Well, thank God that's over. After a decade marred by steroids, thunder sticks, and Chip Caray, the world of baseball is back to normal. The Yankees are once again World Champs, the game's sluggers look more like longshoreman than superheroes, and the Majors' most intimidating pitcher (see below) is a 5'11", 170-pound longhair. What-what?

 

SP: Tim Lincecum, San Francisco Giants

The best pitcher in baseball has been called many things. The Freak. The Franchise. Seabiscuit. He’s been described as looking like a high schooler, a teenager, a bat boy. In fact, in his two and a half years as a major leaguer, Tim Lincecum, the San Francisco Giants’ 5’11”, 170-pound right-handed pitcher, has been compared to a bat boy around 5,000 times. He is built like a bat boy. He walks like a bat boy. He blends in with the bat boys.

“I’ve heard it my whole life, the size thing,” he says. “It can get pretty frustrating.”

Lincecum is sitting in a New York City eatery, staring down at a cheeseburger and a glass of whole milk. He’s in town with his father and his girlfriend to pick up his newest piece of hardware: the 2009 Cy Young Award.

Though he is a man of 25 years, with his shoulder-length brown hair, boyish smile, and crease-free, stubble-free face, Lincecum looks more Doogie Howser, M.D., than Sandy Koufax, Cy Young.
“I know people think I’m just a kid,” he says. “But I like to think my career tells a different story.”

Indeed, since he made his big league debut in 2007, Tim Lincecum has emerged as the most dominant pitcher in the show. His 40-17 record is the NL’s best during that span, as is his 2.90 ERA. In 598 1/3 innings, he has struck out a Nolan Ryan–esque 676 batters. “He is,” says one major league scout, “the top pitcher in the game—by far.”

And yet, while Lincecum’s numbers speak of an unparalleled performer, it is his presence off the mound that has rescued the Giants from baseball purgatory.

From 1993 through 2007, San Francisco’s ball club was held hostage by Barry Bonds, a larger-than-life superstar whose moodiness, anger, and alleged PED cravings turned the Giants' clubhouse into a dark lair of evil. “I met Barry when I first came up, and he didn’t do anything bad to me,” says Lincecum. “But his reputation definitely preceded him.”

That was then. These days the Bonds-free Giants, who finished 88-74 in the NL West last season, are as happygo-lucky as they come. The biggest reason is Lincecum, who was rewarded with a two-year, $23 million contract in February. With his laid-back demeanor, no one is intimidated. With his Olive Oyl build, no one is suspicious of cheating. And with his dazzling four-pitch repertoire (fastball, curveball, slider, change-up), funky delivery, and uncanny ability to make all comers look foolish, no one has a chance. As Mike Krukow, a Giants broadcaster and ex–major league pitcher, recently put it, “There are really two kinds of pitchers at this level: power pitchers and finesse guys. Timmy can combine the two. They don't make many guys like that.”

If it seems like Tim Lincecum emerged from nowhere, that’s because he pretty much did. Growing up outside Seattle in Renton, Washington, young Tim was best known for, uh…nothing. That was fine with his father, Chris, a longtime Boeing employee. “I knew Tim had talent,” he says. “Even if other people couldn’t see it.” Going against the advice of the so-called experts, Chris taught Tim how to throw a curveball at age eight. He introduced the quirky delivery that has now become Tim’s trademark and was adamant that he rarely ice his arm.

“The way he pitches is a sequence of leverages from toes to fingertips,” says Chris. “He uses all his small muscles, so his body does the work and his arm comes along for the ride.”

As a 5’2", 100-pound sophomore, Lincecum was cut from the Liberty High varsity baseball team and barely made the club as a junior. His first breakout appearance came against Skyline High, the defending state champions. With his team holding a one-run lead, Lincecum entered the game in the bottom of the final inning, with one out and a man on second. Skyline’s second-best hitter came to the plate. Lincecum struck him out looking. Skyline’s best hitter batted next. He struck out looking, too.

“That was the first time I ever made the newspaper,” Lincecum says. “It was huge.”
Was it the Seattle Times?

“No,” he says. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer? “Eh, no,” he says again. “It was the Issaquah Press. For me that was the big time.”

