Book interview: 1941

Editor’s note: My wife says these entries are too long. My wife studied some marketing back in college, and so she was explaining to me the various reasons why shorter and more frequent entries would get significantly more hits for this blog. And more hits, she says, equals more money. I must admit to not understanding the math on this:

Few hits x $0.00 = $0.00
Lots of hits x $0.00 = $0.00

In any case, I promised her I’d try it for a week – so for a time those long blogs with lots of different ridiculous thoughts will be broken up in to individual, bite-sized blogs with individual ridiculous thoughts. Is this a good idea?

First, though, we have to start with a relatively long entry. We have an interview with the brilliant New York Post columnist, author and groomsman at my wedding Mike Vaccaro. We talk a little .400, hitting streaks and all about his terrific new book: 1941 – the Greatest Year in Sports: Two Baseball Legends, Two Boxing Champs and the Unstoppable Thoroughbred Who Made History in the Shadow of War. You’ll want to buy the book.

* * *

TSOB: OK, so the new book is called "1941: Lots of Really Cool Stuff Happened That Year." Well, it’s something like that. And the book is fabulous, of course. I want to talk more about modern day events with you here, but first I have to ask you: Ted Williams hit .400 in 1941. Joe DiMaggio hit in 56 straight games that year. How bloody bad was American League pitching that year?

Vac: I actually had to look it up to make sure they weren't throwing underhanded that year. Actually, what's really amazing is if you look at just how brutal the entire American League was, not only in 1941 but throughout that era. You had the Yankees, of course, and the Red Sox were always fairly good. The Indians were competitive, and the White Sox and Tigers were representative. But think about the other three teams: the St. Louis Browns, the Washington Senators, and the Philadelphia Athletics. And here's the thing: you got to play SIXTY-SIX games a year against that collection of schmoes. Sixty-six! There are times, if you follow an AL East team, when it seems like you're always playing the Devil Rays. But those good teams were ALWAYS playing three of the most comical franchises in history. It's amazing third place in the AL didn’t win 103 games every year.

TSOB: Let's start with the concept of .400 – as you know, I’m fascinated by the number. You probably don't know this but some computer guy hacked into my blog and predicted -- using my name -- that Todd Helton was going to hit .400 this year. Someone needs to prosecute these people. But that aside do you think .400 is possible now, with night games, specialty relievers, better defenders, hard sliders and the intense glare of the media?

Vac: Here's the thing I find fascinating about media/fan attention in 1941 for Williams: Think about the last day of the season, when he so famously went 6-for-8 to get to .406. Not only were there only the six traveling Boston writers in the press box that day, but there were only 10,000 people in the stands. Think about that. What's the worst baseball city in America now? Probably Tampa Bay or Miami, right? If, say, Alex Gordon ever goes into the last day of the season hitting .399, that building is going to be overflowing.

So you factor that into the other stuff. Seriously, again, think about what happens if Gordon (OK, let's switch that to Derek Jeter) goes into game 162 hitting .399555. Think about all the things that'll surround that day, things that didn't happen in '41

1) There'll be 55,000 people there.
2) Every New York paper will have three people there.
3) Talk radio will go absolutely bonkers, with some of them yelling at how crazy Jeter is to risk .400, and others yelling that he damn well better not sit on .399955.
4) Every at-bat will be televised, available everywhere in the world.
5) Every swing will be analyzed and overanalyzed.
6) Even the most brutal major league pitcher in 2007 has a splitter, or a slider, or a sinker that pitchers just didn't have in their repertoire in 1941

And that's just the last day of the season. The two weeks leading up to it would be just as crazy. You know the only way I think it'll happen? If someone like Chase Utley is hitting .402 in the second week of September, before the horde joins up but after he gets the necessary 502 plate appearances, and then he breaks his ankle.

TSOB: You know another thing that will happen – there would be a national throng of media as well. Seriously, last day of the season, Derek Jeter trying for .400 – there might be more than 10,000 MEDIA MEMBERS at the game. I’m exaggerating for effect, of course. But only slightly.

One thing I've noticed is that the guys who have come closest to hitting .400 – Williams in 1941 and again in 1957, Carew in 1977, Brett in 1980, Gwynn in 1994 -- none of them were legging out too many infield hits. I suppose Carew would lay down some bunts, but among the Top 10 batting averages since 1941, I'd say the only guy who really relied a lot on his speed was Ichiro in 2004 (when he hit .372). What do you make of this?

Vac: I think it says that of all the things people have praised Ted Williams about, the fact that "he did all that and NEVER got any leg hits" is probably the single most overrated. Seriously, unless you're talking about Jose Reyes, how many guys really get more than eight or nine genuine "leg hits" over the course of a season? A guy who hits .400 is going to hit .400 because he hits the hell out of the ball every time up, and takes his chances that more often than not his line drives are gonna fall in.

By the way, here's another "wives’ tale" in regards to Williams; there has long been this thinking that he was too proud to try and foil the Williams Shift by hitting it to left field. The truth is that while he was primarily a dead pull hitter, he was never afraid to go to left field if someone were shifting him. Jimmy Dykes of the White Sox tried that in '41 one game, Williams saw that and shouted from home plate "Jimmy, you're a fool SOB" or whatever they said in those days, then he ripped a ball right over the third base bag.

TSOB: Who are the five guys these days who would have the best shot at hitting .400 and why?

1) Chase Utley -- There are times you wonder how anyone ever gets him out. He had the right idea when he had a big hitting streak last year (just don't talk about it), and he has enough speed so that if ever did need to get an infield hit late in the year he could do it.

2) Ichiro -- Especially if he winds up playing at Fenway Park next year. Good lord, the thought of him taking aim at the Monster five times a game. Scary.

3) Derek Jeter -- We know the pressure wouldn't get to him, and in any given year he could be sitting in the middle of a lineup that would offer more protection than any other.

4) Todd Helton -- Because at Coors Field, anything's possible.

5) Andruw Jones -- but only if you are allowed to multiply by two.

TSOB: Hey, maybe you’re the guy who broke into the blog and wrote about Helton. … OK, here's a sportswriter question -- or three of them:

1. When do you hit in enough straight game for it to be a streak?
Vac: I say 14 games. Two weeks' worth of baseball tells you it's not an aberration, but something legit.

2. When is a "streak" worthy of putting into a newspaper?
Vac: Well, if it's the hometown team, then 14 ought to be just right. Otherwise, out of deference to DiMaggio, I think it should be when you get exactly halfway home. To me, wake me up when you get to 28.

3. When does a streak become front page news?
Vac: I'd say it was nice of Pete Rose to give us a fairly memorable number -- 44 -- and I think that makes it a perfect Page One reference point. At 44, you have a chance to become No. 2. And you're within two weeks of the record. And that's when the crush will really come down.

TSOB: OK, you point out in the book just how amazing the DiMaggio streak really was -- mathematically, it's a virtual impossibility for a .357 hitter (which is what DiMaggio was that year) to hit in 56 straight games. But I've always thought this was kind of an odd record too -- really, who cares if you get a hit in every game? I mean without taking away from the performance, do you think it would have been as big a deal if it had been done by, say, Cecil Travis?

Vac: Or Pete Rose, for that matter. No. Let's face it, when DiMaggio set the record, it hadn't really been THAT much of a big deal. No one wrote songs about George Sisler when he hit in 41 straight (the same year he was the last AL player before Williams to hit .400; Sisler's name was in the papers a lot in '41). And the extra funny thing is, for about 10 days people were speculating about Sisler's record ... then all of a sudden someone dug up Wee Willie Keeler's 44-gamer back in the 1890s (when foul balls weren't strikes, and walks counted as hits, and men were men, and so forth).

Really, I think the streak gave people a reason to idolize Joe DiMaggio even more than they already did, and once the streak belonged to him that's what made it such a piece of Americana. Of course, now, because it's DiMaggio's streak we're talking about, the man who challenges it would be a big deal, too.

TSOB: Speaking of media glare -- nobody could hit in 56 straight games now, right? And let's say somebody did hit in 55 straight games and then his team was playing the Cardinals, and there was a runner on second with the winning run, and he came up with the record on the line. LaRussa would walk him, wouldn't he?

Vac: I'm convinced that if Tony LaRussa was managing Denny McLain in 1968, he would have put him on waivers for serving up that meatball to Mickey Mantle, thirty-one wins or no thirty-one wins. I'm convinced that LaRussa would have had his pitcher bean Eddie Gaedel. I'm convinced that LaRussa would have had Dale Mitchell try a drag bunt on Don Larsen with two out and nobody on in the top of the ninth. I'm convinced that LaRussa is a humorless bastard.

But I digress ...

It's funny. The way I separate Williams and DiMaggio from 1941 is this way: I think someone hitting 2-for-5 for six months is by far the more difficult achievement. But I think hitting in 56 straight is the more impossible achievement.

It's a very quirky thing. Seriously: say a guy who's hit in 34 in a row needs a day off, his team's played two day-night doubleheaders in a row and he's cooked. Well ... what happens in his day off if he's needed as a pinch hitter? Can a manager NOT use him and not then be fired on the spot for malpractice? And here's a goofy quirk I only learned last year when Jeter had a hitting streak: if you go 0-for-0 with four walks, the hitting streak survives. I had Bill Shannon, the greatest official scorer who ever lived, explain passionately for 10 minutes why that's a good rule, and I love Bill to death, but there's something about that that strikes me as wrong.

How about this one: in '41, sportswriters were the official scorers, and there was a definite ethical dilemma attached to the possibility of a sportswriter's hit/error call extending/stopping the streak. But what about now, when the scorers are de facto employees of major league baseball? Obviously it's good business for baseball to have people obsessing over hitting streaks, right?

TSOB: Same five guys with the best shot to hit in 56 straight as hit .400?

Vac: Actually, I would put Jeter on top of that list. Every year he assembles one hitting streak after another. I could see him getting to 40 at some point before he's done. And since the Andruw Jones answer was a goofy answer, I'll sub David Wright, who has shown a knack for extending hitting streaks in his last time at-bat throughout his career. Of course, it's one thing to extend from 18 to 19 and another to go from 38 to 39 ...

TSOB: Another topic: A lot of people don't know -- I didn't know -- that even though Bob Feller volunteered for service one day after Pearl Harbor -- he was the first player in baseball to volunteer, wasn't he? -- people actually gave him a rough time. How is that possible?

