Nobody's in Charge

CARLAHere's a question. Who's the top team in the World League of Baseball?

RAZOREasy. Rick Astleys. 70 and 29. Next.

CARLAThat's the standings answer. I asked a different question.

RAZOR...Those are usually the same question, Carla.

CARLAUsually. Let me walk you through the season so far. The Rick Astleys are in first place. They have played the Iron Knob Explosions 14 times. They have lost 10 of them.

RAZOROkay, so Iron Knob's really the best team.

CARLAThe Iron Knob Explosions have played the Knockemstiff Slap Daddies 18 times. They've lost 10 of those.

RAZORSo, yeah I guess Knockemstiff's the —

CARLAThe Knockemstiff Slap Daddies have played the Rick Astleys 10 times. They've lost 6.

[beat]

RAZOR...Say that whole thing again.

CARLAThe Rick Astleys can't consistently beat Iron Knob. Iron Knob can't reliably beat Knockemstiff. Knockemstiff can't bet on beating the Astleys. The three best teams in the league, and every single one of them has a boss. And every single one of them IS somebody's boss.

RAZORThat's a circle.

CARLAIt's a perfect circle.

RAZORThere's no top to it.

CARLAThere is no top to it. The standings have a first place. The head-to-head record does not. You can stand at the top of that table and still not be able to look any of the other two in the eye.

RAZORYou know what that is? That's three guys at a poker table, and every one of 'em is holding the other guy's marker. Nobody can cash out. Nobody can leave. They just gotta keep playing each other and losing, politely.

CARLANobody's in charge.

RAZORAnd they're all in first, second, and third! It's the most organized chaos I've ever seen.

CARLAThis is Foul Territory.

CARLAGood evening and welcome to Foul Territory, the show that covers the World League of Baseball with all the credentials you'd expect, which is to say none. I'm Carla Streich.

RAZORAnd I'm Razor Shines, and I'm still thinking about the circle.

CARLAIt's going to be a theme tonight, Razor. The whole league has reached the point in the season where the numbers and the truth have stopped returning each other's calls. We're roughly 63 percent of the way home — game 99 of 157 — and the standings are starting to look very confident about things the games themselves keep arguing with.

RAZORIt's like the standings are lying.

CARLAThe standings are not lying. They're simplifying. There's a difference, and the difference is where we live.

RAZORThat's the prettiest thing anybody's ever said about a spreadsheet.

CARLALet's get into it.

CARLAQuick trip around the league before we slow down. Two weeks of games since we last talked, and a few people came back to work. Wade Boggs is off the injured list for the Rick Astleys. Ozzie Smith is back at shortstop for Iron Knob. And Gregg Olson is back in the ninth inning for Nicaragua, which matters more than it sounds, and we'll get there.

RAZORWelcome back, fellas. The training room's the loneliest place in baseball. You sit in there with a bag of ice and you listen to the games on the radio like a ghost at your own funeral.

CARLAThat's very dark for a welcome-back.

RAZORIt's a warm dark.

CARLAA tip of the cap on the way through — Bobby Bonilla is still hitting .375 and leading the league, Kevin Mitchell is still sitting on top of the home run list, and Scott Garrelts —

RAZOR14. And 1.

CARLAMoving on, because if we stop on those three every week, we're not a baseball show, we're a fan club with a microphone. Shout-out to the people doing things we haven't said out loud yet. And there's one name at the top of that list, and I want to see if you can guess it.

RAZORGimme a hint.

CARLAHe leads the entire World League of Baseball in wins. 16 of them. He pitches for the team in first place. We have done 13 episodes of this program and we have never once said his name.

RAZOR...Garrelts?

CARLAGarrelts has 14. This man has 16.

RAZORThere's a guy on the Astleys with MORE wins than Garrelts?

CARLABryn Smith.

RAZORBryn Smith!

CARLA16 and 3. 2.86. The winningest pitcher in the league, and he has been completely invisible — to us, to everybody — because he had the bad luck to share a rotation with a guy whose whole personality is a base on balls.

RAZORThat poor man. He's the best band you've never heard of and the opening act keeps signing autographs.

CARLABryn Smith, we see you. 16 and 3. We're sorry it took us this long.

RAZORRick Astleys' got two of 'em, Carla. That's the thing nobody's saying. Everybody thinks that team is one ace and a lineup. It's two aces. You go a whole series and you face Garrelts one night and Bryn Smith the next and you just go home and rethink your life.

CARLAHold that thought, because the pitching is the whole reason that team is where it is, and we'll get there. Injured list is otherwise quiet, so we'll leave it. To the standings!

