Selected Books by the Bed

Every month (or however often the magazine comes out), Nick Hornby does a fabulous essay in Believer Magazine called “Stuff I’ve Been Reading.” Hornby is one of my writing heroes anyway – I included him in the acknowledgements of The Soul of Baseball even though I’ll never actually meet him. In these essays, he goes over the books he lists the books he bought and read in the previous month, and it’s all very witty, thoughtful and brilliant.

This will be nothing at all like that, of course, except that it’s also an essay about stuff I’ve been reading. I am an obsessive reader and book buyer. I don’t say this proudly; it has been one of the very few sore spots of my marriage. My wife, Margo, has the tolerance and patience of the angels for any number of my myriad flaws and quirks. But only recently has she made her peace with the book thing. Margo is a library person. And I am a book buyer. This, more than any religious, political or philosophical difference, was something to overcome.

On my side of the bed, there is an ever changing pile of, say, 50 books. The number will go up and down depending on mood, season and how recently we’ve vacuumed. Right now, there are 57 books there. So, I was thinking that I may list a few of these books each week as part of Bloggy Friday, assuming:

1. I ever do this Bloggy Friday thing again.
2. I don’t come to my senses and quit this blog while I’m ahead.

Note: I will classify each book by how it got to be by the bed. So a “Work” classification would mean I pulled out the book for some sort of column I was working on. A “finished” classification would mean I just finished the book. A “3rd attempt” classification would mean that I’m trying, for the third time, to read the book. Maybe it will be clear in context.

Note 2: There are few baseball/sports books in this list for some reason (at other times there are more). Just a warning in case you’re here for some baseball talk.


Messages From My Father, Calvin Trillin.
Classification: Reference
-- I love Calvin Trillin. I love the way he writes, I love the way he thinks, and it was his classic New Yorker story “Hometown Boy” – he broke down the best restaurants in the world, all of which just happened to be in his hometown of Kansas City – that helped me understand where I was moving when I came to work for The Kansas City Star 11 years ago.

This is a wonderful book, one where Calvin passes along the wisdom and good sense of his father Abe, a grocer and restaurant owner in Kansas City. I’ve read it any number of times, and in this case I was looking up the particular wording of a favorite story about Abe’s classical Midwestern sense of humor. Abe was in New York, looking at jewelry at Tiffany’s.

He said to the salesman, “What’s the name of this store again?’

“Why, Tiffany’s, sir,” the salesman said.

My father said that he had never heard of it, and asked if it had just opened. “I’m from Kansas City,” he added, by way of explanation.

“Oh no, sir,” the salesman said. “It’s been here for a number of years. It’s quite a well-known store.”

“Does it have anything to do with Cartier’s?” my father asked. “I’ve heard of Cartier’s.”

“No, sir,” the salesman said. “Nothing at all to do with Cartier’s.”

“Tiffany’s,” my father said, rolling the word around as if testing how it might work out as a name for a jewelry store. “Tiffany’s. Well, that’s a new one on me.”

Moses, Jonathan Kirsch
Classification: Third or fourth attempt.
-- There are some books where I just love the IDEA. I love the idea or reading a biography about Moses – I can’t say exactly why. And this is a good book, that’s why I keep going back to it. I’ve learned that Moses could actually be quite petulant, and he was not exactly the peaceful Charlton Heston character. It’s just one of those books, though, I keep abandoning in the middle.

Chances Are: Adventures in Probability
Classification: Abandoned and ready to be refiled
-- I’m not a fair reader. I buy too many books, and so you get a chapter to capture me. Didn’t do it.

Nobody’s Perfect: Anthony Lane
Classification: Permanent Residency
-- This is a collection of Lane’s essays and movie reviews from The New Yorker. He’s hilarious, biting, a writing genius. All of this is easily seen in his unparalleled movie review of one of the crappy new Star Wars movies – especially the paragraph when he takes on Yoda. (Language alert: I normally try to keep the worst language off this site, but the ending of this too priceless to bleep out).

No, the one who gets me is Yoda. May I take the opportunity to enter a brief plea in favor of his extermination? Any educated moviegoer would know what to do, having watched that helpful sequence in “Gremlins” when a small, sage-colored beastie is fed into an electric blender. A fittingly frantic end, I feel, for the faux-pensive stillness on which the Yoda legend has hung. At one point in the new film, he assumes the role of cosmic shrink—squatting opposite Anakin in a noirish room, where the light bleeds sideways through slatted blinds. Anakin keeps having problems with his dark side, in the way that you or I might suffer from tennis elbow, but Yoda, whose reptilian smugness we have been encouraged to mistake for wisdom, has the answer. “Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose,” he says. Hold on, Kermit, run that past me one more time. If you ever got laid (admittedly a long shot, unless we can dig you up some undiscerning alien hottie with a name like Jar Jar Gabor), and spawned a brood of Yodettes, are you saying that you’d leave them behind at the first sniff of danger? Also, while we’re here, what’s with the screwy syntax? Deepest mind in the galaxy, apparently, and you still express yourself like a day-tripper with a dog-eared phrase book. “I hope right you are.” Break me a fucking give.

