Biz of Baseball: The Empire Strikes (Again). Star Wars Ads Invade MLB.com

This is weirder than Michael Kay trying to explain Coolstandings.com to Al Leiter tonight!

A few short months ago, the baseball community was abuzz regarding the integrated advertisement for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull within MLB.com’s schedule of games.

Now, get ready for Darth Vader.

MLBAM has rolled out the next integrated advertisement campaign on MLB.com for LucasArts Entertainment’s new video game “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.”

Like the Indiana Jones ad campaign, Darth Vader will be featured on all 30 clubs’ schedule on MLB.com.

But, unlike the Indiana Jones campaign, the LucasArts Entertainment deal will see a special landing page showing current stats leaders around the league under the tagline, “Who’s Unleashing the Force?” as well as banner ads linking to the Star Wars: The Forced Unleashed” home page.

NL Central race: September 4, 2008

MLB.com: Brewers suffer fourth straight loss

After an awesome August, the Brewers are sputtering in September. They have dropped four in a row to start the final month, including Thursday’s 5-2 loss to the last-place Padres at Miller Park that cost the Brewers an opportunity to gain a half-game on the National League Central-leading Cubs, who were idle.

CHC 85-55 [lost 5 straight]
MIL 80-60 (5 GB; lead wildcard by 4) [lost 4 straight]

N.Y. Times: Bissinger: Sympathy for the Slugger (RR)

I shouted out,
Who killed the newspapers?

It is also ridiculous to assume that Bonds would have done anything else but lie, even under oath. He is a professional athlete, not a role model, despite the fact that we continually insist on confusing the two, with our need to put on those rose-colored glasses. If he had taken steroids and told the truth, he would have been ruined. By not telling the truth, he would have been ruined. He was in a no-win situation. And when it comes to manning up, or more precisely not manning up, he is once again in very plentiful company. Of the 86 players named in the Mitchell report, how many actually cooperated with the investigation? Precisely one: Jason Giambi.

Obviously, the government’s case against Bonds is weak, or it wouldn’t be embarking on the witch hunt of doing everything possible to squeeze Anderson to testify.

But enough is enough. Leave Anderson alone. Leave Bonds alone. Let them deal privately with what they did or did not do. If the Feds want to earn our taxpayer dollars, they can send a SWAT team to my hometown of Philadelphia to reduce the homicide rate that is turning swaths of the inner city into another Baghdad. In the hierarchy of issues that are important in this country, steroid use in baseball has become a bottom feeder. And prosecuting someone because you don’t like him isn’t justice but the complete miscarriage of it.

AL East race: September 4, 2008

MLB.com: Kazmir protects Rays’ turf vs. Yanks

The 24-year-old Kazmir stifled the Yankees—holding them to one-hit over six innings—to buoy Tampa Bay to a 7-5 victory over New York at Tropicana Field.

The win extends Tampa Bay’s margin atop the American League East to 3 1/2 games over second-place Boston, which was idle on Thursday.

TBR 85-53
BOS 82-57 (3.5 GB)

AL Central race: September 4, 2008

MLB.com: Twins can’t generate offense in loss

The Twins couldn’t muster any offense against Blue Jays pitching as they were blanked, 9-0, at Rogers Centre. With the loss, Minnesota (77-63) was swept by Toronto during the three-game series and fell 1 1/2 games behind the first place White Sox, who were idle on Thursday, in the American League Central.

CHW 78-61
MIN 77-63 (1.5 GB)

MLB.com: Rodriguez Strikes Out on 4-2 Pitch

He may have struck out, but he sure did work the count!

With the Angels leading, 6-0, on their way to a 7-1 victory, home-plate umpire Tim Welke reset the count at 1-2 when the scoreboard showed 2-2 after consulting with Rodriguez and Tigers catcher Brandon Inge.

Rodriguez took two balls to take it to a 3-2 count officially—when he should have walked. He remained in the batter’s box, and on the next pitch, Tigers right-handed reliever Aquilino Lopez struck him out for the second out in the inning.

Seriously, this is happening an awful lot, isn’t it?

SPTimes: Shoulder issue pains Rays’ Upton

Upton has a torn labrum in his left shoulder. It prevents him from swinging the bat with authority. It caused the shoulder to pop out of its socket in May, and it will require him to have surgery in the offseason.

