10 Baseball Postseason Thoughts for 10/14/08

I'm not sure I have anything to say about last night's scripted television, but I probably have some thoughts on the baseball I've been watching for seemingly 12 hours a night all month.

Ten of them, in fact... Cuz it's a round number.

1) Some folks in Red Sox Nation are getting antsy about going down 2-1 to the Devil Rays. I say, "Bring it on!" If a very superficial gloss of recent history has taught me anything, it's that the Red Sox are incapable of *making* the World Series, much less winning it, without making a miraculous comeback from 3-games-to-1 down. The last time the Red Sox even made the World Series without overcoming a 3-1 deficit was, of course, 1975. And the last time they *won* a World Series without doing it was 1918. You may have heard about that one. In 1986, the Sox came from 3-1 down against the Angels. In 2004, of course, they came back from 3-0 down (and therefore also 3-1 down) against the Yankees. And last year the Sox won the World Series after digging out of a 3-1 hole against the Indians. So it's all part of the plan, Nation!

The rest of my thoughts after the bump...

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Man oh Manny that's a Trade

[Last year at the trading deadline, I made it clear to anybody who would listen that the Red Sox had no use at all for Eric Gagne, but that the trade might not be a disaster because at least it kept Gagne away from the Yankees. That didn't exactly end up being the case. Really, putting Gagne on the Yankees would have been awesome for the Red Sox, but it wouldn't have made a difference because, heck, the Sox won the World Series. So today, at the trading deadline, the Red Sox traded Manny Ramirez and, well, I just wanna rant... As always, if you don't like the baseball postings, just skip by and there'll be something movie related in a day or two...]

What's the value for the best pure hitter of his generation and the best clutch hitter of the past 40 years?

Follow through after the bump for the answer...

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Turns out the answer to that question is: Manny Ramirez = Jason Bay - (Craig Hansen + Brandon Moss + $7 million)

The math of Thursday's (July 31) Red Sox fire sale just baffles me a little. Manny Ramirez's value appears to be so much less than a guy with a lower batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage that the Red Sox had to throw in two major league caliber players to sweeten the deal. Now, to be fair, Brandon Moss and Craig Hansen aren't *good* major league players, but they're on the 40-man roster and Hansen was, at one time, supposed to be the closer of the future for the Red Sox. But meanwhile, because Manny's value was apparently so low, not only did they have to throw two major league players into the pot, but they then had to add $7 million, or the value of Manny's remaining salary for the season.

And it's not like the Sox gave the $7 million to a small market team trying to make ends meet. No, they gave the money to the Dodgers, a team in baseball's second largest market, a franchise that's already apparently flush enough that they're going to pay the fat, bloated corpse of Andruw Jones $18 million to sit on the bench for the next two years. But now they're picking up $7 million from the Sox, just for fun. Gravy, as it were.

So after Thursday's trades, what can we say?

Well, the Dodgers obviously got better. They gave up a minor league pitcher and a third base prospect (already behind Casey Blake and Blake DeWitt on the depth chart) in exchange for the aforementioned best hitter of his generation. They didn't have to give up Matt Kemp or Andre Ethier or Jon Broxton and Chad Billingsley, any of whom could have been considered an acceptable price to pay to get back in the postseason picture and to regain some of the local spotlight from the California Angels. Should Manny help put the Dodgers into the postseason, and given the weakness of the NL West it sure seems plausible, the Dodgers will be able to reap the benefits of a player with 353 lifetime postseason at-bats, 24 postseason home runs and one World Series MVP award. In addition, if Manny leaves as a free agent in the off-season, that's two additional first round draft picks for the Dodgers. Plus, he's FREE, because the Sox are paying.

And the Pirates? Well, they're already a last-place team, but only barely, so they can't get any worse. They gave up a player they wanted to jettison anyway, making room for minor league outfield prospects who come with a lower price tag. Hansen and Moss can probably play right away and maybe Hansen's just gonna need a change of environment. And in Andy LaRoche, not only do they get a solid young third base prospect, but they unite the guy with brother Adam. VIVA LAROCHES! So they aren't a better team, but they aren't worse.

That leaves the Red Sox.

The deal makes sense to me in only one circumstance. If Tito Francona walked into Theo Epstein's office last night after the Angels finished sweeping the Sox and said, "This isn't worth it. I can't do this anymore and the team frankly agrees with me. We can't play with Manny for another day." If the manager demanded the trade, then it had to get made. If Francona decided, "I managed to hold this guy together long enough to get two World Series rings,but that's all I've got," then it was the right move. But it's hard to imagine it making the Red Sox better.

Bay's gonna have to learn to play the Green Monster, something Manny did very well despite his other defensive liabilities. He's also going to have to discover how to handle the Boston crowds and the Boston media, because heaven help him if his Red Sox career launches with a couple 0-5 games. Then, if the Red Sox managed to bounce back from their currently malaise, Bay's gonna have to show that he's been repressing an inner clutch hitter for all of those years he was shrouded in Pittsburgh. Jason Bay is a good baseball player. Don't get me wrong. But in his entirely big league career, he's never played a single INNING that meant anything, that had any pressure or urgency other than basic personal statistics. If it turns out that Jason Bay has The Eye of the Tiger, then Theo Epstein's gonna look like a genius. If Jason Bay runs hard, gets his uniform dirty and makes use of Fenway's peculiar dimensions, the Sox fans will love him. Golly, they've even learned how to love J.D. Drew this season.

But he's going to have to make up for the intangible threat that Ramirez provided just by standing in the on-deck circle. He's going to have to make up for the swagger Ramirez brought to the team. He's going to have to prove that last year's .418 slugging percentage was a fluke. And he's going to have to make up for the fact that an already scattershot bullpen has just become thinner. I'm not sure how he'll pull off that last one.

Meanwhile here's the key thing I want to say: I'm not blaming Manny here. Not at all. Over the years, I mocked Manny over and over again for his defense, for failing to run out ground balls, for failing to even trot on home runs. But for a decade, the Red Sox enabled the guy and joked about Manny being Manny. His behavior was never censored or restricted and, probably as a direct result, he got two World Series titles for Boston, something unthinkable five years ago. If the Red Sox finally get sick of the behavior, well, they were the enablers in the first place. Whenever Manny returns to Boston, I hope he's treated with respect in perpetuity, rather than earning the "Cheer the first time up, then boos forever" treatment that Johnny Damon has received (and richly deserved). Unless Manny signs with the Yankees in the off-season, in which case...

