Do you believe in miracles? Yes!
- Al Michaels's famous call as time expired in the U.S. hockey team's shocking 4-3 upset of the U.S.S.R. squad in the medal round at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y. You can watch the game's last 16 seconds here.
It seems that next to money and sex, the one thing people complain the most about not having enough of is time. You figure, if you are lucky to get seven hours of sleep a night, spend two hours a day commuting, and work eight hours a day, that means that of the 120 hours in the average work week, 85 of them are accounted for right off the bat. That leaves 35 hours each work week to eat, do chores, and hopefully have a few hours left over for leisure time. I often think of those mathmatics when I watch sports on television, and wonder even more about it when I attend a game live. Is this really how I am using my precious few leisure hours?
As a kid, I lived for sports. Until I discovered girls, I only knew of two things in life: baseball, and stuff that kept me from baseball. To this day, while I will only really sit and watch baseball, hockey and soccer, I still read the sports section cover-to-cover every day, still check ESPN.com a couple of times a day, and still follow closely what is going on in the sports world. I would rather watch my pet bunny Oscar sleep than watch golf on television (the same amount of action occurs), but I can tell you that 31-year-old no-name Zach Johnson held off Tiger Woods to win the Masters yesterday, and that Johnson's winning score of one over par was tied for the highest winning score in Masters history.
But, as I got older, I started to feel like following sports was a waste of the remnants of my precious leisure time. Shouldn't I be reading a book? Or, at least reading a review of a book? I also started to feel like watching sports defied logic. What do I care if a bunch of guys I have never met, guys who, as a rule, are not noted to be the finest individuals our country has to offer (athletes get busted over sex and drugs so often, rock stars are jealous), succeed in a childhood game against another group of self-obsessed hedonists? And, as Jerry Seinfeld so astutely pointed out, with all the player movement in modern sports, we are not really rooting for the people so much as the uniforms, which means in the end we are pulling for laundry.
I don't think I will ever fully reconcile in my head the value of the time I spend watching sports. But, from time to time, something will happen that will remind me of the appeal of being a fan. After all, heroin might be bad for you, but it's not like anyone has ever said that it didn't make you feel good, at least at first. The New York Islanders spent the last nine days reminding me of the high of sports, even if the reminder doesn't allow me to feel okay about being an addict.
In the middle of March, the Islanders were one of the feel-good stories of the NHL season. Despite being picked to finish near the bottom of the conference, they found themselves in sixth place, comfortably in a playoff position. They were led by Ted Nolan, a guy whose story was so interesting, he was profiled on Bryant Gumble's HBO series (you don't see a lot of hockey on the big sports shows). He is a First Nations Canadian who grew up in poverty, but worked his way up the ladder, finally landing a spot as the head coach of the Buffalo Sabres. In 1997, he won the Jack Adams Award as the best coach of the year, but he was shockingly not retained by the Sabres (they offered him a token one-year offer). Despite his resume, he could not get another head coaching job in the league and spent nine years in exile until the Islanders hired him before this season.
The Islanders had started the year with a front-office shake-up that left them the butt of jokes and three one-sided losses, but, under Nolan's leadership, they played hard and smart to climb into contention. On Feb. 27, the much-maligned backup-goalie-turned-general-manager Garth Snow traded for one of the league's superstars, Ryan Smyth. It looked like the Islanders could not be denied a place in the post-season.
And then, on March 13, the team's best player, goaltender Rick DiPietro, who had carried the club all season, sustained a concussion in a game in Montreal. Without an adequate backup, the team collapsed, losing three in a row. After DiPietro had to abort his comeback after a few games when he re-experienced symptoms, the team went on to lose another four contests in a row. By March 31, after the fourth consecutive loss, they were tied for 10th place, four points out of the last playoff spot (the top eight teams in each conference make the post-season).
The team was all but eliminated from the playoff race. Going into their next game, April 3 against their hated local rivals, the New York Rangers, the Islanders needed an improbable string of events to occur for them to move on. First, they had to win their last four games of the season. And, they needed help, including the Rangers and Toronto Maple Leafs beating the Montreal Canadians. Most importantly, they had to do it without DiPietro.
