Play it Again!

Major League baseball officially adopted expanded instant replay. As you can imagine (since I’ve said it

many times before) I’m all for it. I can’t think of any case in life where being wrong is better than being right. Can you?

That being said, I HATE the fact that coaches need to issue a challenge. Why does correct application of the rules need to be a coaching decision? Tony La Russa and Joe Torre, who were on the committee, hinted that it’s just like any other managerial decision. When to use that challenge is just like when to use a pinch hitter. But, we’re talking about the rules. It’s a coaching decision to decide when the rules should actually be the rules?

“Whoops, the umps just gave the other team an extra out. But, the bases are still empty. Do I challenge that, and run the risk of having them screw me even worse next inning? Or do I get them to make the correct call and hope they don’t do it again.”

Why can’t we just agree that if the umps make a terrible call, it should just be fixed? Dealing with bad calls shouldn’t be a strategy. Bill Belichick shouldn’t have needed to save a timeout, just in case the refs hosed him on a fourth and two call. The wrong call should just have been fixed. Can’t we learn from that?

The other part of the ruling from MLB is that teams will be able to show replays of every play on the scoreboard. While this is interesting, I’m not sure it’s the “big” change it’s being made out to be. I don’t get the feeling that I was missing anything by not having those plays shown. Sometimes they’d show the start of a play, and you knew they’d cut out before the end because it was a close play. I didn’t get too worked up by it. It was just the way it was. It’s not going to make me go to any more games because of it. I’m not sure that making being at the park more like watching the game on tv should be the goal. It’s different being there. That’s understood. Otherwise I’d be watching the game in a movie theater.

Even with the many faults, I’m glad to see this step in the right direction. Hopefully with not too much time, they’ll refine this process so we can get all the wrong calls out of the way.

Until then, this is a great start.

Three Weeks!

That’s right. There are only three short weeks left to enter the 2013 Section 36 Scavenger hunt!

It’s time to get a move on. With three weeks left, you’re running out of time to get to some of the harder to reach items.

Sure, you can still try and get a picture of a Cy Young statue. But, you might start running into weather issues if you wait much longer. You don’t want to skip anymore sunny days.

You can still go out and buy a white t-shirt to create your own Section 36 shirt. There’s even still time to have fun and be creative. Wait much longer, and you’re going to have to just tape a printout of the blog homepage to the front of a shirt. But, we all know you want to, and can, do better than that.

Get out there and visit the local mall. Take pictures of all the items you find there. Go visit your friends with huge Red Sox collections and scour for items. (Be sure to pretend you’re there to actually visit with them.) Do whatever you need to do.

Take those pictures now!

From the Pedro Binder

2003 UD Standing O

(Once again, scanner issues. What was it thinking?)

Boy, companies were just pumping out sets in those days, weren’t they?

I can see the design meeting for this one. Maybe it wasn’t even a meeting. Just something a couple people talked about in the elevation.

“We need another set. What should it look like?”

“Baseball?

“Yes…a baseball set. Wait, that’s brilliant. We’ll put a big baseball on it.”

“Or a bat.”

“No, a ball is better. Unless…yes…we’ll put the ball on a bat!”

“What about the rest of the stuff?”

“I dunno. We’ll let graphics just use the basic black, white, and gray. Once you get the bat and ball, the rest doesn’t even matter.”

And they ended up with the card you see above you. Pedro’s picture in set inside a big baseball. The baseball is put on a woodgrain section. The border is left a basic gray. Pedro’s name in in black and white, along with his team name and position. Even the UD name gets the bland look.

The picture actually works with the design. It wouldn’t work if Pedro was, say, a second baseman turning a double play. Or, even if he was in his full wind-up. But, him standing there staring down another batter just works. And, I look how both the Upper Deck name and “Standing O” logo are practically invisible. So, a design concept that probably took five minutes turned out just great.

Sometimes bland is beautiful.

Red Sox 1-36: 30 is for…

30 RBI Jason Bay had in May 2009

I admit that I sometimes give Jason Bay a bit of a raw deal. It’s not his fault that he wasn’t Manny Ramirez. It wasn’t his fault that he was the bag of balls the Sox got back in their worst trade in four years. He didn’t ask for any of it…as far as I know. So, it’s too bad.

