Mike and Mickey...and Hank and Barry and Willie

Spring Training opened yesterday, and rather than doing an extensive analysis of the Pirates, I thought that I would delay such ramblings and instead talk about a subject that has been niggling in the back of my mind for awhile.  It concerns Los Angeles Angels superstar Mike Trout, already a two time Most Valuable Player.

At some point during this off season, someone, probably on the MLB Network, probably after he was named the AL MVP  for the second time in his career, said that he is "this generation's Mickey Mantle." 

High praise for Mr. Trout, so I decided to do one of my famous spread sheets to compare the two of them at comparable stages in their careers, and this is what it looks like.

	Mike Trout	Mickey Mantle
Seasons	6	6
Games	811	808
BA	0.306	0.308
HR	168	173
HR/162 games	34	35
RBI	497	575
RBI/162 games	99	115
Hits	917	907
Hits/162 games	183	181
Runs	600	642
Runs/162 games	120	129

Through six seasons, Trout and Mantle are practically the same player.  The Mick outpaces Trout in both Runs Scored and Runs Batted In, which may be a function of the other players on their respective teams.  Otherwise, those "Trout Is Mantle" comparisons are not far off.

Then, I decided to throw in a couple of other players into the mix to see how Trout compares to them.  You might recognize them:

So, here is the expanded chart:

	Mike Trout	Hank Aaron	Barry Bonds	Mickey Mantle	Willie Mays
Seasons	6	6	6	6	6
Games	811	886	871	808	762
BA	0.306	0.323	0.269	0.308	0.311
HR	168	179	142	173	128
HR/162 games	34	33	26	35	27
RBI	497	617	563	575	509
RBI/162 games	99	113	84	115	108
Hits	917	1,137	837	907	903
Hits/162 games	183	209	156	181	192
Runs	600	612	563	642	531
Runs/162 games	120	112	105	129	113

I will only draw a couple of conclusions from these comparisons.

1. Trout certainly holds his own when compared to these four great players.  No doubt that in Trout, we are seeing a guy who can become one of the all time great players by the time his career is done.
2. Please don't bother pointing out that Bonds' numbers were rolled up in his Pre-Balco Era.  We all get it.
3. Perhaps the most striking aspect of this little chart are the stats of Hank Aaron.  When discussions of "who was the greatest ball player ever?" take place, I don't think that Aaron's name gets mentioned nearly often enough.

Okay, time to put the calculator away and start getting into Bucco Spring Training.  Time to worry about just which Ivan Nova shows up for the Pirates in 2017.

Opening Day 2014

Two weeks ago, I had no intention of attending the Pirates Home Opener for this year, and then I received an email from friend David Cicotello in Tennessee who said he found three tickets to the games on Stub Hub, and he asked Fred Shugars and I if we wanted to repeat our experiences from game three of last season's NLDS, so, why not, I was now headed to the Home Opener, and what a terrific day it was.

The fact that the Bucs won in the tenth inning on a Neil Walker walk-off home run, which broke a scoreless tie, only added to the fun of the day.

It was a good omen when Fred and I arrived at the North Shore, walked into what has become our favorite pre-game eatery, Dominic's, and found an empty table for five.  Within five minutes David showed up (good thing since he had the tickets!), and shortly after that, we were joined by Dan Bonk and Len Martin.

L-R: Bob, David, Dan, Len, Fred

At the risk of sounding really corny, you really can't put a price on friendship, and I consider myself very fortunate to have friends like these guys.  And I say that even though Dan and Len blew us off shortly after lunch to sit with the rich guys in a corporate box.

OK, I'm not going to dwell on the balls-strikes-runs-hits-errors of the game, but I do want to comment on two aspects of what occurred yesterday.

The first was the new replay/challenge system.  Each manager challenged an umpire's call yesterday, one was upheld and one was reversed (both to the benefit of the Pirates as it so happened).  The system is brand new, there are no doubt bugs in it, and I am sure that MLB will figure it out as the season goes along, but after seeing it first hand yesterday, I have to say that I like it.  Neither replay review took as long to adjudicate as any typical challenge in any typical NFL game, and in both cases, the right call was made.  What's not to like?

