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From the Archives
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Olympian HypocrisyLasorda, Let Luke Play -- for the Real Home TeamSeptember 19, 2000 Luke Prokopec is a rookie pitcher for the Dodgers, and recently got his first big-league win in just his second start. He's a quality young prospect, and probably projects as a pretty good #3-#2 rotation man in the majors if he keeps on track. He's also an example of baseball shooting its foot and then sticking the bloody stump in its mouth, in this case, the very large mouth of establishment flackman Tommy Lasorda. Let me explain. Prokopec is just twenty-two years old, and was signed as a free agent out of his native Australia by the long-armed Dodgers. Australians, of course, aren't subject to the US amateur draft, so teams with deep scouting and deep pockets are more likely to scoop up exotic prospects like Prokopec. He had a hot year at high-A San Bernadino in 1998, striking out almost 150 batters in 110 IP and limiting opponents to just 98 hits while walking only 33. Despite the fact he doesn't have the classic pitchers's build -- he's "only" five foot eleven and barely 170 pounds -- and lacking the dominating fastball, those are numbers that get notice. He had a difficult year adjusting to AA hitting in the Texas league in 1999, but rebounded this year for an outstanding 2.45 in 129 IP repeating at San Antonio, striking out 124, giving up only 118 hits and a stunning 29 walks. He's got a good curveball, good command, and seems to know how to pitch. He may need several years on the major league level to see if he can really make himself into a top-notch starter, but it's the kind of story that's fun to follow. Which brings us to September, 2000, when Prokopec got the call to the majors after the end of the AA season. More and more pitchers skip AAA, and you can't blame the Dodgers for wanting to get a peep at him at the big-league level and maybe giving him a few extra innings to lengthen his arm out a bit, assuming at least they didn't overabuse him in the minors. Here's the strange thing, though. Prokopec was on the Australian Olympic team prior to being called up to LA. You certainly think the Australian team could've used him when it lost to the Netherlands. But because he was called to the majors, he wasn't on the Australian roster, and gets to watch the games on 15-hour tape delay on CNBC like the rest of us. I don't know if this was by Luke's choice or not, and under normal circumstances, I can't say as I'd blame him for choosing his major league debut over the Olympics. It is, after all, a higher level of baseball than the Olympics, and an important milestone in making a player a Major Leaguer, capital M capital L. Still, the Olympics are that once in a lifetime opportunity, especially since Prokopec won't see another Olympics in Australia during his playing days. so it seems extremely odd. Whether or not this was Prokopec's decision, I find fault with the Dodgers for not leaving him on the Australian team. They can showcase him in Spring training next year, or wait until next season; it's not like they don't have other young arms, and their core rotation is in fact healthy right now, so they could've used the old ones. But if Prokopec had gone to the Olympics, he would've provided better competition for the US and other teams, given the Aussies just a bit more local pride in baseball, and in general improved the resume and experience of one Luke Prokopec in a way they'll never replicate in the Arizona Fall League. And I would humbly suggest it would've been better for the Dodgers in the long-term, by perhaps creating a following for the team among Aussies. By comparison, note that most of the US Olympic team's players are US professional players of about Prokopec's age and experience, including some from the Dodgers' organization. In short, Prokopec is playing meaningless baseball at the major league level, compared to what could've been the game of a lifetime at the Olympics, and there's no clear reason why. I'm sad for Olympic baseball that the nations that qualified couldn't send out their best native sons. |
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TODAY'S BASEBALL CRANK
[continued] Let us turn our minds to that paragon of Dodger Blue and Slim-Fast, Tommy Lasorda. I will say upfront I'm not a big Lasorda fan. He's voluble, made himself into a celebrity, and is a popular baseball establishment man. He's the ultimate company man when it comes to the Dodgers. I think there were about two or three thousand better-qualified managers to coach young players in an international tournament. It was Buddy Bell who qualified the US at the Pan Am games in 1999, whle Lasorda's first game as an amateur manager and in interntional play was the US' opening game against Japan at Sydney. Now that Lasorda has wrangled an appointment as manager of the US national team, we're seeing him all over the media coverage of Olympic baseball. I suppose one reason he was chosen was to be a spokesman, a recognizable celebrity, to better advertise and market the sport. He's certainly better for the type of network "sports" broadcast NBC is subjecting us to, since Tommy's a familiar figure. But Lasorda really isn't representing baseball: he's wrapping himself in the jingoist U-S-A U-S-A Olympic flag. He's emblematic of the attitude that shows mostly US competitors in the Olympics and very little live coverage. He's a good interview but knows nothing of the background of the competition and players and teams he's competing against, much less his own team, which didn't even practice until a week before the Olympics (only four players from the qualifying 1999 Pan Am team are on the Sydney team.) I'm just sickened by this kind of empty nationalism, most especially when the composition of the US team is so selective -- while not quite a phony dream team, surely not a team in the same sense that the US Women's Soccer team is a trueteam. Major league clubs decided on a player by player basis whether to release their players to play in the Olympics or not, and of course none of the talented Dominicans, Venezuelans, and other foreign nationals were released from minor league play in 1999 to potentially compete against the US' chance of getting one of only two bids for the entire hemisphere for the Olympics. I don't think it's an organized conspiracy to stack the deck in favor of the US to help them win their first Olympic gold medal ever. I don't know if it's conspiracy that Lasorda's Dodgers called up one of the few foreign pitchers who could've hurt the US' chances at a medal round. But there is a bad taste in an international competition that doesn't feature each country's best players, most especially in circumstances where it was within the power of Major League baseball as an organization to direct Major League franchises to do their best to ensure the highest quality of international play. In short, I'd much rather see Luke Prokopec at the Olympics than Tommy Lasorda. The fact that we've got things the way they are is an example of how baseball qua baseball seems to be of secondary interest to the US baseball establishment.
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| The Baseball Crank may be contacted at crank@thediamondangle.com. (c) 2001 Matthew Wall/The Baseball Crank. |
