The Chris Moeller Archives

Wednesday was one of Major League Baseball's all-time terrific days. We'll start with a summary from Yahoo's Tim Brown:

A pair of mentally-malnourished opinionists remarked on Des Moines radio this morning that, despite Wednesday's electrification of the sporting world, the National Football League provides that same level of excitement each and every weekend. This is bull fertilizer, of course. It's like saying the movie "Thor" contains more action than "the Godfather"-- true only if you forget to factor in emotional depth, dramatic subtext, and the ability to create unique and indelible moments. A football team is simply incapable of giving a fan emotionally during the season what a baseball team easily provides. This is because baseball is daily.

For the better part of the last month, I have had no social life because of my baseball team. The web that has entangled me involves trying to wind down for bed after a 4-hour do-or-die marathon on television-- and then having to do it again the following night. It is momentum gained, built upon-- and sometimes quickly lost-- but never, ever allowed to sit dormant for something like six entire days. Even a one-day rain-out unsettles the mind. Take your greatest four-hour football game, filled with the requisite tension and unpredictability (also, a commercial break before and after each kickoff). Now stretch out that drama over the entire week, make it about 25 hours long rather than four, with each daily episode adding to-- and even re-writing-- the narrative.

"Oh, really, you're a die-hard fan of the Wasilla Oilers, are you?," I ask the football fan, "You live and die with each snap? For 16 whole days a year? How in the world do you find the time?" At three hours per game, that's a 48 hour commitment for the entire year. One hour every 22 days. I spend more time than that watching Piers Morgan, and that show sucks. This is the difference with baseball. It affirms each and every day from the first crocus to the first snow flurry. And then it goes to sleep so that it-- and I-- can be replenished. It is the rhythm of life.

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I don't care whether or not you like the wild card playoff format, and I still don't, but you have to admit the logic that people employ to support it is typically absurd. This year, based on the current format, we experienced the best possible scenario for the wild card. The close races were for fourth place. Without the wild card, we would not have had these particular races. This is true. But every act of creation is also an act of destruction. Under a different format and divisional alignment, we could have been talking about the great race between Detroit and Texas, or Milwaukee and Arizona. Those races came down to the final day also, but because of the format that's in place this year, these teams were playing for home field advantage instead of playoff berths. This logic is ludicrous: See how dramatic these games were last night: the wild card is awesome. No. Baseball had great games and great pennant races long before they let second-place teams participate in the post-season. And now the bottom line is that the pennant races, when exciting, are less meaningful, because the stakes are lower.

More explain: I posted the stat yesterday about how epic, historically, the Cardinals and Rays' comebacks were this year, but in the end, what have they achieved (so far)? Both teams are still among 6 other teams still competing for the crown. Now take 1964 as a contrast. That year, the Cardinals made up 6 1/2 games on Philly over the final 12 games of the year. Going into the last day, three of 10 National League teams could still conceivably come out on top. But the difference is what was at stake. With their final regular-season win, the 2011 Cardinals earned a spot in an 8-team, 5 and 7 game series, single-elimination tournament. With their final regular-season win, the 1964 Cardinals earned the pennant. You can argue the relative merits of expanding the playoffs, but I won't allow the argument that expanded playoffs have failed to devalue the regular-season. It was a trade-off for more postseason TV money.

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As far as ESPN is concerned, there are the Yankees and the Red Sox, and there is everybody else. I know I harp on this. The American and National League Wild Card races were virtually identical this year. There were almost equal-size comebacks in the standings, with very similar-looking collapses by one club, and one-and-a-half teams pursuing (the halves were the Giants and the Angels). Both races were settled on the last day, at about the same time, and both even with an extra-inning game. Yet during the last week-- not just last night and today, but all week-- every baseball news report I witnessed (and it was literally dozens)-- on every ESPN news property, whether it was Sportscenter, Mike and Mike, ESPN News, ESPN Radio, ESPN.com, had the American League report as its first or top report, followed by the National League. And this is because the action in the American League race affected the Boston Red Sox directly, and the New York Yankees peripherally. This happened every time, I kid you not. No exceptions.

