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Gather ‘Round the Stove
A Chicago newspaper illustration prior to the 1913 American League Meetings
If you want to keep the peace then you don’t step on the third rail of American conversation. No, it’s not Donald Trump. It’s not even politics. Or religion.
“So, what do you think (fill in the blank with local baseball team) should do this offseason?”
These wintertime conversations used to take place down at the General Store around the stove (hence the phrase, “The Hot Stove League.”) Sometimes the conversation would get so heated the stove was no longer needed.
Eventually, the conversation moved to talk radio and now has migrated to the internet. Neither move elevated the conversation one bit, nor has the creation of the new “nerd stats” which make everybody and his sister Sally an analytical genius General-Manager-in-Waiting. Now, instead of talking about dingers, and Uncle Charlie, it’s WHIP and WAR, launch angle and exit velocity.
What hasn’t changed is the unreasonable and often contradictory nature of it all. The starting points remain the same. “Well, if I were in charge I’d start by trading for (last year’s Cy Young Winner) for (the worst player on my team) and a bag of batting practice balls. If you were (the targeted player’s team) you’d go for that trade, wouldn’t you?”
Mmmmm, sure. Why not?
Or it’s this one: “Man, that contract of so-and-so’s is a killer! Why did they give him all that money? And he’s always hurt and can’t stay on the field! The idiots!” And five seconds later the same guy says, “Why don’t they offer that player an outrageous sum of money for an outrageous length of time? I’ll tell you why! ‘Cause our ownership is cheap, that’s why! And that GM is an idiot!”
Ohhhhhhhh-kay.
Next are the geniuses who have figured out that time only moves in one direction. “Our guys are getting old. That guy’s bat has slowed down, and that other guy has an aging arm. They should bring up that Paul Bunyan kid. Tore up the Forest League last year. Kid can’t miss, I’m telling you.”
“I heard they were thinking of trading him to the Yankees for pitching.”
“What?! Are they freakin’ nuts?! This kid is gonna be a superstar! He’s the future of this franchise! Idiots!”
Wisdom of the ages? “Potential” is that French word for “ain’t done it yet,” Frank Robinson was not an “old 30,” and in the words of that great baseball savant Doris Day, “The future’s not ours to see, Jackson.”
Of course, the Hot Stovers are blessed in their ignorance. As they argue over transactions they’re only trading numbers on a spreadsheet. They know nothing of the people behind the game — who was struggling because one of their parents was dying, which kid in the minors seems to be universally loathed by his teammates, or who had nagging little injuries that kept them from performing well but it wasn’t bad enough to put them on the DL.
But in these cold days of January, with snow on the diamonds and even spring training games feeling like an eternity away, it keeps the blues at bay. Throw another log on the fire and let’s check Twitter for the latest rumors.
Published in Sports
If George were still alive, where would he be in the discussions of potential candidates in the 2024 primaries? And where would George Will stand?
I remain on strike. Call me a populist, but I’ll remain on strike until small market teams have an equal chance at being the best team, not just a team that can win through a playoff system that gives them a shot because anyone has a shot at winning 4 of 7.
So . . . baseball socialism? Or should I say even more of it?
Milwaukee Brewers (smallest market in baseball) had the best record in the National league in 2018, and were one game away from the World Series.
If there’s no socialism, it’s either chess or it’s not a game.
Dominos? Poker?
Besides, baseball does have some revenue sharing.
Royals–back to back World Series, one win.
I will grant that in can be difficult for small market teams to sustain success.
Those have some element of artificially engineered chance in them that gives everyone a chance. So to the extent we’re equating that with socialism, they have socialism. I’m not sure that’s a good equation, btw, but I suppose there’s something to it.
Whether or not we want to call it socialism, almost all games (except chess) are a balance between skill and chance. The balance point isn’t the same for every successful game, but it’s somewhere. Salary caps and such are a way to make a game out of it. Whether they’re a good way or the best way can be argued.
I don’t recall what the Royals regular season records were in either of those years.
I do agree with muleskinner that play-offs can reward lesser teams.
To put it in the realm of the NFL, the year the Packers went 15-1 they were a first round out in the playoffs. The last Super Bowl they won, they were the #6 seed going into the playoffs.
Small market teams can win but the frequency is much less. I remember seeing the numbers recently but I can’t quote them from memory. There’s something like a couple of years out of a dozen they might be competitive for a playoff spot. Teams like the Yankees haven’t had a losing season in nearly thirty years. Small market teams are at a great disadvantage.
The frequency probably should be much less. But just how much less is the difficult question. You’re right that it should be greater than zero, but how much greater is difficult to know and to implement.
