The WGOM

So, I didn't get to see the game today, but I did see the box score. What jumps out at me is that Scott Baker had an awesome game. 8 IP, 8 K, 1 BB, 1 HR, 1 R -- that's a great game. The HR kind of makes sense in light of all the fly ball outs he allowed--12+ fly balls is playing with HR fire when you're facing a group of good hitters--but it's still just one run in eight innings, and that's damned good.

Instead of watching the game, I was out substitute managing my softball team. (Sort of like Scott Ullger's role with the Twins except that I do have a stop sign in my base-coaching repertoire.) We were 6-0 so far this season and had the first seed in the playoffs wrapped up--so the outcome of the game was even more irrelevant than the outcome usually is.

I was out with a bruised thumb (Torii Hunter likely would have taken a swing at me), but figured I would show up and fill out the lineup anyway. Had I been managing for keeps, I probably wouldn't have had a woman leading off, but whatever, it was a good place to get her an extra at-bat. I also put a speedy guy second in the order even though he wasn't really a great hitter, because I knew he would be gone next week, so he'd probably get an extra AB (and he did have the game's last AB.) And then I proceeded to put the heavy hitters in, etc.

Anyway, the team we were playing was clearly jacked up to beat us, since they knew we were unbeaten. They even recruited a couple of guys (who played SS and LCF for them) who don't usually play for them. It was a back and forth game, and they had a good number of well-struck hits--we gave up a couple of outs in the field, but I didn't feel too bad giving up 16 runs to them. There were two things about their team that really made me shake my head:

1) They had a female player who was clearly trying to work a walk every time she came up to hit. I cannot fully describe how unsportsmanlike I find that particular strategy in slow-pitch softball. To make matters worse, the umpire (whose strike zone in a slow-pitch softball game should really never matter) had a bizarre strike zone that managed to shrink in every direction for the ladies. She "worked" a full-count walk in her first two at-bats--and one of them was fairly key in extending what turned out to be an 8-run inning--without taking a single swing. Then in her third at-bat, I was rather pissy about the whole situation, so I started counting out how many pitches she'd taken without swinging. Generally, I try to be a nice guy, but really, I can't stand that bullshit. We're there to play softball, not watch people stand around with the bat on their shoulder. She didn't swing for the first five pitches again, and finally, finally swung on the 18th pitch she saw that day--and hit a weak ground ball to the pitcher despite squaring up the meatball perfectly.

2) When we were making a bit of a surge in the 6th inning, our 6th hitter (a male) came up with two outs, runners on second and third, first base open, and two females hitting behind him. At some point midway through the at-bat, while coaching third base, I overheard someone on the opposite team talking about how they should intentially walk that hitter since first base was open.

Now, I'm not saying they should be grooving meatballs to the guy--I can understand pitching him carefully--but an intentional walk? In slow-pitch softball? I mean, if there's no bunting allowed in slow-pitch softball, there sure as hell shouldn't be any intentional walks. I should have kept my mouth shut, but I couldn't resist turning and asking them "do you really want to be that team that walks guys to get to girls?" His response was, "but we want to win, too." I smartly returned to keeping my mouth shut, because I guess he felt that there was no ethical dilemma in the matter and that anything they could do to increase their chances of winning was legitimate.

At any rate, he couldn't get his message to the pitcher soon enough (I guess the catcher wasn't looking to the dugout for pitch signals), our hitter hit a solid double to the LF, who let it get past him for a two-base error on top of that.

Despite that strategic "blunder," their team went on to win 16-14 in 6.5 innings. They were pretty happy with themselves, so good for them, I suppose. I wish I could have gotten my team the win, but I was unwilling to move our struggling LF elsewhere on the field, even when it was clear that it would cost us outs. Usually she plays catcher, and she's pretty athletic, but when she camps out under the ball, it's about 50-50 whether or not she'll catch it. I went against the percentages and got burned, but next week when she's willing to catch all game, where she'll make up for it and then some.

There were a couple other ways I could have micromanaged to keep our weaker players from being overexposed, but dammit, we were there to play, and all of my players were going to play. The other team came to win, and though we gave them a run for their money, I guess we both got what we were looking for.

Now, mainly I am venting because my roommates are out of town and I don't have anyone to make this rant to in person, but seeing the box score today, I made this connection: it's gotta be about more than just winning.

I don't expect major league managers to abandon the intentional walk--certainly some things change when the players are paid to pay than when the players are paying to play--or anything like that. The most important thing in professional sports is that both teams are out there trying to win. That's why gambling nearly brought down baseball in the early 20th century, and that's why tanking for playoff position at the end of the NBA season is an absolute abomination. Teams should want to win, and they should play hard.

And they will succeed. Sometimes. On some days. But 29 of 30 teams every season are going to fail to win the World Series. If it's not about something more than winning, then you might as well sit down and bleed money into a slot machine--while the odds are still against you, you'll probably hit the jackpot more often.

So for me, today was about Scott Baker and Scott Baker's awesomeness. It's easy to get wrapped up in the disappointing outcome, just as it was easy to get wrapped up in the favorable outcome for Glen Perkins and Livan Hernandez the last two days, but there's more here than the outcome. Baker's in a completely different class from those two guys, and hell, the offense had a bad day, but I don't want to sit around laying blame at the feet of the offense anyway.

Right now, Baker's an excellent pitcher. If the rest of the league doesn't respect that--and even if they do--the wins will come eventually.