Blogging Mets

When we were kids we couldn’t wait for our birthdays — we were going to get the best gifts ever! Well, how many of us even remember any of our childhood gifts, let alone still have them? Well, I still have two baseball-related birthday gifts that really weren’t even gifts at all; one was a coincidence, and the second was a coincidence so unlikely that it convinces me to this day that there is some kind of higher power at work in our universe.

But I begin with the non-spiritual one. Like millions of other children, I used to write to baseball teams and players asking them for some kind of memorabilia. They often sent pictures (I wonder if teams still do that today). Of course I wrote to my idol Hank Aaron. I liked him because I had read the young-adult book “Hammerin’ Hank of the Braves” (a book I recently picked up again at a flea market), and I was struck at how, despite his accomplishments, I didn’t think he got the credit he was due. He was still chasing Babe Ruth’s home run record at the time, and everyone was saying, “He’s not as good as the Babe. He’ll never be as good as Willie Mays.” This struck a chord in my underdog mentality (I am the youngest in my family, and of course, I am a Mets fan!), so he became my favorite.

On my 10th birthday I got an envelope in the mail. It contained a signed picture of Aaron, addressed personally to me:

I was excited. I wrote on the back “Got it on my birthday 1973″ in my childish elementary school script. A few years later when I started collecting memorabilia I decided that my inscription might hurt its value, so I tried to erase it. I didn’t do a good job; it can still be faintly seen.

(But I did destroy any value of a Roberto Clemente card. In the early 1970s Topps came out with a line of over-sized cards on thicker cardboard. Next to Clemente’s date of birth I wrote “Died 12/31/72.” My brother, the card’s co-owner, still won’t let me forget it. Yet he forgets that he was the one who wrecked the big Aaron card my trying to copy his signature on it. So there.).

In any case, I felt like I got a birthday present from the great Hank Aaron himself, and I’ve kept it ever since. Is the signature real, or did some clubhouse kid sign it? Does it really matter?

Now onto the biblical gift. I assume I wasn’t the only kid who looked at the back of every baseball card to check the players’ birthdays in the hopes that at least one of them shared mine. Well, at least one did; exactly one, actually — Clyde Wright. Wright was a relatively obscure player who pitched mostly for the Angels in a 10-year career from 1966-1975. He had a couple of good seasons, including winning 22 games in 1970. Yankees fans probably hate him because he is the father of Jaret Wright, a high-priced failure from a few years back. I would never have known of Clyde Wright had it not been for our shared birthday, but I did know of him, even at an early age.

So one year on my birthday (it might have been the year before the Aaron gift, perhaps the year after, but probably not the same year) I was walking to school with my friends (back in the day when it was safe to walk to school without parental involvement) when I saw something on the ground, glistening in the early morning winter sun. As I got closer I saw that it was a baseball coin.

In 1971 Topps came out with a line of baseball coins, each a little bit bigger than a JFK half-dollar. There were 153 in all.

I bent down to pick it up. I looked at the player. Of course it was Clyde Wright.

I found a baseball coin on a random street in Brooklyn, on my birthday, of the one player who shared a birthday with me. That is too big to be a coincidence. That coin was left there for me to find. I believe that to this day. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion on matters such as this, and call it what you want, but I think it shows that something bigger than all of us is at work here.

This year for my birthday I might get a Tom Seaver autographed baseball if my girlfriend picked up on my very obvious hints. It would be a great gift that I will always keep, but I just don’t think anything can top my Hank Aaron picture and my miracle Clyde Wright coin.

Every winter one MLB team owner is dubbed the “One Dumb Owner” for giving out a ridiculous, mega-bucks contract (think Ted Lerner last year for the Jayson Werth debacle). This year that title has been anointed to the Angels Arte Moreno for his 10-year, $254 million commitment to Albert Pujols. But I think the crown should be taken away from Moreno and given to Nolan Ryan and his partners in Texas, who on Wednesday signed Japanese import Yu Darvish to a six-year, $60 million deal.

