Baseballhead:
A Dog Day's Night

Michael Cox

Why? Why, why, why, why?

Why was the week leading up to (and including -- especially including) the trade deadline so utterly bereft of amazing trades?

Why are people still making stuff up about Ken Griffey Jr.?

And why are people still holding microphones to the mouth of umps' union leader Richie Phillips?

The answer, my friend, is blowin'.

Lets start with the last one first. The umpires began a new round of their attempt to be hated by every single person in the world, filing their long-promised grievance with the National Labor Relations Board on Tuesday. They are, in essence, declaring that Major League Baseball had no right to accept their resignations.

Phillips' argument is that because the resigning umps all withdrew their quitting papers, they never quit at all. They were only joking, I guess, like the day trader in the TV ad who tells his boss off before noticing that his net stock had just plummeted. Swallow-your-tongue stupid, the only thing that keeps it from being completely humorous is the fact that more ludicrous claims have won in court before.

But more unnerving is the arbiters' new "we're the good guys" publicity push, which inevitably means getting the wives and children front and center. Earlier in the week, the Hallion family opened up to the media to show a family rent asunder by the evil machinations of the owners. On Tuesday Phillips brought out some of his faithful, including Bill Hohn, who claimed the dissenting umps "quit my family," and Drew Coble, trotted out in front of the media to claim his resignation was never sent because he was caring for her during chemotherapy.

Even Ed Montague, whose wife sent an angry letter to the wife of John Hirschbeck calling him a "Judas" and wondering how they would ever teach their children morals, said his spouse's comments were "heartfelt" and "She did not write this with hatred toward Denise Hirschbeck." OK, so the hatred was toward Denise's husband. He went on to get his kick in on the owners, stating, "We're not the guys out there charging $6 for a beer, charging $5 for a hot dog...but we're the ones who get beat on."

The bad news is that nickel dogs wouldn't make this bunch's execution of their jobs any better. That's the reason they're going away.

Item: The Dayton (OH) Daily News reported Monday that the Mariners' desperation to keep the most marketable man in baseball has resulted in their consideration of Ken Griffey Sr. as a managerial replacement for the fumbling Lou Piniella. This in itself should surprise no one -- the M's are likely to take any route other than actually improving the team in order to keep Junior.

The fun begins with the portions of the article in which people are quoted. The first is Ken Jr.'s dad, who reportedly said, "That might be the only way to keep Junior. He said he's gone." Unfortunately, Senior says he never said that. His son was even more brutal: "My dad's been in baseball how many years? He knows what to say and what not to say." As for media speculation that he hates the new Safeco Field, he added, "I'm supposed to make a decision on 11 games?"

The quality of journalism in the Dayton piece was revealed in this paragraph:

And he nearly refused to play after the Mariners traded Butch Huskey and David Segui, asking the rhetorical question, "Where are my pitchers?" Then he added, "Have you seen the standings? What has (general manager) Woody Woodward done about that? Maybe it's since we have so many people in ownership, one man can't get it all done. If they don't trade me in the off-season, I don't think I'll make it through spring training."

The problem with this is that the above statement appears in the July 26 edition of the Seattle Times, published online prior to the Huskey trade later that day, and two days before the Segui trade. Griffey is a lot of things, but psychic isn't one of them.

And for the record, The Daily News "stands by the story written by baseball beat writer Hal McCoy." Just thought you'd like to know that.

Item: Reportedly, the trading deadline passed at midnight Saturday. You sure couldn't have told that from the number or magnitude of the deals done. Even the Kevin Appier trade was so many years in coming that 1) it was anticlimactic; 2) Appier isn't even his former self anymore. Take heed, Phillies, when you're made a good offer for Curt Schilling.

The only real surprise of the week was that the Athletics consider themselves to be in a pennant race. After they dumped Kenny Rogers a little earlier, folks in the East Bay Area were about to give up. Now, they're stoked. After coming up goose eggs in the late June flea market, the Rangers have to be sweating from more than the blast-furnace sunshine.

For more on the not-so-frantic past week of deals, read Jason Barker's excellent dissection of same.

And just like we promised, we had you in and out in under an hour. What -- we made no such promise? Heck, then, stay a while. You'll have to click on some other section, though, because I'm shuttin' down before the biggest damn lightning storm I've seen makes my computer another victim.

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Michael Cox has just found out that Offspring sound live like Rey Ordonez hits. Let him know that at least Dexter Holland can get voice lessons.