the_nub_nov2009.html
November 2009
Archive
(Posted: 11/21/09)
Will Dems and Mets be Caught in 2010 Twin-Killing?
At a non-political gathering the other
night, a prominent player
on the NY Congressional team talked about the outlook for the Democrats
in
2010. “It’s going to be tough,” he said,
to maintain control of the House. The
event was held not far from Citi Field.
The thought occurred that ’10 could be a twin-killing year for
Dems who
happen to be Mets fans.
Early hot-stove stats compiled by
Congressional (Pew
Research) scorekeepers say 67 of 435 districts will be truly
competitive next
Election Day. If the Republicans win 41
of them (minus upsets elsewhere), they will retrieve control of the
House. On the Senate side, the game-time
outlook is
murky; much will depend on Skipper Obama’s approval rating, which is
hovering
now around 50 percent. Should O-rating
remain close to that level, the Senate Dems will almost certainly see
their
58-40-2 margin reduced by a few seats, but not enough to lose their
majority.
The Mets, we know, are a consensus pick
to finish fourth in
the five-team NL East. The addition of a
Joel Piniero-type starter will not change that estimate.
Nor will adding another bat. Jeff
Wilpon is clearly in charge, and
remembering his pre-Obama track record – among other things, the hiring
of Art
Howe, whom he called the ideal choice for manager – there is scant
reason for
optimism.
The donut weighing down all Democrats, of course, is the
economy. Chances of a reversal of the jobs
losing streak changing the election dynamics are dim. In GOP/swing
districts
like NY’s Nassau
County, where Dem
Tom Suozzi (a former
client) had won two terms as county exec, the swing back to the red
team could
be wide and strong. Compounding the malaise among voters is the
disparity between
the masses and those who appear to be entitled.
Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich writes in Salon why the
stats of the
disparity are so frustrating: “How
can
the
stock
market
hit
new
highs
at
the
same
time
unemployment
is
hitting
new
highs?
Simple.
The
market
is
up
because
corporate
earnings
are
up.
Corporate
earnings
are
up
because
companies
are
cutting
costs.
And the biggest single cost they’re
cutting is their payrolls. So they let people go and, presto, their
balance
sheets look better and their stock prices rise.”
- -
-
For Congressional
Dems the issue is whether they’ll retain an edge, however reduced, or
lose
their majority. For the Mets, it is
whether they can maintain enough marginal competitiveness to keep fans
coming
to Citi Field. There is no question now
of the team winning its division. One
familiar reason: lack of the type of farm system that (pre-Jeff Wilpon)
produced Jose Reyes and David Wright.
Fernando Martinez, until recently the system’s lone standout
prospect,
has lost his luster: Marty Noble, of
mlb.com, reminds us of why: “(Martinez) is
merely 21, but the injuries that have interrupted his development
and his unremarkable performance in his first big league tour have
raised
questions... Right now, Martinez
is closer to becoming another Alex Escobar than an Alex Rodriguez.”
How badly do the Red Sox want Jason Bay
to re-sign with
them? Badly enough to badmouth him as
soon as he opted for free agency. The
team’s message amplified through the media:
No NL team should want Bay; he lacks range as a left fielder and
can be
most effective used alternately as a DH.
Furthermore, he is “not someone you can build a team around.” Who knew?
- o -
(The Nub is a team effort skippered by
Dick
Starkey. Comments
to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome, as are subscription requests.
Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
The Nub will be on a
road trip for the next week, returning a week from Tuesday. Happy
Thanksgiving to all.
(Posted: 11/17/09)
Skipper Obama’s
Problem With Tough Pitches
“I almost wish Bush were still
president,” said a
front-office team member. “Then I could still be hopeful.
Now the political problems seem as immutable
as the Yankees’ advantages in baseball.”
The sentiment is a familiar one
to people watching along the
left-field line. Skipper Obama can make
great statements, but he ducks away from tough pitches instead of
taking his
cuts. Those pitches, thrown by
right-handers, are promoted by the corporate media and therefore
popular with
the public. Let’s run down the
consistently
baffling assortment:
The high, hard one:
Wars are something Team USA
must wage. It’s a dirty job - in
Afghanistan, Iraq, and maybe Iran – but if we don’t fight, we’ll be
perceived
as giving in to terrorism and undercut our stance as the world’s
clean-up
hitter.
