BBA Hall of Fame Ballot

Here are our picks to be enshrined in Cooperstown.  It took a good bit of discussion between the two of us, each having to make a case to the other about certain eligible players.  There is a lot to consider when bestowing the greatest of baseball honors, but all of these players come out on top.  They are deserving of the Hall of Fame.  My guess is that only two players will actually be elected this year: Barry Larkin and Jack Morris.  Our Hall Hopefuls for 2012:

1. Jeff Bagwell 
2. Barry Larkin
3. Edgar Martinez
4. Tim Raines
5. Larry Walker

In the days to come, there will be posts on each of our choices, as well as some explanation regarding the players we feel come up just a bit short (or who should wait just a bit longer).

Knuckleball Catcher

In this installment of Aural Pleasures, we switch from songs performed by baseball players to a song about a baseball player.  An unreleased track from Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, titled "Knuckleball Catcher." 

33 Things Learned or Verified in 2011

1. Pre-season predictions are fun and impossible to resist but complete bollacks

2. The St. Louis Cardinals are a scourge to the NL Central and the rest of MLB.  Once again they won the World Series with the worst record among postseason qualifiers (see also 2006).

3. The St. Louis Cardinals helped provide one of most exciting Octobers of recent memory, not to mention the stretch September run

4. Tony LaRussa carries magic beans in his pocket instead of sunflower seeds

5. Ron Washington is a fine motivational manager but a dim tactical manager.  If he only trusted his gut half the time, the Rangers would have won 100 games and likely the World Series

Welcome to Cincinnati

  

Christmas came early in Redsland, as Uncle Walt left a shiny new pitcher under the tree.  I have to admit I'm rather giddy right now, and I could fill this page with OMG's and .gifs of Ron Swanson dancing to illustrate my reaction to this move.  Instead, I'll try to give an objective breakdown of this deal, piece by piece.

Pud Gannon Memoirs #2

It's time for another look into Pud Gannon's scribblings while we wait out the winter.  If you missed or have forgotten the previous entry, you can find it here. I haven't quite figured out the timelines or Pud's actual age yet.  He isn't thoughtful enough to provide dates, though the anecdote towards the end of this entry must be around 1917, and the ruminations in the first part must pre-date WWII, my guess is the late '30s to 1940.  But you can draw your own conclusions.  Enjoy.

Getting Moore Than You Bargained For

Big news out of Tampa Bay yesterday, as the Rays continue to do what the Rays do.  Matt Moore signed an extremely team friendly 5 year $14 million dollar deal with three affordable club options that could bring the total value of the contract up to 8 years and $40 million.  Yes, TNSTAAPP and all, but Matt Moore looks every bit the future ace that Steve Slowinski of FanGraphs has been calling him since before his September call-up.  We got a small taste of what Moore could do when he ended up starting Game 1 of the divisional round in the hitters paradise that is the Ballpark in Arlington, and shut down the mighty Rangers offense, yielding two hits and no earned runs in seven innings.

The BBWAA and BS in 1947

It has never been much of a secret that the Baseball Writers Association of America's voting procedures are fatally flawed.  I suppose that's what makes the seasonal awards so much fun:  never-ending debate between those that don't get to vote.  Each year the two important awards, Cy Young and Most Valuable Player yield plenty of discussion fodder.  And often the ultimate winner raises more eyebrows than agreeing head-nods.  But some years the outcome is downright baffling, calling into question just how flawed the voting process is.

Winter Tweetings

The Hot Stove season doesn't get any hotter than the Winter Meetings.  This practice (if you trust Wikipedia) started back in 1876, yet it is being touted as the 110th anniversary of the event by other sources.  I'm not great at math, but that doesn't really seem to check out.  

These days, we are able to get up to the minute news and analysis on the Winter Meetings thanks to Twitter.  Twitter is a wonderful place to find out what Harry Potter and Justin Beiber fans are up to get a whole lot of unfounded rumors and snarky breakdowns of baseball moves in real time. 

