If Gammons were one of the Seven Dwarves, he would definitely be Grumpy

Wondering, yet again, why I haven't posted in a long time? It's not because Gammons hasn't had anything ridiculous to say. Check out these recent blog headings:

10/24 - Phils, Rays bullpens different yet dynamic (Click here to learn more about how two different teams can have different bullpens that are both dynamic!)

10/17 - For one night, Fenway's ghosts haunt Rays (I thought it was some really terrible pitches to Drew and Ortiz and some bad defense by Gabe Gross - boy, am I stupid!)

10/14 - Red Sox believe they're not dead yet (I always thought a team that went down in a 3-1 series believed itself to be dead, even when said team overcame a 3-1 series deficit ONE FUCKING YEAR EARLIER)

10/14 - Rays better than originally thought (You think so, Doctor?)

I didn't cherry-pick these headlines; these are his last four columns. However, his latest one is, as Foist likes to say, "classic Gammons". You'll see why.

Weather turns Series into worst ever

Oh boy. We're not even past the title and already we have ridiculous hyperbole and negativity.

PHILADELPHIA -- Somewhere in the muck of Monday's episode of "The Perfect Storm Hits the World Series," the astute Julie Kicklighter texted, "the Trop doesn't look so bad right now."

Does Gammons know that a "perfect storm" is a metaphor for "any event where a combination of circumstances will aggravate a situation drastically" (sayeth Wikipedia)? Does he know that the phrase was selected as the number 1 most overused phrase in the English language last year? Maybe he's poking fun at people who overuse the figurative meaning of the phrase by using it literally. Nah.

So true. Almost forgiven is all the noise from the megaboard at Tropicana Field. What could have been a fascinating World Series played by two teams with engaging young players has turned into the worst ever, unless you like baseball sprinkled in with ab machine infomercials and a 46-hour half-inning break.

Hear that, Tropicana Field megaboard? Peter Gammons almost forgives you! Also, "...sprinkled in with ab machine infomercials" makes no sense. I'll address the 46-hour half-inning break in a bit.

If the Phillies were going to win,

How about "If the Phillies win"?

it is a shame that the feeling was iced.

Don't you hate those "iced feelings"?

For baseball, even perfect telecasts can't save ratings or the majesty of a dramatic World Series, which the sport hasn't had since 2002.

WHAT???? I want you, the reader, to read this sentence three times. I defy you not to be MORE confused every time you reread it. Where to begin? First, the introductory phrase "for baseball" is useless and confusing. Second, I'm not sure what a "perfect telecast" is, but it probably wouldn't include ab machine infomercials, so I guess he's not talking about this year. Third, and this always bothers me, NOBODY CARES ABOUT THE TV RATINGS OF A WORLD SERIES EXCEPT THE NETWORK BROADCASTING IT. Since people seem to love blasting Fox's broadcast (and, specifically, its broadcasters, though I don't mind them nearly as much as most), they should, if anything, pray for low ratings in the World Series. This way, Fox will decide not to carry the World Series in the future, and people can stop bitching about the network. Fourth, I don't know what the "majesty of a dramatic World Series" is. Fifth, the 2003 World Series would certainly qualify as exciting, featuring Josh Beckett shutting down the Yankees on short rest in Game 6. Granted, both of those teams were pretty detestable, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have, but it certainly didn't lack for drama.

Say the Rays were to come back and win it with James Shields and Matt Garza pitching in the Trop we miss, there will be a hanging chad feel to the championship.

Wrong. They will be thrilled that they came back from a 3-1 deficit. Yes, the Phillies got hosed (ha!) in Game 5, and they have a semi-legitimate beef in the way it was handled by Selig. Nevertheless, if the Rays come back, the "drama and majesty" that Gammons yearns for would probably come back as well, so what, exactly, is it that he wants? Also, that sentence is a run-on.

And as the winds and the rains and even the snowflakes rattled across Pennsylvania,

I can think of many verbs to describe the effect of bad weather. "Rattled" is not among them.

there was no chance they could move the bottom of the sixth inning to St. Pete, similar to what happened in the 1959 Junior World Series between Gene Mauch's Minneapolis Millers and Preston Gomez's Havana Sugar Kings. The first two games were played in Bloomington, Minn., on Sept. 27-28, but the weather turned so miserable that they moved the rest of the series to Havana, where the Cubans beat Carl Yastrzemski and the Millers in seven games.

What is the Junior World Series? Obviously something between Cuba and the US, but considering that I (and, likely, the vast majority of his readership) have no idea what he's babbling about, I don't think it would kill him to take a sentence to explain what the Junior World Series is.

For those who like domes, that was September.

Um, he was the one who almost absolved Tropicana. Also, what is his point? Here are the possibilities:

1. Bad weather affects the ability of players to play baseball.
2. It would not have been possible to move this game to Tampa's home field.
3. Not only was Gammons alive in 1959, he remembers something called the Junior World Series which took place then.
4. ???????

I'll take number 4.

And remember, folks, next year's World Series is going to be a week later.

Good golly. The World Series has, like, NEVER been that late before. (Note: untrue.)

What happened enabled those who blame Bud Selig for everything this side of global cooling to somehow blame the commissioner again,

Nobody, NOBODY, blames Selig for anything unrelated to baseball. People blame Bud Selig for things that Selig screws up. Such as, I don't know, not understanding weather forecasts and then blaming them for being inaccurate. Or supposedly discussing contingencies ahead of time and then not sharing them with the public until after the fact, casting suspicion on the notion that these contingencies were discussed at all.

but he maintained the game's integrity by insisting it will be concluded, one way or another; you can't end the Super Bowl with a college overtime or end the Stanley Cup Final with a shootout.

I agree that the game should not have been shortened by rain. However, this has little to do with the game's integrity, and the comparisons he draws to football and hockey fall short for a simple reason. Well, more than one reason, but we'll stick with the simple one. The rules for football and hockey specifically state that their games cannot end with college overtimes or shootouts. There is no baseball rule, yet, that says that a postseason game must go at least nine innings. That's why the announcers were saying, after Tampa finished the top of the fifth, that the game was now official; everybody was operating under the assumption that the rules that govern every other baseball game apply similarly to this game. You could even argue that the baseball commissioner suddenly changing the rules halfway through a baseball game contradicts the integrity of the game. That said, I agree that Selig really had no choice in this matter.

Credit Joe Maddon for praising the Philadelphia grounds crew, his hotel in Wilmington, Del., the Rays' traveling secretary and players on both teams for making the best of a grungy situation.

We have to praise Joe Maddon for praising other people? Wow, what a man!

When this World Series finally ends, there will be a great deal of discussion about how to avoid this sort of misery.

He's probably right, but there shouldn't be. As he points out above, bad weather can show up even in September. The World Series has been starting at the end of October since MLB incorporated a third round of playoffs in 1995, and this is the first time since then that a game had to get delayed or suspended.

The first will be to figure a way to shorten the schedule. Say the schedule was reduced from 162 to 148 games (records or no records; the Steroids Era made too many baseball records meaningless), then the division series and League Championship Series could be played between Sept. 20 and Oct. 6, with the World Series theoretically completed by mid-October. Granted, the loss of the seven home dates would hit teams' revenue streams, but they'll just have to adjust player salaries; CC Sabathia and Manny Ramirez might have to make ends meet on measly $20M salaries.

This is a terrible idea. First, it's amazing how bitter Gammons STILL is about the Steroid Era, for reasons we've already discussed. Second, Gammons knows every insider in baseball; does he actually think the players union will agree to shorten the season (and, probably, their salaries) by nearly 10%? Third, why effect such a radical change when the likelihood of bad weather is only slightly decreased? Fourth, this is a better idea then the next one he's about to propose.

In the mid-'90s, several owners went to a Miami Super Bowl and discussed the notion of having a 10-day World Series at a neutral site.