Enter Wade Dubielewicz (you can't make names like that up), a diminutive, 28-year-old career minor leaguer who had only a handful of games played in the NHL. If only he had a parent in need of an organ transplant, it would have been the plot of a Disney film. When veteran backup Mike Dunham proved ineffective, Nolan finally gave the goalie known as "Dubie" (again, you can't make this stuff up) a chance for that March 31 game, the last loss of the slide. Nolan stayed with Dubie, and he beat the Rangers in a shootout, and then led the Isles past the Leafs and Philadelphia Flyers. Meanwhile, all the other games came out exactly as they had to. As a result, on Saturday night, the Islanders watched as the Leafs came back from a 5-3 deficit to beat the Canadians 6-5, setting up a win-and-their-in game the next day against the New Jersey Devils.
And that's when the hockey gods stepped in to give this improbable tale the last little push it needed: The Devils, with nothing to play for (they had clinched second place in the conference), rested Martin Brodeur, arguably the greatest goaltender of all time. Brodeur was 6-1 this season against the Islanders. Against backup Scott Clemmensen, The Islanders went up 2-0 on two goals by bit player Richard Park, and with less than five minutes to play, it seemed like nothing could stop the Islanders from earning the last playoff spot. But, like that feeling of inevitability in mid-March, disaster was right around the corner. John Madden scored two goals for the Devils, the second with less than one second to play in the game, sending the game into overtime. How would the Islanders bounce back from this turn of events?
When neither team scored in overtime, it came down to a shootout, a recent game-show-like addition to the game. Each team gets three chances on penalty shots, a shooter alone on the goalie. The team that scores more often wins the game. Brodeur's absence was glaring as the Islanders scored on two of their three attempts, while Dubie was able to limit the Devils to one goal on the Devils' first two shots. It came down to the Devils' Sergei Brylin, and when Dubie made a daring stick check to foil Brylin's effort, the Islanders held on and survived. They will open the playoffs on Thursday against the top team in the conference, none other than Nolan's former employer, the Sabres. Again, a storybook showdown.
The Islanders' improbable run had a better plot than most of the movies produced by the Hollywood studios. The protagonist's name is Wade "Dubie" Dubielewicz! How can you beat that? The excitement of overcoming the next-to-impossible, and the drama of the final game, induced that familiar rush, like back in 1980 when a group of U.S. college kids toppled the professional Soviets in the Olympics. Nothing (in my mind) will ever match the confluence of events that made the 1980 U.S. hockey team's win such a chill-inducing event. But, the Islanders' late run came close.
The debate in my head will rage on, and I will continue to feel conflicted about the role that sports plays in my life (and even in Anerican culture). But, one thing is for sure: The debate will take a backseat for at least the next ten days or so, more if the Islanders write yet another exciting script and get past the Sabres. I'm an addict. But admitting it is the first step, right?
Monday, April 9, 2007
Friday, April 6, 2007
Cheney Still Beating a Dead Horse on an Iraq-al-Qaida Link
What? I have no regard for the peasants? They are my people. I am their sovereign. I love them. Pull. [He fires his rifle at a peasant flying through the air.] Missed him to the left.
- Louis XVI (Mel Brooks) to Count de Monet (Harvey Korman) in the 1981 film "History of the World Part I," written and directed by Brooks
I know Mel Brooks is a talented guy, but how did he know in 1981 what the presidency would be like in 2007? After more than six years in office, I'm used to reading about the blunders, scandals, arrogance and poor judgment of the Bush administration. But, during that time, they have been quite astute at recognizing situations and spinning, dodging, evading and doing everything short of Eternal Sunshining the minds of the American people to get what they wanted. (Cut to John Kerry, lying in the fetal position in the corner of his Senate office, clutching his Purple Heart and muttering over and over to himself, "Am I a coward?")
When did the administration become delusional? Granted, the playing field shifted when the Republicans were booted out of control of Congress last November, but it is as if Bush and his people are in denial, acting like nothing has changed. Correctly reading and manipulating the American people was the administration's strength. It was its thing, its claim to fame, its Rain Man counting the spilled matches.
Vice President Dick Cheney, apparently thinking that the calendar read April 2003 rather than April 2007 (the guy is a souffle away from a fatal coronary, cut him some slack), reasserted yesterday that there was a link between Iraq and al-Qaida before the U.S. invasion. AP Article His timing was particularly dead-on, given that the Defense Department released a declassified report yesterday that found no evidence of any collaboration between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. Same AP Article Cheney then went on to say that the American people's dresses made their butts look small, you can't get pregnant if you do it standing up, and of course he would respect them in the morning. He did make the statement to Rush Limbaugh, so it is possible he was wacked out on OxyContin.
