Miller's Bull Pennings
(Check back on a regular basis for Scott Miller's latest thoughts on the world of major league baseball.)
Early champagne parties lack fizz
Sept. 28, 8:49 p.m.
I wrote the other day about the overdone champagne celebrations when clubs clinch a playoff spot, champagne that is popped much too early in these days of expanded playoffs and wild-card spots.
The only reason I bring it up again is that, since the piece appeared, the Boston Red Sox clinched the AL wild-card spot -- and the champagne flowed.
Why, exactly?
Of course they're thrilled to be in the playoffs.
But with such a raucous celebration the message was, what?
We're thrilled to finish No. 2 to the Yankees for the seventh consecutive year!
We're No. 2!
We finished ahead of Toronto, Baltimore, Tampa Bay ... and Anaheim or Oakland, whichever tail-spinning team doesn't win the AL West!
Look, Boston's 94 wins is an incredible achievement. The Red Sox are right to celebrate.
But admit it, Red Sox fans -- wouldn't it have looked a lot better had they kept the champagne on ice until they at least won the first round of the playoffs -- or, better yet, until they knocked off the Yankees in the ALCS?
Acting like they've been there before
Sept. 24, 10:42 p.m.
The New York Yankees do a whole lot of things right, not the least of which is the way they celebrated another playoff appearance the other night.
Low key, no champagne.
That's the way the Atlanta Braves usually do it as well, and Lord knows they have had enough practice. But Friday night after clinching their 13th consecutive division title, the Braves did break out cigars, champagne and beer.
Look, this isn't an anti-alcohol screed. This isn't even meant to knock pouring champagne all over your teammates when you win a championship.
This is simply a public service reminder to ask: What's the point of breaking out the champagne to celebrate a divisional title -- or, worse, a wild-card clinching -- in this day of expanded playoffs?
Now that there are two rounds of playoffs, isn't a full-bore champagne celebration in September a whole lot premature? October is a very long month, and there is a lot further to travel after clinching a division title since the extra round was added to the playoffs in 1995.
Watching the Yankees calmly congratulate each other the other night with the look that they know full well what's left in front of them was just one more outward sign of the gulf that separates them from other American League clubs.
Granted, expectations are higher in New York than in many other places. But that shouldn't stop other clubs from also sending a strong message that they refuse to settle for a simple playoff berth by dumping the bubbly all over each other in the immediate aftermath of one.
They should wait until they at least win a round of playoffs first.
Does Melvin know he missed his calling?
Sept. 21, 1:40 a.m.
Seattle's Bob Melvin: Manager or prophet?
Late Monday night in Anaheim, after the incomparable Ichiro Suzuki went 2-for-4 in a 5-2 loss to the Angels, Melvin predicted big things despite the fact that Ichiro wasn't swinging particularly well.
"Right now, he's not squaring up too many balls, but he's getting hits," Melvin said. "Quite often, when he goes a few days not squaring the ball and is still getting his hits, he ends up getting a big-hit game pretty soon."
Such as ... the 5-for-5 night Ichiro delivered during Tuesday's 7-3 win over the Angels?
What a call by Melvin, who apparently can get work as a fortune-teller if Seattle sacks him after the season, as expected.
It's too bad. Melvin is a good guy who just happens to be in a very bad situation right now. Maybe he's no Lou Piniella, but the Mariners' decline this season has more to do with the failure of others than the failure of Melvin.
There's always got to be a fall guy, and Melvin is on deck in Seattle.
But man, can the guy make a prediction.
Giants predictably fill in the void
Sept. 21, 9:02 p.m.
The San Francisco Giants called a "major" press conference for late Tuesday afternoon.
It was "major" in the way it is "major" news when a lottery ticket winner decides to pick up his winnings.
Like the Giants weren't going to pick up Bonds' 2006 option.
When he signed his last multiyear deal with the Giants before the 2002 season, some folks viewed it as a four-year, $72 million deal and others considered it to be a five-year, $90 million deal. The latter was more to the point. The Giants had the right to void the '06 season if the Big Man failed to reach 500 plate appearances in 2005 or if he failed to reach 1,500 plate appearances combined from 2003-2005 -- including at least 400 in '05.
Given what Bonds has done -- how much he has produced, how healthy he has been, what he has meant to the Giants -- during his time in San Francisco, they weren't going to void it. And it's pretty much up to Bonds as to what he wants to do from here.
Let's see ... Bonds is 55 homers away from passing Hank Aaron to become baseball's all-time home run leader.
At his current pace, he will be on deck to pass Aaron in ... early '06.
You do the math. It adds up to Bonds staying in San Francisco for $20 million in '05 and $18 million in '06 (with $5 million of each year's salary deferred).
It would have been bigger news if the Giants had announced they were extending Bonds through the 2007 season, which is something that remains on the table.
