Franklin's history

A quick rejoinder to Steve's recent post about the reasons for pessimism put on display by the Mariners yesterday, one of which is "Ryan Franklin looking much more like the Franklin of his career through 2002."

On the contrary, we would be happy if Franklin were performing as he did pre-2003, because he was effective then. The reason for pessimism about Franklin in the off-season was not because he had a career year in 2003, but because his so-called "peripherals" (Ks, HRs, Strikeouts, BB as opposed to ERA or W/L record) were bad in 2003. The thought was that Franklin's low ERA was masking his declining effectiveness, that he wasn't good, but lucky, in 2003, and that the luck was more than likely to run out.

RYAN FRANKLIN STATS
	ERA	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	H/9
pre-2003	3.89	5.7	2.33	1.25	8.77
2003	3.57	4.2	2.59	1.44	8.45
2004	5.55	3.6	3.57	1.19	9.52

Besides the low ERA, 2003 wasn't a particularly good year for Franklin. The problem this year is that 1) he's given up more walks per 9 innings than he ever has since he's been a regular major-leaguer and 2) he's giving up a lot more hits, too. The hits allowed probably have a lot to do with a worsened outfield defense, but the walks are all on Ryan.

So my response to Steve is: Yes, Franklin is struggling this year, both because of his own apparent control problems and because of our outfield defensive sieve. But we didn't expect this because of his pre-2003 numbers.

Messing with Meche

Down by only two runs, Meche comes out for the sixth inning, and promptly walks two batters, the second on five pitches. His ball/strike ratio is poor, his pitch count is near 100. I'm not listening or watching this, just following it on the pitch-by-pitch "Gameday" from MLB.com. Is there any reason Meche isn't pulled immediately?

Meche stays in, and gives up what looks to me like a near-homer to Mark Scutaro. Runners at first and third, one out, and the pitch count continues to rise. Melvin leaves him in. Meche luckily (or bearing down one last time) gets Adam Melhuse, the next batter, to strike out. EARTH TO MELVIN! PULL HIM NOW!

I started writing this before the next batter, Esteban German, singles in Hatteberg. I don't know how this game will end, but I do know that I would have made the pitching change before German got up to bat. Of course, since Melvin is bringing in Jarvis, I'm not sure things are any better.

I was hoping Melvin would have learned to use his pen a little more sanely than he did last year, but he seems to have adopted the organization-wide practice of refusing to learn new things.

Still, even if we go on to lose this game, taking 2 out of 3 from Oakland is good. But that doesn't make Melvin's decision-making any less ridiculous.

(Well, Jarvis got the out to end the inning. Are you watching, Milwaukee? Isn't he great? Don't you really want to trade for him?)

It's not the clutch that's your problem; you're just not getting any power

-Does it seem to anyone else that the Mariners are stranding a lot of runners? Well, they're not, even though it seemed that way to me. The Mariners are hitting quite well in so-called "clutch" situations. As a team overall, the Mariners have a .318 OBP. With runners on, it jumps to .352, and with runners in scoring posn., it goes up to .404. If you don't believe "clutch hitting" is a skill, this is yet another ominous sign, since they've actually been lucky to score as many runs as they have (M's are 26th in the majors in OPS, but 20th in Runs scored). If you do believe in "clutch hitting," then this isn't an area likey to improve. As many in the blogosphere have pointed out, the biggest problem has been preventing runs. Of course, if the Mariners had guys who could hit it out more, situational hitting wouldn't matter quite as much.

-The M's have allowed 10 stolen bases this year, and caught 1. That's ugly. The guys at USS Mariner have done a series of posts about how many extra base hits we've allowed so far (a whole heck of a lot). That's the equivalent of allowing opponents to turn 10 walks or singles into doubles, or 1 in 10 (the M's have allowed 99 singles + walks). Put another way, if we adjust the M's current SLG allowed by adding stolen bases to total bases (turning 10 singles into doubles), the SLG allowed increases from .474 to .500. Having Ben Davis find his swing again might be helpful in this regard, since he's had better success throwing runners out than Wilson in the recent past. But Davis won't get playing time unless he starts doing something at the plate.

The semester ends in three weeks, at which point we'll have a better idea about how much this abyssmal start is an accurate reflection of the Mariners' true ability, and at which point I'll be able to pay a little better attention to their games and this blog.

Update:Thanks to Steve at Wheelhouse for reading my little observation and refining and correcting it, showing his customary thoroughness and reason.

