Looking beyond the Verducci Effect

Tom Verducci has unveiled his red-flagged pitchers to watch this season (now with video!) for the dreaded Year-After Effect -- or the Verducci Effect, as Will Carroll dubbed it.

So watch out, Joba Chamberlain, Josh Johnson, Rick Porcello, Max Scherzer, Felix Hernandez and -- in a perfect storm of workload and managerial risk -- Homer Bailey.

Verducci's yearly analysis of young pitchers' innings increase (hurlers 25 and younger who set a career high in innings by more than 30), developed with help from Rick Peterson when he was the A's pitching coach, has been pretty accurate in forecasting either a drop in production (usually seen in a rising ERA) or, in the worst cases, injury the following season. Two of the most notable examples for the latter are Francisco Liriano and Anibal Sanchez. The disappointing 2009 seasons had by Cole Hamels and Mike Pelfrey support the former. And so Verducci's list of the pitchers to watch affects both fans who don't want to see their teams' hurlers named and fantasy owners, who may add a red flag to their rankings sheets in preparing for draft day.

But rehashing what Verducci has already done wouldn't add to the conversation. Inspired by Pelfrey's joining the club in '09, I was curious to see what happened to the pitchers Verducci singled out in the years after the Year-After Effect. In short: Can we hope for -- or expect -- improvement from Pelfrey in 2010? David Gassko looked at the general numbers a few years at The Hardball Times ago, but I'm curious about specific pitchers.

Through a combination of digging up old Verducci columns in which he listed a particular year's at-risk pitchers and use of Baseball-Reference's Play Index tool, I set out to put together a nearly complete all-time list of a "red-flag roster," going back to those to watch for the 2002 season. But that became cumbersome, so I edited where I felt it necessary and mostly left the prominent names, or at least those who seemed to have the most potential at that time. As Verducci says nearly every year in explaining his theory, the workload is just one factor in this analysis.

Below I've charted the pitchers' seasons that prompted the alarms (the one in which he exceeded his career high in innings by more than 30), the year-after season (the one Verducci warned us about) and his "year-after-after" season, the one immediately following the red-flagged campaign. In an effort to keep the charts manageable, I'm only including innings (rounded down; I'm not bothering with the fractions), ERA and WHIP, unfortunately omitting data like batting average against and BABIP. Most stats are MLB only, though in some cases full minor-league numbers are asterisked. If there's any combo of MLB and minor league figures, that's pointed out in the notes below the charts.

	1998 IP/ERA/WHIP	1999 IP/ERA/WHIP	2000 IP/ERA/WHIP	2001 IP/ERA/WHIP
Omar Daal	162/2.88/1.21	214/3.65/1.24	167/6.14/1.68	185/4.46/1.37
Sidney Ponson	135/5.27/1.47	210/4.71/1.46	222/4.82/1.38	138/4.94/1.43
Kevin Millwood	174/4.08/1.33	228/2.68/1.00	212/4.66/1.29	121/4.31/1.33

Daal was actually 27 years old and in his seventh Major League season in 1999, the year his innings jumped by 52, so he was outside the at-risk age range, yet he still had a precipitous fall -- and never posted an ERA below 3.90 again. Ponson's innings actually went up in his red-flag year, but we've since learned that he has general problems with restraint and conditioning. Millwood led the NL in WHIP and the Majors with just 6.6 hits per nine innings allowed in 2000. He's had the longest (assuming Ponson doesn't try to stick with a last-place club again) and most productive career, but he did take another step back in 2001.

	1999 IP/ERA/WHIP	2000 IP/ERA/WHIP	2001 IP/ERA/WHIP	2002 IP/ERA/WHIP
Albie Lopez	64/4.64/1.41	185/4.13/1.45	205/4.81/1.46	55/4.37/1.51
Mac Suzuki	110/6.79/1.71	188/4.34/1.53	118/5.86/1.65	21/9.00/1.95
Ryan Dempster	147/4.71/1.63	226/3.66/1.36	211/4.94/1.56	209/5.38/1.54

Another trio with just one pitcher still active. Lopez's jump from 1999 to 2000 (when he was 28) was tremendous -- and after his red-flag season of 2001, he pitched just 78 more innings in the Majors, less than his increase from '99-2000. Suzuki was finished after 2002. Dempster led the Majors in walks in his red-flag year, but after a three-year stint as a closer, he became an All-Star again (as he was in his breakout year of 2000).

