Choo Choo Coleman RIP

Yesterday's Times had a pretty good obituary by Bruce Weber of Choo Choo Coleman, a catcher with "the original and woeful Mets."  Included are succinct quotes from Roger Angell --"he handles outside curve balls like a man fighting bees" and the story Ralph Kiner (one of the original Mets announcers) often told about the time he was interviewing Coleman and asked him, "What's your wife's name and what's she like?" and Coleman replied, "Her name is Mrs. Coleman -- and she likes me, Bub." 

There is one story about Coleman I particularly like, and that's how Mets manager Casey Stengel once said Coleman was the fastest catcher he ever saw going after passed balls.  For a while I used this quote as an example of how quickly people can fix their mistakes, but currently I don't use it because most people don't know what a passed ball is (it's when it's the catcher's fault that a pitch gets away from him and a runner advances; when it's the pitcher's fault it's considered a wild pitch.  They are not considered "errors" because of the frequency with which the pitcher and catcher handle the baseball).  Perhaps Weber thought this story was somewhat condescending --de mortuis nil nisi bonum -- but I think it more likely he thought the story would lose something if he had to explain what it meant.  One of the worst lingering effects of the steroid era is the emphasis on home runs and the lack of understanding about other more strategic ways to score runs.  I don't even tell the story anymore about Yogi Berra not running on a hit-and-run play ("I forgot") because so few people know what a hit-and-run play is: few players can execute it and therefore few managers use it.

We now seem divided between fanatic statisticians who use dubious stats (such as "wins above replacement") and the greater number of "fans" who not only cannot figure out batting average or earned run average but barely know they exist (needless to say, the three announcers in the television booth never explain these things, often because they don't know themselves and they're too busy talking about their own careers and where to go for dinner).  Baseball is like so many beautiful things in this world --I often compare it to ballet -- the more you know the more enjoyment you can get out of it.  If you want to be better acquainted with the basics I recommend Leonard Koppett's The Thinking Fan's Guide to Baseball.