Swinging At The Future; Whiffing At The Past
Two books to address today, one brand new, one kinda.
BASEBALL PROSPECTUS 2010
Edited by Steven Goldman and Christina Kahrl
John Wiley, $25.95
Two caveats: the publisher is putting out my next book, and this really isn’t a review, because by now if you’re a baseball fan and you don’t know what BP is, you’re working in a mine without one of those helmets with the lights on it.
This is more about the headlines from the annual phone-book-sized tub of prophecies these figure filberts put out, than it is any kind of assessment of the publication as a hole, because we don’t really know how good each year’s edition is until after the season is over. But for once, there shouldn’t be much argument about what is the Statistical Reduction crowd’s biggest forecast for the season ahead: The collapse of Derek Jeter.
OK, “collapse” is a little strong. The actuarial tables of the game again prompt the editors to call Jeter’s team “still the class of MLB,” but they pummel the Captain personally. He finished 2009 at 18-66-.334-.406-.465 with 107 runs and 30 steals. BP sees 2010 as 11-58-.286-.359-.401 with 67 runs and 10 steals.
As I understand the formulas with which the BP numbers are calculated, there is room for a dollop of common sense and/or extenuating circumstances. But mostly the stats-to-come are generated, in Jeter’s case, by comparing him to what happened to every 14-year veteran going into his 15th season, and what happened to every 35-year-old shortstop as he turned 36, and employing every other demographic comparison in baseball history. And the loss of 48 points of batting average and 40 runs and 64 points of slugging percentage, is the evident result.
It actually gets worse. The one BP number that gives you the best overall sense of a player’s total worth to his team is VORP (Value Over Replacement Player). In short, it measures in net runs (how many more do you score, how many fewer does the other team score) what were to happen if the player in question was suddenly reduced by the average bench guy. Last year, Derek Jeter’s VORP was 71.2 (Albert Pujols’ was 100.1), meaning if he had quit on Opening Day 2009 to be replaced full-time by Ramiro Pena, the number of fewer runs the Yankees would’ve scored, plus the number of more runs they would have allowed, would’ve been 71.
Jeter’s predicted 2010 VORP is just 20 – a loss of 51.2 when nobody else in the majors is predicted to lose more than 37.2 (and that’s Joe Mauer, by the way. The BP folks readily admit that their formulae tend to punish spectacular seasons). Merging the topics of catching and the Yankees, BP sees Jorge Posada dropping from 22-81-.285-.522 to 12-49-.263-.445 (and losing 21 VORP points in the process).
If BP is right, there are similar harrowing declines ahead for Ryan Howard (to hit .249 this year), and Michael Young (.297), and Kevin Youkilis (22-86-.283), and David Aardsma (15 saves). On the other hand, it sees Nick Johnson emerging to lead the AL in On Base Pecentage, Kelly Johnson to rebound in Arizona, Jeremy Hermida to blossom in Boston, and Geovany Soto to comeback in Chicago. Certainly two of the stranger computer-generated forecasts: Chris Davis with 33 homers, and your 2010 Major League Saves leader: Joakim Soria with 43 in Kansas City.
There’s also something in here about Rickie Weeks blossoming, but I think that may have been accidentally left over from the 2009 edition. Or the 2008. Or the 2007. Or the 2006…
THE FIRST FALL CLASSIC
THE RED SOX, THE GIANTS, AND THE CAST OF PLAYERS, PUGS, AND POLITICOS WHO REINVENTED THE WORLD SERIES IN 1912
By Mike Vaccaro
Doubleday, $26.95
More than 30 years ago I made an enemy for life of a baseball writer named Maury Allen. I panned his biography of Casey Stengel because I felt he had forfeited the credibility of the book’s essence – exclusive, heretofore unpublished anecdotes and quotes – because he had made so many simple historical mistakes. Allen had the Polo Grounds in which Stengel played and managed off-and-on for 50 years overlooking the Hudson River, when it in fact overlooked the Harlem River, a no-brainer mistake that nobody who had lived in New York for more than three weeks would make.
