Today’s news regarding players and the World Baseball Classic:
Go below the jump for the full list:
Well, here it is. One day until the end of the world, according to the Mayans. Never mind that the Mayans actually didn’t predict that 12-21-2012 was the end of the world, or that the Mayan culture didn’t see history as a straight line but rather as a series of cycles, or that they found another Mayan calendar that extends past 2012, or that the Mayans didn’t see the collapse of their own empire coming… a bunch of crazies on the internet say the world ends tomorrow, so who am I to argue?
Humanity had a good run. We mastered fire, created the wheel, spoken and written language, and invented pre-sliced bread. And remember that time we landed a man on the moon? Or when we drove smallpox into functional extinction? And we created the Internet, allowing us to watch video of a Corgi getting cleaned using a vacuum cleaner! Good times. Good times. Heck, it’s a shame that those stupid Mayans didn’t give us time to fix that whole Global Warming thing sometime before it turned us into a wetter version of Tatooine, because that probably would have ended up there on the list of accomplishments.
Stupid Mayans.
But, hey, the end of the world gives me the perfect excuse to finally say who I think are the greatest ballplayers of all time. After all, if history ends tomorrow, I can say with certainty that this list will never have to change again!
So here we go (after the jump- because the Mayans would have wanted it that way):
Today’s news on World Baseball Classic participation:
Go below the jump for the entire list of statuses for players in the WBC.
In “If I Were Commissioner”, I pretend that I am in charge of all of baseball…
For years, back when ballplayers needed some extra money to hold them over during the off-season and the owners also were looking for ways to leverage some more money, there was barnstorming. Teams of ballplayers would travel the country (sometimes even the world!), playing local teams and each other, spreading the gospel of major league baseball to the cities that didn’t have it- and making a good buck while doing it (usually).
But, alas, as time went on, salaries got higher and baseball expanded west, the barnstorming traditionally slowly disappeared. Nowadays, it is almost non-existent. Beyond the occasional trip to Asia (such as the one in Taiwan in 2011), ballplayers don’t go on tours anymore.
But if I was commissioner, that would change. Because, you see, baseball is a game best seen in person (as opposed to football, which is a sport that is better on television). It would thus make sense to let as many people as possible in as many areas as possible see it in person. Since obviously it wouldn’t make sense to require, say, every MLB team to play one regular-season series in their AAA stadium, the answer is barnstorming.
It could work like this: every November, there could be a team formed from any interested players who’s teams either missed the playoffs or who were eliminated early on. They would then play a series of five to ten games in various cities, the location of which would differ by year. One year it could be in Japan or Korea playing against local teams there, the next it could be in areas of the warmer-weather part of the USA that don’t have MLB teams (New Orleans, San Antonio, Albuquerque, etc.) against a “Washington Generals” team made up of C-list free agents, minor leaguers that need more seasoning, and interested retired players.
So you are probably wondering: what about colder cities? Well, maybe that could be done during the season, using a team of old-timers and free-agents similar to the one mentioned above. They could play a few games against minor league teams, or something. Not a perfect solution, but, hey, what can you do?
Today’s changes:
The latest ins and outs for the WBC:
Go below the jump for the full look at who’s in, out and somewhere in-between for the World Baseball Classic.
The LA84 Foundation offers archives of old periodicals and magazines from sports history, many of them dealing with baseball. So, in the spirit of good humor and retrospective, I’ve looked at what was being written about baseball in December 1912, and now will write what I may have written back in December 1912. In 1912 style, of course.
Tinkers-Evers-Chance No More! Tinker to Cincy, Chance doomed to skipper Highlanders
Boy, oh boy! Imagine my surprise this morning when I read the news that the Chicago trio of Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers and the “Peerless Leader” of Frank Chance are to be broken up! The three, who so famously pricked the Giants’ gonfalon bubble in 1910 and won the World’s Series in ’07 and ’08, will no doubt live forever in the hearts of the people of the West Side of Chicago, but now they turn their heads to other endeavors. Only Evers will remain. Tinker, now the player/manager of Cincinnati, will have to face his old base ball brothers- including Evers- next season.