The keep-away pitch:
Defense - that is, war- spending must never be questioned.
Deficit ballhawks can warn about the perils
of aggressive social investment, but complaints about huge arms deals
should be
confined to the clubhouse.
Bread and butter
delivery: Big-bank privileges and Wall Street prosperity are what
market
democracy is all about. Going to bat for
a less-tilted way to keep the economy in play risks ejection from the
game.
Brush-back:
Progressive taxation as a possible remedy
for much of our financial losing streak is a non-starter.
Mere mention of the t-word can get a major
player sent to the political minors.
Rules-breaking
spitball: In the name of “safety and
security,” some right-handers say that, unlike several countries around
the
world, we dare not allow terrorist trials in the U.S. Salon slugger Glenn Greenwald exposes the
“cowardice” of pitchers who take that approach: “(They)insist,,,that
we
must
ignore
the
Constitution
in
order
to
stay
alive: the
exact
antithesis
of
the
core
value
on
which
the
nation
was
founded…It
is...as
pure
a
surrender
to
the
terrorists
as
it
gets.”
We know the Yankees will
never have to surrender their
financial edge; the players union won’t
accept any management proposal that would cut into members’ earnings. And would it be fair to blame them for that?
It would not be a radical change, but
Brewers GM Bob Melvin
thinks the way to mitigate the disparity between the “have” and
“have-not”
teams could be through the player draft:
“The draft has to be fixed,” he says, so that teams willing to
spend the
most money don’t wind up with the best
players. Which is what happens because
small-market teams seldom bother drafting the best, who are in a
position to
demand - and receive - top dollar.
Melvin and his management colleagues believe - hope - some kind
of curbs
on signing payments can be established in the next labor agreement in
2012.
- -
-
Desert stars: The
Nationals, Marlins and Oakland
A’s are three teams
surely watching the Arizona Fall League with satisfaction.
As of yesterday’s stats, the Nats’
high-priced first draft pick Stephen Strasburg led the league in wins
(4-1) and
had struck out 23 in 19 innings.
Marlins’ outfielder prospect Bryan Petersen leads the league in
hitting
(.422) and Oakland’s
slugging
outfield
farmhand
Grant
Desme
has
hit
11
home
runs
in
24
games;
no
one
else
in
the
league
is
close
to
double-digit
HRs.
The Yanks have a promising hitter in
outfielder Colin
Curtis, batting .388 after 17 games.
Mets first-baseman prospect Ike Davis had a .319 BA with four
home runs
after 17 games. The Red Sox must be
pleased with the progress of shortstop Jose Iglesias, the Cuban
defector to
whom they gave a $6 million signing bonus not long ago.
Defense is Iglesias’ forte, but he was
batting .295 after 16 games.
- o -
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey.
Comments
to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome, as are subscription requests.
Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
(Posted: 11/14/09)
The Unpredictable
Pastimes – Politics and Baseball
Non-Yankee baseball fans can find
solace in the nine-year
gap between Bronx-Bomber championships.
Big money doesn’t always buy World Series titles;
unpredictability is an
important part of baseball’s appeal.
Politics, we know, is even more
volatile than our national
pastime - look at what happened in the recent election: despite a
popular
president, Team GOP, playing in a bad economy, won two major contests
and a
passel of minor ones. At the same time,
little-noticed scoreboards in two states showed how unpredictable the
political
game can be. In Maine
and Washington,
amid
household-budget
losing
streaks,
voters
defeated
efforts
to
limit
the
amount
of
tax
money
their
states
could
ask
of
them.
The margin was 60-40 in Maine,
57-43 in Washington. Talk about “you never know”, many
anti-tax-limit
voters in Maine
showed they could pull to right by also defeating a gay-marriage
proposal.
Washington
Post-man
E.J.
Dionne
noted
that
the
anti-tax
attempt
was
“part
of
a
laboratory
experiment
pushed
by
the
Beltway
Right.” The outcome therefore was
something progressives could point to and possibly build on. He adds, though, that leadership is needed,
which raises a familiar question: “Will
President Obama and his party take the lesson and go on offense against
the
simple-minded anti-government screeds now getting so much play?”
Experienced
official scorers are calling Team Obama’s swinging bunt concerning its
Afghan
ambassador a hit; that is, the handout (disguised as a leak) describing
the
envoy’s doubts about a troop buildup advances the running story cleanly
and
provides protection for the skipper.
