Of course, forgotten is an ambiguous term. It means different things to different people. Things you have forgotten – about baseball or life – may reside in my cherished memory bank, just as things I have forgotten may be indispensable to your nostalgia. Therefore, compiling a list of the greatest forgotten baseball players to represent a particular team is a thankless task. More accurately, it is an impractical and imperfect exercise bound to inspire consternation. In a world where we cannot agree to stop wars or end hunger, reaching consensus on bygone ballplayers is a vacuous mirage. And yet, these things still interest me, so here we are.
In this context, by forgotten, I do not refer to those obscure players who played a handful of games for the Yankees then disappeared. Hello, Ben Gamel. Where have you gone, Dustin Fowler? Rather, by forgotten, I mean perfectly memorable players more closely associated with other teams. Familiar faces in unfamiliar places, if you will. Iconic folk heroes synonymous with certain teams yet mired in pinstriped irrelevance.
Without further ado, then, here is my tribute to the unheralded guys who once patrolled that big ballpark in the Bronx. Here is my All-Forgotten Yankees team – a group that will always reside in my heart, if not in Monument Park.
C: Iván Rodríguez
Yankees tenure: 2008 – 33 G, .219 AVG, 2 HR
Arguably the greatest catcher of baseball’s modern age, Rodriguez spent half a season spelling the injured Jorge Posada behind the dish in New York. An experiment to forget for all involved.
1B: Lance Berkman
Yankees tenure: 2010 – 37 G, .255 AVG, 1 HR
Inextricably linked with Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio and the 2000s Houston Astros, Berkman’s bat went limp in the Bronx. The Yankees dumped Berkman following the 2010 season, only for him to win Comeback Player of the Year – and a World Series ring – with St Louis in 2011. How is your luck?
2B: Mark Bellhorn
Yankees tenure: 2005 – 9 G, .118 AVG, 1 HR
The annoying embodiment of Red Sox serendipity, Mark Bellhorn morphed from average utilityman to unlikely postseason hero in 2004 as Boston toppled the Evil Empire en route to a curse-busting world championship. Eventually released by the Sox, Bellhorn joined the dark side – quite unthinkably – before washing up in San Diego. Utterly random.
3B: Kevin Youkilis
Yankees tenure: 2013 – 28 G, .219 AVG, 2 HR
A beloved avatar of the gutsy Red Sox, Youkilis had just as many disabled list stints as home runs in the Bronx before being excommunicated to the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles of Japan. Sayonara.
SS: Troy Tulowitzki
Yankees tenure: 2019 – 5 G, .182 AVG, 1 HR
Long touted as an ideal replacement for Derek Jeter as Yankees shortstop, Tulowitzki finally signed for New York in 2019 – on the downslope of an injury-riddled career. A player I would have loved to see healthy, in pinstripes, in his prime. Alas, it was not written in the stars, which makes Jeter’s longevity even more impressive.
LF: Andrew Benintendi
Yankees tenure: 2022 – 33 G, .254 AVG, 2 HR
Iconic – if under-appreciated – Red Sock who wound up in a pennant race with the Yankees. Sweet swing, good makeup. A guy who should have been kept around.
CF: Andruw Jones
Yankees tenure: 2011-2012 – 171 G, .220 AVG, 27 HR
Arguably the greatest defensive centre fielder of his generation, Jones bottomed out with the Yankees. Like Youkilis, he swapped New York for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. Brian Cashman seemingly had a pact with the NPB franchise, giving it first dibs on broken Yankee castoffs.
RF: Vernon Wells
Yankees tenure: 2013 – 130 G, .233 AVG, 11 HR
A dynamic force during his prime, Wells joined the Yankees in 2013, back when Cashman gave a job to anyone with a pulse amid an unprecedented injury crisis. Acquired, designated, released and retired within one year.
DH: Travis Hafner
Yankees tenure: 2013 – 82 G, .202 AVG, 12 HR
Another former star who plugged a gap for the 2013 Yankees then retired due to a lack of interest from big league teams. Man, how did that 2013 team post a winning record?
Edwin Encarnación
Yankees tenure: 2019 – 44 G, .249 AVG, 13 HR
I actually saw Encarnación play for the Yankees, in London, with my own very eyes. And I still struggle to believe it happened.
Richie Sexson
Yankees tenure: 2008 – 22 G, .250 AVG, 1 HR
A hulking 6-foot-7 slugger who broke down with the Yankees and subsequently retired.
Jay Bruce
Yankees tenure: 2021 – 10 G, .118 AVG, 1 HR
Jay Bruce may not even remember Jay Bruce playing for the Yankees.
Matt Holliday
Yankees tenure: 2017 – 105 G, .231 AVG, 19 HR
A slightly underrated Yankee, Holliday is nevertheless forgotten. A good guy whose body betrayed him in pinstripes.
José Canseco
Yankees tenure: 2000 – 37 G, .243 AVG, 6 HR
Controversy personified, Canseco wound up in pinstripes when Brian Cashman claimed him on waivers to prevent similar moves by the Athletics, Red Sox and Blue Jays amid a chaotic pennant race. “The worst time of my life,” Canseco once said when asked to summarise his Yankees tenure. And for a guy who drops scandal into his morning coffee, that says a lot.
John Olerud
Yankees tenure: 2004 – 49 G, .280 AVG, 4 HR
Wore a batting helmet while playing first base. Iconic Blue Jay and Mariner. Footnote New York Yankee.
Bartolo Colón
Yankees tenure: 2011 – 29 G, 4.00 ERA, 8 W
A forgotten chapter in the bizarre ballad of Big Sexy. Most recognisable with Cleveland, Anaheim, Oakland or the Mets, Colon enjoyed something of a resurgence with the Yankees, only to be demoted from the rotation come October. The ace of my forgotten Yankees staff.
Kerry Wood
Yankees tenure: 2010 – 24 G, 0.69 ERA, 2 W
Once a flame-throwing phenom who struck out 20 batters in a game for the Chicago Cubs, Wood burned out, broke down and stumbled into the Yankees bullpen. A surprisingly reliable bridge to Mariano Rivera, Wood was nevertheless released when the Yankees declined his contract option. Kerry is forever 20 in my mind, dominating hitters with unprecedented filth. He is forever a Cub, too, destined to be forgotten in the Bronx.
Derek Lowe
Yankees tenure: 2012 – 17 G, 3.04 ERA, 1 W
A stalwart Red Sock, Lowe won the clinching game of every postseason series for Boston in 2004 – including the nightmarish ALCS from which New York is yet to recover. Later resurfaced, somewhat paradoxically, as a Yankees reliver, though the relationship never quite clicked. Very strange indeed.
Luis Tiant
Yankees tenure: 1979-1980 – 55 G 4.31 ERA, 21 W
The charismatic Tiant pitched eight seasons for the Red Sox, then signed with the Yankees on a controversial free agent deal. Mediocre over two years in New York, which did not embrace his showman antics. All told, El Tiante should have stayed in Boston.
Kevin Brown
Yankees tenure: 2004-2005 – 35 G, 4.95 ERA, 14 W
Once the richest pitcher on earth, Brown was 39 when he landed in pinstripes. Punched a wall after one humiliating defeat, then lost Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS to Boston – a dark dénouement in Yankees infamy.
Mark Melancon
Yankees tenure: 2009-2010 – 15 G, 4.87 ERA, 0 SV
Once a potential heir to the great Rivera, Melancon instead finds himself ensconced in this pantheon of forgotten Yankees.
Octavio Dotel
Yankees tenure: 2006 – 14 G, 10.80 ERA, 0 SV
The Yankees paid Octavio Dotel $2 million to yield almost three baserunners per inning pitched. I could have done that, and I’m a lazy British slob.
Jake Westbrook
Yankees tenure: 2000 – 3 G, 13.50 ERA, 0 SV
A good, occasionally brilliant pitcher for Cleveland, Westbrook made his major league debut for the Yankees in 2000. Somehow earned a World Series ring that year, despite only appearing in three games and posting an astronomical ERA. Eminently forgettable.
LaTroy Hawkins
Yankees tenure – 2008 – 33 G, 5.71 ERA, 0 SV
The quintessential journeyman reliever, Hawkins famously pitched for 11 teams in a 21-year major league career. One of those seasons came with the Yankees, who randomly gave him the #21 jersey that had been left vacant since the retirement of beloved stalwart Paul O’Neill. When Yankees fans chanted O’Neill’s name as Hawkins pitched in a home game, the team quickly switched LaTroy to #22. Hawkins was then designated for assignment midway through his lone Yankee season.
Joe Borowski
Yankees tenure: 1997-1998 – 9 G, 6.94 ERA, 0 SV
A capable fireman, Borowski led the American League in saves with Cleveland in 2007. A decade earlier, he was reared in a formidable Yankees bullpen featuring Rivera, Jeff Nelson and Mike Stanton. They obviously taught him well – even if he took a while to matriculate.
Manager
John McGraw
Yankees tenure: 1901-1902 – 118-153
Legendary manager of the New York Giants for more than 30 years, McGraw was technically the first manager in Yankees history. Sure, the embryonic franchise was located in Baltimore and nicknamed the Orioles during his reign, but few associate McGraw with pinstripes, nevertheless.
Bobby Abreu, Ralph Branca, Jay Buhner, Billy Butler, Starlin Castro, Eric Chavez, Tony Clark, Rocky Colavito, Ron Coomer, Ike Davis, Doug Drabek, David Dellucci, Morgan Ensberg, Jeff Francis, Jaime Garcia, Tom Gordon, Sonny Gray, Jerry Hairston, Raul Ibanez, Dave Kingman, Corey Kluber, Al Leiter, Jon Lieber, Ted Lilly, Kenny Lofton, Mike Lowell, Sal Maglie, Russell Martin, Andrew McCutchen, Doug Mientkiewicz, Raul Mondesi, Kendrys Morales, Xavier Nady, Dioner Navarro, Phil Niekro, Lefty O’Doul, Lyle Overbay, Gaylord Perry, Martin Prado, Tim Raines, Mark Reynolds, Juan Rivera, Brian Roberts, Kenny Rogers, Deion Sanders, Ruben Sierra, JT Snow, Tanyon Sturtze, Ichiro Suzuki, Brett Tomko, Javier Vazquez, Paul Waner, Jeff Weaver, Randy Winn, Tony Womack, Todd Zeile.
]]>To those unfamiliar, of course, Iván Rodríguez was arguably the greatest defensive catcher of all-time. A bonafide Hall of Famer, Rodriguez won 13 Gold Gloves and appeared in 14 All-Star games during a glistening 21-year career. A World Series champion and American League MVP, Pudge – so named by a Texas Rangers coach – became known for throwing out would-be base-stealers with a cannon arm behind the dish. He also hit 311 home runs and notched 2,844 hits as an underrated offensive force. Put simply, there was nobody quite like Pudge.
Yet, along with the awards and accolades, Rodríguez is remembered by particularly nerdy baseball fans for an unprecedented – and perhaps apocryphal – event that occurred at the very start of his professional career. You see, according to legend, Pudge Rodríguez got married and made his MLB debut on the same day. And that yarn became indispensable to his origin story – despite somewhat dubious verification.
According to most retellings, Rodríguez was due to marry Maribel, his childhood sweetheart, on the field between games of a Tulsa Drillers doubleheader on 20 June 1991. Then 19, Pudge was a star for the Rangers’ Double-A minor league affiliate, but even seasoned prospect gurus were surprised when Rodríguez was promoted to the big leagues on his wedding day. Pudge was also surprised, and those wedding plans had to be hastily rearranged.
Some say Rodríguez and Rivera got hitched in the morning – on the field or at the town hall, depending on who you ask – then raced to the airport and caught a flight to Chicago, where Pudge joined the Rangers, threw out two baserunners and caught Kevin Brown as the Rangers beat the White Sox, 7-3. A magical day all around, I’m sure you will agree. A fairytale, indeed, taken straight from the Hollywood playbook.
Perhaps understandably, that sweetened version of events – wedding in the morning, debut at night – has been repeated in books, on game broadcasts and across social media ever since. Even the Texas Rangers’ official accounts have propagated the story, which is pleasingly poetic – except, well, it never happened. The wedding was almost entirely misreported and misremembered. Rodríguez said as much himself in a 2017 autobiography:
Rodríguez reiterated that explanation in a piece for the Players’ Tribune, and I’m inclined to believe the man. After all, who forgets their own wedding day? However, the peculiar thing about that original New York Times article – published 22 June 1991 – was the pristine credentials of its author, Pulitzer Prize winner Ira Berkow. Oh, and Berkow quoted Maribel herself in the piece, recounting oddly specific details of a Tulsa ceremony:
“…There would be a wedding, in the Tulsa courthouse, on Thursday [20 June] at 8:30 in the morning. Instead of her wedding dress, Maribel wore a blouse and shorts, and Ivan wore casual clothes instead of his baseball suit. ‘We didn’t have time for much else,’ said Maribel. ‘We had to throw all our stuff into suitcases right away because we had an 11 o’clock flight to Chicago.’”
Other esteemed outlets reported similar stories contemporaneously. The Los Angeles Times trailed the morning-wedding-evening-debut narrative, while a UPI game story by Carrie Muskat quoted Rangers manager Bobby Valentine, who said, “It’s been a nice day for him [Rodríguez]. He just stopped at the town hall on the way to the airport.” Even SABR, another source of noted detail, says “They rescheduled the wedding for Thursday morning, (in later years, Rodríguez said they actually got married during spring training the following year), then the couple flew to Chicago, where Rodríguez made his major league debut that night.”
Duly intrigued, I trawled public records to find a definitive answer. While digging through Ancestry.com, the world’s largest records archive, I found no match for an Oklahoma wedding between Iván Rodríguez and Maribel Rivera. In fact, I found no trace of a 1991 wedding at all. However, I did find a marriage certificate (#02211), dated 27 March 1992, processed by the Florida Department of Health, for a ceremony in Charlotte, Florida, where Ivanm (sic) Rodriguez Torres married Maribel Rivera Oliveri. That, I believe, is the famous wedding in question – staged during spring training of 1992, as Pudge always maintained.
As such, I’m somewhat confused by the pervasiveness and resilience of this myth. The original reporting from June 1991, citing a Tulsa wedding on the day of Rodriguez’ debut, remains an unsolved mystery. Maybe something got lost in translation, or perhaps a harmless tale told in jest found print and was subsequently aggregated. Regardless, Pudge and Maribel were married for 14 years. They also had three children together, before divorcing in 2006.
A year later, Pudge remarried. That ceremony was held in February, a few weeks before pitchers and catchers reported to spring training. Maybe Pudge learned his lesson the hard way, or perhaps he just had a thing for spring training weddings. His second wife was called Patricia, so Iván Rodríguez and I have something in common after all. The Rangers might even give me a call one week from Sunday. I will pack a chest protector just in case.
]]>Yet beyond moustaches and moonshots, steroids and scepticism, Rafael Palmeiro is synonymous with something else to baseball nerds who enjoy such inane tchotchke: for two years, he was the face of Viagra. Yes, you read that correctly: during the twilight of his career, a prominent baseball superstar became the premier pitchman for erectile dysfunction pills. This is the story of how, and why, and when. Strap yourself in.
Viagra, a Pfizer brand name for sildenafil, was first approved for use in erectile dysfunction treatment by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in March 1998. Male sports fans were a captive audience, of course, and Pfizer focused its marketing efforts on that demographic. In 2001, NHL Hall of Famer Guy Lafleur became a Viagra spokesman, while NASCAR driver Mark Martin carried the brand’s logo on his car and race jacket. Viagra ads also appeared during MLB telecasts, with positive results encouraging deeper collaboration.
To that end, in February 2002, Pfizer struck a three-year, $30 million deal to make Viagra the official erectile dysfunction drug of MLB. And while that strapline seems oddly verbose, there was active competition in the market. Levitra, a rival brand developed by Bayer and GlaxoSmithKline, also eyed sports fans and eventually hired legendary NFL coach Mike Ditka as an ambassador. Such competition encouraged Pfizer to formalise its baseball outreach, and the $30 million commitment was the largest of any MLB sponsor at the time.
On paper, it seemed like a logical investment for Pfizer. After all, chicks dig the long ball, and its MLB partnership meshed with the peak of baseball’s steroid era, as chemically-enhanced superstars rewrote the record books with dubious displays of power. Just four years before Viagra partnered with MLB, of course, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire reignited the American love affair with muscle-bound sluggers as they topped the hallowed single season home run mark of Roger Maris. For Pfizer, then, tapping into baseball’s testosterone-fuelled zeitgeist was a prescient ploy.
Along with stadium billboards and licensed MLB fantasy games, the sponsorship agreement entitled Pfizer to a public baseball figurehead to be used in marketing materials and advertising drives. Quite hilariously, Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole was the original face of Viagra in America, but Pfizer sought someone younger and more diverse via its baseball tie-in. Seattle Mariners star Edgar Martínez was the top choice, per Here’s the Pitch by Roberta Newman, but Palmeiro was the pivot when Edgar demurred.
Why Palmeiro? Well, everything is bigger in Texas, right? And Palmeiro was firmly ensconced on the Texas Rangers when Pfizer came calling. A certain Alex Rodriguez was also on that Rangers squad, and an A-Rod/Viagra collaboration would have lent itself to some exquisite puns, but Palmeiro got the gig. After all, he was a four-time All-Star, three-time Gold Glover and two-time Silver Slugger by that point. Palmeiro was also 37 and presumably more familiar with Viagra than the prodigious Rodriguez.
Regardless of the rationale, Palmeiro soon appeared in Pfizer ads, bedecked in full Rangers uniform and captured at strategically euphemistic angles. Palmeiro also appeared on the home page of viagra.com, while a Seattle Post-Intelligencer report said he earned $400,000 per hour shooting television ads for Pfizer. The following zingers emerged among the Palmeiro-Viagra marketing copy:
Rather predictably, Palmeiro was ribbed by fans, journalists and teammates for hawking such a taboo – if clinically innovative – product. Some fans had Palmeiro sign boxes of Viagra, and relentless kidding forced the faded star to speak out. “I guarantee you, everybody in this clubhouse has tried it, and most are asking me for it,” Palmeiro told the Tribune News Service. In other dispatches, he denied needing Viagra but said he still took it anyway. The entire episode carried an absurd hue, and Pfizer may have doubted its return on investment.
“In following septuagenarian Bob Dole as the face of sexual impotency, he had to be prepared to be the butt of some jokes,” wrote Garrett Kolb in Spoiled Sports, a book of comical explorations. “But when the Rangers came to play an interleague game in Pittsburgh, he couldn’t have been ready for the greeting that was in store. The first time Palmeiro stepped to the plate, a boing sound effect came over the stadium speakers. The organ player then followed the dig with renditions of ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ and the theme music to Woody Woodpecker. If that wasn’t enough, the stadium scoreboard ran pictures of a spurting and gushing fountain on its screens. Meanwhile, fathers throughout the stadium were heard stuttering and stammering through explanations to their little boys and girls as to why such a display was so funny.”
Powered by his little blue pills – and perhaps a whole lot more besides – Palmeiro hit the 500th home run of his major league career in May 2003, becoming just the nineteenth member of that esteemed club. Nevertheless, Pfizer dropped Palmeiro at the end of that season. No specific reason was ever given for the move, and Viagra continued as a prominent MLB sponsor through the 2004 campaign, but some say Pfizer caught wind of Palmeiro’s deteriorating reputation and cut bait before scandal sullied his name.
Indeed, controversy followed Palmeiro during his waning days in the baseball limelight. In February 2005, fellow big league slugger José Canseco accused Palmeiro of taking performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in Juiced, his seismic expose. A month later, Palmeiro testified before Congress during a hearing into doping in baseball. “Let me start by telling you this,” Palmeiro infamously said under oath, wagging a finger. “I have never used steroids, period. I don’t know how to say it any more clearly than that. Never.”
Alas, just five months later, Palmeiro was suspended after testing positive for Stanozolol, a banned testosterone facsimile purported to enhance muscle growth and athletic recovery times. Palmeiro always denied knowingly taking steroids, and even implicated Orioles teammate Miguel Tejada in a possible explanation. According to Palmeiro, Tejada offered him a vitamin B12 injection, a rogue ingredient of which inadvertently caused the positive PED test. The court of public opinion passed judgement on Palmeiro regardless, and his legacy was forever tainted. It is painfully ironic, of course, that erectile dysfunction and shrunken testicles are well-known side effects of steroid abuse.
However, all joking aside – and, admittedly, it was hilarious – there was also a symbolic importance to Palmeiro’s representation of Latino men in discussions around sexual health. Though later lampooned as something of a baseball meme, Palmeiro gave voice to a chronically under-represented strata of American society, and that should not be understated. The comedy of it all helped spread a significant message, and the fact we are still talking about it now, two decades later, affirms the effectiveness of the Pfizer campaign.
]]>Firstly, after traversing the classic debate between technological instrumentalism and technological determinism, I landed somewhere in the middle. In my freshly formed opinion, social media platforms are not entirely neutral, because they are designed to horde and monetise human attention. However, we can also modify our usage – via tweaked settings and self-regulation – to make social media work for us, and that concept is often overlooked.
Indeed, to a large extent, the relative goodness or badness of social media depends on how we use it. Who we follow. How we curate our timelines. The words and accounts we block and mute. The information we actively seek. The insights we willingly share. Fusing instrumentalism and determinism together, then, we see how our use of social media alters its impact on our lives.
That is why I have created a baseball-exclusive profile on X. If used solely to follow baseball, my greatest passion, social media can be a force for good. For joy, even. Yes, there are still concerns beyond the simple content of social media – privacy, addictiveness, a warped sense of reality – but with adjusted settings and sufficient guardrails, these platforms can work. They can become innocuous nodes in our life. They can deliver efficiencies of time and effort. And they can make us happy – if we let them.
Perhaps rightly, we all think very deeply about the dark side of social media – conspiracy theories, political extremism, psychological abuse, harassment, bullying, harassment, comparison – but what if we can avoid all that? What if innocent inputs can create innocent outputs? What if we can keep the positive aspects of social media while dumping the downsides? That sounds utopian to some, but I think it can be done.
Ultimately, I believe the social media that became unbearably toxic was the social media of political extremists who wanted to be cancelled just to prove a point. The useful, fun social media of breaking sports news, hilarious cat videos and atmospheric latte art? That is still very much alive. We just need to find it in the morass, then protect it from contamination.
Conclusively, for all the handwringing about ‘censorship’ and ‘free speech,’ we easily forget social media was the greatest liberator of expression – sans gatekeepers – since the printing press. If you do not say stupid shit or seek to intentionally harm others using its gifts, social media can be a helpful, enjoyable repository of your thoughts, feelings and experiences. Many people forget that.
I have also come to recognise the resounding uselessness of virtue signalling in a contemporary world ruled by leviathan profit motives. Avoiding social media on moral grounds – because you disapprove of those who own and run the dominant platforms – is self-defeating. Here, there is an unacknowledged discrepancy between the macro virtue signal of eschewing social media and the micro convenience of using it. When all is said and done, social media remains the easiest outlet for creative expression, and ignoring that for supposedly virtuous purposes – because ‘Elon sucks’ – just makes life harder than it needs to be.
People who avoid or boycott products because of their owner, founder or senior management are overly idealistic and set for relentless frustration. Unfortunately, if you trace any consumer product back to its origins, you will likely find murky characters, dodgy dealings and problematic connections. Charities are plagued by corruption. Water companies are prone to complacency. Heck, we cannot even agree if solar panels and electric cars do more harm than good. But what are you going to do – sit in the basement and isolate yourself from the world? Why do that when we have so many brilliant tools at our disposal to make life better.
Ultimately, you cannot live today without using convenient things made by bad people, so depriving yourself of those convenient things is a recipe for avoidable agitation and struggle. Try to imagine life without oil majors (Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP) and the fuel they provide; without tech giants (Microsoft, Apple, Google) and the systems they create; without supermarket behemoths (Walmart, Target, Tesco) and the food they simplify; without ecommerce goliaths (Amazon, Alibaba, eBay) and the options they promote; without transport titans (General Motors, Volkswagen, Ford) and the opportunities they enable. Yes, many of us would like to live in a world where such companies do not have a surfeit of power, but that is out-of-touch with reality. The toothpaste is not going back in that tube.
To a certain extent, then, choosing between branded flavours of things we have been trained to crave is immaterial. It is also a waste of energy. Shell or BP? Volkswagen or Ford? Walmart or Target? It does not really matter. These brands, and their amorphous products, have so penetrated society and reshaped how things are done that eschewing them – or their anchoring industries – is incompatible with comfortable survival. Capitalism is so entrenched that making anti-capitalist decisions unilaterally only hurts you, the consumer. Being stubborn over these things makes life tougher, and I’m at the stage where making life easier creates bliss. Anything that helps me do is worth consideration.
By the same token, picking which cunning billionaire we dislike least is also pretty pointless, because there is very little we can do, alone, to erode their power or influence their decisions. Specifically regarding tech, I have made peace with the fact that my micro actions will never impact the macro phenomena. I have realised that, ultimately, the backbone of modern existence is reliant upon a few Silicon Valley firms, and resisting that – on virtuously symbolic grounds – is futile. We do not need to turn everything into a sanctimonious totem. At a certain point, rooting for one set of pixels over another seems stupid. Take the path of least resistance.
The recent debacle surrounding content moderation on Substack is a pertinent example. Sure, it is admirable that prominent users voiced concerns about the allowance of extremist, Nazi content. It even feels correct that many of those prominent users left the platform when Substack deigned to remove such objectionable content. However, I’m pretty sure the campaigners and those creating Nazi content share mutual use of other services, as well, not just Substack. Broadband providers, for instance. Telephone companies. Insurance brokers. Will campaigners also boycott those services? Where will they draw the line? How long before we devolve into reductio ad absurdum?
Now, my agenda is not one of anti-woke rebellion, nor will I become a shill for corporate interests whose largesse wreaks havoc. I’m not drinking the Big Tech Kool-Aid, nor am I vilifying entrepreneurs who profit from developing great products. My main overarching point is that, sometimes, the convenience these products afford us is worth the trade-off – personally, professionally and psychologically. We are so far down the road, in the weeds, that we consider frictionless, instantaneous connection to be a birthright. Indeed, we often forget that, without Mark Zuckerberg and his controversial contemporaries, such concepts would remain science fiction. The irony of using Facebook to lambaste Facebook is lost on many people, and we would all benefit from seeing the bigger picture.
It is okay to use social media superficially. It is fine to enjoy social media at a surface level, for the ease and enjoyment it offers, without your actions being held aloft as a politicised trophy in our endless culture wars. Beneath dense layers of internalised, regurgitated philosophising, these are incredibly useful apps. Yes, Zuck probably sells our private data behind the scenes, but so do most companies with which we interact. Such expectations are etched into the rules of engagement nowadays, whether we like it or not.
Besides, there are a lot of myths surrounding supposed Big Tech privacy violations, and while I do not pretend they are imaginary, I do believe they are overblown. We can toggle settings and opt-out of tailored advertising, if that makes us feel safer online. Indeed, to a large extent, social media firms are vilified for giving people things that are bad for them, but which they impulsively want – like cigarettes, alcohol, or Cleveland Guardians season tickets. We rely on self-regulation to enjoy those vices in moderation, so a similar approach should be possible with social media.
In sum, we may call my new approach ‘pragmatic consumerism’ – a real world understanding that we are now reliant upon certain tools to live, and resisting them only creates quarrelsome friction for ideological reasons. Rather than shooting myself in the foot, like the prototypical obstinate ideologue, I’m taking a more laissez-faire view of social media and Big Tech. I’m using it to help me, rather than letting it drive me insane.
This brings me to the whole ‘build on your own platform’ bromide perpetrated by influencer types high on the fumes of their own narcissism. While there are valid existential fears around platforms collapsing and taking years of hard work with them, we have to be realistic here. We have to acknowledge how the world really works.
Quite frankly, there is no such thing as owning your own platform online. Yes, you can buy a domain and build your own website. I have done that here. But I’m still beholden to a content management system and domain registrar, both of whom have their own terms of service. If I violate those terms, my website – the proprietary platform I ostensibly ‘own’ – will be deplatformed. Sure, you can run your own server, but that can be incredibly difficult, costly, worrying and stressful. Unless you are a super-rich IT whiz, doing so makes little sense.
Similarly, even if freedom-hungry content creators maintained manual lists of email addresses through which to distribute work, an email client – such as Mailchimp – would still be needed to facilitate that goal. In theory, Mailchimp can pull the plug whenever it wants, should users abuse their conditions, so our modern delusions of autonomy are exactly that – delusions. There are ways to protect yourself from the risks of cancel culture and deplatforming – some providing more certainty and liberty than others – but thinking an online entity can succeed without using third party tools is absurd.
Take Parler as a prescient, if contentious, example. An upstart social media site favoured by conservatives and endorsed by Donald Trump, Parler went dark in 2021 when Amazon Web Services pulled its servers due to ‘violent and threatening content.’ My point is not a partisan one – Parler meant nothing to me. I merely want to demonstrate that even an online service with 20 million users and the backing of a former president relied on borrowed pipes from the internet’s archaic plumbing network. Amazon, Microsoft and Google control more than 66% of that network through cloud-based web-hosting as a service, so their grip on power is almost unbreakable. Denying that is illogical.
In closing my original piece on quitting social media, I directed readers to my free mailing list, members of which receive a weekly email newsletter replete with links to my latest work. This, once again, echoed gospel spewed by the self-proclaimed productivity gurus and ‘growth-hackers’ who dominate modern discourse. Grow an email list, creators are told, and everything will be fine. You can sidestep algorithmic distribution and reach all of your fans, direct in their inboxes! Except, here is the catch: everybody hates email, and most people do all they can to avoid spending time mining messages.
Yes, I still have a free email list. And yes, I’m incredibly grateful for every single member of it. Your frequent feedback and support is greatly appreciated. However, the romantic notion of email newsletters as a genius pivot to sustainable, autonomous distribution is deeply flawed. Emails are a nuisance. Emails are clunky. Emails are old hat. A medium created in the 1970s will not sustain us through the 2020s, so stop pretending it will.
This year, my newsletters have a click-through rate of 6.82%, outperforming the industry average of 5%. But rather than heralding victory, those metrics affirm my broader point about email fatigue. Yes, I could write more convincing emails or play around with the template to present content in a more enticing manner, but when email accounts for 0.3% of my website traffic – and I’m indifferent to website traffic in the first place – is it worth the hassle? Probably not.
It is ironic, of course, that those who are most successful with newsletters – the Substack elite – typically have large pre-existing audiences built primarily through social media. That is the dirty little secret of the so-called creator economy: it relies on the attention economy it so readily vilifies for vital exposure and sustenance. Without those legacy powerhouses, the niche outlets would likely implode as commercial concerns. How do you make Substack work without 10,000 Twitter followers, won from years of participation in the attention economy wars? How do you live off Patreon without 5,000 YouTube subscribers? How do you monetise OnlyFans without an Instagram thirst trap? You certainly can, and some definitely do, but it is incredibly difficult, and they are in a vanishing minority.
Again, I will continue to send out a weekly automated email and converse with those who engage, but only because it requires very little concerted effort. If I had to build newsletters manually and schedule time to send them out, the juice would not be worth the squeeze, and I probably would not bother. Everything is relative in the field of distribution, and you have to focus on areas that reap rewards.
I do not blame the recipients of my emails, either. They, like me, are probably bombarded from all angles by marketing spiel every single day. Few optionally read emails, and fewer still enjoy them. Besides, this is the age of TikTok. For anything to cut through, it must be instantaneous, engaging and frictionless. I have railed against that trend for years, clinging to the ink-stained nostalgia of newspapers and books. I would love for loquacious columns to still be king, as they were in days of yore, but that is not the case, and it never will be again. Our attention spans are fried, and only the most expedient apps avoid instant obsolescence. Hence my fresh embrace of social media. It is the only medium that penetrates.
While quitting social media, I also had a foolhardy – and anachronistic – belief in SEO as a future-proofed driver of traffic. According to my flawed logic, if I wrote about something, people looking for that thing would find it via a search engine, read it, and maybe join my aforementioned mailing list to receive future updates. That flow vaguely works, and my website has pretty good search traffic, but SEO is also changing rapidly. In fact, traditional SEO is all but dead, and relying on it as a primary source of exposure is naïve at best and myopic at worst.
