A Half-Baked Ron Santo Idea

Tuesday was “The Soul of Baseball” release date, which means I spent much of the day driving to various bookstores in Kansas City and saying, “Oh wow, I have a book.” I’ve long had this daydream about writing a real-live book and then walking into a bookstore and saying to the sales clerk, “Hey, yeah, listen I’m looking for books by some authors, uh, Hemingway and Updike and Posnanski. You got them?”

Of course, I didn’t do that Tuesday. Instead, I sheepishly (and yet proudly) looked at the books and tried, through various Jedi mind tricks, to get people to buy them. One guy did look at the book while I was standing next to him. He saw me staring at him and reached into his pocket (I think he was going to give me some loose change). He then ran off in a very frightened way. So that wasn’t good.

Anyway, I was in one of the bookstores when I got the sad text message that Ron Santo again did not get enough votes to reach the Hall of Fame. In fact, none of the people on the Veteran’s Committee ballot were elected. This marks the third time the new Veteran’s Committee – now comprised of the living Hall of Famers – has voted on players, and also the third time they failed to vote in anybody. Immediately after the latest washout, the Hall of Fame representatives talked about reevaluating the process. Various people around the country ripped the Hall of Famers for slamming the door on anyone and everyone. Joe Morgan acted defensive.

Well, I might have a different opinion on this. What follows is a bit of a babble (I know, I’ve read ahead) because I’m still sorting this out in my mind. But hey, this is a blog, and if you can’t throw out a half-baked idea on your own blog, where can you?

Here’s my thought: I don’t think it’s the process itself that needs to be reevaluated. I think it’s a fine process. I think it’s great for the living Hall of Famers to vote for the veterans. I think these guys have more admiration among most sports fans than any other group. No, I think what needs to be reevaluated is the 75 percent threshold.

Now, again, I will admit I have not spent a lot of time breaking this down yet. But let’s take a look at this carefully: Ron Santo fell five votes short, right?

That means that 57 living Hall of Famers decided Santo should be in the Hall of Fame.

And it means 25 decided he should not be in the Hall of Fame.

When you look at it that way, you might see a very different story than the one we’re all reporting (“Santo Snubbed by Committee Again!”). I see a clear message here. I see a guy the Hall of Famers definitively want in the Hall of Fame. By almost any measure 57-25 is a dominant showing (it’s also good enough to win the NBA’s Atlantic Division by about 20 games). That is a strong majority – more than a 2/3 majority – of the GREATEST PLAYERS LIVING TODAY. That seems to me a clear mandate for Ron Santo.

And yet, despite that, Santo is not going in. He got almost 70 percent of the vote, which is amazing. But he didn’t get 75 percent. I think that’s where the problem lies.

Why is it a 75 percent threshold? There’s no grand historical reason for this – heck, the Hall of Famers have only been voting since 2002. I suppose it’s this way because this is the way it had been before the Hall of Famers started voting. It takes 75 percent of the writers to elect a player into the Hall of Fame. It took 75 percent of the old Veteran’s Committee. It even took 75 percent of the 12-member Negro Leagues committee put together last year.

But I would suggest the Hall of Famers constitute a very different voting group.

See, the 75 percent threshold makes perfect sense when it comes to the writers. Let’s be brutally honest here, us writers do not bring much authority on an individual basis. My opinion is no more valid, and probably significantly less valid, than yours. Our strength comes from our numbers. We do offer some authority (I think) when 75 percent of us vote for a player. That’s an overwhelming majority – 75 percent – and that line has stood up well (for the most part) for almost 70 years.

(Corresponding movie quote: “It’s like pheromones. You get three ants together, they can’t do squat. You get 300 million of them, they can build a cathedral.” Annie didn’t say “squat” but this is a family blog.)

The Hall of Famers are not at all like writers (just ask them). These guys already have authority galore as individuals. They are the greatest players in the history of the game. Any one of them blurts out an opinion, and it will make papers from coast to coast (see Schmidt, Mike). The point is: You certainly do NOT need an overwhelming majority of Hall of Famers to gain credibility. And after all, that’s what the Hall of Fame is looking for at all times. Credibility. All Halls of Fame are built on credibility (which is why the Baseball Hall of Fame, in the eyes of most fans, is way ahead of the others).

Put it this way: Let’s say you have 10 sportswriters in a room, and you ask them a good baseball question like: “Who was better, Roberto Clemente or Al Kaline?” And let’s say that six sportswriters pick Clemente, four pick Kaline. What does that mean? Absolutely nothing, right? You would be like, “Who cares?” But if you had 100 sportswriters, and 75 picked Clemente while 25 picked Kaline, well, you still might not care, but that would carry some weight. Strength in numbers.

Now, let’s say you had a panel of Hall of Famers – Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Hank Aaron, Tom Seaver, Reggie Jackson, Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, George Brett, Monte Irvin and Joe Morgan in a room. That’s 10. And six of THEM said Clemente was better than Kaline. I think that would carry a whole lot of weight.

To me – I’m sure this is overly simplistic, but I’m too far in now – if they dropped the threshold so that a two-thirds majority of living Hall of Famers could put a veteran into the Hall of Fame, this thing could work. Yes, some would say that’s lowering standards, but I don’t think so. I think the current standard – asking any player to get SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT of the Hall of Famers – is unnaturally high. Heck, it only takes a two-thirds majority in the Senate to convict an impeached President.

And I think that 66 percent of the best players alive today agreeing on a player would more than maintain the standards of the Hall of Fame. And if the threshold was 66 percent, Ron Santo would be going into the Hall of Fame (he would be the only one going in).

The bottom line: I think Santo belongs in the Hall of Fame for a lot of reasons. Most people agree. The vast majority of Hall of Famers agree. So what’s the problem already?

At some point soon, I would like to tackle another Hall of Fame issue – the idea of the lifetime achievement Hall of Famer. Right now, there is very little consideration for looking at someone’s entire body of work. And I think there should be. This would affect people like Gil Hodges (terrific player, manager of ’69 Mets), Billy Martin (World Series hero as player, two-time World Champ manager), Buck O’Neil (everything), Lefty O’Doul (.349 lifetime average, sent DiMaggio to Yanks, helped bring baseball to Japan), Marvin Miller (changed game) and Minnie Minoso (outstanding player in both Negro Leagues and Major Leagues but not good enough in either one to get the Hall Call). Trouble is, I keep promising blog items and then writing about something else entirely. So no promises.

Why don't people bring that "D-Fence" sign to baseball games?

I love baseball defense. I always have, even when I was a kid. This is why my all-time baseball hero was Duane Kuiper. People always think I’m joking when I say that; I guess they think Kuiper couldn’t POSSIBLY be my hero just because he couldn’t hit (lifetime OPS+ was 82), or run (he was caught stealing 71 out of 126 times) and he famously hit just one home run in his career (windblown shot off of Steve Stone, from South Euclid, Ohio, my hometown).

Well, there are two reasons why Kuiper was my hero and remains so to this day. One, I grew up in Cleveland, and I played second base, and so I really did not have any other options. In those days (the 1970s) you were not allowed to go off the board and pick your favorite player off of somebody ELSE’S team. You might respect Joe Morgan or Bobby Grich or Frank White. But you couldn’t love them. Love was for the hometown guy.

Second, Kuiper could really field. At least that’s the way it looked to a 9-year-old Cleveland kid in need of a second-base hero. Kuiper was constantly making diving plays. Constantly. I think he still holds the record for appearances on This Week In Baseball’s plays of the week. He made it so often that when TWIB did a retrospective show (I have it on video), Kuiper introduced the Plays of the Week segment.

Yes, Kuiper dove, and he got dirty, and he also was really good at scooping the ball with his glove and flipping it to first in one motion. I thought that was about the coolest thing I’d ever seen, and I practiced it non-stop for months and months. I even did it in a game once, causing my coach – an old Cleveland cop – to bench me for something like nine years. Kuiper never did win a Gold Glove for his defensive brilliance, and I suspect he did not deserve one. But the radio and television guys always said he played great defense (why else would he be out there?), and I believed them. I wanted to be just like him. I still do.

(Years later, I told a couple of old Cleveland Indians about my hero worship of Kuiper. They said independently that no player in baseball history dove for more ground balls hit right at him than Duane Kuiper. This actually increased my respect for Kuip. Hey, whatever it takes to get on TWIB).

