Off Wing Opinion

From Yahoo Sports;

A 16-year-old schoolgirl with a mean knuckleball has been selected as the first woman ever to play alongside the men in Japanese professional baseball.

She impressed in the tryout after retiring the side in an inning of work. She was drafted by the Kobe 9 Cruise, a team in a new independent league starting up in April. She stands 5-feet even, but wants to follow in the footsteps of 6'2" knuckleballer Tim Wakefield. It will be interesting to see if she makes the team and how she does.

From the man himself, referring to the mood of Phillies fans;

I can only hope that it remains as jubilant because I just realized that my rental car is a prime target for vandalism should the Phillies lose tonight or Monday.

Yup, you guessed it. Of all the possible states it could have come from, my car has Florida plates.

Talk about having the wrong plates at the wrong time.

Today was officially the end of an era in Boston when Manny Ramirez was dealt to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a three-way deal that included the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Being a lifelong Red Sox fan, I have mixed reactions about the deal.

For starters, the Sox won't feel the same again as there will no longer be the Manny presence both at the plate and in left field. He was a slacker, an offensive threat, and a comedian all at the same time. Of course we would get upset and be disgusted when he would barely step out of the box on a ground ball or fail to run out a long drive when he thought he sent it out of the yard.

But as soon as he drove one over the Green Monster or slid into second with one of his patented doubles in the left field gap, all was forgiven. He was again loved, and considered a key player in the drive for a championship.

Manny was allowed to be quirky and restless, since we all knew he would get it done down the stretch when it really mattered. This was the fourth straight year Sox fans, and the rest of baseball, had to endure the Manny trade talks. Every year it came up, and every year he ended the season in a Red Sox jersey.

But this year it was different. This was the last year in Manny's contract, with a 20 million dollar option for next season. Unfortunately his hijinks have become more of a distraction, and his production has slowly decreased. He was at his peak from '03-'05, putting up huge numbers in RBIs, Runs, and Home Runs. The past two seasons have seen those numbers drop off noticeably, especially in the RBI category. He publicly berated the Red Sox organization to the press and threw Red Sox traveling secretary Jack McCormick to the floor several weeks ago. He was always out there, but this season he overstepped his boundaries.

Instead of dealing with him for the rest of the season, and then losing him to free agency with nothing in return (there was no way the Sox would pick up his options) they dealt him to get something back. Now Jason Bay will never be Manny Ramirez. He isn't nearly as good a hitter, and will be downright dull in comparison. But he will be a good fielder, a solid baserunner, and a positive presence. He won't be a "space cadet", as Jeff Passan has called Manny. While he won't quite have the pop Manny did, he'll be a much better player in other ways.

But now Manny will head to Los Angeles, where he'll feel at home running around like the crazy celebrity he is. He'll be the big man on campus for the Dodgers, and he'll be hailed as the man to bring LA to the playoffs.

Apparently Ramirez's skills no longer outweighed the negative impact he had on the organization. In the end Boston had enough of "Manny being Manny" and finally unloaded what has clearly become a problem onto someone else.

Bill James was kind enough to answer a raft of questions from the readers of the Freakanomics blog at the New York Times. There are plenty of gems within, but this question gave me the biggest belly laugh:

Q: Has looking at the numbers prevented you from actually just enjoying a summer day at the ballpark? Have we all forgotten the randomness of human ballplayers? By reducing players to just their numbers can we lose sight of the intangibles such as teamwork, friendships, and desire.

A: Does looking at pretty women prevent one from experiencing love? Life is complicated. Your efforts to compartmentalize it are lame and useless.

Now you know what it's like to pull up to the intellectual drive-through and have them refuse to take your order.

At least that was the story behind the elaborate prank on Phillies youngster Kendrick. Many people in the organization, including the media, manager Charlie Manuel, assistant general manager Ruben Amaro Jr., and Kendrick's agent, Joe Urbon, were in on the prank orchestrated by pitcher Brett Meyers.

Just watching the video elicits a mix of humor and sympathy. Kendrick is the epitome of the team player who doesn't question what happened, just accepting it for the better of the team. You can just see his face when he finds out that he just doesn't know what to do. After playing along for a while, Meyers tells Kendrick what's going on, and his face is priceless. It was an elaborate trick, and one that Kendrick wants to get over and get his focus back on baseball.

But man was it funny.

