Don't Believe Everything You Read and Hear: Ty Cobb, A Terrible Beauty

Photo: from the book's Goodreads page (and from my review)


I've got a major sinus infection and fever, that the doctor said looked like strep or the flu, and and she just said she thinks I should be out of action for at least three days, so forgive the lack of structure here. Doing my best...

As Shakespeare's Caesar showed us (and Orwell's Animal Farm), when someone in charge repeats something often enough, the masses believe it. (Defense Exhibit A: Iraq having weapons of mass destruction. Exhibit B: Everything Mr. Orange said to win the chair he never sits in.)  Charles Leerhsen's Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty attempts to show that everything we've thought, read and seen in a movie lately about Ty Cobb is either fiction, exaggerated, or misleading.

He largely succeeds, but he gets carried away with his own success. He inserts lame jokes into the text. He happily shows how he's correct and writers like Al Stump aren't. He's right, but does he have to be so gleeful and boastful about it? And most of the errors he points out about Cobb aren't direct falsehoods, but errors of degree. Was Cobb the psychotic we've learned about? No, he wasn't. But would you choose him over Honus Wagner to be on your team? No, you wouldn't. The Tigers desperately needed him, so they coddled him for as long as they needed to, but that was not a happy family in Detroit. Speaking of happy families, Cobb's mother did shoot his father, and Cobb apparently was emotionally and perhaps physically abusive to his kids, and perhaps his wife.

He favors Cobb with such a bias that he writes: "In Honus Wagner [the Pirates] had a marquee star who had almost all of Cobb's ability and none of his charisma..." (223). Now, there's a lot wrong there. Not so fast. Wagner had ALL of Cobb's abilities--including hits (Cobb 4,189; Wagner 3,420) average (.366 to .328) and stolen bases (963 to 897). The point isn't that Wagner surpassed the numbers; the point is we're talking about 2 all-time greats playing at the same time, amassing very similar numbers. And Wagner never saw the live ball era of the 1920s as Cobb did. Wagner retired in 1917 while Cobb hung up his spikes in 1928. Had they played during exactly the same years, their numbers would be closer. Though Cobb may have a slight edge with the bat, the numbers show that Wagner could have matched them, but didn't. Why? Perhaps the Pirates didn't need him to.

But the point Leerhsen never makes in his whole 400+ page book is that on defense for his career, Cobb owes 10 games to the Tigers (his defensive WAR is -10), while for his career Wagner gives his team +21 wins on defense. That's a swing of 30 games, which Cobb's 38 points of batting average, 700 hits and 66 stolen bases don't compensate for. (Cobb played 3 more years than Wagner, and Honus never saw the lively ball of the 20s.) Cobb was known as an average to below-average defender, at best, while Wagner made other players' jaws drop at shortstop. He played Gold Glove- caliber defense every day, according to his contemporaries, in The Glory of their Times. All of the players said Wagner was better than Cobb because of Wagner's defense, and that they all stood around and watched as Wagner hit. Nobody says that about Cobb.

Also consider Cobb's behavior. Leerhsen makes it clear that he was nowhere near the crazy butthole everyone thinks--but he also makes it clear that he was a pain in the ass to his own teammates, to anyone who got in his way on the basepaths (I can let that slide, as the players did. See what I did there?), to the team management that usually coddled him and adopted him, and to fans, both for him and against him. Did Cobb assault a black waiter? No, he didn't. Did he dislike African-Americans in general? The evidence says No, that he was indifferent, and that he was for them if they were good ballplayers, like how he spoke in favor of Jackie Robinson. Did he kill 3 people, as has been said? Nope.

But did he jump into the stands and beat the crap out of a paraplegic? Yes, he did! Did he slide with his spikes up? Yes, he did, but only if you were in his direct line on the basepaths. And if you were at a base, including home, he usually slid away from you. Did he say bad things to almost everyone, including his teammates, kids and wives? Yes. Did he drink too much as he got older and turn nasty? Yes, he did. You get the idea. Now, did Wagner do any of those things while active? Was the whole Pirates team against him? Did he piss off his ownership? Did he assault the disabled and chase after umpires and fight almost every guy he knew? Nope. And does that translate into a better team, so that it could be said that he helped his team by not being a butthole like Cobb was? You bet. (Though, like Cobb, Wagner drank too much when he got old. But while alcohol made Cobb angry, bitter and mean, the sauce just made Wagner babble incessantly, and start baseball stories that could last an afternoon.) In a nutshell, that's the argument Bill James makes when he says that Ted Williams was a better hitter than Stan Musial, but not a better ballplayer (or left fielder).

