No doubt there exists a collective consciousness that associates ‘Nomah’ with the Red Sox, and the Red Sox with the 2004 World Series championship, the first for the club in 86 years. But the transitive property is no help to Garciaparra here. For despite being the proverbial ‘face of the franchise’ for nearly a decade, it is widely believed that the July 31 jettisoning of the disgruntled slugging shortstop spurred the Sox to a glory they would not have otherwise achieved. Which included winning 22 out of 25 in August, and, of course, a miraculous comeback from three games down to the Yankees in the ALCS.

One could be forgiven for thinking that winning the World Series in 2004- and again in 2007- changed Red Sox culture. How could it not; for what are Jews to do when the Messiah comes- become Christian? Cultures accustomed to waiting and hoping don’t take to success without an identity crisis.

The religion analogy runs deeper. As an expert in analogy, Dr. Micah Goldwater of the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center of Northwestern University had this to say of a parallel between Nomar and Moses.

Each led their tribe to the Promised Land, but were not allowed to enter because they were from a previous generation that only knew slavery.  Nomar was the last of a continuous line of our star players being a homegrown Red Sox. Williams, Yaz, Lynn/Rice, Clemens, Vaughn, Nomar. It took free-agent stars for us to finally win one. (Or two).

Despite his greatness, Moses was never allowed to win the big one. He had sinned. But the Israelites had sinned as well; they had worshipped a Golden Calf. And Red Sox Nation had its golden calf moment. The Red Sox traded for false idol Alex Rodriguez in the 2003/4 offseason; he was to displace Garciaparra as shortstop and leader. Though the transaction was nixed, and Nomar remained. And then, in July, just weeks before the trade, Red Sox Nation did the unthinkable; they worshipped hated rival Derek Jeter. As Dan Shaughnessy recalls, in a Biblical narrative,

then came the nationally televised midsummer game at Yankee Stadium, when Nomar refused to play while Derek Jeter saved the game with a face-first plunge into the stands behind third base.

Whereas Jeter was a gamer, a real leader, Garciaparra was an illusion, a sulking and selfish quitter. Red Sox Nation had given up on Nomar, and coveted Jeter, the Yankees’ own golden boy. Yet Red Sox Nation was given the promised land, and Nomar was left to die on the banks of the River Jordan, in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Oakland.

Citing the numerous injuries that have (10) plagued Garciaparra’s career, and the SI cover photo of a frame bulking beyond its natural contours, one could be forgiven for thinking Nomar sinned against the commandment banning performance-enhancers. But Moses was able- at the age of one hundred and twenty- to climb a mountain in order to die; that can’t be natural either.

Let’s end with a song, lyrics by Barry

When Nomar was in Yawkey Land
Let my people go
He fiddled with his bat glove hand
Let my people go

One might suspect that such a feeling implies deep regret, and an acceptance of responsibility for one’s actions.

But as French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre would have known, that suspicion would be wrong.

For Sartre, the self is created- and so defined- by the choices and actions it performs. To imagine, as McGwire does, that his self could be removed from his actual life is to imagine a boundary between who he is and what he has done. It is to suppose the self is something that exists- and is defined- independently of, and prior to, choices that are made, and actions that are taken. For Sartre, this a false abstraction, a metaphysical mistake. (In Sartre’s often puzzling terminology, it is to falsely believe “essence precedes existence.”)

Sartre diagnosed the wish to  separate oneself from one’s context as the wish to avoid responsibility. To wish for another life in another time is to relinquish responsibility for this one, not to accept it. It is to blame one’s context rather than one’s self: If only I had lived in another time, I would not have been faced with this horrible choice! It is to blame the world, not oneself. It is to pretend we are not free, and so it is to pretend we are not responsible for what we do. For Sartre, it is to live in bad faith.

Of course, McGwire did not find himself comically dropped into the steroid era after being kidnapped by Keanu Reeves and the Other Guy in a time-travelling phone booth. McGwire helped create the steroid era- he admitted to taking steroids as early as the 1989/1990 off-season, and his feats throughout the decade were the most visible. But by distancing himself from the times, he denies responsibility for the world he helped to create.

That McGwire did not take responsibility- did not truly apologize- is born out in his other comments as well. Besides the bald assertions of culpability as part of a planned media strategy, the story McGwire told implied his innocence. McGwire never said why he should have to apologize, or explained why he thought what he did was wrong. Instead, he justified the use of steroids.

“During the mid-’90s, I went on the DL seven times and missed 228 games over five years. I experienced a lot of injuries, including a ribcage strain, a torn left heel muscle, a stress fracture of the left heel, and a torn right heel muscle. It was definitely a miserable bunch of years and I told myself that steroids could help me recover faster. I thought they would help me heal and prevent injuries, too.”

If McGwire was right that steroids could help him recover faster and prevent other injuries, this is a reason to take them, not not take them. But if he was wrong, then he’s only prescribed himself the wrong medicine, not done anything immoral. If he was wrong, he’s only failed to use effective means to achieve a virtuous end - health.

McGwire’s further talk of “health” exposed underlying views on the nature of the self that are designed to buffer him from any responsibility worth apologizing for; a Sartrian no-no.

