I’m the a$$hole with the BIG Laker flag flying from the bed of his truck

Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals tips off in less than 3 hours with the Lakers trying to close out another series on the road.  They failed to do it last series in Houston and were pushed to a game 7.

This will be a defining game for this year’s team.  Every year a team will play a game that comes to embody what that team is all about, a game defines that team’s character.  Last year it was game 4 of the NBA Finals.  The Lakers finished the season with flourish securing the #1 seed in the West on the last day of the season, then continued that roll into the playoffs.  The Game 4 debacle where the Lakers came from ahead to lose a game it led by as much as 24 points made a definitive statement that they were not championship material.  They did not have the heart, the will, nor the toughness to grind out a championship.

Game 2 of the 2004 Finals against the Pistons was another defining game in which the Lakers wilted.  The Lakers won the game, but they needed a Hail Mary 3 from Kobe to send it to OT where they pulled it out.  It was a must-win for the Lakers because Detroit came into  Staples a heavy underdog and shocked the Lakers by 12.  The Lakers lost the next three in Detroit by an average of 13.7 points.  Dynasty over.  Team implosion.

And that’s what the Lakers are up against tonight.  This is the most important game in the history of the Denver Nuggets.  For the Lakers?  It’s important, but it’s barely a blip on the historical radar for the purple & gold.

What’s the identity of this team?  Are they the team that ran away from the West in the regular season and swept both the defending champion Celtics and this year’s #1 overall seed Cleveland?  Or are they the team that’s been consistently inconsistent?  We’re going to find out tonight if this team can make its mark in Laker lore.  If they can go into Denver and rip the Nuggets’ hearts out, then they  might have what it takes win the whole damn thing.  If not, then expect more emotional roller coasters, but don’t believe the hype.

WORLD Baseball Classic Thoughts

Ichiro lines a single to centerfield for the game-winning RBIs in the 10th inning.

Finally, it’s over.  Now, I can go back to scouting Spring Training for my upcoming Fantasy Baseball drafts, but before I go through that, I feel compelled to share some thoughts on the World Baseball Classic that wrapped up last night at Dodger Stadium.   What a perfect setting for an all-Asian classic final that was classic in every sense of the word.  Los Angeles was the perfect setting for one of the most heated baseball rivalries on a national level in the history of the game, a rivalry that extends beyond the baseball diamond to cultural hatred for one another.  I’m sure there’s lingering resentment for Japan going imperial and raping Asia in the 20th century, and Korean electronics have become a mainstay in what was once a Japanese specialty, so the national fan base really gets into these kinds of games.  And I mean REALLY gets into it.  The Korean fans definitely made their presence felt, and it reverberated from Chavez Ravine to Koreatown through my TV screen and all the way around the world to Seoul.  Color me impressed by the sheer ferocity of the Korean fans.  These weren’t drunken belligerents ready to throw down like Euro soccer fans or East Coast idiots.  These were fans who were drunk with passion for their team, and I really respect that.  I loved the drums, the united cheers, and even those goddamn thundersticks.  I kind of wish MLB games were like that, but then I remember that Major League Baseball is just a commercial whore.

That said, I couldn’t be more annoyed by the game I was watching.  I’m just not a fan of the product of Asian baseball.  It isn’t the unconventional pitching mechanics (really?  a 2-second pause at the top of the wind-up) or the funky swings (really?  inside-outing a pitch in your wheelhouse?) or even the crazy hairstyles that remind me of Asian boy bands.  It’s the pitching strategy that kills me: breaking ball after breaking ball, slider after slider.  In baseball terms that’s called “pitching backwards”… throwing your secondary pitches in fastball counts and throwing your fastball in secondary pitch counts.  Every pitching coach will preach that the most important pitch of any at-bat is “strike one”, and typically that means throwing your best pitch for a strike.  Usually, a pitcher’s best pitch is his fastball, or at least it should be.  The reason why curveballs, sliders, splitters, and change-ups are called “secondary pitches” is because they’re supposed to work off the fastball.   The reason why the fastball is supposed to be a pitcher’s best pitch is because the mechanics of throwing it lends itself to being the pitch that can be most commanded.  Breaking balls are thrown in a general vicinity of a zone, in hopes to draw a swing-and-miss due to disrupted timing, or an easily fielded ball due to poor contact.  The old baseball axiom says, “hitting is all timing, and pitching is disrupting that timing.”  Another axiom says, “it’s incredibly hard to hit a round ball with a round bat squarely.”  I had never seen so many 3-0 and 3-1 sliders in my life.  It would be one thing if a pitcher doesn’t a have a fastball, but these pitchers were able to consistently hit 90+ on the gun.  One pitcher, in particular, had me flummoxed.

