The Perfect Player?

Those of you familiar with The Onion ("America's Finest News Source") may have seen this one, but I find it too good not to share:

Mad Sabermetrician Creates The Perfect Baseball Player's Statistics

I'll resist the temptation to just post it in its entirety (it's very short), but I was both amused and a bit pleased to read the last line of the piece:

Neeman's earlier attempts to produce the perfect player's statistics failed, as each of his first eight results was identical to Albert Pujols' 2005 batting line.

Great Days (kinda, sorta) in Cardinals History

By common reckoning, today marks the 102nd anniversary of the birth of Johnny Leonard Roosevelt "Pepper" Martin. I say "common reckoning" because, in keeping with his somewhat off the wall personality, Pepper was a leap year baby, who was born on February 29, 1904. So while he would have turned 102 today, he would have to wait til 2008 to celebrate his 26th birthday.

Dubbed "The Wild Horse of the Osage" during his minor league career for his aggressive style of play, he was known for making a mad dash on every batted ball as if it were the last inning of the seventh game of the World Series with the game on the line. Known for his speed on the basepaths, a baseball writer asked how he came to be such a fast runner. Martin replied, "I grew up in Oklahoma, and once you start runnin' out there there ain't nothin' to stop you." In addition to his speed, he was known for his barrel chest, which stood him in good stead in two respects: he often used it for his spectacular headfirst slides when stealing bases (Martin led the National League in stolen bases in 1933, 1934, and 1936, and was in the top three in the league in 1931 (3rd) and 1935 (2nd)), and he would often field ground balls off his chest when playing third base. Martin was a solid, if not spectacular player. He made the All Star team four times in his career (1933-35 inclusive, and 1937), but peaked in Hall of Fame voting in 1958, when he garnered 58 BBWAA votes (17.3%; he first appeared on the Hall ballot in 1942, and finally fell off in 1964).

In addition to his on the field skills, Martin made a major contribution to the Cardinals teams of the 20s and 30s by acting as court jester. He was an inveterate prankster, often pulling practical jokes on his teammates (dropping paper bags full of water out of hotel windows was one of his favorites), and Martin organized and fronted "The Mudcat Band", a Cardinals musical auxiliary which featured Martin on guitar, and a rotating cast of characters including Bob Weiland on jug, Frenchy Bordagaray on washboard, and Bill McGee on fiddle. (When McGee was sent down to the minors for seasoning, Martin kvetched: "My only fiddler, and they send him to the minors." But when McGee returned, Martin was restrained in his praise: "He's gotten better, but only on the fiddle.")

Pepper spent his entire 13 season career with the Cardinals. After his retirement in 1944, he owned a prosperous cattle ranch in his native Oklahoma, spent some time managing in the minors ("I'm not a good manager," he was quoted as saying, "I'm too thin-skinned and tender hearted"), and did some time as an Oklahoma deputy sheriff and state prison warden. At the time of his death in 1965, he was planning a return to baseball as a coach with the Texas League's Tulsa Oilers.

I realize I'm too late for this year (this is the kind of thing that requires some advanced preparation), but if you were planning to do something special to mark Pepper's birthday, you could do worse than cooking up a mess of sour dough biscuits from Pepper's own autographed recipe (follow a link on that page to a printable version, if you really want to try it yourself).

Significant Dates in St. Louis Baseball History

Today is the 96^th anniversary of the birth of Jerome Hanna "Dizzy" Dean, the legendary Hall of Famer and sparkplug of The Gashouse Gang (the 1934 St. Louis Cardinals, who were World Series Champions that year). Note: some sources give Dean's birth name as Jay Hanna Dean vice Jerome Hanna Dean.

Not only was Ol' Diz one of the greatest pitchers of all time, he was also one of the most memorable characters the National Pastime ever produced. Dizzy pitched one game for the Cardinals in 1930 (a complete game win, in which he allowed only three hits and one run), and then made the team for keeps in 1931. In 1934 his brother Paul, also a Cardinal farmhand in earlier years, joined the team with his brother (the Dean brothers both hailed from rural Lucas, Arkansas, then squarely in Cardinals territory, so it was unremarkable that both came up in that organization). Dizzy, never modest about his own ability, was not modest about his brother's ability, either. "Me and Paul will probably win forty games." People thought he was merely bragging, but the Deans made good on Dizzy's prediction; Dizzy went 30-7, and was voted National League Most Valuable Player (Dizzy is the last 30 game winner in the National League; since that campaign only Denny McLain of the American League's 1968 Detroit Tigers has won 30 or more games in a single season in the majors), while Paul went 19-11; together the brothers won 9 more games than Dizzy predicted. Not only that, but the Cardinals went 90-63 for the season to win the National League championship, and then beat the Detroit Tigers in the World Series, 4 games to 3. For that matter, the World Series was pretty much "The Dizzy and Paul Show" (some journalists dubbed Paul "Daffy", as apparently they liked the alliteration of "Dizzy and Daffy", but in truth poor Paul was hardly the character that Dizzy was, and never really lived up to that nickname), as Dizzy won two games and Paul won two games--all the Cardinals' World Series victories in 1934 were with one of the two Dean brothers on the mound.

After being hit on the foot by a line drive by Earl Averill of the Cleveland Indians during the 1937 All Star Game, and sustaining a fracture of his big toe as a result (Dizzy's comment on being informed of the injury: "Fractured? Hell, the damn thing's broken!!"), Dizzy tried to come back too soon, and his attempts to favor the foot injury caused him to injure his arm seriously, thus ending his career too early. The Cardinals traded him to the Chicago Cubs in 1938, where he finished out the last four years of his career as a mere shadow of his former dominating self (not counting a one game, 4 inning appearance pitching for the St. Louis Browns in 1947). Despite his shortened career, Dizzy was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers Association of America voters in 1953.

