Baby, You’re a Rich Man…and I Guess a Free One Now

Posted on July 22, 2015 by rightoffthebatbook

The posthumous sequel by Bernard Malamud?

The posthumous sequel by Bernard Malamud?

Bulletin: The Department of Justice will not appeal a court ruling that clears Barry Bonds of obstruction in a probe over steroids. Such ends criminal prosecution of Major League Baseball’s career home-run leader. Thank goodness for this news on the eve of the National Baseball Hall of Fame inductions. Is this bigger than a discovery of life on Pluto? Maybe I (Evander) could sleep much better now.

Naturally, there is also the court of public-sports opinion and more: the jurors consisting of the baseball writers who sit as deciders over which Major League ballplayers are honored in Cooperstown—the fictitious Eden of the American National Pastime. (Is the whole thing just a shell game?)

Randy Johnson is ready for his closeup in about ten days. So are Pedro Martinez (with little question one of the rarefied truly greats, as there is even a pecking order, in my view, within the Hall community), John Smoltz, and Craig Biggio.

In the meantime, all-time hits’ king Pete Rose finds himself crankily on Fox as “an opiner” as well as in ever-deeper doodoo amid fresh allegations that he bet on (or against?) his own team. (This blog has already covered organized crime and gambling, especially prevalent amid Pakistani cricket.)

But the leading steroid-suspects (none of these ever tested positive you realize)—Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, of course Bonds himself for starters—all must pay their way into the Hall for another year if not forever.

Yet another category of player exists, the one around which innuendo drapes like a cheap suit. This includes, above all, Mike Piazza. There are no specific allegations with respect to Piazza mind you. But he was just so good and so strong that he must wait: he surely was on the Juice it is rumored, tho The Big Hurt (Frank Thomas, who works the airwaves with Rose), even larger, even stronger, never much of a fielder and in short something of a one-dimensional force, was eagerly and speedily elected in 2014, maybe as much for his tirades against PED as for his (considerable) batting stats.

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England Subside Again . . . and Again

Posted on July 20, 2015 by rightoffthebatbook

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when England win a Test match against opposition against whom they are “meant” to have lost, there will be much talk of “new beginnings” and “resurgence.” What is less universally acknowledged is that, a few days later, England will invariably show up to the next Test match against the same opposition and lose spectacularly. At that point, there will be much talk of “same old, same old” and “crisis.” England won in Cardiff and lost spectacularly at Lord’s. The did the same against the New Zealanders earlier this season; against the West Indies over the winter; against the Australians in England in 2009 . . . and so on, and so on.

Winning in sport is more than just about beating the other team; it’s about believing that you will beat the other team. Too often, against Australia especially, England seems to think themselves lucky rather than better, and the victory a deeply satisfying fluke rather than the natural order of things. The Australians, on the other hand, expect to win every game. When they lose it’s a disaster because the natural order of things has been inverted. The result is a redoubled effort the next time to ensure that normal programming is resumed as quickly as possible.

The question that now faces England as they prepare for the third Test match at Edgbaston is whether they actually believe they can beat the Australians. They’ve done it before, but they have to own that victory, in the same way that they have to dismiss the recent defeat as a fact of sport and not a revelation of the relative strengths of both sides. The danger is that, so great is the defeat, the Australians have gotten into the England team’s heads. In which case, sports fans, the contest is over.

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Fun and Games at the IPL

Posted on July 15, 2015 by rightoffthebatbook
IPL Fireworks

It’s all cricket!

