the_nub.html
“Politics
and
baseball. Interesting blog…called ‘The
Nub’ on perfectpitcher.org.”
-
Boston Globe
“I’ve
been reading The
Nub with much delight, and
learning from it.”
-
Bill Moyers
(Posted 1/6/08)
Patience Asked of
Bosox and Barack Fans
Bosox partisans, like supporters of
Barack Obama, are
pitching the same virtue to fellow fans.
Be patient, they say, things will work out, decisions made to
your liking.
Members of the Sox Nation are restive over the team’s minimal
off-season
activity (compared to the Yankees) – adding Brad Penny but losing Mark
Teixiera. People like Boston Globe
columnist Bob Ryan advise them to cool it, reminding them that GM Theo
Epstein
has earned their confidence: “Theo…has been right more often than he’s
been
wrong.”
A recent Gallup Poll found that 93
percent of liberal
Democrats surveyed were confident Barack
Obama would be a good president. On specific issues, however, there is
progressive dismay: Obama’s stance for
expanding the war in Afghanistan
is a source of particular concern. Many
liberals opposed the consensus view that the war in Afghanistan
was “right”, unlike the one in Iraq.
A small, police-action force could have
been used, they said, to try to ferret Osama bin Laden out of his
dugout. That would have been preferable to
the
carnage Team Bush unleashed in vain.
Historian Howard Zinn recently
amplified the argument in a
speech at (NY) State University, Binghamton
(recorded by Pacifica’s
“Democracy Now.”) At the time, he said,
some progressives asked “Why are we
bombing Afghanistan?”
“Because, oh, Osama bin Laden is there.” “Uh, where?” Well, (we) don’t
really
know, so we’ll bomb the country. You know, if we bomb the country,
maybe we’ll
get him. Sure, in the process, thousands
of Afghans will die…”
We know now that Osama has, indeed, become “Osama
bin Forgotten.” Failing to find him, Team Bush has made the Taliban as
well as Al
Quaida a major target, killing more and more innocent civilians in its
endless
military campaign. Zinn said he
“likes”
Obama and understands the need for patience:
“But I’m a
citizen. I have to speak my mind. At one
point in the campaign, (Obama) said, ‘It’s not just a matter of getting
out of Iraq.
It’s a matter of changing the mindset that
got
us into Iraq.’
That was a very important statement. Unfortunately, he has not followed through by
changing his mindset.”
-
- -
There’s an occasional faint sign that the Mets
are
following through on an effort to upgrade their farm system. One such has emerged from the Puerto Rican
Winter League in the form of 22-year-old righthander Dillon Gee. Latest stats show Gee with a 4-0 record in 10
games and a 43-13 strikeout/walk ratio in 48 innings.
He divided the ’08 season between Single-A
Saint Lucie and Double-A Binghamton, going 10-6. Meanwhile,
the Mets’ 20-year-old
super-prospect Fernando Martinez has been showing power in the
Venezuelan
League. In 41 games, he was batting
.314, with seven doubles, five triples and six home runs.
The Yankees may have a budding slugger in first
baseman Jorge Vazquez, who was batting .348, with 12 doubles and 15 HRs
in 54
Mexican Pacific League games. The
26-year-old hit .339, with 18 homers in 56 games in regular Mexican
League
season. The Red Sox would seem to have
future third-base help in 24-year-old Jorge Jiminez, who has hit .346
in 27
Puerto Rican League games after batting .352 for the Single-A Lowell
Spinners
before a late-season promotion to Double-A Portland
Since Omar Minaya and Brian Cashman know at least
as much as attentive fans about needed team improvements, they must be
aware
that:
- The Mets will be left with only a wild card hope
in ’09 if the Phillies sign Derek Lowe.
- Joe Girardi likes Oliver Perez - “He has a chance
to good” - and would likely welcome the challenge of to harnessing the
free agent’s unstable
pitching talent.
-
o -
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey.
Comments
to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome, as are subscription requests.
Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
(Posted
1/3/09)
U.S. Made Similar Errors on Two Fields
The
other day, former Mets manager Davy Johnson deplored the
way the U.S.botched its role as would-be world leader: “We assumed that if
we threw our gloves out there and took our hacks, we were going to win,”
he said. “The rest of the
world…was a lot better.”
Johnson was talking about Team USA’s
cavalier approach to the
first World Baseball Classic (WBC) in 2006.
But his words certainly applied to Team Bush’s leadership in the
foreign
policy field. The presumed cheering that
our military would receive in Iraq
was the perfect symbolic error, but the record book is replete with
others, most
familiar, some not. A recent, largely
unnoticed federal scorecard, for example, confirmed a devastating truth
about a
$100 billion effort that was supposed to keep the Iraqis cheering after
the
“shock and awe” innings. “Five years after
embarking
on its largest foreign reconstruction project since the Marshall Plan
in
Europe,” it said, “the U.S. government has in place neither the
policies and
technical capacity nor the organizational structure that would be
needed to
undertake such a program.”
The
dimensions of other misplays -
in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Latin
America,
etc. – are becoming more and more evident. In
the Middle East,
domestic politics has so skewed our outlook that a pitch for an
“even-handed” stance
toward the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is construed as anti-Israeli. In going to bat for the relentless offensive
against Hamas, Barack Obama has all but dashed hopes for an end to our
one-sidedness. Author/actor Wallace
Shawn expressed the dismay of many Americans in an article in The
Nation:
“It
is…unbearable to think that among the
first words we would hear from our new, clearly rational president
would be
preposterous sentences trying to persuade us that Israeli policies
which seem
to be appalling are actually quite normal and acceptable. Certainly
nothing our
new president could do would be of greater value to the world--and
greater
value to the Jews--than to abruptly end the sickeningly patronizing
habit of
supporting an irrationality which was born in tragedy and will end in
more
tragedy.”
Diehard
Obama fans cling to the notion that he will
straighten out his political swing by the time he steps to the plate on
the 20th. Davy Johnson assured
Yahoo’s Gordon Edes that
Team USA would be focused and ready for the second WBC in early March. With a roster that includes pitchers Roy
Oswalt, John Lackey and Joe Nathan, and
position players Derek Jeter, David Wright, Chipper Jones, Jimmy
Rollins, Ryan
Braun, Grady Sizemore, etc., Johnson would seem to have a better basis
than the
Obama fans for optimism.
-
- -
The Mets and Red Sox have something in common: both teams
say they will not “break the bank” to sign free agents this winter. The Mets, we know, need to add a solid
starter to their rotation, the Sox are looking for position-player
reinforcements. Boston made a generous bid for Mark
Teixiera,
only to be outbid by the Yankees. “So be
it,” they said. The Mets said they would
not spend beyond their means after Derek Lowe declined an offer of more
than
$36 million for three years. Although
the teams are taking a similar spending approach, they’re in different
talent-flow
ballparks. The Sox had twice as many
minor league all stars (among those selected by Baseball America)
as the
NYMs in ‘08, and finished ninth of 30 in aggregate W-L minor league
standings, while
the Mets came in 25th. The
obvious moral: teams cannot maintain economic discipline and hope to
win without
a productive farm system.