CARLATop to bottom. The Astleys, first, 70 and 29. Then a bit of a gap, and then the circle we opened with — Knockemstiff in second, 66 and 35, 5 games back. Iron Knob third, 64 and 34, 5 and a half back.

RAZORWait. Knockemstiff's in SECOND now?

CARLAKnockemstiff is in second now.

RAZORWhen did that happen? Last time we talked, the Slap Daddies were third and we were all very polite about how they got there.

CARLAWe were extremely polite. We'll be less polite in a minute, in a good way. Below those three, there's a canyon. 9 games of empty air. And then three teams stacked on top of each other within a game and a half — Nicaragua, 55 and 43. Huanca, 56 and 45. And the Honey Badgers, 54 and 45.

RAZORA canyon. I like that. So it's the three rich kids up top, a long drop, and then three guys arm-wrestling over sixth place.

CARLAAnd then, below all of it, Oak Ridge and Panama City Beach, who are having the kind of season you don't describe out loud in front of company. We wish them health and a soft schedule.

RAZORThey have not had a soft schedule. They've BEEN the soft schedule.

CARLA...That's the team analysis, Razor. You just did the team analysis.

RAZORDid I?

CARLAYou did. Let's do it properly.

CARLAKnockemstiff first, because Knockemstiff earned it, and that sentence surprises me as much as it surprises you. Two weeks ago, we sat here and we said — kindly — that the Slap Daddies had built their winning streak on a diet of the two worst teams in the league. That was fair. That was true. And then they went out over the last two weeks and went 8 and 1.

RAZORAgainst who, though. That's always the question with these guys. Against who?

CARLAI'm so glad you asked. Of those 8 wins, 5 came against human-managed teams. And 3 of them came against Iron Knob.

RAZORThey swept the Explosions?

CARLAThey swept the Explosions. 3 games, 3 wins, head-to-head, against the exact team they climbed over to get to second place. That is not a soft-schedule climb. That is walking up to the guy ahead of you in line and taking his spot while making eye contact.

RAZOROkay. Okay, I have to give it to 'em. I spent two weeks calling that team a fraud and they went and beat the people I said they couldn't beat. That's — I don't love being wrong but that's the good kind. And we've noted that the Slap Daddies' bats are not and never have been the problem, so I am guessing you are saying they haven't made it to the top because of ... ?

CARLABecause of who's throwing the ball. Their best pitcher is Nolan Ryan —

RAZORNow THAT'S a name.

CARLA— a guy who strikes out more men than anyone in the league, and also walks the ballpark, and carries an earned run average north of 4 and a record of 9 and 5. He's a thrill. He is not a stopper. After him it's a committee, and the committee has a group text and no clear leader.

RAZORSo here's the whole team in one sentence. Second place. The best hitter in the league. The most home runs in the league. And not one arm you'd hand a one-run lead to in the ninth and feel good walking to your car.

CARLAThat's the team.

RAZORThat's a fun way to live, man. That is a tightrope with no net and a marching band on it. Every game's a track meet. They're winning eleven to nine. They're losing ten to eight. There's no such thing as a quiet night in Knockemstiff.

CARLAAnd somehow it's working. For now.

CARLARick Astleys, first place, and we just told the secret in the roundup — two aces. Garrelts and Bryn Smith. Best run prevention in the league by a distance. They've allowed the fewest runs of anybody, and it's not close. That's the spine of a 70-win team.

RAZORThat's the right way to build it, too. You can teach a lineup to wake up. You can't teach a fastball to show up. They've got the fastballs.

CARLAIron Knob, which fell from second to third, and we now know exactly how. They went 5 and 5 — and 3 of those 5 losses were the Knockemstiff sweep.

RAZORThat's gotta sting. You don't just lose your spot, you hand it directly to the guy who took it. Personally. 3 times.

CARLAThey got Ozzie Smith back at short, which steadies the defense. Kevin Brown has been excellent — 12 and 2, picked up Pitcher of the Week. And the thing I keep circling back to with this team is the old man.

RAZORBlyleven.

CARLABert Blyleven. 38 years old. 10 and 3, 2.59. And in the same rotation you've got Greg Maddux, 23 years old, 9 and 3. The kid is very good. The old man is better.

RAZOR'Course he is. Maddux throws like he read a book about pitching. Blyleven throws like he wrote it, lost the manuscript, and doesn't care because he's got the curveball memorized. Age and treachery, Carla.

CARLAIron Knob's fine. They're a very good team that just got reminded, in person, that "very good" has a ceiling and the Slap Daddies are currently standing on it.

