August 5, 2004
I Got Nothin'
I know a lot of you hate it when I publish something over at The Hardball Times instead of putting it here (a feeling I will never understand, by the way), but in today's case, hopefully you will cut me some slack.
I wrote up my "Minnesota Twins, by Month" article as I have done each month this year, but I realized that the lists and tables I used have literally gotten too wide (now that they have four months to show) for this blog. So, rather than post it here and make some weird edits to make it readable, I'm just going to give you the link to the article over at The Hardball Times, where you can it in its full, wide-tabled beauty.
The Hardball Times: The Minnesota Twins, by Month (Through July)
Two quick notes ...
- For some unknown reason, I found myself watching Baseball Tonight on ESPN last night, featuring Karl Ravech, Harold Reynolds and Jeff Brantley. As I've said before, I've become so frustrated with Baseball Tonight that I rarely watch the show that was once a nightly ritual for me.
Anyway, in the 15 minutes I was able to stay with the show last night, I heard a particularly amusing and frustrating exchange between Ravech and Reynolds that took place during the Los Angeles/Pittsburgh highlights. After showing the Dodgers' three first inning home runs on the way to an 8-3 victory, this took place ...
RAVECH: So much for all that talk about the Dodgers losing their chemistry, huh?
REYNOLDS: Well, winning does a lot to create chemistry.
I nearly bashed my head into the wall. After the Dodgers made the big trade with the Marlins, Harold Reynolds was on every ESPN show you can think of, every day, talking about what a horrible deal it was for the Dodgers, how they just handed the Marlins the pennant, and how trading away Paul Lo Duca, the "heart and soul of the team," was going to make their "team chemistry" disappear and lead to them playing poorly down the stretch.
In response to that, and similar thoughts expressed by other members of the mainstream media, I wrote:
Chemistry, along with winning, is always a "chicken or egg" issue, as in which came first, the winning or the chemistry? This trade makes the Dodgers a better team and whether you want to call that the chicken or the egg, the chemistry will follow. You see, it has to, because as most mainstream baseball writers and TV personalities will tell you, time after time after time, all good teams have good chemistry. And the Dodgers are a good team.
And now, less than a week later, Reynolds has completely changed his tune. Last week they were doomed because they lost all their chemistry, and now this week they are just fine because, wouldn't you know it, they can just regain it all by winning a few games in a row. Funny how that works.
- To those of you who have sent me e-mails over the past week or so and haven't heard back from me, I'm sorry. I've been trying to be better about responding to e-mails, and I think I was starting to make some progress, but my mailbox is extremely backed up this week, for whatever reason. My plan is to get to them all over the weekend, so please be patient.
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