It's not clear by the numbers that Cobb was that much better than Wagner with the bat (though I'll concede the point that he may have been a little bit, like Ruth over Gehrig), but it's also very clear that Wagner was the much better defender and clubhouse presence. I don't give much credence usually to the latter, but I do when we're talking about a chronic problem like Cobb, though he may not have been the psychotic we've been led to believe he was. Having read this book, I see him now as a Jimmy Piersall type of neurotic, a nervous and anxiety-ridden guy, with an ability ten thousand times that of Piersall. But essentially the same temperament.

So that's what we've got here. The author makes the mistake of celebrating himself too much--ironic, since that's what he shows Cobb did too much, which made his teammates dislike him. He was better than they were, and different, and smarter, and faster, and that also made them dislike him. In fact, the T206 guys on his team actively bullied him, to the point that a few of them were suspended by the team. I don't criticize Cobb for this, though one would think he could have somehow handled it better. After all, Wagner was better than all of the Pirates of his time, and nobody taunted him or beat him up, even when he was a rookie. But Leerhsen says at least 12 times (I stopped counting) that Wagner (and Lajoie, and Elmer Flick, and other HOFers of the time) were grunts with a lunchpail, guys who would be in the mines without baseball, boring guys with no personality--I'm not making this up, or exaggerating. Leerhsen calls them these things.

Well, hell, I used to know a lot of people I thought were interesting, who did a lot of crazy things, who hurt a lot of good people, either emotionally, mentally or physically (or all of the above), but weren't they fun and exciting? But then I grew up, and I saw that stable and consistent behavior is a helluva lot more interesting than the crazy, destructive and self-destructive crap I saw the "exciting" people do. Those latter people flamed out, or exited from my life, stage left, (or both) and I replaced them with stable and consistent people with different things about them that were exciting and interesting.

Which ones would you rather work with for 20+ years? Exactly. Turns out, consistent and stable people make your job (and therefore your life) easier. Leerhsen gets caught up in his own cult of personality, like Cobb did in his, and it made them both pale in comparison.

So if you like the T206 era as I do, and you're interested in who Ty Cobb was, like I am, you should read this, and you'll find it interesting. It's informative, it sets the matter of Cobb straight, and it's a good read.

But like those guys who keep repeating the same thing, and it's believed because it's on the internet, or it's in print, or it's what you want to hear, or it's said by someone in some sort of power--Well, don't believe everything you read, you know? Ironic, because that's the point of this book, and Leerhsen proves his point in a way that he doesn't want to. But there it is.

Jimmy Collins -- Boston and Providence Manager, Winner of Boston's 1st WS in 1903

Photos: Jimmy Collins T206 front and back, from my collection

I wouldn't have known the importance Jimmy Collins had on the Boston and Providence teams if I hadn't looked him up. And I wouldn't have appreciated his HOF stats--which are not impressive just by looking at them online, especially baseball-reference's JAWS scores for him. I look up every player's stats when I do a blog entry on them, and I always use baseball-reference.com. I also sometimes look up the player on Wikipedia if the stats show me something that seems interesting, suspicious, etc. about that player. Since I mention it, you can look at Jimmy Collins' stats here and you can read about him on his Wikipedia page here.

Collins is on the card with the Minneapolis Millers, which--like Joe Kelley--I assumed meant he was playing in the minors at the time, waiting to be called up. (This is considered his RC.) But I forgot that the leagues then weren't like the leagues now. In short, there were no minor leagues. A player played for a team and the owners and managers (no GMs then, either) would trade them or release them. So a major league player could be traded to Minneapolis, which was in the American Association (a major league for a very short time in the Victorian Era). It was a good, quality league by 1909, though not as good as the majors. A comparison today would be that it was quality-wise at least as good as AAA, and would sometimes be in between AAA and the Majors.

Good leagues then--defined as leagues that had decent quality of play, and where the players and managers could make a decent living, even if they never left--included the Majors, the AA, the Pacific Coast League (notorious for tiny ballparks and big, affluent crowds, especially in California), the Eastern League (of which Providence, RI was a member), the Western League and the Southern League. Lots of T205s refer to the Triple-I League, which were the states of Illinois, Iowa and Indiana. That was also apparently a helluva league. The pay and play in these leagues would vary, with the Majors being at the top in quality, but not always in pay. (The Texas League and the Southern Leagues were often not of the best quality of play. Often, players having a good year would hit 60+ homers and drive in over 150 like clockwork, but then struggle when they advanced to a better league, with better quality players.) In fact, Joe Kelley, by 1907, had played and managed in the majors for about 15 years. But although he was offered Major League jobs, he left the majors and played/managed in Toronto, in the Eastern League, in 1907. He returned to the Majors with the Boston Doves of the National League, but returned to Toronto for 1909 and 1910. Why? More money, he said. The Eastern League was a decent league, and Toronto drew well and played well, so it paid well. So Joe Kelley's T206 is of him with the Toronto Maple Leafs (he's got a bat in his hands, like he's ready to swing or bunt, but he's also smiling, so it's obviously a pose, and he only managed that year anyway), and I assumed without looking it up that he was in the minors, waiting to get called up. Turns out, he was at the tail end of his managerial career, and he'd been done playing for awhile. (It's still his RC.)