In claiming as McGwire (and also Andy Pettitte) did, “I did this for health purposes. There’s no way I did this for any type of strength use,” McGwire distinguished moral and immoral uses of steroids, and claimed his usage was of the former type. And in his interview with Bob Costas, McGwire claimed that steroids do not improve one’s “hand-eye coordination,” and that there’s “no pill or needle” that allows one to hit a baseball.

Underlying these assertions is the idea that there is a true, inner self that was given to McGwire by “his parents and God,” an essence of McGwire that preceded anything he did. If steroids improve health, they only function to restore the self to its true, original state, just as medicine does. This, in McGwire’s (and Pettitte’s) eyes is legitimate, and so it’s what they claimed to intend. It is altering the self, as the addition of strength from an external source would be, that is morally dubious, and that McGwire (and Pettitte) deny having done.

But why?

By denying that steroids changed him, but only restored him, and by claiming that a foreign agent cannot provide the skill to hit a baseball, McGwire maintains the idea that he alone is responsible for his baseball achievements. While he can claim credit - responsibility - for whatever flows from himself - from his true essential nature - he cannot claim credit for that which resulted from something outside of himself, or from anything that changed who he is “naturally.” So he denied that steroids helped him hit home runs. He said they only allowed him to be healthy enough to do so. This is to say that he, and not steroids, are responsible for his home runs.

So why is he apologizing? If he realized that steroids were responsible, then he should be sorry. Then he would have cheated, as he would have had he used other foreign agents, such as a corked bat or snot on the ball in pursuit of his goals. But if he does not think they are responsible, but that he is, then how is he cheating? What is he apologizing for?

It is clear that McGwire, in drawing these boundaries between himself and his actions, between his natural state and his altered state, refuses to take responsibility for his actions, no matter how many times he utters the words ‘I’m sorry.’ McGwire may not actually owe anybody an apology. But if he does, this wasn’t it.

- - -

McGwire photo here

Bill and Ted photo here

Benjamin Franklin probably knew that saving a penny was not the most interesting way of netting a cent. Justifying his acquisition of the slight-hitting but slick-fielding Adrian Beltre, Boston Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein quipped “a run prevented is as valuable as a run scored”. But is it as fun to watch?

By all sophisticated measures, Beltre is a fantastic third baseman. The Sox have also acquired Mike Cameron and Marco Scutaro largely for their ability to prevent runs rather than score them. (Epstein claims defense was the teams’ “Achilles heel” last year.)

But, as Micah Goldwater, member of both Northwestern University’s Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center and my family, said

“Being able to enjoy watching the new Beltre/Cameron Red Sox will be a challenge. A lot of being a better defender is just getting to more balls, covering more space, being in the right place at the right time, in a way that could go unnoticed. We won’t notice all the flyballs Mike Cameron runs down that Jason Bay wouldn’t. We will notice when Cameron grounds out with 2 guys on in the 8th. So, new year’s resolution, growing a keener defensive eye, or this season won’t be that fun.”

Besides this last line being just what I’d expect someone from the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center of Northwestern University to say, the point is clear: defense requires a different way of watching the games. Often, a harder, more challenging way. Scoring runs and stranding runners in scoring position is salient and emotional; the subtleties of pitching and defense less so. When offense- and then audiences- lagged in the late ’60’s and early ’70’s, the sport invented a new position- the designated hitter- essentially for the sake of marketing, and bringing those fans back to the ballpark. Noticing that one third baseman converts a one-out grounder into the second out rather than another third baseman who would have failed to do so requires counterfactual reasoning, not perception. Baseball may be a thinking man’s game, but it’s never had to be one. The thinking part, for many of us, was optional.

Raconteur and science and religion blogger Barry also points out how defense can jam the radar.

“Defense in baseball is almost taken for granted. Chuck Knoblauch made 54 errors between 1998-2000. I think that’s about 1 a week (he only played 54 games at 2b in 2000). His fielding percentage those years were .981, .963, and .958. Getting a 96% on a test in school is fantastic. Getting a 96% in fielding in baseball is a catastrophic failure.”

The high success rate of Major League fielding mitigates the suspense involved in watching it unfold- as any attendee of a Little League game can confirm. And, as Micah points out, the difference between a mediocre to poor major league fielder and an excellent one may be virtually unobservable. Even if increased run prevention yields as many victories as increased run production, this may amount to a decrease of suspense and entertainment, at least for those for whom the finer points of the game are too fine.

Now, defense, of course, is not always unappreciated.  Despite misspelling ‘Beltre’, this video is awesome.

That guy’s gun makes me pro second amendment. But that’s gross, noticeable, fun. It’s not quotidian. (That’s 3 years of highlights.)

To counter, one might, and as rocker and former Sox ball boy Drew Thurlow in fact did, contend:

“Know what’s fun? Winning. This team, despite being in transition, should win. And that’s something we can all smile about.”

Mr. Franklin, about whom it is all, apparently, could not have said it better.

