Broadcaster and baseball geek, Keith Olbermann, was given a tour of the new Yankee Stadium. He took a video camera, too. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhWfy80MrOA&hl=en]
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Keith Olbermann
With a 4-10 record, the Phillies are the worst team in Major League Baseball. That should be surprising. After all, a lot of smart people who get paid a more-than-fair wage to know specifically about such things believed that the Phillies were not only the team that should win the NL East, but also were a team that could go to the World Series.
I never believed any of it. Not that the Phillies were a playoff team, a division-winning team, or a World Series-bound team. For some reason, Pat Gillick’s assessment from last July that his team was at least two years away from competition for a wild-card spot made sense. Maybe I was wrong not to move past that, but for some reason it just seemed to make sense even though the Phillies went on that late-season tear to crawl into the playoff chase.
Apropos of nothing, if I were the commissioner of baseball, football or hockey, I would not allow people that operate a gambling web site to have access to my teams in any way shape or form. I most definitely would not issue them press credentials.
Regardless, no one – from the folks who thought the Phillies were playoff-bound in 2007, to the folks who thought they’d win another 85-88 games like they do every year – believed the Phillies would have stumbled out of the gate so poorly. The worst record in baseball just two weeks into the season was inconceivable, but that’s where we are. The New York Times even documented the team's swoon.
To get out of it, Charlie Manuel took his Opening Day starter, the same guy the team’s brass invested nearly $26 million in for the next three season, and shifted him to the bullpen. Yes, the bullpen has been the bane for the Phillies, and yes, it is the one thing the manager, pundits, scouts and other team officials said was the team’s biggest weakness, but to move the team’s best starter to the bullpen is really remarkable.
In doing so, a few things must be going on. One is that Gillick must be committed to Manuel for better or for worse. The reason for this belief is because Gillick ultimately had the final say in whether Manuel and pitching coach Rich Dubee’s plan to make Myers a reliever would occur. So in agreeing to the plan Gillick is backing the manager’s plan to remove a guaranteed 200-plus innings from the starting five. That comes to nearly seven innings per outing every five days.
That’s a brave decision. Some say a desperate decision.
Another train of thought could be that Gillick still believes what he said last July and is still tinkering and retooling. According to what the GM said when dealing away Bobby Abreu and Cory Lidle was that 2007 was going to be a rebuilding or wash-out year. As of right now that is very much the case unless something happens.
Very quickly.
Apropos of nothing, I’ve witnessed Charlie Manuel get angry. More than a few times, as a matter of fact.
Regular readers of this site know that I’m no fan of sports talk radio. That’s mostly because it makes me feel stupid or like I need to take a shower. And certainly I don’t need any help feeling stupid. There are exceptions to this, of course. Occasionally, Marcus Hayes appears on the local NPR station to talk about baseball and it’s always very good. The discussions are informative, engaging and civil and Marcus is well-behaved, too. Be that as it may, when I’m off the NPR jag I like to listen to Keith Olbermann on Dan Patrick’s show. In fact, I subscribe to the podcast so that I can listen in my car when I’m on the way home from the ballpark late at night…
Anyway, Olbermann and Patrick were discussing the Phillies on the April 18 edition of the show where they did not express any type of surprise at the team’s rough start. Actually, Olbermann says he expected it and even played old shows to prove he just wasn’t whistling a dirge.
Dan Patrick: Keith Olbermann called it during spring training pertaining to the Phillies’ chances this year.
Keith Olbermann: I’m a little worried about the Phillies. What I saw there looked like chaos to me and I don’t know if it’s going to go well.
Olbermann added:
“I think Charlie Manuel is going to get fired. I think the Phillies have woefully mismanaged their pitching staff. They have starters who should be relieving and relievers who should be starting and it’s a mess. The batting order is a mistake. Pat Burrell was not the guy to bat behind Ryan Howard and it’s going to ruin Ryan Howard this season and it’s even going to hurt Chase Utley ahead of him because they’re going to pitch around Howard and Utley isn’t going to have a chance to steal bases. Wes Helms at third base might be a good hitter, but they are just now noticing that he might not be the most mobile infielder. There are a lot of problems and I’m not really sure if Charlie Manuel is a good manager.”
Anyway, Manuel didn’t hide the fact that he would not have moved Myers to the bullpen and Jon Lieber back to the rotation if the team was 10-4 instead of 4-10. Yes, the desperation is that obvious.
Apropos of nothing, the second one stars in a commercial or asks for an autograph, that person is no longer a journalist.
Remember that Simpsons episode where Homer was going to enter the witness-protection program to escape the homicidal Sideshow Bob? Of course you do. That was the one where the feds were quizzing Homer on the intricacies of the program, but for the life of him, Homer couldn’t grasp the idea of becoming Homer Thompson instead of Homer Simpson.