This essay, unfortunately, is not in “Nobody’s Perfect.” But many equally hilarious ones are, including his review of “Speed II.”

End Zone, Don DeLillo
Classification: Re-read.
-- Every so often, I will pull out a book I read a few years ago for a re-read. This is a football meets nuclear war thing. DeLillo is one of those writers who is so good, it doesn’t even matter to me what the heck he’s writing about. His books are just worth reading to see the way he puts words together. For a baseball feel, read "Pafko at the Wall," DeLillo's fictional recounting of Bobby Thomson's "The Giants Win the Pennant" game. That would later beocme the opening chapter for his novel "Underworld" but it really stands alone well.

Weaver on Strategy, Earl Weaver and Terry Pluto
Classification: Work
-- I’m planning to do an Earl Weaver essay at some point. Maybe next week. It’s amazing to me to how prescient Earl Weaver was 30-plus years ago, and how few people have caught up.

City of God, E.L Doctorow
Classification: Wish List
-- I’ve never read this, and I keep meaning to do it. I keep putting it off.

The United States of Wal-Mart, John Dicker
Classification: Reference
-- Every so often I need to find a Wal-Mart fact to reference in a column that mentions Royals owner/former Wal-Mart CEO David Glass. But even beyond that, I found this book to be fascinating. It tries to tell the story from the center (though, admittedly, the author is leaning slightly off-Wal Mart), and what I like about it is that it manages to offer a fresh perspective of the Wal-Mart phenomenon – and, in turn, give a fresh perspective of America. Good reading.

The Courier and the Heretic, Matthew Stewart
Classification: Reading*
-- I just want to be known as the kind of person who reads books about Spinoza. My grandfather has read books about Spinoza in at least four languages. He's smarter than I am. There’s an asterisk by the word “Reading” because there are numerous books that I’m in the middle of right now that I, undoubtedly, will never get back to. I’m not sure yet if this is one of them – the book was pretty interesting. But to be honest, other books keep jumping ahead on the list.

Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace
Classification: Finished
-- I go through literary heroes much the same way I go through favorite bands and performers. There are a few standards (Springsteen, Roth, U2, Sinatra, Hornby, Hemingway, Ella, Wolfe) and then there is an ever-changing array of people -- Alice McDermott, The Postal Service, Pearl Jam, Dave Eggers, Imogen Heap, David Sedaris, REM and so on. Some I like for one book or one album; some I like for a long while.

Right now, my literary hero is David Foster Wallace. This book is a collection of essays, and they’re pretty much all brilliant. The best of the bunch, I thought, is called: “How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart,” and it tries to come to grips with the inevitable disappointment you feel every single time you buy an athlete’s ghost written biography only to find that it (like all the others) is awful and shallow. The essay is about more than that, of course. Wallace is a brilliant observer of things, and he writes as if he’s making discoveries with each new sentence. Amazing. There are other incredible essays in here too … one about a Los Angeles talk show host.

There’s also a brilliant essay in here where he absolutely skewers John Updike and his forgettable 1997 novel “Toward the End of Time.” I’m a fan of the way Updike writes (as is Wallace) but this review is so on point and such a decisive knockout, I find myself wanting to throw tomatoes at the book. I would only say this: David, if by some miracle you are reading this, please don’t review “The Soul of Baseball.” You (and you alone) are excused from buying it.

How Soccer Explains the World, Franklin Foer
Classification: Re-read
-- I’m not a huge soccer fan. I mean, I like the World Cup, and I find it entertaining to check in on some of the European leagues now and again, and I keep thinking I will go out and write a column or two on the Kansas City Wizards here in town. My father was a semi-professional soccer player, so a little bit of soccer is in the blood. Only a little, though.

That said, I love READING about soccer. I can’t explain it. It definitely goes back to Nick Hornby’s masterful “Fever Pitch” which is the best book I’ve ever read about being a fan. Among the 29 books I want to write in my life, one would be a baseball book like that, a baseball book that captures what it is to be a fan, young and old. OK, think about the MOVIE “Fever Pitch.” OK? Got that in your mind? Yeah, I’m hoping to write the precise opposite of that.

