A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS…

Part I.

At the end of every year, journalists often put together various “Best-of” lists for the year. Instead of compiling a top 10 for the year 2002, I thought I’d write about my 5 favorite moments. But then I recalled how thoroughly MLB dicked up their greatest moments last season, and noticed that my favorite moments weren’t necessarily moments at all. They are more like stories.

Regardless, over the next week or so, I will post my top-five favorite baseball stories of 2002.

My Lil’ Friend

The best thing that happened to me last year was the relationship I developed with my girlfriend, Emily. We started going out last January, and are roughly the same age (I’m 31, she just turned 30). By the time baseball season crept around, Emily was well aware of my interest in the game (it’s hard not to notice; subtle, I ain’t). Quite Frankly, she thought I was touched-in-the-head, crazy. Especially when I was kept up by a Yankee loss for the first time.

She thought I was putting her on. I wasn’t. She wasn’t pissed, as much as she was perplexed.

Then the most pleasant surprise occurred. Not only did Em tolerate my obsession with baseball, but she also showed a genuine curiosity in learning more about the game. This was totally unexpected. I have learned to regard sports and relationships much like the division of church and state. I don’t anticipate the woman I’m involved with to give two shits about sports—in this case, baseball, and I don’t try to inflict it on them, or attempt to convert them either. The same way I wouldn’t expect them to teach me how to knit and watch the Lifetime network on a Sunday afternoon.

So long as I’m able to carve some space for myself, I’m happy to keep my games to myself. Or have them as part of my Guy time (though I do have plenty of female baseball buddies too). Fortunately, the baseball season is long enough to create few scheduling conflicts. Let’s face it, if I blow off my girl in the middle of June to watch the Yankees play the Royals on a Friday night, the relationship is what Woody Allen once declared, “a dead shark”.

Initially, Emily was more amused watching me watch the game, than the game itself. I am not a passive fan. I pace around the apartment, usually with a stickball bat, or a mitt, or a ball in my hands, talking shit to the players, bellyaching about the announcers, cheering the home team, and goading the opposition. What she responded to was my enthusiasm. I suppose it didn’t matter what the source of it was—Em was attracted to the fact that I had something to be so passionate about.

But after a while, she began to ask questions, and became more interested in the complexities of the sport itself. I couldn’t believe my luck. There were afternoons last year when Emily turned to me and said, “Can we watch the game?” I don’t know, can we eat ice cream and have sex all afternoon? Good Lord, Woman, Hell yes we can watch the game.

We attended several games during the season (including the famous Giambi extra-inning grand slam affair against the Twinkies…more on that later). Emily’s presence softened the blows of not being able to get the YES network on cablevision for an entire year, and the Yankees first round playoff loss. She now has her favorites—Giambo and Bernie, and even has the chutzpah to chide other guys too: “Shinji,” she proclaimed one day, mispronouncing Tsuyoshi Shinjio’s name: “He’s a girl.”

When the Yanks landed Godzilla, her response was, “Is he a friggin girl too?”

We are currently enjoying our first Hot Stove League, and having a nice winter. Emily continues to put up with me. I think she’s looking forward to going to the Stadium again too.

Not for nothing, but I have been known to spend portions of my weekend laying around on the couch catching up with the latest horrors the Lifetime Network has to offer. But I haven’t learn to knit yet.

GIVE THE KID HIS DUE

There weren’t many players that made my skin crawl more than Gary Carter did when I was growing up, as a Yankee fan in the ’80s. I still think Carter is an ingratiating putz, but I have no problem with him being a Hall of Famer. I flipped through some of the old Bill James Abstracts last night and found some interesting comments on Carter in his prime years:

1984 Abstract:

Has been the # 1 catcher since I started the player ratings and comments section five years ago. And to my mind, it’s still an easy choice. Pena is terrific, but he’s never had a year when he drove in as many runs as Carter or scored as many runs as Carter, and the Pirates don’t cut off the running game quite as well as the Expos do (there were 115 stolen bases in 203 attempts against the Expos last year, 124 in 201 against the Pirates)…[Lance] Parrish is close offensively and close defensively, but not quite there either way…

Before the free-agent era, I don’t think there is any way that a player as valuable as Carter would have been worked as hard as he was word from 1977 to 1982. The Expos a) are paying Gary Carter a great amount of money, and b) do not own his future. In those circumstances, they are inclined to take more chances with Carter’s future than they otherwise might. They are risking a future that doesn’t belong to them anyway to get their $2 million a year’s worth. For this reason and for others, the long-term career implications of baseball’s economic restructuring are very, very different than the short-term implications, which are all that we have seen yet.

1985 Abstract:

Every year I completely change the rating system, and every year Carter comes out number one. He probably had his best season in ’84, hitting a career-high .294 and driving in a career-high and league-leading 106 runs. His estimated winning percentage, .831, was not only the highest at the position but the highest in the league at any position…I think it is accurate to say that Carter is only the second great catcher in baseball history who has been consistent at this level from year to year. The other was Berra. Most outstanding catchers like Bench, Campanella and Carlton Fisk, have mixed together some good years with some years where they chipped a thumb or ruptured the fourth metatarsal coagulating muscle in the heeby-jeebys, and hit .230; Carter and Berra are the only ones who have ever been able to go out and give the team 145 or more productive games a year.

1987 Abstract:

Did you ever notice how much Carter’s batting style is like Don Baylor’s? The whole thing—stance, swing, follow-though, and results. Baylor’s stance is a little more closed and of course he crowds the plate more, but they’re real similar. Carter also is hit by pitches quite a bit, six times every year.

Carter’s teams have had better ERAs when Carter was catching than when he wasn’t every year since I started figuring that in 1982. I started rating players in 1980. Johnny Bench was the No. 1 catcher, with Carter second. From 1981 through 1987 he was rated first every year.

Historical Abstract (2001 edition):

Essentially interchangeable with Fisk, Bench, Hartnett, or Campanella–a right-handed power hitter and a Gold Glove catcher, ran OK, threw great, and knew what he was doing behind the mask. He won three Gold Gloves, and in all honesty should have won more than that. Eric Gregg, longtime National League umpire, chose an All-Star team of the best players he had ever worked with in his 1990 book “Working the Plate” (William Morrow). “My catcher,” he said, “is not Johnny Bench, but Gary Carter. He’s the best I’ve ever seen, and believe me, we get to work very close to all the catchers.”