What Now?

Hello Reader

Off Base has been in the DL for quite some time, to the point that he thinks his reader has given up entirely. Here's the skinny.

The World Baseball Classic was the best baseball mash-up ever. It's been difficult to get engaged in the regular season after such a celebration of tyhe sport. Base has also changed day jobs. It was the equivalent of being called up to the show from single A. It was also an 800 mile move, and a huge arguement with U-Haul about pulling one of their trailers behind a Budget truck. Even the drop-off agent commented "that's just wrong".

It hasn't been a difficult adjustment switching regional home teams from the Rockies to the Rangers. Base has never had an American League team, unless living in Portland and following the Mariners counts. That was in the era of Randy Johnson, A-Rod, Griffey Jr, et al, so it might have happened regardless of my domicile.

The most interesting thing about this season is whether Detroit can reall pull it off.

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Play Ball!

At long last baseball season is starting. We might be able to set aside scandals and investigations in our collective minds and enjoy some games. Maybe not though. The commissioner has suddenly discovered his soul, or something resembling it. More likely he’s trying to avoid another trip to Capitol Hill where the congressional committee pushed him around like so much fluff last year, while looking into performance enhancing drug use in baseball.

It’s really too late for Selig to do anything meaningful about the Steroid Era. The feeling on this side of the word processor is that he’s trying to clean up his legacy as commissioner. It’s too late for Bud to salvage any personal integrity in the matter. Like trying to withdraw from a war, you can’t ignore the body count.

One theory goes that franchise owners allowed this to happen by design. Baseball is a mild sport. By the mid to late 90’s attendance was falling off. Owners, including Bud Selig, who during the time of his interim appointment as acting commissioner owned the Milwaukee Brewers, made adjustments to the game towards increasing action. They sought to speed up the games, and adjusted the strike zone tolerances (knees to nipples). When a few trainers introduced weight training, everything changed. At first we were led to believe that the balls were juiced and bats were corked, thereby explaining the sudden rise in offence on equipment. Fans loved seeing balls fly completely out of the ballpark and smashing windshields in the expensive preferred parking zones.

There can be very few innocents in this matter. The most innocent are the players that chose not to enhance their physical performance through engineered chemicals. Baseball is not a brute sport. A baseball athlete needs a variety of skills to succeed. It requires thinking and situational reaction as much as fielding skills and batting strength.

There are very few secrets within a team. Owners, managers, and players had to know, so Base suggests that there was organizational collusion in the matter. It’s a don’t ask, don’t tell situation. Selig may be right to try his investigation toward making an ethical correction in the conduct of this sport. He won’t get much cooperation from players, because the union will defend them from any real jeopardy. It will serve as a course correction for the sport, and perhaps a future commissioner will be able to sort this all out in terms of a before and after scenario.

This is a good thing, as left unchained, Barry Bonds would eventually hit a home run out of the (corporate name here) San Francisco ballpark during the 2010 season that would land across the bay on the pitchers mound in Oakland. Alternately, Base predicts that Barry will finish just a bit short of Hank Aaron’s home run record this season, but well beyond Babe Ruth. Argue me at Off.Base@gamail.com .

Itchy & Scratchy Go Bonzo

Suddenly there’s no shortage of baseball news and controversy.

Your correspondent has a preseason ritual of noting how many players named Martinez and Hernandez are in camps at the start of every season. They are 16 and 20 respectively.

Tommy Lasorda, former player and former long-time manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, threw out the ceremonial first pitch of the World Baseball Classic in Japan. After wheeling his pitching arm like a windmill as he approached the mound, Lasorda threw it into the ground about 10 feet in front of him, bouncing it toward the foul line between home and third base. There was no small irony in this, as Lasorda famously ruined several good arms while managing the Dodgers (Hirscheiser, Valenzuela, and Nomo).

The World Baseball Classic is a good idea, but wrongly placed. Spring training is the wrong setting for showcasing such an event. Baseball players hone their skills over a season and play at their highest skill at the end of the season in October. Base thinks that moving the Classic to December or January would be a better idea. It would require moving the games closer to, or south of the equator. This would encourage training during the off-season, and give baseball purists motivation to travel outside their comfort region. They could attach themselves to baseball and perhaps appreciate a cultural change of scenery. This would also provide a meaningful distraction from a meaningless sport extravaganza that looms every late January.

Baseball players generally do their best work within a 10-year bracket. Without chemical fuel, most players are done when the early grey hair or receding hairlines start showing up in their mid 30’s. Pitchers do last longer, because they only do hard work once or twice a week.

Barry Bonds is in camp trying to repair his image and to play one more season on a knee without cartilage. Look for a season where he has no triples, few doubles, and about 25 home runs in limited appearances, if he plays a season at all. Since Base didn’t intend on publishing this week (3/8), the breaking news about Barry will have some time to develop over the week. What everyone had suspected about his chemical inflation appears to be true. Even Jose Canseco seems somewhat vindicated. You’ll recall his book Juiced set off a Congressional investigation about steroid use among baseball players. The two biggest casualties so far are Rafael Palmiero and Sammy Sosa, neither of whom was able to find a team this season.

By account, Bonds was using about 5 different steroidal compounds since 1998, including one developed for muscle development in cattle, according to excerpts from the book Game of Shadows, written by 2 San Francisco Chronicle sportswriters . Around the Giants clubhouse he was referred to as “The Incredible Hulk”, so dramatic was the change to his physique. Bonds flatly denies he has done anything illegal, chemically speaking. Baseball was not testing for steroid use during this period. Aside from the public opinion perception of this technicality, his real immediate trouble might be with the IRS. His mistress claims he gave her $81,000 in cash (from signing baseballs) to buy a condo in Phoenix. Giants’ fans (and teammates) seem unbothered by any of this. The Giants official website makes no reference to the allegations.

Is Base the only one noticing the resemblance between Bud Selig and Bill Gates?

Baseball Commissioner Selig met with Bonds last week and indicated through a spokesperson that he will meet with the slugger again within the next few days to discuss the allegations. Selig seems to get a rash anytime he’s dealt confrontation. He is both Itchy and Scratchy in this case. He’s indicated his preference for a root canal procedure over his next meeting with Bonds. The Commissioner has appointed a committee to whom he presumably will assign chapter-reading assignments when the book is released on Friday.

So readers, what should be done? Bonds has never tested positive for steroids, and in fact they were probably not illegal in baseball during his heaviest juicing period. Expecting him to do the right thing for the sake of the integrity of the game is unlikely to produce the desired ethical solution. He has shown that public opinion is not something that has any influence on his decision making process in the past. Should he pass Ruth and Aaron on the all-time home run list, is it valid? Should there be one of these * after his statistic? Is this as serious as Pete Rose betting on baseball?

Base hopes that the WBC becomes more meaningful. Baseball has latently become a 3rd tier sport, behind football and basketball. Baseball season lasts longer than any other organized sport at 6 ½ months. Well, maybe basketball does have a longer season, when you include the play-offs, which base considers a 2nd season within the season. The WBC is a fan favorite. It’s something to cheer about at off.base@gmail.com .