Very soon, search engine results pages (SERPs) will be unrecognisable to the millennial surfer. Many have changed already, in fact, as AI transforms the way we traverse the web. Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) will summarise heaps of data, replacing the famous ten blue links with an AI-powered gist, fit for rapid consumption by perpetually-distracted, time-poor consumers who seek instant gratification. Bing will do something similar, while Arc is gaining traction with its belief that ‘a browser, a search engine, an AI chatbot and a website aren’t different things,’ per The Verge. Throw in people using TikTok and YouTube as go-to discovery tools; audio search gaining traction; and, well, the central SEO spigot is about to run dry.
As such, it makes sense for me to expand my traffic sources right now, not reduce them. My livelihood no longer depends on writing, but I still take immense pride in my work, and I dedicate untold hours to this craft. I do not chase exposure or engagement, but it would be nice if some people read and enjoy what I produce. Therefore, introducing at least one new traffic pipeline seems fairly reasonable. It seems logical, in fact, hence my shameless pivot.
Social media companies will not send a deluge of traffic to my website. I know that. Those days are long gone. Algorithms are gonna algorithm. But if I use social media as originally intended – to share links to things I like and exchange proprietary ideas – a positive effect is not impossible. And regardless, one additional reader via social media is still one additional reader. One reader I would not have had without a social media presence. That is a simple equation that often gets lost in debates about scale and growth.
I still believe in digital minimalism, but there is a difference between digital minimalism and digital depravation. “To re-establish control, we need to move beyond tweaks and instead rebuild our relationship with technology from scratch, using our deeply held values as a foundation,” writes Cal Newport in Digital Minimalism. “By working backwards from their deep values to their technological choices, digital minimalists transform these innovations from a source of distraction into tools to support a life well lived. By doing so, they break the spell that has made so many people feel like they’re losing control to their screens.”
I’m still doing as Newport suggests. I’m still a digital minimalist. But I’m also a realist with an indefatigable need to express random, inconsequential thoughts. In 2024, the easiest, most expedient way of doing that remains social media. And for as much as that may disappoint traditionalists, arguing the fact only results in agitation.
I have definitely felt conflicted about returning to social media, and even admitting my ‘relapse’ has taken months of soul-searching and sleepless nights. But ultimately, U-turns are healthy. They illustrate growth and maturity. Admitting you were wrong shows guts and developed understanding. There may well be further reversals, as well. I cannot promise this will work out. But that, too, is okay. One day, none of these pixels will matter. All of this code will be blown into the sun. Nothing is that important.
Indeed, there is something admirably refreshing about abandoned social media accounts. There is an innocence to that insouciance. I’m not talking about those who grandly depart social media strategically, as I once did. I’m talking about those who just forget to use the apps after a while because they do not occupy much space in their life, nor do they zap their precious psychological bandwidth. I envy those carefree consumers who ditch social media profiles like blunt razors – disposable, expendable and inanimate. That is how I plan to view my social media profiles in future, rather than having them loom as millstones around the neck.
Maybe, in the end, mine is a refreshed, matured outlook of positive technological nihilism. Nothing ultimately matters, in the grand scheme of human existence – not the Mona Lisa, nor the Empire State Building, nor my thoughts on the Green Bay Packers’ season ticket waiting list – so we should feel liberated to explore and follow our desires in our limited time on this planet. There is catharsis in such a worldview, and that may be my greatest revelation of all.
I’m fortunate that social media is not a critical thing for me. I’m not a full-time content creator. Writing is not my main source of income. I have a full-time job that pays my bills. Realising that, and coming to terms with it, has been liberating. I do not have to take myself too seriously. I can post whatever I want, whenever I want, wherever I want. My livelihood does not depend on having 100,000 followers or posting 10 times per day. Social media can thus be something of a frivolous indulgence for me, rather than a professional necessity.
When all is said and done, my social media hopscotch is really not that big of a deal. I have re-joined 5 billion people – 66% of the global population – who use social media. Until now, such actions – simply adding and dropping things based on impulse and the value they add to my life – has always felt beyond me. As a quasi-public writer, I have always felt compelled to inform people of major life updates and decisions – from changing the sports teams I root for to quitting social media. Now, though, I have come to two major realisations. One: I do not always need to justify my actions. And two: things change, so only a fool makes grand, bold, sweeping, definitive declarations.
There are still concerns about this project because, well, I’m a sensitive sort prone to existential worry. I may well reach another turning point in the future and decide to quit social media again. I’m a little crazy like that. Sorry. Key challenges remain on managing the attention span aspect of social media usage, and not allowing social media to become a central spoke of my life, but I’m approaching those conundrums with optimism, not anxiety-riddled dread. Social media will be a thoughtless add-on for me – enriching and beneficial – rather than defining my life. Call it growth. Call it acquiescence. Call it surrender. Whatever you call it, it is not that important. It is a minuscule spec on the wider horizon of contemporary life.
]]>However, without social media, the ensuing eight months have been a rollercoaster. Yes, I have experienced periods of sweet relief and catharsis, but a persistent sense of loss has also lingered. I missed having a place to share pithy, inconsequential thoughts in a frictionless manner. I missed vocalising transient flotsam: bite-sized nuggets of trivial contemplation. I missed microblogging in its purest form – a rare admission among those who delete these apps.
More than anything, though, I missed Baseball Twitter – that weird and wonderful cauldron of hot takes and breaking news. As a diehard baseball fan who lives in the UK, an ocean adrift of the action, social media once served as a vital lifeline for me to stay informed. I could not ride a train to Fenway Park on a whim, or discuss the enduring brilliance of Clayton Kershaw with colleagues at the office watercooler, but I could follow updates from Ken Rosenthal, Jeff Passan and Jared Carrabis in real-time. I could interact with a host of baseball news-breakers and tastemakers online. I could feel part of the game I love, despite residing 3,000 miles from its epicentre.
Quitting social media severed that lifeline, somewhat myopically, and I felt lost without a steady source of baseball content. I tried to browse websites in a throwback fashion while publishing verbose opinion pieces here, but the lack of immediacy left me unfulfilled. I could not keep up with the relentless news cycle. As one example, take the October retirement of legendary manager Terry Francona. By the time I sat down to write a tribute to Tito – after wrangling dishes, laundry and other banal accoutrements of everyday life – his announcement was old news. In turn, my views were of questionable relevance and utility. So questionable, in fact, that I never got round to typing them, as the moment seeped away.
Overall, I struggled with the ephemerality of thoughts, opinions and their timely transmission. As a writer, I’m often caught between a grim nihilistic disillusionment and an obsessive yearning to catalogue minutiae for purposes of stilted vanity rooted in delusions of relevance. Without social media as an impulsive outlet, a gap emerged in my creative process, and the following quandaries busied my mind:
Ultimately, and painfully, I realised objectively correct answers to these questions will never materialise. The itch will never go away. Things will always happen that I want to share an opinion about, but which are too trivial or fast-moving to warrant a standalone piece (and the stress entailed in its creation) of more than, say, 200 words. There will always be flotsam in need of unimportant expression.
Acquiescing, I tried to devise convoluted systems for capturing my incessant thoughts and releasing them promptly without social media. Hence my brief experimentation with Notes + Scribbles, a short-lived series of ‘assorted thoughts, flotsam, observations and tidbits in a stream of consciousness format, grouped under logical – if eclectic – subheadings.’ Hence failed experiments with clunky chyron apps and handwritten notebooks. Hence countless hours of stress and torment. I could not see the wood for the trees, and avoiding the simple solution – returning to social media – created an incessant background malaise that quickly wore me down.
I often thought about simply returning to social media, but the way I announced my departure – stupidly ceremonial, in retrospect – made such a U-turn feel dumb. Moreover, many of my original concerns about social media remained valid. I soured on the medium due to its perceived reliance on negativity and outrage for sustenance. I grew tired of an ecosystem where 5,000-word essays were destroyed by five-word takedowns, and the deluge of polarisation – via misinformation, disinformation and cancel culture – felt relentless.
Gradually, though, I realised the senseless futility of my enforced deprivation. Those macro problems belonged to mainstream social media, I realised. By contrast, niche social media – platforms used by likeminded people to share innocent enthusiasm for anodyne interests – was alive and well. In my world, broadscale social media – poisoned by political extremism – seemed off-putting, but bespoke social media – focused exclusive on baseball, say – had exciting potential. I slowly became agnostic to, then supportive of, this concept of modified social media. I stopped getting in my own way and let technological expedience ease the strain. The hunt for beneficial apps took me right back to the start, and that is where my new journey will begin.
For all the hysteria and hyperbole surrounding Elon Musk’s controversial takeover, the platform formerly known as Twitter – now X – remains the undisputed king of real-time sports news, views and discourse. Sure, Musk has done some pretty lamentable things with X – from botching blue badge verification to throttling outbound traffic – but the network has proven to be remarkably resilient. In fact, among niche sports communities, X has remained deeply entrenched – a go-to tool for instantaneous information – and supposed alternatives have barely registered on the radar.
Look no further than Super Bowl LVII earlier this month. X reported a 41% rise, year-on-year, in posts during the big game. Overall impressions were up by nearly a third; more than 1.1 billion video views were recorded; and 77% of brands that advertised on-air during the Super Bowl shared their campaigns on X. To sports fans, then, rumours of Twitter’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. X remains a central hub of sports fandom, and only a cataclysmic meltdown will make that change.
Drilling deeper, baseball remains especially reliant on X as a consensus forum for pertinent commentary and breaking news. Yes, Shohei Ohtani announced his own free agent signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers via Instagram in December, but hot stove speculation has otherwise played out on X – just as it has for the past 15 years. When Rosenthal or Passan have fresh information, X is still the first place they post it – even ahead of The Athletic and ESPN, the publications that pay their wages! Partly, that may be habitual. Partly, it may be network effects. But combined, Rosenthal and Passan have 2.5 million followers on X. By contrast, on Threads, the so-called ‘Twitter killer’ launched by Meta in July 2023, their joint tally is around 51,000. That discrepancy is monumental.
Another example affirms the omnipotence of Baseball Twitter. On Monday, Jon Heyman reported – via X and Threads simultaneously – that Brandon Woodruff had returned to the Milwaukee Brewers on a two-year contract. Though woefully unscientific, I monitored the performance of his two Woodruff posts over the next 24 hours, keen to compare engagement. On X, Heyman received 3,400 likes, 933 reposts and 116 replies in that span. On Threads? Just 26 likes and two replies. That feels insurmountable.
And so, as a baseball obsessive in need of a platform to post innocuous flotsam in an effortless fashion, X remains the obvious choice. The best choice, indeed, because that is where the majority of likeminded baseball fans continue to share their opinions. Therefore, I’m excited to introduce a baseball-exclusive X profile – @RyanFergusonMLB – to my loyal readers. This will be the new home for my pithy baseball thoughts and random hardball arcana – an efficient conduit to the game I love despite residing on another continent.
I could have just resurrected my old X account, which still has more than 1,600 followers, but many of those connections would not recognise the person I am today. Indeed, by the end of my initial stint on Twitter, I felt somewhat typecast as a content creator. Though I cherished their support, most of those Twitter followers knew me as the rabid Tranmere Rovers fan who blogged obsessively about lower league football throughout the 2010s. But in reality, my relationship with football mellowed considerably after Tranmere won back-to-back promotions in 2018 and 2019, fulfilling lifelong aspirations. Rovers’ scandalous demotion in 2020 opened my eyes to the rampant corruption of modern football, and the growing chasm between rich clubs and poor clubs doused my fandom in apathy.
I still love Tranmere Rovers. The club is in my blood. But I no longer feel a burning urge to pontificate on the minutiae of club operations. I just enjoy attending matches with my dad and brother without broadcasting opinions in a prescribed format. Occasionally, the muse visits and I write something about Tranmere from the heart, on my own terms – such as this column on Nigel Adkins’ transformation project – but the days of pre-planned Planet Prentonia content are long gone.
In contrast, my passion for baseball has grown exponentially. I have followed the sport for 20 years, but the depth of my love for it has accelerated in the past five or six seasons. The miracle of regular MLB games in London has stirred that mounting preoccupation, and baseball now captivates my mind far more regularly – and intensely – than football. Baseball is by far my favourite sport, but few people seem to know that.
As such, returning to my old X persona felt clunky and misaligned. Inauthentic, even. Perhaps 90% of those existing followers associate me with things – Tranmere thoughts, ideas, content and articles – I no longer deliver regularly. Therefore, sharing ad hoc baseball flotsam via that account would be akin to reading romantic poetry onstage at a Liam Gallagher gig, or casting Sylvester Stallone in a cute chick flick. Nobody would get it, and nobody would care. Boos and jeers would quickly ensue, followed by a mass exodus of perplexed onlookers. Hence @RyanFergusonMLB on X – the easiest, quickest way to satisfy my perpetual cravings. It just makes sense.
As outlined above, Threads feels like an abandoned high-end shopping mall, but there is something perpetually intriguing about it, nevertheless. I played around with the app when it first launched, using an anonymous burner account, and found the sleek interface to be very appealing. The conspicuous lack of original content made me feel lost in a pristine labyrinth, but powered by its Instagram integration, Threads probably has the best chance of winning the Twitter clone wars – if such wars still exists.
At this point, I do not think X will ever be dethroned as the microblogging king, except if Elon wakes up one morning and decides to torpedo the entire operation. However, he is Elon, a tempestuous and impulsive breaker-of-things, so that cannot be ruled out. Therefore, having an effective fallback option seems prudent, and Threads is the best of the rest – ahead of Bluesky, Mastodon, Truth Social and Substack Notes – so I have also made an account there to experiment over the next few weeks. Threads has huge potential to fizzle out, if it has not already, and mine may soon join a whole heap of dormant accounts, but I’m feeling creative, so why not give it a chance?
Similarly, I have also created a WhatsApp channel for my writing. Launched globally in September, WhatsApp Channels are one-way broadcasting platforms that can be used to share texts, photos and links with followers. Replies are disabled, so it is not a group or community, per se, but there is potentially an interesting use case for writers who want to promote links to new articles in a direct style redolent of SMS. You can follow my WhatsApp channel here, and forthcoming updates will appear in your app (notifications optional).
Do not fret, though. Introducing three new social media channels feels kinda seismic, especially for somebody who previously quit the genre entirely. I feel good about these changes, though. They are careful, considered and strategic. They will not derail my creativity, nor will they become major focuses of my attention.
I will still write every day and regularly publish longform pieces on this website. Writing is my greatest passion, and sharing quirky, forgotten and under-told stories here will always be my favourite hobby. I cannot turn off that tap, and nothing will change in terms of your ryanferguson.co.uk experience, save for a social media page offering further details.
My social media output – spontaneous and irreverent – will complement my longform writing, not replace it. @RyanFergusonMLB on X will be my go-to tool for rattling off quick, disposable thoughts on baseball, while Threads will serve the same purpose for non-baseball topics – from coffee and football to technology and travel. Anything that piques my interest on the go will be posted to social media. Anything that can be classified as real-time reaction. Anything that does not lend itself to longer, more structured articulation.
I will post links to new published work via X, Threads and WhatsApp, and I should hopefully be more visible to those who share my interests. I have no delusions of grandeur, and I would sooner gouge out my eyes with a rusty fork than become a spammy ‘influencer,’ but just having an expedient way to reach out and communicate with people will be incredibly useful. I previously made life too hard for myself, and these tools help rectify that.
In short, I will use social media as it was originally intended, back before money muddied the waters and venture capital corrupted minds. For as much as Silicon Valley mission statements are cringeworthy hokum obscuring crass profit motives – Meta: ‘give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together’ – they contain a kernel of truth. These companies do give people tools to easily connect across myriad borders, and we often lose sight of how great that is.
]]>There are a few standout examples of such undivided adulation, most readily in soccer. Napoli, Marseille and Borussia Dortmund spring to mind. But by far the greatest example of a one-team city is Green Bay, Wisconsin, where a population of 107,000 orbits the hometown Packers, a historic NFL juggernaut. Sure, there are other sports teams in Wisconsin – most notably the Bucks and Brewers of Milwaukee – but the relative outpost of Green Bay is a bulwark of provincial passion. Few places on earth so envelop their local team in a cocoon of steadfast worship.
In Green Bay, everything is green and gold, in homage to the Packers. Since 1959, every home game at Lambeau Field has been sold out – more than 75% of the city’s population gathering around its sacrosanct gridiron. Moreover, Packers fans literally own their team – a unique arrangement in professional North American sports. In sum, the Packers are a big deal in that part of the world. They may be the biggest deal, in fact, and that outsized importance has always fascinated me.
A few years back, I recall watching a BBC documentary where Reggie Yates visited Green Bay to explore the Packers’ eminence. In the film, a fantastic portrayal of the Titletown milieu, Yates met then-Green Bay mayor Jim Schmitt, bedecked in Packers garb and surrounded by football memorabilia in his office. Yates also accompanied the parents of a week-old baby as they placed their newborn on the Packers’ season ticket waiting list. The family literally took a stroller to the Lambeau Field ticket office and joined the legendary list. The child took spot 117,957 in the queue, and may finally land tickets sometime in the 2080s.
Yes, you read that correctly. If you join the Packers’ season ticket waiting list today, you will likely wait more than 60 years to be offered seats at Lambeau Field. Interest in the team runs that deep, and has for decades. Right now, the Packers’ season ticket waiting list contains 148,000 names – more than the Green Bay census itself. That only tells half the story, though, because fans can request a maximum of four general stadium seats or eight premium club seats when joining the list. Therefore, even if capped for illustrative purposes at four tickets per waiting list member, there could realistically be almost 600,000 people before a newcomer in the queue. That is simply incredible.
Of course, much is made of the Packers’ season ticket waiting list, which is referenced so often on television broadcasts as to border banal cliché. However, few dig beneath the surface and consider the list’s history. Fewer still are enthralled by its minutiae. The List looms as an abstract totem of Packers devotion, but the nuts and bolts – such as when the list was first created, and by whom – are arguably even more captivating. At least to a nerd like me. This, then, is my attempt to explore The List itself, rather than replaying what it has come to represent.
“There’s no record of when the waiting list started,” say the Packers on their own website. That line was reiterated by Katie Hermsen, the team’s public affairs manager, in response to my initial enquiries. “The waiting list began in the early-1960s when Lambeau Field first became sold out on a season-ticket basis,” explained Hermsen. “As for who had the idea for it, I believe it was simply common practice.”
Probing deeper – beyond the misplaced myths and regurgitated rhetoric – I unearthed more details about The List, even if charting its complex origin story remains a cumbersome challenge. It is a tale of paper files and digital transformation, innocent opportunism and entrepreneurial zeal. It is a tale that bisects Packers history, before and after the revolutionary reign of Vince Lombardi. It is a tale worthy of greater reminiscence, and I invite you to do just that while indulging my curiosity.
Though historic and successful – winning six NFL championships pre-Lombardi, under innovative coach Curly Lambeau – there was a spartan simplicity to the Green Bay Packers for many decades. From 1925 through 1956, they played at City Stadium, a wooden, horseshoe-shaped edifice that originally seated 6,000 spectators. Through gradual expansion, capacity increased to 25,000, but a sustainable business model proved elusive.
Accordingly, in 1933, seeking a financial boost, the Packers began to play part of their home schedule in Milwaukee each year – at Borchert Park, State Fair Park, Marquette Stadium, and eventually Milwaukee County Stadium. Travelling 110 miles south was considered a smart ploy to expand the Packers’ catchment area, and the scheme eventually worked, augmenting a burgeoning Green Bay fanbase.
Lambeau left in 1949, and the 1950s were a lost decade for the Packers, who flailed amid inadequate leadership. However, fresh hope emerged in 1957, as the Packers played the Green Bay portion of their home schedule at a new City Stadium, purpose-built across the Fox River. Later renamed after Lambeau, the new stadium originally seated 32,500 – a healthy increase on the old park. As such, the Packers embarked on a concerted ticket sales drive – led by Earl Falck, ticket director, with assistance from Merrill Knowlton, Gene Sladky and Paul Mazzoleni, according to the Green Bay Press-Gazette – to fill the new joint.
That first year, the Packers sold around 29,000 season tickets for their games in Green Bay, per the Press-Gazette, falling around 3,000 short of capacity. Those numbers fell to 26,078 a year later, as a woeful 3-9 record in 1957 dampened enthusiasm. In fact, it was so hard to move Packers tickets in the mid-1950s that the team outsourced sales to various rudimentary ‘agencies’ – often local mom and pop stores that bought season tickets then sold seats on a single-game basis. Even then, the Packers could not get rid of their allocation, especially in Milwaukee, and gallows humour engulfed a resigned ticket office.
“We were reminded of two fires Friday,” wrote the Press-Gazette on 18 January 1958. “The first was a few feet away from the Press-Gazette sports desk and, of course, that's been put out. The other blaze involves Packer tickets. No kidding. Earl Falck, the Packer ticket chief, said yesterday afternoon that, ‘We're ready to burn 'em up.’ He was referring to the unused tickets from the Packers' six home games. ‘Called the government tax people and they'll be in one of these days. Then we'll take 'em to the incinerator and burn 'em up,’ Earl was explaining…The big blaze, of course, will result from the leftovers from the three games in Milwaukee. A total of 236,462 tickets (42,154 per game) were printed for the three in Milwaukee and 61,682 were left over – enough for a good smudge.”
Following a dismal 1-10-1 season in 1958, the worst in franchise history, the Packers sought a new figurehead. Head coach Ray McLean resigned, and a sense of existential urgency propelled the Packers to find a disruptive mastermind to lead their resurgence. In Vincent Thomas Lombardi, an overlooked assistant coach with the New York Giants, they found a latent genius in need of an opportunity. Passed over for several head coaching vacancies around the league, Lombardi negotiated full autonomy in Green Bay, which was quickly transformed by his unprecedented vision.
Under Lombardi, the Packers embarked on a dynastic run that set a hallowed standard in modern football. Green Bay won NFL championships in 1961, 1962 and 1965 under Lombardi, then also claimed the first two Super Bowls – in 1966 and 1967, respectively. Indeed, such was Lombardi’s influence, the Super Bowl trophy was named after him in 1970. There was a prestigious aura to Lombardi and his synonymous Packers, who won fans across America.
Once mere kindling, Packers tickets became an increasingly hot commodity, and the team’s last Green Bay home game before a less-than-capacity crowd came on 22 November 1959, when 31,853 witnessing a 21-0 win over the Washington Redskins. There was a magnetism to Lombardi’s Packers, and momentum swirled around Green Bay. As such, in 1960-61, the Packers sold 31,019 season tickets for their games at City Stadium – a 96% occupancy rate, topped up by gameday sales. Milwaukee lagged behind with around 12,500 season tickets sold in the cavernous County Stadium, but day-trippers saw the team average 37,838 for the two games in Brew Town, as well.
A year later, 1961-62, spurred by increased demand, the team added 6,300 seats in Green Bay, and season ticket sales topped 37,000 there. In fact, Lombardi announced the Packers had sold out of Green Bay season tickets – for the first time in team history – while attending a Wisconsin Amateur Golf Association banquet. A further 16,000 season tickets were sold in Milwaukee, where interest continued to grow. “Wherever they’re sold, season ticket renewals are returning at a rapid clip at the Packers’ ticket office,” wrote the Press-Gazette. “And ticket director Earl Falck is smiling.”
From that day forth, Packers attendance in Green Bay ran at a surplus, in terms of demand versus supply. Each year, the Packers sent out letters, from Lombardi himself, that invited season ticket holders to renew their seats by ticking a box and returning a renewal form. Ticketholders could even have the Packers invoice them, creating a simple process that produced excellent retention rates. Few Green Bay tickets lapsed each season, giving the Packers a robust foundation on which to build a loyal fanbase.
At that point, back in 1962, the Packers probably began maintaining a ‘waiting list’ for season tickets in Green Bay, but Lombardi and team officials pushed for yearly increases in capacity at City Stadium, truncating the time most fans spent awaiting seats. The Packers kept adding new seats to City Stadium, often in the form of hastily erected bleachers and temporary grandstands, keeping the backlog of interested parties to a minimum.
In 1963, for example, capacity in Green Bay grew to 42,327, against 44,255 season ticket applications. “City Stadium is oversubscribed in season tickets for the four league games,” reported the Press-Gazette. “As a matter of fact, we have had to stop the sale of individual tickets to accommodate the season ticket requests,” added Lombardi. This, quite poetically, echoes the predicament of latter day Packers fans trying to watch their team.
Interestingly, though, there have always been multiple Packers season ticket waiting lists, rather than one gigantic queue. Why? Because the Packers’ split home schedule created two foundational pillars to their fanbase: one in Green Bay, and the other in Milwaukee. To that end, the Packers first sold out of Milwaukee season tickets during the 1964-65 season, as more than 40,000 were purchased at County Stadium. A Milwaukee waiting list likely complemented the Green Bay one around this time, though only diehards would have reserved a place on both, given the travel involved between both cities.
In 1965, buoyed by perennial success under Lombardi, the Packers added 8,365 new seats to City Stadium, taking capacity to 50,692. Even then, demand outstripped supply, as the Green Bay season ticket waiting list began to lengthen. “The Packers have enough season ticket requests to fill approximately 57,000 seats for the four games,” reported the Press-Gazette. The same newspaper subsequently printed the first formal mention of a waiting list on 2 March 1965, explaining how, “The Milwaukee office has a waiting list of 2,500 persons who are requesting over 10,000 tickets.”
By the late-1960s, however, the distinction between Milwaukee and Green Bay was often overlooked by journalists, who – perhaps lazily – preferred reference to one grand, amorphous list. For example, in Vince, a terrific Lombardi biography, author Michael O’Brien says the Packers’ season ticket waiting list (singular) contained 6,000 names by 1967. In reality, those ticket-seekers were probably spread between Green Bay and Milwaukee, and their names were likely kept in different files.
Technicalities aside, in December 1967, the Chippewa Herald-Telegram carried news of the first scandal involving the Packers’ ticket queue. Robert Schnur, a Shorewood attorney, claimed the Packers refused him a spot on the waiting list when he declined to solicit political support for further stadium expansions. The Packers admitted sending letters to those on the waiting list urging them to lobby local officials to back proposals for additional seating at City Stadium, but denied barring fans from applying for season tickets. Some even accused the team of moving names up the list if applicants canvassed their county supervisors, though neither claim was substantiated.
Meanwhile, after winning Super Bowl II, 33-14 over the Oakland Raiders, Lombardi took a step back from coaching. Packers fever continued apace, though, as demonstrated by an otherwise forgotten business deal drenched in symbolism. Olson Transportation, a Green Bay trucking firm, sold for $5 million in 1968, but the company’s 40 Packers season tickets were excluded from the deal. Some things cannot be bought, and Packers season tickets hurtled towards that category.
Even as capacity at the recently-renamed Lambeau Field increased to 56,263 in 1970, the Packers’ season ticket waiting lists continued to grow simultaneously. By 1975, the lists contained more than 8,000 names, and responsibility for managing them – in paper form – was passed to a new generation of Packers staff, as Mark Wagner replaced Falck and Knowlton as ticket manager.
Wagner joined a two-person ticket office staff that did not have a computer to manage records. As retold by Packers News, the team lent a computer at the Associated Bank Operations Center, a 10-minute drive from Lambeau Field, and often sent handwritten index cards over for digital updates. Indeed, even during Wagner’s earliest days, interested fans could still call the Packers via telephone and ask to join the season ticket waiting lists in Green Bay or Milwaukee. One obscure forum entry even recalls the team using a spiral notebook to collect names as late as 1978. How quaint.
Wagner ran a tight ship in the Packers ticket office. Early in his tenure, Virginia Anderson and Marge Paget ran Milwaukee ticket sales, while Jerilyn Whitney (née Van Rens) worked as a ticket office secretary. Whitney helped coordinate one of Wagner’s most notable innovations: the annual sending of postcards to every member of the Packers’ season ticket waiting lists, informing each of their updated priority number in the respective queues. First trialled in the early-1980s, the yearly receipt of these postcards became a rite of passage for Packers fans and something of an unofficial public holiday across Wisconsin. In a good year, fans saw their name move a couple hundred spots. And in a bad year? Single-digit movement was not uncommon.
The Packers continued to evolve throughout the 1980s, slowly transforming from an austere local amenity to a finetuned national enterprise. New administrative offices were built at Lambeau in 1982, and capacity rose to 59,543 by 1990. Still, more than 12,000 people awaited Packers season tickets by 1992, and those at the bottom of the queue faced a 25-year wait, on average, for a chance to purchase seats.
Needless to say, maintaining such a bank of names – especially in paper form – became increasingly difficult. The ticket office staff continued to expand, and long-serving employee Carol Edwin moved into an important secretary role in the early-1990s, tasked with streamlining processes. Indeed, by 1993, Edwin was cited as ‘keeper of the list’ by the Greensboro News & Record – a major honour in Green Bay. Edwin even created a minor storm when admitting to the Jackson Sun that two unborn children had been placed on one of the Packers’ waiting lists. Some fans cried foul at the lack of transparency.
The need for a quicker, more reliable system became readily apparent in the early-1990s, and like many professional sports teams during that era, the Packers began to contemplate digitisation. To that end, in 1993, for the first time, the Packers’ media guide referenced a ‘Director of Computer Services.’ The man tasked with fulfilling that brief, and preparing the Packers for a digital-first future, was Wayne Wichlacz, a University of Wisconsin-Green Bay graduate who previously worked at McDonnell Douglas.
“I watched as he built the Green Bay Packers’ IT department from scratch into one with a dozen employees, working to solve complex issues for the team’s football operations and its business units,” reads one LinkedIn testimonial for Wichlacz. To wit, by November 1995, Wagner used a computer to monitor the Packers’ season ticket waiting list, as mentioned in a report by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute. Wichlacz’ role in that transformation should never be overlooked.
Another seismic change occurred in 1994, when the Packers stopped playing home games in Milwaukee and introduced two season ticket packages – Green and Gold – as a way to satiate fans. Those who had Packers season tickets in Milwaukee – around 46,000 – were offered a three-game (including pre-season) Gold Package for Lambeau Field. Team president Bob Harlan told PR News Online that 97% of Milwaukee season ticket holders accepted the Gold Package, complementing the 54,000 who already had season tickets at Lambeau. Those existing Lambeau acolytes received the Green Package, gaining access to seven home games (including pre-season). And thus, another wrinkle emerged in the ineffable quest for Packers tickets.
The disparate packages remain a contentious issue among Cheeseheads, who often squabble over logistics. Gold Package members are often branded quieter, less intense and more likely to sell their tickets on the secondary market than their Green counterparts, though such tropes are largely unfounded. Besides, the Packers probably would not exist today – at least not in their current guise – if not for the sustenance offered by Milwaukee for six decades.
Practically, however, the Packers’ leaving Milwaukee meant that, finally, there was one singular waiting list for season tickets – legitimising an esoteric myth born of hyperbole and conflation. However, from 1995 on, those lucky enough to graduate the consolidated season ticket waiting list and be offered seats faced another dilemma: whether to accept the Gold Package, always offered first, or remain in the queue for the more-desired Green plan. Taking the Gold Package could truncate one’s wait, but doing so meant foregoing tickets to six regular season home games per year – a dicey dilemma.
Therefore, is anyone truly a Packers season ticket holder, when you really think about it? By my reckoning, only those with Green and Gold Packages are guaranteed tickets to every home game, and that exclusive cohort is ‘small,’ per this team missive from 2013. Packers season tickets are shrouded in mystery, and this may be one of the most misunderstood aspects of the entire scenario. Very few people attend every single Packers home game.
Nevertheless, capacity at Lambeau was increased to 60,890 in 1995-96, the first season without Packers games in Milwaukee since 1932-33. Even accounting for the Milwaukee migration, and the diversified season ticket plans, more than 22,000 people remained on the Packers’ waiting list as young quarterback Brett Favre won his first MVP award. Indeed, Favre was a hugely popular player who rekindled championship aspirations in Green Bay, a relatively rare occurrence post-Lombardi. Favre fuelled a new wave of Packers devotion.