After his baseball career, Dizzy made a name for himself as a broadcaster. Some memorable stories deal with Dizzy's tenure as radio broadcaster for the St. Louis Browns. My favorite: one day, Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, on a state visit to the United States, made a stop in St. Louis, and was a special guest at a Browns game that day. Unfortunately, because of delays at the other functions the Queen had to attend that day, she arrived at the game late. As is usual with such high level VIPs, her arrival caused a bit of commotion in the area of Sportsmans' Park where she was to sit, and the game was delayed while Her Highness took her seat. Dizzy, broadcasting the game that day, mentioned to his radio audience that the game was being delayed because of some fuss surrounding "some fat lady sitting in the first base side boxes". Horrified, a Browns team executive rushed up to the broadcast booth to tell Dizzy the cause of the interruption. Thus informed, Dizzy turned to his microphone and said, "Well, folks, I've just been told that the fat lady causing all the ruckus in the first base boxes is the Queen of Holland!"

From his job broadcasting for the Browns, Dizzy broadcast national games. From 1960-65 he paired with fellow Hall of Famer Pee Wee Reese to broadcast the national "Game of the Week" on CBS. In that capacity, Dizzy and Pee Wee paired to bring us one of the great dialogues in all of sports broadcasting:

REESE: Well, Diz, I have to say... We've been watching that young man pitch a pretty good game here, and I have to ask you something. You used to be a pitcher, and you've been watching that young man pitch. Perhaps you can tell the listening audience what that boy is throwing today.
DEAN: Yes, Pee Wee, I used to be a pitcher, and I've been watching him pitch all afternoon, and I think that makes me enough of an expert to tell you that this afternoon, what that boy has been throwing is a baseball.

I can think of no better summary than that voiced by Dean's long time Cardinals teammate (including the '34 World Series Champions), Pepper Martin:

When ole Diz was out there pitching it was more than just another ballgame. It was a regular three-ring circus and everybody was wide awake and enjoying being alive.

A few choice "Deanisms":

Son, what kind of pitch would you like to miss? [to a batter]

It ain't braggin' if you can back it up. [Sometimes rendered as "It ain't braggin' if you can do it."]

I never keep a scorecard or the batting averages. I hate statistics. What I got to know, I keep in my head.

Anybody who's ever had the privilege of seeing me play knows that I am the greatest pitcher in the world.

All ballplayers want to wind up their career with the Cubs, Giants or Yankees. They just can't help it.

I ain't what I used to be, but who the hell is?

I won twenty-eight games in 1935 and I couldn't believe my eyes when the Cards send me a contract with a cut in salary. Mr. Rickey said I deserved a cut because I didn't win thirty games.

It puzzles me how they know what corners are good for filling stations. Just how did they know gas and oil was under there?

Let the teachers teach English and I will teach baseball. There is a lot of people in the United States who say 'isn't' and they ain't eating.

Mr. Rickey, I'll put more people in the park than anybody since Babe Ruth. [Dizzy, making the case for a salary increase in the days before arbitration.]

Sure I eat what I advertise. Sure I eat Wheaties for breakfast. A good bowl of Wheaties with bourbon can't be beat.

The doctors x-rayed my head and found nothing. [In one game, Dizzy "broke up" a double play when, as the lead runner, his head "intercepted" the throw from second to first. Stunned by the play, Dizzy was taken to a hospital for an examination. The headline in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat the next morning read: X-RAYS OF DEAN'S HEAD REVEAL NOTHING. Dizzy probably borrowed the headline for his own self-deprecating wisecrack.]

The dumber a pitcher is, the better. When he gets smart and tries to experiment with a lot of different pitches, he's in trouble. All I ever had was a fastball, a curve and a change up and I did pretty good.

The good Lord was good to me. He gave me a strong body, a good right arm and a weak mind.

Anybody who's ever had the privilege of seeing me play knows that I am the greatest pitcher in the world.

I can't tell you why there's a delay, but stick your head out of the window and you'll know why. [Said by Dizzy during a rain delay. The background: Dizzy was broadcasting a St. Louis Browns home game during the World War II years. During that time broadcasters were not permitted to talk about the weather, for fear of providing the Axis with information that would be useful in planning air raids on U.S soil--at that time, there was a justifiable (though later unfounded) fear of such attack.]

The Cards had one pitcher who won fourteen straight games in a period of twenty-four days. Then when he lost his fifteenth game 1-0, his manager fined him fifty bucks.

Heck, if anybody told me I was setting a record I'd of got me some more strikeouts. [Dizzy's comment on setting the then single game strikeout record (in a game on July 30, 1933)]

Heck, if I knew that Paul was going to throw a no-hitter, I'da throwed one too. [Comment made to the press when Dizzy threw a two-hitter in the first game of a doubleheader. His brother Paul pitched the second game of the set, and threw a no-hitter.]

He must think I went to the Massachesetts Constitution of Technology. [Dizzy (who was not well educated), complaining about the vocabulary used by the very well educated Cardinals General Manager Branch Rickey]

Interesting Speculation...

