The Lowest Payroll In Baseball

You probably know that the Kansas City Royals have the lowest payroll in baseball. The average payroll in baseball in 2011 is about $93 million. The median payroll in baseball is about $87 million. The Yankees, of course, have a $200 million payroll -- fifth year in a row -- and a record 12 teams have at least a $100 million payroll.

The Royals payroll, just a touch over $36 million, is the lowest by about $5 mil.

Life Lesson with Tom Watson

For a while now, I've been thinking about starting a little feature called "Life Lesson." I haven't done it at least in part because I cannot stand the name "Life Lesson." The idea would be to write about a single lesson we can learn from an athlete -- not some hazy and nebulous thing like "Be a good sport," or "Give 110%" but something a bit more real. I just spent some time with Tom Watson and thought: "I ought to try that Life Lesson" thing again. So, what the heck, I'm trying it here. We'll see where it goes.

Goodell To The Last Drop

In the point after of this week's SI, I wrote a little something about Bud Selig ... and how people cannot help but underestimate him. This has to do with Bud's almost mythical ability to look baffled. Who can forget the Bud after the All-Star Game tie? Who can forget his rambling press conference when he held up the rule book after the rain-delayed World Series game? Who can forget ... well, he's just Bud. One day, he will come out and say that maybe Abner Doubleday did invent baseball and he will come out another day and say that he had never even heard of steroids until two weeks ago and so on.

But Bud Selig has utterly transformed baseball. I'm not saying he's always transformed it for the better. That's a discussion for another time. But at the end of the day, baseball has been transformed -- expansion, wildcards, interleague play, increased revenue sharing, drug testing, relative labor peace, new stadiums, All-Star games that determine homefield advantage, the World Baseball Classic, on and on. Maybe baseball stumbled into some of these things. Maybe it was pulled kicking and screaming. But this stuff happened. And Bud, unquestionably, was a force behind this stuff happening. He works the back rooms. He coaxes and ponders and considers. And sometimes he boldly acts. When he rushed in and took the Dodgers away from Frank McCourt, he was not really doing anything out of character. Bud Selig might be the most influential baseball commissioner ever.

But he does not SEEM that way, does he? He just does not present that sort of image. You know that story about the difference between a schlemiel and schlimazel -- the schlemiel is the guy who spill the soup, and the schlimazel is the guy who gets the soup spilled on him. Bud Selig seems like, well, both.

Talk and Reality

You've noticed this, no doubt, but there really are many, many things we talk and write about in sports that have nothing whatsoever to do with reality. Think about how much talk there was this off-season about Cliff Lee pitching for the New York Yankees. There was discussion about it, and concern about it, and excitement about it. The Cliff Lee talk filled up countless talk radio hours, used up a whole lot of newsprint in newspapers across the country, overloaded web servers from coast to coast. The talk was so pervasive, in fact, that it transcended the basic "How good will the Yankees be with Cliff Lee?" conversation and moved on to how unfair the game is that the Yankees, needing starting pitching, can just go out and sign the guy.

Well, of course, Cliff Lee did not sign with the Yankees. And all that talk, all those words, all that computer memory, all them just disappeared into the ether. It wasn't just that the talk was meaningless ... it became entirely empty, like it had never even happened. We live in the era of the Story Mirage. Once Lee signed with the Phillies, all those stories became less than worthless. They became invisible.

The Most Important Baseball Book (to me)

The Poscast this week is our regularly scheduled chat with Michael Schur, executive producer of Parks and Recreation (Entertainment Weekly calls it the smartest show on television). But we did something a bit unusual this week. We divided the thing up into two parts. The first part is us talking about a bunch of stuff -- the Red Sox, Tom Brady, the difference between fans and players, the awesomeness of Chris Paul (more on this in the next day or two) and so on.

The second part, which just went up, is the first ever baseball book fantasy draft. We each chose five baseball books. And then at the end, we both determined, that I picked better than he did.

You can listen to both Poscasts here.*

Or, if you want to just listen this minute to the baseball book draft, you can listen on this handy-dandy player.

Daughters and Roller Skating

This rambling story will end up being about my youngest daughter and roller skating, so you can stop reading now if you like. Nobody will hold that against you.

But before we get to my Katie ... we hear a lot about overbearing parents in sports. I was thinking about this the other day: I can go months, even years, without anyone bringing up, say, Roger Staubach in conversation. He's one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history and he hardly ever comes up. And, of course, it isn't only Staubach. It's also true for Whitey Ford or Alex English or Jari Kurri or Mel Blount or a hundred other great players.

Greatest Rock Band In The World

So, I went to see The National and Arcade Fire last night, which was a blast. I'm not going to write a full review because I don't feel like I know enough about either band to give a full review, but I will say that it was the best non-Springsteen concert I've been to in years.*

*Even though, as I tweeted, I'm pretty sure I was one of the 12 oldest people at the show.