And, yet, he returns to centerfield day after day.

“At this point there’s nothing I can do about it, especially with Carl (Crawford) and Evan (Longoria) already out,” Upton said. “It’s a little too late in the year, especially with the position we’re in, for me to pull up lame. I just have to suck it up and keep grinding, and do what I can do to get on base and get in scoring position for these guys.”

City Pages: Spicer: Comparing the Twins and White Sox

Ekstranded in the stat jungle
That’s when; I found out they was a cookin me!

But given the ceaseless duel in the Central, and feeling no need nor desire to add further lament to the plight of our bullpen, now seems like a good time to compare the Twins and White Sox employing what I’ll call the “Ekstrand Index,” an homage to that truly engaging and amusing math teacher that really had no other option than to “D” me, Mr. David Ekstrand.

In short, this index aims to work as a tool comparing the overall value of non-pitchers. Perhaps during ensuing weeks or months, I’ll have a go at one charting pitchers as a means of fully mapping games for degenerate gambling purposes, but for now I’ve got this tool.

The Ekstrand Index plugs in numbers that I feel most crucial to a player’s overall contribution, both with the bat and glove. As you’ll note below, numbers slightly differ for DH’s, and are further separated for catchers. I’ve also slightly tweaked established indexes to compensate for the stats I’ve chosen.

Newsday: Sheppard hopes to return for Yankee Stadium finale

Also expected back is Adolf Ehinger and his swell EBA Maschinenfabrik shredder (first used by Steinbrenner in 1974 for destroying Yankee documents)!

Everyone knows the only fitting way to close Yankee Stadium is with Bob Sheppard returning to be the public-address announcer for the final game. His health has kept him from doing a single Yankees game this season - which would have been his 58th - but rest assured he has visions of returning for the finale.

“If I can be there, I shall be there.”

..."The doctor is questioning my stamina,” Sheppard said. Then he repeated the word stamina while slowly and carefully annunciating all three syllables. “Sta-min-a.”

“In other words, can I leave my home in Baldwin at 4 o’clock in the afternoon and get home at midnight and not suffer any relapse?”

NY Sun: The Future of the Sun

I clicked online to find
No Marchman/Goldman there
To ease the pressure of
My ever worried mind.

This morning I write to you about the future of The New York Sun, which is in circumstances that may require us to cease publication at the end of September unless we succeed in our efforts to find additional financial backing. The managing editor, Ira Stoll, who is one of the founding partners in the paper, and I have shared this news with our colleagues, and we would like our readers as well to be aware of the situation.

Hope the funding is found.

S.I.: Deford: Maybe A-Rod’s problem is this: He simply chose the wrong sport

Cream rises and all that faux jazz.

Listen, I can’t feel sorry for A-Rod. He makes gazillions of dollars, and all too often he just doesn’t get it. It obviously drives him crazy that his teammate of lesser ability, Derek Jeter, gets the love that his Cupid tells him should be his. But when, soon enough now, the Yankees will almost surely fail to make the playoffs for the first time in 16 years, A-Rod will endure the most blame.

Ah yes, the chorus: A-Rod hits in games when it doesn’t matter and then fails in the clutch, so he’s one of those selfish losers who just cares about his own statistics; he’s not a good team player. But I think that, very possibly, the fact that he fails when it counts the most, may well be for the directly opposite reason which is usually attributed to him and other athletes of this ilk. What defeats him is not mano a mano, the external pressure from the opposing pitcher. Rather, it is internal—his own insecurity about coming through for his team.

I’ll be curious. A few years from now when some other Yankee is the superstar and Rodriguez is the second banana, I’ll bet he becomes a much better clutch hitter, and the fans will cheer for dependable old reliable, A-Rod. Or, in the best of all worlds, maybe all these years Alex Rodriguez would’ve spared himself a lot of angst if he’d been playing singles by himself a few miles away, over in Queens, at the Billie Jean King Tennis Center, instead of being in the Bronx, at bat, with his Yankees teammates on base.

SNY: Belth: For some, Giants not forgotten

Skeeter Scalzi lives! Alex Belth checks in on the New York Giants Nostalgia Society.

