Domonic Brown

When your team has a pitching staff that is considered by some to be the best ever - at least on paper and if you think really, really hard about Cole Hamels upside - you definitely want your offense to be able to produce.
The Phillies don't have much and those people who can swing definitely aren't the most solid and reliable types in the world. Jayson Werth left, so that means that Jimmy Rollins has to step up and produce. Since his MVP in 2007, he's definitely gone downhill. Last year, he ended up injured and didn't even step to the plate 400 times. His batting average has fallen from .296 to .277 to .250 to .244. In 2005, when he had 36 of his 38 games in a row that he hit in during that momentous hit streak (we'll add the first 2 from 2006 for good measure, but not to this), his batting average went up from a rather pedestrian .262 to .290, which is nice, but it's not a mark of consistency. Rather, it's a late season surge. If we think about 20 triples and 30 home runs in 2007, these are potentials for a player to emulate, but the reality is that it's more of a career year masked in the midst of an above average player that was and is counted on WAY TOO MUCH.
Chase Utley is also a solid player - if he's healthy, but let's look at his numbers. This is a guy who the Phillies can't count on for 700 plate appearances. Last year, he only had 511 and since 2007's break out .332 batting average, he's spent the last 2 years at sub .300, which isn't exactly a place for optimism seeing as the Phillies are counting on him to produce. And while he's capable of 30 home runs (just over), he's going to whiff 100 times if he gets this mark. In that, he's not Ryan Howard, but alas... who would want to be when we talk about aging players and overhype and lack of production?
So who's left? Raul Ibanez had 1 last year in 2009, and now we can stick a fork in him. There's hope for Shane Victorino who is still young enough to make us believe, but Placido Polanco isn't a bopper, and while Carlos Ruiz is loved, he's not getting 400 at bats a year either.
So when Dominic Brown goes out for 4-6 weeks of spring training with a wrist injury, the prognosis just isn't good for the Phillies.
That said, we're Red Sox fans, so it doesn't matter who we beat in the World Series - just that we win!

Tim Lincecum

To quote Wilco's "I'm Always in Love:"
Why I wonder is my heart full of holes.
And the feeling goes and my hair keeps growing
I guess I must be turning into Tim Lincecum because my hair feels positively - well, thick and there. I won't say I need a rubber band for my pony tail. I just have a thick mane of hair, but if I did have long hair - well, if I could handle it growing long - who am I kidding?
It's been a long time since I wanted longer hair, and at 39...
But, oh! to be young and cool again. Oh, to have a whole city falling in love with my youthful pitching that in 3 full seasons has dominiated hitters like they were WWF jobbers fighting against the name wrestlers on 1980s Saturday morning TV.
There are the 2 Cy Young awards. He's got 3 straight seasons of 15 or more wins for a team that doesn't really win that much (despite the World Series championship last year). He has 3 straight seasons of 200 strikeouts. Despite going downhill last year from July 19th on, he was still better than average for the whole year and super dominant prior to that.
And while it could be a lot of things that see the Freak coming back down to earth (age, a salary argument with his team that saw him make $9million instead of the inflated amount that his agent thought he was worth, the drug bust after the season, his opponents figuring him out, a hitch in his delivery), there is still the feeling of coming out strong and dominant for another season. He took down Cliff Lee in the game that mattered last year. He wasn't great in the first game of the World Series, but he was there and he kept his team in the game until they could kick Lee off the field and into the showers.
The Rangers were never the same, and frankly, that's what it's about when you're the team's number one pitcher. Seeing as there is another big game pitcher on the team (Matt Cain) and an up and coming pitcher (Madison Bumgarner) and another pitcher that has potential if he gets his emotions together (Jonathan Sanchez), there's a need to step up.
And that's important if you're the $100million+ number 5 pitcher who needs to get his act together so that he can finish up his overpaid contract in the city by the bay.
But Lincecum... there is so much potential and so much upside. What will 2011 hold? Will it be 2008 or 2010 when it comes to stats or are we looking at another year of the pitcher with a certain skinny guy making his name in the no runners on first base category?