- o -
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey.
Comments
to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome, as are subscription requests.
Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
DECEMBER 2008
ARCHIVE
(Posted: 12/30/08)
Money Talking for
Mike and the Yanks
Two of New York’s
most prominent competitors - the Yankees in baseball, and Mike
Bloomberg in
politics - seem to have the same strategic stance.
Spelled out, their approach can be described thusly: “NEW YORK DESERVES THE BEST.
MONEY IS NO OBJECT.”
The Yanks, we know, activated their
strategy by anteing $423
million for C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira.
Bloomberg is ready to spend close to $100
million in his pitch for a controversial third mayoral term. Both the team and the mayor are in position
to see their outlays pay off: for the Yanks, a shot at the World
Series; for
Bloomberg, a front-running chance at winning four more years as the
city’s skipper.
But fans know nothing is sure in either
competitive field: the
Yankees have antagonized their less well-heeled opponents.
Their extravagant spending insures that each
team on the schedule will be lying in wait with an unparalleled
incentive to
cut them down to size. Team Bloomberg must deal with widespread
resentment of
the mayor’s unwillingness to let voters decide via referendum whether
term
limits should be extended. In our
current economic environment, a leader who is both super-wealthy and
undemocratic can generate strong opposition.
One can imagine a variation on an old
theme - “He’s the Best
Mayor Money Can Buy -and Keep Around” - striking a public nerve. A similar resentment of the Yankees’
extravagance after begging taxpayer dollars could badly hurt demand for
overpriced seats in the new, heavily subsidized Stadium.
If nothing else, the mayor may find himself
in a tough, brush-back battle for re-election.
As for the Yanks, they’ve roused the combative ire of at least
one
adversary: a Boston
columnist says Red Sox fans should be happy the Steinbrenners have
spent so
much to improve, thereby sharpening a rivalry that had become too
one-sided.
- -
-
Although we deplore the practice of sports writers presuming
to spend other people’s money, recommending free-agent deals - “Pay
whatever
Manny or Derek Lowe ask” - we feel constrained
to make this modest recommendation to
the Yanks, Mets, and even the Red Sox:
Sign Mark Kotsay. The veteran
outfielder, who played with Atlanta and
Boston
last season, can
probably be had for a bargain rate (say, a few million).
He would certainly fill the Yankees’ big
center field hole, or meet the Mets’ need for a solid defensive corner
outfielder who is no slouch at the plate (a career .281 hitter). Back problems sidelined Kotsay for five weeks
in ’08, but he finished the season strong, playing in 110 games. The Red Sox could use him again as a
part-time first baseman, now that Teixeira is going elsewhere. Some team’s going to grab him, and - it says
here -be happy it did.
Just as the first round of baseball
playoffs clearly
includes teams that don’t belong - we said that in October about the
Brewers
and White Sox - so it is in the NFL Wild Card round this Sunday: San Diego (8-8) and Arizona
(9-7) are the playoff imposters. For us,
there’s a bigger source of dismay than the presence of undeserving
first-round teams:
it’s the schedule that puts all four games in sunbelt (Arizona,
San Diego, Miami)
or indoor (Minnesota)
sites. Frostbelt
football, outdoors and, preferably, on natural turf, is what we believe
is
worth watching. For that we’ll have to
wait until a week from Sunday, when the Giants and Steelers play at
home, in
the open January air.
- o -
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey. Comments
to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome, as are subscription requests.
Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
(Posted 12/23/08)
NY’s
Likely Political Rookie of the Year in ‘09
“The envelope, please, Governor
Paterson.”
“The next
U.S. Senator from New York
is…Joe Torre!”
That’s a
fanciful choice to replace Secretary of State nominee Hillary Clinton –
one of
13 “interesting people” – suggested by the New Yorker’s Hendrik
Hertzberg. He calls the names on Paterson’s
political list of potential
choices as “strikingly unimaginative.”
It’s doubtful that Torre has maintained a New York residence
that he may
have once had, just as it is unlikely that another from the Hertzberg
list,
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, has maintained his long-ago NY residential status. But Hertzberg’s game seems to be to justify Paterson’s probable selection of
Caroline
Kennedy: she is the only one on the governor’s list, Hertzberg says,
“that
qualifies as even marginally adventurous.”
It says here
that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo or Nassau County Executive Tom
Suozzi (for
whom we’ve worked in the past) would, based on their experience and
records, be
excellent choices. But both have a
gender-disadvantage - many believe the seat Clinton holds should be handed on to
a
woman. There’s a further sense that
Cuomo (like his predecessor Eliot Spitzer) has made himself almost
irreplaceable as AG. Most agreed in 2006
that gubernatorial candidate Suozzi had everything going for him except
timing:
he had chosen to go to bat against Spitzer, the widely acclaimed
“Sheriff of
Wall Street.”
As for the
three most frequently mentioned Congresswomen in the mix - upstater
Kirsten
Gillibrand, Manhattan and Queens Rep.
Carolyn
Maloney, and Brooklyn’s Nydia Velazquez - they would, under ordinary
circumstances, have much to recommend them: Gillenbrandt is a bright
new face;
Maloney has 16 years of experience in the lower chamber, and Velazquez
is the
rare Latina in federal elective office.
But none of them can match the illustrious name – the obvious
star power
– and access to money that Caroline offers.
There’s all that, and the fact that, until she came out for
Obama last January,
the 51-year-old daughter of JFK and Jacqueline Kennedy had avoided
making enemies with political clout. She could be the “rookie of the year” in 2009
that Sarah Palin might have been in 2008 had she sparked Team McCain to
victory
in the presidential contest.
Had
the timing and other contingencies
worked out, Joe Torre going to the U.S. Senate would not have been
far-fetched. After winning four World
Series in five years in 2000, Torre was popular enough - downstate
anyway - to
succeed in joining another major leaguer, Kentucky’s Jim (No-Hit) Bunning, in
the
upper chamber.
- -
-
Anyone paying
attention to the affiliations of the 84 minor league all stars listed
last year
by Baseball America
could
not have been surprised by the emergence of the Tampa Bay Rays as an AL power in ’08. The Rays owned seven of the stars chosen from
the six minor-league levels (nine position players and five pitchers at
each
level). That was more than other team
could claim. This year, three teams -
the Cardinals, Indians and Padres - placed six players each on the
all-star
rosters to share the distinction of having the most apparent blue-chip
farmhands
in baseball. They will bear the kind of
watching next season the Rays should have received this year.
Watching
39-year-old
Brett Favre run out of steam as the Jets’ season winds down should be a
cautionary lesson for baseball GMs.
Pitchers like Andy Pettitte, who will be 37 this June, are
especially susceptible
to late-season fatigue. Look what
happened to Andy last season, when, after a terrific start, he had to
settle
for a .500 W-L record (14-14). It’s a
lesson Brian Cashman may not yet have learned; Mets fans can hope Omar
Minaya
has, at last.
