Bernie Williams was a great Yankee. For 16 years he played centerfield in the Bronx with dignity and professionalism. He was a pretty good player too. He appeared in 5 All Star games and is one of the most prolific post season performers in baseball history, lingering at or near the top of every major statistical category.
I remember Bernie's entire career from the debates about who the better Williams was (Gerald Williams was a Yankee prospect at the time Bernie came up) to marveling at the endless supply of big hits Bernie provided in the playoffs. I also remember the end of his career with the Yankees. I thought he lingered too long and should have retired a couple of year earlier than he did because he wasn't providing much value at the plate or in the field. I didn't care though. I was willing to endure an aging Yankee star as payment for what he provided us for those many years.
When I see stories like this, as a fan, I get upset. This story quotes current Yankee general manager Brian Cashman speaking about Bernie Williams negatively.
The rift between Williams and the team got personal on Friday night. Speaking at William Paterson University in New Jersey, general manager Brian Cashman said Williams spent too much time with his burgeoning music career "and that took away from his play" on the field. Cashman said Williams had a "terrible season" in 2005 and former manager Joe Torre was wrong to play Williams as often as he did in 2006 because better players were available.
My question is why? What good does it serve to hurt Bernie Williams, a man who served honorably at the pleasure of the Yankees for 16 years? What good does it serve to bash a player who not only peformed far above the average major leaguer, but was also an ambassador of the game and a classy guy? What good does it serve to bash a guy who was a key piece of 4 championship seasons? Doesn't Cashman have enough to worry about with pitchers and catchers around the corner and a new Field Marshal Steinbrenner at the helm? As a Yankee fan I would love to see him focus on what's important, the future of the New York Yankees, and let the fans worry about evaluating things that happened years ago.
• It sucks when your team loses to a team you know you should have beaten.
• It sucks when your team loses to a team you know you should have beaten when you work in an office surrounded by fans of that team.
After every Giant loss I'd heard about how they hated Eli "Fredo" Manning, about how they wanted to fire Tom Coughlin, about how Michael Strahan was a selfish jerk, blah blah blah.
I guess they don't hate Eli any more.
I'm looking forward to next year's 6-10 season so they can all start ripping their team again, but in the meantime I have to endure two weeks of National Public Radio, because there is no way I'm going to listen to Giant fans spending the rest of the month jerking each other off on WFAN. It's going to be bad enough getting hit with the spatter at work.
Let's say you run the Yankees and I run the Red Sox, and in the interest of putting aside our long-standing rivalry, we should make a fair trade that will make everybody happy.
How about you trade me 21-year-old right-hander Phil Hughes for 24-year-old left-hander Jon Lester.
Hughes, in 13 MLB starts, has a 4.46 ERA and a 1.28 WHIP, with 29 BB and 58 K in 72.2 IP; in the minors, a 2.09 ERA and a 0.86 WHIP with 66 BB and 311 Ks in 275 IP.
Lester, in 26 MLB starts, has a 4.68 ERA, 1.46 WHIP, 74 BB and 110 K in 144.1 IP; in the minors, a 3.33 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 203 BB and 446 K in 484 IP.
What? No deal?
OK. How about if Lester came with Coco Crisp, a 28-year-old center fielder who hit .268 with a .712 OPS last year (career .280, .738) and will make $4.75 million next year. Would that convince you to make the deal?
Oh wait - but you have to throw in 22-year-old Melky Cabrera, who hit .273 with a .718 OPS last year (career .280, .728) and makes $432,400. Does that make the deal better?
No? Sheesh. OK, how about if I also give you 22-year-old right-hander Justin Masterson (4.34 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 18 BB, 59 K in Double-A). But you have to also include 22-year-old right-hander Jeff Marquez (3.65 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, 44 BB, 94 K in Double-A).
Still won't pull the trigger? Fine. I'll throw in 23-year-old middle infielder Jed Lowrie (.300, .862 OPS in Triple-A).
What is wrong with you?
Alright, stop whining. Let's try a different deal. How about you give me Hughes, Cabrera and Marquez, and instead of Lester and Crisp, I'll give you Lowrie, Masterson and... (drumroll)... Jacoby Ellsbury! The 23-year-old center fielder hit .353/.394/.509 in 116 major league at-bats last year, and .314/.390/.426 over a three-year minor league career. No question he's a good young hitter... a good enough hitter to get me Hughes, wouldn't you say?
No?... you are impossible to deal with!
If the Twins don't think Hughes and Cabrera is enough for Johan Santana, that's fine. But how anyone can think that Lester/Crisp or just Ellsbury is a better offer just boggles my mind.
