A Double Steal for the Marlins

The Miami Marlins just reeled in Jose Reyes, baseball’s best base stealer. Reyes signed a six year deal worth $106 million – with a club option for a 7th year that could net the new fish $120 million.  The 28-year old shortstop batted .337 this year to lead the National League in hitting – with 39 stolen bases. Not bad for a guy who played in only 126 games. Reyes stole 60 bases in 2005, 64 in 2006 and 78 in 2007.

Jose Reyes Stats

The 4-time All-Star will no doubt be a spark for the Marlins, but there are questions about his endurance. Reyes did not play more than 133 games in the last three years – and in fact just 36 games in 2009 – primarily because he’s frequently been hobbled with hamstring injuries.

Still it’s a big loss for the New York Mets, who dropped below .500 for the third-straight year in 2011, with a dismal 77-85 record. Attendance is down for the Mets by 7% – their lowest numbers since 2004, when they played at the swirling vortex of wind known as Shea Stadium.  No wonder the Mets are moving in the fences:

Mets Moving In The Fences

Reyes will certainly light up the basepaths for the Marlins, who could be accused of pulling off a double steal. It seems the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the bond deal that’s helping to finance Miami’s new stadium.

Marlins New Ballpark

The Marlins had claimed poverty in asking for taxpayer funding for the $634 million state-of-the-art ballpark. All this – while the team was actually showing a profit, according to documents posted online. The team later admitted it made money by conserving capital for the new ballpark.

SEC Investigates Marlins Stadium Financing

How can the Marlins ask for public assistance when they’ve just signed All-Star closer Heath Bell to a $27 million deal over three years?  And now the Marlins are reportedly targeting Cardinal slugger Albert Pujols – it would be a prime catch – and cost more than $200 million – which is what the Cardinals are offering their best player to stay in St. Louis.

Marlins Hope to Catch Pujols

And don’t forget the Marlins also have the mouthiest manager in the Majors in Ozzie Guillen –

The Mouth That Roared

who will make this season a very interesting one.

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Bernie Belongs in the Hall of Fame

Center fielder Bernie Williams patrolled the hallowed grounds of Yankee Stadium from 1991 to 2006 – and he’s now on the 2012 ballot for the Baseball Hall of Fame. I’m not a sports writer, but if I were I would definitely vote for Bernie.

Bernie was a great player in the clutch and holds the record for the most postseason RBI with 80. His 51 extra base hits are also a postseason record. In 1998, Bernie Williams hit .339 to win the batting crown and he became the first player to be proclaimed the best hitter, the best fielder (a Gold glove Award) and a World Series champion all in the same year. In fact, Bernie would earn four World Series rings with the Yankees before hanging up his spikes. He finished with 449 doubles, the third most in Yankee history, behind only Lou Gehrig and Derek Jeter.

Bernie has a new career now as a jazz guitarist and his album Moving Forward is terrific.

Moving Forward

But if you gave Bernie the choice between performing in Yankee Stadium as a musical artist of a baseball player, there would be no contest.   “I would have to say playing baseball,” he told me when I interviewed him in Sacramento two years ago.

“I don’t think there’s a lot of things that can beat playing center field for the New York Yankees for 16 years,” he gushed with enthusiasm. For Williams, the magic of baseball is “just the thrill and the rush of the competition. To go out there in some sort of psychological battle. Me against the pitcher. From one at-bat to the other, you can strike out three times or you can hit two homers in a game and be the hero of the game. You never know what’s going to happen!” he explained.

“To me, it’s living at about 100 miles an hour every day, for 6 months, or 162 games. Very high intensity. They expect you to produce and you expect the best out of yourself. It was a very thrilling thing for me.”

And no doubt a thrill for the millions of fans he entertained while on the diamond. Now Bernie is  one of 13  newcomers on the 2012 Hall of Fame ballot.

