BLUE JAYS “MAN IN WHITE”

Mark Twain, in “Chapters from my Autobiography”, wrote that “there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” He was talking about how readily words and numbers can be manipulated to bolster weak arguments; in short, he was talking about baseball.

In fact, although having died in 1910, he may well have been discussing the on-going American baseball fascination with Toronto’s Man in the White Shirt. First reported by ESPN’s Outside the Lines on May 11, 2010, this meticulously crafted and intensely detailed report has taken on a life of its own; while Bud Selig has remained silent, other luminaries such as Joe Girardi, Jason Hammel, Jarrod Saltalamacchia and the Chicago White Sox bullpen have all had something to say. In fact, a Google search for “blue jays man in white” comes back with 22,900,000 results in .44 of a second. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on which side of a conspiracy theory you prefer to be on, the Man in White is a media driven creation that has certainly, comically, become the baseball equivalent of a Bigfoot sighting. But let’s start at the beginning.

Hands up if you knew that a Google search is faster than a 90-mph fastball? It is—it takes a 90-mph fast ball .458 seconds to cross home plate; to hit this pitch, you have .22 of a second to react. Let’s see how you do against an average major league heater, check out this Baseball Science web site to gauge your reaction time, go on—we’ll wait: http://www.exploratorium.edu/baseball/reactiontime.html.

How’d you do? Took a few tries, but you were able to get a couple of knocks, right? Now, try this: look away from the screen. Look away. Now look back to the original spot. How long did that take? Were you still able to hit the imaginary ball? Now imagine the second spot you looked at was 400 feet away, and the imaginary ball is very real and the second spot is the outfield bleachers and every fucking person out there is wearing a white shirt. Or maybe light blue. Maybe yellow. Hell, maybe black. Who cares? You didn’t see the 96 mph fastball, 86 mph change or 92 mph cutter whiz by you for strike 3. Hell, Jamie Moyer RAN the ball from mound to catcher and back again before you could refocus, and he’s 49 years old and out of baseball. So why does this story continue to have legs, like Carl Crawford before signing with the Red Sox?

To figure it out, one way or the other, @Thatsmr_suska2u was contracted to investigate Rogers Centre and the Blue Jays during a recent home stand. No stranger to baseball or the Rogers Centre and armed with all @MPmojo17’s pocket change for beer, half a tuna melt from @redtruckbeer for sustenance and a stolen camera from HBeezy for evidentiary photos, @Thatsmr_suska2u put on a dark shirt, went to the Rogers Centre on multiple nights, and sat in the outfield. And here is the strange part, if ESPN, MSNHardball and others are to be believed, nothing happened. Baseballs rained all over the park, but no proof of a phantom fan who wears white and magically divines what pitch is being delivered when could be found.

As background and proof of his bonafides for this assignment, know that @Thatsmr_suska2u attends 15-20 Blue Jays game a year. There have been home runs and shut-outs and everything in between. Asked if he has ever witnessed anything strange at Rogers Centre, he responds that he once saw Dice K strike out the side. Yes, but is there any cheating going on, he is asked. “Well, the blue car seems to win the race more than mere probability would suggest”, he says—and, with that, the consummate professional goes to work.

This is what he sees:

The original ESPN article states that “a man in center field, situated perfectly behind the pitcher in a batter’s eyeline, was gesturing to indicate offspeed pitches for Toronto hitters”¹. This and this alone, apparently explains why the Blue Jays hit a lot of home runs. You might not have known that about them, but it’s true. And you will note in the picture above, taken at Game 2 of the recent Orioles series, that the centre field bleachers are closed off—as they typically are to provide a batters’ eye for both teams. However, there are fans in left and right-centre. Undaunted by the Man in White having no home, @Thatsmr_suska2u soldiered on and noticed that many of these fans would stand up during Blue Jays at bats, or move their arms between pitches in an incomprehensible choreography of cheating. Clearly, something was amiss—and comments like these from Joe Girardi make sense within this new context: “We have inclinations that certain things might be happening in certain ballparks and we are aware of it and we try to protect our signs,” he said. “If you feel it is coming from somewhere else besides a player on the field, then I do have issues with it,” Girardi said. “There are ballparks where you need to protect your signs. I don’t want to really get into it”², he added, after firmly getting into it. Blue Jays are cheaters; Man in White is real. But which Man in White? There are so many.