But still... Thanks for the memories, Manny!

It will just be interesting to see if Manny is as toxic as the Red Sox seem to have believed him to be. Looking over the roster in the last week, Epstein was obviously able to skip over the flailing bullpen, to ignored that the franchise's beloved and iconic catcher/captain is swinging the bat like a pitcher. He looked at the lackluster play and said, "If we get rid of Manny, everything will improve." The hitting, the starting pitching, the defense? All related to Manny's open signs of apathy or even antipathy. If

Epstein's correct, that's some brilliant maneuvering. As it stands now? I'm on the record as being unconvinced.

But I'd be happy to owe Jason Bay a big ol' apology in three months.

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Fourth of July Reflections: Splattering food and shattering bats

Happy 4th of July, dear readers.

I've gotta say that there are certain things for which high definition television was clearly designed. Those things include:

1) "So You Think You Can Dance." Where the graceful, athletic and generally smoking hot dancers only look more graceful, more athletic and more smoking hot on my 42" TV.

2) Boxing. Because you haven't lived til you've seen the sweat flying off a boxer's face in high definition, nor can you appreciate pugilism's brutality until you've watched a highly trained cut-man struggle to close a glistening gash in a tight close-up.

3) "Gossip Girl." There are lots of scripted shows that inexplicably improve in high definition, including "Eli Stone," a show I probably would have stopped watching entirely if not for high def. But the opulence of "Gossip Girl" is just made for hi-def, though millions of iTunes using teenyboppers disagree.

There are also, though, certain things for which high definition television was clearly not designed. Those things include:

1)Porn. Duh.

2)Competitive eating.

More thoughts on that, plus quick thoughts maple bats in baseball, after the bump.

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I've decided to impose a five hot dog Eat-Off for any moment of dispute in my own life.

That's how Friday morning's Nathan's Famous International Hot Dog Eating contest ended. For 10 minutes, Kobayashi and Joey Chestnut slummed franks down their gullets and, after the elapsed time was concluded, both master masticators had devoured 59 frankfurters. But they don't believe in ties at this event, thus a lifetime of training had to be distilled to a simple task: Which man was capable of ramming a handful of five squished, water-damped wieners down their throats fastest.

In the Eat-Off, the judges ruled that Chestnut had won, but I'm looking at my TV and I'm seeing gigantic hunks of unswallowed, beverage-bloated bun adhered to Chestnut's sweat-covered face. I don't necessarily want to see these details, but my TV gives me no choice. Yes, I could have watched on ESPN's low-def channel, but if Lot's wife taught me anything, it's that you should never look back. Actually, that's what Satchel Paige taught me. Same difference in the long-run. My point? How could Chestnut possibly have been ruled the winner with half of a hot dog still oozing down his jowel? For his part, Kobayashi was slower, but clean. In my mind, he's the true champion, even if that makes me look like a half-hearted patriot.

It was a disappointing end to a back-and-forth showdown that nearly rivaled last year's war, even if the announcer whipped out the priceless bon mot, "The passion is raw, but the hot dog is cooked," simultaneously evoking both the Fine Young Cannibals and Claude Levi-Strauss.

And really, this whole thing was just an excuse for me to link to last year's blog post on the competition.

And speaking of food flying everywhere -- Sepinwall says I could have done a small blog post just on this, but I view my blog more as a collection of essays than just short snippets ... subscribe to my Twitter Feed for the snippets -- what's up with maple bats in baseball?



I was watching the Sox-Rays the other night and in the course of nine innings, there were at least three or four shattered maple bats, including one that soared into the stands. Orel Hershiser, whose announcing work I find simultaneously annoying and informative, tells me that younger players like that the weight balance in maple bats are closer to the feel of the aluminum bats they used in high school and college, but they aren't structurally viable.

It's getting to the point where every game features one or more situation in which a pitcher or infielder or umpire dodges a shard of sharp splintered wood. It used to be that a broken bat was a sign of making poor contact with a specific kind of pitch, but now bats just break. And eventually something horrifying is going to happen. Last month ump Brian O'Nora had to go to the hospital to have a cut treated after a bat cut his face. He was OK, but eventually something worse will happen.

Baseball responds oddly in these circumstances. In all of my time watching the game, I've seen at least a dozen pitchers get hit in the head by batted balls, but I'd never seen a first or third base coach get hit by a foul ball. Last summer, though, Mike Coolbaugh, a minor league coach was tragically killed by a line drive. Statistically speaking, it was a totally isolated incident, but now you'll notice that major league first and third base coaches have to wear batting helmets like they're John Olerud (one of the greatest pure hitters of my lifetime, but not a Hall of Famer, if you're curious).

Why do I get the feeling that Major League Baseball isn't going to act on these shattering maple bats until a shard seriously injures a player or a fan? To me, this is a no-brainer. If baseball players survived just fine for 100 years with bats made of different woods that were more structurally sound and didn't shatter with nearly the same regularity, why not go back to that? I'm not sure how a baseball team is going to avoid a franchise crushing lawsuit when the first fan loses an ear or an eye or worse. Is that what it's going to take to make the change?

Now back to my pre-Press Tour screeners...

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Is Curt Schilling a Hall of Famer?

Readers of this blog know that I'm a Red Sox homer. And people who have been to baseball games with me in recent years know that I'm prone to wearing my official MLB Curt Schilling jersey. Just for fun. And the most exciting game I've ever been to was Curt Schilling's near-no-hitter last June.

I mean, I love Curt Schilling despite the fact that I often really really really wish he'd, um, shut up.

So today, with Schilling discussing his pending surgery and potential retirement with just about anybody who would listen -- If you wanna do an interview, Curt, I'm game -- I took pause.

If Schilling never throws another pitch, he retires with 216 wins, 3116 Ks and a lifetime 3.46 ERA. More than that, he retires as The Guy With The Bloody Sock, a postseason warrior who will never need to buy another drink in New England as long as he lives. He's got three World Series rings. He'll go out with a reputation as a Big Game Stud.

But does he belong in the Hall of Fame?

Follow through after the bump for some rambling. And if you don't care, a movie-related post'll probably be up tonight or tomorrow...

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I started watching baseball in the early-to-mid-80s and when I think of the Big Game pitchers of my youth, the hurlers whose baseball cards I stockpiled, none of them are in the Hall.

