The Hardball Times -- Shane Tourtellotte

Running hot and cold

Shane Tourtellotte — 2013-05-15T07:10:15+00:00

I don't remember the site, or the author, or I would give the link here. This crossed my screen just before I set out on The Grand Tour, and I was preparing for that trip rather than consciously banking ideas to investigate once I came back.

I do remember the assertion made, though: that young baseball players, by nature, are more prone to streaks and slumps than those who have been in the majors for several years. The key ingredient is posited as experience, the accumulation of general knowledge and specific meetings against pitchers that makes each at-bat more like every other, less likely to surprise, pleasantly or otherwise.

Nice theory you've got there. It'd be a shame if something happened to it. Like contrary data.

The groundwork

Taking age 28 as the average peak of a baseball player's career, I chose cohorts equal distances from this point, age 23 and age 33, to represent young players and vets, as well as the sweet spot of 28 itself. I looked for seasons between 2003 and 2012 when players of these ages qualified for the batting title (502 plate appearances). I also required that they have a minimum of 60 plate appearances in each of the six months of the season, to avoid small samples creating artificially large swings.

(For purposes of this survey, late March games count together with April, and early October games count along with September. Postseason play is excluded.)

I found the first potential hiccup in my data in how many players qualified fully for the survey. Among young players, 49 qualified for the batting title, and six fell short on monthly totals. For the prime players, it was 147 and 40; for the veterans, 78 players batted enough for the year, but 20 couldn't keep up 60 PA per month.

The youngsters drop out on monthly totals less than half as often as the older players. One can theorize that older bodies are accumulating more minor injuries that cost them half a month here and there (though it happens somewhat less often for the age-33 cohort than at age 28). Given that nagging injuries could produce more slumps, both before and after a DL stint, this could flatten out the vets' bumps.

(But is this necessarily bad? The hypothesis is that younger players are more streaky because of inexperience. Physical durability isn't part of that equation. Trimming out seasons due to injuries, presumably covering more age-28 and 33 players than age 23, may get us closer to answering the specific question, if further from the general one.)

Another hiccup is that this method probably has a bias toward youngsters getting off to hot starts. A 23-year-old who runs cool in April has a much bigger chance to find himself demoted or benched than the 33-year-old does. Granted, you can bench the veteran, which cuts his chances of making the cutoff lines plenty too. Teams, though, are likelier to play someone with a contract the size of the average age-33 player's longer into a hitting drought, waiting for the rebound. Similar rationales exist for sticking with the age-28 player.

There's also something of a problem with varying sample sizes, but there is little I can do about that. Youngsters are just less likely to get regular playing time. Going back more years for everyone won't really alter the ratios, and doing it just for the kids may confound the numbers. I go with what I've got.

As for determining streaks and slumps, I used monthly figures for each player. Ups and downs surely come in smaller sizes, as well as larger, and they don't necessarily conform to break points on the calendar. Again, I go with the data I have available—which in this case provides something admirably suited to the work.

There is this wonderful abstruse statistic in the Baseball-Reference records called tOPS+. The OPS+ part you probably know: on-base plus slugging, adjusted for park effects and normed to the league average at 100. The 't' part here means the norming is done instead to the player's own total performance. You can thereby measure a batter's splits against what the batter does overall. It works for lefty-righty, home-away, and in this case, month by month.

I take the variation from 100 as the magnitude of streaking or slumping for each month. The direction of the variation by month does not count for my purposes, only the magnitude. A tOPS+ of 120 or 80 will produce the same variation, 20.

For every player season in the survey (some players got in twice at different ages), I took their monthly tOPS+ splits. I then adjusted them further, against the league-wide tOPS+ splits for the months in question. If July of Year X had a tOPS+ of 106 compared to the overall year, a batter's monthly split of 120 would be less of a variation from the norm than it appears. I'd revise the variation from 20 points down to 14.

For an example of how this works, I'll give you Joe Mauer's age-23 season in 2006. Note that Mauer's numbers are relative to himself, not the league, which is why all his monthly numbers aren't well above 100. Also, due to different PA totals in each month, the numbers won't necessarily average out to an even 100.

                    Mar/Apr  May   June   July  August Sep/Oct
Mauer's tOPS+          74    110    146    79     76     104
League tOPS+          100     98     99   106    100      97
Mauer's Variation      26     12     47    27     24       7

That's a total of 143 variation points over six months for Mauer, which is dead average for his age cohort, as you will soon see.

The results

Before diving into the streak numbers, I'll take a quick side-trip to overall monthly performance for the age groups. Different ages could plausibly have differing ebbs and flows in how well they bat. While there are some suggestions of that in the numbers, actual steady patterns are more elusive.

tOPS+ by month   M/A    May    Jun    Jul    Aug    S/O
Age-23 cohort   104.0  100.8  101.0   93.2  100.8   99.1 
Age-28 cohort    97.1   99.8   95.5  105.0  100.8   96.6
Age-33 cohort    93.0   97.0  105.7   98.1  101.9  101.8

For each group, the tOPS+ numbers average out to less than 100, which, the way I've set this up, actually makes sense. Players are naturally likelier to receive more plate appearances when they're running hot, but those bigger PA clumps count as just one month, same as the cold ones. This pulls the average down.

That anticipated selection bias toward fast starts by the youngsters does appear to exist. Less easily explained is their collective slump in July. It could be this is the time when pitchers start getting their second looks at young hitters, start figuring out the holes in their swings, start benefiting from their adjustments before the batters can adjust back in following months. Or maybe it's luck.

The veterans get off to a decidedly slow start, which is just the stereotype one might invent about older players struggling to get back into playing shape and rhythm. Of course, you'd also stereotype them as getting more worn out by season's end, and in reality they hang in pretty well down the stretch. You may insert your own explanations here. You can also try to explain the age-28 spike in July: unless it's pure variance, I'm stumped.

The numbers for streaks and slumps likewise avoid being clearly decisive, but they do give some food for thought.

Variation   M/A    May    Jun    Jul    Aug    S/O    Year  Per Mo.
Age-23     26.9   19.4   24.0   27.3   21.9   23.4   142.9   23.8
Age-28     23.1   25.6   21.7   23.2   20.7   22.8   137.1   22.9
Age-33     27.9   23.9   23.8   23.9   21.2   24.9   145.6   24.3

The veterans show a bit greater variance over the season than the youngsters. As I allowed earlier, the selection bias for the age-23 group may exclude a few early slumpers, suppressing the numbers a little. Even with that taken into account, there's no evidence to say that young players are more inconsistent than the long-timers. The answer to the question that originated this article is "No."

The prime players, though, may have a case for themselves. They show less variation than the other cohorts, and consistently too: they have the lowest monthly splits five out of six times. The biggest gap is in March/April, 3.8 points below their nearer competitor. Getting off to a relatively steady start explains much of their margin, but not all.

The consistency shows through in individuals' numbers as well. The age-23 cohort had six seasons with a variance of 200 or higher, and only two at 75 or lower. For age-33, it was eight at 200+ and three at 75-, a similar ratio. At age-28, however, there were 11 apiece going very high or very low. Great streakiness was about a quarter less common for the prime players, and great steadiness was more than twice as common.

The distribution suggests that prime-age players get a part of their prime performance through consistency. They may avoid the worst dips that knock down the averages of both younger and older players. If experience has its effect on steady performance, maybe the slow decline of the human body does as well, and the age-28 peak represents a sweet spot for steadiness as well as overall ability.

More study may be indicated. (That's intellectual-speak for "Let someone else handle this." I like how that sounds.)

There are some individual performances that, while not doing much to illuminate the overall question, still have interest. Someone in this study had to have the most streaky performance, and the winner is Jason Kendall, age 33 in 2007. This is what a real up-and-down year looks like.

                   Mar/Apr  May   June   July  August Sep/Oct
Kendall's tOPS+       32     55    148    78    202      68
Adjusted Variation    61     42     48    22     99      37

Kendall racked up 309 variation points, the highest total of the 208 players in the survey. The trick seems to be getting two big spikes in the same direction, which is admittedly tautological: the trick to being streaky is to have streaks.

The competition for the steadiest performance was tighter, for a while. Big names cropped up here and there: Albert Pujols, age 23 in 2003; Derek Jeter, age 33 in 2007. But one guy beat them all, and it wasn't close.

It was Ryan Braun, just last year. The 28-year-old put together a monthly tOPS+ line of: 98, 108, 103, 93, 102, 97. After monthly adjustments, his season variation point total came to a microscopic 21, less than the mean variation for a single month. His closest challenger was 2009 Paul Konerko, with 51, a veritable seismograph compared to Braun.

Two questions pop up from the Ryan Braun outlier. The first, regrettably, is what often pops into mind regarding Braun: PED suspicion. I suppose it's possible this is somehow a result of performance enhancers. A brief check of players I surveyed who have been linked to PEDs in various ways came up inconclusive: three above average, three below. Braun's previous four years give two results below average and two above. Absent a lot more evidence, I'll call it luck.

The second question is how much Braun's rock-steady 2012 bends the numbers. Luckily, not much. Without him, the age-28 cohort's monthly variance would be just a tenth of a point higher. Their steadier performance is not due to him alone. Besides which, age-28 players had 107 of the 208 seasons I surveyed. By pure chance, odds were that the lowest variation would belong to one of them. Then again, that's also true for the highest variation, and that ended up in the age-33 bucket instead.

The conclusion

Younger players do not appear to be more prone to streaks and slumps than older ones, but players at the peak age of 28 do look somewhat steadier month to month than either surrounding group. Also, older players are prone to slower starts, at least within the boundaries of this survey.

So the next time a long-time player talks about some fresh kid's bat being on a roller-coaster, look instead at the fellow speaking. It's just as likely he's having his own highs and lows as well.

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The Grand Tour, part five

Shane Tourtellotte — 2013-05-03T06:51:15+00:00

The previous installments of this series can be found here, here, here, and here.

I said earlier that, except where noted, we drove through beautiful countryside. This is the note. The corridor between Philadelphia and Baltimore is just too built-up to be uniformly attractive, although there are patches here and there. It's also sufficiently built-up to give Samantha Daisy TomTom some further problems, though we didn't end up in any unexpected states.

The drive down is quite short compared to all the other legs of our trip. That meant no rushing in the morning, and a good margin for sightseeing in the afternoon. We had just the place picked out.

I didn't see any ball games by the roadside, though I did see a ballpark: Bank of America Stadium at Ripken Field. The construction of that name shows a certain influence, no?

Our hotel in Baltimore had been a luxury apartment building back when it was constructed in the 1920s. The good news: a big, comfy room. The bad news: perhaps the smallest elevators I have ever seen. If two of you are in one, and two others want to board at an intermediate floor, they will wait for the next one.

The seven retired Orioles numbers ("20" is obscured), plus the B&O Warehouse. And a ballpark on the right.

The other good news: it was close enough to Camden Yards that we could walk to the ballpark. We passed some non-baseball statuary along the way— a column topped by George Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette on horseback—and eventually started seeing banners with baseball players on them. The banner zone extends for a few blocks, so our arrival wasn't quite imminent, but it came.

I'd been to Baltimore once before in 1998, and got a look at Camden Yards from the outside though I had no opportunity to attend a game. The park was as famous then as now, the gold standard for modern ballpark design. Things were a little different today. The retired numbers outside the park were new, for one. I'm not sure "Babe Ruth's Dream," a statue of a young George Ruth looking into a future not even he could imagine, was there in '98 either.

Baltimore is Babe Ruth's hometown, and there are plenty of reminders about the fact. After our quick first look at Camden Yards, we were off to visit the biggest of those reminders. Following a trail of baseballs stenciled onto the sidewalks, passing a statue of Brooks Robinson fielding with a shiny gold glove, we made our way to the Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum.

The museum is a genuine multi-family dwelling, three stories in brick, from the 19th century, refitted within to its modern purpose. Ruth's mother's mother lived here, and when Mom felt moral qualms about giving birth above the saloon that Dad owned, she came here. The room where he was born is recreated in period detail, as is a parlor on the first floor. Both are blocked off, but left highly visible. My best evidence that this is a real 19th-century home: the floorboards creak.

Compared to, say, the Reds museum, this is a quite modest place. The combination admissions desk/gift shop is maybe as big as your bathroom. The video room, while pleasantly open, has one short bench for viewers: they don't expect huge traffic. (The video that day linked Ruth to the emergence of "The Star-Spangled Banner" as a mainstay of baseball games in 1918, 13 years before it official became the national anthem. The bicentennial of the song's composition, in Baltimore, is nearly upon us.)

The mainstays of baseball museums are here: balls, bats, uniforms, photos, programs, press pins. One wall is covered with 714 small plaques, marking each of Ruth's career home runs. Another section honors the 500 home run club, with autographed balls by a majority of its members. My favorite: Sadaharu Oh, signed in both Roman and katakana characters. One nice hands-on exhibit lets you grip bats used by Ruth and Cal Ripken, to feel how different the narrow handles of today are from the sticks Ruth swung.

Baseball is America's mythology. And some of our myths are even true.

My true "wow" moment came from a dingy old brown ball in a case. Babe's signature is front and center, dominating the others on the sphere. Next to it, he added a further inscription: "I'll knock a homer for Wednesday's game."

It's the Johnny Sylvester ball. Sylvester was a gravely ill boy in the hospital, and the ball was Ruth's promise to hit a home run for him in the World Series. Ruth fulfilled his promise, in triplicate, Sylvester made an unexpected full recovery, and a legend was born, hatched out of that egg. Sylvester would live long enough to make his own visit to Ruth's sickbed as he was dying of throat cancer. The magic, of course, worked only one way.

The connection remains to this day: Johnny Sylvester's nephew is the curator of the Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum. No question how the museum got that ball.

If the Ruth museum feels a touch empty, it's because of its twin, the Sports Legends Museum. Built at Camden Station, just beyond the B&O Warehouse, it houses all the non-Babe items and exhibits that had been crowding the birthplace museum. You can buy separate or combined admissions, and though Paul and I passed that day, I'm guessing it's worth a look if you've got the time.

Paul and I didn't have the time. We had batting practice to attend.

Game 5: April 22, 2013
Toronto Blue Jays at Baltimore Orioles
Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore, Maryland
Attendance: 11,168 (not announced at game)

Buck Showalter (front & center, white cap) confers with players. Probable wisdom imparted: "Those one-run wins last year were great. We should do that again."

The gates across Eutaw Street, running between the park and the warehouse, opened promptly at five, two hours before game time. This wasn't for general admission (except for season-ticket holders, if what I overheard from an usher was right), but for spectators going to the right-field porch to watch BP and have a chance at a few home-run balls.

This is the Flag Court at Camden Yards, a plaza beyond the high right-field wall. It was sparsely occupied when we arrived—a precursor of the light crowd to come that evening—so Paul and I got our pick of places. I went right to the rail, caring less about ball-hawking than watching the proceedings.

I made the right bargain. There weren't many balls hit to the court that day, perhaps two or three, and neither Paul nor I had a good shot at any of them. I did see something noteworthy near the end of BP, though.

The last batters of the session were all lefties, a long string of them. Lefties, of course, are likelier to pull the ball deep to right. Someone, whether management, coaches, or the players themselves, arranged for a sustained effort to reach the Flag Court when there would be maximum fans there trying to catch what came their way. I haven't any reason to believe they don't do this every day. That is a textbook fan-friendly policy, a little gesture that can go a long way.

Once BP ended, we could get back to exploring. Eutaw Street virtually forms an outer concourse for the park, bounded by the B&O Warehouse which itself has a gift shop and other fan-oriented businesses. A long Hall of Fame wall holds plaques for dozens of Orioles. And then there's Boog's BBQ, Boog Powell doing for this park what Greg Luzinski did for Citizens Bank Park. Paul would be handling this one.

I got to the statue plaza past center field, with representations of all the Orioles whose numbers have been retired. Sizing up Earl Weaver, I concluded his statue had been made bigger than life-size. Would've been cruel to do otherwise.

As always, I cruised the concourse. It stands at street level (the field well below), with frequent openings to the outside. It felt the broadest and most open one we had seen, but the sunshine of the day may have influenced that perception.

It was also the happiest concourse. When the piped-in music started playing "I Can't Help Myself" by the Four Tops, all the workers at an "O What a Dog" booth started dancing to the Motown beat. Good taste in music, folks. It would be at a booth closer to our seats, but I knew where I'd be finishing the five-city hot-dog taste test.

Comparing Wieners: O What a Dog ($4.75)
And ... it was just a hot dog. The weakest of the lot. Maybe I should have gone back to the Motown stand instead.

