Sports Writing

This is it. There are babies who have never seen the Sox win in their lifetime. It’s 2005, and the season is on. Sox at Yankee Stadium. Who would have guessed it would be David Wells that would start for the Sox on the Opening Day after they finally won it all? Randy “Porno Name” Johnson on the mound, Damon at the bat, now for those two sweet words: PLAY BALL!

As suggested by the press pack, here’s the Mapquest directions between the Sox split-squad spring training games that were played in Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers and Bank One Ballpark on Mar 31. Just go on I-75N, then I-10W, then I-17N… only 35 hours and 48 minutes.

For April Fool’s Day, the New York Times revisits the legend of Sidd Finch, 168mph pitching prospect. He was, of course, merely a confabulation of the late George Plimpton (who, name dropping time, I once had the great fortune of meeting), but Joe Berton, the guy Sports Illustrated hired to pose as Finch, still gets recognised to this day. And he loves it:

I’m gathering that there’s a massive all-Damon-all-the-time media blitz to promote Idiots, and that there’s some blowback from his revelations in the book. (WEEI and 1510 stream on the Internet now, but there’s only so much of either I can take…) I guess I don’t expect players to be moral paragons. In last month’s GQ, there was an article on Jason Giambi that mentioned that he had a T-shirt that said “PARTY LIKE A ROCK STAR HAMMER LIKE A PORN STAR RAKE LIKE AN ALL STAR”… Damon seems to be living that life. More power to him.

So the Oakland As are sold. Does that mean they’ll become the San Francisco Athletics of Oakland? More seriously, former owner Steve Schott seems to have liked to keep Oakland lean, and continued insisting on the small market nature of the As. He thought it brought out the creativity in Beane or something. Or as Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Chronicle put it:

I’m reading James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds, which talks about how the combined knowledge of people is often better than the thinking of any one expert. So I figured, as a fantasy baseball rookie, I might as well open my teams up for public comments and/or ridicule and gain some knowledge that way.

So B. H. Kim is traded to the Rockies, for Charles Johnson (who will probably move on to the Tropicana Field Retirement Home for Aged Ballplayers) and Chris Narveson. Best of luck to a man who once displayed inordinate amounts of talent - all the way until the 2004 season. I know Colorado is where pitchers go to die, but everyone knows that, so the expectations are really low, which might be good for Kim. With any luck, he’ll turn out to be a bizarro pitcher, with pitches that break in thin air and not at sea level. Good deal for the Rockies, who have nothing but upside to gain.

He’s back!

Completely non-Sox related, but Zippy the Pinhead today commemorates the Rosebud Diner (from agilitynut’s pictures of Massachusetts diners). I love diners. Mmm.

I normally like Mike Lupica, but this is an atrocious column, particularly the harsh words for Roger Clemens on the basis of Clemens’ comments on Vioxx. Bonds will be back to living in the real world, … the one where your numbers go down as you get older and not up. Unless you’re a witch.

Playing MVP Baseball, I was struck by the quality of the backing soundtrack. I’m not much of a gamer, so while I’ve heard about bands using games as a new means of getting exposure I’ve never really experienced it. The High Speed Scene’s “The IROC-Z Song” is stuck on repeat in my head, and it was a really nice surprise to hear some songs I really like: Louis XIV’s “Finding Out True Love Is Blind”, … And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead’s “Let It Dive”.

So Francona now is going to put Nixon second against righties, instead of Bellhorn. That’s an interesting strategy - basically Mueller at #8, Bellhorn at #9, and Damon at #1 form the wrap-around on-base machine, and then Nixon-Manny-Ortiz bring in the runs. I suppose this way if you want to bring in a lefty against Damon and Nixon, the lefty has to either tough it out against Manny if you want him to get to Ortiz, or sit down for a righty.

Of course, one reason real baseball is such a joy as opposed to virtual baseball is that bizarre incidents such as former Sox player Darren Oliver getting attacked by bees happen only in real baseball.

There’s a reason posts have become a bit infrequent over the last few days. It’s called MVP Baseball 2005. Gosh darn if the game ain’t addictive. Keyboard controls are awful though. The uppercut swing key is the same as stealing second base, which caused a lot of my runners to get thrown out stupidly. And you can’t control how much of a lead your runners have, or execute a pickoff. How insidious - now I have to buy a gamepad controller.

As we lead up to the season, here’s some memories of last season… 2004 ALCS and WS slideshows, set to the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Tonight, Tonight” and Springsteen’s “The Rising” respectively. I’ve seen them before, but thanks to the people at Stocky Dog Shirts for pointing the site out…

Some people are asking that you boycott Fever Pitch. I think people are just peeved that Fallon got to go on the field after Game 4 ended.

Someone has stolen Roger Clemens’ 300th-win Hummer. He gave it to one of the K-kids to drive to school, and Koby left it unlocked. He began letting Koby Clemens drive the orange Hummer to school after he signed a letter of intent last November to play baseball for the University of Texas, whose colors are burnt orange and white. Before that, Koby drove a black Hummer to school.

Over at Royal Rooters, “Cambridge” interviews Rob Neyer. This bit on Mark Fidrych struck me, since it repeats something Neyer said in his book on baseball lineups: It seems that Fidrych was one of the very rare pitchers who can thrive with a low strikeout rate, due to an ability to keep the ball down nearly all the time. A bit like Brandon Webb, but with better control. Do I think Fidrych would have been a Cy Young candidate every year? No. But I do think he’d have been a good or excellent major league pitcher for at least a few more years.

So Adam Hyzdu gets traded for Blaine Neal. I’m sorry, but I can’t look at the name Blaine without thinking of that chain of beauty schools. Funny that most of the Neal pics that come from a Google image search are of his fight with the ump last year. Anyway, the deal seems to make sense: Hyzdu and Stern give us a glut of outfielders and Hyzdu with the Sox would be a backup’s backup, while the Padres have an amazing bullpen in Linebrink and Otsuka and probably need more help in the OF department. And clearly Theo Epstein remains connected to Kevin Towers from his days in San Diego…

Been devouring all the season previews - bought the Lindy’s and Athlon guides while lounging around the Detroit airport to while the time away - and I gotta say, it still looks weird to see the abbreviations WAS and LAA. The WaPo had a good article on former Washington Senator Frank Howard, who had one of my favourite nicknames in a sport rife with good ones - the Capitol Punisher. Here’s his thoughts on baseball returning to DC, including this bit on Ted Williams as a manager: