SACRIFICE: GIVING UP TO GET BACK PART 3

By Richard Rosen

Before we leave the SB for the SF we should quickly look at a pair of related sub-categories, known as the safety squeeze (SaS) and the gruesomely named suicide squeeze (SuS). In both scenarios, there’s a runner at third with fewer than two outs in what’s usually a tight game. But with a SaS, the runner on third hesitates near the third base bag until he’s sure the bunter has laid down a creditable bunt, then breaks for the plate when the involved fielder throws to first. This is known as "better safe than sorry." But on the other hand, with the SuS, the runner on third is hell bent for home the instant the pitch is delivered, faithfully trusting that his bunting team mate can put the ball on the ground. The SuS is, in my opinion, along with the stand-up triple and the long throw from the right field corner to cut down a runner huffing to score, one of the most exciting plays in baseball. Every now and again, not surprisingly, the bunter misses his assignment, and the on-rushing and now doomed runner finds the ball patiently waiting for him at home plate. He is known, aptly, as a "dead duck." 

Now while a successful SB does result in an out, no harm befalls the bunter’s batting average. The bunt is noted in its proper column in the record book (usually headed "S"), but the out doesn’t count against the batter’s ABs. It’s odd to think about I guess, but while the team sacrifices an out, the batter really sacrifices nothing; in fact, he’s rewarded with pats on the head for moving the runner up even though he made an out. 

TO BE CONTINUED

SACRIFICE: GIVING UP TO GET BACK PART 2

by Richard Rosen

For the offensive team, the Sacrifice Bunt ideal is, with fewer than two outs in the half inning, to move either one runner from first to second base, or two from first and second to second and third.  Success counts on the hitter’s ability to deaden the ball maybe 20 to 30 feet away from home along either of the foul lines, in an imaginary zone that keeps it out of easy reach of the charging catcher and infielders, though most modern third basemen have the unique ability to grab bunts bare handed and in one fell swoop, without straightening up, whip the ball submarine style to first base.  With any luck the first base ump blows the call, and we’re treated to the spectacle of grown men making asses of themselves in front of 30,000 blood-thirsty fans, thus demonstrating for all the children in attendance the correct way to settle disputes (my vote for the most vociferous and expressive manager, and the most likely to fall over dead from a heart attack in the dugout, is Jim Leyland of the Tigers—he assumes the crown formerly proudly worn by supreme hot head and potential stroke victim Lou Piniella).

As you might know, several things can go sour with an attempted SB: the pitch can be bunted at and missed or fouled off, resulting in a strike and putting the hitter at a disadvantage, as they say, in a "hole."  This necessitates more wheel spinning on the part of the manager.  Should I allow the idiot to try again, even though he had the perfect pitch to bunt on that last one, and even though we went over this play a gazillion times in spring training?  Or just let him hit away? 
Usually it’s the latter, but sometimes the manager will stick with the bunt come hell or high water.  Then bunting with two strikes becomes a no-win situation.  Foul off a bunt attempt with two strikes, and it’s time to grab some pine, Meat (as Mike Krakow likes to say), it counts as a strike-out for the pitcher and an empty at bat (AB) for the failed bunter.  But the worst case scenario is when the ball is bunted right into the waiting hands of one of the converging fielders, who then has world enough and time to make the force at second, where, if the second baseman gets the ball promptly and is slick enough and strong-armed enough (Robinson Cano comes to mind), can turn a pretty double play.

TO BE CONTINUED

The Light Fantastic

There are certain times, possibly related to planetary alignments and maybe about as frequent, when circumstances conspire to deliver simultaneously a shiny, splendid San Francisco day and a win at AT&T park. Last Saturday, when the Giants faced the Texas Rangers for the second of three games, was a case in point.

The weather man saw the first prerequisite coming, in a prediction of about seventy degrees for midday, shortly before we departed for the Burlingame CalTrain station, in a bid to find the sweet spot between driving, crowding, and train fatigue. Burlingame had already surpassed that temperature projection, and the handful of fans sharing the platform with us were already enjoying the day. When the train arrived ten minutes late, there was no reason to grumble, save no place to sit once we boarded - ok, fine, two out of three on that sweet spot.

A half hour of standing wasn't really all that onerous as it turned out - and then we were there, on King Street, the park in sight - but no, not yet. We were intent on avoiding the hordes seeking sustenance within the park confines, and Barb had found a promising cafe that Yelpers liked a couple of blocks away, so we headed up Fourth, and after some dithering, found ourselves in a small, quiet eatery across from a narrow green belt called South Park. After we ordered and sat down, we pushed our window open, and luxuriated in the breeze and dappled sunshine, along with a SF brew. The lights of the park were visible in the distance, two blocks perhaps, but we seemed not to be in a city. Crowds in orange could be seen a half block away streaming toward the Mecca of the moment, and having consumed our caprese, we were ready to join them.

The nagging wind of our earlier visit had become a zephyr, and the moving overcast was replaced by brilliant sunshine, sunshine which glinted off the shiny superhero capes which were the day's giveaway for those young enough, who apparently didn't mind many adults donning them for the wine party along McCovey cove. And once we completed our circuit of the park, it took a fraction of the time to ascend to any place we cared to - well, any not specifically off limits. Maybe a lot of no-shows because there was no Melky - as in nearly the best hitter right now in baseball, Melky Cabrera - or maybe because yesterday was a shutout? Who cares, let's get some kettle corn and see what's going on...


We talked with a multiteam couple, he in a Pirates cap, she in Rangers gear. We asked them about the parks they'd visited, most of the West Coast ones, Three Rivers, Arlington, Arizona, and he said, "Before I came here, I would have said Three Rivers was the prettiest." She said while Arlington was scarcely a tourist draw per se, the stadium was a nice venue.

Later as we watched near Levi's Landing, a ferry approached stuffed with orange, "Let's Go GI-ants", CLAP, CLAP, clap-clap-clap. A battleship sulked in the distance, the Bay Bridge glinted. Soon, an array of white-clad, white-faced singers, the Voca People rendered the National Anthem, in the sort of arrangement less predictable than barbershop competitors, but of the complexity of SoVoSo.


And then, first pitch! On the second, the very hot Ian Kinsler hit one deep, not deep enough - and things went agreeably, and scorelessly, along until the bottom of the third. Pitcher Ryan Vogelsong, or v-song to some, managed to get aboard, and when the errors dust had settled, actually came home as well, aided ironically by a balk by pitcher Scott Feldman. Something about the first base umpire's gesture toward second on that balk call got the crowd going in a way that endured.

I started to really appreciate my seat, in the topmost section directly behind home plate. I was worried that it would seem distant, but it mostly just provided a sense of panorama. And the annoyance with the vendors that was a theme last time was much diminished.


By the time the score was 5-0 in the seventh, we were all lulled into complacency, so the Mitch Moreland solo splashdown in the eighth gave us a proper sense of perspective. Vogelsong was relieved after Moreland's shot, but it was more about pitch count than performance at 5-1, and the crowd appeared to swell in appreciation as he left the field. 


Or did it? Yes, we actually did.

J. Lopez, then the steady Sergio Romo, held down the mound. Another solo shot, Mike Napoli this time, hmm.


After Napoli's homer, a somewhat bedraggled gray-hair above us, wearing a sport shirt with Giants logos on a green theme, yelled, "That doesn't matter, let's go!"


And so, at last: three hours exactly, five-to-two. Somehow, the stuff of legend, even with no stats to show. 


P.S., Stuff of Legend dept.: The Giants were shut out the next day; but three days later Cain and Posey conspired to pull off a perfect game .