It's probably not economically feasible, but it's an interesting thought. From a John Brattain musing on the trials of being "A-Dog" in today's Hardball Times:

So what can Alex Rodriguez do? Well he has to remember that his image can’t get any worse. He’s going to have to let his game speak for itself. He’ll never satisfy all his critics but he can avoid adding more. He might consider simply not speaking to the media a la Steve Carlton and Albert Belle, since everything he says will be viewed with suspicion or scorn—just let his bat do the talking. If the Yankees brass decides he’s expendable, he should try to get out of the American League; his non-baseball reputation is slag [in many parts] of Seattle, Texas, Boston and New York. We’ve seen players like Roger Maris, Mark McGwire, and Jim Edmonds thrive in St. Louis—maybe A-Rod could find peace there.

New BlogToy to test out, guys!

Baseball Library has just come up with a most interesting (and potentially excellent tool) for basebloggers: the BaseballLibrary.com text linker.

Basically, the concept is simple. You enter your text into the box, and then this application searches the Baseball Library website for the ballplayers, teams and dates that you reference, and then generates HTML code for hyperlinks to the Baseball Library pages about those players, teams and dates.. For example, if I enter (and this makes no sense, whatsoever, I know) this into the box:

"Stan Musial, Ozzie Smith, Mark McGwire, and Bob Uecker of the 1964 St. Louis Cardinals on July 9, 1957"

the linker application comes up with this:

"Stan Musial, Ozzie Smith, Mark McGwire, and Bob Uecker of the 1964 St. Louis Cardinals on July 9, 1957".

Your output is "configurable"; you can tell the application to link any or all of dates, player names and teams (for teams you have to specify a year as well as a team name; merely "St. Louis", "Cardinals, and even "St. Louis Cardinals" weren't recognized by the application), and you can also specify if you want your links to open in a new window (I elected to use that for the example above). About the only thing you need to add is the "title" attribute to your hyperlink tags if you so desire.

Tres cool.

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this yet....

[UPDATE: Rolen's over for 2005; elects surgery, probably within the coming week.]

Save for a stray comment in an earlier post here. But as long as I also blogged about it elsewhere....

I don't envy Scott Rolen right now, not since it was announced late last week that Rolen has a difficult decision to make soon. It appears that Rolen suffered a torn labrum in his collision with Hee-Seop Choi back in May, and a recent consultation with Cincinnati Reds team physician Dr. Tim Kremchek has revealed that apparently an earlier arthroscopic surgery which Rolen had this season didn't completely fix the problem. So it's the case that Rolen must have surgery, and the only question is timing. Surgery will probably sideline Rolen for about 6 months, which means if he has it soon, he should be at or near 100% by the time spring training 2006 starts, with bright prospects for a full 2006 season.

However, as Will Carroll points out in his last "Under the Knife" column at Baseball Prospectus (premium content; subscription required to view):

He'll need an open repair along the lines of the one that kept Mark Ellis out all of 2004. He'll be able to return in about six months, meaning that the timing of the surgery has to take not only the postseason into account, but next season as well. Trading time in the following season for a ring now--flags fly forever--can work, as it did with Curt Schilling. It can also go wrong, not providing any return. Rolen's decision is a hard one. He wants to help his team, especially given their excellent chance of heading back to the World Series.

On the other hand, as Matthew Leach's MLB.com article points out, Rolen himself is very aware that he's nowhere near 100% right now, and is contemplating whether his continued presence would hurt the ballclub in the near term:

"It was put to me, from Dr. Kremchek, that, 'you need to have surgery,' " Rolen told reporters on Thursday afternoon. " 'When all the smoke clears,' he says, 'you don't have any options. You have to have surgery.'

"The timing is the issue. That's the decision that I have to make. And he was not optimistic about me being able to rehab and come back and do anything -- compete, play. He's not optimistic."

...

"This team is on its way to the playoffs," Rolen said. "A lot of people can argue whatever they want, but at one point, I believe we were the best team in baseball. We have a lot of guys injured, but we're still in great position. We're still headed, hopefully, to the playoffs. If we can do this, if we can hang on, I have a chance of being part of something pretty special -- or I walk around in a sling.

"So that's a big decision. One of the questions is: What's my best chance to win a ring as a St. Louis Cardinal? It might be not to play. That's not easy. That's not an easy decision, to say I can't help this team -- I can hurt this team, but I can't help this team, so my best shot of helping this team win a World Series is to not play. That's not an easy decision to make."

Tough choice. I'm not sure I'd want to be in his shoes. Not even for his salary.

Well, ok, maybe for his salary.

St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum

I was lucky enough to be given tickets to the June 6 Cards/Red Sox game. Since the friend who got me the tickets is associated with the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame, I spent a pleasant afternoon killing time before the game at the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum, located in the IBM&HoF at 111 Stadium Plaza. In addition to the Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum, the IBM&HoF handles stadium tours as well.

Below the fold, a few pictures to give you a taste of what to see there. I'll be posting more of the pictures over at my own blog in a bit...

The entryway to the Hall of Fame Museum.

The Last World Championship Trophy won by the Cardinals.

The exhibit on the 2004 National League Champions. The the right of the case is the Warren Giles Trophy, awarded to the National League Champions.

The 2005 St. Louis Cardinals

An Albert Pujols exhibit. Including one of Albert's bats.

Bob Gibson exhibit.

A print of a famous painting of Stan Musial (original in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown).

Happy Birthday!

My fellow St. Louis native Lawrence Peter Berra turns 80 today.

Name doesn't ring a bell? You know him better as "Yogi".

