The Sexism Awakens: Why Rey's great, but J.J. could have done better.

( WARNING: This post is basically nothing but SPOILERS for "Star Wars: The Force Awakens". )

After watching Star Wars : The Force Awakens ( which I'll just call TFA for the rest of this post ) opening weekend, I was curious to find out what other people thought about the film.  So, I headed over to the IMDB message board for TFA, and the first threads I noticed were full of people saying TFA had a "feminist agenda" and that Rey was a "Mary Sue".  I had no idea what a "Mary Sue" was, so I had to look it up.  According to Wikipedia, a "Mary Sue" is a term for a female "idealized fictional character, a young or low-rank person who saves the day through extraordinary abilities", but it seems like the term is mostly used online as a sexist term to describe any strong female character.   After reading all the hateful stuff on those message boards, I not only only felt embarrassed by my gender, but embarrassed to be a human being.

I think Rey's a tremendous character, I'm excited the story is centered around her, and I can't wait to see what happen's next in Episode 8.  That said, I think most defenses of Rey I've read do a disservice to her character and TFA by refusing to acknowledge any faults with her story arc or with TFA in general.

If we want to defend Rey and TFA against the sexists trolls who call her a "Mary Sue" and claim that TFA isn't a real Star Wars movie then we can't fail to acknowledge that there is something unusual about her character and about her story arc.  We can't say that her story arc is no more extraordinary than Luke's in A New Hope ( ANH ).  It's definitely a lot more extraordinary.  Only a few hours after she realizes she's Force-sensitive, she's doing thing with the Force that Luke couldn't have dreamed of doing until after he trained with Yoda.  I'm not saying this makes Rey's rapid Force proficiency unrealistic, because there are plenty of hints in the film that suggest Episode 8 will explain why she is such a unprecedented Force-prodigy, but I think we do have to acknowledge that the pace at which the Force awakens in her is unprecedented in the Star Wars Cinematic Universe.  If we fail to acknowledge that, the sexists trolls will just call us SJWs ( another term I learned since reading the IMBD TFA message boards ) who are defending Rey in a knee-jerk way without considering the facts.

So, I'm going to spend this post reviewing the parts of TFA that could be considered implausible, some which involve Rey, and some which don't.  I expect that most of the potentially implausible scenes in TFA will make sense after Episode 8*, but I fear that some are just examples of poor storytelling and will never be fixed ( particularly the Kylo/Finn battle ).

( * I should also note that I think it's often ( but not always ) a sign of bad storytelling when an author/writer/director gives us a confusing implausible scene with the implicit promise that all will be explained in the next book/movie.  I must have watched the 2nd Matrix movie about 20 times trying to construct a narrative that would explain everything that was said in the "Architect" scene.  I eventually constructed several narratives for the 3rd Matrix movie that might being able to reconcile the first 2 Matrix movies, but the 3rd Matrix movie wound up being a mess that made no sense at all.  Since then, I've just pretended that the 2nd and 3rd Matrix movies never happened.  So forgive me if I'm suspicious of any confusing TFA scenes that J.J. might not explain to us until Episodes 8 and 9. )

Let me get all the Rey stuff out of the way first, starting with the Force stuff.  The first thing I'll note is that the Force is, for the lack of a better term, magic.  Everything about the idea of people moving things with their minds and controlling the minds of others is essentially unrealistic.  Clearly, we need to accept that the Force exists in the Star Wars Cinematic Universe, but in accepting that it exists, we also need to accept that the Force is a magical thing that regular rules of logic do not necessarily apply to.  So, there's really no rule that says Rey couldn't be extremely strong in the Force without any formal training ( much stronger than Luke or any other Force newbie we've encountered in the previous films ).  However, it has been established in the films that Jedi are generally trained starting at a very young age, and it was even mentioned in The Phantom Menace that young Anikan was "too old" to begin Jedi training.  So, while I don't know if a magical power like the Force can have any unbreakable rules, it does seem to be well-established in the Star Wars Cinematic Universe that it would be extremely unusual for somebody as old as Rey to develop Force powers as quickly as she did in TFA.  Still, there are enough hints in the film that Rey has been trained before, so for now I'm going to assume she received Jedi training as a young child, her memories of those childhood years have been suppressed or repressed, and the events of TFA awakened Force powers she had developed many years ago.  So, I'm fine with all Rey Force stuff, assuming we are all right about Rey having prior training.  If we are not right about her prior training, J.J.'s going to have some 'splainin' to do.

The next Rey-centric thing I'd like to explore is what I'm going to call the "Magical Mechanic Syndrome".  Over the last 30+ years, movies and TV shows have been plagued by what I'll call "Magical Hacker Syndrome".  It seems that movies and TV shows often have a magical hacker that can break into a system instantly whenever the plot demands it.  Whether it was Mathew Broderick in War Games,  KITT doing impossible things like unlocking door with regular mechanical locks, Penny doing all sorts of impossible things with her Computer Book in the non-wired world of the 80's, or hackers breaking into systems instantly by doing a "SEND SPIKE" in GoldenEye, it always bothered my computer-geek sensibilities that movies/TV have always made hacking seem so easy.  In the same way, I've got to imagine that real mechanics are insulted by how Rey can solve mechanical problems almost instantly.  I know the film establishes that Rey is a scavenger who has lots of experience with mechanic devices, but even an expert mechanic should not be able to diagnose and fix mechanical issues as quickly as she did in this movie.  It's one thing to be able to recognize every mechanical part, and understand how they work together in general ( which I'm going to assume Rey has the ability to do ); it's quite another thing to walk into a ship you've never been inside before, and almost instantly diagnose the mechanical problems the ship has and fix them all within a few minutes ( which Rey does after entering the Millennium Falcon ).  She was so proficient inside the Millennium Falcon, it made me wonder if she had ever been in there before.  However, as a scavenger, you would think any time she spent in the Falcon would have been spent stripping it clean, in which case, the Falcon would not be fit for flight.  I really like Rey and TFA, so I've been racking my brain trying to think of reasons why she might be familiar with the Falcon ( because it would have been impossible for any mechanic to fix any complex machine that quickly after seeing it for the first time ).  She did say it was "garbage" before she and Finn ran to it, so there is a chance her "garbage" comment indicates that she had already seen the "garbage"-y innards of the ship.  Perhaps the scavenging boss Unkar Plutt ( the guy who keeps short-changing Rey for the parts she brings him ), had hired Rey to refurbish the Falcon with parts she had scavenged so he could sell it to the highest bidder ( After all, Plutt does yell "That's my ship" when Rey flies off with the Falcon ).

Yeah, let's go with that - let's assume she'd worked on the Falcon for Plutt in the past.  That's the only thing that really makes sense, so I'm just going to believe that until somebody proves otherwise.  Still, that fact that I've got to construct a narrative to makes sense of Rey's almost instant repair of the Falcon is a storytelling failure on J.J.'s part.

( Jan 1, 2016 Update: I watched TFA a second time today.  It was clear from Rey's dialog inside the Falcon that she was aware of and probably participated in Plutt's modifications to the Falcon.  At one point she told Han that she disagreed with one of the modifications Plutt had made.  Thus, it's almost certain that she had worked on the Falcon before, so it makes perfect sense that she would know the mechanics of the modified Falcon even better than Han did. )

However, even if I construct a Plutt/Rey/Falcon narrative to make sense of the Falcon scenes, it still doesn't explain the other examples of Rey's magical mechanical abilities later in TFA.  She seems to know exactly what lever to manipulate to open a panel in a Starkiller Base wall, she is quickly able to manipulate a few compents in a wall to make a bunch of Starkiller Base doors open ( There's no chance she'd been at Starkiller Base before -  I doubt there is any chance Starkiller Base was using the same kind of components that were being used in the 30-year old Star Destroyer she was scavenging earlier in the film. ), and she seems to know what fuses in Han's large smuggling ship can be used to open and close doors ( The fact that she opened the wrong doors does add some realism, but not enough for me* ).  Part of me wants to believe that her mechanical abilities/experience combined with some kind of Force instinct gives her the ability to choose the right lever/button to activate, but once again, J.J.'s storytelling should not force me to invent my own narratives to make sense of the plot.  Also, the fact that she opened the wrong doors on Han's smuggling ship argues against my Force instinct theory.

( * I thought the scene where Rey opens the doors on Han's smuggling ship was the most unrealistic mechanical/engineering part of the movie, even though Rey opened the wrong doors.  Putting aside Rey's magical abikity to instantly figure out which fuses regulated power to the doors , it makes no sense that pulling fuses would open or close doors.  Both opening and closing the doors requires power, so if you cut off the power to a door by pulling a fuse, the door is likely to remain in the position it was in before you pulled the fuse.  Expecting the doors on Han's ship to open and close when a fuse is pulled is like expecting automatic garage door to open or close when you flip off the circuit breaker that controls the power to the doors.  I guess it is possible that the fuses Rey magically identified regulated the control signal to the doors and main power was still being supplied to the doors' motors, but if the control signal was interrupted to a door and the control system to that door wanted to return the door to a default position, it would make the most sense if the default position for the door was closed and locked.  In any case, I'm sure I'm probably nit-picking too much here.  I know that Star Wars is more of a space fantasy rather than science fiction, and I guess I shouldn't expect too much technical accuracy from a series that maintains that a parsec is a unit of time.   Still as a person who spent 5 years studying Mechanical Engineering in school, this stuff bothers me. )

In any case. I'll let the mechanical issues slide for now, because it is not a core part of the film.  Still, I think it's bad storytelling on J.J's part, because he could have found ways to show us Rey was an expert mechanic without breaking the rules of common sense.  I guess J.J. and his team are no more guilty than than other movie/TV writers and directors.  In addition to magical hackers, and magical mechanics, movies and TV are full of magical doctors, magical lawyers, magical scientists, magical detectives, and magical politicians.  I don't like it, but these magical short-cuts are always going to be a part of movies and TV.

