Damn Fool of the Week

Runelvys Hernandez

2006-04-14T10:00:00.000-05:00

Ah, Fatso. Yes, it was only a matter of time before Runelvys occupied this space. And why not? He already occupies more space than most people.

Seriously, one would expect that any baseball player to stay in reasonable shape. There are few miracles out there like Bartolo Colon and David Wells, who seemingly can pitch well no matter how many doughnuts or beers they down before the game. Most players, most regular people too for that matter, simply function better physically when they are in fighting trim, so to speak. It's not hyper-critical for most of us to be in tip-top shape (and I am admittedly among those who have battled the bulge), because we don't generally make our living playing sports. But, those whose bodies are literally their means of support generally try a little harder than the average slob.

In the case of Hernandez, there may be no other player in the big leagues with better reason to report to camp in shape, for a variety of reasons. First, he's already had to have Tommy John surgery once to repair his elbow, and you'd think he would do everything in his power to be in otherwise top condition to help take as much stress off that elbow as possible. Next, he's well aware of the fact that he's prone to gain weight. Hell, this guy gained weight during the season last year, a rare feat indeed given the grind of playing 162 games and the constant attention lathered on these guys by fitness and training staff while the season is ongoing. Being cautious with his diet in the off-season was surely mentioned to him a few times.

Finally, he's simply not that good. We're talking about a guy with a career ERA of exactly 5.00 entering this year. He plays for the worst team in the sport, and there really isn't all that much to separate him from a long list of guys who would love to replace him in the Royals' rotation. And since the Royals stink, they're in a position to experiment a little by slapping a Triple A assignment of their fat phenom and putting some other stiff in the rotation.

With that kind of history, not to mention millions of future dollars at stake, you'd think he'd put in a little extra effort to keep from reporting to Spring Training at 280 pounds. But that's exactly what he did, prompting the Royals to first attempt to put him on the DL with the stated reason being "stamina", and finally just outrighting him to Omaha when they were told blubber wasn't an acceptable disabler.

So, did Runelvys take this demotion to heart? Yes and no. By all accounts, he has lost a lot of weight, up to seventeen pounds since the beginning of Spring Training. That's good. Unfortunately, he still can't pitch, surrendering eight runs in three innings in his first start in the minors. That's bad, and now the Royals have announced that he still isn't ready to be called up even though they now need to expand their rotation to five men.

Damn Fools don't come much bigger, any way you want to take that.

Barry Bonds

2006-03-26T18:08:00.000-06:00

Allow me to offer you some friendly advice, Barry. The next time you face a situation where your reputation has been smeared, either shut your mouth if the allegations are true, or sue for libel if the allegations are false.

Please don't try another half-way approach like your lawyers pulled this week against the authors of the recent book that claims you took truckloads of steroids. Your crack legal team somehow convinced you that it would make sense to sue those guys on the grounds that much of their evidence came from sealed grand jury testimony, making it a crime for them to possess it. They didn't dispute that the evidence was correct, just how the authors obtained it.

Bad, bad move. Now, everyone is convinced that you didn't sue for libel because the truth is an absolute defense for those authors. And they're now also saying that you tried to kill the book on a technicality, smearing your reputation even further. And, oh by the way, your lawyers' motion was turned down anyway.

Get some new lawyers, Barry. And this time make sure they understand public relations.

Bud Selig

2006-03-13T18:23:00.000-06:00

I don't believe I have honored Bud to date with this award, and that's pretty surprising given his track record. But he finally cracked the Damn Fool list this week, by virtue of a couple of his pet projects.

First, we had the revelations about Barry Bonds, including the little tidbit that Bud met with Barry in 2004 to get his assurances that no embarrassing steroid information would pop up. Um, I'm going to guess that Barry didn't exactly give Bud the straight poop. I'd say I was surprised that Bud bought it, but we are talking about Bud Selig here.

Then, courtesy of the World Baseball Classic, we had a pair of snafus. First came the decision not to televise live what is quickly becoming a set of really interesting, exciting games due to conflicts with college basketball. We told you March was a bad time to play this, Bud.

Next came the embarrassing blown call in the USA-Japan game yesterday, leading some to speculate that the sub-par umpiring crews were chosen in order to fix the games.

