Claire Smith: Baseball Around the Horn

2010-09-14T18:59:00.000-04:00

Welcome to Baseball Around the Horn

Slick: A Good and Noble Man, By Fay Vincent

2010-02-17T16:45:00.005-05:00

The following is an essay penned by Fay Vincent, the former commissioner of baseball, as he salutes his good friend, Slick Surratt, the Kansas City Monarch who passed away Tuesday at age 87.

Slick: A Good and Noble Man

By Fay Vincent

Alfred "Slick" Surratt died the other day and I am saddened to the core. He was my friend and it is no hyperbole for me to admit I truly loved him. Slick had played baseball in the old Negro Leagues, helped clear the airfield at Guadalcanal as an Army bulldozer operator, and came home from war hoping to play baseball. But he was the wrong color and so he spent some 50 years working on the line at the Ford Motor plant in Kansas City. The first time we met I asked him how he had come to be called "Slick". He looked at me with a broad smile and replied, "Commissioner, I don't know you well enough to answer that question." I still laugh when I think of that line.

We met at a weekend event Joe Garagiola and I organized to honor the alumni of the Negro Leagues who had been so badly treated by their country and by baseball. In 1991 we arranged to bring some 75 former players and their wives or significant others or family members to Cooperstown to the site of the baseball Hall of Fame to celebrate their contribution to baseball by continuing to play the game in a professional setting during the years when they were precluded from playing in the major leagues.

We were reminding them that by keeping the game alive in the black community they made possible the big league careers of such super stars as Henry Aaron, Willie Mays, Bob Gibson, Frank Robinson and Ernie Banks, along with the hundreds of other players of color who have graced the game.

The weekend was a total joy and one of the many benefits was my friendship with Slick. Even at that time, long after his playing days, he looked like he could still out run a rabbit When I asked if he could bunt, his anser was, "Commissioner, if it hops twice, ain't no point in you picking it up 'cause I'm already there." He was as slim as a pencil, and the build of a greyhound. But it was his smile that set the tone. He was always smiling and he always seemed happy. He always seemed to be having fun and he was fun to be with.

Over the first few years after we met, I made sure he and some of his baseball colleagues were included at all star and world series games and after several such occasions, when I knew he had been having a wonderful time, I would approach and ask him if I were getting to the point where he would explain where he got the name Slick. "Oh you gettin' very close Commissioner. Very close." But of course I never got there.

One night Larry Doby, the first black to play in the American League, and a dear pal of both Slick and mine, explained to me. "Commissioner, if you are as smart as you are supposed to be , you should have figured it all out by now."

I think I had.

We had kept in touch by telephone so I knew things had turned bad but whenever we spoke, he always sounded upbeat and that smile came through. He was not one to complain.The thing I never will forget about him was his total lack of bitterness. The travails of growing up in the severe segregation of his native Arkansas were dismissed . He pointed out the licence plate of Arkansas has the slogan on it--Land of Opportunity. "Well', explained Slick, " at the first opportunity, I left." Similarly, he never complained at the denial of any chance just to try out for a big league team.

He was thrilled for Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby but he accepted the restrictions Fate had imposed. When I reminded him of those tough days at Guadalcanal when he had to lift the front of his bulldozer to ward off Japanese bullets, his only comment was a regret his all black engineering unit had never received any recognition for their work. But that was it. The sense of anguish he had to have felt when he came home as a member of the victorious citizen Army but was not able to play baseball in the major leagues was never expressed.

"I see no point in being bitter, Commissioner. It won't do no good for no one." I will not forget the lessons I learned from this good and noble man. I will miss him, but I will never forget the joy of being in his company. If there are reserved seats where he is, I hope he keeps me in mind.

Claire Smith: Baseball Around the Horn: A great and good man passed today

2010-02-16T16:08:00.000-05:00

Claire Smith: Baseball Around the Horn: A great and good man passed today

A great and good man passed today

2010-02-16T13:18:00.010-05:00

Slick Surratt died today.

It is likely a name you're not familiar with, so it is my great privilege and pleasure to introduce you to this brave, kind man who epitomized The Greatest Generation.

Slick, born in Arkansas in 1922, served his country without fail, on the battlefields of Guadalcanal, on the assembly lines of Ford Motors for over 60 years.

Slick also played pro ball, teaming with some of the greatest players to ever toe a mound or swing a bat.

Slick was a member of the Kansas City Monarchs, a Negro Leagues player who called Satchel Paige and Jackie Robinson teammates, and Buck O'Neil "Skip."

Slick, like most African Americans of his era, bore the pride of having survived in the Jim Crow south, but never hid the scars caused by that spirit-rending segregation. He lost a brother because no hospital in rural Arkansas would treat a black child with a burst appendix. Slick apologized to no one for his limited education. You see, unless you could attend the one high school dedicated to African Americans in the Arkansas of the 30s and 40s, your schooling came to an end after sixth grade.

It was the law. It was a way of life best left in the dregs of history. Yet, as Slick said, these slights did not break him. As he liked to say, the license plates in Arkansas proclaimed that start "The Land of Opportunity and the first opportunity I had, I got out."

Slick became a member of an all-black unit within the Army'c Corps of Engineers, drove a bulldozer that helped build an airfield while under bombardment on The Canal.

Slick survived the war, and the indiginities of a segregated military. Then he came back to a country that once again tried to pigeonhole him as a second-class citizen. It failed.

Instead he proceded to carve out a career at Ford that lasted over 60 years. He played ball with a passion and joy in the leagues that would have him.

He could bunt, run, hit. If a grounder hit by him bounced more than once, he joked, you might has well put it in your hip pocket. It was a hit, pure and simple.

Slick's fondest memories involved his two-man barnstorming tours with Paige, the "money" player teams would bring in to boost the gates across America. Slick often drove the back roads of the nation as Satchel's chauffeur and companion.

Oh, the stories that emerged from those trips. Slick's fear at being pulled over by a country sheriff only to see that lawman step back in wonder as Satchel won him over with one of the autographed baseballs the pitcher kept in the glove compartment. the sheriff got the ball and Satch and Slick got a police escort all the way to their destination as sheriff after sheriff cleared traffic for these baseball VIPs.

Paige's love of speed - and Surratt's reluctance to temp fate, again - often led to Paige relentlessly teasing Slick as he asked again and again why wheel barrels kept passing them by.

Speaking about Satchel always made Slick laugh. Those who had the privilege of having heard their telling no doubt are smiling at their memories today.

I met Slick when we became members of the Fay Vincent Fellows, a merry group that included Joe Black and Larry Doby. The former commissioner and his band traveled from college campus to campus, speaking to students about The great contributions black America made to the Greatest Generation. Today, Fay and I comforted each other in that our trio of friends are now all gone. Then came the laughter, the gratitude and the love of our friends as we remembered the memories left us.

Slick's lessons were models of grace, tolerance and love of a country that often didn't love him back, but could not shake him in his belief that things would always get better.

Slick often spoke about working in the Ford plant when the news of Jackie signing with the Dodgers broke. Slick cheered as loudly as his fellow workers. It was like a holiday, he said.

Slick would never get that call. But he never let go of that day, because, in his heart, Jackie's victory was always his victory, as well.

In the end, how Slick lived, how this most patriotic, optimistic society within a society lived, was their gift to us all. What Slick, what Larry, what Joe Black, what my parents and my parents' parents taught me was this: The burdens borne, the wrongs suffered do never relieve one of his or her duties to country, family, self.

Thank you for reminding me of that each and every day spent together, Slick. Thanks for the opportunity to know you, to be your friend. I will miss you. Travel well ... and let not one wheel barrel ever pass you again.

Viva C. Viv

2009-12-07T14:44:00.003-05:00

Can't think of a better reason to revive this puppy than C. Vivian Stringer.

Vivian was there when my writing career began - my first beats, in the early 1980s, included her dynamo Cheyney State basketball teams, including the squad that played in the first-ever NCAA women's title game.

Tonight, the careers intersect once more. I will serve as News Editor on ESPN's broadcast of the Jimmy V. Classic featuring Stringer's Rutgers team against visiting Florida. This time around, I will be observing the Hall of Fame coach Stringer has become. I just got a lot older. Her induction proves that all she did was get better and better until she simply became one of the best all-time.

Twisting In The Wind In The Bronx

2007-10-09T00:28:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK _ Let the fallout begin.

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman knew it had already begun before the ink even dried on the obituaries being written today about the American League wild-card winner's quick demise in the 2007 postseason.

So, too, did Joe Torre, whose quivering voice and request for privacy around his home spoke volumes about the death-row vigil that is now officially under way when it comes to his 12-year run in the most thankless managerial job in baseball.

Torre and Cashman may not want change. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner will insist on it, though, especially since he so publicly and humiliatingly tied Torre's future to the success of the American League Division Series now since lost to the Cleveland Indians.

This time around, though, so, too, may some of Steinbrenner's veteran players will have a say in that change. A-Rod can opt out. Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada can test the free agent market.

And as Rivera said dispassionately in the quiet of the Yankees' clubhouse following the team's 6-4 loss, "this is business." And if it is the business of the Yankees to do things such as dismiss a Torre, the all-star reliever and future Hall of Famer said, then it will be his business to explore his options, too.

"They had a chance and they didn't do nothing with me," Rivera said of his failed efforts to enter negotiations with the team on a new contract during the season. "So let's see what's out there."

Nothing personal, Rivera insisted. And yet ... just ask him about the team's decision on Torre and what that might do to his own thought process.

"Like I said before, I'd have to sit down and think about that," Rivera said. "I'm proud of my teammates. I'm proud of my manager. I thank God for the opportunities I've had here. But we will see. Nothing against the organization. Nothing against the New York Yankees. But this is a business."

Yes it is. It is also a business Steinbrenner obviously feels has stopped giving him worthwhile return on his billion-dollar investment over the last half-dozen years. For while the Yankees kept their playoff run alive for a dozen years on Torre's watch, the team has not won a world championship since 2003, a lifetime in Yankees years.

Winning but one game in the best-of-five series against the Indians won't salve the owner's angry mood. Cashman's dour mood suggested as much.

"Cleveland earned the right to go forward," said Cashman said. "At the same time, we earned the right to go home," he said of the team that proved so potent during the regular season but hit only .228 in four games in the series.

Now the rebuilding not only will begin, but, in many cases, must.

Will that begin with Torre's ouster?

"I don't know why they would [dismiss Torre]," Rivera said quietly, obviously a man too young to remember the bad old days prior to the Torre era when Steinbrenner changed managers like other owners changed socks.

Torre, for one, tried to put the best face on his thankless situation.

"I'm not going there," Torre said when asked to speculate on his fate. "This has been a great 12 years. Whatever the hell happens from here on out, I mean, I'll look back on with great, great pleasure."

Cashman was non-commital, befitting his place in an organization where the real power resides in the Boss's Tampa headquarters.

"All decisions about next season we're going to have to focus on a lot sooner than we'd hoped," Cashman conceded. But as to whether any have been made he would not say. "I've not started ... we've not started on '08."

Not with the wounds of a disappointing end to 2007 still so fresh.

Rocket Exits, Perhaps For Good

2007-10-08T18:28:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK - It took the Yankees only four brief paragraphs to bring to an end the latest, and perhaps final chapter, of Roger Clemens' baseball career.

The 45-year-old future Hall of Famer, betrayed by Father Time and a troublesome, lingering hamstring injury, was removed from Game 3 of the American League Division Series after allowing Cleveland three runs on 2 1/3 tortured innings Sunday. Today, Clemens was removed, again, this time from the team's postseason roster, replaced by 37-year-old reliever Ron Villone.

Both moves, necessitated by Clemens' concession that he was not physically capable of performing.

The move seemed to signal the beginning of the end, if not the end itself for Clemens, a stark realization when it comes to an iron man who seemed intent on pitching forever in order to build onto the already astounding totals of 354 big-league victories and 4,672 strikeouts.

Should the Yankees advance past the Cleveland Indians and on to the American League Championship Series, neither new major league rules nor the injury will permit Clemens to go with them, manager Joe Torre said.

And if the team advances, further still, to the World Series? Well, the rules would allow for Clemens' reinstatement, but ...

"We don't know if he'll be alright," said Torre. "We hope we have an opportunity to find out. At least that keeps him from having to make a decision about the next round."

Thing is, Torre didn't sound any more hopeful about the Series than he appeared convinced that Clemens would ever pitch, again, period.

"I don't want to think that way," the manager said. "Obviously we'll take whatever it is when we get there. And Roger will certainly be honest with us. He's always been that."

Nuts!

2007-10-08T17:42:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK - If and when Joe Torre leaves the Yankees' managerial position, a refreshingly honest era occupied by a concise, direct, conscientious pro will come to an end. And the New York sports scene will be all the poorer for it.

Today, Torre, for a second straight day, graciously and openly faced questions about the ultimatum from George Steinbrenner that coldly greeted him Sunday. You know the one: down 0-2 in the best of five division series, Torre was publicly, bluntly told he needed his team to defeat the Cleveland Indians in three straight games or his job was gone.

Not surprisingly, Torre's first concern was his players. No, he said, he did not think that the ultimatum had upped the pressure on the team, or provided the motivation that led to an 8-4 victory in Game 3 Sunday night.

"It's tough enough to win when you're all pulling the same thing in the same direction," Torre said prior to Game 4. "But when you have people saying, 'well, we have to win this game because the manager's job is in jeopardy' - that's nuts.

"Now you're trying to make something that's important more important and that shouldn't be the case."

As for his feelings on Steinbrenner, Torre remained in character, as he has for a dozen years in baseball's toughest venue. "The first thing you have to understand is he's the boss," said Torre. "I think that when you come in and understand that, then it;s a matter of understanding he's entitled to say what he wants. He owns the team. He can be as critical or as complimentary as he wants to be any time he wants to be that."

Winning One for The Skipper

2007-10-07T22:48:00.001-04:00

NEW YORK - It may look trite in print, but there was no mistaking the sincerity when Johnny Damon, the hitting hero of the Yankees' 8-4 playoff win over the Cleveland Indians, said the winning was done to stave off the firing of a beloved manager.

"We all love Joe Torre," said Damon of the Yankees' skipper who awoke this morning to the news that Yankees owner George Steinbrenner said he'd be fired if the Indians defeated Torre's team in the best-of-five AL Division Series. "we'd all love for him to win another championship."

Damon's three-run home run, pivotal in the win, kept that possibility alive as the Yankees pulled back from the brink in a series they now trail, 2 games to 1.

"We all get to play for him at least one more day, and hopefully long after that," said Damon.

Torre, somewhat bemused by the attention brought by Steinbrenner's threat before the game, seemed more emotional - and grateful - after the victory. "It's an emotional day because losing is no fun in the post-season," said Torre. "... As for Mr. Steinbrenner, I don't want to say you ever get used to it. But you work here, you understand the pressure everybody's under to win all the time.

"The only thing I try to do is allow my players to roll the dice out there and play. because every time we go to the postseason there's nothing that's going to satisfy anybody unless you win the World Series. And that's very difficult. Those are very difficult situations for the players to play under.

"I understand the requirements here, but the players are human beings and it's not machinery here. Even though they get paid a lot of money, it's still blood that runs through their veins. And my job is to try to get them to be the players they are by, you know, allowing them to understand that the best effort you can give is all you can do."

For Hughes, Future is Now

2007-10-07T22:25:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK - The present giving way to the future was planned as an off-season ceremony by the Yankees. Then and only then was The Empire supposed to ready for the likes of Roger Clemens and, who knows, Mike Mussina, to give way to Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy and Joba Chamberlain.

Last night, The Rocket took perhaps his most serious obvious step towards Cooperstown and away from a leading active role in the Bronx when he broke down after lasting only 2 1/3 innings as a starter in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series against Cleveland.

Clemens gutted it out as long as he could, testament to his Hall of Fame makeup and pedigree. But he allowed two runs before he left and cast in doubt any further assignments coming his way should the Yankees continue on in the postseason. By departing when he did, Clemens also allowed Hughes an opportunity to seize the moment.

The kid did. After allowing the one run he inherited in the third to score on a Jhonny Peralta double in the third, Hughes bowed his back completely. He wound up stranding Peralta by inducing the previously sizzling Kenny Lofton to fly out. Then followed scoreless innings in the fourth, fifth and sixth, a dazzling performance that took the frenzied home crowd the rest of the way in terms of envisioning how bright this young man's future might be.

For Hughes came on and provided the salve the Yankees desperately needed - 3 2/3 scoreless innings, allowing only two strikeouts and striking out four. In that span, the Yankees awoke, overcame a three-run deficit and went on to win their first game of the series, 8-4.

Not bad for a guy who's used to plying his living as a starter, and one who's got all of 72 2/3 regular-season innings in at the big-league level.

"That kid's got a live fastball, tough breaking ball, started mixing in a changeup a little bit," impressed Indians manager Eric Wedge said. "Posada did a good job with him. (And) if you talk about the difference between Roger and him, and just the way they pitch threw us off a little bit. But the kid showed a lot of poise. He did a good job."

"He looked like a seasoned pro out there," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "I can't say more than that. He was happy to give you the innings, and when you looked into his eyes, it wasn't a surprise."

"My job was really just to keep the damage to a minimum, to try to keep us where we were at," said Hughes, 5-3 in 13 games as a starter for the Yankees this season.

Joba Rues

2007-10-07T21:49:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK - A funny thing happened on the way to the Yankees' first postseason win of 2007 - Joe Torre acted not only like a man fighting to save his career, but also like a manager freed of the weight of protecting a precious asset, freed to let it fly, tomorrow be darned.

How else can you explain Torre's absolute shredding of whatever was left of the so-called Joba Rules, the commandments chisled in stone by Yankees management during the season once phemon prospect Joba Chamberlain was called to the majors?

You remember the rules: kid pitches an inning, gets a day off, pitches two, gets two off, and so on and so forth. Tonight, not only did Torre bring Chamberlain into the seventh inning of a game the Yankees led by a comfortable five runs. He left the kid on the mound for two full innings, something you figure fries the kid for at least one more game - the critical Game 4 the Yankees will need to win to keep their pennant hopes alive.

The good news for Chamberlain is that his first inning was a breezy 1-2-3 frame. The next, though, was a puzzlingly long, arduous three-hit, one-run, six-batter adventure that infused a laugher with mystery and some mild discomfort among Empire citizentry.

Oh, Torre warmed up a couple arms in the eighth, including that of the venerable Mariano Rivera, who, like Chamberlain, had previously pitched in Game 2 on Friday in Cleveland.

But no one came to rescue Joba, or spare his arm. Quite obviously, this outing wasn't about saving Joba. It was about saving the team from the stark possibility of turning to pitchers of lesser talent, something that bit the Yankees badly in the first two games - losses - of the best of five series.

So, Joba, and the rest of the Empire got a taste of a different reality. Chamberlain is here to take care of today. Tomorrow, Torre will think about, well, tomorrow.

As for next year, heck, that will likely be some other manager's concern, anyway, if Yankees owner George Steinbrenner is true to his threat to fire Torre should the Yankees wind up with anything less than a pennant.

Sounds of Silence

2007-10-07T19:37:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK - The silence was deafening, even before the full house at Yankee Stadium went silent with each run scored by the Cleveland Indians tonight.

For the mellifluous voice of Bob Sheppard, the public address announcer who's calls of the lineups in over a half century of Fall Classics at the Ballpark in the Bronx did not greet the faithful tonight when the Yankees hosted Cleveland in Game 3 of the American League Division Series.

Sheppard was absent due to a broncial infection. So, for the first time in 122 Yankees' post-season home games, someone other that The Voice manned to P.A. mike.

Sheppard's phenomenal run, which included 62 home games during 22 of the Yankees' World Series appearances, was as familiar an October fixture in the Bronx as Yankees' pinstripes.

A combination of eloquence, class and precision, Sheppard chronicled the Series appearances of the likes of Joe DiMaggio, Phil Rizzuto, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Duke Snider, Whitey Ford, Reggie Jackson, Dave Winfield and Tony Gwynn, to name but a few Hall of Famers.

Sheppard, in his 57th season as the Yankees' public address announcer, began his postseason streak on Oct. 4, 1951, in Game 1 of the World Series against the New York Giants. That debut followed by one day the Giants' famed playoff game victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers in which Bobby Thomson hit the "shot heard 'round the world" off the Dodgers' Ralph Branca.

Here's the catch

2007-10-03T19:12:00.000-04:00

PHILADELPHIA - The Colorado Rockies, winners of 15 of their last 16, including Game 1 of the National League Division Series against the Philadelphia Phillies, don't think it a coincidence that Yorvit Torrealba has backstopped the winning streak.

"He's got a real good feel for our staff," Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said of Torrealba after the catcher anchored a 4-2 victory thrown at the potent Phillies by starter Jeff Francis and three relievers.

"Every time he comes out to the mound, he's got something good to say," said Francis, who needed a pick-me-up visit in the fifth after yielding consecutive home runs to Aaron Rowand and Pat Burrell, shrinking a three-run lead to one. It's not always serious, but that's the kind of catcher he is, a good leader. (And) he does our homework more than we do."

"He's very efficient with a pat on the back or a smack on the backside," Hurdle said of the catcher who's now started 11 of Colorado's last 13 games. "There's only a three-foot difference but a whole lot of dynamics change when he goes out there. It's not always giggles when he goes out there. A lot of times it is a smile, a reassuring hand. Other times he'll just go out there and bite a little bit and get their attention."

The Learning Curve

2007-10-03T18:39:00.000-04:00

PHILADELPHIA - Neither the Colorado Rockies or the Philadelphia Phillies boast much playoff experience, so there was a lot of learning on the job in evidence in Game 1 of their National League Division Series today.

Cole Hamels, the starter and losing pitcher in the Phillies' 4-2 defeat, admitted to absorbing a couple needed on-the-go lessons, especially in a pivotal three-run Rockies' second inning.

"Going out there, I know I can throw either off-speed or fastballs, but they were laying off the off-speed stuff when I had two strikes on them and swinging at them the first two strikes," said the lefthander, who was among eight Phillies in the starting lineup playing in their first post-season game.

Hamels, 15-5 this season, saw the major blows in the second inning come on a leadoff triple by Todd Helton and a followup RBI double by Garrett Atkins.

Much of the remaining damage was self-inflicted. For Hamels, very much out of character, issued three walks later in the inning, one of which was drawn by rookie of the year candidate Troy Tulowitzki with the bases loaded.

"That's what I learned a little too late to my liking, to go after them with a fastball, and it showed in the third (scoreless), fourth (scoreless) and fifth inning (scoreless) that I was capable of doing that. ... But I need to do it a little bit sooner," said Hamels, who went on to retire 15 of the last 16 Rockies he faced in his 6 2/3 innings of work.

Lesson No. 2? Well, let's just call it a wardrobe malfunction.

Hamels shed a sweat soaked sleeve from his left arm, but not until after the fateful second inning. "I don't want to use that as an excuse," Hamels said. "... (But), you know, it's just something where it was definitely hot out and having, just that preparation, with the understanding that when it gets hot, I'm going to sweat a little more and when I was throwing my changeup, the sweat was dripping down in my hands ... I wasn't able to get a good grip."

Hamels proceeded to change the sleeve that protects his tender arm often after the second inning. Next time he'll be even better-prepared, he vowed.

"I talked to some guys about it. They explained to me whey with outfits that stretch and fall down a little bit more, that's why they cut them so short," he said, a wee bit sheepishly.

2007-06-23T18:13:00.000-04:00

**** A Dodger fan grows up and meets childhood favorites,
Sandy Koufax and Steve Garvey. ****

Happy Birthday, Emery

2007-06-18T14:44:00.000-04:00

Happy birthday, Emery. I will miss your party but count on you to party-hearty!!

Hammering Hank Is A Low Blow

2007-05-14T06:55:00.000-04:00

One of the more disconcerting - and disgusting - developments regarding Barry Bonds' pursuit of Major League Baseball's all-time home run crown is how easy it has become to pillory Henry Aaron.

Why?

Bonds, the man most baseball fans see as the embodiment of all that was wrong with the steroid era, is a living, breathing controversy in spikes. With 745 home runs, the San Francisco Giants legend, has pulled with 10 home runs of Aaron's record.

He has also pulled along with him, the stench of the steroid era, its resulting debate on issues such as cheating, the degree to which we celebrate, snub or sneer at the new hallmark if and when Bonds passes Aaron.

The debate over Bonds' deservedness is raging, an inevitable outgrowth of a steroid era that keeps on giving Major League Baseball a black eye and many a fans an anger-filled reticence.

That is not to say that Bonds does not have his supporters as well as his detractors.

Fine.

But why do those supporters feel a need to prop up their case for Bonds at the expense of Aaron?

Henry Aaron has done nothing wrong. Nothing!

Yet once again, Aaron, this quiet, humble man of few words and even fewer airs, finds himself on the scathing side of a baseball controversy not of his making. And once again, his discomfort emanates from pros and cons tinged with racial overtones.

Talk about being slapped back to a era best left forgotten. To borrow a quote from the great Yogi Berra, it's deja vu all over again for Aaron as the home run king once again finds his crown filled with thorns.

Lest we forget, back in 1974 - the year Aaron seized the home run crown from Babe Ruth - Aaron found his life turned into a living hell simply because he, a black man, had the timidity to pursue Ruth's hallowed mark of 714.

Aaron was not only hounded, belittled and insulted. He was threatened by anonymous white supremacists who thought that in order to "honor" Ruth they had to try to scare off Aaron. How? By using the ugliest racist epithets, by resorting to tactics which would have made only the lowest form of vermin proud.

Aaron endured that trial with little or no support of Major League Baseball which, in the person of then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn, treated Aaron's pursuit with icy disdain.

Most of the nation would go years, even decades, before being made aware of just how lonely and, yes even dangerous, a road Aaron walked in order to surpass Ruth's then-magical 714 milestone.

In retrospect, Aaron's ability to soldier on was nothing short of heroic, having turned in a performance not only nuanced by his plentiful baseball skills, but also by his dedication, perseverance and strength of character.

Apparently too, too many of us have forgotten the combination of personal and professional traits that made Aaron the Hall of Fame player and Hall of Fame person he is.

For here we are, in 2007, and Aaron is again being torn at by critics who possess all the subtlety of a pack of pit bulls as he finds himself labeled a coward, an Uncle Tom, a sellout after making a decision not to be present if and when Bonds breaks his record.

Sadly, astonishingly, what makes this turn in Aaron's story so galling is that this time he is being ravaged by many of his fellow African Americans, some with powerful voices.

The venerable William C. Rhoden, a columnist with the New York Times, lumped baseball, hypocrisy, commissioner Bud Selig and his reticence with Aaron and his cold shoulder all in one damning commentary, writing: "In many ways, Selig and Aaron are making the problems worse, making the cloud over baseball thicker."

Rob Parker of the Detroit News and, like Rhoden, one of the preeminent black voices in sports media, was even harsher on Aaron in a recent column, stating flatly: "Hank Aaron is a coward."

That was just the first sentence. Parker went on: "What's Aaron's problem? Well, he needs to take a stand -- either denounce Bonds' attempt because he's been implicated in the steroids scandal, or embrace Bonds' accomplishment and show up. Playing middle of the road isn't fair -- to baseball, its fans or Bonds. Instead, Aaron has chosen the easy way out -- saying nothing. That's sad."

In recent conversations with some fellow blacks, I've heard yet another theme repeated, one that supports a recent ESPN/CBS poll that finds black America highly suspicious of Bonds' bashing. In these conversations I've heard one constant: bitterness over Aaron's refusal to embrace Bonds, to come to the defense of a fellow African American.

This, the critics charged - and very much sincerely believed, gives aid and comfort to those legions whose dislike of Bonds just has to be steeped in racism.

For why else, this school of thought has it, would Bonds be so hectored by the masses?

Got to be race. Just got to be ...

That rationale, of course, stops just short of the point where one could say, what about Aaron - a black man - who's about to lose a record built on talent and his own blood, sweat and tears as opposed to, say, the best efforts of your local neighborhood chemist.

So Aaron twists slowly as Bonds' inexorable drive hones in on him and his record. His silence is being berated more and more. His planned absence is being dissected and rejected cavalierly. By those who assume they better understand the predicament Aaron's been swept up in than does he.

No one, from the debaters in the barber shops, baseball stands and sports bars,, can ever truly know the depths of Aaron's angst, anger or, in the least, his ambivalence. Nor can any of the columnists and baseball writers and commentators who are turning up the heat on the still-quiet Aaron.

So as Aaron hides away the pain once again, let a chorus rise up and demand that this madness should stop. And let it be said here, that the easiest way to assure that it stops is to have no less than Barry Bonds demand it.

The slugger who professes to love baseball and takes every opportunity to honor Aaron's fellow great, Willie Mays, should acknowledge Aaron's dilemma. And he should demand that the wolf pack that's formed in his defense back away from the Hall of Famer.

Do that, Barry, and even your most ardent critics may take another look at your plight, and reluctantly admit that this was one home run swing that was beyond reproach.

Photo credit: The Sporting News

Why Us This Man Smiling?

2007-05-06T20:54:00.000-04:00

Associated Press Photo

Because the ptching strapped Yankees' vision of Roger Clemens being money in the bank is going to put, well, tons of money in the bank for the ever-mercenary Clemens.

Clemens' prorated $28 million, one-year contract announced today by the Yankees shows that, and more.

Cloak this latest return in all the sentimental glop you want. you know: Roger loves Joe Torre, Roger misses Andy Pettitte, Roger needed one more opportunity to plant a big, wet juicy kiss on Babe Ruth's likeness out there in the Yankee Stadium monuments.

Choked up, yet?

Truth is, what Roger Clemens missed was George Steinbrenner, or, more precisely, his ... money.

