Cheaters in the Hall: WAY Too Late to Object, Particularly by Media

I keep on seeing people complain about cheaters in the Hall of Fame, especially well-respected local journalists, you can easily find out who by researching who voted against them in the Bay Area in the last vote.  I posted the below in The Athletic, plus my usual extensive additions.

I Read the News Today: Lon Simmons Passed Away

And a strong part of my boyhood passed away with him.  Lon Simmons' death was reported Sunday night by the beat writers and the Giants issued a press release today.

ogc thoughts

I guess it was just meant to be.   My passion for baseball.  My dad was not into sports, he being an immigrant coming into the U.S. around the time he was in high school, though he was open to a lot of things and I would not put on him the image of the immigrant stuck in the old ways.  So I didn't get it from him.

I was introduced to baseball in fourth grade and I loved it from the first second.  Made my dad get me a baseball glove.  Made my dad return that catcher's mitt (here his old-world sensibilities came in:  it had a lot of material and thus a lot of worth).  I think he got me an outfielder's glove:  it didn't have an autograph (not that I would have recognized anyone at that point) and it's not small like the infielder's gloves I've seen since nor large like a firstbaseman's glove, but it wasn't as large as the outfielder's gloves either, it was a tweener.  It was perfect.

I've thought about why I love baseball so much.  As a skinny kid growing up (and on the taller side), basketball was the sport most people thought was for me.  But I had problems shooting the ball up close (unfortunately, pressure gets to me) and was only OK from the outside, so I focused mainly on rebounds.  Plus, the point guard generally hogged the ball most of the time (rightfully so :^).  And my physique and generally awkwardness made me a lineman in football, either rushing or defending.

But baseball, it didn't matter if I was the last player picked when choosing up teams (really, you picked THAT guy over me?), I got to bat and I got a position.  It might have been behind the pitcher, it might have been catcher, it might have been Left-Out, but I had a position.  And while some would bat me last often, they learned that I was better than that (I eventually batted leadoff for my 8-1 intramural softball team in college) and I was usually in the mix higher.

So while I didn't do much of significance in basketball or football that I can remember (getting a QB down behind the line?  I can remember passes I dropped...), I can still remember big plays in baseball.  Hitting a double down the line and driving in the winning run.  Blocking the plate to keep the runner from scoring and holding onto the ball for the out.  Doing a Willie Mays, running straight back for the ball and reaching out and grabbing it blind.  I might not have always been good in baseball (or any sports for that matter) but in baseball, I could be the hero at some point, you never know.

So, of course, I had to follow major league baseball.  Again, it was fate, meant to be.  Like any kid, I went for the team that was winning, and so I went for the Giants that season, 1971.  But after that season, growing up in the East Bay, I heard it a million times:  why aren't you an A's fan?  And I just missed their World Series run that happened then, though as a baseball fan, I enjoyed it.  So it was just meant to be.

And I wouldn't have it any other way, I feel like I earned my fan badge by cheering on my team from 1972 to 1986, and it was branded on, white hot with each near miss, 1978, 1982, 1987, 1989!, 1993!!!, 2002!!!!!!!!! Blacker and Oranger.

If I were an A's fan growing up, I'm not sure I'll be a fan today, I think I would be more jaded than I am, more willing to move on to grown up stuff.  You would think I would be a better fan, given that I loved sabermetrics forever, even before Bill James came around, I was fiddling with statistics anyway, crude stuff and yet strangely apt, I didn't have the Pythagorean formula, but I was using runs scored over runs allowed plus runs scored, so I think I have some affinity to the discipline.

But there was a time after the strike of 1994, when Matt Williams was stolen of a chance to match Babe Ruth's 60 homers, and worse, the World Series was cancelled.  I barely paid attention to the MLB back then.  If it wasn't that I was a lifelong newspaper reader and subscribing, it was Pavlovian, I would read the sports because it was there, as I still had interest in other sports, like basketball, football, golf, it was just, now, baseball was just another sport.

Maybe since it was McGwire and Sosa who brought me back, with their home run chase (I still believe Commisar Selig had the ball juiced to bring back the homers, but that's another story), one would think I would be draw to the A's story.  Maybe, maybe not.  I think I would have tired of the ownership being cheap, though.  I know I had some feelings like that when Lorie owned the club, and definitely when Magowan forced Sabean to buy a boadload of cheap players instead of allowing him to pursue Vlad, and worse, sacrifice a draft pick in order to save money to buy a player.  No owner should ever put a GM into such a position, they should just get out of baseball then.  Still, Magowan for the most part never cheaped out, and once AT&T was open, the pocketbook was open too.  So I think I was just meant to be a Giants fan.

And if you follow the Giants, you had to watch their games or at least listen to them.  Just happened that my Uncle gave me a small Japanese transistor radio, and I killed it carrying it everywhere, listening to games, no matter where I was.  It's like kids today glued to their smartphones or iPads, only I had that radio next to my ear.  And under my pillow, listening when I should have been sleeping (sorry Mom!).

And for me, listening to the Giants don't get any better than listening to Lon Simmons' rich baritone broadcasting the Giants games.  His humor, as he was very self-deprecating.  His grace.  His humility.  His distinctive voice.  He was a great story teller and yet knew when less was more.  He was a great announcer.  His voice was the voice of my childhood.

And that's another thing different between the Giants and the A's.  Simmons was the long-time voice of the Giants, then Hank Greenwald, then Jon Miller (there were a few others mixed in, but they were the main guys I remember over the years).  When I think Giants, I think KSFO and then KNBR, Channel 2 for TV games, there was stability throughout much of that period.  The A's had a new radio station every season, it seemed, nobody was willing to listen to them, and the broadcasters would change often too, and TV wasn't always assured, it seemed.

And, I'm sorry, I love Bill King, but for me, he was the voice of the Warriors (and apparently the Raiders too) and to hear him doing the A's was weird, though not as weird as Simmons doing A's broadcasts (a time we should not speak of...).  And that was after my childhood, I think, I would listen to A's game back then too (I needed my baseball fix), but don't really recall anyone distinctive enough to come to memory.

