Snowman On Fire

I find myself in a strange position this first week of October: There’s baseball on TV, and I am only counting the days until hockey coverage begins. In every fall since I’ve been able to carve out sports-watching time (read: after the great sleeplessness of having two toddlers), I’ve been able to cheer for some combination of New York hardball teams. This season was one to forget across the entire Tri-State area: this may be the first year I didn’t blog once about Major League Baseball until after the regular season reached its regular and final conclusion.

There were highlights: I completed my annual Willie Stargell pilgrimmage, enjoying Chicken on the Hill, sporting my Cooperstown Classic t-shirt with a large snowman on the back, watching the Pirates get demolished by Joe Torre’s Dodgers. I watched with interest as Will Venable started in a game for the Padres, joining fellow Princetonian Chris Young in the lower left hand corner of the nation. After those small flashes, though, there weren’t many other bright spots. Kind of a sad season for baseball around here.

But here’s a parting thought: anyone who blamed Joe Torre for the sad state of the New York Yankees should carefully check this week’s NLDS box scores. The Dodgers are doing more damage to the Cubs than a decade’s worth of Bartman incidents. Torre has a hodgepodge of slightly muted stars, cast off from other teams - Manny Ramirez, Juan Pierre, Nomar Garciaparra - and he’s made them into his team. So perhaps I am watching baseball, slyly, out of the corner of my eye, hoping that Joe Torre is vindicated for the wonderful years he poured his heart and soul into the Bronx.

It’s been a few days since Joe Torre’s implicit dismissal as the Yankee skipper, coming full circle with Joe Girardi’s filling the managerial jersey today. I’m still flabbergasted by this move: Torre was micro-managed from above (like he couldn’t figure out how to pitch Joba Chamberlain himself?), was given horrible resources to manage (his pitchers either sucked or were ancient or both, with the exception of Chamerblain), and had to deal with the media circus known as Alex Rodriguez. And he made the playoffs, again, as he did every single year he was in the Bronx. Normally I’m not a big LA fan, but go get’em Joe, and return some of that Dodger blue pride to the La-la-valley.

Then there’s A-Rod. The picture says it all — I snapped this one coming out of the Hynes/Convention Center “T” stop on the Green Line in Boston, halfway between the hub of the universe and Fenway Park, the true heliocentric point for the sun shining on Red Sox Nation. Why would the Sox want A-Rod? They actually won two World Series titles without him, and seeing how much Rodriguez failed to contribute in terms of baseball performance or on-field leadership, he’d only reverse the winning curve again. What on earth are A-Rod and Scott Boras thinking? That fans stop caring after the last regular season game? That someone who shelled out thousands of dollars on season tickets, and then doubled down for the playoffs, is going to think it’s fair that their signature player checks out for the postseason? The Yankees offered him more than he’s worth, which isn’t atypical, but somehow Boras thinks A-Rod can get more money for more years somewhere else. Loyalty, anyone? What difference will $3-5 million a year make for Rodriguez? Please don’t tell me it’s about the money, or providing for his future after baseball. It’s not about loyalty. Maybe it’s about where A-Rod thinks he can chase Barry Bonds’ record, and he’s shopping for a ballpark, not a team. That I could understand because it fits his public persona so well.

In the warped universe where I’m a baseball GM, here’s how I’d sign Rodriguez: give him a nice base above where the Yankees pitched, but with a negative performance option: Miss the playoffs, and he’ll forfeit the amount that would have been paid by season ticket holders for the divisional and league championship series home games. Get knocked out in the division series, and forgo the LCS home season ticket holder revenue. If you average out to 3.5 home games, $100 a ticket, and 15,000 season ticket holders, that’s $5.25 million a round. And that money would go directly back to the season ticket holders (if the team signed him it clearly had the cash to spare, all I’d be doing is redistributing it to the people who really lose when someone isn’t a team player.

Almost precisely 3 months ago I posited that Scott Gomez and Alex Rodriguez were increasingly alike.

Let me add to the list: neither one has shown up for big games in October. At least Gomez recorded three shots tonight (plus one miss, and one blocked, is it me or are the new NHL statistics not bad once you learn to decode them)? A-Rod is A-WOL for the Division Championship Series (let’s hear John Sterling make a big deal out of that one). That giant sucking sound you hear is the extra $7 million or so that Rodriguez thought he’d coax out of a team next year when he exercises his contract option. I think I’ve invented a new unit of measure: The Gomez, more specifically, $7M paid for non-performance when people are watching.

