Sports Then and Now

The Phillies recently signed to Ryan Howard to a five-year, $125 million contract extension.

The economy obviously isn’t bothering Major League Baseball teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, and Phillies. Everyone knows that the Yankees and Red Sox will go buy any free agent that can help their team. Some say that the Yankees and Red Sox have ‘bought’ their World Series Championships. And the Phillies have had two straight World Series appearances… So can a team ‘buy’ a championship?

The Phillies just recently gave their star first baseman a 5-year, $125 million deal. Thirty-year-old Ryan Howard has 226 HR, 657 RBI, and a batting average of .279 in his career. Howard has struck out more than 900 times in his career. He isn’t very solid defensively either, yet the Phillies still make him one of the highest paid players in baseball.

So if Howard is ‘worth’ $25 mill a year, and A-Rod is ‘worth’ $33 mill a year, what does this mean for future players? Albert Pujols is arguably the best player in baseball. So how much is he going to be ‘worth’ at the end of the year? Is he ‘worth’ $40-50 million? Wow! The Padres and Pirates whole team payroll is less than $40 million a year! Read the rest of this entry →

On April 22nd, the lead story after Dallas Braden’s 4-2 win over the Yankees was not Braden’s then 3-0 record or his 2.77 ERA.  Instead, the most savory tidbit for post-game was the altercation between Braden and Alex Rodriguez after A-Rod’s disrespectful stroll over the mound.  Whether it was the fact that they were playing in Oakland or Braden’s reverence for the nuances of the game and disdain for high-paid prima donnas, he told Rodriguez, “Stay the [expletive] off my mound.  A-Rod’s response (aside from claimed ignorance of the significance of his trespass) was to break a second unwritten rule by impugning the skills of his opponent by saying, ” I’d never quite heard that, especially from a guy that has a handful of wins in his career.”  Later, when asked about further comments made by Braden, A-Rod said, “I really don’t want to extend the 15 minutes of fame he already has.”

Box score from Braden's perfect game.

Grammar aside, Rodriguez’s hopes that Braden was going to be out of the papers crashed and burned on Sunday. During the Oakland’s Mother’s Day game against Tampa Bay , Dallas Braden went a long way to showing just how talented he can be and exactly who the pitcher’s mound at the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum belongs to.  Braden became only the 19th pitcher in Major League Baseball history to throw a perfect game. Read the rest of this entry →

Dave Roberts announced on Monday that he has Hodgkin's Lymphoma

If you ask a Red Sox fan who Henri Stanley is, most will look at you funny, their heads cocked to the side like the RCA dog, and tell you they don’t have a clue.  Stanley was an outfielder who never played a Major League game, but exists as a footnote in the historic 2004 season that saw the Sox win their first World Series in 86 years.  Henri Stanley went from the AAA Pawtucket Red Sox to AAA Portland, the Dodger’s affiliate, in a trade deadline move, July 31, 2004.  The player the Red Sox got in return was Dave Roberts.

Roberts himself a journeyman with no aspirations of ever having a bust in the Hall of Fame, spent his ten year career playing for five different teams, patrolling various outfield spots and occasionally DH-ing.  He was brought to Boston that year predominantly to be a pinch runner.  In 45 regular season games with the Red Sox that summer, Roberts stole a grand total of five bases.  In the post-season, with zero at-bats, Roberts managed to steal one base – a close play at second that no Boston fan will ever forget. Read the rest of this entry →

Padres catcher Yorvit Torrealba has weighed in on Arizona's proposed immigration law.

A new Arizona law being proposed that would require all individuals suspected of immigration violations to produce identification has been garnering much attention in the last few weeks. A lot of that attention has been from Major League Baseball, more specifically the Players Association and its members. It isn’t as though another reminder was needed of why politics and sports should remain separate was necessary, with the not so distant memories of steroid hearing before congress and threats of the same over tobacco use. Yet, here is the issue of immigration, adding a negative weight to baseball’s buoyancy, meant to help us float happily through the summer.

