The Golden Sombrero

Growing up as part of a winning baseball team had many advantages. One of which was being able to give your teammates a hard time when things didn't go their way. Practical jokes are more acceptable in the dugout when you are winning. One of my favorite recurring gags was when someone would strike out three times in the same game. Everyone on the team knew when a guy who went to bat had already struck out twice, and was in danger of a third. When he would get one strike away from his third strike out, everyone would be on the edge of their seats, with their hats in hand. Then, on the third strike of the third strike out, dozens of hats would fly out of the dugout in his "honor." It was a hat trick, and not in the positive sense of the term.

In sports, most often hockey and soccer, a hat trick is a rare and spectacular feat because it involves one player scoring three goals in a single game. Sometimes the term is used in describing any sort of success in triplicate, although 3-peat seems to have taken precedence when it comes to winning titles, pennants, or championships.

I had never stopped to think where the term "hat trick" originated, until now. According to Word-Detective.com, the term apparently started in the 1800's in the English game of cricket. The bowler (the guy throwing the ball to the striker -- the guy with the funny bat) who would hit three wickets with three consecutive balls would be awarded a brand new hat from his club. By the early 1900's, the phrase began to creep up in other sports. In the 1940's the Toronto Maple Leafs were given new hats for scoring three goals in a game as well. These days, players that score three goals in a game are likely to get rewarded with something much more valuable than a new hat.

But in baseball, the hat trick is still something you'd rather not be associated with, unless you are the opposing pitcher who contributed to the feat. But, there is something even more humiliating: The Golden Sombrero. That's the distinction you earn if you were to strike out four times in one game. According to Wikipedia, their are two more sombreros of which I was not aware. After all, who strikes out more than four times in one game? The Platinum Sombrero is reserved for the fifth strike out (and can also be termed "Olympic Rings," for the five zeros added to your batting average). If you've already earned a Platinum Sombrero, your worst nightmare may be for the game to go to extra innings, because you may be in danger of the Titanium Sombrero, also known as a Horn (named after player Sam Horn, who accomplished the coveted sixth strikeout in 1991). To date, no player has ever struck out more than five times in a 9-inning game.

"The count is one ball, two strikes... The pitcher looks in and gets the sign from the catcher...checks the runner...And here's the pitch...Swing and a miss at a slider on the outside corner; He struck him out. That's his fourth strikeout of the game."

Olé!

You Win Some, You Lose Some

Four games into the season I never would have thought that I'd be writing that the Royals finally lost their first game, ending their run as the only undefeated team in baseball. Oh well. You know it's a weird game when a sacrifice bunt followed by a suicide squeeze in the fourth inning ends up producing the game-winning run. But, like I said, oh well.

On that note, however, Kansas City is ready and waiting to be a baseball town again. We went to dinner last night and then did some shopping and everywhere I looked there was someone wearing a Royals hat, or a jacket, or a jersey. Oddly enough, that isn't always the case, not with the Chiefs being here. When we first moved to Kansas City, it always bugged me that that annoying red and yellow color combination was everywhere, even in the middle of baseball season. But, not last night. I saw some Kansas Jayhawks gear, but I can't really blame them – only hope for the end of the Final Four as soon as possible so the sports talk guys can start focusing on the Royals. Just on our way out of the restaurant I saw four different guys decked out in Royal blue.

After dinner we stopped at Target. From the time we got into the car at the mall to the time we drove across the street to Target, we had to wait briefly at two stop lights. When we started the car (and consequently, the radio) Billy Butler was at the plate with two outs and Mark Grudzielanek was on second base. There were probably eight or nine pitches thrown before we parked the car at Target, and Butler fouled them all off before earning a base hit up the middle to score the runner. While we were in Target a few minutes later, we overheard two kids. The taller one had a Royals hat, a pair of ears that jutted out from the sides of his head, and a cell phone. He was reading the text alert he had just received to his friend that Butler had singled up the middle and scored Grudzielanek before being tagged out at second base to end the inning. I couldn't help but smile.

Later, as we pulled into the Kohl's, John Buck was in the middle of an at bat. I cut the engine, but kept the radio going. Three more cars parked around us, but we were still glued to the radio and the sweet tones of Hall of Fame Radio Broadcaster Denny Matthews. And then, with a man on second base, Buck drove the ball to left-center for an RBI single. I clapped once, gave him an old, 'at a boy Johnny, and got out of the car. My wife noticed that another couple that had parked at nearly the same time as us also got out of the car at that moment. We can't be sure, but you have to believe they were waiting for the same reason we were waiting – we had to see if the Royals could get that run in with two outs. Another smile.

I have really enjoyed living in a baseball town. But, if the Royals can actually keep this up and contend in the division, I think I'm going to love living in a baseball town that has a team that's winning.

Beating the System: Brian Bannister

Growing up, I wasn't what you would call the star of my teams. There's only one team I have ever been on where I could maybe, possibly say that I was the best player, and that was a really bad team. I started pitching when I was 9 years old. I wanted to pitch when I was eight, but only one eight year old pitched on that team, and it wasn't me. It was an eight year old who looked twelve, who my eleven year old self feared three years later whenever I knew he would be pitching against me, and with whom my fourteen year old self was glad be teammates again. He, for the greater part of our youth, was the fireballer on the mound who no one wanted to face. I, from the time I was fourteen all the way through college, was the unimposing, right-handed, "other" pitcher who opposing teams were happy to draw, thinking they had caught a break.