Some other random thoughts, two games into the season:

I like Kevin Weekes. He brings his A-game, a solid effort, and he has no fear. Goalies are always a few sigma off of normal anyway, but he has impressed.

The Islanders are 2-0, and the Sabres are 0-2 as a result. So much for the predictive power of the hockey press. Yes, it’s early, but c’mon. Shuffle off to Buffalo for some ugly practices this week.

The Capitals are better than anyone thinks, and the Rangers will miss Nylander as they realize why.

Mike Cammalleri is now in my top five favorite players. Three goals, same pace as Dany Heatly through week one. The Kings aren’t as bad as everyone thinks, and the Ducks might not be as good as everyone predicted.

First the strong words: Forget the comparisons to Bobby Holik. Scott Gomez is the next Alex Rodriguez, in the eyes of the fans, the league, the press, sports agents and possibly youth hockey players. Tough call? Absolutely, and not one I’ll make in publicly lightly, because as a person I still think Scott Gomez is mostly a good guy. Don’t ever confuse business success with personal and brand integrity. Gomez has assured himself of business success (financially); he’s still got his personal integrity (in terms of being approachable, kid-friendly, and an outstanding spokesman for hockey diversity); but he’s taking a brand hit. That’s the A-rod comparison.

Let’s go down the list one demographic at a time:

In the summer of 2007 it’s a parade of free agents who form a veritable Clustrmap of player movement. Continuity in rosters builds a fan base; it helps drive attendance and loyalties in kids who eventually pass those on to their kids. When the players that your kids adore take off, either their loyalties go to an out of market team or their interest in the home team declines. Neither is good for the long-term health of the league. Just because the salary cap forms a nice big allowance doesn’t mean owners have to spend the whole thing; spending less on players and then building a local fan base through local broadcast television rights, local cable coverage, or even community outreach like low-cost ticket distribution will ensure the “financial certainty” that figured so prominently in the lockout settlement. Paying players to jet set between teams only ensures that at some point, owners are going to scratch their heads trying to figure out how to de-cap-itate a long-term contract with a player who is nursing a sore groin for what seems like half a season.

Final A-Rod comparison: Mike Greenberg of ESPN Radio claims that A-Rod is going to escape from New York this year, setting up “the biggest free agency” in recent history. Ask the kids who follow baseball if they care. None of them want to be A-Rod, proving that maybe the Beatles were right: Money can’t buy you love. But it can buy you a pair of centers.

The New York papers are abuzz with rumors of Joe Torre’s imminent firing. I hope the reports of his coaching death are greatly exaggerated, because Torre was far from the one to blame for the Yankees’ post-season demise. He was handed a pitching staff that might have been young (as opposed to the Padres’ Chris Young, who looked spectacular) a decade ago, sporting Carl Pavano (who didn’t throw a single pitch in pinstripes this year) as its poster child. Matsui and Sheffield got hurt, and along comes Melky Cabrera. Who knew? Joe knew. Joe managed, and played the hand he was dealt, and played it well. If Steinbrenner is going to give him the equivalent of 7-2 offsuit hole cards in a game of hold’em, Joe knows how to play it.

On my way to the airport this morning, the sports talk radio was filled with “Ditch A-rod” and “Take Jeter’s captaincy” complaints. The engineers were hitting the dump button more than for the Howard Stern show, deleting invective laced with expletive. Everyone seems to think it’s Jeter’s problem that A-rod doesn’t feel loved, and if A-rod isn’t loved then he can’t play well.

Excuse me? A-rod gets paid in a year what most people make in ten careers. That’s love. That’s the fans love of the game translated into insane ticket prices and $7 beers and $9 sausages and $25 t-shirts to pay for Mr. “I want to be liked”. You want to be liked? Start with the fans, and the community, and your teammates. Don’t wait for people to come to you, go to the people. Do the work. Joe Torre is in front of the press, win or lose, every day, doing the work even when his team isn’t.