My point was not that it was fatal to make a few dozen such flubs, but that if I as the presumably less-expert reader could spot such obvious mistakes, how many more of them were in there that I wasn’t smart enough to catch? And why would I trust the accuracy of the quotes and the stories as offered by a writer who couldn’t keep his basic geography straight? If you could switch the Hudson for the Harlem, you could – I don’t know – switch Hugh Casey for Casey Stengel.
Sadly, this dynamic is reproduced in Vaccaro’s book about the epic eight-game World Series of 1912 between the Giants and Red Sox. The Series – and the topic – had everything: a dubious tie game, the first year of Fenway Park, Christy Mathewson, John McGraw, President John F. Kennedy’s grandfather, and the year Smoky Joe Wood won 37 of the 120 games (regular season and World Series) he would win in his lifetime.
For an obsessive historian with a gift for composition, like my friend Josh Prager of The Echoing Green fame, the 1912 Series would basically sing itself and he would write down the notes as quickly as he could. I truly hoped this book would be like this (I went out and bought it retail – the ultimate sign of respect by somebody in the same business) and given the volume of startling stories and the in-the-clubhouse quotes from men dead half a century and more, Mike Vaccaro certainly seems to have tried to make it like that.
But I can’t trust him. The book is riddled with historical mistakes, most of them seemingly trivial, some of them hilarious. One of them is particularly embarrassing. Vaccaro writes of the Giants’ second year in their gigantic stadium, the Polo Grounds:
…to left field, the official measurement was 277 feet, but the second deck extended about twenty feet over the lower grandstand, meaning if you could get a little air under the ball you could get yourself a tidy 250-foot home run…
Unfortunately this wasn’t true until 1923. Any photograph of the 1912 World Series showing left field, indeed any photo of the new Polo Grounds in its first twelve years of use, clearly
shows that the second deck ends thirty or forty feet to the left of the foul pole, and the seats in fair territory are the bleachers.
There are, in fact, actually at least two photos showing Joe Wood, with the Red Sox in the Polo Grounds, which show, in the background behind him, either the left field foul line leading directly to the bleachers, not a double deck, or, the left field foul pole standing like a lone tree with no “extended” deck even close to it.
One of him, warming up, is included in Vaccaro’s book, right after page 146.
That’s it, on the right. The white stripe next to
his glove, is the left field foul line.
his glove, is the left field foul line.
The other photograph – the background largely washed out but with the undecked left field corner still vaguely visible – shows him shaking hands with the Giants’ Jeff Tesreau, and it was chosen for publication on the cover of Vaccaro’s book, below.
Sigh.
The most often-repeated of the mess-ups, and thus both the most annoying and the most damaging, is Vaccaro’s insistence about Boston Mayor John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, arch Sox fan and grandfather of the future president, around whom Vaccaro tries to develop a political thread to the book and who gets nearly as much attention from him as Tris Speaker or Mathewson. Four times in the book, Vaccaro notes that Fitzgerald liked to sing, or was singing, or was about to sing, his theme song “Sweet Adelaide.” There may have been such a song, but it wasn’t a favorite of Honey Fitz (or presumably of anybody else). The Mayor, as any political historian, or adult over 65, or anyone who’s ever encountered a Barbershop Quartet, or any Marx Brothers buff, could tell you, sang “Sweet Adeline,” an incredibly popular song published in 1903 that Groucho and company later performed in “Monkey Business.”
Of the remaining twenty or so that I caught, most have clearer connections to the sport itself. Hall of Famer Eppa Rixey becomes Rixley, 1912 Red Sox infielder Steve Yerkes becomes Sam, Redland Field in Cincinnati becomes “brand-new Crosley Field” (it wasn’t renamed Crosley Field until 1934 and the radio baron who did it was still a 20-something developing automobiles in Muncie, Indiana, when Redland Field was brand-new in 1912).
There is a lot of historical tone-deafness – particularly distressing considering Mr. Vaccaro often covers the Yankees. He recounts a conversation among McGraw and New York sportswriters about the Giants taking in the American League New York Highlanders as tenants at the Polo Grounds for the 1913 season. Vaccaro quotes the famed Damon Runyon telling McGraw that his paper’s headline writers have a new name intended for the team: The Yankees. McGraw is quoted as wondering if it will catch on in 1913. Even if the mistake originates elsewhere, it should’ve rung untrue to Vaccaro: The name “Yankees” had been used on the baseball cards as early
as 1911, and on a team picture issued by one of the New York papers in 1907. If McGraw and Runyon hadn’t heard the name “Yankees” by the time of the 1912 World Series, they’d both had undiagnosed hearing problems for five years.
