King Kaufman

It’s well documented that the Dodgers have been a different team since the deadline trade that brought Manny Ramirez — that’s the guy! — to town. But he’s not the whole story. The Dodgers also have deadline pickup Casey Blake providing a solid bat at third base and a healthy Rafael Furcal back at shortstop.

Their late-season hot streak began the day aging second baseman Jeff Kent went on the disabled list and was replaced by rookie Blake DeWitt. Coincidence? Maybe not entirely. And most of the at-bats that were going to Juan Pierre and Andruw Jones in the first half of the season were going to Ramirez, Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier in the second half, a big improvement.

If you know nothing else about the Phillies — and of course you know a lot — you know that their two big sluggers, Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, are struggling at the plate. Utley went 2-for-15 with a double and four strikeouts in the Milwaukee series. Howard went 2-for-11 with a double and five strikeouts, though he did walk five times.

Howard put up a 1.200-plus OPS over the last month of the season, and also over the last week. And the last two weeks. And the last three weeks. It’s a safe guess that his slump against the Brewers was momentary. He still had a .438 on-base percentage with all those walks.

The TV people keep talking about Utley’s late-season power outage. He did go almost a month without a home run before he finally hit one on Sept. 21, and he didn’t do a whole lot else with the bat in that time. But in the week’s final season he went 9-for-23 with three doubles and two home runs. It’s not quite accurate to say he’s been slumping for six weeks. Five out of six, though.

Jimmy Rollins, Shane Victorino and Jayson Werth did most of the hitting in the divisional series, but the Phillies won that with pitching, holding the Brewers to nine runs in the four games.

The pitching, like a lot about these two teams, looks just about even. Both clubs have solid rotations and very good bullpens.

Derek Lowe of the Dodgers and Cole Hamels of the Phillies, who’ll meet in Game 1, are both pitching like aces. The day off after Game 4 — don’t get me started on what a terrible thing that is — gives both managers the chance to bring their ace back on three days’ rest for Game 4 and then regular rest for a possible Game 7.

There have been no reports so far that either Joe Torre or Charlie Manuel plans to do that, but it’d be a better idea for Manuel, whose fourth starter is Joe Blanton, than for Torre, who’ll choose between Clayton Kershaw and Greg Maddux. Wouldn’t be a terrible idea for Torre either.

The other starters are Chad Billingsley and Hiroki Kuroda for the Dodgers, Brett Myers and Jamie Moyer for the Phillies.

The Phillies have a better offense, but not as much better as the season stats — 4.93 runs per game for the Phillies, 4.32 for the Dodgers — would lead one to believe. The Phillies are also slightly better fielders and base runners.

Both bullpens are strong. Brad Lidge has been the best reliever on either team, and the Dodgers will miss the injured Takashi Saito. Jonathan Broxton has been shaky as a closer, though generally good. He was fine against Chicago in relatively low-pressure situations. The Dodgers also have two effective lefties, Joe Beimel and Hong-Chi Kuo, who’ll be important in matching up against Utley and especially Howard.

It’s more even than not anywhere you look. Most of the small advantages, including home-field advantage, are with the Phillies. But I think the difference will come down to the starting pitching. If I were a Phillies fan — and for this series, I am one — I’d be worried about head-case Brett Myers, hittable geezer Jamie Moyer and journeyman Joe Blanton taking the ball three times out of every four. There are too many ways something can go wrong there.

The Phillies-Dodgers history gives us a lesson in how the regular season matchup doesn’t necessarily mean anything, a lesson the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Angels also just gave us. In 1983, the Dodgers went 11-1 against the Phillies, outscored them 49-15. The Dodgers shut the Phillies out five times in those 12 games and held them to one run three other times. But in the playoffs, the Phillies won three out of four, scoring seven runs in each of the last two.

Fortunately, we don’t need that lesson. The teams split eight games this year.

Prediction: Dodgers in seven

But it was Joyce’s response that turned this terrible tale into one that’s almost heart-warming. Not as heart-warming as a journeyman pitcher tossing a perfect game, mind you, but pretty toasty.

