Larry Andersen/Indians-Red Sox Game 6 Chat
October 20, 2007
Who is the most famous middle reliever ever? For the entirety of baseball history this has been an unanswerable question, for no middle reliever has ever really attained any kind of fame whatsoever.
Middle relievers ride unrecognized on the Green Line to Fenway Park, slump in the shadows during the cheers of starting lineup introductions, and, even if they manage to get into a game, are already in the showers by any climactic moments of victory. By contrast, their pine-riding brethren in the dugout, non-starting positional players, such as Bernie Carbo, occasionally have moments of great renown. Middle relief, like the bulk of life, doesn’t really lend itself to special moments.
In recent years especially it has become abundantly clear that winning a World Series requires strong middle relief work, yet no middle reliever has ever won a postseason award (or a regular season award, for that matter). This could all change today, if the team featured in this preposterously titled Future Stars card from 1980 manages to close out the Boston Red Sox in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series (FOX, 8:23 ET): the Indians’ best and most important player so far has been middle reliever Rafael Betancourt. By contrast, the Red Sox’ middle relievers have been frighteningly shaky. This disparity in the area of middle relief does not bode well for the Red Sox, especially considering that their starting pitcher for today seems no longer capable of going deep into a game against a top-notch lineup like the Indians. That bullpen door is going to swing open at some point today and Red Sox fans are going to wish they’d spent more time praying to the underappreciated gods of middle relief.
Here are three of those gods, Future Stars that foretell of a future that will never escape the abundant limitations of the present. None of the men are that young, each with several seasons in the minors under their belt. One, Bobby Cuellar, had surfaced in the majors three years earlier but would never surface again. Another, Sandy Wihtol, would briefly seem the most successful of the three, appearing in 17 games in 1980 while his fellow Future Stars continued riding minor league buses, but Wihtol would be back in the minors the following year. The third Future Star, Larry Andersen, after seeming at first to be bound for the same oblivion as his cohorts, instead caught that long, steady wave that middle relievers sometimes catch, their major league careers stretching on and on for one franchise after another, their longevity finally imprinting some awareness of their name of the minds of casual fans, who are always surprised when these riders of the long, steady wave, who they thought had been jettisoned from the majors years ago, appear in a game.
Larry Andersen’s renown has increased beyond that of the usual long-tenured itinerant middle reliever, mainly because the Boston Red Sox once acquired him for the stretch run by trading away a minor league first baseman who had yet to show any signs of being able to hit for power. Since the Red Sox had another minor league first baseman, Mo Vaughn, who had shown ample signs of being able to hold down the middle of a lineup, it didn’t seem like a bad gamble to trade Jeff Bagwell away.
Many jokes have been made about the trade, some of them by the witty Andersen himself, but the truth is, as a Red Sox fan, if I could have just one of the two players in their prime on my team for today’s game, based on the relative strengths and (glaring) weaknesses of the 2007 team, I’d pick Larry Andersen over Bagwell.
I’d pick the middle reliever.
Cardboard Gods 
1. I see where you’re coming from, but that’s still nuts. Of course, there’s really no place for Bagwell, as the only three positions he could play are covered by Youkilis, Ortiz, and Lowell. But still. Look at 1994 Bagwell. Wouldn’t your team be improved by having that as your first baseman, and Youkilis as a late-inning pinch hitter? Wouldn’t that improve your team more than Larry Andersen would be an improvement over, say, Jon Lester?
Question for Red Sox fans: If you had the power to go back and undo the Bagwell trade, but you also had to undo the Heathcliff Slocumb trade, would you do it? Or would you still make both trades?
2. By the way, right now you could make a pretty good argument that the most famous middle reliever of all time is Joba Chamberlain.
Of course, that would change next spring when he becomes a starter, and joins the large club of famous pitchers who spent a small portion of their career in middle relief, like Pedro Martinez, Fernando Valenzuela, Johan Santana, or Eric Gagne.