Vaccaro also has a lot of trouble with geography. He indicates that Giants’ owner John Brush had a mansion in “upstate Pelham Manor” even though the town is essentially parallel to 241st Street in Northern Manhattan. He mocks the nickname “Swede” for Danish-born Boston outfielder Olaf Henriksen as an indication that baseball didn’t worry about geography in assigning monickers. But until 1905 Denmark was part of a union with Norway, and as late as the early 1800’s, those two countries were trying to reestablish a medieval tripartite union with Sweden. For all we know, Henriksen might have considered himself Swedish.
There are also mistakes so convoluted as to be baffling. Vaccaro writes of the fabulous game-saving catch by the Giants’ Josh Devore in Game Three:
“I took it over my left shoulder and with my bare hand although I clapped my glove on it right away and hung on like a bulldog in a tramp,” Evans would soon tell the mountain of reporters…
Evans? The catch was by Josh Devore. Evans – Billy Evans – was the umpire who confirmed the out. Later, there is the inexplicable observation that during the tense eighth game, so much of Manhattan was at the then-popular newspaper scoreboards that “Schoolrooms were scarce.” While this was doubtless as true in the New York of 1912 as it is in the city of 2010, it wouldn’t seem to have anything to do with baseball. Students in schoolrooms, yes. The rooms themselves?
The mistakes – and there are probably a dozen more – matter only in this context. When I read Vaccaro’s account of a supposed conversation, after the Red Sox took a 3-1 lead in games, between Boston’s owner and manager that clearly implies that the owner ordered the manager to hold back his ace pitcher in hopes Boston might lose the next game and thus gain the income from one more game in Fenway, I’m not inclined to take Vaccaro’s word for it. Because, lastly and most damningly, this may be how he researched the book. Years after retirement, Boston’s Hall of Fame centerfielder Tris Speaker went back to the minors as an executive. Vaccaro writes he would:
…become a part owner of the American Association, a top Triple-A-level minor league…”
In fact, Speaker would become a part owner not of the league, but of one of the teams in the league, the Kansas City Blues.
You know where else this mistake turns up?
Post professional career
In 1929 Speaker replaced Walter Johnson as the manager of the Newark Bears of the International League, a post he held for two years. He became a part owner of the American Association. The announcement of Speaker’s election to the Baseball Hall of Fame was made in January, 1937.
Yep. Tris Speaker’s Wikipedia page.
How sad.
Baseball Nerd 
THANK YOU FOR YOUR DILIGENCE AND INSIGHTS. SLOVENLY WORK IS UNACCEPTABLE IN EVERY CASE. YOU ARE RIGHT…IF THE RESEARCH IS LAUGHABLY INACCURATE IN ONE INSTANCE, HOW WELL DONE CAN THE REST OF THE BOOK REALLY BE. A STRONG BUILDING DEPENDS ON A STRONG FOUNDATION. HISTORY, OF ANY SORT, MUST BE RESEARCHED AND DOCUMENTED FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES TO MAINTAIN INTEGRITY.
Amazing. I can understand a few errors, and sometimes people will give up a little bit of accuracy in order to make a story more interesting, but this just sounds like sloppy work. Truly sad. And if he had given up some accuracy in order to juice up the story a little, that should have been noted at the beginning. Besides, doing that would shift it into the realm of fiction, wouldn’t it? I’ve seen authors recreate conversations to the best of their abilities based on what’s available, but then they generally tell you right up front what they’re doing. Aside from that, getting so many things wrong doesn’t sound like invention for the sake of the story – it sounds like someone just didn’t bother to check his facts. Didn’t know you had a new book coming out… looking forward to it! Hope your dad is still improving… hugs to both of you. 🙂 By the way, your niece sounds absolutely adorable. Loved the bit about her and the hugs on your show the other night.