Paul split his bet, going to two places. When we passed a stand in the concourse called Polock Johnny's, my part-Polish friend knew he had to go there. He got himself a kielbasa with the works—which he reported was decent, not great. From my own experience, I know that a kielbasa should be better than decent, so this was a negative review.

The second part of his ballpark dinner was a BBQ sandwich from Boog's BBQ. This was outright disappointing. The worst part was seeing barbecue sauce being applied from a squeeze bottle. Nobody who eats Kansas City barbecue on business trips like Paul does is going to settle for something that weak.

Hence, Luzinski beats Powell in this round of the Heavy-Set Retired Ballplayer's Food Service Showdown, and goes on to meet Rusty Staub in the finals. Plus, Asheville's Sausage Shack holds its early lead and wins my prize for the best hot dog on our trip. Come with a full wallet and an empty stomach: it'll be worth it.

No humorous captioning here. Just one of the great glory shots in all of baseball.

Closing out the series

I assumed from the outset that a Monday game in Baltimore would have the smallest crowd of our four big-league games, and suggested to Paul that if he splurged anywhere for close seats, it should be here. He actually went big in three of our locales, and this was one of them. I steered him toward the third-base side, for reasons that the photo on the side should make obvious.

Here I must report that, no, Camden Yards is not perfect. For the first time on the trip, including the car, I found myself with inadequate leg-room. The rows in our section are just too close together. I am not a big man, but I do like to stretch out some, and I felt cramped. I'll chalk that up as a mistake all the other ballparks have learned from in the last couple decades.

The nationals anthems, Canadian and American, were performed by the same man, diminutive, bearded, and quite good. Orioles fans did belt out "O!" at the appropriate part of "The Star-Spangled Banner." They missed several opportunities during "O Canada," however. I must also note that the flag in center was a 15-star, 15-stripe replica of the one that flew over Fort McHenry. Baltimore is taking this anniversary seriously.

There were some boos when PED suspendee Melky Cabrera first came up for Toronto. This was as exciting as the top of the first got, unless grounders to the left side give you the tingles. The bottom was slightly more active. An Adam Jones fly to center drew "Ohs," but Colby Rasmus actually came in to make the catch. A moment later, a large fellow down the right-field line appeared to take a long slicing foul off his face. He recovered from whatever actually did happen pretty quickly, thankfully.

In the second, Adam Lind's one-out flare down the left-field line confused Nolan Reimold, who staggered to his right at the last second but had it plop a little beyond him. The wind probably had a hand in that. Chris Tillman walked J.P. Arencibia—whose on-base before than had been just 10 points higher than his batting average—but escaped on a double play. J.A. Happ put two on in his second, but kept them off the board.

Between innings, I reached a milestone in my life: I got to high-five a major-league sports mascot. The Oriole Bird (teams don't waste creativity on avian mascots: c.f. the Pirate Parrot) came off the visitors' dugout and up our aisle, and I did what the sitaution demanded.

He wasn't the only visitor to the aisles. We had endured very heavy vendor action in the bottom of the first, along with a stream of late arrivals for a couple innings providing obstructions reminiscent of Great American Ball Park and the late, unlamented Shea Stadium. One thing I learned on this trip is that aisle seats can be overrated.

The wind truly asserted itself in the fourth. For Toronto, Cabrera and Edwin Encarnacion both went deep into center, but Jones reined them both in a little shy of the track.

In Baltimore's half, Matt Wieters' fly to center was visibly knocked down by the wind. Chris Davis hit a longer one that met the same fate. J.J. Hardy tried one into the right-field corner, but the wind handled that too.

Temperatures had started out a little warmer for this game, but between the wind and nightfall, they were coming down. Again. Each night had been a tiny bit warmer than the previous one, but that left a lot of room for the heat to get sucked out of us.

Toronto started adding its own defensive work in the fifth to supplement the weather. Encarnacion did a split at first base to haul in a wide throw from Emilio Bonifacio at second, nipping Steve Pearce. Bret Lawrie did well getting to a ball topped to third by Alexi Casilla, and did better eating it with no shot at the runner. Nick Markakis then grounded one hard off the top of Encarnacion's glove, but Bonifacio was right on it, producing your standard 3-4-3 out.

Happ and Tillman were cruising, with three hits and seven total baserunners over five innings. They worked fast, as though they didn't like the wind and falling temperatures any more than I did. The first five innings had passed in less than eighty minutes. For someone who lived through some midnight-bound Orioles-Yankees marathons in the late 1990s, this was a refreshing switch.

Baltimore responded with its own defensive pearl in the sixth, Manny Machado making a great barehand pickup well in toward home to get Munenori Kawasaki. Machado then turned the wind to his benefit, his liner driven down just in front of a diving Colby Rasmus. Jones lined one off Lawrie's glove for a second hit. A passed ball (it was ruled a wild pitch at the time, but Baseball-Reference says differently now) and a Davis sac fly brought Machado home for the first run of the contest.

Offhand fact guaranteed to make us all feel old: Manny Machado is exactly three months younger than Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

Toronto got it back, Rasmus' two-out, full-count knock getting past Casilla in the 3.5 hole to score Encarnacion. Tillman got the hook, and was on the hook for the two runners he left on base. Submariner Darren O'Day put Lawrie on to load them, but Bonifacio struck out to keep it 1-1.

And before I knew it, we were into "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." Not a note of intro; not a second's pause to actually stand. The bus pulled away without opening its doors. I stayed seated in mute protest.

Happ met his end after walking Pearce. After such a strong and quick five innings, both pitchers were gone before seven, and the pace was slowing. Nolan Reimold did his bit to speed things up by grounding into a DP, though Encarnacion had to do another split to save the second out. Steve Delabar got Casilla golfing at ball four to fan.

The top of the eighth featured a walk, a modest chant of "Steeee-roids!" for Cabrera, and Jose Bautista looking bad chasing a slider to strike out. The bottom of the eighth featured the fifth, sixth, and seventh Harry Belafonte "Daaaaaay-O!" blasts from the PA. Paul encapsulated both our opinions nicely: "Count the [censored] bananas, already!" (Don't leap to conclusions: my threshold of bleeping is pretty low.)

The ninth arrived, still knotted 1-1. with the stiff wind and stiffer pitching, I was envisioning a 17-inning monster ahead of us. Would've been worse if we'd had another game the next day, but the falling temperature still made free baseball a dubious bargain. During the periodic chants of "Let's Go O's!" I had been interspersing the occasional "I'm so froze!" Paul contributed "Can't feel my toes!"

Buck Showalter sent Jim Johnson in to pitch. The home team using its closer with a tie in the top of the ninth: proper and sound strategy. The reward was a 1-2-3 inning.

John Gibbons sent Aaron Loup in to pitch. Toronto's designated closer is Casey Janssen. The visiting team withholding its closer from a tie in the bottom of the ninth, preserving him for a save situation. Sabermetricians do not consider this proper and sound strategy, however common it may be. Baltimore jumping on him to win the game would be condign punishment, but how often does real life serve up such desserts? Even if properly chilled?

With his first pitch, Loup clipped Chris Davis. Hardy bunted him over. I note here the wisdom of the Earl of Baltimore, who said the only time you should sacrifice is when the one run you are attempting to score will win the game. Modern analysts might be even more restrictive. This strategic morality tale just got way more complicated.

Pearce popped out to second. Last stop before extra innings. Reimold got the intentional walk, so Loup could face nine-hitter Alexi Casilla. Add some further complexity: is Reimold to Casilla a big enough drop in production to justify putting Reimold on? I'd feed these questions to Deep Thought, but it'd just sit thinking for 7.5 million years, then spit out a cryptic reference to Jackie Robinson.

Casilla could only ground to the shortstop. Kawasaki got it, threw it, bounced it! Encarnacion couldn't come up with the pick this time. Any other day, I might have written "E-5 couldn't prevent the E-6," but Edwin earned better than that this game. The bases were jammed, with the top of the order coming up: Nick Markakis.

Orioles players celebrate, having taken Buck's advice.

The PA should have been playing the appropriate snippet from Billy Joel's "Pressure" here. You don't often get the chance to hammer at a reliever's psyche that way. Take it when it's there.

The sparse crowd was putting forth impressive noise. Markakis fell behind fast, 0-2. He fouled one off, and then the liner! Into short left field, down the chalk. Cabrera never had any chance at it. 2-1, Orioles win it!

The last play of our five-city baseball trip was a walkoff hit. Thank you, Nick.

I walked down to the front row behind the Toronto dugout, taking shots of the post-game interviews. I wanted to immortalize the "pie moment," Markakis taking a shaving-cream pie in the face live on camera. That's virtually standard procedure for any walk-off hero today. One interview ended, another began, and Markakis was still untouched.

An usher asked what I was doing, and I told him. He told me there wouldn't be any pie: Markakis was too much the veteran for that. He noted how Markakis was facing down the length of the dugout, the tunnel mouth in full view so he'd see anybody coming with lather aforethought. Seeing the wisdom of his observations, I abandoned the attempt.

We weren't walking back to the hotel, not at night through unfamiliar neighborhoods. Paul has scant experience with mass transit—his work is in-state, not in New York—but he did look up a light rail line we could take to a stop close to the hotel. Said stop is named "Center Street at Howards Park." The naming pattern is, apparently, everywhere in Maryland.

Paul still cannot believe we bought tickets for the train, and nobody ever came to collect them. You have much to learn about the mass transit experience, grasshopper.

This was the end of baseball for our trip, even if the trip wasn't quite over. The next day had a lot of farm country, and a whole lot of cows. It had another radio call of a long-ago baseball game, including celebratory singing in the dugout afterward. It also ended the only way it could: with our navigation program getting us lost within Asheville city limits. Samantha Daisy TomTom!

Summing up

This was, in terms of pure baseball, a wonderfully lucky trip. We did not have a single sub-par game the whole way. Readers who remember my WPS system for rating ballgames for excitement may recall that its median score for playoff games comes to about 300. I ran the numbers for our four big-league contests, and this is how they look:

Mia@Cin:  386.1
Atl@Pit:  318.7
StL@Phi:  449.9
Tor@Bal:  446.3

Consistently above average, if none that are outright classics. Our opening game in Asheville, the extra-inning affair, would surely score very well by this system also. We got five good games, none of which remotely tempted us to sneak out early.

Not even in the weather we were experiencing. Hey, at least we didn't get rained out. Or snowed out.

I've already stated my choice as the best ballpark of the four, PNC Park in Pittsburgh. As for the worst ... I don't think there was a worst. Gun to head, I'd say Great American, but the inclement weather skews my opinion. There wasn't a bad ballpark; there wasn't a mediocre one. Calling any of them "worst" distorts reality. I suppose I can reach back to the minors and say McCormick Field, where our tour began, but that's an unfair dodge.

I went into this tour with a certain set opinion on modern baseball architecture: that this is the second Golden Age of ballpark design. What I saw over four days changed my mind. The quirks and idiosyncrasies of the original steel-and-concrete generation are worth remembering and even preserving, but today's work has built mightily on that foundation. The retro-classical wave has relegated the original classics to an honorable silver. This, today, is the Golden Age. Even if the leg-room is tight here and there.

Is it possible to induct an entire architectural firm into the Hall of Fame? All four parks we visited were built by HOK Sport—now called Populous because somebody thought they needed to separate themselves from the name under which they gained their shining reputation—along with most of the other baseball stadia of the current generation. They have made a great, tangible, and hopefully enduring contribution to baseball. They deserve the recognition, although in a pinch, the ballparks themselves can stand as their monuments.

As a final review of our baseball tour, I can do no better than to say that Paul is ready to do it again. Not this year, maybe not next year, but sometime. I will be with him. Maybe we'll get to Wrigley Field this time.

But definitely, we're waiting until at least June.

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The Grand Tour, part four

Shane Tourtellotte — 2013-05-02T07:39:15+00:00

Earlier installments of this series can be found here, here, and here.

Pennsylvania is not a very big state—nobody from Texas on west is going to be impressed by its size—but it's a pretty broad state, especially for two people trying to drive across it in much less than one day. That meant a pretty early start, not much lingering for lunch, and not many extra-curriculars before we hit the ballpark. We weren't actually rushed, but we were aware of time.

I did have another experience like the previous day's: a ballfield by the highway, and a game under way. This one wasn't professional, just a bunch of adults, some looking older, playing ball early on a Sunday afternoon. Blur out the clothing details, and it could almost have been a scene from a hundred years ago. Almost, because Sunday baseball was still banned in Pennsylvania back then. Or maybe that's just if you charged admission.

We got to our hotel, out on Industrial Highway near the airport. Gotta economize somewhere. The room was about as far from the lobby as the dimensions of the building allowed. Maximum inconvenience, which wasn't actually that inconvenient. At least the takeoff and landing vectors weren't anywhere near us: I don't think we heard an airplane all the time we were there.

There wasn't time for outside sight-seeing, which suited me: I saw Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell a dozen years ago. It was straight to the ballpark, to be there when the gates opened. They let fans into the left-field stands early for batting practice, and Paul still had the ball-hawking itch.

It was here that our navigation program began letting us down. TomTom had been directing us between cities very well, but in the tangle of streets near Citizens Bank Park things got confused pretty fast. Put two turns very close together, and it doesn't efficiently direct you to one over the other. This led to unexpected detours.

Paul began speaking back to the automated voice, called Samantha. (He had used Mr. Burns from The Simpsons early in the trip, but Burns doesn't do street names, and that's lousy for navigation.) His tone was that of a stern parent toward a wayward child, so he needed a middle name to deliver the full chiding effect. This is how our navigation software became Samantha Daisy TomTom.

Samantha Daisy did get us to our parking lot, one we had bypassed some minutes before. Now she would have several hours to sit by herself and think about it.

Game 4: April 21, 2013
St. Louis Cardinals at Philadelphia Phillies
Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Attendance: 35,115

The one place where standing in front of a pitching Steve Carlton is a good idea.

Both of us had visited Citizens Bank Park before, years back. Then, we had seats in the right-field stands. Tonight, we were behind home plate. Not low enough that we'd be getting on ESPN (this was their Sunday night game), but still a very good central location. Paul did some great work getting our tickets.

We had a half-hour before left field opened, so Paul joined me on my statue-seeking circuit of the park. There's one statue out in the parking lot of a generic batter, which didn't do much for me. Specific players are way more fun. Take Steve Carlton over to the side. He's rared back, scowling, looking ready to brain you with the ball he's about to throw. What's not to love?

It took easily half a counter-clockwise tour of the exterior to find our next statue, Robin Roberts. This one took an unusual twist: he was done in black and white. As he pitched in an era when almost all the video you would have of him came from monochrome newsreels or fuzzy little home TV's that hadn't discovered color yet, it makes a kind of sense. If you have this historical perspective, it's a bold choice. If you're a kid who doesn't know 1950's TV, it's just going to be weird.

Next was Mike Schmidt, captured in full follow-through, the "20" on his back stretched diagonally from the torque on his swing. Nice detail, that. His statue stood across the walkway from a 20-foot-tall inflated Phillie Phanatic. Why am I including a shot of the mascot rather than the Hall-of-Famer? Because one of them would figure prominently before the game began, and it wasn't Mike.

The Phillie Phanatic, or an inphlatable phacsimile thereoph.

Set off from the stadium, back toward the parking lot, I spied another statue, presumably moved over from Veterans Stadium and likely even Shibe Park. It was the Tall Tactician himself, Connie Mack. As Paul and I did the honors by taking our photos, someone came along to loudly opine on what an SOB Mack was. This can't be a regular feature at the park, or there would have been someone else for at least Carlton. And maybe the Phanatic.

We settled down on line outside the gate—where I got my first and only security pat-down of the tour. I don't care if this might have been standing policy before the Boston Marathon: I'm still blaming the Tsarnaevs.

Paul headed to the left-field stands, and I ended up following. Here I had my second pleasant revelation of the trip. All our previous games had been under overcast skies, any sun that peeked through diminished by approaching dusk. This was the first time I had seen one of the fields bathed in sunlight. The grass was perfect, cross-hatched by the passage of the mowers, bright and green and superbly maintained. Players talked and shagged flies, at home in their natural environment.

I had needed that sight.

Paul picked himself a spot, and I found one for myself, in the aisle a few rows behind the fence. Not too much was reaching us, but some dingers were going to right field, and staff in Philadelphia livery who were the only ones allowed there. One shot went well to Paul's left, and he had no real chance. I stayed loose, eyeing the space between the rows of seats, keeping lateral mobility in mind.

Spring officially arrives. (Offer not valid in Colorado or Minnesota.)