Justine Siegal

If most people know anything about women in baseball, they've either watched a movie where there is no crying in baseball, which features Madonna and Rosie O' Donnell (2 reasons that I've never watched the movie), OR they're convinced that you mean softball, and with that, you obviously have no idea what you are talking about.
Nevertheless, Phillip K. Wrigley imagined the unimaginable in 1942 when men were drafted for war and the country still needed baseball players. And the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League lasted until 1954, which showed that it had some degree of power, but the reality was that most of that drawing power was gone when the men came back to play again in 1946.
And if we were talking about softball, we'd have stars like Jenny Finch who can fireball underhanded with the best of them and challenge major leaguers with the 43 feet of distance that a softball moves at 71MPH to challenge a hitter - a hitter mind you that is not as buffed up as her male counterparts in professional baseball.
But baseball has never let a woman play in its game. We now have a female coach, Justine Siegal, but the reality is that the majors just haven't found a way for a woman to make it to the pros.
In Japan, they have. Eri Yoshida and her knuckleball are now signed and moving through the Japanese minor leagues. Whether she could be Tim Wakefield remains to be seen, but alas... there is always the dream of being Hoyt Willhelm and ending up in Cooperstown.
And for all of the dreams of whatever little girl that is out there hoping that she can be the first, there is more and more female interest in baseball, which is great because baseball represents in the words of Ken Burns all that is good about our country, and I would completely agree.
I just wish that something didn't include pink versions of team jerseys and hats.

Jim Bouton

See the thing about spring training is that it's spring training. The games might be played, but they don't count. The only thing that counts is the injuries and the players that feel jilted into writing a tell all confessional about all of his fellow players (and a sequel to it) that begins with a demotion from spring training.
We can have a game where Albert Pujols can jack a fly ball over the fence in Florida. The teams can win all the split squad games that they play. The rookies can excel. The veterans can get their swing together. The fans can collect autograph after autograph. Everyone can go to the beach or Disney when the day is done. We can drink in the sun and the fun and the alcohol of an extended spring break as the national pastime comes back and life is good, but none of it means anything except the fun of the moment because it sure as hell doesn't count in the standings.
And for that, I just can't sit and watch a game. It's like Domincian winter league games. I can't watch them either - even if it's you pitch the ball, you hit the ball, you catch the ball, and you throw the ball. It's all the same. It's like college baseball. You hear the crack of a fastball on aluminum, and there's just something that isn't the same about it.
It's not quite minor league baseball, which is just a carnival that is disguised as a game, but when the circus is done well, then that's a thing of beauty and at least it trains your kids to watch the game for 9 innings. That's a good thing.
In the end, very little comes out of spring training. Sure, there are first games that are for the record book (Jason Heyward). Then again, there are extended slumps into May (David Ortiz). There are story lines to sell and memories to think about over and over, and as long as we're still in early March, everyone still has a chance. It's like Lou Boudreau said (all future and no past). We can go to the store and start our card collections and think about who we're happy to have and who we'd like to trade... who we should and shouldn't have signed (Jayson Werth)... the players that will be sitting this campaign out (Stephen Strasburg). We can look through our shelves for anyone of a million historical books to read and pine for a past that we never lived through (Curt Flood).
All in all, it adds up to everything that baseball will be on day 1.
Nevertheless, I may be happy it's here today, but I won't be watching it.

Kurt Bevacqua

Every once in a while, I get a hankering to buy baseball cards again. I'll look for them on e-Bay in hopes that there will be something cool and cheap. The two don't often go together. I do have a Pedro Martinez and Bob Gibson jersey card that I got for under $10 with shipping. I don't care about the real value. I just like that two of my favorite pitchers of all time are memorialized on one card with their jerseys fashioned into the card itself.
Cards like this are what makes collecting nowadays special. I never pulled a card like that from a real pack, but I did get some cards that were above and beyond the sets themselves. That said, other than ones of Mark McGwire's numbered home runs (especially #55), I really don't think much of any of them.
Baseball card companies today had to go back to the concept of something special to set them apart. For example, there's a 2007 Topps Derek Jeter card that also features George W. Bush and Mickey Mantle. That's a cool card. Really.
However, it's not the 1976 card that features Kurt Bevacqua of the Milwaukee Brewers blowing a huge ass bubble to win the Joe Garagiola / Bazooka Bubble Gum Blowing Championship. Things like that don't happen nowadays.