On to the tweets!

The Ghosts of Flushing

Upon news breaking of Jose Reyes signing his six-year $106 million contract with the (Miami) Marlins, a beleaguered Mets fan whose face I can almost picture in my mind, wailed something like this: "it is a dark day.  Perhaps the most exciting player in Mets history gone, without the Wilpons ever really trying to sign him long-term."  This I could sort of roll along with, though you can read my thoughts on Jose Reyes and his long-term benefits here.  But then he added, with not insufficient poutiness, "I think I'm following Bobby V to the BoSox.  The Mets have nothing for me."  Boston fans should take note, that despite the Red Sox epic 2011 collapse and the ensuing circus of sandbox foolishness, there remain baseball fans who lust for your lot.  Surely this Mets fan was indulging in histrionics; he is, after all, a Mets fan.  But to help ease the pain of waving goodbye to "the most exciting player in Mets history", I will offer a helping hand in the art of patience.  And as a Cubs fan, I know a bit about it.  After all, the New York Mets and Chicago Cubs are in eerily similar positions.

Arthur Lee Maye and the Crowns

"I feel like I am the best singing athlete that ever lived.  I'm not bragging, it's just a fact." - Lee Maye

"Nobody Fucks with De-Jesus!"

"8 year-olds, Dude.  8 year-olds."

Here is a post that exists solely for the pleasure of its title. 


Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer (it seems impossible to name one without the other) made their first acquisition in the mission to end the Championship drought that predates the birth of any Cubs fan.  Although in reality there is no drought as everything resets at zero for the two executitve wunderkinds.  The first free agent splash of the new regime:  the one, the only, the inimitable...David DeJesus.  Some Cubs fans demand a lot.  More than a lot.  They pretend the previous 103 years are all on their shoulders, though all any fan can lay claim to are those losing years starting at fanship.  I feel no pride or accomplishment, no self-satisfaction or congratulation regarding the dominant 1906-1908 teams.  Nor do I bemoan the failings of the 1946-1984 teams.  They don't belong to me, nor most of the fans demanding success now.  Epstein/Hoyer and comrades may yet extend themselves to the glittering prizes Pujols or Fielder, but right now this looks to be a fine move.  A very fine one indeed.

Anatomy of a slide

[via FFFFOUND!]

Manager of the Moment

Cornelius McGillicuddy, Sr.

Manager of the Year is the most tenuous of baseball awards, relying almost solely on the gut instincts and distanced observation of a select group of baseball writers.  The end-of-year awards provide great opportunity for argument, even when there are irrefutable statistics that should eliminate such jabbering.  As the MVP and Cy Young award voting continues to illustrate, these statistics are still taken with a grain of salt.  This year's Cy Young winners both dominated in voting, Justin Verlander winning unanimously and Clayton Kershaw taking 27 of 32 first place votes, though a quick perusal of the most telling pitching stats point to Roy Halladay being the best NL pitcher and CC Sabathia at least being good enough to garner a substantial number of first place votes (instead he finished 4th in voting).  While baseball writers still struggle to evolve toward more accurate measures of baseball greatness, the Manager of the Year vote will always allow them to indulge in those tried and not-so-true indicators: the gut and wins.  Advanced statistics don't exist in the evaluation of managers.  Yet.  However, in the short history of the award, wins don't seem to play too great a roll in deciding a winner either.

