Can baseball make the #AllStarGame better, for #Cardinals fans and #MLB fans?

I'd like to think so. As a Cardinals fan, I'm loving the idea that Adam Wainwright is starting, lamenting that fact that Yadier Molina is missing to injury, and further lamenting the fact that, due to injury, Michael Wacha, who had a shot a month ago, won't be there.

As a general baseball fan, I'm definitely lamenting that Waino isn't dueling against Masahiro Tanaka due to his own injury.

First, let's start with the most obvious thing — getting rid of Bud Selig's idea that the All-Star Game should be used to determine home-team advantage in the World Series. With 15-team leagues and 5-team divisions theoretically allowing for more balanced schedules, and requiring year-round interleague play, the league champion with the best record should get World Series home advantage, pure and simple. I mean, the NBA and NHL don't use their All-Star games this way.

Second, let's play this on a better night. I'm not sure about the NHL, because I don't really follow hockey, but I know that the NBA brings the starts out on a Sunday night, not a Tuesday.

So, here we go.

MLB teams' ASG break day becomes Friday, not Sunday. In addition, we have, if not 1 p.m., 3 p.m. start times for all games. That lets the Futures game be played Friday night without competition. 

Our All-Star extravaganza then gets started on Saturday. Home Run Derby and/or whatever else we decide is needed here. (More on that in a minute.)

Then, the All-Star Game itself plays on Sunday night, not Tuesday night. It's the climax of a weekend. And, it starts a half-hour, or an hour, earlier, just like the NBA does with weekend playoff games on TV.

And, to seal it off, and give non-All Star players an extra day of rest, as well as All Star nominees, scrounge an off day from elsewhere in the schedule to make Monday a day off. (That's per what the ASG used to be like, until the days off ran through Thursday, which is too much lull, IMO.)

And, find something else baseball-related to do on Monday in the host city for people wanting a total baseball fix.

How about an old-timers All-Star game? Selig could name captains/managers for each team. Eligible players would be retired three years, a little less severe than with Hall of Fame eligibility. We could either have the two managers draft, or have fan votes. In that case, the league in which a player played the most would be his league for voting purposes. Or we could have managers draft, but still do it as a league-vs-league competition.  Make it seven innings, with no pitcher throwing more than one inning and no position player playing for more than one time through the batting order. (DHs would be replaced by other DHs, in a rare time I'd support a DH game.)

We could have classic older captains in Henry Aaron vs Willie Mays, or somewhat younger ones, and league-separated, too, in Ozzie Smith vs. Cal Ripken.

Get rid of the All-Star Softball Clash, or, if you insist on keeping it, shove it into some dark corner. Does the NBA have celebrity 3-on-3 or H-O-R-S-E? Uhh, no! So, this would replace that.

You'd also have veterans available for autographs as they chose, with something like this.

I mean, I'm just scratching the surface of good ways, not dumb ways, Bud could make the All-Star break better.

Looking at Albert Pujols' long-term future — he could be an all-time leader

Now that Pujols appears to be over most of his plantar fasciitis problems, and hitting like something near the 2011 version of Pujols (sorry, Arte Moreno and Mike Scioscia, you're not getting the 2008 version or whatever back), where will he wind up in terms of career numbers? I'm noting that, with Josh Hamilton back by the end of this month, and hopefully batting reasonably well for the 3.5 years he has remaining with the Haloes, and Mike Trout there for years to come, this is based on a modest-to-moderate normal career decline arc through 2016, gaining some speed in 2017-2018, and arcing downward more for his last three seasons, albeit offset by playing more at DH.

So, here's some tentative predictions as to where he'll finish on some counting, and sabermetric, numbers in relation to Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez and others, whether great classic figures of the past or people with some "help" in more recent years.

That includes noting that he has an outside shot at becoming the all-time leader on at least one counting stat.

First, slugging percentage. Pujols is currently seventh. I expect him to fall no lower than No. 11, staying ahead of current No. 12, Miguel Cabrera, and possibly just to ninth, ahead of current No. 10 Joe DiMaggio. That would still leave him above the majority of people on the list above.