That said, it took a whole different era to respect Garagiola since he was the guy who spiked Jackie Robinson back in the day. A large part of his life was spent explaining away how he wasn't a racist until he eventually turned into a voice of the good things in baseball.
But that's not why this card is so cool. Kurt played from 1971-1985 for 7 teams. He finished with a .236 average and 27 homeruns. He stayed around as a bench player for that time. He did have a 3 hit game in the 82 World Series that saw him hit a homerun, but he wasn't anything great.
That said, he was a bubblegum blowing champion, and frankly, that goes a long way towards something great.

Baseball cards today are still nice. My wife bought me a pack of 2011 Topps, which didn't really feature anyone special, but the anticipation that I'll get someone life altering in that 5 cards for $1 pack is still like playing the lottery and seeing if I can get more than 2 numbers.

However, going to shows is more about seeing the names and the faces than being able to plunk down big bucks for the Golden Era of collecting (1950s and 1960s). There's the Platinum Era, too, but I can't afford tobacco cards. Nevertheless, I'm always amazed by what cards go for - even in 1 and sub 1 condition.

All the same, it's still fun to wander around the Convention Center in Valley Forge and think about what I could get.

Terence Mann

It's a recognized fact that Kevin Costner became a baseball star at some point in his movie career. There was the great Bull Durham. There was the ok For Love of the Game. And there was Field of Dreams. People tend to gravitate more to Bull Durham or Field of Dreams depending on who they are. For me, I'm more about the love story of Bull Durham than I am about the science fiction of Field of Dreams, but I still like it. It's just not the greatest movie of all time in the way that Bull Durham is, but that said, it does have its moments.
For instance, there is no annoying wife in Bull Durham. Sure, there's Millie, and she needs to be fed to the sharks, but she can catch Nuke and let the religious guy do whatever he wants to her, but other than her daddy donating the scoreboard, she's probably replaceable. But getting back to the annoying wife and her incredibly annoying take on no censorship, perhaps Amy Madigan is the one character that really keeps me from truly enjoying Field of Dreams. She wasn't good for John Candy's Uncle Buck, and frankly, she's no poetic muse adjunct English teacher at a junior college for Kevin Costner's Ray Kinsella either. For in comparison to all of Madigan's annoyingness, Annie was still lovable (despite her sleeping with a different ball player every season)... even if she did end up hooking up with Tim Robbins' Nuke Laloosh for half of the season (and over 15 years of real seasons).
But it's more than just the leading woman, for there is also no James Earl Jones and his Darth Vadar voice in Bull Durham. There's no trip across country to follow the directions of the voice that is coming from afar to rescue him from a life of being angry at the world. There is no inner and outer journey for Costner's Ray Kinsella to go and ease their (the Black Sox) pain. There is no need to eventually create a field for Archibald Moonlight Graham to play out his only at bat (before he messes with Marcellus Wallace's suitcase and gets himself killed). There is no hokey injury to the daughter that can only be saved by Graham.
And moving back to James Earl Jones, in Bull Durham, there is no angry 60s radical that needs to find meaning in baseball again (in that, there is no speech: Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.
And I get that the speech is the key to the movie. My one friend is very nostalgic to the memories of his father and wanting to have the game of catch again. I understand what that means... but to me, the real speech is at the end of Bull Durham: I got a lotta time to hear your theories and I wanta hear every damn one of 'em...but right now I'm tired and I don't wanta think about baseball and I don't wanta think about Quantum Physics... I don't wanta think about nothing... Right now, I just wanta be.
And Annie can do that, too, and that's the answer because there are all the things that we believe in and the greatness of the game and there are the beautiful moments in life. Perhaps catch is a beautiful moment... if that's your memory, but sitting on the porch after the rain and just smelling the summer air and looking forward to the good life that will come when you're with the one that you love...
That's a good thing.
And for the way it makes me feel... to think about being with my wife in the Siesta Zone and enjoying life as it comes... it's all good.