	2000 IP/ERA/WHIP	2001 IP/ERA/WHIP	2002 IP/ERA/WHIP	2003 IP/ERA/WHIP
Mark Mulder	154/5.44/1.69	229/3.45/1.16	207/3.47/1.14	186/3.13/1.18
Brad Penny	119/4.81/1.50	205/3.69/1.16	129/4.66/1.53	196/4.13/1.28
Chad Durbin	72/8.21/1.85	179/4.93/1.45	8/11.88/2.04	8/7.27/2.42
Joe Mays	176/5.52/1.58	233/3.16/1.15	95/5.38/1.45	130/6.30/1.52
Freddy Garcia	124/3.91/1.42	238/3.05/1.12	223/4.39/1.30	201/4.51/1.33
Mark Buehrle	51/4.21/1.44	221/3.29/1.07	239/3.58/1.24	230/4.14/1.35
Tony Armas	95/4.36/1.31	196/4.03/1.38	164/4.44/1.38	31/2.61/1.07
Chris Carpenter	175/6.26/1.64	215/4.09/1.41	73/5.28/1.58	INJURED
CC Sabathia	146/3.57/1.33*	180/4.39/1.35	210/4.37/1.36	197/3.60/1.30

In his breakout year, Mulder led the AL with 21 wins and paced the Majors with four shutouts. He didn't have much of a dropoff in 2002 or '03 (though he pitched fewer innings). The signs came instead in '04 (225/4.43/1.36), after which the A's traded him to the Cardinals. After a decent '05 (205/3.64/1.38), he's never been the same. Penny saw an improvement in his 2003 numbers -- but none of this considers the Alyssa Effect.

With Durbin's '02 and '03 numbers so low, I checked his minor league numbers and saw that he pitched only eight in 2002 (injured), and 82 in 2003 (working his way back). But the reason I'm not too concerned with minor league numbers after the red-flag year is because I'm only interested in what these pitchers contribute to the big-league club. If they're still active in the Majors, we know they made it back.

Mays' breakout years was the only Major League season in which he posted a sub-4.00 ERA. Garcia went on to have a couple of productive years with the White Sox before his arm troubles began in recent seasons. With the exception of 2005 (3.12) and 2006 (4.99), all of Buehrle's ERAs have been between 3.50 and 4.00 and his WHIPs have been between 1.25 and 1.35 except for '05 (1.18) and '06 (1.47), so that's the kind of pitcher he is. Plus, he's got a no-hitter and perfect game on his resume. Armas' small sample size of 31 innings are key, because his ERA has been higher than 4.80 ever since.

And then we have two Cy Young Award winners. Carpenter missed 2003 after surgery, then went to the Cardinals (and pitching coach/healer Dave Duncan) and won 15, 21 and 15 games (and a Cy Young) before more surgery -- and then nearly won the award again in 2009. Sabathia's 2000 numbers are all from the minor leagues; '01 was his rookie year. He's steadily improved since, winning the Cy Young in '07 and avoiding the catastrophic injuries that several times have been predicted.

	2001 IP/ERA/WHIP	2002 IP/ERA/WHIP	2003 IP/ERA/WHIP	2004 IP/ERA/WHIP
Vicente Padilla	34/4.24/1.41	206/3.28/1.22	208/3.62/1.24	115/4.53/1.34
Roy Oswalt	141/2.73/1.06	233/3.01/1.19	127/2.97/1.14	237/3.49/1.25
Ben Sheets	151/4.76/1.41	216/4.15/1.41	220/4.45/1.25	237/2.70/0.98
Jake Peavy	28/2.57/1.11*	97/4.52/1.42	194/4.11/1.31	166/2.27/1.20

I omitted Runelvys Hernandez from this group because he was one of several Royals in the early part of the decade who was overworked and flamed out. Plus, his entire 2001 season and much of '02, when his innings shot up, were in the minors, and I didn't feel like doing all the math. And Andy Van Hekken was flagged for 2003, but one look at his page there and you'll see why I didn't bother including him.

