Springsteen and an Atlanta Shave

Don't ask how this New Year's post will lead to Bruce Springsteen … I'm just kind of hoping it does before the clock strikes midnight and it's done.

Start with this odd opening sentence: I'm not sure when I stopped caring who cut my hair. Well, I'm not. I don't think I was ever particularly controlling about who cut my hair or how but maybe five or six years ago, I stopped caring entirely. I would be driving home from an interview or a meeting or something, and I would think, "You know, I need a haircut." I would stop at the most convenient place that happened to be on my route home, usually one of those mass-production haircut places with a lot of TVs. The haircut greeter would ask, "Do you have a stylist preference?" I would always say no. And whoever happened to be available cut my hair.

What did I care? For me, with my hair, the barber/stylist is like whoever happens to be cooking the burgers at McDonald's that day … what difference would it make? This is one of the great (and few) advantages of being mostly bald. There's really only so much damage any barber or hair stylist can do. At exactly the same time, there's really only so much success they can have. These are the tradeoffs in life.

Pitcher v. Pitcher

So, this guy wrote in with a complaint about Curt Schilling. I should say: I'm a Curt Schilling Hall of Fame guy. I think he's a Hall of Famer, and I don't think it's an especially difficult call. I mean, no, he didn't have the perfect career. He's not one of the 10 best pitchers ever. But I think he's one of the 25 best, and I think he's pretty comfortably in that group.

The big knock against him, in my mind, is that he was wildly inconsistent until his mid 30s. He did not really appear on the scene until he was 25 -- when he led the league in WHIP and posted a 2.35 ERA. Then he wasn't especially good again until he was 29 or so. He had some good years and some injuries and then, at 34, suddenly, he was awesome, this monster, a truly great pitcher for four seasons. Those four years, 2001-2004 -- with offense still exploding -- match up pretty well to Tom Seaver's best four consecutive seasons or just about anyone else's, save a Koufax or a Pedro.

Then there was a sputter, one more good season, and it was over.

The Tango Option

On Friday I plan to post this thing about Curt Schilling, Jack Morris and pitchers facing pitchers … but first, I just got an email from Tom Tango that hits upon a brilliant Hall of Fame idea that, by pure coincidence, I've been pondering the last few days (kismet!).

This idea is, in fact, so good that I'm actually a bit surprised it wasn't put into place years ago.

Before explaining the idea, let me explain the problem by looking at a few players:

The Boog Powell Card

My mother, as I have written many times before, knows and cares nothing about baseball. She used to care nothing of any sport outside of the Olympics, but in recent years she has become more interested in these silly games, and every now and again she will want to talk about Tiger Woods or LeBron James or some college basketball team or one of the athletes on Dancing with the Stars ("That Emmitt Smith is a pretty good dancer") or one of the people on one of the various poker tours -- she knows way more than I do about the various poker tours.

Baseball, though, remains a mystery to her, and I suspect it always will.

Mom has become famous among my circle of friends for the time when she read an early baseball story of mine and said, "It was a good story. But one question. Who are YOU to say that it was an unearned run? Who are YOU to decide that the run wasn't earned?" It's actually a much deeper question than I realized at the time -- really, if you think about it in the larger context, what IS an unearned run? -- but the main point is that my mother never cared for baseball, never connected with it, never thought it was worth her time ...

… except for a few months in 1976.

Prospects 2006

Bill James wrote a piece the other day about the possible difference between pitching and hitting prospects … and it reminded me of this project I've wanted to do for some time. I wanted to go back through Baseball America's excellent prospect handbooks and see how the best prospects turned out. How often do they succeed? How often do they fail? What is the biggest reason for failure? (I'd guess injury). What is the most promising sign for success? How often do "toolsy" players make it? How about "skilled" players?

Well, I haven't had time to dive into that the way I would like. But I did try something. I have all the Baseball America Prospect Handbooks going back to 2003 (with 2001 and 2002 on order). I picked a year at random -- I chose 2006 -- and decided to look at BA's top prospects for each team, who in retrospect was the team's best prospect, what BA said about the player and, finally, what happened.

One thing I'd like to say here -- this is NOT about how good Baseball America is at predicting success and failure. No, I see BA as sort of the control factor, if that make sense. I'd say they do the best job in the sport of gathering information and viewpoints from scouts and player development people and general managers and so on. I don't look at these top prospects as Baseball America's opinion. I look at it as the best bet we can find in terms of the CONSENSUS opinion in baseball about these players.

