Yum!
Schilling donates bloody sock to Hall of Fame
Think about how much this thing would go for on eBay!
Behold the power of green tea
Good news for non-steroid users: green tea extract boosts athletic performance, for endurance exercise anyway. A new study shows an 8-24 percent increase in swimming time-to-exhaustion in mice being fed the extract.
“Now that even baseball players may need to seek new, more natural performance aids,” the story asks, “will Japanese green tea sets become standard in dugouts and athletic training tables around the world?”
Humans of around 165 pounds would have to drink four cups a day to get the same effect. I’m off to make cup number one and ponder whether Shigetoshi Hasegawa switched to Earl Grey last year.
Curse of Gaven
It’s almost too bad that the Dodgers have done well since they moved from Brooklyn in one of the more craven line items in the ledger of treachery by baseball teams. A New York sportswriter covering the Dodgers named Mike Gaven fell ill at the ball park and later died. Gaven said “Well, at least I covered the Dodgers when they were a great team. They’ll never be that great again.” Dick Young wrote an eloquent piece for the New York Daily News that ran the day Gaven died, in which he talked about how the team, having turned on their home, turned also on the sportswriters long close to the team favoring the sycophantic Los Angeles press “who are writing the kind of stories that will sell tickets where tickets are being sold”, and Young’s opinion that it was those small wounds that brought down and killed Gaven.
Young also had this gem in the piece
And I say to you, sports writers of Los Angeles and other cities: When a club official comes to you and says, “Why don’t you be a nice fellow; after all, you’re like one of us,” never for a moment believe that you are one of them, because you are merely tolerated-and then for only as long as they feel they can use you and your paper. You belong to your readers, and to them alone.
If they’d stunk ever since — even if they’d enjoyed Red Sox-like success but no titles, we’d still be talking about the Curse, and we’d remember Mike Gaven and the hole the loss of the Dodgers left in Brooklyn. It makes me sad that we don’t, and we don’t.
Hargrove, camps, other good stuff
I’ve got a new column up at the PI on Mike Hargrove’s managerial tendencies in past jobs, one of two. I dig it. This follows the other delayed one that went into the remaining lineup decisions and team defense. I’ll mention too that if you’re enjoying these (even as I try and find the right voice in writing them) it’s worth your time to let the powers that be know, especially if you want to see the kind of stat-informed, detailed M’s writing in print (and if you do, be cool).
Then there’s a bit at Baseball Prospectus (subscribers only) arguing that there are no camps in the scout versus performance thing, and that we all are scouts and statheads, and we use both approaches all the time.
Which, in turn, brings up another topic. I turned in my resignation at BP a while ago. People here have noticed I wrote about my association in the past tense, because they’re eagle-eyed, and I’ve had an little post in draft status for a while about it. I’ll probably edit and publish that today, now that I’ve said this. If I quit, why am I writing?
The short version is — giving up my position internally, such as it was, and not writing a column regularly doesn’t mean I’m not going to write there at all. I’ve got two chapters and an essay in BP 2005, and a bunch of chapters in the other thing I’m not sure we’re talking about publically yet but which is really cool.
Lastings Milledge, #1 Mets prospect
Baseball America’s writeup on Milledge as the #1 Mets prospect includes this:
New York was able to get him with the 12th overall pick in 2003 because of his mixed success with wood bats, a rumored high price tag and allegations of improper sexual conduct—none of which was ever substantiated.
This is not true. The circumstances surrounding his departure from the school are not clear. There were allegations that Lastings was having sex with 12 and 13-year old girls (consenting, for what that can mean at that age) that may have resulted in him being expelled. These have certainly not been proven. The allegations were investigated, but nothing happened–
From the New York Daily News:
A Pinellas County (Fla.) sheriff’s spokeswoman revealed to the Daily News three weeks ago that Milledge was investigated for consensual sexual contact with 12- and 13-year-old girls when he was 16. Milledge completed a juvenile “diversion” program that allowed him to avoid prosecution. It consisted of community service, a written essay and a “scared straight” prison visit, according to the spokeswoman.
But to say that none of the charges were ever substantiated… well, Milledge fessed up to another part of the sex allegations.
Or, earlier:
He was projected as one of the top three picks in this year’s draft, but when word got out that he had been expelled from Northside Christian School as a junior because of sexual conduct with a younger girl – Milledge admits to having had sexual relations with his then-15-year-old girlfriend – he fell to No. 12, where the Mets picked him.
The Milledges made a admission about the second part as an explanation about what happened with the police:
Lastings did not have sexual conduct with girls as young as 12 and 13, they say. He did go through a juvenile program, they admit, but voluntarily and only because he could have been prosecuted for the sexual contact he admitted having with his girlfriend.
