Archive for the ‘baseball’ Category
Vinny Rottino Redux, AKA Rottino’s Persistence Pays Off
More people should be like Vinny Rottino.
As most of you who follow this blog know, I’ve been keeping an eye on the Racine-born Rottino. His quest to become a major league baseball player is compelling for many reasons, but the biggest and best reason to follow Rottino’s story is because he refuses to give up on himself.
Rottino knows he has the talent to play in the major leagues, and because he knows that, he is willing to do whatever it takes to make it.
Racine Journal-Times sportswriter Peter Jackel wrote a very nice article about Rottino in yesterday’s edition; the headline read, “Irresistible force: Resilient Rottino Rewarded with Another Shot.” (I really like that alliteration there; whoever wrote that headline did a great job.) Take a look at that article here:
Jackel points out in his article that Rottino was the Milwaukee Brewers minor league player of the year in 2004 — his second year in the minors — and though he’s had some at-bats and a bit of playing time here and there with the Brewers, and last year with the then-Florida Marlins, Rottino has never had extended playing time with any major league team (as he’s also spent time in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ minor league system, too).
But the New York Mets wanted Rottino because of his tough-minded, hard-nosed attitude; this is why they signed him last November. As Paul Depodesta, the Mets Vice President of Player Development, said in Jackel’s article,
“Vinny’s hard-nosed style of play absolutely played a role in our decision to sign him. We know he’ll fit well with our manager, Terry Collins, who shares Vinny’s passion and intensity, and he’ll be appreciated by the fans in New York.”
This is a great deal more than is usually said about any guy who’s expected to be a career minor leaguer (or as the baseball types have it, a “four-A” player — someone who is really good in AAA, but isn’t quite good enough to play in the big leagues).
Podesta also says in the article that one of the reasons the Mets signed Rottino is because he can play a number of positions, including at least two of three of the most-valued positions — catcher, center field, and shortstop. Rottino was a shortstop in high school and college, so he knows that position well. He plays all three OF positions, though he really doesn’t have the speed to be an everyday center fielder. And he is a very good catcher — a dependable backup — which is a neat trick considering he didn’t even start learning the position until he was around 26 years old.
Rottino will be 32 in early April. He knows he’s not a prospect anymore — Jackel even said so in his article — but he has a lot to give any organization that gives him a chance. Rottino can hit left-handers rather better than his major league average (a sample-sized 36 ABs) indicates. Rottino has “gap power” — meaning he’s not a home run hitter, but he’s a reliable threat for doubles and the occasional triple. He’s a contact hitter who rarely makes stupid mistakes (and if he does make one, he immediately corrects it and doesn’t compound his error; I cannot imagine Rottino making the mistake Jerry Hairston, Jr., made in the Brewers NLCS on that double-error play, for example), he won’t run you out of innings, and he has deceptive speed — even at his somewhat advanced age for a ballplayer, he had 17 SBs last year, which led his triple-A team, the New Orleans Zephyrs. (Not bad for a catcher, huh?)
Anyway, I know Rottino can play, so if he gets a shot, he’ll do well.
The rest of us need to learn from his example; keep trying, and don’t give up, no matter what you do. All you can do is give yourself the best chance to make it in your field — in my case, that’s writing and editing, and I am somewhat older than most people who are hoping to make it in this business (let’s just say “older than Rottino” and be done with it, OK?) — and keep working on your “tool set” every day. (For Rottino, he takes lots of batting and fielding practice. For someone like me, that means something along the lines of, “Write something every day.” And considering I’m a musician, too, the days I am able to circumvent my carpal tunnel syndrome and practice my saxophone count as advancing toward my goals, too.)
You see, like Rottino, all I can do is to “keep (myself) in the game.” So if there is an opportunity, I’ll be practiced and versatile enough to seize that opportunity before it’s gone; I cannot make the opportunity, but I can definitely prepare myself to seize upon it whenever that opportunity finally presents itself.
Rottino himself said it best, though; when Jackel asked him what will happen if Rottino doesn’t make it in the bigs this time, Rottino said he’d keep trying (this was summed up by Jackel in the article). Then he said this:
“I think God has got me on this path for some reason and I’ll find out why someday.”
I am so glad that I’m not the only one who wonders about this sort of meandering path (though it seems to me that Rottino’s path has been slightly less circuitous than my own).