That continuity would help to sustain my interest, I believe, as my radio station locks were always set to KNBR first, then I get to the rest.  It would have faded had I been an A's fan, as I would not have been able to keep up with the radio and TV changes over the years, and would lack the identification with the team that I got with the Giants.

And Lon Simmons is a huge part of that.  His voice will forever mean that I'm a teenage boy, listening furtively to a Giants broadcast late night, hoping that his team will win (for once).  His voice will forever remind me of green grass and picnics, with the radio blaring in the background, ready to give me the latest score.  It will mean good times and bad, the next "great" player, starting with King Kong Kingman, the past losing season.  It will mean mediocre teams and yet the feeling that it might be different, next year, but generally not.

I was happy when the Giants re-hired him to be a broadcaster emeritus, who would show up sometimes to bring back good memories for fans like me.  I was especially happy because I knew that he was ripped off an some jerk investor who stole his life's savings, and needed the income.  It sounds like he has had a great retirement life in Hawaii (Maui Wowie!) for many years now, and I was happy about that.

Now he is gone:  Rest in Peace, Lon Simmons, now you get to broadcast again with Russ Hodges (who I never got to hear, so that's why it's all Lon for me) and get to tell him all about the three World Championships that the Giants have now.  And show him all your rings.

2015 Hall of Shame Voting: Four Gets In, But Bonds Doesn't Again

First, congrats to the deserving players who got in:

• Pedro Martinez
• Randy Johnson (former Giant!)
• John Smoltz
• Craig Biggio

ogc thoughts

This great article by USA Today's Nightingale captured my thoughts almost exactly (h/t to Raising Cain for bringing to my attention):  hypocrisy in HoF voting must end

I've been writing about this for many years now, much of the Hall of Fame voting I've been ashamed of for years (how could Willie Mays and Hank Aaron not be unanimous, among many others?), too many men who think they are above the game, and in the end, their stupidity will be acknowledged.

Bonds again getting the snub from around two-thirds of the voters just gets my blood boiling.  Use the eyes they were supposedly using to judge baseball players, it don't matter if he cheated, he already had the Hall of Fame talent.

And it could be all for naught, it could be all a big misconception, because there is an alternative theory for the offensive era that has a lot of good evidence backing that stance.  I've linked to it before, but here they are again:

Juiced ball
The Not Steroid Era

If the data in these two links are true, then these high and mighty moral sportswriters could be punishing players for taking drugs that did very little for their performance, making them look bad twice-fold in history's eyes:  first they were blind to what was happening, with nobody even following one clue, I mean Gary Hart was found to be cheating pretty easily, yet nobody followed up on McGwire when he was caught with the stuff in his locker, and the rumors were out there, so not one enterprising sportswriter thought to follow any of the clues out there?  

Then to make up for the fact that none of them were enterprising enough to follow the frequent rumors and was asleep on the job while baseball players were using en masse, they take it out on the players who appears to have used - but as the two links above assert - gained nothing (but acne and possibly shortening their lives) for taking the snake oil.

What would be karma would be if none of the voters who did not vote for Bonds or Clemens end up getting shunned from the Hall of Fame as well.

New Hall of Famers: Maddux, Smoltz, and The Big Hurt Voted In

The three sure-thing first time vote Hall of Famers got in on their first try:  Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Frank "the Big Hurt" Thomas.  Maddux only missed by 16 votes of a unanimous vote.

Sanctimonious Moralistic Hall of Fame Voter Hypocrites

I had recently written about the vote for Barry Bonds and other tainted with steroids and PEDs, but I recently ran across a column written by a local columnist who I admire, so I won't mention the writer's name, but since the writer's stance is similar to a lot of the national writers who are going to vote No for Bonds, I felt the need to answer some of the points made in that column.

Also, the Hall of Fame vote was reported today and it was a referendum against the steroid era, as nobody was voted in.  Probably because there were a number of people who voted but left their ballot blank.

"Don't Reward Those Who Cheated the Game"

This would be a great idea:  if it were done about 40-60 years ago.  Journalists can beat the drum loud today  but the real assault on the record books began when amphetamines entered the game.  This enabled the better players to be better later into the season, helping them compile better seasonal and therefore career stats.  However, even though many players came out about this - BACK THEN (Ball Four, testimonies in court attesting to Mays' usage of "red juice", others) - there was never anything done by the media about this type of cheating, certainly nothing to the extent steroids gotten, and that covers a  much longer period of time.

Moreover, the benefits of speed is clear, it boosts the athlete's ability to stay at the same level of performance deeper into the season, whereas steroid's benefits seems to be driven more by non-experts' (public and journalists) fears of how steroids might help a player, rather than what science has been able to show are the real effects (which by one large compilation at High Boskage House is minimal, at best).

One justification for this type of behavior versus steroids is that "everyone" used speed while not everyone used steroids.  But cheating is cheating, no matter how many do it, it is still cheating.  And that is what the writers have been saying, that cheating is why they are not voting for certain players.  That is, if that is really what the writers feel.

Cheating Since World War II

Cheating has been happening at least since the 1960's and, most probably, since World War II, when the military routinely dispensed amphetamine to the troops to keep them in fighting shape.  It is only natural that once these ballplayers returned to civilian life, they knew of and seeked out such medical help when the effects of the long baseball season made them feel weak.  Krukow in his morning show a few weeks ago noted that each team's training staff routinely and openly dispensed this to players (this was in the 70's).

At least one baseball journalist, long ago, must have seen this in the clubhouse, and even if they could not go after the players - because that would ruin their relationship with the team - they could have had one of their colleagues in another department investigate and expose this cheating long ago, at minimum, when Jim Bouton's Ball Four came out and he outed the players.  No reporter ever did anything about it.  Ironically, amphetamines were finally pushed out with the drug rules put in place because of steroids.

If cheating is going to be the litmus test today for not voting for Barry Bonds, then this national debate should have been happening when his godfather, Willie Mays was being voted into the Hall of Fame.  Cheating was rampant then.  Heck, cheating of all sorts have been rampant throughout the history of the game.  Today, the horse has not only left the barn, it is on another continent, perhaps another planetary object.

