Baseballhead:
A New York Week

Michael Cox

Welcome to another weekly edition of Baseballhead, apparently the only media entity in the world that doesn't feel moved to make a joke involving Tae Bo. But first, a quick word from the Editor (whattya know, it's me!)...

<shill>

New stuff is imminent! There are a lot of things we're working on that I can't yet divulge, but I can let you know about two particular items. First, if you like fantasy baseball, we've got a little game coming your way. It's fun, and of course, skill will be rewarded with prizes of extraordinary magnitude. And if you've never played fantasy ball before because of all the work involved, don't despair -- this will be an insanely easy game to play.

Also, we're working on giving you a way to talk both to the Strikethree.com writers and to each other -- and I wouldn't use this next word if it wasn't true -- interactively.

More details in the next couple of weeks.

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Now to the week at hand. Spring training has barely started, and already the New York teams are hogging the media. To wit:

Item: In his first act as the reigning You Gotta Have Heart Award winner, Darryl Strawberry no-shows a fan event. Now, in years past this wouldn't even be considered newsworthy, but now Darryl has been transformed by his illness into a Nice Guy, one who feels that he should, of his own accord, go all out to show The Fans his immense respect.

Of course, when it turned out that he was the same old Darryl Strawberry he's always been, a few people got a tad peeved, not least of whom was his boss, Da Boss. Steinbrenner verbally ripped a strip off the Strawman's posterior for the unprofessional behavior, but then suddenly did a 360 after a phone call from the outfielder himself.

It turns out that Strawberry told someone to tell someone to cancel his appearance, but the word didn't filter down to the fans. Not important, said Steinbrenner, and no explanation to said fans is necessary. I'll agree with him as long as I don't have to hear endless stories about the valiant struggles of the comeback kid for the rest of the season. Eric Davis said it -- it's not like you have a choice. You do what you do to survive, but you're still the same guy. For better or worse...

Item: Speaking of cliched stories, Yankee fans will get an earful this year, as Tim McCarver, Baseballhead's Bad Broadcaster of 1998, moves from Queens to the Bronx, where they've cleaned out a closet for him to store the exclamation points he uses to punctuate Every! Single! Sentence!

The most amazing thing about all this to me is that the Mets are actually taking heat for dumping McCarver. I can, and have, practically gone on for hours talking about his lack of respect for his audience ("What people just don't understand..." seemed to be his favorite phrase during one sample period last year) and rank him even lower than Angel/Giant/Mariner broadcaster Ron Fairly, which is saying a mouthful.

Item: Still not nearly running out of Tales of Yankee Woe, the scene shifts to sunny Florida, where a team of arbitrators made Derek Jeter the first player to win a hearing. Jeter could not conceal his glee at finally getting the Yanks back for refusing to negotiate a raise or extension in prior years.

Although Steinbrenner managed to at least pretend he was glad it's over, GM Brian Cashman seemed none too happy at the result. "I really think our case was strong, and I thought the midpoint was irrelevant. Obviously, it's not. It's one of those things where the glass is half-empty, half-full," he babbled. What he was apparently referring to (and I'm guessing here) is that Jeter's case may have centered around the team's offer being below the average for the top shortstops in MLB.

And Jeter's got a case. Jose Offerman just got a $26M, four-year deal (though admittedly the Red Sox are hoping to move him to a less defense-oriented position), brethren Alex Rodriguez and Nomar Garciaparra are making comparable money, and even Royce Clayton's deal averages $4.5M per.

Say what you want about whether Jeter deserves to be in the top echelon of middle infielders (his agent's talk of kinship with Bernie Williams made milk come out my nose), but under the criteria that arbitrators look at, his asking price is closer to the 1999 norm than what the Yankees offered. Of course, the pressure's all on Jeter to live up to it.

Item: Prior to Jeter's breakthrough, players had been coming up dry in arbitration, and for good reason. All were overrated at best. Mark Grudzielanek? Johnny Damon? Brian Hunter?? It's almost like the arbitrators had read Baseball Prospectus or the Big Bad Baseball Annual. Heck, when the Expos risk letting a player go to arbitration, you know they're pretty confident they'll win.

After the Red Sox beat Midre Cummings, his agent (Craig Fenech) came up with this nugget of wisdom: "You just don't know why the arbitrators make their decisions.'' If you can't figure that one out, you should probably get out of the sports agent business. Of course, if you can figure that one out, you're probably representing better players than Midre Cummings...

Item: Garth Brooks is going to spring training with the Pads. "Why isn't this your lead story?" I hear you asking. If I thought there was one iota of seriousness in the whole deal, it would be. As it stands, I'm waiting for Keith Richards to try out for a utility infield position with the Dodgers, where Davey Johnson would likely actually welcome someone who makes him look handsome.

about the author

Michael Cox had a dream in which Ron Fairly, Peter Gammons, Joe Carter and Tim McCarver were the broadcast crew for a Twins-Brewers World Series. Let him know if you could hear him screaming from where you live at mc@strikethree.com.