Paul Daugherty

The Morning Line, 5/16, Don’t show me the money

I suppose if you are a Reds fan, it’s OK paying attention when they play the likes of the Marlins. Me, I like a little competition, where the outcome is occasionally in doubt. The last two nights have been like a weather person predicting rain while standing in a thunderstorm. TML might not give Reds-Fish a big glance tonight. Ho meets Hum in a really nice ballpark that no one visits. The bobbleheads are cool, though.

Easy for DBaker to say now that there’s no Leake-Cingrani competition. Of course there has been a competition, though given the manager’s orthodoxy and affinity for rocking no boats, Cingrani would have needed to be Koufax to merit an extended look. Fairly safe to say now that Leake has won the competition, and that Cingrani gets the lovely parting gifts. Nice to have starting depth down on the farm.

Why doesnt Chappy throw more sliders when has a bigger lead than outs to get? 26 pitches, 3 sliders.

Now, then. . .

* WHAT IS THE FASCINATION, STILL, with how much money athletes make? Has the knowledge that Phil Mickelson made close to $40 million last year in winnings and endorsements, made him more appealing to you, or more fun to watch play golf?

It was more than 30 years ago that Pete  said, “I want to be the first $100,000 singles hitter” or some such. (How positively quaint, Mobsters.) We’ve been fascinated with what jocks make ever since. How come?

SI this week lists its “Fortunate 50.” The 50 top breadwinners, all in a row. They make a lot of dough. They use up half the wheat in Kansas. So freakin’ what? The only thing that knowing a guy’s pay does it make us mad at him, when he doesnt perform up to our expectations. (It also allows us to sneer, a little, at the LA Angels of Anaheim and the bazillions they’ll be paying A. Pujols from now to the Second Coming.)

I dont care what a guy makes. I dont begrudge any athlete his pay, unless he complains about it. Most are too smart to do that. An athlete is a commodity, same as a house or a dishwasher or a ’65 Mustang. The notion of “worth” is irrelevant. He’s “worth” what some  fool  owner is willing to pay him. To begrudge him that is entirely hypocritical, unless you’d be saying in the same situation, “No, I couldnt possibly take that. It’s too much money.”

But back to the enjoyment factor: How does knowing that J. Votto (#45 on the List) will make $19 mil this summer enhance your experience as a fan? I try very hard in This Space and in the TM not to write about money, after spring training. It makes no difference to me what a guy is making, in terms of how he plays. Occasionally, you might hear that a player is pressing to “justify” the money he makes. But that’s usually speculative.



Salaries are leaked to scribes by agents, who want the world to know how good they were at getting their client half the GDP of Liechtenstein. Players sometimes measure their self-worth at least in part by the number of zeroes in their deals. It’s not the money to them. Seriously. It’s what the money represents. Mine’s bigger than yours. Every year when USA Today put out the list of NFL players and what they earned, TJ Housh. would make sure Chad-O knew which receivers made more money than he did.

Anyway, SI has its List out this week. If you want to agitate yourselves for no reason.

* THIS IS FASCINATING, AND I’M NOT A (BASEBALL) GEEK.  The vital art of pitch framing, from Grantland:

According to Marchi, who has consulted for a major league club and whose work has been mentioned by Rays manager Joe Maddon, (Jose) Molina has saved his teams 111 runs — or, using the standard 10-runs-to-a-win conversion, about 11 wins — because of framing from 2008 to 2013. (The only other catcher with a higher run total over that same time period, Brian McCann at 122, has caught more than twice as many pitches.) Doumit, on the other end of the receiving spectrum, cost his teams 155 runs. That comes out to 0.50 runs added by Molina and 0.55 runs subtracted by Doumit per 100 pitches, an enormous difference.

I think Hanigan is very good at this. Mesoraco, not so much. Am I right?

* POLLEN STOLE MY LUNG! I’m walking the front 9 at the legendary Weeds yesterday when suddenly my air passages go into vapor lock and I commence coughing up half of Mongolia. It’s like someone was tickling my esophagus with a feather duster. This went on for several minutes. Pogo and Bengal Boy were about to call the paramedics. Pollen doesnt usually bug me that way. The mold gets me. When the mold is up, I go into this semi-vegetative state. I feel like doing nothing. I mean, even less than usual. No energy.

Does any of this crapola happen to you?

* SPEAKING OF THE WEEDS… I nicked B-Boy again, even as my back was seizing and my ankle was experiencing rigor mortis.

* WHY I LOVE MY SEGMENT ON 96 ROCK. My boy Finn had Mr. Skin on just before me this AM. Skin is the guy, apparently, who has a website consisting of actresses doing nude scenes. One-stop shopping for Toms. Finn asked me for a personal recommendation. I offered Love And Other Drugs, without equivocation. Anne Hathaway. Netflix it and thank me later.

* UC IN AAC... How much does it matter to you, as a fan, that the Big East is dead? Put another way: Would you rather your Bearcats be a middle-class team in the high-rent (at least in basketball) BE, or a high-roller in the new league? UC hoops was heyday-ing for a decade in C-USA, while feasting on lessers. Is that better than playing the best fairly routinely, and not feasting?

(Lots of those Huggs clubs also took 2nd-round Madness tumbles, their conference sked not exactly great prep.)

As an impartial visitor, I’d rather see UC lose to UConn, G-town, Cuse etc. than whip up on East Carolina, Houston, SMU etc., football or basketball. Perception is reality, and at least initially, I’m thinking the perception among fans is they’ll be paying porterhouse prices and getting meat loaf.

The hard core fan might go regardless. But you’re not making money in Clifton if you’re just attracting the hard core guy.

So is quality more important? Or does winning solve everything?

* I TRIED WATCHING BULLS-HEAT last night, but honestly, I just can’t get into a game where one team plays when it feels like it. The Heat coasted for about 35 minutes, played hard only when they had to. Yuck. It was, you know, Bullsheat.

* BECAUSE TV IS MY LIFE… I never watched The Office, but maybe you did. Here’s a requiem from Grantland.

* MEANTIME, the always perceptive, hilarious, accurate, riveting and perpetually sheerly delightful Mad Men Power Rankings, also from Grantland, which does this sort of thing far better than it does, you know, sports.

* OG RANT O’ THE DAY. Yard Man next door cuts his grass about 40 times a week, and always when I’m on the deck, trying to listen to The Famer. Is it too much to ask that the guy clip his fescue on Saturdays or something? Meantime, another neighbor has moved, leaving her lawn untended. Me and my neighbor to the left have cut her abandoned grass once already, and it’s high again. She left a very nice patch of irises, though. I’m pondering liberating a few, as payment for the free yard service. Am I within my rights to do so?

* GRAND THEFT AUTO V comes out 9/17. The best, most pleasantly mindless vid-game hoot, ever. I dont care about the story. I have no use for the game, the way its creators intended. I just like hijacking vehicles and running over old ladies.

And with that. . .

* TUNE O’ THE DAYChuck Prophet, yesterday… and today. Very Tom Petty-ish. A good thing.










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Paul Daugherty

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