MUST BE DREAMING: TEMPLE IS 9-2?
The New York Times is doing great reporting on the business of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, finding lawyers -- presumeably lawyers who are Yankees fans, given the latest -- willing to put themselves in contempt of court by revealing names on the list of 104 players who tested positive in 2003 as part of an anonymous (ha) program that was a precursor to the current testing scheme. Now we know that Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz were on the list. Stunned and amazed are we.
So the names dribble out now, every couple of months. How many are left? Sing it with me: "Ninety-eight bottles of pee on the wall, 98 bottles of pee..."
There are people -- you know, actual thinking people -- who now believe that the thing to do it just release the rest of the names and be done with it. This is wrong on about a million levels (and, at the very least, on 98). You design a program. You promise the players anonymity. You bless that promise with the sanctity of a labor-management agreement. Then the government seizes the list before it is destroyed, and then the union goes to court to try to get the list back. That is why certain lawyers have access to it -- because the case is now before a Federal appeals court in California, and the list is under seal there.
But, to solve a perceived public relations problem, the solution is to violate the pledge of anonymity to the players who have not yet been outed? Because you don't like the size of the type used in the headlines, you are going to throw away the last, tattered shred of integrity remaining in this process? Because lawyers are willing to potentially submit themselves to court sanctions, if caught, you are going to identify the overwhelming majority of players who have not been outed, players who were promised that this could never happen?
And it is only public relations. People who want the list released act as if this settles the matter and somehow allows baseball to wash its hands of its past. This is so intellectually dishonest as to be laughable. They caught about 100 players after they told them there would be testing. How many hundreds more stopped using whatever they were using when told what was coming? Nobody -- nobody -- believes that only 104 players were using -- but that is the predicate that people are proposing.
You cannot just make this go away. And based upon the reaction of the people in the seats, it isn't necessary. People get it -- they're not stupid. They have made their peace with this mess. They see it for what it was and they still love Big Papi.
I wanted Roy Halladay. You wanted Roy Halladay. Some people said they didn't care what it took to get him. But, well, come on. There had to be some limit, right?
Now it will be Cliff Lee and right-handed bat Ben Francisco, in exchange for Carlos Carrasco, Jason Knapp, Lou Marson and Jason Donald. Lee is not Halladay. Carrasco & Co. are not Kyle Drabek, Jay Happ and Dominic Brown. These are both true facts. The Phillies and their rookie GM, Ruben Amaro Jr., played this right.
Long-term, we all can agree that the Phils are in better shape than if they had traded Drabek and Brown as part of the package to get Halladay. That isn't to say that Carrasco won't be useful and that Knapp -- a big kid with a huge fastball -- won't end up being very, very good. This wasn't theft. The Phillies did give up four players who could very well end up being major-league contributors. But they kept their big pieces -- Drabek, Brown and Michael Taylor. Again, long-term, this is clearly a win.
Short-term -- ignoring Francisco, a need -- we can boil everything down to this question: which would you rather have in October, Halladay alone or the combination of Lee and Happ?
Let's take an opening-round series against San Francisco as one example. In Game 1, you would have Tim Lincecum against either Lee or Halladay. Neither would have a clear-cut advantage over the other. If each man pitched to expectations, the game likely would be decided in the bullpen -- Halladay or Lee, doesn't matter. Now, go to Game 4. In one case, if they trade for Halladay, it is Moyer/Martinez/Lopez vs. whatever able-bodied guy the Giants can find (remember, Randy Johnson is on the 60-day DL, scrambling everything). Again, you are likely looking at a game decided in the bullpen. In the other case, with the Lee trade, you still have Happ and you suddenly have a clear advantage in Game 4.
Again, if you want to argue that Lee isn't Halladay, that's fair. But the differences are incremental, not enormous. The fact that you get to keep Happ turns incremental into something even smaller, and maybe shrinks the difference to nothing. Again, that's in the short-term.
Now, if Halladay ends up in Boston, the conversation might change. But between then and now, Amaro played this exactly right.