Anyway, I continue to think a lot about baseball defense. I’m not going to say defense is “underrated” because everybody says that, and I’m not sure if that’s true. It might be true. It might be that defense is actually overrated. I can’t tell. But I love baseball defense, always have, and I spend an awful lot of time thinking about it.

A few months ago, I had the great good fortune to be part of the panel for the first “Fielding Bible Awards.” The panel was made up of 10 people, nine of them much smarter than me (well, actually, one of the “people” in the poll represented results of the Tom Tango fan poll, and another "person" was actually multiple Baseball Info Solutions scouts, folks who study every single play on video. So to be accurate, there were actually countless people on the panel who were smarter than me). The idea of the Fielding Bible Awards is to offer an alternative to the Gold Glove, which is currently the gold standard for fielding awards despite the fact that Derek Jeter has won three of them.

(Note: I am not one who loses sleep because Derek Jeter keeps winning Gold Gloves. Truth is, there really isn’t a standout defensive shortstop in the American League – with the possible exception of Alex Gonzalez – and Jeter makes that one snazzy play where he jump throws from deep in the hole. And he's a popular guy. I can see why he keeps winning. Of course, it’s also true that every study of Jeter’s defense I’ve ever seen – whether it’s statistical, video-driven or simply intensive watching – has shown without question that he’s a below average defensive shortstop. He certainly shouldn’t be winning Gold Gloves. I’m just not losing sleep over it).

The Fielding Bible Awards – the brainchild of Bill James and John Dewan – were created to offer a different kind of fielding award, an award that considers statistics and video analysis in addition to eye-witness study. This year’s complete results are in The Bill James Handbook, which you should already own, but what the heck? I will show who won the award at each position along with my personal vote and reasoning.

(Incidentally: Others on the panel included ESPN columnist Rob Neyer, Player Acquisition Consultant to the Mariners Mat Olkin, Chicago radio talk host Mike Murphy, and one of my personal heroes, Strat-o-Matic inventor Hal Richman. Hal is truly one of the leading authorities on baseball defense. He was, in fact, one of the first notable people to realize that Bernie Williams was an awful center fielder. He noticed it while Williams was winning Gold Gloves).

1B: Albert Pujols
My vote: Pujols. Did you know that Albert Pujols was not a Kansas City Star first-team All-Metro player when he was in high school? We kid our high school guy about this – I won’t mention his name because he’s a good reporter and guy, and I wouldn’t want to embarrass him – and he always offers the same defense: “Well, Pujols could hit, but he couldn’t play defense.”

2B: Orlando Hudson.
My vote: Hudson. We seem to be in something of a down-time when it comes to great defensive second basemen. Hudson’s good, but I'm not sure he's in the class of Alomar, White, Maz, etc. And it seems there aren’t many after him. Duane Kuiper, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

SS: Adam Everett.
My vote: Everett. I think he’s the best defensive player in the game, any position. He may not be able to hit a lick, but if I were a GM I’d grab him, bat him ninth, and put him at short every single game. I don't know what that would do. But after watching Angel Berroa and Jhonny Peralta, I realize that I could not own a team with a bad defensive shortstop. I’d go mad.

3B: Adrian Beltre.
My vote: Brandon Inge. My first disagreement with the group. I saw Inge play a lot last year, and I thought he was pretty sensational. He also led all third basemen in John Dewan’s “Plus/Minus” statistic with a +27 – this estimates that Inge made 27 more plays than the average third baseman.

LF: Carl Crawford
My vote: Crawford. He’s one of my favorite players in the game.

CF: Carlos Beltran.
My vote: Andruw Jones. I’ll admit going against my instincts on this one. I’m one of the five biggest Carlos Beltran fans on earth, having watched him grow up in Kansas City. Still, I put Beltran second and went with the old standby Jones. I keep hearing that Jones lost a step, but the numbers showed him to be just about as good as ever in 2006.

RF: Ichiro Suzuki.
My vote: Suzuki. One thing I love about the Fielding Bible Awards is they split up the three outfield positions. It’s ridiculous the way the Gold Gloves gives three outfield awards, regardless of where they play. It would not be quite as ridiculous as giving an “infield” award … but close enough. Could a left fielder ever be one of the best outfielders in the game? Generally speaking, if the left fielder was a REALLY good fielder, he’d be in center.

C: Ivan Rodriguez
My vote: Brad Ausmus. Looking back, here’s my one true blunder – nobody else in the group had Ausmus higher than fourth. I guess my feeling was that Ausmus HAD to be an unbelievable defensive player. Otherwise how could he get 439 at-bats with a .285 slugging percentage?

P: Greg Maddux
My vote: Maddux. My favorite pitcher of all time. I actually pondered writing my next book on Maddux – I’m fascinated by him. What keeps him going? What’s left to prove? How long will he go? How good can he be at 41? What is he thinking about out there now? The main reason I’m not writing this book, well, there are two. One, I live nowhere near San Diego. Two, I don’t know him, and he doesn't know me. That seems like a handicap.

You know, this blogging thing is great. I started this entry with the full intention of writing about the Rawlings All-Time Gold Glove team that fans are voting on now. I have some thoughts on that. But now this entry is so long ... I’ll just have to get to that on another day.

Book Excerpt

With the book countdown getting close to zero (Amazon is now shipping the books), I thought I would offer a short excerpt. This was just a little scene in New York, but in some ways I think it represents the core of this book. And Buck.

We were in New York in summertime. It was Friday afternoon – Buck calls that “The crazy time” – and the city was a frantic mess of car horns, jackhammers and frustration. People just looked angry. You could see they anticipated the line to the tunnel, cars cutting them off, middle fingers, standstill traffic on a bridge as too many other people tried to escape the drone and drama of the city for the calm of Jersey, Connecticut or Long Island. Buck had finished the last of his interviews. He walked into an elevator going down in the Time-Life Building. A sad young woman stood in the corner. She did not look sad by conventional standards. She had not been crying. No, she looked sad in that distinctively New York City way, the haggard sadness of someone who works in an office too big, pays too much for rent, sleeps in too small a bedroom and spends too much time getting shoved in and out of a subway car. “There’s nothing like New York lonely,” Buck had told a reporter earlier that day, and that’s how she looked: New York lonely. When Buck O’Neil walked into the elevator, she stared at the ground and tried to make herself small.

He said: “I’m Buck O’Neil, what’s your name?”

She looked away and pretended not to hear, as if Buck had asked for change or promised salvation. Buck would not be ignored. “I’m Buck O’Neil, what’s your name?” She glanced up. She looked sadder than before. She spoke softly and said something that sounded like “Swathy.”

“Swathy,” Buck said. “You are a beautiful young lady.”

She met his eyes. The elevator beeped rhythmically as we dropped floor by floor. Buck talked.

“You’re a lucky woman to live in this big city,” he said. “I would have loved to live in New York when I was your age. I know you must be doing very well for yourself.” She stood up straighter and leaned closer to him as he spoke. When the elevator reached the bottom floor, it bucked for a second, and Buck stumbled. She reached out to keep him from falling. Then he held out his arms. “Give it up,” he said. Swathy jumped into his arms. She hugged him tight for a long time. Then Swathy bounded out of the elevator and into the city’s rush hour. In a thirty-floor descent, her sad look had evaporated like a rain puddle in Central Park.

Ambiorix Alert

Several people have told me that the singing frog from the cartoons (Michigan J. Frog, according to Wikipedia) is actually a racist caricature. I don’t know if it’s true, but it has given me pause because the frog had always been one of my favorite cartoon characters. I think the frog has offered one of the great sports lessons ever.

You know the story. Guy finds a frog who sings (“Hello! Ma baby”) and dances. The man sees great riches (you can tell this because dollar signs float over his head) and he invests whatever meager savings he has to put on a show. And then the show begins, and the frog just sits there. After a while, the man puts the frog in a box, buries him and many years in the future another guy finds the singing frog, dollar signs float over his head ... and so on.

To me, this is the greatest ever depiction of the 5 o’clock hitter. We used to watch Joe Vitiello crack home run after home run in batting practice – man that guy was strong – and think “Holy cow, this guy is going to hit 40 homers in a season.” This means something in Kansas City because NO ROYALS PLAYER EVER has hit more than 36 homers in a season. This is one of the staggering statistics a Kansas City columnist must deal with (here's another one: the Kansas State men’s basketball team has not beaten Kansas at home in 24 years).

