Baseballhead:
The Great Unknown

Michael Cox

Zoinks! It's another episode of Baseballhead, where we acquired these roses on our cheeks by standing about as close to the actual Stonehenge prop from This Is Spinal Tap as you're now sitting from your computer screen. Yes, we're easily pleased.

We're now into Week Two of "Griffey Under Siege," as the entire baseball pundit world takes up sides to declare that Ken Griffey Jr.'s either a spoiled child or the victim of a massive media conspiracy.

Yes, the man whose suffix is used by ESPN as his given name is a tad perturbed by things like TV polls asking if he should be benched upon his return from the DL, fans -- home fans -- heckling his wife at the ballpark, and a few odd death threats. All uncalled-for by any stretch of the imagination (although that poll sounded more humorous than serious), and all piled on top of the frustration Griffey has felt over recent injuries.

If you wouldn't blow your top over all that, here's hoping they make you the next Pope.

Message boards everywhere are full of "fans" claiming that for the money he's making, Junior should just stop complaining and deal with it. That they'd be overjoyed to be in Griffey's situation if it meant wealth beyond their wildest dreams. Of course, it's all very well and good to snipe from the comfort of one's Aeron chair, but if I could wave my hand and switch them with Griffey this minute, within a week they'd either be crying like a baby or fitted for a straitjacket.

It all boils down to three words: You don't know.

What must it be like to be one of the most scrutinized sports stars in all of recorded history? You don't know.

To have photographers on your doorstep, a mob consisting primarily of semiliterate sports reporters thrusting microphones at your gob every moment they're allowed (and some moments they're not), which is at least once per day for six months at a time? You don't know.

To not even be able to open your own mail because complete strangers somehow feel compelled to tell you off, or worse, for little reason other than the fact that your skills have made you rich? You don't know.

You can get a glimpse of what he must be going through. Buy a book or two on the Beatles. Read the part about their touring years, and how they quit touring altogether after only four years because of the insanity of the press and the fans. Then imagine how that would be compounded by the Internet, television "instant polls," racism, the fact that athletes have an additional "role model " tag thrust upon them, and the 10 points of IQ that one seems to lose when one becomes a sportswriter.

You're not done yet. Rent Bedazzled (the original with Dudley Moore and Peter Cook, not the crappy remake) and that episode of The Twilight Zone where the genie grants three wishes to the shopkeeper. After all that, you might have a bit better feel for what it's like to be Ken Griffey Jr.

But you still won't know.

The Finger: A million Red Sox fans and another million fantasy team owners let out a collective shriek on Saturday as Manny Ramirez found out firsthand why you don't slide headfirst into home plate. It's a blow to the Sox just when it looked like they finally had the team Dan Duquette thought he had for so many years.

The 4-6-week Ramirez outage is tempered just a bit by the apparent full-strength return of Pedro Martinez, but the rest of the Boston staff is going to miss the run support. In the grand sabermetric scheme of things, Manny's damaged digit (say that three times fast) is probably going to mean only 2-3 fewer wins in those 4-6 weeks, but when you've got the Yankees to contend with, every 2-3 wins makes a difference.

Pete Incaviglia, be expecting a call.

Weird Science: From the Tempest in a Teapot Desk comes the media frenzy over the Coors Field humidor. Having discovered that -- gasp -- the Rockies have decided to keep their balls stored under controlled conditions, suddenly everyone's got an opinion. Columnists say it's dirty pool and the reason run scoring is down in Denver this year. Scientists say it makes as much difference as storing the team's bats in a barrel of Fritos. Smart-asses ask, "well, why doesn't every team get to weird crap to compensate for its location?" (Hint: some do. For example, I'm writing this column from a city whose team never has to play in drizzle.)

All these column-inches and all this bluster, and all the Rockies are doing is keeping their balls up to factory spec. The balls come out of the room in the same condition they went in, instead of drying out in a closet. (The Rockies say the dry mountain air actually alters balls so much that a good number of them wouldn't pass quality control at the factory.) Far from debating whether the team should be allowed to store them thusly, I believe that if they hadn't done it on their own, MLB should have ordered them to do so.

And Arizona too (as if Randy Johnson needs any more help).

Bad Management: In the 18 years I've been attending baseball games, last Thursday's Mariners-Blue Jays contest had to be the most excruciatingly boring game I've ever seen in which the home team won. It's bad enough that every two-bit visiting manager comes to Seattle intent on out-thinking Lou Piniella (the good managers know to let Piniella out-think himself). But how Buck Martinez handled his pitching staff last Thursday was not only tedious for anyone who paid to watch the game, it ultimately resulted in a Blue Jay loss.

In the fifth inning of an already snail-paced game, Martinez pulled starter Brandon Lyon, the first in what seemed like a hundred Toronto pitching changes (in reality only six). It seemed like anytime a Mariner reached base there was a visit to the mound, and any time two M's were on there was a pitching change. I didn't start counting pitcher/catcher conferences until the eighth, but I still counted 12. It took four hours to play nine innings, and then came bonus panels.

Jays reliever Corey Thurman had pitched the night before and suffered from control issues from the get-go, but the bullpen candy store was fresh out of licorice whips, so the game was his to win or lose. Finally, with the bases loaded, the metaphorical chips down, and Thurman visibly flustered, at the very moment when someone -- anyone -- should have met with him and told him to throw his best pitch and make Mike Cameron beat him, not a soul stirred from foul territory.

Because no one spoke to Thurman, the young reliever made the decision to continue his fruitless attempts at painting the corners, walking in the winning run with his sixth base on balls in 1-2/3 innings. ("If I walk you, I walk you. You can't give in in that situation," he said afterward.) The entire Blue Jay roster walked off the field, leaving the Mariners celebrating wearily, and an inconsolable Thurman still crouched on the mound.

The loss, however, didn't belong to Thurman. It belonged to Martinez, not only for making hasty moves (including the large number of pitches closer Kelvim Escobar had to throw after being brought in with one out in the eighth), then finally not making a crucial move. On Thursday, Martinez was guilty of a much more heinous crime: making the game every bit the plodding exercise in boredom that haters lament.

about the author

Michael Cox recently invented Speed Baseball, where a chess clock is used for all mound visits. Note that Tony La Russa will never endorse it at mc@strikethree.com.