June 25th, 2006 → 11:24 am @ Seth Mnookin
The Cardinals have lost five straight, Mark Mulder is out of commission until at least the All-Star break–and possibly much longer–with a frayed labrum, and Jim Edmonds has missed three straight starts with a concussion. At least Albert Pujols is back from his oblique strain. How could that not be good news?
Here’s how: in today’s Boston Globe, the always enterprising Gordon Edes–a reporter whose columns are full of interesting scoops and tantalizing nuggets–has a quote in his Baseball Notebook from a Buzz Bissinger interview on XM Radio. Bizzinger, the author of Three Nights in August, about the Cardinals, says the following: “One thing I remember about Pujols is he was…a little bit overweight as a minor leaguer, and he came into camp the following spring looking like a million bucks. Unfortunately, because the owners allowed drugs in the game, you just have to wonder, and it would be an absolute tragedy. I hate to say this…but no one is immune from this stuff, including Albert. It’s an unfortunate aspect of the game, and it may take a generation of baseball, baseball players, a generation of testing to get rid of steroids, HGH, and everything else.” It’s not the first time a journalist has questioned Pujols’ transformation, but it’s the first time someone who had such prolonged access to the Cardinals raised the issue.
I think the players union is more at fault for the current mess, but certainly there’s plenty of blame to go around. Bizzinger’s quote is more evidence that regardless of who is eventually revealed to have been using and what revelations are still to come, there’s going to be a lot of speculation and a lot of finger-pointing until a relaible testing program is put in place.
Post Categories: Albert Pujols & Baseball & Boston Globe & Gordon Edes & Players Union & Steroids
June 23rd, 2006 → 12:15 pm @ Seth Mnookin
…namely that this is a man completely undeserving of respect. (It’s a good thing they don’t care about baseball in LA.) From today’s LA Times:
“Lowe (6-3) was pitching one day earlier than expected because Brett Tomko fouled a ball off his left foot during batting practice Wednesday. After the eighth inning, Manager Grady Little shook Lowe’s hand in the dugout as if to say his outing was over.
Lowe’s reaction? ‘I told him, ‘I’m not coming out,’ ‘ he said.
With one out in the ninth, Little tried again, visiting the mound after Richie Sexson singled. According to catcher Russell Martin, Little said to Lowe, ‘I’m giving you one more chance,’ and Lowe answered, ‘All right.'”
Post Categories: 2003 Playoffs & Baseball & Derek Lowe & Grady Little & Los Angeles Dodgers & Red Sox
June 22nd, 2006 → 4:54 pm @ Seth Mnookin
In an article in today’s Globe, Paxton Crawford explains why he doesn’t want to discuss his first-person account, printed in ESPN The Magazine, detailing steroid, HGH, and speed use while playing with the Red Sox in 2000 and 2001. (The article is available online, but only if you’re a subscriber to ESPN Insider.) “I thought it was a one-time story deal, bro,” Crawford tells the Globe‘s Gordon Edes. “If any other reporter called, I was not interested.”
Paxton’s use of the word “deal” is intriguing. Was he saying that he got paid for the ESPN piece?* Perhaps, and as far as journalistic ethics goes, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that: the subject of first-person “as told to’s” are not infrequently paid for their efforts. Or maybe, after a taste of the limelight, he wanted the world’s attention focused back on him, even if it was only for a moment and even if it was because he was telling the world he was a cheat.
There’s powerful incentive for both current and past major leaguers to stay silent about what they’ve seen or know; breaking omerta results in a lifetime banishment from the only fraternity many of them have ever known. (Off the top of my head, Ken Caminiti, Jose Canseco, and Jeremy Giambi are the only players or former players who’ve publicly admitted knowingly using steroids without being caught.) But Crawford’s story raises the specter of any number of fringe former major leaguers deciding they have nothing to lose (and perhaps some spending cash to gain) by coming clean.