Vac: That was really shocking, I have to tell you. I was sitting in the archives at the Library of Congress, reading old Cleveland Presses and Plain Dealers, and it was astonishing: every day in the final weeks of the '41 season, the papers were STUFFED with letters to the editors from angry fans just KILLING Feller, calling him all kinds of terrible names, draft dodger among them. It was a very different time, and Feller did a few things that were terribly misinterpreted.

First off, a writer asked him once if he'd consider asking if he could pitch on weekend and take a furlough from Army camp. It was a ridiculous question, and Feller had fun with it, saying something like, "Only if the Indians can move home games to the army base in Tennessee." But he didn't say "no," so some people actually took him serious. Also, it wasn't unusual for celebrities' draft questionnaires to be leaked to the press; in Feller's he wrote (as he had a perfect right to do) that his father was gravely ill, and he was the family's lone support. When this hit the papers, some letter writers claimed Feller was lying about his father (I suppose they changed their minds when the poor man wound up dying in 1942) or that Feller should sell the family farm and move them to more affordable quarters before signing up for the army.

I was fascinated by this. I asked Feller if he remembered. And you bet he did. But he said he didn't blame them, that people were "on edge all the time" back then. And then he told me he was from Van Meter, Iowa, just 17 miles from Des Moines.

TSOB: I heard something about that – you know he has a museum there? (This is an inside joke, and one probably not worth explaining, but a few years ago I had an interview with Feller and during the interview he must have told me 25 times that his museum was in Van Meter, which was only 17 miles from Des Moines. I put that quote in the column three or four times, which – rightfully – ticked off Feller. He semi-ripped me at his appearance the next day. But even there, he mentioned again that his museum is 17 miles from Des Moines. … Earlier this year I went to the museum. Bob’s right. Seventeen miles. Almost exactly).

One of the many great things about the book is that it captures a different sports America. Besides for baseball, the stars of your book are Whirlaway, the horse that won the Triple Crown, and a fight -- Louis-Conn at Yankee Stadium in the middle of the summer. Those were really the big three in America at the time, with a little college football in there and some track and field, maybe a little billiards. Why do you think America's sports interests changed so much? Television? The war? What?

Vac: Television exposed more people to football, so that helped. And more people started going to college after the war, helping to expand basketball's popularity, so that helped. But boxing was on TV a lot in the '50s too, and so was horse racing. I think football simply replaced boxing as the place where the American blood lust could be satisfied, and horse racing simply remained what it always was: a pleasant thing to witness in person, especially if you have money on the race, and something that's only occasionally interesting otherwise.

TSOB: Your Web site (www.mike-vaccaro.com) looks fabulous. Who designed that thing?

Vac: That would be the wonderful and talented Margo Keller Posnanski, who should design these pages full time, allowing you to retire to being a fulltime country squire/gentleman author.

TSOB: The Soul of Baseball heartily endorses this possibility. Maybe shorter and more frequent blogs will lead to this country squire thing.

Bo: The Director's Cut

Editor’s Note: About a month ago, I wrote a column about Bo Jackson that, for some reason or another, drew about as much response as anything I’ve written for The Kansas City Star. “Some reason” could be that it was just a brilliant piece of work up there with Plato’s Republic, Huck Finn and the early Far Side cartoons. “Another” is that people just care about Bo Jackson.

“Another” is, at this moment, a 30-1 Vegas favorite.

Anyway, the Bo story for the newspaper was entirely built around his baseball career with the Royals – it did not touch upon his football career, his years at Auburn or his astonishing power in Tecmo Super Bowl. So, just for you, we are now offering the director’s cut of that story – which has all sorts of deleted scenes, previously unseen footage and various other special features.

And you get it all free of charge. As one car dealer in a former hometown liked to say, “If I sold them any cheaper, I’d be giving them away!” Only I am, actually, giving it away. So that’s a bad example. Why don’t you at least buy a book?

* * *

OK, so one day in New York, Bo Jackson complained in the dugout before a game. Reporters surrounded Bo, which never made him happy. Reporters wanted to explain things, and Bo Jackson wasn’t about explaining. Bo was about doing.

“Everything I do, people tend to exaggerate it,” he moaned. “With me, they want to make things bigger than they are.”

Bo told the reporters he was just another guy. He wasn’t some sort of folk hero, like John Henry or Pecos Bill. No, he hurt like other players. He made mistakes like other players. He struck out a lot. He was not forged out of steel, and he could not outrun locomotives, and he could not turn back time by flying around the world and reversing the rotation of the earth.

“I’m just another player, you know?” he said.

Then the game began, Royals vs. Yankees at Yankee Stadium.

FIRST TIME UP Bo hit a 412-foot homer to center field.

SECOND TIME UP Bo smashed a 464-foot opposite-field home run. That ball landed in that far off-place over the right field fence where only the baseball gods like Ruth, Gehrig and Mantle had ever dared to fly.

“Colossal,” teammate George Brett would say. “I had to stop and watch.”

THIRT TIME UP Bo had to wait as Yankees manager Stump Merrill walked out to the mound. Stump wanted to know how pitcher Andy Hawkins intended to deal with Bo this time.

“I’ll pitch it outside,” Hawkins said.

“It better be WAY outside,” Merrill replied.

Hawkins threw the ball way outside. Jackson poked the ball over the right field fence for his third homer. The New York crowd went bananas.

Bo never got a fourth time up that day. He hurt his shoulder while diving for a ball hit by baseball/football soul mate Deion Sanders. Bo almost made one of the great catches in baseball history. Instead it turned into an inside the park home run, and Bo hurt his shoulder.

As he walked gingerly off the field that day, New Yorkers stood and cheered for Bo. It’s possible that no opposing player ever hear those sorts of cheers at Yankee Stadium.

“You know what?” Royals Hall of Famer Frank White would say almost 20 years later. “I really did play baseball with Superman.”

* * *

How can you explain Bo Jackson to a kid today? Times have changed. Superheroes have gotten smaller. It’s just the way of the world. Look: If some athlete does something amazing these days – say LeBron James’ crazy 48 points against Detroit in the playoffs – it gets played and replayed, hashed and rehashed, analyzed and sensationalized, discussed and described and disseminated and displayed until it becomes something close to ordinary. That’s the flip side to technology, to high-def television, to 24-hour sports talk and a million cable channels and bustling chat rooms and celebrity athlete blogs and the stats explosion and sportswriters breaking things down on television and cameras that can slow the game down to a standstill, to the point where we can always see if the umpire was right, when the ball was fumbled, why the golf swing was off. There are no mysteries left. Sports are bigger than ever. Athletes are richer than ever. But it’s hard to be larger than life these days.

If Babe Ruth called his shot in a World Series today, we’d hear the press conference, we’d see it 500 times on SportsCenter, we’d have caught him on the Jim Rome Show, we’d have heard what the PTI guys had to say about it – and we’d be sick of it.

It’s not right to say that sports are less interesting because of all the changes … there has never been a better time to be a sports fan in so many ways. But we did lose something along the way. That’s the price of progress. The clouds smell of gasoline, and all that. There’s no room now for tall tales in our games. Old-time baseball fans and scouts always telling grand stories about old-time ballplayers – they will say “Oh, you should have seen Mickey Mantle before he hurt his knees; he ran so fast he could bunt for doubles.” They will say: “Before Pete Reiser started running into walls, he could play leftfield and centerfield at the same time.” They will say, “There was nobody quite like Monte Irvin before he went to war; he used to hit for the cycle three times a week.” Negro Leagues catcher Biz Mackey used to say he kept a raw steak inside his catcher’s mitt to soften the beating his hand would take. He said Satchel Paige threw so hard, by the end of the game that steak had become hamburger.

Bo Jackson was the last folk hero. He only hit .250 in the big leagues, and he didn’t walk much. He only played parts of four seasons in the NFL, and he never gained 1,000 yards rushing. But none of that has anything to do with who Bo Jackson was. Bo broke a bat over his head after striking out. Bo threw a ball from left field to first base on the fly to double-up Hall of Fame catcher Carlton Fisk. Bo really did just show up for football games in October and transform into the most sensational running back the game has ever seen. He really did … well he really did a lot of stuff.

* * *

The Georgia crowd hooted and taunted Bo Jackson as he stood in the batter’s box, looking all out of place. You have to understand that there is plenty of bad blood between the kids at Georgia and the kids at Auburn. They are not rivals, exactly – Auburn already has Alabama and/or Tennessee, Georgia already has Florida and/or Georgia Tech. But one good thing about Southern football schools – the fans have plenty of animosity to spread around, and there’s more passion in Georgia-Auburn than there is in most rivalries across America.

“Wrong field, Bo!” a few Georgia fans taunted … this was the perfect time and place to get in a few shots at Bo. Nobody messed with Bo on the football field. He was a phenomenon there – he was bigger, stronger, faster than anyone. He averaged 7.7 yards per carry as a sophomore, and later, in his Heisman Trophy senior season, he once gained 100-plus yards in a game when he had two broken ribs. Georgia fans may not like Auburn any more than Auburn fans like Georgia – but both sides respect football greatness when they see it.

But this was Bo on the baseball field, and that was a different thing. The fans hooted and mocked – a couple had brought footballs they waved. Bo never looked particularly at ease in the batter’s box; his batting stance was always a jangle of nerves. The first pitch, Bo swung and missed by three feet, and that taunting went up another level, laughter mixed in, poor Bo, poor misplaced Bo, what was he doing out there?

Bo Jackson hit the next pitch 550 feet.

Actually, nobody knows exactly how far Bo hit it – they only know it was the longest ball ever hit at the University of Georgia. It might have been 500 feet, it might have been 4000 feet, but the distance didn’t matter. Bo Jackson hit the longest home run any of those kids had ever seen.

And there was silence. Eerie, stunned, pitch silence. Bo ran around the bases in that silence. By the time he reached third base, the college had snapped out of their state of shock and they finally reacted. They started cheering and bowing to Bo Jackson.

* * *

First time I ever saw Bo Jackson was in 1985 in a makeshift ballpark in Charlotte, N.C. He had just started his pro baseball career, and even then it seemed a bit surreal. Bo had won the Heisman Trophy at Auburn, of course. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers picked him No. 1 overall, sent a limo to pick him up and drive him to Canton, where sculptors were already working on his Pro Football Hall of Fame bust.

Instead, he signed to play baseball with the Royals.

The signing of Bo had been a long process, and one of the great scouting jobs in baseball history. Kenny Gonzales of the Royals would stay at the Ramada Inn in Bessemer, Ala., where Bo’s mother, Florence, worked. And they would have coffee every time he was in town. They became close friends. He told her that his dream would be for Bo Jackson to someday play baseball with the Royals. She told him that her dream would be for Bo to be the first in the family to get a college degree. They understood each other.

