Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

A View of the World Series

I want to know what happened to the love of my life, baseball, of which I received my first competitive dose, when I was three-and-a-half years old, and my five-year-old friend, Stevie, was on my "team." I was engaged in my first-ever backyard whiffle ball game against the 6-year-old Steve and the 8-year-old Frankie (Stevie and Frankie were brothers of Sicilian heritage on their father's side and Virgin Mary heritage on their mother's side -- the Blessed Virgin spoke in tongues through their mother, you see.), when I found out that one team could be out in the field chasing the ball all over the yard for 2, 3, even 4 hours, it seemed, while the team batting could just keep going and going and going until there were 3 outs. It was a hard lesson. Mother fuckers. None of them became All-Americans; I showed them.

Anyway, I was watching Game Three of the World Series Tuesday night and into the wee hours Wednesday morning here in the eastern flatland time zone between the Houston Astros and the Chicago White Sox, which ended after 14 innings, with the White Sox winning and ... well, then they won on Wednesday night, sweeping the Series in 4 games.

With the game tied at one run each in the bottom of the ninth -- for those who don't know, the usual game is a nine-inning affair, an inning being a period when each side gets an opportunity to score runs (and if I have to explain how this is done, just e-mail me and we can have a dialog about it), the visiting team in the "top half" of the inning and then the home team in the "bottom half" of the inning -- the Astros put men on the corners, first and third bases, with one out and needed only to push across the runner on third to win the game by a score of 2 to 1, the most important game of the season for the Astros.

In the bottom of the eighth, the Astros tied the game when Jason Lane, which is not a baseball name of any note, doubled to score Morgan Ensberg, who hit 38 home runs in the regular season, but who went in the tank the last month or so because of an injury and was very disappointing in the World Series.

As an aside here, fast-forwarding to the 13th inning with the White Sox batting, after substitute catcher Chris Widger, who hit a less-than-stellar .241 during the regular season in a part-time role, walked on a full count (He would later walk again, this time with the bases loaded, getting a run-batted-in, plating the second run in the top of the 14th inning and sealing Houston's doom.), Scott Podsednik, an fairly-accomplished hitter, who led the league in stolen bases and is a very speedy runner, attempted a bunt with no outs to sacrifice himself and move Widger to second base, "scoring position" as it is known because a hit will usually score the runner from second base, a bunt being when the batter tries to just let the pitched ball hit the bat so that the ball rolls slowly into the infield, knowing he will be put out at first, but will advance the runner, who knows the bunt is being executed, to the next base. The bunt went straight down and bounced off the hard dirt, popping into the air, which the catcher, Brad Ausmus caught, and threw to second base, which would have put Widger out before Widger reached second base. The home plate umpire, however, called the ball "foul," meaning it hadn't entered the field of play; so, Widger was not out at second base, but had to return to first on the "foul" ball. Podsednik didn't run toward first on that bunt attempt, but decided that the ball was "foul."

I love watching catchers work, especially the better receivers, blocking errant pitches, taking the throw from the outfielder with a runner, lumbering toward home plate, intent on scoring by separating the ball from the catcher, who is about to grab the thrown ball with the mitt, just before being hammered with a forearm by the runner, or just moving behind home plate, trying to influence the umpire and set up the relationship between catcher and umpire, hoping to gain some slight benefit as the game progresses.

Now, from the time a boy (or girl) starts playing the game, the fundamental thing drilled into him or her by even less-than-mediocre coaches, while the young baseballers are being taught about hitting, is to run to first after hitting the ball, especially if it could be a fair ball, that is, in play. Now, Scott Podsednik is not an inexperienced baseball player, but a professional, paid according to his ability, at least several hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, not to mention another couple hundred a day for food and drink. Scott didn't come to the ballpark for the first time that day. He came to the White Sox from the Minnesota Twins and through the minor league system. He has come to play for the the White Sox after playing baseball since he was six or seven years old. His parents sent him to baseball camps; he played in high school; he played during the summer in an organized league; he may have played in college. On whatever path he traveled to the White Sox, he learned and knew with the core of his baseball being that he should have been running instead of watching the ball in that particular situation. It is, after all, as many a wife points out, not rocket science. He was lucky that the ball was caught in foul territory -- just a strike and another chance to hit or try to advance the runner, Chris Widger, with a sacrifice bunt -- he was taught a valuable lesson he should have learned many years ago.

