World Series: Injury to Insult

This very well may be a case of injury adding to insult. In fact, it’s a two-fold thing… call it a rich tapestry of absurdness and irony. Like an onion, this story has many layers and the more that is peeled, the more it stinks. OK, that might be a bit dramatic, but it truly is bizarre that both closers in the 2009 World Series were suffering through different states of injury.

For Brad Lidge, there very well could be a logical explanation for his poor season in which he posted 11 blown saves in 42 chances as well as the worst ERA in history for a pitcher with at least 25 saves. Though Lidge was decent in a handful of outings in the postseason, he took the hard-luck loss in Game 4 of the World Series and never seemed to gain the full trust of manager Charlie Manuel.

It seemed as if Manuel used Lidge only when he had no other options even though he had five scoreless appearances in the NLDS and NLCS.

The World Series, however, didn’t go so well.

So maybe we can chalk that up to the fact that Lidge will undergo surgery to have a “loose body” removed from his right elbow. Scott Eyre is having a similar procedure to his left elbow on Monday, too. The difference with Lidge is he will also have his right flexor/pronator tendon checked out. If it shows so much wear and tear that surgery is required, don’t expect Lidge to be recovered by the time spring training starts.

But if the tendon is fine, then all Lidge will need is to have that elbow scoped.

Of course Lidge also spent time on the disabled list in June for an injured knee. It was because of his knee pain that Lidge says he altered his mechanics, which may have led to his ineffectiveness. Now we know that those mechanical issues just might have led to the loose body and tendon trouble in his right elbow.

Not that Phillies fans are looking for a cause for why Lidge had such a difficult year, but there it is. However, it seems as if the price tag on a second straight trip to the World Series was pretty costly now that we see that Lidge, Eyre and Raul Ibanez are all headed for surgery.

Surgery might not be necessary for Mariano Rivera, who as it turned out was a little injured during the World Series. The New York Times reported that Rivera says he injured his ribcage by throwing 34 pitches in a two-inning save in Game 6 of the ALCS, though manager Joe Girardi says the injury came in Game 2 of the World Series where the closer threw 39 pitches in a two-inning save.

Whenever it happened, chances are Rivera might not have been able to pitch had the World Series extended to a seven games.

Imagine that… a World Series Game 7 with the Yankees and the Phillies and Rivera can’t go?

“I don’t want to talk about it now,” Rivera told The Times with a smile.

Certainly the Game 7 question is a bit silly considering Rivera got the final five outs in the clinching Game 6. To get those last outs, Rivera needed 41 pitches—the most he’s thrown in a playoff game since throwing 48 pitches in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS.

“It was real important we close it out in Game 6,” Girardi told The Times, stating the obvious.

Meanwhile, it seems as if the Yankees tried to pull off a little misdirection of their own in order to hide Rivera’s injury. During the games in Philadelphia, Rivera was seen clutching a heating pad against his ribcage. When asked why he needed the heating pad by the press, Rivera said it was because he was cold.

That’s a reasonable answer, perhaps. Then again, the game-time temperature for Game 3 was 70 degrees and it was 50 for games 4 and 5.

So maybe Rivera might have been better off biting down on a bullet after a couple of belts of rye whiskey instead of the heating pad? After all, he must have been dealing with a lot of pain to pile up those four outings in the World Series.

“I had to go through it,” Rivera said, gritting his teeth on an imaginary bullet. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”

Now get this… Rivera says he wants to play for five more seasons. For a throwback closer who has no qualms about piling up the innings, five more years sounds like a long time—especially when one considers that Rivera will be 40 at the end of the month.

The six degrees of Matt Stairs

NEW YORK— It’s hard not to like the guys who can take it as well as they can dish it out. Better yet, a guy like Matt Stairs is into self-depreciating humor in the same way he’s into launching epic homers in clutch moments of a game. He’s a good guy pretty much all the time.

So when I saw Stairs just shooting the bull with Yankees manager Joe Girardi during Tuesday’s workout at Yankee Stadium on the eve of the start of the World Series, it dawned on me…

Those guys were teammates. It had to be so.

A quick spin on Baseball-Reference proved it to be true. In 2001, Stairs and Girardi both played for the Chicago Cubs along with Phillies’ utility man, Miguel Cairo. Back then Stairs was 33 and the Cubs’ starting first baseman. He played in 128 games that year, hitting just 17 homers and splitting time with Fred McGriff.

Girardi, on the other hand, was 36 and winding down his playing career as the backup catcher to Todd Hundley in his second go-around with the Cubs. Five years later Stairs was working on his ninth team prefacing a stint in Toronto and Philadelphia yet to come, while Girardi took his first managing gig with the Marlins.

Cairo, meanwhile, bounced around quite a bit in 2001. Before hooking up with Girardi and Stairs with the Cubs, he was traded by Oakland for current Yankees’ pinch hitter Eric Hinske.

