The USA Trilogy/Thank God for the Internet

Not so much about the Mets, and not so much about baseball. It all sort of popped into my head during a brief break from meditating on Alex Rodriguez, and I figured it was better than nothing:

Don Dos Passos’ USA Trilogy (which I read mainly because it was a high-school graduation present from a friend who has apparently looked occasionally at this blog, so thank you) is probably the Great Un-Appreciated American Novel. A protracted jumble of interweaving narratives, pastiches from newspaper headlines, biographical sketches of prominent Americans, and stream-of-conscious passages that straddles the fence between formalistically brilliant and obsessive compulsive, the work’s major project is too examine how economic circumstances contribute to everything from the formation of individual’s characters, to the course of world events. The book’s socialist inclinations, far more than its formalistic oddity, has to be considered the major factor in its current obscurity; reading the book, one gets the sense that Dos Passos understood (or perhaps expected) the direction in which the country would go—it is a little hard to tell why he bothered.

At any rate, I recently remembered a scene that takes place during the first World War, in which Joe, an American sailor on a British vessel in Trinidad, ignores the advances of a foppish American tourist, in hopes of getting to see a newspaper and baseball scores—Joe is from Washington and the Senators (behind Walter Johnson) looked like they might be in the race. Throughout the scene, Joe’s desire for the baseball scores seems to be an expression of the alienation that Joe feels as a US Navy deserter traveling aboard a foreign ship and his nostalgia for his life and family back home. Joe meets the tourist in a bar and the tourist says that he might have a paper in his hotel. The two then go on a boozy drive through the country-side, while the tourist delivers what Joe probably ought to have recognized as a lengthy and elaborate come-on—but Joe isn’t paying attention to the tourist, he is focused on the possibility of seeing baseball standings. Back at the hotel, the newspaper is nowhere to be found and the tourist offers him $50 for sex; Joe shoves the tourist out of the way and leaves. Back on the ship, Joe tells his story to a British sailor who initially says that Joe should have taken the money, and then suggests that they go to the hotel with a posse and blackmail him. As the scene ends with Joe crawling into his bunk, his major regret is still simply that he didn’t get to look at the baseball scores.

I have always sort of wondered what the sports page that Joe hoped to see would have looked like. It would have had the league standings, and possibly the box scores of some recent games; possibly articles about some of them. Of course, in the old pennant-race system, with the two eight-team leagues, a single day’s standings would have offered a far more complete picture of the baseball season than it would today: once the season was well underway, the teams would settle into identifiable groups of contenders and non-contenders, which would likely only be subject to limited change. If one saw that one’s team was in the contending group, after a prolonged separation from baseball, it would be heartening enough and offer a valuable ray of hope to last until the next port and the next newspaper.

The internet, thankfully, renders the entire interaction obsolete: mlb.com has Joe’s needs covered, and the tourist could have found himself a homosexual prostitute on Craig’s list.

Starting to like this Manuel Fellow

A strain that runs through much of the dimmer writing on baseball involves extolling the virtues managers who get thrown out of games, and I reluctantly join this chorus in saying that I have come to appreciate Manuel’s tendency to get tossed. I will not go as far as to say that I fault Willie Randolph for not getting thrown out of games—Willie Randolph was a reasonable man, a quality making him nearly completely unique in all of organized baseball, and understood that no greater good would be served by getting ejected. There was a lot to applaud in the understanding, implicit in Randolph’s interaction with the officials, that managerial theatrics ought to be irrelevant to the game’s outcome; something calming and dignified in his acknowledgment that the skill of pitchers and batters would determine the winner, weather Randolph watched from the clubhouse or the dugout.

To use a bad word, Manuel’s interactions with the umpires are somewhat post-modern. Manuel, I think, also knows that his getting ejected is irrelevant, and thus, to him, there is no reason not to have a good time hollering at the umpires until he gets tossed. In the finale against the Philles, after the umpires made an abysmal call on a home run, Manuel kept turning back to get last word in, long after he had been thrown out of the game-- at this point everything was irrelevant: the call had been made and Manuel had been banished, but Manuel stayed on the field, reminding us all that there is something pleasant about a man who yells against injustice, even when the yelling can be shown to have no imaginable effect.

Manuel is a self professed admirer of Gandhi, and I would like to ask him how he thinks Gandhi would handle a blown home-run call in a baseball game he was managing. I suspect that Manuel would reply that Gandhi would understand that there is a difference between the struggle for survival and freedom and the struggle of a baseball game, and that the latter exists largely as a venue for childish rages and frustrations; and that, if he were for some reason managing a baseball team, Gandhi very well might choose to scream at the umpires and use bad language and get ejected.