(for video click the link above)

After calling Marc Ecko an "idiot" and showing his disapproval of having his 756th home run ball branded with an asterisk, Bonds now says that if the ball goes into Cooperstown, he will not.

After buying the ball, Ecko held an online vote on what to do with the ball; send it to Cooperstown as is, brand it and send it, or shoot it into space. The people spoke, and asked that it be branded and sent to the Hall. When asked what he'd do if the ball went in, Bonds said "I will never be in the Hall of Fame. Never," Bonds said. "Barry Bonds will not be there."

He also noted that baseball does not have asterisks.

"I don't think you can put an asterisk in the game of baseball, and I don't think that the Hall of Fame can accept an asterisk," Bonds said. "You cannot give people the freedom, the right to alter history. You can't do it. There's no such thing as an asterisk in baseball."

But in fact you can give people freedom to do what they wish with homer 756. Marc Ecko bought it, and can do whatever he damn pleases with it. Bonds may not like it, but it's not up to him. He could have bought the ball himself and made sure nothing happened to it if he really wanted to.

In the end they probably won't link Bonds to steroids, he'll make the Cooperstown, and both him and the ball will be there. He may be upset, but as they say, time heals all wounds.

Simply the cruelest prank in human history.

Now, did I laugh? Of course I did.

Somehow, I don't think the Yankees are amused.

For more details, including wondering if it's all real, visit With Leather.

Last night I did a quick capsule review of the ESPN miniseries, The Bronx Is Burning. Now Baseball Crank, who read the book that inspired the series, but didn't watch the television program, has his own review of the book.

I just finished up watching the final episode of the ESPN miniseries, The Bronx Is Burning, and I have to admit that there was plenty that I liked over the past eight episodes -- and that's saying something coming from a New York Mets fan who came of age in the shadow of a Yankees team that would go to four World Series and win two over six seasons.

John Turturro was simply incredible as Billy Martin, getting into the volatile manager's skin and teaching us all something about that man's chaotic and lonely existence. Oliver Platt did about the best he could as Yankees principal owner George Steinbrenner, while Daniel Sunjata, better known for his work as a New York City fireman on FX's Rescue Me, did manage to capture something of the soul of Reggie Jackson, even if he could never manage to mimic his powerful swing.

But as the game footage from the ABC Sports archives started to dominate the action over the last three episodes, the miniseries lost quite a bit of punch. Keeping the audience in suspense when everyone knows how the story will end is something that prevents a lot of sports films from being made, and it was a shame to see TBIB fall victim to that over the last three weeks.

In the end, I couldn't help but feel that there were more stories to be told, especially after catching the "Backstory" segment at the end of every episode. Sure, Jackson, Martin and Steinbrenner dominated the news in and around the 1977 Yankees, but something tells me there was more to hear from folks like Yogi Berra, Willie Randolph, Graig Nettles, Lou Pinella, Bucky Dent and many others.

In fact, had I been producing the series, I might have gone back to the drawing board and simply tried to make an HBO-style documentary that told the story of the Yankees from the Steinbrenner purchase all the way through to their loss in the 1981 World Series to the Dodgers.

Start with George bagging his white whale and end it all with Jackson walking out the door at the end of five star-crossed seasons. Taken together, that's a coherent era in Yankees history that deserves to have its story told and told well. I'll be waiting for it.

Details at Mr. Irrelevant.

As far as I'm concerned, it couldn't have happened to a nicer franchise.

Hall of Fame second baseman and long-time New York Yankees broadcaster Phil Rizzuto died last night. He was 89.

Even though I grew up a Mets fan in New York, Rizzuto's presence was more or less ubiquitous. Along with the late Bob Murphy -- in a nice touch the two were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on the same day -- Rizzuto was truly a voice of Summer in New York for 40 seasons.

Like another of his New York baseball broadcasting contemporaries, Ralph Kiner, Rizzuto was as well known for his malapropisms and on-air mistakes as anything else. For some of those, stop by Pop Jocks.

While I don't write much about baseball, it isn't like I don't pay attention. Which is why, once again, I'm suggesting that everyone take a read of Colby Cosh's take on how Barry Bonds will eventually be seen in the context of baseball history:

If it's all true, surely Bonds is the most devious and admirable baseball villain since Ty Cobb. Has there ever been a ballplayer this innovative, this passionate about finding new ways to compete and defy age? I suspect that the future, with its more flexible ideas about body modification and cybernetics, may revere Bonds for precisely the reasons most of us loathe him.

That's a prediction that I believe will turn out to be all too true.

