Talkin’ Baseball, Eight Days a Week

This just in: It has been learned that the Angels and the San Diego Padres are talking trade--Tony Gwynn for Dante Bichette, Jack Howell and Johnny Ray.

This just in: It has been learned that the Angels are holding off on the Tony Gwynn trade to see if they can first sign free-agent third baseman Gary Gaetti.

This just in: It has been learned that free-agent third baseman Gary Gaetti is seeking a four-year, a five-year, maybe even a six-year contract from the Angels.

This just in: It has been learned that the Angels have acquired 35-year-old pitcher Floyd Bannister, which has nothing to do with Gaetti or Gwynn except that Bannister couldn’t get either one of them out.

Is baseball a great game or what? In the dead of winter, when baseball should be precisely the same--dead, as in a doornail, as in an Atlanta Brave--the hills and the valleys and the radio talk shows are alive with the sound of split-fingered phenoms and players to be named later.

Baseball has been taking it in the pocketbook lately, risking red ink for the Bud Blacks of the world, but greed begets greed and baseball is the greediest game ever devised. If Abner Doubleday didn’t invent it, P.T. Barnum must have written a few memos. What other sport demands your undivided devotion eight months out of the year--and then claims your soul on waivers for the other four?

There is no baseball off-season anymore. Now there are two baseball seasons: summerball and winterball. Winterball begins the day summerball ends--technically, its first pitch is the last one of the World Series--and has a schedule that lasts until you can see the whites of their press releases: Pitchers and catchers report this Friday.

Winterball is scheduled, all right, even more carefully contrived and marketed than the preceding 162 games, which more or less sell themselves. Winterball is all about hype--a hot stove is going to generate hot air--and each month has its own device to keep the opiate of the masses on the top of the news.

November is for gift-giving. Rookie of the year, manager of the year, comeback of the year, MVP, Cy Young--all strategically announced, every few days, for maximum headline exposure.

December means the winter meetings, the All-Star break of winterball. For the Rotisserie/Strat-O/Baseball Digest/ Elias Analyst junkie, Christmas comes early, especially this year, with the 15 new-look free agents turned loose (We Love Brett Butler), along with Jack Clark’s mouth (I Hate Greg Riddoch), and the expansion wars breaking out all over Florida (Can Anyone Tolerate Orlando?).

January is the leanest month, dominated by tedious clerical book work and the exchange of arbitration salary figures, so baseball tries to liven things up by announcing its new Hall of Famers before the Super Bowl. Then February begins and it’s all arbitration outrage until the opening of the training-camp gates.

For as long as newspapers have had sports editors, sports editors have had one rule to live by: You can never have too much baseball in the paper. (I strongly disagree; personally, I feel you can never have too much Calvin and Hobbes in the paper, but that’s another section, if not another column.) Baseball had its wiretaps in place long ago and is constantly on the watch for new ways to fill that need, which helps explain the senior league.

Why didn’t football ever think of this? The NFL has its Super Bowl, then an all-star game everyone avoids like anthrax, then hibernation until the April draft. The NHL also has a draft, in June, but no one gives a flying puck about it. The NBA? Its off-season lasts three days, so what’s the point?

Tennis is a full-fledged, no-filler-added, year-round sport, running from the Australian Open in January to the Grand Slam Cup in December, but on its best day, it can’t hold a candle to baseball’s hot stove. Of course, tennis has one built-in disadvantage. As good as the idea may sound, we’ll never be able to trade Andre Agassi for a Swede to be named later.

With winterball, there’s always a topic worth beating to death.

Who’s working on a fourth pitch down in Caracas?

How’s Orel Hershisher’s re-hab coming along?

Is Joey Meyer going to be the next Cecil Fielder?

What will Jack Clark say today?

The best thing about winterball is that most of the time, it’s more interesting than summerball. In winterball, the Angels are just minutes away from an outfield of Tony Gwynn, Tim Raines and Dave Winfield. In summerball, the chill of reality takes grip and the Angels open training camp with Fred Manrique, Dave Gallagher and Floyd Bannister.

Baseball has it so rigged that it can’t lose for winning. It gets caught with its hand in the collusion jar and three years later, there are three questions on the mind of every American: Are we going to war? Are we headed for a recession? Can Gary Gaetti still go to his left? It plays Russian roulette with $6.4-million contracts for 8-18 pitchers and then basks in the office gossip it spawns: Can you believe what Matt Young’s getting?

It’s the greatest scam going and it’s too easy to be sucked in. Be strong. Stand firm. Watch football. Don’t believe the hype.

Tony Gwynn would look pretty good in an Angel uniform, though.