3. 1 : It probably is nuts, but I’m just thinking for this one game it’s probably more likely that the Red Sox could benefit more from some good middle relief than from a possible pinch hit from Youk, and for this series Youk has been giving us about as much as you could reasonably expect from Bagwell in ther starting lineup.
But yeah, it’s probably nuts–Bagwell was pretty awesome. I never have cried over that trade though. He didn’t look like a power-hitter at the time.
“If you had the power to go back and undo the Bagwell trade, but you also had to undo the Heathcliff Slocumb trade, would you do it?”
No way. Life without Varitek is unthinkable. And no title in ’04 without Lowe. (And, not for nothing, probably no division title in ’90 without Andersen.)
4. 2 And Mariano Rivera and K-Rod…
5. Nolan Ryan, Steve Carlton… the list could go on forever.
6. I forget – was Jeff Innis famous?
7. 6 : To me he was.
Speaking of Mets, I’ve always thought the best middle relief stint I ever saw was the one turned in by Sid Fernandez in game 7 of the ’86 WS.
8. The Thankfully Crispless Starting Lineups:
Indians (including no Indians)
G. Sizemore cf .250
A. Cabrera 2b .286
T. Hafner dh .158
V. Martinez c .316
R. Garko 1b .312
J. Peralta ss .286
K. Lofton lf .250
T. Nixon rf .250
C. Blake 3b .316
Red Sox (including one Indian)
D. Pedroia 2b .250
K. Youkilis 1b .421
D. Ortiz dh .400
M. Ramirez lf .471
M. Lowell 3b .250
J.D. Drew rf .312
J. Varitek c .211
J. Ellsbury cf .000
J. Lugo ss .167
Let’s go Jacoby!!
9. I’m kind of surprised Josh doesn’t feature at least a few BoSox during this run.
10. 9 : Except for Wakefield-tribute Joe Niekro, all the Game Chat “hosts” have been Red Sox (featured when they were members of the opposition).
11. 7
Sid Fernandez was a Dodger farmhand. Looking at his stats (overall career) he had a pretty serviceable career with flashes of brilliance
12. Oh, I wasn’t going to comment, but when you bring up Jeff Innis, I’ve got to smile. Bob Murphy (longtime Mets radio announcer) would still talk about Innis being one of the funniest players he ever knew as recently as 2003. And he wasn’t bad. At least as good as Terry Leach.
My two favorites have to be Turk Wendell, he of the quick pitch, bear claw necklace and many odd quirks. And Dennis Cook, who never threw a strike unless he had to and who took his own damn time to throw the pitch.
And Sid Fernandez was Cy Young every third or fourth start. Just couldn’t get past the belly or the 6th inning.
Josh, I hope for your sake Schilling has something left. But since my Mets died so terribly, I’ve been rooting for the Indians. And it really would be nice to continue this decade’s streak of a different Series champ each year. Indians/Rockies would guarantee that….and that would be nice for the poor folks in Cleveland and Denver, who haven’t had much to cheer about, ever
13. I hear that TBS is going to televise the next Rockies intersquad practice game just so they can fit in the rest of their FrankTV promo spots.
14. Meh. The good peoples of Denver have had a couple of Super Bowls, a couple of Stanley Cups… Poor Cleveland hasn’t won a damn thing since the days when Jim Brown was running amok.
I had the good fortune (sic) to actually be in Cleveland during Super Bowl XXXV, when their former football franchise, now the Baltimore Ravens, won the whole thing. You could hear a pin drop on the streets. Literally.
My favorite middle-relieving Met as a kid may have been “Buzz” Capra. He just had the type of cool sounding name that would appeal to any seven-year-old, if not the best stuff. Of course the minute we traded him he became a successful starter for Atlanta…
15. 13
I went to Rockies.com the other day & I was kind of surprised watching Vinnie Castilla practicing at 3rd base.
16. When it comes to middle relief stints for me, it’s Pedro saving the season in the 1999 ALDS, pitching on guts and intelligence.
As for the Andersen deal, I wouldn’t undo the two deals, either.