Another long shot came in, directly in line with me. Gloveless, I had my Phillies cap off as a makeshift, but I was feeling defenseless, about to freeze. The crisis didn't quite arrive: the ball thumped into the planter just below the first row of seats, and someone from the families lining the edge claimed it.

Not long after, another ball headed for the seats, close to the pole. Lateral mobility! I moved between rows, not fast enough to reach it on the fly. But it looked likely to ricochet, and if it went the right way, I could have an easy cap-trap.

It went one of the many other ways. Soon after, Cardinals were in the outfield, and Phillies BP broke up. We had lost the lottery for the day.

I had briefly explored Ashburn Alley behind the outfield at Citizens Bank Park in my previous visit, and was even more pleased the second time. It's named after Phillies star player and broadcaster Richie Ashburn, who naturally has a statue of himself running through a base, presumably beating out an infield hit. Another standout attraction there is Memory Lane, three long photo-collages of Philadelphia baseball history, generously including the Athletics and the Negro Leagues. The history stops in 2003, their last year at Veterans Stadium. Too bad: they've made some nice history since then.

Beyond left field stands Harry the K's Broadcast Bar & Grille, after the recently departed broadcaster Harry Kalas. He gets his own statue, too: leaning on a bat, microphone in hand, beaming a smile. You're missed, Harry.

The corner of the Alley past right field has The Games of Baseball area. There's a trivia game, and Phanatic races, getting your color of mascot around the bases first. Centered there is something a little less for the kids: Bull's BBQ, named after Greg "The Bull" Luzinski. If you remember how beefy he was, you can imagine the stuff they sell.

Paul went for Bull's right away. I, both trying to conserve money and stick with my plan, went for something more conventional.

Comparing Wieners: Hatfield Phillie Franks Jumbo Hot Dog ($5.75)
This was like my hot dog in Pittsburgh, only more so: pricier, bigger, juicier, and stayed warmer longer. A solid entry, though Asheville's footlong still held the lead. For his part, Paul got himself a "Bull Dog," which was really a bratwurst in a bun. That wouldn't have been a fair fight, so I'm glad I refrained. (Though Paul still said the Asheville dog came out ahead. Adopted hometown, represent!)

I did my standard tour of the concourse. Very broad, very high-ceilinged, more open to the field but less to the outside. Trash can location was better here than elsewhere: I found some on the inner perimeter rather than midway or beyond. I also appreciated the restrooms being very clearly marked.

It was on the concourse that I deduced that something unusual was afoot. Off to one side were about half a dozen people, mostly women, dressed in Tudor-style royal outfits. They seemed to be ignoring the guy wearing the giant Jack Nicholson head. Not long afterward, I happened across a trio of cavemen.

Luckily, I had the two to put together with this two. The night was already promoted as the Phillie Phanatic's birthday, and somewhere around Ashburn Alley I had spotted something about the imminent release of a DVD called Time Travelin' Phanatic. I suspected embarrassing promotion was on the way, and boy, was I ever right.

The birthday party was set up as a Hollywood premiere (which would explain the red carpet I spotted near Mike Schmidt's statue: another piece of the puzzle!). The various characters out of time were from the movie itself, and it turned out the royalty was meant to be Queen Elizabeth I and her court. There was another queen along for the ride, Cleopatra, whom Paul noted due to her strong nose more closely resembled the genuine article than most women portraying her.

Big-headed Jack was there as well, along with a few other faux stars. The big-head represented as Marilyn Monroe looked more to me like Dolly Parton, and looked more to Paul like Phyllis Diller masquerading as Dolly Parton. Lacking the giant artificial head was some palooka in a gray sweatsuit and black woolen cap who was being passed off as Rocky Balboa, and actually being accepted by the crowd as such.

I swear I am not making this up. I write science fiction, but crazy stuff like this is beyond me.

There was cake and singing and highlights from Time Travelin' Phanatic, but I won't go into more detail because my brain is already reeling. (Well, okay: he taught the cavemen baseball.) Suffice it to say that for one night, the Phillies' ballpark was cornier than Ray Kinsella's.

Baseball, in 2013 only

First pitch. Wacky fact: batter Jon Jay's nickname is "The Federalist." Checking ... nope, Josh Hamilton's middle name is not "Alexander."

St. Louis attacked starter Kyle Kendrick early. Matt Carpenter's homer lined into right was only part of it. Cardinals batters worked Kendrick deep, making him throw 33 pitches to only five batters in the first.

Jake Westbrook opened the game on the hill for the Cardinals, his record at 1-1 with a 0.00 ERA. Jimmy Rollins greeted this incongruity with a gapper to left-center, sliding under a high throw for a triple. He's been studying under Shin-Soo Choo! John Mayberry walked, and Chase Utley grounded one through the hole where Matt Adams was holding Mayberry on. Tie score, runners at the corners, none down, and Westbrook's ERA no longer clashed with his won-lost record.

Ryan Howard boomed a fly to center, 20 feet short of the 401' marker, advancing both runners and pushing Philly ahead. Michael Young flied out to left, for the easy 7-4 double play. Easy, because Utley apparently lost track of the outs (or less likely the ball) and ran full-tilt through third for home. If he's lucky, that'll cost Chase 20 bucks in kangaroo court. If he's not, they'll make him screen Time Travelin' Phanatic in its entirety.

Keeping with one pattern for our trip, it was very cool again. Keeping with the other pattern, I felt a couple drops from the sky. Not more rain! But there was no more, and Paul hypothesized that someone had spilled a little beer from the upper deck. Not likely: it's set too far back.

Down past our section, in the seats you get to see on TV, there were some big-screen TVs showing the ESPN broadcast of our game. It was running several seconds behind the live events, which I guess helps if you missed something. I recall the bleachers at new Yankee Stadium having their big-screens out there, where they might actually help fans see some action better. If you're in the first row behind the plate, and need video assistance to follow the game, I think you have overpaid for your ticket.

The scoring settled down, even if the game didn't. St. Louis put their first two aboard in the second, and while they didn't tally, they did get Kendrick's pitch count up to 53. Kyle got back in control in the third, retiring the Birds in order on just 10 pitches. In the home third, Mayberry grounded a single past Westbrook's attempted skate save, and stole second without a throw. Utley fanned on a full count, though, to strand him.

Again in the fourth, St. Louis got their first two on. The second was on an Adams bloop that fell in front of Domonic Brown, who played the ball at less than full speed. The boos poured down upon him, something like what Paul thought happened with my "rain." Kendrick froze Freese for a K, then induced a fly to left. Brown caught it, to cheers of derisory long length. Kendrick escaped, but now he had thrown 83 over four.

Ryan Howard had been driving balls the opposite way to left field in BP. He did it again here on a 2-0 pitch, missing just foul. He adjusted and singled to right, but Michael Young's DP erased him.

In the fifth, Kendrick reasserted control with a 10-pitch frame. The home half began with Erik Kratz getting a big rise out of the crowd with a deep fly to right-center, but it was an out all the way. I wasn't one of the cheerers: I was finally training myself to follow outfielders rather than the ball on flies. Rollins squeezed one through the hole to right, but Mayberry looked hacky striking out. Still 2-1 Phillies through five.

Allen Craig opened the sixth with a base hit, and the bullpen started working. Yadier Molina went down looking, but Adams inside-outed a dunker double down the left-field line. No shame in Brown not getting that one. Freese's grounder to third tied it at two.

Then Pete Kozma singled to right, and the madness began. Mayberry threw to cutoff man Howard who, once he saw Adams wasn't going home, threw to second to try to get Kozma. They couldn't do it, but they then threw on to third, hoping to nab Adams off the bag. They couldn't do it. After that, Jake Westbrook, batting for himself, tried to get on with a bunt. There were two outs, so I am hoping he was bunting for a hit. A nice try, but it didn't quite work.

Between innings, the scoreboard screen showed various patrons. One of them was a rotund man with white hair and a full white beard, dressed in red and white. He got a sustained round of cheers from the fans. I, of course, know my Philadelphia sports history. "That can't be Santa Claus," I told Paul. "They're not booing him."

For the home sixth, Utley got an even bigger response than Not Santa with a ground-rule double to center. Howard's grounder moved him over. Westbrook walked the next two, as the bullpen got going. Then Ben Revere grounded into the 6-3 twin killing. Rally dies; crowd boos. Welcome back to Philadelphia.

The Phillie Phanatic was joined atop the home dugout by QEI and her court. I will just note for the record Paul's observation that Good Queen Bess and company can really boogie down, and leave it at that.

Kendrick was finally gone after six, and everybody's favorite naughty-surnamed reliever, Antonio Bastardo, came in. Chase Utley greeted his teammate by throwing a grounder to the wall for a two-base error. Carpenter bunted Jon Jay over, Carlos Beltran walked, and we got to see Chad Durbin instead. The dirty language probably continued, as Allen Craig got the go-ahead hit through the 5.5 hole and Molina walked to pack the sacks. Durbin dug out of the hole, as Adams struck out looking and Freese's liner found Howard's glove.

Get up and stretch! That is, stretch "God Bless America" into the longest, most self-indulgent rendition I have ever weathered. That woman's going to be at McCormick Field the next time I'm at a Tourists game, I can tell. Then we got "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," and I felt better.

Kratz began the seventh with a single that Westbrook again tried, again unsuccessfully, to skate-save. With lefty Laynce Nix pinch-hitting, Westbrook gave way to ~~Martin Brodeur~~ Fernando Salas. Who is likewise a righty. Mike Matheny is not slavishly following Tony LaRussa's playbook—and here it cost him. On the 10th pitch, Nix shot one to the left-field gap for two bases and the tying RBI. Salas and Randy Choate shut down the rally there, but we were 3-3, with two—or more—to play.

St. Louis couldn't do anything against Mike Adams in the eighth, and they sent Mitchell Boggs to the mound for the Phillies half. Paul expressed his lack of full confidence in Boggs, but to be fair, he did get one out before the deluge. Michael Young grounded one off Boggs' glove that Carpenter couldn't run down in time. Delmon Brown lined one to center, and Ben Revere went up the middle, past Boggs' upraised glove, to plate Young.

Send not to ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for Erik Kratz.

Then Erik Kratz rang the bell! Down the left-field line, a three-run home run. The giant Liberty Bell past right-center swung and tolled twice in celebration. (They should have it ring once for every run the tater drives in. Or would that be rubbing it in?)

That was effectively the end. As Paul was observing, "They should play more day games in April," the Phillies did get a couple more hits off Mark Rzepczynski without another tally. Jonathan Papelbon came on for the non-save. "Umpire's cold," Paul observed after a dubious strike call. Yadier finally ended it with a swinging strikeout. It was the widest margin of victory so far on our tour, four runs, but still the best game that didn't involve between-inning underwear races.

We got out of the parking lot, and into a heated car, in good order. As for the rest—Samantha Daisy Tomtom! Another miscommunication between two nearby turns, and almost before we knew it we were across the Delaware and in New Jersey. My old home state. I thought I might never set foot in New Jersey again.

Still haven't. Getting out of our car in an unknown Philadelphia suburb in the dead of night is not on our lists of warranted risks. We made it back to our hotel without much further misadventure, another good game under our belts. One more to go, this one in the godfather of all modern ballparks: Camden Yards.

Tomorrow: The only fitting way we could end this tour.

Note: The concluding installment will be/is available at this link.

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The Grand Tour, part three

Shane Tourtellotte — 2013-05-01T07:08:15+00:00

Earlier installments of this series can be found here and here.

The weather wasn't breaking up as we left Cincinnati. The rains held off, but clouds were legion, arrayed rank upon rank upon rank, stretching to the horizon and below. They slid past each other, all crossing at different speeds, as we drove.

It occurred to me that we might be traveling east at the speed of the weather front. There are cheerier thoughts after a night like the one we had just had.

The farm country of Ohio is just that, farm country. Not much ranching; few cows or horses. Our primary diversion was a deep store of baseball music Paul had brought along. He is a seriously eclectic music fan: this was his department.

Not long after crossing the border into Pennsylvania, baseball arrived on another front. We passed by Consol Energy Field, where the Washington Wild Things just happened to be playing a Saturday matinee. It was the seventh inning, the home team down 3-2. No action to see, just the fielders in their places ... and then it was gone, hidden by the stands, falling into the distance.

What is there to say? It made my heart sing; it made everything groovy.

Our base in Pittsburgh was a Wyndham hotel that had until very recently been a Holiday Inn. Old signs were covered with canvases sporting the Wyndham name. The less said of parking there, the better, but we couldn't beat the location. It was right on the edge of the University of Pittsburgh, and that put us in easy walking distance of some baseball relics. Or grave markers, if you still mourn the place.

An epitaph to history.

It's a historical irony that Forbes Field opened in the middle of baseball season, and closed in the middle of baseball season. Construction began after the 1908 campaign, and the park was ready for a June 30, 1909 game against the defending league champion Cubs. (Can you imagine a construction that fast today?) Someone had a sense of history, because the last games at Forbes Field were also against the Cubs, a doubleheader sweep by the Pirates. After a long road trip and the All-Star break, Three Rivers Stadium was ready for them.

And then Forbes Field was torn down. Almost all of it.

Set back from Roberto Clemente Drive, running through what had been the outfield, a piece of the brick fence still remains. Some of the bricks are growing worn, less with time than from the slow erosion of hands touching them: higher bricks are all in fine condition. The paint on the fence posts is a dark, aged green, perhaps recently retouched. The distance markers are definitely being maintained, the white of "457 FT" at the left-center corner a brilliant white.

The wall at dead center still bears some of the ivy first planted there when the original wood fence was replaced in 1946. I thought at one point that Forbes had the ivy before Wrigley, but even with the Wrigley ivy debuting deep into the 1930s, it's not so. Much of it was bare vines on that gray April afternoon, but here and there leaves were sprouting forth. It must be beautiful in the summer sun.

Beyond the bricks, inside a tall chain-link fence, is Mazeroski Field. Just a little diamond, with a couple kids and adults getting in some practice while we were there.

It's not the only tribute to Bill Mazeroskiin the area. There's a plaque commemorating his Series-winning home run by the sidewalk on Clemente Drive, portraying Maz in mid-career around the bases. It and the inscription nearby are wearing down faster than the bricks: it took some effort to read everything.

I'm not gonna reach that fly ball. Yogi didn't have much of a chance, either.

Nearby, there's a plaque honoring Barney Dreyfuss, the Pirates owner for the first third of the 20th century, without whom Forbes Field wouldn't have existed. A line of bricks embedded in the sidewalk marks where the rest of the outfield wall had once stretched. Then there's Posvar Hall, part of the university. Walk far enough down its hallways, and you will find a glassed-in home plate, the last one at Forbes Field, located right where it had originally anchored the diamond.

At least, that's the story. Rumor is that the actual location is now inside a women's restroom, which we did see nearby. Further rumor is that the original plate was stolen, and some other home plate substituted. Hard fact is that the "glass," probably Lucite, covering home is scratched and starting to fog up. Glare from an overhead light onto a marked-up plate also contributes to making photography unrewarding.

It was a disappointing end to our pursuit of the relics of Forbes Field. If you're ever in Pittsburgh, you're advised to begin and end out of doors.

Game 3: Saturday, April 20, 2013
Atlanta Braves at Pittsburgh Pirates
PNC Park, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Attendance: 29,313 (not announced at game)

The third ballpark for this statue. The Dutchman is still flying.

Paul wanted to go into the yard early, hoping for a chance to snag a batting practice ball. I had lent him a book written by legendary ball-hawk Zack Hample that included advice on getting major league baseballs, and he wanted to try out the ideas. Never mind that neither of us brought gloves on the trip. (I knew I'd be taking notes much of the time.) I had my own plans, to circumnavigate, not West Virginia this time, but PNC Park.

PNC has four baseball statues. Outside the home plate gate is Honus Wagner, his likeness transplanted from Forbes to Three Rivers to here. By the left-field pole is Willie Stargell; in left-center is Roberto Clemente. I walked along the gray Allegheny River beyond center and right, taking a few shots, and past the right-field corner met a familiar face and pose. Bill Mazeroski again, arms thrown wide in mid-stride around the bases, ignoring the little kids climbing his leg or looking up at his crotch.

But weren't these placements wrong? Shouldn't Clemente have been in right field? Shouldn't Maz have his place in left-center, where his home run carried over Yogi Berra's head? But of course, I had just been to where Mazeroski's home run really went out, two stadiums ago. Guess I won't be doing a ballpark's feng shui any time soon.

The entryways to PNC have escalators up to the main concourse level, with dark, exposed girders painted. It felt like being in a mass transit hub, like Penn Station. Given the blue-collar identity of the Steel City, it's a fitting aesthetic.