Which brings us back to Jimmy Collins. He wasn't near the quality player Joe Kelley was, in roughly the same time span. Collins started playing in 1895 and was a much better defensive player than he was with the bat. (Then and now, you can make a good career in baseball in the Majors if you're great with the glove and at least a bit decent with the bat.) Collins became better than just a little decent with the bat. After averaging 6 homers a year with maybe 30-50 RBIs, and okay averages, he suddenly had 2 straight years of 132 and 111 RBIs and .346 and .328 averages, in 1897 and 1898. He had 3 more straight years of 90+ RBIs without breaking 100. Good numbers, but really good hitters hit for crazy high averages in the 1890s, with tons of hits and RBIs. Wee Willie Keeler and Billy Hamilton, for example, did that every year, and Joe Kelley had 5 straight years of crazy Runs Scored and RBI totals, while averaging about .360 for those 5 years. (There was an offensive explosion in the mid-1890s that nobody's ever explained to me. There was no expansion, and players for the first time almost universally wore gloves in the field, which you would think would make run totals go down, not explode.)

Anyway, Jimmy Collins never led the league in much (homers in 1898, with 15 and total bases that year, plus ABs and PAs another year, but that's it) and he retired with 1,999 hits, because nobody cared about totals and stats as much then (Sam Rice retired in the 20s with 2,987 hits, for example) and because there was no Hall of Fame to continue playing for. Collins's career stats are not impressive when you look at them on the page; he finished with just over 1,000 runs scored and just under 1,000 RBIs. These are essentially Al Oliver numbers (though Oliver's career stats are superficially better because he played a lot longer, but he was terrible defensively).

So I was thinking that Collins was yet another Veterans Committee disaster pick for HOF until I read up about him. Turns out, while he was playing, he was regarded as the best third baseman, especially defensively. It was said that he "revolutionized the position," specifically by his ability to field bunts. (Fieldwork used to be so bad that players would frequently lay one down to get one base. The shortstops were considered the better athletes and they were usually in charge of fielding bunts, even ones that hugged the line.) Collins had such good instincts that he was amongst the first to play in on the grass to cut down on the bunts. His defensive play, plus his very good to good to adequate hitting, made him the first third baseman to be inducted into the HOF in 1945.

And that's what the numbers don't show. They're not impressive now. In fact, JAWS says he's just the 20th best third baseman. But that's now. Until 1945, he was the best third baseman in the majors. He held the record for most putouts, in a short career, until Brooks Robinson broke it in the 1970s--over 60 years after he retired. While active, he was written about and spoken about as the best third baseman. For some reason, the position remained somewhat stagnant until the 60s, and even now there aren't that many in the Hall compared to other positions. A quick look at the 19 third basemen in front of him, according to JAWS, shows me that only Home Run Baker (another HOFer) played in the same era as Collins. Everyone else, from George Brett to Eddie Matthews to Paul Molitor to Wade Boggs to Mike Schmidt to Chipper Jones (#6) and Adrian Beltre (very quietly #5 all-time)--as you can see, they're all post-1950.

So the numbers lie. You can't judge something just by the numbers, or by your limited understanding of the numbers, or of the era the numbers accumulated in. You have to look into the numbers and understand the time in which they were amassed. On their own, the numbers look like nothing. But in the context of their time, they make him an obvious HOF choice. In fact, I wonder who the HOF Committee thought should be represented at 3rd by their first few choices in the years after the Hall opened in 1933.

But wait, there's more. Jimmy Collins was the Boston Red Sox's first-ever manager, in 1901. The American League first became a league after 1900. Collins was also playing and managing the Boston Red Sox when it won its first-ever World Series in 1903, beating Honus Wagner and the Pirates 5-3 in a best of nine series. Collins also managed Boston to another first-place finish in 1904, but John McGraw and the New York Giants refused to play them in another series. After that, though, things went bad between Collins and Boston's owners, to the extent that he was suspended a few times, accused of quitting on the team--and he was managing them to a last-place finish. So the team president hires Chick Stahl to manage the team, while Collins stays on as a player, which must've been awkward as hell. Stahl was feeling a lot of pressure and depression, and committed suicide after the 1906 season ended. Boston let Cy Young manage in 1907 and traded Collins away.