Correspondingly, the Packers received just nine season ticket cancellations before the 1997 campaign, which they entered as defending Super Bowl champions. At that rate, with just one new seat dispensed each year, those at the bottom of the Packers’ season ticket waiting list – surpassing 32,000 in 1997 – faced a 3,500-year wait for their name to be called. Some fans probably had a better shot at replacing Favre under centre than dislodging diehards in the stands – a true barometer of Packers passion.
“The easiest way to get season tickets is through the death of an immediate family member who leaves the prized objects behind in his or her will,” explained Johnette Howard for Sports Illustrated in 1997. “Green Bay ticket manager Mark Wagner admits he has heard every ruse in his 19 years on the job – sob stories, bald-faced lies, even offers of bribes – from Packers fans determined to get season tickets. Inevitably, some impatient fans suspect that others have come by their tickets by less-than-ethical means, even though the transfer of the title to tickets requires notarisation. Some fans have even blown the whistle on others who have renewed the tickets of a relative who died without bequeathing the tickets to them.”
For that reason alone, a cottage industry bloomed around estate planning in Green Bay, with several law firms specialising in the niche practice of transferring Packers season tickets. “In my estate planning practice, many clients have had Green Bay Packers season tickets, and for the most part, dealing with their tickets has been easy,” wrote attorney Sara Andrew in 2011. “In a typical simple estate plan, the decedent’s assets usually pass to the spouse. If there is no spouse, or if the spouse dies before the decedent, then the assets go to the decedent’s children in equal shares. If the children are equal beneficiaries, there could be issues transferring Packers tickets. The Green Bay Packers policy requires that the owner of a season ticket be either an individual or a business. If a ticket owner has five children, and each child wants to own the season tickets, they might not agree on one owner. Even bigger problems could arise if the family situation is more complicated, or if the tickets are a part of a more complicated business situation.”
Regardless of legal loopholes, the Packers pressed ahead in the 1990s and stoked ticket demand with a relatable, aspirational brand and an increased focus on digital initiatives, befitting the zeitgeist. A new website – packers.com – housed instructions for joining the season ticket waiting list, which contained more than 50,000 names by the new millennium.
However, around this time, as the Packers developed into a global powerhouse, some old school pundits accused the team of losing touch with its humble roots. In 2001, for instance, the Packers introduced a controversial license fee – ranging from $600 to $1,400 – for the right to use seats. Ostensibly, the license fees were used to subsidise a $295 million renovation of Lambeau Field, but almost 7,000 ticketholders declined to renew their season tickets. Still, the waiting list continued to grow, topping 56,000 by 2002. Money was no object to a slither of the fanbase, and ceaseless demand drove ticket prices skyward.
Lambeau Field continued to expand – from 72,000 seats in 2003 to 80,750 a decade later – but so, too, did the Packers’ season ticket waiting. When Favre finally left Green Bay in 2007, more than 70,000 people sought Packers season tickets. And by the time Aaron Rodgers, the quarterback heir, carried Green Bay to another Super Bowl triumph in January 2011, the list contained 86,000 names. Interest in the Packers proved evergreen, and the NFL’s surging popularity poured fuel on the flames.
Indeed, some fans became so invested in the Packers that team allegiances trumped family loyalty. In 2009, for example, two brothers became embroiled in a legal battle over 13 Packers season tickets bequeathed by their late father. Walter Christman left the tickets to his son, Michael, in a trust agreement, telling Michael to split the proceeds from any sale – 55% to Michael and 45% to Peter, his brother. When Michael sold some tickets – for up to $295 per game – and gave Peter just a fraction of the profits, Peter filed a lawsuit and the siblings wound up in court. Getting into Lambeau Field became big business, and cash contaminated bloodlines in the battle to see the Packers.
Accordingly, in 2012, approximately 50 years after its creation, the Packers’ season ticket waiting list topped 100,000 names – a major landmark. Wagner retired as ticket lead in June 2017, to be replaced by Jason McDonough, who still heads the division now. Some say he has the easiest job in sports – selling Packers tickets to an enormous captive audience – but maintaining the season ticket waiting list cannot be easy.
Certainly, for all the frustration and indignation that surrounds the Packers’ season ticket waiting list, it continues to produce wholesome stories, such as Cory Vogel finally getting tickets in 2022 after a 49-year wait. In fairness, the Packers have tried to clamp down on disinterested ticketholders selling their seats for commercial gain rather than returning them to the team. There will always be anomalies and loopholes in the process, but the team seems genuinely interested in expediting the wait for season tickets. How they achieve that remains to be seen.
Today, among the 148,000 waiting for Packers season tickets are people from every US state, plus Canada, Japan, Australia, the UK and further afield. Those currently at the top of the list joined it in the early-1990s, before current Packers quarterback Jordan Love was born. Such is the overlapping, inter-generational love for this quirky team from this tiny town, snow-covered and football-obsessed. I plan to join the list myself one day, as a gift to my future great-great grandchildren. You have to start them early, after all. That is the Green Bay Way.
The circumstances that led to a rotund, 35-year old, second-string backstop flying cross-country, on a private plane, then hurtling through Bostonian traffic in a police car, to play for the hometown team, are difficult to comprehend – especially to baseball outsiders. Allow me to explain, then. Allow me to regale you with the tale of Doug Mirabelli and his unforgettable police escort. Allow me to recount a hallowed day in Red Sox folklore.
The timeless yarn begins with Tim Wakefield, the Red Sox’ gentlemanly pitcher and generational stalwart. A rubber-armed metronome, Wakefield resurrected his career by throwing a legendary knuckleball, which fluttered to the plate anywhere between 45- and 69-mph and tied big league hitters in knots. There was so much movement on the signature pitch, in fact, that Wakefield himself barely knew where it was headed. That was both a blessing and a curse – especially for the helpless guy crouched sixty feet, six inches away, attempting to corral a horsehide butterfly. Catching Wakefield was a thankless task, and many failed to master the art.
Indeed, early in Wakefield’s Red Sox tenure, Boston catchers invariably led the league in passed balls. For instance, in 1995, Wakefield’s first Red Sox season, Mike Macfarlane recorded 26 passed balls, with a further 48 wild pitches on his watch. A year later, Mike Stanley fared slightly better, but still notched 18 passed balls, only for Scott Hatteberg and Bill Hasselman to take things up a notch in 1997, with 34 passed balls and 48 wild pitches combined. Hatteberg and Hasselman were so bad, in fact, that a young prospect named Jason Varitek, recently acquired from Seattle, soon earned a greater share of playing time.
Even Varitek struggled to catch Wakefield, though. By 1999, ‘Tek was firmly ensconced as Boston’s everyday catcher and future captain, but Wakefield’s knuckleball gave him fits. Hatteberg stuck around to share the burden, awaiting his Moneyball crescendo while tinkering with an oversized women’s softball mitt, but a barrage of misplays stoked a critical mass of frustration. Something had to give, and when Varitek broke his elbow midway through the 2001 season, Red Sox GM Dan Duquette swung a deal for the surehanded Mirabelli, then a backup to Ivan ‘Pudge’ Rodriguez with the Texas Rangers.
Wakefield was used interchangeably as a reliever and starter during the 2001 season, before finding a permanent home in the Red Sox’ rotation partway through 2002. That year, the Wakefield-Mirabelli battery began to flourish, and a 22-4 thrashing of Tampa Bay in July secured Tim’s spot in the rotation. Wakefield went 8-2 down the stretch in 2002, with Mirabelli catching all his starts, as Boston finally stumbled upon a winning solution.
From there, the Wakefield-Mirabelli tandem morphed from pure coincidence to informal arrangement to defined synergy. As relayed in this fun YouTube video, between 2003 and 2005, Wakefield pitched in 102 games for the Red Sox, and Mirabelli caught 94 of them – a 92% appearance rate for the personal catcher. In that span, Mirabelli also displayed a penchant for occasional offensive power, contributing subtly to a vaunted Red Sox team that famously won the 2004 World Series and vanquished the ghost of Babe Ruth. Mirabelli developed a small, esoteric fan club, and Red Sox fans adored the hardnosed catcher for his dedication to the craft.
Nevertheless, after the 2005 season, on 7 December, Boston traded Mirabelli to the San Diego Padres for Mark Loretta, a solid second baseman. Red Sox architect Theo Epstein sought greater value from his final roster spot, while Mirabelli figured to get a shot at starting every day for the Padres. Those aspirations were sadly scotched when San Diego signed an aging Mike Piazza in February, putting Mirabelli back on the pine. Doug missed Boston from the moment he left town, and there was a sense of unfinished business about the entire arrangement.
Without Mirabelli, Josh Bard inherited the responsibility of catching Wakefield for the Red Sox, but the younger backstop struggled in the role, as so many did before and after. Catching Wakefield’s first five starts of 2006, Bard allowed 10 passed balls in four losses, leading the passionate Red Sox commentariat to raise valid concerns. Meanwhile, Mirabelli endured a pretty miserable start to his Padres tenure, hitting .182 with zero home runs through 14 appearances. The transition was far from smooth.
Almost instantly, Epstein regretted letting Mirabelli go – for his ability to catch Wakefield, yes, but also for the veteran presence he gave to a complex team. Mirabelli was a great clubhouse guy upon whom manager Terry Francona relied to police the more mercurial members of his combustible group. Mirabelli was a glue guy for the Red Sox, and things became frayed without him.
To that end, Epstein woke on the morning of 1 May 2006 with the Red Sox at 14-11, tied with New York atop the AL East. As ever in the Boston pressure cooker, scrutiny was mounting, and Epstein sought marginal gains in the perpetual arms race. That evening, Boston played host to the rival Yankees, live on ESPN, as Johnny Damon – one-time Red Sox rabblerouser – returned to Fenway for the first time since accepting 52 million Steinbrenner dollars. Wakefield was scheduled to start, and the Red Sox needed a shot in the arm. Epstein got on the phone to Padres GM Kevin Towers and tried to help his team.
Negotiations to bring back Mirabelli actually began the night before, as the Red Sox fell, 5-4, to the Devil Rays. Towers wanted Epstein to include pitching prospect Cla Meredith and Bard in any potential deal, but Boston tried to haggle. After sleeping on it, though, Epstein relented. Meredith and Bard went to the Padres, along with $100,000, in return for Mirabelli. The deal was completed around 10:00 AM ET, shortly after the Yankees tried to thwart Mirabelli’s homecoming by acquiring him themselves.
According to this Hardball Times retrospective, Epstein made a comical error while calling the players involved in the trade. Epstein punched in ‘Josh B’ on his cell phone and inadvertently called Josh Beckett, his ace pitcher, rather than Bard. Beckett was rightly perplexed, only for Epstein to realise his hilarious mistake.
Briefing the media, Epstein explained the unconventional deal and praised those involved. “We had no doubt Bard would get it figured out in the long run, but we need to win now,” said the Red Sox chief. “It was a chance for us to bring back the one guy who’s probably most qualified to catch Tim Wakefield, put him in a situation to succeed. Josh was working really hard and going about it in a very professional way, but we just didn’t necessarily have the luxury of time waiting to find out if things would get better. So we made this move while Doug was available at a reasonable cost.”
A normal team, in a normal town, with normal expectations, may have allowed Mirabelli to amble cross-country and join the team in a few days. Not the Red Sox, though. Not Theo Epstein. Mirabelli was needed in Boston right away – as in, later that night. Epstein wanted him in the lineup to face the Yankees and catch Wakefield. Hence a wild race to bring Mirabelli home.
Towers informed Mirabelli of the deal shortly after 07:00 AM PST, and the Red Sox chartered a private plane for his journey, departing San Diego Airport at 10:15 AM PST. Mirabelli had no time to collect his thoughts, and rushed to the airport without his equipment. Two further problems soon emerged. Firstly, the six-passenger private jet had depleted fuel and would likely require a stop-off. And secondly? All being well, the plane was due to land at Boston Logan Airport at 18:48. First pitch was scheduled for 19:05.
“It was just myself, the pilot and the co-pilot,” recalled Mirabelli in the Hardball Times piece. “They came back to tell me, ‘Look, I think we can make it gas-wise, but if not we’ll have to land.’ I’m not sure I really want to run out of gas trying to make it to a game. I’m sure they didn’t, either.”
Early in the flight, the travelling party actually struggled to make good progress, but airspace was cleared over Cleveland and New York City – upon the Red Sox’ request – allowing a more efficient route. “I don’t know who you are, but I’ve carried hearts and lungs and never had this much clearance over airspace,” the pilot told Mirabelli. Their plane was also given preference in the Logan landing queue, enabling an 18:48 touchdown.
According to 162-0, a book by Mark Cofman, while Mirabelli was airborne, Red Sox travelling secretary, Jack McCormick, arranged for Mirabelli’s uniform to be placed in the back of a state police cruiser and escorted to Logan. McCormick had connections in the police department and at the airport, and the Red Sox’ team bus often received escorts to and from roadtrips. A plan was quickly concocted by McCormick and his contacts, and taxpayer resources were deployed in aid of beating the Yankees.
As revealed by Chad Jennings of The Athletic, Sgt Dave O’Leary was the lucky driver who picked up Mirabelli – on the Logan tarmac, no less – in a dark blue Ford Explorer police car. Logan and Fenway rest a little over six miles apart, but traffic clogging Storrow Drive typically complicates the journey. Perhaps against his better judgement, and possibly induced by McCormick, O’Leary flicked on his lights and siren, while a helicopter whirred overhead. Onlookers may have thought a head of state was in town, or perhaps even the pope. But no, it was just Doug Mirabelli, en route to catch Tim Wakefield against the Yankees. Some things are more important than diplomacy.
Back at Fenway, Red Sox manager Terry Francona found himself in a bind when prodded for a finalised lineup card. Briefed on the absurd escapade, but unsure if Mirabelli would make it to the ballpark in time for first pitch, Francona wrote out two different lineups – one with Varitek catching, and the other with Mirabelli behind the dish. Both were ready to be exchanged with the umpires, but Francona chewed frantically on his trademark gum while awaiting updates.
As popularly retold, an employee of the private jet company phoned into a Boston sports radio show to inform listeners Mirabelli was en route, and traffic duly parted as car radios carried the news. There are even tales – perhaps apocryphal – of fans hanging banners from bridges, welcoming Dougie Baseball back to New England. All the while, Mirabelli rolled around in the back, attempting to get dressed. “It was the first time I’d ever been naked in the back seat of a police car,” he later reminisced, according to 162-0. Again, only in Boston.
Remarkably, footage of Mirabelli’s arrival – at 19:02 – was relayed on the big screen inside Fenway. When the catcher stepped out of the police car and into the player’s entrance, thunderous cheers cascaded through the ancient ballpark. Once inside, Mirabelli raced to borrow equipment from his teammates. Wily Mo Pena lent a pair of cleats, while Varitek offered his catching gear. Hilariously, Mirabelli left his protective cup in the police car, and decided to proceed without it – one of the ballsiest moves in Boston sports history.
Freshly dressed and newly equipped with borrowed tools of ignorance, Mirabelli caught a dozen pitches in the cramped batting cage near the Red Sox dugout, while Varitek warmed up Wakefield – sans knuckleball – in the bullpen. Trying to buy time for Mirabelli to get sharp, Red Sox officials used every trick in the book to delay the game – from numerous ceremonial first pitches, to a staged sprinkler issue in the outfield, to extensive (and likely needless) work on the mound. Fenway organist Josh Kantor later revealed that a Red Sox executive jumped on the production headset and ordered him to stall for as long as possible. Meanwhile, on NESN, Jerry Remy filled time by telling viewers how the Red Sox considered getting Mirabelli to the ballpark in a helicopter. All in all, it was an unprecedented shitshow, but partisan fans lapped it up.
Mirabelli finally took the field around 19:10, ready to take some warmup tosses from Wakefield. Ironically, Mirabelli actually dropped the first warmup knuckleball Wakefield threw, earning taunts of mock derision from fans and teammates alike. A standing ovation soon ensued, though, while homemade signs heralding the return of Mirabelli punctuated a sea of anti-Damon placards. Boston had its folk hero back, and at 19:13, the game finally began.
As he strode to the plate, Damon was roundly booed, but a smattering of applause emerged when he boldly stopped, removed his batting helmet and acknowledged the Fenway faithful. Later, upon taking his position in centre field, Damon was showered with fake $100 bills from salty Red Sox fans – a reminder of his strained defection. A playoff atmosphere engulfed the lyrical bandbox as Boston beat New York, 7-3. For his part, Mirabelli went 0-for-4 in the game, but caught seven strong innings as Wakefield found his groove.
All told, Mirabelli travelled 3,000 miles in six hours, at a speed of 500-mph, from one coast to the other – via planes and police cruisers – then went out and caught a big league victory. The scope of that achievement should never be overlooked. “Not since Moe Berg was a spy working for the US government in the years leading into World War II has so much been made of the exploits of a light-hitting backup catcher,” wrote Cofman in 162-0. Mercifully, the Red Sox had a day off following the Mirabelli miracle. Doug probably spent it asleep.
Perhaps understandably, the impromptu police escort was heavily criticised in some quarters. In fact, the aforementioned Hardball Times piece even included a conciliatory statement from Massachusetts State Police. “We wouldn’t do something like that again, certainly not with lights and siren,” read their decree, a decade later. “As a public safety agency, that was not an appropriate use of our assets.”
Other detractors struggled to grasp why the Red Sox did not just give Mirabelli time to travel east at a more manageable pace, and perhaps join the team a few days later. Well, his mad dash was a microcosm of the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry at that time. Their feud was that intense. Every game mattered. Heck, tickets to see Boston and New York play in spring training went for $500 back then. The enemies were locked in an epochal battle for supremacy, and every marginal gain was magnified. There was no let-up in either organisation, and a national ESPN audience heightened the scrutiny. That is why Doug Mirabelli was fast-tracked to Fenway. This shit mattered back then. There may be no greater symbol of Red Sox mania during the mid-2000s.
Even to this day, New Englanders refer to the Mirabelli police escort at every available opportunity. If no opportunity presents itself, they will shoehorn it randomly into conversations – and so they should. The story is a communal heirloom at this point – a barely believable time capsule of Red Sox omnipotence passed from one generation to the next. It should never be forgotten, and hyperbolic retellings will ensure its timeless allure.
Mirabelli won another World Series ring with the 2007 Red Sox, but was out of baseball just a few months later. Epstein gave his backup catcher a $550,000 deal to return in 2008, but Mirabelli was released in spring training, aged 37, when the younger Kevin Cash finally beat him to Boston’s last roster spot. Fittingly, the 2008 Red Sox once again led the league in passed balls, but Epstein resisted the urge to bring back Dougie Baseball. Mirabelli later coached high school baseball in Traverse City, Michigan, and collegiate softball with the Florida Gators, while also working as a realtor.
Though he has gradually drifted away from baseball, Mirabelli returned to Fenway in 2012 when the Red Sox paid tribute to Wakefield, who retired in 2011. Narrating on the field, play-by-play man Don Orsillo told fans that Mirabelli’s flight was delayed and he was not going to make it. Then, a Boston police car emerged from centre field, delivering Mirabelli once again, much to the delight of those in attendance. Wakefield delivered a strike with the ceremonial first pitch – Mirabelli catching it effortlessly – as the books closed on a glorious chapter of Red Sox history.
Alas, Wakefield passed away in 2023, at the tragically young age of 57, having battled brain cancer. A gentle giant, he is missed every day by Red Sox Nation and the wider Boston community he served so well. I dedicate this piece to Wake, the author of so many childhood memories, and I hope it rekindles the magic of that moment – the buzz of that era – for those who never forget. Rest easy, Wake. I hope there is somebody up there who can catch a knuckleball.
A former Tranmere goalkeeper born and raised in Birkenhead, Adkins served briefly as technical director at Prenton Park, only to assume interim coaching duties in September when the turgid reign of Ian Dawes ended in predictable disaster. Rovers languished third-bottom of League Two when Adkins took over, having gathered just three points from seven league games under Dawes. In the ensuing 19 matches, Rovers have earned 30 points and risen seven places in the table.
Once undoubted relegation candidates, Tranmere have put a chasm between themselves and the trapdoor, while the playoff places now lurk just six points on the horizon. Oh, and Rovers are top of the 10-game form table; backed by a rejuvenated fanbase; and playing some of their best football in years. The turnaround has been quite miraculous, and Adkins deserves all the plaudits coming his way.
First and foremost, Adkins has overhauled the entire mentality of Tranmere Rovers. The atmosphere surrounding our club has morphed from stale apathy and a subdued acceptance of ingrained mediocrity to fiery passion and a voracious hunger for shared success. Of course, Adkins is relentlessly positive, but even he must be shocked at the rapidity with which this team has adopted his trademark optimism.
Even in the darkest days of his transition, Nigel remained incredibly upbeat – incongruously so, in fact. At first, Adkins’ alacrity was sickly sweet to tired Tranmere fans, a hodgepodge of cheesy acronyms – ‘Together Everyone Achieves More’ – and poetic metaphors – boulders pushed uphill and boats rowed to shore. But gradually, and delightfully, Nigel’s worldview has become our own. Now, the most fatalistic fans in the land are daring to dream.
In just three months, Adkins has resurrected entire careers with textbook man-management. See: Regan Hendry, Brad Walker, Reece McAlear, Connor Wood and Harvey Saunders. Adkins has also replenished careers, like those of Kieron Morris, Tom Davies, Charlie Jolley and Connor Jennings. Meanwhile, the gaffer has flat-out launched careers, too, as Rob Apter, James Norris and Sam Taylor will attest. That is the sign of a great manager: the ability to make better everyone in the building, regardless of their baseline talent. Players want to play for Nigel Adkins, who wants to maximise their potential. It is a recipe for continuous success, and a new culture is emerging from that synergy.
Cuddly feel-good factor aside, Adkins is also revolutionising the way Tranmere play, perhaps most importantly. Nigel has imbued the club with its greatest dose of football intellect – of winning sporting wisdom – since the days of Johnny King. Sure, Aldo delivered outrageous highs, mostly in cup competitions. And yes, Micky Mellon gave us some of the greatest days of our lives by sheer dint of belligerence. But not since King have Tranmere had a manager of such vision, in my opinion. Not since King have Tranmere had such a discernible ethos – tactical mastery spliced with searing skill to produce an explosive reaction. That is the most pleasing aspect of Adkins’ impact.
For as long as I have watched Tranmere, they have played without a decipherable gameplan. Yes, we have achieved sporadic success and risen to enormous occasions – Boreham Wood at Wembley springs to mind – but our footballing identity has typically been reactive. For decades, Tranmere have been synonymous with heart, fight and aggression, but cogent strategy – the currency of success in modern football – has rarely materialised. In archetype, Rovers players got the ball then decided what to do with it, rather than playing to an overarching blueprint. Nigel Adkins has changed all that.
In two decades of football management, including a 22-match spell in the Premier League, Adkins has developed a profound understanding of the game. More pertinently, he has remained relevant, learning at the cutting-edge of prevailing dogma. That infectious intellect feeds a meticulous attention to detail, and the depth of Adkins’ pre-game preparations are revealed in the varied nature of his gameplans. More than any Tranmere manager I can recall, perhaps with the exception of Brian Little, Adkins studies the opposition tirelessly then devises a bespoke strategy – intricate and all-encompassing – to give his players the best possible chance of succeeding in a match. When those players buy-in and believe in that vision, as Rovers’ current crop are, wonderful things can happen.
One of the fundamental differentiators between lower league teams and those higher up the pyramid is the ability and willingness to execute managerial orders. Sure, fitness and skill play an enormous role in determining the fortunes of a team or an individual player, but believing in a worthy figurehead, buying into their schtick, and concentrating enough to consistently implement their ideas, is critical. Tranmere are currently outstripping typical League Two levels of tactical execution, and that malleability – that willingness to hear Adkins, trust his knowledge, and prioritise his holistic vision over personal agendas – is powering their success. These players are grafting for Nigel Adkins, who is giving them the tools they need to succeed.
In recent weeks, that transformative mix of ingenuity and resolve has seen Tranmere play some devastating counter-attacking football. In many games, Adkins has conceded possession in the opponent’s half, with Rovers maintaining a solid defensive shape. However, when play crosses the halfway line, Tranmere press assuredly and battle to win back possession. When they do so, Rovers pounce and go for the jugular with neat, intricate passing and exhilarating, direct dribbling. Their approach is very direct, but also incredibly skilful and energetic. It has worked a treat.
A few standout players have made such a defined approach possible. Tom Davies has been a rock in central defence; Hendry has been a lyrical conduit in midfield; and Jennings has stitched it all together with colossal work rate, astute linking of the lines, and a well-trained eye for goal. Overwhelmingly, though, the difference-making ingredient has been pace and trickery from the wings. The 20-year-old Apter was often unplayable during his loan spell from Blackpool, petrifying defenders with fearless instincts, astonishing speed and the crucial ability to beat full-backs inside and out. Saunders, Taylor and Josh Hawkes have also contributed impressive pace, while Morris’ quick feet and honed vision have brought the concept to life.
Over Christmas, Tranmere beat Swindon, their old bogey team, 2-1, before thumping Salford, 5-1, for their first away win in 10 months. In fact, that was just Rovers’ third away victory in 33 attempts. Naturally, they followed it up three days later with another road triumph, 2-0 over Harrogate. Then came the crowning jewel, a 4-2 pasting of high-flying Notts County at Prenton Park. That is when we knew Rovers were back.
Indeed, the Notts County game always figured to be a measuring stick of just how far Tranmere had come under Adkins. The Magpies play some brilliant football, pressing hard and retaining possession under Luke Williams, their sophisticated young coach. Notts probably have the best squad in League Two – John Bostock, Jodi Jones and David McGoldrick complementing the goals of Macaulay Langstaff – and they are serious contenders for automatic promotion. Therefore, to see Tranmere come from 2-1 down to beat their fancied visitors in emphatic style, amid a ferocious atmosphere at Fortress Prenton, was brilliant. As fans, it was probably the most we have enjoyed a Rovers game in years. The din of restored pride and rekindled aspiration rattled the old ground to its core.
Scouring the statistics, Adkins’ fingerprints were all over that match. Rovers had just 33% of possession, but registered more shots (15-13), tackles (14-9) and dribbles (8-7) than County. In other words, Tranmere bided their time, sensed their moment, and converted their opportunities. Once again, it was everything we have been crying out for as supporters. Finally, we are the ones with a clear modus operandi. We are the ones with a sustainable roadmap. We are the ones pondering long-term success.
Adkins has authored similar transformations at other clubs, of course. Nigel won two promotions with Scunthorpe and took Southampton from League One to mid-table in the Premier League. If given a real chance, and serious backing, Adkins is a one-man momentum machine, and we are seeing that to full effect right now.
The open nature of League Two means promotion cannot be ruled out, either. One team always seems to appear out of nowhere, late in the season, to snatch a playoff place and ride that momentum to glory. Maybe it can be Tranmere this time. Since Adkins became permanent manager, in early November, Rovers have played ten, won seven, drew two and lost just once in the league, for an average of 2.3 points-per-game. If they maintain that rate through season’s end – admittedly an enormous ask – they will finish with 79 points, surely enough to secure a playoff spot.
Yes, it remains unlikely that Tranmere will achieve promotion this term, and we should not get too carried away with the recent uptick in form. As we saw earlier in the season, this can be a frustrating division, and lower league fortunes are notoriously capricious. Mere weeks ago, we were looking over our shoulders, pondering relegation. The team looked forlorn and bereft of confidence. We know, better than anyone, that such downturns can happen again. However, things are changing at a foundational level at Prenton Park. This is not just a superficial bounce orchestrated by a new manager. Nigel Adkins is revolutionising the club, and success will come if he is granted full autonomy. We just need to trust the process.
The loss of Apter, whose loan has now expired, will undoubtedly be felt, but Tranmere have in-house options – namely Hawkes and Taylor – to fill the breech. Rovers may even be able to work out a permanent deal for Apter before the transfer window closes, so all is not lost in that domain just yet. In terms of other potential upgrades, an influential centre forward may lend even more definition to the attack, while defensive depth and another central midfielder would not go amiss. Generally, though, Tranmere now have impactful options across the pitch. Adkins has turned dead wood into exciting abundance, and it is astonishing how an injection of confidence has changed the entire complexion of a once-derided squad.
Rovers have several tough games ahead – against Barrow, MK Dons and Swindon – but we, as fans, are enjoying our football again. We are looking forward to watching these lads play, fully unleashed, believing they can win, rather than dreading another tepid capitulation. We are excited to see how far this team can go, with a clear scheme and a proven method. Ultimately, though, we are just happy to have our club back, playing in true Tranmere style, no matter what they achieve this season. It has been a long road back to relevance.
To that end, since the Covid-19 pandemic, and the unfair demotion foisted on Rovers by the EFL and its self-serving members, times have been tough in the one-eyed city. A black cloud has hung over Prenton Park, and Tranmere have struggled to recover – financially, culturally and on the pitch. Yet now, the gloom has been pierced by Nigel Adkins, and the sun is shining up ahead. Ubi fides ibi lux et robur, indeed. Where there is faith, there is light and strength.
]]>As a long-suffering Yankees fan, my mind is swimming in delirium, to a point where cogent thoughts feel elusive. Here, then, is an initial braindump of Soto-related arcana. Have at it:
To some, Sosa is one of the greatest sluggers who ever lived – a Chicago Cubs titan who thrice topped the 60-home run plateau while reinvigorating a lost generation of fans. The Dominican hit 609 home runs in an absorbing career, including 66 in 1998, when his fairytale race against the Cardinals’ Mark McGwire captivated America and brought people back to baseball following an intense labour war.
To others, though, Sosa is persona non grata – a fallen hero shrouded in suspicion amid recurring links to performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). The New York Times reported that Sosa failed a PED test in 2003, back before MLB punished such offences. Sosa also appeared before Congress in 2005 – sat beside McGwire, José Canseco and Rafael Palmeiro, all admitted steroids cheats – but has remained steadfast in denial.
All told, then, Slammin’ Sammy ranks among the most divisive players of his generation, and arguments abound whenever his name is mentioned. Yet whatever people call Sammy Sosa – legend, cheat, slugger, deceiver – few remember him as a member of the Boston Red Sox. A quick skim of Wikipedia reveals no mention of The Olde Towne Team. Neither does a search of Baseball-Reference. Sosa only ever played for the Cubs, White Sox, Rangers and Orioles, according to Baseball Almanac. Few recall him in anything but a Cubs uniform, quite frankly, while any Red Sox links are tenuous at best.
Well, contrary to popular reminiscence, for 66 days in 1995, Sammy Sosa was a Boston Red Sock. Well, kinda. He did agree a major league contract with Dan Duquette, Boston’s general manager. And, yes, there was a visit to Fenway Park – even if an introductory press conference never materialised. This is the story of how that happened – how an epochal slugger agreed to join the Red Sox on the cusp of his iconic prime – and why it does not appear in the baseball record books.
An Amherst graduate from Dalton, Massachusetts, Duquette took charge of his hometown Red Sox in February 1994, keen to reshape a team approaching eight decades without a World Series title. Though later derided as an aloof caricature, Duquette was actually rather progressive for that era, using rudimentary analytics in player evaluation and roster construction. Duquette later hired Mike Gimbel, an obscure statistical guru, as his chief lieutenant, and traditionalists chafed at their unconventional approach.
Perhaps some esoteric data trend led Duquette to Sosa in the winter of 1994. To that point, Sosa was something of an untamed beast – parts of six big league seasons with Texas and the two Chicago clubs yielding streaky power and inconsistent contact rates. Indeed, through the first 658 games of his MLB career, Sosa posted an OPS+ of 100. In other words, he was the very definition of average, and at age 26, the clock was ticking on his undoubted potential.
Of course, the 1994 baseball season was cut short, as years of mistrust and subterfuge between the MLB players and team owners culminated in an ugly impasse. The collective bargaining agreement (CBA), which governed rules and relations between both parties, lapsed on 31 December 1993, and the season unfurled amid cold war tension.
The owners sought to introduce a salary cap and revenue-sharing measures while centralising powers in the hands of the MLB commissioner. The MLB Players Association (MLBPA) opposed those changes and initiated a strike in August 1994. Commissioner Bud Selig responded by cancelling all remaining games, including the playoffs and World Series, which was not played for the first time in 90 years.
As labour relations deteriorated, the owners made unagreed changes, threatening the order of baseball business and jeopardising the game’s undecided future. A salary cap was unilaterally implemented late in December 1994, along with new rules governing free agency.