I think of Dave Stewart (168-129, 3.95 ERA), of Bret Saberhagen (167-117, 3:34 ERA), of Orel Hershiser (204-150, 3.48 ERA) of David Cone (194-126, 3.46 ERA). None of those guys are going to the Hall. Want me to try a ridiculous comparison as I think back to the big-time pitchers of my youth? Try Dave Stieb, with his 176 wins and only 137 losses despite playing the first half of his career on some of the worst teams in baseball history. Stieb's lifetime ERA? 3.44. He was a seven-time All-Star (Toronto was short on options in those early years) and was in the Cy Young Top 10 four times, same as Schilling. And nobody in their right mind took Dave Stieb seriously as a Hall of Famer. But growing up? He was a favorite of mine.

The guy I really think of most, though, is Jack Morris. I've argued Morris' case before and, in this context, I'll do it again. A record of 254-186 and a difficult-to-question status as the best pitcher of the '80s, which I acknowledge is an arbitrary distinction. His ERA of 3.90 was high and his strikeouts (2478) were low. He was in the Top 5 in Cy Young voting five times, which is one more than Schilling.

In the postseason, he'll always have the 10-inning CG-SHO Game 7 win from 1991. That's about as defining a single performance as you could possible get. But he also won a world series in 1984 with the Tigers and another in 1992 with the Blue Jays. Granted that he had NOTHING to do with that 1992 title, as he lost three games in that postseason, but he won two games in each of his prior World Series and threw three complete games. He was a horse. He was THE horse.

Want another comparison who seems valid to me and isn't in the Hall? How about a Mickey Lolich, whose stat line reads 217-191, 2832 Ks, 3.44 ERA, 195 CG, 41 SHO. Remarkably similar to Schilling's on several levels. And Lolich had his best individual seasons after the pitching mound was lowered post-1968. When he retired, no lefty in baseball history had more Ks.

But if we let the bloody sock and the co-Series MVP make Schilling a Hall of Famer, surely Lolich's 1968 World Series should carried equal weight? He won three games, completing all of them. And facing off against the greatest single-season pitcher the game has ever seen, he beat Bob Gibson in Game 7. Lolich was in the Hall discussion, but he never REALLY threatened induction.

Baseball Reference's most similar pitchers to Schilling? Kevin Brown, Bob Welch, Hershiser and Mike Mussina. Obviously "similarity" doesn't take intangibles into account, but still...

But who, from the current generation of starting pitchers, is going to make the Hall of Fame?

The Three Braves are locks. Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz should retire after this season and they should all go into Cooperstown together, albeit with the tacit acknowledgment that if Smoltz hadn't done the closer thing for three-and-a-half seasons, he wouldn't have saved his arm for those last three seasons as a starter and his Hall status would be cloudier. And perhaps there should be some tacit acknowledgement that the Braves REALLY ought to have won more than one World Series with a starting rotation led by three first-ballot Hall of Fame pitchers.

Who else?

Randy Johnson's easy. Pedro Martinez is easy, though his window-of-dominance was nearly Koufax-esque in its brevity.

Since I've been outspoken in my support of the Hall of Fame candidacies of Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds, I can't be a hypocrite on Roger Clemens. He'd get my vote.

But who else?

Mussina? That 260-148 record is utterly insane, but the lack of World Series titles and 20-win seasons is pretty crazy, too. Mussina has been a very good pitcher for 15 years. But do you realize that he hasn't had an ERA under 3.00 for a season since his first full season in the bigs? If he sticks around for two or three years, he'll probably get near-ish to 300 wins and he'll probably pass 3000 Ks. But was Mike Mussina a better pitcher than Tommy John? Or Bert Blyleven? Or Jim Kaat? Just asking... Was he a better pitcher than Schilling?

Things are going to get even worse after that. Look at the great pitchers in their low 30s... Tim Hudson's hit a wall. Roy Oswalt may have hit a wall. Roy Halladay's a horse, but he gets hurt every year. There's a very plausible reality that the career statistical measures for pitchers are going to have to be dramatically realigned after Mussina retires. Johan Santana has been the best starting pitcher in baseball for six years, but he finds himself at 29 with only 100 career wins.

My point? If you look back by the standards of baseball history, Schilling really is *not* a Hall of Famer. Or other people need to get in first for me to be satisfied. But looking forward, if Schilling isn't the standard by which you judge a Hall of Fame pitcher, pitchers may never be inducted ever again.

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My Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot -- Part 2

The first half of the Hall of Fame ballot had some personal favorites, specifically Andre Dawson and Bert Blyleven. But things get really sticky in the second half, where you get folks like Mark McGwire, Jack Morris and the ballot's top new addition, Tim Raines.

Thoughts to follow after the bump... And don't worry, I'm seeing "The Savages" tonight and maybe I'll have things to say on tonight's "Friday Night Lights." So I'll be back on the entertainment tip in no time...

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Don Mattingly: Between 1984 and 1987, Don Mattingly finished in the Top 7 in the AL MVP race four times, winning in 1985. After 1987, he drove in 100 runs in a season once, never hit more than 23 home runs, never scored 100 runs and couldn't get his slugging percentage above .477, which isn't really acceptable for a 1B, though he did hit over .300 a couple times and he won several additional Gold Gloves. Basically, that's just not a long enough Hall of Fame-type career. Want to know why the New York media is screwy? Mattingly was still getting MVP votes right at the end of his career, in years he was hitting .300-ish with middling power for bad Yankees teams.

Mark McGwire: There was some discussion of this over at A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago and since I defended McGwire passionately there, I may just need to cut-and-paste what I wrote there. I said, "I'd vote for McGwire. Without any hesitation. I'd have *qualms*. But no hesitation. Major league baseball made its own bed when it comes to McGwire. The sport turned its back on laws and regulations and the players took advantage. Bad players! But without 100% certainty that some people were using steroids and others weren't, I'm going with the assumption that absolutely everybody was doing something they shouldn't have been doing. And in that context, Mark McGwire was the best power hitter of his era. Period. The damage he did to the game's reputation after the fact doesn't COMPARE to the positives he and Sosa did for the game in 1998 in terms of bringing the game back. Also, McGwire hit 450-foot home runs. Every time. I don't accept that that's the result of steroid use. I would absolutely require that his HoF plaque make *some* semantically ambiguous reference to steroid use, but I'd put him in the Hall."

In a later part of the comment thread, I got a bit more statistical and wrote "The goal in baseball as an offensive player is to create the maximum number of runs per at bat. No player, in the history of the game, had a higher at-bat/home run ratio than Mark McGwire. Not Bonds, not Aaron, not Ruth. And it isn't even closer. McGwire is one home run every 10.6 at bats, Ruth is every 11.8 and Bonds, in third place, is every 12.90. McGwire had 1414 RBIs in only 6187 official at bats. I don't have that stat at my disposal, but I have to assume that's one of the highest percentages of RBI/at-bats of any player in baseball history.

