When a Starter is Also a Stopper

I enjoy it when a baseball terms means two very different things. Take "hook," for instance. On one hand, it's a pitcher's curveball. ("Jon Lester's got his good 'hook' today.")

On the other hand, it's what a manager does to his pitcher when he doesn't have a very good hook on the day. ("Looks like Joe Girardi's giving Burnett the 'hook' here in the fourth...")

Then there's "stopper." The most common baseball usage is, a starting pitcher--typically an ace--who can be counted on to stop a losing streak. Johan Santana comes to mind. With closer K-Rod simmering in a jail cell somewhere in Queens, Santana told skipper Jerry Manuel he could go 10, if needed, before yesterday's game. He only needed 9 in blanking the Rockies. (Don't Mess With the Johan! crowed the Mets blogs.)

Almost exactly a year ago, the NY Daily News saluted Santana for being a stopper.

Johan Santana plays sweep stopper with arm, bat as Mets beat Padres, read the headline.

Any great starter has been described as a stopper: Curt Schilling, Randy Johnson, CC Sabathia, etc.

But stopper can also be a synonym for closer--not the ace starter, but the blue-chip finisher.

Of course, outside of baseball, a stopper is the thing that keeps the water in your bathtub. There is also the gobstopper, which would probably work as a tub stopper should yours be out of commission.

Back to baseball. A recent New York Times Magazine cover story on Mariano Rivera, "The King of the Closers," got into the short history of the closer role. James Traub wrote:

The great Yankees teams of the ’70s relied on one such fabled stopper, Rich Gossage, better known as Goose.

Traub's closer-as-stopper usage is less common than starter-as stopper. (Starter as stopper...what a concept!) I'll chalk it up to Traub not being a baseball guy. He's been with the Times Magazine for eons and has written books on everything from India to Times Square to Kofi Annan. Smart guy, indeed. Baseball guy? Not so sure.

But get this: Answers.com says "stopper" is, in fact, a baseball closer.

Check out the third definition:

1.A device, such as a cork or plug, that is inserted to close an opening.
2.One that causes something to stop: a conversation stopper.
3.Baseball. A relief pitcher, especially one called upon to protect a lead.

So if you're going by the book--or at least Answers.com--a stopper is a reliever.

But if you're going by the baseball book, a stopper is a starter.

[image: NY Daily News]

Yanks Thrive on 'Core' Values

With the Bombers facing old autumn nemesis the Los Angeles Dodgers out west this past weekend, the Gotham papers focused on the players' reunion with former skipper Joe Torre. Numerous papers invoked the increasingly popular phrase "Core Four" for the Yankee veteran quartet of Jeter, Rivera, Pettitte and Posada.

"Joe Torre knows sentiment will be pushed aside when Core Four Yankees visit Dodgers," read the Daily News headline Friday.

Going back to April, the Daily News reported: "This week's Sports Illustrated features a tremendous cover shot of the Core Four - Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte - having some fun with each other."

Something called All Headline News used the phrase to explain why the Yanks won the World Series last fall: George Steinbrenner, a.k.a. "Boss" and the "Core Four" of Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada are among nine reasons the New York Yankees won their 27th World Series Wednesday night.

The first references to the Yanks' Core Four appears to be around the time of the 2009 World Series.

It appears the Yankees aren't the only team with a Core Four. The Mets have one too, says the NY Post. Quick, can you name the foursome?

The Bombers group of Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada are know for World Series titles, while the Mets bunch of Jose Reyes, David Wright, Carlos Beltran and Johan Santana are distinguished by collapses and injuries.

NBC Sports even referred to D'Brickashaw Ferguson (D'Brickashaw Ferguson...now that's a name!) as part of the Jets' "Core Four", drawing the ire of one pinstripe-wearing reader.

Wrote WWNYGD:
HOW DARE YOU use a Yankees reference "Core Four" for the Jets.

Get it straight. "most" Yankees fans are Giants Fans. "most" Jets fans are Mets fans.

Oh snap!

No lesser light than Alex Rodriguez--most certainly not part of the Core Four--referred to the foursome, though not by its moniker, when describing his own cool relationship with Torre.

He tells the NY Times:

"I can’t say that I have the same relationship he does with Jorge and Pettitte and Mo and Jeet. I’d be lying to you. Those guys have a 10-, 12-year history. They won a lot of championships together."

Pettitte's three-year stint in Houston notwithstanding, it's more like a 15 year history for the Core Four, and that doesn't include the minors.

After all that time, you'd think Pettitte and Posada would have cool nicknames like the other half of the Core Four.

Handy Andy? Mr. Posada Head?


[image: sasquatchkid.tumblr.com]

What's Nastier Than Nasty?

Several years ago, then-Mets catcher Mike Piazza acknowledged one of the great cliches in sports.

Piazza may have been useless at throwing out base-stealers, but Big Mike was no dummy: He was a media-savvy guy and a decent interview after games. (Full disclosure: I may or may not have started the rumor that Mike Piazza starred in the movie Teen Wolf under a different name.)

Speaking with a New York Magazine reporter, Piazza opined:

"I've been trying to invent a new cliché to replace stepping up," he says. "That's the most overused term in sports. I've got to invent a new one. I'll test out a few phrases and see what catches on. How cool would that be, if you could think up a term like step up and see all these guys using it in interviews? I need to start watching more of Don King's interviews. I heard him say one time, 'These are tribulations and infractications! These are hypocrisies and hypotheticals!' He's funny, man -- he's amazing. Maybe I can borrow something from him."

A decade later, here's another baseball cliche that needs to be retired: A "nasty" pitch.

I tuned into This Week in Baseball over the weekend for the first time in years. Notably, and perhaps of no surprise to anyone, there's really nothing about the current week in baseball in the show; ESPN and its myriad tentacles of course have covered all that ad nauseum. Instead, it focuses on longer-form insider topics, such as who's got the toughest pitch in the game.

That segment showed clips of several pitchers showing their signature pitches. Accompanying each pitch was the live announcing; out of maybe 20 clips, all but two had the word "nasty" in the call.

Ben Sheets' curve? Nasty!

Johan Santana's changeup? Nasty!

Tim Lincecum's entire repertoire? Nasty, nasty, nasty!

The two non-nasty descriptions, if you're scoring at home, were "devastating" and "filthy."

Nasty is so overused that it's taken, well, the nastiness out of it. We're here in New York, so we're particularly attuned to pitches being called nasty due to a certain bat-smashing closer taking the hill every couple days, though the Yankee games are so damn long that Mariano is almost taking the stage around the same time Jay and Dave are.

So let's put "nasty" to rest. Filthy, I'm fine with. But I'm open for suggestions. Any announcers around the country coming up with good substitutions for nasty? Anyone else like the sound of nastardly?

[image: outstandingcollectibles.com]