Getting the lettuce is one thing. Priming the pump with the deftness of a Clemens is another.

Clemens has always played the supply and demand game, and he's got a Hall of Famer's touch, a true great, because he's arguably better at extracting dough from hungry contenders than any player in the history of baseball.

Others may marvel at the brashness of Clemens' annual spring sale which allows him to skip niggling little details such as spring training, long bus rides across Florida or Arizona before or after exhibition games, April snow or bone-chilling rain.

No other Major League player has mastered this art, to be sure. Clemens? These performances are nothing short of Rocket science.

Meer dozen separating Barry, Hammer

2007-05-03T14:38:00.000-04:00

Now it's down to an even dozen.

A dozen, as in the dwindling number of home runs now separating Barry Bonds from all-time leader Henry Aaron - and separating Baseball from its decision on what to do not if, but when, Bonds becomes the game's all-time home run leader.

Bonds blasted No. 743 late Wednesday night, and I mean blasted. The rocket shot had no arc, never seemed to rise more than 20 feet off the ground. Don't know if the Giants keep such records, but the homer must have set a record for quickest ride from home to the seats in right field at AT&T Park. Ouch!

Bonds: Impervious -- And Unstoppable

2007-05-02T23:57:00.000-04:00

When Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants host the Phillies tonight in the first game of a four-game series, the man who is now within 13 home runs of Henry Aaron's all-time record of 755 will settle into perhaps the only friendly venue left to him.

What the Phillies will find, and Giants fans at AT&T Park will welcome, is a Bonds who is healthy and lethal again.

Eight home runs in 63 at-bats - one every 7.9 times up - a .333 average and 17 RBIs, which he had entering last night's games, shout as much.

Most intriguingly, the Phils will find in Bonds a man impervious to his designated role of top villain in baseball's sordid steroid era.

Mark McGwire? Rafael Palmeiro? Jose Canseco? Bush-leaguers, all, in this unpopularity contest.

Because he outlasted his competition, because he has dared last long enough to flirt with a most storied record, Bonds is truly reviled.

Many a critic had hoped Bonds would not only fade away well short of Aaron. They fervently wished he would also drown in a torrent of indictments, subpoenas and suspensions.

The thing is, it hasn't happened.

Batboys turned steroid pushers turned government witnesses have fallen. Major- and minor-league users such as former big-league pitcher Jason Grimsley have, too. Just not Bonds.

Those caught are naming names and leaking to the media like sieves. But Bonds has yet to be slimed in a way that takes him off the field and into a court of law.

Joe Morgan, the Hall of Famer and color commentator who will call the Phillies-Giants game Sunday (8 p.m., ESPN, ESPN Deportes), suspects he knows why.

"If Barry's name had been on that list that was blacked out, we would have known about it," Morgan said, referring to a federal government affidavit concerning a former Mets clubhouse employee who has admitted providing steroids and other drugs to major-leaguers. "Same with Jason Grimsley.

"A lot of people's agendas are about getting Barry. Remember, his name came out for failing that amphetamine test. You can't tell me Barry was the only one that failed, but his was the only name that came out."

No doubt Bonds will always remain guilty in the minds of most fans. There is no argument, though, that he also remains amazingly elusive to those empowered to throw the book at him.

So Bonds plays on, his confidence, like his health, again intact.

"The media, the government, the fans have tried to get Barry for four years," Morgan said.

"They can't stop him. Say this about Barry: He is able to focus on his agenda, period. He doesn't care what I say, what you say, or what anybody else says."

Like him or hate him, you have to marvel at his sheer stubbornness, both physical and mental.
The seven-time league MVP, who is 42, looks again like the slugger who hit 258 home runs from 2000 to '04, not the broken-down guy with bum knees who played just 14 games in 2005.
It is this rejuvenated Bonds who is raising a host of prickly issues to even greater heights.

Opposing managers, who again fear him as much as many fans loathe him, are again shying away from challenging Bonds. Witness the 23 walks drawn by Bonds in his first 23 games.

"On the road, fans boo Barry when he comes to the plate, then they boo even louder if he's walked," said Morgan's booth partner, Jon Miller, who is also a Giants broadcaster. "One way or the other, they came to see Barry and they feel they're being ripped off."

Ambivalence grips others, as well. Baseball's bigwigs (i.e., commissioner Bud Selig) must decide, and quickly, whether to ignore, endorse, or even witness the inevitable.

No sympathy there. After all, this is a game that ignored cheating right up until stats bloated by whatever could no longer pass the smell test.

Aaron is a different story.

Nobody much cared what this quiet, humble man thought in 1974 when then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn unconscionably skipped Aaron's breaking of Babe Ruth's mythic record of 714 home runs.

If Selig decides to stiff Bonds similarly, the opinion no one wanted from Aaron 33 years ago will suddenly matter. Already, Aaron's decision not to witness the fall of his record has become an issue.

"Hank is in a no-win situation," Morgan said. "He has told me, 'I don't think you can condemn a person without proof.' Yet he also said he doesn't want to be a part of what happens, and you can't blame him, not when the first question inevitably will be, 'Do you think Barry cheated?'

"If he answers no, he'll be called a liar. If he says yes, it's sour grapes. Already, some guy in Detroit wrote 'Hank Aaron is a coward.' A coward!"

The question we must ask ourselves, Morgan said, is: What is it exactly that we want from Aaron?

We already know what we want from Bonds. We won't get it, though, because Barry is only about what he wants, the rest of the world be damned.

Fountain of Youth

2007-04-29T21:39:00.000-04:00

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO

Julio Franco, the Mets’ 48-year-old veteran, may be baseball’s elder statesman, but four 40-something pitchers not named Randy Johnson (slowed by injury) or David Wells (struggling) — and one 39-year-old kid — are excelling.

They are:

Jamie Moyer, 44, who is 3-1 with a 2.65 ERA.

Today, Moyer tied the free-swinging Florida Marlins in knots, carrying a no-hitter into the seventh inning of the Phillies' 6-1 victory. Moyer went on to pitch 7/13 innings, allowing two hits and no runs.

Tom Glavine, 41, 3-1. ERA: 2.80.

In his last outing - a no-decision at Washington, Saturday, the Mets' polished lefthander pitched 6 innings and allowed 3 hits and 1 run.

Greg Maddux, 41, 2-2. ERA: 3.86.

Last outing was a win vs. L.A. Dodgers Saturday in which the San Diego Padres veteran pitched 7 innings and gave up just 5 hits and 2 runs.

Curt Schilling, 40, 3-1. ERA: 3.27.

The Red Sox righty's last outing produced a win in Baltimore on Wednesday. He pitched 7 innings and gave up 5 hits and 1 run.

John Smoltz, 39, 3-1. ERA: 3.96.

Last outing? A win at Colorado Saturday for the Braves' stalwart. He lasted 7 innings, yielded 9 hits but just 2 runs.

Junior No. 1 Among Many in No. 42 Salute

2007-04-16T14:33:00.000-04:00

Associated Press Photo/Nam Y. Huh

Cincinnati Reds all-star outfielder Ken Griffey Jr., pictured above with the Cubs' Derek Lee on Jackie Robinson Day, wear their salutes to the late, great Hall of Fame Brooklyn Dodger on their backs. Griffey, wanting to make April 15 - the 60th anniversary of Robinson's breaking of the color barrier, was the architect of the salute.

For Griffey sent a request to commissioner Bud Selig seeking permission to wear the number that was retired throughout the game on 10 years ago and when Selig said yes, an avalanche of such requests followed. The result: over 200 Major League players, managers and coaches donned Robinson's number in games played Sunday.

There would have been many more, for at least two teams that fell victim of the poor weather on the East Coast - the Phillies and Astros - planned to a man to wear No. 42. The Dodgers were joined by the Cardinals and Seattle Mariners as teams on which every person in uniform wore the number.

Associated Press Photo,
Five Seattle Mariners wearing
No. 42 on Jackie Robinson Day

Only one Major League player wears No. 42 every day. Mariano Rivera, the veteran stopper for the New York Yankees, was one of a handful of players who wore the number when Selig retired it during the 50th anniversary celebrations a decade ago. Selig "grandfathered" in those players who wished to keep the number. Rivera and Mo Vaughn chose to do so as their own personal tribute to Robinson. Rivera is the only player who made that decision still active.

For one day, No. 42 of the Yankees had lots of company as an entire game joined in his ongoing salute.

Thanks, Jackie And All His Fellow Pioneers

2007-04-15T18:02:00.000-04:00

The great Yogi Berra once said upon receiving an honor, "Thanks for making this necessary."

Today, Jackie Robinson was honored by Major League Baseball as it said thank-you. Not just to a brave pioneer, but to all those who 60 years ago combined like minds and an uncommon courage to help expunge Jim Crow from their playing fields.

Jackie and Rachel Robinson and an equally magnificent supporting cast gave this nation a peek at what was possible and helped start another, more transcendent, revolution called the Civil Rights era.

So, thank you, Branch Rickey for making today a necessary occasion in which major-league players wore No.42 just as Jackie Robinson did on April 15, 1947, when he debuted with your Brooklyn Dodgers. The Phillies and Astros, to a man, would have been among them were it not for the rains that washed away their game.

Not only did you defy many of your fellow club owners by bringing a black man to the majors, Mr. Rickey, you defied an era.

"Our country, our culture, sadly, was way back in the dark ages in 1947," reminded Branch Rickey III, president of the Pacific Coast League and grandson of the late Dodgers owner.

"Our cultural misunderstandings and our prejudices were so much more extreme then, and civil rights was not even a phrase," he continued. "The idea of a black breaking into baseball was going to be opposed broadly.

"It was going to be a question of whether my grandfather could survive with his reputation intact."

Branch Rickey, history shows, did survive. It also strongly suggests that neither Rickey nor Robinson could have done so alone.

Fortunately, they did not have to.

So, thank-you, too, Happy Chandler, because when some players threatened a boycott if Robinson played, you, then the commissioner of baseball, threatened to show the conspirators the door. Even more ominously, you vowed to close it to them forever.

Boycott, dead on arrival.

Archive photo of Jackie Robinson. Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Photos by Charles Fox

Stan Musial? As the centerpiece of the 1947 St. Louis Cardinals, you let one of the game's more rebellious clubs know that you would play because integration was not something that you - Stan the Man - would stoop to try to stop.

Then there was you, Bill Veeck, the Cleveland Indians owner who integrated the American League on July 5, 1947, by purchasing the contract of the talented Larry Doby from the Newark Eagles.

Like Branch Rickey, you proved time and again that your brilliant baseball mind was not limited to marketing and promotion advances - though the exploding scoreboard does remain a marvel.
Your plot to buy the Phillies in 1942 and fill the roster with the Negro Leagues all-stars may have been foiled by then-commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis years before. But no one could stop you from closely following Rickey's lead.

Once done, you, Bill Veeck, knew that the less-heralded Doby was, in many ways, in an even more thankless position than Robinson. For the junior circuit was far more reluctant to integrate than its National League counterpart. And often the only commiseration Larry Doby could find came from family, his friend Jackie Robinson - and you.

You sensed when Doby was at his loneliest and you swooped in, sharing your love of jazz, your enthusiasm - and your vision of what could be.
Other gestures, no matter how small, were also like nectar to the pioneers.

Dodgers shortstop and unquestioned team leader Pee Wee Reese (right, with Jackie Robinson and Preacher Roe, following Game 3 victory over the Yankees in the 1952 World Series _ Associated Press), you quelled palpable unrest in Cincinnati when Robinson made his first appearance there.

The Queen City, after all, considered you, a son of neighboring Kentucky, one of its own, and your presence counted in that gateway to the South. So when you walked over to Robinson during pregame practice and draped an arm around the hectored and shaken rookie's shoulders, you quieted a crowd that bordered on a mob. And the photos of your doing so - transmitted around the world - were etched indelibly in sports history.

Joe Gordon? With one sentence - "Hey kid, want to have a catch?" - you let Larry Doby, your new Indians teammate, know that the daily rituals of a game not only might include him, but would.

Decades later, Doby would get emotional recalling the relief he felt when he heard this one simple, universal baseball paean come from your lips. For, until it did, Larry Doby said he honestly did not know if he'd ever be able to play if he were not even permitted to warm up.

And you, Ted Williams? Your gift in 1947 was a welcoming handshake extended to Doby the first time your Red Sox met his Indians.

Larry Doby, of course, knew of your fame. Who in baseball did not know The Splendid Splinter? But to know that you knew of him - and appreciated his presence - and welcomed him to your league meant the world to Larry Doby.

At that moment, a fellow major-leaguer felt like a peer. And that peer eventually went on to
become your fellow Hall of Famer - just as did Stan Musial, Pee Wee Reese, Mr. Rickey, Bill Veeck - and Jackie Robinson.

This was the confluence of talent, goodwill and generosity that made April 15, 1947, and what it launched vital. As vital as today's nationwide celebrations - and thank-yous - were necessary.

Baseball Aims for the Mountaintop

2007-04-01T18:34:00.000-04:00

MEMPHIS - It is not often that a sport can transcend mere statistics and games won or lost.

Major League Baseball can, and did on March 31 as it celebrated its unique role in the U.S. civil rights movement by way of its first-ever Civil Rights Game. So it was that a game and a movement came together in one of the most storied outposts of the civil rights revolution.

Baseball reminded us that on April 15, the game will celebrate the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's breaking of baseball's color barrier. And commissioner Bud Selig proudly reminded us that the achievement predated by 17 years the Civil Rights Act ending segregation in the United States.

The game, between the Cleveland Indians and St. Louis Cardinals in the home park of the Cards' triple-A affiliate, the Memphis Redbirds, concluded a weekend in which this shared history was lauded.

Vera Clemente, Spike Lee and the late Buck O'Neil were honored. Dave Chase, the Redbirds' president and general manager, and Jimmie Lee Solomon, MLB's executive vice president of baseball operations, were applauded for their inspiration in bringing about the celebration.

Selig's and Solomon's oft-stated commitment is to ensure that the diversity Robinson brought to the field remains as fewer African Americans play in the major leagues.

How appropriate that these messages emanated from this neatly kept Mississippi River city.

All sides of the American saga sing out to you here, at this confluence of blues and country, historical heartache, pain and gain.

Memphis is where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought his last fight, at the side of striking sanitation workers. It is where the civil rights champion spoke of the mountaintop he longed to see the nation reach as one.

That was back in the horrific, convulsive days of the 1960s, when the last shots of America's extended Civil War were still being fired. One of the most significant shots claimed King, right here in then-segregated Memphis.

The town's first-class hotel - the Peabody - was, of course, for whites only. King, like visiting black ball players, stayed at the Lorraine, a motel-like structure generously called a hotel. The Lorraine is where King was felled by an assassin's bullet in 1968.

This weekend, a Memphis that King could only dare dream of welcomed both the Indians and the Cardinals. Both teams stayed at the Peabody.

The Lorraine?

Parts of the building that blacks shunned into bankruptcy after the assassination are now incorporated into the National Civil Rights Museum.

There, visitors need only turn a corner to be yanked back in history.

Hall of Famer Dave Winfield paused often while following the museum's poignant, often searing time line and its relentless tale of sacrifice, fear, upheaval and courage.

"It was a war," Winfield said. "It really was a war." Like all wars, it had too, too many victims, many not much older than the young, privileged athletes of today.

"It," said Indians pitcher C.C. Sabathia, "humbles you."

Especially when you turn the last corner. There you see the hotel room last occupied by King, and the balcony where he was shot down. It more than takes your breath away. It takes you back.

There, the Rev. Billy Kyles, along with the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, sat, talked, joked and laughed with King for the hour before he died.

Kyles brought many at a pregame luncheon to tears as he recounted that horrible day in vivid detail. He brought them to their feet as he reminded in a thunderous voice: "You can kill the dreamer, but you cannot kill the dream."

Kenneth Shropshire, a professor at Penn's Wharton School, like many struggled with emotions thought buried in 1968.

A prolific author of The Business of Sports and In Black and White: Race and Sports in America, Shropshire, a participant in events here this weekend, said: "I was thinking, my father was exactly the same age as Dr. King. When I think of what that generation accomplished. My father passed away 15 years ago.

"Dr. King was just 39 years old. His life was cut so short. What if it had not happened? What else might he have accomplished?"

"This is something that everybody in this country needs to see," Sabathia said. "And the thing that got me was the dates. It really wasn't that long ago."

Sabathia spoke while sitting in a modern-day ballpark where Robinson certainly would have enjoyed playing, a mere mile from that relic of a balcony. It was yet another reminder that two eras that seem light-years apart are forever linked.

A Great Voice Silenced

2007-04-01T17:39:00.000-04:00

The first sounds of the 2007 baseball season should have been the national anthem followed by the cry of "play ball" and the crack of the bat.

Sunday, though, the more appropriate sound was silence, as in a moment of silence for the Hall of Fame announcer Herb Carneal, the voice of the Twins for the past 45 years.

Mr. Carneal, 83 at time of death, was felled by congestive heart failure, taken on the very morning of baseball's opening game between the Cardinals and New York Mets in St. Louis.

When the Twins join the rest of baseball in taking the field Monday, it will mark only the second season the team has started without Mr. Carneal behind the microphone. The first he did not call was the Washington Senators-turned Minnesota Twins' inaugural season, in 1961.

From 1962 on, the names of Harmon Killebrew, Bob Allison, Zoilo Versalles, Tony Oliva, Camilo Pascual, Jim Kaat, Jim Perry, "Mudcat" Grant, Rod Carew, Kent Hrbek and Kirby Puckett, rolled across the land of 10,000 lakes, melliflously, delivered with a beauty and precision only a master could produce.

Now another great voice is silenced. When baseball returns that silence as a sign of respect today and through the season, we all should be reminded that some of the game's brightest stars - Vin Scully. Harry Kalas, Jaime Jarrin, Hall of Famers, all - are as much a part of basebally royalty as the players, and are to be cherished.

Treasure them while you can. And say a quiet prayer for Mr. Carneal.

The hurdle Pete Rose refuses to leap

2007-03-14T17:29:00.000-04:00

Pete Rose created a stir today by taking another stab at framing his gambling on baseball in such a way that misty-eyed higherups couldn't help but reinstate the banned all-time hits leader.

Appearing on the Dan Patrick Show on ESPN Radio, the all-time hits leader not only restated that he bet on baseball - the one violation that carries the sport's version of the death penalty. Rose said he did so every day when he managed the Cincinnati Reds, betting on his own team.

This revelation was Rose's way of doing his part to christen the Reds' new Pete Rose exhibit on display at the Great American Ballpark, the home of the NL team's Hall of Fame. But when he said:

"I bet on my team every night. I didn't bet on my team four nights a week. I was wrong [referring to his previous mea culpa in a book he authored a while back]. ... I bet on my team to win every night because I love my team, I believe in my team," Rose told Dan Patrick as well as on-air questioner Keith Ohlbermann. "I did everything in my power every night to win that game."

By failing to mix in the slightest bit of contrition with the always present self-importance, Rose did little more than illuminate just how much he violated the public trust.

So, nice try, Pete, but no cigar. Because you still don't get it. And apparently you never will as long as your ego prevents you from uttering two little words:

"I'm sorry."

So a return to the game's good graces remains improbable. It can never be less than that if Rose refuses to show remorse. Thus far, he hasn't come close, something that continues to be the underlying tragedy of this flawed, flawed man.

No one understands that flaw better than Fay Vincent, the man who led the investigation into Rose and the one violation that carries baseball's version of the death penalty. Vincent, who gathered the evidence of Rose's betting on baseball when deputy to then-commissioner Bart Giamatti, yesterday reiterated the obvious.

"The beginning of contrition is to feel that you regret your actions, and he does not have it in him to do so," said Vincent. "It's the meaning of it that he does not get.

"Bill Clinton figured it out. Richard Nixon figured it out. The American public is very forgiving if you say you're sorry. Pete cannot bring himself to utter the words."

Citing Rose's penchant for chiding baseball's lack of a ban on abuser's of illegal or performance-enhancing drugs, Vincent added "It's always about other people's problems, never his own."

So Rose sits on the outside, looking in, wondering, why not Barry Bonds when it comes to bans, and likely more to the point, why Joe Torre and not him when it comes to multimillion manager's salaries.

Rose may be an adroit gambler, but he has a lousy poker face. That much was evident when he revealed his obvious motive when he told the ESPN audience that individual team owners should be allowed to decide if they want him to manage their major league clubs.

"[It's] all about dollars, Dan and Keith," he said, before going on to suggest no owner even bother to call him if they didn't want their team to win.

Reread the first part that thought, friends. Because that may be the most honest thing Pete Rose has ever said.

The Spoils of an MVP Season

2007-01-29T16:43:00.000-05:00

Ryan Howard poses with
The Kenesaw Mountain Landis
National League Most Valuable Player plaque presented him by the Baseball Writers Association of America at the New York chapter's 84th annual dinner Jan. 28.

Ryan Howard with father, Ronald. The New York writers also honored Howard with the Sid Mercer Player of the Year Award, an honor not won by a Philadelphia Phillies player since Mike Schmidt in 1981.

The Mets' ageless Julio Franco (left), winner of the New York chapter's Milton Richman You've Got To Have Heart Award, poses with Howard.

MVP Trophy completes Howard's Haul

2007-01-29T14:44:00.000-05:00

NEW YORK - The Ryan Howard off-season awards tour is all but complete - as is the Phillies first baseman's haul from his MVP season.

On the night of Jan. 28, Howard rounded out his collection of hardware in style, officially receiving the Kenesaw Mountain Landis National League Most Valuable Player trophy, the award voted him by the Baseball Writers Association of America after his breakout 58-home run, 149-RBI campaign in 2006.

Surrounded by family, manager Charlie Manuel and a large contingent of Phillies front-office personnel, Howard was presented the plaque at the New York chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America's 84th annual dinner by no less than Tony Gwynn, an outfielder who is scheduled for induction into the Hall of Fame this summer.

The youthful Phillies first baseman - flanked on the dais by the likes of Hall of Famers Frank Robinson, Reggie Jackson and the soon-to-be inducted Cal Ripken - was joined by his fellow 2006 BBWAA national award winners.

That group included managers of the year Jim Leyland of Detroit and Joe Girardi, formerly of the Florida Marlins; American League MVP Justin Morneau of the Minnesota Twins, rookies of the year Hanley Ramirez (Florida) and Justin Verlander (Detroit), and Cy Young Award winners Brandon Webb (Arizona) and Johan Santana (Minnesota).

"Truly an honor to be here," said Howard. "Last year, I never would have thought it. The company here - Tony Gwynn, Cal Ripken, Reggie Jackson - I've got to admit it, I'm still a fan and I am in awe."

The New York writers reserved a special place for Howard, making him the next-to-last recipient, followed only by Toast of the Town co-recipients Jose Reyes and David Wright.

Howard, previously honored this winter by writers in St. Louis and Boston, was afforded the best-supporting role by the New York writers thanks to his having won two awards. He was also given the New York chapter's Sid Mercer Award as player of the year. The latter is the second such honor for Howard in less than a week. Last Monday, he was feted as the Philadelphia Sports Writers Association's player of the year.

"I don't know if he'll get 58 home runs, again, but I tell what - I watched him practice, I watched him prepare," said Gwynn, who recalled Howard's work ethic when Howard traveled to California to practice with Gwynn's college baseball team at San Diego State University.

"For two days my guys sat there with their mouths open, not watching Ryan Howard hit with power, but watching Ryan Howard hit off a T. We were dumbfounded, the things he did with a baseball bat were truly amazing."

Scenes From An Exhibition - Of Baseball Greats

2007-01-29T13:53:00.000-05:00

Ryan Howard and father, Ronald, with Howard's Kenesaw Mountain Landis National League Most Valuable Player trophy presented to the Phillies first baseman at the New York chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America's 84th annual dinner Jan. 28.

Left to right, Mets manager Willie Randolph; Arlene Howard, wife of the late Elston Howard; Rachel Robinson, wife of the late Jackie Robinson; and Hall of Famer Frank Robinson, who was awarded the William J. Slocum Award for Long and Meritorious Service by the New York writers. The chapter also saluted Jackie Robinson's legacy, marking the 60th anniversary of the fall of the color barrier in Major League Baseball.

Mets pitcher Tom Glavine, winner of the New York Writers' Ben Epstein "Good Guy" award (left), stands with Mets manager Willie Randolph and Mets team owner Fred Wilpon.

Marty Noble, veteran baseball columnist and the editor of the New York chapter's dinner magazine (left), presents the St. L0uis Post Dispatch's Rick Hummel with a framed compilation of the salutes to "The Commish's" pending enshrinement into Cooperstown. Hummel will enter the Hall of Fame as the 2006 J.G. Taylor Spink Award winner.

The Mets' ageless Julio Franco (left), winner of the New York chapter's Milton Richman You've Got To Have Heart Award, poses with Howard.

Howard Patiently Awaiting Windfall

2007-01-25T14:10:00.000-05:00

Ryan Howard last night accepted the Outstanding Professional Athlete Award from the Philadelphia Sports Writers Association, knowing full well that the monster numbers from 2006 that secured the honor will take a backseat to the numbers he will command at the bargaining table.

That much was assured when Howard awoke Sunday, the day after attending Chase Utley's California wedding, and learned his Phillies teammate had signed a seven-year, $85 million contract extension through 2013.

"I was happy for him," Howard told a news conference audience before the writers' 103d annual dinner last night at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Cherry Hill. "That was a pretty good wedding gift. "
If Utley's good fortune or that of free agent Alfonso Soriano (who signed for eight years and $136 million with the Cubs) whetted Howard's appetite for a long-term deal, the National League MVP refused to let on.

Speculation? "I kind of leave that up to you guys," said the 27-year-old Howard, who set a franchise record with 58 home runs to go with 149 RBIs. "There's nothing that I can do about salaries or who's on the team. I don't make the decisions in the front office. What I can do is control what I do on the field. Until it happens, nothing's happened, so I don't worry about it. "

The Phillies have said that Howard's contract talks will not begin until their remaining arbitration-eligible players, pitchers Brett Myers and Geoff Geary, are signed.

When negotiations do begin with the first baseman, the Phillies have the leverage and could even stipulate a salary if the two sides do not agree. Howard is one season away from arbitration eligibility and will not be in line for free agency until 2011.

Even if the Phillies unilaterally renew his deal, Howard insists it will not knock the smile from his face. "I'm playing major-league baseball," he said, beaming. "I'm happy every day. "

He has noticed, however, that there is no such thing as a small development in the increasing limelight. Howard saw that when his recent change of agents caused a buzz. "It was just some differences, but it was handled," he said. "It's resolved. You just move on and go from there. "

As for honors such as last night's, Howard liberally applied grace, humor and humility. "You guys are the greatest," he told the sportswriters, laughing. Besides, said the onetime mass communications major at Southwest Missouri State, "I'm partly one of you guys. "

Truth Will Set Big Mac Free

2007-01-10T13:46:00.000-05:00

As one of the 77 percent of the Baseball Writers Association voters who did not put Mark McGwire's name on my Hall of Fame ballot, I offer this open letter to the man who must feel his fall from grace is now complete, and irreversible:

Dear Mark:

I know you were routed in your initial battle to win inclusion in Baseball's Hall of Fame. That was bound to be the fate of the first big-name batter up for consideration from the steroid era.

Received only 23 percent of the necessary 75 percent of the votes needed for election had to be a stinging slap. But as much as it may have hurt, understand this, and understand it quickly: even though that battle was lost, you can still win the war, but only if you use the time left to you wisely, with the best interest of the game in mind.

You have 14 years to do so. That is the number of years of eligibility you still have left on the writers' ballots.

That decade and a half will seem like an interminable amount of time, but only if you view it as a painful period in which you are destined to twist slowly, endlessly on the outside of Cooperstown looking in.

But what if you go on the offensive, Mark?

Come clean about the steroid era, including any involvement you may have had in it. Then invite baseball to join in its version of a truth and reconciliation initiative of the sort that made a lasting peace possible in South Africa.

Nelson Mandela confirmed his genius and strengthened a nation. Can you help save a game?

Baseball, the national pastime, is worth saving. And it can only benefit from the kind of healing and cleansing that the truth about what drugs did to it and its records can bring.

Lives may not be at stake, just reputations such as yours are; that was brought home with brutal force Monday when your bid for immortality was rebuked, and infamy was offered, instead.

Now you know: Baseball is a game that depends on reputations - and heroes - unlike any other. Yet your one saving grace could be that if there's anything baseball fans, and people in the country as a whole, love more than a hero it is a repentant hero.

Pete Rose has never understood that. He's yet to accept the fact that three simple words - "I am sorry" would not only bring forgiveness for his gambling indiscretions. They would bring down the walls that keep him barred from the game, from the Hall to this day.

So be smarter, and less self-destructive than Rose, Mark. Be the first to show him the way. Don't continue to relegate steroids to a past you refuse to speak on. Blow the lid off the era and let the air, and light in.

Then dare others, from Barry Bonds to the other countless number of players who also know the truth to follow your lead.

Do that and you will prove that not only were your home runs powerful, but so, too, is your desire to heal the game. Then, and only then, will you have a chance to be judged truly Hall-worthy.

Roids Rage On And On And On...

2006-12-30T22:04:00.000-05:00

Barry Bonds may enter the 2007 season second only to Henry Aaron on the all-time home run list, but in the story line that should matter the most, Bonds is still pleading the Fifth.

The Fifth, as in no comment to any question regarding the federal government’s ongoing attempt to nail him with steroid-use/related perjury charges.

Bonds’ thus-far successful dodge of criminal charges has accomplished two things. It assured that any and all on-field accomplishments emanating from his bat, from his era, will continue to enrage rather than elate.