Anyway, we were watching Vitiello blast homer after homer when some wise guy among us – I wish I could remember who it was – quietly sang “Hello! Ma baby. Hello! Ma honey. Hello! My ragtime gal …” True enough, when the lights turned on, Joe V. could not find a position, and he hit .240, and he did not hit 40 homers in his entire career (though he did hit just about the longest home run anyone had ever seen one spring training day back in Baseball City).

We do seem to be getting away from the point, here.

A couple of days ago, my good friend, New York Post columnist Mike Vaccaro – we’re going to do some baseball previews on here in a few days – sent me an instant message that read: “Holy cow! Ambiorix Burgos has some STUFF man!” Until that point, I’d almost forgotten that the Royals had traded Burgos to the Mets in exchange for Brian Bannister, a straight up MPH for Baseball IQ deal. Apparently on that day Burgos had thrown a bullpen session, and was already cranking his fastball up to the 100 mph range. He cracked the bat of big prospect Lastings Milledge and made Endy Chavez gasp, whatever that is worth.

(By the way, what kind of goof throws the ball 100 mph before the end of February? I'm not crazy, right? Isn't this like walking up to a doctor and saying, "Hey, would you mind cutting my ulnar collateral ligament? Thanks.").

So, yes, they are seeing riches in New York now (“Burgos Impression is Fast” crowed Newsday. “Burgos Heat a Royal Pain to Milledge,” blared the Post. “Speed vs. Speed,” hyped The New York Times). Hey, I don’t blame them. We saw that stuff in Kansas City too. Burgos can throw just about as hard anyone in the world. His split-fingered fastball can dive like Liston in Lewiston (hey, I love Ali and think he would have won the fight anyway. But I don’t care what ANYONE says … that was a flat dive). You watch Burgos pitch and, yeah, those dollar signs will float over your head too.

And then the lights turn on. The people show up. And Burgos stops singing.

It was astonishing to watch people light up Burgos just about every time the game mattered (and honestly … how much did those games REALLY matter anyway? The Royals were out of the race in the third week of April). He blew 12 saves last year, but that doesn’t even begin to describe the agony of watching him pitch. Tom Burgmeier, the old Royals bullpen coach, used to talk about one of his pitchers who had outrageous stuff -- every single time Burgie watched the guy flounder around on the mound he had the same thought: “You stupid son of a bitch, I would have KILLED to have your stuff.”

That’s the feeling Burgos inspires. You would have killed to have his arm. Instead you have to watch him shake off fastballs because he’s in love with his splitter, you have to watch him throw fastballs high and outside and get into 3-1 counts, then you have to watch him groove thigh-high fastballs over the heart of the plate that hitters tattoo into the bleachers (the guy gave up 16 bombs in 73 innings last year … and every single one of them, it seemed, cost the Royals a game). He wasn't a bad pitcher. He was an insult to pitching.

Now is it possible that the change of scenery will jolt Burgos out of his fog and allow him to blossom into a dominant reliever? Of course. The kid’s not yet 23. The Royals certainly rushed him, and they made him a closer when he barely knew his way out to the bullpen. Maybe with a new pitching coach, a new environment, a new attitude ... this could be one of those deals that haunts Royals new GM Dayton Moore.

But you know what? Moore doesn’t think so. He’s seen that frog clam up. The Royals got Brian Bannister who is the spiritual opposite of Burgos – a smart and tough competitor who doesn’t have half of Burgos’ stuff (actually that’s not true. Burgos throw 100. Bannister throws 87-89. So Bannister has about 88 percent of Burgos’ stuff … at least when it comes to fastballs). Moore will bet on Bannister every time.

Meanwhile, the Mets are entranced by the stuff. Their jaws drop when just hearing his fastball. My buddy Vac is thinking the Mets got themselves one heck of a steal. I only have this to say: “Hello! Ma baby. Hello! Ma honey …"

The Music of Denny

Longtime Royals’ radio announcer Denny Matthews won the Ford Frick Award this week, which set off a fairly predictable chain of events in my hometown.

Event 1: I wrote a column celebrating and congratulating Denny for his award.

Event 2: Lots of people wrote in to say how much they despise Denny – and by extension, how much they despise me for liking the guy.

This has happened pretty much every time I have mentioned the name Denny Matthews, who has been Royals radio announcer for 38 years – since the first game – and yet still does not seem to be as beloved in Kansas City as you might expect. Quite the opposite, in fact. Only soccer columns, defenses of Chiefs coach Herm Edwards, nice words about the University of Kansas or the Democratic Party (not related) and anything at all said about Mark McGwire or Barry Bonds spark more negative feedback in Kansas City than a positive Denny Matthews column.

It’s the strangest thing. I have never lived in Detroit, but my impression is that the wonderful Ernie Harwell is universally beloved there. Same with Vin Scully in Los Angeles. I saw it up close with Joe Nuxhall In Cincinnati … Nuxie is the biggest man in town (it now occurs to me that even though I was a columnist in Cincinnati for three years, I must never have used the word “Nuxie,” because I have no idea how to spell it. Could be “Knucksie,” I suppose, or “Knucksy” or “Nuxxy” or “Nuxxee”).

I remember Herb Score being well-liked in Cleveland, even if people did call him Herb “No” Score. We all know how big Jack Buck was in St. Louis and Harry Caray in both St. Louis and Chicago. Dave Niehaus was supposedly named the Seattle sports personality of the last century. The point is that even though baseball announcers throughout America have varying styles and volumes and skill levels ... after a number of years all that becomes beside the point. The announcers become something like city landmarks or something. Quality is not the point when you grow up with a voice, and that voice is about summer and baseball and no school and barbecues and home runs and strikeouts.

How can you help but love the baseball voice you grew up with?

Somehow, though, Denny has never quite jumped to that city landmark level. Many seem somewhat oblivious to him, which is no big surprise I suppose. But what does surprise is that a lot of people actively dislike him – and nothing about Denny is actively dislikeable. About the worst you could say about him is that he can be dry. He doesn’t yell over home runs nor do some sort of Russ Hodges dance every time a closer gets the final out in the ninth (though Royals closers in recent years do get people out in the ninth only moderately more often than Bobby Thomson hits a homer off of Ralph Branca to win the pennant).

Denny pronounces names correctly, and he gets the count right, and he doesn't often stumble over his calls, and he can slip some insight into the empty spaces. He sometimes makes me laugh too. More, he explains what happened – perhaps more dispassionately than fans might like but with Swiss precision. Nobody could say they listened to a Denny Matthews broadcast and didn’t know what happened in the game. You will know everything, from which way the wind was blowing to what the left fielder was doing on a ground ball hit to third base. Put it this way: If you were snowed in at an out-of-town airport while your daughter had her first ballet recital, you would want Denny Matthews to call the action for you.

When I first arrived in Kansas City, I did not like Denny Matthews’ radio call much either. Where was the excitement? The passion? The clever home run calls? The attitude? I had come from Cincinnati, where Marty Brennaman had filled every radio broadcast with attitude – wisecracks and opinions and jokes and insults. I loved it. You always knew where Marty stood. Once in 1995, after the Reds reached the NLCS and drew thousands of no-shows to the first game, I wrote a scathing column ripping the city. Hey, I was young. The next night, Marty walked over to me and said, “I’m going to tear off a piece of your hide on the air tonight.” And he did. I’m still missing that piece of hide. A few months later, though, he told all of Cincinnati and anyone else listening to WLW that I was a bright young columnist who would go far in this world. It was always better when Marty was on your side.

A Denny broadcast was quite the opposite of Marty. He wasn’t tearing off hides. Denny stuck to game the way a Hollywood actor sticks to the script. He could squeeze in zingers, but it took me years to realize it. Now I do. When an umpire’s strike zone bounces around, he might say, “Here’s the windup, the pitch, and it’s down the middle for a ball.” When Angel Berroa goes through one of his periodic swing-wildly-at-anything phases (current phase began in May, 2004), he might say: “Well, hitters have been swinging at that outside pitch in the dirt for 100 years, and nobody’s hit it yet.” If a manager makes too many pointless late-inning moves in a 7-1 game, he might say, “Well, this manager’s going down swinging. And he’s taking all of us with him.”

It is good stuff. And it is easy to miss.

