And we're back

After a thoroughly enjoyable, active and at the same time relaxing vacation, I'm back at it. It will take me a bit to catch up on some of the stuff I missed, but I did ignore several developments, too. There's no point in rehashing what's a week or several days old.

But let's start off with the Ryan Howard-for-Albert Pujols rumor. I don't deny that there may have been some "internal discussions" by the Phillies. It is, after all, Buster Olney reporting, and his sources are as good as anybody's. Though, because it's the Phillies, it's surprising that writer-in-residence Jayson Stark didn't have this first.

As for the internal talks, someone could've said, "Hey! Let's trade Howard for Pujols!" in a drunken stupor at the team holiday party and it could be considered, technically, "internal discussions." (Incidentally, the well-known near-swap of Ted Williams for Joe DiMaggio that was referenced in that story allegedly was agreed upon after a night of drinking, tabled until the morning for further consideration in the sober light of day, and withdrawn after more clear-headed evaluation.)

Even if the Phillies may have thrown out those two names in the same sentence, and though the Howard-in-St. Louis angle has some merit, not only do I not see the Cardinals dealing Pujols, I don't see him getting away. For various reasons, the Cardinals might not have the revenue of the Yankees or Red Sox or the ability to stretch their payroll as far as the top-paying teams in each league, but I have to believe that none of that applies to the contract discussions with Pujols. Of course, they won't let Pujols and his agent know that, but -- ahem -- internally, they'd better be saying if there's one player for whom they can be creative to sign on his terms, it has to be King Albert.

The Cardinals draw well. They probably sell a lot of merchandise in the Midwest. They contend every year -- especially with Pujols. On the surface, the chances of them hamstringing themselves because of what they pay Pujols are minimal; obviously, we don't know what their financial ledgers look like. But you have to believe that they wouldn't have signed Matt Holliday to $120 million over the next seven years if they felt that would prevent them from signing Pujols.

The last paragraph of that story mentions the blockbuster deal in December 1990 when Blue Jays GM Pat Gillick (now an adviser in the Phillies front office) traded Tony Fernandez and Fred McGriff to the Padres for Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter. It's amazing that that was nearly 20 years ago, and I was curious to see which players were active during the 1990 season and in 2009.

It's a short list:

Ken Griffey Jr.

Tom Gordon

Randy Johnson

Jamie Moyer

Gary Sheffield

John Smoltz

Omar Vizquel

That kind of puts into perspective how often these kinds of deals happen, and the Phillies just made a pair involving Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay, so should this one have any legs, it would be two once-in-a-generation deals going off within about a year.

Randy Johnson retires

After 22 seasons, Randy Johnson has announced his retirement. After originally planning a conference call for tomorrow, the Big Unit moved it up to tonight so as not to step on tomorrow's announcement of the new Hall of Fame class.

My lasting memory of seeing the Big Unit in person was on May 21, 2000, at Shea Stadium, when two of the most impressive home runs I've seen in person were hit. One was by Mike Piazza, who obliterated one of Johnson's pitches and launched it 492 feet into the mezzanine in left field. The other was hit by 5'11", 170-pound Joe McEwing.

And then, of course, there was this:



11:51 p.m. update...

Johnson leaves the game ranked impressively among baseball's greatest pitchers. His 10.6098 strikeouts per nine innings are the best among pitchers with 1,000 innings and, of course, he's second only to Nolan Ryan in strikeouts. His 303 wins rank 22nd, and many have speculated that he may be the last hurler to reach 300 victories. He's 30th in winning percentage at .646 and nine of those in front of him are Hall of Famers, with another two (Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens) Hall-worthy and two more (Johan Santana and Roy Halladay) seemingly on that track. He's also 22nd in allowing 7.2821 hits per nine innings.