The Bush administration really does treat the lower- and middle-classes like they were Brooks's Louis XVI. He professes to care about what they care about (sticking to the Big Two themes of Jesus and patriotism), all while using them for target practice. Who is serving in Iraq right now? I'll give you a hint, few in the National Guard and Reserves have trust funds. I wonder how eager Bush would be to keep throwing American soldiers into a no-win mission if the troops were the sons and daughters of his oil buddies.
From cutting taxes for the rich, to authorizing rules that benefit corporations at the expense of consumers, to doing nothing while the oil companies reap record profits while gas prices double, Bush has been using the lower- and middle-classes for target practice, all while proclaiming his love for them with the same "Who me?" lack of understanding that Brooks showed as Louis XVI.
With approximately 21 months remaining in Bush's term, it seems that one of two things will have to happen. Either he will wake up, realize the new lay of the land, and find new ways to manipulate the American people. Or, he will continue on, acting delusionally, spouting off about Democrats not funding the troops and links between Iraq and everything from al-Qaida to Sanjaya's run on "American Idol," causing the Democrats to become more and more empowered to challenge his agenda. I'm rooting for the latter. Remember what happened to Louis XVI? While I don't want to see Bush's head go the way of Gwynneth Paltrow's in "Seven," a Democratic presidency in 2009 would suit me just fine. Let's hope Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Richardson, et al, have seen "History of the World Part I." Who knew you could learn so much from Mel Brooks?
- Louis XVI (Mel Brooks) to Count de Monet (Harvey Korman) in the 1981 film "History of the World Part I," written and directed by Brooks
I know Mel Brooks is a talented guy, but how did he know in 1981 what the presidency would be like in 2007? After more than six years in office, I'm used to reading about the blunders, scandals, arrogance and poor judgment of the Bush administration. But, during that time, they have been quite astute at recognizing situations and spinning, dodging, evading and doing everything short of Eternal Sunshining the minds of the American people to get what they wanted. (Cut to John Kerry, lying in the fetal position in the corner of his Senate office, clutching his Purple Heart and muttering over and over to himself, "Am I a coward?")
When did the administration become delusional? Granted, the playing field shifted when the Republicans were booted out of control of Congress last November, but it is as if Bush and his people are in denial, acting like nothing has changed. Correctly reading and manipulating the American people was the administration's strength. It was its thing, its claim to fame, its Rain Man counting the spilled matches.
Vice President Dick Cheney, apparently thinking that the calendar read April 2003 rather than April 2007 (the guy is a souffle away from a fatal coronary, cut him some slack), reasserted yesterday that there was a link between Iraq and al-Qaida before the U.S. invasion. AP Article His timing was particularly dead-on, given that the Defense Department released a declassified report yesterday that found no evidence of any collaboration between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. Same AP Article Cheney then went on to say that the American people's dresses made their butts look small, you can't get pregnant if you do it standing up, and of course he would respect them in the morning. He did make the statement to Rush Limbaugh, so it is possible he was wacked out on OxyContin.
The Bush administration really does treat the lower- and middle-classes like they were Brooks's Louis XVI. He professes to care about what they care about (sticking to the Big Two themes of Jesus and patriotism), all while using them for target practice. Who is serving in Iraq right now? I'll give you a hint, few in the National Guard and Reserves have trust funds. I wonder how eager Bush would be to keep throwing American soldiers into a no-win mission if the troops were the sons and daughters of his oil buddies.
From cutting taxes for the rich, to authorizing rules that benefit corporations at the expense of consumers, to doing nothing while the oil companies reap record profits while gas prices double, Bush has been using the lower- and middle-classes for target practice, all while proclaiming his love for them with the same "Who me?" lack of understanding that Brooks showed as Louis XVI.
With approximately 21 months remaining in Bush's term, it seems that one of two things will have to happen. Either he will wake up, realize the new lay of the land, and find new ways to manipulate the American people. Or, he will continue on, acting delusionally, spouting off about Democrats not funding the troops and links between Iraq and everything from al-Qaida to Sanjaya's run on "American Idol," causing the Democrats to become more and more empowered to challenge his agenda. I'm rooting for the latter. Remember what happened to Louis XVI? While I don't want to see Bush's head go the way of Gwynneth Paltrow's in "Seven," a Democratic presidency in 2009 would suit me just fine. Let's hope Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Richardson, et al, have seen "History of the World Part I." Who knew you could learn so much from Mel Brooks?