There’s a fear within baseball that these trickling revelations will start a witchhunt, and indeed, there’s a guilty-until-proven-innocent attitude that’s begun to attach itself to anyone who’s had a breakout year or one or two seasons that seem statistically aberrant. But the only reason anyone’s interested in Paxton Crawford’s story is that pretty much everyone–fans, the media, the feds, Congress–knows the current testing program, while better than nothing, is embarrassingly porous. If there’s only the slimmest of chances juicers will be caught, the thinking goes, perhaps the fear of a future unmasking at the hands of some dude who spent a day in the bigs will keep folks from shooting up the latest designer steroid. One obvious way to deal with this would be for MLB and the players union to actually implement a real testing program–one that can’t be beaten by anyone who knows how to read.
Right now, that doesn’t seem likely, mainly because the power-drunk players union refuses to allow blood testing (or actual random testing, or storing of samples) because any of those steps would be an “invasion of privacy.” That’s a load of crap. Playing professional baseball is not a right afforded to citizens under the Constitution; it’s a privilege. Workplaces implement all sorts of policies–regarding drug testing or dress codes or proper language or decorum–that aren’t (and can’t be) mandated by the government. Unless the players union takes off its blinders and starts to see the big picture, a lot of its members are going to find themselves in a world of hurt.
* EDIT: Amy K. Nelson, a veteran reporter for ESPN and the writer who worked with Paxton on the story in ESPN The Magazine, wrote to say Paxton was not paid for sharing his story. I did not contact Nelson prior to posting this item. Even though I didn’t see anything wrong with the possibility of someone being paid to collaborate on an “as told to” story, I should have made an effort to contact Nelson and ESPN.
Post Categories: Amy K. Nelson & Baseball & Daisuke Matsuzaka & ESPN The Magazine & Murray Chass & Paxton Crawford & Players Union & Red Sox & Sports Reporters & Steroids
June 22nd, 2006 → 9:03 am @ Seth Mnookin
This is the first in an occasional series of Sneak Peeks from Feeding the Monster. In the section below, which takes place on December 20, 2001, the Red Sox limited partners debate whether to sell the team to Cablevision head Charles Dolan or to the group led by John Henry and Tom Werner.
Finally, the partners were worried, as John Harrington had been, about wrapping up the process in time for the new Red Sox owners to be approved by baseball’s other owners at their annual meeting in mid-January. Any deals could put the deal on hold for another year. After going back and forth for about an hour, the partners agreed. While Dolan might ultimately be able to win approval, the uncertain economic outlook for the country meant that any snags in the sale could be disastrous, and since Dolan’s bid and Henry’s bid were identical, it wasn’t worth the risk. The partners chose the Henry-Werner group.
As the limited partners were meeting in Fenway, John Henry, Tom Werner, and Larry Lucchino were ensconced in a suite on the 29th floor of the swanky Sheraton in Boston’s Back Bay. All of them were exhausted. As Henry thought through all that had happened in the previous year, he felt a vague sense of vertigo. He’d gone from being convinced he’d be successful in his efforts to build a new ballpark in Miami to being told the Marlins would likely be contracted and he’d take over the Angels to thinking he would simply buy the Angels outright to this last-minute bid to buy the Red Sox. As the hours ticked by, Henry, Werner, and Lucchino restlessly waited for a phone call. Noon passed, then one o’clock. Werner began to grow concerned…
What worried the limited partners about Charles Dolan’s bid? What else were they discussing that day in Fenway Park? The answers to these questions and many more exclusive details about the sale of the Red Sox are in Feeding the Monster, out July 11 from Simon & Schuster.
Post Categories: Baseball & Charles Dolan & Feeding the Monster Sneak Peeks & John Harrington & John Henry & Larry Lucchino & Tom Werner
June 19th, 2006 → 1:24 am @ Seth Mnookin
In the bottom of the seventh inning of tonight’s Braves-Red Sox game, Rudy Seanez came in to pitch to Jeff Francoeur with two on, two out, and the Sox leading 3-2—and Francoeur hit Seanez’s first pitch over the left-field wall to give the Braves a two run lead. Which means Seanez screwed up, right? Well, not exactly. Jason Varitek gave a target on the lower left-hand corner of the strike zone, and Seanez hit his spot almost perfectly with a nice slider…or he would have, anyway, if Francoeur hadn’t deposited the ball into the stands.
