Derek Jeter

I know I'm a little behind on my HOF posts, and on my posts in general for this site.  Having said that, a few words about Derek Jeter, after his last game today at Fenway Park:

--Obvious HOF because of his lifetime stats, most obvious his 3,464 hits, 6th most all-time.

--Also top-10 all-time in ABs, PAs, Runs Scored and Singles.  Considering he batted 1st or 2nd the vast majority of the time, these are excellent things for him to be amongst the greatest of all-time.  Probably the greatest second-in-the-order hitter ever.

--Some surprises (all this is courtesy of baseball-reference.com):

-12th all-time in Times-on-Base.  If you consider the all-time greats of Ted Williams (okay, shorter career), Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, etc., all those you'd think of as all-time super-stars, the fact that Jeter got on base via a hit, walk or HBP 12th amongst all these guys is very impressive.

-His Offensive Winning % is 45th-best, ever.  That includes everybody--pitchers and position players.  That's Clemens, Grove, Cy Young, Pete Rose, people better defensively than he was...everyone.  This is very high.

-His 1,909 Runs Created is 27th-best, all-time.  This is runs scored, runs batted in and everything in between.

-13th-most strikeouts ever.  I know he batted a ton of times, but this is still surprising to me.

-21st-most total bases, ever.  Again, considering all the big boys--Williams, Ruth, Gehrig, Aaron, Mays, Mantle, etc.--being 21st is very high.  Especially when you consider that those guys hit homers and Jeter hit singles and doubles.  That's a lot of singles and doubles to party with those guys in TBs.

-Player of the Week just 3 times--and Player of the Month just once!

-Never won MVP, though he did finish 2nd and 3rd a few times.  But, Pedroia excepted, American League MVPs usually go to the home run guys.

-5 Gold Gloves.  Granted, GGs are given just as much for offensive performance as it is for defensive excellence (though of course it shouldn't be that way), but, still, 5 Gold Gloves is a lot for a guy who's often ridiculed for his defense.

-Having said that, baseball-reference says he owes the Yanks 9.7 games over his career for his defense.

-But he's won them 95.3 games over his career due to his offense.  Divided by 17 or 18 full years, that's about 5 1/2 games a year, just him.  That's a lot.

-He's had 650 post-season ABs.  That's another full season.

-He had a .308 batting average and a .374 OBP during that "extra season."  Keep in mind, this is the playoffs, so this would be against the better pitching staffs in all of baseball.  The .374 OBP is more impressive than the .308 BA considering this.

-The same website has compared him to the HOF shortstops already enshrined, and had this to say:

JAWS	Shortstop (12th), 71.7 career WAR/42.2 7yr-peak WAR/57.0 JAWS Average HOF SS (out of 21) = 66.7 career WAR/42.8 7yr-peak WAR/54.7 JAWS

In other words, he's a little to quite-a-bit better than the average HOF shortstop.  In short, he's a HOFer.

The two things I'll remember most about Jeter:

1) The infamous 2004 game, weeks before Nomar got traded, in a game that Nomar refused to play, Jeter jumped into the stands to catch a foul ball--and got a bloody chin and cheek for it.  At Fenway.  Later in the game, Nomar refused to pinch-hit--for Cesar Crespo, if I'm not mistaken.  I know Salad will correct me if I am wrong about this.  :-)

The story goes that this so angered Red Sox brass that it was the last straw, and they were intent on trading Nomar after this.  In other words, if Jeter hadn't played all-out that game (as he admittedly did for all his games), then the Sox front office wouldn't have shopped Nomar--and the Sox don't win the 2004 World Series.

2.  In a 2001 playoff game against the A's, a throw gets away from the cut-off man and Jeremy Giambi (surely one of MLB's all-time bad baserunners) tries to score.  Jeter, who was roaming the infield, runs about 100 feet out of his shortstop position, grabs the ball that's trickling on the 1st-base line about 15 feet from home, and throws a shovel-pass to the catcher, Jorge Posada, who tags Giambi out.  (Giambi looks back in shock, though the real surprise is his refusal to slide, as he's tagged on his foot.)

This is ballgame with-it-ness that can't be taught.  Not too many guys have his head in the game so much to make that play.  (I played awhile, and I can honestly say that I would've watched with my mouth agape as the ball rolled away and the run scored.)  The Yanks win this playoff game 1-0, too.  Neither of these two plays show up in Jeter's defensive stats, and he was not a particularly gifted defensive shortstop like Alex Gonzalez or many others.  But Jeter has to be one of the headiest ballplayers of all-time, a player for whom the stats will not do total justice.  This says a lot, since he has Hall-of-Fame stats.

More than anything else, worthy of the Hall for his Hall-of-Fame consistency.  Offensively and defensively.  And for just the intangibles, which is usually a BS word, but not in his case.

And, finally, it's oversaid, but it's not wrong: Jeter's a guy who respected the game and the people in it.  He wouldn't have slapped the ball out of Bronson Arroyo's hand, for example.  Or put pine tar on his wrist, and then on his neck, as did the pitcher who started and won Jeter's last game.  He played the game right, and he has the $600+ million dollars and--soon--the HOF plaque to prove it.

A great player--even if he never made an appearance in my last Fenway game of this season, this past Friday, the day after his You-can't-make-it-up last game at Yankee Stadium.  Still, a great player.