Fielding Metrics, a Brief and Incomplete Study

Defensive statistics are considered to be the final frontier of the sabermetric movement.  While the statistics available these days paint a picture that is much clearer than the fuzziness of fielding percentage, there is still a lot of room for improvement.  Two of the best defensive metrics that are readily available right now are Tom Tango's Fans' Scouting Report and Ultimate Zone Rating.  Let's now look at this year's best defenders according to these two statistics, see if they pass the smell test, and compare them to the results of the Gold Glove winners.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Come one, come all to the 9th Wonder of the World!  Not since the purely philanthropic efforts of the benevolent Judge Roy Hofheinz has Major League Baseball been blessed with such an architectural gift.  While the Astrodome elevated the arena of baseball to new glorious heights, with its lush green carpet, which in addition to improving the trajectory of a batted ball, provided a soothing sensation to jet-lagged ballplayers, who would often take warmups barefoot to relieve the east-coast bias.  Not to mention the starry nights ripped from storybook romances that glittered upon euphoric spectators.  But times have changed, and with them the pleasures of man have evolved.  So without further ado, join us for a tour of baseball's latest marvel, a ballpark that illuminates the imagination, titillates the senses, and ushers the phantasmagoric possibilities of human conciousness...

Marlins Ballpark in Little Havana!!!

Somewhere, Buck O'Neil is Smiling

   In our beautiful memory

   We were all handsome

   We all could sing

   We all had the heart 

   Of the prettiest girl in town

   And we all hit .300  -Buck O'Neil

One Crack of the Bat

Baseball dreamers speak of naturals in the game.  Johnny Mitchum was a natural.  Rescued from the obscure sandlots and pastures of rural Missouri and supplanted to the city lights of St. Louis, young Johnny Mitchum, affectionately nicknamed 'Rube', ascended to stardom in  his first season, carrying the Cardinals through the playoffs en route to the Championship.  He only got better in succeeding seasons, posting numbers that placed him among the upper echelon of baseball royalty.  Yet the brightest star often casts the darkest shadow.  As Johnny Mitchum is pulled toward greatness, other forces work against him in a battle with horrific and agonizing consequences.

Memory Demands and Image (vol. II)

the Christian Gentleman

In this installment of Memory Demands an Image, we travel even further back into baseball's gauzy past, this time courtesy of the Library of Congress' Flickr page.  There are some really incredible photographs in this collection, highlighting the end of the dead-ball era, mostly between 1910-1915. These were the days when uniforms consisted of short brimmed caps, collared jerseys, and knickers with high socks; men wore suits and hats to ballgames; the Yankees were the Higlanders, the Indians were the Naps, and the Brooklyn club was alternating names from the Dodgers to the Superbas to the Robins; and even with the advent of the cork-centered ball, pitching still reigned supreme. Enjoy these photos in all of their gritty, grainy, black and white glory.

"You Can't Kill an Oriole"

The Baltimore Orioles have been a mess for a while now.  They have not had a winning record since 1997, a year in which they should have won the AL pennant.  They are on their seventh manager since '97, and nobody has been able to tell the difference.  Towards the end of 2010, Buck Showalter was given the reigns and seems firmly entrenched calling the shots.  Now that the MacPhail magic has proven exhausted, Orioles owner Peter Angelos has done a smart thing: he has hired Dan Duquette.

Ballplayers

In addition to being obsessive about baseball, I also collect records. It is not all that often that these two disparate wolds collide, but when they do, it sets off all kinds of bells and whistles in the pleasure center of my brain.  This is something I'd like to dig into on this blog as an ongoing series of sorts, exploring both music recorded by baseball players and music about baseball.  This is by no means meant to be an exhaustive study, as there are a fair amount of baseball players that have recorded some terrible music (Bronson Arroyo, I'm looking at you), but rather to bring to light some lesser known artists or songs that have at least some sort of redeeming value. The first installment in this series will explore the works of the group Ballplayers.

A Race to the Marshalsea

The stove is already getting warm with Atlanta's trading of Derek Lowe to Cleveland.  The steady but aged sinkerballer will now be 'sweating it out' by the Cuyahoga River.  They have some good breweries up there, so I expect Lowe to have a bounce back year.  The real heat so far this off season is coming from the managerial hot stove, with the Cubs, Red Sox, and Cardinals battling over their next skipper.  The General Manager search is in full swing in Anaheim (where the brass hope to find someone who can offset the Vernon Wells debacle) and in Baltimore (where we all hope that once great baseball town can lift up its bootstraps).  It seems the MacPhail magic has worn off. 