Immigration is certainly a polarizing issue, more so in areas such as Arizona where its proximity to Mexico make the issue extremely relevant. As such, while this proposed law seems sort of like a non-issue to the outsider: You have to show identification when the police stop you? Well, sure. Don’t we all? (Also, the law only applies to non-citizens. If you are a US citizen, all you must do is assert so. Lying about such is another, Federal charge.) For the residents of the area and for MLB players, especially Hispanic individuals, the legislation is anything but simple or appropriate.

If you click on a link to read articles at your favorite sports news site, you’re probably looking for scores, statistics, race results, and so on. Chances are that readers who are interested in the immigration debate are heading to sites like CNN or MSNBC to find information. Lately, though, if you read baseball news, you have had a steady diet of your favorite fare, peppered with numerous mentions of this Arizona bill.

Players like Venezuelan born Yorvit Torrealba, catcher for the San Diego Padres, was quoted in the San Diego Union-Tribune, “Why do I want to go play in a place where every time I go to a restaurant and they don’t understand what I’m trying to order, they’re going to ask me for ID first? That’s bull.” It’s not clear what this proposed law has to do with menus in restaurants or the wait staff – work visa is a legitimate form of identification – but when you consider the fact that in 2008 Arizona’s population was over 30% Hispanic (double the national average), Yorvit should be able to find restaurants with Spanish menus and staff.

Torrealba’s comments are indicative of why we don’t go to ESPN for political news. His comment is obviously based on an overarching view that immigration laws are unfair. Never mind that the laws only deal with those individuals here illegally, the details don’t matter. At least they don’t seem to when you talk to folks whose time is (and should be) occupied with other pursuits.

The Players Association is involved as they are whenever there is anything with a perception of affect on its members. Some players are reportedly considering boycotting the Arizona Fall League as a form of protest.   There is a push for Bud Selig to weigh in, to add an official position for Major League Baseball to the mix. All three should keep their figurative noses out of things. This law affects no MLB players directly because they are all here legally.

There are folks who really enjoy heated debates about issues like immigration, abortion, same-sex marriage, and so on. There are others who avoid them like the plague and focus instead on less stressful pursuits like sports. As much as taxpayers would like their senators to spend their time on something better than whether baseball players chew tobacco, so would sports fans be happier if the athletes, teams, and leagues would focus all their considerable energy on their respective sports and stay out of the political arena.

Pitcher Dallas Braden did not appreciate A-Rod's shortcut.

In the sixth inning of the Yankee-A’s game on Thursday, Alex Rodriguez was rounding second and realized the play was moot and he jogged back to first.  The problem was, he crossed directly over the pitcher’s mound.  Dallas Braden, the now 3-0 A’s starter took exception to A-Rod’s lack of respect for baseball etiquette, and he told him so.  A-Rod, for his part, waved Braden off with a swat of his hand, much like a pesky fly.

So, what of this baseball etiquette thing. The term refers to the unwritten rules of baseball.  Examples of these include the idea that sliding hard is OK, but coming in with spikes high is not, stealing bases and bunting are OK, unless your up by 8 runs.  Another is be happy when you hit a home run, but don’t stand and watch it leave or expect to get someone plunked, and yet another is (according to Dallas Braden) don’t run across the pitcher’s mound. Read the rest of this entry →

The New York Mets are in last place in the NL East.

Those who know me, those who follow my “Sound Offs” on “Vegas Unwrapped”, or on these and other hallowed Blog pages know if nothing else, I rarely hit the panic button nor do I demand change for the sake of change only or because of one incident alone.

It takes a lot to rattle these old bones especially when it comes to making changes in the Mets organization, particularly with the man at the helm, for it has always been my opinion that a manager does just that, manage. He doesn’t pitch one pitch, steal one base, or score one run. He is there to use his considerable skills in motivating his players to do their best and on really very few occasions will make a move within a game that can clearly determine it’s outcome. Read the rest of this entry →