Ain't it so cool?

Hang around the ballpark everyday and you get to see and hear some really cool things from time to time. Hell, even the mundane is cool for baseball geeks like me. Still, the past couple of days have been a veritable treasure trove of coolness. For instance, take the scene in the empty clubhouse after the Phillies’ 3-2 victory over the Braves last night. Though the Phillies continued their maddening insistence on leaving the bases loaded with no outs while also leaving men standing on second and third bases with less than two outs, they were able to pull out the victory because they paid attention to the details.

Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley made nice plays in the field; Pedro Feliz – with a cue from Charlie Manuel – laid down a timely and effective bunt; Scott Eyre appeared in a game for the first time in two weeks and got three outs against two hitters; and, of course, Brad Lidge closed out the game with a perfect ninth.

The Phillies may not be scoring runs without the aid of homers and errors, but they are doing the other things well. Exhibit A in this was pointed out by Mike Sielski (shameless plug for Mike – Buy His Book!) in the clubhouse long after most of the media took off. According to Mike, Jimmy Rollins currently has the best fielding percentage by a shortstop in the history of the game.

Yes, it’s true. With just three errors in 483 and 123 games, Rollins’ fielding percentage is .994. In 1990, Cal Ripken had a .996 fielding percentage, but a few more chances (Ripken had 680 in 1990) Rollins could be right there.

Anyway, the cool part took place a few minutes earlier when Brad Lidge walked into the room. Still basking in the positive vibes after a 1-2-3 ninth for his 27^th save, Lidge walked into the room and immediately heard a few cheers and good wishes from Pedro Martinez. Pedro was all smiles and cracking jokes, of course. That’s just the way he is. But the next thing you knew, Lidge and Pedro were standing in the middle of the room pantomiming pitching deliveries and talking shop.

Think about that for a second… the closer who put together one of the best seasons ever for a modern-day reliever and the pitcher who had a string of the greatest seasons… well, ever, were standing just a few feet away talking about fastball motions.

How cool was that? It was like watching two great scientists comparing notes in the lab.

Speaking of great scientists, Joe Posnanski’s book on the 1975-76 Cincinnati Reds comes out in the next two weeks. It’s called, rightfully, The Machine. Frankly, I can’t wait to read it because Posnanski is a great writer and because I love that era of baseball. That’s when I first learned about the game and those guys from the ‘70s – Reggie, Rose, Johnny Bench, Schmidt, Seaver, Carlton, etc. – were my first heroes…

And then when I got older I met them. Yikes.

Anyway, part of the book was excerpted in the most recent issue of Sports Illustrated and a particular passage about Johnny Bench caught my eye.

Check it out:

Baseball stardom, however, was not enough. As his fame and numbers grew, Johnny sang in nightclubs. He went to Vietnam with Bob Hope. He hosted his own television show. He became friends with stars, like the singer Bobby Goldsboro, who hit it big in 1968, during Bench's rookie year, with a song called Honey. He dated models and a Playboy centerfold. He was 27 years old, and he had everything. And then, on this April afternoon in Cincinnati, everything changed. Fifth inning, scoreless game, San Francisco's Chris Speier singled to leftfield with runner Gary Matthews on second base. Johnny stood at home plate and waited for Rose, who was playing left, to get the ball and throw it home. Pete did not have a strong arm. The ball slowly made its way to the plate, and so did Matthews, who was 6' 3", weighed about 190 pounds and was called Sarge. Johnny could see that the baseball and Sarge were going to get to the plate at almost the same time. He wanted to catch the ball, get out of the way and tag Matthews as he rushed by -- nobody pulled that bullfighter maneuver better than Bench. But he did not have time. Instead, he stood in front of the plate, and he leaned forward to catch the ball, and he tried to protect himself. Sarge crashed into Johnny and sent him flying backward.

That's when Johnny Bench felt a sharp and biting pain deep inside his left shoulder. He groaned. Then he got up -- nobody, not even the people who hated Johnny Bench, ever questioned his toughness. He stayed in the game. He waited for the pain to go away. Only it did not go away. And what Johnny Bench did not know that day in Cincinnati is that the pain would subside a little, but it would not go away. He would play the rest of the 1975 season in agony.

I was a kid when Johnny Bench was the best catcher ever to play the game. Sure, back then we knew he was good, but we didn’t know how good. We were just kids and figured Johnny Bench was the norm. We didn’t know he was an innovator and trendsetter. We just thought he was the standard-issue All-Star catcher whose signature was on Rawlings catchers mitts (I still have one). He also hosted “The Baseball Bunch,” and he batted cleanup for the fearsome Reds when catchers never batted cleanup.

Basically, in the late 1970s Johnny Bench was the man.