Possible Explanation of Recent Events:

[December 11, 2007: Oliver Perez and John Maine are leaving Madison Square Garden]

Maine: I can’t believe those fuckers booed us on the jumbo-tron.
Perez: I know, what were those assholes thinking?
Maine: Seriously, we were both throw-ins in deals for relief pitching, and we went and won fifteen games apiece.
Perez: We pitched pretty good in the ’06 playoffs…
Maine: We pitched damn good in the ’06 playoffs. Now, just because Pedro and Alou spend the year injured…
Perez: And Reyes forgets how the hell to get on base…
Maine: and the entire offense folds down the stretch, now we can’t even watch some basketball without being booed.
Perez: This is bullshit. I never want to win a game for those jerks again.
Maine: Do they know how terifying it is to entrust a game to Gilermo Mota?
[Isaiah Thomas steps out of the shadows]
Isaiah Thomas: You gentlemen seem to have unjustly drawn the ire of the New York sports fan. Perhaps I may be of assistance…
Perez: Hey coach, how’s it going?
Thomas: Terrible.
Maine: How’d you know we were in trouble?
Thomas: Well, I was watching you on the jumbo-tron. I try not to pay much attention to the basketball games they are so…awful.
Perez: But aren’t you the coach?
Thomas: I wish you wouldn’t mention that.
Perez: Sorry, coach.
Thomas: Anyway, perhaps I can aid you in your quest for retribution against the sports fans of New York.
Perez: well, I’m not sure you’d call it a quest…
Maine: yeah, I mean they are jerks, but…
Thomas: Oh come on, it’ll be fun.
[Maine and Perez shrug]
Thomas: Let’s discuss this in my apartment…

[Maine, Perez, Thomas enter Thomas’ apartment.]
Perez: Whoa, nice pad, coach. Is your building famous?
Maine: Yeah, this place seems really familiar, like it was in a movie…
Perez: Was this the building where Annie Hall lived, in Annie Hall?
Maine: Or, was this where Woody Allen had his apartment in Manhattan?
Thomas: No, it was not in either of those movies…anyway, in order to completely destroy the hearts and minds of a sports fan you need to always extend the possibility of hope.
Maine: I don’t understand…
Thomas: see, take my Knickerbockers. They can be counted on to play two, maybe even three quarters of respectable basketball in…most games. For a true believer the possibility will always exist that my wretched team will turn it around…in any given game there still exists the remote possibility that they will come away with a win…
Perez: So the goal is to prolong the terror for as long as possible, by dangling carrots of decent play on a stick?
Thomas: Exactly, if you ever become completely wretched, like the Pirates, or the Oriels, or the NBA’s Grizzlies, the fans will just abandon the team, and spend time with their families or read a book. But if you keep on holding out the possibility of success, they’ll keep coming back like masochistic dope fiends.
Perez: ohh, so why don’t I start out pitching abysmally, up to the point where they start to think about dropping me from the rotation, and then at the last moment come through with a dominant performance against a hated rival.
Maine: And I can start out the year kind of ok, but just when the fans get a nice boost of hope from you dominant game, I’ll follow it up with a four inning loss, where I walk batters and commit a costly throwing error.
Thomas: Excellent…you have learned well, my children.
Maine: I’m thirsty, mind if I grab something?
Thomas: No, don’t open that…
Perez: I got it! This is Sigourney Weaver’s apartment from Ghost Busters!
Maine: Oh shit, there’s a demon in your refrigerator!

The Ejected:

[Mets Clubhouse, fifth inning, Jerry Manuel and Carlos Beltran. Manuel has been walking around and cursing, several items in the clubhouse have been thrown; Carlos has already calmed down and is watching the game on television.]