If the writer cannot vote for a player clouded by this, why vote at all?   Maybe the bigger message would be sent by not voting at all for anyone, because we can never really know who was using what.  And some are doing that.

Yes, certain players were obvious with their steroids usage.  But HGH usage was not, but is equally considered to be cheating and helpful by the public (High Boskage House research also shows minimal benefits), so for all we know, even players who appear to be clean are not clean at all either.  There is no real way to distinguish who was a cheater in this era and who was not.  And so many writers say that they are not going to vote, either by not returning their vote (which at least does not actually affect the voting) or by returning a blank vote (which makes it harder for any player to make the Hall of Fame, whether cheating or not).

Moralistic

Also, when were writers made the arbiters of "character"?  I mean, I know that is in the language of the Hall of Fame determination, but as far as I know, the only requirement for a writer to earn the right to vote for the Hall of Fame is having 10 years following a team under their belt.  They don't add in any language there about the writers being good judges of character.

In fact, one of the major reasons given that justifies giving the vote to writers with at least 10 years of experience following a team every day is that this enables them to be able to view baseball players with an expertise that allows them to see when a player is good or not, and thus whether they belong in the Hall of Fame.  Many writers today say that Bonds had a Hall of Fame already made when he allegedly started using steroids.  Instead of standing on moralistic grounds on which their expertise is unknown, they should use the skills that they are suppose to have developed over the years and see who should get in and who should not?

Unless they are saying that they cannot distinguish this.  But in that case, why are they being allowed to vote then?  If they have this expertise, use this expertise.  If steroids help homers (according to research found by Eric Walker, steroids add about 5 feet to any ball hit by a hitter, so this appears to be a fallacy in the thinking of people who don't want to vote for steroids users), then make some determination of what exactly is so different.

Here is a good quote from his steroids website (about third way down):

As I remarked above, there are at least five other studies--all listed and linked on the longer page--all based on sophisticated analysis of real data, and each using a different approach, that each reach the same basic conclusion: there is no visible effect attributable to steroids. In the most mathematically dense and rigorous paper, its author, Professor Arthur DeVany, spares no words:

There is no evidence that steroid use has altered home-run hitting and those who argue otherwise are profoundly ignorant of the statistics of home runs, the physics of baseball, and of the physiological effects of steroids.

Walker later had a section on Bonds specifically.  He illustrated that what Bonds did was not all that different from other players who had extraordinary seasons.  He states that there is no proof in his performance that he had extra help.

Witch Hunters

So Bonds should be in, not even close.  I've seen nobody yet claim that steroids helps a hitter see the ball better and to hit it hard.  All they talk about is body bulk, and there are 250 pound behemoths that hit lollipops while a lanky 180 pound stick with good wrist action can become the career leader in homeruns (Aaron;  of course, he got legal cheating as the Braves brought in their fences, coincidentally enough, right when he was getting close and they brought them back out when he left the team and set the new record;  why there was no outrage about that as the reason Ruth was beat, I don't know).  Bonds was universally agreed to be a Hall of Famer before he reportedly started using.  This non-vote is meant to be punitive.

That's funny, I thought the Hall of Fame was suppose to celebratory, not an instrument of punishment.

What makes it even more sad is that the writers have had over 20 years to get down to business and actually DO THEIR JOB as journalists.  Eric Walker, of A's and Sinister Firstbaseman fame, keeps up a website to sell his baseball analytics service and, first, he discovered that the offensive era looks like it was caused by a juiced ball, and second, because people claimed he was wrong and started claiming steroids did certain things, he researched the heck out of it and concluded that steroids provided very little to benefit baseball players and gave further evidence that the ball was juiced during that period.  He did the investigative journalism that was necessary to show that steroids didn't do much of anything, instead of copying the "journalists" who just spread the same misconceptions that another "journalists" claimed was true.

Read through his steroid's website, look at all the associated subsites that cite even more things in detail, discussing the physical changes to the baseball, the actual effects PED has, the medical effects, the healing effects, ethical issues, and effects on role models.  Makes a very strong case that the general public, including reporters, got it all wrong:  yes, they might have cheated (definition slippery), definitely took something illegal (at least the ones caught), but it apparently didn't help players out at all in performing better.

In other words, whatever PEDs players might have used were no different than a placebo.  They cheated with today's version of snake oil.  They are no different from the Asians today who eat rhino horns, thinking that would give their bodies some sort of boost.  Both groups are sadly wrong.

Journalists could have done this type of investigative journalism work long ago, not some OCD baseball analyst, if they were really interested in the truth and not in a witch hunt.  Here is how I view this:  the writers felt greatly embarrassed by the steroids era because they did nothing while it was going on, and thus many of them feel the need to punish the players who used or allegedly used PEDs.  When, really, they should be embarrassed twice over now, first for not only missing the steroids rise, but mostly overlooking and ignoring it - it is not like it is a shock, McGwire was suspected of using long ago, yet no reporter ever thought of investigating him closely, they waited until Bonds was suspected and even then they used illegally released grand jury testimony that basically proved nothing - and second for spreading false "truths" about steroids, and then taking their anger out on star players like Bonds and Clemens, and really, since nobody got in this year, all players, as there were players who appeared clean and who should get in, like Biggio.  They should be ashamed.

The Hall of Shame: Marvin Miller and Barry Bonds

I just had to get this out there.  As a big cosmic intersecting synchronicity, Marvin Miller, the famed, long-time union leader for the MLBPA passed away, just days away from Hall of Fame announcement of who got in this year, with Barry Bonds being one of the big steroid question marks on the ballot, along with Clemens and Sosa as well.

ogc thoughts

Marvin Miller Should Have Been in the Hall of Fame While Alive

It just makes a big joke of the Baseball Hall of Fame that Marvin Miller is not in there.  Whether you like the results that he brought into the game or not, he was a huge figure in the middle of the breakthrough years for the players association where they broke out from the yoke of slavery to the MLB, then turned it all around with arbitration and free agency.  That is everlasting fame that the Hall of Fame should not and cannot deny.  Shame on the Hall of Fame for not putting him in while he was alive, he lived to 95 for gosh's sake and he battle liver cancer the past few years as well, so it wasn't like people didn't know it wasn't coming, if not just for the age, but the disease.  That he died without getting in - in fact, he was bitter about this and said in recent years that he would turn down the honor if it were to finally be given to him - is a blot on anyone who had a hand in keeping him out.