Anyway, after reading Fever Pitch, I started reading soccer books, and there were a few good ones (one about Maradona was fun, the book about the North American Soccer League was good too), there were a few awful ones, but none really came close to Fever Pitch. And then I read Foer’s book, and it’s really terrific, it takes you around the world and explores big issues through soccer. I like reading a chapter or two every so often.

Soon I Will Be Invincible, Austin Grossman
Classification: Finished
-- I’m big on recommendations from people I know and trust. But only certain people. For instance, numerous people had recommended that I read the Harry Potter books. And I always told them, “Yeah, I sure will, you know, after I run out of adult books to read.” I’m really not into fantasy, wizardry, all that Hobbit stuff – I was mostly frightened by the Dungeon and Dragons set when I was in high school.

Anyway, one day I was having dinner with Bill James and HE suggested I read the Harry Potter books. Well, that was a whole different thing. I read them all, and I must say that I enjoyed them, and I can certainly appreciate J.K. Rowling’s genius. I even have my own theories about what will happen in the last book. This amuses the friends who initially recommended the book to me – you know, the ones who still talk to me.

Anyway, a bookstore salesman favorite named Steve, who always recommends books, and almost always does a great job, said I should read this Grossman book. It’s about comic book superheroes, which I must say would have normally been a real warning signal for me. I mean, I like Superman and Spiderman as much as most people, I have warm feelings for the flabby Batman (and Julie Newmar as Catwoman – meow!), Wonder Woman, and I’ve always had an appreciation for Aquaman because I keep wondering how the guy stays in business. Are there many underwater crimes being committed these days?

That’s about where it ends, though. So I would not have bought this book without Steve’s recommendation. But it’s terrific. It’s told from two perspectives, one (my favorite) being that of a super-criminal named Dr. Impossible. It’s funny and touching in its own way – highly recommended. I once wrote a short story about some of the Joker’s henchmen, I wonder where that is.

Understand, however, that any recommendations found in this essay are not to be confused with the main point of this blog, which is that you should buy The Soul of Baseball. David Foster Wallace may be brilliant, but remember, he's not giving you long and free essays about Tony LaRussa.

Coors Field Fun

I could do a 25,000 word blog on the joy that Baseball Reference has brought into my life … but I’m not going to do that right now. I’ll only say that Sean Forman*, creator and designer of the site, is only about three advancements away from turning me into a Howard Hughes like hermit who sits in a room all day and all night and looks up who led the Toledo Mud Hens in doubles in 1973.

OK, I’m not really sure how my life differs from that now. Damn it Sean! Take a vacation or something.

One of his advancements is a calculation which converts a players stats into a different environment – for instance it will estimate what Ken Griffey Jr. might have hit had he spent his entire career stuck in 1968 and playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The numbers are quite striking:

Here are Griffey’s career numbers in the 1968 Dodgers context:

.246 average, .322 on-base percentage, 2,037 hits, 474 homers, 1157 RBIs.

Yuck.

For more fun, we have taken some of the great seasons in baseball history and placed those players in Coors Field in 2000. Here you go:

Stan Musial, 1948.
-- .429 average, .505 on-base percentage, 299 hits, 60 doubles, 23 triples, 51 homers, 103 walks, 197 runs, 199 RBIs.

Thoughts: I do believe that Musial would have hit .400 at least once at Coors (his translated stats have him hitting .400 seven times). But could he really have put up these numbers? No way. What really would have happened had Musial played in the Coors context? I’ll bet he would have walked 250 times.

Bob Gibson, 1968
-- 26-4, 2.43 ERA, 270 IP, 275 hits, 15 homers, 237 strikeouts, 86 walks.

Thoughts: Well, that’s a shocker – I would say 26-4 with a 2.43 ERA at Coors seems almost more impressive than a 22-9, 1.12 ERA in that crazy year, 1968. The only thing that seems a little off here is the strikeouts – I think he might have had more than 237.

Joe DiMaggio, 1941
-- .408 average, .493 OBP, 249 hits, 55 doubles, 13 triples, 39 homers, 98 walks, 177 runs, 181 RBIs.

Thoughts: I wish there was a way to see how long his hitting streak might have gone on at Coors Field. Of course, if I say that too loud Sean will invent a hitting-streak-o-meter or something and I’ll never get out of here … What’s amazing is how similar DiMaggio’s translated stats from 1941 are to Ted Williams ACTUAL stats from 1941. The hits, RBIs and so on are out of whack, naturally, but Williams hit .406, DiMaggio translated hit .408. Williams hit 37 homers, DiMaggio translated hit 39.