I cannot believe he's suggesting this. Football fans don't have a problem shelling out the cash to go to a Super Bowl at a neutral site because it's ONE DAY. How many average families are going to be like, "Let's go to Arizona for TEN DAYS to watch the Yankees"?

They'd have to get local fans to buy into destination and vacation packages.

Delete the word "into" and you're starting to get the idea.

There wouldn't be the feel in Anaheim, San Diego or Los Angeles that there is in New York, Chicago, St. Louis or Boston.

So he's freely admitting that not a lot of fans would make the trip to see their teams.

But then the Cardinals are the only team since the 2002 Angels to win in front of their home fans.

Utterly irrelevant. "Sure, fans of team X, you got to see your team play in the World Series. But you didn't see them clinch! Was it really worth it? Why don't we just move the Series to San Diego?"

It would be a hard sell, but the notion of a World Series week has some advantages.

It has ONE advantage. And lots of disadvantages.

May I suggest Punta Mita, Mexico? The Four Seasons would be a perfect headquarters hotel. Anguilla would work.

I really, really hope this is a joke. Not that it's funny.

The World Series is, after all, significant television programming, and the good folks at Fox would love predictability. It's better than the official first dud of the fall TV season, "The Perfect Storm Hits the World Series."

At the risk of sounding redundant, a "perfect storm" is...ah, screw it.

There are a lot of questions that will be weighed after this, the worst World Series in memory. The first? With plummeting television ratings and the collapse of the economy, will the free agent market continue to inflate, or will it cool the market? The impact of this World Series may last right through into January.

This question is full of grammatical holes ("will it cool the market?" makes no sense because "it" refers to...nothing). I thought he said the first question to be dealt with was how to avoid weather problems in future World Series. I also thought he said this was the worst World Series ever, not the worst World Series "in memory".

The bigger issue, however, is that these radical suggestions (moving the World Series to a neutral site, shortening the season by fourteen games) and the excessive negativity (the "perfect storm", worst World Series ever, etc.) all stem from one game that had to be suspended for two days. If Tampa comes back and wins the Series, most people will look back on it as a particularly exciting World Series interrupted by some crappy weather, not a World Series that should have been good but was ruined by a stinking rain delay. If Philly holds on and wins Game 5, then there's still more drama than there otherwise would have been if the game had been completed on Monday.

Instead of focusing on the positive aspects of the extra drama foisted (ha!) upon this series by Mother Nature, Gammons bitches about how things used to be better back in the days when the United States and Cuba got along and the World Series ended two weeks earlier. He claims that this is the worst World Series ever, seemingly forgetting that the 2007 Red Sox trounced the upstart Rockies in four games that weren't particularly close, or that a clearly inferior Cardinals team ran over a Detroit team that couldn't field the damn ball. This series has at least featured three close games, some good pitching performances, and even a walk-off win. More importantly, it's not over yet. I can think of a number of outcomes that would make this series objectively better than the last few (a walk-off homer by Philly to clinch the Series tonight, Tampa roaring back to take the Series in 7, Philly blowing games 5 and 6 and then rallying behind another brilliant Hamels start to win in 7, etc.) It's worth noting, by the way, that the last scenario I mentioned would only be possible thanks to the two-day rain delay, allowing Hamels to come back for a potential Game 7.

After reading this column and writing this entry, I'm still stuck with some unanswerable questions. Why is Gammons so grumpy about all this? Why is he weirdly sympathetic to Fox? Why is he proposing radical measures to counter one stinking rain delay? Why does he complain about the lack of drama in recent World Series, overlooking the potential drama that still exists in this one? Finally, why is he such a bad writer?

Breaking news from Buster Olney

To wit:

Relievers will ultimately decide Game 5

Good Lord.

Gammons Needs To Take Lessons From Peter King On How To Incorporate Dumb List Gimmicks Into His Columns

Say what you will about Herr Gammons, but at least he understands the game, you know? He's just so knowledgeable. There's never a time that you think to yourself, "Man, this Gammons just doesn't get it." Right?

Five things I don't quite get

Oh. Um. Never mind. What is it that you don't get?

1. Why there is so much made of who hits behind whom, when it's who hits in front that counts.

Well, that was a confusing sentence. I think he was so excited to use the word "whom" correctly that he sacrificed coherence to do it. Of course, coherence is so often a sacrifice with him that I'm not sure "whom" had anything to do with it. What he's trying to say is that the hitter who bats after a specific player is not as important as the hitter who bats before him. Now, let's see what "evidence" he brings to support this hypothesis:

Keep your bases-empty stats. The definition of a rally is someone on base.

This makes absolutely no sense. If somebody does well with the bases empty (i.e. gets on base a lot), wouldn't that lead to the "definition of a rally", according to Gammons? Also, if you had to boil down the definition of a rally to something even Gammons could understand, it would probably be "multiple people getting on base", in which case it wouldn't matter who bats in front of whom (ha!) because they would both seemingly need to get on base.

David Ortiz can't hit without Manny Ramirez? He has experience doing just that.

In Sept. 2007, Ramirez played in six games, and Ortiz led the majors with a 1.341 OPS for the month. Ramirez batted behind him in one game.

In Sept. 2006, Ramirez again played in six games, Ortiz was second in the American League in OPS at 1.146.

I love how he says "Ramirez again played in six games", when the "again" refers to something that happened a year later. That's like saying, "In 1996, Bill Clinton was elected president. In 1992, Clinton was again elected." Also, nice run-on sentence.

Then comes a handy-dandy chart showing that Ortiz's OPS is actually slightly better without Manny in the lineup. (The chart, handy-dandy though it may be, does not indicate whether the "without Manny" column refers to Manny not hitting behind Ortiz or to Manny not being in the lineup at all.)

In his Red Sox career, Ortiz's OPS with Ramirez hitting behind him is 1.000. With anyone else, it's .998.

(Minor quibble, but technically Ortiz's OPS did not have a Red Sox career; Ortiz had a Red Sox career.)

From the evidence Gammons brings (and also from what he doesn't say), I wouldn't conclude that the importance of a batting order lies in the batter who hits before a particular hitter, but rather that the importance of a batting order is generally overstated. I would conclude this because Gammons brings absolutely no evidence that Ortiz fares better or worse depending on who hits in front of him. All I can conclude from his arguments is that Ortiz is no worse without Manny in the lineup, which, granted, is a valid point, but does nothing to support his theory.

Moving on to the second thing Gammons doesn't get...

2. What's going on with the Dodgers' money? Greg Maddux would have liked to finish the season with the Dodgers, and the Dodgers wanted the Hall of Famer. But when Maddux cleared waivers this week and the Padres went to trade him, Los Angeles demanded that the Padres pay $2.5 million of the $3 million remaining on Maddux's contract this year, and would not offer a useable prospect. Now, the Dodgers got the Red Sox to pay all of Manny Ramirez's contract, and the Indians to pay all of Casey Blake's deal. When the Dodgers tried to get in on CC Sabathia, they wanted the Indians, who have the second-lowest payroll in the AL, to eat the majority of Sabathia's remaining contract. And when the Pirates talked to them about Jack Wilson, the Dodgers wanted the Pirates to eat most of Wilson's contract for 2008 and 2009.

Um, Peter? I think I get it. The Dodgers are cheap. Next?

3. Two National League scouts this week predicted the Marlins will end up winning the East for the same reason -- their young pitching. Ricky Nolasco is already one of the better young starters in the league at 11-6 after two years of arm problems, but the scouts see Josh Johnson -- a potential front-end guy --as well Chris Volstad and Anibal Sanchez. And it's not only in terms of their 5-2 record and raw stuff, but the fact that they are fresh for August, usually considered the month of the power arms. Johnson and Sanchez have but 83 innings between them -- counting their minor league stints -- and the 21-year-old Volstad is still under 120 innings.

So...what's the part Peter doesn't get? Seems like a well-reasoned argument, if full of typos and incomplete sentences ("but the scouts see Josh Johnson as well Chris Volstad and Anibal Sanchez").

