Tiny Tim Should Show Up Big in All-Star Game; Historical All-Star Seasons of Note

Everyone has their own favorite team that they follow day in and day out, but seldom do we get to see the best against the best. Tuesday night at Busch Stadium in St. Louis we will get to do that as the 80th Major League Baseball mid-summer classic, the All-Star game, is set to be played.

Personally, I am beginning to feel, albeit totally unintentional, a little bit like those journalists who get get pinned with the tag of "east coast bias" when it comes to spreading the good word about any athlete or team west of the eastern time zone. Despite my passion for baseball and being able to sit and watch game after game on TV, it is simply too hard to follow west coast teams.  Sure, you can catch some highlights on the various sports re-cap shows. But, trying to really follow and learn about a certain player or his team by watching a handful of highlight clips is like hearing a 30-second sound bite from a politician and trying to fully understand their solution on how to fix the economy.  They are just snippets--they catch your eye or ear for a few seconds then it's on to something else.

I wish I could see more of some of the better west coast players on a regular basis, but a 3-hour time difference is brutal when if you, like me, require 7-8 hours of sleep to function effectively.

That's why I am particularly excited about the chance to see the San Francisco Giants "Tiny Tim", 25-year old right handed starting pitcher Tim Lincecum, take on the big bats of the American League.  Lincecum, who is just 5'11 (in cleats) and weighs only a buck-70, won the NL Cy Young Award last year and is well on his way to another. Tiny Tim found his groove in June as he dominated opponents by remarkably turning in three complete games, including two shutouts.  He heads to St. Louis boasting a 10-2 record and a sparkling 2.33 earned run average.  

For the season, opponents are hitting a paltry .215 off of him.  He leads the league in strikeouts with 149 in 127 innings of work. He tames opposing lineups that feature a host of multi-million dollar hitters, yet  Lincecum is a bargain, for the time-being, with his original contract paying just $650,000 this year. A Washington state native, Lincecum pitched collegiately for the UW Huskies.

There is some talk that Lincecum may have to take a backseat to Arizona's Dan Haren for the starting nod on Tuesday.  I hope not.  America deserves to see an average size guy, to whom many can relate, do extraordinary things.

THOUGHT-PROVOKING ALL-STAR YEARS IN HISTORY

Sports Illustrated did a nice piece trying to pick all-time all-star teams for both leagues and to have at least one player from every team that has ever fielded a major league team.  In doing so, they tried to select a player based on what they felt was that player's best season, and it be a year in which he was chosen for the all-star game.  I picked up a few interesting things that you, too, might enjoy.

1941 was the year that two of the most amazing feats in baseball were achieved.  Joe DiMaggio hit safely in his amazing 56-game streak, and Ted Williams finished the year with a .406 batting average--the last man to finish above the seemingly unattainable .400 mark.  How did Williams feel when Joe D. ended up getting the league's MVP award?  I don't know how you don't have co-MVPs.  1941, what a year, huh?

One of my favorite pitchers of all time was Baltimore Oriole Jim Palmer.  In 1990 he was inducted into the Hall of Fame.  Keep in mind, this was just prior to the designated hitter becoming part of the American League, but Palmer's 1975 season showed the tremendous disparity between the load that pitcher's used to bear before the pitch-count crazy, pitcher coddling era came in recently.

Palmer started 39 games (today's best may get 30-32), he completed 25 of the 39--all nine innings!  Of those 25 complete game, 10 were shutouts.  His overall record was 23-11, so two of those complete games were in a losing effort--probably one of those low-scoring 1-0, or 2-1 duals.  He yielded way less than a hit per inning (just 253 in 323 innings) and pitched to a glistening 2.09 ERA.

In 1978, "Louisiana Lightnin'", Ron Guidry of the Yankees, put up the best ERA of the DH-era in the American League.  It was tied 22 years later by Pedro Martinez, but Pedro's total innings, number of decisions, and overall numbers fell short of Guidry's overall stats.  The lefty with a wicked slider, who was also nicknamed "Gator", Guidry posted a lofty 25-3 record in 1978.  He started 35 games, completed 16, and fired 9 shutouts. His ERA was a minuscule 1.75 over 273 innings of work.  That was all done with nine legitimate hitters in the lineup, as we have come to know American league baseball for about 30 years now.

Tuesday night the 80th All-Star game will be played.  Who will we see in that game and still be talking about in another 30 years or so?

SPORTS FIGURES CAN K.I.S.S. & AVOID PARALYSIS

The Tampa Bay Rays had to beat one of baseball’s best pitchers, Toronto’s Roy Halladay, to complete a three-game sweep of the Blue Jays yesterday. Rays rookie left-hander David Price, making just his ninth start of the year, would be on the hill for TB.

The problem was Price, who showed flashes of brilliance when TB brought him up for last year’s post-season run, started this season in Triple-A to refine some pitches. To this point, anyway, Price had not really reached the same level of effectiveness that he showed the baseball world in his few post-season performances. The St. Pete Times offered the following summary of Price’s approach to his head-to-head battle with Halladay.

After watching the prized prospect pitch poorly on Saturday, Rays man­ager Joe Maddon told Price, and then pitching coach Jim Hickey, they would skip the usual planning sessions and just have him go to the mound, rear back and fire. The plan was, well, simple: Trust his instincts, don’t think too much about what he was doing.

In doing just that Price cured some of the ills that had been haunting him. He pitched six strong innings, giving up just one run on six hits, while walking only one Blue Jay. He got ahead of hitters by throwing first-pitch strikes to 18 of 25 batters. The Rays offense provided just enough and the bullpen supported him for the last three innings as they went on to close out Toronto, 3-2.