The news that the owners of two Indian Premier League franchises—the Chennai Super Kings and the Rajasthan Royals—have been suspended for two years for betting has been greeted in my (Martin’s) neighborhood in Brooklyn with a shrug and a yawn. I’m blessed to encounter many cricket fans of South Asian descent in the daily course of living here, and to a man—and it’s still only men at the moment—every one of them thinks the IPL is fixed, has always been fixed, and will always be about fleecing ordinary Indians. Such cynicism will only be affirmed by this latest ruling, one in a string of setbacks for a competition that has provided a huge amount of entertainment for cricket enthusiasts of all sorts—as well as some national pride for India in hosting a tournament that seemingly every player anywhere in the world itches to be part of. Of course, as Evander and I note in our book, Right Off the Bat, which is the fons et origo of this website, corruption and, specifically, gambling have been part and parcel of cricket and baseball since their beginnings. (Indeed, organized crime almost tore professional baseball apart in 1919.) Those who, in either game, like to talk of honor and character, fair play and high principle, sometimes forget that shady brokers and unreconstructed racists, beer-swilling drunks and snoring boors, and injections of armfuls of cash and arms full of other substances are also a part of the games, if not necessarily the fun, of cricket and baseball. Ironically, I missed all the hoopla of the IPL this year, having been so entranced by the ostensibly purer pleasures of this year’s World Cup ODI that the IPL seemed what it always is: excessive. Next year, of course, the IPL (replete with promises that this year corruption will finally have no part in the proceedings) will have the gaudy, fireworks-displayed stage to itself, and we can revel in its tawdry, magnificent glory once again.

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The Big Mo

Posted on July 15, 2015 by rightoffthebatbook
Moeen Ali (left) and Hashim Amla. Bearded wonders.

Moeen Ali (left) and Hashim Amla. Bearded wonders

In 2012, British distance-runner Mo Farah captured not only the 5000- and 10,000-meter gold medals in the London Olympics but the hearts and minds of the British public. His excellence, exuberance, and unabashed commitment to the country to which members of his family had emigrated when he was a boy of ten meant that the usual depressing questions that attend sportsmen and -women who come from “different” ethnic or national backgrounds were muted. (Farah’s long-time coach, Alberto Salazar, has recently been accused of doping his athletes; Farah denies it.)

Now, the land that formalized track and field has another Mo to crow over, this time in another game of its own invention: cricket. The position in the English national side of Moeen Ali, the all-rounder who last year sensationally spun England to victory against India, had (inexplicably, for this blog) been in doubt before the start of the Ashes series between England and Australia. He didn’t spin the ball enough, was one complaint; he wasn’t effective enough with the bat was another. Now, after England’s victory in the first game of the series, where he scored 92 runs and took five wickets, it would seem absurd to leave him out. Coming in at number eight in the batting order, Ali (who normally bats at three for his home side) may find it a challenge accompanying tail-enders, which may in turn limit just how many runs he can score. But he’s an asset at any stage of the order.

What had escaped my (Martin’s) attention was that for the entirety of the match, the admirable Ali was fasting, since it is Ramadan. Now cricket may not require as much concentrated energy as middle- or long-distance running, but to perform at the highest level with only the residue of a pre-dawn breakfast or the promise of a post-sunset meal to keep you going still takes discipline and stamina, and is no mean feat. One would assume that there would be dispensations for this sort of thing. But, like Mo Farah, who bows in prayer at the end of a race, Ali is a devout Muslim, who prays five times a day. Like South African Hashim Amla, he wears a long beard and doesn’t drink alcohol, and has an unflappability about him that may (or may not) be a function of his faith, but certainly makes him a man for a crisis. It’s a testament to his character, and (one might hope) the greater tolerance and awareness of difference in sports in the U.K. and elsewhere, that Ali is as much a man of the moment and a representation of Britishness at its best as Farah was in 2012. Long may it continue.

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The Broad Identity

Posted on July 12, 2015 by rightoffthebatbook
Stuart Broad

Stuart Broad: Point proven

Among the plaudits being offered following the England cricket team’s trouncing of Australia in the first Test match of the Ashes series, one man, in the humble opinion of this blog, is not getting his due. We agree that it is good news that Ian Bell and Gary Ballance have finally found some form with the bat. Alastair Cook had a tremendous game as captain, showing daring and imagination where before he had demonstrated only caution and rote-thinking. Joe Root, we concur, is surely among the best batsmen in the world; Mooen Ali surely is a match-winner with ball and bat; Mark Wood is a find; Ben Stokes continues to impress; and Jimmy Anderson remains the best swing bowler on the planet.