But I will not stop, folks; I plan to be like Vinny Rottino. I know I have the talent, and I know I will persevere. With perseverance and talent, I hope to seize upon any opportunity that comes to hand. Because that’s literally the only way to win.
Good luck, Vinny — and may the wind be at your back.
Prince Fielder signs with Tigers; 9 years, $214 million
Folks, there are reports all over the Internet that former Milwaukee Brewers first baseman Prince Fielder has signed a deal with the Detroit Tigers; the deal is reported as being $214 million over the course of nine years, or an average $23.78 million per year.
See this story from Ken Rosenthal for further details:
Here’s a relevant quote:
On the long list of Scott Boras shockers, this one ranks near the top.
Boras’ top free-agent client, first baseman Prince Fielder, has agreed to a nine-year, $214 million contract with the Tigers, according to major-league sources.
Fielder’s deal with the Tigers does not include an opt-out provision, a source said.
Tigers general manager David Dombrowski recently told ESPN.com that Fielder, “doesn’t fit for us. He’s looking for a long-term deal and that just doesn’t fit.”
Either Dombrowski was shading the truth, or Tigers owner Mike Ilitch — who has worked well with Boras in the past — made a last-minute call to sign Fielder.
So, see, it’s not just me who’s shocked. Rosenthal is obviously shocked, too.
The reason this deal surprised so many people, including me, is because of how long it took on the one hand (as we’re only about a month away from when pitchers and catchers must report to Spring Training) while on the other hand, the team that ended up landing Fielder — the Tigers — wasn’t even on the radar screen until now. (This last bit is very reminiscent of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim’s pursuit of Albert Pujols; no one on the outside of the negotiations had any idea that the Angels were interested in Pujols, much less that they’d lay out big money for him.)
At any rate, the Tigers’ plans apparently include having Fielder play some first base and DH other days; they already have a first baseman in Miguel Cabrera (who hits from the right side, and is a power hitter), but Cabrera is no better defensively than Fielder and presumably wouldn’t mind DHing now and again.
Now, as a Brewers fan, I wasn’t surprised at all to see that Fielder is moving on. It was obvious that he didn’t want to re-sign here; he had an opportunity to do that last year, and even at the end of this year, he had the opportunity to accept arbitration and come back for another year — Brewers set-up man Francisco Rodriguez (“K-Rod,” one of the best closers in the game), decided to do this even though the Brewers have a particularly good closer in John Axford — one who set team records last year and one who isn’t being paid very much. (Axford should be getting a lot more than he is; at this point, he’s making just over the major league minimum and that really seems unfair. But I digress.)
This situation has happened before, albeit with C.C. Sabathia. Sabathia helped the Brewers get to the 2008 playoffs; the Brewers clinched the “wild card” spot on the final day of the season, and they wouldn’t have done so without Sabathia’s stellar performance (he went 11-2 with a 1.65 ERA in 17 starts with the Brewers). But Sabathia, as good as he was, was a half-season rental; Fielder was developed by the Brewers farm system and his entire career (six full seasons and part of a seventh) was spent in Milwaukee up until now.
Still, unlike Ryan Braun, who accepted a contract below market value in order to stay in Milwaukee because he apparently likes the stability of knowing he’ll be financially solvent (good thing, too, but other than Evan Longoria, there isn’t a single player in MLB who’s anywhere near as interested in his long-term financial future as Braun), Fielder obviously wanted to go wherever he’d get the most money. And he does have ties to Detroit; his father played there, and Fielder took batting practice there as a pre-teen — part of the “Fielder legend” says that Fielder hit several HRs in batting practice when he was twelve, though I’m unsure that’s factually correct. (Fielder has enormous power, and even as a child he probably had a great deal of it also. But Fielder himself cast aspersions on some of these legends while he was in Milwaukee, saying, in effect, “Don’t believe everything you hear, but isn’t it a nice story?”)
I just hope that whatever Fielder is getting out of this deal is worth it to him, because it’s one thing to be a “Big Man On Campus” like he was for the Brewers; it’s another to become the highest-paid player on the team, as he will be for the Tigers. The media in Detroit isn’t as friendly as the media in Milwaukee, and even if they were, Fielder’s contract will make him much more of a target than he’s ever been in Milwaukee. This is something he’s not likely to understand until he’s lived with it for a while; I just hope the learning curve for him won’t be too steep along the way.