All in all, a pretty crappy week for Allan H. "Bud" Selig, though it did net him the Damn Fool award. It was long overdue.

Hall of Fame Voters

2006-03-03T18:25:00.000-06:00

I am enraged that Buck O'Neil was not elected to the Hall of Fame. Joe Posnanski has already expressed the outrage of Kansas City much more eloquently than I can, so I will simply echo his sentiments here. Keith Olbermann has also written a couple of nice blog entries that hit home.

Look, there was no enormous outcry demanding that the Hall of Fame double the representation of the Negro Leagues. The committee in question was assembled essentially for the sole purpose of legitimizing a reason to put Buck O'Neil into the Hall. No one could even name the 17 additional inductees until this committee was put together, so there was hardly any groundswell of popular demand for Effa Manley or Andy Cooper. This was an election cobbled together to put Buck O'Neil into the Hall of Fame and they screwed it up.

It's that simple. And it's that sad.

(And I would be saying this even if Buck hadn't called my son "Home Run" when he signed a ball for him last summer.)

Omar Minaya

2006-02-15T20:45:00.000-06:00

Minaya is apparently so fixated on assembling an all-Hispanic version of the Metropolitans that he has sunk to signing Jose Lima to a minor league contract.

Yes folks, THAT Jose Lima, the one the Royals continued to throw out there in 2005 despite the fact that Lima was historically bad and each additional start cost the team incentive money.

To put some perspective on how bad Lima was, keep in mind this stat: No pitcher in the history of major league baseball has had a season in which he started as many games as Lima did last year (32) and posted a higher ERA (6.99).

But he's good enough for Omar. It must be nice to literally burn money. I'll try it if I ever win the lottery.

Bruce Sutter Supporters

2006-01-06T20:47:00.000-06:00

Look folks, this one isn't even all that hard. Just do a quick compare and contrast between Sutter and Dan Quisenberry:

Years: 12 each
Games: 674 Quiz, 661 Bruce
Innings: 1043 Quiz, 1042 Bruce
ERA: 2.76 Quiz, 2.83 Bruce
Win%: .549 Quiz, .489 Bruce
Save Titles: 5 each
World Series Titles: 1 each

They were the same pitcher people. T-H-E S-A-M-E. So please explain this last stat for me:

Highest HOF Vote Total: Quisenberry - 18, Sutter - 301

A little consistency is all I ask.

J. P. Ricciardi

2005-12-04T20:49:00.000-06:00

I hate to do this, because J.P. is a smart guy and he's from Massachusetts to boot, but anyone who gives B.J. Ryan $47 million for five years is a damn fool. It's practically the definition.

Larry Lucchino

2005-11-14T20:50:00.000-06:00

...and Charles Steinberg, and Dan Shaughnessy, and everyone else involved in Theo Epstein's decision to leave the Red Sox.

Unfortunately, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that these bozos may have done irreparable damage to the Red Sox's chances to remain contenders in the foreseeable future. Theo was that good.

And these schmucks are that stupid.

Blake

2005-10-27T20:51:00.000-05:00

Blake is a reader who recently stumbled across an old article I wrote about Lou Brock. Allow me to let Blake express himself. Here is the entire text of his email to me. The lack of punctuation and liberal use of all-caps are Blake's:

"You're a friggin IDIOT I don't know how MORONS like you think that anything you have to say is relevant why don't you sit around another 10 years or so ( or however long it took you to come up with this crap ) and waste more time in your worthless life, because all of you writers spout the most worthless crap that really has absolutely nothing to do with anything LOU BROCK is in the HALL OF FAME live with it you moron . Why don't you spend your time doing something worthwhile and constructive"

I love getting email from my fans, particularly those who call me worthless. All of those missives are precious to me. But when the reader goes above and beyond and re-defines irony by lecturing me on "worthwhile and constructive" pursuits (like sending belligerent, seemingly drunken emails about Lou Brock, from his work email address), that reader deserves my Damn Fool Award.

Well done, Blake. Well done.

Ugueth Urbina

2005-10-19T20:57:00.000-05:00

Urbina apparently was involved in a nasty incident in Venezuela that involved herding together a group of workers on his family ranch, hacking at them with machetes, dumping gasoline on them and lighting them on fire, all because he misplaced a firearm and thought one of the workers took it.