The Mets went so far as to address the issues, essentially saying that they felt that the really bad allegations weren’t true.
Which leaves what Milledge admitted to, which is the having-sex-with-a-15-year-old part.
I’m not going to get into whether or not thes laws are fair to consenting teens, or… or anything like it. I’m not qualified to weigh the reasoning that might have gone into the police’s choice to prosecute. I’m not qualified to speculate on why Lastings felt that he might be prosecuted for his later offense instead.
But I want to point here that even the Milledges admitted that he did something related to sex with an minor that he could have been prosecuted for, and that Lastings went through a program to (if you entirely believe their side of the story) avoid possible prosecution for that.
Again, that’s the rosy view, which leaves unexplained his departure from the school, whether that was expulsion over the possible sex issues or voluntary, and assumes the letter to the school that accuses him of the really-young-girl-thing was false.
… allegations of improper sexual conduct—none of which was ever substantiated.
This is true only if you take the most narrow view of what that conduct might be, and at best substantially understates the truth of what we know and also of the larger circumstances surrounding what we know.
Los Angeles Angels of Anahiem
In response to recent changes —
I will not be calling the Angels this until we have to.
Thank you for your understanding during this difficult time,
Washington State Derek Zumsteg of Long Beach, Presented by Anchor Steam
Noowwww, the Johnson trade
But first — what exactly would it take for Bud Selig to veto a trade for the best interests of baseball? I’m not going to make a case that this should be the one, but if he (as he said he did) agonized over the Alex Rodriguez trade, then how in the world does he approve this one? I’m going to go have to look into the details of the luxury tax calculations (post to follow) but for now….
Randy Johnson for Javier Vazquez, Brad Halsey, Dioner Navarro, and $9m. Vazquez is owed $34.5m over the next three years of his contract. ($10.5, $11.5, $12.5).
So to the trade itself: I don’t know how long Randy can keep up being an elite pitcher, but until he explodes on the mound, projections are useless.
As for the Yankee prospects, I’ll wait to see what Dave says (Dave says they suck; see the comments), but I can’t believe there’s much of interest in that system and I won’t believe they’re any good until I see it. The Yankees are the greatest of all teams at the hype-and-trade, when they manage to get expectations about one of their guys blown way out proportion to their actual ability, spend the prospect in a trade, and they end up forgotten. This should give New York a true ace, moves Mussina to the two slot, and then.. Jaret Wright and Carl Pavano? I wouldn’t have signed those two, but that’s looking pretty good.
However… why’d they decline their option on Lieber at $8m? That’s a pretty good deal compared to what they spent on these other guys. And in free agency he got three years, $21m. A million dollars to the Yankees? Obviosuly it doesn’t matter to them. I don’t understand it.
Navarro supposedly gets a layover in Arizona before being moved to LA, who got rid of Shawn Green’s $16m remaining year by paying for half of it. And look, I’m not a big fan of Green, and he’s certainly not an elite player, but — is Shawn Green for a year at $8m with the chance to negotiate an extension worth any two prospects? And for LA, it seems weird to spend $8m to save $8m, but they also get two guys back they can use. I’m not wild about this not knowing the value of the guys they’re getting, but it’s… I was just about to type “not the worst deal DePodesta’s made this off-season” but I realized how bad that sounds.
Game accounts
I’ve been doing a ton of baseball research as part of a bunch of projects I’m writing, and I miss old-style game reports. Today’s game recaps go
Result, big event or two as selected by the reporter. (“The team won 5-4 in league play today on the strength of four solo home runs and a suicide squeeze in the ninth.”)
Quote or two.
Lesser events, notes of interest.
Quote or two.
Wrap it up. (“Jason Barker’s sacrifice bunt in the eighth was his 28th of the season, tying a team record”)
It’s based on the application of the pyramid style of newspaper story writing, where the more you read the more atomic knowledge you gain. Read the headline, you’ll see if the team won or lost. The lead sentence, you’ll get the who/what/when/where/why/how.
It wasn’t always like this. There was a time when baseball games were laid out chronologically, and the writers tried to give the reader a sense of what it was like to be there, including the highs, lows, when it seemed like there was hope, or even what it felt like to be crushed in the first inning. Interesting plays were applauded as they happened. There are drawbacks to this approach: the writers often try wayyyy too hard, and the purple prose gets thick and hard to read. And yet, it reminds me of the finer qualities of Dave Niehaus in the 1980s, when the rhythm and interest inherent in the event drove the coverage, but the love of the game brought forth a kind of… quest for the hidden item.
That’s lost now. Game recaps don’t sing with the emotions of that game, and I miss it.