Sandy Koufax, 1965
-- 23-10, 3.87 ERA, 304 IP, 285 hits, 34 homers, 346 strikeouts, 94 walks.

Thoughts: Seems sacrilegious, doesn’t it? But it does give you some added respect for Brian Bohanon, who pitched for the Rockies in 2000 and went 12-10 with a 4.68 ERA. If you adjust HIS season back to the 1965 Dodgers, he goes 14-8 with a 2.41 ERA.

Duane Kuiper, 1978
-- .352 batting average, .383 OBP, 217 hits, 25 doubles, 8 triples, 0 homers, 89 runs, 27 walks, 74 RBIs.

Thoughts: Well, you knew I had to adjust my all-time favorite player. How about that average? You’ve got to be kidding me though – 27 walks in 616 at-bats? Damn it, Duane! Take a pitch!

Babe Ruth, 1927
-- .405 average, .539 OBP, 248 hits, 37 doubles, 10 triples, 78 homers, 177 walks, 226 runs, 235 RBIs.

Barry Bonds, 2001
-- .398 average, .488 OBP, 210 hits, 43 doubles, 3 triples, 98 homers, 238 walks, 198 runs, 210 RBIs.

Thoughts: Looking at it in a Coors Context, it’s pretty clear: No matter what Barry Bonds was on in 2001, that’s the best year in baseball history.

Jose Lima, 2005
-- 4-13, 10.47 ERA, 153 IP, 255 hits, 36 homers, 72 strikeouts.

Thoughts: That year, Lima (5-16, 6.99 ERA) was bad enough.

Roth on Baseball

Editor’s Note: Well, we’re going to try something new on here which we call “Bloggy Friday,” where numerous times throughout the day we will post some smallish blog item – I see this as something similar to what old sports columnists used to call “emptying the notebook.” Like everything else on this blog, there’s no strategy involved and not much prior thought either. We’ll just see how it goes.

We start with a baseball quote by author Phillip Roth (as told to David Remnick of The New Yorker). Roth was talking here about the bizarre need for people to read his work in some alternative way (as in: “What do these characters' names REALLY mean? Seymour – does that mean See More?”). But I think this quote can be about a lot of things:

“It’s like baseball. Suppose you and I went up to the ballpark together and there’s a guy next to us with his kid. And (the father) was saying, ‘Now, what I want you to do is watch the scoreboard. Stop watching the field. Just watch what happens when the numbers change on the scoreboard. Isn’t that great? Now do you see what just happened there? Did you see what happened? Why did that happen?’

“And you say, ‘That guy is crazy.’ But the kid imbibes it and he goes home and he’s asked: ‘How was the game?’ And he says, ‘Great! The scoreboard changed thirty-two times and Daddy said last game it changed only fourteen times and the home team last time changed more times than the other team. It was really great! We had hot dogs and we stood up at one point to stretch and we went home.’

“Is that politicizing the game? Is that theorizing the baseball game? No. It’s not having the foggiest idea what baseball is.”

Rivalries Part 3: Pujols vs. Closers

There are, best I can tell, three kinds of manager’s moves that don’t work.

The first kind – a Type A manager failure – I would describe as: “A move that should work, but doesn’t.” These would loosely include any move that you would agree with beforehand (depending on you, of course).

A manager brings in his star closer in the ninth, and he blows the lead – that would qualify. A manager brilliantly sets up his game management so he has the perfect lefty pinch-hitter face a righty reliever with the game on the line, and he strikes out. A manager puts in a defensive replacement in the late innings, the ball gets hit to him at precisely the big moment, and he boots it.

The inverse is true also – a manager sticks with his best player in the big moment, and he fails, that’s a Type A move too. And so on.

The maddest you will ever see a manager is when some goofball reporter second guesses what the manager considers a Type A move. It was, I believe (this was before my KC time), a Type A second guess that prompted Hal McRae to pull off on his phone-throwing crazy man act (If I remember correctly, someone asked McRae why he didn’t pinch hit for George Brett -- * Reader corrects; he says the question was why McRae didn't use Brett as a pinch-hitter, which makes this more of a Type B move).

The second kind – a Type B manager failure – would be a move that you may not agree with but you can at least see the logic. Score tied in the seventh inning, leadoff batter gets on, and the manager has one of his better hitters bunt. Now, you may not agree with it, but you can understand why a manager does it.

Most unsuccessful moves, I would say, qualify as Type B. In my experiences, fans generally disagree with moves that don’t work. Funny how that happens.

