A good piece about spring training by the BP folks, provided as a reminder to the optimistic Blue Jay fans to be less sanguine about the results of March Madness.
Starting in 1994, when I was but 24-years-old, I had a six-year stretch of going to ST in Arizona (and a one-year sojourn to Florida to see the Yankees in 1996), and I carry many fond memories. The strongest comes from my first year, when I saw 10 games in 10 days. I had never seen more than two or three games in a row before, and it was a real treat—and a revealing trip for a number of reasons. For instance, my very first game, the Mariners vs. the Brewers in Peoria, I sat next to Roger Angell, he of New Yorker fame, among others. It was then that I realized “Hey, you can make money watching baseball games!” It was that experience which turned me on to writing about baseball, which led to a subsequent, even more banal moment that led me to writing fiction. Needless to say, I hate Roger Angell.
But baseball is what I went for, and baseball is what I saw. And lots of it. For those of you who don’t have season tickets and don’t see a lot of games in person, let me tell you this: these guys are good, and that ability does not always translate on TV. So good, in fact, that after 10 days I lost all concept of a what a “routine” play was; they made them all look so easy. So good, in fact, I could scarcely tell the difference between Barry Bonds and Warren Newson; they were both so effortless.
One of the arguments stat-heads hate is, “You don’t know how good Player XYZ is, because you don’t see him play every day.” While that argument can be somewhat specious, there is some truth to it. In football and basketball, and perhaps hockey, the difference between the stars and the rank-and-file is obvious, statistically and to the naked eye. Terrell Owens is dynamite, while third and fourth receivers like Cedric Wilson are an obvious step or 14 behind. In baseball, while it’s clear in the stats who’s better, it’s not at all as clear in person. When you see them play every day, the difference between Miguel Tejada and, say, Chris Woodward is negligible. I saw Mark McGwire hit two 500-foot bombs against Chuck Finley. David McCarty, yes THE David McCarty, hit one 496 feet.
With pitchers it’s more cut-and-dry—can anyone compare to Randy Johnson?—but the difference between, say, Cliff Politte and Mariano Rivera is not so apparent. Of course, that’s the argument for “eliminating” the closer position. It’s just three more outs. It’s also why hard-throwing pitchers, guys like Blake Stein and Jaret Wright, will always get another chance, no matter how bad their numbers look, no matter how gruesome their injury history is. When they’re on and blowing people away, it’s a thing to behold.
Baseball is a beautiful game. It’s easy to forget that in the sea of statistics found on BP and Baseball Primer and other places. I may be down on the value of spring training in terms of won-loss records and stolen bases, but, if you have the time and money, get yourself to Florida to check out the Jays. You won’t be disappointed. Just don’t have any epiphanies about being a writer. That is a sure path to disappointment.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20030306074325999