Hall of Fame Ballot

The five-time All-Star had a .297 lifetime batting average, with 287 homers (12 more than Roger Maris). He also won 4 Golden Glove Awards and as you can see here:

Bernie\’s Stats

Bernie Williams is definitely worthy of being a Hall of Famer. As a Yankee fan, I’d love to see him voted in, but on a more personal note, Bernie also gave me a great endorsement for Baseball Between Us

BBU Endorsements

– and for that I will always be grateful for getting to know the Great #51.

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Twins vs. Cubs in Battle for All-Star Game

It’s been more than a century since the Chicago Cubs last won a World Series (1908 to be exact), but they may have an inside track for the 2014 All-Star game. After all, 2014 will mark the 100th birthday of Wrigley Field.

But the Minnesota Twins are also making a pitch to host the game – and a perfect opportunity to showcase their beautiful gem of a ballpark – Target Field.

The Twins are even willing to shell out a million dollars worth of improvements to a stadium that opened just 19 months ago. The capitol upgrades are said to include new carpeting, improved WiFi and even more varieties of food. As for food, the Twins already offer some of the best cuisine of any ballpark in Major League Baseball. You can order anything from Asian wok cooking to bratwurst on the grill.

In our 2010 road trip, my son Matt and I savored the flavor of “Twins Brews”, featuring lagers from Minnesota and Wisconsin, including my personal favorite, Leinenkugel. “Leinie” is an American premium Pilsner beer with a rich, creamy taste representing the “Legend of the Northwoods.” The Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin beer maker is in fact the seventh oldest brewery in the United States.

But enough about beer.

The team  also plans to roll out a new bronze statue of a Twins legend – reportedly Kent Hrbek, the two-time World Series champ and  former first baseman who played his entire 14-year career for his hometown Twins. His number 14 is retired at Target Field.

If the Twins do decide to honor Hrbek with a statue – it better be a big one.

Wide Bodies

The Twins have already honored the great Rod Carew in bronze.

And the team has a tradition of honoring other hometown heroes, including Joe Mauer of St. Paul. You can find his statue all over downtown Minneapolis, as part of an art display called Twins About Town.

The 2012 All-Star game is headed to Kansas City, where the Royals plan to show off their newly remodeled Kauffman Stadium. Here are some pictures before the new look:

And the New York Mets are said to be the inside favorite to host the 2013 All-Star game at Citi Field.

In keeping with the tradition of rotating leagues every year, the 2014 game is supposed to be in an American League city. So the Cubs would seem to be a long shot – but they could appeal to Commissioner Bud Selig to break the rotation – and given the popularity of the Cubs and the newly installed Theo Epstein as team president, anything could happen. But then again, 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of Fenway Park – the oldest stadium in Major League Baseball –

And yet the All-Star game will be nowhere near Red Sox Nation. Selig is a stickler for tradition – which requires an American League venue for 2014 – so my hunch is that the Twins will host the big game. The Twin Cities have hosted the All-Star Game twice before: in 1985 at the Metrodome, and in 1965 at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, where the Twins later made their World Series debut, losing to Sandy Koufax and the Los Angeles Dodgers in the fall classic.

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4 Teams with New Looks for 2012

Four Major League Baseball teams will have new identities in 2012. The Florida Marlins will now be known as the Miami Marlins and will be sporting new uniforms, hats and logos as they open their new park near Little Havana. The players will have their choice of three different home jerseys (white, black or phosphorescent orange), while the road jersey will be gray.

The M for Miami resembles a Metro logo in the subway and will be white, blue, yellow with stripes of orange and black.  A jumping orange and blue Marlin soars over the M for dramatic effect. Art Deco enthusiasts will love it but baseball purists will probably hate it. For a sneak peak click here:                New Uniforms for Miami Marlins

Meanwhile, the Toronto Blue Jays new logo features a Canadian Maple Leaf over a bird on a bold, blue background. The new logo for caps will not feature the baseball that was found in the original club logo: Blue Jays Logo

The San Diego Padres will also be showing a new look, at least on their uniforms, if not on the field. The “SD” cap logo is inside a navy circle with the words “San Diego Padres Baseball Club”surrounding it:Padre Logos The “swinging friar” logo is also back: Swinging Padre.

