In The Air

“I love playing this game and every spring training feels like the first.”, said Rickey Henderson. ‘People who write about spring training not being necessary have never tried to throw a baseball.’ stated Sandy Koufax. Harry Carey, the great announcer for the Cardinals, the A’s, the White Sox and the Cubs gave us a fans perspective. ‘It’s the fans that need spring training. You gotta get ’em interested. Wake ’em up and let ’em know that their season is coming, the good times are gonna roll.’

Everyone has a different view of how spring training is part of the most wonderful times in our lives. Spring training is all about hope. Today, it is in the 70’s in Arizona and Florida. The air is beginning to warm up. No clouds in the high, blue sky.  With very little wind, it is a great spring day. For those in Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Cincinnati, its a different story. And it it that which makes spring training the first ray of hope of the coming year.

Down on the 101 in Scottsdale, the sound of bats hitting balls, balls slamming into gloves is loud and clear. At Camelback Ranch, the same sounds are beginning to be heard. Twenty miles apart, the Diamondbacks and the Dodgers begin their training ahead of all the others because they will be playing in the first regular season series of the year…down under in Australia at the end of March while the other big league teams are reaching their peak of spring training.

Steve Earle probably summed it up best when he rambled, ‘I love baseball. I’ll probably be one of this old farts going to spring training and drive from game to game all day.’ It’s that kind of wonderful dream many desire and dream about but few achieve. Chasing that dream to see our heroes in the cathedrals of spring is never ending.

But that is what spring training is all about. It is now the season of hope. Now we know this winter of misery will end. Baseball is back. Our worries are over.

Play Ball!

Magnification Of Blunders

With the wind whirling all around us, the center of the storm is often calm. We are in the center of baseball’s annual storm. The playoffs, where pitchers dominate and star hitters rarely come through in the clutch, was best described in Ernest Thayer’s legendary poem written in 1888 “Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888”, first published in The San Francisco Examiner on June 3^rd in that year. While we no longer have the Mudville Nine to worry about, today’s game during the baseball’s playoffs, still are dominated by good pitching.

Take for example game #1 of the NLCS: The visiting Dodgers put multi millionaire, Zach Greinke on the mound. With a 1-2 post-season record, his only career win coming against St. Louis for the Milwaukee Brewers in the 2011 NLCS, he responded with ten strikeouts and only one walk. However, that one walk would come back to haunt him as the runner scored on a double that should have been caught in centerfield. You might question, ‘should have caught’ statement because it was a ball, high off the wall, which would have been a good catch. But it was a catch that was possible to make. It was simply misjudged by Andre Ethier. Yet little is said about that play. Rather, the emphasis for pointing fingers is that Dodger manager, Don Mattingly, pulled his star first baseman and one of its best hitters, Adrian  Gonzalez, who had singled to put the lead run on first while the game was tied 2-2 and was hitting .333 in post season. No one knew that this game was going to go 13 innings and this was only the eighth inning. Dee Gordon came in to run and was quickly retired by a weak ground ball by rookie sensation, Yasiel Puig. One of the Dodgers star hitters was now out of the game. The point here is that he was ONE of the star hitters, not the only one.

“Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell;                                                           It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;                                                                         It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,                                                         For Casey, might Casey, was advancing to the bat.”

There were other hitters in the Dodger lineup to do what Gonzalez had done so well. There was Hanley Ramirez, Carl Crawford, Puig, Uribe, Ethier and Mark Ellis to deliver. But this game, during this time of the season is not about the hitters. It’s about the pitching.

The Dodgers were no longer calm in the center of the storm.

“The sneer is gone from Casey’s lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;                                       He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.                                                           And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go.                                                       And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey’s blow.”

On the St. Louis side, steeped in tradition with one of their greatest marked by a symbol on their sleeves with the number 6 set in a circle, and legendary pitcher, Bob Gibson in the dugout before the game, did what every winning team has done from time in memoriam in the post season…they won the game with tremendous pitching.