“By the middle 50s,” says Roger Kahn, “there was a sense that it wasn’t safe around the Polo Grounds. You had to drive through Harlem and racial tensions were building. The perception was that it was dangerous to go up there. It’s hard to think they couldn’t even draw 700,000 in ‘57 with Willie Mays in center field, but it happened.”

“It was tough to get there with a car and the neighborhood was changing,” says Alan Schmidt, a retired fireman who has been attending meetings with Kent since the group’s inception. “I can’t blame them for not staying in the Polo Grounds, as much as I miss it all. I probably spent more time there than Willie Mays. It was my second home.”

N.Y. Observer: Megdal: Finding Meaning in a Pointless Yankees September

Almost as pointless as a N.Y. Sun-less September.

New York also has numerous questions to answer in their lineup. Jason Giambi had a monster first half. But Giambi seemed to wear down in the second half, and while New York is highly unlikely to pick up his option, the Yankees need to decide if it is worth bringing back this popular player as he turns 38. Of course, if New York doesn’t, the free agent market offers the allure of Mark Teixeira and Adam Dunn.

But an even more interesting question seems to be Robinson Cano, who the team was counting on to continue his seeming march toward stardom. Instead, Cano’s average has now dropped from .342 in 2006 to .306 in 2007 and .269 in 2008. His slugging percentages over that time also dropped from .525 to .488 to .411. If the Yankees are convinced that the 25-year-old Cano is unlikely to return to superstar form, the team could deal him. But a hot September would go a long way toward returning Cano to the team’s good graces, and putting his 2008 more in line with his 2007 stats. Considering that Cano is a career .365/.385/.596 hitter in September/October regular season games, this is not an unlikely event.

So as the Yankees slide closer to playoff elimination, there are still plenty of reasons to enjoy September baseball in The Bronx, even though it appears that the final game at Yankee Stadium will not be a World Series classic, but a standard September 21 game against the Orioles, just prior to the first day of Fall.

Zambrano’s season is in jeopardy

Delightful.  Jason Marquis may end up making the postseason roster after all.

Old Game for the Old Continent

Wait, MLB.com has a BOOK COLUMN?

Chetwynd, an American born in London who returned to the land of his birth to play for the Great Britain national baseball team, is an analyst for Five, a U.K. station that broadcasts MLB games.

He’s also an author, and his new book, “Baseball in Europe: A Country by Country History” (McFarland, 334 pages) is a comprehensive, handy reference guide to everything you need to know about America’s Pastime in the Old Continent, which, believe it or not, is played at improving levels in the 40 countries mentioned in the book.

“The number of baseball players here is miniscule compared to in the States, but the enthusiasm from the people who do play here is very high, and they want to expand the sport here,” Chetwynd says.

“They want to bring more attention to it and realize people love it here. You really want to see them all succeed.”

The book should help in that regard. In addition to detailing the surprising history of baseball in 40 European countries, Chetwynd also included appendices that include everything from a list of Major Leaguers who have played in European domestic leagues to a glossary of baseball terms in seven European languages.

I guess if the IBF ever wants to “Throw the Book” at Jacque Rogge, they’d throw this one.

After 19 Seasons in Minors, Rookie Hits His First Home Run

There’s hope for us all yet.  (Well, maybe not Harveys or Andy).

It took Scott McClain 19 seasons to hit a major league home run. When he got his first one Wednesday, he soaked it in.

“As it was leaving it was a moment of relief,” the 36-year-old rookie said. “I’m glad I hit one that was a no-doubter.”

**********

McClain, who has hit 287 homers in 1,664 minor league games, hit a solo home run in the sixth inning.

N.Y. Sun: Goldman: Cashman or Not, Yankees Must Embrace Rebuilding

The Yankees will say that they don’t need to rebuild, that they are only a few pieces away — Mark Teixeira, perhaps, or C.C. Sabathia — from being back in championship form. Cashman will say this, and when you hear those words, you should know to a cold certainty that things are going to get worse before they get better. Consider the near-term outlook: Four key members of the team are potential free agents. Arguably none of them should be re-signed based on their age and other limitations; Bobby Abreu (35 next season), Andy Pettitte (37), Jason Giambi (38), and Mike Mussina (39) are year-to-year players at best. Of the regulars under contract, just one, the supremely disappointing Robinson Cano, will be younger than 30 next year. Alex Rodriguez will be 33. Derek Jeter, Johnny Damon, and Hideki Matsui will be 35. Mariano Rivera will be 39, and as great as he has been this season, all things must pass. The day of these players is passing and there are few replacements in the system for the position players, while the Yankees have shown little intuition when it comes to turning their prospective pitchers into major leaguers.

