Taking Shelter

It's been a weird 2013 weather-wise in the New York area.  While things have been calmer post Hurricane Sandy, they haven't necessarily been more normal - temperatures have fluctuated between unseasonable cold and shockingly hot (this past week was a great example), the rain has come in bunches and it's still not clear if we're in Spring, Summer or some unexplored combination of the two.  This has wreaked havoc on the schedules for the Mets and Yankees, both of whom have already experienced their share of postponements and delays.  Last week I went to Citi Field to watch the Braves and Mets not only battle each other, but 40-degree temperatures and intermittent rain showers - the new normal for baseball in the northeast.

Fortunately, our tickets included access to a number of Citi Field's club areas.  While I'm not normally one to give up a "real seat" in favor of a bar stool and a high top table, on this night I made the exception - after a 20 minute delay prior to first pitch and three long innings of shivering in my seat, I moved to take cover inside.  Given that I love watching baseball from the upper deck right behind the plate, I figured Citi's Promenade Club would be a great place to go for a few innings.  Unfortunately (and hardly surprisingly), I wasn't the only person to have this idea.  While the game didn't draw a large crowd (official attendance was 32,325, but the actual show rate was clearly much lower), it seemed like everyone who did make it our to Queens on this night a) also had club access and b) had no interest in sitting outside.

While I consider myself a blue-collar kind of guy, I can't really understand what value the Citi Field club areas provide if they're not at least somewhat exclusive.  Yes, they are inside and provide a respite from bad weather, but each one was so crowded that it was a challenge to get a hot dog, let along a decent place to sit.  After striking up a conversation with a fellow Braves fan who was about to give up some prime real estate - two chairs at the counter right against the Promenade Club glass - we finally grabbed a seat with a view of the grass.  Unfortunately, Citi Field was designed so that even while sitting right against the glass, your view of the action is mostly obstructed (see below).  Despite my proximity to outside, I was still forced to watch the game on the club TVs, occasionally glancing outside when the ball was hit to the parts of the outfield that I could actually see.

This is the best view you're going to get from anywhere in Citi Field's Promenade Club.

Aside from the unexpectedly poor-design and limited sight lines, the Citi Field clubs offered little in the way of a special experience.  While the stadium's Acela Club - the field-level premium area reserved for top ticketholders - is pretty impressive, the Caesar's Club and the Promenade Club are little more than glorified concourse areas with a roof.  The food offerings are the same as everywhere else in the stadium, the lines are just as long and the people are the same.  The main difference is that, unlike the rest of Citi Field over the past few reasons, the club areas are actually crowded.

42: A Review

Itching for a great new baseball movie for some time now (Trouble with the Curve certainly didn't do it for me), I was very excited to see 42 last week.  There's no point in providing the plot synopsis for the film: If you don't know Jackie Robinson's story you must have been living underneath a rock for the past 65 years, and that's what makes 42 such a bold and daunting project.  As spectacular as Robinson's tale is, virtually every American knows it by heart, putting pressure on this movie to add a new dimension or layer to one of sports history's greatest true stories.  While 42 did a nice job of covering Robinson's journey from Negro Leaguer to Hall of Famer, it failed to show me a side of the story that I hadn't already heard before.

On one hand, this can be seen as a good thing.  Unlike some other sports movies that over-dramatize the "facts" in order to create a more entertaining story, 42 looked pretty realistic.  Other than Harrison Ford's portrayal of Dodgers owner Branch Rickey (which at times was a bit over-the-top), I thought most of the other characters felt true to life.  On the other hand, however, the film definitely lacked the drama associated with other Rocky-esque sports films that I've come to know and love.  At times 42 screened more like an educational documentary than it does a sports movie, and while there's nothing wrong with that it's worth noting before you enter the theater and expect to be fired up by a movie that feels like Miracle.

We all know that, over time, Jackie Robinson was able to win over the majority of his racist critics and cement himself as one of the greatest and most beloved players in MLB history.  I'm not exactly sure how that transition was made, and 42 didn't really do much to explain it.  If the movie is correct, Robinson played hard enough to pretty easily and rapidly convince his teammates to abandon their deep-rooted racist beliefs and rally behind him.  The movie suggests that even opposing players and managers were quickly and naturally won over by Robinson's athleticism, professionalism and kindheartedness.  While I find the fact that the transition was so smooth hard to believe, it's better than having the film build to some super-cheesy, unrealistic climax. 

Overall, I give 42 a decent but unspectacular rating.  While I certainly enjoyed the film and recommend it to any baseball fan, it didn't truly win me over.  This might be another example of "the grass is always greener," where I'm happy that the movie was true to itself but simultaneously left wanting something a bit more exciting and made for Hollywood.  No matter how I look at it, though, I'm glad I spent the time and money seeing 42, and suggest you all do the same.    

The DH Debate

Despite approaching its three year anniversary (April 23), Caught Looking has never offered its opinion on Major League Baseball's designated hitter. While the existence of the DH in the American League is debated each season during Interleague Play, the All Star Game and the World Series, this year should be particularly heated because it marks the 40th anniversary of the rule change. In honor of the occasion, ESPN recently did a series of pieces on the DH, from Tim Kurkjian's mindless interviewing of a random array of Major Leaguers to Christina Karl's uninspired opinion piece. Now, it's time for me to weigh in - after all, everybody else is doing it!

First, let's set the stage here: The DH debate is one of the most tightly argued in all of sports. While ESPN's SportsNation polls are in no means scientific, they do give us a decent understanding of how the general sports populace feels about a given issue. The recent DH poll, which as of this writing had a meaningful 24,333 responses, say 30% of people say they wanted the DH to remain an AL-only rule, 37% of people say they want the DH abolished altogether, and the remaining 33% say they'd want the DH adopted in the NL, too. Put simply, about a third of people want more DHing, a third want less, and a third want the same amount - not exactly the sort of definitive sentiment you want while assessing a sport-altering potential rule change. But while the total population is on the fence about the DH, it seems like virtually no individual person is split - everyone, myself included, has a strong opinion on the issue.

As a lifelong fan of the National League, it probably won't surprise you to hear that I'm a big anti-DH guy. In addition to being a Braves fan, I also consider myself a student of the game who valued baseball for its strategy - strategy that, in my opinion, is greatly dumbed-down in American League games. I like how Nationals manager Davey Johnson (who has managed in both leagues) put it in the Kurkjian article; talking about NL baseball, Johnson said "when the pitcher is in there, things are on an even keel. There is more strategy in the game; that's a part of baseball. There is more little ball, there are tougher decisions on pitching strategy. It involves your bench more." My favorite part of any NL game is the situation Ned Yost mentions in his quote - that moment when "you have two outs, a man on second, down by a run in the sixth inning, with your pitcher at the plate. Do you hit for him or not?" These are the moments that can make-or-break an MLB 2K13 game, let alone a MLB contest with playoff implications.