Yes, McGwire has a .263 lifetime batting average and only 1626 hits. That stinks. Not gonna argue. The batting average was lowered by several years he was basically crippled. Granted that that probably pushed him into steroids, but you wanted to take that out of the equation.

Despite the minimal number of hits, McGwire has a career OBP of .394 and a career OPS of .982.

And he was the most feared hitter in baseball for a decade. Utterly dominant when healthy. Changed the way other teams planned their games.

We're talking about a 12-time All-Star and, lest we forget about this because of his later years when he was lumbering, a former Gold Glove winner. For at least six or seven years, he was among the best fielding 1Bs in baseball."

Yeah. That says what I want to say. Add whatever fine print you think appropriate, but put McGwire in the Hall. And put Pete Rose in the Hall. He's not on the ballot, but he belongs.

Jack Morris: That 3.90 ERA isn't very good and the 254 wins are solid, but unremarkable. All you can do is judge a player in the context of the time in which he played and Jack Morris was the greatest pitcher of the 1980s. Sepinwall takes exception to my using a random 10-year designation -- i.e. the '80s -- as a principle marker for Morris' relative greatness and he argued that Morris' best years just happened to coincide with the 10 years of the '80s. And yet for me, Morris' defining moments are actually both outside of the '80s. There's that 10-inning Game 7 complete game shutout in the 1991 World Series and then he was useless for the Blue Jays in the 1992 World Series. Although the second one probably isn't a solid point in his Hall of Fame favor, Morris *did* win 21 games for the Blue Jays that season and pitched 240 innings. Because that's what Morris did. He anchored winning rotations and always gave his team a chance to win. At the point Morris stopped playing, they stopped making pitchers like Jack Morris. There was a lot of talk this postseason about whether Curt Schilling had cemented his Cooperstown credentials with his clutch performances. Sorry, but Schilling can't enter until Morris is already enshrined. That's a "Yes."

Dale Murphy: Like everybody else, we had two Superstations growing up, WGN and TBS. So I had the choice of regularly watching Cubs games or regularly watching Braves games. I took the Cubs, because I HATED Dale Murphy. I'm not sure why. Murphy had a longer run of HoF caliber years than Mattingly did, to be sure. While never as good as Mattingly, between 1980 and 1987, Murphy sure looked like he was going to Cooperstown. But when Murphy fell, he didn't fall light. He fell HARD. After hitting 44 home runs in 1987, that was it. His remaining full-season batting averages were .226, .228, .245 and .252, while his power dwindled, his speed vanished and he basically fell off the map. If he'd had a Kirby Puckett career-ender of some sort in 1988, I bet he makes the Hall despite the lack of accumulated career stats, just cuz he was pretty, Christian and people liked him. Instead, those seven All-Star appearances and five Gold Gloves and an impressive Iron Man streak are just hallmarks of a solid career.

Robb Nen: Since he retired, Nen has seen Jose Mesa, Troy Percival, Robert Hernandez and Billy Wagner move ahead of him on the all-time save list. None of those guys (barring a late-career charge from Wagner) are Hall-of-Famers. Neither is Nen, particularly if Goose Gossage and Smith are still on the outside.

Dave Parker: If a combination of injury and drug use hadn't pretty well wrecked Parker's career between 1980 and 1984, he would have been a no-hesitation first-ballot Hall-of-Famer. At 27, he was a two-time batting champ, an MVP, a Gold Glover, an All-Star regular and one of the NL's most feared players. Those years he lost -- due self-inflicted and externally inflicted wounds -- would have been his prime and might just possibly have boosted those 2712 hits, 1493 RBIs and 339 home runs into a statistical realm in which the Pittsburgh cocaine scandal wouldn't have been enough to keep him out of Cooperstown.

Tim Raines: Baseball Reference's list of 10 most comparable batters includes four Hall-of-Famers -- Lou Brock, Fred Clarke, Harry Hooper and Enos "Country" Slaughter. He was a seven-time All-Star, a former batting champ and a four-time stolen base champ (if not for Vince Coleman, he'd have had seven or eight stolen base titles, which might have boosted his credentials). He ranks fifth all-time in steals with 808 and his 2605 career hits and 1571 runs are good enough to be in the discussion as well. He had only 3 Top 10 MVP finishes and his was one of those careers that might have seemed more Hall-worthy had he retired five or six years earlier. He was always in Rickey Henderson's shadow in the '80s, but realistically, he may not have even been on the outskirts of his shadow, since Rickey was probably better in every imaginable facet.

Jim Rice: In a period of 12 years, he was in the Top 5 in the AL MVP voting six times, which gives him a longer period of sustained excellence than folks like Mattingly, Parker and Murphy. I have to go back to my baseball card collection, because Rice's 1978 season always astounded me, with the 46 home runs, 139 RBIs and .600 slugging percentage. These days, that number wouldn't be all that significant, but I looked at the backs of lots and lots of baseball cards when I was little and that .600 slugging percentage stood out. Rice is one of the last offensive forces in baseball whose numbers mean what they mean, whose numbers you don't second guess or question. So if he only had 382 home runs and only 1451 RBIs, that pales in comparison to what today's hitters are doing, but Rice's 382 and 1451 mean exactly what they say. He wasn't able to play til he was 40 to pad out his career stats in the ways that voters seem to love, but he'd get my "Yes" vote.

Jose Rijo: There were moments where Jose Rijo was the best pitcher in all of baseball. They weren't prolonged moment, but they often came at important times, like the 1990 World Series against the A's, when he was the MVP. Because Jose Rijo started his career with the Yankees when he was only 19, he's still only 42. I bet he could still pitch out of the bullpen for the Devil Rays.

Lee Smith: First Hall of Fame voters got lucky that Lee Smith blew away Jim Reardon on the career saves list, because Lee Smith feels a bit more like a Hall-of-Famer than Jim Reardon. Now, though, voters are catching a break with Trevor Hoffman blowing away Lee Smith on the career saves list, because Trevor Hoffman feels a bit more like a Hall-of-Famer than Lee Smith. He wasn't dominant like Bruce Sutter or a multi-inning warrior like Goose Gossage, but neither of those guys had anywhere near Smith's longevity as a top-of-the-line closer. I mean, he lead the NL in saves in 1983 and led the AL in saves in 1994 and that's not the kind of thing that people do in a profession where the best often flame out hard. He got a lot of saves on a lot of bad teams and if he'd retired a couple years earlier, he'd still have held the career saves record but his career ERA would have been under 3 and that's the sort of thing that apparently matters to voters. He had a great glare and *looked* like a closer and the fans of the teams he rooted for had faith in his abilities. He just doesn't feel like a Hall-of-Famer.