Manuel: Fucking umps, like I don’t have enough crap to deal with.
Beltran: oh…oh shit…
Manuel: What? What the fuck is it now?
Beltran: Ollie, he just gave up another home run.
[Manuel nods, a defeated look creeps into his eyes, sits down on the couch.]
Manuel: So who do you think will win American Idol?
Beltran: I don’t know, I don’t really watch that stuff.
Manuel: Yeah.
Beltran: Yeah, I don’t really watch much television now; I spend a lot of time with my kid.
Manuel: Kids are nice. Kids are important.
Beltran: I think it’s very, you know, fulfilling, when you raise a child.
Manuel: Yeah. Family is pretty important, keeps you like…grounded.
Beltran: Yeah, I think so.
[Long pause. Keith Hernandez enters the clubhouse.]
Keith: So this is where the party…oh huh…hi guys.
Beltran: Hi Keith.
Keith: Hey guys, wanna know an old veteran’s trick for dealing with an ejection?
Manuel: What’s the trick?
Keith: You get wasted.
Beltran: and?
Keith: You get wasted. Pretty nifty, right? Hey, I bet there’s still some of Bobby Ojeda’s gin in the equipment closet.
[Keith rummages around in the equipment closet. Produces a dusty bottle of generic gin. Takes a long swig]
Keith: whoo-ee, now that’ll put some hair on your chest. Yeah. Alright, I got a broadcast to do.
[Keith puts the bottle of gin on the table, exits. Manuel and Beltran look at the gin. After a couple minutes, as a Met strikes out on television, Manuel takes a swig of gin, spits most of it out.]
Manuel: Jesus, that tastes like the Koch administration. [Beltran takes a small sip.]
Beltran: That is not very good.
Manuel: He was a pretty good player, though. Real slick fielding first basement. [As he says ‘slick fielding first basemen’ a pained look crosses his face]
Beltran: I didn’t really get to see him much, ‘cause, I was in Puerto Rico, and not all that old.
Manuel: Yeah. He was pretty good.
Beltran: You know what I like to watch on television? I like The Wire.
Manuel: Yeah, The Wire is pretty good.
[Long period of silence, Mariners score another couple runs]
Beltran: You think they gonna deal me for prospects?
Manuel: Man, I have no idea.
[Keith Hernandez re-enters the clubhouse]
Keith: Hey, guys I just thought of something else that helped me deal with an ejection: doing a whole bunch of lines.
Beltran: What?
Keith: You know, coke, blow, the white, snort snort. Hey, I bet there’s still some stuff in the hidden compartment in Daryl Strawberry’s locker.
Manuel: What?
[Keith jimys open a locker, dumps most of the contents on the floor, removes a false bottom to the locker, takes out a big bag of cocaine wrapped in a late ‘80s copy of Penthouse, leaves the magazine in the locker, tosses the bag on the table.]
Keith: Alright guys, don’t have too much fun. I got a broadcast to do. [Exits]
Manuel: We should probably flush that down a toilet or something, before they let the press in.
Beltran: Definitely.
Manuel: or maybe not. Maybe that headline would be less embarrassing.
Beltran: I dunno. So who’s your favorite character on The Wire?
Manuel: Only one? That’s pretty hard. I guess I like Avon Barcksdale, you know, old school gangsta.
Beltran: I like Lieutenant Daniels, because he tries to do the right thing, but sometimes, doing the right thing is hard.
Manuel: Yeah, The Wire is a pretty good show.

THE HAPPY ENDING:
[The clubhouse, after the game, players filling in]
Joe Smith: Mother fucker. What the fuck? Who the fuck trashed my locker? What the hell? [Examines the locker, sees the late ‘80s copy of Penthouse, picks it up] Nice… [Flips through thee magazine] nice…

In the Wake of the Randolph Firing:

-In the 1960s the FBI spent over a year trying to determine if the lyrics to the garage band classic “Louie Louie” were obscene—at the end of which period they concluded that they were unintelligible. These actions were not less logical than the decision to fire Willie Randolph.

-Perhaps the weirdest development was when the younger guy who works at my local pizza place said, unequivocally, that Rick Peterson was the best pitching coach in baseball. The guys at John’s pizza are pretty blue color and I had not figured them as fans of the Jacket. But the possibly exists that the pizza guy, or one of his friends, had recently “discovered” a truck full of Tuscan tiles which he hoped to move at a greater price due to Peterson’s plug.

-The pizza guy also went on to say that he was so mad over the betrayal of Peterson and Randolph that he wanted them to loose last night’s game. I said that that was a little extreme and that I could never make myself root against the Mets.

-I have listened to so much damn WFAN over the last two mornings that I have started to kind of like Boomer Eiseson’s co-host (Craig Carton?). Is there a support group for that?

-Over the next few weeks the Mets will face some pretty bad teams, thus putting them in a good position to go on a little winning streak, and make the decision to fire Willie look smart. In a rare moment of lucidity, my sources (the WFAN guys) said that this was probably taken into account when determining the timing of Randolph’s release.

-At the end of the day, the decision to fire the manager has a tasteless feel to it, simply because it strikes one a misguided effort to try and control the uncontrollable. According to Baseball Prospectus, the Phillies are leading the division because their relief corps is giving up home runs far less frequently than they ever have before: there is no reason for this, and no reason to think that they won’t return to giving up home runs at their usual frequency. Rather than accept that they are ultimately powerless in the face of the chaotic nature of the universe, the Mets chose to fire Willie Randolph.

"The Mets Win the Ballgame!"

On Tuesday, I believed* that a hand-held am/fm radio (and batteries) would set me back ten bucks less than MLB’s audio package (and would also be useful for getting instructions from the government in case of an extraterrestrial invasion or catastrophic earthquake). Shortly after making the purchase, I resolved that I would not allow myself of wander around the city with the archaic object next to my ear. This resolution was astonishingly short lived: approaching my subway stop last night, with Pelfry leading by three into the eighth, I felt compelled to find out what was going on, and managed to tune in as Pelfry went to bat to lead off the eighth inning. The crowed, chanting “Pelfry, Pelfry,” was audible over the announcers, the static, and the street noise, and as Pelfry struck out it was one of those moments that redeems several weeks of awful baseball; a wonderful and poignant reminder of the occasional rewards of obsessive fan-hood.