By 1909 Jimmy Collins was managing the Minneapolis Millers (and playing; he had 152 hits and batted .273), which is where he was when the T206 was produced. So this is another manager card and not a player card. (The T206s don't list position or title, and there are no stats or writing on the back. This is unique, because the T205s, also produced between 1909-1911, have writing and stats, making them the preferred card for some. I like those backs, but I don't like the fronts, or the thicker gold borders that chip very easily.)

In 1910 and 1911 he managed the Providence Greys, of the Eastern League, who played in a park in Olneyville, just up 95 from here. (The Greys were the first World Series winning team in general, winning it in the 1880s when it was a Major League team. It folded, surprisingly, soon thereafter, reappearing in a few years as a minor league team.) He took over for Hugh Duffy, a HOF player from Cranston, RI, also just up the road from here. And within a couple of years after Collins retired after 1911 and moved back to Buffalo, the Greys had another HOFer on its roster--a pitcher named Babe Ruth.

Mike Trout

Photos: Fronts and backs of my 2011 Mike Trout Bowman rookie cards, from my collection.

So, as promised, here are the Mike Trout RCs I spoke of in my last post.  As I mentioned, I don't typically buy recent cards.  Like, ever; I mostly do T206s, 1933 Goudeys, the 1887-1890 Old Judges, and Topps and Bowman HOFers pre-1960.

I made an exception this year for these three Mike Trout RCs, plus the Bryce Harper RC shown recently, and a Paul Goldschmidt and Jose Altuve RC, because they were very cheap, in mint condition, and of undervalued, under-rated players I believe have a good chance to be stars for a very long time.  Goldschmidt's RC values will go up, especially when he hits free agency and plays for a team collectors care about.  I mean, nobody cares about the Arizona Diamondbacks these days.

Anyway, as I also mentioned, the Mike Trout / Bowman situation was confusing, and took me awhile to come to terms with.  In essence, there are rookie cards that are actually rookie cards, and rookie cards that Ebay sellers say are rookie cards but that aren't, and rookie cards that people believe are rookie cards because they were released during the same season as the player's actual rookie cards, and rookie cards that are not rookie cards because they're prospect cards.  A rookie card is not necessarily the first card released of that player by a major card company.  (Those are now prospect cards and minor league cards.  This is confusing for those of us old enough to remember when the prospect cards from the, say, 1980 and 1981 Topps sets were the actual rookie cards.  Now they aren't.)  A rookie card is the first card made of a player once MLB has decided that he has made enough at-bats, or has pitched in enough games, to qualify as a rookie player.  This can often be a few years after the player has been in the big leagues, and long after his cards have started to appear.

So...the Mike Trout cards shown here (in the first photo, starting at the top and going clockwise) are:

a) ungraded Bowman Draft #101
b) Bowman Chrome Draft #101, graded 9.5 Gem Mint by Beckett (I love that case, by the way, though I don't like the BCCG case, which is also Beckett, just to add to the confusion)
c) Bowman Chrome #175, graded 9 Mint by PSA.

Though the swinging photos of the drafts are the same, and though the number on the back, and the design on the back, are the same, these are different cards.  One's a Chrome, and one's not, and that's just the way it is.  Everything else about them is the same, except the Chrome's picture is maybe not as bright and clear.

The first card, the Bowman Draft, cost me $19.38, including shipping.  I'm frankly taking a chance on it, hoping it'll be graded a 9 or 10.  If it isn't, I've got the other two that are, and this one's a gift for one of two people I know will love to have it, regardless of condition.  They're not as serious about this as I am.  It'll cost me about $7 more to get it graded, shipped and insured, so the total I'd invested in it by then would be $26.38.  At that figure, this card needs to grade an 8.5 to break even.  These values have risen recently in the Beckett Graded guide, and I believe they'll continue to do so.  By the time the next issue comes out, it may only need to grade an 8 for me to break even.