The last Rey issue that needs to be addressed is the criticism that she was portrayed as being too good of a pilot.  I don't have any problem with her piloting skills at all.  Admittedly, we are only working with a sample size of two people, but what we've seen from Anakin and Luke suggest that ...
1) People who are strong in the Force are great pilots.
2) People with Skywalker blood are great pilots.

Well, we already know that Rey is extremely strong in the Force and many believe that she is a Skywalker.  There's no reason to believe she wouldn't be a great pilot if she had enough experience flying a skip.  My only small quibble with TFA is that we don't get any information about how she learned to fly a ship.  Maybe flying a ship is just like driving a car is the Star Wars Cinematic Universe, and almost everyone is trained in the basics of flying a ship.  However, part of me wonders where she had the opportunity to pilot a ship prior to taking the controls of the Falcon.  We leaned in ANH that Luke used to "bullseye womp rats" in his "T-16" in "Beggar's Canyon", which fortuitously enough, was just the kind of training needed to hit a target in a Death Star trench.  I've always assumed that Luke's Uncle Owen either bought Luke the T-16 or gave Luke enough of an allowance for his farm work so Luke could buy the T-16 himself.  It's not clear if Rey ever had enough money to buy a ship considering she was poor enough to be living in a discarded AT-AT.  Perhaps she picked up flying experience running missions for Plutt ( If Plutt needed somebody to fly missions for him in his scavenger community, Rey would be the best choice, because as somebody with no desire to leave her home on Jakku , she could always be counted on to return back to the community with Plutt's ships.  I could be wrong, but when we see that flashback of young Rey watching that spaceship ( presumably carrying one or both or her parents) leave Jakku, I think the hand that is grabbing her belongs to Plutt.  If that's true, Plutt knows Rey is likely to stick around and not fly off with one of his ships. ), but it would be nice to eventually get some background on Rey's flying experience just like ANH gave us tidbits about Luke's background as a pilot.

( January 1, 2016 Update:  According to Rey's Survival Guide, Rey learned to fly using a Y-wing simulator.

)

So, I hope by now I've debunked the Rey "Mary Sue" stuff while acknowledging some of the flaws in J.J's storytelling.  However, the storytelling issues related to Rey are nothing compared the storytelling issue with some other parts of the movie.  I'll start with the some of the my smaller quibbles first before getting to the big one.

- A 3rd Death Star?  Really?  Oh, it's a "Starkiller Base", is it?  Sure - keep telling yourself that.  You know the Death Star thing is a problem for the Star Wars franchise when the rebels in TFA  start comparing the size of Starkiller Base to the size of the Death Star and you find yourself thinking "Are they talking about the Death Star in the original Star Wars or the other Death Star in Return of the Jedi?

- I still haven't decided if Poe leaving the secret map with BB-8 at the start of TFA is an homage to the Leia/R2-D2 secret plans moment at the start of ANH or just a rip-off of it.

- All serious Star Wars fans know Harrison Ford has wanted Han to die since Empire, so we all assumed Ford would only agree to appear in TFA if the script called for Han to be killed off in it.  So, as soon as Han stepped onto the walkway with Kylo, we knew Kylo was going to kill him.  Ideally, that Han/Kylo moment should have been one of the more emotional/shocking moments of the film, but no true Star Wars fan was shocked by it, and Han and Kylo didn't interact enough to draw me in emotionally before Han was killed.  I know J.J. was in a tough spot accommodating Ford's wishes, but he could have handled this pivotal scene better.

OK, so now let's get to my biggest issue - Kylo Ren.

Don't get me wrong, I think Kylo is a great character and Adam Driver was great in the role, but the movie was inconsistent about Klyo's mastery of the Force, and that's a pretty big deal considering that Kylo is the primary villain in the film.  When we first see Kylo, he's stopping a blaster bolt with his mind.  This led me to believe he was extremely powerful in the Force, and would be an very formidable foe for our heroes.  In all 6 previous Star Wars films, we had never seen any Jedi or Sith stop a blaster bolt with their mind.  Not Obi Wan, not Luke, not Anakin/Vader, not Darth Maul, not Windu, not Dooku, not Yoda, not Palpatine, not anybody.  Every Jedi/Sith needed to deflect a blaster bolt with a lightsaber rather than stop the bolt in mid-flight.  So, my first impression of Kylo Ren was "This guy is more powerful in the Force than any Star Wars character I've ever seen."  That's why it made made no sense at the end of movie when he had a fight with Finn that lasted more than one second.

I don't care that Kylo had been shot in the side by Chewbacca;  I don't care how much pain he was in or how much blood he was losing or how conflicted he felt about just murdering his father.  He has just effortlessly Force-thrown strong-in-the-Force Rey up against a tree.  He could have done that to Finn over and over again.  Considering  he was strong enough in the Force to stop a blaster bolt  and toss Rey he probably could have used the Force to break Finn's neck instantly.  There was no reason for Finn to engage Finn in lightsaber duel.  He engaged Rey in a lightsaber duel because his goal was to subdue her and turn her to the dark side rather than kill her, but there was no reason for him to engage Finn in a fair fight.  Finn should have been killed instantly.

Now don't get me wrong; I absolutely love Finn's character and I don't want him to die in any of the new films, but if you don't want a character to to die, you shouldn't put him is situation in which it is laughably ridiculous that he would survive.  The entire Kylo/Finn thing is a huge storytelling failure on J.J.'s part and I don't think anything can be done in the next 2 films to fix this.

What's most frustrating is that the Kylo stuff would have been be such an easy thing to fix.  If you just remove the Kylo-freezes-a-blaster-bolt thing and have Kylo dismissively thrown Finn into a tree ( in  a non-fatal way )  before engaging Rey, the Kylo portion of the movie would be perfect.  I like the petulant poser Kylo who can't control his emotions or his Force powers properly.  J.J. should have just stuck with that and shouldn't have tried to wow us with the blaster bolt stuff ( I'll admit, I was wowed by the blaster blot stuff, but it just doesn't fit with the portrayal of Kylo in the rest of the film ).

All my criticisms aside, I loved this movie and I can't wait to see it again.  I thought everything up to point where Rey and Finn entered the Falcon was the best start to a Star Wars film I'd ever seen.  The chemistry between Finn and Rey was fantastic.  The chemistry between Finn and Poe was fantastic.   The chemistry between BB-8 and everybody was fantastic.  The humor was amazing - there was more humor in the first 30 minutest of TFA than the 3 prequels combined.  The root of my disappointment with TFA is that the rest of TFA did not live up to the fantastic start.  There was point in the early part of the film where I was absolutely giddy - more giddy than I had been in a theater for more than 30 years.  I was giddy with the hope that this Star Wars film would be as great as The Empire Strikes Back or as great as A New Hope.  In the end, I think TFA was as good as Return of the Jedi, which still makes it a worthy successor to the original trilogy.  It was one hell of a film, but I just wish it could have been a little bit better.

Rich

Cuckoo Clock

It's time for a mea culpa.  I was wrong - twice.

I was wrong back when the Ahmed clock story broke.  I believed he was a gifted kid who designed his own clock and only took it to school to show it off to his science teacher.  I liked every pro-Ahmed post I saw on facebook including the posts that announced he'd been invited to the White House to show off his clock.  I was wrong to accept the Ahmed clock story at face value.

I was wrong a second time when I didn't criticize Ahmed and his family a few months ago.  Shortly after the Ahmed clock story broke, it became clear to me that Ahmed and his family had engaged in a sting operation to catch islamophobes and racists.  The people that were caught by this sting certainly were islamophobes and racists, but that didn't make the entrapment Ahmed's family engaged in right.  This made me unconformable, but I didn't post anything on social media about it.  My only defense is that I didn't want to do anything that would make it look like I was defending the racists* involved in the Ahmed  clock incident, and while I strongly disagreed with the method used by Ahmed's family, I wasn't going to raise a big stink about a couple of racists being publicly shamed.

* From this point forward in this post, I'm just going to use the term "racists" as shorthand for "islamophobic racists".  I think racism and islamophobia are often two side of the same coin anyway, and in the Ahmed clock incident I doubt very much that a white muslim would have been arrested for doing the same thing Ahmed did.

However, it was wrong of me not to speak out about this, a point that was driven home in my mind by the news that Ahmed's family is demanding $15 million dollars from Irving, Texas and its independent school district.  If I had even the smallest doubt about the motives of Ahmed's family, they were washed away by the news of the $15 million demand.

Now, before I go on, let me make something absolutely clear to my readers - the vast majority of whom are as liberal as I am.  I am in no way defending the actions of the teachers/administrators in Ahmed's school or the Irving police.  The fact that Ahmed wound up being led away in handcuffs is absolutely ridiculous.   While I actually do believe that the teacher who fell for Ahmed's sting operation sincerely had an irrational fear  that the clock might be a bomb, it's clear that the administrators of the school and the police did not think the clock was a bomb.  The school was not evacuated, the bomb squad was not called in, and the police drove Ahmed and his clock to the police station.  It seems that nobody in any position of authority thought that this clock was threat.  Perhaps they thought Ahmed was trying to play a trick on them ( which I believe he was ) and wanted to make an example out of him, but they made an example out of him for racists reasons.  The school administrators  and police definitely would not have reacted this way if he was a white non-muslim kid, and they probably would not have reacted this way even if he was a white muslim kid.  It was definitely wrong for the school administrators and the police to react the way they did, and their reaction underscored the problems this nation has with racism and islamophobia.  That being said, Ahmed and his family were wrong to set a trap for the racists and islamaphobes.

Because there's no way getting around it - this was a trap.