I tried to defend the Andersen deal once on a Red Sox listserv and got shouted down for it. My reasoning was, flags fly forever, and as Sweet Lou Gorman said in his book, the team did have Boggs and Scott Cooper ahead of him on the 3b depth chart.
Much later, I stumbled across some AA stats from that season, and I found that, plain and simple, Jeff Bagwell was at worst the second best player in AA that year. The only player even close to him statistically was Frank Thomas.
17. You know-this Curt Schilling guy might not be too bad
18. Fausto better Goethe it going.
19. Wow. Lugo reading the lineup card is some seriously bad juju. I guess we know for whom Fox is rooting. . .
20. Can’t believe how accurate Cabrera’s throw was given his body was 180 degrees facing the wrong way and flying away from his target.
The playoffs are a carnival of great infield play.
21. I swear-can we just have a strike zone and stick with it? sheesh
22. 18 GROANNNNNNNNNN…..
Very good reference, though.
23. Anyone else slightly surprised that that wasn’t a called third strike against Ortiz?
24. He throws another one there, Manny’s gonna crush it
25. To borrow Bob’s reference, this is fixing to be the damnation of Fausto.
26. ah, f-ck
27. And I was half expecting Drew wasn’t going to swing 3-1
28. JD Drew takes too many pitches doesn’t he?
29. ALL IS FORGIVEN, JD DREW!!!!!!!!!!
30. What a choking, useless, coward.
31. And with one swing, everyone loves JD.
32. RRRAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRAHHHHHHHHHR!!!!!
33. I would sure hate to be in Scott Boras’ pants right now.
34. I have always loved J.D. Drew. We have never been at war with Eurasia.
35. Drew joins Johnny Damon and Troy O’Leary in the elite club of Red Sox with grand slams in the postseason.
36. 33
why DzzrtRatt?
If anything Bostonians will at least be neutral on him for a while
37. 33 Odd; who wouldn’t want to get into Scott Boras’ pants?
38. I think he meant in the more literal sense.
39. 36 Because I think he just involuntarily relieved himself.
All we need now for an ex-Dodger trifecta is for Julio Lugo to complete an unassisted triple play, and Eric Gagne to get the save.
40. Bullpen activity in the first? Panic, me thinks.
41. 33 sorry; couldn’t resist. 😉
42. 34 Another awesome literary reference.
43. wow, that was really high and really far, too bad it only counts for one
44. I sure hope Schilling is locating his fastball properly cause (I’ve been back & forth with this game & a movie, movie just finished) it looks very hittable. But I guess he’s also using his splitter a lot.
45. that was a bomb by Martinez. WOW.
46. 44 : Yeah, it’s gonna take more than 4 to win this one, I think.
47. 46 Yeah, I hope this isn’t another game where we get early runs, sprain our collective shoulder patting ourselves on the back, and forget to get any more runs.
48. Schilling is only throwing what? 89,90mph these days & STRAIGHT! man, looking at Carmona I can’t believe J.D. Drew hit ’em he looks absolutely SICK!.
49. I don’t have anything to say about Joe Torre, but I just bought Patton Oswalt’s new comedy CD, and it’s outstanding.
50. Boy, Tim, that must piss you off that someone doesn’t listen to you, huh?
51. Youkilis & the BoSox have look on there side tonight.
52. It’s early yet, but we seem to be gettin that wierdo voodoo playoff luck stuff on our side
53. When Papi hit into the DP I had the wish to kick whoever invented the shift in the nuts, and then I realized (if I’m remembering correctly) that the first shift ever was employed by Lou Boudreau of the Indians against Ted Willimas of the Red Sox. Blast you, Lou Boudreau!
54. 53 I read an article once that questioned that, but that is certainly, as far as I know, the first time it was ever used routinely
55. Lordy, Schilling’s cupboard seems awfully bare this evening.
56. That’s ok, we’ll let you hammer it out there all day.
Trivia-DUH! Pat Darcy! WHo doesn’t know that?
57. NICE! Well done, Mr. Schilling
58. Unlike Beyonce, I’ve seen Madrid.
59. Hey, Dane Cook: Thanks for the swell Rockies clips, but I still hate your guts.
60. 58- They say the men are insane there.