Forever (Unfairly) Known As A Screw-Up

Photo: My Fred Merkle T206 Card

Have you ever noticed that some very nice people are known for the very one worst thing they ever did? 

Even an action that in the great scheme of things--like a baseball game--are not that big a deal? 

Are you one of these people?

Fred Merkle was.  This one-second event would stay with him the rest of his life.  And it gave him his nickname, that even now you can see on his baseball-reference.com page: Bonehead.

The incident even has its own Wikipedia page, as does Merkle himself.  (And most of his page covers the play.)  The play is infamously called "Merkle's Boner."  (Before you giggle, I should note: The definition of the second word: "Mistake.")

From Merkle's Wikipedia page:

On September 23, 1908, while playing for the New York Giants in a game against the Chicago Cubs, while he was 19 years old (the youngest player in the National League), Merkle committed a baserunning error that became known as "Merkle's Boner" and earned him the nickname "Bonehead."

In the bottom of the 9th inning, Merkle came to bat with two outs, and the score tied 1–1. At the time, Moose McCormick was on first base. Merkle singled and McCormick advanced to third. Al Bridwell, the next batter, followed with a single of his own. McCormick trotted to home plate, apparently scoring the winning run. The fans in attendance, under the impression that the game was over, ran onto the field to celebrate.

Meanwhile, Merkle ran to the Giants' clubhouse without touching second base. Cubs second baseman Johnny Evers noticed this, and after retrieving a ball and touching second base he appealed to umpire Hank O'Day, who would later manage the Cubs, to call Merkle out. Since Merkle had not touched the base, the umpire called him out on a force play, meaning that McCormick's run did not count.

The run was therefore nullified, the Giants' victory erased, and the score of the game remained tied. Unfortunately, the thousands of fans on the field (as well as the growing darkness in the days before large electric light rigs made night games possible) prevented resumption of the game, and the game was declared a tie. The Giants and the Cubs ended the season tied for first place and had a rematch at the Polo Grounds, on October 8. The Cubs won this makeup game, 4–2, and thus the National League pennant.

From the incident's Wikipedia page:

 The play was immediately controversial. Newspapers told different stories of who had gotten the ball to Evers and how. Christy Mathewson, however, who was coaching first base for the Giants, acknowledged in an affidavit that Merkle never made it to second.^[22] One newspaper claimed that Cub players physically restrained Merkle from advancing to second. Retelling the story in 1944, Evers insisted that after McGinnity (who was not playing in the game) had thrown the ball away, Cubs pitcher Rube Kroh (who also was not in the game) retrieved it from a fan and threw it to shortstop Tinker, who threw it to Evers. (By rule, after a fan or a player who was not in the game touched the ball, it should have been ruled dead.) A contemporary account from the Chicago Tribune supports this version.^[23] However, eight years prior to that, Evers claimed to have gotten the ball directly from Hofman. Five years after the play, Merkle admitted that he had left the field without touching second, but only after umpire Emslie assured them that they had won the game. In 1914 O'Day said that Evers' tag was irrelevant: he had called the third out after McGinnity interfered with the throw from center field.^[24] Future Hall of Fame umpire Bill Klem said Merkle's Boner was "the rottenest decision in the history of baseball"; Klem believed that the force rule was meant to apply to infield hits, not balls hit to the outfield.

(Me again.) 

And so there you have it.  A man who played in five (!) World Series (that's a lot for 1900-1920, before Babe Ruth's Murderer's Row teams and the beginning of the Yankees dynasty; in fact, the Yankees--or the Highlanders, as they were also called--were often a last-place team in those years), who finished in the top-10 in the league in homers four times and in RBIs five times, will forever be known as the guy who didn't touch second base (as most baserunners didn't when the game-winning run scored) and cost his team the pennant.  Though, even if it's not said on Wikipedia, the truth is that his team lost to a rookie pitcher at least four times in the last two weeks.  (This I remember from The Glory of Their Times.)  A win in any one of those games--or in any other that they lost after this particular game--would've given them the pennant.

As Bill Buckner wasn't solely responsible for Boston's 1986 World Series collapse--sorry to bring it up, but the comparison's too obvious--so too was Merkle not solely responsible here.

And he was never known for anything else.

Not even for those five World Series appearances with a few different teams.

All five which he, of course, lost.

No one, it is said, is the best thing--or the worst thing--he's ever done.

Even if it is all he's remembered for.

The Boston Red Sox Win the 2013 World Series

One of my favorite teams, and favorite baseball years, ever.  An over-achieving Cinderella team of mostly baseball nobodies that wins a World Series just as improbably as the much more talented 2004 team.  Francona's team is still the emotional highlight of my baseball life, but you cannot ignore the feel-good of watching this team keep on winning, going from "worst to first" and climbing that mountain all the way.  Even David Ortiz said that this team was one of the least-talented (and I mean that with affection) that has ever won a World Series.  Consider:

* No pitcher on the team won more than 15 games.  Nobody had the chance to win 20.

* No pitcher (besides Buchholz, who didn't finish with enough innings to qualify) was close to winning an ERA title.

* No pitcher was in the Cy Young conversation.

* Only one player drove in 100 RBIs.  And he didn't drive in more than 110.

