Ball 5

Author: Justin Golenbock

"A man awakes clutching his hamstring after burning the candle late at Paddy O's the night previous. His head is shaved, and he sports a handlebar mustache, a tire around the waist and white salt stains across his forehead. He checks the calendar, April 3. Next to the date is a name: "Kevin Millwood, RIGHTIE. 'S***,' he mumbles, reaching down to tie his cleats, still on from the night before, 'gotta get ready to play. Gotta support the team.'

"One wall of the room has been made into a long mirror: he looks into it and sees the opposing wall, which is plastered in pictures, all of himself. The largest is a monster picture collage, entitled 'To the player who forever changed the game,' signed and dedicated by a Gabe K. He stares into the mirror for a long moment, blowing wisps of his mustache up and down, then takes a few practice swings, watching each imaginary home run sail into the horizon: 'seeya,' he whispers. He grabs his uniform. Looking back into the mirror a final time, he repeats to himself, in his softest, most intimidating, six-inch, Clint Eastwood voice: 'I am Christopher Trotman Nixon. I. Am. Awesome.'"

This short narrative is intended to imaginatively introduce my 2006 MLB PREVIEW COLUMN, designed, as I see it, as a constructive critique of every other MLB PREVIEW COLUMN. It was suggested that I re-name the column "players whom I mock for no good reason," but "no good reason" was out of place. So to compromise, I cut my "Trot Nixon" introduction down to 200 words, from a previous 16,786.

First of all, let's take a look at the USA Today preview, an ode to the four most "underrated" roles in baseball: the super-utility man, the on-base guy, the innings eater and the steadfast dinosaur (overpaid veteran). Secondly, let's re-group these four into one super-group: bad baseball players. Take the best "Super-U" for example: Chone ("Shawn") Figgins. They report that last year he started at six different positions. Actually they're wrong, he started at seven: they missed DH. Don't you think that if he were really that great at any one, he'd be starting there every day? What he does well is hit well and run fast. Melvin Mora once played eight positions in a game for the Orioles; eventually he hit his way into their lineup as the everyday 3B, where he has since completed his re-definition of the term five hole.

Now, on-base percentage has certainly been recognized for its importance by baseball fans, but where it gets overvalued is as an isolated skill with no accompanying talent: Jeremy Giambi gets contracts from four different teams and Kevin Youkilis gets his own chapter in Moneyball. Congratulations, you suck, but at least your suckitude isn't because of an injury. And for every Julio Franco... there's really only one Julio Franco.

So, stay away from baseball previews. They might be more entertaining than mine, but they're probably longer and that makes all the difference.