The movie was accurate in how Beane and his brainy assistant played the percentages with players retrieved off sort of a scrap heap. "Island of Misfit Toys" is how the assistant termed it.
Beane leaned unconventional, at one point telling his players to discard base-stealing and sacrifice bunt strategy. The levers pulled by Beane and the young right-hand man (in his "first job of any kind") had the desired effect. Hollywood does exaggerate though. It over-dramatizes. It builds myths. And while it's not myth that the avant garde minds of the Oakland duo brought fruit, the starting pitching was a cog not given its due on the big screen. Consider Barry Zito, Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson. Wasn't Zito the guy who proved that the radar gun wasn't everything?
So, the subject is pitching. "Analytics" was an alien word to the ears of the old-time baseball men. It would seem that "pitch count" was from a foreign vocabulary too. What a contrast between eras!
The new conventional wisdom is not a slam-dunk. The reasonable limits on a pitching arm might seem totally affirmed. There is undeniable wisdom and science. Seeking success is a proposition that can be accompanied by risk, though. Certain pitchers can "blow through" the limits. Some observers think caution ought not always rule. Athletes have a shelf life anyway, don't they?
Delicate, important craft
Pitching imposes such incredible demands on just one part of the body. Many big league pitchers came and went in rather fleeting fashion when I was young. It could be heartbreaking for emotionally-invested fans. My generation of boys could live and die with the Minnesota Twins. How much potential success did the Twins jettison by over-working certain pitchers at key junctures? Jim Kaat in 1967. Kaat suffered but did not disappear after '67. He had a miraculous resurgence with the Chicago White Sox in the mid-1970s. Prior to that he went through what one writer called a "dead arm" period. Many other pitchers I can recall from all over the big leagues just faded out of the picture after apparent arm overwork.
We can almost assume that any big leaguer was a superstar in youth ball. Little Leaguers begin at age nine. Guys with the prime talent are so often assigned pitching. They relish the role and are tempted to show their prowess often. Their coaches want to win!
It's hard for these kids to rest properly when they're being treated like superstars. Or, like "gods" which was the term used by Gene Hackman as "Norman Dale" in the movie "Hoosiers." Remember the little back-and-forth he had in the school with Barbara Hershey? Is it unhealthy for a boy to be treated as a god due to sports prowess? So easy to suggest "yes" but Hackman (Dale) demurred, saying many people would "kill" to be afforded such status for a fleeting time.
There are exceptions to every norm or standard pattern, so in the case of Baltimore pitcher Dick Hall, we're looking at a guy who didn't pitch until age 16. A boon for him? Almost certainly, as he became the oldest player on any big league roster in 1970 and '71. He was a side-armer.
Pitching hero in pinstripes
Now let's move on to Whitey Ford. Ford was one of those pitchers whose resilience and longevity helped him get in the Hall of Fame. No head-scratcher as to how he might have achieved those qualities. He didn't play organized baseball until age 13.
Sometimes I think that "starting young" is overrated for athletes especially those in narrow specialties. Pitching is one, distance-running is another. Running imposes stress on a limited number of body parts. Pitching is the same with the arm. Injuries loom.
Ford finished the eighth grade in 1942. His local school didn't have a baseball team. So he enrolled in a specialty school (aviation) which was an hour ride from his home in Queens, NYC. Ford took up the first base position. He was in fact a terror with the bat. He began pitching for his high school team when he was a junior! I guess you could say the rest is history. He became what writers of the time called a "graybeard." Kid fans like me retained an image of those guys as forever older!
Ford and Mickey Mantle were bosom buddies. They may have complained about Jim Bouton's book "Ball Four" because it told about the drinking peccadillo. But in the aftermath of the notorious book, the two had no problem doing one of those Lite Beer commercials - an institution back in the day - in which they proclaimed they were in the "beer drinkers hall of fame." Bouton himself was amused by that. Remember that social drinking was mainstream then. We found amusing the images of excessive drinking, an attitude so contrary (fortunately) to today. People got bored in those days (no Internet).
Not only was Ford's pitching arm spared the overwork that could have come prematurely, he had a stint in the armed forces too. He completely missed the 1951 and '52 seasons.
We also saw Dean Chance fade away when the great righthander held out before '69, proceeded to rush his body into shape and hurt his shoulder. Boswell and Chance were little more than footnotes after their misfortune.
