#MIDDLEBURY
By Mark Vasto
Every year, you are given a task. That task is to vote. While some would say the task is an easy one, you know better. For your Hall of Fame vote is all that stands between the chasm that divides the words “mediocre” and “legend.”
Some envy you. You are the baseball writers of America. You possess a talent, an ability that can elevate the mundane to the miraculous. But others despise you. When their heroes are overlooked, when their favorite players, who they watched 162 days and nights each year, are deemed to be second rate, it seems to be an arrogant dismissal of what they and most everyone values the most – their time.
Time was when a relief pitcher was considered somebody who couldn’t cut the mustard and make the starting rotation. Of course, there was also a time when starting rotations consisted of two starters who had 30 complete games every few months and were allowed to openly spit on the baseballs. Those days are over, thankfully, and it’s time for us to evolve further by appreciating the closer role in baseball.
Many of you argue that the closer is a cop-out, a ploy managers use to save their skin more than they save games. After all, there’s not much to think about when you’re in the lead by one to three runs in the ninth and you have a multi-zillion dollar pitcher anxiously awaiting your call to the bullpen. Maybe the modern-day closer deserves some scorn.
Statistics show that teams with a lead in the ninth inning almost always win anyway. People really into statistics have concluded that a top-shelf reliever maybe wins an additional four games for a team. Aha! Right there, that should make the case. They’re worth it because a win is a win. Many a team has lost the division by four games.
But there’s more to it than that. Do not mistake brevity for lack of worth. Yes, good starting pitchers eat up more than 200 innings each season, but why should that influence your vote for a closer? Let’s say you’re a season-ticket holder. You get to see your best starter maybe 15 times each year. Your closer? You see him whenever you’re about to win – they’re the ones who kept you in the seats, which not only justifies their salary (a team can’t make money off of concessions when you’re gone, after all), it justifies their importance. Trevor Hoffman and Lee Smith, closers unfairly subjected to this closer discrimination, would appear in 70-80 games a season. They were like a warm 98-mph hug.
Think of it like your wife or husband, kids or partner, best mate, what have you. Would you rather see them 15 times a year for two hours a pop, or would you rather see them in 80 electrifying, 20-minute appearances over an extended period of time (five extra years if you’re a lefty)? You already know the answer, and that’s why you know it’s time to open up the gates of the Hall for the overlooked men who spent their career awaiting a call, closing the door on their opponents. Make the call to the pen … your pen. The closer’s time has come.
Mark Vasto is a veteran sportswriter who lives in New Jersey.
(c) 2016 King Features Synd., Inc.
