Introduction September 22, 2010

“I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee.” Carly Simon You’re so Vain

Suffering through a losing season of baseball is like a long car ride home from a nice vacation sitting cramped in the backseat. It seems longer than it really is because you are heading nowhere fun, and you know when you get there it will be close to midnight and that evil alarm clock is way too eager to proclaim its existence at 6:00 AM.

Baseball is like a lot of things. A lot of different metaphors can and have been used to describe it. Sitting in the back of my friend’s car riding back to his house too late at night and staring out the window I thought of that metaphor. I wasn’t particularly comfortable and all interesting conversation had died long ago. All that remained as we got close to his house was the quiet drone of his music and the silence of the night. That is how it feels to watch the end of a losing season. All the fun is gone. It has been a long time since anyone even bothered to mention the Washington Nationals as anything other than the team that the Braves and Phillies are playing in an effort to pad their stats and make it to the playoffs.

Being a baseball fan of a losing team is tough. It is very tough. It is downright trying at times. I set there every night hoping for a win and there is around a 40% chance that I will be rewarded with one. In a way it is a marriage. I love the Washington Nationals. It is probably not a phrase a lot of people say. I also love my wife. I am not sure in this metaphor of being a baseball fan as a marriage if my wife is the mistress or baseball is. My wife would demand that she comes first, but at times baseball demands to come first. In my dreams of one day seeing a World Series game in person I can imagine very little coming in front of it. Nothing short of my wife giving birth or being seriously injured will keep me from that game, but of course that doesn’t mean my attention will be diverted from it.

I imagine as the business man fucks his mistress on semen stained sheets on a dirty mattress in a cheap motel has his wife in the back of his mind. The mistress can be put away and forgotten about, but the man has to go home to the wife eventually. Maybe that is how it is. The baseball season never truly ends and my marriage never truly ends. It is always there and present in my life. When the off-season arrives I will be trying to find out who the Nationals are trying to sign and trade for, and I know every year I look forward to February 14^th because it is close to the time that pitchers and catcher report to Spring Training. My wife of course looks forward to that date for an entirely different reason.

The two are so intertwined in my life that my wife and baseball are both the mistress and the wife. The metaphor applies to both equally. There are times when my wife will stand next to my chair looking down at me longingly waiting for a goodnight kiss and all I can say is, “Hold on. Zimmerman is batting.” Then there are times when the baseball team is losing. Down 9-1 in the 8^th and I think it is suddenly a great time to give my wife all the attention she craves. She is very understanding and that is why this whole thing works. She understands I love baseball at times as much as I love her. She has things she feels this way about and at times she is out at the barn with her horses until 9:30 or 10:00 at night. I hardly notice because I have baseball to care for me, but that will end soon and Hot Stove news won’t come quick enough to hold my appetite at bay. Then it is my turn to be understanding.

If you are reading this it means I was successful at what I sat out to do. I want to write a book, not just about baseball, but about life, marriage, and the times that try us. I want to take you with me on my journey through a season of baseball. It will most likely be another long trying season, but there is that small chance that it will be something magical. That some miracle will take place and the Nationals will actually have a winning season. Again if you are reading this you know the answer to that question.

Or maybe not.

I am not going to wait to find a publisher and release this to the public. I am going to keep you updated along the journey. Each week of the 2011 season I will put up two chapters. Before the season begins I will put up seven chapters. One right after the world series, one after the winter meetings, one when pitchers and catchers report, and then one a week when Spring Training games are going on.

I will include many different things about baseball. I will talk about how much I like stats, and then how much I dislike them. I will talk about the beauty and the poetry I see in the game. I will talk about my travels and the cities I see. But most of all I will talk about how baseball has entwined itself into my life and how my wife and I deal with it. How she hides in the bedroom some nights while I watch the game, how she can talk with me for five or ten minutes while I listen to the game on the radio before she realizes that I haven’t heard a word she said, and of all the times we sit at the games together and enjoy each other’s company.

I invite you then to join me on this journey. To enjoy my pleasures and my pains as I watch and suffer along with the Washington Nationals, and as my wife suffers and endures a husband that at times loves baseball as much as he loves his wife.        

I Hate you Now Leave me Alone September 10, 2010

My mind races. I can feel the fear rising up in me as he nervously inches towards me. This short slightly overweight goofy looking guy in glasses is making a beeline right for me. This isn’t right. If I was standing in front of an elevator or a staircase I might understand, but I’m not. I am standing next to the exit to the bathroom at PNC Park and this dorky looking Pirates fan is heading straight for me. Maybe he wants to tell me to go fuck myself because the Nationals just finished taking their first road series since May by outscoring the Pirates 17 to 3 in the last two games, but that isn’t it. When he gets to me he asks me where I am from. I want to tell him I am from where he thinks I am from. How many fucking Nats fans aren’t from the DC area? I really just want to tell him to fuck off, but I answer his question honestly but tersely.

Obviously he doesn’t get the message as he has  follow up questions. He asks if I am in town for the whole weekend. The fact that it is Sunday afternoon should give that one away, and I don’t know how to answer this retard. I simply tell him no I am leaving when my friend gets through desecrating a stall at PNC Park. I actually leave that last part off and just tell him no. He of course has more questions and comments. I really want this to end. I have no idea why this guy is talking to me. Do I look interesting or interested? He keeps going though. He tells me that Zimmerman made a good play at third. My response is, “I know.” Zimmerman does do it all the time after all. He is the best defensive third baseman in baseball.  Lucky for me I see my friend exit the bathroom and with no further words I am gone. I look back briefly and sad lonely eyes are following me. I feel no remorse I fucking hate strangers and I hate it more when they talk to me.

