The Futility Infielder

It would be inaccurate to say that I spent 14 hours in the lobby of the Anaheim Marriott on Saturday. After all, I hit for the cycle at the hotel's Starbucks (coffee, soda, juice and water) and spent a good deal of time in the 100-yard-long hallway connecting the two rooms. Plus the walk from the hotel to our dinner in Downtown Disneyland (a po' boy at a "Cajun" takeout joint, as if I needed yet another reminder that this is not New Orleans) was epic in length. Nonetheless, I got to be on friendly terms with nearly every siteline in the hotel's reception area.

I'd gotten to bed at a reasonable hour on Friday night, only to kick myself when Will Carroll filled me on on the big fish he, Joe Sheehan and Jonah Keri had netted in the hotel bar after I departed (Cashman, Hendry…). With Will rising at o'dark-thirty to do his radio show and Ken Arneson departing the hide-a-bed soon afterwards, the commotion in our suite was enough to roust me out of bed to bang out yesterday's entry before heading back over.

I arrived to find Dodger Thoughts blogger Jon Weisman waiting for me with Alex Ciepley. The chance to meet Jon, one of my favorite correspondants, in person had been one of my excuses to embark for Anaheim in the first place. We spent a good deal of time catching up on the Dodger rumors centering around Tim Hudson (with pitcher Edwin Jackson and infielder Antonio Perez headed to the A's) and Adrian Beltre (heavily courted by the Mariners via a six-year deal), the Jeff Kent signing, and the Steve Finley departure before Jon introduced me to Steve Henson of the L.A. Times. A former colleague of Jon's, Henson is assuming the Dodger beat, so in my role as Baseball Prospects' Triple Play beatman, the opportunity to connect was worthwhile. Like his colleague Bill Shaikin (who didn't make an appearance, at least that we saw), Henson apparently reads Dodger Thoughts regularly and is receptive to the ways that bloggers' coverage complements that of the traditional media. It's always nice to find allies.

We circulated through the room to find Rich Lederer bending Tom Verducci's ear about Bert Blyleven's Hall of Fame candidacy. Verducci, who has a vote, listened politely but did not seem especially receptive to the cause of the man fifth all-time on the major league's strikeout list (and eminently overqualified according to my JAWS system). Ciepley pressed Ryne Sandberg's case and himself was met with a polite but surprising frostiness even as he pointed out the unfairness of comparing the Ryno's power stats to those of Jeff Kent in this inflated era. As the theme song to Gilligan's Island reminds us, "It's an uphill climb."

Lederer was fearless. After making his case to Verducci, he went up and introduced himself to Tommy Lasorda (recall that his dad was a Dodger beat reporter). He came away with Tommy's cellphone number, or at least something purporting to be those digits. Again, more chutzpah than I could muster when mere paces away from the former Dodger skipper. [Late note: Sunday morning Rich did a two-hour interview with Bill James which will make a fine capstone to his "Abstracts from the Abstracts series.]

Speaking of Dodger brass, former GM Fred Claire made an appearance later in the afternoon. Will and Jon huddled around him along with a couple of other folks, and just as I emerged into the circle, Jon's assessment of the Finley situation seemed to drive Claire away – almost as if he'd brought up the Jody Reed debacle which led Claire to trade away Pedro Martinez. Sigh.

The hottest rumors to sweep the room centered around the Yankees. In midafteroon, Will stormed by me and without breaking stride muttered to us that Jaret Wright had failed his physical, calling his three-year, $21 million deal into question. I immediately whipped out my phone to call my pal Nick back in NYC, while Rich rang up Alex Belth. I later asked Baseball Prospectus' Joe Sheehan how many cartwheels he'd turned upon hearing the news, and he replied that he'd broken into the Ickey Shuffle, though he didn't get too far in demonstrating the dance.

It would have been for naught, alas, as later in the day Wright passed a second physical done by Dr. Jim Andrews. But the uncertainty surrounding Wright created an opening for the Yanks to close in on a four-year, $39 million deal with Carl Pavano. In the hallway I passed a front-office type consoling Jack McKeon as he chewed at an unlit cigar. "I hear your boy is headed for the Big Apple," he said as I whisked by in the neverending quest to balance my fluids.