Yet Anderson’s long-time bowling partner Stuart Broad—whose penetrating and accurate spells of fast bowling did so much to set up the defeat of Australia—gets little acknowledgment. In fact, all Broad did was silence (temporarily) those critics who think he should be dropped, and give more ammunition to those who believe he should be pushed down the batting order, and Mark Wood replace him at number nine.

Yet Broad—whose batting, it is true, has fallen away dramatically since he was hit in the mouth by a cricket ball—is closing in on 300 wickets, and his average continues to improve as he ages. His speed is back up, his control is excellent, and he clearly intimidates the hell out of Australian captain Michael Clarke. The success of the ODI England team sans Broad and Anderson should mean that a properly rested and fully fit Broad gets a longer time in Test cricket, which, given that he is still only twenty-eight years old, should mean that he will match Anderson as the greatest wicket-taker England have had. Not bad for a problem player!

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Bully for Brendon

Posted on July 12, 2015 by rightoffthebatbook
Brendon McCullum

Brendon McCullum

I (Martin) write this blog a day after England have beaten Australia in the first game of the 2015 Ashes competition. A few months ago, the sentence “England have beaten Australia in the first game of the 2015 Ashes competition,” although (almost) grammatically correct would have been considered fantastical by pundit, player, and prognosticator of any persuasion. England were bounced unceremoniously out of the World Cup by Bangladesh and were unconvincing against the West Indies in tying the Test series 1–1. Australia would eat England for breakfast.

Then to England came New Zealand, under the devil-may-care leadership of Brendon McCullum, to play a tw0-match Test series and five ODIs. And everything changed. England began to play an aggressive, forward-thinking brand of cricket: their players took risks and stopped fearing failure; they didn’t retreat into their shells under pressure but counterpunched; most importantly, they seemed to learn to enjoy cricket again. The result of their efforts was a deservedly tied Test series and a thrilling 3–2 ODI victory for England. Most significantly, England fans fell in love with their team again, and the country discovered that cricket could be fun, watchable, and exciting.

There are many reasons for this success: no doubt, the purging of the toxic atmosphere surrounding Kevin Pietersen from the dressing room helped; the maturation of young bloods like Joe Root, Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes, and others—reared on T20 cricket—gave much-needed impetus to the side; the bringing on of a new coach, assistant coach, and manager drew a line under the failures of the previous 18 months. But the role of New Zealand, and particularly their ebullient captain, should not be ignored.

McCullum is the kind of no-holds-barred, swashbuckling character that cricket, let alone England, needs. Just as the arrival of Theodore Roosevelt in the White House completely changed the character of the presidency after forty years of mediocrities as the head of state, McCullum has decided that the best way to lead his men against opponents with more financial resources and a bigger pool of personnel to draw upon than his own team, is to charge ahead and consequences be damned. He’s not interested in percentage cricket or in laying siege to an opponent until they wave the flag of surrender. McCullum seems to be utterly uninterested in stats, mind games, and vilifying the opposition. Remarkably, his aggression is purely tactical: unconventional fields, scoring rapidly, trying to take wickets with every ball. More often than not—judging by the success New Zealand have had since he became captain—this approach pays off; sometimes it doesn’t. But, even in defeat, McCullum and the Kiwis have won fans and plaudits for simply making cricket enjoyable again—and showing that you can actually be successful in the modern game without being obnoxious jerks or rigid, joyless tight-asses. So, bully for you, Brendon: everyone who loves cricket owes you a pint.

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Not Cricket: “Bat Form”

Posted on June 17, 2015 by rightoffthebatbook
Proponent-of-Moneyball Luthnow—victimized by success?

Proponent-of-Moneyball Luhnow—victimized by success?