(A fan called in to say that one Denny call he always loved happened whenever a batter checked his swing. Denny would say “He had a notion.” The fan thought that was unique. I’m not sure if it is unique, but it does remind me that for years I thought the Beach Boys’ song lyric was: “If everybody had a notion across the USA, then everybody’d be surfing, like Californ-I-a.” But I guess it’s actually: “If everybody had an ocean across the USA …”)

In time, I just grew to appreciate Denny’s understated style. If a baseball announcer is really supposed to be the background music of summer, then Denny played the bass just right. For me, he became the easiest listen … I would have him on while I worked or mowed the lawn or took long trips or talked with buddies and just let the game fade in and out.

Obviously, though, some do not feel that way. Why do they despise Denny? Maybe it’s because he never has become a big part of the Kansas City community. Denny is a private guy, a homebody; he simply is not the kind of guy who could open up a big and loud sports bar in the heart of the city or bring out the fans to a charity event. His lack of a catch phrase is admirable in a time when every single young announcer coins some stupid slogan (“Great Googly Moogly!”). But because he has had no catch phrase and no “I-do-not-believe-what-I-just-saw” moment (nobody even remembers what he said when Dane Iorg looped the hit to right field), fans have had a hard time attaching any sort of personality to Denny. I think after 38-plus years, many still feel like they don’t know him.

And finally, for the last 15-plus years, Denny has been responsible for bringing mostly bad news to Kansas City baseball fans. Hey, you try calling Jose Lima and Darrell May on back-to-back nights. There are ways a losing-team announcer can be popular, of course, but these involve escaping the team’s shell by being funny or grandfatherly or sarcastic or bawdy (a great word, by the way) or larger than life. Denny simply cannot be any of these things. It’s not in him. He is an observer, a mirror, and when the game is lousy, he describes a lousy game. There have been a lot of lousy games in Kansas City lately.

Then there are those who simply feel he brings no passion to the game, no love for the Royals, no excitement about baseball. These are subjective things. I have been in Kansas City for more than 10 years, and I do hear those things in Denny’s voice now. We all hear what we hear. I remember a few years ago, I was talking to a fellow Cleveland guy. He was a few years older than me, and he was going on and on about the catastrophic awfulness of Indians longtime announcer Herb Score on the radio. He was talking about how Herb went off on goofy tangents constantly and got the count wrong and often messed up names and spent more time talking about tomorrow’s promotion than today’s action. And, of course, would go millennia without giving the score.

I was shocked. I wasn’t shocked because the guy was inaccurate – he was probably pretty accurate. I was shocked because I had grown up listening to Herb Score – hundreds and hundreds of games – and I had not heard any of those things. I had simply heard baseball. I had heard my friend, Herb Score, tell me night after night about my heroes, about Duane Kuiper and Rick Manning and Andre Thornton and Buddy Bell and Rick Waits and Sid Monge and Charlie Spikes and Jim Norris and – no don’t stop me, this is fun – and Joe Lis and Tommy Veryzer and Jack Brohammer … I can still hear Herb Score say each and every one of these names. I cringed with every “Throw to first, back safely,” he uttered, (he said it fast too, like one word, “Throwtofirstbacksafely.”). I imagined exactly how the park looked every time Herb described the weather (Herb talked more about the weather than Willard Scott). I fell asleep to Herb Score’s voice. I never saw Herb Score as someone to be praised or criticized … he seemed apart from such things. I just listened.

Calvin Trillin has written that anybody who does not think the best hamburger place in the world is in his/her hometown is a sissy. I suppose I have that sort of feeling for hometown radio broadcasters. You are supposed to love them because they're yours. Sure, broadcasters in other towns may be more technically sound, more passionate, funnier, sweeter, goofier, angrier or have a better voice. But they are still broadcasters in other towns. The Yankees are better than the Royals. That does not mean you pine for them.

So it surprises me there is not more hometown pride for Denny. Maybe there is … it is, after all, the critics who shout loudest. The emails run 2-to-1 against him now, but maybe that’s because the people who are proud of Denny are not the type to email. They’re the type to listen. Denny Matthews has been calling Royals games since the beginning. You would think that by now people have grown accustomed to his voice.

Shameless Self Promotion II

Hey, at least I mark these promotional entries so you know in advance. This SSP is pointed at members of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City (and if you live near Kansas City and are not a member, what are you waiting for? Go to the Negro Leagues Museum Web Site and join today. If you don’t live near Kansas City, what are you waiting for? Move here. Great place to raise a family).

We’re having a private party for Negro Leagues Museum members on Wednesday, Feb. 28 to kick off the book and celebrate Buck O'Neil's life. It should be a lot of fun – several Royals Hall of Famers (including Amos Otis, Willie Wilson and John Mayberry) are scheduled to attend. There will be some live music, including performances by former Royals pitcher Al Fitzmorris (he still holds the team record for highest winning percentage among starters with more than 100 starts) and Kansas City native pop star Julia Othmer.

It should be great, and the best part: I don’t have to do much of anything (except sign books and eat and maybe say a few words - I'm not singing). Admission is $50 for museum members (memberships begin as low as $25), and that price includes one book, some food, drinks, a tour of the museum, you name it. By the way, all proceeds go the Buck O’Neil Education and Research Center. So this is a good cause. You can reserve your place (and become a member) by calling the museum at 816.221.1920.

Bill James' New Hall of Fame Endorsement

OK, you have probably guessed who Bill James added to his “Players I’m willing to endorse for the Hall of Fame” list – a club that is slightly more exclusive than Augusta National (funny, there are no women on his list either. Where’s Martha?). But just in case you haven’t guessed … I’m going to stretch this out. And no fair scrolling down.

(If you just scrolled down, you must go to Amazon and buy a book. Go on. See, I’m getting better at this self-promotional stuff).

You should know a couple of things about being friends with Bill. First, he loves to disagree. You probably knew that already. I could send him an email that says something seemingly obvious like: “You know, I don’t think Frank Duffy is a Hall of Fame candidate,” and he would send me 248 reasons why Frank Duffy is a logical Hall of Fame choice (“In addition to finishing fourth in the AL in sacrifice hits in 1974 …”). And I would start to think: “Hey, he makes good points about Frank Duffy.” Bill seems to do this just to mess with me. And because Bill is 4,383,583 times smarter than I am, I fall for this every time.

(Of course, in the previous scenario, I would be the one pushing Frank Duffy’s Hall of Fame candidacy. I loved Frank Duffy).

Second: Bill is not easy to figure out. He has never had a Hall of Fame vote (which is utterly ridiculous), but he often says that if he did have a vote he would be for a big Hall of Fame. He has told me he would try to fill out his 10-player ballot every year. He has told me that on this year’s ballot he definitely would have voted for Cal and Gwynn, he probably would have voted for Lee Smith, Bert Blyleven, Alan Trammell, Goose Gossage and he possibly would have voted for Dale Murphy, Andre Dawson, Tommy John and Jack Morris. Yes, Jack Morris. We have been going round and round over that guy for a while. It is possible Bill is, again, messing with me.

But see, that’s only if Bill was a voter. He isn’t. And Bill James, non-voter, is much stingier. He probably receives more, “This guy should be in the Hall of Fame” letters than anyone. But until the last couple of days he only threw his support behind two overlooked candidates:

1. Ron Santo.

Man, I couldn’t agree more. Santo is the most obvious everyday player not in the Hall of Fame (with the exception of banned-list brothers Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe). It’s really inexplicable that Santo is not in already. He has very good career numbers for a third baseman – his 342 homers and 1331 RBIs stand out. In his best 11-year span – 1963 to 1973 – he made nine All-Star Games, won five Gold Gloves, averaged .286, 26, 98 (in a low-scoring era), walked 82 times a year (and led the league in walks four times) and played every day (he famously played 164 games in 1965, and he secretly was battling diabetes). That's a nice peak.

Bill’s biggest reason for supporting Santo is that he’s probably better than half the third basemen already in the Hall of Fame. And there are only 13 third basemen in the Hall. Three of the 13 were Negro Leaguers – Judy Johnson, Ray Dandridge and Boojum Wilson. Since this is a site dedicated to Buck, I'll pass his along mini scouting report on those three. Buck compared Johnson to Scott Rolen -- tough, smart, hard-nosed player who did a lot of things well. He said that Dandridge was a defensive wizard who could play third with any of the defensive greats -- Brooks Robinson, Craig Nettles, Billy Cox, the Boyer brothers, etc. And Buck said that Boojum was a legendary hothead who could really “hit that ball.” It would be tough to compare Santo to any of them.