61. Ken Rosenthals smile is an eye sore.
62. J.D. Drew is channeling Mr. Ted WIlliams apparently
63. Carmona doesn’t realize that Drew just wants to take his walk and be done with it. Fausto keeps putting him in a situation where he has to swing, against his better nature.
64. JD Drew for President.
65. That’s twice I’ve seen Ramirez jettison his batting helmet while heading for home. Between that and his waiting a the plate to watch a homer leave the park, he’s really too much of a showoff for my tastes.
66. Someone in Madrid has my wallet.
I’ve cancelled the credit cards. But someone did buy $3000 worth of clothing with it.
67. Here it is in all it’s glory [ http://tinyurl.com/2dkbhz ]
68. 66
Man, that’s cold. I’ve heard they carry there liquor like a necklace at some parts of Spain.
69. Jacoby Ellsbury for King
70. Julio Lugo for Emperor
71. Julio Lugo for Emperor
72. Ellsbury tries to keep his helmet on while running unlike Manny.
73. Julio Lugo for Emperor
74. I do enjoy watching Mr. Ellsbury jet.
75. Gotta learn to trust the server.
76. I was rooting for the Indians – still am.
But, I’ve got to admit, Colorado vs. Boston feels like a potential classic.
77. I kind of can’t believe Carmona didn’t have it today. I’m sure the commissioners office likes it that the BoSox have a nice comfortable lead.
78. Sorry-my computer was being retarded for a minute there
79. J.D. Drew, dictator for life!
80. Greatest player to play for the Rockies, Indians, and Red Sox?
Ellis Burks.
81. Kevin Youkilis for Galactic Potentate
82. It’s officially time to go out and find some dinner.
83. Youkilis o-laid that ball no?
84. I can’t believe anyone would be called for deliberately interfering with a throw with their head. It’s too hard to do and non instinctive.
Reggie Jackson’s hip makes more sense.
85. And now a Clash song on a Nissan commercial. All I need to hear now is X on a Miller Lite spot and I can blow my brains out with no guilt.
86. Since I don’t have a rooting interest in this series, seeing a game seven is really the best thing that could happen.
87. Man, I go to the bathroom for a couple of minutes, and miss about 17 runs.
88. 85 I’m reminded of the Bill Hicks line about smoking-if that bothers you, i suggest you look around the world in which we live and shut your fuckin mouth
89. Julio Lugo has trust issues with Manny Ramirez roaming LF’d, judging from his reaction.
90. 88 Did you mean that as harsh as it came across?
91. Josh Wilker, how do you feel about Matsuzaka pitching tomorrow?
92. I’m glad I buttered my words the other night. I’m startin to think I may have to eat them
93. Though reading that response reminds me I need to find that tongue-in-cheek emoticon I lost.
94. 91 : There is no tomorrow yet. If the Red Sox manage by some miracle to hold on to this lead, however, I have to say I’m a little worried about Dice-K, but maybe he’s due for a big game. I’m glad Beckett’s ready to pitch some relief.
95. 90 Lordy, no.
I was just referencing the suicide element from the other post.
I’m just saying, similar to Hicks, that anyone who questions the reasoning of someone who smokes or commits suicide needs to look around the world in which we live and mind their own business-ie the world is dreadful enough that I cannot blame anyone for wishing to leave it.
The bitterness was Hicks’, not mine.
Sorry to give you any other impression than that.
96. Whatta grab by Grady! He hasn’t given up yet.
97. Twenty years from now, when Colletti signs Sizemore for six trillion dollars, over three years, it’ll be bittersweet.
98. 85 It really is hard to process that the authors of “lost in the supermarket” get coopted by advertisers. How does that happen?
99. In South Jersey, I’m getting assaulted by political ads between innings. Anybody else gettin that?
100. 94 Relax and enjoy for once! Wasn’t the payoff of 2004 that we could start experiencing baseball without the tortured-soul crap?