Finally, the much talked about appearance of Barry Bonds in the pre-game ceremonies came off not with a bang, but a whimper.  Scattered booing of Bonds from the crowd was more than drowned out by loud cheers for MVP Andrew McCutchen.  We can debate the merits of inviting Bonds back until the cows come home, but for now, let's consider it a dead horse that we can now stop flogging.  However, I do have one question.  As I said, we have all asked over the last several days why on earth the Pirates did this, but my question concerns the other side of the coin.  What motivated Bonds to accept the invitation?  It's not like there was an outpouring of love between he and the City while he was here, and God knows, no one has had a great deal of nostalgia for him in the years since he left.  I am sure the Pirates paid for him to come here, but surely THAT couldn't be the reason, could it?  We'll probably never know the answer, but it would be interesting, to me anyway, to find out.

Here was the scene of Barry's re-introduction:

It's Over!

Yeah, you know what I'm talking about - the streak, or, rather, The Streak, the twenty year Longest-Losing-Streak-in-the-History-of-Professional-Sports-in-North-America, is now, finally, officially over. With the Pirates' 1-0 victory over the Texas Rangers last night, The Streak has now been relegated to ignominious history.

  

And how about that game. The pitching match-up between Texas' Yu Darvish and the Bucs' Gerrit Cole was one for the ages (or it would be if this game had taken place in, say, the World Series, or a Sunday Night ESPN Yankees-Red Sox game).  Darvish was almost unhittable, allowing only one hit in the first six innings, but Cole matched him....

....and gave Pirates fans a glimpse as to why he was selected #1 overall in the 2011 Draft. He was magnificent in his start last night, and what you saw makes you almost giddy with excitement as to what he might have in store for the Pirates and their fans in the years ahead.

And how about that other #1 pick, Pedro Alvarez going to the opposite field for a double that drove in the Pirates only run and won the game against Darvish and the Rangers.

More importantly, the win ended a four game losing streak and brought the Pirates within one game of the first place Cardinals, and put them a game ahead of the third place Reds.

In the post game interview on TV, Andrew McCutchen said all the right things about understanding what the 82nd win means to the fans, but that there are bigger goals to be reached, and on and on, but look at his face and the faces of his fellow outfielders at the top if this post.  You can't tell me that this game was just another win for the team.

Now, let's win 12 or 13 (or even 10 or 11) of the nineteen games left and have a deep run into October!

We need not refer to The Streak ever again, except as we might talk about some ne'er-do-well member of the family tree who is now deceased.  And with that in mind, a word about Sid Bream and Barry Bonds....

It is one of those unimportant things in life that has bothered me, like a stone in your shoe, that people, especially this summer as it became fairly clear that the team would have a winning season, to refer to "The Curse of Sid Bream" or "The Curse of Barry Bonds" because of Game Seven of the 1992 NLCS.  Can we please stop with that?  Sid Bream was a solid if unspectacular ball player, whose career included six fairly solid seasons with the Pirates, I might add, who was just doing his job that night.  Bonds was the Pirates best player and the NL MVP in 1992, whose throw to the plate was not quite perfect.  It happens.

There are lots of reasons not to like Barry Bonds, but that throw to the plate that didn't quite get Bream isn't one of them.  And there are lots of reason to like Bream, who has chosen to live in the Pittsburgh area long after his playing career has ended.  Neither Bream nor Bonds "caused" the twenty year losing streak.  Twenty years of lousy players, and lousier management decisions, caused The Streak.  Non-existent "curses" did not.

The BBWA Throws a Shutout

The big baseball news today, of course, is that the Baseball Writers of America elected no one into Baseball's Hall of Fame for this 2013 class.  This is the first time that this has happened since 1996, and it is most noteworthy today because this is the first year of HOF eligibility for noted PED users Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Sammy Sosa.  These men, who have racked up some mind-boggling statistics in their careers finished with, respectively 206 (36.2%), 214 (37.6%), and 71 (12.5%) of the votes.  As you no doubt know, 75% of the vote is needed to gain induction.