Cardinals fans like to give well deserved crap to Cubs fans for the famous trade that sent Ernie Broglio, Bobby Shantz, and Doug Clemens to the Cubs in return for one Lou Brock (actually, the Cards also got Jack Spring and Paul Toth in that trade as well, but whenever you say "Jack Spring" or "Paul Toth" to any but the most obsessed of baseball fans, the most likely response is "who?"). However back in 1943 the Cardinals made offers to two amateur catchers, both of whom were native St. Louisans from the Italian enclave known and loved in St. Louis as "The Hill". The Cards offered one a signing bonus, while they offered the other one a straight contract with no signing bonus. The one who got the bonus was Joe Garagiola. Yogi, who was the one who didn't get a signing bonus, was so miffed by the Cardinals' snub that he signed with the New York Yankees. Now, one of those catchers is in the Hall of Fame, and the other one isn't. Hint: the Hall of Famer isn't Joe.

It's not one of the high points in the history of Cardinals player development.

Yogi is, of course, also known for his wonderful facility with the English language, which has resulted in some of the most memorable quotes known to baseball, or to collectors of quotations. The only trouble for the collector of "Yogiisms", as they are known, is that, as observed by The Master Himself:

I never said most of the things I said.

Basically, Yogi's way of expressing himself, while characteristic and amusing, was also very easily imitated, and it's an open secret that many sportswriters weren't beyond making up a few Yogiisms when they wanted to spice up their stories. So you have to take any listing of Yogi Berra quotes with a pretty large grain of salt; it's never clear which ones are legitimate Yogiisms and which are fabricated.

A few of my favorite Yogiisms (and I'm not necessarily vouching for their authenticity, but all of these have been credited to Yogi at some time):

A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore.

Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours.

Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical.

I always thought that record would stand until it was broken.

Half the lies they tell about me aren't true.

He hits from both sides of the plate. He's amphibious.

I just want to thank everyone who made this day necessary. [At "Yogi Berra Appreciation Day" at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, 1947]

I'm not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did.

If people don't want to come out to the ball park, nobody's gonna stop 'em. [In a somewhat similar vein, Yogi once gave a capsule review of a New York restaurant: "Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded."]

We have deep depth.

You wouldn't have won if we'd beaten you.

And, of course, I can't forget the one that I'm sure was manufactured specifically for the ad that runs when AFLAC sponsors a MLB game:

And they pay you cash, which is just as good as money.

I think it says something about the regard that baseball fans have for Yogi, that this commercial is still running in its the third straight baseball season.

Monday Baseball Trivia--because I feel like it...

And besides, there's a Cardinals connection and a Browns connection to a couple of these questions. The quiz is below the fold; answers are over at my blog.

1) Today is the 24^th anniversary of the longest professional baseball game in history. I'll give you a hint; it's not an MLB game. That hint being given, name the minor league level, league and teams involved in this game.

2) How long did the game last, in innings played and in clock time?

3) Name two Hall of Famers who played in this game.

4) What is the longest MLB game ever played, by clock time? By number of innings played?

5) The longest MLB game ever played (by number of innings played, not by clock time) ended in a tie. Name one of the two longest games (by number of innings played) that was played to a decision. (Hint: One AL game, and one NL game are each tied for this honor.)

6) What is the shortest time ("clock time", obviously) it's taken to play a "regulation" doubleheader (i.e., two 9-inning games) in MLB? (I have to wonder here if any of you are old enough to remember what a doubleheader is... ;-) )

7) What is the shortest time ("clock time", again) it's taken to play a complete 9-inning game in MLB?

FWIW, if you use Google you're cheating, but since there's no prizes or anything like that involved it's not like I can stop you.

:-)

Quote Quiz Answers...

To make things easier, I probably should have made them multiple guess questions. Ah, something to remember for next time.

1) "I have a darn good job, but please don't ask me what I do."
Stan Musial, quoted in Sports Illustrated in June of 1988, about his job in the Cardinals Front Office.

2) "Left-hander, right-hander, soft thrower, power guy, fastballs away, fastballs in--he doesn't have any holes."
Tino Martinez, about teammate Albert Pujols.

3) "I set records that will never be equaled. In fact, I hope 90% of them don't even get printed."
Bob "Mr. Baseball" Uecker, on his own career.

4) "It was said that I threw basically, five pitches--fastball, slider, curve, change-up, and knockdown. I don't believe that assessment did me justice, though. I actually used about nine pitches--two different fastballs, two sliders, a curve, a change-up, knockdown, brushback, and hit batsman."
Bob Gibson, on his pitches.

5) "I was just helping the writers out. Them ain't lies, them's scoops."
Dizzy Dean, on the varying life stories he'd relate to different sportswriters.

6) [Describing a home-run ball he gave up that night.] "Fastball. Cock high."
Steve "Lefty" Carlton.

7) "When I came over here [the National League], I always heard it was a stronger league, with amphetamines all over the clubhouse, but all I found was Michelob Dry."
Dan Quisenberry, on moving from the Royals to the Cardinals.

8) "I've never even hit batting practice before a crowd that small at Busch." [1,519 on 4/18/1988]
Andy Van Slyke, comparing crowds in St. Louis and Pittsburgh.

9) "It was a beautiful thing to observe, with all 36 oars working in unison."
Jack Buck, describing George Steinbrenner's new yacht, 1981.

10) "I hope to live long enough to spend the rest of my life here."
Mike "Good field, no hit" Gonzalez, at a dinner in St. Louis in 1942.

11) "Less than a foot made the difference between a hero and a bum."
Grover Cleveland Alexander, on the long foul ball Tony Lazzeri hit off him (had it remained fair, it would have been a grand slam that would have probably put the Yankees ahead for good) before he struck Lazzeri out to save the seventh and deciding game of the 1926 World Series (the Cardinals' first World Championship).

