Live from Milwaukee ...

Live from Milwaukee on a day when Barry Bonds didn’t even play. This chase is going just great so far. Anyway, I was thinking about something ...

I did something the other day on this blog that I normally try not to do … I sort of dismissed someone else’s opinion without fully expressing my own. I despise when people do that. The other day, for instance, I wrote a column about how, with only a little empathy, we all could probably have a pretty good understanding of how Hank Aaron feels now that Barry Bonds is so close to breaking his record.

I received this not unfriendly email from a semi-regular responder:

Joe,
How many at-bats did Aaron, Ruth and Bonds have? That tells the whole story.
Terry

That’s the whole email. Now, in the first place, this has absolutely nothing to do with what I wrote. But my point here is that it drives me absolutely batty when people simply dismiss an opinion without bothering to give you something to shoot at. You know, when the argument goes like this:

Player 1: “I think education is good and crime is bad.”
Player 2: “You’re wrong.”
Player 1: “You think education is bad and crime is good?”
Player 2: “I just think you’re wrong.”
Player 1: “So what do you think?”
Player 2: “You’re wrong, that’s what I think.”

I mean, let’s just say (as I’m guessing Terry assumed) that I believe Aaron and Bonds were better players than Ruth. Does it really tell the WHOLE STORY to look at their number of at-bats? I mean that’s it? That’s the argument? They played ball in different eras, in different parks, different strike zones, different bat types, different ball types, different pressures, different pitching styles, different pitches, different travel plans, different salaries, different media coverage, they were different people playing a different game …

Number of at-bats:
Babe Ruth, 8,398 (714 homers)
Barry Bonds, 9,736 (753 homers)
Hank Aaron, 12,364 (755 homers)

I mean is this really where any and all arguments begin and end?

The other day I wrote a little bit about my friend Rick Morrissey’s column in the Chicago Tribune, one where he challenged Jesse Jackson’s contention that Babe Ruth’s numbers, because he did not face black players, are enhanced. Rick’s argument, as I understood it, is that black players never did dominate baseball the way they have basketball, and so while it's certainly a great injustice that black players were not kept out, they would not likely have had a big effect on the statistics and greatness of pre-1947 players.

I really did not want to argue his point – I had something entirely different I wanted to point out – so I just said, “I’m not sure I entirely agree with him,” which I now realize was both insincere (I REALLY disagree with him) and about as dismissive as “How many at-bats did Aaron, Ruth and Bonds have?” I have a strong opinion here, one that is as pointed as Rick’s, and I just didn’t get into it. I don’t think that’s fair play.

So, here’s my opinion on the subject: I think Babe Ruth’s numbers are certainly artificially inflated because he did not play against men of color. And I think if there was ever fair reason in the history of baseball to put an asterisk on statistics, it is to denote:

*This record was set pre-1947, when baseball’s unspoken rule prevented men of color from playing in the Major Leagues.

Understand, that I’m not suggesting such an asterisk. I don’t think it belongs. I don’t think there should be any asterisks – baseball is baseball, it is constantly changing and evolving, and if you want to keep records, then I think you keep them unedited through the game’s history.

But I also do think Jesse Jackson’s point has merit. For one thing, nobody should underestimate just how good Negro Leagues baseball players were. I often make this point in interviews when discussing The Soul of Baseball, but I don’t believe I’ve made it on this blog yet: If you want to appreciate just how good Negro Leagues baseball was, take a look at the first, say, ten years after the color line was broken.

1947: Jackie Robinson joined the Dodgers. He won rookie of the year, an MVP award, and was the heart and soul of the Boys of Summer. He went into the Hall of Fame.

1947: Larry Doby joined the Indians. He twice led the league in homers, once in RBIs, once in OPS, started in five All-Star Games. He went into the Hall of Fame.

1948: Roy Campanella joined the Dodgers. He won three MVP awards. He went into the Hall of Fame.

1949: Don Newcome joined the Dodgers. He won the rookie of the year award, a Cy Young award, won 20 games three times, led the league in strikeouts, shutouts, and wins.

1949: Monte Irvin joined the Giants. He was of an advanced age when he arrived, but even so in 1951 he had double figures in doubles, triples, homers, stolen bases and he led the league in RBIs. He went into the Hall of Fame.

