The Three Toughest Outs

Does Robertson have the guts to get the last three outs? (AP) 

The other day, I heard an announcer call the ninth inning "The toughest three outs to get in baseball." I will not name the announcer for a variety of reasons, the main one being that I could probably turn on the television tonight, scan the DirecTV baseball package and within a few minutes hear another announcer say the same thing, almost word for word. This "toughest three outs to get are the last three outs" is pretty well engrained into the grand baseball conversation.

Before I get into this, though -- and, yes, we are going to go pretty deep into this -- I would like to say a few words about how baseball's immenseness and complications seem to lead people to just say stuff that sounds right in their minds. I thought I might have mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, but maybe I didn't: I was watching a game on television and Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano struck out looking. Tim McCarver was doing the game, and he immediately said something like: "We just saw an extremely rare thing. Robinson Cano almost never strikes out looking."

A Toast to Kerry Wood

Wood called it quits at 34. (US Presswire)

Here’s the thing about expectations: They can dampen some of the joys of life. Shame, that. Good things don’t feel quite as good as you had hoped. Christmas morning is not quite as perfect as Christmas Eve promised. Vacations don’t turn out quite as relaxing or refreshing or energizing as all the optimism and anticipation leading up.

If you had told the Chicago Cubs when they made Kerry Wood the fourth pick in the 1995 draft that he would pitch in two All-Star games, lead the league in strikeouts one year, help carry the Cubs to the brink of the World Series, get to 1,000 strikeouts faster than any pitcher in baseball history, throw one of the greatest individual games ever and have a fine 14-year career with a 117 career ERA+ … I suspect they would have happily taken that. The fourth pick in the draft the year before was a third baseman named Antone Williamson who barely made the big leagues The year before that it was a somewhat middling reliever Wayne Gomes. The year after Wood, the pick was the mercurial Bill Koch. All in all, Kerry Wood was probably the best fourth pick of the 1990s.*

*Well, either Wood or Alex Fernandez. It’s pretty close. Fernandez’s 1996 season is probably better than any year Wood had, and his 1993 season was really good too, and he did win 17 games in 1997 as the Marlins won the World Series. But Fernandez got hurt and did not really pitch much after he turned 27.

Bobble Head Dreams

Yes, I was there.

Yes, I want to be one of those first 20,000 fans.

The only thing missing is Barry Bonds in the background after making the weak throw that should have forced him to give back at least two of his Gold Glove awards.




 

Last Dance

I did not like Donna Summer's music. And I loved it. This is one of the contradictions of my childhood. There were many.

I did not like Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Like it? How could anyone like it? The wind whipped in off the lake and made summer evenings in July feel like that fruits and vegetables room at Costco, and winter afternoons in December feel like Stalingrad. The view from every seat, every single seat, was blocked by a metal beam -- it was an architectural marvel in that way, the ballpark equivalent of that pool table where no matter where you aim the cue ball it ends up in the same place. The floor was covered in some kind of remarkable and ambiguous tacky substance that I'm entirely sure was later patented and used for the Sticky Buddy. Asbestos seemed to be leaking out of the walls, there were exposed wires everywhere, the place smelled of the kind of gasoline beer that could get you drunk if you were within a 500-foot radius. My father, of course, would buy the cheapest tickets available, which meant that even though there were countless empty seats in front of us in that cavernous place, we would sit far back, because to move up would be cheating*, so it would feel like we were a half mile away from the game. The place was so big and, except on the Fourth of July, so empty and so filled with ghosts that to go in there was like walking into an instant sadness machine; it felt like the place was crawling with dementors from Harry Potter.

*A habit I never lost; I sit in assigned seats no matter how many empty seats happen to be available down low.

Thoughts on the Triple Crown

Health is the key for Hamilton. (US Presswire)

Josh Hamilton’s impossibly great start has some people talking triple crowns -- and why not? -- so let’s talk a bit about them. Let’s start with the surprise: How many times since 1967 -- the year Carl Yastrzemski won the last triple crown -- do you think a player has led his league in home runs and RBIs? Take a guess. You know that no player in those 44 seasons has won a Triple Crown, well, how often do you think a player has captured the two power-hitting jewels of the Triple Crown?

You ready for this?

LeBron in the Last Minute

Is James simply following the narrative? (US Presswire)

Here is today’s question: Do some people start to believe the narrative that others create for them? I ask this because we hear an awful lot in sports about “proving everybody wrong” and “playing for respect,” and such things. I believe there are some athletes who do feed off this kind of negative energy. Tom Brady seems to be one of those guys who needs the doubters; he seemed to use that low draft pick thing to spark his fury and brilliance. Albert Pujols seems to one of those guys too; he has had nothing but success in the major leagues (at least until the start this year) and yet has never stopped pointing to those who doubted him along the way.

I would say the clearest example is Michael Jordan, of course. He needed those doubters so badly that he sort of invented the whole “I got cut from my high school basketball team” narrative to keep him angry and hungry and edgy.

There’s a story a friend told me about Jordan, I probably won’t get all the details right, so I’ll keep it general. The story was about how a player lit him up for a bunch of points in a game. After the game, Jordan grumbled angrily about how the other guy trash-talked him all night, and how the next game Jordan would personally make sure that guy suffered. Well, the next game happened, and sure enough Jordan scored like 40 and held the guy to something like 2-of-17 shooting, blocked a few of his shots, kind of humiliated him.

After that game, my friend went over to the other guy and found that he was a pretty good sport about it all. “I guess I had it coming,” he said laughing. But then, quietly, he said something else: “You know, I never said a single word to Jordan in that last game. Not one word.”

“Really? So why did Jordan say that?”

The guy shrugged and said: “I guess he needs it.”

Pujols: The Good News

Pujols can still salvage his season. (US Presswire)

Albert Pujols is hitting .160 in May. Obviously, that’s not the good news … well, part of it is the good. The “May” part. I have been fascinated -- probably to the point of obsession -- with Pujols’ early-season struggles, even while I have always tried to keep in mind that it is early. Very early. Very, very early.

Very, very, very early.

How early? Well, here’s what I decided to do … I took Pujols’ numbers so far this year (.197/.235/.275 with 1 homer) and added it to every single season of Pujols’ career, post-May 15. So I added those numbers to the numbers he had May 15 and after last year, and two years and three years ago, all the way back to his 2001 rookie season.