Baseballhead:
Love and Money

Michael Cox

How fast it has happened. The actual game of baseball has barely ended for another year, and already the dollars are flying like Scott Boras lawsuit threats. In case you've been hiding under a rock all weekend, the airtight security (must...keep...straight face...) at Shea Stadium was somehow breached and the airwaves were filled with Mike Piazza's new $91M, seven-year contract, which was eventually confirmed.

A mega-deal for Piazza was certainly not unexpected, and if a New York team couldn't do it, nobody could, but there are still some questions begging to be answered: First, where do you send Todd Hundley? Signed to a multi-year deal with the idea that a good young team would be built around him, Hundley instead had the misfortune to injure his elbow, which of course was exactly the moment when the team's bosses got itchy for a winner.

So after these many years of "rebuilding," the front office decided to trade a parcel of top prospects for Piazza in hopes of earning the wild card. Hundley, after managing to renegotiate himself into a limited no-trade agreement, was stuck in the outfield, where he floundered. So now, coming off his worst season ever and with almost $12M in guaranteed salary for the next two years, the Mets are going to try and trade him? They'd have better luck getting rid of a warehouse full of Flowbees.

Then there's the length of the deal. Sure, Piazza says now that he wants to be a catcher for years to come. However, he was so overused by the Dodgers, and Swami sez he will be by the Mets, that those knees will start Daultoning (daulton: v.; to pretty much give out) on him before long, and when that happens, you can bet he'll be happy to play first base as long as the checks keep clearing.

Finally, there's the matter of the rest of the team. Piazza did a great job of demonstrating that he can't carry the team on his Armani shoulders, much to the (extremely vocal) disappointment of the Mets "faithful." That team in Atlanta is likely to stay good, and well-financed, for years to come. The only way that the Piazza deal can help is if the team puts a lineup around him. In 1998 the Mets were below league average in most of the major hitting categories even with half a season of Piazza.

The question isn't whether the Mets can afford to do it. The question is whether the Mets want to layout top dollar to send out for a top team after waiting for so long to build one from scratch. Perhaps they had previously thought they would wait for the Braves to peak, and when the peak lasted for eight years the Mets finally realized that they'd have to join 'em to beat 'em.

Now Bernie Williams and Kevin Brown have filed for free agency, and the Piazza deal can only be more ammunition for their überagent Scott Boras, who clearly wants top dollar, ever, for his charges. After his past couple of embarrassments (Alex Rodriguez overruling Boras to sign a discount four-year deal with the M's; J.D. Drew being avoided by a bunch of teams when he was made to re-enter the draft) Boras must prove he's the Man, if only to help re-inflate his sagging ego.

Other quick items:

Item: One name that is so far conspicuous by its absence from the free agent roll is that of Randy Johnson. Could it be that the Astros are actually talking to him? They are preparing to move into new, spendy digs in a year or so, and might want to start building a team for the new park. It would also not make my new RJ Astros mock jersey obsolete, which is always a good thing.

Item: Just this leftover thought from the World Series -- here's how East-centric the trad media is: virtually every story about Joe DiMaggio's pneumonia bemoaned the fact that the illness was going to keep him from throwing out the first pitch in Game 1. The thing is, Joltin' Joe was never scheduled to do the honors. MLB plans the anthem singers and first-pitch celebs for the Fall Classic, and it was Sammy Sosa all along. George Steinbrenner wanted DiMaggio to toss the ball, because hey, he's Joe DiMaggio, and while that's fine, it wasn't what was going down.

But hey, if Steinbrenner says it's so, it's so, right? On the other hand, he does have good lawyers...

Item: I just found out that the Major League Baseball Umpires Association has a site (http://www.majorleagueumps.com/), and of course, I had to go and see how they planned to describe their various artistic impressions of the strike zone (to nobody's surprise, they use the rulebook description). Obviously created by a team of designers whose other sites include something like Urban Desires and a KMFDM tribute, it has an "ask the umps" section -- no questions on particular calls, please (too bad. I was picturing that John Goodman referee skit on SNL) -- and bios.

The latter piqued my curiosity, so I popped over to the AL umps' page and...what the hey? It's missing my all-time "favorite," John Shulock! Did he retire or something and I missed it, or are his "fans" everywhere? I was looking forward to finding out he has hobbies like bowhunting and cross-dressing, and that he learned umpiring in the beer leagues of Teaneck, NJ. Oh well...

 

about the author

Michael Cox is on his knees thanking every known deity for the change back to Standard time. He's at mc@strikethree.com, but his e-mail alert sound is really loud and he needs his sleep.