Tampa Bay drafted Bo and flew him to town on a private jet, that made him ineligible to play baseball his senior season at Auburn. Jackson never forgave the Buccaneers for that blunder. He told his mother that he was seriously thinking about playing Major League Baseball if he was drafted by the right team. Florence mentioned that to Kenny Gonzales. When the Royals drafted Bo Jackson in the fourth round, nobody around baseball really took it all that seriously. Bo seemed untouchable.

But he signed with the Royals. And on the day he signed, Florence was so happy she hugged Kenny Gonzalez and lifted him off the ground.

“That day we signed Bo was one of my greatest days in professional baseball,” says Art Stewart, now the Royals’ Senior Advisor to the General Manager. “There was just nobody like this guy.”

In the moments after Bo signed, he asked if he could take batting practice. Bo had not swung a bat in months. He hit the first pitch he saw off the base of the crown scoreboard in centerfield. It had to fly 450 feet. Avron Fogelman, who co-owned the Royals, shouted: “Get me that baseball.” Bo promptly hit the second ball he saw to almost the exact same spot, off the base of the scoreboard.

“Get me that ball too,” Fogelman said.

It was surreal. George Brett and Frank White stood by the batting cage with their mouths open, like children watching fireworks. That was the day that Buck O’Neil heard the sound – a crack of the bat he only heard three times in his life. The first time he heard it was as a boy, when he watched Babe Ruth take batting practice. The second time was as a player in the Negro Leagues, and the player was Josh Gibson. The third time was Bo that first day in Kansas City.

“You had to rub your eyes,” Art Stewart said. “Because you couldn’t believe what you were seeing.”

A short while later Bo was playing for the Memphis Chicks in that makeshift little park called Crockett Park in Charlotte. The original Crockett Park had burned to the ground, so this was a park of metal bleachers. The clubhouses were trailers. Bo muscled a long fly ball over the Krispy Kreme sign in left-field. “That was Bo Jackson’s first professional home run,” the public address announcer said. Everybody cheered. And then someone pointed and shouted, “He broke his bat.”

Yes, kids. Bo Jackson broke his bat on his first professional home run.

That’s the kind of guy we’re talking about here.

* * *

Bo Jackson was always grouchily unimpressed with himself. Michael Jordan was asked about Bo, and he offered up one of the best quotes ever spoken about sports and the elusive qualities of genius. “Neither of us is very easily amazed,” Jordan told Newsweek. “You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.”

This is the quality, I think, that is vastly underrated – it’s rare for someone to have that sort of titanic faith in themselves. I’ve always been amazed by the story of Kurt Warner, who went from stocker at Hy-Vee to Super Bowl MVP – not so much because of what he did on the field, but because when he was stacking cans of Del Monte corn and lining up bags of Funyons, he somehow still saw himself as an NFL quarterback. That absolutely amazes me. I’ve worked a lot of bad jobs in my life – I moved boxes in a factory, I worked as a telemarketer trying to sell family portraits, I bussed tables, I mowed lawns, I sold newspapers door to door, I worked 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. as a newspaper agate clerk, I sold furniture on the side of the road, I worked for a mortgage company where my job was to call delinquent customers – but my least favorite job by far was the summer I worked at a Kroger. I can’t tell you exactly why – it wasn’t necessarily harder than those other jobs, certainly it was easier than the factory work – but in that store I could barely breathe, the clock would not budge, and every dream I ever had about myself faded into oblivion. I could have had Elway’s arm, Marino’s release, Tarkenton’s legs, Unitas’ brain and Montana’s touch and I feel quite sure that three months working in a Supermarket would have broken me.

Bo Jackson simply believed he could do anything. He was an athletic marvel, of course, a two-time high school decathlon champ, a world class sprinter who weighed 225 pounds, a power-hitter with an astonishingly strong arm. But it was his almost childlike insistence that he could do anything that struck you. When Bo Jackson was called up to the big leagues that September after only 53 minor-league games, he shrugged. When he had his first four-hit game in only his fifth game, he announced, “It’s just another night.” Two days after that, he faced Seattle’s Mike Moore, a power pitcher who would win 161 games in the big leagues. Before the game, Bo went over to Willie Wilson’s bats, liked the feel of one, and announced, “This is mine.”

With Willie’s bat, Bo Jackson hit a 475-foot blast to left-center. It was the longest home run ever hit at Royals Stadium.

Yes, kids. Bo Jackson’s first Major League home run flew 475 feet.

“It felt good,” Bo said, “But it can only last a couple of minutes. Everybody was oohing and ahhing and giving the high fives. You know the usual stuff that goes on.”

You know. The usual stuff. Bo Jackson could have taken off and started flying, and it would not have surprised him.

‘There’s something about Bo,” Royals general manager John Schuerholz said then. “Call it mystical or magical.”

* * *

The run everyone seems to remember from the Monday Night Football Game in 1987 against Seattle was the time when he ran through Brian Bosworth. And sure, that was impressive and, more to the point, really enjoyable to watch. Bosworth had been such an uncontrollable force in college, a caged tiger, and then Bo plowed him over and the next time anyone saw him the Boz he was out of football, playing bit roles in movies and he weighed like 123 pounds.

“This guy is somebody you don’t have an answer for,” the Boz would say.

But it’s the other run that I remember better, the 91-yard run, and the reason that one stands out so much is that it began as just another play, a plain old run left, the kind of play you will see 10 times in every single game. After a lifetime of watching football, you grow accustomed to the game, and you anticipate what’s going to happen before it happens. How many times have you seen a running back go left? And what happens – the running back gains a few yards and gets pushed out of bounds. Or a defensive end runs him down. Or the running back cuts back toward the middle to gain a few extra yards. Maybe you will even see some sort of spectacular move and a long run.

But I never before saw what Bo Jackson did that night, and I never saw it again. He got the ball started outside and then he simply exploded into another gear – he just ran by everybody. It was utterly impossible. Four or five defensive players had angles on him, and none of them even came close to touching him. It was something you see in high school every so often, something you might see in college when a once-in-a-lifetime talent comes along. But you NEVER see that in the NFL.

“I was standing on the sideline, and he was going in there was a WHOOSH of wind,” Seahawks receiver Steve Largent would say.

Bo averaged 5.4 yards per carry in his short NFL career. That’s a record. He had two rushed of 90-plus yards – only one other played did that. He had that amazing 35-yard run against Denver when he caught a pitch-right, reversed field, ran left, absolutely obliterated a defensive back, ran by several others and dove into the end zone. There was the time against Washington when he plowed over two defensive players at the same time. And so on.

“We would watch hours and hours of video on him,” former Chiefs coach Marty Schottenheimer said. “And then we would just stop. There was no way to defend him.”

* * *

Nobody had any idea what to make of Bo Jackson the baseball player. On the one hand, he really didn’t know how to play baseball. He was striking out practically every other at-bat. Fly balls were an adventure. He needed time to learn … but there was no time. He was playing football. He was a Nike icon – Bo Knows commercials were the hottest thing in sports. He was too big a star to ride minor league busses.

“I think if Bo had been able to stay healthy and been given time to learn the game, he would have been a Hall of Famer,” says Allard Baird, who was working as a scout for the Royals at the time. “I have no doubt in my mind about that. He had everything you could want in a player. Everything. But that just wasn’t Bo’s destiny.”

No, instead, Bo’s destiny was to become a comic book hero.

September 2, 1986: Bo’s first game. His first at-bat was against Hall of Famer Steve Carlton. He hit a ground ball to second base, and Tim Hulett picked it up and threw to first – only Bo was already past the bag.

“Oh man, nothing that big should move that fast,” said Royals Hall of Famer and former hitting coach John Mayberry.

April 14, 1987: Bo Jackson faced Detroit’s Nate Snell with the bases loaded. In spring training that year, Snell had forced Bo to pop out with the bases loaded, and Bo threw his bat and glared at Snell. “Bo was the kind of guy who wanted to prove you wrong,” Frank White says. “If you told him he couldn’t do something, he would do it.”

Snell threw a fastball, and Bo crushed it. Grand slam. It was his fourth hit of the day, his second homer, seventh RBI. He also stole a base. When the bat boy picked up the bat, he realized something. Bo had broken his bat on the homer again.

July 29, 1988: Bo Jackson was facing Baltimore’s Jeff Ballard. He called timeout and stepped out of the box. He adjusted his batting glove when he realized that the umpire did not actually grant his timeout, and Ballard was throwing the ball. Jackson jumped back into the box, swung that bat and … yeah. He hit a home run.

“Most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” says Bob Schaeffer, Kansas City’s first-base coach at the time.

May 15, 1989: Legendary baseball writer Peter Gammons was in Minnesota to write a Sports Illustrated cover story about Jackson, so he watched Bo take batting practice. It was a typical Bo hitting session – he cracked rockets all over the field. Then it was time for his last swing. Bo jumped into the cage and hit left-handed.

He hit a titanic 450-foot shot off the Hardware Hank sign in right field.

Left-handed.

“I got work to do,” Bo said to the other players, whose jaws had dropped. He ran out to the outfield to shag some fly balls.

May 23, 1989: Bo locked into a fastball battle with Nolan Ryan. Up to that point, Nolan and Bo had met six times, and Bo had struck out six times. This time, Nolan kept pumping 100 mph fastballs and Bo kept fouling them off. Ryan was not going to try a curveball – this was bigger than a simple baseball game. This was man-to-man, power vs. power, clash of the titans. The previous time they met, Ryan had blown a final fastball by Bo – but Bo’s swing was so violent and so powerful that afterward. He was about to find out. Ryan threw one last fastball. Bo connected. Bo hit the ball 461 feet, the longest ever homer at Arlington Stadium.

“They better get a new tape measure,” Bo said.

July 11, 1989: All-Star Game in Anaheim. Bo Jackson led off with a monstrous 448-foot home run to straightaway center field – it cleared two fences out there.

“Unbelievable,” Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn would say.

“I got a piece of it,” Bo would say.

The next inning, he beat out a double play grounder by running to first in 3.81 seconds – one of the fastest times ever clocked for a right-handed hitter. He stole second base (becoming only the second player to hit a homer and steal a base in an All-Star Game, with Willie Mays). He scored the game-winning run. He was named MVP.