It also assures that Bonds, in particular, and the issue of illegal performance-enhancing drugs in general will continue to present massive dilemmas for baseball. Commissioner Bud Selig & Co. can’t help but be at a loss as to how the game should honor Bonds should the man standing on 734 home runs approach Aaron’s record of 755.

Arguments will be made that no honors should be conveyed should Bonds catch Aaron.

Honor Bonds, don’t honor Bonds — either way, baseball’s approach is guaranteed to polarize and inflame.

Poor Bud. He won’t have enough fingers and toes to count the kinds of charges and countercharges any decision will generate, from racism, generational bias and flat-out hypocrisy, to name but a few of the high, hard ones sure to come the commissioner’s way.

Some would argue that baseball earned this thankless mess on merit. Club owners, players, sponsors — and, alas, even reporters — allowed themselves to be mesmerized by what is commonly referred to in bitter terms as the steroid era.

That does not mean that the anguish of the powers-that-be won’t be as real as the certain embarrassment. Because you’re talking about a scenario in which the game possibly not only has to ignore its greatest hitter for all eternity (the banned-for-life Pete Rose) but also its home-run king.

Unbelievable, but true.

Still, any anguish Selig is about to feel, any anger even a slightly snubbed Bonds is bound to harbor can’t possibly compare to what will course through Aaron come crunch time.

A proud man, Aaron knows in his heart that his march past Babe Ruth’s one-time hallowed record of 714 homers was not only noble and heroic.

Aaron also knows his milestone was built with an integrity that is beyond question.Now he might be asked to honor Bonds, and therefore the era that made it possible for his record to be wrenched from him in highly suspicious fashion.

How insulting.

And, unless Bonds pulls up short, how unavoidable. While there remains so much we do not know about this tawdry era, one thing we do know is that should the record fall, there won’t be a greater victim in this sorry saga than Hammerin’ Hank.

As for that era, while it is said to be mercifully receding into the past, it is still spreading its stench. That much became clear this week when the federal government, on the hunt for Bonds and others, won a court appeal guaranteed to send shudders through the ranks of every major-league clubhouse.

A federal appeals court this week cleared the way for prosecutors to access the names and test samples of 100 players who reportedly tested positive for steroids in a voluntary scientific survey conducted by Major League Baseball in 2003.

The Major League Baseball Players Association will fight the decision, all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary. That is Donald Fehr’s job, to protect these knuckleheads — and the head of the players union does his job very well.

Still, should the union lawyers fail in their attempt to keep those records sealed, the fallout could devastate no only the ballplayers but baseball.

You do the math: What’s in those vials might not only contain the proof needed to convict Bonds of lying about having never knowingly used steroids.Those urine samples could at last legitimize what has been long-thought to be baseball’s ugliest secret of all: This isn’t just about Bar-roid. It’s about Bonds Times hundreds!

The wide net the public clamored for is about to be hauled in. And it might contain results the public isn’t braced to receive. It’s been easy to demonize Bonds — made so by the sheer force of his often surly personality. Is the public really prepared to wrap arms around the fall of players once thought so pure and pristine?

Baseball and its fans might have to embrace a new, ugly reality in which the playing field was not as skewed in favor of power hitters as once thought, because starting pitchers, relievers, Punch-and-Judy infielders, etc., all may have benefited from the shady times when ’roids were all the rage.

Ah, the steroid era: the gift that keeps on giving — black eyes, likely more than baseball ever imagined.

Ouch! Junior Injured, Again

2006-12-24T12:02:00.000-05:00

One of the sadder developments of Major League Baseball in the 2000s is how the ascent of Ken Griffey Jr. to the ranks of the true greats has slowed to worse than a crawl.

Once the presumptive heir to Henry Aaron's home-run record, Griffey - "Junior," "The Kid" - was the player once thought the most likely to carry the game into this century on the magnificent twin forces of his talent and his personality.

Yet as we approach 2007, Griffey is in danger of once again receding to the backwaters of baseball's consciousness by yet another confounding injury.

Memories of Griffey's on-field brilliance as well as those of his luminous personality are now being bulldozed under by one numbing physical calamity after another, the latest a broken left hand suffered at his home Friday.

As if The Kid needed another reminder that he is no longer The Man.

Was he ever once, though.

Junior was Ryan Howard, David Wright and Jose Reyes rolled into one.

He could out-Bonds Barry, outbash Big Mac, outslug - and outsmile - Slammin' Sammy Sosa.

But the teen sensation turned 20-something all-star marvel is now an old 37.

A very old 37.

And that 37-year-old with a wounded body has now drifted so far off baseball's primary radar, some wouldn't be blamed for thinking Junior had already retired and was working on his Hall of Fame eligibility.

That might be a mercy at this point. Especially after the news broke Friday that fate had kicked Junior in the teeth again.

The Cincinnati Reds reported that the one-time perennial all-star will have his broken hand in a hard cast for three weeks. Only after that can he start another in a long line of inexorable rehabilitations.

At this point, Griffey couldn't be faulted if he felt his career is in a hard cast from which he will never escape.

How could he not after landing on the disabled list eight times since 2001?

Yes, he enjoyed something of a revival just two years ago, winning the award no player ever really wants - comeback player of the year - thanks to a 35-homer campaign.

Last season marked a return to a crueler reality. The Reds were robbed of Junior's bat down the stretch, when Griffey suffered a dislocated toe trying to make a leaping catch of a Bonds home run on Sept. 5.

Griffey appeared in only two games after the toe injury - limiting him to a total of 109 games - his fade from the pennant race preceding that of the snakebitten Reds.

Fans don't want to remember Ken Griffey Jr. this way, a broken shadow of his former self, running into walls in an attempt to escape disabled-list all-star status.

And I've known Junior too long for that to be my lasting image; I've known him since he was a precocious teen hanging out with his all-star father.

I saw life in that face then, as well as a mix of mischief and physical makeup that suggested the approach of something both fun and fantastic.

I remember watching in wonder as Junior tweaked his famous dad as only he could when comparing respective days on the diamond.

"How was your day, Dad? I had a pretty good day, too," Junior would inform Senior, usually after Senior had just done some pretty impressive things playing left field for the New York Yankees.

That now seems so long ago, just like when Junior enjoyed some pretty good days with the Seattle Mariners, those prime-time nights he won home-run contests.

Junior still possesses the face of that teen who strutted without apology into the Yankee Stadium clubhouse of the mid-1980s.

Last summer, though, the eyes betrayed him as he hobbled around the visiting clubhouse at Citizens Bank Park on an old man's legs.

He knew his durability, speed and another run of pretty good days had been robbed by too many tears, sprains, breaks.

These injuries have cost the Reds millions of dollars, but the loss to baseball is immeasurable.

Though often guarded in private, Griffey instinctively understood and accepted his public role. And he used a boundless puppy-dog energy to sell the game, as at home on a Wheaties box as in the batter's box when marketing the game.

The result: He proved to be the perfect - and most welcome - counter balance to sourpusses like Bonds and Albert Belle, and dour faces like Mark McGwire's.

Then came the era in which 50 home runs a year became mere footnotes, as did the man who has 563 home runs, now "pedestrian" and well short of the 600 Club that became the exclusive haunt of the nouveau-Herculean slugger.

Now injuries continue to force Junior's retreat. These days, the only headlines he seems capable of garnering involve calamity.

Fragile Star

p>Ken Griffey Jr. has been on the disabled list eight times since joining the Reds in 2000. He's also missed significant playing time at the end of the last two seasons without going on the DL. Griffey has played 699 games in seven seasons with the Reds. Here are his year-by-year totals:

2000 - 145 games

2001 - 111

2002 - 70

2003 - 53

2004 - 83

2005 - 128

2006 - 109

Jim Rice: Hall of a Candidate

2006-11-30T20:26:00.000-05:00

A good friend, Dick Bresciani, the Vice President of Publications & Archives with the Boston Red Sox, recently mailed out his arguments for the inclusion of Jim Rice in the Baseball Hall of Fame (an argument with which I agree, by the way).

Bresc's many points were very compelling. Here are but a few:

CAREER (1974-1989)

Led A.L. with 382 HR and 1451 RBI in his 16-year career, all with Boston.

Rare Power & Average: Seventeen players with 300+ HR and a career AVG as high as Rice have been on the HOF ballot. All but Rice are HOF:

Aaron, Brett, DiMaggio, Foxx, Gehrig, Greenberg, Hornsby, Klein, Mantle, Mays, Mize, Musial, Ott, Rice, Ruth, A. Simmons, T. Williams.

8-time All-Star
8-time 100 RBI
7-time .300 hitter
6-time Top 5 in A.L. MVP – more than anyone else during Rice’s career (Murray 5)
4-time A.L. TB leader
3-time A.L. HR leader

1978 A.L. MVP (.315 AVG, 46 HR, 139 RBI, 406 TB, .600 SLG, 213 H, 15 3B)
Only M.L. player to lead either league outright in 3B, HR, and RBI
Only A.L. player with 400+ TB since 1937 (Joe DiMaggio)
A.L. record for biggest margin in TB (113 over Murray)
Only A.L. player with 46+ HR between ’69 (Killebrew) and ’87 (McGwire)

3-YEAR STRETCH (1977-1979)

Only player in M.L. history with 3 straight seasons of 35+ HR and 200+ hits
Tied A.L. record of 3 consecutive years as TB leader (Williams, Cobb)
Ruth and Foxx are the others in A.L. with 3+ straight 39+ HR, .315 seasons.

A DOZEN YEARS OF DOMINANCE (1975-1986)

Twenty M.L. players have hit .300+ with 350+ HR over a 12-season stretch (Babe Ruth was the first, from 1915-1926), but Jim Rice stands alone in his dozen years (1975-86).

He is the only M.L. player of his generation who accomplished the feat (linking 1974, when Hank Aaron became the career HR leader, to 2001, when Barry Bonds became the single-season HR leader). All players on the following list who have been on the Hall of Fame ballot have been elected – except for Jim Rice.

The list: .300+ with 350+ HR over a 12-season stretch
(Date listed indicates final year of stretch)

1926 Ruth
1927 Ruth 1967 Aaron, Mantle, Mays, F. Robinson
1928 Ruth 1968 Aaron, Mays, F. Robinson
1929 Ruth 1969 Aaron, Mays, F. Robinson
1930 Ruth 1970 Aaron, Mays, F. Robinson
1931 Ruth 1971 Aaron, F. Robinson
1932 Ruth 1972 Aaron, F. Robinson
1933 Ruth 1973 Aaron
1934 Gehrig, Ruth 1974 Aaron
1935 Gehrig, Ruth 1975
1936 Gehrig 1976
1937 Foxx, Gehrig 1977
1938 Foxx, Gehrig 1978
1939 Foxx, Gehrig, Ott 1979
1940 Foxx, Ott 1980
1941 Foxx, Ott 1981
1942 Foxx, Ott 1982
1943 Foxx 1983
1944 Foxx 1984
1945 Foxx 1985
1946 1986 Rice
1947 1987
1948 1988
1949 1989
1950 1990
1951 1991
1952 1992
1953 1993
1954 Williams 1994
1955 Williams 1995
1956 Williams 1996
1957 Williams 1997
1958 Williams 1998
1959 Snider, Williams 1999
1960 Snider 2000
1961 Snider 2001 Bonds
1962 Mantle 2002 Bagwell, Bonds, Thomas
1963 Mantle, Mays 2003 Bagwell, Bonds, Gonzalez, Piazza, Sheffield, Thomas
1964 Mantle, Mays 2004 Bagwell, Bonds, Gonzalez, Piazza, Ramirez, Sheffield, Thomas
1965 Aaron, Mantle, Mays 2005 Bonds, Piazza, Ramirez, Rodriguez, Sheffield
1966 Aaron, Mantle, Mays 2006 Bonds, C. Jones, Piazza, Ramirez, Rodriguez, Sheffield

(Does not count military service against anyone in World War II and/or Korea)

From 1975 to 1986 Jim Rice was the most dominant player in the American League. During that 12-year stretch he led the league in 12 categories and ranked among the top five in two others. His numbers are indicative of a player who was dangerous in nearly every situation.

He led the league over that period with 350 home runs but unlike most sluggers of his day, he ranked fourth with a .304 batting average. He collected the most hits over that time period and also ranked first with a .520 slugging percentage. He legged-out 73 triples, including 15 in 1977 and 1978, and he was the most dangerous outfielder to run on in the American League. In every category he ranks above or among existing Hall of Famers.

Why Barry, Not Big Mac Belongs

2006-11-29T16:52:00.000-05:00

Barry Bonds hasn't retired, yet, but that doesn't mean he's not the elephant in the middle of the Hall of Fame controversy swirling around Mark McGwire.

If Bonds' name were on the ballot he would get my vote. McGwire would not (don't think his numbers are worthy, period).

Bonds, on the other hand, stands up, numbers-wise, even discounting what he accomplished in the steroid era.

My reasoning: when he looked like Derek Jeter, played like Jeter (doubles, triples, and more than the occasional big fly), he won three Mvps. So even prior to the suspected steroid years, he accomplished things some players already in the Hall did not.

Big Mac never had an Mvp season, not even in that magical summer of '98, suggesting an immensely impressive feat that was, none-the-less a singular one _ kind of like Roger Maris' summer of '61. That, too, was not considered enough to get Roger into the Hall.

Pleeease ... Say It Ain't So, Mac

2006-11-29T16:46:00.000-05:00

A lot of those who are responding to the Mark McGwire/Hall of Fame vote contend that McGwire had yet to be found guilty of using banned substances (remember, Andro was not illegal when McGwire admitted using the over-the-counter substance).

Still, none of this convinces me that McGwire went through the steroid era cleanly, mostly because he still refuses to adamantly say that he did!

Big Mac has yet to deny Jose Canseco’s claim that they shot each other up with steroids during their Bash Brother days.

Why not call him a liar, or sue for libel to clear his name?

I know I would – if I knew I was clean and there couldn’t possibly be a smoking gun. I’m still waiting for Mac to come to his own defense.

Thus far, his silence continues to speak volumes.

'Roid Rage and The Hall of Fame

2006-11-27T22:57:00.000-05:00

Universal rejection vs. unanimous choice.Both intriguing possibilities were conjured up yesterday when, as expected, Mark McGwire, Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn made their inaugural appearances on the baseball’s annual Hall of Fame ballot.

The voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America — those with 10 years or more experience covering the sport — are expected to wrestle with McGwire’s candidacy, and only in part because of his overall numbers.Despite exceeding a time-honored Hall threshold (500 homers) with his 583 home runs, McGwire is very much on the bubble because of the steroid era in which he both thrived and was tainted.

Though McGwire never admitted to or was caught using illegal performance enhancers, he was famously accused of doing so by fellow first-time Hall nominee Jose Canseco.

McGwire has never denied the accusation. His not doing so, most notably before a congressional committee examining illegal steroid use in baseball, could cost him when the results of the BBWAA vote is announced Jan. 9.

Veteran Boston Herald columnist Steve Buckley perhaps illustrated some of the simmering condemnation when he told The Inquirer why he won’t write McGwire’s name on the ballot, now or ever.

“I thought his performance before Congress was a disgrace,” Buckley said. “Whenever anyone asks me about his home run numbers, I simply say I am not here to talk about the past.”

But, Jayson Stark of ESPN.com will reluctantly vote for McGwire in part, he said, “because baseball allowed all this to happen.“We know he gave some horrible answers to some members of Congress. But in truth, we hardly know anything about what anyone in the sport may or may not have done.

“So to me, just as baseball allowed [spitball pitcher] Gaylord Perry to go out and win his 300 games — which got him to the Hall of Fame — it allowed McGwire and all of these players to compile their stats and break their records and earn their money and accolades based on those feats.

So I think I’m stuck with evaluating what the sport allowed to happen on the field. Either the ’90s happened or they didn’t.”

The approximately 575 writers aren’t expected to struggle as much, if at all, on the Hall merits of Gwynn or Ripken.

Gwynn, the eight-time National League batting champion, and Ripken, the man who surpassed Lou Gehrig’s legendary Iron Man streak by playing in 2,632 consecutive games, should easily gain the required 75 percent of the vote needed for induction. But will Ripken or Gwynn be named on every ballot?

No player has yet gained 100 percent of the vote. Not Babe Ruth. Not Gehrig, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Ty Cobb or Ted Williams.

Tom Seaver, elected in 1992, came the closest to perfection when he was named on 425 of 430 ballots in 1992, for 98.84 percent of the votes.

Seaver is joined in the top 10 in terms of percentage by: Nolan Ryan (491 of 497, 98.7), Ty Cobb (222-2226,baseball hall of fame website 98.23), George Brett (488-497, 98.19), Aaron (406-415, 97.83), Mike Schmidt (444-460, 96.52), Johnny Bench (431-447, 96.42), Steve Carlton (436-455, 95.82), Ruth (215-226, 95.13) and Honus Wagner (215-226, 95.13).

Rice and Rich “Goose” Gossage return to the ballot as the top candidates not elected a year ago. Rice, the former Boston Red Sox slugger, fell 53 votes shy in his most recent attempt at election. Gossage, one of a host of stoppers hoping to follow Bruce Sutter into Cooperstown, fell 54 votes shy on the last ballot. Cherry Hill East graduate Orel Hershiser is also among the holdovers.

This is the 15th and final time on the ballot for Steve Garvey, who was on 26 percent of the ballots cast last year. His best finish was 43 percent in 1995, his third year. This is the 14th year for Dave Concepcion (13 percent last year) and the 13th year for Rice (65 percent) and Tommy John (30).

Big Mac No Sure Hall of Famer

2006-11-26T02:27:00.000-05:00

On Friday, Hall of Fame ballots will be mailed to the approximately 575 voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America.
Though there are few certainties in life, it's guaranteed that all Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn have to worry about is not if not whether they get in but by how much of a margin more than the 75 percent votes required for election to the Hall they will surpass the requirement that they be named on at least 75 percent of ballots cast .

Mark McGwire should be so lucky. For he is about to jump into the steroid-era cauldron as the first bona fide Hall candidate from that time.

McGwire's name will sit there in close uncomfortable proximity to noted juicers Jose Canseco and the late Ken Caminiti. There, he will be judged by writers with 10 years' experience covering the game, this writer included.
Finally, McGwire's full body of work, from the 583 career home runs to the famous stonewalling of Congress, will be judge Forget being elected on the first shot. McGwire has to worry about getting the five percent of the vote needed to remain on the ballot.

Here is a sample of his tough road as seen through the eyes of some of the nation's leading writers who recently answered said how they will wrestle with the McGwire issue. Players are judged by the writers for their first 15 years of eligibility:

Jayson Stark
ESPN.com
I'm going to vote for him. I can't say I feel good about voting for him. But here's why I'm going to cast that vote:

People have oversimplified this issue, to the point where, if you listened to the way most people talk about it, you'd think there were only 10 players taking any kind of performance-enhancing drugs in the '90s. But we know that, in truth, there were hundreds. So should I only cast votes against players who happened to get mentioned in Jose Canseco's book, or who got subpoenaed by Congress?

What about all the other players who I might suspect were doing something but have never come up in this conversation?

Should I vote only against players who hit home runs, or broke home run records, or challenged home run records? What about all the pitchers we know were taking something? Do we care about them or not? Should I vote against them if I just THINK they might have done something?

I don't see how I can start picking and choosing when, in fact, baseball allowed all of this to happen. So that was the culture inside the game at the time, just as amphetamines were part of the culture in the '60s and '70s and '80s (and beyond). Because baseball allowed all this to happen, we hardly know anything about what McGwire may or may not have done.

We know he gave some horrible answers to some members of Congress. But in truth, we hardly know anything about what anyone in the sport may or may not have done.

So to me, just as baseball allowed Gaylord Perry to go out and win his 300 games -- which got him to the Hall of Fame -- it allowed McGwire and all of these players to compile their stats and break their records and earn their money and accolades based on those feats. So I think I'm stuck with evaluating what the sport allowed to happen on the field. Either the '90s happened or they didn't.

Since they happened, and the hundreds of players using something leveled the playing field to some extent, I feel more comfortable voting for players like McGwire than I do trying to pick and choose who did what, and when, and why.

If more evidence emerges, I always reserve the right to change my mind. But for now, I'm going to cast a very uncomfortable vote for McGwire and, for the most part, every great player of an obviously tainted generation.

I know this was probably way more than you wanted on either guy. But I'm nothing if not exhaustive. Or is that exhausting?)

Bob Nightengale
USA Today

I won't vote for him on this ballot. I don't believe he's a first-ballot Hall of Famer. He had a fine career, but he hit about half of his home runs in a five-year period when he was allegedly on steroids. He had too many off-years to be considered on the same ballot as Ripken and Gwynn.

And yes, I will vote for players I suspect or have been caught using steroids. Barry Bonds and Rafael Palmeiro will be on my first ballot.

Phil Rogers
Chicago Tribune

I'm not wrestling with the McGwire decision. He wouldn't be a strong candidate without his home run totals, which have been tainted by his unwillingness to declare himself steroid-free. Unless something changes drastically in how he presents himself, I can't imagine ever voting for him.

Pat Borzi
New York Times

I'm seriously considering not voting for McGwire at all this year. He admitted using andro, and if he doesn't use it, he doesn't stay healthy enough to hit 70 or go over 500. Doesn't matter to me that baseball hadn't banned it yet. It was already banned in the Olympic movement.

If I had a ballot in front of me today, I wouldn't vote for Bonds or any of the other implicated juicers either.

And even if I decided not to hold that stuff against then, there's another issue here: Stat inflation. The 'roids influence devalues 50-homer season and 500-homer careers. I usually vote for anyone with 500 homers, but in the modern game, 600 might be the fairer benchmark in judging players from this era.

Bob Elliott
Toronto Sun

McGwire ... 1,626 hits in 16 seasons. That total is not enough for me to vote for McGwire - clean or dirty which to my mind have not been proven - when ballots come out in a few months.

Can you justify voting for a guy with almost half as many hits?

A McGwire backer will ask about his single-season home run record of 70 homers. Very impressive. Those nights in St. Louis were magical. We saw homers No. 60, 61 and 62 at Busch Stadium. Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth's mark in 1961 with 61 home runs and that was pretty impressive, too, breaking a 37-year-old record.

And we saw Maris hit No. 57 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. Paul Henderson scored the greatest goal in Canadian history with seconds left against the
Russians in '72 but he is not in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Maris with his mark - and 1,325 hits - was on the ballot 15 years and never got more than 43.09% of the vote, far short of the required 75%.

There are only three Hall of Famers (position players) with fewer hits than McGwire's 1,626. They are:

- Infielder Jackie Robinson, who had 1,518 hits in 10 seasons with the Brooklyn Dodgers. He started at age 28, having previously played with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues.

For the good he did for the game, for the man he was and for the abuse he took as the first black player in the majors, Robinson belongs even if he had averaged 15 hits a year. If Robinson had not opened the doors would we have ever have had the pleasure to watch the likes of Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Billy Williams and Reggie Jackson to mention a few stars? Robinson was named on 77.5 percent of the ballots by Baseball Writers Association of America voters in 1962.

- Outfielder Ralph Kiner had 1,451 hits in 10 seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians. His career was cut short by a back ailment. He won or shared the NL home run title his first seven seasons in Pittsburgh.

McGwire led his league four times -- 1987 and 1996 with the Oakland A's, along with 1998 and 1999 with the Cards. With a ratio of 7.1 homers per 100 at-bats, he trails only Ruth and McGwire among retired players. Kiner had more than 50 homers twice, 51 in 1947 and 54 in 1949. He received 75.51% of the vote in 1975.

- Roy Campanella had 1,161 hits during his 10-year career with Brooklyn. He was a three-time National League most valuable player (1951, 1953, 1955). McGwire's best MVP finish was second in 1998. Campanella broke into the majors in 1948 at age 26 after playing seven season with the Baltimore Elite Giants in the Negro National League. The catcher's career came to an end after an auto crash prior to the 1958 season confined him to a wheelchair. He was named on 79.41% of the ballots in 1969.

Jeff Blair
Toronto Globe and Mail

As for my Hall of Fame vote? I will, without question, vote for Mark McGwire along with Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken, Jr. First, I'm not interested in moral arguments; I'm not electing a prime minister, mayor or Pope.

I would not vote for Pete Rose, because I believe that any manager or player tempted enough to bet on a game might be equally tempted to do something that would knowingly affect the outcome of a game. That's different than taking a performance enhancer, which is for 'enhancing' performance.

Generally, fans don't feel cheated by people who are 'enhancing' their performances. Second, I believe that at least as many pitchers used/use performance enhancers as hitters.

I think the playing field was a lot more level - is a lot more level, if we're talking about HGH - than we know or knew. Third, who cares if McGwire stonewalled Congress. Isn't that what cabinet members do in committee hearings? Better to break down and be thought of as being fraud than wag your finger at cameras, say you never took steroids, and end up failing a steroid test.

Mark Whicker
Orange County Register

The McGwire vote is easy. The man had 1,600-odd hits. The only category in which he excelled was home runs. Vince Coleman had only one standout category (steals) and he isn't in. Mark Belanger had one standout category (defense) and he isn't in. McGwire's uneven career, to me, takes steroidsout of the equation. That's not to say he shouldn't make the Hall of Fame eventually. Just not on the first ballot.

Ray Ratto
San Francisco Chronicle

McGwire, he doesn't have to do anything.

My vote will be based on what he did as a player, and whether that is enough on its face to get into the Hall. My feeling is that the HOF isn't church, that it is the history of baseball, bad and good, and that if we're making behavior an issue, then the people who defend Ty Cobb and Cap Anson have some serious explaining to do.

Ken Davidoff
Newsday

As for McGwire, while I reserve the right to change my mind, I don't anticipate ever voting for him. His conduct during the House Government Reform Hearing, on March 17, 2006, as well as the revelations of his backroom dealings prior to the hearing, are all the evidence I need to believe that he was a steroid user.

Murray Chass
New York Times

On McGwire: A more difficult deliberation. Although the Times does not allow us to vote, I would probably not vote for McGwire.If I were voting,I'd do far more serious thinking about it than I have, but I would probably not vote for him.

He never tested positive and he has never said "I used steroids," but his Congressional refrain -- "I'm not here to talk about the past" -- made him look guilty as hell.

The home run achievements in the steroids era by McGwire, [Sammy] Sosa and Bonds were too far out there to think something underhanded didn't have an effect on their numbers. If they were in the Hall of Fame, they would unfairly skew the measurement of players in future years as well as dwarf the accomplishments of Hall of Famers from the past.

Jack Curry
New York Times

As you know, The Times doesn't let us vote for these awards. I am eligible for the H of F vote. If you're just looking for "numbers" to show how people are leaning, I would vote "no" on McGwire if I was permitted to vote.

I did a piece back in July or August where I polled 50 writers on McGwire. I forget the exact totals, but a very small percentage said they would definitely vote for him.

Bill Madden
New York Daily News

I'm on record as being a hard-liner on all the alleged steroids cheats. I'm not voting for any of them, but if 75% of my colleagues deem them Hall-worthy, I have no problem with that. They're just not getting in with my vote.

In McGwire's case, I'm not sure if I would have voted for him anyway. He was essentially a one-dimensional player, below average defensively, who had 4-5 big home run seasons. I put him in the Harmon Killebrew (who I also didn't vote for) mode.

Hal McCoy
Dayton Daily News

As for Mr. McGwire, he will not be on my ballot, probably not ever. Using performance-enhancing substances certainly aided everything he did. Then his non-performance during the congressional hearings wiped him out of my consideration under the character clause on the ballot.

Bob Dutton
Kansas City Star

The HOF is a tougher call. Intellectually, I feel if a player is on the ballot, then his numbers/contributions should be viewed dispassionately and on merit. Realistically, I know that's tough to do. I don't know how I'd vote on McGwire.

Rick Hummel
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

McGwire has no chance to get into the Hall this year, not just because of his link to the steroids issue but the appearance of two clearly better candidates in Gwynn and Ripken. There is nothing McGwire needs to do - at least not now.

He doesn't have a chance anyway this year although that is not to say I wouldn't vote for him because I probably will. Next year, however, is different with no standout candidate ahead of McGwire and we'll have a better barometer of how much the steroids thing has hurt him.

Steve Buckley
Boston Herald

I have no intention of voting for Mark McGwire. I thought his performance before Congress was a disgrace. Whenever anyone asks me about his home run numbers, I simply say I am not here to talk about the past.

Jerry Crasnick
ESPN.com

I'm probably going to vote no on McGwire - primarily because we're still trying to assess exactly what happened during the steroid era, and I'm afraid he might go into the Hall and some startling new revelation might come out. And once a guy is in Cooperstown, you can't vote him out.
I'd rather be cautious and wait on this one.

Marty Noble
MLB.com

I'm all but certain McGwire won't need my support to be elected - in some year. I still am unsure how to evaluate him because of the performance enhancers - legal or illegal. That uncertainty, that he had nine seasons that fell short of HOF standards, and that he played his entire career in a time of offensive glut will make me withhold my vote until I have a better sense of how his candidacy compares with what I think and HOF player is.

Joel Sherman
New York Post

As for McGwire, I think I know which way I am leaning (not to vote for him). But I really have decided to wait until the ballot arrives and think fully about what I think on this issue. I think time is the only ally we have to assess these matters and I am going to use all of it.

Paul Hagen
Philadelphia Daily News

My standard answer still holds, which is: Why make a decision before you have to? This is an evolving story. We learn more all the time. The three questions I think a voter has to ask himself/herself are:

1. Can you vote for anybody in what we now have to consider the steroid era or do we just measure players against their peers in that era and ignore the external factors?