But Sarge… who doesn’t love Sarge? He’s funny, engaging, loves to laugh and needle Wheels, and he knows the President – personally. The President calls him “Sarge,” too.

So when I saw Sarge the other day I told him about Posnanski’s book, the passage and if he remembered the game in 1975 where he had to knock Johnny Bench on his ass.

“Yeah, I remember it,” he said in a “hell yeah!” tone. “We had to have a few words after it.”

Chances are those words were pretty good, but when told that it sounded as if Bench wanted to pull a little olé! Move on him on that play nearly 35 years ago, Sarge told about how he rounded third base, saw Bench getting into position and knew, “there wasn’t going to be no olé-ing,” Sarge said with a smile before going on to explain how tough Bench was.

Come on… how bad can the days be when you get to hear story from Sarge about decking Johnny Bench? Not bad at all.

So yeah, hang around long enough and you get to see and hear some cool things. Actually, even the mundane is pretty cool.

Back in the swing

Raul Ibanez went home to Miami on Thursday and slugged two more home runs to help the Phillies whip the Marlins in the first game of the second half. For a kid who went undrafted out of the city’s Sunset High School and did not receive a single scholarship offer, the schoolboy catcher was hardly a big-league prospect in those days. Actually, it took a couple of phone calls just to get Ibanez a tryout for Miami-Dade College. Two years later the Mariners snapped him up just before his 20^th birthday in the 1992 draft.

It’s safe to say Ibanez just might be the best 36^th-round draft pick in baseball right now.

But after six trips back to the minors after making his big-league debut in 1996, a release and two turns on the free-agent market, Ibanez went from a catcher with no baseball future to his first All-Star Game at age 37. In fact, the All-Star Game was just his third game back after going to the disabled list with a strained groin.

In his fourth game back he pushed his team-leading homer total to 24. That’s one more than he had in 2008 at pitcher-friendly Safeco Field. Better yet, Ibanez missed 21 games with the strained groin in which the Phillies went 10-11. With Ibanez in the lineup the Phillies are 39-27.

But let’s make no mistake about it – Ibanez’s success isn’t measured by statistics. That’s just too easy. No, there’s a pretty good reason why Ibanez is the favorite player of a lot of jaded media types, teammates and fans. Sure, he is turning in a career year in his first season with the Phillies, but if Ibanez had slugged half as many homers it’s doubtful that would make him any less popular with the ink-stained wretches and veteran ballplayers.

Call it simply humanness and grace. Ibanez actually looks at people when he talks to them. He remembers names and faces. He is borderline obsessed with his daily workout regime, but always has time for a quick conversation.

Yes, it’s a cliché, but Ibanez is a regular guy in a business where there aren’t too many regular guys.

“He can go out to eat with his family at Islas Canarias restaurant on a Sunday and nobody will look at him twice,” said Greg Tekerman, a former assistant who coached Ibanez at Miami Sunset High to the Miami-Herald.

Joe Posnanski, the columnist for Sports Illustrated and the Kansas City Star, got to know Ibanez a bit when the player was finding his way with the Royals. Quite simply, Posnanski says Ibanez is his favorite player.

And there is no second place.

Wrote Posnanski:

I thought about this quite a bit during the All-Star Game in St. Louis because there I saw an old friend … Raul Ibanez. I should say that Raul has this ability — and you know people like this — he is everybody’s friend. I would never say that anyone is IMPOSSIBLE to dislike because, let’s face it, some people don’t need any reason at all to dislike. But I would put it this way … anyone who dislikes Raul Ibanez would have a hard time defending it in a court of law. He’s smart and thoughtful and humble, three pretty great things to be. You probably know that Raul was the oldest first-time All-Star position player ever, and so reporters were gathered around him, firing all the questions that get asked at such things — from the absurd (“So, what kind of wine did Ichiro send you as congratulations?”) to the more absurd (“When did you realize you were here?”) — and he answered every question in his usual attentive way (in both accent-free English and accent-free Spanish), and you could see every person (no matter their country of origin) leaving the table with the same “Raul is my friend” expression on their faces.

That expression is all over the place these days. Seattle, Kansas City, Philadelphia, St. Louis and back home in Miami. A good guy is having a good year… it’s about time.

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?

Matt Stairs: Hall of Famer

Speaking of Matt Stairs... While sitting here with the kids on a day where I don't have to drive to the ballpark and instead get to watch The Backyardigans and trip over Legos, I did a little Google search of our favorite all-time pinch hitter and came up with a tasty nugget from the great Joe Posnanski...

Guess what? Matt Stairs is the greatest slugging journeyman in Major League history.

During his career Stairs has played for 11 different teams and bashed 256 careeer home runs. Last season Stairs passed another ex-Phillie, Todd Zeile, when he cracked homer No. 254 to give him the most homers amongst players who have played for 10-or-11 teams.