4. The Mets did not put in a claim for Livan Hernandez because they believe John Maine will be back, and they're willing to try Jon Niese if necessary. They will try Eddie Kunz as closer until Billy Wagner gets back.

Can anyone not be happy for Fernando Tatis with his .893 OPS and nine homers in 62 games going into Wednesday night? He says he quit the game in 2004 "because my body and my mind were worn out by the turf in Montreal." Hey, he was once a 30-homer guy, and one of the nicest folks walking.

I guess Peter Gammons is so smart that he couldn't keep the "5 things I don't quite get" gimmick going after number 2. Also, #4 contains two separate points, one of which is an explanation as to why the Mets didn't claim Livan Hernandez. What a mystery! Maybe they didn't pick him up because HE'S LIVAN FUCKING HERNANDEZ.

Also, Tatis is one of the nicest folks walking, but he's an asshole compared to all the cripples in wheelchairs. That is one nice group of people.

5. One NL team's defensive statistics, scouting and ratings have John McDonald of the Blue Jays as the best defensive shortstop in the majors. No surprise. They have Boston's Jed Lowrie at No. 5 among the 62 ranked shortstops, even if his sample is small. Derek Jeter and Jose Reyes, who is still working out mechanical start issues, are in the 40s, among the 62 shortstops. Edgar Renteria and Jeff Keppinger are among the bottom 5.

5 things I don't get about the number 5 thing Gammons doesn't get:

1. What is the difference among "statistics, scouting, and ratings"? Aren't ratings a combination of scouting and stats?
2. Why am I not surprised that Gammons singles out the Red Sox shortstop who's been playing for a month?
3. Who is Jeff Keppinger?
4. What are "mechanical start issues"?
5. How many Yankee fans will take issue with Gammons suggesting that Jeter is ranked in the 40s among 62 shortstops?

There, see, Gammons? It's not that hard a gimmick to maintain.

"Buster" Is Spanish for "Glaring Inconsistencies"

Today's Buster Olney chat is a work of art. Well, to be more specific, it's a pile of shit. With apologies to the guys at FJM, who do a phenomenal job deconstructing Joe Morgan's weekly chats, I'd like to point out a couple of delightful items in Buster's chat. Before we get to the glaring inconsistencies, let's point to an excellent usage of a made-up word:

George Sherrill (Baltimore?): Hey Buster, where am I going to be August 1st? What should my O's expect in return?

Buster Olney: George: If I had to guess today (and that's all it is -- a guesstimate based on current conditions).

1. Milwaukee
2. Angels

Or 3. Orioles -- Baltimore just doesn't get an acceptable offer. But my guess is that the O's will deal him, because his value will never be higher than it is right now, and while Sherrill is pitching well and is a great, great story, nobody is going to forget that it wasn't long ago that he was an independent league pitcher; he does not have the pedigree of King Felix, as he would be the first to tell you.

Now, as any quasi-intelligent person would tell you, "guesstimate" is a word only an ignoramus would use. Whoever made it up thought she was being cute by combining the words "guess" and "estimate" into one super-word, but since an estimate is, by definition, a guess, there really is absolutely no difference between a "guesstimate" and a regular old "estimate". What makes this usage particularly delightful is that Olney is misusing the word even further by using it to refer to something that's not even an estimate. The only reasonable explanation is that Olney figured that since the words "guesstimate" and "estimate" are synonymous, then, by golly, so are "guesstimate" and "guess".

Eric (Appleton, WI): What are your current predictions on the playoff picture?

Buster Olney: Eric: They were so bad at the beginning of the season that anything I say now will have less than zero credibility, but hey, take them for what they're worth: Mets, Cubs, Brewers, D-Backs in the NL, Red Sox, Rays, White Sox and Angels in the AL.

I will give Buster credit for acknowledging that his preseason predictions were terrible, since some forecasters will just change their "predictions" every week based simply on what happened over the last week and make no reference to their earlier predictions (unless, of course, they happened to be correct). However, this blog is not about giving credit. Instead, I will just point out these aren't really "predictions", inasmuch as all of the teams he named are currently in playoff position. (Yes, I realize that the Dodgers are tied with Arizona and the Phillies with the Mets.) Now, remember these predictions.

Seymour, Brooklyn: Some of you "experts" never learn not to give up on the Yankees in the second half...

Buster Olney: Seymour: I picked them to win the division, so I'd hardly qualify as someone who has given up on them.

But, Buster, you picked them in your preseason predictions, which you yourself admitted were useless. And earlier in this chat, you picked the Red Sox and Rays to make the playoffs out of the AL East. In other words, you predicted the Yankees to succeed earlier in the season, then, asked to update your predictions, you predicted that the Yankees would not succeed. That, my friend, is the very definition of somebody who has given up on them.

This is What Happens When We Skip a Paragraph from Gammons' Column

We end up missing gems like this:

Two months ago, a general manager said we are watching the unfurling of two dramas we have never before seen in our lifetime, and may never see again.

I will bet you ten dollars that the general manager in question did not use the phrase "watching the unfurling of two dramas". I've alluded to this earlier, but I'm honestly curious how many quotes Gammons either rephrases or makes up entirely.

One is Rick Ankiel, who has played less than two years as a position player and is so good a center fielder and everyday player that he certainly could have been here for the All-Star Game, what with 20 homers, 50 RBIs, an .880 OPS and the defensive show he has put on in center field.

"One" what "is Rick Ankiel"? One drama? But Rick Ankiel isn't a drama. He had a drama, perhaps. But a person cannot simply be a drama. Unless you're Peter Gammons. Also, nice use of the horrible awkward and unnecessary phrase, "what with 20 homers..."

To overcome his pitching nightmare of the 2000 playoffs, then after six years to become a hitter, and then overcome a blown-out knee …

"To overcome"..."To become"..."Overcome" [cue Sesame Street music] Which of these things is not like the others?

… few players are better inspiration for the capacity to never back down or give up.

I swear, I copied and pasted this directly. Peter Gammons actually believes that a person can inspire a capacity. I...have no words.

Josh Hamilton Makes Grumpy Old Man Marginally Less Grumpy

I haven't posted here in a while, but I just reached a point that I reach every year at this time. It occurs about five minutes into the All-Star Game, when I suddenly remember that the All-Star Game is boring. And every year, I wonder how I forgot this.

But you know who isn't bored by the All-Star game and related festivities? Peter Gammons. In fact, they inspire him to bring his claptrap to a whole new level of inanity.

As you know if you read this blog, Peter Gammons is REALLY angry about the steroid scandal. Like, super duper PO'ed. It's not clear, though, whether he's angry about the fact that players actually took steroids, or that everyone found out, or, as we have theorized, that he didn't break the story himself years ago. His latest article only confuses the issue further.

Hamilton an inspiration in so many ways

That's Peter's headline. If you expect Peter to detail many different ways that Josh Hamilton is an inspiration, then, well, you haven't read much Peter Gammons.

One of the best things about baseball is that someone else comes along and
recreates being the hero.

This is actually a difficult article to pick apart, only because it is SO bad, SO far from being written in readable English (even for Gammons), that it's hard to pick out specific problems. Take this first sentence. "Someone else" besides whom? And what does "recreates being the hero" mean? I don't even know how to correct this phrase. It just isn't English. How do you recreate the state of being something? I know, only from reading the rest of the article, that what Gammons is trying to say here is that every so often, a new person comes along and saves the sport in a new way, or from a new problem, or something. This, to Peter, is "one of the best things about baseball." Makes me wonder if Peter really likes baseball all that much.

By the way, if Joe Buck calls that dark, dank, 1970s monstrosity that is Yankee Stadium a "jewel" one more time, I am pressing "mute."

Out of the embers of the Black Sox scandal came Babe Ruth. As a nation regrouped
between World War II and the Korean War, Jackie Robinson bravely changed the
face of sports and American society.