Todd Stottlemyre: In the early '90s, before I moved to New England and adopted the Sox, I rode my Canadian passport to rooting for the Blue Jays. Stottlemyre was a contributing part of two World Series-winning Blue Jays teams. Thanks, Todd!

Alan Trammell: Going back to my Blue Jays fandom again. When I was young, it seemed like the AL East always came down to the Tigers and the Blue Jays and for that reason, I hated Alan Trammell with a passion. He always got on base or got big hits or made big defensive plays. In a different era, both Trammell and Lou Whitaker wouldn't have had any trouble shooting into the Hall. He was a regular All Star, frequently received MVP votes, picked up a pile of Gold Gloves and was the MVP of the 1984 World Series. A little power. A little speed. But his Hall candidacy is mostly about intangibles, since he lacked the flash of Ozzie Smith or Cal Ripken's iconic status. It's a "No" vote, but a close one.

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My Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot -- Part 1

I don't report on baseball, so of course I don't have an actual vote for Baseball's Hall of Fame. That doesn't mean that I don't enjoy kibitzing.

Since the ballot for this year's class was just announced, I thought I'd go player-by-player, following the standard HoF voting rules of only being able to vote for 10 players. I didn't come close.

This is one of those years when no newly eligible player is likely to be elected, unless Todd Stottlemyre shocks the world. The top returning candidate is Goose Gossage, who fell 21 votes short last year, and Jime Rice, 63 votes short. Voters usually feel bad about not electing anybody, so expect Goose to slip in, along with possibly Rice.

Using only my memories and the basis statistics I understand, I went through the ballot. Since obviously this post will have nothing to do with TV or movies, those who avoid my occasional digressions into baseball can feel free to wait for my next post.

Follow through after the bump for candidates A (for "Anderson") through K (for "Knoblauch"). I'll post candidates M (for "Mattingly") through T (for "Trammell") either tomorrow or the next day....

Click through...

Brady Anderson: Oooh, do we get to put Brady Anderson in the Hall for having the most suspect season in baseball history? That's 16 home runs in 1996 and 18 home runs in 1997 and then 50 in 1996? Nice. That's a .637 slugging percentage in 1996 and no other single season above .477? Nice. It's not like Anderson was a bad player in his other years. He was a good speed guy with a tiny bit of pop for the rest of his career -- a couple 20-20 seasons, a couple years with 10 triples, three additional seasons with 100 runs. He did, however, have killer sideburns just as "Beverly Hills, 90210" was at its most popular.

Harold Baines: Harold Baines became a full-time DH around 1987 and then went on to play until 2001, almost never stepping onto the field for defensive purposes. As a result, stats like his 2866 hits, 1628 RBIs, seven All-Star selections cease to have as much meaning. You know how many players in the history of the game have more RBIs than Baines and aren't in the Hall? Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro, Ken Griffey Jr., Frank Thomas and Sammy Sosa. EVER. If not for steroids, those guys would all be in the Hall eventually. You know how many players in the history of the game have more hits than Baines and aren't in the Hall? Pete Rose, Craig Biggio, Rickey Henderson, Bonds. And yet, beyond leading the league in slugging in 1984 (back when .541 would lead the league), he pretty much never led the league in anything. This isn't a hard "No" vote, but Baines going to set a few statistical thresholds for non-induction.

Rod Beck: Died prematurely earlier this year. A fan favorite. A three-time All-Star. Saved 51 games in 1998 for the Cubs. Still not a Hall-of-Famer.

Bert Blyleven: Gets penalized for not having been dominant. I'll let the Sabermetrics go into things like his ERA relative to the league and other stuff like that. You know what I know? If you're a baseball fan, you'll watch the game for the rest of your life -- even if you live another 50 years -- and you'll never see another pitcher retire with 242 complete games or 60 shutouts. Roger Clemens is at 118 and 46. Greg Maddux at 109 and 35. You can penalize Blyleven for his lack of Cy Young votes (three times in the Top 10) his low number of All-Star appearances (two), but he was in the Top 10 in his league in ERA 10 times and in the Top 10 in strikeouts 15 times. So he must have been doing something well relative to his peers. Plus, while his teams usually stunk, he did play on two World Series winners and got wins in both of those World Series. Oh yeah and he had 287 wins and 3701 strike-outs. It's ridiculous he isn't in the Hall already. Look at the mid-level pitchers with half his stats who aren't there. Jeez. YES on Blyleven!

Andre Dawson: Fine, take away his contentious 1987 NL MVP, where he won despite playing for a last place team. I look at Dawson's numbers, and I've got an 8-time All-Star, an 8-time Gold Glove winner, a guy who at various times hit 49 home runs and also stole 39 bases (438 and 314 for his career). Throw in 1591 RBIs and 2774 hits... Really, this shouldn't be hard. Imagine how great Dawson could have been if he'd taken advantage of the magical healing powers of steroids and HGH. He didn't. He was a cripple for the last 10 years of his career. From what I can tell, he's being kept out of the Hall because he had a .323 career OBP, which is, indeed, horribly low. But I didn't used to mimic The Hawk's unique batting stance in the mirror because of how well he took walks.

Shawon Dunston: I started becoming a baseball fan right around the time Dunston broke into the majors and since WGN was national, he and Ryno and Jody Davis were among my early favorite players. However, having one of the greatest arms of any shortstop of my lifetime (and perhaps, therefore, ever) doesn't put you in the Hall of Fame, does it? But two All-Star games? Good for him.

Chuck Finley: Despite 200 career wins, five All-Star selections, 2610 Ks and at least a decade where he was probably among the 15 top pitchers in the American League, he's best known for having been beaten up by Tawny Kitaen with a stiletto heal. Unless that goes on his Hall of Fame plaque, he doesn't get my vote. He was still a really good, probably underrated pitcher.

Travis Fryman: Travis Fryman started young and he reliably produced a lot of hits, scored a lot of runs and delivered a fair amount of power (223 homers and 1022 RBIs), so I'd set aside his baseball cards just in case he turned out to be a compiler and made it to 3,000 hits and stuff. Instead, despite five All Star appearances and a perfectly decent career, he broke down toward the end. Decent player, but not even close to a Hall-of-Famer.

