A New Way To Look at Hall of Famers

Well, this month the Hall of Fame should make an announcement about how they plan to honor Buck O’Neil. You already know about the wild events of last year, when a special Negro Leagues committee put 17 new members into the Hall of Fame but did not include Buck. I think it’s fair to say that the people at the Hall of Fame itself felt terrible about it, and on the day before Buck’s funeral in October, Hall President Jane Forbes Clark released a statement, which read (in part):

“Buck was perhaps the greatest ambassador baseball has ever known. He was a giant of a man whose wisdom, kindness and generosity of spirit will live on forever in those whom he touched and those who touched him.
"The National Baseball Hall of Fame's Board of Directors has a very strong commitment to keeping Buck O'Neil's legacy alive forever, and at our last meeting in July, we began to look at ways to recognize his lasting contributions to our game."

There hasn’t been anything more said publicly, but I’ve been told a couple of things by people who seem to be in the know:

1. The Hall of Fame board of directors will meet this month, and the question of how to honor Buck O’Neil and fulfill Jane’s promise will be on the agenda.
2. They will not induct Buck O’Neil into the Hall of Fame.

This entry is not so much about Buck, but I want to say that – odd as it may seem considering how much I loved Buck – I agree with the Hall of Fame. I don’t think it would seem like anything more than pandering to put Buck in the Hall now using some sort of presidential pardon. For me, the point was for Buck to be elected honestly into the Hall of Fame while he was still alive, while he could enjoy it, while everyone could enjoy him. If they ever have another Negro Leagues vote or put Buck on the veteran’s ballot – and I doubt they will – I hope Buck is considered properly. But for now, I think, the Hall’s task should be, as Jane said, to keep Buck O’Neil’s legacy alive forever.

And that brings us to “The Buck O’Neil Award.”

As you know, there’s already a Ford Frick Award for announcers (Frick was a sportswriter and Baseball Commissioner who helped start the Hall of Fame) and J.G. Taylor Spink Award for sportswriters (Spink was a writer and editor, and he turned The Sporting News into The Bible of Baseball).

But there is no award – and also no direct route to the Hall of Fame – for those people who have had giant effects on baseball through their lifetime achievement. There is no easy way for the Hall of Fame to honor great scouts, for instance, or legendary coaches or The Famous Chicken or Hal Richman (who invented Strat-o-Matic) or Sy Berger (the driving force behind baseball cards) or Marvin Miller or even guy like Gil Hodges, who was both a terrific player and manager for perhaps the most beloved team in baseball history, the Miracle Mets. This a huge gap, in my opinion. And it seems like an award to honor these people is long overdue.

I think that this award should be named for Buck O’Neil, who made his mark as a player, manager, coach, scout, museum builder, spokesman and ambassador for the game. He is the prime example, in my mind, of the tunnel vision of the Baseball Hall of Fame process. The Negro Leagues committee members (some of them anyway) could not help but view Buck as one thing – a player – and as a player he was good but not great, memorable but not Hall of Fame worthy. It was (in my opinion) his baseball life that was Hall of Fame worthy -- more than worthy -- and it apparently is hard for some to get their minds around that.

In the book – and, I admit, in a burst of exaggeration to prove a point – I wrote that keeping Buck out of the Baseball Hall of Fame because he was not a good enough player was like keeping Leonardo da Vinci out of the Renaissance Hall of Fame because he was not a good enough inventor.

ANYWAY to the point of this thing: I’m going to list off a few of my candidates for The Buck O’Neil Award here. But, I'm only listing a few for a reason: I have really appreciated reading your comments. And I would love to hear some of your nominations for this award.