The next one, the Bowman Chrome Draft #101, graded 9.5 Gem Mint by Beckett, has a book value (BV) of $100.  It cost me $50.50, which includes shipping.  This card has also increased in value recently, and I believe it will continue to do so.  You can never assume you can re-sell something for the BV, but I believe this card will come close.  Often you're lucky to get 50% of BV when re-selling, but I believe I can sell this at one of my summer yard sales for $75, which is 75% of the BV.  If I were a baseball card picker, which I suppose I am, I would make a profit from this card of at least $25, especially from baseball fans or card collectors who don't like to use the internet.  Lots of those come to my occasional yard sales.

The last one, the Bowman Chrome #175, graded 9 Mint by PSA, I paid a little more for: $58.51, including shipping. Its BV is $80, which has also gone up recently.  Only a $22 profit on this one, if I ever need to re-sell it, but I believe it'll be worth more by that time.

So why the exception for Mike Trout?  Why buy all three of his Bowman RCs?

Well, first, go to his baseball-reference page here, and take a look at these numbers.

In the only four full years of his career, he's finished 2nd in the MVP voting and has won it once.

He bats leadoff (a move I don't like, and it hasn't helped the Angels) and hits lots of homeruns and drives in a lot of runs, and steals bases and walks (and Ks) a lot, for silly high on-base percentages. As an example of how well he does these things, in his MVP year he led the league in runs scored and in runs batted in.  That's very, very rare, to do that in the same year.  That's a Ruth / Mantle / Williams / Mays thing to do.  Of those, only Mantle and Mays had the same combination of speed and power.  But Mantle ruined his knees and ankles and Mays only showed off his speed on defense after awhile.

Ah, yes--the defense.  He makes acrobatic catches normally.  He doesn't have a great throwing arm, but he can run and go get it as well as anybody.  His first two years he was a web gem about to happen.

Every season he's played, he's led the AL in WAR and in Offensive WAR.  He's been in the top-4 in Slugging % and in OBS.  Top-3 in Runs Scored, Homers, Triples and Walks.  Top-2 in Runs Created, Adjusted Batting Runs and Adjusted Batting Wins.  And Base-Out Runs Added and -Wins Added. And Top-3 in Putouts as an Outfielder, which means he can really go get 'em, and his pitching staff gives up lots of flyballs.

An average CF in the HOF will have 27 Black Ink statistics.  He's already got 20--in just four years. An average HOF CF will have 144 Grey Ink stats.  He's got 77--in just four years.  An average HOF CF will have a 100 HOF Monitor.  He's at 75 already.  The HOFer will score a 50 in HOF standards.  He's at 31 after four years.  He's already the 40th best CF to ever play, and is compared favorably to Mantle, Frank Robinson and Jimmie Foxx.  His 7-year peak is almost that of the average HOFer--in just four years.

And when next baseball season comes around on April 1st, he'll be 23 years old.

And he's the one the ballplayers themselves say is the best right now.  They talk about him like the real old-timers talked about Ruth and Honus Wagner.

The Sherry Magie Error T206 Card Sold on Ebay

Photo: The one you see here is valued at $90,000.  Yes.  90 grand.  Or, half the value of a good house.  The super-famous Magie (Magee) error card, from PSA.com.  The card in this picture is not the same exact one in the story below. 


I just watched a Sherry Magie (correct spelling: Magee) error card from the T206 set--one of the most sought-after, rare and expensive cards in the hobby--sell on Ebay.  Just watching, mind you.  Why?  Because it was in PSA 3 VG condition, which means the grading company PSA said it was in Very Good condition, which is an actual grade, and not somebody saying, "Hey, that's in very good condition."  The 3 means that this is the 3rd-lowest grade for a card, which is good if you're a serious, but financially limited, collector like me.  (Most serious T206 collectors are not financially limited.)  So I'm thrilled to get a card in VG condition, but most serious collectors prefer cards at least a good three stages higher, at least Excellent or Excellent-Mint condition.  If I had the money, I'd be the same.  But I don't, so I'm not, and I'm okay with that.

Anyway, Beckett's Graded Card Price Guide says that this exact error card, in this exact graded condition, has sold recently, on average, for $20,000 (Yes, twenty grand for a baseball card of someone you've never heard of.) and that this dollar "value" has gone up since Beckett's last report.  This is not the same as saying that the card is "worth" $20K, but for our purposes here we can think about it that way.

Suffice it to say, I don't (and most of you probably don't) have twenty grand to spend on a baseball card, so I'm just watching this take place.  At about five minutes before the end of the auction, the highest visible bid (if you've bought off Ebay before, you know the highest visible bid is often nowhere near the highest actual bid) is at about $12,000.  Now, this kind of famous card, an error card, a card that every serious T206 collector (including me) wants to have, will often go crazy in the last 10 seconds of bidding, so I'm fully expecting this thing to jump violently and quickly from $12K to $14K (seeing a baseball card jump in seconds by a few grand is a very rare thing to see), and so on, to come close to $20K or, as I expected, to exceed it.