You can’t forget the work of Joe Kelly, a Los Angeles area native, beginning the game with six solid innings coming off a 7-2 record since August 11^th with a 2.32 ERA. Don’t forget, he struck out all of the Dodgers in the first inning and then struck out Gonzalez with runners on in the second and Puig with runners on in the third. It’s not the time to forget Randy Choate and Seth Maness for their combined shutout inning of work. Carlos Martinez had a good inning and then came Trevor Rosenthal, who struck out two in his great couple of innings.

But the shock of shocks, was John Axford’s second lifetime entrance into post-season play. The boy from Simcoe, Ontario, Canada, was traded by the Brewers to St. Louis (that’s another story for another day) after being counted on to be able to loose more TV viewers than NBC. When he came into a Brewer game this season, fans would change channels just to miss the predictable debacle that would surely follow. But here he was, banging his fastball and making an inning interesting. Giving up a hit and walking another, he came in with a fastball of old to strike out the not so mighty Casey of the Dodger Nine, former Cardinal Nick Punto, to allow the game to continue. This game didn’t end suddenly as most had previously when ‘Ax’ entered a Brewer’s game. It left many in Milwaukee wondering where was this performance a few months ago for The Crew? There’s ‘beer pride’ here. This moment of past glory now resided on the hill at Busch and not at Miller.

To put the exclamation point on this note of post season pitching importance, Lance Lynn’s work for two innings wrapping up the game and the win cannot be over looked nor over stated.

“Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;                                                The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,                                              And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children should,                                         But there is no joy in Mudville – mighty Casey has struck out.”

It’s not the magnification of blunders that decided this game. It wasn’t Ethier’s late start and misplay in center or a managerial decision that would do in the Dodgers on this long, long evening in St. Louis. It was pitching, namely for ‘Dizzy’ and ‘Daffy’s’ and ‘Bullet Bob’s’ legacies that brought victory to the team that plays under the Arch. And that was Friday. Same goes for Saturday’s games in both St. Louis and Boston.

Play Ball.

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Road Warriors

What does it take to win a playoff spot? Good pitching is essential. Good, timely hitting is an absolute. Solid relief pitching is a must. But the one statistic that rules is this: you cannot have a losing record on the road. Road warriors rule.

Take a look at this season’s playoff contenders: Boston has the second best record in all of baseball and tops in the American League. Not only do they win in Fenway, but they have a winning record on the road…the second best road record in the league. Oakland also is a road warrior with more wins then losses. The Detroit Tigers were road winners over the season. Tampa was even with a 41-41 record.

Over in the National League, the only teams that are .500 or better are Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Los Angeles. Atlanta is one game under on the road. However, their home record is the tops in all of baseball.

Why is it these teams perform better sleeping on a Sealy away from home? The answer lies in the make up of the teams. Travel distances are one of the things to consider. Boston is part of a rather tight geographic fit in their division. But this brings up the issue that teams who have a big geographic spread and have to travel great distances should not do as well. While travel distances can be a factor they are not THE factor why a team plays better on the road than other teams.

Veterans are the key. Look at each team and see how age and wisdom contribute to a winning road record. Boston has regular position players Drew (30), Napoli (31), Pedroia (30), Gomes (32), Victorino (32) and Ortiz (37), all of whom have played on playoff teams previously. They are experienced road warriors. Oakland has Cespedes (27), Crisp (33), Callaspo (30) and Young (30), again, all have had playoff experience.

Perhaps you get the point. Experience in understanding a season is a marathon (not a sprint) and being able to kick it up into another gear, especially on the road, makes for a winning season on the road.

Pittsburgh may be the perfect case in point. Here is a team that finally has their first winning season in over 20 years. And their lineup is loaded with experienced road warriors who have had valuable playoff experience to support the likes of Alverez and McCutchen who do not. Morneau (32), Martin (30), Byrd (36), Barmes (34) all have playoff experience plus they have pitchers who have done so as well. A.J. Burnett, Francisco Liriano both bring added understanding to this year’s team, as does their manager, Clint Hurdle. He has won the National League pennant previously.