- o -
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey.
Comments
to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome, as are subscription requests.
Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
(Posted: 12/20/08)
Iraq’s Billy Wagner
of Political Counter-Spin
Mets fans remember the
pre-Santana-signing period a year ago
when Billy Wagner low-bridged the team’s “things-are-looking-fine” spin. “We’ve lost the 13 games that Tom Glavine
won,” he said, “and let go a catcher (Paul LoDuca) who wanted to win
more than
most guys. I think there’s reason to be worried.”
Shoe-thrower Muntader al-Zaidi is the Billy
Wagner of political counter-spin. His
brush-back interruption of the Bush news
conference in Baghdad sent a clear
message to
the world: “Don’t believe the hype about things being fine in Iraq
as George
W. heads for the showers.”
A feature of Team Bush’s last season has been
a run of stories about how
the game in Iraq
is being won. Typical was this account
last winter in USA Today about progress a year ago this month: “U.S. deaths
were at their lowest levels since
the 2003 invasion, civilian casualties were down, and street life was
resuming
in Baghdad.”
Then, in April, Bush’s field manager General
David Petraeus reinforced a
series of “Surge-is-working”media reports: “Levels of violence and
civilian
deaths have been reduced substantially,” he told a panel of
senators.
“Al-Qaeda
Iraq
and a number of other extremist elements have been dealt serious blows."
And just the other day, the Washington Post
ran a story by its syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, which
suggested
our “hav(ing)
turned a chronically destabilizing enemy state at
the epicenter of the Arab Middle East
into an
ally.”
It was not only the toss of the shoe that
exposed the new-friends-in-Iraq
myth; al-Zaidi’s words as he threw - “This is from the widows, the
orphans and
those who were killed in Iraq” - brought home the horror of what Bush’s
unprovoked pre-emptive war has produced.
And why our efforts to make Iraq a trusted democratic
ally will
never succeed.
More than a million Iraqi civilians are dead
as a result of the war –
that’s the stat reported by British sources - and another million felt
they had
to flee the country. The symbolic empty
shoe will be part of Bush’s legacy. It’s
a disembodied image expressive of what could be his epitaph -
pronounced in
2003 by historian Howard Zinn: “He has no respect for
human life."
The Mets wisely did no more than ask Wagner to
cool it in the future
(which he never did). The Iraqi
government would be equally wise to give al-Zaidi no more than a slap
on his
pitching wrist. All Iraq - indeed, the Arab,
and the
entire world - is watching.
- -
-
Baseball America’s
annual review of the minor leagues contains a possible clue as to why
the
Yankees have deemphasized their dependence on farm system call-ups and
reemphasized paying big bucks for big-time free agents.
The Yanks had only two players - Brett
Gardner, at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes Barre, and catcher Jesus Montero
at low
Class A Charleston, SC - among the 84 all stars chosen from the six
minor-league levels this past season (14, nine position players and
five
pitchers at each level). Last year, they
had five, led by Edwar Ramirez and Ian Kennedy.
The Red Sox, who placed three players among the 84 all-stars in
2007,
had four this past season, headed by outfielder Chris Carter, at
Triple-A
Pawtucket, and pitcher Michael Bowden, at Double-A Portland, ME..
The Mets, who
have continually insisted that their farm system is better
than it looks, gave a speck of credence to that claim this year. The team went zero for 84 in 2007; not a
single all-star belonged to the Mets. This
year, they placed pitcher Brad Holt of Brooklyn on the Short-Season
A-league
all stars, and shortstop Wilmer Flores of Kingsport, TN,
on the Rookie League
stars. The NYMs, who finished 27th
of 30 in organizational standings (overall W-L at the six levels) last
year,
edged up to 25th in 2008. The
Yankees finished at the top of that category both seasons.
The Red Sox went from 12th in ’07
to 9th in '08.
- o -
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey.
Comments
to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome, as are subscription requests.
Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
(Posted: 12/16/08)
Errors Many of Us Miss
Errors of omission, the kind that don’t
show up in the box
score: an infielder’s failure to cover a base to force a runner, an
outfielder
letting a catchable foul fly fall because he thought it was curving
into the
stands.
In politics, such errors only show up
if we’re paying
attention. Team Bush launched a blistering
offense against the legal way the game was played in the U.S. There was a great outcry from spectators,
media people and officials close to the field.
But the players who could have turned things around and made a
key error
of omission instead were hardly noted.
Similarly, the Bush-ites arranged a
$700 billion bailout for
certain Wall Street teams, using public dollars. Again
came the protests of observers, followed
by yet another crucial error of omission by players who should have
been alert.
The reckoning is coming too late to
stop some of the
excesses, but in time to emphasize the identity of those ultimately at
fault,
those who failed to make the possibly game-saving plays.
In a double-header on Bill Moyers’
Journal the other night, leadoff
man Glenn Greenwald of Salon reviewed in striking words what we already
knew in
an unfocused way: Team Bush’s offense,
he said, was “a declaration of war on the
whole idea of law itself, on the idea that our political leaders are
constrained in any way by the limitations of the American people
imposed
through our Congress.”
We
expected those limitations to be imposed, he
said. Instead “Congress
(became)
virtually invisible, impotent, powerless, by its own accord, almost
voluntarily…We
need Congress to reassert itself in terms of how the government
functions.”
In the second
spot, Moyers had Georgetown
U. economics professor Emma
Coleman Jordan
address the error connected with Team Bush’s early bailout. She said when Treasury Secretary Henry
Paulson went to bat, he hit what should have been an easy force-out: “(Paulson)
believed that by fixing the problem at the top,
by giving the money with trust to his peer institutions on Wall Street,
the
money would trickle down in the form of lending to consumers and
businesses.
And the economy would be restored. And so that way of thinking
dominated his
decision making…
“The
facts (contradicting that belief)…. clearly on display
were simply ignored.”
After scoring
what she called “the highest officials in the
land” for “less-than-capable” decision-making, Coleman Jordan
referred
to the more egregious error of omission, the second, committed by
players in
the House and Senate: “I have to ask a question of accountability
for our elected officials. You've got to
step up and do more to make sure that there is proper oversight before
you let
the money go out the door.”
The
bipartisan failure to step up should be noted. Although
the Congressional lineup was
top-heavy with Democrats, the Republicans could have stopped the
majority from
going along. Team GOP has shown it can
slow the game up in its anti-Labor stance over the auto industry
bailout.
