Friday Morning Fracas: Chiefs Fans Visit a Familiar Neighborhood: Hell

Wednesday morning: I didn’t want to write about the Chiefs two days in a row, but after listening to Danny Parkins Monday morning/afternoon and Bob Fescoe yesterday morning, I was left with no choice. I think both of these cats do a good show and put out mostly quality SportsTalkRadio, but Fescoe’s program, on the drive to work yesterday morning, left me sick to my stomach. I mean, my guts were in such knots that I had to pop a couple of Tums, drink some water, chew some gum, and engage in some deep-breathing exercises all to avoid having to pull over. No exaggeration.

Understand, this had nothing to do with either on-air personality, rather the content of discussion, the alleged rift between Chiefs GM Scott Pioli, and Head Coach Todd Haley.

I texted Danny’s show Monday when he was talking about the “Monday Morning Quarterback” column by Peter King, and the Mike Silver bit from Yahoo wherein the fate of the Chiefs is variably addressed. To paraphrase, King said he doesn’t think the Chiefs can recover from this miserly start, and that it’s only a matter of time before Haley gets the ax. This supposition is based on the fact that, according to King, Chiefs Chairman of the Board Clark “Hunt and Pioli are close.”

Far more damning was Silver’s story, which said that tension between Pioli and Haley “is the worst-kept secret in NFL circles,” that if the former canned the latter, the top choice for replacement would be none other than Josh McDaniels, which is massive barf material, but...not now.

What I said via text to Parkins, though, was that it all feels like hearsay, that we should have some sort of direct evidence of such a claim of tension and unrest. After a few moments, he mentioned that several folks had texted in similar sentiments, and for lack of a better word, he lambasted the bulk of us, implying that we supposed that national figures such as King and Silver, as well as local writers like Sam Mellinger and Kent Babb, were all making this stuff up.

And this is where some clarity is needed.

I have not, for one moment, imagined that this stuff has been fabricated. I have not entertained, for even a nanosecond, the possibility of inventing these sorts of stories for ratings and readership. It’s much simpler than that:

I am physically and mentally incapable of believing it.

Wednesday afternoon: Okay. Some fantastic headway was made this morning when Fescoe and Josh Klingler had Michael Holley on the air to discuss his new book, War Room. Admittedly, it sounds like an awesome read. Arrowhead Pride published a post about the interview, and what’s not important are the controversial details, rather what the author had to say about the relationship between Pioli and Haley. In sum, it would appear to be a perfectly normal GM/HC coexistence.

Wednesday evening: Nick Wright had Silver on his show today, and I feel even better. Silver stayed the course with the assertion that Pioli and Haley don’t get along, but he also added key phrases such as, “I don’t know for a fact that Pioli’s (forcing Haley’s hand/being handcuffed by Hunt’s lack of interest in spending),” and it all resonated with me in one sense: speculation.

I'll say this one final time: I mean no disrespect to anyone locally or nationally when I say that; it's just my opinion.

Friday morning: With all of these layers, the entire notion is really pretty soap opera-y, and in essence, foolish, but if you strip it down, it really freaking matters. The brass trifecta of Hunt, Pioli, and Haley, has to get along; they have to be on the same page, or the thing won’t work. And at the core of it all lays the ultimate exposure to the pain threshold and tolerance level of Chiefs Nation. At least for my generation. In the early-mid ‘80s, it was a given that the Chiefs would field a crappy team every year, and it didn’t weigh too heavy on us. Our fathers and uncles would close their eyes and shake their heads with gentle disappointment, still not too far removed from the great Chiefs teams for whom they had season tickets at Municipal Stadium, for whom they hosted playoff parties in their first-purchased homes.

I used to hear my mom say, game after game, season after season that “they need to fire the entire front office.”

Then, one day, they did. Well, some of them, anyway. We had our run with Carl and Marty, and if you think back on it, Carl’s infamous five-year plan was pretty accurate; in his fifth year, we were a game removed from the Super Bowl. The problem was that it was mostly downhill after that, and, following the trend, ownership kept a regime in place far too long.

