SHORT HOP - My Career In Baseball by David Driscoll

[Tib]

The Bottom, The Top, and Everything In Between

At the end of June we were swept twice in a row by a Kansas City team last in the division and an Oakland Mammoths team coming off a hot 10-game stretch. I admit that when we took off for KC I was counting on taking a few from the Knights, even on the road. Kansas City was simply not a good team. Bobby Frisina was still the main attraction and primary offensive force of the Knights, but he did not have much support. Despite this, the Knights’ golden boy (now a veteran with a big contract and tons of local endorsements) roped two doubles and hit a two-run homer to drive in six runs in the three games. And if losing to my old team wasn’t punishment enough, game two was an 11-10 slugfest and the sweeper was a 12-5 drubbing. The next game at home against Oakland was a 20-6 embarrassment that started with a first-inning grand slam off Alfred Viola and didn’t get any better.

It was the last straw for Fontillion. Eric McKern was fired as pitching coach the next day, and everyone began counting the minutes until Mitchell went, too. We started July on a demoralizing 3-12 streak and faced a 47-34 Baltimore team who seemed only to be getting stronger. I had been playing through a strained arm ligament for a week, so I went day-to-day for this series and got to watch from the bench as Baltimore took game one with ease, 8-1.

Then things got interesting.

After the game, I saw Fontillion walking from the Baltimore locker room. Baltimore was well-known to make aggressive moves if they felt a championship was within reach, and everyone was very aware of the trade deadline coming in three weeks. Combine that with the slide we were on, and our payroll, and it didn’t take much to get a little paranoid. It turned out Fontillion hadn’t made any moves, but later that night Baltimore announced the acquisition of Rudy Galindo from Phoenix for four prospects. Galindo already had 8 wins, was healthy, and was the last guy UL East teams wanted to see in the Steamers’ rotation. At least we were going to be spared his next start, as he was traveling to meet the team on getaway day, which we lost, by the way, 8-3.

We had lost four in a row, including the humiliating home sweep, but imagine me saying the sweep wasn’t the worst news we had that night. After the press conference, we learned Fontillion was shopping Happy Parikh. The gloom at Cobblestones was palpable. The whole atmosphere seemed to turn bitter. I knew we needed pitching, and trading Happy was one way to get it, but I also knew we were going to struggle to score runs without his bat. I hoped we could keep him, but our team ERA was 5.68 and something inside said he was already gone.

I went 8 for 25 the week I returned, and was hitting a respectable .278, but it didn’t help. We went 5-4 as we marched toward the deadline. A glimmer of hope on the schedule, a three-game series against last-place Seattle, was squashed when we got swept again, at home. The Lumberjacks scored thirty runs, and the sweeper came on a combined 2-hitter. Since June 23rd we were 6-18, had been outscored 172-110, and had been swept by two last-place teams.

That was the bottom, one of the lowest bottoms I’d ever felt in baseball. It wasn’t the losing. I’d been on losing teams. It was the helplessness. The feeling that no one knew what to do to reverse the tide carrying us out to sea. I remember walking out to the Comanches jet for the flight to LA to play Joel and the Colts, taking the escalator up into the plane and hearing that Happy was gone – traded to Baltimore for ace Tim Clary and Glen Nusbaum, a prospect. It was like someone told us, “Hey, everybody, to keep from sinking we’ve thrown the engine overboard.”

Baltimore. Now I knew why Fontillion was coming out of the Steamers locker room that day. I also remember thinking that even Tim Clary might not be enough to overcome the loss of Happy’s presence and attitude. But Fontillion wasn’t done. After we got swept by Jukebox (.346) and the Admirals on the return homestand, he traded Tyrone Escalera for Cody Reimer. Escalera wasn’t pitching poorly (6-6, 4.78), but Reimer was pitching better, was a lefty, and had a 3.65 ERA.

Looking back now, these were improvements, no question. We had to stop hemorrhaging runs. But at the time it felt like desperation. Nothing against Clary and Reimer. Clary got along well with everyone, was a pro, and did his work; a good combination for a Chicago athlete. Reimer was solid as well. But I guess you could say the team made the tough choices and the future was looking up. The press liked the moves. The general mood in the clubhouse was optimistic, so I guess it did inject a little energy into our situation.

In early August we took our first three series. Our team ERA was dropping, we were scoring runs, and even though we got swept by Detroit, we also took a series from Happy and Baltimore at home. At 50-67 we were far from out of the woods, but things were better. Guys had new optimism, after-game dinners were more fun, even the press admitted we were playing like we should. I was still stressed. What else is new?

First of all, I was in a horrible slump; 2-18. I was walking a lot, so that saved me, but I couldn’t hit anything with anything. It was so bad I was surprised I could grab doorknobs on the first try. I finally broke through against Joel and the Colts (a series we swept on the road), but made two errors in the series, numbers 16 and 17.

To add to things, Gwen’s pregnancy was moving right along and I couldn’t be there for her because we were on the road most of September. She never complained, but it was tough to be away from her. In mid-September I was home for two key series against Boston and Dallas, and it was great to help get the nursery ready and just be home, but I hit another huge snag at the plate, 2-18 again, and my average dropped to .246. All I could think was: .246 ain’t worth the money they’re paying me.

But it wasn’t just me. The team was fighting injuries. Willie Aguila was out three weeks with a groin strain and a slew of arm problems hit our already stressed bullpen (24th in the league). On September 21st we were 15 games back and mathematically eliminated from the division title and even a playoff spot. I felt dismal. I couldn’t hardly taste food anymore. I couldn’t hardly eat food anymore. Then first-place Cleveland (already 86-65) came to town and swept us.

Then something happened to bring me back to the top. It wasn’t baseball, I can tell you that. We were eighteen games back, had one of the worst bullpens in the league, and the press had turned on us again, but something happened to help.

Von broke his hand in early September diving for a ball, so his season was all but over (.271/39/110). He was traveling with the team, though, and came over for dinner while they were in town to play us. That was nice. Gwen and Damon loved seeing him, (he brought Damon a Hammers cap, the bastard). It was nice to talk to him, hear what was going on in his life, hear him complain about getting no respect (in the top five on the MVP ballot again, but whatever). It felt like old times and it really settled me. But that wasn’t it.

I inked a new endorsement with Silver Slugger bats. Why bats, you ask? Good question. I was hovering at .248 at the time. But I think it was because Baseline Sports picked up Double Play, maker of the popular League Star glove line. I was using their V20 Munoz. They gave me a nice prototype of the Bruiser II, which definitely helped keep my horrible slump from getting any worse. I also had a minor procedure done on my knee which reduced the pain I was having. But that wasn’t it.

What was it, you ask? Oh, yeah. Gwen gave birth to our second child.

I was reading in my study before our game against the Rovers when Gwen started having contractions. She calmly walked into the doorway and stood there for a moment before asking if I could get the hospital bag. I said, “What for?”, like an idiot. She gave me that look. "What for?” she asked slowly. In no time we were in the car, Damon asking if we were going to the “baby place”. I called the team and told them what was going on and they scratched me from the game.

Soon enough we were at the hospital and Gwen was admitted. One of Gwen’s friends came over to wait with Damon while I went into the delivery room with Gwen. Let me tell you, miracles never get old.

Molly Driscoll was born at 6:49 PM on September 28th, 2012. She was wet, bald and pissed off. A family tradition, it seems. I stood at the nursery window talking to Von on the phone and watched her cry for five minutes straight.

“I can hear her through the damn phone,” he said.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“Takes after you,” Von said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Always complaining about something.”

I didn’t take any time off. Went right back to work. I was so pumped it felt like I was bursting. Went 10 for 21 the final week of the season to raise my average to .251. Yeah, I know. But it felt like victory. A little, teeny tiny victory.

We finished the season 74-88, only two games ahead of the last place Knights. We had some serious problems with our roster. Power was down. Runs scored was down. Bullpen ERA was way up. The press was merciless. The team was tight on money going into what was to be the most competitive free agent market in ten years. When it came to our chances in 2013, people began to use the snowball/Hell analogy.

But I didn’t care because my princess was finally here.


A day after the season ended Fontillion fired Stump Mitchell. Well, somebody had to pay for our mistakes. Couldn’t very well fire the entire team. Sean Pangle hit .376 for Dallas and won the batting title, qualifying with the minimum at bats. Rudy Galindo finished with 22 wins for the Steamers and got the Golden Arm. Moose played 119 games for Montreal, batting .291, and became their starting catcher the last month of the season.

Cleveland and Atlanta marched to the finals that year, but the Generals had the pitching (Randy Bose went 20-3 that year, 2-0 in the final) and took the championship in six games. Close but no cigar again for Von Jones and I felt for him. But I was happy for Bobby Nitta, Yoogie, and Dave Guevara. I sent them cards and included pics of the new addition to the family. Ugarte wrote back that Molly sure looked like him. Dave Guevara sent me a framed Horatio Munoz rookie card. Bobby Nitta sent Damon a Generals cap, the bastard.

I spent the off-season pondering. I like to ponder. It’s like doing a weird kind of math in your head where you don’t really know all the variables but you’re looking for the solution anyway. Some of the variables? Many of my friends were free agents. Where would they land? Mike Wynn, maybe the best shortstop in the league, was also a free agent. It would be interesting to see how his situation turned out. Also, I had a wife, two kids, a mortgage (four mortgages, actually, counting all our investment property), and 2015 was going to be the last year of my own contract. I had played as advertised defensively, but not up to my hopes at the plate. I had to put together a couple of decent seasons or things could get ugly. I didn’t want to get caught in the in-between, the purgatory of value vs. performance.

Then I just set it all aside. Didn’t think about it anymore. I had other, more important things to think about. My princess was finally here.

[Tib]

Money Season

Owners don’t throw pitches or field grounders. General Managers do not turn double plays or hit homers. Directors of Player Personnel do not take batting practice. Yet these people have a competitive season of their own. Not a season of plays and injuries and hitting streaks and shutouts and blowouts, but a season of evaluation, prognostication, dedication, and planning that rivals anything players do on the field during competition. I call it the Money Season, and it can win a championship before the season even starts.

Granted, a season isn’t truly won until the last out goes into someone’s glove, and the players do that, but creating a team capable of getting outs and scoring runs is just as important to success as anything players actually do on the field. Maybe more important, because front offices deal with statistical and economic factors far removed from a player’s day-to-day experience, factors spread over multiple seasons that are influenced by a host of speculative decisions and stark realities. It’s not just the alchemy of success, it’s the economics of success, a kind of competitive clairvoyance based on algorhythms. And getting it right is hard. Very hard.

It's a hard game. Managing the variables involved in just one contest is a monumental task, emphasis on “mental”. Imagine attempting to control variables over multiple seasons. Imagine going on a voyage in a ship you built and paid for where every year the rocks get moved and last year’s charts are worthless. That’s what the off-season is like for every team. And having money means you can pay for the best sailors and captains only to have the ship run aground on an unseen reef. Sure, you may have the nicest ship, but you can’t sail it if it sinks. And the Comanches just spent $400 million on the new harbor for that ship, our new park The Hunting Grounds. And they just paid for a new captain to replace Stump Mitchell: Max Thune. So it was unclear at the start of Money Season how much Chicago had left to pay for sailors.

As I said, the 2012-13 off-season was record setting. Lots of big-name free agents, lots of contract extensions, lots of big changes for a lot of teams. It was the kind of off-season where pundits used words like “complexion” and “atmosphere” and “climate”. I took more interest in this off-season mainly because my own contract was going to be up in 2015. I was happy with the Magic Man running things on the business end, but I wanted to gain an understanding of the factors that could influence my career at the end of my contract, and I knew I had to start that education now. It was a weird feeling, planning for something three years away that had nothing to do with playing the game, only how well others played the game. Sure, when I was coming up I got moved around a bit, but things were different now. I was twenty-nine now, with a family and a home. I had to acknowledge that my next contract might be my last in baseball. A sobering thought, to say the least.

Money Season starts out simply enough, with arbitration in January. A player in the last year of their contract who doesn’t get the multi-year extension they want can file for free agency. Players who file may be offered a one-year deal by their club, who for the moment retains negotiating rights. If the player agrees with the contract, but not the amount, they can request arbitration. Both sides make their case and an arbiter decides the amount of the contract. It’s always a one-year deal and almost guarantees the player will be a free agent the next off-season, but it is a way for a team to maintain rights to a player (including the right to trade the player) for one more season and for the player to avoid a disadvantageous free agent market. Either way, it takes a player off the lists, at least for that season.

Arbitration is like looking at the clouds from your back porch. Sometimes you can see it’s going to be a fine, sunny day and sometimes you can see a storm coming. Arbitration decisions can often move the needle of future negotiations, mainly because the number of available players at the position (APAP) may go up or down as arbitration takes them off the market. The key word here is market. Supply and demand says if there are more third basemen than teams need, the teams have the advantage and the offers will be lower. If there are fewer quality outfielders on the market, outfielders have the advantage.

The arbitration decisions that moved the needle in the 2013 Money Season came down to a handful of $4 million guys retained by contending teams. Baltimore took a gamble, lost money, but kept catcher Norman Lacefield ($3.1M) and pitcher Dan Miller ($3.4M) for one more season. For an older team still wanting to contend, keeping them (especially Lacefield) was key.

The Sentinels split the money with their two guys, Saul Alonso and Mike Rhea, but kept them both. For a team close to the next level, it was a good deal. It left them vulnerable to 2014 though.

Atlanta was the busiest team, going to arbitration with no fewer than six players, including Bobby Nitta and Steve Ugarte, both of whom got $600K out of it. Raises, both. Atlanta also kept Sal Fons, but Fons was not happy with his $3.8 million and said so in the press. Indianapolis was the other team who rolled the dice. It hurt them. Leo Hawkins and Pedro Espitia cost them almost $10M together. It was win or die for the Trackers. And perhaps in an effort to change the direction of the waves taking them out to sea, the struggling Legends went to arbitration with five players, costing them almost $2 million more than they offered.

And if these “rented players” had great seasons (and that was the motivation for a player under an arbitrated contract), they would almost certainly price themselves out of the range of their current team and enter the free agent market in a much stronger position, changing the “atmosphere”, “complexion” and “climate” of the league. By and large, high-profile players, especially older pitchers who had great seasons, move the needle during arbitration. The rest is part of the million calculations front offices make during Money Season.

The first big contract signings came in early February. Albert Gills signed with San Francisco, leaving a huge hole at first base in Cleveland. All of Chicago was happy about that. It was good timing, really, for both sides. Gills was forty now, but in great shape. However, his numbers did decline in 2012 and it was time for Cleveland to look to the future. Gills was happy to go, too. He felt he could still be productive and knew Cleveland didn’t feel the same way. So, he became a Gull for $8 million a year. The Gulls were happy to have him.

We resigned Latronne Volk for $10 million over three years. Volk was thirty-three but had been injury free and solid for us in spite of some high-loss seasons. Easy decision.