Hinske, of course, was the final out of the 2008 World Series with the Rays, a role he doesn’t want to reprise against the Phillies in 2009.

OK, where does Kevin bacon fit into all of this? Wait, he grew up in Rittenhouse Square. See, it all fits.

Anyway, not even a decade after they were teammates in Chicago, Stairs and Girardi are battling it out for the World Series. Needless to say, this leads to an important question:

Hey Matt, what’s it like playing in the World Series against an opposing manager that used to be your teammate?

“It means I’m really old or he’s extremely young and doing really good,” Stairs said with a hearty chuckle. “No, it’s nice and I’m really happy for Joe. We were teammates in Chicago and he’s done a great job managing here and when he was with the Marlins and now he has the Yankees in the World Series.”

But knowing what he does about Girardi, did Stairs ever imagine a scenario where his old teammate could ever be his boss?

“He’s older than me, right?” asked Stairs, who at 41 is three years younger than Girardi. “I might have a hard time playing for a guy younger than me.”

The way it’s going Stairs very well could play for a manager younger than him one day. Sure, the lefty slugger struggled a bit in 2009, but big bats off the bench are a big commodity in baseball. Just ask Hinske, whose big bat for the bench has him in the World Series for the third straight year with his third different team.

Have bat, will travel.

Regardless, Stairs is pleased to see his old teammate doing so well, though he hopes he’s not doing as well when the World Series ends next week.

“I wanted to be a manager when I was young. How we learn is from watching the game and if you stick around long enough you might pick up some things,” Stairs said. “Joe is smart and he’s been around and he’s a good manager. He does extremely well with all that stuff like the bullpen moves. Sometimes you’re in a no-win situation and he does a great job in blowing it off.”

Why can't Serena play like the boys?

Spending 14 hours at the ballpark for one of those greedy day-night doubleheaders sometimes leaves a guy with a little down time. If only they had cots or hammocks in the joint perhaps a little catnap would have refreshed and revived the baseball scribes. Nevertheless, I had a chance to catch some of the baseball highlight shows since all the televisions in the press box were magically turned to ESPN in the hours leading up to the late-night second game.

Apropos of that, if there is one thing that writers and ballplayers can agree upon it’s the Sunday night games on ESPN stink. They are almost more annoying than the 4 p.m. games on Fox, which are at the perfect time to ruin your day. They are too early to be a night game and too late to be a real day game – you’re just screwed if you actually want to have a life.

But whatever – no one wants to hear a guy who hangs out at the ballpark all day whine about what time they start the games. Besides, the thing that stood out on the highlight show was the scene from Yankee Stadium when manager Joe Girardi ranted and raved with the umpire over a call. In fact, Girardi was so demonstrative during his argument that he appeared to have ejected the umpire after he got the ol’ heave-ho.

That wasn’t the end of it either. Girardi threw his hat, bobbed his head and kicked dirt, and when the tantrum went on too long, he actually needed to be physically restrained from charging after the ump.

It was quite a scene, man.

Meanwhile, in Boston ex-Phillie Pat Burrell was tossed from a game without the show Girardi provided, but certainly with the venom. Mired in a 1-for-19 slump in September, Burrell’s ejection (which undoubtedly included some choice words) was more about his inability to hit and frustration than the call.

Either way, Burrell’s show of outrage was only a handful of seconds shorter than that of Serena Williams during Saturday night’s semifinals match at the US Open in New York City.

You know, the thing everyone is flipping out about.

So here’s the question: How come it’s OK for men to curse, swear and act like little children when arguing with the officials, but if a woman does it she has gone over the line? In tennis, no less?

For those who just saw the theatrics and not the questionable call that pushed the tirade, here's what happened: Serena was called foot fault, which is more rare than catcher's interference or a balk in baseball. With the semifinals match and the No. 1 ranking in the world on the line, a foot fault call -- especially one that was questionable to begin with -- is unheard of. It just never happens, let alone at such a critical moment in the last major tennis tournament of the year.

So Serena flipped a bit. She yelled, dropped a curse word or two, and sent the line judge scurrying to the top officials in some sort of racial tableau that would have been such a ridiculous stereotype if it weren’t actually happening.

“If I could, I would take this ... ball and shove it down your ... throat,” Williams reportedly told the line judge, according published reports.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZcDn8JWCLo&hl=en&fs=1&]

Yeah, that’s it. Good thing baseball players and baseball officials don’t have the delicate sensibilities of the tennis hierarchy. You don’t want to know what Charlie Manuel says during his arguments. Earl Weaver, Billy Martin or Bobby Cox… forget it.

That’s really the case considering we’re talking about a sport where Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe and Illie Nastase had actual profane meltdowns on the court that rivaled anything in any other men’s sport. Hell, ballplayers and men tennis players are applauded for acting that way. They are called, "fiery," and sometimes the fans even chant their names when they throw a tantrum.

