The name of the National Football League’s championship game seems to compel every semi-literate person on the Internet — as well as a surprisingly large number of otherwise fully literate people who should know better — to spell it as one word. The cumulative effect of this is going to lead to me having a brain aneurysm by the time Game Number XLVII comes around.
But you never see “Worldseries”!
From the January 23 issue of Sports Illustrated:
Despite being a childhood baseball fan, he dismisses the national pastime as “about as exciting as standing in line at the supermarket. Baseball doesn’t test anything but your ability to withstand boredom.”
Perhaps trying to soften the blow he’s just landed on baseball’s chin, he broadens his attack. “Look,” he says with a sigh, “I think the popularity of all sports in our society is a measure of how much disposable income there is and how much interest we have in the unnecessary.”
Clearly, Paul Tagliabue isn’t paying enough attention to the tabloid headlines while he’s at the checkout (granted, they have been a little boring of late, with the continuous Brad/Angelina/Jennifer/Vince talk).
Now that we’re deep into the NFL playoffs, here’s Bill James in the 1988 Baseball Abstract, complaining about the integrated major league/minor league system in baseball:
Another of the ugly features of the current system is the abuse by club owners of their monopolistic position in negotiations with cities. Although major-league baseball has a relatively good record on this point in the last fifteen years, a good example of what can happen is what has happened to the football St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals, who may be the Phoenix Assholes or something by the time you read this, are owned by an oversized wart named Bidwell. The Cardinals have a perfectly good stadium, Busch Stadium, a major-league facility in every way; nonetheless, Mr. Bidwell is not satisfied. He wants a new stadium, all his own, and he wants the city of St. Louis to tax its $18,000-a-year citizens to build it for him, and if he can’t have that at the very least he feels he is entitled to have several hundred luxury boxes constructed for him at taxpayer expense so he can sell them to rich people for $150 a game. In effect, Bidwell is telling the people of St. Louis that if they don’t give him millions of dollars he will deprive them of their status as a major-league football city — while Phoenix stands by, anxious to give him millions of dollars to acquire that status. It’s an appalling situation, the most blatant abuse of monopolistic power.
The good news is that St. Louis got rid of the Cardinals, who are the worst team in the history of professional football (even though they’ve been around forever, you can’t call them a “storied franchise,” because they have no stories). However, St. Louis ended up deciding they couldn’t live without an NFL team, so a $280-million domed stadium was built for the Los Angeles Rams, who wanted out of Anaheim. Following their move to the Phoenix area, the Cardinals have been in temporary residence at Arizona State University’s Sun Devil Stadium for over a decade and a half. I’ve been to both, and can report that Sun Devil Stadium is not as nice a facility as Busch Stadium. But now, finally, the Cardinals are getting a $371 million stadium of their own for the 2006 season (and $267 million of that is coming from public funding). The luxury boxes, I’m sure, will sell for many times more than $150 a game.
At any rate, in the process of all this, both Busch Stadium and Anaheim Stadium became baseball-only facilities, and got renovations befitting that status.
Bruce Sutter: very good pitcher
Goose Gossage: much better pitcher
And his nickname is Goose. The man belongs in the Hall of Fame.
I was going to write all about this, with stats and arguments and stuff, but The Pinstriped Bible has already done so, far better than I would have.
For those of you too busy to click through the link, I call out a single sentence, which, in itself, says a lot about Gossage and about the usage of relievers before the days of hyperspecialization:
“Twice during the 1978 season, Yankees managers called on Gossage in the second inning and let him finish the game.”
Note that this post says nothing about the two best eligible players not currently in the Hall: Ron Santo and Bert Blyleven. May the Veteran’s Committee someday do the right thing and put them in.
I thought at first this was a weird and funny story. But then I realized it’s a weird and sad story.
Former holder of the all-time saves record (for about 45 minutes before the next generation blew past him) Jeff Reardon was arrested for robbing a jewelry store in Florida last week. According to the article, Reardon apologized and blamed medication he’s been taking; his son committed suicide last year and he’s suffered from depression since.
Here’s wishing him a turnaround in his fortunes. He was a fun pitcher to watch, he manhandled the Cardinals in the 1987 World Series (4.2 IP, 5 H, 3 K), and he had a fantastic beard. I hope things go better for him from here.
As with last year, I spoke too soon. Arriving today in the mail was a gift from Levi and Stacey: The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2006, and you can tell they’re serious about the “annual” thing this time because they remembered to include a year in the title. I’m sure Levi likes it because of the profile of Cardinals general manager Walt Jocketty; everyone else can enjoy the two articles by Bill James, which include statements such as “The Royals walk less than Stephen Hawking.”
Unlike last year, now that the 2004 trip is further in the past, this year I only got one baseball-related book for Christmas. It’s Grand Old Game: 365 Days of Baseball, a collection of 365 photographs from the Baseball Hall of Fame’s collection, each taking up the entire right-hand page with the photo caption on the left-hand page, which explains why it’s 744 pages long. When I opened the book, the first photo I turned to was of the stands at Ebbets Field in August 1944, packed with the boys who sold the most war bonds
in Brooklyn, all waving to the camera. Also visible in the near foreground are a policeman leaning on a railing, a vendor standing nearby, and next to the vendor, a sign reading “In Case of Air Raid, Follow Arrow,” the arrow on the sign pointing under the stands. It is a great photo.
A new acquisition for the baseball-related radio station jingle collection: this one, from WBLG in Lexington, Kentucky (which now has different call letters and an ugly web site that hasn’t been updated in months). I don’t think this was a Reds network-wide jingle campaign; I think this particular affiliate had it done on their own. I believe it’s from about 1976 or 1977, which would make the lyric particularly apt.
Cardinals fans have spent the past couple of weeks worrying that the Cardinals might, as rumor had it, sign Jacque Jones from the Twins. Jacque Jones is not a very good baseball player, and he was destined to be overpaid.
So the Cubs signed him! For three years! For
$16 million!
Dan Szymborski of Baseballprimer.com has a hilarious analysis of the signing at their Transaction Oracle. I can’t figure out how to permalink to the post, so you should go here, then scroll down just a bit until you find the Jones signing. It’s worth it.
Well, despite my unemployment, I’ve been feeling pretty good recently. Hmm, as long as I’m sitting here in front of my computer waiting for “Deal or No Deal” to accumulate on the TiVo, I’ll activate iChat. Why, I’ve got an instant message popping up already! It’s from hanger-on Maura. She usually has something interesting to say, often about baseball. I’ll just bring the message window to the front, and…OH, MY GOD, NO!