To my utter shock--and, I'm sure, to the seller's worst nightmare--it doesn't.  It sells for $14, 544.  Someone out there just got one of the hobby's most sought-after cards at a savings of over $5,000.  Well, $5,456, to be exact.  Which means the seller, who should have expected the card to sell for something close, if not more than, $20,000, just took a hit of over five grand.

Meanwhile, I just saw a Burleigh Grimes 1933 Goudey, in PSA Good condition, with a book "value" of $50, just sell for $81.26, plus $3.50 shipping.

So some guy got a card at a savings of over $5,000--and he can very easily just re-list it himself sometime and sell it on some Friday or Saturday night, far away from Christmas time when people are buying presents and going broke, for the $20K, and make a nice $5,000 profit for himself by doing absolutely nothing.  Well, besides using a little common sense.  I would never auction off a super-valuable card around Christmastime.  I'd wait until February, or March, when people are depressed and miserable and will overspend.

Anyway, so some guy underspent by five grand and got a world-class card, while someone else vastly overspent on the Grimes card by $33.76, which in its own way is just as shocking.  Overspending by almost $34 on a card that's only worth $50 is an astoundingly financially unfeasible thing to do.

Ebay giveth and Ebay taketh away.  That's the risk you run putting something up for bid.  If you just get a sparse crowd, you're going to lose out, big-time.  The company selling the Magie card was not one of the mega-name card companies I'm familiar with on Ebay.  If it had been, with the established and serious client base those companies have, the card would've sold for closer to the $20K.

Craziness.  But the company's fault for putting it up for bid when it did.  Even if that's what the client asked the company to do (these guys often auction things for someone else, and get a cut of the sale price for doing so; that's called consignment), I can't believe the company wouldn't convince the card owner that he'll lose a few grand selling it now.

If I'd only had the money myself...

I also watched a 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth #181 PSA 6 EX-MT Condition, sell for $6,100.  Shipping: $20.  (This is the classic card where he's grimacing and looking over his shoulder, his arm on the red Big League Chewing Gum ad.)  The book value: $5,000.  I can't decide if someone overspent by over a grand, or if this is a worthwhile and legitimate value.  A $1,100 profit on a $5K card is a pretty good haul.  This Ruth Goudey card is also one of the hobby's most recognizable cards.  Though not as much as the Napolean Lajoie (who's from RI) 1933 Goudey card.  A Near-Mint one of those recently sold for $60,000.  Yes, $60K for one baseball card.  This company was one of the mega-names, which I think accounted for the profit made by the card.  Sad, but true.  Why the owner of the Magie error card didn't consign it through one of the mega-name companies is a mystery.

Red Sox 27-17 May 19, 2013

Been gone for a long time.  The job, and getting a lot of reading and writing done.  But I've been watching (or listening to) most of the games.  Missed maybe 3 or 4 all year so far, maybe.  Here's what's been going through my head about the Sox, and about baseball in general, lately:

--The new one-game Wild Card playoff format is unbelievably bad, I've realized, and here's why.  Imagine you're the Red Sox, for example, and you win the Wild Card over the next team, the Tigers, by, let's say, five games, which is a lot for a Wild Card lead.  Anyway, since the top-2 Wild Card teams play in the one-game playoff, the Sox, who won by five games, play the Tigers.  The Tigers, of course, pitch Justin Verlander, possibly the one best pitcher in the majors.  He strikes out 12 and wins a complete game shutout, and the Sox are out of the playoffs.  Is that fair?  The format exists this year not to make it more interesting for the top two teams, but to make it more interesting for the middle-level teams, three or four of which will finish between one to three games away from the second spot.  Soon it'll be like hockey or basketball, where almost every team is in, or close to, the playoffs.  This is better for the owners, of course, but not for the game itself.

--Pedro Ciriaco isn't doing it for me this year.  After today's game, he's committed six errors in extremely limited playing time, and is hitting below the Mendoza line.  This is a far cry from last year, when he hit (it seems) about .300 and played great defense.  Right now, he's a glorified pinch-runner.  What happened?

--John Lackey is 2-4 with a 3.30 ERA.  And he's slim.  And he's not complaining.  Finally.  Not bad for $15.25 million per year for the past three years, including this one.

--Speaking of money, David Ortiz has made over $112 million (mostly for the Sox) over his career to, essentially, swing a bat.  And for the Sox, and even for Boston itself, he's been worth every cent--if anyone can be worth that much to swing a bat and to represent sport in a major city.

