Bay: Happy to stay in the 'burgh

By Gene Collier
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Sunday, July 27, 2008

Jason Bay swings for a solo home run in the ninth inning against the Houston Astros in a baseball game Monday, July 21, 2008 in Houston. The Pirates won 9-3. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

Though it's rarely been considered an occupational hazard, that sure doesn't mean it's not hazardous, so, yes, Jason Bay might actually have hit a baseball too hard this week.
Too hard. Too well. Too drop dead perfectly.

And worst of all, too all that to keep it inconspicuous.

This was Monday night in Houston, with the Pirates down a run in the ninth against 6-foot-4, 260-pound Astros hammer Jose Valverde. Interrupting perhaps a mental scroll of his save-celebrating macho gestures, Valverde sent Bay a fastball that flashed onto Minute Maid Park's heat-sensing technologies at a smoke-trailing 98 miles per hour.

Ninety-eight?

Bay murdered it.

High and so deep toward the extreme back yard in left center that you knew no general manager in baseball still desperate to fuel a contending offense could watch that highlight without thinking, "We've gotta have that guy."

Thursday night, Bay launched a shaggy breaking pitch from San Diego's Clay Hensley on a 415-foot arc to North Side Notchville for his 22nd homer, his third in four games, and his 15th RBI in 10. He may have been this hot before, but has he ever been this coveted?

"That's part of the game, part of the game that's not that productive to think about," Bay said in a deserted Pirates locker room as the trade deadline Thursday walked into plain sight. "I think for them to give me up, they'd have to be beyond overwhelmed. I don't know if there's anyone out there who would make that happen."

The trade of Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte Friday night will bring a portion of the template of young talent that makes for more hopeful baseball in the long term, but the kind of trade that would actually accelerate this whole process might have to include the left fielder.

"I'd be heartbroken," Bay said. "Other than my little cup of coffee with San Diego [three games in 2003], this the only thing I've known. My wife and I have a house here and, you know, some guys are from St. Louis and they want to play in the Midwest, some guys are like, 'I want to play in New York.'

"But I don't have anywhere that I want to or have to play.

"This is where I want to play."

This is Bay's fifth full summer of dubious Pittsburgh baseball, and only once has the franchise managed to put a team around him that could win even 70 games. Bay's maintained an easy dignity throughout, and you'd imagine a player of his accomplishments who actually wants to play here could stay as long as he pleases. But the Pirates are so desperate to pull out of a 16-year death spiral that the smell of something really sweet in the trade market might prove irresistible. In their situation, it's not difficult to think you're being overwhelmed by a possible trade when you're really only being whelmed, or perhaps even underwhelmed.

Jason Bay, right, is greeted by teammates Ryan Doumit, left, and Nate McLouth, center, after hitting a fourth inning home run off San Diego Padres pitcher Clay Hensley in a baseball game in Pittsburgh, Thursday, July 24, 2008.
(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Oakland seems hottest among a group of contenders with intense interest in Bay, some of whom have indicated that the Pirates simply want too much.

If that's true, it probably reflects favorably on the Pirates' new administration, which can't help but notice that No. 38, aside from being durable, professional and even marketable, catches all the balls that ought to be caught, takes all the bases that should be taken and crushes most of the pitches that deserved to be crushed.

To be clear, you don't exactly have to wear out your googlers looking for spirited criticism of Jason Raymond Bay, and some of it might be sourced to this column, which has mentioned that Bay sometimes seems as content to be good as he is capable of being great. Or did I not say that out loud?

But I think most of us have come to genuinely admire Bay's earnest concentration within what is the baseball equivalent of some subterranean mine fire. With that majestic Monday homer, Bay became only the fourth player in the franchise's 122-year history to hit 20 homers in five or more consecutive seasons, quietly taking his place in the short queue behind Willie Stargell (1964-76), Ralph Kiner (1946-52), and Frank Thomas (1953-58). The jack Thursday was Bay's 139th as a Pirate, moving him past Bill Mazeroski in the club's record book.

With the baseball season hereabouts unofficially ending today (the Steelers report to Latrobe at 4 p.m.), it would be a shame if the next time most fans looked at the Pirates with real interest they'd find the club missing its reliable left fielder.

"My wife asks me what might happen," he said. "I tell her I just can't see myself in another uniform. I know that it might happen someday. But, mostly, I just discount the possibility. That's the way I deal with it."

Gene Collier can be reached at gcollier@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1283. More articles by this author
First published on July 27, 2008 at 12:00 am