Barry Bonds Should Be Voted In First Ballot

Bonds could be the next embarrassment for the Hall and the baseball writers.  McGwire has already gone through the gauntlet and survived enough to stay on the ballot.  But he really was more like Dave Kingman than he was an Hall of Famer, in my mind, so he was not a real test of the fervor of the writers about steroids, as even without that stain, given the boost in homers in that era, he should have been borderline anyway.

Two things make Bonds a different case.   First and most of all, he already had a no-doubt Hall of Fame career when he was suspected to start taking steroids.  Whether he willingly took the drug or was tricked into it by his friend/trainer, I don't think we'll ever know the full story, but either way it looks pretty sure that he took the stuff.  However, most agree that he already had Hall of Fame career stats when he reportedly started taking.  So a non-vote for him represents punishment by those writers for him taking the drug, in spite of his achievements prior to using.

Second of all, it is still not all that publicly clear what taking steroids does for a baseball player.  Many claims are being made by writers and fans.  Plus, baseball is a different sport, where finesse and form is more important than physical strength, though strength helps if you already have the skills.

But the evidence, as gathered by famed sabermetrician Eric Walker, of The Sinister Firstbaseman fame and the A's internal Bible fame, suggests that it was a juiced ball, not juiced humans, that powered the Homer era of 1993-2008, and on top of that, his research shows that steroids does not do anything to help improve performance in baseball.  Assuming this is true - I have not had the time to exhaustively read all the citations, but I have read through the website -  I will quote one of his ending statements:

There seems little point in "punishment" for an effect-less "crime".

To me, it seems like the writers want to do this to absolve themselves of the fact that they did NOTHING all those years to investigate when it was so obviously happening.  And I'm throwing into this their shame for letting amphetamines stay in the game for over 50 years when it was happening all over the clubhouse, in fact, Krukow said in his morning KNBR show today that the team's trainer was OPENLY HANDING THEM OUT when he came up to the majors in the mid-70's.  In any case, in my mind, steroids does not help a player hit better, muscle power is not how homers are hit, for if it were, skinny Hank Aaron (when he started) would have never gotten the career record.

The Hall of Shame

The Hall of Fame is not supposed to be used as a form of punishment.  But that is what happened to Marvin Miller, making him bitter about it in his last days.  It could and probably will happen to Barry Bonds, as well as Clemens, who is also clearly a Hall of Famer (Sosa, I can go either way, but he was also caught corking too, I would note, and he was another one-note freak like Dave Kingman;  I would have to look at his career with more detail).

Which is all the shame because the writers do not know beyond a shadow of a doubt that steroids helped players.  If they would just, you know, maybe be a journalist, research the topic, starting with Walker's great website, they might realize that there was a lot of hand waving and sermonizing (and demonizing) happening with regards to steroids.

What if Bonds usage was more akin to placebo using than performance enhancing?  For if they think that they got egg on their face for not facing the steroid era head-on, from the moment that stuff was found in McGwire's locker for all to see (really, not one enterprising reporter thought to follow-up and investigate that one?  Gary Hart would sure would have had a different career in that case), imagine how bad it will look if they held out Bonds on high moral grounds that proved to be quicksand?  If all Walker presents is true, then Bonds is guilty of taking snake oil medicine or leeches, neither of which helps a player avoid a strikeout (which he did to great extremes) or hit a baseball well.

I have placed these Walker links in various places in the cyberspace, particularly websites that is known to draw a lot of readers, like The Hardball Times and Fangraphs.  I would frankly be very surprised if at least one reporter has not see the links before, not that I'm that full of ego, but I cannot imagine that the journalism profession has degenerated down so much that they do not even read baseball websites like these.  And I don't think that it is a coincidence that after years of me putting my performance box on the side, showing the team's record when a certain number of runs are scored or given up, I have started seeing this type of stat noted in the press as well.  Reporters do read websites.

So why isn't the press showing the other side of this issue?  Why not expose the demagoguery around this topic?  Maybe Walker got it wrong, but why not at least tackle the issue since people are making so many decisions and judgments based on possibly false "facts"?  And if he is correct, then it would be a huge scoop on their fellow sports writers, that person would gain a lot of fame for exposing the Emperor's New Clothes regarding steroids and bringing it to the public.  Yet nothing so far.

Amphetamines Was the True Difference Maker

To me, if anything, amphetamines was a bigger blot on baseball records than steroids.  It allowed players to play at their standard level of play, instead of being too tired to perform at that level.  That greatly affected all career records set in the last 60 years or so, since World War II brought that drug into common usage.  It is like caffeine (a legalized form of stimulant, I would add, so nobody is clean in my mind if you drink coffee or any cola drink), only better.  Where is the outrage for that?  Particularly since a number of players were exposed to have used the drug as far back as the 1960's, when Jim Bouton's book, Ball Four, came out and talked about the Yankee's drug use.

And sportswriters must have known about it.  Again, Bouton's book exposed it and yet no enterprising journalist thought to investigate this illegal drug use (perhaps because many of them were using themselves).   And reporters probably took them too when they were in the field reporting on World War II, someone somewhere must have known that usage would have gotten into baseball as well, tie the links.

Pete Rose Should Be In Too

And, in any case, the Hall of Fame does not exist to punish people, it is to honor the accomplishments that a person has made that made baseball what it is today.  That is why I think Shoeless Joe and Pete Rose should belong in the Hall too, especially Mr. Hustle, he may have gambled but the proof is only when he was a manager, and I also can't imagine that he would ever bet against himself or his team if he had done it as a player (and there appears evidence that Shoeless Joe was just a witless participant, particularly given that he hit .375/.394/.563/.956 in that series that he supposedly "threw").

