Comic Relief

What do relievers and sitcoms have in common?  More than you might think.

I love television.  What I’ve always appreciated about TV is that it provided a mutual reference point for people that often did not have a lot in common.  As a middle schooler, if I struggled in making myself clear, I could refer to some episode of “Family Matters” and feel confidant that my peers now understood what I was trying to say.  We do the same thing with sports.  When a modern-day ballplayer hits a “Ruthian” homerun, the term requires no explanation.

If there’s one complaint I have with television, it’s that it can be formulaic. If you watch enough TV, you can pretty accurately predict what’s coming next.  That is unless the writers of the show in question have made it their personal goal to constantly catch their viewers off guard (I’m looking at you, “Lost”: time travel, polar bears, three toed statues, a hydrogen bomb!  Really?) With the advent of the specialized bullpen, the same can be said about the late innings of most contemporary baseball games.  In fact, most relief pitchers could fall into the same categories as the modern-day sitcom.

“The Simpsons” aka The JourneymanDespite the fact that the show peaked in seasons 7-10, “The Simpsons” still airs.  Every few Sundays, Homer and company manage to capture the social and political satire that made it one of the funniest and edgiest shows on TV in the mid-90’s.  However, most nights, you realize that Matt Groening’s run out of jokes to tell and has lost a few miles per hour on his fastball.  The same holds true for The Journeyman.  When he finally enters a ballgame, your initial reaction tends to be, “Wow, he’s still alive?”  However, he’s been around long enough that if his outing is sufficiently protracted, he can survive on guile and will. Take LaTroy Hawkins.  He’s now on his 7th team in 14 seasons.  Nevertheless, as he plays for a team somewhat removed from the spotlight, he has lowered his ERA from 5.71 with the New York Yankees in 2008 to 2.70 with Houston in 2009.  As long as Cecil Cooper doesn’t ask Hawkins to get a big out in September, long ball LaTroy will find a way to have a successful season and make some money.

“Scrubs” aka the Flamethrower“Scrubs” burst on the scene in 2001.  The first two seasons of “Scrubs” are two of the best ever turned in by a sitcom.  “Scrubs” was like Mark “The Bird” Fidrych: amazing potential ultimately lost to the nethers.  However, “Scrubs” has hung around after experiencing its arm troubles.  The show smoothly combined likeable characters with pathos and emotional subplots that could have you cracking up one moment and crying the next.  However, by the third season, “Scrubs” began to rely almost entirely on campy physical humor, turned its main characters into caricatures of themselves, and forced John C. MicGinley’s Dr. Cox to turn into a partially funny yet irredeemable misanthrope.  Today, “Scrubs” relies on a revolving door of celebrity guest appearances and unrealistic plot twists to boost ratings.

The Flamethrower has an equivalent lifespan of two to five seasons, before his triple digit fastball drops into the low 90s.  Last season, Grant Balfour’s 100 mph heat helped carry the Rays to the World Series.  He achieved to the tune of a 1.54 ERA and a strikeout to walk ratio of 3.42.  This year, in eighteen appearances, Balfour’s ERA has jumped to 5.60 and his SO/BB has fallen to 1.42.  At 31 years old, he’s going to have to adjust or, like “Scrubs,” runs the risk of becoming a shell of his former self.

“Friends” aka The Showmen
If you want a show that completely sold out its roots and quality storytelling to make money, look no further than “Friends.”  Debuting after “Seinfeld” in 1994, “Friends” had hit on something that no other sitcom had explored before: 20-something year-olds dealing with the financial struggles and pitfalls that plague most Americans following college.  It was like “21 Jump Street” with some genuinely funny characters.  By the second season, however, the main characters had all become parodies of themselves: Ross was a black hole of depression, Joey was the lovable moron, Monica the obsessive-compulsive, Rachel was a haircut, Phoebe a “free spirit,” and Chandler was the “funny one.”  In the end, they all became unlikeable because the viewer just couldn’t find anything about the characters with which to relate.  Whenever the show needed ratings, it brought in someone like Bruce Willis or Tom Selleck, or had the main characters hook up with one another.  It became all show and no substance.

