Monday, June 10, 2002
Baker's Dozen: The week in preview
By Jim Baker
Special to ESPN.com
1: Best Matchup of the Week
Arizona at New York Yankees: Monday through Wednesday
Was the 2001 World Series the "best ever," as many
have claimed? Whether it was or not, here's a chance
seven months later to relive it with many of the same
characters. Do you ever notice how stuff that is
classified as "the best ever" is usually not very old?
It's as though we can't stand the thought that maybe
our great grandparents witnessed something that
deserves that title.
2: The Finally! After All These Years We Finally Get to
See It! Matchup of the Week
Pittsburgh at Anaheim: Monday through Wednesday
I think I speak for most people when I say that my
nightly prayers as a child always included this
addendum, (usually right after "God Bless Mommy and
Daddy and all the ships at sea"): "Oh ... and please
God, make there be some way that the Angels could play
the Pirates. Please?"
3: The No Excuses This Time Matchup of the Week
Roger Clemens at Shea Stadium: Saturday
Baseball's longest-running unresolved feud will
finally have its day in court this week -- provided
Roger Clemens shows up for his appointment with
destiny. It's been nearly two years since he trepanned
Mike Piazza with a fastball and will, for the first
time since, have to bat against the Mets. Like a lot
of things that get tons of hype, (most Super Bowls, your senior prom) nothing will probably come of it.
Let's see if the Mets prove Dusty Baker right.
Responding to Clemens hitting Barry Bonds yesterday,
the Giants manager said, "In our league he might be
Roger the Dodger."
4: The All Florida, All the Time Matchup of the Week
Tampa Bay at Florida: Friday through Sunday
There is a young team called the D-Rays
Who rarely show up in the replays
And although they're trying
Would you, sir, be buying
If the franchise were auctioned on eBay?
5: The Ron LeFlore Memorial Matchup of the Week
Montreal at Detroit: Monday through Wednesday
No, he's not dead, but I didn't know how else to
phrase it. With these contrived interleague matchups,
there is often so little that links the teams to one
another that one can almost make a game out of trying
to find some bridge -- no matter how tenuous --
between the teams. This is the one I came up with for
this series. Perhaps you could do better. LeFlore
played brilliantly for the Tigers after his release
from prison, but they traded him just in time to
Montreal for Dan Schatzeder in 1979. It was they and
the White Sox who paid the freight on his quick
decline. (There were rumors he was older than his actual given age -- imagine that!)
6: The C.A.D. (Contraction Anxiety Disorder) Matchup of
the Week
Florida at Kansas City: Monday through Wednesday
Now that the Twins have dodged the reaper's scythe
(all cartoons of faux fuhrer Bud Selig should show him
dressed as Mr. Death), the dark spotlight now falls on
the Kansas City Royals as a possible victim of this
malignant malfeasance.
Here's a question: if the Royals were to be
contracted, what would become of Kaufmann Stadium?
Would Kansas City join the Pacific Coast League and
have the finest facility in all the minor leagues?
Has anyone taken the time to consider the ripple
effect of contraction on down the minor-league chain?
Not only would two major-league teams be lost, but 12 to 14 minor-league teams as well. Triple-A cities would be especially effected. Up to four
current Triple-A franchises might go away; two would be lost because they would no longer
have parent clubs and another two could become history
if the cities that lost a major-league franchise took up the Triple-A banner.
7: The Polarity of Managerial Playing Experience Matchup
of the Week
Toronto at Montreal: Friday through Sunday
Without anything close to an argument possible, Frank
Robinson of the Expos had the best playing career of
any current manager. On the opposite end of the
spectrum is the skipper of the Blue Jays, Carlos
Tosca, who never played a single game of professional
baseball. Let us distill the "who makes the best
manager?" down to this simple sentence: it takes all
kinds. To illustrate this, here are the career Bill
James Win Shares totals for all 30 current major-league managers. There are successful and unsuccessful
managers in every strata:
Frank Robinson, Expos: 519
Joe Torre, Yankees: 315
Don Baylor, Cubs: 262
Dusty Baker, Giants: 245
Hal McRae, Devil Rays: 230
Mike Hargrove, Orioles: 212
Bob Boone, Reds: 210
Larry Bowa, Phillies: 179
Tony Pena, Royals: 175
Lou Piniella, Mariners: 164
Mike Scioscia, Angels: 168
Bob Brenly, Diamondbacks: 93
Jerry Royster, Brewers: 93
Art Howe, A's: 84
Clint Hurdle, Rockies: 43
Bobby Valentine, Mets: 38
Lloyd McClendon, Pirates: 27
Jeff Torborg, Marlins: 25
Bruce Bochy, Padres: 22
Bobby Cox, Braves: 16
Ron Gardenhire, Twins: 13
Jerry Narron, Rangers: 13
Luis Pujols, Tigers: 12
Jim Tracy, Dodgers: 4
Tony La Russa, Cardinals: 3
Jerry Manuel, White Sox: 3
Charlie Manuel, Indians: 3
Jimy Williams, Astros: 0
Grady Little, Red Sox: never played in majors
Carlos Tosca, Blue Jays: never played professionally
8: The Old School Matchup of the Week
Pittsburgh at Cincinnati: Friday through Sunday
What -- you think I was going to say Detroit at
Arizona, maybe?