12) A twofer. Which one season Cardinal spoke thus of playing in St. Louis:

"St. Louis is baseball all american style. Not like Philly, not like New York, not like anywhere else. In St. Louis the fans care about the game. Here they talk strategy, the hit-and-run, the squeeze play, the defensive alignment; the fans didn't care about off-field controversies."

but also voiced the classic assessment of artificial turf:

"If a horse won't eat it, I don't want to play on it."

Dick Allen, of whom Phillies teammate (and former Cardinal) Bob Uecker once said "He loved everything about baseball, except showing up at the stadium and playing."

Opening Day Quote Quiz

Over at my home blog, I'm in the habit of posting short trivia quizzes. Unfortunately, I've been snowed under by work the past few weeks, and been unable to put out a trivia quiz. Things have lightened up a bit, and since tomorrow is the Cardinals 2005 Opener (albeit, not at home), I decided to do the quiz thing here at the Birdwatch today.

Below the fold is a set of quotations. Some of these are about Cardinals players or broadcasters; others are by Cardinals players or broadcasters. Name the player/broadcaster associated with the quote. (For extra credit, also name the person who said the quote for those quotes that are about Cardinals players. HINT: a quote could even be by a player/broadcaster about another Cardinal player.) Answers tomorrow.

1) "I have a darn good job, but please don't ask me what I do."

2) "Left-hander, right-hander, soft thrower, power guy, fastballs away, fastballs in--he doesn’t have any holes."

3) "I set records that will never be equaled. In fact, I hope 90% of them don't even get printed."

4) "It was said that I threw basically, five pitches--fastball, slider, curve, change-up, and knockdown. I don't believe that assessment did me justice, though. I actually used about nine pitches--two different fastballs, two sliders, a curve, a change-up, knockdown, brushback, and hit batsman."

5) "I was just helping the writers out. Them ain't lies, them's scoops."

6) [Describing a home-run ball he gave up that night.] "Fastball. Cock high."

7) "When I came over here [the National League], I always heard it was a stronger league, with amphetamines all over the clubhouse, but all I found was Michelob Dry."

8) "I've never even hit batting practice before a crowd that small at Busch." [1,519 on 4/18/1988]

9) "It was a beautiful thing to observe, with all 36 oars working in unison."

10) "I hope to live long enough to spend the rest of my life here."

11) "Less than a foot made the difference between a hero and a bum."

12) A twofer. Which one season Cardinal spoke thus of playing in St. Louis:

"St. Louis is baseball all american style. Not like Philly, not like New York, not like anywhere else. In St. Louis the fans care about the game. Here they talk strategy, the hit-and-run, the squeeze play, the defensive alignment; the fans didn't care about off-field controversies."

but also voiced the classic assessment of artificial turf:

"If a horse won't eat it, I don't want to play on it."

Why bother with those boring Congressional Steroid Hearings....

here's a transcript of a Senate hearing about baseball that's much, much more entertaining than the steroid brouhaha will ever be: Testimony of Casey Stengel, July 8, 1958 (the day before my first birthday, if anyone cares).

An excerpt:

Senator Kefauver: I was asking you, sir, why it is that baseball wants this bill passed.

Mr. Stengel: I would say I would not know, but would say the reason why they would want it passed is to keep baseball going as the highest paid ball sport that has gone into baseball and from the baseball angle, I am not going to speak of any other sport. I am not here to argue about other sports, I am in the baseball business. It has been run cleaner than any business that was ever put out in the one-hundred years at the present time. I am not speaking about television or I am not speaking about income that comes into the ball parks: You have to take that off. I don't know too much about it. I say the ballplayers have a better advancement at the present time.

Senator Kefauver: One further question, and then I will pass the other Senators. How many players do the Yankees control, Mr. Stengel?

Mr. Stengel: Well, I will tell you: I hire the players and if they make good with me I keep them without criticism from my ownership. I do not know how many players they own as I am not a scout and I cannot run a ball club during the daytime and be busy at night and up the next day and find out how many players that the Yankees own. If you get any official with the Yankees that is here, why he could give you the names.

...

Senator Langer: That brings us to another question.

Mr. Stengel: Yes, sir.

Senator Langer: That is, what do you think of pay-as-you-go television?

Mr. Stengel: Well, to tell you the truth, if were starting in it myself I would like to be in that line of business as I did not think they would ever have television and so forth here but they have got it here now. (Laughter). Forty years ago you would not have had it around here yourself and you would not have cameras flying around here every five minutes but we have got them here and more of them around here than around a ball field, I will give you that little tip.

Senator Langer: You believe the time is ever going to come when you will have pay-as-you-go in the world series, which would be kept from the public unless they had pay-as-you-go television in their homes?

Mr. Stengel: I think you have got a good argument there and it is worthy of you to say that. I am not thinking myself of anybody that is hospitalized and anybody who cannot go to a ball park, I should think if they could pass that they should try to pass it, but I don't think they will be able to do it because they have gone in television so far that they reach so many outside people, you have to have a sponsor for everything else you do, go pay television and that is going to run all the big theaters out of business where you have to use pay television. All the big theaters and all the big movie companies went broke. We know that. You see that now or you would not have a place to hold a television for pay. I don't know how they would run that of courese. I am not on that side of the fence. I am paid a salary.

...

Senator Langer: I want to know whether you intend to keep on monopolizing the world's championship in New York City.

Mr. Stengel: Well, I will tell you, I got a little concerned yesterday in the first three innings when I say the three players I had gotten rid of and I said when I lost nine what am I going to do and when I had a couple of my players. I thought so great of that did not do so good up to the sixth inning I was more confused but I finally had to go and call on a young man in Baltimore that we don't own and the Yankees don't own him, and he is going pretty good, and I would actually have to tell you that I think we are more the Greta Garbo type now from success.

