2004 Season

DRAFT DAY COMETH

Boys,

It’s almost here, boys. The funnest day of the year, and the day that will almost singularly dictate your mood for at least the next 26 weeks of the year, is only four days away. See you on Saturday for our 1 p.m. draft.

If anyone (and this could only potentially pertain to one of you) has not yet signed up to renew your team for this year, get it done. Don’t screw up the rest of us by remaining asleep at the switch.

I believe that the consensus on our draft rules is that we will draft pitchers without regard to which league they are in, but we will continue to recognize the draft distinction of lefties vs. righties for drafting starting pitchers. In other words, be prepared to draft two left-handed starting pitchers in your line-up, just as in the past. Hint: Not that you would actually want any of them on your team, but virtually the entire Kansas City Royals pitching staff is composed of portsiders.

TRICKO TRIBUTE

Great bash at Possum’s place last weekend to pay tribute to Tricko for his 2003 championship. Particularly enchanting was Tracy and the kids’ stirring rendition of “So Long, Farewell” from the Sound of Music, and their on-the-mark portrayal of the Von Trapp Family Singers.

HSL TRIP TO SAN DIEGO

Speaking of things planned by Possum, or not, it is my understanding that Possum and Tricko are lining up a Trip to San Diego during the weekend of August 20-22. Please be prepared this Saturday to discuss your availability to participate. If it works out, this will be an opportunity for all of us to add a new stadium –– Petco Field –– to our list of ballparks attended.

LORDS OF THE REALM

During my recent vacation trip to Mexico, I finished reading Lords of the Realm, the excellent book by John Helyar (who also authored Barbarians at the Gate) which chronicles the labor struggles in major league baseball during the past thirty years, and particularly the rise to power of Marvin Miller. It is an absolutely fantastic book, and should be required reading for all Hot Stove Leaguers who have not yet had the chance to read it. Not only does the book go into depth on the history of labor and management struggles between the owners and the players, it provides an excellent history of the game from about 1970 to 1994, and excellent insights into the personalities of such baseball notables as Marvin Miller, Bowie Kuhn, Ted Turner, Bart Giamatti, Fay Vincent, Augie Busch, Bud Selig, Charlie Finley and many others. Let me share with you just a couple of the excerpts or stories from the book that I found interesting:

Charlie Finley personally attended to the signing of several of his star players, including Catfish Hunter and Johnny Lee Odom. Finley traveled to Macon, Georgia, to try to sign Odom, a high school buzz-saw who had gone 42-and-2 with eight no-hitters. However, as Odom’s high school graduation approached, the Red Sox had the inside track, and a Boston scout was literally camped out at the Odoms’ house, paying the family $15 a night for lodging, which was a lot of money for this dirt-poor family. Along came Finley, and took a room in the Odom house for $30 a night. After moving in, Finley then went to a produce store and bought mounds of groceries, including watermelons, peanuts, chicken, and every vegetable under the sun. It took a half-ton pickup to deliver all of the food to the Odom house, according to the book. Finley then rustled up a feast for the Odom family, drawing upon his Southern roots and his “prodigious cooking skills,” and put together a dinner of fried chicken, corn on the cob, black-eyed peas, collard greens, and the works.

Finley stayed at the Odom house for just one night. But by the time he checked out, he had signed Odom for $75,000, and had installed him with his new nickname, “Blue Moon” Odom. He later signed Jim Hunter for the same $75,000 amount, and gave him his new nickname, “Catfish.”

***

All of you have heard about the Big Red Machine of the 1970s, the Cincinnati Reds team that won the 1975 and 1976 World Series. However, many of you may not know that the No. 2 man in the Reds organization during those years was none other than Underbelly’s uncle, Dick Wagner. According to this book, Wagner was the chief enforcer of general manager Bob Howsam’s love of order and discipline, and earned the nickname (behind his back) of “The Fuhrer.” Wagner reportedly kept Riverfront Stadium absolutely immaculate, cleaning up the stadium throughout the course of the game so that it was as spotless in the 9th inning as in the 1st inning. Reds players had to be clean-shaven and wear polished black spikes. During spring training, they had to eat all of their meals at the club’s complex in Tampa, signing in at the cafeteria “like schoolchildren.”