I say mostly downhill because coming off the heels of that fifth year, Kansas City entered a span where within nine years, the Chiefs thrice went 13-3, had home-field advantage throughout the playoffs and a first-round bye, only to get bounced in their first post-season contest. These contests, of course, would be: the Lin Elliot game, the lone post-season meeting with the Denver Broncos where they came in as a Wildcard, greased in road-cooking officiating, and cheated their way to victory, and the Colts game under Dick Vermeil in which there were zero punts.

Vermeil’s retirement was inevitable. Hell, he didn’t want to come out of it in the first place. Rather, it appeared he was doing his ol' pal Carl a favor. A favor to save Carl's ass. A favor that came with a big giant paycheck. And it almost worked, too. Almost. I thought he was a great coach. Unfortunately, the defense was way too neglected, the essential opposite of Marty (Editor’s Note: We’re not forgetting you, Coach Cunningham. We’re just in a hurry, and your .500 record over two seasons is, frankly, small beans in the massive chili pot.). And I’ll never forget Carl’s press conference when he hired Vermeil’s successor.

Verbatim (or at least very close), he said, “I believe this young man to be the premiere coach in the National Football League. Ladies and gentleman, I give you the new head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, Herman Edwards.”

You could not hire the most talented team of script writers in all the Hollywoods to come up with famouser last words than those.

The point of it all is this: In the ‘80s, we channeled our inner Andy Dufresne, and “crawled…through five hundred yards of shit smelling foulness I can't even imagine, or maybe I just don't want to. Five hundred yards... that's the length of five football fields, just shy of half a mile.”

In the ‘90s, we saw the first of two biblical passages replace The Shawshank Redemption, the initial one being the story of Abraham, where Chiefs fans and all of their long-term suffering finally saw a plant bear fruit, only to be asked by a higher power to sacrifice its bearings out of faith. Next, we became Job, quiet in our hope that righteousness would prevail even as God destroyed our flocks (made us suffer through Greg Robinson defenses), burned our herds (gave us Larry Johnson), stole our camels (Willie Roaf, Will Shields), knocked down our homes (hired Herman Edwards), killed our offspring (kept Carl in the fold), and cast our faces with boils (most of Herman’s draft picks). Yet, in faith, we sat. And waited. And waited.

And finally, with Clark now in charge, a ray of sunlight forced its way through the thick den of clouds, and we were given Pioli, who begot us Haley, who doubled the win total of Herman’s final campaign and showed improvement en route. And our perseverance was rewarded with a 10-win campaign (easy schedule, albeit), and a playoff berth. It didn’t end pretty, but it was as though we could smell the abundant crops in our fields, hear the echoing laughter or our dozens of healthy children playing in the pasture, our gorgeous spouses by our sides, our bank accounts flush with cash.

In a flash, though, a storm in the form of 89-10 rumbled in and lingers, booming and cackling overhead, all of us aware that in one fell unleashing, all of our everything could be destroyed. So we sit, and we wait once more.

I can do this no longer.

I have no patience left in me to wait, season after season, for all the chips to fall in line. It’s a bad front office, it’s a bad coach, a tough schedule, a season full of injuries, an unbalanced team, poor personnel, stacked competition. It’s always something. For, literally, decades, we’ve been putting on our dunce caps and our donkey ears, squinting our eyes and sticking out our buck teeth as we, in unison, say, “Next year…”

This was supposed to be it. The Pioli. The Haley. The Clark that made both happen. Winning championships. Starting now. No more shenanigans.

And now what? Pioli and Haley don’t get along? How can that be? How can you be stamped as the top general-manager prospect in the nation, and make your first hire a guy with whom you might not coexist well? You’re surrounded by football people from several generations that have histories of working with him. I find it impossible that the homework was not done in this situation. I find it preposterous that Haley’s job is in jeopardy.

