It was a question that deserved to be asked, even though it wasn’t in the fuzzy, warm after-glow of Mike Babcock’s hiring by the Toronto Maple Leafs.
If Babcock is going to be such a magnet for marquee players, why wasn’t that the case with the Detroit Red Wings?
Part of it is systemic and a product of the city itself. In a salary cap league, free agency can be a channel open to costly mistakes, and more and more teams are locking up their quality 20-something players early in their careers.
I’m not certain how many quality free agents were really pursued by the Red Wings, and other than the grotesquely overpaid Prince Fielder, there have been more high-profile departures than free-agent arrivals in recent Detroit history.
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In the past, Babcock has shrugged off any suggestion that he might have had something to do with it by effectively saying that if a player wasn’t interested in a little discomfort while playing for a coach who could make him better, that player wasn’t worth the bother. Now, he says he’s going to turn the Maple Leafs into a destination for players by making it, in his words, a “safe” environment.
My guess is what he means is that he wants to turn the dressing room into a safe haven, much as Joe Torre, Joe Girardi and Terry Francona, for example, did and have done with the hyper-scrutinized New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox.
The latter are an especially interesting case study, since up until the Red Sox ended the “Curse of The Bambino” there was no more tortured, twisted, bitter, fan base in sports — and no media as willing to poke and prod more at a time of intense media competition that by comparison makes Toronto seem soft.
To that end, how the Leafs deal with Dion Phaneuf and Phil Kessel is now the biggest story of the summer and winter in this city. All else pales.
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ALUMNI DAY
This was the week that John Gibbons’ job status popped up squarely on the national media radar south of the border, which is apropos of nothing other than it means the industry has started talking about it.
And let’s be clear. Even those of us who largely absolve the manager of blame must admit that the only thing preventing changes being made is the weakness of the American League East plus the acceptance on the part of general manager Alex Anthopoulos that he misplayed his hand in the off-season when it came to adding pitching. He still owes Gibbons something, in other words — leaving aside the injuries that have befallen Jose Reyes and Jose Bautista.
Less known is the feeling of president and chief executive officer Paul Beeston. He is in his last year with the team and with Keith Pelley in the final days of his tenure as president of Rogers Media — Beeston’s boss — it’s telling that there has been a great deal of chatter among some Blue Jays alumni that one of their own – such as perhaps advisors Roberto Alomar and Pat Hentgen — might be recruited to either manage or coach.
Know this about Hentgen, he is unfailingly loyal to the organization and has made soft enquiries in the past whenever the manager’s job has come open.
Personal matters plus the demand of teenaged kids have mitigated against him taking a larger role, and even though he has no managing experience and has just two one-year stints as a bullpen coach, he has been marked for a uniformed role by this and other organizations, including the St. Louis Cardinals and Mike Matheny who tossed around the idea of hiring him as a pitching coach.
In the meantime, can those was are lining up to fire Gibbons and/or pitching coach Pete Walker at least concede that the men had a hand in the shrewd decision to bring up Todd Redmond and give him a spot start on Monday?
That gave all the Blue Jays starters an extra day and the result was the best turn through the rotation this season. Aaron Sanchez pitched 6.2 innings on Sunday after going 7.1 on Tuesday. Mark Buehrle tossed 7.1 innings on Saturday, Marco Estrada went seven on Friday, R.A. Dickey had a nine-inning complete game on Thursday and Drew Hutchison reached 6.2 innings on Wednesday.
QUIBBLES AND BITS
- When does it stop being early for a Major League Baseball team? Given the mess that is the AL East this season, early might not kick in until Labour Day. Seriously though, I’ve always avoided peeking at the standings until the second or third week of June, but if you need more help in developing your own personal preference this article from Fangraphs ought to help.
- I’ve long advocated that the playing of national anthems before sports events is a silly, anachronistic sop to faux nationalism. That if the Europeans, who have had more wars than any of us, don’t feel the need to play anthems before anything other than international soccer matches why the hell do we go through the routine before every game? And now that major league players have turned standing at attention into a game, it might be time to seriously consider the matter in North America.
- The Chicago Blackhawks’ double-overtime win on Saturday was their fourth in as many overtime games during these playoffs, all of them in multiple overtime periods. No other team has done that in NHL history. As for goaltender Corey Crawford? He is 14-9 in 23 post-season games, the fifth-most overtime wins for one team, behind Patrick Roy (23 with the Montreal Canadiens, 17 with the Colorado Avalanche), Martin Brodeur (16, New Jersey Devils) and Billy Smith (16, New York Islanders.)
- This counts as a win for the Blue Jays. The White Sox are skipping highly-touted Carlos Rodon from his scheduled start Monday night in the first game of their three-game series at Rogers Centre. The 22-year-old third-overall pick in last June’s draft will have his spot taken by Hector Noesi, who is 0-3 (6.06 ERA) in four starts and has allowed 11 earned runs in 16.1 innings lifetime against the Blue Jays.
THE END-GAME
I’m not going to get into the whole Toronto Argonauts/Toronto FC/BMO Field thing in depth, because I’ve made clear my feelings that BMO should be a soccer-only facility and an eventual national team headquarters for a sport that’s growth long ago usurped that of hockey, let alone football.
I will say this, however, do not believe for a second that TFC will eventually become anything other than second-class citizens, because the only person saying it won’t be the case is lame-duck Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment C.E.O. Tim Leiweke.
And while new Argos co-owner Larry Tanenbaum also owns TFC through his stake in MLSE, he sure sounded to me last week as a guy who sees this as a 50/50 co-share at the minimum. God help TFC if Argonauts crowds are bigger than theirs.
To the barricades, lads!
Jeff Blair hosts The Jeff Blair Show from 9-11 a.m. ET and Baseball Central from 11 a.m.-12 p.m. ET on Sportsnet 590 The Fan. He also appears frequently on Prime Time Sports with Bob McCown.