Thanks to Son of Mikkelsen.

Dugout Central: Paciorek: Could Ichiro Be a Home Run Hitter and the Home Run Principle

Reaching his full Lienard-Wiechert potential...Professor Paciorek explains.

Theoretically, it is possible to hit a home run every time a batter swings at a baseball. However, as Einstein and others have found, through Quantum Mechanics, when trying to establish the essence of matter, that “at the fundamental levels, causation is a matter of statistical probabilities, not certainties.” Therefore, with all the elements and combinations of variables with which a batter has to deal, from within and from without himself, the uncertainty principle gives compelling testimony that mastering the Rubik’s cube of hitting a home run every time is highly improbable. However, the knowledge itself, of such feasibility, enhances the statistical probability of success.

The missing link in applying the hitting principle has always been the inconsistent visual acuity of the batter in accurately detecting the speed of the fastball, as well as the direction and varying speeds of breaking and other off-speed pitches. All this, of course, was due to excessive movement of the head, with the primary culprits being the high stance and batter’s stride. Although the pitcher’s arsenal of distracting and illusory forces will always wreak their havoc on unsuspecting “head-gliders,” the Einsteins of a new era of batting prominence will set the standard for home run-hitting elegance.

L.A. Times: Andruw Jones has written off the season (RR)

Funny, I thought that happened in April.

With the Dodgers’ outfield set, the regular season winding down and his knee swollen again, Andruw Jones said he had already started looking forward to next year.

“This year,” Jones said, “it’s basically over.”

Jones scaled back his workouts this week and admitted he doesn’t think he can make much of a contribution this season, not with only 23 games left and Manager Joe Torre settled on an outfield of Manny Ramirez, Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier.

“If the team needed me and I was the only one who could be out there, I would wrap it up and play,” said Jones, who cut short the first of his two rehab assignments to step in for an injured Juan Pierre in early July. “In this situation, we have other guys who have been getting the job done. I’ll try not to be in their way.”

..."I’ve got one more year with the Dodgers,” he said. “This year, it’s been a frustrating year. It’s one of those things that you have to put behind you and look forward to next year.”

GIAMBI LOSES BOUT WITH BATHROOM DOOR (RR)

I thought Canseco was off taping “Moment of Truth”…

Jason Giambi wishes he had a sexier story to explain the gash on the corner of his right eyelid that cause discoloring and swelling.

“I would like to have something to tell you, something like a fight or anything else,” Giambi said. “But it was nothing like that. I walked into the bathroom door at the hotel and split it open.”

The cut resembled a gash a boxer would get during a fight, but didn’t keep Giambi out of the lineup.

“There was so much blood the maid probably was wondering where the body was hid,” said Giambi, whose third-inning double hiked his RBI total across the past seven games to nine and marked the seventh straight game he has plated at least one run.

Irish Times: Kimball: Yankees’ patriotism doodle is a real dandy

As George Kimball...it freed him to search for a no-legged man he saw leave the scene of the crime; freed him to run before the relentless pursuit of the right-wing Yankee owners obsessed with his capture.

If God Bless America has been co-opted by the right, so, too, has Ronan Tynan - by both the pro-Iraq lobby and by the Yankees. With regard to the latter, Dr Tynan’s schedule this month not only includes Yankee Stadium dates for both next week’s 9/11 anniversary and September 21st, the final game to be played in the about-to-be razed stadium, but a performance this Saturday at St Patrick’s Cathedral for a Mass marking the 60th anniversary of Babe Ruth’s death.

Apparently the Republicans’ favourite Irish tenor, Tynan has performed at several White House receptions, at George HW Bush’s 80th birthday celebration and at the state funeral for Ronald Reagan.

Now, as much as I might admire Tynan’s voice, over the years I’ve come to regard the drum roll for God Bless America at Yankee Stadium as the signal to head outside for a smoke break, and it should probably be noted that nobody ever tried to discourage me.

