Blind

Blind faith can be bad.  Blind faith can get you killed.  Blind faith in your leader, or your government, or your religion, can lead to a world of problems.  When you stop asking questions, when you accept everything at face value, you can make yourself vulnerable.  You can make yourself weak.

But sometimes, faith is all you have to go on.  Sometimes, when there’s no hard evidence, when there’s no reliable information, in those moments you just have to look inside and ask yourself – what do I believe in?

This is an essay about baseball.  This is an essay about faith.  I’m asking myself the question.  And I know the answer. 

I know what I believe in.  And, for now, that’s all I need to know.

The First Step

According to Tony Massarotti in the December 1, 2008 edition of The Boston Globe, the Boston Red Sox signed Japanese amateur Junichi Tazawa to a three-year contract worth $3 million.  I was excited by the development, intrigued by the player.  I wanted to learn more. So after surfing the web for a minute, I looked up an article on ESPN.com by their expert on Japanese Baseball, Jim Allen.  Here are some of the more interesting quotes about Tazawa lifted from Allen’s piece:

“He lacks velocity, stamina and the ability to keep the ball down.”

“At 22, Tazawa is unlikely to throw much harder than he does now; his fastball barely tops 90 mph when he is rested, and he struggled to hit 88 mph at the end of last season.”

“In Class A or Double-A, Tazawa likely will get hit harder and harder as the season wears on.”

“The pitcher's body is too stiff to allow him to keep the ball down in the zone and Tazawa lacks the smarts and toughness to hang in and learn the lessons needed to apply his talent in the majors.”

Huh.  Well, that was hardly a glowing report.  He lacks velocity, stamina, and the ability to keep the ball down?  He barely tops 90 when he’s rested?  He’s going to get pounded in Single-A?  He lacks smarts and toughness?  What the hell?

Just to be certain, I wanted to check the background on Jim Allen, and to see what made him qualified to write about Japanese baseball prospects for ESPN.  Searching the internet, here’s what I found on the man, in his own words:

“My name is Jim Allen and I work on the sports desk of The Daily Yomiuri as a page editor. I have been writing a weekly column called The Hot Corner since February 1999. Before that I published an annual guide to Japanese baseball for a few years that imitated a number of things in Bill James Baseball Abstracts.”

Okay.  That certainly seems like a reasonable set of credentials.  It sure seems like he should know what he’s talking about.

Still…  I can’t shake the feeling that he’s wrong.  Dead wrong.

And I have nothing to base this on.  No evidence, no information. 

Just faith.

I don’t know if that’s enough.  I don’t know if it will hold up.  But in this case – it’s all I’ve got.

A Man and his Limitations

Look, I’m not a scout.  I get confused when I read scouting reports that say a pitcher has a long arm action that creates good depth and tilt on his breaking pitches.  I don’t know what that means.  A long arm action?  Good depth?  Good tilt?  I have no idea.  I’m not a scout.

And I’m not an analyst.  I like statistics.  But I’m not good at creating them.  I’m not good at finding hidden information.  My strength is not in working with mathematics, or formulas, or numbers.  I can do it.  But it’s not my comfort zone.  It’s not really what I bring to the table.

I’m a writer.  I have a literary background.  I like to put words together, to try and form sentences and paragraphs and come up with something interesting in the end.  That’s my training.  That’s my experience.

I understand that I write for Bill James Online.  I understand the usefulness of empirical evidence.  I understand that knowledge is better than guesswork, and that truth is more valuable than opinion.  I get it.  Yes.  I agree.

And no, I’ve never seen Junichi Tazawa pitch.  I’ve never seen a radar gun reading on the man.  I’ve never seen a batter swinging late and failing to make contact as a high fastball comes buzzing to the plate belt high.  I’ve never heard the catcher’s glove pop like a gunshot in the forest as Tazawa’s fastball comes humming in.  Other guys, I know.  I know Josh Beckett’s fastball.  And Joel Zumaya’s.  And Jamie Moyer’s.  But Junichi Tazawa’s?  No.  I have no familiarity with it.  None. 

