Baseballhead:
Say What?

Michael Cox

Before I begin, I'd like to quickly thank everyone who signed up for tickets to the Strikethree.com KingDome outing this Sunday. It'll be a full house (no, not the Dome, silly - our section), and a lot of fun. The Strikethree.com staff just hopes you'll still respect us after actually seeing us.

Coming soon: Look for your chance to vote for Strikethree.com's year-end awards.

So anyway, I was watching the wire yesterday, it being the last day before traded players would be ineligible for playoff action and all, and saw a bundle of nuttin', but with two curious spikes: the first was Li'l Joey Cora for David Bell, and the second was the Dante Bichette contract extension (not a trade, but who said we had rules around here?).

Now, I knew the M's would be looking to deal The Damp-Eyed One, and the deal was about what I've come to expect from Woody Woodward: other team gets better of deal; fans asked to wait and see how (fill in name of guy here) pans out. (Hint: Woody's track record on the panning-out is poor.) the funniest thing about this deal is the press reaction.

The national press, focused these days on the playoff-bound teams (okay, focused on Mark McGwire, but you know), worried most about what Li'l Joey would do for Cleveland. "Bolstered" is the word I believe they used over and over (is the AP dictionary only thirty pages or something?). Bolstered their offense. Bolstered their speed. Bolstered their playoff chances. Yeah, he'll bolster 'em about as much as a below-average-hitting, speedy but steal-impaired guy with possibly the world's worst record of muffing textbook throws to first can bolster a team.

But then I heard from the local press, who proceeded to bury the one-time fan fave with that old-fashioned cliche, "he was horrible in the clubhouse." Horrible to whom? Why, the press, of course.

Stories were trotted out of Joey dissing the media. Joey leaving the clubhouse early. Joey telling the press, "you suck." (That last nugget from the Seattle Times' Steve Kelley, who wouldn't know a baseball if it disemboweled him. The guy sleepwalks through the summer, waiting for the NBA to fire up the hype machine.) Suddenly, I had new respect for the little guy. Especially after the same local reporters started getting on Ken Griffey Jr. for "not getting it." (The reporters seem to forget that Griffey is it.)

Still, however bad the sports journalists in Seattle, but they're strictly minor-league compared to the world-class gomers in Denver. First, it was the Rocky Mountain News' Bob Kravitz, who made national headlines by calling Griffey out, spitting high-school epithets at Junior because Junior wanted to take a flyer on the Home Run Derby, thus depriving the press of their Griffey vs. Mac buildup.

But now another Denver "journalist" has screwed up bad enough to get drummed out of the MLB press corps. Denver Post columnist Mark Kiszla was caught snooping around in Dante Bichette's locker, looking for a bottle of androstenedione. Yeah, doing something that would get a cop in trouble might be enough to get a press credential revoked. So lessee...writing unprofessional drivel is okay, but an actual crime is not. Can the rest of you BBWAA members remember that?

This brings us to the Bichette deal. He reports to the team fat (yet is taking "Andro"? What's wrong with this picture?), manages to hit for empty average (and you all know his home/road splits). He leads the NL in hits, but not in batting average, couldn't walk if terrorists were holding his family hostage, and barely scrapes into the top twenty league slugging leaders - and my guess is he's earned a raise over his current $5.1M salary. But hey, he's the fan favorite...until Kiszla and Kravitz decide he's not.

Item: Mark "Not Quite Maris Yet" McGwire gets tossed from a game; fans pout. Fans boo. Fans throw things. Even Mac is embarrassed. It should have been obvious to everyone in the building that he should have been tossed. Or was it?

The media has been doing such a good job at banging that home run drum, of focusing all their hype on McGwire (to the point where when Sosa ties Mac, headlines say, "Sosa Temporarily Tied for HR Lead"). Such a good job of putting a Chasing History logo on the screen every time Mac bats on ESPN and of stomping all over "your regional action" to bring you his every strikeout and bouncer to second on FOX. Such a good job of talking about his steroid use enough to get him on the network news, yet not enough to spark any kind of backlash, that now there are legions of people who could care less about the game, but know they want Mac to get the record.

Many of these folks now attend Cardinals games. You can tell who they are - they're the ones who have no idea that Cards fans used to wear red to Busch Stadium. They're the ones who tell the ESPN roving reporter how much they'd sell number 62 for. they're the ones who threw stuff when Mac was tossed.

Item: Am I the only one who noticed the slough of TV ads for creatine that have been running since the hubbub over steroids and supplements? Yes, it's the latest sports/chemicals brouhaha, proudly sponsored by General Nutrition Centers...

Item: Just after the All-Star Game, I mentioned a home shopping telemercial (not a channel - they bought late night local TV time, just like the guy exhorting you to make money with tiny classified ads) in which they had the "Glory" beanie baby for sale at about 300% markup over what they paid fans at the game? Well, they're at it again.

The president of the company wants to buy the 62nd homer (presumably even if it's hit by Sosa) and use it for some currently confidential "business purposes" before giving the ball to the Hall. He'll pay $250K for the ball, but supposedly not if it's secured via "violent behavior." Well, I'm here to tell you, sure as eggs is eggs (mad props to the Aussie posse) there'll be an even sleazier fella come along who doesn't care how you got the ball, as long as it's the ball.

Item: On a lighter note, I was watching the Yankees/Mariners game Sunday, and late in the game with the M's firmly in the lead (for the first time all weekend) Yanks reliever Mike Buddie sends two pitches high 'n' tight to Mariner scrub Rob Ducey. So Ducey heads out to the mound, benches clear, dugouts empty...and what transpires next comes closer to a staff meeting than anything else. Nobody paired up - nobody even looked that mad! Heck, it was about a minute before the bullpens decided they should join the meet 'n' greet...running together!

Do you think they were all a tad tired, or what?

Michael Cox would like you to know that he was impervious to Joey Cora's hypno-vision all these years. Unfortunately, he is much more vulnerable to that of Steve Jobs. Send any alphas of OS X you may have lying around to mc@strikethree.com.