Baseball America graded out four offers for Santana and say either of the Red Sox offers is better than the Yankee offer. (The Mets offer comes out last, if only because all the players involved are so young that they're all gambles.) Obviously I know far less about baseball than the people at Baseball America. But on what planet is Hughes not worth more than Ellsbury or Lester+Crisp?
Are Masterson and Lowrie so much more valuable than Cabrera and Marquez that it makes up for the difference with Hughes?
Young pithers are a fragile commodity, I get that. The long list of superstars-to-be who never made it is long and sad. I'm sure you can find guys with minor league numbers as good or better than Hughes who never made it. But you can make that same argument about Lester or Masterson or any other young pitcher.
And I'm not trying to sell Cabrera as being on Ellsbury's level. (But surely he's worth more than Crisp!) But if you had Hughes, would you really trade him for Ellsbury straight up?
I'm not buying any of this. I think the Twins want Hughes, but they're also trying to get Ian Kennedy or somebody else out of the Yankees, and the Yankees are sticking to their initial offer. So what do you do if you're the Twins? Of course, you run to the Red Sox and Mets, say their offers are better, and hope the Yankees bite and put more on the table.
But Baseball America would trade Hughes and Melky for Lester and Crisp?
Who would'a thunk that Eli would be the only Manning playing in the conference championship game?
I guess Tony Romo's Hall of Fame induction ceremony will have to wait, although I don't agree with those who are blaming the loss on him - or Jessica Simpson (or her look-alike). Yes, he threw the INT that ended the game, but the Cowboys had plenty of chances to win this game. The Giants couldn't put the game away in the fourth quarter, having two three-and-outs. In the end, the Cowboys got the ball back with 1:50 on the clock, one time out and 48 yards to go for the game-winning touchdown. I thought for sure we were heading to Texas. But then the Cowboys did an even better job of imploding than the Giants did. Game over.
So don't blame Tony. It's unfair. They lost as a team, man.
As much as I would've liked to avenge our Week 13 loss to the Cowboys, I have to like our chances in Green Bay against the Giants a lot more than another trip to Dallas.
I'm preparing for an onslaught of Eli-Favre comparisons. They both went to school in Mississippi and they're both good ol' boys. Favre married his high school sweetheart; Manning is engaged to his college girlfriend. They'll try to make some kind of "Favre wasn't built in a day" type analogy to Eli. It's funny, when the Giants win everyone loves Eli, but when they lose, he's Fredo Corleone. That's the curse of being a Manning, or a Corleone for that matter. I'm sure Fredo would've found a nice job at his own pace if they'd left him alone, but instead they made him go into the family business.
After three ugly minutes, the Packers settled down and took care of business yesterday, sending a message with a 42-20 win over the Seahawks.
The Seahawks have a lot of ties to the Packers - coach Mike Holmgren, offensive coordinator Gil Haskell and quarterback Matt Hasselbeck - and if we hadn't knocked them out of the playoffs they'd be the team I'd be rooting for.
It was an ugly first three minutes. You could just sense the sportswriters were already trying to come up with their stories. Hm, should we say the Packers are rusty from their bye week? Or that they're a young team and couldn't handle the post-season pressure? Or maybe they weren't "battle-tested" because they played an easy schedule?
But after spotting them two touchdowns, the Pack roared back. Brett Favre stayed cool, Ryan Grant redeemed himself in a huge way, and Atari Bigby was flying around like a lunatic. It was a great game. Even a vintage Favre "what the hell is he doing?" pass - that stumbling, wobbling, no-look underhanded toss to Donald Lee.
Whoa, I see I haven't done a Theme Team since August. Let's get back on track with a team near and dear to my heart... the All-Butch Team.
You might think this is a team of all women's field hockey players. And you would be wrong. That's mean. Because there are some women who play field hockey who aren't butch at all. And some who very clearly could kick my ass. So as to not to offend either group, let's move on with the team, shall we?
The All-Butch Team
What is your name? Butch. What does it mean? I'm American, honey. Our names don't mean shit. -- Pulp Fiction
I thought I could field a team of just guys whose first name appears as "Butch" in Baseball Reference, but there's not enough of them for a full team -- there's only 16. So I also included guys who are listed as having the nickname "Butch," and a couple minor leaguers. As it was I could only find eight pitchers, including two from college teams and one had just one appearance in the minors.
Apparently if you want your kid to grow up to be a catcher, give him the nickname Butch. I could barely scrape together 25 players for a roster, and yet I found eight guys named Butch who were catchers. Go figure.