That he rates pretty low in a few other categories shouldn't prevent him from being a first-ballot Hall of Famer. For one thing, voters will see the 4,875 strikeouts and 303 victories. Known for stretches of wildness, Johnson did walk 3.2580 batters per nine innings, ranking 716th all-time, three slots behind Babe Ruth (who had other things going for him), and ahead of just three Hall of Famers: Early Wynn, Goose Gossage and Hal Newhauser (at least among the top 1,000 ranked by Baseball-Reference). His 190 hit batters is third all-time, but Nos 1 (Walter Johnson), 2 (Eddie Plank) and 4 (Joe McGinnity) are all Hall of Famers. But despite his wildness with bases on balls and hit batters, the Big Unit only ranks 62nd in wild pitches, with 109. So either he was wild around the plate, or had a run of excellent catchers. The top six on the list are all in Cooperstown, led by Nolan Ryan's 277.

Following Randy Johnson's announcement, writers chipped in with their appreciations. In the style of Buster Olney ...

Jerry Crasnick likens Johnson to NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Tim Brown says Johnson never made it look easy.

Maybe because it didn't come easy, Scott Miller writes.

Johnson's legacy won't diminish over time, posted Carl Stewart of the Oakland Tribune.

The Big Unit defined dominance, according to Ed Price.

Cooperstown awaits, writes Craig Calcaterra.

And, finally, Tyler Kepner offers an appreciation and a quartet of MLB.com reporters have the story, plus a look at his stops in Arizona and Seattle, as well as a tribute by Mike Bauman.

Friday thoughts on the playoffs

Am I surprised at the Mets' 2-0 series lead? Not really. I am, however, suprised at just about every other outcome in the Division Series so far.

The one series at 1-1 was Tigers-Yankees? Wow.

Oakland owned the Metrodome, then completed the sweep? Woah.

San Diego dropped two at home, proving that St. Louis is their playoff nemesis? Crazy.

Speaking of crazy, what is Bruce Bochy doing not starting his best hitter, Mike Piazza, in Game 2? You carried three catchers all season and gave Piazza regular rest -- two, three days a week, or at least every day game after a night game -- for this specific reason, to have Piazza play everyday in the playoffs. Not starting him is ridiculous.

Should the Cards finish the job, and the Mets take care of things -- hopefully in L.A., hopefully on Saturday -- I don't think the St. Louis pitching will be much of a match for the Mets' hitting. New York is still five wins away from the World Series, but its loss of two starters no longer appears to be such a daunting obstacle to overcome.

Watching Yanks-Tigers right now, and Kenny Rogers is getting himself out of any jams he gets into; Randy Johnson is looking like a 42-year-old pitcher with a bad back. Say what you want about the Mets' signing of Pedro Martinez, but the Yankees' going after Johnson appears to have been the worse deal, and it has nothing to do with the players they gave up. Strictly regarding the money, the Pedro deal is, at worst, just as bad, but it's not any more debilitating than the Yankees' signing of Unit.

A sports lover's dream Saturday tomorrow. Three baseball playoff games, all spaced evenly -- 1 p.m. ET, 4 p.m., 7:30 p.m. -- and a so-so slate of college football games in which all the intriguing matchups will be available nationally. I'll be working, but I'll be watching. The only bad part is that I'll have to come into the office at some point in the afternoon, and that will be an hour of baseball and football that I'll miss.

Three duels, one night

The last time two 300-game winners took the mound to start in the same game was June 28, 1986, when Phil Niekro and Cleveland visited the Angels and Don Sutton. Neither starter got the decision in the 9-3 California (as they were called then) victory. Niekro went 6.1 innings, allowing 10 hits, three earned runs while walking seven and striking out four. Sutton lasted seven, but gave up three runs on seven hits (two of them homers) with no walks and six Ks.

The last time it happened in the National League was 1892, when Tim Keefe and Pud Galvin met for the fourth time in the past three seasons, and second time in a month, on July 21. Keefe's Phillies won that game 2-0 over Galvin's Browns after losing a July 4 meeting 9-2 in the first game of a doubleheader.

It happens tonight in Houston, when Greg Maddux takes his 305 victories up against Roger Clemens' 328. With 14 wins this season, Clemens will tie Keefe's 342 for eighth on the all-time list. Galvin finished with 364, in fifth place. Tonight's pitchers also have 11 Cy Young awards between them; where once they were tied at four each, Clemens now has three more than his opponent tonight, having won one every three years since 1998 (then 2001 and 2004).

