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By Bill Campione

I have been a Yankee fan for my entire life. I chanted “REG-GIE” during the 1978 World Series when I wasn’t yet two years old. I was there for Dave Righetti’s no hitter on July 4, 1983. I was there for the first playoff game at the Stadium in fourteen years in 1995. I felt the place literally shake when Buck Showalter and Don Mattingly were introduced.

All of my great in person Yankee memories pale in comparison to a moment I witnessed in my dorm room on May 12, 1996. The Yankees were playing in Comiskey Park and trailing 8-0 after two innings. The Yanks cut the lead to 8-4 by the sixth when Andy Fox came up. The New York Times wrote:

“Andy Fox’s grounder to first base today should have been another routine out in a game the Yankees seemed destined to lose to the White Sox. But Fox did not view it so casually. He hustled out of the batter’s box, never hesitated as Frank Thomas waved off pitcher Alex Fernandez and won what started as a lopsided race when a jittery Thomas stabbed his foot inches shy of the base.”

Fox said after the game, “I don’t think it takes any extra skill to hustle. Those things go unnoticed, but it started a rally.”

The Yankees proceeded to score five runs that inning to take the lead and win the game behind strong bullpen work from Mariano Rivera and John Wetteland. This is why I am a member of the Andy Fox Fan Club and why I am an eternal fan of the scrapper. A previous column indicated my displeasure with David Eckstein, when, in fact, my ire was directed at Michael Kay for not fully understanding the importance of a scrapper to the right team.

A scrapper’s job is to the little things that the big guys can’t do or won’t do, like bunting, hiting to the right side, or swiping a base. The scrapper is there to motivate the team with unheard of tenacity and hustle. The scrapper plays a valuable role on a team that needs those skills. Many teams don’t have the luxury of paying a scrappy middle infielder $4.5 million to do the little things. Some teams are in dire need of this kind of play because their roster is unmotivated, full of bloated contracts and egos, or they lack the guts to get themselves up off of the map like Andy Fox over ten years ago for the Yankees. 

The Blue Jays were thought one of those teams coming into the 2008 season. A team that fell apart last season, the Jays were universally thought of as gutless and in need of the shot in arm Eckstein would bring them. The Mets were in the same position as they considered bringing Eckstein in to play second base, but surprisingly, Minaya blew that opportunity to instead sign Luis Castillo and his brittle knees to a four year deal. As the biggest regular season choke artists ever, bringing in Eckstein would have gone a long way towards ending the premature celebrations and adding a killer instinct so sorely lacking in 2007.

Let’s look at the characteristics of a scrapper.

Characteristic #1: Limited baseball ability.

You just can’t be a scrapper if you are a very good player. In researching scrappiness I’ve come across lists that include Craig Biggio and Ichiro. These men are Hall of Famers. It is rare that a scrapper makes in into the Hall, unless there is some kind of fluke involved (see Rizzuto, Phil). Scrappers have to fight for playing time in many cases, because they are jack of all trades and master of none.

Characteristic #2: Speed, quickness, or base running ability.

This is tricky because not all scrappers are fast. But they all make good pinch runners because they know how to run the bases. As someone who does not excel at the plate or in the field, it is imperative that you earn your spot as the 25^th man on the roster by doing something that nobody else can. Which brings us to…

Characteristic #3: Play many positions

Scrappers are able to roam the field and not embarrass themselves. Your value shoots up when you can play leftfield to give the regular a break, then shift to short after a double switch. I remember  Randy Velarde as the ultimate multi-positional scrapper for Buck Showalter. Of course once he was fingered for using performance enhancing drugs, he lost his scrapper membership card because…

Characteristic #4: Play the game the right way

This has become murkier over the years. Scrappers hustle, dive, and bust it out of the box like you’re supposed to. Scrappers get their uniform dirty and slide hard into second base. They don’t cheat by using PEDs or corked bats. But when the Mitchell Report was released at the end of 2007 it included scrappers such as the aforementioned Velarde, Brian Roberts, F.P. Santangelo, and Fernando Vina. It even included Scrapper god Lenny Dykstra, who left Scrapperville and almost made it to MVP City, an unheard of transformation.

Characteristic #5: Caucasian

Not all scrappers are white. Homer Bush, Vina, Marco Scutaro and Chone Figgins are just a few of the non-white scrappers. But whether it is a discriminatory issue or just fact, most scrappers throughout history have been white.

Scrappers hold a very important place on the right major league team. But on a team like the Nationals, a scrapper is just a light hitting utility player. A skill lacking among some GMs (see Minaya, Omar) is understanding when your team needs that shot in arm that only a scrapper can bring.

Andy Fox is currently the first base/infield coach for the Florida Marlins. I can’t think of anyone better to teach that young team how to run out ground balls to first base.