Baseball's Biggest Butt

Base (that's me, for infrequent readers) conducts an informal survey each season to find the player with the buiggest butt. Itt' really an homage to the late Kirby Puckett, who I belive is the gold standard. Any nominee will always be compared to Kirby. It was actually my wife that asked the question first. We were attending a Twins game (vs. Boston) in the mid 90's with a group of friends. A short serious discussion took place and we all decided that Tony Gwynn held that distinction at that time, although Rick Garces was also mentioned as a contender.

Over the past few seasons the distinction seems to fall amongst pitchers (Carlos Zambrano?). Perhaps it's just because we see them most of any position players on television, and in a wide variety of poses/movement.

Your vote, via comment, should not be confused with the Biggest Butthead in Baseball. That's a separate category where opinion contenders are Mark McGuire, Alex Rodriguez, and Ron Washington (actually Biggest Bonehead). Please join me in assembling these alternative statistics. I'll send the results to Bud Selig.

Winter Games

The purist in me does not like a lot of the new sports in the Winter Olympic Games. These include the aerobatics, and snowboarding (and possibly mogul skiing). Maybe it's just my age. I've lived long enough to see the entire Winter Olympic history, although admittedly not payed attention to every incidence.

It's not that I'm adverse to change. These sports are judged along the same lines as figure skating. Clearly they involve a lot of dedication and athleticism to develop skill and mastery. It makes for good television too. My ambiguity about these sports is perhaps a lack of history. They were developed within the age of wild technological innovation. Boarding grew out of surfing, a sport I liked while growing up partly in San Diego.

I started skiing when I was 10 years old in Alaska. Kept at it throgh my teens by way of a fortuitous move to Bavaria at 15, and became a competetive downhill and giant slalom racer. By 18, I was a fearless, but somewhat reckless speedster. A crash injury during a practice run for a race in Garmisch-Partenkirchen pretty much ended my dream of making my way to the world stage. Jean Claude Kily broke a leg that same year, but went on to gold in the Olympics a few years later.

Alas, I digress from a defense of purity preservation. So much surrounding these new sports seems driven by personality, as if they developed out of the reality TV trend. My theory is is that an ocean surfer decided to take the fin(s) off a sufboard an ski down a slope, much like some Norweigian that accidentaly discovered he could fly by leaning foreward while skiing too fast over a clif by leaning forward.

I might be wrong. I might be right.

Throwing Stones

There are a couple sports involving stones (and rocks) that attract my interest. Hill bowling (which I invented), and the 500 year old stone-pushing sport of curling.

Curling seems a very genteel sport for the players, not so much for observers. I like gliding sports. You can read about rules, equipment and scoring here. Some have described it as chess on ice. Early versions used flat bottomed river rocks. I like games without the need for expensive equipment. It was designated an official Winter Olympics event in 1998. Demonstration games in the 1920's were retroactively awarded medals by the "Committee" retroactively. Players are expected to call their own fouls; a superb expectation, elevating the sport beyond the need for close refereeing.

Hill Bowling was an accidental sport invented in the summer of 1979, while walking with a friend in a Baja California Sur canyon. We were resting above a dry river bed, talking importantly about art, while casually tossing rocks down the canyon. One toss hit a junked car with pretty interesting acoustics. We both graduated to larger rocks and began rolling them down the hill, musing that perhaps this was evolving into a game of sorts. Naturally, we developed a scoring scheme: one point for metal, 3 points for the much rarer breaking glass. We never kept score, nor played again. Should you ever find yourself above a rogue dump with a supply of rocks and stones, think of David and Ken, and the game only played once 30 years ago.

Season Wrap

I suppose it's about time to wrap the season and put it to bed. Actually, I should have done this sometime in September. My season was a wash. It was June before I watched a full broadcast, largely depending on Baseball Tonight for season's progress.

It's possible to reconstruct a game fairly accurately by comparing the line and box scores. Most newspapers outside major markets don't waste the column inches though. This season, as with most, was all about who can beat the Yankees? One by one the prospects fell. Towards the end I thought the Dodgers would be an interesting match, if only because of Joe Torre, not to mention all that historic rivalry between the two teams.

My other great disappointment with the World Series is the broadcast team. Joe Buck is flat, and clearly not that interested in baseball. Fox is actually superb at the technical coverage, but shouldn't be allowed top take cameras on the field during the games. We don't need that POV of the home run trot from third to home.

Only 4 months until spring training.

Biggest Butt in Baseball

The BBB is a fan statistic. It's an idle statistic invented by a woman from Minnesota, where the unofficial Hall of Fame record holder played. Doesn't Major League Baseball want to marked its product to women? Attribution will be revealed if/when it is mentioned on-air on ESPN's Baseball Tonight or Sports Center.

Only getting a few late inning Rangers games listening on the radio this season, so my qualifications for nomination are not great. Pitchers seem to be the most likely candidates. Don't think we'll see position players like Kirby Pluckett or Tony Gwynn again, excepting Ryan Howard and Prince Fielder a few years from now.

From what I've seen so far, my nominations are C C Sabathia and Carlos Zambrano.

Many the Great

Off Base is more than a little behind the news cycle, but judging by visitor statistics, no one is relying on me for breaking news.

Biggest news over the past few weeks was that Manny Ramirez was suspended from playing in the next 50 Dodger games for chemically balancing his estrogen level. I'm starting to entertain an idea mentioned recently by Daniel Schorr. Legalize performance enhancing drugs in professional sports and let the freak show run wild.

Good Grief A-Roid

Firstly, pardon the visual mess of the blog layout. It's a work in progress.

Broken news announced that MLB is looking at the accuracy of A-Rod's statements about his steroid use. Will this be just another back and forth with lawyers, agents, and the commissioner? Likely so. Will Alex take the high ground and give full disclosure? Unlikely.

Rodriguez makes more in salary during one game than most of us earn in a year. He's not likely to fall on his sword for ethical reasons, at least until he holds all the holy achievement records in baseball. Just when we're rid of Barry Bonds a new bligh appears.

Baseball will never be the dear sport again until A-Rod resigns/retires. I can't afford good game seats anyway.

Seattle Once Upon a Time

Dave Niehaus, long-time Seattle Mariners radio announcer created the A-Rod moniker. He was also the originator of the Big Unit tag for Randy Johnson, which he later regretted. He tried to shift to RJ, but the locals wouldn't have any of that.

Those were the heydays for the Mariners. They had Junior, Edgar, Bones, The Unit, A-Rod, and the bonus of being managed by Sweet Lou (Piniella). Pitching never got them all the way to the World Series, but they did manage to eliminate the Yankees once.

One of my favorite footnotes to the mid 90"s Mariners was the acquisition of closer Heathcliff Slocum, from the Boston Red Sox. The Mariners traded Jason Varitec and Derek Lowe for Slocum. One of the best or worst trades ever, depending on your allegiance. Boston fans referred to him as Heart Attack. He saved 13 games for the Mariners over 1 1/2 seasons, with a statistical WL record of 2-9. He generally put the first batter on base in relief, which was not a good pattern for a closer. He was big and intimidating. Lots of heat, as they say.

My wife, who keeps unofficial track of such things, named him one of the biggest butts in baseball (1997), on the Kirby Puckett gold standard. One might argue that Tony Gwynn or Rick Garces (El Guapo) both were sitting on that title. Heathcliff's career sadly ended 2 years after his stint with the Mariners with a line drive to the groin while pitching for the Padres. He lost a ball in the play. Off Base hopes he's happily retired in his native Jamaica.