This instance of a stranger talking to me is nothing new. It has happened in nearly every city I have travelled to this year to watch baseball. From a Nats fan in Ohio telling me his life story and why he is a Nats fan to a guy in Philly wanting to stop me so he could chat about Strasburg’s injury and Jim Riggleman’s handling of pitchers. It happened a few other times in Pittsburgh as well. Mostly the topic of conversation is Strasburg and if I think he will come back. Well I know he will come back. The problem is he might break down again or not be the same pitcher, but he will return to the mound and statistics show that he most likely will be the same pitcher.

The topic of conversation here isn’t Strasburg. It is strangers trying to have conversations with me. I don’t know why it happens. Maybe because I am a Nats fan on the road they assume I know something about the Nationals. I do probably know more than most non-diehard Nationals fans, but I don’t think I know that much more than any other Nationals fan. I simply like to travel and like to watch baseball when I travel. It is funny because no stranger tried to talk to me in Chicago or Milwaukee, but that time I was with my Asian friend and maybe they think I am his translator or something and don’t want to start an uncomfortable conversation. Well I got news for you strangers out there; every conversation you start with a stranger is fucking uncomfortable. It is weird to think that at some point in time all my friends and I were strangers, but I met most of them in some form of schooling, and if you think about it your classmates aren’t really strangers.

 It is for that reason that I think I would be open to a fellow Nats fan talking to me, but some beady eyed chubby Pirates fan is a no go. Although I have to say when a random pizza delivery guy in Cleveland decided to talk to me it was kind of cool, but he was there and I was there. We were both in the places we were supposed to be going about our daily business and he decided to talk to me. After a minute or two I did want to get away, but it wasn’t the same kind of confusion mixed with fear that I suffered in PNC Park.

The waitress at the Original Oyster Bar kidding us about the Nationals is one thing as is the guy sitting next to us at a bar, but it is an entirely different thing to approach a stranger out of nowhere and start jibber jabbering and trying to make conversation. It isn’t nice or fun to feel trapped. I had to wait for my friend to get out of the bathroom. Looking back right now I just realized I could have just run off to the team store and sent a text message, but I am a much faster thinker in hindsight. At that moment I was trapped in a little corner of PNC Park. A corner where no human being not exiting the bathroom would have a reason to be. Why this little turd felt the need to walk up to and then start talking to me is beyond me. Of course now I also feel bad about calling him a turd. He is probably just some socially awkward guy that feels any fellow baseball fan is a possible friend.

I just dislike people. I dislike crowds. The worst place in the universe to me is the grocery story. I stopped eating cereal because the isle is always too crowded. My wife now does all of the grocery shopping and I can’t be happier. When I do have to go to the store it is always a scary time. People are rushing around me and darting in front of me. One woman was tailgating me the other day with her cart. I stopped to pick up some beer and she almost ran into me. Listen sweetheart it is a grocery store people buy things. They ain’t there to take a stroll through the fucking cheese isle. Also walk how you fucking drive people. Walk to the goddamned right.

I guess the point is it doesn’t really matter where I am in the world I dislike strangers, and I dislike it even more when they approach me for no good reason to have a conversation I am not interested in. I can sit and watch a ballgame in complete silence, lost in deep thoughts and meditation, transfixed by the beauty of the game on the field. The last thing I want is my fortress of solitude to be broken into and have to listen to some guy asking my opinion about many various things. Maybe I should just have a business card made up with various web addresses on it of where my opinions can be read. Of course there is a reason I don’t have many friends and never seem to have fun at social functions, but hey if I cared I wouldn’t be me.

How it Might Feel to be a Free Agent September 1, 2010

It might be odd to say, and then again it might not be, but today I felt a piece of my soul drift away. The fact that it took me an entire month to finally quit LA Boxing should say something. As should the fact that I made my wife call to cancel the membership. It just feels painful to close that chapter of my life. Maybe a gym membership isn’t a big deal for everyone, but in a way it felt like part of who I am. Back when I joined LA Boxing I seemed to have more time on my hands. Work was not as stressful and difficult and I was able to leave before 5:00 PM. Traffic on Rt. 50 also wasn’t as bad, and I was able to get to the gym in time for the 6:30 boxing class.

Recently this has become impossible, and the fact that it is baseball season and my life is all consumed with baseball doesn’t help. In years past I was able to grab nights at the gym when I could, but with heavier traffic and a busier work schedule it just became impossible. It is really no fault of LA Boxing, and here is where this all connects back to baseball. Adam Dunn loves it in DC. The Nationals supposedly love Adam Dunn. It seems like a match made in heaven, but forces beyond the control of either party might keep a deal from happening.

Dunn has had one of the best seasons of his career and it is largely due to the fact that he now plays at first base. His defensive importance has decreased by moving to the only defensive position less important than left field. Dunn’s nature as a defensive liability no longer completely outweighs his offensive production. Of course other players of Dunn’s skill set have seen sharp declines in productions in their earlier 30’s, an age that Dunn is just now reaching. If Dunn wants too many years it might not be a match for the Nationals, and if the Nationals aren’t willing to pay the money Dunn thinks he should get then it isn’t a match for Dunn.

I am now positive from my personal experience that both sides will feel the way I do. LA Boxing was perfect for me. I got to hit things. I also got to do cardio (which I hate doing) in a fun and interactive manner. Let’s face it, standing on a treadmill or elliptical machine for 30 minutes is one of the most boring experiences in the world. Hitting a punching bag and then dropping to the floor for push-ups or sit-ups is fun. I do not have a bad word to say about the place. It lost my business not because of something it did, but simply because of the logistics of its location.