The concourse goes foul pole to foul pole like Great American. It's narrower than in Cincinnati, and I experienced a little bottle-necking, but a more open architecture toward the outside makes it feel more roomy. The seats are a dark blue, blending well with the entryways.

Paul was absent from our seats, though his stuff was in place. There had been no batting practice, so he was just exploring. I took my seat, halfway down to first base, looked around me, and had a revelation.

The Pittsburgh skyline, and right field leaning over your shoulder. Smaller may really be better.

PNC is a small ballpark, capacity under 40,000, but there is small and then there is intimate. PNC Park is intimate. The stands jog inward a fair distance from the foul poles, with the result that, from my seat nearly 300 feet away, right field felt close enough to reach out and touch. It was the luck of good seat placement, maybe, but that was a moment of pure marvel and joy. A couple of Yankee Stadiums have inspired my awe, but this was something even better.

I'm going to spoil the ending: PNC Park is the best baseball park I have ever visited. Perhaps if I could walk the Great Hall and the museum at new Yankee Stadium (as I didn't have the time to do my one visit there), I would change my mind. For today, Pittsburgh wears the crown. And thanks to an improving team, the crowds are finally arriving to appreciate it. (I hope, I pray, I didn't just jinx them. I've been known to do that.)

Comparing wieners: vendor hot dog ($3.25)
When a roving vendor walks by in the section just below me, sporting that price, I take the opportunity. We had eaten a good lunch on the road, so I didn't need any monster franks that night. It came out warm and juicy from the steaming box, though it lost that pretty fast in the cool air. It lacked the character of my previous dogs, but for the price and the state of my stomach, it worked just fine.

The Pirates finally figured out a way to get us some loot. (Or should that be booty?) Forget failed doughnut giveaways and free pizzas we had to leave behind. This was Andrew McCutchen Bobblehead Night, and we arrived way too early for them to run out. Even the mascot, the Pirate Parrot, was in on the promotion. He was sporting dreadlocks that evening, and his jersey read "McClucken."

Do parrots cluck? Should they have hired the San Diego Chicken instead for that joke? Can I stop asking ludicrous questions? No, no, and yes.

For the second night in a row, a children's chorus performed the national anthem. That has to be much easier to arrange when it isn't a school night.

Eventually, there was baseball. Pirates starter James McDonald inaugurated proceedings by striking out the entire Atlanta outfield, Upton, Heyward and Upton.. He managed to repeat this in the second, except for the outfield exclusivity. And except for the hit batter, long fly off Starling Marte's glove that was charitably ruled a double, and two walks that pushed Evan Gattis across the plate for a 1-0 Braves lead.

Paul Maholm was doing better. After a leadoff plunking of Marte, he had induced a double play, then set down the following seven Bucs. He had a no-hitter through three, and I knew better than to make any mention of it. Even if it wasn't raining.

Well, it was a tiny bit. Just the slightest sprinkle, but it maintained the pattern. We'd had a bit of rain at McCormick Field, we'd gotten nicely drenched after the Weird Al concert, and you already know about Cincinnati. This was not a consistency I enjoyed. Neither was the cold: a little better than Cincy, but my feet were still chunks of ice by evening's end.

Something I did enjoy was a display on the strip screens that I've never seen before at a ballpark: they were giving the horizontal and vertical break for individual pitches. PITCHf/x analytics hits the big time! Great to see a ballpark giving data like these to the fans in real time, even if I do wonder whether it could be information overload. Well, you don't have to read the boards. You can always just watch the game.

Our neighbor behind us was a pleasant addition to the evening. We first got acquainted as Paul and I intervened to help him explain to a friend what on earth had happened in the Jean Segura play the previous night. Paul encapsulated it pretty well from the rulebook's own words. Running from second to first will get you called out if you're making a travesty of the game, or trying to confuse the defense. If you're the one who's confused, it's A-okay.

The out-of-town scoreboard provided some added entertainment. Cleveland had rolled up 14 runs in the first two innings against, of course, Houston. The Astros actually closed to within 15-6 by the third, but Cleveland returned the margin to double figures with a three-run bomb by Jason Giambi. An even bigger surprise than the score was that Jason Giambi is still playing. I thought he'd become manager of the Rockies or something.

The Indians tacked on one in the fifth, and I gleefully predicted to my neighbor the imminent breaking of the scoreboard: it's only configured to count up to 19 runs. So naturally, that was the last run scored in their game. Boooo!

Meanwhile, in the game we paid to watch, Dan Uggla left with a calf strain in the fourth. His successor at second was Ramiro Pena, such an anonymous replacement-level cog that I'm surprised he's not starting for the Yankees. Oh, right: Cano.

McCutchen showed off his bobblehead-worthiness with a two-out double to dead center that broke up Maholm's no-hitter after 3.2 innings. He then swiped third—with two outs!—on a pitch in the dirt that didn't even permit a throw. Gaby Sanchez flied deep to center, in emulation of the honoree, but this one was caught to end the fourth.

The tension slowly ratcheted up. B.J. Upton drove one deep to left in the fifth, but Marte caught it head-high at the wall. In the bottom half, Russell Martin (starting at third that night) walked, and Neil Walker dropped a beautiful bunt down the first-base line, just beating it out. (Our third bunt hit in three games.) Maholm answered by striking out the next three men. Punch and counter-punch.

They pulled a variation of the T-shirt bazooka in mid-game, loading their guns with tightly wrapped hot dogs instead. Even well wrapped, that's something you probably want to catch on the fly.

A silver slugger in his hands; a gold glove at his feet. Trying to tell us something, Andrew?

Pittsburgh would try again in the sixth. Marte walked, and took second on Tabata's bunt-and-run. Up came Cutch again, seeking to add an "L" to his nickname. Hammering a pitch off the facade below the right-field seats for his second double and a tied game was a useful step in this direction.

His timing was off, though. Few will remember your game-tying shot when it's followed up by a go-ahead bomb into the topiary in the batter's eye. (They have some bushes trimmed to read "PIRATES.") Gaby Sanchez hit that crusher, and it was 3-1 Pirates.

I have to mention the vendors again here. They had been coming at a good moderate pace, not overlapping badly as in Cincinnati. During this rally, though, one of them especially was leading cheers, even giving out high-fives after Sanchez's artillery shot. Maybe this is peculiar to Pittsburgh. Maybe it's just the one man. It's not something I've seen much before. Not saying it's bad, just saying it's odd.

Atlanta's reply was a mere ducksnort off the glove of a backing Sanchez, again charitably ruled a hit, a two-out single that went nowhere. Pittsburgh maintained the pressure with Michael McKenry's leadoff double down the line in left. McKenry's pinch-runner would take third on a wild pitch to a bunting Clint Barmes—and then Barmes would fan on a pitch nearly as far outside. Pedro Alvarez, six for 52 on the season, got an intentional pass, to my shock. And it worked: Marte bounced into a 5-4-3 to end the seventh.

Justin Upton opened the Atlanta eighth by serving a single into right, but three grounders smothered the threat. Jordan Walden pitched for Atlanta in the bottom half, and he was a peculiar sight. He takes an odd hop off the rubber as he delivers his pitches. Maybe it's meant to throw off batters' timing. It certainly threw off one spectator who ended up writing about it.

Still 3-1 going into the ninth, Bucs closer Jason Grilli took the mound to bookend the game. By that I mean, remember how McDonald struck out the side to start the game? Grilli brought a reminder. He got them all swinging, including the golden sombrero for Juan Francisco. Big cheers in the stands; celebratory fireworks past center field. Our first home win of the tour!

It wasn't a classic game—merely above average—but it had a great setting and some very good company, I was freezing a little less at the end, and I got a bobblehead. Our tour was on an upswing, with two more games to play.

Tomorrow: Queen Elizabeth comes to the ballpark, and no, it's not The Naked Gun.

Future installments of this series will/can be found here and here.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.

The Grand Tour, part two

Shane Tourtellotte — 2013-04-30T07:17:15+00:00

The first installment of this series can be found here.

Our leg to Nashville, as I noted before, didn't involve baseball, except as being a convenient step in a trip to Cincinnati that would have been tough to make in a single run from Asheville. My on-the-fly planning had slipped in a concert here, for an artist Paul and I both appreciate. So on Thursday, we got to spend the evening with "Weird Al" Yankovic.

Half of you are now saying "Who?" Half of you are saying "He's still around?" To the third half who are saying "Cool!" I reply: Yes. It was.

If Al had done any baseball-related material, I would have written him up here. He didn't, though, so I will have to refrain. Okay, I will just mention that it's always an unusual night that begins with being seated next to a man dressed as a banana, and ends with getting your picture taken with R2-D2. (This was not my first encounter with a banana-man, but I'm leaving my 5-K racing out of this narrative as well. Despite all my years doing science fiction conventions, though, it was my first meeting with R2-D2.)

I will say that we had a very nice pre-concert dinner at a little place called 417 Union. It's a retro-diner/bar with fine food and prompt service. I can include it because, among the World War II-era pictures adorning the walls, there was a shot of a Mr. Cubbage leaping joyfully out of the field-level stands at Sportsman's Park, in celebration of the St. Louis Browns winning their one and only American League pennant. Way to plan for your good review, 417 Union.

The next morning back at our hotel room, the outside world peeked in again through our TV screen. The manhunt in Boston had gotten deadly overnight, and the name "Tsarnaev" had entered the rogues' gallery of American history.

We drove through some truly lovely Kentucky country on our way to Cincinnati. In fact, unless otherwise noted, our drives were pictures of beauty. And cows.

Our in-car listening en route included the radio call of the first game in New York Mets history, from April 11, 1962. The file mysteriously conked out midway through, but not before shattering my illusions. I had heard or read somewhere that the first run ever scored in a Mets game came in on a balk by the Mets pitcher. This ignominious tale is untrue: a soft liner to left by Stan Musial drove in Julian Javier. Roger Craig did then balk, but it didn't score anyone. I can't remember now where I got the misinformation, and it bothers me.

Once in Cincinnati, we ensconced ourselves at the hotel, drove over to event parking (more reasonable than any other big-league stop, as I recall), then walked over to the ballpark. But not directly to the game. Our subsidiary stop, right next door to Great American Ball Park, was the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and Museum.

Bill McKechnie, seated; Sparky Anderson, standing and about to pull Gary Nolan in the sixth.

Paul and I visited Cooperstown in 2006, drinking in that Hall of Fame. The Reds Hall is naturally smaller, and probably a step below in quality, but not a long step. There's a lot of Reds history to draw from, all the way back to Harry and George Wright of the original Red Stockings, and they cover it well, with a certain understandable emphasis on the 1970s.

One impressive sight was the stretch of frames containing hundreds of signatures by Reds players, going back to around 1900. Now that is a collection. The museum is packed with other Reds memorabilia: scads of signed jerseys and balls, baseball cards from the 19th century onward. They have a couple display cases of non-Reds stuff, movie star autographs and the like, that was filler and the only real disappointment of the place.

The museum is well-stocked with Pete Rose items, notably the wall display of 4,256 baseballs representing his career hit total. The case is maybe nine feet wide, and easily a couple of stories tall, rising past flights of stairs. This celebration of Rose is balanced by his conspicuous absence from the Reds Hall of Fame itself. (At least, if his plaque is there, I utterly missed it.) That speaks clearly to the ambiguous place he has in baseball history.

Even for Rose-haters, there is little excuse to pass up the Reds Hall of Fame and Museum if you're ever in town for a ballgame. Parcel out at least an hour—and if you want to take a picture of their statues of the Great Eight (Rose, Griffey, Morgan, Bench, Perez, Foster, Concepcion, Geronimo), use a better camera than my dinky iPod. It couldn't handle the lighting, or you'd be getting a shot of that, too.

Do beware on one score: the exit from the Hall of Fame area debouches directly downstairs into the Reds gift shop. Pretty smart planning by someone. Who knows, once you've been through the museum, you might even be in a buying mood.

Game 2: Friday, April 19, 2013
Great American Ball Park, Cincinnati, Ohio
Miami Marlins at Cincinnati Reds
Attendance: 26,112

Ballpark; Nuxhall; Robinson; Lombardi. Author standing in as umpire. Lessee how you frame it, Schnozz!

I'm aware that the name comes from corporate sponsorship: Heck, the Great American Insurance building was plainly visible to us as we drove into the city. That doesn't matter. It's self-aggrandizing and calculating, and it works.

Every major-league ballpark we visited is well-stocked with statues. While the museum has plenty, there are more at the main entryway to the park. A sleeveless Ted Kluszewski and Johnny Bench in mid-peg to second are there, and Joe Morgan is due later this year. The best tableau by far is an imaginary confrontation at the plate: Joe Nuxhall pitching to Frank Robinson, with Ernie Lombardi catching. Ernie is mask-less, which is probably all right: That nose would deflect any fastball.

I got several pictures of them, and would have displayed more here, except that cloud cover made for some poor lighting. (Too much light, then too little. It's like my iPod isn't a high-end camera or something.) The forecast called only for a moderate chance of light rain, so not to worry, right? Right?

The ballpark itself lives up to the statuary. You would expect that from a stadium built in the middle of the post-Camden Yards boom, but it's nice to confirm with one's own eyes. Jumbo scoreboard brimming with information: check. Picturesque outfield eye candy: check, with the steamboat smokestacks that shoot fire into the air on celebratory occasions. Seats in obvious team color: check. Scenic view: check. The Ohio River wasn't visible from our seats, but a hill on the opposite bank was.

The main concourse is broad and roomy, running foul line to foul line, with an open-air walkway stretching behind the outfield stands. Concession stands are numerous and varied, but that was the case at all four big-league parks. I was amused to find a small square of it blocked off as an open studio for a pre-game show, the field projected onto the background, and fans ringing the set cheering themselves hoarse.

I would later note with some disappointment that the concourse was also where all the trash cans were located, necessitating a long walk to throw anything away. It turns out this is something common to all the big-league stadia we visited (save for one recycling can I saw in Philly). Minor-league parks are more convenient in that regard, stationing trash bins right by seating areas. They don't have to worry how the stands look on TV, I suppose, but it's something where the minors have the edge.

That and, perhaps, ballpark hot dogs.

Comparing wieners: Queen City Hot Mett ($5.75)
I had to have a Mett at the ballpark, Paul informed me frankly. (Oh, you think that pun's bad? I can really make you squirm if I want to.) This advice came from seeing the name on a billboard, I believe. Yeah, good enough for me.

The hot dog was fairly large, though not in foot-long territory. This was a bit of a shame, as we had forgone lunch on the road, and I could have used that Asheville dog to fill me back up. The key part was the peppers inside the frank. Paul told me these were "kicking his butt," but I enjoyed it fine with my higher tolerance for spiciness. It did repeat on me, but apart from that it was a very good dog, if not quite at Tourists standards.

If you think two mascots for a minor-league team are overkill, don't come to Great American. The Reds have four mascots, three of them baseball-headed. There's Mr. Red, kinda like the 1970s logo; Mr. Redleg, sporting an 1870s handlebar mustache; Rosie Red, a female ball-head (her curtsey toward the umpires as they took the field had Paul in stitches for obscure reasons); finally, there's the obligatory fuzzy mascot, some creature named Gapper.

The anthem that evening was by a children's chorus. A distinct improvement, I find, from a lot of adult soloists who milk every word, trying to put themselves above the song. I've heard that way too much in the minors.

Not ominous at all. Really. Perfect baseball weather.

Then came the first pitch. And very shortly after that, the first raindrops.

The Baseball-Reference recap of this game cites start-time weather as "Cloudy, No Precipitation." That's accurate as far as it goes, and no further. The game-time temperature of 46 degrees seems an over-estimate, too. The wind at over 20 mph does look right. The weather was bad enough that I had trouble keeping my hand steady to take notes, in a notebook that was getting rapidly spotted with rain. And this was in the first inning.

The game did provide some diversion from our meteorological woes. Reds starter Mat Latos got two strikeouts in the first, auspicious for highly mercenary reasons. LaRosa's, a local pizza chain, was giving away free small pizzas to ticket-holders should Cincinnati pitchers strike out at least 11 opponents, an offer it's making for every home game. Still, I remembered the Krispy Kreme debacle, and reined in my enthusiasm.

There were lots of roving vendors in our section. Indeed, too many. Their constant calls often overlapped one another, and they got into my line of sight annoyingly often. Late arrivals managed this trick several times as well. I was starting to flash back to the one game I ever attended at Shea Stadium, the late-birds parading between me and home plate seemingly non-stop for the first two or three innings. I had hoped never to have such an experience at a ballpark again. You could almost wish for the periscopes you sometimes see at golf tournaments.