I was unable to help myself again when I got to Queens, and heard Billy Wagner’s blown save as I approached my apartment. I watched the rest of the game in stunned silence in my living room, as Gary Cohen kept on mumbling the phrase “punched in the solar plexus” and the cameras panned over a stadium full of people who looked as if they had just been told that the bank holding all of their savings had gone up in the same fire with the orphanage, until Beltran won it with a home run in the thirteenth.

Oddly, the comments on metsblog, and the couple of minutes of talk radio that I have forced myself to stomach this morning, seemed mainly negative. The feeling was still that the ball club was somehow not made up of winners, still doomed to mediocrity. (would the reaction have been different if David Wright had hit he dinger?)

I have to say that I don’t understand the negativity. Of course, in a hyper rational view of the thing the extra innings win seems fairly attributable to luck, and it is as easy to emphasize the chances that the Mets missed as it is to focus on the ones that they took. But even if you aren’t a fan, this is not a victory that looks bad for the Mets: the performance by Pelfry is a legitimate cause for optimism; the pitcher that the Mets scored their first three runs off of is probably the best in the National League; and the bullpen that followed him and shut the Mets down is also excellent.

And, if you are a fan, I don’t see how any win could be any better. In my mind, baseball will always be superior to other sports, simply because it can involve walk-off home runs. The image of the ball sailing over the fence, combined with the sudden reversal of the team’s fortunes are about the giddiest experience that a fan can have. I love that there is an actual second or two, between when the ball leaves the bat and when it lands, when the fate is literally suspended in the air. I love that there is a moment, at the apex of the parabola, when you can tell that it is leaving the yard and you say to yourself, “holly shit, we won this.” The fact that I had spent the proceeding innings mentally composing a post about how the Mets were all bums and would probably never win another ball game just made it all the sweeter.

When your team wins with a walk-off home run, I think you need to shut up and be happy. There comes a time when you have to examine why you follow baseball, and realize that you root for a team, not because you think it will win the World Series, but because rooting for that team is what you do. Sure, maybe if the players were less old, less injured, and better at baseball they would win more games: but if you can’t experience unqualified baseball joy after a walk-off home run, I think you need to sit down and figure out what the fuck is wrong with your life. (also, eight fucking scoreless innings from Mike fucking Pelfry and you want to talk about the Mets being just a .500 team, you treacherous fucks? Go root for the fucking Yankees if you want to be like that.)

*I just checked: my radio was actually four or five dollars more expensive. Well fuck.

Notes From Pedro’s Return:

Since Pedro’s return happened on a night game on the west coast and was thus missed by most reasonable people (also, apparently, something happened last night with that election thing? It was really stupid of them to schedule that on the night Pedro came back; don’t they know some of us have priorities?), I am offering the notes that I took on it. Pedro opposed Barry Zito and the San Francisco Giants.

Top of the first:
-Reyes has a kind of “eh” at bat and gets on with an error, or near error, by Giants 3B
-Easley batting 2nd? well he gets a hit, Reyes to 3rd, so working out ok so far.
What’s Easley’s OBP? [.268]Does Willy Randolph know the answer to this question?
-Wright sac fly gets in Reyes
-Beltran takes first 2 pitches, grounds into a double play.

Bottom 1st:
-Leadoff man, Fred Lewis, hits the second pitch for a single.
-Ray Durham, 2B: Pedro throws two balls, not looking great, at all. Durham flies out.
-Randy Winn: Lewis steals second, Castro makes a shitty throw that ends up in the outfield, Reyes works on getting away from the sliding runner, not catching the bad throw, not sure what he should have done, Winn hits a double, scoring Lewis, shity.
-Bengie Molina: Pedro is throwing pretty hard (91). Gets up 2-0 then, throws two curveballs for balls. Molina is fouling pitches off pretty well. Molina hits a ground ball; Reyes gets Winn going to third, nice play by Reyes, rotten base running by Winn, Molina to first.
-Rowand flies out on first pitch.

I guess you take this from Pedro. I guess this looks kind of good. His velocity is in low 90s. He seems a little tentative, but fuck do I know? Two hits, 1 ground out, 2 fly outs.

Top 2nd:
-Church flies out.
-Tatis starts out looking overmatched by Zito’s curve, but hits a double.

pretty pitches are deceptively seductive: often the impression that you take from an at bat will be a very good looking pitch, which will distract you from the end result and the pitcher’s ability to control the at bat, or put the hitter away. I think this has a lot to do with the overvaluation of Zito that has been going on throughout the guy’s career.

-Carlos Delgado, down 0-2, looking pretty bad. Starts watching the curve, takes 2 balls, 3 balls, hits a bloop that gets caught.
-Walks Castro to get to Pete.
-Pedro swings, he wants to get a hit. Grounds out.