Granted, Fielder is a big man (in many senses, including his heart) and I’m sure he can handle it. But it will be much more difficult for his family and friends to deal with the media on days where he goes 0 for 4 with a couple of Ks (even a guy who strikes out as little as Fielder does, proportionately, has a few days like this a year) than it’s ever been in Milwaukee.
All I can say now is, “Enjoy the contract, Prince. Play well. And don’t forget your fans in Milwaukee.” Because assuredly, we will not forget about you anytime too soon.
Ryan Braun Knows the One, Confirmed Minor-Leaguer Who Successfully Fought 50 Game Ban
Have any of you heard of Brendan Katin?
I hadn’t, at least not for years; he was a prospect in the Milwaukee Brewers minor league system. But Brendan Katin is the one and only person that anyone is aware of who’s actually successfully appealed a 50-game suspension — that is, he cleared his name after he’d falsely tested positive for an elevated level of testosterone.
Well, Ryan Braun knows Katin, something Katin confirms in this article from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel by Todd Rosiak on December 19, 2011. Here’s what Katin had to say about his own ordeal:
“We were playing the Smokies in Tennessee this one morning and I wake up to a call from our employee assistance program guy,” Katin recounted in a recent phone interview.
“He just asked me, ‘Is there any reason why you would have tested positive for steroids?’ I answered, ‘Absolutely not. I have absolutely no idea.’ Then he said, ‘Well, you did, and they’re going to suspend you for 50 games.’ ”
Katin wasted no time in contacting his agent and filing an appeal. But from everything he knew, it would be an exercise in futility. A suspension seemed inevitable.
“They’d tell you every time in those meetings in spring training that nobody’s ever won an appeal,” Katin said.
At this point, Rosiak states what little is known about the Ryan Braun situation — something I blogged about here a few weeks ago — and the parallels are eerily similar.
Katin goes on to say this:
Katin, to this day, is believed to be the only player at any level in professional baseball to have won such an appeal. In the major leagues, 12 players on 40-man rosters have taken their cases to arbitration, and all 12 have lost.
Katin was allowed to play as the process dragged on for about two months, but he struggled mightily as he tried to figure out what might have triggered the positive test and what he’d do if the suspension was upheld.
“It was the worst start I had gotten off to in my career. I was hitting .200, if not sub-.200,” he said. “How could I have taken anything that possibly could have caused this? I couldn’t think of anything. At that point in my career, I didn’t even drink protein shakes or anything. Absolutely nothing.”
Katin finally learned he was cleared when he was handed a letter by Huntsville’s trainer as he boarded the bus in Chattanooga, Tenn., for a game. He’d beaten the odds, but the process had taken its toll.
“Pretty much you wake up every day and you tell yourself, ‘I could be suspended tomorrow for 50 games,’ “he said. “I knew that I did nothing wrong, but you’ve got to know that there’s still that chance.”
Katin also said that it was quite difficult for him to deal with the fact that to most, he was guilty until proven innocent — and as Rosiak’s article shows, Katin also suffered greatly in the short-term from the mere perception that he was a cheater.
Aside from that, Katin had only kind words for Braun:
“Completely shocked,” Katin said when asked of his reaction to the news that his friend and former teammate had reportedly tested positive. “He’s as clean-cut a guy as it gets and as classy a guy as it gets.”
In other words, Braun’s test could be a false positive of the sort Katin had happen to him; just because it hadn’t yet happened as far as anyone’s aware in the majors yet, that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Tests are handled by humans, thus are inherently flawed, and it is possible that a completely innocent man could be caught in the cross-hairs, just like Katin was back in 2007.
My view remains that Braun is innocent until and unless he is proven guilty, not the reverse — and that I fully expect that Braun will be exonerated.
Ryan Braun, MVP, Tests Positive for Steroids; Will Appeal
Milwaukee Brewers player Ryan Braun, who is also the 2011 Most Valuable Player for the National League, has apparently tested positive for steroids — or, as Major League Baseball (MLB) likes to call them, “performance enhancing drugs,” or PEDs.
See this link for further details:
Note the word “apparently.” This is because there is no confirmation from MLB as to whether or not this actually happened.