Damn fools don't come much bigger than that. No wonder someone kidnapped his mother last year, this guy is a jerk.

Ken Macha

2005-10-10T20:58:00.000-05:00

Let me get this straight; Macha was the manager of an up and coming Oakland team that should be good for years. That team offered to keep him around at the rate of about $850,000 per year for the next three years, plus a chance to make $1.2 million in a fourth option year. Despite having no real negotiating leverage because the GM basically thinks the manager is dead weight, a stance that taints Macha's reputation around baseball as well, Macha refused the deal, wanting more money that Billy Beane was almost certain to reject. That scenario panned out, leaving Macha unemployed at a time when the only other managerial job openings are with teams far worse than Oakland's good young core and, in most cases, have even less financial ability to meet his salary demands.

That, my friends, is a damn fool.

(UPDATE - October 19, 2005: Apparently Macha realized his foolishness and crawled back to Billy Beane to accept the offer. Savvy move since it was clear he couldn't get that kind of deal anywhere else, but not enough to remove him from the Honor Roll of Damn Foolery.)

Keith Foulke

2005-09-26T21:01:00.000-05:00

I would dearly love to give this week's award to Rob Dibble, as suggested by faithful reader Jack Davis, based upon Dibble's moronic commentary about Chone Figgins being a more valuable player than David Ortiz. Unfortunately, Dibble made his comments on TV, and no one seems to have written them up so I can link to them, so he'll have to settle for honorable mention this week.

The award instead goes to Keith Foulke, whose season is now officially over. With not one, but two, bum knees going into the last off-season, Foulke decided not to do anything but rest them, despite the requests of the team that he get one or both of them scoped. The disastrous results of that decision have affected the Red Sox all season. Their bullpen is still in disarray, and they are now more likely than not to miss the post-season largely because the bullpen has stunk worse than it did back in the days when it was patrolled by Rich Garces after a night of eating homemade refried beans.

Hurt, ineffective, and short-tempered with the fans. Yup, this year was pretty much the trifecta for Foulke.

Jeffrey Flanagan, Round Three

2005-09-13T21:06:00.000-05:00

I may have to rename this award in Flanagan's honor. In it's short existence, this is the third time Flanagan has been named, a record. Some fools are just born to greatness.

This week, he made the inane choice of Mike Sweeney as Royals Player of the Year, apparently unaware that David DeJesus is so far ahead of Sweeney that you could just about fit Mark Teahen's production in the gap between them.

And, in the same column, he labeled Emil Brown as "a fourth outfielder anywhere else", meaning that he believes there are 87 other major league outfielders better than Brown. Apparently he is unaware that Brown's OPS is 33rd among all MLB outfielders with at least 350 plate appearances and 13th among AL outfielders on that list.

Research, Jeff, research. Some people in the newspaper business actually find it helpful. Try it sometime.

Rafael Palmeiro

2005-09-06T21:07:00.000-05:00

This was a tough one. I could have gone with The Amazing Sosa, who apparently became the biggest millionaire since Howard Hughes to vanish into thin air.

Or I could have gone with David Wells and his never ending mouth.

Or Mark Buehrle's impersonation of Oliver Stone.

But I settled on Palmeiro because I hadn't given him his just ration of crap for the steroids incident, and now his earplugs and subsequent retreat to Texas give me the opportunity to make amends.So here's to you, Raffy. Damn Fools don't come much bigger.

Milton Bradley & Jeff Kent

2005-08-29T21:09:00.000-05:00

Hey, multiple winners! I'm sure their moms are proud.

This past week, Bradley and Kent offered themselves up as the new poster children for how to be a bad teammate. First, Kent questioned Bradley's hustle for not scoring from first on a double, despite two key facts:

1. Bradley was already playing hurt, and;
2. The Dodgers won the game.

But since it cost Kent an RBI on the stat sheet, he felt the need to chastise Bradley, despite never having acted as a clubhouse leader before and being assured of having his comments taken as exactly what they were, bitching.