Following a standout senior year, Lincecum signed with the University of Washington, where he seemed to garner as much attention for his size (“I got really big in college,” he jokes. “Up to 160 pounds.”) as his success. In 2004, he became the first player ever to be named Pac-10 Freshman of the Year and Pac-10 Pitcher of the Year. As a junior in 2006, Lincecum finished 12-4 with a 1.94 ERA, earning the Golden Spikes Award as the nation’s best amateur baseball player. Still, there was the lingering question of whether someone that small, who threw in the mid- to high 90s, could hold up in the majors. Hence, despite being college baseball’s premier pitcher, Lincecum was the 10th player selected in the 2006 June draft—behind six other pitchers. “Tim doesn’t admit this often, but he was crushed,” says Chris. “He wanted to be one of the top five guys to go.”

Lincecum soared through the minors and made his first major league start on May 6, 2007, as a 22-year-old. Two strikeout titles, and two Cy Youngs later, no one underestimates Tiny Tim anymore.
“That was a dream come true,” he says, polishing off his cheeseburger. “I made it to the place I’d only dreamed of. Who would have believed it? A little guy like me?”

With success, of course, comes attention, which Lincecum is still learning to deal with. Last October he was pulled over and charged with possession of marijuana. The charge was dropped, but seeing his misadventure paraded all over the blogosphere taught Lincecum a lesson about the cost of fame. “If anyone else got caught like I did, they’d go through the same legal thing; it just wouldn’t be as public,” he says. “But it’s the nature of the beast. If you’re going to play this game and be in the spotlight, that scrutiny comes with it. And this is my dream, wearing a uniform, throwing a baseball.”

Unlike many of his peers, Lincecum struggles to pinpoint major league highlights. There was the complete game triumph against Pittsburgh last July, when he struck out 15. There were two All-Star selections. There were the two Cy Young announcements, which thrilled him to no end. “But I don’t have the trophies,” he says. “One the Giants still have, the other I never received.” He pauses—“Don’t really need ’em, though,” he says. “Knowing what I achieved is enough.”

As Tim Lincecum grows used to the spotlight and becomes a more recognizable face, maybe folks will stop commenting on his resemblance to a bat boy. It’s not like the defending two-time National League Cy Young Award winner has never been mistaken for…

“Oh, no,” Lincecum says. “It really happens.”

Uh…what?

“Two years ago we were at Shea Stadium playing the Mets,” he says. “I started the game, and after it was over I walked away from the stadium to see my girlfriend. When I tried getting back in the gate to get on the team bus, a security guard wouldn’t let me through.”

A dumbfounded Lincecum informed the man he was a member of the San Francisco Giants, that he had pitched six innings that very night.

“Yeah, right,” the guard replied. “I need to see some ID."

See More Here >>

As spring training gets underway, managers ramp up the spin machine, talking to the media in short bursts of clichéd (say-nothing) quotes about players. We examine each and offer the "real" story behind the clichéd quote.

The once single-season home-run king gives us a glimpse at his innovative strategy as the new hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals. Seems simple enough.

 

 

It's pretty cool that ballplayers get to take the plate to their own personal theme song. But if we've learned one thing, it's that professional baseball players have the worst taste in the entire world (see Ryan Braun's t-shirt line. It makes Ed Hardy look like J. Crew). So we've gone through the Yanks and Phils respective lineups and put together an alternate World Series soundtrack.

Derek Jeter
Actual song: "Empire State of Mind" by Jay-Z
Should be: "Empire State of Mind" by Jay-Z
The Captain gets what the Captain wants. And this Big Apple anthem is as good a choice as any.

Johnny Damon
Actual song: "I Walk Alone" by Saliva
Should be: "Johnny B. Goode" by Chuck Berry
Mr. Steinbrenner, you know that new sound you're looking for? Well, listen to this.

 

Mark Teixeira
Actual song: “I Wanna Rock” by Twisted Sister
Should be: "Baba O'Riley" by the Who
Bask in olden times, when Paul O'Neill batted third for the Bombers, there was no more thrilling sound than the first notes of this classic blasting through the stadium as Paulie came to bat with the game on the line. Time to bring it back.

Alex Rodriguez
Actual song: "PSA" by Jay-Z
Should be: "Tiny Dancer" by Elton John
Remember when Kate Hudson leads the whole tour bus in the sing-along in Almost Famous? That was awesome.