July 11, 1990: Bo ran up the outfield wall. Literally. He chased down a fly ball and caught it about four steps in front of the fence. He put his right foot on the wall, then his left, then his right – until he was seven feet off the ground and sideways. For a guy who didn’t want to be seen as a superhero, he sure kept doing superhero things.

“What do you think of Bo Jackson?” a reporter asked, well, Bo Jackson.

“I’ve known this guy for years,” Bo said of Bo. “And nothing he does fazes me.”

* * *

No story on Bo would be complete without a mention of Tecmo Super Bo. Jackson says people, even now, come up to him to talk about how good his namesake was in that classic game Tecmo Super Bowl. He isn’t especially thrilled to talk about it.

He was that good. I once played a season with those Raiders despite my lifelong hatred of the Raiders. That was a tough team to play with. Jay Schroeder was the quarterback, and he stunk. The defense was so bad that your only hope was to control Howie Long and drop him back into coverage.

But Tecmo Bo was unstoppable. Those of you who played the game (and it seems now that every single person over 35 played Tecmo) will recall that before each game you could see what condition players were in. If a player was in BAD condition, he would be entirely useless. Except Bo – even in BAD condition Bo was still good for 150 to 200 yards rushing (hey, he did gain 100 yards in college with two broken ribs). But Bo in GOOD condition was like a joke – he was like an error in the program. He was good for an 80-yard run every single time he touched the ball.

If you want to see something entertaining, check out this YouTube video which shows Bo Jackson running out an entire quarter with one run. There's also a YouTube which shows Bo scoring 10 touchdowns. It was like that.

* * *

There are so many more Bo baseball moments. One coach says he saw Bo Jackson swing a bat so hard, he actually broke it even though he missed the ball. Once, he ran over catcher Rick Dempsey. Dempsey broke his thumb but said: “I held him to fewer yards than Brian Bosworth,” Dempsey said.

There was the time when Bo faced Roger Clemens, who had struck him out four straight times. “I’m going to get him this time,” Bo said. He smashed a home run over the left field fence.

And there was “The Throw.” That deserves its own section. On June 5, 1989, the Royals were playing at Seattle. It was the 10th inning, score was tied 3-3, Harold Reynolds was on first base when Scott Bradley rifled a double to left field. Reynolds was running on the pitch, so it was obvious he would score the winning run. He rounded third, headed for home and prepared to have his teammates mob him when he saw his teammate Darnell Coles pumping his arms, the baseball signal for “SLIDE!”

Reynolds thought: “Slide? Are you kidding me?”

So, he was about to launch into what he called “a courtesy slide” when he saw that Kansas City catcher Bob Boone had the ball. Boone tagged him. In the clubhouse afterward, Reynolds would watch the play again and again and again, and never figure out exactly what happened.

What happened was this … Bo Jackson had gotten the ball and made a flatfooted throw of 300-feet in the air. It was a perfect strike. It was so impossible, so ridiculous, so absurd that no umpire was on the spot to make the call. Home plate umpire Larry Young finally came to his senses and made a fist – Reynolds was out.

“Now I’ve seen it all,” Scott Bradley would say.

“This is not a normal guy,” George Brett would say.

“That was just a supernatural, unbelievable play,” Seattle manager Jim Lefebve would say. His son, Ryan, had been in the clubhouse and when he saw the hit he ran out to the dugout to enjoy the celebration with the guys. When he got out there, he saw a whole team with the most stunned looks on their faces.

“What happened?” Ryan kept asking everybody. “What happened?”

“I just caught the ball, turned and threw,” Bo grumbled. “End of story. … It’s nothing to brag about. Don’t try to make a big issue out of it.”

* * *

Bo Jackson’s baseball career really ended on a football field in Los Angeles – he hurt his hip in an amazing run against the Cincinnati Bengals. Sometimes, he has wondered what his life and career would have been like had he stepped out of bounds there. Bo did come back and play some more baseball, and he did a few remarkable things after that. But it was different. He wasn’t superhuman anymore.

In four-plus seasons with the Kansas City Royals, Bo Jackson hit only .250. He hit 109 homers and stole 81 bases. He banged 32 homers one season, and stole 27 bases another. He struck out more than 600 times. That was his great flaw. When Bo connected with the ball, he hit .385. He made some great plays in the outfield, but one year he had 12 errors in only 97 games. He played in that one All-Star Game.

The thing is, anyone who ever saw him play will never forget him. Every game he played whether it was football or baseball was like a Harry Houdini performance – you expected to see something you had never seen before. This story began with that July day in 1990 at Yankee Stadium when Bo Jackson hit three home runs. He got hurt, though, and missed more than a month.

He returned on August 11 to face Seattle, but was so unsure about his health that he did not even take batting practice. Then he said, “I can play.” He came up in the second inning. The pitcher was Randy Johnson. First pitch, Bo crushed a long fly ball to center field. The ball splashed in the waterfall to the left of the scoreboard. The Royals estimated the homer flew 450 feet.

“I’m not trying to brag,” Jackson said. “But I actually saw the threads on the ball right before I hit it.”

For once, Bo Jackson had impressed himself. And that might have been his greatest feat of all.

Inside the job ...

I suspect nobody really cares how a sportswriter does his/her job. Well, let me put it a different way – I can’t imagine WHY anybody would care how a sportswriter does his/her job. I remember an editor once telling me that a story of mine stunk (just once?), and I started to explain to him how I’d had a rough day, my computer had gone on the blitz, my girlfriend had dumped me, a coach had refused to talk to me, I couldn’t get a phone line to send my story – I’m sure I went through a thousand excuses – and he then told me the shirt syllogism, which I still think about now (I’m not sure “syllogism” is the right word, but “shirt example” doesn’t sound nearly as good).

The shirt syllogism goes like this: If you buy a shirt with a missing button, you don’t care why. You don’t care that the guy who made the shirt was going through a nasty divorce, or that the person operating the button machine was thinking about his son or daughter in Iraq, or that the shirt factory had just laid off 230 people in order to compete with the factories that outsourced all their button-stitching jobs to Mexico. You may care about each of these things on a macro level or on a human level or not at all, but at that moment when you see the missing button – whether you’re Bill O’Reilly, Al Sharpton, Michael Moore or Ann Coulter – you only care that your damned shirt is missing a button.

Same thing here – nobody cares why a column stinks (or why it’s good, for that matter). Nobody should care. The column stands on its own. But this is a sportswriter’s blog, which means by its very nature nobody should care about anything that I write here. So I thought today it might be kind of fun to break down how I wrote Wednesday’s column about Buddy Bell winning a battle of wits with Tony La Russa. I certainly understand if you skip this one though before you leave you might want to buy a book.

(According to the meter count on this blog, more than 30,000 of you have read this blog over the last month or so. I KNOW all you haven't bought a book. You can't fool me).

Pregame: So this was Wednesday, Cardinals vs. the Royals. The first thing I like to do when I get to the park is think up a few column possibilities. Well, no, actually that's not even slightly true. The first thing I like to do is check my email, get a Diet Coke, trade insults with other sportswriters and maybe play a little computer backgammon. One day recently, a guy rolled FIVE DOUBLES IN A ROW to beat me at the end. I don’t think that had ever happened to me before.

On this day, I did actually think about some early column possibilities. I’m terrible at this. ISome very good columnists come to the park with a strong idea, do the pregame work, have the column done (more or less) by the third inning and adjust as the game goes on. This is always my plan, but I have never in my entire life achieved this goal. I just need to see how the game will play out. So what I usually do is come up three or four ideas, report a little on each of them, throw them all away, come up with new ideas, report those, throw them away, wash, rinse, repeat until it’s the eighth inning and I’m completely blank and I’m staring at a computer screen that looks like this:

By JOE POSNANSKI
The Kansas City Star

ST. LOUIS – aaaaaa , Buddy Bell walks to the m … Alex Gordon is probably the first third baseman to …
Four score and seven years a … 816-555-3925 … look up Scott Spezio’s numbers with runners in scoring … .438 on-base percentage since June 11 … “I’m tired,” he said.

And so on. My computer screen is overrun with scraps of thoughts that are not only entirely useless but meaningless too … I have no idea whose phone number that is or who had the .438 on-base percentage or who said he was tired or anything else. And I have 23 minutes to write a column, which I spend typing in some sort of panic-induced hysteria.

Anyway, on this day, three distinct ideas were in my mind:

1. Zack Greinke seems to be locked in now. I’ve been skeptical about the Royals keeping him in the bullpen – to me a 23-year-old pitcher once considered the best pitching prospect in baseball by many is just too valuable and too important to pitch in the sixth inning, especially for a team trying to get better. That said, there’s no question that this stint in the bullpen has unleashed a lion (gnashed his teeth and bit the recess lady’s breast, how could I forget?). On Wednesday, Greinke faced Albert Pujols and his first fastball registered at 100 mph on the hometown scoreboard. Now, I’m not sure he really hit 100, but he was close enough – he’s been throwing 97 and 98 consistently. He also has a biting curve and, at times, an unhittable slider. We are talking some serious stuff here. And so maybe it would be good to keep him in the pen temporarily, let him get his confidence up, let him wear Superman’s cape for a while, and then when the time’s right the Royals can decide to make him a starter or a closer or something like that.

2. John Buck has become a player. John has always been a good guy – one of those guys you wish would perform well – but he has really struggled at the plate and he’s had his issues behind the plate too. (I will say this for John: Last year he had an absolutely nightmarish Royals staff to catch – it was like Wild Pitches R Us or Buried Sliders Inc. or something. That team had 85 wild pitches – 12 of them were from Mark Redman, and 11 from Ambiorix Burgos which meant that Royals pitchers had the versatility to throw slow wild pitches AND fast ones).

Anyway, there seemed to every reason to believe that Buck would never develop into the player the Royals had hoped for. But then he came into spring training with a new look (long hair), a new swing (he lifts his right foot and drops it just before the pitch is throw as a trigger mechanism) and a determination to prove that he belongs. So far, he’s hit 13 homers in 160 at-bats which doesn’t just lead the team, it’s almost DOUBLE anybody else. And he’s walking more, he’s striking out a little less. He’s also playing more solid defense behind the plate and pitchers say he’s calling a much better game.

“He’s grown up before our eyes,” Buddy Bell said, one of those quotes a columnist writes down happily in the hope that John Buck has a big day. Buck also has had to split time with veteran Jason LaRue, even though LaRue is hitting .173 with five walks. So there was an opinion column possibility here also (Headline: Columnist says “Play Buck More!”)