And it’s back to the future for the New York Mets, who are looking for the retro 1962 look, to mark 50 years of existence in 2012: Mets Uniforms

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Fighting the No Baseball Blues: Preorder Baseball Between Us

I’ve been in a funk since the World Series ended. Baseball is missing from my life. I know I’m not alone in feeling depressed.

Rogers Hornsby, the Hall of Famer infielder from the St. Louis Cardinals said it best: “People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”

Rogers Hornsby Stats

I feel the same way. In the spring we’ll hear the crack of the bat and the cry of the popcorn vendors at the ballpark and everything will be right with the world. And on March 1, 2012 Baseball Between Us will be released, just in time for spring training. But in the meantime, you can pre-order the book through my Web site – and check out some recent radio interviews I’ve done for the book: Pre-Order Baseball Between Us

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Mets Signal Retreat: Move In the Fences

The New York Mets have been in their lavish new $800 million ballpark only 3 years, but already they are making changes.

The Mets are moving in the fences at Citi Field,  shaving about 13 feet from the left field wall in an attempt to generate more offense.

It’s a no brainer when you consider the Mets have ranked 30th, 24th and 27th in total home runs over the past three years – and Citi Field has produced just 1.4 homers a game over that same span – the lowest totals in all of Major League Baseball. The Mets have little in the way of star power – speedster Jose Reyes in widely expected to sign elsewhere and 3rd baseman David Wright has seen his power zapped at Citi Field.  So the Mets will also lower the left field wall from 16 feet to 8 feet.

And in shortening the fence around the whole outfield, the money-drained Mets can add about 100 seats that will draw top dollar (imagine sitting in the seats atop the Green Monster in Fenway).

Citi Field is a vast improvement over Shea Stadium, where I attended many games as a kid and watched as hundreds of jet planes flew overhead to nearby La Guardia Airport (hence the name New York Jets). I remember Shea Stadium as the place where swirling winds would often lift hot dog wrappers and small children into the air in a dusty vortex of negative energy. By contrast, the seats at Citi Field are a couple of inches wider than Shea, accomodating the more massive girth of today’s fans. Citi Field is also a more intimate park, seating just 42,800 fans compared to the 57,333 capacity at Shea.

Citi Field includes a structural steel “bridge” that’s designed to symbolize New York’s five boroughs. The new stadium also features a high definition scoreboard to track the action.

Citi Field features a beautiful brick facade entrance that’s reminiscent of the old Ebbets Field, where the Dodgers once played. The facade takes you to Jackie Robinson Rotunda, a marvelous mix of pictures and videos honoring the former Dodger great.

My son Matt and I visited Citi Field in August 2009 to see the Mets host the San Francisco Giants. We held up a sign that proclaimed 30, symbolizing all 30 Major League parks we had visited over the years.

That’s when Matt told me, “Dad, do you realize Citi Field is actually our 30th ballpark?

“How can that be,” I demanded. “There are 30 Major League teams and we’ve now been to every ballpark.”

“Yes, but this is our second time seeing the Mets at home. So if you count Shea Stadium and Citi Field, it makes 31 ballparks.”

Ultimately we would also visit the new Yankee Stadium to make it 32.

But back to the Mets for a minute. How much will the new renovations cost? Nothing according to the front office. Turns out Citi Field came in $40 million under budget – so that money will be used for the renovations to bring more fans – and more home runs to the park.

Now that baseball season is officially over, you may be a bit depressed like me, but I’m actively counting the day until spring training starts – approximately 107 days until pitchers and catchers report to camp.

And just 4 months until Baseball Between Us is released on March 1, 2012. You can pre-order it here if you can’t wait: Pre-Order Baseball Between Us

In the meantime, I’m hoping to hit 100 Likes on my Facebook page: Like Baseball Between Us. And here’s more on the new plans for Citi Field from the New York Times: Citi Field to Shrink. Until next time…

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World Series Heroes

The Texas Rangers were one strike away from their first World Series championship ever in the 9th inning, but the Cardinals came back to tie the score. The same thing happened in the 10th. And then in the 11th inning, another miracle for St. Louis: Walk Off Homer

David Freese went from goat to hero in one game, after dropping an infield fly, then hitting a game tying triple in the 9th and finally the game winning home run in the 11th. I’ve been rooting for Texas to win their first World Series championship ever, but now it appears the baseball gods are shining on Busch Stadium to anoint the Cardinals as the team of destiny.

