First off, let me say this…I love Carlton Fisk.  He’s one of the great catchers of all time and always was a tough hardnosed player who expected a lot out of those who played with him (and against him).

He recently spouted off against Mark McGwire and then Barry Bonds, which as a Hall of Famer, he’s totally entitled to.

“But this is the point I want to make: When you talk about steroids and you talk about what it means to the game, the three greatest home run hitters of all time–Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and Willie Mays, right? When they were 39 years old, how many home runs do you think they averaged? The three greatest home run hitters of all time averaged 18 home runs at age 39. Now, how many home runs did Barry Bonds hit when he was 39? He hit 73!”

“It’s not woolly.  Nobody gets woolly.  Women get weary.  They don’t get woolly.  Nobody’s got stress, they’re wearin’ a dress.  God damn I hate people that get the words wrong!”  — Crash Davis in Bull Durham.

Boy, did he get it wrong.

All baseball players and fans are stats nuts.  He didn’t even come close to getting it right.   Joe Posnarski has pointed analysis and I won’t steal his thunder.  Suffice it to say that those great home run hitters averaged more than 18 homers when they were 39 and Barry hit those 73 dingers when he was 36.

In addition to not getting the stats right, the problem I have with Fisk is that by calling out Big Mac Bonds, Clemens and other alleged and admitted steroid users, he calls attention to himself.  He says he’s clean and didn’t do steroids and is pointing out age and performance as evidence.  OK, then his stats are open to scrutiny.  Here are some interesting tidbits.

At the age of 39, Carlton Fisk caught an amazing 122 games.  That’s more games caught than when he was 26, 27, 31 and 32 when the Bosox let him go.  But wait, there’s more!  After catching only 74 and 90 games at the ages of 40 and 41, he went on to catch 116 and 106 games when he was 42 and 43.  Really?  Catching over 100 games in consecutive seasons in his early 40s?   Do you think those aging knees had any medicinal help?  Hmmm….

What about his batting?  Well, take a look again at his stats.  And look at the number of home runs he hit.  Let’s look at his career year in most home runs.  He hit 37 at the age of 37 in 1985, which is 11 more than his next highest total of 26.  Wow, significant jump when his numbers should be down and declining.  But wait, there’s more!  At the ripe old age of 39 (remember his Willie Mays, Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron argument above), he hit 23 home runs, which mysteriously is more than the great Babe Ruth hit when he was 39.  At the ripe old catcher ages of 40, 42 and 43 when most catchers have been retired for at least ten years, Carlton hit 19, 18 and 18 dingers.  Do you think he had any extra medicinal help in the batting department.  Hmmm….

I am so sick of Fisk and others of his ilk (e.g., Fergy Jenkins, who was busted for illegal drugs as a player and suspended for a total of 2 weeks).   Yes, they’re in the Hall, they’re entitled to spout off now that no-one is going to kick them out (right, Ty?), but they are not squeaky clean either.

If a player played during the pharmaceutical era (1950s to present), as far as I’m concerned, they’re all suspects in illicit drug use, whether it’s steroids, amphetamines, cocaine, hashish or marijuana.  Pointing fingers at others does nothing but shine a light on themselves. Judge not, lest ye be judged.

My advice to them:  How ’bout grabbing a nice steaming cup of “Shut the F*** Up?”

Reading Sam’s piece on Introducing Promotion and Relegation to Professional Baseball prompted me to compile the combined 2009 final standings for Major League Baseball as well as all leagues at the Triple-A and Double-A level (see tables below).

In my imaginary new system, MLB would combine the National League and American League into one Baseball Premier League (BPL) comprising the current 30 major league teams.

The top eight BPL teams would have a playoff consisting of three rounds of seven-game series.  Seedings would be based on overall record (using run differential as a tie-breaker, if needed).  1 vs 8, 2 vs 7, etc., — higher seed hosting — culminating in a World Series.  This would be the same number of rounds in the current MLB playoffs.

In 2009, that would have produced the following BPL first-round matchups:

• (1) New York Yankees vs (8) San Francisco Giants
• (4) Boston Red Sox vs (5) Philadelphia Phillies
• (3) Los Angeles Dodgers vs (6) Colorado Rockies
• (2) Los Angeles Angels vs (7) St. Louis Cardinals

Possibilities include a Yankees-Red Sox matchup and an all-LA series in Round 2.

Note that last season’s AL-Central champs — the Minnesota Twins — would not have made the 2009 BPL playoffs.

The Triple-A Pacific Coast League and International League would combine to form a Baseball League 2 (BL2).  No longer would this tier be affiliated with major league (BPL) clubs.

The bottom three BPL teams would be relegated to the BL2.  Last year would have seen the Baltimore Orioles, the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the woeful Washington Senators banished from the top league.

The top two BL2 teams would automatically get promoted to the BPL.  Last season this would have been the Sacramento River Cats and the Louisville Bats.

The next four teams in the BL2 standings would play a two-round series of seven games each, seeded by overall record, home field advantage going to the team with the better record.  Winner of this BL2 promotion playoff would move up to the BPL.