Then look at the Dodgers. Capuano (35), Greinke (29), Wilson (31), Gonzalez (31), Hairston, Jr. (37), Punto (35), Uribe (34), Young (36), Crawford (32) and Ethier (31).

Case in point: Nothing blends a team better than experience. The veterans are, at their very best, teachers. All of these teams who are fighting for a league pennant have young, exciting players on their roster. But those who succeed, especially on the road, have experience to guide the youth.

Humans are not unlike any heard of animals. Elephants look to their older members to guide them to water holes through a season, filled with drought and the unknown.

Experienced veterans are a the key to blending young and old while creating that thing called ‘chemistry’ that makes a group a team. That makes all of the difference in winning on the road. 

It’s going to be an exciting playoff.

Play Ball!

Fish Wrap

A fish stinks from its head. When you catch a fish, you cut off its head, put it into a newspaper and throw it away in the garbage can, preferably far away from where you are living. The Milwaukee Brewers have a problem from the head of the on-field management. A person who inherited a fine young team when he arrived, just a few years ago, Ron Roenicke has been quickly exposed as a potential manager in disguise with limited understanding of pitching. At a time when his team can fight the good fight in a pennant race that left him out of the dust months ago, he throws in the towel before the leading team in his division.

Yesterday in Miller Park, testimony was given to his complete lack of understanding the position of his team and the way his players look to the top man for guidance. The Brewers Ace, Vonnie Gallardo, gave up only 4 hits and 2 runs through seven innings, striking out seven and walking only two. After 112 pitches, he went an inning longer than most starters of today go because the Brewers have the worst bullpen in the major leagues. He gave everything he had, even survived a smash off of his knee by a line-drive from Lance Lynn in the 5th. However, that being said, what Roenicke did is absurd.

In the eighth inning he brings in Rob Wooton, a September call-up from Nashville. Why? Had he given up on his team? He doesn’t even know Wooton and what he can do. Is this the place to put him into the game, in front of a 35,000+ home crowd, desperately wanting a victory over the rival Cardinals? This is part of the legendary ‘Beer Series’, not the ‘Bush Series’. All Wooton did was give up three consecutive singles, after a lead off out, walked Molina with the bases loaded (at what time are you going to jerk him out of the game, Ron?), then gives up a single to Freese and a double to Discalso. Now, after a five run outburst, Roenicke finally visits the mound and removes the pitcher.

As the fans go home to await another season, and the player see exactly what their manager is all about, we all say, “Thank you Roenicke”. Thank you for given 2.5+ million fans who were tortured throughout this season a reason for holding onto our old newspapers.

Play Ball!

Can’t You See I’m Crying? Can’t You See the Tears?

It is not the cloth that we have to worry about. It is the thread that makes up the cloth. The fabric is critical. If just one strand is of poor quality it makes the entire piece cheaper. In baseball, this equates to each player who makes up a team. Often, this magic ingredient is called “chemistry”. The chemistry of the Milwaukee Nine is based on the ball and glove logo of old, strong, true blue, built through a farm system that has made every effort to make a small market team viable with good quality people and players that these fans can believe in. After all, they have lived and breathed with these young men’s progress ever since they were signed. That is what a small market team community does. It is always in search of hope and dreams to come. Ryan Braun was once believed to be the strongest thread in the entire Brewer cloth. His deterioration has not happened because he cheated. Cheats are cheats. We know how to handle them. But what has made our cloth, the fabric of what we believe in as the True Blue Brew Crew, crafted by legends like Yount, strong and rich is the belief that all is as good as the people who have made the beer, cheese and sausage that has made our land famous. To the good people of Milwaukee and Wisconsin, that is as important as life itself. Nietzsche said, “I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.” You ask why?

