October 18, 2003

Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for Brad Pitt to get the girl. Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for General Motors. In last years playoffs when the Angels beat the Yankees some fan had a great sing about the Anaheim ANgels "Half the payroll, twice the heart."

You may well be right that Beane, James, et al have downgraded the importance of on-field management, and so end up with second-tier guys like Grady Little, Art Howe, etc. But your observation that "in devaluing the manager financially, they weakened his authority and essentially put the children in charge of the family fortune" -- well, that's ludicrous. Little had as much authority over Pedro in Game 6 if he made $5 million a year or 5 bucks an hour. The assumptions in this comment (i.e., that the most sought-after managers are the best, or that players respect more highly paid managers) are unsupportable at best, laughable at worst.

Brian,
I disagree. Management's failure to put up big bucks for a field manager meant to everyone, including the players that did not possess upper management's complete confidence.

Stephen,
I agree and disagree. Macha being too chickenshit to pitch Bradford in the 8th. with a 4-3 lead in game four in a glare condition probably cost the A's their series. Of course he topped his dumbness in the ninth by pinch hitting for Dye, men on 2nd. and 3rd., one out, with a lifetime minor leaguer who promptly struck out. Also, no matter what you think about Little, if Trot Nixon makes a very routine catch on Jeter's line drive by going back on it instead of forward and turns the right way instead of the wrong way, we have the Red Sox in the series.
As for 'Moneyball', it's bunk. Lewis wrote it on the premise that Oakland won a lot of games for not much money because of Billy Beane and a philosophy. Hudson, Mulder, Zito, Chavez, and Tejada, combined made less this year than Derek Jeter. Throw in Jason Giambi in 2000 and 2001 on the cheap, [where they won 193 games] [199 wins in 2002, 2003]
and you can see lots of wins for not much money. The A's are really a $120 million team that is under market value by about 70 mil. And Billy Beane, who I really like and admire, had little if anything to do with getting any of these players. They just came through the A's system, all at about the same time. In 500 years maybe it might happen again. This much talent? Nah, 1000 years.

Before a little World Series party today we saw a video of the 1955 World Series (we are die hard Dodger fans dating back to Brooklyn days).

The Dodgers had great teams in the 40's and 50's and arguably the 1955 was not the best of them except for one thing: WALTER ALSTON's MANAGERIAL EXPERTISE. In that series the Dodgers were down two games to none but held on and in the final game magnificent Yankee pitching and defense nearly did the Dodgers in. It looked like 1941, 1952 and 1953 all over again.

But wait a voice like thunder spake and hurrah all Yankeedom quaked!

Tommy Byrne ,who in game two became the ONLY LEFTY to pitch a complete game victory over the Dodgers in 1955, dominated the Dodger sluggers again but Alston responded with "small ball".

With the Yankee infield playing back
Duke Snider and Roy Campanellla bunted setting up a scoring opportunity
Don Zimmer's fly ball was not merely an easy out but a carefully crafted Sacrifice Fly. With a narrow lead, IN THE SIXTH, fleet of foot left handed Cuban Sandy Amoros is put in as a defensive replacement by Walt Alston in LEFT FIELD (no shades of Bill Buckner here!).

Amoros is shaded toward the line and his glove of course is on his RIGHT HAND.

When Berra blasted a blistering line drive down the opposite field (as he often did) AMOROS, who was perfectly positioned and who was an excellent fielder, got a great jump and just barely snagged Berra's drive by seconds and by inches.

Amoros then took Gil McDougal , the Yankee baserunner on first, entirely off balance; McDougal (we always called him by his Gaelic name the DARK STRANGER)was already well on his way to third when Amoros caught the ball.

Quick thinking Amoros had a good arm and threw to the cut off man and DOUBLED OFF McDougal thus snuffing out the Yankees last real chance to tie the game which was won by the Dodgers 2-0. They won the series 4-3.

Auld Pop said to my pregnant mother :"RRRUTHIE it'll be a boy for surrre!" I was, point of fact and I heard that story 100 times just so I wouldn't forget it!

This actually was an aging Dodger team. Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese were no longer in their prime but were solid especially in the clutch.

The difference was WALT ALSTON, probably the greatest Dodger manager of all time.

It is not an accident that Walt Alston led the Dodgers to championships in 1959,1963,and 1965 and his protege Tommy Lasorda who won two world championships.

Lasorda by the way was a member of the 1955 team along with Sandy Koufax (but not yet Don Drysdale who came up in 1956).

But I think Steven is right about managers having to have special stuff to manage today's prima donnas.

Torre has a special weapon. He was a great ball player -he won a battle title with a .363 average in 1971- and NEVER PLAYED ON A WINNER. The players will respect a star no matter what just the way Hispanic youth will respect an ex-Marine or Army man NO MATTER WHAT. Dusty Baker was also a star.