101. 98 As James Hetfield once put it, anybody who is going to accuse anyone else of selling out should at least have been made an offer first.
Everyone has bills to pay.
102. 101 : Timely Hetfield reference: they just listed Casey Blake’s favorite band as Metallica.
103. 100 : I am enjoying, but I try not to take things for granted.
104. Casey Blake’s favorite movie is possibly my favorite movie (Cuckoo’s Nest). I like that bearded fellow.
105. Schilling always seems to be out of breath. My wife just said he’s “starting to look Wellsian” (David, not Orson, not yet).
106. David Wells will utter no whine before its time.
107. David Wells will utter no whine before its time.
108. gawd damn, that was a great play!! WOWZERS!!
109. 101 If the band didn’t get swindled out of their ability to control usage rights (like so many do): I’m not in the shoes of surviving bandmembers, but I don’t have to like the decision. Plenty artists won’t capitulate.
110. 101 tru. but i tend to sympathize as i get older-i see the value of gettin paid more than i used to
111. 109 : An interesting case was the Minutemen, about the most stridently anti-commercial band ever, who a couple years ago had a song on a car ad. Watt did it because D. Boon’s parents needed money. Can’t argue with that.
I was recently listening to Bob Dylan’s radio show and he responded to an email about songs in commercials. The emailer was outraged by it, and Dylan brought up the long history of commercial sponsership (I think he mentioned Sonny Boy Williamson being sponsered by biscuit mix or something).
112. Was that Andrew Zimablist in the owner’s box?
113. 110 Yeh, me too. Two kids (and now, it appears, a mortgage) will do that to most of us I suppose.
114. Bud Selig looks nice & lauded, I wonder how expensive that wine or cognac is.
115. man, Curt Schilling knows how to pitch….
116. It’s pretty amazing that old Curt has only given up 1 run so far.
117. what’s the buzz on Schilling will the BoSox ink ’em for one more year?
118. am I in the minority thinking McCarver looks a little like the “Mad” cartoon?
119. 109 Yep, can’t argue with that.
re Dylan’s comment: is Sonny Boy accepting sponsorship the same thing as giving an advertiser permission to use your music’s power as uncredited riptide pulling an ad viewer toward buying a product? I’m not sure.
120. Wallbanger.
121. 111 If you look around, you’ll find articles explaining that bands now peddle songs to Madison Avenue in order to get exposure — now that radio is pretty much dead. They are not ashamed of this. They don’t feel like sell-outs.
The greatest comment on this trend is here:
http://tinyurl.com/2t24ln
Well…there I was sitting down on the couch in my pajamas with my eldest son. He was watching TV. I was doing one of my favorite things — I was tallying up all the money I passed up in endorsements over the years (laughter) and thinking of all the fun I could have had with it. Suddenly I hear “Uno, dos, tres, catorce!” I look up. But instead of the silhouettes of the hippie wannabes bouncing around in the iPod commercial, I see my boys!
Oh, my God! They sold out!
Now…what I know about the iPod is this: It is a device that plays music. Of course their new song sounded great, my guys are doing great, but methinks I hear the footsteps of my old tape operator Jimmy Iovine somewhere. Wily. Smart. Now, personally, I live an insanely expensive lifestyle that my wife barely tolerates. I burn money, and that calls for huge amounts of cash flow. But I also have a ludicrous image of myself that keeps me from truly cashing in. (laughter) You can see my problem. Woe is me.
So the next morning, I call up Jon Landau — or as I refer to him, “the American Paul McGuinness” — and I say, “Did you see that iPod thing?” And he says, “Yes.” And he says, “And I hear they didn’t take any money.” And I said, “They didn’t take any money?!” And he says, “No.” I said, “Smart, wily Irish guys.” (laughter) Anybody…anybody…can do an ad and take the money. But to do the ad and not take the money…that’s smart. That’s wily. I say, “Jon, I want you to call up Bill Gates or whoever is behind this thing and float this: A red, white, and blue iPod signed by Bruce “the Boss” Springsteen. Now remember, no matter how much money he offers, don’t take it!” (laughter)
At any rate…at any rate, after that evening, for the next month or so, I hear emanating from my lovely 14-year-old son’s room, day after day, down the hall calling out in a voice that has recently dropped very low: Uno, dos, tres, catorce. The correct math for rock and roll. Thank you, boys.