–

Franklin photo here

That the behavior of every rich person ever suggests otherwise is merely anecdotal evidence, I suppose. Fortunately, more rigorous experiments contradict the well-meaning fan as well. In the “ultimatum game“, one player proposes how a sum of money is to be divided between himself and another player. If the second player accepts the offer, they receive what they agreed on. But if the second player rejects the offer, they each receive nothing. If the second player is offered anything, that’s more than what he started with, and so one might expect self-interest to dictate that he take it. However, player 2 usually rejects offers below 20-30% of the total. Nothing is not always better than something, apparently.

Some theorize that anger or a wish for revenge motivates rejecting the offer. Others see the rejection as part of a longer term negotiating ploy- as it may appear to be when free agents reject contract offers, however lucrative. How to decide? The New York Times Magazine reported this week that researchers have tested these hypotheses by running the experiment with drunken participants. The explanation? Alcohol causes “the drinker to overly focus on the most prominent cue in his environment.” If rejecting the offer was a negotiation tactic,

“Drunken players would be more inclined to accept any amount of cash [because] money on the table generates more-visceral responses than long-term goals do. [But] if the anger/revenge theory were true, however, drunken players would become less likely to accept low offers: raw anger would trump money-lust.”

The experimenters reported that drunken players were more likely than sober players to reject offers of less than 50 percent of the total. They concluded that the wish for revenge was the motivating factor.

But this is an insufficient explanation. Revenge for what wrongdoing? Why is being offered money something that should provoke anger or a wish for revenge at all? Should a drunken Jason Bay want revenge on the Red Sox for offering him 4 years and 60 million dollars? Some suppose that people are provoked to anger by perceived unfairness. But there is no reason to think the money should be split evenly- “fairly”- to begin with. Free agents never demand 50% of the teams’ profits, nor do they demand that all free agents be paid equally. Player 2 has no reason to think the total money of the ultimatum game should be divided evenly. It was given to player one, after all; isn’t it “his” money? Moreover, offers of less than 50% are frequently accepted. Fairness is not the issue.

Instead, the issue is status. It is condescending- with the emphasis on descending, i.e. moving down towards or looking down on- to offer a pittance to Player 2. To offer a pittance is to take pity, and to take pity is to be in a sufficiently lofty position as to be above the pitiful place of the other. If Player 2 perceives he is being treated as less worthy than Player 1, as someone who is being pitied, then he gets proud- he doesn’t need anybody’s charity!- and he rejects the offer. Even though charity is more than nothing. This explains the revenge; revenge is the reassertion of status- you demeaned me, I’ll show you who you’re dealing with. And so forth.

As everybody, sober and drunk, knows, alcohol makes us more status-sensitive, so of course alcohol exacerbates the condition, and makes Player 2 more likely to perceive a diminishment of status. Some guy bumps into another some guy at some bar, and the slight is perceived as fightin’ words, as an indication of the superior status of the bumper over the bumpee, as the bumper’s rude declaration of his right to occupy that counter space, and, just like that, the bumpee’s injured status wants to show that guy who’s boss, and generates a brawl.

You can’t be higher or lower than someone else without a someone else, so status is relative, or comparative. Who has not heard a free agent say “it is not about the money, it’s about respect“? But is it disrespectful to offer someone millions of dollars? “Being respected” is code for being perceived as of a higher status than the other guy. Nomar Garciaparra rejected a four-year, $60 million offer from the Red Sox after the 2003 season. Was them fighting words? It was not a coincidence that Derek Jeter had signed a $189 million, ten-year contract in 2001. Or that A-Rod had signed a 10 year $252 million contract. When you stand up for status, you might not have a leg- or arm, or shoulder, or back- to stand on, to which Nomar’s post-2003 career attests.

Sometimes the other guy is even one’s own past self. ESPN reported today that free agent outfielder Johnny Damon doesn’t even want the Yankees making him an offer if they’re going to offer him less than the $13 million per year he made on his previous contract. He’d rather take nothing at all than accept a demotion, even if the demotion gets him 12.9 million dollars.

When Jason Bay rejected a 4 year 60 million dollar offer from the Red Sox this past week, his agent said he was ready to “move on”. Instead, the Sox moved on, inking former Angels righty John Lackey to a 5 year 82.5 million dollar deal, and signing outfield defensive whiz Mike Cameron to a 2-year deal. (Interestingly, Cameron put aside his status as an elite centerfielder to sign the deal, instead professing his willingness to play left as the team’s needs dictate.) Combined with the recent acquisition of Jeremy Hermida from Florida, the glut of outfielders- and dollars spent- virtually ensures that Bay is done at Fenway.

Jason Bay did not strengthen his negotiating position with Theo Epstein by rejecting the Red Sox’ offer. Nor does having one fewer team in the market with which to sign strengthen his negotiating position with other teams. Right now Jason Bay is unemployed, and a four year 60 million dollar contract is a lot of money and security. 20 years ago (or even 11!), that contract would have made him the highest paid player in the game. But today it wasn’t better than nothing. Because Bay’s status does not exist relative to Andre Dawson’s or Dale Murphy’s or Eric Davis’. His pride, his respect, his sense of whether he is subjugated to the demands of a front office and their tools of objective analysis and value-discernment, or whether he feels that he has the power and authority to get what he wants is on the line. He may of course get what he wants. He may still be in the position to demand, rather than to receive, to be the alpha male to Omar Minaya’s endless beta. Or he may be a drunk with no money and a black eye. It may not be fair, but it’s what he asked for.

