Baseballhead:
OutFOXed

Michael Cox

Like the town crier, we're shouting out this edition of Baseballhead, except for the "hear ye" and "yea, verily" parts.

When last we met, two of the four Division Series were still in progress, resulting in a lack of Championship Series predictions. I would have picked the Diamondbacks, though. Honest. As of right now, the tardy league is again the AL, where the Mariners are still one win shy of fulfilling Lou Piniella's promise to return their series to Seattle, where the coffee flows like wine. (I know, something is really, really wrong about that last phrase.)

I'll quickly go over how we got here, before focusing on Sunday's big Evening Of Warranty-Voiding Remote Wear And Tear...

NLCS: Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling are pretty good.

Okay, okay, there was also an amazing amount of Arizona offense (i.e., more than two runs per game), and the vaunted Brave pitching staff looked tired except for John Smoltz, who may be the Dennis Eckersley of the '00s. Bet he wishes he could have started a game.

Randy Johnson got the "can't win in the postseason" curse off his back at last, although initially the media would only admit that it was superseded by Greg Maddux' "can't win in Phoenix" curse. It looks more and more like he'll get the chance to play the only team he has previously beaten in the playoffs, as opposed to the one he was with when he beat them.

ALCS: YANKZ ROOL!!1!!1! Oh. Sorry. After winning an extremely close first two games in Seattle, the media declared that Yankee Domination was once again nigh, when it actually looked more like the Mariner hitters had gone off their feed.

"Well, that's because Seattle hadn't been facing great pitching all year," went the retort. That would mean, of course, that during the regular season the Yankees were actually substituting their pitchers with impersonators from the new Vegas drag queen revue, "Baseball Players Live!" (And people wonder why tourist spending in Vegas is down.)

Failing to hit against an on-his-game Andy Pettitte was understandable, but in Game Two the mighty Mike Mussina looked oafish and listless, yet the M's flailed like Pee-Wee Herman in a Turkish bath. Correcting in the latter half of Game Three to the tune of the biggest playoff beating the Yanks have ever suffered, I couldn't help but say, "you'd better save a few of those for tomorrow." Did they listen? Nuh-uh. (The preceding recycled joke consists of 80% post-consumer content.)

Fortunately, the doleful drubbing allowed me to switch over to the Concert for New York on VH1, which provided a very educational demonstration of the fact that rock stars over 55 should probably not attempt numbers like "Baba O'Riley" and "Long Tall Sally." (I skipped Sunday's day-long United We Stand event because I really did not care to learn anything new about N'Sync or Huey Lewis and the News.)

All of which brings us to Sunday, which was billed by FOX as "You Pick The Game!" In fact, what it actually resembled was "Damned If We're Going To Pre-empt Football." We had two pivotal games -- the potential series-winner for Arizona, and the game that could either make the ALCS a new series or pave the way to another New York title (did we even need to play the 2001 season?) -- scheduled simultaneously.

Some of us remember when "The Baseball Network" tried this with the Division Series. Those who don't apparently became FOX executives.

The evening began all brisk and clippy, as for the first three innings neither Randy Johnson, Tom Glavine, Roger Clemens nor Paul Abbott allowed a run. In fact, for amusement I was spending the early innings comparing the high strike zone of Yankee Stadium plate umpire Charlie Reliford with the much lower zone Gerry Davis was calling at Turner Field. "Woulda been a strike on channel 13," I'd chuckle as a high Randy Johnson fastball seared letter-high for a ball.

Unfortunately, I quickly got discombobulated and started mentally logging a high strike in the Snakes/Braves contest only to see Davis do nothing. However, this was about the time the NL contest's scoring began, so I decided to focus on that game. Julio Franco may be 60 or 70 years old, but he still can hit, driving in both Braves runs in Game Five despite an endless series of graphics proving that Chipper Jones can also theoretically hit against Johnson.

Hey! More ads for The Best Damn Sports Show, Period! I watched that show once, and I'm considering suing for fraud.

The brisk-and-clippiness of the NL game also far exceeded that of the AL contest, despite more scoring and more baserunners. Reason? Looked to me like it was due to the ungodly long time the Yankee lineup takes to get back in the batter's box between pitches. I swear that at one point Glavine threw two pitches to Johnson and was preparing to deliver a third in just the time it took Chuck Knoblauch to "gather his thoughts" after taking a strike. Lot of good it did Knoblauch, who subsequently popped out weakly.

Johnson was the only pitcher in either game to remain past the fifth inning, as the Braves pulled Glavine for Karsay, the Yankees replaced a still-hurting Clemens, and the Mariners yanked Abbott despite the fact that he was throwing a no-hitter (those eight walks may have had something to do with it).

