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 Fantasy Insider Who you calling a jerk?
Posted: Sunday July 18, 1999 09:24 AM
By Dan George, CNN/SI Whew! Is it just me, or is it hot in here? Last week's midseason awards column apparently touched a few nerves, given the heavy flow of e-mail responses, more than a few of them critical. But a wise man once said there is no such thing as bad publicity. Albert Belle's agent might take issue with that remark, but I suppose the same philosophy applies to e-mail. Here's what you had to say. Reader Jim Saraco challenged the Anaheim Angels' honorable mention in the Biggest Flop (Team) category, citing key injuries to Jim Edmonds, Tim Salmon, Mo Vaughn and Gary DiSarcina and wondering where the Cleveland Indians would be had they lost Jim Thome, Omar Vizquel, Kenny Lofton and Manny Ramirez for comparable amounts of time. "At that point, I'm sure the Indians would be known as the 'tough-luck Indians' rather than the 'big flops,'" wrote Saraco, noting that despite their woes the Angels started the second half just 6 1/2 games behind the first-place Texas Rangers. There's no doubt nobody has been bitten more severely by the injury bug this season than the Angels, and perhaps they will make a run once their DL starts to shrink. But guys like Darin Erstad, Todd Greene and Chuck Finley can hardly use poor health as an excuse for subpar first halves. And Anaheim's history - a tradition of throwing lots of money at free agents (does the name Bobby Grich ring a bell?), then falling short of expectations - is not encouraging. Born in 1961, the Angels are the oldest team never to play in a World Series. A couple of readers were unhappy that Josh Chapman, calling financing baseball's biggest problem, lumped the Cleveland Indians in with such big-market powers as the New York Yankees and Atlanta Braves. "Cleveland is the 15th-largest media market in baseball," wrote Jim Rose, citing sound planning by General Manager John Hart and Director of Baseball Operations John O'Dowd, not big media revenues, as the biggest reason for the Tribe's success. That is certainly true. The Indians had the foresight to lock up Belle, Lofton and Carlos Baerga to long-term contracts early in their careers and time the team's development as a contender with the opening of Jacobs Field in 1994. They've developed an excellent farm system, and thanks to The Jake's perpetual sellouts, they've had the wherewithal to both keep their stars and pursue the free-agent likes of Robbie Alomar when necessary. No, the Indians aren't truly a large-market team. But they aren't really small-market, either. What they are is the epitome of a relatively new category: the new ballpark team. This franchise builds a new stadium -complete with cash-cow skyboxes and inflated ticket prices, even though local taxpayers have often footed most of the cost - then sits back and listens to the cash registers ring. Granted, having a new stadium is no guarantee for success. Seen the crowds at new Comiskey or SkyDome lately? On the other hand, the Indians certainly wouldn't have shelled out the bucks to keep Albert, Kenny and Carlos if The Jake hadn't been on the way. The Montreal Expos have produced just as many stars as the Indians over the years, but they play in a monstrosity with few fans and every year a Marquis Grissom or Larry Walker or Pedro Martinez gets too expensive to keep. No wonder small-market patrons like William Packard, a Kansas City Royals fan, believe revenue sharing is the only solution to the current financial inequities. The Royals have a host of budding players, including Rookie of the Year candidate Carlos Beltran, and play in a fine ballpark. But Packard notes, "Two million tickets [a year] sold at an average of $15 apiece still only raises $30 million, a portion of which is paid to the visiting team. There is no realistic way for K.C. to keep any of its young stars given the current state of Major League Baseball financing." Gary M. Fox of Sunny, Ariz., presumably a Diamondbacks fan, didn't care for my dissing of Jay Bell's sudden longball prowess in the Valley of the Sun, writing, "As if Jay Bell is the ONLY player in the majors who hits juiced baseballs over the fence." No, but if anybody's the poster boy for baseball's sudden "I want to be like Mark" craze, it's Jay Bell. Several readers thought Bradley Visokey was off base in categorizing the Texas Rangers' Juan Gonzalez as baseball's biggest jerk simply because he begged out of the All-Star Game after not being voted in as a starter. "First, everyone knows that baseball's biggest jerk is [Commissioner] Bud Selig," wrote David Schaut. "Even among guys on the field, Gonzalez isn't even close to the title. Has Bradley not heard of Albert Belle? ... Like a lot of talented young athletes, Juan has lapses in judgment and I believe he could use some better advisers. But if you look at his career, the number of negative stories about him have been fairly limited, so I think the media ought to cut him some slack." Casey Tibbitts argued that Gonzalez had a legitimate gripe about being beat out by Lofton due to a heavy Cleveland vote. Regarding Gonzalez's RBI flap last season, Tibbitts noted that it's never been unusual for hitters and pitchers alike to call official scorers from the clubhouse and complain about rulings. "Juan was probably wrong to glare up at the press box," wrote Tibbitts. "but he's definitely not the first to throw a 'hissy fit' over such things." And this from John Redding: "I don't consider him a jerk -- just a petulant slugger with a slight case of culture maladjustment. Maybe you do -- to each his own. But a bigger jerk than Paul 'You Mean First Base Isn't 25 Feet From the Plate?' O'Neill? Carlos 'Master of the Gatorade Buckets' Perez? Joey 'Visit My Web Site' Belle? Kevin 'The Toilet Terror' Brown? This is just in the players' category -- leaving out the retired (Steve 'Strike Eight' Howe, Pete 'The Me King' Rose, etc.), the managers (Lou 'Bull Pen Fighting' Pinella), and the owners (Wayne 'Fire Sale' Huizenga, Jerry "King Ego" Reinsdorf, Jerry "Prince Ego" Colangelo). Baseball's biggest jerk? Only if you're comparing biceps." Maybe Jay Brooks, also contending that Belle and Brown are both bigger jerks, offered the best solution: "Let Juan have the Biggest Whiner award and let's enjoy the rest of the season." Fair enough. Dan George, a senior producer at CNNSI.com, has played fantasy baseball since 1985. He still can't watch "The Jerk" without getting all excited about those new phone books. You can reach him via e-mail at dan.george@turner.com.
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