Oh, I didn't realize it at first.  At first, I reacted the way most liberals did; I was excited by the Ahmed clock story.  It's a little embarrassing to admit this, because nobody should ever feel happy about story that includes an innocent kid being hauled off to jail, but this story actually filled me with glee.  It had everything that liberals love; it was like raw meat being thrown to a bunch of lions.  It had islamophobia.  It had racist islamophobia!  In the south.  In Texas!  To top it all off, it had racist cops persecuting a member of an ethnic and religious minority.   Seriously, in the minds of most liberals at the time, this story was awesome.  It confirmed a lot of liberal folk's negative assumptions about the south, about Texas, and about racism in policing.  And then the President invited him to the White House, Mark Zuckerberg invited him to facebook, and MIT practically told him they had a spot waiting for him.  We all loved this - we all were pumped up to #StandWithAhmed and show all those racists how wrong they were.

And while the racists certainly were wrong, most of us ( including me ) were too blinded by our excitement about the story to see that Amhed's narrative was a lie.  It's pretty easy to see that Ahmed wasn't an innocent kid who just wanted to to impress his science teacher.  All you you really need to see the truth is the video below and some common sense.



I had initially believed that Ahmed had hooked up circuits by hand to create his own clock.  While this certainly wouldn't have qualified as an "invention" ( which is what Ahmed called his clock ), it would have been an impressive project that any 14-year-old should have been proud to show his science teacher.

However, that's not what Ahmed did.  As the video above shows, his clock "invention" was simply the result of taking the innards of a store-bought clock out of its casing and mounting them in a pencil case shaped like a briefcase.  This isn't a project any kid should have been proud to show a science teacher.  All you are really showing off by doing this project is your ability to use a screwdriver.  If I was a science teacher and a kid presented this clock to me as an original project, I would give that kid a failing grade.  There's really no chance in hell that Ahmed was bringing that clock to school to impress his science teacher.  There's was nothing impressive about that clock project.  He took a perfectly good clock and made it worse.  If you walked around with that pencil case clock open, the innards of the clock would dangle out and be exposed to damage, and if you closed the case to protect the innards, there's no way you could read the display of the clock.

So, if you accept that there's no way Ahmed brought that shitty clock project to school to impress his science teacher, you needed to ask yourself why he really brought it to school.  You also have to ask yourself why he mounted the clock in a pencil case that looked like a briefcase.  I've heard a lot a liberals protest that the clock was mounted in a pencil case, but not a briefcase, but c'mon, that pencil case looks like a little briefcase.  I've seen a lot a pencil cases in my day, and none of them looked as much like a briefcase as the pencil case used for Ahmed's clock.  If you don't think that Ahmed chose a pencil case that looked like a briefcase for a reason, you're just being naive.  After Ahmed showed the science teacher the clock, he bought out the clock in other classes after that.  The teacher who feared the clock was a bomb said she noticed the clocked because it beeped.  Why was Ahmed taking the clock out in every class?  Why did he have the clock turned on at all ( with the alarm ready to beep, apparently ) after he was done with science class.  My common sense tells me he was fishing - fishing for racists.  It took a while, but eventually he hooked one, and the rest is history.

Earlier in the is post I had accused Ahmed and his family of being the type of people who would run a sting operation.  Now that I've thought about it a bit while writing this post, I've decide that they are worse than that.   They're con men.  They conned almost all of us into believing that Ahmed is just some innocent young genius who wanted to impress his science teacher, and now they are going to try to con a jury into giving them $15 million.  I hope this con doesn't work, and liberals who care about fairness and justice should speak out against this con.  If Ahmed's family wins $15 millions dollars in a lawsuit, I think it would be an insult to all the truly innocent victims of racism in this country's history.

Racism and Islamaphobia are big problems.  Lots of people have people have harmed by it and deserve compensation.  If class-action lawsuit awarded a trillion dollars to victims of racism in this country, I'd have no problem with it - as long as that little con man Ahmed doesn't get a cent.

Rich

Top 10 Mets Home Runs

I though about writing this post back in early August.  When Wilmer Flores hit his dramatic home run against the Washington Nationals on July 31st, it made me reflect on the top home runs in Mets history.  I actually wrote down a preliminary top 10 list - a list I needed to crumple up and throw away after Daniel Murphy's exploits.  So, with the understanding that Murphy and the Mets might still add to this list over the next week, here is my list ( in chronological order ) of the top 10 Mets home runs of all time.

Pre-me Honorable Mention

Before moving on to the list, I should note this list only includes homers I actually saw.  It doesn't include any of the homers hit by the 1969 Mets which happened when I was in my mother's womb, or any of the homers hit by the 1973 Mets which happened when I was far more interested in Cookie Monster than the Mets.

However, it would be remiss of me to not mention Al Weis' game 5 home run in the 1969 World Series.  In addition to being used as a major plot device in the fine 2000 film "Frequency", this 7th-inning solo home run tied game 5 of the 1969 World Series at 3.  The "Miracle Mets" would go on to win that game 5-3 to win the World Series 4 games to 1 against a powerful Baltimore Orioles team.

Of course, the Mets were already leading that series 3 games to 1, and they did score 2 more runs in game 5 after Weis' homer, so I'm not 100% sure if this homer was as important as the other homers on this list below ( all of which happened when the Mets were either tied or trailing in a playoff series or pennant race, with the exception of a homer that actually won a playoff series ).  However, those Orioles ( who won 109 game in 1969, won the World Series in 1970, and lost the World Series in 1971 ) were a great team, and I'm sure all Mets fans were terrified of the prospect the Mets going back to Baltimore for game 6 and a potential game 7.  Of course, I wasn't there, so it's hard for me to give a fair verdict on Weis' homer.  I'll leave it to people older than me to decide if Weis' homer belongs on the top 10 list below.

Top 10 Mets Home Runs in Chronological Order

Darryl Strawberry, Game 3, 1986 NLCS

The Mets and Astros were tied 1 game apiece in the series with the nearly unbeatable Mike Scott looming as the Astros starter for game 4.  The Mets had been stymied by Astros southpaw Bob  Knepper for 5 innings and found themselves trailing 4-0 going into the bottom of the 6th.  Two hits and and error made it 4-1 that inning before Darryl Strawberry strode to the plate.  One mighty Strawberry cut later, the score was tied at 4.



Lenny Dykstra, Game 3,  1986 NLCS

Despite Strawberry's heroics earlier in the game, the Mets still found themselves trailing 5-4 going to the bottom of the 9th.  After Wally Backman reached on an infield hit and advanced to 2nd on a passed ball, Lenny Dykstra came to the plate with one out and did something he had only done before "in a Strat-O-Matic game against my little brother".



Lenny Dykstra, Game 3, 1986 World Series

Mets fans were shocked when the 108-win 1986 Mets lost the first 2 game of the 1986 World Series at Shea to the Boston Red Sox, and some Red Sox fans were talking sweep as the series headed back to Fenway for game 3.  Lenny Dykstra ended that talk with a lead-off home run to start game 3.



Todd Pratt, Game 4,  1999 NLDS

The Mets were winning this best of five series 2 games to 1, the game was tied at the time, and I still think the Mets would have won the series if Pratt had not homered, but a walk-off home to win a playoff series is still a walk-off home to win a playoff series.



Mike Piazza, Game 6, 1999 NLCS

This homer is nowhere near as well-remembered as another "homer" in that series, but in my mind, Piazza's game 6 homer was far more dramatic than Ventura's "Grand Slam Single" in game 5.  The Mets had rallied from a 3 games to none deficit in this series to take games 4 and 5 at Shea, but found themselves in a 5-0 early hole in game 6 at Turner field.  The were still trailing 7-3 in the top of the 7th when the Mets mounted a rally.  They had gotten 3 hits to make it 7-5 when Piazza hit a one-out 2-run home run  off future Hall-of-Famer John Smoltz to tie the game at 7.  I had thought all hope was lost when the Mets had trailed 5-0 after 5 innings, but now I thought the Mets were going to pull off the miracle by beating the the Braves in this game and then finishing off the shell-shocked Braves in game 7 ( I don't think the Braves would have recovered from losing via the "Grand Slam Single" in game 5 and then blowing a 5-0 6th-inning lead in game 6.  As Yankees fans can attest, this 90's Braves team wasn't exactly clutch, so if the Mets had won game 6, I think the Braves would have folded in game 7 ).  The Mets would have actually pulled off the miracle if they'd had clutch relievers.  John Franco blew an 8-7 lead in the bottom of the 8th and Armando Benitez blew a 9-8 lead in the bottom of the 10th.  However, neither Franco's or Benitez's failures were Piazza's fault.  He still hit one of great clutch home runs in Mets history.



Benny Agbayani, Game 3, 2000 NLDS

This is the only homer on the list that I experienced in-person.  My brother Craig and I were at Shea for this one, and there was a feeling of apprehension in the stands all game.  The best-of-five series was tied at one game apiece, we were facing a powerful Giants team led by Bonds/Kent, and we had a guy with a 5.06 ERA slated to pitch for us in game 4 ( Hey, nobody could have predicted that Bobby Jones would pitch a 1-hit shutout in game 4.  This guy had a 5.61 ERA in 1999 and hardly anybody was surprised when he went 8-19 with a 5.12 ERA in 2001.  Believe me, most Mets fan had written off game 4 and figured we needed to win games 3 and 5 to win this series.  To the 56,000+ Mets fans at Shea that day, game 3 was a must-win. ).

The Mets fell behind early 2-0.  We managed to tie the game by scratching out a run in the 6th and a run in the 8th, but after we tied the game, the Giants had men on base almost every single inning after that.

Top of the 9th:    Barry Bonds strikes out with a man on first.
Top of the 10th : Giants leave runners on 1st and 3rd but fail to score.
Top of the 11th:  Giants go down 1-2-3 for a change.
Top of the 12th:  Giants leave runners at 1st and 2nd but fail to score.
Top of the 13th:  Bonds pops out with runners on 1st and 2nd to end the inning.

By the bottom of the 13th inning, all of us in the stands at Shea that day felt emotionally exhausted, and we were beginning to feel like we were living on borrowed time.  Then, with one out in the bottom of the 13th, Benny Agbayani sent us all home happy.