* Only two everyday players hit over .300.  Neither hit over .310.

* No player came close to leading the league in homers, RBIs, or average.

* No player was in the MVP conversation.

* Players in the top-10 in the league in any positive category were in the middle of the pack, or the back of it.

* And that player was either Ortiz (for average, on-base %, slugging %, and maybe homers and RBIs--but, again, placing 5-10 in the top-10 for any of those), Pedroia (for average and maybe on-base % only) or Ellsbury (for stolen bases, stolen base %, and, maybe, batting average).

* World Champions--and Division and League Leaders--always have someone in the Cy Young or MVP conversation, with eye-popping stats, like those of Chris Davis, but not these guys.

So how did they win? 

How can a guy who almost led the league in strikeouts also lead the league (and the majors) in pitches seen per at-bat, and be the offensive star of the 1-0 win over Verlander in the ALCS? 

How can a player like Daniel Nava, who finished in the top-10 in the league (but who just barely qualified with his low number of ABs) not play in the World Series, or many of the postseason games in general, and be replaced by a guy who, literally, didn't hit his own weight?  And not one Sox fan, including me, complained! 

How can a staff without a 20-game winner (or even a 17-game winner) and without a Cy Young or MVP candidate win the World Series? 

How can such a team beat a Tigers team in 6 games, when the Tigers have the MVP (Cabrera), the Cy Young (Scherzer), the perpetual Great Pitcher (Verlander), the overlooked Gold Glove-candidate (and ROY-candidate) and the wise sage as manager? 

How can Shane Victorino win games in the ALCS and in the World Series with a grand slam and a three-run double, and yet still hit way below .200 in each series? 

How can a team win two out of three in another stadium when they lost the first one in the bottom of the ninth due to an obstruction call? 

For that matter, how can a team go without a World Series title in 85 years, and then win three in the next ten?

God help us cynics, but I think the Sox did it with....teamwork?  Consistency?  Preparation?  Desire?  And a lot of luck, of course.

How lucky were they in the postseason?

Lucky enough that the best hitter in all of baseball had such a bad groin injury that it needed to be operated on at the end of the World Series--and it made him unable to get to the outside fastball.  How did Tazawa get him out in all of those clutch situations?  Outside fastballs.  It even hurt him to foul them off.

Lucky enough that a rookie pinch runner gets picked off first base, with one of the best hitters in postseason history at the plate, to end the game.

Lucky enough that they won although Ortiz had just two hits in all of the ALCS.  That's right--he was 2 for 22, or something horrible like that.  The second hit was a little blooper over second base.  The first was the grand slam that tied the second game and woke up Boston.

Lucky enough that Boston had one hit in the first fourteen innings of the ALCS--and still won the second game, and lost the first just 1-0.

Lucky enough that Victor Martinez decided to stop rather than run to second.  And lucky enough that Prince Fielder decided to stop rather than score from third.  On the same play.

Lucky enough that a magician at shortstop booted an easy double-play ball--and then watched as Victorino hit his grand slam.

Lucky enough that an umpire didn't see that Stephen Drew's foot was a zip code away from second base when Drew started the first of the many double plays that sank the Tigers.

Lucky enough that the Cardinals inexplicably decided to pitch to Ortiz in every single clutch situation in the first five games of the World Series.  Or did Napoli scare them that much?  Was Napoli the guy they couldn't let beat them, and not Ortiz?

Lucky enough that the other teams ran themselves, or fielded themselves, into all of their losses.  The Sox certainly did not hit themselves into all of their wins.  Their scarce hits were enough to win the game because the other teams kept shooting themselves in the foot, and not hitting with men on base.

Lucky enough that the one or two hits that a particular player got in an entire series was enough to win one game apiece in that series.  Ortiz in the ALCS.  Napoli in the ALCS.  Ross in the World Series.  And Victorino in both the ALCS and in the World Series.

Lucky enough that they were able to win despite David Ross being an offensive improvement over another catcher.

Lucky enough that, during the regular season, they lost their legit closer to injury, then lost their other legit closer to injury, and then plugged an embattled 7th and 8th inning guy as the closer--and got the best results of all!  (Bailey and Hanrahan return next year, BTW, so where do you pitch them if Uehara still closes?)

Lucky enough that the team loses three more games than it should have, according to the Pythagorean W-L Theorem--which is a huge sway in the wrong direction--and still handily wins its division?

Lucky enough that, during the regular season, Uehara (4-1), Breslow (5-2), Bailey (3-1), Brandon Workman (6-3), Jake Peavy (4-1), Alfredo Aceves (4-1) and Steven Wright (2-0) go a combined 28-9.  Read that one again.

Lucky enough that they win it all even though their top five starters (Lester, 15-8; Lackey 10-13; Dempster 8-9; Doubront, 11-6; Buchholz, 12-1) go a combined 56-37.  Which is pretty damn good, but not in the same universe as the top-5 starters for the Tigers, Rays, or Cardinals.  Or did you think most World Series-winning teams have two of their top-5 starters finish below .500? 

And little things--but lots of little things--like great baserunning, good starting pitching and great relief pitching, and awesome defense.  And timely hitting, to the extent that they were either hitting in the clutch or they weren't hitting at all.

