The 5.5 Hole

There's a defining moment in every baseball fan's life when they realize they're no longer just a casual fan. They realize they have graduated to something more than the occasional glance at the score in passing or knowing only the "household" names. This moment sometimes passes without notice. Sometimes it happens so quickly no one could possibly catch. But on a rare occasion the escalation to fan can be traced back to the exact moment when baseball stopped being a game and started being an art form.

Goosebumps often define this moment.

My wife and I were talking about Derek Jeter's 3,000th hit, and I showed her the video online. After watching it, she told me, "I got goosebumps." And there it was. After years of bombarding her with stats, facts, useless knowledge and baseball on TV, my wife made the leap from casual fan to true fan. And I was there to point it out to her in all its glory.Now don't get me wrong, she had come a long way from when I first met her. But she was still teetering on the edge of casual fan and true fan.

Her goosebumps moment got me thinking about some of the goosebumps moments I have experienced in my life. Derek Jeter's 3,000th hit of course was the most recent, but baseball is a game of milestones. It's a game within a game on any given night.

Roy Halladay's no-hitter in the play-offs last year, Josh Hamilton's resurrection, Jon Lester's post-cancer no-hitter, and David Ortiz's walk-off home run in game four of the 2004 ALCS. The moments are abundant, but there has to be just one that converted me to the maniacal baseball fan I am today.

As best I can figure, the 1998 season as a whole converted me completely. I watched quite a bit of baseball before that, and played quite a bit more with friends. But that season defined baseball greatness for me. While I feel dirty about it now, I was glued to the television screen during each of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa's at-bats. And when McGwire broke Roger Maris's home run record and was greeted by his family in the stands, I had the very goosebumps we talk about today. This was the season my Padres went to the World Series. It was the season the Diamondbacks and the (then) Devils Rays entered the league. It was the year that Trevor Hoffman tied the consecutive saves record. It was the year Cal Ripken Jr. finally took himself out of a game to snap his record-long 2,632 consecutive games played streak.

These were all great moments, but not my goosebump-inducing, fan-defining moment. As a Padres fan it would stand to reason my moment came during a Padres game. With the Padres trailing by two in the bottom of the ninth, with two outs, Steve Finley drove an 0-1 pitch into the stands for a walk-off grand slam. And I was there. It was one of the greatest baseball moments I had ever experienced.

Baseball, unlike any other sport, can elicit emotion you never knew existed. The stories, the moments, and the milestones all act as the canvas to which the game's story is painted. When you stop flipping right past the game on to the next reality television show, when you sit down and watch with intensity, when you can cheer the accomplishments of players not on "your team," you have become a true fan.

I'd like to welcome my wife to the club.

I'm tired of hearing that baseball is the sport in which the coach (manager) means the least to success. Dick Williams proves this flawed belief to be absolutely false. His passing got me thinking of some of baseball's great managers and their contributions to the game.

Who was Dick Williams you ask? Well, he was a miracle worker. Rumor has it Pope Benedict is already considering Williams for sainthood. He performed miracles in Boston, Oakland, and San Diego.

Williams put together the "Impossible Dream" season with the Red Sox in 1967. He took that team, a team that hadn't finished better than 6th out of the 10-team American League in six years, and led them to an American League Pennant while pushing the Cardinals to the brink in the World Series.

Williams then took over an Athletics team that was so far removed from the play-offs, you'd think they were no longer in the league. The A's hadn't made the play-offs since they were in Philadelphia, in 1931. Williams took them over in '71 and made the post-season. He then led them to back-to-back World Series titles in '72 and '73.

And then there was the Padres. No manager before or since has finished his time in San Diego with a winning record. But Dick Williams did. In 1984, Williams led the Padres to their first World Series appearance.

Williams should not have had to wait until 2008 to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. His style of managing yielded success. He took otherwise bad teams and made them good. Managers matter in baseball, and Dick Williams was important to the game.

My list of top five managers is as follows:

5. Dick Williams
My criteria may be a little different as I'm sure Dick Williams isn't on most people's top-five list. But his ability to take losers and turn them into winners makes him top-five in my book.

