January 2008 - Posts
What’s the government’s preoccupation with Chuck Knoblauch? Why is Congress so bent on hearing from someone who not only last played in the majors five years ago, but also had disappeared from the baseball world?
It is clear that Congress has Roger Clemens in its sights. The esteemed George Mitchell, a former Senator, has been challenged over some of the findings included in his report to baseball commissioner Bud Selig on the steroids era in the sport. Congress is sticking up for one of its own.
It seems that Knoblauch, like Andy Pettitte, may be a means through which Congress seeks to reinforce the argument against Clemens’ denial he ever used steroids. If what Congress hears from Pettitte, Knoblauch or any other person supports the claim of Clemens' former personal trainer Brian McNamee, who alleges Clemens’ used performance-enhancers, then the scale of justice in the court of public opinion tips against Clemens.
CONTINUED >>
No interested team needed Johan Santana more than the Mets.
Santana owns a no-trade clause that allows him to control his fate so for the Twins could there be any more incentive needed to push through a deal before pitchers and catchers report? Apparently not as the Mets have reached an agreement with the Twins to acquire Santana for four prospects -- outfielder Carlos Gomez and pitchers Phil Humber, Deolis Guerra, and Kevin Mulvey.
To finalize the deal the Mets need to reach an agreement with Santana to extend his contract, which has one season left on it. The Mets will have to work quickly to get that done as they have a 48-to-72-hour window to do a new deal with the two-time Cy Young Award winner, who reportedly is seeking a $150 million contract extension over six or seven years.
This deal makes so much sense for the Mets. Their general manager Omar Minaya could not have had his team open the season without a true top-of-the-rotation ace. And there is no better successor to Pedro Martinez -- who once was that ace for the Mets -- than Santana. Martinez will still pitch, but the Mets and the rest of baseball weren't considering him a No. 1 starter at this advanced point in his career. So Martinez will likely slot in as the Mets' No. 2 starter and Santana becomes the new ambassador for the franchise while also adding an arm to the Mets’ staff that has averaged nearly 18 wins a season for the Twins over the last four years.
CONTINUED >>
While I was in Eugene to call the UCLA-Oregon men's basketball tilt, I started thinking about Dennis Dixon, the terrific Oregon quarterback whose knee injury late in the season knocked the Ducks from the BCS Rose Bowl derby.
Dixon also plays baseball in the summer. He was a fifth-round draft pick of Atlanta and played for Danville at the Single-A level last year. I drove by Autzen Stadium, Dixon’s football home, and the question jumped out at me: could we have another Bo Jackson or Deion Sanders, could we have more two-sport major leaguers?
CONTINUED >>
The bill has come due in San Francisco. Fifteen years of Barry Bonds -- many filled with memories for a lifetime -- have come to a crashing halt. And it's both franchise and superstar that have crashed.
Bonds is an indicted felon, awaiting a trial that could land him in jail. Remarkably, he still harbors hopes of playing in 2008 and informed parties tell me the trial won’t happen for months, affording Bonds an uninterrupted summer.
At 24 Willie Mays Plaza, the home of the Giants' front office, the price for selling out to Bonds in recent years has been the reputations of good men. The first executives to be offered as BALCO “road kill” by self-serving congressmen are Giants owner Peter Magowan and general manager Brian Sabean. And they are the front men for waves of people culpable in the enabling of Bonds and his entourage. Of course, those people are breathing deeply for their names have not been attached to this matter. But Congress has targeted Magowan and Sabean after the Mitchell Report and although my view holds punishment as unproductive, Major League Baseball may need to sate the grotesque beast on Capitol Hill.
CONTINUED >>
A scattering of recent tidbits:
Just wondering: Major League Baseball plays World Series games at night in late October with the temperature is occasionally in the 30s, and it is vilified as if a federal offense has been committed. Last Sunday football decided the participants for America’s biggest stand-alone event, the Super Bowl, in sub-zero temperatures that the National Weather Service in Green Bay warned could cause frostbite in 20 minutes.
Just wondering, Part II: Suppose Brett Favre had thrown a touchdown pass rather than an interception on the first possession of overtime? Suppose the Packers had won without the Giants touching the ball in OT? Then suppose that Game 6 of the 1986 World Series ended on Dave Henderson’s home run in the top of the 10th inning. No Mookie Wilson, no Bill Buckner, but a Red Sox title. Laughable, I know, yet football was on the brink of settling a conference championship in that manner. And you don’t think baseball is judged by a MUCH higher standard than any American sport?