Then the first shot across the bow: 2012 Golden Bat winner Sean Pangle signed with the Admirals for $8.5 million a year. As a shortstop, this was huge. There were only a few other shortstops who made that kind of money and they were all in the Hall. I hoped this signaled a rise in pay for all shortstops. Plus, with Pangle signed long-term he was out of the market, making more room for me. There was still shortstop Mike Wynn, though, out there somewhere in Mexico sipping margaritas and waiting for the friction in the market to heat up enough to bring him back to winter negotiations.

Dallas signed Cliff Martin, another shortstop, for $2.5 million per for two years, a deal shorter and less lucrative than mine. This also made me feel good. Then I got a call from Bobby Frisina in early February. Kansas City was saying goodbye to their golden boy. He was traded to Washington for three prospects. I called him.

“What happened?” I asked. “I thought you were talking extension.”

“We were, and then we weren’t.”

“No arbitration offer?”

“Nope.”

“What’s going on over there?”

“Youth movement. Remember when you were part of that?”

“That was a few years ago.”

“Well it’s happening again. So, I’m a Sentinel now.”

“Knight. Sentinel. Same thing.”

“No, it ain’t.”

“I mean… the words are –”

“I know what the words mean, professor. But this is Washington. Totally different than the
Kansas City metropolitan area.”

“Same pitching, though.”

“Yeah, but it’s going to be weird. The Knights was the only jersey I’d ever worn.”

“What about Sandy and the kids?”

“We’re looking at houses. Kensington looks nice. North Potomac. Kids will have to change schools. Sandy’s not happy. We have friends here. The kids have friends here.”

“I can’t imagine changing cities with kids still in school.”

“Well imagine it, my friend. It may happen to you, too. You’re up soon.”

“Not that soon. Besides, we’re hoping to stay. We like it here. We’re invested here.”

“So were we. Start thinking about it now. Don’t get surprised like us.”

“Washington’s good, though. Playoffs last year.”

“Yeah.”

“When do you report?”

“Two weeks, like everybody else. Gotta go in a little early to get photos done. Shake hands. That kind of stuff.”

“Best of luck, man.”

“Thanks, Davey. Congrats again on the new addition.”

“Thanks.”

And the market continued to get hot. Orlando Fort and Willie Schreiber both signed for over $7 million per year. Ramon Valdes went to Dallas for $4.5 million per. Then the Comanches jumped in and opened the checkbook for Kenny Abbey, a bat we desperately needed after losing Happy, for $5.6 million per. A day later Happy went to Cincinnati for over $9 million per. There was a lot of money flying around. Then I saw another big signing and had to call Jukebox. After being courted by about ten different teams, he chose the Generals.

“Atlanta?” I asked. “What made up your mind?”

“What made up my mind? Uh, they won the world championship, or don’t you remember?”

“Believe me, I remember. Man, oh, man, though. The best just got better.”

“This is true,” he said. I could hear the smugness right through the phone. “I’m going to win a batting title over there, you know.”

“I believe you might.”

“Ain’t no ‘might’ about it.”

“You’ll have to say hi to my buddies over there.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“Bobby Nitta, Steve Ugarte, Dave Guevara. Played my rookie ball with them in Hinesville.”

“I will do this. Hey, I read those names somewhere. Didn’t they all just get some championship arbitration type money?”

“Yeah, they did. A nice boost. They earned it.”

“Want me to have them send you pics of their championship rings or bank account printouts?”

“They did.”

“I like them already. How’s the new kid? Have you started her on grounders yet?”

“Uh, not yet. She’s only four months old --.”

“Gotta start’em young, you know.”

“That’s what I hear.”

“Somebody out there has their three-month old swinging a bat.”

“Yes, I get it.”

“Talk at you.”

“Bye, Juke.”

“Grounders.”

“Yep.”

And the market stayed hot. All-Everything second baseman Geoff Shadrick held out, alienating several smaller market teams, until he finally signed with Boston for over $9 million per year. Now the Rovers had their impact bat in the middle of the lineup. And once his name was off the list, it left only a few big-name outfielders and a few solid arms. The Comanches brought Ross Watts in for a tour of the new stadium and the “rejuvenated city of Chicago”. Apparently, there were discussions about free country club memberships and complimentary supercars. It didn’t help.

Ross Watts went to Tinseltown, signing with the Colts for $8.8 million per year, an almost $50 million contract. With that signing, the Colts went from also-rans (the Legends were better for almost thirty years) to the big dog. Remember what I said about words like “complexion”? The complexion of Los Angeles was changing, and all of it due to Money Season. After Watts went, the rest of the outfielders fell like dominoes, among them LF Chris Cabrera to Seattle for $8.0 million per.

Chicago was in the hunt for most of the remaining pitchers, too. They courted Ryan Masuhiro, Jim Bader, and Tim Clary but couldn’t land any of them. It was a bit of an embarrassment for the Comanches, I must say now. At the time, no one could really say whether these three were going to have an impact, but any one of them would have made our rotation better. The Chicago sports press kept pointing fingers at our empty bullpen and wondered out loud why the Comanches couldn’t land any fish.

Fellow shortstop Celso Escandon signed with Pittsburgh for $9.9 million over 3 years, which did not give a lot of confidence to the handful of starting middle infielders ending their contracts in 2015, including me. To make matters worse, less than a month later Escandon was traded to San Francisco for lefthander Joe Stutzman. It became clear Pittsburgh was doing a work-around of the financing rules to land a pitcher. Not exactly a vote of confidence.

Escandon was not the biggest or most influential signing of Money Season. The last big name to sign was shortstop Mike Wynn. He held out like Ross Watts did and was clearly a marquee name and huge bat. He was also very patient. There is always a worrying thought during negotiations that circumstances out of your control could affect the talks. Somebody somewhere signs for some amount, team priorities change on a dime, and all of a sudden you are simply not as valuable as you were five minutes ago. Mike Wynn did not flinch. He didn’t have to. He wanted Ross Watts money, and Celso Escandon’s $3.3 million per year and subsequent budget ledger trade only proved his point. A week into Spring Training he chose the Houston Cougars and signed for over $10 million a year, a huge $60 million contract. Houston got to the playoffs in 2012, lost to St. Louis, and clearly felt they were close to breaking through. They got their guy, and in doing so won the Money Season.

Now that the money was all spent, and all the sailors had been hired, it was time for ships to hit the breakwater and see where the rocks were this year.

[Tib]

The Mike Wynn Thing

Opening Day 2013 was at home in our brand-new park, The Hunting Grounds, against our rivals the Cleveland Hammers, complete with MVP candidate and my friend Von Jones (114 HR over the last three seasons). With my family in the stands, I hit a ball over Von’s head and into a souvenir stand for a game one homer and a 6-4 win, and for the only time in my professional career I led my team in home runs.

The Comanches started hot, and we needed to with all the press watching, waiting for an implosion of any kind. We went 15-8 the first three weeks and jumped into first place. Not only that, we were scoring runs late and coming from behind, four games in a row at one point. Reuben Tinch carried us with his bat, slugging nine homers in April. I had an eight-game hitting streak and was hitting .429. Also, Cleveland without Al Gills just wasn’t the same. During Spring Training, they traded for Ned Capetillo from Vancouver to fill that spot, but Gills was the leader of the Hammers for so long it seemed like they didn’t know whose team it was now. I knew it was only April, but for the first time in about six seasons it felt like the Hammers were vulnerable.

As if to send a message to the Hammers, Al Gills hit three homers and drove in ten runs the first week of the season. Hot starts also for Flash Richards (now with Phoenix), who was hitting .611 at the end of April, the second-highest April average in CBA history (Johnny Pruitt hit .625 in April in 1988). Also Mike Wynn, freshly paid with his new team, the Cougars, drove in 24 runs in 25 April games. There was a volatility to the start of the season, like records were going to fall and everybody wanted in on it.

But even the hot starts I mentioned were overshadowed for a while by the Chiefs’ release of shortstop Wes Schmidt in late April. A sure Hall of Famer who had been the heart and soul of the Chiefs for fifteen years, Schmidt’s production had declined over the last two seasons and he had accepted a part-time role on the team. He was battling injuries, too, a chronic shoulder issue and an ankle sprain from a spring game. Still, he gave his all, like he’d always done, but it just wasn’t enough anymore. Rather than wait for the axe to fall, Schmidt told the team to cut him, save the money, and no hard feelings. Horatio Munoz aside, I idolized Schmidt even before I gave a thought to becoming a professional ballplayer. When I came to Chicago it was with the clear understanding that I was always going to be the “other shortstop” in the Windy City.

The fan outcry was remarkable, not just for their love of the man and what he had done for the Chicago Chiefs, but for their passion that he remain with the team in some capacity. Shortly after he announced his retirement, the Chiefs retired his number 18 and hired him as an assistant to the Director of Player Personnel.

Gwen, who had interviewed him a few times, received an invitation to his retirement dinner in early May. I went as the plus one. I didn’t mind. When it came to public recognition in Chicago, off the diamond I was the plus one. Gwen was the real celebrity.

It was held at the Crystal Gardens Ballroom on Navy Pier. Two hundred fifty people. Media. Baseball people. Friends. Family. Big screen filmed retrospective of Wes’s career. There were speeches. Good food. Champagne. I’ll tell you, I needed a distraction. We just got swept at home by a vengeful Cleveland team and had to go on the road for a week. As we fell from first place I kind of envied him not having to endure losing streaks anymore. Then again, with him on your team you weren’t going to have many of those.

Gwen and I got a chance to speak with him before dinner. He looked relaxed. He is bigger in person, by the way, like all Hall of Famers, it seems. Gwen teased him, ‘You’re grayer than I remember, Wes.”

“I’ve been gray for a while, Gwen,” he said. “It was just under the cap. Nobody could see it.” He looked at me. “Been playing like a grayhair for a while, too. Not you though. Good start so far for you guys.”

“So far,” I said.

“Feels like ten years ago we played each other in the playoffs,” he said to me.

“Yeah. Different teams, both of us.”

He nodded. “We had a good team in Dallas that year, but you Knights scared us a little.”

“Really?”

“Wild cards, all of you. You had something weird going on in KC no one could figure out. You shouldn’t have been winning, but you were. That lineup; Kral, Jones, Cardenas, Carreras, you. Looking back, nobody’s surprised. But then? Nobody knew you guys were you guys, you know?”

“John Grier knew.”

“Imagine if you had all stayed together.”

“I think of that all the time.”

“That’s the way it goes,” said Wes Schmidt, taking a sip of his drink. “How are things with the Comanches? Any knives missing at Cobblestones?”

I was confused. “Knives missing?”

“The Comanches have a history of turning on each other,” he said, then shook his head. “Sorry. I probably shouldn’t have said that. You guys have a strong team.”

“We put a lot of pressure on ourselves. It creates friction,” I said.

“Been there,” he said. “But the media creates friction, too. No offense, Gwen, but the Comanches have made you guys lots of money the last few years.”

“I suppose that’s true,” I admitted.

“Hey,” said Gwen, “We only follow the blood in the water. We don’t do the cutting.”

“Fair enough,” he said. Then to me: “But imagine what you could do if you could at least unite on the field.”

“It’s not as bad as people think.”

“I hope not,” he said. “Or you’ll have to get ready to play somewhere else.”

I thought, Wow, this guy really does think ahead. He’s three seasons into my future. “I’m not worrying about that right now. Hell, I just want to enjoy a winning April.”

“Okay,” he said, “I just thought the whole Mike Wynn thing might have soured you.”

Mike Wynn thing? He looked at me. I looked at him. “What Mike Wynn thing?” I asked.

“Ah,” he said, embarrassed, realizing now. “I probably shouldn’t have said that, either.”

“What Mike Wynn thing, Wes?” said my wife.

I suddenly became aware of the muffled conversations around us, the quiet piano jazz in the background, the big plate glass windows of the ballroom filled with the blue skies above Lake Michigan. Wes Schmidt, Hall of Famer, one of my heroes, bigger in real life don’t you know, let out a big sigh. “When they first hired me on as an assistant, they brought me up to speed on all the deals during the off-season, gave me all the info on what was going with teams and players on throughout the league.”

“Yeah? And?”

“I guess you didn’t know this, but after Ross Watts fell through the Comanches went after Mike Wynn.”

What. The. ****.

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“It wasn’t a big thing. Just an inquiry. Over before it began, really. Wynn wanted seventy million for seven years and the Comanches didn’t want to pay it. They had a lot of money tied up in Aguila, Abbey and Gillingham already.”

“And how do you know what Wynn wanted?” asked Gwen.

“This is off the record, Gwen. This is two ballplayers talking, okay?” said Wes defensively.

“Fine,” said Gwen. “But as an ex-ballplayer talking to the wife of a current ballplayer, how do you know this, if it was ‘over before it began’?”

“Mike called me. Wanted to know about the city, the team. Everything. I gave him my opinion.”

“Which was?”

“I told him, based on what I saw, that the Cougars were closer and Chicago didn’t have the money he wanted.”

“I guess we’ll see,” was all I could think to say.

“Why call you?” asked Gwen.

“We’ve had…similar careers. Been courted by the same teams over the years. I was in the same situation when I signed my last deal with the Chiefs.”

“Hey, it’s business,” I said. “Wynn is a big bat. A big name. I understand.”

“It is only business,” said Wes Schmidt. “Don’t read more into it than that.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks for the info, Wes.”

“No problem. I’m sorry if this ****s things up. Don’t mean for this to cause more friction.”

“No,” I replied. “I’m good.”

Gwen stared after him as he walked away to greet more people. We each took a sip of our wine. “What does this mean?” she asked.

“It means the Comanches are doing the same calculations as all the other teams,” I said.

“You still have two seasons left and they went after Mike Wynn.”

“They are planning for the future of the team,” I said, leading her to our table. “I suppose we should do the same for our team.”

“Is it wrong of me to hate them right now?” she said after she sat down.

“Hell, Gwen, I’d have gone after Mike Wynn, too. But look, I just need to play well. If I play well, we’re in the best possible situation, no matter what Chicago decides.”

“Don’t go trying to be Mike Wynn. Stick to your strengths.”

“Right,” I said with a nod. “So no homers, RBIs, or batting titles. Got it.”

“That’s my little spray hitter.”


But boy was I fired up when I went back to work. Ironically, playing ball took my mind off the business of playing ball. Play the game, Hal Fitzwalter had told me. Just play the game and everything will be all right. I hit .308 in April and .280 in May. We finished May 28-24, but good enough for first place, just in front of a Hammers team still searching for another Albert Gills. I was steamed at first about Chicago going after Mike Wynn, but who wouldn’t go after Mike Wynn? Four weeks into his first season as a Cougar, he was named Mutual League Batter of the Month for April, hitting .385 with six homers. He did it again in June. Not to mention Sean Pangle was destroying everything they tried to throw past him. Superstar shortstops sure made it hard to be average.