--Lester and Buchholz are finally pitching like they should--at the same time.

--Hanrahan never did it for me, anyway.  But Bailey can't spend any more time on the DL, especially when you consider last year.  If he does any more, you can't consider him a good signing.

--Uehara is amusing.

--I've probably said it before, but I'll do so again: Minnesota should not have an open-air stadium.  Target Field looks beautiful (and its ground crew is run by the guy who used to do Pawtucket's McCoy Stadium for many years), especially with the tan limestone and cityscape in the distance, but it's a mistake for the Twins to have an open-air stadium.  And without a great team, the novelty of it will wear off, fast.

--Ellsbury has been in a long, very quiet, slump.  (Napoli has, too, but not for as long.)  Currently he's hitting about .250, with an on-base percentage around .300.  That's bad in general, but it's catastrophic for a lead-off hitter.  How about Victorino there, and Ellsbury 2nd, or whatever, to let him get himself on track again?  Bradley may not be the answer next year, but I'm not sure Ellsbury is, either.  I have his autograph, so I want to be wrong, but he's got a lot to prove, since he's a free agent at the end of this year.  If the year ended now, I wouldn't resign him, no matter how much Sox gear he sells for the ladies.  (Yes, the management would take it into consideration when considering his free agency.)

--Pedroia's having a great year.  He's a great hitter almost anywhere in the lineup.  He could hit productively, with a high average and on-base percentage, between the first and the fifth spots in the lineup.  When batting cleanup, which he has the last few years when Ortiz was out, he drove in a lot of runs, too.  An amazing hitter who should have a long and productive decline phase, which shouldn't start for quite awhile yet.

--Saw Cecil Fielder on Tim McCarver's show for a short time, so I looked him up on baseball-reference.com, which I use to look up all players' stats, and the salaries mentioned above.  Anyway, he ate himself out of the major leagues.  His last game was at age 34.  The site mentioned above kindly listed his weight at 230 pounds, which is way off, I assure you.  Even now, he takes up the entire lens of the camera.

--Who're the only two American League batters to lead the league in RBIs for three consecutive years?  Answer: Babe Ruth--and Cecil Fielder.

--Speaking of whom...His son, Prince Fielder, will be making $23 million per year, every year, for the Detroit Tigers, until the year 2020.  By that time, he would've made over $225 million playing baseball.  Prince Fielder is hitting below the Mendoza line in his playoff games.  His playoff batting stats are, to be kind, abysmal.  A-Rod has been much better in the playoffs, despite his reputation otherwise.  Ewwwww......

--Tim McCarver is a terrible broadcaster, by the way.  His enshrinement was a joke.

--Daniel Nava is quietly hitting close to .300, with close to a .400 on-base percentage and close to a .500 slugging percentage.  Unbelievable!  Happy for the guy who hit a grand slam on the first pitch he ever saw in the majors--and hadn't done much since.  He was bought from an independent league team for $1.  Literally.

--To show the opposite, Julio Iglesias, who was hitting about .360 and playing Gold Glove defense for Boston when he was sent down to Pawtucket when Stephen Drew came off the DL, was benched for three games recently by the Pawsox manager due to his bad attitude.  His benching started in about the seventh inning of a game I attended.  He was his typical magician self in the field, but he wasn't running out ground balls, and he must've said the wrong thing at the wrong time to the manager.  This won't get him brought back up anytime soon.  He deserved the chance for his defense alone, but his attitude won't help hide how offensive he can be, if you catch what I'm sayin'.  But he has a major league career, even if he bats ninth for bad teams his whole career, just for his defense alone.  He'll give his teams a few wins a year just with his glove.

--Saw a Twins outfielder make a homerun out of a double for Pedroia when he went after a fly ball, and it bounced off of the heel of his glove and over the outfield wall.  (This should really be a 4-base error, rather than a homerun, but I don't know if the rules allow for such a thing.)  Anyway, I haven't seen that happen since Jose Canseco infamously let a fly ball bounce off his head and over the wall.

--A friend of mine imitates how Jenny Dell seems to point with her chest.  I mentioned that Dell does it better, which didn't help matters.  Jenny Dell seems to be having fun with a thankless job.  And she's definitely grown on me, since I said in the beginning of the year that she's no Heidi Watney. 