-
-
-
Balks from the Box Seats (re previous Nub):
“I
am pretty sure (Bush)
will be remembered more for leading the country from fiscal stability
into a
massive recession with gargantuan deficits, rather than for his ability
to
prevent terrorist events.” -
Hedge-Fund
manager
“I think
the
notion of credit for Bush that there has not been another terrorist
attack is
wrong…These things come in almost every country with long intervals; in
the US,
it was more than eight years between early 1993 (the first attack on
the
WTC) and 9/11/2001.” - Health Affairs Consultant
“The
Yankees don't win because they
have more money. They win because they use the money they have to
build
better teams that in turn let them attract fans who generate more money
which
they use to build better teams, etc. By contrast, President Bush
inherited a strong franchise, wasted his capital and left without a fan
base.” - Member, NY
State Judiciary.
Could there be a
connection between
the heavy hit Mets boss Fred Wilpon may have taken in the collapse of
friend
Bernard Madoff’s investment firm and the loss of the team’s interest in
signing
a top-tier startng pitcher? The guess
here is the answer is no; before the Madoff story broke, the Mets were
already
into their penny-pinching mode. The talk
now is of their signing moderately priced Randy Wolf (12-12
with San Diego
and Houston
in
’08) to join a rotation of Johan Santana, Mike Pelfrey, John Maine and
Jonathan
Niese. Three of that five are not going
to scare anybody. If Oliver Perez is
re-signed - a 50-50 bet, according to Omar Minaya – the pitching
outlook will
be brighter, but not by much.
- o -
(The Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.
Comments
to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome, as are subscription requests.
Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
(Posted:
12/13/08)
The Tale of Two Georges
Before the
year that signaled
their retirement ends, let’s check the record book on two Georges with
baseball
and other things in common – George Steinbrenner and George W. Bush. One has already stepped down from his
seat
of power, the other will make his departure official next month. A skim of how they performed shows this:
Both led
baseball teams, of course
– Steinbrenner as owner of the Yankees from 1973 to this year, Bush as
co-owner
of the Texas Rangers from 1989 to 1994.
Both were Republicans and both ran afoul of the law, one
seriously.
Steinbrenner was convicted in 1974 of making illegal contributions to
President
Nixon’s re-election campaign and of obstruction of justice, a felony. He was spared a jail sentence and paid fines
instead. In 1976, Bush was arrested in Maine for
driving under
the influence of alcohol. He forfeited
his license.
Bush batted
1.000 when he went to
the plate in presidential contests, going two-for-two.
Steinbrenner teams won 10 pennants and six
World Series titles while he was in charge of the Yankees.
Both men held power against a backdrop of
unpopularity; each became associated with the phrase “evil empire.” Bush lost broad support for misleading the
country into the Iraq
invasion and acting to condone torture in the war on terror and curtail
civil
liberties at home. Steinbrenner was
booed, first, for buying all the best players, then for meddling in the
on-the-field running of his ballclub, frequently hiring and firing
managers,
etc.
In the end,
however, Steinbrenner
earned the respect of fans, players and even members of the media. Until this year, the Yankees had qualified
for the playoffs for 13 straight seasons, and between 1996 and 2000,
they won
four World Series titles. The team has
missed
that type of success this decade. As for
Bush, there was a major accomplishment on his watch that must be
acknowledged,
even by his detractors: After 9/11, the country remained untouched by a
second
terrorist attack. Like Ronald Reagan, on
whose watch Communism collapsed in 1989, Bush may be remembered,
however
grudgingly, for that single achievem
-
- -
The Yankees have returned to George S’s policy of buying the
best players available…and it has people in Red Sox Nation worried. The Globe’s Nick Cafardo saw the
Yanks as formidable even before they
signed A.J. Burnett:
“They
have always been on an island by themselves in terms of what they
can afford. They have tried to scale back that approach, trying to go
the farm
system route, but at the end of the day they revert to what they do
best - they
buy the best available players...The Yankees will now have a formidable
rotation with Sabathia at the head…Watch out.”
There’ll
be plenty of time to lament the lack of quality position
players filling holes in the Mets’ roster, so for today let’s hail the
good job
Omar Minaya did in landing Francisco Rodriguez and J.J. Putz. Aaron Heilman may vindicate his early promise
as a starter with the Mariners, and Joe Smith may develop into a
reliable
relief specialist with the Indians. But
what they gave the Mets won’t be missed.
Endy Chavez is another story; he had spark as a sub – he could
run and
field, and hit enough. The Mets’ loss -
admittedly minimal - is the Mariners’ gain.
Two of the three minor leaguers dealt to Seattle may be heard from again:
first
baseman Mike Carp hit for moderate power - 17 HRs - and average, .299,
at
Double-A Binghamton last season. High
Class A third baseman Ezequiel Carrera was organizational leader in
triples -
12 - while batting .263 for St.Lucie.
The Mets are adding two Mariner marginals as part of the deal -
relief
pitcher Sean Green (4-5, 4.67 ERA) and outfielder Jeremy Reed (.269, 18
doubles, two HRs in 97 games).
-
o -
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(Posted: 12/9/08)
Obama Needs
Fortified Bench to Make Crucial Plays
Bench strength: In politics as in baseball, it
separates
winners from losers.
The re-election of Saxby Chambliss in Georgia’s
Senate playoff last week means Team Obama will fall short of the
strength
needed to nail down a victory during crucial legislative plays. The Dem president’s team will have to recruit
the equivalent of one, two or (if Independent Joe Lieberman doesn’t go
along)
three rental players to have the numbers - 60 -to force a vote on a
bill that
will clinch the win. The rentals will
have to be recruited from a small group of free agents playing with the
GOP. The two most likely are Maine’s Olympia
Snowe
and Susan Collins, both of whom hit to all political fields.
Outside GOP rental possibilities are Pennsylvania’s
Arlen Specter, whom NY Times columnist Gail Collins sees as a
potentially
erratic addition to the Obama bench (“’Moderate and ‘deeply, deeply,
deeply
politically pragmatic’ are not precisely the same thing.”) and Ohio’s George
Voinovich. The Nation’s John Nichols
thinks the survival instinct may persuade the pair to play ball with
the Dem
team, if needed: “For
Specter and Voinovich, both of whom face what could be difficult 2010
reelection races in states that were won by Obama, it may be hard to
say no to
the president.”
The
name of the game: filibuster-blocking. Team
Obama knows its success will be
determined on how effectively it scores in that competition.
Hot-stove speculation about Hillary
Clinton, key member of
Team Obama’s core, is, well, heated. On
one hand, Israeli-affairs scholar Aaron David Miller is quoted in the
National
Journal as saying “Clinton's sensitivity
to
domestic politics may discourage her from pushing Israel
as well as the Arabs toward
concessions for progress.” On
the other, Robert Scheer predicts in
the San Francisco Chronicle that Hillary “will
leave her mark (as secretary of state) by
exploiting her pro-Israel creds to complete President Bill Clinton's
once
promising Mideast peace initiatives to finally provide the
Palestinians, and
Israelis, with viable states.”
- -
-
At this point, the chances of the Mets providing their fans with a
team good enough to make the playoffs
are slim. Why?