I realized I had to up my game or I might become the “other shortstop” in a city with only one team, so I gave myself a mission: improve all aspects of my game. Re-dedicate myself. Re-tool my fundamentals, mechanics, swing, everything. The Mike Wynn thing had convinced me I was too complacent. I had to get hungry again. I couldn’t afford to allow other teams to consider what the Comanches considered: that there might be a better way without me.

I spent some time testing bats and settled on a new composite Silver Slugger SS, which really helped. A week later I hit a walk-off against Baltimore and had three hits in a game for the first time that season against the Colts later in the week. By the end of June, I was hitting .275 with five homers and only five errors. I was the best fielding shortstop in the UL. And the team was second in league batting average, was 43-35, and trailed Cleveland by 2 games.

And no knives were missing at Cobblestones. Yet.

[Tib]

Missing Knives

In mid-June the Comanches released Pat Laubach. Pat was 1-4 with an ERA over 5.00. Some saw it as a necessary move, one that could bring in some younger talent and continue Chicago’s resurgence. Others saw it as yet another good player’s demise, burned up by the toxic Comanche psyche. It turned out Fontillion wasn’t done hiring sailors. After Laubach’s rotation spot came open, he traded outfielder Shawn Ishee to New Orleans for prospects.

Was one a promising young pitcher? No. Two infielders. So who did Fontillion get to fill Laubach’s supposedly ancient shoes? Walter Mayberry. 39-year-old surgically repaired Walter Mayberry. Recently released from the struggling Legends. Spot starter, 1-3 record, 6.41 ERA Walter Mayberry. Laubach, by the way, was claimed by the injury-riddled Sentinels and immediately won his first three starts.

This was Fontillion’s plan? Okay, Latronne Volk was Pitcher of the Month for May (4-0, 2.34 ERA), but how is Mayberry better than Laubach? And if you release Laubach for youth, why claim Mayberry, who was considered old five seasons ago?

It all started to become very confusing. Again. It was like our annual August collapse was happening in June now. The media, my wife included, jumped on the Mayberry claim with both feet. What exactly was Fontillion’s end game? Where does Mayberry lead us that Laubach couldn’t have?

Fontillion wasn’t talking, except to say how much confidence he had that the team would continue winning. But he wasn’t done. In a move that defied even the most liberal speculation, he traded Cody Reimer, another solid arm, to Detroit for 2B Ezekiel Alou. Another infielder, like the two he got for Laubach. Alou was very good, and under other circumstances I’d have been thrilled to have him on my left, but now we had three extra middle infielders and no established veteran arms, unless you count Mayberry (and nobody did). Additionally, Fontillion just brought up another second baseman from Des Moines, Nick St. Laurent, who was making a splash with the bat (.303 in limited play). So why did we need two second basemen?

I’m not going to lie, it got me a little worried, like what kind of pitching can we get for a veteran shortstop who’s hitting .275? kind of worried. Like, maybe St. Laurent can play short kind of worried. The dark side of my brain began to think maybe Fontillion was going to package me and Walter Mayberry and send us to Egypt for a mummy middle reliever.

Through all this we maintained a winning record, lurking only a couple of games back of Cleveland going into the All-Star Break. Ben Gillingham won United League Player of the Week right before the Break, and Bill Hunter and Ron Hoyos were on hot streaks on the mound, so things were not entirely catastrophic. But the speculation had already started about the trade deadline coming in less than a month and what the Comanches needed to do to win the division. My name began to appear in print and in the conversations of pundits. “Driscoll’s offense is not good enough to hit seventh,” they said. “Why are they paying this guy to hit .265 when St. Laurent is hitting .285, is ready, and can play short?” “Trade him while you still can.” You know, encouraging things like this. What preyed on my mind most was that I was having a pretty good season so far, at least for me. I was leading off against lefties (.328), stealing bases again with a pain-free knee (10 steals), and I was finding gaps (17 doubles).

Max Thune encouraged all of us to take the Break and relax. Rejuvenate ourselves. Do something fun unrelated to baseball and come back refreshed and ready to hit the second half hard. I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to play in the All-Star game, which was during the Break and was baseball related.

You know who was picked for the All-Star Game? Detroit Monarchs pitcher Cody Reimer and Washington Sentinels pitcher Pat Laubach. You know who was not selected for the All-Star Game? Any Chicago Comanche. Not even Willie Aguila, who was about ten hits away from 2,000. Cleveland sent five players, including Von Jones.

The players raged at Cobblestones. They grumbled to the press. They took to social media to voice their anger. And they were told what everybody is told: the All-Star Game has no guarantees when it comes to representation. You have to put up the numbers to get there, and Chicago was not putting up the numbers. Except for one thing: Cody Reimer and Ron Laubach put up the numbers. The players ire turned to Fontillion. The Chicago could have had two starters on the All-Star squad if Fontillion hadn’t sent them away.

The media ate it up. Good ol’ Comanches. Always ready to implode.

For myself, I felt the frustrations as much as anyone, but I had learned not to let those feelings out of their cages in public, especially at Cobblestones. It concerned me that Fontillion hadn’t replaced Reimer and Laubach. I looked at the numbers. There was nothing to support the idea that our rotation was going to become the best in the division, which was a must-have if you’re going to compete against the Hammers. In fact, our entire pitching staff was older than me, except for Kyle Martinelli who was 27. Where was Fontillion’s plan?

Gwen understood my frustrations. She gave me great advice: go play with your kids. So I did. It helped. Kids don’t care about extra infielders.

And I called my dad.

My dad was a sales manager for a business services firm in Los Angeles. He was responsible for thirty salespeople selling comprehensive business management packages to endeavors of all sizes, from manufacturing facilities to high-rise tech firms to hospitals to massive distribution centers. Schematics. Infrastructure creation. HR and efficiency management software. Support materials. Seminars and training weekends. He went to work at 8:00 in a coat and tie, but usually had his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up by 9:30. He said he liked it better in the field, but he had to be available, so he stayed in the office. When it came to practical solutions, my dad was the guy everybody called.

My relationship with my dad ran along the same lines. Like so many others, when I needed to know what to do, I called him. He was also a third baseman in college, so that helped. I knew he understood a player’s mentality. Any time baseball and business clashed, I called my dad.

“I don’t know what to do, dad,” I said.

“About what?” he asked.

“The team,” I replied. “Fontillion is making moves no one understands, adding infielders. It’s making me nervous.”

“But you’re starting.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re having a good season.”

“Pretty good.”

“And you’re not in charge of the team.”

“I know that.”

“Then why are you trying to do two jobs at once?”

I had no idea. “I guess it’s how I think.”

“Let me ask you: does it help you do your job to think all the time about how someone else is doing their job?”

“Not really,” I admitted. “I don’t think about it during games, but I do rely on the people around me to do their jobs.”

“And aren’t they? You guys have a winning record. Somebody must be doing their job.”

“It would be better if I knew why we’re giving up All-Stars and adding thirty-nine-year-old surgically repaired arms to our rotation.”

“Why would it be better to know that? You don’t get to know those things, do you? You can’t just walk into Fontillion’s office and demand explanations.”

“No…”

“Sounds like you’re trying to control the uncontrollable.”

“So what do I do?”

“First, you’re assuming there is something you can do. Maybe there isn’t. Have you considered that?”

“I know. Everyone keeps telling me I’m not the GM.”

“Who tells you this?”

“Well, just Gwen, actually.”

“She’s right. Don’t get caught up in speculation. Speculation accomplishes nothing. When I’m faced with unknowns, I always remind myself what my job is. I make sure I do what I need to do to help the team be successful. Speculation never once won a ballgame.”

“So play baseball.”

“Right. It sounds like these moves are not giving you any reassurance about your own role on the team.”

“The Comanches went after Mike Wynn during the off season. Fontillion just traded for three infielders. I’m feeling pretty vulnerable.

“You think you’re going on the block?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Dave, there’s always something out there we can’t know. There are too many variables in business, my business, your business, to be able to define them all. You can’t control everything. You can only prepare yourself to handle them if they come up.”

“So what can I do?”

“Don’t make it more complicated. You’re having a good season. The team is winning. Go play ball.”

“You sound like Hal.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Two weeks later things seemed to settle down, even with the trade deadline looming. Willie Aguila got his 2,000th hit. Cleveland made a huge surprise move, trading superstar shortstop Mario Rowlett to the Colts for premium prospect pitcher Sergio Cazares and cash (a lot of cash, like millions in cash), making the Colts very, very for real. You’d think this would only weaken the Hammers, our perennial rivals, but they somehow continued to win.

And somehow, we continued to lose. The last three weeks of July the team went 6-10. We were 54-52 now, seven games back of Cleveland. Walter Mayberry set a UL record by giving up eight hits in an inning. Inside Cobblestones the grumbling was getting louder and the recorders were always on. Knives started to go missing.

But my hard work was paying off. I went on a 14 for 38 run in mid-July (.451) and brought my average up to .271. I was the best defensive shortstop in the United League.

Trade that, Fontillion.

[Palaaemon]

Welcome back Tib! You have no idea how happy I am to see you writing Sort Hop again. It's been a LONG time. Too long.

Palaaemon

[Tib]

Thanks, man. It feels great to be back.

[Jamee999]

So happy this is back. Maybe Covid was worth it.

You might want to consider posting this on the main OOTP dynasty forum. It would get more views there, and you completely deserve it.

[Icy]

The best dynasty ever and the one that made me to love the baseball world and minors culture besides the Majors that was the only system I knew about being from outside USA. You should publish it as e-book, I think it’s easy now doing it online.

[Tib]

Originally Posted by Icy

You should publish it as e-book, I think it’s easy now doing it online.

Thanks, guys. Believe me, I've thought about it, but I need to finish it first! So here's the next chapter of the History of Pro Baseball by Dave's long-time friend (and a character you will all meet soon) Del Harrison.

[Tib]

“Damning and Irrefutable Evidence”
APBP vs. ABF, 1965

The Association of Professional Baseball Players vs. the American Baseball Federation began in November of 1965, as soon as the Championship was over and the preliminary hearings were concluded. It convened in the Federal Court of Washington D.C. and was presided over by Justice Myron Barnhardt, who had presided over Brown vs. the ABF in 1961. Solomon Brown, president of the Liberty Baseball League, sued to break up the ABF on the grounds that it was a monopoly and was ruining his ability to earn a living owning a professional baseball league by signing away all his best players. He failed. Judge Barnhardt ruled that the very fact that he owned a baseball league was proof that the ABF was not a monopoly.

The Union opened by arguing that the purpose of the Fund and its use were two different things, that the owners used the Fund as their “personal piggy bank”. The ABF countered by saying the Fund contained money contributed solely by the owners and they should not be told how to spend their own money.

The Union argued that the money in the Fund might be the owners’, but it was still subject to the law, and using the money to augment the contracts of certain groups to the detriment of other groups was economic discrimination.

They submitted documentation of league transactions using the Fund, received under subpoena, which, they claimed, showed a distinct pattern of discriminatory negotiating practices, namely the consistently higher salary offers made by teams to white players vs. Black and Hispanic players. Particularly conspicuous, claimed the Union lawyers, were the nature and amounts of the various performance bonuses in many contracts. In almost all cases, said the Union, white players received more advantageous bonus structures, incentives, and money.

The ABF countered that the white players cited were established stars of the league and the higher salaries they received were due to market dynamics, not any effort to prevent minority players from earning their due. They said the white players mentioned had been in the league longer than any minority player (Clayton Breckenfield came into the league in 1957) and their skills earned them the salaries they received. They said the best minority players received salary offers competitive with white players of the same skill and submitted their own reports supporting this assertion, along with copies of Salary Offer Sheets to those players from each team. Of the performance bonuses, the ABF lawyers said only that each team has the discretion to negotiate such contract items as it sees fit, and the players involved ultimately signed the contract, which was tantamount to an endorsement of the process.

The Union argued that minority players who signed their contracts for less than they knew they were worth were not endorsing the process but sacrificing economic worth to remain in professional baseball. They also said minority players received significantly less bonus money than white players. The Union ended the day by calling ABF Fund Secretary Leslie Strom to the stand. They asked Ms. Strom one question: How did the Fund know that the approved monies paid to teams actually went to the player for whom the money was requested? Ms. Strom answered that there was no process in place to determine that, as the transferred money went directly to the team itself, not the player. But this, she added, was not unusual. The teams, after all, were the ones responsible for paying the players.

It looked as though the ABF had mounted an insurmountable defense. Indeed, the documentation submitted by the league showed significant salary offers to white, Black, and Hispanic players. It also showed that players with “statistical similarities” were offered about the same money regardless of color. It also showed that bonus payments covered a necessarily wide range of circumstances, which was reflected in the disparate amounts paid to white, Black, and Hispanic players alike.

In response, and to the complete surprise of all, the Union offered to enter private mitigation with the league. According to sources following the trial, when the league entered the Salary Offer Sheets into the official record as a defense exhibit, the Union moved to adjourn for the day. When the adjournment was granted and the parties filed out onto the promenade, Union chief counsel Linton Pew approached the ABF lawyers and offered to negotiate a private settlement.

The offer was rejected immediately by all save one: Nicholas Freeders’ attorney Wallace Armagel. Armagel later wrote he only wanted to hear why the Union wanted to settle but was soundly rebuffed on the spot by lawyers for the other teams. “They didn’t want to appear conciliatory,” he later wrote. “If we had met with the Union, the league might have been saved”.

After turning back all Union arguments for eight hours, the ABF lawyers were not about to appear weak. They felt they were in control. What had the Union proved, anyway? According to witnesses, ABF chief counsel Thomas Ventner’s response was terse: “We will not entertain any settlement. Drop the suit.” Pew responded that he was trying to save baseball, that he had “damning and irrefutable evidence” of the league’s illegal use of Fund money.

Ventner replied, “If you were trying to save baseball, you would not have brought this suit forward in the first place. Bring your evidence, and we shall see what is damning and irrefutable.”

Throughout the next four days, the Union showed discrepancies in the reporting process for Fund requests and payments. According to the Union, teams routinely requested Fund money in the form of low interest loans to pay for stadium improvements, advertising, and other overhead costs, as well as to cover bonus payments to players at the end of a contract or season. To do this they used Form 62-2A, a Request for Fund Loan, or RFL. The Union also showed records of the timely payment of these monies to the teams from the Fund.

What the ABF could not show, said Union lawyers, was where the money went. The Union submitted subpoenaed copies of the Salary Offer Sheets for a number of white, Black and Hispanic players sent by teams to the Fund. Then they submitted stacks of pay receipts for the same players. In every case, the Offer Sheets failed to match the remuneration received by minority players. In every case, the contract bonus payments to white players were augmented by additional checks written after seasons concluded, outside the terms of their contracts. In short, minority players did not receive what they had been offered, and White players received more than they had reason to expect.