Bottom 2nd:
-Bowker 4 pitch walk.
-Rich Aurilia: Pedro makes two nice pitches, 3rd pitch does not miss by much. Throws a couple more balls, Aurilia flies out.
-Vizquel: grounds out, after going up 3-0
[On the ticker: Detroit Piston’s coach Flip Saunders is Fired! Yes!Yes!]
-Zito: grounds out.

Top 3rd:
-Reyes: Reyes really looks like he has his shit together, 3-0, but then gets out on a pop foul. Ball looked like it was going into the stands, but then blew in towards a fielder and was caught; Reyes stands at the plate for a while, looking hurt and pissed
-Easley base hit.
-Wright looking good; draws a walk.
-Beltran: goes up 3-0, but pops out.
-Church flies out.

In that inning Zito looked damn bad, but the Mets were not quite able to turn that into runs. Perhaps his shakiness, ertaticness, hides some ability to control the inning? Nah. Mets just weren’t being that good, and Reyes getting out was a wind related fluke.

Bottom 3rd:
-Lewis: groundball. Reyes makes a nice play to just get him at 1st, should have been safe due to lousy footwork by Delgado, but ump doesn’t notice.
-Durham draws a walk.
-Winn: strikes out, looking good Pete.
-Molina groundball to Easely end the inning.

Top 4th:
Zito looked rotten in that last frame; let’s put some runs up for Pedro, folks.
-Tatis: strikes out.
-Delgado: walks.
-Castro: hits a ball hard, but a nice play by Lewis gets him out.
-Pedro, first pitch swinging, base hit, looks pleased but confused on first base.
-Reyes: grounds out.

Bottom 4th:
-Rowand flies out on a nice play by Church.

The guys are talking about Juan Marichel, w/o mentioning that Marichel was Pedro’s partner in the cockfight video; apparently the dude was a baseball player.

-Bowker hits a ball to Tatis, looks like Tatis could have made the catch, doesn’t, manages to get a close throw to 2nd, but Bowker ruled safe, I think it could have gone either way, lousy play by Tatis not making the catch.
-someone grounds Bowker over.
-walking Vizquel to get to Zito. Vizquel hasn’t been hitting for crap, apparently, so this seems insane.
-Zito grounds out. But now they have to face top of the order in the next frame.

Top 5th
-Easley: draws a walk. Powermind in full force.
-David Wright: base hit, Easley to 2nd.
-Beltran: Keith is talking about a bunt. Beltran, do not fucking bunt. Beltran hits the first pitch for a double, scoring Easley.
-Church sac fly, scores Wright, Beltran to 3rd.
-Walks Tatis, runners at the corners.
-Delgado: shity defense by SS Vizquel, Tatis safe at 2nd, Delgado to first, Beltran scores.
-Zito leaves the game.
-Castro gets a base hit of off new pitcher Chulk (?) to load the bases.
-Pedro gets his second fucking hit of the night, scoring Tatis. Looking extremely happy and animated standing at first.
-Reyes hits a ball for what would have been a double play against any little league team, but a run scores and the bases stay loaded.
-Easley double scores everyone.
-Wright flies out, what a loser.
-Beltran flies out. Apparently this was the biggest inning of the Mets season. Good job everyone.

Bottom 5th:
-Lewis hits a ground rule double.
-Pinch hitter singles, Lewis to 3rd.
-Wynn singles, Lewis scores, runners on first and second, no one out. 9-2, Mets.
-Fly out, advances runners.
-Rowand: groundout, scores a run
-fly out ends the inning.

Now, if they pitched to Vizquel in the 4th and got him out, not unlikely since Vizquel is something like 1 for his last 30, and Zito leads off the 5th inning with an out (by far the most likely outcome of a Zito at-bat), this is only a one run inning. Although, since they lifted Zito in the 5th, it probably would have been a pinch hitter. Still, I think walking the 8th hitter to get to the pitcher is a questionable tactical move.

Top 6th:
-Church gets on, on another absolutely pathetic defensive play. Give credit to the Mets for taking advantage, but the main thing to take away from this is that the Giants are god awful.

Cohen: it looks like Pedro is going out for the 6th inning.
Keith: Unless they have Claude Rains warming up in the bullpen.
Cohen: Or Ralph Ellison.

-Tatis: Church advances to 2nd on a passed ball, Tatis grounds out.
-Delgado grounds out, moves Church to third.
-Castro: takes ball one, Pedro looks ecstatic trotting into the on deck circle, but Castro pops out to end the inning.

Bottom 6th:
-Rich Aurilia doubles.
-Vizquel singles, Aurilia to 3rd.
-Pinch hitter, Brian Horrowitz: strikes out.
-Lewis: strikes out.
-Denker (?) grounds out.

Awesome. So, assuming, and I think safely, that Pedro is done, he has given just a quality start. Still, that’s pretty awesome after all the lay off. Also, I like how after he got runners on the corners in that last inning, he was like “fuck it. I’m Pedro, you’re the Giants, no more runs for you,” 2 Ks, and a grounder.