From 2004-06, Oswalt finished in the top four of Cy Young Award voting and added a third straight All-Star season in '07. Since then, he's seen a bit of a drop-off. Sheets' best season to date came in 2004, when he fanned 264 and led the Majors in K/BB at 8.25. His record was just 12-14 for a Brewers team that went 67-94, which is why I'm not including won-loss records in this analysis. I still wish the Mets had signed him. Peavy's 2001 numbers are from the minors and his 2004 ERA remains a career best, better even than in his '07 Cy Young season.

	2002 IP/ERA/WHIP	2003 IP/ERA/WHIP	2004 IP/ERA/WHIP	2005 IP/ERA/WHIP
Carlos Zambrano	108/3.66/1.45	214/3.11/1.32	209/2.75/1.22	223/3.26/1.15
Dontrelle Willis	157/1.83/0.88*	197/2.97/1.21	197/4.02/1.38	236/2.63/1.13

Zambrano has remained pretty consistent -- right through his consistent, gradual decline the past couple of seasons. But he's apparently rededicated himself heading into 2010. Willis finished second in the NL Cy Young voting in '05 (to Carpenter, a fellow Verducci Effect alum) but has had other problems since.

	2003 IP/ERA/WHIP	2004 IP/ERA/WHIP	2005 IP/ERA/WHIP	2006 IP/ERA/WHIP
Carlos Silva	87/4.43/1.48	203/4.21/1.43	188/3.44/1.17	180/5.94/1.54
Jason Marquis	134/4.03/1.40	201/3.71/1.42	207/4.13/1.33	194/6.02/1.52

Silva's 2003 innings represent his entire year, all of it in the Majors. Seattle has gotten five wins and 18 losses since signing him before 2008. Marquis' first year in St. Louis was 2006, but he turned it around after that, even finding success in Colorado in an All-Star '09.

	2004 IP/ERA/WHIP	2005 IP/ERA/WHIP	2006 IP/ERA/WHIP	2007 IP/ERA/WHIP
Scott Kazmir	134/3.29/1.31	186/3.77/1.46	144/3.24/1.27	206/3.48/1.38
Matt Cain	158/2.67/1.19*	192/3.89/1.22	190/4.15/1.28	200/3.64/1.26
Francisco Liriano	156/3.79/1.42*	191/3.02/1.06	121/2.16/1.00	INJURED
Zach Duke	148/1.46/0.97*	192/2.44/1.21	215/4.47/1.50	107/5.53/1.73
Paul Maholm	60/3.43/1.44*	158/3.02/1.26	176/4.76/1.61	177/5.02/1.42

Kazmir -- there he is again. Would definitely be useful in Citi Field, but he hasn't yet become the Cy Young winner everyone thought he would. The Effect hasn't hurt Cain too much since '06, despite his 15-30 combined record in '07-08, which had a lot to do with terrible run support. The Twins tried to bring along Liriano (whose 2005 innings include the minors) slowly, as they did with Johan Santana, by pitching him out of the bullpen to ease him in. It didn't work. Duke led the Majors with 255 hits allowed in '06 but made strides last year, getting his ERA back down to 4.06 and his WHIP to 1.32. Maholm has also had two decent seasons since, posting ERAs for 3.71 and 4.44 and WHIPs of 1.28 and, less impressive, 1.44.

	2005 IP/ERA/WHIP	2006 IP/ERA/WHIP	2007 IP/ERA/WHIP	2008 IP/ERA/WHIP
Cole Hamels	35/2.31/1.03*	132/4.08/1.25	183/3.39/1.12	227/3.09/1.08
Justin Verlander	130/1.80/0.98	186/3.63/1.33	201/3.66/1.23	201/4.84/1.40
Anibal Sanchez	136/2.85/1.07*	200/2.97/1.23	30/4.80/2.07	51/5.57/1.57
Jered Weaver	76/3.91/1.24*	200/2.39/1.00	161/3.91/1.39	176/4.33/1.29

Hamels' 35 minor-league innings in '05 were all he threw, but his previous career high was 101, so while his jump wasn't as big, it still fit the parameters. He then became a two-time Verducci Effecter with his huge jump in 2008 -- and those numbers don't include his 35 postseason innings. Verlander's '05 numbers are mostly from the minors, and it wasn't until 2009 that he seemed to get back on track. This is the year we'll see if Sanchez (whose '06 numbers include the Minors) can regain his no-hit stuff. Weaver's WHIP in '08 is a good sign. And it went down again (1.24) in '09, along with his ERA (3.75).