Usually it goes like this: A manager will do something that the fan vaguely disagrees with – he pulls a pitcher who was throwing pretty well, he doesn’t pull a pitcher that was throwing pretty well, he brings in the infield in the seventh inning, he doesn’t bring in the infield in the seventh inning, he shakes up a lineup, he doesn’t shake up a lineup, he punch runs for a slow runner who represents the winning run, he doesn’t bring in a pinch runner, and so on – and then when it backfires, the fan screams wildly about the manager has to be a complete idiot. And more, the fan knew it even BEFORE the move didn’t work. It's not exactly 20-20 hindsight where fans complain about something only after it happens. Fans do that, but nobody smart enough to read this blog.

No I’m talking more about 30-30 hindsight, where the fan probably did disagree with the move in some sort of passive way, but that anger turns white hot after the move fails.

A Type C move is a completely boneheaded move that makes no sense either before or afterward. There are really very few of these. They happen, though. It’s hard to explain exactly what Grady Little was thinking when he left Pedro Martinez in the game. I’m not sure you can even see the logic. Sometimes managers will bunt in the first inning when they have their No. 5 pitcher on the mound. Occasionally, a manager will bat Doug Mientkiewicz in the cleanup spot night after night. And sometimes there will be a mistake – batting out of order, not getting a pitcher warming up in time, etc. The only way to explain these is to remember that managers are generally human, and it’s a long season.

Some managers after making a big mistake will just admit, “Hey, I made a mistake there.” Some are proud men, though, and they virulently try to defend the undefendable. Bob Boone was like that. Bob Boone could have given you 25 reasons why Custer's strategy was sound.

Well, now we need to add a Type D manager’s move to the list. Because Tuesday night, All Star Game, ninth inning, Tony La Russa made a move (or didn’t make a move) so staggeringly bad, so ludicrously stupid, so utterly self defeating that it might actually, in the long run, get him fired or force him to resign his real job. It also may not blow up at all, but it’s worth mentioning that only La Russa could screw up an All-Star Game so monumentally that he comes out with a loss and a pissed-off superstar.

You already know the particulars, but we’ll go over them one more time. The National League trailed by three runs going into the ninth inning, and they were facing J.J. Putz, who has Miss Jackson stuff. With two outs, Dmitri Young “singled” on a ground ball that all-star second baseman Brian Roberts could not come up with. Next batter, Alfonso Soriano, smacked an opposite field two-run homer. So the tying run came to the plate – and Milwaukee’s J.J. Hardy walked. Derrek Lee followed – now facing K-Rod – and he walked too.

Up came Orlando Hudson.

As you know, La Russa had one batter left on the bench. That was his own guy, Albert Pujols, the best player of the decade not named Bonds, one of the best young players in baseball history, the star of stars. You have to pinch hit him here. You just have to. Yes, it would have taken a little creative defensive shuffling if the game went into extra innings. But the point is to win the game (“This time it counts!”), and there simply does not seem a reasonable explanation for letting Hudson hit rather than Pujols. But Hudson stayed in the game. He walked.

So now the bases were loaded. And up stepped Aaron Rowand. Now, as obvious as it was to have Pujols pinch hit for Hudson, you can double the obviousness now. Triple it. Quadruple it. There’s not a soul alive, and we're including Aaron Rowand's relatives here, who would let Aaron Rowand bat here. A base hit wins the game. We’re not dealing with an extra inning scenario anymore (barring a walk, of course, in which case you simply reshuffle the outfield). There are at least two dozen reasons why you pinch hit Pujols here, not the least of which is this: Albert Pujols is quite possibly the player of his generation, and this is supposed to be a game for the fans. How do you leave the player of a generation ON THE STINKING BENCH WITH THE ALL-STAR GAME THE LINE?

La Russa, of course, let Rowand hit and he flied out.

This might just be a typical Type C bizarre manager’s move except for one thing (and the reason we need to give it a whole new classification): Pujols PLAYS for La Russa. Through the years, we’ve seen All-Star managers (including La Russa) do all sorts of quirky things to indulge their own players. They give their own players a couple of extra innings in the field. They give their own pitchers an inning when another pitcher might be having a better year. Sure, they will take a few hits for it in the papers for it, but who cares? A manager's job is to win games for his own team and get the most out of your players, and if doing that happens to tick off a few out-of-town writers and fans at the All-Star Game, so be it.

I have never seen an All-Star Manager purposely screw his own player before. This is a new one on me. I have tried to think of a single good reason why La Russa would have not played Albert Pujols in the All-Star Game – and not hit him in the biggest moment. I thought: Maybe he was trying to send a message to his biggest star (the message apparently being: “I hate you.”). Maybe he is hoping the Cardinals sign Aaron Rowand in the off-season, and this was some sort of recruiting tool (sort of the way some colleges will make a fake personalized highlight tape for high school recruits). Maybe with the Cardinals in danger of missing the postseason, he really didn’t care about World Series home field advantage.