And--by far the most important thing this whole year--fouling off pitches, taking the pitch just outside or inside, driving the pitch count up, and getting the starters out of there and slapping around the bullpen.

And having a Gold Glove-winner at second base, and in right field, and--with a combination of Iglesias and Drew--at shortstop.  And Napoli was very smooth, and a great scooper, at first.

Unbelievable.  What a great team to watch all year, especially after the catastrophe of last year.  Especially in the playoffs, when they hit under .220 total and still won each series in six.

We won't see anything like it anytime soon, maybe not even next year, so I hope you were watching as many games, and appreciating them, as I was.  You know how we hear all that B.S. about chemistry, about leadership, about working hard and sticking together, about playing hard until the very last pitch?

This year, it was all true.  All of it.  

World Series Tied, 2-2.

Quite a bit, so let's get to it:

--I've never seen a World Series game--or any game--end on an obstruction play.

--But when you commit lots of errors over two games in the World Series, you're likely to lose them.

--I've never seen a World Series game end on a pick-off.  But, as a holder of useless information, I can tell you that Babe Ruth, of all people, was thrown out trying to steal second to end a World Series.  Not just the game--the entire series.

--Ortiz singles, and Tim McCarver says that Napoli should come in at first for the bottom of the eighth.  With that, McCarver finally said something in this World Series that I agreed with.

--No matter what happens tomorrow, it's going back to Fenway.  What else could you ask for?

--The Sox are hitting a combined .189 in this World Series.  The Cardinals are hitting .234.  Also not good, but they're Murderer's Row by comparison.

--Considering this, the Sox are lucky to be 2-2.

--With two more errors tonight, they've now committed six in the past three games.  Again, lucky to be 2-2.  This is after they won Game 1 because of the Cardinals' errors.

--I don't want to see Middlebrooks in the field for the rest of the Series.

--I already didn't want to see him at the plate.  Neither, for that matter, did his manager, John Farrell.

--That goes for all of next year, too.  I'm happy with Drew at short for his defense, and Bogaerts at third.  Middlebrooks can go.  Get whatever you can for him, even if it's just a middle-of-the-road reliever.

--With the game ending on a pick-off, does the batter--Carlos Beltran--get credit for an at-bat, or a plate appearance?  I think the at-bat has to end before you get credit for it.  Feel free to weigh in if you know the (irrelevant) answer.

--Sox World Series ERA after this game: 2.27.  St. Louis's ERA: 3.60.

--That tells you how many Sox errors there've been.  Many, if not most, of the runs are unearned for St. Louis.  They still count, of course.

--Craig Breslow needs to sit for awhile.

--Seven total errors for the Sox in four World Series games.

--That was Gomes's first, and only, hit of this World Series.

--Kudos to John Lackey for coming in for a scoreless eighth for his first relief appearance at all since 2004.

--And kudos to Big Papi for firing up the troops in the dugout.

--Speaking of Ortiz, he doesn't make the pick-off tag that Napoli did to end the game.

--Doubront is suddenly effective in the past few games.  He can be Breslow for now.

--Why was Tazawa allowed to just face one batter, especially since he got him in the most tense part of the game?  I'm guessing his tank is empty.

--Just found out why I've never seen a World Series game end in the way the past two games have: Because neither has ever ended a World Series game before.  If it's never happened, I won't see it.

--Stephen Drew can hit zip for the rest of this World Series, and all of next year, and I'll still play him at short for his defense alone.

--At one point in this game, David Ortiz had 7 of the 21 total hits the Sox had in this World Series at that moment.  That's one player having 33% of his team's hits, for you math lovers out there.

--Buchholz was maxed out after just four innings.  He topped out in the mid- to high-80s.  Worried?

--I hope Uehara doesn't have to pitch tomorrow so he can have two days' rest.

--Has it occurred to anyone that, incredibly, the Cardinals have been better without Albert Pujols?  With the money they saved by not re-signing him, they signed two good starters and two relievers.

--For that matter, who would've known that the Angels would be much worse after they sign Pujols and Josh Hamilton?  And with Mike Trout leading off for them to drive in, if he doesn't drive himself in?

--Take a look at my regular blog soon to read about an actual nightmare I had with Will Middlebrooks in it.  Bizarre, is all I can say.

Sox Win ALCS; Face Cards in World Series

A few thoughts after an exciting Game Six victory that opens the door to the 2013 World Series:

--I said in the last post that a commentator said the Tigers were a glorified softball team, and that I "sort of" knew what he meant.  Now I definitely know what he meant.  Great softball teams are usually big, slow sluggers who can't run or defend.  They throw hard and they hit hard, and that's usually enough for softball tournaments.

But that's not enough for baseball's postseason.  You have to be much more balanced.  You have to hit, but more important in a series is that you pitch, run and defend.  Though their starting pitching was perhaps the best ever in an ALCS, the relief pitching, the baserunning and the defending was terrible--perhaps the worst I've ever seen in an ALCS.  All of that reared its ugly head in Game 6:

* Austin Jackson, usually a very good baserunner, gets picked off first base by rookie Brandon Workman.  By a mile.

