So, you know what you do when you’re procrastinating about starting a subscription newsletter? You come up with content for the newsletter and then don’t do the newsletter. But the good news for you is that the Tweetbag is back! Did you miss it? Don’t answer that, I’m very fragile these days.
There are two ways to submit your questions to the Tweetbag. You can Tweet them at me1 at twitter.com/desipiodotcom, or you can use this fancy submission form, which requires you to answer a simple math problem at the end to prove you are not a robot, or a Cardinals fan. Ooooh, burn! I’ve still got it!
The plan is to do a weekly Tweetbag, which will be pretty easy if the questions are good. If they aren’t? Well, that’s kind of your fault, isn’t it?
Anyway, I now return you to your regularly scheduled Tweetbag:
Bigger near miss in Cleveland Indians history, Kipnis’ foul ball in World Series Game 7 in 2016 or the guy who led off the ninth in the 1989 playoff game against the Yankees? — Monty
As I’ve covered before I was sober in a hotel room in Las Vegas watching the Cubs try to gag away game seven, and I was completely paranoid about everything in that game, but I didn’t even bat an eye when Kipnis did this:
I know people were freaked out by the angle the ball left Kipnis’ bat, but to me it was never more than a lazy fly ball. And when you see it land, I’m not sure he even hit it 200 feet. Do I think about it every time I see him waddling around on the field for the Cubs now? Yeah, but it’s second hand forestalled terror from you guys, because I completely missed out on it at the moment. Which is fine, because I was borderline comatose during those post-Rajai homer/pre-rain delay moments.
But, you make a great point about the other game.
You might remember the build up to this, so here goes.
The Indians had tied it up at two on Cerrano’s late inning (the eighth, maybe?) homer and after Rick Vaughn struck out Clew Haywood to end the top of the ninth with the bases loaded, all anybody remembers are the infield hits.
Willie Mays Hayes reached on a chopper to third with two out, stole second and scored from second on Jake Taylor’s “Neifi Perez surprise” bunt to win it. I mean that’s what we remember about that rally.
Well, and Roger Dorn punching Vaughn during the dogpile on the field and some librarian getting the David Ross-in-reverse-treatment when they Indians carried her ON the field after the game.
But what about the Indians’ Tomlinson and the Yankees right fielder Warburg? They are the lost heroes of that game.
Tomlinson took the first pitch of the inning off of Yankees reliever Jackson and smoked it to right and Warburg made an incredible catch at the wall. I’m not sure if it was going to be a homer, but if he doesn’t catch it, it’s at least a leadoff double.
I mean, sure the wall’s only like six feet high, but the little bastard had to chug it all the way to the track and time it perfectly to haul it in. And Monty, I know it had you worried.
Think about. how famous Tomlinson would be if that ball had been hit another foot higher? Hell, we might even know his first name. Maybe he’d have ended up dating one of the stars of Tin Cup?2 But, Warburg made that plucky little play and robbed our boy of his deserved heroism.
It all turned out OK. What I could never figure out though is why the Yankees started the ninth with Jackson in the first place? Tomlinson’s a lefty, and the Yankees already had Duke Simpson warming up in the ‘pen. Why would Horton even let Jackson pitch to Tomlinson? Bad managing if you ask me. You’ve got your closer warm, don’t lose the game with some set up guy. I mean, it’s not like Jackson’s some stud like Dave Veres!
And Danello, who was playing too deep on Hayes’ chopper, made a crap tag when Hayes stole second. If Javy’s there, Willie’s out. Anyway, Lou Brown clearly outmanaged Horton in that game. He had a feeling Ricky was due against Haywood, and he thought Taylor’s two strike bunt was a “helluva idea.”
But also, who made the second out of the inning? Tomlinson led off and flew out. Then The Duke came in to pitch to Hayes, but when Willie got to first there were somehow two out (you can see the scoreboard in the upper left corner:)
It’s a good thing the Indians won, or we’d have had a cheating scandal on our hands that would have made the Astros’ garbage can thing look like playground shit.
Isn’t Trevor Bauer fascinating? — Leonard K.