There are those who will hail this as a brilliant move considering Darvish’s absolutely sick numbers in Japan. And perhaps Darvish will be an American baseball superstar a la Ichiro Suzuki. But adding in the $51.7 million posting fee to Darvish’s former team, Ryan is paying $111.7 million dollars to a man who has never thrown a pitch in the major leagues.

In contrast, Moreno is paying more than twice that to the best player in all of baseball, who has proven at this level, year in and year out, what he is capable of doing. Yes, Pujols might be older than the 31 he claims to be, and yes, in the final years of the contract the Angels will be paying far too much for a player with diminished abilities, but if he delivers a couple of World Series championships before that, who will care?

I would much rather overpay for proven performance than to pay less for potential. Because let’s face it, Darvish is all potential right now; he has proven nothing in the majors. And with the track record of Japanese players coming over here not particularly stellar, this is a huge risk for the Rangers.

Moreno’s signing of Pujols carries much less risk, so it says here there he should he remove his “One Dumb Owner” tiara and hand it to Ryan. I think it would look nice on him.

Barry Larkin was the lone player voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, it was announced on Monday. Larkin received 86.4% of the vote in his third year of eligibility.

I correctly predicted this, but I was wrong in my thought that Jeff Bagwell would get in, too. His omission in his second year on the ballot continues to baffle me, although his vote total increased from 41.7% last year to 56% this time around. He certainly has the numbers, but there are “whispers” of his involvement with steroids. He has never tested positive, was not in the Mitchell Report and there has never been even circumstantial evidence connecting him to PEDs, yet he continues to be punished. This is just not fair.

I wonder if Mike Piazza, victim of similar “whispers,” will have the same problem next year. Guys like Bagwell and Piazza should not be lumped in with Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa, who are also eligible next year. These are guys with clear evidence that points strongly to PED use. I understand leaving known cheats out of the Hall; omitting someone because of innuendo is not a good enough reason, in my opinion.

As far as the rest of the ballot, Jack Morris got 66.7% in his 13th appearance and Lee Smith got 50.6%. Mark McGwire got his usual 19.5% and his fellow steroids-in-arms (or butts, wherever they are injected) Rafael Palmeiro got 12.6%, while Juan Gonzalez didn’t even get enough to remain on the ballot.

Here is the complete vote:

Barry Larkin 495 (86.4%)
Jack Morris 382 (66.7%)
Jeff Bagwell 321 (56.0%)
Lee Smith 290 (50.6%)
Tim Raines 279 (48.7%)
Edgar Martinez 209 (36.5%)
Alan Trammell 211 (36.8%)
Fred McGriff 137 (23.9%)
Larry Walker 131 (22.9%)
Mark McGwire 112 (19.5%)
Don Mattingly 102 (17.8%)
Dale Murphy 83 (14.5%)
Rafael Palmeiro 72 (12.6%)
Bernie Williams 55 (9.6%)

Below 5% — left off future ballots

Juan Gonzalez 23 (4.0%)
Vinny Castilla 6 (1.0%)
Tim Salmon 5 (0.9%)
Bill Mueller 4 (0.7%)
Brad Radke 2 (0.3%)
Javy Lopez 1 (0.2%)
Eric Young 1 (0.2%)
Jeromy Burnitz 0
Brian Jordan 0
Terry Mulholland 0
Phil Nevin 0
Ruben Sierra 0
Tony Womack 0

The Hall of Fame’s Veterans Committee has spoken, and once again it has denied Gil Hodges his rightful place in Cooperstown. Hodges garnered just nine votes, three shy of the 12 votes needed for enshrinement. The committee did, however, elect Ron Santo, which is puzzling because their statistics were very similar.

Santo hit .277 with 2254 hits, 342 home runs and 1331 RBIs. He was a nine-time All Star and won the Gold Glove five times. Hodges batted .273 with 1921 hits, 370 home runs and 1274 RBIs. He was an eight time All Star and won three Gold Gloves. It should be noted that the fielding award was first handed out in 1957, late in Hodges’s career. He won the first three. Both were regarded as among the top fielders at their respective positions during their careers.

Here’s where it gets interesting — Santo played in exactly zero post season games. Hodges was a leader on a Brooklyn Dodgers team that went to seven World Series. Hodges, of course, was also a manager, working miracles with the 1969 Mets.