The metaphor in the first sentence is not that bad, by Gammons standards. But I included it because it highlights how little sense the second sentence makes. How did the nation regroup between World War II and the Korean War? Did the nation actually regroup from the Korean War in advance, before it even happened? Now, we can't really expect a sports writer like Gammons to be an astute scholar of U.S. history, but then why doesn't he just shut up about it? Because he's an arrogant old man that wins Peabodys, gosh darn it.

After the strike that canceled the 1994 World Series and led to the coldest
winter, along came Cal Ripken, the dignity and might of the Joe Torre/Derek
Jeter/Mariano Rivera Yankees, and then the summer of '98 with Mark McGwire and
Sammy Sosa. And when that entire era went to black and the waste depository of
the BALCO and aging clinics, Jose Canseco and gopher slimeballs reached the desk
of George Mitchell and millions wondered if they could ever trust the sport
again.

Okay, the metaphors are starting to get crappier with "the coldest winter." But we're still doing okay. Then... uh oh. The entire era "went to black." We've heard this phrase before -- it usually means, like when your TV goes black, that everything has become still and quiet. Is that what happened in baseball when the steroid scandal broke? Isn't it the exact opposite of what happened?

Next comes the dangling phrase "the waste depository of the BALCO and aging clinics." Where does this fit in the sentence? It's completely out of place. If we read it literally (always dangerous with Gammons), then Gammons is saying that the "era went to the waste depository of BALCO." That of course makes zero sense. But I have no alternatives. I'm lost. Adrift. Confused and sad. I need a hero to recreate stuff and cheer me up.

But let's forget about putting it all together. Let's just take this phrase and look at it by itself, as it dangles in the void, to see if it at least makes sense internally...
the waste depository of the BALCO and aging clinics ...
One sec... okay, no surprise, it doesn't. What is a "waste depository"? It sounds like what they would call a "dump" on a distant planet in a bad Star Trek episode. And the "waste depository of the BALCO and aging clinics"? What is an "aging clinic"? And is BALCO a clinic? Or is it called "the BALCO"? And do these clinics have waste depositories? Is that where they threw out the used needles? Okay, I have to move on, my brain hurts.

Why "reached the desk"? Just another bizarre metaphor choice. Awkward, awkward, awkward.

Finally, let's take the "substance" of this paragraph as a whole. Did you notice that Gammons has cited known steroid users Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa as "heroes" while, in the same breath, citing the Mitchell Report as a bleak crisis? How can he, and his editors (if they exist), miss the rank absurdity of this? This paragraph is only NOT contradictory if, as Joist and I have theorized, Gammons is not mad at actual steroid use at all, but at the people who broke the story (surprisingly, Gammons leaves his oft-uses slander "sewer rats" out of this particular article). Now, it all suddenly makes sense -- McGuire was a hero, because when asked by U.S. Congressmen whether he ever used steroids, he pled the fifth and kept his mouth shut. Mark McGuire, on the other hand, belongs in the "waste depository," because he ratted everyone out. Peter Gammons = Jimmy Conway from Goodfellas.

(Another quick note from the All-Star Game -- Yogi Berra just called Joe Buck "Jack." Buck looked a little flustered for a second, but didn't correct him. I don't mention this mockingly, it was actually kind of sweet.)

Every revelation about Roger Clemens' past and every "collusion" noise that
comes out of some parrot's beak has emphasized the need to move forward.

The metaphors are entering surrealist territory (did you notice I used a metaphor to describe the metaphors? good boy). Parrot's beak? I... don't even know what to say.

Also, Peter Gammons again uses language that conveys the exact opposite of what he wants to say. The claims of "collusion" don't "emphasize" the need to move forward; they do the exact opposite, according to Gammons! What Gammons means to say, of course, is that the prevalence of the Clemens and collusion stuff necessitates moving forward. We just want Gammons to say what he means, and to say it clearly. Is that too much to ask? ...Don't answer that.

That is why no team has signed Barry Bonds, who can still impact any
lineup -- owners and general managers understandably don't want to talk about
the past. They want to try to move on into an era with drug testing, in whatever
form the morphed sport takes.

What does it mean to say that drug testing will take whatever form the sport takes? How can drug testing and the sport take the same form? These are trick questions. That's not really what Gammons is saying at all. He just misplaced a modifying phrase.

By now, Hamilton's story of overcoming demons is two blocks from Hollywood. Oh,
it's easy to give it a Nancy Reagan "he made a choice" and so on and so on and
so on and so on, but the fact is that millions of people in this country get
addicted to drugs and ruin their lives.

Oh no, more metaphors. "Too blocks from Hollywood"? I have no flipping clue what that means. The next sentence is just flabbergasting. Why does he say "Nancy Reagan"? Is this a reference to something the first lady said in 1982 that I don't know about? And why does Gammons say "and so on" four times? Why oh why oh why oh why? Isn't that annoying?

Finally, how does the "fact" that millions get addicted to drugs make it less their fault? I'm not making the argument that it is their fault; unlike Gammons, I don't use my sports-themed blog to make hackneyed political points. But Gammons' opposition in this sentence makes no sense.

After that, the article starts talking about Hamilton's addiction and his efforts to help others, and that stuff is too serious to mock. Besides, that part is not as badly written, perhaps because Gammons is putting aside his tortured attempts at wit and satire to talk about something serious.

But then he gets back into Grump Mode and rambles back into incoherence:

Baseball is not about corporate boxes and extracting licensing pennies from poor
kids or taxpayer dollars donated to construct ballparks to help billionaires
make millions. It is about Babe Ruth changing the sports culture, Jackie
Robinson changing America and Cal Ripken changing lives.

Here Gammons also slips back into one of his annoying habits -- saying "it" is "about" stuff. Just vague, lousy writing.

And how on God's green earth is baseball "extracting licensing pennies from poor kids"? Don't they extract licensing fees from companies wanting to make money off of baseball's intellectual property? Where do the poor kids fit in? If people who run merchandizing companies can be referred to as "poor kids," than society has come very far indeed.

And I'll grant, arguendo, that Cal Ripken's streak was an impressive accomplishment, even though I never found it particularly exciting. But how did Cal Ripken showing up to a lot of games in a row change people's lives??? That is some wacky hyperbole.

Finally, that sentence is just grammatically a complete mess. But I'm getting tired, so I won't get into the details of that. Let's just finish this up...

Baseball has always been able to turn the page because of someone and
something always grew up out of the rubble, and Josh Hamilton began the process
of turning the page on Monday night.

This is one of those times where I wonder if Gammons isn't just getting a little senile and if perhaps we should just let him be. He clearly just lost track of this sentence in the middle. He wrote "because of someone," then forgot about the "of" and wrote, effectively, "because of something always grew up." This is also one of those times where Gammons just needed an editor to give it one lousy proofread.

Okay, let's skip to the last sentence:

We are reminded that baseball can help us remember what we stand for, not against, what we believe, not what we fear, and that while we learn from the past, what we all want is to open the door to the future.

And we come back to my original comment, that this article is so bad that there's nothing to correct. This sentence is just totally incoherent. It just contains a lot of cliches thrown together in one mess of a sentence. And lord knows what it all has to do with Josh Hamilton.

Okay, the All-Star game just got less boring again. Some jerk from the Team That Just Won't Go Away just tied the game up for the AL...

Maybe We Need To Start an "Edit Buster Olney" Blog

Today, my question isn't, "How stupid is Buster Olney?" but rather, "Which of these two headlines is dumber?"

7/7/08, the day after C.C. Sabathia was traded to the Brewers:

Count on Sabathia having an impact in the NL

7/8/08, the same day Rich Harden was traded to the Cubs:

Don't expect Cubs to answer CC trade

The first headline is the baseball equivalent of, "Count on the sun to rise tomorrow". The second is not only untrue, but was proven to be false less than 24 hours after the column was posted. I leave it to you to decide.

What Is This "Rulebook" Of Which You Speak?