“This is all B.S. I am completely innocent.’ Braun, Dec 2011

“I truly believe in my heart and I would bet my life that this substance never entered my body at any point.” Braun, Feb 2012

“There are a lot of haters-a lot of people who doubted me and lot of people who continue to doubt me.” Braun, Feb 2012

“When you know you’re innocent of something, it’s extremely difficult to have to prove it when you’re in a process where you’re 100% guilty until proven innocent.” Braun, Feb 2012

“We were able to get through this because I am innocent and the truth is on our side.” Braun, Feb 2012

“I have been an open book, willing to share details from every aspect of my life as part of this investigation, because I have nothing to hide.” Braun, Feb 2012

“I have always taken tremendous pride in my image and my reputation in being a role model and handling myself the right way and doing things the right way.” Braun, Feb 2012

“I have nothing to hide and have never had any other relationship with Bosch.” Braun, Feb 2013

“The truth still hasn’t changed.” Braun, July 9, 2013

“I have tried to handle the entire situation with honor, with integrity, with class, with dignity and with professionalism because that’s  who I am and that’s how I’ve always lived my life.” Braun, Feb 2012

“Lies were never innocent. Their purpose was to escape punishment, or work, or responsibility, and they were used for profit.” John Steinbeck, ‘East of Eden‘

The improbable happened when performance enhancing drugs removed this icon in our minds. A terrible battle emerges between loyalty for the team and the loyalty for the individual. That is…team loyalty remains while loyalty for the icon diminishes until our next close encounter…at a ballpark whether the icon is still in the uniform that is familiar to us all.

The real problem remains because it wasn’t about PEDs at all. It was about this former icon’s ruthless use of fabricated truths that made so many…that made us lose faith in truth itself. What to do?

In business, we fire cheaters. Contract or not, cheaters are dealt with severely and sent packing. As for liars, we fire them. No matter what we do to them we can never trust them again. They have planted the seed of doubt. They have no more authority. They have nothing more we can trust them with.

Now, as the season is ebbing and after the season has ended, our disgust continues because of the reminders…because Braun brought into his sleeve of lies another stalwart hero of this land, Aaron Rodgers.

He Braunschweigered Aaron to profess his innocence.

How could you? How could you lie to others to get them to profess your alleged innocence?

“Lies are never innocent.”

Go away. I am hurt. Can’t you see I am hurt? You lied to me. You lied to all of us. I don’t want to see you at Maryvale this coming Spring. It would mean that the Season of Braunschweiger, the Lost Season of Lie, will become the Spring of Doubt. We want to see Nori in right; Cory at first; GoGo in center; Jean at short. We want to see Luc behind the plate and Aramis at third and Rickie at second. We want to see Khris or Logan or anybody in left. We don’t want to see you. We don’t want to see you at all.

Spring is about hope, not doubt and dope. Get out. Get out before all of the disdain of your lies come heaping down on the team I love, we all love. These are the hopes brought about by Bambi’s Bombers, Harvey’s Wallbangers…legends of our youth and of our dreams. These are the guys Cooper made the hit for. These are the guys Rollie came in and saved. These are guys Augie, Mollie, Simba and Sanders fought to bring the dream. Guys like Gimby, Vuch and Stormin, Juan and Sixto created and allowed the dream to grow and what Oglivie made the catch in Baltimore for. Get out. Go to where all liars go to live…in a castle of themselves surrounded by a moat of never-ending lies.

All of this was revisited this past week when the Cardinals came to town and the TV announcing crew from the St. Louis side brought up the issue again. None of the other PEDboys were mentioned. They just centered upon our former left fielder and how it will burden the team with his long-term contract strangling a small market team.

Welcome to our new world. Welcome to our new life. Thanks for the joy you are bringing to all of us. I am hurting now. We are all hurting. We can no longer see the pennant in our future. We now are on food stamps to get free food at the ballpark because management, who also believed and trusted in you, doesn’t want us to abandon the team like you have done to our City…our team.

We haven’t. We won’t.

Get out. Can’t you see I’m crying? Can’t you see my tears? Can you not see that we can no longer see the dreams of our future? We need freedom…freedom away from you. We need space where you do not exist. We just need to have the guys we believe in to just….

Play Ball!

Jean Carlos Star

Jean Carlos Enrique Segura is a rising star. He began shinning in 1990 in San Juan, Dominican Republic. But this year, he has become a full-blown star of major proportion. In his first full season as the starting shortstop of the Milwaukee Brewers, he has played in nearly every game and leads the National League in hits (124) with an All-Star batting average of .326. In the last ten games, he is hitting .378.

