Opening Day!

How sweet it is! The Tribe smashes the hated White Sox, 10-8, with two of my favorite players, Casey Blake and Jhonny Peralta, among the heroes. The Home Opener at The Jake goes in the W column. All is well in Mudville, at least on this day.l

Takes me back to my most memorable Opening Day game in Cleveland. 1975. Frank Robinson, F. Robby, Take Frank to the Bank, managing his first game ever. Puts himself in the starting lineup and smashes a 3-run home run to win the game in front of a sell-out crowd at Municipal Stadium. OMG what a game! Did we scream our lungs out or what?

(Pause as I wipe away a tear or two.)

In earlier years, when we were younger, it often fell to my sainted mother to take us all to Opening Day. If the old man couldn't get off work, she'd pack us into the car and haul us down to the lakefront, wind howling off Lake Erie, the ballpark an absolute refrigerator even when the sun broke through. We didn't care. Opening Day. Ya had to be there. No matter how the rest of the season went--and it usually went very poorly for Tribe fans back then--you couldn't dampen the the thrill of Opening Day. The buzz was everywhere. "This is gonna be the year." "Did ya see that Rookie Max Alvis, what a kid, huh?" "The Rock is back with the Tribe and all will be well again!"

Self-delusion is an essential quality in a Tribe fan. And the delusion is never stronger than on Opening Day.

Bonus Baby Boomers

Billy Consolo died the other day. His passing subtracts another name from the list of living 1950s/60s "Bonus Babies." These were young players usually right out of high school who were offered what was then considered a large amount of money to immediately sign with a Major League team. (According to the back of his 1959 Topps baseball card, Consolo got $60,000 to sign. The cartoon shows him hauling off a giant sack of money with a Brink's guard, gun out, at his side.)

Back then, as today, baseball owners in the smaller markets objected to the largesse the more well heeled teams could dump on young talent. So they forced through a stupid set of rules that were triggered by a big bonus. The most egregious rule was that the kid had to stay with the Major League team for at least two years before he could be farmed out.

I have not done a study of Bonus Babies. I would like to, but there are a lot of things I would like to do that my wife tells me are silly and i don't have time for when there are bathrooms to clean and bills to pay. But my rcollection is that a high percentage of these Bonus Babies did not have stellar careers. Now, that may be because they rusted on the big league bench for two years when, as very young men,they should have been competing with other kids and drinking beer with other kids and chasing women of their own age. It may be because most young players don't have impressive careers; a huge percentage of players who start out chasing the dream don't make it.

But it does seem, if not unfair, which is a term I don't like, at least weird that kids like Consolo would be anchoring the south end of the Red Sox bench with insane adults like Jimmy Piersall, Frank Sullivan, Ted Williams and Mel Parnell only too eager to warp the young man's mind and body. First, they're jealous of the dough he got. Second, he might take one of their jobs. Third, those guys just gave kids shit for the fun of it.

Billy Consolo got into 603 games in 10 seasons and hit .221--which was still a lot better than many of the Bonus Babies did.

At least Billy got his revenge. For years his pal Sparky Anderson kept him around as a bench coach (read: synchophant) (as in most of Don Zimmer's jobs) where he reportedly told yarns and tall tales one on top of another to the unsuspecting kids on the Tigers teams. (I can't imagine the veteran Tigers of that era, Jack Morris, Frank Tanana or Darrell Evans sticking around for Billy's Story Hour.) Basically, Billy Consolo became a clubhouse clown and entertainer to the players and a drinking buddy to the boss.

The aging Bonus Baby gone creased and golden brown in the summer suns of too many hapless, frustrating seasons, making the best of bad policy concocted by pallid old used car dealers who wished they were in New York or Boston instead of Pittsburgh.

For those of you who are like me (you have my condolences), here's a good article on the subject: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/cash-in-the-cradle-the-bonus-babies/

That was really good for me!

Just completed my first purchase of cards from checkoutmycards.com, the Seattle-based sports card site. I'm happy to report that the site was easy to use and to navigate. I was able to closely examine the cards, front and back, prior to purchase. And when they arrived today, they looked even better in the light of day than they did on the site. Kudos to Steve Hollander for a smooth transaction.

But then how could a purchase involving Valmy Thomas, Eddie Kasko and Willie Jones be anything but satisfactory?

