Cooperstown Day

Watching that eternally glorious bottom clip again, I was thinking about Buck Showalter, a fine manager who’s done an excellent job in Baltimore. Part of me has always thought that it’s unfortunate that he didn’t get a chance to manage the dynasty he helped build just as Jeter was about to come up. But it’s also true that he did unconscionably screw up an elimination playoff game. He sort of did Grady Little one better, letting a completely gassed pitcher give up the leads in the 8th and the 11th innings. When Cone walked the immortal Doug Strange with the bases loaded to allow the Mariners to tie the game in the the 8th, it was his 147th pitch. (And as with Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS, it wasn’t just the pitch count — any idiot could see that Cone had nothing left well before Strange came to the plate.) And then he let Jack McDowell — an above-average innings eater but nothing more than that — throw to 10 batters on one day’s rest, letting him blow the game in the 11th. And he did this despite having John Wetteland, a very good closer, available. (Yes, he had given up a grand slam in Game 4 and also gave up a couple runs in a non-save situation in Game 1, but you can’t overreact to a pitcher giving up a home run to peak Edgar Martinez, who in 1995 had an OPS north of 1.100.)

The decision to fire Grady Little was easy — when a guy indefensibly screws up an elimination playoff game and is nothing but a generic hack anyway, there’s no choice at all. But Showalter was a good manager, and while it was really dumb not to bring Wetteland (or Wickman, or Rivera earlier, or anyone who wasn’t as obviously done as Cone), I’m not entirely sure that his firing was fair. But you have to say it worked out well for the Yankees.

…good to see that Piazza’s overdue induction is making blogger and back acne analyst Murray Chass cry.