I've witnessed a lot a great moments at Shea over the years.  I've seen Ed Kranepool and Darryl Strawberry hit walk-off homers to turn 9th-inning deficits into wins.  I was there when Gary Carter hit his opening day walk-off homer in front of a packed house in 1985, and I was there when Ray Knight hit a walk-off homer in front of a sold-out Shea on Fireworks Night in 1986.  I was even in the stadium when the Mets won the 2000 pennant.  However, I never experienced as much noise and joy at Shea Stadium as when Benny Agbayani hit that home run.  I still consider it to me the greatest sports moment I've witnessed in person.

Mike Piazza, September 21, 2001

This is probably the most famous home run in Mets history.  Everyone remembers that Piazza hit it in the first baseball game played after 9/11 in New York City, but few remember that it helped keep the Mets in the 2001 pennant race.  On the morning of August 19th, the Mets were 13.5 behind the Braves in the standings, but they had cut the lead to 8 by the end of the day on September 10th, and 3 straight post-9/11 wins on the road had left them only 5.5 game behind the Braves on the morning of September 21st.  It was still a long-shot that the Mets could catch the Braves, but winning the first game of a 3 game series with the Braves would be a good start.  The Mets trailed the first game of that series 2-1 in the bottom of the 8th, but Piazza's 2-run homer secured the victory and uplifted a city.  The Mets managed to win the next day, and were 3 outs away from getting within 2.5 of the Braves when Amando Benitez blew a 4-1 9th inning lead in the 3rd game of the series.  Once again, Piazza was not to blame for Benitez's failure.  Piazze deserved all the credit in the world for hitting a clutch home run that the city will never forget.



Wilmer Flores, July 31, 2015

I wrote about this home run in detail here.  All that is left to say is that this Flores homer was the turning point in the 2015 season and just might be a turning point for the franchise.



Daniel Murphy, Game 1, 2015 NLDS

Mets fans knew it was going to be tough to beat the Dodgers duo of Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke in the 2015 NLCS.  We had confidence that Jacob deGrom would pitch great in game 1, but we were not sure the Mets would be able to score against Kershaw.  Out doubts were erased when Daniel Murphy homered off Kershaw to lead off the 4th inning.  Murphy's homered reminded the Mets and their fans that Kershaw and Greinke were human.



Murphy hit that ball so hard that he branded the reverse image of his name on the ball.

Daniel Murphy, Game 5, 2015 NLDS

Mets fans wouldn't be getting ready to watch  the 2015 Mets/Royals World Series if Daniel Murphy hadn't won game 5 of the NLDS all by himself.  With the best of 5 series tied at 2 apiece the Mets' Jacob deGrom faced off against likely 2015 Cy Young Award winner Zack Greinke.  The Mets pitching held the Dodgers to 2 runs that night, but the Mets would not have scored any runs if not for Murphy.  He drove in a run with a 1st inning double, laid the groundwork for a 2nd run with a heads-up stolen base in the 4th, and put the Mets ahead for good with a home run off Greinke in the 6th.  The Mets pitchers certainly played a big role in the Mets the NLDS victory, but Murphy played the biggest role, and his game 5 home run was the biggest hit.



Honorable Mention

Darryl Strawberry, October 1, 1985

The Mets were trailing the Cardinals by 3 games with 6 games left in the 1985 season.  The first of those last 3 games were against the Cardinals in St. Louis.   They really needed to win all three games to have any chance of catching the Cardinals.  The first game of series was scoreless going into the top of the 11th when Strawberry hit a home run that would probably still be going if it had not hit a digital clock about 440 feet from home plate.  The Mets wound up losing the 3rd game of that series, and had to wait until 1986 to be champions, but I'll always remember that shot by Straw.



Darryl Strawberry, Game 5, 1986 NLCS

Game 5 of the 1986 NLCS matched Dwight Gooden verses Nolan Ryan.  The Mets eventually won this game 2-1 on a Gary Carter single in the bottom of the 12th, but this game never even gets to extra innings if Darryl Strawberry doesn't hit a home run off Nolan Ryan to the tie the game at 1 in the bottom of the 5th.  I couldn't find a video of this home run. but what you need to know about this day is that the infamous Shea Stadium winds were blowing in from right field.  The winds were blowing so hard that it was almost impossible to hit a home run to right field day.  Strawberry did though, by hitting a screaming line drive right down the right field line.

Edgardo Alfonzo, 2 homers, Game 1, 1999 NLDS

The 1999 wild card New York Mets were huge underdogs in the 1999 NLDS against the Randy Johnson-led Arizona Diamondbacks.  However, much like Daniel Murphy showed the Mets meant business by homering off Clayton Kershaw in game 1 of the 2015 NLDS, Edgardo Alfonso broke Johnson's aura of invincibility  by hitting a home run in the top of the 1st off Johnson.

( I wish I had video of this, but YouTube let me down on this one.  It was a really impressive home run;  he hit it over the center field fence which was 407 feet deep and 25 feet high. )

As great as that was, Alfonso wasn't done.  With the game tied 4-4 in the 9th, Alfonso hit a Grand Slam.



It's also worth noting that Alfonso hit a 2-run homer to open the scoring in the wildcard playoff game the Mets needed to win to get to the NLDS.  You could almost always count on Fonzie in the clutch.



Robin Ventura, Game 5, 1999 NLCS

Everyone remembers Ventura "Grand Slam Single" in the 1999 NLDS, and some might wonder why I included Piazza's game 6 NLCS home run and not Venturas "home run" ( technically not a home run because he was mobbed by his teammates after he rounded first base and never finished running the bases ).  The thing is, Ventura didn't need to hit a home run to win the game there - he didn't even need to get a hit.  Todd Pratt's ( there's that guy again ) bases loaded 15th-inning walk had already tied the game at 3, and considering there was only one out when Ventura came to the plate with the bases loaded, he only needed to hit an average outfield fly ball to win the game.  As soon as Ventura hit the ball, I knew it would be deep enough to score the runner from 3rd and win the game.  The fact that the ball went over the fence was just icing on the cake - but oh what delicious icing it was!



Mike Piazza, June 30, 2000

This 3-run 8th-inning homer was the exclamation point on a 10-run Mets rally which turned an 8-1 deficit into a 11-8 lead.  This was a home run that I should have seen in person, but didn't.  My brother Craig and I were at the game, but I had to get to work early the next day, and when the Mets fell way behind, I decided not to torture myself anymore and go home and get some sleep.  I'll always regret leaving, but I actually did see Piazza hit this home run on TV.   Right after "Mr. Clutch" Alfonso tied that game at 8 with a 2-out single, I turned on my TV at home.  I heard the Mets announcer scream that the game was tied at 8, and as I struggled to process this, Piazza ripped a 3-run homer over the left field wall.  About 10 seconds later, Craig called me to chide me for leaving the game ( I deserved it ).



The reason this home run is not on the top ten list is that the Mets wound up finishing second to the Braves that year anyway.  The Mets did wind up making it to the World Series via the wildcard route when the Cardinal beat the Braves in the NLDS ( while the Mets were beating the Giants in the other NLDS ) and the Mets beat the Cardinals in the NLCS, but the Mets of the late 90's and the early 00's never did manage to beat the Braves of that era.

Daniel Murphy, Game 2, 2015 NLCS

The Mets won 1 of the NLCS against the Cubs, but the Cubs were counting on their ace Jake Arietta evening the series at one game apiece before it went back to Wrigley.  Murphy's home run off Arrieta in the 1st made the score 3-0 and paved the way for the Mets' NLCS sweep



Rich

Shop-ers

Sunday morning, I noticed a post on Barack Obama's facebook page featuring the photo above of Barack and his mother.  While browsing the comments on the post, I notice something disturbing that I had never been aware of before.  I found that in addition to the birthers who insist Barack Obama was born in Kenya, there are also people who insists that any photo of Barack Obama with a white relative must be photoshopped ( admittedly, there is probably a huge overlap between those people and the birthers ).

For the purposes of this post, I'll call these people "shop-ers".  The fact that these shop-ers exists at all, is more disturbing to me than the existence of the birthers, the truthers, any of those other crazy conspiracy nuts out there.  I don't know any shop-ers ( thank god ), so I don't know what their motivations are, but I've got to imagine that the shop-ers are white racists who can't conceive that the black President they hate could be half white.  So, they make up ridiculous theories to "prove" that Obama does not have any white ancestry at all.  For example, see the photo below; do you see anything wrong with it?

Of course you don't, because there's nothing wrong with it.  It's just a nice photo of young Barack with his mom, his grandfather, and his sister.  However, to the shop-ers, the photo above is proof of something nefarious.  Shop-ers point to Obama's mother's right hand, the hand that is obscured by Obama's right arm.  To an ordinary person, the hand in the photo shows up being darker than the rest of her arm because the hand is clearly in a shadow.  To a shop-er, on the other hand, the "black" hand under Obama's arm is proof that this photo has been photoshopped.

The shop-ers are also not above photoshopping a real photo ( such as the photo of Obama with his grandparents below ) and claiming that the original photo was photoshopped.

This is all rather depressing, and it got me thinking about what this all says about race relations in the USA.

As a white person, I've never experienced racism directed at me, so I have no direct way to know whether racism has gotten better or worse over the course of my lifetime.  However, I've certainly been a witness to racism at times, and the things I've witnessed have changed over the years.

As a adult, you largely choose the people you associate with, but as a child, the group of children you interact with is based mostly on proximity.  I grew up in an area that was almost a 100% white and had a racist reputation.  My neighborhood ( Ozone Park, New York ) was right next the the infamous Howard Beach.  I interacted with kids from both Ozone Park and Howard Beach over the years ( school, little league, etc. ) and plenty of the kids I knew from Ozone Park had racial attitudes that probably were not very different that the attitudes of the teens who perpetrated that horrible racist beating in Howard Beach.  Now I'm not saying that the majority of people in Ozone Park and Howard Beach were racist.  Most people there were ( and are ) good people, and some of them are still among my best friends to this day.  However, I'd be lying if I told you that I didn't hear a lot of racist stuff growing up.