Top 7th:
-Nick Evens, pinch hitting for Pedro: strikes out.
-Reyes flies out.
-Easley: flies out.

Bottom 7th:
Smith pitching, 1-2-3 inning on 3 groundballs.

Top 8th:
-Wright: flies out.
-Beltran: flies out.
-Church: grounds out.

Bottom 8th:
Feliciano pitches.
-Bowker: pops out to Castro.
-Aruilia strikes out.
-Vizquel: grounds out, on a really nice play by David Wright.

Top 9th:
-I miss the first two batters do to a test of the emergency broadcast system. Castro flies out.

Bottom 9th:
Schoenewies pitching.
-Walks the first batter.
-Walks Lewis.
-Travis Denker hits a 3 run homer, wonderful.
-Wynn hits a ball to Easely, one away.
-Bengei Molina singles, Shoenewies out, Wagner on.
-Wagner throws two pitches, gets a double play, put it in the books.

Hard to know what to make of this one. Not only do the Giants run a butcher shop in the field, but they lack any particularly dominant/competent hitters, so it’s hard to know how much was Pedro, and how much was the sub-par offense. Also, Zito has been pitching badly and definitely pitched badly tonight, so it’s hard to know how much credit to give the Mets hitters. Indeed, if Scott Boras (Zito’s agent) wasn’t such money grubbing twit, Zito would probably have signed with the Mets after ’06, which means they couldn’t have signed Santana. Willy Randolph and Omar Minaya should chip in and get Boras a fruit basket or something since if Zito had pitched like this for the Mets, both of them would have been killed by an angry mob.

At the same time, the Mets took enough of the breaks they were given, and all around did a nice job. In the 5th, for example, Delgado hit a ball that probably could have been a double play, but everyone was safe and a run scored; while the Giants should have made the play, the end result was also due to Delgado and Tatis both hustling. Everything from Pedro seems encouraging, particularly that his velocity was in the low 90s. I think the real lesson is that the Mets should try to see if they could get that kid Lewis away from the Giants for a questionable minor leaguer and an old Jose Lima baseball card, since the Giants obviously don’t seem to be that good at running a ball club; Lewis made some nice plays in the field, and Keith likes his swing. Batting Easely 2nd, at least tonight, worked beautifully.

“I’ve seen the Future…and it is murder.”

It is widely acknowledged that the Met’s farm system is relatively barren, particularly in the wake of the trade for Santana. With three picks (18th, 22nd, and 33rd) in the first round of the draft this year, the Mets are in position to do something about this. On Metsblog.com, Ike Davis and Anthony Hewitt are mentioned as players that the Mets will likely target. Baseball Prospectus has a list of the top 50 prospects, and this is what they had to say about them:

22 (out of 50) Anthony Hewitt, SS, The Salisbury School (CT)
What He Is: On a pure tools level, he’s the best athlete in this year’s draft, maybe the past several years.
What He’s Not: A baseball player.
In A Perfect World He Becomes: An absolute monster.
Backup Plan: You want fries with that? All kidding aside, he’s a bright kid who’ll go to a good school and end up just fine if this whole baseball thing doesn’t work out.
Open Issues: His risk/reward balance is so thrown off that people have a hard time coming up with a good valuation; like many East Coast prep kids, he’s a year older than most high schoolers.

27 (out of 50) Ike Davis, 1B, Arizona State
What He Is: A good pitcher like his father Ron (a former big leaguer), but far more desired for his big frame and power bat.
What He’s Not: Anything more than a one-dimensional slugger.
In A Perfect World He Becomes: An imposing left-handed power bat.
Backup Plan: Um, a kinda imposing left-handed power bat?
Open Issues: They’re all minor, but he’s been pretty consistently injured; he can get pull-happy at times and lose plate coverage.

I’m not reassured. Hewitt seems like an insane crapshoot, and Davis just doesn’t seem that inspiring. I’ll confess to really not knowing anything at all about the baseball draft. Of the players on BP’s list, Yonder Alonso, a power hitting first basemen, definitely is the one I would go for, but it seems as if he will be drafted by the time the Mets make their first pick.

The Only Valid Opinion Concerning Willie Randolph

I know that it has been a while since I have done anything, and I know that I chose a dark time abandon the cause, but I hope that I can begin to start to make it up by laying down the one true opinion on Willie Randolph, in comparison to which all other opinions on Willie Randolph will appear as the feeble nonsense that they truly are.

