NHL Trade Deadline: Predictions from the experts

It’s no secret that Manny Ramirez thinks and acts on a different wavelength than the average professional athlete. In a game last July at Fenway Park against the Twins, he climbed into the Green Monster and was seen chatting on his cellphone during a pitching change. A few months later he held up a handwritten sign in a game against the Angels that read: “I’m going to Green Bay for Brett Favre straight up.”

Such odd behaviour is somewhat endearing, if not good for the game. But after turning down a $25 million, one-year offer from the Dodgers yesterday—which would have made him the second-highest paid player in MLB behind Alex Rodriguez—Manny is coming off as a little bit of a spoiled brat. Perhaps nobody told him that at age 36 he’s not exactly a spring chicken anymore, and that turning down such an offer at a time when millions of people around the world are losing there jobs is, well, a little selfish.

But in this situation, Manny’s greed is only half the problem. The other half is his agent, Scott Boras. Boras has played an integral role in the past decade of increasing salaries to the point of absurdity. Using tough, if not downright intimidating, negotiation tactics he’s secured mammoth deals, like Alex Rodriguez’s $250 million, 10- year  contract with the Texas Rangers in 2000, Barry Zito’s seven-year, $126-million deal with the San Fransisco Giants in 2006, and of course just a few months ago made CC Sabathia $160 million richer.

Such deals no doubt garner a tremendous amount of attention for MLB, but in doing so they’ve created a level of disparity in the game that has made it virtually impossible for more than half of the teams in the league to compete. I know that critics will point to Tampa’s amazing run last year as an example of a low-budget team making it big, but such a breakthrough came from collecting a slew of excellent draft picks through years of squalor and combining it with sound baseball development and a lot of luck. And when those players go looking for a raise in a couple of years after their current contracts expire, thanks to Boras the only way the Rays will be able to keep them is if they go door-to-door around the Sunshine State asking seniors for donations. Maybe they’ll find Manny’s house and he’ll give them a few bucks, or he just might shrug as he’s doing above and continue chatting on his cellphone.

This morning’s New York Times describes the late John Updike as “a literary decathlete” who was “almost blogger-like in his determination to turn every scrap of knowledge and experience into words.” Indeed. The Pulitzer-Prize-winning author, who died of lung cancer on Tuesday, left behind more than 50 books, countless short stories and a collection of poetry—including a memorable ballad about the bleacher seats at old Yankee Stadium.

But to many readers (me included) Updike will always be remembered as the guy who wrote that Ted Williams article. Correction: the Ted Williams article.

Published in The New Yorker 49 years ago, “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu” recounts the Splendid Splinter’s final home game at a “lyric little bandbox of a ballpark” known as Fenway. Unlike his fellow “maestros of the keyboard,” Updike did not watch the game from the comfort of the press box high above home plate. He sat in the third base stands, surrounded by 10,000 schizophrenic Red Sox fans who adored their aging hero almost as much as they despised him.

I read the article yet again last night. You should too. Continue…

It is against my deal with the devil to write something nice about the New York Yankees. Even in those horrible days after 9/11, when the men in pinstripes were desperate to deliver a World Series title to their shattered city, I was rooting for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Believe me, I tried to see the bigger picture—to hope that Derek Jeter drove in that runner on second—but it was no use. As George Bernard Shaw famously wrote: “Hatred is the coward’s revenge for being intimidated.”

Yet as much as I loathe the Yankees—and all who follow their ways—it is hard to say a bad word about Todd Drew. Yes, he pledged his everlasting devotion to the Evil Empire, but unlike most Yankees fans, he actually treasured the game of baseball as much as the team he rooted for. Last month, Drew wrote these words on Alex Belth’s Bronx Banter, one of the many blogs serving the Yankee faithful:

I went to a baseball game after my father’s funeral. I also went to one after finding out about my mother’s brain cancer.

It was selfish and heartless. I felt guilty before and embarrassed after, but for nine innings I felt only the game. That’s the way it’s always been between baseball and me.

It was my friend when I didn’t have any others. And it has always been there to talk or listen or simply to watch.

Baseball helps me forget and it makes me remember. That’s why it was exactly what I needed on the worst days of my life.

Continue…

Although the first two years of the Toronto FC experiment were a huge success at the turnstile, not even the most rabid, scarf-waving fan could honestly claim that the team was slightly better than brutal. Finishing dead last in the Eastern Division both years—along with setting an MLS record for futility by going 824 minutes (more than nine matches!) without scoring a goal—solidified Toronto’s place as the doormat of the MLS.