Front-office personnel of the venerable St. Louis Cardinals franchise have plenty of explaining to do as the FBI investigates their hacking of the Houston Astros’s databases.

Besides the Times, Reuters has now weighed in to let the rest of the world know: Man, it just ain’t cricket!

Bluntly put, the incident and/or series of incidents likely involve envious retribution over the recent success of exec Jeff Luhnow, who moved from the Cardinals’s front office to the post of Astros’s GM.

The Cardinals, smack in the beer capital of America, are, as stated, one of the elite teams in MLB. The Astros have never had much collective success either in the National or American Leagues—the latter to which the franchise moved in 2013, aetat. 51, an unusual if not unprecedented transition, which Luhnow oversaw.

Move over China and other national-and-business entities better known for hacking datum networks. “Meet me in Houston, Houston?” Yes… “St. Louie, we have a problem.”

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Test Match Special—Voices of Summer

Posted on June 11, 2015 by rightoffthebatbook

In the last ten years of my life, I (Parth) have been introduced to BBC Test Match Special. The month of May is the dawn of every English summer season. That means the voices of summer will describe the moments of my summer once again throughout the summer. Like any time-honored tradition, the start of the English summer has become one to look forward to in any calendar year. And I do. These voices, by calling the games, have become a the soundtrack of my summer. I look forward to them every year like a 5-year-old does to Christmas.

I am not English, but during the summer season, simply by osmosis of TMS, I become an English cricket fan. By following TMS, I get to revel in the rich history of the sport I love, in a country that has had most of it. It is perhaps the best time of the year. And, let’s be honest, the English know how to celebrate the game, in its truest sense. I am not English; but these cultural and sporting institutions make me yearn to be one!

And, the fact is, who is not in love with Henry Blofeld?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01snrcx#auto (Do listen to the BBC program called the Voices of Summer).  (Available only for 28 days from today).

TMS

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Baseball in Iran

Posted on June 6, 2015 by rightoffthebatbook
Sports-crazed Iranians take up baseball in significant numbers.

Sports-crazed Iranians take up baseball in significant numbers.

A chance reading of The New Yorker gave pause when I (Evander) noted the growing popularity of baseball in Iran. Baseball has been an organized activity there since 1993.

Reporter Jason Rezaian, a dual citizen of Iran working for the Washington Post, is jailed (as is his wife, Yeganeh Salehi) and now being tried in an Iranian court—tho not for his coverage of baseball. In fact, he writes that love of the game has suffered due to Western economic sanctions (“gloves for lefthanders are scarce”).

The Baseball and Softball Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Persian: انجمن بیس بال و سافت بال جمهوری اسلامی ایران‎) is the governing body for baseball and softball over there. It was founded in 1993 (as noted) as a baseball, softball, cricket, and rugby union federation, splitting from the rugby-and-cricket association in 2010.

Yu Darvish is half-Iranian.

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Heee’s Baaack!

Posted on May 11, 2015 by rightoffthebatbook
Kevin Pietersen

We need to talk about Kevin

Kevin Pietersen—the perennial thorn in the flesh in English cricket, the man whom everyone thought we’d moved on from, the busted flush, the bloke from a bygone era, the no-longer-under-consideration-under-any-circumstances chap—refuses, like Freddy Krueger, to go away. He’s just scored 326 not out for Surrey against Leicestershire. It may be his first championship century, and he may be playing in the cricketing equivalent to Triple-A baseball, but this is the sort of statement that no one at the English Cricket Board—even with the tinniest of ears or sternest of hearts—can ignore.

We can sort out where he’d fit in the batting order and whom to leave out, but a revived, emotionally resilient, and pugnacious Kevin Pietersen striding out to face the Australians in the Ashes this summer would be just be irresistible, and great box office as well. English cricket has been languishing in the public’s attention for too long: Pietersen’s return—a last hurrah perhaps—might just be what is needed to focus the mind again.

Posted in Australia, Cricket, England | Tagged , | 1 Comment