Sometimes we want things to work out, but they just don’t. I am positive Dunn isn’t lying when he says he enjoys being a National. He will never forget his experience here and I am sure he has built a lasting friendship with Ryan Zimmerman, and Josh Willingham. The nice shiny gym I go to now doesn’t have a set schedule. I can come and go when I please, but when I want to do cardio I have to get on a boring elliptical or treadmill, and while I missed weight training a bit in my time at LA Boxing I am sure I will miss the punching bag even more.

One day when I get a house I will have a room in my basement. It will have a TV to watch baseball on, bookshelves on every wall, a fridge full of beer, and hanging right in the middle will be a big punching bag. I can’t imagine how useful this will be when a National’s hitter grounds into a double play. Right now my wrath is taken out on whatever household object happens to be in my hand. My wife and I’s dog is always very concerned when anyone is upset, and he often checks on me as I sit there screaming, “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” at whoever the offender is.

Living in a 500 square foot condo has a lot of downsides, and one of the main ones for me right now is my wife likes to spend time with me. That doesn’t sound so bad when I say it like that, and I might make myself sound like a monster here, but she doesn’t think I am me when I am watching baseball. Either I am cussing at a perceived injustice a player has committed just for me, or I am drawn into the action and unresponsive to her constant chatter. She feels that being away from me all day entitles her to get to spend time with me without realizing that I have also been away from baseball all day as well.

Of course with modern technology I am never that far away. I can whip out my smart phone and look up baseball news, or cruise on over to my favorite baseball websites on my work computer. In this new modern world we are never truly detached. When we first started dating she would get a little upset at me when I would look at my phone to get the scores, but now she is used to it. Sometimes she reminds me that she is a living person and my phone is just an electronic device, but she fails to understand that it is informing me about baseball. That while I might be married to her in the eyes of God and the law I am also married to baseball. Baseball has crawled into my blood and soaked through my skin. It is a part of me.

When I see the letters SB, CS, K, BB, or any other combination that exists in baseball my mind actually thinks they mean that scoring. During the BP oil spill I kept wondering who was spilling all this oil during batting practice. And it is for this reason that sitting here thinking about how much I will miss my time at LA Boxing that I have a sudden feeling that I know what it is like to be a free agent leaving a place that is truly loved for no other reason than it simply couldn’t work out.

Clinical Obsession July 12, 2010

This past Saturday I took my mother to watch the Nationals lose to the San Francisco Giants 10-5. On the way home she asked me a question I could not answer, a question that I simply found puzzling. She, like I guess all mothers do, asked this question in the form of a statement. She said, “I hope you haven’t become obsessed?” The motherly concern is slightly touching, but I think my confusion comes from the very nature of the sport of baseball. I am die-hard baseball fan. I don’t think a day passes that I don’t read an article on fangraphs or look up a players stats on baseball-reference.com, and no night passes that I don’t watch a baseball game in some form or another. I am even going to drink a beer and watch the homerun derby tonight. I will get annoyed at Chris Berman, but it is the only baseball I will get tonight, and when winter rolls around I will watch the Caribbean Series when it is on MLB network. Simply said being a baseball fan is being obsessed.

Even if you aren’t a slightly insane person like myself, but still watch baseball then in a way you are obsessed. Baseball is on during the perfect time of year to lead to obsession. Unless a person is really interested in summer shows like “Rookie Blue” or reruns of “Glee” then baseball is the only thing to watch.  

The lowest common denominator of sports information is sports radio, and this is the time of year they hate the most. Baseball is hard to talk about. It is a sport that has to be understood in order for intelligent discourse to take place. The caller can complain about a guy not hitting enough homers or having enough RBI, but if the radio host adds no insight then they have failed. So, in order to not fail they mostly ignore its existence and complain about the lack of football. Football is a completely different sport. Someone can watch every football game and understand more about it than other people, but the only time they lose is a couple hours on a Sunday afternoon. Baseball takes away three hours every night.

Most people simply don’t have the time to invest in really following a team. It is even more of an investment to get down to all the smaller parts of what makes up a team. Knowing the minor leaguers and the prospects is an investment of time. Keeping up and understanding the latest stats and trends in the game is another investment of time. Trying to argue your views vs. another fans view on a message board is yet another investment of time. And between all this life has to be lived. Money needs earning, wives and girlfriends need attention, family needs visiting, and god forbid someone die or get married.

(Once a college friend of mine got married during baseball season and I lied and said I had prior commitments so I could go and watch a meaningless game between the Nationals and Cubs. My favorite Uncle also happened to die during baseball season and my father and myself rushed home from the funeral Sunday morning to watch the Nationals take on the Marlins. When planning a family the birth month of my child will revolve around the baseball season so as not to disturb anything. And I myself had a January wedding just so it would avoid any aspects of baseball.) 

The nature of baseball is obsession. Even if someone wanted to it would be very hard to follow any other sport as closely as all of us die-hard baseball fans follow baseball. All the information we need to know nearly everything there is to know about baseball is right there at our finger tips. The internet has made being a baseball fan even more time consuming and wonderful. If I wanted to know what Adam Dunn is hitting on Tuesdays after an off-day in which it rained I am sure the information is out there. Baseball lends itself to so many things. People could spend hours arguing the strategy of bunting or discussing the joys of watching Pujols bat.