As I adult, I very rarely hear any of that kind of racist stuff in person for two reasons ...
1) As an adult, you have more of a say in who you associate with, and I choose my friends wisely.
2) Society has now gotten to the point where most white people would want to hide their racist attitudes from other white people.  I have no doubt that some of the people I know ( while you can choose your friends, you can't choose everyone you need to interact with ) have racist attitudes, but people do their best to hide such attitudes.  ( Also, I don't want anyone to think I'm claiming to be guiltless here.   I was raised to love all people, and I always got sick to my stomach growing up when I heard fellow students spew racists garbage, but children are sponges, and I'd be lying I told you I didn't absorb at least some of the racist bile that was occasionally spewed.  I try my best each day to excise myself of that bile, but I'll never be completely free of it. ).

However, reason #2 often doesn't apply on the Internet, because people can be anonymous.  Still, I didn't really notice a lot of racist stuff on the corners of the Internet I frequented until Barack Obama was elected; right after that happened, the racists started to come out of the woodwork.

I guess the point I'm making is that while I don't think the election of Barack Obama made the country more racist, I think it exposed a lot of racism we couldn't see before, like a UV light revealing body fluids at a crime scene.  Ultimately, revealing that racism is a good thing, even if seeing it out in the open might make us uncomfortable.

In the end, I'm still optimistic.  After all, Barack Obama is right when he says the the USA is the only country in the world where his story could have happened.  Where else could a country consisting primarily of of people of one race, elect a leader who belongs to another race?  OK, sure Obama, is half white, and Peru elected a Japanese president, but you get my point.  The Germans are not going to elect a Chancellor who is not ethnically German, the Japanese are not going to elect a Prime Minister who is not ethnically Japanese.  The Barack Obama story could have never happened in those places, but it did happen in the USA, because there is no such thing as an ethic American ( Well, except maybe Native Americans, but that's a can of worms to open on a different day ).  The USA is still a special place, warts and all, and there is no better proof of that than President Barack Obama.

Rich

A Flores Story

I know it's a bit late to write a story about Wilmer Flores' big homer against the Nats, but I've had a really busy month and I wasn't satisfied with any of the accounts I'd read about Flores' big night.  Thus, I'm going to attempt to write a Flores story myself - a story that won't just focus on that magical Friday night - a story that will start at the beginning.

Wilmer Flores entered the world on August 6th 1991.  He entered the Mets organization about 16 years later, but he didn't enter my life until about May of 2010.

In May of 2010, my Aunt Barbara invited Ruth, the boys, and me to a Lakewood BlueClaws game.  The BlueClaws are a single A minor league team that plays close to where she lives.  We went on May 8th; she picked that day because the BlueClaws were playing the Savannah Sand Gnats, a single A affiliate of the New York Mets.  My aunt told me that the player to watch that day was Wilmer Flores, the Sand Gnats' talented 18-year old shortstop.

Looking back, I regret not taking any pictures of Flores that day, but he kinda appears in a photo Ruth took.  If you take a look at the photo below, the first thing you'll probably notice is the giant fried egg to the left of the 3rd base line.  However, if you look to the right of that to the sun-washed part of the photo, Wilmer Flores is represented by the handful of pixels in the shortstop position.

Flores didn't disappoint that day.  He went 3 for 4 with a triple.  I have no idea if the photos below were taken when the boys were celebrating Flores' triple, but why let the truth get in the way of a good story?

Anyway, Flores looked like a man playing against boys that day.  From that day forward, I was sure he was going to be a major leaguer someday, and I was looking forward to the day he joined the Mets.

That day came late in the 2013 season.  Unfortunately, he didn't impress much, posting a AVG/OBP/SLG of .211/.248/.295 in 27 games.

I was hoping he'd do better with more regular playing time the next year, but in 78 games in 2014, he only a .253/.287/.388 line.

It 2015, it looked like things might be falling into place, both for Flores and the Mets.  Flores' defense at shortstop had been shaky, and he wasn't exactly Babe Ruth with the bat, but by the end of the day on June 12th, he'd hit a respectable 10 homers in 62 team games ( on pace to hit 26 homers for the season, which is really good for a shortstop, especially in this season that has been dominated by pitching ) and the Mets found themselves 1.5 games ahead of the Washington Nationals for first place in the National League East division.

However, soon after that, things went south for both Flores and the Mets.  From June 17th to June 24th the Mets only scored 9 runs in a 7 game losing streak.  The Mets and Flores's hitting woes continued into late July.  By the morning of July 29th, the Mets found themselves in 2nd place and Flores had not homered since June 12th.  Flores also didn't homer on July 29th as the Mets lost 7-3, but that wasn't the big story that night.

During the game, reports began to circulate that the Mets had agreed to send Wilmer Flores and Zack Wheeler to the Brewers for center fielder Carlos Gomez.  Thanks to social media, most fans at the game were soon aware of the impending trade, but nobody had bothered to tell Wilmer Flores or Mets manager Terry Collins.  When Flores came to bat at in the bottom of the 7th inning the Mets fans greeted him with a standing ovation.  Flores was confused by this, but at some point when he got back to the dugout somebody informed him ( I've read some reports that say it was a fan behind the dugout ) that he'd been traded.  It's not clear that Terry Collins was aware of the trade at this point, but he probably wasn't because he sent Wilmer out to play shortstop in the top of the 8th ( You generally wouldn't play a guy if you knew he was about to be traded because an injury suffered on the field would invalidate the trade ).  It's at that point, that the night became surreal.  Standing at his shortstop position, Wilmer started to cry.  Wilmer had been part of the Mets organization since he'd been 16 and had said in the past he wanted to be a "Met for life".  He now knew he was playing his last game as a Met, the fans had given him a standing-O to send him off, and I guess it was all too much for him.

As bizarre as all this was, things were about to get stranger.  After the game, Terry Collins ( who finally got a clue and sent Flores to the clubhouse ( with clubhouse leaders David Wright and Michael Cuddyer to console him ) in the bottom of 8th ) claimed that he was not aware that any trade had been finalized and shortly after that Mets GM Sandy Alderson said that the trade was not going to happen.  Initially Alderson wouldn't say why the trade had been called off, but it was later leaked that the Mets had nixed the trade because they had medical concerns about Gomez's hip ( The Brewers claimed that the trade fell through because the cheap Mets wanted the Brewers to pay a big chunk of Gomez's remaining contract and the Brewers refused.  I imagine the truth is somewhere between the Mets story and the Brewers story. ).

  All these events made the Mets laughing-stocks of the baseball world ( This wasn't really anything new.  Things had gotten so bad for the Mets over the last decade that there was a popular hashtag called #lolmets ), but it also had a different effect on lots of Mets fans.  I made the facebook post below on the night of the aborted trade, and the part in red sums up the way lots of Mets fans felt about Flores after that night.

Not really upset about Gomez trade falling through. He's a good player and would have been an updrade over an injured Lagares and Kirk, but ...
1) He's not having a good year. I haven't been paying attention to him this year, but considering that he's only stolen 7 bases this year and has been caught 6 times tells me he has not been healthy this year. He's 29 and I'm always wary about speed guys as they get close to their 30's. Reyes fell of a cliff after left the Mets at 28. 
2) I'd rather have Grandy as my lead-off man rather than Gomez because Grady has an OBP of .347 this year while Gomez has an career OBP of .315. Speed doesn't help if you are not getting on base. Gomez has never scored 100 runs in a season, which seems impossible for a guy with his kind of speed.
-----
I wouldn't have been that upset to see Wheeler go ( He's coming off Tommy John surgery and his reluctance to throw strikes ( seriously, I don't think it's his control - he seems afraid to throw sttikes ) has always driven me crazy. However, his trade value has got to be pretty low coming off of TJS, so I'd rather the Mets trade him when he's throwing gas in spring training next year.
As for Flores, he's been slumping for a month, and it's not clear if ...
1) we'll even find him a position.
2) he'll ever hit for enough power to justify his low OBP and walk rate.
Still, he might be my favorite Met now, because its clear that he *wants* to be a Met based on how he reacted tonight. Hopefully this lights a fire under him.

 Yes, Mets fans fell in love with Wilmer Flores that night because it was clear that despite the Mets troubles, despite all the #lolmets garbage, he wanted to be a Met.  There was a part of me that hoped that this non-trade could be the turning point in both the Flores' and the Mets season.  I expressed those feelings in the post below.

If this Mets season was a baseball movie, it would end with Flores getting the game-winning hit in game 7 of the World Series.

However things would get worse before they would get better.  Flores didn't cry ( or play ) the next day, and the Mets were not involved in aborted trades, but things got so bad, it prompted me to write the following facebook post.

Wow, Mets go from being a game out of first to being the laughing stock of baseball in less than 24-hours. I'm sure all of you know about the Gomez/Flores stuff, but did you hear what happened today?
- Mers had a 7-1 lead after 6. 
- Collins then inexplicitly takes Niese out of the game after 6 ( considering how bad the Mets middle-relief is, no Mets starter who is pitching well should be removed until he has pitched at least 7. ).
- middle relievers give up grand slam in top of 7th to make score 7-5.
- Mets still leading 7-5 to start 9th. Familia gets first 2 batters out. Umps then decide to have rain delay rather than let Familia get last out.
After short delay umps tells ground crew to remove tarp to start game again, despite the fact that radar clearly shows massive storm is on the way.
- By the time the game resumes, it is raining. Familia attempts to get last out as it continues to rain harder. He gives up 2 singles followed by a 3-run HR. 8-7!
- After Familia gets last out, umps call for another rain delay, but Mets ground crew can't get the fuckin' tarp on the fuckin' field. Infield is submerged and play is delayed for hours.
WTF!
The only way to erase this is to sweep Nats this weekend. Not 2 out of 3 - sweep.