- - -

photo 1 here. photo 2 here. photo 3 here

At that point, Martinez had given up just 2 runs in 6 innings- that’s good for a very un-daddied ERA of 3.00, and had racked up 8 strikeouts. More importantly, Pedro was doing something braver than probably every chanting yahoo in that stadium had ever done: Pedro dragged his old, frail body (by baseball standards), out to the mound, the loneliest place in the world, and risked what seemed like certain humiliation in front of tens of thousands of the people who were praying for precisely that humiliation.

But Pedro delivered, standing up to the vaunted Yankees lineup and sitting them down, and so the Bronx crowd simply pretended they got what they wanted- a subjugated Martinez.

Pedro did not remain aloof, however; he took the bait, and allowed the Bronx crowd to constitute reality. And it was enough to provoke a gestalt shift. Instead of a successful outing, Pedro was demeaned, stats be damned. After retiring the side moments after the Matsui homer, cameras spotted Pedro talking with Phillies manager Charlie Manuel in the dugout. Martinez had a pained expression on his world-weary face. He was going out for the 7th. Pedro was not about to cut his losses and fold.

So the world saw Pedro tell Manuel “I’m fine”. Despite the physical evidence, Grady Little couldn’t deny it, and Charlie Manuel couldn’t deny it. The word “I”, itself so slender and ethereal, comes out of Pedro’s mouth with heft and force.

But Pedro’s ego was not fine. He was wounded by Matsui and the chant. Nor was his body fine; Pedro was near 100 pitches. He’s now 38 years old. All that was left was drive. But no driver. Just the inchoate will to power.

Pedro’s’ characterization of himself was deliberately misleading; it was not a description of the state of his self at all, but a command, an order to Manuel that he not exercise what suddenly was only nominal authority over the lineup card. Pedro’s “I’m fine” meant that he was in charge, not his manager. “I’m fine” meant “I’m not fine but I’d rather die out there than let it end in here.”

Whatever else that is, that’s not defeat. Yankees fans are not his daddy. That may be Yankee Stadium dirt out there, but its Pedro’s ditch, boss. In that house Pedro stood up to them all and tossed a gem. A.J. Burnett being younger and faster does not make the fans or the Yankees his daddy, just as Dragline being bigger than (Cool Hand) Luke don’t make Dragline Luke’s daddy neither. He struck out Derek Jeter twice. He struck out Alex Rodriguez twice. Pedro still aims the fastball up and in like it was 1999.

Pedro started the seventh, of course. He promptly hung a changeup to Jerry Hairston, who dunked a single to right. Melky Cabrera followed with sharper base hit. Pedro, already exhausted, was removed. The boos rained down on Pedro, the world-shaker who claimed to be the most influential player in Yankee Stadium history, as he walked off the mound. Pedro just smiled.

That’s how Cool Hand Luke ends too, you know.

As Dragline puts it,

“He was smiling… That’s right. You know, that, that Luke smile of his. He had it on his face right to the very end. Hell, if they didn’t know it ‘fore, they could tell right then that they weren’t a-gonna beat him. That old Luke smile. Oh, Luke. He was some boy. Cool Hand Luke. Hell, he’s a natural-born world-shaker.”

- - -

Cool Hand Luke photo here

8:08 PM. Because catchers are too tough to be injured by violent projectiles, baseball etiquette has it that if a catcher gets hit with a foul ball, and needs to wince a while, the ump dilly-dallies around home plate, pretending he has things to do that justify the stop in play. Three pitches in, Jorge Posada takes a foul tip off the sullied flesh. The ump can’t plausibly pretend to clean an unused plate, so he stands there. Fox cameras pan around, while Joe Buck and Tim McCarver (mercifully) say nothing.

8:14 The Phillies leave the bases loaded in the first when Raul Ibanez rolls over a 3-1 fastball. They could have set the tone, gotten in Sabathia’s head, and shut up the crowd. The Phils had C.C. hanging in the meat locker, but they let him off the hook.

8:43 Joe Buck tells me I “should” look forward to Jay Z and Alicia Keys performing tomorrow. I wish Buck would tell me the theory of morality from which he derived that imperative so I could vomit intellectually.

8:44 Now Buck tells me that Jimmy Rollins appeared in MC Hammer music videos. Just more misleading, superficial analysis from Fox Sports. If they had used Sabermetric analysis, they’d know he was really in Biz Markie videos.

8:50 With a  2-0 count to Chase Utley in the 3^rd, Sabathia shakes off three signs, including a fastball away, and Utley calls ‘time’. McCarver deduces that Sabathia must want a fastball in. C.C. then shakes off “fastball in”. Buck and McCarver, reading Posada’s signs, realize that “he wants a changeup in”. Sabathia throws a fastball in. Buck and McCarver sit in befuddled silence for four seconds.

8:52 After fouling off three pitches, Utley pops out to the first row of the right field bleachers, for a Yankee Stadium home run. 1-0 Phillies. Nice Walt Hriniak one handed swing there.