One of the more unlikely surprises came later in the afternoon. As I nearly tripped over a large, bespectacled redhead gentleman profusely thanking Peter Gammons (who on Sunday was declared the winner of the Baseball Hall of Fame's J. G. Taylor Spink award), I quickly figured out that said redhead was Gary Huckabay of Baseball Prospectus fame. Having spoken to Gary on the phone a few times, I introduced myself, and he quickly steered me over to a corner of the room where Voros McCracken was holding court. Best known as the creator of the Defense Independent Pitching Statistic system, Voros' groundbreaking work got him a consulting job with the Boston Red Sox prior to the 2003 season. Via email he had encouraged me to continue applying his DIPS 2.0 methodology to annual pitching stats, coaching me through his method to park-adjust for home-run rates. A self-effacing alumnus of "As Seen on TV" university, Voros exuded a combination of modesty and swagger as he fielded several questions from us bloggers about his role within the Sox organization. He recounted the chronology of how he'd been hired to report to Theo Epstein mere days before the boy genius was promoted to the GM post of the Red Sox, explained that much of what he's doing these days for the Sox from his Phoenix residence involves the amateur draft, and thanked us for listening to him as he bullshitted (that's his word) away.

Upon returning from our epic journey from dinner –- we are hell and gone from anything resembling quality cuisine – we arrived to find that the Marriott lobby had taken on the air of a cocktail party. Team employees were decked out in suits, many of them with wives or girlfriends accompanying them. The setting of the sun had tilted the scales of the business at hand from news to schmooze, creating a booming business for the hotel bar. Nonetheless, nervous young twenty-something job-seekers paced the room, portfolios in hand as they angled for a few moments of face time with the gatekeepers to their careers in baseball. I counted one looping by a half-dozen times during a fifteen-minute conversation I was having. Grab a beer and give it a rest, kid.

One of the more enjoyable conversations I had on Saturday evening was with Matthew Leach, MLB.com's beat reporter for the St. Louis Cardinals. I approached Matthew to check if he knew anything about the Cards' supposed interest in Pedro Martinez. His response implied that the reports were somewhat exaggerated, more a product of Pedro's camp trying to get leverage with the Red Sox than anything else. Our conversation shifted all over the map as we discussed the Cardinals' season, their playoff matchup with the Dodgers (he shares my admiration for Jim Tracy) and the World Series. Growing up a Red Sox fan, he was in a uniquely awkward position, bummed most that he could not share in the immediate enjoyment of the Sox championship victory. His theory is that the first five minutes after winning it all are better than the entire year that follows, and having been present for the Yanks' 1999 clincher, I can relate.

Evening turned to night turned to last call. Not only did we close down the hotel bar at 1 AM, we watched with some incredulity as a hotel securitywoman made Will polish off the last of his final beer an hour later while we discussed BP with Joe. Yet another reminder that we were no longer in the Big Easy. By the time I hit the hay, Will and I had spent another hour BSing back at our hotel room, our wide-ranging conversation centering around steroids. Will just did an excellent piece for BP and has a New York Times Op-Ed piece in the pipeline, among other things. Look Ma, I really am hanging with the newsmakers.

Other sightings of note: Tony LaRussa, Bobby Cox (seen talking to Tracy Ringolsby in Starbucks), Felipe Alou, Tony Peña, Theo Epstein (veerrrrry briefly), Bill James (through tinted glass), the Mayor of Las Vegas (with two showgirls and an Elvis impersonator in tow, making a big splash about the city courting the Marlins), Matt Williams, Frank McCourt, new Angel Steve Finley...

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It's approaching 6 PM here on Sunday and there's not much happening today, and by not much I mean NOTHING. As BP intern (and Fogball blogger) Tom Gorman showed me some impressive work using metrics to measure injury values, we heard rumblings that Beltre's going back to the Dodgers and Pedro back to the Sox, but the lack of action here in the media room (thanks again to that hobo-acquired credential ;) ) confirms that thus far today the tumbleweeds outnumber the trades (and the press release I was just handed about that that hot Kevin Cash trade doesn't count; neither does the guy next to me using Orioles and Hudson in the same sentence). Back as time permits…