This season alone I am on a record pace of attending sixty games. I have been to 33 games so far this season. All but three of them have been Nationals games. Two of them were Orioles games when the Nationals were out of town, and one was a Harrisburg Senators game when Strasburg was pitching. Baseball has become a part of my being. I can’t say the moment this happened or why it happened. It is just something that does happen. I don’t know if I would call it an obsession though. Obsession implies danger. It implies that I would stalk Strasburg just for a chance to steal his dirty underwear and sell it on e-bay.

When I was in Cleveland a random Nationals fan ran up to me and he seemed very excited about something. He seemed to really have something important to tell me and was bouncing like a six year old that needs to pee. Without me even opening my mouth he proceeded to tell me how the Cleveland police told him that the Nationals were staying at the Ritz or Hyatt or some other fancy hotel. I really didn’t care. I don’t really want to meet the Nationals players away from the field. My pleasure comes from watching them play the game of baseball. There is a poetry and beauty in watching people that are this good do what they are great at. Seeing them in street clothes drinking beer in a hotel bar is not really the way I want to see my ball players. I don’t want to know what they do when they aren’t playing baseball. That is their free time when they are human and I want my ball players to be mythic beings, and they are only that when they are playing baseball.

After the crazy stalker told me this news of where the Nationals were staying he ran off in the opposite direction I presume to tell more people that he was insane and going to stalk the Nationals. That might be obsession. I am not there. I do spend countless hours reading about baseball in books and on the internet, and I spend even more countless hours watching the game of baseball. I plan my travels and vacations around baseball (next weekend I am heading up to Chicago for Cubs vs. Cardinals, Brewers vs. Nationals, and White Sox vs. Mariners).  Whenever someone asks if I have plans I always check the baseball schedule before I can answer. Baseball may consume large quantities of my time, but I am no more obsessed than other normal baseball fans.

I don’t care what hotel the players stay at. I don’t wait by the player parking lot for the chance to see them drive away. I simply watch and enjoy the game of baseball. For me it is a passion not on obsession.

The Adam Dunn Question July 8, 2010

There is a pleasure derived from watching Adam Dunn swing a bat. He is a big lumbering mountain of humanity. He is someone that has stepped out of the pages of folk tales, a mythic hero like Paul Bunyan or Hercules. He is strong, fierce, determined to give it his all in every plate appearance. There is no beauty or poetry in the way Adam Dunn plays the game of baseball just like there is no beauty in watching a lumberjack fell a tree. It is pure force and power. His mighty swings can crush the soul of the pitcher and his epic strikeouts leave his own fans wondering what might have been. It is just a known that if his bat made contact that ball wouldn’t be coming back.

The question now surrounding Adam Dunn and the Washington Nationals is what to do. Adam Dunn is a force at the plate and in the clubhouse. He is a big goofy likeable guy to the players on his team, and he is a feared leviathan to opposing pitchers. The problem is one that baseball teams face often, and whatever the answer I for one hope it involves Mike Rizzo being smarter than me.

Last night watching Adam Dunn crush homer after home and break the heart of San Diego pitching brought a tear to my eye. I like watching Adam Dunn play the game of baseball. He has his issues. He isn’t very sharp when it comes to situational hitting. He approaches every situation with one goal: smash the baseball into the farthest reaches of the heavens. His goal seems to be to knock Artemis from the sky no matter what the game situation is. This leads to strikeouts with a runner on third and less than two outs where a long fly ball or just a ball in play would score a run. Adam Dunn isn’t that type of player though. His approach is to kill baseballs.

Adam Dunn isn’t a complete hitter, but he is a consistent hitter.  He has had six straight seasons with forty are near forty homers (he fell short of the mark last season with 38 homers). This season he ranks 7^th among first baseman with a .939 OPS ahead of such names as Ryan Howard and Prince Fielder. The only two NL first baseman he is behind are Joey Votto and Albert Pujols. Adam Dunn for his career has put up a slash line of .251/.382/.523. Those are pretty decent numbers for an offensive player. People can bring up defense, but first base is an offensive position and on the scale of defensive importance it might rank dead last.

It simply cannot be argued that Adam Dunn is not a productive major leaguer. The issue is what can Adam Dunn be signed for, and what can he be traded for. I would bet that if you asked a GM to tell you what kind of deadline partners they dream of the answer would be a team in the White Sox position. After an altercation between GM Kenny Williams and manager Ozzie Gullien it was presumed that Williams might be on the hot seat. Then the White Sox got hot and found themselves right back in a division race. The problem is the Twins might add Cliff Lee, and the Tigers have the AL frontrunner for MVP in Miguel Cabrera. The fact is the White Sox are catching neither team. However the White Sox think they can catch both teams. All they need is a little power, and they are looking for Adam Dunn to provide it.

The information we know so far is that the Nationals have supposedly asked for either Gordon Beckham or Carlos Quentin. I think it is more likely that the source mistook his conjunctions and the Nationals asked for Quentin and Beckham. Beckham after having an excellent rookie season is in what is either a sophomore slump or gigantic downturn from which he will never return. Carlos Quentin is a decent right fielder that is just starting to find his power stroke. Getting both these players would fill two needs for the Nationals. Another option would be to enquire into the availability of recently called up prospect Viciedo to be paired with either Quentin or Beckham. This would allow the Nationals to fill the hole left by trading Adam Dunn with a cheaper and younger alternative to Adam Dunn allowing them to save money for a possible run at Cliff Lee in the offseason.

The other alternative is to keep Adam Dunn and resign him. Dunn’s value is now in question after the Phillies signed Ryan Howard to a ridiculous contract. Reports on Twitter last week from Buster Olney were that four years and $48 million should be enough to get Adam Dunn signed. If these numbers are to be believed then a deal is most likely eminent.