Penless

Well, I got what I asked for--Bob Melvin used what I thought were our better relievers--and between the two of them, Soriano and Mateo gave up 3 runs in a combined 1 inning pitched. Pineiro didn't pitched very well either, but our bullpen looks downright awful; maybe Jarvis isn't all that much worse of an option after all. The abysmall performers of so many pitchers doesn't give Bob Melvin any good options, so it's absurd to blame Bob Melvin for this loss. What's a manager to do when your best young starter and your two best young relievers hand the game away? The Grand Salami blog, who will get a link here when they give me one on their sidebar, makes Melvin the scapegoat, but the truth is that our pitchers, and not Melvin, were the ones that lost last night's game. And these were all guys who we had last year, so Bavasi had nothing to do with it either. The pen has to start carrying its weight, and untill they stop collapsing, we're in for a long month of losses.

Picking up where he left off

Melvin continues to frustrate with absurd bullpen usage. One would think that especially at the beginning of the season, especially as consecutive losses start to mount, that Melvin would increasingly rely on his best relievers. But we saw Villone and Jarvis yesterday, and Myers was warming up in the bullpen.

Take a look at Mariners pitchers ranked by Innings Pitched. Why is Jarvis not at the bottom of that list?

Granted, we're only six games in. But Jarvis is no. 12 for a reason, and Melvin should use him accordingly.

Well, at least we got the win yesterday. Now let's return the favor and stick it to the Angels in their home opener tomorrow.

Ouch--but it's just one game

Not a pretty opener, but at least we're playing real baseball now. Critics will be quick to point out that Kevin Jarvis did very badly. I have no doubt that Jarvis is bad, and it may be best if he is so bad for a month that the Mariners give up on him quickly. However, if we are drawing conclusions from one game, then clearly Bret Boone will be a disaster this year, and our only hope is that Melvin starts Willie Bloomquist and Dave Hansen, since they provided the offense yesterday. Oh, and Ibanez did get a hit, so apparently he is not going to be the disaster some are predicting he will be.

Oh wait. It was just one game, which is just a little less than an acceptable sample size from which to be drawing conclusions. Jarvis has shown he's been bad for a years, and that's why he's bad. Not just because of yesterday. Let's not set open the door for someone to turn the argument around on us if Jarvis has a good two innings next time he's on the mound.

Not living in the Pacific Timezone for the first time, it somehow just occured to me that I'll be missing the end of a lot of home games, or will be really cranky for a lot of mornings.

In fairness to the guys at USS Mariner, Jason Michael Barker said he had doubts about giving up Nageotte, and David Cameron said he would do it. That's the beauty of having more than one author on a blog, and I'll try to be more carefull characterizing their statements. Of course, it's all moot now, as Bradley has gone to the Dodgers. Opening day tommorow!

Wished-for Headline: M's acquire Board Game Manufacturer

U.S.S. Mariner first alerted me to the news that Milton Bradley is available, and the M's might be interested despite Bradley's rep as a hothead. Then they say that they agree with the M's previous decision that giving up super-prospect Clint Nageotte is too much to pay. Hogwash. The M's have NO position-player talent in their farm system, and oodles of pitchers. This is a way to take some of that pitching talent they've been hoarding and leverage that to their advantage. And there really is no such thing as a pitching prospect, remember? Nageotte could very easily get injured in a week and never pitch again. He's inherently risky because he's a young pitcher. Bradley is less of a risk, and is more of a need.

Clarifying the experience question

I'm not sure I was clear in my previous entry about the question I was asking. We see that Bavasi puts a premium on "experience," which usually means "old." I am not asking whether older players are better than younger ones, because plenty of work has been done on the age-production curves--when most players peak in their production, and how they decline. Preferring an older player to a younger one--for instance, preferring Rich Aurilia over Carlos Guillen--strikes me as fairly counterproductive. The question is whether years of major league play correlate at all with success. If we compare players with statistically similar profiles, will the one with more major-leauge (or post-season) experience be more likely to improve than the inexperienced one? My instinct is to say "of course not"--but just going on instinct is no better than what Bavasi is currently operating with. I don't have the time or knowledge to put together that sort of a report, but I wonder if anyone has.

A Google search brings upthis article from ESPN and Baseball Prospectus which looks at experienced teams, but that's not the same thing. The google search also brought me to this old exchange by some folks of the Baseball Primer persuasion, who wonder if experience (rather than age) matters for pitchers more than for batters.

