Commentary : Reflections at the Midway Point

It’s midway through 1994, and we’re talking baseball: Kirby Puckett still climbing fences, Ozzie Smith still turning two with style, Frank Thomas a bigger hurt than ever.

Talking baseball: kids up from double-A happy to get the meal money; boys and girls with their mothers and fathers watching batting practice three hours early; ballparks as pretty as music boxes--Wrigley Field and Jacobs Field, Fenway Park and Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Tiger Stadium and The Ballpark in Arlington.

We’ve seen Ken Griffey Jr. throw a runner out from the gap while on his knees. We’ve seen Barry Bonds quick-wrist line drives into the seats. We’ve seen a blur go from first to third--and it turns out to be Deion Sanders.

Midway through ’94 and we’ve seen the Silver Bullets laughing and trying. We’ve seen Michael Jordan trying in double-A and we’ve seen Mickey Mantle weeping and trying in AA.

Griffey said the Seattle Mariners have no heart. Jose Offerman chewed on Dodgers Manager Tom Lasorda. Chili Davis ripped the Angels. Rickey Henderson got crossways with Oakland Athletics Manager Tony La Russa. Larry Walker wouldn’t take batting practice to spite the Montreal Expos. “No pay,” he said, “no play.”

Beginning ‘94, Darryl Strawberry was back. Then he was gone. Then he was back. Then he was gone. Midway, he’s back again. He’s telling us in San Francisco what he told us in New York and what he told us in Los Angeles: This time he’s serious.

Just before the All-Star Game, the four playoff-position teams in the National League were 15 games better than the American League’s four playoff-position teams--and this was with the American League West leader under .500.

Speaking of the A.L. West and its supposed shame, just wait a minute. It’s wrong to call the 1993 season “The Last Pennant Race.” Baseball’s leagues divided themselves into three divisions this season; that’s all. They divided into two divisions 25 years ago, making it possible then for a team with less than its league’s best record to win the World Series.

The last real pennant race was in 1900, because that was the last year baseball operated with one league. Then came the American League, and in 1903 baseball began the World Series, forever creating the possibility that the champion could be a team with less than the best record in the game.

We’re talking baseball, and we’re saying it’s time to get on with regular-season interleague play. Bring Ken Griffey Jr. to Pittsburgh and he will sell tickets, small market or not. Bring David Justice to Cleveland, take Carlos Baerga to Atlanta. Put Greg Maddux on the hill against Mo Vaughn and Cecil Fielder. Let’s see Randy Johnson daring Matt Williams to hit one out.

It’s also time for the designated hitter in the National League. History proves that offense sells tickets. And the DH hasn’t distorted records.

The problem is Major League Baseball. Not that the owners would admit it, but they are reserving interleague play and the National League DH for a time when they have control of player salaries. They figure it’s foolish to make profitable changes when it’s the players who would profit most.

All of which is good reason for the players and owners to become partners, each side deciding the rules of business and games. We can keep hoping that somebody shows some common sense about this sometime. Maybe a form of statistician Bill James’ proposal--early free agency with a salary cap at the generous level of $1 million per season of big-league service--will make sense to everyone.

Meanwhile, baseball’s owners/weasels pay for a self-serving Gallup Poll showing that 76% of 1,000 respondents favor MLB’s proposed salary cap. No surprise there. What might be more interesting would be to ask those people if they favor an owner-imposed cap on their salaries.

Midway through ’94 and we’re talking about the Juiced Ball because a study shows a man’s testosterone level is highest in the spring. To quote Dave Barry, I Am Not Making This Up. So maybe the early rash of home runs was symptomatic of spring fever, sap rising in the trees, a young man’s fancy turning . . .

Spring, summer or fall, Ken Griffey Jr. is good enough to leave Roger Maris behind. In June 1987, the first player chosen in the major league draft was the 17-year-old Griffey, who stood at his father’s locker, the elder then in his 15th major league season. That day the father said of the son, “I could always throw to him like I was throwing to one of the guys, and he was only 7, 8 years old. He never wanted me to throw the ball underhand to him to hit. No T-ball.”

Ryne Sandberg is gone, dispirited by the Chicago Cubs, and Jose Canseco is back, his pitcher’s surgery having made him the hitter he used to be. David Cone is back, more pitcher than ever. As for baseball’s Invisible Man, Jeff Bagwell, we say hello to the Houston Astro first baseman, whose so-far numbers suggest .350 with 50 home runs.

Midway through ‘94: Cleveland’s in first place and Toronto’s in last. The Blue Jays can’t keep a pitcher in one piece. The Indians are there because General Manager John Hart shaved his payroll and then signed young players for a long time: Sandy Alomar, Kenny Lofton, Albert Belle, Carlos Baerga.

A great idea, that--and overlooked in many places, among them Pittsburgh where, the Pirates lost Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonilla and Doug Drabek. Pittsburgh’s financial problems are not only small-market problems; the problems also reflect short-sighted front-office strategies.

Young pitcher Salomon Torres left the San Francisco Giants for a while because his religious beliefs made it difficult to work in baseball’s world of temptations, a dilemma that once moved the born-again Baltimore outfielder Pat Kelly to ask his blasphemous manager, Earl Weaver, “When was the last time you read the Bible, Earl?”

“At my father’s funeral.”

“And when was the last time you were on your knees?”

Weaver said, “The last time I sent you up to pinch-hit.”