From Buster Olney's blog, about an umpire who got nailed twice by foul tips in a game yesterday:

But he was OK to travel Wednesday evening; his crew's next series will be in Chicago this weekend. One of the medical personnel whom Welke spoke with mentioned to him that he seemed to be seeing more direct shots back into the umpire's mask in recent years, and Welke has a theory about that: As umpires have worked to adhere to the ball-strike standards imposed by the QuesTec technology, they have had to stand taller behind the catcher.

"You have to get as high as you can to see the ball on the outside," said Welke. The veteran umpire repeated that he was fine, though. "It's just part of the job," he said.

This is what makes me hate umpires (and, to a lesser extent, Buster Olney). Everybody together now: the strike zone is clearly defined in the rulebook, which predates Questec by, what, 120 years? The reason Questec was instituted was that umpires were notoriously creating their own strike zones - calling strikes on pitches a foot off the corner, calling belt-high pitches balls because they're "high", etc. Also, the strike zones varied widely from ump to ump; some were known as "pitchers' umps" because they'd extend the corners, and some had infamously tight strike zones that obviously favored the hitters.

(By the way, an increasingly frustrating subplot to this phenomenon was the blithe acceptance of it by announcers. "Oh, tonight's umpire has a very wide strike zone, so the hitters will really have to bear down and be prepared to swing at those outside pitches!" "Well, this umpire really hasn't been calling that pitch, but at least he's consistent." etc.)

Anyway, along came Questec with the desired result of - get ready - a uniform strike zone! Wow, what a novel concept! Of course, umpires and pitchers were both pissed about it; umpires because they actually had enforceable standards to which they now had to adhere (as opposed to freely interpreting the rulebook to fit what they personally feel should be a strike), and pitchers because the umps' subjective interpretations generally favored them.

This piece, however, takes the prize for "most moronic case against Questec." Welke is apparently blaming QuesTec for making him get into proper position to call the outside pitches. What was he doing before QuesTec, reclining in a lawn chair and guessing wildly where the ball was? "Well, fuck positioning myself to get a call right, I might get hit by a line drive!" Yes, obviously, some risk is involved in standing about 65 feet from a guy throwing 95 mph, but I'm pretty sure he knew about the risk when he signed up to be a professional umpire. In fact, he even acknowledges that he's aware of the risk, when he bravely admits, "It's just part of the job."

As stupid as Welke comes off in this, though, Olney's words might be even dumber. Let's reprise them:

As umpires have worked to adhere to the ball-strike standards imposed by the QuesTec technology, they have had to stand taller behind the catcher.

The key word there is, of course, "imposed". Again, QuesTec did not "impose" ball-strike standards; those have been around as long as baseball itself. It helped "enforce" the standards, or perhaps "strengthen" them. It's one thing for an umpire who, rightly or wrongly, feels like his authority is being challenged and his physical safety compromised by machines. It's quite another for a writer, with no vested interest whatsoever, to imply that MLB caused more umpire injuries by imposing "new" standards.

Ironically, We Have Fewer Posts About Peter Gammons, a Baseball Writer, During the Baseball Season

It's been, what, six weeks since our last post? Oh, well. Life goes on. Foist is moving soon, I'm lazy, and life goes on. Take heart, though. Gammons continues to befuddle. Observe:

After the title ("Harden Could Be Big Prize"), the first paragraph consists of two words, in bold and italics:

Rich Harden...

I'm not really sure what to make of this. It will be come clear later in the column, but only MUCH later, so in the meantime, let's just assume that Peter is harboring a strange heterosexual man-crush on him.

Indians general manager Mark Shapiro is doing the right thing, collecting due diligence should he decide that trading C.C. Sabathia will bring him more than two draft choices. Cleveland is in the process of thoroughly scouting eight organizations, from the Yankees to the Red Sox to the Cubs to the Dodgers.

Didn't believe me that Gammons continues to befuddle? Consider:

a. "Due diligence" cannot be "collected".
b. As much as he would like to, Shapiro does not get to "decide" whether trading Sabathia brings him more than two draft choices.
c. The last sentence should be six (or even five) words. Five points to the person who can figure out which six.
d. Connection to Rich Harden? Later? Okay, then.

Without Victor Martinez, Travis Hafner, Jake Westbrook, Adam Miller and a defined bullpen*, it may be impossible** for the Indians to seriously challenge*** in the American League Central. Shapiro has made it clear to other general managers that he is prepared to move sooner rather than later, which increases the value of Sabathia (who has a 2.21 ERA over his past eight starts) because if another team acts quickly, it could have the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner for an additional 4-6 starts.

*I feel like this problem is easily rectified.
bullpen –noun

1.	Baseball. a. a place where relief pitchers warm up during a game. b. the relief pitchers on a team.

There.

**If something "may be impossible", wouldn't that make it...possible? I think perhaps Peter should have stuck with "unlikely". I know he doesn't think it's actually impossible, considering we are not yet halfway through the season and it's not like there's a team in that division running away with it.

***The construction "seriously challenge" is retarded. Either they'll challenge for the title or they won't. Unless he's saying that it's only a "serious challenge" if they get within a certain distance of first place, say, three games, and anything more than that is, I suppose, a "lighthearted challenge" or a "half-assed challenge".

Alright, now we're two paragraphs, and aside from the weird opening words, still no mention of Harden. Obviously there's a connection here, since he and Sabathia are both good pitchers who may well be traded to a contender this year, but of course, we've seen Gammons make a habit of not tying his columns to their titles until he's well into his rambling. Naturally, by the time we get to this point, we have no idea what he's saying, which is why he of all people should probably stick with addressing the title as soon as possible. But, I digress. On with the nonsense.

It did not appear the Yankees would leap into the Sabathia market with a Phil Hughes or a multi-prospect package, but that may change if the right foot injury that Chien-Ming Wang suffered on Sunday afternoon turns out to be a multi-week problem.* Andy Pettitte and Mike Mussina are likely to be gone at the end of the season. Payroll will come tumbling off the books as they move into the Taj Mahal of ballparks** and even if they do not include Hughes, there are enough prospects from Ian Kennedy to Alan Horne (once a Cleveland draftee) to Austin Jackson to Mark Melancon to get a trade done. Shapiro is not going to get the package the Indians got for Bartolo Colon (Grady Sizemore, Brandon Phillips and Cliff Lee), but that was one of the most one-sided deals of the last decade.***

*This sentence's verb tenses are out of whack. "It did not appear that the Yankees would [trade for Sabathia]..." implies that this appearance was in the past, and presently they would consider it, but then in the second half, he says that "it may change if [Wang's injury] turns out to be a multi-week problem," implying that as of right now, the Yankees remain uninterested in dealing for Sabathia. From reading this, I have absolutely no idea whether the Yankees are considering it as of now. Nitpicky, yes, but the greatest baseball writer of his generation should be nitpicked, no? I hate to bring up the same analogy again, but if a young, budding sportswriter submitted this drivel, an editor would tear it to shreds.

**"Taj Mahal of ballparks"? Seriously?? What makes a stadium that HASN'T EVEN OPENED YET the Taj Mahal? This is the ol' ESPN Northeast Bias at its worst.

Also, re-reading it, the analogy doesn't even make sense. It's easy to compare ballparks, because there are thirty of them (not including ballparks that are defunct, minor-league, amateur, independent, etc.), and lots of information about each one is readily available . But what, exactly, is comparable to the Taj Mahal? How many palaces are there in the world? Do we know anything about them? I refuse to believe that the new Yankee Stadium will be so glorious and magnificent that no other ballpark can even compare. I know, I'm rambling, but this kind of retarded analogy, like much of Gammons' writing, makes sense for about six seconds, but I reread it and it makes less and less sense the more I read it. Am I the only one (besides Foist) who closely examines Gammons' writing and realizes that he makes no sense?