Nobody drives themselves relentlessly, particularly without much pure baseball talent - Rose was a mostly modestly skilled player - and then throw a game.  He didn't achieve greatness throwing games, I think that would be impossible to do, a guy like him don't do that on a part-time basis, either you believe or you don't, and he believed in himself and pushed himself to greatness.  You can't do that part-time.

And even if he could, he's still the LEADER IN HITS ALL-TIME.  How do you keep that out of the Hall, even if he did do the unthinkable and bet against himself like a psycho, he still had more hits than anybody else in baseball history.  It is not a real Hall of Fame if the hit leader is not in there.  Instead, it is a Hall of Shame for all and any participants in the decision to keep Marvin Miller out, Pete Rose out, and, most probably, Barry Bonds out.  If ethics were so important, then they should retroactively throw out all the racists and other person with vices that is not palatable now, that is how the Olympics does it when they re-award competitions.  It would be hypocrisy not to.

Now Catching (Up With) Buster Posey

Been meaning to point out this milestone in Posey's recovery, courtesy of Henry Schulman of the Chronicle:  

Good news from Scottsdale, Ariz., if you’re a fan of the Giants and Buster Posey.

Dave Groeschner, the Giants’ head athletic trainer, just told me that Posey has begun catching live bullpen sessions for pitchers in the instructional league. Groeschner watched Buster catch his second one this morning. The session lasted about 8 minutes.

This is a huge benchmark in Posey’s recovery from devastating injuries to his left leg that occurred in a May 25 home plate collision with Florida’s Scott Cousins, which required two surgeries thus far and ended his 2011 season. With that, the Giants’ hopes for a repeat World Series championship went down the tubes, too.

Though the Giants initially set Nov. 1 as a target date for Posey to catch live bullpen sessions, they hoped he might start a bit earlier, and Groeschner said Posey is about a week ahead of schedule.

“He’s been feeling good and progressing well, so there was no reason to wait,” Groeschner said.

We won’t know if Posey is truly recovered until spring training in February,  when he does all the regular activities with the team and plays in a game, but the fact he’s ahead of schedule raises hopes that he will be ready to hit the ground running when pitchers and catchers report.

This is pretty huge, though as noted, in a long recovery like this, and we won't really know until Spring Training.  But as the saying goes, a journey of 1,000 miles begins with one step.  Keep on, stepping on, Buster!

Then this latest update came along from Schulman again, which reminded me I should put up this post:

Those who saw Posey all summer in a cast, then a boot, tooling around the clubhouse on a wheeled contraption that allowed him to walk on his good leg, would be pleasantly stunned to see him look like abaseball player again, four months before he expects to catch the first pitch of the first Cactus League game not far from this park.

For the last six weeks, Posey has been rehabilitating and strengthening his leg in Scottsdale. He is taking batting practice. He has caught bullpen sessions from instructional-league pitchers. He is running 100-foot sprints, at 90 to 100 percent of full speed, he surmises, with no noticeable discomfort.

Nothing the front office accomplishes this winter will overshadow Posey's labors in Arizona. He was the catcher and cleanup hitter for San Francisco's first World Series championship team, among the strongest links in the chain of players. Nobody can deny the Giants will need a healthy, productive Posey to return to the playoffs in 2012.

He is encouraged by his progress.

"It was a pretty traumatic injury," he said as he rested between his outdoor work (batting practice and running) and an hour in the weight room. "To be five months out, I'm pretty happy where I am.

"When I was in San Francisco thinking about what I'd be doing at this time, I was thinking I'd just start to be running, or start to be hitting off a coach throwing. I've been doing that for four or five weeks now."

On Saturday, Posey will reach an important waypoint in his journey back. He will end his daily workouts in Arizona and go home to Georgia, where, in his mind, he no longer will be rehab guy. Rather, he will be another player preparing for the 2012 season just like any of his teammates.

Giants head trainer Dave Groeschner provided the reality check.

"He'll be in rehab until he plays a major-league game," Groeschner said. "Nov. 5 is the day he'll go home so he can have a little offseason and take a little mental break. He still knows he's got to work on his lower leg and ankle all the way to spring training."

Moreover, Posey and the team will have to remain vigilant because one sprained ankle breeds susceptibility to another. Posey will spend more time in the treatment room, before and after games, than he would prefer. He still has pain at times. Team trainers have warned him it will be a persistent companion.

Posey plans to hire a physical therapist in Georgia to stretch him out before his workouts and has a friend in that line of work, a back therapist. ...

... Perhaps Posey simply understands how much work remains before he can resume his life as a major-league catcher and cleanup hitter.

He can hit 1,000 home runs off Tom Trebelhorn, a 63-year-old coach, on an empty diamond in Scottsdale. Facing Ian Kennedy of the Arizona Diamondbacks on Opening Day 2012, 10 days after his 25th birthday, will be an entirely different story.

Groeschner said Posey's thrice-weekly batting practice has less to do with technique than sending him to Georgia confident that he will be able to hit come spring training, when the real preparations begin.

"The good thing is, you ask him how he is, and he's more frustrated at the way he's swinging his bat than the ankle," Groeschner said. "This is October. We're not worried about his swing much, just that he can do it and he feels good."

Posey confessed he is anxious about playing again, more about running than hitting or catching. When he closes his eyes, he visualizes himself in the squat behind the plate, or standing in the box against a pitcher throwing 95 mph.

So there has been continued progress and no setbacks from the last reported good news (as noted up top), again, another positive step forward in his long journey to resuming his major league career.

I also ran into some interviews that Johnny Bench has given about Posey, and I thought I would capture them together here.  Basically, Bench is a long-time Buster fan, and he thinks that Posey has the stuff to be one of those generational Hall of Fame catchers.  See this interview with Johnny Bench at The XLog.  In it, he notes how few catchers are in the Hall of Fame, only 13, basically one per decade.  Meaning to him that there is about one per generation.  He noted that Buster Posey (as well as Matt Weiters and two Reds prospects) could be that catcher for this generation.

