doRA

So, in lieu of a massive rant about ARod, I'll just link to this piece on slate.com, which lays out precisely the opposite opinion as mine.
In it, he mixes a bunch of banking metaphors, in an attempt to pander to the non-baseball watching audience who are reading his article because, with Obama as president, they no longer have anything to feel wronged about.

Summarizing that piece, he suggests three steps to fixing baseball:

1) punish teams not just players. If a player is found to have taken PEDs, his team is barred from the playoffs.

That is insane, and utterly besides the point. The reason we punish individuals is cause they're professionals. The NCAA punishes teams because it's college, and the burden of responsibility is shared between student and program. Plus, this would nearly guarantee at least one year in the near future where 0 teams are eligible for the playoffs, were baseball to really ramp up testing (which I think they should).

2) Put all PED users on the permanently ineligible Hall of Fame list.

This is myopic as hell. He blabbers about how the Hall isn't just for the best players, it's for the players who demonstrate sportsmanship, integrity, etc... You know, guys like Ty Fucking Cobb? What about all the players popping greenies throughout the 70s-90s? "The world is grey, Jack!" The Hall isn't some virginal, lily white beacon of "all that was once good, and could be again", it's simply a historical record of human achievement. And humans are hopelessly fallible. Let us celebrate their achievements through the lens of our common humanity.

Look, Bonds should go in, McGwire should go in, dorA should go in, and when I take my grandson there someday, and we look up at Bonds' gigantic melon immortalized in bronze, I can moralize about what a cheating dick he was until lil' Alex begs for me to shut up so we can go get a choco taco already.

3) Players shouldn't be eligible for the Hall until 10 or 20 years post-retirement, to better allow history to judge them.

While I suppose that this longer time period might give us better perspective, it would also result in WAY less interesting Hall of Fame induction speeches. I shouldn't have to wait until I'm old and grey to see my childhood heroes (many of whom would have died already) canonized. Also, with modern statistical analysis, it is relatively easy to compare players to the league average, and so make immediate judgements about their ability, regardless of differences between eras. So the only reason to wait 10-20 years would be to judge their moral failings or lack thereof, and I've already rejected that point.

Piling on

The Knicks Revered Sideshow Of Newsworthy Evil (KRS-ONE) continues with a probably untrue but hoo boy do I hope it happened cause it is fantastic story, starring none other than Eddy Curry, his cock, and a loaded handgun.

Peep this brilliance:
• When Kuchinsky balked at some of these tasks, he claims he was verbally assaulted by Curry, including being called, "fucking Jew," "cracker," "white slave," "white devil" and "grandmaster of the KKK."

And if you think this post is entirely superfluous, a transparent machination simply meant to bump Jeff's emotional and well written homage to Jim Rice (aka Steve Balboni with a softer career arc), then, well, congratulations.

Our Long Regional Nightmare Is Over

Bravo.



I'm not entirely sure Jim Rice got into the Hall of Fame for the right reasons. His statistical argument is weak, as he's one of those guys who looks less impressive now that we monitor walks and OBP so closely. I sure don't think he got 23 people to change their minds strictly on merit, not when old farts can use their ballots to blow off Rickey Henderson as a personal fuck-you. I can assure you that stat nerds are not happy about this, especially when adding in Bert Blyleven's continued absence.

But regardless, Jim Rice deserves to be there. I really don't care how he did it. I don't want to know how they make hot dogs. I just want to eat them. The outcome today was the right one.

I only have vague recollections of Jim Ed, three of which I can share:

1. My earliest baseball memory is the first game I ever went to, sometime in 1984 before I really cared about baseball. We sat along the first base line, and I mostly just played with my friend. But the only strong memory I have left is that when it was time to go, sometime around the 6th inning, my friend's dad said we should "wait for Jim Rice to get a hit." I couldn't tell you if he did. I think he did. But I can't say I was very concerned about it. I was pooped.

2. The next time I went to Fenway, I remembered every detail. I'd spent the summer obsessed with baseball cards and the Red Sox. I eventually convinced my mom to take me to the box office so we could pick up some tickets. I can still see the gigantic season schedule that hung above the ticket windows. I was so excited when game day came along... September 7, 1986. Bruce Hurst shut out Minnesota, 9-0. My dad and I sat all the way out in right field, near Pesky's Pole. Bill Buckner hit a home run into our section, a few rows away from us, which blew my little mind. I remember two different putouts at home plate in the same inning, one coming from Wade Boggs at third, the other coming from none other than Jim Rice.

But the highlight of the game, as Baseball Reference's WPA-o-Meter corroborates, was Jim Rice's grand slam into the bullpen. It was the first home run I ever saw. I can still see it in the air, everyone around me standing up to will the ball outwards, the ball flying swiftly into the benches, Fenway rising up. It was a lesson. You could watch a million games, and you'd never understand what it was like to be there. 1986 ended badly, but Jim Ed was in many ways my official introduction to baseball.

3. The infamous incident a couple weeks later when a typical jackass Yankee fan grabbed Rice's hat and tried to shove it down his own pants as Jim Ed chased after him. I remember watching TV38 and the cameras watching Jim, staring this douchebag down until he surrendered the hat. Lots of other folks jumped in, including noted roidbag Roger Clemens. Jim Ed jumping into the stands that day sets the standard for running-into-the-stands behavior. Do it for a good reason, and don't punch nobody. (Future entrants would not follow these ground rules.)

By the time I began paying oh-so-close attention to the game, Jim was washed up. Years' worth of back problems came home to roost. But he was the face of the Boston Red Sox when I became a baseball fan, and still one of the looming figures in the American League. Jim Rice, for me, is my first. He still stands as the ultimate example of right-handed power. And rightly so.

Congratulations, Jim Ed. And make sure your acceptance speech ends with "suck it, Neyer."