But times are changing, and there is reason to believe that the next chapter in Toronto FC’s existence will be better than the last. In December, the team added Canadian international Dwayne De Rosario, an all-star attacking midfielder and four-time MLS Cup winner who has registered 51 goals and 42 assists during his eight-year career. Such an injection of skill and experience can only help a lackluster offense that scored a paltry 34 goals in 30 games last season. Throw in the fact that De Rosario, 30, is a local boy with leadership qualities and it was clearly the best move in the team’s short history.

And Toronto’s future is also looking considerably brighter after last night’s SuperDraft in St. Louis. Toronto GM “Trader Mo” Johnston resisted trading away any of his three first-round picks and brought home a bounty of prospects, including Toronto-born striker O’Brian White, 23, a University of Connecticut product who captured the Hermann Trophy in 2007 as the best U.S. college soccer player. Add in that youngsters like Marvell Wynne, Chad Barrett and Abdus Ibrahim have shown some flare and talent and it appears that Toronto FC is on the right path to future success, or at least making the playoffs.

I met Chuck Swirsky once in my life. It was a few summers ago, back when he was still the voice of the Toronto Raptors, and “Balls” had not yet reached its pinnacle as the number one sports blog in the universe.

With the NBA smack in the middle of its offseason, the Swirsky clan headed to Detroit for a leisurely weekend of Wolverine football and Tiger baseball. It was the fourth inning (or my fourth pint; I can’t quite remember) when Chuck’s bald head strolled past my seat at Comerica Park. I immediately yelled his name, and for a moment, he was understandably stunned. What was a Raptors fan doing in Motown, wearing a Tigers jersey?

We chatted for a few minutes. He introduced his young son, who was with him at the game, and then he talked a bit about how the pressure was on coach Sam Mitchell to prove himself to Bryan Colangelo, the newly installed G.M. He was funny, modest and nothing but polite, and before he headed up to the concession stand, he shook our hands and wished us a safe trip home.

I couldn’t help but think of our brief encounter last night, when Chuck—now the official voice of the Chicago Bulls—returned to Toronto for the first time as an enemy broadcaster. I watch the Raptors here and there (anything to pass the weeks between the World Series and Opening Day) and needless to say, all is not well with the Dinos. Mitchell has been canned, Jermaine O’Neal doesn’t deserve that “O” in his name, and after yet another late-game meltdown, the Raps are a disappointing 16-24, good for dead last in the Atlantic Division. As Swirsky would say, “Onions, Baby!” As in the stinky kind.

But as bad as the Raptors are this season, it’s not the lack of wins that I miss. It’s Mr. Swirsky. I’m sure he’s happy in the Windy City. And I’m sure his replacement, whatever his name is, is a helluva guy. But I just can’t help but think: if Swirsky was still screaming from the A.C.C. sidelines, would the Raps be in playoff contention? Would a regular dose of “Are you kidding me?!” and the odd “Sick, Wicked and Nasty” wake these guys up—especially in the fourth quarter?

Maybe not. But at least listening to the losses would be more bearable.

We miss you, Chuck. Pass the salami and cheese.

I was kind of hoping against hope that Jim Rice wouldn’t get into the Hall of Fame. But he has, along with Rickey Henderson. Henderson is a totally deserving Hall of Famer who rightly got in on the first ballot (don’t you always wonder who those people are who don’t vote for a player of that stature on the first ballot?).

Bill James’ revised version of his Historical Baseball Abstract has a good detailed explanation of why Rice was not only the most overrated player of his time, but a lesser player than his less-famous contemporary, Yankees left fielder Roy White. Now, Jim Rice was a very good player, but that’s true of almost every Hall of Famer. But he was one of those players who seemed to sum up all the ways in which a player could be less good than his flashy statistics. He didn’t walk much, he grounded into tons of double plays, and his stats were heavily inflated by being a right-handed hitter in Fenway Park back when Fenway was the best hitters’ park in the American league. Rice had three really great years, 1977 to 1979 (he deserved his MVP award in 1978), and a fine comeback season in 1986 when the Red Sox won the pennant. But in many other years, he was merely a good player, and other years, he wasn’t even good. In 1984, for example, his triple crown stats were decent — .280, 28 homers, 122 RBIs — but his on-base percentage was terrible (.323) and when you factor in that, the Fenway inflation, and the fact that his high RBI count came mostly from having Wade Boggs getting on base all the time in front of him, he really wasn’t a very good player at all that year. And he had quite a few years like that in what should have been his prime. His only good stat in many of those years was his RBI count, but as Branch Rickey wrote:

As a statistic, RBIs were not only misleading but dishonest. They depended on managerial control, a hitter’s position in the batting order, park dimensions and the success of his teammates in getting on base ahead of him. That left two measurable factors—on base average and power—by which to gauge the over-all offensive worth of an individual.