Price’s simplified approach-- less pitch-scheming versus certain hitters, throwing what he throws best and has most confidence in, and just rearing back and throwing—these elements produced great results. Coming into the game Price was pedestrian. He pitched 38 innings, gave up 35 hits and issued an unacceptable 30 walks en route to a 5.21 ERA. Following the winning outing yesterday his ERA tumbled to 4.71.

All of this brings to mind an acronym that is popular in coaching—K.I.S.S.

Keep It Simple Stupid.

Coaches and players are often guilty of thinking that more is better. In football, especially, you see coaches making the offensive or defensive call from the sideline or press box with these huge laminated cards which often carry well over 100 different calls. There’s paranoia about not having enough, killing themselves with, “what about this, or what if they do that?”—what-iffing themselves to death.

When it comes down to it, they end up using a fraction of that, especially once they sense what is actually working and what is not. We have all heard players and coaches talk about “getting back to basics”, or “we really tried to simplify things.” I can’t remember the last time someone explained the reason for winning was by being more complicated or doing more than they felt they needed to do.

No matter what sport you are in, it’s all about execution. You can only execute what you understand. There is another coaching phrase that runs along a parallel track to the KISS approach and that is, “Paralysis through Analysis.” If someone is thinking too much, they can’t possibly play or execute to the best of their ability.

As you follow your favorite athlete or team, see if they are better off with KISS, or are they trying to do too much and suffering from Paralysis through Analysis.

FOURTH OF JULY JUST PART OF HISTORICAL VIBE AT NEW YANKEE STADIUM EXPERIENCE

Photos--Top-A shot of the front of Yankee Stadium from the subway platform on the opposite track. Middle-The "Great Hall" where banners of former greats like Mantle, Howard & Rizzuto hang throughout the concourse. Bottom-The Stadium from behind home plate in the upper deck prior to pre-game festivities. 

Taking the NYC subway 4 Train up to the Bronx from Manhattan, I couldn't help but look out of the right side of the train like a grade-schooler with great anticipation as we neared the stop at 161st Street.  Literally just hundreds of feet away from the historic original site, baseball's most expensive new stadium appeared to be living up to its billing.  As I had repeatedly heard from all of the baseball pundits who have weighed in on their impressions of Yankee Stadium, the structure itself is just huge, intimidating to some degree.  If you are only building a new stadium every 85 years or so, you need to get it right, right?

As advertised, the concourses are amazingly wide, allowing for reasonably good flow of foot-traffic from one point to the next.  The stadium is as much of a museum as it is a sports venue.  When you first walk in "The Great Hall" has long, rectangular banners (see photo above) with Yankee greats adorning the walkway throughout the ground level concourse.  Of course, the Yankees recreated Monument Park behind the centerfield fence, just like it was in the original stadium, and they host tours prior to each game for thousands of fans. Yankee logos for each of the 26 World Series Championships with the respective year underneath them are painted on a large wall that serves as the back-drop for the right-center bleachers.  There is a Cooperstown-like atmosphere throughout with classic photos of old Yankees wherever you go on any of the four stadium levels. All that being said, the signature visual that confirms you are in Yankee Stadium is the uniquely famous white facade that trims the front of the roof's edge.

It being the Fourth of July, there was no better way to spend it than in the Yankees' new  home in the South Bronx and to share the excitement with about 53,000 others like myself. Not only were we celebrating the most important day in our country's history, this day also marked the 70th anniversary of Lou Gehrig's famous "luckiest man" speech as he announced his retirement from baseball due to ALS (a.k.a. Lou Gehrig's disease).  All of Major League Baseball participated in an awareness campaign over the weekend to promote research for this still incurable debilitating disease.  Being in the stadium, and seeing the entire crackly, old black & white news-reel footage of Gehrig's speech displayed on the 100' HD jumbo screen in centerfield was particularly moving.  

Prior to first pitch the sell-out crowd stood in applause as P.A. announcer Paul Olden introduced four local military veterans in attendance who had recently returned home after being injured in military activity in Iraq. The U.S. Marine band then marched in from centerfield to home plate to play our National Anthem while their brothers from the Navy presented the colors. Ever since 9/11/2001 Yankee Stadium has had some rendition of "God Bless America" played or sung during the 7th Inning Stretch. This day it was famous Irish tenor, Ronan Tynan, in-person performing his passionate version of the song that is usually a 60-year old Kate Smith recording.

Adding it all up--the Fourth of July, injured military heroes being saluted, the Marine Corps Band and Navy teaming up for the National Anthem with vocals from 53,000 amateurs, Lou Gehrig's speech, God Bless America, and a Yankee win...maybe I'm getting just a bit sappy as I get older, but it was one very historic day for a lot of different reasons.  One I probably won't forget.

CAN'T FIGHT THE FEELING 

Because I could not miss being a part of one more historic experience, I joined a couple of million others along the west side of NYC watching the ultimate fireworks display that commemorated 400 years since Henry Hudson mistakenly found his way onto this river while searching for a northern route to Asia.  Although the television broadcast of this event probably provided a wonderful visual treat, especially in HD, it couldn't effectively portray the faces of young and old, representing essentially a United Nations collection of people, that I witnessed that night.  One older man who spoke broken-English stood behind me, along with his family, with his portable radio tuned into an all-news station. The station was doing a play by play of the fireworks with some patriotic music playing behind their commentary.  Once the fireworks started, his conversation with his family stopped as he took in the pageantry 

Standing amongst a diverse mass of some million-plus people, all of whom had their own story, that were assembled to honor America in a very calm and organized manner as tons of fireworks were launched from three barges on the Hudson, was certainly a lot different than the basic backyard barbecue followed by some personal firecrackers that a family member smuggled in from out of state.