There are plenty of players who have put up great ‘can’t miss’ minor league stats and never made it big in The Show. Segura is not one of them. Since he hit organized ball, he has proven to be one of the most valuable players. Drafted by the Angels, he was selected an All-Star in 2010 at Cedar Rapids of the Midwest League. The following year he was named Arizona Fall League Rising Star for the Scottsdale nine. Last year, he was  a Texas League All-Star in AA at Arkansas. Also last year he was a Futures Game Selection. This year he was an All-Star at Citi Field for the National League.

This is his first full season.

In batting, he reminds one of a young Henry Aaron at the plate. Lightening quick hands with unexpected power. Segura has hit 11 home runs in his first full season so far. In Henry’s first 1954 season, he hit 13 while batting .280. His All-Star streak began the following year when he batted .314 with 27 home runs. In fielding, Segura has committed 10 errors at shortstop while Henry had 7 errors playing left field (6) and right field (1).

But is it too early to judge a rookie? Not necessarily so. Honus Wagner in his rookie season, and probably ranked as the greatest shortstop of all time, in his first full season in 1898 for St. Louis had 10 home runs and batted .299. Strangely, he never played shortstop in his first year as most of the time he was at first base (75 games), at third base (65) and second base (10). Then there is Alex Rodriguez. During his first full season in 1996 for Seattle he set the standard with a league leading batting average of .358 while smacking 36 home runs. He committed 15 errors. He too became an All-Star in his inaugural full season. He comes back into the Yankee lineup this week in Texas. Then there is Derek Jeter, today’s Captain of the Yankees. His first full season was also in 1996 when he hit 10 home runs while batting .314. He committed 22 errors in his first full season.

Cal Ripken Jr. hammered 28 home runs in his first full season in 1982 for Baltimore while hitting .264. He had only 13 errors all that season playing shortstop. Luke Appling of the Chicago White Sox in his first full season in 1932 (judging a season with over 100 games played) he batted .274 and hit 3 home runs in cavernous Comiskey Park located at 35th and Shields. He had 49 errors, with 37 coming at shortstop, 6 at second base and 6 at third base.

Yet in Milwaukee, every player who ever plays the shortstop position is judged from a point of reference called Robin Yount. In his first full season (1974) he hit .250 with 3 home runs. He matched his uniform number in the field, committing 19 errors.

The beauty of baseball is that comparison are inevitable.  It is part of the game.

This season, all are experiencing the excitement of a rising star. Look for him at shortstop at Miller Park. He is a remarkable young ballplayer.

Play Ball!

BANG THE DRUM

What is the deciding issue that separates a Manager from his weekly pay check? Hitting? Pitching? Decision-making? Hiring the wrong coaches? This is an interesting question when you consider the following. But you have to forget the illusion that has appeared in Philadelphia during the past 48 hours.

Your team has a starting line up with the leadoff hitter batting .298; the second hitter batting .352; the third hitter batting .300; the clean up hitter batting .300 and will get his 2000^th hit later this month along with his 350^th home run next month; the fifth hitter batting .321 with the balance of the line up hitting slightly above or below the team’s best hitting pitcher who carries a .222 batting average. Your first baseman is at .226; the catcher was hitting .227 (before he hit Philadelphia) and the second baseman carries a .182 batting average. Opposition teams know that your team can only hit while the first five hitters in your line up are at bat. Consider this: they hadn’t held the lead in 61 innings before Friday’s 3rd inning.

Bang the drum a little louder.

Your team has a pitching staff that has…a problem. Your #1 pitcher has a 4 – 5 record with an ERA of 5.05. Your #2 pitcher has a 1 – 6 record and has a 4.37 ERA. Your #3 pitcher has a 4 – 6 record with a 5.94 ERA. Your #4 pitcher has a 4 – 3 record with a 4.96 ERA. Your leading closer a couple of years ago has a 1 – 3 record with a 5.70 ERA. Do you know that fans turn to another channel when he is brought in? The closer you count on has a 2 – 1 record and a 0.92 ERA with 9 saves. But he is hurt.

