Not the Best Headline

Many years ago, I worked on my college newspaper at Brandeis University, eventually climbing the ladder to Editor in Chief. It's the place I first started writing well, and I learned to edit other people's writing as well as my own.

At a small college, they can't get enough people to work on the paper, and so they'll take you on whether you have talent or not. As a result, I was made Asst. News Editor in a matter of a few weeks. Actually, there were 2 of us, another freshman named Murray somethingorother, and me. A few more weeks later the News Editor with the ironic name of David Ashkenazi* burned out and quit. One of us new freshmen was going to be made News Editor, a significant position on the paper. The other, well, he wasn't.

The other guy was me.

*Ashkenasi is an ironic name because almost all people who are named Ashkenazi aren't. For those who don't know about this, Ashkenazi Jews are from Europe, Sephardic Jews are from the Middle East and North Africa by way of the Iberian Peninsula. Sephardic Jews generally were expelled by from Spain in the late 1400's. Jews named Ashkenazi got to their Middle East/North Africa future homes later than the initial Sephardim, who referred to them as Ashkenazi, hence their name. That piece of history cracks me up.

I eventually was made News Editor the following year when Murray burned out. I think he got the job because at the time he wrote better than I did, but also, I had shown the Editor in Chief, a guy who went on to become a real editor (of Newsday), that I had some talent for physically putting the paper together and writing headlines. Back in the day, it was a huge, physical cut-and-paste job, not the computerized version we have today. He and I spent the next year and a half on Monday night putting the paper to bed by handling the final layout in the printer's shop. In fact, I was so good at doing this (probably better than at editing) that he created a position called "Technical Editor". It means nothing, but basically I handled the physical production of the paper, in addition to writing news articles and the occasional feature piece. It was fun, probably the most fun job I had on the paper.

Anyway, for most of the time I worked on the paper, I wrote a large number of the headlines. Headline writing is a hoot, particularly if you can find a way to make them funny. Every year Brandeis would play Bates College (in Maine) in most sports, but particularly in basketball, the only sport anyone at the school paid any attention to. We always clobbered Bates College. It was a tradition. And of course (like many schools in New England) we had a tradtion at the paper that following our annual win by the Brandeis Judges over Bates College, there would be a big two deck headline at the top of the back page of the paper, the sports page, the first line of which was always the same:

Judges Master Bates

There was an annual contest each year to write the second deck of the headline, something disgusting in a subtle way. The entire school looked forward to seeing it. I'm proud to say I wrote two of those second decks that got published. In my freshman year the Sports Editor wrote the following headline:

Judges Master Bates
Spurt After Clark Defeat

A beautiful sentiment.

I wrote the second deck the next two years. It may have helped that I was in charge of headlines, but I'm proud of my product nonetheless.

In 1972 I wrote:

Judges Master Bates
Cream Clark in Opener

The following year, the paper and I reached a new low with:

Judges Master Bates
With Come-From-Behind Thrust

After learning to juggle (my thanks to Dave "Tree" Horowitz and the boys in Shapiro Hall), this was the high point of my 4 years in the Boston area.

Anyway, that's a Joe Pos type absurd lead-in to this horrible headline I just saw today on Yahoo:

Oregon upsets No. 6 California 42-3

Now I did not go to Cal, but I've always rooted for them. It's not what they are saying that is so bad, but how they said it. Any team who loses 42-3 really wasn't good enough for it to be an upset. Obviously Oregon is way, way, way better than Cal. If you thought that was an upset, you so overrated Cal and so underrated Oregon that you really deserved to lose a lot of money betting this game, particularly if you were giving points.

It's not an upset. It's a misevaluation by the sporting public of the quality of the two teams, and given they were #6, an enormous overvaluation of Cal. It is not unlike a couple of years ago when Cal was rated #2, and then the #1 team got beat, and for 10 minutes Cal was #1. But then Cal lost like 5 straight games. Is it possible that Jeff Tedford is the most overrated coach in college football?

Meanwhile, let me have a crack at the headline:

Ducks Cream Bears
Judges Master Bates

How We Can Finish in 11th Place

Yes we can!

The Pickled Pecklers have been sitting in 12th place for virtually the entire season. I don’t have the week by week reports, but I’m pretty sure we’ve been buried alive in last place since the end of April. I can’t remember when we’ve had more than 30 points, or more than 8 hitting points. Until this month it looked like we would not make our innings, and as a result we’d lose our top two categories – ERA and WHIP.

It’s been an ugly, ugly year. We have 30 steals. How many NL players have more steals than the entire Pickled Peckler team? We got two of those steals on Wednesday, when Alex Gonzalez (lost to the AL) got his second of the season, and former base stealer Derrek Lee got his first of 2009, and immediately injured himself on the slide and hasn’t played since. 2008 NL ROY Giovanni Soto is hitting .219 (he’s available to you all at the bargain basement salary of only $11). JJ Hardy played his way back to AAA after hitting 26 and 24 homers in 2007-8. $41 for Alfonso Soriano (20/55/9/.241). $31 for Rafael Furcal (9/45/10/.268). Ugly, and self-inflicted.

Our pitching is not too bad, though. We finally have 2 well-priced closers (Street (19) and Marmol (21)), and with any luck, we’ll be able to say that in April, too. And we may have 3 – we have Brett Myers at 16. We’ve got a lot of young, cheap, decent pitching that is keepable for next year. It’s a start.

Yet day after day, week after week, we look at the standings, and we’re at 26 or 28.5 or 24.5, and we can’t even see the team in front of us. And in the daily allstarstats email, we literally can’t see the team in front, because the spacing for the last place team is somewhere intertwined with the text, 6 inches below the other 11 teams. It’s painful, and we’re not used to it. OK, we haven’t won the league, but we’ve only been out of the money once in the last 9 years, and only the Busch Leaguers can say that. Well, you can now make that twice in 10.