So, leaving them out, Bill ranks Santo behind Mike Schmidt, George Brett, Eddie Matthews, Wade Boggs and Home Run Baker, and ahead of Jimmy Collins, George Kell, Fred Lindstrom, Brooks Robinson and Pie Traynor. That rating would put him right in the middle of the all-time greats. You would hope that on Feb. 27, when the veterans committee makes its announcement, Santo will finally get his due.

2. Minnie Minoso.

His Hall of Fame case takes just a little bit of an introduction. Minoso played in the Negro Leagues from 1945-48 (he made two East-West All-Star Teams as a third baseman). So he was already an accomplished player when he signed with the Cleveland Indians after the 1948 season. Most sources say he was born in 1922, which means he was 26 when he signed with Cleveland (Minoso in his autobiography says he was born in 1925 – and the good people at Baseball Prospectus go with that year. Most still hold on to 1922).

Anyway, by most accounts Minoso was already 28 when he was a rookie for the Chicago White Sox. And for the next 12 years, he was terrific – Bill wrote that Minoso had the best career for any corner outfielder after the age of 28 (he wrote that a few years ago; I would imagine Barry Bonds may have surpassed him). In Bill’s Historical Abstract, he lists the twenty players with the most Win Shares between ages 30 and 39. Minoso ranked 16th, two behind Frank Robinson and three ahead of Willie Stargell. All but two of the 20 are in the Hall of Fame: Minnie Minoso and Pete Rose. Putting the whole career together, Minoso should be in the Hall of Fame. But Hall voters seem to have some trouble looking at entire baseball careers spanning different roles and leagues. (see: O'Neil, Buck; Hodges, Gil; Martin, Billy, etc.).

OK, so those were the only two players Bill was willing to throw his weight behind. But I’d been working on Bill a bit, nagging him, frustrating him, etc. The bottom line is, Bill has added a third to the endorsement list, and I’m proud to say that third player is (drum roll please, I’m so excited):

3. Bert Blyleven.

Yes, Bill’s now officially on the Blyleven Bandwagon. This will cheer up my good friend Rich Lederer (for the latest excellent entry in his Robert Caro-length series on Blyleven and the Hall of Fame, you can look here).

Bill’s decision to get behind Blyleven, of course, had absolutely nothing to do with me. Bill is always doing pitching studies. And lately he has noticed that every time he comes up with some new way to ranks pitchers, Blyleven is near the top of the list. For instance, Bill devised what he calls a “useful little stat” called “Pitcher’s Quality Score.” It incorporates won/loss record (with saves), ERA and strikeout/walk ratio. He admits that it isn’t a breakthrough statistic (and it isn't park or era adjusted) but it does helps him quickly place pitchers in some context. And those three categories do say something about pitchers.

Bert Blyleven has the 18th highest Pitcher Quality Score in baseball history. Blyleven’s quality score is higher than, among others, Juan Marichal, Pedro Martinez and Bob Gibson. Among the Top 43, only two eligibles are not in the Hall of Fame – Blyleven and Jim Kaat. And Blyleven is way ahead of Kaat on the list.

“I’ve decided to get off the fence about Blyleven,” Bill wrote.

This only confirms what has been obvious to me since my friend Robert Sadoff told me many years ago to buy Bert Blyleven rookie cards (“He’s going to the Hall of Fame! You’ll see!”). Robert was sort of a baseball card Charles Schwab (though he missed the boat when he strongly encouraged me to buy John Gibbons cards). I don’t have any of those cards now, and I'm not smart enough to develop useful statistics, but it still seems obvious to me that a guy with 287 victories, a guy who ranks 5th all-time in strikeouts and 9th in shutouts, a guy who pitched awfully well in the postseason (give me SOMETHING here, people) deserves his place in the Hall of Fame.

Next entry: Duane Kuiper. Superhero. Or it might be a baseball conversation with the New York Post’s Mike Vaccaro. Or I will reminisce about my old baseball card collection. I’m debating.

Addendum: Well, I wish I could tell you I did it on purpose, but I really didn't. In the paragraph where I talked about how Bill would have voted on this year's Hall of Fame ballot, I completely forgot about Mark McGwire. It's hard to believe considering how much time I have spent the last few months thinking about McGwire's Hall of Fame case, but he simply slipped my mind. Maybe I simply pushed him out of my mind. For the record, I have exchanged numerous emails with Bill regarding McGwire's case. I feel almost 100 percent certain that Bill would have voted for McGwire.

Is Schilling a Hall of Famer Right Now?

Yes. He is.

I was tempted to end this entry with those three words because one of my pet newspaper peeves deals with questions in headlines. You will see questions posed in every newspaper in America – “Will George W. Attack Iran Next?” or “Is There Life on Mars After All?” or "Will Harry Potter Survive Book 7?" Then you scour the article and realize there’s no answer inside. That’s false advertising. There will be no false advertising in this blog.

Is Curt Schilling a Hall of Famer if he retires tomorrow? I say yes.

But I think there's a more interesting question here, one that doesn't have a yes or no answer (for a good discussion of Schilling’s Hall of Fame credentials, check out this article by the terrific Gordon Edes).

The question: When considering the Hall of Fame, how much should you weigh a player's postseason performance?

Obviously this relates directly to Schilling. He’s 8-2 with a 2.06 ERA in the postseason, which is amazing enough. And even that is skewed by one bad, injury-hindered performance against the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS. Take away that one game, and Schilling is 8-1 with a 1.61 ERA in the playoffs and World Series (I see now that Gordon had this statistic too, which makes me wonder why I did the math on it myself). Schilling has also had several of the more memorable performances in recent postseason memory – the duel with Juan Guzman in the 1993 World Series, the three-hit "This one's for Dad" game to start the 2001 World Series, the Rivera-finally-blows-one Game 7 in Arizona, the "No way he can pitch" game against the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS, the bloody sock game. When considering all-time pitchers you would start to win your soul back, Schilling would be in the discussion.

How much should his postseason brilliance add to his Hall of Fame case? It seems logical to me that it should add a lot. Consider the Football Hall of Fame. This is not a fair comparison because nobody understands how the football Hall of Fame works, but there are players in the Pro Football Hall of Fame almost ENTIRELY for what they did in the postseason (see: Swann, Lynn). And there is some logic behind that: Halls of Fame are around to celebrate the best players. And aren't the best players the ones who perform in the biggest moments?

I realize that baseball is a different game that football -- it's not necessarily a game where players (hitters in particular) can just lift their level of play when it counts most. And I'm not saying Dr. Bobby Brown should go into the Hall of Fame entirely because of his .439 batting average in the World Series.

But I am suggesting that postseason performance in baseball is not given enough weight by Hall of Fame voters - and I'm including myself here. Frankly, we don't talk about the playoffs and World Series much. I had an email exchange about this with my friend Bill James (wait until the next entry; apparently I've finally helped convince Bill to officially endorse a certain favorite player for the Hall of Fame. It wasn't easy. Bill only endorses three players).

Anyway, Bill disagreed with my premise - he usually does - and he came up with several players who are in the Hall of Fame largely because of what they did in the World Series. There is Bill Mazeroski, whose brilliant defensive career is virtually identical to Frank White's (White received just 18 Hall of Fame votes his one year on the ballot). It’s fair to surmise that Maz is in the Hall of Fame in large part because of one pretty special Game 7 home run (and one friendly veteran’s committee).

There are others. Lefty Gomez does not appear to have a great Hall of Fame case without his 6-0 World Series record. Stan Coveleski’s case was certainly bolstered by his three wins in the 1920 World Series. Jesse Haines is often thrown into the “least deserving Hall of Famer” discussion, but he was 3-1 with a 1.67 ERA in the World Series. Home Run Baker hit .363 in his six World Series appearances. And so on.

These players are all in the Hall of fame, which suggests that postseason play is considered. But I pointed this out to Bill: None of them was voted in by sportswriters. They were all voted in by the Veteran’s Committee – and every one of those choices has been questioned (or mocked) by sportswriters through the years. The writers did vote in the very questionable Waite Hoyt (whose only impressive Hall of Fame qualification was his 1.83 ERA in seven World Series), but I suspect that was at least in part because of the great Babe Ruth stories he told.