I understand that the DH provides a job for defensively-challenged, big-bat types and for aging stars who can no longer play the field. But is it the American League's job to institute a rule change that creates a role for guys that can't play the sport the way it was originally meant to be played? What's more, the majority of teams use the DH slot to rotate position players out of the field, giving them a de facto day off without removing their bat from the lineup. Come World Series time, this could theoretically be a significant advantage for a well-rested AL team over a bruised and battered NL one. As a baseball purist, I cast my SportsNation vote to get rid of the DH altogether. After 40 years of the DH debate, though, I can't say that I can add anything to the conversation that you haven't already heard before.

Come Interleague Play, this man will likely be Atlanta's starting DH.

Hope Springs Eternal

It's clearly a cliche, but the best part about Major League Baseball's Opening Day is that each of the league's thirty teams starts undefeated.  For some, like the Toronto Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers, expectations are unusually high and confidence is abundant.  For others, like the New York Mets and the Houston Astros, there's a "Hey, you never know!" atmosphere surrounding tomorrow's games - the fact that each and every year, at least one team comes out of nowhere to capture a division crown produces an aura of optimism in every Major League clubhouse.  That optimism - combined with the knowledge that the first baseball games mean that Spring and warm weather are just around the corner - make MLB's Opening Day a sporting event worth its capitalization.

Personally, I've been looking forward to tomorrow night's Atlanta opener against the Philadelphia Phillies - nationally televised on ESPN2 - pretty much since the New York Giants season ended in December.  No offense to the Knicks (and only limited offense intended to the Islanders), but the indoor winter sports lack the significance that I associate with big dates on the MLB and NFL calendars.  This year, my anticipation around Opening Day is especially high.  Coming off of a disappointing exit to the 2012 MLB playoffs (you can read my post on the Infield Fly Rule Game here), the Braves have recovered and reloaded.  In a perfect scenario, guys like Kris Medlen and Mike Minor will build on their late season successes, acquisitions like B.J. and Justin Upton will pay dividends and youngsters like Julio Teheran and Freddie Freeman will continue to grow.  As things currently stand, the Braves seem poised to be an NL pennant contender in 2013 and beyond.

Of course, for most teams Opening Day will soon become little more than the start of a disappointing season that results in losses, injuries and a September finale.  For my Braves, there's a realistic possibility that Justin Upton continues last season's negative statistical trend, Jason Heyward again fails to live up to his tremendous potential and Brandon Beachy is unable to recover from Tommy John surgery.  For every great thing that might happen, there's an equally likely negative scenario that, combined with other rough outcomes, could realistically derail Atlanta's season.  But while these downside scenarios are certainly possible, the beauty of Opening Day is that no one (outside of maybe the occasional self-deprecating Mets fan) spends April 1 thinking about them.  MLB's Opening Day is a day for optimism, hope and "what ifs."

I've already cleared my calendar for tomorrow night so that I can make sure to be settled on my couch at 7 PM when Tim Hudson throws the season's first pitch.  Hopefully all of you will be doing the same, convincing yourselves that tomorrow will be the start of something special for your team.  After all, that's what Opening Day is all about.

Trouble with the Curve: A Review

Believe it or not, my favorite movie of all time is Major League.  I'm admittedly a sucker for cliched sports movies - from The Mighty Ducks to Rocky - and love a good underdog story (including Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, of course, shameful Lance Armstrong cameo not withstanding).  There's something about the highly predictable David-over-Goliath climax that I can't get enough of, no matter how ridiculous the film is.  This only applies, however, to movies like the ones mentioned above that don't take themselves too seriously.  As long as the film doesn't try to be anything more than a fun sports movie, I'm all for it.  When a movie shifts over into For Love of the Game territory, however, I draw the line.  Thus begins my review of Clint Eastwood's Trouble with the Curve.

Let me start with the usual caveats.  I saw this movie on a United Airlines flight from New York to Miami, so I didn't get a full cinematic experience.  That being said, the best thing I can say about Eastwood's most recent film is that, at 111 minutes, it took up basically the entire flight.  The worst I can say?  Where should I begin? Let's start with a brief synopsis.  You can read more here, but the plot is essentially exactly what you'd expect it to be: Eastwood plays an old-school baseball scout for the Atlanta Braves whose health and eyesight are deteriorating as he travels around North Carolina following a high school baseball prospect.  His daughter (Amy Adams) joins him on the roadtrip to made sure he's doing OK, despite Eastwood's solitary style.  While on the trip, Adams gets close to a rival scout (Justin Timberlake), and they all learn a lot about baseball, love and family along the way.

Sigh.

I would have been more disappointed if I had paid anything to see this movie.

As much as I like predictable baseball movies, Trouble with the Curve was just awful - and this coming from one of the only people in America that genuinely liked Eastwood's Gran Torino.  Every character in this movie is way over-dramatized, from the cocky (and unintentionally hilarious) high school prospect to the Moneyball-types that populate the Atlanta GM's office.  In an obvious effort to create some memorable, non-traditional baseball characters, the movie goes way overboard - everyone in the film has way too much personality, to the point that the film quickly becomes exhausting and unrealistic.  Even if you can look past the fact that the Braves are supposedly employing a scout that can't see well enough to drive (which, frankly, I couldn't), there are dozens of other "what the . . .?" moments throughout the movie that I found incredibly distracting.  No offense to the daughters of any baseball scouts, but there's just no way that a woman could out-scout a bunch of pros after spending years away from the game to pursue law school and a career at a top-notch law firm.

Again, if Trouble with the Curve acknowledged how absurd its entire plot is, I'd have been OK with it.  I have no problem with Major League's plot, even when the Indians pulls an ex-convict out of prison, give him a pair of thick-rimmed glasses and turn him into Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn.  Eastwood's movie is so self-righteous, though - as if it's teaching you things about baseball and life that you never even imagined before - that it just drove me nuts.  Had I paid money to see this in the theaters - which I almost did, only to be talked off the ledge by a mediocre Metacritic score - I'd have been genuinely pissed.  As airplane movies go, I've seen worse - but this was still pretty bad.  In a sentence, I had a lot of Trouble with this Movie.

The Great Hall of Fame Debate

Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire will forever be linked by the 1998 homerun chase that brought Major League Baseball back after the 1994 strike and resulted in Big Mac breaking Roger Maris' single season homerun record.  Now, the two former sluggers are also going to be linked by another common bond - guys who aren't getting into the Baseball Hall of Fame any time soon.  For only the eighth time ever, the the Baseball Writers Association of America didn't vote anyone in to the Hall of Fame this past Wednesday, leaving guys who once looked like shoe-ins - Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sosa included - on the outside looking in.  Like many current Hall of Famers, including Goose Gossage, I applaud the decision - these guys cheated, and they should never be rewarded for breaking their sport's rules.

I do think there is an interesting Hall of Fame debate brewing that doesn't feature names like Bonds, Clemens or McGwire, though.  There are a number of steroids-era players with excellent career numbers that will be fringe Hall of Famers in the coming years - some of whom have never (or at least rarely) been even accused of using PEDs.  From Craig Biggio to Fred McGriff to Edgar Martinez, there are a number of supposedly-clean guys that I grew up watching with credentials that are borderline worthy of the Hall of Fame.  Will we get to listen to a Biggio or a McGriff make a Cooperstown induction speech some time down the road?  This is where an interesting debate is beginning to crop up.

