The Innovators (One Sixty-Two: Day 144)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day One Hundred Forty-Four: Gio Gonzalez, Oakland Athletics

It is a landmark of ingenuity, nestled in the Berkshires inside a maze of brick mill buildings. The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, known as MASS MoCA, has been around for more than a decade now. However, it is growing in scope, ambition and popularity with every year. This weekend, my wife and I had the chance to pay a visit.

The museum, located in North Adams, Mass., takes your breath away from the moment you see it. The 13-acre complex features 26 buildings along with numerous courtyards, passageways and tall windows, to go with a giant metal sign atop the roof featuring the museum’s name. Inside, the visitor encounters a stunning array of contemporary art, including a three-floor retrospective of Sol Lewitt’s wall drawings, a vast exhibit featuring everyday material items inside giant rooms, and a collection of ambitious sculptures by Petah Coyne. Oh, and did I mention Leonard Nimoy’s photos of individuals showing off their “secret selves”? Or Natalie Jeremijenko’s outdoor sculpture featuring telephone poles and upside-down trees? And we haven’t even gotten to the museum’s concerts (including a recent summer festival starring Wilco), nor have we discussed its theater, dance, films, kids events and dance parties.

Sometimes, when you think different, you create amazing things. As MASS MoCA continues to grow, the other old mill buildings in North Adams have become home to artists’ lofts and galleries. The downtown features dozens of galleries and very few empty storefronts. A walk through the street on a Friday night found busy restaurants and a live musical performance in a gallery. This is a town to which Amy and I both plan on returning, sooner rather than later.

Think different. The Oakland Athletics have been following this motto for years now, using their data-driven philosophy, immortalized in Michael Lewis’s book Moneyball, to change the way baseball players are valued and scouted. In the past few years, though, the A’s have fallen under the radar, as their offense has dissipated and they have traded away several veteran players.

Of course, the team’s front-office, led by general manager Billy Beane, was up to something clever all along. As baseball steps forward into the post-steroid era, Beane was re-making his team around pitching. And so, as the A’s stand solidly in second place in the American League West this year, they do so behind the arms of some very exciting young pitchers. Some of these starters, such as Trevor Cahill and Dallas Braden, are homegrown A’s who were drafted by the team itself. Others, however, such as lefties Brett Anderson and Gio Gonzalez, were craftily acquired via trade.

Gonzalez, for instance, was obtained from the Chicago White Sox a couple of years ago in exchange for outfielder Nick Swisher. It turns out that the Sox moved Swisher along to the Yankees after one year, while Gonzalez has quietly become one of the American League’s best left-handed pitchers. This year, he has 14 wins, a 3.16 earned-run average and 153 strikeouts in 179 innings. A few days shy of his 25th birthday, Gonzalez is at the heart of the new-look A’s – a team that’s not afraid to beat you 1-0 if that’s what it takes.

When we try bold new innovations, we often surprise people. And before they know it, those people are waiting in line for playoff tickets in Oakland – which, by the way, could happen as soon as next year. Or maybe they’re letting their GPS or Mapquest lead them up to North Adams, Mass., to walk through some old mill buildings and experience art as they’ve never seen it. Take some creativity, a dash of forethought, and a whole lot of guts, and you might get something that surprises the world. Like a museum in the mountains that feels cooler than cool.

Take Your Base (One Sixty-Two: Day Eight)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day Eight: Daric Barton, Oakland Athletics

I couldn’t stand playing Wiffle Ball with Billy. The kid lived across the street from me, and he was often willing to join in on the summer games we played in my driveway. But the problem with Billy was that he always looked for a walk. In Wiffle Ball.

I mean, come on. You’re nine years old, you’re outside in the sun, and you need some exercise. Shouldn’t Wiffle Ball be all about hitting? Maybe it was that way for you and me, but not for Billy. He watched the looping curveball as it started over the plate, and rested the thin yellow bat on his shoulder while the white ball bounced off the rear bumper of our Pontiac Bonneville, just to the left of the lawn chair – hence, just outside the strike zone.

Ball four.

In the 1980s, when very few teams took note of a player’s on-base percentage, walks were not valued quite so much. Batting average was the key statistic for a hitter. In this here 21st century, however, hitters are now raised to approach hitting just like ol’ Billy did. The goal is simply to get on base, any way you can. A walk is, in some ways, even better than a hit, as it forces up the pitch count and gets you closer to a team’s often vulnerable bullpen.

No team has embodied this approach to hitting better than the Oakland A’s, who have used General Manager Billy Beane’s focus on computer-generated statistics to revolutionize the way teams prepare their ballclubs. A’s prospects are taught from the outset to be patient at the plate, and are rewarded for that patience – ultimately, with a trip to the big club.

This year, the most patient of the A’s has been a first baseman named Daric Barton, who has been up to the plate 97 times, yet has walked 20 of those times. So while Barton has earned a hit 30 percent of the time he’s been up to bat, he’s landed on base a whopping 44 percent of the time. More men on base equal more opportunities to score. So this 24-year-old, who hit only .226 in his only full season in the majors, is currently the poster boy for Oakland A’s baseball.

He’ll continue to be so for as long as he can wait, patiently, for the pitcher to throw him something inside that little strike zone. If it can’t hit the lawn chair, Daric, just leave it alone. Whether it’s my neighbor Billy telling you that, or your boss Billy, the advice is solid. Take your base.