Shin-Soo Choo led off the home first with a bomb off the wall at the 379 marker in left field, chugging in with a triple. (It's a statement on the decline of the rails in America that fans greet him with a boo-like "Choooo" and not a rhythmic "Choo-Choo-Choo.") Joey Votto got him home with an opposite-field sac fly, on a 3-0 pitch, and the Reds took the early lead.

Meanwhile, rain was coming down harder and harder, falling past the lights in those photogenic sheets that you're surely familiar with watching games from home. After two innings, Paul and I had to abandon our seats for covered standing room on the concourse. I found us some space with a good view of the continuing game, but Paul was ready to retreat even farther, away from the wind that had pursued us.

I had other ideas. Latos had gone six up, six down, with four punch-outs and two easy grounders. I meant to stay and watch. "I've got a feeling," I told Paul.

Have you ever heard a more certain jinx? Two pitches later, Nick Green banged one up the middle for Miami. It was his first at-bat of the season, raising his batting average a thousand points. A Donovan Solano single and a sacrifice by pitcher Kevin Slowey made it second and third, one down, for Juan Pierre. Pierre fouled off two attempts at a safety squeeze, then went down looking.

Placido Polanco picked up some of the pieces. His grounder through the right side scored Green, but Jay Bruce's throw home was on the money, and Solano was out. The Marlins had tied it 1-1, half a loaf being better than usual, for them.

The Reds' PA announcer gave the names of the Marlins as though he resented even having them in the ballpark. A different energy level for the two teams is common, but it generally manifests in histrionics for the home club, not grumbling of the visitors' names. Bob Sheppard would not have approved, though mainly because he was physically incapable of muttering.

In the fourth, Latos K'd Giancarlo Stanton for the second time, then got hit by a Joe Mahoney comebacker. The trainer checked him over, and he stayed in. Latos wisely concluded that strikeouts were safer, and put Justin Ruggiano away swinging for his seventh of the game. To show he had fully shrugged off his dinging, he smacked a two-out gapper in the fifth for a double, though nothing came of it.

By that time, the rain had finally subsided. We were getting a wind-tunnel effect from the concourse where we stood, so we decided we could be just as cold back in our original seats, and closer to the action.

Juan Pierre led off the sixth with a double, and took third on Polanco's fly-out to right. Giancarlo Stanton then grounded to short, and Pierre went for the plate. Remember how Bugs Bunny would outfox Daffy Duck into shouting "Shoot me now!" at Elmer Fudd? Pierre was a deader duck than that. But it was our second play at the plate of the game, so I was well satisfied.

Miami threatened again in the seventh, aided by Nick Green's third straight hit. His 1.000 batting average, and his momentum from my whammy on Latos, was intact. Mat weathered it by striking out pinch-hitter Greg Dobbs, his 10th K of the night. Get up and stretch! Sing, too.

Leading off the Miami eighth was, guess who, Juan Pierre. The confrontation with reliever Jonathan Broxton crackled with tension. The crowd's voice rose as one on the two-strike count. The swing. The miss! Yes! Free pizza!

Which Paul and I wouldn't be in Cincinnati long enough to redeem. Uh, yay?

The next big cheer came in the middle of the eighth, as the jumbo screen in left announced that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had been captured, alive. Paul joined in a brief "USA! USA!" I just tried to keep my fingers warm. I had on an undershirt, shirt, "Idontknow" jersey, and jacket, and I was still freezing. Had I brought gloves, I would have been freezing with even worse handwriting.

The next big cheer had to wait until the ninth, as Cincinnati still couldn't get its offense restarted. But it was a very big cheer, for the arrival of Aroldis Chapman. Time to bask in some heat.

Then came a moment perfectly emblematic of the 2013 Miami Marlins. With the score tied in the ninth inning, they sent in a pinch-hitter for Joe Mahoney—their clean-up batter. Even more telling than the substitution was Mahoney's original inclusion in the four-hole. This was Mahoney's fourth career game, and second career start. His lifetime OPS as he exited the game was 0. Nothing after the decimal, except for infinite zeroes. And this was the clean-up man, the guy backing up Giancarlo Stanton in the lineup.

Words are inadequate. Face-palms are inadequate. It's like the Marlins are the "Springtime for Hitler" of baseball.

Of course, "Springtime for Hitler" ended up a hit.

With one out, Chapman went 3-1 on Justin Ruggiano. His fabled fastball had started out at 97, and faded from there in the cold. As one fan implored him not to give in, he pitched. The ball would land in the left-center stands, a couple rows deep, just left of the bullpen. 2-1, Miami.

Chapman did get the next two Marlins, including a strikeout of Nick Green to ruin his perfect night. I commiserated with Nick, though he was probably still feeling pretty good.

It wasn't over yet. Zack Cozart grounded deep into the 5.5 hole, and easily beat out Polanco's throw. Up came Joey Votto, but he looked bad trying to recapture his elusive home run swing, and struck out. Brandon Phillips' fly to center drew huge cheers, but it wasn't close to going out. Jay Bruce was the last hope, and he jumped on Steve Cishek's first pitch, lining it to right.

And right at Stanton, for the final out. Springtime for Marlins and Loriaaaaaa ...

Reds lost? Who cares? High explosives for everybody!

This wasn't quite the end of our night. Fridays are Fireworks Nights at Great American, so Paul and I got to stand out in the cold wind for another quarter hour waiting for the festivities to commence. Stadium staff filled some of the time by shooting T-shirts into the stands. One of these caromed off someone's hands twice, and went right to Paul.

Then it was another 10 minutes watching the fireworks go off, but we weren't exactly counting those minutes. Ever been to a really good fireworks display, eyes dazzled, ears drubbed, viscera shivered by the shock waves pulsing through you?

So have we. And if it felt like my feet were blocks of frozen cement as we walked back to the car, I could live with that.

Epilogue: We did find a good home for our free pizzas. The desk clerk on duty when we checked into our hotel, who was extremely engaging to talk to, was working again when we checked out the next morning. She received the opportunity to assist in the bankrupting of LaRosa's Pizzeria. Our pleasure, Leslie.

Future installments of this series will/can be found here, here, and here.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.

The Grand Tour, part one

Shane Tourtellotte — 2013-04-29T07:05:15+00:00

I won't say I needed a vacation, but I certainly got one.

It was March when my best friend Paul Golba (he has a co-writer credit on one of my earlier articles, so you actually kinda know him) suggested a baseball holiday. He'd had this idea floating through his brain for some time and finally saw an opportunity to make it reality. We'd spend several days crossing the country, taking in a series of big-league baseball games.

It should be no surprise that I liked this idea. At his behest, I worked up some scenarios that we could follow. Since we live several states apart—he in New Jersey, I now in North Carolina—they all involved my flying up to my old stomping grounds first before setting out, to be dropped off in Asheville once we were done. Four scenarios, one for April and three for June, came of my work, the most ambitious getting us all the way to Chicago for a White Sox night game followed by day ball at Wrigley Field.

So of course we chose Scenario E.

One of Paul's business trips cropped up, sending him out to Kansas City in mid-April. (He's seen more Royals games than most people would admit to, plus some games by the minor-league Kansas City T-Bones. Yes, they like meat in KC. And so does Paul.) After an evening of scrambling that would make MLB schedulers proud, we had a brand new plan. He'd fly over to Asheville after his business was done, we'd start and end our tour there, and he'd wing home.

The overture would be a Wednesday minor-league game in Asheville just as a homestand was ending. After one evening attending a concert in Nashville (no relation to baseball), we'd hit Cincinnati on Friday night, Pittsburgh on Saturday evening, Philadelphia for the national game on ESPN, then Baltimore on Monday.

My original name for the tour concept was Operation Market-Garden 2, though once I realized how esoteric World War II references were getting, I settled for The Grand Tour. Once a firm route was sketched out, though, Paul insisted on calling it the Grand West Virginia Encirclement. And so history will record it. The article titles won't, though: it's kinda long for that.

Circle me, ~~Bert~~ Shane!

Yes, as if it weren't already obvious, I'm telling you all about the trip. I couldn't participate in an ambitious baseball tour like this without sharing it with the readers of The Hardball Times.

Besides, it provided a needed perspective. It can be too easy to write about the statistical minutiae of baseball and forget that behind all the numbers, there's a game that exists to be enjoyed. If my reports go long on the enjoyment and short on the inside-baseball details, consider it a balancing of the books.

We planned to do a little more than watch ballgames, but apart from the Nashville connection, we would not be straying far from the central focus. Most of our destinations had obvious baseball-related side trips available to us, and our itinerary allowed us enough time to fit them in.

Paul had one additional matter planned. Thinking ahead to the ballpark food we'd be having for dinner in Asheville, he told me I would have to eat and rate hot dogs at all the parks we visited. People are good at thinking up things that I have to do; I am less good at telling said people to get lost. So among everything else, you will be getting my entirely subjective opinions of ballpark franks from across our tour.

And it's time to begin that tour, right at home.

Game 1: Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Hickory Crawdads at Asheville Tourists
McCormick Field, Asheville, North Carolina
Attendance: 1,620

The author, at McCormick Field. Third base!

The Asheville Tourists are a Single-A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies and are the defending South Atlantic League champions. They reached that summit under the helmsmanship of manager Joe Mikulik, in his 13th season running the club.

Mikulik has a certain YouTube-fueled reputation for on-field eruptions, stuff to rival the great hot-headed managers like Earl Weaver, Lou Piniella, and Ozzie Guillen. True instances of these meltdowns are actually pretty rare for his 13-year stretch, but you can look them up and be entertained (or possibly disgusted) all the same.

With a fresh championship under his belt, Mikulik decided he had earned his way up the ladder and promptly petitioned the Rockies organization for a promotion. The reply, three days after the clinching game, was to fire him.

Amazingly, this news didn't get out in public for several weeks afterward. By the time Asheville residents knew the winningest manager in SAL history (939-860) was gone, he was long gone. He finally fetched up as a roving scout for the Texas Rangers organization.

The Hickory Crawdads are a Single-A affiliate of the Texas Rangers. As part of his new job, Mikulik came to town on April 17 to scout the Crawdads-Tourists game.

As soon as the Tourists learned of this, they arranged a Joe Mikulik Night. General admission tickets were offered for $1.20, after the number 20 Mikulik wore. (I feel lucky they weren't charging 20 bucks.) At a pre-game ceremony, team president Brian DeWine (of the Ohio political family) presented Mikulik his championship ring and a large framed photograph of his 2012 Tourists.

Mikulik's speech afterward was no study in eloquence, except for the genuine feeling it showed. Peppered with multiple "humbleds," it showed a much different side of him than anyone has seen on his notorious videos. It was a much better send-off for the man, and Paul and I were lucky to have started off the tour with it.

McCormick Field is one of the oldest professional baseball parks still in use. The stands are nothing exceptional, but the thick stands of trees down the left-field line and beyond the outfield walls make for very pretty views, even in an April when the last winter snow is just three weeks past. The field itself showed those effects the night we attended, the grass still mostly yellow except for a strip of green fronting the right-field wall.

Right field at McCormick. Not green, but arguably a monster.

McCormick is decidedly a hitter's park. The elevation is over 2,000 feet, and the park itself is very cozy, with 326/370/373/320/297 measurements to the walls. The right-field fence is 36 feet high.

Think a reverse Fenway Park and you won't be far off, though if you know your baseball history, a closer comparison would be the Baker Bowl. McCormick even has the corrugated-metal walls all around the outfield that Baker Bowl had in right. Wall-banging hits are a literal thing in Asheville, clearly audible.

McCormick's Park Factor is the highest in the Sally League, at 118 for the 2010-12 seasons. If there's any place in this league for players to learn what it'll be like playing at Coors Field, this is it.

I have no idea whether the Rockies chose their Single-A affiliate with this in mind, but any analytics division worth its salt would advise them not to switch. Current manager Fred Ocasio has been complaining about McCormick Field's effect on his pitchers. Ignore him. They have to learn some time.

Comparing Wieners: Footlong from Sausage Shack ($6.50)
"That's not a hot dog," said Paul, "that's a commitment." That it was. It had good girth to match its length and was notably grayer than a standard hot dog, edging toward bratwurst territory. The taste was reminiscent of brats, as well, strong and flavorful, with a nice moderate amount of juice. Even accounting for the high price, this was an excellent hot dog. The major-league parks had their work cut out right from the start.

The Tourists have two mascots. The older one is Ted E. Tourist, a bear. (Ted E., nudge-nudge.) The newer one fits with a logo change made two years back, going from a tree-lined mountain range to an anthropomorphic smiling Moon, complete with ballcap and Harry Caray-like glasses. Why a Moon for the Tourists? I have no idea. The resulting mascot is Mr. Moon. Kinda like Mr. Met, only with a Harry Caray-impersonating large natural satellite instead of a baseball.

It isn't minor-league baseball without between-inning entertainment, and our game in Asheville was packed. A possibly incomplete list of diversions for the night includes:

The Pony Race. Kids on foam horses.
The Frozen T-shirt Race. Two adults race to unfold and put on frozen T-shirts. Often good for embarrassing people.
The T-shirt Slingshot. Standard stuff for minors and majors alike. I nearly nabbed the first one.
The Tighty-Whitey Race. Three kids per pair of super-sized shorts. "My first giant underwear race," Paul observed. "One of those special moments."
The Mascot Race. Ted E. Tourist races a five-year-old around the bases, going in opposite directions. The kid won easily, even slow-rolling Ted E. by easing up near the plate. The PA announcer declared the showboating tyke "ready for the NFL."
The First Restoration Services Race. A carpet-restoration sponsor dresses racers up as various threats to one's carpeting: fire, water, and green mold. No, I'm not kidding. Green mold won.
The Asheville Dental Tooth Olympiad. Kids dressed as a tooth, toothbrush, and smiling face run, do push-ups, skip rope, etc.
The Charlotte Street Computers Pin the Tail on the Technician contest. Ted E. completely fails to evade a theoretically-blindfolded kid. Why don't they humiliate Mr. Moon this way?
The Kia Soul Squishy Ball Challenge. Three adult contestants try to throw a ball into the trunk of a Kia. If it goes in and doesn't bounce out, you win. The first two missed, and then the assistant for the event, missing her cue, slammed the trunk. And they couldn't get it back open again. The Kia drove off, and the third contestant won by default.

Okay, the game

We lucked out with Mikulik, but the Tourists themselves were another matter. We missed the rotation slot of first-round pick Eddie Butler, who had been dominant in his first two games with Asheville before looking mortal in the third. (He has since thrown an eight-inning one-hitter.) Third-rounder Tom Murphy, who has both power and more aggressive speed than you'd expect from a catcher, was on the DL.

Weather was not the best. There was a slight occasional drizzle, and temperatures were decidedly cool by the end. This turned out to be an omen, but we didn't know that at the time.

Hickory and Asheville traded runs in the first. Crawdad Joey Gallo (a first-round pick last year) hit a thunderous home run to right-center. "Maybe we should've parked elsewhere," Paul said. The Tourists' run came on a walk, single, then a little liner that pitcher Sam Stafford somehow dodged leaning over backward ("the full Matrix on that one.") for a 6-3 RBI groundout.

Stafford's heat was sitting 88, touching 90 (if you trust a minor-league park's radar gun), and his control was poor. He walked three men in the first and one each in the next two innings before being hooked. He yielded only the one run, thanks partly to Asheville's baserunning misadventures.

In the second, with Jose Briceno on second and one out, Kyle Von Tungeln singled to right and went for second on the throw home. Briceno held up at third as the catcher moved up to take the throw and pegged it to second. Von Tungeln was out on the play, and Briceno didn't go for home. He never got off third base. The Tourists gave away another baserunner the next inning, as Rosell Herrera was gunned down at second trying to advance on a pitch in the dirt.

Scoring resumed in the fourth. Hickory plated its first on a scorching double to right that first baseman Drew Beuerlein (cousin of one-time NFL quarterback Steve) nearly picked off. Another came in on Jorge Alfaro's wall-banger to left. Asheville got both of them back on a walk, steal, line-hugging double, sacrifice, then a ball that ate up third baseman Gallo and went right by him but charitably was ruled a single. Ryan Rua made a nifty sliding nab to start a 4-6-3 double play and snuff the rally.