Anyone who knows something substantive about this, please drop me an email.

So will the M's be the next Baltimore? That sounds like what Derek Zumsteg fears, when he predicts (in a Seattle Weekly article featuring him and USS Mariner) that "in three years, they’ll be playing .400 ball, will be losing money, and won’t know what hit them: ‘We have such a great bunch of veteran guys! How could this happen?'" (assuming things don't change in the M's front office).

Mariners: the next Baltimore, or the next Atlanta?

USS Mariner points us to several P-I articles today of interest, including a couple about Bavasi. These articles confirm my confusion about Bavasi: he clearly isn't ignorant of statistical analysis. He even says he's trying to find a good analyst for the team, and that the guy he tried to get--Craig Wright, who decined for "personal reasons"--is "a billion times smarter than me." So Bavasi wants a guy who really knows stats, and he knows he himself could use some help. What's the delay then? If Bavasi is decisive, as Howard Lincoln commends him, why doesn't he get going and find someone who's going to help him avoid such questionable decisions? But this article is mostly good news: Bavasi knows statistical analysis is a valuable tool, and he's trying to find someone to provide real expertise.

On the other hand, Bavasi says "In general, I'd prefer to have a veteran club that has enough youth to it to stay healthy." I'm really not sure how age, or years of major league experience, has much significant correlation to being a good player. I would do an analysis of it, except 1) I don't have ready access to any data that lists players' stats along side their years of experience or age, and 2) I don't have the statistical expertise to know how to rule out other factors. That is, all things being equal, are more experienced players going to play better? Besides the well-known trend for older players to decline, is there some advantage that playing at a major league level longer gives a player? Can we measure it?

Bavasi makes the comparison with Atlanta, but part of me fears that, with his fixation on veteran-ness, we are more likely to become the next Baltimore. I hope he finds his stat-guy soon.

On hold, musing about movies

Since there isn't much going on... I'm going to post my list of favorite baseball movies. Every sports writer has done this, and the only reason I'm doing it is because I disagree with pretty much all of them. The reason is that I actually like baseball in baseball movies, and a lot of "baseball" movies seem to have very little to do with what happens between the chalk. If you think I'm just being pretentious, and just have wierd tastes in movies, email me and tell me what you think. Really, go ahead.

1. Baseball by Ken Burns. So it's a nine-hour miniseries documentary (correction:It's a 20 hour series) that aired on PBS. No film has ever fanned the flames of fandom, or flamed the fan of ... oh never mind. Go to your local library and check it out Seriously, it's well worth the 20 hours.

2. For the Love of the Game, starring [cringe] Kevin Costner. I'm probably the only one on the planet that thinks Costner's third baseball movie was his best. I was skeptical before I watched it, because everyone had said his first two were better, but I was pleasantly surprised. Maybe it because it's based on a novel by Michael Shaara, author of The Killer Angels.

3. 61, directed by Billy Crystal. Rated behind Love of the Game probably because it shows too much fondness for everything Yankee. But Billy did a nice job. And man, does Barry Pepper look like Roger Maris or what?

4. The Rookie, starring Dennis Quaid. Hey, I'm a sucker. The Rookie has no qualms about going for the sentimental syrup, but it works for me.

5. The Natural, starring Robert Redford. Lots of good performances in this one, great characters, and a great film score, that many ballparks have ripped off and play when the home team hits a home run.

Okay, top five is all I'm giving. Plenty more out there, and lots I haven't seen. I think the one I'd most like to see that I haven't already is Eight Men Out, simply because it is based on a book that is so well researched, unlike some other movie that has Joe Jackson in it. What movies am I missing? Email me and let me know.

Opening day? After these messages from the NCAA...

Well, there isn't much going on right now on the baseball front. The sports world has turned its attention to the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. Some thought's about that:

If you've watched any of the tourney, you've probably seen the TV spots the NCAA is running, which end "there are 360,000 NCAA student-athletes, and just about all of us will be going pro in something other than sports." Every time some recruitment scandal turns up, I hear voices--usually on sports talk radio--calling for the NCAA to start paying its players some of the money it gets. And nothing makes more money for the NCAA than the Div I Men's Basketball tournament. What the TV spots highlight is that, contrary to guys on sports radio, the NCAA is serious about higher education, as well it should be. Collegiate athletes are getting "paid" with an opportunity to get a college education; if those students take a cavalier attitude towards that education, it isn't the fault of the university or the NCAA. As the TV spots indicate, most collegiate athletes ARE serious about their education, because they don't have a real chance of playing sports professionally and because they generally are pretty responsible people. I'd like to think that athletics actually help to teach that kind of dedication and focus, not steal it away. And that's where all the money is going--back to support all the other athletics programs that don't make it on national TV, but are worthwhile and exciting in their own right.