For Bradley's part, he decided to play the race card. What he said may be completely true, but since his manager asked him to let things settle, and since injecting race into any discussion is going to keep things inflamed, I'm thinking Milton could have exercised more prudence.

Kent, of course, then decided to go with the "some of my best friends are black" defense, making him look really guilty.

All in all, a great week for the Dodgers.

Jeffrey Flanagan, Round Two

2005-08-22T21:13:00.000-05:00

Ol' Jeff is always good for a moronic tidbit or two, and he certainly delivered on that expectation today. He claims that this year's Royals might be the worst offensive team the franchise has ever fielded. In that speculation, he may turn out to be correct, but not because of the voodoo batting average and steals stats he cited. Remember, this is the man who thought Ken Harvey should be the Royals' regular first baseman, so we're not dealing with an expert in baseball offense.

It's about runs, Jeff, and the Royals are last in the league. Their average of 4.20 runs per game is about 13% worse than the average of other teams in the league. That's bad, but it's not the worst in club history. That dubious honor goes to the 1996 team (15.0%) followed by the 1995 team (14.5%) and the 1992 team (13.6%).

This year's club would be fourth-worst in franchise history, so this could still get worse. (FYI - The math is mine, but the raw stats came from here.) Give them a few weeks, Jeff, and you might finally be right about something.

You just won't understand it.

Gary Sheffield

2005-08-09T21:16:00.000-05:00

Just because I can. And because every time he opens his mouth, he sounds like a flaming ass. I especially like the part about him having a bad reputation because the media are mostly white. Yeah, Gary, I'm sure that's it. It has nothing to do with you lying about decking a teammate in Milwaukee, or admittedly dogging it in the field to force a trade, or your admission of steroid use that you want us all to forget, or your veiled threats at the Red Sox pitching staff a couple of weeks ago, and on and on. No, you're just misunderstood by us prejudiced white folks. Just the man trying to keep you down. Again.

Kevin Kietzman, of Sports Radio 810 WHB

2005-08-02T21:19:00.000-05:00

We're going away from baseball for the first time because the situation simply demands it.

For much of last week, Kietzman dedicated a great deal of time on his afternoon radio show to a story no one else in the local media cared about. He kept trying to get at the incident in the University of Kansas' football program that instigated the recent internal investigation and resulted in several relatively minor NCAA violations being self-reported, along with a few minor self-imposed sanctions.

Kietzman wanted more. He wanted to know what triggered the investigation in the first place, even though the initial questionable activity was later proven not to be a violation, which the NCAA had already announced. Kietzman, in his own words, went to lengths he's never gone to before in his career, writing a letter to the government of the state of Kansas, citing open meetings laws in an attempt to dig up the details on the incident. He stated plainly on his show that whatever the incident was, it must be embarrassing to the university for them not to disclose it, and went on to imply several times that it could involve, in his words, "academic fraud" or "embezzlement".

All of it turned out to be a big fat nothing, the incident being nothing but the result of some coaches meeting where they are drilled on NCAA regulations. Nothing sinister or embarrassing about it, but Keitzman pursued it with extraordinary zeal. Why?

Here's the motivation he never bothered to disclaim on his show; Keiztman is a K-State grad, and, at least at one time, was a K-State football season ticket holder. He therefore has a personal interest in embarrassing KU's football program, which now regularly lands top in-state prospects that K-State seeks. On top of that, Keitzman is part owner of a radio station that serves as an affiliate for K-State football broadcasts, so he's also got a financial interest is seeing KU football embarrassed. K-State football is helped by embarrassments to KU's program, and a strong K-State program helps line Kietzman's pockets.

To practice what I preach, I'm a KU alum and football season ticket holder. I suspect that Kietzman's old journalism instructors would have wanted him to make a similar disclaimer.

Jason Whitlock

2005-07-28T21:27:00.000-05:00

On Sunday morning, on ESPN's show "The Sports Reporters", Jason Whitlock spouted his opinions about a few baseball topics, like who will win the AL East, and Barry Bonds' status. I can think of few columnists with lesser qualifications to offer such opinions than Whitlock.

Though he is supposed to be a general sports columnist, he has steadfastly refused to cover baseball. You remember it, it's that little thing called America's pastime. He works for the only daily newspaper in a city with just two major sports teams, one of which is not currently in season, yet he has managed to write just three columns since May 1st that were related to major league baseball in any way.

