Every baseball fan knows that Derek Jeter and Albert Pujols are among the best to ever play the game. But how do their high-priced contracts impact their teams’ abilities to compete for a World Series title? Which managers and executives are best at getting the most out of their roster, year-in and year-out? And how does sabremetrics play into all of this? In this book, veteran ESPN columnist Jayson Stark explores these questions and many more. Supplemented with insightful commentary from countless baseball insiders, it gives baseball fans a rare, fascinating glimpse into the why behind the game’s winners and losers. Jayson Stark has been a senior baseball writer for ESPN.com since 2000. His regular contributions include the newsy “Rumblings and Grumblings” column and his tilted look inside baseball’s numbers and quirks, “The Useless Information Department.” He was twice named Pennsylvania’s sportswriter of the year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. He previously authored The Stark Truth: The Most Overrated and Underrated Players in Baseball History and Worth the Wait: Tales of the Phillies 2008 Championship Season . He lives in Newtown, Pennsylvania. Tim Kurkjian is a Major League Baseball analyst on ESPN's Baseball Tonight and SportsCenter . He is also a contributor to ESPN the Magazine and ESPN.com. He lives in Maryland. Wild Pitches Rumblings, Grumblings, and Reflections on the Game I love By Jayson Stark Triumph Books Copyright © 2014 Jayson Stark All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-60078-942-7 Contents Foreword by Tim Kurkjian, INTRODUCTION, 1. THE BIG PICTURE, 2. IT HAPPENS EVERY SPRING, 3. CHAMPIONS, 4. OCTOBER CLASSICS, 5. WHAT I GOT RIGHT — AND WRONG, 6. LEGENDS, 7. PHILLY!, 8. JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, CHAPTER 1 The Big Picture June, 2006 Why Baseball's History Matters Why Baseball's History Matters, Scene 1 The place: Camden Yards in Baltimore. The date: September 6, 1995. There are moments in baseball that couldn't possibly happen in any other sport. This was one of them. Most baseball history is made with no notice, with no warning. But not on this night. On this night, 46,272 spectators arrived at Camden Yards knowing exactly what they were about to witness — and even when they would witness it. Halfway through this game, the second it became official, Cal Ripken Jr. would finally break Lou Gehrig's legendary Iron Man record. He knew it. His teammates knew it. Everyone in America knew it. There was no reason for this particular moment to turn into one of the most powerful and emotional experiences in the lifetimes of those who witnessed it. But somehow, it did. What we remember is this: the Orioles played this exactly right. They didn't schlock up the occasion with phony announcements or scoreboard overkill. Mostly, they just unfurled a number on a wall: 2131. And grown men cried for the next 20 minutes. Cried. Wept. Couldn't stop. How did that happen, anyway? Why did it happen? Here's why: it happened because baseball matters. It matters to us in a way that no other sport matters. There is no number in any other sport that could possibly be draped on the side of a warehouse and evoke the tears and passions that 2131 evoked. None. For 24 hours, the number 2130 had hung on that wall. Everyone who saw it knew exactly what it meant: Lou Gehrig: 2,130 games in a row, a record that could never be broken. So to see that number change was all it took to unleash the earthquake in our souls that erupts when we realize we are witnessing something powerful and moving. There is no sane reason that the rewriting of any line in any record book should be that moving. But this was a night that made it all so clear. These aren't just numbers, not in this sport. They are numbers that tell stories. They are numbers that connect names and memories and generations. Just the numbers alone can make you remember another night, deep in your past, at some other ballpark — maybe one that no longer stands. They can make you remember what it felt like to watch Nolan Ryan throw a baseball, or Mike Schmidt swing a bat, or Rickey Henderson pump toward second base. They can almost make you feel what your grandfather might have felt as he watched Stan Musial come to his town. Or Ted Williams. Or Lou Gehrig. They can bring back voices, freeze-frames, black-and-white images buried so securely in the back of your memory banks, you'd forgotten they were still rattling around inside you. All sports have their memories, because memories are what sports are all about. But in baseball, we don't have to cue the marching band or the video machines to sledge-hammer anybody into remembering. In baseball, we don't need anything more obvious or complicated than a number on a wall. Why Baseball's History Matters, Scene 2 The place: ancient Tiger Stadium in Detroit. The date: September 28, 1999. To the people who didn't get it, Tiger Stadium was ju