Line of the day following training camp's first practice goes to Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, who says he watched the first episode of Terrell Owens' new reality show. He said it had some interesting people on it. He was asked how the show might be improved.
"By not having it," McNabb said.
That is all for now.
There are plenty of reports out there now: that Michael Vick met on Thursday with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, and that Goodell is now likely to allow Vick to sign with a team and attend training camp, followed by a suspension that could last 4 weeks (per ESPN) or 4 to 6 weeks (per the Washington Post). The NFL is denying a decision has been made. There has been some backing off of the reports.
Whatever. All of this is a necessary foundation upon which the real question rests:
Who wants him?
Goodell has this just about exactly right. Vick committed a terrible (and publicly-repugnant) crime involving dog-fighting and he served his prison time and most Americans really do believe the paid-his-debt-to-society thing. The NFL is big enough and strong enough to be able to embrace that notion, too. Vick still needs to make his public contrition, but you have to believe his image people already have that in the works.
And then, well, what?
I have said from the beginning and I will continue to say: he was not so good a player that most franchises would be willing to live with animal-rights picketing on a widescale basis. To repeat: people tend to forgive. But if the people from PETA and such throw everything they have at this, it will be a big mess. It will have to be a very strong owner -- and a very, very secure coach -- would would be willing to put themselves through the circus. These guys don't like playing on Monday night because it ruins their precious routine. Imagine a gauntlet of picketers outside of practice every day, and tying up traffic outside the stadium on at games.
Then you have to ask yourself: what does Vick have left? People forget that the opinion in the NFL had begun to turn against Vick before all of this mess got started. Big talent, great legs, true, true -- but where were the passing skills that would elevate him above what he had been? Where was the development? And how much was that already-slow development hampered by his time living on the government's dime?
My money is still on Vick heading to the UFL. (Pickets might double their crowds, after all.)
ESPN's Peter Gammons says that the Phillies must get Roy Halladay.
Well, at least the headline of his blog says it. A fair summation of his position comes at the end of the post:
From this view, however, Halladay isn't like anyone else. If the Phillies get to the World Series for three straight years, it will be the greatest run in franchise history. And, sorry, there's only one Roy Halladay. If you can't pay for him with Kyle Drabek, try Visa.
Right there is the entire issue. Gammons has crystallized it and he also has managed to trumpet what is undoubtedly the position of Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi. If you read the Gammons piece, you can see that, in his view, it is unclear that anybody else has the cash or the prospects to make a deal. So why would the Phillies essentially bid against themselves and offer Drabek, their best minor-league pitching prospect?
Here is another question that nobody seems to ask. If the Phillies have no interest in doing an extension with Halladay, why would he agree to a trade? He can wait -- it isn't as if his value is going down. And if you are the Blue Jays, and you know that Halladay will be looking for his last big contract as a part of this transaction -- that's only logical, isn't it? -- then won't there be many more teams in a position to do something in the off-season, at a time when you can clear salary in a more orderly way and prepare yourself to make Halladay a contract offer?
Still many questions, with 10 days until the deadline.
There is outrage in the land. How dare Fox cut away from precious Phillies at-bats, showing them in split-screen, to watch Manny Ramirez play for the Dodgers? How dare a television network -- as ESPN did during his minor-league rehab at-bats; rehab, heh, heh -- glorify this cheating piece of scum?
I've got news for you. Television does not lead opinion, it follows it. Television makes money by giving people what they want, not by offering castor oil.
They showed people Manny because people wanted to see Manny.
Because people aren't mad at Manny.
Because people have made their peace with Manny and the rest of the scurrilous lot of them, viewing their steroidal transgressions in the same way they view alcohol-fueled celebrity hijinks. You know, as entertainment.
I've been saying this for a while, only to be scolded by All Good and Righteous People and pretty much ignored by the other 95 percent of the population. This whole post is just an excuse to offer a link to something written by the great Charlie Pierce, who happens to say the same thing with a lot more ability than I could muster.
That's it. And enjoy the ballgame.