Young, exciting prospects sell tickets and jerseys too. And they are eager to build up some street cred, on the street, so they’ll engage with the community. Veterans who want to win with every fiber of their (able) bodies sell tickets. Ray Borque, anyone? Pudge Rodriguez?

The Yankees will retool, and there will be a long winter of discontent when everyone is a manager, coach, third baseman, and negotiator, and then it starts again in 22 weeks. For once, it would be nice if the Yankees opened up with a clear gap between the average age of the players and that of the year-round residents around training camp. I just hope Joe’s still there to point out the players.

Stick a fork in the Yankees. They’re doing their best Atlanta Braves imitation, consistently winning the division and then failing to advance in the post season. This season’s choke-fest, though, was spectacular: They went without a run for 20 consecutive innings. Want to call a turning point? How about A-rod failing to do anything - anything at all - with the bases loaded in Game 2, at home, in front of a crowd that so very much wants him to be a hero.

The Yankees need pitching. They need to get Sheffield out of the infield, and maybe to the golf course permanently. More than anything else, they need leadership. Not “Jeter, the captain,” but someone in the club house who will step up and be the consistent performer; the player willing to do the work every pitch of every game. No whining about tags. No whining about called strikes. Sacrifice flies when they’ll break a tie, personal attention discarded in favor of team contribution.

At the 2000 All-Star Game in Seattle, my son was wearing a Texas jersey with “Rodriguez” on the back. Not A-Rod, but Pudge. Pudge, who put in his time in Florida, and then went to Detroit where he did the work through a few miserable seasons. We got some jeers from Seattle locals still reeling from A-rod’s departure for a Texas-sized contract — our four-letter word of choice was Ivan, not Alex or something else thrown our way.

I ignored the economics talking until I had a chance encounter outside the player’s hotel with A-rod. He walked by, spotted the two of us in our baseball finery, and kept walking. No autographs. No effort to reach out, literally, to the fans. All about A-rod.

I’d wager that Steinbrenner pays part of A-rod’s contract in an effort to deal him elsewhere. You can’t put a price on disappointment.

Yesterday was one of those very cool days when things just seemed to go right. Unless you were wearing pinstripes in the Metrodome, in which case they went wrong at the wrong times.

We had our first Little League game yesterday, after losing a week to rain and school vacations. After opening up leads of 11-2 and 15-8, our opponents closed the gap to a few runs in the top of the 6th (and final) inning. Bases loaded, one out, and it was a 1-run game. We got a force at home, thanks to some smart fielding by our first baseman (10 years old) and catcher (recently turned 12). Next ball was rapped sharply back up the first base line, picked up and used to tag out the runner by the same first baseman, game over, final score 15-14. Snack bar treats enjoyed by all.

I wish A-Rod could have seen this, for two reasons. First of all, the sports media widely reported that A-Rod was particularly hard on himself after the Yankees blew last night’s game in the Twin Cities. I can’t fault him for wanting to win, but I can dislike his grimace at the plate. When he came to bat in the later innings of the game, he looked like he’d had a steady diet of pain and suffering for the past week. In the words of Willie Stargell, my original baseball hero, it’s supposed to be fun. Play ball, not work ball, right?

The second reason A-Rod needs to lighten up is that he’s a role model as a Yankees star player. Kids (most kids) look up to him, try to mimic him, want to be him. If he’s faulting himself for not being perfect, what does that say to the 10-year old pitcher who gave up six runs in a half-inning? Sports reveal our character, according to John Wooden, and we should make sure the character traits so exposed are those we want the next generation of ball players to emulate.

Here’s my advice to A-Rod: on your next off day in the Bronx, go watch a Little League game. Go check out the 10-12 year olds on the 60-foot diamond, the batters who hold up their right arms to the ump like Jeter or run their fingers through the infield between plays, dirt like Posada or Cairo. Tell them it’s perfectly acceptable to make mistakes, as long as you’re a team player and always exhibit good sportsmanship. And before anyone dismisses this as wishful thinking, let me point out that I’ve seen Patrik Elias on the little league field fences, watching a softball game, cheering politely while signing autographs and being a good role model. Sometimes it’s good to remember how and why we started playing sports.

Our kids mirror our behaviors, professional or amateur, big league or little league, on TV or in front of it.