When the Irish ruled MLB

In my bedside Ninth Edition (1993) of the MacMillan Baseball Encyclopedia, 73 position players are listed whose surnames start with O'. That pretty much makes them Irish. (O'Briens comprise the largest single group, if you care.) Of those, 63 played before 1960. (Danny O'Connell retired in 1962 but I still didn't count him as having played before 1960. Just a technical thing, you know?) You could look it up. But the fact is, St. Patrick's Day is no longer an excuse for half the players in Spring Training to go missing on March 17.

The Irish once ruled MLB. It was the typical story--a way out of the slums and also out of a really nasty job of some sort. It was a different game in those days, a lot dirtier, the fight to keep one's job much more desperate than today, when most third-year players have more money than they'll ever need for the rest of their lives.

So today, be sure to raise a glass to those scrappy, rascally Irish ballplayers of yesteryear. Maybe you'll even run into Billy O'Dell or Johnny O'Brien, Paul O'Neill or Pete O'Brien, Kid O'Hara or Hustlin Dan O'Leary on your rounds today. Tip o' the hat to 'em, by god!

La primavera ya esta en el aire

Si, amigos, now we will speak of the joys and hopes that arise in the warm places of the South at this time of year. Specifically, of the many promises Tribe management made to the fans during the 1960s regarding the bounty of hispanic ballplayers that were flooding into the majors.

Tiny bit of history: Hispanics played years before blacks were allowed in. As Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, Al Smith and others were crossing the color barrier in the 1950s with much fanfare, players like Clemente, Pascual, Ramos, Minoso, Vic Power (Puerto Rico), Aparicio and Bobby Avila were quietly paving the way for what would be a virtual invasion of latinos post-1960.

So spring training would arrive in those days. At the Twins' camp, you could watch Tony Oliva, Zoilo (Zorro) Versalles and Cesar Tovar cavort in the sun. You could drop in on the LA Angels and see Jose Cardenal rocket a few off the fences. The Two Joses--Tartabull and Santiago--were struttin their stuff with Boston, while KC (soon to be Oakland) was showcasing the man who would spark the As for years: Bert Campaneris. We won't even talk about the NL, the Alou Bros., Tony Perez, Leo Cardenas, Manny Mota, The Baby Bull (Cepeda), Marichal. No, it's too painful to speak further on this topic.

Now take yourself in your imagination to Tucson, Spring Training home of The Tribe. Who do we find? Why, our own Matty alou: Vic Davalillo! We had the Future Leo Cardenas: Pedro Gonzalez! The next Campaneris: Mike De La Hoz! And don't forget The Immortal One, Jose "Joe" Azcue, a fan favorite. Wait, we gave up on Johnny Romano, who was hitting nearly 20 HRs a year and driving in nearly 50 runs a year, to put Jose behind the plate. The Immortal One was pinking out 6-8 HRs and maybe driving in 35 during those same years. Amusing, si! Manny Sanguillen, no!

OK, we had one legit hispanic star in those days: Luis Tiant. Traded after five years because he had one off year. Went on to win 154 games for other teams. Que terible!

The question is: How did our talent evaluators screw up so completely? I mean, a lot of other teams weren't really scouting Latin talent at the time. The Yankees, Tigers, Orioles and White Sox waited to jump in. But Cleveland's scouts were actively looking for Latin players! How many times did we have to hear that Chico Salmon was going to be the next Bert Campaneris before we lost all hope in the Tribe's front office? And this blind spot was to plague us for years, as we were offered up a Miquel Dilone when Milwaukee fans were getting Sixto Lezcano, or Bo Diaz when the Pirates had Tony Pena behind the plate.

Ah, primavera en Tucson! Que hermoso el cielo! Que bonito el desierto! Que buenas las muchachas locales! Que malos los latinos del Tribe!

Why did he do it?

No, I'm not talking about Elliot Spitzer. I'm talking about Albert/Joey/Jojuan Bell, a man who coulda been a contenda for the HOF if only he'd a stuck wid da Tribe. Yeah.

Or Sammy White. White, who retired from baseball rather than accept a trade from Boston to Cleveland in 1960. Jackie Jensen retired the same year because he was afraid of flying. Not helpful to Boston that year. But let's talk about Jooo-ey, since Sammy was nearing the end of his career back in the day when loyalty meant something.

Here's a guy, not a nice guy or maybe not even as well-balanced emotionally as Jimmy Piersall. But what a hitter. Teamed with Thome and Lofton, OMG! Couldn't hack Cleveland, though. I know he had a bad scare that one Halloween night and all, but let's face it: Albert/Jooo-ey was another in the rather long line of players who thought Cleveland just wasn't a big enough stage for their awesomeness. So Jooo-ey/Albert had to get himself traded to the White Sox where he could team up with a real slugger, Frank Thomas.

