Stark Raving Mad

Matt Bruce

Some baseball fans pay for Internet service and rant on newsgroups and bulletin boards. Some make a small profit banding together on web sites and publishing ventures. Some get paid big bucks to write florid prose for the mainstream media.

To get the big bucks you have to write really well, or maybe just develop a signature style.

As a kid I scoured The Sporting News every week. By college I had matured to the notebook columns of Peter Gammons. Then with the online explosion I was onto Rob Neyer back before trademark issues forced him to stop calling his column "Chin Muzak." This year I found a new literary mentor, the person I'll be when I finally grow up.

The transition won't be easy. It's hard to unearth the gee-whiz stats when you don't work for a corporation backed by a full-time research staff. It's hard to get witty quotes from Jim Deshaies or Rich Donnelly when neither of them have a clue who you are. It's hard to grow that handlebar mustache just so -- not that I haven't tried now and then. It's hard to write three-sentence thematic progressions when you keep thinking of a fourth thing to say.

Do these ironic, one-sentence paragraphs have to happen every other stanza or is every third stanza close enough?

Don't get me wrong, this isn't a parody so much as a tribute. I adore good writing, be it in baseball columns or epic novels or pulp erotica. Two of the best grades I got in college were the mandatory first-year expository writing course and the advanced writing course I voluntarily took from the same department. As easily as I churn out prose on a moment's notice, though, I've never written it nearly so tightly or so well-organized as my new hero.

Maybe he writes outlines of his columns and just uses the bullet points themselves as his sentences.

Part of my envy, of course, is the level of access to the game that the full-time professionals get. Baseball is, pardon my hyperbole, the most fascinating athletic pursuit on Earth. If you're reading this then you don't entirely disagree. As great as it is to sit in the stands on a warm summer evening and let all the sensations waft over you, it would be even cooler to have your opinion heard, to see the future of this game turn out for the good.

Coolest of all is if you can write a piece that repeatedly uses the word "burp" as not just a one-word paragraph but a relevant, effective rhetorical tool.

So how can I -- how can you, the reader -- become more like my new favorite writer? The career path is there. Spend entire fourth quarters hoisting up ugly shots that, every few games or so, will fall in at an alarming rate. Make a fool out of Michael Jordan one day but then finish the series on the wrong side of a pinup-poster play. Get traded for Latrell Sprewell and the bounce around the league until you.

Oops, my mistake, that would be John Starks. No problem, he's my hero too. Onto the gee-whiz items:

Late last week, after a narrowly averted parcel service crisis (tip: if nobody is home during the day where you live, consider specifying your business address as the shipping destination), I got my 2001 copy of Baseball Prospectus. Don't expect me to have a social life for awhile, there's just too much in a book like this to put down.

Even without the translations and projections, BP is a godsend for the commentary alone. Here are some of my randomly chosen favorites:

• "[Jeffrey] Hammonds has a clean shot at being the most reviled outfielder in Brewer history."
• "The logical answer would be to have [Ray] Durham steal less and score more."
• "There's no better illustration of the kinder, gentler Lou Piniella than Rob Ramsay tacking on nearly a full year of major-league service with that walk rate. In previous years, Tony Fossas would have been hauled in to lob grapefruits before the rhododendrons bloomed."
• "Take Rey Ordonez. Subtract the back story, the reputation, and some athleticism. Add more range, better hands, 15 doubles, and about $3 million in cash saved. Stir briskly in a wooden bowl, pour into a mold, and heat at 375 degrees for two hours. Congratulations, you've made a Jorge Velandia."

The great thing about BP (or the problem, as some old-media people might think of it) is that its coverage does not require input from baseball players, unnamed sources or otherwise. Sure, their site has the "Week in Quotes" section but those are all secondary sources. Baseball will need more quote-free coverage once ballplayers figure out how much they have to lose from speaking to reporters.

Last year was John Rocker. Like Monica, Rocker now has something beyond a household name, a single name that conveys an entire incident. This year -- this week -- two other players have learned that interesting things happen when you speak your mind too freely.

According to Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter has never had to be a team leader. "You go into New York, you wanna stop Bernie (Williams) and (Paul) O'Neill. You never say 'Don't let Derek beat us.' He's never your concern."

Okay, I can give A-Rod the benefit of the doubt and understand how this quote gets taken out of context. Jeter is overrated, partly because he plays in New York. I do have to wonder about some of the crack that circulated through the Mariner clubhouse if Paul O'Neill was the player they feared.

Speaking of a different sort of crack, try to avert your eyes from Pat Burrell's uniform pants. The same magazine that reported his crush on Britney Spears has quoted the Philadelphia prospect as saying he "absolutely never" wears underwear. Understandably, this is more information than his clubhouse really wanted.

Then again, the same Phillies veterans who are mad at Burrell are the ones who criticize Bobby Abreu for not hustling enough. (Ask the Giants if Abreu was hustling last August when he beat them with an inside-the-park homer in the 10th inning.) Between these stories in Philly and the Jim Edmonds treatment in Anaheim, is it just coincidence that the teams that give their best players the worst treatment are also the biggest non-Cub busts among the big-market ballclubs?

about the author

Matt Bruce is serious about emulating his hero, so if you read any Internet message board postings suggesting that the Dodgers will be trading Alex Cora for Derek Jeter, please relay them to mb@strikethree.com.