Jorge Posada
Actual song: "Me Estas Tenando" by Wisin y Yandel
Should be: "Rappers Delight" by The Sugar Hill Gang
Straight out of the Boogie Down Bronx: "I said a hip hop a hippie to the hippie to the hip hip Jorge!"

Hideki Matsui
Actual song: "Big Shot" by Billy Joel
Should be: "Surrender" by Cheap Trick
Because this song is awesome and Cheap Trick is huge in Japan. Although "Big Shot" by Billy Joel is pretty fucking great too.

Robinson Cano
Actual song: "Run This Town" by Jay Z
Should be: "Bring the Noise" by Public Enemy
New York hip-hop is fine, but since Jeter gets dibs on Jigga, Cano will have to settle for this PE classic, guaranteed to blow the roof off (the, er, roofless) Yankee Stadium.

Nick Swisher
Actual song: "Rock Star" by Ludacris and R Kelly
Should be: "The Swish" by the Hold Steady
Baseball-loving Midwesterner heads to New York and hits the big time. Also, the song is called "The Swish."

Melky Cabrera
Actual song: "I Know You Want Me" by Pitbull
Should be: "Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones
No New York lineup would be complete without at least one Ramones song.

 

 

Jimmy Rollins
Actual song: "I'm Good" by The Clipse
Should be: "Addams Family Values" by MC Hammer
Did you know that as a teenager, Rollins appeared in several MC Hammer videos including this spooktacular hit? Of course you did.

Shane Victorino
Actual song: "Buffalo Soldier" by Bob Marley
Should be: "Paper Planes" By M.I.A.
Is there any other option for the man nicknamed "Pineapple Express"?

Chase Utley
Actual song: "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin
Should be: "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin
We'll give Utley the Jeter treatment. "Kashmir"'s killer riff is the perfect introduction to Chase's gritty play. Just ask CC Sabathia.

Ryan Howard
Actual song: "Forever" by Drake
Should be: "Big Poppa" by Notorious B.I.G.
It may be sacrilege for a non-New Yorker to claim this classic but dude is 260 lbs. and the only other option is "The Fat Boys are Back."

Jayson Werth
Actual song: "Arma-goddamn-motherf-------geddon" by Marilyn Manson
Should be: "Armageddon It" by Def Leppard
Okay, we get the sentiment, but Manson's track blows. If you want to take your swing too some apocalyptic bullshit, we recommend Def Leppard's bombastic arena rocker.

Raul Ibanez
Actual song: "Save You" by Pearl Jam
Should be: "Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix
Considering he played most of his career in sunny Seattle, it's not surprising Ibanez went with the grunge kings. But if were up to us (and right here, it is) he'd take his cuts to another Seattle rocker. One who ultimately choked on his own vomit.

Ben Francisco
Actual song: "Amazing" by Kanye West
Should be: "Ben" by Michael Jackson
This one is a no brainer.

Pedro Feliz
Actual song: "Calle Ocho" by Pitbull
Should be: "You Make My Dreams" by Hall & Oates
Is there a song more likely to put a smile on the faces of Phillies' fans than this cheesetastic number from the city's favorite sons.

Carlos Ruiz
Actual song: "Turn My Swag On" by Soulja Boy
Should be: "Gangster Boogie" by Schooly D
The Yanks may have Jigga, Sugar Hill Gang and PE, but Philly answers with this classic from hip-hop's first gangsta rapper. Plus, it has the word boogie in it.

Following "revelations" that New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids in 2003, nobody was ready to forgive him for his past mistakes on and off the field. Not the media. Not New York fans. Definitely not Saturday Night Live, which turned his ESPN confessional interview into a punchline—"I was young...I was 'naifff'".

But, never doubt the healing power of home runs. His 2009 postseason has been nothing short of magical, driving in as many runs as the Minnesota Twins combined. In short, Kate Hudson has done what years of performance enhancers, marriage, and numerous reported one-night stands could not. Don't believe us? Here's proof...



Sure, she hasn't starred in a non-penis-shriveling movie since 2005's The Skeleton Key, but you can't knock her girlfriend skills with those numbers.

 

 

We were putting the final touches on this piece about baseball’s biggest postseason goats when, providently, our attention was distracted by the shout of an adjacent television set. Something of great, terrible importance had just occurred. We moved in to investigate and were stunned by what we saw.

