A question: is anyone else annoyed that that in the table of batting averages, Seattle's right fielder is simply listed as 'Ichiro?' He does have a last name.

On a less pedantic note, there's nothing I enjoy quite so much as seeing an opposition base runner picked off.

There's a tendency to try "too hard" when you're in a losing streak. That doesn't apply only to players. Brian Butterfield, one of the best in the business in the third base box, would never have sent Carlos Delgado home on Hinske's one-out double if the team was going well. E-10 to the coach for squandering an out in the middle of a rally; even if Carlos had miraculously avoided the tag, that was a poor decision, motivated by a sense of urgency. Everyone needs to be relaxed and confident to perform their best, but it's difficult to maintain that attitude when so many things have been going wrong. Slumps can become self-perpetuating.

Hendrickson, thanks to the pickoff, has faced the minimum six batters on just 24 pitches through two innings, striking out three with a lively fastball that he's been able to throw at both the top and bottom of the strike zone. Mark could use a little help, though.

Why is every pitcher looking like Pedro these days?

Hinske just went deep to left center, making it 3-1, and Kershner did his job again, but this run of bad luck is getting tedious. What's wrong with Delgado? A night at DH and now he's taken out of a close game after hitting in the sixth. I hope it's nothing more serious than a reaction to the brutal heat. When it rains, it pours.

Classic home run call by Faulds - "Fly ball to shallow right centre... ummm.. and gone! Home run by Myers"
I love those home runs to "shallow right field"

Not sure if they mentioned why he left on TV (Toronto losing Faulds-Cerutti made it unbearable to me any more, but Yahoo listed this under game notes: TORONTO FIRST BASEMAN CARLOS DELGADO LEFT THE GAME AFTER THE TOP OF THE SIXTH INNING WITH LEFT KNEE SORENESS.

Hopefully this comeback in the 9th is the light at the end of the tunnel.

All tied up, thanks to solo shots by Myers and Hinske in the ninth off Julio. Rob Faulds, who needs his eyes checked and an intensive seminar on the basics of baseball, provided this classic call of the Myers blast: "Fly ball, shallow right-center, and GONE!"

The news on Delgado is not good; without any specifics, the TV guys are saying it's a problem with his left knee.

Forgot to look before posting.

Trever Miller, staying in to pitch to Surhoff, fell behind 3-0 then walked the leadoff man, Batista. After B.J. sacrificed him to second, Acevedo now has very little margin for error.

Whew! A 400-foot line drive to straightaway CF retired Cruz, and Segui struck out. We're going to extra innings.

A great walk for Myers. I always like seeing opposing lefty specialists foiled.

And Woodward drives Wells in! Hot dog!

Is it possible that Delgado's soreness is just that? I don't really see any reason to panic, though any time a player leaves a game early is time for concern.

All right, Woody!

Mike Hargrove was ejected for arguing the "safe" call at first on Vernon Wells, and replays show Grover had a case. Instead of the inning being over, Wells came around to score the go-ahead run on Woodward's single up the middle. Eric Hinske followed with his FOURTH extra-base hit of the day, and the Jays lead 5-3.

What Hinske did today was better than a cycle: a 2nd home run is better than a triple, and a 2nd double is better than a single.

The Ottawa radiocast (Oldies 1310) left the Jays broadcast at 5pm, just before the bottom of the 10th. I was at home and have cable and Internet, so I could either turn on the TV sound or bring in a web broadcast, but some other listeners probably got pretty upset. They just started playing songs. The Ottawa station only carries the Jays on weekends (and has even missed at least one of those).

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Yesss... It's nice not to get swept, particularly by, as Bob Matthews calls them, the Borioles.

Did anyone else see this story in the Star? I just found out about it through baseball primer:

Pitch At Jays: High And Wide.

Mike

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I should have mentioned that the story is by the ombudsperson RE: The "White Jays" story.

Mike

Toronto Star Ombud Response for 'White Jays' Story.

The Star

Baseball Primer Thread

DOH!!!

This was the guttiest performance I've seen from the team in a while. It's also the kind of game they've too often lost over the past few seasons. Although it's only one game, I'm as happy about today's victory as I have been about any this season.

http://www.torontostar.ca/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1057443008572&call_pageid=970599119419
In Saturdays Star the Ombudsman said the paper made a mistake.

So what do we find in todays Star? A column by the sports editor. First he acknowledges the Ombudsmans opinion. Then he sets off down the same path justifying the story all over again.

Some people just don't know when to shut up. Click on my name for the link.

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These people just don't get it.

because much of the real message was lost in the one-sided debate on the airwaves

No, I think people got the message. The message was that the Jays are too white. If that *wasn't* the message, why the headline and all the pictures?

First, the Leafs and Raptors are mirrors of the overwhelmingly white NHL and predominantly black NBA.

