Who’s better: Mattingly or Hernandez?

February 28, 2009

For those of you who are baseball fans and haven’t had a chance to check out the MLB Network, I suggest you do so. I’ve found myself coming back to it time and again over the past few weeks as I begin to get ready for another baseball season.

One of the best things the network has done thus far is a program called “Prime 9″, which breaks down various lists of nine things about a topic in baseball. Some of the shows I’ve seen so far include the top nine World Series ever played and the top nine shortstops of all-time.

But it was another of these “Prime 9″ epsiodes that is the basis for this post. In it, the show chronicled the top nine players outside of the Hall of Fame that should be enshrined (the players had to be eligible for induction, excluding players like Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose).

In its list, the show said that the eighth most-deserving Hall of Famer yet to be enshrined is first baseman Keith Hernandez. Now, despite my growing up a fan of the team, I’ve never considered Hernandez to be a Hall of Famer – though, in the interest of full disclosure, I never saw him play live.

In fact, I always considered another New York first baseman not in the Hall, Don Mattingly, to be more deserving (although I don’t believe he believe he belongs, either). Yet Mattingly didn’t even make the “Prime 9″ list. This surprised me quite a bit, because I have always thought Mattingly had significantly better offensive numbers than Hernandez over the course of their careers.

After looking at their numbers, though, the debate is much closer than I would have ever guessed at a first glance. I knew both players had some similar skills (good batting average, excellent defensive skills at first base), but I didn’t think they were this similar:

– Both players won a single MVP award (Hernandez in 1979, Mattingly in 1984), and both also finished second in the voting once (Hernandez to Ryne Sandberg in 1984, Mattingly to Clemens in 1985).

– Hernandez was the best defensive first baseman in the National League during the 1980s, winning 11 consecutive Gold Gloves from 1978-88. Meanwhile, Mattingly was the best defensive first baseman in the American League during his prime, winning nine Gold Gloves in 10 years from 1985-94.

– Mattingly took home three Silver Sluggers; Hernandez won two.

– Mattingly was a six-time All-Star with one start; Hernandez was a five-time All-Star with one start.

– Mattingly led the league in batting average once, was second once and was third once; Hernandez led the league in batting aveage once and was second once.

– Mattingly’s career on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS) is .829; Hernandez’s career OPS is .820.

In the end, the difference between the two players came down to their hitting styles. Mattingly hit for a higher slugging percentage, while Hernandez found his way on base more often. Mattingly led the league in slugging once, and was second twice; Hernandez led the league in on-base percentage once, was second three times and third three times.

Like you can with any argument, you pick-and-choose what factors you decide are most important, and best support your argument. In looking at the careers of Mattingly and Hernandez, I come down on Mattingly’s side of the argument because of his run from 1984-89, when he averaged .327 with 27 homers, 114 RBI, a .371 on-base percentage and a .529 slugging percentage. To play devil’s advocate, you coudl say that while Hernandez never had a six-year stretch as prolific as that one, he was a productive player – and healthier – for a longer period of time. As I said before, you pick out the argument that supports your feelings. That’s the great thing about arguments like this, and why who’s in and out of the Hall of Fame engenders such intense feelings from baseball fans. The numbers are out there for everyone to see – the hard part is convincing people to see them the same way that you do.

Good luck with that – you’ll need it.

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Posted by tbontemps1

Tiger’s back, but who will challenge him?

February 27, 2009

Admittedly, I have never been the biggest fan of Tiger Woods. Growing up in Western New York as a fan of Buffalo’s sports teams, I have always found myself on the side of the underdog.

Still, I couldn’t turn away from the television each of the past two days. From the last time we saw Tiger on a golf course? How could anyone possibly forget that performance?

In the wake of that incredible display, golf has disappeared off the map for the vast majority of sports fans while he has rehabilitated from the broken leg and torn ACL he played through at Torrey Pines. But with his absence, as well as the birth of his first son, Charlie, plenty of questions have been raised:

Can he be as good as he was before?

Will he have the same drive?

Can he be better?

Well, Tiger didn’t prove that he necessarily is going to be better than before over the past two days, but he had his moments while beginning to knock off the rust.

The real question, at the end of the day, is if anyone is ever going to come close to matching wits with Tiger on the golf course. Other players have managed to win some majors here and there, such as Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh, and have tremendous careers. But absolutely no one has been able to consistently go toe-to-toe with him on the biggest stage.