On one hand, if the Hall of Fame is supposed to be reserved for the best players of a given era, then someone like the Crime Dog probably comes up short.  As impressive as his career totals are, and as badly as I want to argue otherwise because I loved him when he played for Atlanta from 1993-1997, I wouldn't say that McGriff was ever really among baseball's best.  On the other hand, the guys who were the best during McGriff's prime were being powered by bovine hormones - it's not really fair that the Crime Dog played first base at the same time at McGwire, Rafael Palmiero and Jeff Bagwell.  So what are the Hall of Fame voters to do?  Even if we agree that the steroid users shouldn't get in, does that necessarily mean that we should reclassify McGriff as the best first baseman of the 1990s?

The other issue with McGriff's candidacy is even more unfortunate.  Even though no one has ever really accused McGriff of any wrongdoing, just the fact that he played at the same time as McGwire, Sosa and Clemens casts a huge shadow of a doubt over the legitimacy of his career.  The same can be said for Griffey Jr. and even Derek Jeter - we'll just never really know who was clean and who wasn't, and baseball's steroids era was so significant that most players are treated as guilty until proven innocent.  I know the Hall of Fame would absolutely hate to induct a guy like McGriff only later to discover than he was using PEDs during his career.  As a result, will the BBWAA play it safe and leave all 1990s-era power hitters off of their ballots?

The last time the BBWAA didn't elect anyone (1996), the top three vote-getters were elected within a few years (Phil Niekro in 1997, Don Sutton in 1998 and Tony Perez in 2000) - clearly there's still hope for this year's top vote-getters Biggio, Jack Morris, Bagwell and Mike Piazza.  As the accused in this group continue to fade away, though, will spots open for guys like McGriff and Martinez, currently further down on the 2013 list with less than 40% of the vote?  Or will the votes for any steroids-era player continue to drop until we're all forced to pretend like the 1990s and early 2000s never happened?  Let the debate continue in the comments below.

Pulling The Plug

First off, let me caveat this post by stating that I have no idea whether or not this article is true.  If you're not in a link-clicking mood, the New York Post is reporting that "after being replaced in the bottom of the eighth inning in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series, [Alex Rodriguez] openly flirted with a pair of pretty women two rows behind the dugout — even sending them a ball bearing a note asking for their phone numbers" (see right)  The report follows the well-publicized news that A-Rod, the highest-paid Yankee, was benched for the win-or-go-home Game 5 of the ALDS against Baltimore, and has been a non-factor so far in the 2012 American League Playoffs.  With Derek Jeter out for the remainder of the post-season with a fractured left ankle, some are hoping that Rodriguez will step up and fill the massive void on the left side of the Yankees infield, while others argue that he should be benched in favor of Eric Chavez.  Who's right?

Earlier this week, a friend sent me this link, which notes that A-Rod has the 21st highest post-season OPS all time among players with a minimum of 150 playoff at-bats, just a few ten-thousandths of a point behind perennial October hero Jeter.  I'm not sure why this friend emailed me this data, but I can only assume it was to defend Rodriguez from all of the criticism he's receiving this month (and from the criticism he's gotten every October since he joined the Yankees).  While I admit I was surprised to see A-Rod on this list just below Jeter - after all, we're always talking about how bad Rodriguez has been in the playoffs - I dug a little deeper into the numbers.  Without going into any real analysis here (that's not what Caught Looking is all about), it's clear from the data that A-Rod has fallen off in recent years.  While he was great with in the early 2000s and again in 2009 when the Yankees won the World Series, he's been pretty brutal over the past three years.  So if you're a Yankees fan, do you ignore the recent trends and hope that the "old A-Rod" comes back, or do you look at the numbers and acknowledge that A-Rod's post-season batting average is below .200 over the past three years?

Let me make a comparison to fantasy football here, if I may.  Despite knowing a lot about the NFL, I suck at fantasy football.  In my 16-team college league, I think I've made the playoffs twice in nine seasons (22% of the time, while 37.5% of teams make it each year).  I think much of the reason why I'm typically unsuccessful is because I stick with big name stars for too long and leave higher-producing (but lesser known) guys on my bench or on the waiver wire.  Just because a receiver is named Randy Moss, for example, doesn't mean he's the same player that he was half a decade ago.  The guys that win fantasy football are the guys who react quickly and put production over reputation.  The same is true for the MLB playoffs, and keeping Alex Rodriguez in the middle of the Yankees order is like keeping Moss in the starting lineup of your fantasy team.  It's time to make a change.

If Yankees fans are hoping for a big 2012 playoff comeback from A-Rod, they're going to be disappointed.  The 2012 version of Rodriguez has little in common with the guy from a decade ago (or even from 2009) except for the name.  A-Rod is now older, supposedly rid of PEDs, and clearly distracted (as the New York Post article, if true, makes plainly clear).  Down 2-0 in the ALCS, it's time for Joe Girardi and the Yankees to roll the dice and make some big changes heading into Detroit.  One of those moves should be to give someone else a chance at third base and acknowledge that this version of A-Rod isn't going to get it done.  It's comforting to know I'm not the only one out there clinging to big name players long past their expiration dates. 

The Infield Fly Rule Game

In the 48 hours since one of the worst calls in baseball’s postseason history, just about everyone I know has asked me about my reaction to the already-infamous “Infield Fly Rule Game.” Up until today I refused to talk about it – I needed the entire weekend to grieve, and only inspired comeback victories by both Stanford (vs. Arizona) and the New York Giants (vs. Cleveland) could slowly bring me out of my baseball-induced depression. On Saturday morning I got a voicemail from my Dad saying he wanted to “talk about baseball.” I still haven’t returned his call.

Even today, however, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to fully process my reaction to the Braves’ elimination from the 2012 playoffs. Despite every urge to ignore Friday’s events and pretend that the National League Wild Card game never happened – after all, in a better world we wouldn’t have a ridiculous one-game playoff after a 162-game season and the Braves would be playing in the NLDS right now – but for the sake of my readers and those concerned about my well-being, I feel compelled to post. Clearly I’m upset. Clearly I’m frustrated. But more than anything, I’m disappointed. Disappointed in Major League Baseball. Disappointed in the Braves. Disappointed in the Atlanta fans.

First, let’s talk about Major League Baseball. In yet another effort to dilute the regular season, baseball introduced its new Wild Card format this season. The league will try to tell you (and tell you, and tell you, and tell you) that the Wild Card makes the regular season more valuable, because now there’s a serious punishment for not winning your division. Indeed, the punishment was more severe than anyone could have imagined – who knew that the Wild Card game would be played under a completely different set of rules than the rest of the year? All sarcasm aside, people spent the entire regular season talking about how big of a mistake a one-game Wild Card playoff was, and they were right. Baseball is built around the concept of a series, and should reward teams that can outwit and outplay their opponents over a stretch of games. An ill-fated attempt to get people excited about the beginning of the MLB playoffs, the Wild Card game goes against everything that baseball stands for and, as we saw on Friday, makes the game much more about the umpires than about the players.