The Tourists pressed the attack in the fifth. A leadoff walk led to a sac bunt to the left side, only Francisco Sosa beat it out. Derek Jones popped up a bunt down the third-base line, and pitcher Alving Mejias' dive couldn't snare it. Bases loaded, nobody out, and a cowbell-wielding fan by the Asheville dugout got working in earnest. Beuerlein went down looking. Julian Yan's grounder to third looked like the end, but the relay to first, hurried by Yan's speed, went wide. Two runs scored, making it 5-3 in favor of Asheville.

Tourists starter Jonathan Vargas had come out in the fifth, having given up three runs in 4.2 innings, so he wasn't in line for the win. He had hit 90 consistently and touched 93. His Three True Outcome numbers weren't too good, with a homer, two walks, and three strikeouts.

Then came the seventh, the Krispy Kreme Hitless Inning. If the Tourists allowed Hickory no hits that frame, everyone in attendance would get a coupon for a free Krispy Kreme doughnut. Our hopes ended with a swift bang: the sound of a 1-1 pitch whacking off the center-field wall for a Jordan Akins double. Akins would pay for depriving us. With one out, he went for third on a grounder ahead of him and perished on a 6-5 play. Well, he's got a few levels to learn better.

At the stretch, there was no "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." The Boston Marathon bombings were two days old, and a rendition of "God Bless America" took its place. It occurs to me that a whole generation of people now associate that song with mass murders. That cannot be good, can it?

Top of the eighth, and Asheville reliever Rayan Gonzalez is hitting 95. The Crawdads are less impressed than the speed board: a walk and a long double bring them within one, 5-4. Another long fly moves the runner to third, but he's stopped there.

Top of the ninth, and closer Raul Fernandez comes in. He hits 97 on the gun and has done better at other parks with possibly friendlier radar. Paul noted the complication: "Throwing hard, but throwing straight. Kyle Farnsworth territory."

If Kyle Farnsworth's territory is beyond the left-center wall at McCormick Field, he's right. Akins parked an offering there, and it was a tie game. Fernandez slammed the barn door after the equine had absconded. The Crawdads' pitcher, southpaw Alexander Claudio, struck out the Tourists in order in his third inning of work. No situational lefty, he. On to free baseball!

In for Asheville came Patrick Johnson. He struck out Nick Williams, but then Gallo yanked one deeeep to right. The only question was whether it would stay fair ... and there was no question. It was Gallo's second round-tripper, to go with two walks and a fly-out that I presume was awfully deep, too. Looks like the Rangers used that first-round pick wisely.

Johnson plunked the next batter, but Rua got thrown out stealing, and Alfaro went down swinging. Asheville had three outs left.

Sosa made a promising start, lining one through the pitcher's glove and legging it out for Asheville's first hit against Claudio. (He was now in his fourth inning. You don't see this too often, especially in close games, but it's apparently his role. Nine innings in three previous appearances, none of them starts. I'm liking it.) With a steal threatening, Claudio made a wild pickoff throw, and Sosa took second.

Manager Fred Ocasio had called four sacrifice bunts in the game, two of which had gone for singles. This looked like a possible fifth, and five-batter Derek Jones had bunted before (the little bloop hit), so he could execute if asked. This time, Ocasio did not ask. Jones popped out to center. Then Beuerlein struck out swinging, and Asheville's last chance came up in the person of Yan.

This did not inspire confidence. Yan was 0 for 3 with a walk and a strikeout and had been looking overmatched. As hacky as he was, it looked like an all-or-nothing at-bat, with the odds heavily stacked on the nothing side.

Claudio had worries in both directions. He'd look to second, look home, look to second, look home, look to second, as the boos mounted. "Split the difference," said I. "Throw to first."

No such luck. He got Yan swinging. Four innings, five strikeouts, and just the infield hit counting against him. Yes, John Barten, pitcher wins may be archaic, but sometimes they actually earn them.

This fun game was an auspicious beginning to the Great West Virginia Encirclement, apart from the hometown team losing. Then again, they did that a lot early last season yet wound up with the champion's trophy in their hands, so I wouldn't worry too much.

Tomorrow: Cincinnati, and the best cynical corporate sponsorship ever.

Note: future installments will be/are available here, here, here, and here.

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Billy and Jackie: a re-tracer

Shane Tourtellotte — 2013-04-18T07:12:15+00:00

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Movie Review: “42”

Shane Tourtellotte — 2013-04-13T22:07:15+00:00

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Coming home with Jackie

Shane Tourtellotte — 2013-04-10T07:15:15+00:00
I did something out of the ordinary early last year. Having never written a single piece of baseball research, I yet found myself prodded to action by the page dedicated to Jackie Robinson at Retrosheet. I studied his steals of home, put the numbers through some sabermetric paces, and produced this.

And am I ever glad I did. I offered it to Dave Studeman here at The Hardball Times, and he snapped it up. It got a pretty good reception from readers, nudging me to try my hand at the game again, and again. It wasn't long before I was a regular fixture here.

Obviously, I have a soft spot for my original Robinson article. More, something I wrote near the end has stayed with me, a promise left pending, unredeemed. I said that once fuller statistics were in for Robinson's career, somebody, perhaps I, should examine the following proposition:

Hypothesis: Jackie Robinson accumulated more run-producing, game-winning value with his steals of home than with all his other career steal attempts put together.

When I wrote that, numbers for neither Expected Runs nor Win Expectancy/Win Percentage Added yet existed for the early part of Robinson's career, but there was good reason to hope they would be compiled soon. I composed the original article around Expected Runs, but so far my source for those numbers has not extended them back to 1947.

Baseball-Reference did recently extend its play-by-play records, including WE and WPA, back to the 1947 season. Not all 1947 games had full PBP at the start, but all 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers games did. I suspect we have Allan Roth, the statistician hand-picked by Branch Rickey in 1947 to work with the Dodgers, to thank for that specific completeness. He personally scored every Dodgers game in that era, and his records survive.

Here was the chance to keep my promise. More, I could do it with a superior metric, counting the wins Robinson created with his steals rather than runs. That's what I'm writing about today. Those who don't remember the original piece are invited to go back and read it over now, but if you still recall the main points or just want to dive in here, go right ahead.

The untangling

I began my cataloguing of Robinson's steals, thinking my path to an answer was clear. Before long, I started hitting the potholes on that road, all due to the problematic definition of a "play."

Example: Robinson is sent running from first on a two-strike count. The batter strikes out, swinging or looking, as Robinson steals the base. Baseball-Reference counts both changes to the base-out state as one occurrence, assigning it a single WPA value. By this measure, Robinson appears to have cost his team win probability by stealing second.

Or perhaps he's caught stealing, in which case the negative values for both the strikeout and the caught stealing are hung around his neck. In both cases, two values are amalgamated, and it is not possible to tease one out from the other, not from B-R's records.

There are several other ways this happens. Robinson steals home, but a trailing runner is put out trying to take home behind him. Robinson steals home, but an attempt to nab a trailing runner at third produces an error and scores that second run. Robinson steals second, but two errors allow him to come all the way home. (All of these scenarios happened during Robinson's career.)

I had two tasks. First, I needed to decide how to handle multi-element plays. Second, I had to find a way to measure the proper WPA for the elements of those plays that I was counting for Robinson.

The first task wasn't that hard. Some applied common sense, plus a judgment call here and there, gave me this list of rules:

1. Errors on a play count in Robinson's favor, unless they were made on attempts to put out other runners. If the catcher chucks the ball into center field, Robinson's play forced that error, and he deserves credit for the extra base he takes. If said catcher chucks the ball into left field trying to cut down Gene Hermanski at third while Robinson steals home, Robinson is not credited for Hermanski coming home. (In that real-life play, the error went to the third baseman, apparently frozen by all the action.)

Likewise, if Robinson was put out on continuing action, that counts against him. Example: On July 9, 1950, he stole second against the Phillies, advanced to third on catcher Andy Seminick's error, then was thrown out trying to take home. I count it all, and the total result is just as though he had been out at second. In the same vein, outs made on other runners going for an added base aren't debited to Robinson.

2. All gains on a multiple steal are credited to the lead runner. If Robinson's heading home on a triple steal, the bases his teammates gain count for him. If he's on first for a double-steal of second and third, it's a null event for Robinson.

This isn't a perfect rule, as sometimes it can make sense to try to put out the trailing runner. Yet consider this: Jackie at first and Player X at second pull a double-steal. Who would Player X have to be for you as the catcher to throw to second? And how many plausible Player X's played for Robinson's Dodgers? In this context, the rule works pretty well.

3. Robinson is not liable for the batter striking out on a busted hit-and-run, but is liable for his own advancement or failure to advance. I could not exclude these plays without hunting down every other missed hit-and-run not resulting in a strikeout and excluding them too.

I will, however, track the two attempted steals of home, both failed, that came on busted plays: a hit-and-run on July 26, 1947 and a suicide squeeze on May 13, 1956. Going for home on such a play is materially different from going for second base. I'll do the calculations according to the above rule, but when appropriate I'll note how Robinson's numbers would look if not charged for those two times he was truly hung out to dry.

4. By a similar token to rule 3, Robinson is responsible for his success on delayed double-steals. I filtered them out at one point in my original article to make a big point on success rates, but I cannot exclude them here. Taking the result at a discount would require me to invent an arbitrary percentage, and I can't see how that's any better than just counting it fully.

Figuring out the WPA of those separated plays was trickier. Baseball-Reference's data no longer helped. I went elsewhere for the numbers—that elsewhere being here.

The Hardball Times website hosts the Win Probability Inquirer. This lovely gadget lets you calculate a team's Win Expectancy in nearly any situation you can dream up, as well as figuring the Win Probability Added going from one situation to another. This is perfect for my purposes: I can include and exclude whatever elements I need to.

The Inquirer also thankfully factors in run environments. I calculated expected runs per game for the Dodgers, by year and park, and ran the scenarios accordingly. As I mentioned in my original article, Robinson's Dodgers were a high-scoring team, both through their offensive punch and the hitter-friendly characteristics of Ebbets Field. This is broadly reflected in the numbers, retarding gains and amplifying losses compared to our modern run environment.

(I did have one hitch here. The WPI allows runs per game values in half-run increments from 3.0 to 6.5. However, the 1951 Dodgers were expected to produce 6.8 runs per game in Forbes Field, Pittsburgh, which rounds to a 7.0! Robinson did make two attempts in that environment, swiping second both times. I did a little extrapolating from 6.0 and 6.5 values to get something that satisfied me. The effect only registered at the fourth decimal place, but I mention it for thoroughness. Oh, and the Dodgers actually over-performed expectations, scoring 94 runs in 11 games at Forbes that season. Helps when you're batting against the '51 Pirates' pitchers.)

I set aside Baseball-Reference's WPA numbers and went entirely with THT's Win Probability Inquirer. Having numbers from two sources would confound the data, whatever work it might save me.

First pass

The stolen base and caught-stealing numbers come from the game-by-game records at Baseball-Reference. Allan Roth's records, compiled at Retrosheet's tribute page to Robinson, credit him with one fewer stolen base in 1947. B-R's game accounts show that added stolen base (whichever it is), and I calculated its WPA value, so I am counting it.

When I ran the numbers, I came up with these results. The following table is for regular-season play. I will cover his performances in the World Series at the end of the article.

Year SB CS SBH CSH WPA WPA-2 WPA-3 WPA-H 1947 28 11 3 1 +0.5676 +0.2380 +0.1547 +0.1749 1948 22 14 5 3 +0.1353 -0.1741 +0.0074 +0.3020 1949 37 16 5 2 +0.1900 -0.0534 +0.0888 +0.1546 1950 12 5 1 1 +0.0436 +0.0125 -0.0115 +0.0426 1951 25 8 1 1 +0.1094 +0.1713 +0.0276 -0.0895 1952 24 7 1 0 +0.3294 +0.2387 +0.0125 +0.0782 1953 17 4 0 1 +0.1053 +0.0432 +0.0675 -0.0054 1954 7 3 1 1 +0.1489 +0.0274 +0.0604 +0.0611 1955 12 3 1 1 +0.0658 +0.0145 +0.0505 +0.0008 1956 12 5 1 1 +0.1282 -0.0440 +0.1117 +0.0605 Total 197 76 19 12 +1.8235 +0.4741 +0.5696 +0.7798

I have some notes of interest before grappling with conclusions. First, there was often value in Robinson's stolen-base plays aside from the bases he stole. On 197 successful steals, 26 times he advanced at least one extra base on an error the defense made trying to catch him. That comes to 13.2 percent. The authors of The Book estimated that base stealers get an extra base eight percent of the time, inching up to nine percent for the fastest and most disruptive runners. Jackie's outlying success might be due to inferior steal defense in his day—or maybe he was just that fast and disruptive.

In three of the instances, he made home on a steal of third, and 21 times, he made third after stealing second. And twice, he came all the way home from first base on the steal. How disruptive an opposing team would consider this, one can only imagine.

This aggression didn't come without cost. Twice Robinson was put out on continuing action after a steal (not counting the World Series—the story on that one is coming later). One of those was the Andy Seminick play in July of 1950 that I noted above in my Four Simple Rules. Still, a 26/2 ratio produced plenty of value. You'd break even or better stealing third with two outs at that rate—even if the disruption you caused was to your manager's heart rhythm.

If you're wondering about a breakdown of steal attempts by base: Robinson was 150-54 stealing second, 28-10 going for third, and 19-12 coming home. Percentages are 73.5, 73.7, and 61.3, respectively. Second and third was all the same to Robinson, apparently.

Steals of home would rise if you factored out busted plays like hit-and-runs or suicide squeezes, as I mentioned in my original article. If you do that, though, you need to do likewise for busted plays on other steals. Robinson was 13-10 on busted hit-and-runs that resulted in a strikeout (or in one case a walk when he was going for third). Subtract those from his steals of second and third, and the combined percentage nudges up from 73.6 percent to 75.3 percent. No surprise that Robinson was better when you left him alone to figure out when to go.

Now for the WPA numbers. Robinson's career is seemingly defined by stealing other teams blind. (Okay, we know what it really is defined by, but I meant in the games themselves.) Despite that, the value he produced with stealing is not overwhelming. Some of the reasons I touched upon in the original article: percentages not that far above break-even, a concept nobody really grasped back then, and not tailoring his aggression to game situations, which was understood better but not exactly a science either.

This falls in with the caution modern analysts have raised about the running game. Even a successful base thief won't add a mountain of value, unless with extremely high success rates. Robinson didn't have those, though he did have the opportunism to turn one stolen base into two or three. And stealing home could be very rewarding at seemingly low rates.

Just not quite as rewarding as I had thought. Robinson produced more WPA value stealing home than either second or third, but my hypothesis involved beating the number for second and third combined. He missed that by about a quarter-win: +1.0437 for second and third, +0.7798 for home. My speculation last year was incorrect.

However ... steal attempts are not the only way that base-thieving aggressiveness can register with Win Probability Added. Let's go one level deeper.

Three outcomes (maybe less true than those others)

A runner looking to swipe the next base risks more than being called out 90 feet away. He also risks getting picked off. Robinson encountered this occupational hazard of the base-stealer 23 times during his career. (This counts pure pickoffs, not the pickoff-caught stealing, which is counted with regular steals.) Given his lifetime 197-76 record on steals, this is a substantial number. Add those pickoffs to his caught-stealing numbers, and suddenly his success rate drops from 73 percent to below two-thirds. You can do this with any player, not just Robinson, but his example is illustrative.

Robinson's nemesis on pickoffs was Boston Braves pitcher Warren Spahn. The southpaw picked off Robinson four times over the years, including twice in the first game of a Sept. 6, 1948 double-header in Boston. Quite attention-getting is when those pickoffs happened: the 11th and 14th innings. Yes, Spahn started the game, and was still pitching in the 14th. Jackie's aggressiveness was costly: The Braves won in the bottom of the 14th. For a single season, the Giants' Clint Hartung was the champ, picking Jackie off three times in 1949, but never before or afterward.

From 18 pickoffs at first base and five at second, Robinson lost a total of 1.0432 WPA. He was never recorded as being picked off third. Count this against his other stealing numbers, and Robinson tumbles to just break-even stealing second and third, with his positive stealing-home numbers untouched. I could claim vindication here, but there are positives yet to count.

Pickoffs don't always go right, or even neutrally. A wild throw can give the runner the base he was hoping to swipe, or more. This was a tougher hunt, as pickoff errors are too uncommon to get their own specific search function. I looked up pitchers' throwing errors on the teams Robinson faced, checked fielding logs to see if those pitchers made errors playing the Dodgers, and looked over play-by-play on matching games. Doing this, I was able to find 10 instances where Jackie Robinson took at least one extra base on a pitcher's pickoff error, plus one in the 1952 World Series.