***There is a huge, gaping hole in this argument. Most of this paragraph is about next year's Yankees (the new ballpark, Pettitte and Mussina likely being gone, etc.), and how these aspects would lend themselves nicely to a Sabathia trade, but as everybody knows (and Gammons says), Sabathia will be a free agent at the end of THIS year. The missing link would seem to be that the Yankees would only trade for him if they can sign him to an extension, but it has already been reported that the Indians will not grant a potential trading partner an exclusive contract negotiating window. As we will soon see, however, this is not the most egregious case within this column of Gammons leaving an important piece of information out of a paragraph. Are you on the edge of your seat? Me, too.

[Paragraph listing other potential suitors for Sabathia. Still no word on Harden.]

Rich Harden …

Oh, here's where he must tie in Harden.

Sometime in the next month, Braves GM Frank Wren and Bobby Cox will decide whether or not they can stay within hailing distance of the Phillies, considering all their injuries. Wren plans to do similar due diligence to what Shapiro has initiated, and if the Braves are buried too far in the NL East, they will see if they can get more than they would with two draft picks*. Agent Scott Boras is not likely to do a trade and sign deal, unless the Angels were to decide they could DH Casey Kotchman each day and were willing to deal right-handed pitcher Nick Adenhart, as the Braves need to start retooling their arms.

So after another, apparently Tourette's Syndrome-induced outburst of Harden's name, we get a paragraph only superficially related to either the title or the previous paragraphs. Now we're talking about the Braves, and how they might also be in trouble. Where did this come from? But, more importantly...

*WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? "They will see if they can get more than they would with two draft picks." Is somebody on the Braves going to be a free agent? Why, in an article ostensibly based around Harden and Sabathia (again, hard to tell), is Gammons bringing up an anonymous free agent-to-be on the Braves and NOT naming him?? This makes me very angry. I refuse to look it up, because Gammons (presumably) already knows who he's talking about, so how hard would it be to stick his name in there?

After some consideration, I'd be willing to give Peter a pass on this one (if it weren't for his countless other sloppy mistakes). It's a pretty ridiculous mistake to make, considering that the name of the player in question is the key to the entire paragraph. The question is, where are the goddamn editors? If it weren't for a lack of spelling errors or more obvious grammatical flaws, I would posit that there is simply no way that anybody read this over before it was submitted. Given the unlikelihood of this scenario, however, I am utterly dumbfounded that somebody could have read this paragraph and approved it.

The Dodgers were encouraged by two Brad Penny outings and were talking about trying to deal him for a bat (the coaching staff suggested a deal for Robinson Cano), but the shoulder problems that troubled Penny after his superb April have cropped up*, and he is now likely unmoveable.**

*If the shoulder problems have been troubling Penny since the end of April, then how did they just "crop up"? I don't even know what he means here. Did the shoulder troubles get worse? Is he referring to the beginning of April when he says that the problems cropped up? Why on earth would he use the phrase "cropped up", anyway?

**Ha. One paragraph after I suggested that the lack of spelling errors renders the scenario that Gammons simply has no editors extremely unlikely, what does Peter do? That's right, misspells a word!

No one really* believes Junior Griffey is really* going to leave Cincinnati, and just what the Reds can get for Adam Dunn is unclear; even if Boston were to lose David Ortiz for the rest of the season, his lack of contact scares them** for a mid-lineup hitter***, and might instead look**** at a count worker like the Marlins' Josh Willingham, who is arbitration-eligible at the end of the season and can fill in at DH, first base, left field and even be an emergency catcher.***** Coco Crisp is hitting the way he did in Cleveland, and when he, J.D. Drew and Jacoby Ellsbury are in the same outfield, they have the best defense in the game.******

*Really?

**Another high-school grammar lesson: "Boston", although full of many people, is a singular city, and requires a singular pronoun.

***Earth to Peter: There are major league baseball teams besides the Red Sox, many of which could use an offensive machine such as Dunn. Also, the phrase "his lack of contact scares them for a mid-lineup hitter" is ass-backwards and I have no idea how to fix it because it sucks so bad.

****Following the rules of subject-verb agreement, I believe the noun for the predicate "might instead look" is...Adam Dunn's lack of contact! Well-played, sir.

*****Considering how many asterisks are in this sentence, it has to rank up there with the worst sentences Gammons has ever written. I didn't even mention the startling lack of parallelism in the list at the end. Well, until now.

******Rich Harden? Still AWOL.

The Cubs, who are serious about acquiring another starting pitcher, may not have enough to get Sabathia, have let the Padres know they're interested in Randy Wolf and Greg Maddux and even let it be known to the Mariners that if they want to discuss Erik Bedard, they want in. In time, if Toronto never gets hitting and keeps sitting near the bottom of the standings, the Jays may deal A.J. Burnett rather than allow him to opt out of his deal in November; if I were the Mets, I'd be trying to unload the system along with Carlos Beltran for Alex Rios and Burnett.*

This paragraph is all over the place. Cubs...Blue Jays...blah. This whole column is just a bunch of extremely loosely connected points about what players various teams might or might not trade or trade for. Seems to me like a much better option for Peter would be to just list all the teams he wants to discuss in bullet form and mention all the players each team might trade or trade for. This option would also eliminate the need for Peter to construct coherent sentences and paragraphs, which, if you've read this far, you already know is not his forte.

*Perhaps this is why Gammons is not a GM. He knows a lot about baseball, but this proposed deal seems way off. Why would they unload their reputedly loaded farm system and star outfielder (who, granted, isn't performing up to par) for a lesser outfielder and an injury-prone starting pitcher? For that matter, if the Mets are eager to rid themselves of Beltran, what would Toronto want with him?

Rich Harden …

Ok, a third time? Really? Tell me you're finally going to actually write about him. You will? Oh, thank goodness.

A call came in Sunday morning that said, "Billy Beane has the single most important piece to trade* to win the World Series. But the question is, how many songs do you let Slowhand play before a string breaks."**

*Should be "trade for", assuming that Gammons means that Beane isn't the one planning on winning the World Series by trading Harden.

**If it's a question, where's the question mark?

Also, Slowhand? Broken strings? Nice obscure musical reference. Thankfully, Gammons' bio informs us that he is a "gifted musician". Given how much his bio extols his writing, I will take this musical "gift" with several grains of salt, thank you.

Hello, Rich Harden.* Beane is right** -- Harden is the most dominant pitcher in the American League right now. Nine starts; the last time he had more than that was 2005. Seven quality starts. 11.31 strikeouts per nine innings. 53.1 innings pitched, 40 hits allowed. Has started against Boston twice, the Angels, Detroit and Atlanta once. He has a career 35-18 record, but he's had a career in which his starts have gone from 31 to 22 to nine to seven before 2008.

*Hi!

**Gammons didn't say who made the call that "came in" Sunday morning, but couldn't we logically assume it was not Beane, since the caller refers to him in the third person? Assuming that's true, it's not Beane who's right, it's the mysterious caller.

Actually, now that I think about it, how devious and Billy-Beane-like would it be for Beane to leak an "anonymous" phone call to the most famous baseball writer on the planet telling him that Harden is the best possible trade option for a team with World Series aspirations in order to raise Harden's stock? And how funny would it be if Gammons were in on the ruse and then accidentally ruined it by exposing his "anonymous" tipster the very next paragraph?

I was going to deconstruct this whole argument, using statistics and everything - Harden might be a slightly more attractive option for teams because he won't be a free agent like Sabathia would at the end of the year, but purely in terms of winning the World Series this year, I don't see how you could make the case that Harden's a better option than Sabathia, especially given Harden's fragility (which Gammons does mention later, but only at the end after lovingly floating his name a few times throughout his column). But if Gammons is in cahoots with Beane, that changes everything, doesn't it? Moneyball even mentioned instances when Beane would float rumors to Gammons in order to gauge interest/raise value/whatever. Hmmm...