There is no one sure path to contention. The Nationals could resign Adam Dunn only to watch him blow out a knee and never play again. Dunn could be traded and help the White Sox make the playoffs resign with them and be the second coming of Frank Thomas. The only sure thing about the future is that it is unsure. Neither option that the Nationals now face is the correct option. Both options could be a path to contention, and whatever happens hopefully turns out to be the best decision for the future of the ball club.

Understanding the Beauty of Ryan Zimmerman July 6, 2010

There is a quiet beauty in the way Ryan Zimmerman plays the game of baseball. The effortless dives towards the foul lines, the barehanded scoops on slow rollers, and the quiet stance with his arms raised and eyes lowered, it all just seems so easy.  If the statement were made that Ryan Zimmerman is a great player many people, including Nationals fans, would argue. How can someone that makes everything look so effortless be great?

It is this stoic nature that makes Zimmerman great. I myself doubted his greatness before the season began when I read in column after column about how Zimmerman was one of the fifteen to ten best players in baseball. I cast aside the first few writers with mild suspension, but then Posnanski said it. He is the great vindicator of any baseball opinion. I read his opinion that Zimmerman was not just a good player, but a great player and suddenly I could ignore it no longer.

I thought back to a moment watching Wes Helms and Garret Atkins playing third base in the playoffs. Everything to the left side of the infield seemed to be a hit. On slow rollers I thought, “That’s an out.” Then as if by magic no third baseman appeared to snatch up the ball and throw onto first. The pitcher and the catcher were too late. I wondered where the third baseman could be. I half thought that maybe the shift was on for that hitter or some other defensive oddity. It just didn’t make sense that the third baseman wasn’t there to field the ball. Then a hard grounder was smashed to the left side just out of the short stops reach, and I wondered how it even got to the short stop.

It was then that I realized that Zimmerman had spoiled me. Watching Zimmerman play defense every day would be like only watching Hitchcock. Having no point of reference and seeing something great everyday makes the greatness fade to the expected. I was expecting Wes Helms and Garret Atkins to make plays that they don’t make, plays that only seem ordinary when a defender of Zimmerman’s ability is on the field. I had lost my point of reference. To me Zimmerman was the ordinary.

It is Zimmerman’s nature that makes you accept this. He doesn’t celebrate wildly after every off balance throw. He is quiet and plays as if he expects to make the great plays. It is ordinary for him to do something extraordinary. It is nothing special to witness diving stabs, dives over tarps, barehanded pick-ups, and walk-off homeruns. Of course that last item is an offensive item. It wasn’t until last season that Zimmerman really grew into himself offensively. He had always had his moments, but last year was the start of something special.

Zimmerman’s offense is ignored even more than his defense. His stance at the plate is nearly flawless in its silence. His hands sit raised out over the plate above the letters. His front foot back ready to step forward as his hands lower. His eyes locked in awaiting the pitcher to make his delivery. He is not a menacing presence at the plate like Albert Pujols or Ryan Howard. He doesn’t instill fear into the hearts of opposing fans and pitchers alike. Maybe it is just they don’t know enough of Zimmerman, or maybe it is just that he doesn’t seem menacing. His swing is as effortless as his defense, and when he does get a hold of a ball it seems to glide through the air as if it is take a stroll through the park. His smashes off the outfield wall come on swings that just look so easy it is believed that anyone could swing a bat like that.

When Zimmerman struggles it frustrates behind belief. Everyone has seen what he can do and how easy he makes it look. Why can’t he just do it all the time? He can just flick his wrist and hit the ball 400 ft the other way. He knows the strike zone so why did he just watch strike three? It is hard to imagine someone so gifted, so natural and smooth struggling and still not looking like they are trying. It has to be a question in some people’s minds if Zimmerman would just show a little emotion and care then maybe he could be even better. Maybe the struggles would evaporate and the season would be one long hot streak. That isn’t how baseball works. There are players that grunt and groan with ever stroke. There are those with violent swings. Then there are players that it just seems to come natural to.   

Zimmerman’s quiet nature and effortless play make it hard for people to see his true greatness. Seeing him everyday makes it even hard to realize just how good he is. His type of greatness is the kind that isn’t noticed until it is gone. It is just there. It is expected, and it seems eternal in its grace. It is hard at times to truly appreciate Ryan Zimmerman. It is hard to see greatness in a quiet, serene nature encased in a player that goes about his business and makes it all seem easy.

Don’t Call Before October June 30, 2010

If the Nationals go on to lose 100 games and last night’s win becomes completely meaningless then this might be the longest summer of my life. I can say with confidence than I am looking forward to OCTOBER more than Dane Cook ever did. The reason for this is I once again bet against the Nationals and sacrificed my ringtone rights, but this time all the way until the end of the season. If anyone tries to argue that the post season counts I will make them look up the meaning of post. It is when the Nationals season ends which could be argued happened when they got swept by the Orioles, but the technical season ends when thirty teams have played 162 games or all division races have been decided.

I guess this could go down in the category of sacrificing to the greater good of the team I cheer for. There was just no way the baseball gods were going to let a fan say something so dumb and get away with it. Now I am stuck listening to Lady Gaga whenever someone calls me, and it isn’t just any Lady Gaga song. It is the worst possible song. I hadn’t even heard the song until I made my ringtone, but this thing going off in public is going to be worse than what it must be like to look like Sheamus. I don’t even remember what it was that I said that stuck me with Lady Gaga the last time, but it wasn’t this bad as I choose the song.