There's another Cy Young matchup in the Bronx, where Roy Halladay and Randy Johnson are scheduled to go if the rain holds off. And in what would seem like a Cy Young matchup, had either of them won it in Oakland, former teammates Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson will pitch to one another when the Cardinals play in Atlanta. Both finished second, in consecutive years; Mulder in 2001 to Clemens and Hudson in 2000 to Pedro Martinez. This is the reason I have the Extra Innings package on digital cable. Alas, I have a friend's birthday party in New York tonight. The game I really want to see is in Houston, but so long as they play, I'll at least be assured of the Evil Empire vs. the team from the Great White North at the bar.

I'm such a good friend. Well, he is too -- $20 for a two-hour open bar, plus appetizers.

The Big Unit introduces himself to New York

I think we've seen the true Randy Johnson.

He's certainly a great pitcher and a fierce competitor, but he's no class act. He's no Yankee off the field. His incident with the CBS 2 cameraman in New York was a punk act. Does Johnson really think that he can walk down a Manhattan street and not be photographed? From watching the video, it appears that the cameraman is down the sidewalk, awaiting Johnson's approach. Johnson had enough time to move around him, as inconvenient as that may be. But it certainly looks like Johnson got in the cameraman's face, not the other way around.

If the Big Unit expects to be treated the same way in New York as he was in Arizona, he's severely mistaken. It was one thing last year when he snapped at a New York-area reporter who suggested where he might find a house if he came to the Yankees. Johnson replied that he wasn't a Yankee and he wasn't going to talk about it, which was a reasonable answer at the time. But now he is a Yankee, and cameras on the streets of New York are part of that.

The Yankees are clearly the World Series favorite on paper, as a fantasy team. But can they be a team? Can the various personalities from Jason Giambi to Gary Sheffield to Hideki Matsui to Derek Jeter to Alex Rodriguez to Randy Johnson co-exist as a cohesive unit, the kind of collection of athletes that wants to win for their teammates more than they do for themselves? I'm not so sure of that. It's why I don't ever see Barry Bonds winning a World Series, or Jeff Kent. You also have to be careful when you try to buy winning. It doesn't always work out. It certainly didn't last year, when all seemed lost after the Yankees went out to get Alex Rodriguez, Sheffield and Kevin Brown. But good won out in the end.

I think the one thing we can be sure of is that this will be one entertaining season in New York. Randy Johnson and Brown on the same team (if Brown sticks around) should be good enough for at least two scuffles.

But there's one claim I don't quite buy (yet) about Johnson: This perceived feud with Curt Schilling. I've never seen it written about with any comments from either one to that effect, and we know Schilling's not against talking about players on other teams with whom he doesn't think he'd get along. But Kevin Kernan of the New York Post wrote about it in December:

One of the big reasons the Big Unit wants to be a Yankee, according to several sources, is to take on Schilling head to head in the AL East after Schilling was traded away from Arizona last offseason.

[...]

Remember, at the root of every great player is a great competitor and Johnson wants to get back to the World Series and nothing would please him more than beating Schilling, according to insiders, which would make for some classic Yankee-Red Sox battles in 2005. Every year you wonder how the Yankees and Red Sox will turn it up a notch and Johnson taking on Schilling would grow this rivalry again in a big way.

It's one thing if Johnson and Schilling have a friendly, competitive rivalry to see which one can lead his team to a world championship without the other -- oh, wait, Schilling just did that. I can certainly understand Johnson wanting to outdo Schilling, but I don't think it runs as deep as a personal feud.

The most telling thing to me came at last year's All-Star Game. During the workout day, when all the players had their kids on the field with them, Schilling sat along the sideline with his four kids. Next to him was Johnson's son, clearly there to see Schilling's kids, who I imagine were his friends when their fathers were teammates. If there were a feud, I doubt Johnson would want his son hanging out with Schilling. In the event that Johnson put his feelings for Schilling aside so that his son could see his friends who now live in Massachusetts, it still wouldn't explain why he took the time to walk over, get down on one knee and talk with Schilling for 10 minutes while they watched BP.