1951: Minnie Minoso joined the Chicago White Sox. He would probably have made the American League all-decade team; he led the league in triples three times, stolen bases three times and hit-by pitch 10 times.

1951: Willie Mays joined the Giants. He’s perhaps the greatest all-around player in baseball history. He went into the Hall of Fame.

1953: Ernie Banks joined the Chicago Cubs. He became Mr. Cub. He hit 500 home runs in his career. He went into the Hall of Fame.

1954: Hank Aaron joined Milwaukee. He’s the Home Run King. He went into the Hall of Fame.

1955: Roberto Clemente joined the Pirates. He got exactly 3,000 hits. After dying in a heroic effort to help victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua, he went into the Hall of Fame.

1955: Elston Howard joined the Yankees. He won an MVP award, two Gold Gloves at catcher and was a nine-time All-Star (if you don’t count twice those years when he played in both All-Star games).

1956: Frank Robinson joined the Reds. He won two MVPs, a triple crown and hit 586 home runs. He went into the Hall of Fame.

There were others of course, good players, Sam Jethroe, Jim Gilliam, Vic Power, Connie Johnson, Toothpick Sam Jones, Hank Thompson, the aging Satchel Paige, Vic Power, and so on and so on, I know I’m missing some people here, probably some obvious ones. But the point is that within 10 years of Jackie Robinson breaking through, some of the very best players in baseball history joined the Major Leagues out of the shadows of the Negro Leagues. Every single one of these players – Mays, Aaron, the Robinsons, Clemente, Banks – would be mere rumors and myths alongside Willie Wells, Ray Dandridge and Slim Jones had they been born even 20 years earlier.

Based on this, is it fair to say that it would have had a dramatic effect on baseball and it’s heroes had dark-skinned players – because, remember here, dark-skinned Latin Americans were part of the ban – been included pre-1947? I think so. I’m not saying that would have turned Babe Ruth into Mendy Lopez. I’m not saying that Walter Johnson would have been banged around like Jim Bibby on a bad day. I suspect greatness in sports always finds its way to the top.

I am saying that Babe Ruth, through no fault of his own, played in an era when black players were kept out. It’s part of his context. It HAS to be parf of his context, just as baseball’s non-existent steroid rules are part of Barry Bonds’ context (I realize that Bonds was a more active participant in this – he actually used steroids – but please don’t miss the point I’m trying to make, this isn’t about Bonds). Just as Hank Aaron dealing with thousands of racist letters and spending the latter part of his career in home-run-happy Atlanta Fulton County Stadium is part of his context. And so on.

People have been arguing for many years about which players in which era had it hardest. I’m not really looking to argue that point here. I am throwing out this question, though: Take a player, any player. He has two choices:

1. He can take as many performance enhancing drugs – steroids, human growth, amphetamine, Ritalin, whatever – as he likes.
2. He can play in a league where, say, one quarter to one third of the eligible and most talented players are banned from play.

Which of those two things alone is most likely to help that player become a star?

Holy Cow, it's 2 a.m.

Sorry I missed Bloggy Friday – woke up at 4:30 a.m., flew to St. Louis/Detroit, ate fast food Chinese, signed books, wrote about Hank Aaron, watched Billy Butler get four hits, followed Barry Bonds via internet, it was all very exhausting. I’ll try to throw a couple of blog items up this weekend (no promises – the Bonds chase begins in earnest Saturday).

First, though, I want to thank all of you who showed up for the signing at Comerica (Dave Hogg, in particular) and all of you who promoted it (Blue Collar Baseball, the Detroit Tigers Weblog, Ron Wade at the Detroit Tigers, etc).

And of course we throw all sorts of love at our regular brilliant readers – you in particular Charlie Kerfeld. Loved you in ’86. Meet George Jetson.

As for the book signing, we probably didn’t draw the same line of people that stores probably had for the new Harry Potter book. But we did sell a few books, and we got the word out about Buck, and we made a few bucks for the Negro Leagues Museum, so it was all very worthwhile. Thank you for reading.

We will try to get some blogs up while we're on the Barry chase, but for now, for your amusement, we offer two little bonuses. First, here are three hitters’ career numbers adjusted to a different time and place (by the genius of Baseball Reference):

-- Babe Ruth (had he played his entire career in Atlanta Fulton County Stadium, 1971):.324 average, 690 homers, 2084 RBIs, 2016 walks.

