Dr. Metablog

Damn Yankees

The Yankees 2009 payroll was $201,449,189, exceeding the next largest (the Mets) by more than $50,000,000.  The median major league payroll was about $80,000,000 and the lowest $36,834,000.  With 103 wins in regular season, each victory cost the Yankees $1,955,810.  The other teams that made it to the playoffs incurred considerably smaller but greatly varying costs per win:  Boston Red Sox, $1,285,300;  Philadelphia Phillies, $1,215,097; Los Angeles Angels $1,172,325; Los Angeles Dodgers, $1,056,995; St. Louis Cardinals, $852,803; Colorado Rockies $817,402;  Minnesota Twins, $816,165.  Should we be surprised that the Yankees could beat the Phils?  Given the numbers, it would have been shocking if they couldn't.

Cheers to the Cardinals, Rockies, and Twins. 

Cost per victory is a measure of management efficiency.  By far the most effective 2009 team, dollar for dollar, was the frugal Florida Marlins, who won 87 games at a cost of just $423,379 per win.  On the other end of the scale, the woeful New York Mets, with just 70 successes, were the only team to pay more per win than the Yankees.  It cost the Mets $2,133,910 each time that they walked off the field in triumph.  

As long as the Yankees are allowed to pay salaries one-third larger than their nearest competitors and two and a half times more than the median, it must be expected that they will win regularly  -- which is why I'm for rigorous, enforced parity.  Let's level that playing field.

And with all that money, how to account for the fact that the Yankees sported such an entirely run-of-the-mill outfield.  Melky Cabrera?  Nick Swisher?  Gosh, there must be better players than those to entice to the brand new ballpark.

Which brings us to the next spending spree.   

Another Baseball Dream

I have recurrent baseball dreams, most of them nightmarish. The most frequent is that I hit a sharp line drive to right, start for first but run as if I were stuck in a sea of mucilage.  My legs won't move. The right fielder throws me out before I'm halfway down the line.  I leave the field in disgrace, thirty-thousand fans vigorously booing.  What does it mean?  "I can't get to first base" sounds like an adolescent sexual worry, but I suspect that such an interpretation might be too specific. Let's just say that the theme of the nightmare is ineffectiveness and frustration.  

What a relief, then, that this World Series time I can report on a very pleasant dream.  My team (Dodgers or Phillies or just a bunch of nameless guys) was pounding the Yankees.  (Cultural context for you non-Brooklynites out there in Bloglandia: the New York Yankees represent all that is evil in American society, and have done so since the days of Joe Page and Snuffy Stirnweiss and Charley Keller, or for some sixty-plus years.  There is no question but that the rich, whiny, crybaby Yankees are the special favorites of Bernie Madoff, Ann Coulter, and Dick Cheney.)  In the dream, my side hit one opposite-field line drive after another and the score went from 5-0 to 13-0 to 17-0.  Finally, we brought to the plate a cute, tow-headed four-year-old boy.  He blasted the first pitch over the head of their center fielder and knocked in three more runs. I woke up elated, and in an aroused condition that gave me confidence that, yes, I could get to first base. Possibly to third base.  Perhaps even score.  .  

As Time Goes By ( in Baseball Years)

Two nights ago, I watched the Phillies trounce the Dodgers, 11-0. What a colossal drubbing!  HDTV let me appreciate Cliff Lee's southpaw masterpiece in exquisite detail. But for me the most memorable moment of the evening wasn't Lee's artistry or 270-pound Ryan Howard's mad-dash triple to right.  Instead, it was the discovery that the Phillies' lanky, awkward-but-effective scraggly-bearded right fielder Jayson Werth sports a noteworthy baseball pedigree  His grandfather was Dicky Schofield, a good-field no-hit infielder from the 1950s -- from the days of my golden youth. Holy jumping jiminy!  I saw this young feller's grampa play! 

Youch!  More evidence, as if more were needed, of my long-in-the-toothedness.