I find it ridiculous that this rumor’s wings bear such strength, and even more, I find it insufferable should the wait for a Lombardi have encountered yet another obstacle. I can’t do it. I can’t wait for another hire, sit through another rebuild, and wait for draft picks to pan out (or not) once more. This run had the silver lining. It had the young blood in charge, the new face running the show, the jerk (My pal Old No. 7, when I said, “I don’t know if I like Haley; he seems like a jerk” upon his hiring, replied, “Dude, jerks might be jerks, but they win championships.”) with the headset, the perfect match to assemble talent.

I can’t wait around for a reload, and I certainly can’t pick a new team. If this thing blows up, I might have to walk away from football, which means, in a sense, I’ll have to rewire a serious portion of my life. And believe me: I don’t know the first thing about electricity.
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Wednesday Whatnot: The Great Debate

About four months ago, the House of Georges celebrated two years of existence. It was no big deal. We didn't send out invites, hire a clown, or bake any cakes. The date was more so a note upon which the three of us -- aptly named the Iron Triangle -- could sit back and think, Have we really been cranking out these posts for 24 months? The ones we stress and argue over? The ones hardly anyone reads? Yes, indeed, we had. A funny thing happened a few months in, however, and I'd like to share it with you now. Right here. Today. It can be summed up in one succinct word: obsession.

What I mean is, I really, really liked what we were doing. I loved posting. I pored with hunger pangs of verbiage over every word my colleagues wrote. I digressed, frantically trying to devour every word published on the blogosphere. I petitioned other established bloggers for link exchanges. I fumbled hopelessly with teaching myself codes and HTML. I procrastinated on every graduate-school assignment I had. I barely saw my fiancee, and I neglected my then senior citizen dog. I wanted to expand, build a network of blogs, and my first idea...

...had something to do with Andy Dufresne from "The Shawshank Redemption." It had quite a bit to do with dedication, and a lot to do with Pete Rose. I called it Letters to Bud. Dufresne wanted a library for the prison in the movie. He wrote to politicians once a week for some two to five years until they just quit ignoring him, and they unloaded money for building and books for shelving upon him, and the Shawshank Library was a dream no more.

I wanted the lifetime ban from baseball cast upon Rose -- to which he agreed -- by Major League Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti lifted. Let's just say I got my signals a little crossed. For starters, I dove into this vanity side project thinking of it as a team effort. I made phone calls. I sent e-mails. I texted. I thought we were in like the proverbial, only when I pronounced that we were "going streaking" straight to the 31st floor of Park Avenue in New York, I looked behind me and I was the only naked dude inquiring about KFC's hours of operation. The other miswiring was that I incorrectly remembered that Dufresne wrote a letter a day to see his goal through. Mind you, I not only posted these letters on the aforelinked GoreNets, I actually printed a hard copy, signed it with my real name, stamped an envelope, and sent those little scrolls to my pen pal Bud.

And mind you, I got married, moved into a new house, and honeymooned a mere two months prior. Weird thing is, the wife was on board with the thing. My in-laws were like, "Go, son. You write your letters." Or something. People started asking me when I'd get to work what today's letter was about. And the thing took off. I had a head of steam about me with the gig. Cecil said I was nuts but to go for it. Old No. 7 envisioned Selig interns and a famous press conference, all resulting in a House of Georges hookers-and-cocaine party. So I ran with it. For 44 days.

I truly was in over my head thinking that I could keep it and the House of Georges contributions rolling, and work, and sleep, and be a husband. And drink heavily. I was drinking fairly heavily then, so the ol' early-bird-knocks-out-the-posts mantra, uh, didn't exist. It was fun, though. I don't regret it one bit. If I can say two things about it, they are that I tried, and I was sincere. But then I started getting into the Dowd report. I was researching old USA Today articles. I was purchasing literature on the guy. My wife was still on board, but she didn't care for the fact that I was basically filling the trash can with toner cartridges like boogers into a morning Kleenex, and them things ain't cheap. I hit a point where I was studying too much to have time to post, and the wheels came off.

