FanHouse RickSutcliffe

From the Windup is FanHouse's extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.

Jake Peavy is the type of pitcher who can change the complexion of an entire franchise. He won the Cy Young award in 2007 as a 26-year-old with the San Diego Padres after compiling an obscene stat line. He went 19-6 with a 2.54 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, and struck out 240 batters in only 223 1/3 innings. He suffered through an injury-riddled 2008 campaign, but still managed to put up an ERA nearly one entire run better than the league average.

Obviously, when Padres general manager Kevin Towers decided to start over with his team by moving his hottest commodity for prospects, Peavy was the guy. Towers has supposedly been in trade talks ever since, though the specific teams and the number of whom are interested seems to fluctuate on a daily basis. This is the Hot Stove league at its very best and worst at the same time. It can be exciting or annoying, depending upon your point of view.

The two main suitors for Peavy seem to be the Cubs and Braves. Let's take a look at where we've been and the chances of a deal moving forward.

Remember a few weeks ago when a Jake Peavy trade was imminent? The Padres were supposedly very close to sending Peavy to either the Atlanta Braves or Chicago Cubs, and it wasn't a matter of if the deal would be made as much as it was when. Well, Jake Peavy is still in San Diego, the Braves have said they're out of the discussion, and it would look like the Cubs are the only team still willing to talk.

That may explain why former Cubs and Padres pitcher Rick Sutcliffe has been telling Jake how wonderful playing for the Cubs is.

Some of you will be excited by this news. Others among you will be sad. It is unlikely you will be indifferent, which is a testament to the sort of divergent emotions Joe Morgan inspires. People either love him or hate him, which, hey, makes him just like Barry Bonds! Joe Morgan loves Barry Bonds. I knew I'd bring this circular logic back around somewhere.

Anyway, the news is this: Joseph Morgan might be leaving the Sunday night booth. Cheering and/or weeping may now commence:

Both Morgan and Miller have two years left on their ESPN contracts, but that would not prevent a change. Sources said Morgan could be shifted to the network's midweek baseball telecast, where he would work with a new play-by-play partner.

The best part about all this? Morgan would be replaced by Rick Sutcliffe, who is just like Joe Morgan except with sort of a southern twang. Also, Sutcliffe does this from time to time. I expect no marked improvement.

When it was announced that Rick Sutcliffe, fighting cancer, was well enough to resume his broadcasting career, we cheered a bit. He's always entertaining in the booth, drunk or sober, and anytime someone can win a fight with the disease it's reason to smile.

Making it all the better is the chance to hear more stories like the one he told to Bill Reiter of the Kansas City Star over the weekend. Bill Murray joined Steve Stone in the Cubs booth during a 1987 game and bet Stone a case of beer that Sutcliffe, on first, would steal second base. Stone agreed to the wager and away we go:

The pitcher was still warming up when word spreads and a fan yelled, "Hey Sut, Murray just bet Steve Stone a case of beer you'll steal second!"

Standing on first base, Sutcliffe decided: Screw it. I'm going.

Sutcliffe took off running. All 6-7 of the Red Baron hauling ass for second base just to mess with Cubs announcer Steve Stone.

"I am gone," Sutcliffe said. "He comes down and looks over. Well I'm halfway to second. I'm going, 'Ah, he got me.' Well the dummy goes to home so now I've got to get going again. But there's still a play. That's how slow I am."

The throw. The slide. He's safe.

Great story. Anyone else think Murray would be a massive improvement on Joe Morgan in the Sunday Night Baseball booth?

(H/T SportsbyBrooks)

Former NL Rookie of the Year winner (1979,) Cy Young award winner (1984), and current ESPN analyst Rick Sutcliffe will be taking some time off from his job. Sutcliffe found out on Thursday that he has colon cancer and will begin undergoing treatment for the disease immediately.

Sutcliffe, 51, was diagnosed after a routine test during a physical revealed that he has a treatable and curable form of colon cancer. Sutcliffe will undergo chemotherapy and surgery over the next few months and said he hopes to make a healthy comeback later this year.

"I deeply appreciate the support of the ESPN family and my family and friends around the country," Sutcliffe said in a statement.

I've always been a Rick Sutcliffe fan, and unlike a lot of people I know, I enjoy watching games that feature him in the booth. Especially when he's not supposed to be there and is drunkenly telling us about George Clooney and how George is going to "solve that thing."

Unfortunately, I don't think George Clooney is going to be able to solve that cancer since he only played a doctor on television. The good news is that Rick has real doctors who will be able to help rid him of his colon cancer, and he should be back on the air by the end of the year.

I have no video or audio to offer, but that doesn't make Rick Sutcliffe's drastic, off-kilter revelation in tonight's Yankees-Angels game on ESPN2 any less entertaining.

To set the scene: a few innings after A-Rod's home run, Sutcliffe and partner Dave Brennan discuss the various merits of showboating after hitting a long run, especially in the case of David Ortiz's extended stroll after a home run over the weekend. (Ortiz took a really, really long time to break into his slight jog.) Of course, this type of showboating is blasphemous to Sutcliffe, who not only was a pitcher but who was in the middle of professing his belief that baseball today isn't the "same game" because people feel more inclined to showboat today than they did in the past.

And then, apparently as a method of supporting his point, Sutcliffe breaks into the real gem: his story about Reggie Jackson. Paraphrased, it went a little like this:

Sutcliffe: You know, that happened to me one time. I wanted to kill Reggie Jackson.
Brennan: Really?
Sutcliffe: Yeah. He hit a home run off of me, and stared at it. I was hot. I was furious. I was in the dugout, and I was going to throw at him the next time he came up. And then my guy Burt Blyleven came up to me and said "Sut, he's hit 500 of those things. He's earned the right to stare at it when it leaves the park." But I was furious.
Brennan: Well, the rules are slightly different today.
Sutcliffe: Because I was going to throw at his head. I was going to throw at his face, if I could hit it! I was going to kill him if I could.
Brennan: ... stunned, awkward silence ...

And ... scene! Lessons: Burt Blyleven saves lives. And showboating -- even in an era when nobody supposedly showboated -- can get you killed, son.

If you watched Monday Night baseball on ESPN this week, you no doubt heard Rick Sutcliffe talk about how Javier Vazquez was tipping his pitches. If you didn't hear Sutcliffe say this, then what were you listening to? He didn't shut up about it for like two hours.

Anyway, Sutcliffe determined that Vazquez would tilt his head and upper torso to his left whenever he tried to hit the left side of the plate.

After the game, one which Vazquez and the White Sox lost 3-0, Javier was quickly filled in on what Sutcliffe had been saying.

"I got a call from the whole island of Puerto Rico to let me know about it," Vazquez said Tuesday. "I checked the video and there's nothing to it. It's something that people on ESPN try to overanalyze stuff. And I didn't see anything. You can see if you're doing something, like if hitters know if off-speed pitches are coming.I pitched six innings, gave up four hits, three home runs. You look at those pitches, they should be hit for home runs. They were pitches over the plate."

I agree with both sides on this one. After Sutcliffe brought it up the first time, I did notice that Vazquez was leaning a bit, though to be honest I'm not sure it was enough for a hitter to actually notice.

Hitters are usually too busy trying to figure out what's coming, and what they're going to do with it to notice if a pitcher's head is at an 80-degree angle rather an 85-degree angle. The three home runs the Phillies hit all came on pitches left over the middle of the plate, and all Major-League hitters are going to crush those pitches.