Do you want us live from San Fran? (Take 2)

OK, I’m going to try something new here … something interactive. Mike Vaccaro, New York Post columnist extraordinaire and author of 1941: Lots of Cool Stuff Happened That Year Including Stuff with DiMaggio and Whirlaway and Stuff, has offered his wisdom, wit and general services to help form a live blog for tonight’s Giants-Braves-Barry game.

I’m torn about this for three reasons:

1. Live blogs are a lot of stinking work.
2. Like Bud Selig, I do have a day job.
3. Live blogs are a lot of stinking work.

However, I shall put it to you brilliant readers. I know there’s a way to do a poll on here, but I’m obviously blog illiterate (I lost this entry once already) and also I need to get out of this hotel room and out into San Francisco. So here’s the deal: If you flood the comments section with affirmatives and reasonably authentic-sounding promises to buy another copy of The Soul of Baseball (or even Mike’s terrific book 1941: You Know Williams Hit .400 That Year and Billy Conn Almost Became Heavyweight Champ and Stuff) then we might just do it.

And hey, we are checking those Amazon numbers. We’ll know if you lie to us.

We're all going to Elarton

Last season, I found myself feeling something of an appreciation for Scott Elarton. I think appreciation is the right word. I’ve always had a soft spot for those pitchers who battle even though it is quite clear, based on their stuff and all-purpose inability to upset timing, that they are fighting the odds. I used to watch Kris Wilson, a gritty former quarterback, go out for Kansas City and desperately try anything and everything he could to get people out. He wasn’t often successful, but the effort was something close to heroic – not unlike a scene in Braveheart. Striving against hope, they say, is the story of man, right?

Scott Elarton, I thought, was sort of a better Kris Wilson. He had come to Kansas City for too much money (I thought) but for mostly admirable reasons: He prized the big outfield at Kauffman Stadium. Elarton understood himself – he’s an extreme flyball pitcher and knew that he could use the extra space. Through his first 10 starts, he was 0-5, but that was at least somewhat undeserved as he had a not-entirely-awful 4.71 ERA, and he’d had four quality starts, and, like I say, he had battled every time out. I think appreciation is the right word.

Then Elarton started dealing with some injuries; he’s had bunches of them through the years. He was mostly awful for a couple of months (though he did win four games) and then his season ended in July. I would say he was more or less forgotten at that point. The Royals hired a new general manager, and things just seemed to be moving forward from the Elarton days.

Elarton worked very hard to come back. He’s an altogether admirable guy, a battler as mentioned, and he made an early return, May 12. That day he pitched a gutty, archetypal Scott Elarton game – 5 innings, 2 earned runs, 1 strikeout, 2 home runs. He also took the loss and may have deserved better. Scotty was back. A scout told me that his stuff was subpar – and Elarton’s par stuff wasn’t going to win you the British Open – but to the untrained eye he looked about the same. Next time out, he pitched 5 1/3 innings and gave up four runs, which was worse, obviously, but still within the familiar Elarton range.

Next time out, however, he didn’t make it five innings. Next time out he gave up seven runs. And on it went like that. His next five starts he never went six innings, never gave up fewer than four runs. When I saw Elarton pitch in St. Louis (2 2/3 innings, 5 runs) he was bad enough that I was stirred to write that the Royals should go back to the four-man rotation. Elarton had said coming into that game that he had discovered a flaw in his delivery – he wanted to keep his arm tighter to his body. I wrote – a bit too snidely, perhaps – that the adjustment may have worked, but unfortunately batters aren’t especially interested in hitting Elarton’s arm, they’re quite content to hit the ball. I don’t believe Elarton appreciated the line, and I certainly understand that, but he was bad. The next day he went on the disabled list with some sort of foot problem. His ERA was 9.17.

At this point, it seemed at least possible that Elarton would not pitch for the Royals again. Of course team officials insisted that Elarton had something left, but that’s just the sort of thing team officials say about players, especially likeable player like Elarton. The Royals picked up John Thompson, who pitched admirably in his first start, less so in his second, but then he got hurt. They brought up Leo Nunez for an emergency start, and he held up for four innings before the pitch count got him.

