Bleacher Report - Articles by Chris Norris

The Day Baseball Will No Longer Be a Pastime

Chris Norris — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 07:46:13 -0400

There was a time when baseball was America's Pastime. When every little kid wanted to imitate Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, or Ken Griffey Jr. When Saturday afternoons consisted of pick-up games in the street rather than huddling around a television to watch college football. When the game was a symbol of American culture.

Those days are long gone, and the population doesn't seem nostalgic anymore about Major League Baseball. The U.S. has become a football nation and baseball has abandoned its tradition in desperation to keep pace with the NFL.

As long as it has existed, baseball has been the ultimate numbers' sport. 714 (Ruth), 61 (Maris), and 26 (NYY) are just a few of baseball's magical numbers, but two of these numbers have since fallen and the stadium where all these numbers were made famous is soon to follow suit.

This Sunday will be the last game every played at Yankee Stadium. I realize that the new ballpark will bear the same name, but it won't carry the history and certainly won't have the feel that the current ballpark has had for the past 85 years.

"The House that Ruth Built" is a fairytale landmark that will soon be demolished because they need to make room for the new stadium. Hardly the proper decision from a historical perspective.

Yankee Stadium cost $2.5 million in 1923 and is now being replaced with a $1.3 billion construction that can never match the original stadium's impact on baseball. This is a prime example of business superseding pastime. There will be no time to feel or reminisce about the stadium because the new stadium will be too busy bringing in revenue.

Major League Baseball has lost its luster that made it so great for the last 100 years. Yankee Stadium is hallowed ground. It is a recognizable monument that was the stage where Lou Gehrig retired, Joe Louis knocked out Max Schmeling and stuck it to Hitler, and the Pope led Mass on three different occasions.

My favorite memory is the 2001 World Series where Derek Jeter became "Mr. November" after the terrorist attacks postponed the major league season. I still get chills when I see a clip of George W. Bush walking out to the mound while 60,000 people chanted "U.S.A., U.S.A!!"

When the 85-year old Yankee Stadium gets demolished to make way for the new ballpark, professional baseball will never be the same. The tradition-rich sport will be officially dead as America's Pastime and the business known as George Steinbrenner will open a new chapter of Yankee history.

The old chapter in history, where numbers related to baseball statistics, will make way for a new chapter, that will consist of large numbers with dollars signs preceding them. The aura of Yankee Stadium will be gone forever.

The National League MVP Will Coincide with the National League Playoff Race

Chris Norris — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:13:16 -0400

If the National League Most Valuable Player Award was based solely on individual performances and never factored in team success, then Albert Pujols would probably win the award every year.

But with the St. Louis Cardinals a distant memory in the playoff race, Pujols will merely finish in the top five this year. Instead, the league MVP seems destined to be determined by the outcome of the playoff races.

If the Philadelphia Phillies win the East or the Wild Card...

Ryan Howard or Chase Utley should win the award, with my prediction being Howard. He currently leads the majors in home runs and RBI, and assuming he stays atop in both those categories, it's hard to not give it to him, especially considering the tear he's been on the last month (.283, 11 HRs, 30 RBI).

Perhaps the biggest argument against Ryan Howard isn't his .244 batting average, but rather the fact that he is in the same lineup with Utley and last year's MVP Jimmy Rollins. I definitely could see Howard and Utley costing each other votes.

If the Houston Astros win the Wild Card...

Lance Berkman would be my National League MVP, and I don't think it would be even close. Right now, Berkman is fourth in average, third in on-base percentage, second in slugging, ninth in RBI, 15th in HRs, first in doubles, second in runs, eighth in hits, fourth in walks, and 23rd in steals.

The point these numbers make is that he has literally given the Astros everything they have needed this year and then some, and he has done it without Carlos Lee the past month and no leadoff man all year.

If the New York Mets win the East...

(And the Phillies miss the playoffs) Carlos Delgado has become the Mets' (and ESPN's) front-runner for the award, but he's not even the most valuable player on that team. Both David Wright and Carlos Beltran are having better years than Delgado, and they have been doing it all season.

Everybody has praised Delgado's hot streak over the past month, but Beltran has been just as impressive. Beltran is hitting .344 with eight HRs and 23 RBI over the past month, and he plays Gold Glove center field in a spacious ballpark.

Meanwhile, Wright has more RBI, doubles, runs, walks, and steals than Delgado and hits 25 points higher. Delgado has had a nice stretch, but New York hasn't been able to count on him all season like they have relied on both Beltran and Wright.

The MVP debate has always been my favorite because there are seemingly infinite possibilities to defining how the award should be decided. Rarely does a player on a losing team win the award (Alex Rodriguez 2003), and I believe that you're team must be in the thick of the playoff hunt at the very least.

You can make a case for all of these great players, therefore it comes down to the outcome of their respective playoff races. Just as it should.

Milwaukee Brewers' Drastic Measures

Chris Norris — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 09:03:57 -0400

The Milwaukee Brewers have lost seven of their last 10 games, and the next time they lose they will not be blaming Ned Yost anymore. Milwaukee has fired Manager Ned Yost after being swept by the Philadelphia Phillies and falling into a tie in the wild-card standings with those Phillies.