4. Sparky Anderson
Part of what makes Sparky so great was he excelled in both leagues. He took over a Reds team in 1970 that had one play-off appearance in the previous 30 years. He then promptly won the National League Pennant and went on to win 4 pennants with the Reds and 2 World Series.

With the Tigers, Sparky won One pennant, one Series, and made the play-offs twice. He finished his time in Detroit with a .516 winning percentage.

3. John McGraw
McGraw is often considered the greatest manager in baseball history. His winning percentage is unprecedented. As a symbol of a type of baseball long since gone, McGraw started as a player/manager. He won three titles and 10 pennants.

2. Connie Mack
He finished his career under .500, so how can he be number 2 on this list? I'll tell you why. He managed one team for 50 years. No one does that. And to be honest, if you manage a team that long, you're asking for a losing record. But Mack has the hardware. He led the Philadelphia Athetics to 9 pennants and 5 World Series championships.

1. Casey Stengel
No one was better. He led the Bronx Bombers to 7 World Titles and 10 pennants. He won more World Series than anyone (Joe McCarthy has 7 as well), and is the only manager to win five straight titles. He took over a good Yankees team, one that had experienced success before him. However, he managed some of the largest egos of his time and took the Yankees from good to great.

So there you have it. Critics can dispute their necessity all they want, but you'll never convince me the teams these five men managed would have had the same success without them.

Now back to the man that spawned this discussion. Dick Williams lived a long life and he will be missed.

Dick Williams - May 7, 1929 to July 7, 2011

I read an article on ESPN by David Schoenfield about the rise in strikeouts in the league. He made a great point in the article that players generally do not try to put the ball in play anymore. "They’d rather hit .235 with 12 home runs as opposed to .300 with five home runs and a ton fewer strikeouts," he said. And he's absolutely right. Hitting for average no longer gets rewarded.

I grew up watching Tony Gwynn. He was a large, imposing force at the plate, but he didn't hit many home runs. He also didn't strike out very much. In his career, Tony Gwynn had 9,288 at-bats. He struck out 434 times. That's 4% of the time. His approach at the plate was one of beauty and the reason behind the title of this blog. He could hit just as well with two strikes as he could with none. What did he sacrifice in always trying to put the ball in play? He sacrificed home runs. He hit 135 in his career. But he knocked in 1,138 runs and scored 1,383 runs himself. Combined he accounted for 2,386 runs (subtracting the 135 home runs so we don't count those RBI's and runs twice) in his career. That means a Tony Gwynn at-bat resulted in a run, one way or another, 26% of the time. He also hit .338 for his career.

So let's re-cap; Tony Gwynn struck out 4% of the time while his at-bats resulted in runs 26% of the time. Who has the better approach, a guy hitting .235 with 15 home runs per year, or a guy hitting .310 with 5 home runs and 80 runs scored?

This brings me to my next point. Hitting for average is not appreciated anymore. Chase Headley was tapped to be the Padres power-hitting third baseman of the future. At a detriment to himself and the club he tried to fulfill that prophecy. Below are his numbers prior to 2011:

2007: 18 at-bats, 0 home runs, 4 strike-outs, and a .222 batting average.
2008: 331 at-bats, 9 home runs, 104 strike-outs, and a .269 batting average.
2009: 543 at-bats, 12 home runs, 133 strike-outs, and a .262 batting average.
2010: 610 at-bats, 11 home runs, 139 strike-outs, and a .264 batting average.

In 2011, Chase Headley has taken a new approach at the plate. He has stopped trying to pull the ball and tried putting more balls in play. This has led to a reduction in home run totals, but an increase in production overall.

In 85 games so far this year, Headley has had 292 at-bats. His strike-outs are only at 67. And he's batting .305. Between runs and RBI's, Headley is accounting for a run scored 22% of the time.

Headley is on pace to reduce his strike-out totals from the previous year. He's more productive than ever. And he's forgotten. He probably should have been an All-Star this year, but his meager 2 home runs likely precluded him from real consideration.

Following in Tony Gwynn's footsteps is not often done. Home runs dazzle, but lead to strike-outs and lower batting averages. There are not many pure hitters left, so when a player works on becoming one, he should be celebrated. Keep it up Chase, you have at least one fan not concerned with your home run totals.