Matt Holliday tried to catch a ball with his groin. No, really, he did. His less-than-balletic effort opened the door for the Dodgers, who promptly marched through it en route to a come-from-behind 3-2 win in the ninth inning.

Welcome to the postseason goat hall of fame, Matty. Its other members, listed below, welcome you warmly.

Babe Ruth, New York Yankees: Do you know how game 7 of the 1926 World Series ended? With Ruth’s bloated carcass splayed at second base after inexplicably attempting a steal, that’s how. Even the great ones occasionally don the goat horns.

 

 

Bill Buckner, Boston Red Sox: It’s incredibly unfair that Buckner has been scapegoated for Boston’s nigh-unbearable loss in game 6 of the 1986 World Series. Calvin Schiraldi couldn’t get a third out with the Sox up by two in the 10th inning, Bob Stanley uncorked a game-tying wild pitch and manager John McNamara removed Roger Clemens from the game prematurely. Alas, none of those screw-ups proved as cinematic as the Mookie Wilson ground ball that somehow trickled between Buckner’s legs. The guy notched 2,715 hits in the majors, yet this is what he’s remembered for. Life’s a bitch.

 

 

Donnie Moore, California Angels: The Angels were a single strike away—one, uno, einer, один, etc.—from advancing to their first-ever World Series in 1986 when Moore left the ball up for Boston’s Dave Henderson, who promptly deposited it behind the left-field fence. The Red Sox won the game and the next two; ironically, they similarly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory several days later (see under: Buckner, Bill). Moore never recovered from the failure and took his own life years later.

 

 

Herb Washington, Oakland A’s: The guy’s sole role on the A’s was as a pinch-runner. Seriously: he was an All-American sprinter who’d never played organized baseball at any level. So what does he do upon entering game 2 of the 1974 World Series? Get picked off in the ninth inning of a one-run game the A’s lost. Lucky for him, they eventually won the title.

 

 

Fred Snodgrass, New York Giants: In game 8 (really!) of the 1912 World Series, he dropped a popup in the 10th inning, which fueled a Red Sox rally that won the game. Of course, it’s not like anyone you know was around to see this. You’re just going to have to take our word for it.

 

 

Steve Bartman, superfan: Of course, it wasn’t his fault that the Cubs lost game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series, even though his (perfectly within the rules) interference with Moises Alou cost the team a certain out. But it’s easier to blame Bartman, with his low-brimmed cap and dorky headphones, than it is Dusty Baker (who left Mark Prior in the game too long) or Alex Gonzalez (who punted a sure-fire double-play grounder). We sure love us some nerdnick scapegoats here in the U.S. of f’in A. Whoo!

 

 

Mickey Owen, Brooklyn Dodgers: The Dodgers were poised to even the 1941 World Series at two games apiece. They were up by a run in the ninth with two outs and nobody on… or at least they were until Owen committed that most heinous of catcher atrocities, a passed ball on a swinging third strike. Given that lifeline, the Yankees did what they tend to do: namely, win the game and the series.

 

 

Willie Davis, Los Angeles Dodgers: What is it with the Dodgers and the goats? Davis, never renowned for his fielding prowess, destroyed game 2 of the 1966 World Series by committing three errors on back-to-back plays. First he lost a fly ball in the sun, then he dropped the next hitter’s fly ball and capped off his reign of error—a pun! a delicious pun!—by chucking the ball past the third baseman. To make matters worse, this game proved to be Sandy Koufax’s last. He deserved better.

 

Matt Holliday, St. Louis Cardinals: And so we arrive back at our most recent gaffe hall of fame inductee. St. Louis fans are famously yay-for-everything-and-everybody! when it comes to their Cardinals, but there was a boo or three when they returned home to be finished off by the Dodgers. Sad. Shame on you, Matt Holliday, for souring the game’s least surly, most supportive fans.

Since the 2009 Major League Baseball campaign is basically finished for all but 10 teams—the six division leaders, plus the two teams in each league with a legit shot at the wild card—it’s time to start wrapping stuff up. And so, not unlike the Democrats, we begin with the poor, the dumb, the downtrodden, the defenseless: We begin with the 2009 Pavano awards, which reverse-honor the season’s biggest, saddest loserheads.

