MLB Notes: It's Time to Talk Uniforms

In the time since I last posted an article, the Mets clobbered Florida 13-0, were rained out, and lost to the Braves twice.

Given that I hate losing to the Braves just slightly more than I hate rainouts, which I hate more than global thermonuclear war, I think we can conclude it's been a bad week.

A week's worth of baseball deserves a double dose of random comments, so let's get right to it.

Watching the Blue Jays play the Red Sox in their home opener confirmed for me that their powder blue, '80s-retro uniforms are The Coolest Thing in the History of the World. We need more 70's and 80's-style uniforms to make a comeback.

Come on, wouldn't you pay big money to see Lance Berkman trotting around in one of those bright orange horrors from the Astros' glory days?  On the other hand, the Padres' camouflage uniforms need to go, right now.  We're not storming the bunker here, guys.  We're just playing ball.

Remember those Detroit Tigers World Series tickets you were planning to invest in?  You can put that money back in your piggy bank now.

After waiting all Saturday for a few measly snippets of bonus coverage in a "nationally televised" Mets game that wasn't in the Midwest, I propose the following new rule: All markets must carry all New York games, all the time. I realize this rule will be unpopular with the 95 percent of you who don't come from a long line of Mets (or, ugh, Yankees) fans, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

On the other hand, Sunday's 3-1 pitcher's duel reminded me just why I love baseball.  I maintain that it's the only game in the world that's better when nobody's scoring.

I'm not from another planet, honestly: The idea of watching a low-scoring hockey or soccer game is physically painful to me, and a 7-6 football game is enjoyable only if played in a minimum of six inches of snow.

But pitchers' duels are different.  Let's face it; the offensive side of baseball can be boring. Working counts, extending innings.  Show me a slugfest, and I'll show you a game that's approaching the four-hour mark.

Defense, perhaps counter-intuitively, is the art of making things happen, diving stops, outwitting the hitters.

There's just something special about watching those zeroes go up on the scoreboard, as two pitchers test each other in a metaphorical game of chicken, even if one of them is John Smoltz, career Atlanta Brave and thus bearer of my everlasting enmity.  So I say, keep your home runs.  Ground balls, in the words of Crash Davis, are more democratic.

On the other hand, if it's a high-scoring game like the Cubs-Pirates' twelve-inning, 10-8 barnburner yesterday, that's different.

I ran an errand with the Cubs leading 7-0; it took about three and a half minutes, and when I came back, the game was tied.  I still don't know how Pittsburgh did that, but it was the coolest non-uniform-related thing I've seen this season.

Also on that game, I propose a limit on baseball announcers using stats, and I say that as a stats guy.  I get the feeling they don't always properly consider the stats in context, by which I mean they're talking out of their baseball caps.

Yesterday we got a lesson from the Cubs' announcers on Ronny Cedeno starting against Pirate pitcher Tom Gorzelanny because Cedeno was 4-for-7 against him lifetime. Of course, the problem with that stat is that both players have only been in the league a couple of years, leaving us with a sample the size of Rickey Henderson's strike zone.

I'm fairly confident that Lou Piniella hasn't been managing baseball teams since I was wearing Transformers jammies by basing his decisions on a seven at-bat sample.  On the other hand, Cedeno did cash in with a three-run double, so maybe I should stop digging this hole.

If you caught Sunday Night Baseball the other night, you know that Nick Swisher is capable of hitting a ball, by conservative estimate, 850,000 miles.  If you didn't catch Sunday Night Baseball, well, there ain't much to say for you.  (Thank you, John Cusack-as-Buck Weaver.  We're done with the sports-movie motif now.  I promise.)

I feel like the Tampa Bay Rays' team mojo has been cleansed by removing the cumbersome and unnecessary "Devil" from their team nickname.  Based on this change, I predict the sad-sack Rays will win as many as 75 games sometime in the next five years.  Now, if we could just get the Diamondbacks to ditch a few syllables, we'd be golden...

The problem with the Mets as currently constructed, besides the fact that I trust only four of the hitters in their eight-man lineup, is this: They're counting on Moises Alou to stay healthy, and Moises Alou never stays healthy.  They're counting on Pedro to stay healthy, and Pedro never stays healthy.  They're counting on El Duque to stay healthy, and El Duque never stays healthy. 

Are we sensing anything like a pattern here? 

Omar Minaya excels at identifying a great player who can help his team, then leveraging the quadrillions at his disposal to court and sign (or trade for) that player.

But I've always thought he had a tendency, in pursuing these broad strokes, to overlook a balanced team construction.  As evidence, I present the 2007 New York Mets bullpen, which unfortunately cannot appear as most of them are still in the Federal Witness Protection Program.

And now that I've brought up the unholy specter of the 2007 collapse, I'm in the proper mindset to watch the Mets’ home opener against the Phillies!  I hope Jimmy Rollins gets stuck in the ten-item lane of the supermarket behind somebody with twelve to fourteen items. 

That's what the end of last season felt like, for me.