Fans will not now be shocked when Barack pulls back from giving
General Stanley
McChrystal the large number of additional armed players he requested. Or if the “leak” does produce an outcry, Team
Obama can change its strategy accordingly.
The cheer expressed
here for ratings-beleaguered CNN had scarcely subsided when the cable
network’s
Wolf Blitzer made the support a source of embarrassment.
Here is how Blitzer asked Nidal Hasan’s
military lawyer – Ret.Col John Galligan – about his taking the case
involving
the Fort
Hood massacre:
BLITZER: “A lot of
folks, when they heard I
was interviewing you, they asked me how could a retired U.S.
military officer, a full
colonel, go ahead and represent someone accused of mass murder? And I
want you
to explain to our viewers why you're doing this.”
GALLIGAN: “Wolf, I
will tell you what I have
told consistently anyone who asks that same question, and that is…I
fully
appreciate the importance of ensuring that everybody has a fair trial.”
He might have added “And you
should, too, Wolf.”
- -
-
Although nothing
happened at mlb’s post-season meeting in Chicago,
Mets fans rest assured their team will make at least one big-ticket
signing
before too long. Jeff Wilpon and Omar
Minaya must do something to distract from the suddenly non-competitive
state of
the franchise. Marty Noble, who covered
the Mets for years with Newsday and now does it for MLB.com, tells it
like it
is:
“My
sense
of
the
situation
it
is
that
the
final
standings
in
the
National
League
East
accurately
represent
the
relative
strengths
of
the
2009
teams
and
are
likely
to
serve
the
purpose
for
the
2010
season
--
even
if
the
Mets
acquire
a
quality
starting
pitcher.
Adding
a
power
hitter
who
plays
the
outfield
well…
and
a
quality
starter
would
close the gap.
“But
the
catching
situation
is
an
enormous
issue
that
seemingly
has
been
camouflaged
by
the
need
for
pitching
and
power.”
Time to talk about the marginal-interest
sports of baseball fans, specifically today, pro football.
Our recommended focus each year is on
frost-belt football played outdoors in December and particularly in the
January
playoffs. (So much fun to watch from a warm living room.) We therefore
hope the
Eagles or Giants overtake Dallas
in the NFC East, and will root for either in upcoming games. And we want the Patriots and the (barely
contending) Jets to maintain their respective leads over Miami in the AFC
East. We’d like to see the Broncos fend
off the
charging San Diegoans. And in the AFC
North, where the Bengals, Steelers and Ravens are fighting it out, may
the best
team win.
- o -
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey.
Comments
to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome, as are subscription requests.
Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
(Posted: 11/10/09)
Is It Good to Have
the Yanks and Team Obama Playing Their Game?
Last swings (for now) on a thoroughly
scuffed subject:
What does it mean that the Yankees can
outbid any other team
for ballplayers they want? There’s a
politically correct answer, we believe, that connects to the way Team
Obama
plays its game.
“You
can't
root
for
the
Yankees
regretting
their
spending
of
money,”
says JM, of Nyack, in
the e-mailbag.
“There is a long arc from Babe
Ruth to Johnny Mize to Catfish Hunter down to the present day. It's never the spending, but only the
spending for trash that burdens our souls.”
Then there is this from GM, of Princeton, NJ: “What
folks forget is that most owners are rich. It's
the
fan
base
that
allows
the
Yankees
to
spend
and
know
that
they
are
going
to
recoup
their
money.”
To
sum
up
the
above:
The
Yankees
are
fortunate
to
have
a
huge
fan
base
–
it’s
the
good
hand
they
were
dealt.
That they spend freely the massive amounts of
money they take in is something they’ve always done, which we should
learn to
live with.
Implied is “Life is unfair”, a fact
wealthy teams like the
Yanks can take in stride. But not
everyone. Most fans would like to see
something approaching an even playing field.
Much of the third world resents Team Obama because, like the
Yanks, it
can afford to do whatever it wants. What
nearly everybody abroad and at home seeks is fairness.
Americans resent the O-team’s “soft-touch
approach to Wall Street” (Paul Krugman’s phrase) which has enriched a
few
players while most others struggle.