B.J. Upton, Tampa Bay Rays

During the 2008 playoffs, he looked like a faster, better-conditioned version of Willie Mays. But after a slow recovery from shoulder surgery, Upton didn’t wake up until July. Since then, he has run the bases as if overmedicated and ranged after fly balls with the intensity of Tony Soprano fetching his morning paper. If there’s a better tough-love candidate in the game today, I don’t know who it is.

 

The Cubs got hurt and the White Sox got creative—which, owing to GM Ken Williams’ August shenanigans, might’ve been worse. It’s way cool that the guy is making high-risk moves (taking on two huge contracts in Jake Peavy and Alex Rios) at a time when everybody else is hoarding prospects like survivalists hoard canned peaches. At the same time, Williams has traded his team into a corner: the Sox won’t have much in the way of flexibility this off-season. As for the Cubs, it’s been one mess after another: the injuries (to a goodly chunk of the pitching staff, to Aramis Ramirez), the lethargy (Lou Piniella doesn’t bother much anymore with his bench or bullpen), the embarrassments (Milton Bradley and Alfonso Soriano chafing at their roles and batting-order placement, Carlos Zambrano showing up looking like he ate a single-A prospect and then complaining about being dubbed “lazy”), etc. Come October 5, the city will choose to pretend that the 2009 baseball season never happened.

 

Vernon Wells, Toronto Blue Jays

Big contract, small effort. He boasts the demeanor of a deposed county commissioner and the trade value of a bedbug-infested mattress. How he avoids nightly beer dowsings by the surprisingly surly Toronto fans, we’ll never know.

 

Manny Ramirez, Los Angeles Dodgers

His overall offensive numbers remain more than acceptable and his team may yet enjoy some October glory. But on the personal/legacy front, Manny took more of a hit this year than any player in the game. He was outed as a double flunker of tests for performance-enhancing substances, serving a 50-game suspension for one of them. Since his return, he’s been human at the plate and typically indifferent in the field—less the world-beater he was upon being dealt to the Dodgers last summer than the aging, one-dimensional batsmith he’s supposed to be at 37. Wait, that’d kind of make him Manny Being Granny. We made a funny! Hoy-o!

 

The Pirates received a healthy dose of so-bad-for-so-so-long flogging when they clinched their 17th consecutive losing season, but the Royals have lapped them as the league’s most harrowing cautionary tale. At least the Pirates know they’re terrible, wiping clean their roster (and payroll) of anyone over the age of 14. The Royals, on the other hand, preach the on-base percentage gospel, then go out and acquire Yuniesky Betancourt, who is to baseball what Courtney Love is to music. Thank GM Dayton Moore—who somehow scored a contract extension, leading most observers to believe he’s either blackmailing the owner or boinking his daughter—for making the mess messier via a series of moves that spat in the face of reason and then kicked dirt on its motionless corpus. Nobody here, from ownership on down, has anything resembling a clue.

 

Chris Young, Arizona Diamondbacks

For years, we’ve been hearing how Young ranks among the game’s preeminent centerfield prospects. We heard it when he was bouncing around in the lower reaches of the White Sox farm system and then again when he was lighting up the AAA night sky with his power, speed, arm, instincts and jaunty personality. After a monster rookie campaign and a reasonable if not electric follow-up in 2008, Young fell backwards, hard. He spent a chunk of August in the minors, either as punishment or as a last-gasp attempt to help him find his smile again. Regardless, he screwed many a fantasy-team owner across this great nation: as of this writing, he sits at .198 BA/12 HRs/34 RBIs. For that, he is deserving of our utter contempt.

 

Brad Lidge, Philadelphia Phillies

Closers are generally called upon to “close out” games, rather than extend their duration. A more apt title for Lidge, then, might be a “continuer”: Way too often this season, his contributions kept the game going, giving opponents another few whacks in extra innings or a reason to assemble in a joyous home-plate hogpile. It took Phillies manager Cholly Manuel until this week to tire of Lidge’s frequent sheet-soiling and remove him from ninth-inning duty. You could tell the skipper was pissed: he used the word “dadgum” multiple times while discussing it.