Eradicating salary arbitration, the owners granted restricted free agency to 38 players with four or five years of big league service time. Instead of exchanging figures with one team through arbitration, those restricted free agents could negotiate with all teams. If a deal was agreed, the player’s old team had 10 days to match the contract offer or walk away.
Ostensibly, Sammy Sosa belonged to the cohort of 38 restricted free agents. However, confusion reigned when MLBPA chief Donald Fehr countered with his own unilateral declaration, in January 1995. According to Fehr, the owners broke legal agreements by making such unilateral alterations to player contract. Accordingly, Fehr and the MLBPA considered all unsigned players – 895 in total – to be unrestricted free agents. Uncertainty poisoned the waters, and Congress soon intervened to grease the wheels of negotiations.
One way or the other, Sammy Sosa was able to speak with teams other than the Cubs, who had acquired him in a crosstown trade two-and-a-half years earlier. The Red Sox showed sufficient interest, and a meeting was set for 26 January 1995. “New GM Dan Duquette nearly pulled off a true coup,” recalled Bill Nowlin in his 2006 book Day by Day With the Boston Red Sox. “Both Sammy Sosa and relief ace John Wetteland visited Fenway Park, along with their mutual agent, Adam Katz. Within days, Wetteland agreed to a three-year, $15 million contract with the Red Sox, and Sosa and the Sox came to a tentative agreement, as well.”
Immediately following the impromptu Fenway powwow, the Boston Globe reported that Sosa had agreed to terms with the Red Sox. Cognisant of the ongoing strike and accompanying signing freeze, Katz refuted those reports. “We’ve had meaningful discussions with the Red Sox,” he told the Chicago Tribune. “But by no means do we have a deal.”
Incidentally, Duquette also reached a tentative agreement with Kevin Appier during this period, adding the prominent Kansas City ace to a smart haul including Sosa and Wetteland. A prior trade for the aforementioned Canseco bolstered a solid lineup, while holdovers stars like Mo Vaughn and Roger Clemens gave Boston a formidable core. If the 1995 season ever got underway, the Red Sox looked set to challenge for that elusive world title.
Alas, negotiations between the players and owners ground to a halt, dampening enthusiasm among fatigued fans. In fact, on the very day Sosa visited Fenway to discuss joining the Red Sox, President Bill Clinton ordered the two sides to resume bargaining. The White House set an arbitrary deadline – 6 February – for an agreement to be reached and the season to commence. The President told both sides to quit playing around.
During renewed talks, minor progress was made when the owners proved willing to renege on their salary cap fixation, but the MLBPA was still perturbed by likely changes to free agency and arbitration. To wit, in late January, the MLBPA voted to continue its freeze on player signings, casting doubt on the verbal agreements struck by Duquette and his peers – Sosa included.
When Clinton’s deadline passed without resolution, the owners pressed ahead with plans to hold spring training and a regular season with ‘replacement players’ – those willing to cross the picket line for a $115,000 base salary plus incentives. Those replacement players actually reported to spring training and played in contrived exhibition games, as public trust in the national pastime reached a new nadir.
Finally, in late March 1995, a breakthrough came when the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a complaint in federal court, supporting the players and charging that MLB team owners had not bargained in good faith throughout the process. The NLRB sought an injunction against the owners, claiming they had violated the National Labor Relations Act by unilaterally eliminating salary arbitration, competitive bargaining for free agents, and anti-collusion provisions in the CBA. Judge Sonia Sotomayor issued a preliminary injunction a few days later, and support from the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit kiboshed any prospect of appeal by the owners. The old CBA terms were reintroduced on 2 April 1995, and the MLBPA ordered its members back to work.
As the old CBA granted free agency to players after six full years of big league service time, Sammy Sosa was removed from the open market, his Red Sox agreement void after more than two months in limbo. Effectively, Sosa was still a Cubs player, and GM Ed Lynch could choose to take the slugger to arbitration or offer him a fresh contract. Three weeks later, on 24 April 1995, Sosa agreed a one-year, $4.3 million deal with Cubs, avoiding arbitration and ending one of the strangest conquests in baseball history.
“When the strike ended and cleared the way for the 1995 season, there was some question as to whether I would leave the Cubs,” wrote Sosa in his 2008 autobiography with Marcos Breton. “One newspaper even wrote that I was going to the Boston Red Sox. Yes, I did talk to the Red Sox about the possibility of playing there, but it proved to be a blind alley – the result of all the confusion following the baseball strike. It gets technical, but the bottom line was this: during negotiations between players and owners, there was a chance that I might be considered a free agent. But when the players and owners came to agreement, I wasn’t – based on how many years I had played. It’s not worth getting into the details because the bottom line was that I was still a Cub and happy about it, and would be eligible for free agency in 1996. When asked what I thought about my talks with the Red Sox, I said what I felt: ‘It was nice to feel wanted, but now I want to stay here.’’
Vindicating the interest of Duquette, Sosa made his first All-Star team in 1995. He also won a Silver Slugger award and earned a smattering of MVP votes that year – hitting .268 with 36 home runs, 119 RBI, 122 OPS+ and a .340 OBP. For its part, Boston won the American League East in 1995, powered by Vaughn and Canseco, before Cleveland swept the Red Sox in a non-competitive ALDS.
Sosa went year-to-year with the Cubs, then finally signed a four-year extension in 1997. A further four-year tack-on kept him in Chicago through 2004, by which point Sosa had authored one of the greatest offensive stretches in baseball history. Indeed, between 1996 and 2004, Sosa hit .288 with 443 home runs, a .369 OBP and a 146 OPS+. During that stretch, Sosa topped 30 homers all nine years; topped 40 homers in seven of those; topped 50 homers four times; and topped 60 homers thrice. Nobody else – not Ruth or Maris, McGwire or Bonds – has produced more 60+ homer seasons. Sosa was a slugger unlike any other, and the Cubs rode his bat back to relevance.
Interestingly, Duquette and Sosa remained friendly long after their Beantown discussions. Sosa even invited the Boston GM to one of his famous birthday parties in Santo Domingo, though it is unclear if Duquette attended. Meanwhile, Duquette continued to remould the Red Sox without Sosa, landing cornerstone cogs like Pedro Martínez, Tim Wakefield, Johnny Damon, Jason Varitek and Derek Lowe in the ensuing years. Nevertheless, Duquette could not move the needle in October, and was ousted by new ownership in 2002, less than 24 hours after the ink dried on a lucrative takeover deal.
Red Sox fans will not complain or seek to rewrite history, though. Theo Epstein replaced Duquette and put the finishing touches to a strong core. And while it would have been fun to watch Sosa, Vaughn and Canseco hit successively, taking aim for Lansdowne Street, Boston nurtured its own Dominican heroes in the new millennium – led by Martinez, with Manny Ramírez (another Duquette recruit) and David Ortiz in tow.
Looking back, then, Red Sox fans are likely glad the Sosa deal fell through in 1995. Dealing with his inglorious demise strained the Cubs, to a point where Sosa is rarely invited back to Wrigley Field for team ceremonies. But go ahead, admit it – part of you wishes to have seen prime Sammy Sosa launching baseballs over the Green Monster at Fenway Park. He may well have established new records unreachable even by Bonds playing home games in the lyrical little bandbox. It would have been a sight to behold, regardless of the scandal that would have emerged.
***
***
***
The Yankees were once a sacred beacon in Japan, an illustrious totem of baseball domination. For decades, Japanese fans embraced pinstriped mystique with feverish passion. They worshipped the interlocking NY and every warrior who wore it. The Yankees matter in Japan – or at least they used to. This story explains why – from the conquests of Babe Ruth to the class of Masahiro Tanaka – and it offers a useful primer as the winter sweepstakes begin.
Most iconic Yankee fables begin with Babe Ruth, but the team’s Japanese synergy actually starts with Lou Gehrig, his legendary teammate, and Lefty O’Doul, a former Yankees backup. Gehrig and O’Doul visited Japan in 1931 on a 17-game barnstorming tour arranged by former big leaguer Herb Hunter and sportswriter Fred Lieb. Several MLB stars – including Mickey Cochrane, Al Simons, Lefty Grove and Rabbit Maranville – joined the touring party, whose contributions helped solidify baseball as a popular pastime in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Gehrig was particularly enamoured with Japan. As detailed by Jonathan Eig in Luckiest Man, the definitive Gehrig biography, Lou returned from the trip with various trinkets and souvenirs, including a silk Japanese painting that hung above the fireplace his New Rochelle home. The Yankees’ erstwhile first baseman also bought a diamond necklace in Japan, later gifted to Eleanor, his wife, though some say it was intended for his mother.
Spurred by the success of their pioneering tour, Lieb and O’Doul made it an annual expedition, and in 1934, Ruth joined Gehrig on a 12-city romp through Japan. Ruth was accompanied by his wife, Claire, and daughter, Julia, while Eleanor Gehrig viewed the trip as a belated honeymoon. Contrary to the cuddly myths, Ruth and Gehrig actually endured a frosty relationship at times, including throughout the Japanese tour. That frostiness was exacerbated by rumours of an affair between the Babe and Eleanor during the trip, though such allegations have never been confirmed.
Undoubtedly, aged 39, the Great Bambino was past his inimitable best by that point, and many considered him a snarling malcontent. Indeed, Ruth was angry at Yankees management as the Empress of Japan left for Yokohama, carrying fine baseball cargo. The Babe wanted a pay rise, but Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert was reticent to open his chequebook for a star in decline. Ruth also sought a future gig as Yankees manager, but Ruppert remained loyal to the incumbent, Joe McCarthy. Thoroughly disgruntled, Ruth joined the Boston Braves upon returning from Japan, making the jaunt something of a strained farewell tour.
“The welcome was overwhelming in Tokyo, the site of the first four games,” wrote Leigh Montville in The Big Bam, his comprehensive Ruth biography. “The Babe and the All-Stars drew the full Lindbergh treatment in a tickertape parade through the Ginza witnessed by a crowd ranging in estimates from 100,000 to half a million people. A cold-shouldered diplomatic testiness that had developed between Japan and the United States, primarily over naval and trade issues, was missing. There was only warmth for the Babe. Polite little boys would knock at the door of his hotel room and ask Claire if they could meet ‘the God of Baseball.’ He was Babe Ruth, dammit. Yes, he was.”
The ultimate Yankee, Ruth was beloved throughout Japan, where baseball became a national obsession. To this day, there is a statue of Ruth in a Sendai zoo, placed on the landing spot of his first home run on Japanese soil. A cap worn by Ruth on the tour later sold for $300,000, a testament to his enduring appeal, while many credit the Babe with easing diplomatic tensions between the US and Japan with virtuoso performances in Tokyo, Kobe, Sendai further afield.
In one exhibition, before 60,000 fans at Meiji Jingu Stadium in Tokyo, Ruth hit a mammoth home run off Eiji Sawamura, a 17-year old phenom. Sawamura became the greatest pitcher in Japanese baseball history, a prominent award named after him à la Cy Young in America, but Ruth’s vaunted blast off the starlet gained a legendary patina among yakyū afficionados. There was an epistemic mysticism to Ruth and the Yankees, and Japanese admirers lapped it up.
The Japanese team that faced the American All-Stars was managed by media mogul Matsutaro Shōriki, who embraced professionalism and entered the squad into an independent league following the tour. Initially known as The Great Tokyo Baseball Club, the team adopted a new moniker – the Tokyo Giants – in tribute to O’Doul and his New York roots. Winning 22 championships in the coming century, the Giants became known as ‘the Yankees of Japan,’ adored by a large national fanbase. That majestic legacy can be attributed to Ruth, Gehrig and their touring compatriots.
Of course, shortly after the 1934 tour, Japanese-American relations deteriorated, to a point of all-out war. The US opposed Japan’s invasion of China in 1937, and President Franklin Roosevelt imposed sanctions on Japanese imports. In repost, Japan allied with Germany and became embroiled in World War II. When Japanese air fighters bombed Pearl Harbor, a US naval base in Hawaii, on 7 December 1941, Roosevelt declared war on Japan. A deadly escalation ensued, culminating in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
According to legend, before rushing into battle against their American counterparts, Japanese soldiers adopted a common war cry: ‘To hell with Babe Ruth.’ Indeed, such was Ruth’s eminence in Japan – his enduring grip on the Japanese imagination – US war planners considered using the Babe in vital communications. According to Montville: “A friend told him [Ruth] that, because of his popularity in Japan, one plan had been submitted that he be flown to Guam and put on a destroyer to broadcast to the Japanese people about the wisdom of surrender before the United States unleashed its nuclear bomb. Nothing ever came of it.”
Japan did surrender following the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and US forces occupied the country for seven years. General Douglas MacArthur ordered the reintroduction of baseball to boost national morale, and American GIs taught the game as a common language. To that end, newly ensconced as a manager, O’Doul took his San Francisco Seals on a goodwill tour of Japan in 1949. O’Doul also helped develop a functional league system for Japanese baseball, including the upstart Central League. Lefty even enlisted the help of prominent big leaguers, including Joe DiMaggio, a fellow Seals alum, to grow baseball overseas. DiMaggio made frequent visits to Japan, where he was feted as a baseball behemoth.
“In 1950 Tokyo, where all things American were considered to be modern, correct and highly fashionable (more than fashion – almost a state-sanctioned religion), baseball and O’Doul-san were hugely admired,” wrote Richard Ben Cramer in The Hero’s Life, his Joltin’ Joe opus. “But what startled Joe was the adulation for DiMaggio-san. In Japan, everybody seemed to know him. He was, for one thing, the spiritual son of Father Baseball (who had trained him, as a youth, with the Seals of San Francisco). But also, he was a great and victorious warrior of the diamond in his own right. Was he not the heir to the immortal Bay-ba Ru-tu? Was he not the exemplary samurai of the champions Yankees? ‘DiMaggio! Banzai!’”
Indeed, the Yankees’ cache grew exponentially from the prime of Ruth to the pomp of DiMaggio. By the time Joe made his inaugural visit to Japan, in 1950, the Yankees had 13 World Series titles to their name – more than any other MLB team. News of those exploits – those championships and their architects – made it back to Japan, and locals considered it a profound honour to host great American ballplayers. Especially great Yankees. Especially the great DiMaggio.
“Their plane made the Tokyo airport at dusk,” wrote Cramer of DiMaggio’s first Japanese visit. “Magnesium flares lit the skies to signal the arrival of the diamond gods. They were driven in a cavalcade of open cars to the middle of town – the Ginza – where pandemonium ensued. A storm of paper scraps fluttered down from windows on all sides. Raking spotlights and fusillade of flashbulbs lit the startled Americans in stroboscope freezeframes. College boys and high school girls flung themselves onto the cars. Lefty and Joe were in the lead convertible, which was finally stopped dead by a million screaming fans: Banzai DiMaggio! Banzai O’Doul! Japanese police and US soldiers had to plea with the crowd to let the car move.”
DiMaggio retired in 1951, a nine-time World Series champion and inner circle Hall of Famer. A legendary brooder, DiMaggio struggled to adapt post-retirement, missing the acclaim and adulation. In 1954, DiMaggio married Marilyn Monroe, perhaps the most famous woman on earth, and a complicated unease blanketed their relationship. Paradoxically, Joe yearned for the validation of incessant limelight, yet resented the shade cast on his baseball heroics by Marilyn’s nonchalant celebrity. In many ways, theirs was an incorrigible love, and strains were visible from the start.
DiMaggio was already scheduled to join O’Doul in Japan immediately after the wedding, instructing ballplayers in Central League training camps. Taking a leaf from the Gehrig playbook, Joe reworked his Japanese trip to double as a honeymoon. As such, some of the stormiest episodes of the Monroe-DiMaggio marriage took place in Japan. Their stay was fraught and stormy, laying the groundwork for a premature divorce.
“At the Tokyo airport, Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe could not leave the plane on which they had arrived,” wrote Cramer. “In the early winter darkness, five thousand Japanese fans – mostly youngsters – blew past the Japanese cops, stormed onto the tarmac, and besieged the Pan American Stratoclipper. US Air Force MPs were called in to reinforce the police lines, but Mr and Mrs America were still pinned in the plane for forty-five minutes – and thereafter could only debark through the rear baggage hatch.”
One of the most infamous scenes of the DiMaggio-Monroe marriage occurred on that visit to Japan. While Joe taught baseball to agog locals, Marilyn performed for US troops in South Korea. “Joe, you never heard such cheering,” she said upon returning to her husband in Tokyo. “Yes I have,” replied DiMaggio, mawkish resentment flooding a troubled union. The couple allegedly fought in the Imperial Hotel (the same hotel that once hosted Ruth and Gehrig), and journalists were told Marilyn had pneumonia when they inquired about her unavailability. Within eight months, Mr and Mrs America divorced.
As DiMaggio drifted into the sunset of an extraordinary life, a strapping young buck from Oklahoma replaced him at the nucleus of public attention. Joe begrudged the meteoric emergence of Mickey Mantle, the wholesome caricature destined to replace him, but America fell in love with the next great Yankees hero. With blonde hair, blue eyes and Bunyanesque biceps, Mantle eventually surpassed many of DiMaggio’s records, and news of his rapid ascent captivated Japan.
So much so, in 1955, Mantle and the Yankees were invited to tour Japan courtesy of the Mainichi Newspaper Company. Japanese prime minister Ichirō Hatoyama wore a Yankees cap while welcoming the team. Mantle enjoyed his 24th birthday in Tokyo, receiving a cake from local dignitaries, and the Yankees played 16 games across the country, including a scrimmage at the famous Koshien Stadium. One contest was held in Hiroshima, rather poignantly, as the pinstripers once again lent support to international diplomacy. “The Yankees certainly still are the champs to Japanese baseball fans,” concluded one local newspaper. Even World Series defeat to the crosstown Dodgers did not dampen that enthusiasm.
Interestingly, according to this comprehensive archive, Mantle grew homesick on the Japanese tour and was advised by teammate Billy Martin to feign the labour of his wife. Thinking their star was about to become a father, the Yankees allowed Mantle to end his tour prematurely and fly home. Mickey’s son, David, was born seven weeks later. When the Yankees found out, they fined Mantle for subversion. So much for growing the game overseas.
Nevertheless, a few months later, in March 1956, Sports Illustrated was sufficiently interested in the Yankees’ Japanese popularity that it dispatched writer Jimmy Jemal to the Itami Air Base in Osaka to learn more. “Why do you like the Yankees?,” Jemal asked everyone he could find. The answers, outlined in an epochal feature, explained the esoteric allure of pinstriped baseball:
Such was the Yankees' enduring popularity in Japan, the team continued to surface periodically as a diplomatic pawn. In 1957, for instance, Japanese prime minister Nobusuke Kishi visited the US to address a joint session of congress. During the trip, Kishi made a detour to Yankee Stadium, where he took in a doubleheader against the Chicago White Sox. Wearing a Yankees cap, Kishi threw out the ceremonial first pitch from his front row seat and received a rousing ovation from the crowd.
Returning to the aforementioned declarations of love, Osaka does seem to be a hotbed of Yankees fascination in Japan. For instance, when Yankee Stadium was partially demolished for renovation in 1973, various items were auctioned, and interest flooded in from across the Pacific. “The Osaka baseball team in Japan paid $10,000 for the foul poles and $30,000 for the lights,” wrote Michael Gershman in Diamonds, a history of ballparks. “An employee of Japan’s Daimaru department store spent $4,000 on memorabilia he intended to resell in Japan, even the box of diapers left behind by one of the players’ wives. It turned out the Japanese were crazy about the Yankees because of Babe Ruth’s visit.”
Exactly which Osaka ballclub – the Kintetsu Buffaloes, Hanshin Tigers, Nankai Hawks or perhaps a minor league team – bought the Yankee Stadium foul poles is lost to the passage of history. Nevertheless, it is fun to consider such an obscure wrinkle in this rambling tale. Maybe those foul poles are still out there somewhere, ensuring the Bronx and Japan are forever entwined. At the very least, this is a fun fact to share with your friends at the bar.
Another link emerged almost simultaneously, as a former Yankees star made a far more indelible – if negative – contribution to Japanese culture. Once considered an heir to Mantle’s crown, Joe Pepitone was a three-time All-Star who failed to realise his enormous potential in pinstripes. The Brooklyn native washed out of the major leagues in 1973 and accepted a two-year, $140,000 contract to play for the Tokyo Yakult Atoms. Pepitone played just 14 games in Japan, hitting .163 with a singular home run and two RBI.
True to form, Pepitone skipped games and practice sessions with phantom injuries, only to be seen carousing in Tokyo nightclubs. Pepitone refused to cut his hair, per Japanese customs, and often moaned about the cost of living in Tokyo. In his autobiography – Joe, You Coulda Made Us Proud – Pepitone said he endured diarrhea during one Atoms game after drinking six eponymous yogurt drinks supplied by Yakult. Many Japanese observers were shocked that this guy once played for the Yankees – and with distinction. To the locals, Pepitone became something of a joke.
“Although his Japanese tenure lasted just a handful of games, Pepitone did not fail to leave a lasting impression in the Far East,” wrote Bruce Markusen in a Hardball Times retrospective. “In an era long before cell phones, he left behind an astronomical phone bill, which he never paid. Presumably the Japanese authorities are still on the lookout. He also became responsible for creating a new slang word in Japanese – a ‘pepitone.’ Translated roughly into English, the word means ‘goof-off.’”
The Yankees were purchased by boisterous shipping magnate George Steinbrenner in 1973, and though he promised absentee ownership, The Boss soon became a renowned meddler, often hurting his team more than helping it. After winning consecutive championships in 1977 and 1978, the Yankees entered a prolonged funk, without a further title until 1996. The glistening Yankees brand took a hit through the fallow 1980s, and George knew drastic action was needed to restore equilibrium.
Ever the imperialist, and keen to end a gathering drought, Steinbrenner became preoccupied with the idea of signing a Japanese star in the mid-1990s, after enviously watching the rise of Hideo Nomo with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Nomo was the first modern Japanese player to join an MLB team, and his early success spawned ample marketing opportunities for the Dodgers. Steinbrenner wanted a slice of that pie, and Yankees functionaries were tasked with procuring a Japanese star, post-haste. Such a pursuit lacked patience, and a rushed approach yielded unsatisfactory results.
Admonished by The Boss, in May 1996, the Yankees paid $350,000 to the Seibu Lions for the right to negotiate with Katsuhiro Maeda, a 25-year old pitcher with little upside. Maeda signed a $1.5 million deal with the Yankees, despite never winning or saving a single game in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) league. Branded ‘a sort of Dennis Rodman of Japanese baseball’ by Jack Curry of the New York Times, Maeda dyed his hair pink, silver and purple at different times, yet struggled to parlay excellent velocity into a comprehensive arsenal. Maeda topped out as the Yankees’ number five prospect and never made the major leagues. Steinbrenner went back to the drawing board.
One long-forgotten scheme saw the Yankees partner with the Nippon Ham Fighters between 1997 and 2002. “For years, Fighters players and coaches attended minicamps in the States,” recalls Japanese baseball expert Jim Allen in this blog post. “And when Nippon Ham announced its team would move to Sapporo, they signed longtime Columbus Clippers manager Trey Hillman to run the club.”
Alas, the Yankees-Fighters partnership did not yield tangible improvements in New York. According to some detractors, Steinbrenner resorted to brute financial force while searching for his headline Japanese star – strategic relationships be damned. Hideki Irabu, ace of the Chiba Lotte Marines, was widely considered the next great NPB pitcher, and the Yankees worked hard to recruit him. However, in March 1997, Irabu was signed by the San Diego Padres, who struck a bilateral agreement with the Marines. Perhaps enchanted by the pinstripes or lured by the underhanded promise of a bigger bonus, Irabu told the Padres he would only play for the Yankees, and an ugly impasse ensued.
Ultimately, San Diego had little choice but to trade its new import to New York – for Rafael Medina, Rubén Rivera and $3 million. Steinbrenner then gave Irabu a four-year, $12.8 million contract, finally securing his Japanese star. Many critics accused Steinbrenner of tampering throughout the Irabu sweepstakes. Indeed, a new posting system – requiring NPB teams to make players available to all MLB teams for open bidding during defined periods each year – was introduced to mitigate such market manipulation.
Irabu made his hotly-anticipated Yankees debut in July 1997, and attendances doubled in the Bronx on days he pitched. Nevertheless, an acrimonious relationship unfurled between the hurler and his new team. Irabu was perpetually agitated by the hordes of media that followed his every move, and performing in the glare of New York limelight became a joyless ordeal.
Irabu stayed with the Yankees through 1999, winning two World Series rings despite pitching in just one postseason game, and Steinbrenner chastised his underperforming pitcher at every turn. When Irabu failed to cover first base during a spring training game, for instance, Steinbrenner called him a ‘fat pussy toad’ to reporters. Irabu was rightly hurt by such a degrading insult, and he returned to Japan in 2003 following erratic stints with the Expos and Rangers.
Alas, Irabu lived a complicated life that became even messier post-retirement. Arrests for assault and DUI came in 2008 and 2010, while substance abuse derailed his personal life. Sadly, in July 2011, Irabu was found hanged in his Los Angeles home at the desperately young age of 42. According to Fox Sports, a marital breakup left Irabu alone, unable to communicate with his two daughters. The pain became too much for the tortured enigma, who succumbed to suicide in comparative anonymity.
After failing to integrate Maeda and Irabu, and having pilfered Alfonso Soriano from the Hiroshima Carp in a controversial move, by the new millennium, the Yankees knew a fresh approach was needed in Japan. To that end, in August 2002, despite the existing Ham Fighters partnership, Yankees president Randy Levine wrote to Yomiuri Giants* owner Tsuneo Watanabe seeking a strategic partner in Japan with whom they could share commercial opportunities. The powerful Giants were a natural fit, and Watanabe invited a Yankees delegation to Tokyo a few months later.
*The Tokyo Giants became known as the Yomiuri Giants in 1947 for commercial reasons. The team is owned by Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings, a major Japanese media conglomerate.
After brief discussions, the Yankees and Giants signed a partnership agreement that called for the sharing of scouting report, industry insights and baseball best practices. Giants games would be shown on YES, the Yankees’ television network, while interlocking NY regalia would be sold in Tokyo stores. “The sole purpose of this agreement is to form a working relationship,” said Yankees general manager Brian Cashman. “We’re both smart enough to recognise we can learn a great deal from each other.”
Though pleasingly poetic, many felt the Giants-Yankees alliance was a ruse to give New York the inside track on Hideki Matsui, the prized Yomiuri slugger – nicknamed Godzilla – who became a free agent that winter. Indeed, just five weeks after the partnership was announced, Matsui signed a three-year, $21 million deal with the Yankees. Yomiuri offered Matsui an NPB record contract extension, but he took less to join the storied Yankees. Tokyo threw a parade to celebrate his landing in pinstripes.
Cashman dubbed Matsui ‘the Tom Cruise of his country.’ In fairness, that was probably an understatement. Others likened Matsui to Michael Jordan, such was his outsized influence on Japanese culture. Matsui was the face of innumerable brands and products in Japan, and his move to America – and, more specifically, his move to the Yankees – captured the national imagination. Everyone wanted a piece of Matsui, a man at every moment watched.
“Due to the holidays, Matsui didn’t travel to New York for his physical and introductory press conference until the middle of January,” wrote Jerry Beach in Godzilla Takes the Bronx, a niche chronicle of Matsui’s first MLB season. “And the scene upon his arrival looked like some hybrid of The Beatles’ movie A Hard Day’s Night and a Tom Clancy spy novel.”
Around 150 reporters greeted Matsui at Newark Liberty Airport. A further 500 media members attended the introductory press conference, held in a lavish Times Square ballroom. “This was the Beatles arriving at JFK back in ’64,” wrote Mike Vaccaro in the New York Post. “This was Sinatra at the old Paramount, clogging the streets with crazed bobby soxers. This was every massive media photo op you’ve ever seen, multiplied by 40.”
Keen to capitalise on Matsui-mania, the Yankees struck a deal to have all their home games carried live on Japanese television. As such, Matsui’s first spring training game was broadcast throughout his homeland, despite a 03:15 am first pitch. Still, millions watched. In fact, per ESPN, when Matsui hit his first spring training home run, more than 33% of all TVs in Japan were tuned to the game – an astonishing statistic. Moreover, Yankees games often outrated Giants games in Japan – and Giants contests were carried by two national broadcasters simultaneously. Matsui was clearly a big deal in Japan, and so were his Yankees.
To further accentuate those connections, the Yankees agreed sponsorship deals with prominent Japanese companies, including Sony, Canon, Sharp, Fujifilm, Komatsu and Yomiuri. The team even opened a business office in Japan, according to Forbes, as international merchandise sales rose by 30% throughout 2003. The head of that office, former Irabu translator George Rose, became something of a local celebrity. “Last summer, Rose walked into a Tokyo sushi bar wearing his 1998 World Series ring,” reported Forbes. “Hearing that the American worked for the Yankees, the Japanese chef noted how far behind the team was in the standings, quoting the club’s stats.” Japanese fans were that invested in the Yankees.
While hitting for less power in the US than he did in Japan, Matsui transitioned well to MLB, posting a .287 batting average, 42 doubles and 106 RBI in his rookie campaign. Matsui played every game that year, as the Yankees came two wins shy of a fifth World Series crown in eight seasons. Durable, classy and understated, Matsui was exceptionally team-orientated, telling captain Derek Jeter to let him know if the media hordes became too much of a distraction. Matsui just wanted to win. He knew what it meant to represent his country, and to represent the Yankees. He did a brilliant job of both.
“Matsui’s respect for the game, and indeed for the Yankee organisation, could be seen in an interview he did with a Japanese newspaper some years later,” wrote Marty Appel in Pinstripe Empire, the definitive Yankees tome. “While extolling the honour of playing for the Yankees, he expressed shock that some of his teammates could be seen spitting their gum on the Yankee Stadium field. It was, to him, a dishonour to the historic ballpark.”
In 2004, Matsui led the Yankees to Japan, where they played the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in a two-game series to open the MLB regular season. The Yankees’ 115-member travelling party stayed at the Hotel New Otani in Tokyo, as conveyed by George King in the New York Post. How is that for an offseason omen?
The Yankees’ trip began with a Tokyo Dome exhibition against the Yomiuri Giants, their kindred spirit. Indeed, for many locals, the New York-Yomiuri scrimmage was the headline event – Jeter and A-Rod returning 70 years after Ruth and Gehrig to play the venerable Giants. Yogi Berra attended the game, as did Japanese prime minister Junichi Koizumi. Yankees and Giants players swapped caps on the field before their duel, a neat moment of symmetry. Matsui then thrilled the masses by launching a 420-foot home run deep into the right field bleachers, as the Yankees ran out 6-2 victors.
A further exhibition, against the Hanshin Tigers, saw the Bombers lose, and a season-opening defeat to Tampa Bay perplexed an overwhelmingly pro-Yankees crowd. Nevertheless, Matsui came up big again in the final contest, mashing another home run as the Yankees notched a 12-1 win. “Hopefully we can have many more games like this,” Matsui told a cheering crowd from a podium behind home plate after the final out. “Everybody really enjoyed this, and the fans were great.”
Of course, later in 2004, the Yankees choked unbelievably against the rival Boston Red Sox, losing a notorious ALCS despite once leading three games to none. The humiliating collapse was symbolic of a changing Yankees age. Once so comfortable on Paul O’Neill, Tino Martinez and David Cone, the pinstripes weighed heavily on Matsui, Jason Giambi and Alex Rodriguez. Another mini-drought stretched through the 2000s, and the Yankees struggled to parlay the success of Matsui into a dominant global strategy.
In some ways, another Japanese outfielder, Ichiro Suzuki, outshone Matsui in the major leagues. Yes, Matsui was a very productive player, but Suzuki was a phenomenon with the Seattle Mariners. Elsewhere, too, Japanese players began to succeed with other teams, including Kaz Matsui with the Mets; Tadahito Iguchi with the White Sox; Kenji Johjima with the Mariners; and Takashi Saito with the Dodgers. New York no longer enjoyed a monopoly on Japanese baseball talent.
Indeed, the Yankees’ dwindling might was confirmed during the unprecedented chase for Daisuke Matsuzaka, hyped by many as the greatest NPB pitcher of the modern age. Known to all as Dice-K, Matsuzaka dominated Japan with a vast array of pitches, including a mysterious ‘gyroball,’ which baffled hitters with bullet-like spin. Matsuzaka was posted by the Seibu Lions after the 2006 season, and several MLB teams registered an interest in signing him.