-- Hank Aaron (had he played his entire career in Pac Bell, 2001): .311 average, 788 homers, 2,436 RBIs, 653 doubles.

-- Barry Bonds (had he played his entire career in Yankee Stadium, 1927): .313 average, 780 homers, 2,127 RBIs, 2,596 walks.

The other thing I want to point you to (courtesy of one of the people who showed up for the book signing) is this website. All I can say is that it's about time the man got his due.

Don't Forget the Motor City ...

The lesson with Barry Bonds is clear: Don’t get comfortable. You might recall that about a week ago, I had braced myself for the Bonds chase. I did my Barry calisthenics. I studied some baseball history. I bought some flaxseed oil. And then things began to change. Bonds looked so bad against Los Angeles over the weekend, you wondered if he had been placed under a spell by an evil enchantress or, perhaps, Jeff Kent.

Then he sat out of a couple of games in Chicago, and rumors began flapping that he would go on the disabled list. The Bonds homer chase was at a standstill. Well, hey, this was like a 12th hour reprieve from the governor. I started to think, “Hey, I won’t have to worry about this Bonds thing for at least a couple more weeks.” I relaxed. I made plans. I set up dinner dates with old friends. I was going to finally get to cleaning out that darned garage.

So, Thursday, what happened? Bonds bashed two homers at Wrigley Field. And Thursday night, I kissed my wife and kids good bye. In the morning I begin my chase of Barry Bonds.

Well, not quite immediately. First, I go to Detroit Friday night – please pay attention if you live in Detroit (or live near Detroit, or have relatives who live in Detroit, or have relatives who live near Detroit, or you will be visiting Detroit or you've HEARD of Detroit). I could really use your help.

Book promo: I will be out at Comerica Park, Gate A, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. signing (and selling) The Soul of Baseball. I agreed to this a long time ago, when it seemed a lot less real, and now I have a frightening image in my mind of being out there alone while people walk by and give me dirty looks, the looks they give to those college kids who shout, “Hey, we’re giving away free Major League Baseball beach towels,” when what they’re really doing is trying to sell you a Major League Baseball Visa card with loan shark interest rates.

If you can make it out there Friday night, buy a book, talk baseball, give me photos of Scott Boras, whatever -- please help me. Oh yeah, proceeds from the sales go to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

Then Saturday I go to Milwaukee to begin the Bond chase. I have to say that this chase is probably the most confusing, divisive, baffling and bizarrely fascinating assignment of my career. Here is Barry Bonds on the brink of setting one of the great records in American sports – shoot, let’s just say it, this is THE record in American sports – and nobody knows exactly how to feel about it. Are we mad? Sad? Titilated? Thrilled? Disgusted? Is it real? Is it fraudulent? Is Severus Snape good? Is he evil?

Writing about the Bonds homer chase is like writing sports in a funhouse. Everything is illusion and distorted mirrors and scary clowns. I have to say that I have read many columns and stories about Bonds, and frankly I think it’s been difficult for even the best writers in the business to get their arms around this thing. For instance, Sally Jenkins (who is excellent) wrote the other day that the only way there could be a happy ending for Barry Bonds is for him to walk away and retire just before he broke the record. I thought that was somewhat interesting and well written, but then it occurred to me that in addition to it being unrealistic, it’s also too simple. Would that really be a happy ending? No. I suspect if he really did that, if he really quit just before breaking the record, then, sure, at first everyone might applaud him and think, “What a noble gesture.”

But I think that would fade very quickly. I suspect people would Bonds gesture as an admission that he was guilty of every steroid, human growth hormone, drug crime imaginable, and that he really hated himself and felt unworthy. All his accomplishments would be suspect -- no, more than suspect. All his numbers would fade from the books. His legacy would be reduced to: “He’s the cheating guy who quit before he broke the home run record.”

Meanwhile up in Chicago, my friend Rick Morrissey (who is one of the best sports writers in America) says he won’t even write about the Bonds chase – he’s just going to treat it like it isn’t real. The other day, though, he wrote a column challenging the comments of Jesse Jackson, who said that Babe Ruth’s statistics were even more artificially enhanced because he did not have to face African Americans or dark-skinned Latin American players. Rick isn’t buying that – his argument (as I understood it) is that blacks never did come to dominate baseball, and so it’s a stretch to think that the great white players before 1947 would have been any less great had their been no color line.