Yu Darvish is generally considered the top Asian pitching prospect, and last night was my first chance to see him throw.  He is quite impressive on paper.  From the two innings I saw him pitch, he displayed a plus-fastball that was consistently hitting 95-96 on the gun with late life (meaning there was late movement as it reached the plate),  a slider that was in the mid-80s that broke right to left almost 14 inches, and a change-up to keep the hitters off-balance.  The scouting report says he also has a splitter and a knuckle-curve in his repertoire, but I couldn’t discern if he used it last night.  I was too preoccupied yelling at the TV for him to throw a fastball.  Case in point, in the bottom of the 9th, he was brought in to close the game.  He struck out the first batter, then proceeded to walk the next two to put the tying run in scoring position.  Here’s another old baseball axiom,”walks will come back to haunt you” and sure enough it did.  Darvish has a dominant fastball but is gun-shy to use it?  I’m sure the manager was the one calling the pitches, if not then it was the veteran Kenji Johjima behind the plate, but in either case, he should’ve been challenging the hitters with his fastball.  It was hard to watch such a filthy pitcher throw with one arm tied behind his back.

The turning point of the game didn’t occur when Ichiro singled in the go-ahead runs in the top of the 10th inning, it came when the Korean manager decided to pitch to him.  He had already collected 3 hits in the game almost went yard in his previous at-bat.  He was the best player left in the tournament, and the manager took his chances pitching to him with the go-ahead run 90 feet away.  Korea only exacerbated the precarious situation by allowing the runner on first to steal second, thus putting two runners in scoring position with one of the best hitters in the entire world at the plate.  The Korean manager could’ve rectified his first mistake at that point by electing to intentionally walk Ichiro with first base now open, but he didn’t, and the rest is what they call history.  I’ve watched a lot of baseball in my life, and I have to say Ichiro’s at-bat was one of the best clutch at-bats I had ever seen.  The 8 pitch at-bat included a foul ball off a pitch that bounced in front of the plate as well as several “spoils” (fouling off a pitcher’s pitch).  Ichiro wore the pitcher out and won that battle when the pitcher made a mistake over the plate.  Good hitters make pitchers pay for their mistakes, and Ichiro won another WBC title for Japan at the expense of their most bitter rival.

I had the misfortune of catching Rachel Maddow while I was channel-surfing.  She was being her typical snooty self disparaging America’s pretense of the World Series when the teams that play are only from the United States.  This really bothers me because it doesn’t take a Rhodes Scholar to know that even though Japan has won 2 WBCs, Korea won the Olympic Gold last year, and Cuba has long been a national power, the best baseball players in the world play in the Major Leagues.  The best baseball players in the world come to the US to see if they are Major Leaguers.  The best baseball players in the US don’t go to Japan or Korea or the Dominican Republic to measure themselves.  Which leads me to another point about this contrived tournament.