And also, a shout out to my alma mater and their women's basketball team, who made it to the final eight of their tournament--one of those NCAA sports that might not see the TV coverage, but deserves recognition. The Lady Falcons were ranked no. 1 in the country and were undefeated, but got beaten by 2nd-ranked Drury, who, oddly, they faced in the quarterfinals (on what was essentially a home court for Drury), the first round of the final eight. But it was a good run.

Hey, Wha' Happen?

For those of you too sane to get caught up in the minutiae of the baseball off-season, Jared Poppel of Insidethepark.com gives us Part One of an extensive review and commentary. He wishes the M's front office would have signed Raphael Palmeiro instead of Edgar Martinez because a)he's left handed and b) he hits the tar out of the ball at Safeco Field. But not re-signing Edgar would be like the Orioles not re-signing Cal Ripken; it would be foolish to alienate a fan base so callously, even if it were done out of purely competetive rationale.

The biggest problem, of course, is that Jared says signing Ibanez at an average of $4M/year was "about market-average for a player with his statistics." Huh?

Player	2003 Avg	2003 OPS	2004 Salary
Ibanez	.294	.799	$3.25M*
Matt Stairs	.292	.950	$1M
Jose Cruz	.250	.779	$3M
Frank Catalanotto/B>	.299	.823	$2.3M

*Not including $2M signing bonus

There are other hitters who hit better than Ibanez and cost less, but aren't left handed. But some of them (Melvin Mora, Jay Payton, for example) did almost as well or better than Ibanez did against right-handers, which is supposedly what makes Raul's lefthandedness a plus.

I'm sorry to rehash this for those of you who know all of this already, but Ibanez was offered too much for too long. That doesn't mean he's going to be a disaster. But it means the extra money that is going to him wasn't available to sign better bench players, and won't be available at the trading deadline.

I'm expecting Jared to be much more critical of the Colbrunn-for-McCracken trade, which of course is completely indefensible.

That kid from Spiro, Oklahoma
Today is apparently Ryan Franklin Home-run rate week. USS Mariner posted a flurry of discussions, and directed us to Jeff's post at Fire Bavasi for a more concise comparison of Franklin to the rest of the M's staff. Many stat-friendly analysts, like those at Baseball Prospectus and many around the Blogosphere, are predicting Ryan Franklin is due for a down year.

Because I think this is such a relevant article, I'm posting it now and getting to my other comments later. The question I have for all the Franklin nay-sayers is this: why is Franklin not like the pitchers listed in this article? Are his three effective years all lucky, or is he, like Reuter and Cornejo, finding a different way to be effective?

For those of you uninitiated, here's the basic premise for claiming Franklin will be worse this year: his strikeout rate has declined the last couple years AND he has given up a lot of home runs. Fewer strikeouts mean more balls in play, and most consistently good pitchers don't let a lot of balls in play. That is, there's no significant correlation between being a good pitcher and having a lot of the batted balls you allow be turned into outs. The argument goes that Franklin did as well as he did because of superior defense--in the outfield, particularly--and because of luck, and that both are more likely to decline this year. Conversely, home runs are one way that the pitcher alone is responsible for giving up runs. Giving up HRs prevents your defense from helping you out.

USS Mariner regular (and Baseball Prospectus author) Derek Zumsteg grudgingly acknowledges that Franklin actually did get the least amount of run support last year. That doesn't mean Franklin won't give up more runs this year, but it does mean that if the Mariners are more efficient with their run scoring--that is, they don't "waste" runs on days when their top pitchers are on the mound--a decline by Franklin won't result in more losses. We can expect this simply through regression-to-the-mean: the Mariners are more likely to distribute their run support more evenly than they did last year, so Franklin will get more run support. This might also be one reason why the M's won fewer games last year than their run differential would suggest (Run Differentials, the difference between runs allowed and runs scored, can be translated into predicted wins and losses. Check out "Pythagorean Standings at the bottom of Rob Neyer's home page.)