Also maybe he’s lost his mind. It’s no secret that I don’t like La Russa – I think he’s generally pompous and he acts on occasion like he’s bigger than the game. Both of these lovely traits were in perfect display when LaRussa commented to the St. Louis Post Dispatch after being told that Pujols wasn’t happy about being the only guy not to play: “Let me ask you this. If we go to extra innings, who's going to be our player to move around and play? Can Dmitri [Young] move around and play? Or is Albert going to do that? Who's the most versatile guy not playing? It's Albert. It isn't even that tough. He'll figure it out sooner or later."

Seriously, if you wanted to make a more pompous statement than that, could you? I especially love the, “He’ll figure it out sooner or later,” part. That should make Albert feel real good. Also, you have to admire the drive-by swipe at Dmitri Young – it's sort of an afterthought slap but still worth noting.

Plus this reasoning is actually worse than any of my imagined reasons – he’s really worried about the game going into extra innings and someone getting hurt? This is how he’s managing in an All-Star Game? He’s going to keep the best hitter in baseball on the bench in the ninth inning of an All-Star Game just in case J.J. Hardy tweaks an ankle in the 13th inning? Come on.

Anyway, back to the “maybe he’s lost his mind” part – it was pointed out to me in a powerful anonymous email that La Russa has pretty much snapped. The email (which is good enough that I will quote some of it verbatim here) points out what has happened to him in the last year:

1. His team died at the All-Star Break last year and almost didn’t make the playoffs.
2. He entered the playoffs in a very public feud with one of his best players (Scott Rolen).
3. He has taken shots at numerous former players (Renteria, Drew, Kerry Robinson, etc).
4. He was arrested for drunk driving.
5. He has melted down and feuded with the media over bizarre things.
6. His team is five games under .500.
7. He managed in an All-Star Game setting to start a feud with Albert Pujols.

The email's conclusion: "I'm telling you, the man has LOST it. He's done."

Of course, it should be noted that in between all of that La Russa's team also won a World Series. It’s a good thing too. If the Cardinals had blown that lead last year and missed the playoffs (and boy they came close), he might be fired by now. Even as it is, La Russa might want to clear the air on this Albert Pujols mess or there might not be any nights in August this time around.

(Postscript: I didn’t get this up yesterday, and since then it appears that La Russa has had some second thoughts about not giving the fans that Pujols at-bat in the ninth inning. “Looking back,” he told Rick Hummel, “I should have gone for entertainment.” Really? You think so?)

* * *

Matchup No. 3: Albert Pujols vs. The Closers
How they’ve done: Pujols vs. Trevor Hoffman: 0 for 4, 1 strikeout.
Pujols vs. Billy Wagner: 6 for 21, 0 homers, 0 RBIs, 4 strikeouts.
Pujols vs. Brad Lidge: 3 for 14, 1 double, 2 walks, 3 strikeouts, 0 homers (regular season)
Pujols vs. Mariano Rivera: 0 for 1
Pujols vs. John Smoltz (as closer): 2 for 6, 1 home run.
Pujols vs. Jose Mesa: 7 for 13, 2 doubles, 2 homers, 1 strikeout.
Pujols vs. Armando Benitez: 1 for 6, 1 strikeout.

Thoughts: Do you ever wonder what would have happened to Trevor Hoffman had he come up at a different time? You probably don’t. I’m reminded of the semi-famous intro to the Elias Baseball Analyst, which came out in 1985 as a bizarre and rather pathetic attempt to wipe out Bill James’ Abstracts: “You will find in this book no arcane formulas with strange-sounding acronymic names. You will not find what somebody thinks George Brett would have hit in 1914. And if you want to know the product of Brett’s hits plus walks minus caught stealing, multiplied by his total bases times fifty-five-hundredths of his stolen bases, all of that divided by the total number of at-bats plus walks, you must look elsewhere.”

As the young Alvy Singer said in Annie Hall: “What an asshole.”

In case you are wondering (I was) Brett scored an 1100.749 EBA in his great 1980 season.

Anyway, Trevor Hoffman is now the all-time saves leader, and he’s still pitching at an All-Star level, so he may retire with 100 more saves than anyone else. He has certainly clinched a spot in the Hall of Fame though he hasn’t even pitched 1,000 innings. He’s one of the all-time San Diego athletes though he has a losing record in his career (51-58). All of these things are pretty easily understood in this era. Hoffman was, in the words of Buck O’Neil, right on time. He has the perfect makeup, competitiveness and arm rejuvenation to be a modern-day closer.