They hadn't, but thinking they had probably played right into my hands. There really wasn't anything too impressive about me as pitcher. I didn't throw hard, that's for sure. But velocity is only one of the components to being a successful pitcher. It's practically universally accepted that there are four altogether, and here they are, in no particular order: Velocity (how hard the ball is thrown), Location (throwing it where you want to throw it), Movement, (making it curve, slide, cut, sink, split, knuckle, or explode), and Changing Speeds (throwing some hard and some harder). Coaches and scouts always said that none of those four aspects of pitching was more important than the others. Guys like me though, know the truth. When they come up a hand-held device for scouts that measures anything other than velocity, let me know. People would always say that I didn't throw hard enough to be effective and I spent most of my time proving them wrong. And that brings me to Brian Bannister.

Brian Bannister is a pitcher for the Kansas City Royals. Last year, in his rookie season, he put up numbers that placed him in contention for the American League Rookie of the Year. His Earned Run Average (ERA) was 3.87. He won 12 games (which no Royals pitcher had done in five years). And he did it with less than average Major League stuff. Even Bannister himself admits, "I know I’m just a guy with average ability. I’m trying to pitch in the major leagues, against the best hitters in the world. I’m pitching against guys who are like 7 feet tall and can throw 98 mph and have sliders that explode. I mean, seriously, look at me. What am I doing here?"

What is he doing here? Multiple sources say that he is wicked smart. He received a perfect score on the math section of his SAT, and graduated cum laude from USC. And that is why I love this guy. Too often you see pitchers that can throw the ball through a barn wall, provided they can actually hit its broad side -- guys with "million-dollar arms and ten-cent noggins," to borrow a phrase I read somewhere. Not Bannister. He knows who he is, and he's smart enough, and has studied enough to know who he's facing, probably better than they know themselves.

Despite his staggering intellect and his promising rookie season, the geeks (and I say geeks in the most endearing sense of the word) behind Baseball Prospectus have projected that Bannister will have quite the sophomore slump this year with an ERA of 5.19, and a 6-8 win-loss record. They attribute this to his freakishly low BABIP (batting average of balls in play) of .264 from a season ago. The League average is .303, so with a less than stellar walk to strikeout ratio, Baseball Prospectus basically thinks his luck will run out this season. Bannister disagrees, and he's aiming to prove them wrong.

This afternoon was the chance he had to do so, and just like any other test he's ever taken, he flew through this one with near-perfect results. Going head to head with Detroit's potent offense, you might figure it to be a long afternoon for this pitcher who looks more like a guy who should be crunching numbers at a desk than punching out Major Leaguers, but not today. Bannister threw seven innings, striking out four, walking none, allowing no runs, and only three hits. His current ERA of 0.00, and record of 1-0 seem like the perfect start to a season in which Brian Bannister takes on the stat men and wins.

Stat Man: Bill James on 60 Minutes

This is a nice piece done on Bill James, whose name I've been hearing quite often recently. This guy invented "sabermetrics" -- the analysis of baseball based on objective data. He is a fascinating interview. The clip is the entire 13 minute spot from 60 Minutes from this past Sunday, March 29, 2008. Check it out. And I apologize for the ads both before and after the clip, but the people at CBS are too smart to allow their footage to be ripped from the internet by jokers like me, so I had to settle for the embedded video option.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

With all due respect to any other time of the year often classified as wonderful, the first week of baseball is the most, most wonderful time of the year. Was anyone out there as thrilled about Opening Day as I was? It's such a relief to finally see baseball highlights on TV again. I went to sleep last night with visions of scrolling score updates dancing in my head. Two things made yesterday especially sweet.

1) The Royals beat the Detroit Tigers (arguably the best team on paper in the league, and easily the best team in the American League Central Division) on the road in extra innings. I found it a little hard to concentrate on work yesterday while listening to the game on the radio.

2) The last Opening Day game ever at Yankee Stadium was postponed due to rain. Seems that not even Mother Nature wants to see the Bronx Bombers leave that historic venue. What's so great about this? Well, close your eyes and imagine over 56,000 rabid Yankees fans sitting in the rain for a few hours, waiting to see this historic game. Then imagine seeing them all leave, disappointed. Pair of Opening Day Tickets $138, Parking $35, Raincoat, $8. Hotdog, Peanuts, and CrackerJacks, $12. Seeing 56,000 wet Yankees leaving the ballpark in the rain, Priceless.

Actually, I can't lie. It is sad to see Yankee Stadium go. In fact, I almost wrote about how I was going to actually pull for the Yankees this year. I was going to describe how I have been searching out all the information I can find on the storied franchise. I was going to announce that I even ordered a Yankees wool game cap, and that it arrived today in the mail, just in time for the first week of the season. And then I realized, you don't joke about something like that, even on April Fool's. Saying you're a Yankees fan when you're not is sick and wrong.