Babe Ruth

At the risk of being the weirdest baseball fan of all time, let it be known that I NEVER liked Babe Ruth. Not that I'm much faster than Jeremy Giambi in the 40 yard dash, but let's just say, I would have slid - however clumsily - rather than be faced with the dubious distinction of having an out of position Derek Jeter throwing me out at home. Never, never, never.
And the A's would have gone on to the World Series INSTEAD OF PULLING DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY AGAIN. Why couldn't they have just listened to Jason Giambi when he screamed at Miguel Tejada for being a slacker bum? The future was theirs, but the ghosts... the ghosts do it every time.
And the ghosts are Babe Ruth.
If you're a Red Sox fan, you know.
Here was a man who won 94 games and had a 2.28 ERA. He didn't have a lot of strikeouts, but he did pitch exceptionally from 1914 to 1919. Four other years, he pitched at least once, and he wasn't bad. He wasn't great, but hell, he did what he had to do.
Other than the 20 home runs that he hit before 1919 and the 6 in his last season, he went on to hit 688 home runs over 16 seasons. This includes 1925's dismal campaign that saw the mighty Babe for the self serving hedonistic slug that he had become. However, he came back bigger and better than ever. His next years' totals were 47, 60, 54, 46, 49, and 46. That's positively sick and does a lot to make up for the fact that the last 3 home runs that he ever hit for the Boston Braves in 1935 made him look like a Molina brother on way too much Burger King food.
But the Boston Braves are not the Boston Red Sox, and when Boston gave up their great pitcher / slugger to bankroll No, No, Nanette, by Harry Frazee (originally known as My Lady Friends). Dan Shaughnessey of The Boston Globe then took this to put the nail in the coffin of the city's baseball team since apparently, something had to be stopping the team from winning a pennant since 1918 (other than lack of quality pitching).
But that's not why I don't like Babe Ruth.
If you wanted the truth, the asterisk given to Roger Maris for daring to overcome Babe Ruth's treasured record of home runs in a single season has more to do with it than anything, but there is something in being the Michael Jordan of his field before Michael even was a candy bar in his dad's back pocket that sums it up. It's not hating greatness. It's just wondering what all the hype and hooplah means to the grand scale of the player.
Sure, Ruth was great, but that doesn't mean I'm wearing his jersey.
Lou Gehrig lived in his shadow for years and years of being true class and workmanship excellence, and he was the luckiest man to ever live. I agree with that if you take me out of the question since being married to my wife leaves me really lucky as well.
But Babe Ruth and his crown and his curses. It's all to much like Metroman for me.
Call me Will Ferrell in Megamind, but perhaps the existential reality of not being able to measure up to all of that greatness (what greatness is that? Brad Pitt?!!) has left me in a quandry. In that, Megamind is the story of all Red Sox fans who ever lived (without getting to hook up with a cartoon Tina Fey in ultra tight top at the end).
For years, we waited for a home run in extra innings or a pitcher left in too long by a manager who just doesn't get the city's need for victory. We watch home runs just stay fair, and we still lose. We get crushed by dominant pitchers hitting home runs in games that matter. We lose our young players to injuries or defecting to the Yankees after asking out of the clutch game early. We watch an old hobbled player left in the game so that a ground out can be a game winning hit that dashes the next night's hopes, too.
We win it all, coming back from the biggest deficit ever. We beat our nemesises in 7 and sweep the World Series. But still we wait for the sky to fall. We're not supposed to win. This was a fluke. But then, we come back 3 years later, and we win again, and it's like Will Ferrell and Tina Fey talking to the statue of Brad Pitt, wondering all the while, what do we do now. You're gone. What is our place in this world. Without the curse, we're nothing... well, we're all too many hats and shirts and fair weather fans. Hell, we're not even real hats. We're pink hats and hip colors.
That's not baseball.
What is the meaning of life if we're not the lovable losers? And if we're not the lovable losers, then who is? The Chicago Cubs? Sadly, with the team they're playing with, they'd simply be the Jonah Hill character (Tighten): an over-exaggerated burst of nothing much played into believing that it's better than it should be.
But that said, are the Red Sox with the cast of free agents who are playing for them now anything more than the Evil Empire North that they railed so harshly against when bloody socks, idiots, and "Cowboy Up-ing" was the answer to life?
What is the existential meaning of all of this?
Why is the word existential in a baseball column - much less a kid's movie?
I blame Babe Ruth - or at least Dan Shaughnessey.

