Casey's defense rare treat for Pirates at 1B

Wednesday, March 08, 2006
By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

BRADENTON, Fla. -- On adjacent stools in the Pirates' clubhouse sat two members of the franchise's semi-ancient hagiology, Messrs. Virdon and Mazeroski, quietly spooning soup out of identical Styrofoam cups.

"Not bad," Virdon said.

"All right," Mazeroski said.

"Yeah, pretty good," Virdon said in a tone used just as effectively with "pretty bad."

"Adequate," Mazeroski said.

But they weren't talking about the soup.

The subject was first basemen and the little-known fact that, while this will be the 50th baseball season to include at its end the awarding of Gold Gloves, the signature Rawlings hardware for defensive excellence, not one has ever been handed to a Pirates first baseman.

Perhaps for fear he would drop it.

There have been rag gloves and iron gloves and even a Dr. Strangeglove, but never a Gold Glove.

In the era when Bill Virdon and Bill Mazeroski played elegant defensive baseball, the Pirates' first basemen ranged wildly from the very good (Bob Robertson) to the comically bad (Dick Stuart, Dr. S. himself). They included Donn Clendenon, Dale Long, Rocky Nelson, Al Oliver.

Not bad. All right. Pretty good. Adequate.

"If I had to put one above the rest," said Maz, the acknowledged best second baseman who ever breathed, "it would be Clendenon. He was tall."

And that's when Sean Casey walked into the clubhouse. No one bothered to tell him, but he's the first real first baseman to walk into this one in about 16 years, or since the fate-torturing departure of Sid Bream.

"I take a lot of pride in it," Casey said of his glove, which is on the wrong hand for a classical first baseman, but generally holds everything that hits it. "I don't want to be known just for being a good hitter."

In detaching Casey from the Cincinnati Reds this winter for the price of one starting pitcher (Dave Williams), the Pirates instantly upgraded their infield defense fairly dramatically. Though Casey is big enough at 6-4 and just mobile enough without being terribly athletic to make all the plays a right-handed first baseman should, the Pirates will benefit as well from Casey's mental approach.

In his new book, "The First Baseman," the highly respected baseball chronicler Tom Keegan devotes a chapter to Casey, and it includes this little debunker of the widely held notion that you can put just about any oaf at first and get away with it.

It relates to a moment in a Reds-Rockies game last summer, in which Colorado's Todd Helton comes to the plate to start the fourth inning, and fouls off the first two pitches from Reds' starter Aaron Harang.

"Helton's just such a good hitter, he can keep balls fair," Casey explained to Keegan. "I saw [catcher Jason] LaRue called for a fastball in, and he was really in off the plate, so I knew if [Harang] was going to miss he was going to miss really in. Helton's only way to keep it fair was going to be down the [first-base] line. I do that a lot, depending who's up. I might not do that if a little slap hitter was up, because he maybe doesn't get to that ball."

Helton got to it. Ripped it over the bag. Casey snagged it for the out.

This is not the way Daryle Ward played first base in 101 games last season, nor the way Brad Eldred played it in 46.

In fact, if the semi-ancient history of the organization is thick with depressingly average first basemen, its more recent history, with the notable exception of Kevin Young (a converted third baseman), is thicker with alleged glovemen of questionable utility: Randall Simon, Craig Wilson, Mark Johnson, Orlando Merced, Gary Redus, Randy Milligan, Jason Thompson, Orestes Destrade, Brian Hunter.

Casey might never win a Gold Glove either because the National League is stocked with excellent first baseman, but Casey's glove itself is above reproach.

In seven seasons with the Reds, Casey handled 9,129 chances and made only 46 errors, or roughly one every 200 times he puts leather on the ball. He made only two errors on 1,210 chances last summer, when he led the league in fielding percentage. He went 77 games between errors (May 2 to Aug. 7), the longest such stretch in the league, and put together 31 consecutive errorless games to end the season.

As it happens, the season ended prematurely while Casey was making the kind of play he was talking about yesterday, a play some first basemen make look so very easy and is actually complicated and even dangerous.

"It's the high throw you have to catch in foul territory, using the bag to boost yourself back and give yourself a few extra feet," he said. "Usually, it's when an infielder has made a really great play, but the throw sails on him a little bit. You have to be able to read the play, which means watching the throw but watching the runner at the same time. You can't do it if the runner will be on top of you by the time the throw gets there."

But seven years into a career as an accomplished first baseman, that's exactly what Casey misread Sept. 16 at PNC Park. Humberto Cota chopped a pitch to the left side of the infield and hustled toward first. Casey backed off the bag for the high throw, and Cota, fearing the throw would hit him in the head, brought his arms up to protect himself, bashing Casey in the side of the head with an elbow in the process. It was Casey's third career concussion, not that anybody's counting.

It's not exactly one of those baseball axioms, but, when you've got a first baseman who's more likely to get a concussion than to drop the ball, that's pretty good. And on that Cota play? Oh yeah. Casey caught that ball, too.

(Gene Collier can be reached at gcollier@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1283.)