Yes, so after a disastrous Thursday, the Mets found themselves 3 games out of first with the first-place Nats coming to town on Friday.  It would be the biggest series in the history of Citi Field ( opened in 2009 ) considering that the Mets had finished with a losing record every season from 2009 to 2014 ), but as exciting as that was, I was more excited to hear the Flores would be playing that night.  It would be his first appearance since he cried on the field, and I knew the night was bound to be a Wilmer love-fest.  I just hoped he had a good game in him.  How great would it be if Wilmer could follow-up the Crying Game with a great performance verses the Mets biggest rival in the biggest game of the year?  I knew that was too much to ask, but I was hoping for it as much as you could hope for something as a sports fan.

Well, "Flores Night" got off to a great start when Flores made a nice diving play on a ground ball in the first inning.  It earned Wilmer his first standing ovation of the night.  Well, actually, the play itself wasn't worthy of a standing-O, but after the Wednesday night tears, the fans were ready to give Wilmer a standing-O at the drop of a hat.  Wilmer got his second standing O of the night when he came to the plate for the first time in the 2nd inning.  He grounded out, but the fans didn't care.  Wilmer wanted to be a Met, and we all loved him for it.

After Wilmer got his first standing-O in the first, I made a facebook post which I believe expressed the sentiments of lots of Mets fans that night..

Love that Flores started his first inning back since the Gomez debacle with a nice play. I hope he homers today.

Perhaps, a homer was too much to ask for, but all Mets fans were thrilled in the 4th inning when Flores singled to give the Mets a 1-0 lead.  It earned Wilmer his 3rd standing ovation of the night, and the way Matt Harvey was pitching, we all thought it might hold up as the game-winning hit in a 1-0 victory.  Harvey was still cruising with a 1-0 lead in the top of the 8th when a typical Mets thing happens to the Mets.  Harvey has gotten the first 2 guys out in the 8th.  He had two strikes on Nats pinch-hitter Clint Robinson.  He had only thrown about 90 pitches so far, so if he could end the inning on the next pitch or so, he might be given the opportunity to to complete the shutout in the 9th.  However, Harvey's next pitch hit Robinson.  Well actually, the home plate umpire said Harvey's pitch hit Robinson.  It actually didn't hit Robinson - it didn't come close to hitting Robinson.  The home plate umpire thought the ball hit Robinson's foot, but the overhead camera clearly showed that the ball hit the ground about 8 inches in front of Robinson's foot.  There was no doubt that the ball hit the ground; the overhead replay showed smooth dirt before the ball passed over it, and then a baseball-sized indentation in the dirt after the ball passed by.  Once you accept that the ball hit the dirt you don't have to be a Physics PhD to understand that ball would have bounced over Robinson's foot after it hit the ground.  Fortunately, baseball has replay these days and after Mets manager Terry Collins challenged the call.  I was certain that the replay official would overturn the call and send Robinson from first base back to home plate.  After a few minutes of deliberation the umpires announced the decision and I was stunned and incensed that they let the original call stand.  Every Mets fan in the world knew deep down in their bones that this bad call was going to cost us the lead, and when the Nats tied the game later in the 8th inning, I reacted with the following post.

Holy shit! Mets just got SOOOOOOOO screwed by umps, and of course it leads to us losing the lead. If we lose this game, I give up for this season. We are just so *FUCKING* snakebit. I can't believe this fucking week. Why do I watch this team anymore? I need somebody to pull some "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" shit on me so I stop loving this team.

Well, this was certainly the low point.  I really meant what I wrote, and I think lots of Mets fans felt the same way.  We were going to lose again, it was going to be another lost season, and I didn't see a reason to torture myself anymore.

Still, I didn't turn the TV off.  I didn't turn the TV off for one reason, and that reason was Wilmer.  This game wasn't over yet, and there was chance, no matter how remote, that Wilmer could still be the hero in this game.  After the Mets failed to score in a 1-1 game in the bottom of the 11th inning, I posted ...

Well, at least Flores might have one more chance to be the hero today. Too bad his talent doesn't match his passion.

Yes, I didn't really think Wilmer had the talent to be the hero, but I oh so wanted it for him.

After the Mets kept the Nats from scoring in the top of the 12th, the stage was set for Wilmer.  Right before Flores led off the bottom of the 12th inning, my cousin Steven posted the following.

Flores walk off.... Let's gooooo

Meanwhile, my cousin Eileen's husband Kevin ( who was at the game ) worked his way towards the stands near the Mets on-deck circle and shouted out to Flores that the Mets fans love him.

The stage was set.  Millions of Mets fans were willing Flores to come up big, but I really didn't think he had it in him.  Then Flores did this ...

The photo above is of Flores crossing home plate after his game-winning homer.  Notice what he's doing with his right hand?  He's tugging on the Mets logo on his jersey.  Wilmer Flores - Met for life.

As Mets fans celebrated this moment, we hoped it would mark a turning point, both for Flores and the Mets.  So far, it has.  Since walking out of the on-deck circle in the 12th inning that night, Flores' AVG/OBP/SLG line is .333/.367/.587 and the Mets have gone 19 - 6 to go from being 3 games behind the Nationals to 6.5 games ahead of the Nationals ( I'm writing this on the afternoon of August 28th ).

As Terry Collins said in his post-game press conference after the Flores Homer, "I'm am sitting here looking at some guys who are outstanding writers - outstanding - and you can't write that.  You guys couldn't come up with that, and you're good.  Unbelievable".  It's really been a storybook month for Wilmer and Mets and all of us Mets fans are hoping it's going to wind up being a storybook season.

Rich

Fuck that Guy

A few weeks ago, I started watching the episodes of "Mr. Robot" I had saved on my DVR ( great show, BTW - go see it now! ).  The protagonist in this show is a young man named Eliot, and early on in the first episode, we are introduced to his co-worker and childhood friend Angela.  You can tell right away that the two of them have a special ( albeit platonic ) relationship, and it's clear that it's only a matter of time become the two of them become a couple.  Just then, Angela's boyfriend shows up and kisses Angela on the cheek.  My first thought after seeing the boyfriend kiss Angela was "Fuck that guy! Angela and Eliot are meant for each other.  Fuck that guy!"

It wasn't long before we found out that Angela's boyfriend was a full-of-himself douchebag who was cheating on Angela.  Fuck that guy!  Really, fuck that guy!

That's when I realized that I had seen a lot of character's like Angela's boyfriend before.  Lot's of movies and TV shows have a "Fuck that guy", where a "Fuck that guy" ( FTG ) is defined as a character who matches all or most of the following criteria.

1) A FTG can only exist in a movie with a male protagonist.
2) The FTG should be the boyfriend/fiance of the primary love interest of the male protagonist.
3) When the audience and/or the protagonist is first introduced to the love interest, we should not be aware that the love interest is dating FTG.
4) FTG should be a jerk.  Ideally he should be cheating on the protagonist's love interest, and at the very least show show no respect for her ( or potentially him, if the male protagonist is gay.  However considering how few Hollywood movies have a gay protagonist, I couldn't think of any gay examples of FTGs. ).

BTW, a movie could also have a "Fuck that Girl" ( FTGirl ).  However, a FTGirl could only exist in a movie with a female protagonist.  Considering how few movies pass the Bechdel test, movies and TV shows with female protagonists are few and far between.  In any case, a FTGirl would have to be the asshole girlfriend of the love interest of a female protagonist.  I wasn't able to come up with any FTGirls, so please send me any examples of FRGirls you might be are aware of ).

In any case, I decided to make a list of 10 FTGs ( in no particular order )  I've loved to hate over the years, along with a few honorable mention FTGs who don't quite make the cut as a FTG.

1) Bradely Cooper in "Wedding Crashers".

He might just be the perfect FTG.  I don't remember his character's name and I not even going to bother to look it up, because I just think of him a Bradley Cooper, the FTG.

2) Craig Kilborn in "Old School.".

Another guy who checks all the FTG boxes.  Once again, I could care less about the character's name.

3) Glenn from "The Wedding Singer".

In this case, I don't know and don't care what the actor's name is.  I just know he's a great FTG.

4) Darryl from "Coming to America".

Perhaps not the best example of a FTG, because there is no evidence of cheating here, but he was a jerk who took credit for Akeem's charitable contributions, and treated Lisa like a commodity he could buy from her father.

5) Pam's Fiance from "The Office".

We all knew that Jim and Pam were meant to be until that FTG of a fiance showed up.

6) Anthony Micheal Hall from "Edward Scissorhands".

Once again I don't remember the character's name and it doesn't really matter.  All I know is that Frankenstein Johhny Depp and Winona Ryder were meant to be together and that FTG Anthony Michael Hall was getting in the way.

7) Gideon from "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World".

C'mon, the guy did form a league of evil exes.

8) Tal from "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist".

Hey, you fuck with Michael Cera's love life, you get on this list.

9) John Cho in "Better Luck Tomorrow".

After he was the MILF guy and before he was Harold, John Cho played one of the most unique FTGs in the history of cinema.  I don't want to give any spoilers except to say that no other FTG has a story arc quite like John Cho's FTG.

10) Charles Grodin in "The Great Muppet Caper".

OK, he doesn't really check off any of the FTG boxes, but he does try to date Miss Piggy in this movie ( and tries to frame her for a crime ) and later claimed to have a tryst with Miss Piggy in real life.  Hey Grodin, Piggy is Kermit's girl!  Fuck that guy, Charles Grodin!  Fuck that guy!

Honorable mention

Billy Zane in "Titanic" : He was the hardest guy to leave off the top 10 list.  However, he's not really a FTG because the audience knows from the start of the movie that he and Rose are a couple.

Billy Zabka in "The Karate Kid" : I could have named Billy Zabka from a bunch of 80's movies.  He's not really a FTG in "The Karate Kid" because he's an ex-boyfriend rather than a boyfriend, but I'm going to give him some FTG points for trying to beat up Daniel-san for the entire movie.