The USA will NEVER win the WBC because we send our players in the off-season while the rest of the world sends their top players in mid-season form.  Baseball is a skill game that requires lots of time to get into the proper form.  Unlike football or basketball’s preseason, which is used primarily to get the athletes in physical shape for the grueling season, baseball’s spring training is used to get players re-accustomed to the fundamental mechanics of playing the game.  I mentioned earlier how Asian teams have a propensity to throw breaking balls.  When hitters come to Spring Training, the first thing they do is find their timing on fastballs.  After that’s done, they move on to the secondary pitches.  Although Major League Baseball is the primary sponsor of the WBC, it will not put its own season at risk by having the WBC coincide.  MLB knows that hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake whenever Major Leaguers take the field in a game that means nothing to those teams who are signing the checks.  The USA will keep sending players to the WBC with an inherent disadvantage, and they will continue to lose to teams who are in better form.

I had no rooting interest in last night’s game.  Most of my friends were cheering for Korea since a lot of them are Korean, while some of the kids I coach were rooting for Japan since they’re Japanese.  I was just hoping to see some good baseball, and aside from the perplexing pitching strategy, it was a great game by all accounts.  Baseball is the greatest in the world, and I’m happy that it’s getting a big stage like this with the best players in the world participating.  I wish MLB would step-up and allow the tournament to take place at a time when the USA could send its players when they’re ready to play, but unfortunately at this level, it’s all about money, not the game.  Congratulations to Japan and Korea for a great tournament and a classic final game.

The Best Kind of Pain

My arm feels like jello when I don’t have sharp, searing pain shooting through it doing even the most mundane of actions like lifting my coffee mug or reaching for a stapler.  It hurts when I clench my fist or reach over my shoulder to scratch my back, but it’s a pain that’s well worth the trouble.

I was lucky enough to get batting cage time and a personal one-on-one hitting lesson for Marc with a friend who also helps coach the Dukes whenever he can find the time.  Coach Mason as the boys call him is graduating from high school today completing a stellar high school baseball career where he was named League Most Outstanding Player this year following a junior season where he was named League MVP.  He is a three-year First Team All-Area and All-League selection, and was named to the All-CIF team the past two years.  A young man mature beyond his years, Mason has been an exemplary role model for Marc and the boys on the baseball field as well as off of it as well.  He has parlayed his baseball acumen into a full-ride scholarship to the University of San Francisco where he’ll be majoring in Kinisieology next year. 

I threw 2 1/2 hours of batting practice on Monday and another 1 1/2 hours yesterday.  Needless to say, my arm is spent.  Mason was able to work out a lot of the kinks in Marc’s swing pinpointing some bad mechanical habits in various phases of his swing.  I’m so happy that Marc has the drive to get better.  2 1/2 hours of batting practice is very long time, but he never complained or intimated he wanted to stop.  Mason called me at work yesterday to tell me he’d be at the cage if I wanted to bring Marc down, but after Monday’s prolonged workout I wasn’t expecting it.  When Marc got home from school he told me that he had practiced his swing in front of a mirror the night before to get his muscles to remember how to it correctly.  That’s when I knew he wouldn’t shy away from more batting practice.  Sure enough, when I asked him if he wanted to go back for more, his eyes lit up and he gave me an enthusiastic “okay!”.  We stayed for 1 1/2 hours and only stopped because he had All-Star practce at 6.

The kid will never pass up an opportunity to play baseball whether it’s hitting at the cage, playing catch, hitting into the net at home, or playing pepper in the front yard.  He simply loves the game.  He’s worn his All-Star jersey to school the past two days even sneaking it into his backpack yesterday so his mom wouldn’t nag him about wearing the same thing two days in a row.  It reminds me of when he was 3 years old and wore his Batman costume almost until Thanksgiving.

Last year, he was voted by his peers to West Torrance Little League’s 10 year-old All-Star team as a 9 year-old only to be snubbed from the playing roster by a coach who doesn’t know what he’s doing.  I reminded Marc of how he felt last year, and he’s used that feeling to drive him this year during All-Star season.  After moving over to a new league that plays by PONY rules (much more competitive, higher quality of players) he was a unanimous All-Star selection by the eight managers in the division in his first year in a new league.  I told him to use All-Star season to show everyone where he stacks up against the best of the best, and he’s been bringing it in practice with his focus and intensity. 