***

John McMullen was at one time the owner of the Houston Astros, infamous for signing Nolan Ryan –– then with a very mediocre pitching record –– for $4.5 million. Prior to joining the Astros, McMullen was one of the limited partners of George Steinbrenner in the ownership of the Yankees. McMullen had a wonderful quote about this experience: “There’s nothing quite so limited as being a limited partner of George Steinbrenner.”

***

Prior to the time that Fay Vincent announced that he was resigning as the Commissioner of baseball, he wrote a defiant letter to the owners on August 20, 1992, in which he promised: “I will not resign –– ever. Even if there is a meeting and a vote to remove me from office, or an attempt to limit my powers . . . I will not leave. I will continue to carry out my responsibilities until such time as the highest court of this land tells me otherwise.” Then, after he was informed that three-fourths of the owners had voted to try to remove him from the Commissioner’s office, Vincent put his tail between his legs and resigned. So much for his credibility

***

After chronicling the incredible gains made by the players association in the ’70s and ’80s, Helyar provided this wonderful analogy: “It all greatly resembled the final scene in George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm.’ The pigs, who’d once led a barnyard rebellion against the oppressive farmers, now shared many of their traits and, at the end, were sharing a sumptuous meal with them. Wrote Orwell, ‘The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.’” Love it.

The book is full of such wonderful baseball vignettes. I commend it highly to you all.

STAY FOCUSED

This is my annual gentle reminder to you that the Hot Stove League championship is not won or lost in the first three rounds of the Draft, as many of us seem to feel, dating back to about 1991 when U-Bob uttered those famous words, “I hate my team,” at about the end of the third round. No, championships are won and lost in at least the first fifteen rounds, if not twenty, as borne out again by the numbers:

À	Through three rounds last year, the Senators had the most gross points with 2085 (Helton, Pujols and Wood), more than 300 points over the second-best Chiefs with 1764. Of course, my Senatros finished in 3rd, while the Chiefs finished in 5th. On the other hand, because Magpie’s first-round draft pick Randy Johnson had only 196 points for the season, Magpie’s point total after three rounds of the Draft was only 1483, 8th best in the league. Magpie was able to overcome this to manage his team to the title.
À	After five rounds, the top grossing team last year was the Wahoos with 3035, and the Chiefs were 2nd with 2876. The Reds were a distant 8th with 2428.
À	After ten rounds, the Reds’ ship had righted itself, and through ten rounds the Reds led in gross points with 5193, followed by the Wahoos with 4950 and the Chiefs with 4789. One could certainly argue that Magpie won this championship last year between Rounds 6 and 10, when he drafted Jason Schmidt (596), Andruw Jones (579), Keith Foulke (606), Jason Kendall (541) and Roger Clemens (443). Throw in his 11th round pick of Tim Salmon (457) and his 12th round pick of Raul Mondesi (463), and it’s easy to see where the rubber met the road last year.
À	Here are the standings based on gross points through the first three rounds, the first five rounds and the first ten rounds last year:

THROUGH THE FIRST THREE ROUNDS
1.	Senators	2085
2.	Chiefs	1764
3.	Blues	1736
4.	Wahoos	1670
(T)	Bombers	1670
6.	Tribe	1512
7.	Skipjacks	1495
8.	Reds	1483
9.	Redbirds	1454
10.	Pirates	1420
11.	Cubs*	1396
12.	Tigers	1301

THROUGH THE FIRST FIVE ROUNDS
1.	Wahoos	3035
2.	Chiefs	2876
3.	Senators	2822
4.	Blues	2594
5.	Tribe	2579
6.	Bombers	2562
7.	Redbirds	2560
8.	Reds	2428
9.	Skipjacks	2397
10.	Cubs*	2342
11.	Pirates	2237
12.	Tigers	2004