Josh Beckett

Winter does strange things to people. In Upper Darby, about an hour and a half from where I live, it seems that a pizza shop owner decided to engage in food terrorism against his competitor when he (Nickolas Galiatsatos) decided that to truly make Nina's Bella Pizzeria stand out against its competitors was to make sure they had mice in their bathroom. While they weren't dead, the little furry rodents could have been a problem, but alas, it was found out RIGHT AWAY, so he was arrested.
Fortunately, baseball has no live rodents today, but it seems that teams are finding ways to sabotage themselves. And so the injuries from a winter of too much rest (for example, the heft of Miguel Cabrera's 240 pound frame as he prepares to dress up as CC Sabathia for Halloween) keep on coming.
Yesterday, Josh Beckett took a shot to the head while attempting to catch a ball in the outfield. As a result, it wasn't even a standard straight off the bat intense straight away hit back. Nevertheless, the Red Sox continue to play it safe with their front of the rotation pitcher.
This only makes sense since Beckett has struggled a lot with injuries. Since 2001, he has had exactly 3 30 game seasons (add 1 29 game season to that if you're feeling generous).
He was dominant in the playoffs in 2003 and 2007, but since then... He's been to one all star game, and he currently makes $68million through 2014.
He does strike out a fair bit of guys, but his ERA is only above average. Nevertheless, his wins come from playing for an offensively stacked team that usually gets it done at the back end of the bullpen (save last year).
OK, so he's a part of the team and he made 2007 happen, and he did set the Yankees down in Yankee Stadium for Game 6 of 2003, but at some point, history is history.
If the Sox are going to win this year, we can't have stupid accidents like this. We can't pay for guys like Mike Cameron, who is never healthy anyway. We need Jacoby Ellsbury in the lineup. We can't have aging stars manning the corners because nobody else will take their contracts. We need guys like Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis to be healthy.
And if news seems bad for the Red Sox, how about the Cardinals losing Chris Carpenter to a hamstring injury?
So my 2 favorite teams that are made up of some seriously fragile individuals seem to find that spring training can really suck for your entire outlook - unless you remember it's a 162-game schedule.

Duke Snider

The Duke is dead.
In his time, he hit .295 and whalloped 407 home runs for his career with the Dodgers (East and West Coast versions). Through the years, he was an 8-time all star.
He was up there with Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle in a cheesey and overplayed song (that still waxed nostalgic to all that was good in the game) as sung by Terry Cashman. He wasn't either of them in popularity or ability, but by 1980, he eventually made it to the hallowed halls of Cooperstown in his 11th try. Talk about the pain of being overshadowed.
In this, he's the forgotten center fielder in what Ken Burns referred to as an era that was the Capitol of Baseball... a time when New York City had 3 teams. A time before baseball truly went national as 2 owners abandoned the city to take in the new attitude of California that was rapidly becoming hip to a new beat. If you need proof, he's not on the front of ESPN today and he's not even the featured picture in the section on baseball.
For a man that never was the MVP, he was the most powerful of all hitters in the 1950s crashing 326 homers and 1,031 RBIs. Of course, this was before Stanzanol and Deca Durabolin, so the numbers mean a little more.
The Duke was the teammate of Jackie Robinson. He played with Sandy Koufax, Roy Campanella, Maury Wills, and Don Drysdale. He played with Gil Hodges, Don Zimmer, Pee Wee Reese, Carl Furillo, Frank Howard, Johnny Podres, Carl Erskine, and Tommy Lasorda.
He came of age with Jackie Robinson's 3rd game in the majors. From that point on, he was a key element in the drive to move from Dem Bums to World Series champions to Los Angeles.
As many of us come of age in baseball in 2011, we have to wonder what has become of the greats of the game past. I knew who Duke Snider was, but I didn't really ever feel for his stats because they were largely a star player instead of a great of the game. Even the stars of the game that I grew up with - Paul Molitor, Dale Murphy, Robin Yount, Fred Lynn, Steve Garvey, Lou Whitaker, Alan Trammel, and Harold Baines - are forgotten as we only hang onto the best of the show, and even then, their accomplishments are made nothing in the light of shorter ball parks and PEDs. Of course, there are nutritionist, trainers, and other modern treatments like Tommy John Surgery that keeps our heroes' numbers improving, but alas...
A once great man has died today.
Our fathers and grandfathers will remember.
Will we?