But what if he had come up in 1955? Remember, Hoffman was drafted as a shortstop just like his brother Glenn. And like his brother Glenn (only moreso), he couldn’t hit. Trevor Hoffman hit .249 in Rookie League ball, and then he went to Charleston, WV and hit .212. So, it’s very likely that had he come up in another time, he simply would have been sent home (“This is the hardest thing a manager has to do”).

But the Reds (who drafted Hoffman) realized he had a good arm, so they made him a pitcher. That actually could have happened 50 years ago too – remember Stan Musial started his pro career as a pitcher, and Warren Spahn started as a hitter. But here’s the difference: The Reds immediately made Hoffman a closer. He had a mid-90s fastball then and a curveball (I guess), but that was it, so they had him close games in Cedar Rapids in 1991, and he blew people away. They moved him up to Class AA Chattanooga, and he continued to blow people away.

Now the Reds wondered what they heck they had – they tried him briefly as a starter in 1992, but only briefly. Then, Florida took him in the expansion draft, traded him six month later to San Diego in the Gary Sheffield deal, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Well, none of that likely would have happened 50 years ago. For one thing, there were no Florida Marlins or San Diego Padres. But more to the point, there were no closers then, and it’s unlikely that Hoffman could have made it as a starter with only his fastball and curveball (he also had a torn rotator cuff which would have ended his career). He did not really learn his devastating palm-ball, change-up until he was in the big leagues (the story goes he learned it from Donnie Elliott, who went 0-1 in his brief major league career).

Also there was no such thing as the save then, so even if someone would have had the prescience to make him a Hoyt Wilhelm type reliever, there’s no telling how he would have done having to pitch two or three innings.

I would say Hoffman, perhaps more than any other Hall of Famer/future Hall of Famer, is a modern creation. That doesn't detract from his greatness. It's just that when we talking about timeless players -- that's not Trevor Hoffman.

* * *

I’ve run these lists before. But they are worth running again just to show, once again, how utterly dominant Billy Wagner has been.

Best ERA since the Deadball era (min: 500 ip)
1. Mariano Rivera: 2.34
(tie) Billy Wagner, 2.34
3. Hoyt Wilhelm, 2.52
4. Tom Henke, 2.67
(tie) Dave Smith, 2.67

Most strikeouts per nine innings pitched (min: 500 ip)
1. Billy Wagner, 11.96
2. Armando Benitez, 10.88
3. Octavio Dotel, 10.80
4. Randy Johnson, 10.78
5. Ugueth Urbina, 10.51

* * *

How much of what happened to Brad Lidge can be traced back to that singular, monstrous home run that Albert Pujols hit off him in the 2005 NLCS? I think the common thought is that Pujols’ homer ruined Lidge, at least temporarily. And I think the more detailed thought is that there were many, many things involved (there was just a fine detailed story by Eric Neel in ESPN the Mag on Lidge … it begins with Lidge laughing when you ask him about Pujols. “No, it’s not about that,” Lidge said. “It’s not any one thing”).

I believe strongly that we as a group need to rebel against common thinking in all walks of life. We need to analyze, inspect, study, question everything. That said – and I can’t believe I’m even saying this – I think the common thinking is right here. I think Pujols ruined Lidge. Sure there were other factors, other problems, but it seems to me that everything was triggered by the Pujols homer.

Remember that moment. Lidge was on the mound and the Astros were on the brink of their first World Series, and they were at home, and Minute Maid/Enron/Whatever They Call It Now Park was electrified. Lidge was invincible then. Batters only hoped to put the ball in play. In 2004, Lidge struck out 157 batters in 94 innings – I mean, we’re talking Little League stuff here. He threw 100 mph. He had that unbelievable slider. And in that big moment, with the World Series a breath away, Pujols hit one of the most gargantuan home runs I’ve ever seen – the only home run I can remember where I actually gasped when it was hit.

I don’t believe that elite athletes think the same way the rest of us do. They don’t over-think things. They bounce back. But in this case, I think something broke inside Brad Lidge. I don’t see how he could have avoided that. In the month of September, he had 11 saves, a 2.08 ERA and had not given up a homer. In the playoffs up to that point, he had pitched 8 innings, given up 1 run, struck out nine.

And, in the playoffs the year before, he had pitched 12 1/3 innings, given up five hits, one run and struck out 20. Hitters didn’t have a chance.

After the Pujols inning, the Astros went to the World Series and Lidge gave up a game-winning homer to Scott Podsednik, who famously had hit zero homers all year. And then he lost another World Series game by giving up an RBI single to Jermaine Dye.

And then in 2006 he more or less fell apart.