CARLAHoney Badgers and Huanca. And then, down in the canyon, two teams I want to do together, because they spent the last two weeks tangled up with each other.

RAZORThe Badgers and the Wankers. There's a sentence.

CARLAThe Honey Badgers went 6 and 5 over the stretch — and here's the detail I love. Every one of those 11 games was against a human-managed team. No cushion. No Oak Ridge, no Panama City Beach. They played a grown-up's schedule, in sixth place, and went over .500 against it. Including a 2-and-2 split with first-place Rick Astleys.

RAZORSixth place team takes Rick Astleys to a draw. That'll mess with your standings-are-truth theory.

CARLAIt absolutely does. And the other half of it — they finally solved Huanca. For most of this season, the Badgers could not beat the Wankers. It was lopsided. It was a punchline. Over these two weeks, the Honey Badgers took the series 3 games to 1.

RAZORThe worm turned.

CARLAThe worm turned a little. The all-time ledger is still heavily in Huanca's favor. But for one fortnight, the team that always lost that matchup went out and won it, and I think after the season they've had against that opponent, they're allowed to enjoy it for exactly one fortnight.

RAZORAnd Huanca? What happened to the Wankers?

CARLAThey went 5 and 5, lost the series to the Badgers, and the wins they did get came mostly against the bottom two. Howard Johnson's still launching — 30 home runs now —

RAZORThere it is. HoJo.

CARLA— but a 30-homer third baseman on a fifth-place team is a beautiful, lonely thing. Hold that, Razor. We'll come back to Howard Johnson. We have to.

RAZORWhy do I feel like that's a setup?

CARLABecause it is. Nicaragua quickly, then a brief Trade Watch, then a phone call.

CARLANicaragua. 8 and 3 over the stretch, climbed to within shouting distance of fourth. And I have to be honest about the 8 and 3 the same way I was honest about everyone else — 7 of those 8 wins were against Oak Ridge and Panama City Beach.

RAZORSo it's the Knockemstiff trick, but without the Knockemstiff part where they beat *real* teams.

CARLAThat's exactly it. Two teams climbed 8 wins this fortnight. Knockemstiff did it against the league. Nicaragua did it against the basement. Same number in the win column, very different résumé. But — and this is real — they got Gregg Olson back closing games, and they've got actual pitching behind him. Bret Saberhagen, Roger Clemens. That's not a fluke rotation. If Nicaragua's going to be a dark horse, the horse has legs. We'll see if it has a schedule.

RAZORDark horse. I like a dark horse. Everybody loves a dark horse until it's running against the two slowest horses in the barn.

CARLATrade Watch, and we're keeping it short tonight because there's nothing to report yet — and that "yet" is doing a lot of work.

RAZORThe deadline's coming.

CARLAThe deadline is coming, and you can feel it in the standings. When the top three are this close and this tangled, somebody's going to decide that the roster that got them here isn't the roster that finishes it. The most obvious need in the league is the loudest: Knockemstiff is in second place with the best lineup in baseball and a pitching staff held together with optimism. If anyone in this league is going to make a phone call, it's them.

RAZORAnd they know it. That's the thing. You don't ride a tightrope this long without looking down eventually.

CARLANicaragua, with Olson back, might've just talked themselves out of selling and into buying. The Honey Badgers are still a front-end starter away from being something. Nobody's moved yet. But the phones are warm. We'll be watching the wire.

RAZORTick tock.

CARLATick tock. Let's take a call.

CARLAWe've got someone on the line, for Razor specifically. Razor, do you want to tell the people who this is, or should I?

RAZOROh no. Oh, is that — Rusty? Is that Rusty Kuntz?

RUSTYRazor Shines, you beautiful man. I heard your voice coming out of my truck radio and I about drove into a ditch.

RAZORFolks, Rusty and I came up together. We rode buses that should've been condemned. This man once hit behind me for an entire summer in a town I'm not legally allowed to name.

CARLAFor our listeners, we have on the line a longtime friend of the program and of Razor's — Mr. Rusty Kuntz. Rusty, welcome to Foul Territory.

RUSTYThank you, darlin'. It's a real nice operation you got here. Razor, she's got you sounding professional. Who'd you have to pay?

RAZORShe pays ME, Rusty. With patience.

RUSTYNow Carla — before you let this man lecture anybody about a baseball swing, you oughta know who you're working with. Did Razor ever tell you about his playing career?

RAZORRusty. Rusty, we don't have to —

RUSTYThis man was a LEGEND. In the minor leagues. A god in the minor leagues. He drove in runs in towns that don't have a post office anymore. And then they called him up to the big leagues, and Razor — be honest in front of the nice lady — what'd you hit up there?