Here are a few paragraphs from the article; please note that the Yahoo Sports blog is referencing an earlier report at ESPN that I wasn’t able to find:
The “Outside the Lines” report goes on to clarify that elevated levels of testosterone in Braun’s sample are what triggered the positive test. Further tests showed that the testosterone was synthetic. In other words, Braun’s body did not produce it naturally.
MLB went on to consult the World Anti-Doping Agency lab for a second opinion to confirm the results. The WADA conducted a secondary test to see whether the increase in testosterone could have been produced by Braun himself or if it came from a secondary source.
The test confirmed MLB’s original results. The extra testosterone came from outside Braun’s body.
So, if this is all to be believed, Braun apparently tested positive for having too much testosterone in his bloodstream. And MLB insists that it’s of a synthetic nature, meaning Braun couldn’t have produced it himself. So that means that it’s possible that Braun’s outstanding 2011 season, which produced 33 HRs, 111 RBIs, and a .331 batting average, wasn’t produced naturally.
But here’s the thing. Braun has been an outstanding player from the time the Brewers brought him up. He won the Rookie of the Year Award in 2007. His lifetime numbers are comparable to his MVP numbers; over his last five seasons, he’s averaged 36 HRs and 118 RBIs a season, and has hit over .300 every year except 2008 (when he “only” hit .285); his lifetime batting average, over five complete seasons, is .312.
So I don’t really see where Braun could’ve been taking anything that was of an enhancing nature, especially if he’s never tested positive before (and indeed, he hasn’t).
According to this article at USA Today, Braun plans a vigorous defense. He also called the “Outside the Lines” report “B.S.”
A spokesman for Braun said (quoted in both articles referenced):
“There are highly unusual circumstances surrounding this case which will support Ryan’s complete innocence and demonstrate there was absolutely no intentional violation of the program. While Ryan has impeccable character and no previous history, unfortunately, because of the process we have to maintain confidentiality and are not able to discuss it any further, but we are confident he will ultimately be exonerated.”
All I know is, the Brewers had an odd situation a few years back where centerfielder Mike Cameron tested positive for a “performance enhancing drug” — and you know what it was? He took an over the counter cold medicine, which happened to have something like Sudafed in it — that’s something that can raise your blood pressure because it allows you to breathe better. But it’s not something you take unless you’re ill, and Cameron was ill, and had doctors’ notes (more than one) to prove it.
And a few years ago during the World Baseball classic, there was a pitcher who was denied use of his albuterol asthma inhaler because apparently, being able to breathe is a “performance enhancement.” (This was a pitcher who was known to be asthmatic. As I am also asthmatic, I fail to see how being able to breathe, rather than succumbing to a fatal asthma attack, is a performance enhancement. Does MLB prefer healthy, vigorous baseball players who have asthma to drop over dead rather than take their albuterol in order to save their lives?)
And even with the players like Manny Ramirez, who have tested positive for something that can be called a “performance enhancement” — well, Ramirez was taking a very odd drug that enhanced, of all things, his estrogen levels. (A female fertility drug that is quite legal in many jurisdictions.) I never did understand what the benefit of that could possibly be, even though various chemists weighed in saying this, that, and the other. (The only thing I ever figured out is that this particular drug could’ve possibly been masking other drugs that really did make a difference in Ramirez’s on-field performance.)
But as baseball Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt (a third baseman, and a power hitter, for the Philadelphia Phillies) said in his book CLEARING THE BASES, baseball players have been trying to “gain an edge” since the beginning of time. Trying to legislate that away will never work (not that I think Braun did anything wrong here, but if he was trying to gain an edge, so what?). And if the players are harming themselves down the line to gain big bucks now, that should be their prerogative — all I ask is that if someone is taking something like that, they watch what happened to Oakland Raiders’ star Lyle Alzado (who died young, and horribly, from cancer that may have been prevented if Alzado hadn’t admittedly taken many, many steroids over time).
In this, particular case, my view is that Braun’s statistical performance was well within his own normals. So it’s very hard for me to believe that Braun actually did take anything illegal of the PED variety; because of that, and because of my admittedly laissez-faire attitude toward baseball players and legal drugs, I believe Braun should be considered innocent until and unless he is proven guilty.
Therefore, all the talk of Braun being stripped of his MVP award should stop already — it’s nonsense. Nothing’s been proven yet. Braun may have a good reason for why this happened, and I, for one, am willing to wait and see what it is, especially as his on-field performance hasn’t changed one whit since he was brought up to the big leagues to stay in 2007.