Breaking News

In what was initially thought to be a No-Shave November move, it appears Derek Holland's mustache will be taking it's talents to South Beach.   This comes as a blow to Rangers fans who are still reeling from their team losing consecutive World Series.  Marlins fans, however, have yet another reason to be excited about 2012.  In addition to their cutting edge neon colored horror-scape of a ballpark and a brash new manager, the newly minted Miami Marlins now have a mustache with considerable upside under team control for the next five seasons.


While not a finished product by any means, scouts say the Dutch 'Stache is highly projectable.  A rival AL scout was quoted as saying that, "While not being much more than a pedo-stache right now, if you look at it with the right eyes, you can see a Selleck.  It's a mustache you can really dream on."  


**Derek Holland could not be reached for comment, but he clearly seemed distressed by this recent turn of events.**

"He doesn't run, he skates."

They don't sneer like they used to.

Paul Rapier Richards.  I have been an avid baseball fan for nineteen years, excluding those early years spent weening and teething and those late adolescent years spent seeing just how far I could insert my head up my ass, and I had never heard that name.  At least not in a context that would commit it to memory.  And yet Paul Richards has probably had more impact on post-WWII baseball than most any other man.  A lot of that probably has to do with the fact that he never guided his club to the pennant.  In fact, he seemed to make a habit of getting out just before the getting got good. 

Fin d'été

"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring." -Rogers Hornsby

It's not the years honey, it's the mileage.

Throughout the year we have been told that C.J. Wilson will be the most coveted starting pitcher on the market this offseason.  Does this say more about C.J. Wilson's talent or the class of starters hitting free agency this year? Based on the contracts given out in recent years for top of the rotation starters, Mr. Wilson will be paid handsomely for his services over the next few years (probably somewhere in the $15 million AAV neighborhood for 4-6 years).  

Hold on to your butts. It's the Fall Classic.

Texas Rangers (96-66) vs. St. Louis Cardinals (90-72)
AL West Champs            NL Wild Card Winner
def. DET 4-2 ALCS         def. MIL 4-2 NLCS
def. TB 3-1 ALDS          def. PHI 3-2 NLDS

Six glorious months of summer, an interesting first half of October and we have our Fall Classic.  As is customary, we get a matchup few predicted, including myself (my preseason World Series was Angels vs. Rockies).  Don't worry about me; I stay away from the pony races.  I didn't pick either of these teams to make the playoffs, let alone be the last two standing.  I should reiterate what has been stated in previous posts: I am a Cubs fan, and I do not like the Cardinals.  In fact, I loathe them.  I respect the hell out of the organization, am envious of their accomplishments, but I hope they fail in winning their 11th World Championship.  I am still annoyed by 2006, when they limped into the playoffs, made a mockery of the short series format and became the worst team in  history to win the title.  As much as I would love to see a highly competitive, back-and-forth World Series requiring the maximum seven games for the first time since 2002, I would much prefer the Rangers to sweep in dominating fashion.  That aside, there is much to be excited about in this series.  And much to dread.

Coffee is for Closers

Simpler times

One of the most insightful tidbits of Michael Lewis' Moneyball, takes up a mere page and a half of the 300 page book.  Just a couple paragraphs in a sea of words stood out to me more so than almost anything else, in particular this passage:


" ... it was more efficient to create a closer than to buy one. Established closers were systematically overpriced, in large part because of the statistic by which closers were judged in the marketplace: "saves." The very word made the guy who achieved them sound vitally important. But the situation typically described by the save - the bases empty in the ninth inning with the team leading - was clearly far less critical than a lot of other situations pitchers faced."