Park-adjusted OPS+ is a good all-around measure of a player. Pujols is currently 10th, at 165. Aaron and DiMaggio are among a group tied for 22nd at 155. Cabrera and Joey Votto are among those tied for 25th, one point lower. Ed Dehalanty is 30th at 152. I certainly don't see Pujols going lower than that.

Next? Total bases, where Pujols is No. 50, with just over 4,450. A strong, but not overly aggressive prediction of 1,950 for the rest of his career gives him 6,400, behind only Aaron. Even a conservative estimate of 1,680, or 225 per year, which he's easily done every non-injury year, still puts him ahead of Musial in the No. 2 slot. (And yes, Stan Musial is No. 2 in career total bases; I just wish more semi-casual, but semi-serious, baseball fans would see this and recognize just how damned good he was.)

In RBIs, Pujols is 49th. He's 773 behind Aaron, 690 behind Ruth and 651 551 behind No. 3 Cap Anson. An output of 90 RBIs per season for the rest of this year and the next 7 full seasons left on his contract would put him past Ruth.  With 85 or so ribbies, he's past Anson, at least. We'll put him there, with a shot at Ruth. He can get just under 70 per year and pass Bonds into No. 4, which seems it should be no problem. (Per the commenter, thanks for the catch on the math on Anson. It still will be somewhat of a sled to catch Anson.)

And, finally, Pujols has a semi-reasonable shot at becoming the career leader on one list. That's if he can get about 430 more total extra base hits.

As of early May, he was 25th on the career list, 428 behind Aaron and 391 behind Bonds. If he has 58 extra base hits the rest of this year, for 76 on the season, that leaves 360 in the next seven years. Just 52 extra-base hits a year puts him past Aaron.

Possible? Yes, but not easy. For obvious reasons, I'm not going to look at Bonds.

A few others:
Aaron had 318 extra base hits his last seven years
Musial: 291
Mays: 275
Ruth (not counting his partial year in 1935): 495.

However, especially with not counting 1935, Ruth's career ended three years earlier than those other gents. For his last four full seasons, he had 240 extra-base hits. But, 47 a year over three more extrapolated years would put him at the 380 mark.

So, it's possible. And, just 46 extra-base hits per year after this year puts him after Bonds.

Baseball fans, where were you on Aaron-watch 40 years ago?

Hank Aaron, April 8, 1974.

April 8, 1975 was when Hank Aaron passed Babe Ruth with homer 715, and became the new all-time home run champion.

And now, 40 years later, it's time for reminiscing.

First, on the personal side. People under 40 aren't familiar with what sports coverage was like before the proliferation of sports-specific cable channels. WGN, WTBS, and KTLA in Los Angeles were some sort of "superstations," but none of them yet had true nationwide reach.

Growing up in western New Mexico, we got KTLA as part of our basic (there was no premium) cable package, in part because the Albuquerque Dukes were the L.A. Dodgers' AAA farm club. (I still can't get used to the name of the new team, the Albuquerque Isotopes.)  So, I heard Vin Scully on Dodgers games, as that was their home TV station. And, on some nights, all the way in Gallup, N.M., this Cards fan could pick up KMOX, a radio superstation, and hear the gravelly voice of Jack Buck calling Redbirds games.

Otherwise, you watched NBC for your national games of the week on Monday night; NBC had junked Saturday baseball and did only Monday night games, until it and ABC split rights in 1976 and NBC moved to Saturdays.

And fortunately for all of us, including the gracious-in-infamy table-setting pitcher, Al Downing, that game was on NBC on Monday night.



And, we get Curt Gowdy, not as gravelly as Buck, but enough. (I'm old enough to remember a fair chunk of Gowdy's broadcasting, and not just MLB. No, he wasn't Vin Scully. But, he wasn't as bad as some people make him out to be.)

I was 10 years old, and already then, an avid baseball fan in general, and Cards' fan above all, then a Dodgers fan of sorts after that.