Torre played on some great Brave and Cardinal teams that were also rans BECAUSE THEY WERE NARROW TEAMS THAT tilted to the right and though they hammered the ball they could not catch it, or run the bases (especially the Braves 1965-1969) or hold on to one run lead except in 1969 when they got great defensive help from ex-Yankee Clete Boyer and ex-Giant Felipe Alou and early RBI clout from Orlando Cepeda plus the steady performance of hall of famers the great Hank Aaron and Phil Niekro. These were all players with World Series experience.

But Gil Hodges beat them in '69 with some pitching but arguably a team that was really, on paper, the third best team in the league after the Braves and the Cubs. Hodges leadership (also an Alston protege and 1955 vet) made all the difference. I will never forget how Hodges pulled Gary Gentry, who had two strikes on slugger Rico Carty, but had allow a towering upper deck shot that was only a yard or so foul. Hodges instantly pulled Gentry and then gambled by putting in the wild flame thrower a mere youngster NOLAN RYAN. Ryan fanned Carty on a 3-2 pitch with two men on and arguably all hope for the Braves died in that moment despite some slugging heroics by Hank Aaron (who as I recall had three homers and two doubles in that series).

I will never forget the day at old Shea when Hodges walked all the way to left field to pull OUTFIELDER Cleon Jones from the game. When have you ever seen that???

Hodges platooned and pulled players and pitchers as he saw best. He certainly got the mostest with the leastest in 1969! And then he beat Earl Weaver another fine manager whose team was one of the greatest of all time. What an achievement that was!

Leadership, motiviation, managerial authority, team discipline make the difference in 10-20% of the games.

Oh yes, IN REAL LIFE (military campaigns, business and politics) leadership, motiviation, the exercise of legitimate authority, the respect for legitimate authority and team work count for a lot too.

You can learn a lot from history...even baseball history.

Steve,
I agree about that Nixon play in right field. What a contrast with the Amoros play on Berra cited above by Ricardo! Aren't moments that follow such a blunder the ones where managerial leadership--or its lack come into play? We made some major blunders at the Battle of the Bulge, however generalship ultimately prevailed by adapting and shifting tactics--not to mention the rallying cry by Genl Mc'Auliffe "Nuts!" to a surrender demand.

Saying it's so doesn't make it so, y'know.

If anything, sabermetric concepts devalue the superstar. That's the lesson players take from Oakland; that you aren't going to get the 20 million dollar salary, because a smart GM can find a cheap replacement for a million bucks a year. That, in fact, was the message sent by Theo Epstein's offseason. "Hey. I can get players like Ortiz, Mueller, and Walker -- cheap."

Bill Mueller made $2,100,000 this year. Manny Ramirez made $20,000,000 -- ten times as much. Mueller beat Ramirez for the batting title by a percentage point or so. Tell me again who's devalued? Who should be worried about future employment?

And even Joe Torre makes only a quarter of what the superstars make. Doesn't seem to affect his authority much.

But in the end, here's what you're missing: the Red Sox did do pretty well this season. They took the Yankees to seven games. They set records that will last a long long time -- all while "feminized" Grady Little was managing them. I think Little screwed up, no question, and I think Torre's discipline is an important component of the success of his team. But it's very difficult for me to look at a team that was probably the second best team in baseball this year and use them as evidence that their approach to management is an utter failure.

Stephen, you're right of course, after Trot screwed the play up, Grady should have made the change. Wasn't it ironic though, that the backbreaker, Posada's two run single-double came on a pitch that Pedro threw too good and Posada mishit it enough for it to fall in?
I'm only crying because my A's will lose Tejada next year and Chavez the year after. Nobody will ever convince me that this wasn't the best all around shortstop, third base combo in baseball history. 30 home runs, 100 plus rbi's three years in a row and almost four, plus some impossible, joyful to watch, defensive plays that won them about 20 games a year. The Marlins have this too, as we saw last night.
Ricardo, amen on Walter Alston. Had he been managing the A's, I think they win it all at least once and maybe all three years 2000, 2001, 2002.

Steve,
Indeed. Didn't Posada's bloop hit remind you of Luis Gonzalez's hit off Rivera? And, yes, that Oakland combo is unmatchable. Are there any others that come close? Can't think of any.

Bryant,
I agree with you--the Red Sox did pretty well this year. Their talent is what made Grady Little's blunders---and they were many--so appalling. It took real failures of leadership for such a talented team to come up short. My criticism was intended to be constructive. 85 years is enough!