Bang the drum a little louder so the whole world can hear.

Your team also does not have their regular first baseman that is on the DL, again, until sometime this summer.

You have made some unusual moves or non-moves as you continue to play a veteran second baseman who has clearly not performed up to his or anyone’s level both at the plate nor in the field, for the better part of two plus seasons.

Your catcher, before Friday, has not performed up to an acceptable level since his wife dropped a suitcase on his hand in their hotel room, last year, in Los Angeles.

You can’t make these things up.

Bang the drum.

You hired a new hitting coach who has obviously performed fairly well considering they are 20^th in hitting with a .258 batting average. After all, your team has a third of the major leagues that are performing worse. The real problem is they don’t hit when it counts. Your team has only produced 216 runs. That means they don’t win a lot of games. In the last 48 hours, this team accomplished back-to-back wins for the first time since April. Wow!

You have a pitching coach who has not performed while his chargers are second to last in the league (they rank 28^th out of 30 in all of the major leagues with a 4.56 ERA). But this should not surprise anyone considering his past record. Prior to his current team, his pitching staffs finished in the bottom four of the entire Major League in ERA.

Your team’s fielding ranks #26 with a fielding percentage of .981 with 38 errors.

There have been very few teams to be able to hit their way into a championship, especially if your team only has five hitters. In baseball, it’s all about pitching…fielding…running…then hitting. Hitting is for show. Pitching is for all the dough.

You have a third base coach who does not know how to stop an aging, injured runner rounding third and finding it impossible to score on a double. This same coach can’t keep a young runner from being picked off both 2^nd and 3^rd in the past couple of weeks.

When you consider that you learn how to run the bases in grade school, this team’s performance day in and day out is laughable. Watch one of their games and the odds are that one of their base runners will make a blunder. Who’s coaching these guys? These are fundamentals of the game.

Bang the drum a little louder.

Your record as a manager is 200-178, with a record this season of 21-33 (.389), 15 1/2 games behind St. Louis and last in the Central Division of the National League thru Sunday morning; a 6 wins and 22 loses in May, tied for the worst record in franchise history. And that was when they were in Seattle as a first year team (they had in improbable 6-22 record in August, 1969). Sibbi Sisti was a coach on that team. Bang The Damn Drum!

Nelly Furtado, a Grammy Award winner, whose song, ‘Bang The Drum’ repeats a phrase throughout the lyrics:

“Bang the drum a little louder

So the whole world can hear

The whole world can hear”

It’s time we bang the drum a little louder so the whole world can hear, even in Los Angeles where the owner is drinking his Miller beer.

Play Ball!

Fort Simcoe Go Boom

At the junction of Highway 3 and Highway 24, due south of Brantford, Simcoe, Ontario, in 1983, an April Fools gag was pulled on the Milwaukee Brewers. John Berton Axford was born. This is the same town where famed Los Angeles Kings hockey star, Rob Blake was born. In fact, a gaggle of hockey players come from Simcoe. Jassen Cullimore, Hall of Famer Red Kelly, Andrew Penner, Dwayne Roloson, Ryan VandenBussche and Rick Wamsley all called Simcoe home.

Maybe Axford should have stayed with hockey. After a wonderful first and second year, everything has been crashing down. So far through Wednesday this year, ‘Boom Boom’ Axford has given up 6 home runs in 11 1/3^rd innings.

Momma’s of Simcoe, don’t let your boys grow up to be baseball pitchers.

On Friday, during the second game with their biggest rivals, the Brewers lost for the third straight game. Axford came in for one inning and retired the side. However, on Sunday, when mopping up and the fifth straight loss at hand, the man from Simcoe allowed two hits, walked two, had an earned run and left after 1/3^rd of an inning with the bases loaded. For those interested, that’s a WHIP of 12.00 and an ERA of 27.00. It was not a week to remember.

Momma’s of Simcoe, your boy went boom.

Al Hrabosky, a former St. Louis relief pitcher known as ‘The Mad Hungarian’ once said, “When I’m on the road, my greatest ambition is to get a standing boo.”