Rich "Goose" Gossage: With Goose, I have to take a lot on faith. I hear tell of his dominance in the '70s and early '80s, a time I either wasn't born or didn't really watch baseball. The guy I remember stuck around past his prime and was just a middling middle reliever by the end. That being said, I'm capable of looking at stats and seeing that a reliever with 9 All-Star selections must have been doing something right and that those five appearances in the Cy Young Top 6 and five times receiving MVP votes were probably meaningful as well. With Gossage, you run into a problem regarding future closers, because the stats look weird. Yes, he was earning multi-inning saves and they were longer, tougher saves, or so the ol' timers say, but he never had more than 33 in a single season. Anyway, he gets a "Yes" vote from me, but not an inspired one.

Tommy John: The first complete baseball card set I got was 1986 Topps and Tommy John's card amazed me because of how long he'd been playing and therefore how small and hard to read his statistics were. Claudell Washington amazed me for similar reasons (he was traded a lot, which shrunk his stats). The reason why the Tommy John Surgery is famously named after Tommy John isn't just that he was the first one to have it. No. John won 20 games thrice after having the surgery and was, in general, a very good pitcher -- four All-Star selections -- through the '80s. What separates him, I guess, from the Suttons, Niekros and Blylevens, I guess, was that he wasn't a dominating strikeout-type pitcher, so his numbers aren't as flashy overall. Going back to Blyleven's CG/SHO stats, I've gotta add that John's 162 and 46 are mighty impressive. But I put Blyleven in a slightly higher category, leaving John in another field with folks like Jim "Kitty" Kaat, who's finally off the Hall ballot now.

David Justice: If Chuck Finley's Hall plaque would have to say something about Tawny Kitaen, David Justice's would have to mention Halle Berry. Justice looked like a future inductee when he his 28 home runs in only 127 games and won the Rookie of the Year at the age of 24. He played on an unholy number of really good teams (the guy was always in the post-season, though he was a .224 hitter there) and when he stayed healthy, he usually produced. He got on base a lot (.378 OBP), hit for power (.500 slugging), but just didn't last long enough -- 305 home runs, 1017 RBIs and only 1571 hits -- to be in the discussion.

Chuck Knoblauch: Through the age of 30, Knoblauch was on his way to the Hall. He had a Rookie of the Year, five All-Star appearances, oodles of steals, six seasons of 100-plus runs. Heck, the guy won a Gold Glove at second. Of course, as you may have heard, he got the Yips. Stopped being able to throw. The throwing fed into the hitting and that started to go. He was done by the time he was 33. Not a tragedy, but just a little sad. Still a "No" vote.

[So that's "Yes" on Blyleven, Dawson and Gossage. Stay tuned for the rest of my ballot. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe Friday. Who knows?]

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Why can't the Bionic Woman always be British?

Red Sox Nation is split today, between those folks who viewed 2004 as a mixture of anti-depressant and colonic -- purging decades of bad memories or past traumas and leaving only happy feelings [Yeah, I'm talkin' to you, Jamie] -- and those of us who can't shake that being a Red Sox fan is about being uncomfortable even in the midst of success.

The first group is talking about a sweep. The second group is still biting their fingernails. Well, I quit biting my fingernails, but that doesn't mean that I'm at ease, even after a 13-1 victory.

But the good thing about living on the Left Coast is that for me, the game was already out-of-reach well before the start of primetime (even with the looming prospect of Eric Gagne pitching the 9th), which left me able to muse on last night's "Pushing Daisies" and "Bionic Woman," plus maybe a wee bit on other programs from the week...

Click through while I think about how to pitch the networks on my "Bionic Women's Murder Club" pilot...


"Bionic Woman" -- Usually I'd lead with "Pushing Daisies," but last night's "Bionic Woman" was pretty good, although it sported the show's fourth or fifth different tone in just five episodes and drew some rather ridiculously low ratings. Who knew so many "Bionic Woman" fans were also Colorado Rockies fans?

Given that Katee Sackhoff's Sarah Corvus has been the series' most interesting character, it's a bit surprising that the show's most consistent episode to date was Sackhoff-free. Will Yun Lee's character was also absent, plus the episode was low on Molly Price's Ruth, Lucy Hale's formerly hacking sister (whatever happened to *that* character detail) and Miguel Ferrer's Jonas. Guess what? Didn't miss 'em. Well, maybe I missed Ferrer. Instead, we got an awful lot of Kevin Rankin's techie, whose part has increased each week as producers have realized two things: First, Rankin's a very good actor and second that Rankin's funny and that the "funny" is playing better than then "dark and moody" these days. Wednesday's episode suggests a "Chuck"-ification of "Bionic Woman," full of quips, geekiness and low stakes espionage (the stakes may actually have been kinda high, but I ignore the terrorist-of-the-week plot). Much of the new tone comes, I'm assuming, from consultant Jason Katims, still far from atoning for making Landry into a killing machine.

Oh and after only five episodes, the writers contrived to make Michelle Ryan pose as a British exchange student just so that she could use her actual accent for an hour. It isn't just that Ryan seemed hotter with her British accent, because that's a weird and semi-subjective thing (though she *totally* was hotter). It's that she appeared more comfortable, more confident and more capable of being both funny and dramatic. The Michelle Ryan in Wednesday's episode is, I have to believe, the potential star the producers hoped they had cast.

Look, you cast this woman:



Now who would have thought it was a good idea to cover her up and make her speak with an American accent? Seriously, folks.

"Pushing Daisies" -- Another encouraging week. Who would have guessed that "Pushing Daisies" might actually make it through a full season? Actually, ratings have been dropping very, very slowly week-to-week, which cases me a bit of concern. But maybe there's a bit overlap between baseball fans and lovers of twee forensic fairy tales.

A one-legged woman living in a windmill sending letters on the behalf of her deceased mother to a one-armed convict reading the letters on the behalf of his deceased cell-mate? Twee-tastic! Chuck's former occupation as a stay-at-home juror for a paraplegic judge? Twee-riffic! Putting big funny sunglasses on a decomposing corpse to cover his absence of eye-jelly? Tweelicious! A one-winged resurrected carrier pigeon flying with the help of a parrot wing? Twee-diddlyumptious!