The Nationals played a clean crisp game last night and it looked like the middle of the order might be waking up, and with Nyjer actually hitting and Bernadina in the two hole there were people to drive in. I have been down on Guzman this season, but I can say I like him a lot better batting 7^th than I do batting 2^nd. His game changing hits just have more impact either with guys on base or when he can turn the line-up over to a suddenly productive top of the order. Nyjer still looked sloppy at times and actually almost got picked off on an RBI single. I have never seen a hitter picked off after getting a hit, but if anyone can do it Nyjer can. He just hasn’t been playing smart baseball lately and I seriously question his baseball IQ.

If the team can continue to play sharp for the rest of the season it won’t look as bad as it was starting to look like it could. It was starting to look like the Nationals were ready to make a run at 100 loses for a third year in a row, but I think there are as many games off that pace as they are off the division lead. Meaning it would take a monumental run for them to achieve either.

I also started to wonder if Dibble has missed the last few games. He was talking about how the Nationals during their poor stretch have had to play catch-up and it is hard to win when you are constantly behind by four or five runs.  Against the Orioles the Nationals blew leads of 6, 5, and 3 runs and were playing ahead for most of those games. Looking back even further they won the series against the Royals and the game they lost they lost by a score of 1-0. Looking back further and they got swept by the White Sox by the scores of 2-1 in extra innings, 1-0, and 6-3, and in the final game they actually had the lead for a bit before blowing it. In order to find this type of occurrence Dibble was talking about you have to go back almost two weeks to the Cleveland and Detroit series. I think Dibble might have just gotten stuck in 2009 mood since the team looked like that on Monday, and just started to repeat the things he said last season. It was just odd to hear when it really wasn’t the reason the team had been playing poorly recently.

I also wonder if I tag Rob Dibble if he will ego search and find this blog like Jeff Pearlman. I am more worried about someone calling me in public right now than semi-known baseball people ego searching and stumbling upon my blog.

Strasburg and Strikes June 24, 2010

The big Strasburg debate of the day is if a pitcher can throw too many strikes. I remember reading one time that Bob Gibson did not like the philosophy of the waist pitch. He felt that if you had a hitter in the hole you attacked. I am also not sure that a ball off the plate has to be a waist pitch. Strasburg has such an amazing curve ball and change-up that if he threw them in the dirt that a lot of batters would swing. He can also throw his fastball high in the zone to get swings and misses. I also don’t know if a set-up pitch would count as a waist pitch. A 99 MPH fastball inside right under a batter’s hands would certainly back him off the plate and set him up for a curve or change-up on or slightly off the outside corner. This of course is all part of pitching.

People say that Strasburg and all young pitchers come up to the Major Leagues and are still learning how to pitch. I sometimes wonder why. If I know this stuff I am certain pitching coaches and managers know it. Do they just not tell the pitcher, or is it more a matter of learning how to do it. The only thing a good pitcher should really be learning is the individual hitters. If a pitcher doesn’t know that he needs to change speeds and move the ball around the zone and sometimes expand the zone then they might never learn it. These are just concepts that make up pitching. Some guys just don’t have the talent to hit the spots needed to be a pitcher. It isn’t like they aren’t trying or just don’t know. It is simply that guys like Tony Armas Jr. and Daniel Cabrera can’t.

The real thing that should be taken out of this start by Strasburg wasn’t whether or not he threw too many strikes, but that he didn’t have his best stuff. His fastball velocity was down, he wasn’t locating it like he can, and it happened to be humid and in the high 90’s. The Royals batting order are slap hitters that are just looking to put the ball in play. Mitch Williams on MLB Network said he felt Strasburg would do better against teams with more power hitters, because he is likely to get more swings and misses. The way Strasburg had to battle the heat, not having his best stuff, and the slap hitting Royals all over the bases this might have been his best start, or at least the one where we learned the most about him.

I was at a game one time where Cole Hamels couldn’t through his fastball for strikes and his change-up was being hit. He didn’t give up. He didn’t let the hitters beat him. Instead he stopped throwing those two pitches early in the count. He got ahead with his curveball and then would either throw the change-up in the dirt or his fastball up. He ended up lasting six innings and only giving up a couple runs. It was really a great pitching performance. In baseball more is always learned about a player when he fails.

It was interesting to see how Strasburg handled not having his best fastball, but it was still a 97 MPH fastball that he could locate. It will be interesting to see what happens when he goes out there and has nothing, to see if he can make the adjustments and survive, or if he gets knocked around what happens in his next outing.  I am also very interested to see what happens when Strasburg has everything working. Strasburg is going to be a very fun pitcher to watch.   

I do not think yesterday was an issue of Strasburg throwing too many strikes. I think it was more an issue of battling not having his best fastball, and the heat. He even admitted after the game that the 0-2 pitch he threw to Jose Guillen wasn’t in the location that he wanted. He wanted to go up and out of the zone, but the pitch ended up right down the middle and Guillen just blooped it over the infield. The Royals were just looking to put the ball in play, and they did it enough to win, as the Nationals failed to score any runs. The line-up will come around at some point. Zimmerman, Dunn, Willingham are one of the better middle of the orders in baseball.

Strasburg Hype Brings out the Morons June 21, 2010

I used to enjoy reading blogs post when they would read something so unquestionable dumb and then tear the article to pieces. Last week si.com decided to post a Thomas Boswell opinion piece as fact. Boswell said it would be better for Strasburg if he could get more ground ball outs than strikeouts thus going deeper into the game and preserving his arm. None of this is false. Bob Gibson was one of the hardest pitchers to face and he was also one of the most efficient. He often complained about the entire idea of a waste pitch when he got a guy 0-2. He felt batters were expecting the pitcher to throw one out of the zone so therefore that is when you attack. He was a very smart pitcher as well as an extremely talented one.

