thinking that the Indians would not play the second pitch the way they had played the first. If the Indians were not going to use the wheel, Alomar's job would be to bunt the ball toward third hard enough that Williams, not Nagy, would have to field it, drawing him away from third, leaving the Indians with only the option of getting Alomar at first as Bordick and Anderson advanced.
Alomar bunted the second pitch toward third, and he and the Orioles instantly, and to their sorrow, had the answer to their question. This time Williams was charging and Vizquel was on the run to his right, toward third. Williams fielded the ball about 25 feet in front of the plate, whirled and threw to Vizquel, who beat Bordick to third by at least 15 feet for the force-out.
The time that had elapsed between Anderson's single touching the rightfield grass and Williams' throw touching Vizquel's glove: one minute and fifty-nine seconds.
The Orioles still had a threat going, with Anderson -- who is a lot faster than Bordick is going from second to home -- on second and Alomar on first. But the Indians, having been challenged to anticipate correctly and execute flawlessly, had done so. The next batter, Geronimo Berroa, grounded the first pitch into a double play with Roberto Alomar out at second. The game remained scoreless until the eleventh inning, when the Indians' second baseman, Tony Fernandez, lofted a home run over the right-field scoreboard.
That, and one more inning of good relief pitching, sent the Indians to the World Series. However, the hinge of the game was the play four innings earlier.
It was not a baseball fan who said that God gave us memory so that we could have roses in winter. Roses are all very well, but real fans are warmed between the postseason and the preseason by the afterglow of episodes like Alomar's bunt and the Indians' businesslike but beautiful 5-6 putout in the seventh.
Bunts are modest and often useful things, although they are not always well understood, even by those who are supposed to know when and how to lay them down. In a baseball story in McClure's magazine in 1917, back when the ball was dead and bunting was an essential and admired skill, a manager marveled at a player's misconceptions:
"So I asks him, 'Young man, can you bunt?' 'Mr. Ryan,' says he, 'I don't like to brag about myself, but I can bunt farther than any other man on the team.' Them's his very words. Can you beat it?"
The origin of the word "bunt" is lost in the mists of history, which of course does not inhibit either speculation or certitude. In the Church of Baseball, the mere absence of conclusive evidence is no impediment to belief. Baseball fans are forever in the grip of originitis, a mild mental illness that manifests itself in a powerful craving for usually unattainable knowledge of when this or that practice originated. Baseball's most venerable "knowledge" is the most preposterous: It is the Abner Doubleday myth, the story that in the summer of 1839 young Abner sashayed into Farmer Phinney's pasture at Cooperstown and said, "Let there be baseball," or words to that effect. There is even a theory about the origin of the use of batting gloves. It is that in 1968 Ken Harrelson, then with the Bostons (concerning that way of speaking, see the essay about Bill Rigney in this volume), assumed he was not expected to play in a particular night game. So he played 36 holes of golf before going to the ballpark, where he arrived with blistered hands and found his name on the lineup card. (That is what you get for assuming.) So he wore his golf gloves to bat.
One theory about the origin of the word "bunt" is that it evolved from the word "butting," which is what Tim Murnane of the Boston Red Stockings called it when he used his flat-sided bat -- such bats were legal back then -- to put a ball into play without swinging. Another theory is that "bunt" derived from "buntling" to designate a baby hit. That is a particularly charming theory, so let's accept it until some spoilsport refutes it.
I have titled this collection of baseball writings Bunts because they are mostly small, most of them having been written for newspapers, magazines and book review publications. Baseball, unlike basketball or hockey or soccer, is a game of episodes, not of flow, and so lends itself to snapshots. These essays are verbal snapshots taken of baseball during a quarter of a century of usually exhilarating, sometimes exasperating but always affectionate observation of the game. The subjects of these essays range from the nobility of Curt Flood, to the torments of Billy Martin, to the self-destruction of Pete Rose. They range from what baseball has done exquisitely right -- Camden Yards, for example -- to what it has done ruinously wrong -- labor relations. Two of the longer essays, the one on broadcaster Jon Miller and the concluding survey of the game at the end of the century, were written for this volume.
Connie Mack, who spent sixty-four years in Major League Baseball -- fifty-three of them in dugouts, and fifty of those wearing a business suit and necktie and stiff collar and managing the Philadelphia Athletics -- said near the end of his life, "I have never known a day when I didn't learn something new about this game." There is indeed a lot to learn. The writings in this volume contain much of what one fan has learned from a lifetime constantly refreshed by sips from the meandering stream of baseball's life.
I am sometimes asked when it was that I first came upon that stream which irrigates my life. I answer that I do not know, because I have no memory of life before baseball. My mother recalled that at age six, after listening to a broadcast of a 1947 World Series game that the Yankees lost, I asked her if the Yankees' mothers would be sad. (She said, "No." She should have said, "Not for long.") My interest in baseball was fed by radio. I grew up in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, a university community, and radio was my connection with metropolitan America. As we lived more or less midway between Chicago and St. Louis, the family Philco crackled with the broadcasts of the Cubs (Burt Wilson), White Sox (Bob Elson), Cardinals (Harry Caray) and Browns (Buddy Blattner). Baseball was in the air.
For half a century, and especially in the almost quarter of a century covered by the columns and other essays in this volume, the national pastime has been a full participant in the three great dramas of the nation in that period. These dramas have concerned relations between the races, the temptations and stresses of prosperity and the aggressive assertion of new rights. In this period I have come of middle age, and baseball has grown up.
These rites of passage are supposed to be tinged with melancholy -- farewell to innocence and all that -- and baseball has in fact paid a price for its growth into an institution more complex and less intimate than it was. In a sense, baseball has become both more and less close to those of us who care about it. It is closer to us in the sense that we know more about its internal workings as a business, and we know more about (and there is more to know about) what the players and managers are doing during games. On the other hand, a certain social distance has opened up between the people on the field and the people in the stands. Players and managers are highly paid celebrities, with all the attendant demands on them, and often a certain wariness from them. The stakes of success and failure are much higher than they were.
So much has changed, but the most remarkable thing is that the essential feature -- the enjoyment fans derive from a close connection with the game -- has not. The following writings wend their way through the delights and, yes, exasperations of one fan's experiences with this American delight. The volume ends with a summing-up, an examination of baseball's evolution through the century. It is nice to know that my last words in this volume will not be the last word on anything, because baseball is a work in progress. If you don't believe me, just remember -- and heed -- the fan's familiar cry: "Wait 'til next year!"
Copyright
1998 by George F. Will http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/w/will-bunts.html?_r=2
Beanpot
Man, I was so tempted to say something snarky about the idea of Grady "bunt(ing) to move runners over from the 3 hole." But you know Masters, you're right. I hope like mad it won't happen often, but Sizemore is just the guy for that kinda thing.
I doubt it would happen oftern, just that he has that ability. Heck, he could probably beat out many for a hit.
Great stuff from that book by the way. Thanks.
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If I owned the team and Wedge didn't drop Sizemore to 3rd in the lineup, I would fire Wedge and manage the team myself.
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If I owned the team and Wedge didn't drop Sizemore to 3rd in the lineup, I would fire Wedge and manage the team myself.
If I owned the team and Wedge didn't drop Sizemore to 3rd in the lineup, I would fire Wedge and manage the team myself.
Who leads off?
It's easy to say that then really do that. CLE has no other option at the lead off spot than Grady. I am hardly the biggest fan of Wedge, but making a statement like that, when CLE has no other lead off options is just off base.
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