This was a big year for red-flagged pitchers. With all these big names, I decided to skip Sean Marshall, Scott Olsen and Jeremy Bonderman, as well as several who haven't really been heard from since, incluing Adam Loewen, who has given up pitching and trying the Rick Ankiel route.

	2006 IP/ERA/WHIP	2007 IP/ERA/WHIP	2008 IP/ERA/WHIP	2009 IP/ERA/WHIP
Ian Kennedy	104/3.81/1.35*	165/1.91/0.99	116/4.27/1.30	23/1.59/1.10
Fausto Carmona	101/5.52/1.53	215/3.06/1.21	120/5.44/1.62	125/6.32/1.76
Ubaldo Jimenez	151/3.80/1.36*	185/5.16/1.51	198/3.99/1.44	218/3.47/1.23
Tom Gorzelanny	61/3.79/1.31	201/3.88/1.40	105/6.66/1.80	47/1.32/5.55
Yovani Gallardo	155/1.86/1.00*	188/3.35/1.18	41/3.07/1.34	185/3.73/1.31

All of Kennedy's numbers include a mix of Majors and minors, and 2006 is actually college and minors -- with only 2 2/3 innings in at short-season Staten Island. So those underwhelming stats are mostly with USC. Any further comeback from his recent injuries will be in Arizona after this offseason's trade. Carmona's '06 has 27 minor-league innings, and so far, his breakout '07 is a fluke.

Jimenez is an interesting case. He also pitched seven innings with the Rockies in '06, but I left those out. His '07 totals don't include the 16 postseason innings he pitched, which put him over the threshold for Verducci's list. And despite the red flag last year of pitching in the World Baseball Classic, he truly had a breakout season at 25. So perhaps this year we'll see a fall.

Gorzelanny has minor league numbers all around -- in '06, '08 and '09 -- that aren't included. He'll be 27 in July, so this is the year we'll know what we'll get from the big lefty -- if we don't already. The Brewers may have caught a break with Gallardo, who injured his knee covering first base in 2008 and had his innings limited that season. He posted decent numbers last year, so we'll see how he progresses this summer. Dustin McGowan was part of this class, too, but surgery knocked out his '09 season, so there are no further numbers for comparison.

'That would have elevated the well-deserved prestige of Cuban sport'

The Japanese team is excellent; I would like our victory in the Classic to be achieved at the expense of this team; a team that has tremendous technical expertise.

I'm going to have to go through more posts to find other gems like that, but that nugget comes from Fidel Castro's blog on the World Baseball Classic. No, really! Tom Verducci says so!

Looking back on the 1992 Hall of Fame Game

Like most of baseball, I went about my day last Monday as I normally would. I didn't take any time out of my day to visit MLB.com and listen to the coverage of the Hall of Fame from Cooperstown, the annual exhibition that used to be played the Monday following Induction Weekend. The Cubs and Padres were to play, but Mother Nature had other ideas and washed out the game.

At first, I didn't care. It didn't bother me that an exhibition game I had barely paid attention to over the past 15 years wouldn't be played anymore. It wasn't until I read Tom Verducci's "Requiem for the Game" that I realized that I will miss it, even if I rarely acknowledged it was there.

The truth is, the Hall of Fame Game has changed twice recently and wasn't what it was in 1992, when my family and I saw the Mets and White Sox face off following the inductions of Tom Seaver and Rollie Fingers. The first was in 1997, when Interleague Play came along and made a Mets-White Sox or any other NL-AL matchup less unique. As a result, baseball relaxed its rules on choosing one team from each league for the game, bringing the Dodgers and Padres to town that year. (In 1986, the Royals and Rangers played the first intraleague HOF Game, but it didn't become a frequent occurrence until 1997.) The second change was in 2003, when the Phillies (with minor league lefty Cole Hamels on the mound) and Rays played on June 16, moving the game off of Induction Weekend.

I was 15 in the summer of '92, so there was no widespread internet, let along blogs (we called them "diaries" or "journals" back then), so I don't know that I've ever written down my memories of that weekend. I do have video of it. We borrowed a camera from a family friend and my buddy Matt and I used it to record some of the induction (it was the first held at the Clark Sports Center on the outskirts of Cooperstown, instead of at the actual Hall of Fame, because of renovations there) and our tour through the museum. Not adept in video editing -- and, again, not having the computer technology of "digital" and "iMovie" -- we created a soundtrack by ... fastening headphones to the camera's microphone with rubber bands, and playing a cassette tape in a Walkman. We called it "Coop '92," and I really need to find out where that is and watch it again.