I, for one, am holding out hope that Franklin will find ways to be effective despite a low strikeout rate, as he has done for the past three years. But it is hope, not empirically based prediction. Would it were that Bill Bavasi might learn the difference.

Anyone who wants to explain this line to me from BP's triple play, please send me an email:

"The park formerly known as Edison International is projected to be a better hitter's park this year than last." Does changing the name make it easier to hit?

I'm sure I don't have that many regular readers, but I apologize for the scarity of postings this week...I've been completing work on my first composition for Orchestra. Perhaps I'll be able to put an audio file of the reading session up at some point, when that happens.

Oh, yeah, that Griffey thing. So much has been said (check out the "Blogosphere" links), and I only have two reminders:
1. Griffey now isn't Griffey 1999. If Junior does come back to Seattle, I hope the fans will let him be what he is now, and not try to make him be what he was then. Unreal expectations were what made him so unhappy in Cincy, so let's hope he doesn't get that back here.

2. Aren't some of his injuries sort of freak-accident type stuff? It's odd that the M's would dismiss Guillen as "injury-prone" but would be interested in Griffey (if indeed the rumors are true). Conversely, it strikes me as a little bit of a double-standard to lament the departure of Guillen but fear the return of Griffey. I'm not sure one is more injury-prone than the other.

The new commercials are out. Dead Reckoning, the Mariner news blog, thinks they highlight the "niceness" of all the Mariners, and aren't as funny as years past. Of course, there have been so many great M's commercials, and consequently the bar has been set pretty high. But I agree that they aren't quite as snappy.

Remember that first great slogan? "You gotta love these guys." There was something quirky about those Mariner teams, and that ad slogan played on it. Sure, Joey Cora was a cute (but lousy) second baseman, but we also had the magnificent jubilence of Ken Griffey, the cantakerous sage in Lou Pinella, the strong silent type in Edgar--he speaks with his bat, the gritty trash-talking Jay Buhner, the 6'10" lefty who you wouldn't want to cross. Even Dan Wilson, the nice guy of nice guys, was noted for his Mechanical engineering degree. That's not to say that we don't have characters now--Boone is cocky, Spiezio is a Gen-X rocker, Jamey, almost smugly, humiliates opposing batters. But the M's don't celebrate that nearly as much. Two commercials feature a puppy and the cuddliest mascot on the planet, the Moose. The Ibanez Latte commercial is exactly why New Yorkers laugh at our baseball experience--not that I want Safeco to feel like the Bronx.

My next observation may be a little technical, but we shouldn't underestimate the role of good editing in making the commercials funny. So much of comedy is timing, and the players reading thier cue cards probably haven't ever had great comedic timing (well, Lou Pinella was pretty good). Take this year's ad titled "Advice:"
Opposing second baseman (from Milwaukee) sheepishly asks Boone if he really means that even Boone misses easy grounders.

[Pause, cut to camera 1]. [Boone turns his head.] [Pause] "Hah![Pause] me? [Pause] No, not me. [Pause] Guys like you, happens all the time."
"Thanks"
[Pause]

"Ah, you're welcome."

We got the joke after the first pause, and then we have to suffer through the rest of the exchange. Sure, Boone ain't the greatest actor, but the humor of deadpan is all in the timing, and timing is what editors have to be paying attention to. I suppose I shouldn't spare the director, who also plays a role in the timing and delivery of lines, but he's got limited talent to work with. For a study in contrast, check out the crisp editing and timing at the end of "Clapper," when Edgar delivers his punch line. Much better.

Oh, and can I just say that whoever decided to insert someone yelling "hey now" just before Dave Niehaus says "Get all of it" (the new slogan) has officially annoyed the heck out of me.

Ranting aside, we should be grateful that the M's have had such a long history of great commercials, and these ads generally maintain that proud tradition. Now for that World Series...

My dad is more old school than yours

Looks like Blaine Newnham is trying to out-old-school the M's front office with his profile of Rich Aurlia. Jeff at San Shin has shown in part why so many of us in the blogosphere think it's all a bunch of hooey. Even if you resonate with the old-school philosophy that Newnham is espousing here, then at least dignify it with something more substantive than "Aurilia is pure baseball, with no additives." Seriously now--does that mean anything? Talk about character, grittiness, give us anecdotes about how pure courage helped Aurilia break out a slump or win a game for his team. Old-school doesn't have to mean vapid and inane platitudes.