What’s it like to hit a game-winning home run in a World Series? For my book Baseball Between Us, I interviewed Ed Sprague, a hero of the 1992 World Series.

As a member of the Toronto Blue Jays, Ed Sprague Jr. hit a game-winning home run in Game Two of the 1992 World Series against Jeff Riordan, one of the top relievers at that time. Ed’s homer made the difference in launching the Jays to their firstWorld Championship ever, in a win over the Atlanta Braves.

In 2010, I chatted with Ed in Stockton, California, where he’s now the head baseball coach for the University of the Pacific Tigers. While on campus, I asked him about the pressure of pinch-hitting against Riordan in a pivotal game.

“Well, I had pinch hit in the playoffs a little bit,” Sprague told me. “I got an opportunity. I was actually in the dugout and happened to have my bat in my hand, in Game One inthe American League Championship Series against the A’s, and they were beating us pretty good. And Cito [manager Cito Gaston] actually came in. Cito looked out and saw I had my bat and said I’d pinch hit for Manny Lee or somebody. I got a base hit in that game,” Sprague explained.

“So I think he thought maybe this kid can pinch hit. I got an opportunity to pinch hit in Oakland against Eckersly and he punched me out. But we rallied and Alomar hit the big home run that sent us on. That was kind of my role in Game Two. He gave me plenty of warning, I was going to hit for Duane Ward in the bottom of the inning, so I went back and got loose.”

Sprague sought advice from Blue Jays Designated Hitter Rance Mulliniks, asking what approach he should take at the plate.

Mulliniks told him, “Ed, he’s a high fastball pitcher; he’s going to try to get you to elevate the fastball. Just make sure he gets it down.”

Sprague was thinking about taking the first pitch from Riordan, but he decided instead to be aggressive at the plate.

“Most of the time you want to come off the bench and come up swinging,” he explained. “So that was it.”

“And it was on the first pitch that you hit it out? “ I asked.

“First pitch fastball, yup,” Sprague confirmed.

“And he got it right in your power zone?”

“Exactly.”

“What was it like when you saw that ball go over the fence for a two-run homer that turned out to be the game-winning hit?”

“Well, I was excited, obviously,” the World Series hero said.

“I think probably the most exciting thing was looking in our dugout as I was rounding the bases and seeing everybody jump up and down…This is, essentially, you know, my second year, but I was still in my rookie campaign. I had a partial year in ’91 and a partial year in ’92 and so when you get back to the bench and Dave Winfield’s giving you a big chest bump and everything else, it was pretty special.”

Throughout his baseball career, Ed Sprague Jr. made a mark of winning big games, including back-to-back college World Series championships for the Stanford Cardinal in 1987 and 1988—the same year he won an Olympic Gold Medal with theU.S. Men’s baseball team. Sprague would later go on to win back-to-back World Series titles with the Toronto Blue Jays, making him the only player ever to earn consecutive championships in both college and Major League Baseball on top of earning an Olympic Gold Medal.

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La Russa Tale: A Phony Story

The baseball world is buzzing over Tony La Russa’s phone hangup. I think it’s a phony story. You’ve probably heard it by now – Tony La Russa, the St. Louis skipper and baseball’s 3rd most successful manager ever with 2,691 wins Tony La Russa is #3, tried reaching his Cardinal bullpen in Monday night’s game but got the wrong number. Or maybe he delivered the wrong message. But something went terribly wrong when La Russa called the bullpen to get his ace reliever Jason Motte warmed up to face the Rangers hottest hitter, Mike Napoli, who has 9 of the team’s 19 RBI.