(I did omit searching for pickoff errors by catchers. There would have been a great deal more work for an event that occurs much less often, perhaps never where Robinson was concerned.)

Robinson really made hay when a pickoff went awry. Six of the 10 times, he took two extra bases on the error, including going second to home via Milwaukee Brave Ernie Johnson's miscue on Sept. 11, 1956. He got a bit of revenge against Hartung by going first-to-third on him in a 1949 game, though Warren Spahn never slipped that way.

This restores some of the WPA lost to pickoffs, but not nearly all. In total, it's a 0.2756 WPA gain, just over a quarter what he gave away. There were no errant pickoffs when he was on third, so all of the gain goes into the second-third column.

And again, we're not quite done. One final way a nervous pitcher can reward a potential base-stealer is with a balk. I counted eight times in the regular season, and twice in the World Series, that Robinson advanced on a balk. However, I only count five of the eight (plus the two Series events) in Robinson's favor. On the other three, the base ahead of Robinson was occupied: it wasn't the threat of Robinson (alone) running that triggered the balk.

Robinson accumulated 0.0617 WPA via the five balks: two when he was on first, two on second, and one on third. On that last one, Jackie basically stole home without even having to run. As it was in an 8-1 game in the ninth inning, though, the WPA value is a tiny 0.0003. Almost all of his balk value is in non-home situations.

So let's look at the chart again. Non-steal events are counted with the base ahead that Robinson was potentially stealing. If he's picked off first, that counts with attempts to steal second; if he's balked home, that counts with attempted steals of home.

Events No. WPA Ttl. 2nd 3rd 2nd+3rd Home Steal attempts 273 +1.8235 +0.4741 +0.5696 +1.0437 +0.7798 Pickoffs 23 -1.0432 -0.8241 -0.2191 -1.0432 0 Pickoff errors 10 +0.2756 +0.1412 +0.1344 +0.2756 0 Balks 5 +0.0617 +0.0189 +0.0425 +0.0614 +0.0003 All non-steals 38 -0.7059 -0.6640 -0.0422 -0.7062 +0.0003 Total 311 +1.1176 -0.1899 +0.5274 +0.3375 +0.7801

The steals of home finally do come out ahead, after a fair amount of manipulation. I can't consider this a true vindication of my starting hypothesis, but it's an informative result.

This does assume, though, that all the value of those ancillary plays should be counted toward Robinson's penchant for stealing. That's not quite so: We can record what a pitcher did, but not whether a runner really was planning to take the next base or just wanted a good lead. But even if only half the value of those plays was attributed to Robinson's stealing, it would still nudge his plays for home above those for the other bases combined.

The numbers do emphasize something a bit unexpected, that one could already see in the steal-only table: Robinson was doing some real damage stealing third base. He produced greater value on 38 attempts at third than the did on 204 attempts at second. He did this despite making a fair number of attempts with zero or two outs, the latter especially considered a violation of the proverbial Book and a tactical blunder. As my original article noted, Robinson didn't restrict himself to ideal tactical situations or great leverage:He went when he thought he could take the base.

The secret to his success at third is probably that he had company. In at least nine of his 38 attempts to steal third, the man on first was running with him. (It may be as many as 12: Robinson was caught three times for the third out in potential double-steal situations—twice on strikeout-throw out plays—and what the trailing runner did is not recorded. Accounts in The New York Times mention none of the plays.)

The double-steal of second and third is one of the great untapped percentage plays in baseball. Going with one out, the break-even percentage is just a little over 50 percent, and it's not too much worse with zero outs. Robinson was seven for nine for the times we know he was leading such a double-steal, and all but one came with one out.

The cumulative WPA on those nine plays is +.3339, over half his value for all attempted steals of third. Even if all three unsure plays are debited to double-steals, it still comes out to +.2242. Averaging as much as 3.8 percent of a win for a single play is great percentage baseball.

When it really counted

Now for the World Series. Robinson's stealing record in World Series play is superficially perfect: six for six on steals, plus advancing twice on balks and once on a wild pickoff throw. There are two complicating factors, though. The list here is short enough that I can show you every steal-related play Robinson made in the Fall classic. All games listed were against the New York Yankees.

Date Game H/A Inn. Base/Out Bkn-NYY Took/Play WPA 9/30/47 One A T1 1XX/1 0-0 2nd/SB +.0156 9/30/47 One A T3 1XX/2 1-0 2nd/Bk +.0101 10/2/47 Three H B1 1XX/1 0-0 2nd/SB+O -.0405 10/1/52 One H B6 1XX/2 3-1 2nd/POE1 +.0073 10/3/52 Three A T9 12X/1 3-2 2nd/DS 0 10/5/52 Five A T2 12X/0 0-0 3rd/SB +.0362 10/2/53 Three H B5 X2X/1 0-1 3rd/Bk +.0318 10/5/53 Six A T6 X2X/1 0-3 3rd/SB +.0169 9/28/55 One A T8 XX3/2 4-6 Home/SB +.0527

For the completists—which is probably a pretty good number of you—the balks were charged to Spec Shea and Vic Raschi respectively, and the pickoff error was by Allie Reynolds.

The sore thumb in that list comes in Game Three of the 1947 Series. Robinson stole second, then started for third when catcher Sherm Lollar's throw got past Phil Rizzuto.

Second baseman Snuffy Stirnweiss backed up the heave, though, and got the ball to Rizzuto, who tagged Robinson out as he was scrambling back to second. Not one for Robinson's highlight reel; not even a play most Yankees die-hards would remember, unless Scooter recounted it a time or nine in his broadcast days.

The other obvious oddity is Game Three in 1952. As the back end of a double-steal, Robinson's stolen base gets no credit in my system.

There's some irony that Robinson's two biggest base-stealing plays in the World Series didn't really affect the outcomes of the games. Brooklyn survived his off-base encounter with Rizzuto by winning a 9-8 slugfest. His fabled steal of home in Game One of the 1955 Series closed his team's gap to 6-5, but that was the final score of the game.

Taking just the steals, Robinson is credited with -.0249 WPA for stealing second, +.0531 for third, and +.0527 for the fabled steal of home against Yogi Berra in 1955. Add these to career steals, and ... no, not quite. Steals of home end up a total +0.8525 WPA, against +1.0723 for the rest. I can't drag my hypothesis across the finish line that way. All told, World Series steals produced +.0809 WPA for Robinson.

Throwing in the balks and pickoff error, the value for second in the Series rises to -.0075, and for third to +.0849; the overall Series number goes to +.1301. It's the reverse of the regular season numbers: For the Series, home comes out ahead on steals alone, but falls behind when ancillary plays are included. With so small a sample, there's no actual meaning to that, except for what he did on the basepaths and to the nerves of opposing pitchers. And to the temper of Yogi.

Conclusion

I was wrong: Jackie Robinson did not accumulate more value with steals of home than with all his other steals. A broad look at the record, though, shows that his stealing success came through everything but the standard, mundane steal of second base. He piled up value not only going for home, but by stealing third, often leading double-steals, and with frequent extra bases taken by provoking errors and balks.

His greatest successes came with two of the most untapped percentage plays in baseball: the steal of home, and the double-steal of third and second. These require quite modest success rates to produce win value, and Robinson easily beat those break-evens in a way he had more trouble doing with the workaday steal of second.

Perhaps this is the foundation of Robinson's reputation as a singularly disruptive base-runner. It wasn't that he might steal on you, but that he might steal anything on you, at any time. Second, third, or home; double-steal or triple-steal; first inning or ninth; six runs up or six runs down. If Robinson had a base open ahead of him—and sometimes when he didn't—you could not relax.

Those opposing pitchers did not relax, a truth visible in the pickoff numbers, as well as the pickoff error numbers. You could best him, like Warren Spahn did, but you could never ignore him, not even at the end of his career. In proof of that, I note that Robinson converted the last nine stolen base attempts he ever made.

Let that stand as a fitting conclusion to my twin studies of Jackie Robinson: from his first game to his last, you could never ignore him.

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Exit Sandman

Shane Tourtellotte — 2013-03-27T07:10:15+00:00
In my recent season preview of the New York Yankees, I mentioned at some length the welter of age and injuries afflicting the team (which has since only gotten worse). I struck a pessimistic tone on most of them, but not on the 43-year-old Mariano Rivera, returning from a flyball-shagging ACL blowout that cost him most of 2012. I quote myself:

"Mariano's been so consistent for so long that, even with the combination of freak injury and Father Time, I'd feel like a sucker betting against him: Mo will let us know when Mo's finished."

Not long afterward, Mo let us know. Rivera is going to retire at the end of this season, ending a career that has made him the consensus choice for the greatest relief pitcher baseball has ever seen. Having watched the Chipper Jones farewell tour last year, we can confidently foresee a string of ceremonies across the league honoring him, if sometimes with gritted teeth for all the doors he slammed in their faces for so many years. Not long after that, the New York Yankees will grant him their ultimate honor, retiring his number 42.

That number, 42, has become unusually strongly connected to Rivera, for well-known reasons I will talk about in time. So my look at the career (so far—he's not done yet, folks!) of Mariano Rivera will take 42 as its definition. In this pre-retrospective on Mariano's playing days, I'm going to give you 42 facts about Mo, encompassing the whole range of sabermetric intensity from deep analysis to simple biographical notes. I'll also make a running tally, to keep myself honest.

And now, on with the countdown.

(Central) American Top 42

It's no great leap of faith to say that Rivera is probably going to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. If and when that happens, [1] Mariano will be the second Panamanian in the Hall ... but only the first born on Panamanian soil. This one's sneaky. Rod Carew was born in 1945 in the city of Gatun, back when Gatun was part of the Panama Canal Zone, an American territory. This gained Carew permanent resident status in the U.S., though not citizenship (and he has remained solely a Panamanian citizen throughout his life). Rivera was born in Panama City, dodging those pesky sovereignty issues.

[2] Rivera was born on Nov. 29, 1969, which produces a curious alchemy with me personally. I was born one day later, but one year sooner: Nov. 30, 1968. (Don't panic: I don't have that as my password for anything.) This means that there is exactly one day a year when Mariano Rivera and I are the same age. Weird, the things that can forge a bond between you and a stranger.

Being Panamanian, Rivera was not eligible for the first-year draft, so we can't look at when he was chosen and marvel at the Yankees' perspicacity in choosing him early or luck in nabbing him late. Instead, [3] he was signed as an amateur free agent on Feb. 17, 1990. Herb Raybourn, who directed Yankees Latin American operations, did the official honors, but it was really scout Chico Heron who discovered Mariano, at least as we know him.

Raybourn had seen Rivera playing amateur baseball [4] as a shortstop, but despite obvious athleticism passed on him as a prospect. (Yep, Derek Jeter dodged a bullet.)

The next year, to fill a gap in his Panama Oeste club, Rivera volunteered to pitch. Impressed teammates called Heron, who came, saw, and invited Rivera to a tryout camp. Raybourn was surprised to find the passed-on Rivera there, but a second look showed him promise. Rivera was a fringe prospect, but worth a shot, and a $3,000 signing bonus.

[5] That bonus represents about 0.00188 percent of the money Rivera has earned in his professional career, going by Baseball-Reference's numbers. Including his 2013 contract, Rivera will have made just under $160 million. To answer the unasked question, yes, Rivera was worth a three-grand flyer.

He took five years to climb the minor-league ladder, and when he reached the New York Yankees, [6] he did it as a starter. He debuted on May 23, 1995, against the California Angels, the first of 10 starts he would have that season.

And he was a flop. He yielded more baserunners than he recorded outs: eight hits and three walks in 3.1 innings, including a Jim Edmonds round-tripper. He departed the game down 5-0 in a game his Yankees would lose 10-0.

His remaining time as a starter was up and down, generally down. Only once did he pitch more than six innings, producing eight frames of two-hit, shutout ball at Chicago on the Fourth of July, a game that got his ERA out of double digits. By the end of July, he had pitched himself out of the rotation. [7] Manager Buck Showalter sent him in for his first major-league relief appearance on Aug. 1 against Milwaukee. He coughed up three runs in the sixth and seventh innings, blew the save, but vultured a win when the Yankees staged a comeback.

He got a couple more spot starts, with discouraging results, and come September was a bullpen arm, usually trotted out in low-leverage situations. The one-time fringe prospect looked like a fringe major-leaguer, a good bet to wash out altogether.

The man responsible for saving Mariano Rivera's career? Painful as the admission is, I have to say it's Bud Selig. [8] Really.

The Wild Card, Selig's brainchild, first came into play in 1995, and Mariano's Yankees were the first winner in the American League, qualifying them to play the Seattle Mariners. An extra-inning jam in Game Two saw Rivera brought in, with mere hopes rather than expectations. What he did for 3.1 innings was a revelation, one I'll detail below. That performance, and two others in the next three games (for a total 5.1 scoreless innings), were the first flash of Mariano showing his true destiny.

It's a destiny that almost played out with the Seattle Mariners. [9] During 1996 spring training, he was dangled as possible trade bait to bring Mariners shortstop Felix Fermin to the Bronx. A Yankees prospect, penciled in to start the season at short, was struggling in exhibition games, and owner George Steinbrenner wanted Fermin as insurance. It took most of the Yankees brass to talk George out of this panic move.

It's the best trade The Boss never made. Felix Fermin's career had 19 plate appearances left. That shortstop prospect, Derek Jeter, did fine once the games started counting. And so did Mariano.

With John Wetteland still slotted as the closer, Mariano established himself that year as the Yankees' setup man. [10] It was a dominant performance. He threw 107.1 innings, easily the most of his career (second best is 80.2 in 2001). His K/9 rate was 10.87, against a BB/9 down at 2.84. He wasn't perfect, though: He did give up a home run. One, in 107.1 innings. Generally working two innings a game, he notched 26 holds (out of 28 career), and sneaked in for five saves when Wetteland wasn't looking.

[11] Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs agree, in two separate metrics apiece, that 1996 was Mariano's best season. bWAR puts him at 4.8 wins in '96, with 2008 second-best at 4.2; the lower-balling fWAR gives him 4.4 in '96, against 3.3 in 2001. If you go by Win Probability Added, which heightens high-leverage situations like those a closer would be pitching, it still holds up. B-R marks 1996 at a 5.4 WPA for Mariano, beating out 2004's 5.0; FG rates Mo's 1996 at 5.26, just ahead of 5.22 for 2004.

There's fodder for a huge sabermetric debate here. Many baseball students think closers today are not employed to the best advantage for their teams, holding too many three-run leads and being held out of critical ties to wait for the "save situation." Mariano Rivera could be Exhibit A for the prosecution: how optimal can the standard closer's role really be, if the greatest closer ever had his best year as a setup guy?

I raise the question here, but I won't try to settle it here. This is about Mariano Rivera's awesomeness as a baseball weapon, not about whether his managers deployed him perfectly or even well. Besides, his performance overwhelmed any theoretical shortcomings in the dugout. Wetteland departed for Texas after 1996. Mariano moved into the closer role, and became Mariano. Detailing the ebb and flow of his time there is almost meaningless.

Closers are notoriously meteoric: They can burn intensely bright for a couple seasons, then flame out. Jose Valverde's crash in 2012 is not remotely unique. It just coincided with a deep playoff run to get a lot of attention.

Mariano is the opposite. He's never had a bad year. He's never had an average year. [12] The worst ERA+ he has ever posted, outside his rookie season as a starter, was a 144 in 2007. That got some people thinking he might be about finished. [13] His ERA+ the next season was 316. [14] That 2007 blip was the only time from 2003 to 2012 that Mariano's ERA+ did not finish above 200 for the season, a stretch beginning at age 33, when pitchers are supposed to be in decline.

To look at his career ERA+ is to wonder whether Mariano Rivera is a refugee from a video game. For players with at least 1,000 innings pitched, the second-highest career ERA+ (with 100 as the average) is Pedro Martinez at 154. [15] Mariano is number one ... at 206. True, Mo has fewer innings under his belt, but does anybody really believe this is an artifact of small sample size?

Well, the deep stats act like it is. [16] While his career ERA stands at 2.21, the FIP metric (strikeouts, walks and homers) puts his career value at 2.75, while xFIP (which reverts homers to an average rate per fly ball) drops him all the way to 2.99. Still excellent, but not otherworldly.

These stats follow the McCracken Hypothesis that pitchers have no consistent effect on balls in play. Much as I respect McCracken's discovery, I believe the disparity in Mariano's numbers exposes its weakness. There are a few pitchers who can induce the fabled weak contact. Knuckleballers qualify. So does Mariano Rivera and the Cut Fastball of Doom.