A shortage both of productive second-line
players and of a willingness to compete - that is, spend the money -
for more
than one top-tier free agent. No one
describes how puzzling it all is better than the Star-Ledger’s Dan
Graziano:
“If
you're the Mets, with your own TV network and a
beautiful new ballpark set to open in April, why be conservative? Why
let
yourself be priced out of Sabathia, Burnett and Lowe? Why fall in with
the
teams claiming the poor economy as a reason to hold back this
off-season and
see how the market develops?
“The Yankees
aren't holding back.
The Red Sox aren't. They're making plays for Sabathia and Mark
Teixeira, the
biggest names on the free-agent market. These are the big-money teams,
and the
big-money teams set the market -- they don't wait for the market to
come to
them. The Mets are a big-money team too.
They just don't act like it.”
-
o -
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(Posted
12/6/08)
Team Obama May
Change U.S. Anti-Chavez Stance
Johan Santana…Carlos Zambrano…Francisco
Rodriguez…Magglio
Ordonez…Bobby Abreu
Those are some of the more than three
dozen Venezuelan major
league players. A peripheral,
just-off-the-black, benefit of Barack Obama’s taking over Team USA
is
the possibility Johan, Carlos, et al will no longer feel their
nationality is
frowned upon here for political reasons.
Team Bush didn’t like Venezuela’s
democratically elected skipper Hugo Chavez, mainly because he guided
his
country from the left side of the political playing field.
Six years ago, the Bush-ites were implicated
in a failed right-wing effort to force Chavez out of the game on his
home
turf.
Since then Chavez has considered the U.S.
government no friend and in a
speech at the UN called Bush a “devil”.
The tension between our “market democracy”and social-democratic
stances
spreading in Latin America is hardly
new. The yanquis,
we know, have meddled in the
region’s internal affairs since the late 19th century.
What is new is the near-unanimity with
which the U.S. media –
led by the NY Times and Washington Post - have echoed the government
line, much
as they did in the run-up to the Iraq invasion.
The media’s latest anti-Chavez line drives came this week when
Hugo had
the Chutzpah to call for something NYC residents have been denied - a
repeat referendum on term limits. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald calls our press’s
consistent prejudicial parroting a disgrace:
“To
this day, Chavez's hostility towards the U.S. Government
(just as is
true for the hostility of Iranian and Cuban leaders and many others) is
depicted as proof of his dangerous extremism and irrationality -- even
his
mental instability -- as though American attempts to dictate who
governs other
countries will generate anger and resentment only among the Primitive,
the
Crazed, and the Evil. More generally, discussions of our own role
in
spawning anti-American sentiment around the world is still more or less
off
limits in mainstream discourse… And our political and media elite
continue to
bastardize language to justify whatever we do, with ’democracy’ meaning
’a
government that follows U.S. dictates regardless of how it gained and
maintains
power,’ and ‘dictatorship’ meaning ‘a
government not beholden to U.S. dictates even if they were
democratically
elected’."
Indeed,
speaking positively about their native land seems to be off-limits to
the
Venezuelan major leaguers, who maintain a prudent silence about
politics. The onetime exception: voluble
White Sox
manager Ozzie Guillen. Five years ago,
on leading his team to a World Series title, Guillen expressed his
national
pride before a U.S.
television audience. After
congratulating his team, Ozzie said with emotion: “Viva
Venezuela!”
-
-
-
When he
signed a five-year contract to be Mets GM four years ago, Omar Minaya
was
promised he would not have to share power with VP Jeff Wilpon, who had
undercut
Jim Duquette, Omar’s predecessor. That
promise apparently no longer applies after the two straight late-season
Mets
collapses. True, Minaya has been granted
a four-year contract extension, but Jeff, the boss’s son, has made
clear that
he and father Fred will be looking over Omar’s shoulder from now on. One reason: the four-year, $25 million
contract the GM gave to Luis Castillo, a deal Joe Sheehan of Baseball
Prospectus calls “the worst idea of Omar Minaya’s career.”
Jeff
Wilpon hinted at the dilution of Minaya’s authority the other day when
he
sought to quiet concerns about the Mets’ inactivity on the free-agent
and trade
fronts: "Omar
is comfortable with where we are…He's on the phone all of the time with
the
other GMs, trying to set things up ... He knows where he's going and
where he
wants to go. We're going to let him do
that."
Post-script
to the lead story: Actor and baseball
fan Sean Penn interviewed Hugo Chavez for The Nation magazine. Penn reported he needed a translator, but…”
On the subject of baseball, Chávez's
command of English soars.”
- o -
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(Posted
12/2/08)
Bloomberg's 'Hidden Ball Trick' Not Working
Former NYC schools chancellor Frank Macchiarola
calls it
Mike Bloomberg’s “hidden ball trick.”
The “ball” is the back-room jawboning managed by the mayor in
connection
with the city’s giveaways to the Yankees for their new stadium. Mike sent pinch-hitters to press a
quid-pro-quo
demand for a free luxury suite, which the city received after agreeing
to grant
the Yankees an add-on goodie - 250 free parking spaces in a
municipally-leased
lot.
The mayor distanced himself from the
tawdry deal-making,
just as he hid behind Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff when in 2005 the city
tried to
win public approval of a West Side Stadium by linking the project to a
far-fetched bid for the 2012 Olympic Games.
This time, one of Mike’s new-stadium stand-ins gave away the
trick: “This is a big issue to the mayor,”
he said,
during e-mail exchanges with the Yankees.
Thanks to some digging by a team run by
Westchester
Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, Mayor Mike can’t hide from the major role
he’s
played in defraying the Yankees’ construction costs to the tune of
hundreds of
millions of taxpayer dollars. As one
example of indirect financial help, Team Bloomberg got the IRS to let
the
Yankees float $942 million in tax-free bonds.
Only after that favor did the team consider turning the luxury
suite over
to the city.
By begging handouts, the Yankees,
baseball’s richest
franchise, have tarnished their gilt-edged image. But
the PR hit the team has taken is nothing
compared to the depth of Bloomberg’s self-inflicted wound.
Polls throughout most of his seven years in
office showed him scoring consistently high in trustworthiness. His stadium hidden-ball moves plus his devious
stance on extending term limits have surely undercut that strength.
Village Voice columnist Wayne Barrett
offers a measure of
how badly Bloomberg has hurt himself. He
called Mike “the best mayor…I’ve covered in 31 years.” Now, says
Barrett, “he’s
also the worst.” Here’s how Barrett sums
up what has happened to the once “best” mayor:
“The Bloomberg who came into office as
the
anti-politician, promising to transform city government, has been
transformed
himself. Some of us liked him precisely because his wealth insulated
him from
the kind of horsetrading that diminished his predecessors. But seven
years
later, Bloomberg has…proved himself to be a master politician, as
hungry for
power as anyone we've ever seen…”
A master politician from the era of the French
Revolution –
Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand – could have been speaking with
prescience about the
Bloomberg of 2008 when he said: “The most difficult farewell is the
farewell to
power.”