3. Bob Knight was at the game. Knight is a walking-talking-raging-insulting-sarcastic column every single day of the week. Knight also grew up near my hometown, he was an Indians fan; I could have chatted a little Cleveland baseball with him (I’ve done that before actually), talked about how the game has changed, ask him how he would fix La Russa’s Cardinals – and then I could have written a column before the game even began and been sipping Margaritas by the time Todd Wellemeyer gave up his first run.

That would have been nice and easy. So of course, I didn’t do it. I have some sort of allergic reaction to easy columns, for some reason – even when the easy column is undoubtedly BETTER than the harder one. I think it’s about guilt – hell, my Dad worked in a factory all his life, my brother works in a hot kitchen at a restaurant, and I’m writing little stories about Bo Jackson. It's hard enough to sleep at night. So I didn’t do the easy Bob Knight column.

That’s what I had. So naturally I did nothing at all on any of the three columns. I talked to Buddy Bell for a long time about the old Cleveland Indians days. I did some Internet searching, finished a blog, ate dinner and then it was gametime.

The game: This was Gil Meche vs. Todd Wellemeyer, so you had to figure the Royals had at least a fighting chance. And they jumped out to a 4-1 lead. Lots of column possibilities now. The Royals had a chance to win their fourth series in a row for the first time in four years. I bring this up mainly to share the exchange on the first day of the series between an earnest young reporter and Buddy Bell.

EYR: “So Buddy, the team has a chance to win its fourth consecutive series for the first time since 2003. Is there a lot of excitement about that in the clubhouse?”
BUDDY: Huh?
EYR: Well, the team has a chance to win its fourth consecutive series, I was wondering if the guys were talking about that.
BUDDY: I didn’t know that. I don’t think anybody knew that. We’re just trying to win today’s game.
EYR: Well now that you know that you have a chance to do this, do you have any thoughts about it?
BUDDY: No.

So around the fourth inning or so, I thought about doing a general column on how the Royals have improved – and I think they have improved. They still have numerous problems, of course (one of those being that John Buck has about twice as many home runs as anyone else on the team), but their starting pitching, with Meche and Brian Bannister throwing well, has stabilized a little bit. When Alex Gordon hits (he’s hitting .423 since June 7), the lineup doesn’t seem so punchless. And with Greinke, Joakim Soria and others pitching well in the bullpen, well, we’re talking about hope here, and there seems to be some real hope.

Unfortunately, Gil Meche was not good on this night. He coughed up the lead. He's been terrific almost every time out, but he just seemed to be battling from the first inning on. Soon the score was tied. The “Royals are improving” column sort of loses steam if the Royals actually lose the game. Then, Zack Greinke came in, first and second, two outs. He blew strike three past Adam Kennedy. He ripped through the bottom of the Cardinals lineup 1-2-3 the next inning.

OK so it was Greinke. I would write Greinke. Decision made. This game was going at a Tony La Russa pace, which meant that my first deadline would probably hit before the game even ended. I had about an hour left at this point, so I started to write the Greinke column mentioned above. The next inning he gave up a single, he walked Pujols after a good battle, and then he gave up another single. He got yanked. In came Soria with the bases loaded.

And that Greinke column no longer seemed so interesting.

Soria pitched well. He coaxed a double play grounder right away and then got Chris Duncan to fly out. Maybe Soria could be the column. He’s a Rule V guy, he’s from Mexico, he’s pitched very well for most of the season. The Royals may have something pretty special with him – I think Soria could be a terrific setup man or he could be starter before too long. One baseball guy says that Soria has real potential as a starter but he might have trouble getting through a lineup the third time, but really don’t all pitchers these days have trouble the third time through except maybe Verlander, Haren, Santana and a few others? Trouble is, I considered the Soria column and realized that I really didn’t have 800 words on him.

The game wouldn’t end. The Royals led 6-5 in the eighth, and they had a lousy inning. Tony Peña booted a routine ground ball. Juan Encarnacion hit a double play grounder but second baseman Fernando Cortez threw the pivot throw into the dugout. Eventually the Royals got out of the inning without giving up a run, but now I was on deadline – I mean, right on it – and I had no choice. I threw together some mishmash of things and figured I would clean it up when the game ended, and I had a better idea what was happening.

Then came the the ninth inning. The Royals led 6-5, and Buddy Bell brought in the closer, Octavio Dotel. First batter, Aaron Miles, smacked a single – his ended up with five hits. Albert Pujols then poked a double to right, Miles scored to make it 6-6, and I was at ground zero again.

The column: I decided I would write about the battle of wits in the ninth inning. Hey I had nothing. The Cardinals had a man on second, nobody out, game on the line, and it seems to me this is the one time when managers get to play strategy games. Well, La Russa ALWAYS plays strategy games, which drives me absolutely up the wall. Last week, I saw him bring in the infield against the Royals in the FIRST INNING, and I saw him intentionally walk Mike Sweeney with a man on second and the Cards DOWN FIVE RUNS IN THE SECOND INNING. It's not important but worth point out that Mike Sweeney was hitting like .250 at the time. I’m not saying whether these moves were right or wrong – OK, yeah I am, they were wrong – but more than anything they were moves made by someone who has started to believe all the stuff George Will wrote about him.

Most managers are not like that … they understand the innate powerlessness of the job. I’m joking about La Russa, he understands that too (I think). They can’t call timeouts, can’t give fiery halftime speeches, can’t recruit and can’t talk to their coordinators who are watching the game from high above the field. That last sentence, almost word for word, was the way I started writing the column.

And then I watched the Buddy-Tony chess match. Dotel intentionally walked Scott Spezio. He then got Scott Rolen to hit into a fielder’s choice, though that did move Pujols to third with only one out. So first and third, one out, lefty Chris Duncan coming up and here we go.

Buddy went to the bullpen – he brought in lefty Jimmy Gobble. I understand that later, Cardinals postgame radio would say that Buddy brought in Gobble to try and get La Russa to pinch-hit righty Ryan Ludwick for Duncan, but that’s wrong. La Russa’s bench was down to almost nothing. If La Russa pinch hits Ludwick there, he just burns him – Buddy has Gobble intentionally walk Ludwick and the next batter is lefty Skip Schumacher. No way there's a pinch-hitter there.

So La Russa had to keep Duncan in the game. It was a nice move by Buddy there – he’s got Duncan stapled to the plate against a lefty. Duncan in his career is hitting .206 against lefties, and he does not have a single sacrifice fly (he actually does not have a single sac fly all year against lefties or righties in 200-plus plate appearances). Those odds are about as good as you can get in that situation. Then Buddy did something unusual. He had Gobble intentionally walk Duncan.

I don’t necessarily agree with the move – OK, I don’t agree with it at all – but it did get the wheels turning. La Russa pinch-hit Ludwick, and Buddy went to righty Joel Peralta. I’ll say this for Buddy – by bringing in Gobble to throw the intentional walk rather than having Dotel do it, he gave himself the option to bring in Peralta -- the one thing he did not want was a Gobble-Ludwick matchup (even though Ludwick's career average against lefties is .193). And I’ll tell you what: Peralta came out of the pen throwing some serious fire. He struck out Ludwick. And then he struck out Stinnett. Inning over. Extra innings coming.

Now, to me – Buddy wins that battle. I’m not talking about strategic brilliance here – this wasn’t exactly MacArthur plotting out the Battle of Inchon. But it worked, and that’s the only way you can judge baseball moves. So I now had 45 minutes to my final deadline, and I began writing a column about managers and how helpless they often are how much they embrace the moment when they finally have a chance to leave their imprint on a game. I was waiting for something else to happen, to be quite honest.

But nothing else DID happen. The game went into the 10th, then the 11th, then the 12th, and nobody was scoring, nobody was doing anything interesting, the greatest fans in baseball left, and my deadline passed. They called from the paper: “What do you have?”

What do I have? Nothing. I had written a Bell-La Russa battle of wits column – all the while wishing that I had just talked to Bob Knight before the game. Some days you have to just go with what you’ve got. I hoped there were a couple of decent lines in it, and I sent it in. About 45 minutes later – long after any hope of fixing the column has passed – Buddy Bell had run out of pitchers and was forced to use Friday starter Jorge de la Rosa. On de la Rosa’s fourth pitch, Ryan Ludwick blasted a long home run to win the game for St. Louis in the 14th inning. Ludwick does hit with power against lefties.

The aftermath: The next morning, there were a couple dozen emails from people explaining to me in pretty specific terms why I’m an idiot. These kept coming in throughout the day. This is not uncommon. Hey, I can’t blame them. I had written a column about how Buddy Bell had outflanked Tony La Russa when, in the end, La Russa had won out. What can you do? Like my editor said long ago, nobody cares why the shirt is missing a button.

Random Thoughts From St. Louis ...

I'm talking random here. We might even do a little random blogging during tonight's Royals-Cardinals game, Gil Meche vs. Todd Wellemeyer, with the baseball championship of Missouri on the line.

* * *

We were talking the other day about the glory days of The Sporting News, and we all agreed the downfall began with the end of “Hal the Referee.” I’m probably overselling that a bit since I was the only one who really felt that way. To me The Sporting News WAS Hal Lebovitz answering inane sports questions from readers. Hal, in case you don’t know, was a fabulous long-time sportswriter in Cleveland – he co-wrote a book with Satchel Paige, to give you an idea – but he was probably best known for that Sporting News column where he would try to clear up absurd rules questions from readers.

Dear Hal: “My buddy and I were arguing. Let’s say a player had really, really long legs – or even that he had the sort of superpowers that would allow him to stretch his arms like rubber – and he could touch first base and second base at the same time. Would he be out if you tagged him at that precise moment that he was touching both bags? Is there a rule against touching two bases at once? My buddy says yes, but I think he would be safe. What do you say?” Signed: Confused.

And then Hal, would respond in some gentlemanly fashion:

Dear Confused: Shut up.