Warning inflames skipper more than beaning
Sept. 20, 10:59 p.m.
Vladimir Guerrero was drilled in the batting helmet and forced to leave the first inning of Monday night's Anaheim-Seattle game, and what happened next was the latest example of why managers despise today's rules in which umpires deliver warnings to both benches on certain inside pitches -- and the latest example of an umpire grossly misreading the situation and making it worse.
Seattle starter Ryan Franklin smoked Guerrero on an 0-and-2 pitch with two out. Yet plate ump Wally Bell warned both benches -- despite the fact Franklin obviously wasn't throwing at Guerrero.
After Guerrero was taken off the field following a delay of several minutes, Angels manager Mike Scioscia rightly went ballistic when he learned warnings were issued. He became even more incensed when the umpires informed him they moved quickly because of alleged bad blood between the Mariners and Angels earlier this year.
More than removing the threat of retaliation, the warning essentially took away the inner part of the plate from Angels starter John Lackey. Anything too far inside could be construed by Bell as a knockdown pitch and be cause for ejection. And the game was only in the first inning.
The Angels, trailing Oakland by three games in the AL West when the game began, simply couldn't afford to have a starting pitcher begin the night handicapped, with part of the plate taken away.
Scioscia argued until he was ejected, and then he and Franklin got into a screaming match before umpires could restore order.
Two innings later, Lackey hit Seattle outfielder Randy Winn in the knee with a pitch -- it didn't appear to be on purpose -- and when Bell didn't eject Lackey, Mariners manager Bob Melvin came out and wanted to know why.
It was a legitimate question. A warning had been issued. The other pitcher should have been tossed. Bell had complicated matters needlessly.
Baseball should not put umpires in the position to try to mind-read what a pitcher is thinking. Too often, the umpires get it wrong and exacerbate a situation.
St. Louis confident about playing Ankiel card
Sept. 20, 10:25 p.m.
It's under the radar screen, just as the Cardinals want it, but ever so quietly, Rick Ankiel is working his way back into their plans. His two-inning stint Sunday was perfect. Well, not literally, in baseball terms. But he worked the fifth and sixth innings, relieving Jeff Suppan, and didn't allow a hit or a run. He struck out four Arizona hitters and did walk just one.
When he pitched for the first time this season a couple of weeks ago in San Diego, Cardinals manager Tony La Russa described himself as being as nervous as he has ever been in his professional career. That's how much the Cards think of Ankiel, who has never complained as his career inexplicably went south with Steve Blass disease.
The Cardinals are pulling for him mostly because of who he is and how he has conducted himself since his very public meltdown in the 2000 postseason. They are picking their spots and using him carefully. The interesting part will come during the first weekend of October. That's when the Cardinals must determine their playoff roster. So far, Ankiel looks like he might be able to help them.
This is one of many little dramas playing itself out underneath the curtain of the playoff races right now.
Time stands still as Bonds watch ends
Sept. 20, 10 p.m.
I feel so lost. The past two weeks, every night, it has been 'Has Barry Bonds gone deep yet?' What are we to do without Bonds shooting for No. 700? Particularly with a light schedule in the National League tonight? And don't tell me Monday Night Football.
Mets are a mess, and Howe
Sept. 13, 8:11 p.m.
So an ugly season in Queens that started with New York Mets outfielder Karim Garcia publicly urinating during spring training in Port St. Lucie appears set to end with the team ready to do the same on its manager.
And Art Howe, a good man whose personality never was suited to New York, is ready to snap.
The New York Daily News reported Monday that the Mets are planning to fire Howe at season's end, which wouldn't exactly come as the most stunning axing ever given the Mets' latest swoon.
Howe's response Monday: "Why put me through this? I'd rather have it happen now. There's no sense in waiting."
Ah, yes, nothing like putting a target on your own back.
The last laugh, of course, belongs to Howe, who is still owed $4.7 million. He gets his money either way.
Maybe the Mets will follow through and gas Howe and attempt to lure Lou Piniella away from Tampa Bay. Perhaps they will cast a wider net because Sweet Lou -- a friend of Howe's and managing back home in Tampa Bay -- is going to be difficult to lure. But whoever they get doesn't have a chance, either, if Mike Piazza, Tom Glavine, Jose Reyes, Kaz Matsui and Victor Zambrano spend as much time on the disabled list next year as they have this year.
While Howe has certainly had his share of problems in handling New York and the Mets -- for starters, the way Piazza found out he was to start working out at first base, from reporters, was an embarrassment -- it isn't as if others in the organization are making better decisions.
Matsui, the shortstop from Japan, has been a bust. Garcia and Shane Spencer embarrassed the organization this spring with a bar fight and the public urination episode. Trading their top pitching prospect, Scott Kazmir, for a pitcher who ended up on the disabled list almost immediately (Zambrano) right now appears to be a horrible decision. General manager Jim Duquette has a lot to prove.
