Baseballhead:
Back In Slack

Michael Cox

I'm back, and having watched the news for the past couple weeks, I can safely say this country has never needed baseball as much as it does now. When a basketball player's sexual bad judgment causes hysteria, when Mark Cuban (the man who should own the Rangers) commenting on the hysteria causes hysteria of its own, and when the big political news is the lead actor from Kindergarten Cop, is a plague of locusts that far off?

But my perspective may be skewed out here on the west coast. In New York, where the only thing funnier than a governor inept enough to be recalled is the thought that an Austrian actor is likely to replace him, all they're concerned about is that the Yankees got Jeff Nelson back.

Yes, less than a week after criticizing Mariner management for just being themselves, Nelson was rushing back to NYC for a happy reunion with Joe Torre and the fans who have spent most of the season booing the home team's middle relievers. Meanwhile, at press time Armando Benitez still hasn't met his new teammates. It really is becoming the proverbial tale of two proverbial cities.

There was a time in the past decade when players specifically asked not to be traded to the Yankees. They feared the fans, the traffic, the owner. Probably most of all, they feared a quagmire where fingers constantly pointed and recriminations flew over the team's inability to make it to the ALCS for Don Mattingly's entire career (and during most of that time, all you had to do to make the ALCS was to win the division).

Meanwhile, Seattle spent the early 90s actually becoming respectable, with three of their four future Hall-of-Famers in place. New owners began spending money, fans began attending, and word got around that the area was a great place for a ballplayer to raise a family. By 1995, the only real knock on Seattle for a player was the Kingdome's PlastiGras, or PseudoLawn, or whatever DuPont was calling it.

Step forward to the present. Both teams have had great success, each winning over 110 games once, and each appearing in at least three ALCS since 1995. However, the Yankees have turned their squabbling into a few World Championships (and opened the cash spigot further after those titles stopped coming), while the Mariner management have slowly reined in their expectations while profit-taking from their new ballpark revenues and a radio deal worth more than the Yankees'.

Indeed, the "just win, baby" attitude in the Bronx suits more players than the "don't swear" attitude in Seattle, where they tried last year to ban the word "sucks." Let's face it, if Nelson had opened his can of grump-ass on Steinbrenner, they'd have publicly feuded for a week then made up, resulting in a net result of more attention for the Yankees, all while the team hummed along as usual.

In Seattle, owner Howard Lincoln couldn't even get that right, choosing to privately sulk and meet with Nelson behind close doors, not to bury the hatchet, but to state his displeasure at having his GM called a "doody-head" (okay, I'm paraphrasing).

With the team losing three of their four future Hall-of-Famers in successive years, and close to losing their fourth (Edgar Martinez) to retirement, a stated desire to be "competitive" (as opposed to "a champion"), and now the immediate exile of the first guy to do any amount of talking out of school, I wouldn't blame a player for adding Seattle to his no-trade list.

In the end money still talks, and the Mariners can overspend with the best of them (Jeff Cirillo and Dan Wilson stand as prime examples). But all things considered, the M's are the early-90s Yanks all over again, only without the constant managerial firings.

World Ending Sooner Than Expected: Okay, I just saw the height of fan-behind-the-plate stupidity during the Dodgers/Reds ESPN tilt Wednesday night. Not only was the fan (and his kid - dressed in Reds gear at Chavez Ravine) talking on his cell phone and waving at the friends/family at home so they could enjoy his big-time TV appearance, but he had walked up to the unoccupied space right behind the plate to stand as he committed his crime.

Considering my memories of Dodger Stadium ushers who treat beach balls like potential dirty bombs, I expected a Rodney King-like scene, but no dice. That's it. Recall the governor.

about the author

Michael Cox would join the hundreds running for the possible California governor's seat, but apparently you have to actually live there. Offer your Sausalito P.O. Box at mc@strikethree.com.