Turns out Thomas and Thome were then and still are about the same type of hitter. They get on base a lot, especially free passes, created skads of runs. Basically two of the best hitters the game has ever seen. But Jooo-ey/Albert makes a big deal about how Cleveland sucks and Chicago will be the place he will become one of the Immortals. Gets to the Windy City and finds there's a difference between Thome and Thomas--Thomas is an egomaniac, just like Joo-ey, and they mix like Roger Clemens and Jose Canseco. Joo-ey presses trying to outdo Big Hurt, and they both wind up hurt, only Jooo-ey never really recovers and is out of the game in a couple of years. Big Hurt's still going at 40, BTW.

Idiot! Why did he do it? Was it really worth it to force a trade to Chicago rather than stick with the Tribe, where he was averaging 43 HRs/year? At that pace, he would have been assured of joining the 500 club with a shot at the HOF.

Thome, on the other hand, wisely (and quietly) stuck with the Tribe for 12 seasons, piling up the numbers that would form the foundation for his bid for the HOF and playing on six post-season teams, two of which went to the WS.

So the rest of you can blog yourselves silly over Mr. Spitzer and his $80,000 schtups. We all know why he did it. But does anyone really know why Jooo-ey did it?

Check out checkoutmycards.com

I've enjoyed lurking around a new card buy-sell site lately, checkoutmycards.com. Several Microsoft folks up in Seattle launched it a year ago as a sort of cards-only alternative to eBay. This has been trid in the past, but almost all prior competitors were creamed by unscrupulous buyers and sellers. This one seems to have some legs to it.

If you want the details of how it works, just go visit the site. What's cool about it is you can easily check card prices without the often laborious eBay navigational process. I just saw a 1957 Mantle, just like the one my pal Evan has up in Seattle, for $800! I couldn't find any 1963 Mantles for sale today like the one I own. But I see where a 1959 Bob "Hoot" Gibson RC is going for $300, and I have that card as well as most of the 59 Topps set. Also noticed some nice prices on some '63 Topps I've got: Bomber's Best, Mays, McCovey. but not enough to make me want to sell them--yet. Anyway, I think the site is cool and I wish its team the best of luck.

Why I hate Pete Rose

The reason I hate Pete Rose came flying back to me again today like a brick from the grandstands. All this flap about Eliot Spitzer brought Pistol Pete to my mind. Two hypocrites, that's what they are. Eliot talked law & order, but didn't allow his convictions to get in the way of his behavior. Why? He's a narcisist, of course, just like Pete the Prick. When Rose bowled over Ron Hasse in a meaningless All Star game and essentially ended Hasse's productive years, he defended himself by saying, "Hey, that's the way the game is played!" The rulebook allowed it, so ol' Pete was gonna knock over anyone in his way.

But when he got caught cheating--placing illegal bets on games his team was involved in--Pete thought he ought to get a pass. No one was hurt, I didn't bet against my own team, etc etc. But wait--someone was hurt in the All Star game, wasn't he? And that was OK. So I guess whether or not someone was hurt wasn't really a factor.

Pete's an asshole. Put his records in the Hall but not his ugly lying cheating mug.

And speaking of his records--once we all get around to taking Bill James' Runs Created formula seriously, we're gonna see Pete in a different light. I just checked his stats against a good ol' Ohio U. grad, Mike Schmitt, one of the greatest players ever. Way underrated, too. Unlike Pete, who's way overrated. Pete may have hit for a higher average than Mike. But when it came to producing runs, Schmitt is way ahead of that Hustlin Hunk of Dung. You could look it up. baseball-reference.com. It's all there.

By the way, a tip o the hat goes out to Terry Hartman this week. The old man and his new band, the Dead Beat Poets, are playing South By Southwest. That's in Austin. It's a big deal. Knock em dead, Ter.

"It's only a game"

When North Carolina student body president Eve Carson was found slain last week, coaches for Duke and UNC were preparing their teams for a historic showdown. When interviewed about the impact Carson's death might have on their players and the game, both coaches said something to the effect that her death was a reminder that basketball "is only a game."

I am so sick of hearing this sort of comparison. Someone dies, and suddenly, we have to listen to: "It's only a game." Which could not be further from the truth. This statement either reveals the speaker's ignorance of the true nature of sport, or the speaker's fear of speaking the truth.

More than any other sport, baseball provides a very public forum in which a player's character can be judged. Over the course of the 162-game regular season and subsequent playoffs, over a long career, an athlete's skills, courage, discipline, tenacity, ethics, intelligence and morals emerge. Really, what else is there of value to a life than these things?