Because, while he wasn’t Manny, he wasn’t terrible either. After all, he had a pretty Manny-like May there in 2009. In fact, the whole 2009 season was fairly Manny-like with the 36 home runs, and almost 120 RBI.

But, those 30 RBI in May really stuck out. After all, that was Manny’s bread and butter, right? His ability to sniff out an RBI was what made him the superstar he was. And, then Bay came and had more of them in a month than Manny ever had with the Sox. In fact, more than any Red Sox player had in a month up until that point. Only when Adrian Gonzalez had 31 a couple Mays later did anyone hit more.

Oh, sure RBI is mostly about opportunity. If you’re batting behind the pitcher you’re going to have fewer chances to bat with men on base. And, if you’re batting behind David Ortiz, he’ll take care of quite a few of the baserunners for you. But, having a lot of RBI is still better than not having any. While it certainly doesn’t mean it was a good trade, it shows that Bay wasn’t completely useless either. It’s interesting, too, that I don’t have a better memory of Bay as a result. That was a big month early in a pretty good season. I should remember him fondly, and not as the guy who couldn’t bring us to the 2008 World Series. He wasn’t a waste of a position.

At least not in May

30 is for the 30 RBI Jason Bay had in May of 2009.

You Can’t Become a Hall of Famer

You know what question really annoys me? Any of the variations of a question that goes, “If Player X plays two more seasons, and gets Y number of hits, do we need to start thinking of him as a Hall of Famer?”

No.

Just by having to ask the question, the answer is “no.”

If a player is a Hall of Famer, you already know it. You know it because of the prolonged dominance. You don’t realize it after you see he got a certain number of some stat. Frank Thomas didn’t become a Hall of Famer when he hit his 500^th home run. He became a Hall of Famer when he dominated the American League for ten years. When you focused on him whenever you were playing the White Sox. Greg Maddux didn’t become a Hall of Famer when he won his 300^th game. He became a Hall of Famer when he was the best pitcher in the league for five to ten years and you breathed a sigh of relief if you missed him when the Braves were on your schedule.

Which is why Craig Biggio didn’t become a Hall of Famer when he reached 3000 hits. Which is why Mike Piazza didn’t become a Hall of Famer when he hit more home runs as a catcher than anyone else. You can’t look back and go, “Huh…maybe they were Hall of Famers after all.” You have to already know it.

I’ve mentioned my personal qualifications to reach the Hall many times. I need ten years of all-star caliber play. I don’t need actual election to the team. Especially since Joe Torre, the selection of the team has very little to do with ability. But, if I asked you who should be on the all-star team, the guy’s name should come up at some point. Or, when you look at the stat line you should assume that he was on the team that year. Of those ten, I need five otherworldly years. I need five years where if you’re talking about the best player in the game (or at least at his position) his name leaps immediately to mind. Beyond those ten years, I’m not giving you much additional credit. Just don’t embarrass yourself.

It’s that second category that most of the borderline guys are missing. I don’t get those five years when I look at Biggio, or Schilling. I don’t care that they played for a long time and piled up numbers. Being pretty good for a long time is not what it takes to get into the Hall of Fame. It’s for elite players. The best of the best. It doesn’t mean the people who don’t make the cut are bad players. There’s no shame in just being a multiple all-star. It just means you weren’t the next level.

Which is why I was bothered yesterday by the discussion over Craig Biggio. Immediately after the announcement, the hosts on MLB were mentioning that he’ll get in next year. It was practically a certainty that he would pick up those two votes. They didn’t even leave it up for a question. So I’ll ask it.

Why will he pick up those two votes?

Were there two people who would have voted for him, but used up all ten of their slots on someone else? Or, are they assuming that Biggio would become a Hall of Famer in the eyes of at least two voters? How? Are his stats going to go up? Is he going to move up on any career rankings? Is he going to win any championships? Is he going to do anything that two people base their votes on? Not that I can see. So, is he a Hall of Famer, or not? The voters should have known the answer to that question at least ten years ago.

I know I did.