Beneath the vociferous speculation, Matsuzaka was long considered a fit for the Yankees. Like many in Japan, he rooted for the Bombers, having watched Irabu and Matsui perform in Gotham. Matsuzaka even attended a Yankees-Braves World Series game in 1999, such was his interest. In Japan, many felt Dice-K saw pinstripes as his eventual destiny. To that end, Mike Plugh, a Yankees fan in Akita, made an entire blog chronicling Matsuzaka’s links to the Bombers. The move seemed inevitable.
New York did bid $33 million for Dice-K, but when he eventually signed with the rival Red Sox – for six years and $52 million, plus a $51.1 million posting fee – many onlookers were stunned. Boston also nabbed Hideki Okajima, a fine reliever, that winter, en route to another world championship in 2007, as the balance of power continued to tilt.
For their part, the Yankees did sign a Japanese pitcher that offseason, but Kei Igawa struggled to impress in New York. A former MVP and Sawamura Award winner in Japan, Igawa inked a five-year, $20 million contract after the Yankees paid the Hanshin Tigers a $26 million posting fee. Right from the jump, Cashman downplayed the deal, warning fans not to compare Igawa to Dice-K. A 6.66 ERA over two seasons in the Bronx probably justified that caution, but the Yankees’ dubious success evaluating Japanese players – Matsui aside – left many frustrated.
That frustration grew in 2008, when Boston again beat New York to a highly-touted Japanese pitcher – Junichi Tazawa. Undrafted out of high school in Japan, Tazawa regrouped in the independent leagues and later chose to forego the NPB draft to pursue an MLB career aged 22. An unspoken agreement had long governed such anomalies, with MLB teams informally agreeing not to target NPB prospects, which posed an existential threat to Japanese professionalism. While scouting Tazawa, Cashman said he would honour that agreement, only for Boston to swoop in and land the pitcher for $3 million over three years.
Nevertheless, the Yankees returned to form in 2009, winning their 27th world championship. Matsui played a leading role in that title drive, adding an epic playoff performance to his metronomic greatness during the regular season. Aged 35, Matsui was named World Series MVP after hitting .615 with three home runs in six Fall Classic games. Millions watched that World Series back in Japan, reaffirming the national fascination with Godzilla and his Yankees.
Still, the changing financial landscape of MLB led to greater parity, and marquee franchises no longer enjoyed the upper hand in international negotiations. The Yankees let Matsui join the Los Angeles Angels in free agency, for example. Then, in 2011, New York submitted a bid for Yu Darvish, the next generational ace off the NPB production line, but the Ham Fighters star signed with the Texas Rangers. Gone were the days of Japanese wunderkinds pining for pinstripes. Other options were now on the table, and the Yankees had to compete just like everybody else.
For the old guard, however, Yankee mystique proved timeless. That was shown in 2012, when the aforementioned Ichiro Suzuki, perhaps the greatest Japanese player of all, expressed a desire to play in the Bronx. A loyal servant to the Mariners, with whom he shattered myriad records, Ichiro became too costly as Seattle looked to rebuild. As the trade deadline approached, Ichiro asked Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik to consider possible trades. Zduriencik asked his franchise icon where he would prefer to be dealt. Ichiro put the Yankees top of his list, and a deal was quickly agreed.
There was a certain ineffable magic to Ichiro Suzuki in pinstripes. Sure, the master was passed his best. At 38, Suzuki should not have been an everyday outfielder. However, it was just special to watch Japan’s finest baseball exponent ply his trade for America’s most illustrious ballclub. Rolling back the clock, Ichiro hit safely in his first 12 games as a Yankee, tying a team record. He generally performed well throughout his time in the Bronx, hitting .281 in 360 games over parts of three seasons. There was a lyricism to Ichiro Suzuki, New York Yankee, that defied its contemporaneous context, and I’m glad we got to witness such a classy collaboration.
For one fleeting moment in 2012, the Yankees had three Japanese players on their active big league roster – Ichiro; solid starter Hiroki Kuroda; and reliever Ryota Igarashi. The latter pitched just three innings for the Yankees, sporting a 12.00 ERA, but Kuroda was a durable asset for three seasons. Matsui even signed a one-day contract to retire as a Yankee in 2013, affirming the team’s Japanese connections at every turn.
The Yankees leveraged those connections – and the looming presence of Suzuki and Kuroda – to lure another Japanese star after the 2013 season. Fresh off a 24-0 season with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, Masahiro Tanaka was anointed the next great Japanese pitcher, inheriting the crown crafted by Darvish, Matsuzaka, Irabu, Nomo and Sawamura. Some said Tanaka was better than all of those compatriots, and a free agent frenzy enthralled the baseball world.
“In January 2014, Tanaka’s agent, Casey Close, rented the Beverly Hills home of one of his colleagues, a basketball agent, to host two ‘recruiting days’ for Tanaka,” wrote Tom Verducci in The Cubs Way. “Representatives from 10 teams, waiting in black SUVs on the street for their one-hour turn over the two days, literally lined up in America’s leading neighbourhood of $10 million homes to convince a 25-year-old pitcher, fresh off a flight from Japan and eating sushi on a couch inside one of the mansions, to take nine digits worth of their money…The Yankees sent eight people to Beverly Hills. They brought a video presentation that included a recruitment pitch from former Yankees outfielder Hideki Matsui and a tour of Yankee Stadium done in the style of MTV’s Cribs. Twelve days later, Tanaka took the Yankees’ money: $155 million over seven years.”
The Yankees followed a familiar playbook with Tanaka, landing bespoke advertising and endorsement deals with Japanese brands, including Yankee Stadium billboards featuring Japanese text. More than 200 reporters gathered for an introductory press conference, where Tanaka declared, in flawless English, “I’m very happy to be a Yankee.” His starts became appointment television across Japan, as a new generation discovered the allure of pinstriped baseball.
To that end, in March 2015, another visit from beloved Yankees made a big impression with Japanese kids. Masui returned to his Tokyo Dome roots while staging a charity ballgame for Tohoku students. Jeter, his heralded teammate, joined Hideki for the contest, which raised funds for those devastated by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 15,000 people in northeastern Japan. Jeter had been retired for six months by that point, but the locals were thrilled by his presence. Matsui thanked Jeter for making such an effort.
I had a similar experience with Tanaka a few years later. Masahiro started the first baseball game I ever saw live – against the Red Sox in London, as MLB visited my homeland for the first time. Tanaka struggled in the Olympic Stadium bandbox, and London bore witnessed to the shortest outing of his career, but it was a privilege to watch him warmup from the bullpen rail. Tanaka was – and is – one of my favourite Yankees of all-time, and seeing him up close, in the flesh, was a treat I never thought possible.
Even before landing Tanaka, however, Cashman had his heart set on another Japanese superstar: two-watch sensation Shohei Ohtani. The Yankees GM began scouting Ohtani as a high schooler, back in 2012. A two-way juggernaut redolent of Babe Ruth himself, Ohtani held the potential to eclipse even the Bambino as baseball’s greatest ever player. Cashman left no stone unturned preparing for Ohtani’s eventual NPB free agency – even visiting Japan to watch Ohtani play for the Ham Fighters.
Ultimately, though, despite recruitment efforts from Tanaka and Matsui, Ohtani signed with the Los Angeles Angels in December 2017. Shohei wanted to settle on the west coast, with shorter travel routes back to Japan, and the opportunity to play with – and ultimately outshine – Mike Trout appealed to his competitive instinct. The Yankees made every attempt to sign Ohtani, but did not progress to the second round of his sweepstakes.
Since then, the Yankees have been in something of a holding pattern regarding Japanese talent. They passed on Seiya Suzuki, who joined the Cubs. They had preliminary interest in Masataka Yoshida, but watched him sign for Boston. Meanwhile, Kodai Senga, an underrated pitcher, joined the crosstown Mets. The Yankees have not had a Japanese player since 2020, when Tanaka returned to Japan with the Golden Eagles. By all accounts, Masahiro wanted to stay with the Yankees, but a contract offer was not forthcoming.
Some industry insiders believe Cashman has been biding his time and preparing for this offseason since losing out on Ohtani the first time. Indeed, the Yankees announced significant strategic investment from tech billionaire Soichiro Minami in April 2023. Minami became the first Japanese minority partner in franchise history, and his arrival just happened to coincide with the visit of Ohtani and the Angels for a series at Yankee Stadium. “It’s a beautiful field, passionate fans,” said Ohtani via an interpreter in the Bronx. “I always look forward to playing here. It’s really fun playing here.”
Incidentally, Ohtani grew up idolising Matsui, and the two shared a wholesome moment while filming a recent ESPN documentary on Shohei's rise. "Considering how far he's come as a player, and how huge his presence is in MLB, to hear Shohei Ohtani looked up to me like that when he was a little leaguer - I'm humbled by that," said Matsui, while signing a baseball for Ohtani. Upon receiving the gift, Ohtani seemed taken aback. "This is awesome," said Shohei. "I'm not the kind of person who likes to ask for favours, but I will treasure this."
Cashman has seemingly pursued parallel tracks with Ohtani and Yamamoto. The latter inherited Ohtani’s mantle as an all-world NPB ace, dominating with the Orix Buffaloes. A two-time NBP MVP, Yamamoto has also won three straight Sawamura Awards; three straight Triple Crowns; and pitched two no-hitters in Japan. Just 25, Yamamoto has already won a Japan Series championship with the Buffaloes, in addition to Olympic gold and a World Baseball Classic title with the Japanese national team. Through seven NPB seasons, Yamamoto has posted a 70-29 record with a 1.82 ERA. Some say his ceiling is unprecedented among Japanese pitchers.
Comparison of select NPB pitchers
Pitcher
NPB seasons
NPB IP
NPB ERA
NPB WHIP
NPB W%
NPB K/9
NPB posting age
Yoshinobu Yamamoto
2017-2023
897
1.82
0.935
70.7
9.3
25
Shōta Imanaga
2016-2023
1002.2
3.18
1.118
56.1
9.2
30
Kodai Senga
2012-2022
1089
2.59
1.115
66.4
10.3
29
Yusei Kikuchi
2011-2018
1010.2
2.77
1.169
61.3
8
27
Shohei Ohtani
2013-2017
543
2.52
1.076
73.6
10.3
23
Kenta Maeda
2008-2015
1509.2
2.39
1.048
59.1
7.4
27
Masahiro Tanaka
2007-2013
2021-20231773
2.66
1.129
63.9
8
25
Hisashi Iwakuma
2000-2011
2019
1541
3.25
1.204
60.7
6.9
30
Yu Darvish
2005-2011
1268.1
1.99
0.985
70.9
8.9
25
Hiroki Kuroda
1997-2007
2015-2016
2021.2
3.55
1.246
54.1
6.5
32
Daisuke Matsuzaka
1999-2006
2015-2021
1464.1
3.04
1.165
63.6
8.7
26
Kei Igawa
1998-2006
2012-2014
1387.2
3.21
1.262
56.3
8.3
27
Takashi Saito
1992-2005
2013-2015
1575
3.75
1.241
52.9
7.6
36
Hideki Irabu
1988-1996
2003-2004
1286.1
3.55
1.317
51
9
28
Hideo Nomo
1990-1994
1051.1
3.15
1.317
62.9
10.3
26* (retired from NPB)
Source: Baseball-Reference.com
Cashman travelled to Japan to watch Yamamoto in September 2023, naturally intrigued by an NPB star who wins more than Matsuzaka; whiffs more than Tanaka; and manages traffic better than Darvish. Rising to the occasion, Yamamoto pitched a no-hitter with Cashman in attendance, also extending a scoreless innings streak to 42. Sat in the front row, Cashman partook in a standing ovation, and Yamamoto tipped his cap. Yankees fans got goosebumps watching the footage.
This, after all, is a reminder of the stakes that lie ahead. For the three Japanese stars about to become available – especially Ohtani and Yamamoto – this is what they would inherit: an evocative synergy between the Yankees and Japan, and incredible marketing opportunities derived from playing in New York. And for the Yankees themselves? For the beleaguered Cashman and aloof Hal Steinbrenner? This represents a lifeline. By landing one of these elite Japanese talents – again, especially Ohtani or Yamamoto – they can save face and begin to restore the Yankees’ jaded lustre. They can become the Evil Empire again, tentacles wrapping around the globe. They can extend a championship window on life support.
Sure, there are risks tied to all free agents, and the current stable is no different. Yamamoto has never pitched a big league inning, while Ohtani’s stock was knocked by elbow and oblique injuries in his walk year with the Angels. Nevertheless, it is time for the Yankees to honour their rich Japanese heritage. It is time for the Yankees to reel in a big fish. It is time for the Yankees to act like the Yankees. Banzai, Brian. Get it done.
***
]]>
For decades, a physical manifestation of that yearning – that facetious optimism doused in tempted fate – lurked on the Longfellow Bridge, a main artery between Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts. There, above the bustling westbound lanes of Storrow Drive, just off Embankment Road, a couple of miles from Fenway Park, hung a relatively innocuous road sign. REVERSE CURVE, it read, warning harried drivers of a perilous bend. Except, well, it rarely carried that intended message, because determined graffiti artists repeatedly amended the sign with spray paint. REVERSE THE CURSE, it typically read – a looming reference to the Red Sox’ drought and their hapless quest to end it.
Millions drove past the REVERSE THE CURSE sign on Storrow Drive. Photos of it are regurgitated ad nauseam in books and documentaries celebrating the 2004 Red Sox, who so famously won it all and vanquished those stubborn ghosts. If you mention the sign to Bostonians of a certain age, they will smile wistfully. Yet beside those faded memories and sepia-tinged collages, shockingly little is known about the sign itself. Sure, we know its nostalgia-drenched mythology, but tangible facts are few and far between. Who vandalised the sign? What happened to it after the Red Sox finally won? Where is it now? I wanted to find out, and so I began to explore.
As with any esoteric urban legend, the genesis of Boston’s REVERSE THE CURSE sign is exceedingly vague. However, the clearest origin story was provided by Getty Images when the sign was removed in 2004. According to Getty, the sign had been in place for ‘about 50 years’ by that point, which jives with Massachusetts’ shift from button-copy signs (green with white font) to reflective alternatives (yellow with pictographs) in the early-1970s.
When the sign was first doctored is similarly unclear. Getty offers a strangely specific genesis, saying the sign had been vandalised ‘for the last 33 years’ – placing its first adjustment around 1971. Meanwhile, Faithful to Fenway, a reputable book by Michael Borer, points to the early-1990s for initial tampering. Anecdotally, that seems logical, given the Red Sox’ ghoulish collapse in the 1986 World Series and the subsequent uptick in curse-related tchotchke. Dan Shaughnessy published The Curse of the Bambino, his definitive treatise, in 1990, and Boston’s supposed hex was subsumed into the zeitgeist.
So much so, daring Red Sox fans – or nondescript ‘students,’ per this SEC piece – repeatedly risked life and limb to adapt the REVERSE CURVE sign. Indeed, outside Boston, few people are aware that multiple versions of the iconic sign existed over the years. For decades, in fact, Boston’s Metropolitan District Commission replaced the sign whenever it was defaced. To that end, a quick Google Image search reveals several unique versions of the graffiti – some hoodlums squeezing THE between REVERSE and CURVE, while others used a caret.
Regardless of provenance and iteration, the sign – and the drought that inspired it – earned an indelible place in Red Sox folklore. “This curse thing has really entered the New England stream of consciousness,” wrote horrormeister Stephen King, a major Red Sox fan, in Faithful, his diary of the 2004 season shared with Stewart O’Nan. “It’s right up there with the Salem witch trials and Maine lobstah, up there to the point where some wit with a spray can (or tortured sports fan/artist, take your choice) has turned a traffic sign reading REVERSE CURVE on Storrow Drive into one reading REVERSE THE CURSE. Of course, you and I know the so-called Curse of the Bambino is about as real as the so-called Books of Mormon, supposedly discovered in a cave and read with the help of ‘magic peekin’ stones,’ but like all those Mormons, I kind of believe in spite of the thing’s patent absurdity.”
In April 2004, one month after King penned that entry, the REVERSE CURVE sign was once again replaced by obstinate city officials. On that occasion, the fiasco even earned a write-up in the Boston Globe, such was its cultural cut-through. Mac Daniels, the intrepid reporter given the thankless task of covering a singular road sign in a vast metropolis, even contacted the Department of Conservation and Reservation (DCR), freshly responsible for such municipal matters, seeking information. Incredibly, the DCR replied – and in vivid terms.
Only in Boston.
"Being lifelong Red Sox fans, we at DCR appreciate `Reverse the Curse' artistry,” read the vibrant response. “But isn't it part of the curse now, since it didn't work? Any baseball player will tell you that if a superstition-based action doesn't get you the results you're looking for, you try a different one – that's why their hair gets long, then short, then beards, then not. In light of the sensitive nature of this problem, we are considering the following options: 1) Keep the current sign and continue to correct the sign each time it is altered. 2) Remove the old sign because it hasn't broken the curse yet and may in fact be contributing to its continuance. Install a new sign of the MUTCD type – yellow diamond with pictograph. 3) Remove the old sign, find the legacy MDC employees who installed it, and have them present it to the Red Sox as a means of breaking the curse."
With that, the DCR gave Red Sox fans the power to decide their road sign fate. “We’ve been told by the department’s folks that you get to decide,” concluded Daniel. “Write to us at the address below and we'll tabulate the results. Please label the subject of your emails: CURSE.”
Again, only in Boston.
I struggled to find any follow-up piece from Daniel, but the sign was replaced at least once more during the 2004 season – most likely in August, according to Getty. On that occasion, those responsible even left their initials – PK, KC, TT – in the sign’s top left corner, teasing interested parties to follow the breadcrumbs. I did, two decades later, scouring every online link to Bostonian graffiti artist tags, but sadly drew a blank while trying to attribute the urban masterpiece.
When the Red Sox clinched their long-awaited grail a few months later, on 27 October 2004, sweeping the St Louis Cardinals in an anticlimactic World Series, a ceremony was hastily arranged to remove the sign the following day. Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney orchestrated the stunt, donning Red Sox garb to win the #optics. By that point, somebody had already added a D to the end of REVERSE, triumphantly declaring that Boston had REVERSED THE CURSE. Another mysterious initial – SDRM – was also added. They move quickly in New England.
“Governor Mitt Romney was perched in the bucket of a cherry picker on Storrow Drive, wielding a torch to remove the REVERSE CURVE sign from the overpass,” wrote Shaughnessy in Reversing the Curse, his conciliatory sequel. “Years earlier, pranksters had spray-painted the sign to read REVERSE THE CURSE, and likeminded officials let the graffiti stay. It had become something of an inadvertent civic landmark, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. With the Curse officially reversed, the governor seized the moment, stalling traffic for a phony photo op. The historic green beam was removed, and the governor promised it would be auctioned off, with all proceeds going to charity.”
On 31 October 2004, a few days after the contrived sign removal, Daniel returned to his favourite niche topic in the Globe:
“Ambulances were delayed, business people missed appointments, and stress levels jumped, all for a photo opportunity. Worst of all, Romney came to Storrow Drive, ceremoniously wielded a welding torch, and took down the now infamous and beloved Reverse Curve sign, which had long been altered by graffiti artists to read ‘Reverse the Curse.’ It's gone, folks. While Red Sox fever is widespread and the Curse is over for good, we have to wonder about the wisdom of staging an event that closed two lanes of Storrow Drive, backed traffic on Interstate 93 southbound to Somerville, clogged the Leverett Connector, and caused chaos in Sullivan and City squares. Readers said the jam lasted about one-and-a-half hours. Worst of all, the sign was taken down despite assurances to readers of this column from Department of Conservation and Recreation officials that it would remain in place and be cleaned up whenever letters were added and subtracted. The sign won't hang in the Romney living room. It's going to the Red Sox Foundation, where it will be auctioned off.”
Keen to track down the sign and decode its eventual fate, I wrote to the Red Sox Foundation and the Jimmy Fund – another charity with close ties to the team – but received no reply. Thanks to the Wayback Machine, I discovered a Foundation auction held on 10 November 2004 at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, with proceeds benefiting Greater Boston YMCA and the Foundation itself. Perhaps the sign was auctioned there, I surmised, but attempts to reach the event coordinators were unsuccessful.
A further auction, held online in mid-December 2004, also piqued my curiosity. That event was officially sanctioned by the Red Sox, who partnered with MLB to sell assorted memorabilia from the epic postseason run. A full list of auctioned items contains no mention of the REVERSE THE CURSE sign, though, adding further confusion to the tale. Similarly, yet another auction – held on Monday 11 April 2005 at Boston’s Sheraton Hotel in aid of the Red Sox Foundation – yielded no reference to the sign, creating something of a dead end.
Searching for new leads, I emailed the DCR and asked if they knew what happened to the sign and where it wound up. My query was fielded by a staffer in the community relations department, who forwarded it to three colleagues, including the agency press secretary, who did some digging on my behalf and ‘believed’ the sign was auctioned, though further details were not forthcoming.
Approaching an impasse, I threw something of a Hail Mary and plumbed the depths of Reddit for clues. There, I found a pertinent trail discussing the sign and its fate. Strangely, a new comment was posted in the discussion one day after my email to the DCR – a user named William195 claiming to know where the sign was: “This seems odd to answer after all of this time but this is incorrect. It was never auctioned off. In fact, I know where it is!”
Naturally, another Redditor asked William195 to elaborate. “Wouldn’t you like to know!,” came the reply. “There’s been an odd amount of people looking for it recently which has [sic] what brought me here to see the theories.” William195 even dropped a photo into the discussion featuring an incarnation of the sign eerily similar to that removed by Romney. The sign looked a little battered, and its location was predictably indecipherable, but a quick reverse image search revealed no duplicates anywhere online – hinting at authenticity. William195 also posted about the sign in 2021, claiming knowledge of its whereabouts. This was clearly an avenue to explore.
Other Reddit posts describe William195 as a ‘state worker,’ which made my eyes bulge. Why? Because the DCR staffer who acknowledged my email was named Bill. While perhaps purely coincidental, one day elapsed between my random query being fielded by Bill, and William195 scouring Reddit for updates on sign conspiracies – not exactly the most saturated topic nowadays. This made me wonder: was William195 a burner account? Were Bill and William195 the same person? If so, why did the official DCR narrative differ from that spouted by an obscure avatar on Reddit? Had my sign query created an incongruous stir in the DCR offices? And, again, why? Were they trying to cover something up? I messaged William195 to find out, but received no reply.
Increasingly convinced the sign was not auctioned as promised, I pulled at various threads from the story and unearthed an obscure X account, belonging to @_mr_markymark, that also mentioned the sign four days after my DCR email. “It’s hilarious that someone on Reddit is arguing with me that the ‘Reverse the Curse’ sign was auctioned off years ago to a private buyer,” read the tweet. I was puzzled. Was there a link between Bill, William195 and @_mr_markymark? Did something nefarious happen to the sign before it could be auctioned? I was unsure, but kept digging regardless.
In other tweets, @_mr_markymark said they were a maker of signs, and that their company made signage for Shaw’s and Star Market chains throughout Massachusetts, along with the infamous NO TRUCK signs on Storrow Drive. If @_mr_markymark created those signs, I thought, perhaps they were also responsible for the REVERSE THE CURSE signs provided to the DCR.
My hunch proved correct.
Clumsily, the feed of @_mr_markymark featured various photos taken inside a warehouse, identified explicitly as their workplace. Trawling historic posts, I found a seven-second video – shot from a similar-looking warehouse and posted on 22 September 2021 – that offered the first glimpse of Boston’s beloved REVERSE THE CURSE sign since Romney lowered it from the Longfellow Bridge. “Look familiar?,” read the caption. There, in candid footage, lay The Sign, seemingly dumped down the side of a workbench, propped up against a wall, surrounded by offcuts and discarded wooden blocks. An afterthought, seemingly. An inanimate collector of dust.
Instinctively, I felt obliged to track down the warehouse. If I could just triangulate its position, while respecting privacy and following publicly available clues, I would find the long lost sign. Following the trail – including a tweeted photo of a company email – I identified the warehouse as that of a family-owned sign-making firm in South Easton, Massachusetts. Minutes from a 2021 DCR meeting referenced the same company, in attendance, corroborating its status as a preferred supplier of the government agency. This, I thought, was the missing piece. I had found The Sign. Except, well – no such luck. These things are rarely so straightforward.
I emailed the sign-making company and received a short reply from a senior manager who ‘asked around the office’ and discovered ‘nobody has any information on the whereabouts of this sign.’ The manager said he would not be surprised if the sign ended up with the Massachusetts Department of Transport (MassDOT), or in a Boston bar. Alternatively, a ‘huge Red Sox fan may have it,’ he concluded, somewhat cryptically. As with the DCR, I was left feeling dissatisfied, but excavating deeper felt a little too invasive.
Bizarrely, you cannot email MassDOT without a US postal address. It is a required field on their contact form. Likewise, I cannot direct message people on Twitter without paying for Elon’s ludicrous membership, which is not going to happen. Alas, I have run out of public domain fuel in this particular quest. Nevertheless, I’m happy with the information I have unearthed, which represents the freshest mainstream update on the sign in almost 20 years.
Ultimately, I do not know for certain what happened to the REVERSE THE CURSE sign. However, by uncovering an otherwise sequestered video, I did reveal that, as late as September 2021, the sign was still in one piece. It still existed. Nobody had thrown it in a dumpster or broken it up for scrap metal. Still, I’m unable to confirm if the sign was ever auctioned and, if so, by whom? Who was the winning bidder? Where is the sign now, and how did it wind up there? These questions remain tantalisingly unsolved.
Nevertheless, somebody knows what happened to the sign. Quite probably, a few people know. Whether we will ever hear the full story remains to be seen, but I would be thrilled to see the sign displayed prominently one day, so the admiring public can reminisce. Cooperstown may be a stretch, given the strong New York gag reflex of provincial Bostonians, but surely an exhibit can be arranged at Fenway. You know Charles Steinberg loves that shit. In the meantime, why not buy a handcrafted replica on Etsy? Yes, apparently that is a thing. I may get one for Christmas.
Regardless of its current whereabouts, the REVERSE THE CURSE sign will always have a special – if arcane – place in Red Sox lore. There are many iconic images related to Boston’s 2004 world championship. Varitek stuffing his mitt in A-Rod’s face. Schilling’s bloody sock. Roberts’ stolen base. Big Papi doing any number of superhero things. A lunar eclipse greeting the final out in St Louis. Well, the improvised graffiti of Storrow Drive resides right there alongside those vignettes. It symbolised a Red Sox age and a Boston feeling. It loomed large as a de facto public landmark. It should never be forgotten – even if finding it feels improbable.
***
This piece apparently caused quite a stir in Red Sox Nation, and there have been a few updates since it was originally published.
Firstly, William195 has been busy on Reddit again - this time posting a wide-angle shot of themselves with the sign, seemingly nailed to a wall. "Unfortunately the state has found it and they're coming to get it finally," says the accompanying caption. "So here's me with the sign as proof."
In subsequent Reddit conversations, William195 elaborates: "From my brief understanding, after it was cut down by Romney, it was brought to one of the local DCR storage areas. Sat there for years until it was brought to the facility I work at just a few years back. Been here since. Now there's a journalist looking for it to write a story and they reached out to the DCR looking for it. DCR started their search and traced it back to my department."
I have reached out to the DCR again for an update, citing this Reddit thread, and will keep you updated on any response. There mere fact that my interest has seemingly provoked some action towards finding the sign and possibly displaying it somewhere for the public good is humbling. I will keep waging my niche campaign, and hopefully one day the sign can be accessible to all again.
***
My contact at the DCR replied confirming that they now have possession of the sign! They are trying to ascertain what, exactly, happened to the sign between its removal and today, but this is great news. The sign lives!
I'm currently in discussions with the DCR about potential opportunities to display the sign publicly. It would be so rewarding to achieve that end goal and reunite Red Sox Nation with a forgotten - though cherished - relic of its past.
Thankfully, the coffee behemoth has now reached ubiquity here in the UK, just as it did in the US decades ago. Most British cities have numerous Starbucks outlets, while drive-thrus are cropping up along popular commuter routes. It is difficult to avoid Starbucks at this point, and I, like millions, enjoy its warming wares multiple times per week.
However, few of my fellow coffee snobs are aware that, save for a relatively unheralded business deal 36 years ago, Starbucks may never have entered the global lexicon. If the stars did not align, we may all be addicted to Il Giornale, the long-forgotten precursor to Starbucks founded by Howard Schultz, the company’s transformative CEO. We may all be drinking from cups bearing the likeness of a Roman messenger god, rather than that of a mythological mermaid, and this piece explains why.
The Starbucks origin story is well-worn at this point. For decades, coffee was considered a functional commodity in America – cheap, instant Joe served to busy workers from greasy diners in styrofoam cups. Coffee was fuel, not philosophy, and people thought little of it. Then, in the 1960s, a Dutch tinkerer named Alfred Peet sparked a subterranean counterculture around the sourcing, roasting and blending of specialty coffee in Berkeley, California. Finally, in 1971, three Peet customers – Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl – formed Starbucks using the Dutchman’s template. The rest is sweet, caffeinated history.
There is far more nuance to this popular retelling, though. Located in Seattle’s historic Pike Place Market, Starbucks initially sold high-quality coffee beans for home use. Drinks were neither prepared nor sold on the premises, but fine arabica coffee became an instant hit in the Emerald City. Starbucks gave Seattleites access to great coffee, not the canned slurry of Folgers or Maxwell House endured by the mainstream, and trendy acolytes embraced the concept.
Howard Schultz was among that cohort. An unfulfilled Xerox salesman in the labyrinth of New York City, Schultz became the US general manager of Swedish kitchenware manufacturer Hammarplast in 1979. A few years later, Schultz noticed an uptick of plastic cone filter orders from one client out west. That client was Starbucks, which taught customers to place the Hammarplast filters over thermos jugs to create refined coffee drinks. Schultz paid a visit to the boutique coffee emporium and was intoxicated by its ineffable magic. Quality coffee was the future, he decided, and a vision unfurled before him.
By turning Starbucks into more than a mysterious middleman between the esoteric growers, reclusive importers and haughty consumers of quality coffee, Schultz saw tremendous potential – even if the original owners seemed allergic to growth and scalability. After much debate, Schultz convinced Baldwin and Bowker to hire him as Starbucks’ director of retail operations and marketing in 1982. Despite reservations from ownership, Schultz vowed to make Starbucks an all-inclusive coffee hub, and a 1983 visit to Milan, Italy, turbocharged his ambition.
On the 15-minute walk from his hotel to an international houseware show, Schultz was captivated by the cosy espresso bars sprinkled through the Milanese streets. He sampled several establishments and was enchanted by the signature espresso and the culture surrounding it. Schultz discovered that, in Milan, coffee was not a transactional morning chore, as it was in mainstream America. Rather, in Milan, coffee – especially espresso – was a lyrical pleasure, and coffee bars were elegant fulcrums of daily life.
“As I watched, I had a revelation: Starbucks had missed the point – completely missed it,” wrote Schultz years later in Pour Your Heart Into It, a volume of memoir. “This is so powerful! I thought. This is the link. The connection to the people who loved coffee did not have to take place only in their homes, where they ground and brewed whole-bean coffee. What we had to do was unlock the romance and mystery of coffee, firsthand, in coffee bars. The Italians understood the personal relationship that people have to coffee, its social aspect. I couldn’t believe that Starbucks was in the coffee business, yet was overlooking so central an element of it. It was an epiphany. It was so immediate and physical that I was shaking.”
Schultz’ belated ‘discovery’ of espresso in Milan, and his subsequent transplantation of it to America – subsumed through the eventual popularity of Starbucks – is perhaps the greatest coffee innovation of our time. Though often criticised, Schultz revolutionised the coffee industry and made chic coffee culture possible outside bohemian Europe. Schultz made coffee more than posh beans percolated at home. He made it theatre, art and sophistication – a luxurious experience, holistically. Espresso became the nucleus of all popular coffee drinks, but the journey was not linear. Hence the brief yet fascinating interlude of Il Giornale, a proving ground for the innovations we now take for granted.