Listening to different "calls" of the game, I also forgot that the Dodgers actually tried 1986 World Series goat Bill Buckner in the outfield; he was the left fielder who watched the ball go out. (And, he was kind of crappy as a defensive outfielder way back then.) And, Tom House, in the Braves' bullpen, had a magic glove, for a magic moment.

For additional calls? You can hear Scully, since he was the Dodgers' guy, and Milo Hamilton, the Braves' broadcaster, as well as Gowdy:



As for Aaron? As the AP story and many others note, he was relieved rather than jubilant. A boatload of racist hate mail had accumulated ever since he ended 1973 with 713 home runs. The two white fans who ran on the field during his home run trot certainly didn't help his nerves, or the moment in general.

Per this piece:

“If I were a white man, all America would be proud of me,” Aaron was quoted as saying. “But I’m black. You have to be black in America to know how sick some people are. I’ve always thought racism a problem, even with as much progress as America has made.”

Sadly, he was right then. Sadly, there's still a fair amount of rightness in those words 40 years later.

It seems 40 years is about right for such reminiscing, as it was for Apollo 11. You knew that everybody was aging enough that waiting until the 50th was too long. But, on the other hand, the 25th might seem too soon. With Apollo, there was the risk of it being triumphalist, coming soon after the downfall of the Soviet Union.

With Aaron, there was the risk that we didn't yet know how hard it might be to pass him. And, speaking of ...

Not only did Aaron become the new home run champion 40 years ago, he still is, in my book.

Sorry, Barry Bonds, you're not. And, Father Time is making sure Alex Rodriguez won't pass either of you. As for you ESPN writers who claim that the "greenies" Aaron may have taken can add just as much to one's batting as the best steroids? Sorry, Jim Bouton has already emphatically said you're wrong.

To his eternal credit ... Bouton not only disagreed, but got it exactly right. Some day, he says in the interview, baseball will have to reckon with years and years of records that will be artificially inflated, distorted beyond all measure, by the effects of a drug that lets you keep working out when the guys next to you – or before you, chronologically – have to drop the barbell. It was Bouton, after all, who had written in the eternal Ball Four that if a pitcher could take a pill that guaranteed him a) 20 wins and b) that he’d die five years sooner, he would’ve swallowed it before you finished that “b)” part.

Aaron himself was ... circumspect seven years ago, but it's clear that he's not totally on board with Bonds' claims, either. (And, while it's an overrated stat of the past, Aaron is still the all-time RBI leader.) And, a favorite player of mine, and presumed non-roider? Albert Pujols is likely also to fall short, though he may nick the 700 ticker tape before moving off the field.

And, he's not alone. Per this story, other players, like Ken Singleton, still consider Hank the champ.

It's hard comparing eras, and comparing hypotheticals, too. Would Ruth still be the all-time leader if he hadn't started his career as a pitcher? Would Ted Williams have passed Ruth before Aaron did, if not for three full years, and most of two others, of military duty in two wars? I'll put at least 50-50 odds if not better on a "yes" on that. On the other hand, without playing in The House that Ruth Built and Fenway, would their stats be different? What about Willie Mays missing all of one year and most of another in the military? I'll give you 50-50 on that, too, or near to it. Or Mickey Mantle having good bones and knees? I'll say "possible," while noting we're in a wider territory of hypotheticals now. (That said, Teddy Ballgame had his own bits of fragility; no guaranteeing he would have held up for 22 years.)

Others?

Sadaharu Oh, with his 868 homers and all? He had a nice passing of Aaron, but he never made that claim himself to be the greatest home run masher ever. Josh Gibson? Great player. Did he hit 800 HRs of the wildest of tales or not? Not in official games, to be sure; we do know that his 80-HR season included barnstorming games and more, and even then may be a myth. We do know that it was against outclassed competition, because progenitors of the racists who sent Aaron death threats wouldn't let him play in the major leagues.

Unfortunately, this is all part of the 40 years of reflection, as well. So is the diminishing number of American blacks playing baseball, though it continues to draw Hispanics, including Caribbean blacks and browns, and Asians, and a few Europeans, even. With all that, even if it's not America's game, anymore, it's still all-American in its own way.