- -
-
Keeping the Thanksgiving
spirit alive in the baseball world, the Boston Globe’s Nick Cafardo and
his
statman Bill Chuck offer these expressions of gratitude for good things
that
happened in the 2008 season on behalf of players, teams and fans who
experienced those things:
“1. Mark Buehrle is
thankful
for throwing 34 double plays this past season, the most in the majors,
and the
White Sox are thankful for Buehrle, because in 218 2/3 innings, he
committed no
errors. 2. Trevor Hoffman
is thankful to umpires who called 70.3
percent of his pitches strikes, the highest percentage in the majors.
3. The
Rays are thankful to Akinori
Iwamura,
who in 627 at-bats only grounded into two double plays, the fewest in
the
majors. 4. The Yankees are thankful to the 4,298,655 fans who
attended
their games, the most in the majors. 5. The Diamondbacks are thankful
for
catcher Chris
Snyder, who in 112 games made no errors. 6. The
Brewers are
thankful for left fielder Ryan
Braun, who in 149 games
made no errors. 7. Phillies starters are thankful to Brad Lidge,
who was 41 for 41 in save opportunities. 8. Orioles pitchers are
grateful to Nick Markakis and his AL
outfielder-leading 17
assists. 9. Braves fans are thankful to Chipper Jones, who hit .399 in Atlanta, the highest home average of
any
batter in baseball.”
- o
-
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November 2008
Archive
(Posted
11/29/08)
For Wage-earners and Ballfans, 'Misery
Loves Company'
Who could blame the many Mets fans who exulted in
mid-September as the Yanks fell out of the AL playoff race?
Wouldn’t Yankee partisans soon enjoy watching
the Mets fade, yet again, in the NL playoff chase?
Better believe it. The axiom
“Misery loves company” is as true in
baseball as it is in real life.
So, shouldn’t we find comfort in the
news that baseball
buff/financial wizard Warren Buffett saw shares in his prime stock
plummet by
more than a third since October 1? Or
that Henry Paulson’s reputation “will never recover” (in the words of a
hedge-fund manager) and that Forbes magazine president Steve Forbes
calls
Paulson “the worst treasury secretary in modern history”? And how about this expert observer’s comment
on the performance of Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke: “He
was behind the curve at every stage of
the (financial crisis) story. He didn’t
see the housing bubble until after it burst.
Until as late as this summer, he downplayed all the risks
involved…I
would be surprised if Obama wanted to reappoint him when his term ends”
- in 2010. (Dean
Baker, of the
Center for Economic and Policy Research – quoted in the latest New
Yorker). Aren’t those of us caught up in
the economic meltdown entitled to gloat about the big boys taking hits
like us?
The answer, we submit, is: not now, not
on this Thanksgiving
weekend. We should try for the moment to
be generous, to show some understanding: no one is perfect, etc.
This charitable approach can be set
aside – it says here –
when incompetence overlaps the businesses of finance and baseball. Case in point: the teaming up of Citigroup
and the Mets. Citigroup,
which needed a bailout to avoid
bankruptcy, is committed to paying $20 million a year - $400 million
over a
20-year period – to have its name erected atop the Mets’ new stadium. Newsday’s Wallace Matthews suggests a revised
name for Citi Field – “Bailout Ballpark.”
Here is how he sees the Mets’ Faustian bargain:
“That
$20 million per year - which, by the way, the Mets don't
seem all that eager to invest in the free-agent market despite another
dismal
late-season collapse - is coming out of your paycheck and mine,
funneled
through the federal government to the failed executives of Citigroup,
and
ultimately winds up in Fred Wilpon's pocket.
”This amounts to not only the worst kind of corporate welfare, with no
punishments meted out and no strings attached, it also adds up to 20
years of
free advertising for a bank with nothing to brag about but a vault full
of
fail.
”The Mets should be embarrassed to emblazon their new park with the
name of an
outfit whose players performed even worse than the team did last year.
They
should be ashamed of using your money to advertise their (worthless)
services.
If they had any ethics, they would cancel the deal now and start
looking for a
sponsor that can actually pay its own bills.”
With Willie Randolph’s exit,
Omar Minaya has been taking most of the flak for the Mets’ own version
of the
bailout – two end-of-season dives. That
the decision-making buck stops with owner Fred Wilpon is seldom noted. Wilpon clearly thought the spending splurge
that brought Pedro Martinez, the two Carlos - Beltran and Delgado - and
Billy
Wagner was sufficient to keep his team competitive for more than a few
years. He was right; true, he has to
invest in a Johan Santana one season and maybe a Brian Fuentes or a
Trevor
Hoffman this time around. But with another
Minaya Special - a new blue-chipper (and perhaps a light-blue one) plus
bargain-basement hole-fillers to add to a strong existing base - the
Mets will
be able to compete…and fall short.
Maybe
late-season “meaningful
games” are good enough for Fred. If he
truly cared about the post-season, he’d focus on building a productive
player-development operation It’s
something the Mets have been lacking for too long, and without which
they’ll
continue being what they are now: apparently good enough for Fred, but
not
quite good enough to make the playoffs.
- o -
(The Nub is a team
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(Posted: 11/25/08)
NYC's Upcoming Electoral All-Star Event
The potent early summer Red Sox lineup that
included
Pedroia, Big Papi, Manny and Youk has a political equivalent in NYC’s
2009
public advocate contest. The lineup of
hitters
seeking to win the city’s second highest elective slot features four
candidates
with impressive playing records.
The veteran of the group is Norman
Siegel, the civil rights
lawyer, who, at 65, is taking a third turn at this electoral plate.
Supporters
say his record at fighting government on behalf of protesters and
aggrieved
private citizens has earned him the mantra “Norman Is the Public
Advocate.” Siegel’s
problem: he trails his main young opponents in fund-raising; an
ambiguous
factor - he’s also less of a Dem party insider than the others.
Among the three touted younger
prospects, City Council
teammates, Eric Gioia has been in the lineup, albeit unofficially,
longer than
the others. Gioia is the Dustin Pedroia
of the trio, energetic, intense, working ‘round-the-clock at expanding
his reach. His driving ambition and the
resentment it
has caused outside his Queen bailiwick could handicap his effort.
Bill de Blasio is the Chipper Jones of
the group, a leader
beyond his Brooklyn district who
distinguished
himself in actively opposing the extended-term-limits power grab by
Mayor
Bloomberg and most of the Council team.
He did uncharacteristically back away from a matchup with
incumbent
Marty Markowitz for Brooklyn BP. But de
Blasio is the only one of the three who could benefit from running for
a third
Council term to say he wouldn’t play that game.
John Liu is the Ichiro of his Flushing
district and the city at large. He has
awakened, not only his fellow Chinese constituents, but Asian
communities
throughout the five boroughs. Liu’s
appeal has been broad enough to attract $3 million in contributions,
more than
any of the four top-tier candidates. (Gioia is second, having raised $2
million.) Liu’s indecisiveness as to which contest to enter - he
was
the last to join the PA all-star event - could be a negative as the
race
unfolds.
