Precedent for bereaved World Series pitchers

Edinson Volquez started Game One on Tuesday for Kansas City, with ESPN reporting that he had learned on his way to the ballpark that his father had died earlier in the day in the Dominican and the Royals saying that he was unaware. Manager Ned Yost told reporters after the game that Volquez' family had asked that he not be told until after he had pitched.

There is precedent in baseball history for World Series pitchers to take the ball in the immediate wake of their fathers' death.

In 1940, the colorful Louis Norman Newsom -- better known as Bobo or Buck -- went 21-5, 2,83 for the Detroit Tigers. He started Game One in Cincinnati and beat the Reds, 7-2. His father, who was in attendance, had a heart attack after the game and died the next morning. The rest of the family accompanied the body home; Bobo remained with the team and threw an 8-0 shutout in Game Five. The rubber-armed Newsom then started Game Seven on one day's rest but lost 2-1. (A reporter supposedly asked the braggadocious Newsom if he was going to pitch Game Seven for his father; Newsom s reply was, "No, I'm going to pitch this one for Bobo.")

Two years later, in 1942, Mort Cooper went 22-7 for the St. Louis Cardinals, leading the league in wins, ERA and shutouts en route to winning the MVP award. Manager Billy Southworth elected to have Max Lanier pitch Game One, with Cooper working Game Two. Hours before that game, Cooper learned that his father had died. He and brother Walker, the Cardinals catcher, played anyway and remained with the team until the Series ended; Cooper won Game Two 4-3 with a complete game and was the starter and loser (2-0) in the series' Game Five finale.

It's unclear as I write this what Volquez will do -- go immediately to the Dominican or stay with the team (he is presumably their Game Five starter). I won't think badly of either decision, and I doubt any of his teammates would either.

A kinda, sorta suspension

Edinson Volquez, a pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds, was suspended for 50 games Tuesday after flunking a drug test.

Kind of suspended. Sort of suspended. He couldn't pitch this week, or next month, or even in July if he weren't suspended. He's recovering from Tommy John surgery.

For the record, as reported in the link above, the 2008 All-Star blames his positive test on fertility treatments. I'm in no position to judge the veracity of that statement.

But there's another possible reason, one that strikes at the value of this suspension.

Many of the players who have admitted using steroids, human growth hormone or other barred "performance enhancing drugs" say they did so in hopes of speeding and enhancing their recovery from injuries.

So ... you are a pitcher who has undergone ligament replacement surgery. You know you're not going to pitch for at least a year, maybe more. You believe that taking a banned substance will hasten that process. You also know that if you take it and test positive, the suspension will take effect while you're out of action.

True, baseball's drug suspensions, unlike its run-of-the-mill suspensions, are payless. (Players cannot be suspended without pay because in a bygone era owners would effectively cut players' pay with trumped-up suspensions.) Volquez will lose some $137,000 as a result of this suspension, and for most of us, that's significant money. On the other hand, if breaking the rule allows him to return with his considerable talent intact, he'll make that money back with interest.

So what has he lost by juicing? Nothing, really. A 50-game suspension is supposed to rip a role in a player's season, or even his career, but in this case the hole was already there.

There is a group of players I simply assume are or have been users on this basis. I won't identify the criteria for that group because I'm not interested in libeling anybody, and I don't know that the entire group has/does use. That some have is a matter of record.

For what it's worth, Volquez does not fit the criteria. But that a player with his injury used should not be surprising, in part because the penalties in place for violation aren't much of a deterrent.

Quotes, notes and comment

* It's easy to forget now that the Twins' decision in 2001 to draft Joe Mauer with the first pick in that year's draft was criticized in many quarters. The guy who "should" have gone 1-1 was Mark Prior, that year's greatest college pitcher ever.

The San Diego Padres this week released Prior, who hasn't appeared in a major league game since 2006.

* Some blame Dusty Baker, who managed Prior during the pitcher's tenure with the Chicago Cubs, for the string of injuries that have bedeviled Prior since 2003, Prior's one good year. In September and October of that season, Prior's pitch counts were 131, 129, 110, 124, 131, 133, 133 (again), 116 and 119. In contrast, Johan Santana's career high is 125. He did that once.

Last season, Edinson Volquez (pictured above) had a big season pitching for Baker in Cincinnati. On Monday, he had Tommy John surgery — out the rest of this year, probably out all of 2010 as well.

Blame Baker, right? Maybe, but in terms of his pitch counts, Baker was far more careful in his use of Volquez than he was with Prior.

This link provides a series of links to a variety of views on why Volquez got hurt. To me, it's easy: He's a young pitcher. Young pitchers pitching well get hurt. That they're more likely to get hurt when managed by Baker or Tommy Lasorda than by Tom Kelly or Jim Leyland is probably not coincidential.

* The Twins win on Tuesday; the Tigers (and Jarrod Washburn) lose; and despite the weekend-long disaster against the Angels, the Twins are just 2.5 games behind the Tigers.

* La Velle Neal, in this Star-Trib blog entry about Scott Baker, makes a worthwhile point about Baker and foul balls. But he also comments on the stuggles of the Twins rotation:

Baker was supposed to lead the rotation, and the adjustments he needs to make aren’t as serious as Francisco Liriano’s. I’m surprised that Nick Blackburn has gone haywire lately. And that Glen Perkins seems to be in such a mess. Rookie Anthony Swarzak is young and talented and learning.

This may be the basis of a future Monday print column, but just in case I go in a different direction before then: Nothing surprising about Blackburn and Perkins, really. Neither gets enough strikeouts. Blackburn is striking out fewer than four men per nine innings this year; Perkins is just over four K/9. It is beastly difficult to succeed in the modern game with fewer than five strikeouts per nine innings.