Now, if umps would only enforce 20-second pitch counts. That said, the record-setter game, a 7-4 Braves win, clocked at 2:27, while the Cardinals' April 6, 2014 2-1 loss to the Pirates, with about the same amount of pitching changes, but a lower score, came in at 2:29.

Albert Pujols shows how to deal with explicit steroid rumors

First, let me stipulate that I think a lot of MLB writers who accuse other writers of being the "steroid morality police" or whatever are full of it.

Their claims that steroids are no more game-changing than amphetamines, the "greenies" of baseball's 60s and 70s, have been refuted by none other than Jim Bouton, who of course played at the height of that era.

Second, I believe that such protestations are in part a smoke screen for their true agenda, which is a "Big Hall" Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

That said, back to the header.

Jack Clark, a few months back, on a St. Louis talk radio station, shot his mouth off about how he believed Albert Pujols had been taking steroids, and how he had word-of-mouth comment to that effect.

Clark has brought Pujols’ situation up at least twice already on the air. The first time, after Slaten said last Friday that he long has believed that Pujols “has been a juicer,” Clark jumped in before Slaten finished his thought and said, “I know for a fact he was. The trainer that worked with him, threw him batting practice from Kansas City, that worked him out every day, basically told me that’s what he did.”

Clark then talked about a conversation he had about a dozen years ago with Mihlfeld, who has worked as a conditioner with several major-league organizations. (Both men were with the Dodgers then, and Pujols was early in his career.)

Mihlfeld “had told me what he was doing with ‘Poolie’ — threw him batting practice, worked him out, shot him up, all that stuff,” Clark said on the air.

Oops.

So, Pujols sued him. (The radio station smartly apologized before a suit could be filed against it, and fired Clark. His co-host, Kevin Slaton, has a long St. Louis history of jerkery.)

And, now?

Clark has issued a public retraction.

Per the story, there's this part, which also goes to Clark's credibility, or something:

In October, Pujols sued Clark in St. Louis County over the comments Clark made during an August broadcast of his local sports talk radio show, “The King and The Ripper.” The program, which aired on WGNU (920 AM), has since been canceled.

Well, out of work, he was even more worried about finances, I'm sure.

That said, most steroid accusations are just a touch more subtle than Jack Clark's. Even Murray Chass' "bacne" comments about Mike Piazza probably don't translate to possible legal liability.

And, some of the rumors are around because circumstantial evidence seems to support them.

I mean, nobody looked at Hank Aaron at the age of 36 and said, "Hey, his head is getting bigger" (that's you, Barry Bonds) or "How is he hitting so many homers at his age?"

That said, while Aaron, unlike Bonds, had no unusually late peak, he did have an unusually long continued period of excellence. Everybody who knows much about him passing Babe Ruth knows he never hit more than 47 homers in a year. He also, after his rookie season, never hit less than 24 until he turned 40, and only twice hit under 30 after his age-22 season until 40.

I'm not saying anything other than "genes" or whatever. It's still interesting.

The baseball Hall of Fame and morals clause hypocrisy

I recently blogged about how I would like for Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and other presumed top steroiders (can anybody think of other pitchers?) like Rafael Palmeiro and Gary Sheffield to have, if not a "confession" in a moral sense, an "owning up" in an investigative sense as to just what they used, how much, and an estimate of how much it helped them.

At the same time, I noted that there were problems, as well as outright hypocrisy, with the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame's moral character clause for players. (And executives, we should probably add, on the hypocrisy side.)

here's a few reasons for that.

The first is that the MLB Hall of Fame, among major sports halls in the US, is the only one with a morals clause.

Alex Karras and Paul Hornung are in the NFL Hall after a year's suspension for betting on games, for example.

Second, there's plenty of shady characters in the MLB Hall as is. Racists. People besides Pete Rose, who allegedly bet on games, even besides Shoeless Joe Jackson who allegedly threw at least one game.

Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker allegedly agreed to throw a game, with betting on it, at the end of the 1926 season. Commissioner Landis found out, and whitewashed it.

There's probably other problematic bettors in MLB's history. Doorknob knows there's enough other racists.

