Baseball's Great Debates

by Scott Silversten

For those who wax poetic about the grand old game, one of the great allures of baseball has always been the way it lends itself to debate. Baseball is a pastime, we are often told, and the game’s rhythms are perfect for historical comparisons and barstool arguments.

And without failure, there are two baseball debates that arise, like clockwork, once a season.

The first occurs in late March/early April. It is at this time when all of us try to determine if the hitters are ahead of the pitchers, or is it the pitchers are ahead of the hitters? It never ceases to amaze that nobody really knows the answer, but every spring, experts tell fans that it’s one or the other.

My guess is the gentlemen who have played the game in the major leagues are not sure themselves.

The second great debate occurs this week, when the following must be asked: Are teams better off playing crucial late-season games and fighting for a playoff spot throughout September, or is a big division lead and the ability to rest key players more beneficial come October?

Just like the first debate, no one seems to have a good answer for the second question, either.

If you come down on the side of the argument that says late-season pressure is good, well, there is a lot of evidence to support that theory. The last four World Series have all featured at least one team that reached the postseason through the wild card, and wild card winners had won three straight championships prior to last season (Anaheim in 2002, Florida in 2003 and Boston in 2004).

Of course, fighting to the end of the 162-game schedule can also have its detriments. The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox battled to the season’s final days a year ago, and both were quickly vanquished in their respective American League Division Series.

I happen to believe that flipping a switch come October is not easy to do. Teams like the Yankees and their cross-town rival New York Mets have not played truly meaningful games in some time, and that lack of intensity is not always so easy to regain.

However, there many fine examples to counter that argument. The most famous recent example seems to be the 2000 Yankees, who lost 15 of their final 18 regular-season games, including the final seven, but then stormed through the playoffs to their third straight World Series triumph.

Next week, unless they somehow draw St. Louis, the Mets will be faced with battling a team that has been forced to bring playoff-like intensity to the ballpark for the last several weeks. Philadelphia, Los Angeles or San Diego would arrive at Shea Stadium with tremendous momentum and the knowledge that one victory could send panic through the veins of New Yorkers.

It’s easy for the Mets to rely on the old baseball cliché that “momentum is tomorrow’s starting pitcher.” But with such a shaky rotation featuring a gimpy Pedro Martinez, and the aging Tom Glavine and Orlando Hernandez, even that cliché cannot warm the hearts of Mets fanatics.

The Mets do have the advantage of possessing several potential starters they can use as long relievers, such as John Maine or Oliver Perez. It will be incredibly interesting to see how manager Willie Randolph and General Manager Omar Minaya fill out the postseason roster in the coming days.

But while we await those decisions, here is another debate to pass the time: When did Tony La Russa cease being a genius?

Scott Silversten's column, "Age of Reason", appears every Thursday

Strat

by Sam Sowl

I’d like to start this column with a prediction that will hopefully bode much better with my critics from San Diego than my previous predictions did: the San Diego Chargers will not make the playoffs this year. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way…

Strat-O-Matic Baseball. To those of you who know what this means, the sentiments expressed in this column will surely resonate deeply in your soul. When I was about eight years old, my dad introduced me to the world of Strat-O-Matic Baseball, which is exactly what the game gave you – a whole other world. A world in which baseball never stops, games can be played in as short as 20 minutes, and it always manages to feel as though what was happening in the game could just as easily be happening in real life. That makes Strat-O-Matic what it is; it prides itself on realism. Years later, when the makers of the game put it out as a product for computers, seasons could be simulated with astoundingly accurate results. It was a dream come true for the young statistician that I was.

Then there was my eternal foe. In a house of two baseball fans and one set of Strat-O-Matic Baseball, a rivalry that exceeds Yankees/Red Sox is born. My dad had played the very same game himself when he was a kid, and had probably been counting the days until my baseball knowledge had reached a proficient level for playing Strat-O-Matic. The very first game we played, I hit a home run with my first at bat. Well, Tim Raines hit the home run, but I don’t think I had ever been happier. By the end of the first game, my dad had beaten me (of course), and I was in tears. So maybe I wasn’t ready to play the game just yet, but that’s beside the point: I was in tears! This game was so fun, realistic, hard, dramatic, etc., that I was in tears!

As the years passed, we played hundreds, maybe thousands of games. We would attempt to play the whole season of the Milwaukee Brewers, taking turns playing as their opponents. In typical childlike fashion I would try to lose when it was my turn to be the opponent, and become furious with my dad when he won as them. Strat-O-Matic provided a realm for me to be a kid, playing and living in a world that revolved around baseball. I wasn’t the only kid either. One night when my mom was out late, my dad put my brother and I to bed, but gave me specific orders to sneak downstairs after fifteen minutes. When I arrived, the game was ready to go, with both teams selected in my dad’s typical fashion. When my brother snuck down himself, he made it into the scandal of the century, and still brings it up. I never understood why, because hey, we let him watch.

There are plenty of things for sons to do with their dads. Some go hunting, fishing, or camping. Some drool over cars and watch them go fast (around a track – which is pretty cool, I’ve heard). Others watch baseball games together. Then there are the few father-son combos that share Strat-O-Matic baseball, and I can assure you that it has changed my life (hey look, I write a column at a baseball website!). Not surprisingly, I’ve already begun counting the days until I play Strat-O-Matic with my own son (who doesn’t exist yet). Hopefully I can recruit him as a fellow rival against his grandpa.

Sam Sowl's column, "Sowl's Surmisings", appears alternate Wednesdays