The remarkable thing about Tiger’s career is that his greatest challenges have come from people with little recognition. Remember when Sergio Garcia attempted this shot at the 1999 PGA Championship? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPcddytnbFw While he since has become one of the biggest names in golf, at the time he was a 19-year-old kid who didn’t know better than to try and beat the great Tiger Woods.

The same goes for Bob May, the journeyman who went toe-to-toe with Tiger at the same tournament the following year. I remember watching the 2005 Masters with some friends in college, pulling hard for another under-the-radar player, Chris DiMarco, to do the unthinkable and knock off Woods in a head-to-head showdown in a major.

Then came the 16th green. Then came this shot. And although DiMarco gamely hung on, you knew, in the end, that Tiger would will his way to victory. Even last year, when Tiger won the most dramatic victory of his career, his opponent was another solid but unspectacular pro, Rocco Mediate.

These examples all come back to the same, central question facing the world of golf. It isn’t a question of whether or not Tiger Woods is going to be back as good or better than he was previously – I think we have all learned by now that anyone willing to doubt him does so at their own peril. The real question is whether or not we are ever going to see anyone actually rival Woods consistently on the golf course during his prime.

With three wins in the last six majors, Padraig Harrington has launched himself into the discussion of potential challengers to Woods. You always have Mickelson in the discussion, along with Singh and Ernie Els. But if that challenge is realistically going to come, it’s either going to be from Garcia, who is just entering his prime, or else it’s going to come from a youngster like Camilo Villegas or 19-year-old Irishman Rory McIlroy.

Let’s hope for the sake of interesting theatre that someone steps up and challenges Tiger, and forces him to have to work to win these next five majors to pass Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major championships. Otherwise, we may never get to see the highest level Woods has to offer.

And, as a golf fan, there would be nothing more disappointing than that.

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The sad story of Dominic James

February 26, 2009

I’ve always been a huge fan of college basketball. I am a fan of basketball in general, but the college game has always held a spot close to my heart. The reason, in a nutshell, is because of teams like this year’s Marquette Golden Eagles.

In the NBA, you don’t have much of a chance to be successful unless you have a dominant presence in the paint. Unless you are the Cleveland Cavaliers with a wunderkind like LeBron James, the rest of the teams in contention (the Celtics with Kevin Garnett, the Magic with Dwight Howard, the Lakers with Pau Gasol and, when healthy, Andrew Bynum, and the Spurs with Tim Duncan) all have an All-Star big man.

While some teams at the collegiate level, like Pitt with DeJuan Blair and UConn with Hasheem Thabeet, have that same dominant post presence, the difference between college and the NBA is the ability to play different styles. Last night’s matchup between UConn and Marquette was the perfect example of that.

UConn does have a great point guard in A.J. Price, but the Huskies success is generally determined by the success of Thabeet, Stanley Robinson and Jeff Adrien in the paint. It’s the exact opposite for Marquette, a team with a high-octane offense averaging 80 points per game that’s led by its three senior guards: Dominic James, Jerel McNeal and Lazar Hayward. That kind of stark contrast between two teams is something you just can’t find in the NBA.

Personally, I have always loved watching teams like Marquette. I enjoy teams that run up-and-down the floor, that press, that make the game exciting. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a more exciting team than Saint Joseph’s my freshman year of college, with their own dynamic trio of guards in Jameer Nelson, Delonte West and Pat Carroll that came within a hair of making it to the Final Four in 2004. The same goes for Villanova’s four-guard attack of Randy Foye, Allan Ray, Mike Nardi and Kyle Lowry, which nearly shot its way to two straight Final Fours, losing to eventual champions North Carolina and Florida in 2005 and 2006.

That was why last night’s loss for Marquette, and James suffering a season-ending broken left foot, was so sad to see. James and his teammates had Dick Vitale in the house in a nationally-televised game against the No. 2 team in the country – and they also had a chance to keep Jim Calhoun from winning his 800th game.

It’s hard for a team like Marquette to get noticed. Playing in the Big East against schools like Notre Dame, Louisville, Syracuse and Connecticut is always going to leave a team from Milwaukee overlooked. But this was the perfect convergence of talent and opportunity to thrust Marquette right onto the national stage with a win.