For the good citizens of Milwaukee, these are trying days and it is getting harder and harder not to rain down boos upon the fellow from Simcoe. Their once electric closer now has an ERA of 9.95 with no saves for the year and a WHIP of 1.97 all in 12.2 innings pitched. It’s time he visits Nashville and tries to get the kinks out of his mechanics. If not, the risk Roenicke takes the next time he signals in the ‘Sieve from Simcoe’ is loss of confidence in his leadership. ‘The Sieve’ is creating a cancer on the pitching staff. How can Henderson and the rest of the pen build trust in their existence?

Fort Simcoe go boom.

Play Ball!

It Was A Season To Forget For 29 Others

The San Francisco Giants are champions of baseball, once again. Their sold out season at home was a testament to their power in the West and throughout all of the game. The center of attention come spring will be Scottsdale. That is where they will begin to defend their title this past season and second in the past three years. For other teams it was a season to forget.

In Miami, what should have been a season to remember, became a nightmare quicker than you can say Fidel Castro. Of course when Ozzie said those two words, the beginning of the end began. Ozzie is no longer the manager of the Miami Marlins. He’s out of the fish tank. Now he can spout off about the aged dictator in Cuba all he wants with his profanity laced vocabulary. Así que lo siento. Me encanta el béisbol.

In Boston there was a tea party like only Beantown can deliver. They had fired the most successful manager in their history, who won not one but two World Series supposedly because he had lost control of his team. Guys were actually drinking beer in the clubhouse. Imagine that. Baseball players drinking beer in the clubhouse. After that horrible discovery was blabbed throughout New England on every fish wrap and sports talk mediums, there was a long debate between the candidates they would select as the next great Red Sox manager. Suffice to say the guy they should have taken grabbed the job with the Cubs before the Red Sox decided on Bobby Valentine. Yikes!

In Philadelphia and Milwaukee, great pre-season pitching staffs do not materialize to automatically put them into the playoffs. In Minneapolis, they found out that you can’t have a team built around one high-priced catcher. On the North side of Chicago, Dale Sveum is facing, like others who have taken over that franchise before him, another losing season which must be followed with a winning season or Sveum will have swum. On the South side of Chicago, they let a season of great leadership by one of their own disintegrate in September. St. Louis, Atlanta and Cincinnati had hopes crushed by the tidal wave known as the Giants. Arizona’s owner showed how he knows more about baseball than anybody because he has all the baseball cards Topps has ever printed. That makes him an authority. Unfortunately, Gibson can’t manage cardboard players. Houston was seen rushing over to the American League. They forgot to play ball in 2012.

Seattle had a season to remember. They gave up the greatest player in the game to the Yankees but had more great pitching performances at their stadium than anywhere on the planet ever. They are smiling in Seattle. Same with the fans in Washington, DC, where they were rewarded with a team that brought the city their first divisional championship. Quite an accomplishment for a City that had not seen a title winner since 1933.

Pittsburgh did it again. After a hot start, they faded badly. What do you expect from a team  that is managed by Clint Hurdle. Cleveland was never in the papers the entire season. Nor were the Padres. The New York Mets were non-factors this past season. Colorado disappeared in their own thin air plus their manager left after the season. Kansas City’s only claim to fame this season was hosting the All-Star game. The two ‘T-Towns’, Toronto and Tampa Bay had flashes of brilliance but not enough to put them in the big dance. On top of that, the Blue Jays lost their manager who became the head dude of the Boston Valentines.

Then there were the New York Yankees. The rapid loss of skills of A-Rod and the physical loss of The Captain, doomed the pinstripers this past season. In Dallas, the almost unexplainable coldness of Hamilton’s bat late in the season doomed the Rangers third attempt to win it all in three straight seasons. This franchise still hasn’t realized it needs pitching to win. Did you hear that Nolan Ryan? Remember what you did better than most? It wasn’t hitting. And what can you say about Detroit that hasn’t already been said?