The Morality Bloodhounds

Okay, so it's been awhile.  Okay, so it's been a long while.  Had some things goin' on, lost a family member, got really sick, got tied up with Paying the Man.  But now I'm back, talkin' baseball, so let's get caught up with a few things:

--The Bonds trial has quickly become a circus.  The topic in court today was how he walked around with a smaller size bat, if you know what I'm sayin'.  What that has to do with him perjuring himself, I don't know, as that soon won't be something you can lie about, if you further know what I'm sayin'.  This tells you something about Barry: Yuckiness seems to follow him, 700+ homeruns or not.  Bad for baseball.  Bad for my acid reflux.

--I worry a little about the Morality Bloodhounds.  First Barry.  Clemens is next, mark my words.  The same legal moral railing didn't turn out so well for Kenneth Starr, and it won't end well for whoever's in charge of this fiasco, either.  Bonds is a jerk, not the Antichrist.  Slap him with a year in jail, or probation, and take away his HOF entrance for 14 years (You can't keep him out.  He's up there with Ruth and Williams, 'roids or not, and you can't just whisk that away.) and move on.  Stop bathing baseball fans in the mud.

--The Yanks may win more games than you would think.  If they have the lead after the 7th, they'll win about 99% of the time.  Soriano and Rivera are the newest Rivera and Wetteland.  The Yanks may be playing 7 inning ballgames this year.  And with that offense, they'll have a lot of leads.  But with that starting pitching...Don't rule these guys out.  They could surprise and win the division.

--But I don't think they will.  Go Sox.  The Fenway opener against the Yanks will mean more than usual, even if it is the very beginning of the season.  Speaking of which, the games with the Rangers will show a lot as well.  But why start at 4, then 8, then 2?  I'm just sayin'.  I mean, we all have DVR.

--When I heard that Jeter's shirts and apparel were the best-selling in baseball, by far, his recent contract made a lot more sense to me.  It ain't all about the play on the field.

--By the way, Pedroia outsold A-rod, for those of you keeping track.  And I was very surprised that Pujols barely made the top-10.  That ain't right.

--Beltre could've hit 30 homers a year at Fenway alone, had he stayed.  Just take a knee, and swing.  I haven't seen a swing better fit for Fenway, ever.  That swing would make all of those shots go over the Wall for Beltre, too.  He didn't have too many wall-balls last year.

--There's something going on with Beckett that we may read about in a few years.  Maybe Pap, too.

--The Sox and Yanks measure up closer than you'd think.  Both have questionable starting pitching that could either excel, or flame out.  The Sox starters, overall, are better, with Lester and Buchholz, but if Beckett and Lackey don't perform, and Dice-K's arm falls off, this could be a very disappointing year.  The 8th and 9th innings should be great for both teams--with the Yanks getting the nod--and the offense should be stellar, as well, with the Yanks getting the nod there as well, though the Sox's offense could pull away, as they've gotten younger while the Yanks have gotten older.  But this year may be a draw, with the Sox getting the upper hand offensively for the next few years.  The difference could come down to middle relief, of all things.  Or injuries.

--Because of this, watch out for the Rays.  And Rangers.  The Rays may still surprise, despite the firesale.  If their rookies perform well--and they might--they could be in the thick of the wild card.

--Sox and Phils at the end.

Parity

Cliff Lee to the Phillies.  That gives them an embarrassment of riches on pitching and offense.  I was surprised when Philly didn't go deeper in the playoffs last year, and I'll be shocked if they don't make the Series this year.

I'll go on a limb and pick a Sox/Phils World Series.  Sox in six.

Having said that, it seems to me now that the teams to beat in the majors now are the Red Sox, Yanks, Angels, Rangers (replacing the Rays as a potential division-leading team without deep pockets) and Twins (perennial leaders also without the cash of the first three teams) in the American League and, in the National League, the Dodgers, Phillies (which has more money now than ever before), Mets (constant disappointments despite deep pockets), Braves (which doesn't spend as much as the others, without reason), with the Giants contending for now, but with little money to keep up after The Freak leaves.  The Padres are an example of this now.

I say this because I suppose that there is better balance in MLB, yet the same teams--with the sporadic surprises every year--keep making the playoffs, don't they?  Anyone expect the Nationals or Royals to make the postseason?  I'm glad I'm a fan of a team constantly in contention, that's all I'm sayin'.

Take a look at my writers/readers blog, and look at the entry for this blog.  One of those subjects will be on this blog soon.  Topics include HOF voting (Why did Ruth, Williams, etc. have a surprisingly large percentage of voters vote against their inclusion in the Hall?); Pedro's greatness as measured in different ways than maybe you've seen before; a positional analysis of the Sox (and whatever other team I feel like); and a trip around the American League, and a coast through the National.  Lots to get to.  Just tryin' to find the time.