He wrote as many about the NFL even though they're not in season. He wrote a whopping seven about the KU basketball program's off-court problems, even though they're not in season either. He wrote a dozen columns about the NBA even though there is no NBA franchise in this city. Hell, he wrote two columns about auto racing, for crying out loud, but could manage just three on the only major sport currently playing.

And of those three, two weren't even really about baseball - one was about players and the media and one was about coaches with off-field problems. That baseball happened to be the straw that stirred Whitlock's thoughts for those columns was happenstance, nothing more than a convenient vehicle for him to use to spout his social commentary.

I'm tired of this buffoon. It's clear he wants to be a national media figure and has little use for KC anymore. It's time he moved on, because his credibility in Kansas City is shot.

Allard Baird

2005-07-25T21:23:00.000-05:00

Of the 30 players drafted in the first round of Major League Baseball's June draft, just five remain unsigned. Of these five, two have leverage with their teams because they are in high school and can still choose to go to college, one is a college junior with similar leverage because he can still return to school, and one is represented by Scott Boras, who holds out every client he has. That those four remain unsigned is not surprising.

The fifth remaining unsigned player is the Royals' first pick, Alex Gordon. Despite assurances from the Royals that cost would not be a factor in their draft, they are the lone remaining team with an unsigned draft pick who has limited negotiating leverage. I mean, he was the second pick in the draft. What would he hold out for, number one? It's not like one extra spot higher in the draft would make up for a full year of lost income by returning to college, so Gordon pretty much has to sign or lose a lot of money.

The fourth pick in the draft, another college third baseman, Ryan Zimmerman, signed quickly with the Nationals. The fifth pick, yet another college third baseman, Ryan Braun, signed less than two weeks after the draft with the Brewers. You read that correctly - the small market Brewers and the MLB-owned Nationals both found the money to sign their picks, players also chosen in the top five of the draft who played the same college position as Alex Gordon.

The skin-flint Devil Rays have signed their pick, Wade Townsend, who is represented by the same agents as Alex Gordon. The rudderless Pirates have signed their pick. The disastrous Reds have signed their pick. The poor-mouth Marlins have signed THREE first round picks. The perpetually cash- strapped A's signed their first round pick the day after the draft.

What more do you need, Allard? Cough up the dollars and get this guy onto a minor league roster while there's still some season left. In case you haven't noticed, the team could kinda use the help, and Gordon isn't going to develop very fast if he's playing video games in his parent's basement in Nebraska instead of facing Double A pitching.

David Wells

2005-07-11T21:30:00.000-05:00

This one is self-explanatory. Sexual assault? What was he thinking? Or, more appropriately, was he thinking at all?

Jeffrey Flanagan, Round One

2005-07-04T21:31:00.000-05:00

I can think of no one more qualified to win the inaugural Damn Fool of the Week Award than Jeffrey Flanagan, a "columnist" for the Kansas City Star.

Jeff, the same guy who wants Ken Harvey to be the Royals' first baseman, feels Jeremy Affeldt has "too much potential to trade".

Here's how trades work, Jeff; You have to give up something in order to get something. Few GMs are going to hand over a top prospect in exchange for a stiff like Terrence Long or Jose Lima. Right now, the Royals need, well, everything, with the possible exception of relievers. We seem to have a lot of those, all of whom are either younger than Affeldt (Leo Nunez, Ambiorix Burgos, Jimmy Gobble), more effective than Affeldt (Mike MacDougal), or both (Jonah Bayliss, Andy Sisco, Mike Wood).

Despite his electric stuff, Affeldt's strikeout rate has dropped almost every year since he was a rookie, while his walk rate has risen. He's been on the DL twice already this year. Lefties are hitting .357 against him this season. He's griped about not being the closer, despite the fact that MacDougal has out-pitched him. And, contrary to your assertion, there are plenty of guys who throw 94 left-handed. The Royals have three besides Affeldt - Sisco, Jamie Cerda and Gobble, who hit 94 on the gun last night. And, to top it all off, Affeldt is the most expensive of this group.

The question isn't why would we trade Affeldt. The real question is, why wouldn't we?