Having asked to see the video replay after the game, an emotional Joyce spoke to reporters: “It was the biggest call of my career and I kicked it. I just cost that kid a perfect game,” he said. “I missed it from here to that wall. I had a great angle, and I missed the call.” He also asked to speak to Galarraga, apologized to him and hugged him. Offered the next day off by his superiors, Joyce declined, saying he was ready to face what he assumed would be a hostile reaction from the Detroit crowd.

This eminently reasonable, grown-up reaction stood out because baseball umpires are ordinarily cloistered. They have what amounts to lifetime tenure. They don’t face reporters, rarely admit mistakes publicly and are not held accountable for their actions in any way that’s visible to the players or public. Don’t like that call? Replays showed the ump got it wrong? Tough.

Galarraga said he’d forgiven the umpire, and Joyce’s response to his error has been widely praised beyond baseball. He’s become a go-to example of how to handle mistakes in politics, religion and — especially because his straight-forward behavior came in the midst of BP’s oil-spill debacle — business.

Less than two weeks after the blown call, ESPN surveyed major league players for their opinions about umpires. Their overwhelming choice as the best in the business: Jim Joyce.

The entire conversation about umpiring has been predicated on the assumption that the only solution to the problem is a technological one, which is fascinating — and maybe just a little troubling — because everyone in the conversation knows two things: There are acres of room for improvement that has nothing to do with technology, and the technology itself is far from perfect.

We know from other sports, especially NFL football, that video replay is hardly perfect. Putting aside the unnecessarily long delays that accompany video replay in the NFL, it’s a simple fact about video that it does not always provide conclusive evidence of what happened. Camera angles can be as deceptive as the naked eye.

And more important, the NFL’s replay system is a laboratory of unintended consequences. Introduced for the same reason many people want to introduce replay to baseball — to put an end to egregious officiating mistakes — it has become the lord of officials. It has changed the way officials call games. Refs now err on the side of the reviewable call, or make no call at all so replay can be possible. They have changed the way they call fumbles and completions. Watch an old NFL game from before replay and you’ll be struck at the difference in officiating and rules interpretation.

People will argue over the specifics of those last two paragraphs, but there’s no one familiar with replay who doesn’t know that replay is far from perfect, that despite — I would say because of — replay being entrenched in the NFL for years, officiating is still such a problem that a huge number of fans can convince themselves that a recent Super Bowl was fixed by the refs.

Yet the only anti-replay argument that ever sees the light of day is the Luddite one: Instant replay would rob baseball, that most human of games, of an essential human element.

That’s a valid argument, but it’s a religious one. No one is ever going to be argued off of it, and if you don’t buy it, you’re not going to be talked into it.

But it’s interesting that the argument against it goes like this: Instant replay might not be perfect, but it’s better than what we have now, so we should use it. That argument ignores a vital question. Is instant replay better than some other solution?

If you’ve been around as long as most of the people who are in the most public part of this argument — media figures and baseball officials — technology has been a series of miracles in your life. You can carry a supercomputer in your pocket that connects you to anywhere in the world all the time? Are you kidding? I’m not even 50 and I remember when it was a big deal that someone could leave you a taped message when they called your house — the only place you could have a phone — and you weren’t there.

Got a problem? Technology can probably fix it, and if not, just wait a little. It’s coming. Marvelous times.

But I think we sometimes forget that technology isn’t the only fix, and it isn’t always the best one, and not just for squishy reasons having to do with idealizing human error. Human error is a bad thing, and technology is often fantastic at doing away with it. But it can also do away with some good human things, like judgment and holistic problem solving.

Think about law enforcement for a moment — and sports officiating is essentially law enforcement. Which is more effective at fighting crime, an elaborate system of video surveillance or a program of job training, substance abuse education and treatment, community investment and so on? Or if that’s too liberal-sounding for you, focus in tighter. If you’re a parent, which is more effective at getting your kids to behave like solid citizens, spy cams around the house or engaged, loving parenting?

If you wanted to design a system that would result in poor umpiring, you would design Major League Baseball’s system. It’s positively medieval. Umpires essentially have lifetime tenure. They are sequestered from the media and answer only to a review system that is as secretive as it is pointless, since it hardly ever results in umpires losing their jobs. Instant replay won’t change that lack of accountability.

“We never know why or when they are fined, or reprimanded or held accountable,” Oakland A’s pitcher Brad Ziegler told ESPN’s Amy K. Nelson last week. “Any time a player is punished, suspended or sent down to the minors, the public knows about it. It would be a lot easier to communicate with umpires if everyone was held to similar standards. Our statistics as players are a lot more quantifiable than the umpires’.”