Livingston: CC Sabathia’s ad sells nothing but hype

(Pow!) Livingston brambles (Bam!) on and (Sock!) on…

Cabathia thanked the fans he left behind and paid newspapers for the privilege when the Indians chose to get something for him rather than get jilted for nothing.

...I have nothing against people buying newspaper ads. It helps pay my salary. But just as political ads are deconstructed for truth and nuance, why not other ads?

Let the target audience remember Sabathia turned down four years at $18 million annually from the Indians. The idea of athletes leaving money on the table is as hilarious as the idea baseball players care about the viability of teams in the “flyover states.”

In view of the poverty statistics, which list Cleveland as the second-poorest city in the country, it was nice of Sabathia to honor the little people who paid the freight for his on-the-job training until he moves on to greener pastures. Maybe $72 million over four years doesn’t go as far as it used to, although it would seem to go far enough to test MapQuest.

The message Sabathia paid for put a glossy shine on greed. Let’s not get all gooey inside about how “classy” it was. It beat Albert Belle’s farewell, which was close to the “so long, suckers!” goodbye of the late Larry “Bud” Melman, a semi-regular on Dave Letterman’s show. But Sabathia was still outta here, and he is likely to stay that way.

Hoffman, Padres could extend relationship

As AL fans rejoice!

Trevor Hoffman is hesitant to make concrete decisions about his future before October, but he’s almost certain that the 2008 season won’t be his last.

The Padres closer, a pending free agent who will turn 41 next month, also should have a pretty good idea whether he’ll be part of the Padres’ future by the end of September.

General manager Kevin Towers said Wednesday that he’ll have preliminary discussions with Hoffman before the end of the season.

“I think I’ve got two or three more years left in me,” Hoffman said. “We have a lot of talent here. I’d like to see their growth take hold. I’d like to be a part of that. ... The talent we have, with some pieces added, I’m thinking we could be back at the top of the division quickly.”

Shiffert: Weighing in on Vern Stephens, Allie Reynolds, Sherry Magee and the HOF Veterans Committee

Ohh, to page Dick Thompson again.

For that matter, the 11 members of the BBWAA committee that chose the nominees can hardly be said to be oldtimers from before World War II, and only Steve Hirdt of the Elias Sports Bureau would seem to have true historian credentials. Does this mean another Pearl Harbor, or just a disaster the equivalent of previous Vets’ elections of Ray Schalk, George Kelly, Fred Lindstrom, Chick Hafey or Ross Youngs? That’ll depend on whether the Vets Committee has a Bill James, a Jim Baker, a Pete Palmer, a John Thorn, a David Voigt, a Rob Neyer, a Charles Alexander, a David Nemec, a Mike Kopf, a Don Zminda, a Norman Macht on it. Just in case it doesn’t, let’s survey the 10 candidates to try and judge who deserves election.

...Ferrell, while maybe the best hitting pitcher (.280/.351/.446 with 38 home runs) who stayed on the mound for his career, was nonetheless a perfect cipher as a hitter – he was exactly the league average, or a 100 OPS+. To put it another way, if they’d had the DH when Ferrell played, his teams would have probably scored about the same number of runs with him hitting as with a league-average DH hitting. (Although he was a better hitter than his HOF brother, catcher Rick Ferrell.) And that isn’t a Hall of Famer either.

Ferrell did win 20 games six times, and had 25 on the Black Ink Test, but his was an even shorter career, essentially just 10 years as a regular starter. He only made the All-Star team twice in the half of his career when there was an All-Star Game, and none of his 10 closest comps are in the Hall. Leaving aside the issue of his raw ERA (4.04), his ERA+ of 116 just isn’t HOF material by itself, at least, not in just 10 years.

DDN: Maybe the Reds should dial up Robert Redford

Mocking the Marlins’ attendance woes is fun. Is mocking the woes of the team of Dustiny funner?

The announced crowd for the game against the last-place Pirates on Tuesday, Sept. 2, was 18,024, but that’s tickets sold, not a turnstile count. There were no more than 2,000 butts in the 42,319 seats at Great American Ball Park for the first pitch.

The huge swaths of open spaces reminded me of the nearly empty stadium in the classic baseball movie, “The Natural,” before Roy Hobbs showed up and began bashing home runs with his Wonder Boy bat. The concessionaires at GABP may have had a rough night, but practically everybody went home with a foul ball.