The Hall of Not Famous Enough

So, in my last post, I had a Posterisk about John Olerud and The Hall of Not Famous Enough. I've gotten quite a lot of email about it, and based on some of that I'm not sure I explained the concept quite as well as I would have liked. In fact, I know I didn't explain as well as I would have liked. So I'm going to try again, with a little expansion.

A 16-Game Baseball Season

A few people -- including my most excellent colleague Joe Sheehan -- have been thinking about a 16-game baseball schedule. We're right about at the 16-game point now. And what's happening? The Cleveland Indians are in first place with the best record in baseball. The Boston Red Sox are 5-10. The Colorado Rockies look unbeatable, which usually doesn't happen until September, and the Kansas City Royals are on pace to win 100 games which usually takes the better part of two seasons.

Needless to say, 16 games doesn't tell you very much.

Poscast with my baseball hero

The Poscast with Duane Kuiper

There's a baseball bat in my office that I sometimes pick up when stuck between paragraphs. I don't swing the bat, at least not at full speed. No, I put it up against my shoulder and walk around with it for a little while. I let it quiver behind my head as I imagine standing in against fastballs. After a while, I put the bat down and return to my writing. I could say that the bat helps me think, a wooden muse, but that's not exactly right. I could say the bat clarifies things in my head, sharpens them, and that's true ... but no that's not quite right either. The bat reminds me exactly why I do this ... and maybe why someone keeps paying me to do it ... and maybe why I got so lucky.

Who Will Stand Up For Manny?

Peter over at Cleveland Frowns has a passionate post about Manny Ramirez and the Hall of Fame, and it made me think about Lyndon Johnson. This, I suspect, gives you a pretty good idea about how my ridiculous mind works and why I didn't get many dates as a young man.

In truth, I'm reading Robert Caro's amazing and mesmerizing "Master of the Senate" about Johnson ... and so just about EVERYTHING I hear at the moment makes me think about Lyndon Johnson, which makes it hard to read children's books to the kids.*

*"And then the guy who wouldn't eat Green Eggs and Ham, um, arranged for a filibuster by promising to vote with the pork states and then raised trumped up charges of Sam I Am being a communist."

The Poscast with Bill James

OK, the new Poscast is up ... our first installment with (I hope) semi-regular co-host Bill James.

Here is the Poscast on iTunes.

And here it is at Sports Illustrated.

A couple of things. One, we are hoping to make a quantum leap forward in sound quality with this coming week's Poscast. We now have a lot of sound equipment, and while I suspect we may have to take the stuff out of their boxes, I am told that this will make the sound next week much better. Like everything with the Poscast, it's a work in progress. The Poscast with Bill James this week was done under less-than-ideal circumstances -- in Augusta, with a less-than-stellar Internet connection -- so I hope that the great stuff Bill is saying will make up for any sound quality gaps.

Two, I can tell you that it is my hope to have two regular co-hosts -- regular the way Charo was a "regular" guest on The Love Boat. I'm hoping, for instance, that the next month will look like follows:

April 18: Special guest (and if I get who I'm trying to get, it will be INCREDIBLE*).
April 25: Poscast with Michael Schur.
May 2: Special guest (again, potentially incredible).
May 9: Poscast with Bill James

*At least for me.

I'm kind of hoping that each month will look something like that -- incredible guest, Michael Schur, incredible guest, Bill James and so on.

This week's Poscast I talk with Bill about college hoops, the meaning of bad starts, how well past performance predicts future and a bunch of other fun things. Bill also reiterates my own belief that we all think baseball is at its most perfect when you are 10 years old. Bill, as you might expect, puts it in better words.

Commentary

I know Tara Sullivan a little bit. We have several of the same friends, and because of this we have gone to several dinners together. I like her very much. We have talked quite a lot about Springsteen and family and her father, who grew up with George Carlin. She's good company.

The Best To Never Win A Major

You have no doubt heard the stories of hyperinflation in German in the early 1920s after World War I -- no doubt heard how people would have to carry their money in wheelbarrows and suitcases and how a loaf of bread would cost you 200 billion marks.*

*You can only imagine how much Mach 3 razor blades cost.

In a weird way, that's what Tiger Woods did to golf majors the last 10 or 15 years, at least for himself. On June 16, 2008, he won his 14th major championship ... and the assumption was that he would not only break Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 but race by that record without even pausing to take pictures. Scott Michaux, the fine columnist for The Augusta Chronicle, predicted then that Woods would break Jack's record at the very Masters that they are playing now, and that was a perfectly reasonable prediction at the time. Five majors? What is five majors to Tiger Woods?

The Retirement of MannyBManny

One of my favorite bits of sportswriting is how quickly we will call someone a genius. If you devise a reasonably effective defense for the three-point shot ... you're a genius. If you get your team to play two somewhat different styles in back-to-back playoff games ... you're a genius. If you manage a bullpen so that you generally have your best pitchers throw when the game is close ... you're a genius. And so on.

