The Baseball Digest Archive 7/85

July 1985

Was there such a things as a Baseball Digest cover jinx? Because as you can see, the cover story focused on the ultimate relievers: Sutter and Quisenberry. And yet, the photo was of Bruce Sutter alone. So what happened in 1985? Dan Quisenberry’s Kansas City Royals went on to win the first World Series in franchise history. 1985 was the first season of Sutter’s injury laden and unproductive stint with the Atlanta Braves. Jinx or no jinx?

At this moment we are in the midst of a golden age of young star players. If past is prologue, the chart in this month’s issue is a good sign for their futures. The list of the top young players under the age of 26 contains several names that went on to have brilliant careers. Plenty of future MVPs, Cy Youngs, and Hall of Fame enshrines. That makes sense, if a player is good enough to be productive at a precocious age, it stands to reason that he will be good enough to sustain that. The track records of the pitchers isn’t quite as good. As is often the case with pitchers, injuries can take a heavy toll.

There were contrasting fates for the players featured in a pair of articles in this issue. It looks like Willie McGee succeeded in his struggle for big league consistency; he would go on to win the NL MVP award in 1985. Garry Templeton did not do as well. His leadership may have helped San Diego win the 1984 pennant, but his production continued to drop. 1985 would be the final year in which he made the All-Star game.

How to properly evaluate defense has long been a challenge. An article this month lists the players who won the so-called Triple Crown of Defense; leading the league in putouts, assists and fielding percentage at their position in the same year. The problem is that fielding percentage is a poor metric. Poor range can actually help a player’s fielding percentage. You can’t make an error on a ball that you don’t get to. For the record, 87 different players had reached this achievement.

One of my favorite annual features in the magazine was the list of each franchise’s all-time top 10 in assorted batting categories. Years before I first got my hands on a copy of the Baseball Encyclopedia these lists introduced me to a lot of names that I wished to learn more about. Who is this Wheat guy near the top of several Dodgers categories? Or the Doerr guy who is all over the Red Sox leader board? Obviously the older the franchise the more impressive each list will be, but something noteworthy happened just this year. Manny Machado became the Padres career home run leader, finally surpassing Nate Colbert’s total. There are a lot of mitigating factors here which explain why Colbert’s total had stood for so long. Neither Jack Murphy Stadium nor Petco Park have been easy stadiums in which to hit home runs. The Padres have had a lot of poor teams, as well as an inability to retain many of their top players. But still, 163 home runs is an astonishingly low total for a franchise that has been in existence for more than a half century, and I say this with all due respect to Nate Colbert, who was a player that I liked a lot. Anyhoo, this will no longer be an issue. Machado will add to that total, and Fernando Tatis Jr. is also accumulating a lot of homers at a young age.

Finally, this is a great advertisement. For the bargain price of $9.95 each, you could order audio cassette recordings of radio broadcasts of old baseball games. This is a pretty amazing selection. There are plenty of World Series and All-Star Games, but also some of the most random ones that one can think of. Is there something so special about a 1971 game between the Yankees & Brewers that you just NEED to have a copy of it? If so, I hope 3-5 weeks of delivery is not too long of a wait.

The Series So Far

“Attention, theatre goers. For tonight’s performance the role of Kirk Gibson will be portrayed by Freddie Freeman. The role of Jeff Weaver will be portrayed by Nestor Cortes.”

As the World Series moves to The House That Joba Built, two stories have been most prominent. The first is the anxiety which surrounds Shohei Ohtani’s shoulder injury, although it appears he dodged (no pun intended) a bullet and is expected to be in the lineup tonight. The second is the discourse surrounding Freddie Freeman’s amazing game-winning grand slam in Game 1. More specifically, all of the What Was Aaron Boone Thinking? discussion.