Meanwhile, Elarton was dreadful in the minor leagues. He threw six shutout innings in his first start back with Omaha, and then it all came crashing down:

-- He allowed 10 hits and 7 runs in 4 innings against Oklahoma.
-- He allowed 6 hits and 4 runs in 5 innings at Round Rock.
-- He allowed 5 hits and 5 runs in 5 innings against Iowa
-- He allowed 8 hits and 6 runs and 4 homers in 5 2/3 at Albuquerque.

It was this after this last start that Elarton pronounced himself ready to Royals manager Buddy Bell. He felt sound. Yes, he gave up those four homers, but Albuquerque, as you probably know, is pretty famous for its light air as well as being the place where Bugs Bunny never took the right turn (“Worse than Colorado,” Bell would say), and Elarton had always been honest about his self evaluation. He had, for instance, said he was lousy after his games against Round Rock and Iowa. Anyway, the Royals announced they would start him Tuesday night against the New York Yankees.

Now, I will admit up front that I was skeptical, if you consider, “You have got to be kidding me,” a skeptical statement. The Royals did not have many options because of roster limitations, injuries and money invested. But it did seem to me that the team was playing its best baseball in years, there was going to be a huge crowd at the game, and these were the New York Yankees. This just didn’t seem like the best time to be throwing Scott Elarton as some sort of human sacrifice. Royals officials insisted that his stuff was better, and expected Elarton to hold up. Elarton was confident. Elarton is a battler.

He went 1 2/3 innings and gave up seven runs. That drove the ol’ ERA up to 10.46.

Worst ERAs in baseball history with a pitcher making 8 or more starts:
1. Ryan Bowen, 1992, 10.96 ERA (9 starts)
2. Roy Halladay, 2000, 10.64 ERA (13 starts)
3. Scott Elarton*, 2007, 10.46 ERA (9 starts)
4. Charlie Stecher, 1890, 10.32 ERA (10 starts)
5. Micah Bowie, 1999, 10.24 ERA (11 starts)

Obviously Elarton’s season is not over, but just wanted to show you where he stood.

During Tuesday’s game, a friend of mine sent me an instant message that said: “I think this might hurt Elarton’s Cy Young chances.”

And because I was between Barry Bonds at-bats, and the Giants are an absolutely horrendous team to watch (seriously, I’ve been watching the ROYALS for years, and everyone knows what that means, I can still tell you that Giants team is unwatchable – how do you San Francisco fans stand it? Pedro Feliz? Ray Durham? Matt Cain? Dave Roberts? Ugh. At least Tim Lincecum is fun ... when does he go again?), I thought: Would it even be humanly possible for Elarton to win a Cy Young Award after this start? So, I totaled up Elarton’s current stats with Bob Gibson’s August-September stats from 1968.

I came up with: 9-8, 3.72 ERA, 145 IP, 130 hits, 46 walks, 127 Ks.

Not, Cy Young but better. What about Elarton + Pedro circa 1999?

You get: 10-5, 4.27 ERA, 114 IP, 97 hits, 34 walks, 139 Ks.

See, you need innings to get that ERA down.

One more, how about Elarton + Steve Carlton, 1972.

You get: 14-8, 3.29 ERA, 178 IP, 158 hits, 54 walks, 115 Ks.

That’s a pretty darned good year actually – maybe not quite Cy Young worthy, but it would be Elarton's best year. So all he needs to do now is become left-handed, learn a slider and stop talking to the press – something he may very well do anyway if he reads this stupid blog. The truth is, you never like seeing a good guy like Scott Elarton struggle. He’s coming off a severe injury, and it’s entirely possible that with an off-season of rest and training he can come back and be an effective pitcher again. I hope so.

In the meantime, though, the Royals are still deciding whether or not to have Elarton make his next start. That decision, it seems to me, shouldn’t be difficult.

Two odd realizations ...

I've got this very nice plasma television in my hotel room here in San Francisco, so even though it's morning and there's nothing ever good on television in the morning, I flipped it on to see what's happening in the world.

I turned to ESPN (after noticing that ESPN Classic had outdoor bowling on AGAIN) and heard the woman say, "OK, let's go to our ESPN studios for a SportsCenter update," or something like that.