I’m not sure I’m completely with him, but I appreciate the point and understand him defending the good names of Walter Johnson, Babe Ruth and so on. But there’s one thing he writes that I think is off base … Rick writes this paragraph:

“If you use Jackson's logic, the stats of Negro leagues star Josh Gibson are suspect too. Because he wasn't allowed to compete against whites in the big leagues, how many of his reported 962 homers came against substandard talent? Shouldn't we call that number the ultimate enhancement too?”

Here’s the problem with that: People DO follow Jesse Jackson’s logic when it comes to Josh Gibson. EVERYONE considers Gibson's stats suspect. NOBODY treats his 962 homers as real or as any sort of record. In fact, if you went to your 50 friends who know the most about baseball and asked them, “How many home runs did Josh Gibson hit?” I would bet precisely zero of them would have a specific number in mind – none of them would say “Oh, he hit 962.” His statistics are written off BECAUSE he didn’t face white players.

In other words, it seems to me by bringing up Josh Gibson, Rick made a rather persuasive argument against his argument.

But, hey, these are confusing times. I don’t have any clearer picture of this crazy home run deal. My own thoughts constantly contradict each other. I tend to believe that steroid use is worse than using amphetamines (or the more law-friendly cheating like corking bats or scuffing baseballs) but I couldn't tell you exactly why. I think that Hank Aaron is more worthy of the home run record though I believe Barry Bonds was the better player (even before steroid suspicions). I think Barry Bonds was, in most ways, just playing the rules and boundaries of his time, and yet I also think he was fully aware of the lines he was crossing.

There are so many different things swirling around this story – race, fair play, history, a paralyzed commissioner, drugs, anger, self-righteousness, ego and perhaps the most gifted and remarkable baseball player who has ever swung a bat. I have no idea what to say, really. I’m just jumping into the water, I guess, and going wherever the tide carries me.

(First, though, the tide takes me to Detroit. Come on by! Please!)

Boras? He doesn't even know us!

A good friend of mine who is in baseball and has been around the game much of his life sent me a seemingly never ending spew of angry text messages on Wednesday. The messages, as you might have guessed from the Blog headline, involved Scott Boras.

A few of these texts went like so:

“How about writing on the mega-contracts signed by Boras clients (professional and amateur) and how they have panned out?”

“Seriously, what’s the incentive to give into Boras? His success rate has to be brutal.”

“Drew. Zito. Dreifort. Kevin Brown. Jeff Austin. Two teams are paying A-Rod, and the team that signed him went in the tank. Beltre. Damon didn’t get any mo …”

“re money than KC offered. Burrell. Rey Sanchez.”

“Beltran didn’t want to go to the Mets … they were the only team to offer that much money.”

“How about A-Rod getting 200 grand for making the All-Star Team? Apparently $25 million doesn’t include being an All-Star.”

“Travis Lee, Bobby Seay, Matt White … remember they all weaseled out of the 1996 draft? Those deals worked out great for Arizona and Tampa Bay, didn’t they?”

“Actually, he didn’t represent all of those draft guys at the time.”

“Chan Ho Park.”

And so on. There are more texts. (To clean up a few of the inevitable inaccuracies you will find in text messages … Boras doesn’t represent Burrell; I think Damon did actually get quite a bit more money than the Royals offered; the Beltran text about him not wanting to play for the Mets is conjecture though it may very well be true).

My friend can go on some serious text rants when something gets him riled up. Don’t get him going on Global Warming (no, my friend is not Al Gore – think of the opposite). Anyway, all day on Wednesday my phone buzzed, I would check it out, and there would be a text message that said something like, “And don’t forget about Rick Ankiel.”

Somewhere inside all those angry texts there may be an interesting question: Would a team be better off to simply avoid Boras clients altogether? Or more to the point: Do Scott Boras clients, by their very nature, have priorities and demands that make them more likely than usual to bust?