The Slum of First Round Leaders

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- The first golf course where I walked all 18 holes was Augusta National. That was 1992. I had never played a full round of golf. I had never covered a golf tournament. And suddenly I found myself writing the lead column at the 1992 Masters for The Augusta Chronicle, the hometown paper. It was pretty ridiculous. I was in the unique position where every single person who read my column -- literally every one -- knew more about golf than I did.

My one advantage was that I was working with David Westin, an Augusta sportswriting legend, and with infinite patience he explained some of the finer points of golf to me. "No," he told me, "they are not allowed to just cut down a tree that's in front of their ball." And, "No, the caddy cannot carry the golfer if he gets tired." Things like that.

Honesty

A lot has happened to Nick Charles since I wrote a back page column about him at Sports Illustrated. HBO had him broadcast one more fight. CNN spent a couple of days with him and wrote this beautiful and heartbreaking story about him. I understand that Dr. Sanjay Gupta had an intimate conversation that will be broadcast soon. Nick and his wife Cory are beginning a charity to fight child labor in the Philippines ... more on that soon.

Also, thousands and thousands of people have written to him to say they are thinking about him, they care about him, they are praying for him.

The Poscast Hits iTunes

A few of you have asked me to let you know when the Poscast will be available on iTunes.

Well ... the Poscast is available on iTunes.

Not only that but, for the moment, it is the No. 1 sports podcast on iTunes. I fully appreciate that this is only because it is new and it will fall back into its rightful spot in at 1,483,473 soon enough. But, hey, I got a screen capture of it. I can prove it happened. Thank you all for downloading and listening.

As for downloading the Poscast MP3 through something other than iTunes ... I'm asking to see what can be done.

I do have to say that this Poscast thing is more fun than I expected ... I have some ideas for guests over the next few weeks that, if they work out, will be pretty awesome.

Got one more post coming before the end of the day, a non-sports request post from a friend.

Tiger: A Counterpoint

You may know that this is not the first time my great good friend Michael Rosenberg and I have disagreed on the future of Tiger Woods. Yes, Michael is back again to shout that Tiger Woods will be great again and really soon. A year or so ago, Michael wrote that people who write off Tiger Woods are dead wrong ... and doing him a personal favor by giving him extra incentive. I disagreed with both points. I thought the people who wrote off Tiger -- depending on what we mean by "write off" -- were more likely right than wrong, and anyway I never thought Tiger Woods has done well in an "us against the world" scenario. I don't think he's a guy who feeds of disrespect. I think he likes it best when everyone knows that he's the best player going.

At that time, my opinion was a pretty distinct minority. I certainly wasn't alone on the "Tiger will probably never be the same" airplane, but I do know there were plenty of empty seats and plenty of overhead storage available.

Poscast with Mike Vaccaro

So, I did my second Poscast ... this time with longtime friend and brilliant man Mike Vaccaro, sports columnist of the New York Post, author of three wonderful books along with just being a gentleman, scholar and noted Godfather expert.

I should say that Mike and I once hosted our own radio show. Once. The only thing I remember is the beginning which went roughly like so:

Me: Welcome to the show. I'm Joe Posnanski.
Mike: And I'm Mike Vaccaro.
Me: Um ...
Mike: (silence)
Me: OK, now what are we supposed to do?
Mike: (silence)

So you will definitely want to tune into this one.

The Madness of March

Basketball is probably the most predictable of all our team sports. Well, it only makes sense. Everything in basketball is on a smaller scale in basketball. The court is smaller. There are fewer players on each team. There are fewer players on each roster. There are fewer angles, fewer moves, fewer countermoves. One great basketball player can make a larger impact, I suspect, than one great player on any other team sport.

A Celebration of Day 2

Few people celebrate the second day of the baseball season. Opening Day is flooded with remembrances and celebrations, reveries about spring and fathers and the timelessness of the game. Opening Day sparks packed stadiums, filled with color and pageantry and grass that is jarringly green and familiar scents and children pulled from school. And scorecards! How many people keep score on Opening Day? Everybody, it seems, and the scorecards are crisp and they are neat, every line drawn with care, every home run filled in with the precision of the SAT Test circles. Opening Day brings out the overwrought poet in baseball fans everywhere. By Day 2, though, the poetry ends. It's a long season, and the second day is when baseball fans begin to settle in.

I suppose this gets to the heart of things. Opening Day is about hope ... beautiful, glorious and irrational hope. And second days are about the slow and irretrievable loss of that hope. Opening Day is about being young. And Day 2 is about getting old. Stadiums in many places are now half-filled ... no child gets to skip school to catch the SECOND game of the season. The lifers remain. Scorecards are creased and smeared and abandoned by the fourth inning. The drumbeat sounds. The long march of the season begins. The three-hit first day, in the slow and sure way of inevitability, morphs into that .263 batting that was preordained by the martial law of 600 plate appearances. The flawed teams begin their steady descent into the standings.