122. 117 : I believe the feeling is that Curt wants more than one year and the Red Sox don’t want to do that; they’ve got some promising youngsters waiting in the wings.
119 : Good question.
I haven’t walked in the shoes of anyone with a song in an ad, but my problem as a listener has always been that the association of the song changes. There’s a couple Stooges songs that are dead now because now they make me think of a running shoe and a luxury cruise.
123. 122 Which raises the very real question-is he worth more than one year?
Now, right now, he’s worth a 17 year, $18 million dollar per year contract-but seriously, he isn’t more than a six-seven inning pitcher on a regular basis.
I tend not to be a fan of the “for services rendered” type of contract. I think they did that with Varitek, and I think they are going to regret that at some point, and I have a feeling New York is going to do that for Posada, and I think they will regret it as well.
124. 123 : I don’t think the Boston management is very sentimental, i.e., I think Varitek’s deal was less a “thanks for the memories” thing and more a move designed to give the Red Sox clubhouse a strong anchor and the pitching staff a great ally (and obviously they thought/think he can still be an above average offensive catcher).
125. Also (especially with Pedro and Lowe leaving), there would have been a fan uprising if they’d let Varitek leave after ’04.
126. To paraphrase something I just said on DT:
If Schilling asks any team to give him a deal longer than one year, they should just laugh at him. Basically, he’d be asking to get paid for two seasons but only play for one. “Nice try, but at your age, we’ll take it a year a time.”
I’m not in favor of collusion, but if Selig released a study of the unrecovered costs associated with the out years of contracts given to players past their prime, maybe GMs would stop giving them. Nobody should get a deal longer than two years after their 35th birthday, or longer than one year after their 40th.
127. The blazing speed of pinch-runner Eric Hinske pays off!
128. 126
Your posts rock DzzrtRatt.
129. Jason Veritek should fire his hair stylist.
130. 122 re running shoes and luxury cruises: for me, currently the poster child for this slayer of music’s emotional currency is that blasted mersh for mail-order-degree-factory University of Phoenix, with New Pornographers’ transcendent “The Bleeding Heart Show,” which probably gave me more joy than any other song in recent years…
131. Gagne as mop up, say it ain’t so!!!
132. I have total confidence that Gagne will hold this lead.
133. Wow, the Indians pitching just wasn’t there at all today. They got one game to wake it up again or season over.
So has the JD Drew effigy been converted to a statue yet?
And here comes Gagne – hope he doesn’t blow this one.
134. 130 You can’t kill that song. And if it means that band picks up a few fans from people going, “hey, that was great, what the hell was that?” then I have to say, that’s a good thing for America.
The days when a kid’s clock radio wakes him up to “Gimme Shelter” or “Lola” (which is how I first heard those songs) are over. The NP’s deserve to be superstars, and if that ad gets them there, stranger things have happened.
135. I control the nationwide effigy market. It’s really more of an effigy cartel.
136. Lowell showing off his soft hands, punk! :o)
137. Welcome aboard Drew, Lugo, and Gagne! God bless the Los Angeles Dodgers!
138. Now it all comes down to Daisuke Matsuzaka and his control of the traffic vibration rate (http://catfishstew.baseballtoaster.com/archives/847026.html).
139. 137
The Boston Red Sox, leading all remaining playoff teams in “Old Friends.”
140. I’m reminded of the lyrics to Death or Glory:
And every gimmick hungry yob digging gold from rock n roll
Grabs the mike to tell us he’ll die before he’s sold
But I believe in this and its been tested by research
That he who fucks nuns will later join the church
141. Well, Schilling didn’t let down his evangelical fanbase, pointedly thanking The Lord in his post-appearance interview.
At least he didn’t give a shout-out to his “pal,” Dick Cheney.