Why should I be surprised?  I went to my first baseball game in 1946;  (At Ebbets Field -- Cardinals 3, Dodgers 1.)  Before there was TV.  I've been attending to the game for 63 years.  Close to three generations. 

I've grown accustomed to father-son combos.  Bobby and Barry; the Griffeys (who once played together in the same outfield; Felipe and Moises; huge Cecil Fielder and his even more enormous son, Prince; the Hundleys, the Stottlemyres, and many, many others.  Sometimes I can be watching a game and suddenly lose track of time.  Eric Young, Jr. looks and runs so exactly like his father that it's easy to fall into flashback mode.  I remember watching a game in which Pedro Borbon came in to relieve.  Holy moly, I said to myself -- he's a right-handed pitcher.  Why the heck is he throwing with his left hand?  Then after a few seconds of complete bafflement it came to me: Pedro Borbon, Jr.  I had simply lost twenty-five years -- a phenomenon to which your "mature" brain is occasionally and increasingly prone.

Jayson Werth isn't even the sole grandson.  Aaron Boone's father was the catcher (and manager) Bob Boone and his grandfather was the Cleveland infielder Ray Boone, whom I also saw play, but only on the TV.  And then there's the Bell family: grandsons David and Mike, father Buddy, and grandfather Gus, a big hitter with Cincinnati during the Dicky Schofield years.  

So here's the question.  Will I hang around long enough to watch the great-grandsons play?.  Is Jayson Werth married?  Does he have any kids?   Are there any budding Boones or baby Bells waiting at the horizon? 

Some Mid-Career Baseball Deaths

Ray Chapman, the most notorious of  the dead-in-mid-career, was batting .300 when he was hit on the head by a spitball thrown by Carl Mays in August of 1920. "Big Ed" Delahanty, a Hall-of-Famer, fell drunk off the International Bridge at Niagara Falls in 1903.  Cory Lidle, Thurman Munson, Nestor Chavez, Ken Hubbs and the great Roberto Clemente died in plane crashes.  Many players, including Nick Adenhart, a pitcher of great promise until April 9, 2009, have died in car crashes.  Danny Frisella died in a dune buggy accident.  Steve Olin and Tim Crews ran their motorboat into a pier in 1993.  Steve Bechler was a 2003 victim of Ephedra. Tiny Bonham and Jake Daubert died of appendicitis, Harry Agganis of a blood clot, Darryl Kile was found dead in his hotel room, having succumbed to an unsuspected heart defect. Urban Shocker died of pneumonia, Danny Thompson of leukemia.  Dernell Stinson, Gus Polidor, Dave Shotkowski and Lyman Bostock were murdered.  Just last year, Geremi Gonzalez was struck by lightning. Jim Umbricht died of cancer at age 34. His ashes were spread over the field he loved.  Unfortunately, he played at domed stadium with artificial grass, so after a few days, he was vacuumed up and spends eternity in a Texas landfill.    

Told You So, Said I Did

A while back, I complained about Allen Iverson.  Here's what I said:  "he can do everything on the basketball court except win....  When the Nuggets come down the floor, whether Iverson eventually shoots or not, he clings to the ball and dribbles around while the rest of the team stand and watch.  Iverson turns his teammates into spectators....  He isn't going to become a team player;  he's 31 years old and he's averaged 23 shots a game with a .422 shooting percentage for an entire career."  "The Answer," I said, was not the answer.  Not even close.

But things have changed for the Nuggets.  They finally unloaded Iverson -- which would have been blessing enough.  Detroit put him on the shelf -- didn't even play him at the end of the season.  But in exchange the Nuggs received Chauncey Billups, who is everything Iverson is not:  a skilled point guard, an intelligent man, a team player.  A leader, a defender.  It's marvelous how one player can change the complexion of a team.  The Nuggets are now a serious contender.  I like their chances against the Lakers.