In short, Baldwin and Bowker never shared Schultz’ ambitious vision for Starbucks. They were coffee roasters, first and foremost, and Baldwin was particularly hostile to entering the ‘restaurant business,’ as Schultz proposed. However, after much nagging, in April 1984, Schultz was finally allowed to open a Starbucks espresso bar in Seattle, at the corner of Fourth and Spring. There, he trialled bold ideas inspired by Milan – even serving Starbucks’ first latte – but failed to convince the traditional owners. Despite strong financial results from the trial espresso bar, Baldwin and Bowker balked at expansion. Instead of indulging Schultz, they doubled down on beans, not drinks, buying out Peet and his four locations. Schultz was devastated, but his belief in quality coffee never died.
Schultz played pickup basketball on a weekly basis, and one of his teammates, corporate lawyer Scott Greenberg, encouraged Howard to strike out on his own. Schultz did just that late in 1985, leaving Starbucks to establish Il Giornale, a separate coffee company. Schultz still used his Starbucks office while conceptualising Il Giornale, and an amicable relationship between the brands saw Baldwin and Bowker invested $150,000 in the startup. Bowker even suggested the Il Giornale name, which came from an Italian newspaper and alluded to the daily ritual of espresso consumption. Schultz agreed to use Starbucks’ beans exclusively, creating powerful symbiosis with Il Giornale from the start.
Dawn Pinaud was soon brought on as the first Il Giornale employee, and she handled a broad remit as Schultz fiddled with design and branding concepts. An early Il Giornale menu is preserved on the Starbucks website. For a logo, Il Giornale overlaid the head of Mercury, a Roman messenger god, on a familiar green circle. A red version was also used occasionally. Schultz finalised much of the branding after revisiting Milan, this time with Bowker, in December 1985. The pair took photos and scribbled notes, before Schultz devised an ambitious company roadmap.
“From its inception, Il Giornale was intended to be a major enterprise, not just a single store,” wrote Schultz in Pour Your Heart Into It. To that end, the company required $400,000 to open its first store, while eyeing a further eight locations in its launch phase. Eventually, Schultz wanted to operate Il Giornale stores in every major US city and for it to become the definitive coffee chain in North America. Il Giornale targeted 50 stores in its first five years, and Schultz was determined to eclipse that goal.
In need of a gourmet coffee savant to support his grandiose plan, Schultz collaborated with Dave Olsen, proprietor of Café Allegro, a respected coffee grotto in Seattle’s university district frequented by professors and students alike. Keen for a slice of the downtown action, Olsen became the ‘coffee conscience’ of Il Giornale and, later, Starbucks. Hired part-time for $12,000 per year, Olsen mastered the nuts and bolts of speciality coffee – sourcing it, preparing it, serving it – and became the perfect foil for Schultz’ big-picture daydreaming.
Schultz rented a tiny office on Seattle’s First Avenue while still raising seed capital for Il Giornale. On top of Starbucks’ contribution, Schultz received investments from Carol Bobo and Ron Margolis, a married couple, despite the fact Margolis was not a coffee drinker. Arnie Prentice, co-chairman of a financial services firm, also pitched in a substantial investment. Schultz received hundreds of rejections while knocking on doors, but scrimped together enough cash to open the first Il Giornale store – in Seattle’s downtown Columbia Center – on 8 April 1986. For Schultz, this was the moment of truth, and he delivered on his promise to revolutionise coffee.
At just 700-square feet, the first Il Giornale store was relatively cramped. Indeed, after installing a Milanese espresso bar, Schultz had little spare room. Chairs were initially absent, while paninis were prepared in the First Avenue office, where three desks were jammed together. The original Il Giornale also played Italian opera on a loop, to mixed reviews. Baristas wore white shirts and dorky bowties. Newspapers of the world were available to purchase. There was certainly a unique vibe to Il Giornale, even if some found it a little contrived.
Jennifer Ames-Karreman was hired as one of the very first Il Giornale baristas. She made and served a wide range of espresso-based drinks, introducing Americans to a new panoply of taste. Finally, true to Schultz’ vision, coffee connoisseurs enjoyed specialist drinks – caffe latte, café Mocha, macchiato, caffe con Panna – away from home, and often en route to work, thanks to paper takeaway cups that would have been admonished in Italy. Those connoisseurs also embraced the Italian vernacular, which encompassed different cup sizes – espresso sold for 50 cents, solo latte for $1.10 and doppio latte for $1.50. Schultz and Pinaud literally made up those cup size names during an impromptu brainstorming session. They, and the drinks they contained, transformed coffee-drinking in America.
Schultz knew he was building something significant, even while struggling to pay bills and make payroll in the early days. “Il Giornale will strive to be the best coffee bar company on earth,” he wrote in a memo to employees. “We will offer superior coffee and related products that will help our customers start and continue their work day. We are genuinely interested in educating our customers and will not compromise our ethics or integrity in the name of profit. Our coffee bars will change the way people perceive the beverage, and we will build into each Il Giornale coffee bar a level of quality, performance and value that will earn the respect and loyalty of our customers.”
By June 1986, Il Giornale met the impound number that allowed it to access new swathes of original investments. New supporters also came aboard, including acclaimed saxophonist Kenny G and plumbing magnate Harold Gorlick, who pledged $200,000. On the whole, though, Schultz found it difficult to attract investors, as most venture capitalists pivoted to Silicon Valley and emerging tech. Undeterred, Schultz explained his vision to anyone who would listen – and enough believed in him to make it reality.
“What we proposed to do at Il Giornale, I told them [investors], was to reinvent a commodity,” wrote Schultz in Pour Your Heart Into It. “We would take something old and tired and common – coffee – and weave a sense of mystique and charm that had swirled around coffee throughout the centuries. We would enchant customers with an atmosphere of sophistication and style and knowledge."
To that end, Schultz was fiercely protective of the Il Giornale experience. As detailed in Starbucked, a wonderful book by Taylor Clark, Schultz even had a popcorn vendor kicked out of the Columbia Center because the scent of his buttery wares interfered with the Il Giornale ambience. Similar turf wars plagued Il Giornale’s own food offerings, as Schultz safeguarded the enticing coffee aroma as an intangible product.
Driven by this meticulous attention to detail, Il Giornale grew quickly through the summer of 1986. A second store – located in the Seattle Trust Tower at Second and Madison – came in August. A $750,000 investment arrived from Jack Benaroya, Herman Sarkowsky and Sam Stroum – powerful Seattle businessmen – soon thereafter. And by September 1986, Il Giornale served more than 1,000 customers per day. Schultz hired Christine Day as an assistant and even sent roving baristas, known as the Mercury Men, into nearby offices with portable coffee taps. A third store offered proof of concept, and Schultz felt vindicated.
Indeed, without an unforeseen quirk of fate in March 1987, Il Giornale may have continued to expand. However, at that point, Baldwin and Bowker decided to sell Starbucks – including its six Seattle stores and alluring intellectual property – to focus on other projects. Bowker also owned a brewery, while Baldwin was preoccupied with Peet’s, the spiritual home of artisan coffee in the US. The pair agreed to sell, and alerted Schultz to a $4 million asking price.
Leaning on the expertise of accountant Ron Lawrence, hired to manage the books of Il Giornale, Schultz felt destined to buy Starbucks. However, when Sam Stroum, an original Il Giornale investor, broke off and planned his own run at Starbucks, Schultz felt undermined. Stroum had considerable clout in Seattle business circles, and Schultz was in desperate need of help as his dream hung in the balance.
Fortunately, that much-needed help arrived in the unlikely shape of Bill Gates Sr, recommended to Schultz by Greenberg, his lawyer friend. A senior partner at Greenberg’s firm, and father to the trailblazing Microsoft boss, Gates mentored Schultz through choppy waters. Allegedly, one verbal assault from Stroum left Schultz in tears, only for Gates to intervene. Gates and Schultz met Stroum, who was convinced to withdraw his Starbucks bid. Gates’ approval went a long way in Seattle, and even Stroum – a noted philanthropist – towed the line.
Fighting back, Schultz met with the remaining Il Giornale investors and gave them an opportunity to invest in his pursuit of Starbucks. A $3.8 million war chest was raised, and Schultz completed the Starbucks deal shortly after Il Giornale sales topped $500,000. Finally, on 15 August 1987, six years after he fell in love with the company, Howard Schultz owned Starbucks. He celebrated the transaction with Greenberg at Il Giornale, over a macchiato and cappuccino. A 100-page business plan sat between the lawyer and the CEO. It promised 125 Starbucks stores within five years and coffee domination down the road. Schultz drank up, then went and made it happen.
Soon after landing the Starbucks assets, Schultz hired business veteran Lawrence Maltz as an experienced executive to ease the merger with Il Giornale and subsequent expansion. Of course, an instant concern of senior leadership concerned the eventual name of that merged entity. Il Giornale was Schultz’ baby, but Starbucks had an indescribable allure that originally seduced him into the coffee business. Somewhat vexed, Schultz discussed the naming issue with his investors, then went to Terry Heckler, the graphic designer who coined the Starbucks name – borrowed from a character in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick – 16 years earlier.
“His opinion was unequivocal,” wrote Schultz of Heckler in Pour Your Heart Into It. “The name Il Giornale, he said, is hard to write, spell and pronounce. People find it obscure. After less than two years of operation, it was too new to have widespread recognition. Italians were really the only the ones with a legitimate claim to espresso, and none of us was Italian. The name Starbucks, in contrast, has magic. It piques curiosity. Around Seattle, it already had an undeniable aura and magnetism, and thanks to mail order, it was beginning to be known across America, too. Starbucks connoted a product that was unique and mystical, yet purely American.”
In the end, their choice was clear: from a branding perspective, Starbucks had far more potential than Il Giornale. Schultz merged the companies under the umbrella of Starbucks Corporation, and Il Giornale floated into the ether. Heckler produced a revised logo that merged Starbucks’ iconic green with an updated mythological silhouette – that of the siren, a welcoming mermaid that embodied the chain’s impalpable miasma. The existing Il Giornale coffeehouses were also revamped, assuming the midnight green aesthetic of Starbucks, and with 11 stores in his possession literally overnight, Schultz began his long-awaited rollout.
Starbucks met Schultz’ 150-store goal by 1992. Later that year, Starbucks went public, boasting a market capitalisation of $250 million after its initial public offering. Aside from the financial success, Starbucks also set an impressive tone on employee relations, offering full health benefits to all its people. There was no stopping Howard Schultz, who borrowed a transformative paradigm from sociologist Ray Oldenburg to make Starbucks a vital ‘third place’ for millions around the world.
Today, Starbucks has more than 35,000 stores in 80 countries on six continents. Annual revenues of $32.25 billion produce profits of $21.9 billion, making those original shareholders – those angel investors who took a chance on a funky-sounding coffee company – very rich. Schultz alone is worth $3.1 billion, according to Forbes. Not bad for an underdog kid from rough and ready Brooklyn.
And as for Il Giornale? Well, the revolutionary brand has been all but forgotten. In 2017, the first Il Giornale store – now a Starbucks, of course – was revamped, according to Starbucks Melody, with subtle nods to the original brand. If you visit that spot, in the Columbia Center, Seattle, you will find an Il Giornale logo on the wall, along with brown seats redolent of the startup and framed memorabilia charting its journey. That initial Il Giornale is certainly on my coffee bucket list, even if wider mainstream references are now few and far between.
It was not always like this, of course. Back in the embryonic days of blogging – from the early-1990s through, say, 2002 – there was an unserious innocence to the online writing milieu. Technologically, early blogging was a creative fulcrum for self-confessed nerds, a logical offshoot of personal computing, byzantine forums and obscure bulletin boards. Philosophically, early blogging carried the iconoclasm of rebellious countercultures – from anti-war hippiedom to nonconformist punk rockers. And stylistically, early blogging mimicked the colloquial jocularity of edgy tabloid columnists and talk radio shock jocks.
All told, early blogging was a supernova of irreverence. People blogged to share unconventional impulses, hoping to find a community of likeminded weirdos. People blogged to broadcast their opinions, unimpeded by the stuffy gatekeepers of legacy media. People blogged to, well, blog – because it was new, hip and exciting. There was a healthy thoughtlessness to the nascent blogosphere. Few bloggers cared about personal branding, because the novel thrill of making private thoughts public was more important.
To that end, early blogs were planets in a scattered yet unified solar system. In the age of browser bookmarks, RSS readers and direct web-surfing, readers sought quality content for themselves rather than having it packaged and served to them with a dollop of manipulation on the side. Rather than hellscapes to be avoided, comment sections were once welcoming enclaves where likeminded people camped out and shared stories. There was a kinship between early bloggers, who promoted each other and made unvarnished recommendations within defined niches. Virality was a happy coincidence, wrought by digital word of mouth. There was no grand strategy to early blogging. People spewed out their souls because it felt cathartic – not because it furthered an agenda.
Alas, capitalism transforms hobbies into professions, passions into products and sidelines into sales. Somewhat inevitably, that transformation affected blogging, the serendipitous genesis of which gave way to monetisation, saturation, decline and obsolescence. Google launched Blogads in 2002 and AdSense a year later, allowing bloggers to put ads on their websites more easily, and a gamut of niche disciplines – SEO, PPC, ecommerce – were spawned as a result. Once adjacent to, and reliant upon, blogging, those subterranean disciplines quickly outgrew that which inspired them. Coaxed by capitalism, blogging became subservient to content marketing, and its founding iconoclasm withered on the vine.
With stunning rapidity, blogging was reverse-engineered by clever entrepreneurs who saw a golden opportunity to capitalise on a raw, emerging market. As blog analytics developed, spurred by technological advances, webmasters could finally see who their readers were, where they came from, and what types of content made them stick around. Hence clickbait. Hence Gawker and BuzzFeed paying writers to pump out dozens of lurid articles per day. Hence traffic becoming cash by way of advertising. Hence money inspiring bloggers, rather than ideas luring them to the keyboard.
In my view, this switch from unscheduled hot takes to flawless prose – from unprompted tirades to conceited marketing – sullied the very purpose of blogging. Those who blogged merely to satisfy creative inclination became a threatened cohort, outmanoeuvred by slicker marketeers with more holistic, hardcore plans. Blogging was swiftly instrumentalised, and it soon became another tactical conduit to vapid commercial gain. Many originals walked away, their blogs abandoned like razed cities in a bloody war. It saddens me to consider the unfinished thoughts lost in that transition. We can never recover that insight.
Now, my point is not one of chest-thumping socialism. Nor is it my intention to vilify scions of the evolving blogosphere like Nick Denton and Jonah Peretti, who birthed an epochal business model. Writers deserve to be paid for their work. Believe me – I have fought that battle ad nauseum. And in fairness, lower barriers to entry helped blogging liberate an entire generation of writers who may previously have been muzzled. It is a wonder of modernity that writers can make a living creating things they adore. I urge anyone so inclined to keep writing.
However, in the current landscape, any notion of true blogger independence is difficult to comprehend, because even the most seemingly autonomous writer is beholden – whether to the paymasters of Google and Meta, or to the attention economy subscribers of Patreon and Substack (who, in turn, are largely derived from existing audiences forged on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram).
My ultimate concern does not pertain to capitalism itself, but rather to the unintended consequences of monetised writing becoming a default in our capitalist context. Sadly, for the longest time, embracing clickbait was the most viable way to maintain a living via online writing. It is still the predominant means of blogger renumeration today. And while I wholeheartedly defend the rights of writers to explore those avenues in the guise of self-determination, I loathe the consequences of clickbait – and thus, of capitalism – among the wider culture of blogging. I want blogging to be an end in itself, not just a means to something else.
This clear bifurcation between hobbyist blogging and professional online writing emerged in the mid-2000s, as social media snowballed. Where once it was enough for idealistic writers to publish craggy thoughts and step away from their computers, the rise of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Tumblr created an entire ecosystem fuelled by self-promotion – the high-powered Zuckosphere, we may call it, in stark contrast to the jerry-rigged blogosphere.
Of course, the internet is littered with blogging obituaries, and most cite social media as a leading cause of death. And while those requiems are broadly correct, we often overlook the underlying rationale: blogging was annexed by slicker, more accessible tools that annihilated friction. Between Twitter’s launch in 2006, and the release of its seminal iPhone app in 2010, the number of US teen bloggers halved. It was simply easier to tweet than to write an article, and blogging suffered accordingly. It was just too clunky to entice the next generation, which deemed inadequate anything that required more two swipes of an overworked thumb.
Sure, there was a halcyon period at the height of Web 2.0 – before behavioural advertising, Cambridge Analytica, and plutocratic algorithms ran amok – where social media served a reliable pipeline of traffic to blogs. For instance, many people recall The Dress as a 2015 Facebook phenomenon, but it actually began with a BuzzFeed blog post. By that point, though, a blog post without accompanying promotion – on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and elsewhere – was akin to tree falling in the forest. If nobody was around to hear it, did it really make a sound? Did it really matter what was published on blogs if a social media footprint was neglected? Many said no, and that etiquette became dogma imbibed by the herd.
Throughout the 2010s, then, social media became the definitive crucible of attention and consumption. Feeling obliged to engage on myriad platforms, creators had less time to actually create. Quicker modes of content creation and delivery were favoured as an evolutionary response, and the archetypal blogger became a vlogger, then a podcaster, then a meme artist, then a purveyor of shortform clips. As such, the modern TikToker shares DNA with the bygone blogger, but expedience divides their modus operandi. Blogging is admittedly cumbersome, and we may never get that toothpaste back in the tube. Future generations may simply forget to care, and that worries me as a stubborn traditionalist.
Accordingly, these are strange times on the internet – especially for writers. Gawker has died twice. Twitter has died once. BuzzFeed News no longer exists. RSS readers exist but are routinely ignored. Organic social media reach has been throttled. Recurring organic website traffic is a bygone relic. Oh, and the New York Times recently shuttered its sports department, so how is that for a journalistic bellwether?
Right now, TikTok is king, and the competition for eyeballs has never been more ferocious. Those with something to share face a gauntlet of platforms on which to maintain a presence, and the apparent success of a miniscule elite skews expectations for everyone else. Sold a seedy dream, so many beginners hold themselves to impossibly high standards, painfully unaware the system is stacked against them. A cacophony of noise masks a paucity of substance, and it is difficult to find a singular way forward.
One theory of technological evolution holds that new, sleeker things swallow their old, outmoded precursors. “The content of each new medium is the old medium,” said Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan, whose work is newly pertinent as we approach a technological crossroads. Just as tableaus became pamphlets, which became novels, then plays, then movies, then Netflix, we are on the precipice of significant change. What will become of the iPhone in 10 years? Will Google be cannibalised by large language models? Who will bundle shortform video, AI, blockchain and crypto to create an alternate reality of interoperability? When will Zuck reduce us all to avatars? These are the storms I ponder, along with the ability of hobbyist bloggers to weather them. Or not.
It is painfully ironic, of course, that blogging itself was once the paradigm-altering force. Early bloggers broke the conventional news cycle, which for decades orbited daily newspaper print runs and nightly TV bulletins. In my world of baseball writing, Peter Gammons begat Bill Simmons begat Jared Carrabis. One day, somebody will surpass Carrabis and cover the Boston Red Sox through an as-yet unconceived medium. Maybe they will sit behind home plate at Fenway Park and let millions chime in vicariously via mixed reality goggles. Do not rule it out.
Nevertheless, as technology advances, there are people who lurk at more comfortable levels – for reasons nostalgic, philosophical, ethical or functional. For instance, there are currently still bloggers who do not monetise their work. There are crafters who do not sell their Taylor Swift friendship bracelets on Etsy. There are fishermen who shun FishOMania. Yes, these self-sequestered dinosaurs recede into obscurity, then drift into obsolescence, then become ironic tribute acts, but that does not make them irrelevant. That does not make them insignificant. In fact, the obdurate refusal to change can be a poetic celebration of antediluvian artforms – from fanzine-writing and haberdashery to trainspotting and busking. It takes all sorts of weird and wonderful people to keep life interesting, and we should oppose the homogenisation of hobbies – stoked by big tech – that threatens to blunt human interest.
Think of the old Blockbuster video stores. They were cutting-edge in 1985, when VHS tapes were en vogue. They peaked in the early-2000s, when DVDs supplanted videotapes. Then Netflix pioneered streaming in 2007, and by 2010, Blockbuster was bankrupt. By 2018, from a zenith of 9,000 units, the world was left with just one Blockbuster store – in Bend, Oregon – whose proprietors license the iconic brand from bankruptcy buyer Dish Networks. Still, that store survives. In fact, it thrives as an alternative tourist destination. That makes me very happy, and I yearn for a similar outcome for blogging.
Here in 2023, the hobbyist blogger is akin to the movie buff who finds any excuse to visit Bend, Oregon, for a trip down memory lane. The hobbyist blogger is the ham radio enthusiast who persists in the shed despite podcasts proliferating. The hobbyist blogger is the home moviemaker who continues to film Christmas, oblivious to YouTube. The hobbyist blogger is the hardcore Nirvana fan who pores through every vinyl store in town, seeking rare albums despite the band’s entire back catalogue lurking on Spotify. They are all kindred spirits – purists who preserve pastimes they adore, ‘progress’ be damned.
Therefore, as I wrote in March, we should always retain hope – no matter how minuscule or delusional – for a renaissance in hobbyist blogging:
‘Perhaps future generations will adopt blogging as a knowingly ironic, wilfully anachronistic fashion statement, akin to the current revival in chunky Fila trainers plucked from thrift shop anonymity. Maybe someone will invest in a cosy blogging time warp, like the hopeless romantics who periodically open mock Blockbuster stores as community cafés. There is undoubtedly a fuzzy nostalgia to blogging that will always lurk in subterranean countercultures, but the extent to which that passion can be resurrected and repopularised is deeply unclear.
Yet for all the talk of convenient updates and seamless technological evolution, it is worth remembering that peak blogging included a whole load of friction – and we did it anyway! Old school blogging was a labour of love – tangled in charger wires, frozen in unresponsive windows, and steeped in buggy HTML errors. We ploughed right on through and published more than ever before. Maybe that is the true takeaway here. Maybe we became so besotted by efficiency and quick wins that we forgot the cathartic bliss of being messy and spewing out our souls. Maybe social media transfixed our addled brains, but what about our beating hearts? What about fun and enjoyment, freedom and expression? What about writing?
Anyone can spout in front of a microphone. It is easy to post a 15-second TikTok. Tweets are quick to concoct and quicker still to forget. But there must always be a place for nuanced, passion-led writing from those who write because they want to, not because they have to. There must always be a place for creative experimentation, not only for creative cataloguing and shameless monetisation. There must always be a place for dilettante bloggers, whose rebellious zeal enriches our discourse regardless of status or renumeration.’
We are rushing headlong into the era of Web 3.0, which will rely on decentralisation and federation as first principles. The legacy faucets of mass attention – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and others – are crumbling, and smaller niche communities will rise from the ruins. To longtime bloggers, that sounds vaguely familiar, of course. Once upon a time, blogs were hubs of bespoke community. And if segmented platforms like Discord and Reddit are well-placed to survive the coming erosion of social media, maybe blogging can make a comeback, too. If you squint hard enough, you can certainly see the potential.
Importantly, though, this is not just a technical problem, nor is it a technology problem. Apps and platforms alone cannot save us, nor can they rekindle hobbyist blogging overnight. For the blogging zeitgeist to return, we must break down the cultural walls constructed by social media. We must encourage sharing, cross-pollination and mutual support – symbolised by mothballed blogrolls and utilitarian linking – rather than protecting our insular fiefdoms – epitomised by wilful ignorance and endless self-promotion. If we work together, honestly and compassionately, blogging can be saved from the abyss. And if we cannot? Well, a few of us will carry on regardless. After all, blogging is our Blockbuster. Be kind, rewind.
“While parting ways is not taken lightly, today signals a new direction for our club,” said principal partner John Henry in a statement. “Our organisation has significant expectations on the field, and while Chaim’s efforts in revitalising our baseball infrastructure have helped set the stage for the future, we will today begin a search for new leadership.”
The exact makeup of that new leadership, and the criteria by which candidates will be measured, is yet to be disclosed. However, given Bloom’s predominant belief in advanced analytics, pivoting to a more traditional front office figurehead – redolent of Dave Dombrowski, perhaps – appears likely. An experienced, ‘win-now’ executive would also seem to fit Henry’s cryptic criteria – somebody whose aggression contrasts with Bloom’s risk-averse reticence.
Without further ado, then, here are my initial thoughts on ten potential candidates to replace Chaim Bloom atop the Red Sox’ front office.
1. Theo Epstein
The pipedream for Red Sox fans. The lauded architect of Boston’s golden baseball age, Theo currently consults for Major League Baseball on rule changes and fan engagement. However, last year, Epstein and his wife moved back to New England, purchasing an $11.9 million mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. While many will rightly question what Epstein would have to prove by returning to the Red Sox – who he led to two World Series championships – he does maintain close ties to Henry’s consortium through Arctos Partners, a minority shareholder in Fenway Sports Group. Perhaps a more conventional Red Sox ownership stake could sweeten the deal and lure Theo back to his boyhood shrine. Do not hold your breath, though.
2. Alex Cora
Throughout the 2023 season, deep philosophical rifts emerged between Cora, the current field manager, and Bloom, the deposed czar of baseball operations. Cora has repeatedly questioned player personnel decisions, often in shockingly frank outbursts, and his frustration has become clear for all to see. A shrewd talent evaluator, Cora has often expressed a desire to transition out of management at some point to spend more time with his family. With Bloom now gone, perhaps a top front office job would give Cora the balance and autonomy he craves. Stranger things have happened.
3. Brian Sabean
Currently an executive advisor with the Yankees, Sabean may hunger for one final shot at running his own operation. A bonafide Hall of Fame executive who led the Giants to three World Series titles in a five-season span, Sabean is now 67-years-old. What better way for the Concord, New Hampshire, native to ride into the Cooperstown sunset than by hoisting another banner with New England’s favourite team? Oh, and Jim Bowden linked Sabean to the Red Sox a few months ago, so watch this space.
4. Jon Daniels
A former front office protégé who led Texas to two pennants, Daniels is currently a senior advisor to Tampa Bay, having been fired by the Rangers in 2020. Still only 46-years-old, the Cornell graduate fits the Red Sox’ typical mould. Perhaps more pertinently, he fits somewhere between Bloom and Epstein in terms of pedigree. This could certainly happen, and Daniels has the cache to reinvigorate a depleted fanbase.
5. James Click
Another highly-touted executive in comparative limbo, stashed away as a vice president of baseball strategy in Toronto following a sudden departure from the Astros, Click ticks a lot of boxes from a Red Sox perspective. With two pennants and a World Series crown in three Astros seasons, Click is perhaps the most realistic ‘get’ in terms of bold, win-now, available candidates. At least, there will be a conversation between Click and Boston ownership. At most, do not be surprised if he lands the top job.
6. Dayton Moore
A player development guru, Moore actually interviewed for the Red Sox’ GM post in 2005, during the two months it was vacant while Epstein teased an exit. Though he did not land the gig on that occasion, as Theo inevitably returned, Moore went on to rebuild the Kansas City Royals – so long maligned – into a consistent contender. Back-to-back pennants yielded one unlikely World Series triumph in 2015, but a swift decline saw Moore lose his job in 2022. Highly-respected among the baseball cognoscenti, do not sleep on Dayton Moore as the guy to relaunch the jaded Red Sox.
7. Amiel Sawdaye
Casual Red Sox fans may be unaware of Sawdaye, but he was a staple of the Boston front office between 2002 and 2016, during which the Red Sox won three World Series titles. Initially an Epstein intern, Sawdaye became a Sox scouting assistant, then an assistant director of amateur scouting, before taking control of the team’s amateur scouting operation entirely. When Mike Hazen joined the Diamondbacks in 2016, Sawdaye went with him as a senior vice-president and assistant GM. If Henry simply wants another young visionary to replace Bloom, Sawdaye may be a decent fit.
8. Neal Huntington
An Amherst graduate born and raised in New Hampshire, Huntington cut his teeth with Montreal and Cleveland before landing the Pirates’ GM position in 2007. Blending sabermetrics with traditional scouting, Huntington rebuilt Pittsburgh from perennial laughingstock to surprise contender. And while a promising homegrown core – Andrew McCutchen, Gerrit Cole, Starling Marte, et al. – failed to achieve its potential under Huntington, many felt his 2019 ouster was premature. He has since returned to Cleveland in an advisory role, but keep him in mind as a wildcard candidate for the Red Sox post. Huntington has strong ties where they are needed to at least secure an interview.
9. JP Ricciardi
A Worcester, Massachusetts, native, Ricciardi was the man Boston turned to after being rejected by Billy Beane in 2002. Ricciardi was then running the Toronto Blue Jays, who responded to the Red Sox’ interest by giving their man a five-year contract extension. A lot of water has trickled under the bridge since then, and Ricciardi has hopscotched through the league – from Toronto to the Mets to San Francisco, where he is current a special advisor to Farhan Zaidi. Maybe there are too many miles on the clock here. Maybe the Ricciardi-Red Sox potentiality has passed. Then again, maybe not. Never say never.
10. Jason McLeod
Another one-time wunderkind reared by Epstein in Boston, McLeod forged a strong bond with Theo, Hazen, Sawdaye and Jed Hoyer, another key figure in the Red Sox’ renaissance. A player development whiz, McLeod’s fingerprints were all over Boston’s 2007 title, and he subsequently followed Epstein and Hoyer to Chicago, where they replicated that model and success. Now a special assistant to Hazen in Arizona, McLeod may be keen to branch out and go it alone one day. Doing so with the Red Sox may be a stretch right off the bat, but McLeod has credibility with Henry and ownership, so he will certainly be considered.
It is notoriously difficult to predict such things, but barring an unforeseen change of heart by Theo, Sabean seems to be the strongest, most plausible candidate available. I think the Red Sox turn this over to a sagacious elder with a winning track record. Sabean fits the bill, and he may round off a Cooperstown career by leading his local team to glory.
]]>I can see why people may jump to conclusions, though. With average attendances around 8,000, there cannot be too many ‘Ryan Fergusons’ who support Tranmere Rovers. The odds of two existing – both in our twenties, and both having lived in Liverpool – are incomprehensible. Throw in the complicated rivalry between Tranmere and Forest Green – for whom the victim played – and I cannot blame people for putting two and two together.
Thanks to Planet Prentonia, I have developed a readership among the niche Tranmere community, but most people pay little attention, and rightly so. They may loosely associate ‘Ryan Ferguson’ with ‘Tranmere Rovers’ having read one of my articles or heard me rant about Emmanuel Dieseruvwe on a podcast, but they probably do not know what I look like, how old I am, or where I live. Therefore, it is only natural that I’m implicated by word association here. I hope this statement clarifies matters.
At first, I was not particularly bothered by my local namesake. In the grand scheme of things, it probably does not matter. I actually saw the funny side of it – years perfecting ‘Ryan Ferguson Tranmere Rovers’ for Google SEO ruined by one oblivious BBC News piece. Besides, I’m regularly mistaken for yet another Ryan Ferguson – an American who spent nearly 10 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of murder – so dealing with misguided mail is a common occurrence.
However, when people began reaching out, confused by the recent media reports, I had to take action and differentiate myself. After a series of phone calls, the Wirral Globe kindly added a note from the editor to the end of their piece, distinguishing the Tranmere-supporting ‘Ryan Fergusons.’ Thanks to Jamie Bowman for sorting that so quickly. Similar footnotes are being processed by the BBC and ITV.
Finally, I would just like to thank the many long-term readers who have defended me in speculative online discussions. Any Tranmere fans I have interacted with – online or at matches – know how important the club is to me. I take pride in my position as a representative of the fans, and that will never change. So no, I have not been banned from Prenton Park, to answer a frequently asked question. I, like you, still have to watch this dross every week. Which Ryan Ferguson is being punished, then? That is open for debate.
]]>DePodesta was named Dodgers general manager in February 2004, aged 31, just days after flamboyant real estate mogul Frank McCourt bought the storied franchise from Rupert Murdoch and Fox. Luring DePodesta to Chavez Ravine was the first major success of a seemingly ambitious regime. McCourt vowed to end the Dodgers’ lengthy championship drought, and installing a new-age GM was central to that plan. This, after all, was the halcyon age of sabermetrics – the favouring of statistical analysis in the evaluation of players – and disruptive intellectuals like Billy Beane and Theo Epstein ruled the baseball zeitgeist. McCourt even offered Epstein an ownership stake in the Dodgers while attempting to pry him from Boston, but settled for DePodesta when Theo demurred.
