Baseballhead:
No Candid Camera for Junior

Michael Cox

Welcome once again to Baseballhead, the column that can help MLB market to young women in four words: Alex Rodriguez beefcake calendar.

Item: The wide-ranging Ken Griffey, Jr. interview in this month's ESPN Magazine (motto: "Michael Jordan cover every other month"), he confirmed a lot of what many of us have been certain about: Griffey is reverent and studious when it comes to baseball. However, his first-person monologue also confirmed another thing I've suspected, but never really known before: Junior has little no sense of humor about himself or his career.

He mentions that he normally won't talk to ESPN because on Sportscenter they make an occasional "smart" comment when showing a Junior misplay. Two things immediately came to mind: 1) In his next contract negotiation, will he demand that the Mariners stop showing the between-innings blooper reel every night? 2) He must really hate former players like FOX analyst Steve Lyons, who made a career out of being wacky.

I'm not going to bring up the tired old saw, "it's a kid's game so it shouldn't be taken seriously," because at the professional level it's a sport, not a game. Kids adhere loosely to rules and don't count on the game to put food on the table.

However, baseball at the professional level is most certainly entertainment, and if it weren't players like Griffey wouldn't be making the salaries they do. In the entertainment business, you've got to understand what sells, and unfortunately that's not just the great plays, it's the bloopers, the characters, and the experience. If you boot a fly ball in an unintentionally humorous way, you're getting your name in the news. This is only bad if you don't make enough good plays to make up for it (see Incaviglia, Pete), and if that's the case you're not a very good player anyway and had better be able to laugh at yourself.

As I write this, Sportscenter is featuring Griffey's amazing Tiger Stadium catch on "Plays of the Week," looped about seven times in a row, despite the fact that the catch was a play of over a week ago. Pandering will get you everywhere, I guess...

Item: Speaking of Incaviglia, it just amazes me that certain players seem to remain in the game, and some even coveted, for years despite being clearly at the nadir of their skills. Others who meet this criteria include Jeff Manto and Norm Charlton. I'd toss in the Tribe's pickup of Cecil Fielder, except for the fact that the Angels are paying most of his salary.

Much of the reason has to do with name value, I guess, although any value Manto may have likely has to do with the mean jokes fans make about his play. But it makes you wonder whether teams really believe that these guys will suddenly get good, and whether they really dislike their chances with AAA talent that much.

Item: Speaking of Big Daddy, he told the media this week that the bum's rush he received in Anaheim was due to incentives that he was about to earn. Problem is, the incentives weren't in his contract, but were part of what he called a "gentlemen's agreement" with Angel management. Now, the problem with this isn't that it isn't enforceable or even confirmable, but that it's the players' union who tends to have a problem with incentives. So what is a player doing agreeing to something like this? Beats me, but I'm sure it's happened before and will happen again. On the other hand, if I were Don Fehr, I'd be incenting Fielder to make his deals within MLBPA boundaries.

Item: It was revealed last week that Lamar Hunt, owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, made a seriously lowball bid for the Royals. The offer, much lower in total than the team's $75M asking price, was only $27M up front. Hunt thought he could get away with holding back another $25M until the community makes improvements to Kauffman Stadium.

My expert analysis is that Hunt is suffering an undiagnosed brain hemorrhage. I suspect the main reason for the bid on the Royals was to leverage public funds to build a retractable roof for Arrowhead Stadium, which sits adjacent to Kauffman and is where the Chiefs play.

Kauffman itself would require little. Some retrofitted suites would likely be the main priority; but the main problem is likely the fact that without a major revamp of some kind, repriced club seating would be a difficult sell. the Royals were one of the first teams to charge more for more luxurious seating in an upper level, but they don't charge a "service fee" like other teams do.

Tip to eventual Royals buyer: fans in K.C. will turn out if the team is good. Start by firing Tony Muser (the crankiest manager in MLB, yet utterly without the track record of great cranks like Earl Weaver or Dick Williams) and work from there.

Michael Cox isn't quite sure whether he's more frightened by the thought of "classic" '70s TV bloopers, or by the fact that somebody actually spent time and money cataloging and storing them this long. Offer to help him with this conundrum at mc@strikethree.com.