We are being hated I mean, from the the ownership and all, we are being hated. Every sport that gets too great or one individual, but if we made 27 and it pays to have a winner at home why would you not have a good winner in your own park if you were an owner. That is the result of baseball. An owner gets most of the money at home and it is up to him and his staff to do better or they ought to be discharged.

...

Senator O'Mahoney: How many minor leagues were there in baseball when you began?

Mr. Stengel: Well, there were not so many at that time because of this fact: Anybody to go into baseball at that time with the educational schools that we had were small, while you were probably thoroughly educated at school, you had to be. We had only small cities that you could put a team in and they would go defunct. Why I remember the first year I was at Kankakee, Ill., and a bank offered me $550 if I would let them have a little notice. I left there and took a uniform because they owed me two weeks' pay. But I either had to quit but I did not have enough money to go to dental college so I had to go with the manager down to Kentucky.

What happened there was if you got by July, that was the big date. You did not play night ball and you did not play Sundays in half of the cities on account of a Sunday observance, so in those days when things were tough, and all of it was, I mean to say, why they just closed up July 4 and there you were sitting there in the depot. You could go to work some place else but that was it. So I got out of Kankakee, Ill., and I just go there for the visit now. (Laughter).

I think now, do you know how many clubs they have? Anybody will start a minor league club but it is just like your small cities, the industries have left them and they have gone west to California, and I am a Missourian--Kansas City, Missouri--but I can see all those towns and everybody moving west and I know if you fly in the air you can see anything from the desert, you can see a big country over there that has got many names. Well, now why wouldn't baseball prosper out there, with that many million people?

Senator O'Mahoney: Are the minor leagues suffering now?

Mr. Stengel: I should say they are.

Senator O'Mahoney: Why?

Mr. Stengel: Do you know why? I will tell you why. I don't think anybody can support minor league ball when they see a great official, it would be just like a great actress or actor had come to town. If Bob Hope had come here or Greta Garbo over there half of them would go see Greta Garbo and half Bob Hope but if you have a very poor baseball team they are not going to watch you until you become great and the minor leagues now with radio and television will not pay very much attention to minor league ballplayers. Softball is interesting, the parent is interested; he goes around with him. He watches his son and he is more enthusiastic about the boy than some stranger that comes to town and wants to play in a little wooden park and with no facilities to make you interested. You might rather stay home and see a program.

But it was Mickey Mantle who brought down the house:

Senator Kefauver: Mr. Mantle, do you have any observations with reference to the applicability of the antitrust laws to baseball?

Mr. Mantle: My views are about the same as Casey's (laughter).

On Juicing--from an expert

Brian Walton, at The Cardinals Birdhouse, has a fascinating interview with fitness expert/journalist (and also native St. Louisan and Cardinal fan) Lou Schuler regarding the recent Jose Canseco "juicing" revelations. Schuler has some interesting, and IMHO, sensible, observations on the whole steroid controversy in MLB, but check it out for yourself.

HOWEVER, for those of you who want an expert opinion on the ultimate question, "Was 'Big Mac' juiced?":

Specifically, how do we ensure athletes who are not users are not unjustly accused? After all, isn’t most evidence circumstantial, such as in the case of Mark McGwire?

You can’t. You can only look at what we know to be humanly possible without drugs, and judge for yourself whether or not guys like McGwire exceeded it.

I loved baseball in 1998. I made my son come watch every McGwire at-bat with me, even though he was only 2 and couldn’t have cared less, just to be able to say he and I saw the record-breaking shots together.

And even at the time, I figured McGwire and Sosa were both juiced. I didn’t care. As a fan, particularly as a Cardinal fan, I was in heaven.

I can’t say with any certainty that McGwire took steroids – and andostenedione doesn’t count, since no studies have shown it works well enough to produce the kind of size and strength McGwire had.

Circumstantially, all the signs were there. He turned 35 right about the time he hit his 70th homer. That season he had an OPS of 1.222. Athletes typically peak in their late 20s. Mac’s highest slugging percentage in his 20s was .618, in ’87, when he was A.L. rookie of the year. He started that season at 23.

At 28, in ’92, he had a slugging percentage of .585. The next few years are screwed up, with his injuries and the strike, but then all of a sudden, in 1995, he jumps up to a .685 slugging percentage, then .730 in ’96, on up to .752 in ’98.

You just can’t find a precedent in baseball history for that. Ted Williams had an amazing season when he was ’38, in 1957, but it was amazing because it almost equaled his previous best season, 1941, when he was 22 and hit .406.

Henry Aaron is another one who had some great seasons in his late ‘30s, but they weren’t dramatically better than his best seasons when he was in his 20s. And in terms of total bases, they weren’t really close to what he did when he was 25. He had 400 that year, but in his 30s he never came close to that, even though he was hitting tons of homers.

Evidence that Walt's worth what we pay him, and then some....

A piece in the New York Post two days ago gave Walt Jocketty some unexpected kudos:

One American League team attempted to tackle the difference between what players are paid and what they deserve. Executives from this team came to a consensus on what each player should earn, designing this exercise as a way to identify underpaid assets on other rosters.

But their results were fascinating. The Cardinals, at $182 million, ended up with the largest payroll value, a reflection of having so many superb players and almost no useless ones.

...

An executive who participated in this exercise, who asked his team not be revealed, conceded the fallibilities. Salaries were based exclusively on last year's performance and not on any kind of projections, and they used modern metrics such as Win Shares as a guide and very little actual scouting of ability. Still, what emerged is just how few established players earn their actual paychecks.