9: The Biggest Mismatchup of the Week
Detroit at Arizona: Friday though Sunday
Poor Detroit. With no natural interleague counterpart
to play on Natural Interleague Counterpart Weekend,
their lot in life is to be paired with the world
champion Diamondbacks, who also have no natural
interleague counterpart. And, if they thought hosting
the team with the worst road record in baseball was
tough (the Phillies, who swept them), now the Tigers have to
go on the road and flick sticks at Curt Schilling and
Randy Johnson. Has a baseball game ever been given a
line of -400? (In which a bettor had to lay down four
dollars to win one.) If so, it can't have happened
very much but it could happen this weekend in
Arizona.
10: The Not You Again Matchup of the Week
Chicago Cubs at Houston: Monday through Wednesday
While their National League brethren are traveling to
such far-flung destinations as Seattle, Minnesota and
Tampa Bay, the Cubs are returning to Houston for the
second time in the space of two weeks. I don't know
what they're paying the schedule maker these days, but
it can't be enough. What they are asking is
some hard work.
11: The Buy Us a New House Matchup of the Week
New York Yankees at New York Mets: Friday through
Sunday
Before leaving office, former New York City Mayor Rudy
Giuliani promised both the Yankees and the Mets new
stadia in which to ply their trade. This promise was
quickly rescinded by the new major who balked at the
$64 megagodzillion budget such incredible undertakings
would require (and that was just for the payoffs to
keep the project running smoothly).
Do you think these teams need new homes? My answer is a
rather predictable "no." But their homes could
certainly stand for some serious sprucing up. I
propose that the ballparks be kept in existence but
reworked considerably:
Yankee Stadium. That anyone would consider replacing
Yankee Stadium for even a moment is wrong on so many
levels I can't begin to address it. There exists,
under all that '70s reworking, a jewel. My proposal is
to renovate it once more and undo what was done 30
years ago. If you were a historical landmark and were
up for renovation, the last decade in which you'd want
it done was the '70s. This was a period in time when
everything that was old and cool was being given a
plastic remake. We've come a long way as a country in
this regard and the time to bring the new
preservation sensibility -- along with all the mod
cons -- to the big ball orchard in the Bronx, as Art
Rust used to call it, has arrived.
The place needs to be opened up again, don't you
think? That wall that stretches around the outfield
should come down, exposing the place to the elevated
trains once more. The concourses inside must be
redone. A lot of cosmetic changes can be made to the
exterior to make it feel right again (How about no
more white wash?). At the same time, the place is big
enough to accommodate the main need of a modern
ballpark: luxury boxes. Clearly there are talented
people out there who could make this all happen for a
fraction of the cost of a new stadium.
Shea Stadium. I warn you: do not wish away your
ballpark, for it is the repository of your memories
and once it is gone you will have less to go on when
conjuring images from your past. A building of this
magnitude should have a shelf life of more than 40
years. However, there is room for improvement. There
is a lot of room beneath the stands to play around
with. By reconfiguring those areas, Shea would lack
for nothing that a place like Minute Maid Park in
Houston has: museums, gift shops, restaurants, and
wide concourses with floors so clean you can eat from
them.
There now remain just two ballparks from this era and
we might want to try to save them for posterity's
sake. If somebody had put the wrecking ball to Fenway
and Wrigley in 1955, we wouldn't have them to cuddle
up to anymore, would we? Not that Shea is cuddly --
it's too big for that. But its size could save it.
There has always been a lot of wasted space in the
outfield (early renderings had configured it to be the
first "ashtray stadium" but the outfield area was
eventually left open). This could be utilized to house
more than five rows of rural high school football
field bleachers and a giant top hat with emerging
apple that looks very much like the papier mache
project of an over-ambitious fourth-grade class.
This is another stadium with plenty of room for the
dreaded luxury boxes that modern owners demand. Part
of me would like to see the Mets redo the stadium as
it once appeared: as a stylistic adjunct to the 1964
World's Fair. (The strange thing about Shea is that it
never really looked new. The lack of landscaping in
the open end of the park always made it look like an
incomplete construction site.) Failing that -- which
would be a pretty cool retro look, although recalling
a time nobody equates with the way ballparks should
look if they are to drip with faux nostalgia -- the
city could save 70 box cars full of money by
hanging a new ballpark on the existing superstructure
in Queens.
12: The Lonnie Smith Memorial Matchup of the Week
Atlanta at Minnesota: Monday through Wednesday
No, he's not dead either, but -- again -- what else
would you call it? This is so named in honor of the
man who, had he run the bases with a little more
acumen in Game 7 of the '91 entry between these
two teams, would be the only person in history to play
for four different World Champion franchises (he played for the '80 Phillies, '82 Cardinals and '85 Royals). If
you're gauging "best" World Series in terms of
closeness of games, this one gives last year's a run
for its money.
13: The On the Road Again -- Thank God -- Matchup of the
Week
Boston at Atlanta: Friday through Sunday
Check out ESPN Insider 
for the details on Boston's amazing road record.
Jim Baker's 'Baker's Dozen' column appears on Mondays during the baseball season. He also writes Monday through Friday for ESPN Insider.