2. Did the player have Hall of Fame credentials before he was suspected of using steroids?

3. Can you take into account something that, no matter how strong your suspicions, are at this point just allegations?

Claire Smith
Philadelphia Inquirer

The qauge I will use is, would such a player have been considered a Hall of Famer before steroids sullied his era and/or name? To my mind, only Bonds gets a firm yes here. McGwire, one-dimensional and both a beneficiary and victim of his times, does not, and therefore will not get my vote now, perhaps even ever.

Philly's M(ost) V(aluable) P(ick-me-up)

2006-11-21T15:22:00.000-05:00

To baseball writers across the land, it is now official: The Phillies’ Ryan Howard was the most valuable player in the National League in 2006.

In Philadelphia, a city sport-scape increasingly marked by dreariness and despair, the Bunyanesque first baseman with the powerful personality and home-run swing to go with it, continued to be the most valuable pick-me-up.

As Howard so perfectly summed up with one word yesterday, Philadelphia is “starving” for a winner. He is doing more than his part to win something for Philadelphia and the fans he applauded yesterday. And, as his win yesterday showed, he is doing so in both rapid and impressive fashion.

One year removed from being named the rookie of the year, Howard easily outdistanced the Cardinals’ Albert Pujols to win the MVP in his first full major-league season.He is the first Phillie to be named MVP in 20 years and the first pro athlete in Philadelphia to capture such an honor since Allen Iverson won the NBA’s MVP in 2001.

“I never would have thought it would happen this fast — rookie of the year, home-run derby [crown], and now the MVP,” a humble Howard said as he addressed a news conference and crowd of family, teammates, and Phillies officials at Citizens Bank Park yesterday afternoon.

Even before Howard spoke, his growing import on the Philly sports scene could be measured in the well-wishes sent his way. Not only did the usual suspects — Mike Schmidt, Darren Daulton, Gov. Rendell — weigh in via video messages, but Iverson, like the Flyers’ Mike Knuble and the Eagles’ Donovan McNabb, took time from a troubled season to wish Howard well.

Iverson, who taped his message yesterday morning at Sixers practice, issued a “God bless.”

Knuble thanked Howard for “putting baseball back on the map in Philadelphia.”

McNabb? In a taping that predated the quarterback’s season-ending knee injury Sunday, implored Howard to “continue on with everything that you have done.”

To do that, the man who turned just 27 on Sunday will have to top two seasons that have been both historic and impressive. For Howard is the only player other than Cal Ripken Jr. to follow up rookie-of-the-year honors with an MVP.

He shattered Mike Schmidt’s single-season club home-run record by hitting 58. That total and his 149 RBIs were major-league bests.The homers were the most ever by a second-year big-leaguer. The RBIs were a record for a second-year National Leaguer.

Howard’s numbers — so dominant during the season — were equally impressive when the balloting by the 32 voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America was announced.

He received a total of 388 points to Pujols’ 347, based on tabulations that reward 14 points for first place, nine for second, eight for third, and on down to one for 10th.

Howard won 20 votes for first place to Pujols’ 12. His only other votes were for second (12), while Pujols settled for 19 second-place marks and one for third. Chase Utley tied for seventh.

Howard, who joins Chuck Klein (1932), Jim Konstanty (1950) and Mike Schmidt (1980, 81 and 86) as the only Phillies to win the MVP, didn’t pretend to know what caused the writers to separate him from Pujols. “That’s up to you guys,” he joked during an early-afternoon conference call with members of the BBWAA.

What Howard does know is how much he appreciates finishing ahead of a player who’d never finished lower than fourth in the balloting in any of his six seasons.

“That definitely means something,” Howard said of Pujols, who led the NL in batting with runners in scoring position (.397) and slugging (.671), and finished second to Howard in home runs (49) and RBIs (137).

“Just to be able to compete against a guy like Albert is a feat in itself,” he said.

Howard’s ability to shrug off the competition mirrors his ability to defy labels, such as those that suggested he would be vulnerable to the sophomore jinx, to lefthanded hitting, and to the weight of replacing the tremendously popular Jim Thome.

Phillies manager Charlie Manuel wasn’t surprised that Howard shred each issue. “It just tells you the kind of person he is,” Manuel said. “He’s just a man. I’ve never had to reassure him, even back in the spring [when Thome was still a Phillie], because the only thing he wanted to do is go out and play, try hard. He did, and he determined who’d get the job.”

What he did with it — well, that was a lesson in itself, said Phillies pitcher Geoff Geary, who likened Howard’s growth as a hitter to no less than Barry Bonds. "I’ve been with Ryan for a couple years now, and what’s neat is to see how he’s adjusted,” the reliever said. “He makes the adjustments more quickly now than he did in the minor leagues. He’d developed patience.”

Indeed, Howard conceded that the growth that made him most proud in 2006 was with walks — the ones he drew rather than the intentional sort. They totaled 108 and, he said, fit in with his game plan of continuing to learn and grow.

The walks, of course, did not drive the writers’ votes. What did, in part, was the Phillies’ near-miss playoff run with a strong second half of the season, something Howard fondly, succinctly called “the run.”

“Ryan Howard played in only one meaningless game all season — the last one,” said Jayson Stark of ESPN.com, explaining, in part, his vote for Howard. “So that was the context his numbers needed to be placed in — the same as Pujols’. Every hit, homer, RBI, etc., meant something.”

To the Phillies, to the fans, to the voters and, in the end, to the MVP.

And the winner is ... Vet Writers Weigh In

2006-11-19T16:36:00.000-05:00

Ryan Howard or Albert Pujols?
Mirror images of each other, these two players present a tantalizing dilemma as to which was the National League's Most Valuable Player in 2006.
"If I had to vote in this election, I would have had a very hard time deciding between Howard and Pujols," said Phil Rogers, baseball columnist of the Chicago Tribune.

Who walks away with the honor bestowed by the Baseball Writers of America will be revealed today.

As Howard and Pujols await the 3 p.m. announcement, we take a look at what how 17 esteemed writers - whose experience covering the game combines for over 420 years - wrestle with what constitutes an Mvp.

Here are the full transcripts of the BBWAA members' responses:

Don Burke, Newark Star Ledger: I had an MVP vote and cast it for Ryan Howard. I just thought he meant more to his team this season than any other player in the National League this season. While Albert Pujols was extraordinary, the Cardinals kept on going when he missed time with injuries. But I thought Howard carried the Phillies as they made their late-season push that ultimately fell short, a push they couldn't possibly have made without him.
Bob Nightengale, USA Today: "I think Ryan Howard epitomizes the MVP award. He carried the Phillies on his back, put up monster numbers in the middle of a playoff race, and was a first-class citizen. He is my MVP, narrowly ahead of Albert Pujols. To me, an MVP has to come from either a playoff team or a team in playoff contention.

If the Phillies weren't a factor in the race, the nod would go to Pujols, but since they stayed alive until the final weekend, the vote swings to Howard. I also believe he might be the classiest young player in the game today and should be baseball's next great role model.

Jayson Stark, ESPN.com: I was an NL MVP voter this year, and I've never taken longer or thought harder on any award ballot I've ever filled out in my life. First, I make a list of every conceivable candidate, not just for the first spot on the ballot but for all 10. Then I narrow down the choices. I looked really carefully at six candidates -- Howard, Albert Pujols, Lance Berkman, Miguel Cabrera, Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran.

Then, when I got down to just Howard and Pujols, I spent way too much time over three days trying to separate the two. I even broke down the score before and after every one of their homers. I looked at every conceivable number. I weighed intangibles. And I still wasn't sure. It got to be so late in the afternoon on Monday, the day after the season ended, that Jack O'Connell of the BBWAA even emailed me to say, essentially, It's time to vote!

I decided, in the end, that the biggest argument people were going to use to vote for Pujols over Howard, besides the fact that there were compelling cases to be made for each of them, boiled down to these two factors: 1) Howard didn't hit 60 homers, and 2) Pujols' team made the playoffs and Howard's didn't.

On item 2, though, my standard is different than many voters' standard. If a player's team doesn't get eliminated until the next-to-last day of the season, that's very different than, say, what happened to Derrek Lee last year, or to Travis Hafner this year. Their teams didn't play a meaningful game in September.

Ryan Howard played in only one "meaningless" game all season -- the last one. So that was the context his numbers needed to be placed in -- the same as Pujols'. Every hit, homer, RBI, etc. meant something. So argument No. 2 didn't wash.

That left argument No. 1, which I felt wasn't just about the magic number of 60, but more revolved around the fact that Howard didn't hit a home run in the last nine games of the season, when, theoretically, his team needed him most. Pujols, on the other hand, hit a couple of huge homers in that time.

So I looked at each player in those final nine games to see if the theory that Howard had somehow let the Phillies down was true. What I found was that Howard reached base in every game and, even though he was obviously being intentionally walked and pitched around so he WOULDN'T hit any more big homers, he still drove in a run in five of those nine games.

But over the Cardinals' last nine games, Pujols drove in a run in only one of the games in which he didn't homer. So that wasn't as big an edge as most people perceived.If you want me to tell you how I voted in the end, I will. I voted for Howard. But even now, I'm still not convinced I was right. I can't ever remember a time when the case for two candidates was that close -- and that good. And I've filled out a lot of ballots in my life.

Pat Borzi, New York Times contributor: I've never had an MVP vote. But if I did I'd lean toward a guy on a contending or championship team unless someone had numbers off the charts (Andre Dawson 1987, for instance).

The Phillies were in it long enough at the end for me to consider them contenders, but Howard's year was so big it doesn't matter. I got to see Pujols more than Howard this year, though, and I'd probably vote for Pujols because of some of the big hits he had down the stretch that saved the Cards from total collapse.

Bob Elliott, Toronto Sun baseball columnist: Don't think I qualify as venerable but I am old.

1. Have not voted for MVP in a few years, but I always voted for people in the post-season. The award is not like the Cy Young award for the most outstanding pitcher ... it's for the most outstanding player.

You know the way you admire Don Baylor ... well my admiration for Andre Dawson, who I used to see getting helped off the plane and off the buses (when we flew the charters) and still was able to play - despite his bad knees.
Yet I did not agree he should have been the MVP with the Cubs in '87 when they finished last.

How valuable was he? Without him would they have finished in American Association. Same with [[Cal] Ripken when he won and the O's were 81-81.

I would have voted for Pujols, by the way.

Jeff Blair, Toronto Globe and Mail columnist: I didn't have an MVP vote in our chapter this year, but I voted in the past and I have a fairly liberal interpretation of things.

On one MVP ballot, when I was in Montreal, I voted for Greg Maddux simply because I felt he was the most dominant performer, in terms of helping his team win, in that particular season. To me, the player who is judged most valuable to his team must almost out of necessity play on a team that contends for a post-season spot, unless the weight of his statistics are so overwhelming.

Mark Whicker, Orange County Register columnist: I don't have an MVP ballot but in writing about the MVP Award, I hardly ever give a first-place vote for a player who isn't in the playoffs. It would have to be an extreme case with no other standout candidates, because the word "valuable" to me connotes value to a winner.

Andre Dawson won it when the Cubs finished sixth and they would have finished sixth with an average player in that position.

In that light, Pujols beat out Howard for me. In a year when the Cardinals were savaged by pitching injuries, lineup injuries and general inconsistency, Pujols basically took them to the NL Central title. The fact that he has made himself a Gold Glove first baseman cannot be diminished either.

Howard's numbers speak for themselves and he would be the Player of the Year if such an award existed. But the Phillies didn't get the deal done.

Ray Ratto, San Francisco Chronicle columnist: I don't have an MVP vote, but I think you do it a bit by feel. I find it hard to imagine that Ryan Howard was more important to the Phillies than Albert Pujols was to the Cardinals, but it is close enough that I would be willing to break down some numbers as a tiebreaker. It also helps to be on a winner, because you can more easily point to value on a winning team.

Murray Chass, New York Times columnist: When I was allowed to vote for the award once upon a time I tried to decide who the player was without whom his team could not have done what it did (usually finish first or contend seriously for first). I have always felt that the less help a player has had in helping his team get where it finished the more valuable he was. The opposite of that - is the more good players a team has the less valuable each is.

Bill Madden, New York Daily News: My MVP selection process is to first look at the teams that made the postseason for candidates that in my opinion had the most impact. After that, I look at players (such as Howard) who had the most impact in getting their teams to the brink of the postseason.

If a guy leads the league in both homers and RBI he would get top consideration from me unless it was for a team that went nowhere (such as A-Rod with Texas a couple of years ago.) I put the heaviest emphasis on winning or contending for the postseason.

Hal McCoy, Dayton Daily News: I'm fairly wide-open on my MVP considerations. First I consider the stats, of course, and mix in the value of his contributions to his team. Ryan Howard qualifies mightily on both counts, although his late fade and the Phillies late fade in the face of the Albert Pujols and what he did for the Cardinals weighs heavily.

Rick Hummel, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: I generally vote for the best player on the best team, if at all possible. The Cardinals weren't the best team on Oct. 1, but they were in the playoffs. Howard's team wasn't in the playoffs.
Pujols' average with men in scoring position was startingly higher than Howard's and he is also a Gold Glove first baseman, compared to Howard's sub-standard play at first base.

I'm not caught up by who hits the most home runs although this is not to discredit Howard as a legitimate candidate.

Phil Rogers, Chicago Tribune: For me, playing on a playoff team is not an absolute for MVP worthiness, but it comes pretty close. With four post-season teams in both leagues, it's hard to ignore players who helped a team get to October to honor someone whose team fell short.

With that said, a player with Ryan Howard's performance - particularly as he pushed a team toward the playoffs, albeit eventually falling short - challenges me to defend that position. If I had to vote in this election, I would have had a very hard time deciding between Howard and Albert Pujols.

Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated: The MVP is about assigning a personal value to the production of a player in the context of his team and the league. Statistics are enormously helpful, especially as the foundation to each player's case, but they are the not the be-all and end-all. If they were, we could just run the numbers through a computer and hand the trophy to the name the machine spits out on top.

I lean toward players on teams that contended and, with slightly more emphasis, those that reached the playoffs. I lean toward position players, and taking into account the value of their position on the defensive spectrum and how well they play it, but do not rule out pitchers. I have only one iron-clad rule: there are no iron-clad rules.

Marty Noble, MLB.com: One factor makes me question Howard's credentials for the MVP award - Chase Utley. No question Howard was the Phillies' most valuable player, and Utley was the team's second most valuable commodity. Here's the snag.

The MVP ballot awards 14 points to the player for each first-place vote. The second-through-10th places are awarded 9-8-7 etc. To me, that five-point difference means No. 1 has to be a clear-cut choice over No. 2, and really, more clear cut choice than any other entry on the ballot. And I cam make a better case for Howard being a clear cut choice than I can any other candidate.
But Utley is one of the leading candidates, too, along with Pujols, Reyes, Beltran, [David] Wright and [Carlos] Delgado (in that order among the Mets).

My question becomes this: Is Howard's relative value within the league worth five more points than the next candidate -- Pujols, in my mind -- and six more than Reyes when when he had a teammate providing as much as Utley did and his team didn't win either of the two postseason berths available?

What saves Howard is that the Cardinals faded and had two fewer victories than the Phillies, that Pujols played in fewer games - 143 to Howard's 159 and the ballot says number of games played is to be considered - and that Reyes, the best defensive player on the ballot, had more help from Beltran, Wright and Delgado that Utley provided.

And all that aside, 58 home runs and 149 RBI, are remarkable totals for an era and in any ballpark, even Citizen Bandbox. And, without precise measurement and comparison, what Howard did felt like an MVP performance.

Bob Dutton, Kansas City Star: I am a frequent voter for MVP because, well, it's a small chapter in Kansas City. My overriding priotity in voting is pretty simple: Based on this year alone, if I was picking up sides, whom would I pick first and so on.

I rarely penalize a player for playing for a poor team because, as Bill James contends, why should a player be penalized because he has lousy teammates?
The only exception is if players are virtually even in my eyes, then I'll tend toward the player on the better team -- assuming he performed down the stretch.

Similarly, I don't penalize a DH unless it's a dead heat, and then only if the other player is a superior defensive player.

I'm not opposed to voting for a pitcher for MVP, but his numbers would have to be overwhelming.

Jerry Crasnick, ESPN.com: I haven't actually had an MVP vote for at least 10 years, but I'm like most writers, I'm sure. I try to assess a player's impact through statistics and intangibles, and determine who was the most indispensible to his club.

All things being equal, I'm going to favor the guy who played for a winner. But I wouldn't penalize someone like Howard, whose team fell just short of the playoffs for reasons entirely unrelated to him. For what it's worth, I would have taken Howard over Pujols, even though Pujols was far superior in some important categories (like batting with runners in scoring position).

Howard Wins ESPN.com Straw Poll

2006-11-13T18:22:00.001-05:00

It's not an exact science, like, say, exit polling, but the baseball gurus at ESPN.com overwhelmingly viewPhillies firstbaseman Ryan Howard as the National League Mvp.

In the poll of 18 ESPN.com pundits, Howard pulled 11 votes to Albert Pujols' 6 and Carlos Beltran's one.

There were holdouts. Peter Gammons notably tabbed AlbertPujols. But Jayson Stark, Jerry Crasnick, Buster Olney, Jim Caple and Steve Phillips, among others, swung the vote for the Phillies' first baseman.

The only poll that will count won't be released until Monday. That's when the official tabulation of votes by the Baseball Writers Association of America will be revealed.

Prediction: It likely will not be a landslide, but Howard will win - again.

Astros Need to Honor Niekro

2006-11-02T13:40:00.000-05:00

As it always seems, honors don't always come in timely fashion.

Joe Niekro, the winningest pitcher in Houston Astros' history, never had his number retired by that organization in his lifetime.

Houston should correct that oversight, now, to honor Joe's memory. Certainly the recognition would provide some semblence of comfort to Joe's widow, Debbie, their young son, J.J., and his two grown children, Lance and Natalie.

No one makes the argument better than Dennis Orlandini of Irvington, N.J., who wrote, in part, in a comment to this blog:

Let's not forget that Joe Niekro, while under the shadow of his Hall Of Fame brother, Phil, had some great moments and one "Hall Of Fame" moment that most pitchers would give their souls for.

Those 144 franchise leading wins, could have been a much higher total if Houston wasn't such a weak hitting team and the pitchers had to shoulder most of the load.

His 221 overall wins and .520 winning percentage would likewise have improved if the Astros had a more fearsome lineup.

His greatest moment came at the end of his second consecutive 20- win season.
The Dodgers finished the season with Houston in a head-to head battle between the top two teams in the NL West in 1980. Houston needed just one win to clinch the division. However Los Angeles swept the series to force a playoff. The Dodgers had all the momentum going to steal the division title, except for one thing. It was Little Knucksie's turn in the rotation.

Niekro's knuckleball fluttered that day and he mixed in other pitches to keep the Dodgers off balance. From the first or second inning onward it became apparent that the Dodgers batters were going to get nowhere with Niekro that day.

Joe went the distance, the Astros got some timely hitting and I believe the final score was Houston 7, LA 1. Niekro had turned back the tide of the Dodgers late season comeback, and the Astros had their first championship in franchise history.

Not many pitchers could have done what Niekro did that day - that was his career's absolute pinnacle, a shining moment in a pretty darn good career that had lots of other highlights.

Thanks for the memories, Dennis - and the foundation of a campaign the Astros would do well to recognize and act upon.

Remembering Joe Niekro

2006-11-01T11:34:00.000-05:00

Joe and Claire, 1987, during Twins-Cardinals World Series

Joe (left) and Phil Niekro in Cleveland during the 1987n season

Joe and Phil in their short time together with the Yankees

Joe and son, Lance, in 1987 Twins' World Series victory parade

Rest in Peace, Little Knucksie

2006-11-01T00:36:00.000-05:00

Joe Niekro (left) and brother, Phil, in 1987How do you get your arms around a loss like the one suffered Friday when Joe Niekro died from a brain aneurysm?

Joe's death, at age 61, is simply crushing, not only to his family, his friends and to baseball, but to this reporter. Because Joe - Little Knucksie, embodied everything good about the people we cover.

Joe didn't pander to us. He merely thought it right, and professional, to honor the working relationship between players and the reporters who cover them. And because he could do that, he relaxed through a rewarding career, one that was as fun to cover as he obviously had fun playing.

By doing so, he helped make livable a road traveled by this reporter because, in a male-dominated sport like baseball, that road was and is often lonely and uncertain.

Little Knucksie, like his brother, Hall of Famer Phil, got that. And they realized that just by being humane, understanding and cooperative, they remained always the gentlemenly souls and genuinely good people that their parents raised.

Joe, one of the true cards I've ever covered, never took himself too seriously. He and Phil not only left in their wake over 500 victories, but 5 million laughs and as many irreplacable memories.

Joe never adopted the officious attitude that it was somehow beneath him to cooperate. He knew it didn't cost him anything to simply be honest, available and civil, not matter the circumstances. And, as evidence that genes count, what he learned from Phil he handed down to his son, Lance, a personable young first baseman with the San Francisco Giants.

That Joe treated all members of the media with respect made him special. In the end, it also made him a friend, one I cherished long after he stopped pitching. One I will miss and mourn.

I have to go, now, Little Knucksie. Because, for some reason, the screen is too blurry to see.

Rest in peace, my friend. Rest in peace.

Countdown to pitchers and catchers

2006-10-28T04:15:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to the St. Louis Cardinals, world champions. Four-plus months to pitchers and catchers.

Underdogs Cards Rule Baseball World

2006-10-28T03:49:00.000-04:00

ST. LOUIS - The Detroit Tigers entered the 102d World Series as American League champions and exited as the Keystone Kops.

The St. Louis Cardinals entered the Fall Classic as the postseason's most unexpected participant and exited as world champions, thanks to a 4-2 win last night in the fifth and final game of the best-of-seven Series.

Numbers that were supposed to haunt St. Louis - an 83-78 record, a 12-17 September-October finish - instead seemed to inspire the team most often branded as this postseason's underdogs.

"Nobody believed in us coming in, only these 25 guys," Albert Pujols said as the crowd cheered during the trophy presentation at Busch Stadium. "I just thank God we proved everybody wrong. We never gave up. We're warriors."

"From the first game in San Diego [in the National League Division Series], the guys were so determined," shouted joyous Cards manager Tony La Russa, now the only man other than Sparky Anderson to manage teams to world titles in each league. "Way to go, fellas!"

Numbers that forever will haunt the Tigers include eight unearned runs, including two last night.

The plays not made, balls not fielded, throws not reaching their targets marked every game in Detroit's profoundly flawed Series performance.

Even before the loss - and Detroit's seventh and eighth errors overall - Tigers manager Jim Leyland had said, "I haven't seen anything like it, but I don't believe that's the reason [Detroit trailed in the Series]."

No, it wasn't just the fumbling and bumbling. To suggest that would overlook St. Louis' smoothly functioning pitchers, such as last night's winner, Jeff Weaver, and hitting heroes such as David Eckstein.

Eckstein, who hit .364 and was the main piston in an offense that never quit, was named the Series' most valuable player. The honor brought with it a new Corvette, a prize Eckstein said was won by more than just himself. The Series triumph, he said, "was a total team effort."

With the victory, St. Louis ended a drought of sorts, having lost three Fall Classics since last winning in 1982.

The Cards and the New York Yankees are the only teams with double-digit Series titles (10 and 26, respectively). St. Louis also brought a world title back to the heretofore-beleaguered National League for only the fourth time in 11 years.

Detroit, in the Series for the first time since 1984, had hoped to get home to put Game 6 in the hands of undefeated post-season hero Kenny Rogers.

To do that, the Tigers needed Justin Verlander, a 17-game winner, to rebound from a shaky postseason (1-1, 7.47 ERA entering last night).

"I just want him to be more relaxed and just get ahead," catcher Ivan Rodriguez had wished aloud before the game. "What we've got to do is set up a game plan and just make him be Justin."

Verlander's 35-pitch first inning, replete with a wild pitch, three walks and all-over-the-lot 100 m.p.h. pitches, suggested a long night ahead.

He wriggled out of that scare, but not the one just one inning later. After Cards catcher Yadier Molina's single and two groundouts, Eckstein's infield single was thrown away by Detroit third baseman Brandon Inge.

The error - and Eckstein steaming around the bases - joined similar lasting impressions of the this Series.

Eckstein's 4-for-5 performance the night before included his using a third double of the night to drive in the winning run in a Game 4 also marked by disastrous Tigers fielding.

The fourth inning was marked by a Cardinals error - the two-base variety on a dropped ball by rightfielder Chris Duncan. That gave the Tigers an opening. And Detroit pushed two runs through it, on a Sean Casey laser shot into the right-field stands on the next pitch thrown by Weaver to give the Tigers a 2-1 lead.

But if the Tigers dominated this Series in one category, it was in costlier errors.

Verlander, unable to live large with the lead, committed a pitching no-no by allowing one-out back-to-back hits, by Molina and So Taguchi, just after his teammates had given him the lead.

Weaver then attempted a sacrifice, and seemed to play into Verlander's hands - because when the pitcher fielded the bunt he definitely seemed to have a shot at Molina at third.

But for the fifth time in five Series games, a Tigers pitcher committed an error; for the fourth time it was by badly overthrowing a base, which Verlander did for the second time in two starts, tying an ignominious Series record for pitchers.

As the ball rolled into foul territory past third, Molina scored. Taguchi did, too, moments later on an Eckstein RBI grounder.

What Detroit kept giving away, St. Louis gladly accepted - including, in the end, the World Series.

No Rogers? If He's the Best, Why Not?

2006-10-27T15:16:00.000-04:00

ST. LOUIS - Kenny Rogers is the best pitcher remaining with a team still playing who might not get to pitch again. Because the Tigers continue to start him only in home games.

Thing is, the Tigers, down 3-1 in the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals, may not get to the home game Rogers is scheduled to start. Because Game 5 of the Series is here, in St. Louis, and a Cards win ends the Series.

Still, when asked if there was any chance he might juggle his rotation and skip rookie Justin Verlander in favor of Rogers - 3-0 and unscored upon in 23 innings this post-season - Tigers manager Jim Leyland said: "Absolutely none. I'm not going to pitch him in this atmosphere."

Leyland went on to add: "We have to win three ballgames. ... If we had to win one game, if it was a seventh game, I'd pitch him. We have to win three games."

Still, by evoking the idea of a hostile atmosphere, Leyland makes necessary the question: Would Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Christy Mathewson or any of the true greats, have accepted being shielded, or would they have demanded the ball in a game that absolutely must be won for there to even be a tomorrow to think about?

Series Slip-Sliding Away For Detroit

2006-10-27T00:38:00.000-04:00

ST. LOUIS - Detroit and St. Louis emerged a from a rainout of their fourth World Series game the night before not only in search of traction on the slick turf of Busch Stadium but at the plate, as well.

Well, the bats came to life last night, even as the wheels came off in soggy St. Louis, resulting in the most entertaining game of the 102d World Series.

What else could be said of a game that resulted in Detroit now being close to slip-sliding away in this Series because a fielder and then a bullpen could not keep their feet under them?

The Cardinals, 5-4 victors in a bizarrely entertaining game, lead the Series, three games to one. David Eckstein's RBI double in the eighth was the decisive blow. Detroit literally and figuratively could not hold onto a game the Tigers had in hand.

First, centerfielder Curtis Granderson's stumble led to a pair of unearned runs for St. Louis in the seventh.

Granderson, one of the Tigers whose bat revival led Detroit to within nine outs of evening the Series, had cautioned about slick conditions just before the fourth game had been scheduled, then rained out the night before.

"In the outfield, you just have to make sure you get a grip, because the ball is going to be soaked by the time it gets to you," Granderson said.

He should have worried about his footing instead. That's what failed him when David Eckstein sent a fly ball his way leading off the bottom of the seventh.

When Granderson tried a mid-course adjustment, he slipped and fell. The ball flew by him, and Eckstein flew into second. Eckstein then scored when reliever Fernando Rodney threw So Taguchi's bunt down the right-field line.

When Preston Wilson followed back-to-back strikeouts of Jim Edmonds and Scott Rolen with an RBI single, the Cardinals led, 4-3, and were within sight of the organization's 10th world championship.

But Ivan Rodriguez's double and a Brandon Inge two-bagger, off stopper Adam Wainwright, knotted the score, again in the top of the eighth.

Not to worry, Cardinals fans soon learned.

Tigers reliever Joel Zumaya walked the first man he faced in the eighth, then, two outs later, lost the game on Eckstein's backbreaking double.

Until last night, outbursts of offense had been as rare as good weather in the thrifty Series.

Neither the Tigers nor Cardinals, hitting .185 and .196, respectively, entering last night's game, could be accused of flirting with the Mendoza Line.
There had been exceptions, however, most notably Rolen on the Cardinals' side and Sean Casey on the Tigers. Their five hits, including two Rolen doubles and a Casey homer, showed in the first half of last night's game.

Game 5, weather permitting, will be played here tonight. Justin Verlander of the Tigers and Jeff Weaver of the Cardinals, two righthanders who had lost their earlier starts in the Series, will start.

The caliber of last night's starters suggested that the teams' offensive struggles would continue.

Detroit's Jeremy Bonderman finished second in the American League in strikeouts this season with 202. And the Cardinals' Jeff Suppan was nearly perfect against the Mets in the NL Championship Series, going 1-0 with a 0.60 ERA in two starts.

Granderson had predicted all it would take was one good swing to loosen the Cards' pitching stranglehold. Casey, seemed to provide that when he drilled the second pitch he saw from the righthander into the Cards' bullpen in right-center.

The one-out hit in the second produced Detroit's first run since the fifth inning of a Game 2, seemingly played a lifetime ago on Sunday in Detroit.
Casey was not finished. Granderson led off the third with a double, the centerfielder's first hit in 15 trips to the plate, and after Carlos Guillen walked, Casey doubled in a second run.