People in the Middle East deplore the skipper’s check-swing
toward the
expansion of Israeli settlements in Palestine;
in
Latin
America,
they’re
booing
Obama’s
inaction
over
the
rhubarb in Honduras.
The reluctance of Obama to push for
change, to seek a
righting of imbalances, has (again in Krugman’s phrase) “seemed to many
like a
betrayal of their ideals.” The ideal of
greater fairness in baseball is more elusive than in politics because
the head
man Bud Selig is in even a bigger slump than Obama.
No change is imminent. Kansas City
Star columnist Joe Posnanski,
frustrated as anyone, explains why:
“A.
Everyone knows the Yankees spend much more money than any
other team to win games.
B. Because everyone knows it, people
have been complaining about it for many years.
C. Because people have complained about
it for many years, everybody is sick of hearing about it.
D. Because everyone is sick of hearing
about it, nobody really listens.
E. Because nobody really listens, people
don’t talk about the Yankees spending much more money than any other
team to
win games….
“The
Yankees have a pat hand…(Nevertheless) many of us keep
(watching) because we love baseball and there’s enough randomness in
the game
itself and enough volatility in the playoffs to distract us from the
lunacy of
having the game so ridiculously tilted toward one team.”
A modest proposal for ending the lunacy - split
the Yankees
into two teams, the way you split an overvalued stock: creation of,
let’s say,
the NY Clippers would help the AL
establish 16-team balance with the NL and again make NYC the three-team
town it
was before the Dodgers and Giants abandoned it. (No charge for the
consultation.)
-
o
-
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey.
Comments
to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome, as are subscription requests.
Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
(Posted: 11/7/09)
Did Loser to Team
Mike Care as Much as the Phillies?
In an election-week verbal pepper game,
a friend hit out at
the Bloomberg/Yankees connection made in the previous Nub.
He said he hoped, that in relating wealthy Team
Bloomberg to the Yanks, we weren’t implying Billy Thompson was like the
Phillies: “Unlike the Phillies,” he said, “Thompson didn’t want it
badly
enough.”
Thompson, a zero on the personal
scoreboard of most New
Yorkers, surely wanted to win badly, but he didn’t have the financial
clout to
do so; he couldn’t transform himself through TV and other paid media
into
someone for whom the public could cheer.
Bloomberg was a zero when he first ran in 2001.
His money made him a visible player, and a
winning one.
The danger now, we know, is that
another moneyed candidate
could come along in 2013 and replicate Mayor Mike’s success. Then, once in office, he might demonstrate to
the public what son-of-money Jeff Wilpon has shown Mets fans: he
doesn’t have what
it takes to run the franchise. The fans
can stay away from baseball games; the public must stick it out for
four years
with a bad mayor.
Bloomberg
will
be
a
good
mayor,
as
Thompson
might
well
have
been
had
Team
Obama
saw
fit
to
go
to
bat
for
him.
Obama has been letting his fans down on a
number of plays – as he and we have been hearing for some time. Washington Postman E.J. Dionne takes a
warning post-election hack at the skipper and his coaches.
He sees “a
spirit far different than the buoyant confidence Barack Obama inspired
a year
ago. And the Obama change-agents,
particularly the young, were notably absent from the voting booths this
week. In Virginia,
a state Obama carried comfortably last year, a majority of those who
showed up
to vote on Tuesday said they had backed John McCain. This much more
Republican
electorate produced a GOP landslide all the way down the Virginia ballot.
“That is
the fact from
this week that Democrats would be fools to ignore. It's not a resurgent
right
wing that should trouble Obama's party. Indeed,
the
stronger
the
right's
role
in
shaping
the
Republican
message,
the
harder
it
will
be
for
middle-of-the-road
voters
to
use
the
Republicans
to
express
their
discontent.
But for the moment, the
thrill is gone from politics, and that is very dangerous for the
mainstream
progressive movement that Obama promised to build.”
- -
-
The on-the-job training of Jeff Wilpon as in-loco-parentis boss of the
Mets began six years ago. Shortly before then,
former co-owner Nelson Doubleday told the Newark Star-Ledger he saw
trouble
brewing for the team: “Mr. Jeff Wilpon has
decided that
he’s going to learn how to run a baseball team and take over at the end
of the
year… Run for the hills, boys. I think…baseball people will bail…
Jeff
sits there by himself like he’s King Tut waiting for his camel.”
