Baseballhead:
Garbage In, Garbage Out

Michael Cox

Hello again. This week I had hoped to bring you a particular piece I've been working on, but it's not ready. Still. Kinda like the scripts for "Fastlane." However, in my case I'm not going to spring it on you quite yet.

Instead I'd like to first take a moment to thank you for reading our little corner of the web. In another couple of months we'll be celebrating our fifth anniversary, making us 35 in Internet years, and the fact that we've been recognized as we have and read by as many as we are makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. Or maybe that's the booze.

Sometimes during this past season, however, I've had to fight some unabashed hatred for certain persons and situations pertaining to the sport of baseball. I think many of us have had the same feelings, as we dealt with the potential for a season-ending strike and watched the media find bad guys at every turn (the image of Sports Illustrated's Rick Reilly chasing Sammy Sosa around the clubhouse with a specimen cup is something I neither wanted nor needed).

Frankly, it was all a bit of a buzzkill.

Sarcasm came easily this past season, as the amount of off-field distraction reached an 1812 Overture-like crescendo (the version with the cannons). Even during the playoffs and World Series, we seemed to care about the Rally Monkey, Thunder Stix and Darren Baker more than the games themselves. Whether Barry hit a game-winning single was less important than whether Barry shook his "postseason curse."

Now, ordinarily and in proper context, all this stuff is perfectly acceptable pomp and circus pants, and can make baseball even more fun, like Ruth's called shot or the Gashouse Gang's antics or Bill Veeck (the Eddie Gaedel debacle excepted -- if a midget is going to take part in a regulation game, make him an umpire). In fact, we've built a career out of talking about such things. Problem is, it was often all anybody was talking about.

In part we can thank FOX -- in their quest to wring ratings out of the game, they give us a color commentator who shouts, whooshing and clanking graphics, and between every pitch a human drama/comedy/tragedy/musical theatre. We can thank the proliferation of sports media, where they report unsubstantiated rumor as if it were fact, and "trusted sources" have seemed to multiply like mold spores, because juicy rumors attract readers away from the competition, and every Selig where's-my-Metamucil grimace is overanalyzed by a brace of former major-league catchers.

And of course, we can thank ourselves. Five years ago, we set out to unearth the things in baseball that you don't see in the major media, to ridicule the stodgy old "baseball men" who knew that good pitching beats good hitting, pennants are won with speed and defense, and that "clubhouse chemistry" is the key to success. (Of course, if the pitching beats the hitting, the pitching was better; speed and defense hasn't done anything for the Royals; and "clubhouse chemistry" magically appears when a team is winning.)

We (and others like us) have succeeded all too well. Bill James disciple Rob Neyer is an important part of ESPN's online baseball coverage. Newspapers have begun to include on-base percentage and/or slugging average in their team stats. This year, Peter Gammons even discovered OPS, stunning thousands. When we started, most fans applauded Bud Selig when he was introduced. Now they treat him with the respect his actions warrant.

Lately, the phrase "be careful what you wish for" has been coming to mind.

When I look back, this season was probably the hardest ever for me as a baseball fan. I not only had to endure the attempted rending-asunder of my beloved game, I had to explain to laypersons that SI was grossly exaggerating the number of steroid-enhanced freaks of nature in the game, and that Barry Bonds is just an ordinary person, personality-wise, in a very extraordinary time. I had to deal with the fact that Pete Rose is better at math than Jose Canseco or Ken Caminiti, and that people became outraged over there being no decisive winner in an exhibition game.

It's possible that more non-fans have been following baseball than ever before. Unfortunately, they were following all the bad stuff. At times recently I've wanted to chuck it all and not even think about baseball for a week or two. Or ten. To just think about music, or my ongoing quest to find a coffee shop in my neighborhood with reasonable quality control.

Well, maybe it's because all the bad stuff is over, or perhaps because Rick Reilly and his posse have turned their attention to Randy Moss and Michael Jordan, but I suddenly find myself going through the worst winter baseball withdrawal I think I've ever had. It only really hit home yesterday, when I was sorting some old videotapes, and ended up watching the entire 8/17/96 Mariners-Yankees tilt at Yankee Stadium.

The game was nothing particularly special, aside from memories of a time when Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez and Randy Johnson all played on the same team. But after a while I realized why I enjoyed the game -- it was the first time in months I'd watched a game with no peripheral drama. It felt good. Just Junior and A-Rod, Bernie and Paulie and Wade Boggs (Wade Boggs!!) plying their trade.

It was then that I decided maybe it's time to get back to some basics. No, I'm not going to forego sarcasm, that'd kill me (especially when the Braves just managed to get Mike Hampton at half his salary, while the Marlins got almost nothing and the Rockies got what they deserved -- the shaft).

But I want to look at a few things from a fresh angle. You'll see what I mean in the weeks to come (about the same time I see what I mean).

about the author

Michael Cox thinks maybe FOX should dump "Fastlane" and just bring back "Miami Vice." Cast your vote for Bill Bellamy or Philip Michael Thomas at mc@strikethree.com.