I have an opinion about this that I actually think might go beyond baseball a little bit. First, though, I want to say that I respect Boras for his many talents as an agent (hey, you never know, he might want to represent this blog). I thought I said this the other day, when I wrote a blog about Boras’ client Mike Moustakas, but apparently the sentiment got lost. I wrote there that Moustakas, the No. 2 pick in the draft, was (at best) a 50-50 shot to sign with Kansas City because:

A. The Royals insist they will not pay much above slot money (slot is $3.1 million).
B. Scott Boras clients, with few exceptions, do not sign for slot money. Scott does not even acknowledge the concept of slot money. You get the sense he couldn’t even say the word “slot” much in the same way Fonzie couldn’t say “Sorry.”

Anyway, the general points I was trying to make, in no particular order, were:
1. Mike Moustakas says he loves the game and desperately wants to play professionally.
2. I believe him.
3. However Mike Moustakas (and his family) signed with Scott Boras.
4. You don’t sign with Scott Boras – the biggest, baddest agent around – unless you want to play hardball and make the most money possible.
5. Therefore, Mike Moustakas might not play professional baseball (at least for the time being).

That was it. That was the whole blog. The last few days, though, I have received several responses (and comments) from fans and people around baseball who read the blog and seemed to think I was saying that:
1. That I agree with slotting draft picks.
2. That I think the kid should sign, and I’m an idiot.
3. That I think the Royals should offer more, and I’m an idiot.
4. That I blame the kid for signing with Boras.
5. That I think “Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)” is a great song.

Well, I obviously did not do a particularly good job on that blog. The truth is I don’t have any particularly strong feelings one way or another about slotting – I see why the owners and commissioner want slotting; I see why players and agents don’t. I certainly don’t have any opinion at all on either No. 2 or No. 3 – heck, I failed college accounting (maybe that’s what they meant by the “I’m an idiot” part). And on No. 4, I certainly don’t blame anyone for signing with the biggest, baddest agent around, the guy most likely to get you a great deal. I’m all for people wanting to get what they want out of life.

(On. No. 5: I don’t think “Birds Fly” is a great song. I think it’s a FABULOUS song – “We are, we are, we are but your children! Finding our way around indecision!”).

But now we move on to today’s question: Is Boras worth the hassle?

(No, first, we deal with another controversey -- is the Birds Fly lyric "We are, we are, we are, we're just children" or "We are, we are, we are but your children?" I've seen it both ways. I think it's the second, but someone needs to get Ian McNabb on the phone).

On the one hand, you can say: Hey, if you want to be a player and a real contender, you have to deal with Boras. Look around. The Detroit Tigers built their turnaround on the wings of Boras clients – Ivan Rodriguez, Magglio Ordonez, Kenny Rogers. Look what Johnny Damon and Jason Varitek did for Boston, what Carlos Beltran did for the Mets, what Greg Maddux did for the Braves (not to mention Andruw Jones), what Prince Fielder is doing for the Brewers, what Bernie Williams did for the Yankees, and none of this even includes ARod, Mig Cabrera, Matt Holliday, Mark Teixeira, etc. The argument here is that many of the best players sign with Boras, and if you want great talents, you need to play ball with the Agent of Doom.

On the other hand, you can say: Hey, look at all the flops. The disasters. Darren Dreifort signed a, what, $58 million deal and went, what, 34-37 over five years? Chan Ho Park – yikes, $15 million per year for 5.50 ERAs and higher. Brien Taylor’s career was knocked out in a bar fight. Jeff Austin never won a single game for Kansas City after holding out a year. Rick Ankiel snapped and is trying to come back as a hitter. Barry Zito – does anybody want to be stuck with THAT deal right now? They’re booing J.D. Drew in Boston (they’re not saying “Drew!” They’re really booing his .250-batting, no-power-swinging butt). They still can’t believe the catastrophe known as Jeff Weaver in Seattle. There are many other fiascos. The argument here is that the players who sign with Boras care more about money than the game and, as such, they are much more likely to flop, become pains in the neck, turn into Jose Rosado, etc.

Here’s where my “maybe this goes beyond baseball” opinion comes in: I think generally people will see what they want to see. This is not particularly new ground but take a look at this week’s New York Times Bestseller list. You will notice, right off, that The Soul of Baseball is not on there. Why? Maybe it’s because you didn’t buy the book. Did you buy the book? This blog surpassed the 40,000 readers plateau in the last month, and I have to tell you if all of you would buy a book, then it MIGHT be on the Times bestseller list. For certain that Amazon number would go up.