Ray Ramirez, New York Mets: Who is this guy, you ask? The head trainer for the majors’ achiest, breakiest franchise, the one that’s as able to diagnose a simple bruise or sprain as a pelican is to preside at a wedding. It’s unfair to blame Ramirez alone, as there were trained physicians who failed to diagnose injuries (“Did I say it was a twisted ankle? I meant to say that the hamstring was ripped off the bone and mangled, as if it’d been gnawed on by a ferret.") and players who withheld information about their physical condition. But there were way, way, way too many injuries for all of them to qualify as flukes, and that falls on the training and conditioning staffs.

In our last dispatch, we noted the utter absurdity of a clause in Bobby Abreu’s contract that calls for the payment of a $100,000 bonus in the event that he wins a Gold Glove award. Abreu, only slightly more instinctive and athletic afield than a typical beer-leaguer, clearly has no chance of cashing in on this. But it got us to thinkin’: What are some of the other desperate, dippy and otherwise unrealistic incentives that have been shoehorned into MLB players’ contracts?

Some of the clauses weren’t as silly at the time they were granted as they seem today (the Gold Glove incentive in Jim Thome’s contract, for instance, was added before his trade to an American League team and subsequent shift to designated-hitter duty). Others haven’t yet been made public (most Yankees, we presume, have clauses in their deals guaranteeing hand-cut flowers in their lockers every afternoon and dial-a-concubine access on road trips). The ones we note below, on the other hand, made no sense from day one.

Read on and be awed. All info comes from the invaluable, wildly entertaining Cot’s Baseball Contracts.


Carlos Lee, Houston Astros: When Lee signed with the ‘Stros as a free agent in late 2006, pundits questioned whether the team was paying a premium for what he’d already accomplished, as opposed to what he’d do in the future. They also wondered how well he would age, given that he was already packing 255 pounds of something other than muscle onto his 6’2” frame. Enter the “nominal weight clause” in his deal, which likely guarantees that Lee will refrain from inhaling more than 16 White Castle sliders in a single sitting. The obvious questions: Who enforces this? Does the team have spies stationed at Houston’s myriad lard repositories? How often does he have to stand on a scale? Somebody oughta investigate.

Gil Meche, Kansas City Royals and Francisco Cordero, Cincinnati Reds: This isn’t to besmirch either player’s sporadic competence so much as to cast doubt on their prognostication skills. Both Meche and Cordero play for teams that haven’t been competitive since the first Bush administration, and yet both players saw fit to secure $100,000 bonuses in their lucrative free-agent deals for winning World Series MVP. Hope is a dangerous thing.

 

 

Mark Teixeira, New York Yankees: Teixeira’s deal pays him salaries of at least $20 million per year through 2016, plus he received a cool $5 million the second he signed on the dotted line. Presumably this means he can afford to buy anything except France or publishing rights to the Beatles catalog. Still, Teixeira doesn’t receive his Yankees season tickets gratis; his contract merely assigns him the right to purchase up to eight of them. Weird.

 

 

Mike Lincoln, Cincinnati Reds: In his eight seasons as a professional pitcher, Lincoln has started, respectively, 15, 4, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 and 0 games. In his contract, Lincoln has a clause awarding him $50,000 for his 12th, 15th, 18th, 21st, 23rd, 25th and 27th starts. This is like incentivizing a dog for performing data entry: He doesn’t have the skills or the inclination, so why bother?

 

 

 

Orlando Hudson, Los Angeles Dodgers: Hudson, left standing when last off-season’s game of free-agent musical chairs came to an end, accepted a way-low contract right before spring training commenced. To offset the pain of earning a sub-poverty $3 million in 2009, Hudson can receive up to $4.62 million in bonuses based on plate appearances. As of Thursday, he’d earned $3.55 million; once he passes 575 plate appearances in a few weeks, he’ll earn an extra ten grand per appearance. So don’t be confused when you see Hudson make a ka-ching! gesture every time he dashes out of the batter’s box.

 

Bobby Jenks, Chicago White Sox: Not to keep harping on the Gold Glove clauses, but anyone who has seen Bobby Jenks pitch (or eat) knows that the burly-boy righty has mobility issues. This is like saying a chair or a tree has mobility issues: it’s not exactly a secret. The real silliness, however, isn’t that he gets money for winning a Gold Glove. It’s that as a late-game reliever who has thrown no more than 70 innings in a single season, he’s not on the field enough to merit even token Gold Glove consideration. In conclusion, most agents are insane optimists.