Oh My October

Not this year

While much of the baseball watching public reacted in shock to the Cardinals’ dispatching of the Phillies, I was merely resigned.  One could feel it coming; it’s been coming steady since the Wild Card was implemented in 1995.  Once again the best team in the league, and rightful pennant winner, failed to earn the privilege of hoisting that flag.  There is no love lost on my part on behalf of the Philadelphia Phillies.  They are a very good team, the best in the National League by six victories and had a superb 2011 campaign.  And yes, they were much better than the St. Louis Cardinals.  And yet, those of us still excited by the grandeur of the World Series, the last gasp of Summer before the cold North winds force us indoors and the days actually do get shorter, will once again face the possibility of seeing one of baseball’s lesser teams competing on the game’s grandest stage.  But if the Cardinals do in fact defeat the Brewers and advance to the World Series, will they have earned it?  Sure.  They had to win games to get there.  But they still won’t be the National League’s best offering.  Just as the winner of ALCS will fail to represent the best of the Junior Circuit.  It seems this inevitability is good for baseball, good for the fans.  Or at least those men in the position of making decisions on behalf of this two-century-old game seem to think so, as the playoffs are on the verge of further expansion. 

Smoke 'em if you got 'em: ALDS Recap

Tastes like victory

During the Division Series, I found myself intrigued by the AL match-ups more so than the ones in the NL.  This is different than my normal NL-centric leanings, and probably had a lot to do with the fact that I despise both the Cardinals and Phillies, and (wrongly) didn't give the Diamondbacks much of a chance against the Brewers. The junior circuit kicks off their Championship Series tonight in Texas with the two most colorful managers left in the postseason facing off in a battle for the pennant.  Before that happens, lets take a look back at what went down in the Division Series.

How I learned to stop worrying and love the Brewers: NLDS Recap

Important things from the 2011 NLDS

The NLDS wrapped up yesterday with two very exciting one-run elimination games.  Much like no one thought the Diamondbacks had a chance to win their division, no one thought they would give the Brewers much of a fight in the first round of the playoffs.  When the Brewers won the first two games of the series, outscoring Arizona 13-5, with Ryan Braun continuing to rake like he had in the regular season, I wrote this series off as just another Division round rout.  Things changed however when the series moved to the desert, as the Diamondbacks won Games 3 and 4, outscoring the Brewers 18-7.  With a grand slam in each game and an excellent pitching performance from the hatchet-throwing rookie Josh Collmenter in Game 4 (7 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 6 K), the Diamondbacks continued to surprise everyone.   

Memory Demands an Image

I'm a sucker for old black and white baseball photos. Recently a treasure trove of old photos has surfaced courtesy of the Boston Public Library. Over 1,900 of nearly 3,000 photos have been digitized with new additions being posted weekly until all the photos are available.  The photos are all from the personal collection of Boston-Herald photographer Leslie Jones who worked for the paper from 1917-1956, covering both the Red Sox and Bees/Braves organizations.  Jones saved all of his negatives from his career as a photographer, and it was his wish to have his photos available for public viewing. His family granted his wish, donating over 40,000 negatives to the Boston Public Library. 

I've collected some of my favorites here for your viewing pleasure. You can check them all out on the BPL Flickr page.  (Tip of the cap to Ninety Feet of Perfection for pointing this out.)

“It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart.”

Games 162 of the 2011 season defied any and all possible combination of words to quantify.  One wishes John Updike were still alive with an itch in his knickers and could somehow have warmed a seat in each of the three stadiums that hosted the severance between summer and fall.  The seasons changed, dramatically and with devastating abruptness for fans of the Red Sox and Braves.  The collapse was a long way down, failure wrapping its callused fingers with slow, tight assurance.  Yet the end came as a shock to fans, though one could feel it coming.  The aftermath of each team’s respective collapse is being dealt with differently.  Braves fans, as is their general nature, are far more somber and calculating.  They point to key injuries to the starting rotation (top two starters), an over reliance on three young bullpen arms, and disappointing seasons from several key offensive cogs (Heyward, Prado, Chipper).  There are some in search of a scapegoat: a passive manager, all of a sudden inclined toward risky, LaRussa-like behavior in the season’s final game.  But for the most part, they are stomaching the ultimate failure of a team with high expectations but without the necessary components to fend off the superior St. Louis Cardinals.

wOBA, WAR, and the MVP

Every boy in America dreams of one day winning an award with this man's face on it.