Here are some of Bench's thoughts about how good Buster is, interviewed after the Giants won the World Series last season:

“The thing’s that so impressive, everybody saw in every interview, it was a class act,” Bench said. “He handled himself well. It was like a Tuesday game somewhere else, and he just got four hits. It was about being on the level with the game. He knows as a catcher knows, it’s one game. Then you’ve got to start all over.”

Posey knows Bench, having won the Johnny Bench Award as the best college catcher in 2008.
In their conversation, according to Bench, Posey said, “I asked my mom, ‘Should we call you and talk to you?’ I said, ‘Of course you should.’ “

Bench said Posey has what it takes to be a great catcher.

“He was a shortstop that became a catcher (at Florida State), so every game is still a learning experience for him,” Bench said. “He wasn’t beaten down or anything else. He’s a kid who loves the game. You can tell from his coach and family what a great person he is. And then to move up (to the majors) that quickly is really rare. You’ve got to say he’s a rare example of any phenom that stands up and does the job . He throws well. Calls the game. He’s got it all. And he runs well . . . for a catcher.”

Bench was impressed how Posey, at such a young age, handled pitchers. In this case, perhaps the best staff in the majors.

“There are three types of pitchers you have to deal with,” Bench said. “Some you just have to tell what town they’re in, remind them where they are. Some you remind them about mechanics, and some you have to bust their tail. You have to make them your friend and have them trust you.”

According to the Hall of Famer, the kid pulled it off.

Giants Thoughts

After going through this season, I have come to the conclusion that the Giants rode the back of Buster Posey to win the World Series last season.  He was the leader who got the team moving towards that goal, as evidenced by this quotes before and after winning, "Why not us?" "Let's do it again".   So that leads me to a couple of conclusions.

First, the 2012 Giants with Posey leading the way will be that much more competitive than the 2011 version, no matter who we end up signing as free agents.  I think we can win with the group we have, though I would love any offensive upgrades the team can make via free agency or trades.  And Buster would lead the way for us.

Second, the Giants should be looking into signing Buster to one of those mega-long contracts, like what Evan Longoria from the Rays or that Colorado doled out to their position stars.   As much as we need the pitching to continue to get the opportunities to win it all, I think we need Posey's leadership to push us over the top and achieve that.  I love his "Can Do" attitude and that he wasn't bowed by any high expectations nor questioning that they can't achieve the seemingly impossible.

This and signing Lincecum and Cain to long-term contracts are the key things I want to see from the Giants this off-season.  Sandoval too would be nice.

FYI, I've been spending a lot of my off-season time checking out DrB's blog for interesting discussions, check it out for my thoughts on some of the things happening to the Giants this off-season, like his recent post on the signing of Lopez then picking up Affeldt's option.  (Not too surprising, glad they did it; also, I would love it if the Giants go for it on Grady Sizemore for a one year deal)  Unfortunately, I don't usually remember to re-post my thoughts here, as I usually comment all across the internet on the Giants, though I might recap some of it at some point when the mood strikes me.

Let Me Take You Down: MLB News Around the Bases

I am going to go through some recent news, mostly ex-Giants related.

Renteria Gets Respect From Reds:  $3M

World Series MVP hero Edgar Renteria has reported signed with the Reds for the 2011 season for $3M.  He famously opined that the Giants $1M contract offer was a "total disrespect".   I wish him well, except when facing the Giants, of course, and thank him once again for his amazing performance in the World Series.

Still, to get respect, one must earn it too.  I'm willing to overlook his $18M for two seasons of essentially one season's worth of poor, for the most part, ABs where he didn't even hit as well as Neifi Perez, because of his great World Series performance.  But $1M is about all I would be willing to bet on a replay.  In 2009, it was the "asteroid" in his elbow.  In 2010, there were the array of physical maladies that brought him down.  The odds don't look better in 2011.

And $3M is basically what Huff got last season.  He at least had a great 2008 and a poor 2009, so there was some good hope that he might end up somewhere in the middle or higher, because while his 2009 was poor, his batting peripherals were still good and his main problem was a bad BABIP.  Meanwhile, Renteria now has three bad consecutive seasons on his resume.  Playing in Cincy will help with the batting line, but I doubt that will matter if he's on the trainer's table most of the season.

Take care, thanks for the glory, but I'm OK with Edgar moving on at that price.  Now the Giants can look elsewhere with more intent for a backup middle infielder.  And I assume they will continue looking for somebody to sign for under $1M to be their backup depth at starting pitching in AAA. 

Kevin Frandsen Signs with San Diego

Frandsen seeks to pursue his dream in SD.  I once had dreams of him starting at 2B for us, but he wasn't very smart mouthing off to management and pouting when he was sent down.  He had nice stats in the minors but not that good.  The writing was on the wall, so I was happy he ended up with Boston, as I think he is buddies with Dustin Pedroia.

He didn't do much last season playing for two pennant contenders (Red Sox and Angels) nor got much of a chance.  Surprised Marlins didn't latch onto him, but perhaps their opinion of him isn't strong either.  But playing for SD, I can't root for him, sorry.  His support of Fred Lewis' homophobic rants didn't help either.

If he didn't screw up his chances in 2009, he could have been part of the group in 2010 that would have brought a World Championship to SF.  Instead, Pat Burrell came in and represented local Bay Area interests.  Life is funny how it works sometimes.

Alfredo Simon Arrested for Double Murder, Get Support from new Giant

That was a shocker to see, particularly since he played nicely for the Orioles in 2010 and looked ready to finally capitalize on the talents that led the Giants to get him in the first place.  And a double murder, no less.  Then I was shocked to see that new Giant Miguel Tejada is helping Simon out with getting legal representation and so forth. 

Blyleven in Hall of Fame - FINALLY - Alomar Makes it Too

Bert Blyleven is finally in the Hall of Fame:  FINALLY!!!  I thought he was deserving from the beginning and been commenting on this across the internet for a while.  When I was growing up, he had the best curveball around and not only did he strike out a lot of batters, he compiled great stats, great except for his Win-Loss, which apparently a lot of baseball writers though was the final arbiter of how good a pitcher was.  Where were these people when Blyleven was pitching, were they sticking their heads in the sand?  This - along with why in the hell did Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Rickey Henderson, etc. not get voted in unanimously in their first year - are reasons why I have not been happy with the Hall of Fame voting over the years.