Even Reds employees are resorting to gallows humor. As the game started, a sports writer sarcastically asked, “Are you counting walk-up ticket sales?” The staffer replied, “No, we’re counting walk-out sales.”

Joe Posnanski Blog: Hall Monitors

Ahh, Poz and the HOF (at least he’s not going on about Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez’s next Steel Mill Retro CD or something!).

Hall of Famer: Harry Hooper
Non Hall of Famer: Gavy Cravath
Difference: Longevity

Hooper played in about twice as many games as Gavy (spelled Gavvy in many places but Bill James insists it is just one V) and as such had twice the hits, twice the triples, almost three times the run scored, etc.. But Gavy was a much, much more revolutionary player. Gavy led the league in homers six times in seven years. This was in the dead-ball era, but in 1915 he hit more home runs than four other TEAMS in the National League. This is even more impressive when you realize that Cactus Gavy (apparently “Gavy” wasn’t enough of an odd name — they needed to give him the Cactus nickname) did not play full time in the big leagues until he was 31 years old, and that was after he worked as a telegraph operator.

So you tell me: Who was the better player? Hooper’s OPS+ was 114. Cravath’s was 151. Hooper led the league in plate appearances once and outs twice. Cravath led the league in on-base percentage, slugging percentage, runs, total bases, RBIs, walks, OPS+, runs created, extra-base hits and just about everything else at least once, often twice, sometimes more. Hooper was an outstanding outfielder, but Cravath apparently wasn’t bad either and he apparently had one of the all-time great arms — as best seen by his 34 assists in 1914.

Hooper played a lot more games and he’s the one in the Hall of Fame.

AL East race: September 3, 2008

MLB.com: Rays’ AL East lead shrinks after loss

In a season built on stingy defense and solid starting pitching, neither went well for Tampa Bay on Wednesday night, as the Rays dropped their first series since the All-Star break with an 8-4 loss to the Yankees at Tropicana Field.

MLB.com: Red Sox stage comeback to topple O’s

The Red Sox waited seven innings to jump-start their offense on Wednesday, but a three-inning rally to end the contest helped Boston earn a 5-4 victory over Baltimore at Fenway Park, completing a sweep of its American League East rivals.

TBR 84-53
BOS 82-57 (3 GB; 5 ahead in wildcard)

AL Central race: September 3, 2008

MLB.com: White Sox escape Cleveland with win

But after Chicago snapped out of a two-game funk that had manager Ozzie Guillen calling his team “tired” and “dead,” Guillen kicked back in his chair, talked about how tired he was before putting a realistic spin on the White Sox 4-2 feel-good win over the Indians.

“I’m not going to call this road trip good because we won this one, because it wasn’t,” Guillen said of the team’s 4-5 mark on the trip.

MLB.com: Twins fall off pace with tough loss

The Blue Jays secured a walk-off victory in the 11th ininng as they defeated the Twins, 5-4, at Rogers Centre on Wednesday.

CHW 78-61
MIN 77-62 (1 GB; 5 GB in wildcard)

NL West race: September 3, 2008

MLB.com: Dunn’s double caps D-backs’ comeback

[Bob Melvin’s] team responded with a dramatic 4-3 walkoff win, its third of the year, that should give Arizona a boost heading into a big three-game weekend series with the Dodgers in Los Angeles.

MLB.com: Sweep sets up NL West showdown

The Dodgers used three homers and a decent performance from Hiroki Kuroda to win their fifth straight game, 6-4, on Wednesday against the Padres at Dodger Stadium.

ARI 71-68
LAD 70-70 (1.5 GB)

NL East race: September 3, 2008

MLB.com: Church’s slam leads Mets to sweep

With Ryan Church hitting a grand slam, they scored six times in the first inning, downshifted and won handily. Oddly, when the 9-2 victory was complete, the losses to the Phillies and Marlins were not dismissed as they might have been.

MLB.com: Howard’s two homers not enough

The surging Nationals continued to peck away at the Phillies, overcoming three deficits and two Ryan Howard home runs to put them away, 9-7, on Wednesday night at Nationals Park.

NYM 79-61
PHI 76-64 (3 GB; 4.5 behind in the wildcard)