It is beyond me why Major League Baseball allows this of its most important corporate partner and does not see ESPN's editorial strategy for the damage that it does in building the MLB brand. The discrepancies that exist in talent between the MLB clubs has little to do with payroll. I have long argued this. The Yankees double every team in the league (at least) except for the Red Sox in what they pay out to their players, yet they have one championship in 10 years. If that was the team I rooted for, I would be afraid to look my sports friends in the eye. The difference in stature, reputation, the consistency of on-field competitiveness, and finances between the clubs is better linked, I think, to the Grand Canyon-sized gulf in the way they're promoted. There is nothing remotely resembling this situation in the NFL. Does Major League Baseball not see how alienating this is to fans in their smallest and 'tweener markets? Do you think Kansas City fans ignore the Royals because the NFL Chiefs are so dominating in their sport? Um, that's not quite it. The Chiefs are just as unlikely to win a championship as the Royals. But there's a perception of unfairness. Kansas City baseball fans see their team as the Washington Generals.

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Atlanta's rookie reliever Craig Kimbrel took much of the heat for last night's final failure by the Braves, but he still had enough poise after the game to offer up the most succinct and accurate description of baseball in history, "When you walk guys, nothing good ever happens."

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Last week, my Dad emailed me a story in the New York Times about Ted Williams and his .406 batting mark in 1941. (This is the headless Ted Williams we're talking about here, not the homeless one.) I replied to the email with an extended rant about how overrated I thought this achievement and Williams both were. (By the way, I encourage the sending of personal emails. Consider doing this. You too might be rewarded with your own private Chris Moeller blog entry.)

The best-known story about Williams '41 season is how he arrived at the last day of the year with a doubleheader to play, and a .39955 batting average. Famously, the slugger suited up, collected 6 hits in 8 at-bats over the two games, and finished the season at .406. I suggested to my old man, incidentally, that this act of heroism has been overstated throughout history because nobody would have seen the .39955 as a legitimate .400 anyway. Williams knew this and, as a result, had a very easy decision to make.

Last night, on the 70th anniversary of that Williams doubleheader, the Mets' Jose Reyes took this debate about playing through vs. sitting to a new level. The Mets have never had a batting champion in their five-decade history. Entering last night's final games of '11, Reyes led the Brewers' Ryan Braun by mere percentage points for the National League crown. He had it figured before the game that if he got a hit his first time up, Braun would need 3 hits in no more than 5 at-bats to surpass him. Leading off the bottom of the first, Reyes bunted his way to first base, then had his manager remove him from the game. Is this fair play, or bush league?

His teammates and his manager, Terry Collins, defended him. Of course, Reyes is a free agent-to-be this winter, and he's the only great player on a rotten team, so who is managing whom at this point in the game? Rangers pitcher C.J. Wilson, a completely uninvolved bystander in another state and another league, tweeted, "I hope ryan braun goes 5 for 5 and wins the title now." Well, Braun didn't. Three hits in a game is hard. He went 0 for 4, and finished at .332 to Reyes' .337.

I'll defend Reyes up to this point. It's not all selfishness, at least. When people say he put himself above the team and the fans by doing this, that's not true. I'm a fan of the Cardinals, and when Albert Pujols wins a batting title, a home run crown, or a Roberto Clemente Award for charitable contributions to his community, I take pride in that the same way I do a team championship. It's on a lower tier, but bragging rights about a player on your team can be a meaningful consolation prize when you fail to win the World Series.

A lot of Reyes' defenders are saying what he did is a common occurrence, but they're only half-right, and that's not right enough. What's common is a guy sitting out the last day to finish at or above .300, something like that, but this scenario is different. One extra guy hitting .300 is a victimless crime. What Reyes did was not. He screwed Ryan Braun. Reyes' goal was not to reach that magical batting plateau of .337. It was to better Braun directly. And that's kind of lame.

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One of my co-workers is a Braves fan. This morning he sent the following e-mail to the members of our department's vast Cardinals contingent. It was entitled "Intercepted Email":

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I replied: "I can't believe this is authentic. Bud Selig doesn't really care about what's best for baseball."