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Stats (And Staats) Miss the Point on A Rod
I had the unfortunate experience of watching the Yankees' Opening Day 9-5 victory on Monday via the Tampa Bay Devil Rays' local television broadcast. While thrilled with the result, the telecast was the dinner theater-like experience you would expect, highlighted by the insight-free descriptions of onetime Yankee announcer (when they were bad in the 1980s) Dewayne Staats. Not wanting to dispel the cliche of the small-market announcer going for the obvious story, Staats seemed to revel in the crowd reactions to the Yankees' third baseman Alex Rodriguez, noting the boos when he did something wrong and the cheers when he did something right (and the lack of boos when Derek Jeter made an error).
It's lazy journalism to castigate Yankee fans, often cited as the most knowledgeable in baseball, for booing A Rod despite his gaudy numbers. As any true fan will tell you, numbers show a player's ability to hit or pitch, but they don't tell you if that player ultimately performs in key situations and helps his team win games.
I guess that was too nuanced for Staats, who probably figured it was smartest to feed the small-market angst of the handful of Rays fans tuning into the broadcast.
In reality, Alex Rodriguez is a fabulous hitter who puts up great numbers. He is a sure first-ballot Hall of Famer, and, when he's done playing his numbers should be among the greatest of all time. I also concede that after he signed the biggest contract ever (at the time or since) to leave Seattle for Texas after the 2000 season, he has had to endure jealousy and unreasonable expectations. It feels like the fans expect him to hit a five-run homer every time up. He also hasn't helped his own cause, often making remarks to the press that make him seem not only out of touch, but like he doesn't understand what is important in baseball.
But, ultimately, I think most Yankee fans boo Rodriguez for a different reason. Simply put, they recognize that despite the gaudy numbers, he is not a baseball player that performs when you need him most, and he definitely does not do the oft-cited "little things" that help teams win games, especially big games.
Opening Day illustrated the nuances to judging A Rod as a player. According to the box score, he went two-for-five with a home run, two runs batted in and two runs scored. It's so easy for media guys like Staats to ask, "How could Yankee fans boo this guy?" But, that kind of statement is lazy, since box scores and statistics provide the same level of depth in analyzing a game that a Fox News headline gives you in analyzing a political issue.
No, those of us who watched the game (minus Staats) know the truth. Because the great thing about baseball is that the stuff that makes teams win and lose games are not always found in box scores and numbers.
In that Opening Day game, the Yankees were facing the Rays' young phenom pitcher Scott Kazmir. Kazmir is one of the best young pitchers in baseball. Merely mentioning his name will make Mets fans cry as they recall his trade to Tampa for the human M*A*S*H unit, Victor Zambrano (now with Toronto). With a sold-out, Opening Day crowd and Kazmir on the mound, the game had a playoff feel to it.
Terrifyingly for Yankee fans, the home team sent out Carl Pavano, he of the $40 million contract, fourteen-cent body, and one-shilling brain, to start the game. Pavano was pitching in the majors for the fist time since June 2005. He had endured a series of odd injuries and off-the-field problems that had his teammates openly doubting if he actually wanted to pitch. This is a guy who allegedly fired his agent because he thought he was signing a $40 million contract with the Yankees before the 2005 season, but it turned out to be "only" for $39.95 million. Not exactly the type of guy you think of as donning the pinstripes of Ruth, Gehrig and DiMaggio. But for a late Spring Training injury to staff ace Chien-Ming Wang, Pavano wouldn't have thrown a pitch until the fourth game of the season.
As Pavano took the mound, his teammates and manager Joe Torre had to be thinking, "Let's get this guy through the first inning and go from there." After all, Pavano has demonstrated the mental strength of a Hilton sister, and it was easy to imagine him pulling a Wicked Witch of the West on the Yankee Stadium mound, with the Devil Ray hitters providing the buckets of water.