RAZORIt was a small sample size.

RUSTYA buck sixty. A buck sixty in the bigs, Carla. The greatest minor league hitter the good Lord ever assembled, and major league pitching turned him into a permanent bunt sign.

CARLAI did not know any of this.

RAZORTriple-A pitching and big-league pitching are two entirely different animals, and I would like the record to reflect —

RUSTYOh, don't you DARE get dignified on me. You want to come at my career? Fine. Yes. I won a World Series. It's true. I have a ring.

RAZORHERE we go. Tell her HOW, Rusty.

RUSTY...I hit a fly ball.

RAZORTell her how FAR it went.

RUSTYIt did not, strictly speaking, leave the infield.

RAZORIt went forty feet! The man won a World Series game on a pop fly somebody lost in the lights! An RBI fell out of the October sky and landed on Rusty Kuntz!

RUSTYA ring's a ring, Razor! You can't see mine over the radio but I'm wearin' it!

CARLASo let me make sure I have this. We have, on this program, a color commentator who could not hit big-league pitching, and a caller who won a championship on a ball that traveled roughly the length of a bowling lane.

RUSTYAnd we BOTH became hitting coaches.

RAZOR...We both became hitting coaches.

RUSTYThirty years, darlin'. Two men who could not hit, standing in a cage telling young men how to hit. That is the joke of our entire lives, and we have never once acknowledged it to each other until right now, on your show.

CARLA...That actually explains a tremendous amount about this program.

RUSTYNOW. Which is exactly why I called. I been followin' along best I can from the road, and I actually do have a question, and it's a real one. This team — and I want to be sure I'm sayin' it right — the Huanca Wankers.

CARLAThat's correct. The Huanca Wankers.

RUSTYThe Wankers. I keep seein' that name and I keep thinkin' my eyes are tired.

CARLAA lot of our listeners have that experience. The Huanca Wankers are currently fifth in the league.

RUSTYFifth. See, that's my question. I'm a hitting man — which we have now established I have no business being — and I keep seein' this fella on the Wankers, Howard Johnson, with all them home runs. 30 home runs! And they're FIFTH?

RAZORNow Rusty, don't —

RUSTYHow does a man hit 30 home runs and his team's in fifth?

CARLAIt's a question we have explored on this program. At length.

RUSTYRazor. Didn't you tell me — and correct me, I'm an old man — didn't you tell me at the start of the year that Howard Johnson was your most valuable player, and the Huanca Wankers were gonna win the whole thing?

[silence]

RAZOR...I don't recall saying those exact —

RUSTYYou said it on a Tuesday. I wrote it on my hand.

CARLAHe wrote it on his hand, Razor.

RAZORRusty, a lot has happened since that Tuesday.

RUSTYA man who hit a buck sixty in the big leagues told ME who the MVP was gonna be — and I BELIEVED you! That's the part that gets me! I took a hitting tip from a lifetime bunt sign and I wrote it on my HAND!

RAZORThe season is not over, Rusty. HoJo's still got time. The Wankers are still —

CARLA— in fifth.

RAZOR— in a building phase!

RUSTYA building phase! Oh, that's beautiful. Carla, write that one down too. He's in a "building phase." Same fella who hit a "small sample size." This man has never in his life been wrong — he's only ever been early. Listen, I gotta get back on the road before I miss my turn. Razor, it is so good to hear your voice, you hang in there. And darlin' — Carla — you keep him honest.

CARLAThat is the entire job, Rusty. Drive safe.

RUSTYI'll be listenin'.

[click]

RAZOR...I love that man.

CARLAYou hit a buck sixty, Razor?

RAZORIt was a SMALL SAMPLE SIZE. Can we move on?

CARLAWe can move on.

CARLAThat's our show. The standings say the Rick Astleys, Knockemstiff, Iron Knob, one-two-three. The head-to-head record says nobody's in charge and please stop asking. Both of those things are true at the same time, and that's the whole game, isn't it?

RAZORThat's the whole game. Three teams at the top, all holding each other's markers, nobody able to cash out. And a guy named Bryn Smith somewhere in the Astleys' rotation winning 16 games while we apologize to him.

CARLAWe're sorry again, Bryn. ... For Razor Shines, who is in a building phase, I'm Carla Streich.

RAZORI'm gonna be hearing that for a month.

CARLAYou wrote the check, Razor. Rusty just cashed it. This has been Foul Territory — barely affiliated, lightly sanctioned, and not stopping. Good night.