The Padding of Statistics Isn’t Big Fear

Pittsburgh Pirate catcher Jason Kendall was hit a National League-leading 31 times by pitches last year and now wears a large protective pad on his left arm when at the plate.

The increased use of such padding has been cited as a contributing factor in the ongoing offensive explosion, the reasoning being that it encourages hitters to stand on top of the plate, further depreciating the already rare inside strike.

General Manager Ed Wade of the Philadelphia Phillies said the padding should be banned and that he will make an issue of it at the annual general managers’ meeting next winter.

“I just think we’re creating an environment where one of these days, a guy is going to feel like he’s indestructible and he’s going to be hit in the face,” Wade said. “As fearless as some guys are [because of the padding] we could be facing a real tragedy, with guys putting their arms and face into the strike zone. Not to mention that some guys are being hit with pitches that are either strikes or are close enough to be called strikes.”

Wade was responding to Philadelphia pitcher Paul Byrd’s contention that Kendall leans so far over the plate that he takes away the inside strike and is bound to be hit.

“Until a week ago, I didn’t even know who Paul Byrd was,” a dismissive Kendall said of the 10-4 Phillie right-hander.

*

In a new book, “Long Balls and No Strikes,” Joe Morgan writes that he is often mystified when teams hire certain managers, citing the hiring of Jack McKeon by his former team, the Cincinnati Reds.

“He is a nice guy who works hard, but at 69 his time has passed,” Morgan writes. “I can’t understand how the Reds expect him to relate to all his young players, such as Dmitri Young, Pokey Reese, Sean Casey and top minor league prospect Robbie Bell.”

Morgan might want to do some rewriting. The resurgent Reds are challenging the Houston Astros in the National League Central, and Reese and Casey are playing major roles.

“For Jack to be doing what he’s doing, that says it all,” Reese said, dismissing Morgan’s contention. “All he does is put us in the lineup and lets us play. All we have to do is hustle and be on time. If you can’t do those two things, you don’t belong in baseball.”

*

He has said it before, and Peter Magowan, the San Francisco Giants’ managing general partner, repeated it in the Sports Business Journal, saying Jerry Colangelo, managing general partner of the Arizona Diamondbacks, and Fox executives Chase Carey and Peter Chernin--although not specifically named--broke promises they had given baseball before buying their clubs with their free spending of last winter.

“[Colangelo] departed from his announced strategy,” Magowan said. “The group that bought the Dodgers did the same thing. . . . I’m used to doing business with people you can trust and they tell you what they’re going to do.”

Magowan, it may be recalled, was taken to task by fellow owners in December 1992 when he signed free agent Barry Bonds to a six-year, $42-million contract, by far baseball’s largest at the time.

In a somewhat similar vein, noted agent Leigh Steinberg, in an article in the Orange County Business Journal, said that baseball has “the toughest union and least progressive owners in sports” and that the new Dodger ownership is the worst. “They have no concept of what they’re doing,” Steinberg said.