Since then, Rose's name has come up inside the House of Georges a time or two. I stumble across something, I'll link to it, or write about it. My feelings about the ban haven't changed, and to be honest, it kind of took me by surprise the other day when I discovered that the 20-year anniversary of the ban was approaching. I couldn't believe it. I thought, What if I'd kept the Letters to Bud going out? Would it have made a difference? And then some chatter arose about the whole deal. Hank Aaron came out and endorsed Rose. Folks scooted to the edge of their seats. Bloggers came out of their moms' basements (in their underwear) to see if there was anything in the papers. The SportsTalk Radios buzzed. Finally, Selig came out of his wormhole like the cops at a high school party:

"Go on home, you damn kids," nobody quoted him saying. "Take your damn Hamm's and your hip-hop with you, and stay the hell offa my lawn."

And things fizzled.

I was informed this morning, however, about this blog, which I've never read before today, and about this post, which Craig Calcaterra wrote on Monday. It's sort of about Mike Schmidt coming out and saying, in not so many words, that "20 years is enough punishment. Let's lift the ban." But mostly about the author of the post disagreeing with that sentiment by saying, "The headline to Schmidt's piece asks if 20 years is enough. My answer: no, not really."

Now mind you, I'd never read this Calcaterra cat prior to today, and mind you, I never will again. For my money, he's a gosh-darned buffoon. The post, however, was heavily commented upon, and so today, he offered this post, which revisits his post from two days ago, and offers new(ish) insight, provided by none other than our own Old No. 7. In a nutshell, Seven, in his assessment of our recent Hitters feature, took, as he is prone to do, every opportunity to belittle Rose, and make him look like a child molester. Kinda. Calcaterra, buffoon that he is, loved it, and linked to our feature. Picture, if you will, buck-toothed Mike Shanhan, on the sidelines, proclaiming to a horse-faced John Elway, "I'm so proud of you." Oh glorious day.

So if my colleage and his new best pal are the Dark Side in the battle of the Rose Force, I've got myself and my homey Joe Posnanski bringing up Team Good. Some excerpts from the piece:

"Here it is, 20 years after he agreed to a lifetime suspension for gambling on baseball (and, he would finally admit, his own team), and the debate about him is as raw as it ever was. Screaming. Insults. Good journalists such as ESPN's Buster Olney will call Rose 'nothing less than a lowlife,' and excellent writers such as Fox's Mark Kriegel will call him a 'skell' -- which seems awfully harsh. It isn't like Rose mugged people. As far as I know, he hasn't killed anybody or kidnapped anybody or betrayed his nation or bilked senior citizens out of their social security. He bet on his team. He lied about it."

"While writing my book The Machine about the 1975 Cincinnati Reds, excerpted in this week's Sports Illustrated, I was astonished that virtually every player on that team shared a story about the time that Rose said a few kind words when they were in a slump, or the time Rose picked up their check when they weren't making any money, or the time Rose invited them to his house for dinner. Will McEnaney remembers Rose giving him shoes. Gary Nolan remembers Rose believing in him when he was hurting. Joe Morgan remembers Rose pushing him and inspiring him into becoming the Hall of Fame player he became. Ken Griffey remembers Rose being a guy who treated him with respect from the start."

"So how do we get beyond all that and discuss one of the most talked about baseball questions of the last two decades: Should Pete Rose be in the Hall of Fame? I think the question needs the word 'should,' not 'will,' in it, because honestly I don't think he will get in. For Rose to get inducted into the Hall of Fame, two basic things would have to happen:...One, he would need to be reinstated somehow...Two -- even if he WAS reinstated, he would need 75 percent approval from either the Baseball Writers Association of America or the Veteran's Committee (made up of living Hall of Famers)."

From here Posnanski cites but a few of the hundreds of things that have been said against Rose, reasons for keeping the ban in place, reasons for making sure that you, the American public, the lover of baseball, the model of good-versus-evil for any and all children to learn from, understand that Rose committed baseball's cardinal sin.

"And so it goes ... this has been repeated so many times that people have simply come to accept it as undeniable fact. Betting on baseball is the cardinal sin.