But as for the HOF Game itself, we hadn't been able to purchase tickets before they sold out, so my mom volunteered to go over to Doubleday Field the morning of the game and wait on line for standby tickets, should any be released because of cancellations or whatever causes people to pass up an opportunity to see Major League players at a town ballfield. While she waited, Matt and I continued to explore town, particularly shops selling baseball cards, and walked around the ballpark. We met up with Mom at a designated time (because, say it with me, no cellphones then, either) and she announced that she had secured three tickets. That's all we needed, because my sister and Matt's had no interest in going, and since they were two years younger, couldn't really be allowed to roam Cooperstown by themselves for three hours, so my dad volunteered to chaperone them.

While standing in line, my mom took note of all the uniformed Mets personnel who walked past her on their way from the dugout to the only men's room at the ballpark, a park-like facility with concrete floors and, I imagine, troughs that was accessible only from the parking lot. I think she was most excited to see Howard Johnson. She was also soon approached by a man who had come to turn in three tickets he couldn't use. There were two pairs (probably a purchase limit) that weren't together, and his wife would be sitting in one of the seats, so after chatting up my mom, he felt comfortable having her sit with his spouse. "It's better than turning them in and not knowing what she'll get," he said. So Mom became friends for an afternoon with some guy's wife, and Matt and I sat only a few rows up from the field down the left-field line.

Bobby Jones -- that would be Bobby J. Jones, the Mets' first-round draft pick the previous year -- was called up from nearby Double-A Binghamton to make the start, and he carried a perfect game into the seventh inning. He and two other hurlers combined on the only one-hitter in HOF Game history. The Mets won, 3-0, on a solo home run by Chico Walker (who, until I looked up the history of this game, I didn't not recall as a Met for a single at-bat) and a two-run double by Daryl Boston, both of which happened in the eighth inning.

Boston played left field, so we saw a lot of him -- particularly late in the game, when he started acknowledging us and getting the crowd along the line to chant his name. He and right fielder Dave Gallagher were engaged in a competition to see who could get the fans on his side of the field to cheer his name louder. I'm pretty sure we won it for Daryl.

Other than wanting to see Seaver (he ignored me on his way into the ballpark -- my closest chance at getting his autograph in my lifetime) and White Sox third baseman Robin Ventura (who won the pregame home run derby, which I don't remember, so we might not have had our tickets yet), I don't recall what my expectations were for the game. (It wasn't the best of Mets teams, though they did have a former Yankee starting at second base -- Willie Randolph.) I marveled at the houses just beyond the outfield fence, clearly the best real estate in Cooperstown, I believed then -- before I became a homeowner and would have to be concerned about things like broken windows. But if you're going to have your windows broken by an errant baseball, wouldn't you rather it be from someone in a Major League uniform than the neighbors' kid? And before the game, when Matt and I were for some reason separated inside the ballpark, he recounted a scene he witnessed along the right-field line, when the Mets' John Franco took a liking to one fan's hat commemorating the game and traded his team-issued on-field cap for the fan's commemorative lid. Even though he was a Yankees fan, I think Matt felt a little disappointment that Franco didn't notice his hat first and offer the trade.

But now those moments are gone forever. As Verducci and Hal Bodley lamented, the HOF Game was an important link of baseball's present and past. Both writers alluded to the big-shot player who expresses disdain at having to trek to upstate New York during the middle of the season, yet once he arrives and gets a tour and sees the quaint field nestled in the center of the quaint town, reverses course and voices his appreciation at having made the trip.

It's a shame the game has to die, but I can see why. Verducci touches on all of them. But why can't baseball fix it, instead of pulling the plug? The NFL has it right, but making the game a preseason exhibition tied to its inductions. But baseball can't have a preseason game in upstate New York, not when local residents haven't put away their shovels for the season yet in late March. What MLB could do is extend the All-Star break by a day -- some teams get both the Wednesday and Thursday after the game off anyway -- and stage the game on that Thursday. Every team would be off, making scheduling easier. Or simply choose from among the teams that have that extra day after the Midsummer Classic. There are only four games -- that's 22 teams off -- playing that day this year.