For other thoughts on Bonds, see Greg Wyshynski.

Here's the most memorable footnote of home run #756:

The teeming scrum of humanity in the stands where the ball landed finally parted to reveal the ball -- itself an object of obsession, not to mention potential riches -- in the hands of a man identified as Matt Murphy, 22, of Queens, N.Y. According to Giants officials, Murphy merely was stopping over in San Francisco on his way to a vacation in Australia, and had purchased his ticket (face value: $13) outside the gates on the day of the game.

That's one heck of a way to pay for a vacation.

UPDATE: A question about Bonds made its way into last night's Democratic debate. I know Keith Olbermann moderated, but it's still a little odd.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The kid from Queens is a Mets fan. I bet that sticks in the craw of a lot of Giants fans. Heh.

I know we don't usually follow baseball, but you really need to see the play that Ronnie Belliard pulled off last night in Washington.

Thanks to Mr. Irrelevant for the pointer.

Though we're a few days past the celebration of the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball, you'd do well to spend a few minutes reading Colby Cosh's extended feature on Robinson's life.

Though Robinson's story will always hold a special place in the lives of all African-Americans, his is a story that all Americans ought to embrace. On that day in 1947, America changed forever, for the better and for all of us.

Does any personality in the world deserve a stalker less than Bob Uecker?

Ramirez is grilling up a sucker.

Apparently, Red Sox Nation has very deep pockets:

How much would you pay to cook up a few steaks on a fancy grill? If you buy it from Manny Ramirez, prepare to shell out more than $20,000 -- but it comes with an autographed baseball. The Red Sox quirky slugger with the $160 million contract is selling on eBay a JENN-AIR grill he said he bought for about $4,000.

Current bid: $481,100 and rising. That's approximately $100,000 more than the MLB minimum salary for 2007.

In today's edition of The Washington Post, Nationals beat writer Barry Svrluga introduces Washington to the growing number of blogs that cover the Washington Nationals.

Front and center is an old friend, Chris Needham:

The e-mail popped in, and Chris Needham took a minute to digest it. The sender was easily identifiable: Stan Kasten is the president of the Washington Nationals, the baseball team about which Needham comments almost daily via his blog.

Needham had just published an entry titled "StanSpeak," in which he took the liberty of "translating" Kasten's words for the club's fan base, a smart-alecky but smart look at what the man who runs the club might really be thinking.

Needham opened the e-mail cautiously. He knows about this?

"I had suspicions that they read this stuff," Needham said. "But when a suspicion becomes a reality, it's surreal."

The surreal part might not be that team executives read and comment about sites such as Needham's "Capitol Punishment," but that nearly two dozen people -- some who grew up in the District, some who grew up in Omaha, some who are Web masters and some who are lawyers -- spend five or 10 or (gulp) 20 hours a week producing blogs devoted to the Nationals.

My coverage of the move of the Expos to D.C. was pretty intense for a while, but that seems so long ago now. In any case, I'm certainly of the opinion that Capitol Punishment is well worth your time. Congrats to Chris on the well-deserved attention.

You know, those New York Yankees fans are all class:

The e-mail inbox of Chicago sportswriter Joe Cowley has been flooded ever since the American League MVP announcement earlier this week, and a few of the 500 messages have included some downright disgusting words from Yankees fans.

A few choice e-mails that made Cowley cringe:

"Hope your cancer comes back."

"Hope you have a short life."

Why am I not surprised?

Only in New York would Derek Jeter have to issue a press statement after not winning the AL MVP Award.

The ridiculous counterpoint was the Justin Morneau press conference in Minnesota. I saw a clip a few hours ago on ESPN, and had to laugh when the SportsCenter anchor said that Morneau's comments were "all class".

Of course, if Morneau had actually seemed happy or a bit giddy at his victory, he would have been absolutely pilloried. His whole tone was subdued, as if he knew he was expected to apologize after his surprise win over the mighty Jeter. You have to credit the guy and whoever is giving him his PR advice, as he might very well have saved himself some serious heartache.

Ian Ybarra has a serious baseball jones:

I

Just two things:

1) My condolences to his friends and family. It's a terrible loss for them.

2) Read this post from The Dugout. Yesterday's coverage on ESPN was the textbook definition of excessive.

Thanks to Deadspin for the pointer.

It sure looks like Newsday is:

Give me a break. The biggest joke about the whole steroid story in Major League Baseball was that the whole thing happened in plain sight.