It means a lot to me when Mason says that the way I push Marc reminds him of the way his dad used to push him.  I’m not one of those crazy “Little League” dads who thinks his kid is going pro and will stop at nothing to make it happen.  The game of baseball is a lot like the game of life in many regards.  Baseball is a game that is predicated on failure.  The key is to take those failures in stride and use them to make yourself better through the process.  There are also many subtle ways to be successful besides getting a hit or striking someone out.  Hitting behind a runner with no outs to move him along the bases is a successful at-bat.  Knocking a ball down in the infield with a runner on second base while not getting an out is a success because it keeps the runner from scoring.  Being there to tell a teammate who just struck out to keep his head up and “get him next time” goes lengths in being a great teammate and contributing to the team’s success.  Most of all, baseball is a game that develops discipline, determination, and perseverance, and I think those are valuable lessons every child should learn as early as possible. 

I’m fortunate that Marc and I share a passion and a bond that will last forever.  Baseball is a game that’s passed down from fathers to sons, and I can’t wait until the day I’m grandpa watching Marc coach his own son.  It all started with a NERF baseball set, and me putting down pieces of tape on the driveway so Marc would know where to put his feet when he bats.  Soon, we’ll be playing catch shooting the breeze about being a teenager and all that entails.  I can’t wait. 

TV Sucks.

When my team loses, I can’t function properly the next day.  I have to avoid all things sports related: TV, sports websites, ESPN.com, newspapers, etc.  It’s time like these I kind of wish we weren’t living in the information age. 

I’ve avoided writing about the Lakers-Celtics NBA Finals because at first I was too giddy with anticipation to sit down and think of a write-up previewing the series.  Then, after the disappointment began I was too depressed to start explaining why the Lakers were sucking ass. 

All I have to say is that the Lakers need to take care of business and hold serve at home.  Boston did what was expected of them and won their home games.  That’s what good teams do.  Now, it’s going to come down to who can win one on the road.  If the Celtics come into LA and steal one, then they’re in the driver’s seat for the title.  If the Lakers can take care of business like the Celtics, then they’re in the position to steal one on the road and seal a championship.

I take solace in knowing the Lakers haven’t lost at home in a couple months, but this is a different situation with the season hanging in the balance.  Kobe Bryant needs to assert himself in a way that he hasn’t yet in this series.  I know much has been made with “Team-first Kobe” changing his ways and riding his teammates to his first league MVP this year, but while that’s great over the course of the season, now is the time for the world’s best player to prove that his skills are on an incomparable level.  He’s going to have to reach into his bag of tricks and will his team to a victory in game 3.  Team ball worked for two close losses on the road, now he’s going to have amp it up a notch to win a very critical game 3.  Boston has played the aggressor role in the first two games and have two victories to show for it.  Kobe needs to be aggressive and put Boston on their heels if the Lakers are going to stand a chance against the more physical Celtics.  It’s not beyond the realm of possiblity that the Lakers turn this series around, but they’re going to have to outwork the blue-collar Celtics to do it. 

I’d write a more detailed analysis, but I’m trying to take my mind off the Lakers… for my own good.

Happy Trails Paisano

Boy, I must be getting old.  The thought creeps into my head as I hide my eyes from the world as tears well up.  For what?  Because a ballplayer is retiring?  This seems insane.  But Mike Piazza wasn’t just any ballplayer though.  The Greatest Hitting Catcher That Ever Lived was a symbol of the downfall of my beloved Dodgers.  A homegrown superstar who starred in his own all-American tale of rising up from nothing through hard work and determination to reach the pinnacle of his profession, Piazza was a Hollywood script played out on the baseball diamond. 