Fran Liebowitz said that “Donald Trump is a poor person’s idea of a rich person.” And, I submit that Reds’ prickish righthander Trevor Bauer is a boring person’s idea of a fascinating person. But maybe that’s not fair. Perhaps you just find him being an asshole to be fascinating?
What Bauer is, is a son of an oil company ‘scientist’ with a fascination for junk science ideas about how to become a professional baseball pitcher man. Because he was good enough to actually become one, suddenly all of the crazy shit he did and his plausibly-on-the-spectrum-like behavior somehow make him intriguing?
Bauer insists he was a poor athlete who, through the magic of math and unconventional training methods turned himself into a high school baseball star, a top five draft pick out of UCLA and a big league pitcher good enough to pitch in three of the four games the Cubs won in the 2016 World Series against his team. For that, we’re ever grateful.
Fittingly, Ruben was named after a sandwich.
But that’s assuming you have to be a great athlete to be a pitcher. We’ve got like 140 years of examples of how that’s not true. Fat guys have been good pitchers, skinny little guys have been good pitchers, tall guys who couldn’t throw hard have been good pitchers. Hell, Ruben Quevedo (RIP) looked like he had a ham sandwich tucked inside his jersey3 and he won 14 games in the big leagues. You know what Ruben Quevedo didn’t do? He didn’t troll around Twitter trying to make 19 year old girls feel bad about themselves. I mean, sure he had a fatal heart attack at 37, but he didn’t Tweet about it.
Everything about Bauer is designed to draw attention without him acting like he’s trying to draw attention. From his haircut that looks like he combs it with a fork, to the extreme long toss he plays to get loose before starts–and which you know annoys the shit out of however is forced to play it with him that day–to that stupid wobbly baton thing he uses to ‘strengthen his arm.’
It looks an awful lot like the javelin Lamar tossed in Revenge of the Nerds.
Bauer is supposedly a below average athlete who threw a bunch of weighted balls against a wall and copied Nolan Ryan’s delivery and that’s why he can throw a baseball 95 miles an hour. And who better to tell us about it, than our old buddies at Driveline! You remember Driveline, the original home of the magic pitching cameras that brought you exciting success stories like…Luke Hagerty!
Bauer’s journey ought to inspire, says Kyle Boddy, the founder of Driveline. “What people should learn about him—what kids should learn about him—is that, f—, it really is possible to pitch in the big leagues, even if you’re just an average, nerdy kid. It requires otherworldly effort, but it can be done.”
Who am I to say that it’s bullshit?
Well, it’s bullshit.
Now, admittedly, I don’t really mind when Bauer is trolling the Astros about how their pitchers all use pine tar or the other day when he mocked them by telling the Dodgers what pitches he was about to throw in a spring training game. But just because he’s acting like a prick to people who deserve it doesn’t mean he is capable of focusing his skills at being an ass for good.
Maybe if he kept his ever tiresome act to baseball it would be easier to put up with? But he doesn’t.
Among other things, he trolled a college student and doxed her for the terrible sin of making fun of a lame joke he made on Twitter.
Or, his charming approach to women.
When Bauer meets a potential romantic partner, he outlines for her the parameters of any possible relationship on their very first date. “I have three rules,” he says. “One: no feelings. As soon as I sense you’re developing feelings, I’m going to cut it off, because I’m not interested in a relationship and I’m emotionally unavailable. Two: no social media posts about me while we’re together, because private life stays private. Three: I sleep with other people. I’m going to continue to sleep with other people. If you’re not O.K. with that, we won’t sleep together, and that’s perfectly fine. We can just be perfectly polite platonic friends.”
What a loss, ladies.
If we’re going to ostracize every baseball player who acts like a dick, we’re won’t have enough time before the sun eventually implodes. I don’t really care if Bauer wants to be one. I just have a problem with people thinking that his behavior makes him interesting.
Then again, he’s only had one good season in the big leagues. Though he did lead the American League in walks in 2015, so that’s something. And he’s not terribly well suited for his new home park. He put up a whopping 6.39 ERA after his trade to Cincinnati last year. Oh, well, maybe the balls were just too light?