At that point, true to the analytical milieu gripping Major League Baseball, DePodesta had a glowing reputation among the baseball cognoscenti. While assisting Beane with the Oakland Athletics, DePodesta evangelised advanced analytics, transforming loose statistical curiosity into stark organisational ideology. That ideology had a catchy name, of course, as DePodesta was an underrated protagonist in Moneyball, the 2003 book, written by Michael Lewis, which blew the lid off baseball’s covert fascination with using numbers to find and exploit market inefficiencies.
A Harvard economics graduate, DePodesta seemed ticketed for Wall Street, only to take an internship with the Cleveland Indians in 1996. Two years later, Beane became Athletics GM and poached DePodesta as an undervalued asset. Wielding a ubiquitous laptop, DePodesta earned a seat in the Oakland war room, where his objective data impinged – and eventually eclipsed – the subjective opinions of crusty scouts. A former ballplaying jock, Beane initially kept a toe in both camps, whereas DePodesta was belligerent in his trust of mathematics. In time, cajoled and convinced by DePodesta, Beane became a devout sabermetrician, and the A’s mastered a penchant for squeezing exceptional production from meagre resources.
Using advanced analytics to identify undervalued – and underpaid – players they could afford, Beane and DePodesta led Oakland to four consecutive playoff appearances between 2000 and 2003, despite a payroll perennially ranked in the MLB doldrums. The A’s failed to progress beyond the ALDS in any of those October trips, but merely getting there – while playing .595 baseball over 648 games – was an unlikely achievement. Few understood Oakland’s consistent contention.
Gradually, as word of DePodesta’s influence spread – carried by Moneyball and clandestine industry whispers – other MLB teams triangulated. Many tried to hire DePodesta, including the Toronto Blue Jays, but he had little desire to land an attention-grabbing GM job. Sure, exercising complete autonomy would be nice, but Beane trusted DePodesta impeccably, and the Ivy League brainiac worked better in the shadows, away from the prying demands of passionate fans and bloodthirsty reporters.
Therefore, running a monolith like the Dodgers seemed incongruous with DePodesta’s personality, but the lure of such a prestigious institution won out when McCourt came calling. Los Angeles hired DePodesta to a five-year contract on 16 February 2004, making him the fifth-youngest GM in baseball history. Few reject the Dodgers.
“The Dodgers have a new face, and it is dabbed in Clearasil,” wrote Plaschke in the Times. “The Dodgers have a new voice, and it speaks in megabytes. Meet GeneralManager.com, otherwise known as Paul DePodesta, a 31-year-old computer nerd who was hired Monday to rid the Dodgers of their, um, virus.”
Against such prevailing pessimism, DePodesta outlined his vision. “What I’m looking toward is creating an organisational philosophy that suits the Dodgers,” he said in an early SF Gate profile. “Every situation needs a unique approach. I’m not just going to take what we did in Oakland and push it on the Dodgers. I think it deserves a little more creativity than that.
“We’re interested in being a lot more efficient. Sure, we have a lot more resources that will afford greater opportunities, but that doesn’t give us a license to spend poorly. I’m much better served involving the people who are here instead of instituting a philosophy that’s just mine. It’ll probably be something that doesn’t exist anywhere else. It’s what they used to call The Dodger Way.
“When I look at the history of the organisation, I see a common theme of incredible innovation. From breaking the colour barrier to Branch Rickey setting up a farm system to looking outside the US for players, they were incredibly innovative. I want to stay true to that tradition. That’s what made them good for so long. They were always the ones pushing the envelope.”
Indeed, contrary to biased portrayals of a number-crunching heretic wedded to spreadsheets and algorithms, DePodesta yearned to build a strong Dodgers farm system and develop a homegrown core around talented young players like Éric Gagné, Adrián Beltré, Alex Cora and César Izturis. However, upon taking control of the Dodgers, DePodesta had just seven weeks in which to mould a functional big league team. In fact, DePodesta first sat in his Chavez Ravine office two days before pitchers and catchers reported to Vero Beach for spring training. He was a long-term thinker in need of short-term solutions.
DePodesta did not inherit a juggernaut in need of mere fine-tuning, either. The Dodgers lost 77 games in 2003. They had not been to the postseason for seven years, and their last playoff win came 16 seasons prior. Despite vast resources and recurring championship demands, Los Angeles last won the World Series in 1988. DePodesta was 15 when a hobbled Kirk Gibson hit that famous home run. Suddenly, he was tasked with restoring glory to a faded baseball powerhouse.
Though hastily assembled and often overlooked, the 2004 Dodgers won 93 games and clinched their first division title in nine years. However, far from earning lavish praise for engineering an unlikely turnaround, DePodesta was vilified for a string of midseason moves that fractured the Dodgers’ clubhouse. At the July 2004 trade deadline, DePodesta dealt fan favourite Paul Lo Duca to Florida for Brad Penny, Hee-Seop Choi and Bill Murphy, while speedster Dave Roberts, another likeable grinder, was also dumped on the Red Sox.
As Boston surged to its first World Series title in 86 years – Roberts’ famous stolen base sparking an unlikely comeback against New York – the Dodgers lost in four NLDS games to St Louis. DePodesta was pilloried for ‘trading the soul’ of a promising team, but few critics acknowledge Lo Duca was a self-confessed performance-enhancing drugs cheat who received illicit deliveries to Dodger Stadium, per the 2007 Mitchell Report. Perhaps DePodesta was trying to cleanse the Los Angeles clubhouse rather than destroy it. Maybe he cared more about chemistry than most observers realised.
Similarly, many detractors conveniently forget the crucial role played by Steve Finley – a 2004 trade deadline pickup – in keeping Los Angeles competitive down the stretch. In fact, Finley clinched the NL West title with a huge walk-off grand slam against San Francisco. Furthermore, Murphy was part of the package that landed Finley, as DePodesta eyed simultaneous moves producing net incremental improvement.
In this regard, DePodesta was an early scion of ‘positive arbitrage,’ later ubiquitous in sports decision-making, but many baseball factions – including the Dodgers’ fanbase and commentariat – were unprepared for such an alien concept. Where DePodesta saw steady, rhythmic growth, impassioned onlookers saw a bunch of odd trades. The dye was quickly cast, and negative momentum chased DePodesta through an intransigent 2004/2005 offseason.
That winter, the Dodgers allowed Beltré to walk as a free agent following a major breakout year, only to watch him blossom into a Hall of Famer with Seattle, Boston and Texas. Finley was discarded despite his late-season heroics. Cora and José Lima were released, while Shawn Green – another beloved folk hero – was traded to Arizona. “The next time someone says you have to go to college to get ahead in life,” wrote Simers in the Times. “I suggest pointing to Google Boy, and reminding everyone just what a Harvard education can do to a baseball team.”
The 2005 Dodgers were undoubtedly a train wreck. At 71-91, DePodesta’s sophomore squad produced the worst Dodgers season since 1992, and the second-worst since the franchise moved to Los Angeles in 1958. Injuries to Gagné, an indomitable closer, and JD Drew, an underrated savant, did not help, but the knives were out and a bellicose media smelled blood. Beleaguered field manager Jim Tracy was fired, as was DePodesta when McCourt became frustrated at his GM’s perceived inability to hire a marquee dugout replacement.
“Our high expectations were not met,” said McCourt at a 29 October press conference announcing DePodesta’s departure, just 20 months after his arrival. “I like Paul. He has many positive attributes, but at the end of the day, that’s my job: to make difficult decisions.”
While that is undoubtedly true, McCourt was also known to make kneejerk decisions based on external opinions peddled by local and national media. As a relative sports outsider, McCourt constantly sought validation from key industry figureheads – the more high-profile, the better. As such, when Jeff Kent, a veteran signed by DePodesta, allegedly threatened to retire unless the Dodgers hired a more traditional GM, a mutiny bubbled under the surface at Chavez Ravine. Even Vladimir Shpunt, the Russian psychic hired by McCourt to ‘think blue’ and send positive vibes to the team, diagnosed a ‘disconnect’ between DePodesta, Tracy and their players. The GM was ultimately dismissed with three years and $2.2 million remaining on his contract, and a gag order forbade DePodesta from discussing his Dodgers tenure.
Much ink was spilled on hyperbolic DePodesta obituaries, but the young core he nurtured actually paved the way for future Dodgers success. Los Angeles returned to the playoffs in 2006 before claiming back-to-back division titles in 2008 and 2009. Ned Colletti, the baseball lifer who replaced DePodesta, shot from the hip to sign faded veterans on bloated contracts, but any ounce of sustainability came from within. DePodesta made that possible.
True enough, in his short spell as GM, DePodesta had an outsized influence on the Dodgers’ player development operation. DePodesta drafted Kenley Jansen and Carlos Santana. DePodesta promoted several key prospects through the Dodgers’ minor league system – including Matt Kemp, Russell Martin, James Loney, Jonathan Broxton, Edwin Jackson and Chad Billingsley. DePodesta even played a somewhat dubious role in the Dodgers’ drafting Clayton Kershaw seventh overall in 2006. If Los Angeles did not lose so much the year before, the great southpaw would have landed elsewhere. Maybe that was all part of DePodesta’s long-term plan, a misunderstood prototype of the suck-now, dominate-later rebuilds subsequently mastered by the Royals, Cubs, Astros and Braves.
Indeed, if DePodesta went gung-ho and traded those assets in pursuit of immediate gratification – as lobbied by Plaschke, Simers, et al – the Dodgers may have been threadbare by 2009. Sure, such an aggressive pivot may have increased their chances of winning a championship earlier. And yes, in Los Angeles, there are huge expectations. Fans expect to win and they want to see bold moves that get the Dodgers over the hump. But anyone who seriously followed the Dodgers during that era knows how ill-equipped they were to sustain serious World Series contention. Additional context is desperately needed.
From 1998 through 2003, while owned by Murdoch, the Dodgers were an afterthought. Fox employed functionaries to run the baseball team just so it could monopolise lucrative media rights due for renewal. In terms of fielding a competitive ballclub, the Murdoch Dodgers had no vision, ethos, strategy or desire. As such, when McCourt and DePodesta arrived, the Dodgers had secured two playoff berths in 15 years. Sustainable success was an illusion in Dodgerland – a relic of bygone times. DePodesta wanted to change that, and a few years of pain may have allowed him to do so, but he was not given the time and support to realise that plan. McCourt cut bait at the first sign of trouble.
Even a closer analysis of DePodesta’s much-maligned transactions reveals a brighter picture than many critics acknowledge. DePodesta signed three major free agents – Kent, Derek Lowe and Drew – while leading the Dodgers, and they were all relatively successful. Kent spent four seasons in Los Angeles, hitting .291 with a .367 OBP. Lowe never missed a start in four years while recording a 3.59 ERA. And Drew posted a 133 OPS+ with the Dodgers. DePodesta was frequently chastised for including an opt-out in Drew’s free agent contract, but even that decision helped the Dodgers when the outfielder declined in Boston rather than Hollywood. Under DePodesta, the Dodgers received terrific production from free agent imports for limited expenditure – and that, ultimately, is the hallmark of a good GM.
Of course, allowing Beltré to leave for Seattle was perhaps the most indefensible act of DePodesta’s reign, and it remains the biggest pockmark on his Dodgers resume. To enter the 2005 season with José Valentín and Mike Edwards at third base instead of Beltré was particularly naïve of DePodesta, but every GM makes moves they later regret. Even Epstein once signed Carl Crawford, remember. Besides, Beltré’s agent, Scott Boras, defended DePodesta during the negotiations. “We had great success with Paul,” Boras told the Times. “It wasn’t really about him. I just think ownership wanted to spend their money elsewhere.”
To that point, the McCourts infamously drove the Dodgers to bankruptcy by 2011 after years of using the team as a personal credit card. Given such self-serving largesse, it can be reasonably argued that Frank McCourt should never have been allowed to own a major professional sports franchise. Accordingly, it was perhaps unwise to expect a rookie GM to thrive under the tutelage of such an intractable patriarch. Maybe DePodesta was destined to fail due to the environment set from above.
Working amid such a toxic atmosphere, with such limited time and such capricious resources, DePodesta had to get creative in reshaping the Dodgers’ roster. This leads us to the biggest misconception surrounding DePodesta and his Dodgers tenure: the inaccurate concept that he destroyed the team with absurd trades. In fact, DePodesta had a pretty good sense of player value, and his moves improved the Dodgers rather than ruining them. Just take a look:
Paul DePodesta trade history as Dodgers GM
Trade |
Net post-trade bWAR |
Jason Frasor to Toronto for Jayson Werth |
+19.5 |
Steve Colyer to Detroit for Cody Ross |
+13.4 |
Andrew Brown and Franklin Gutiérrez to Cleveland for Milton Bradley |
-5.1 |
Jolbert Cabrera and Glenn Bott to Seattle for Ryan Ketchner |
-0.7 |
Jason Romano to Tampa Bay for Antonio Pérez |
-0.1 |
Rick White to Cleveland for Trey Dyson |
-1.8 |
Tanyon Sturtze to the Yankees for Brian Myrow |
-0.9 |
Paul Lo Duca, Guillermo Mota and Juan Encarnación to Florida for Hee-Seop Choi, Brad Penny and Bill Murphy |
+4.9 |
Koyie Hill, Reggie Abercrombie and Bill Murphy to Arizona for Steve Finley and Brent Mayne |
+1.9 |
Tom Martin to Atlanta for Matt Merricks |
0 |
Dave Roberts to Boston for Henri Stanley |
-4.2 |
Elvin Nina to Kansas City for Mike Venafro |
+0.2 |
Tony Socarras to the Mets for Tom Wilson |
-0.1 |
Jereme Milons to Arizona for Elmer Dessens |
+0.9 |
Shawn Green to Arizona for Dioner Navarro, Beltrán Pérez, Danny Muegge and William Juarez |
+7 |
Kazuhisa Ishii to the Mets for Jason Phillips |
-2.2 |
Total |
+32.7 |
You could reasonably argue that, statistically, Paul DePodesta never made an egregiously bad trade as Dodgers GM. The Bradley deal was probably his worst trade in Los Angeles, especially given the outfielder’s off-field issues, but overall DePodesta added 32.7 WAR of net future production via trades. That is quite a haul in 12 months of business. Most GMs would take that in a heartbeat.
Sure, WAR is not everything. That, of course, is a simulacrum of this entire debate. And yes, not all of those post-trade WAR were accrued with the Dodgers, so that skews perceptions slightly. However, a bigger chunk of those post-trade WAR may have been with the Dodgers if DePodesta was given a longer leash. Moreover, if he was allowed to keep trading – keep adding – the jigsaw may eventually have come together.
This, ultimately, is the bittersweet paradox of positive arbitrage – especially in big markets. Building to a climax in gradual, bite-sized increments requires patience and faith – attributes in short supply around juggernauts like the Dodgers. We are witnessing something similar right now as Chaim Bloom – another positive arbitrage disciple – remoulds the Red Sox in metronomic fashion. Many outsiders call Bloom risk-averse, and they denigrate his hoarding of top prospects. However, like DePodesta and many others before him, Bloom aims to win every trade by a small margin while avoiding costly disasters. That is how positive arbitrage eventually yields titles, but it can take many years to flourish. DePodesta was given mere months with the Dodgers, so expecting rapid results was borderline delusional.
This dichotomy of approach and expectation speaks to the internal dysfunction that derailed the 2000s Dodgers. Did McCourt want DePodesta to implement Moneyball with a bigger crumple zone, or did the incoming owner use ‘data-driven efficiency’ as a ruse for scandalous cost-cutting to fund his own lavish lifestyle? What, exactly, were the Dodgers trying to do – enjoy sustainable success down the line, or instantly replenish their jaded brand with a supernova title in Murdoch’s aftermath? Ultimately, they flip-flopped between roadmaps, and DePodesta was an unjust casualty of their philosophical churn.
To wit, DePodesta never hired his own manager with the Dodgers. He hired very few executives to a fractured front office stocked with holdovers from different regimes dating back to the 1960s. DePodesta had very few ‘number-crunchers’ on whom to rely, while the concept of a fully-fledged analytics department straddled science fiction. McCourt’s whimsy led the Dodgers to DePodesta and advanced analytics, but the team’s infrastructure did not cohere with that momentary impulse. It was a shitshow, quite frankly, and DePodesta tried his best.
Even the disastrous 2005 season cannot be blamed entirely on DePodesta. Sure, the Dodgers should have replaced Beltré, and they generally lacked depth around the diamond. But again, what was the overarching agenda set by ownership? What was the goal? The 2005 Dodgers ranked eleventh in MLB payroll. McCourt also slashed spending on international player procurement and development, all but mothballing the Dodgers’ once-trailblazing Dominican Republic academy. As such, the blame pie should be shared, rather than having DePodesta eat it all like Bruce Bogtrotter. It was all too easy to scapegoat the unconventional newcomer, and his tattered reputation has never recovered.
If anything, DePodesta’s main failing was of communication, not of dogma or process – and even those criticisms are couched in lazy, hurtful stereotypes of aloof Ivy League geeks who assume they are the smartest person in any room. If DePodesta did intend to embark on a teardown-and-rebuild mission akin to Jeff Luhnow in Houston or Epstein in Chicago, he could have done a better job articulating that vision – to fans, reporters and perhaps even to McCourt during the initial recruitment process. The nuts and bolts of DePodesta's plan were deciphered through a whole heap of inference, and that lack of transparency hurt his approval rating from the start.
DePodesta did not always communicate well internally, either. When personnel no longer fit his plan – be it Finley, Roberts, Cora, coaches or scouts – they were often cut adrift with minimal explanation. That approach is true to the Beane doctrine, of course, as fuzzy relationships distract front offices from objective decision-making. Still, DePodesta seemed to make decisions in a vacuum, without seeking counsel, and several industry insiders cite a reticence to return calls as a key failing of his Dodgers tenure.
Even that is a double-edged sword, though. Obviously, it behooves any GM to play nice and maintain close connections, but that was not Paul DePodesta. If McCourt wanted a people-pleasing salesman, he should have hired Colletti from the off. Contrary to later clichés, DePodesta was a known commodity. An unproven one, sure, but his principles were clear. Above all esle, DePodesta valued impartial analysis, shorn of cuddles and sentiment. He was never going to spend time schmoozing with Tommy Lasorda around the batting cage, so expecting him to do that – and for that to be a focal point of his decision-making process – was a failure of philosophy and recruitment. Frank McCourt wanted it both ways, but he refused to wait for either.
Now, do not be mistaken – I’m no sabermetric evangelist. I probably skew more towards the traditional end of the spectrum – more Art Howe than Billy Beane. Nevertheless, I was raised during baseball’s data age. I have a strong grasp of advanced analytics and can see their utility – especially in roster construction - but I’m not a blind defender of analytical principles. I do not lurk in the Fangraphs comment section. I just see gross unfairness in the general portrayal of Paul DePodesta, and adding a more nuanced voice to the chorus seems beneficial.
DePodesta was one of the originators of baseball’s analytical revolution – an enlightened spring that brought World Series trophies to Boston and Chicago, along with pennants to Tampa Bay and Cleveland. Yet far from receiving praise, DePodesta is almost exclusively demeaned and admonished, abused and ridiculed. There is terrible hypocrisy in that realisation. It is like criticising Kool Herc for not being Jay-Z, despite Jay-Z mastering a genre that would not exist without Kool Herc.
To that end, those who vilified DePodesta back then often praise Andrew Friedman right now. Friedman, of course, is the former Bear Stearns analyst hired to run baseball operations for the Dodgers after the 2014 season. Reared in the same Tampa Bay front office as Bloom, Friedman was brought to Los Angeles by Guggenheim Baseball Management, which bought the Dodgers out of bankruptcy in 2012. Relying heavily on advanced analytics, Friedman led Los Angeles to that long-awaited World Series championship in 2020, but few mentioned DePodesta while lauding Friedman’s accomplishments.
“Every decision he made was governed by the guiding principle of optionality, a term co-opted from Wall Street, where he had his professional start,” wrote Pedro Moura of Friedman in How to Beat a Broken Game. “The idea is to render no decision absolutely necessary, to preserve as many possible choices as long as possible. It manifests in many ways, most notably in the Dodgers’ relative lack of desperation. Desperate teams make decisions they will regret. Because of Friedman’s patience and ownership’s resources, the Dodgers stand perpetually ready to seize on opportunities created by another team’s desperation.”
This approach is strikingly similar to that proffered by DePodesta a decade earlier. It is also painfully ironic that the guy hired to replace DePodesta in Oakland – Farhan Zaidi, a graduate of MIT and Berkeley – served as Dodgers GM between 2014 and 2018, working in concert with Friedman, the president of baseball operations. Zaidi credits Moneyball with changing his life, and he landed a baseball operations role with the Athletics when DePodesta left for Los Angeles. Friedman later convinced Zaidi to join the Dodgers, and together they rebuilt the organisation using principles similar – though iterated – to those proposed by DePodesta.
Therefore, it is an interesting thought experiment to consider how DePodesta would have fared under Guggenheim, as opposed to McCourt, who failed to understand the sport – and the market – into which he invested. With even a modicum of the belief placed by Mark Walter and Stan Kasten in Friedman, DePodesta may have implemented his long-term plan. After all, it took Friedman six years to make the Dodgers world champions. DePodesta had 622 days.
Accordingly, perhaps DePodesta was a martyr of baseball’s Sputnik moment, when advanced analytics were still subterranean and emergent rather than omnipotent and ubiquitous. Perhaps he was just a bit too early – at least with a Dodgers franchise in philosophical flux. That may be true, but look at the other young executives who cracked the baseball code. Epstein lost 351 games in four years before ending the Cubs’ title drought. Luhnow authored three 90+ loss seasons before taking Houston to the promised land. Even Bloom has survived four underwhelming years without a Red Sox championship. DePodesta is a comparatively ephemeral outlier, despite paving the way for those ‘nerds’ to succeed.
After leaving the Dodgers, DePodesta took some time to recuperate, then joined the San Diego Padres as a special assistant for baseball operations. He was promoted to executive vice president in 2008, then joined Sandy Alderson's Mets as vice president of player development and scouting two years later.
When the Moneyball film began shooting in 2009, Demetri Martin was originally cast to play DePodesta, but delays and script changes forced Jonah Hill into the role as a foil to Brad Pitt as Beane. Upon reading a revised screenplay, DePodesta felt the script no longer accurately depicted him, and he requested his name to be removed from the movie. Hill's character – a fictional amalgamation of DePodesta and JP Ricciardi, another Beane assistant – was renamed Peter Brand, and the rest is cinematic history.
In 2016, DePodesta made a shock transition from baseball to football when the Cleveland Browns made him their chief strategy officer. The potential for an MLB return has rarely surfaced, although the Mets did inquire about DePodesta’s availability in 2021 while searching for a new president of baseball operations. I, for one, would be pleased to see DePodesta get another shot at building an MLB franchise in his own vision. He is still only 50-years-old, so never rule it out.
Ultimately, Paul DePodesta gets a raw deal in retellings of baseball history. In essence, the guy was abused for being an introvert in an extroverted market, for being a long-term visionary in a short-term climate, and for being iconoclastic in a traditional sport. That abuse – bordering coordinated defamation – was unconscionable. Nobody deserves that, and I will never forget it.
For his part, DePodesta took the verbal assaults with grace and made the path easier for every unconventional baseball executive that followed in his footsteps. We should celebrate his contributions to modern baseball, not litigate them through a bigoted prism.
You could say Paul DePodesta was an average GM whose plans did not work out. I can accept and understand that. You could even say he was ahead of his time and the Dodgers were not ready for such disruptive thinking. Ok, fine. But nothing justifies the level of sheer vitriol this guy continues to receive. Nothing condones the way Paul DePodesta has become a synonym for abject failure.
In my view, DePodesta was a very shrewd, intelligent baseball executive who did some very good – albeit unorthodox – things for the Dodgers. Contrary to any number of myopic Reddit memes, his time in Los Angeles was not a total dumpster fire. That is pure Plaschke propaganda. In fact, you could argue DePodesta laid the foundations for the Dodgers’ subsequent success. He will not join the Ring of Honour anytime soon, of course, but at least cut the guy some slack. He was not nearly as bad as people like to remember.
I was born, raised and currently reside in the north west of England, on the craggy Wirral peninsula betwixt Liverpool and Chester, cities that cast a long shadow. Seattle is similarly marooned, of course, cast far adrift in the Pacific Northwest, flanked by Lake Washington and Puget Sound. There is an underdog essence to these overlooked enclaves – earthly isolation affirming philosophical rebellion. Literal outsiders, there is an unknown kinship between the remote dreamers of Seattle and Wirral. I feel that, and it is definitely worth exploring.
In Seattle, as in Wirral, life is accompanied by a constant, murky drizzle. Seattle is known colloquially as America’s rainiest city, and the same damp ennui that birthed grunge and Starbucks afflicts the local baseball team with a dreary disposition. Call it poetic symbolism. Call it life imitating art. Call it osmosis flooding the field. Whatever you call it, there is no escaping the Mariners’ remarkable futility. When it truly matters, this team simply never wins, despite waves of generational talent. I can relate to that as a lifelong fan of Tranmere Rovers, Wirral’s hapless fourth division football club. Our kindred struggles are interchangeable, and that is oddly comforting.
The last time Tranmere finished first in any league, Adolf Hitler was Time magazine’s Man of the Year. Since 1938, Rovers have failed to win a single championship. Sure, there have been playoff promotions and incongruous cup runs in that span, but my team has failed in its primary objective – to win the league title – for 85 consecutive years. That takes an emotional toll on an exhausted fanbase, and we are now conditioned to expect mediocrity. Meagre resources quash true hope of genuine success, and head-shaking incompetence has become the norm.
That may sound familiar to Mariners fans, of course. After all, Seattle is the only active MLB team never to reach the World Series, let alone win it. The Mariners have been to the playoffs twice this century, thanks to a 20-season postseason drought during which every other team in the big four North American sports (except the embryonic Seattle Kraken, naturally) managed the feat. The Mariners are continually underwhelming, and there is something so reassuringly personable about their trademark melancholy.
In baseball terms, only the Guardians, Rangers, Brewers and Padres have currently waited longer than Seattle to win the World Series. However, of that quarter, Cleveland has been to the Fall Classic six times and won it twice; Texas has won two pennants and finished above Seattle 29 times in 47 seasons; San Diego has been to the big dance twice; and Milwaukee even made it to the World Series in 1982. Meanwhile, the Mariners have become synonymous with inglorious irrelevance, finishing above third in the AL West just thrice since 2007. By June, Seahawks OTAs are typically the focus of Cascadia sports fans. Baseball is rarely of concern past Independence Day.
The sheer deviation of Seattle’s baseball hardship is more perplexing than its durability, though. Between 2002 and 2022, for instance, during the Mariners’ October hiatus, the aforementioned quartet of hard-luck losers combined to play 143 playoff games – 19 in the World Series. Moreover, during the Mariners’ playoff absence, three of baseball’s most perplexing championship droughts were nixed, as the Red Sox, White Sox and Cubs ended 282 combined years of waiting. Therefore, even among baseball’s most famished organisations, the Mariners are an outlier. They are an alien among aliens, and I kinda like that. That sense of otherness jives with my default introverted dejection.
“The Seattle Mariners are eminently lovable, profoundly human, and stunningly, outrageously weird,” conclude Alex Rubenstein and Jon Bois in their definitive Dorktown documentary on Emerald City baseball. “There is no more fascinating team over the entire history of American sports.”
Indeed, you can reasonably argue that no sports franchise has ever had more generationally-talented, Hall of Fame-calibre players than the Seattle Mariners without winning a single championship. Just name them: Ken Griffey Jr., Álex Rodríguez, Edgar Martínez, Tino Martinez, Randy Johnson, Ichiro Suzuki, Félix Hernández, Robinson Canó, Adrián Beltré. Heck, the Mariners even had a young David Ortiz, for crying out loud. Throw in a robust cast of All-Stars – Harold Reynolds, Jamie Moyer, Jay Buhner, Bret Boone, Mike Cameron, John Olerud, Raúl Ibañez, Nelson Cruz, Kyle Seager – and it is astounding that Seattle has never moved the postseason needle.
The chart below collates the best individual seasons in history from players on organisations that have never won the World Series – an exclusive group comprised of Seattle, Texas, Milwaukee, San Diego, Colorado and Tampa Bay:
Year |
Player |
Team |
fWAR |
2002 |
Álex Rodríguez |
Rangers |
10.0 |
1982 |
Robin Yount |
Brewers |
9.8 |
1996 |
Ken Griffey Jr. |
Mariners |
9.7 |
1998 |
Kevin Brown |
Padres |
9.6 |
2000 |
Álex Rodríguez |
Mariners |
9.5 |
1995 |
Randy Johnson |
Mariners |
9.5 |
2003 |
Álex Rodríguez |
Rangers |
9.2 |
1996 |
Álex Rodríguez |
Mariners |
9.2 |
1997 |
Larry Walker |
Rockies |
9.1 |
1997 |
Ken Griffey Jr. |
Mariners |
9.0 |
2009 |
Ben Zobrist |
Rays |
8.7 |
2010 |
Josh Hamilton |
Rangers |
8.4 |
1993 |
Ken Griffey Jr. |
Mariners |
8.4 |
2000 |
Todd Helton |
Rockies |
8.3 |
2014 |
Jonathan Lucroy |
Brewers |
8.2 |
2004 |
Ben Sheets |
Brewers |
8.0 |
1998 |
Álex Rodríguez |
Mariners |
7.9 |
2001 |
Bret Boone |
Mariners |
7.8 |
2001 |
Álex Rodríguez |
Rangers |
7.8 |
1979 |
Dave Winfield |
Padres |
7.8 |
2010 |
Carl Crawford |
Rays |
7.7 |
2018 |
Christian Yelich |
Brewers |
7.7 |
2001 |
Larry Walker |
Rockies |
7.6 |
2021 |
Corbin Burnes |
Brewers |
7.5 |
2010 |
Evan Longoria |
Rays |
7.5 |
1996 |
Ken Caminiti |
Padres |
7.5 |
2022 |
Manny Machado |
Padres |
7.4 |
2003 |
Bret Boone |
Mariners |
7.4 |
1987 |
Tony Gwynn |
Padres |
7.4 |
2011 |
Ian Kinsler |
Rangers |
7.3 |
2021 |
Fernando Tatís Jr. |
Padres |
7.2 |
2019 |
Christian Yelich |
Brewers |
7.2 |
2012 |
Chase Headley |
Padres |
7.2 |
2009 |
Evan Longoria |
Rays |
7.2 |
1996 |
Ellis Burks |
Rockies |
7.2 |
2011 |
Ryan Braun |
Brewers |
7.1 |
2004 |
Ichiro Suzuki |
Mariners |
7.1 |
2001 |
Todd Helton |
Rockies |
7.1 |
2013 |
Jonathan Lucroy |
Brewers |
7.0 |
2004 |
Todd Helton |
Rockies |
7.0 |
1997 |
Randy Johnson |
Mariners |
7.0 |
1995 |
Edgar Martínez |
Mariners |
7.0 |
1993 |
Randy Johnson |
Mariners |
7.0 |
1989 |
Nolan Ryan |
Rangers |
7.0 |
No team in baseball history has received more 9+ WAR seasons from individual players than Seattle without winning the World Series. The same is true of 8+ WAR seasons and 7+ WAR seasons. Quite frankly, there is no match in the baseball annals for the Mariners’ mix of elite talent and chronic futility. The Mariners are the Achilles of professional sports – immensely talented, yet fatally flawed – and that makes them appealing to me. That makes them charming.
Right now, Seattle is the hottest team in baseball – winners of seven straight and nine of ten. The Mariners have seemingly emerged from a season-long malaise to seriously contend for back-to-back playoff appearances – something they have not achieved since 2000-2001. Seattle currently sits five-and-a-half games back in the AL West and one-and-a-half games adrift of the third wildcard. A captivating stretch run is all but guaranteed, and a seemingly lost season may yet be salvaged.