(As an aside, I will once again quote my friend Fred Shugars who today postulated that many of these same BBWA members who have shunned Barry Bonds today, no doubt took part in voting him seven MVP Awards over the course of his career, and in many of those MVP seasons, the whispers of Bonds possible PED use were well known.  I would like to hear some of those writers explain those MVP votes of several years back today.)

I am not sure where I stand on this issue.  Part of me says, Yeah, no way that these cheaters should ever go into the Hall of Fame.  Another part of me buys the argument that says, Hey, we'll never really know who was dirty and who wasn't in the PED era, so let's forget the pretense and vote these guys in if we think that they are worthy.   Even the Hall of Fame itself seems to be unsure how to go, as this picture of some label copy that I took on my last visit to Cooperstown in 2011 attests:

Keep in mind that the institution in Cooperstown is called the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.  Personally, I am glad that the Museum part of the institution (as opposed to the Hall of Fame where the plaques are displayed) recognizes all historic and noteworthy players.  Thus, when you visit there  you will see that Pete Rose is the all-time leader in hits, and that Joe Jackson has the third highest batting average of all-time, just as you will see that Barry Bonds has the most career home runs.  I am glad that no asterisks are attached, and that no attempt has been made to vacate these records.  As the sign above says, only the perspective of time - and that may be 50 years from now - will enable us to really see the big picture of this era.

I also know from having visited Cooperstown five times that the Hall of Fame is the economic engine that drives this charming little village, and no weekend is as important to the Village of Cooperstown than Induction Weekend.  This year there will only be three inductees voted in by the Veteran's Committee (or whatever they are calling that committee these days): Umpire Hank O'Day, Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert, and 19th century player Deacon White, all of whom are dead.  I can't imagine that the Hall of Fame as a business enterprise can be happy about the fact that only three dead guys are going to be honored at their big party this summer, and that guys who do get elected in the future will only be guys who may get in there by default only because somebody has to go in there.  That can't be good for business.

And in a side comment, many of us Pirates fans have to be disappointed that in his first year of eligibility, Jose Mesa received not a single vote and will now forever be removed from the ballot.  Those of us who recall the glory days of 2004-05 (aka, Years 12 and 13 of the Losing Streak) and those 70 saves that Jose racked up for the Bucs have to be bitterly disappointed.  Cleveland Indians fans, no doubt will have a different perspective on Mesa's shunning by the BBWA.

Roberto Clemente vs. Barry Bonds

Here is a very brief excerpt from the ESPN the Magazine article alluded to in my previous post.  Author Kevin Guilfoile. who interned in the Pirates PR Department in the early days of Barry Bonds' career, made the following observation in the article.  I hope that you take the time to read the entire article, but this part is too good not to highlight on it's own:

When you're as talented and famous as Barry Bonds or Roberto Clemente, too much is going to be expected of you. The demands on you will never end. And you can react to those demands in a number of different ways. Barry Bonds decided that he would just never give anybody anything, because he knew if he gave them one thing today, they would ask for three things tomorrow. And he was probably right about that, as wrong as it must have been for his soul.

Roberto decided to do the opposite. If you asked him for one thing, he gave you four. He worked hard to become one of the best who ever played the game, then he gave away the trophies that proved it.

He gave as much as he could. He gave more than he could.

On the day of one of his biggest triumphs, he might have told three different friends he was giving them the same historic baseball bat.

He never stopped giving.

He gave right up until the day that giving literally killed him.

A Poll Question - Participation Needed!!!

With apologies to Facebook and SABR Friend Dan Bonk, I want to propose a question to you. Who is the most disliked figure in Pittsburgh sports history? Dan got the ball rolling by nominating three people: Bob Nutting, Barry Bonds, and Francisco Cabrera.

Personally, I would discount Cabrera. He was just another guy on an opposing team doing his job. I also strike Bonds from the list. While he was never enormously popular during his years as a Pirate, I do not recall him being a truly disliked figure until many years later when his home run totals increased with proportion to his head size.

That leaves Nutting, and he's going to be a hard guy knock from this dubious pedestal.

Some guys receiving votes on Facebook included Kordell Stewart, Neil O'Donnell, and Dave Littlefield.

Anyone else care to make a nomination?