Only ... it isn't. Or anyway, nobody REALLY BELIEVES what Pete Rose did is baseball's cardinal sin. If we are using 'cardinal sin' to mean the worst possible thing a baseball player can do or, to be more precise, 'the sin that condemns a person's soul to eternal Hell,' well, I can think of about 200 things you can do on a baseball field worse than gamble on a game."

"But the real point is this: Even under the gambling umbrella, what Pete Rose did is not even CLOSE to baseball's cardinal sin. I would think that taking a large sum of money from gamblers and then purposely playing lousy enough that your team will lose the World Series, yes, THAT might be called baseball's cardinal sin. Nobody suggests Pete Rose did that. Betting on your team to lose and then going 0-for-5 in a playoff game and committing an error with the winning run on third, yes, THAT might be baseball's cardinal sin. Nobody suggests Pete Rose did that either. Purposely performing poorly on the field during a regular season game in order to cash in on bets, yes, even that might be baseball's cardinal sin. Nobody suggest Pete Rose did that either.

Seems to me the cardinal sin would be to AFFECT THE OUTCOME OF GAMES in order to profit on it -- either by gambling yourself or taking money from gamblers.

What Pete Rose DID do -- or at least what we KNOW he did -- is bet on the Cincinnati Reds to win while he was manager of the team. Did he do more? Maybe. But this is what we know and the Dowd Report is clear in saying "No evidence was discovered that Rose bet against the Cincinnati Reds." In 20 years of digging and pinching you would think that if Rose indeed bet against the Reds at any point it would have come out. All you can know is what you know. I think it's probably fair to say that Rose bet on his team to win."

He mentions a series of polls that were up on his blog a few months ago, results from which he deduces that "many of us are good at being against the CONCEPT of gambling on baseball, but not so sure of ourselves when it comes to the particulars."

And finally:

"And there's something about forgiveness in here too. One thing you hear people say is that Pete Rose hasn't EARNED our forgiveness. It's hard to argue the point. Over the last 20 years, he has been brash and dishonest and indiscreet and arrogant. But there's something else. Pete Rose made a lot of people happy playing baseball. He inspired a lot of people to try harder. He cracked more hits than anyone who ever played the game. And anyway, I didn't think forgiveness was supposed to be earned. I thought forgiveness was supposed to be given. I thought that was the whole point."

I'm not about to get on a number-14 soap box here. I've done that once before. I was up there for 44 days, and I, too, think about the notion of foregiveness.
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All-Stars Among Us Interruptis

There. Now that the American League has its rightful lead with only six outs to go, let's take a moment to examine something important. You know where.

During some pre-bedtime InterWebs browsing, I stumbled across this. It's short, sweet, and to the point. That is, the commissioner has spoken, if only briefly, regarding one Charles P. Hustle. Quoth Allan H. "Bud" Selig:

"'(Pete Rose's application for reinstatement -- which dates back to September 1999) is under review,' Selig said Tuesday during a question-and-answer session with the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. 'He did, as you know, accept voluntarily a lifetime suspension from Bart Giamatti, and there really isn’t much more I can say about that. I did agree to review it. It is under review. We do spend some time discussing it. But it’s not I think appropriate for me to say any more.'”

Maybe, just maybe, after a two-year hiatus, it's time to fire up the Bank Red Machine again. We'll keep you posted should any Seligears be greased. Now back to the bottom of the eighth.
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Historically Speaking: All All-Star, All the Time (Update: Not Really)

All of the All-Star hubbub is really something. Will Leitch aptly summed up the Homerun Derby with this Tweet last night: "The worst part about the Home Run Derby is knowing how profoundly dumb it is, and going nuts for it anyway. Actually, that's the best part." I gotta agree. Hated the thing at first, find myself more invested in at least paying some attention to it with each new year. Whatever. It's Tim Lincecum and Roy Halladay as your starters this evening. While you wait around, have a look at some All-Star history, just after the jump.

* A few All-Star games that took place today: The National League took a 5-1 victory in Cincinnati, 1953; same city (different stadium, same winning team, almost the same winning score (5-4) today in 1970; and the American League took care of business today in 1992 with a 13-6 win in San Diego.