Baseball keeps moving further and further away from the small-town, easily accessible game it was long before I was born. Many of these changes are natural, necessary and inevitable. But some of them -- like bringing the big stars of the Cubs and Padres, or any other combo of teams, to a small town in upstate New York where the game is celebrated year-round -- don't have to be made. It's a shame that this one was.

Barry and the Babe

We're nearly there. One more long ball, and for just the second time in 86 years, Babe Ruth will move on the list of the all-time home run rankings. He took over the top spot in 1921 and didn't relinquish it until 1974; since then, he's been at No. 2. Two weeks from today marks the 71st anniversary of the Babe's final home run, one of three he hit in a marvelous afternoon at Pittsburgh's Forbes Field.

If Barry Bonds is going to do it -- and it certainly seems inevitable at this point -- maybe he can wait two weeks and do it on the anniversary of Ruth's own 714th blast. Giants manager Felipe Alou said that Bonds will play every game of this homestand, which runs through Sunday, to give him a chance to hit one or two home runs at home. The Giants then head to Houston for three games, without a day off, which means Bonds will likely sit. They then have three games at Oakland -- where Bonds can DH all three games, if necessary -- before returning home for six games spanning Memorial Day weekend that include the May 25 anniversary of Ruth's last three home runs.

This whole controversy over Bonds is a shame, as many have written already (and I've loved all of Tom Verducci's stuff on the subject, particularly his appropriately terse responses to some inane mailbag questions this week), because we should be enjoying this, celebrating it, bringing up Babe and looking at this in the context of one slugger vs. another, with 70 years between them. The debate should be about which one was the greater hitter -- and perhaps the greatest hitter -- of all-time, not which one did more with his own ability vs. which one had more artificial help.

I find it hard to believe anyone can look at Bonds' career -- his statistics, his baseball cards, his choice of friends and trainers -- and not think that the evidence is overwhelming. Everyone still wants him caught red-handed with the smoking gun: a positive drug test. That's being a little naive. Bonds, of course, admitted to using steroids when he testified before the grand jury; he just claimed he thought what he was being given were natural products rather than artifically produced enhancers.

Much as Ruth never got what he wanted at the end of his career -- a chance to manage -- Bonds won't get what he wants, which is to be considered the greatest player ever, someone who is cheered at each stop around the National League when he makes his farewell tour. Mark McGwire left the game a beloved slugger, but if he were still playing today, he'd be under the same suspicion and the same scrutiny. Bonds will get a warm send-off in San Francisco in his final at-bat, but if he wants that to be his last on-field memory as a player, he'll have to make sure his final game comes at AT&T Park.

Just how much more can he take? Clearly, the scrutiny and pressure is affecting him. He hides from the media, never moving faster than after a game, when he showers and dresses and leaves the clubhouse before the media arrives. He reluctantly answers questions after games in which he hits a home run; then he refuses to sign the ball that became his 713th career homer when a fan from Philadelphia asks, as Verducci reported. The fact that this 25-year-old soldier might soon be deployed to Iraq might prompt some players to take the guy to dinner after the game, or fly him out to San Francisco for a game. The most Barry can do is pose for a photo with the guy.

What happens when Bonds gets 714 and 715 in the next week or so? This is a guy who looks horrible on the field, like the boss trying to squeeze in a few innings in the company softball game, just to appear young and virile to his employees. He aches with every step and leaves games early, when even a five-run lead is big enough to take him out after he bats in the seventh inning. He'll play more on this homestand -- including this afternoon, after a night game yesterday -- as Alou tries to give him the cocoon of the hometown fans for the backdrop of his historic homer, but what will that mean for the trip to Houston and Oakland? It's been protocol for Bonds to sit out a day game after a night game, but on Monday he sat out a night game after a night game, presumably because his knee did not respond well to an overnight cross-country flight home after Sunday night's game in Philadelphia.

When does it all become too much for him? I actually wondered this week if he might hang it up just days after he hits No. 715, if he's finally had enough. His agent came out this week and said he expects Bonds to play somewhere in 2007, but how realistic is that? If he finishes this season with 725 home runs, mimicking the number on his uniform, might he call it a career at that nice, round number? That would mean a total of 17 home runs this season, just barely half of the 30 he would need in 2007 to tie Aaron. He hasn't had a multiple-home run game since Aug. 29, 2004, a span of 72 games in which he's played.

