FanHouse Tom Verducci

NEW YORK -- Their backs are up against the wall.

They have to win Sunday.

This is it. Must-win. Do or die.

Not just the Angels. But the Yankees, too.

Asked Friday before the Yankees worked out which team faces the most pressure in Game 6, catcher Jorge Posada said, "Both teams."

He's right.

Joe Torre's new book has done what few baseball books have done: It's gotten people to talk baseball during Super Bowl week. That's no small feat considering how much hype the big game gets. It seems, though, that the Yankees want to discourage people from talking about baseball, or at least the kind of baseball where Kevin Brown is curled up in the corner threatening to quit.

The Yankees are considering a non-disparagement clause, which in essence is a "book clause". You might as well call it censorship.

The Game 5 Bud Selig-Will-He-Or-Won't-He-Clusterf--k is over now, and we're already looking ahead. Let's finish this thing out, huh? No rain! Probably!

Sure, baseball kinda-sorta embarrassed itself the other night, but that's over now. It's time to move on, to look on the bright side -- people with ADD will be able to watch the World Series now!

Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci and John Donovan -- who apparently did not coordinate their columns today -- both agree:

Fox should be working overtime to promote this game. It is an unprecedented situation with the urgency you never get from baseball. It can guarantee viewers that the game, if not the entire World Series, will be decided in the late innings -- without asking anyone to invest the time of watching the first two-thirds of the game. And there's yet another bright side to what people thought was a mess: Kids can watch the end of the game on a school night (assuming no rain delays or extra innings). The first suspended game in World Series history is not bad at all for baseball.

It's not a bad argument, but it's also a slippery slop. Before you know it, our National Pastime That Everybody Rips On All The Time will be shot in 10-minute segments and hosted on Vimeo. Complimentary 10 mg Adderall tablets will passed out at games. If plays are particularly good, they will earn endless reblogs. Is that what you want, Tom Verducci?

Considering how slow moving baseball has been historically in making changes to the game, for once I have to give props to Bud Selig for actually getting out and doing something. With so many questionable calls being made by umpires on home runs this season, the clamor for baseball to use instant replay has grown louder than ever, and MLB is responding accordingly.

In fact, it's starting to look as though instant replay will be in use in Major League games by the end of this season. From Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci:

Commissioner Bud Selig will make a presentation to owners at their two-day meeting in Washington that begins on Wednesday. Said Selig, "We're still checking things. I will tell you that nothing is final yet. All I can tell you is if everything is lined up, we will go to instant replay at some point."

Selig declined to set a timetable. His hesitation, according to a baseball source, is partly due to the logistics of getting the ballparks hardwired for such a system. In the most discussed scenario, officials at a central office, likely in New York, will monitor all games and immediately send video of questionable boundary calls to an on-site device for review by the umpires. The umpires would determine whether their original call should stand or not.

If you ever needed proof that the YES Network was little more than a mouthpiece for the Yankees front office, here it is: Tom Verducci, one of the most respected baseball minds in all of media, was relieved of his analyst duties for straying too far from the company line. The sad (or funny, depending on your perspective) thing? YES isn't even hiding their rationale. From Neil Best's Watchdog blog on Newsday (via The Big Lead):

YES spokesman Eric Handler said Verducci's "recent remarks pertaining to the Yankees' ownership were extremely personal and cutting, and we decided it would not be in our interests to have him on the show going forward.

The comments Handler refers to come from this column for Sports Illustrated in which Verducci puts the Yankees ownership on blast for how they severed ties with Torre, specifically, by doing it under the guise of wanting him back by offering him a deal they knew he'd never accept. Of course, it's not a huge surprise that Verducci had a strong reaction given the fact that he's collaborating on a book with Torre, which the suits at YES also took exception to:

"The recent disclosure of Tom's collaboration with Torre on yet another book highlights a conflict in his ability to write a balanced column about Torre's departure from the Yankees,'' Handler said.

It rings hollow for a regional sports network owned by a team to criticize a writer for not remaining objective, especially since there's no way this would have happened had Verducci taken the opposite stance and praised the Yankees. YES doesn't want objective opinions, they want polished PR, which would be fine so long as they didn't make such a fuss claiming otherwise.

I'll start with a confession: I was sort of surprised by all the furor surrounding Joe Torre's departure from the Yankees. Sure, Torre's reign was very successful, but an hour-long interview on ESPN? A constant stream of stories for weeks about Torre's sudden anti-management stand? An interview with Bob Costas? Color me naive, but I didn't think everyone really cared that much about a manager who is just north of mediocre.

In any case, maybe Torre and his people (do managers have "people"?) were surprised by the swarm too; they're certainly seizing the opportunity it presented as quickly as possible, as Torre is set to publish a memoir detailing his 12 years in Yankee pinstripes:

"Baseball has changed dramatically since I began my tenure with the Yankees,'' Torre said in a statement issued Thursday by Doubleday. "It was a wonderful 12 years and I look forward to sharing my thoughts and perspective on how the game has evolved.''

"In addition to sharing Torre's knowledge of the game, the authors will examine the rapidly changing baseball landscape, explaining how developments such as revenue sharing and the rise of statistical analysis have made the future existence of dynasties virtually impossible,'' the statement reads.

Torre is co-authoring with Tom Verducci, who's a good and well-respected writer, but if experience tells us anything it's that coach and athlete memoirs are almost universally awful. Unless, naturally (or unnaturally; har har), your name is Jose Canseco. In that case, you're a visionary.

Just the other day, I lamented SI.com writer Jon Heyman's willingness to totally dismiss VORP and runs created in favor of a nonsensical "wins created" concept, which was basically just an expression of Heyman's desire to tell advanced baseball metrics and their proponents to eff off. It's sad, really, when a baseball writer for the nation's most prestigious sports magazine decides to take a stubborn, ignorant stance. It's also, unfortunately, pretty common.

But a breath of fresh air exists: Tom Verducci, SI's head baseball guy, takes a question from someone far too angry about sabermetrics and answers in a reasoned, thoughtful fashion. Is that so much to ask?

I get the feeling that the stats geeks would prefer not to play the games at all, just crank it through the computer, prove their point that Team A is best, and crown them champs, and then let the blogosphere and Internet argue it out, maybe use it for 10 or 12 more Top 10 lists. Maybe if y'all would put down the Bill James and actually watch a bleeping game you'd have a bleeping clue ... [The Diamondbacks and Mariners] play together, play smart, never give up an out, have exceptional closers, and win most of the games that they have a chance to win. It ain't rocket science; it's as old as when the only stats were wins, losses, batting average and ERA. -- Jon DeMent, St. Cloud, Minn.

Here's the way I look at it: It's not an either/or proposition. Stats can enhance your understanding and passion for the game; and your understanding and passion of the game should keep the stats in their proper context. What I find really interesting is when stats challenge some time-honored baseball "traditions" or conventions. But I still think one of the best things about baseball is -- despite the wealth of information we have about past performance -- its unpredictability. No matter how much we know about baseball, that will always be true.

First of all, Jon in St. Cloud ... wow. Just, wow.

Second: Eureka! See, Heyman? See, Joe Morgan? It's not an ugly war between two diametrically opposed sides; it's a mutually beneficial search for the most accurate, telling baseball knowledge. It doesn't make the game any less fun. Promise.