Third, per the "greenies" (and even steroid precursors) of the past, performance enhancement via chemistry isn't totally new. And, who knows how often Hank Aaron or Willie Mays used? We know that Mickey Mantle may have gotten early versions of steroids, even, from Dr. Max Jacobsen, JFK's quack doctor. Nor, whether with illegal corked bats by Babe Ruth, illegal spitballs by Gaylord Perry, or illegal scuff balls by Don Sutton, is performance enhancement via physics.

(I've blogged in more depth before about the steroids vs. other cheating.)

In short, just as a website like Baseball-Reference makes sabermetric adjustments for different ballparks, different eras, and so forth, I would like more information so we can make a sabermetric adjustment for steroids and human growth hormone, and anything else that was in the "cream" and "clear" that Bonds got from  BALCO. No, it won't be a perfect adjustment, but, it would be some adjustment.

I've blogged about the steroids-and-sabremetrics adjustments before, but, a book I just read called "Cooperstown Confessional" got me to thinking specifically about the morals clause issue.

(Update, Aug. 17: That said, former major leaguer Doug Glanville has a very interesting NYT column saying that, in terms of general public relations for Major League Baseball, today's roiders may be more of a potential problem than the Cobbs and other racists of long ago and the Pete Rose of not so long ago. Glanville was stimulated to ask if public tolerance might be finite, with Melky Cabrera's 50-game PED suspension.)

Meanwhile, speaking of sabermetric adjustments, here's my blog post about some of the pitchers I would vote out of the HOF on player quality grounds. And, here's my thoughts on some batters I'd vote back out.

And, click the  "MLB Hall of Fame" tag for more on other candidates on this year's ballot and my thoughts.

#Pujols, Bonds and the record books

Now that Albert Pujols has agreed to sign with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and Ticket Turnstiles, what does this mean for the possibility of him chasing down Barry Bonds' 762 career home runs or other records?

First, a glance at Pujols' stats in the biggest counting and sabermetric areas, outside WAR. Apologies for the imperfect lineup of the columns. Couldn't quite get what I wanted from Baseball-Reference, but it should work well enough for our purposes.

PA ▴	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI						OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+

7433

6312

1291

2073

455

15

445

1329

.328

.420

.617

1.037

Second, the big question No. 1: Was Pujols' 2011 season an immediate sign of things to come, or was it, as I say, an outlier for a few years still, from a mix of nagging injuries and him "pressing" because of contract issues (despite his denial) and a newish batting roster with the likes of Lance Berkman and Allan Craig, and also the absence of Adam Wainwright?

I say it was more him "pressing."

In fact, even if the Angels' lineup isn't perfect, I wouldn't be surprised for Pujols to personally bounce back and post a 7 WAR year next year. And maybe more after that.

Here's part of why: park factor.

Per ESPN, before 2010, Angels Stadium was moderately a hitters' park for the second half of the 2000s decade. New Busch, for its full existence from 2006 on, has been a pitchers' park.

The biggest question, of course, is can Pujols catch Bonds? And, I say: It's possible. Details on that and more below the fold.

Reading about Willie, and Mickey ... and the Hammer

Sorry, I've not come across a Duke Snider biography.

That said, I have recently read new biographies of (from oldest to newest) Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle and Henry Aaron.

Overall, from oldest to newest, they descended from best to worst.

On Amazon, I gave the Mays bio five stars, the Mantle one four, and the Aaron one, "The Last Hero," three.

From: "Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend"

I feel a bit of sadness about Willie, having read this book, the same sadness I had as a 9-year-old in 1973, watching him stumble when rounding second, trying to go from first to third on a single, in the 1973 World Series, and having to crawl back to second.

Whether due more to innate personality tendencies, his own reactions to segregation in his native Alabama in general, or associated with baseball, his family of origin, or a combination of this and more, it's sad that he doesn't open up even more.

And while I, being Caucasian, am in no position to judge Willie on his activism in civil rights, and agree with him that we don't all have the same temperament, Hirsch does show how Robinson and Aaron could wish so hard for more from him and be frustrated he didn't give that. ...