Was it a brilliant move by the team owners and management?   I'm not privy to the details, but I'd say, not brilliance -- just plain dumb luck.  I don't think they knew either how bad Iverson was or how good Billups could be.

Bad planning, in any case.  If management could have guessed that the Nuggets would make it to the western conference final, would they have let Marcus Camby and Eduardo Najera slip through their cheapskate fingers a year ago?  No -- they would have made the investment that one makes when a championship is a possibility. The Lakers can put three seven-footers (Bynum, Gasol, Odom) on the floor at the same time -- wouldn't we love it if we could bring in Camby (an all-league defensive player) to help Nene?  And who's going to guard Bryant?  Dahntay Jones will take a crack at it, but wouldn't it be helpful if Najera could have given us some minutes as well -- if not to stop Bryant, at least to bang him around a bit?

And hey, does anyone remember that we gave up not only Andre Miller but two first-round draft picks for 'The Answer'?  We might have had a dynasty in the making if we had played our cards right -- and been willing to pay the freight.  Two first-round picks, I repeat.

So the Nuggs have a chance -- but not the chance they might have had if they'd been a little smarter, a little more imaginative, a little less tightfisted..

My New Career - III

This blague's enthusiastic readers are well aware that each year for the last two, Dr. M. has made himself available for the NBA draft, but that not a single team has selected him, even the lowly, strife-ridden Knicks.  It's incomprehensible, but true. Why are these GMs so unadventurous?  

As a consequence of being overlooked, I'm developing an entirely new marketing strategy this year.  I'm no longer going to sit at home waiting for the telephone to ring.  Heck, no!  I'm going to advertise my skills by competing in the dunking contest.  

I've developed three imaginative new dunks, any one of which could carry the day and get me the attention I require.   

The first is a variation of "making change."  I drive to the basket, leap into the air with a basketball in my left hand.  With the right hand,  I leave a quarter on the top of the backboard and take down the dime that's been previously placed there. With the left hand, I gracefully drop the ball through the net. 

My second dunk.  I have a ball in each hand and put another one under my shirt.  I spring, dunk both basketballs authoritatively and successively, then grab the third one and throw it high into the air. I land right under the backboard, and then, without pause, immediately spring into the air again and power that third one through just as it comes down into the cylinder.   

I've perfected these two moves, which, I can say without bragging, are far more interesting than anything I saw in the contest last year.  To be absolutely honest, so far I've only done them with six-foot rim and with those mini-basketballs that they sometime distribute free during the second half timeouts.  Not to worry -- I'm working on it every day and in a couple of weeks I'll be ready for the standard rim and full-sized basketball.  There's still plenty of time before All-Star Weekend. .

My third dunk is even more extraordinary.  I start at the far basket and do a series of back handsprings and back flips across the floor.  Then, as I approach the target basket, I pick up a basketball between my ankles, and with one final back flip -- in which my feet are actually above the level of the rim --.  I slam that sucker home. It's going to be something spectacular to watch, I guarantee,  just a soon as I work out a few kinks in the execution. .

BASKETBALL ANNOUNCER EXHIBITS PROFOUND KNOWLEDGE OF BIBLE

I watched the Nuggets beat the living whatchamacallit out of the Toronto Raptors.  Actually, I didn't watch the entire game -- it was a gruesome mismatch.  I can endure only so much garbage time at a single sitting.  The high point, for me, was a comment by one of our home team announcers (I'll not reveal his name).  Toronto has a reserve point guard named Willie Solomon, who acquired the nickname "King Solomon" when he played for Maccabi Tel Aviv in 2005.  "Must be a reference to the movie," suggested our announcer.  I'm guessing that he means King Solomon's Mines.

Ignorant schmuck.

The Sculpin. Slimy or Mottled?