If this is Bonds' final year, that gives us five more years to ponder and debate, ruminate and reconsider, because then all of this will come up again as he's placed on the Hall of Fame ballot. We'll get the first inkling of an indication as to how that might play out in January, when the Hall of Fame announces the Class of 2007 -- for which Mark McGwire is eligible for the first time.

Bonds has had a Hall of Fame career. The only question is how good was he on his own?

Juicy

I've wanted to stay away from commenting on this whole steroids issue. I'm not trying to ignore it and think that it will go away, because it clearly won't. But I felt I didn't have much to say that wasn't already being thrown about, and that's still probably the case. But on the heels of last week's congressional hearing, it's taken a new turn.

First, there was the delicious sight of Bud Selig squirming and Donald Fehr sounding simply sleazy and heartless. "Progressive punishment?" God. The best thing that came out of the D.C. grandstanding was the exposure of the true wording of baseball's supposedly "tougher" steroid policy.

As for the players, it was shameful on both sides of the photographers' pit. The politicians fawned over the players and acted like they'd invited their athletic heroes into their homes and were amazed by their mere presence. For the athletes' part, they backtracked on everything they've said and done in the past few weeks or years. Jose Canseco backed off everything he's ever said or written about steroids and even Curt Schilling -- perhaps the biggest politician in the MLB players' association -- backtracked from what he's been saying for months about steroids.

But the saddest sights were Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. As Tom Verducci said, here's a guy who felt free and comfortable talking in English since the 1998 home run chase, and now he doesn't even open his mouth in his own defense? I have yet to see a news clip since that shows Sosa saying anything. He looks like a mentally challenged hulk sitting there in his suit while his gray-haired lawyer serves as his mouthpiece. And, of course, everyone's already pointed out his use of the word "illegal" when saying he'd never used "illegal drugs."

As for McGwire, a player I once enjoyed to watch and marvel over, it was clearly a sad scene -- this once Paul Bunyan-esque slugger now appearing smaller, his face markedly clearer, dressed up (it seemed) in grandpa's reading glasses. All he had to do was come out and say it, say he never used steroids, and he'd be validated. But he didn't, probably because he couldn't, and now everyone -- Buster Olney, Jayson Stark, the news articles have jumped on the player everyone praised six summers ago.

Except one. Interestingly, Ben McGrath's "Talk of the Town" piece in The New Yorker is the one column I've seen that's portrayed McGwire in a positive light. But as Verducci said, hasn't McGwire learned the importance of history, of learning from the past? Clearly, we won't be learning from him.

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Now what to make of Barry Bonds? Which is the act? His brash bravado during his press conference when he arrived in spring training? Or his quiet, humble, whimpering sob story yesterday? If not somewhere in between, I am going with history here and leaning toward the former. Will Bonds miss the entire season? Doubtful. Is he really done? Probably not. He's frustrated. True, he has been beaten down by allegations and accusations, but much of it he's brought upon himself. He berates the media, the sportswriters for bringing him to this point, but he had a choice in how he dealt with the reporters who, for the most part, were simply doing their jobs. He hasn't been cordial with any of them, or with many fans.

Blaming the writers for his woes, for his family's "pain," is weak. It's part of your job, your privileged career, that you have to live with. With McGwire's Hall of Fame resume clearly tarnished, in the minds of many, what will we make of Bonds'? Eddie Murray was known to be surly with the press, but he had little trouble getting to Cooperstown. Bonds shouldn't either, just because -- steroids or not -- his numbers are so eye-popping.

I, for one, won't be counting the days until Bonds is back on the field. I'll monitor his rehab, if only because of the fantasy baseball implications. But if he's hit his last home run, or if he comes back but still falls short of Hank Aaron's respectable 755, baseball will be better off. If not, if he gets healthy and passes Babe Ruth this year and Aaron in 2006, it will be a fitting mark on Selig's tenure -- perhaps his lasting impression. Baseball's greatest record, its home run crown, will be shrouded in a fog of suspicion, forever.

Embedded baseball writing

Tom Verducci's outstanding first-person account of his five days spent as a player with the Toronto Blue Jays is a fascinating look into a major-league clubhouse. Spring training is definitely the time to do it. Had he managed to gain access for five days during the season in April (which, of course, wouldn't happen because those games count), his days would've been filled with milling around hotels, malls and playing video games.

