Author: Levi Stahl

My cup runneth over!

He so leadeth me beside the still waters, capsule and He maketh me watch men in green pastures. He can skip the anointing my head with oil, so long as He keeps accompanying my walk through the valley of the shadow of spring training with such good reading material.

What have I done to deserve such riches? A book by my favorite non-Cardinal and a book about the Cardinals to be published the same month? And by the same author who wrote one of the two books that Adam Dunn admits to having read in his 24 years?

The Gospel According to . . .

Johnny Damon.

I’m in line already.

Original comments…

Jim: Hey, we went to two Red Sox games in 2004. Where’s our book deal?

Levi: I was on the verge of signing us to a book deal with a major New York trade house, but, as the fine print required us both to grow long hair and a beard, I balked.

Jason: You could have borrowed my hair & beard.

Jim: Just to point this out for anyone reading this who don’t know us personally: as you can see from the photo at the top of the page, I already have a beard, and although I keep my hair cut short, I could easily grow it long. Levi is the one who couldn’t look like Johnny Damon if he tried. Also, ladies, I’m currently unattached.

How long and dreary is the night?

Said the poet Burns:

How long and dreary is the night,
When I am frae my dearie!
I sleepless lie frae e’en to morn,
Tho’ I were ne’er so weary:
I sleepless lie frae e’en to morn,
Tho’ I were ne’er sae weary!

But even the poet Burns would surely be feeling a bit more of the vim and vigour these days, what with photos of ballplayers in the paper once more.

The rites of spring are upon us: sportswriters in such brackish backwaters as Kansas City and Milwaukee are dusting off their hopeful columns from last spring, Ozzie Guillen is running down his list of former White Sox to run down in the media, and the news that Matthew Wade Stairs has shed both his belly and his mullet is, well, news. If St. John of the Cross were here in my office with me, warming his long-dead insides on a pre-work coffee while we gazed out at the sub-freezing winter wasteland that is Chicago in March, we’d probably find ourselves in general agreement that the dark night of the soul is giving ground to dawn.

I had two dreams of baseball last week. In the first, I simply listened to a WGN broadcast of a Cubs game. Low on action for a dream, maybe, but hearing Pat Hughes‘s voice again after these many months made me wish for extra innings and maybe even a rain delay. Alas, I got my alarm instead.

Later in the week, I dreamed that I was cycling to Wrigley for Opening Day. The game was to start in ten minutes, and I was halfway there. But I was only wearing a t-shirt and pants. No jacket. No hat. No gloves. No mittens. No long underwear. No balaclava. No battery-powered heating socks. No seal oil with which to protect my face from chapping. I was torn: should I return home to properly prepare for the first game of the cruelest month at Wrigley, guaranteeing that I’d miss the first pitch? Or should I proceed to the game, more or less guaranteeing that my death from exposure would be a lead story on WGN that night?

Instead of choosing, I woke up.

Actual games are on tap for today, though Opening Day is still a ways away. But we can surely be patient now, even through the heavy hours. The poet Burns reminds us:

How slow ye move, ye heavy hours,
As ye were wae and weary!
It wasna sae ye glinted by,
When I was wi’ my dearie!
It wasna sae ye glinted by,
When I was wi’ my dearie!

놀이 공!

Someone on Baseballprimer found a bunch of Korean baseball cartoons. As Dan Rivkin would say, they’re awesome!

If you’ve got a lot of time to kill at work, you can read the comments to the post at Baseballprimer for some translations. And the guys at The Birdwatch have picked out some related to the Cardinals.

Original comments…

Dan: Wow, those ARE awesome!

Levi: In Korean, “Those are awesome” translates to: “그들은 최고 이다!”

At least according to a robot.

Dan: I think my favorite is the one with the nude Tony Batista, but I also really like the one with Bernie Williams and his guitar and the Yankees watching porn.

It was 10 of disappear

Now, I admit that I’m stealing this from Baseballprimer, but I couldn’t resist. There’s a happy ending to an initially worrying story: yesterday, it was reported that the family of noted oversized reliever Rich Garces (listed as 6’0″, 250 lbs., a measurement that makes Bush’s budget deficit predictions look comparatively right on target) hadn’t seen him for a few days and were worried that he might have been kidnapped. Well, he turned up safe and sound, having spent a few days at the beach. That in an of itself is a good story–if only because now little kids don’t have to cry all night worrying about kidnappers big and strong enough to kidnap El Guapo–but the Google translation of the story from the “Dazzling Venezuelan” newspaper makes it even better. The title to this post is the headline to the story, if that gives you any idea of the clarity and power of this translation.

The story also reveals that El Guapo is in talks with the Orioles. The pairing of Garces and Oriole Sidney Ponson would be a victory for all fans of out-sized pitchers. Here’s hoping!

Original comments…

Levi: Correction: It isn’t a story from the Dazzling Venezuelan. It’s from ESPN Deportes.

Jim: I wish the police really did have a Division of People Misled!

And can we please start calling him “Corpulento Throwing” instead of “El Guapo”?

Levi: I can think of 57 million people who could have used their services back in November.