I am something of a Luddite when it comes to instant replay, not because I’m anti-technology — I have a long-distance line to New York in my pocket, and the call is free? Score! — but because I think baseball has been smart about being slow to change over the last century-plus. Replay would suddenly, irreversibly alter a game that has a pretty good history of solving its problems without radical, game-altering solutions.

I don’t believe baseball should absolutely avoid instant replay because instant replay is evil. I believe it should try to tackle the organizational problems that are leading to the poor umpiring rather than slap an electronic band-aid on them.

Nelson’s ESPN story is about a planned winter meeting between the grumbling players association, baseball officials and the umpires. Nelson describes such a meeting as “rare,” which is a problem right there. Shouldn’t the three parties involved in this major issue for Major League Baseball talk to each other more than rarely?

It’s a good step. I’m not too hopeful it’s going to lead to a new era of transparency and reform. No one from the umpires or Major League Baseball would comment for the story.

So it’s that old TV thing. NBC does a story on “Dateline” about families struggling through the recession in rural Ohio, and letters and donations and job offers come pouring in from all over the country.

The retired Air Force vet has “job offers in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Arizona, Iowa.” Someone sent him $5,000. A woman reads through tears from a letter she’s received: “In a couple of weeks I will be able to send you some money to help with expenses. I hope this letter raises your spirits and that you know I really do care. Most of all, you have a friend in me. You are going to be OK, and so are your children. I will be thinking of you, sweetie, and praying that lots of other people send you much-needed money.”

She says, “It’s really hard to believe that someone you’ve never met could actually care that much.”  

The food pantry lady has gotten 500 phone calls and donations from Texas, California, Florida, Iowa, Massachusetts, Maine and Canada. She says, “I just can’t even describe how good it feels to know that there are so many people out there that really do care.”

This is absolutely par for the course, it’s what happens every single time there is a sob story on the TV, but here’s the thing: People don’t care. They just respond to what’s on television.

There are folks right down the street in Texas, California, Florida and Iowa who need food and basic supplies. There are good, capable people, some of them retired military, right down the street in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Arizona and Iowa who are looking for work. And, after NBC’s report, those people still need the basics and are still looking for work. And those people who sent the heartfelt letters and the donations and the job offers likely never moved a muscle for those people down the street.

A guy who drove to the food pantry with a Hefty bag of donations tells the food pantry lady, “Cincinnati Ohio’s thinkin’ of ya,” and she gives him a big hug. Really, guy who drove 170 miles to Lottridge to find someone to give your Hefty bag of stuff to? Because where were you and the rest of Cincinnati before NBC aired its report?

Curry, who is among the best in the business and whom I don’t mean to beat up on, gets “a smile” out of this, as she should. She did a good piece about people who are struggling, her viewers responded in overwhelming fashion and the people she reported about are deeply moved by their good fortune.

If you focus in tightly enough, it really is a wonderful thing. That a relatively tiny group of people in Ohio actually did get a lot of help they weren’t going to get without that TV report. It was like a little miracle, and you’d have to have a hard heart indeed not to be touched by the young mom reading the letter or the hardworking food pantry lady who is suddenly able to provide so much more help to so many more people. I love America too.

But back your view out to the larger picture and what you see is something much more depressing.

Obviously, the people who sent money and goods and job offers had both the means and willingness to help their neighbors in need, but instead they helped some people they saw on TV. Now, I suppose it’s possible that every one of them, from the donor of $5,000 to the Hefty bag guy from Cincinnati to the job offerers in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Arizona and Iowa, is doing just as much for lots of other people closer to home and not on the TV.

I would just be willing to bet a lot that they aren’t.

What Curry’s story suggests is that the generosity of the American people can solve the problems of a lot of folks who need help — as long as they can get on TV. Getting on TV is a lottery ticket, and the depressing part of it is that if you’re in trouble, your chances of getting on TV are about the same as your chances of winning the lottery.

What about all the desperate people who didn’t have a TV network drop out of the sky into their local food pantry? How do we turn their story into “a smile”? Because there are clearly people out there willing to help. There just isn’t enough TV to go around.