Background: Primitive tribes would often find themselves a Witch Doctor, Medicine Man, or something to ensure favorable weather. Whenever the weather was good, they would talk about how they were really lucky to have such a good Witch Doctor. If the weather was bad, they would call in to the local radio stations and yell about how the Witch Doctor was a moron. Indeed, when examining the function of the Witch Doctor, it becomes obvious that he was mainly there to provide an illusion of control, a figure to either praise or blame as a way of avoiding the horrifying existential reality: that they were utterly at the mercy of the random workings of chance and nature and that there was noting that they could ever do to change that. Sometimes, after long periods of truly bad weather, they would decide to expel the Witch Doctor from their primitive community, just so they could feel like they were doing something to address the problem; sometimes, following such an expulsion, the weather would change and sometimes it wouldn’t. Lacking actual job skills, the expelled Witch Doctors were forced to wander the countryside alone, until they found a baseball team to manage.

If SamsMetsBlog had a set of core beliefs (and it doesn’t), one of them might be that what happens on sports teams is mostly about the players playing the game, and not so much about the managers or coaches directing them. Particularly in baseball, the areas in which a manager can actually impact the performance of his team are minimal. Teams win when they are getting on base and throwing strikes, and the manager does not contribute to any of that directly.

Randolph makes things a little more complicated by messing up the parts of the game that he can effect semi-regularly. However, anyone who thinks that Mets are a mediocre embarrassment because of the half a dozen times when Willie left Heilman in for a few batters to many or sent the up the wrong pinch hitter is insane. The Mets are in trouble because their offense is miserable and their pitching has been completely underwhelming.

The maddening thing is that there is every reason to think that the Mets, as presently constituted, could be one of the best teams in the National League. The players haven’t played as well as their past performances would lead one to hope. They’ve caught a lot of bad breaks. Carloses Delgado and Beltran have hit a lot of hard line drives at infielders; over the course of 162 games a lot of those will go a foot or two to the left or right and be extra base hits.

The opposing theory, I guess, is that Randolph should be able to inspire in his team the kind of intensity and focus that would prevent defensive lapses and make them fight their way back into games. However, I think many people are mislead by the strength of their desire for the Mets to appear more focused and passionate, which leads them to overemphasize the role that Randolph could play in the situation. Even if there is a deficiency of character on the part of the Mets it does not, in any way, follow that replacing the manager would make it better and not exaggerate it. Specifically, it seems that a different manager might be able to elicit better performances from Jose Reyes, who has a history of having been influenced by the people around him, such as Jose Valentine and Ricky Henderson. But it is not at all certain that a change would have a positive influence on Reyes and not a negative one; and by far the most important factor in Jose Reyes’ performance is Jose Reyes, and not whoever is managing him.

Thus, I think that the question that Randolph posed to a Bergen County Record reporter (in what he claimed to believe was an off the record conversation) regarding his portrayal in the media and the public’s resulting view of him, “is it racism?” is, at the very least, a fair question. There are really only two basic pieces of information about Randolph that are universally known: 1) that he is the manager of the New York Mets and 2) that he is a black man. If the response on the part of the public to perceived lackluster performances on the part of the Mets is to demand the ousting of the manager, it seems fair to wonder which of the only two facts generally available about Randolph they are responding to, particularly if you are of the (only reasonable) view that the role that the manager plays in any team is limited, and take into account that Randolph’s tenure has included successes as well as failures.

In the controversy that ensued in the wake of Randolph’s comments, the New York Post’s Joel Sherman pointed out that Yankee’s manager Joe Girardi, a white man, is not any less likely to be fired than Randolph if his team fails to perform. I would view the example of Girardi in a slightly different light. Before coming to the Yankees, Girardi was fired by the Marlins in the same year that he won the National League Manager of the year award. Girardi was entrusted with a lot of young pitching in with the Marlins, none of whom have performed as well since Girardi’s tenure, leading some to suspect over or mis-use on the part of the manager. The Yankees major strength, right now, is young pitching, and their goal is not so much to win with it right now, as to get it ready for the future. If I were a Yankees fan, I would wake up every day hoping to find out that Giradi had been fired on a Stienburner whim, particularly as the team undertakes the unprecedented, mid-season conversion of Joba Chamberlin from a starter to a reliever. Right now, the Yankees are pretty much exactly as bad as the Mets, and the fact that there is a louder cry for Randolph’s head than for Girardi’s tends to support an assertion that race plays a role in the conversations surrounding them.

In explaining himself, Randolph eventually alluded to Isaiah Thomas, which might be a more informative example. Thomas was bad as a coach, and worse as a GM. However, the hostility that he faced was utterly out of proportion to the extent to which he was actually at fault. A basketball coach probably has a bigger effect on his team’s season than a baseball manager, but the Knicks were still bad because the players were bad. If Phil Jackson and Isaiah Thomas had switched places half way through the season, the Knicks would still have been rotten and the Lakers would still have been good. Perhaps Jackson might have managed a few more wins than Thomas, but not as many more as if Zach Randolph had been replaced with a decent power forward, or if they had found a point guard who wasn’t a midget or insane. Thomas did more to deserve the hostility by assembling the god awful players in his role as general manager, but for the most part it seemed that people demanding his head were responding to his role as coach and their bitterness directed at him seemed to have more to do with expressing rage, than a rational understanding of what was going on with the team. (Don’t get me wrong, Isaiah was awful, but probably not that awful.)