Clubhouse cancer

I seem to remember Baggarly writing a story or two about recently departed Giants catcher A. J. Pierzynski being a clubhouse cancer. Well, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, one of the many elements in A. J.’s clubhouse-cancerness was this:

One of those now-it-can-be-told stories the White Sox, A.J. Pierzynski’s new employer, surely haven’t heard: During a Giants exhibition game last spring, Pierzynski took a shot to his, shall we say, private parts. Trainer Stan Conte rushed to the scene, placed his hands on Pierzynski’s shoulders in a reassuring way, and asked how it felt. “Like this,” said Pierzynski, viciously delivering a knee to Conte’s groin. It was a real test of professionalism for the enraged Conte, who vowed to ignore Pierzynski for the rest of the season until Conte realized how that would look. The incident went unreported because all of the beat writers happened to be doing in-game interviews in the clubhouse, but it was corroborated by a half-dozen eyewitnesses who could hardly believe their eyes. Said one source, as reliable as they come: “There is absolutely no doubt that it happened.”

Can you get prickier?

That kind of behavior would go a long way towards explaining why a catcher with a career line of .294/.336/.438 isn’t valued more highly. He should fit right in on the White Sox, a team Batgirl described once as being so unpleasant that, if you traded every player, they’d still have a character problem.

Original comments…

Steve: What a payoff for checking in. You think a catcher wouldn’t be such a pussy in the first place.

Levi: You know, now I can picture what Mike Matheny’s agent told Brian Sabean: “Sure, Mike won’t hit for shit. But I guarantee you he won’t knee the trainer in the balls, either.”

That’s how you get 3 years/$12 million.

Bonds and Steroids

Given the illegal leaks from the trial last month of that shady character Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi were hanging out with, it’s become more difficult to believe that Bonds has not used steroids. I remain in the innocent until proven guilty camp (a camp that, along with great s’mores, boasts the absence of both our former and our soon-to-be Attorneys General), but assuming the testimony is accurate as reported, then Bonds is either dumb, which anyone who’s watched him play knows he’s not, or he used some steroids that his shady trainer gave him.

So say Bonds used steroids. How does that make me feel about his accomplishments, since I’ve spent the last few years in the “Bonds is probably the greatest player ever” camp? King Kaufman gave his take on it at Salon: Bonds has fallen, in Kaufman’s estimation, from best player ever to one of the best ever.

I still wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Then one day, it hit me. I realize this isn’t by any means a perfectly analagous situation, but I feel a lot about Bonds probably using steroids as I do about Bill Clinton getting blown in the Oval Office: I honestly don’t really much care about the act itself, but I am irritated that either man would be so dumb as to do what he did, knowing the tremendous, irreparable damage it would do to his overall achievements if it came out.

As I said: not exactly analagous. For example, while there’s no rule against getting Oval Office action, there is a rule against using steroids while playing Major League Baseball. And while the damage to Bonds’s reputation is sad for me as a baseball fan (and as a champion of players of this era as, overall, the best ever), the damage to the country from Clinton’s public gelding at the hands of Ken Starr’s inquisition is much, much worse. Bonds’s possible cheating was unfair to those who played by the rules, while Clinton’s definite cheating was only unfair to his family.

But other than that, I find I can’t get all worked up about it. Sure, I wish Bonds definitely hadn’t used steroids. I wish Clinton hadn’t unzipped. But that doesn’t fundamentally change what I saw. With Bonds, I saw the best batting eye I’ve ever seen coupled with baseball smarts, a fierce competitveness, and a punishing work ethic. Without steroids, I firmly believe he would still have been the best player of his generation–he was well on that path way back when he was still skinnny. With Clinton, I saw the best politician of our lifetimes, who, while frequently frustrating me on particular issues, left our country in much better shape than it was when he took office. The fact that the Democrats were unable subsequently to capitalize on that, though partially his fault, doesn’t change my perception of Clinton’s gifts.

We’re less than six weeks away from pitchers and catchers.

Original comments…

Dan: One small point, though… Steriod use was illegal only from the beginning of 2003 (I think), which makes him “legal” for certain for at least 613 of his homers.

Sure, if he was using it, it was an unfair advantage, from the standpoint that he used it and the pitchers (that we know of) didn’t. But it was within the rules, on a very technical level. And all those pitchers could have used the same drugs to enhance their performance, too, during the same period.

All that said, the greatest player of all time remains Howard Johnson. With Barry Bonds and Melvin Mora “among the best.”

-DR

Toby: In my opinion, he’s not even the best Giants player ever (Willie Mays) or the best Pirates player ever (Roberto Clemente). Of course that could be a little biased since he left the Pirates (and made no secret he was going to…

Now, as you all know from hearing me rant about it, I think Major League Baseball has done a lot of stupid things lately.

In fact, more often than not, the phrase “Major League Baseball announces” is enough to get me worried.

But one thing they’ve done extremely well is use the Internet to bring their product to fans in ways that, just a few years ago, weren’t possible. They have game tickers, pitch-by-pitch updates, and a variety of video packages that is pretty impressive.

By far the best thing they do, though, is have the radio broadcasts of all games available on their web site. Having spent years tuning in KMOX after dark to (barely) hear the Cardinals, being able to listen to games clearly has been a sheer, unadulterated joy. We don’t have the Internet at home, but getting to hear day games while I’m at work, and getting to catch up on particularly exciting games from the night before has been wonderful. On top of that, when the Cardinals aren’t playing, I can listen to, say, Vin Scully.

And this year, for the first time in five years, they’re not raising their prices. Maybe they’re learning? Probably not. But right now, I don’t care. We’re hours away from the first game, and soon my workday will fly by at the pace of a ballgame.

Now, if they could just do something about that site design. I suppose it could be worse. It could flash and play Smashmouth or something.

Oh, and Jim, you’re invited to the house for a big breakfast and a viewing of tomorrow morning’s game featuring your favorite team and that team that couldn’t hit Josh Beckett. Game starts just after 4 AM Central Standard Time, and just after 5 AM Rocketship TiVo Time.