You don’t need to spend much time at a sports bar/man cave or listening to sports talk radio to realize that there is a tragic amount of untapped managerial genius out there. By gosh, if I ran this team instead of the idiot currently in charge we would win so many trophies that there wouldn’t be enough room to display all of them. The chronically delusional have no idea how difficult it is to manage or coach a sport franchise. Much like the duck swimming in a pond metaphor, most of the hard work is below the surface.

Two of the smartest quotes I ever heard about managing have come from successful Yankee managers. Casey Stengel had said that the secret is to keep the five guys who hate you away from the five guys who haven’t yet made up their minds. And Joe Torre had said about working for George Steinbrenner that if you take his money you also have to take his s***. Both of those statements say similar things in different ways. The in-game strategery is important, but just as vital is the way you manage a clubhouse on a day-to-day basis.

That means keeping everyone engaged, putting out small fires before they grow too large to contain, sensing when a player needs a day off, and yes, shielding players from an irrational and impetuous owner. Over a 162 game season, these elements are more important than whether or not a manager uses the wrong relief pitcher in a random game in June.

The postseason is a completely different beast. In that case every decision is placed under a microscope and a poor one stands out. Such as bringing in a relief pitcher who had not pitched in a month. Boone’s explanation of why he chose to go with Cortes instead of Tim Hill sounded like it had some logic to it, but in the larger picture it did not make any sense. Yes, in the playoffs starting pitchers are often asked to come out of the bullpen and we can all name numerous instances in which that worked out perfectly. But this strategy works much better when they come in to start off a clean inning. Cortes came in with the tying and winning runs already on base. Plus, as mentioned, due to injury it had been more than a month since he had pitched in a game. I made a snarky Jeff Weaver comment, but the better parallel is with Michael Wacha in the 2014 NLCS. Just like Cortes, he had missed a month and was brought into the game at a crucial point; in this case the bottom of the 9th with the score tied. He predictably struggled, allowing two hitters to reach base before surrendering a walk-off, series-ending 3 run homer to Travis Ishikawa. Wacha was placed in a situation in which it was almost impossible for him to succeed. So too with Cortes. He only threw two pitches. The first was a meatball that Ohtani just missed, flying out to left field. After intentionally walking Mookie Betts to load the bases, Cortes served up another pitch right in the zone to Freeman. Freeman did not miss.

So now the Dodgers lead 2-0 with the next 3 games at Yankee Stadium. (Apologies to those who love to see middle infielders dressed up like they’re preparing to summit Mt. Everest. Temperatures are going to be unseasonably mild in New York.) The series is far from over, teams come back from these sorts of deficits all the time. If Ohtani’s injury compromises his ability, or if Aaron Judge is finally able to get going, things can change quickly. Play ball!

Vote! Vote! Vote!

Early voting began in New York on Saturday and I made sure to make my voice heard at first opportunity. There was impressive turnout at my polling place; the time it took me from beginning to end was around an hour and twenty minutes. It shouldn’t have to take that long, but that’s an argument for another day. I was happy to spend that much time participating in such a vital right and responsibility as a citizen, and besides, there are areas of the country where voters are standing on line for several hours, so who am I to complain?

My experience on Saturday demonstrates the stark difference between a state that values the right to vote and one that only cares if the “right” people cast ballots. My personal biggest sign of aging is that my back tightens up if I’m standing for too long, so waiting on a long voting line isn’t ideal. It wasn’t an issue because I could lean against a wall most of the time, but there were a couple of times as the line moved where I found myself standing next to a window and unable to find a spot to lean. At one point I had no choice but to kneel down in a catcher’s crouch to alleviate the stress on my back.

Within seconds of my doing this, an election worker came to me and asked if I was having trouble standing and if I needed to cut to the front of the line. I thanked her for the offer, but I assured her that I was fine. I was not in any sort of physical duress, so I would not have felt right to jump ahead. I knew I did the right thing shortly afterwards. An Uber pulled up and a passenger on crutches stepped out of the car. The same election worker who had spoken with me was right there to assist the gentleman and bring him directly inside so that he could avoid the long wait on line. That was a man who needed the break, not me.