In fact, Jeff brought in baseball
people – Bill Singer and
Al Goldis – to serve as special assistants to new GM Jim Duquette. That too-many-cooks experiment ended badly –
all three were gone in short order, with Omar Minaya taking over as GM
at the
end of 2004. Now Jeff is talking about a
repeat of the debacle, assistants for Omar, who has lost the
player-moves
autonomy promised when he took the job.
How do fans outside Yankee-land feel
about the Bombers’ WS
victory? Cincinnati Enquirer columnist
Paul Daugherty gives us an idea:
“The
Yankees have missed the postseason
exactly once since 1993. Apparently,
their front office has been nothing but wise since then. I'm
sure
Carl
Pavano
thinks
they're
brilliant.
“Care
about the Cincinnati
Reds or don't. Fact is, if you follow the
sport -- and are
somewhere in the vast part of America that doesn't care about the Red
Sox,
Yankees and Mets -- you need to be concerned about a competitive
imbalance that
allows one team to spend $200 million on players and another in the
same
business to spend $40 million.”
More, pro and con,
about the political
correctness of “imbalance” in the next Nub.
- o -
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey.
Comments
to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome, as are subscription requests.
Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
(11/5/09)
Did Wealth Make Yanks
and Team Mike Failure-Proof?
Is it fair to say the Yankees, like
Mike Bloomberg, were
“too big to fail”? The answer has to be
“yes,” but with a safety-squeeze qualification: Had either the Yanks or
Team Mike
tripped over their moneyed advantage; had internal rivalries or
jealousies
developed among well-paid teammates, or had outside events - serious
accidents,
injuries illnesses or political corruption - intervened, then bigness
could not
have spared them failure.
Both succeeded - the Yanks to a world
championship,
Bloomberg to a third mayoral term -
because they put their money to effective use: the Yankees spent
multi-millions
extra to outbid opponents for C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark
Teixeira. Team Mike used the $100
million-plus
self-financed campaign to shift the public’s focus from the mayor’s
devious
term-limits play to his two-term record of on-field performance. Few, if any bumps slowed either
franchise.
Polls and media consensus suggest that
for both outfits fan
support was ambivalent: voters resented Bloomberg’s “Who’s-your-daddy?”
rule
while approving the way he ran the city. The many dispassionate Yankee
rooters
regretted the team’s willingness to spend to make the competitive field
as
uneven in its favor as it felt was necessary to win.
The election results only underscore
the price Mayor Mike
will pay for his win: an erosion of the good will New Yorkers felt for
him because
of what they considered his trustworthiness.
He now deserves little more trust than most politicians. And the skepticism is likely to show in the
way the once-supportive media treat him. (“No Longer Invincible,” was
the 11/4
Times’ quick-pitch headline about the mayor ) Yankee-hating, which had
subsided
throughout much of baseball since the team’s last World Series
appearance in
2003, will now surely regain widespread fervor.
The New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg sums
up what the public
and “daddy” Bloomberg have let themselves in for over the next four
years: We gave him a third term “sullenly,”
he says, “knowing that while it
probably won’t measure up to his
first two…it’ll probably be good enough…But then what?
Will we have forgotten how to govern
ourselves?” file:///C:/Users/dickstar/Downloads/Documents/PerfectPitch%20blog/the_nub.html
The UK Guardian’s Michael
Tomasky picks up on Hertzberg’s idea, seeing Bloomberg’s
victory more as a grudging coronation than
re-election: “New York City,
once
the
greatest
city
of
the
20th
century,
will
carry
on
for
the
foreseeable
future
being
the
greatest
city
of
the
15th.”
-
- -
Auld Lang Syne: One hates
to see the season end. But the finale had
a lot going for it, especially
if you were Yankee fan. SI’s Tom
Verducci put it this way:
“In Game
6 we (got)
the next best thing to a Game 7, in every way. Pedro pitching against
the
Yankees for the 40th time. Pettitte pitching in a postseason game for
the 40th
time. The World Series decided…at Yankee Stadium (old and new) for the
17th
time. It's like a great bedtime story to
a child. Tell me again, because it never
gets old.”
It was a heartbreaking bedtime story
for
Phillies fans, who got a taste of what Mets fans went through when
Pedro
pitched for their team. Tim McCarver
said at the start that Pedro had no fast ball.