When leadoff batter Carl Crawford singled, you could hear millions of Yankee fans all over the world crying out, "Here we go." After Crawford stole second, you could imagine Joe Torre resisting the urge to get a reliever up in the pen. But, Pavano retired the next two hitters, and he then induced Ty Wigginton to hit a lazy popup into foul ground by the third base dugout. It appeared that Pavano had managed to safely get through his first inning. Unfortunately, A Rod handles popups like Foxy Brown handles retail workers. Rodriguez overran the pop-up and let if fall safely to the ground.
That could have been the moment of the game. Had Pavano surrendered a run-scoring single, the avalanche could have begun. Winning players step up in those kinds of circumstances and bail out their teammates, just like guys like Paul O'Neill and Derek Jeter did when the Yankees were winning four World Series tittles in five years between 1996 and 2000. But Rodriguez did not step up. He laid more pressure on a teammate that was already more jittery than Tim Hardaway at a GLAAD convention. Luckily for the Yankees, Pavano retired Wigginton and got out of the inning. No thanks to A Rod, of course.
Then, in the bottom of the first inning, Rodriguez had a chance to make up for his error and, more importantly, give the close-to-the edge Pavano some breathing room, when he came up with two men on base and one out. Winning players sense the chance to atone for errors. Derek Jeter made an error early in the Opening Day game that led to a run for the Rays, so nobody was surprised when several innings later, with the Yankees down by two runs, Jeter calmly stroked a single to center, driving in two runs and tying the game. A Rod is not Jeter, and with a chance to put the Yankees ahead and take some pressure off of Pavano, he struck out, passing the baton to Jason Giambi, who singled in two runs.
But what of the home run, Staats would ask? Didn't that help the Yankees win? Not really. In the bottom of the eighth inning, the Yankees were up by two runs and Mariano Rivera was warming up in the bullpen to pitch the ninth inning. Rivera is as close to automatic as a human being can get. The Rays players were mentally beat. As a Rays pitcher with less than ten career Major League innings looked in for the sign against Rodriguez, I said out loud, "Pressure is off; this is A Rod time." Sure enough, in a situation as meaningless as a Bush administration denial, Rodriguez stroked a long home run over the center field wall. The only real effect of A Rod's dinger was that he took a save away from Rivera, since the lead was now four runs, one more than the upper limit for a save situation.
That is why box scores lie. Rodriguez's day of two-for-five with a home run looks real pretty, but baseball fans who watched the game know that when the game was on the line, and when plays had to be made that determined the outcome of the game, A Rod did not help his team win the game.
So, does that mean the Yankees should throw a party if Rodriguez decides to opt out of his contract at the end of the year and head to Chicago to reunite with his man-crush Lou Piniella with the Cubs? I'm sure Staats would draw that conclusion, but I would not. I hope A Rod stays with the Yankees.
No, I am not a flip-flopper. No need to call Karl Rove to have me destroyed (I've never been on a swift boat). As I said, Rodriguez is an all-time talent, and it is worth it to see if he can develop into a player to match his abilities.
I was actually impressed with two things he did in the game. In the first inning, despite his strikeout, he patiently ran the count full, just like several other batters did that first inning. That is Yankee baseball: Run down the starter so he has to exit early, and then take advantage of the traditionally-weaker middle relievers. That's what happened Monday when the Yanks wore down Kazmir, making him throw so many pitches that he was out of gas by the sixth inning.
A Rod also found a way to contribute despite his inability to play defense or hit in the clutch. He singled with the game tied and nobody on base. He proceeded to steal second and hustle home on another clutch hit by Giambi. A Rod's willingness to play a role outside his job description, to steal a run with his feet, showed a dedication to team goals that was encouraging.
That, to me, is the big question. Not if the Yankee fans will warm to Rodriguez, but if he will learn how to develop from a player with great numbers into a great player. His decision on whether or not to opt out will be telling. When he left Seattle for Texas, it was hard to blame a guy for accepting such an enormous contract. But, at the same time, he had to know that it would be unlikely he could win consistently there. He made a choice to take the most money over the best place for him to win. Seattle, a perennial playoff team, had offered him something like $180 million, more than $70 million less than Texas, but still plenty for any one to do whatever they wanted to. It would be hard to imagine a guy like Jeter going to Texas.