It is not "only a game," it is a daily test of an athlete's heart and soul, of his stamina, training, ability to learn and adjust, and of his level of compassion for his fellow man. That is why we hold in such high regard athletes like Al Kaline, Roberto Clemente, Nellie Fox, Joe Morgan, Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Jackie Robinson, Walter Johnson, Cal Ripkin, Jr., Joe DiMaggio and Derek Jeter. It is why we have mixed feelings about Richie Allen, Dick Stuart, Pete Rose, Ty Cobb, Jose Canseco, Chick Gandil and Barry Bonds.

To say the UNC/Duke game was "only a game" demeaned the young men who fought so hard that night for victory before a huge national audience. No one who saw that game could not have been impressed by the character those young men displayed. And I would bet anything that not one of them said to himself afterwards, "Oh well, it was only a game." Sure as hell their coaches weren't thinking along those lines once the game started.

Some athletes do play baseball, basketball and football as though it were "only a game." And those athletes are not held in high esteem. Why? Because we know something about their character from watching them play.

Worse, "only a game" cheapens the life of Eve Carson. "Oh well, she was only one person out of a billion or so on the earth. Why take it so seriously?" Why? Because through her life, she revealed a strong character, a set of values that created a standard for others to be measured against. In the same way, our best athletes set a standard against which others are measured. That is why, by the way, we Indians fans still love The Rock. He came to play, he gave it his all every day, he was a moral and ethical Rock. Don't try to tell him "it's only a game." The Rock just might knock off your block.

Now you can rest easy

If you were an Indians fan in 1960, then you, too, have been tortured for years by Kuenn-for-Colavito. WHY? You ask. How could Frank "Trader" Lane justify it? And why exactly was the trade such a miserable failure?

Thanks to Bill James, author and founder of sabermetrics, I believe I can explain it to you.

Lane defended the trade by saying that a premier singles hitter like Kuenn was more valuable than the slugging Rocco, largely because he was what Cleveland needed in 1960 to push the Tribe into first place. Fans before and since have always preferred and revered sluggers over singles hitters, so of course his argument was dismissed.

In fact, in terms of James' runs created formula, which very closely approximates the number of runs a player's offensive actions produce for his team, sluggers and singles hitters are often quite close. So it was with Kuenn and Colavito. Kuenn over his career created 1,013 runs, using 5,116 outs to do so. The Rock created 1,159 runs with fewer outs (5,058). But over a 14-year career, the difference is not as impressive as I assumed it would be. Both were damn good offensive players. (And slow as molasses on the base paths.)

The problem with Kuenn-for-Colavito was not that Kuenn was no match offensively for The Rock. He just wasn't what Cleveland needed in 1960. Lane had already made the deal Cleveland needed in 1958, when he sent Roger Maris to KC for Vic Power and Woodie Held. As much fun as it would have been to have had Colavito and Maris on the same team, they were essentially the same offensive player. (Maris was a better fielder and runner.) They both drew a lot of walks and didn't strike out too much, so they were both getting on base AND moving runners around. Particularly the latter.

So Lane made the right move in 1958. He had his slugger and needed someone who got on base. He brought on Vic Power, the slick-fielding first sacker and a master at getting on base and scoring runs--just what The Rock needed in front of him. Power and Held rebuilt an aging, poor-hitting infield, Held even adding some HR pop. Had Lane merely stuck with that team, and waited for his young pitchers to mature, the Tribe would have contended throughout the 1960s. No doubt about it.

There were two flies in the ointment: Tito Francona and Lane's ego. Francona had a career year in 1959, hitting .363 with 20HRs. Lane mistook him for the next Stan Musial. Since Tito hit 20 in only 399 ABs in 1959, Lane probably figured he'd hit 30 as a regular. Who needed Colavito? Unfortunately, Tito came back to earth in 1960, and for the rest of his career proved beyond a doubt that 1959 was a fluke.

Then there was Lane's ego. The fans already hated him for threatening to move the team. Like a spoiled child, he could get even by trading our idol, the Rock, and rubbing it in when Francona and Kuenn teamed up to bring Lane a pennant. Didn't quite work out that way, though.

To make matters worse, Lane compounded his mistake in 1960 by stupidly trading Minnie Minoso for Bubba Phillips. Minoso had two great years left in him; Phillips never had any great years. Sure, Cleveland needed a third sacker. But Lane already had one on the team, the same Vic Power who made the Kuenn-Colavito trade redundant. Lane would have been better off putting Tito at 1B and Power at 3B, where he had played earlier in his career. With Held at short and his already balanced outfield of Piersall, The Rock and Minnie, he could have stood pat for a few more winning years. But they didn't call him "Trader" Lane for nuttin.