8:55 A Blackberry commercial asks triumphantly: “Who says lightning never strikes twice?” Well, I Googled it.  According to phrases.org, it was P.H. Myers in 1857. Do I get a free Blackberry?

8:57 Hearing Nick Swisher’s name as he comes up to the plate reminds me that Yankee radio broadcaster John Sterling yelped “Swish-a-licious!” in delight after the Yankee rightfielder doubled up Vlad Guerrero at first base in the ALCS.

9:01 Cliff Lee’s 1-1 curve down and away to Johnny Damon was so nasty it actually made Damon’s swing look worse.

9:06 After the Utley dong, C.C. unleashes his first nasty chase-inducing slider in the dirt, K’ing Jayson Werth in the 4th. Sabathia then promptly gets Ibanez looking on a sharp biting curve. With teeth. Oh crap.

9:20 Tim McCarver notices an interesting pitch sequence. Changeup in, five varied fastballs, and a changeup down and away on a full count to whiff A-Rod for the second out in 4^th. Which is apparently one of the two times a day a broken clock is right.

9:46 Dong!!! Utley strikes twice, Blackberry! Now where’s my Tab?!

10:04 On a meager bloop back to the mound, Lee stands still, and casually reaches out to nab the pop up. McCarver, engaging in another transcendental argument, reasons that “that had to bring smiles to all his teammates.” Realizing he’s saying something easily falsified, he adds “Except those on the field.” And if it helps: and except those on the bench, because they’re not playing and it’s cold.

10:26 Apparently, the rumors of Ken Rosenthal’s’ demise are greatly exaggerated, as Joe Buck reports that “Ken Rosenthal is still with us.”

10:31 Jimmy Rollins steals second base on a 3-0 count, as Jorge Posada throws a foul ball to what I can only infer was supposed to be second base.

10:43 With a runner on 3^rd and Victorino on 1^st, and 2 outs in the 8^th, McCarver wonders what’s going through Posada’s mind. Well, I know what’s not going through his arm- talent. Zing. Double zing.

10:50 A-Rod makes his third tentative throw across the diamond, to retire the side in the 8^th. He’s back in that nervous, nervous head of his. He’s thinking Chuck Knoblauch.

11:04 With Brian Bruney- that gas house gorilla- pitching, Carlos Ruiz drills a double on the only pitch he can hit: a fastball down the middle. He learned that at the Doug Mirabelli all-you-can-eat hitting school.

11:13 Fox cameras show Jeter standing there, doing nothing, doing nothing, doing nothing, saying “ataboy”, scratching his knee. What a great leader.

11:23 Leading off the 9^th down 6-0, Jeter dunks a hall of fame Texas Leaguer into center field.  Damon then lines a single to right. First time Yankees have had two runners on. I get that pit in my stomach. 2004 almost made that go away. Almost.

11:26 Cliff Lee K’s A-Rod for the third time. Chuck Knoblauch, we hardly knew ye.

11:29 Posada to the plate, 2 outs in the bottom of the 9^th. He had his one hit in the first inning, and that’s it for the .200 career World Series hitter. He K’s. Game over. Phillies take Game 1, 6-1. Cliff Lee: 9 IP, 0 ER, 6 H, 10 K, 0 BB

Pedro goes in Game 2 tomorrow. I can’t bear to watch. I feel like my baby is off to play football, and he’s going to get hurt.

- - - - -

photo 1 here

photo 2 here

Pedro has not been a Cy Young contender for half a decade now, and it could be argued that one should be accustomed to his new identity as a mediocre finesse pitcher. But they don’t demolish tombstones after mourning; death may be accepted, but it is not something to get used to and ignore like so many national crises during a twitter-quittin’.

Friday, Martinez made his first postseason start since Game 3 of the 2004 World Series, his last appearance in a Red Sox uniform. Pedro rattled off 7 shutout innings, walking none on two hits. But Pedro dwelled on his advanced age nonetheless. “Only an old goat like me can pull that trick,” Martinez said, thereby revealing the conflict between the uniquely great Pedro, and the aged, beaten down animal, subject to death, as we all are.

With his dark curls puffing out from his ears and neck, and the noonday Los Angeles sun shining directly overhead, casting a dark shadow from the brim of his Philadelphia Phillies cap over his face, Martinez appeared encircled by a black halo.

The TBS broadcast team wondered whether Pedro’s “pedigree would overcome his rust”, Martinez not having pitched in 17 days. Physicists have yet to demonstrate that reputation can add any miles per hour to the fastball, though Pedro provides at least anecdotal evidence that it does. Despite falling behind hitters all afternoon, and consistently having to come in with a fastball not reaching 90 mph until the middle innings, the Dodgers’ swings were too late. The moment was past. Never to be recovered.