SACRIFICE: GIVING UP TO GET BACK

By Richard Rosen

There are two major categories of sacrifices in baseball, the sacrifice bunt (SB) and the sacrifice fly (SF).  Both operate on the ancient principle of "giving up to get back," basically the same quid pro quo that informed the Vedic sacrifices in India 3000 years ago.  Of course the barter back then was conducted by priests, who acted as middle men between their human patrons and the petitioned gods (though apparently the sacrifice’s participants were often hopped up on a now lost hallucinogen called soma or amrita, the rough equivalent of our athletes pumped on steroids).  What this phrase means in a baseball context is that, in general, the batter intentionally makes an out to get back or at least supposedly improve his team’s chances of getting back one or two runs.  I say "in general" here because a SF isn’t always struck intentionally (I’ll come back to this later); moreover, some modern baseball statisticians dispute the value of the SB, maintaining that long term bunting/run scoring statistics conclusively prove that sacrificing an out in this way on average decreases your team’s chances of scoring in that half inning. Other b-ball number crunchers, while conceding this point, yet counter that in certain game situations with certain hitters at the plate (e.g. a tie game in the late innings with a speedy runner on first, no outs, and a weak hitting, National League pitcher coming to the plate with no plans to remove him for a pinch hitter), giving up the out to move a runner into scoring position is the smart way to go.

I won’t go into the mechanics of the SB, though I will say that this play was once far more common that it is today.  Take 1917, for example, the "twilight" of the so-called "dead ball era," just three years before Babe Ruth rocked the baseball world with 54 home runs (35 more than the second place home runner) and sent the SB into a tailspin.  The ML leader in homers that year hit 12—I’ll spell that out, t-w-e-l-v-e—while the ML record for SBs, which still stands after 85 years, was set at 67. In contrast, the year Barry Bonds hit his record 73 homers, 2001, the ML league leader in SBs had 17, and that was a NL pitcher.

The strategy behind the SB is fairly simple, though execution isn’t always so.  SB situations are glaringly apparent to grizzled baseball veterans on the opposing team, who want just the opposite of the bunting team: to prevent the runner or runners on base from moving into scoring position.  So the wheels, such as they are in the minds of lifer baseball managers, begin to spin.  The corner infielders are instructed to "cheat" in, which means they charge toward home plate as the pitch is delivered, hoping to get to the bunted ball fast enough to have a play on the lead runner.  The opposing hurler too will toss a monkey wrench into the SB plans.  He’ll attempt to spot the pitches in the strike zone where it will be most difficult to get the ball down on the infield grass.  Here I must digress a bit.  This tightening of the corner infielders is often turned into a cat-and-mouse game by wily hitters.  To understand how, first keep in mind that when for whatever reason the infielders move closer to home plate, they necessarily cut down on the time and angle they have to range left or right on a ground ball.  In other words, a sharp ground ball, that would be an automatic out with the fielders at their normal depth on the infield track, will rocket past them when drawn in.  This gives a hitter with above average back control a couple of options. He can square to bunt and then proceed as advertised in the face of the in-rushing defense, OR he can square as if to bunt as the pitcher goes into his windup. At this juncture, the defense has really no choice but to take the bait, and as they bravely charge toward home plate in anticipation of an easy force out, the unrepentant hitter will quickly pull back into a full hitting mode and whack the ball on the ground, past the helplessly diving first or third baseman.  This is what’s called, aptly, a "fake bunt."

TO BE CONTINUED

REPORT FROM LONDON: PART 2

by Turk Murdock, European Correspondent at Large

(Picture: Sydney 2000 Olympics: American manager Tommy Lasorda can’t hold back the tears after watching the United States beat Cuba for the gold medal in baseball. At his right is Rod Dedeaux, who managed the U.S. Olympic baseball team in 1984.)