Among the cruelest ironies of Boston's loss is the painful realization that if Grady Little had followed the sabremetric index cards instead of his gut (or whatever part of his body spoke up), he'd have taken Pedro out and turned the fortunes of his team over to the bullpen. If anything, the recent post-season shows that sabremetrics is not yet fully integrated, i.e. when the chips are down, managers still make their own decisions - for good or for ill.

It isn't "the post-modern collapse of paternal authority" so much as it is lack of true professionalism. If every baseball fan is left scratching his or her head (or, of course, their eyes out) over crucial decisions by Macha, Baker, and Little, that suggests to me that these "baseball guys" aren't working from the same knowledge base as the fans - or the winning managers. That should be impossible, but recent experience demonstrates that, however improbable, something like a crisis in intel clearly exists.

In other words, either these guys should start reading their own history, or else teams should start hiring some of the fans who actually know how to manage the game.

I haven't seen any evidence to support your contention in the coverage of the games. I don't see how you got "curse of the post-modern collapse of paternal authority" instead of just a manger who makes bad decision making another one. Are you saying that if Little had said "Pedro, You're done". Martinez would have refused to leave?

I have seen Torre head out to the mound many a time to ask how the pitcher was feeling, and sometimes, he left the guy in.

Ivan

To me, the beauty of baseball is the infinity of it. A score does not give the ball to the other team like football and basketball. A walked batter in the first inning that does no damage might give the batter an at bat in the ninth that beats you. Every game has probably, billions, of possible chains of events. A good manager must know how to, and have the guts to, do things that stop and start these chains of events.
To me, a patient at bat might be to swing at the first pitch the second time up after seeing five or six pitches the first time up because it's a continuing chain of events between you and the pitcher. And yes, I know a couple of $10 an hour cashiers that would have brought the A's in against the Red Sox and the Red Sox in against the Yanks.

Ricardo:

Great post but one error - Gil Hodges drove in both Brooklyn runs in game 7 of the 1955 World Series. One with a single, the other with a scarifice fly.

"And Billy Beane, who I really like and admire, had little if anything to do with getting any of these players [Hudson, Mulder, Zito, Chavez, Tejada, Giambi]. They just came through the A's system, all at about the same time."

So talent in a team's minor league farm club is randomly determined?

I've seen this argument before, and it bugs me, because Lewis already made a counter-argument in Moneyball! Beane drafted Zito (after San Diego decided he didn't throw hard enough) and Giambi (whom his scouts thought was a waste of time). Same pattern for Hudson -- short right-hander, not loved by the scouts, drafted late.

Don't get me wrong Floyd, my point is: That many great players showing near the same time frame for not much money might never happen again. Beane had no idea how great these guys were going to be, he just knew they were way undervalued. Just as he didn't know how dismal T. Long and Scott Hatteburg would become after he extended their contracts. Lewis gave a whole chapter to Hatteburg who hit about .200 after the all star game and went from fair to terrible on defense this year. He put together the Dye, Damon deal, which was genius. Lilly was superior late this year even though he really hurt the A's in last years playoff against the Twins....I like Beane a lot but as he is going to find out very shortly, it's real hard to win 90 plus games without special players. I look for him to leave the A's...these owners are just too tight. Their attendance went up for the fifth year in a row and they refuse to spend any of it. We lost Durham who would have made all the difference this year. Now it's Tejada and Keith Foulke who said he would stay with no raise because he loves it there. But I think these owners expect Beane to pull another Foulke out the hat for nothing. I'm predicting 85-90 wins next year, then it'll start downhill as we start losing the pitchers.

Steve,
Your analysis of the Oakland situation is illuminating. Why did Billy Beane not take the Boston GM offer? That would seem the ideal situation for him--owners willing to spend, while committed to a sabermetric approach. Where do you think he will go now, if he leaves Oakland?

Stephen, To use him as a metaphor, Dan Shaughnessy of the Globe. Dan did a satire piece on Grady Little where he had made the change for Pedro in the 8th. and they had gone on to win the championship that was so cruel and vicious that it gave me vertigo. Beane knows how tough the New York-Boston press is compared to the west. He doesn't need that crap and he was smart enough to turn the job down. I think the Angel's want him and a few other teams are interested, but, sad to say, thanks to 'Moneyball', I'm not sure he can be effective anywhere now. Most owners are like middle school girls and will put the old Scarlet Letter Shun on him since 'Moneyball' made them look almost silly when they went up against Beane.
Actually, he should be in Hollywood. He'd probably be a better actor than most of them too.
I agree with you, what is wrong with spending money to improve the product like George does. I hate the Yankees with a good healthy passion but I have sense enough to understand that George probably has done more to give baseball a second chance of becoming very, very popular than any other single person on earth. Hell, he didn't need to spend 180 mil this year. He could have spent 150 and kept the other 30 for himself.