Reading the article, which was essentially a journal of his week in Dunedin, in the magazine, took me back to 2001, when I covered the Lakewood BlueClaws. The Phillies and the BlueClaws gave me permission to join the club on a road trip for a feature article in the newspaper. Ideally, I would've gone on a slightly longer trip, one that took us to two cities in the South Atlantic League, but my duties in the office required me to choose a four-day, down-and-back trek to Greensboro, N.C. So on the last game of a homestand, I arrived at the ballpark with my computer, as usual, but also with a duffel bag for the trip. We left after the game, arriving at the Greensboro hotel sometime in the late morning. I quickly fell into the routine. Like Verducci with the Blue Jays, I found the BlueClaws players to be very accommodating. They were a bit more relaxed around me after that trip, talking more freely and openly after games and for stories. Interviews were no longer like pulling teeth, answers did not have to be coaxed out of them.

The night before we arrived, rain had soaked the field at 80-year-old War Memorial Stadium. It's so old that the war it refers to is World War I. The field has horrible drainage, so despite a hot, sunny August day, that night's game was postponed because the field was too soggy. With idle time, many of the players (as well as myself, the broadcaster, Neil Solondz, and the strength coach, who I spent most of my time with) navigated the overpass and the four-lane highway to get to a Best Buy visible from the hotel parking lot. On the way back, Neil, hitting coach Jeff Manto and I played a round of miniature golf.

I'd ride the bus to the ballpark with the players and was under even more deadline pressure to file my game stories. Once the final out was made, I'd already have a lede written up because then I had to hustle down to the cramped visitors' clubhouse down the right-field line, get the comments I needed, and zip back up to the press box to file my story before the bus left to return to the hotel.

One morning, I joined the workout group on a trip to a local gym and found myself riding a stationary bike in a line with Manto (who was the acting manager for the trip, with skipper Greg Legg having used these four days for his vacation that the Phillies allow each minor-league instructor to take during the season), the bus driver and several Greensboro residents.

The trip home was much like the ride down, leaving after the game and driving through the night, arriving back at the ballpark at 7:30 in the morning. Everyone then went home for a few hours' sleep before returning for that night's game.

I'll have to dig through my old disks to see if I have the original story to post here. If I do, it's probably the unedited version.

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I also came across my scorebook from the 2002 BlueClaws season, when they hosted the South Atlantic League All-Star Game. Curious, I opened it up to see who played in that low-Class A midsummer classic. I remembered several names, but was surprised to be reminded of another.

The hometown BlueClaws featured Ryan Howard, now one of the Phillies' top prospects and the guy who hit 48 home runs at three levels last year. Also starting for the Northern Division was second baseman Jeff Keppinger, then with Pittsburgh's Hickory affiliate but now in the Mets' organization, and Jose Bautista, now the Pirates' starting second baseman. He played third back then for Hickory.

The Southern Division started Dodgers farmhand Victor Diaz at third; in two weeks he could find himself the Mets' starting right fielder if Mike Cameron isn't ready. The Mets featured three starters and four all-stars overall that year. Outfielder Angel Pagan was set to start in center and lead off, but was promoted days before the game. Catcher Justin Huber did get the start, but was traded last summer to the Royals. In left field was Jeff Duncan, who's since reached the big club.

But the name I'd forgotten was one I became aware of only a week or so before the game, when the all-star teams were announced. I hadn't pegged him as a prospect until then and I remember wondering just how long it might take this guy to get to the big leagues. He didn't start the game, but after two at bats by starting DH Scott Thorman of Macon, David Wright pinch-hit. He went 0-for-2 in the game, but 25 months later he made his major-league debut with the Mets.

Other SAL All-Stars of 2002 who have reached the majors include Willy Taveras of the Astros and Chris Young of the Rangers, who allowed the only hit in the game to the South (yes, it was a no-hitter until the eighth) but was credited with the win when the North scored three runs in the bottom of the inning.

It's a little surprising that, just two seasons later, I'm able to name so many players from low Class A who have already reached the majors. The first player from the SAL in 2001-02 who got to the bigs, I believe, was Houston reliever Mike Gallo. Now the all-stars are getting there. A few more should make it in the next year or two, but after that, if they're not there already, the dream is pretty much over.