Batman from "The Lego Movie" : He's not really a FTG because he's a hero and basically a good guy, but his first scene in the movie is very much a FTG moment.

Colton from "Harold and Kumer Escape from Guantanamo Bay" : He only misses out on FTG status beacause Kumar is  never ignorant of the fact that Vanessa is engaged to Colton.  It's also notable that he gets decked by the protagonist's best buddy at a wedding, just like the first FTG I mentioned in my top ten list.

Rich

Breaking Away

I'll be the first to admit that I'm a helicopter parent.  That's part of the reason why both my kids still couldn't ride a bike when this spring started.  Well, Ruth and I resolved to change that this year, and we've practiced bike riding with the boys many Saturday mornings this spring.  Peter is still really apprehensive about riding a bike, but about a month or so ago we made a breakthrough with Michael.  I was holding the back of Michael's seat as he peddled on the grass and without telling him, I decided to let go.  About 10 seconds later he was about 100 feet away from me and essentially knew how to ride a bike.

Today, Michael graduated to biking on a paved path.  We took him to the Middlesex Greenway - a 3.5 file mile paved path which essentially looks like this ...

While Michael biked, I figured I'd try to keep up with him on foot.  I haven't biked regularly since I was teen, and the only adult-size bike we own is some random bike Ruth picked-up on sale many years ago, which is currently sitting in our basement covered in drywall dust from our basement renovations.

I use a treadmill regularly, so I'm no stranger no running,  For the first 2 miles I did a decent job keeping up with him, especial because he was still a little bit tentative and wasn't pedaling  that fast.  However, near the end of those two miles, he was starting to gain confidence; I had to practically sprint to keep up with him, and as we reached the 2-mile marker,  I was feeling pretty gassed.

I chugged some Gatorade and told Michael it was best if we started to head back ( Ruth and Peter were not even going to try and keep up with us, and had headed back to the start of the path a long time ago ).  On the way back, Michael was pedaling even faster, and I found myself pushing myself even harder to sprint because my helicopter-parent instincts were refusing to allow myself to let Michael get out of my sight.  However, it soon became clear that I wasn't going to be able to keep up.  My knees were aching, my heart was racing, and my lungs were burning.  Add on the fact that I'd tweaked my lower-back a few weeks ago, had pulled a hamstring the previous weekend, and had experienced a painful night cramp in my left calf the night before,  it soon became clear that my 45-year-old body was breaking down and couldn't be pushed any more.

But as I walked and panted and watched Michael fade away into the distance, it occurred to me that this was all a lot bigger than a middle-aged dad not being able to keep up with his son.  As much I love him and always want to be there to care for him and protect him, Michael in the midst of turning into a young man who won't need his Dad all the time.  I had asked Michael to stop and wait for me when he passed certain landmarks on the way back, but I saw Michael go right by one of those landmarks before he pulled out of my sight.  For a brief moment, I was upset about this, but then I realized that Michael is growing child who needs to test his limits.  He needs to go as fast as he can go and I can't be the one who holds him back.  My baby's growing up, and I couldn't be prouder.

Rich

Carpe Closer-em

  Consider the following: The New York Giants are playing San Francisco 49ers in a big game in the mid 80's.  The game is tied with 2 minutes to go, and after a punt rolls into the end zone, Montana and the 49ers trot out to take the field at the their own 20-yard line.  The Giants defense trots on to the field as well, but as they do, one can't help but notice that Lawrence Taylor, Harry Carson, Carl Banks, and Gary Reasons remain on the sideline.  Montana easily drives down the field against a Giants' defense full of 2nd-string linebackers and the 49ers kick a game winning field goal as time expires.  After the game, reporters ask Giants coach Bill Parcells, why Taylor, Carson, Banks, and Reasons were on the sideline for the critical final drive.  Parcells tells the reporters "Are you kidding me?  I can't use those guys late in a tie game.  I only use them late in a game if we have the lead.  Those guys are my closers."

While that scenario might seem ridiculous, it's not too different than what almost all major league managers do regularly.  If you don't believe me, consider the following real scenario:

It's October 22, 2003.  The Yankess are playing the Marlins in the 4th game of the World Series.  The Yanks have a 2 games to 1 lead in the Series.  The Yankees are the road team and find themselves trailing 3-1 entering the top of the 9th.  However, the Yankees score 2 runs in the top of the 9th, and the half inning ends with the game tied at 3.  The Yankees know they have a chance to take a commanding 3-1 lead in the series if they can manage to win the game in extra innings.

The Yankees manager Joe Torre is one of the most successful and respected managers in the game.  He's led the Yankees to 4 World Championships between 1996 and 2000 and came within a few broken bat hits if winning a 5th championship in 2001.  One of the reason Torre and the Yankees have been so successful is they have Mariano Rivera, who most already consider to be the greatest relief pitcher of all time.   Just 6 days earlier in the 7th game of the ALCS at Yankee Stadium, Rivera had proved his worth by heroically pitching the 9th, 10th, and 11th inning of a tie game before Aaron Boone's homer in the bottom of the 11th won the pennant for the Yankees.  Now Torre is facing a similar situation in Miami.  It's tied in the 9th inning, and he has the greatest relief pitcher of all time in his bullpen.  It shouldn't be hard to decide which pitcher to bring into the game next.

So of course, Torre brings Jose Contreras into the game.

I don't mean this as a slight against Jose Contreras.  Jose Contreras was a pretty decent pitcher in his day.   But I knew Mariano Rivera, I saw him on my TV so often he was practically a friend of mine, and Jose Contreras, you are no Mariano Rivera!

Contreras retires the Marlins in order in the bottom of the 9th ( as I said, pretty decent pitcher ), the Yankees fail to score in the top of the 10th, and Torre decides to keep Rivera in his holster again and sends Contreras out for a 2nd inning of work.  Contreras manages to pitch another scoreless inning in the bottom of the 10th, but the Yankees again fail to score in the top of the 11th.

Keep in mind that Rivera warmed up in the top of the 9th, the top of the 10th, and top of the 11th.  Torre wanted Rivera ready to go if the Yankees took the lead, but considering the Yankees failed to take the lead in the top of the 11th, Torres tells Rivera to sit down again and brings out ...

JEFF WEAVER!

I attached a link to Weaver's name above so you could check out his stats.  Go ahead, click on the link and check out those stats.  Check out his ERA column for 2003.  Check out the number 5.99.

Hmm, World Series, crucial game, I need a pitcher.

5.99 ERA or Greatest Relief Pitcher of All Time
...
5.99 ERA or Greatest Relief Pitcher of All Time
...
5.99 ERA or Greatest Relief Pitcher of All Time

Hmm!!!!!

Well, I guess Torre must really like those 5.99 ERAs!

Of course, Weaver winds up losing the game in the bottom of the 11th and the Yankees wind up losing the Series.  As a Yankees-hater I was ecstatic about that, but that doesn't mean I can't abhor the strategic choices Torre made.

Of course, I can't just single-out Torre.  Almost all major league manager make the same mistake on a regular basis.  Take this Mets game for instance.  The Mets played this game in St. Louis in 2010, and entered the 9th inning in a scoreless tie.  Mets manager Jerry Manual warmed up his closer Francisco Rodriguez in the top of 9th, but decided to not bring him into the game for the bottom of the 9th after the Mets failed to score in the top of the 9th.  Manual then asked Rodriquez to warm up in the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th innings.  Finally, when the Mets scored to take a 1-0 lead in the top of the 19th, he brought Rodriguez in for the bottom of the 19th to try and get the save.  Of course, it wasn't that surprising to me that his pitches lacked zip he and failed to save the game, because he had already exhausted himself by warming up 11 times.

It just drives me crazy to see managers of the road team try to hold off using their closer until they have a lead in extra innings - a lead that they'll never have a chance to get if they don't shut down the opposing team in the bottom of the 9th or the bottom of an extra inning.

I understand that it is now "conventional wisdom" to hold off using your closer until you have a lead in extra inning and managers are afraid of being second-guessed if they use closer in a tie game and another pitcher fails to get the save later on, but in this case, conventional wisdom is completely wrong.

In a tie game on the road in the bottom on the 9th inning ( or the bottom of any extra inning to follow ), a pitcher has zero margin for error.  If your pitcher gives up even a single run in that scenario, you lose 100% of the time.  With that in mind, you'd better use the best pitcher you have available in those situation.  It's not as important to have your closer available for an extra-inning inning save because those scenarios have a far higher margin of error than when the game is tied in the bottom of the 9th ( or any extra inning ).  First of all, if you manage to get to the bottom of an extra inning with a lead, there's a chance you'll have more than a 1-run lead.  That certainly gives you a bigger margin of error than a tie game.  However, even if you have only a 1-run lead, you still have some margin for error.  If you enter the bottom of an extra inning with a 1 run lead and give up only 1 run, on average there is still a 50% chance you'll win the game in the extra innings to follow.  Let me reiterate that ...

If you are leading by 1 run in the bottom of an extra inning, you have a 50% chance of winning if your pitcher gives up just 1 run.

If you are tied in the bottom of the 9th ( or an extra inning ), you have a 0% chance of winning if your pitcher gives up just 1 run.

With all that in mind, I don't understand why manager would not use his best available pitcher in a scenario where there is no margin for error.

Of course, MLB managers have their reasons for handling their bullpen in a way that reduces their chances of winning.  First of all, I think that few of them understand that that managing their closers the traditional way reduces their chances of winning ( despite the fact that 99% of 10 year-old baseball fans would be able to understand my "50% vs, 0%" analysis above ).  Second, I think that most of then are afraid of being second-guessed by their team owners, general managers, sportswriters, and fans, most of whom don't realize that the traditional strategy of handling closers is wrong.  Third, and perhaps most importantly, many will argue that you need to consider the human element.  They'll tell you that their closers are used to the role of closing, and if you asked them to perform in a different role, it could get them out their rhythm, damage their psyche, and make them less effective going forward.