I’d feel less annoyed about this if it weren’t for the HOF’s neglect of Rice’s fellow left fielder Tim Raines, who never even comes close to getting in. Of course I say that partly as an Expos fan, but mostly because Raines’s career was so much better than Rice’s. Raines was not only somewhere near the best player in the National League from 1983 through 1987, but even after that, when he lost some of his speed and therefore some points off his batting average, his high on-base percentages and baserunning skills made him a very valuable player even in an off year. But he doesn’t have huge RBI counts, and HOF voters are still hypnotized by the magic powers of RBI.

In The Atlantic this month, Mark Bowden delivers a terrific bit of sports writing without even leaving the parking lot at Giants’ Stadium. Bowden, best known for writing Black Hawk Down, introduces us to a CBS production crew working the Cincinnati Bengal-New York Giant clash. The Giant’s Eli Manning led his team to a thrilling comeback victory that Sunday in late September but Bowden’s star is Bob ‘Fish’ Fishman, a “sinewy” 59-year-old director with 11 Emmy Awards and a striking resemblance to Larry David. Bowden perfectly captures the technical complexity and frantic pace involved with bringing the pro game to life for the millions watching at home. Here’s a sample:

If the production crew of a televised football game is like a symphony orchestra, Bob Fishman is its conductor. He sits front and center in the dark trailer, insulated from the sunshine and the roar of the crowd, taking the fragments of sounds and moving images and assembling the broadcast on the fly, mediating the real event into the digital one. He scans the dizzying bank of screens to select the next shot, and the next, and the next, layering in replays, graphics, and sound, barking his orders via headset to his crew, plugging into a rhythm that echoes the pulse of the game.

There were no heart-stopping moments this time, or late game heroics. They weren’t needed. Team Canada dismantled the Swedes in the gold medal game of the world junior championships last night, winning 5-1 to take its fifth straight championship.

From the first minute, when defenceman P K Subban scored the opening goal, it was all Team Canada, which played a tough, albeit somewhat undisciplined game against a Swedish team that at times looked flat and wasn’t getting the lucky bounces. They were lucky to get out of the first period down by just one. “We knew we had to come out with our best game,” said Zach Boychuk. Getting that first goal “was huge,” he added. Continue…

Dear Mats Johan Sundin,

You must be pretty torn up right now about your decision to leave our Leaf Nation family and begin a new relationship with the mountains of British Columbia. I’ll be the first to admit that things fell apart between us in the end: three seasons without a whiff of post-season play, constant family issues that saw several members exiled and publicly scolded, and of course that fruitless pursuit of trying to find someone half decent to play on your wing. The writing was on the wall when you left last spring, then confirmed soon after when you put your house up for sale, again, and disappeared to your fishing boat in Sweden.

Yet I can’t help but feel that you were somewhat dishonest with us, that in some dark corner of your soul during last year’s trade deadline–when you refused to date another to help us through a tough, self-imposed jam in order to provide our family with some draft picks and prospects that we’d squander anyway–you were just playing with our emotions. What I really mean, oh God I’m trembling as I write this, is that I think you lied to us and took advantage of Cliff’s generosity, all the while knowing that you had no interest in returning. You always said that your heart was here, that you loved us and were a Maple Leaf through and through. Apparently that was just a crafty little guise that you brewed up to keep us happy. And to rub it in, last weekend I had to watch you smiling and really laughing it up in the New York Rangers press box during HNIC. I was so mad I threw your bobblehead doll across the room harder than that angry journalist threw his shoe at George Bush.

But I don’t want an apology. You can stick those in a sack. I was stupid enough to have thought that we might be able to pick up the broken pieces of our relationship and that you would come home and lead us back to the promise land, even if our chances of making the playoffs in the near future are as slim as Sean Avery shutting his trap. But I must warn you that somewhere down the line, not too far from now, you will regret what you’ve done. It might not happen this year, especially if your sipping out of Lord Stanley’s mug on the deck of your fishing boat, but mark my words it will happen. You see, Leaf fans are an ignorant, vengeful lot who are led by an incompetent organization that has a weird way of sticking it to its heroes. (Just ask Dave Keon, Darryl Sittler, or your fellow countryman Borje Salming, who told you that he deeply regretted not retiring in a Blue and White jersey).