And just before Hideki Matsui knocked in his third and fourth
runs, Joe
Buck said “Pedro’s not fooling Matsui.”
Shortly
before game 6 started, Fox
promoted two sitcoms, promising they would be on tonight.
Not a word about the possibility of a seventh
game.
Now the
hot-stove guessing game
can begin: Will or won’t the Yanks
re-sign Matsui? After Hideki’s
clutch WS performance, there’s no question
how most Yankee fans feel.
-
o
-
(The Nub is a team effort skippered by
Dick
Starkey. Comments
to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome, as are subscription requests.
Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
(Posted: 11/3/09)
Ballparks as
Bloomberg-Aided Business Centers
Stadium designers know that new
ballparks must be bigger
than the old to accommodate neither a larger playing field nor greater
seating
capacity. What teams want in their new
digs is a swath of additional commercial space.
That the restaurants, clothing stores, souvenir shops, etc. are
built-in
threats to local businesses is too bad: baseball has an
anti-communitarian
streak evident in many new-ballpark cities, but especially in New York.
We know that the Yankees, abetted by
Team Bloomberg, have
received $360 million in tax relief and subsidies as well as chunks of
precious
parkland for their new stadium. The Mets
completed a lesser deal with city but have also made out quite well on
the
taxpayers’ cuff. All this should be
taken into account as NYC voters go to the polls today.
The Voice’s Tom Robbins and Wayne
Barrett, the Times’s Jim
Dwyer and the Daily News’ Juan Gonzales and Errol Louis are among the
few
journalists who have kept the mayor’s record in perspective. Time constraints have made TV news people
less conscientious. Lingering in the TV
ballpark, our pitching for CNN last time prompted a couple of differing
e-mailbag at-bats:
“You are
certainly right about the need for an old fashioned,
which is to say, relatively objective news source, but CNN has not been
that
for years.” - Carol Ann
Rinzler, Manhattan
“That was
a good piece about CNN neutrality.” - Richard Bruner, Budapest
In truth, we based much of our CNN
assessment on its foreign
coverage, which may explain the disparity of opinion.
Down-the-middle hitting machine Ronald
Brownstein (National
Journal) summarizes in two crisp swings the major-party strategies as
the
political game heads into 2010:
“Democrats are wagering
that they can sell Americans on a sweeping and in
some ways unprecedented expansion of government's reach to confront
both…immediate …and… long-term challenges.”
“The
fundamental bet that Republicans are placing this year (is) that they
can regain
power by riding a public backlash against government overreach.”
Two
early
tests
today
of
how
the
strategy
is
working:
In
gov
elections
in
New
Jersey
and
Virginia,
polls
indicate
a
tie
-
Dem
Jon
Corzine
winning
in
NJ,
Repub
Bob
McDonnell
in
Virginia.
Both
franchises
are
sure
to
declare
overall
victory.
Margins may be the key to which
spin makes more sense.
- -
-
It’s Not Over Yet,
But…In retrospect, Charlie Manuel tipped us off to his
starting-pitcher
problems and the disadvantage under which the Phils were playing. His choice of Pedro Martinez to pitch the
second WS game said clearly he had lost confidence in Cole Hamels. Having no starter with “lights-out” potential
after Cliff Lee meant the Phils were overmatched against C.C. Sabathia,
A.J.
Burnett and Andy Pettitte. The team
could hit a ton, but so could the Yanks.
Victory for the NYYs was - is - therefore predictable. But
we’re not saying it here; at least, not this time.
Mariano Rivera was generous in
imparting his cut-fastball
“one pitch” secret the other day. The
Boston Herald’s Sean McAdam took down what he said:
“I
started throwing the cutter in 1997 and since then, it has been one
pitch, yes.
But it does a lot of things. It
doesn’t
go
in
the
same
direction
always,
and
it’s
not
always
in
the
same
spot.
“Before, I used to just try to go
inside, inside, inside and occasionally I went outside.
Now I use the whole plate. I use the outside
corner, the inside corner and up and down. When you make those
adjustments, the
hitters will tell you if you have to make any (further) adjustments…
But that’s
what I’ve done, I’m using the whole plate.”
Not exactly news, perhaps.
But when a great one talks about his craft, he or she is worth
quoting.
- o -
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey.
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