The Futility Infielder

Giving Thanks

Apologies to my loyal readers for the sporadic nature of my postings since the baseball season ended. Chalk it up to a combination of factors, including the need to take a breather after the hectic postseason, the lack of baseball news except for the really big stuff about contraction, and my desire to present some longer pieces both here and elsewhere on the site. Rest assured that you will have plenty of the Futility Infielder to get you through the winter months.

I am currently working on a lengthy review of The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. While it would have been easy to dash off a quick piece about how great this 1000-page opus is, I decided it deserves both closer scrutiny and more background than my normal mode allows. I also thouht it would be interesting to integrate some of the criticisms voiced by others into my review. Anyway, I'd hoped to have it done over this past weekend, but it just keeps on growing and growing. It should be up sometime over the holiday weekend.

I am also working on an examination of the Yankees' options this offseason. The free-agent signing period begins on Tuesday, November 20. But with the ugly specter of contraction and the legal morass which (fortunately) will engulf it, it's likely that the free-agent signings will be sporadic until a clear direction on the Big C emerges. Then again, a 6-year, $100 million contract is a 6-year, $100 million contract, and by the time I get around to this, the Yanks may already have landed Jason Giambi, around whom their entire offseason plans are apparently built.

Also on tap are several new entries to my Wall of Fame, and reports of Cal Ripken's final game and Game 3 of the World Series--both of which were bowled over by my own desire to stay reasonably current with the playoffs, and the physical limitations of the 24-hour day.

The end of a baseball season brings the opportunity for reflection, and so does the impending Thanksgiving holiday. Given all that I have seen in these past two months in New York City, I would be remiss if I didn't stop at this time to count my own blessings. In that spirit, I present to you a partial list of the things that I am thankful for:

• I am thankful that I and all of my loved ones were only peripherally affected by the attacks on September 11, that we lost no one near and dear to us. I am thankful for the great group of friends with whom I shared that day and its aftermath; we bonded together and supported each other through some frightening times, and we've grown closer because of it. I am thankful for the love and concern that far-off friends and relatives have shown in checking up on me.

• I am thankful for the firefighters, policemen, and emergency services workers who gave their lives trying to assist others on that dreadful day. They have reminded us the true meaning of the word "hero" and in doing so have tempered our normally bombastic modes of discourse, particularly with regards to sports and entertainment.

• I am thankful for the people of New York who pulled together in this crisis, who put on their bravest faces to show the rest of the world that we have been wounded but not defeated. It is a unique privelege to live in this city. Reversing a long-running trend, I'm even thankful for Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

• I am thankful not only to have a job in these uncertain times, but to have a job that I enjoy immensely on its good days. In particular, I am thankful for the opportunity to art-direct the World Almanac for Kids 2002, the most fulfilling project I've ever been a part of.

• I am thankful that my close friends and family encouraged me, at the outset of this season, to channel my energy into creating a website devoted to my passion for baseball. It has been a most rewarding experience and it's become a staple of my life. I am thankful for the like-minded individuals I've met online through this, and the connection I've felt to those who have read my pages and offered encouragement or criticism.

• I am thankful for my girlfriend, Andra, who has given me the space within our relationship to spend countless hours in the service of building this site, and who trekked to no fewer than five different ballparks spread over three states this past season in my company. Needless to say, I'm thankful for a lot of other things about our relationship that I won't go into here. But suffice it to say that she's one of a kind.

• I am thankful for the nearly 31 years of life I shared with my grandfather, Bernard Jaffe. Pop passed away the day after last Thanksgiving. He, along with my father, nurtured my enthusiasm for baseball from a very young age by spending countless hours with me and my brother at the diamond, and regaling us with his stories of baseball in his day. A good enough player that he was once offered a professional contract, he was also an ardent fan who got to witness titans such as Ruth and Gehrig. At times I've found myself wishing he'd kept a memoir of the players and the games he saw. They would have provided me more insight into the man, as well as those times, and his keen eye and dry wit would have been preserved for posterity. As I record my own thoughts and descriptions, it is with the hope that my future grandchildren might someday take an interest in the Mendoza Line, Tim Raines, or the 1998 Yankees.

• I am thankful for a father who always found time to play catch with his sons, a mother who never remotely considered throwing away my baseball cards, and a brother who suffered my anal-retentive need to keep box scores and statistics for the board games we played while growing up. They have provided me with more love than I could have ever wished for.

• I am thankful for Bill James, whose books shed amazing new light on the game of baseball and provided me not only with countless hours of entertaining reading, but with tools that helped me to develop my own critical faculties. Math is never boring when you've got baseball statistics.

• I am thankful for Jim Bouton's Ball Four and Roger Angell's The Summer Game, two dog-eared paperbacks my grandfather salvaged from flea markets which I've probably read a dozen times combined. Bouton's autobiography, which I read in all of its four-letter-worded glory at the tender age of nine, introduced a self-awareness which shaped my powers of observation and eventually my writing. Re-reading his book over the years has yielded countless laughs and life lessons. Angell's book, and its succeeding volumes, set an example for observational skill that I still strive to emulate when I write about the game.

• I am thankful for the 1996-2001 New York Yankees, who have provided me the opportunity to witness first-hand the best baseball team I've ever seen. Not so much because they dominated the timespan, or because they thrillingly snatched victory from the jaws of defeat so many times, but because the cast of characters has rewarded the close attention I've paid with countless unforgettable moments both great and small.

• I am thankful for the opportunity to have seen Cal Ripken, Mark McGwire, Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, Tim Raines, Paul O'Neill, Eric Davis, Jay Buhner, Tony Fernandez, Brett Saberhagen, and even Luis Sojo play so many times. With the exception of Henderson and Raines, all of these players have recently retired--and those two may well do so; each of them leaves behind their own special mark on my baseball consciousness.

• I am thankful for the strange and wonderful things I see every season I watch baseball, from Derek Jeter rubbing Don Zimmer's misshapen bald head for good luck to Pittsburgh manager Lloyd McClendenon stealing first base in an argument, from Luis Sojo winning another game with an unlikely hit to Mike Mussina pitching to within one strike of a perfect game, from Mark McGwire's biceps to Rich Garces's gut, from Tim Raines taking the field with his son to Rickey Henderson tallying another record.

• I am thankful for pitching changes, batters stepping out of the box to re-velcro their gloves, ten-pitch at-bats, ten-run rallies, the multi-tiered playoff system, the Grapefruit League and the Hot Stove League, for prolonging the baseball season in the face of those dark days when we have no games to occupy us.

• I am thankful for the knowledge that no matter how hard Bud Selig and the powers that be try to screw things up with their contraction plans, sooner or later the time will come for pitchers and catchers to report to spring training.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.