The second week of March may have marked a permanent change in Commissioner Bud Selig’s status. He’s no longer simply an incompetent, lying, permanently conflicted embarrassment to an office once held by judges and senators. Unless the owners who hired him wake up in time to stop him, Czar Bud will have become an active threat to their own wallets and a walking advertisement for the repeal of MLB’s anti-trust exemption.
Yesterday’s column about rookies wasn’t up two minutes when I got my first e-mail about it. The note was polite, informative, and caused me to bang my head quite violently upon my desk. I’d left out Hank Blalock. Look, I’d love to claim I have some inside information that tells me Blalock can’t be AL…
The second week of March may have marked a permanent change in Commissioner Bud Selig’s status. He’s no longer simply an incompetent, lying, permanently conflicted embarrassment to an office once held by judges and senators. Unless the owners who hired him wake up in time to stop him, Czar Bud will have become an active…
Perhaps the question I get the most this time of year is “Who will win the Rookie of the Year Awards?” It’s a tough one, because winning the award isn’t just about being the top prospect in the game. Opportunity plays a huge role, as does age. All else being equal, a 24-year-old rookie has a better chance to win the award than a 21-year-old, even though the 21-year-old is the more valuable property. Rookies of the Year, in fact, are often older players having the best year of their career, while younger players who barely register in the voting go on to have the most success.
The 11th hour has begun. That, in itself, is a good sign. The Royals never got to the 11th hour with Johnny Damon. Jermaine Dye was shipped out of town at the slightest hint of urgency. But Mike Sweeney, whose contract expires with the 2002 season, is still in a Royals uniform. Sweeney represents the…
Perhaps the question I get the most this time of year is "Who will win the Rookie of the Year Awards?" It’s a tough one, because winning the award isn’t just about being the top prospect in the game. Opportunity plays a huge role, as does age. All else being equal, a 24-year-old rookie has…
A recap of the funniest and most poignant quotes in baseball over the course of the last two weeks
NOOOOOOOOOOO "He would always say, `Why are you letting that guy throw the pitch right down the middle?’ It didn’t matter if I got three hits. If I let one go right down the middle, he’d just want to go home. It bugged him the worst." —Nick Johnson, Yankees infielder, on his grandfather "There are…
In general, it’s a bad thing if you can associate an umpire’s name with his work.
In general, it’s a bad thing if you can associate an umpire’s name with his work. It’s one thing if the umpire is Doug Harvey, and you’re talking about his "Rules of the Game" segment on the old Game of the Week, back when that term actually meant something. (Something horrible.) It’s still another when…
There is no competitive balance problem in baseball, even in the latest period of Yankee pennants. Supposedly, the Yankees play an entirely different game than other teams. If this is true, we should see this in almost any metric we choose, but it’s not there.
I recently wrote a column in which I explained about how boring I found payroll caps, and how I felt that they forced everything in their leagues to become about the cap. I got a ton of e-mail, much of which read (and I’m omitting some colorful language here) "What about competitive balance? That’s what…
As noted in my last column, operating losses account for only $232 million of the $519 million Major League Baseball claims to have lost in 2001. Another $112,491,000 represents net interest expenses. Here’s how the interest was distributed.
There is simply no perfect spring day that Bud Selig can’t ruin.