But instead, lefty Mark Rzepczynski stayed on the mound for St. Louis and promptly coughed up the game winning hit to Napoli, who crushed a 2-run double to right center field. La Russa blamed it on the crowd noise, saying his message to the bullpen got muddled in the mix, leaving Motte unprepared to enter the game.

I’m not buying it. Tony La Russa is way too smart for that. He had all the power in the world to march to the mound and wave his right hand to the bullpen. He could have appealed to the home plate umpire, stating the bullpen phone was broken and that he needed more time for his star reliever to warm up. The ump would have little choice but to swallow the phony story and let him off the hook. The argument alone would have given Motte plenty of time to warm up. After all, we’re talking about Tony Freakin’ La Russa, the master strategist of the game – and who would second guess him?

But there is another explanation for what happened.. Maybe it was no accident at all, but what if La Russa were covering for someone – not himself – but another member of the team?  Check out this story in the Washington Post about what may have really occurred:

What Really Happened?

What do you think really happened in Arlington?

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Inside Busch Stadium, Where the World Series Begins Wednesday

The St. Louis Cardinals play host to the Texas Rangers on Wednesday, for Game 1 of the World Series. Busch Stadium is a terrific park packed with passionate fans who are very knowledgeable about baseball. And no wonder – the Cardinals are playing in their 18th World Series, having won 10 of them, second only to the Yankees in the number of championships. Who Has the Most World Championships

The Cardinals opened their 46,000 seat stadium in 2006. It is a retro-style ballpark with natural grass and a panoramic view of the downtown skyline, highlighted by the St. Louis Arch, which towers some 630 feet above the Mississippi River.

Busch Stadium has a terrific looking scoreboard in a ballpark that offers great vantage points no matter where you sit. Notice the big logo for Budweiser, a St. Louis brew made of course by Anheiser-Busch.

Outside the ballpark there are statues of Cardinals greats Bob Gibson and Stan Musial. Gibson, the Cardinal leader in career victories with 251, was one of the most intimidating pitchers of his era, knocking down any batter who dared to dig in at the plate. During the 1968 season, Gibson’s Earned Run Average was just 1.12, fourth best of any pitcher in Major League history.

Stan Musial was a fan favorite, making the National League All-Star team every year from 1946 to 1963, ending his career with 3,630 hits (4th highest total in baseball history) and a lifetime batting average of .331.

One of the best things about Busch Stadium is when the Cardinals win – they always celebrate with fireworks after the game!

I

Hopefully we won’t see too many fireworks in St. Louis this year – I’m rooting for the Texas Rangers to win their very first World Series ever. And I think they’ll do it. I said I was done making predictions but I can’t resist. I’m picking the Rangers in 6!

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Inside Rangers Ballpark in Arlington

Congratulations to the Texas Rangers for capturing the American League pennant, behind MVP Nelson Cruz. The Texas right fielder set a new record for the most home runs  (6) in a postseason series, surpassing Reggie Jackson’s 5 homers in 1977 and Chase Utley’s 5 dingers in 2009. Cruzin\’ with Nelson

Cruz had 13 RBI in six games, the most in Major League Baseball history and he hit .364 (8 for 22) – not bad for a 7th place hitter in the lineup. The Rangers will open on the road against the National League champ and will return to Arlington for games 3, 4 and 5.

Rangers Ballpark in Arlington is a retro ballpark with natural grass and terrific sight lines that put you right on top of the action (see picture below):

In fact, the closest seats on both the first and third base sides are just 56 feet from home plate, shorter than the distance from the pitcher’s mound to the catcher.

The park has a facade of granite and brick, with a home run porch in right field. There’s also a hill made of grass over the center field fence, providing a natural green backdrop for hitters at the plate:

The grassy knoll slopes gently upward to the foot of a four-story building in deep center, which serves as the Rangers executive offices. When Matt and I visited the park 5 years ago, the Rangers were hosting Justin Verlander and the Detroit Tigers.

The Tigers won that game 7-0. Verlander is today one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball, but the Rangers are in the World Series – and I’ll be rooting for them to bring home their first championship ever!

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