The same cannot be said of the Peerless Leader. He will be managing and perhaps playing for the New York Highlanders in the American League, an unenviable task given the low interest that is given to that club- indeed, I think this may well be a ruse to make what few fans the Highlanders have be hopeful after the dreadful 50-102 record in 1912. It will likely be a fool’s errand. The Highlanders’ lone star, “Prince” Hal Chase, has long been allegedly in the pocket of the gamblers, and could be crooked himself, allegedly. They have never been able to outdo clubs like Boston, Philadelphia and the American League’s Chicago. They are likely to always be afterthoughts, no matter what Chance does.
The American League East is in a interesting situation. For years, after all, there were some things that were for certain: The Yankees and Red Sox could be expected to come in first and second (sometimes flipping the order), the Blue Jays and sometimes Orioles would be a distant third, then the Orioles and Tampa would be taking the bottom two spots.
Then, suddenly, the Rays rose, becoming a factor. And so for the past few years, there were three teams in the AL East who could be expected to make a run at the playoffs.
And then came this past season, 2012, when everything went crazy. The Yankees still won, sure, but the Red Sox plummeted and the Orioles, despite the fact they were, on paper, maybe the fourth-best team in the division, ended up snagging a wild card spot. The Rays also were pretty good and made a good run at a playoff spot, and may well have gotten one if not for injuries.
But now, with the Red Sox again opening their checkbooks, and the Blue Jays having traded for basically every good player on the Marlins and now closing in on a deal for NL Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey, the question is… where is the weakness of the AL East?
None of the teams have gotten particularly worse- although the Yankees may not have signed anybody of note (save for Kevin Youkilis) and they have Alex Rodriguez out for the first half of the season, they can hardly be considered to have suddenly plunged into irrelevance. The Orioles haven’t really added anybody, but they’ve only lost Mark Reynolds, and most of last season’s historic bullpen will remain. The Rays have lost James Shields, but any rotation that has David Price and a lineup that has Evan Longoria is going to cause plenty of havoc in the standings.
The two teams that have added the most people- the Red Sox and Blue Jays- still have plenty of question marks. In Boston, for example, John Farrell will have to prove that his less-than-stellar performance as skipper in Toronto wasn’t just a result of the players he had available and the tough schedule he had to play. Toronto will have to avoid the injuries that devastated their pitching staff last season and integrate a bunch of new players into the team, all while also having the return of John Gibbons as manager. Gibbons had a sometimes tumultuous stint as Blue Jays’ manager from 2004 to 2008, and his hiring was something of a head-scratcher.
What does it all mean? It means that the AL East is a wild division, one with no clear favorite or clear unfavorite. It should be an interesting season in 2013.
Headlines about the biggest baseball news from the Newseum web site:
Story: Josh Hamilton signed by the Angels, spurns Rangers
Orange County Register: No Joshin’! Hamilton completes Angels’ lineup
Long Beach Press-Telegram: Angels Raid Rival
Los Angeles Daily News: Rounding Up A Ranger
Los Angeles Times: Angels sign star oufielder
Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Going? Going? Gone
Dallas Morning News: Out Of Left Field
Josh Hamilton, the prize hitter on the free agent market, is a Los Angeles Angel of Anaheim. And so continues the movement of baseball’s greatest talents to the west. While it is true that Hamilton was already in the West Division of the American League, it shows that the old powers of the East Coast baseball establishment are no longer what they were- the money and the power is now out west. Consider:
What does this mean?
Well, for one thing, it means that staying up late will be a treat in the coming years. The struggles between the Dodgers and Giants will be grand opera, narrated by Vin Scully. The Athletics will have to once again find a sling in order to take down Goliath. The Rangers will have to do all they can simply to avoid falling into the basement of the AL West (thankfully, they will still have the Mariners and Astros to beat up on).
For another, though, it means, once again, that television and the ever-increasing riches in baseball- for all teams but definitely more for some than for others- have changed the game. The Los Angeles teams now are able to tap into more money than they had before, while established eastern powers like the Braves are trapped in bad deals. The big advantages that team-owned stations like YES and NESN once gave are now no longer so big. It’s a brave new world.
Finally, did anybody else hear that the Red Sox signed Ryan Dempster? Yeah, I almost missed it too.
The Baseball Continuum 