In retrospect, Lane had the right idea. Teams need sluggers and guys who get on base. One is only more valuable than another if he is what the team requires to be successful. What Cleveland required in 1960 was patience. By 1964, the pitching staff would include youngsters Siebert, McDowell and Tiant, along with Kralick and Bell. Baltimore was contending by 1961 with good young pitching supported by a lineup that would have paled before one with Colavito, Held, Francona, Power, Minoso, Romano and Piersall.

Lane's mistake was to make the same trade twice. In 1958, it was the right trade. It put Cleveland into contention again. In 1960, it wrecked the franchise. The frustrating search for Colavito's replacement (as in Kirkland and Wagner) would come up empty for years.

Colavito and Kuenn: Two sides of the same coin

First, I just want to say one thing here: Just because I'm blogging does NOT mean I have lots of time on my hands. (Paul and Rik, take that.) (Guess I told them!) It's not like I'm talking about relationships or politics or other meaningless garbage here. This is about baseball. This is important stuff. So I make time during my busy day to communicate. If you think it's a waste of time to discuss things like Rocky Colavito's Runs Created factor, then go hang out at the I love LeBron site. Jeez..

Now that our mission has been made clear and validated: Kuenn for Colavito. Gets my vote for one of the top four most controversial trades of my era (56-68 more or less). Others being Brock for Broglio, that mess The Tribe took from KC in exchange for Maris, and Dykes-for-Gordon just on the principle of the trading of two managers.

Would you believe that, by the end of their careers, Kuenn and Colavito were almost of equal value to their various teams? Seems hard to believe, I know. But I've done the homework, I have the data, and I will make my case in the coming days. Just know this: the main difference between them was that fans love sluggers and are indifferent to most great singles hitters, unless they happen to be complete assholes like Pete Rose and Ty Cobb.

Your homework for this weekend is to go look up Kuenn and Colavito on baseball-reference.com and check out how close they are to each other in such categories as games played, on base percentage, Runs Created, GIDP, at bats and hits-plus-walks. You will be quite amazed, I guarantee it, if this sort of crap interests you. Kuenn led the league more times in offensive categories than did the Rock, by the way.

But Don't Knock the Rock. Ever. Not on this site.

The Summer of 1959

The summer of 1959 marked the beginning of my life. The Cleveland Indians' desperate battle for the pennant, led by the charismatic Rocky Colavito and the enigmatic Tito Francona, shook me awake. At the age of 9, I experienced euphoria and torment, discovering, through a mere game, the full range of human emotions.

Of course, 1959 marked the beginning of, not quite a death, but a long decline for our beloved Tribe. The Indians' failure to win the pennant in the final days of the season sent Frank "Trader" Lane on a quixotic trading spree designed to push Cleveland over the top in 1960. (Not that Lane did anything by design.) The Colavito-for-Kuenn trade may have been the worst in Tribe history. But other deals, like shipping budding star Gordy Coleman to Cincy for aging tippler Johnny Temple, were also disasters. (Coleman's 26 HRs in '61 helped propel Cincy to first place in the N.L.)

But I was hooked. Baseball had brought me to life, just as directly as Dr. Frankenstein's machine jump-started his monster. Before that summer, my memories are mostly vague ones. But I can still recall vivid details of that summer, that pennant race, and the men who fought so hard but fell short in the end. Pitcher Jack Harshman, an aging Baltimore cast-off, winning a key game late in the season with timely hitting as well as gutsy pitching. All of it brought to me by the voices of Jimmy Dudley and Bob Neal, pouring the flow of the game into my ear, pressed against my transistor radio. "Colavito swings, and there it goes! That ball is going, going--it's gone, for a home run!" Dudley's signature home run call, sweet music to my ears.

So, while my date of birth says I am 58 years old, my conscious life age is 49. Many times I have tried to break baseball's grip on my life. Impossible. I remember my grandmother Dowding, in her nineties, leaning into the radio,listening to the Tribe, praying to her god for one more pennant. She died at 99 without one. (Pennant, not a god.) With any luck (I don't have a god except baseball), I will only have to wait until October to see another Tribe pennant fluttering in the breeze. Don't laugh. They were awfully close last year, a year very much like 1959. With no Trader Lane around to sell off our heroes, I think we'll be OK this year.