The best solution I could think of was to count it against the writers when they don't vote someone in who was clearly deserving.  For example, they could lose their vote if they don't vote and the player gets, say, 95% of the votes.  But then that would cause a lot of CYA votes, so maybe it could be a three strikes type of system.  Another nuance is that some don't vote in the first year, so maybe they won't get a strike if a player is voted in but under, say, 85% of the votes.  Anyway, I can't think of a good system, these are just some of my thoughts that I can spit out now.

Roberto Alomar got in, and frankly, I don't know if he deserves it or not.  The only thing I can recall about him is the spitting incidence and the general feeling from the media that he's a really good overall player, i.e. his defense is great.  I won't begrudge his entry, there have been plenty of players voted in that were marginal for me to greatly care as long as there were those who thought he was pretty good.

Paapfly and I got into a discussion of Jeff Bagwell's Hall of Fame credentials, and what I realized was that he was a really good hitter who I didn't really know much about other than I knew he was good, just not THAT good.  He probably should get in at some point but with so few votes, he probably is going to waiting around like Jim Rice and Bert Blyleven. 

Looking at his career stats, I realized that part of the reason why I am disconnected from Alomar and Bagwell is that a number of their best seasons came in the mid-to-late 90's when I was not really following the game.  After the strike of 1994, particularly after McGwire's comments and the cancelling of the World Series, I pulled my own strike of the game and I probably didn't get really fully re-engaged with the team until 2001 when Bonds set the record.

Part of that was because I was having a life, wooing my wife, marrying, having kids, but a lot of that was due to that strike of 1994.  And I guess I was not the only one, the majors have not had a strike since and they had been apparently using juiced balls to boost offense (and interest) in the majors since that strike ended, according to one famous baseball analyst, Eric Walker, as outlined in his on-line essay analysis, Silly Ball (and where he outlines some of his logic for why steroids and other PEDs could not have been responsible for this significant boost in offense).  In any case, the offense has restored the industry to new heights of robustness.

Now, baseball can work on getting Pete Rose into the Hall of Fame.  Fine, ban him from baseball, ban him from baseball management, ban him from making Hall of Fame as a manager, but the Hall of Fame is a sham until baseball's career hit leader is in there.  He epitomized all that was good about baseball when he was a player:  love for the game, maximizing your talents, playing to win.  It has been long enough now, put him in.

Ex-Giants Galore

The Pirates dropped Joe Martinez, who the Giants traded to get Lopez for the bullpen, in order to sign ex-Giants Kevin Correia to a two year contract.  I was always hoping that Correia would get a chance with the Giants, he would have been a good back of rotation starter for us, as he often pitched pretty well too. 

I wonder why he left the Padres, his childhood team.  Were they not interested?  I can't see that to be true, they will need more pitching than ever after losing Garland and Correia, and they didn't get anyone ready to contribute in the A-Gon trade with Boston, and I wasn't aware of any young stud coming up, Latos was that guy. 

It could be that Correia needed to get away, his beloved younger brother leapt to his death last spring, and maybe being around home just reminds him too much about his younger brother, who he was probably more like a father to because of their tough family circumstance in their childhood (there was a sister in-between).  Good luck to him, I wish him well.

Other News

• The Giants re-signed Guillermo Moto to another minor league contract, as they had did last year.
• Waldis Joaquin was released on waivers by the Giants, and the White Sox claimed him, but he then somehow became a free agent and re-signed back with the Giants.
• Bengie Molina apparently was offered a backup position with the Cards, behind his brother.  That has got to be a comedown for him and a big blow to his pride.  He's probably still hoping a team would sign him to be a starter, but might sign with Cards when spring training beckons.
• Boof Bonser signed with the New York Mets.  Part of me was hoping the Giants would sign him to be one of our potential call-ups in case of injury or what not happens to one of our starters.  We do not have any depth at all for the major league rotation (though honestly, most teams don't, else the guy would have signed elsewhere and be in the majors, unless, of course, the team still controls him).
• In another Pirates-ex-Giants news, Brian Burres re-signs with Pittsburgh in a minor league deal which apparently gives him an out should an Asian team be interested in signing him.
• Eric Hacker, Tony Pena Jr, Dontrelle Willis, Stephen Holm, and, maybe Clay Timpner (doing this from memory) have found new teams after the Giants released them.
• Lastly, there was a nice interview of Brandon Belt by Mychal Urban for CSN's recent Hot Stove show.  The video should be in the link.  The delay between the two is a bit jarring, FYI, for some reason Belt got Urban's talking with a 1-2 second delay.  Still, it was nice to hear and see our #1 prospect.

Annual Rant on Hall of Fame Voting: 2009

Rickey Henderson, unsurprisingly, was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on his first ballot; Jim Rice was voted into the Hall of Fame in his last year of eligibility, else he would have been in limbo for years until the Veterans' Committee can (not) vote for him (the Veteran's Committee hasn't voted in anyone in years, probably decades; the players are worse the writers, it seems, holding a tougher standard).

Why Wasn't Rickey Unanimous?

Heck, why wasn't Willie Mays unanimous? Or Hank Aaron? Or George Herman "Babe" Ruth! That has been my problem with the Hall of Fame voting, when players who are obviously Hall of Famers does not get all the votes available. How could any of those players be in doubt? At least, without any need for brain surgery or a new brain. How could these three players not be unanimous?

Likewise, why not Rickey? 28 voters did not vote for Rickey, one of the one name players in the history of the game: Mays, Aaron, Ruth, Ty, Ted, DiMaggio, Mantle, Seaver, Ryan, Koufax, Gibson, etc (just quickly off the top of my head; I'm sure there are many more). How can you not vote for the guy who scored more runs than anyone in history? On top of that, he revolutionized the leadoff spot, adding an element of power that most did not have, plus also broke the career stolen base record as well, and held the career record for walks until Bonds took the crown. How many players today can retire with the top spot in one key offensive category, let alone three like Rickey? And still 28 voters were not impressed with that.