In his next article, Newnham echoes the sentiment of a lot of people (including Joe Kaiser of Insidethepark.com) that a lot of the Mariner reserves seem to be having a great spring. I'm happy for them and all, but do you really think Hiram Bocachica going 8-15 so far is more significant than him not being able to make the Tigers last year (he played for their AAA club)? Newnham also tries to defend the trade of Colbrunn for McCracken by saying McCracken "has not hit below .290 when given 300 ABs." But how likely is it that McCracken is going to get that many at-bats as a fouth outfielder? Last year, McLemore was the only Mariner reserve to get over 300 ABs, and he played most of his games in the infield, and that was because of the offensive black hole at third named Cirillo. If McCracken hits .230 in 150 ABs, I sure hope Melvin is smart enough to realize another 150 isn't going to transform him back into a hitter.

An old article, but one you just have to read before you read any more stories coming from spring training. Derek Zumsteg offers us some timeless truths.

Musical Chairs
More Melvinian Madness. So Ibanez is suddenly a better cleanup hitter than Edgar? Buried in the article is Hickey's suggestion that it has something to do with the right-left-right of Boone-Ibanez-Martinez, though we don't know if that's the reasoning behind Melvin's plan. But let's go with that assumption. OBP/SLG over the past three years:

	Ibanez	Martinez
vs. left	.294/.399	.438/.542
vs. right	.364/.523	.402/.495
None on	.335/.470	.401/.529
Runners on	.359/.517	.422/.484

First, I'm assuming those of you reading this know that batters generally have a harder time hitting against pitchers who throw with the same hand that the batter bats, i.e. a lefty vs. lefty matchup favors the pitcher. The degree to which this is true varies from batter to batter and pitcher to pitcher, but it's one of the more consistent trends in batting splits.

All indicators here suggest that Edgar should be batting ahead of Ibanez, since he gets on base more often, in every situation. Ibanez does have a significant lefty/righty split, but Edgar's still better against right handers in absolute terms. Any opposing manager who realizes this will put the lefty against Ibanez anyway, knowing that it won't make much of a difference with Edgar. If the thought is that Ibanez is a "good RBI man"--which you would only subscribe to if you think there is such a thing as "clutch hitting"--then you'd want the guy who gets on base like nobody's business getting on base before your table clearer, right? Edgar gets on, Ibanez smacks him home.

There are two factors I'm not considering here: the idea of "protecting" someone in the lineup. With Edgar behind him, would Ibanez be more likely to see good pitches? What sort of effect will that have? I don't know, and I'd be interested if someone's done the research on it. Secondly, the simple fact that batters higher in the order will get more at-bats over the long haul. Until he shows he can't hit anymore--yeah, that's likely--don't we want Edgar getting as many ABs as possible?

In looking at whole left-right-left question, I'm finding that Boone and Edgar seem to be the only regulars on the M's who can do anything against lefties. Ideally, you'd put Ibanez behind Edgar, and then somebody who can mash lefties behind Ibanez, forcing any manager who puts in a lefty against Raul to make another change or face the music. But who's going to bat behind Ibanez who can do that? Aurilia, Spiezio, Olerud are all significantly worse against lefties. I guess we all hope that Ben Davis, who does hit lefties significantly better, figures out how to hit for a full year, get's the playing time, and sits right behind someone who doesn't fair too well against lefties. Hope springs eternal.

Two Years, 6 months later

Spain suffers the largest terrorist attack on Europe since the Lockerbie bombing on March 11, 2004. I was in Europe on 9-11-2001, and when the WTC was hit, Europeans responded with dramatic displays of emphathy, to me personally and in large groups corporately. Many countries observed moments of silence, the BBC turned all of it's attention to the U.S., and even the French, who have taken a fair share of abuse from this side of the Atlantic, expressed their condolences in simple eloquence: "We are all Americans," proclaimed Le Monde. Perhaps the most moving experience was in the Iona, Scotland monestary on Sept 11, when they held a memorial service for the American dead. Whatever you think of Europe today with all that has transpired in the last two years, they grieved with us then.

Sadly, the U.S. doesn't seem to be responding in kind. Yes, I know that the death toll in Madrid is in the hundreds, not the thousands. But our shock and horror should be no less real. I don't know that we are all Spaniards, but I am one today. Spain, our prayers are with you.