Instead, Marquette saw its chances for a national title, let alone a Big East championship, go down the tubes less than five minutes into the game when James started grabbing his left foot, clearly in pain. He quickly came off the court and went to the locker room, and soon was back on the sidelines with his foot wrapped.
But James continued to support his teammates, constantly coaching his replacement, little-used junior Maurice Acker, and encouraging his teammates to keep fighting against the massive UConn frontline. Even as things began to go against the Golden Eagles, he kept coaching, kept pushing, kept hoping for something to happen.

But as the game wore down towards the end, you could see the look on his face, and you knew exactly what he was thinking: Why did this have to happen? Why me? Why now?

There are no good answers to those questions. In the end, we all miss out on seeing one of the most exciting teams in basketball have a chance to make magic in March, to see a team of little guys go up against the big boys and win.

There will be no storybook ending to Marquette’s season, no sure answer to how far this team could have gone. Instead, there will only be questions, only people wondering what could have been.

And that may be the greatest shame of all.

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Posted by tbontemps1

Starbury’s shot at redemption

February 25, 2009

Stephon Marbury is one of the most talented basketball players to ever come out of New York City. But since he was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks with the fourth pick in the 1996 NBA Draft, his career has left many largely unfulfilled.

It hasn’t been because of Marbury’s play on the court itself – few point guards have ever been able to put up the numbers he has throughout his career. He’s averaged over 20 points a game and eight assists a game seven times in his 12-year NBA career, and has made multiple All-Star and All-NBA teams.

No, the reason people have been disappointed, in a nutshell, is because his focus has always been on “Starbury” instead of Marbury. There’s never been enough of a commitment to winning, enough of a commitment to the team, enough of a commitment to buying into a cause bigger than advancing his own numbers or his latest line of shoes.

Marbury has become famous for being traded away from teams, only to have those teams rapidly improve following his departure. After being traded from New Jersey to Phoenix for Jason Kidd, the Nets went to back-to-back NBA Finals. Then, after being dealt from the Suns to the Knicks, Phoenix was able to go out and sign Steve Nash, leading to the run-and-gun Suns under Mike D’Antoni.

For the last several months, Marbury has found himself sitting on the sidelines, mostly because he was unwilling to incorporate himself into D’Antoni’s system with a smaller role. He then was unwilling to give up very much of his 20 million dollar salary, deciding it would be better to sit on the sidelines and collect a paycheck then to find his way to another team. Even amidst reports out of Boston and around the league that the Celtics were interested in his services, Marbury was still defiant, refusing to give up more than a million dollars of his bloated salary.

But Marbury and the Knicks finally came to an agreement on a buyout yesterday, allowing him the opportunity to find his way onto the roster of a playoff team before the March 1 playoff roster deadline. In the wake of reports immediately following the confirmation of the buyout that Marbury and the Celtics were in contract discussions, it seems likely that the player long considered on the NBA’s biggest losers is on his way to the league’s defending champion.

It’s rare that a player as far along into his career as Marbury gets as great an opportunity at redemption as this one. He walks onto a team in desperate need of his services – outside of Eddie House, who’s little more than a shooter, the Celtics have no one to play behind the emerging Rajon Rondo. For a player who has never been on a team that’s won a playoff series, he finds himself on one of the four teams (along with the Lakers, Cavaliers and Spurs) who seem to have a legitimate chance at winning the title.

It also gives Marbury a chance to redeem perhaps the biggest mistake of his career: forcing his way out of a partnership with Kevin Garnett in Minnesota. Looking back, it’s little surprise that their time in Minnesota, as great as it could have been, was doomed from the start. Marbury, for all of his talent, has never seen past himself. Garnett, at times to his detriment, has spent his career focused on doing what’s best for his team.

Now, as his career is much closer to its end than its beginning, Marbury gets another chance to play alongside his sidekick from that far-away time in Minneapolis when he lobbing alley-oops to Garnett. If he takes advantage of the opportunity, he could forever change the perceptions people have about him and his career. If he doesn’t, there won’t be another one coming.

It’s time for Marbury to put up or shut up. It’s time to see if he can play a bit role for a team chasing a title, or if Starbury always has to be the headlining attraction.

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Posted by tbontemps1