The ABF responded by saying the Offer Sheets were only that, offers, and did not constitute a binding agreement. They said that many times during negotiations the terms of payment changed for a variety of reasons. The Offer Sheets, they said, were only notices sent to the Fund in anticipation of future RFL requests. They added that each team, at their discretion, may increase bonuses paid to any player at any time for any reason.

“And yet,” said Pew, “not one minority player, over the course of the last nine seasons, was paid more than they were due, per their contracts. Almost fifty percent of White players were given extra bonus money, however.”

The implication was clear: while ABF owners were paying minority players per their contracts, they were augmenting the bonuses of White players to maintain a pay discrepancy. Don’t worry, the teams seemed to be saying to their White players, we’ll make it up to you on the back end.

The ABF reacted strongly. There is no evidence of economic collusion of any kind here, they said. These were all legal contracts, honored by the teams who signed them. And it was all the owners’ money to begin with, which could be spent outside of contracts in any way the teams saw fit.

“Why then,” replied Pew calmly, “pay White players the money you offered minority players?”

Pew submitted Offer Sheets for the 1959-1965 seasons that matched exactly the Offer Sheets submitted earlier by the league. Then he submitted the actual contracts of those players. Then Pew submitted the income tax returns of those White, Black and Hispanic players. In all cases, the Offer Sheets sent to White players matched exactly the contracts signed, while the contracts of minority players were in all cases less than their Offer Sheets. In each season, the total amount of bonuses paid to White players was almost exactly the total difference between the Offer Sheets and actual contracts signed by minority players. White players were, quite literally, being given money that was withheld from minority players.

The ABF argued that this money was not being withheld from minority players. The results of negotiations cannot be planned upon in this way, they said. “The contracts are the binding legal document,” said Ventner, “not offer sheets which are not legally binding, nor are they signed. Contracts are signed.”

“We are not arguing this, your honor,” replied Pew. “We are wondering, if team owners had no problem with paying minority players their due, why George White, a Black player who hit .263 in 1962, with 19 home runs and 77 RBIs, received no bonus money, when the other catcher on the Marshals, Bob Martin, a white player, received a $25,000 non-contract bonus for hitting .231 with 4 home runs and 37 RBIs in 44 fewer games.”

To this, Venter could only say, “Bonuses are discretionary money, your honor.”

“Discriminatory money, you mean,” replied Pew, which garnered an immediate and sustained objection from Ventner.

Judge Barnhardt used the rest of the week to make his decision. That Friday, January 8th, Judge Barnhardt ruled for the plaintiffs and awarded them current and punitive damages, to be paid from the General Fund until it was exhausted, the remainder to be paid by the individual teams involved in every contract submitted by the Union. The decision affected over 700 current and retired players and the estimated cost to the league was over $460 million.

Pew expressed mixed feelings about the ruling. “I am pleased the judge saw fit to make this award. His decision will be economic justice for many minority players, but I am saddened because I am a baseball fan.” He reminded those listening that while this ruling favored minority players, it put their careers in greater jeopardy than ever before. “We have won a great victory for baseball players of all races, but now must wonder, if the league folds, where will they play?”

Thomas Venter vowed to appeal. “This was a case about discretionary money and the appearance, not the reality, of impropriety,” he said afterward. “No laws were broken here.”

Two months later, Judge Barnhardt’s ruling was upheld by the United States Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision. After eighty-six seasons, the most prominent baseball organization in America was no more.

Solomon Brown took out ads in major newspapers advertising the availability of rosters spots in the Liberty Baseball League.

[Tib]

Happy Easter, everyone. Hope you all are healthy in these difficult times. Here's Chapter 60 of Short Hop, covering part of the 2014 off-season. A big transition time for Dave as he gets older, and the people close to him do, too.

A couple of you have mentioned re-posting this on the OOTP main forums. Intriguing, but sounds like a lot of work. I wonder if it would survive there these days, anyway. The game's gotten so big and there are so many dynasties to read. For the moment it will have to remain hidden here, deep in the ITP vault.

Hope you enjoy it. Thanks for all the support.

Tib

[Tib]

Deadlines, Data, and Disappointment

The Big League trade deadline is one of the moments of truth during the season. There are others, like the chance to secure a playoff spot, or pass another team for first place in the standings or be eliminated from contention. It’s not the last chance a team has to make a change that helps them get to the post season, but it’s the last chance to add players who will be eligible for that post season, should you get there. So there’s a lot riding on deadline moves.

It can be like a game of chicken. Teams that need to move players, for any reason, can’t afford to wait forever. The longer courting teams can wait, the more leverage they have in negotiations. But teams looking to add a big name can’t wait forever, either. There are always other teams out there looking to make the same moves, and you have no idea who else is calling while you’re waiting for the price to come down. A lot of times cash is the catalyst that gets the deal done.

So it was with mixed emotions that I read the wire in late July 2013 and saw two catchers going in opposite directions. Bootsy Morales was relegated to the minors and Boogles Tafoya signed a huge contract extension with the Comanches, 3 years, $13.5 million. I was sad for Bootsy, who was always a good player, but I was proud of him for refusing the assignment and taking his release. A good career is its own reward, someone said once, and he was going out on his own terms. Plus, he could still sign with someone else once his release was final. A gamble, but after years in the Bigs it was better than the sweaty buses, cheap hotels and per diem limits of the minor leagues.

Boogles more than earned the money. One of the best hitting catchers of the last decade (maybe since Tom Faraday himself), Boogles was older now, but still capable, and still a huge bat for us. And there was something else about his extension I liked. During his career in Chicago, Paulino Tafoya had established no fewer than ten charter elementary schools, mostly in inner city Latino neighborhoods. He had been honored by the civic group Inspire Chicago, the mayor, and the governor. It is that kind of leadership you need on a championship team. I was glad Old Man Bassone understood that.

And there was one other catcher on the block: Steve McCammon. After hitting .270 for half the season for the Blue Sox, Moose was being shopped. Maybe Montreal was just sending out feelers, trying to make Steve part of a bigger deal, but I knew he couldn’t have been comfortable knowing they were trying to move him. Ultimately, they kept him, which told me I was probably right about him being part of a bigger deal.

Then lightning struck. On deadline day Atlanta sent Jukebox to the Cincinnati Barons for three prospects. They just signed him and now they moved him, for three prospects they could have traded for during the off season. And they were in the hunt, and he was helping them. I didn’t get it. I’m sure Juke didn’t either. I knew he must have been blindsided by it because he didn’t call me, and he usually called me whenever he wanted to vent about something. Decisions like these are what always made me think spreadsheets and data projections were behind it.

But you didn’t need a lot of data for the next big signing. On August 1st, the Hammers avoided what would have been a huge bidding war by signing Von Jones to a $36 million extension through 2017. He responded by going .389/7/21 over the next 26 games, carrying Cleveland to a 14-game lead over the second-place team, the increasingly frustrated Chicago Comanches. This frustration was not helped when, on August 13th, former Comanche pitcher Cody Reimer threw a 2-hitter against Baltimore.

For me, I survived another trade deadline. I had no idea what those trades earlier in the season meant, or what the team’s plans for me were anymore, but I was here for the duration of this season at least and determined to make the best of it. It was time to go back to work.


Baseball clubs have a lot of coaches these days. I think it came from the boom of the 1980’s after the league expanded to 30 teams. Sure, the money was good and baseball was in a resurgence, but competing against 29 others teams for one trophy meant some things had to change. Everyone was looking for “the edge”. Well, the “edge” in the 80s was specialized analysis.

Analysis is nothing new to baseball. In fact, you could argue that baseball is 50% analysis. Matchups, strengths, weaknesses, tendencies, probabilities. Players, coaches, pitchers, catchers. The process of playing a baseball game is only partly physical. Everyone knew the way to gain “the edge” was to outthink and out prepare your opponent. Pitch selection? Sure. Teams knew the percentage chance any opposing pitcher would throw any one of the pitches in their repertoire in any given situation. Defensive positioning? Absolutely. Teams kept spread sheets on AB results for every opposing player. Opponent batting average third time through the lineup? They knew. Chance of a guy stealing with two outs in a tie game on a Friday night in August? They knew.

It was a lot of data, an almost overwhelming amount of data, but decisions still had to be made. They were just made with a pile of stat sheets next to you. Guess correctly and you’re a champion. Miscalculate and you’re staring up from the bottom. Managers knew this, too, and at first many nodded politely and trusted their own instincts. I mean, what was wrong with the Old Data? You know, eyes and ears and years of observation and instinct. But it took a new generation of managers in the early ‘90s to put faith in the New Data movement, as it was called. It was not a perfect transition. When success followed, it was because they trusted the New Data. When teams fell short, the blame was placed on too much trust in New Data, or on a manager for not using New Data.

Eventually, coaches came to use it, even rely on it. Let’s face it, it’s hard to ignore a database with thousands of results, correlated and indexed and available at the touch of a finger. The sheer weight of the data was what moved the needle. Many new things in baseball history, composite bats, biometric recorders in uniforms, velocity and spin sensors in catcher’s mitts, for example, took a while to become mainstream. People take time to trust something new, and baseball always took a little longer. Look how long it took to trust virtual strike zones. But all of these “revolutionary” concepts had become standard by the time I got in the league. It was nothing new to wear the Spider-Man suit, get hooked into the data retrieval system, and field two hundred bouncing tennis balls for the sake of your career. It was not unusual to wear a VR set and swing a bat covered with sensors at virtual pitches. Hell, we all did it for video game motion capture anyway (My CBA Baseball batter ratings were always in the 60s and my defense in the 90s. Of course.). Did we look silly? Yes. Did it help a player understand the forces at work for and against them? I guess so. How do you tell whether the virtual training you did actually helped you on the field? I wasn’t sure. I was always more comfortable trusting in my own abilities than to make decisions based solely on data. Maybe that makes me old school, but I never once heard a player thank the team nerds for helping them win a title.

Each team had a small group of strange and wonderful oddballs, usually led by someone named Lowell or Kyle or Bryce. They were always called an equally odd name, something like Skill Optimization, or Kinetic Analysis, or, in the case of the Comanches, Performance Maximization. This group of misfits should not be confused with team statisticians. No, this group was responsible for calculating each player’s best level of performance. They usually met with players individually during Spring Training, discussed with them their hopes and goals, developed a workout, a drill regimen, even a diet plan, then spent hours sitting in the stands during spring games whispering to each other and entering bits of minutia into their palmcoms. They didn’t even watch the games. I’m sure it was cutting edge, but it just looked weird, them in the stands actively not watching. I mean, why are you even sitting there if you’re not going to watch the game?

Nevertheless, my new dedication to maximizing my skills necessarily meant I had to go knock on their seldom seen office door. When it opened they all stared at me. I’m not sure if they were surprised it was me, or just shocked that someone came to knock on their door.

“Hi, Davey. This is unexpected.”

“I want to crunch my numbers,” I said. “Let’s put on the Spidey suit.”

They were stunned. For about five heartbeats they all just froze. Then all six of them jumped up and grabbed their handhelds. In minutes I was in a very brightly lit, white room, packed wall-to-wall with treadmills and weights and mats. Monitors everywhere. Wires and connectors and sensors. A bunch of old bats covered with circular white stickers hung from a wall rack. A couple of wire baskets like shopping carts held about two hundred beat up baseballs. Welcome to the lab.

I spent the next two weeks in that lab, swinging bats at virtual pitches, throwing balls at targets, fielding virtual grounders. They even measured my reaction time on steals. They recorded my slides. I ran on the treadmills, stepped on the steppers, snapped weighted ropes like giant whips, and performed a dizzying variety of balance and coordination drills. When it was over I even began to feel like Spider-Man. Hell, I already had the suit on. They told me they’d “run the data” and give me their report in a few days. It was the end of August. Still plenty of time to make changes and help the team.

And help is exactly what the team needed. After the Deadline, we wallowed in second place, if that’s possible. We hovered just above .500 but couldn’t get a sustained winning streak going to save our lives. And Cleveland kept winning.

When we weren’t on the road I was in the lab or on the field working on my “data”. Data, data, data. That’s all I heard. My teammates started calling me “Data Dave”. When I was home, I read training guides and baseball books. Split Second, a book by Monte Reed (“Speedy Reedy”, 4th on the all-time list) on stealing bases. Eye/Hand Determination, on hitting by Sam Heine. Scoop, Duncan Green’s autobiography. But when my data came back I couldn’t read it. Oh, I tried. It was like reading a book on physics equations translated into Greek by a robot.

Finally, I just asked the nerd squad what it all meant for my game. They just blinked at me. “You want us to tell you what you should do?” they asked.

“Isn’t that the idea?” I said. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. No one’s ever asked us that before.”

I am not surprised. “Well I’m asking you now.”

After crowding around a monitor and whispering to each other for about five minutes, they broke from their huddle and faced me. “Go one ounce lighter on your bat and get a new glove,” they announced.

“A new glove? I love my glove.”

“Glovemaster Gold Series,” they said. “Model A-16.”

“And what’s wrong with my current glove?”

“This one’s better. Do you really want us to go into it?”

“Not really. But I make my living with my glove, you know. What’s the difference?”

“The A-16 has a shallower pocket. You should be able to catch and release almost a quarter of a second faster.”

“Point two-two seconds faster,” corrected one of the nerds.

“Monumental,” I said as sarcastically as possible. Then one of the other nerds spoke up.

“It actually is. Do you know what point two-two seconds means on a ball field?”

“I’m guessing I don’t.”

“A runner at full speed covers about five feet in a quarter of a second. A runner still accelerating covers about four feet. Imagine every bang-bang play at first being a four foot throw out.”

Oh. “I think I see now.”

“Not to mention double plays and relays,” said another. They all nodded in silent agreement.

“But I’ve always used a deep pocket.”

“Deep pockets are out.”

“Out? You’re telling me to stop using a Munoz pocket?”

“Munoz is out. Shallow is in.”

Blasphemy! “Munoz is out?”

“Munoz is out.” They all nodded together. It was starting to get on my nerves.

“Horatio Munoz was the greatest infielder who ever lived.”

They all just shrugged at me. “The data says you’re better without a Munoz pocket.”

Better without --. Are they insane? “Uh, okay. I had fun with this whole circus the last few weeks, but I’m not getting rid of my Munoz pocket.”

“Have you considered that you never really needed one?”

Never needed one? “Explain.”

“You are a very good fielder. Top five defensively for the last six years. You don’t make many fielding errors.”

“So I should get a new glove? The logic doesn’t follow, guys. And girl.”

“The data says the majority of your errors are on rushed throws, usually after an unrealized attempt,” the she-nerd said.

“Hold it. Unrealized attempt?”

“This is not about successful attempts. There is no appreciable increase in time of release when everything goes well. We’re talking about fielding mistakes. Bobbles. The extra time it takes you to scoop up a bobble with a large deep pocket and get it out into a throwing position means the runner is further down the line. This means you have to rush the throw to get them out, thus increasing the chance of a throwing error. With your skill, the projected increase in unrealized attempts is negligible compared to the number of times you’ll be able to recover from bobbles and still throw out runners.”