That brings us to Baltimore. What a magical season Buck Showalter brought to baseball. 93 wins. Finally, Buck got his due. After rebuilding the Yankees and then getting fired; after building the Diamondback from scratch and setting all of the pieces together to win the World Series and got fired; after rebuilding the Rangers before he got fired; he took over a team that had won only 66 games the year before he got there and in two short years took them to the door of greatness.

Then there is Oakland and Billyball. The Athletics won the American League West title. And they played for the Championship of the American League. Go ahead. Name three players on the A’s besides Coco Crisp. They won an exciting 94 games. This was one of the most amazing stories in baseball. Billy Bean for President. He is the star of this franchise. Nobody understands the game better…on how to get the most out of talent like Mr. Bean.

On the other side of the equation is the Battle for LA. On one hand there is a billionaire who  bought a pig in a poke and thought he could win the American League pennant and finished third. On the other hand there are billionaires who not only  have to improve a team on the field but a stadium they play in and make it once again safe to go and see games. The Pujols Angels were only exciting because of one rookie. Their manager finally showed what he is made of. Arte has to take a look at his manager if he hopes to capture a title soon. As for the former LaLa Dodgers, they have gotten rid of all that has been bad over the past couple of years by taking out of the game the battling McCourts.

Which leads us to the Giants of San Francisco. Jack Elliot once said “Baseball is grown men getting paid to play a game.” In the City by the Bay, men enjoyed playing baseball this season like few before them. The had food fights before the games. One of their biggest boosters was an injured pitcher who played Ernie Kovacs routine of The Nairobi Trio in the dugout during the game. There were more than smiles. There was laughter and joy of being in a game they love to play. Pandemonium ruled. They put new gas into the gashouse gang. Think of them as the laughing gasers. They have all winter to smile the smile of victory.

Play Ball!

The Light In Their Eyes Go Out

It was an historic turn of events in the City on the Potomac. Their team, that had fought so hard all year to capture their first advancement to the National League Championship, fell upon the dreaded enemy of so many cities that field teams in the Senior Circuit. In the end, they simply did not know how to win.

You could see it in the eyes of the Nationals… that ‘deer in the headlights’ glaze that signaled defeat as they stepped to the plate and went through the motions of ending it in that nearly quiet, stadium stunned, last at bat. Here they were, just a few moments before, ready to enjoy the sweet taste of victory and advancement to a place rarely visited by any team in this City. They had the opponent on the ropes, up by two with two outs and two strikes on the batter, not once, but twice.

On the other side of the equation, the Cardinals from St. Louis had been here before and had done that time and time again. As recent as last season, they did the impossible by climbing back into the playoffs, fighting against all hopes, and won the World Series….for the umpteenth time in their long history. They knew how to win. They EXPECTED to win. The did just that, coming from behind and laying a four spot on the Nationals in the top of the Ninth.

Washington THOUGHT they could win. They didn’t. Jason Werth came to the plate in the bottom of the 9th and in stunned motion, retired. Then the rookie sensation, Bryce Harper who homered and doubled in the early innings, did what most rookie sensations do when they hit the ultimate clutch situation so early in their career…they fail to deliver when it is needed the most. It was over in a heart beat as he swung at a pitch clearly high over the strike zone nearly eye level. Anxious to perform, wanting to bring the home crowd an historic win, the Mighty Casey struck out. Ryan Zimmerman, the All-Star third baseman, ended the game mercifully lifting a soft fly to right field in what was now the valley of could-have-beens and would-have-beens and broken hearts. They went out with a hushed whimper and not a noisy bang.

Baseball is a cruel sport. It rarely awards the improbable yet teases us for months that there is hope. It is a sport with an eternal Spring yet a harsh, crisp coldness of Winter that slams the door shut when October comes around. Again this year, the teams that know how to win have gathered for the ultimate fight for the championship. The San Francisco Giants, the World Series winner just two seasons ago will host the St. Louis Cardinals for the National League Championship.

Again his season, there is a tradition of excellence that comes through….a legacy of Willie Mays against Stan Musial. Today these two teams begin their fight for the N.L title. In this series, they both know how to win.

Play Ball!