Now, I've never managed a baseball team on any level, so I'll admit I'm ignorant about things like clubhouse harmony and managing the psyche of players.  But c'mon!  The closer is generally the highest paid relief pitcher on a team - usually the highest paid by a rather wide margin.  If you're paying a guy the type of money a MLB closer gets paid, he'd better be willing to fill any role you ask him to fill.  If he isn't, he's not exactly the kind of team player want "in the foxhole" with you, and he may not have the character needed to help lead a team to a championship.  I'm not saying you can't win a championship with a bunch of prima donnas who only think of themselves ( after all, Reggie Jackson does have 5 rings ), but it doesn't hurt to have a bunch of high character guys on your team.  If I've got a closer on my team who is not comfortable with sacrificing his save statistics by pitching in lots of tie games, then I don't really want that guy on my team.

Of course, the save statistic is at the root of a lot of these problems.  Closers are often judged based on how many games they save, and most closers ( correctly ) believe that "more saves" equals "more money".  Thus, I can understand why some closers would resist pitching in non-save situations, and why managers would try to get their closers as many save as possible in order to avoid any clubhouse dissension.  That's why I'd like to propose that baseball people stop paying attention to stats like saves and start paying a lot more attention to useful stats like WPA.

WPA stands for Win Probability Added.  Before I scare away a bunch of people who are suspicious of the new sabermetric stats, let me explain that WPA is different from almost every new statistic you've heard of before.  Most people who don't like modern statistical analysis in baseball will tell that these new stats don't measure a lot of important qualities that make a player valuable.  They'll tell you these stats don't measure a player's ability to get clutch hits, or his ability to do the "little things" like advance a runner from 2nd to 3rd by hitting a ball to the right side of the infield.  Well WPA does all that and more.   WPA measures how much each individual play in a game increases or decreases a team's change of winning that game.  For example, at the start of a game between evenly matched team, a given team has a 50% chance of winning.  If the first batter of the game leads off the game with a homer, his team now how a greater than 50% chance to win the game, and the WPA stat gives the batter credit for home much the batter's homer has increase his team's chances of winning the game.  For example, when Derek Jeter led off game 4 of the 2000 World Series with a home run, the Yankees chances of winning that game rose from 50% to 59%.  WPA would credit Jeter with that 9% increase.  Conversely, if the lead-off man strikes out to lead off the game, his team's chances of winning the game drop from 50% to 48%, and the 2% difference is subtracted from the leadoff man's WPA.

( BTW, if you are wondering where these rather exact percentages come from, see the following and consider that there have been about 400,000 MLB games played in the history of baseball.  Analyzing those games alone would give a good idea of the win percentages for most possible scenarios, and computer simulations give you the ability the simulate specific scenarios millions of times to get reliable win percentages for any scenario. )

What's great about WPA is that it considers the context of each event in a game.  While both traditional stats like slugging percentage and sabermetric statistics like WAR always consider a home run to be far more valuable than a single, WPA considers a solo home run with 2 outs in the 9th inning of 10-0 game to be far less valuable than a single with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th which turns a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 victory ( Francisco Cabrera! ).

( BTW, WPA is also a great stat for football.  A running back that scores a game-winning touchdown on 4th and goal from the 1 should receive a lot more credit than a running back who gains 9 yards on a draw when its 3rd and 10.  WPA would give the guy who gained that 1 valuable yard proper credit, while the traditional stat of yardage says that the guy who gains 9 yards was 9 times as valuable. )

Just as WPA can be applied to batters, it can also be applied to pitchers.  Let's consider how WPA could be applied to the following 2 scenarios.

It's not uncommon for managers to use their closer in the 9th inning when they have a 3-run lead at home.  Statistics shows that a team will win in that situation 96.5 % of the time if they use just an average pitcher*.  If closer gets a save in that situation, he's increased his team's chances of winning the game from 96.5% to 100%.  So, the closer would get credit for 3.5% of WPA in that scenario.

( * See "The Book" by Tango/Lichtman/Dolphin.  See Table 89 ( "Chance Of Home Team Winning, By Base/Out State, For Top Of The 9th Inning, With a Three-Run Lead" ) in Chapter 8 "Leveraging Relievers".  In my edition, it is on page 222. ).

Now consider the case when a closer for the road team enters the game to start the bottom of the 9th in a tie game.  How much does that closer increase his teams win probability is he gets through that inning without giving up any runs?

Well, I don't have those exact numbers in front of me, but I think I can some up with a pretty good estimate.  The first thing, we should figure out how often does a home team score in the bottom of the 9th in a tie game?  Well, my gut tells me that teams will score at least one run in about a quarter of the innings they hit in.  This chart seems to confirm that my guess is in the right ballpark.  The chart indicates that the average MLB teams scores in roughly 27.5 % of first innings.  Of course, a team is less likely to score in innings other than the 1st inning ( because the best hitters always bat in the 1st inning ) but I think a team's chances to score at least 1 run in the 9th inning would be close to the team's changes to score at least one in the first inning because ...
1) Other than the 1st inning, the bottom of the 9th inning of tie game is the inning in which it is least likely that a pitcher will bat in an NL game.  In many innings the pitcher is allowed to hit, but in the bottom of the 9th in a tie game you will almost certainly pinch hit for the pitcher.
2) In both AL and NL games, the bottom of the 9th inning of a close game is the inning in which a manager would be most likely to pinch hit to create advantageous match-ups.
3) The bottom of the 9th inning in a tie game is the inning in which a manager is most likely to optimize his strategy to score at least one run.  For example, if your lead-off hitters doubles to start the game, the manger usually would not ask the #2 hitter to bunt the run over the third.  In the bottom of the 9th in a tie game the manager would almost certainly ask the next batter to bunt after a leadoff double.  While the typical strategy in the first inning ( don't bunt ) decreases the chances you'll score at least one run that inning, it increases the average number of runs you would score in the inning ( because not giving away an out away by bunting increases your chances of having a big inning ).  So, some of the typical strategies employed in the first inning will actually decrease the chances that at least 1 run will be scored in that inning.  However, strategies typically employed in the 9th inning will increase the team's chances of scoring at least 1 run that inning.  So for now, let's assume the home team has a 25% chance of scoring in the bottom of the 9th.

So, if we assume that a home team will score 25% of the time in the bottom of the 9th, then we are assuming a home team will win 25% of the games on the bottom of the 9th.  Well, what happens the other 75% of the time?  The other 75% of the time, the game continues into extra inning where each team would win the game half the time on average.  So, if the road team only makes it to extra inning 75% of the time in that scenario, and only wins the game half of those times, then the road team should only be expected to win 37.5 % ( 75% / 2 ) of games in which the game enters the bottom of the 9th tied.

Actually, if we go back and look at the play-by-play of game 4 of the 2003 World Series, we'll see that Marlins were given a 64% chance of winning the when the Yankess failed to take the lead in the top of the 9th, the top of the 10th, and the top of the 11th.  This indicates that the Yankees only had a 36% chance of winning entering the bottom of the 9th, 10th, and 11th, and that a road team in general only has a 36% chance of winning when a game entered the bottom of the 9th tied.

So, if a closer for a road team starts the bottom of the 9th inning in a tie game and doesn't allow any runs, his team had a 36% chance of winning the game when the bottom of the 9th started and a 50% of winning the game when the inning ended ( because each team would have a 50% chance to win in extra innings. ).  In this case the closer would get credit for 14 percentage points of WPA.

So, to summarize ....

When a closer for the home team gets the save after starting the 9th inning with a 3-run lead, he would earn 3.5 points of WPA ( 96.5% to 100% ).

When  a closer for the road team starts the bottom of the 9th in a tie game and doesn't allow a run, he would earn 14 points of WPA ( 36% to 50% ).

So, in the second scenario the closer is 4 times as valuable as the closer is in the first scenario, but MLB managers will almost always employ their closers in the first scenario and almost never employ their closers in the second scenario.

The reason this happen is that too many baseball people judge relievers using save statistic when that stat should really be thrown away and replaced with something like WPA.  I know that it might seem far-fetched that fans would accept the WPA stat when few fans would understand the details of how it works, but footballs fans accept the quarterback rating stat, even though almost nobody in the world understands how QB ratings are calculated.  The QB rating is accepted by most fans, because it makes intuitive sense; if a QB throws a bunch of touchdowns his QB rating will go up, and if he throws a lot of interceptions, his QB rating will go down.  In the same way, most fans would understand the concept of WPA.  It would be clear that striking guys out in clutch situations would make a relief pitcher's WPA go up, while giving up home runs in clutch situations would make a relief pitchers WPA go down.

If WPA was used to evaluate relief pitchers instead of saves, closers would no longer want to come into games with 3-run leads.  Instead, they'd want to be inserted into as many clutch situations as possible, so they could maximize their ability to increase their WPA.  Of course, if closers were no longer used almost exclusively to close out games, we couldn't really call them "closers" anymore.  Fortunately, we wouldn't need to invent a new name for ace relievers, because an old-school name is still available.  Remember this trophy?

This is the Rolaids Relief Man Award, an award that used to be given to the best reliever of the year.  Notice that the trophy is in the shape of a firefighter's hat, because ace relievers used to be called firemen.

"Fireman" is a fantastic name for a reliever.  It signifies that's he's the guy who is supposed to save the day when other pitchers are in trouble.  I think that MLB should work with Rolaids to get this award reinstated and give the award to the "fireman" who earns the most WPA points in a season.  It wouldn't change how managers use ace relievers overnight, but it would be a step in the right direction.

C'mon folks!  I know my quest to change how managers use relievers may see extremely quixotic, but it's something that can happen if enough of us fans start to pay attention  to WPA.  C'mon fans, let's start talking about WPA!  Let's start calling ace relievers "firemen" again!  C'mon!



Rich