Manhattan/Bronx Assemblyman Adam
Clayton Powell IV is a
fifth candidate in the contest. Although
only 46, Powell first held elective office 17 years ago.
He would seem to be a time-worn Moises
Alou-type entry, making a nothing-to-lose effort. Powell
can return to his Assembly post if his
campaign falters. In that context, the
campaigns of Gioia and Liu (and even de Blasio) will be watched to see
if
either has second thoughts early enough - before summer - to drop out
for the
surer bet of seeking to return to the Council.
- -
-
If the Mets, Yankees and Red Sox were hopeful the Arizona
Fall League would help them identify farmhands with unrecognized
promise, they
came away disappointed.
Proven players like Daniel Murphy of the Mets and
Phil
Hughes of the Yanks did well despite injuries - Murphy hit .397 in 15
games,
Hughes went 2-0 with a 3.00 ERA in seven games; the Sox’ Clay Buchholz
could
only manage a 1-2, 3.86 in five games.
But signs of newly emerging prospects were scarce: a first-year
catcher
in the Mets’ system Josh Thole hit .319 in 19 games, and a Yanks’
double-A
second baseman Kevin Russo hit .309 in 30 games. The
Red Sox had not a solitary hitter of
note. Bobby Parnell, who pitched in six
late-season Mets games, went 3-1, 2.25.
He struck out 20 in 20 innings, walking nine.
The Fall League gave Atlanta
most to be happy about: Double-A pitcher Tommy Hanson had the most
wins, the
most strikeouts, the best ERA - 0.63 – and the best record, 5-0. Braves’ high single-A catcher Tyler Flowers
led
the league in homers with 12 in 75 AB’s.
The best all-around offensive player was Colorado’s double-A
shortstop
Eric Young, Jr; he batted a league-leading .430, scored the most runs
and stole
the most bases, 37 and 20, respectively, in 31 games.
- -
-
Lob from Left field: The scoreboard in Venezuela after
country-wide elections Sunday showed the pro-Chavez side winning 17
states to
the anti-Chavez’s 5. The NY Times’
predictable take on the vote: “VENEZUELAN OPPOSITION GAINS IN SEVERAL
CRUCIAL
ELECTIONS”. The numerical result was
mentioned in the last of the 13-paragraph story. Equally
predictable: If Hugo Chavez had won
22-0, the Times headline would trumpet something like this: VENEZUELAN
VOTE
SHOWS CHAVEZ SOLIDIFYING DICTATORIAL RULE”.
Is it not revealing in this era of U.S. government handouts to
Big
Finance, that the Times, like Team Bush, persists in denouncing a
socialist
system aimed at helping the poor?
- o -
(The Nub is a team
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(Posted: 11/22/08)
Big
Decisions for Obama, Yanks, Red Sox
Decisions, decisions.
Team Obama has a big one to make,
regarding an extra-inning
electoral contest in Georgia. The Yankees and Red Sox must decide on a move
important to the baseball world concerning a free-agent pitcher.
The Georgia
contest, for a U.S. Senate seat, pits Democratic challenger Jim Martin
against
Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss.
The two had to continue their battle beyond regulation time
because they
finished close enough to warrant a run-off. That
special election will be held a week from
Tuesday, December 2.
The Yankees and Red Sox have both
expressed interest in A.J.
Burnett, who went 18-10 for Toronto
last season. Other teams covet the
oft-injured righthander, as well, but the Yanks and Sox have the
financial
clout to outbid them. It may take at
least a five-year $75 million offer to get the deal done.
The background to the Martin-Chambliss
playoff is the Senate
scoreboard showing the Democratic team (including two independents)
with a
58-40 margin in the upper chamber. The
contest
in Georgia
is one of two for Senate seats still up for grabs.
The other is a match being decided by recount
in Minnesota
between
Dem challenger Al Franken and Repub incumbent Norm Coleman. Should Franken outscore Coleman in the end, a
Martin victory on 12/2 would fulfill the Dems’ dream of a
filibuster-proof
60-40 majority.
President-elect Obama’s yet-to-be-made
decision: whether to
interrupt his transition efforts to campaign for Martin.
Such an intervention would compromise his
stance as an aspiring political “unifier” rather than a partisan. Another consideration, as E.J. Dionne put it
in yesterday’s Washington Post: “A new president with soaring popularity may
not want to subject himself to such an early test on
not-entirely-hospitable
terrain.” Meanwhile,
polls show Martin trailing Chambliss in red-state Georgia
by several points. The crucial role Obama
could play was acknowledged
by a Republican political consultant in Atlanta: “(Martin)
can’t do it without
Barack Obama,” he said, “it’s just as simple
as that. “Does he care, or does he not?”
There’s a
chance that the Red Sox are just kibitzing on Burnett, to push his
asking price
up and make him painfully expensive for the Yankees.
That’s the suspicion of the Boston Globe’s
Nick Cafardo:
“Do
we think the Red Sox really want to spend
$80 million over five years for Burnett, who has made 30 or more starts
in only
two of his 10 seasons? Doesn't sound
like a move Sox general manager Theo Epstein would make…Burnett is a
high-risk
player, but when he's healthy, he's a high-reward player. That's what
he was in
2008…his best season the majors. But at 32…can he be depended upon to
be that
for the next five years?
“In
an offseason in which the Yankees are
setting the bar pretty high in these otherwise tough economic times,
they are
in position to blow any team, including the Red Sox, out of the water
for a
player. That was evident in their six-year, $140 million offer to CC
Sabathia,
and the five years, $80 million they're possibly willing to offer
Burnett. Who knows what else (they have)
in mind to
help fill those expensive seats in the new $1.3 billion Yankee Stadium.”
-
- -
The latest scoreboard reporting on the other Congressional
league gives the Democratic team a 256-174 margin over the Republicans
in the
House. The Dem gains so far: 31
seats;
there are five unresolved races in the House.
- o -
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey. Comments
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are welcome, as are subscription requests.
Previous Nubs can be found by clicking below.)
(Posted: 11/18/08)
Bloomberg,
Yanks Set to Spend to Win
The city’s political and baseball powers – Team
Bloomberg
and the Yankees – know victory in 2009 depends on the source of their
strength:
m-o-n-e-y. Mayor Mike will have to hit
the airwaves hard to overcome his running for re-election as the
anti-democratic
candidate. The Yankees can only hope to
match the Rays and Red Sox in their division by spending to add two top
starters and a couple of top-tier position players.
A rough estimate of what the add-on annual
cost will be in each case: $80-$100 million.
The reported $140 million for six years
the Yanks are
offering CC Sabathia breaks down to a single-year pricetag of $23-plus
million
alone. That seems to have blown away all
of CC’s other suitors. Bloomberg’s
projected outlay for ’09 - most of it seeking to justify via sustained
TV blitz
his stance on extending term limits - is expected at least to match the
$84
million he spent in winning the office in ’01.