Former Red Sox teammate Manny Ramirez, a career 6 for 36 with 16 strike outs against Pedro, numbers mostly compiled when Pedro was an immortal and Manny an Indian, lead off the second inning. On his first pitch to Manny, a fastball up and in, Pedro announced his presence with authority, letting Ramirez know that this was Pedro, the man who once was an angel of death to hitters. But Ramirez didn’t budge. Manny, the veteran who recaptured his prime of youth in a free agent year and was suspended for performance enhancing drug violations shortly thereafter, has himself stuck it to death, suspending the decline phase of his career; steroids are nothing if not life and youth affirming. Here, though, the two aging Dominican stars battled for the gaudiest tombstone, even after the Cooperstown plaque is assured. Pedro fell behind in the count 2-0, and was forced to come down the middle to the feared Ramirez. Manny fouled it off, defaulting on the pitch he should have owned, and on the 2-1 count Martinez jammed Ramirez up and in on an 89 mph fastball, even with the catcher set up down and away. Martinez had gotten away with missed location, as if he had the fastball and daring of his youth. He would continue to do so all afternoon, not striking out a hitter until the 5^th inning, but instead inducing feeble pop ups with only his reputation and the fear of death.

Pedro has become the sort of pitcher who throws the indiscernible. No longer is each pitch an exemplar or prototype of the ideal fastball, change and curve. Though he retains those pitches, he’s mostly a 4 seamer at 90, 91, a two seamer at 89, a cutter at 86, a sinker at 85, a je ne sais quoi at 82. (Hopefully, he has not resorted to putting snot on the ball.) Similar in type, his pitches shade and slough off into one another, differing only in their tail ends. Pedro cannot afford a straight line, the shortest distance between two points being the trip from birth to death; linearity is not what Pedro needs. Pedro must stay off-center, ec-centric, a deviation from the paradigm pitches of his past, an elliptical rather than circular orbit around the strike zone.

His sequences became more artistic as the game wore on, as Pedro protected the 1-0 Philadelphia lead, looking to take a 2-0 series advantage in the NLCS. He got his first strikeout in the 5^th, whiffing Casey Blake on his finest changeup of the afternoon, and then K’ed Belliard in the next at-bat to end the inning. In the 7^th, facing Andre Ethier, the old goat dropped in a 69 mph curve for a called strike, a 75 mph change for strike two, and then ramped up the velocity to an 89 mph fastball up and in, jamming Ethier, and generating a weak, punchless ground-out to second. Manny Ramirez then loped to the plate yet again, the perpetual tying run in a 1-0 affair. Pedro badly missed on a cutter away for ball one, overthrown, overexerted. Pedro then got Manny to pull foul a cutter middle-in, and then jammed him down and in with a fastball, which Manny chopped foul for strike two. Manny, thwarted and frustrated, lunged at a changeup which died in mid-flight and was buried in the dirt. With Pedro on to his final out, a valiant return to the postseason, James Loney drove a long fly ball to deep center; in one pitch, the work appeared undone, the highly ordered state of life and artistry dissipated into the equilibrium of the tie. But centerfielder Shane Victorino made the catch on the warning track, and Pedro, the old goat, somewhat sheepishly pumped his fist as he walked off the mound, his start finished after 7 scoreless.

The Phillies would blow the lead in the 8^th on a series of miscues, the absurdist’s vision of a meaningless life lead in error. Pedro could only watch undoing his work, erasing what had appeared set in stone.

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photo here

For many, a team’s “expected record”–the record derived from the run differential–becomes the record the team should have, a Platonic ideal that becomes more real than the actual record, which is due merely to luck or to those somewhat non-existent forces existing in between the margins of error.

But baseball fans know it’s not luck, that there’s a peculiar gust of metaphysical breeze that only swirls on the baseball diamond.

This year, the New York Yankees sail on that wind. Whereas the Boston Red Sox are rudderless, anchored, mired.

The Yankees have not scored their runs randomly. They have scored when it’s been demoralizing, or when it fits the narrative. The Yankees won 103 regular season games, though their (run differential generated) expected record gave them 97 scientific wins. The Sox won 95 regular season games. Their expected record in the laboratory? 95 wins. The Sox in 2009 are entirely a function of the numbers, completely lacking in magic. The Yankees went 22-16 in one run games, 7-3 in extra innings. When Mark Teixeira blasted a 2-1 fastball into the left field seats for a 4-3 Yankee win in Game 2 of the ALDS to take a 2-0 series lead, after the game-tying 2 run blast from Alex Rodriguez off a Joe Nathan fastball in the bottom of the 9^th, it was the Yankees’ 16^th walk off win of the year, most in the big leagues.

Baseball is a domain of numbers, rules, and data, but it is also a safe place for religious emotions, for faith, hope, redemption, and salvation. These poles coalesce between the lines. The Yankees, so often corporate robots–and despite an unprecedented half-billion dollar free agent spending spree last winter–have played the role of human beings this year. They have been spontaneous and spirited, each word connoting freedom from law. They have been jocular and playful,  splattering each other with pies, as if they were actually people. As a Red Sox fan, I must say I find this disturbing.

