Heart of the Matter

BY KEVIN KERNAN

Romanticism.

Bunting.

Chipper.

This Week in Baseball.

Here at Baseball or Bust we hold out hope baseball will find its lost soul. This week gave us a sliver of hope because of three totally separate reasons. One has nothing to do with the other, but put all three together and launch angle and spin rate suddenly are pushed aside for baseball.

Hollywood legend James Earl Jones passed away at the age of 93 on Monday and with his passing his dramatic “People will come, Ray” speech from the classic movie Field of Dreams was once again thrust into the spotlight. Ray, of course, being Kevin Costner.

“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball,’’ Jones said in the 1989 film, speaking as writer Terrance Mann. “America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.

“This field, this game – it’s part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good and could be again.’’

One of my biggest issues with the modern game is the loss of romanticism. With that one speech James Earl Jones nailed what baseball once meant to America and could mean again.

If that speech were recited about today’s MLB game it would be “an Army of Nerds’’ talking about BABIP, Defensive Runs Saved, wRAA, FIP and who knows what else.

Jones broke the game down into human terms and that brought a smile to everyone’s face; it also melted the heart a bit, especially at the end of the movie when Ray asked: “Hey Dad, wanna have a catch?’’

On Wednesday I talked to one longtime baseball man who was coaching in AA in 1989. He purchased that movie for a long bus ride to the next game. He still remembers as if it were yesterday when he popped Field of Dreams into the VCR for the trip.

“That speech and scene embodies what all us who love baseball love,’’ he told BallNine. “We got to that last scene and I’m sitting right behind the manager, and when Ray says, ‘Dad, wanna have a catch?’ I lost it and started crying. And I’m like, ‘Oh shit, I’m sitting on the bus crying with 25 guys and then I look at the manager, he was crying. I look at our trainer, he was crying. Then I looked around the bus and every guy on the bus was crying. All the guys were crying because we all started playing baseball by having a catch with our dad.’’

Watching that movie all these years later, that line still tugs at the heart for so many people in the game … those with hearts.

So here’s to James Earl Jones and Field of Dreams.

A mere 22 years after Field of Dreams, the baseball landscape changed, in part, because of another movie.

Did you know that next Thursday, September 19, marks a holiday for baseball Nerds?

That day marks the 13th anniversary of the release of the movie Moneyball on September 19, 2011.

Yes, the landscape changed from the romanticism of the game in 1989 with Field of Dreams to 22 years later and the cold, calculated numbers game baseball became, thanks, in part to Moneyball. Owners swear by analytics, changing the heart of the game in the process.

That’s why I found it so interesting that the Moneyball A’s did something on Tuesday that Billy Beane, played by Brad Pitt, hated in Moneyball.

 “Bunting, hit and run, stealing bases, double steal, pickoff plays, bunt defenses, those are all things that people utilized for years.”

Billy never wanted to have his team bunt and Tuesday, the A’s bunted three straight batters in the 12th inning to beat the Astros. Houston looked like it had no clue how to defend against the bunt – and that is one of the reasons I’m not against bunting because teams don’t know how to defend it anymore – and it cost the Astros a game.

The Nerds are experts at creating self-fulfilling prophecies. They don’t teach players how to bunt so most teams are comical when it comes to trying to put a bunt down. Just think of all the pop-up bunt attempts we have seen over the last few years, taking launch angle to a whole new level. But give the A’s credit. They went Small Ball and it made a difference. The lesson here being, mix in a bunt once in a while fellas – but practice it beforehand.

“Why not utilize all that is available to you,’’ a top evaluator told BallNine. “Bunting, hit and run, stealing bases, double steal, pickoff plays, bunt defenses, those are all things that people utilized for years. They just didn’t sit and wait for home runs to win games.’’

This game was tied 2-2 in the 12th when Daz Cameron bunted against the perplexed Astros right-handed reliever Hector Neris for a single up the third base line that moved the Fake Runner to third. Max Schuemann followed by bunting a 1-0 pitch to the first base side of Neris. For those of us old enough to remember, there used to be two imaginary circles to the right and the left of the pitcher, and that was where you were supposed to bunt the ball. Schuemann did his job and Neris muffed the play, allowing the Fake Runner to score a real go-ahead run as Cameron dashed to third. Then came Nick Allen.