All of that being said, the blown infield fly call wouldn’t have been such a big deal if the Braves had taken care of business during the game’s first six innings. After last year’s epic collapse that left Atlanta outside of the playoffs, I was extremely hopeful that Atlanta would follow up their strong September with a good start to October. Instead, the Braves wasted another solid performance from newfound ace Kris Medlen (who threw much better that his stat line suggests) and played their worst defensive game of the year. While their struggles to drive in runs are nothing new (they’ve been inconsistent at the plate all year), the complete breakdown on defense (eerily reminiscent of the 2010 NLDS against San Francisco) was a total anomaly. Unfortunately, it came during a win-or-go-home scenario, and as a result the Braves are sitting on their couches instead of hosting the first two games of an NLDC series against the Nationals.

Last, I’m disappointed in the Atlanta fans. Sure, it’s nice to see some emotion from the tomahawk-wielding Braves faithful, especially after so many well-publicized seasons of empty seats during playoff games. But once the dust settles on the 2012 NL Wild Card game people are only going to remember two things – how bad the infield fly call was, and how inappropriately the Braves fans reacted. In a division that includes intolerable Mets fans and classless Phillies fans, the Braves fans are supposed to be under control. Throwing bottles all over the field and killing the Braves’ momentum was a short-sighted reaction to what was of course a terrible call. Unfortunately, the Braves will probably get another chance to redeem themselves in another one-game playoff soon, because the Wild Card is sadly here to stay.

Keepin' It Unreal

Before last night, Adam Greenberg's only Major League plate appearance came in July of 2005 as a member of the Chicago Cubs.  The first pitch that he faced hit him squarely in the back of the helmet, knocking him out for the remainer of the season, impacting his vision and balance and derailing his career.  Since that terrifying moment more than seven years ago, Greenberg has been working tirelessly to get back to the Majors, bouncing around the Minor Leagues (most recently with the independent Atlantic League's Bridgeport Bluefish) and even playing for Team Israel in the qualifying rounds of the 2013 World Baseball Classic.  Greenberg hasn't been with a Major League organization since 2008, but thanks to a clever marketing campaign was given a one-day contract and a pinch hit appearance with the Miami Marlins.  Last night, Greenberg struck out against Mets ace R.A. Dickey in an at-bat seven years in the making.

After a seven-year wait, Adam Greenberg returned to the Major Leagues last night.



Greenberg got a tremendous ovation from the Miami crowd both when he was introduced as a pinch hitter to lead of the bottom of the sixth inning on Tuesday, and again after he struck out swinging on three pitches.  It seems that everyone is thrilled that the Marlins and owner Jeffrey Loria gave Greenberg another chance to face big league pitching, even if it did come as part of a one-day contract during a meaningless early October game for an underachieving ball club.  Everyone seems happy that Greenberg's struggle now has at least a quasi-happy ending - the guy who worked for more than half a decade for another chance finally got his 15-minutes of fame (actually, the entire at bat lasted just 33 seconds).  And everyone seems eager to pay $12 to Regal Cinemas to see The Adam Greenberg Story whenever Disney gets around to making it.  Everyone, that is, except for me.

Don't get me wrong - I'm happy for Adam Greenberg.  I've never been hit in the head by a 90+ mile per hour fastball, but I'd still do almost anything for a chance to have one at bat in a Major League Baseball game.  But while most people think last night's at bat with the Marlins adds a special wrinkle to Greenberg's baseball journey, I think his strikeout sort of cheapens what was, in my mind, a very special MLB career.  To me, Adam Greenberg's career up to last night was so baseball that it deserved to be remembered and appreciated.  I can't think of a person who better personifies how incredible becoming a Major League Baseball player really is than Adam Greenberg.  While we spend most of our time as baseball fans talking about guys named Ruth and Mays and Aaron, we often forget that the sport is built atop a foundation of guys named Greenberg and van Dusen (the only other player to be hit by a pitch in his only plate appearance, in 1955).

I was aware of Adam Greenberg's story well before this week, and I always admired him.  Here was a guy who worked hard at his craft, had his entire career derailed by a freak accident, and then spent another seven-plus years working to make it back on top.  The fact that he never made it all the way back - and would never have if not for the Marlins' generocity and some well-placed publicity - made his story even better.  He was the face of the career Minor Leaguer, and his experience was so real that, unlike virtually anyone else who's ever played in a MLB game, I felt like I could really relate to and understand him.  Now that Greenberg's life has been transformed into some sort of baseball fairy tale, I've lost the emotional connection I once felt to the 5'9" outfielder.  While I'm glad that Greenberg got his moment in the sun, I wish he would have recognized the significance of his baseball experience leading up to this past week.  Just because a story doesn't have a happy ending doesn't mean it can't be profoundly relevant.

A Tale of Two Players

One is a ten-year veteran who is vying for baseball's first Triple Crown since 1967 while simultaneously leading his team to a playoff berth.  The other is a rookie phenom whose unique combination of speed, power and defense make him arguably the most unique player in the Major Leagues.  In addition to fighting for their playoff lives during this last week of Major League Baseball's regular season, these two players will be using the season's final three contests to bolster their candidacies for the American League Most Valuable Player award.  Virtually everyone has a strong opinion on which of these two stars deserves the most coveted recognition a position player can receive, and which way you lean in the debate says as much about you as it does the players themselves.

The first player is, of course, Detroit slugger Miguel Cabrera.  While his Tigers have underachieved for much of the year - many had them as the American League favorites during Spring Training - Cabrera has lead the team on a late charge and on the brink of the AL Central title.  Cabrera is an old-school kind of player, compiling mind-blowing statistics over the course of the season while only rarely doing something that makes you say "wow."  He's rarely featured on Web Gems (he's an average fielder at best), and hits the same homeruns and line drives as everyone else in the big leagues does.  The difference between Cabrera and everyone else?  He hits those homeruns and liners so consistently that he's almost impossible to keep down for more than an at-bat or two.  His run at the first Triple Crown in 45 years has captivated baseball fans who remember and revere the likes of Carl Yastrzemski, Ted Williams and Jimmie Foxx - he is, in short, the poster child for old school greatness.

The second, Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout, is a hero for the modern baseball fan.  Advanced statistics like Wins Above Replacement, or WAR, would lead you to believe that Trout has had a vastly superior year to Cabrera (10.4 to 6.6), largely because the former is such a dominant center fielder and the league's biggest stolen base threat.  In addition to sabermetrics, Trout's traditional numbers are stellar - he doesn't have Cabrera's power (though he's still hit 30 homers), but he has a similarly high average to go with 125 runs and 47 steals, both tops in the American League.  Fans of Trout point out that he's unlike anyone else in baseball today, and the advanced stats suggest that he adds more value to his Angels than Cabrera does to his Tigers.  Then again, Cabrera's Tigers are headed to the ALDC, while Trout's Angels are likely going home for all but the first three days of October.

