The price of success

Here's a question: Did it matter that the Rockies had eight days off before facing the Red Sox in the World Series? Did it matter a little, a lot or not at all? Oh sure, the Rockies players will say that the vacation in between the NLCS and the World Series didn't matter because they got beat by a better team, but that doesn't really answer the question, does it?

Did it make a bit of difference?

Rockies' manager Clint Hurdle told the Fox sideline boy after his team was broomed out of the World Series that there was no way to quantify how an eight-day layoff affected his team and kind of threw aside the question in order to give the Red Sox credit for winning the series.

But Hurdle did not say that the layoff didn't have an effect on his team. Why not? Because it did.

Since Cactus League games began during the end of February, the Rockies played nearly every day. In fact, the Rockies, like every other Major League team played 162 regular-season games in 180 days, plus a wild-card playoff the day after the season, plus three games of the NLDS against the Phillies with just two days off, plus four games of the NLCS with just one day off.

That's 170 games and the longest break some of the players on the team got was the three days for the All-Star Break. Though three days doesn't seem like much to some, that break is like an oasis in the middle of a desert to guys who are used to going to work every single day of the week. And it's not just baseball either. Research shows that runners and endurance athletes start to lose some fitness in as little as 48 hours of inactivity.

Some rest is good to help the body recover, but imagine taking eight days off after playing every game for a month as if it were do-or-die only to be given eight days off before being told to go out there to play in the biggest set of games in your life.

Good luck.

Worse it's kind of rude... the Rockies got all worked up and became the biggest story in baseball by winning 21 of 22 games. But then, because the Indians nor Red Sox could figure things out, Hurdle and the guys were left to wait. It was like... vasocongestion. Yeah, that's what it was. After a heroic and historic run, the Rockies could never shake the lingering sensation of heaviness, aching, or discomfort when the Series finally came around like an old man trying to figure out what to order in a deli.

It just wasn't fair.

With the aid of hindsight, there's no question that the Rockies this season and the Tigers in 2006 were penalized for doing their jobs too efficiently. I'm not saying the Tigers or the Rockies would have beaten the Cardinals or the Red Sox to win the World Series, but the fact that both clubs breezed through their respective league playoffs so easily proved to be a determent while the winners of the last two World Series were aided by playing seven-game series in the league championships.

The Tigers in '06 and the Rockies in '07 were penalized for being too successful.

How can this be fixed? Is there anything Bud Selig and his gang can do to make it so teams that win with ease can have a fair shot in the World Series? I don't know. It seems as if the baseball playoffs are full of imperfections and everyone seems to appreciate the quirkiness for it. In other words, the Rockies and Tigers just have to take their beatings and enjoy them.

But how about this:

In the instance where a team like the Rockies and Tigers rip through the league championship only to wait a week or more for their future opponent to take care of business, allow the team that's waiting for it all to be sorted out to get home-field advantage in the World Series. I don't know if it will solve anything, but it's better than giving the home-field advantage to the league that wins a meaningless, midseason exhibition that features players that will be at a Sandals resort when the playoffs roll around.

No, having the last at-bat in the first two games of the Series won't be significant - after all, it didn't help the Tigers too much last year - but at least it's a gesture or a reward. It might not be much, but if a team has to sit around like the rest of us and listen to those dudes from Fox, they ought to get something out of it.

*** The latest issue of The New Yorker features a very riveting story on Scott Boras and Alex Rodriguez. It's written by Ben McGrath and is another sprawling, erudite pieces that the magazine always seems to run, but it's definitely worth the time and effort.

The Extortionist: Scott Boras, the Yankees' bête noire, has changed baseball forever.

Meanwhile, ESPN's Peter Gammons calls out Boras and A-Rod for the timing of the announcement that they had chosen to opt out of the deal with the Yankees:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVS04n3Q3mI&rel=1]

Stop yelling at me!

Who is Dane Cook and why is he yelling at me on my TV? And why does he sound like he has a mouthful of chestnuts? And why does it look like he spends four hours making his hair look so meticulously messy? Worse, why is MLB using Dane Cook to sell me on baseball? I’m already watching and because the games start so late, I’m also ready to fall asleep. Putting that loud, chestnut-eating guy on between innings to yell at me about how exciting baseball is is really, really annoying.

But give MLB credit for one thing – it made me want to (kind of) find out who Dane Cook is. Apparently he’s a comic. Perhaps he’s even a comic with no material that has swiped jokes from Emo Philips, Joe Rogan and Demetri Martin. But more than that he is a humorless comedian, which is worse than being a trickless magician. David Blaine is a trickless magician, as was pointed out by the adroit Chris Rock. This is an odd thing because, as Jerry Seinfeld once observed, magicians base their entire act on making YOU look stupid.

”Hey, here’s a quarter… now it’s gone and you’re a jerk!”

Who wants to be subjected to that? Worse, who wants to see a guy just sitting in a box for a month? He's just sitting there, in a box, in public. That's magic? What’s the big deal with that? People do it all the time, but they don’t call it a box – they call it a couch and they’re smart enough to put it in front of a TV. Sometimes people sit in their "box" so long that they actually feel their ass grow.

Top that, David Blaine!

Note: Here’s an idea for a David Blaine’s next trick – sit through Dane Cook’s HBO show. Afterwards, if he chooses, he can hammer six nails into his skull.

So not only is David Blaine trickless, he isn’t even original… which is kind of like Dane Cook.