Knowing little of the finny tribe, I borrowed the Bradford Public Library's copy of Langdon's introductory Fishes of Vermont (2006).  It's an excellent, informative, helpful guide. With Langdon's help, I can now declare that it's undeniably the brown bullhead, a species of catfish, that has been multiplying in our pond,  The bullhead, a villainous omnivore, is one of the causes of the steep decline of our population of frogs.  The butt-ugly, scaleless, bebarbelled brute gobbles frog eggs.    

Readers of this blague will not be astonished to learn that Dr. M .has fallen deeply in love with fish names.  Take the brown bullhead, for example.  It's also known by such evocative and lunatic denominations as the horned pout, the mudcat, and the minister.  Minister?  To whom, or under what circumstances, would a brown bullhead minister?

My favorite Vermont fish, nomenclature-wise, is the slimy sculpin, also performing under such titles as the blob, the chucklehead, the rock cusk, the stargazer, and the cockatouch.  The slimy sculpin should not be confused with its near cousin, the mottled sculpin -- which can also be addressed as the slowfish or gudgeon. 

Many of the common Vermont fishes have lost their colorful historic names.  The bowfin was once called the John A. Gindle, the stonecat was the doogler, the lake trout was the togue or longue, the burbot was variously ling or lawyer (lawyer? minister?  why not accountant? or dentist?), the quillback was the buffalo, and the gar was the needlenose. On the other hand, the blandly-named pond perch of olden days is trending in the reverse direction:  it's now called the pumpkinseed -- a name which seems curiously vegetarian for a denizen of the deep.   

If I had known that there was a fish called the cisco (known on jolly days as the tollibee and on prosaic days as the sand herring), I would long ago have promoted Galen Cisco to my all-time-great Baseball-Fish Team, adding him to such piscine luminaries as Catfish Hunter, Dizzy Trout, Chico Salmon, Sid Bream, Bobby Sturgeon, Art "Red" Herring, and Shad Roe.

No Sculpins in MLB that I can recall, but In a more poetic universe, "Slimy" Sculpin would have been a spitball pitcher, or perhaps even a team owner.

My New Career - II

Regular readers of this blague will remember that last year I made myself available for the NBA draft.  I'm sorry to report that not a single one of the general managers was daring enough to gamble on me.  It was disappointing and inexplicable.  I would have suspected that at least one or two of the teams would have read my official statement.   And jumped at the chance of adding me to their roster.  I was depressed for a couple of weeks, but now, every day for eleven months, I've been working on my inside moves.  Baby hook with both the right and left hands.  My basketball is worn smooth from from the concrete driveway.

I now believe that I have discovered the reason that I was not snatched by the Lakers or the Celtics or another one of the elite teams (frankly, I'm not all that enthusiastic of starting my pro career in an off-brand situation like Memphis or Denver). 

Last year, I was scrupulously honest about listing my height.  It was exactly "five feet ten and one-quarter (formerly five feet ten and three-quarter) inches." How naive I was!  Apparently, guys are exaggerating their credentials, and I now discover that chicanery and bloviation are rife in the hallowed halls of the basketball-draft world.  For example, Michael Beasley of Kansas State, supposedly 6' 10", measured only 6' 7" even wearing sneakers.  Derrick Rose of Memphis dropped from 6' 4" to 6' 1".  You see what's happening -- I'm playing the draft game fair and square and so I don't get the same kind of publicity that the guys do who tweak their credentials. 

So there will be some changes on my application this year.  a) I'm taking out all references to my atrial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy -- it hasn't bothered me for months and certainly doesn't stop me from playing at my peak for periods of 3 or 4 minutes at a stretch.  So that's gone.  b) I'm also going to list my height at 6' 2 1/2".  A slight exaggeration but I doubt anyone will notice because I play big.  Also, I'm wearing thick soles. c) In the interest of absolute truth, I'm going to admit that I've put on a couple of pounds during the last year.  Not a deficit -- an asset.  I'm getting to the point that I could be described as a "widebody"  -- very rare in the NBA --and much coveted.  Also, my cataracts are stable and, though I take the prostate medicine every other day, there's no sign yet that it will compromise my ferocious aggressiveness.  And let me be perfectly clear -- there's not the slightest bit of truth to the rumor that I will have to frequently leave the field of play to make use of the restroom facilities. 