The other thing I learned from doing this list is if you name your son Elmer or Wallace or Clell, and then doubly screw him by giving him a middle name like Le Roy or McArthur or Lavern, you can pretty much guarantee your kid will either be beaten up a lot, or beat up a lot of other kids and thus get a nickname like Butch.
BATTERS:
C Butch Wynegar: Harold Delano Wynegar Jr. came up with the Twins, finishing second in the Rookie of the Year balloting as a 20-year-old catcher in '76 (.260 BA, .719 OPS), but to me he'll always be a Yankee. A switch-hitter who could work a walk but had absolutely no power -- his career slugging average (.347) is actually less than his career on-base percentage (.348). How is that possible? You need to have a lot of sacrifices. He had 58 career sacrifice bunts compared to 65 career home runs. That's pretty impressive. He's now the hitting coach for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, a team I suspect will have some very good bunters.
1B Butch Schmidt: Charles John Schmidt had four years in the bigs -- one game as a pitcher with the 1909 Highlanders, and three years as a first baseman with the Boston Braves. His best year came in 1914, helping to lead the "Miracle Braves" to an improbable comeback and World Series sweep. Schmidt hit .285 with a .350 OBP, which must have been pretty good, because he tied for 16th in the MVP voting. He apparently was a very good fielder.
2B Butch Kolloway: Donald Martin Kolloway also went by "Cab," which is funnier. But someone apparently called him Butch. Kolloway was pretty big for a 1940s second baseman (6'3", 200 pounds) and later played third and first, but played more than 600 of his 1,079 MLB games at second base. His best year was probably 1949, when he hit .292 -- a very empty .292 (.359 OBP, .355 SLG, 7 SB, 7 CS). But that same year he had 49 walks to just 26 strikeouts in 487 at-bats.
3B Butch Keltner: Kenneth Frederick Keltner -- I've always heard him referred to just as Ken, but hey, it says (Butch) next to his name on Baseball Reference, and we need players, so he's in. Keltner's last game was in 1950, so as fans who saw him play continue to die off, he'll probably be best remembered for the "Keltner List" created by Bill James. Looking at his numbers now, it's hard to believe anyone thought he should be in the Hall of Fame. I guess his best year was 1948, when he hit .297 (.395 OBP, .522 SLG) with 31 HR and 119 RBI. That was one of only two seasons where he had 100 RBIs, and one of three where he had more than 20 HRs. But he was a six-time All-Star and was a good fielder.
SS Butch Kirby: The only Butch I've found, minors or majors, to ever play any shortstop at all. In 289 minor league games, Kirby played 19 games at short, and that is apparently the Butch record. Sad, isn't it? His best year was '81, in the Rookie League for the Brewers; he hit .307 (.736 OPS). His career minor league numbers are atrocious (.246, .618) but I need a shortstop. Apparently there also was a professional bull rider named Butch Kirby in the 1980s; maybe he gave up baseball for rodeo?
LF Butch Nieman: Elmer Le Roy Nieman was an outfielder with the Boston Braves during World War II. His best year was probably his last one, when he hit .247 but with a .361 OBP and .478 SLG; he also had 14 HRs and 11 SBs, in just 247 ABs. If they had rotisserie baseball in '45 he would've been a great $1 player for somebody. When the war was over and the stars came back to the league, Nieman was sent back to the minors and never got another chance, even though he put up some Jack Cust-like numbers: he led the Western Association in HRs, RBIs and BBs for four straight years. Like many other Butches on this list, he also was a minor-league manager.
CF Butch Davis: Wallace McArthur Davis had a hell of a rookie year in '83, but then gave it all back the next season. Really! He had I think two of the most remarkable back-to-back years in MLB history: .344/.359/.508 in 122 AB, and then .147/.211/.224 in 116 AB. How can you be that good one year and that bad the next? After that, Davis would have to wait until '93 to get another chance, and it was pretty much right down the middle (.245/.273/.415). He's now a minor league instructor with the Baltimore Orioles, not the head coach of the University of North Carolina football team.