He was drafted in the 62nd round of the amateur draft as a favor to Dodger manager, Tommy Lasorda, who happened to be his godfather.  Of the 1,433 players selected that year, Piazza was 1390th player taken.  Only five scouts turned in reports about him, and none of them said he had a future playing the game.  His defense at prime defensive position was god-awful and after a 16-year career approaches one of the worst of all-time, but boy could he mash.  And mash he did.  Here are his stats for his Dodger career starting with his first full year in the majors (1993) to his last full year with the Dodgers (1997):

Year	AVG	HR	RBI	OBP	SLG	OPS
1993	.318	35	112	.370	.561	.931
1994	.319	24	92	.370	.541	.911
1995	.346	32	93	.400	.606	1.006
1996	.336	36	105	.422	.563	.985
1997	.362	40	124	.431	.638	1.069

He was named Rookie of the Year in 1993, was selected to the All-Star game each year he played for the Dodgers winning the All-Star MVP in 1996, and won the NL Silver Slugger Award given to the best hitting catcher in the league each year he was in Los Angeles.  Coming off his monster 1997 season in which he was robbed of the NL MVP award by Larry Walker, it was expected that the Dodgers would sign him long-term to a lucrative contract making the best player in baseball the highest-paid in the game.  Unfortunately, the Dodgers were going through an organizational transition period as the longtime family owners, the O’Malleys, were selling the team.  Peter O’Malley felt it wasn’t economically feasible for a family-owned ballclub in these modern times and decided to sell the team to News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch (Fox media).  Gone were the days of the “Dodger Way” and all the tradition that had made the Dodger brand one of the most prominent in all of sports.  My beloved Dodgers were now in the hands of a company who brought us A Current Affair. 

Piazza wanted and deserved a big pay day.  He was the biggest star in the LA sports stratosphere, he was homegrown, and he LOVED being in LA.  He wanted to be the first $100 million player and asked for $105M over 7 years.  The Fox people balked at the idea of paying that much money to a player everyone loved and traded him mid-season to the Florida Marlins.  To further rub salt into the broken hearts of Dodger fans, that offseason the Dodgers signed pitcher Kevin Brown to the most lucrative contract in baseball history, $105M/7 years.  Yup, Kevin Brown stole Mike Piazza’s money.  That’s what happens when you have TV executives trying to run a baseball team.  You pay $105 million to a pitcher who only plays every 5 days instead of the best hitter in baseball.  It only made matters worse that Kevin Brown was everything Piazza wasn’t and in a bad way.  Known as the quintessential “red ass”, Brown was surly with the media, aloof in the clubhouse, and distant from fans.  It didn’t help that Brown only turned in a couple productive years before injuries got the best of him.  The players the Dodgers picked up in the trade with the Marlins didn’t exactly replace Piazza’s presence either.  Gary Sheffield, every bit the offensive star as Piazza, was just as offensive as a person teaming with Brown to the give the Dodgers a two-headed douchebag monster.  Bobby Bonilla could never replicate Pittsburgh numbers when he had Barry Bonds protecting him.  Jim Eisenreich was just too old, and Charles Johnson never wanted to be a Dodger. 

The Dodgers have a history of making bad deals and the Piazza trade ranks up there with the Pedro Martinez trade except the Piazza deal set the entire organization back a decade that we are now just scraping our way out of.  That group of the players from the 90s that won 5 consecutive rookie of the years – Eric Karros, Mike Piazza, Raul Mondesi, Hideo Nomo, and Todd Hollandsworth – was the last heralded group of homegrown Dodger players until this new crop of today’s young stars: Russell Martin, Matt Kemp, Chad Billingsley, James Loney, Jonathon Broxton, and (*cross your fingers) Clayton Kershaw.  The Dodgers got away from what made the Dodgers successful through the years: scouting and development, and it all started when the Dodgers traded its heart, soul, and face to Florida that disastrous summer of 1998.  It might’ve help to ease the pain if the Dodgers could have signed Piazza this offseason to a one-year deal to back-up Russell Martin just so he could retire in Dodgers Blue like he was supposed to.  Lasorda even suggested the idea to general manager, Ned Colletti.  Unfortunetely, Lasorda was a couple hours late as Colletti had just signed steroids-abuser, Gary Bennett, to play back-up.  Stupid Dodgers, we can only win in spite of ourselves.