Language Lessons

What's in a word?

There are a lot of phrases common to sports analysis...

They choked.

It was a lot closer than the score indicated.

It wasn't as close as the final score.

"X" didn't win the game, "Y" lost it.

They gave the game away.

This is just a small cross section of some of the statements commonly made. But how much is just the idea that people are justifying the way a game was played? Sure, there are cosmetic points scored in garbage time, but some of those "not as close" sort of statements come from someplace else.

Do we make these comments sometimes to demean a team?

People talk about the Patriots losing the Super Bowl this year as one of the biggest choke jobs in the history of professional sports. But by saying the Patriots choked, aren't we then also saying that the Giants got lucky that the Pats didn't bring their A-game? I, for one, watched what I thought was great execution by the Giants of a game-plan that was perfectly designed.

Did the Oilers choke in Buffalo those many years ago, or is that just a way of minimizing the Bills' accomplishments that year?

Language can be a powerful thing, and the statements are direct and have a specific meaning, but what can be implied by a given statement? Sure, teams will win in butt-ugly fashion from time to time, but does that actually make a win any less a win? It still counts in the win column - and as Bill Parcells used to say, "You are what your record is." It doesn't matter if the wins were ugly - it's not how you got there, it's the fact that you got there.

Choke jobs exist in professional sports.

It's a fact.

But at what point does the failure of one party to perform become their own responsibility versus the opponents' rising to the occasion?

In 1986 Calvin Schiraldi blew a lead in game six with the Red Sox up three games to two over the Mets long before Bill Buckner let an errant ground ball go through his legs in a tie ball game. Somehow Buckner became the goat when Schiraldi deserved the blame.

Watching the game, you could see it in his eyes - Schiraldi choked. He didn't have the balls to shut the door with the biggest game of his career on the line.

I don't mean to take anything away from the Mets who fought back with consecutive singles to tie the game up, but I firmly believe that if the Sox had someone on the mound like the Mets' Roger McDowell or Jesse Orosco on the mound, then the team would have won in 1986 and no one would ever have talked about the Buckner gaffe because it would never have happened.

Take the Yankees post-season fiasco of 2004. Yes, it is possibly the biggest choke job in the history of baseball. No team in the post-season had ever been up 3-0 in the ninth and failed to seal the deal. No team has ever let an opponent win four straight after being up 3-0.

Does that take away from what the Red Sox did? No. They came back against a pitcher who was widely believed to be the best closer in baseball en route to their first World Series title since Babe Ruth was on the team. Of course, the flip side of that is that the Red Sox owned Mariano Rivera that season, and for much of the time since.

In the end, the media has a job that it doesn't always do very well - and that's to balance what we write with making sure that credit is still given where it is due.

And sometimes that's as difficult a job when it comes to working language as any other job out there.

Land of the Rising Sun

It is a great public relations gimmick.

Send at least one of the league's premier teams from the previous season overseas, or to another country on the same continent to help cultivate the game in a country that's already baseball crazy.

It will be the fifth time since 1999 that Major League Baseball will start its season on foreign soil. In 1999 it was the the 1998 pennant winning Padres taking on the Rockies in Monterrey, Mexico. In 2000 the 1999 NL wild-card Mets, winners of 97 games, played the bottom of the NL Central barrel Cubs in Tokyo. Four years later, the capital of Nippon hosted the AL Champion Yankees against the bottom feeding Devil Rays. In 2001 it was the bottom scrubbing Rangers playing a Blue Jays team that missed the AL East title by a mere four and a half games.

This season it's the World Champion Red Sox opening against an Athletics squad that finished only a game out of last place in the AL West and 20 wins behind the Red Sox. Not exactly a marquee match-up.

But this is less about the match-up than about the impact of opening in a different country.

What does it really mean? Is it difficult for the team's involved to recover from the requisite travel? Or is the impact dependent on the team make-up, the manager, and any number of other factors? The numbers are less than telling.

The Yankees in 2004 got off to a horrible start, struggling in April and May, but recovered to win 101 games.

On the other hand are the 1999 Padres, just a season earlier with 98 wins and an appearance in the World Series, dropped to fourth place and 74 wins when starting the season in Mexico. Their opponents, the Rockies dropped from 77 to 72 wins.