Well I’ll be…. “What do you mean, negligible?”

“You’ll bobble seven to ten additional balls per full season with a shallow pocket because the glove itself is a little smaller, but you’ll throw out ten to fifteen additional runners you couldn’t with a deep pocket.”

“But Horatio Munoz--.”

“Was your hero. We know. We’ve all read your interviews. Jack Nicklaus was my grandfather’s hero. All he wanted to do was swing like Jack Nicklaus. But he couldn’t because he wasn’t Jack Nicklaus. Sure, he played better golf trying to be like Jack Nicklaus, but he would always be limited by that swing because it wasn’t his own natural swing. You probably played with a Munoz pocket because he was your hero and he used one, not because you really needed it.”

I couldn’t speak. The implications. Not need a Munoz pocket? Might as well tell me you didn’t need a spoon to eat ice cream anymore. But I knew if I didn’t at least try this change, all my self-talk about getting better was nothing but hot air. “Glovemaster A-16,” I said.

“Gold Series A-16.”

“Right. Okay, I’ll try it,” I said. There was only one teensy, tiny problem. Baseline Sports did not make the Glovemaster Gold Series. So now what?

I called the Magic Man and he was “not in the office, Dave, as per usual”. So I left him a message telling him my problem. He called me back in about two minutes. The screen on my phone said Sri Lanka. “Not a worry, Davey, my boy,” he said.

“But Baseline doesn’t make Glovemaster gloves.”

“You don’t think Baseline knows how to duplicate a glove?”

“I never thought of that.”

“That’s why you pay me, bud,” said Jackson. “They just signed you. They want to keep you. They’ll make you a glove shaped like Mickey Mouse’s head if that’s what you want.”

“Okay. Cool.”

“Yes, cool! What else can we talk about? I have exactly two minutes.”

“Uh, nothing really. Just wanted to run that by you.”

“Awesome. How’s the new addition?”

“Great,” I said. “Getting bigger all the time.”

“Yeah, I hear they do that. Hey, heard about your convo with Schmitty at the retirement thing. Would’ve told you myself but I know you and I didn’t want to warp your brain even more during the season.”

“You knew?”

“Absolutely.”

“How did you know? I thought it was all hush hush.”

“Do you not read Inside Pitch? I signed Mike Wynn a week before all that went down.”

“Oh. I did not realize that.”

“Yeah, I priced him right out of Chicago’s reach.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Because I knew Houston would go for ten mil and the only landing spot for you would’ve been San Diego and nobody wants to play for San Diego right now.”

“I guess I should say thank you.”

“No need. I am a monster for you, you know that.”

“So how’s Sri Lanka?”

“Sri Lanka?”

“Aren’t you in Sri Lanka?”

“I’m in Sacramento, Dave.”

Dammit. Apparently, I need a new phone, too.


The lighter bat was as advertised. I was Comanche of the Week at the end of August (12 for 30, .400, 5 runs, 5 RBIs, 3 doubles). The glove was an adjustment, but I started liking it after making only two errors in all of August. Maybe there was something to New Data after all.

But New Data couldn’t help us stay with the Hammers. Sure, we were 74-69 in mid-September, but that was only after an 8-2 stretch. Even then we were still 14 games back.

We were still in the Wild Card race, though. On September 21st we re 79-71, 2 games back of Baltimore for the last Wild Card spot. We had just won our last three series and were number two in team batting. We had the best defense in the United League. Then we started playing winning teams. Boston. Cleveland. The Colts. We got creamed. We went 3-9 to end the season and were eliminated from the playoffs on Game 156.

Baltimore made it, a team assembled by Theo Garner. Cleveland of course. Atlanta again, with Yoogie and Bobby Nitta and Dave Guevara. Bobby Frisina and the Sentinels made it. And Houston, led by Mike Wynn, gave Vancouver a scare in the Divisional Series before losing in five games. Baltimore was a juggernaut in the UL, winning 26 one run games and sweeping the Hammers to get to the Championship, but Philadelphia was the team of destiny, captained by third baseman Dorsey Stott and left fielder Juan Devera. After being down 3-1 to Vancouver in the league championship, they won three elimination games in a row, then won two more elimination games in the Championship against a stunned Baltimore to take the title in seven.


It is difficult to sit on a couch and watch guys you know play ball in October. I was happy for their success, don’t get me wrong. Von Jones went .284/38/106. As if to make sure no one forgot him, he hit three homers against Baltimore on the last day of the season. Joel Kral: .251/29/84, another solid season. Moose: .284/14/49. Dave Guevara stole 53 bases for Atlanta, a team record. But this season was a mixed bag for me. Something good, then something bad. Here’s an example: I had my 1,000th career hit against Oakland the day we were eliminated.

I was happy for them. I had no problem with their success, but all I could think about was how they were there and I was not. I had a lot of things. A beautiful wife. Two beautiful healthy kids. A good job. Financial stability. A team of professionals managing my career and investments. I had a pretty good season. .263/8/50. 81 runs scored. 22 steals. 25 doubles. Only 19 errors in 622 chances. I should not complain.

But no playoffs. Not since Kansas City. Imagine that. Going to a team like Chicago, with the roster we had, how do you not make the playoffs? And the Mike Wynn thing would not let me go. Or I would not let it go. Either way, it was in my mind as I watched the CBA Awards show in early November and saw Lucius Sears accept an award after passing James Jaffe for the all-time CBA hits leader (3,128). Albert Gills moved to within 13 doubles of the all-time lead. Flash Viveros was within 4 triples of the all-time lead. Happy Parikh was within 20 walks of #3 on the all-time list.

Me? I wasn’t within anything, unless you count the hundred days until my 30th birthday. 2014 would be better, I told myself. It had to be. It better be.


Next up: Chapter 61: Paper Memories

[Tib]

Paper Memories

Ten days shy of Christmas, as I was preparing for a holiday at home with my folks, Gwen’s folks, and my newly expanded family, I received a call from Marnie Preston, Hal Fitzwalter’s daughter. Hal had passed away. As you may remember, Hal was the scout for Atlanta who signed me to my first professional contract. He’s the one who told me, “Just play the game and everything will be alright.”

Marnie invited me to Florida for the funeral. I was honored, but a little surprised. Hal and I had spoken many times over the years, but after I left the Atlanta organization we didn’t speak as often. Hal was busy finding the next superstar General and I was busy trying to survive the minors. Then, after his retirement, we lost touch altogether. Marnie told me she invited several of “Hal’s guys” to help celebrate his life. They were going to have a small wake after the funeral where they were going to hand out “gifts from Hal”, whatever those were. It would be great if I would come, she said. Of course I would come.

So off to St. Augustine I went for a few days. And since I was going to be in the neighborhood, I made plans to take a drive up I-95 and visit Cliff in Savannah. It would be great to see him again. We hadn’t talked in a few months and I confess I wondered what his life was like now.

Hal’s ceremony was in the cemetery chapel, with internment after the service, then a wake at his home. As I adjusted my tie before leaving my hotel room, I realized Hal was the first person from outside my family who had died. I had lost grandparents. My great aunt passed when I was young. My relationships with them were built-in. I was born into it. My relationship with Hal was created, it was voluntary. It was made by baseball. We weren’t related, but we were. He was part of my baseball family. And suddenly I was very sad. Suddenly, I felt like I hadn’t lost Hal, I had lost Uncle Hal.

“Feel that check, son. Lift it up. It don’t weigh any more than any other check, does it? That check could be for a dollar and it would weigh the same.”

“I suppose so.”

“See, money don’t weigh very much. A lot of money can weigh as little as a piece of paper. Expectation. Now that can weigh more on a man than all the money in the world.”

On the drive to the cemetery I thought about my baseball family. Who was in my baseball family? Cliff for sure. Von and Joel, Flash and Juke. Bobby and Yoogie. Boogles. Crazy Uncle Theo?

Moose?

It was a nice day, even for being December. It was Florida, after all. It was cool and slightly overcast, with patches of blue sky poking through the flat clouds. When I got out of the car and looked toward the chapel, I saw some of “Hal’s guys”. I saw Randy Bose. I saw Dave Fountain, Atlanta’s shortstop when I was drafted. I saw Dameron Walker, five-time All-Star, who played in the Seventies. They and a couple other players I didn’t recognize were standing around the King himself, Charlie King. I didn’t know Hal signed him, I thought. Charlie was in his seventies now, and walked with a cane, but otherwise looked like he was ready to take batting practice. God, he was huge. Hall of Famers are always bigger in person.

One of those guys standing around Charlie was Mike Wynn. I didn’t know Hal signed him, either, I thought. Randy Bose waved me over. “Davey,” he called softly. I joined them, shook their hands.

“Sad about Hal,” said Bose.

“Yeah,” I said.

“I didn’t know Hal signed you,” said Fountain.

“I didn’t know he signed any of you,” I said.

“Signed me in seventy-one,” said Dameron Walker.

“Signed me right out of high school,” said Bose. “In two thousand five.”

“He found me in the Plains League,” said Fountain. “God knows how. Just about nobody saw those games.”

“I signed with him in two thousand two,” said Mike Wynn. “Could have signed with anybody, but there was something about Hal. He really made me feel like the Generals were on to something special.”

“What about you, Charlie?” asked Bose.

Charlie King leaned on his cane and stared at the patchwork sky for a moment. “I was one of his first. When was it? Seventy-three? Seventy-four? He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five at the time. He seemed older to me, though. Don’t know why I trusted him, but I did.”

“I remember he used to tell me to just play. That was his solution to everything,” said Dameron Walker.

“Used to tell me that, too. ‘Just play ball and it’ll be alright.’” said Dave Fountain.

“Told me that, too,” I said.

“Me, too,” said Bose. “Simple but effective.”

“Uncomplicated. Like Hal,” said Mike Wynn.

“Good guy,” said Fountain.

“Great guy,” said Charlie King.

It’s a funny thing about funerals. People arrive together but in separate cars. They walk separately, spacing themselves just far enough apart that they won’t have to talk to anyone they don’t know, yet they walk together into the church, where they sit together. Everyone says goodbye together, then they walk separately but together to their separate cars.

I sat with “Hal’s guys” during the ceremony and stood with them during the internment, but at the wake we all just drifted apart. A couple of Hal’s family members asked me how I knew Hal. I spoke to Marnie’s husband Sam for a while. All the men gravitated to Charlie King and Mike Wynn. They talked about Hal and baseball in quiet, respectful tones. I wound up standing out back in the lanai, looking out at the fairway of the golf course beyond, thinking about Hal, thinking about the final measure of a man’s life.

“Son, the real worth of something is rarely tied to what you pay for it.”

An odd statement coming from a guy who signs professional ballplayers. I didn’t understand it at the time – I was focused on my money and by extension my worth (or what I perceived as my worth). I could see now, years later, that sometimes in life you have to look beyond money to see how things fit together. Money is glue, especially when you’re building a roster, but glue the wrong things together and you are truly stuck. Outside elements can also make glue lose adhesion, and if money was the only thing keeping things together, then what do you have?

The Chicago Comanches, that’s what. It suddenly flashed in my head: we are glued together with money. Did any of us really care about each other? Then it occurred to me that maybe I didn’t really want money. Maybe what I really wanted was to play on a team that believed in each other, like we did back in Kansas City. We didn’t worry about money because we didn’t know any better.

“Imagine, Davey, in this day and age, actually getting paid to actually play actual baseball.”

Oh, I can imagine it, Hal, but I don’t think that’s going to happen in Chicago. They pay you for performance in Chicago and they expect it.

“Expectation. Now that can weigh more on a man than all the money in the world.”

So what do I do? I’ve got a contract ending soon, a team that collapses every August, and I don’t have forever in this league.

"Never forget it’s a game, Davey."

That was easy to say ten years ago, Hal. I didn’t have a wife and kids and a house and contracts and a .259 career average.

"Play the game and you’ll be all right.”

There you go again.


I was picking at some hors d’oeuvres, wondering when it might be appropriate to take my leave, when Marnie approached.

“There you are,” she said with a quick hug. “What are you doing out here?”

“Thinking about your dad,” I said. “How are you holding up?”

“As well as can be expected,” she said. “You know, Dad was sick for a while. All those cigarettes. At least he’s not struggling any more. The last couple of years were hard.”

“I’m sorry.”

She gave me the smile of a daughter at peace. “I want you to come with me. Dad had some things he wanted you all to have.”

I followed her back into the house and saw that “Hal’s guys” were assembled near the fireplace. I took a spot with them. Marnie took several envelopes from the mantle and handed them out to us. “Toward the end, Dad took to writing. He always kept journals, as many of you know. Many journals, actually. Boxes of journals over the years. But at the end he stopped. Maybe he knew. He probably did. He always knew what was going on. So he wrote these instead. He wanted you to have them. You don’t have to read them now.”

Charlie King raised his envelope to her in acknowledgement, then placed it into his inside jacket breast pocket. The rest of us followed suit. Slowly, people began to leave. I said my goodbyes and went back to my hotel, where I opened Hal’s envelope.

Inside was a pin drive and a letter. I didn’t have my laptop with me on this trip, so I put the drive in my luggage for when I got home.

There were some small yellow pages, cut from a palm-sized pocket journal. They were written in Hal’s careful hand. The ink had faded into a grayish brown, but the letters were clear:

Davey Driscoll Shortstop/pitcher 04/04/1984
Mount Rose High School, Mount Rose, CA
Parents: Don/Doreen Dad: 3B Southland College (’76-’79)
Coach: Ron Heffler

Arm *** very quick transition/release
Swing *** quick to contact, line-drives, gaps
Power * gaps/track
Defense ***** outstanding fundamentals/range/footwork
Speed **** quick to max
Mental ***** three steps ahead of coach
Readiness **** A-ball right now

Quick/smart/mature/evolved skills. Munoz-type. Low minors right now. Good fit for defense first config. Does not K. Deep understanding. Smarter than coach.

Keeps to self. Leads by example. Good rapport with teammates.

Look 2nd rd – 1st rd poss. if Pangle taken.

Move to 2B? Match up w/ Fountain/Wynn?

Get this kid.


Get this kid. Underlined. Made me smile. The letter was handwritten on Hal’s stationery:


October 10, 2013

Davey,

Hope all is well with you and your lovely wife and family. My daughter, who keeps tabs on such things, told me of your new addition. Molly, is it? Congratulations! Parenthood is a career all its own. I’m sure you are a great husband and father.

I write this to you because it’s close to the end for me. No tears, though. Even if I had given up cigarettes in the eighties I probably would be where I am now. So says my doctor. I have good days and bad days, and this is a good day, so I am writing to you. Marnie will get this to you after I am gone.