Keith, if I had seen “The Fall Classic” in a bookstore, I would have bought it immediately, so thank you for the heads up. I too become very impatient with books that are full of misinformation. On any subject. It really saddens me that this particular book has so many holes in it, because it is the players from that era who I love reading about the most. And a book about the 1912 World Series would have been a real gem for me, or for any baseball fan for that matter. I guess the story about Honey Fitz is about all I need to know about this book. Unfortunately.
But all is not lost. While reading your article I decided to look up Josh Prager’s book – The Echoing Green – and have added it to my list of spring training baseball must read books for this year. It looks fascinating!
Nellie King’s Happiness Is Like A Cur Dog – a book you recommended here, is another one I’m going to read this spring. A co-worker of mine grew up in Pittsburgh and he and his father used to go to Pirates games all the time when he was a kid. Willie Stargell was his hero. He gave this book to his dad for Christmas and he loved it.
You know, sometimes when I come here, I feel like I’ve just walked through a museum. lol It’s terrific reading. Now I’ll go and hunt for one more baseball book. One of my favorite things to do as another cold winter begins to wind down.
Thanks so much for the recommendations.
?People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.? Rogers Hornsby
I love how meticulous you are about your research. It sounds like some of this stuff could have been cleared up by a more vigilant editor.
I am interested in baseball, but am by no stretch of the imagination an expert. I am a historian, however, and the fact that less informed people (like ME) would know no better than to take those mistakes as fact is incessantly distressing. You’re doing a good thing here.
As for wikipedia: you get what you pay for!
Just found my third spring training read –
Ty and The Babe: Baseball’s Fiercest Rivals: A Surprising Friendship and the 1941 Has-Beens Golf Championship
http://www.amazon.com/Babe-Baseballs-Surprising-Friendship-Championship/dp/0312382243/ref=sr_1_96?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266809406&sr=1-96
Babe Ruth & Ty Cobb. Perfect. Absolutely perfect.
As many mistakes as Vaccaro made, perhaps I can set your mind at ease, that at least one of his assertations might be correct. I have some interest in Scandinavian history and culture, since I speak Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian. Prepare to faint from the shock (LOL), but I think Vaccaro could very well be correct in saying that Olaf Henriksen is not a Swede. Where Scandinavian surnames are concerned, “-sen” can be Danish or Norwegian. Icelandic names end in either “-son” or “-dottir”, depending on the person’s gender. A Swedish name would end in “-sson”. Since the surname is “Henriksen” instead of “Henriksson”, it’s definitely not Swedish in origin. 🙂
Also, Olaf was born in Denmark; though linguistic “borders” between Danish and Norwegian were blurred at that time, people nevertheless had strong ties to their regions. Swedish and Danish speakers can understand each other, but the vocabulary and pronunciation are quite different, and they don’t even share the same alphabet–that’s how sharp the cultural line has been, between Swedes and Danes, despite the political juggling that went on in Scandinavia. So, being that Olaf was born in Denmark and had a Danish surname, he was definitely Danish. He was born on the west part of the island of Sjælland, so perhaps his mother was of Swedish origin, but even at that, he’d only be “halv-svensk” (half Swedish), which might explain why he’d tolerate the nickname “Swede”. I emphasize that, since we don’t know his mother’s name or origins, that’s pure conjecture on my part; chances are, she was Danish, too.
In spite of the number of other errors Vaccaro made, he is likely right about this one (one?!?) fact. But then, even a broken clock is right twice a day, LOL!
Regarding your next book, am I correct in assuming that it’s about baseball? Whether it’s about baseball or politics, I’ll be looking forward to it. If you’ll be doing TV promotion for it, don’t worry about whether Jon Stewart invites you on his show…Stephen Colbert is funnier, anyway. 😉
Speaking of people who need to grow up and get on with their lives (geez, Stewart, holding a grudge over canceling ONE appearance–like he’s never had to cancel anything for any reason?), Maury Allen needs a surgical ego reduction. Maybe if he’d consulted someone with your eye for detail BEFORE submitting his manuscript, his book might have been more factually accurate. When I wrote my first major article, I literally consulted people from all over the world, begging them to help me make sure my facts were correct. Even at that, I managed to flub a big, obvious one. But I certainly didn’t get angry at the readers who pointed it out to me. I was angry at myself, just as Maury Allen should have been angry at himself, not you. I guess it’s a matter of what a writer considers more important: facts or ego.