Johnny Damon

Every time that I watch Fever Pitch, I can't decide if I actually like the movie, or if I want to drown Jimmy Fallon for his annoyingness. At the writing of this blog, I'm going with like it - but it's just barely.
The thing is that Jimmy Fallon is really annoying. I'm sure that he's only a fair weather Yankees fan (just like his convenient switch to Boston for the movie), but yeah... that's a big part of it.
Then there's the unlikeable factor of Drew Barrymore in the movie. I mean, who would take her to a baseball game, much less want to sell his season tickets to get back with her? Is there nobody else out there who is any better than her? Is Fallon's Red Sox obsession that problematic that he can't get another woman other than her (OK, this is probably true, but still... there are more tolerable women who would put up with him for a shot at those seats, I'm sure).
In addition, there's something about the whole Curse of Babe Ruth that permeated this Farrelly Brothers movie based on a book about soccer by Nick Hornby that really wanted to have another losing season and when the Red Sox surprisingly won it all, it was like... how can we get the reality that is going on in late October 2004 to be current in the movie.
So they went and let Fallon and Barrymore celebrate in St. Louis as if they were real fans who had been dying for this moment since the last time that the Red Sox were there in 1918. This really wasn't cool, but yeah...
Maybe I'm just nitpicking. There are good parts in the movie, but they aren't the ones that center around King Idiot Johnny Damon, who did his damnedest to leave Boston for a larger contract elsewhere when he was beloved in New England. While he wanted another year, he didn't have to sell his soul to do it.
And look what happened? The Yankees NEVER embraced him. He left for the Tigers and he left again for Tampa Bay. He's not exactly a spring chicken after all of those years in Kansas City (his rookie year was 95).
Now, he's hitting the apex of a career where he was never more loved than he was for the long hair and the Jesus beard. I remember what I did with the shirt I used to wear (picture to the left). He was Benedict Arnold, and now he's an afterthought looking for a place in an AL East wanna be transitional year team (and maybe they can be again, but it will never be like 2008 with the Crawford-less Rays).
But surely I digress into Johnny Damon's recent transgressions, which could easily apply to Manny Ramirez as well, but alas...
The point is that there are good parts to the movie. There is a love of baseball that makes one block out the world and want to watch games over being with other human beings at parties and the like. There are good things to it and those center around its enjoyable goodness, but it's not Bull Durham when it comes to movies.
But that's just me.

Bill James

The beauty of baseball is in its numbers. We know the important numbers. For example, Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs, which was then eclipsed by Hank Aaron who went on to hit 755 home runs despite never hitting 50 home runs in a season. And while Ruth did, he never had to play for a team called the Indianapolis Clowns as a second rate show act in the Negro Leagues.
We know that Ruth hit 60 home runs, and eventually, in 1961, he was passed by Roger Maris who hit 61 in 162 games instead of 154. We thank Ford Frick for reminding us of that distinction. Then, in 1998, Mark McGwire hit 70 and 3 years later, Barry Bonds hit 73. He would eventually go on to hit 762 though we seem to forget about his records in light of BALCO and look for a suitable replacement at the top of the numbers that are remembered.
We know that in 1968, Denny McClain won 31 and within a few years, he was made useless in baseball despite leading the league with 24 wins the next year. Nobody has come close since then. We know that same year that McClain was phenomenal, Bob Gibson had a 1.12 ERA despite only winning only winning 22 (he lost 9, but was named the MVP and Cy Young winner for 28 complete games and 268 whiffs). His movement was nasty and violent, a combination that comes out in the money shot porn of MLBTV's baseball history, but doesn't show up in the sheer numbers of baseball.
Thus, it becomes necessary that someone develops statistics that truly represent the power and effectiveness of a player as a whole. For the 31 wins that McClain got in that season, he had a 1.96 ERA and 280 strikeouts. Bob Gibson had 12 less Ks, .84 less ERA, and 9 less wins. Only one category is better, but somehow, his WAR (wins above replacement) is 11.9 compared to McClain's 5.9.
Who would you rather have? I know who I would rather have on my team. Watching him interviewed on MLBTV with Tim McCarver at his side and Bob Costas wearing the bib to catch drool (I'd be salivating to hear the story of Gibson plunking Pete LaCock in an old timers' game NEARLY A QUARTER OF A CENTURY after he drilled Gibson's final pitch for a grand slam as well).
But in the end, we need numbers to show us what season is better, and when we need those, we go back to Bill James, the stat guru of all stat gurus, whose contributions showed us how to create different statistics in baseball, which went on to show us how to create the definitive stats in baseball. And that's what the beauty of this game is. Frankly, it's a new revolution in sports and statistics. Hell, now we have Fan Graphs so amateur stats geniuses can make their own stats.
And it's all beautiful.
And it's the numbers that make the game fantastic.
Where would we be without them?