RF Butch Huskey: Robert Leon Huskey was aptly named -- they said he weighed 244 pounds but I think that was with only one foot on the scale. If your last name is Huskey you definitely don't want to get sent to fat camp, but that's what happened. At the time he was "a good 30 pounds" over 244. I remember in the early 1990s there was a big battle as to who would be the next great Met batter, Huskey or Carl Everett. Despite Butch's awesome name, I always rooted for Everett, because I have a soft spot for crazy people. Remember that famous Bob Murphy home run call when Everett hit one off the scoreboard at Shea? "Oh, how far will it go!" Anyway, I remember Huskey as a third baseman but the Mets gave up on that battle; he actually only had 64 games at third, compared to 342 in the outfield, 124 at first and 88 at DH, which was probably his best position. We'll stick him in right field, where he played the bulk (sorry) of his career. His best season was probably '97, when he hit .287 (.822 OPS) with 24 HR and 81 RBI in 471 AB.
DH Butch Hobson: Clell Lavern Hobson played for the Red Sox in the '70s; his best year was '77 (.265/.300/.489, 30 HR, 112 RBI). He was awful defensively and struck out a lot, but he could hit the long ball. He managed the Red Sox for three seasons, and then in the minors; unfortunately, you might remember him for getting arrested with cocaine while the manager of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons. But he's back in baseball now, managing an independent league team.
BENCH:
C Butch Henline: Walter John Henline hit .324 with a .407 OBP for the Phillies in 1923 -- 37 walks against 33 strikeouts, in 330 at-bats. He liked to put the ball in play. He only had 14 HRs that year, but actually, that tied him for 8th, and with 3 more dingers he would've been tied for 3rd. After his playing days were over he became an umpire -- in the minors from 1939 to 1944, and in the majors from 1945 to 1948.
C Butch Sutcliffe: This guy's real name was Charles Inigo Sutcliffe. Inigo, how cool is that? Sutcliffe had just 4 at-bats (1 hit, 2 walks, 2 RBIs!) in 4 games in 1938. He also had three appearances at catcher and made two errors, so maybe he wasn't a great glove man. He was yet another guy who played for the N.L. team in Boston, then known as the Bees.
Why do so many guys named Butch get turned into catchers? There's five others who didn't make the cut: Butch Biela, Butch Benton, Butch Garcia, Butch O'Donnell and Butch Rementer. Biela, as far as I can determine, is the only active Butch in professional baseball. The 18-year-old hit .302 with a .408 OBP in 106 at-bats for the Pirates' Rookie Ball team this year. Go Butch go!
1B/3B/OF Butch Alberts: Francis Burt Alberts went 5-for-18 (with a double) in his only MLB season, 1978 with Toronto. He was a star player in college (University of Cincinnati) and a pretty good player in the minors -- he led the Texas League in batting with a .342 batting average in 1975 -- but he never really got a chance in the majors. Maybe it was the glasses.
1B Butch Kaufman: Butch Kaufman put up some monster numbers for Ashland University in 2002, hitting .400 (.990 OPS) in 150 ABs. Not sure what happened to him since, but I'm sure he'd sign up for this team. So much Butchness!
IF Butch Bellenger: Bellenger was an infielder in the Pirates organization in '96 and '97, never getting above A-ball; his minor league career numbers: .229 BA, .268 OBP, .316 SLG. Not good. But I needed a utility infielder, so he's in.
OF Butch Mierkowicz: Edward Frank Mierkowicz also was known as Mouse, which is a funny nickname for a guy who was 6-foot-4 in 1945. He played in four seasons but had just 63 at-bats (.175 BA, .494 OPS). He did win a World Series with the Tigers in 1945, appearing in one game but not getting up to the plate.
OF Butch Sanicki: Edward Robert Sanicki was a Jersey boy -- he went to Clifton High School and then Seton Hall University. He played briefly for the Phillies in '49 and '51, getting only 20 plate appearances total, but that was enough to set a major league record. Sanicki went 5-for-17, but with 1 2B and 3 HRs for a ridiculous .882 slugging percentage and .558 isolated power; that's the highest career SLG and ISO of any player with at least 20 plate appearances. His 1.251 OPS is the second highest behind the immortal Joe Peitz (1.262). He later returned to Clifton High School, where he was a special education teacher for 30 years.
OF Butch Will: Robert Lee Will played six seasons, all with the Cubs; his only full season was 1960, when he hit .255 (.694 OPS) with 20 2B and 6 HR in 475 AB. Oddly enough, he had 9 triples that year, and none in his other five seasons. He also stole just two bases (and was caught 6 times) in his career; how the hell did he hit 9 triples in 1960?
SP Butch Wensloff: Charles William Wensloff had a big year as a rookie for the Yankees in 1943 (13-11, 2.54 ERA, 1.11 WHIP), but remember, all the star players were off winning the war. After that, Wensloff was drafted. He was back up again in '47 and had a decent year as a right-handed swingman (2.61 ERA, 1.22 WHIP in 5 starts, 6 relief appearances), pitched two scoreless relief innings to help the Yankees win the World Series, and then just one relief appearance in '48 and he was done.