Like I said, it's not rocket science, although, at times, it is more complicated than rocket science, especially when trying to hit a 100 mile per hour fast ball thrown by a guy who should be playing middle linebacker for the Bears, not playing for the White Sox. It's the game of baseball. And maybe there's the problem. The people who run the teams are caught up in the statistics, in the radar guns, in the stopwatches, and in the money. Is it a Sunday afternoon game? The manager has statistics on the players that cover their performance for Sunday afternoon games. Lost in all the statistics, speed guns, and stopwatches is the Art of Baseball. The money, the steroids, the statistics have all changed the game into something analyzed as if it is really a purely scientific venture.

Do you want to know how scientific the game is? In the 14th inning, a 205-pound substitute with the name Geoffrey Edward Blum, who barely hit his weight, which is a downright abysmal batting average, and who had not, for good reason, batted in a post-season game, let alone the World Series, crashed a home run to win the game for the White Sox. Show me some statistic that predicted that event. Ask each player about what he does to prepare for a game, what he does during a game, what he wears, who he talks to, where he sits, how many times he makes the sign of the cross, whether he touches any chalk lines or bases on his way out onto the field or into the dugout; then tell me about Science. Not only do the players do it, fans do it. And tell me about Science when the pitcher, in the seventh inning, is sitting at the far end of the dugout bench, smoking a non-filter cigarette cupped in his hand, hiding it from the powers-that-be because there is no smoking in the dugout, with nobody around him, with nobody talking to him, with nobody encouraging him, because he is throwing a no-hitter, pitching the game of his life, on account that doing so will jinx him and ruin the no-hitter.

Back to Scott Podsednik, our learned batsman, who is supposed to be performing, that is, playing a game, at the highest levels of his ability ... he's waiting for the pitcher to throw the ball, which he will again attempt to bunt. He gets his wood bat in front of the ball; and the ball, again, hitting the rounded bat on the part closest to Earth, goes almost straight down towards the Earth, hits the dirt and bounces up, which Ausmus, the catcher, wonderfully quick out of his crouch behind home plate, sticks the pancake he has on his left hand, the catcher's mitt, out in front of him and gloves the ball, this time a "fair" ball, and, lunging towards second base, throws to the shortstop Everett, who catches the ball and tags the base, retiring the runner trying to advance to second, and relays the ball to the first baseman Berkman, who reaches for the ball, foot on first base, and catches the toss, completing a double play ... two outs in one play, a 2-to-6-to-3 double play, a thing of beauty for me, a former catcher, to see. Mr. Podsednik, not having learned anything from the pitch before or from playing the game for most of his life, was not really running as hard as he should have been, apparently trying to use mental telepathy to tell the ump that this one, too, should be a foul ball, which did not work.

Returning to the bottom of the ninth inning with the score tied at one run apiece, and runners at the corners, maybe I'm old-fashioned, but Willy Taveras is the batter, who can handle the bat, who can bunt, a right-handed hitter, who will block the catcher's view of the runner on third base. And then you have him bunt ... a safety squeeze, if you're not daring. In a suicide squeeze play, the runner from third breaks for the plate as the pitcher makes his move toward home to deliver the pitch. If the batter misses, the runner will be out at the plate; if the batter does his job and lays the bat on the ball, it is another thing of beauty and the runner crosses home safely. A safety squeeze calls for the runner to cheat down the third base line towards home and then motor when the bunt is laid down. It's tougher to score than with the runner starting to the plate earlier, but it is safer in that the runner, if the batter misses the ball, isn't going to be tagged out at home by the catcher holding the ball just delivered by the pitcher.