There’s plenty to second-guess here, to be sure. Francoeur is a free swinger—he has only five walks on the year, to go along with 57 strikeouts, 15 home runs, and 52 RBIs—and Seanez’s pitch was obviously hittable. But with two men on, the Red Sox didn’t want to give Francoeur a 1-0 count, on which he’s hitting .481 this season. And Seanez didn’t throw a hanging slider or leave a pitch out over the heart of the plate—it just nipped the outside corner.
Francouer’s 3-run shot certainly won’t be one of the turning points in the season. The Sox scored six two-out runs in the eighth and went on to win the game, 10-7. And Seanez’s role in the game probably won’t be remembered for long, either, except for those fans who’ve already decided they hate the man. But it is a good example of how baseball offers up numerous daily illustrations of how a good process doesn’t always lead to good results. The Red Sox—with a front office that has a well thought out reasons for virtually every decision they make—offer almost daily illustrations of this. After the 2002 season, the Sox let Cliff Floyd walk rather than pay him the eight or so million he likely would have gotten in arbitration; then, in a move that was criticized at the time, they signed Jeremy Giambi, Bill Mueller, David Ortiz, and Todd Walker for a combined $8.8 million. Before this season, the Sox traded Bronson Arroyo to the Reds for hard-hitting outfielder Wily Mo Pena. That move was, for the most part, treated as good news: with the Red Sox’s outfield in flux, the injury-prone, left-handed Trot Nixon manning right, and the need to start turning over a veteran team that was in danger of rapidly aging, picking up a 24-year old power-hitting outfielder who had a couple of years left before he reached free agency made a lot of sense, especially when the cost was a pitcher who threw up a 4.52 ERA last year. Of course, now that Pena’s on the DL, Arroyo’s 8-3 with a 2.51 ERA, and the Red Sox starting rotation appears to be in danger of falling apart, that move is drawing plenty of criticism.
Hindight, of course, is 20-20, and baseball fans (and sportswriters) have a rich history of knee-jerk reactions in response to whatever happened last night (or last inning). But indulging that tendency, especially in regard to a Red Sox team owned by John Henry and Tom Werner and run by Theo Epstein, would mean missing out on a lot of opportunities to think about and learn why a given decision was made. During spring training this year, Epstein told me the reason he loved working for Henry was that both men believed in making decisions based on carefully articulated processes. That doesn’t mean never paying players more than they might be worth according to a strict statistical analysis—there are some decisions that need to be made for stability, or because of excessive turnover. But it does mean coming up with a plan and sticking to it. And if the team decides certain players are only worth risking three years on, well, that’s what they Sox will offer.
“It doesn’t always work out perfectly,” Epstein said that day. “That’s life. But we believe that if we come up with a plan and stick to it, it’ll work out more often than it doesn’t.”
There’s more–lots more–about the Red Sox’s management philosophy and all the roster moves and in-game decisions of the last several years in Feeding the Monster, out July 11.
Post Categories: Baseball & David Ortiz & Jason Varitek & Red Sox ownership & Sports Reporters & Theo Epstein
June 16th, 2006 → 9:28 pm @ Seth Mnookin
“One right now is just as valuable as putting two or three on the board.”
— Ron Gant after Chipper Jones hit a sac fly with the bases loaded in the fifth…to bring the Braves to within three runs.
(I have a feeling Gant’s gonna keep me busy all weekend. And…my man delivers. After calling the 6th inning “the middle of the game,” he says if Tim Hudson can keep the Red Sox from scoring there, “You have a good chance to come back and win.” Don’t ask; just embrace it. It’s a zen thing.)
Post Categories: Baseball & Broadcasting & Red Sox & Ron Gant
June 16th, 2006 → 8:42 pm @ Seth Mnookin
“Boy, I tell ya, you got a team like the Red Sox coming to town and you have all those fans chanting for them and you really want to beat that other ballclub. That’s what I was talking about earlier – these guys should be inspired tonight.”
— Atlanta Braves broadcaster Ron Gant in the top of the third inning as Atlanta’s Turner Field was filled with “Let’s Go Red Sox!” chants. Braves pitcher Tim Hudson was so inspired he served up a three-run triple to Jason Varitek after walking the bases loaded.
Post Categories: Baseball & Broadcasting & Jason Varitek & Red Sox & Ron Gant