I just don’t think that sportswriters as a whole have put all that much stock in postseason numbers. I certainly don't hear us talking about it. We always say that Tommy John won 288 games – had he won just 12 more he might be in the Hall of Fame now. But John was a terrific postseason pitcher (he went 6-3 with a 2.65 ERA). Aren’t each of those wins worth at least two regular season victories? What about Bert Blyleven – 287 total victories, sure, but he was 5-1 with a 2.57 ERA in the playoffs and World Series. Isn’t that worth something extra?

The only time I ever hear the postseason argument these days is with Jack Morris, who of course pitched one of the greatest games in baseball history, a 10-inning shutout victory in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series. I’m not a Morris Hall of Fame supporter – I think he was a good pitcher who gave up an awful lot of runs (his career ERA of 3.90 would be the highest in the Hall of Fame – and it wasn’t that much better than league average). Plus, he was spotty in the postseason (the very next year, while pitching for Toronto, he was utterly demolished in the World Series, going 0-2 with an 8.44 ERA).

But I will concede: That one magical postseason performance should be worth a lot when considering Jack Morris’ career. I could not argue with someone who suggested that victory is worth five regular wins or 10 or even 20. And I think these days, with the wild card and the three tiers of postseason, postseason performance is even more important to consider because we have much larger sample sizes to work with.

In the case of Curt Schilling, you could make a fairly strong argument for him as a Hall of Famer today based entirely on his regular season work. He does have 3,000 strikeouts (every eligible 3,000-K man except the tragically ignored Blyleven is in), and he has had dominant peak years (he won 20 three times) and all that. But I think the big point is this: He's the greatest postseason starter of his generation. Throw that in and Schilling is a first-ballot, no doubt Hall of Famer right now.

The Hopes of Opening Day

The Curt Schilling entry is coming up, but first: I published a statistic in a recent Kansas City Star column that speaks to the horrors of Kansas City Royals pitching. I think it bears expanding here just in case you missed it. Everyone who cares already knows the Royals pitching has been horrendous for the last few years. But unless you really take the time to explore, you can't fully appreciate the full measure of Royals pitching stinkiosity.

(I love the worst "stinkiosity." There was some sitcom I once saw - it might have been that Kirk Cameron "Growing Pains" show - where one of the characters was taking a journalism class. Whoever it was turned in an article with all sorts of big and fancy words in it. The professor said "This stinks." She - I believe the protagonist was Kirk Cameron's sister - said "I don't understand what you mean." And he said: "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I forgot who I was talking to. Let me rephrase. 'It is replete with stinkiosity." For some reason, that has stuck with me.)

OK, to the numbers. How bad has Royals pitching been? Here are the Royals' Opening Day starters each of the last five years, along with a few pertinent statistics.

2006: Scott Elarton.
PS: 4-9, 5.34 ERA, 49 Ks, 52 walks, 26 homers in 114 innings.

2005: Jose Lima.
PS: 5-16, 6.99, 80 Ks, 61 walks, batters hit .314 with 31 homers.

2004: Brian Anderson.
PS: 6-12, 5.64 ERA, 70 Ks, 53 walks, batters hit .320 with 33 homers.

2003: Runelyvys Hernandez.
PS: 7-5, 4.61 ERA, 48 Ks, 37 walks, pitched 91 innings before getting hurt.

2002: Jeff Suppan.
PS: 9-16, 5.32 ERA, 109 Ks, 68 walks, 1-12 away from Kauffman Stadium.

Now, I don't need to add this up to get across the point. I only need to say that the Royals last five Opening Day starters were Elarton, Lima, Anderson, Hernandez and Suppan - and you will certainly understand. But let's add it up, just for fun: The Royals No. 1 starter the last five years, the guy they opened the season with, the pitcher who was supposed to give everyone hope that things were on the move went a combined: 31-58 with a 5.68 ERA and gave 131 homers in 749 innings.

The entire league hit .291 against the fab five with a .354 on-base percentage and a .500 slugging percentage. That's everybody in the league, including (until recently) Christian Guzman. To give you an idea, these numbers are not significantly different from what the Royals have gotten in those same five years from $11 million per year Mike Sweeney (.301/.373/.506).

And these were the Royals' aces. Their Opening Day starters. You don't even want to know how bad their other starters have been. You know, I lived through all this, but I did not realize the Royals No. 1 pitchers were this bad until I went back and totaled up the statistics. No wonder Dayton Moore spent $55 million for Gil Meche.

Shameless Self Promotion

I started the blog for two reasons.

(1) Because I love writing about baseball.
(2) To raise some awareness for my new book: "The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America."

OK, I just lied. Well, I didn't exactly lie. I just put those two reasons out of order. See I'm really not too good at the self-promotion thing. A couple of weeks ago - by complete fluke - I ended up having dinner with the President and CEO of Sam's Club. He's a young guy (Doug something or other) and he seemed very nice and remarkably interested in what I did for a living. When dinner was over, I was telling my wife about it.

"Did you happen to mention that you have a book coming out?" she asked.

"Um. No. Do you think that would have been a good idea?"

She just shook her head sadly. I had just asked her: "Do you think it would have been a good idea to mention to the President and CEO of the nation's largest warehouse club that I have a book coming out?"

Of course, she already knew: I'm terrible at this stuff. But I do want to get the word out about "The Soul of Baseball" because I loved writing this book about the year I spent with Buck O'Neil, and I'm proud of it, and because I want to help keep Buck's name alive (I mean this in more ways than one - part of the proceeds of the book will go to help build the Buck O'Neil Education and Research Center in Kansas City). So, if you will indulge me, I have put a couple of links on the right side which you can click to buy the book from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. You can also learn more about the book by going to our site at www.soulofbaseball.com.

Thanks for reading this. I promise the next entry will be about baseball -- and specifically whether Curt Schilling deserves to go to the Hall of Fame.

My Barry Bonds Admission

Sportswriting is, of course, a wonderful life. I love this job. There are, however, a few fun little irritations every sportswriter must endure. Every sportswriter will remember times, for instance, when they got beat by deadline. You know you are beat when you are staring at a blank screen, two minutes to deadline ... and the game is not over. That's a bad feeling.

This often happens at the Orange Bowl (with its 4 hour, 19 minute halftime show) or at an NBA Finals game, which now begins at 11 p.m. This deadline crush leads to all sorts of comical moments. One legendary old sportswriter apparently faced too many impossible deadlines. So late in his life, when his deadline expired while a baseball game trudged through extra innings, he simply took his computer (which back then weighed roughly 228 pounds) and threw it out the press box window. That story may just be a legend. One true story invoves a friend, who was dealing with a Monday Night Football game that would not end. In the press box he started shouting "I don't know who is going to win!" over and over again.

We've all been there. During Game 4 of the 2001 World Series, deadline hovered, it was the ninth inning, the Yankees were down to Arizona by two runs. I was OK ... I had an entire column written about how the Yankees (soon to be down three games to one) were finally finished, and all I had to do was hit the send button. Then Tino Martinez hit a two-run homer to tie the game, and I was left staring at 800 of the most useless words you have ever seen. By the time Derek Jeter hit the extra inning home run that won the game (finishing off one of the greatest games I've ever seen), I was a trembling wreck. In the madness, I somehow adjusted the column to almost, sort of fit the occasion (mostly by adding the word "not" as in "The Yankees are NOT finished") but I slept fitfully that night. I had post-traumatic Tino disorder. I thought: "Wow, I can't go through something like that again."

The next day, the Yankees trailed Arizona 2-0 in the ninth inning. It was Scott Brosius this time who hit the two-run home run that wrecked my deadline and my blood pressure.

Anyway, there are a few minor annoyances that sportswriters must deal with -- bad deadlines, canceled flights, computer glitches, lost reservations and so on. But many sportswriters will tell you the No. 1 difficulty of being a sportswriter can be summed up in two words: "Barry" and "Bonds." I think it's fair to say that if you asked sportswriters to come up with a field of 64 bad guys to deal with in sports, Barry would be the overall No. 1 seed.

Everybody in the business, it seems, has a story about the evils of Barry, whether it was seeing him insult a kid who wanted an autograph or shove a teammate out of the way so he could get to his locker room recliner or verbally assault a sportswriter who asked an innocent question such as: "Hi Barry." There are the steroid stories, the bad teammate stories, the ego stories. And, of course, there was the time he threw rocks at that orphanage.