Not that the Big Unit was throwing one of his better games -- the Braves had ten baserunners to work with, including a bases-loaded threat in the seventh. Fortunately, Brian Jordan was available for a timely strikeout and Johnson was off the hook.

Enter Byung Hyun Kim, another candidate for Eckersley Reincarnate, primarily due to the most wicked-ass submarine delivery I've seen since Eck retired. I hadn't had the opportunity to watch Kim work for more than a highlight reel until Sunday, and I haven't been that mesmerized since the debut of Police Academy: the Series. I honestly think the plate umpire was so freaked out that he forgot to call a couple of strikes before realizing that the ball was really going up through the strike zone.

Of course, right about the time attendants were removing all sharp objects from the Braves' clubhouse, things began hotting up on the AL side. Bret Boone's solo homer put the M's into the lead in the eighth, and half an inning later Bernie Williams matched the shot to tie. It's a reasonable thought that Ramiro Mendoza might want to challenge Boone with a meaty fastball. It's not such a good idea for Arthur Rhodes to toss Williams a fat boy. Or a grooved fastball, for that matter.

Lest you forget, it was Rhodes who pitched identical fastballs to David Justice in two different ALCS games last year, with results curiously similar to Sunday's. Has there ever been a single pitcher who has given up so many key home runs in pivotal playoff games?

Shortly after that game was re-tied, over on basic cable Steve Finley gloved the last Atlanta out to begin the celebration of Arizona's first NL title. The usual grown men jumping about, hugging...what's this? Johnson wishes to take his place atop the dogpile? I'd get out of the way too.

Oops. Back to Yankee Stadium, where on three pitches Mariano Rivera retired the side. Matching closer for closer, Kazuhiro Sasaki faced Shane Spencer, Scott Brosius, and Alfonso Soriano. Brosius fluked a single, but instead of keeping the ball in the double-play portion of the strike zone, Sasaki tried taking advantage of those letter-high strikes. Unfortunately, Soriano likes those letter-high strikes also, utilizing the left-field short porch for a sayonara homer that probably did more to break the Mariners' spirit than the previous night's shellacking did to the Yanks'.

Tim McCarver went on about how Soriano played in Japan for a couple of years, forgetting that the Yankee scouts have likely compiled five times more information on Sasaki than Soriano would have remembered, having faced the closer a handful of times at most.

I then cut McCarver off in mid-sentence (I am Television Viewer, and I am all-powerful) and happened to catch the 15 minutes of non-NFL content on ESPN, which included a profile of Derek Jeter (what are the odds??). Highly ignorable, until the interviewer asks this question: "Do you feel any responsibility, as the city tries to heal, to win for the City of New York?"

Paraphrased, Jeter's diplomatic answer was, "I'm not sure how much baseball can help the city or the country heal, but we'll do what we can."

The more appropriate answer would have been, "That question is insulting to every American who isn't from New York. We're not playing against the Kabul Martyrs, we're playing against other Americans. I'm not even really from New York. I grew up in Kalamazoo. I'm asking the Yankee press officer to revoke your credentials."

So, to recap the lessons learned on Sunday:

- After listening to McCarver for four hours!! I can't stop speaking in exclamations!! And saying, "you've gotta understand!!" (That last phrase always reminds me of the scene from Monty Python's Meaning of Life. Mark my words, one day Joe Buck will reply by hissing, "It was the salmon mousse!")

- They didn't follow my recommendation last year, but if the Yankees should win their fourth consecutive Series they should strongly consider voting a share to Rhodes.

- If I were a Diamondback player, my greatest fear after a big win would be that of being leapt upon by Randy Johnson.

- You too can be a member of the media. All you need is good hair.

Finally, don't forget that the Japan Series is being played this week, with Game One going to the Central League champion Yakult Swallows after a 7-0 pasting of the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes of the Pacific League.

The Swallows' Kazuhisa Ishii was responsible for seven innings of no-hit ball in that game -- Ishii's also the latest Japanese player to announce plans to try his hand in the Major Leagues. The Buffaloes' Tuffy Rhodes tied the Japanese single-season home run record this year, despite all that has been said about the locals' rabid protection of their records from gaijin assault. (I have never said this, even in the face of repeated viewings of Mr. Baseball.)

You can keep an eye on the yakyu happenings by reading the English version of the Asahi Shimbun or Daily Yomiuri online newspapers. Keep in mind that the folks at the Yomiuri might be a tad miffed that the Giants didn't make it.

The Japanese also invented the term "sayonara homer" long before ESPN came along and foisted the term "walk-off" on us. For that we must be grateful.

Geez, now I'm hankerin' for sushi.

about the author

Michael Cox is, however, amenable to a new name for "the seventh-inning stretch." Suggest "many people singing badly while TV cameras single out shirtless fat guys" at mc@strikethree.com.