At the end of things a man takes stock of his life. That’s just what happens. For me, that meant going through all my journals, or as I call them now: my paper memories. There were so many! I didn’t know if I’d have time enough to make it all the way through them. But I did. I got to re-visit so many good times, great players, wonderful adventures, and a few not so good times, too. Like how Marty Fogelman stole James Jaffe from me. Hah! No regrets. He got there first. Well, maybe a little regret. It was James Jaffe, after all! But really everything was good, taken on balance. Even the bad times were good, in some strange way I can’t explain.

After reading my journals I cut some of them up. It’s not what you think! I cut out all the pages I wrote about each of the players I signed over the years. It was a lot of players. Something like 608 players. I have included your pages for you in this envelope. Why, you may ask? Truthfully, I don’t know. Instinct, I guess. Who knows why old men do things, anyway?

I hope you enjoy reading them. Please know that even though you moved on to another organization (far too soon, in my opinion) I still kept tabs on you. A gem is valuable no matter who it belongs to. I am so pleased at what you’ve accomplished on the field. You’ve done very well for yourself in this league.

Lastly, I want to thank you for the joy you have brought me. It is a special moment for a scout when he sees a player he knows can make it. It’s a rumble in your gut and a clear voice in the back of your head that says, “This one.” You were one of those players.

Some of these letters are going out to retired players, but I won’t be telling them what I’m going to tell you. Your career is not over. You still have challenges before you. I cannot predict what may happen in the future. None of us can. But I know one thing: Play the game. Just play the game and everything will be alright.

Hah! I bet you knew I was going to say that!

May God watch over you.

Your friend,

Hal

P.S. I hope you are keeping your journals, too. You will not regret making the time. In the end, our memories are not just for us, but also for everyone who loved us.


Years later there were times I could not accept that playing a game, even baseball, would just magically make things right. There are darknesses in life that baseball has no power to touch. But at the time, alone in my hotel room, reading Hal’s mantra, “Play the game and everything will be alright”, I was convinced of one thing: Hal wasn’t talking about baseball at all.


Next up: Dave's visits Cliff and the start of the 2014 season.

[Tib]

Wooden Bats and Old Ballplayers

The drive to Savannah was almost entirely in the rain, but I wasn’t in any kind of hurry, so it was actually relaxing. It gave me time to think about Hal, about his letter, and about Cliff. He and I still spoke on the phone about once a month, but that was far less than it used to be. The demands on my time had increased since leaving Kansas City, what with two kids, local investments, and several new endorsement deals, it seemed like all my free time was taken up by appearances and meetings of one kind or another.

The clouds had parted and the sky was clear by the time I pulled into the parking lot of the large, white, three-story apartment-style building that was the Oakdale Care Community, Cliff’s retirement facility. I prepared myself for what I might see. Cliff’s health had gone through some trying times since I left Hinesville. He had been hospitalized more than once with respiratory distress. He had diabetes, too. Eventually, the costs of medical care and hospitalizations led him to sell his home in Hinesville and move to Oakdale where he could receive 24-hour care. He was resistant from the outset, preferring to live alone on his own terms rather than with dozens of other seniors in a home with rules he didn’t make. But he was not healthy, and my old landlady, Miss Draper, had finally made him see that. It took her about a year to do it, which tells you how stubborn Cliff could be.

But I also saw his side of things. This kind of change, prompted by the requirements associated with declining health, was not a voluntary one. And, who, in the twilight of their lives, wants to follow someone else’s rules? But he always seemed in good spirits when I spoke to him. He liked talking baseball, especially Atlanta Generals baseball, but he also knew exactly what was going on with the Comanches, too. I wondered if he talked baseball with anyone at the home. I took a care package out of the trunk and entered the clean, bright reception area. The girl at the counter told me Cliff was expecting me and was waiting in the inner garden. I went down a tiled hallway, followed the signs, pushed open a glass door, and entered the shadowed chill of an interior courtyard surrounded by glass walls like a huge terrarium. Cliff sat near a small stone fountain, lit by a wide ray of sunshine; the only warmth.

He was in a wheelchair now. That was the first thing I noticed. And he was much thinner. I knew he was at a healthier weight now, but it was a small shock to see him like that. My memories of him did not contain any images like this. Ironically, he almost looked unhealthy. A heavy wool coat covered him from neck to toe. He had tubes in his nostrils which looped around his ears and traveled down into a small oxygen tank attached to the chair. An Atlanta Generals cap was perched slightly askew on his head. He saw me come in and looked up, beaming.

“Well, there he is!”

“You’re looking good, Cliff,” I said, shaking his hand.

“Don’t lie to an old man now,” he teased.

“No, I mean it. You’ve lost a lot of weight.”

He scowled. “It’s all this healthy food they try and feed me.”

“Is it that bad?”

“Davey, I haven’t had a bowl of chili since my birthday. I tell you, it’s Purgatory in here.” Then he winked and smiled. “Naw,” he added, “it’s not that bad. Everyone’s real nice.”

He looked me up and down. “Speaking of weight, you’re not the skinny rookie I met eleven years ago.”

I laughed. “You think they regulate your diet here, you should try playing for the Comanches. I haven’t had a bowl of chili in about a year.”

“You need your energy, raising two children. Chili energy.”

“I could do with some chili energy.”

“What’s this here?” he said, gesturing to the care package.

“This is something we put together for you.”

“You didn’t have to bring me anything.”

“Okay,” I said, getting up to leave. “I’ll just put it back in my trunk.”

“Don’t you dare!” he said. “The last gift I got were crocheted earmuffs.”

We spoke for about ten minutes, then it was time for Cliff to take his midday medications. Afterward, he took me on a tour of the facility. I’ll tell you, he zipped around pretty good. He might have been thinner now, and in a wheelchair, but he was still a strong man. He introduced me to the people on his floor, to his orderlies and nurses, and to the maintenance crew. He had a special rapport with each of them. Not at all surprising. Then we went to his room to open the package.

His room was clean and bright, with several framed prints on the walls. Flowers. A beach scene. I could tell they came with the room. But there were two others. On his nightstand was a framed photo of Dorothy, and on the wall above was their wedding picture. Next to the nightstand photo was the scrapbook, faded now, with thin brown cracks in the leather. And propped in the corner near his tiny writing desk was a bat, glistening, black as new asphalt.

“That can’t be Beatrice. Didn’t you make a cane out of her?” I asked.

Cliff looked over to it as if he had forgotten it was there. “Oh, no, that’s a new one. I guess you could say it’s Beatrice’s younger cousin. Beatrice is in the closet there. I don’t use her much anymore.” He gestured to his wheelchair.

“It’s beautiful. Where did you get it?”

“I made it. I had an idea about a bat and the maintenance shop here has a lathe. I had Roger buy me an ash core from a lumberyard and turned it myself, oh, six or seven months ago at least. Lacquered it myself, too. She turned out nice, don’t you think?”

I walked over, picked it up, and flicked it slowly side to side with my wrists. “She sure did. Good balance. Slightly longer barrel. Beveled cap.”

“I knew you would notice that,” said Cliff. “Had to do it on the sly with Roger as a lookout. The folks here don’t like arts and crafts that aren’t on the list.”

Then I had an idea. “You want to get out of here for a while? We can open your package when we get back.”

Smiling, Cliff said, “You read my mind, and I know just where we should go, but we have a small problem. The nurses don’t like excursions that aren’t on the schedule, either.”

I smiled back. “I won’t tell them if you don’t.”

I wheeled Cliff out a side door, timing our exodus perfectly with the clockwork hall patrols of the staff. I pushed him quickly across the side lot and in seconds we disappeared into a large stand of trees that bordered the property. We emerged from the shadows onto a sunlit sidewalk that followed the left field fence of a baseball field.

“What is this?” I asked.

“This belongs to the Savannah Christian College Golden Knights,” said Cliff. “Sometimes I watch their home games from my window. Let’s go sit in the stands.”

I took Cliff down the access ramp behind home plate and sat next to him in a stadium seat. He looked out at the field, still spotted in areas from the morning rain, like he was trying to soak up as much of it as he could. “It’s good to get out. Smell that grass?”

“I sure do,” I said.

“Machines can’t make that.”

Of course, machines had been making artificial turf for decades, but I knew what he meant.

Then from a pocket deep inside his coat, Cliff produced a large bag of unshelled peanuts. He dipped a hand inside and rustled around, glancing over at me with the utmost confidence.

“Really?” I said.

“Gotta eat peanuts when you’re at a ball field,” he said.

“Where did you get those?”

“Roger got them for me. I’m not supposed to have them, but Roger and I see eye to eye on many things.”

“I’ve got to meet this Roger,” I said.

“One day you will,” said Cliff. He took a deep breath, as if to soak in the smell of the grass, then coughed for a while. It nearly doubled him over.

I put a hand on his back. “You okay?”

Clifford Tyler straightened his back and looked at me. “Yes. Don’t worry, Davey. I’m fine. Really. Let’s enjoy our excursion.”

“Okay then. Give me some of those,” I said.

And for the next half hour we sat together in the stands, not another soul anywhere in sight, ate peanuts, and made a complete mess on the ground with the shells. We talked about his life in the home, his health, and the state of professional baseball. It was great. Eventually, the topic came back to the myriad sins of modern technology.

“I can’t get over that bat, Cliff. Don’t see wooden bats like those much anymore, with all the composites nowadays. I mean, some guys still use them, but --.”

“Composites,” said Cliff with a scowl. “Molded bats. Designed by computers now. It’s a sin, is what it is. No craft. No imagination. It gets easier and easier for a machine to make a hundred identical things and harder and harder for a man to make one wonderful thing.”

“It smelled great.”

“Yes,” agreed Cliff with a single nod. “It smells like baseball.”

“Composites don’t have a smell.”

He eyebrows lowered in contempt. “Another sin.”

“Composites don’t sound like wooden bats, either,” I said. “They make this kind of loud clicking sound. Weird. Wooden bats make a sound like, like -- .”

“The application of skill,” said Cliff.

My eyes lit up. “Yes! Exactly. Very well said, Cliff.”

“Oh, that wasn’t me. That’s what Danford Harrison wrote in his book.”

“Danford Harrison? You know, I know his grandson Del.”

“Do you truly?”

“Yeah. He was a journalism student at Washburn when I was in Topeka. He writes for the Baltimore Post now.”

“Do you ever talk to him?”

“Sometimes, when we’re in Baltimore.”

“Well, the next time you see him, tell him his granddaddy was a heck of a writer and a good friend.”

“Did you know him?”

“He was working on one of his books when I was with Birmingham. Traveled with the team for a while. Talked to him a few times. Some of the fellows teased him, you know.”

“Teased him about what?”

“Let’s just say they were skeptical anyone would care to read a book about black baseball. You know what he told them? He said, ‘Baseball loves its history, and black baseball is baseball history. One day, your experiences will be important.’ That was years before the Richmond Rifle came along.”

“Well, I will definitely tell him.”

Cliff became silent. He squinted at the sky, then looked around the empty diamond. “You know, they cut funding for this field. That’s why there’s brown patches in the outfield and the grass isn’t edged. It’s a little frog-haired, too, along the lines. Doesn’t look crisp. Looks like no one’s interested anymore. This could be a beautiful field, if someone put some time into it.”

“It’s the off-season. I mean, it is winter now.”

“Yes,” Cliff replied tiredly. “It is.”

I sensed his sadness. “I’m sure it’s just a budget thing,” I said.

“Ah,” he said, dismissively tossing a few peanut shells on the ground. “It’s always something. Sometimes, Davey, it feels like all the good things in the world are fading away, like wooden bats and old ballplayers.”

And in that moment I thought of Hal, and what he told me about memories. “They won’t fade away if we remember them.”

He nodded. “The world moves on, Davey, my boy. So I guess that’s all we can do.”

“It’s good to know you still follow the game.”

“Always. How are things with the team?”

“Oh, you know, mostly fine.”

“And what does ‘mostly fine’ mean?” asked Cliff, eying me intently.

“I’m coming up on the end of my contract. Wondering what they’ll do.”

“Ah. Well, don’t worry. Teams will always need good defense.”

“Good defense is fading, too, it seems,” I said. “The trend is toward power. Shortstops now are among the best power hitters in the league.”

He pointed a thin finger at me. “Still have to have someone who can stop the ball from rolling. Forty homers is more than ten homers, but fourteen errors is definitely better than forty errors.”

“If only you were running the team,” I said.

“You tell them they can call me when they get stuck and I’ll help them out,” said Cliff with a smile.

Just then I saw a man in a light blue windbreaker walking on the left field sidewalk. He was looking at us. Cliff saw him, too. “Uh oh. Trouble.”

“Who is that?”

“One of the guards. Let’s make a break for it.”

“Is that one of the orderlies?”

“That is Roger come to collect me,” said Cliff.

Roger was a thin black man about thirty-five. He smiled when he got near us. “I thought I might find you here,” he said. “Sneaking out again, eh, Mr. Tyler?” Cliff scowled but said nothing. I introduced myself and discovered Roger was also a big Generals fan. Having this in common with Cliff did not deter him from his responsibilities, however.

“We have to head back, Mr. Tyler. You missed lunch.”

Cliff held up the empty peanut bag. “I’ve had lunch.”

“You’re going to get me in trouble with that. No one is supposed to know I give you those.”

“I know it. Let’s go then,” said Cliff.

I wheeled Cliff back to the home with Roger following behind us. When we reached his room, Roger took his leave and we were alone again. “It’s nice to have a partner in crime,” I said.

“Roger understands,” replied Cliff. “Not many do anymore.”

“Let’s open your package.”

I brought him several photos of Gwen and the kids, a ball signed by the Comanches, and one of my Chicago game jerseys (which he requested long ago but I never got around to giving him). I also gave him a framed photo of the picture I took with him years ago in his hospital room with Glendon Winters, Reggie Mayberry and Rooster Wells.

“These are lovely,” said Cliff. “Thank you.”

“You are very welcome.”

He held up the jersey. “This doesn’t make me a Comanches fan.”

“Yes, yes, I know.”

“But I’ll always be your best fan, whatever happens.”

“And I’ll be yours. It was great to see you Cliff. I’m glad you’re doing well, even though you can’t have as much fun as you’d like.”

He winked at me. “I don’t get caught every time.”

Roger arrived and announced it was time for him to rest. I shook Cliff’s hand and helped Roger get him into bed for his prescribed afternoon nap. Although he professed not to be tired, he was asleep by the time I left the room. I placed the care package items on his desk and closed the door as silently as I could, stealing one more look at him dozing in bed. Then Roger and I walked to my car.

“I’m glad you came. It will do wonders for him,” Roger said.

“It seems like you also do wonders for him.”

Roger gave a thin smile. There was a little pain behind it. “I do what I can.”

I gave Roger a serious stare and said, “So what’s really going on?”

Roger shifted his weight onto his other foot. “I’m not allowed to share protected health information, but I can tell you he’s doing alright under the circumstances.”

“What does the future look like?”