But it seems that the bunt is out of favor. It is a hitting skill rarely used in major league baseball. Is it statistics that killed the sacrifice bunt and the suicide squeeze. Or is it steroids and the home run that have all but eliminated the bunt from the modern strategy of the game? The Houston Astros brain trust, hired to win games at all cost within the budget allotted them by the bottom-line-conscious owner (The Astros is NOT the Yankees.), lets Taveras hit away, the winning run a mere 30 paces from home plate ... and strike out. And that was the real end of the World Series ...

Intelligence is no longer required in the game of baseball. The subtleties of the game that were always lost upon the casual fan of the game and the owners of teams, but known to those intimately involved in the game, are now lost upon the players and managers. Like the third baseman who doesn't realize where he is supposed to be positioned because such knowledge is no longer one of the "skills" taught at lower levels of the game, the modern-day catcher is no longer trusted to call for the pitch he thinks will be best in the situation he is in. The modern catcher is merely a conduit to someone on the bench who is in charge of calling pitches. The "tools of ignorance," as the catcher's equipment is called, are just that at this time in baseball history. The catcher, in the middle of the action on every pitch, can see better than anyone whether the pitcher's fastball is moving or whether it is straight, whether the umpire is giving the black outline of home plate to the pitcher and expanding the strike zone as the game progresses or has shrunken the strike zone and refuses to give the pitcher a break. The catcher, consciously or subconsciously, realizes subtle changes in the hitter's posture, hand position, or kind of bat, giving him clues about the batter's ability to handle a particular pitch in a particular situation, something the guy on the bench calling the pitches can never know.

I sat in a classroom when I was 14 years old. The class was for pitchers and catchers. The high school pitching coach, a math teacher, was the instructor. There was no baseball, no bat, no glove, in the classroom. We studied different situations that might arise during a game from the very first pitch of the game, learning about pitching, learning about calling pitches, learning why certain pitches in certain situations to certain hitters would work and wouldn't work. We didn't talk much about specific pitches in the sense of fastball, curve, slider, or change-up; we talked about "best pitch" of the day, "best control pitch" of the day, making us understand that pitching is an evolving phenomenon, not static. The pitcher's fastball might not be as fast on one day as opposed to another, from one inning to the next, from one batter to the next. A fastball pitcher's best pitch of the day might be his slider. His fastball, which might normally move in on the right-handed batter, might be straight and flat and not at all "normal." Not many of the "students" in that classroom absorbed what was taught and did not understand the subtleties of locating pitches, of "wasting" pitches, of "purpose" pitches. The ones that did ... they played.

Speaking of "purpose" pitches, it troubles me that batters are given immunity to being pitched inside. I saw Carl Everett of the White Sox, up to bat, draped over the inside corner of home plate. He should have been bailing out of the batter's box on the first pitch, which should have been about six inches inside. This is part of the game of baseball, and to take this tactic away from the pitcher because a batter whines that the pitch was too far inside allows the hitter an unfair advantage. This is one of the subtleties of the game lost on modern players and managers. This is not throwing "at the batter." This is staking out territory. The batter is trying to force the pitcher to throw over the middle of home plate where he can drive the ball, trying to control the pitcher - hitter relationship, trying to intimidate the pitcher. The umpires shouldn't be interfering with the psychological battle. This is pitching and hitting; this is the essence of the game.

It seems to be gone. 21st Century baseball is a shadow of the game played even 15 years ago. This new generation of players has been coddled and pampered so that they think they are entitled to some deference because they make a lot of money, that they possess "skills," in the Napoleon Dynamite sense of the word. They play a child's game ... and not very well anymore.

Mediocrity is rewarded. Respect for the game and its traditions is not evident; and that lack of respect arises from the players' sense of entitlement. Most of them are not in touch with the notion that they are playing a game, in spite of the business of Major League Baseball. They play a children's game ... and they should feel pretty damn good that some dumbass owner is paying them a lot of money to do so, not arrogant, thankful that they are fortunate to have been blessed, either by intelligent design or chance, with skills that many others do not have.

Posted by Bill at October 27, 2005 11:54 PM