Baseball Hall of Fame

This shouldn’t be Mark McGuire’s ballot to not shine. As an A’s fan, even I have to say that he doesn’t deserve to get into the Hall of Fame (HOF) – not on the first ballot, not on any ballot. In a Cooperstown class that has seen Cal Ripken, Jr. and Tony Gwynn get some of the highest vote percentages in HOF history, the word will be all about how little Mark McGuire got.

Ripken received 98.53% (537 of 545 ballots cast), well more than the 75% needed to get into the Hall. He fell just short of the record of 98.83% set by Tom Seaver. Gwynn came close to that record, too with 97.6%. But despite these two great players who did so much for the game, the big story has been McGuire. By receiving just 23.5% of the vote, all of the polls were proved correct, and the former Bash Brother was denied a spot in the hall. The other half of that forearm-slapping duo, Jose Canseco, received just 1.1%.

In an effort not to be a part of the problem, I’ll talk about the great careers that Ripken and Gwynn had, and not the 2007 non-election of Big Mac.

Gwynn and Ripken were always the “good-guys” of baseball, and it’s hard to find somebody who thinks they were a bad influence on the game. There is no controversy with Tony and Cal, only fond memories of a time when steroids were (if not gone) than out of the picture.

Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games played record, and by the time he was done had started in 2,632 games without a day off. Though this is his most famous record, he also has over 400 home runs, owns the record for being the oldest man to hit a homer in the All-Star Game (although the pitcher was basically having batting practice with Cal) and is a member of the prestigious 3,000 hit club. He joins six other former Baltimore Orioles players who were also elected on their first ballot.

Tony Gwynn is also a 3,000 hit club member, but is most famous for a “what could have been” moment. In 1994, Gwynn was on pace to become the first player since the great Ted Williams to hit .400 for a season, until the year was cut short by the famous ’94 strike. He currently coaches at his alma mater, San Diego State.   

So congrats to Tony and Cal, they were the guys who remind us of what used to be great about baseball. Their era was ignorant –  if not clean – of performance enhancing drugs, and they were the last of a generation of great players from before the steroid era of today. Hopefully, McGuire and Canseco won’t be such a big story next year, and with any luck, the 2008 class will have guys as good as Ripken and Gwynn.

An “Off” Off-Season for the A’s

As the MLB season quickly approaches, I look back on the A’s past off-season with dismay. It has been a bad off-season for the A’s, to say the least. First came Frank Thomas hopping the border into Canada to play for the Blue Jays. Next was Ron Washington – the beloved third base coach – leaving for a coaching job in Texas. After that, the A’s made it official that they were moving to Fremont in 2007. Then, later in December, Barry Zito announced he would play not for the cross-country New York Mets as many had hoped and expected, but rather for the cross-bay Giants.

After all of these letdowns, bad moves, and horrible news that have come from this off-season, after A’s fans lost their favorite coach, their new favorite players and their team, as the player who used to embody the A’s persona – Zito – leaves for our rival. Not only did he leave our team for a rival, he left for the largest contract ever given to a pitcher – $126
million over seven years.

Really, everything has gone downhill for the A’s since they won the ALDS over Minnesota. Since the A’s completed their sweep of the Twins, ending years of first-round frustration, absolutely nothing has gone right. Oakland was swept by Detroit in the ALCS, and then this miserable off-season began. We all felt great when the A’s finished the ALDS. We had finally made it into the second round; we were riding a wave of momentum; we were just destined to make it into the World Series, if not win it; and once we won the Series, all of our free agents were just gonna’ stay here and play another year. That’s what we thought – for lack of a better word, sigh.

But the thing is, we’ve been here before as A’s fans. In 2001, Oakland lost slugger (and cheater/sellout) Jason Giambi. During the 2004-2005 winter, we lost two of our best pitchers – Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson – in early and (in my mind) unnecessary trades; and back in 2003, we lost Miguel Tejada and Keith Foulke to free agency. But in all of the years after those disasters, the A’s have fought hard for a playoff spot or gone to the ALDS.

So maybe it won’t be so bad this year – perhaps Mike Piazza (a new A’s acquisition) will burst out and fill the role of power hitter vacated by Frank Thomas. Maybe there’s some new prospect down in Triple-A (there always is with this team) that will take Zito’s place as the wacky guy and fantastic pitcher. And maybe some Fremont zoning board will say that Lewis Wolfe can’t build his new stadium park and condo village anywhere but the city of Oakland.

We can only hope that this year, the A’s will bounce back like they have in those years past, and ask for a miracle to keep the Oakland A’s in Oakland.

The Future of the U.S. Soccer?

David Beckham, probably the most famous athlete in the world, will be coming to the United States. Rumored for months, the Los Angeles Galaxy made it official Thursday, signing Beckham to a 5 year, $250 million contract. That’s right – 5 years, $250 million. That means $50 million per year, $960,000 a week, $137,000 each day, and $95.40 PER SECOND. The deal is rumored (to no one’s surprise) to be the largest agreement in sports history, and for that money, they’ll expect results.

Soccer, to state the obvious, is not very popular in the US. Back in 1970, Pele (arguably the greatest soccer player ever) came to play for a club in the now-defunct North American Soccer League, and failed to make much of an impact. The Galaxy (and Beckham) is hoping to avoid a repeat of that episode, and will look to Beckham to improve the image of the sport in the US.

I’ll say this much – I’m a part of the problem. I don’t care much for the MLS, and the only soccer I watch is the World Cup. There’s a simple reason for this – passion. At the World Cup, each player is truly on the world’s stage, with the dreams of a nation on their shoulders. There, 100,000 people watch a game live, while millions watch on TV, all of them contributing their small part to make up the intense drama, glory, and fervor that is the World Cup.

There is none of that in the MLS. Through all of the attempts by soccer fans and teams over the years, soccer has never caught on in the US. No matter what major attraction there has been – from Pele in the ‘70’s to Freddy Adu, a teenage soccer superstar, just a couple years ago – soccer stadiums have remained unfilled. For me, the biggest draw of soccer has always been that raw passion, the idea that a game can mean so much to hundreds of thousands of people. Yes, sports (like college football) bring that passion, but not on the global scale of soccer.

So – the $1 million question – will David Beckham draw soccer fans like me? It’s sad to say that I don’t think so. At best, the MLS will become like the NHL – a curiosity among Americans. A sport that gets on SportSCenter; a sport where we’ll know who won the championship, but not pay attention to each game. Soccer today is hardly on the radar in America, and I don’t think one superstar can bring the intensity of soccer to the US. To make soccer as popular here as it is in the rest of the world is impossible, but to make it a minor sport, it’ll take an invasion of soccer superstars, and that probably won’t happen.

So the future is still bleak for soccer in America. Who knows – maybe it’ll catch on, maybe soccer here will be like soccer in Europe, and maybe the MLS will become the Premiership. I hope it does, because soccer really is a “beautiful game.” The grace and simplicity of it makes it one of the best sports to watch, and the passion and emotion of international soccer makes for quite possibly the best sports atmosphere anywhere.

I certainly hope that Beckham and the LA Galaxy prove me wrong, and I really want soccer to catch on and become something people care about here. Otherwise, we’ll look back on this deal as a waste of money, time, and talent.