Often I mock just for the sake of mocking, but in the case of "Pushing Daisies" I mock because I love. Although I wonder how many different suits and semi-permeable membranes Chuck and The Piemaker can dance through, kiss through and dry hump through, their relationship is still swooningly sweet.

Oh and you want an example of "Good Twee" versus "Bad Twee"? Good Twee is Kristin Chenoweth singing They Might Be Giants. Bad Twee would be having them sing Barenaked Ladies.

Several favorite lines of dialogue:

** "It's a miracle bird! It's swimming in miracles, not disease." (followed later by "It's a carrier pigeon." "Diseases or messages?" "Both.")

** "Was that your boyfriend back there, the one who took a step back to let you fall?" "He didn't let me fall. It was actually a very affectionate gesture in context."

** "It's funny. You really are a one-armed bandit. Your name's not McClappin, is it? As in the sound of one hand..."

** "I'm sure it's just the mailman or a windmill to windmill salesman."

** "My name is Elsa... This is my windmill."

Jayma Mays and Dash Mihok (well free of "Cavemen") continued the show's fine supporting casting and Digby the Dog needs more screentime.

Also, while the show's production values have obviously gone down in recent weeks with the rumored budget drops, it turns out the the claymation and CG effects weren't the most important part of what made the pilot work. Good thing, too...

Other quick hits from recent viewing:

"Damages" -- As much as Glenn Close and Ted Danson and even Rose Byrne made the series perpetually watchable, the game turned out not to be worth the candle. I was neither pleasantly shocked nor shockingly disappointed by the revels in the final episodes. I just shrugged my shoulders and went about my business. And the hypothetical next season is ridiculous, since there's no way Patty would have acquiesced to Ellen's request to investigate her boring fiance's murder, knowing that that trade will eventually possibly lead to the discovery that Patty tried to have her offed. Or something.

"Journeyman" -- Was bored by the pilot. Didn't much care for the second episode. Also thought the earthquake episode was silly. But the past two episodes have begun to get into the nuts and bolts of what lets Kevin McKidd jump through time and the show has become vaguely intriguing. Naturally, nobody is watching.

"Gossip Girl" -- Next week's episode looks great, but Cindy Lou Who needs to stop doing naughty things.

"Reaper" -- Go ahead, guys. It's time to introduce the attractive female reaper character as a love interest for Sam while he deals with keeping secrets from Andi. You know you're going to do it. Get it over with.

"Big Bang Theory" -- Still watching by default, though this week's episode was somewhat better. Jim Parsons? Funny. Johnny Galecki? Not funny here.

OK. That's it for me for today...

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Baseball Moaning: Gagne, Thome, etc

I don't do this very often, but I have a little baseball-based ranting I need to do.

If you prefer my TV coverage...

Here's an article on Jeff Probst and "Survivor: China" for Zap2it!

Here's my recap of last night's "Kid Nation," which isn't necessarily good, but certainly isn't evil!

And one of these days I'm going to do a MovieWatch on "Eastern Promises" (I'm having a hard time cracking how much it does or doesn't matter to me that the ending doesn't work) and perhaps a couple words on "Juno" and "American Gangster," which I also caught earlier this week.

But follow through after the bump for a rant about Eric Gagne, a meditation on Jim Thome and whatever else I feel like adding.

Click through...

No Pain, No Gagne -- Might Eric Gagne single-handedly kill my eager anticipation for the July 31 trading deadline? Heck, might Eric Gagne single-handedly kill the July 31 trading deadling for all of baseball? If so, that would be a very sad thing. It used to be that I -- like so many baseball fans -- would look at the gaps on my favorite team (the Red Sox for those who somehow don't know me) and try concocting imaginary deadline deals of my own. Last summer, with the Sox on the verge of what would become a disappointing third-place season, I even won a buck from Sepinwall for asking Sox part-owner Tom Werner about possible deadline deals during a TCA press tour session (under normal circumstances, my journalistic qualms would prevent such a thing, but Werner's two shows last fall with "Twenty Good Years" and "Happy Hour" and I refuse to feel bad about straying off topic).

This was the first year that I told anybody who'd listen that I didn't want the Red Sox to make a trade. They had the best record in baseball and no player on the market seemed capable of improving the Sox at any particular position. When the Sox ended up getting formerly top-drawer closer Gagne (a favorite from his healthier [chemically suspect] days on the Dodgers), I was concerned. In the winter, I'd have signed him to an incentive-laden deal, what with Papelbon planning to start, but in late July, he served no purpose. The conclusion I came to, with some expert help, was that the Red Sox won by keeping Gagne away from the Yankees, the team with the seemingly more suspect bullpen. Addition by subtraction from another team. Who knew that the Yankees would actually win the trade with addition via subtraction from the Red Sox?

The stats for Gagne are remarkable. Three blown saves, 14 runs in 14 innings. He has been directly responsible for losses on four days when the Yankees also won (though, amazingly, he hasn't blown any games against the Yankees), meaning that he's single-handedly cost the Sox four games of a lead that once felt insurmountable. And he's actually been worse than the statistics show. Look at the appearances in which he hasn't given up runs and you'll see that he was great in games the Red Sox were either already losing or games in which they eventually won by scores like 11-1 or 10-1.

The Red Sox are no stranger to less-than-profitable deadline deals involving middle relievers. But as much as Sox fans lament the eventual absence of Jeff Bagwell, Larry Anderson was good for 15 games, 22 innings and an ERA of under 1.25. If Eric Gagne had provided those sorts of numbers the Red Sox would have clinched the division already. I can't help but feel that Gagne's ineptitude has directly put more pressure on Hideki Okajima, who has been shut down with a "tired arm," and on Papelbon, who suddenly looks mortal again. I think his presence has put extra stress on the starters and probably disheartened the hitters. If somebody can come up with a midseason acquisition who has had a more directly negative impact on his team in the history of the game, please share.

As God is my witness, I'll never root for a midseason trade again.