But now, with about 8 games to go, we can see the puffy rear ends of the Falkuhns, who have only 34 points. And really they only have 31, because as of this moment, they only have 964-2/3 innings. They’ll never make 1,075. The Pecklers are at 27.5. We can see the promised land. Here’s how it plays out.

First, we’re tied with the Bums in homers. If we pass them, that gets us to 28.

Second, there are WHIP and ERA points at stake. Our WHIP is a decent 1.345, and we are only a hair behind Any 9 (1.344) and the Old Rips (1.340). Our ERA is 4.02, with the Pounders just barely ahead at 4.01. We should make our innings today. So that’s another 3 potential points, which can get us to 31.

And then there are the clinchers – we’re not that far behind the Falkuhns in 2 categories, Wins (60-57) and RBIs (670-653). We have been so far behind everyone in RBIs for so long, we can’t believe we can see their tail lights. OK, there aren’t many games left, so it’s a stretch, but LDN has shut that team down to a grinding halt. Meanwhile, we actually led BABI in RBIs last week.

Larry says he doesn’t care. Lou says he’s bored. But the Pecklers are playing some baseball now, and we’re not as stupid as we look.

A coach turns to one of his players and says, “Son, are you ignorant or are you just apathetic?” The player answers, “Coach, I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

We care. No matter what the circumstances, the Pecklers play ‘till the whistle blows. Larry doesn’t care? Well he blows, too.

Big Al and 400

Not that 400. The other 400.

With 9 games to go, Big Al Pujols is batting .330 and he leads the majors in homers with 47. He's leading the majors in slugging at .676. He's only missed 2 games.

Yet he's only got 361 total bases. He needs 39 more in the remaining 9 games, which is the equivalent of a homer per game plus a triple. He's going to fall just short of 50-50 (he has 42 doubles and 47 homers).

That's how hard it is to get 400 total bases.

Big Al falls into the Ted Williams - Mickey Mantle category. He walks too much, so although he has a lot of plate appearances, he doesn't have that many at bats. Barry had this problem in spades, and yet he was somehow able to do it once, though it did take 73 homers to make it happen.

As great an all-around hitter as Pujols is, hitting for average and power, I don't think he'll ever get to 400 TBs. Maybe with Matt Holliday hitting behind him, he'll have a better chance. Barry had Jeff Kent hitting behind him when he did it, though Barry walked a record breaking 177 times that season.

I hope he does it. He's the best hitter of the Post-Bonds generation, and he's got a shot at the big one, with 366 homers at age 29. We may be watching the best hitter ever. And just for nothing, he's even got 14 steals this season.

Meanwhile, please remember that Hal Trosky reached 400 (405) in 1936. At the age of 23, Trosky was Pujols. He drove in 162 that year.

But he didn't make the AL all-star team. Those were the days.

Numbers

Two numbers have me interested today: 1008.1 and 997.2.

The first number is the number of innings for the last place Pickled Pecklers. This one is of interest only to the Doc and me. We think well make the 1075 target. We've got 6 starting pitchers, four of whom are pitching tomorrow, and so should have 3 starts to go. We'll have somewhere between 16 and 20 starts from decent pitchers. If we average 5 innings per starts, we'll make it with something to spare.

If we don't, we'll lose 14 points, and end up with 14 points, give or take. On the other hand, last is last.

The other number is the number of innings for the 300 Pounders. They are in 2nd place, and although it doesn't look like they're going to make it to #1, they have 19 pitching points at stake, which will move them to 3rd and possibly to 4th. That's some serious coin difference, particularly after ripping up their keeper list to challenge the Cartel.

With 7 starters, you would think that's no problem. Not so, elk breath.

One of those starters is Roy Oswalt. The Astros have announced they are shutting him down for the season.

Make that 6 starters.

They also have Kyle Lohse. He hasn't started a game in a while. He was scheduled to start on Friday, but he's got lingering discomfort in his forearm on top of a groin pull. With the Cardinals locked into the playoffs, he might or might not pitch again.

Maybe 5 starters.

Ricky Nolasco is eating innings, but not terribly many lately, and virtually every one is ugly. It's not clear if picking him up was a good idea for the Pounders, but he hasn't gone more than 6 and 1/3 innings in his last five starts, during which time his ERA is 6.67.

Carpenter and Lee and Zito are in the Pounders rotation, and they've been great. Carpenter looks like a sure fire Cy Young winner as well as Comeback Player of the Year. Zito has to be right behind him (and maybe Josh Johnson) for Comeback Player of the Year.

The other starter is a guy whose last start was on June 8. However, here he comes to save the day for the Pounders: Jake Peavy is scheduled to pitch on Saturday. Kevin never reserved him, so for three months he's enjoyed Peavy's zero ERA and zero Ratio. He's also enjoyed Peavy's zero innings pitched.

My guess: here are the projected starts.

Carpenter - 2
Lee - 2
Zito - 2
Peavy - 2
Nolasco - 2 short ones
Lohse - relief only
Oswalt - none

Assume Carpenter, Lee and Zito average 7 innings per start, Peavy 6 and Nolasco 5, that's 64 innings, bringing the Pounders to 1062. Maybe Lohse will get a few innings, and the three closers, Capps, Rodriguez and Valverde are probably good for at least 3 innings each.

Close baby. 20 Benjis at stake.

PS... He also picked up Tim Stauffer as his expansion player. That looks like money well spent. And congratulations to the Doyle Cartel.