CCNY Basketball Ups and Downs, 1950-51

My friend (and frequent contributor to Dr. Metablog) Otis Jefferson Brown has reminded me about the crushing sports-and-morals tragedy of our joint childhoods.  It all took place in 1950/51, when I was a creeping like snail to sixth grade in P. S. 217 and Otis, a Bay Ridger, was trudging with satchel and shining morning face to P.S. 102.  Our guys, our local heroes, the CCNY basketball team, won both of the major basketball tournaments, the NIT as well as the NCAA.  The city -- New York City -- was electric with excitement.  Headlines, victory parades, demonstrations. 

The twin wins -- it never had happened before and will never happen again -- was a great event in the public sphere but an even greater one in my family.  My father had attended CCNY for a year in the 1920s but, like so many of the sons of immigrants, had to drop out to help put potatoes and black radishes on the family table. While at City, he had played on the freshman basketball team.  Would he have made the varsity?  Who can tell?  He was a strong man, a fine natural athlete, very graceful in his movements even into his 70s, and very serious about basketball.

His coach had been Nat Holman (one of the first stars of professional basketball), and Nat was still the City College coach twenty-five years later.  So whenever CCNY played, everything in our family came to a halt, and we all gathered around the Philco to listen as my father's team went down to the wire against Bradley or Kentucky or Toledo.  My father was as partisan and as jubilant as I ever knew him to be.  Not only were the victories a fulfillment of his own hopes, but it was all accomplished by a bunch of local players -- Jews and "Negroes" from the Bronx and Brooklyn who, in those days, would not have been welcome at most of the big basketball powers.  Ed Roman and Ed Warner and Irvin Dambrot and Normie Mager and Floyd Lane were household names as familiar and as admired as Koufax and Campanella. 

It was the very next year that it all blew up in our faces.  The CCNY players, or most of them, confessed to taking bribes from the gamblers and bookies and to shaving points and managing the spread.  There were indictments, "perp walks," headlines, indignant editorials.

My father was devastated.  Although in size he was only a scrappy guard, in person he was a tower of rectitude, and it was beyond his ken that our guys, even poor guys who desperately needed cash, would compromise their integrity and their futures for a few bucks.

He turned the episode into a morality play.  Every day, for a year it seems in retrospect, I heard still another lecture about keeping to the straight and narrow.  Not that there was anyone in the world who would pay me to miss a shot;  I could miss shots on my own.  But I knew what he meant.   

I've now read the Charles Rosen's Scandals of '51, how the gamblers almost killed college basketball [New York, 1971]).  It's a shoddy, melodramatic, disheartening book. Rosen makes it clear that there was more than a little nativist glee about taking CCNY and its upstart culture down a peg.  It was sad to read that players from many other colleges were also indicted (I hadn't remembered), but discouraging to learn that their defenders were happy to extol heartland values and to blame the corruption on big city depravity.  It was also sad to be reminded that the only basketball player who served hard time was Sherman White, the biggest, the best, and the blackest of all the athletes.  Nor was it pleasant to discover that although there were apparently point-shavers at St. Johns, a Catholic college, DA Frank Hogan brought no indictments against them because the evidence was "inadvertently" destroyed.

The events were a blight on my basketball-loving childhood.  But I must say that we, as a family, engineered a strong comeback.  It was only a few years after the scandals that one of those 13" black and white TVs with the rabbit ears made its first appearance in our home.  And along with the Zenith came the NBA. I think that my father was on perpetual alert for signs of malfeasance, but our faith in the game and in humanity was restored by a new set of New York heroes:  Harry Gallatin, Connie Simmons, Carl Braun, Bud Palmer, Vince Boryla, Sweetwater Clifton, Max Zaslofsky.