So what can you expect? Well, for starters you might hear a few boos from the cheap seats when you come to town in February as a member of the Canucks. That shouldn’t hurt much. What will hurt is when the organization decides to retire your number…in 2031…and your invitations to the hall of fame games get lost in the mail. You see, we’ll still love you and call you our own. We just won’t be in any rush to honour your achievements and build statues of you around town.

Longingly yours,

Cameron

Today’s Vancouver Sun has a special, 32 page insert devoted to Trevor Linden, whose #16 is being retired tonight at GM Place.

Inside, are fond farewells from premier Gordon Campbell, who declared today, Trevor Linden Day in B.C., NDP leader Carole James, whose son built a living room shrine to the Canuck captain, when in 1994, with cracked ribs and torn rib cartilage, he helped to drive the team within an overtime, Game-7 goal-post of the Stanley Cup (he also scored both Vancouver goals in New York that night). Also included are tributes from the NBA’s Steve Nash, former mayors, sports scribes and countless other fans — including at least two who named their sons after him.

And this pic of Linden, aged 18. Dressed in a Canadian tux — jeans and jean-jacket — he’s leaning on his 1965 cherry-red Mustang in the Pacific Coliseum parking lot at the start of his 30-goal rookie season with the Canucks (1988-89), then a sad-sack franchise.

During his playing days in Vancouver, the much-loved Canuck, known for his humility and compassion, took time out to visit local hospitals and hospices, at least once overnighted at a summer camp for kids with cancer, and took a lucky few to lunch and the driving range.

“All heart. All class. All Canuck,” writes Lennea Perpet.

“xxxooxxoxoxoxoxooxoxooxoxoxox,” writes Amadea de Wit, age 6.

People in the Motor City certainly love their cars, but they love their sports stars, too. Unless they retire, move to another state, run for senate, and vote down a bailout package for the Big 3 automakers.

Just ask Jim Bunning, the Honourable Senator from Kentucky. The Hall of Fame pitcher who played nine seasons for the Detroit Tigers was supposed to fly back to Michigan this weekend for an autograph signing. (Not for free, of course. His John Hancock is somehow worth $55 a pop, recession be damned.) But on Thursday night, after Bunning refused to support a $14-billion federal loan package for Detroit’s desperate automakers, the organizers of the show gave him the boot. “Being a business owner in Michigan for over 30 years, I simply cannot support anyone who, in my opinion, votes against the economic well-being of our great state,” said James Koester, who owns the trade center in Taylor where the signing was supposed to take place.

On the bright side, if you already have Bunning’s autograph, it may be worth a lot more in the coming days. Especially if he ever does have the guts to step foot in Detroit again.

I’m really happy to be back in Calgary; I love Canada. I just want to comment on how it’s become like a common thing in the NHL for guys to fall in love with my sloppy seconds.

Sean Avery, in Calgary, dissing defenseman Dion Phaneuf and L.A.’s Jarrett Stoll, as well as ex-girlfriends, Elisha Cuthbert and model Rachel Hunter.

The NHL, which has indefinitely suspended him for the comment doesn’t appear to appreciate the “method” behind Avery’s madness:

“Our commissioner hasn’t realized that he needs to probably do a better job of marketing the game and certainly some of the players in it,” Avery said in an Oct. interview with ESPN.

“Nobody cares about Jarome Iginla and guys like that. They’re just not exciting enough. They don’t bring enough to the game.”

Is there a form of sociopathy that renders a man oblivious to popular loathing? Why else would David Frost set himself up online as a hockey expert?

Frost, as you’re probably aware, is the former junior coach who emerged from his sexual exploitation trial last week with an acquittal. The evidence offered at the proceeding may not have resulted in a conviction. But it certainly suggested Frost is the last person you’d want in charge of your kid in some small town hundreds of kilometres from home. Playing for the Quinte Hawks in the late 1990s, according to undisputed testimony, meant being part of a teenage sex-fest and risking an occasional blow to the head by the bench boss. He is not, to put it mildly, Hockey Canada-approved. Continue…

David Frost, the man accused of sexually exploiting two of the players on the Junior A hockey team he once coached in Deseronto, Ont., has been found not guilty on all charges. Continue…