Announcer Dumbness IV

This isn't a specific quote, but during the Yankees - White Sox game the Yankees announcers have been going on and on (and on) about starter Javier Vazquez and the fact that he "didn't make it in New York," like "so many other players" who just "couldn't cut it" there because of all the pressure bla bla. This relates nicely to Joist's most recent post about Gammons' latest claptrap. But even if you buy this "if you can make it here you can make it anywhere" stuff in general, it makes zero sense as applied to Vazquez. It's amazing how many people forget this (including Yankees fans, who tend to have severely selective memories), but Vazquez was actually excellent in the FIRST half of his one season on the Yankees, to the tune of a 3.56 ERA at the All-Star Break. Of course, he mysteriously took a tumble in the second half. Did he suddenly realize after the All Star Game, "Holy crap! This city is friggin' 'uge!" (to borrow Michael Kay's pronunciation)? No. Fact is we don't know what happened to him, but can we stop saying it was the "New York pressure"? Thank you.

Gammons Makes His Triumphant Return

For those of you wondering why we went nearly a month without a post, it's because this blog's namesake has done the same. His previous post was so full of meaningless drivel and ambiguities that I thought maybe some lowly intern at ESPN had read Foist's attack and finally pointed out to Gammons that maybe he should stick to TV or something. Of course, said intern would likely have been fired immediately, but maybe Gammons took his words to heart, took some time off, read our entire blog, and reevaluated the way he writes. Maybe, after a brief hiatus, Gammons has resolved to write informatively and with unique insight. Let's check the title, shall we?

It's very different in N.Y., Boston

Hmm...not looking good so far. Let's check the "Gammons Crappiness Checklist", shall we?

1. Poorly reasoned and/or obvious point?
2. Overly Boston/NY-centric?
3. Unnecessary Boston-specific references?
4. Unnecessary name-dropping?
5. Uninteresting ideas? And, of course...
6. Bad writing?

Let's run through some of the column and see where we stand.

The numbers are not pretty. Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy have started a combined seven games, pitched 30 1/3 innings and are 0-5. Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz have started seven games, and won two.

Alright, so far, so good. Those pitchers have been underachieving, and Gammons sums up this point nicely.

After two of Hughes' losses, there have been references to the Yankees' refusal to trade him for Johan Santana, and recently Hank Steinbrenner expressed his desire to move Joba Chamberlain out of the Yanks' bullpen and to rescue the rotation. In one Boston paper, there have been references to Santana in stories putting Lester and Buchholz in lives-in-the-balance mode ... before the Boston Marathon had even started.

Ugh...so much for that. We've got an incorrect verb tense ("have been" should be "were") as well as a couple of unnecessarily vague statements ("there have been references" instead of "Columnist X" or whoever, "one Boston paper" instead of "the Boston Globe" or whatever). And of course the gratuitous Boston reference at the end - who the fuck outside of Boston knows on what date the Boston Marathon falls? What does it have anything to do with the baseball season?

It's very different for Hughes, Kennedy, Lester and Bucholz than it was for Shawn Marcum and Dustin McGowan as they were allowed to develop in peace in Toronto, or the way the White Sox have slid John Danks and Gavin Floyd into their rotation.

Firstly, didn't Gammons himself point out that the Boston Marathon hasn't occurred yet? Whenever that is? He's already concluding that those young guys won't do as well as Danks and Floyd, who were universally projected to suck this year? This sentence is also a grammatical mess, but I need not get into that. Also, the last clause about Danks and Floyd sounds like something out of a Danielle Steele novel.

Secondly, is the pressure really THAT much worse? The White Sox and Blue Jays (at least in their own eyes) are contenders, so it's not as though they would stand idly by if their young starters struggled for extended periods of time. I'm sure Danks, Floyd, McGowan, and Marcum are also feeling "pressure", to, like, perform or something.

Finally, the "Boston/NY players feel more pressure" argument has always struck me as shallow. I'd like to see a study showing that an inordinately high number of young players struggle in those cities. Seems like for every Ian Kennedy, there's a Joba Chamberlain, and for every Clay Bucholz, there's a Jacoby Ellsbury. Wouldn't it be more reasonable to conclude that young players often struggle when they first get to the majors, whether they happen to play in the Northeast or not?

"It is totally different for those four kids, who are dealing with inordinate pressure," says one GM. "It's really tough. All four should be good major league pitchers; Hughes, Lester and Buchholz should all be top-of-the-rotation starters. But there will be growing pains. But any of them that survive this should be really good."

I think Gammons interviewed himself pretending to be a GM for this quote. Two consecutive sentences starting with "but"? And what exactly is the "this" that they are "surviving"? When is the pressure period over for young players?

Hughes, living with Santana above his locker, had to start in Fenway Park on a Sunday night game televised on ESPN. Buchholz has already had two starts against the Yankees.

I just got this hilarious picture of Phil Hughes and Johan Santana huddled together in the crawl space above the locker room at Yankee Stadium. "Hey, Johan, how about you use some of that $150 million and go get yourself a 2-bedroom apartment in Queens?"

The next section of his column deals with some notable pitchers' declining velocities (Ted Lilly, Barry Zito, Justin Verlander, Jensen Lewis, and Clay Bucholz). It's long and boring and full of half-assed explanations, but two particularly amusing parts stood out to me:

1. Gammons mentions Bucholz as one of those whose velocity was noticeably lower, but doesn't mention this as a possible reason for his early-season struggles, which he talked about in the first section. Maybe he thinks his struggles are consequent of his diminished velocity, which in turn is a result of the rabid Boston media.

2. This explanation:

One general manager suggests that modern spring training is a reason for the lax early season velocities.

"We've made spring training so long [this year's report date was Feb. 14], and it's really become one long stretch where too many players get bored, especially the pitchers," the GM said. "Nowadays, you seldom see the best pitchers out there having to compete. They throw in minor league B games, or simulated games, and really never tune it up against good major league hitters until the season starts. Maybe we need to shorten spring training, but get our pitchers working in real games competing against the best hitters."

Gammons spent the entire article talking specifically about this year's pitchers who have velocity problems. Now apparently it's a result of the entire era, which would seem to indicate that this early-season diminished-velocity issue has been around for a long time. Which is it? Gammons helpfully explains this apparent contradiction as follows:

...

Oh, wait, he doesn't.

Before we go, let's briefly consult the Gammons Crappiness Checklist:

1. Poorly reasoned and/or obvious point? Check. It's actually both; the whole "lots of pressure in New York" angle is terribly overplayed (and therefore "obvious") and Gammons brings nothing other than ancillary facts to support it.
2. Overly Boston/NY-centric? Check. Obviously, it's the point of the entire article.
3. Unnecessary Boston-specific references? Check. In case you were wondering, the Boston Marathon is run every year on Patriot's Day, a holiday occurring on the third Monday in April that is only really celebrated in Boston even though it's not related to the New England Patriots. Not that I'm one to talk - in my city (Los Angeles) "Cesar Chavez Day" is observed on March 31.
4. Unnecessary name-dropping? Check. Among the brief bullet points he writes at the end is a tidbit about Alex Rodriguez's workout routine, an aspect of which Gammons quotes A-Rod as having learned from Ichiro. So Gammons name-drops A-Rod, who is quoted name-dropping somebody else! Nice.
5. Uninteresting ideas? Check. The whole "young pitchers struggle" thing has been done ad infinitum and Gammons brings nothing new to the table. I will give him points for the discussion of pitchers' velocity, since that was something I didn't realize was a league-wide issue.
6. Bad writing? Check. Ambiguous pronouns, vague references, wrong verb tenses - it's all there!

In conclusion: Welcome back, Peter!

Well-Known Error About Error Persists

An article on a teary-eyed Bill Buckner throwing out the first pitch at the Red Sox home opener included this stock narrative:

In the 10th inning of Game 6, with Boston one out away from its first world
title since 1918, a Mookie Wilson ground ball up the first base line rolled
between Buckner's legs, allowing Ray Knight to score from third and allow [sic] the
Mets to tie the series at 3 games apiece. The Mets went on to win Game 7 and the
series. Buckner, who played part of the 1987 season before being released,
played 22 games for Boston in 1990 before retiring.