I tell this story because this is the way it should be at all voting locations. Voting is a sacred right, it should not be a burden. In one sense it’s inspiring when you see news footage of humongous lines at a polling station - the more people engaged, the better - but there is no excuse for putting citizens in such a position. As for the rest of my experience, once my spot in line finally came up, it could not have gone more smoothly. All of the election workers were warm, helpful, and friendly (to be fair this was day 1, they might not all be as chipper a week later) and the transition from sign-in to privacy booth to voting machine was quick and efficient. Everyone should have the same experience.

The Oscar Mulligan - 1996

Best Picture - The English Patient

Other Nominees - Fargo, Jerry Maguire, Secrets & Lies, Shine

1996 was yet another year in which at the time there was an existential argument between traditionalist and adventurous audiences, with an unstated understanding that the adventurous movie was likely to lose the battle yet win the war. That’s pretty much what happened.

First off, though, I want to say some words in praise of Jerry Maguire, which was my second favorite of these 5 nominated films. Because it has at least 3 famous quotes which people repeated to the point of exhaustion, it’s become a bit polarizing. I don’t care about that, it was a wonderful movie. I’ll also give props to Secrets & Lies; like many of Mike Leigh’s best movies these were believable characters and you felt as if you were eavesdropping on private intimate conversations.

The English Patient has often been lumped in with many of the other “Oscar” movies that fall out of favor. You know the type, a sprawling epic that is technically impressive but emotionally cold. It doesn’t help that it was the subject of a Seinfeld episode. I found this better than most other movies of this type; despite Elaine’s complaint it did in fact have real emotional stakes and that was the case for both timelines in the movie.

But is was no Fargo. It’s a movie that I never get tired of rewatching, and I suspect that is the case for most of the movie’s fans as well. It’s a small movie with equally small stakes (well, other than the multiple murders) but it otherwise contains every single element that we look for in a Best Picture. A compelling story, original characters, outstanding performances, an effective blend of comedy and drama. Most importantly, it felt like something different and it’s still the case years later. Just as was the case with Pulp Fiction, so many later movies attempted to replicate Fargo’s tone. None could.

Lead character Marge Gunderson perfectly embodied the idea of Minnesota Nice, but there was nothing patronizing about the way the film portrayed her. Because she was well into the third trimester of her pregnancy, she was easily underestimated, but she used that to her advantage. Just watch the scene that Frances McDormand shared with William H. Macy. By this point in the movie Macy’s Jerry Lundergaard was already a basket case as his seemingly perfect scheme was coming apart at the seams, but it was still amazing to see the way that she played him like a fiddle. Both actors were absolutely brilliant, you can see the wheels turning in McDormand’s head.

The movie was filled with so many wonderful moments. Macy’s breakdown as he was scraping the ice off of his windshield. Steve Buscemi looking at the vast wintry wasteland as he was burying the money. The wood chipper, oh the wood chipper. McDormand’s what was it all for? speech to an arrested suspect. Even the scene at the end in which she comforts her husband after the painting he submitted to the USPS was chosen to be used for the 1 cent stamp. She reminded him that when postal rates go up (this was before Forever Stamps) people need to buy the 1 cent stamp to make up the difference. That was such a simple way of humanizing her.

That last scene was a perfect example of the movie’s chief strength. Even though it was a fairly short movie, there was still enough time to flesh out these characters and carve out sufficient time to allow them to shine. Fargo has of course also served as the inspiration for a long-running anthology series on FX. I always love when I find a great Easter egg in the TV series. (In one episode Oliver Platt’s character found the money that Buscemi had buried in the snow. Well played.)

I suspect that Fargo’s reputation will continue to rise as the years go one and it will hold a high position in the classic film canon. This one is an easy choice; it deserves the 1996 Oscar.

Closing Laughs

Well, well, well, it’s time to start yet another week. Let’s make this a good one, people. See everyone again on Wednesday.