My favorite Hal-Lebovitz-type column, though, used to run in the Lake County News Herald in the 1990s. I’ve talked about this before, but I never get tired of it … by that time Hal was pretty old and his mind tended to drift a bit – so his columns mostly read like Larry King mocks. But even at that age, Hal had amazing sources, so in the middle of the most ridiculous sections you would have these enormous breaking news stories and remarkable bits of fortune telling. In 1993, the Hal column would read something like this:

My wife was in the backyard planting petunias and I told her that I think the petunia has to be the prettiest flower. She responded that she always preferred the violet. And I have to admit that violets are nice too … Whatever happened to Joe Lis? He always seemed like a very nice young man to me … Don’t be surprised if Art Modell, strapped for money, moves the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore … I don’t like oatmeal when it’s lumpy. Smooth, sure, I can eat smooth oatmeal. But lumpy oatmeal is the worst. I don’t like lumpy soup either. Soup is not supposed to be lumpy. Maybe if they left the carrots out, it wouldn’t be so lumpy. … The Terminal Tower is still the tallest building in Cleveland, I think, but I remember when the tallest building was John Munneli’s house on Superior. It had to be four stories tall. And that doesn’t include the basement. I’m pretty sure the Munellis had a basement though.… There’s a 9-year-old kid in Akron who I hear might be one heckuva a basketball player. Just remember the name: LeBron James … I once heard a fan tell Rocky Colavito he stunk. That wasn’t nice at all. The Rock was a good person and he deserved better than that. … I hear through the grapevine that the baseball players will strike in 1994, and they will cancel the World Series. I certainly hope it doesn’t come to that, although with the rampant use of performance enhancing drugs, the downsizing of the strike zone, the hardening of bats and the shrinking of ballparks, I would not be a bit surprised if we have some sort of offensive explosion in the game after the players return … Tennessee has three syllables in it. I always thought it had four. … I disagree with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I’m afraid of spiders.

This blog of utterly unrelated things is dedicated to the late, great Hal the Referee.

* * *
Sammy Hagar threw out the first pitch for the Royals-Cardinals game on Tuesday. They are calling him the “Red Rocker.” Apparently this has nothing to do with his political leanings – it goes back to like the 1970s when he wore red all the time. I had never heard that Red Rocker thing before – I must admit not being as up on my Hagarography as I could be; I just knew him as the lead singer when Van Halen started to suck.

Hagar did not perform after throwing out the first pitch, which is a shame because I would like to be able to say I have heard Hagar and REO Speedwagon perform national anthems in the same year. I can tell you this, though: Sammy Hagar cannot throw 55.

* * *

One of the great things about being a sportswriter is that you often get pivotal information before anyone else. For instance, I just got a press release from ESPN with the gripping subject line: “ESPYs Presenters Named.” Well, like you, I’ve been waiting forever to find out who will present at the ESPYs.

I can’t give you all the names because I don’t want to preempt the extensive coverage we will have in the Kansas City Star, but I will tell you the show will be hosted by LeBron James AND Jimmy Kimmel. Heck, just one of those guys would have made the ESPYs a titanic experience. But both! It reminds me of those great 1970s star vehicle movies where they would take Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Bill Holden, Robert Wagner, Faye Dunaway (had to have Faye), O.J. Simpson, and Richard Chamberlain and throw them all in a single movie.

Producer 1: What’s the movie about?
Producer 2: What the hell do I care? We got Newman and McQueen right? Put them in a burning building if you want.
Producer 1: Great idea. Let’s make it a burning skyscraper. Towering Inferno.
Producer 2: Whatever. Is Astaire in?
Producer 1: He’s in. We’ll get a dance number in there somewhere.

* * *

The amazing thing about baseball’s switch to the five-man rotation is that nobody seems exactly sure why it happened. I have asked numerous people who were around the game in the mid-to-late 1970s, when the shift was in motion, and all of them say something like: “You know, I’m not really sure why they did it. I guess they wanted to protect pitchers or something.”

I’m not sure I buy that. Baseball owners have never been the most benevolent people in the world. For years, they fought for the right to own their players in perpetuity, like they were toasters. I’m just trying to imagine a scenario where a general manager walked into the owner’s office and said, “Look, we really don’t want these pitchers to get hurt, so we’re thinking about taking away a few starts from our top pitchers and giving those starts to some schmo we have in the bullpen now. What do you think?”

Bill James says that the five-man rotation as a philosophy really began with the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 1972, the Dodgers used five starters – with Bill Singer getting 25 starts in the fifth spot – and they won 85 games. The next year, Al Downing was the fifth starter, and the Dodgers won 95 games. Even with that, though, the five-man rotation didn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. Singer wasn’t all that good. Downing wasn’t all that good either. And in 1975 the Dodgers went back to four starters.

But by then, the five-man-rotation boulder was rolling downhill. Teams loved the new idea. And the pitcher who started 40 games – which was very much in vogue in the early 1970s – began to disappear:

Number of pitchers who made 40-plus starts:

1970: 6
1971: 2
1972: 6
1973: 12
1974: 9
1975: 3
1976: 2
1977: 2
1978: 3
1979: 1 (Phil Niekro)
1980: 0

There were a couple of managers who rebelled against the five-man rotation. Earl Weaver – as he was with sacrifice bunts, umpires, religion in the clubhouse, tall people – was violently opposed to five-man rotations. If he had seen the inventor of the five-man rotation, he would have punched in the nose.

Whitey Herzog also tried to stick with a four-man rotation in Kansas City. Paul Splittorff, who was a part of that rotation, said that Whitey had a very specific idea about pitching – he didn’t want his pitchers to throw under duress late in games, he thought that’s what caused injuries. He was ahead of his time on that one. So if Whitey saw any of his starters in trouble in the sixth or seventh inning (with the exception of Dennis Leonard, who Herzog believed got stronger as games went along) he would get out the hook. But, Whitey always told his pitchers this: “Don’t worry about me taking you out because you’ll be out there again in three days while the other pitcher will have to wait four.”

Mostly, though, everybody went along with the five-man rotation. I guess it just made sense to people. Pitchers seemed to like it. Managers generally didn’t fight over it. And over time, the five-man became engrained in the baseball culture. Few in baseball seemed to ask the important question which was: Why in the hell are we doing this? Rany Jazayerli did an involved study of the four-man rotation a few years ago, and you can still find that work on Baseball Prospectus. I’ll point out one thing he wrote:

He found evidence that seems to conclude that pitchers throwing on three days rest pitched slightly BETTER than if they were throwing on four days rest. He looked at 160 starters from 1978-2001 who had made at least eight starts in a season on three days resr and at least eight starts on four days rest. He found that those same pitchers on three days rest had a 3.57 ERA. On four days rest, their ERA was 3.85.

That might mean something. After all, you don’t need pitchers on three days rest to be BETTER to have the four-man rotation make sense. There are so many other advantages. With a four-man rotation, you are (1) semi-eliminating the fifth starter, who, almost without exception, sucks; (2) opening up a roster spot; (3) getting your top pitcher out there more often, which has to be a good thing; (4) getting more for your money.

No, you don’t need pitchers to throw better on three-days rest … you just don’t want them to throw significantly worse or get hurt significantly more often. Rany says he's studied this more than anybody and there is absolutely no evidence anyone has seen that shows a pitcher throws better or stays healthier on four days rest.

Bill James says this: “My understanding of what happened is that baseball, between 1973 and 1988, did two things in an effort to keep pitchers healthier. First, they switched from a four-man to a five-man rotation. Second, they imposed pitch limits. … essentially, in modern baseball, a 100-pitch limit, although when it started in the early 1980s it was more like 140. … It is my opinion that of these two efforts, at least ONE was clearly redundant.”

So it seems obvious that SOMEONE should at least try to go back to the four-man rotation. Then again, if it’s so obvious why hasn’t someone done it in the last decade or so? Well, I think there are several reasons, all of them having to do with difficulties of breaking away from the pack. The five-man rotation is now in baseball’s blood. An organization serious about going to a four-man rotation would need to completely shift its thinking – from scouting to player development to free-agent signing. There might be issues with the union and agents. Some pitchers might rebel against the idea.

I think the biggest problem, though, would be sticking with it even after something goes wrong. Bill James wrote a terrific essay about how many people in 1973 had determined that the DH would completely change the landscape on 20-game winners. That year, 12 different pitchers in American League won 20 games. In the National League, though, without the DH, only one pitcher won 20 (Who was that pitcher? That’s our AFLAC trivia question. AFLAC. Ask about it at work).

So, Bill says that sportswriters all over the place wrote about how the DH was a travesty, it was wrecking the tender balance between pitcher and hitter, it was creating all these faux 20-game winners in the American League, stats would be forever ruined, nobody would be able to compare pitchers of different generations, birds would fly backward, people would turn to stone, etc. Well, of course, things settled down, and while there have been a few more 20-game winners in the AL than the NL, it hasn’t exactly brought baseball as an establishment to its knees. And it probably has little to do with the DH anyway.

The point is, that whenever something goes haywire with the team that tries the four-man rotation, people will blame it on the four-man rotation. If that team goes into a hitting slump, people will blame that on the rotation. If that team finds out that one of its players allegedly threatened to kill his wife and kids, people will blame that on the rotation. If that team has two fights in the dugout in the same month, people will blame that on the rotation too.

And when a pitcher in a four-man rotation gets hurt (as he will), the uproar and indignation will crash down like Superfly Snuka off the top rope (yes a wrestling reference for you grappling fans – we here at TSOB care about all our readers). People will flip out. And it won’t matter if the general manager says, “You know, pitchers got hurt all the time in the five-man rotation too.” It won’t matter if you can show statistics that prove conclusively that pitchers on a four-man rotation stay as healthy or healthier. It just won’t matter. The heat will turn up white hot, and I don’t think many organizations in sports can handle that sort of heat.

All that said, I still think a team should try it. I think the Royals are the perfect team to try it. They’ve been losing. Their pitching has been abominable. They’ve been getting ripped. What do they have to lose?

* * *

Oh, we owe you an answer to our AFLAC trivia question. I wonder if one day I’m going to come home and find a check from AFLAC for the mentions I give them in this blog. I’m also happy to mention Alcoa for their “Fantastic Finishes” commercials. I loved those.

Anyway, the only NL pitcher to win 20 games in 1973 was Ron Bryant, who won 24 with the San Francisco Giants that year. What a strange career – Bryant had never won more than 12 games in a season. Then he won 24. The very next year, he won three games, then 0, then he was out of baseball. Has any other pitcher ever been utterly nondescript, won 24 games in a season, then disappeared again?

Well, it’s actually happened a few times, though not quite to the Ron Bryant level:

-- Steve Stone. From my Cleveland suburb – South Euclid, OH – he’d batted around for a while, won 15 games in a season once, and then in 1980, blammo, he won 25 games and a Cy Young (Mike Norris was probably the deserving choice that year; Goose and Quiz were in the mix also) The next year, Stoney won four and was out of baseball.

-- Tony Cloninger. He won 19 in 1964 with a slightly below league average ERA, and then in 1965 he won 24 and threw 279 innings. He only won double digits twice more in his career.