It’s not all due to the Yankees, of course. The moments find the Yankees, and as a result, they give up fewer runs than would be expected based on their opponent’s performance; magic is harnessed, not generated. With two outs in the top of the 4^th, with the game still tied at zero, Yankee starter A.J. Burnett hit Delmon Young and Chris Gomez back to back. Matt Tolbert delivered a clutch single to right, appearing to drive in Young with the game’s first run. But as Gomez rounded second, gravity took over, sending him sprawling into the dirt. Swisher’s throw from right field came in to Jeter standing on second, who tagged out Gomez before the go-ahead run could score, ending the inning and keeping the game scoreless. But as the TBS post-game crew of Cal Ripken, Dennis Eckersely and David Wells pointed out,  Jeter was out of position; he should have been lined up with third base to take a potential cutoff throw. (Of course, Jeter was equally out of position on his famous “flip” play in 2001). But that’s magic–you don’t follow the rules  or laws of nature, and shit just works out. (And that’s why baseball scientists love to claim that Jeter doesn’t exist, or at least that what he seems to do doesn’t. One can claim in rebuttal, of course, that Jeter’s magic hasn’t helped the Yankees stay off the golf course the last 8 Octobers. But that only proves the point; if magic were reliable, it wouldn’t be magic. It would be a scientific regularity, a predictable consequence of a natural phenomenon.)

The Yankees benefited from blown calls and Minnesota buffoonery. Not that the Yankees are not good; their performance is grounded in pure physical and scientifically discernible talent. But baseball would be the stock market if it wasn’t more than numbers. And though the Yankee payroll does its level-best to conflate the two, the Yankees players have actually managed to exhibit, as above, at least the appearance of humanity this season, a “causal Friday” answer  to the Red Sox’ “cowboy ups” and “idiots” of years past.

The current Red Sox, by contrast, have been mechanical, complete with breakdowns and pit stops, freeze-ups and crashes. They are determined by the numbers, bereft of humanity. They provide no drama, no conflict, no strife. Compared to other playoff teams, the 2009 Sox have been woeful against the league’s top starters, and the Sox in the playoffs are doing their best to conform to the evidence.

Sox teams have come down from 0-2 ALDS deficits before (in ‘99 and ‘03), and of course from ALCS deficits of 3-0 and 3-1 in 2004 and 2007. And the physical metaphor of ‘momentum’ has always been incongruous, as it shifts without a proximate cause. But a Sox team that has scored 1 run in 18 playoff innings, contrasted with a Yankees team that scores whenever it hurts, is in trouble.

There’s probably no magic in the physical world, no avoiding the rigorous determinism of the quantitative laws of nature. In baseball, though, there is that “it”, the mystical quality a team has that allows it to generate wins when it is dramatic, not because it is a function of their aggregations, and not as a random distribution over an endless succession of sample innings. Units of 9 are gestalts, and October is unique. And, I’ll concede, even the Yankees having the magic is better than a universe in which it doesn’t exist.

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photo here

According to The New Jersey Star-Ledger,

In a lawsuit filed last week in federal court in Newark, three Millburn High School students contend [minor league] Newark Bears president and co-owner Thomas Cetnar berated them, cursed at them and then booted them from the ballpark after they failed to stand for ["God Bless America"] during the seventh-inning stretch.  “Nobody sits during the singing of ‘God Bless America’ in my stadium,’” Cetnar bellowed during the June 29 incident, according to the suit. “Now get the [expletive] out of here.”  The teens — Millburn High seniors Bryce Gadye and Nilkumar Patel, both 17, and junior Shaan Mohammad Khan, 16 — argue the treatment and their ejection violated their rights under the Constitution, along with federal and state public accommodation laws and state law against discrimination.

How disgusting. The ejection, of course, is entirely justified.

When a baseball fan buys a ticket, he not only purchases the right to be entertained by the transpirings of a baseball game. He also purchases the duty to join a homogeneous collective, a pennant-waving foam-finger-pointing super-organism, a creature unified by belief-molecules and passion-atoms.  Don’t you ever read the fine print on the back of the ticket? That’s on there.

Those damn kids were disrespectful. By standing out by sitting down, they choked off the arteries of the super-organism, and injected cancerous foreign agents into the Voltron-esque uber-baseball fan bloodstream, ironically strengthened by the watered-down beverages peddled at Newark’s Bears and Eagles Riverfront Stadium.

I buy tickets for moments such as those that compel Boston Red Sox play-by-play announcer Don Orsillo to reverentially intone “The Fenway crowd rises as one!” But how are we, the crowd, supposed to achieve oneness when a couple of kids are not arranged vertically? How dare they!

Baseball is a religion, and the stadium is the church. Religion is about collective bonding too: etymologically ‘religion’ is related to ‘ligament’ and ‘ligature’, all of which mean ‘to tie together’; religion is about supernatural bonds. People who pray together stay together, I’m told. So when I go to the ballpark, I expect- nay, demand- some good old fashioned entirely American democratic submission to religious prayer rituals, where everyone is forced together, in one unbreakable bond.

Sure, watching a baseball game is about appreciating the skill and artistry of the world-class athlete, but that’s not all, my friend. I pay my admission for submission, to stand worshipfully and reverentially before something greater than myself, be it Red Sox Nation, Yankee Universe, or The King of Beers. If I had been there, those kids would have prevented me  from being absorbed into the homogeneous whole, from becoming just one drop in an ocean of vicarious sweating.