Now here's the interesting part - what if Stairs would have come up in a proper position rather than as a second baseman?

Yeah, that's right... Stairs was a second baseman who swiped bases in the minor-league system for the Expos. Could you imagine Stairs playing second base now?

But what if he had been an outfielder from the jump? None other than Bill James, the godfather of statistical analysis, suggests that Stairs could be winding down a Hall of Fame career:

Look at it. Somebody decided he was a second baseman, he tears through the minor leagues, gets to Montreal, the Expos take one look at him and say, 'He's no second baseman, get real.' He bounces around, goes to Japan, doesn't really get to play until he's almost 30, then hits 38 homers, slips into a part-time role and hits 15-20 homers every year for 10 years in about 250 at-bats a season. ... You put him in the right park, right position early in his career ... he's going to hit a LOT of bombs.

Moreover, James also dug up this:

Stairs's career numbers are essentially the same as Reggie Jackson's (.262, .356, .490). All of his numbers trump those of Roger Maris. Other players with comparable numbers include Bobby Bonds, Frank Howard, Dwight Evans, Dale Murphy and Greg Luzinski. Nobody confuses those ballplayers with the ordinary.

Matt Stairs in the Hall of Fame? Maybe it could have happened.

Coste to Coast

Just sitting here waiting for the Villanova game to start (or is it the Flyers?[1]) and trying to make sense of a lazy Saturday. As far as the game goes, take Pittsburgh giving away the points though I have to admit that I haven't seen the line. My guess is 'Nova is a plus-2 or 3. Is that the correct gambling jargon?

So after a morning laugh of perusal through the LancasterOnline message boards[2] and a glance through the news, here are a handful of stories that piqued our interest this morning.

Somewhere faraway from here, the Phillies appear to have pretty much ironed out their 25-man roster a little more than a week before Opening Day. The biggest development, of course, was the trade of Ronny Paulino... on a Friday night... when people may (or may not) have had plans... because it couldn't have been taken care of on a casual Saturday afternoon.

Nevertheless, Paulino's ouster to San Francisco pretty much means Chris Coste will be the backup catcher for a third straight season. It also means that Lou Marson likely will be on the 25-man roster next season after his apprenticeship at Triple-A Lehigh Valley this season.

Then again, Coste has been really good at digging in his heels. A guy doesn't have a pro career like Coste without knowing the angles or how to compete. Chances are his next stop will be as starting catcher for the Yankees or something like that.

Now don't get me wrong, Coste is no shyster or some dude taking up a spot on the roster because he has dirty pictures of someone or can play the political game better than others. Far from it, because if that were the case why did it take until he was 33 to get into his first big-league game?

The fact is that despite his limitations as a catcher and a hitter, Coste has some intangible that can't be measured on a spreadsheet and quantified by a statistic. Besides, the best parts of baseball are the things that are not on the back of a baseball card.

So enjoy Coste while you can, Phillies fans. Nothing lasts forever, especially the careers of long-suffering backup catchers from Fargo, North Dakota.

*

Elsewhere, I kind of dug this story by Joe Posnanski about John Calipari. It made me think fondly about this moment:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51-4sJTf7iQ&hl=en&fs=1]

Now I don't condone violence. Ever. But sometimes I can understand.

*

Today is the 30^th Anniversary of the accident at Three Mile Island in Middletown, Pa., which remains as the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history.

These days those cooling towers have become part of our cultural wallpaper. They are pop, in a sense. Warhol could have colored them like he did those soup cans. Besides, it's very, very close to where I'm sitting right now - approximately 25 miles - and I even had the chance to play golf at the course adjacent to the TMI complex.

The grass was so green.

Anyway, at the time of the accident my family was living in Washington, D.C., but we were thousands of miles away on a trip out west. However, ask anyone from Central Pennsylvania or Washington what they were doing 30 years ago today and they'll have some stories for you.

Crazy stuff.

Bags were packed, evacuation routes planned, contingencies were weighed, troops were on alert... just wild. Meanwhile, a guy named Ed Wickenheiser, an old-school newsman from Lancaster, rolled in to Middletown with a microphone and notebook as the first guy on the scene. When a story needs to be told, Ed runs toward it, not away.

Hard-nosed dude, that Ed Wickenheiser.

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[1] No, it's definitely not the Flyers, though I'd listen to Jim Jackson and Keith Jones do play-by-play on a rash. Love those guys.

[2] I don't know if the posters are serious or goofing off, but it's some hilarious stuff. I hope it's just a bunch of people joking around because otherwise we should all be scared to death. But, if you're looking for a good laugh, check it out. The unintentional comedy is beyond Curt Schilling proportions.