But, the not opening up is itself part of Mays. Hirsch also does a good job of showing how Mays, in his own quiet way, refuted or rejected various stereotypes.

From "The Last Boy" review:

Specifically, the one major new thing in this bio — Mantle's childhood sexual abuse suffering — is exactly what (Mantle hagiographers) most object to, and what I find one of the strengths of the book. That said, because Leavy chooses NOT to write a more traditional, fully chronological biography, we don't get this information until near the end of the book. Too close to the end, in my opinion; Leavy, without a chronological style, could still have introduced it near the start of Mantle's post-playing life, rather than when the book is 90 percent done. And then, she could have built on it more, more thoroughly interweaving it with his womanizing and his alcoholism.

From "The Last Hero" review, talking about Howard Bryant's authorial style:

Third, is the "Henry" style. Howard Bryant, serious baseball fans know Aaron went by "Henry" and not "Hank." To call everybody else by last name, but throughout the whole book, call Aaron "Henry," "Henry," "Henry" became annoying. It then rose to irritating, and even a bit beyond that.

Fourth, if you're going to do that, apply it similarly to other ballplayers. Calling Dick Allen "Richie"? MAJOR faux pas.

Fifth, why is he "The Last Hero"? Yes, publishers often have the final say on book titles, but I suspect this one came from Bryant. Is it because he got the home run record without roiding? Is it because he was the last player from the "semi-pioneering" age of African-American ballplayers? We're never clearly told.

Anyway, even Bryant's bio is worth a read.

The latest on Pujols-Cardinals talks

How much are St. Louis Cardinals management negotiations with Albert Pujols heating up and how serious is it getting? No detailed word, but Cards writers with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch are split on deal chances, though none is hugely pessimistic.

That said, reportedly, Alex Rodriguez type "historical bonuses" could help. Given no Cards-only player has ever hit 500 HRs, and nobody has ever hit 600 in a Redbird uniform, and Lou Brock was the last to 3,000 hits, there's some angles here.

Over six years, barring injury or rapid decline, Pujols will surpass 600 HRs and 3,000 hits, and will easily pass the 1,500 mark in both runs scored and RBIs.

Given that he would be only the third "clean" 600/3,000 player, after Willie Mays and Henry Aaron (making assumptions of some sort about all three), there would be some definite marketing and tie-in dollars.

Of course, just as in A-Rod's case, the players' union would have to sign off on any such contract.

Stay tuned.

Jason Whitlock plays race card on Bonds vs. Alomar

Whitlock is often a very good sports columnist and sometimes a great, great one. Plus, he usually doesn't do this, and has even criticized other black columnists over it.

So, that's why I was a bit shocked to hear him say the targeting of Barry Bonds was all about Bonds' skin color.

Of course, the only way he can do this is by claming Hank Aaron basically "doesn't count."

And, he tries to have his cake (of Bonds targeted for his race) and eat it too (re his previous criticism of other black columnists):

I'm not suggesting a colossal, racist conspiracy. I'm saying it's easy for any of us to fall victim to our biases if our thoughts are rarely questioned by people who look, think and experience life different from us.

Well, that knife cuts both ways.

That includes your own allegations that Bonds is stereotyped more on personality (the angry black man) than skin color. That's how you dismiss Aaron as "not counting," since he was the non-stereotypical non-angry black man.

That all said, since we’re talking about A-Rod vs. Bonds:

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Barry Bonds Alex Rodriguez

Selig could re-enthrone Aaron and suspend A-Roid

Steroids are supposed to shrink a man’s cojones, so where and when did Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig grow a new pair over steroids issues?

Suspending Alex Rodriguez is purely a PR ploy, unless it’s for an extended length of time.

Re-titling Hank Aaron as the home run king? In a game where stats are king, a significant move.

That said, don’t expect action on this item unless Bonds is convicted in his perjury trial, IMO.

And, that said, on A-Roid, a suspension of sufficient length could keep HIM from passing not only Bonds, but Aaron.

That all said, since we’re talking about A-Rod and Bonds vs. Aaron:

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Which player do you dislike more?

Barry Bonds Alex Rodriguez