Quick Vinny Rottino Update
Folks, Vinny Rottino has come to terms with the New York Mets on a minor league contract for 2012. This information was released yesterday and was covered (in blurb fashion) by the Racine Journal-Times . . . anyway, Rottino will be playing for his fourth organization (the others being the Milwaukee Brewers, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the Miami Marlins) and I really hope the Mets will see his worth and value.
Other than that, Rottino is playing winter baseball in Venezuela. He’s currently hitting .245 according to the Journal-Times report.
In some ways, I wish Rottino had taken the winter off. I think it’s very hard on anyone’s body to keep playing a sport year-round, even when you’re extremely fit and in-shape the way Rottino is. I also think that as his AAA season was so successful (he hit .304, he led his team, the New Orleans Zephyrs, in many statistical categories as I’ve pointed out in previous blogs, etc.), he needs to take some time out to rest as he’s obviously put everything he has into improving his game enough so he can make it — and stick — in the big leagues.
Even so, Rottino knows his body far better than I do, and I’m sure he’s doing the right thing for himself. I hope Rottino will do well in Venezuela and make some valuable contacts; he’s a good man by all accounts. He’s also incredibly hard-working, as is evidenced by refusing to take time off and being in Venezuela to play the game he loves, baseball, despite his great AAA season. He deserves to find whatever success he can, and I truly hope he’ll have that success.
Here’s hoping when the 2012 Spring Training rolls around that the Mets will be the organization that realizes what a gem they have in Rottino, and will give him the major league shot he deserves.
About to watch Game 7 of the World Series
Well, folks, it’s all come down to this. Game Seven of the World Series between the Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals is about to start, and the clichés will be falling thick and fast, like snowflakes, from television announcers Joe Buck and Tim McCarver.
This is because last night, the Texas Rangers couldn’t hold a 7-5 lead in the bottom of the ninth. They only needed one more strike to get the third out in that inning, yet the Cardinals rallied and tied the game up, 7-7.
The game went to the tenth inning. The Rangers took a 9-7 lead into the bottom of the tenth, but couldn’t hold that lead, either; again, they pushed the Cardinals to needing only one more strike to conclude the game . . . but again, the Cardinals rallied, and tied the game, 9-9, sending the game to the eleventh inning.
This time, the Rangers did not score in the top of the 11th; the Cardinals sent David Freese to the plate, and as he did so often against the Brewers, he got a clutch hit (this time, a home run), which sent this World Series to its concluding — and conclusive — game seven, with history in the making, the game itself in the balance, yadda, yadda, yadda.
I was hoping the game would be over last evening; the Rangers’ manager, Ron Washington, actually pitched to Albert Pujols in the bottom of the ninth inning rather than walk him intentionally — and IMO, that was a really stupid move, because Pujols isn’t a three-time MVP for nothing. Of course Pujols got a clutch hit that extended the game and helped send the game to extra innings; who wouldn’t have predicted that, other than Ron Washington?
Anyway, this series has been marred by some really inexplicable managerial moves on both sides; this is one reason why this series will make history no matter what, though if the Rangers win, they’ll have won their first — and only — world championship, which is one of the reasons I’m rooting more for them than for the Cardinals (though I don’t really have a “dog in this hunt” either way).
So we’ll see what happens in game seven . . . won’t we?
Texas Rangers lead in World Series, 3-2; Tony LaRussa’s Mismanagement Steals Show
What would baseball be without a little controversy?
Amidst the Texas Rangers convincing 4-2 win over the St. Louis Cardinals last evening, there were a bunch of odd managerial decisions that made absolutely no sense by Tony LaRussa.
Consider this:
A pitcher, Lance Lynn, was called in to pitch when he’d been told he’d “only pitch in an emergency situation” before the game began. (Lynn walked the only batter he faced intentionally, as once he was in the game, by rule, he had to face one batter before he could be removed.)
The bullpen coach, Derek Lilliquist, didn’t hear the right name when Tony LaRussa had called asking to get bullpen specialist Jason Motte up, which is why Lynn was up and pitching; Lilliquist, inexplicably, heard the wrong name (or at least that’s what everyone’s saying now). That the names “Lynn” and “Motte” do not sound remotely the same makes no nevermind.