Rodriguez, 6 for 12 lifetime against Suppan entering the game, then singled in a run for a 3-0 Tigers lead.

The string of hits was what Tigers manager Jim Leyland had hoped would come of a shuffle in which Casey moved from seventh to fifth in the order, ahead of I-Rod; and Guillen jumped several spots to the third hole in place of the hitless Placido Polanco.

The Cardinals did not smoke the ball against Bonderman, but their timing proved impeccable at times. A pair of two-out doubles, by Eckstein in the third, and Yadier Molina in the fourth, plated two runs.

Molina's double drove in Rolen, who moments earlier had turned a hit to left into a hustling double.
Rolen's sixth hit in 14 Series at-bats continued his hot hand. So, too, did his double leading off the bottom of the sixth.

Sacrificed to third, Rolen was set up to tie the game.

Rodney, brought on to relieve Bonderman, had other ideas. He quickly silenced the Cardinals and their fans with consecutive strikeouts of second baseman Aaron Miles and pinch-hitter John Rodriguez to end the inning.

Ah,The (Shivering) Summer Game

2006-10-26T15:27:00.000-04:00

ST. LOUIS - The turf was soggier than a dishrag. The fans were dressed as if they were about to float on the boat rides that sail beneath Niagara Falls. For three straight hours.

Welcome to the rain-soaked 102d World Series, in which inclement weather continues to stalk the Fall Classic from Detroit to St. Louis and now poses a very real threat of pushing it into November.

The unrelenting rain from a cold front that stalled over St. Louis and the new Busch Stadium, forcing the postponement of Game 4 last night, is not projected to leave the St. Louis area soon.

When the Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals will get to play the two games needed to complete the Series' leg in the National League venue is not known. The forecast for today and tomorrow here is bad.

"They're going to be dicey," Jimmie Lee Solomon, vice president of Major League Baseball operations, said of the two days. "There is about a 70 percent chance of rain [today]... . Friday's forecast is pretty bad, also. We could get a soaking as much as 2, 21/2 inches, they say."

Game 4 is rescheduled for tonight at 8:27, with the Tigers' Jeremy Bonderman pitching against Jeff Suppan of the Cards.

In essence, baseball's schedule is as much a mess as the weather blanketing this Mississippi River city. Since baseball has no idea when the fourth and fifth games will be completed, there is no way to determine the future of Games 6 and 7, if needed. They originally were scheduled to be played Saturday and Sunday in Detroit.

Before baseball conceded the issue on Game 4 after a fruitless 1-hour, 51-minute delay last night, players were bracing for the worst. Like life in bullpens without propane heaters and little shelter other than the parkas on their backs.

"An 18-inch electrical heater, 12 guys with their hands over it, like we're sitting about singing around a barrel on the side of the street," Tigers reliever Todd Jones lamented.

Such weather is not surprising. Not in October in cities where fall happens. Ask the Cardinals, who have now been rained out of three games - once in New York and twice at home - since the playoffs began.

Still, no one in uniform had anything but disdain for any reference to a neutral warm-weather championship site, no matter how much rain was falling all over the Fall Classic.

"I would never go for that," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "I think it would be a crying shame to take something like this away from the fans of St. Louis or the fans of Detroit."

St. Louis reliever Brad Thompson agreed. "The fans have been here all year long," he said. "You would never want to take this away from them.
"It's an advantage for them. It's an advantage for us, too, when you're home and your fans are cheering for you. So I would never want to go to a neutral spot."

So the sport deals with nights like the last, with its bone-chilling soakers and mist that the hound of the Baskervilles would have loved.

"I thought there was global warming going on, but apparently not," Jones said. But hey, Jones reminded, "It's the World Series, it's the Cardinals. If you have to do it frozen, you do it."

Where the fans at Comerica bundled in their seats in expectation of a rainy Game 1, Cardinals fans retreated to every nook and cranny they could find during the long delay.

That, too, the players had tried to prepare for.

"You just block it out: If we play, great, if we don't... we'll just figure it out," the Cardinals' Scott Spiezio said in the late afternoon. "We'll play when we can, all the way until spring training if we have to, then take a week off," he added with a laugh.

"I need an electric blanket," Jones said. "And anyone over the age of 25 should get to loosen up in the tunnel."

Ah, the summer game, happily played in October wherever the league championships are won, no matter the weather in which the pennants have to fly.

Carpenter Devours Tigers This Time

2006-10-25T00:44:00.000-04:00

ST. LOUIS - When National and American League teams get early exposure to each other, thanks to interleague play, the danger is that a little thing like the World Series could lose some of its mystery.

Or so the Detroit Tigers had hoped.

After all, the AL champions went into Game 3 of the 102d World Series not only having seen St. Louis Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter in this calendar year. They had also but having tattooed him in a June game when he yielded a season-high seven runs, on nine hits - six for extra bases.

So much for the familiarity breeding contempt, or Series edges.

Last night, a steely Carpenter stung the suddenly inconsistent Tigers attack, winning, 5-0, in front of a jubilant sold-out crowd at the new Busch Stadium.

His sharp outing - eight innings, three hits, zero runs, little sweat - and a Jim Edmonds two-run double early on, were more than enough to push the Cards up, two games to one, in the best-of-seven Series.

The National League's most storied World Series franchise had its first-ever Fall Classic victory in its new gem of a park. More important, the Cards had bounced back from a now-infamous Game 2 loss to Detroit pitcher Kenny "Was He or Wasn't He Cheating?" Rogers.

The sea of fans, heavily clad in Cardinal red and unfazed by the 43-degree weather, loved it. Because they know,They knew that another tough veteran, Jeff Suppan, cancould pull St. Louis within a victory of its 10th world championship with a Game 4 triumph tonight.

Tigers righthander Jeremy Bonderman will try to prevent that, and assureensure a Game 6 Saturday in Detroit.

Thank Carpenter for instilling that much drama into a Game 4.

"He's got a lot of weapons," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said of the former Cy Young Award winner who won 15 games in the regular season. "Everything moved. He had really good command."

La Russa's counterpart agreed - to a point.

"You've got to credit Chris Carpenter, but we've got a few guys not swinging the bat very well," the Tigers' Jim Leyland said of the team now hitting .159 in the Series games and likely facesfacing a new lineup from himthe manager by Game 4 tonight.

Carpenter credited the game plan drawn up by pitching coach Dave Duncan and catcher Yadier Molina - and, oh, yes, himself.

"I was able to execute," he said. "If you do that, you can have some good success."

The Cardinals, like the struggling Tigers, have had their share of issues on offense in this pitching-rich Series. So they were especially in need of Carpenter's being Carpenter, who was 8-4 in home starts - with a downright stingy 1.81 ERA - in 17 starts here this season.

Still, the Cardinals couldn't count on Carpenter alone. Not when they, like the Tigers, faced their own set of numbing negative numbers, primarily the 23-34 record in games against lefthanded starters this season. In the Series they stood 0-1, having meekly lost to Rogers, 3-1, in Game 2.

Last night they faced another southpaw in Nate Robertson. And he appeared primed for a duel, not allowing as much as a hit, for three innings.

Free-swinging leftfielder Preston Wilson, the one Cardinals batter who could match Robertson in confidence, ended all that.

Wilson, 5 for 5 with two home runs in his career against Robertson, lined out, hard, in his first-at bat, then singled in his second trip to open the fourth.
The Cardinals were in business moments later when Albert Pujols - hitless since homering in the third inning of Game 1 - doubled.

One out later, Edmonds, the only Cardinal with an RBI in Game 2, snaked a two-run double between first baseman Sean Casey and the bag.

"In moments like this, he doesn't get awed, he just concentrates better than ever," La Russa said of Edmonds, who has hit in four consecutive postseason games and is hitting .444 in the Series.

Detroit fell further behind late, thanks to a costly two-run throwing error to third base by reliever Joel Zumaya and a run-scoring wild pitch by another reliever, Zach Miner.

None of that mattered, though, because Carpenter had allowed nothing at all. In a Series marked by three dominating performances, St. Louis is winning the arms race.

"If you get into a World Series, you have to have good pitching," figured Leyland said, "and you have to beat it to win."

Baseball Labors Under Prosperity - And Peace

2006-10-25T00:25:00.000-04:00

ST. LOUIS - By the time baseball's newly agreed upon collective-bargaining agreement expires in 2011, the sport will have enjoyed a historic 16-year run without a divisive strike or lockout.

The unprecedented era of peace was ushered in before the world's media last night on baseball's biggest stage: the World Series. It was further evidence of how the partnership between management and players has grown as impressively as the game itself in the last four years.

Gone was the acrimony that historically marked the beginning, middle and end of past negotiations. Gone were the divisive issues that led to so much mistrust and post-negotiation fallout, which usually did not dissipate before new talks were to begin.

"These negotiations were emblematic of the new spirit of cooperation and trust that now exists between the clubs and players," commissioner Bud Selig said during a news conference overflowing with players, union officials and club executives taking turns singing each other's praises.

Donald Fehr, head of the Major League Baseball Players Association, agreed. Noting that he has been representing the players for 29 years, Fehr said: "I'd been waiting for most of that time to see if we could ever get to the place where we reached an agreement prior to [a contract's] expiration. . . . I'm not sure that I believed that it could happen - until this time."

The two sides reached agreement two months before the current deal was to expire. The new deal mirrors, in many ways, its predecessor:
The revenue-sharing agreement between large-market and small-market teams remains the same.

The competitive-balance tax (commonly known as the luxury tax) remains the same: 22 percent for teams over the threshold for the first time, 30 percent for the second time, and 40 percent for the third time.

The drug-testing program - with a 50-day suspension for first-time offenders, a 100-day suspension for second-timers, and a lifetime ban for third-timers - stays the same.

One of the more notable changes involved free agency, with the elimination of various signing deadlines, including the one that prohibited teams from talking to former-players-turned-free-agents until May 1.

The minimum salary will increase from $327,000 this year to $380,000 next season.

Among the new deal's declarations: no "contraction" (elimination of teams) / during the term of the agreement. Also, the home-field advantage for the World Series will still be awarded to the league that wins the All-Star Game.

The seeds for peace were sown not in the talks that preceded this five-year deal but in 2002, when the owners let go of their demand for a hard salary cap.
In place of that demand, the owners and players compromised on a luxury tax, and a work stoppage was avoided.

Since then, with the tax in place on the big-spending teams, money has rolled in and fan interest has boomed.

"We're in the midst of baseball's golden age," said Selig. "More than 76 million fans attended our games this season, setting a record for the third consecutive year. And we produced $5.2 billion in revenue, which quadruples our revenue total 14 years ago."

Both sides still see the luxury tax as a compromise. Policies to ensure that low-revenue teams roll the largesse into their product are once again written into the deal. However, markets such as Tampa Bay and Miami remain economic worries.

"No system is ever perfect in any sport, or in most everything in life, but we have made substantial improvements in the system," Selig said. "And I believe that the small- and medium-market teams today are in far better shape than they were five years ago."

As proof, both sides pointed to a second straight World Series featuring teams from baseball's small-market-dominated Central Divisions, and to the fact that when the Detroit Tigers or St. Louis Cardinals win the 2006 Series, they will be the seventh different world champion in seven years.

All sides placed credit on the end of the war between the two sides.

"Labor peace is good for the game," said Arizona infielder Craig Counsell, one of the players-negotiators said. "Interest is at an all-time high. We feel the focus is on the field. It's good for baseball. It's good for us, as well."

La Russa: Dirt Under The Rug Should Stay There

2006-10-24T16:29:00.000-04:00

Not a big fan of Tony La Russa. Fits too easily into that category of the "Importance of Being Me" school of managing.

But La Russa has done a fine job in a thankless position the last two days, having to explain why he didn't get down-and-dirty because of Kenny Rogers and DirtGate in Game 2 of the World Series.

La Russa explained that he didn't want to get into B.S. by having the umpires charge the mound and undress the Tigers starter despite the obvious: Rogers had some substance on his hand that shouldn't have been there, and was doing little to hide it in the first inning of his 3-1 victory over La Russa's Cardinals.

La Russa instead says he asked the umpires to take care of it - and they had Rogers wash his hands - rather than force the issue, and perhaps force Rogers' ejection.

"I have no regrets, because we got it fixed and," La Russa added - with a ton of class, "we still couldn't beat them."

La Russa also addressed concerns that some of his players might have disagreed with his approach. That is why he held a team meeting Monday, in part to explain to the Cardinals in uniform.

"I briefly explained where I was coming from and I said, anybody felt like I should do different, then I disappointed you, but I went to sleep at night and I looked in the mirror," La Russa said. "You've got to live with yourself. And they didn't raise their hand and say, hey, I disagree, they just didn't say anything."

Kenny Good, Christy Off The Charts

2006-10-24T16:26:00.000-04:00

Sunday, Major League Baseball notes suggested that Kenny Rogers' 23-inning scoreless streak ranked second only to Christy Mathewson's 27 thrown for the New York Giants in the 1905 World Series.

Turns out Rogers is tied for third for such a streak in a single post-season, behind Lew Burdette (24 scoreless innings for the '57 Milwaukee Braves).
Rogers' seven scoreless innings in Game 2 put him in a tie with Jerry Reuss, who pitched 23 straight scoreless for the 1981 Dodgers.

It should be noted that Mathewson and Burdette shut down the opposition in the World Series - Mathewson doing so with three shutouts of the Philadelphia A's in a six-day span.

Burdette pitched three complete games and two shutouts against the '57 Yankees, the last on two days' rest after stepping in for flu-ridden Warren Spahn.

Reuss, like Rogers, pitched in the era of multi-tiered playoffs. Rogers' streak was built through three levels of playoffs and he pitched at least 7 innings of shutout ball, against the Yankees, A's and Cardinals, in each round.

Tigers' Monroe Flexes Surprising Muscle

2006-10-23T20:26:00.000-04:00

ST. LOUIS - His is not the first name to come to mind when one sets out to put a human face on the saga of the 2006 Detroit Tigers.

That line, that very long line, forms to the right of Jim Leyland. And Kenny Rogers. And Ivan Rodriguez. And Placido Polanco. And . . . well, you get the idea.
Yet, if Craig Monroe keeps traveling the lofty path he's been on since starting his first postseason, the youthful leftfielder will soon be able to tell those who wish to excel on baseball's biggest stage to line up after him.

For Monroe not only has played a large role in the Tigers' surprising overall success this October. His booming bat also has made it possible for the American League champions to be even with the National League pennant winners, the St. Louis Cardinals, after the first two games of the 102d World Series.

When the best-of-seven Series resumes tonight at Busch Stadium, Monroe and company will be challenged by a former Cy Young Award winner, Chris Carpenter. The Tigers' Nate Robertson will start the first of three games at the home of the National League champions.

The fact that the Series has been reduced to best of five has much to do with the personable, 29-year-old Monroe, who has enjoyed his turn on the big stage as much as any player in uniform in the Fall Classic.

Generous with his time and thoughtful in his interpretation of this unfolding October pageant, Monroe has made his locker a necessary stop for those in the national media.

His performances have increased the necessity to stop, look and listen to this Fall Classic World Series surprise. For example, on Sunday, Monroe used a first-inning home run in Game 2 - his second long shot in two Series games - to stake Rogers to a lead the lefthander never relinquished in a 3-1 victory in Detroit.

In a Series dominated by talk of Albert Pujols' batting prowess, it was Monroe who staked his claim to a bit of Series history after just two starts. He is the first player to homer in his first two career games in the Series since Barry Bonds did so for the San Francisco Giants in 2002.

What makes Monroe's accomplishments all the more impressive is that he has made this postseason thing look easy. Witness his five-game hitting streak dating back to Game 2 of Detroit's sweep of Oakland in the American League Championship Series.

"Not being in this situation before," he had been "shocked sometimes" by himself, he admitted. "I'm relaxed and having fun, and I'm staying focused on one thing, and that's trying to be a good player. I think the big thing for me is trying to compete and do everything that I possibly can to help this team win."

He has done so. Yes, most of the postmortems of Sunday's game at Comerica Park concentrated on whether Rogers was using an illegal substance on his pitches. But Monroe muscled his way into the spotlight by clobbering a Jeff Weaver pitch into the left-field bleachers with one out in the first inning.

"To see him jump-start us like that obviously made me feel pretty good," Leyland, the Tigers' manager, said of Monroe, who had been 0 for 6 with four strikeouts against Weaver in his career.

The night before, Monroe had homered in the ninth inning of a 7-2 loss, showing reticent Tigers bats the possibilities.

Monroe has five home runs among his 12 playoff hits, equaling a franchise record for post-season homers held by none other than Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg.

Greenberg, whose name and retired number adorn the backdrop at Comerica Park much the way they did for so long at venerable Tiger Stadium, built his home-run total in 85 at-bats over four World Series.

Monroe caught Greenberg in 37 at-bats through the course of eight American League division and Championship Series games and the two contests against the Cards.

"Wow," Monroe marveled at his production. "That's something I'll have to really reflect on down the road, not now, because I can't even process that kind of stuff right now. . . . I'm focused on one thing, and that's to help this team win games."

Rogers Dishing Dirt, Dealing Victories

2006-10-23T03:18:00.000-04:00

DETROIT - The forecast was chilly, with a strong chance of an early onset of winter.

No, not the blanket of cold, wet, foreboding weather that hung over frigid Detroit last night but rather the wintry outlook that faced the American League champion Tigers last nightif they had lost to the NL pennant-winning St. Louis Cardinals for a second time in the first two games of the 102d World Series.

Detroit needed, if not heat, then certainly some fire. And no one on the Tigers' 25-man roster seemed better equipped to bring that than Kenny Rogers, the 41-year-old lefthander who has reinvented himself as an emotional team leader.
Last night, Rogers stretched his storybook second season by stopping St. Louis, well, cold, 3-1.

Craig Monroe's home run that powered a two-run first was all the hottest pitcher in the postseason needed. Rogers did the rest, extending his postseason excellence to 23 scoreless innings - second all-time behind Christy Mathewson's 27.

"This is what it's all about, to come in here and do something like this," said Rogers, now 3-0 with a perfect 0.00 ERA in the postseason after allowing just St. Louis just two singles - one an infield hit - in eight innings.

St. Louis' only run - unearned - did not come until the ninth, against stopper Todd Jones.

Rogers dominated despite a mini-tempest in the form of an in-game investigation of a substance on his pitching hand during the first inning.
He later said it was nothing more than a clump of dirt mixed with a little rosin.
Cardinals manager Tony La Russa? Though he huddled with umpires before the second inning, he preferred to say nothing much after the loss.

"I wouldn't discuss it," he said. "When a guy pitches like that, as a team, we don't take things away from anybody."

Tigers manager Jim Leyland's take: "Tony went out and said a couple balls were acting a little funny. So [the umpires] made him wash his hands. . . . And he was pretty clean the rest of the way."

"What they [the umpires] are doing is they're trying to remove doubt in that situation, and that's exactly what they did," Steve Palermo, the supervisor of umpires, said after the game.

With a controversy averted, the Series now moves to St. Louis and resumes Tuesdaytomorrow. Detroit lefthander Nate Robertson and St. Louis' Cy Young candidate, Chris Carpenter, will open the first of three games scheduled at Busch Stadium.

Both teams started the frosty evening hopeful that their Game 2 experience would merely include the flurry of white towels waved by the more than 40,000 Tigers fans rather than the snow flurries forecasters said were possible.

Local television weather stations had reported Detroit to be 40 degrees - before the sun went down - with a windchill of 30 degrees. And ominous warnings of "chances of rain/snow" crawled across television screens around Comerica Park well into the evening.

Precipitation never materialized. Not so the building anticipation of how a pitcher branded unreliable in previous postseasons again lifted all of Detroit just by toeing the mound.

"You feed off it," Tigers third baseman Brandon Inge had said of Rogers' postseason run. ". . . And that's what wins games and series."

The Tigers had to know their chances of doing the latter would improved tremendously if Rogers won this game. Only 11 of the 50 teams that fell behind by 2-0 in World Series - 22 percent - ultimately won.

Tigers hitters, stymied so badly by little-known rookie Anthony Reyes in Game 1, awakened somewhat against righthander Jeff Weaver.

Monroe's second homer in the Series, with one out in the first, was followed by an RBI double by Carlos Guillen. "Fortunately for me, I got a fastball down the middle and I took a good swing," said Monroe, who extended his franchise record for postseason home runs to five.

Weaver allowed nine hits but only one more run through five.
"He pitched well enough to win, if we could have done something better offensively," La Russa said.

Rogers did not allow that, though. In fact, he allowed nothing - zilch - beyond Scott Rolen's two-out infield single in the first and Yadier Molina's harmless leadoff single in the eighth.

"He's on a mission," Leyland said.

MLB, Players: Peace, At Last?

2006-10-23T03:09:00.000-04:00

DETROIT - A person familiar with labor negotiations between Major League Baseball owners and the players stopped just short of confirming reports that the two side had reached a tentative agreement on a new five-year basic agreement.

But, the person, who requested anonymity, did acknowledge baseball was on the verge of doing something not seen "in at least 35 years," he said - and that was reach a deal before suffering a destructive strike or lockout.

"It is fair to say we have reached understandings on a lot of things," the person said, though he added "there is still a lot of work to do before anything is finalized."

Members of the Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals, for understandable reasons, mostly wanted to talk about baseball and their World Series matchup yesterday. But the news of a deal that circulated through Comerica Park before Game 2 did not escape their attention.

Rather it sent a wave of relief through both clubhouses.

There is relief that what is building into one of baseball's golden eras at the box office will continue uninterrupted because, in a historic turn, the present deal will be supplanted before it is to expire on Dec. 19.

There is relief that no gargantuan issues arose, such as a salary cap, or controversies, such as how to wed the right of privacy to the policing of illegal use of performance-enhancing drugs.

In the past, such dicey issues and distrust easily pushed the game to the precipice time and again, resulting in hostile labor stoppages that seemed as routine as they were inevitable in the 1980s and '90s.

The deal now in place was made in August 2002, just hours before a threatened players' strike. "I'm excited for the game," said Detroit leftfielder Craig Monroe. "Keep this game rolling."

According to the Associated Press, the deal that was reached this weekend in New York essentially continues the status quo. Economics obviously made that possible.

With the boom at the box office, concerns over big-market, small-market disparity have faded. Commissioner Bud Selig said last week that the game generated an estimated $5.2 billion in revenue this year, up from $3.6 billion five years ago.

The players are benefiting along with the owners, as reflected by the increases in their average salaries. According to figures published on ESPN.com yesterday, the average player salary will be about $2.7 million this year. It was $1.1 million in 1995, the first season after the 71/2-month strike that wiped out the 1994 World Series, and just under $2.3 million in 2002.

The average salary is likely to jump to $3 million next year or in 2008, ESPN.com said.

"Baseball is at an all-time high point right now," Monroe said. "You've got low-market teams doing well and different teams winning every year. Getting this done couldn't have come at a better time."

Monroe's teammate, Nate Robertson, agreed.

"It's fun to see the owners and our union all get together to try to work things out because of what the game of baseball means to people, especially with what's going on in today's world," said the lefthander, who will start Game 3 for the Tigers Tuesday

Why the harmony?

Robertson, for one, spoke to both sides' enlightened perspective when it comes to relating to the average fans - something millionaire players and billionaire owners weren't often accused of having in past labor wars.

"I just got a letter of presentation from a helicopter squadron that flew countless missions in the Middle East," the pitcher said. "They were presenting a flag to this team because [the Tigers are] something they could hold onto. That's how important baseball is."

Cardinals starter Jeff Suppan agreed. "The fans are such a big part of our game, and we appreciate all that they do."

Underdogs? Cards Ravish Tigers

2006-10-22T03:23:00.000-04:00

DETROIT - Call it the World Series without ego.

The National League pennant-winning St. Louis Cardinals and their hosts last night, the American League champion Detroit Tigers, couldn't have shown less interest in being considered the favorites to win the 102d Fall Classic. So much so, each team seemed to vie for the right to be called the underdog.

Even the fact that Detroit played St. Louis this season in interleague play - and dominated - was downplayed in the hours leading into Game 1, a 7-2 win by the Cardinals.

"That was the middle of the season," cautioned Tigers centerfielder Curtis Granderson. "And we didn't face everybody, especially in the bullpen. So we might have been swinging the bat really good then, and they might not have been throwing that well then. . . . A lot of stuff could change this time around."

The guy in the home whites proved more right than he could have hoped. Albert Pujols' two-run home run, Scott Rolen's solo shot, and the pitching of the underdog of underdogs, Anthony Reyes, propelled St. Louis past a surprisingly sloppy Tigers team.

Just like that, the Cardinals ended Detroit's seven-game postseason winning streak and stole home-field thunder from a quieted Comerica Park as add attendance if we get itTigers fans watched their team commit three errors and fail on the mound for just the second time in this postseason.

The Cardinals? The team that was supposed to be catatonic after a draining seven-game National League Championship Series against the New York Mets turned out to look like the team that had a relaxing week off.

Reyes especially turned prognostications inside out. The man who brought the least number of regular-season victories (five) to the mound for Game 1 of a World Series, the first to get the prestigious assignment after having a losing season, dominated. He allowed just two runs on four hits, retiring 17 straight at one point, and pitched into the ninth inning.

"I don't know if I could top this," said a triumphant Reyes, who had not even started the postseason on the playoff roster. "This definitely is the best thing to happen in my career."

"I thought if he went five or six innings, he'd done a great job," said Cardinals manager Tony La Russa. "To get us into the ninth, he gets us rolling."

Tonight, the Cards will try to keep rolling, against veteran Kenny Rogers, who has yet to allow a postseason run after two starts. The Tigers will try to rebound against righthander Jeff Weaver.

By looking cool - with offense, defense and pitching clicking - St. Louis not only opened eyes here. Perhaps the Cards also finally laid to rest the belief that they were once again in a playoff series they had no chance to win.

"When you look around the locker room, that kind of motivates us more," Pujols had promised going into Game 1.

Pujols' home run came in a three-run third against Tigers righthander and rookie-of-the-year candidate Justin Verlander. It followed Chris Duncan's RBI double off the 17-game winner, a hit that snapped a 1-1 tie and lowered appreciably the decibel level in what had been an ebullient sold-out Comerica Park.

With first base open, Verlander pitched to Pujols. Why?

"It was ultimately my decision. Obviously, he burned us," said Tigers manager Jim Leyland.

St. Louis added three more runs in the sixth on Jim Edmonds' RBI single, a double by Rolen, two errors and an obstruction call.

"I thought he was very tentative; I didn't think he attacked them early," Leyland said of Verlander. "And that was kind of disappointing."

The team that saw a late-season slump limit it to a mere 83 victories was well on its way to another surprise of the sort thrown at the favored San Diego Padres in the NL division series and the mighty Mets in the NL Championship Series.

When that Cardinals magic continued against a Tigers team that counted among its 95 regular-season wins that three-game sweep (10-6, 7-6 in 10 innings, and 4-1, from June 23 to 25), it had to make it all the sweeter for St. Louis.

The good feeling started in the second inning when Rolen ended a personal 0 for 15 in World Series play with a tracer into the left-field stands.

Rolen, a member of the 2004 St. Louis team that was swept in the Series by Boston, used his homer to erase a 1-0 Detroit lead.

"I thought he was very tentative, I didn't think he attacked them early," Leyland said. "And that was kind of disappointing."

The Tigers stung Reyes in the first inning when the righthander looked like he felt the enormity of his start.

He had given up a one-out double to Craig Monroe and an RBI single to Carlos Guillen. In between, he pounded pitches into the ground well short of catcher Yadier Molina, who had to scramble to save Reyes more than one wild pitch.

But he settled in, walking just one batter in eight-plus innings. "I just tried to stay in Yadi's glove all the time," said Reyes, who left only after Monroe led off the ninth with a home run.

But he survived the excruciating test. Then, buoyed by Rolen's blast, Reyes settled in, as his seven-pitch, 1-2-3 second inning showed.

Shortly after Reyes learned Friday that he would take the hill for the Series opener Friday, Molina spoke of what the Cardinals needed to see - and what he, himself, expected.

"We have to try to keep him down, try to keep him focused, try to work down with the fastball and the changeup and try to hit location," Molina had said. "That is the main thing for him."

Another underdog with a bite had become legend in St. Louis, something Cardinals foes should be getting used to.

Pujols Now Channels Howard, Not Bonds

2006-10-22T03:18:00.000-04:00

DETROIT - The first day of the 102d World Series presented itself early as the kind of drizzly, chilly fall day perfect for many things, if not exactly baseball.

It was, however, a perfect time for quiet reflection before the storm for the American League champion Detroit Tigers and National League pennant-winning St. Louis Cardinals, their obligations to explain their feelings and thoughts on hold until after Game 1.

Such is the cloistered atmosphere in which Cardinals manager Tony La Russa insists the real Albert Pujols comes to life.

Take his word for it, La Russa implored at every postseason stop leading to the Fall Classic. And most of the world had little choice, as the man who is arguably the game's most prolific and versatile hitter constructed a wall this postseason between himself and the public.

Which is why Friday - the workout day before the start of the 102d World Series - proved so enlightening.

Pujols, who smacked a two-run homer in last night's 7-2 victory over the Tigers,end stepped into this World Series in a big way by stepping away from a growing opinion that he not only is mimicking Barry Bonds, the great player - but also Barry Bonds, the sometimes grating, churlish personality.

Friday, however, Pujols was channeling another larger-than-life slugger - outgoing Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard, his main competition for 2006 National League most-valuable-player honors.

"I'm in the World Series," Pujols declared. "Of course I am happy."