In 2000 the Cubs slipped by two games from 67 to 65 wins, while the Mets still qualified for the wild card with 94 wins, down from their 1999 total of 97 after taking their first at-bats of the season in Tokyo. That same year the Rangers and Blue Jays won 71 and 83 games respectively. The following season, kicking off the season in (I know, technically American soil) Puerto Rico, those Rangers and Jays finished 2001 with 73 and 80 games respectively. An increase for the Rangers, but a drop-off for the Jays.

In 2004 the Yankees matched their previous season's win total, while the Rays increased their win total from 63 to 70 after starting it all in Tokyo.

Eight teams, a variety of results. Nothing telling. One team broke even. Two teams increased their win total by an average of 4.5 games, and five teams slipped a combined total of 37 games. Realistically, the Padres skew that number with a 24 game drop-off. Sixty-two-and-a-half percent of the teams experienced a drop in performance reflected in their win-loss record. The average drop, not including the Padres, is 3.25 games per team.

Assuming this is actually indicative of this season's performance, there's a 62.5 percent chance that the Sox will drop to 93 wins from last season's 96-win showing. Last year that would have put the team a game behind the Yankees in the final standings, and given the Red Sox the wild card.

What any statistician will tell you is that eight teams, eight results in over a century's worth of seasons is not a sampling that is indicative of anything.

Hope Springs eternal

Spring.

It's a time of renewal, a time for new hope. It's when fans of the Cubs and Indians say things like, "this is the year. This year the [insert team name here] are gonna win it all."

On the surface, it might seem a little ridiculous. There are twelve franchises in Major League Baseball that haven't won a World Series for at least 25 years (some of the teams haven't won since their inception as long ago as 1961...the Texas Rangers/Washington Senators). For Cleveland it's been 60 years and this will mark 100 for the Cubs. As the saying goes...when the sun comes up every morning, you come to rely on the fact that it will rise the next morning.

The Cubs perennially seem to find a way to blow their championship opportunities. The Indians haven't exactly fared much better.

Why should these teams, the fans of these teams hold out hope? Fans of the Cubs, Indians, Giants, Rangers, Astros, Brewers, Nationals, Padres, Mariners, Pirates, Phillies, and Orioles will all have differing levels of hope based on personnel, management, and ownership of their respective teams.

The fans of the Cubs and Indians hope to be this season's 2004 Red Sox, breaking a Championship drought that spans generations. Fans of the Orioles hope for a chance, in spite of the past incompetencies of Peter Angelos' ownership.

Why do they continue to hope, in spite of years of heartbreak?

Why, when there are teams that, on paper, that are better? Teams like the Red Sox, Mets, and Tigers.

It's simple really...

It comes down to two things. One is faith.

I've talked before about the religion of sport and the teams being the different denominations. It's no more evident than at the beginning of a season when, in spite of all proof to the contrary, we believe that the team we root for will be the one standing at the end of the season...whether on the diamond, the court, the gridiron, or the rink.

But the second is a little more tangible.

We watch the Red Sox break an 86-year drought to win two World Series titles in four seasons. We watch a Colorado Rockies team that wasn't even supposed to be a contender sweep its way into the 2007 Series. We see a Cardinals team that barely played over .500 ball during the regular season in 2006 win that year's championship.

We see these things and think about our teams, "why not us? Why not this season?" And we believe.

Ultimately, we believe because we're fans.

Go Sox.

Dodging a bullet

Johan Santana is heading to the Mets.

This says to me that the Red Sox and Yankees were both out of the bidding at the end.

The Mets gave up four prospects to get Santana, none of which are considered by scouts to be major league ready right now.

Both the Yanks and Sox were offering at least one quality, major league ready prospect along with a package of minor leaguers, all believed to be no more than a year away from the majors. And we've seen, in the Mets, what their top prospects have done in recent years (Lastings Milledge).

If the prospects the Mets sent to the Twins don't pan out, this is going to go down in Minnesota sports history with the following - the Vikings trade to get Herschel Walker, which, in essence, was the impetus for the three-Super Bowl Cowboys; the Twins getting nothing for David Ortiz; the Kevin Garnett trade to the Celtics. Those are just the ones I can think of.

The reason it will be comparable? Because they could have had any one of the following sure-fire major leaguers - Phil Hughes, Jacoby Ellsbury, Coco Crisp, or John Lester. Crisp doesn't have the upside the others have, but it would have given them a center-fielder and lead-off hitter...and they would definitely have had something to show for it.

The Twins played chicken and lost.