Farewell to The Moose

Mike Mussina is retiring after something like 18 years in the big leagues. A first round pick out of Stanford in 1990, the biggest complaint against Moose is that he's never made any bones to anyone that he's probably way smarter than they are and he has things to fall back on after his baseball career (an economics degree from his Alma mater).

Deadspin has put together a montage of quotes and quips from various media despots about Mussina's retirement. Reading parts of it, and especially some of the comments made by Deadspin readers, would lead you to believe that Mussina was an arrogant, elitist prick. Maybe he is, who knows? But who cares? The first two paragraphs sum up everything I liked about Mike Mussina.

He pitched in 538 games for the Orioles and Yankees, appeared on five
all-stars teams and in 16 postseason series, including 2 World Series, yet if he
rang my doorbell right now and asked to check my gas meter I might not even
recognize him. He never beat anyone up at a strip club, slapped a kid who asked
him for an autograph, shouted at an interviewer, or flipped off a crowd as he
left the field. He was completely professional and non-controversial at all
times and delivered solid, workmanlike performances every five days for almost
two decades. In a word: BORRRRR-ING.

Mussina was always good, but never the best, and as his career
tailed off over the last few years, it seemed extremely unlikely that he would
end up in the Hall of Fame or even be remembered among the greats of his era.
Then in 2008, he followed up the worst season of his career with one of his
best—his first ever 20-win campaign. Rather than ride that to another contract
and an outside shot at 300 wins, he's going out on top, avoiding the pathetic
downward slide of so many athletes who never recognize when it's time to give
up. That's completely appropriate and very dignified. What a jerk.

So what if he's confident in his mental capacities? He should be. I'm sure he busted his ass to get good enough marks to get into and breeze through Stanford. Good for him. I'm supposed to hold it against him that he's done well for himself and is proud of that? Bah, I think not.

Back when I was a naive little boy, growing up, playing baseball, I always was on a team called the Orioles for the Boys & Girls club little league. For about nine years or so. Not too long into it, I decided to embrace the whole Orioles thing. I don't know if I somehow thought I was an extension of their organization, but I felt compelled to go all-out in becoming an Oriole. I had a Baltimore cap, I idolized Cal Ripken Jr, and as far as my pitching favorites, Mussina took a backseat only to Nolan Ryan.

Even though I, like everyone else, would rather be Nolan Ryan with triple digit power and knuckles to the face of Robin Ventura, the fact of the matter is I fancied myself more Mussina than Ryan - I never had his heat at any point of my baseball career. And since my brother seemed to get the better of the athletic genes, as I progressed I was less of a threat in the field or with the bat (although I could switch hit pretty well), and pitching was my calling card. Mussina didn't have pure gas at his disposal, but he threw hard enough to set up his off-speed stuff, he had good movement on all his breaking balls, pinpoint control on everything, and most important of all, he put that Stanford brain to work outthinking hitters and not putting himself in bad spots.

That was my blueprint. Most years I was the ace of the pitching staff. I always started the first game of the year and took my turn as often as rules permitted and pitched my max innings. I had a pretty ordinary straight four-seam fastball, a two seamer with sink that I used more and more over the years, I copied Nolan Ryan's circle-change from his Pitching Bible I had, and I usually peppered the strike zone with my off-speed stuff, a fairly sharp little curve and more of a sweeping slider (useless against lefties, pretty tricky on right-handers). My repertoire was a lot like Moose's - less about the hard stuff, and more about location, movement and moxie. So even as I grew up, found baseball boring, and moved onto contact sports more likely to draw blood I still always perked up when I saw a headline or box score with Moose's name in it.

I was into the Orioles during the most exciting time in their recent history. They moved into Camden Yards in 1994. They hosted the All-Star game that year. Ripken had Lou Gehrig's once incomprehensible consecutive games streak realistically in his sights. And Moose gave Baltimore their first ace-calibre pitcher they'd had in a long time.

Mussina and Ripken. These were professional athletes, competing at the pinnacle of their professions, making millions of dollars, and they've never been embroiled in any sort of controversy. Like the first paragraph of the Deadspin article says: never been in trouble with the law, never cussed out a fan, punched a photographer, choked a teammate in the dugout, thrown a bench coach to the ground, hurled a chair into a crowd, complained that they can't live on the millions they're being paid, been linked with performance enhancers, etc...

They just showed up everyday, gave it everything they had and were team players. Granted, in the years I stopped following baseball so closely, Mussina's reputation has been sullied to some people. A lot of it had to do with leaving Baltimore (a colossal mess at the time, and still pretty much one to this day) for the Yankees, inking a 6 year, 88.5 million deal. It's actually one of the less crazy "big" contracts the Yanks have ever given out. But it made him a pariah in Baltimore, didn't make him any new friends in Boston, and of course New York fans are going to get on your case when you don't manage to throw a no-hitter every time out or win a World Series for them. He even managed to piss off the Canadians, when in 2004, he claimed that a fifteen minute delay before a game with the Toronto Blue Jays messed with his preparation. There was a ceremony honoring longtime Jays broadcaster Tom Cheek, who was missing his first Jays broadcast in 4,306 games because of a battle with brain cancer. For his part, Mussina claims not to have known about Cheek's condition at the time he made the comment. He just thought he was being honored for doing 4,300 consecutive games.

But that's the dirtiest laundry you'll find on the guy. An uninformed remark about a ceremony for a guy with brain cancer. He's been a pro in every sense of the work on and off the field for two decades, a seemingly faithful family man away from the game, a fine, upstanding representative of everything a highly compensated athlete can and should be.

His candidacy for the Hall of Fame is another matter. Detractors say that he was very good, but never dominant. But just because there's three or four guys in any given year who had better years, doesn't mean that Moose wasn't dominant. He just wasn't as dominant as some incredible pitchers. He doesn't have an outstanding post-season resume. He seems just a notch below the top pitchers of this era - guys like Greg Maddux, Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez. But that's not to say he still isn't in elite company; he's just not in super-elite company. And let's not forget that Clemens doesn't have the best reputation these days, so using any of his numbers to establish a statistical baseline of excellence in any given season or over any given stretch has to be thrown out for the time being.

Look at the elite company he keeps in a variety of career statistics, then consider he did much of that pitching for a normally very plain Orioles team, then consider the way he's reinvented himself later in his career as he's lost 8-10 miles per hour from his heater and remained successful, and I think those achievements are even more impressive. I don't know how he's not a Hall of Famer. I really don't.

Somewhere at the folks house, tucked away on a closet shelf in my old bedroom, I still have autographed postcards of Ripken, Mussina and Brady Anderson (they can't all be winners) from when I used to write fanmail to the Orioles as a 12 year old. They're probably tucked away in that old worn copy of Nolan Ryan's Pitcher's Bible. Mike Mussina and Cal Ripken Jr. represent two of the best role models from any sport or any industry to come along in the last two to three decades. Put them up against the likes of the Ocho Cincos, T.O.s, and Manny Ramirezes of the world and their virtues and integrity become even more brilliant. Impressionable youths of today would be well-advised to ignore the athletes of today that get way more press for all the wrong reasons and instead fashion themselves after a real classic like Moose.

In closing, thanks for the inspiration and memories, Moose. Hope to see you in the Hall in five years, preferabbly wearing the good ole' O's cap. And unlike some people at Deadspin, if you rang my doorbell right now, I'd be able to recognize you. I don't forget the vintage.