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.