OK, sorry, lost my head for a moment.

Look at the NYT Bestseller lists and you will see a book by Al Gore and a book called “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming” (not written by my friend, but I’ll bet he’s read it). You will see Barack Obama and Dick Morris, you will see the Pope’s discussion of Jesus’ identity as revealed in the Gospels and Christopher Hitchens on why God is not great. In other words, you will see any number of books that allow people to read exactly what they want to believe. Democrats read Frank Rich, Republicans read George Will, crazy people read Ann Coulter, it’s all very tidy, and it’s all very predictable.

I think there are just people in our society that, for some reason, represent something larger to us. Barry Bonds is like that. To many, many people, Barry Bonds represents the absolute worst in athletics. He represents selfishness, obnoxiousness, steroid-abuse and anything else that is wrong with sports. And there’s plenty of that in his record. Of course you also could point out that Barry Bonds is the greatest baseball player of our generation, that he carried the Pittsburgh Pirates to the playoffs three times, that he dragged San Francisco to the playoffs four times, that he played the game awfully hard and awfully well for many years – even his harshest critics have said he held out on performance enhancing drugs for the longest time while so many players around him used the stuff. Finally, they say, his ego couldn’t take it. And he became the greatest hitting machine in the history of history.

But none of that matters now. Bonds has moved beyond all that and become a symbol. He’s like modern art. People see him exactly the way they want to see him. Some see him as pure evil. Some see him as a victim. Some see him as a cheater. Some see him as a man who played by the rules of his time. Some see him as unworthy of replacing the class and grace of Hank Aaron. Some see him as a much better player than Aaron ever was.

Point is, it's all there. With Barry, you can see what you want to see.

And the same is true of Boras. If you want to make him an evil genius, a destroyer of the game we love or a defender of ballplayers, there’s enough in the record to back you up. I think when you go down the list of Boras’ clients, you will see enough head cases to poison the 1927 Yankees. You will also see plenty of difference-makers, player who could, with a little help and a little luck, turn around the fortunes of even the 2003 Tigers.

In other words, Boras is whatever you want him to be. I remember once reading two reviews, back to back, of the movie “Jerry McGuire.” The first review talked about how much fun it was, how uplifting it was to see that, even a sports agent, could find love and the meaning of sports.

The second review said something like this: “OK, so as best I can tell, this movie was about how one self-centered sports agent battled another self-centered sports agent for the right to represent a self-centered wide receiver, while Renee Zellweger whined.”

See, it’s all how you see it. I’ve always thought Renee Zellweger was quite hot.

Post: A Sad Day ...

Editor's note: This post was erased and/or lost once in the technological jungle of blogger.com. I rewrote. I'm sure the original version was better.

I was a sports columnist at The Cincinnati Post from 1994-1996, and those are three of the proudest and best years of my life. There are a lot of reasons for this. For one, it was my first job in a Major League sports town. For another, I had such great characters to write about, from Pete Rose to Bob Huggins, Marge Schott to Jim Bowden, Cris Collinsworth to the entire cast of the sad sack CIncinnati Bengals. For another, I loved the Cincinnati food. Right now, I'm craving a Skyline Chili three-way. Or at least a Blue Ash Chili double-decker.

For yet another, I worked at the Post at a time when we had an amazing staff. It's easy now, looking back more than 10 years, to see just how unique that staff was: We had Todd Archer (now Cowboys writer for the Dallas Morning News), Todd Jones (outstanding columnist/feature writer in Columbus), Jeff Horrigan (Red Sox writer for the Boston Herald), John Donovan (national baseball columnist for SI.com), Bill Koch (University of Cincinnati writer for the Cincinnati Enquirer) and Terry Boehmker (king of Northern Kentucky high schools still for the Post) among many other lesser-known lights (Bear, Tippy, Gambo, Skinny, etc). The sports editor was Mark Tomasik, who is one of the best newspapermen I've ever known and one of the great influences in my life.

Also NIck Clooney, George's father, wrote a lifestyle column for the paper. Nick was very kind to me -- he wrote me and called on occasion -- though in retrospect he never did set me up to write a script for George. So obviously, I will never forgive him.