Did you know ... that with all the left-handers' bats he's sawed off over his career, Mariano Rivera's cutter is the third leading cause of deforestation in North America?

The only way you can tell that's a joke is that I didn't number it as a fact. That, and the lefties aren't laughing.

Some advanced metrics show Mo more love. There is a new set of statistics called Shutdowns/Meltdowns that use Win Probability Added to analyze a reliever's (not necessarily a closer's) performance. A reliever who scores a WPA of +0.06 or higher in a game is credited with a Shutdown; one who scores -0.06 or worse is tagged with a Meltdown. A SD/MD ratio of 2.5 is considered average. Season results far above or far below this ratio are fairly common, due to the volatility of the reliever's role.

[17] For his career, Mariano Rivera has a Shutdown/Meltdown ratio of 547/113, working out to 4.84. To provide a benchmark from another excellent closer, Trevor Hoffman's career total is 518/138, for a 3.75 ratio. [18] Rivera has not had a season with a ratio below 3 since 1995, when he relieved in nine games and accumulated just one Shutdown and one Meltdown.

[19] His best season mark was in 1998, the year his Yankees went 114-48. Mariano carded 31 Shutdowns against just two Meltdowns. [20] Mo has been named to 12 American League All-Star Teams in his career—but not in 1998. This is where I could start denouncing AL All-Star manager Mike Hargrove, who chose the pitchers, for stupidly ignoring an obscure metric that wouldn't be conceived for more than a decade. I haven't got time for that. Too many facts to cover.

Mo-tober (plus a bit of Mo-vember)

As superb as his numbers through 162 games are, Rivera enters a different realm when the playoffs begin. Against a higher level of competition, everyone's numbers are supposed to regress. I've avoided showing career stat lines until now, so you can get an uncluttered look at how Mariano "regresses" come October.

W-L-S GP IP ERA K/BB K/BB Rate WHIP WPA [21] Reg. Season 76-58-608 1051 1219.1 2.21 1119/277 4.04 0.998 54.0 [22] Post-season 8-1-42 96 141 0.70 110/21 5.24 0.759 11.7

Mariano has done the equivalent of two seasons' worth of pitching in the postseason, and his numbers there act like he's pitching against Double-A squads. He takes the second-lowest WHIP in league history—leader Addie Joss pitched the Deadball Era, not the Steroid Era—and knocks a quarter off it. [23] His Shutdown/Meltdown ratio more than doubles, 57/5 all-time in the playoffs.

Another indication of his extra gear comes from inherited runners. The percentage of inherited runners that relievers allow to score has hovered between 30 and 35 percent during Mariano's career, dipping to 29 percent in 2012. [24] Mo's regular season numbers are 102 of 352, 29 percent, better than average but not ridiculous. For the postseason, he's 10 out of 53, for a 19 percent rate. That's ... maybe not ridiculous, at least for Mariano. He sets a higher bar for the ridiculous.

It isn't remotely as though he's gotten lucky in a few opportunities. [25] Mariano Rivera has competed in 16 postseasons, sharing the all-time record with teammate Derek Jeter. A related record he holds all by himself: [26] from 1995 to 2007, Rivera played in 13 consecutive postseasons. His teammates all fall short: Jeter missed '95, Jorge Posada missed '96, and Andy Pettitte went to Houston in 2004 and missed the playoffs. If you count '93 and '95 as consecutive due to the strike (I don't), John Smoltz would have beaten him ... had his Braves not gotten swept out in 2000 before his turn in the rotation came up. So close, Smoltzie.

These records highlight how Rivera has gotten so many chances for postseason glory by playing on the Yankees in the Wild Card era. This does not factor in how many of those chances the Yankees got because Mariano was pitching for them April through September, or earlier in October to get them through to the next round. I can't pull such a smooth chicken-and-egg maneuver with the Wild Card stuff, but since it gave us more opportunities to watch Mariano pitch, I am not complaining.

The stat lines above include Win Probability Added, which measures how much a player's performance adds to or subtracts from his team's chances of victory. Theoretically at least, Mariano and other closers exist to rack up WPA, getting outs when we know it matters, turning a great chance to win into a certainty. Observe how the ratio of WPA to innings pitched gets rather higher for Rivera come the postseason.

This gives me a chance to do something I enjoy: rating stuff! Out of Mariano's 96 playoff appearances, I've rated his best five by the WPA metric. You'll see in all of them that his managers pitched him longer than the standard closer's one-inning role (once because he hadn't become a closer yet). If you want to raise this as another point against the standard closer's role, you are at liberty to do so.

[27-31] Here's a Top Five within the Top 42:

5. 10/11/2003, ALCS Game Three, at Boston Red Sox. 0.377 WPA

Mariano entered in the bottom of the eighth, his Yankees clinging to a 4-3 lead against their arch-rivals. He firmed up their grip. Starting at the top of the formidable Red Sox order, he cut down Johnny Damon, Todd Walker, Nomar Garciaparra, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz and Kevin Millar with an economical 19 pitches for the save.

4. 10/9/2004, ALDS Game Four, at Minnesota Twins. 0.379 WPA

New York went into extra innings trying to clinch the ALDS against Minnesota. Mariano took the bump in the bottom of the 10th, the game knotted at 5-5. Six batters; 20 pitches; six outs. Alex Rodriguez tallied the go-ahead run in the top of the 11th, giving Mariano the win.

3. 10/17/2009, ALCS Game Two, vs. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. 0.395 WPA

Mariano entered a 2-2 game in the eighth to get a clutch third out with two men on. He pitched the next two innings, allowing one single, keeping his team even with the Angels. He came out after 2.1 innings, and while his successor would promptly let the Angels ahead, New York would pull back level on an A-Rod homer (wait, I thought he was an October choker) and win in the 13th. No decision for Mariano, but a critical job well done.

2. 10/16/2003, ALCS Game Seven, vs. Boston Red Sox. 0.432 WPA

I won't give the capsule here, because there is a more appropriate place for it.

1. 10/4/1995, ALDS Game Two, at Seattle Mariners. 0.471 WPA

By WPA, Mariano's greatest playoff performance was his very first. That's fitting, as what he did that day and later in the '95 ALDS made all the rest possible.

The Yankees were in bad trouble before Mariano ever reached the mound. Ken Griffey Jr. had blasted the Mariners ahead with a home run off relief ace Wetteland in the top of the 12th, putting Seattle ahead 5-4. Rivera came in with two outs and Edgar Martinez on first to face Jay Buhner. He wasn't Showalter's first option, merely the best one he had left. Showalter did not yet know how true that was.

Mariano fanned Buhner, then watched from the dugout as his team clawed back to tie (involving the now-hilarious move of using Jorge Posada as a pinch-runner). Rivera set down the Mariners on six pitches in the 13th, then struck out the side in the 14th. He wobbled in the 15th, allowing back-to-back singles up the middle by Martinez and Buhner, but bore down to whiff Doug Strange and induce a fly-out by future Yankee Tino Martinez. Jim Leyritz's walkoff homer won the game for New York, and capped Mo's debut as a playoff pitcher with the win. What's more, it established him as a bullpen force, an impression he would not betray in the years to follow.

Two out of five isn't bad

But this may not be the best way to measure Mariano's value to his team. For the New York Yankees, it all comes down to championships—and there's a metric for that now.

Buyers of the THT Baseball Annual 2013 read Brad Johnson's article devoted to the Championships Added statistic. This takes the WPA a player accumulates in a game, and multiplies it by the importance of that game in deciding the winner of the World Series.

As examples: Game Seven of the World Series provides one full ChampAdded; Game Six of the Series is 0.5 ChampAdded; Game Seven of a League Championship Series rates 0.5 ChampAdded, as it fully decides who will have a 50-50 chance of winning the World Series. The numbers follow their probabilistic path down from there: e.g., the Wild Card knockout game is 0.125 ChampAdded.

This can be added up to show who was a particular "hero" or "goat" of a postseason. In 2012, Marco Scutaro's clutch work for the eventual champion Giants earned him a grand total of 0.196 ChampAdded, the best of the year. Raul Ibanez came second, his amazingly timely homers bringing him in at 0.171 even though the Yankees didn't advance out of the ALCS.

How does this relate to Mariano? Well, if Marco Scutaro had the superb clutch performance he did in the 2012 postseason every year for nine straight years, he still wouldn't match the lifetime ChampAdded of Rivera. [32] Mariano's Championships Added for the postseason total 1.865. Championships are a team effort, but Mo can plausibly say—even if he is too humble to do it—that two of the five rings he wears are his doing alone.

That begs the question, at least to me: When did he accumulate the biggest pieces of this immense total? My answer is in this list, where we see Mariano doing his best in the innings that counted most of the games that counted most. [33-37] Mariano Rivera's top five games in Championships Added are:

5. 10/26/1999, World Series Game Three, vs. Atlanta Braves. 0.07625 ChampAdded

Up 2-0 in the World Series but down as many as four runs to an Atlanta squad eager to play the 1996 Yankees comeback in reverse, New York scrambled to tie this game at five after eight innings. Mariano then took the ball, and while he allowed singles in the ninth and 10th, neither man reached second base. Chad Curtis opened the home 10th, and ended the game, with his walkoff homer, giving Mariano the win and the Yankees full command of a Series they would end up sweeping. Rivera would be voted MVP of the 1999 World Series.

4. 10/26/1996, World Series Game Six, vs. Atlanta Braves. 0.0845 ChampAdded

Speaking of the 1996 Yankees comeback, Mariano contributed to the game that finished it. He was still a setup man in those days, so he pitched the seventh and eighth with his club ahead 3-1. Terry Pendleton, with a leadoff walk, was the only man to reach base against him. Mariano handed the 3-1 lead intact to closer Wetteland, who gave up half the lead and put the go-ahead runs on base before getting the final out. Wetteland, with four saves, would win Series MVP honors. Mariano's time would come later—as you saw earlier.

3. 10/25/2000, World Series Game Four, at New York Mets. 0.135 ChampAdded

Two innings. One baserunner. Nobody as far as second. One-run lead preserved. The Yankees one game closer to a title. It almost gets boring sometimes.

2. 11/1/2001, World Series Game Five, vs. Arizona D-backs. 0.149 ChampAdded

This one did not get boring. After a last-licks Yankees home run to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth (for the second straight night), Mariano got the call for the 10th and 11th innings, his third straight day of work. The 11th almost blew up: two singles, a sacrifice, and an intentional walk gave Arizona three men on with one out. Rivera squeezed free, getting an infield line-out and a grounder. But tightrope acts count, as long as you don't fall off. Besides, in that hair-raising 11th, Mariano did not throw a single unintentional ball; he never quite lost control of the game.

New York would notch the win in the home 12th, too late for Mariano to get a decision, however crucial his innings were. The Yankees were up 3-2, the comeback almost complete, and Mariano was the hero again. For three more days.

1. 10/16/2003, ALCS Game Seven, vs. Boston Red Sox. 0.216 ChampAdded

It wasn't even the World Series yet. It was bigger than that: Game Seven against Boston. Pedro Martinez had just melted down (or Grady Little, if you prefer), and the Yankees entered the ninth tied at five. Mariano had to hold the fort until his teammates could push across that sixth run. If necessary, he would pitch until he could not pitch any more.

That is just about what he did. He would pitch three full innings, more than he had thrown in one game since 1996, more than he'd worked in a playoff game since his very first one, back when he was still stretched out like a starter. He yielded a one-out Jason Varitek single in the 10th, and a two-out David Ortiz double in the 11th, keeping the tension ratcheted up. The 12th, with 37 pitches already behind him, was his best: down in order on 11 pitches, with two strikeouts.

That was as far as he could go—and Aaron Boone made sure it was enough.

The loss and the save

Amazing as Mariano's playoff numbers are, they could be better. Instead of 1.865 Championships Added, it could be a mind-boggling 2.865. Instead, calamity struck on Nov. 4, 2001—and Mariano would tell you himself, he's glad it did.

I first learned this amazing story in THT's 2012 Baseball Annual, and considered not repeating for free what I should be encouraging you to go and buy for yourself. I found, however, that sidebar author Jon Daly has the same story on his blog. I reconsidered, and with a little added atmosphere gleaned from Marty Appel's Pinstripe Empire, I'll recount it here. But I won't count it as one of my 42 facts. This one's free.

The pre-game words Rivera delivered to his teammates before Game Seven of the 2001 World Series struck an odd tone. He spoke not of history and destiny, themes familiar to Yankees players and fans, but of fate and how the game was in God's hands. They likely preferred it in Mo's hands. Specifically, his right hand.

Come the eighth inning, after New York got ahead 2-1, it was in Mariano's hand. The eighth he negotiated unscathed. The ninth was different. He gave up a single to Mark Grace, then botched a throw to second on Damian Miller's bunt. He atoned with a force to third on Jay Bell's attempted sacrifice, and then it all fell apart. Tony Womack doubled home the tying run, snapping Mariano's streak of 23 straight postseason saves converted. Craig Counsell got hit by a pitch, then Luis Gonzalez dunked a liner over the drawn-in infield, winning the World Series for Arizona.

New York was crushed, and that went beyond the team. It was not quite two months after 9/11. For millions of fans, the Yankees reclaiming the World Series would have been a shot of much-needed pride, a symbol that the world hadn't turned completely upside-down. Instead, the inconceivable had happened again. Mariano Rivera had personally lost what was arguably the most important game in the history of the New York Yankees.

There would be no ticker-tape parade down the Canyon of Heroes. The defeated teammates went their separate ways. This included utility infielder Enrique Wilson, native of the Dominican Republic. He cancelled the post-parade reservation he made, and took an earlier flight to Santo Domingo.

On Nov. 12, 2001, American Airlines Flight 587 crashed into a residential neighborhood of Queens. All 260 people aboard perished, as did five on the ground. Enrique Wilson, already home, was not among them. (Neither, despite a brief scare, was Yankees second baseman Alfonso Soriano.)

Rivera's own words to Wilson say it best: "I am glad we lost the World Series, because it means that I still have a friend." I cannot cap the anecdote any better than that. He's just that good a closer.

The magic number

There's a second favor Bud Selig did to help create Mariano Rivera's legend, and again, it happened with Mo nowhere in Bud's mind. It was in 1997, 50 years after Jackie Robinson's Brooklyn debut, that Selig retired Robinson's number 42 across all of baseball. Players who were wearing 42 at the time could keep wearing it until they retired or chose another number.

Thirteen players were eligible for that grandfather clause. It took seven years for 12 of them to set aside 42, some willingly, some kicking and screaming as their careers petered out. [38] It was at the start of 2004 that Mariano Rivera became the last number 42 in baseball—and when he throws his next regular-season pitch, he will have been the last 42 for 10 seasons.

(It's a quirky coincidence that the last player besides Mo to wear 42 was also Mo. Mo Vaughn's last season was 2003 with the Mets, sporting the number he'd always worn in the bigs. [39] Our Mo apparently went easy on folks who shared his nickname: Vaughn was a lifetime 5-for-12 against Rivera, with a home run.)

Selig's intent was surely to tie the number 42 forever to Jackie Robinson alone, but it hasn't worked out that way. Year in, year out, carrying those digits across his back all by himself, Mariano has made that number his to a generation of fans.

It even seems to follow him across his own record. His postseason saves total, possibly the best single number to represent his accomplishments, stands at 42. [40] After Trevor Hoffman retired with the all-time saves mark at 601, Rivera entered the 2011 season needing, yes, 42 saves to tie Hoffman. (He got 44.) And the year he broke Hoffman's saves record was the year Rivera turned 42 ... though he was still 41 when he did it. Okay, I won't count that one, but it's close.

Selig got lucky. The last 42 could have been some journeyman playing out the string, with a personality that makes people talk in hushed tones about chemistry. Instead, we got a bona fide star, and a man with enough class and dignity that he need not be embarrassed by personal comparison to Robinson. It doesn't hurt that the last 42 wouldn't have been playing for the Yankees, or the other 29 teams, if not for the trail that the earlier 42 blazed. (Maybe that shouldn't matter, but it does. That's an argument we can have even later than the closer-strategy debate.)

The number is going out with honor, including of a more tangible variety when it gets retired at Yankee Stadium. [41] Assuming nobody butts ahead in line, Mariano will be the 17th New York Yankee to have his number retired. [42] He'll also have the second number to be retired twice by the Yankees: Hall of Fame catchers Bill Dickey and Yogi Berra had the number 8 they both wore jointly retired in 1972.

There's so much more I could say about the man—but I've hit my count. I'll have to turn the ball over, and let Mariano Rivera himself author the close of his career.

He's got some experience closing, so we can hope for something really good.

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