Except that they're not. There are black players in the NHL. The Leafs have none. There are First Nations players in the NHL. To my knowledge, the Leafs have none. The Leafs are the whitest team in the NHL. There are Turkish players in the NBA. The Raptors have none. There are white starting players in the NBA. The Raptors have none.

If the Leafs and Raptors were mirror images of their leagues, the Star would print statistics supporting those facts. Since the Star didn't print those statistics they're being deliberately obfuscatory.

They don't seem to get the fact that THE WAY THEY PRESENTED THE STORY IS ENTIRELY THE PROBLEM.

When they reported on police and the black community, did they write, "Black Felons: Prisons have the most visible minorities. Economics blamed for excessive prison diversity" then show the pictures of the most recent arrests, most of whom were black? Of course not.

If they had a story about how some teams were switching to mainly drafting college players and how that might change the face of baseball, that would have been interesting. An article titled

College Drafting Strategy Has Side Effect of Making Baseball More White - A's, Jays, and Red Sox at forefront

would have been more interesting *and* factual. Instead they tried to use a "shock and awe" strategy, got called on it, and are trying to deflect criticism although they know they screwed up.

Mike

Even the ombudsman gave a mealy-mouthed response, criticizing the headline while attempting to defend the story. The reality is that the whole story -- the whole idea -- was trash.

Sports writers like to puff themselves up from time to time by delving into what they consider hard news, and that's what this story was driven by. Geoff Baker was trying to make a name for himself and ended up a boob. As far as I'm concerned the whole thing looks good on the Star, a lousy paper through and through.

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Even the ombudsman gave a mealy-mouthed response, criticizing the headline while attempting to defend the story. The reality is that the whole story -- the whole idea -- was trash.

I think the problem was that the story had a few coherent points near the end of it... and the Star is trying to argue that those points *were* the story. Umm, no. They don't outweigh the headline, the pictures, and the fact that the story was put on the front page of the paper. The position the story took in the paper implied that it was a big scandal, so it doesn't really make sense when the paper says, "oh, we weren't implying racism". As Jim Bouton would say, "Yeah, Surrrre...".

As far as I'm concerned the whole thing looks good on the Star, a lousy paper through and through.

I delivered the Star for about 10 years and I've always liked the paper. They really do print some stupid stories, though.

Mike

You're right Mike, they just don't get it. Here's the passage I found most telling:

"There are those who maintain there never was a story to be written and that the colour of a player's skin is irrelevant in the world of sports where the only obligation is to win, something this season's Blue Jays have done often. Yet race has always been a part of sports, from the segregationist era of baseball, through the white days of basketball's Boston Celtics to the National Football League's belated acceptance of black quarterbacks."

So he justifies the story on the Jays by citing three examples of racism in sports history -- as though the Blue Jays (or "White Jays") are just the latest example worthy of investigation. They really can't make up their minds over at the Star whether this was or wasn't a story about racism. And the problem stems from the fact that the story had no point in the first place -- it wasn't just a lousy headline, it was a lousy story.

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What's even more telling is that 2 of those 3 examples are about racism in leagues not teams, yet they let the Leafs and their all-white roster off with the excuse "well, the NHL is a white league".

If the problem is league wide racial stereotypes, why mention baseball instead of basketball or hockey? If the problem is some teams are racist, why use the NFL non-acceptance of black quarterbacks and pre-Jackie Robinson baseball as examples?

If the problem is both then why are they letting the Leafs and Raptors off the hook for having the same racial biases as their league? Like I pointed out before, if the Star did the math, which I'm sure they did, they'd find that the two Toronto teams have even more exagerrated patterns than the other teams in their league.

Mike

To be fair to the Star, no one (even here) has dealt with their strongest point, that 38 of the 43 players acquired since Nov 2001 are white. This figure does not include the June draft (i.e. it's not explainable by drafting college players). The Star claims only 55% of major league players are white. If so, it's very unlikely to get 38 of 43 by chance. So how did it happen?

(When I did my own count, I got 25 of 30 were white, just counting acquisitions who played on the major league team (and not counting coaches/manager)). There's less than a 0.3% chance of a ratio at least that different from 55% if choosing randomly 30 times.)

30 acquisitions: (Hinske, JMiller, Prokopec, Cooper, TWilson, Berg, Lesher, Huckaby, PWalker, Politte, Wiggins, Kershner, Lidle, Bordick, Myers, Tam, Creek, TMiller, Linton, Towers, HClark, Catalanotto, Sturtze, DDavis, Service), (Thurman, Heredia, Swann, ALopez, Acevedo)

Besides this one statistic, I don't see any other evidence of bias. e.g. I don't see evidence of bias in how the Jays treat the players in their system or in which inherited players were let go. I don't think the Jays have intentionally been biased.