And so, what I'm trying to do here is determine how often these prospects hit or miss. The "hitting" and "missing" designation is pointed entirely at the player, not at the people who made the predictions.

OK, here we go:

Books on the Top Shelf

So, I've spent the last day or two reorganizing books in my office. It's a long and boring story so, of course, I'm going to share it here. We have two rooms in our house that were, at least theoretically, built as home offices. The first -- where I'm working right now -- is on the third floor (they have few basements in the South, so attics/third floors are essentially high basements). There's a ton of room up here, it's fairly private and I have books and posters and junk everywhere up here. It's the ideal place for an office.

There is another option, though. It's on our second level, and it's kind of a walk-in closet. It's tiny; barely big enough for a desk and chair. You have to walk through the bathroom to get to it. It offers no privacy at all. I'm not even sure why anyone would have ever considered it a potential office space -- it kind of looks like a room the builder put in to cover up an error in the blueprint. ("Uh, we've got this tiny room left over." "Oh, fine, call it an office.") But the people who lived here before us put in a few built-in shelves and one day on a lark we bought a cheap desk at Ikea, It took me only six or seven days to build it, and we set it up as an office.

A Jack Morris Post

… Well, it must be that time of year.

I've written so many Jack Morris posts through the years that I think it's plain: I am entirely on record with Jack Morris.

1. He was a very good pitcher who doesn't quite reach my Hall of Fame standard.

2. I think he will get elected and inducted into the Hall of Fame this year.

3. I don't see that as a bad thing … Morris was a fine pitcher and I'll be happy for him. In fact, I hope he gets in this year because I think the yearly Jack Morris bickering that I'm a huge part of is tiresome and unfair to him.

Baseball Chat? Why Not

What You See

There are, as you might imagine, lots and lots of Hall of Fame posts coming. But I wanted to do this one to make a quick point.

Take two players. Their careers are over almost precisely the same time frame.

Player 1 played from 1968 to 1985.
Player 2 played from 1969 to 1987.

They ended up playing almost precisely the same number of games.

Player 1 played in 2,368 games.
Player 2 played in 2,332 games.

It's hard to come up with two players whose career lengths and timeframe so closely mirror each other.

OK, now, their slash lines -- batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage:

Player 1: .303/.344/.451
Player 2: .294/.329/.446

So, based on the slash statistics, Player 1 was better. He hit for a better average, got on base more often, hit with a touch more power. How about a few counting stats:

Player 1: 2,743 hits, 529 doubles, 77 triples, 219 homers, 1,189 runs, 1,326 RBIs, 1,347 runs created

Player 2: 2,599 hits, 440 doubles, 43 triples, 272 homers, 1,143 runs, 1,308 RBIs, 1,232 runs created

Again, pretty clear, Player 1 has the better counting stats, except for home runs. Neither of them are getting to the Hall of Fame based on their home run totals, anyway. Look at the rate stats, look at the career stats and ask yourself: What are the chances that Player 2 was better than Player 1?

Interruptions

Soon after the Gabby Giffords shooting in Tucson, Ariz., I went to the crime scene. I had to go. Something called me there. The shooting happened on my birthday -- January 8, 2011 -- and I already was in Phoenix to cover college football's national championship game, and more than anything, there was a little girl who had been killed. Her name was Christina-Taylor Green. She was 9 years old. She was the daughter of John Green, a baseball scout, and the granddaughter of Dallas Green, a longtime baseball man. Christina was born on 9/11 -- 12 days after our oldest daughter, Elizabeth, was born. I, like many Americans, spent much of that day reading about Christina. And crying. Soon after, I drove to Tucson and the Safeway supermarket where the shooting took place.

I cannot tell you what I expected to find. No part of the trip was that comprehensible. I just had to go.

Party Like It's 2016

Lots more to come on the Josh Hamilton deal but, in the meantime, here's a quick thought: Most people understand that in baseball, players generally begin to decline at some point in their 30s. People differ on the year most players decline -- is it 32? 31? 34? 30? -- but the general point remains.