We all know, though, how the New York media loves controversy and it doesn't take much to get the story into the tabloids. So if the Post and the Daily News want a Schilling-Johnson rivalry, they're going to print one.

Baseball's cranky old man

We have a neighbor we call the Cranky Old Man. He's a thin, little man who shuffles around his driveway and front yard and is always giving advice to children playing too close to the street, or to Casey and me about parking our cars in our shared driveway or mixing recyclables with the regular trash. He's a stickler for the town laws, reminding us not to shovel snow into the road when the plow has already come by, yet he'll put his trash out before 6 p.m. the night before pickup and -- while this technically follows the law, it's still annoying -- fires up his lawn mower at the stroke of 8 a.m. on Saturdays.

In baseball, it's clear who's become the Cranky Old Man. Randy Johnson has been complaining about the losing in Arizona the way retirees in the surrounding Paradise Valley complain about the snow in Chicago before buying that second home in the desert. To his credit, he hasn't been tanking his starts to force a trade -- and don't believe he doesn't have it in him. Look at his stats in Seattle in 1998 before the trade to Houston, then look at his numbers as an Astro. It's not like he's holding the Diamondbacks hostage, but he's sure not making things pleasant around the clubhouse. This week's story in Sports Illustrated compares the team's locker room to a dentist's office, only more quiet. Johnson's agent reportedly told Arizona GM Joe Garagiola Jr. that if he didn't trade the Big Unit, he'd have one unhappy pitcher on his team. Garagiola responded along the lines of, "How is that different than what we have now?"

From a fan's perspective, it's frustrating to have a player like Johnson dictate which team he will or won't play for. He's certainly not the only one doing it this season -- Steve Finley apparently will only accept a trade to one of the teams near his Southern California home: San Diego, Anaheim or L.A. Carlos Delgado has told Toronto that he won't waive his no-trade clause, which likely would have landed him in L.A. Last year, Rafael Palmeiro didn't want to leave the heat and the losing in Texas to go to a contender (I forget which one now) and Juan Gonzalez -- perhaps the biggest (literally and figuratively) softie in the game today -- wouldn't let the Rangers trade him to Kansas City or the NL. So in the offseason he signed with the Royals. And he's currently hurt again.

The economics of the game and the owners' willingness to hand out no-trade clauses like bobblehead dolls before a game against the Expos has taken the fun and excitement out of the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline. The speculation still provides some enjoyment, but with trade talks more limited, the sources used by the likes of Gammons, Stark, Verducci, et. al. have less to share, and even the speculation is diluted.

But when you have someone like Randy Johnson -- the sexiest of possible trade pieces -- wanting out, yet limiting it to a team guaranteed to "win," you're getting awfully close to the inmates running the asylum. (Granted, it seems whoever's calling the shots in the sport fits that description.) Randy doesn't want to be the piece that hopefully gets a team into the postseason, he wants to join a postseason-ready rotation. He wants to be a part of the gluttony. As much as it pains me to admit it, the Yankees have a need for Johnson. Were the team to acquire Bret Boone or Jeff Kent to play second, that would be gluttony -- all-stars at every position, a lineup better than many fantasy teams, a top-of-the-line replacement for a second baseman (Miguel Cairo) who has played -- and hit at -- the position more than adequately. But while Johnson would only make the rotation older, the Yankees have no healthy reliable starters. Mike Mussina and Kevin Brown, both of whom can be counted on for quality starts every time out, are on the DL. Jon Lieber and Jose Contreras are far from reliable and Orlando Hernandez is coming off of injury and inactivity and tweaked his hamstring in his last start. Throw out what's happened in the regular season, and in a playoff series, the Red Sox have the edge in starting pitching in a matchup against the Yankees. And considering New York's bullpen overuse, Boston could have the edge there with a healthy Scott Williamson.