He pushed a bunt to score Cameron and the A’s were ahead, 4-2 and hung on for the 4-3 win. Give Mark Kotsay credit. He went old school and it paid off, showing there are different ways to score runs and put the pressure on the defense.

It’s called baseball.

And get this, the A’s had not put down three bunts in an inning on back-to-back-to-back-plate appearances since 1975, 14 years before Field of Dreams came out and 36 years before Billy lamented the art of bunting in Moneyball. And those bunts were not successful as Bert Campaneris, Bill North and Claudell Washington were all thrown out at first base.

As longtime coach and current broadcaster Wes Clements said on X, “Making someone have to make a play is actually a good thing, but many of you have never seen what that means. There are many ways to win a baseball game and scoring runs is the point – and that mentality has been dropped by many organizations now.’’

BBB – Bring Back the Bunt.

Again, it is not the play to make all the time, but it is a play to have in the toolbox. But to put it in the toolbox you have to practice it.

The third positive baseball happening came via Chipper Jones. My brother Sean covered Chipper way back in high school and Chipper was always a must conversation for me when I was around the Braves. Chipper knows the game inside and out and that’s why his comments made on the excellent podcast Casa De Klub, hosted by two-time Cy Young winner Corey Kluber and former Arizona Wildcat Tyler Casagrande, were so intriguing.

Chipper was asked about his thoughts on the game today and more and more former players are speaking up, but it’s especially gratifying when a Hall of Famer speaks up.

“Working with the Braves, the last couple of years, it’s very frustrating, it’s very frustrating,’’ Chipper said. “I can’t stand giving away outs. I can’t stand strikeouts. I can’t deal with a guy on third, less than two outs, not hitting a ground ball to shortstop or second base to get that run in. I can’t stand every once in a while not laying down a bunt for your best hitters, all these things that really help you accumulate numbers. They don’t care. One hundred RBIs, so what. I want to hit 40 dingers. This is truly, ‘Chicks dig the Longball’ kind of era. Having worked with Alex Anthopoulos they want slug and they want guys who get on base at a high clip, but they don’t promote enough, I think, the getting on base part.”

“In order to score runs you have to get those guys on base. The Braves, and you’ve seen it this year, last year it was like 307 home runs, it was ridiculous, and in a year like that, everything is great. But when the market corrects, like it is this year for a team, obviously having lost (Spencer) Strider and (Ronald) Acuna, huge blows for this ballclub, you have to do other things. Until recently, the market has corrected and they have struggled and it is hard to watch. I don’t watch as much as I want to because I find myself throwing flip flops at the TV and just being frustrated and I’m too old to do that. Man, I’ve got a 5, a 7 and a 14 [year old] here at the house that I don’t need to be doing that in front of. So yeah, it’s a little frustrating.’’

Will the game come back to how it was 10 to 15 years ago?

“I think so,’’ Jones said. “The guys who can go out and hit .300 I really think they are undervalued.’’ He then specifically mentioned Luis Arraez. Isn’t it interesting that the Padres have become much more of a team with Arraez in the lineup even though Arraez has had to battle through a thumb injury.

Listen to Chipper. Listen to CC Sabathia and Mariano Rivera, who made similar comments recently criticizing the way hitters hit today. There is more to hitting than launch angle. Strikeouts do matter. Batting average matters. RBIs matter. Listen to players who have been there, superstars who have been there.

Baseball is not a cookie cutter game. At one point the Braves won 14 straight division titles. Leo Mazzone knew what he was doing with that pitching staff and they stayed healthy – not like pitching staffs of today where it is constant max velocity and spin.

The biggest spin rate though is what is coming out of the mouth of Nerds and owners continue to fall for it.

Bring back the romanticism of the game.

Bring back bunting to the game.

Bring back a varied lineup to the game, not just a one strikeout fits all approach. There is a place for numbers in the game, there has always been numbers in the game, but the game is more than numbers, more than percentages. The game is played by human beings and each day, each game is different. Stop wearing out bullpens, stop wearing out pitching staffs by basing everything on max velocity and spin rate.

Now is the final push of the season. October is when Real Baseball plays. The team that does the most baseball things wins October. Hitting home runs is part of the equation, but pitching, defense, timely hitting and smart and relentless baserunning make all the difference in the world.

And when superstars tell you they are frustrated watching the game, listen to them.