MAY 3: LONDON, CROMWELL CROWN HOTEL4, 139-141 Cromwell Road, South Kensington

The packet given to me by the Cylon (“Cylons” were the race of robots and artificial life forms featured in the
aforementioned Battlestar Galactica series) at the IOC Press Office did not contain passes or credentials for Olympic Baseball and Softball because there is no Olympic Baseball and Softball in the London Olympics of 2012.  As I riff through the pages she gave me, I see that they are documents, press releases and news reports from the 2005 meeting of the International Olympic Committee in Singapore.  I read that on the seventh of July, 2005 the IOC, in a direct bitch-slap to the United States of America, stripped baseball and softball of their status as officially sanctioned Olympic sports, eventually replacing them with golf and rugby sevens.

The IOC cited a variety of reasons, most aimed directly at U.S. MLB, and each more flimsy and insulting than the last: Pro ballplayers not allowed to compete; ungoverned use of steroids and other illegal performance enhancers; lack of international interest; Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice; etc. etc. et-fucking-ceter.  This was the first removal of a sport since polo was taken out of the 1936 Olympics, for chrissakes.  So 101 years after baseball made its first appearance at the Olympics in 1904 (baseball was played as an exhibition sport at the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis), America’s pastime was spat on and kicked out the door although both sports would be played in Beijing in 2008.

The thing that chills me, though, is that there is no way I would not know this; that I could not know this.  But I did not.  I consider the possibility of post-traumatic memory loss [Editor’s Note: There are reports that Mr. Murdock was seriously injured in the London transport bombings which also occurred on July 7, 2005, however there is no direct evidence to support these claims.] or even a slip into some parallel dimension but, whatever - I know that in my world, Olympic baseball still exists. And thus it follows that this is not my world - but of course the question remains, was it ever? 

So here’s to the Olympic ballplayers and medal winners from Cuba and Japan, Taipei, Australia and South Korea, and to the good men and women of amateur and professional softball and baseball in the United States of America.  No parades and flags and podiums and anthems and medals for you this time around because the world needs golf and the world needs rugby sevens and I need a stiff drink.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

By James Humphrey

(painting: 4th of July Aerial Fireworks by James Humphrey)
 

In final vision before leaving this
lifetime,
had just lobbed my old glove
to that magic edge where grass meets
wooden center field fence;
always a good sign the ballgods
will favor you.
Joyfully fell to belly,
burying nose in the flawless green heaven'
sweet dirt.
Rolled onto back,
all senses filled with the park's smells!
Went wonderfully deaf from its sounds!

It was a game again!

Other players?  Fans?
Eleven men older than me in early years,
each perfect in his prime now,
wildly gestured and hollered from first base side
top dugout stair,
cheering me towards them.

Wasn't astonished.  Wasn't surprised.
Knew it would be this way.

Human destiny was to be the greatest
baseball player of my time
--build the first ranch for young survivors
who had also been sadistically abused
when babies-into puberty.

All boxseats, graandstands and bleachers were
empty
except for an attractive, light brown-haired woman
perfect in her prime,
radiant in a black sheath, matching picture hat,
sitting in center of grandstand, halfway
between home and third.

When she smiled at me,
I sensed she was happy.

I sensed the woman was Norma.

I sensed we were meeting
who each other truly was
for the first time.

Without breaking stride,
and with my right forefinger and thumb,
touching the brim of my cap,
nodding slightly.

In the always dry, pleasing breezes of
permanent spring, I had accomplished the
final lesson of the rainbow arc:

I was about to become an eternally active player
on a prestigious baseball club.
Each player had, when earthbound,
a lifetime batting average higher than 320.
Now each man in his own special way
of introducing hisself, was bringing me home
at last:

ED DELAHANTLY  TRIS SPEAKER
TY COBB  PAUL WANER

BABE RUTH  BILL TERRY
LOU GEHRIG  ROGERS HORNSBY

JIMIE FOXX  HONUS WAGNER
SHOELESS JOE JACKSON

If you went to the ballpark
when it was America's pastime,
and The Sultan of Swat was present,
you either knew--or soon learned,
he most surely would have the final word!

Why should this special occasion of all
to me,
be any different?

But it was!

And his words both astonished and surprised me!

Where yuh been Rookie--we been waitin' on yuh!