And third, because Motte wasn’t up and called in when he was supposed to be, Texas had two guys on rather than one when Rangers’ catcher Mike Napoli came up; Napoli hit a two-run double (when if LaRussa had properly managed to convey that he wanted Motte in there a batter earlier, only one run would’ve scored at maximum rather than two), and that was the ballgame.
Yahoo Sports writer Jeff Passan has an excellent article about this here; for now, I want to give you a few of his thoughts, because I find them both cogent and compelling.
Passan writes:
Seriously, La Russa wants people to believe that he, the most controlling of control-freak managers, would let a failure the magnitude of his best reliever not warming up go by without a trillion precautions to ensure it didn’t happen again? The guy who, when the bullpen phone malfunctioned earlier this year, sent one of his players sprinting from bench to bullpen to relay instructions – he would sit there idly in a swing game of the World Series and leave his chances up to a set of ears on the other end that blew the first conversation?
Inconsistencies between La Russa and Lilliquist’s stories were plentiful enough that it’s impossible to know what is truth and what isn’t. There could be more. Did La Russa forget the number of outs when he walked Cruz? Did he forget to mention Motte’s name on the first phone call? Most important, in what universe does “Motte” sound like “Lynn”? Especially a Lynn who isn’t supposed to throw.
As Passan says, this story doesn’t fly. And quite frankly, it makes me wonder if LaRussa was having a “senior moment” with regards to this huge mistake in judgment, considering the amount of “cover your rear” that’s going on today over it all.
Brewers Start Marcum, Lose Big; Cardinals Advance to World Series
The Milwaukee Brewers, to be blunt, laid a big, fat, juicy egg last night against the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series. They did so because of one thing — Brewers rookie manager Ron Roenicke making a “rookie mistake” and insisting upon starting Shaun Marcum when Marcum had at least six bad outings prior to last night and had shown nothing at all in his last two starts that led me — or anyone else — to believe that Marcum would do better in Game 6.
That the Cardinals won the game, 12-6, and thus advanced to the World Series, is almost an afterthought due to Roenicke’s horrible managerial decisions. Roenicke could’ve gone with Brewers ace Yovani Gallardo (who last pitched on Wednesday, so he’d have had about the right amount of rest between starts) as Game 6 was do-or-die for the Brewers — Gallardo is the Brewers best pitcher by a lot these days, and with Gallardo on the mound, the Brewers had at least a chance to tie the series up again and go to Game 7. Note that other managers in similar positions have done things like this before, most recently Jim Leyland of the Detroit Tigers — he pitched his ace, Justin Verlander (who went 24-5 in the regular season), in game 5 as that was Detroit’s first “elimination game” — and Verlander delivered, staving off elimination for another night.
But Roenicke, in his post-game press conference carried by the Brewers Radio Network, insisted that he made the “right call” in sending the struggling Marcum to the mound.
I beg to differ.
Marcum went out there and struggled from the get-go. (There were some questionable balls/strikes calls from the home plate umpire, yes. But if you’re a good pitcher, you get beyond that.) He didn’t have his best stuff, or even his most mediocre-but-still-can-get-guys-out stuff — instead, he ended up giving up four runs in the first inning, and the Brewers were in an immediate hole.
There were some good hits by the Brewers in this game. Corey Hart led off the first inning with a towering home run — not a cheap job, either, as it bounced off the scoreboard in right-center field. Rickie Weeks hit a nice, long HR. Jonathan Lucroy hit a 2-run HR that brought the game as close as it ever was — 5-4, still in favor of the Cardinals — but really, that was all the Brewers were able to muster as far as heroics went.
What was worse even than Marcum’s pitching performance (and total lack of understanding afterward that his arm is tired, he needs rest, he never should’ve started the game in the first place and for all I know, may have a hairline tear or other arm problem that needs to be addressed, pronto) was the Brewers defense. Hart made an awful play in right field — one that was caused by thinking he had the ball in his glove when he didn’t, and might’ve been caused by him trying too hard — in the fourth. Then Jerry Hairston had a double-error play — yes, two errors on one, single play — which put the Brewers out of reach as the Cardinals scored several more runs off the ground ball Kameron Loe had been brought in to induce. (Loe had to be frustrated, though he was as impassive as ever out on the mound. Loe’s professional demeanor would unnerve me as a hitter, for sure.)