In comparison, the hand-wringing and indignation over the on-court anger from Serena is not only ridiculous, but also insulting and stupid. It also makes one wonder if there is something else at play here.

Double-standard anyone?

“Women definitely pay a higher price for the same ‘crime,’” tennis great Martina Navratilova told ESPN.com’s Bonnie Ford. “When Martina Hingis walked around the net to question a line call at the French Open, the crowd was on her case like I couldn't believe. Jimmy Connors did the same thing, they booed him when he did it, and then he won the next two points and they were cheering for him again.”

Williams has been fined $10,500 and there is talk of suspension, too.

Really? For what?

For acting like an athlete in the heat of the match who was upset over a perceived slight?

For doing things that the men tennis players do?

For upsetting the perceived genteel nature of women’s sports and/or tennis in particular?

How about for potentially offending a sponsor or two?

Hmmmmm…

Next: Back to Pedro and baseball

Book worm

The much talked about Alex Rodriguez by former New York Times and current Sports Illustrated reporter Selena Roberts hits the streets today, and already folks are deconstructing the information. Apparently the book is filled with tawdry tales about sex, drugs and jealousy. Plus, based on advances from the book, A-Rod is a really bad tipper, too.

Regardless, Yankees’ manager Joe Girardi doesn’t get why something like Roberts’ book would be written, let alone published.

And yes, Joe Girardi lives in a cocoon.

But like the admitted steroid user she writes about, Roberts is taking a few shots from folks in the media. Certainly that is fair based on the dish-out/take-it dynamic that exists in our in-everyone’s-business atmosphere in our little digital world.

Clearly the reasons for the backlash are twofold. One reason is that a lot of people don’t ever want to believe that athletes of Rodriguez’s caliber would ever do anything wrong. You know, that whole bit where celebrities can never do wrong and that they are thoughtful and articulate.

Usually the people that thing this way dot there I’s with smiley faces.

The other major complaint is that some of the evidence against A-Rod is thin, which very well could be true. Of course some of the source material might be difficult to prove with mere statistics. That’s especially the case with the charge that A-Rod tipped the upcoming pitches to the opposition in blowout games with the hope that the favor would be returned. Some of Rodriguez’s ex-teammates said they never saw hints of pitch tipping to the opposition. Hell, it would be tough to catch a guy with a less than average poker face from studying video tape of the games.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible.

According to some research by SI’s Joe Posnanski, it’s quite possible that opposing players like Bret Boone and Miguel Tejada (amongst others) may have benefited from something.

As Posnanski writes:

Now, before showing off a few numbers, I want to reiterate that, I believe, it would be almost impossible to the find the answer in numbers. For one thing, Texas’ pitching sucked from 2001 to 2003. Two, the Ballpark at Arlington is a bandbox. Three, a hitter who knows what pitch is coming would not hit 1.000 or anything close to that. I have absolutely no idea how much better you can expect a hitter to be if he knows the pitch and the location … fifty points of batting average? One hundred points of slugging? More? Less? No idea. So I would not have any idea what kind of numbers we should be looking for anyway … especially because the charge is that A-Rod tipped pitches ONLY IN BLOWOUT SITUATIONS.

Still, I think the following number is pretty striking.

American League West middle infielders facing the Texas Rangers from 2001 to 2003: Hit .309/.375/.558. They banged 44 homers and drove in 184 RBIs in 281 games.

And the two real middle infield stars — Miguel Tejada and Bret Boone? Tejada hit .347/.406/.613 in 57 games against Texas. He hit 17 home runs.

Bret Boone hit .315/.386/.570 in 58 games against Texas. He hit 14 home runs.

There are other pretty good numbers. Mark Ellis and Frank Menechino in their full seasons hit .300 with some power against the Rangers. In 2003, David Eckstein hit .249 against everyone else, but .311 against the Rangers. Carlos Guillen hit lousy against the Rangers in 2001, but in 2002 and 2002 he hit .319 and .351. But this is what I mean when I say that there is really too much statistical noise to get at much here. I would find it very hard to believe that A-Rod would have worked out a deal with David Eckstein or Frank Menechino. I can’t believe there would be much percentage in that.

Check out the full post for more striking research that may not be a smoking gun, but it sure is one crazy coincidence otherwise.

On another note, my favorite reaction to A-Rod’s alleged fascination with Madonna was this quote from an unnamed teammate:

“Obsessed, pretty much. It was like, 'OK, Alex, you're with Madonna. And I'd give you a big high-five for that -- 15 years ago.' Hey, she looks great, but she's 50. It's like sleeping with your mother.”

And Girardi doesn’t understand why that stuff gets published? Sheesh… what kind of weirdo water is Steinbrenner giving his guys?