Bloomberg’s Democratic opponents -
Queens/Brooklyn
Congressman Anthony Weiner, Comptroller Billy Thompson and Queens
Councilmember
Tony Avella are three of the most likely candidates; none of them will
come
close to raising the kind of money conventional wisdom says will be
needed to
stay competitive with the mayor. But
whoever survives the primary to go one-on-one with Mike will be able to
run as
the “people’s” champion. Here’s a
campaign
pitch to throw at the mayor, offered free of charge:
“HE’S RUNNING AGAINST ALL OF US.”
-
- -
What are we to make of the Yankees’ deal for Nick Swisher as
a likely replacement for Jason Giambi? Swisher
is only 28 (Giambi will be 37 next season), so it’s fair still to see
some
potential in him, his record up to now inconclusive.
Let’s check to see what Oakland GM Billy
Beane, who signed him out of Ohio State,
saw in
Swisher. Here is how Michael Lewis
describes Beane’s take in his baseball classic “Moneyball”: “(Swisher) has…raw
athletic ability…(and) the stats Billy…ha(s)
decided matter more than anything; he’s proven he can hit, and hit with
power;
he drew more than his share of walks.”
Swisher
drew a walk every seven at bats last season, but he
struck out once every four-plus AB’s.
Giambi’s equivalent stats were similar, but Jason hit eight more
HR’s -
32 - in 40 fewer AB’s than did Swisher. But Nick costs less,
has the better glove and no drugs-use baggage.
The clincher as to why the switch may be seen as helpful to the undemonstrative Yanks comes from this
“Moneyball” excerpt:
“’Swisher is
noticeable, isn’t he?’
says Billy, hoping to hear more about…how Swisher really is.
“‘Oh,
he’s noticeable,’ says an
old scout. ‘From the moment he gets off
the bus he doesn’t shut up’.”
- -
-
An off-season skim of “other” ballplaying: New coach Mike
D’Antoni, with his upbeat style and downsizing of Stephon Marbury, has
made the
Knicks watchable again.
As for the Nets, the deal president Rod Thorn had
to make -
sending unhappy Jason Kidd to Dallas
for Devin Harris - makes the NJN’s surprisingly competitive. Harris, with three-straight 30-point games,
could be a budding super-star.
Even Brooklynites, born to be haters of
all manner of “Giants”
teams - are joining the football Giants bandwagon.
The defending NFL champions are seductively
well-balanced, a sinuously methodical playoffs-bound machine. The Jets have Brett and the fabled Favre
tradition to inspire and try to stabilize them, but they are more
wobbly than
solid. The shaky truth may surface
Sunday when they face the 10-0 Tennessee Titans.
- o -
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey.
Comments
to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome, as are subscription requests.
Previous Nubs can be found by clicking below.)
(Posted: 11/15/08)
Bloomberg Hitting a Stadium-Related Slump
The last time Mike Bloomberg’s popularity slumped
– in ’05 -
he was on the wrong side of a doomed West Side
stadium project. The mayor has hit a
slump again, over the undemocratic extension of term limits. His chances of battling out of that bind have
come up against another stadium debacle, this one in the Bronx. The new
Yankee Stadium is a big-ticket, state-of-the-art
ballpark designed to be a profit center for the Steinbrenner family
and,
secondarily, a magnet for fans.
Bloomberg’s problem as the economy
worsens, is that the
arena he helped make happen has become a public relations nightmare. Fans who, whether they knew it or not, forked
over hundreds of millions of public dollars to help build the
extravaganza,
will be priced out of attending “premium” – that is, the most
attractive –
games. Even the corporate elite is
bailing out as the financial crisis gets ever more critical: $4.2
million worth
of luxury suites are so far going begging for the ’09 season.
Meanwhile, Congress is investigating
Team Bloomberg’s
inflating the value of the Stadium land to allow the Yankees to float
high-return bonds to help cover costs.
Although an unfavorable result wouldn’t send anyone to jail, it
would be
another brush-back to Bloomberg. Amid the
financial giveaways, the mayor’s cardinal sin concerns the surrender of
public
parkland: he and his political teammates allowed 22 acres of green and
open
recreational space to be lost to the Stadium project.
NY Times columnist Jim Dwyer lined up a
bat-rack full or
reasons why Bloomberg won’t have an easy time extricating himself from
the
Stadium connection. The latest promotion
of the new ballpark, notes Dwyer, comes at a time when the mayor “says
he has
to close health clinics, shut libraries one day a week, not hire a new
class of
cops and raise property taxes.”
And, looking ahead:
“The new
Yankee Stadium, with all its architectural dazzle, will open
in the spring; less certain is when the public parkland that Bloomberg
gave to
the team will be replaced.
“The full
reckoning on Mr.
Bloomberg’s judgment…will most likely not come for a few years, long
after he
has run for a third term as mayor by arguing that he has been the
wisest and
steadiest of stewards – just the man of the city during hard financial
times.”
- -
-
In hard financial times, what could be better for ballclubs
than “cheap pub.” It’s the season when
all 30 MLB teams get puffy ink by letting their fans know they’re in
the
bidding for CC, Manny, Teixeira, Burnett, etc.
The everyday phrases everywhere: “We have an interest in…”
“We’re
serious about signing…” ”We’re not out of the picture…”, etc.
The Yanks, with their deepest of
pockets, are odds-on
favorites to sign Sabathia. That the
Mets are allegedly competing for CC is a laugh.
But hey, it doesn’t hurt to get free favorable mention, no
matter how
empty of substance. It will be no surprise
here if the Yankees wind up adding Oliver Perez to their rotation. Joe Girardi liked what he saw in Perez when he
was a Yanks broadcaster. “He has a
chance to be good,” Joe said. He may well
still think so.
The Boston Globe’s Tony Massarotti
presents this persuasive
argument for teams proceeding with caution as they seek starting
pitching on the open market:
“In
2006, multiyear deals were given to a
cast of starters that included (in alphabetical order):
Miguel
Batista (three years, $25
million)
Adam Eaton (three years, $24.5m)
Orlando Hernandez (two years, $12m)
Kei Igawa (five years, $20m)
Ted Lilly (four years, $40m)
Jason Marquis (three years, $21m)
Daisuke Matsuzaka (six years, $52m)
Gil Meche (five years, $55m)
Mark Mulder (two years, $13m)
Mike Mussina (two years, $23m)
Vicente Padilla (three years, $33.75m)
Jason Schmidt (three years, $47m)
Jeff Suppan (four years, $42m)
Woody Williams (two years, $12.5m)
Barry Zito (seven years, $126m)
“Of the pitchers on that
list, only Lilly (32-17 for the Cubs), Matsuzaka
(33-15 for the Red Sox) and Meche (23-24 with a 3.82 ERA for the
Royals) have
pitched consistently well, while the remaining pitchers on the list
have
suffered from varying degrees of injury, inconsistency,
ineffectiveness, and
ineptitude.”
- o -
(The Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.
Comments
to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome, as are subscription requests.
Previous Nubs can be found by clicking below.)
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