Wagner-ian Opera Comes to End; No 'Cupcakes' For Braves

We're sad to see the Braves' season end, because it brings Billy Wagner's career to a close. Wagner was a frequent, if unwitting, contributor to Batter Chatter, his outspokeness and dopey homespun manner always good for a memorable phrase or two.

It was Wagner, of course, who accused then-Mets teammate Lastings Milledge of "big-leaguin' it"--a serious charge in the big leagues.

And after the NY Times Magazine ran something on Francisco Rodriguez losing it after his common-law wife's father told him to "man up," we had a little email convo with the author of the column, Ben Zimmer. Zimmer told Batter Chatter he enjoyed the bit we did on Wagner and "big-leaguin' it", and said Wagner was also responsible for one of his favorite baseball expressions: "cupcakin' it" (Formula for a Wagner-ism: take a noun, turn it into a verb by pasting an -ing suffix on it, drop the g, and add "it.")

Cupcakin' it means taking it easy, handling with kid gloves, that sort of thing. There's no cupcakin' it in baseball, Wagner told then-Mets manager Willie Randolph back in 2006, after Randolph threw Wagner into a tight game to start the season.

"Might as well get thrown right into the fire," said Wagner. "No use cupcakin' it."


Wrote Zimmer:

I had never come across this use of the verb cupcake before, but its meaning was immediately obvious from the context. Wagner meant there was no point in trying to breeze through his assignment or get by with little exertion. There's a long tradition of similar dessert-related metaphors in American slang: piece of cake, cakewalk, pudding (meaning 'something easy'), easy as pie, etc. A little searching on Usenet newsgroups and other forums for sports talk turned up various uses of the verb cupcake, very often in reference to a team building up a deceptively good win-loss record thanks to an easy competitive schedule.

If Laurel and Hardy Were Around in the Era of the Relief Pitcher

My mother was talking to my father the other night, as they are prone to do.

They were talking about baseball, as they are prone to do. In light of K-Rod's recent legal/physical issues, Mom asked Dad who the Mets' new closer is.

"Committee," Dad answered.

"What's his first name?" Mom asked.

Badum-bumm.

First of all, full props to M and D for still following our beloved Metsies as the Mets play out the string and fail to play "meaningful games" in late summer once again. Further indicating their fan-tastic fanaticism, they follow the games on the internet since retiring out of the Gotham market.

Back to closer-by-committee.

What we've learned from doing Batter Chatter blog for the past four months: if a baseball term doesn't come from the food world, it probably comes from the business world, and "committee" very definitely has its roots in the corporate culture.

Closer-by-committee of course refers to a gaggle of relief pitchers aiming to get those crucial last 3...or 4, 5 or even 6...outs, managers going with specific matchups based on which side of the body you arm is on in relation to which side of the plate the batter stands on, and a pitcher's statistical record against a given batter.

Closer-by-committee usually results after the closer has been injured. The hope is that one of the three or four guys in the closer rotation will rise above, show he can get righties and lefties alike out, and claim the job outright.

The Twins tried it at the beginning of the season, with Joe Nathan on the shelf.

"We are a committee," manager Ron Gardenhire told MLB.com. "Our closer role is a committee."

The Orioles did it for a bit, then gave the job to Koji Uehara recently

The strategy worked pretty well for much of last year for the Rays and the Braves, writes SI.com:

Two contending teams are closing games by committee, and no one has cried heresy

Alas, the strategy never seems to work for long. The Twins opted for Jon Rauch just after the season started, then acquired Matt Capps when Rauch proved to be less than Nathanesque. The Braves have Billy "Know Your Place Rook" Wagner at the tail end, and the Rays have Rafael Soriano, who shut the Yanks down last night to preserve a tight win.

Over in Camp Flushing, Hisanori Takahashi seems to have chosen committee chairman. Despite lacking the mid-90s fastball and peculiar facial hair/haircut of typical closers, Takahashi shut down those pesky Pirates last night (OK, they're not really all that pesky) to tally his seventh save.

A few more lights-out closes, and my mother might even remember his name.

Welcome to the Big Leagues, Rook, Just Don't 'Big League' It

Here's a bit of advice for the September call-ups making their first appearance in The Big Show this week: don't be big leaguin' it now that you've made the big leagues.

It's a weird irony: You've made the big leagues, but don't by any means act like it.

What exactly is big leaguin' it? In the unpublished book of unwritten baseball rules, it means acting like a hotshot--every bit the no-no for rookies. (Speaking of the unwritten rules of baseball, the Marlins were not pleased that Washington's Nyjer Morgan stole two bases with his team down by 11. Trying to come back for a win? Here's a fastball in the back, pal. If you click on the link, count how many homerisms you hear from the FS Florida announcers.)

"Big leaguin'" does not appear in Wikipedia's Glossary of Baseball; nor do many links pop up in Google. Here's one from UrbanDictionary.com:

Typically done when a person uses slightly relevant knowledge to demonstrate their superiority over someone. Usually intended to belittle a person and make them feel insignificant or "show them up"

Google also reveals the country singer Toby Keith updating the classic "Mockingbird" in his own inimitable way:

Yeah right, quit big leaguin' me, I said now, everybody have you heard...

This seems like one of the terms that one hears in MLB clubhouses, but hasn't made its way into the media or the modern vernacular. It was in the clubhouse that former Mets farm star Lastings Milledge, currently toiling on the Pirates, was charged with big leaguin' it by the Mets vets--or Billy Wagner, at least--after being brought up at 21 in 2006.

David Lennon listed Milledge's transgressions in a 2008 story in Newsday.

Milledge notoriously showed up only an hour before the game's first pitch during a series in Philadelphia, drawing harsh criticism from Wright at the time. Milledge also celebrated a bit too much when he high-fived fans along the rightfield line after a tying home run at Shea Stadium.

Such behavior may have annoyed the Mets, but Billy Wagner said that none of the players held a grudge against him. It was Wagner who hung a sign in Milledge's locker during a series in DC that read, "Know your place, Rook!" And he insists that was nothing more than the type of rookie hazing that everyone endures.

Here's a weird Milledge-related trade schematic for ya: Apparently tired of his big leaguin' ways and lack of big-leaguin' hitting, the Mets shipped Milledge to Washington for Ryan Church, who was later traded for Jeff Francoeur, who was just this week traded for some guy named Arias and a bag of balls from the Rangers.

In 2008, Milledge told SI.com he was happy to be out of Gotham:

"I can't go through anything worse than I went through in New York. It only gets better from here," Milledge said. "A lot of veterans didn't like the way I play the game. They thought I didn't respect it."

Milledge is now hitting a middling .268 with the Pirates. A more mature 25, he is free to haze the new arrivals to the Pirates clubhouse who he thinks are failing to respect the game.

[image: SI]