Boondoggle--Boone Logan May Be the Key to the Yankees' Bullpen . . . and Season

Despite achieving considerable success at the helm of the Florida Marlins and New York Yankees, Joe Girardi doesn't always look the part of a respected baseball manager. His appearance lacks a Piniellaesque gravitas.  Maybe it's his diminutive stature, somewhat baggy uniform or mouth full of braces. On Tuesday night, though, when Joe marched out of the dugout to make a pitching change in the ninth inning of the Yankees' win over the Cincinnati Reds, I wouldn't have crossed his path if you paid me. It wasn't so much that Girardi looked angry, he looked downright murderous. Not that I blamed him, mind you. Watching Boone Logan pitch can do that to a man.


Logan, who had just come on in relief of the similarly unreliable Luis Ayala, inherited a runner on first and was tasked with retiring reigning NL MVP Joey Votto. If successful, he probably would have been allowed to mop up the final outs to give Mariano Rivera the night off. Alas, it wasn't to be. Logan promptly plunked Votto with his first pitch and out stormed Girardi in a hot funk.

A Yankee fan, upon realizing that Boone Logan
may have to face David Ortiz in the ALCS. 

BOONE OR BUST?

Here's the problem with Boone Logan--he's a LOOGY (Lefty One Out GuY) who's not very good at getting left-handed batters out. Over the course of six MLB seasons, lefties have a .252 batting average against him, and while that's not terrible, it's not really the kind of dominance contending teams are looking for out of a left-handed specialist. And this year, as Logan has relied on a low-90s fastball and slider, lefties are hitting him at a .286 clip.  It's a small sample size, of course, but it's unimpressive and indicative of his mediocrity. Ultimately, it's his career numbers, compiled over more than 800 batters faced, that put to rest the argument that the Yankees have to wait until Logan "comes around." At this point in his career, what you see is what you get--a guy with WHIP nearing 1.6 who doesn't miss enough bats (his K/BB ratio is only 1.77).


Now, here's the other problem with Boone Logan--he's the only LOOGY the Yankees have, and he's out of options, meaning he cannot be sent down to the minors until he clears waivers. Given the sad state of the LOOGY population throughout the league, if the Yankees let him go, he'll get snapped up by another, still more desperate team. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Logan was supposed to be a guy who kept his warm up jacket on and watched from the 'pen as Pedro Feliciano, fresh off a dominant 2010 campaign with the Mets, handled high-leverage LOOGY situations in the Bronx. Feliciano, though, turned out to be a carrier of the dreaded Mets injury bug and was diagnosed with a torn shoulder capsule that has kept him out since April; the date of his return is still uncertain. That means, for the time begin at least, Logan is the Yankees' man. That's not good. Over the past couple of days, you can sense the unease in Yankeeland as people begin to realize that the Yankees will eventually need a lefty to face guys like Adrian Gonzalez, David Ortiz or Carl Crawford in late inning situations in September and October. It's becoming clear that if that lefty is Boone Logan, this season could turn out to be a bust.

Diabolical--The Extreme Makeover of Arizona State's Uniforms Says a Lot About What's Wrong With College Sports

I have to admit that I've always had a soft spot for "Sparky," the pitchfork-wielding imp, who until last season, was emblazoned on the Arizona State University Sun Devil's football helmets. It wasn't because he was particularly demonic. On the contrary, Sparky looked pretty harmless; despite his weapon, he appeared to be wearing a red Hoodie Footie Snuggle Suit and bore a passing resemblance to Jon Lovitz's Mephistopheles from Saturday Night Live. But what he lacked in ferocity, he made up for in biography. Legend has it that, in the late 1940s, Bert Anthony, an ASU alum and former Disney employee, modeled Sparky's mischievous face after his former boss, Walt Disney. I'm not totally sold on that tale, but regardless of its veracity, it's still a great story. The possibility that a school's mascot may actually be a satanic caricature of one of America's most beloved entertainers is part of the romance that makes college sports special.

Apparently, Arizona State's not much for romance. Last week, the school effectively put a pitchfork in Sparky, opting for an Arena League-esque football uniform (and complete range) designed by repeat uniform desecrator Nike. Sparky has not been consigned to the underworld--he'll remain the mascot and will appear on one side of the back of the football helmet--but it's a pretty big demotion. And for what? ASU traded 65 years of homegrown history and a good urban legend for a trendy redesign (complete with obligatory, all-black alternate strip) authored by a company started by a famous alum (Phil Knight) of a conference rival (Oregon University). Talk about selling your soul to the devil.

In deference to tradition, most schools celebrate the uniqueness of their outdated or obscure nicknames and uniforms. That's why we still have Elis, Hoyas, Cornhuskers and Boilermakers. Thankfully, that's why we don't have any schools nicknamed the Mighty Ducks or Raptors. That same reverence of the past is also the reason why we have ancient uniform designs like those of Alabama, Michigan and Princeton. Lately, though, thanks to the remarkable turnaround enjoyed by Oregon University's football program, which roughly coincided with its adoption of gaudy, DayGlo unis, schools like Washington State and now ASU seem more willing to forsake history in an attempt to "shake things up" or inject a "new attitude" into a flailing program. Schools are obviously free to remake their image, but dodgy uniforms and esoteric nicknames are part of the charm of college athletics.

The more that kind of tradition is eroded, the further college sports creep towards professionalism, where, except for a handful of franchises (e.g., the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox) it's really just the product on the field that counts with most fans. The problem with that is, as the Tostitos BCS National Championship Game and the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Final suggested, the quality of college athletics, even at the highest level, isn't all that good. Different colored fields, ridiculously designed basketball courts and gimmicky uniforms are all masking an ever-widening gap in quality between the professional and collegiate athletics. When all that's left to college athletics is the product on the field, there won't be much of a reason to watch. Each time college athletics loses a Sparky, it takes one step closer to its own kind of purgatory.