* Rather than get caught in a rundown so the (very fat and slow) runner from third can score, Victor Martinez--otherwise a very smart player--just stops in front of Dustin Pedroia.  Perhaps he wanted to block Pedroia's view and throw home, but Pedroia simply stepped around him, saw that Fielder had inexplicably stopped running home, and tagged Martinez out.  If V-Mart continues running, he at least makes it to second base, so there's one out and not two.  Or he gets caught in a rundown, which is what he should've done (and which he was taught in Little League to do), and so he's out but the run scores.  This is a common play, one he perhaps has done over a hundred times.

* Prince Fielder, one of the more seemingly-uncaring players I've ever heard and seen play in the ALCS (when told fans would get angry about his uncaring attitude, he said, "They don't play."), unforgivably stops halfway down the baseline and doesn't try to score on the aforementioned groundout.  Why?  If he's tagged out, again, there's just one out and runners are on first and second.  He shouldn't have tried to score at all, of course, with the ball never leaving the infield and his, shall we say, lack of speed.  Leaving third base is bad baserunning, but not continuing home to try to score is an unforgivable mistake that had his manager looking defeated and had Tim McCarver, who usually babbles incessantly about nothing, saying, "That's bad baserunning."  Fielder's unstylish bellyflop back to third base, which he missed by a few feet, will be a Defense Exhibit A of poor baserunning for years to come.  Adding insult to injury, he was signed last year to a 9-year / $215 million contract.  And he hasn't driven in a run in 18 consecutive postseason games.  No wonder why Detroit fans are booing him.  He would've already been driven out of Boston, a la Carl Crawford.

The Tiger defense was okay, since Iglesias is usually a magician in the field, and he loaded the bases, but he didn't give up the grand slam.  (And Pedroia booted an easy double-play ball earlier in the game.)  But the Detroit relief pitching was the worst in memory, or can you name another relief corp that gave up two grand slams in the same series?  The Tigers had the best starting pitching, and the worst relief pitching, in the same postseason series, at the same time.  Amazing.

--Speaking of $200 million and no playoffs, wave goodbye to the Dodgers.  I still don't get why they lost.  Puig, Adrian Gonzalez, or Clayton Kershaw are each able to win a postseason series, just by himself.  But they didn't, and Puig made more mistakes than even a rookie should make.

--The postseason brings out the worst in some players' personalities.  See: Alex Rodriguez.  Case Exhibit A was when he slapped the ball out of Bronson Arroyo's hand in the 2004 ALCS as the Yanks were blowing it.  Players learn in Little League that they can't do that.  And if they do it anyway, they don't have the nerve to look shocked, arms stretched out in surprise, while standing on second base.

--The two teams with the best record in each league are in the World Series for the first time since 1999.

--Stephen Drew doesn't get hits, but he does take them away.  He helped save Game Six with his great play in the seventh.  That's been heavily covered, but nobody remembers his athletic grab of John Lester's errant throw to second base to turn an important double play.  Lester has Roger Clemens's illness: Neither can throw the ball to any base with accuracy.

--Ortiz hit .091 in the ALCS.  Both hits were opposite extremes.  A little blooper over second base.  And a game-tying grand slam that woke up Boston in Game Two.

--Victorino hit .125, with just three hits.  But, like Ortiz, he made the big one count.

--Drew went 1 for 20, with 10 strikeouts.  But, again, the hits he didn't get aren't as important as the ones he took away.

--I'm okay with Drew at short and Bogaerts at third throughout the World Series.  Middlebrooks can sit.

--Middlebrooks and Mike Carp will be important pinch-hitters in the World Series while in St. Louis.  Though here's hoping the Sox don't need them.

--Good to see Uehara win the MVP of the series.  If for no other reason than to show that I don't just pluck these predictions out of thin air.

--I don't remember a single game in which two different players on the same team lost homeruns by about half a foot--combined.

--The Sox relief was perhaps the best I've ever seen in one series.  The whole bullpen deserved the MVP.  Tazawa, especially, manhandled the best hitter (only less so when injured) in the majors.

--I wouldn't want Fielder on my team, even with his homers and RBIs.  I just read that he's already over his offensive ineptitude--at the plate and on the basepaths--because he has two kids to raise, and he has to show them how to be men.  Like he doesn't have his wife and some hired help raise them during the season?

--Note to Prince: Not caring is not being a man.  Real men accept responsibility for their mistakes, internally if not externally.  (He doesn't have to say it to the press, but it doesn't sound like he's saying it to himself, either.)

--I wouldn't let Buchholz throw more than 85 pitches in the World Series, unless he has a huge lead, and / or he's just breezing along.

--Ditto for Lester, who, like Buchholz, start walking everyone when they're losing it.

--Peavy gets the chance to redeem himself.  He's the only one on the pitching staff who needs to.

--Like I said in the previous entry--Having come this far, let's go all the way.

ALCS Sox Lead Tigers, 3-2

A few thoughts before the hopefully series-ending Game 6:

--If I'm the Tigers, I still like my chances.  Sure, they're down three games to two, with two games to play at Fenway, but they have the league's two best pitchers going back-to-back.  These two guys have given up one earned run between them in their two starts--and that was on one bad pitch to Mike Napoli.  I hate to say it, but the Tigers' chances are good.

--And so are the Sox's chances, of course.  They're at home.  They have the last at-bats and they're a last at-bat kind of team.  And their relievers are much better.  And they can play the park better.  And despite the success of the Tigers' two aforementioned starters, they're just 0-1 against the Sox in those two starts in this series.