Roger paused. He looked over his shoulder at Cliff’s window, then back to me. “He won’t leave here.”

I let that sink in. I guess you’re coming back to Savannah, I said to myself, but then again, you knew that. “How long?” I asked.

“Can’t say. Could be months, could be years. The demands of his care will increase, and the effectiveness of treatments on respiratory ailments like his will be reduced the longer he lives with them.”

Now it was my turn to look up at Cliff’s window. “The old ballplayer is fading away.”

“Yes,” said Roger. “He is still strong physically, but the disease is taking its toll.”

I could only nod. “What if I took him? Brought him to Chicago? Put him in a care home there?”

Roger smiled. “He said you would ask that. It’s his decision, of course, but he won’t go. He’s already told me. Doesn’t want to be a burden.” Roger reacted to the look on my face. “I know, I know. But it’s his call and he’s already made it. Besides, it wouldn’t improve his condition, moving to a colder climate.”

I gave Roger my contact information. “When it becomes serious, call me.”

“I will.”

I got in my car and started it up. Roger remained at the window. I rolled it down. He placed his hands on the door sill and looked in. “I think you should know. You are in his will. He left you some things.”

“What things?”

“I don’t know. I’m only going by what he’s said in my conversations with him. He’s got some things in on-site storage, but I don’t want to speculate. Just --, just be ready.”

“I will.”

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Driscoll.” With that, Roger tapped his palms on the windowsill, turned, and walked back into the home. I let the car idle for a minute, then left the parking lot, now bathed in afternoon sunlight. Christmas was coming and I had a plane to catch.


Next up: meet Del Harrison

[Tib]

Del Harrison, Defense, and the New Data

Money Season was interesting again in 2014. It was an unprecedented time for free agency and spending. Contract amounts were rising quickly as there seemed to be more and more demand for players who could be the missing link to a title. New Data seemed to be the source of this increased speculation, as deeper analytics revealed previously unrecognized value. The Comanches broke out the checkbook for Louis Schooley, a solid second baseman, starter Dan Miller, a huge part of an improved rotation, and left fielder Juan Devera, a big acquisition practically stolen for $7M a year from the World Champion Rebels. They made us better, no doubt, and with Schooley signed, Fontillion traded Ezekiel Alou to Oakland for Sam Dixon to strengthen our bullpen.

But Boston won Money Season in a big way. A historic way, in fact. The Rovers spent no less than $162M to completely revamp their roster, adding (among others) a surgically-repaired but otherwise healthy Santiago Cazares, All-Star center fielder Randy Freeman, fireballer Odon Concepcion, starter Balthazar Busillos, the pride of the Dominican Olympic team, left field speedster Rico Guajardo, catcher Blas Urbino (to replace Norman Lacefield, who signed with the Colts), and one of my old teammates, Steve Parris. It was like they were a new team, and the press noticed, naming them the favorites in the United League.

Cleveland responded. They signed two starters, Demetrio Barragan; a significant addition in itself, but they also added Walter Campbell. No team had threatened their stranglehold on the Central Division for the last four seasons, and they didn’t look too vulnerable now either. In fact, in light of our recent struggles, the Chicago press took to calling us the Whooping Wallowers.

And analytics being what they are, another historic thing happened. After 200 career saves, another of my former teammates, Sean Segundo, became a starter, reversing a trend among aging pitchers that had been around since bullpens were expanded in 1903. It was all too weird.

Closer to home, Steve Ugarte signed as a free agent with Vancouver. He and his new bride, Lauren, moved to Rain City. Moose and Montreal could not agree to terms, but arbitration gave him $1.7M to stay one more year, and for $1.9M over 3 years Pittsburgh picked up a defensive specialist you may remember: Lino Lopez.

I know the Chicago press was skeptical of us, but we weren’t. There was a lot of optimism during February and March. The message during all of Spring Training from the Front Office and from Max Thune was that this was the year to “send the league a message”. Of course, we all agreed we needed to send a message, but for us it was as much about sending the press a message as it was about sending our opponents a message, and when the season started that’s exactly what we did.

We started April 13-4, and all the parts were working. We won with pitching, racking up two 3-hitters and one 5-hitter in the first three weeks. We won in extra innings, including 8-7 in an 18-inning marathon against Oakland at the Hunting Grounds. We scored runs, 117 in the first 17 games. And our bullpen, long a source of worry, was spectacular (2.25 ERA).

I started out leading off, but did not exactly burn up the base paths, so Thune dropped me to eighth. There I was able to relax, and my average rose to .272 by the end of the month. At the end of May we were in familiar territory; 29-23, 2 games back of first place Denver, who also got off to a hot start. In June I had a 13-game hitting streak (.460 OBP) during a 15-10 run that put us in first place. Then Baltimore came to town.

The Steamers were the best team in the UL by far (46-28), led by James Wills and Rudy Galindo. Even though it was the end of June, the weather was brisk in Chicago as I drove to the ballpark. As I walked into the players’ entrance, Mitch Oquedo, one of our team secretaries, met me and told me I had a visitor in the press room. I dropped my bags in my locker and went up to the press level. As I walked into the lounge, I was pleasantly surprised to see Del Harrison sitting at a table having a salad. I had not seen Del in more than a year, busy as he was covering the Steamers, writing a new book (something about the history of baseball), and raising his two daughters with his wife, Amala.

(It feels a little strange describing this conversation because Del helped me write this book, so he has read and edited this, but there you go.)

Del was a journalism student at Washburn when I played in Topeka, as I have mentioned, and covered baseball while he was an undergrad. His goal was to become a sportswriter, and that’s exactly what he did, first out of college with the Kansas City Tribune, then the Herald in Philadelphia, and for the last four years he covered the Steamers and wrote a featured sports column for the Baltimore Banner. As you may recall, Del was the one who coined my nickname.

For the purposes of nothing, Delbert Harrison is a wiry African American man of average height, possessing a goatee (required of all sportswriters, it seems), two pairs of dress shoes, a cavernous vocabulary, and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of sportscoats, gel ink pens, and frequent flyer miles. He is surgically connected to his laptop, keeps his palm com on a leash around his wrist, and is never without at least one can of Cyclops Energy. Also, Del would object to being described as “wiry”. I’m sure he would describe himself as “jazz skinny”.

We talked about his life and my life, showed each other pictures of our kids, and then the conversation turned to baseball. He asked me what was new with the Comanches. I told him Dan Miller and Juan Devera were going to be very good for us. He asked about infighting. I told him we weren’t there yet, that things were still positive in the clubhouse. Then he asked me about my status with the team. I told him I was still getting at bats, and that I’d be happy as long as I was in a position to help the team on a daily basis. He asked about my goals for this season.

“Personally, I want to raise my average,” I said. “Professionally, I want to get to the playoffs.”

He nodded and finished a mouthful of salad. Then he asked, “Have you thought about next season? About free agency?”

I shook my head. “Haven’t decided. Too far away right now.”

“Do you think you’ll file, and if you do, will you go for arbitration?”

“No idea. Right now I just want to play.”

“Because there’s some talk.”

“About me?”

Del nodded again.

“I can’t imagine why. My career numbers aren’t that good, really.”

“Don’t fool yourself,” said Del. “Your career numbers are very good.”

“With the leather, maybe.”

“Exactly,” said Del. “You’ve become a source of debate.”

“What debate? Among who?”

“Among whom”, Del corrected.

“I will smack that fork right out of your hands,” I said.

“My colleagues and I are debating the value of defense in today’s game. Is a player like Davey Driscoll worth as much as a player like Sean Pangle or Mike Wynn?”

“Clearly not, if we compare paychecks.”

“True, but offense has always earned the bigger paycheck. The real debate is not about economics or how owners value players. It’s about perceived versus actual competitive value. Everyone understands that certain positions favor a defensive skill set, like short or catcher. It’s about established skill sets, their applicability to today’s strategies, and how to value them.”

“Today’s strategies being…?”

“The trend toward offensive production, specifically power. What is the trade off if you go with run production over run prevention? What do you really sacrifice?”

“Sounds like more New Data stuff.”

“It is, but with shortstops mixed in now,” said Del, wiping his mouth and swallowing the last of his salad. “With all the power hitting shortstops in the last fifteen years -- Jaffe, Wynn, Pangle, -- is there any value left in defense? And if so, how do you measure it?” He put the emphasis on “measure”.

“So, how much are outs worth?”

“Yes, and how do we determine that? We know how much a home run is worth. It’s an instant run. It’s a tally mark in the RBI column. It could be twenty-five percent of a team’s runs in a given game on a single swing. And homers make people want to come to the ballpark, which is money. But how do you make a tally mark in the Runs Prevented column? What are the criteria?”

“There is no Runs Prevented column.”

Del pointed at me in agreement. “Maybe there should be. That’s the debate. How do you accurately measure how many runs good defense prevents, and is it equal to runs produced in terms of getting wins? And if it is, why don’t defensive players make what power hitters make?”

“I’ll tell you why. First of all, home runs are the result of one player’s effort. It usually takes two players to make a defensive play. How do you quantify the contribution of an individual defensive player when a defensive play usually requires two players? Secondly, nobody remembers what we do. Nobody texts their friends a video of a guy throwing out a runner. Home runs are sexy. Ground balls aren’t sexy.”

“Okay, I agree,” said Del. “Pitchers. Now there’s sexy. Strikeouts are sexy. And it’s an instant out. Of the twenty-seven outs in a game, a great strikeout pitcher might make thirty-three percent of those all by himself. That’s worth a trip to the ballpark, to see one of those guys. And that means money. But what about the catcher who called that pitch? Who framed it? Who did the research on the hitter and knew how to set him up for it?”

“Now you’re talking about the old apartment versus house analogy from a hundred years ago.”

“To an extent, yes. Good catchers do not get paid what power pitchers get paid. Enough for a nice apartment, but they’ll never be able to buy a house.”

“Unless they can hit homers, too.”

“That helps.”

“I guess you could say power hitters get paid to create excitement, and I get paid to prevent excitement.”

“Yes, but there’s a new calculation for clutch defense.”

I saw this coming and shook my head. “C’mon, Del, I’ve heard all this before. Look, you either make the play or you don’t. The situation doesn’t make the play any harder than it would have been otherwise.”

Del nodded as if anticipating my response. “I know, I know. It’s an old idea, born out of a desire to entertain readers of recap columns in the Fifties. But what if there was? What if there was a statistic to describe the greater value of plays that prevent a run from scoring?”

“This argument is a hundred years old,” I said. “How do you differentiate? Gunning a guy out at home from center field is just as important and valuable with no outs as it is with two outs in the ninth inning.”

“Yes, outs at home are the dramatic equivalent and statistical mirror of a home run,” said Del. “But why not recognize the defensive ability to get an out when it would otherwise have been a hit?”

“And how are you going to determine what would or would not have been a hit?”

At this Del smiled like he was revealing a secret. “Range values.”

I gave Del a disapproving shake of my head. “This is more New Data. This is ping pong balls and Spidey suits. This is a man bun algorithm.”

Del paused and stared at me for a moment. Then he blinked and said, “I’m not sure what those things are, but listen. You guys already wear biochips wired into your uniforms, right? They take a bunch of readings during the game for your data guys.”

“The Nerd Squad.”

“Yeah. Those biochips contain a miniature GPS, right? Networks can measure how far and fast you run to make plays, or how hard you threw the ball, and put those readings on television for everyone’s entertainment. Now the Big Leagues and the networks keep this data in servers. Your own teams, uh, nerd squads, could probably pull this information from their databases, too. Imagine taking the data that already exists for these plays and filtering out everything but distance traveled to the ball on successful defensive plays. This would reveal an actual physical range for each player that could be boiled down to a single value, a range value that acts like fielding average. From that range value you could calculate how much more effective a good defensive player is and exactly how many additional outs they make as a result of their better effective range. Additional outs mean fewer baserunners, which means fewer runs – thus, a Runs Prevented column.”

“Okay,” I said. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this. But this kind of stat already exists. Total chances and errors can tell you how effective a defensive player is. If you take the fielding average of the best defensive player and plug it into the difference in total chances between the best fielder and an average fielder, you’ll have the number of additional plays a better defensive player makes over an average player. But how can you connect a defensive play to a statistical certainty of a run scoring? Runs Prevented doesn’t mean anything unless you can say a given defensive play definitely prevented a run.”

“Ending an inning with a runner on third would count,” offered Del.

“Sure, but you won’t convince me to give Runs Prevented credit to an outfielder who takes three steps to catch a fly ball for the third out. And what about a catcher that blocks a wild pitch with a runner on third? That could happen with any number of outs and still be as valuable.”

Del sat back and gave a big sigh. “I don’t know yet.”

“Well keep working on it,” I said. “If it becomes a thing it’ll get me a bigger contract next time. Where did this debate come from, anyway?”

“I was sticking up for you,” said Del. “Jaffe retired and we were talking about replacements.”

“Ah. Well, you don’t need me when you have Terry Ruddy, and I don’t think I’ll be playing for Theo Garner anytime soon.”

“Why not?”

“We didn’t leave on the best of terms. Besides, I am not James Jaffe.”

“Nobody is James Jaffe,” said Del. “But you’re the best damned glove in the United League.”

I gave a shocked look. “How did you know about the Post-it on my bathroom mirror?”

I left Del to dress for pre-game warmup. It was good to see him, and our little debate gave me some things to think about. Maybe New Data could add value to what I did on the field. But even if the nerds could prove range values, General Managers would have to accept it, and I knew they wouldn’t dare acknowledge mine, not in a negotiating year. But it was fun to talk about.

We split with Baltimore. I went 4 for 5 with a stolen base and a bases-clearing double in game two, but we lost the last three games before the All-Star break. Still, at 46-35 we were in first place. I had the highest All-Star Break batting average split I’d ever had (.311/1/31 with 17 SB). And something happened that had never happened before in my career: I appeared on the UL League Leader list. At .394, the “best damned glove in the United League” was ninth in OBP.

But there was no statistic that could explain the rest of the season.

Next up: 2015 concludes and Dave must decide what to do about free agency

[Tib]

The Big Fade

I hit the ground running in the second half with a seven-game hitting streak and was moved back to the top of the lineup, but the team stumbled. Actually, “stumbled” isn’t quite accurate. “Drove off a cliff” might be a better description.

When I think back on my career, it’s impossible to encompass in words what happened to us each year. I have tried to describe the dismay and confusion we all experienced as we fell down the standings each season. I have tried to analyze it from a statistical standpoint, from a social standpoint, and from a strategic standpoint. All fail to comprehensively describe our annual failure. Maybe it was a combination of all these factors each year. Or maybe it was any one of these factors in a given year. I don’t know. It hurts my head to think about it, but I’m going to give it one more shot.