Management felt that they had given him more than enough pieces to be flourishing at this time of year rather than collapsing, but I'm not convinced that is the case. The Brewers are still a young team, and they seem to have been overachieving early this year.

For example, Prince Fielder finished last year with a .288 average, 50 home runs. and 119 RBI. This year, he is hitting .265, with only 30 HRs and 87 RBI and has matched his strikeout totals from 2007 at this point in the season.

Ryan Braun missed time with an injury and has seen his average drop 30 points this season, and Corey Hart's progression from '07 to '08 seems has been minimal.

Before Sabathia, the ace of their pitching staff was an injury-prone Ben Sheets and their "big splash" was Jeff Suppan (four years, $42 million). The Eric Gagne Experiment has failed miserably and the rest of the bullpen has been equally disastrous.

They are a young, talented team that seems to have a bright future, but the Philadelphia Phillies are a better baseball team in 2008. They have the last two MVPs (Howard and Rollins) AND Chase Utley in the heart of an order that may be the best in the National League.

If the Brewers back their way into the playoffs, they should be dangerous, because they have a potent one-two punch in Sabathia and Sheets; however, Philadelphia is the better team at this point and will be a force in the playoffs.

Unlike last year, where they ran into the Colorado Rockies, who were playing out of their minds, this year they should be the team that will enter the postseason with the most momentum.

The Wizard of Os(walt)

Chris Norris — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:04:42 -0400

Picture this: It's June 15th and a scuffling Roy Oswalt is set to start at home against the New York Yankees. He is 5-6 and battling a hip pointer that had caused a few of his previous starts to be pushed back.

The Houston Astros are hovering around .500 and having to watch the Chicago Cubs become the darlings of the National League Central. On this day, the Yankees pound the Astros into submission, 13-0, and the "what the hell is wrong with Roy Oswalt" bandwagon begins to get really crowded.

Fast-forward almost three months later.

While the Cubs still may be everyone's darling, the Astros are playing like the Kings of National League. At this point, most of us know about their hot streak, but many people are unfamiliar with how they have become so hot.

Lance Berkman started the year as a strong MVP candidate, and while his .328 average (fourth in the NL), 28 HRs (14th), 100 RBI (eighth), and 100 runs (second) still may be good enough for him to win the award, he has not been the catalyst of the Astros' late-season surge.

Roy Oswalt's 2.51 ERA in August and 0.00 ERA in two starts in September (including consecutive shutouts) has been what has propelled Houston back into relevance this late into the baseball season.

The former back-to-back 20-game winner now has 15 wins this season, 32-1/3 straight scoreless innings (an Astros record), and has held opponents to a .198 batting average since the All-Star Break.

His remarkable second-half performance has been overshadowed by CC Sabathia, Manny Ramirez, and the crisis that the New York Yankees appear to be headed towards some free time in October...Finally!

The low-key farmer from Mississippi has been doing this for seven years now, and if nothing else, I want the Astros to win the wild card so that the nation can get a chance to see how great Oswalt truly is.

He is the winningest pitcher in the major league since he was called up in 2001, and I bet less than one percent of baseball fans would even have him in the top five. He is the No. 1 reason the Astros were able to turn a lost season into potentially one of the greatest late-season runs in the history of the game.

Houston Astros Specialize in the September Surge

Chris Norris — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 06:01:47 -0400

Any fan that has watched the Astros over the last five years has noticed one remarkable trend: The Astros play their best baseball in August and September.

When they went to the World Series in 2005, they were 10 games under .500 in the middle of May before rallying and sneaking into the playoffs as the wild card.

Perhaps the most fascinating thing about this trend is that the Houston Astros have been one of the older teams in baseball for several years now. Typically, we think of older teams breaking down towards the end of the year, and yet the Astros continually get stronger after Labor Day.

I would never accuse a professional sports team of not giving their full effort or taking games off, but it seems like the Astros “conserve” their energy for the stretch run every season.

I suppose it is possible that other teams get fatigued as the season wears on, but it’s hard to imagine this happening to almost every team in the league. This year, the Milwaukee Brewers, currently four games up on the Astros in the wild card race, have been struggling of late, but the Astros have still won four straight, nine of their last 10, and 22 of their last 30 baseball games.

The National League seems to be much better this year than in 2005, when the Astros made a similar run that led them to the World Series, and they are probably going to run out of games.

However, the Brewers have lost seven of their last 10 and still have two more series with the Cubs, while Houston only has three more games against a team with a winning record (Cubs).

In July, the Astros “big splash” in the trade market was the acquisitions of Randy Wolf and LaTroy Hawkins, and everyone, including me, bemoaned the fact that we gave up prospects for aging veterans that were clearly on the decline.

Wolf has had a 3.68 ERA the past month and a 1.69 in September, while Hawkins has played a key role in getting the ball to Jose Valverde.

I am an Astros fan, but I am also a realist, and for those of you that are gamblers, the Astros are currently 50:1 to win the wild card. They still have three teams in front of them (Brewers, Phillies, and Cardinals) and only 17 team games left, but if history has taught us anything, it is that this is the perfect team to accomplish such a remarkable feat.