I also think that it is very interesting and more than a coincidence that in A Rod's last year in Seattle, the team went 91-71, but the year after he left, the team improved to an incredible 116-46. Who knows, maybe they would have won 120 with A Rod. I doubt it, though. I think with Rodriguez gone, the team was able to play as, just that, a team. Guys like Edgar Martinez, Brett Boone and John Olerud led the way, guys that would have fit in nicely on the Yankee World Series teams of the 1990s. If Rodriguez opts out of his contract at the end of this year, it will feel to me like an admission that he could not adjust to an environment where winning took precedence over individual statistics.
When the Yankees won four World Series titles between 1996 and 2000, they didn't always have the players with the gaudiest batting statistics. In fact, the 2001 Yankees managed to move within two outs in Game 7 of another championship while maintaining a batting average in the Series of .183. And, contrary to the propaganda spewed forth from jealous cities like Boston, Baltimore and Flushing, the Yankees didn't even have the highest payrolls all of those years.
But, those Yankee teams knew how to win. They pitched. They hit in the clutch. And, each player, in any given situation, knew what move they had to make to win a game, whether it was pretty in the box score or not.
To me, a great example of that team's grit and nose for victory was Paul O'Neill's at bat in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 1 of the 2000 World Series against the Yankees' cross-town little brothers, the Mets. The Yankees were down a run, there was one out, and the fireballing-but-volatile Armando Benitez was on the mound. Benitez had set off a brawl two years earlier when he plunked Tino Martinez in the back after surrendering a home run to the previous batter.
O'Neill was clearly overmatched by Benitez's 98-mile-per-hour fastballs and found himself down in the count. But, O'Neill patiently fouled off pitch after pitch, until a frustrated Benitez finally walked him. He later moved to third on singles by two role players (with numbers that don't reside in the same solar system as A Rod's), Luis Polonia and Jose Vizcaino, and scored on a sacrifice fly by Chuck Knoblauch. The box score for that game shows that O'Neill went one-for-four, but anyone who watched the game knows how clutch that ninth-inning walk was. The Yankees went on to win in five games, and many players later pointed to O'Neill's at bat as the turning point of the Series.
It would be hard to picture Rodriguez working out a tough walk when he was overmatched like O'Neill did, or even managing singles like Polonia and Vizcaino did to keep the inning alive. (Ironically, Polonia is the batter that nearly sunk the Yankees in 1996 when O'Neill made the running catch on the last out to seal the game.)
I don't expect Rodriguez to be O'Neill or Jeter, but I do expect him to grow and develop. If he does, he could be a truly scary player, one of the all-time greats. I hope it happens. Maybe Yankee fans shouldn't boo A Rod, but they also understand the difference between a great player that helps his team win and a player that puts up great numbers. Now, if only A Rod could make that leap, he would win over a lot of fans ... and maybe even a couple of rings, too.
It's lazy journalism to castigate Yankee fans, often cited as the most knowledgeable in baseball, for booing A Rod despite his gaudy numbers. As any true fan will tell you, numbers show a player's ability to hit or pitch, but they don't tell you if that player ultimately performs in key situations and helps his team win games.
I guess that was too nuanced for Staats, who probably figured it was smartest to feed the small-market angst of the handful of Rays fans tuning into the broadcast.
In reality, Alex Rodriguez is a fabulous hitter who puts up great numbers. He is a sure first-ballot Hall of Famer, and, when he's done playing his numbers should be among the greatest of all time. I also concede that after he signed the biggest contract ever (at the time or since) to leave Seattle for Texas after the 2000 season, he has had to endure jealousy and unreasonable expectations. It feels like the fans expect him to hit a five-run homer every time up. He also hasn't helped his own cause, often making remarks to the press that make him seem not only out of touch, but like he doesn't understand what is important in baseball.
But, ultimately, I think most Yankee fans boo Rodriguez for a different reason. Simply put, they recognize that despite the gaudy numbers, he is not a baseball player that performs when you need him most, and he definitely does not do the oft-cited "little things" that help teams win games, especially big games.
Opening Day illustrated the nuances to judging A Rod as a player. According to the box score, he went two-for-five with a home run, two runs batted in and two runs scored. It's so easy for media guys like Staats to ask, "How could Yankee fans boo this guy?" But, that kind of statement is lazy, since box scores and statistics provide the same level of depth in analyzing a game that a Fox News headline gives you in analyzing a political issue.
No, those of us who watched the game (minus Staats) know the truth. Because the great thing about baseball is that the stuff that makes teams win and lose games are not always found in box scores and numbers.