I fear what this country is becoming, when people can sue for not having to submit to a collective prayer song, for rebelling against their duty to go through a religious ritual at a public event. It’s already happened at Yankee Stadium.

According to the AP,

In July, the Yankees and New York City settled a lawsuit with a fan who said he was ejected from Yankee Stadium by police after he left his seat to use the bathroom during the playing of “God Bless America.” The city did not admit liability in the settlement, but agreed to give the fan $10,001 and pay $12,000 in legal fees. The Yankees changed their policy, and fans at the team’s new stadium are allowed to move freely during the song.

Moving freely? Freedom isn’t free. We pay for it by standing up at our seats!

Newark Bears Owner Cetnar acted appropriately in protecting his own financial interests, which is his money, dammit. If I can’t submerge with the whole, and be taken out with the crowd, I won’t ever go back to that ballpark. Anything that breaks the spell of unity should be met with hostility (cheering for the other team will get you a beer dumped on your head, wiseguy.)

But guys that root for the other team, they’re people too, sure. We learn that during the patriotic song breaks, which unify by transcending the partisan and parochial differences between opposing squads, even bringing rivals together. Now, you might argue that this is just to say there is no unity to be found in baseball itself, and that it takes something other than The Game- such as God or Nation- to unify us, we who are otherwise combative and hostile and insular. You might go on to say that this is perverse, that the beauty of baseball, the beauty of the ballpark, is that it’s a place where people divided even over culture and politics can find a higher unity in what is universal, in The Game they love.

Well, I’d say that makes you gay.

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Voltron Photo here

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Because only finesse pitching is magic. According to the regular old boring laws of physics, objects in motion stay in motion; once the non-finesse pitcher releases the ball, it’s out of his hands, so to speak, a mere projectile rocketing along its determined path. Not so for “soft tossers.” Finesse guys such as Byrd exercise control over their creations even after they leave the hand (like in Nintendo’s original RBI Baseball). Finessed pitches respond to body language and wishes. They are painstakingly guided to the plate, coaxed into cutting or diving or tailing at the last possible moment, just nicking the corners. They are evidence of intelligent design, not just the explosive biological technology of the plus shoulder. Slow curveballs are feathers dancing in the wind, hard fastballs are gunshots that dangerously kick back. Slow curves are delightful white magic, hard fastballs are a power that can fall into the wrong hands. A fastball is a bomb, a changeup is cutting the blue wire.

However fluid the boundary between the finesse pitcher’s self and the world can be, it has a freezing point. Oneness with everything may prove illusory, a wishful hope for communion.

Byrd, of course, is a truly mediocre pitcher, at best. In 3 starts with Boston this year since coming out of retirement in August, including a 5 inning no-decision against sad sack Baltimore last night, he has only managed to conjure up a 6.08 ERA and a 1.88 WHIP, striking out just 5 in 13.1 innings.

Worse, Byrd spectacularly fails to live up to the finesse pitcher ideal- coaxing outs out of a timid fastball- against lefthanded hitters. In his pitch sequences to his gauche foes, there is constant disappointment: no magic, no suspension of disbelief, just a guy with his hand up a puppet’s butt (as they say.) The trick Byrd does not manage to pull off is going inside to lefties, which leaves Byrd pitching with one hand tied behind his back.

Byrd’s splits were terrible in 2008 (with Cleveland and Boston); though he pitched well against righties- .255 BA/.283 OBP/.424 SLG, for a .707 OPS- his line of .317/.358/.529 against lefties- for a .887 OPS- was brutal. Revealingly, of his 34 walks in 2008, 25 were to lefties, the asymmetry of which suggests trepidation. And 5 of his 7 hit-by-pitches were against righties, suggesting he dared go inside only to them.

In 2009, the trend continues. Lefties have 10 hits in 26 AB’s against Byrd, 6 for extra bases, for a .385 BA, and a staggering 1.176 OPS. But he has held righties to only a .690 OPS. And yes, 5 of 6 walks are to lefties.

Finesse pitchers must pull off the illusion of appearing as power pitchers. But to lefties too; they’re not just righties in a mirror.

Mike Mussina enjoyed a renaissance in the last year of his career, winning 20 games in 2008 after a horrid 2007. A large part of Mussina’s revival was his improvement throwing the front-door fastball to lefthanded hitters; it looks like its coming inside off the plate from the righthanded pitcher, but at the last instant moves back over the inside corner. (Mussina in 2008: .858 OPS vs. righties, .592 vs. lefties. In 2007, .822 OPS vs. righties, .799 vs. lefties.) Byrd lacks this pitch, which is magic, after all; it bends backwards, going against the grain, back from whence it came. It hypnotizes; lefties freeze in their tracks.

I like to imagine a metaphysical extension of the self in the finesse pitcher; his will extends beyond the confines of his body to continue to finesse the ball as it travels to home, its teleological destination. But even this sorcerer’s power deteriorates with age, and Byrd has only been resurrected due to injury and ineffectiveness of several Sox starters. Byrd probably will not see the playoff roster even if his Boston teammates do. But I’m sure he can finagle a job finally revealing finesse pitching’s biggest secrets for a second-tier network.

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