Who will be smiling when the AL MVP is announced next month?

If the debate revolving around the AL MVP race can help define you as a baseball fan, what does it say about me if I can't make up my mind?  I've always considered myself to straddle the line between modern and classic.  On one hand, I'm the guy who spent last summer working in Major League Baseball's Labor Relations department and once had (semi-serious) dreams of riding the Moneyball wave straight into a General Manager position.  On the other, I'm consistently arguing against some of baseball's (now not so) recent changes, including the Wild Cards, Interleague Play and the Designated Hitter.  Every day that I think about this MVP race, I flip-flop on my opinion.  Last week I was strongly pro-Cabrera as I contemplated the significance of the first Triple Crown of my lifetime.  Today I'm wondering what the Triple Crown matters if it all adds up to fewer wins than what Trout's doing.  No matter what happens over the next three days, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to make up my mind.  How would you vote?

Caught Looking On Caught Looking

Last year, I noted that Victoria's Secret stole my Caught Looking name for their line of baseball-themed women's clothing and underwear.  That injustice, however, doesn't hold a candle to the crimes recently committed by NBC Sports Network and its new show entitled - you guessed it - Caught Looking.  If NBC Sports wanted to steal my blog's name for the title of its new, Hard Knocks-style weekly baseball documentary, the show's creators could have at least worked a little harder on their logo and done something more original than simply de-italicize my font - compare the show's image (below) to my page header (above) and see what I mean.  Obvious intellectual property theft aside, I'm somewhat flattered that the good people at NBC Sports chose my (admittedly brilliant) name and logo for their program, and I would definitely recommend the show to anyone who enjoys baseball, documentaries or well-crafted ideograms.

Obvious name and logo theft aside, NBC Sports' Caught Looking is worth watching.

Anyone who played baseball at any semi-serious level growing up knows that the sport is as much about surviving a long season as it is about winning individual games.  Most of us, however, follow Major League Baseball by watching live contests and recorded highlights, putting all of our emphasis as fans on the three-hour-long games and ignoring the other 21 hours in the day.  Even though we (especially us Braves fans) understand that the key to a championship is reaching the playoffs healthy and motivated, very little televised baseball content covers this facet of the sport (unless it's about shutting down Stephen Strasburg, of course).  Caught Looking does a great job trying to change that, covering in detail the behind-the-scenes aspects of baseball that we rarely see.

This week's episode covered a series between the Cardinals and the Reds at Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati.  Much like Buzz Bissinger's excellent work of non-fiction Three Nights in August, the show provides an insider's perspective to the traditionally closed-door nature of a Major League Baseball series.  While still taking its viewers through the series' highlights and top plays, Caught Looking focuses more on what the players and coaches are thinking, seeing and saying while standing on the field or sitting in the dugouts.  The show lets you feel like you're part of the organization by granting access to conversations between opposing players, teammates, managers and umpires, and more. This show might be the closest I ever get to a MLB clubhouse or dugout, and I'm really enjoying the opportunity to better understand the conversations that drive a 162-game season.

Caught Looking isn't perfect, however.  The show seems to drag at times, and in an effort to add a cohesive story to each episode the content often focuses on one or two players that you may or may not really care about.  The Cardinals and Reds series coverage, for example, centered around Reds rookie Todd Frazier, who has done a great job this year playing third and first while filling in for Scott Rolen and Joey Votto.  While Frazier is a legitimate Rookie of the Year candidate who deserves more national attention than he gets, after half an hour I was ready to move on to another "character."  Given that the show is new, however, I'm happy to overlook this one minor criticism and continue to watch Caught Looking.  With a name and a logo this great, how can NBC Sports' new show not be a success?

Sometimes You See It Coming: A Review

Since finishing graduate school, I've made it a priority to get back into the habit of reading regularly.  While (unlike the rest of my life) my book choices don't completely revolve around sports, I have recently read two baseball-centric books that I really enjoyed.  The first was Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding, which has dominated Best Seller and Best Books of the Year lists since it came out in September 2011.  While I could go on and gush about how much I enjoyed Harbach's book, you can easy go online and find dozens of glowing reviews about this work that, according to Sports Illustrated, "will knock out baseball and literature fans alike."  Instead, I'd like to offer some praise for a much less heralded, but almost as enjoyable, book - Kevin Baker's Sometimes You See it Coming.

Take a few days to read through Kevin Baker's debut novel, published in 1993.

Baker's book, loosely based on the life of MLB legend Ty Cobb, follows the life and career of fictional right fielder John Barr, "the kind of player who isn't supposed to exist anymore. An all-around superstar, he plays the game with a single-minded ferocity that makes his New York Mets team all but invincible. Yet Barr himself is a mystery with no past, no friends, no women, and no interests outside hitting a baseball as hard and as far as he can."  The book follows Barr's life through the eyes of a number of different, well-developed and seemingly realistic characters - teammate "Rapid" Ricky Falls, manager Charli Stanzi, and Mets beat writer Ellie Jay.  Rather than focusing on the dominant superstar himself, Sometimes You See It Coming is unique in the way it concentrates on what it's like to play alongside, coach and cover an unparalleled talent.

Having only experienced MLB players and coaches through the eyes of the media, it's hard for me to say with confidence what these people should truly sound like.  Baker does such an incredible job of creating a number of unique and believable voices, however, that I imagine that he has an excellent grasp on how people involved in professional baseball really speak and act.  As he moves his readers through the book's chapters, he bounces back and forth between narrators - sometimes we hear from Falls, other times from Stanzi, Jay or other more minor characters - and you actually feel like you're hearing from completely different people.  As with any complicated personality, real or fictional, John Barr is best understood through the eyes of the people closest to him.  Only through the differing but complementary opinions of Falls, Stanzi and Jay does Baker show us what mysterious athletes like Barr (and Cobb) are really about.

I won't go into the plot in detail (it's not really what makes the book so special, anyway, as it's somewhat predictable), in hopes that you'll read it and find it out for yourself.  At just over 300 pages in paperback (yes, I still read non-electronic books), I ran through Sometimes You See It Coming in just a few days.  If you like baseball, I'd highly recommend Baker's only sports-related novel (but I still think that you should read The Art of Fielding first).  Even if you don't, though, Baker's character development and wit make this one worth reading.  And after you make your way through this book, you can move on to Baker's other (albeit non-sports-related) novels, all of which I'd also highly recommend.

Movin' On Up

As you know if you read Caught Looking, I'm very blue collar when it comes to attending professional sporting events.  With rare exceptions, I like to sit up in the upper deck and watch live games with the "real fans."  With the Braves coming to New York this weekend for a three game set against the Mets at Citi Field, I did what I always do - went on to StubHub on found some cheap, below-face-value tickets on the secondary market.  When Friday afternoon rolled around, I was all ready to watch Atlanta beat up on New York from Section 514 - in the upper deck right beyond home plate, exactly where I love to sit.