Anybody who claims they didn't see anything only did because they didn't want to.

Almost 18,000 fans showed up in Baltimore yesterday for a more or less meaningless regular season game between the Orioles and the Tigers.

But what was surprising was that about 1,000 of those fans showed up at a day make up game in September just so they could walk out in the midst of it to show up Orioles owner Peter Angelos.

It was a protest organized by Nestor Aparacio, owner of a Baltimore-area sports talk radio station WNST-AM and the nephew of former Orioles shortstop Luis Aparicio. The radio station owner organized the protest to express fan frustration over Angelos' tenure as owner, one that includes a streak of nine straight losing seasons since the team's last postseason appearance in 1997.

One would think that the 25,000 or so fans who attended yesterday's game disguised as empty seats, a sight that has been repeated often in Baltimore in recent years, would serve as protest enough. Then again, given some of the things that Angelos said in an interview with the Associated Press after the game, it's clear that Aparicio got inside of Angelos' kitchen and rattled some pots and pans:

"He [Aparicio] is a very unimportant person who has delusions of grandeur," Angelos said. "To begin with, to leave in the middle of the game is an abuse of the players who have worked hard and played their hearts out."

My friends, that is the sound of a man who doesn't like to have to trifle with the little people. And it's also the sound of an owner who doesn't seem willing to be accountable to his customers for the performance of the team. Maybe 15 years ago you could have gotten away with talking about your fan base like this. But not today. Fans talk to one another. They share their ideas and their anger in real time. And if they want to pay for a ticket just so they can stand up in the middle of the game and leave to make a point, then so be it.

Perhaps Angelos needs to have something explained to him -- like the fact that people aren't just skipping trips from Washington to Baltimore to see the Orioles because of the Nationals, they're skipping these trips with malice in their hearts.

That's thanks to the way Angelos stood in the way of the relocation of the Expos to Washington, then fumbled the creation of his regional sports cable network so badly that he kept the vast majority of the team's games off Washington area television for almost two full seasons.

Earlier this week, the Orioles abandoned their team store in downtown Washington, D.C. after 20 years in business -- and the locals who actually noticed, cheered.

Ever since it became apparent that baseball was coming back to Washington, Angelos has behaved as if fans in this area were part of an inherited patrimony, rather than customers who can pick up and leave any time they want. Well, you can only abuse folks for so long before they either stand up and fight, or just vote with their feet.

The result: Meet one of the only owners in professional sports who is reviled in not just one, but two different cities for entirely different reasons. That's some kind of daily double if you ask me.

UPDATE: Murray Chass of the New York Times got Angelos on the phone for an interview. I loved the photo with the fan holding a sign that read, "Asbestos has poisoned my team."

Here's what Orioles pitcher Kris Benson had to say about the protest:

If you kick around long enough in life, you start tripping over folks from your past who made it big, or at least tumbled into some small measure of fame. For me, that person is Peter J. Nash, ex-rapper and baseball historian. An interview with him appears in tomorrow's edition of the New York Times.

If you can't match up Peter J. Nash and Rap, the reason is that once he hit it big he was known as Prime Minister Pete Nice, one of the three guys who made up 3rd Bass, an act that achieved some measure of fame in the 90s and is best known for Pop Goes The Weasel.

I met Pete back in the 3rd grade when we were both in Mrs. Webber's class at Floral Park-Bellerose School on Long Island. As it would turn out, I spent most of my time getting to know Pete in Junior High School during some walks home from school. While he would eventually become a rapper, I seem to recall Pete being consumed with Jim Morrisson and The Doors and buying a good portion of their back catalog at his urging.

I lost complete track of him when we wound up going to different private Catholic high schools in New York City. Pete went to Bishop Ford in Brooklyn where his father was head basketball coach, while I went to Archbishop Molloy, another city hoops power in Jamaica, Queens.

The last time I remember seeing Pete, I was daydreaming on the bus after another afternoon in high school when we pulled up alongside another bus pointing in the other direction. I picked my head up and there was Pete. We immediately recognized one another, waved and smiled, and that was it. I'm pretty sure it was 1981.

Here's all you really need to know about Pete: When I tripped over the Times piece I smiled, and was glad to see he had done well in life. If you had met him, I'd bet you'd have thought the same.

Yes, it's true. I got dibs on the Scott Hatteberg role.

Thanks to Deadspin for the heads up.

Courtesy of the AP, meet Aaron Durley.