So they went to someone else who said that the big story was that NBA commissioner David Stern had held a one-hour press conference to discuss his dismay and horror with the latest news, that an NBA referee was allegedly betting on NBA games and also had some sort of tie with organized crime. They then went to footage of David Stern, and indeed he looked dismayed and horrified. He called it the worst situation he had ever experienced as either an NBA fan or as commissioner of the league, and said this ref, Tim Donaghy, was a rogue, isolated criminal, which they might have noticed earlier because he was, after all, the only referee in the NBA to call traveling violations.

After a few more moments of sad David Stern the camera flipped back to the SportsCenter anchor who gave us the other big story of the day -- that the Atlanta Falcons would have a press conference to discuss Michael Vick and his dog-fighting indictment. There was then some footage of Vick running around on the football field. You might recall that Vick has been indicted on charges that include gambling (there's pretty big money on dog-fighting) but also violence against dogs that did not perform well which include: drowning, electrocution, hanging and shooting. Good man, that Vick. Jon Stewart the other day said what I've been saying all along: I don't think Vick (assuming he's found guilty) should be suspended from the NFL or jailed. I think he should be put in the cage with a couple of pit bulls so we can see his much-admired elusiveness.

And then the SportsCenter update ended. That was it. That was the day in sports -- a referee gambling and a quarterback who allegedly led a dog-fighting ring.

My two realizations:

1. We have to take sports back. We just have to. It's getting to the point where getting updated on sports news is more depressing than getting updated on how Al Qaida is rebuilding its base in Pakistan.

2. The Barry Bonds chase I'm on is the most inspiring national sports story happening today. Who would have thought that?

You had to be a big shot ...

This little stream of consciousness won’t have a lot to do with sports, but it’s something I thought about while hearing the Billy Joel song “Big Shot” in a coffee shop the other day. It might not make much sense, but, hey, what on this blog does? If you're here for the baseball thoughts, you might just skip this one, I'll get something baseball up later.

The thought is this: It seems we have reached a time and place in America – because of technology and freedom of choice – where you can more or less wander inside your own personal bubble and never, ever deal with anything outside your own sphere of interest. You can live without ever running into an opposing opinion, a challenging idea or new type of music. You can sort of stand still.

Let’s say you’re an anti-war liberal Democrat who likes The Smiths, adult alternative music, sweet breakfast cereals and the Red Sox. You \ wake up in the morning and go to any number of Web sites and read about some new outrage committed by George W. Bush. You click on video of Jon Stewart doing his Dick Cheney impression. You eat Sugar Smacks (while listening to “Sweet and Tender Hooligan” on your iPod) while reading the printed out Red Sox stories that Jeff Horrigan and Gordon Edes wrote the night before

You go to your car and go to work – first you click on XM Hear Music, and listen to Ingrid Michaelson’s “Far Away,” and the Bees “Who Cares What The Question Is,” and then a song comes on that you don’t like, so you flip back to your iPod and listen to The Smiths’ “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” and “The Night has Opened My Eyes.”

You get to work, and there’s an email from a buddy of yours wondering what the hell is going on with J.D. Drew. You write back a thoughtful and considered response (“He sucks”) and then do whatever it is you do at work, pausing occasionally to watch the rather hilarious You Tube video of the Michael Moore-Wolf Blitzer slap-fight. You click onto impeachbush.org just for the Hell of it, print out a few Cindy Sheehan blog listings and read them over lunch, (while listening to “Death of a Disco Dancer” and “Girlfriend in a Coma” on the ol’ iPod), get through the day somehow (maybe you send your friend an email that says, “I love Dustin Pedroia!”), drive home (listening to the new Tori Amos and Rufus Wainright songs on XM), help your kids with their homework (“Yes, Stacy, this is the American Constitution and it’s being ignored in America today”), have dinner, go for your evening jog (While listening to ‘Frankly Mr. Shankly” and “Some Girls are Bigger Than Others”), get back home, read the kids a book, grab a bowl of Captain Crunch, go watch the Red Sox (assuming you live in Boston or have the MLB package on your TV), and then fade into sleep while reading whatever Paul Krugman or Eric Alterman book you have by your bed.