Statistical: we didn’t perform when it counted. This is certainly true. We began the second half of 2014 by going 2-11, effectively erasing the first half of the season. Then, when we needed to bounce back, we did, going 19-8 into the Dog Days of August. Statistically, you would say we “weathered a downturn”, then “normalized”. Okay, fine. Then why, if we were out of our slump and everything was “normalized”, did we go 6-18 for the next 30 days? Were we hurt? No. Then why did we hit .238 as a team in August? Statistically, you might say we “suffered a setback” or “experienced an aberration”. So was it statistics that prompted all the moves Max Thune made in August and September? Or was it a team chemistry thing?

Social: there were personality conflicts. This is also certainly true. Almost all teams have them, so this is not unusual. So what was different about ours that crippled us so? I can only say, in my experience, players who put the team above themselves resolve conflicts with more permanence than players who put themselves above the team. Players are more tolerant of teammates’ styles, behavior, attitudes, and selfishness if they know everyone is committed to the team’s success. It’s about acceptance. The energy that accepts a teammates’ negative quirks and makes them a positive part of the clubhouse is the same energy that, when reversed, calls out that teammate on the clubhouse floor. The energy that accepts that their quirks drive their teammates insane is the same energy, when reversed, that resents those who bring them up. And even when conflicts happen, positive clubhouses handle them immediately because they aren’t going to allow bad blood to poison the team. Players convey to one another that the team is the priority and anyone who can’t do that needs to get with the program or get gone, plain and simple. The Comanches of the 2010s had many well-documented conflicts. Not many were resolved. I know. I was there. Did I try to mediate these conflicts? Sure, I tried, but I was not blameless. I had my problems with teammates, too. I never put those conflicts above the team, but they did.

Strategic: players weren’t used to their maximum effect. Were we misused? I hate to say it, but probably. But what was Max Thune supposed to do? He had guys bickering in the clubhouse, on the plane, in the locker room, and even on the bench during games. He had guys who wouldn’t talk to one another. How do you make each other better when you refuse to try to make each other better? I know our lineups were influenced by ongoing conflicts. Some of our pitchers had partnered up with teammates and would push Thune to start the guys they wanted. Thune would do it, too. He couldn’t stand all the second-guessing that happened after losses. When you go 6-18 instead of 18-6, there’s a lot of second-guessing. I’m convinced that’s why he started playing the young guys after the trade deadline. When a manager bends like that it’s all but over. I liked Max Thune. He was a good manager in an all-but-unmanageable situation.

We traded Latronne Volk for Bob Gordan. Volk was one of the guys who was having trouble with Thune’s lineups. Was that a factor? Probably. He was 9-6 at the Break, so it wasn’t his on-field performance. We also picked up John Martin at the deadline. Martin was a good middle infielder and three years younger than me. And he started playing short on Sundays. As far as I knew, I was not on any pitcher’s **** list, but I was fighting a strained hip muscle and needed the rest.

So was it statistic, social, or strategic? Was it all three? The answer is yes, it was probably all three. When you consider how many variables go into a championship and how many of those variables have to come out on the positive side to win it, you realize the Comanches of the 2010s were just not ready to set aside personal conflicts and win games for each other. When we won, it was all business. When we lost, it was somebody’s fault. It reminds me of what Doc Caswell said about the Comanches to us Squires in that diner all those years ago. “They won’t win because they don’t like each other.”

And the cliff was coming. None of us on the bus could see it yet. Benji Gillingham signed a 4-year extension and that helped calm him down. He was an excitable guy, in a good way (most of the time), and he was concerned about arbitration. He thought if it got to that point he’d suffer. When Chicago offered him another $14 million at the deadline, he jumped at it. He immediately started raking, hitting five homers in the first ten games of August. Dan Miller was 13-7. He had just thrown a 7-0 shutout against Latronne Volk in our first matchup since Volk was traded. Bartolo Gomez was 14-5. Bobby Favors had 18 saves. I hit .340 in June and .282 for July. My OBP was .387 on July 31.

We were in a bar brawl for first with Detroit and Denver and for a while we were holding our own. There were six lead changes in July alone. The team was starting to get fired up. Then the front office dropped a bomb. They designated Willie Aguila for assignment to the minors.

Willie was the backbone of the team, even though he was 36 and was struggling this season. By comparison, at the Break he was .256/7/37 and I was .311/1/31. But those numbers don’t reflect his importance to the team. I said earlier the failings of the team in 2014 were statistical, social and strategic. Willie was a statistical concern, naturally, having fallen so far below his average career splits. He was a strategic concern because he wasn’t as mobile on the bases or covering first. But he was no social issue. He was a solid force in the clubhouse and at Cobblestones, a uniting voice when all the pettiness started undermining our team effort. He was as he had always been to the team: he was the Eagle, our leader. Nothing about his decline changed that. I knew Fontillion would probably deal him after the season. I even expected it, since Willie survived the Trade Deadline, but the truth was no one wanted Willie at Fontillion’s price. Finally, I guess, enough was enough and the team’s decline could not sustain Willie’s, so they sent him down.

I’ll never forget seeing him walk out of Thune’s office after a 4-3 home loss to a 42-68 Kansas City team. His face was blank. He just stood outside Thune’s door for a minute, looking lost. I was coming out of the showers and glanced at him standing there and knew something was wrong. My first thought was that he’d been benched, which would be understandable under the circumstances. I kept an eye on him until he left and caught up to him in the player’s parking lot. I asked him what was going on.

“They are sending me down, Hop,” he said. “Can you believe it? I don’t get it.”

“Sending you down? To Des Moines?”

“They say they tried to trade me but there was no one to take me. So, what do they do? After all these years with this team, what do they do? I know my numbers are not good, but this is not respect. Twelve years I have played for Chicago. I am not going, you know. I will not go.”

“If you refuse, they can release you.”

“Let them! I could be a back up or a pinch hitter, if they want. But no, they want to put Kenny at first and start to play the kids. That’s what they tell me. You better watch your back around here, Davey. Play the kids! Mama guevo!”

“It’s not over, Willie,” I said. “Look at Al Gills. Cleveland released him, too, and he signed with San Fran and got his three thousandth hit this year. He’s older than you.”

“No, it is not over,” agreed Willie. “I have hits in me, but they will not be for this team.”

Willie refused assignment. He was a pro with the press, who were not as shocked by the move as he was. He thanked the fans. He cleaned out his locker the next day and said goodbye to everyone. Everyone except Thune and Fontillion.

The team released him the following Monday. It left a big hole in the clubhouse. Willie had presence. His personality filled the room. His table at Cobblestones was empty now, a big round dead space where once there had been life and laughing and cigars and good times. On the clubhouse walls in Chicago they mount framed jerseys of players whose numbers have been retired by the team. In an act of defiance after Willie left, someone framed his jersey and put it on the wall. Thune never took it down. Willie’s release made the rest of us mad. We considered it an act of disrespect to cut him loose like that, a player that meant so much to the team and the city. It caused tension, tension we didn’t need. Less than a month later, Baltimore signed him and sent him to Rhode Island for a minor league tune up, and that was great for Willie, and I was happy for him, but it actually made things worse for us.

Here’s why: I was back to leading off and was hitting around .300. My OBP still hovered around .380. That was good, but the “kids” weren’t driving me in. The “kids” weren’t hitting home runs. The “kids” weren’t pitching well. Here I was, having the best offensive season of my career, and nothing was coming of it. I was pleased my hard work was paying off, but it felt hollow. It didn’t feel worth it if the team didn’t do well.

Fate seemed to be casting its vote as well. We were up 3-0 in a late August game when it began to rain. Rain. In August. It rained for fifty minutes and when we finished the game we managed to lose 4-3. The next day, I threw away a ball with the bases loaded, my 16th error, and instead of hitting the cement anchor of the railing behind first base and bouncing back to Ken Abbey, the ball struck the corner of the television camera well and caromed down the right field line. Three runs scored. We lost 17-7.

I lost more time healing my re-strained hip flexor. I was out for ten days and the team went 2-8. Bob Gordan lost seven decisions in a row after the Break. You might say it was a bad trade, him for Latronne Volk, but Gordan’s ERA during those starts was 3.25. Not really his fault. We lost in late innings, we lost in extra innings, we lost 14-6, 9-1, 13-6, and 23-4. We lost with the winning run on third. We lost big leads. We couldn’t hold one-run leads. We were the victims of eight walk-off hits after the All-Star Break.

We were in first place. Things were great. There was confidence, even cockiness. Then we were two games back. Not so much cockiness now, but, hey, things were still okay. Then we were four back and the cockiness was gone and the darkness started creeping in. Then we were six back and the light in the tunnel was gone. Then we were eight back and our big fade was complete. No more confidence. No more cockiness. We were eliminated from division title contention in a disaster of a 10-1 loss at home against the Colts. Joel Kral hit two homers in that game. Nice guy that he is, he knew how I felt. He literally apologized to me as he passed me on his second trot. And the stress was like a cloud of poison in the clubhouse. Guys weren’t even bothering to talk to one another. But the press was there to listen. Oh, sure they were, recorders running the whole time. And every snide comment and petty criticism made the papers. To top off the irony, I ended the season hitting in nine out of ten games (.444), but the team went 3-7.

We finished 79-83, 9 games back of Detroit, who finished a very catchable 88-74. Not a good record in the whole division. Opportunity missed, because Detroit didn’t give Baltimore any trouble in the first round of playoffs. Boston and Seattle rounded out the playoff field.

In the Mutual League, Houston’s chances were ended after Mike Wynn could no longer play with the bone chips in his shoulder and had to have season-ending surgery in August. The Chiefs slid right into first place and didn’t leave. A very deep Indianapolis team won 98 games and seven straight to close out Atlanta at the end of the season, even though they lost Anthony Ball in June and Jason Fox in September. And the San Diego Vipers, the team no one wanted to play for, won a weak West with a -2 run differential. Hey, they were in the playoffs, which was more than I could say.

Dave Guevara, the Mutual League stolen base leader (59, to edge out Jukebox by three), and Bobby Nitta both helped Atlanta get to the Wild Card, but they lost to Indianapolis anyway, as the Trackers’ bench stepped up.

Baltimore beat Boston again in the League Championship series, but couldn’t solve Chicago’s pitching, as the great Sutaro Teikase showed the world why he was a first ballot Hall of Famer. Teikase was untouchable and the Chiefs won the Championship in six games. The last out of the series? Expanded roster call up Willie Aguila struck out pinch hitting as the tying run. Certainly not what Willie wanted, but to go from unconditional release to the Championship in two months is quite an accomplishment to me.

Willie wasn’t the only veteran who refused assignment. A day after the season ended Bobby Frisina was designated and refused.

As the curtain dropped on the 2014 season, I tried to think positively. It was probably my best season as a professional. .301/1/40. 80 runs scored. 25 stolen bases. .385 OBP, 11th in the UL. 20 errors in 677 chances (.971). Also, two renewed endorsements, two beautiful healthy children, an amazing wife who won the Charlie Bartosz Award for Chicago sportscasting, and a (mostly) pain free knee.

So why was I upset? Maybe because I have to stew in my frustrations after the season’s over to boil them out of my system. Maybe because the Comanches turned the lights off on themselves and it felt like the guys were accepting failure, and there’s no excuse for that. Maybe because I had 1158 career hits and none in a Championship. Or maybe it was because it burned me that I was on the road for Damon’s birthday. And Molly’s first birthday. And my anniversary. I had missed a lot this year, and I don’t just mean the playoffs. Basically, I wasn’t getting what I wanted, what I had worked for. And my brain knew there were no guarantees in this game, but my heart, the heart of a baseball player, didn’t understand why the game had to be so tough sometimes. I mean, even a .200 hitter gets a bloop double once in a while. Where was my unexpected success? Ah, hell, I realized as I barbecued steaks in my chilly back yard in mid-October, I don’t want charity from Fate. I’ll make my own breaks. I always have.

As the season faded to black, 2015 loomed in my mind. Was it to be my last in Chicago? Was Chicago even ready to win a Championship? And if not, was I prepared to give up the life I built here and move my whole family to a new city on the strength of my own desire to win a Championship? Did that desire outweigh the stability of our lives here?

What was I willing to sacrifice to get what I wanted?

[Tib]

Hello, all!

A quick update, since it's been a while. As most of you know, Short Hop was based in ITP way back in 2003. I also had the companion leagues (ABF and CBA) running in OOTP5 to provide historic stats and history. And everything was fine. The ABF ended in 1965 with the Federal lawsuit, and the CBA picked up in 1966. I had simmed forward some of the CBA seasons using OOTP5, but not all the way to the present day.

Then I took a leap and bought OOTP21 about a month ago. This was, of course, a gigantic upgrade from OOTP5 and a big learning curve for me. But after toying with it for a while, I took another leap and decided to restart the CBA beginning in 1966 and re-sim to the present using OOTP21. The sheer depth of information available in OOTP21 basically made up my mind. OOTP5 cannot compete with that.

But there is no amount of technical wizardry that can take OOTP5 league files and transfer them into OOTP21. If I wanted the CBA to move from OOTP5 to OOTP21 I was going to have to do it myself.

So I printed out every ABF roster from 1965. I basically cut and pasted the OOTP5 player profiles of each player on a 1965 ABF roster into a Word document. About 10 pages per team. 30 teams: 300 pages. Then I created the CBA in OOTP21 with 1960s era performance modifiers and financials. Then I started editing players, re-creating every single player from 1965, using general stats to get as close to the OOTP5 player ratings as I could. Every nationality, every height, every weight, even home towns (which are a thing now, it seems), including every famous player I referenced in Short Hop. Clayton Breckenfield? Yes. Glendon Winters? Yes. Rutherford Monroe? Yes.

It's been a huge commitment of time. Currently, I am about a third of the way through and making slow progress. I mean, I gotta do the uniforms too, now don't I?

But I know that running the CBA from 1966 to present in OOTP21 will give me better perspective, better data, better everything to use as a historic basis for Dave's baseball world. It will also give me deeper player and team economics.

So, if you're wondering where I've been, I'm right here, at my computer, turning 20 year old information into an OOTP21 reality. The next chapter, Rollercoaster, should be good to go in the next week. Then another installment of the History of Pro Baseball covering the labor issues of the 70s. After that, we'll be back on track.

Thanks for the patience.

Tib

[Palaaemon]

Sounds great Tib! Can't wait for the next installment of Short Hop. Make sure to back up your league often.

Have a great night!

Palaaemon

[Palaaemon]

Hey Tib!

How is the conversion going on your league? I am not going to ask you for an estimate for a finish because I know how real life is and it certainly takes priority! . Just was wondering on your progress. Hope everything is well with you and yours.

Have a Great night!

Palaaemon

[Tib]

Hey! Thanks for the response. The conversion is going well but slowly. Had to put the story aside for a while. Not COVID-related, but COVID-adjacent. Everyone healthy here so far.

I am slowly slogging through the next two chapters because I've been doing research for the next act of Dave's career. Rest assured, I should have chapters ready in a week or two. Thanks for the patience.

Tib