Baseball semantics and antics

By Jeff Zaginailoff Sports Central Columnist

Call me a curmudgeon, but I really wish we could get some terminology straight.

Where to begin?

Well, one constant source of aggravation has been Red Sox reliever Byung-Hyun Kim. It's nothing he's done. It's his name. Or more precisely, abuse of his name. Why do so many people refer to him as "B.K. Kim"? Where does that middle "K" come from? From Hyun?

His name really is Kim Byung-Hyun, as Koreans go by family name first. Kim is as popular a name in Korea as Smith and Jones combined are here. Consider North Korea, which is controlled by a psychotic dictator named Kim Jong II. His father, who started the Korean Conflict by invading South Korea in 1950 was another Stalinist, named Kim II Sung. The president of South Korea right now is Kim Dae-Jung. His predecessor was Kim Young-Sam. Get the idea?

Anyway, the relief pitcher, whose name sequence is westernized to Byung-Hyun Kim, has only one name beginning with the letter K, right? So how does he become "B.K. Kim"?

That would be like referring to a certain former football player and accused double-murderer as "O.S. Simpson", and we wouldn't do that, would we? No, that wouldn't make any sense.

So it should be B.H. Kim, not B.K. Kim. Or perhaps just "B.K." This was sometimes done with Michael Jordan. People referred to him as "M.J." They certainly didn't call him "M.J. Jordan," did they?

So it's either B.H. Kim, or "B.K."

Kim pitches out of the Red Sox bullpen, which is much improved since a failed experiment this spring.

That experiment is constantly referred to as "bullpen-by-committee." Am I the only one whose skin crawls when this is said? Of course the Red Sox had a bullpen by committee. Everybody has a bullpen-by-committee. Show me a team that doesn't have a bullpen-by-committee, and I'll show you a one-man bullpen (and there aren't any). The Red Sox failed experiment was "closer-by-committee".

Speaking of closers, that role is too often referred to as "stopper."

Please, let's not do that. A stopper is the ace of the starting rotation, a reliable workhorse who can be counted on to go out there and stop a losing streak. Randy Johnson is a stopper. Mariano Rivera is a closer. Dennis Eckersley was a stopper, but when he stopped being an effective stopper, he was recast as a closer. He stopped stopping (and stopped starting) and started closing. (Until he stopped.) Got that?

The key reliever in a bullpen used to be called the "Fireman," but that was in the pre-Tony LaRussa era, when Sparky Lyle, John Hiller, or Mike Marshall could be called upon to work out of someone else's jam (thus putting out the fire). He might get just the 27th out, or he might pitch the last 2 2/3 innings. The closer is the reliever designated to start the ninth-inning, and ensure that his team stays ahead. He normally pitches the ninth and only the ninth, comes in to start that inning (with no inherited base runners), and is rarely called upon when his team is tied or behind.

And now, to continue on the topic of pitching, but switching from semantics to antics, it appears possible that the Tigers could have three 20-game losers. There hasn't been a 20-game loser since Brian Kingman lost 20 for the 1980 A's. It would take some doing, but as of right now, Mike Maroth, Jeremy Bonderman, and Adam Bernero are on paces to lose 23, 22, and 17 games, respectively. This got me to wondering if any team has ever had more than one 20-game loser.

Well, yes.

As one might expect in the very old days, when complete games were the rule, and not the exception, 20 wins, and/or 20 losses were far more common.

In the period 1903-1909, there were 14 instances when a team had two 20-game losers, with two teams doing it in 1906, 1908, and 1909, three in 1905, and four teams (Senators, Tigers, Braves, Dodgers) in 1904. There were three more cases of single teams fielding twin 20-game losers in 1910, 1913, and 1916, and again in 1930, 1934, and 1936. The champion in this dubious distinction is the early 20th-century Boston Braves who had twin 20-game losers three years in a row (1904-06) and again in 1909 and 1910.

There were a few cases of teams saddled with three 20-game losers:

1904 Senators

Casey Patten 15-21 Beany Jacobson 5-23 Jack Townsend 5-27

1904 Braves

Vic Willis 18-25 Irvin "Kaiser" Wilhelm 15-21 Togie Pittinger 14-21

1905 Browns

Harry Howell 14-21 Willie Sudhoff 10-20 Fred Glade 7-24

1908 Dodgers

Irvin "Kaiser" Wilhelm 16-22 Harry McIntire 11-20 Jim Pastorious 4-20

It should be noted that the '08 Dodgers also had Nap Rucker, who was 17-19, but why settle for almost, when the Braves two years in a row had four 20-game losers?

1905 Braves

Irv Young 20-21 Chick Fraser 14-21 Willis 11-29 (!) Irvin "Kaiser" Wilhelm 4-23

1906 Braves

Irv Young 16-25 Big Jeff Pfeffer 13-22 Vive Lindaman 12-23 Gus Dorner 8-25

Those Braves couldn't do much right, but they certainly had colorful names, didn't they?

1936 was the last year anybody had a dud-duo until the expansion Mets of 1962, when Al Jackson (8-20), and Roger Craig (10-24) did it, and Jay Hook (8-19) just missed.

The Mets scored again in 1965, with Jackson (8-20), and Jack Fisher (8-24).

And that brings us to the 1973 White Sox, the only non-expansion team since 1936 to have two 20-game losers. Oddly, they were not that bad a team (77-85, .475). But Wilbur Wood went 24-20, and Stan Bahnsen contributed 18-21. (So together, they had a winning record ... 42-41)

Between the ChiSox in 1973, and Kingman in 1980, there were a handful of other examples of individual 20-game losers, and they include some pretty fair pitchers: Steve Carlton, Mickey Lolich, Randy Jones, and Phil Niekro, each of whom were also 20-game winners at least once, and Steve Rogers, who went on to win 19.

Niekro's performances in 1979 and 1980 are noteworthy for their anticlimactic outcomes. He was 19-18 in 1979, and the next year "topped" that, posting a 21-20 record. Other than "eating up innings," it seems like his contribution could have been achieved by winning on Opening Day, and then taking the rest of the year off.

So what does it all mean? I think that long-suffering Tigers fans should take heart, because although with five-man rotations, it rarely happens now, in the past, many good pitchers have had the occasional 20-games-lost season. This season, the Tigers' pitchers have deserved a better fate. The team doesn't hit or score runs, and at least some of the performances turned in by the starters have been worthy of better outcomes.

Those guys do take the ball, and go out there. Rather than sacrificial lambs, they might be considered workhorses. And if they get a little offense and a little luck, maybe one of them will emerge as a stopper.

And with that, I will close.

Article courtesy of Sports Central.