The Double-A Southern, Eastern, and Texas Leagues would combine to form a Baseball League 3 (BL3).  As with BL2, clubs from this level would not be affiliated with the BPL.

The bottom three BL2 teams would be relegated to the BL3.  Last year’s relegation victims from the BL2 would have been the Portland Beavers (on top of all the talk of the club leaving the city!), the Columbus Clippers, and the Buffalo Bisons.

The top two BL3 teams would automatically get promoted to the BL2.  Last season this would have been the Birmingham Barons and the Akron Aeros.

As with the BL2, the next four teams in the BL3 standings would play a two-round series of seven games each, seeded by overall record, home field advantage going to the team with the better record.  Winner of this BL3 promotion playoff would move up to the BL2.

The Single-A structure could still be used by the upper three leagues as a farm system.

As Sam says, the prospect of relegation keeps fans of poor performing teams interested (albeit not happily!) while allowing for a “natural order” of the better teams rising to the higher leagues (and more money) and worse teams being demoted due to lack of performance.

Lots of current baseball tradition would have to be sacrificed, and stadium rules and scheduling would be a challenge, but the competition could be as intriguing as the Barclays English Premier League!

Now that Bud Selig is broadening his horizons by putting the “world” into World Series, then perhaps he might want to consider another difference in the way sports are conducted elsewhere: instituting a system of promotion and relegation. That is, to have the bottom teams from each league – from the majors to Class A – move down and the top teams from each league move up. This is how it is done in the European soccer league, for example. And the result seems to be a more loyal following for a given team.

The chances are that folks in top Triple A towns such as Akron, Louisville and Sacramento would like to have an MLB team in their towns as much as fans in Baltimore, Kansas City and Washington. Perhaps even more so given that the teams in each of the former towns were top of their respective divisions last season, while the three major league towns hugged the bottom of theirs.

It’s hard to imagine that one would be too enthused attending an Orioles, Royals or Senators game knowing that your team is well out of contention. However, my guess is it would be a lot more exciting if they were trying to save themselves from falling out of the MLB. Likewise, having your team move up to “the show” would be like winning the World Series to some teams.

Read more about promotion and relegation in American baseball here.

As Bud Selig and his counterparts in Japan discuss a Global World Series – between the winners of the American MLB World Series and Nippon Professional Baseball – there are some who would be more than eager to open the competition up to even more countries.

“I think it would be a good idea to have the top teams in America and Japan meet and it would be a boost for international baseball. Of course, I would like to see the number of teams increased at some point,” Robert Eenhoorn, a former New York Yankee infielder and the current commissioner of the Dutch baseball league, told Baseball Ink.

“With baseball now out of the Olympics, it needs to think of ways to expand globally, particularly as more countries are becoming very competitive and the game is growing in popularity around the world,” he added.

Though not always thought of as a baseball country, the Netherlands has a long history in the game, known in Dutch as honkbal. A professional league was started in 1922, and a number of players have made their way to playing professionally on the other side of the Ocean.

The Netherlands is now ranked sixth in the world, according to the International Baseball Federation (IBAF), and has long been the top team in Europe – winning the bi-annual European Baseball Championship the last four times. Einhoorn, 41, served as the country’s manager from 2001-2008, when it also qualified for the Olympics in 2004 and 2008.

The Dutch professional baseball league – Honkbal Hoofdklasse – is comprised of eight teams which play a 42-game season.

Big Mac apologized.

ESPN reported:

[Mark] McGwire’s decision to admit using steroids was prompted by his decision to become hitting coach of the St. Louis Cardinals, his final big league team.  [Tony] La Russa, McGwire’s manager in Oakland and St. Louis, has been among McGwire’s biggest supporters and thinks returning to the field can restore the former slugger’s reputation.

“I never knew when, but I always knew this day would come,” McGwire said.  “It’s time for me to talk about the past and to confirm what people have suspected.”

He’s admitted his usage of steroids.  Good for him.  Now maybe we can all forgive him.  Maybe even people like Marty Noble, who found it in the goodness of his cold cold heart to forgive a cocaine user like Dave Parker, could forgive Big Mac now and vote him into the Hall of Fame.

This almost forgotten part of McGwire’s testimony always intrigued me…and turns out he was right:

Asking me or any other player to answer questions about who took steroids in front of television cameras will not solve the problem.  If a player answers no, he simply will not be believed.  If he answers yes, he risks public scorn and endless government investigations.

** Note to Jim Bailey:  Notice how I linked to the original transcript on CNN, giving credit where credit is due.

As far as the other writers who have kept McGwire off the ballot because he never admitted using steroids, didn’t want to even talk about it, and (shocked, I tell you, shocked) cheated…now what?  Will McGwire, as he predicted he would be when he testified before congress, still be vilified?  Will the public still heap scorn upon him?  Will the government investigate?  Should it?  Will we all, including the writers who continue to vote for entry into the Hall of Fame, just assume that anyone who played and excelled during the “Steroid Era” is a cheater?

I think this admission of guilt muddies the water even more.

So…now what?