The Futility Infielder

It's a busy week for me, with little piles of work to get done before the weekend (when I'm headed out of town) starting to mount. So I'm just going to shoot first and ask questions later, producing a hail of bullet points (or asterisks, as the case may be)...

* The events of the past couple of days have been instructive in measuring my relative loyalties to the Dodgers and the Yankees. While the A-Rod deal certainly quickened my pulse and put a smile on my face, the Dodgers' announcement that Paul DePodesta will be their new GM had me turning cartwheels. As maligned as McCourt has been during his pursuit and takeover of the Dodgers, this bold step shows that he's open to making some real and important changes in the organization. His handing over the reins to an unproven GM may cause some traditionalists to blanch, but given the high regard with which DePodesta is held, it will likely be only a short matter of time before he starts making his presence felt. As good as DePodesta -- the brains behind Billy Beane, some say -- has been with the limited resources of the Oakland A's, I think he'll do quite well with a bit more money and other resources at his disposal.

ESPN's Rob Neyer discusses some of the changes DePodesta might undertake, with a special emphasis on scouting:

The scouting department is likely going to suffer the greatest degree of turnover, because those are typically the people most resistant to change. But eventually DePodesta will have to transform the entire organization, just as Billy Beane did in Oakland and Ricciardi did in Toronto. Everybody has to be looking at the same sheet of music, but when you've been in the game for a while you tend to play your own tune no matter what the conductor's telling you. (That said, DePodesta's got more people to worry about and more tradition to consider, plus he's got a lot more money to play around with, so he might wind up giving a free pass, at least temporarily, to some of the marginal contributors.)

Neyer points out that the CSFB Thought Leader Forum site to which I linked the other day has removed DePodesta's excellent presentation, probably because his new employer is worried about DePo giving away his secrets (um, Frank, many of them are readily available in Moneyball). The Google cache, handy for dumpster-diving in cases like these, is already empty as well (though it still holds a similar DePo-sition here -- props to Old Fishinghat). If anybody saved the contents of the CSFB link, I would be greatly appreciative of an email.

Meanwhile, outgoing GM Dan Evans, who really deserved better, has handled his dismissal in a dignified manager. A frequenter of the team's MLB message board, he passed on an open letter to Dodger fans which echoes what he's said elsewhere. Most notable is his perspective on how the team's ownership situation will affect the on-the-field product in 2004:

Everyone in our baseball decision-making group, including Bob Daly and Bob Graziano, knew that we needed to use the increased flexibility obtained in the Kevin Brown trade to the Yankees to improve our offense, and there is no question that we would have accomplished our goal of acquiring a prolific offensive player in his prime -- without giving up any of our prospects -- had it not been for the circumstances surrounding the ownership transition.

We always took into account the best interests of the Dodgers, both short and long-term, whenever we made a baseball decision. The fans and the organization deserved that. I knew it was our responsibility to make the unpopular decisions which were actually in the best long-term interests of the Dodgers.

It doesn't take too much reading between the lines to see the likes of Vladimir Guerrero in that first paragraph. After all, Nomar Garciaparra or Magglio Ordonez would have cost prospects. (Sigh)...

While I look forward to seeing what DePodesta does as he takes over -- I'm guessing trade of Paul LoDuca and Adrian Beltre and the move of Shawn Green to first base -- I think 2004 has been punted, except for a shot at the Wild Card, and that the Dodgers' moves will be ones that have more to do with the future beyond this season. Elephants in Oakland had a look last week at how DePodesta might use his familiarity with the A's organization to plug some of the holes his new team has. Nothing will shake the earth there, but it might beat watching Joe Thurston wash out.

* Hot on the heels of the Rodriguez deal's approval came a report on WABC-TV that Greg Maddux had agreed to sign with the Yankees. But before baseball fans of the nation start rioting in the streets over Yankee greed and Cubs fans crawl out onto the window ledge to contemplate the unthinkable, consider the following: Scott Boras is Maddux's agent, and this is what he does for a living.

Yankee GM Brian Cashman has denied interest in Maddux, and while that's usually the smoke around the fire, I believe him here. Scott Boras is A-Rod's agent and soon-to-be-Yankee Travis Lee's agent as well as Maddux's, and he's in the business of drumming up interest in his clients, whether that interest is real or perceived. Having spent plenty of time talking to B-Cash on the cellular this weekend, he can create the illusion that some of that discussion was about his high-profile unsigned client. Maddux has been said to be nearing an agreement with the Cubs, but the spectre of Yankee money -- something every agent, particularly Boras, strives to bring into every deal, by the way -- is a surefire way to twist the Cubs' collective nipple into finding another few million in the budget to accommodate the World's Smartest Pitcher. The Cubs have reportedly increased their offer to Maddux to $15 million for two years, but I expect them to raise once more to be sure that they can top Boras' late bluff.

* The baseball world lost one of its most important writers this week, when Lawrence Ritter, author of The Glory of Their Times, passed away on Sunday at the age of 81. First published in 1966, Glory has a pretty decent claim on the title of Best Baseball Book Ever, and if that doesn't move you to doff your lid for a moment in tribute, it bloody well ought to. Ritter didn't get to talk to Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson or Cy Young, but if this book were a ballplayer, it would belong in the select company of those men.

Concerned following Cobb's death in 1961 that stories of baseball's early days were slipping away with each dying ballplayer, Ritter embarked on a five-year, 75,000 mile journey, beating the bushes and thumbing through phone directories to track down old players. Armed with a reel-to-reel tape recorder, he sat for hours listening to the tales of the old-timers, whose ranks included Rube Marquard, Sam Crawford, Fred Snodgrass, Joe Wood, and Paul Waner. Twenty-two players' reminiscences filled the original edition, and another four players' tales were added to an expanded addition in 1984. Because of Ritter's efforts, seminal stories of baseball's dusty past live forever in the retellings of those who saw them first-hand. You owe yourself a copy of this book if you don't own one already.

I haven't read mine since high school, but thinking about Ritter the past couple of days prompted me to pull it down off the shelf and peruse its pages, and now I can't put it down. I chose first to read the Babe Herman chapter (one of the '84 additions) because of the special place he holds in my family's history, and was instantly giggling over some of his tales, including the three-men-on-third triple, the one where the third base coach confides that he can't see the ball caroming around the outfield because he's too vain to wear glasses on the field, and the one where Uncle Robbie (Dodger manager Wilbert Robinson) decides his catcher on the ease of spelling his name. Hilarious stuff.

Turning to Fred Snodgrass's chapter, I read about the strange "career" of Charles Victory Faust, something of a mascot for the John McGraw Giants. Faust showed up one day in 1911 and told McGraw that a fortune-teller said if he joined the Giants, they would win the pennant. The superstitious McGraw humored him, let him don a uniform and warm up every day, and even covered his expenses on road trips, though Faust didn't actually get to pitch and wasn't under contract. With him in this capacity, the Giants won the 1911, 1912, and 1913 pennants, and in that final year he appeared in a big-league ballgame, pitching a scoreless inning before dying the following winter of an illness, which foretold the Giants' broken string of pennant.

At least that was Snodgrass' version -- the record shows Faust pitched in two games for two innings and one run, all in 1911, and dying in June 1915, but then that's oral history for you. And the occasional blurry fact to the contrary, The Glory of Their Times is the best oral history the game has ever produced.

The New York Times' George Vescey has a poignant take on the writer's final day, in which he heard about the A-Rod trade and, unable to speak, rendered his verdict: two thumbs up.