Around this time every year, children go back to school, the days get shorter, and baseball writers parse the meaning of the word “valuable.”  This can get tiresome, but it is not without reason.  The opening line of the letter sent to all 60 MVP voters states:

"There is no clear cut definition of what most valuable means. It is up to the individual voter to decide who was the most valuable player in each league to his team." 

The letter goes on to say that pitchers and designated hitters should be considered (though they rarely ever win), that the winner need not come from a playoff team (although more often than not, they do), that offense, defense, number of games played, character, disposition, loyalty and effort should all be taken into account. How very nebulous.

"Slow it down by staying ahead of it to stay on top of it"

I set out to write a piece slandering Tony LaRussa, casting aside any pretensions of journalistic integrity or baseball pride.  With my support propped behind the scuffling Atlanta Braves, my attention has been forced, as so often seems the case, to the St. Louis Cardinals.  As a lifelong Cubs fan, despite my growing up just north of Atlanta, the Cardinals have always held a place in my rearviewmirror.  That is, only on the rare occasions that they aren’t glowering down from atop their enviable pedestal built on the tradition of quality baseball, and of course winning.  With the Cubs looking ahead to 2012 since the beginning of June, I have been forced to take pleasure in two things: the Braves putting together a fine season on the backs of young, exciting arms (though those arms are now bending under the weight thrust upon them from the rest of the team) and the Cardinals slow and steady demise at the hands of the Brewers.  Though of course, as it often does, September has changed things.  On the television (the retina of the mind’s eye, as Mr. McLuhan might say!) Tony LaRussa stands in the clubhouse after the Cardinals emerged victorious, surrounded by reporters clawing for his thoughts on the shrinking deficit in the Wild Card race.  Before the manager can provide a perfunctory answer, the cacophonious exclamations of a team united drown out the reporters.  Omar Infante of the Marlins has just launched a 2-run walk-off homerun off the beleaguered arm of Craig Kimbrel, handing the Braves another loss and moving the Cardinals within 2.5 games.  The face of the sixty-six year old LaRussa, a face that a few years ago would’ve looked at home hanging on a tannery line, stretches a bit further into a plasticine grin of exultation.  I’ve grown to loathe that face, because it is often a reminder of the Cubs’ futility.  But tonight, through the magic box, that face is filling me with love and excitement for this game and all that can happen in a very short amount of time.  Because it is a face that doesn’t simply reflect a reaction to good news, it is the face of a man who is making things happen.  Leading a team that, going into September was dead in the water, like the surviving floaters of the USS Indianapolis waiting for the sharks to pull the last bits of flesh from the bone, LaRussa was feeling the heat from all sides of the Cardinals family.  The fans, the media, and quite probably even GM Mozeliak had begun looking forward to LaRussa’s contract expiring at the end of this season.  As was I, until I swallowed my personal bias against the man and looked a bit deeper.

"I can't hit the ball until I hit the bottle."

Pete Browning

One of the greatest sluggers of the Dead Ball Era, Pete Browning played from 1882-1896, spending most of his time playing for the Louisville club in the American Association (derisively known as the "Beer and Whiskey League"). In an environment where run-scoring was severely depressed, Browning put up some extremely gaudy offensive numbers: .402/.464/.547 (.417 wOBA!) in 1887 playing for the AA Louisville Colonels and .373/.459/.517 in 1890 playing for the Cleveland Infants of the short lived Player's League. But it isn't just eye-popping stats and a well coiffed mustache that Browning is remembered for.  His presence is still felt in every Major League game to this day.