I saw an analysis of this not too long ago. I just can’t remember the exact numbers. In the American League, which is far more disparate, in X(?) number of past years the Yankees had a 25% chance of winning the AL title (I think it was), Boston had 20%, and the rest of the league, 55%. With 13 other teams making up the rest of the league, that 55% reduced down to 4% for each team. The National League, for whatever reason, had more even results.
The Yankees last losing season was 1990. Can you imagine, 27 straight winning seasons. Of 26 years (one year the playoffs were cancelled because of a strike), they were in the playoffs 19 years, made it to the world series seven times, and won the world series five times. 19 out of 26 years in the playoffs.
I’m a Baltimore Orioles fan, and man have I suffered. Of those 27 years, they had nine winning seasons, made it to the playoffs five times, never making it to the world series. 18 losing seasons out of 27 makes it hard for a fan to keep interest. I’m a pretty devoted fan, but there was a stretch of 14 straight years, mostly landing in last place. We call that the dark ages. It was hard even for me to continue caring.
The Orioles experience is not much different than the other small market teams.
Now compare that to the damn Yankees fans with silver spoons in their mouths who don’t have a clue what it means to suffer. Don’t tell me money doesn’t make a difference. It may not buy you a world series, but it makes you competitive every year, and that’s mostly what a fan wants.
How can a conservative be a fan of Peter Angelos’ team?
Peter Angelos is the worst owner in baseball history. That man was responsible for the dark ages of Orioles history. You can’t imagine my contempt for him. I was an Orioles fan long before Angelos bought the team. On a more positive note, it looks like he’s given ownership control to his two sons, who in this off season have made a major turnover in the management of the team and hopefully has started a new, more positive path.
Cubs fans don’t wanna hear about it.
I’ve never seen that movie, but I have to now. That’s a great clip and what the nature of baseball has turned to. Of course scouts are still important, but it’s in conjunction with the analytics. And I have to admit, I undervalued the OBP stat.
That’s true. But the Cubs are not a small market team. What the heck has been their problem?
Phil Wrigley was a cheapskate. He and George Halas threw nickels around like they were manhole covers. He sold the team to the Tribune. They were at the hairy limits of their competence getting a newspaper out once per day, but they had a TV station that went national on cable because it had something no one else had — daytime baseball. The Trib sold it to the Ricketts, who thought it might be both fun and profitable to actually win. And they did.
You will LOVE this movie!
Hahaha, very funny.
Ownership of a baseball team is a story unto itself. Some have a passion to win, others see a civic duty to keep a club in a city, while some are distracted by whatever their real business is. Some just get in over their heads. Others treat it like a serious business.
What it is not is inviolable property. It is a franchise and ultimately belongs to MLB and they expect you to act along certain lines. Winning is not one of those.
And there’s a difference between saying the frequency is less and the frequency has to be less. There are other variables involved, not the least of which is the skill with which the team is run. I don’t think that anyone has mentioned Oakland yet, and the World Champion Astros were largely built from the ground up.
As far as the Yankees go (and quite truthfully, the Red Sox and Dodgers), one can flip the equation and note that they don’t win every year, advance in the playoffs every year, or make the playoffs every year. Money isn’t everything.
Hey EJ! Remind me what was Marge Schott’s reason to own the Reds ……….
‘Hitler was good in the beginning, but he went too far’. … Schottzie kisses … Marge
She inherited the money to buy them.
Marge simply loved her team. And she wanted to win, which she did because she listened to George Steinbrenner who suggested she hire Bob Quinn as her GM and Lou Piniella as her field manager. But she was way over her head. She decimated the farm system and the scouting department.
As for the Hitler quote… Ohio in general and Cincinnati in particular was a hotbed of German immigration in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Marge was born in 1928 and I have known people like her all my life. This line about Hitler starting out good and going too far is exactly what she was hearing from the grownups around her when she was young. And that’s because that’s the line the grownups got from relatives back in the old country.
Bud Selig may have been able to push her aside, but she’ll always have one thing Bud will never have: a world’s championship.
I never thought about it in that way. Makes sense.
Cincinnati Reds President and CEO Marge Schott, left, kisses Reds Manager Lou Piniella, center, at Oakland Coliseum after the Reds swept the Oakland Athletics in four straight games in the World Series, Saturday, Oct. 21, 1990, Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
I consider it the single most important stat…..but to be fair, they were actually overvaluing it (slugging percentage still matters, and it takes a lot of OBP/slugging skills to overcome being an extreme defensive liability).