-- LaMarr Hoyt. He doesn’t exactly fit in here – he won 72 games from 1982-85 – but he’s worth mentioning again because he was a terrible Cy Young winner in 1983 when he went 24-10 with a 3.66 ERA. Dan Quisenberry was clearly the right choice then, and I think people would remember and respect Quiz’s career more had he won the Cy Young Award he deserved.

-- Bobby Shantz. He won 24 games and the league MVP in 1952 at the age of 26. Injuries hit then, he won only five games in 1953, and though he poked around for another 11 years (mostly in the bullpen) he was never the same.

* * *

I was arguing with a friend about whether or not Bob Barker is a first-ballot television Hall of Famer. Well, yes, I’m using the word “arguing” loosely here because my friend could not care less about Bob Barker, and the argument was decidedly one-sided.

Me: Bob Barker is definitely a first-ballot TV Hall of Famer.
Friend: …
Me: I mean, you can’t deny him. The guy has hosted Price is Right for 35 years. I mean, he has won 19 Emmy awards.
Friend: …
Me: Plus, it isn’t just The Price is Right. He did Truth or Consequences for years. Remember that show?
Friend: …
Me: He did have those six sexual harassment charges. I’m not sure what that does to his case … do you think there should be a character clause in the TV Hall of Fame bylaws?
Operator: If you would like to make a call, please hang up and try again.

Anyway, I think Bob Barker is not only a first-ballot Hall of Famer, I’m thinking that he’s a candidate to be an original class Hall of Famer. If you could only have five original class members, like in baseball, I might nominate:

1. Lucille Ball
2. Walter Cronkite
3. Bill Cosby
4. Homer Simpson
5. Jerry Seinfeld

Of course then, you’re leaving out Mary Tyler Moore, Rod Serling, Carroll O’Connor, Milton Berle, Alan Alda, Jim McKay, Bob Newhart, 25 different Saturday Night Live performers, Flip Wilson, Shirley Jones, James Arness, Sid Caesar, Andy Griffith, Mike Wallace, Howard Cosell and a lot of others. It’s not an easy ballot. That’s why Bob Barker just missed being one of the original five. But he’s still a first-ballot guy.

* * *

OK, this is a little old, but did you see what happened during the Missouri-Louisville baseball game a couple of weeks ago? Missouri was leading the game in the eighth inning when Louisville third baseman Chris Dominguez, a freshman, hit a two-run homer. Big home run. Here's the thing, Dominguez started to run backward around the bases. He jumped around. He taunted Missouri players as he ran. He pointed at the Missouri bench.

Now, maybe this makes me a bad person ... but you can't let that guy make it around the bases, right? I mean, you can't just let some guy show up your pitcher, your team, you school, everybody like that. I'm not saying you try to hurt him or anything like that -- I'm sure Chris just got caught up in the moment -- but there are rules in baseball, and then there are RULES in baseball, capital letters. You can't let a guy get away with running backward around the bases after he hit a big homer against you. Sorry. You just can't.

Well, it gets worse. The next day, Missouri and Louisville played again, with the winner going to the regional. Dominguez came up in the first inning with the bases loaded, and the fans booed him hard. Missouri pitched to him -- it's understandable, the bases were loaded -- and he hit a grand slam. Louisville scored eight runs in that first inning.

It gets worse from there. Dominguez came up in the third and again in the fourth. Missouri pitchers did not hit him or (as far as I know) knock him down either time. I don't get it. What's worse, Dominguez hit a double, and then he hit ANOTHER home run. Hey, I appreciate that this is college, and you don't want to teach college kids to take revenge or be violent or whatever. Hey, I'm a pacifist. But I'm sorry, to me, that guy had to go down.

Of course, like always, I'm willing to be corrected.

Helton, Bird Attacks and Icons Redux

Here we go, lots of thoughts, live from St. Louis:

FIRST, I am aware that someone hijacked this blog for a day and, posing as the author, predicted that Todd Helton would hit .400. He was up to .361 at one point, and looking good, but he’s been cold the last couple of weeks and is now down to .322. Some of you more observant mathematicians out there might notice that .322 is actually quite a bit less than .400.

Am I giving up on the prediction? Hell no. I mean, if I really cared at all about my dignity, I never would have made such a ridiculous prediction to begin with. Plus I will point out that, Helton has often been a July and August hitter. In 2000, he had a 27-game stretch where he had 48 hits in 98 at-bats (.490 batting average). He does that now, he’s up at what, .373 or so and … OK, yeah, that’s still quite a bit less than .400, isn’t it?

SECOND, when I mow my lawn, birds attack me. Well, they don’t actually attack me, but they fly around me and swoop down near me like kamikaze jet fighters. Does anyone else out there have this issue? Is this some sort of Hitchcock thing?

I first thought that the birds were protecting some sort of nest, which made me feel a bit of reluctant admiration for them. But as time has gone on it has become obvious that there’s no nest. They are flying around me waiting for grubs/moths/bugs/whatever-the-hell-birds-eat to hop out of the grass so they can swoop down and have breakfast. In other words, I live in the neighborhood with the freaking laziest birds on Planet Earth. I’m imagining two conversations going on simultaneously:

My wife: “Are you going to mow the lawn?”
Me (looking outside): “It might rain.”
My wife: “There aren’t any clouds out.”
Me (looking outside): “Looks kind of hot out there.”
My wife: “So you’re not going to mow the lawn?”
Me: “Well, as soon as I finish this blog.”
My wife: “You’re not doing one of those stupid 5,000 word blogs are you?”
Me: “Well, some people care about my views about Todd Helton.”
My wife: “Go mow the lawn.”

And at the same time:

Female bird: “You gonna get some food?”
Male bird (looking at my lawn): “That guy’s not mowing yet.”
Female bird: “So?”
Male bird (looking at my lawn): “When he mows the food just pops up to me.”
Female bird: “I hope that guy gets a BB Gun.”

THIRD, we owe you a baseball icon update. Funny thing, I posted that icon blog literally minutes before I went to do a book signing (yes, this is still supposedly a book promotion blog – have you bought The Soul of Baseball? Nice review in The Washington Post over the weekend and a story in the Omaha newspaper. You don't care at all, do you?). So I posted that blog, got in my car, drove to the bookstore (about 20-minute drive), there was a group of people waiting, I said a few words, and one of the first guys in line walked up with a book and said: “Eddie Mathews.”

I said, “Excuse me?”

He said: “Eddie Mathews. He’s the Milwaukee icon. Not Hank Aaron.”

He had already read the thing. That’s blog dedication.

Here’s the updated list:

Arizona: Still nobody. The job is open for Brandon Webb.

Atlanta: I chose Dale Murphy, and I really did not get much negative feedback on that. There are still a lot of Murphy fans out there, and a whole new generation of kids are learning about him as the cranky old guy who complains about steroids every other day. ... A couple of Atlanta people said the Braves' icon should be Hank Aaron, and I’m OK with that too, especially because (not to give anything away) it appears Henry might lose the job in Milwaukee. One person nominated Phil Niekro, an outstanding choice. But I think Murphy still plays.

Baltimore: Cal Ripken Jr. still edges out Brooks Robinson. You know, Baltimore is really an iconic town – you have those two, John Unitas, Babe Ruth, Edgar Allen Poe, H.L. Mencken, all those drug dealers on “The Wire.” I’ve always loved Baltimore; I used to hope that I would someday write a sports column there. And then, the Browns became the Ravens … anyway, the Orioles don’t seem too much fun to write about these days.

Boston: I think it’s still Ted Williams, though there was a vote for Johnny Pesky, and also one for Yaz. There were quite a few Boston folks who took issue with my overall Boston icon list as well – most of them saying it was absurd to put Larry Bird ahead of Jack Kennedy. Plus, I left Red Auerbach off my list, which was a pretty bad oversight.

I was going to put an updated list here, but I think I’ll wait for Sports Guy to weigh in.

Chicago Cubs: I picked Ernie Banks. There were those who pushed a bit for Ron Santo. Hey, I’m not from Chicago. Santo’s a wonderful guy, he was an outstanding player, he’s stayed prominent in the community, he’s been a broadcaster, he’s dedicated himself to charities, and he should be in the Hall of Fame as far as I’m concerned. If you Chicagoans want him as your icon, I fully respect that. But to me, if you have Ernie Banks, you might want to use him.

I will offer one other Cubs thought: I think the Cubs should do a little something special this year to honor Buck O’Neil. I appreciate that I’m coming at this from a pretty biased position … but look at all Buck did for the Cubs. He signed Ernie Banks and Lou Brock (I realize that Banks’ signing is a bone of contention among some – Buck was not officially working for the Cubs when Banks signed – but Banks says Buck signed him, and that’s good enough for me). He also signed Joe Carter (who led to Rick Sutcliffe) and Lee Smith (who had five 30-save seasons and led to Calvin Schiraldi, which admittedly is not as good). He talked Billy Williams into coming back to baseball after he quit. He was the first African American coach in baseball 45 years ago for the Cubs. I’m not saying they should rename Wrigley Field for him. But they might have a Buck O’Neil Day or something like that.

Chicago White Sox: Nobody like my Hawk Harrelson suggestion. That speaks well for the good people of Chicago. He gone. Ozzie Guillen, Frank Thomas and Nellie Fox were all mentioned, and again, I am unwilling to argue with White Sox fans about their team. I think Nellie Fox seems like the best choice. Frank Thomas just seems to have kind of a checkered Chicago career. And Guillen, well, I like the guy. I really do, even if he ripped me in the papers once. In fact, I like him MORE because he ripped me in the papers once. I think he’s very entertaining. I really do. I just like my icons to be a little less, uh, insane?

Cincinnati Reds. I chose Pete Rose, and I just don’t think this one’s negotiable. Some players so tower over a town and a team that they are icons whether you like it or not. I know many Reds fans would prefer to have Johnny Bench as the team icon or Joe Morgan or Tony Perez or Big Klu or the guy who smokes the cigar on the logo for Montgomery Inn Ribs (good ribs, folks … good ribs).

But I think for better and worse, Pete’s the guy. He IS Cincinnati. He’s just too big to deny.

(A Reds fan and brilliant reader has already pointed out the obvious logical conundrum of saying that on the one hand I'm open to fans choosing their own icon and on the other hand trying to saddle Cincinnati fans with the cretin that is Pete Rose. I suppose I feel a bit more qualified because I lived in Cincinnati for three years. And also Pete GREW UP in Cincinnati, doubling his icon-power. But as usual the reader is right, and while I think most Cinti folks would vote Rose, I certainly could not blame anyone for choosing Bench, Morgan, Klu or Larkin).