The 26-year-old not only wanted the world to know his mind-set, but his teammates as well.

"I've been in the postseason five of the last six years. I've been blessed. So I told the young guys, 'Enjoy. You don't know when you're going to be here again.' "

Then there was his message to the media, an entity those he believes are responsible for the "underdog" labels his team has carried throughout October.

"I'm just glad those people who told us we were going to be out in the first round and in the second round - that the Mets would get us in five [games] - hey, here we are," he said.

Alas, the Cards are viewed as underdogs again.

"People say we're going to be gone in four games," he said with a thin smile. "We'll see."

Pujols desperately doesn't want that prediction to play out - as it did in 2004 when he and the Cardinals were swept from the Series by the Boston Red Sox.

So his modest first wish for this Series was understandable: "To win one game."

Obviously, Pujols wants more than just that.

"You need to be greedy," he said. "I don't care how much money you would make or how many awards you win. It's not about that. If you don't win a World Series for you and your fans and your family, it's not enough."

Winning it all, said Pujols, "That's every little boy's dream."

The yearning explained somewhat the intensity and, yes, surliness that Pujols displayed through a tense seven-game National League Championship Series.

First, Pujols was banged up throughout. On top of that, Mets pitchers, borrowing from the How Not to Pitch to Bonds playbook, didn't exactly go after him.

In the end, Pujols had but one RBI in 22 at-bats despite seven hits off Mets pitching. Pujols' overall frustration spilled over and was most visible in curt comments he made about Mets veteran pitcher and future Hall of Famer Tom Glavine.

Friday, whatever was eating Pujols seemed in the past. Ahead, he saw nothing but things to be grateful for.

Things such as competing for the crown against his fellow Dominican Republic native and best friend, Placido Polanco.

Let Tigers manager Jim Leyland and La Russa play down their close friendship for the duration of the Series. Pujols will do no such thing. Not when it comes to the former Phillie-turned-Tigers second baseman he planned to dine with Friday night.

"You can't mess with a relationship you have with your best friend just because of a ball game," said Pujols, godfather to Polanco's son. "If we lose, I am going to be happy for him. Whoever wins, we're both going to be happy."

Albert Pujols, happy. The world is about find out whether that added dimension makes a dynamic player even better.

Unproven Reyes Is Weary Cards' Best Hope

2006-10-22T03:11:00.000-04:00

DETROIT - One week to the day after his Tigers last played, Detroit manager Jim Leyland will learn tonight whether having a set, well-rested rotation is as big an advantage as it appears at the start of the 102d World Series.

"You never know what any pitcher, theirs or ours, is going to take out there on any given night," Leyland said Friday.

Spoken like a manager whose rotation is not only fresh, but deep, talented and, so far in October, absolutely dependable. More important, Leyland spoke like a man who has luxuries his counterpart, Tony La Russa, could only dream about as the series between the National League champion St. Louis Cardinals and the American League pennant-winning Tigers loomed.

La Russa arrived in Detroit knowing that while the Tigers had seven days to prepare for yesterday's workout and walk-up to that organization's first World Series since 1984, his Cardinals had about seven hours.

That's the remarkable difference in lag time between a team that swept its league championship series as opposed toand the one forced to play a seven-game war of attrition.

Because the Cards couldn't finish off the New York Mets until Game 7 of the NL Championship Series on Thursday night, La Russa couldn't align his rotation to counter Detroit's Game 1 starter, Justin Verlander.

Chris Carpenter? Jeff Suppan? Jeff Weaver? Simply not available.
Instead, La Russa announced yesterday after much deliberation, "we're going to start with Anthony Reyes."

Reyes, as in the rookie who lasted only four innings in a three-hit, two-run, four-walk no-decision in Game 4 against the Mets. As in the pitcher who was 1-2 with a 6.10 ERA in Septemberin the regular season after August.

No starter has ever brought fewer regular-season victories to the mound for Game 1 of a World Series. Reyes is also the first to get the opening assignment after posting a losing record in the regular season. He went 5-8.

So he won't be confused with fellow rookie Verlander, a Cy Young Award candidate after a 17-9cq regular season. For that reason, this was not the ideal way for the Cardinals to return to the World Series for the first time since being swept in four games by the 2004 Boston Red Sox. Not with a pitcher who didn't make the Cards' postseason roster until after St. Louis defeated San Diego in the NL division series.

Still, La Russa knows, it beat the alternative of not playing at all. Now he can only hope that Reyes, 5-8 with a 5.06 ERA in 17 regular-season startsall cq, is the better bet than, say, Jason Marquis, the 14-16 pitcher who lost eight of his final 10 decisions and may not make the Series' active roster.

"It's not an easy call," La Russa said one day before the rosters have to be set. "We wrestled with this - not really anything clearly against Jason Marquis; he really helped get us here. But the way he ended the season, it was a tough assignment to give."

Leyland, of course, likely spent more time trying to decide where to make dinner reservations than he did figuring out how to deploy his comparative embarrassment of riches against Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen, Jim Edmonds & Co.

Verlander will be followed to the mound by Game 2 starter Kenny Rogers, simply the most impressive veteran pitching this October (two starts, 15 scoreless innings, two victories).

Lefthander Nate Robertson (13-13cq) gets Game 3. Game 4 will belong to Jeremy Bonderman - the hard-throwing righthander who stifled the New York Yankees in the AL division series clincher, allowing two runs in 8 1/3 innings.

"Basically, we wanted Kenny to pitch two games at home - 2 and 6 - if it goes that far," Leyland said.

Tonight, Verlander will make his third postseason start after pitching to a no-decision against the Yankees in the AL division series (51/3 innings, 3 earned runscq) and a victory over the Athletics in Detroit's four-game sweep of Oakland (51/3 innings, 4 earned runs).

"We think he's an excellent choice because he obviously has real good stuff," Leyland said.

As he said, that good stuff can come from any arm on any given day.
That is what La Russa and the Cardinals are counting on from Reyes.
Getting to Weaver, Carpenter and Suppan is now his responsibility, a heavy one Reyes admitted had not hit him "quite yet."

"I'm just trying not to think about it right now, just trying to relax and just get rested up and ready for tomorrow," he said.

Emotions soar With Lidle Air Salute

2006-10-18T00:03:00.000-04:00

COVINA, Calif. - Major League Baseball players are conditioned to not blink or blanch.

Not when being shrilly serenaded by the famed Phillies boobirds, bombarded with Bronx cheers, or bruised by Ryan Howard's home-run blasts.

So it was that members of the game's extended family felt that they were handling their emotions yesterday.

Interspersed with the 1,100 mourners gathered at an outdoor memorial service for former Phillies pitcher Cory Lidle, their intent had been to come to Forest Lawn Memorial Park and bid adieu to their former teammate with the same professional dispassion they had displayed when Lidle died in an airplane crash in midtown Manhattan last Wednesday.

"Everybody was doing fine - until the planes flew over," said Phillies pitcher Randy Wolf, still struggling with raw emotions a full three hours after the service.

It wasn't a Blue Angels precision exercise. It wasn't organized, precise or even a part of the official program.

Yet the planes - private, different in size but of one mind and in onein formation - did two flyovers, catching the attention of the somber audience gathered below at the foot of Forest Lawn's Mausoleum of Christian Heritage.
They had come to pay their respects to a budding pilot, Phillies catcher Mike Lieberthal said.

Yet in that moment, the symbols of Lidle's latest love and a family's resulting loss were, in the end, "eerie," Lieberthal said.

"And it was sad for Melanie," Lieberthal added, referring to Lidle's widow. "You could see?? how sad she was, especially when the planes went by."
As the planes flew over, they did so against a backdrop as roiled as the week had been for Lidle's relatives and friends from his hometown in West Covina as well as his baseball family.

One moment clouds would darken the hills surrounding the expansive memorial facility, where mourners had started gathering a good three hours before the morning service.

Then, in the next instant, the sun would burst through, bathing the surrounding hills with glorious brush strokes of light and painting the canopy above this Southern California suburb 20 miles east of Los Angeles a brilliant sky blue.

It was, without a doubt, a day a passionate flier like Lidle would have loved.
"I think he definitely would be [flying today]," Lieberthal said as he and Wolf stood outside the Faith Community Church in West Covina, where a reception was held for friends and family after a private interment.

"And I was probably one guy who would have gone up with him at some point in this off-season," Lieberthal said.

He had planned to fly with the 34-year-old Lidle last spring training, but they never got a chance. So the two California residents had planned to get together this off-season to fly, conditions permitting.

Conditions like yesterday's.

"I probably would have been with Cory at this moment, but I'm not because of a tragic accident," Lieberthal said. "It's just crazy to believe how something like that could happen."

Aside from Wolf and Lieberthal, the Phillies' organization, which employed Lidle until a July 30 trade to the New York Yankees, was represented by Chase Utley, Pat Burrell, Geoff Geary and Aaron Rowand. Also attending were assistant general manager Ruben Amaro Jr., employee assistance program director Dickie Noles, and director of community relations Gene Dias.

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, manager Joe Torre, Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson, and team captain Derek Jeter represented Lidle's last team.

All attended what had been a service open to the public but, at the request of the family, closed to members of the media. Most, like Lieberthal and Wolf, would later address reporters at the reception. So, too, did Lidle's widow.

Standing at a podium outside the church, Melanie Lidle, in a quiet, halting voice, thanked both her and Lidle's families, "our beautiful son, Christopher . . . the Yankees, who have been absolutely wonderful, and Major League Baseball. I couldn't do it without them."

Melanie Lidle then gave way to tears and departed, a touching moment that summed up a morning Wolf earlier called an emotional roller coaster.

Tough?

When Cory Lidle's fraternal twin, Kevin, spoke during the service, more than one listener shivered because, as Amaro explained, "he's obviously the spitting image of Cory. And, if you close your eyes, you could actually hear Cory's voice."
Tender?

How about Kevin Lidle being given his choice of clothing from his brother's closet by Melanie Lidle and choosing a leather jacket in which he found a little yellow ball with a happy face on it?

"He felt that was a message from Cory," Torre said.

Telling?

One of the lasting memories of the day will be the dozens of mourners who, at the end of a trying series of events, lined up at a large food trailer provided by the fast-food chain, In-N-Out Burger, a Southern California staple and Cory Lidle favorite.

"You see the truck and it tells you one thing: It is about his spirit and what he is all about, just a fun-loving kind of guy," said Amaro, smiling. "It is obvious: He lived life to the fullest."

Now that life is over. And all those who gathered together yesterday will face tomorrow without a man who touched them more than perhaps they knew, then left too soon.

"The future that you sort of planned? Now, there is no future, other than his memory," Torre said.

Leyland: Detroit Tigers' Hope Diamond

2006-10-17T01:30:00.000-04:00

Jim Leyland hoisted from the ground by by his joyous Detroit Tigers team. MLB Photos

DETROIT - Jim Leyland, possessing baseball memories older than some of his young Detroit Tigers, knows he's invested more than just one giddy pennant-winning season in the organization he loves.

Seventeen-plus consecutive dues-paying years in the backwaters of the organization went into this "overnight success" - six as a low-level minor-league catcher, another dozen as either a coach or manager in Detroit's far-flung farm system.

So it is not lost on the 61-year-old Leyland that his first opportunity to wear the classic Tigers powder-white uniform is more than a dream fulfilled.

One week after being carried off on the shoulders of his players following an AL division series upset of the Yankees, Leyland played a major role in delivering Detroit its first pennant since 1984.

"It took me a helluva long time to get here," Leyland told an adoring crowd at Comerica Park Saturday during on-field celebrations following Detroit's American League Championship Series sweep of Oakland.

Always humble and humorous, the former manager of the Pirates, Marlins and Rockies brought a once-proud franchise the credibility it desperately needed.

"Without him, we're not here," Tigers third baseman Brandon Inge said.

"He's just a very good baseball man," said Tigers president Dave Dombrowski, the GM in Florida when the 1997 Marlins managed by Leyland became the first wild-card team to win a World Series.

"You see it in so many ways, from the way he sets a standard that the players have to follow to the way he handles a pitching staff."

Now Leyland has returned yet another wild-card team to the big show, a remarkable comeback for a man who had last managed the 1999 Colorado Rockies before retiring for personal reasons.

Two years ago, a recharged Leyland sought to manage, again, as the Phillies well know. Both they and the New York Mets took looks before the 2005 season.

The Phillies hired Charlie Manuel instead, a decision the often-embattled manager and postseason-starved Phils are sure to be reminded of often in coming days.

The Mets? Willie Randolph, like Leyland, is still managing, in the NL Championship Series against St. Louis.

When Leyland landed in Detroit, the 42-year baseball lifer inherited a team that had lost an alarming 502 games from 2001 to '05, including a near-record 119 in 2003.

The man who had skippered the Pittsburgh Pirates to three division titles (1990-92), among other accomplishments, felt he could change Detroit's culture of losing. All he asked of Tigers, young and old, was that they believe and perform.

"Early on in spring training, we had a lot of good players," Leyland said. "We didn't have a good team. Today I can make the statement that we've got a good team, and that's the thing I am proudest of."

Some changes were needed. Enigmatic first baseman Dmitri Young was kicked to the curb late in the season. An unconventional move? Yes. But quintessential, no-nonsense Leyland.

In this postseason, Leyland has been mischievously mixing and matching lineups - using four different ones in the four-game sweep of the A's.

Along the way, he drew uncanny performances from the most surprising quarters.

Leyland passed over righty bat Marcus Thames (26 home runs) when Oakland started righthander Esteban Loaiza in Game 2. Instead, he used as DH a seldom-used lefthanded batter, Alexis Gomez, a wild swinger once released by the lowly Kansas City Royals and twice designated for assignment by Detroit this season.

Gomez proceeded to homer and drive in four runs in an 8-5 win, astounding considering he had one long ball and six RBIs in 103 at-bats in the regular-season.

That performance led Tigers stopper Todd Jones to quip: "If I walk in . . . and I'm batting cleanup, I'd expect to get a hit.

"We just know when Jim Leyland puts nine guys out there, it's the right nine. Whatever he does is cool with us."

Polanco: Ex-Phil Shines For Tigers

2006-10-15T03:28:00.000-04:00

DETROIT - Call the Phillies' efforts to turn a new leaf the gift that keeps on giving - to other clubs. Never was that more true than yesterday.

Placido Polanco, onetime infield cog turned dispensable commodity in Philadelphia, helped the Detroit Tigers complete their four-game dismantling of the Oakland Athletics in the American League Championship Series.

The 31-year-old veteran second baseman did so with such authority by going 9 for 17 with two runs scored and an RBI, he was named the most valuable player of the series.

How do you become a series MVP on a team that seemed to trot out hero after hero to the mound and the plate?

How about getting three of your nine hits in the finale? How about continuing a two-out rally in the ninth inning of a taut 3-3 game by following a Craig Monroe hit with your third single, extending the inning for cleanup hitter Magglio Ordoñez?

Polanco's good work once again out of the three-hole in the lineup paid the best dividend to date for Detroit, because Ordoñez followed Polanco's hit with his second home run of the game.

Just like that, the Tigers walked off with a 6-3 victory.

"I knew it was gone as soon as I hit it," said Ordoñez, who was mobbed by his teammates at home plate. "This is what I've dreamed about my whole career, my whole life. I don't even remember running around the bases."

Just like that, a storied franchise nestled in this once-again baseball-mad city had its first World Series berth since 1984. And just like that, Polanco sat atop the baseball world.

"This is by far the best moment of my career," said Polanco, who was traded by the Phils to Detroit in June 2005 for Ugueth Urbina and Ramon Martinez.
On Saturday, the Tigers will host the opener in the Series, against the National League champion, yet to be determined in the series between the New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals.

No matter who wins, Polanco will be in an exclusive club within a club, because he will face off against other notable ex-Phillies, either Scott Rolen (Cards) or Billy Wagner (Mets).

Just knowing he will make his Series debut did not cause Polanco to gloat. Rather, it seemed to humble the player.

"It's hard to make the playoffs. It's hard to win. It's harder to do this," he said. "So it makes it special, very special."

That seemed all the more so when Polanco turned to the Tigers' coaches and trainers personnelwho nursed him back from a shoulder separation, one he once stated would cost him the season. He was out "I have to thank the hitting coaches who really worked hard with me," said Polanco, who was outfrom Aug. 16 to Sept. 22.

"When I came back, I had to take so many extra swings. I thank them. I thank the trainers. I thank everybody."

Such stories of redemption and rehabilitation abound among the veteran Tigers interspersed among Detroit's impressive, talented young team.
Manager Jim Leyland. The 41-years-young Kenny Rogers. All-star catcher Ivan Rodriguez. Former Phillies pitcher turned invaluable Tigers stopper Todd Jones.

And finally Polanco.

"He's a great player. He's awesome, a guy who loves to play and comes ready to play every day," Rodriguez said of Polanco. "He deserves the MVP."

"He's a special player," agreed Rogers, the Game 3 starter and winner.
"I kind of got that about him early on. But what he did in this series was just spectacular - always being a tough little out, doing the things that he needed to do.Said Rogers, "It was something marvelous to watch."

Detroit's resiliency was proven when the Tigers came back from a 3-0 deficit in the fifth. Ordoñez hit a solo home run off A's starter Dan Haren in the sixth to knot the score and set up a battle of the bullpens.

No reliever was more valiant than A's closer Houston Street, who came on with one out in the seventh and the bases loaded. He ended that threat by inducing Carlos Guillen to hit into a double play.

But Street could not get past Polanco, or Ordoñez, in the ninth. Because he could not, the Tigers had their pennant. And Polanco had the most cherished moment of his career.

Lyons: Unfunny - And Unemployed

2006-10-15T03:00:00.000-04:00

DETROIT - Sometimes a self-promoting funny man is anything but.

Steve Lyons, aka the player once known as "Psycho" who took his gonzo act to television, hasn't been funny in a series of blunders and embarrassments on television. His latest cost him his job Saturday.

For the Fox network fired the baseball analyst for making racially insensitive comments about fellow commentator Lou Piniella's Hispanic heritage during Friday's broadcast of Game 3 of the American League Championship Series.

Piniella had no comment yesterday other than to confirm that Lyons was not at Comerica Park after his dismissal the night before.

"Steve Lyons has been relieved of his Fox Sports duties for making comments on air that the company found inappropriate," network spokesman Dan Bell told the Associated Press.

Two years ago, Fox suspended Lyons after he made what were considered insensitive remarks about Shawn Green, who is Jewish, after the rightfielder, then with the Dodgers, chose not to play on the Yom Kippur holiday.

In making an analogy involving the luck of finding a wallet, Piniella used a couple of Spanish phrases Friday.

Lyons said that Piniella was "hablaing Espanol" (hablar is Spanish for "to speak") and said he still couldn't find his wallet.

"I don't understand him, and I don't want to sit too close to him now," Lyons said.

Yesterday, Lyons said he was just joking.

"If I offended anybody, I'm truly sorry," he told the AP in a phone interview.

Last week, Lyons and boothmate Thom Brennaman issued an on-air apology the day after they made fun of a New York Mets fan during a telecast. The fan, partially blind, was wearing an apparatus that enabled him to view the game. Neither announcer was aware of the fan's affliction.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Sun-Times reported yesterday that the Cubs and Piniella could begin negotiations tomorrow for the team's vacant manager's job.

Sad week for Philadelphia

2006-10-13T22:23:00.000-04:00

This past weekend, legendary Philadelphia Inquirer sports columnist Frank Dolson died after a brave fight with cancer and heart troubles. He was 73.

On the day Dolson was remembered at a well-attended memorial service, the city learned that Cory Lidle, the former Phillies pitcher, was at the controls of the private plane that crashed in Manhattan, killing Lidle and his flight instructor. Lidle was 34 and left behind a wife and six-year-old son.

Two days after that tradegy, the Phillies issued another somber release, announcing yet another loss in the Philaldelphia sports family.

Johnny Callison, a smooth-hitting lefthander and three-time All-Star outfielder with the Phillies, had died Thursday night after a long illness. He was 67.

Rogers Personifies Dominating Ace

2006-10-13T21:53:00.000-04:00

DETROIT - Just as a bat has a sweet spot, so do major-league pitching rotations.
It's the turn teams depend on when they need their sagest, most undaunted arm to dominate and inspire.
In Detroit, that spot belongs to Kenny Rogers, the veteran pitcher who has refused to allow the opposition so much as a postseason run in two starts.
Rogers stretched his scoreless streak to 15 innings in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series yesterday against Oakland, allowing the mesmerized Athletics just two hits over 71/3 innings.
When sizzling second baseman Placido Polanco delivered a first-inning RBI single, Rogers had all he would need for what ultimately became a 3-0 victory at Comerica Park.
Because Rogers put the Athletics' bats in an even deeper freeze than the one that gripped Detroit yesterday, a storied franchise pulled within one victory of its first World Series since 1984.
The A's will send righthander Dan Haren (14-13) to the mound todaycq to try to prevent a sweep from the best-of-seven series in four games.
Detroit will counter with righty Jeremy Bonderman (14-8).
Of the previous 28 league championship series best-of-sevens to start 3-0, 22 have resulted in four-game sweeps. Only the 2004 Boston Red Sox survived such a deficit (against the New York Yankees).
It will be the second time Rogers has made it possible for the 23-year-old Bonderman to clinch a series, thanks to his having awed a series opponent for a second consecutive outing.
"You can't pitch better than that," A's rightfielder Milton "0-for-4" Bradley said. "I had respect for Kenny Rogers before, but - this may tick people off - I almost felt like going over there and giving him a high five, he pitched that good."
Only one A's batter reached scoring position against Rogers, and that was in the first inning.
Rogers (17-8 regular-season, 2-0 postseason) cleaned up the thin threat by inducing Jay Payton to hit into an inning-ending force-out.
Frank Thomas, the A's powerful designated hitter, was especially frustrated. The only hit associated with him was the one he absorbed when Rogers plunked him in the side in the first inning - on purpose, a message pitch, Thomas later speculated.
Message or not, from then on, Rogers bruised more egos than the A's would bruise his pitches.
"Crafty pitcher . . . pitches to the park . . . lot of off-speed stuff," said Thomas, reciting a now familiar litany of the hitters left in Rogers' wake. "Ground balls, pop-ups. . . . That's Kenny, a veteran - he's been doing that for years."
The hard-luck loser was Rich Harden. Little could the A's starter know that hitting Curtis Granderson to lead off the bottom of the first, then yielding consecutive singles to Craig Monroe and Polanco and a run-scoring grounder by Magglio Ordoñez was, for all intents, the ball game.
When the two runs grew to three on a Monroe homer in the fifth inning, the Tigers had a lead as secure as Fort Knox.
Rogers pitched into the eighth. After a walk and a force-out, his day was done. Seconds after he left the field waving his cap to the standing, roaring crowd of 41,669, Rogers saw his shutout preserved when reliever Fernando Rodney got pinch-hitter Bobby Kielty to ground into an inning-ending double play.
Rogers has pitched 15 scoreless innings in two playoff games, the first 72/3 against the Yankees in the AL division series.
All told, the 41-year-old Rogers has surrendered all of seven hits in his two starts, proof that the self-deprecating pitcher who claims to not have A-caliber stuff has perhaps something even more important.
"I believe in myself," he said. "I believe I can make pitches and I'll find a way."
Tigers manager Jim Leyland declined to say these were the most dominant back-to-back postseason performances he's ever witnessed, reminding all to remember a guy named John Smoltz, owner of a record 15 postseason victories.
"But I tell you this: It couldn't be any better," Leyland said. "It's a little-bit-different type of stuff, but nobody could have pitched better than what Kenny has the last two outings, including John Smoltz."
For Kenny Rogers, how sweet that is.

Swisher, phone home

2006-10-13T18:06:00.000-04:00

DETROIT - A's manager Ken Macha has expressed concern that second-year first baseman Nick Swisher may have been pressing when he went 0 for 6 with five strikeouts in the first two AL Championship Series games.

Macha's advice for Game 3?

"I was going out to eat [Thursday night] and he was standing on the corner on the cell phone, and I said, 'Nick, singles are OK. Nick, singles!' " Macha said with laugh before Game 3.

Not many laughs could be hear after Game 3, though. Not after the Tigers, led by Kenny Rogers, shut out Oakland on two hits. Swisher? He went 0-for-1 with two walks, a good night all things considered.

2006-10-13T16:03:00.000-04:00

DETROIT - Weather, not a conflict over which league's playoff game deserved prime-time coverage, was the reason Game 3 of the American League Championship Series between the Oakland Athletics and Detroit Tigers started at 4:30 p.m. yesterday, baseball commissioner Bud Selig said.

Game 2 of the National League Championship Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the host New York Mets, pushed back into what originally was a day off by Wednesday's rainout of Game 1, got the 8:05 p.m. time slot.

"I talked to all four teams yesterday in the morning, because I'd been up worrying about things," Selig said. "I said, 'I want you guys to tell me what you think you should do. You're there. I'm not in Detroit; I'm in Milwaukee, where it's colder than hellok-ds,' " Selig said before Game 3 started at a frigid Comerica Park.

"By noon, I had talked to all four clubs again - and a lot of meteorologists. Detroit said they'd rather play earlier because of this [forecast of cold and possible late-evening rain]. And the Mets said because of rain [expected] earlier in the day, we'd rather play at night. So it was easy."

As it was, the game-time temperature was 42 degrees, made to feel all the colder by winds gusting at 24 m.p.h. throughout the day Clouds and a threat of rain also hovered over the heavily bundled Tigers crowd one day after Detroit was hit by hail, sleet, snow flurries, high winds, and, incongruously, a spate of sun showers.

Piniella: Sweet on Job Done By Manuel

2006-10-12T22:22:00.000-04:00

DETROIT - After every baseball season there emerges a managerial candidate who is the pick of the litter of would-be replacements.

Lou Piniella is that man of the moment, with his name surfacing early and often as the favorite to replace the fired Felipe Alou in San Francisco, Frank Robinson in Washington and Dusty Baker with the Chicago Cubs.

Heck, for the early part of this week, it was said the onetime Yankees manager was again being measured for the pinstripes - even though Joe Torre still occupied the manager's office at Yankee Stadium.

One job Piniella was not being linked to was skipper of the Philadelphia Phillies. Not a word. Not a whisper. And that, Piniella said Wednesday, was a testament to his friend Charlie Manuel and the job he did in the second half of the season for the once-embattled Phillies manager.

"I know Charlie well; I saw him a few times during the course of the summer, once in Houston and once in San Francisco, and we had nice talks," Piniella, an analyst with Fox Sports, said Wednesday. "And I told him, 'Hey, keep your chin up. You guys will get it going.' And they did."

Piniella, of course, was referring to how the Phillies, and Manuel, charged back from the brink with a 45-30 second half - the best in baseball.

That turnaround - and a serious flirtation with the wild-card playoff berth before losing out to Los Angeles by three games- saved Manuel. Within days after the end of the Phillies' 85-77 season, general manager Pat Gillick informed the 62-year-old Manuel that the team would honor the final year of his contract.

That Manuel got the new lease on life from Gillick is key to the Piniella story. For Gillick and Piniella are close, - have been ever since they were GM and manager, respectively, while with the Seattle Mariners. "Pat is a very, very good friend," said the 63-year-old Piniella. during an interview in Oakland before Game 2 of the American League Championship Series between the Detroit Tigers and A's.

For that reason, Piniella will always be associated with Gillick, especially when the GM 's name will always link up quickly with Gillick's. If Piniella is between managerial jobs. If Gillick has an open position, or merely a manager perceived to be in trouble.

Manuel seemed perilously close to being in trouble the latter positionaround the all-star break. And a close associate of Piniella's, who requested anonymity, recalls that Piniella's curiosity about the Phillies appeared to peak about that time.

The associate picked up on that over dinner with Piniella during the all-star break.

"We talked a lot of baseball all night, and 90 percent of the conversation was about the Phillies," the person said. "He clearly liked that team a lot."

"That's true," Piniella said Wednesday. "I was very impressed with that team. I thought that sooner or later they would get it going because they had some darned good talent. And they did once they got their pitching a little healthy.
"And they did. They got themselves in position for post-season, but they just fell a little short. But they're a talented bunch of kids over there."

The kind of kids he'd like to manage?

Piniella smiled, knowing the very mention of his name had already caused his good friend, Torre, to squirm in the Bronx. This week, he is a somewhathounded interview target in the Bay Area because of the Giants' opening. It has turned Piniella cautious.

So he wanted to make something very clear Wednesday.: "I was happy for Charlie, happy to see it turn around for him," he insisted. "Because he is a good man, he really is. Now he's got next year to look forward to."

So instead of replacing Manuel, might he eventually have to match managerial wits with him?

Piniella laughed. "Could be," he said the man who once managed the Yankees, Reds, M's and Devil Rays and has a 1,519-1,420 record, said, before declining to reveal where he would favor resuming his managerial career.

All Piniella would confirm is that he does have more than one option and
a decisioncould come soon, perhaps as early as next week.

Motown? Try Snow Town

2006-10-12T21:01:00.000-04:00

DETROIT - No, it was not quite this bad. But baseball is coming to Detroit and it better be ready for a cold dose of reality.

Through chattering teeth, let's just say that just because you're heading to the Fall Classic doesn't mean your town will be ready to provide classic fall weather.

The Detroit Tigers learned that today when they returned home to weather that had even Motowners scratching their heads. Because all the gods did to ready Detroit for its first possible World Series since 1984 was hit this area with sleet, hail, rain, snow flurries, more sleet, more flurries and then sunshine. And, oh, did I mention the 50 Mph winds?

The passengers on the flight I took from Oakland (via Phoenix) to Detroit cheered the pilots, because after much wrestling, they were able to put that bucking bronco of ajam-packed jet liner down on the ground safely.