In that Opening Day game, the Yankees were facing the Rays' young phenom pitcher Scott Kazmir. Kazmir is one of the best young pitchers in baseball. Merely mentioning his name will make Mets fans cry as they recall his trade to Tampa for the human M*A*S*H unit, Victor Zambrano (now with Toronto). With a sold-out, Opening Day crowd and Kazmir on the mound, the game had a playoff feel to it.
Terrifyingly for Yankee fans, the home team sent out Carl Pavano, he of the $40 million contract, fourteen-cent body, and one-shilling brain, to start the game. Pavano was pitching in the majors for the fist time since June 2005. He had endured a series of odd injuries and off-the-field problems that had his teammates openly doubting if he actually wanted to pitch. This is a guy who allegedly fired his agent because he thought he was signing a $40 million contract with the Yankees before the 2005 season, but it turned out to be "only" for $39.95 million. Not exactly the type of guy you think of as donning the pinstripes of Ruth, Gehrig and DiMaggio. But for a late Spring Training injury to staff ace Chien-Ming Wang, Pavano wouldn't have thrown a pitch until the fourth game of the season.
As Pavano took the mound, his teammates and manager Joe Torre had to be thinking, "Let's get this guy through the first inning and go from there." After all, Pavano has demonstrated the mental strength of a Hilton sister, and it was easy to imagine him pulling a Wicked Witch of the West on the Yankee Stadium mound, with the Devil Ray hitters providing the buckets of water.
When leadoff batter Carl Crawford singled, you could hear millions of Yankee fans all over the world crying out, "Here we go." After Crawford stole second, you could imagine Joe Torre resisting the urge to get a reliever up in the pen. But, Pavano retired the next two hitters, and he then induced Ty Wigginton to hit a lazy popup into foul ground by the third base dugout. It appeared that Pavano had managed to safely get through his first inning. Unfortunately, A Rod handles popups like Foxy Brown handles retail workers. Rodriguez overran the pop-up and let if fall safely to the ground.
That could have been the moment of the game. Had Pavano surrendered a run-scoring single, the avalanche could have begun. Winning players step up in those kinds of circumstances and bail out their teammates, just like guys like Paul O'Neill and Derek Jeter did when the Yankees were winning four World Series tittles in five years between 1996 and 2000. But Rodriguez did not step up. He laid more pressure on a teammate that was already more jittery than Tim Hardaway at a GLAAD convention. Luckily for the Yankees, Pavano retired Wigginton and got out of the inning. No thanks to A Rod, of course.
Then, in the bottom of the first inning, Rodriguez had a chance to make up for his error and, more importantly, give the close-to-the edge Pavano some breathing room, when he came up with two men on base and one out. Winning players sense the chance to atone for errors. Derek Jeter made an error early in the Opening Day game that led to a run for the Rays, so nobody was surprised when several innings later, with the Yankees down by two runs, Jeter calmly stroked a single to center, driving in two runs and tying the game. A Rod is not Jeter, and with a chance to put the Yankees ahead and take some pressure off of Pavano, he struck out, passing the baton to Jason Giambi, who singled in two runs.
But what of the home run, Staats would ask? Didn't that help the Yankees win? Not really. In the bottom of the eighth inning, the Yankees were up by two runs and Mariano Rivera was warming up in the bullpen to pitch the ninth inning. Rivera is as close to automatic as a human being can get. The Rays players were mentally beat. As a Rays pitcher with less than ten career Major League innings looked in for the sign against Rodriguez, I said out loud, "Pressure is off; this is A Rod time." Sure enough, in a situation as meaningless as a Bush administration denial, Rodriguez stroked a long home run over the center field wall. The only real effect of A Rod's dinger was that he took a save away from Rivera, since the lead was now four runs, one more than the upper limit for a save situation.
That is why box scores lie. Rodriguez's day of two-for-five with a home run looks real pretty, but baseball fans who watched the game know that when the game was on the line, and when plays had to be made that determined the outcome of the game, A Rod did not help his team win the game.
So, does that mean the Yankees should throw a party if Rodriguez decides to opt out of his contract at the end of the year and head to Chicago to reunite with his man-crush Lou Piniella with the Cubs? I'm sure Staats would draw that conclusion, but I would not. I hope A Rod stays with the Yankees.