--The way it's been so far, the Sox just need a lead by the seventh inning.  (Knock on wood.)

--Uehara is the MVP so far.  No one else comes close, not even Napoli.

--Neither team's offense has played correct fundamentals this series.  Runners aren't getting moved over, and they're not being driven in from third with less than two outs.  Frustrating to watch.

--I wonder if Peavy is in the bullpen tonight.  Everyone's in the bullpen if there's a game tomorrow.

--The first-half Clay needs to show up tonight.  If not, I hope Farrell has as quick a hook with him as he did with Lester last game.  Go with your strength; right now, that's the bullpen, not the starters.

--I agree with keeping Drew at short as long as Bogaerts starts at third.  Who would you rather see on the bench, Drew or Middlebrooks?  With his defense, Drew needs to play.  If the other batters hit like they should, his offense won't be necessary, anyway.  And I'll bet his defensive WAR is very good.

--What's the chance of Victorino sticking a forearm out there and getting hit to force in the winning run?  Better than me driving it in, that's for sure.

--Prince Fielder, who makes about $19 million a year and who hasn't driven in a run in about 16 postseason games, needs not to say things like he did the other night in Detroit.  When asked about the boos he got, he essentially said that if the fans could hit the ball, they'd be playing the game themselves.  Win or lose, at least the Sox have accountability.  If a player sucks lately, he'll say so.

--The talk radio station I listen to here called the Tigers the league's best softball team.  Reasons?  They're fat and slow at the corners, and the offense is not well-balanced.  Of course, their starting pitching is much better than a softball team's, but I sort of get what they meant.

--The Sox offense (actually, both teams' offense) has done much worse than anyone would've thought.  Not one single starter has hit well overall.  But they've hit well at the most opportune times.

--Then again, the Sox pitching has done much better than anyone would've thought.

--And who would've thought that the Sox would make it this far, anyway? 

--But having done so, let's go all the way, waddaya say?

Red Sox to the ALCS

A few quick thoughts about the last few games of the ALDS:

--Peralta can quick-pitch Napoli for strike-three as often as he wants, as long as he uncorks a game-tying wild pitch first, like he did last night.

--The results were good, but I can't say I approve of how Maddon managed his bullpen yesterday.  Why he didn't do the same the night before--which was also a must-win game for them--is a mystery, if he thought the situation that dire.

--And you're instilling a sense of fear in your team if you're mixing and matching your pitchers so often that you're basically screaming out that your team can't afford to make even one wrong pitch.  I think that made the team more stiff at the plate as well.  Some players do not perform well under such intense alarm.  See: Fernando Rodney.  Perhaps Longoria as well; he had more indecisive half-swings in that one game that he probably had in the past few weeks combined.

--Farrell managed his team much better than Maddon, who's also a good manager, but sometimes steals the spotlight from the players during games and post-game interviews.  Pinch-hitting Bogaerts for Drew was a helluva move, and not one he made all year.  He normally sticks with Drew even at times when he must know he shouldn't.  But Bogaerts drew two walks in two PAs, and scored the tying run.  Taking out Peavy at just the right moment, after just 74 pitches, took steel nerve.  Bringing in Breslow earlier than usual, and leaving him in longer than usual, was just the right move.  Letting Tazawa face just that one batter, rather than having him finish the eighth, which he would normally do, was also just right.  Perfect decisions at exactly the right moments.

--Breslow speaks just like the Ivy-League educated guy that he is.  And I mean that as a compliment.  For a ballplayer, he's extremely well-spoken, and I mean that in the kindest of all possible ways.

--I don't know why Maddon didn't leave Moore in longer.  When he came in, the announcers (and me) thought he was in for at least four innings.

--The game lasted just under four hours, until 1:30 a.m., for those keeping track.  TBS might want to consider that next time it wants to start a playoff game at 8:30 pm.  If Girardi had managed the way Maddon did, and had the game been Sox / Yanks instead, it would have lasted past 2:30 a.m.

--Bottom line: The Rays were tired, and couldn't hit.

--I wouldn't want Rodney for my closer.  There seems to be something a little off-kilter rattling around in there.  And even when he does well--one person can't have a completely askew cap, off-center to the point that it draws unnecessary attention to itself, and a bow-and-arrow genuflect to God.  If he wanted to scream "Hey, look at me!" then he should have literally screamed "Hey, look at me!" as he was walking two and hitting a batter in the ninth inning of a must-win game.

--The Trop is a travesty that simply needs to go.  Has anyone considered the possibility that the team draws like crap not because the fanbase sucks, but because it doesn't want to come to that park?  It even looks terrible on television.  And what if the catwalk fiasco had been the final play of a Game 7 of the World Series?  If there was a great team playing in a great park and the fans still didn't come, then it would be time to move the team.  First, how about playing in an actual ballpark first?

--Tigers or A's?  Are you kidding?  Go A's!!!  (I wish a World Series for Billy Beane.  But not this year.)

Sox 2 Rays 0 2013 Division Series

A few things as we await the third game of the series.  Comments about a game refer to the second one unless specified otherwise:

--Let's not celebrate yet.  The third win is always the hardest, or so the players say.  Five teams have won the first two Division Series games and not the series.