Gil Hodges: He was a borderline candidate as a player, having achieved 63 percent of the writer’s vote in his final year on the ballot (he needed 41 more votes). He was a fine defensive first baseman, he drove in 100 RBIs seven straight seasons, an All-Star seven straight seasons, he finished in the Top 10 in OPS six times. He hit 370 home runs (at the time a record for right handed hitters in the NL (in fact, when he retired, the only right-handed hitter who had hit more home runs was Jimmie Foxx). And he was an absolutely beloved player. Now, throw in his role as manager of the 1969 Mets – he’s an ideal choice for this award.

Billy Martin: How about his baseball life? He was a World Series hero as a player, particularly for his performance in the 1953 World Series (.500 batting average, .958 slugging percentage), he managed two World Series champs with the Yankees in 1977 and '78 (though that was quite a whirlwind in 1978), he led five teams to the playoffs and he was – for better and worse – perhaps the most famous person in the game. He was rough and hardnosed and not always likeable, but that’s baseball too.

Tom Greenwade: There actually is a precedent now for scouts getting into the Hall of Fame. One of the 17 Negro Leaguers inducted last year was Alex Pompez, an owner and promoter. His Negro Leagues career would be almost entirely forgettable if it were not for his indictment for racketeering. His great contributions to baseball (as his bio on the Hall of Fame website confirms) came after the Negro Leagues, as the scout who signed Orlando Cepeda and Juan Marichal among others. Well, Tom Greenwade was the scout signed Mickey Mantle for the New York Yankees and recommended Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers, He did much, much more in his legendary scouting life – he was a scout for more than 50 years – but just those two things make his case, don't they?

Howie Haak: I’m not going to list all the scouts who are deserving of consideration here, in large part because I don’t know many of them. But when you go to the Dominican Republic and to Puerto Rico, the one name you hear all the time is Howie Haak. He was a pioneer in finding those players and bringing them to America. His greatest signing was Roberto Clemente, but for almost 40 years he worked to find players on the dust fields in the poorest cities, and he undoubtedly made baseball a better game to watch.

Marvin Miller: I’m not exactly sure what anyone is waiting for. If Jackie Robinson changed the game more than any single person in the first half of the 20th Century (along with Branch Rickey, of course), then Marvin Miller changed the game more than anyone in the second half. Maybe there are those who don’t like what the game has become, with the high-priced contracts for players. Well, it was a lot worse before, with the low-priced contracts for player and owners getting filthy rich. It is absolutely unfathomable to me that the Hall of Fame players, who should know better, did not vote him in.

Bill James: He’s my friend, so I don’t want to put too fine a point on this. But he changed the way we watch baseball. And, in his own way, he changed the way people PLAY baseball. I’m not sure any writer since Henry Chadwick (who invented the box score) has done more. Chadwick is in the Hall of Fame.

Lefty O’Doul: Now here’s a baseball life. He began as a pitcher and hurt his arm. So he became an outfielder and hit .349 in more than 3,000 at bats. He twice led the league in hitting, and his 1929 season (.398, 32 homers, 122 RBIs, 152 runs, 254 hits) is an all-timer. He became manager of the San Francisco Seals and won more games than any manager in Pacific Coast League history. He also helped develop Joe DiMaggio. And finally he was a tremendous goodwill ambassador for baseball, and was one of the key people in bringing the game to Japan.

Minnie Minoso: He is caught in the middle. Before he was 28 years old, he was one of the great players in the Negro Leagues, a two-time East West All-Star, a key player on the New York Cubans that won the 1946 Negro Leagues World Series. After he was 28, he was a star with the Chicago White Sox, a player who put up offensive numbers in his 30s that are equal or superior to most of the players in the Hall of Fame. Later, of course, he became the oldest player to have an at-bat in the Major Leagues (though I believe Julio Franco is now 238). Nobody has put it all together yet, but Minoso has lived a Hall of Fame life.

There are many others who deserve consideration for this sort of award, but I’ll stop here and say I would love to hear some thoughts. I also want to take a second to thank everyone who has bought the book and everyone who came to the debut book party at the Negro Leagues Museum on Wednesday and book signing event at the Plaza on Thursday. It means the world to me.

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 …"