Ambiorix Alert

Several people have told me that the singing frog from the cartoons (Michigan J. Frog, according to Wikipedia) is actually a racist caricature. I don’t know if it’s true, but it has given me pause because the frog had always been one of my favorite cartoon characters. I think the frog has offered one of the great sports lessons ever.

You know the story. Guy finds a frog who sings (“Hello! Ma baby”) and dances. The man sees great riches (you can tell this because dollar signs float over his head) and he invests whatever meager savings he has to put on a show. And then the show begins, and the frog just sits there. After a while, the man puts the frog in a box, buries him and many years in the future another guy finds the singing frog, dollar signs float over his head ... and so on.

To me, this is the greatest ever depiction of the 5 o’clock hitter. We used to watch Joe Vitiello crack home run after home run in batting practice – man that guy was strong – and think “Holy cow, this guy is going to hit 40 homers in a season.” This means something in Kansas City because NO ROYALS PLAYER EVER has hit more than 36 homers in a season. This is one of the staggering statistics a Kansas City columnist must deal with (here's another one: the Kansas State men’s basketball team has not beaten Kansas at home in 24 years).

Anyway, we were watching Vitiello blast homer after homer when some wise guy among us – I wish I could remember who it was – quietly sang “Hello! Ma baby. Hello! Ma honey. Hello! My ragtime gal …” True enough, when the lights turned on, Joe V. could not find a position, and he hit .240, and he did not hit 40 homers in his entire career (though he did hit just about the longest home run anyone had ever seen one spring training day back in Baseball City).

We do seem to be getting away from the point, here.

A couple of days ago, my good friend, New York Post columnist Mike Vaccaro – we’re going to do some baseball previews on here in a few days – sent me an instant message that read: “Holy cow! Ambiorix Burgos has some STUFF man!” Until that point, I’d almost forgotten that the Royals had traded Burgos to the Mets in exchange for Brian Bannister, a straight up MPH for Baseball IQ deal. Apparently on that day Burgos had thrown a bullpen session, and was already cranking his fastball up to the 100 mph range. He cracked the bat of big prospect Lastings Milledge and made Endy Chavez gasp, whatever that is worth.

(By the way, what kind of goof throws the ball 100 mph before the end of February? I'm not crazy, right? Isn't this like walking up to a doctor and saying, "Hey, would you mind cutting my ulnar collateral ligament? Thanks.").

So, yes, they are seeing riches in New York now (“Burgos Impression is Fast” crowed Newsday. “Burgos Heat a Royal Pain to Milledge,” blared the Post. “Speed vs. Speed,” hyped The New York Times). Hey, I don’t blame them. We saw that stuff in Kansas City too. Burgos can throw just about as hard anyone in the world. His split-fingered fastball can dive like Liston in Lewiston (hey, I love Ali and think he would have won the fight anyway. But I don’t care what ANYONE says … that was a flat dive). You watch Burgos pitch and, yeah, those dollar signs will float over your head too.

And then the lights turn on. The people show up. And Burgos stops singing.

It was astonishing to watch people light up Burgos just about every time the game mattered (and honestly … how much did those games REALLY matter anyway? The Royals were out of the race in the third week of April). He blew 12 saves last year, but that doesn’t even begin to describe the agony of watching him pitch. Tom Burgmeier, the old Royals bullpen coach, used to talk about one of his pitchers who had outrageous stuff -- every single time Burgie watched the guy flounder around on the mound he had the same thought: “You stupid son of a bitch, I would have KILLED to have your stuff.”

That’s the feeling Burgos inspires. You would have killed to have his arm. Instead you have to watch him shake off fastballs because he’s in love with his splitter, you have to watch him throw fastballs high and outside and get into 3-1 counts, then you have to watch him groove thigh-high fastballs over the heart of the plate that hitters tattoo into the bleachers (the guy gave up 16 bombs in 73 innings last year … and every single one of them, it seemed, cost the Royals a game). He wasn't a bad pitcher. He was an insult to pitching.

Now is it possible that the change of scenery will jolt Burgos out of his fog and allow him to blossom into a dominant reliever? Of course. The kid’s not yet 23. The Royals certainly rushed him, and they made him a closer when he barely knew his way out to the bullpen. Maybe with a new pitching coach, a new environment, a new attitude ... this could be one of those deals that haunts Royals new GM Dayton Moore.

But you know what? Moore doesn’t think so. He’s seen that frog clam up. The Royals got Brian Bannister who is the spiritual opposite of Burgos – a smart and tough competitor who doesn’t have half of Burgos’ stuff (actually that’s not true. Burgos throw 100. Bannister throws 87-89. So Bannister has about 88 percent of Burgos’ stuff … at least when it comes to fastballs). Moore will bet on Bannister every time.

Meanwhile, the Mets are entranced by the stuff. Their jaws drop when just hearing his fastball. My buddy Vac is thinking the Mets got themselves one heck of a steal. I only have this to say: “Hello! Ma baby. Hello! Ma honey …"