Anyway, I suppose MLB hired Dane Cook to yell at me because of marketing and demographics and all of that stuff. The thought, I suppose, is that someone like Dane Cook blathering on about baseball with his messy hair on the TV will make younger folks in the key demographic to watch baseball games on Fox or TBS. I wish there was more to it than that, but that’s probably the depth of all of it.

But here’s where it doesn’t work:

Baseball, to that demographic, probably isn’t cool and even a shouting Dane Cook isn’t making it any cooler. Baseball, sadly, is what it is. Making it look "cool" is a lot like putting lipstick on a pig -- sure, lipstick makes ladies look pretty, but if a pig wears makeup, it's just a pig with hues that don't match its skin color or "season."

And no one wants to see that.

But if I worked for MLB and they asked me what idea I had in order to pander to the kids of the demographic they want Dane Cook to speak to, do want to know what I’d do?

Well, I’m going to tell you anyway…

Here’s the idea – I’d schedule the games for times where kids could watch them. That means Game 4 of the NLCS (an elimination game) would not start at 10 p.m. Eastern time. Why not? Because even people who don’t figure into the demographic (like me), but still want to watch the game, end up falling asleep on the couch during the fifth inning. When we come to after rolling off the couch and onto the floor with spittle attached to our cheeks, there he is – Dane Cook – shouting at us.

It’s not nice.

Yes, I know there are different time zones and just because something starts at 10 on the east means that it’s 8 in Denver. But you know what? Those kids have school the next day and they are going to fall asleep during the middle innings, too. Like the rest of us, they will get yelled at and, but then they will go off to bed where they will have nightmares about a sloppy, walnut-eating freak screaming at them about Troy Tulowitzki.

In other words, not even rumpled Dane Cook and his mouth full of walnuts is going to make us stay up late to watch baseball, and that’s too bad.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7lDaNhR4K4]

Sorry, that wasn’t funny either.

What also isn’t funny is that baseball fans aren’t getting the chance to watch the Colorado Rockies win every single game they play. For the past month (Sept. 15), the Rockies have played 22 games and they have won 21 times. What’s more incredible is that the Rockies finished the regular season by winning 14 of 15 games, and if they had won just 13 of 15 games, they would not be in the playoffs. Thirteen of 15 is pretty darned good, but it wouldn’t have been good enough to get the Rockies into the playoffs.

Now, though, they’re in the World Series. Apparently Matt Holliday clubbed a three-run home run to help the Rockies sweep the Diamondbacks. At least that’s what the box score indicates… I missed it. I was asleep on the couch all worn out after being yelled at by a better demographic.

The Rockies win again... ho-hum

Last night’s plan was to get everyone in the house to bed, finish up some work on my laptop, and then relax in front of the couch to watch Ubaldo Jimenez pitch for the Rockies in Game 2 of the NLCS against the Arizona Diamondbacks. The kid throws hard, and everybody talks about his stuff, but sometimes you don’t get to see the finer details when you are in the press box for a game. Though Ubaldo pitched against the Phillies twice in the past month and I was there to write about it, I didn’t get the chance to appreciate it. Hey, this is what constitutes as a wild Friday night these days.

Anyway, though I did get a chance to watch most of Ubaldo’s five-inning stint (5 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 4 BB, 6 K – 94 pitches, 50 strikes), that was about all I saw. Ubaldo finished up at about 12:30 a.m. EST. By that point I was fighting to stay awake – as I mentioned, it was a wild Friday night – and since the Rockies had a one-run lead, I figured that was enough. So I went to bed.

As I’m reading now, the game went on for another two hours when Manny Corpas and his shirtball couldn’t hold the lead in the ninth. In the 11th that wily Willy Tavarez – the guy who challenged Ryan Howard for the Rookie of the Year Award in 2005, drew a bases-loaded walk to send in the winning run.

That’s right: a bases-loaded walk in the 11th gives the Rockies the winning run…

But that was after Tavarez (apparently… I didn’t see it) made a diving catch in the seventh inning to rob Tony Clark of a game-breaking hit.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The Rockies will not lose again for the rest of the year. What are they up to now? Nineteen of the last 20? And last night they did it will one extra-base hit in an 11-inning game with a 23-year old rookie on the mound?

Admit it, you didn’t have the Rockies vs. Indians in the World Series when the season began, did you? How about Rockies vs. Red Sox?

*** Speaking of the Red Sox, the erstwhile Paul Hagen had an interesting tidbit in today’s Daily News in which Curt Schilling admitted that he wouldn’t mind pitching for the Phillies in 2008 IF (and it’s a big IF) the Red Sox did not want him back.

My guess is that Schilling will return to the Red Sox for 2008. I’m not basing that on anything, but if a dude helps pitch a team to the World Series twice in four years, bringing him back for one year to sail off into the sunset is kind of the sporting thing to do.

Then again, it appears as if both the Phillies and Schilling are giving the matter serious thought. Plus, the big-mouthed righty has “reinvented” his repertoire by fine-tuning his changeup and off-speed pitches. Could that fact save some wear-and-tear and give Schilling, 40, a couple more years?

Could he be the loud yin to Jamie Moyer’s thoughtful yang in the Phillies rotation?

Maybe.

*** Meanwhile, it appears as if Jimy Williams might be looking for a gig elsewhere. According to Todd Cougar Zolecki of the Inquirer, the Phillies have reached an agreement with all of the members of the 2007 coaching staff except for Williams.

The team also will not renew conditioning coordinator Scott Hoffman's contract. Hoffman was the guy who led the team through its pre-batting practice stretching routine. He was also the most ignored man affiliated with the team.

Later: The Chicago Marathon and the trip to the B&N… I promise.