The clause "with Boston one out away from its first world title since 1918" is, of course, inaccurate. Boston was in fact only one out away from taking the game to the 11th inning, as the Mets had already tied the game. Bizarrely, this inaccuracy persists, even in reputable news sources, even though one so frequently hears pundits and fans commenting on how prevalent the error is.

Announcer Dumbness III

Darrin Jackson, in the ninth inning of today's White Sox-Tigers game, after some Bobby Jenks chin music sailed over the catcher's head and narrowly missed the umpire, who somehow resisted the urge to get the hell out of the way:

"The umpire...did not flinch, that was pretty impressive. Didn't blink, didn't do anything."

Darrin Jackson: mediocre color commentator, and Guy Who Can See Through Umpires' Masks.

Will Blog For Currency

Peter Gammons has some predictions to make, but first he's going to undermine the entire exercise... I think.

Predictions have no currency; they are non-fiction, radio-TV shock-jock stuff.

Huh? I mean.... huh? I think Peter means to say that predictions are flashy and an easy way to get attention, but lack substance. I say this because two of the four descriptions in this opening sentence (specifically, the last two) are consistent with this idea, which is also a reasonably true one.
But... "have no currency"? If he means that they are not current or prevalent, he is certainly wrong, as at this time of year predictions are flying around like unsubstantiated allegations in a Jose Canceco book (that one was for you, Peter). I guess he could mean that any particular prediction has no currency, in the sense that it will never become the prevalent prediction among all prognosticators; everyone will always have their own "hunch." Maybe. That's my hunch (it has no currency).

Far more baffling is "non-fiction." Isn't he disparaging predictions here? I have absolutely no idea, not even a guess, as to why he says predictions are non-fiction.

Joist would definitely quote the 2nd sentence, as it lacks proper parallel structure, but I'm bored with that parallel crap, I'm moving on to the 3rd sentence:

The Red Sox may be the favorites to win the World Series for the third time in
five years (the house postgame show Tuesday opened with "Red Sox Nation's dreams
of a 162-0 season are still alive"), but if anything happens to Josh Beckett or
Jason Varitek, they, as Dylan once said, ain't goin' nowhere.

First, I thought in those parenthesis he would verify that, indeed, they are the favorites. Instead, he quotes an overused joke. Being the guy that says "we're going 162-0!" after a win on opening day is like being the guy in a sauna that says "it's like a sauna in here!" Lame. More importantly here, do you really mean Beckett or Varitek? I understand Beckett, but... Varitek?? Varitek is still a decent player. He has a .788 OPS last year, which is pretty good for a catcher. But he threw out only 24% of runners last year (putting him in the bottom half of baseball), is on the downside of his career, and is on a team full of megastars. But I suppose I haven't factored in his contributions as "Captain." But can't he perform his Captain-ly duties from the bench? I mean, you strain your quads, and then you can't be Captain anymore?

Then Gammons puts on a sarcasm clinic. A clinic, I tell you:

Yeah, we all knew that Fausto Carmona would go from 1-10 to fourth in the Cy
Young balloting; that Dustin Pedroia would hit .182 in April and, with the heart
of a world champion, end up as the AL Rookie of the Year; that the top three
closers in terms of saves would be Joe Borowski, Jose Valverde and Francisco
Cordero; or that three players who started the season in the minors -- Ryan
Braun, Hunter Pence, Kyle Kendrick -- would all end up in the top five in the
National League Rookie of the Year balloting.

Yes, Fauto and Pedroia were surprises. The closers were less surprising, as Valverde and Cordero at least had been plenty good before last year. But how in the world is it surprising that the ROOKIE of the Year would start the year in the minors? You do not need to play a full season to qualify, and it's a contest specifically for players who were oh-so-recently in the minors (or, perhaps, in Japan). These were all very highly regarded prospects on the verge of a call-up. Of course, I would not go so far as to say their finishes were easy to predict, but they're not shocking, and they're certianly not shocking because they were in the minors on April 1.

Gammons then lists the contenders in each division, thankfully NOT listing them in pairs. It's acutally a reasonable list... dare I say, it has currency?

Then we finally arrive at his season-end predictions, which of course he himself has admitted are silly. But let's go back to that second sentence that I skipped:

One can spend six weeks roaming spring training and believe that the Braves
and Red Sox may well be the best teams in their leagues, but we all know
what happens if John Smoltz, Mike Hampton and Chipper Jones get hurt.

I skipped it also because it seemed a reasonable point; the Braves have some old, gimpy players -- especially on the pitching staff -- who are likely to get hurt and miss serious time. Heck, Mike Hampton is virtually guaranteed NOT to pitch (and, indeed, is already on the DL). But think about this: even with those old farts in the lineup, are the Braves even close to the "best team in their league"? Why? Their lineup is decent, but it's probably the THIRD-best lineup in the division, and their pitching could only kindly be described as mediocre, with the strong potential to be far worse than that. What about "roaming spring training" made Peter Gammons believe the Braves are so great? This would be the one interesting thing for Gammons to explain in this column. Fat chance.

But Gammons qualifies this surprising and unjustified assessment with the salient fact that the team is likely to experience some injuries. Fine. But then, still without explanation, he picks the Braves to play in the World Series. Just a total lack of currency. Slated to finish dead last in the league in "currency," Gammons is.

Then he has some other "prognostications," sneaking in a few more bizarre Gammonisms along the way:

Manny Ramirez, Red Sox. Just watch him run. The winter at Athletes' Performance
Center in Tempe, Ariz., changed him physically and mentally, and it doesn't hurt
to have David Ortiz in his tandem.

Yes, Gammons is, as always, absurdly optimistic, Manny is old and will not really get healthier, et cetera. But David Ortiz is "in his tandem"? Is this an actual phrase? Do Manny and Papi ride around together in a tandem bicycle? That must be one strong-ass bike.

Alex Rodriguez, Yankees. Sulk, Jose, sulk. A-Rod's going to Cooperstown, and
you're going into a wax museum.

Gammons spent much of his offseason spewing venom at A-Rod, to an almost slanderous degree. Could it be that Gammons actually hates Canceco even more than that? I shudder to think such hatred exists in this world. And right here on one of our most treasured sports websites.

What he is is the best catcher in the game, the Dodgers' leader, and an intense
offensive machine who can hit .330 with a .900 OPS.

"What he is is"? Gammons, are you three?

3. Derek Lee, Cubs: Best lineup he's had to hit in.

Lee: Aww, coach, do I have to hit in that lineup? FINE. (pouts.)

1. Justin Verlander, Tigers. He may be in the running every year, but in 2008
13.7 runs of support per start may win 25 games.

13.7 runs?? Is that a joke? It actually might be; Gammons is humor-challenged, so it's hard to tell.

2. Josh Beckett, Red Sox. One man for one game.

I have no idea what he's talking about. Sounds momentous though.

2. Carlos Zambrano, Cubs. Freed from contract concerns, he can be a franchise
starter.

Don't you love how in Baseball Pundit Land, being in a contract year can make you play better (because you're motivated) or worse (because you're distracted) depending on, you know, what happens? I wonder if Gammons knows what "spurious" means...

3. Johan Santana, Mets. Dealing with expectations easier with Pedro Martinez at
his side.

This is just so severe and infantile a grammatical error that I will not bother pointing it out explicitly. It's beneath this (stupid) blog (that nobody reads). I will leave it to you, (imaginary) reader who is older than three, to figure it out.

3. Delmon Young, Twins. The plate discipline will come because he wants to be
great.

I want to be great. Where's mine?
Then, after NOT including James Loney on the list of breakouts because "he broke out last season":

9. Corey Hart, Brewers. As if an .892 OPS, 24 homers, 23 steals and 66
extra-base hits didn't constitute a breakout.

As if an .892 OPS, 24... oh. Um, exactly. Isn't it nice when Gammons fisks himself?