As luck would have it, though, a friend of a friend was able to get us upgraded to Section 111 in the main level, just beyond the first base bag and only six rows from the field.  While I wasn't initially that excited about the new seats - I knew the up-close view would be great, but I find that I can see the game a lot better from behind home plate - I quickly realized what a luxury sitting in the fancy seats can be.  The best perk by far?  The ability to order food directly to your seat.  In the third inning on the game, we ordered some food and drinks from the in-stadium waiter service.  Less than an inning later, our food arrived and we didn't miss a pitch.  Contrast this with the seventh inning, when I spent 20 minutes trying to buy two Italian Ices from the normal concession stands.  Although the line wasn't long (the game wasn't very crowded to begin with), the incompetence of the Citi Field "hospitality attendants" made the transaction a painful ordeal.

View from our upgraded seats in Section 111 on Friday night. 

I also went to Saturday night's game courtesy of a friend and his work connection, again in the lower level.  This time we had seats in Section 11, where you enter your section through the Delta 360 club and also have access to separate concessions and bathrooms than the rest of the stadium.  Once again, we ordered some food from the waiters, and once again it arrived pretty quickly and painlessly.  Later in the game I went to the Delta 360 club concessions area to buy some more food, mainly to see how it compared to the regular stadium concessions experience.  Perhaps not surprisingly, this transaction was much quicker, smoother and more pleasant.  Clearly, Citi Field has made sure to take care of its most valuable and highest paying fans.

Even better view from Saturday night's game in Section 11.

I think what's happening here is that each professional sports stadium or arena has a limited supply of competent labor.  In a stadium without a ton of premium seating the good workers are spread throughout the stadium, giving an average fan at least a chance to having a pleasant food-buying experience,  At Citi Field, which offers a ton of premium seating options and ammenities, an average fan is basically guaranteed to deal exclusively with employees that have no idea what they're doing.  As a result, if you go to a Mets game with good tickets you're in great shape.  If you're planning to go and sit in the cheap seats, however, you might want to think about bringing food from home.

Switching Dugouts

There's been a lot of high profile MLB trade activity this week that is certain to impact the NL and AL playoff races - Hanley Ramirez to the Dodgers, Anibal Sanchez and Omar Infante to the Tigers, and Wandy Rodriguez to Pittsburgh included.  With the trading deadline still six days away, we're likely to see another big deal or two before the end of the month.  Regardless of what happens between now and July 31, though, I doubt we'll see any deals more interesting and unusual than the one that sent Ichiro Suzuki from Seattle to the Yankees on Monday afternoon.  With the Yankees already in Seattle to open a three-game series at Safeco Field, Ichiro only had to walk across the infield to join his new teammates.

This isn't the first time this has happened, of course.  From time to time, teams will make trades while playing each other and the impacted players don't have to travel before joining their new teams - they just hand their home whites in for a new set of road greys (or vice versa) and they're good to go.  Nor is this the first time that a local legend like Ichiro was traded away from the team with which he has spent his entire career since his rookie season in 2001.  Whereas a few decades ago the notion of a franchise player like Ichiro being traded mid-season would have been absurd, the new financial realities of baseball and the outfielder's desire to be traded to a competitive team combined to send the Japanese legend to New York in exchange for two prospects.

What's so interesting, though, is the fact that Seattle fans had no opportunity to process the Ichiro trade and its ramifications / meaning before seeing him, up close and personal, in a Yankees uniform.  In addition to his many on-field accomplishments, Ichiro's presence and international appeal make him arguably one of the most important Major League Baseball players of my lifetime.  While he wasn't the first Japanese import to play in the Majors, Ichiro's constant production for Seattle since his rookie season (when he won both the Rookie of the Year and MVP awards in helping to lead Seattle to a 116-46 record and an ALCS appearance) has set the standard for Nippon Professional Baseball players (especially position players) migrating to MLB.  He has been the face of not only the Mariners for the past decade, but for Japanese Major Leaguers and MLB's international expansion efforts as well.

So when Ichiro got traded to the Yankees and Mariners fans got to (had to?) see him play against them at Safeco Field that very night, I wondered if the local Seattle fans would be able to fully process and appreciate all that he has meant to their city and baseball as a whole.  While many argue that Ichiro has always been overrated (and, if you believe in the value of OBP over AVG you might have to concede that point), you'd be hard pressed to find more than a handful of players that have meant more to their teams and to the game of baseball that Ichiro Suzuki.  Normally, there's a window between a player getting traded and his return to his original team that lets the fans process the player's departure - fans get exited about the player's return, secondary market ticket prices skyrocket and the media flocks to cover the story.  Due to the quirky circumstances of the Ichiro-to-New York deal, however, the newest Yankee might not have gotten the respect he deserves from the Mariners faithful.

Was Ichiro's standing ovation at Safeco Field anything more than routine?

Language Barriers

While the NFL currently dominantes the U.S. sports landscape, one thing that the MLB and NBA have that professional football doesn't is an exciting international element.  Both baseball and basketball include players and fans from all over the globe, and the ability to tune into a game and see guys from a host of different backgrounds and cultures is fun - especially during this era of increased globalization.  Last night's Major League Baseball All Star Game was no different, as both the American and National League rosters were well represented by players from a number of different countries - mainly in Latin America - in addition to the United States.  

But while baseball's international element is a key selling point for the MLB, it does have its downsides.  After San Francisco Giants outfielder Melky Cabrera won his well-deserved (and highly improbable) All Star Game MVP award, he gave a postgame interview that was very difficult for the average English-speaking baseball fan to follow or understand.  Despite having played in the Major Leagues since 2005 and in the U.S. (as a Minor Leaguer) since 2003, it's obvious that Melky hasn't spent much of his time in America working on his English.  As the video below shows, Cabrera, who was born in the Dominican Republic and undoubtedly a hero to many in his hometown of Santo Domingo, struggles with anything more than the most basic of English sentences.


Criticizing Melky Cabrera for not speaking English might come off as xenophobic or racist, so let me tread lightly here.  I'm not saying that Melky has any responsibility to work on mastering America's language; clearly, he's doing quite well as a MLB player while speaking Spanish almost exclusively, and the way the league is staffed there will always be enough native Spanish speakers to make learning English an afterthought.  What I am saying, however, is that Major League Baseball will find it difficult to take advantage of athletes who can't speak America's native language, and this is a missed opportunity for both players like Cabrera and for the league.  Whereas baseball and its predominantly U.S.-based sponsors can fully market non-American guys who have mastered the English language (Albert Pujols and Johan Santana, for example), athletes like Melky who can't say much will always have their popularity upsides capped.