While airborne, the winds above the Windy-City-for-a-Day tossed the plane around like a kite. Then the gusts threw the plane towards the runway like a 500-ton knuckleball.

It was scary, especially given the rough ride came on the heels of Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle's fatal plane crash Wednesday.

Friday night, the temperature is expected to be 57 degrees when the A's and Tigers take the field for Game 3.

Lidle Death Stirs Memories of Munson

2006-10-12T02:51:00.000-04:00

OAKLAND, Calif. - Lou Piniella remembers the body blow as if it hit him yesterday.

It was Aug. 2, 1979. Piniella, then a leftfielder with the New York Yankees, was enjoying a day off at his home in North Jersey, helping his wife, Anita, celebrate her birthday.

"I was in the swimming pool and got a call," Piniella said.

It was George Steinbrenner, owner of the team.

"Mr. Steinbrenner said, 'Thurman passed away,' " Piniella recalled. "I couldn't believe it."

Thurman Munson, the grizzled Yankees catcher and team captain, had used his off day to fly home to Ohio. Piloting his private jet, Munson died when he crashed short of a runway at Akron-Canton Regional Airport while practicing touch-and-go landings.

"You play sports, and sometimes you feel infallible because you take care of yourself so well," Piniella said quietly. "It's obviously a dangerous passion that can have bad endings."

Never was that more true than yesterday. The shock and sadness in Piniella's voice illustrated his point as the analyst with Fox Sports addressed the latest air-related tragedy to touch baseball.

Earlier in the afternoon, Cory Lidle, a much-traveled pitcher who split time between the Phillies and Yankees this season, perished when the plane he was in crashed into a high-rise in Manhattan.

"It's eerie . . . tragic," said Piniella, who was in Oakland to cover Game 2 of the American League Championship Series between the Detroit Tigers and the A's.
And, for Piniella, it was déjà vu. "We lived it firsthand, in New York . . . 1979 . . . Aug. 2. It was so difficult, but this thing here, oooh," he said, moaning.

Just feet away in the press box of McAfee Coliseum, television screens showed a live feed of the news coverage from New York. Overhead, the voice of Tigers manager Jim Leyland was being piped in from a news conference. Leyland was extending condolences. "It gives you a little bit of a flashback," Piniella said. "Different circumstances but the same sad ending."

The death of the pitcher, who also played for the A's, cast a pall here. Piniella was certain that would hold true throughout what he termed the greater baseball family.

"He had a lot of teammates in a lot of places, both in the American and National Leagues," said Piniella. "And I am sure that everybody is in mourning."

No one likes to be taken back to one of the worst days of his or her life. Piniella was, and all he could think of was Munson, "a really, really good friend."
He was a friend, who, like Lidle, had a passion for flying, which he proudly shared with teammates.

"I flew with Thurman a lot," he said, quietly. "Never in the jet, but in his King Air."

The 1979 Yankees, unlike the now-idle 2006 team, had to mourn their teammate, then play.

Also, many members of the '79 squad had come of age with Munson and had long teamed with the larger-than-life heart of the team.

It is often said that the '79 Yankees, trying to repeat World Series titles won by the organization in '77 and '78, never recovered from the Munson tragedy.

Already numbed by the death, the team was forced on its own harrowing journey on Aug. 6, to Canton for the Munson funeral, then back to the Bronx for a game that night against the Baltimore Orioles.

Piniella, along with Munson's best friend, Bobby Murcer, had delivered a eulogy.

Many a Yankee, including Munson foil Reggie Jackson, wept during the somber pregame salutes.

Then the game was played in a Yankee Stadium rife with emotion.

The Yankees won, 5-4, that night. A distraught Piniella did not play, but Murcer did, driving in five runs and ending the draining night with a game-winning two-run single in the ninth inning.

That Aug. 6 night had inspired many. But the shock that set in four days before never did go away.

"It lasted the rest of the summer," Piniella said,

Now the player-and-manager-turned-commentator imagines that those feelings will course through the playoff games on both coasts this week because of Lidle, even for those players and uniformed personnel who did not know the 34-year-old pitcher.

"It's going to take a lot of luster off these games," he said.

As for Lidle's friends, the level of grief is guaranteed to reach a whole different level - just as it did 27 years ago for the Yankees.

Lidle's Death Hits A's Hard

2006-10-12T00:56:00.000-04:00

OAKLAND, Calif. - Cory Lidle was remembered as a man who pursued his love of games, hobbies and competition with all his might during his brief stay with the Oakland Athletics.

Yesterday, the A's, who shared a locker room with the pitcher in 2001 and 2002, mourned him after learning of Lidle's death after a plane he piloted was aboard crashed into a Manhattan high-rise yesterday afternoon.

But perhaps no one put the 34-year-old Lidle in better perspective than Ron Washington, the A's veteran third-base coach.

"He was a gambler, a big competitor who loved playing games, whether it was playing golf, playing cards, whether it was on the baseball field," a shaken Washington said while sitting at the end of a bench filled with somber A's coaches and players.

Like the rest of the Oakland team, Washington was preparing for the second game of the American League Championship Series against the Detroit Tigers. But his heart and mind were elsewhere - to be precise, 3,000 miles to the east, where Lidle died.

"When Cory put his mind to doing something, there was nobody who could convince him to do otherwise," said Washington, dealing with yet another tragedy after the March death of his best friend and former teammate, Kirby Puckett.

"He was definitely headstrong," Washington said of Lidle. "And I guess he was still competing up there, with the air. Sadly, the airplane won."

Ken Macha, the A's manager, could not recall whether Lidle's passion for flying began in Oakland. What he did remember was that the pitcher enjoyed some of his finer moments in Oakland.

"I remember the August he had for us: His ERA was like 0.05," said Macha, referring to an August 2002 run in which Lidle threw 32 consecutive scoreless innings.

"He pitched a one-hitter against the Rangers when they had a very potent lineup."

Both Macha and Washington addressed how Lidle's death would affect the A's who played with him.

"I don't think it's going to affect us when it comes time to go out and compete and play baseball," Washington said. "But I think right now, we definitely have some sympathy for his family.

"He had a kid and a wife he left behind. They will be taken care of, but they will be alone, too. And I don't think they envisioned having to be without their dad, their husband. That's a hard pill to swallow."

"I imagine our chapel guy will be around," Macha said. "I'm sure people are going to have their feelings about it, just maybe put the game in perspective. I know myself, personally, this thing could end at any second, and sometimes that is the way life does end."

Every Tiger Bearing Fangs

2006-10-12T00:27:00.000-04:00

OAKLAND, Calif. - When Placido Polanco, the former Phillie-turned-invaluable table-setter for the Detroit Tigers, singled to start the fourth inning, he was on his way to a 3-for-4 effort tonight.

Detroit, happy to draft along behind yet another unsung player-turned-October hero, was on its way to a 8-5 victory over the Oakland Athletics.

Polanco & Co. had provided enough offense to overcome the A's vaunted pitching. They had overcome Milton Bradley's two-homer explosion. And because they did, they came away with an edge of two games to none in the American League Championship Series.

The ravenous Tigers had devoured what had been Oakland's home-field advantage. Now the best-of-seven series now moves to Detroit, where the next three games are scheduled this weekend.

The Tigers' ace, Kenny Rogers (1-0, 0.00 ERA in the playoffs) will take the mound Friday to try to pull Detroit to within one victory of its first World Series since 1984. He will be opposed by A's righthander Rich Harden, who has yet to pitch in the playoffs.

Polanco, now 11 for 25 in six playoff games thus far, is one of only seven Tigers who had experienced the postseason before this October.

After tonight, no one will dare call any of the Tigers novices.

That is how well-rounded Detroit's attack continued to look against A's pitching.

Leftfielder Craig Monroe, designated hitter Alexis Gomez and third baseman Brandon Inge - the seventh, eighth and ninth batters in Jim Leyland's lineup - drove in seven runs themselves in the first six innings.

"When you start to get down to the bottom, you think you can kind of mess around with these guys," said Monroe. "well, it doesn't matter. The guys definitely believe., and we like being down there. There's no break in our lineup, top to bottom."

Gomez, a player'd been designated for assignment twice, made the first postseason appearance of his career, memorable, accounting for four of those runs, thanks in part to a two-run home run in the sixth.

"today they give me the biggest chance I had in my life, in my career," Gomez said. "I've been in situations that I go down, go up [from the minors], but I never put my head down.

"In all the time that I got sitting down, I said I've got to be ready for when you need me."

He was. And that was not quite the result sought by the A's, a team that desperately needed some of the young Tigers to start acting their age. If not, Oakland knew, the consequences could be immense in a series in which Detroit had already filleted the A's ace, Barry Zito.

Justin Verlander, Detroit's 23-year-old rookie-of-the-year candidate, initially seemed to be Oakland's man.

The righthander, making his second start of the postseason, did so in poor fashion. The A's had a run in before he had secured two outs in the first inning, thanks to a Mark Kotsay double, a wild pitch and a Bradley single.

But in keeping with Detroit's now-familiar recurring theme of October, the run proved to be no problem. The Tigers erased it by the second inning on a Carlos Guillen double and a Monroe sacrifice fly.

Things would worsen for Esteban Loaiza two innings later, and not just because the Tigers kept coming at him with the tenacity that belied postseason rookie jitters.

The third inning was bad for the A's starter because he once again could not thrive after being given yet another lead, 3-1, on a double by Kotsay and a two-run homer by Bradley (a prelude to his seventh-inning solo).

Polanco led off the fourth with a single and the merry-go-round was set in motion. Before Loaiza could halt the Tigers' dizzying rotation around the basepaths, four runs scored.

The rally involved the usual suspects responsible for making Detroit arguably the most balanced attack in the postseason. That much was evidenced by what followed Polanco's hit.

Magglio Ordoñez, single.

Ivan Rodriguez, one-out walk.

Monroe, RBI single.

Gomez, two-run single.

Inge, the Game 1 hero who had homered and driven in two runs off Zito?

Sacrifice fly.

Because they could strike that quickly and, unlike Oakland, make the lead hold, the Tigers have two wins in the books.

All they need are two more in the five games left in the series to secure a World Series berth.

The Tigers couldn't have returned home in better shape. And the A's couldn't have hit the road in a bigger state of shock.

Tigers devour yet another ace

2006-10-11T02:29:00.000-04:00

OAKLAND, Ca. - When Barry Zito is on - as one of baseball's toughest lefthanders often is - his games can be works of art.

So when Zito trotted out a familiar blue print in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series against the Detroit Tigers, he seemed his same old, unflappable, unbeatable self.

Five weak grounders, a foul-out and two harmless fly balls to the outfield from the first eight batters tend to make you look that good.

It was enough to impress most everyone in sold-out McAfee Coliseum.

Everyone but the Detoit Tigers, that is.

The team that is making a habit of pulling upsets and surprises this post-season, struck before boisterous crowd of 35,655 could really settle into their seats. Unleashing their fury of an offense on Zito, the Tigers drove the lefthander back to the ranks of mere mortals with a convincing 5-1 win.

A fine pitching performance did mark the first game of the best-of-seven series. It just wasn't turned in by Zito, but rather Nate Robertson, a 29-year-old lefty who stymied Oakland with five innings of shutout ball.

The primary news last night, though, was Zito and what was done to him by the upstart, underestimated Tigers lineup. For the AL wild-card winning Tigers once again had impressed upon another big-time pitcher that they were hard to, well, impress.

The Yankees' Randy Johnson and Mike Mussina, after all, had been mowed down by Jim Leyland's purportedly too-young, too-free-swinging hitters during Detroit's Division Series triumph.

Now what looks to be a pretty disciplined offense has added Zito to its collection. And it was convincing as Detroit handed him his shortest outing since April 3, when he was knocked from Oakland's season opener by seven Yankees runs in just 1 1/3 innings.

"I got away from my gameplan, trying to focus on every pitch, I was just trying to be too fine," said Zito.

"To tell you the truth, I think playing the Yankees, it really helped us with our offensive approach," said Leyland, because we mentioned something about how patient the Yankees were and how they made the pitcher work and everything."

"Some changeups got hit pretty well tonight because the fastball didn't keep them honest," said Zito. "I just need better fastball command. When I put the fastball where I want, it makes the off-speed pitch thaht much more effective. "

Hitting Zito a shock to Inge

2006-10-11T00:56:00.000-04:00

OAKLAND, Ca. _ Brandon Inge, supposedly the Detroit Tiger with the least teeth, had a breakthrough against Barry Zito last night.

And he did not even know it.

Inge, the Tigers' No. 9 batter, started off a 5-1 victory with a two-out home run off the A's ace in the top of the third inning. Before that at-bat, Inge was just 3-for-24 lifetime against Zito.

"I didn't realize I was 3-for-24," Inge said. "I'm glad I didn know that stat before I faced him!

"I know he's a great pitcher. He's got unbelievable control. and you honestly need to get him in the zone or else you're going to swing at some bad pitches."

Philly ump's record grows

2006-10-11T00:40:00.000-04:00

Oakland, Ca. - Thirty-year veteran umpire and native Philadelphian Jerry Crawford extended his record to 12 league championship series assignments after being named crew chief in this series.

Crawford has also worked four division series and five World Series.

Crawford will be joined by crewmates Mike Reilly, Derryl Cousins, Chuck Meriwether, Gary Cederstrom and Hunter Wendlestedt.

Leyland, Torre and God

2006-10-11T00:39:00.000-04:00

Oakland, Ca. - Tigers manager Jim Leyland didn't thank Yankees owner George Steinbrenner for doing what he had hoped by not firing embattled manager Joe Torre yesterday.

"I'm thankful to God he's going to be back in the league," Leyland said, instead, about the end of speculation that Detroit's stunning AL Division Series victory over the Yankees could cost his friend his job.

"My heartfelt opinion is, I don't think the Yankees had any intention of firing Joe Torre," Leyland added. "I think that was some speculation that got started and got running wild a bit."

Tuned up and ready to go

2006-10-11T00:37:00.000-04:00

OAKLAND, Ca. - The Oakland A's, satisfied that Rich Harden is healthy and focused again, will start the righthander in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series in Detroit Friday night.

The decision was made after Harden (4-0, 4.24 ERA this season) passed muster during a tuneup in the Arizona Fall League Monday.

"They felt good about how the ball was coming out of his hand," A's manager Ken Macha said before the best-of-seven ALCS began yesterday.

Macha felt good just being able to get the pitcher who was limited to just nine regular-season starts by injuries back in the mix.

Harden's most recent injury - a sprained ligament in his right elbow - idled him from June 5 to Sept. 20. Harden then did not impress in three September starts upon his return.

So once the post-season began, Macha dropped Harden to fourth in the rotation.

Harden never got to start, because the A's swept the Minnesota Twins in three games in the AL Division Series, behind the pitching of Barry Zito, Esteban Loaiza and Dan Haren.

Harden now moves ahead of Haren (14-13, 4.12 ERA in the regular-season). Because of what the A's saw Monday from the pitcher who was 14-5 with a 2.99 ERA in over the last two seasons.

"We specifically limited the number of pitches he threw yesterday for that purpose [of starting him Friday]," said Macha, reminding all of the bottom line:

"We are, I think, 9-0 in his starts this season."

For Phils, What Should Have Been

2006-10-09T11:09:00.001-04:00

The Philadelphia Phillies aren't in the postseason, and the sin of that is, if they were they would be one of the best teams going.

First, the Phillies by far had deeper, and arguably better starting pitching than most of the thinned-out, broke-down rotations that qualified to pursue the National League pennant.

Second, the Phillies' offense, multi-faceted with the speed/power of Jimmy Rollins at the top of the order, a revived Chase Utley right behind, and mighty Ryan Howard cleaning up in the cleanup position, probably would have scored some runs. Which is more than, on, the San Diego Padres, the New York Yankees, the Minnesota Twins, did.

Thing is, to win in October, you've got to win September. The Phillies ultimately didn't, losing just often enough in the final week to allow the Los Angeles Dodgers and Padres to win the three-way race to the wild card (with the Padres surging to the NL West title and L.A. snaring the wild card).

L.A. and the Pods are terribly flawed compared to the Phillies. But they took care of business where the Phillies could not - something the hometown team rightfully should fret about all off-season.

Torre, the Lion Tamer, out in The Bronx Zoo?

2006-10-09T10:53:00.000-04:00

I used to cover the New York Yankees in the bad, old days, when the Bronx Zoo was open for business and Geore Steinbrenner more resembled the Mad Hatter than Daddy Warbucks.

During my first year on the beat, in 1982, Steinbrenner, full of fury after having lost the '81 World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers, employed three managers and six pitching coaches. More aptly, some would say tortured.

More incredible, still, the zoo keeper put 54 different players in pinstripes that season, astounding considering the 25-man roster capacity usually has a limiting effect on just how many bodies you can jettison at one time.

All that nonsense continued for the better part of a decade - in which the insanity always trumped the endless investment of millions. The Yankees did not win because they could not get out of their own way, or check the turbulence at the clubhouse door.

Joe Torre ended all of that. During his reign, Steinbrenner's reach was shortened. The Boss couldn't secure through bullying became routine because baseball people started to rule the day.

Now Torre is in trouble because a hot Detroit pitching staff ended the Yankees' October run. The Bombers may have won four World Series titles under Torre, but none since 2001 - and that is simply not acceptable to GMS III.

So expect Steinbrenner to waive the most successful manager employed by the Yankees in the last half century.

The Yankees are about to fall down the rabbit hole, where the Mad Hatter - and chaos surely await.

Rest In Peace, Buck O'Neil

2006-10-08T01:40:00.000-04:00

*****Buck O'Neil, 1911-2006*****

"This is not a sad story. It's a celebration!"

That is what Buck O'Neil would often say to people who would lament the fact that he and countless other baseball players, managers and officials were relegated to the Negro leagues in the segregated America of yore.

The same sentiment how should hold true as we say good-bye to Buck O'Neil, who died at age 94 Friday night.
Major league baseball and the world at large will say one last, loving farewell to Mr. O'Neil, the man who put the human face on an era and the leagues in which he played and managed.

Remembering O'Neil should be done in a way he would appreciate.

Honor the man who used an unending supply of grace to help a game and a nation come to terms with its disgrace of a past.

Emulate the man who never knew bitterness, self-pity or hate, but rather embraced this nation and its national pastime with all his heart and soul.

Allow the positive lesson to sink in that it is possible to find humanity in an institution, in a society despite both having kept countless Americans disenfranchised simply because of the color of their skin.

O'Neil, of a generation that saw the worse side of modern America's intolerance, found that humanity, and more. For that reason, alone, Buck O'Neil was right when he said he wasn't born too soon, but right on time.

Because while he was surely valued as a player, then longtime manager of the Kansas City Monarchs, O'Neil's greatest legacy will be how he proved to be the perfect interpreter of America's imperfect, painful past.

A walking, talking font of history, O'Neil put dimension, humanity and perspective into countless stories populated by the likes of Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Bob Feller.

The pictures he painted of the players of the 20s, 30s, 40s and beyond, be they white or black, big or small, were vivid. And the recounting of their trials and tribulations were touching, funny, revealing.

Most important, Buck O'Neil's recounting of the era in which all the greats lived, on one side or the other of the color line, did more than illuminate. It showed how to come to terms with what had been.

For who could fume about such history in front of a man who lived it yet still projected nothing other than goodness and compassion, patience, faith and, above all, forgiveness?

Just this summer, O'Neil showed, again, the amazingly forgivng heart held in his then-frail frame.
For he watched as baseball welcomed its largest - and likely last - class of Negro League luminaries into the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown. While many in the baseball world were outraged and embarrassed that O'Neil was not allowed to join those 17 selected by a specially-appointed screening committee, O'Neil refused to fuel the fury.

Instead, he came to Cooperstown to welcome those bygone greats into a fraternity that never found a way to include him - much the way the game, itself, did not invite him in to play on the major-league stage.
By doing so, O'Neil showed once more a love of the game. And he used that love to coax an arguably unworthy sport through yet another pitifully awkward chapter.

No one who was there will ever forget that bright, sunny day in rustic New York when O'Neil showed us all how beautiful magnanimity can be.

"I want you to light this valley up today," said O'Neil told an enthralled audience of Hall of Famers, baseball execs, media and fans.

The audience did, especially when Buck O'Neil, part Southern black preacher, part performing artist, asked the audience to join hands and sing with him a repeated refrain:

"The greatest thing in the world is loving you."

Again and again, we all did sing. And how we loved the moment, and how we loved Buck O'Neil.
Hall of Famer? You'd better believe it, a million times over, forever and always, in heaven as he was on earth.

Repeat After A-Rod: "I sucked!"

2006-10-07T23:51:00.000-04:00

"You kind of get tired of giving the other team credit. At some point you've got to look in the mirror and say, 'I sucked."

- Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez told the media after another terrible October ended with New York's elimination at the hands of the Detroit Tigers Saturday.

One week into the post-season, A-Rod can be comforted by not being at all alone in his disappointment.

Consider the following:

The Los Angeles Dodgers, swept from the playoffs in three games by the New York Mets, extended their dry spell another year, having not won a postseason series since 1988.

Dodgers manager Grady Little incredibly put himself in the middle of yet another postseason second-guess feeding frenzy with a handful of questionable moves, including using starting pitching as middle relievers and letting starter Greg Maddux bat in a game L.A. trailed, 3-0, in win-or-go-home Game 3.

Joe Beimel, the Dodgers' indispensible lefthanded setup man, committed the inexcusable mistake of stepping out on the eve of the series against the Mets after curfew, then ending his season by slashing his pitching hand on a broken glass in a bar room. Beimel then lied to the team about where the injury occurred, angering teammates and Little once the deception was revealed. Undoubtedly that anger will fester long after the Dodgers pack up and head into the postseason, because Beimel's absence forced many of the awkward - and ultimately fruitless - moves made by the hamstrung Little.

Good guy Torii Hunter made some critical flubs in the Minnesota Twins' shortlived ALDS series against the Oakland A's, most notably the ill-conceived decision to dive for a Mark Kotsay liner to center in Game 2. The Gold Glove centerfielder missed the ball and the resulting inside-the-park home run broke a tie that led to a backbreaker of a defeat for the Twins.

Then there was A-Rod - 1-for-14 (.071) with no RBI in four games for the Yankees. The player who's opening foray into New York was to draw a distinction between himself and Derek Jeter - a "No. 2 hitter" - started the series batting sixth in the order and finished it batting eighth. None of Yankees manager Joe Torre's early attempts to ease the pressure from the high-priced Rodriguez and late attempts to hide a troubled bat worked. Tigers pitchers found the slumping A-Rod time and again. So, too, will the Bronx cheers, guaranteed to follow A-Rod into a long, restless off-season.

Paper Tigers No More

2006-10-07T21:03:00.000-04:00

Jim Leyland hoisted from the ground by by his joyous Detroit Tigers team. MLB Photos

Start spreading the news. Motown mowed down Millionaire's Row, without mercy or apology.

That they did it without sneers or cockiness or disrespect should make it hard for the most disappointed New York Yankees fans to begrudge Jimmy Leyland or the young Tigers anything.

How could you not feel a tug for the grizzled manager who pulled himself off the slag heap to come back to the game and show a young team how to win? Or the impressionable youths who listened when he told them 100-loss seasons didn't have to be the norm?

Winning 95 regular-season games would have satisfied Motown. And settling for that would have fulfilled their part of what was scripted in a postseason test against the league's winningest team.

But the Tigers did not settle. Because they did not, the Tigers showed you just how much fun watching an underdog overcome can be, wearing the self-appointed label of "freshman team" but refusing to buy into the cynicism that they somehow did not belong on the same field as the mighty Bronx Bombers.

The Tigers culled a lot of karma from perceived slights.

Forced to explain their miserable crawl through a last two weeks of September time and again.

Forced to justify why they even bothered to show up to play the best team money can buy.

Forced to hotel hop in midtown Manhattan Wednesday night after a rainout delayed their getaway game.

In the end, though, there was nothing forced about the celebrating the Tigers did when they swept away the Yankees in the American League Division Series, 3 games to 1. Detroit reeled off three wins to seal the deal.

Three wins that came after the rainout and the communications snafu that went with it.

Three wins that came despite the fact that no one gave one-time Yankees washout Kenny Rogers an iota of a chance in Game 3, either against Hall of Fame certainty Randy Johnson or the Yankees' latest Murderers' Row lineup.

But Rogers and a host of young pitchers nearly young enough to be his sons stymied the vaunted Yankees' offense. They even made Derek Jeter look human after his five hits in the Yankees' Game 1 win. And they certainly made Alex Rodriguez and Gary Sheffield, among others, look nothing short of pathetic as the Detroit staff limited New York to six runs in the final three games.

Once the clinching was done, there came the final touches, vingettes that had to warm the most jaded down-on-pro sports Grinch.

Youngsters wearing the uniforms of Kaline and Greenberg, Trammell and Whitaker, Horton and McLain, carrying Leyland off the field on their sturdy shoulders.

Those same youngsters circling the field spritzing delirious fans with champagne.

Rogers hoisting his old bones up on the dugout at Tiger Stadium to do the same champagne celebration with fans.

Baseball purists couldn't have asked for a better ending to this big-market, small-market dance. And Hollywood couldn't have topped the ending. It was downright Capra-esque.

Next Blue Light Special: A-Rod?

2006-10-07T00:22:00.000-04:00

With every hitless post-season at-bat, Alex Rodriguez comes closer to having a million dollar question answered.

Well, actually a $16 million-dollar question, as in how much of A-Rod's $16 million-a-year salary will Yankees owner George Steinbrenner be willing to eat in order to make the third baseman go away?

Now, most fans believe A-Rod could and would shore up most any lineup with sheer namepower alone. Bet Phillies fans would sell their souls to see the bat that produced 35 home runs and 121 RBIs this season nestled in behind Ryan Howard in batting order.

The perception sometimes kicks reality's butt. And the perception of A-Rod in the five boroughs of New York is that this player cannot protect a teammate in a lineup when he can't protect his own psyche from the yips. New York City is rough, but not that rough. Yet A-Rod's torment often has reduced him to a figure whose contitution seems no more sturdy than a wet noodle.

Steinbrenner could gag , eating all that crow and cash, but, really, will the Yankees have any choice but to move the game's version of Captain Queeg? The drumbeat among Yankees fans has already begun. A 1-for-11 start with four strikeouts assured that in the Yankees' first three games against the Detroit Tigers in the shock of an American League Division Series. So, too, did two Yankees' losses in the series' three games.

One more loss, one more early exit from a postseason they were supposed to dominate and the Yankees will likely not be merciful, expecially to the player fans in the Bronx never shy away from vilifying, anyway. So don't be surprised to see the Yankees concede the day and see if there is another easy touch, I mean team, willing to take on a Psychology 101 project.

Then the only question will be, how much will Steinbrenner pay to get A-Rod out of town? The bet here says that the amount the Boss will agree to swallow goes up exponentially with each failed October at-bat by A-Rod.

The Boss, of course, bit off a big chunk of lettuce when the Yankees acquired Rodriguez from the Texas Rangers in February 2002 return for Alfonso Soriano and a promise to absorb $112 million of the $179 million still owed on what was originally a 10-year, $252 million pact A-Rod signed with Texas in 2000.

That's an average of $16 million a year - $1 million more than the entire Florida Marlins team earned this season. And the Yankees will be funneling money A-Rod's way until 2025 - an IOU that likely won't go away easy, even should A-Rod wind up playing for another team.

Koufax to Cueller to ...Kuo? Oh, My!

2006-10-06T07:14:00.001-04:00

Mets manager Willie Randolph was asked yesterday if he had yet announced his Games 3 and 4 starters for the National League Division Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

"No, not yet. Not yet."

Once upon a time such questions didn't even need to be asked. Then, again, once upon a time, teams in the postseason probably had starting rotations that went deeper than the obvious candidates for, well, Game 1.

That is no longer the case. Not when manager after manager got into the postseason only to find themselves with starting staffs still works in progress.

At least that's what you have to assume the playoff rotations were, looking at some of the pitchers toe-ing the mound during this, the most important games to date in their team's 2006 campaigns.

Blame it on injuries, youth movements or a general lack of depth throughout major-league pitching, but not one of the eight rotations toiling in the postseason will be confused with the Baltimore Orioles 1971 rotation members (pictured above) who entered the postseason with 20 or more victories each.

Jim Palmer-Dave McNally-Mike Cuellar-Pat Dobson?

Sandy Koufax-Don Drysdale-Claude Osteen-Don Sutton?

Greg Maddux-Tom Glavine-John Smoltz-Steve Avery?

Try these guys on for size: Tuesday, Boof Bonser, a rookie who spent part of the season in the minors and was 7-6 with a 4.22 ERA in the bigs this season, was sent to the mound by a Minnesota Twins team needing a victory to even their ALDS series against the Oakland A's.

Later that day, another rookie John Maine (6-5, 3.60), was the Mets' Game 1 starter, against L.A.

Today, St. Louis' starter in Game 2 of its NLDS clash with San Diego was Jeff Weaver - 3-10 (6.29) with the Angels, 5-4 (5.19) with the Cards (Weaver and four relievers, including three rookies, shut out the punchless Padres, 2-0).

And finally, last night the Dodgers, down 0-1 in the best of five series against New York, sent Hong-Chih Kuo - 1-5, 4.22 - to the mound. Kuo has one big-league victory to his name, it coming on Sept. 8 at Shea against the Mets in his first major-league start.

Kuo's mound opponent? Glavine, who's started almost as many postseason games (33) as Kuo has major-league appearances (38, counting the Game 2 start).

Minorities Top Endangered List. Again

2006-10-06T04:26:00.000-04:00

What do these three men have in common?