Santo was never really close to getting elected by the writers; he topped out at 43% in his final year of eligibility. Hodges’s best total was also in his final year — 63%, the closest anyone has ever gotten without later being elected.

Santo was a fine ballplayer, and until he died last year, he was a high profile guy as a longtime radio broadcaster with the Cubs. He also garnered a lot of sympathy for his long battle with diabetes that resulted in the amputation of both of his legs. In contrast, Hodges has been dead for nearly forty years. He is long forgotten by many.

Some writers think Hodges is a marginal candidate at best. Even if that is true, his managing career should put him over the top. And if Santo deserves to get in, so does Hodges.

This year’s Hall of Fame ballot released on Wednesday could be the lamest one in recent memory. The ESPN.com headline on its story says it all:

Bernie Williams, Bill Mueller Top Ballot

No disrespect to Bill Mueller, but when he tops any ballot, you can rest assured the remaining names are not very impressive. Hell, no one even knows how to pronounce his last name (it’s like Miller, I think).

These, of course, are only the first-timers on the ballot. Other notables include former Mets Edgardo Alfonzo and Jeromy Burnitz. None of them should be making Cooperstown reservations for July. Sure, Yankees fans will make some noise about Williams, and while he had an excellent career, is just not Hall of Fame worthy.

There are plenty of holdovers, most of whom are also reasonably unimpressive (if not they wouldn’t be holdovers). And perhaps we need this down year because next year we will have the mother of all ballots with which to contend — Mike Piazza, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, Curt Schilling, and Craig Biggio will all be up for consideration.

But a few players have a good chance of being elected this year. Here are the top candidates:

Barry Larkin

This will be Larkin’s third try, and likely his last because I predict he will be elected. Many people thought he was a slam-dunk first ballot HOFer, but they turned out to be wrong. He got 62% last year, and with little competition this year he will get in. He is certainly deserving — he was the dominant shortstop in the National League in the 1990s, winning the MVP in 1995. Larkin was a 12-time All-Star, won nine Silver Sluggers and three Gold Gloves.

Jeff Bagwell

I think Bagwell will also get in. On his first time last year he garnered a surprisingly low 41% of the vote. There were a lot of articles written at this time last year about Bagwell and steroids. Nobody ever accused him of taking them, but some criticized him for never speaking out against them, which is just absolute nonsense. I think many writers punished him for that by denying him first ballot distinction. Just like they punished Roberto Alomar for his infamous spitting incident and then elected him the second year, I think the same thing will happen with Bagwell. Bagwell was a Rookie-of-the-Year and an MVP winner. He hit 449 home runs in a 15-year career.

Jack Morris

Time is running short for Morris. This is his 13th year on the ballot — only two more years left. Morris got 53% of the vote last year, and I don’t see it going any higher. Morris had a fine career, winning 254 games, but his 3.90 era would be the highest of any Hall of Fame starter. He never won a Cy Young, finishing as high as third twice.

Lee Smith

His 10th year on the ballot, he got 45% last year. He retired as the all-time saves leader, but two players have already surpassed him, and by more than 100 saves. He has no shot.

Tim Raines

A lot of people love Raines, calling him the National League’s Rickey Henderson. I think he falls well short of that. He’ll never get in.

Steroid Guys

Mark McGwire will get his usual 20% or so, Rafael Palmeiro will get enough votes to remain on the ballot, but Juan Gonzalez may not even get that much. None of these guys is getting in.

It will be interesting to see what happens next year, though. It is unlikely that the writers will elect Bonds, Clemens or Sosa, but if they do get in, does that open the door for all of the steroid guys? And what about Piazza? There have been whispers for years about possible steroid use but no evidence, not even circumstantial evidence. Mets fans pray this is not true. But do the writers ignore the whispers, or is he lumped in with the players who have failed tests or where the evidence can reasonably point to steroid use? These are all questions for next year.

After talking about it for years, Major League Baseball announced Thursday that it will add one Wild Card team to each league, and the two teams will square off in a one-game playoff to determine which one advances to the Divisional Series.