The reaction from the comments section was of course horrified dismay. Remember SI was passing this off as something the Nationals said. They were trying to make it seem like the Nationals felt that they needed to mess with Stephen Strasburg. Then today I go to si.com and low and behold there is an article about how the Nationals need to learn from history and not mess with Strasburg. Of course it is idiotic.

Now the article starts off extremely weird. Jeff Pearlman seems to believe Thomas Boswell is the GM of the Washington Nationals. He makes no mention of this, but Boswell is the only person that has said anything about Strasburg needing to pitch more to contact. Of course Boswell also had a Strasburg quote where he said, “Strikeouts are accidental.” Strasburg isn’t trying to strike guys out. He just does because they can’t hit his stuff. Even in getting ten strikeouts against the White Sox on Friday Strasburg only needed 85 pitches to get through seven innings. He is also efficient with his strikeouts. A lot of them come on four or even three pitches. He has excellent control and attacks batters.  

The main problem is Jeff Pearlman doesn’t know anything. He decides that after assuming that Thomas Boswell is somehow connected to the brains of the Nationals that the best person’s opinion to ask is a fifty year old catcher that played a total of 62 games in the majors and make Wil Neives look like an all-star.  Here is some of this wise catcher’s opinion;

“Oh, crap,” says Ed Hearn.

The words come automatically. The dismay is legitimate. I have just informed the long-retired major league catcher that the Washington Nationals seem to think Stephen Strasburg, as perfect a pitching prospect as the game has seen in some time, isn’t quite perfect enough. “They want to make him more efficient,” I tell Hearn, a man I’ve known for years. “So he doesn’t waste pitches.”

Let us examine this more closely. Ed Hearn learns about this desire of the Nationals to change Strasburg from Jeff Pearlman. Well he is a man so arrogant to call his weekly column “Pearls of Wisdom.” He should be calling it “Anal Pearls of Stupidity.” He is literally just pulling this out of his ass. There have been no quotes from the Nationals that they are displeased with Strasburg and that they want him to strike out less guys. Again the only person that said it is Thomas Boswell who works for the Washington Post and not the Nationals. The next paragraph explains where Pearlman got this idea and makes him look like a real genius.

That sentiment was expressed by Washington manager Jim Riggelman a few days ago. “Don’t expect to see double-digit strikeouts too often,” he told the Washington Post. “He’s going to be more of a ground ball pitcher, like Ubaldo Jimenez, than a strikeout pitcher like Roger Clemens or Kerry Wood. It’s better to get three outs on 12 pitches than three strikeouts on 18.”

First off that quote is what Riggleman said before Strasburg’s first career start. The hype was so huge and so immense people with the Nationals were trying to say anything to limit it. Riggleman was mainly talking about Strasburg’s 2-seam fastball that he throws around 97 and was getting a lot of groundball outs in the minor leagues. The expectations were that major league hitters would be able to make more contact than minor league hitters and therefore more groundball outs than strikeouts. It hasn’t happened that way. Strasburg’s stuff is just too good. But besides the problem of when the quote was said and when Pearlman heard it and wants to say it was said, is the sentiment. Pearlman believes this quote is saying Strasburg needs to change. I don’t see that in this quote. I of course know when the quote was said unlike Pearlman. Riggleman first is saying not to expect to see double digit stikeouts too often. I don’t even need to look this one up. I would bet there aren’t many pitchers with a K/9 of 10. Ok I looked up the yearly leaders. The last three years it has been Lincecum with a K/9 of over 10. The league leaders in most years are slightly over are right below 10.

What this says to me is that most pitchers are under 10 and even a K/9 of ten doesn’t mean a lot of double digit strikeouts since most pitchers don’t pitch a complete game every time out. In fact last year Lincecum had eight double digit strikeout games out of 32 starts. Eight out of 32 isn’t a lot, but Lincecum lead the league in K/9. He was the best strikeout pitcher in the league and only had eight double digit strikeout games. On average a pitcher will have to strikeout around half the batters he faces to produce double digit strikeouts. I have spent so much time on this point of the quote I have ignored the obvious.

Nowhere in this quote does Riggleman say anything needs to change. He is just saying it is better to less pitches in an inning and saying what people should expect. As the league adjust they should be able to make contact with Strasburg more often, but with his stuff it won’t be good contact. Therefore more balls in play, but less strikeouts. Of course Strasburg will be like Lincecum and probably float right around double digits for strikeouts every game. Right now Strasburg is sitting at around 14.9 K/9. This would be an all time record. It simply won’t continue. Nothing Riggleman says is that the Nationals are going to do anything to change this. Just that simple logic dictates it must change. If Strasburg does have double digit strikeouts in 2/3 of his starts he will be the greatest pitcher to ever live.

The reason Ed Hearn is an expert on this is that he caught Dwight Gooden in the minors. Let’s not forget the fact that cocaine ended Gooden’s career, not the Mets trying to teach him a 2-seamer. Also ignored in the rest of the comparison to Gooden is that Strasburg already through four pitches and one of them is a 2-seamer. The latest pitch Strasburg learned is a change-up and he added it on his own and some people already believe it might be his best pitch. Just ask the White Sox that waived at it quite a few time. Anyway here is some more goodies for Anal Pearls;

Before Gooden could take the next step toward legend, however, the Mets committed an unforgivable faux pas: They tinkered. GM Frank Cashen, one of the era’s best evaluators of talent, worried about Gooden destroying his power arm, a la Mark Prior two decades later. Mel Stottlemyre, the generally savvy pitching coach, thought Gooden could be even better with a second fastball — a two-seamer to dip down and result in more groundouts.