Here, this should help:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF-X0R8YnYc]
Anyway, lately it seems as if Major League Baseball has had as much trouble grasping what its fans want in much the same manner as Homer had in wrapping his head around the concept of a different surname. Actually, there is probably a laundry list of complaints that the regular baseball fan can levy against MLB, but for now we’ll just focus on a pair starting with the DirecTV/Extra Innings fiasco, which was enough to earn the league a spot on Keith Olbermann’s “Worst Person in the World” feature.
In the interest of full disclosure I should point out that after a few years of subscribing to the Extra Innings package on cable, I gave it up in favor of version offered on the Internets. The reason, of course, is that my laptop is typically within three feet of me at all times and if I can do a small part in making sure the revolution will be streamed instead of televised, then viva la revolucion!
By now most baseball fans who like to watch games on TV know the details of the DirecTV/Extra Innings flap and MLB’s so it should e understandable that the group who wanted to claim such public information as baseball statistics as intellectual property has no trouble taking out-of-town games away from the people who want to pay to watch them. As Olbermann said on Wednesday’s edition of Countdown with Keith Olbermann:
The bronze to Tim Brosnan, executive vice president of Major League Baseball, today rejecting the bid to keep the package of out-of-town games on cable television and satellite, rather than shifting it just to satellite. As we all know, no business strategy works quite as well as refusing to sell your products to the customers who want to buy it from you.
Indeed. But perhaps the best example of where MLB’s focus is comes from an item in Paul Hagen’s column in Friday’s Daily News. According to the story, the commissioner’s office noticed that Giants’ pitcher Barry Zito was photographed in Sports Illustrated using a burgundy-colored glove with laces of a different color…
Yeah, can you believe that? The laces are not burgundy!
Forget that Zito has used that glove for the past two seasons, MLB sent out an investigator who took pictures of the glove and forwarded them to the league office on Park Avenue in Manhattan for further investigation.
Said Zito: “I’m like, 'If that ain't a crock.'”
Here’s Hagen’s laugh-out-loud conclusion:
Watch it, Barry. You never know who might be listening.
You just can't be too careful these days. Why, if you aren't careful, next thing you know players might be trying to beat drug testing with HGH or other undetectable substances.
Yes, because we all know that using a multi-colored glove is a gateway to more self-destructive behavior. Maybe even anarchy.
***
Finally, I’d like to thank Ben Miller of the Wheatland Avenue Millers for pointing out an error in a previous post. It appears that I had claimed that Roger Waters and Syd Barrett were responsible for writing The Wall when in reality, as pointed out by Ben, Barrett had left Pink Floyd a decade before the opus had been composed.
Now if we could just get Ben to pick up on the grammatical errors in these posts.
Regardless, I regret the error and thank Ben for being both a diligent reader and a true arbiter of useless information. Thanks, Ben.
Yesterday, the Hall of Fame Veterans Committee announced… nothing. After much deliberation, posturing, campaigning and whatever else the baseball folks with their secret ballots do, the Veterans Committee decided to tell good folks like Ron Santo, Marvin Miller, Buck O’Neil, Gil Hodges, Walter O’Malley and Jim Kaat to, well… maybe we shouldn’t rephrase it.
Let’s just say it ends with “… and die.”
Some already have.
Let's start with the fact that the Baseball Hall of Fame is watered down. Based on some invisible criteria that elected borderline players – statistically speaking – it’s a real crime that Santo, O’Neil, Hodges, O’Malley, Don Newcombe and gasp! Marvin Miller can’t get the votes.
Do those electors have a clue as to what their mission is?
So what’s the deal with these folks? Is there anything that can be done about possibly taking the Hall of Fame voting away from the Veterans Committee and some sycophants in the Baseball Writers Association of America?
No. Probably not.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t mean we can’t pick on them. At least that’s what Keith Olbermann did last night on his show Countdown. In his nightly feature, “Worst Person in the World,” Olbermann awarded the top place to the Veterans Committee (ahead of Anne Coulter and some guy who e-mailed a bomb threat into his school) saying they should do the correct thing and quit.
Here’s Olbermann:
But our winners tonight: The Baseball Hall of Fame Committee on Veterans. Given a choice of such overlooked immortals as Gil Hodges and Ron Santo, Jim Kaat and Maury Wills, and such movers-and-shakers as Dodger owner Walter O'Malley, and players' union founder Marvin Miller.
Today, they elected... nobody.
Santo came closest – five votes short of the spot in the Hall of Fame he has long deserved. There will not be another vote until 2009... 2011 for the non-players.
The electors – including 61 current Hall of Famers – should voluntarily resign their positions, or be compelled to. They have made fools of themselves.
Again.
The Baseball Hall of Fame Committee on Veterans, Tuesday's Worst Persons In The World!
Here’s an idea for the Hall of Fame – let’s start over. Let’s take everyone out of the Hall of Fame… Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Cy Young, etc., etc. and vote them back in. You know, rebuild it all from scratch. This time contributions to the game, citizenship and playing ability all count.
And let’s get people to vote on them who really care. Olbermann should get a vote. Bob Costas, too. Just not the same old, same old people who have been doing it in the past. The world changes, elements of baseball should as well.
On another note...
Barry Bonds needs bigger shoes.