In last night’s Dodger victory over the Giants to sweep a 3 game series, Dodgers reserve infielder Doug Mientkiewicz slapped a pinch-hit RBI double down the right field line and then made a horribly awkward and completely unnecessary dive into second base, severely dislocating his right shoulder in the process (pictured above).  At the time of the dive, no infielder was even within 20 feet of the second base bag.

Back in the clubhouse, Dodger trainers popped his shoulder back in, but then it popped right back out again, meaning Mientkiewicz is probably headed for surgery.

Sucks for Mientkiewicz, but what really makes this so frustrating for Dodgers fans is what Mientkiewicz cost the team.

Manager Joe Torre insisted the Dodgers sign Mientkiewicz to a minor league contract in the offseason (because Joe loves what he knows, and he knows Mientkiewicz from when he managed him back on the Yankees), and Torre was then bound and determined to shoehorn Mientkiewicz onto the major league squad, no matter how much Mientkiewicz did not fit in with the rest of the roster.

“I like how he is not afraid to get his shirt dirty,” Torre said back in late March.

But of course, forcing Mientkiewicz onto the roster ultimately meant that the Dodgers had to trade away Delwyn Young to Pittsburgh, only to have Mientkiewicz tear up his shoulder on a ridiculously foolish play just two days after the trade.

So now the Dodgers have no Delwyn Young *and* they’ve lost Mientkiewicz, so they’ll have to call up either Blake DeWitt or Xavier Paul, both of whom would be much better served getting at-bats every day than riding the pine in the majors.

But Torre was right about one thing. Mientkiewicz definitely was not afraid to get his shirt dirty.

Today is inauguration day and to celebrate the occasion we’ll present the final two in our series of baseball-related Obamicons. First up is David Eckstein who, according to an in-depth study of grit, is the 11th grittiest player of all time, while his 2002 season was the second grittiest season ever.

What is grit? The aforementioned study looked at statistics like times hit by pitch, fewest number of intentional walks, and stolen base inefficiency. But the truth is, grit is one of those intangible qualities that is hard to define but, like pornography, we know it when we see it. And when we look at Ecktstein, we see grit. Lots of grit. And if there’s one thing we’ll all need to pull ourselves out of the mess our country’s in right now, it’s an Ecksteinian amount of grit.

Eckstein is the grittiest player of his generation because he’s white, he plays hard, he’s white, he’s short, and he’s white.

And what’s that all over his uniform? Is that dirt? Is it pine tar? Is it tobacco juice? No, baby. That’s grit.

We UmpBump writers have spent far too much time debating the relative merits of many different kinds of statistics. Does a high RBI total actually signify a skill? Why should we care about a pitcher’s Win totals? Is WARP3 actually necessary?  The list continues.

But this past week, something wonderful has happened. Someone actually created a stat that could finally end the war between the awesome intergalactic sabermetric fleets armed with X-Wing Fighter Jets and the “classic” statisticians with their… umm… vaudeville shows and toothbrush mustaches and 23-skidoos… I don’t know. I wasn’t alive during this time.

Yes, friends, someone has finally created a quantifiable stat to measure GRIT.

<loud applause>

The good folks over at Flotsam Media, a sports blog, actually went through a data set beginning in 1955 to determine who was the most/least gritty player during this span:

I hold that gritty players are those who sincerely want to win or succeed at baseball (determination), but due to a lack of natural skill (talent), are forced to do so through the least efficient means possible, resulting in an excessive amount of dirt on their uniform.

This DIRT factor was created by looking at stats such as HBP (the ultimate form of grittiness) , and Stolen Bases and Caught Stealing. Other factors that were determined through similar methods were:

DETERMINATION

Gritty players want to succeed. They just happen to not have the talent to actually do so. This results in inefficient baseball plays. For example, Jerry Hairston is gritty. He slides head-first into first base. A true sign of someone gritty enough to want to get to first base, but shitty enough to (not) actually get there efficiently.

TALENT

It is my contention that “grittiness” is a subset of talent that cannot translate well statistically. Two players may very well have the same raw amount of grit, but one player may have more tangible talent, making him appear less gritty because the grit is too diluted. Gritty players are those who have the largest concentration of grit. As such, too find the grittiest players, we should look for players who have as little tangible talent as possible.

I’ll stop cribbing because the Flotsam post is really worth reading for yourself (there you can also find out who the grittiest of the gritty were).  But I wanted to simply tip my cap to them. Maybe now, I can stop squirming when people call Miguel Cairo anything more than crappy.