I will be an active participant in that onward journey, watching with intrigue as Julio Rodríguez, Luis Castillo, Jarred Kelenic and friends carry the ageing quest for World Series baseball in Seattle. Part of me will be rooting for the Mariners, who are so reassuringly mortal, but part of me will be rooting for the story, the strangeness of which is too compelling to ignore.
“Sometimes, they let you believe all the way to September, and then October leaves you ashamed by the gullibility that you tell yourself is loyalty,” Mike Bookey once wrote for Inlander. “But you know it's not. It's just Seattle Mariners fandom, and it's weird, and sad, and strangely alluring. It's not like you watch the World Series each year hot with jealousy. That's because we Mariner fans don't see our team as existing in the same universe as the teams that win the World Series. We're like an orphan in some Victorian novel who isn't jealous of the rich kids because our brains can't imagine any life other than the one we've been dealt.”
Maybe the Mariners will shock the world in a few short weeks by romping to a storybook title. Maybe the orphan will find a home. More likely, they will find ever-ingenious ways to raise expectations before collapsing ingloriously during the final week. That has long been the credo of Mariners baseball, and it is strangely okay. It is weirdly affirming, in fact. Life is enriched by hope, but hope is the lifeblood of pain. The Seattle Mariners teach us that, each and every day. And I, for one, admire them regardless.
Henry’s eponymous investment firm made a fortune by pioneering the use of statistical analysis to drive objective trading decisions on soybean products. Henry devised an evaluative system that precluded human emotion and automated investments in coherence with market trends, governed by data. According to Forbes, his algorithm produced $2.4 billion in wealth, allowing the cerebral Henry to dabble in more luxurious pastimes.
A boyhood St Louis Cardinals fan who worshipped Stan Musial, Henry hungered to own a baseball team. He purchased the minor league Tuscon Toros in 1989 and later invested in the West Palm Beach Tropics. Most notably, Henry bought shares in the New York Yankees – equating to 1% of team stock – in 1991. Quite remarkably, then, George Steinbrenner’s stylistic antithesis was once his minority partner.
Henry progressed to buy the Florida Marlins for $158 million in 1999. He never got around to selling those Yankee shares, however, causing consternation in some quarters. When Henry bought the Red Sox three years later, with more than a little political engineering from commissioner Bud Selig, he briefly owned pieces of three major league teams. That did not last long, as Selig forced Henry to divest of his Marlins and Yankees shares before approving the Red Sox takeover, but it was a compelling quirk of baseball history, nevertheless.
Naturally, after gaining control of the Red Sox, Henry was keen to implement his soybean strategy in Boston. Henry appreciated the success of Billy Beane in Oakland, and he yearned to embed Moneyball at Fenway Park. Perhaps data, science and mathematics held the answer to an eight-decade championship drought. John Henry believed the repost to Babe Ruth’s ghost lay in a calculator, and he set out to prove it.
When Oakland was eliminated from the 2002 postseason by Minnesota, Henry approached Beane and entered discussions about the vacant general manager post in Boston. The incumbent, Dan Duquette, was fired immediately after the new owners took office, and Henry was so impressed by Beane’s success on a shoestring budget with the Athletics that he wanted to make Billy the best-paid executive in North American sports history while transplanting the driving ethos from Oakland to Boston.
The Red Sox offered Beane a five-year contract worth $12.5 million to spearhead their baseball operations department. Beane seriously considered the offer for several days. Tom Werner, a Red Sox part-owner, even arranged for Katie Couric to phone Beane's wife, Tara, on her birthday, knowing Tara was a huge fan of the television personality. Duly convinced, Beane verbally accepted Boston's offer while meeting Henry and Red Sox president Larry Lucchino. The Red Sox had their man.
Except, well, they did not. The de facto chief, Beane worked until midnight one evening with Theo Epstein, a young assistant GM in the Boston hierarchy. Their surreal task? Negotiating compensation to Oakland for Beane's departure. Pitcher Casey Fossum was eventually tabbed as the sacrificial lamb, and the deal looked set to be agreed the following day.
However, sleep eluded Beane that night, as regret seeped into his mind. "He went for a ride," wrote Bob Hohler in the Boston Globe. "It was 3.30 am, and Beane was looking for a place to go near his home in Danville, Calif., somewhere with a light on, as if that would deliver him from the darkness."
Beane worried about leaving behind his life on the west coast - especially his12-year old daughter from a previous marriage. After driving around his neighbourhood in the darkness, weighing a monumental decision, Beane rang JP Ricciardi, his former Oakland assistant and best friend. By the end of their conversation, Beane determined the Boston move was not right for him at that time. The following day, he rang Henry and rejected the Red Sox.
"When I called JP, I was talking about maybe the premier job in sports," Beane said at a press conference announcing his intent to remain in Oakland. "What was going through my mind was the Red Sox were incredibly generous and accommodating, and the compensation was unbelievable, but I sort of wasn't doing cartwheels. I knew something wasn't right."
Henry was disappointed but unsurprised by Beane's change of heart. He remained convinced that sabermetrics held the key to success in Boston, and he set about recreating Beane in the aggregate, rather like Oakland did while trying to replace Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon and Jason Isringhausen in the 2001-2002 offseason.
With a clear avatar of their ideal general manager in mind – young, innovative and nerdy – the Red Sox turned their attention to Ricciardi, a Massachusetts native who ran the Blue Jays’ front office after graduating from the Oakland lair of Beane and Sandy Alderson. However, Toronto signed Ricciardi to a five-year contract extension, scuppering a potential homecoming for the analytically-minded exec.
Deviating from their script, Boston next asked the Yankees for permission to interview Gene Michael, but Steinbrenner declined the request out of hand. After completing due diligence on a number of other candidates – including Giants’ honcho Brian Sabean – the Red Sox eventually homed in on Epstein, the 28-year-old savant already working in their own front office. Henry found his spirit animal lurking in the basement.
A Yale graduate with visionary intelligence, Epstein grew up in suburban Brookline, a 10-minute drive from Fenway. The Red Sox were in his blood, and he dreamed of one day leading his boyhood team to elusive glory. Looking for a start out of college, Epstein worked in public relations with the Baltimore Orioles and struck up a strong rapport with player development czar Lucchino. When Lucchino was hired by the Padres, Epstein moved to San Diego with him and became a linchpin between marketing, ticket sales and baseball operations.
Lucchino saw great potential in Epstein, who completed a law degree at night school upon the recommendation of his boss. Epstein worked tirelessly and spent long hours at the ballpark – pushing season tickets and devised complex statistical models that impressed Lucchino. Theo also studied the work of Beane and Bill James, the grandfather of sabermetrics, whose iconoclasm refined Epstein’s ideology.
Despite a middling payroll, San Diego won the National League pennant in 1998, a testament to the team’s overhauled operation. The Padres spent considerably less than Atlanta, the National League’s most liberal spenders that year, but still managed to oust the Braves in a tight Championship Series. Of course, the Yankees crushed San Diego’s dreams in the subsequent Fall Classic, but Epstein continued to rise through the Padres’ ranks, and eventually became their director of baseball operations.
Meanwhile, upon taking office in Boston, Henry and Werner were keen to find a reliable club president who could wield day-to-day autonomy. Henry appreciated Lucchino’s reputation as a builder of great teams and even greater ballparks, and those attributes meshed nicely with the Red Sox’ revitalisation plan.
Lucchino was in charge of the Orioles when Camden Yards opened its gates, and he later influenced the design of Petco Park in San Diego. Both stadiums were outrageously successful, and Henry thirsted for a similar vibe at Fenway. Lucchino was subsequently headhunted to join the Boston renaissance, and he brought Epstein with him as a baseball operations figurehead.
For years, Lucchino groomed Epstein for general manager stardom, waiting for the right moment to elevate his protégé. When Beane rejected the Red Sox, Larry broached Theo’s name for the top position in Beantown. Epstein’s time arrived, and in November 2002, the Red Sox made him the youngest MLB general manager of all-time.
The rest, as they say, is history. Epstein built a juggernaut in Boston, melding the best advice of ornery scouts with the finest cutting-edge analytics. The Red Sox won two World Series titles under Theo’s aegis, while the foundations for a third championship, in 2013, were laid as he eventually left for the Chicago Cubs.
As for Billy Beane? Well, such glory remained a pipedream for him. Oakland continued to squeeze inordinate value from meagre resources, regularly making the playoffs, but progressing beyond the early rounds proved difficult, and the elusive ring is still yet to arrive.
Beane moved upstairs with the Athletics in 2015, and eventually earned an ownership stake in the team. Today, he is executive vice president of baseball operations, but the A’s have largely ceased trying to win while negotiating a messy move from Oakland to Las Vegas.
Maybe there is an alternative universe in which Beane accepted Henry’s offer, broke the Red Sox’ curse and rode off to Cooperstown. In that world, maybe we never know Theo Epstein. Of course, Red Sox fans are happy with the way things turned out, as a dynasty emerged from the ashes, but it is fun to remember their courtship of Billy Beane, which symbolised a fascinating epoch in baseball history.
]]>The needs were obvious, the targets clear, but aloof general manager Brian Cashman did nothing – except watch rival executives improve their teams while the Yankees flailed hopelessly between adding and subtracting. Once obsessed with winning at all costs, pushing the boundaries of finance and stardom, the Yankees are now just another cautious ballclub mired in mediocrity. Their deadline insouciance affirms that underwhelming approach.
“Winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing,” George Steinbrenner, the Yankees’ late patriarch, once said. “Breathing first, winning next.” For decades, that edict permeated every facet of an organisation trained to despise losing. In the Bronx, failure was defined as anything short of a World Series title, of which The Boss delivered six during his tumultuous reign. His was the definitive vision of a Yankee age, and those who did not comply were unceremoniously dismissed.
Now, though, under the reticent aegis of Hal, George’s youngest son, ‘championship-or-bust’ has morphed into a vacuous marketing ploy. It is a boldfaced lie, in fact, because the latter day Yankees operate within shallow, self-imposed limitations designed to avoid irrelevance and protect the bottom line. Above, say, 85 wins – enough to keep the Stadium full through September – nothing really matters anymore. The complacent regime will keep running it back, taking fresh cream from the top while the cake crumbles below.
Sure, the Yankees of Hal and Cashman say they are more committed to winning than their contemporaries. Every year during the traditional pinstriped autopsy, they parrot the same weary narratives about a ‘championship-calibre’ operation. However, more than scant lip service to a bygone Yankee birthright, the insulting subterfuge is purely delusional. Actions speak louder than words, and the Yankees rarely act. Hence another trade deadline where desperate deficiencies were not addressed. Hence another stretch run of numbing agitation. Hence another season without a World Series appearance, let alone a triumph – the fourteenth in a row. Stasis has set in with the Yankees, and those in charge are in no rush to reverse it.
Cashman will probably say a diluted trade market offered few difference-making solutions. He will say the returns of Aaron Judge, Nestor Cortes, Jonathan Loaisiga and Frankie Montas are akin to mid-season upgrades. He will say the Yankees had a lot of conversations with other teams but balked at prohibitive asking prices. Do not listen. In truth, the Yankees were desperate for offensive help today, yesterday, a week ago, a month ago. They rank 29th in batting average, 27th in on-base percentage and 22nd in wRC+. Failing to add at least one adequate hitter is a dereliction of duty – especially for franchise valued at $7.1 billion.
Heck, the Yankees needed reinforcements last winter, when the subtraction of Andrew Benintendi nullified the addition of Carlos Rodón. Yes, they re-signed Judge to a long-term extension, but they did nothing to build a functional offence around him. Manager Aaron Boone has started nine different left fielders this season, and they have hit .233. Even the 43-year old corpse of Nelson Cruz would be an upgrade at this point, though the Yankees are too stubborn to admit they were wrong and rectify bad decisions.
Once perennial needle-pushers, the Yankees are now content to live off former glories. They are content to sell Legends Suite tickets to Wall Street yuppies and interlocking NY caps to oblivious fashionistas while doing the bare minimum to succeed. They are content to blend in, quite remarkably, anathema to the credo that once made them great.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MLB teams, payroll as percentage of revenue, 2022-23
Team |
2022 revenue * |
2023 Opening Day payroll ** |
Payroll as % of revenue |
New York Mets |
$374 m |
$353 m |
94% |
San Diego Padres |
$324 m |
$248 m |
76% |
Toronto Blue Jays |
$294 m |
$209 m |
71% |
St Louis Cardinals |
$258 m |
$175 m |
68% |
Chicago White Sox |
$276 m |
$181 m |
65% |
Philadelphia Phillies |
$398 m |
$243 m |
61% |
Colorado Rockies |
$286 m |
$171 m |
59% |
Minnesota Twins |
$267 m |
$153 m |
57% |
Los Angeles Angels |
$371 m |
$212 m |
57% |
Texas Rangers |
$366 m |
$195 m |
53% |
Atlanta Braves |
$425 m |
$203 m |
47% |
Houston Astros |
$407 m |
$192 m |
47% |
Detroit Tigers |
$260 m |
$122 m |
47% |
San Francisco Giants |
$421 m |
$187 m |
44% |
Arizona Diamondbacks |
$276 m |
$116 m |
42% |
New York Yankees |
$657 m |
$276 m |
42% |
Chicago Cubs |
$451 m |
$184 m |
40% |
Milwaukee Brewers |
$294 m |
$118 m |
40% |
Miami Marlins |
$238 m |
$91 m |
38% |
Los Angeles Dodgers |
$581 m |
$222 m |
38% |
Seattle Mariners |
$363 m |
$137 m |
37% |
Kansas City Royals |
$260 m |
$92 m |
35% |
Boston Red Sox |
$513 m |
$181 m |
35% |
Cincinnati Reds |
$250 m |
$83 m |
33% |
Cleveland Guardians |
$268 m |
$89 m |
33% |
Tampa Bay Rays |
$248 m |
$73 m |
29% |
Washington Nationals |
$356 m |
$101 m |
28% |
Pittsburgh Pirates |
$262 m |
$73 m |
27% |
Oakland Athletics |
$212 m |
$56 m |
26% |
Baltimore Orioles |
$264 m |
$60 m |
23% |
Sources:
* Statista
** USA Today
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While admittedly flawed, payroll-as-percentage-of-revenue is the most accessible metric for gauging an organisation’s burning desire to win. Sure, there are nuances around front office, scouting, player development, luxury tax and analytical expenditure, but the basic arithmetic holds true: the more income ownership funnels to player procurement and roster construction, the more it yearns for a championship. It is that simple, really, and the Yankees are midmarket franchise by that measure, frustrated by a fiscal ceiling of their own imposition.
The true win-now, win-at-all-cost owners in modern Major League Baseball are Steve Cohen of the Mets and Peter Seidler of the Padres. They are far flung apostles of Steinbrenner imperialism, and good on them. Rogers bankrolls the Blue Jays pretty well, too, while John Middleton is bold with the Phillies. Even the White Sox, Rockies, Twins and Diamondbacks commit more of their revenue to player salaries than the Yankees, whose thrift is comparable to that of Milwaukee and Miami. No wonder a revolt is brewing in the bleachers. Loyalists have had enough.
If the Yankees were genuinely committed to winning, as in the days of yore, they would have dealt for Justin Verlander today, but they did not – Houston did. If the Yankees really wanted to compete, as mandated by George, they would have pursued Max Scherzer yesterday, but they did not – Texas did. If the Yankees truly yearned to push the envelope, they would have grabbed Cody Bellinger weeks ago, but they did not – the Cubs caught fire and kept him. Such is life under the Bronx baseball dictatorship.
Ignorance mixed with obstinance left Cashman scrambling for spare parts in the final hours before the deadline. When acquiring Dylan Carlson becomes a best-case scenario for the New York Yankees, you know things are beyond broken. Cashman did not even pull the trigger on that deal, though, amid a complete breakdown in organisational thinking. The Yankees added two relievers – Keynan Middleton, a generic sixth inning guy, and Spencer Howard, ticketed for Triple-A – but otherwise stood pat. They should have just raised a white flag above the hallowed façade. At least that way, their true intentions would have been easier to decode.
It would not have been the first banner raised at the Stadium this week, either. “’The Boss’ would never allow this” read a solitary, forlorn flag dangled by a disconsolate fan in the upper deck on Tuesday night, as the Yankees lost, 5-1, to Tampa Bay. It is a familiar lament, bordering cliché, in Yankeeland, but it is undoubtedly true. George would never allow this, but Hal does. That is the reality we now inhabit, in an age where Yankee exceptionalism is all but dead, and no amount of verbal backlash will make management listen.
Yes, there is more to baseball than winning, as mentioned earlier in the week. What irritates diehard Yankees fans, though, is the tone-deaf propaganda. If ownership wants to run a nimble operation, believing a World Series can be won beneath the luxury tax threshold, that is their prerogative. It may even be an efficient modus operandi. But why lie to your fans? Why garble outdated messages? Why say one thing and do the other? Arrogance, entitlement and invincibility – that is why. The Yankees run on that monolithic triad, but it is sadly no longer earned. ‘Championship-or-bust’ has lost all meaning, and loyal rooters are tired of hearing it.
]]>Baseball is supposed to be fun, not torture, and I was living that before this latest setback, eschewing toxic fandom – increasingly the default mode of fandom – to explore novel concepts of fluidity and secularism. Nevertheless, it is alarming how a child’s game played by grown men in pyjamas can skyrocket my blood pressure. On the whole, I do not have the energy to harbour such sporting cynicism, but containing that raw emotion is easier said than done.
Clearly, the Yankees have infuriated me of late, largely because franchise figureheads take for granted those who make them uber-rich: the fans. When the wealthiest sports team in the world announces a uniform advertising deal worth more than $200 million over nine years, then hints at cutting payroll to get under the highest luxury tax threshold, the rage of diehard fans is understandable. Their passion enriches the Yankees – via ticket sales and merchandise hauls – only for a small cabal of knowing mercenaries to profit.
Ultimately, though, no amount of bitching will force a Bronx revolution. We are shouting into the abyss because Hal Steinbrenner, the Yankees’ owner, cares little for the individual fan. Wilful ignorance is baked into the Yankees’ modus operandi, and if the turnstiles keep clicking, nothing will ever change. The Yankees are a corporate entity with an agreed managerial ethos. Besides a financially-focused boycott, no amount of public pressure will change their tired approach.
As such, if intransigence does not eat them up, why should it eat you up? Why rage over things you cannot control? We all need to vent occasionally, but the Yankees do not listen, so why waste your breath? Sports team owners suck. They will always suck. Acknowledge that and move on with your day. Fan within those parameters, and feel the weight drop from your shoulders. Yes, you care about the Yankees, but there must be context to that fervour. There must be balance to that investment.
From Super Bowl riots and football hooliganism to social media pile-ons and talk radio takedowns, toxic fandom is an outgrowth of extreme, unchecked passion. It is a double-edged sword in many ways. When things are going well, it can be exhilarating to play or root for the Yankees, Red Sox or Phillies. But when things are going bad? Well, buckle up, because the knives will be sharpened and sentiment will fly out the window. You are going to hear about your performance in those pressure cooker markets, and the more passionate the fanbase, the more likely a subset will cross the line of acceptable critique.
Sports talk radio and podcasts are a particularly potent vector of such untethered tribalism. It has never been easier to voice an opinion – good or bad, fair or foul – about sports, and an expanded commentariat has created a race to the bottom, with self-proclaimed experts competing to deliver the day’s most outlandish hot takes.
One example hit me hard recently – a June 15 edition of The Baseball Hour with Tony Massarotti on 95.8 The Sports Hub in Boston. I’m a long-term listener, and I generally like Massarotti. However, on this occasion, I was sickened by his scathing criticism of Triston Casas, the Red Sox’ divisive first baseman, who eloquently explained his thought process during a defensive error, only to be disparaged as ‘cocky,’ ‘un-coachable’ and ‘delusional’ live on air.
“He is not getting the message through his thick skull,” said Massarotti of Casas. That Casas possesses more athletic ability in his little finger (painted whatever colour he likes) than Massarotti could ever compute, was not acknowledged. In truth, Massarotti could not hit a 70-mph batting practice fastball, yet he sits in front of a microphone and rips the hell out of an absurdly talented big league ballplayer. There is only one delusional figure in that equation, and it is not the 23-year-old rookie with a 123 OPS+ in Major League Baseball. I deleted my podcast app after hearing the disgusting attack, saddened by the state of modern sports rhetoric.
Nobody who reaches MLB sucks. Merely getting to that level is a phenomenal achievement – a rare rip in the failure-time continuum that governs baseball. Most media criticism is thus a manifestation of barely repressed jealousy. These guys wanted to be professional ballplayers. They wanted to play first base for the Red Sox. They peaked in Little League, though, and had to settle for talking about the game instead. Have some respect. Have some perspective. Triston Casas will be a very good big league ballplayer for a very long time. So what if his preparation techniques are unconventional? So what if his personality is a little unorthodox? Let the kid be himself, because that is what got him to a place most of us can only dream of reaching.
Baseball is hard. Hitting a round object travelling 100-mph, propelled from a distance of sixty feet and six inches, may be the most difficult task in sports. At the London Series in June, I attempted to pitch in one of the interactive exhibits at Trafalgar Square – and I was terrible. Utterly terrible. I had no idea where the ball was going. How, therefore, can I seriously criticise a veteran professional pitcher (who has put in all that effort and travelled all those miles just to make the majors) who misses the strike zone by mere inches with a wicked slider? I cannot. That would be hypocritical.
Moreover, there is a mental and physical toll to baseball that is rarely acknowledged. Each game lasts almost three hours, and there are close to 200 games – including exhibitions and playoffs – from March through October. Add in relentless travel, perpetual time zone fluctuations and countless hours spent standing around – and, well, I do not envy these guys. Playing in a big league game would be incredible, and ballplayer salaries ease the jagged shards of jetlag, but the daily baseball grind is far from exclusive glamour. There is much more to this game than readily meets the eye, and we should remember that before lambasting its finest exponents.
The metronomic rhythm of baseball also undermines our proclivity to share absolutist opinions about its fate. Baseball is an unsolvable game that has defied mastery for 200 years. Even the worst MLB teams win 50 games per year, and even the best lose 50 contests each season. Baseball will humble anybody, including arrogant columnists and antsy talk radio hosts, yet still we jump to absurd conclusions based on tiny sample sizes. Still we are swayed by one loss in a marathon season. Still we call for everyone to be fired, only to look silly when our favourite team reels off a 10-game win streak. We simply never learn that baseball is an untameable beast.
I understand sports talk radio has to be provocative. That is the business model: get people to listen, keep them listening, and monetise their attention through ads. Stations have plenty of time to fill, and outrage keeps listeners engaged – in agreement or rebuttal. As such, to justify and keep their jobs, sports talk radio hosts must spark outrage – often by spouting outrageous opinions they do not truly believe. Nevertheless, to analyse baseball in such a reactionary vacuum is to take a myopic view of a long-term sport. Those who explode over one series lack perspective, so maybe we should stop listening to their opinions altogether.
Indeed, just as dieters lament empty calories – daily allowances wasted on chips and chocolate – sports fans should be wary of empty content – the sensationalist kind delivered by people who do not understand how tough baseball really is. Baseball is my introverted personal treasure. I do not necessarily want self-proclaimed experts spewing vitriol into my ears. I want to hear nuanced analysis from thoughtful experts who know what it takes to grind through a major league season.
Accordingly, following the Massarotti-Casas debacle, I took a two-week break from listening to sports talk, and my enjoyment of the actual games improved noticeably. I formed my own opinions while watching, rather than podcast earworms dictating my views. I gained a newfound appreciation for certain players, managers and executives, seeing their work in a new light. When I eventually reloaded the podcast app, however, few of the episodes echoed my perspective. They were doom-laden and fatalistic, demanding wholesale changes, and my innocent fandom was shattered anew by toxic groupthink.
Take Gleyber Torres, for instance. Yankees fans and content creators have long campaigned for him to be traded, but he is the team’s most consistent player – a .264 career hitter good for 20 homers and 20 doubles each season at second base. Sure, Torres may not have lived up to his inordinate prospect hype, but he is really good at baseball. Gleyber does everything on the field slightly above average, and he is a cost-controlled asset most general managers would love to have. Yet Yankees fans want to abandon Torres after every singular strikeout or solitary error. It is sad how such dystopian narratives form, despite debunking evidence presenting itself daily.
Torres is not alone, though. There are myriad examples of Yankees fans collectively deciding to move on from struggling players who could really use their support. Consider Aaron Hicks, for example. He did not meet expectations in pinstripes, but he was a decent guy. I watched him honour every single autograph request at the London Series in 2019, and he was great with the fans. He did not deserve to be booed incessantly, regardless of the large contract or unrealistic demands placed on him by Yankees management. I felt sorry for the guy, in all honesty. He deserved better.
Similarly, I rue the way Joey Gallo was treated in New York. Okay, he hit .159 and struck out 194 times in 140 games as a Yankee, but that does not justify the merciless abuse that ran him out of town. A two-time All-Star with lefthanded thump that produced back-to-back 40-homer seasons, Gallo was the prototypical Yankee. Joining the team aged 28, he could have established himself as a beloved Bronx Bomber. Instead, he was driven into hiding – quite literally – by poisonous fan backlash to his chronic underperformance.
“I really grew up a Yankee fan, and all I wanted to do was play for the Yankees,” Gallo recently told the New York Post in a sombre expose. “I’ll probably never have a chance to play for the Yankees again. That was my opportunity, and now I’m known as the guy who fucking sucked for the Yankees. That part is tough, and I have to live with that for the rest of my career and the rest of my life.”
That Gallo is an anxious introvert who suffers from facial tic disorder barely entered the equation. Professional athletes have mental health, too, but we often overlook that in favour of wins. Gallo did not want to fail. Neither did Josh Donaldson, nor Andrew Benintendi, nor Sonny Gray. They tried their best and it did not work out. That should not preclude them from living safe and happy lives away from the ballpark.
To that end, you rarely see Yankees personnel smile, and when they do, it is more out of relief than genuine happiness. Those pinstripes are heavy, and there is a dense joylessness to the biblical pursuit of Yankee exceptionalism. George Steinbrenner apologised for losing the 1981 World Series. Mickey Mantle cried at his locker after losing the 1960 Fall Classic. Billy Martin wept every time he was fired. Even today, manager Aaron Boone looks ashen-faced in the dugout, clenching his jaw while awaiting the next firestorm. Meanwhile, Yankees players are still not allowed to grow beards! The fishbowl they inhabit is an incubator of stress.
For a long time, I embraced that pressure because it distinguished the Yankees as an organisation committed to winning. It is an injured DiMaggio taking himself out of a big game to protect the team. It is Mantle excelling despite crumbling knees. It is Jeter diving into the stands to catch a foul popup in July. Pressure makes diamonds, but it can also burst pipes, and I now wonder if the heavy burden of Yankee expectancy contributes to their existential malaise. Maybe the Yankees take things too seriously. It is difficult to excel when everybody is so uptight.
“I have long thought we collectively demand far too much from baseball players,” writes Stacey May Fowles in Baseball Life Advice. “We demand their time via the media, autograph sessions and scheduled public appearances. We demand their sole focus always be on winning, regardless of what is happening in their lives. (Birth of a child? Sick relative? Who cares?) For some reason, we think that because we spend our leisure time on baseball, those on the field owe us something more than a game played.
“We act like players deserve a higher level of abuse – and a lower level of dignity – just because they get paid a lot of money to do something they love. Not many people think about the fact that it probably doesn’t feel very good for a player, who is likely already disappointed in himself, to stand in a stadium and be booed at, just as not many people think of elite athletes as actual human beings. We ask for their best performance every single game, despite the fact that, logically, that’s impossible. Booing represents a belief that, because we paid some money for a ticket and a beer, we’re allowed to scold someone who is slumping. Perhaps even more important, booing suggests they don’t deserve our support when they’re facing difficulty.”
Fowles raises a salient point about the essence and responsibilities of fandom. Maybe ‘fans’ have an ingrained propensity to push boundaries and have their passion overflow to extremes. Rather than ‘fans,’ then, maybe we should aim to be ‘supporters,’ ‘boosters’ or ‘connoisseurs’ – more mature, well-rounded and optimistic observers. Perhaps we should back our guys through feast and famine, choosing compassion over cruelty and prioritising happiness over hysteria. Perhaps we should stop yelling at people who fail in a game built on failure.
This is a delicate balancing act, of course, because being overly supportive and unflinchingly optimistic leaves sports consumers ripe for exploitation – by teams, executives and marketers seeking to capitalise on guaranteed recurring interest in products regardless of their quality. We are seeing this with the Yankees right now, as Steinbrenner and his cronies seem impervious to criticism and complacent to fan frustration. That is why fluid fandom is such an alluring concept to me. It protects the naïve fan from the cunning capitalism of a deceitful elite.
Sometimes, it just feels cathartic to switch on a ballgame of less teeth-gnashing consequence – a mellow Mariners-Athletics affair, say, or a midweek scrimmage between the Brewers and Reds. There are fanbases that seem to enjoy baseball in a more refreshing philosophical context – viewing it more as a pleasant pastime than a holy war – and it can be liberating to experience such a holistic outlook. Of course, every fanbase has a lunatic fringe, and that will never change, but there seems to be a more relaxed vibe in Cleveland, Arizona and Colorado, say, than in the baseball hotbeds of Boston, Philadelphia and New York. Some will say such nonchalance breeds losers, but maybe that is beside the point. Maybe there is more to sports than winning or losing, and having a good time is the most important concern.
The San Diego Padres are a fascinating example of this paradox. A few years ago, during a swashbuckling ascent, the Padres became everybody’s second favourite team. It was fun to watch Manny Machado and Fernando Tatís Jr. coalesce into a potent tandem. It was cool to see the return of those quirky brown and gold uniforms. It was enjoyable to watch games narrated by Don Orsillo, whose laidback joie de vivre set the tone for a likeable underdog. Then what happened? Freshly ambitious fans implored the Padres to win, things turned sour when they did not, and the zany enthusiasm has slowly dissipated from America’s finest city.
It is still fun to watch Yu Darvish, Juan Soto and Xander Bogaerts in San Diego, but heightened expectations seemingly correlate to diminished enjoyment, and the 2023 Padres have devolved into a frustrating conundrum. Their 51-54 record belies a $250 million payroll, and fans are now agitated by a lack of October baseball, despite a paucity of postseason appearances in franchise history. Jobs may soon be lost among the Padres’ aggressive brain trust, because being the league’s most charismatic ballclub will no longer suffice. Teams must win at all costs nowadays, or face the kneejerk wrath of a bloodthirsty punditariat.
All of which brings us back to the impending trade deadline, which cajoles the worst from baseball fans. I get it, to a certain extent. I have lived it for many years. We want it all, and we want it now. If our team does not plug every perceivable hole on its roster, with a view to improving down the stretch, we are livid. We write bitter blogs and post expletive-laden vlogs. We transform into armchair GMs, fretting over hypothetical moves. We live in abstract bubbles of fictionalised idealism, then fume when reality hits home.
We forget ballplayers are people, not chess pieces on a board or line items on a spreadsheet. Each player you throw into a haphazard trade rumour has a family, and commitments, and feelings. Consider a guy like Oswaldo Cabrera with the Yankees, who has been demoted thrice this season. In the abstract, that seems perfunctory – send him down if he does not perform. However, in reality, imagine the upheaval caused by each of those roster moves. Would you like to shuttle between Scranton and the Bronx on a monthly basis, your life in constant flux? Probably not. Cut these guys some slack, then. Stop and think about the real life consequences of your fantasy world projections. Think of the human before suggesting they be shot from a cannon outside the stadium.
I appreciate it is difficult – if not impossible – to watch baseball dispassionately, but you pick the emotional prism through which you consume anything. Pick a positive prism. Pick an even-keeled prism. Pick a sustainable prism. Baseball is a soap opera that provides everyday escapism. It is always there for us, but it should be a force for good in our lives, not a strain on our emotional energy.
Remember why you fell in love with baseball. Remember your favourite players as a kid, and how you worshipped them regardless of statistics that poked holes in their legacy. Remember how inconsequential baseball is in the wider scheme of human existence, and that will set you free to enjoy it in fresh and authentic ways. Let out your inner child, because that is what baseball is all about. Stop strangling the joy from this silly, innocent game, and it may just love you back.
]]>