And as for Kaat, his surprising resurgence didn't happen until he was with the White Sox. And that was with an unconventional style, of throwing pitches as rapidly as the batters would let him, remember? The Twins were hurt by morale problems in the late 1960s. Had they just focused on winning instead of their cliques and the curmudgeonly owner Calvin Griffith, they'd all be better financially endowed. The memorabilia shows were on their way!
One wonders how a healthy triumvirate of Kaat, Boswell and Chance could have brought us glory in 1970 and maybe longer. Baseball is all about dreams I guess, at least for the fans. For the players it can be a pretty gritty and even dangerous proposition.
Ford had bouts of shoulder soreness even with his well-preserved body. Let's fast-forward to April 22 of 1959, a rare season when the Yankees did not win the pennant. Ford shut out the Griffith-owned Washington Senators for 14 innings! Fourteen innings! Lordy Lordy. The pitch count apparently wasn't even a glimmer in anyone's eye yet. Oh, the Yankees won 1-0. Ford struck out 15, he only allowed seven hits and no Senator reached third base (and only three reached second). Ford found some elbow problems cropping up after that. No kidding! Fortunately he rebounded to resume his Hall of Fame course.
So many pitchers were not as fortunate. Probably the most resilient pitcher ever was Gaylord Perry - phenomenal body.
The "what if" of 1960 Series
The 1960 story for Ford and the Yankees was highly dramatic. They were back to the World Series and probably should have won it. It went seven games and went to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Game 7 was wild. Ford probably should have pitched Game 7. However, manager Casey Stengel had waited until Game 3 to send the star southpaw out to the mound. Stengel wanted to utilize Ford at the spacious Yankee Stadium rather than Pittsburgh's Forbes Field.
Ford pitched Games 3 and 6. Had he pitched the opener, he could have stretched his pitching to three games. To change history? Who knows. Instead we got the Bill Mazeroski homer for the Pirates at the very end. Five Yankee pitchers gave up ten runs in Game 7. Stengel moseyed on from his manager role. New manager Ralph Houk asked Ford if he'd like to pitch every fourth day rather than fifth. Ford was game for the idea. His arm had enough miles left in it. So Ford blossomed greatly in the season that saw Mantle and Roger Maris in their epic pursuit of Babe Ruth's home run record. Maris beat it. We see it all in the Billy Crystal movie called "61*" with asterisk intended.
We learn early in the movie that Ford was called "The Chairman of the Board." Actor Anthony Michael Hall played him. We see Ford acting perturbed at Mantle's drinking, sort of. But the routine acceptance of alcohol consumption at the time - really - was such that the disgust is really just feigned, and the guys basically laugh. Ford peels out cash to appease people hurt by Mantle's habit.
The names of Dean Chance and Jim Bouton have appeared in this post. And what a coincidence, as yours truly can report that these two hurlers once matched shutout pitching for 13 innings - egad! - in a game at Los Angeles. The date was June 6,1964. Imagine those franchises being so careless with their athletic assets: to let these pitchers go 13 innings!
There are still some mixed thoughts on the subject - for example Bert Blyleven has been known to say a pitcher is sharper when logging a fair number of innings. A pitcher "gets into the zone" or whatever. But the other side of the coin, overwork, spells sadness so often. Again, if my Twins could have had Chance, Kaat and Boswell together as a prolonged nucleus, oh my! But so much of baseball is fodder for the "what might have beens," like Ford pitching Game 7 of the '60 Series.
On and on we hash these things over. Toward what end? Does it even bring us happiness?
Yes, Billy Beane of Oakland was a cutting edge thinker with his assistant - "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes," to borrow the name of an old Walt Disney movie - in 2002, assuredly, but the starting pitching was unheralded in the movie.
Our Twins manager Sam Mele once said after a superbly-pitched game: "That kind of pitching makes this job a pipe." And yes, for Art Howe that luxury was most forthcoming. Say what you want about the "Island of misfit toys," the A's had assets that were anything but a trade secret! Nevertheless, congrats is afforded all winners!
Addendum: I remember being at Faith Lutheran Church in Morris MN with my camera for the newspaper when the Twins happened to be finishing off Oakland in the 2002 A.L. playoff series. I remember photographing a young person with a pillow over her eyes, so nervous were all of us watching TV at the end of the game. It was a charming photo. I shared the happiness. But had I known Oakland would gain mythic proportions with "moneyball," I would have rooted for Oakland!
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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