Thus, the official Samsmetsblog view (and only sane opinion) regarding Willie Randolph is that he is ok, not brilliant, not a disaster, and not all that important; and also the New York press and sports fans instinct to pile on black coaches/managers is slightly worrisome, but difficult to definitively label as racism. In the end, someone who thinks that the Mets best move is to fire Willie Randolph is like a man who, when asked his view on Bush as a President, talks to you for twenty minutes about how he fucked up the highway system.

better than no post at all....

From frequent (only) blog commentator” Nigel Fowler:”
Unless you plan to discuss this on the blog, could you please explain to me why Gandolph removed the estimable Vargas and replaced him with the hapless Thielman, who thereafter lost the game?

Could you also explain why Gandolph had Joe Smith pitch to one (1) person, with demonstrable skill, then replaced him?

If I didn't know better I'd wonder if he was trying to throw the game.But perhaps there are things I don't understand.

Unrelatedly, where's the best place to purchase Mets Caps (including a small child's one)? I have a request from England for baseball caps.

I didn’t actually get to catch the game, so I’m going off of the Post, metsblog and gameday (which actually gives you complete play-by-play information for past games, which is pretty cool— if you ever get asked questions about games that you didn’t watch.)

Anyhow, when Vargas was taken out he had thrown 97 pitches, and the Mets seem to like to limit their starters to around a hundred pitches, whenever possible. Pitch counts are very common in baseball now and, if you believe Ron Darling or Comrade Marty Noble, linked to the decline of the West. The theory, naturally, is that by limiting a starter’s pitches you prevent injury and enable superior performances in future appearances. The Mets seem to be a little more interested in limiting a starter’s pitches than most teams, and I get the impression that this is somehow related to a philosophy of pitching that comes from Rick Peterson.

More to the point, Vargas had given up a home run in the 6th inning, and then walked the second batter he faced in the 7th on four pitches-- both of which are generally regarded as signs that a starter is tiring and losing their control. Randolph thought Vargas was exhibiting commonly agreed on portents of a Heilman-esqu meltdown, and for all we know Randolph was right on this.

The decision to leave Heilman in is a little more interesting/almost definitely the wrong thing to do. One factor is that Schoenwisse had been hospitalized for a stomach virus the night before, and was probably regarded as unavailable (he showed up at the park and told reporters after the game that he could have pitched, but whatever). Recently injured relievers Duaner Sanchez and Matt Wise had both appeared in the previous game; Sanchez had been used in the last two games. With a day game on Thursday (meaning that pitchers used in Wednesday’s game would have less time to recover), Randolph’s desire was too get as much as he could out of as few pitchers as possible; he really wanted an inning or two out of Heilman, and was slow to accept that he wasn’t going to get it. And even when it became obvious that Heilman would be unable to perform, they still had to leave him in for another batter or so, while they waited for Joe Smith to warm up.

As for Smith only facing one batter, you seem to be mistaken: all the sources indicate that he also pitched a scoreless 8th, although that was probably not Randolph’s plan. In theory, due largely to the uniqueness of his throwing motion, Smith should be a specialist or situational reliever who is brought in to face specific batters, mainly right-handers. In theory, Hielman is more like a “miniature starter” (he actually began his career as a starter, wasn’t any good at it and got moved to the bullpen, but still dreams about returning to the rotation) who should be able to pitch an inning or two to pretty much anyone. Thus, ideally, Heilman would have finished the 7th and pitched most of the 8th—if another pitcher was needed for the last batter or so of the 8th inning Randolph would have gone to Smith or Feliciano depending on the handedness of the opposing batter. Randolph’s major mistake was not seeing that his ideal scenario was not going to happen soon enough. His only move was to bring in Joe Smith to perform the role that he had planned for Heilman; Randolph did do this eventually, but he probably should have done it sooner.

For what its worth, Randolph is more stuck with Heilman than he is with pretty much any other player. Heilman is one of only a few “homegrown” players on the squad (Wright, Reyes, Smith, and Mike Pelfry are the only others, I believe), and so there are sentimental and financial (he is still on his first contract which is probably fairly advantageous for the club) incentives to retain him. I am pretty sure that he has been on the team too long to be sent to the minors, and most comparable relievers would be more expensive for the team than Heilman.

Willie’s only motivation for throwing a game would be if he wants to get fired. If the Mets don’t do very well this year, and even if they ever go on a serious loosing streak, Randolph will probably be gone. However, he is under contract and “firing” him would probably involve handing him a big wad of cash, so we can’t rule out anything.

Mets caps are available on the web and at the ballpark, and also at a couple locations that sell team merchandise. One of these is located in the big mall in Flushing, the foodcourt of which seems to have a serious dumpling stand.