I wonder if there was a subconscious bias against minorities that the management team didn't even realize. They have talked about "character" being important which is obviously subjective. Maybe their character filter was filtering out some minority candidates without the Jays realizing why.

Now that the pattern has been brought to their attention (which probably happened before the Star article, since I noticed the pattern earlier this season, and Bob Elliott reported that scouts were commenting on it in spring training), they'll presumably be more careful, which is likely to help the team. e.g. the Acevedo pickup happened before the Star article.

This isn't to defend how the Star treated the story. But if some one can come up with an explanation for the 38 of 43 statistic (or 25 of 30), which presumably involves arguing that the 55% ratio doesn't apply to the pool of players the Jays were selecting from, it would be interesting to hear it.

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This isn't to defend how the Star treated the story. But if some one can come up with an explanation for the 38 of 43 statistic (or 25 of 30), which presumably involves arguing that the 55% ratio doesn't apply to the pool of players the Jays were selecting from, it would be interesting to hear it.

Easy:

1. JP did most of his trading with his previous employer (Oakland), which is disproprtionately white as well as a side effect of their player development strategy. He also picked up a disproportionate amount of free agents from that organization, again due to familarity. Had he come from an organization that was overwhelming black or swedish, his acquisitions probably would have been overwhelming black or swedish.

2. Since the ratio of latin players in baseball is increasing, we should expect the proportion latin free agents to be smaller than the proportion of latin players, because you need to have played in the league for several years to become a free-agent. The free-agent pool will be more representative of the proportion of players around 5 years ago than of that today, because it's not an exact subset.

Mike

"To be fair to the Star, no one (even here) has dealt with their strongest point, that 38 of the 43 players acquired since Nov 2001 are white."

Their strongest point? But what is their point? So far all this is is a fact.

A few thoughts:

- A generation ago, one of the complaints was that black players could only make it in the majors if they were really good. Marginal black players, who were good enough to be bench players in the majors but not good enough to start, found it very difficult to overcome racial prejudice. If there is any of this still left in baseball, it might mean that the pool of replacement-level players contains few black players to draw on. This means that J.P. couldn't find the black equivalent of Bordick, Berg, Clark, etc., because not many of them exist.

One thing that struck me: while the Jays have very few black players, all of them are in the starting lineup!

- "Conventional wisdom" may be biased against white guys who aren't very "toolsy", which might mean that such players can be picked up more cheaply. (This is one of the themes of Michael Lewis's Moneyball: slow fat white guys with high on-base percentages are undervalued in the marketplace.)

- In the Gillick era, the Jays signed a lot of Dominicans because nobody else was scouting the region. Now, the Dominican is more extensively scouted, so the Jays can't find bargains there.

I should stress here, in case I haven't made that clear, that I do not believe that J.P. and the Jays are using race as a factor when signing ballplayers. (J.P. is preferring to sign players he's familiar with, especially if they're ex-A's, but that's a different issue.)

I still maintain that what the Star printed was a racist article.

To look at the "racial" composition of a team and then imply that there is selection going on based on race is a far more racist attitude than to interpret these signings based on meritorious criteria.

I'd rather have Chris Woodward than Felipe Lopez as my shortstop because (a) Lopez was more marketable and could (and did) fetch more in a trade, (b) Lopez had poor control of the strikezone (poor K/W) and was therefore the type of player that J.P. wouldn't want to keep for long, (c) reports suggested that Lopez wasn't working hard enough to improve his overall game.

To suggest that the choice of Woodward over Lopez was based on race, you'd have to show that the two players were otherwise equivalent talents. If we look at all the roster changes that took place, they call ALL be justified by economic/performance issues.

BTW - I've never understood the classification of someone like Felipe Lopez as a different race than someone like Chris Woodward. Judging by his complexion, Lopez looks to be of Spanish descent (as opposed to someone like Tony Fernandez). Spanish people are Europeans. Greeks and Italians usually have dark complexions, but I've never heard baseball people descibe Joe DiMaggio or Ernie Lombardi as non-white.

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BTW - I've never understood the classification of someone like Felipe Lopez as a different race than someone like Chris Woodward. Judging by his complexion, Lopez looks to be of Spanish descent (as opposed to someone like Tony Fernandez).

To do what the Star did and imply that there's a unified Latin or Hispanic "race" is that height of absurdity.

Central America is a mix of European whites, African blacks, and the original native peoples. Since those groups have been in the area a fairly long time, a large proportion of the people from the area are some combination of the three. I imagine Lopez has some native ancestors, so that would set him apart from the Italian players. That's just a guess about Lopez... I really don't know much about him.

The area certianly has a distinct culture from that of North America, but to suggest that it constitutes a race is pretty odd. Of cours facts have no place in the Star.

Mike