He was pitching much better this year in a non-closer role before getting hurt, and I’m rooting for him to come back and be his old dominant self because he seems like a good person and because he was so much fun to watch when he was right. I generally don’t believe in simple answers to complicated questions, but in this case I think the simplest answer is probably the closest to the truth: Albert Pujols crushed Brad Lidge.

A Weird ESPN Moment

We have our third rivalry coming up tonight sometime, I hope, but first I have to mention something I saw on ESPN last night that I could not believe. I think it’s apparent to all that ESPN is now bigger than the Beatles, bigger than most Third World countries, bigger than U.S. Steel. When you get that big, that dominant, that overpowering, you become the bully, and that’s a tough transition. ESPN began as this fledgling network that few thought could work. And through persistence, wit, a little creativity, a lot of expansion and a remarkable sense for what the sport fan craved, ESPN became this monolith.

None of this is necessarily bad -- it's a glorious time to be a sports fan. ESPN gives you all you could ever want. Well, there is one bad thing: It seems no one at ESPN appreciates that the game has changed. ESPN still wants to see itself as that cutting edge, trendy, fan-first network that goes against the establishment. Except now ESPN IS the establishment. Hey, that’s the price of success. That quirky and semi-funny “back-back-back” thing that Chris Berman used to do has now become the single most annoying thing on television, and I’m including Rachael Ray here. You would think friends would tell Berman to stop, for his own sake, but I guess at some point you can reach that level of fame where your friends are mostly just afraid to tick you off. It’s a shame, though, when a good friend can’t just walk up to you at a family barbecue and say, “Chris, these are great burgers. Hey, listen, while we're just talking, lose the nicknames. They suck. Hey, this is me talking, Chris. Albert “Winnie the” Pujols? Are you kidding with that crap? Stop it, now. Come on, man, I love you, but you have to stop.”

It isn’t just Berman. A lot of the shtick has just gotten old. Inevitable, I guess. Even the self-reverential commercials that were so funny a few years ago now more or less suck. LeBron James is working in the ESPN office. I get it. ESPN is so big they can get LeBron James to do commercials. I get it. Not funny.

Again, I just think this is the natural way of things. ESPN still has so much great stuff. They have some terrific writers on the Web site – Sports Guy still makes me laugh, they have a bunch of good columnists – they still have some great analysts on television (I’m co-President of the Ron Jaworski fan club), PTI is still fresh on those rare days when I see it (which admittedly isn’t many, but that’s not their fault), I think Baseball Tonight is still fun to watch even if I don’t have much use for the panelists individually (the sum is greater than the parts, as they say). And so on.

But the point of all this was to discuss one thing I saw on ESPN last night. It was on SportsCenter, (I think -- all their shows look like SportsCenter) and the host started talking about Indianapolis coach Tony Dungy, because as everyone knows the NFL season NEVER ends. Every other day, it seems, they will show some highlight of LaDainian Tomlinson as a tease to some apparently big news story about him. What could it be? Is Tomlinson going to hold out? Is he going to retire? Did he save a family and a cat from a fire? Then they come back and report an exclusive story: ESPN has learned that LaDainian Tomlinson is awesome.

Anyway, the host talked about Dungy and then some guy came on the screen, some new guy (I think), and he (I still can’t believe this) ranked the best and worst drafts in the NFC West. At first, I was confused. I thought, “OK, why is some guy in July ranking the best and worst NFC West 2006 NFL Drafts?” And then it hit me: He wasn’t ranking the 2006 drafts.

He was ranking the 2007 Drafts.

In July.

Before they played a single regular season game.

Before they played a single preseason game.

Before they went to training camp.

Before some of them (any of them?) have even signed.

I watched this five minute feature in absolute wonder. I realize that on the day of the draft, you will have the instant analysis, who did well, who did poorly, everybody gets a report card, etc. It’s stupid, but it’s part of the deal. But here it’s three months after the draft, and nothing has happened, and nobody has played, nobody has really practiced (I’m not counting those spring practices) and this guy was telling us plainly that San Francisco had the best draft, Arizona had a really good draft too, and he talked about the players as if they were established stars … it was one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever seen. I don’t blame the guy who did it – I mean, he did the best he could, I’m sure. I’m sure some poll shows that fans want NFL Draft analysis in July. And for all I know, he might be right.

But don't you think when we're ranking the draft before training camp begins that, just maybe, we've gone too far? This to me is like when conferences have coaches and writers vote on the "preseason newcomer of the year."

I just wish sometimes we could go back to those days when, I don’t know, we watched the games and then analyzed them. But let’s be honest: You can’t go back. You can only go back-back-back.