BTW, any chance you could correct that error on the Wikipedia page? After all, Wikipedia does welcome contributions from people who actually know what they’re talking about…!
Finally, best wishes to you and your father, as always. It takes a lot to keep hanging in there, during a prolonged illness. Keep up the good fight!
In 2008, Derek Jeter hit .300/.363/.408 with 11 homers, 11 steals, 69 RBI and 88 runs.
BP projects .286/.359/.401 with 11 homers, 10 steals, 58 RBI and 67 runs.
I don’t think it’s a slap in the face or a “collapse” to project a 36 year old to do almost exactly what he did as a 34 year old…
And I also don’t think it’s accurate to say PECOTA “punishes” spectacular seasons, it just recognizes that they’re very unlikely to be repeated.
Ha! Wikipedia – The Encyclopedia of Truthiness. Thanks for saving me some bucks, Keith!!
Keith, here’s hoping you and your dad are hanging in there.
I am a history professor and have published books. As such, I know how tough it is to get it all right–mistakes in research, then in writing, then in proofreading, then by copy editors, then in galleys. You know that yourself as an author. But the kinds of things you are talking about make my hair stand up. And you make a variation of a comment I like to make about that sort of situation to my students, in book reviews, etc.: if you make little mistakes, why shouldn’t I expect you to make big mistakes? Or, if I can’t trust you on the little things, why should I have confidence in you on the big things?
By the way, on a different subject, the MLB Network’s Prime 9 tonight rated baseball broadcasters–only longtime team announcers, not network people. In reverse order:
9. Curt Gowdy (don’t forget his Red Sox years)
8. Phil Rizzuto
7. Harry Kalas
6. Harry Caray
5. Ernie Harwell
4. Jack Buck
3. Red Barber
2. Mel Allen
Which brings me to a critic’s line on hearing of the show: I wonder who 2-9 will be? Of course Vin was #1. But I really wonder about the rankings. In terms of greatness as an announcer, I wouldn’t put Scooter in there, but, no question, he was a beloved figure and a riot to listen to.
I very much enjoy reading your work here. I am interested in baseball’s history, and learn a lot from your work. I am a Braves fan, having grown up in Atlanta in the 70s when the Braves and Falcons stunk it up so bad they couldn’t take up a collection and buy a win. And, being from the south, I am contractually obligated to dislike the Yankees. I can respect the talent, but can’t bring myself to cheer for them, especially after their decision to tear down the museum that was the old Yankee Stadium.
In your latest piece, you use the phrase “publication as a hole”. Shouldn’t that be “as a whole”? I could be wrong.
I wonder why Bob Murphy isn’t getting more kudos for a team radio/TV announcer. Understated, a bit folksy, but never too much of homer. Sad the way he deteriorated due to illness in the last few years he worked, but he was significantly complemented by first Gary Thorne and then the great Gary Cohen, who himself should be in the Top 9 or at least 20! And probably the best contemporary p by p man. A true pleasure to listen to/watch.
Howard formerly from Mezz 14
Actually, the statement that Tris Speaker became “a part-owner of the American Association” can be sourced to his actual UPI obituary, published in the New York Times in 1958: http://www.baseball-almanac.com/deaths/tris_speaker_obituary.shtml
In terms of greatness as an announcer, I wouldn’t put Scooter in there, but, no question, he was a beloved figure and a riot to listen to. engineering degree
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There is a lot of historical tone-deafness – particularly distressing considering Mr. Vaccaro often covers the Yankees. He recounts a conversation among McGraw and New York sportswriters about the Giants taking in the American League New York Highlanders as tenants at the Polo Grounds for the 1913 season.
Violet
Little seems to be known about who the blogger in question was, or why the story was allowed to slip through. However, in the absence of firm evidence, rumours abound. One such example is a solicitation of the idea that CNN were in collaboration with the blogger to help damage Apple stocks, which both parties would have had a vested interest in. Violet