Next time someone says....

that ballplayers are greedy SOBs who get paid way too much money, you might want to refer them to a recent Hardball Times article by John Brattain. In it, Brattain makes an observation that everyone bitching about ballplayer salaries needs to contemplate: If the ballplayers didn't get that money, think of who would.

As an example, here's Brattain talking about "The Stadium Scam":

Let’s look a little closer shall we? For a small market to “be competitive” what does our fair commissioner say is required?

A new stadium!

However, since the poor owner is eating Fancy Feast with his fingers while living in a beat up cardboard box under a bridge, he cannot afford to build one himself. So, off he goes, hat in hand to the local politicos and says: “Help, I‘m going broke, the players are too greedy, the Yankees and Mets are buying all the best players, and I really, really, really want to win a World Series for our fair region because I really, really, really love it here and would like nothing better than to deliver a winner for the good folks here. If it‘s not too much trouble, could you take some money out of the school budget, healthcare, infrastructure, libraries and social assistance and slip me a few hundred million? That way I can increase payroll and stop trading our best players to the Yankees. Best of all, I‘ve hired a friend who has crunched the numbers and if you do this, your city will become El Dorado.”

“Oh yeah, if you don’t cough up the dough, I’m out of this loser borough.”

Well, community after community did just that and gosh darn it, look at the turnaround in the so-called “small market” teams since the strike:

• The Reds moved into the Great American Ballpark and are 69-93 and 78-84 and still look to keep their payroll low.
• The Brewers moved into Miller Park and are 68-94, 56-106, 68-94, and 67-94 and have featured among the lowest payrolls in MLB.
• The Pirates moved into PNC Park and are 62-100, 72-89, 75-87, and 72-89 and traded their two highest salaried players in recent seasons (Jason Kendall and Brian Giles).
• The Tigers moved into Comerica Park and are 79-83, 66-96, 52-109, 43-119, and 72-90 and announced a payroll freeze their first year in the new park.

Granted Cleveland, Baltimore, Texas, Houston, Seattle and Atlanta have enjoyed success, but bear in mind however that the Indians, Astros, Mariners and Braves already had assembled solid rosters before their parks opened and Baltimore didn’t reach the post season until five years passed from the opening of Camden Yards. Conversely, as we mentioned earlier the teams that have been competitive (Twins, Angels, A‘s, Marlins) are -- excluding Anaheim -- clubs that can’t “compete” because of playing in ‘economically obsolete’ facilities.

Since many teams with new stadiums are struggling on the field and teams with older facilities are doing well, we can safely assume that a “competitive club” from Selig’s standpoint means a new stadium, a .500 record, a 20% drop in attendance, and all the club seats and luxury boxes are leased. New stadiums aren’t about “being competitive” -- good management will accomplish that -- it’s about free money, corporate welfare, and higher profits from gorging oneself into a stupor (which explains a lot) at the public teat.

Go read the whole thing; it's a bit long, but well worth it.

Jocketty dodges the bullet again....

According to the Post-Dispatch this morning (and the Birdhouse yesterday) the Cards signed southpaw Rick Ankiel to a 1-year deal worth $400,000 (before incentives). Thus, Walt once again avoids the need to go to arbitration, as Ankiel was the last of the arbitration-eligible players to come to terms with the team.

According to the Birdhouse, Ankiel's incentives include an additional $75,000 based on appearances, $50,000 if Rick is selected to the National League All Star Team, and $50,000 if he is selected as Comeback Player of the Year.

Welcome back, and good luck, Rick. All of Cardinal Nation will be pulling for you!

The Final Out Ball? It's for the Birds...

Have you been following the controversy over the ball that was used for the final put-out of the 2004 World Series?

Doug Mientkiewicz was the BoSox first baseman who caught the throw at first for the final out of the Series. He kept the ball and handed it to his wife after the game. He now claims it's his (one news story I read quoted Mientkiewicz as saying the ball represented "four years at Florida State" for one of his kids). The Red Sox, on the other hand, say the ball belongs to the Sox, and by extension, to the fans who have been waiting for a Sox championship for 86 years. Who does the ball belong to?

In an interesting op-ed in the New York Times, University of Tulsa law professor Paul Finkelman argues that the true owner of the ball is.....

The St. Louis Cardinals.

Well, either the Cards, or the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball. But check the article out; it's an interesting read.

(Note, the NY Times requires free registration to read articles; to get around it use BugMeNot.)

If you bleed Cardinal red...

These folks may be looking for you:

Star Search
Attention Die-Hard Cardinal Fans
Earn $535 a day and a free trip to Miami

Attention die-hard St. Louis Cardinals fans: We are searching for the ultimate fan to star in our film documentary about baseball.

If you're interested, you'll find further details posted at The Cardinals Birdhouse.

McGee for Cooperstown!

The Willie McGee for the Hall of Fame juggernaut has nowhere to go but up. According to the Hall's press release announcing the Class of 2005:

Other than Boggs, the only player among 12 first-year candidates to qualify to remain on the ballot was outfielder Willie McGee, who was precisely at the 5-percent cutoff point with 26 votes.

So, let's start making plans to get out the vote!

No, I've not lost my mind. Like the rest of Cardinal Nation, I think the world of Willie, but I know that his career stats don't justify enshrinement in Cooperstown. But I find it interesting that 26 baseball writers do think that highly of Willie. Is there any way we can find out who a few of those writers were, and get them to put their McGee Hall of Fame case in writing? I think it might make some interesting reading....

First Prediction for NL Central

Well, the first one I've seen, at any rate.

