Gheorghe: the Jinx

We'd like to apologize. Exhaustive research by our team of sabremetricians has concluded that Gheorghe: the Blog has been contributing to Tim Wakefield's difficulty in securing his 200th career victory. See, we've had this post on ice since late July when Wake went 6 2/3 innings to beat the Mariners and record the 199th win of his 20-year big league adventure. (The fact that he gave up 10 hits and 7 earned runs in beating the M's is entirely fitting.) It appears that our premature postulation has stalled the knuckleballer's pursuit of the milestone, as he's failed to post a win in 4 starts since we drafted it, despite pitching into the the 7th inning or beyond in each of those outings.

Our bad.

Because accountability is one of the hallmarks of our editorial policy (it's the reason our ratings are outpacing those of the mainstream media by such a wide margin), we're here to rectify our error by posting in celebration of Tim Wakefield's 199th career win. Enjoy, then.

Even if I gave ten guesses, I'd wager than far fewer than 25% of sports fans would correctly identify the active major league leader in pitching wins. (Note: if you've read the information above this paragraph you'd have a reasonably good chance at being in that savvy minority.) Veteran Red Sox hurler and all around prince of a guy Tim Wakefield recorded his 199th career victory on July 24, pitching into the 7th inning as the Sox pounded the Seattle Mariners, 12-8. Since he broke in with the Pirates in 1992, only ten pitchers have recorded more wins*, and most of those guys are going to the Hall of Fame.

While I've said some things about Wake that I probably regret in the heat of the cover-your-eyes-afraid-to-watch moment, he's in my top 5 favorite athletes of all-time. When the stars aligned and his feel was on, watching Wakefield confound a lineup of professional hitters with his low-effort flutterballs was to be in the presence of a low-fi virtuoso. And even when things weren't going to plan, Wake's outings offered comic relief, none more so than Game 5 of the 2004 ALCS, when Jason Varitek allowed three knucklers to elude him in the top of the 13th inning before Wakefield eventually stranded Yankees on 2nd and 3rd base.

That 2004 season was special for Sox fans for so many reasons, but Wakefield's redemption was one of the best storylines. After Grady Little's inexplicable brain fart enabled the Yankees to tie the game, Wake surrended Aaron Boone's walk-off series winner. It seemed at the time impossibly cruel. And when the Sox won the World Series just one year later, I wrote the following despite the fact that Wakefield didn't pitch very well at all in that Series against the Cardinals:

Now, though, I'm thinking about Tim Wakefield. Of all the Sox on this team, all the magnificent idiots who will go down as legends, Tim Wakefield is the one for whom I'm happiest. His grief after last year's ALCS loss, after he stood on his head for 2 games before finally failing against Aaron Boone, was the single worst part of that series. That this guy who has been so unselfishly team-oriented for so long had to spend the last year agonizing over 1 pitch is cosmically unfair. That he now has a World Series ring is spectacular payback.

Wakefield is 7 wins away from tying the Texas Con Man and Cy Young for first place on the Red Sox' all-time wins list (and he's well ahead of the second guy on the Sox' all-time losses list). He's played every role possible on a pitching staff, glamorous and dirty alike, and played them each without complaint or self-aggrandizement. After being nominated more than a half-dozen times, he won the 2010 Roberto Clemente Award, given to the player who both excels on the field and gives back to his community. In an era and a business full of me-first assholes, all Wake ever did was show up every day, do his job the best way he knew how, take responsibility when he failed, praise his teammates when he succeeded, and go home without fanfare.

If there's truly a Baseball God, he'll let Wake hang on long enough to record 8 more W's. But if we're looking at the standings for the best human beings to wear the Olde Towne Team's uniform, I don't think we need to go very far down the list to get to Tim Wakefield.
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*Here are the ten pitchers to record more wins than Wakefield since 1992:

Greg Maddux (280)
Mike Mussina (266)
Randy Johnson (259)
Tom Glavine (252)
Andy Pettitte (240)
Jamie Moyer (233)
Roger Clemens (220)
Pedro Martinez (219)
Curt Schilling (212)