(Note: The previous person has absolutely no resemblance to me at all. I don’t like the Red Sox, for instance).

The point is you have now gone through an entire day without encountering a single new thing. Not one. And it seems to me that you could live this way more or less indefinitely … you can pretty much shut out anything that doesn’t fit into your small sphere of interests and beliefs. I remember a few years ago, I decided that I needed to stop listening to talk radio – I felt like it was adversely affecting the way I did my job. So I just stopped. And what stunned me is how invisible (for me) talk radio instantly became. I understand that it’s still going on, every day, all around the country, nonstop talk, but I don’t hear any of it, and I’m oblivious to it.

So what's the big deal? Well, here’s the rub: It may be the longer you live like this, the easier it is to believe that there ARE no new things, that everybody is pretty much just like you, that there are no other viable opinions, no other types of music or entertainment worth embracing, no other foods worth trying and so on. This sort of living isn’t new to our time – people have forever felt most comfortable in their own cocoon, surrounded by what they know and like, flanked by people who agree (or, at least, are so inept at arguing the other side that you feel more convicted after the arguments), surrounded by comfort.

But it also seems that it has never been easier than right now to live in your own world, reading your own thoughts, listening to your own music, watching your own television, eating your own foods, confirming your own beliefs. I remember the shock I felt when I read that those Tim LaHaye apocalyptic “Left Behind” books have sold more than 65 million copies. Sixty five million! First off, that’s quite a few more than The Soul of Baseball (nudge nudge).

More to today’s point – and, please, please, please, I am not criticizing the Tim LaHaye books because I know nothing about them and don't need to piss off the readers of the apocalypse – I do not have a single friend or friend of a friend that (as far as I’m aware) has read a single one of these books. So to me there is an entire circle of people in America that I know absolutely nothing about, that I have never gotten near, that I do not understand. I suspect they know nothing at all about the way I live either -- it’s very possible that people in this circle might not listen to the Smiths, eat Cocoa Krispies and read Thomas Frank.

OK, so what does this have to do with Billy Joel’s “Big Shot?” Well, naturally, I hate that song. I have never hidden my antipathy for Billy Joel, but I REALLY hate that song. “You had to be a BEEG shot, DINT-cha?” And while I was in the coffee shop, I realized that I had not heard that song in probably 10 or 15 years. I had no occasion to run across it (and would not have on this day either except I left my iPod at home). Not unlike the man in the blog scenario, I listen pretty exclusively to my iPod, I watch only my TV shows, I hang out with people who are quite like me, I check my Internet sites, I read the magazines that are likely to either reinforce my opinion or widen it. I do run into daily contradictions and a few thought-proving ideas just because of the nature of my job (often in the form of emails from people saying, “You are an idiot” and so on), but all in all, I don’t like the song “Big Shot” so I have managed to purge it from my life.

Is there anything wrong in this? No. It just makes me think of the interview between writer Nora Ephron and Graduate director Mike Nichols – he mentioned that he hated living in Los Angeles.

“Well, some people would say it’s easier living out there,” Ephron said.

“Yes it is,” Nichols said. “But who says that’s a good thing?”

Leaving on a jet plane ...

I'm getting ready to head to San Francisco for more Bonds magic -- nothing better than a good flight delay in Milwaukee to make your day -- and I read a comment by brilliant reader Mr. Clutch concerning my last blog. It reminded me that there was one more important point to make.

Here's the comment:

Joe, I understand your argument, but I have one important one important (I think) objection. On your list of talented black players, I don't believe I see a single pitcher. I know some black pitchers have been effective, but in general, the great majority of black players have been hitters. To what do we atrribute this? I have no idea, and I certainly don't wish to stereotype. It does seem to be a fact, however, and it must be considered. Even today, there are only two effective black pitchers I can think of (Willis and Sabathia).

I have heard this argument quite a bit -- although (and I want to make it clear this is NOT what Mr. Clutch is saying) I have usually heard it as a charge that Negro Leagues hitters weren't as good as they are sometimes made out to be because there have not been many great black pitchers through the years. It is, in fact, usually that very argument that leads to bring out my "Let's take a look at the 10 years after integration" case that I brought out in the last blog.