The Showman reliever evolves similarly.  Though pitchers like Turk Wendell or Rich Garces had stretches of effectiveness—Garces had three years where he averaged a 3.15 ERA and 7.4 K/ 9 and Wendell had a similar four-year average of a 3.46 ERA and 7.6 K/ 9—both became known for their histrionics more than their efficacy.  When Garces violently jerked his head towards home plate or Wendell angrily slammed down the rosin bag with ERAs over 7, they became parodies of themselves.  Teams signed them not for their arms, but for the show that they brought with them.

“The Big Bang Theory” aka The Diamond in the Rough
Imagine that I pitched you the following TV show: We’re going to take a tall, lanky, unattractive actor and pair him up with one of the curly-haired boyfriends from “Roseanne.”  Then we’ll add the blonde chick from “8 Simple Rules…for Dating My Teenaged Daughter,” throw in the skinny guy that played Moist in “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog,” and cover our diversity bases with an Indian actor that won’t speak for the first few episodes.  Oh, and did I mention, they’ll play physicists!  In December, I found myself en route to Hawaii and a captive audience to the CBS comedies being played on a loop on the tiny airplane monitors.  Shocking conclusion of the trip: there are no bugs in Hawaii and “The Big Bang Theory” is hilarious!  The actor playing Sheldon is fantastic, the Barenaked Ladies do the theme music, and the cast has developed a team chemistry rivaling that of the ’86 Mets—minus the rampant cocaine use and airplane seat pockets filled with vomit.

The Diamond in the Rough similarly comes out of nowhere.  He just barely makes the team  as the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth man on the roster, because the club wants to hold off the arbitration hearings of some young talent.  Then a string of injuries catapult the DitR into a pressure situation.  To everybody’s surprise, including his own, he excels.  Thus far, Ryan Franklin of the St. Louis Cardinals has been a true Diamond in the Rough.  In his seven previous seasons, Franklin accrued a 4.19 ERA with a 1.81 K/ BB and 18 total saves.  This year, after scheduled closer Jason Motte stumbled out of the gate, Franklin has achieved a 1.10 ERA, 4.67 K/ BB, and 11 saves.  An historic example of a Diamond in the Rough is Ramiro Mendoza circa 1998-2002, where he averaged a 3.76 ERA, a 5.2 K/ 9, and compiled 42 wins.

“Seinfeld” aka Old ReliableThe first season and a half notwithstanding, with “Seinfeld,” you always know what you’re going to get: neuroses, the Coffee Shop, borderline anti-social personalities, and a consistent strain of chuckles punctuated by one or two belly laughs.  There was a stretch in the late ‘90s where “Seinfeld” never missed, and just continued delivering strike upon strike.

The Old Reliable pitchers are the same way.  Hurlers like Trevor Hoffman, Jonathan Papelbon, Mariano Rivera, and maybe even Troy Percival have earned this distinction.  John Franco, Dennis Eckersley, Goose Gossage, and Bruce Sutter belong in this category as well.  Rare are the occasions when they fail.  For the most part, just give them the ball, sit back, relax, and it will all be over in about a half an hour.

“Two and a Half Men” aka Turn off the TV, This One’s Over.Despite his Oscar-worthy parody of Stallone in “Hot Shots Part Deux,” these days, when I see Charlie Sheen on my TV, I quickly reach for the remote.  When he, a chubby tweenager, and a middle-aged Washout from “Hot Shots” make their arrival, I know it’s time to turn off the TV and call it a night.  The same holds true for almost 50% of the relievers out there, this year’s standouts include Damaso Marte (15.19 ERA, 2.25 WHIP), Edwar Ramirez (5.09 ERA, 3.1 HR/ 9), and Anthony Claggett (43.20 ERA, 10.8 HR/ 9).

Josh Deitch will be out of town and unable to post over the next few weeks.  Until he gets back, please remember to record his shows.