Question is, even if the Mets do fire Howe, will anybody really notice now? Given the decisions made by the Mets over the past few seasons, it's getting more and more difficult to tell the really bad ones from the decisions that were simply bad, period.
Tank's for the memories
Sept. 13, 8:02 p.m.
I know Detroit isn't the baseball city it once was -- and with good reason -- but it's still an eye-opener driving north on Interstate 75 approaching the city and looking off toward the big Marathon oil refinery tank that had been painted like a baseball for at least the past 20 or so years.
It always advertised the Tigers on WJR, the old radio station that once carried them. Now, that same oil tank is painted brown, like a basketball, and touting the Pistons as the current NBA champions. Driving the other way, you can see the logo of the -- gulp -- Detroit Shock of the WNBA.
Nothing remains the same forever, and the Pistons certainly deserve lasting credit for squashing the Lakers and chopping Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant down to size in June, but come on. I had a friend whose mother used to tell him that the tank was a baseball Babe Ruth once hit so far out of Tiger Stadium that nobody could find it. So it sat there and grew and grew over the years until it reached its current giant size.
What are mothers supposed to tell their kids now? That Chauncey Billups once shot an air ball so far out of the Palace of Auburn Hills that it landed 40 miles down the freeway?
That could never happen.
The Palace has a roof.
If it were possible, they'd do it ...
Sept. 6, 9:20 p.m.
This just in:
Not only did the New York Yankees file a protest with the commissioner's office asking that Tampa Bay forfeit the first game of Monday's scheduled doubleheader because the Devil Rays didn't arrive in time, they filed a request with the Weather Channel to re-direct Hurricane Frances and make it tear through Boston.
...but seriously, folks
Sept. 6, 9:20 p.m., Part II
I mean, I know nice guys finish last, but nice sensitivity on the Yankees' part. Half of of the state of Florida is littered with debris, six deaths have been blamed on Hurricane Frances, millions are without power and thousands more remained in shelters. The Detroit Tigers were fine playing Monday without Ivan Rodriguez, who stayed home with his family for a day in the aftermath of Frances.
Weather delayed the Devil Rays' flight out of Florida and they didn't land in New York in time to play the scheduled 1 p.m. first game of a doubleheader, and now the Yankees want to be awarded a forfeit victory. Maybe if Hurricane Ivan hits Florida this weekend, as it might, the Yankees can figure out a way to squeeze another forfeit win or two out of it.
Ichiro extraordinary in mediocre Mariners season
Sept. 3, 10:30 p.m.
Notes while sitting here waiting for Ichiro's next at-bat ...
The guy is having the most unbelievable quiet season in memory, racing toward George Sisler's all-time hit record in the sleepy quiet of last-place Seattle and looking like he can break it.
Ichiro led the majors with 217 hits entering play Friday, leaving him only 40 short of Sisler's record 257. Ichiro is the last player to seriously challenge the record during a season, and he finished with "only" 242 hits in 2001. At his current pace of 1.6 hits per game, Ichiro will finish with 264.
The guy has been so hot lately that Toronto intentionally walked him Wednesday in the seventh inning of a 2-2 game with runners on first and third. Just call him the Barry Bonds of the AL. Toronto manager John Gibbons simply decided on such a woeful Seattle club, somebody other than Ichiro was going to have to beat the Jays.
If that strategy persists, then you can forget about Ichiro breaking Sisler's record. But it shouldn't. Unlike Bonds, Ichiro rarely will hurt opponents by putting a ball over the wall, and the Mariners are nowhere near the playoff race. Though the Mariners do play contenders down the stretch -- Anaheim and Oakland -- Ichiro should see plenty of pitches to hit.
And he's one reason to keep paying attention to the Mariners as they limp toward their first losing season since 1999.
Lose Yogi, grill the duck
Sept. 2, 5:23 p.m.
You know what I don't miss about the Olympics?
Watching those stupid Yogi Berra commercials with the insurance company duck dozens of times every night.
They're sad, Berra sitting in that chair getting his hair cut and uttering one sorry one-liner after another.
Look, Yogi is one of the true characters in a game with a rich history of great characters. The collection of Yogi's greatest hits is a must for anybody who treasures great baseball lore or terrific malaprops.
Yet it's one thing when these utterances were spontaneous (and I know, it is suspected some of them were said by others and simply attributed to Yogi).
But to see a guy sit there looking uncomfortable and delivering these lines as if on a factory assembly line, all for a few bucks, well, there is something profoundly sad about it.
And as for the damned duck, or goose, or whatever it is, I'd like to stick him on my grill one of these evenings. ...