But I think it's important here to make a point that I only brushed the last time. Yes, there have been quite a few good to excellent black pitchers in the Major Leagues -- Bob Gibson, Fergie Jenkins, Vida Blue, Lee Smith, J.R. Richard, Mudcat Grant, Al Downing, Dwight Gooden, Mike Norris, Dontrelle Willie, Sam Jones among them.

But remember, any and all dark-skinned athletes were banned from play in the big leagues before 1947. This included dark-skinned Latin players as well. Luis Tiant's father pitched in the Negro Leagues, for instance. So, now, let's look at some dark skinned pitchers since 1947 who I suspect also would have played in Negro Leagues:

Luis Tiant, Mike Cuellar, Camilo Pascual, Juan Marichal, Pedro Martinez, Bartolo Colon, Joaquin Andujar, Jose Rijo, Dennis Martinez, Johan Santana, Carlos Zambrano, Javier Vazquez, Mariano Rivera, etc., etc.

Again, it's just part of the context. But I think it's realistic to think that having black pitchers would have had an effect on Ruth.

I'm going to try something here, and I have no idea if it will work ... but let's try to prove a point by picking an example. For not-entirely-random reasons, I'll choose Andy Van Slyke in 1992. Van Slyke had a very good seaosn that year. He hit .324 with 45 doubles, 12 triples, 14 homers, he scored 103 runs, drove in 89, stole 12 bases, won a Gold Glove. He finished fourth in the MVP balloting. A fine year.

Now, let's take him back pre-1947. I might get this wrong -- it's difficult to know exactly how light-skinned a player would have had to be to play in the pre-Robinson days -- so bear with me and please forgive any statistical misses.

Take him back to 1947, and you can more or less eliminate 83 at-bats. I figure he had these against Dennis Martinez, Sid Fernandez, Dwight Gooden, Ben Rivera (who Van Slyke spanked all year), Ramon Martinez, Chuck McElroy, Jose DeLeon, Ken Hill, Xavier Hernandez, Alejandro Pena, Lee Smith (I stopped with pitchers who faced him fewer than four times -- I mean I'm stuck in an airport, for crying out loud).

OK, he hit .289 against those guys (thanks to the 7-for-10 with triple and homer against Ben Rivera). So without those at-bats, Van Slyke hit .330. If you would just replace those pitchers and just use what he did against everyone else, his season total would have looked more like this.

.330 average, 202 hits, 49 doubles, 12 triples, 15 homers, 95 RBIs.

And this is assuming that the pitchers he faced were about the Major League average, which of course they would not be -- they would be pitchers from Class AAA and Class AA. So you could might even add a few more points to the average, a few more hits, a homer or two, who knows, maybe four or five RBIs, so the numbers could conceivably look like this:

.334 average, 206 hits, 51 doubles, 12 triples, 16 homers, 100 RBIs.

Voila, suddenly you have a Tris Speaker, Stan Musial, Al Simmons kinda year.

These numbers are a silly guess, of course, and probably way off. We're just playing around. But there's another point here too: Van Slyke finished fourth in the MVP voting that year. However, the three players who finished ahead of him (Barry Bonds, Terry Pendleton and Gary Sheffield) were all African American. So take them away, he's also the league MVP. He finished second in batting (to Sheffield) so give him a batting title. He finished fifth in OPS, but only Darren Daulton among the first four is white. He finished third in runs created (behind Bonds and Sheffield) so put him on top there too.

You see what I'm getting at here ... It isn't just that Babe Ruth might not have hit 714 homers had he played against men of color. It's that Oscar Charleston might have hit 745 homers and stolen 800 bases. It's that Josh Gibson may have hit 68 homers in a season. You are, after all, judged against the players of your time. Ruth is amazing because he was SO MUCH BETTER than anyone else of his time. But that may not have been so had black athletes been allowed in the game.

Anyway, this is all just guesswork and free-form thoughts ... something worth talking about while I chase Barry Bonds around the country.