Brian Walton, over at The Cardinals Birdhouse, reported last Sunday that Guy Curtwright of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has predicted that the NL Central race this season will be:

1. Chicago
2. St. Louis
3. Houston

How does that strike everyone?

"Good field, no hit."

As a descriptive phrase, it's pretty much a cliche. The standard description of the journeyman defensive specialist. "Good field, no hit." But were you aware that this pithy phrase, once described by a baseball writer as "baseball's most illiterate message", has a Cardinals connection?

Miguel Angel Gonzalez Cordero was born in Havana, Cuba on September 24, 1890, but for pretty obvious reasons when he broke into the National League with the Boston Braves he was known more simply as Mike Gonzalez. Mike had an interesting career, playing for 5 NL clubs (the Braves, the Reds, the Cardinals, the Giants, and the Cubs), but it will always be the St. Louis Cardinals that he's associated with, mostly because St. Louis became something of the touchstone of his career; no matter where he went he always seemed to end up back in St. Louis (he played 7 full seasons and part of an 8th for the Redbirds, the most seasons that he played with any club).

In 1922 and 1923 Gonzalez was spending some time in the minors, playing for the St. Paul Saints, then of the American Association, and having a stellar couple of seasons. Gonzalez was so well respected in the Twin Cities that in 1924, when Gonzalez had returned to the majors with (of course) the Cardinals, the owner of the Minneapolis franchise wired him for his opinion of a catching prospect whose contract Minneapolis was interested in purchasing.

The catching prospect was Moe Berg. Gonzalez's assessment of Berg was the 4-word gem that went down in baseball history: "Good field, no hit."

Gonzalez finished his playing career with the Cardinals in 1932, and after a stint in 1933 as a player-coach with the minor league club in Columbus, he returned to the Cardinals as a coach in 1934 (the Gashouse Gang; one of the most celebrated Cardinals teams in franchise history, and World Series champions that year) and two-time interim manager. In that capacity, Gonzalez made history; he was named interim manager on September 11, 1938 when the Cardinals fired long time manager Frankie Frisch, and thereby became the first Latino (and of course, the first Cuban born) manager in MLB history. Gonzalez, who was a good friend of and roommates with Frisch, agreed to manage only for the remainder of the season, and racked up an 8-8 record. Gonzalez moved back to the coaching box in 1939 as the Cards hired Ray Blades to manage the team, but Gonzalez got to manage the Cardinals one more time, when the team fired Blades in 1940 and called upon Mike to manage for a week, until the Cards hired Billy Southworth as their new manager.

But if Mike didn't make history for the rest of his coaching career, at least he was a participant in one of the more historic events in Cardinals history. It was, fittingly enough, Mike's last game as a coach for the Cardinals, and it was October 15, 1946. Sportsman's Park, St. Louis. Game Seven of the World Series between the Cardinals and the Boston Red Sox, bottom of the eighth inning, two out, and the score tied at 3 apiece. Enos Slaugher was at first base when Harry Walker lined Boston pitcher Bob Klinger's pitch into left-center field for a sure single, and "Country" commenced what has since become immortalized in Cardinals history as "The Mad Dash Home". To achieve it, he blew right past Gonzalez's frantic "stop" sign. Fortunately (for Slaughter and St. Louis), Boston center fielder Leon Culberson bobbled the ball slightly before throwing to shortstop Johnny Pesky. Then, Pesky either checked Walker on base or had a momentary brain spasm when faced with Slaughter's sheer audacity (the point will probably be argued by die-hard fans forever). In any event, the Cardinals took the lead and never relinquished it, and Mike Gonzalez was there to see it happen.

That was Gonzalez's last game as a Cardinals coach because of an unusual set of circumstances. Gonzalez owned and managed the Havana team in the Cuban Winter League, and that team had connections with the Mexican League, which enticed a number of major leaguers to jump their contracts to play in the Mexican League. When the dust cleared, a number of major league players and other personnel were banned from major league baseball, and Gonzalez was one of them. When he was reinstated (and offered a coaching job by the Braves), Gonzalez elected instead to remain in Cuba and manage his baseball interests there. A national hero in Cuba, Gonzalez was less hard-hit by Castro's "reforms" than many Cubans, and he eventually died in Havana on February 19, 1977, at age 86.

[By way of introduction, I'm a native of St. Louis, Missouri, who grew up watching the great Cardinals teams of the 1960s, and the somewhat less than stellar teams of the 70s. Unfortunately, I was away in Chicago finishing my education in 1982, and was in Washington, DC, doing my bit for King and Country in 1985 (working in the same office with two native Kansans who were KC Royals fans; they never let me forget that one, alas....). Fortunately I was around for 1987, but early in 2001 the company I was then working for transferred me to Memphis, TN. I'm only now getting around to forgiving TLR for bringing Albert Pujols up with the big club after spring training that year, instead of leaving him in Memphis so I could get a good look at him, but I will concede (once you beat me over the head with the 2001 NL Rookie of the Year selection a few times) that TLR probably made the right move there.

And of course, I spent all of last season wondering why in hell I'd ever accepted that transfer to Memphis.... --Len Cleavelin]

Welcome to the Birdwatch

birdwatch (v) - To watch and study birds in their natural habitat

By birds, we mean redbirds, or Cardinals, and of course by natural habitat, we mean a baseball diamond. More specifically, we are a group of Cardinal fans who love to watch the games, analyze the moves and the stats, and just plain love the game. We've all been faithful readers of other Cardinals blogs, and some of us have even written for them, but now we're combining our efforts to maximize the value for you, the reader. So welcome fellow birdwatchers. We hope to be your guides through the ups and downs of the baseball season (and off-season). Enjoy the ride.