Jim Allen knows a lot more about Japanese baseball than I do.  I concede that.  It’s not even close.  He works at the sports desk of the Daily Yomiuri.  He used to write an annual guide to Japanse baseball for years.  In contrast, I can’t name half the teams that compete in the NPB, Japan’s highest league.  He’s informed.  I’m ignorant.  I admit that.     

But I still think he’s wrong.

God’s Radar Gun

Sportswriters are allowed to be wrong.  No problem.  That’s the nature of sportswriting.  They can have opinions that are wrong, like “Ryan Howard is the Most Valuable Player in the National League.”  Sure.  That’s the nature of opinions.  And they can have predictions that are wrong, like “The Indians are going to win the World Series.”  That’s fine.  Again, that’s the nature of predictions.  But there are some instances where it’s important to be right.  There are some pieces of information that need to be reported correctly.  Like facts.  It’s important to get facts straight.  Like a radar gun reading.  Like a fastball velocity.

I don’t know anything about Junichi Tazawa.  I have no relevant knowledge of the player, no direct firsthand observation of the man.  I could not pick him out of a lineup.  But despite all this, I have confidence that he has velocity.  I have confidence that he can throw harder than 90 mph when he is rested.  I have confidence that he’s not going to get shelled in Single-A.  The reason I think these things is that I have faith.  I believe.

I believe in the Boston Red Sox.  The franchise, the organization, the team.  I have faith in their general manager, Theo Epstein.  I trust their scouting and development staff.  Yes, I do.  I don’t think they’re always right.  No.  But I think that they have very good reasons for the things they do, even when they’re wrong.  When they win a World Series then let Derek Lowe, and Pedro Martinez walk away as free agents – I believe.  When they win another World Series, then trade away Manny Ramirez in the middle of the following year – I believe.  And deep down, in my heart, when I ask myself the question on whether Theo Epstein and the scouting and development team of the Boston Red Sox would spend $3 million dollars to sign a kid who throws an 88 mph fastball and is destined to be shelled in Single-A, well…  let’s just say that the answer I come up with is very different than the one Jim Allen provides. 

The Ceremonial First Pitch

You can have faith in many things in life.  Like your President, your minister, or your God.  Like your parents, your employer, or your girlfriend.  That’s fine.  It’s good to have faith in something in this world.  It really is.  In my case, I realize that I have faith in my baseball team.  I do.  I have faith that it is well-run.  I have faith that the people making the decisions it are smart and educated and knowledgeable.  And I have faith that when they are faced with a question, with a problem, they will do everything possible to do the right thing, to do what is best for the team and, therefore, (through the magical transitive property of baseball) what is best for their fanbase.  Isn’t that all a baseball fan can truly ask for?  I have that faith.  I believe.

So.  Either Junichi Tazawa throws 88 mph, or he throws harder.  Either he will get shelled in Single-A, or he won’t.  If Jim Allen is spot-on with his scouting report, if he’s accurate in his assessment of Tazawa’s abilities, then it will be my responsibility to come forward and to acknowledge that.  Because knowledge is better than guesswork, and truth is always more valuable than opinion.  The funny thing about baseball is that, in the end, these debates don’t get settled by writers putting their opinions down on the page.  Nah.  They get settled on the diamond, in between the white lines, on the scoreboard at the end of the game.  Sometimes, a fan’s faith is rewarded.  And sometimes, it is dashed.  In this case, I guess we’ll just have to wait until Junichi Tazawa takes the mound for the first time next year, rears back, and either fires a pitch fast enough to strengthen a man’s belief system, or, conversely, to shatter it.

If you have any thoughts you want to share, I would love to hear from you.  I can be contacted at roeltorres@post.harvard.edu.  Thank you.