--Each of the three double plays ended an inning, and none was more important than Tazawa's.  He's this bullpen's weakest link.  Out of the really important pitchers, anyway.

--Breslow continues to amaze, but I still hope Buchholz goes into the eighth inning next time.

--It is not as easy as Uehara makes it look.

--Speaking of which: Uehara threw 11 pitches.  All strikes.

--The most important stat of the night: Not Ortiz's two homers.  Not Pedroia's three RBIs.  It's Ellsbury's three hits and three runs scored.  He is the oil that lubricates this offense and keeps it running smoothly.  If he's not on base, and stealing bases, and creating errors, and taking the pitcher's mind off the other batters, then Pedroia doesn't drive in three because there's nobody to drive in.  As Ellsbury goes, so does the offense.

--Speaking of which: I've not been an Ellsbury fan the last couple of years, since he exploded on the scene in 2007, because of his many injuries and days on the DL, and his fragility and reluctance to play unless he's 100%.  (Which no ballplayer ever is.)  But I'm a fan this year.  The Sox need to resign him, though not at the expense of other players, of course.  He's beloved here, so I hope he doesn't take the money (the Yankees, the Dodgers and the Angels will all offer more during the offseason) and run.

--I have a very reliable source who says that Ellsbury is such a jerk that he will, in fact, take the money and run.  Of course, if someone offered me millions more than I'm making now, I might, as well.  Who wouldn't?

--But this very reliable source is firm on the fact that he is a very big jerk, and is known for being so.

--It was nice to hear the applause that Lackey got when he left the game.  Last year and a couple of weeks ago, all of those cheers were very loud boos.  Well, when his name was spoken, anyway, since of course he wasn't on the field when he cashed his checks totaling about $16,000,000.

--I'm closer to California than Stephen Drew was to second base when he turned the two late-inning double plays tonight.  But we'll take 'em.

--Next year, when the abomination of the instant replay starts, you won't see those proximity plays anymore.

--The Rays pitching and defense are tired.  Moore and Price usually manhandle and shackle the Sox.

--Breslow continues to impress during his interviews, which is not normally where players shine.  But this Ivy-League educated guy is yet to give a cheap or cliche answer to any question.  He must've missed Bull Durham.

--Rays' manager Joe Maddon said after the game that he looks forward to Game 5 at Fenway.  And he sounded like he meant it.  Gotta respect that.  (And let's hope he's of false hope.)

--A shout out to my friend Chris, who was at Fenway during Game Two of this 2013 Division Series.

--I've never seen the Sox run the bases as well as they have the past two games.  You expect Ellsbury to score from first on a double, but not on a hard-hit ball to left field at Fenway.  And Gomes scoring from second on an infield hit last night by Stephen Drew?  That's right out of Major League.  (Literally.  Remember Jake's bunt?)  Unbelievable.  The Sox I started watching in the mid- to late-80s were the exact opposite of this, barely-fit sluggers who clogged the basepaths and didn't hustle.  (For the most part.  Ellis Burks and a couple of second basemen were the exceptions.)

--I have to admit that I worried when Breslow came in, and was loudly critical of Farrell for bringing in Tazawa.  But what did I know?  (Except that Tazawa was brutally bad in September, and that double play perhaps saved the game right there.)

--I thought Breslow should've started the eighth, and bring in Uehara for a four- or five-out save, if necessary.  Breslow hadn't thrown many pitches at all, because of the double-play, and because the Rays swung early against him.  Tazawa worries me.  A lot.

--I thought starting Ross was a mistake, too.  But he hits a double, and scores a run, and there's only one base stolen against him.  So what do I know?

--Here's to hoping for a Game Three win for the Sox, and for a Series win by the A's over the Tigers.  Is that asking too much?

 

1923 Willard's Chocolates--George H. Burns--20 Fair 1.5

Today I'm starting a new feature that spotlights one of my cards per week.  I'll try to keep the cards and the players as varied as I can.  I'll write about the player first, then the card.  Sometimes the card will be available for sale.  I'll say so at the bottom of the entry.  So look back here for a new entry, on average once per week, about a card and player.  And look back to previous entries about some cards I've already written about.

This one is a 1923 Willard's Chocolates: George H. Burns--in 20 Fair 1.5 condition, which isn't too bad for the age.  I mean, this card is 90 years old, after all.  I hope I look as good at 90, if I even reach that age.

The backs are blank, like the 1887 N182 Old Judges and the 1921 Exhibits.  (Love those, too, but they're very expensive.  The 1887s cost at least $100 each, in authentic, presentable or fair condition, which are the three lowest.  Crazy money, for me, anyway.)  This one has writing on the back, which I'm not crazy about.  Normally I don't buy blankbacks that aren't blank, especially if there's writing on it.  But this card was at a price I couldn't refuse.  It's the only 1921 Willard's Chocolates I own.

The Player

I was interested in the card partly because I was vaguely familiar with the player.  I knew that a George Burns led the league in hits in the 20s for a year, and won an MVP, and was a solid player.  The Hall of Famers' cards cost more, of course, so I had to stay away from those.  But you tire of buying commons of good cards, too--though this card is more a commons than a star card.  Still...So if you look him up on baseball-reference.com, which is the site I always use to get stats, you'd find that there were actually two George Burns playing in the 20s.  There's my guy, at this address, and then there's another guy, who played in the mid-10s to the mid-20s, at this address.  They were both good players, but time being what it is, let's focus on my guy.