Melky Cabrera is still relatively young (he'll turn just 28 later this season), and with his renewed work ethic he has the potential to turn into one of the better outfielders in baseball on a yearly basis.  But even if Melky continues to put it all together on the field and takes advantage of his five-tool talent, his difficulties with our language are going to keep him out of TV advertisements, late night talk show interviews and other marketing opportunities.  At the time time, other young (and American-born) National League outfielders like Andrew McCutcheon, Ryan Braun and Bryce Harper will continue to collect endorsement deals because of their ability to connect more closely with American, English-speaking fans.  Whereas the globalization of baseball has been a great development for the sport, it also presents some challenges that the league and players like Melky Cabrera will have to work to overcome.

Yes-Yes-Yes No!

In basketball, there's a phenomenon known as "No-No-No Yes!" whereby a player takes a extremely difficult, ill-advised shot that miraculously goes in.  The "No-No-No Yes!" name is meant to describe what the player's teammates and fans are thinking / saying while the play is going on - they start by crying out "No!" while the play is developing, but end up cheering "Yes!" when the play incredibly goes in their favor.  In yesterday's Braves game against the Philadelphia Phillies - nationally televised as part of TBS's Sunday afternoon schedule - I had a directly opposite set of reactions while watching Atlanta rookie shortshop Andrelton Simmons use smarts and hustle to turn a routine single into a double.  I'm calling it a "Yes-Yes-Yes No!" moment.

On the play, Simmons hit a ground ball up the middle for a clean single.  After noticing that the Phillies centerfielder was slow to get to the ball and wasn't paying attention, the Braves rookie took off for second base.  He slid head first into the bag, made it there well in advance of the relay throw, and turned a simple hit into a big play.  The aggressive baserunning forced Philadelphia to walk the #8 hitter (since first base was open) and cleared the pitcher's spot, allowing leadoff man and All Star Michael Bourn to lead off the next inning.  At the time, I was thrilled - the young shortstop's hustle showed the type of savvy that you normally only expect from veteran players.  While watching the game I actually went out of my way to praise Simmons's smarts and effort out loud, and it's not very often that I see something during a game that really impresses me.

It wasn't until a few innings later, however, that I found out that Simmons broke his right pinkie finger on the play.  Whereas I had previously been pumped up by the play (the "Yes-Yes-Yes" part), the news took all of the wind out of my sails and made me question all of the praise that I had been heaping on the young rookie (the "No!").  Was Simmons's hustle an example of baseball smarts, or merely an example of the type of recklessness that a veteran player would know to avoid?  Sure, Simmons grabbed the Braves an extra base and helped the team avoid leading off an inning with pitcher Jair Jurrjens, but he ended up costing his team a lot more than he earned.  Because of his effort, Atlanta will be without its starting shortstop (and one of its hottest hitters) for a to-be-determined amount of time.  So which commentary was the correct one - the "Yes-Yes-Yes" or the "No!" part? 

Andrelton Simmons won't be playing SS for a while aftre breaking his right pinkie on Sunday.

After reflecting on the play, I'm sticking with my original "Yes-Yes-Yes" on this one.  Hindsight is always 20/20, and had I known that Simmons would have suffered a significant injury on the play I certainly would have advised against it.  But there was no way of knowing that Simmons would get hurt during his slide, and it's effort like that displayed by the shortstop yesterday that makes a good player great.  Perhaps going forward, Simmons can combine his youthful energy and effort with some veteran smarts and try a feet-first slide next time.  If he can do that, I might find myself watching Andrelton Simmons and saying "Yes-Yes-Yes YES!" for many years to come.

A Final Tweak to the Final Vote

I've never liked the way that pro sports leagues let the fans vote for All Star starters; as I've always maintained, fans aren't properly educated and are all too likely to vote in popular stars that don't deserve to be there and neglect smaller names who are having tremendous seasons.  This dynamic is magnified in Major League Baseball, where the game actually counts for something - the league that wins the All Star games gets home field advantage in the World Series, a far-from-insignificant prize.  But for all my moaning and groaning about the perils of All Star voting, I've really grown to like MLB's "Final Vote," and think that with a few tweaks it could be the perfect way to get fans involved in the All Star team selection process.

Let's pretend, for a minute, that MLB were to abolish fan voting for starters and turn the duty over to the baseball players, coaches and sportswriters - you know, people that actually know something about baseball.  Even if the All Star voting committee was properly qualified to pick the American and National League rosters, there would inevitably be a lot of debate over who made it and who didn't.  Let's say out of the 33 players selected by the writers, coaches and players, 30-32 were obvious slam dunks.  The other 1-3 slots would be up for debate, and the Final Vote would give the fans the last word in the process.  By filling the five-man Final Vote roster with a combination of deserving just-misses (like Atlanta's Michael Bourn and 2012 NL Final Vote winner and St. Louis third baseman David Freese) and popular / sentimental favorites (like Chipper Jones, who was added this week as Matt Kemp's injury replacement, and rookie phenom Bryce Harper), the fans could decide which of the left out players they cared to see most.

Right now, I don't think the fans care too much about the Final Vote process.  After months of voting online and in stadiums for the All Star starters, the fans are exhausted by the time the Final Vote period rolls around.  If the fans lost the right to vote for the starters, however, they'd have to focus all of their voting-related energy to selecting the 34th man on the roster.  Additionally, without the fan voting to screw up the core rosters, most of the truly deserving players would already be headed to Kansas City this summer.  That way, the final vote choices could be primarily "fun" picks - guys like Chipper and Harper - without really impacting the quality of the game itself.  Adding a guy like Chipper Jones to the 2012 NL All Stars is much easier to swallow when guys like David Freese are already going to the game - something that wasn't guaranteed this year in large part because the fans voted an injured Pablo Sandoval to start at third base.

As it stands, the Final Vote is a cool way to get the fans involved in the last phase of the All Star selection process.  That being said, right now the Final Vote is too important - there are too many significant snubs to truly take the pressure out of the process.  If MLB got rid of fan voting for starters, however, the 34th man on each team could be a de facto "fan's choice" meant to reward popularity, longevity and/or charisma.  This way, the All Star game would be 95% serious - which it should be, given that the game's outcome means a whole lot - with 5% of pure fun sprinkled on top.

Who's To Blame?

I was watching ESPN's Pardon the Interruption earlier today and listened in as Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser debated the Dewayne Wise "no catch" from yesterday's Yankees game (in case you haven't seen in - which would be surprising, given that every sports news outlet has been running the highlight nonstop for the past 24 hours - the video is here).  Clearly, Wise's catch-that-wasn't was a pretty big screw up by MLB standards, and that type of thing should never happen in a professional baseball game.  Wilbon and Kornheiser were arguing about who deserved the blame for the errant call, but I believe the two analysts were missing the point.  In my mind, both Wise and the umpire are to blame for the incorrect call, each for a different reason.

Without a doubt, third base umpire Mike DiMuro made both physical and, more importantly, mental errors on the play.  Although replays clearly showed that Wise dropped the ball even before flying into the stands in foul territory (see the photo below for evidence), DiMuro thought he saw the left fielder catch the ball cleanly.  DiMuro made a mistake, and that's very forgivable - after all, even Major League umpires make these kinds of mistakes regularly, and in my opinion these imperfections are a large part of what makes baseball so fun.  Where the umpire really messed up, however, was in not asking Wise to show him the baseball after the "catch" and before calling the batter out.  Asking to see the ball is standard procedure on these types of plays, and DiMuro's failure to do so was an example of a complete brain freeze.  For this, he deserves a significant amount of blame, and should be reprimanded accordingly by Major League Baseball.