* At that 1970 game in Cincinnati, a fellow by the name of Richard Nixon threw out the first pitch, which is pretty cool considering that today, exactly 39 years later, Barack Obama, the president of the United Fucking States of America, will again throw out the first pitch.

* There was another aspect to that 1970 game, one that affected the outcome. The National League's Jim Hickman hit a 12-inning single that scored Pete Rose, who wouldn't be denied: Rose bowled over American League catcher Ray Fosse, jarring the ball loose from his mitt, and fracturing a bone in Fosse's shoulder. Years later, the San Francisco Chronicle put together an interesting piece on the play.

* There would've been another All-Star Game listed in that first bulled point: the 1981 contest. It didn't happen on July 14 as slated, though. Instead, it was postponed due to a 33-day-old player strike and eventually played on August 9.

* In the 1992 contest, the American League generated 19 hits in total, but started the game with seven consecutive singles which produced four runs. Seattle Mariner Ken Griffey, Jr. went 3-3 on the evening, including a home run, earning him the game's MVP. Cito Gaston and Bobby Cox skipped for their respective leagues.

And your Sports Illustrated quote of the day came from the mouth of...



...the 2006 American League All-Star Manager Ozzie Guillen, who, in 2005, was asked about his leadership style. His response: "I don't know if I'm a leader, but I have the biggest mouth."
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Baseball in the Breaktime: The Hit Versus the Homerun

Editor's Note: With so little head-to-head baseball, yet so much ado about the game in general going on this week, it's time Cecil and I talk baseball again. This exchange bounces around the notion of Bud Selig's perpetual flailing, conspiracies surrounding A. Bartlett Giamatti, Barry Bonds stealing bases, and of course, Pete Rose.

Bankmeister: I figured our House of Georges project was kicking so much ass that I'd create another one, the sole purpose of which would be to monitor the actual letters I'm sending to baseball's handsome commissioner every week day. It's a very young project, but one I enjoy and firmly believe in, as Pete Rose's contributions to the game had a remarkable impression on my young baseball-oriented mind. Old No. 7 says he's squarely on the fence about Rose's situation/debacle. He says there's no doubt he's Hall material, but he's made a small business (with income) for himself by showering the world of baseball with propaganda regarding his non-election to Cooperstown, not to mention he's acted like an ass for most of his post-baseball adult life. What's your stance on Rose, the ban, the Hall? How does it compare to the Barry Bonds dilemna of today?

Cecil: I'm not gonna lie, Chief, I think you've bitten off a massive hunk with these letters to Bud. Soon, the reading public will start demanding that you live up to the missive-per-day conceit, and you're not gonna have any time to ogle internet boobies, dodge the chores your lovely new bride is assuredly laying on you or even shut your eyes for a few blessed minutes of that sweet, sweet darkness. But I see that you're serious.



And serious for a good cause. Unlike our pal Ol' No. 7, I'm with you on Rose. To my mind, the only thing keeping Rose out of the Hall is his own unendurably crappy personality. Baseball writers and executives loved Bart Giamatti. Rose lying to St. Bart was enough by itself to make a lot of those minds up, and he's only made his own case worse since. That hamfisted semi-mea culpa was just embarrassing.

Betting on the game is serious business, for sure, and I'm not suggesting that Rose be allowed back into the league -- which, ironically enough, is what he really cares about, so he can get another managerial job -- just that a Baseball Hall of Fame without Pete Rose in it is a sham, a piece of revisionist history.

I've said it before on the House: Ty Cobb stabbed a night watchman, climbed into the seats to assault fans, slept with a black orphan under his bed for "luck." Tris Speaker not only bet on baseball but likely consciously affected the outcome of games he played. Both are in the Hall.

I could be wrong, but I doubt that there's any evidence Rose ever tanked anything. He did lie about his original statements, yes, and the resultant miasma surrounding the situation is pretty effin' gamey--but call me naive. Tanking doesn't seem to be in his nature. This is, after all, the guy who earned the sarcastic sobriquet "Charlie Hustle" from Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle because he ran out groundouts in spring training. Even a hardcore gambler bets with his own innate prejudices. My gut feeling is that Pete Rose would not ever have bet against himself, and thus, his team.