He had an odd career, if you look at the stats.  In 1918 he led the league in games, hits and total bases, while batting .352 and with an almost-.400 on-base percentage.  Despite this, he only scored 61 runs, which tells me that he either didn't bat leadoff (or even in the top-5 in the order) or that the Philadelphia Athletics of 1918 was a bad team.  Or both.  Anyway, in spite of his good play, he was a part-time player in 1920 and in 1921--two prime years, when he was 26 and 27, peak years for many ballplayers.  He apparently got stuck in the depth chart behind another first baseman, and he was flat-out bought by the Cleveland Indians (for whom he was playing in 1923, the year of my card).  He was a part-time player for them, before being traded to the Boston Red Sox for Stuffy McInnis, an extremely good player.  He played very well for Boston, which traded him back to Cleveland in a huge trade you can read about at the bottom, beneath all the stats.

He played great in Cleveland, batting .306, .328, .310, .336, .358 and .319.  While averages across the league were up between 1921 and 1939, this is still very good.  In 1926 he was the MVP, with 216 hits and 64 doubles, a record until Earl Webb hit 67 for the Red Sox a few years later.  (Webb's record still stands today, so Burns' 64 is still in the top-5 or so.)  He had 3 triples, 4 homers and 115 RBIs, which means those doubles drove in a ton of runs, plus whatever singles he hit.  (This also means Cleveland was a good team, with lots of runners on base, and that Burns hit between 2nd and 5th in the lineup.)

But something happened, because two years later he was flat-out bought by the New York Yankees, who barely used him for a couple of seasons, before selling him back to the Philadelphia Athletics, who rarely played him.  And that's it.  He played twice for two different teams, and he seemed to be wanted, yet easily sold or traded, at the same time.

A very strange career for a very good player.  He led the league in hits twice, eight years apart, which is hard to do in general, but especially if you're playing in the same league as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby and all those guys.  He finished second in hits and average one year; finished second to Babe Ruth in RBIs during his MVP year, and constantly was among the league-leaders in hits, average and defensive statistics, including consecutive games played and fielding percentage.  He snagged an MVP from them as well, when he was 33.  He had over 2,000 hits and hit over .300 for his career.  A quick glance at his defensive stats shows that he was good, maybe a little better than average.  Not a Gold Glove winner, but solid enough not to make a jerk of himself there, and he once made an unassisted triple play, which is very rare. Burns also played in two World Series, and won both of them, nine years apart.

I went to his Wikipedia page to see why he was traded or sold so often, and why he was made a part-time player in the middle of his career after very good seasons, and at the end, just a year after winning the MVP.  It didn't tell me a thing, except that there might not be anything to say, and that he became a good minor-league player and manager, and then a sheriff of a small town.  I guess injuries could explain the part-time status and the trades, but I would've thought Wikipedia would show that.  Maybe he had Rogers Hornsby disease: despite a HOF career and being a world-class hitter as the National League's Babe Ruth (and a second basemen!), Hornsby was also an uncontested jerk who teams couldn't wait to get rid of, and which actually became better after getting rid of him, despite replacing him with a worse player.  (A-rod is a present-day example.)  But, again, I would guess that the Wikipedia page would've mentioned that he was hard to get along with.  Instead, this article's writer seemed to be obsessed with Burns' greatness as a right-handed hitter, and with right-handers in general.

I suspect that there's more here to know.  If you feel like it, please investigate and leave a comment.

The Card

As stated by PSAcardfacts.com (click this link and look at the beautiful Babe Ruth card):

"The 1923 Willards Chocolate set consists of 180 cards, each measuring about 2” x 3-1/4”. Produced by a Canadian firm, the Willards Chocolate Company, the unnumbered cards feature a sepia-tone player photo with a white border. A facsimile autograph is printed across the image. The back of every card is blank. The key cards belong to Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson and of course, Babe Ruth. This set is also anchored by Grover Cleveland Alexander, Stan Coveleski, Hugh Duffy, Johnny Evers, Frank Frisch, Kid Gleason, Burleigh Grimes, Harry Hooper, Rogers Hornsby, Miller Huggins, Connie Mack, Branch Rickey, and Tris Speaker. The company inserted one card into packages of their products. The set’s unique imagery has kept the Willards Chocolate issue extremely popular with collectors, and partly as the result of coming from a Canadian manufacturer is seen as being relatively rare."

Apparently they're commonly found trimmed, with the white border cut away, leaving just the picture.  (Some of the T206s I've seen were trimmed, too, like we do today with a copy that has too much black ink.  I don't get the point of doing this to baseball cards, but whatever.  Who knew in 1922 that they'd be worth so much?)  Anyway, they're worth less, obviously, if they're trimmed.  Mine isn't.  A graded set of 6.+ sold in 2010 for $71,700.  The Babe Ruth was $35,000 in Mint condition, and $315 in poor condition, which is a worse state than mine's in.  The Ty Cobb was $18,000 in Mint condition, and $155 in poor condition.  I don't own those, of course.  I make it a point not to buy cards for more than $15 to $25, and for even less, when I can.  I did so for this card, and it's not for sale.