Looked like a pretty clear drop to me. Obviously Mike DiMuro saw things differently.

Dewayne Wise, on the other hand, made an ethical error.  Obviously, Wise knew that he didn't catch the ball.  When DiMuro called the batter out, Wise had a rare opportunity to do the right thing and admit to dropping the baseball, injecting a rare drop of good sportsmanship into a sport looking for more "good guys" in the post-steroids era.  Although he is a professional baseball player paid to get hits and field the ball, Wise and the rest of the Yankees are role models for the young sports fans of New York, the U.S. and the world.  While Wise might not have had a responsibility to report his drop (there's no MLB rule or law that requires a player in this situation to report a blown call), he had a tremendous opportunity to do something right and get recognized for it on a national stage.  Instead, he did exactly what we'd expect him to do - lied (or, at best, failed to tell the truth) and got away with it.

Within a few days, everyone will surely forget about DiMuro's bad call and Wise's bad morals, and I think in this case that's probably a good thing.  After watching the game's highlights, I definitely felt disappointed about the way things played out.  It wasn't Wise's bad morals that upset me, though - it was the fact that I wasn't the least bit surprised that the left fielder reacted the way that he did.  I'm still hoping that the next time a similar situation arises the player involved will live up to reality, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Chipper's Farewell Tour

When I bought tickets to Wednesday afternoon's Braves game at Yankee Stadium, I was just excited to see my favorite team in person in the Bronx.  It was only later that I realized that, barring a Braves vs. Yankees matchup in the 2012 World Series, this would be Atlanta legend Chipper Jones' final visit to The (New) House that Ruth Built.  Unfortunately, I learned via Twitter on Wednesday morning that Chipper wouldn't be playing; at 40 years old, day games immediately following night games aren't really in the cards for the third baseman anymore.  I did, however, get a chance to see Chipper take the field before the first pitch to take part in a very classy ceremony orchestrated by the Yankee brass.

Ever since Chipper announced that 2012 would be his final season, opposing teams have been celebrating Jones' career as he makes his way through the season's schedule.  On a blazing hot day, Yankees captain Derek Jeter and former Atlanta star (and current New York backup outfielder) Andruw Jones stepped out of the home team dugout to honor Chipper.  In commemoration of his final visit to the Bronx, the Yankees presented #10 with third base from Tuesday evening's game, the last Jones will ever play at Yankee Stadium (see the photo below).  For their part, the Yankees fans gave Chipper a pretty big ovation.  After two World Series matchups between Chipper's Braves and the Yanks (1996 and 1999, both of which New York won pretty easily), it seems like the New York faithful have a lot of respect for the Atlanta star.

Derek Jeter and Andruw Jones presented Chipper with third base for Tuesday night's game.

Of all of MLB's teams, the Yankees are arguably the one with the most respect for tradition and legacy.  In addition to a Monument Park honoring some of the greatest baseball players of all time - Ruth, Mantle and DiMaggio, to name a few - the Yankees currently have a living legend on their roster whose image is permanently attached to the team's name and logo: Derek Jeter.  Given how much the New York fans love #2, perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that they have a lot of respect for Atlanta's Chipper Jones.  While Chipper won't have quite the same legacy as Jeter does when they're both retired, they are both future Hall of Famers who have spent their entire illustrious careers with one organization.  I would argue that Chipper represents the Tomahawk in exactly the same way that Jeter represents the Pinstripes, and in that way Yankees and Braves fans of my generation will be forever linked.

I hope that I get another chance to see Chipper Jones play in person (perhaps later this season at Citi Field, Citizens Bank Park or even Nationals Park), but in case I don't I'm glad I was at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday.  Given their love for their own captain and long-time superstar, it seems fitting and appropriate that the Yankees would honor the cornerstone of the Atlanta organization over the past two decades.  Plus, if nothing else, Chipper has caused Mets fans a ton of heartache over the past fifteen years, which is something every Yankees fan should truly appreciate.  

A Uniform Renaissance

Since I finished classes a week ago, I've been watching a moderately insane amount of MLB content including games, highlights and commentary.  We're also in the middle of another week of Interleague Play; normally I pay much closer attention to the NL teams, but this week I've been glued to the action coming out of the AL, too.  While watching so much baseball, I came to realize that we are at a high point for MLB uniforms (at least in my lifetime).  Between the teams that have always had great duds and the teams that recently made massive upgrades, the number of sharp-looking uniforms far outnumbers the ugly ones.  As someone obsessed with team merchandise, I appreciate this more than you could possibly imagine.

First, we have the teams who have always had - and, hopefully, will always have - classic uniforms.  While I guess we have to start with the New York Yankees and their trademark pinstripes, we shouldn't forget about teams like the Giants, Dodgers, Red Sox and Tigers.  All of these clubs have maintained a traditional look for most (if not all) of their existences, which I really appreciate during this era of companies like Nike and Under Armour doing everything they can to "modernize" sports apparel.  Although I admit I'm biased, my Braves have always had a cool, unique look, and the throwback-style jerseys they've been sporting this season are particularly cool (see below).  Throw in the Cubs, Cardinals and others, and baseball has arguably the most stable crop of classic jerseys of any professional sport.

Jason Heyward rocking the awesome new Braves alternate jerseys.

In addition to these teams, there have been a number of teams that have made significant upgrades to their uniforms.  This is particular true in the American League, where the Blue Jays and the Orioles returned to more classic looks this year - a particularly huge improvement for Toronto, who went from having one of the the worst uniforms in baseball to one of the best (see below).  While less pronounced, other teams have recently made some solid improvements, too.  The Mets got rid of all the black and went back to a 1960's-style cream-colored look that suits them well.  The Rays have finally found a color scheme that works (compare those to these or, perhaps even worse, these).  The Pirates realized that sleeveless jerseys were an awful idea and went back to something more mature, and I love how Washington ditched the "Nationals" jerseys for the script "W" ones.  As I watch baseball this season, I'm really liking the uniforms that I'm seeing from most of the clubs.

Toronto made MLB's biggest uniform upgrade that I can ever remember.

This isn't to say that there aren't some bad ones out there.  I write this post even in spite of the fact that the Marlins are wearing perhaps the worst set of jerseys I've ever been alive to see - the alternate orange ones are particularly offensive (see below).  I don't mind Arizona's red-and-black color palette, but the giant "D-backs" across the chest looks terrible.  The Padres jerseys are pretty uninspired in my opinion, and Houston is (as always) a disaster.  In spite of these duds, though, I still love what I'm seeing on MLB diamonds these days.  If only I could say the same of the NBA hardwood and NHL ice.

Miami Marlins: worst uniforms in sports?