Blue Jays Fans in the OF

But there are dissenters. Girardi’s own all-star centre fielder Curtis Granderson, hitter of many, many homeruns, is skeptical. Granderson hasconfirmed that he has been advised by other players that the Man in White is real. Accordingly, while serving as the Yankees DH one night, he watched actively for evidence. “From where I was sitting in the dugout, 300, 400 feet away, I couldn’t see anything,”³ he said. But this conflicts with what ESPN reported about the same game:“Sure enough, the man in white was raising his arms above his head before every off-speed pitch and doing nothing when the pitch being called was a fastball.” ⁴

And there are believers. During a recently completed 6 game home stand against the Orioles and the Red Sox, the Jays scored 29, gave up 24, won 4 and lost 2, allowed 18 extra base hits and hit 17 of their own. Hard to spot a conspiracy here unless, of course, you are Jason Hammels, erstwhile starting pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles, who was tagged for four solo shots in his start: “I don’t think you can take swings like that, not knowing they’re coming. There’s rumours and things like that, I don’t know. I can’t speak on that but they were taking very, very strong hacks on breaking stuff. It’s something I’ve never seen before. ”⁵ Unfortunately for Hammels, he lacks credibility—as reported by @Thatsmr_suska2uand confirmed by many sources (my favourite of which is the blog Drunk Jays Fan), all 4 of the home runs were hit off fastballs.

JP Arancebia, Jays catcher, confirms Hammels’ suspicions, however, adding fuel to the fire: “Ist star to the man in white for helping us out!” he tweeted the morning after. He then added the hashtag #excusesaretired, however, so maybe he was kidding⁶. But that would mean he was kidding when he tweeted this after going 9 for 25 (.360) with 4 home runs and 10 RBIs during a home stand in May and being named AL Player of the Week: “Notice we were home all week, can’t forget the man in white!! #FinallyHelpingMeToo #WhereWereYaWhenTheSeasonStarted.”⁷ Who do we believe?

Let’s believe our man in the field. Paying more attention to the action in the stands than to the action on the field, @Thatsmr_suska2u was able to crack the puzzling sequence of signals used by the Jays to hit solo shots at home. After 6 games in which the opposition had more extra base hits than the home squad, this is what the Man in White is all about:

One hand in air: ordering a beer.

Two hands straight in the air: the Wave is coming around.

Two hands, stretched up and then back behind head: Josh Beckett is pitching and I am bored.

Not convinced? Perhaps more research is required in order to put this to bed once and for all. A quick perusal of the interweb tells us this (statements from original ESPN story and follow up, rebuttals from about 20 minutes of research):

• Jays homer in a higher percentage of at bats than the league norm when playing at home. ESPN believes that this is due to the convoluted calesthenics performed by the Man in White when the Blue Jays are batting to ensure their batters get only juicy pitches to hit (I think we just covered this).

However, the Jays also hit approximately 11% more homeruns on the road than major league teams hit overall. Could it be that the Jays simply have a lot of guys who can rake? Nahh… More evidence to the contrary from ESPN:

• Since 2010, Jays have averaged 5 runs per game at home, only 4.4 per game on the road.

That’s interesting—a professional athletic squad scoring more runs, points, goals, or trys at home than on the road. Go figure.

• In 2010, Toronto blasted a whopping 146 homers at Rogers Centre, just seven homers shy of the all-time home record set by the Rangers in 2005. This is a rate of 1.85 per game.

As with almost all statistics, this is true; it is how you manipulate it that matters. And, it is also true that the Jays finished second in home runs per game on the road that year at 1.32. In 2010, the Jays hit 64 more at home than they gave up— this is a big number. But on road, they still hit 40 more than their pitchers gave up… now that number is not so big. ESPN forgot to include that little piece of relevant information.⁸ . As well, the Jays were sixth in home-runs per game at home in 2011 (1.27) and 8^th on the road (1.02); thus far in 2012, they are 1^st again at home (1.68) and 5^th on the road (1.19). My conclusion is this—the Jays hit a lot of homeruns.

Image via Wikipedia

It’s also true that in 2010, Rogers Centre did lead the major leagues in home runs allowed at 2.91 per game, however there were 11 other stadiums that allowed more than 2 per game- the home parks of Boston, Baltimore, Texas, Tampa, White Sox, Yankees, Arizona, Philadelphia, Colorado, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee all gave it up at alarming rates. In 2011, 4 parks gave up more homers than Rogers Centre, with another 5 finishing within spitting distance; in 2012, 3 parks have given up more homers per game than Rogers with another 5 close behind.

And consider this—the opposition hits home runs at a rate in Rogers Centre that is roughly equivalent to the home-run per-game rate of 9 major league stadiums. So, a team that hits a lot of home runs at home and on the road hits more home runs at home than on the road, but allows home runs while at home at a rate equivalent to how a third of major league parks play for both teams combined… are you seeing the conspiracy here?

And what of Jose Bautista, the man in the middle of the ESPN (non)story and owner of the inflated home OPS? Well, he hits more home runs, per game, in Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Minnesota and New York than he does in Toronto. More in Arizona and Washington too. But that wasn’t in the original story, or any of the follow ups, or any of the recent rehashes of the alleged conspiracy.

So, in summary, the Man in White is a myth—not like Bigfoot, who may exist, but an actual myth like your brother-in-law picking up the tab. After all this investigation, though, one thing is certain: conspiracies do exist in baseball. As proof, look no further than this: in 1956, the New York Yankees hit 48 homeruns… against the Kansas City Athletics. What did most men wear in 1956? That’s right, white shirts. ESPN, you have your next story.

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