Here are a few fun salary numbers for the lucky 30-somethings in the year 2016:

-- 32-year-old Zack Greinke: $26 million

-- 36-year-old Ryan Howard: $25 million

-- 36-year-old Albert Pujols: $25 million

-- 35-year-old Josh Hamilton: $25 million

-- 35-year-old CC Sabathia: $25 million

-- 32-year-old Prince Fielder: $24 million

-- 33-year-old Joe Mauer: $23 million

-- 36-year-old Mark Teixeira: $22.5 million

-- 32-year-old Cole Hamels: $22.5 million

-- 33-year-old Jose Reyes: $22 million

-- 31-year-old Matt Kemp: $21.5 million

-- 37-year-old Jayson Werth: $21 million

-- 34-year-old Carl Crawford: $20.75 million

-- 40-year-old Alex Rodriguez: $20 million

-- 34-year-old Adrian Gonzalez: $20 million

-- 33-year-old David Wright: $20 million

-- 32-year-old Joey Votto: $20 million

-- 31-year-old Troy Tulowitzki: $20 million

-- 31-year-old Matt Cain: $20 million

Captain Watson

I've been lucky enough to be around the next American Ryder Cup captain, Tom Watson, a whole lot in my life. He has asked me to introduce him at various functions and to be his co-host at various events. I've caddied for him. I've interviewed him hundreds of times, of course, and I've had many long and sometimes intense conversations with him about life and politics and the belly putter and journalism and what excellence really means. I don't say all this to brag (mostly).

I say all this because even after all that, I can't say that I really know Tom Watson.

All I really know for sure -- for absolute sure -- is that the son of a gun wants to win more than anyone I've ever been around.

Youk Can't Be Serious

A friend of mine is a Yankees fan, and he told me on Wednesday morning that he's finished. Done. Through. Of course, he does have a habit of periodically going off the deep end about something the Yankees did or did not do and then proclaiming himself ready to break off all relations with pinstripes. The break-up usually lasts about 47 minutes. This time, I will admit, he sounds a bit more serious.
"Youkilis," he grunted. "I hate Kevin Youkilis."

I do not hate Kevin Youkilis, but I know exactly what he means. Some years ago, the team I grew up loving -- the Cleveland Indians -- signed pitcher Jack McDowell. Oh, I thoroughly Clemenated Jack McDowell with the fury of a thousand suns. I'm not sure why I did. There was just something about him, his hideous "Black Jack" nickname, his travesty of a Cy Young Award, his music thing, his giving the finger to the fans, his ever-changing facial hair … oh, it wasn't  logical. It didn't have to be logical. It was a sports thing. He pitched for the White Sox, and he beat the Indians a few times, and I just could not stand him.

Then, the Indians signed him as a free agent.

A Desperate Grab for Hope

It goes without saying that in pure baseball terms, I despise the Royals' trade of late Sunday night. Despise. Deplore. Deride. Disapprove. If there were a Royals Tradebook Page, I would click the "dislike" button at least 10,000 times. The Royals traded their No. 1 prospect (and one of the best hitting prospects in the game), their No. 5 prospect, PLUS last year's No. 1 prospect, PLUS a fourth semi-prospect (because the other three apparently weren't enough) to Tampa Bay for a 31-year-old pitcher with a whole lot of innings and a very shaky road record and a 27-year-old pitcher who was demoted to the bullpen. I'd say 10,000 dislikes might not be enough.

But, for a moment, before delving deeper into the pile of dislikes, I think it's important to consider what it is to be the Kansas City Royals heading into 2013.

Dale Murphy and the Age-Outs

This year, Dale Murphy will become the 35th player to age off the Hall of Fame ballot after 15 years. We'll get into Murphy in a minute, but first:  It's an excellent collection of players. Some were elected into the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee: Richie Ashburn, Jim Bunning, Orlando Cepeda, Nellie Fox, Bill Mazeroski, Ron Santo and Red Schoendienst.

Others made it all 15 years because of a singular achievement: Don Larsen, Maury Wills and Roger Maris being the most obvious of those.

The other 24 were all terrific players … but in the end, the voters determined that something was missing. Something. It's worth taking a quick look.

Breaking Down the Hall

Read The Inner Circle of the Hall at Sports On Earth.

* * *

A while ago, I did a post called The Willie Mays Hall of Fame, which had a very different point from this post. The point there was to say that when people start picking apart candidates over every little thing and saying things like, "Well, this guy's not a Hall of Famer -- Willie Mays, now, THAT is a Hall of Famer" they are really creating an impossible standard that no player, not even Willie Mays himself, can live up to. There has never been a perfect ballplayer. There has never been a ballplayer who did not have some failing -- as a player, as a teammate, as a man.