Now, if it was that some of them thought that nobody deserves to go in unanimously, then I guess I would grudgingly give them that, though I still think that is a silly reason not to vote him into the Hall of Fame in his first year. Come on people: he had the top spot in three key offensive categories and look to hold the remaining two of them for as long as Ty Cobb held his record, if not longer.

There was one writer who admitted that he made a mistake and would change his vote if he could now. At least he admits his mistake, but still, even a blind man could see this one, as the saying goes. Why didn't he see this when he voted? How can you not see this?

What Has Rice Done in Last 14 Years?

On the flip side, Jim Rice got in after 14 years of being kept out. He's happy just to be in now, and I have no problem with him in (I could go either way with him, much like the voters), but as he himself noted, he hasn't done anything in the last 14 years, so why now and not earlier? I guess I answered my question there, since I'm on the fence with him too. However, I would have voted for him all 15 years. Because, while I think he's a Hall of Famer, it would not have been an outrage for me without him in there either and hence my ambivalence.

The True Outrage

Meanwhile, someone who I think should have been in years ago fell short again: Bert Blyleven. He was usually described as having one of the best curve balls ever and won a lot of games despite pitching for pretty lousy teams, and had a long career that he probably could have milked to get to 300 if he had wanted to, but didn't. He has a winning percentage of .534 for his career when the teams he played for combined probably isn't even .500. Yet, still not close to making the Hall, though he is close enough to think about it, as he has 62.7% of the vote and need 75% to get in; but that is still 67 votes short. In addition, his 15 years should be up soon, I think in 2012.

Remedy

I've been trying to think of some sort of remedy, but anything I could think of would just drive the ones who would have voted incorrectly to vote correctly and not have their vote rescinded, as I would hope. The best I could think of so far would be to give writers three strikes, so that they can get two out of their system before they are forced to vote the way they think others think, and you get a strike when a player gets a high percentage, which could be 90% or even 95% (though Rickey technically had 94.8%, and thus would not qualify, so perhaps 90% is better), on their first vote (though I doubt any player has ever or will ever get over 90% many years after their first year of eligibility).

The only way this works is if the writers are not informed of their two strikes, but rather had to keep track of it themselves if they care enough. Then when the third strike happens, since they were not aware of where they were, they get kicked out and have their vote taken away. However, once the first writer gets the heave-ho, the rest of the voters will probably start deligently counting their misses and there would be no more strikeouts and players would start getting 100% of the votes.

If you have a better idea, then I am all ears.

Hall of What Are The Writers Thinking

The Hall of Fame voting was released the other day and only Goose Gossage made it this year. Jim Rice, Bert Blyleven, and Andre Dawson were close but missed again.

Why No Blyleven?

How Bert Blyleven isn't in the Hall of Fame, I have no idea. When he was playing, I remember how the media sang about his curveball, he quite possibly had the best curveball ever in the history of the game, according to some that I read. He was only 13 games short of 300 wins, but that wasn't his fault, he started 685 games and had a 3.31 ERA when the league average was 3.90, giving him a career ERA+ of 118, which is very good.

Don Sutton is a Hall of Famer, and his ERA+ was only 108. Gaylord Perry, another famer, had an ERA+ of 117. HoF's Fergie Jenkins's ERA+ was 115, plus he didn't win 300 games either. The link between Blyleven and these pitchers? They are the top 3 in similarity score for Blyleven in Baseball-Reference.com's profile page for him. Other Hall of Fame pitcher in his Top 10 similarity score include: Tom Seaver, Early Wynn, Phil Niekro, and Steve Carlton.

Jim Rice and Andre Dawson, I can go either way. I put them in the Bobby Bonds category, they were good for a long time but not a very long time, and that hurt them. I've stated that I think Bobby Bonds belongs - and campaigned for it in previous years - but I don't think he's ever getting in. There was the slim chance that when Barry Bonds got voted in, there might be some sympathy vote that gets him in that same year, but with the whole steriods cloud hanging over Barry's head, he'll be lucky to get in himself now.

What's Wrong With the Media?

Other people voted in by the new Veteran's Committee (the last version had HoF players manning the committee, in hopes that they would be more inclusive, but instead they voted nobody in) include World Series-winning managers Dick Williams (the only one alive of this group) and Billy Southworth were elected along with Commissioner Bowie Kuhn and owners Walter O'Malley and Barney Dreyfuss.

In addition to Blyleven, how could Walter O'Malley and Dick Williams take so long to get elected? I know the media wasn't responsible for other group, specifically, but they are suppose to help champion causes, why no outrage over O'Malley not getting voted in. As much as I hate the D'gers, I respect the history and interlinking their franchise have with the Giants franchise in the past. And what more did Dick Williams have to do? He won two World Series, got into another, and was a winner for most of his career as manager.

I know that when you get a big group of people together, some people will disagree and vote no for the Hall of Fame. But when you have obvious players who deserve to go in, like Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron, NOT get a unanimous vote to get in, you have to wonder about the mental abilities of the writers who chose to not vote for them.

I've never been able to figure out how to fix it so that people who clearly are not qualified - really, how can anyone not vote for those great players above and numerous other players into the Hall of Fame - but I am not ready to give up yet.

I had thought maybe that automatic expulsion if someone got 90% (or some high number) and they voted no would do it, but then you would have people voting yes for players in fear of getting drummed out. Another idea I had is having all the votes by the voters be recorded somewhere. That way, they will have to live with the public shame of voting no to obvious Hall of Famers. Again, that might lead some to vote yes when they wouldn't have.

Another idea I had was that each voter would get 10 gimmees (one for each year they were in the writers association in order to be eligible to vote), where they use up a gimmee for each time they vote no for a player who had 95% (or some high percentage) of the votes, and once they lost all 10 gimmees, they lose their voting rights.

Post your ideas, I would love to see if anyone has a way around this problem.