SP Butch Henry: Floyd Bluford Henry was a left-handed pitcher in the 1990s; he played for six teams in a seven-year career. I remember him as a reliever for some reason, but he actually had more starts (91) than relief appearances (57). In fact, there was only one year where he was mostly a reliever, in '97, and even that year he had 5 starts. Every other year more than half his appearances were as a starter. Anyway, Henry's best season was '94, when he went 8-3 with 1 SV in 15 starts and 9 relief appearances; he had a 2.43 ERA and a 1.09 WHIP. He's now the manager of the El Paso Diablos.
SP Butch Sanders: Roy Garvin Sanders also went by the nickname Pepe. That's a combination you don't see a lot, "Call me Butch or Pepe." Anyway, the right-hander had a pretty good year in 1918 for the Pirates, going 7-9 with 1 SV (but a 2.60 ERA and 1.20 WHIP) in 14 starts and 14 relief appearances; his only other year in the bigs was with the Reds in 1917, when he went 0-1 in two starts (7 ER, 12 H, 16 BB in 14.0 IP -- ouch!)
SP Butch Edge: Claude Lee Edge was a right-handed starter with the Blue Jays in '79; he spent about six weeks in the majors and got nine starts, going 3-4. And the question is, how did he win three games? (5.23 ERA, 1.63 WHIP, 24 BB, 19 K in 51.2 IP) I think the coolest thing about him, other than his name of course, is that his Baseball-Reference page is sponsored by Edge Embossing. If I need any microfabrication integration, they are definitely getting a call from me.
BULLPEN:
RP Butch Metzger: Clarence Edward Metzger actually finished his career with the Mets. How cool is that? Considering the '78 Mets finished in dead last, do you think the front office was like, "What the hell, Metzger, Mets, maybe it will get us some headlines." The right-hander actually did have one really great year - he won the Rookie of the Year Award in '76, going 11-4 with 16 saves (2.92 ERA, 1.39 WHIP) in 77 games. That was pretty much it. He had 140 walks in 293.1 career innings, which isn't good.
RP Butch Baccala: Here's a mystery. Butch Baccala pitched just one game for the Low-A Phillies in 1983; he gave up 3 earned runs on 2 hits, 3 walks and 1 wild pitch in 3 innings. But he also struck out 6 guys. And then that's it... he's never heard from again. Did some lucky fan win a chance to pitch a few innings? Apparently he's now a scout for the Reds.
RP Butch Pucetas: This sounds like the name of a porn star... hard-core lesbian porn I guess. "And starring... Wendy 'Butch' Pucetas as the prison warden." Pucetas is a reliever at Furman College; he gave up 12 earned runs on 20 hits and 7 walks in 14.0 innings in 2007.
RP Butch Mills: This guy pitched in 11 games for the University of Maryland (Eastern Shore) in 2005, going 0-1 with a 13.80 ERA and a 2.93 WHIP. That's 23 ER, 25 H and 19 BB in 15.0 IP. Wow. Hey, I'm desperate for arms.
So, that's it, the All-Butch Team. I have to say it's not a very strong team. We only have eight pitchers and half of them suck. The offense isn't too good either. Well, maybe we won't win a lot of games, but at least we'll all know what to call each other.
SEATTLE - As the Seahawks ran back their second fourth quarter interception for the coup d' grace touchdown, Clinton Portis stared up at the scoreboard at what would be the final score: 35-14.
"Twenty-one points," he said. "What a huge F-U from Sean Taylor."
Yes, just as the Redskins credited Taylor with four straight wins to propel them to the post-season, they also blamed him for their loss last night to the Seahawks.
Reached for comment in Heaven, Taylor's immortal soul just shrugged.
"Truthfully, up here? Football ain't no big thing," Taylor said, strumming a harp and adjusting his halo. "Actually I'd totally forgotten about the game. I was just chilling with Tupac and Mozart, smoking some blunts, and Mo was like, 'Yo, click over to the football game.'
"It was 13-0 and I was like, 'I can't be having this.' So I helped out a little, gave them two touchdowns in like two minutes, and set up Shaun (Suisham) for the game-winning figgie. I can't help it if he can't hit one from 30 yards out, man. I'm just a new angel up here, I don't have that kind of juice yet. Now, Moses? Three points, for sure. But he's more of a baseball fan."