This post is trying for something entirely different. It seems to me that when people talk about the Baseball Hall of Fame, they talk about it as if it's one thing. But it isn't. The Hall of Fame is a museum, it's a gift shop, it's a research center, it's a plaque room and many other things.

But even the plaque room itself is not one thing. The Hall of Fame has honored major league players, Negro leagues players, old-time players, managers, umpires, pioneers, writers and so on. These people have been elected to the Hall by baseball writers, by historians, by expert panels, by living Hall of Famers, by special vote. The Hall of Fame is a mishmash of many ideas and thoughts and campaigns, it clashes with itself. To say that a Hall of Fame with Candy Cummings but without Barry Bonds is ridiculous might be true … but it doesn't really mean anything. Candy Cummings and Barry Bonds were not voted on the same way. Marvin Miller and Tom Yawkey were not voted on the same way.

So, what I'm trying to do here is simply break down the Hall of Fame so that it's more manageable, easier to understand and get your arms around. You already know that Bill Simmons came up with what he called the Hall of Fame Basketball Pyramid, which breaks up the best basketball players in his view into different levels, with the best level being the Pantheon -- that is the level with Michael, Russell, Kareem, Magic, Larry, Wilt, Duncan, Kobe, West, Oscar, Hakeem, Shaq and Moses. You could argue emphatically, of course, that Cousy and Dr. J and Elgin Baylor and Havlicek and Stockton and Malone and some more recent guys already belong in the Pantheon, but that's good, that's at the heart of this, emphatic arguments are the reason for such endeavors. It's a beautiful concept.

I wanted to do something a little bit different here. Yes, I have my own view on baseball players and levels … but what I really wanted to do here was break down the Hall of Fame into different levels based on the actual Hall of Fame voting and rhythms. I'm not sure if that makes any sense, but I hope it will as we go along. At the end, I'll have an Inner Circle Hall of Fame we can argue about.

Exhilaration Gap

Not too long ago, on Twitter, I suggested that the "reality gap" between NBA basketball on television and NBA basketball live might be the biggest out of all of our favorite sports. Because Twitter only allows 140 characters, I never did get around to explaining what I meant by "reality gap." But the great thing is: The argument began raging pretty much right away.

"I still vote for hockey," my buddy and SI wunderkind Michael Rosenberg said.

"You know, really high end tennis, in person, is probably on that list," the excellent Bruce Arthur added.

"NHL by a mile," said WagerMinds.

"Gotta vote hockey (if 'reality gap' means what I think it means)," co-habitant of Sports on Earth Emma Span responded.

And so on. I have to say: I love it. It is fun to argue about stuff when nobody even knows what we're arguing about.

It seems that many people thought -- not without good reason -- that I was referring to the gap between the EXPERIENCE OF WATCHING a sport live and watching a sport on TV. That, actually, was not what I meant. I'll explain in some detail what I mean by reality gap in the next couple of days, when I write about one of my favorite NBA players. Basically I'm referring to the gap between what a player THINKS the games would be like and what the games are ACTUALLY like.

Design by Committee

I write a little something over at Sports On Earth about the three new Hall of Famers -- an umpire who became a manager and then an umpire again, a Tammany Hall politician who wouldn't pay DiMaggio, and a barehanded catcher who believed that the earth is flat -- and talk a bit about how Baseball Hall of Fame is REALLY constructed rather than how people seem to think it is constructed.

So, if you happen to see this post first, I pose for you a question:

What percentage of the Hall of Fame do you think is comprised of players voted in by the Baseball Writers Association of America. Put your answer below, and then check over at SOE to see see how close you got. I've got something about more about this coming.

I also have a massive Springsteen piece off his Oakland concert last Friday.

And something about the Kansas City Royals one last chance to make it real.

And something about one of my favorite NBA players.

And something about one of the three best single-sport announcers in the history of a the game.

And, who knows, maybe something about the Washington Nationals rotation with Dan Haren in it.

And something about beer.

 

Who is at the Winter Meetings

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- As a father of two young daughters who care absolutely nothing about baseball, it's important to cherish the few bright moments. There was the time I overheard my older daughter, Elizabeth, explaining to a boy her age what a closer is. There was a time I saw my younger daughter, Katie, trying to read the back of a baseball card.

And it just so happened that two great little baseball discoveries happened over the weekend.
First, I taught them the oldest joke on earth, the joke of the talking dog.

Second, I got to see them fall under the spell of "Who's on First."