“It’s an extra playoff game,” Commissioner Bud Selig said. “The one criticism we’ve had is that we didn’t put enough on winning the division. Now we have. Now we have in a big way.”

The new system could be in place next season, but definitely in 2013.

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, if there had been two Wild Card teams in 2007 and 2008, the Mets would have been one of them, making the collapses a little bit easier to take.

On the other hand, it dilutes the playoff pool. Now 10 of the 30 teams will make the playoffs — that’s 33%. This would possibly allow unworthy teams to make the playoffs.

Also, if there had been two Wild Card winners in each league this season, we would not have gotten that incredible final day of the season, although that was likely a once-in-a-lifetime day in which all the stars aligned that will never happen again.

But what it boils down to is that it rewards teams for winning the division. There was a division race a few seasons ago between the Yankees and the Red Sox that came down to the final weekend with the two teams playing each other. It should have been a dramatic showdown for the ages. Only there was no drama because both teams were guaranteed the playoffs. Sure, the division winner got home field advantage, but that’s really not much of a big deal in baseball. Imagine if the loser had to first play a sudden-death game to advance in the playoffs while the other team got to sit back and arrange its rotation. Then we would have seen plenty of drama.

I will, however, feel bad for a Wild Card team with 99 wins which loses its division by one game having to play the second Wild Card which got into the playoffs with 85 wins. It’s kind of not fair to that far superior Wild Card team, but what are you going to do? That team should have won a couple of more games!

Former legendary Mets manager Gil Hodges is among 10 candidates who are on the Veterans Committee ballot for the Hall of Fame that was released on Thursday. Once and for all, let’s get him in there.

It’s well known that Hodges has received more votes than anyone who is not in the Hall. His 63.4% in 1983 is the highest total for anyone who didn’t get in the following year. Of course, Hodges did not have a following year — that was his 15th and final time on the ballot. Veterans Committees have ignored him since, but this is the first time the committee will consider his candidacy after getting revamped a second time (the first revamping led to no one getting elected).

Hodges is certainly a worthy candidate. He hit 370 home runs, which may not seem like a lot now, but when he retired he was in or near the top 10 all-time. He had 30+ home runs in five consecutive seasons when hitting 30 homers was an accomplishment. He drove in 100+ runs seven straight times. He was an eight-time All-Star. He was a career .273 batter — not great, but on par with such recent inductees as Andre Dawson. Defensively, Hodges was the best first baseman of his day. The Gold Glove wasn’t introduced until 1957, 10 years after his career began. Hodges won it the first three seasons when he was already in his mid 30s (one of them was on display at his bowling alley in Brooklyn — I used to marvel at it and his other baseball mementos when I was a kid). He was also a leader of those great Brooklyn Dodgers teams.

Then there is his managerial record. He struggled in his first five years at the helm of terrible Washington Senators teams, but he found his way in New York, of course leading the Miracle Mets to the 1969 World Series championship. He was developing into an excellent manager when a heart attack killed him days before the 1972 season was about to start.

Hodges was also by all accounts a great man. Of course, there of lots of great men who are not in the Hall of Fame (and some rotten ones who are), but his solid character should be enough to push him through. He was widely respected throughout the league. Tom Seaver, for example, cannot say enough nice things about him.

Among the 16 people on the committee are Ralph Kiner, Tommy Lasorda and Don Sutton. Kiner always spoke highly of Hodges, and Lasorda and Sutton are Dodgers, the former a huge booster for his team. Perhaps the three of them can convince the other members (unless Kiner is upset that Hodges had one more homer than him!). Hodges needs 75% of the vote when the committee marks its ballots on December 5 at the winter meetings — that’s 12 votes.

It’s about time Gil Hodges took his rightful place in Cooperstown.

Well, that was a pretty good game. Did anyone else have flashbacks of another Game 6, you know, that game in 1986?

Just like in 1986 when the Mets were down by two runs and down to their last strike (except that was in the tenth inning), the Cardinals were able to score two runs to tie the score in the ninth. I thought for sure they would win it right then and there just like the Mets did, but they could not.

Then after Josh Hamilton’s two-run homer in the tenth, I thought the Cardinals were done. But they came back to score two more runs to send the game in the 11th, where David Freese would end it with a home run (below).