The Best of Waite Hoyt in the Rain

The Best of Waite Hoyt in the Rain Volume 1

Personality Records - 1963

The first athlete-turned-broadcaster, Waite Hoyt enjoyed a 20 year Hall of Fame career as a pitcher (Yankees, Dodgers, Giants, Athletics, Red Sox, Tigers), and then became the play by play voice for the Cincinnati Reds. In his 24 years calling games for the Reds, Hoyt was well known for his anecdotes (mostly recalling his playing days with the Yankees) during rain delays. Two volumes of selected anecdotes were collected on record albums. Bust this out the next time you are stuck in a rain delay.

Volume 1 - Side 1

Volume 1 - Side 2

Jewel of the Cumberland

Every autumn, I take a couple weeks to myself, fill the backseat of my Ford with assorted mismatched clothing, books, dried and canned foods and drive.  Just pick a direction and drive in search of yard sales, estate sales, pawn shops, wherever garbage accumulates.  Where the treasure lives.  Every year save one yielded a rare, and to me, indispensable artifact.  In 2008 I bought a Duke Snider rookie card from an old man named Abraham Hostler for $15 and a conversation.  He offered it to me with a wizened hand, the skin gone translucent, just brittle bone and blue vein.  He told he hadn’t seen a game since the Giants beat the Cardinals one day in May 1968.  “It just ain’t the same on television.  And my heart can’t take the city anymore.”  I replied that I understood, shook his hand and escaped with my prize.

Spring Hopes Eternal

     Bill Veeck was right.  There are only two seasons: Baseball and Winter. Winter is a season of waiting.  Waiting for the sun to crack through clouds clotting the grey sky.  Waiting for a gust of bitter wind to pass before upturning one’s collar and shuffling through the congested, dingy streets, thumbing a path to the places one chooses to go.  Waiting for the check counters to finish tallying their figures and peeling their c-notes.  Waiting for the fruits of such taxing and all-too-encompassing labor to manifest themselves on the field of play, where the men in uniform can help us forget all about the nickels and dimes of baseball.  A time of waiting for the village green to reassert itself, in all its timelessness and beauty and utter defiance, in the face of urban sprawl.  Each year the sky gets a bit darker, the air thicker.  And each year the diamond-cut grass gets a bit greener, the only manicured lawn we need.  And boy do we need it.

     Winter is a season for those damning human maladies of hindsight and futurethink, of examining the too recently passed in aide of projecting the long-term future.  The game of baseball, as it is played, is an accumulation of isolated moments of abrupt and calculated movement, moments that add up to outs, scoreless innings, rallies, crooked numbers, to greatness and to failure.  During the winter these moments tend to escape us.  We as fans, as writers, as analysts, pundits or however we label ourselves extend our reach to the bigger pictures.  And then we find ourselves attaching monetary gain to said pictures.  During the winter months, we also become businessmen.

     There is a reason baseball has been the subject of the vast majority of books written on sports, and it is not simply because it has been around the longest.  Baseball allows for a narrative thread.  In fact, it creates and maintains one of such assurance and of such unpredictability.  We gestate throughout the winter months, assessing past performances and predicting future ones.  We pick favorites, analyze transactions.  We predict the World Series.  Why?  Because it is fun.  And because we know, unless gifted the bit of luck inherently necessary to succeed in baseball, that we will be wrong.  It is as much fun to be wrong as it is right when observing baseball.  One cannot write the outcome of a baseball season, just as a good writer cannot arrive at the conclusion of his/her story without taking the ride first.  All one can do is trust the integrity of what exists, have confidence in the players, and let the rest work itself out.  It’s a beautiful thing, to start with something you know to be good and feel the rush of it work its way to greatness.