Getting mistreated by Barry Bonds is more than an annoyance. It's a sportswriter rite of passage. It's one of those things sportswriters brag about over dinner. Everybody tries to top the other with a good Barry story.

I'm always quiet at those sessions. Here's my problem: Barry Bonds has always been nice to me.
I don't mean he's been semi-nice or tolerable. He's always been nice -- really, really nice. The first time I interviewed him, I was a kid columnist in Augusta, Ga. Nobody was nice to me then. The security guards on the field hassled me. The people working the concession stand mocked me. Barry Bonds was nice. He talked to me for an extended period of time, answered every one of the questions, never showed even the slightest sign of being annoyed or grumpy at all. I can remember sitting next to one of the Pittsburgh writers in the press box that night and saying, "Hey, that Barry Bonds is a pretty good guy, isn't he?" The writer glared at me as if I had said "You know, Stalin had his good points."

So, it was a fluke. By the next time I interviewed Bonds, I was a columnist in Cincinnati and I knew his reputation. I still needed to talk to him. I went up to him pretty timidly and asked if he had a couple of minutes. Maybe he was just shocked that someone wanted to talk to him because AGAIN he was great, perhaps even better than the first time. He talked happily about baseball and life -- Bonds can be a remarkably charming guy -- and he showed absolutely no interest in the interview ever ending. A writer who had covered Bonds for a long time told me, "Yeah, he can be like that once or twice a year. You caught him on the right day."

Actually, I had caught him on the right day twice. The third time was at an All-Star Game, so I knew there was no way he would be in a good mood with all those reporters around. But, surprise, he was great again. He saw that I was from Kansas City, and he talked about Buck O'Neil and George Brett and whatever else. Barry Bonds would not know me if I brought him five forms of identification, and yet every single time I approached him, he was great. Frankly I cannot think of another high-profile baseball player who was really good and open every time I approached him -- including some who have reputations as the greatest guys in the world.

So weird. A couple of years ago - this was after Bonds' body had transformed and his head had grown and all that - he came to Kansas City. He went to tour the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum with Buck O'Neil. Reporters were not allowed anywhere near him, of course, but about halfway through the tour I got a call from Buck and our friend Bob, who was leading the tour.

"You won't believe this," Bob said.

"What's that?"

"Barry was looking at all the photographs of the Negro Leagues players. He was walking right up to them and touching them. And ..."

"And?"

"And he just started crying."

I believed it. None of this is meant to negate the millions of "Barry is a bad guy" stories. Those are all real. He is on the brink of breaking Hank Aaron's hallowed home run record, and he's going to get obliterated by the press and fans and everybody else. The people running baseball will cover their eyes. That's OK, he brought most of that on himself. But I have to say: We sometimes create cartoon images of people in the media. There are countless stories casting Barry Bonds as the villain. And in the interest of full disclosure, I have to say: The guy's always been really nice to me.

In Defense Of A Fine Meche

The Gil Meche Defense Club meeting (held last month in the backseat of a Mini Cooper) has not added many members over the last few months. I must admit this surprises me. Sure, at first, when the Royals signed pitcher Gil Meche for the preposterous-sounding five years and $55 million, there was outrage and disbelief and mockery. Anyone could understand that. That’s a shocking amount of money. And Meche is not often mistaken for Pedro.

Over time, though, I expected some of that outrage to dissipate. This off-season was filled with all sorts of crazy deals. The Texas Rangers signed a similarly flawed Vincente Padilla to even more money per year (well, Padilla’s and Meche’s flaws are not actually similar, but they’ve both got 'em). Jeff Suppan, Miguel Batista and Ted Lilly signed big contracts though nobody's clearing shelf space for the Cy Young awards. Jason Marquis got $7 million per year for three even though he’s coming off a historically bad season. And Barry Zito got the richest pitching contract in baseball history – a seven-year, $126 million albatross – though I cannot find a single person who believes he will be worth it. The BEST I’ve heard from scouts is that Zito “might have a couple of good years.”

So I just assumed that as these deals registered in everybody’s mind, the Gil Meche deal would, at the very least, fade into the background the way another tacky hotel blends into the Las Vegas landscape. But no. As far as I can tell, even now the Gil Meche signing stands alone as the howler of the off-season, the one indefensible signing, the tackiest hotel in Vegas. My good friends and fellow Royals observers Rob Neyer and Rany Jazayerli have spent the entire winter arguing about the Meche move, with Rany saying it was merely disastrous while Rob believes it to be apocalyptic. It reminded me of a famous “Pro-Con” column debate in the Louisville Courier-Journal concerning the merits of horse trainer D. Wayne Lukas. The columns were so biting on both sides that it left a crumbled Lukas to ask: “Which one was supposed to the ‘Pro?’”

* * *

OK, so now I’m going to lay out why I think the Gil Meche signing was not only defensible but practically mandatory for the Royals. In this defense, I’m not actually going to talk much about Meche’s potential to develop into a good pitcher. I do think that potential is there – he’s a former No. 1 pick with ace’s stuff, pretty good makeup and he’s only 28 years old. About half of his Baseball Reference comps either became quite good (Chris Carpenter, Jason Schmidt, Todd Stottlemeyer) or still have the potential to do so (Jason Jennings, Matt Clement). People will point out that that there are plenty of 28-year olds like Gil Meche who are now working as loan officers, and that might be right too. We’ll wait and see.

No, here I want to talk about specifically about the Kansas City Royals and how they go about digging out of their crater. The Royals are a bad team. This goes without saying. The only way to go from being a tragically bad team to a reasonably good team is to get better players. Again, goes without saying. But how do you get better players – or specifically, how could the Royals go about getting an above-average Major League pitcher?

Four ways come to mind. I may be missing one or two. The Royals could:
1. Trade for a good, established pitcher.
2. Draft/sign/trade for a young talent and develop him into a good pitcher.
3. Sign or trade for a talented pitcher off the scrap heap who has generally underachieved or been hurt and then hope he harnesses his skills for at least a little while (i.e. get lucky with someone like Chris Carpenter or Esteban Loiaza or someone similar).
4. Sign a big-money pitcher, either in free agency, from Japan or from Latin America.

OK. Where does this leave the Royals?

(1) They really don’t have anything they can trade for a good pitcher unless they want to deal one of the few good young players they have. That, of course, would only make matters worse.

(2) New general manager Dayton Moore does intend to draft, sign and trade for as many young pitchers as he can find – this is the core of his rebuilding plan – but it will take years if it works at all. The Royals don’t have a single major league ready prospect and only three (Luke Hochevar, Tyler Lumsden and Billy Buckner – four if you still count Zack Greinke) who are even CLOSE to ready. The way pitchers get hurt and flop (especially in the Kansas City system), three reasonably close pitching prospects is hardly something you can count on.

(3) Trolling through the trash bins for a pitcher has been a big Royals’ focus the last few years. They actually had some success – they did find Paul Byrd and Jeff Suppan – but they also had lots of failures. The search continues. Luke Hudson, picked off the Cincinnati scrap heap, is the Royals No. 3 pitcher and he does have talent. Underachiever Jorge de la Rosa was acquired by Moore, and they have hopes for him too. The Royals have to search under every rock, but that hardly seems away to win a pennant.

That leaves Option (4) – signing a big money pitcher. But again, remember, these are the Royals. You know they can’t compete for the really high priced pitchers. Even if they could match the money -- which they probably could not -- the best pitchers are not going to Kansas City right now. The Royals knew they could not sign Barry Zito no matter how much money they offered (they did call his agent, who basically concurred). Same goes with Jason Schmidt. The Royals know right now they almost certainly won’t be a player in the Zambrano and Jennings sweepstakes next year, and they’re not going to sign Johan Santana when he’s a free agent. They can’t outbid the Red Sox or Yankees for the best pitcher out of Japan, and they get outbid for the surest guys in Latin America. These are hard realities.

* * *

So what to do? The Royals need pitching more than any team in baseball. So they looked hard at the free agent pitching class this year. They were ready to make offers to several of the second-tier guys like Suppan, Batista, Lilly and possibly Padilla.

Most of all, they wanted Gil Meche.