But Randy will only accept a trade to the Yankees. He won't go to Boston, he won't go to Anaheim (the team with the best prospects to offer Arizona), he won't go to Chicago. He apparently wouldn't even go to St. Louis, which now has a bigger lead in its division than the Yankees. But the Cardinals were dropped from the discussion early, probably because the team is getting along just fine with its current starters and didn't want to take on the $22 million Randy will make the rest of this season and next. I even heard Peter Gammons talking this morning about a potential three-way deal that would've landed Randy in Oakland, but the A's backed out of those discussions. But Johnson no doubt would've vetoed that change of address, even though the A's are the best second-half club in the game and just took over the division lead from Texas with yesterday's win.

True, it's tough to sit here and criticize a guy for not wanting to leave his home and his family. Arizona is Johnson's home, and the Diamondbacks' spring training site in Tucson keeps him close to home through March too. A trade to the east would put him in Florida in mid-February next year. There aren't many careers that allow employees to be bought and sold and traded like professional sports.

Yet, that's part of the job description. Athletes know that's part of the game -- the business -- when they sign their first multimillion dollar contract. But by their second, they seem to have forgotten it. Randy Johnson is set for life. He's set to make almost more between now and the end of next season than Ricky Williams earned in his weird, five-year career (cited at $27 million). He gets three and a half full months off every year -- just like teachers, even more than most, who make in a year what Johnson does in a start -- and when he retires, after next season or whenever, he'll have every waking moment of every day to spend with his wife and four kids.

Randy says it's all about "wanting to win." I see it as wanting to win on his terms.

It looks like he'll at least get to sleep in his own bed every night.

On fantasy trades and no-hitters

The Late Show's Top Ten Cool Things About Pitching A Perfect Game

As read by Randy Johnson on May 19, 2004:

10. "After this, I can go 0-15 for the year and honestly not give a crap."
9. "My pre-game dinner at Denny's tonight? On the house!"
8. "Shows everyone that even though I'm 40, I can still ... I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought."
7. "Cool to get congratulatory call from the President, even though he kept calling me "Larry."
6. "Can walk up to guys who've thrown no-hitters and whisper, 'Loser.'"
5. "All the pine tar I can eat!"
4. "Your catcher hugs you and it feels kinda ... nice"
3. "Maybe people will finally forget about the time I killed that bird."
2. "It's just one more thing about me that's perfect, am I right, ladies?"
1. "George Steinbrenner just offered me a billion dollars to sign with the Yankees."

Maybe two weeks before Randy Johnson's perfect game last week, a Red Sox fan in my fantasy league e-mailed to see if I'd trade him Curt Schilling for Johnson. He was wary of making the "homer" trade, thinking Johnson could be slightly better than Schilling this year. I thought otherwise, and turned it down.

Then Johnson went out and lost 1-0 to the Mets, pitching a great game. He followed that up with perfection.

My thinking was this: Schilling and Johnson can have very similar numbers on the same team, but now Schilling is on a better team. I figured his numbers had the potential to be better. Besides, Schilling's injury last year wasn't a common pitching injury -- he broke some bones in his hand on a hard hit up the middle. It wasn't a shoulder or elbow injury, no rotator cuff or ligament damage. If anything, it allowed him to rest his arm and throw less innings last year. Johnson's injury was different: It was his knee, and some reports say it's still suspect, that as long as the pain remains minor, or as long as he can pitch through it, he'll go on. But when that pain threshold gets too high, he's in trouble. Our league also doesn't have DL slots, a decision I abhor and a fight I've not been able to win with the majority of our 10 members voting against it. Without any DL slots and with our lineup settings, any injured players have to become part of our five-man bench. So if you have four injured hitters and two of your bench spots are taken up by pitchers, then you've got to cut somebody just to get another hitter to put into your lineup. So I couldn't take the chance that I'd be trading my No. 1 pitcher (and one of my three keepers from last year) for a very similar pitcher on a weaker team who, if he went down, would leave me without a No. 1 starter. Yes, if Schilling goes down, I have the same problem, but at least that's one that didn't have the warning signs of a potential Johnson injury.