Anyway, there were a few other positives aside from Loe doing what he was asked to do — get outs (not his fault that Hairston misplayed the ball, then made a bad throw for that double-error play). Takashi Saito pitched two really fine innings for the Brewers to hold the Cardinals (for those innings) to “only” eleven runs. Francisco Rodriguez gave up a solo HR, but compared to most of the rest of the pitchers, was OK — and I don’t blame him for that at all. While John Axford pitched his usual scoreless 9th . . . oh, if Roenicke had just used the brain he was born with and started Gallardo, then done anything except start Marcum in game 7 (providing we’d have managed to win Game 6 with Gallardo pitching instead), I’d have had a far better experience watching my 2011 Brewers compete in the post-season.
But as it stood, we had bad pitching (Marcum, and then Chris Narveson, who wasn’t as bad as Marcum in that at least Narveson got some Ks, but gave up 5 earned runs in 1 2/3 innings as opposed to Marcum’s 4 earned runs in 1 inning), bad fielding (Marcum, Hart, some plays Rickie Weeks should’ve made but couldn’t due to his injured ankle, a missed cutoff man/throw to the wrong base made by Nyjer Morgan early in the game that allowed two extra Cardinals runners to move up and eventually score, and of course the boneheaded Jerry Hairston’s double-error play), and a lack of timely hitting, combined with a few really bad calls here and there (the low, outside strike was called for the Cardinals, while it wasn’t called for the Brewers; Braun was safe at first on an attempted infield hit, but the ump called him out due to Albert Pujols getting injured on the play and all the costernation over the strawberry Pujols had on his right arm; a home plate call that could’ve gone either way went the way of the Cardinals).
All that said, I’m still glad the Brewers made it so far in the post-season. I’m proud of their efforts — yes, even Marcum’s, even as bad as Marcum has looked in the past six weeks, I know he tried his best (it’s not his fault that his manager put him out there, either) — I’m proud of the 2011 team, and I hope that the 2012 team will be able to compete more effectively (maybe with better starting pitching and defense?) down the road.
Also, one more time — kudos to Randy Wolf, for pitching the only “quality start” in the entire NLCS. Your professionalism, poise, and competence was something that I will always remember from the 2011 post-season.
Brewers Losing Game 5, but I Don’t Care
My Milwaukee Brewers are currently losing to the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-1 in the eighth inning . . . but I don’t care.
You might be wondering why this is so. Have I lost my love for the Brewers? (Um, no.) Have I decided that baseball isn’t that important? (Well, no . . . it’s still what it’s always been.)
Or is it that baseball isn’t as important as someone else’s life? (You’re on to something if you picked this option.)
Look. One of my best friends is in the hospital in Colorado, and I don’t have the financial wherewithal to go visit him. He has bacteria in his spine, brain and heart; I was contacted by a different friend who let me know what was going on.
I talked with my friend, very briefly, earlier this evening, and he sounds very ill. He’s been in the hospital for a week and it doesn’t sound like he’ll be getting out any time too soon, either.
Whatever’s gone so wrong for his health that he picked up a major bacterial infection and has landed in the hospital is such a terrible thing that it’s driving out much of anything else. I don’t have many details, not that they’d probably help if I did; I just know he’s ill, he’s too far away for me to visit, and I can’t do anything to help besides pray. (Which I am.)
Anyway, the Brewers still have Game 6 in Milwaukee, and can maybe win that. My brother has a ticket for Game 6 and I really do hope the Brewers will win and tie the series back up at 3-3.
But for now — just for this one game — I’m a lot more worried about my good friend than I am about the Brewers’ World Series hopes. Because the Brewers can always try again next year for the World Series if they miss it now (it’ll be tough to get there without Prince Fielder, who is assuredly going elsewhere as the Brewers cannot afford the huge contract Fielder wants, but at least it’ll be possible); my friend’s life, on the other hand, is in a real life and death struggle and I’m far more concentrated on that than I am about any sports team, no matter how much I appreciate them or the game of baseball in particular.
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Edited to add: I have added a tag with my friend’s name, Jeff Wilson, for those who knew him. I’ve had a number of people ask me what Jeff’s illness was; this is the main post where I discussed it.
I really wish I hadn’t felt the need to add the tag, though; it really stinks that Jeff is no longer alive to talk writing, politics, and the world at large with as he was a most excellent conversationalist. (And my best friend.)
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