Bonds' situation is a tad different, for two reasons: his cheating is rooted in substance abuse and it took place on the field. While gamblers and gambling abuses have been present in baseball for decades -- and who knows what 1880s-1920s stats are whacked out because of it? -- the notion of our game and its sacred records being vulnerable to Better Athletics Through Chemistry jabs us in a different place. It feels more dishonest, even if, when it's all counted, it really isn't.

I know, it's a hell of a hair to split, but for Christ's sake, this is baseball. Not everything has to make sense. And, even though I feel what Barry (and Sammy and Mark and Rafael) did is a bigger affront to the integrity of the sport, there's no way The Head ain't going to the Hall. He was bound for a bust long before he took his first 'roid...and now that I think about it, that almost pisses me off more than anything. He could have broken Aaron's record without any of it, but did anyway, supposedly because a simple case of professional jealousy. Jesus. What a waste.

B: You bring up some awesome points. Bart Giamatti was quite a figure. He got Rose to "agree" on the lifetime ban. Here's what's odd to me: Giamatti sets up the ban, and Rose allegedly agrees to it. Nine days later, the commish's ticker explodes and he croaks in office, opening the path for his newly appointed deputy commissioner (a previously non-existent job) Fay Vincent, Jr. to step in, continue his pivotal role in crucifying Rose, then resign three years later. In comes Bud Selig, who gets appointed to some random title that might as well be called interim commissioner and he just hangs out for six years until he's finally elected to the actual position.

I mean, talk about crazy. If Jesus hates Cleveland, then God must loathe things that rhyme with "she a hotty." It's a scam. I can't point out exactly how, but it's got scandal written all over it. If Rose agreed, he was probably scared. We've all done that when the cops come knockin'. Nobody's trying to defend his assiness, and yes, the things you've said are, to an undecided degree, worse than Rose's baseball-related flounderings.

I say it doesn't matter. He's the freaking hit king. His record-breaking single left him on first base alone for nine solid minutes. The world of baseball actually stopped functioning to recognize this milestone. The press was different back then, but I wonder if Barry'd hit 756 on that same day, instead of Rose hitting 4192, would, in your opinion, the baseball world've celebrated that feat to the same degree? It's hard to imagine without the InterNets, the masses of media, etc. that we have today. And of course the juice clouds everything, too. But I also am curious about Dan Patrick's interview of Selig Monday.

I didn't hear it, but Old No. 7 re-capped it for me, and basically it sounds like Patrick went off on Selig for not having a stance on celebrating Bonds' upcoming record breaker. Patrick had just announced he'd be leaving ESPN and, therefore, in ONS' estimation, he was free to call it as he saw it. Selig allegedly said he hadn't decided on whether or not he would be there. Patrick pressed the issue, trying to squeeze hints out of Selig that might reveal on which side of the fence he sits. Seven claims that it was ultra-apparent that Selig was pissed and didn't want to be there. Thus, my other question to you is this: How can MLB's commissioner, a guy who floated into the job 15 years ago, a guy who has "no decided opinion" on Bonds/steroids -- yet has been in office for all of the steroids upheaval --, uphold the ban on Rose, a ruling that almost immediately killed the guy that made it and left the dead guy's successor feeling squrimish enough that he resigns?

C: Well, I think the biggest issue is that Selig is a nematode.

How can he, in good conscience -- hell, even bad conscience -- not just nut the fuck up and be there for Barry? He rode shotgun throughout the Steroid era, he colluded in Fehr's strike, he looks like a cross between Stephen Hawking and Hitler.

Everything Selig does, he does wrong: The tie at the All-Star game; pussyfooting around the obvious performance-enhancing drug issues in the sport he's supposedly watchdoggin'; making mealy-mouthed excuses about the same; installing a toothless drug enforcement plan and then preening about it -- everything. He is, as I said recently about Bernie Bickerstaff in an extraordinarily well-read HoG post, the anti-Midas. Whatever his leprositic mitts grab goes fecal.