In many ways this was a greater comeback than 1986 — the Cards had to come back from two runs down twice. Now St. Louis has to finish things off in Game 7 like the Mets did. If not, this comeback will be the equivalent in Cardinal history that Endy Chavez’s catch in Game 7 of the NLCS is in Mets history — an unbelievable moment that extended things a bit but ultimately ended in a series defeat.

Americans used to be wary of the Japanese; something about a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor or something. People scoffed at those funny little cars that started filling up our streets in the 1970s, but they were eventually accepted. Now Japanese baseball players are commonplace on our shores. But I say teams should remain wary of these latest Japanese imports.

This is a timely warning because a report last week in The Mainichi Daily News (which of course I read faithfully) said that pitcher Yu Darvish (left) is expected to ask his team to make him available to the highest MLB bidder this off-season.

Now, I have never seen Darvish pitch and perhaps he is the greatest pitcher of all time. His statistics are just sick — in seven seasons he is 93-38 with an ERA around 2.00. This season the 25-year-old was 18-6 with a stunning 1.44 ERA. He is the highest-paid Japanese player at around $6.5 million per season.

Teams will be tripping over each other to pay him even more, and that will be after the mega-bucks payment to his Japanese team just for the right to negotiate with him. And that, in my opinion, would be a mistake.

According to Wikipedia, 43 Japanese players have played in the majors through the 2o10 season. Just one of them, Ichiro Suzuki, can be considered a superstar (according to me, not Wikipedia). While several players have had nice careers, the only other one who could even be called a star is Hideki Matsui. Only eight have appeared in an All-Star game.

There is always a drop-off of performance. Matsui was called “Godzilla” in Japan for his home run prowess — he hit 50 in his final season there. Here in the United States he has topped 30 just once in nine seasons.

How many players came over here with high hopes and even higher contracts? Let’s not even discuss Kaz Matsui. The Cubs gave Kosuke Fukudome a four-year $48 million contract because he was a power-hitting .300 batter in his native land. Here he’s averaged ten homers a year and cannot even sniff .300.

Then there’s Daisuke Matsuzaka (left), who came over with just as much hoopla as Darvish. The Red Sox won the bidding with their famous $51,111,111.11 offer, then gave him a six-year, $52 million contract. Matsuzaka had one really good season, but overall he has been injury plagued and mediocre.

And what about the Yankees signings of Hideki Irabu and Kei Igawa, the latter perhaps the worst contract in the history of baseball? For their $26 million bid and $20 million contract, the Yankees got 16 games, a 2-4 record and a fitting 6.66 ERA out of Igawa. He’s been buried in the minors for the past three seasons.

I’m not saying Japanese players should not be given a chance to play in the majors, but their gaudy statistics should be taken with a grain of salt. They should not be given multi-year, multi-million dollar contracts until they prove themselves in the U.S. Until then, they should be treated like international signings or draft picks — given a signing bonus of a few million dollars, then the MLB minimum for at least their first season. If their skills translate, then give them the big bucks.

The track record for Japanese players in the U.S. has not been good, yet teams continue to lavish them with big contracts. How often do teams have to be burned until they change their ways?

First the Yankees exit the post-season, and now it’s the Phillies. The Cardinals won a classic pitcher’s duel Friday night as Chris Carpenter beat Roy Halladay 1-0 win to take the NLDS three games to two. I know I should be happy; after all, as Mets fans we hate the Phillies. But I find myself not caring all that much.

First of all, I have no rooting interest left. Cardinals-Brewers? Rangers-Tigers? Who cares. At least with the Phillies in it I could root against them.

Secondly, as much as I hate the Phillies, you have to admire the job GM Ruben Amaro, Jr. has done in building this team, especially the starting rotation. They really deserved to win. I felt the same way about the Boston Celtics in 2008. I despise the Celtics but I was rooting for them to win the championship because of the way they went out and got the players the needed (although I didn’t feel that way about the Miami Heat this year. Go figure).

In any case, the Phillies join the Yankees on the sidelines. I will watch both championship series and then the World Series, of course, but I just don’t really care who comes out on top.