CONTINUED >>
I admit to being confused over some of the reaction to Bud Selig's new deal, which keeps him the commissioner of major league baseball until 2012. The owners’ unanimous contract extension, which takes Selig to age 79, speaks volumes of their feelings and respect towards the man who has run the sport since replacing Fay Vincent on an interim basis in 1992.
In my view the media regards Selig much like President Bush -- as an inarticulate spokesman for his cause unwilling to accept responsibility. Talk-show callers regard Selig...well, skip that for their view is truly irrelevant. I am perplexed that a reputable columnist in the Oakland Tribune could refer to Selig as the “Steroids Commissioner.”
CONTINUED >>
It only took two weeks to break my New Year's resolution not to blog on baseball and performance-enhancing drugs.
I watched “Meet the Press” last Sunday with Sen. Hillary Clinton. As the interview progressed, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her forehead. It never wrinkled. Nor did her eyes crinkle. Her cheekbones were high and puffy. Her smile lines were quite moderate. As the camera panned to host Tim Russert, I told my wife that Russert, three years younger than Sen. Clinton, looked 20 years older than her.
Then my mind flashed back to a conversation, which has been referenced in this space many times, with a prominent baseball player about five years ago. Just after we learned about BALCO, he asked me why anyone should care what any player did to himself. What business is it of anyone, he wondered, what a person puts in his/her body when it doesn’t impact anyone else?
CONTINUED >>
I was stunned by the news of the passing of Johnny Podres. He was mentioned in this space last week for his Game 7 World Series shutout in 1955, one of the two greatest games ever pitched (along with Jack Morris’ 1991 Game 7).
Pod, as all in the game knew him, never equaled as a player that great afternoon in New York -- the day he made a franchise legitimate by ending the Dodgers’ subservience to the Yankees. But he made his mark for years afterwards as a pitching coach. That’s how I came to know Pod, first in his stint with Minnesota in the mid-1980s. He taught his signature changeup to a young lefty named Frank Viola and it made Viola a standout. Pod was gone by the time Viola helped the Twins to a World Series title and won a Cy Young, but Viola never forgot the man who taught him.
CONTINUED >>
Will Johan Santana be dealt?
No guarantees, but I can’t fathom Santana again wearing a Twins uniform. Minnesota's new general manager Bill Smith inherits a horrid dilemma, but keeping Santana for the draft picks would help the Twins in 2008 but harm them for 2010 when they open their new ballpark. The longer this goes, the more I wonder about the Mets, who have the deepest need and convenient landing spot to get Santana out of the American League.
CONTINUED >>
Five quick hits on the Hall of Fame voting:
1. Justice was served for Goose Gossage, but Jack Morris failed to gain traction. It’s striking that 57 percent of the voters feel Morris unworthy. And it’s equally striking to me that Bert Blyleven garnered nearly 100 more votes than a year ago. I think Blyleven is a Hall of Famer, but on what basis could there possibly be that kind of vote discrepancy from one year to the next?
Blyleven won 33 more games than Morris, but it is rarely recognized that Morris started 158 fewer games than Blyleven. Here are the career winning percentages for four pitchers hoping to get to Cooperstown: Morris .577, Tommy John .555, Jim Kaat .544, and Blyleven .534. It is heartening to see Blyleven creep closer to election, but perplexing that Morris was sixth in the balloting in his ninth year of eligibility with 233 votes (42.9 percent).
CONTINUED >>
A new year but the new boss is the same as the old boss. Roger Clemens denies all on national television on Sunday night, talks to the media Monday, and thus will dominate the news on Tuesday – which is the day results of balloting for induction into the Hall of Fame are announced.
Can’t we have baseball – free of steroid news -- for at least one day?
CONTINUED >>
There’s an interesting debate in the Bay Area after Oakland’s trade of Nick Swisher to the White Sox. Moderating one radio exchange of opinions was Arizona’s Eric Byrnes, who shares with Swisher the distinction of being a fan favorite traded away by Oakland general manager Billy Beane.
CONTINUED >>
What baseball needs is a fast track to March.
What baseball survives on are the games. They take us away from the increasing cauldron of voices clattering in the growing media universe. The games remind us that baseball is still our best game. Yes, that’s right. Look at attendance. Look at revenues. Don’t look at television ratings -- no single baseball game can ever equal a January NFL playoff game. Baseball’s universe has too much volume. And that’s why we need the games, as a daily reminder for seven months of baseball’s enduring strength. No amount of foolish behavior, by owners or players, has yet destroyed the sport.
CONTINUED >>