Cleveland Indians: Nobody really argued with my Bob Feller choice, but I don’t think anyone feels all that great about it either. Feller’s a mixed bag.

I was asking a buddy in Cleveland how close LeBron James is to cashing in as Cleveland’s all-time icon – sports or non-sports (surpassing Feller, Jim Brown, Bernie Kosar, Wes Craven, Harvey Pekar, Drew Carey – of course – Alan Freed, Paul Newman, Nine Inch Nails, Jim Lovell, Jesse Owens, Don King, John Rockefeller, Tom Hanks – sort of -- the guy who kidnapped Patty Hearst, the doctor who inspired “The Fugitive,” Tim Conway, Phil Donahue, Joe Walsh, Eric Carmen …)

My buddy thinks that if LeBron takes the Cavs to a championship and a couple more Finals, he will be that guy. I agree. Of course, it would help if more than 23 people watched the NBA Finals.

Colorado Rockies: I said nobody. And nobody sent in any suggestions. If Todd Helton hits .400, the job’s his.

Detroit Tigers: I chose Kaline. My buddy Michael Rosenberg from the Detroit Free Press sent me this email …

“Kaline is definitely No. 1.

If you could combine Tram and Whitaker, they would be No. 2. Unless you count Ernie Harwell. Willie Horton is actually up there because he tried to save the city in 1967. (Unfortunately he failed and nobody has tried since.)

For all sports, I'd put Joe Louis and Yzerman up there with Kaline. Louis is probably No. 1. Dumars is actually on the list because of his success as an executive.

I don't hear many people talk about Ty Cobb in any way, probably because nobody who is alive ever saw him play and then you have to get into the whole "yes he was a bigot who appears to have murdered a guy, but ..." conversation, and that can get awkward. They don't talk about Hank Greenberg, either, which brings up a question I have never thought of until now: what did Ty Cobb think of Hank Greenberg? I'll have to look into that.”

I must admit being surprised that Michael did not mention Isiah or Barry Sanders.

Florida Marlins: I say nobody yet. Miguel Cabrera has a chance.

Houston Astros: I chose Craig Biggio and no one contradicted that. A couple of people want Bagwell and Biggio as an exacta, and that’s legit.

Kansas City Royals: I chose George Brett, and heard from several people around town who thought Frank White deserved higher status because he grew up in KC. I love Frank … but I don’t see it. Every big town has room enough for more than one icon, and Frank is on Kansas City’s Mount Rushmore. But I think if you’re picking one, you pick George.

I also saw the comment from someone who complained that I put Buck O’Neil too low on my icon list. I mention this because I would say it’s the first time in my life that someone has charged me with UNDERRATING Buck O’Neil.

Los Angeles Angels at Whatever: Several people are ready to give the mantle to Tim Salmon, who played all 14 years with Anaheim. Hey if you Angels’ fans want Salmon, I have no problem with that. I think you could argue that Salmon is the most underrated player in baseball history. Did you know the guy NEVER played in an All-Star Game? I mean that’s mind boggling. EVERYBODY makes the All-Star Game. Ken Harvey was an All-Star. Mark Redman was an All-Star. Jose Rosado was a two-time All-Star. And these are just Royals.

I’m not going to take the time to go player by player, but at a glance, Tim Salmon appears to have by far more career homers (299) than any non-All-Star ever.

Los Angeles Dodgers: We’ll stick with Sandy Koufax, though Vin Scully’s an excellent choice. My favorite Scullyism on Game of the Week would be when he would do his “Deuces wild” routine. He would say, “Deuces are wild, two balls, two strikes, two outs here in the second inning.” But often he would go a few steps further – he would just go deuce crazy – “Deuces wild here, two balls, two strikes, two men out, two on base, there are two dogs running around outside the stadium, two very pretty young ladies sipping iced tea down the first base line, two chins on Tigers manager Sparky Anderson, two corns on my left foot and two radio producers telling me that John Wockenfuss has struck out to end the inning.”

A friend says that his favorite Scully moment came during a football game when he said, “Handoff to Ken Willard, and he runs into a team photo of the Los Angeles Rams.” A version of this was later used in “Brian’s Song” and my buddy insists it came first from Scully. The best part, though, is that many years later my friend saw Scully and said, “Do you remember when you said that about Ken Willard running into the team photo of the Los Angeles Rams?”

Scully, the ultimate gentleman, replied: “I said that? That’s pretty good!”

Milwaukee Brewers: OK, I heard from a whole bunch of Milwaukee people – starting with the very nice guy I met at the book-signing who apparently is hitting the refresh button on this blog over and over – that Eddie Mathews is the real Milwaukee icon and not Hank Aaron. I heard it from enough people (something like nine) to make me believe that this really might be how Milwaukee feels.

Hey, Eddie Mathews was a great player, and he did hit more homers for Milwaukee (493) than Aaron did (420). Me, personally, I take the home run king. But that’s just me. Also Laverne is definitely more iconic than Shirley, though Shirley was cuter.

Minnesota Twins: Kirby Puckett. There was a rumbling for Killebrew, but I think Puckett wins by landslide even with all of his post-career problems.

New York Mets: Tom Seaver. Nobody else.

New York Yankees: Babe Ruth. Nobody else. The better question is: Who is bigger in New York now, Mickey Mantle or Joe DiMaggio? I say Mantle because of the restaurant and the fact that many from DiMaggio’s era are gone. But I’m not sure about that.

Oakland: Rickey Henderson seems like the right choice. A couple of people pushed for Reggie Jackson … I just think his iconic status came out of New York and the three-home run game and Mr. October and all that.

Philadelphia Phillies: Another change. I’ve been told by numerous Philadelphia fans that Mike Schmidt is most definitively NOT the city’s baseball icon. Most go with Richie Ashburn, although my friend Bob – a big Phillies fan from the 1960s – says that Robin Roberts does have quite a bit of iconic power for fans of his generation. In any case, everyone concedes Schmidt’s greatness and all, but I’m told he just was beloved in Philly. He was not quite a Philadelphia guy.

Again, I’m not willing to argue with Philadelphia fans about their own team. Richie Ashburn it is. He was a terrific player who four times led the league in on-base percentage and played a really big centerfield. He added to the status as an announcer. It’s a good choice … What about Harry Callas, by the way? What a voice.

Pittsburgh Pirates: There were actually a couple of people in comments and emails who objected to Clemente – they thought Pops Stargell deserved the honor or Bill Mazeroski. Hey, those guys are great. But come on. It’s Clemente, right? This was one of two or three I was most sure of when I wrote the original.

San Diego Padres: Tony Gwynn in a runaway.

San Francisco Giants: Willie Mays in a runaway, though surprising support for Juan Marichal.

Seattle Mariners: Another miss on my part, apparently. I thought it would be Junior Griffey, but I guess there are a lot of bitter feelings in Seattle about his leaving. It seems like Edgar Martinez is a much more popular choice.

Someone brought up Ichiro too. Excellent choice. He could be the guy in a few years.

St. Louis Cardinals: Musial. He’s the whole point of this list. Someone said that Albert Pujols is only a few seasons away from surpassing Musial, and that may be so – Pujols is amazing. But I’m still thinking about Musial as a possible book project.

Tampa Bay Devil Rays: Nobody. Just nobody.

Texas Rangers: Someone offered up Charlie Hough, who is a good choice. I think David Clyde probably best represents the organization. But to me, the guy is still Nolan Ryan.

Toronto: I chose Dave Stieb, but several people wrote in for Joe Carter, who actually lives not too far from me. I think Carter’s a great choice – he did hit the big home run. We can switch to Carter if that’s what you Toronto folks want.

Washington Nationals: Several people did not like me picking Jesus Colome. OK, if you really want a Washington baseball icon, Walter Johnson is certainly the right choice, though my Dad’s favorite player Frank Howard isn’t bad either. Neither of them played for the Nationals. If you want a Washington Nationals icon, you might consider Walt Wilmot who in 1889 led the National League with 19 triples. He also hit nine homers (eighth in the league) and stole 40 bases. That’s Walt Wilmot, ladies and gentlemen.

Montreal Expos: We didn’t pick an Expos icon, and that was an oversight. I have to pick one because as far as I’m concerned the good people of Montreal got le’screwed by MLB. My first thought was Steve Rogers, but I think it’s probably either Gary Carter or Andre Dawson. They’re both excellent choices, but I’ll go with Carter because when I close my eyes I still Dawson in a Cubs uniform while I see Carter in an Expos uniform. Maybe those are just my eyes, however.

FOURTH, in Monday’s Royals-Cardinals game, Esteban German dropped a bunt, and St. Louis starter Adam Wainright grabbed the ball and threw it neatly into right field for an error. German jogged to second. Minutes later, Wainright tried to pick off German and threw the ball into centerfield. German went to third. A couple of batters later, Emil Brown drove home German.

The official scorer announced (correctly) that it was an “unearned run.”

I’ve said it many times before, the rule that pitcher errors are treated the same as any other kind of error is absurd. That rule needs to be changed. Wainwright certainly earned that run. It’s probably one of the most earned runs of his career.

FIFTH, I was arguing with a buddy about which band was more influential, U2 or REM. We're both huge fans of both bands. And we both agree that U2 has held up longer -- their last album was way better than anything REM has put out since Automatic for the People. But there was time in the mid-to-late 1980s (I think) when they were neck and neck for best rock band in the world with REM (I think) taking a slight lead. And, even more, I think more bands tried to COPY REM.

U2 has been and remains a terrific band, and Bono is a social force and all. But if you ask me which band pushed the needle more -- that is, which band has had a larger effect on popular music and the directions pop has taken -- I think it's REM. My buddy slighlty disagreed, if you consider: "You're a complete idiot" to represent slight disagreement.

My five favorite U2 songs (no order):
1. Sunday Bloody Sunday
2. In God's Country
3. The City of Blinding Lights
4. Beautiful Day
5. I Still Havent Found What I'm Looking For (the one WITHOUT the choir)

My five favorite REM songs (no order):
1. Nightswimming
2. (Don't Go Back) To Rockville
3. It's The End Of the World as we Know it (And I Feel Fine)
4. Radio Free Europe
5. Belong

I was going to do something on four-man rotations. But I’m too tired in more ways than one. We’ll get to that next entry, if there is a next entry.