Thome or Not Thome -- Is Jim Thome a Hall of Famer? The dude hit his 500th home run last week against the Angels in darned dramatic walk-off fashion and now everybody's debating whether or not the slugger belongs in Cooperstown. The simple answer is that anybody with 500 home runs belongs in the Hall of Fame and that's that, which will cause additional complications when Carlos Delgado gets to 500 home runs in a couple years. Is Carlos Delgado also a Hall of Famer then? Carlos Delgado has made two All-Star teams in his career. Jim Thome has made five, which isn't all that many in an age where the same people go back to the All-Star games over and over and over again. 500 home runs sure seems like a lot, but this is for a guy who hit 52 home runs and drove in 118 runs in a season and finished *seventh* in the MVP voting. Why did Jim Thome magically become a Hall-of-Famer this week with his 500th home run and yet Fred McGriff won't make it to Cooperstown, despite a far cooler nickname, just because he came up a half-dozen home runs short. Jeff Bagwell is 51 home runs short of 500, but he's far more obviously a Hall of Famer in my book. Then again, Jack Morris and Bert Blyleven belong in as well. Speaking of Thome, did you know that he's No. 3 all-time in strikeouts for a batter? That's impressive to me. Yup. He passed Andres Galarraga earlier this year. Sometimes I like looking at some of the odder leader boards, and it amuses me to see that Reggie Sanders stands at No. 21 all-time in strikeouts.

An Even Odder Career Leader Board -- I remember when Hoyt Wilhelm made the Hall of Fame that one of his claims to fame was that he was the all-time career leader in games played. At the time, that was awfully impressive. He currently stands at No. 5, behind the esteemed Dennis Eckersley, the perfectly respectable John Franco, the ageless Jesse Orosco (your all-time leader, with 1252, 182 more than Wilhelm, though you don't hear anybody saying Orosco belongs in Cooperstown) and, at No. 2 all-time, Mike Stanton. The immortal Mike Stanton. Granted that your Top 15 includes Lee Smith, Kent Tekulve (my favorite baseball card player ever) Rich Gossage and Rollie Fingers, but it also features Dan Plesac, Jose Mesa, Roberto Hernandez and Mike Timlin. There's totally nothing suspect about all of these pitchers throwing well into their 40s. Actually, as I think about it, it's less the fault of steroids and more the fault of Tony Larussa.

OK. Baseball blogging is out of my system.

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'Grey's Anatomy' Has 'Crossroads' Nostalgia

I need to mention this because I'm not sure I've seen it mentioned anywhere else and what's the point of having a blog if you can't mention the things that amuse you/worm your way into your head and won't get out:

Tonight's episode of "Grey's Anatomy" was directed by Tamra Davis. You might know Tamra Davis as the director of the, um, "classic" rap film "CB4" or the Adam Sandler "classic" "Billy Madison" or, perhaps, the stoner "classic" "Half Baked." [She's versatile. No doubt about that. Lots of good TV stuff on her resume, actually.] Alternatively, you may know her as the wife of Beastie Boy Mike D.

But if you're noticing that she directed tonight's "Grey's Anatomy," the only context it's important to know her from is through her previous collaboration with "Grey's" creator Shonda Rhimes. You've probably forgotten that Rhimes wrote and Davis directed the Britney Spears vehicle "Crossroads." And that reunion makes me giggle, particularly with the episode airing the week Bald Britney exited rehab. Why didn't ABC play that up more? Geez.

I have little else to say about this week's episode except that the "Grey's" writers have been clumsier than usual lately when it comes to cases that symbolically echo the lives of the doctors, or cases that are unified by a common theme. This week? All about bones, shaving them, being covered by new ones, having infections spreading through them. From what I understand, bones are, you know, like a metaphor for rigidity and immobility, making the episode all about people avoiding risk and the relative important of just going forward and accepting that mistakes happen, but you can't go backwards. Or something like that. I ignore the things Meredith tells me in voiceovers. Yawn.

Really, though, I'd much rather discuss the Red Sox moving Jonathan Papelbon back to the bullpen, which is probably the best thing for the team, unless you stop and look at the contenders for the No. 5 starter position. You know who'd be a great 5th starter right now for Boston? Bronson Arroyo. Sigh. Lester's the best bet in the long run (and the feel-good story, what with beating cancer and all), but my temporary vote is for Baseball's Ugliest Man, Julian Tavarez. He's a brawl waiting to happen and if Major League Baseball weren't screwing me out of my Extra Innings package, I'd be looking forward to watching the lunatic.

But that's a different conversation entirely.

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Wednesday's Red Sox Lineup

I usually opt not to discuss sports in this blog, for whatever reason, but since I've been ranting and raving about it all afternoon, I figure why not rant and rave in blog form...

The gist:

Today's (08/30/06) starting lineup for my beloved Boston Red Sox may well be the worst batting lineup in the history of the franchise.

It went a little something like this:

Kevin Youkilis LF
Alex Cora SS
Mark Loretta DH
Mike Lowell 3B
Gabe Kapler CF
Doug Mirabelli C
Eric Hinske RF 3
Dustin Pedroia 2B
Carlos Pena 1B

Not surprisingly, the Sox lost 7-2, though those two runs (and 10 mysterious hits -- one for every person in the lineup not named Alex Cora) are slightly miraculous. In addition, despite oodles of defensive inexperience, the Sox didn't make a single error today. Odd.

Interesting things about the Sox lineup today:

1)Only three of the players have been regular starters this season -- Youkilis, Lowell and Loretta. Of those three players, only Lowell was playing in his natural position. The batters who didn't/couldn't play for the Sox today include David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Coco Crisp, Jason Varitek, Wily Mo Pena, Trot Nixon and Alex Gonzalez. That's insane.

2)Loretta, an all-star at second, was the designated hitter, which is a bit odd for a second baseman with four home runs for the season. It makes sense, though, when you know that Loretta DHed so that rookie Dustin Pedroia and his .138 batting average could be in the lineup.

3)Mirabelli, the catcher, is a .189 hitter. Of course, the Sox only have Mirabelli because he can catch Tim Wakefield's knuckleball. That's valuable. Unfortunately, Wakefield has been on the disabled list for a long time and, thus, Mirabelli and his .189 average are playing regularly, because the alternative is Javy Lopez, who has no knees. To Mirabelli's credit, he only allowed one stolen base today. Not to his credit? He allowed the opposing team's catcher to steal the base.

4)Best of all: The Sox had two Jewish players -- Youkilis and Kapler -- in the same outfield today. That doesn't happen very often. I'm too lazy to see if Youkilis and Kapler have been in the outfield together at any point this season. I'd still be curious to know when the last time it happened previously.

4a)This has absolutely nothing to do with their respective degrees of Jewishness, but is a Youkilis-Kapler-Hinske outfield the lead coordinated outfield imaginable? Yes. It may be.

This is why the Sox are going to need a miracle to stay ahead of the Blue Jays for third place in the AL East.

It makes me sad. ays for third place in the AL East.

It makes me sad.

And do you want to know the worst part? I still found this freak show more interesting to write about than last night's premiere of "Celebrity Duets."

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