Nyjer Morgan

You've really gotta feel for Robert Downey Jr. and his quest to be whole again. The journey of years that he spent trying to be whole again mirrors so many "special" people's journeys to redemption in light of failure or hanging what ifs. That said, it doesn't mirror the hopes for the 2,000 teachers from Providence who face being cut out of their jobs and the government employees whose fate hangs in the balance of what the Democrats choose to do about the threats of Scott Walker to find a way to balance the budget with threats of nuclear style devastation to the opposition if they don't comply. While cooler heads seem to have prevailed in Indiana, the fate of good people to figure out their way through life in a productive job that allows for a meaningful existence and how long it will take to get back there if something, Heaven forbid, should happen are completely and totally real and real scary. Sadly, most of us would settle for less to have something. While it seems nice to have someone fighting for us, are the unions really doing it right? Do they really have the power of an entertainer or athlete's PR team and agent to make things right again in light of constant turmoil and consistent failure?
But yes, there is Robert Downey Jr. and his years spent looking to be a valuable actor again. Then again we all want to be worth more than $30million a year. It's not quite what Wolf Boy Taylor Lautner is worth, but it does dwarf his pasty vampire sidekick.
Perhaps Okkervil River said it best:
"These several years out on the sea have made me empty, cold, and clear. Pour yourself into me."
But since there were those who believed and poured themselves into making him valuable again, he is whole again while nearly 20% of American remains unemployed (we're not even talking underemployed, but we are adding those who gave up looking for jobs to the unemployment rate). In this, Robert Downey Jr. never seemed at a loss for works as he had a lot of small roles that came consistently until he finally hit pay dirt in Iron Man. Then again, he was the son of an actor, and it didn't matter that he had arrests, problems with drug and alcohol use and abuse, and more arrests.
The same can be said for Britney and Lindsey and the youthful train wreck culture of entertainment, hip hop, and Hollywood. If there's potential, there's a second chance.
We see the same in football with Michael Vick. If one can throw a football, there's a second chance - even if he's putting canines in the rape stand to breed them for vicious dog fighting matches that sadistic pigs bet on. But alas, that's just me.
Baseball is also right there. Miguel Cabrera coming to camp is a sign that everything has possibility in his world again and there is a third chance in store. It could be the triple crown potential that's giving him the next opportunity, but it's there and the American system is good.
Milton Bradley goes out with emotional stress and announces that the years of being angry were pretty much just the Albert Belle adage about being an angry black man. He has potential to be above average, and he gets another chance because the American system allows for it.
And Nyjer Morgan misses a catch and throws a hissy fit, but he's back this year with the Nationals after an undisclosed fine and an 8-game suspension.
Nevertheless, the rest of us look for stability and redemption in light of what we think we're worth in the world. It's not baseball salaries, but a living wage that can't be exported to other countries when the VORP and WAR of Indian, Chinese, and Mexican workers is comparable to that of us - just at a lower salary with less requests for additional help.
A mouth to feed doesn't reject a $200million+ 8 year salary as insufficient (even if in the world of baseball money, Albert Pujols is worth it). But alas, when concern for the athletes and entertainers stops being what it is - beautiful distraction to make life worth living in the hours that we aren't selling our time and energy to the company - and it becomes something more delusional - the desire to live in the cribs and the exotic lives of those players at the cost of making our now better - then we just have to wonder and hope for a state of normalcy again because this fake cushioned reality has destroyed us.