Well, here goes:

Cito Gaston, Dusty Baker and Don Baylor (left to right) all took teams into the postseason.

Gaston managed two World Series teams in Toronto - and won both times. For those counting, that's one more world championship than won by Tony La Russa. One more than won by Hall of Famer Earl Weaver, as well. And it is the same number won by Tommy Lasorda, yet another Hall of Fame manager.

Baker - a three-time manager of the year, led the San Francisco Giants to the seventh and final game of the 2002 World Series before losing to the California Angels.

Baylor, in perhaps the greatest of these feats, took the expansion Colorado Rockies to the playoffs via a wild-card berth in the team's third year of existance - a major-league record for fastest advancement to postseason play by a new franchise. That garnered him manager of the year honors.

What these three men also have in common are these two things: Not one is currently is managing in the major leagues. And, as such, each is a member of baseball's most endangered species: minorities in managerial positions.

This wouldn't be such a sensitive subject were it not for the Black Monday witnessed in baseball this week. For Monday - the day following the end of the regular-season - saw all but two of the black or Hispanic managers who began the 2006 season ousted.

Frank Robinson, fired by the Washington Nationals.

Baker, fired by the Cubs.

Felipe Alou, fired by the San Francisco Giants.

Willie Randolph? The New York Mets skipper is baseball's last man - of color - standing.

Ozzie Guillen held on to his perch with the Chicago White Sox.

The ranks of Hispanic managers did grow when the Marlins replaced Joe Girardi with Fredi Gonzalez Monday.

Robinson and Alou, both 71, realistically won't put uniforms on, again. Both want to remain in baseball, however, and deserve opportunities to move into front office positions somewhere.

Baker, like Baylor, very much wants to manage again. Immediately.

Still, if baseball trends hold to form, Baker, like most minorities, will go to the "back of the bus," figuratively speaking, despite being a three-time manager of the year. After all, who would are deny that the revolving door through which displaced managers return to the ranks of the employed just flatout spins more slowly men of color than it does others?

Slower, as in galacial. Or, in the case of, say, Gaston, Baylor and Jerry Manuel - another one-time manager of the year who never got another shot - not at all.

Gaston, unlike many a manager with not one World Series ring, was never invited to skipper manage another team after being fired by the Blue Jays in 1997.

Jimy Williams, the man Gaston replaced in Toronto in the 1989 season, has been hired twice by teams since Gaston was fired. Williams has yet to reach the World Series.

Meanwhile, names of former managers like Lou Piniella, Bob Brenly and, alas, Girardi are already said to be hot candidates in places like San Francisco, Chicago, Washington and Texas. For those keeping score, only Piniella has won a Series ring as manager.

Where's the justice? Where's the outrage? Commissioner Selig? Anyone in authority?

At least, where's the buzz? Something to suggest that some or all of these very qualified veteran managers are being considered anywhere that currently has bench jobs to fill? For if they have no hope of breaking back into this exclusive club, what will the game tell the hopefuls named Cecil Cooper, Terry Pendleton, etc.? Wait your turn, because there's room for only one at at time in the pipeline, again?

Time to step up, baseball. Make sure the hiring processes in Washington, Texas, Chicago, San Francisco and anywhere else a position may open up are truly fair. These men don't want guarantees, just opportunities to compete. Then they'll be happy to let their records, accomplishments and talents speak for themselves.

Glavine, Aging Like a Fine Wine

2006-10-05T22:23:00.000-04:00

.Apparently it can be as easy as rolling out of bed.

At least for Tom Glavine.

The two-time Cy Young award winner the Phillies could have had four years ago if not out-bid by the New York Mets made his first post-season appearance since 2002 a thing of beauty tonight.

Glavine, starting Game 2 of the National League Division Series against Los Angeles, threw six innings of shutout ball at the baffled Dodgers.

Glavine, killing them softly with smarts and stealth, allowed only four hits - all but one of those singles. he walked two, and struck out two, a performance precise enough to hold off L.A. And when Mets closer Billy Wagner sealed the deal with a scoreless ninth, Glavine and the Mets had a 4-1 victory and a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five series.

"He's been doing that to hitters for a long time," Grady Little, the Dodgers manager, said of Glavine, owner of 290 regular-season victories. "This guy's an outstanding pitcher and a lof of hitters talk to themselves after they face him three or four times."

"He was superb, as usual," said Mets manager Willie Randolph. "He's a big-money pitcher, a big-game pitcher."

The Mets certainly welcomed the uneventful save by Wagner - his second. Wagner? He welcomed lessons taught by his friend. "It's frustrating," Wagner laughed, "because he does make it look that easy. I've never seen him when he's not poised."

Wagner, an admittedly an excitable type, marveled at Glavine, who showed a fellow vet something invaluable even on a shared ride into the stadium before the game. For it was Glavine who was both talkative and exciting, wild, said Wagner, "because I'm usually the blabbermouth.

"It was calming to see a vet really excited coming in," added Wagner. "And it makes me feel good because I don't feel like I'm the only person sitting there ready to puke. It to see him calm himself down and go out and pitch a great baseball game.

"It takes me back to when I watched him when I was growing up," Wagner added with a laugh.

For Glavine, his 33rd playoff start - and first as something other than an Atlanta Brave - produced a 13th win.

The 40-year-old lefthander who signed a free-agent contract with the Mets before the 2003 season, is now 4-3 in division series games, 5-9 in league championship series and 4-3 in World Series contests.

Glavine's post-season victory answered many questions. Yes, he could pick up his team with a healthy dose of veteran presence after the Mets had lost Pedro Martinez and Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez to injuries on the eve of the postseason.

And yes, Glavine showed, he could continue a strong kick in which he'd won five of six September decisions to complete a 15-7 regular-season. That campaign proved to be Glavine's best since 2002, when he was 18-11 in his final season in Atlanta. It was quite an accomplishment considering that just before Glavine's impressive stretch run, the pitcher received the scare of his career when coldness in his left finger led to the discovery of blood clots.

Medicine rather than surgery took care of the ailment, then Glavine - "the lefthanded Greg Maddux," teammate David Wright declared - took care of business from September on.

As special as the season was, the playoff victory was all that and more, said Glavine, becaue "I've waited a while to do it, gone through some tough times here in New York, personally. It's the kind of thing you try and persevere and find yourself in position which I obviously wanted to be in when I came to New York."

So all things, big and small, will be savored, Glavine promised, including Randolph's "Big game, Tommy salute" before a national media contingent in the post-game news conference (That means a lot to me.")

But, Glavine, as business-like as a Wall Street exec, reminded, "it's a lot less about what I have or haven't done in my career in the postseason and much more about now."

Because he did in the here-and-now everything his resume suggested he could, Glavine and the Mets are one win away from the League Championship Series. And Glavine is one argument closer to sealing his all-but airtight case for a plaque in Cooperstown.

Redemption, Detroit Tigers-style

2006-10-05T20:51:00.000-04:00

Yes, the Detroit Tigers are young, almost devoid of postseason experience and certainly never to be confused with the Forbes 500-caliber millionaires employed by George Steinbrenner.

But, the freshman team vs. the varsity?

That certainly was the perception on the eve of the American League Division Series between the wild-card winning Tigers and the league's winningest team in the AL East champion Yankees.

Tigers manager Jim Leyland even joked about it - often enough to suggest that the constant references to a mismatch had become an issue, and a cause, among the Detroit contingent at Yankee Stadium the last few days.

Well, Detroit stunned one-half of baseball-mad New York into silence today when it evened the series at 1 game apiece. The Tigers did so, thanks to superb pitching by some of those inexperienced kids, most notably starter and rookie of the year candidate Justin Verlander (5 2/3 innings, three runs) and 100-mph, flamethrowing reliever Joel "Zoom-by-ya" Zumaya (1 1/2 innings, three strikeouts).

With the win in his pocket and egg on the face of some of the Tigers' harsher New York critics, Leyland started to show how much the chiding had registered.

"I'm sure we haven't convinced everybody, but I hope in my heart that everybody realizes that we are a playoff team. I hope that we at least proved that today. To do what we did with those kids pitching and the way we played the game, I hope at least everybody believes that we're worthy of being in the playoffs."

Wagner On the High Wire. Again.

2006-10-04T21:07:00.000-04:00

It wasn't pretty but Billy Wagner put the first save of his postseason career in the books.

Brought in to a game led, 6-4 by the Mets in the ninth inning today at Shea Stadium, Wagner immediately gave up a leadoff double to the Dodgers' Wilson Betimit. The ex-Philles fireman then got pinchhitter Olmedo Saenz on a fly ball and Rafael Furcal on a swinging third strike.

The angst in Flushing jumped a notch moments later, though, when Wagner allowed an RBI double to another pinchhitter, Ramon Martinez.

Wagner ended the drama one batter later, however, when he struck out the dangerous Nomar Garciaparra, swinging, to end the game.

"You know, that's the life of a closer," Mets manager Willie Randolph said. "He's gone live on the edge a lot of times, but he's had a phenomenal year for us. It's nice to see him get the save for us."

Randolph also put credit where it was due. The Dodgers know that Wagner will always come at you, the manager said, "and they put some good swings on him."

Then there was the backdrop, with the always noisy she really rocking with anticipation of the Mets' first postseason victory since 2000.

"The music was [so] loud, almost deafening," Randolph said. "He gets into it. He feeds off his adrenalin. He's always that kind of guy who gets pumped in those situations. The key for him I to just kind of channel it."

Wagner eventually did just that, then, in a calm afterglow of the game, dissected his interesting trip to the save.

"You want to go out there, want to throw strikes and make them beat you," Wagner said, "but I threw a few festival's to bedmate that got away and he hit it a ton. At first I thought it was a popup, but the ball was carrying out to right ..."

Wagner then settled down, he said, "kind of collected himself. You just have to go out and make pitches. you can't worry about one run scoring, you can't worry about any of those little things. You have to go out there and get three outs before they get two runs."

He achieved that goal by setting up Garciaparra with a fastball, away - "the best pitch that inning," said Wagner. "Somehow he fouled it off, but it set him up for a slider, and the slider had tonight was the best I've had in a while."

"I thought he threw the ball really well," said Randolph. "Just made a couple pitches up in the zone where they drove the ball to right-center field. But he was able to get through it."

Major League, Take One

2006-10-04T20:30:00.000-04:00

With apologies to Ron Howard and Tim Robbins, the two big-time movie directors who were in the house at Shea Stadium today, Hollywood had nothing on the Mets.

Not when a Shawn Green-to-Jose Valentin-to-Paul Lo Duca relay resulted in two Dodgers - two - being thrown out at home plate on the same play!

"I have never seen that before, other than Major League, The Movie," said Lo Duca, the former Dodgers catcher.

The Mets' 6-5 victory over L.A. in Game 1 of their National League Division Series was the final result of a long day's play. But the double play at the plate in a wacky postseason first was what brought the house down.

Lo Duca was the prime hero on the play, because of his double duty. After Russell Martin's single was brought back into the catcher on throws by Green and Valentin, Lo Duca tagged the lead runner, Jeff Kent, as he tried to score from second by sliding through the back-door.

Lo Duca then pirouetted in time to tag J.D. Drew - no Willie Mays Hayes, he - trying to slide in through the front door.

"That was crazy," said Green, who started a great play by adroitly fielding the ball hit off the wall in right, then making a pinpoint throw to Valentin. "I was kind of shocked when I threw the ball in. Valentin made a great relay. And I all of a sudden I saw the two guys going. I was just hoping Dukey saw them."

Lo Duca more felt the presence of Drew than saw him. After he tagged Kent, he was out of position, what with his back to the field. The catcher then said it was something in the way home plate umpire John Hirschbeck was looking past him that made him spin around just in time to get the diving Drew.

Lo Duca later realized his teammates had tried to warn him. "[John] Maine and David Wright were screaming at the top of their lungs, but I didn't hear either one of them," Lo Duca said.

"I was backing up," Maine, the pitcher, said. "I saw the relay coming in. I was like, OK, they got this guy. Then I was yelling at Lo Duca, 'Turn around! There's a guy right behind you!"

The play was so bizarre, it actually left ex-Phillies closer Billy Wagner speechless.

"It was really one of those unbelievable things," he said. "You really don't know what to think because you've never seen that happen. I haven't."

The Dodgers' reaction?

"We've been in L.A. all season; we certainly know about traffic jams. We had one there," Dodgers manager Grady Little said.

No Time to Lead With Your Heart

2006-10-04T20:07:00.000-04:00

Mets manager Willie Randolph dearly wanted to get a victory for John Maine.

After all, the starter had done what had become routine all season - step into the breach for an injured front-line pitcher, this time fallen ace Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez (calf injury).

And Maine acquitted himself well enough early on in Game 1 of the NLDS against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Yet Randolph pulled Maine out of a 2-1 game the Mets led with two on and one out in the top of the fifth.

"I wanted to get six out of him, and definitely more than four. ... I wanted to hang in there a little bit with him," said Randolph. "But I always manage with my gut, and do what is right for the team.

"So when this guy over here [on his left shoulder] says, 'hey, it's good for his morale to get a win and he's really stepped up for you a lot,' then this other little knucklehead over here [pointing to his right shoulder] says 'hey, man, go by what you see and what you feel."

And what he felt was, Maine was done, having hit a familiar wall about the third time through the Dodgers' lineup.

So began the march of the relievers out of a well-rested bullpen. Pedro Feliciano (strikeout of Kenny Lofton) and Chad Bradford (Nomar Garciaparra groundout) ended the fifth.

L.A. would get three back in the seventh off of Guillermo Mota, tying it at 4. One more would come in against closer Billy Wagner in the ninth, but it was never enough to steal the lead, or the game eventually won by Mets' bullpen committee, 6-5.

Gold Standard, and Still Going Strong

2006-10-04T19:00:00.000-04:00

Vin Scully, in his 57th season as an announcer for the Los Angeles Dodgers, returned to New York yesterday. And once, again, all the Hall of Famer needed do was speak to remind what national treasures both he and his golden pipes are.

Scully's presence makes the postseason complete. What better forum for one who's graced the booth not only during 18 no-hitters, but seven Dodger World Series?

Scully transcends time. He can paint the present-day game as eloquently as any voice on the air. And he can take you back, as he did yesterday when discussing the legendary 1951 playoff game between Brooklyn Dodgers' Ralph Branca and the New York Giants' Bobby Thomson.

Bedside reading prompted Scully's memories. He's currently devouring Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thompson, Ralph Branca, and the Shot Heard Round the World, a new book by Joshua Prager.

"I knew those guys," said Scully of all the writers whose works Prager quoted.

Scully knows the story, too. He lived it that day Thomson's walkoff home run gave the game the moment forever known as The Shot Heard Round the World.

Yesterday he relived it as if it were, well, yesterday. And he described the outfield fence peephole where the Giants allegedly inserted a telescope to read opposition catchers' signals, the supporting players, from the electrician allegedly who rigged the crude, battery-operated relay signal system, you were there.

That's magic. That's Vin Scully.

A-Plus for Abreu In Game 1

2006-10-04T00:30:00.000-04:00

They were but two of the Yankees' 14 hits, but few were bigger. So it was no wonder that Bobby Abreu could rightfully consider his first postseason game since 1997 nothing short of perfect.

The former Phillies all-star rightfielder showed a national TV audience why he's earned nothing but admiration from the Yankees since he arrived in a July 30.

Abreu went 2-for-5 and ignited a 5-run third inning with a two-run double, breaking up what had been a scoreless duel between Detroit's Nate Robertson and the Yankees' Chien-Ming Wang.

Abreu then used a two-run single in the sixth to add breathing room to what had become a 5-3 game. The Yankees never looked back, winning, 8-4.

"The last two [were] great because any time the other team starts scoring runs, the momentum slips over there," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "He got it back to where it was comfortable for us."

Speaking of comfortable ...

"The team made me feel good over here," Abreu said. "After we clinched, I was so happy, going to October. just going to play in October. I came herr to New York and played my first game in the postseason - it's amazing.

"The New York Yankees - it's a very powerful name and you have to do whatever you have to do to represent that."

Jeter: One for the Ages

2006-10-03T23:30:00.000-04:00

You cannot quantify the immense value, just appreciate it.

A decade after Derek Jeter began his historic postseason run with four hits in the 1996 American League division opener against Baltimore, he threw a 5-for-5 performance at the Detroit Tigers in Game 1 of the ALDS.

That performance, the lynchpin of an 8-4 Yankees' victory, tied a big-league record for hits in a postseason game, held by six. It also added to an undeniable legend, this quintessential performance by the quintessential clutch player.

For Jeter used two doubles, a home run and two singles to extend his own major-league records of most career postseason hits (147) and most DLS hits (64).

Jeter's big night came on the heels of a regular-season in which Jeter hit .345 during what was his fifth 200-hit season (another major-league record, for shortstops). It established once more that who the most valuable Yankee of 2006 is, and underscored the strong argument Jeter made for AL Mvp.

What pushes this special player to such a zone once October arrives?

"I think somewhat personality and his competitive drive," said Joe Torre, who, in 11 years, has reached the postseason every single season in large part because of the guy at shortstop. "You know, it's like this time of year, big games, whether we play Boston or games that are significant; not that he slacks off the other times. Look, he hit .340 this year.

"I guess the only way you characterize it for me, he doesn't go up there thinking negatively. He just doesn't. Failing doesn't scare him."

"You know, you're not always going to come through," said Jeter. "There's been plenty of times that I haven't. But when I'm in that situation, I feel as though I'm going to produce, or come up with a hit, or make a play."

He did tonight, turing a crucial doubleplay before the scoring started, then topping his offensive run with a crowd-pleasing eighth-inning homer.

It is these kinds of performances, and that special makeup that allows Jeter to continually put a damper on any contention that Alex Rodriguez is the best shortstop not playing the position for the Yankees. ARod might have the most talent stuffed in his body. All Derek Jeter does is win.

So, like the Ted Williams-Joe DiMaggio "who's best" debates of old, do you take the best athlete or the guy who just flatout finds a way to win? In the Jeter-ARod tug-of-war, there's no question which player wins.

Another thing: ESPN The Magazine was pretty provocative this week when its cover featured the Mets' Jose Reyes with a headline declaring the dazzling performer the best shortstop in New York.

Well, Reyes has got Jeter in terms of age. Jeter, though, long ago established himself as one for the ages. Reyes will have to wait for such accolades, at least until he can compare one World Series ring to Jeter's four.

Hurt's So Good

2006-10-03T19:58:00.000-04:00

The Chicago White Sox threw Frank Thomas away like so much dirty laundry, much the way baseball threw away The Big Hurt's era when it ratcheted up its home-run love affair and turned its fancy to the chemically-induced.

Well, the two-time American League Mvp who was cast aside and demonized in his final days in Chicago, is finally is enjoying the last laugh, and new life with the Oakland A's.

The big man - and he's always been that, even before doctors and juicers pumped the biceps full of steroids - started his first playoff series in xx years by hitting two home runs off Minnesota Twins ace Johan Santana yesterday.

Because he did, the Oakland A's won the first game of an American League Division Series, on the road, 3-2.

Talk about dividends.

All the A's had guaranteed Thomas only $500,000 and a chance. He cashed in on both, using 39 home runs, 144 RBI and a bucketful of incentive clauses to gather in $3.1 million this season.

The man who once vied with Ken Griffey Jr. for title of most feared slugger in baseball - before Barry Bonds and Big Mac - healthy and happy, again, had restored his self-worth, and place in the game.

Now comes the gravy.

So, for those keeping score at home, it's Thomas 1, bloated home run kings 0.

And the White Sox? Not even in the game. Alas, they're home, watching the postseason on TV.

Now that hurts.

John Maine - and Pray for Rain?

2006-10-03T19:34:00.000-04:00

Games were played, but the biggest news of the day had to be what happened in the Mets' off-day workout.

Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez - the would-be Game 1 starter today against the Dodgers - strained his right calf. The injury further muddied the pitching outlook for the National League's winningest team, which already must forge ahead after having lost Pedro Martinez.

That pitcher had shoulder surgery and is gone for eight months.

Already there has been speculation about whether Martinez's shoulder trouble resulted from his overcompensating for leg injuries in the second half of the season.

That will make the Mets' handling of El Duque (11-11, 4.66) all the more scrutinized, considering cautionary tales about pitchers hurting themselves all the more by allowing leg injuries to mess with arm delivery dates back to Dizzy Dean.

Before the Mets determine Hernandez's immediate future, they must concern themselves with their own. Should Hernandez miss his start against the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers, his replacement likely won't be Steve Trachsel (15-8, 4.97), who had to leave the team over the weekend for personal reasons.

So that future could now rest with John Maine (6-5, 3.60) - not exactly the hand the Mets envisioned holding the Game 1 mound against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Or their playoff aspirations, for that matter.

But Seriously, The Tigers Will Show Up

2006-10-03T19:07:00.000-04:00

The American League Division Series between the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees hadn't even started and already the guys not called baseball's greatest team had to answer the question:

Why even bother to show up?

Well, Jim Leyland?

Well, I told everybody, they have got Murderers' Row and then Cano. That's not a good feeling," the Tigers manager said, tongue-in-cheek, hours before Game 1 at Yankee Stadium.

But seriously, folks. ...

"I think a lot of people, for whatever reason, they have this as the Yankee varsity versus the scrimmage and freshman team. I don't feel that way.

"I always let my feelings be known, so I'm going to tell all of you: Those that said we lucked out and snuck in, I totally disagree with that. We won more games than only three teams in baseball. That's pretty good."

Piazza Thriving Under The Radar

2006-10-03T16:31:00.000-04:00

Shhh!
Mike Piazza, Hall of Fame shoo-in, all-time catching great, has a little secret.
For the first time in his storied major-league career, the onetime marquee player of the mega-market Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets spent a season practically off the grid.
Moved to San Diego. Mellowed out. Went all Left Coast and low-key - and absolutely loved it.
"My whole career, I've had a big job and never shied away from it," said Phoenixville High's most celebrated baseball product. "I always enjoyed being the go-to guy. But this year it's been about being a pseudo-everyday player, and also a role player, and a mentor, working with young kids.
"And, you know what? It's been fun to play this way, to play under the radar."
As he spoke, a grin creased the face of baseball's all-time leader in home runs among catchers (398). And it illustrated just how happy the 38-year-old is to be where he is and who he is.
Who he is: a vital part of a Padres team that won the National League West. Where he is: in the NL division series opener today at home against the NL Central champion St. Louis Cardinals.
As Piazza spoke, he did so with the precocious air of a schoolboy, which is understandable since no matter where this postseason takes him, the 14-year vet will go not as an afterthought.
"He's done a great job with the staff and helped stabilize it," said Padres manager Bruce Bochy. "He gives us a veteran presence back there. Our pitchers have confidence throwing to him."
Value has come at the plate as well as behind it. Though 28-year-old Josh Bard (50 starts) and 25-year-old Rob Bowen (eight) were key backups, it was the old man who started 99 games and hit 22 of the troika's 34 home runs and accounted for 68 of its 121 RBIs. Piazza had not achieved such totals since 2002, when he hit 33 homers and drove in 98 runs for the Mets.
Piazza's home runs this season ranked second among National League catchers, after Atlanta's Brian McCann (24). On the Padres, he trailed only Adrian Gonzalez's 24, a number compiled in 156 games compared to Piazza's 126.
"Twenty-some home runs?" said pitcher David Wells. "His bat is huge."
What a difference a year makes. Last season, back East, questions about whether Piazza could still be the go-to guy became irrelevant. How to get him to just go away became more pertinent as baseball-crazed New York increasingly fixated on Piazza's age, injuries and eroding defensive and offensive capabilities.
The end of what had been a long love affair with a legend was poignant and, at times, painful. Remember the mercifully short-lived attempt to convert Piazza into a first baseman?
Piazza, bright, sensitive, accepted the inevitable. "I wanted to finish my career in New York; I loved the tradition, I loved the fans," Piazza said. "But it just didn't seem like it was going to work out. And I didn't want to be a burden."
Thrown onto the free-agent market, Piazza had his suitors, including the team he grew up watching from his father's field box at Veterans Stadium.
"The Phillies definitely showed interest, and it was definitely an option," Piazza said, "but at the end of the day, with [Mike] Lieberthal there, well, an $8 million catcher is not going to sit.
"I wasn't looking to be a starter, or a guarantee of games, but at that time there was just so much more flexibility in San Diego. Even Pat [Gillick, the Phillies' general manager] said maybe that would be the best option."
San Diego did have its selling points. Weather - 72 and sunny every day - the slew of quality pitchers, a talented roster. Then there was a sincerity as the Padres convinced Piazza they would treat him as a valued commodity.
"You don't want guarantees, but you do want a little bit of a blueprint of how you would fit in," the catcher said. "And it just felt right. There was just an energy there. It became more of a spiritual decision than a mechanical one."
The job was not full-time, but that comes with age, Wells said.
"As a veteran, you know when you are winding down, when you're going to face limited playing time," the pitcher said. "So when people ask: Is his arm as strong? The answer is simple. No one's is when you get older.
"So, you come out for defensive purposes. Your backups take some of the pressure off."
Still, make no mistake, said Wells. "Mike's definitely an impact player. It's all about winning and compiling knowledge, and he's done that. So we need him back there, because he's still that strong a presence."

Abreu Advances Where Phillies Cannot

2006-10-03T16:04:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK - Bobby Abreu, gone but never to be forgotten, will forever be the itch Phillies fans cannot scratch.

The former Phillies rightfielder is headed for his first fully realized postseason, but not with the organization that groomed him into being an all-star.

Abreu may finally get his first sip of championship bubbly. But not with the franchise for which he wound up ranked in the top 10 in, among many categories, career extra-base hits, stolen bases, RBIs, runs scored and slugging percentage.

The team that traded him to the New York Yankees on July 30 fell just short of winning the National League wild-card berth.

"That's a tough one," Abreu said Saturday after learning that the Phillies had been eliminated on the next-to-last day of the regular season.

"I know those guys; they play hard. They go for it every day. And for this to be the second time it happened in a row, to get this close, then get eliminated, it's tough."

In a perfect world, Abreu believed, both he and the Phillies would have advanced and - who knows? - restaged the 1950 World Series.

Since that won't happen, he gladly will live with the alternative - returning to the playoffs for the first time since his rookie season in 1997, when he went 0 for 3 for Houston in the National League division series.

"Yeah," he said with a smile, "when they made the trade, they told me it was an opportunity for me to be in the playoffs. So I will take it."

And Phillies fans? Learning that the player they couldn't win with proved to be the player they also could not win without just provided another slice of unappetizing reality to chew on.

Especially since the 32-year-old Abreu turned out to be the last multimillion-dollar piece of the puzzle for the Yankees. Call it overkill, but he was the addition the well-heeled American League team apparently thought it needed to secure a tie for the majors' best regular-season record. And it worked.

Yet from the day Abreu was swapped along with pitcher Cory Lidle for four minor-leaguers, the Phillies appeared more than capable of living with the consequences. After all, they too enjoyed a rebirth after general manager Pat Gillick's series of trade-deadline moves transformed the team into a younger, swifter, more defensively sound version of its former self.

But the Phillies turned out to be wanting at the plate and on the mound just often enough to miss the postseason by a hair. Again.

For some, the reasons for failure 80 miles south of New York likely will include the player who so pleased yet puzzled fans before leaving Philadelphia.

"But," cautioned Larry Bowa, ex-Phillies manager-turned-Yankees third-base coach, "Bobby is not the reason the Phillies don't win.

"I was there with him for four years, and we came in second place three of the four - and it sure wasn't Bobby Abreu's fault."

Where does the fault fall on Pattison Avenue?

You know Bowa has his theories.

"The season is 162 games, and you have to have an attitude - from day one of spring training till the end - an attitude that never goes away," he said. "You don't just wait until August and say it's time to click it in. And it happened to me, too, but there's no way that team should have been under .500 earlier in the year."

Phillies obituaries aside, Abreu obviously changed the Yankees for the better. The question is, did the Phillies' only 30-30 man and one of its most prolific home-run hitters (197) change, too?

"Not at all," Bowa contended. "And his making the postseason is great because of the perception of him that he doesn't care. He does care."

Without a doubt, Abreu excelled, hitting .330 in 209 at-bats in 58 games with the Bombers, with seven home runs, 37 runs scored and 42 RBIs.

"He's done everything; I mean he's fit in perfectly," Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter said. "He flat-out plays - can hit, can steal bases, has been playing good defense, has a strong arm that has been shutting down a lot of teams."

Pretty much like the blueprint Philadelphia originally saw in the veteran who wound up batting .277 with eight homers, 61 runs scored and 65 RBIs in his final 98 Phillies games. The player who left behind vocal fans among his former teammates.

"I wish him the best," said pitcher and longtime Abreu teammate Randy Wolf. "I am excited for him. I am happy about what he brought to that team. I like the way he's been taken in by the Yankees fans. He's done a great job. I hope he gets himself a ring."

Said Pat Burrell: "Good for him, man. Good for him. Ultimately, [the postseason] is what you play for. I know it was hard for him to leave here, but he got the opportunity to move on and he got into a situation where he had a chance to help that team."

Abreu perennially was asked to carry Phillies teams off the field as well as on; he just didn't have the kind of personality to convince people that he could. Again, Bowa said, that should not be an indictable offense.

"He just doesn't wear his emotions on his sleeve," Bowa said. "That doesn't mean he don't care. Mike Schmidt didn't wear his emotions on his sleeve, either. He cared."

Now it doesn't matter whether Philadelphia believes that or not. The languid Venezuelan with the ever-present, often-inscrutable Mona Lisa smile is about to enjoy the last laugh.

"I am right where I want to be, in the playoffs, and happy about it," said Abreu, his smile devoid of mystery at last.