And what's up with bitching about Giambi's big mouth and then pushing him to testify? I am at a serious loss to understand the inner workings of MLB's management. It's all reactive. They let problems fester until they're huge, pustulent boils and then try lancing 'em with a grapefruit spoon.

Oh, and yeah -- I think there's some Warren Commission shit going on with mysterious croaking of A. Bartlett. I hadn't really even ever thought about it until now...and suddenly...it just seems so reasonable...or maybe that's the ether.

B: Right. Ether will do that. Interesting Warren Commission reference. I dig it. What about the Rose celebration versus the upcoming Bonds one? Which is bigger, from the global baseball fan perspective?

C: Globally? Barry. He's a bigger "star," as it were. It's tough to compare because the era is so different. Who's to say Petey wouldn't have had his own reality show? But even as sport-crazy as we have been in this past century, we're at a place now where people are famous simply because they're famous, ala Paris Hilton. Barry's outsized melon is probably the most recognizable feature of American baseball to a worldwide audience, with a few specific exceptions in Japan and the Caribbean.

And the home run mark is seen as a bigger deal, I think. I personally don't think it is, by any stretch, but I think the roundball cognoscenti tend to believe in 755 as THE record. Eh. Sure, it's only been reached by two guys -- three, if you count Josh Gibson, which you should, even if no one does -- but as I've said before on the House, I think what Rose and Cobb did is more impressive overall.

Of course, since Hank Aaron also had something on the order of 3,800 hits -- exact number I'm too lazy to Google -- it's not hard to put The Hammer at the top of the all-time slugger pack, right ahead of Ted Williams and Willie Mays.

B: You touched on the exact point I was hoping you might. You're definitely right about Bonds being a bigger global baseball figure. From a nuts-and-bolts baseball fan perspective, though, the hit record is way huger. I know from our exchange here you didn't play a lot of baseball. I'm curious how much of the fundamentals -- the actual focus/vision, stance, grip, swing, feet positioning, weight shifting, follow through, etc. -- of hitting a baseball are stored in your noggin.

In 11 years of playing ball, no coach ever told me to go up there and crush one to deep left-center. No coach ever told any kid on any of my teams that. It was all about practicing good technique, seeing the bat hit the ball, making contact, and getting base hits. Now, if you're good at all of those things, homeruns will happen on occasion. Homerun, however, happens to start with the letter "h," as does hype, an idea we're cramming down the throats of all our sports and athletes. The NHL recently changed some of their rules to allow for more scoring. The NFL is constantly altering things like pass interference, which allows for big plays. The NBA has turned into an atrocious no-defense-playing dunk fest, and MLB prays that chicks will continue digging the long ball.

I say fooey on it all. The two-line pass in hockey meant you had to pass crisply and cleanly, not score more breakaway goals. In football, smash-mouth, nose-to-nose grinding was how guys like Dick Butkus and Larry Csonka became legends. Look at Magic, Kareem and Bird. They busted their buns up and down that court every night, and in baseball, getting on base was the fundamental to winning games. Thus, the accomplishments of Williams, Mays and company are always bigger than those of some Head that can't run.



C: And the shame of it is that the Head could run. He actually stole more than 50 bases on at least one occasion when he was with Pittsburgh, but let that all go for the bulk. As far as myself, I wasn't much of a hitter ever, even in my -- let's see, 7 years? 8 years? something like that -- of playing organized ball. I was a pretty good baserunner/stealer, but that had a lot more to do with the fact that catchers could barely reach second base with their throws at that age. In any case, swingin' for the fences was hardly my thing. I was all about contact. Frankly, it was usually all I could do to make contact. I haven't been to a batting cage in years. I should go and see how bad it's gotten.

Besides, in my experience, chicks often dig a shorter, more easily ignored ball.

B: Indeed they do. Keep us posted on those cage results.

Note: This post appeared previously on Letters to Bud. Since Old No. 7 already broke the recycled-posts cherry, we figured, hey, what the hell.



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