THROUGH THE FIRST TEN ROUNDS
1.	Reds	5193
2.	Wahoos	4950
3.	Chiefs	4789
4.	Bombers	4785
5.	Senators	4767
6.	Skipjacks	4725
7.	Pirates	4680
8.	Cubs*	4638
9.	Tribe	4434
10.	Redbirds	4287
11.	Blues	4182
12.	Tigers	3901

INFIELD CHATTER

Ð	I forgot to mention above that Helyar’s book reminded me that Barry Bonds was every bit as big a jerk a dozen years ago as he is today, recounting the Sports Illustrated story on Bonds which was headlined, “I’m Barry Bonds, and You’re Not.” I mean, can you even believe Bonds’ arrogance as he tries to pretend to the baseball world and himself that he didn’t beef up on steroids? I say slap an asterisk on any home run record or mark that is set by Bonds, and his slugging percentage record and walk record, to boot. Without ’roids, he might still be a great player, but he wouldn’t have done what he was able to do on the juice.
Ð	And can you even believe the position being taken by Don Fehr on the issue of steroid testing? It would almost be worth a prolonged player strike or owner lockout just to get Fehr bounced out of his fat-cat position as head of the players’ union. I still can’t believe I had my picture taken with this bozo at the Ripken celebration. That was one moment in time I’d be happy to have back for a do-over.
Ð	Speaking of good union men (some might call this an oxymoron), Brother U-Bob continues to see this world through a different set of lenses than many of us, as evidenced by his rantings and ravings on the Message Board. I wonder if he ever shared with his Uncle Dick (Wagner) his vehement antimanagement views? And I also wonder how close he is to bringing B.T. to his knees with his unionizing efforts at Art F/X. Can’t you just picture U-Bob and his Cambodian and Vietnamese co-workers picketing the Krause sweatshop for higher wages and health care for screen print ink poisoning?
Ð	In the It’s Entirely Unrelated Department, I recently tried a jury trial case in Council Bluffs where one of the veniremen was a dentition- and grammar-challenged woman in her 50s with the name of –– I swear it on a stack of bibles –– Ernestine Bass. There is no doubt in my mind that she is a direct descendent of the character Ernest T. Bass from the old Andy Griffith show. Now I know why Tirebiter decided to move over to this side of the Missouri River.
Ð	And while we’re on the subject of completely unrelated topics, I recently spent the better part of a week in New Jersey at a testing and inspection session of surgical suture. The highlight of the trip was a short junket to the Princeton campus for a self-guided tour of Bill Bradley’s old stomping grounds. Fantastic. The low point of the trip was getting stuck in New Jersey traffic for two and a half hours and missing my flight out of Newark because of the gridlock on the New Jersey turnpike. Just another reminder of how lucky we all are to be living in Omaha, and not the Garden State.

R.I.P.

Most of you probably read that Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia was imploded this past weekend. After 33 years of baseball in this ugly, concrete, cookie-cutter stadium, it is coming down, and will now serve as a 5500-space parking lot. As recently noted in an issue of Sports Illustrated, the Vet was probably best-known for Karl Wallenda’s thrilling 640-foot walk across the field on a steel cable between games of a doubleheader in 1972, until Tug McGraw and the Phillies won their only World Series title ever there in 1980. As noted in that same article, one nice thing about the Vet was that the seats were farther away from the field than at most stadiums, so when people tossed batteries and beer bottles, it was frequently without consequence to the intended targets.

From what I have seen and read, the new Philadelphia ballpark should be a vast improvement over the Vet. We can only hope.

IN CLOSING

A belated thanks to Itchie for his wonderful contribution of The Jiggernaut week before last. It’s always good to have Itchie’s spin on life.

See you on Saturday.

Skipper


2004 Season	Edition No. 6	March23, 2004