Why Meche? There are a lot of reasons why. The Royals scouts unanimously loved his stuff. The Royals SSGOR (Secret Stats Guy On Retainer) put Meche at the top of his free agent list (possibly because of his age, his improved strikeout numbers and the fact that he has allowed fewer hits than innings pitched in his career). The players GM Dayton Moore and others interviewed – some of them Royals, some of them former Meche teammates – had good things to say about the guy. "Sign him," the Royals veterans begged. And Moore himself liked Meche. He thinks the guy has a chance to emerge.

So that's the background. In the big meeting held as the off-season began, the Royals brain trust sat around a table and unanimously decided that among the pitchers they had a reasonable chance of signing, Meche was their No. 1 choice. They figure he’s already a decent pitcher, and he has upside. If given the chance, they would go for it.

Of course, at that time Moore had no real way of knowing if Meche would consider coming to Kansas City. Sure, NOW some general managers bad-mouth the Royals for this signing, but the truth is that when the off-season began Gil Meche drew lots of interest. The Royals made their pitch, and they perceived from the talks that did have a shot at getting Meche. The meeting went well. Everything felt right. Moore went to Royals ownership and said “I think we have a shot at this guy.” Ownership -- and this was a big deal in Kansas City -- said: “Go for it.”

Then finally it was crunch time. We know that a couple of teams offered Meche four years, $40 million. But as the final meeting approached, the Royals heard solid rumors that one team actually offered Meche four years at $48 million. They are still adamant that a $12 million per year deal was on the table and it was very real. So the Royals knew it would take a very special offer to get Meche to come to Kansas City. And they did something the Royals absolutely have to do in these circumstances. They went for it. They saw a guy, they studied him, they liked him, they went after him. The Royals offered Meche an extra year. They figured, hey, the guy’s only 28 ... giving him the extra year is a risk they were willing to take.

Dayton Moore says when it comes to trades, drafts, signings of all sizes, there is only one key:

GET … THE … PLAYER.

I agree with him.

They offered five years, $55 million. They got their man. And the “Royals are morons” commentary began about 12 seconds later.

* * *

Now, will it be a great signing, good signing, a bad signing, a tragic signing? My friend, Bob Dutton, the beat writer for The Kansas City Star, suggests that 60 victories is a good cutoff point – if Meche gets more than 60 victories in five years, then it was a good signing at least. If he gets fewer, for whatever reason, it was not so good. I think that’s fair enough. But I think there are other things to consider. Does he have one or two great years in there? Does he match-up with other teams aces and hold his own? Does he snap some losing streaks and keep some winning streaks going? Or does he go backward, crumble under the money pressure, get hurt? There is a lot involved here.

But in the end, Moore probably summed up this whole signing with a simple question. He asked: “Are the Royals a better team with Gil Meche or without him?” There’s really no doubt. If the Royals had not given Meche the extra year, some other team would have signed Meche for a lot of money. That team may have been ridiculed the way the Royals have been. And they may not have. Either way, the Royals Top 2 starters going into the season would have been Odalis Perez and Luke Hudson.

Baseball voting: Leftover No. 2

OK, I'll get into it the Joe Mauer-Frank Thomas thing that's been driving me crazy.

You see some bizarre anomalies when you look closely at baseball voting. All winter, I’ve been bothered by the American League MVP vote. Yes plenty was been written about Justin Morneau winning the award over Derek Jeter. I don’t think Morneau was the right choice (I was a rare Joe Mauer guy -- rare, I guess, because none of the voters picked Mauer even ahead of teammate Morneau. ZERO. NADA). But my point is something else.

Twenty of 28 voters selected Frank Thomas ahead of Joe Mauer in their MVP voting. Frank bleepin' Thomas. Even now, months later, my head is close to exploding when I consider this. Sure, I realize there are extenuating circumstances -- the big one being that voters fell in love with Morneau for whatever reason (and here are three: R and B and I) and were unwilling to vote TWO Minnesota Twins high on their ballot. So Mauer took the fall for that. And since Frank Thomas was the only "viable" MVP candidate on Oakland, he was high on a lot of ballots.

But that does not change the reality:
TWENTY PEOPLE DECIDED FRANK THOMAS WAS MORE VALUABLE TO HIS TEAM LAST YEAR THAN JOE MAUER.

This bothers me on so many levels. Look, I have a great deal of respect for baseball writers across America. I know many of them. I know how hard they work. Every one I know puts tremendous consideration and work into their award and Hall of Fame votes (Caveat: I don’t know the guy who voted A.J. Pierzynski 10th on his MVP ballot but left Mauer off).

Still, no matter what the reasons, the facts are that 20 bright and hard-working baseball writers looked at Frank Thomas who:
1. Is a designated hitter.
2. Was probably the FIFTH BEST designated hitter in the American League (possibly fourth depending on where you stand on Jason Giambi).
2. Is fat
3. Can’t run.
4. Missed 25 games.
5. Hit quite a few home runs – some which were undoubtedly important – but also hit just ELEVEN doubles all year (some, to be fair, which may have been important too).

Then then they looked at Joe Mauer who:
1. Is a catcher and a terrific one.
2. Became the first catcher in league history to lead the league in hitting.
3. Was (according to the Bill James Handbook) one of the league’s better base runners.
4. Had a higher OPS than, among others, Frank Thomas.
5. Played in MORE games than Thomas, even though he was a catcher.
6. Did we mention he is a catcher and a terrific one?
7. Was intentionally walked 21 times while Thomas drew three, suggesting that pitchers and managers, at least, felt Mauer was the more dangerous batter.

Then after looking at these and other bits of evidence (three of those being R and B and I), these 20 baseball writers decided: “Frank Thomas was clearly more valuable. If I wanted to win, I would rather have had Frank Thomas this year than Joe Mauer.”

It’s worth noting that five writers had Thomas on their ballot and left Joe Mauer completely off. I guess I don’t understand people.

Baseball Voting: Leftover No. 1

OK, it's time to start talking a little baseball. So let's start with something that drives me absolutely up the wall about last year's Hall of Fame voting. It has something to do with Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn.

No, this will not be another complaint about the handful of voters who refuse to place a checkmark next to great players just to make sure that nobody ever goes into the Hall unanimously. I do think that's ridiculous, of course. It's a sports crime that 23 people did NOT vote for Willie Mays and 23 people did NOT vote for Stan Musial. The people who didn't vote for Mays, well, you could probably draw some fairly villanous conclusions about some of them. But Musial? Who on earth didn't like Stan Musial?

ANYWAY, this is not about unanimity. Cal Ripken received 537 out of a possible 545 votes, which is probably about as much as you can expect. If you took the same 545 people and offered them a blatantly obvious statement like "Crime is bad" or "Education is good" or "those Coors commercials featuring NFL press conferences are not funny" - fewer than 537 would concur. (In fact, I just got a letter from a discernibly intelligent woman with impeccable handwriting who insists that those Coors commercials are, in fact, the "perfect source of comedy." This just goes to prove that everything is a matter of opinion. Either that or impeccable handwriting does not always indicate a keen sense of humor).

ANYWAY, Ripken received 537 out 545 votes.
Tony Gwynn received 532 out of 545 votes.

And I have to admit, this has driven me crazy ever since. This means five people voted for Cal Ripken and did not vote for Tony Gwynn. Yes, this is the kind of pointless and illogical stuff that keeps me up at night. Does this make sense to anyone? I don't need to tell you about Gwynn. He won eight batting titles. He won five Gold Gloves. He hit .338 for his career, the highest batting average for any player since Ted Williams. He not only had a higher on-base percentage than Ripken (by almost 50 points) he also had a higher SLUGGING percentage than Ripken. And so on. I've asked 10 people in and around baseball which player (between Ripken and Gwynn) they would vote for if told they could only pick one. Eight said Gwynn.

But again, we're getting away from the point. They both clearly deserved the vote. People who left them both off the ballot, hey, I might disagree with them but I could at least vaguely understand their stance. But there are five sportswriters in America who are not trying to prove some ridiclous point. There are five sportswriters who honestly have drawn their Hall of Fame line right between Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn. There are five sportswriters who said: "Ripken, OK, I'll vote for him, he had the streak and everything. But Tony Gwynn? Hell no! A voter has to have his standards."

This bothers me almost as much as the 20 sportswriters who listed Frank Thomas ahead of Joe Mauer on their American League MVP ballots. Don't get me started on that one.