I grew up not listening to Ernie Harwell but to the man who replaced him in the Brooklyn Dodgers booth in 1950, Vin Scully. I hadn’t come to know Harwell until 1999, when baseball broadcasts were still streamed online for free and Harwell had returned to the radio side after five years on TV. Like generations of Michiganders, I quickly fell for his warmth, his charm, his knowledge of the game, his old-timey broadcast voice.

When he announced that 2002 would be his last season, I wanted to write about him, so I got in touch with him through the Tigers, asking if I could come to Detroit for a few days, hang out with him, shadow him. A day or so later there was a voicemail message. That incredible voice was right on my phone! I saved it for as long as I could. I wish I still had it:

“King, this is Ernie Harwell from Detroit. I don’t know that there’s much to write about me, but sure, come on up.”

I had planned to write about a fundamental shift in the way people follow baseball, about how Harwell was one of the last of the old radio men who were identified with a team as much as any player, often more than any player. Now, with most games on TV, far more games on national TV, larger squads of announcers and the Internet providing more baseball information than any one person could ever absorb, fans weren’t dependent on that one broadcaster to serve as the conduit to their team.

Yes. Well, it seemed interesting in my head. A little of that stuff made it into the piece, but after about 10 minutes with Ernie Harwell, I knew that my story couldn’t be about anything but Ernie Harwell.

It’s hard to talk about what kind of guy Ernie Harwell was without sounding like you’re talking about a guy on the night of the day he died. But it was just as hard when he was still alive. I spent three days with him, and he was unfailingly kind, generous, cheerful, energetic, positive and humble. And not just with me. At 84 years of age, he was tireless, making sure as he roamed the ballpark — which he did a lot — that every fan who wanted a moment with him — and there were many — got the moment he or she wanted.

I talked to a lot of people about Ernie Harwell that summer, and in the eight years since then I’ve talked to more people about him and I’ve heard and read many things said about him, and I’ve never heard a hint that the man I came to know in those three days wasn’t the genuine article. It may be that there has never been an unkind word said about Ernie Harwell.

Jon Miller, the ESPN and San Francisco Giants announcer, was hurrying across a field when I sidled up to him asking if I could talk to him for a minute. He kept walking as he asked what I wanted to talk about. “Ernie Harwell,” I said, and he stopped on a dime. All of a sudden, I had his attention and he grew animated as he told stories about Ernie.

Mike Shannon, the longtime St. Louis Cardinals broadcaster, was pressed for time just before a game one day but he told me to sit in the press box and wait for him. Minutes before the first pitch, he leaned out the door of his radio booth. “Where’s the guy who wanted to talk about Ernie Harwell?”

Ty Cobb liked Ernie Harwell, for crying out loud. Ty Cobb didn’t like anybody.

“He’s so generous with his time,” I wrote back then, “that a reporter in town for three days to research a story on him confesses on the third day that he’s just about run out of questions to ask.” That reporter was me, of course. We were sitting in an empty broadcast booth in the Comerica Park press box when I told him that. He looked out at the field for a few seconds, then started throwing out some suggestions, things I might want to ask about.

It sounds silly to say, but after spending time with Ernie I told myself that I would try to be a better person, more generous, more cheerful, more optimistic, more kind. More like Ernie Harwell. I failed miserably at this, of course, but I’ve returned to that thought fairly often over the years, and I like to think I’ve moved just a tiny bit in an Ernie-like direction.

Here’s the story I wrote about Ernie. I think I worked harder on it than on anything I’ve ever written. I did things I never do. I made outlines, wrote things on index cards and arranged and re-arranged them.

I swung for the fences, wanting to do justice to the living legend and the time I’d had with him. I used a flamboyant structure, organizing the piece around Ernie’s call of a single game, weaving his epic story between snippets of a thoroughly ordinary contest between two lousy teams, the Tigers and the Kansas City Royals.

I’m not sure it worked. But you don’t get to hang out with the greats that often, and it’s less often that you end up liking them. I wasn’t going to write just another piece about Ernie Harwell in his last year.

A few days after it ran he sent me an e-mail thanking me for the piece. “Best thing that’s ever been written about me,” he wrote. I’m sure he said that to every single person who ever wrote a story about him. And here’s the thing: I’m sure he meant it every time.