No, I am not a flip-flopper. No need to call Karl Rove to have me destroyed (I've never been on a swift boat). As I said, Rodriguez is an all-time talent, and it is worth it to see if he can develop into a player to match his abilities.
I was actually impressed with two things he did in the game. In the first inning, despite his strikeout, he patiently ran the count full, just like several other batters did that first inning. That is Yankee baseball: Run down the starter so he has to exit early, and then take advantage of the traditionally-weaker middle relievers. That's what happened Monday when the Yanks wore down Kazmir, making him throw so many pitches that he was out of gas by the sixth inning.
A Rod also found a way to contribute despite his inability to play defense or hit in the clutch. He singled with the game tied and nobody on base. He proceeded to steal second and hustle home on another clutch hit by Giambi. A Rod's willingness to play a role outside his job description, to steal a run with his feet, showed a dedication to team goals that was encouraging.
That, to me, is the big question. Not if the Yankee fans will warm to Rodriguez, but if he will learn how to develop from a player with great numbers into a great player. His decision on whether or not to opt out will be telling. When he left Seattle for Texas, it was hard to blame a guy for accepting such an enormous contract. But, at the same time, he had to know that it would be unlikely he could win consistently there. He made a choice to take the most money over the best place for him to win. Seattle, a perennial playoff team, had offered him something like $180 million, more than $70 million less than Texas, but still plenty for any one to do whatever they wanted to. It would be hard to imagine a guy like Jeter going to Texas.
I also think that it is very interesting and more than a coincidence that in A Rod's last year in Seattle, the team went 91-71, but the year after he left, the team improved to an incredible 116-46. Who knows, maybe they would have won 120 with A Rod. I doubt it, though. I think with Rodriguez gone, the team was able to play as, just that, a team. Guys like Edgar Martinez, Brett Boone and John Olerud led the way, guys that would have fit in nicely on the Yankee World Series teams of the 1990s. If Rodriguez opts out of his contract at the end of this year, it will feel to me like an admission that he could not adjust to an environment where winning took precedence over individual statistics.
When the Yankees won four World Series titles between 1996 and 2000, they didn't always have the players with the gaudiest batting statistics. In fact, the 2001 Yankees managed to move within two outs in Game 7 of another championship while maintaining a batting average in the Series of .183. And, contrary to the propaganda spewed forth from jealous cities like Boston, Baltimore and Flushing, the Yankees didn't even have the highest payrolls all of those years.
But, those Yankee teams knew how to win. They pitched. They hit in the clutch. And, each player, in any given situation, knew what move they had to make to win a game, whether it was pretty in the box score or not.
To me, a great example of that team's grit and nose for victory was Paul O'Neill's at bat in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 1 of the 2000 World Series against the Yankees' cross-town little brothers, the Mets. The Yankees were down a run, there was one out, and the fireballing-but-volatile Armando Benitez was on the mound. Benitez had set off a brawl two years earlier when he plunked Tino Martinez in the back after surrendering a home run to the previous batter.
O'Neill was clearly overmatched by Benitez's 98-mile-per-hour fastballs and found himself down in the count. But, O'Neill patiently fouled off pitch after pitch, until a frustrated Benitez finally walked him. He later moved to third on singles by two role players (with numbers that don't reside in the same solar system as A Rod's), Luis Polonia and Jose Vizcaino, and scored on a sacrifice fly by Chuck Knoblauch. The box score for that game shows that O'Neill went one-for-four, but anyone who watched the game knows how clutch that ninth-inning walk was. The Yankees went on to win in five games, and many players later pointed to O'Neill's at bat as the turning point of the Series.
It would be hard to picture Rodriguez working out a tough walk when he was overmatched like O'Neill did, or even managing singles like Polonia and Vizcaino did to keep the inning alive. (Ironically, Polonia is the batter that nearly sunk the Yankees in 1996 when O'Neill made the running catch on the last out to seal the game.)
I don't expect Rodriguez to be O'Neill or Jeter, but I do expect him to grow and develop. If he does, he could be a truly scary player, one of the all-time greats. I hope it happens. Maybe Yankee fans shouldn't boo A Rod, but they also understand the difference between a great player that helps his team win and a player that puts up great numbers. Now, if only A Rod could make that leap, he would win over a lot of fans ... and maybe even a couple of rings, too.
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