Hence, during spring training before the Mets’ world-championship 1986 season, Stottlemyre spent hours upon hours tutoring Gooden on the intricacies of the two-seam grip. “I always thought they should have left Doc alone,” Gary Carter, the Mets star catcher, once told me. “Mel thought teaching him a third pitch would be to his advantage, but he didn’t need it. He needed someone to say, ‘Hey, you’ve been successful. Just keep going at it.’ But they didn’t.”

The results speak for themselves. In 1985, Gooden was the elite arm in all of baseball. In 1986, he was merely good — a 17-6 pitcher whose ERA rose by more than a run per game and whose strikeouts dropped precipitously. “Looking back, you never knew with Dwight whether some of that was related to his [well-documented] substance abuse issues,” says Hearn. “But I caught Doc, and I can tell you he wasn’t the same after being forced to throw a pitch he was never comfortable with.

“I don’t know this Strasburg kid, and all I’ve watched were the highlights on TV. But if I’m Washington, I leave him alone and let his talent shine. Because I’ve seen what can happen when you mess with a great thing.

“It’s not pretty.”

I know it is pretty much the rest of the article, but it is so full of stupid I just don’t know where to begin. How about that the expert that Pearlman is asking admits to “Not knowing this Strasburg kid.” Good job. If he did know him he would realize that Pearlman was asking leading questions to try and write an article to counter the hype and be the negative voice in the room. Too bad he had to basically make everything he said up. Bad sports journalism should not be tolerated, and sports journalist shouldn’t just be allowed to make stuff up. They also shouldn’t be allowed to interview ex-major leaguers and ask them leading questions to make it look like someone in the game agrees with them. I am just doing my part in the world to point out that this article and its writer are both retarded.

Read it for yourself here: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/jeff_pearlman/06/18/strasburg/index.html

The Eye of the Storm June 16, 2010

This past weekend I journeyed up to Cleveland, Ohio to watch the Nationals take on the Cleveland Indians. The best pitching performance of the weekend wasn’t talked about, and very few people showed up to watch Fuasto Carmona give up one run on three hits and face only twenty-eight batters. It was quite an impressive thing to see. I am disappointed that the Nationals weren’t able to win both games I went to, but it was very interesting to see how Strasburg was treated on the road.

I have been to road Nationals games in Baltimore, Atlanta, San Diego, and Pittsburgh, and nowhere have a seen anywhere near the number of Nationals fans I saw this past weekend. I wore my Ian Desmond jersey shirt on Saturday and while visiting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a number of people came up to me to talk about the Nationals and more specifically Stephen Strasburg. I have to say since returning to this area I haven’t been asked once about the Nationals or Strasburg, but up there I was asked by nearly every person I passed. It was pretty much pure insanity.

Sunday, when Strasburg pitched was even more insane. The Indians drew their second highest crowd of the season, and this is a team that gets to play the Yankees and Red Sox at home. The Indians team store was selling Strasburg jerseys and shirts and other items of memorabilia. The number of people I saw walking around in Indian hats and Strasburg shirts wasn’t normal. In just two starts Strasburg has captured the attention of the nation and with just a little bit of success he could be a household name.

This hype is like nothing I can remember, but that doesn’t mean I won’t try. I remember when Iron Mike Tyson was at the top of the world and was knocking everyone out in the first round. Everyone wanted to see him fight. Everyone was a fan of the big uppercut and his short quick strikes. He was like nothing anyone had ever seen before. He was a short compact wrecking ball of bone and muscle. He tore through opponents like they were cheap toilet paper, and the only person that every beat Mike Tyson was Mike Tyson.

Some of the people that Strasburg gets compared to are guys that beat themselves. Doc Gooden and Vida Blue are the first two that come to mind. The pressure of greatness got to them and they both succumbed to drugs. Others like Kerry Wood and Mark Prior shined for awhile and burned out quickly. Many people point to them and say that we know more now and that shouldn’t happen. Just because it shouldn’t doesn’t mean it won’t. I don’t think Strasburg has a destructive personality and both Tony Gwynn and Scott Boras know how to handle fame. Whenever I hear the humble nature of Strasburg in an interview I don’t know if it is Gwynn’s influence, the Scott Boras script, or if it is the real Strasburg. It is just hard to tell.

The hype will only keep growing as long as Strasburg keeps delivering. On Sunday he battled bad mound conditions and control issues, but still struck out eight and only gave up one earned run. The focus of course is on the eight strikeouts. There is going to be a day soon where everything is in Strasburg’s favor.  The umpire will have a favorable strike zone, he will have his best stuff, and the defense will be solid behind him. It will be a wonderful thing to witness.

Right now Strasburg has a lot of hype because he is new and shiny and he is bringing money and fans to the Washington Nationals, but they can’t waste this. They can’t fail to build around him like the White Sox did with Frank Thomas or the Orioles did with Cal Ripken Jr. If the Strasburg hype is going to continue to grow and he is to become a superstar like Sidney Crosby, Lebron James, or Tom Brady then he has to win, and in order for him to win the team has to win. Hopefully this Strasburg money can go towards and Jason Werth or a Cliff Lee, or maybe even both, because if people show up to see Strasburg pitch they will show up even more to watch an entire team win.