* * *

As some writers and announcers are fond of saying, for the 6,706th time since the team's inception in 1962, a Mets pitcher failed to throw a no-hitter. Tom Glavine came close yesterday, taking a perfect game into the seventh inning and giving up the only hit in his 4-0 complete-game win with two outs in the eighth.

Four outs away. Again.

And, for the record, I was offered Glavine in a trade in the same fantasy league about a month ago. Turned that one down too. Decided to keep Juan Pierre.

I've watched so many Mets games get past the fifth with a 0 in the hits column for the opposing team. I once remained in the same horizontal position on the couch one night as David Cone mowed down the Phillies or the Braves or whoever it was in the late 80s that he nearly no-hit. I didn't move until he gave up that first hit, and by then I really had to go to the bathroom. I've seen two minor-league no-hitters in person, but I've yet to watch one in the majors even on TV -- most likely owing to the fact that the Mets are usually the only games I watch from the beginning and, well, you know. I was at the ballpark on September 2, 1990, when Dave Steib threw one for the Blue Jays, but that was in Cleveland and I was at Shea.

Maybe I'll see one tomorrow night. I'll be at Shea when Steve Trachsel, who threw one of the Mets' two one-hitters in three games last year, faces the Phillies. It's my fourth Mets game this season ... and my fourth Steve Trachsel start this season. He's quickly become the pitcher I've seen throw the most innings in person in my lifetime. Last offseason, I discovered Retrosheet and began the process of cataloging ever major league game I've attended. I remembered many of them offhand, not by date, but by pitcher, home run, event, etc. I remembered Lenny Dykstra's inside-the-park home run for the Phillies against the Mets, and found the date of July 24, 1990, in a Phillies media guide I have. I recalled Joe McEwing and Mike Piazza homering off Randy Johnson on a Sunday afternoon at Shea in 2000, so I browsed for that box score. I consulted friends and family who attended certain games for their recollections, and I dug out old scrapbooks for ticket stubs. I'm certain I got every one, which is now up to 85 games since my first one in August 1983, and I would also count the 1989 Mets-Yankees exhibition game at Shea at the end of spring training, since it was two major league teams in a major-league park close enough to the regular season, but I can't find a box score. Because I can't remember exactly when I got to the park, or if we left early, or when I was in the bathroom and missed an at bat or four, I used artistic license to just count all stats from every game for which I had a ticket. If I was in the ballpark for an inning, I was in the ballpark for five innings, and the stats count.

So Trachsel leads in individual innings pitched, and Mike Piazza has both games played (24) and at bats (91). I've yet to scour the data for leaders in all the other categories, but I do know this:

• I've been to 16 ballparks, including the now-retired (and, in some cases, razed) Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, County Stadium in Milwaukee and Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

• The Mets are 21-22 in the 43 games I've seen them play. The Yankees are second with 22 (14-8), the Phillies third with 11 (4-7). The Braves and Pirates, with nine each, lead the teams more than a two-hour drive from the Jersey Shore.

• I've seen all 30 teams play at least once.

• At 3-0, the Royals are the only team undefeated in more than one game I've attended.

• The Dodgers are the opposite at 0-3.

• The Brewers are 2-0 as a National League team (a win each at County Stadium and Wrigley Field), 0-1 as an American League team (at Yankee Stadium).

• After attending one game in 1983 (Yankees 2, Angels 1, August 21) and two in 1985 (the Mets split at Shea, losing to Cincinnati and beating Chicago), I've seen at least one game every year since 1988.

• The 12 games I attended in 2000 are the most in one season, followed by 1990's 10.

• July's 21 games is tops by month, followed by June's 16 and September's 15.

• I've seen four October games, two of them postseason (the Mets' Game 1 NLCS loss in Atlanta in 1999 and their Game 5 NLCS clinching victory over St. Louis to send them to the 2000 Subway Series).

Tomorrow we'll see if the Mets can break .500 for 2004 and reach .500 for my career, and if

Trachsel can improve upon his 2.48 ERA, his 1.20 WHIP and his 2-2 record in 40 innings over six starts.

And just maybe a no-hitter.