That really was an amazing collection of talent. We were just a little afternoon paper by then -- circulation even by the mid 1990s had dwindled to about half of what it had been in the glory years -- but honestly, without arrogance, I would say pound-for-pound we had as good a sports staff as any paper in America.

But the biggest reason I cherish (and romanticize) those Cincinnati years is because, well, we were the underdog. And it's fun to be the underdog. Every single day we would take on the bigger, stronger, richer Cincinnati Enquirer. There aren't many old-fashioned, The Front Page newspaper wars left in America (and technically, even the Post-Enquirer competition wasn't really war -- the two papers worked under a Joint Operating Agreement, which meant they were sort of in business together. But, as you undoubtedly know, journalists don't understand business, and so we treated it like war).

The Enquirer had all the advantages, including the better time slot (they were the morning paper, we came out in the afternoon). And we tried like hell to beat them. We did pretty often, too. It was a rush. We tried to get stories first. We tried to deliver the money quotes. We tried to draw the more entertaining Bob Huggins insults. We tried to win the exclusive interviews. I remember when I lucked into a Pete Rose interview five years after he was suspended from baseball -- as we say in the business, I got him and I got him alone. And what I remember as much as anything was that amazing feeling of seeing that story in the paper and knowing that I just thrashed the Enquirer. It was my first victory over the Enqy. Every time I would see a fellow Post employee the next few days, I would get a big high-five. We were all in it together.

(Of course, in the end the Enquirer was a lot bigger and more far reaching. So the next two days, the Enquirer columnists -- both friends of mine -- each wrote Pete Rose columns using my quotes. They received much more acclaim around town than I did. That's how it was; we were pretty invisible. We had to take personal pride in a job well done. We drank also).

All of this comes up because Tuesday it was announced that at the end of this year (after 100 years of publishing), The Cincinnati Post will close its doors and stop the presses. None of this is a surprise as the word is commonly understood -- we all knew 10 years ago that the Post would die on Dec. 31, 2007, just after the Joint Operating Agreement ended. The last few years, for many complicated business reasons, the Post's circulation dwindled to a level that would make us Post alumni gasp. It was all chilling, clear-cut and inevitable.

But none of this, for some reason, makes it less surprising today. When you worked at the Post, you just sort of figured the paper would somehow be around forever. Today is such a sad day. It's an especially sad day for those talented people who work at the Post now -- in sports, that includes Trent Rosecrans, Lonnie Wheeler, Josh Katzowitz. Every time I would go to Cincinnati I would pick up the Post and feel so proud of the way they maintained the paper's tradition even in those awful, shrinking year. It was still damned good. The Post always did find talented journalists.

And for me, well, I guess I feel like a little bit of my youth is gone. I have lived in Kansas City for almost 11 years. I got married here, had two kids here, bought a house here, I mow my lawn here, this is home. But part of me will always be a Posty.

I have so many Post memories. I want to share two.

In 1996, I was at the Olympics in Atlanta. It was the day after the bomb went off, and more than 100 reporters surrounded a Cincinnati diver named Becky Ruehl. She was -- against all odds -- leading the competition after the first day, and she was just such a delightful and beautiful soul that all the reporters sort of fell in love with her. But the reason they all surrounded her on this day was to ask hard questions about terrorism and fear and shattered peace and so on. Becky could not have been more than 20 then, and she tried to hang in there, but after a while you could see she was pretty overwhelmed.

Finally, the diving press coordinator (yes, at the Olympics, there is a diving press coordinator) broke things up. Becky was a little shaken, and she started to walk away and then she saw me, and her eyes lit up.

"The Cincinnati Post!" she shouted and she rushed over. "It's so good to see a little bit of home."

The second thing I remember happened right at the beginning, on my interview with Mark Tomasik. We had a good dinner (of course -- it's tough to have a bad dinner in Cincinnati, unless you want pizza), and he was driving me back to the hotel. By then, I was pretty sure that he was going to offer me the job, he was pretty sure I was going to take it. He pulled up to the hotel door, I got out and then he rolled down the window and said, "There's something hard to explain about working for the Post. It's kind of magical. You'll see."

He was right. I did see. Cincinnati will never be the same.