XM MLB Chat: David Ortiz was really 10 for 31 v Rivera not 8 for 25 going into Friday at bat

I tuned to the YES Network to make sure it was still an ESPN/Bud Selig clone and it was. Michael Kay announced David Ortiz' stats v Mariano Rivera going into the 9th inning match up on Friday, August 5, 2011 in Boston. Kay says Ortiz does well against Rivera and

is 8 for 25.

Ortiz does well against Rivera but the stat deliberately omits 6 meaningful at bats in the two players' careers and cheats the baseball consumer out of a larger sample size, ie the post season, stats for which are readily available.

Going into the at bat including post season Ortiz was

10 for 31. Six more at bats.

Even the so-called Yankee tv channel doesn't dare mention post season stats. 13 straight years in the post season (1995-2007) made the YES Network possible and brought attendance to Yankee Stadium that had been so bad all you heard in the mid '90's was the Yankees had to move to Manhattan "because nobody would come to the Bronx." Three levels of post season play make greater demands on players often in extreme weather conditions, on the biggest stages, against the toughest competition, often in close and extra inning situations, sometimes the most grinding and demanding of a player's entire career. All in the trash, dismissed because Bud Selig is in charge of stats, records, awards, glory, all aspects of players' images, and perks for those he favors . (See Selig restructures an award committee when it looked like Marvin Miller would be voted in-now it's fixed so he never will). So he has the troops saying post season stats should not be counted because it's "unfair" to those who weren't as "lucky" to go to the post season.

ESPN announcer Dan Shulman even referred to post season stats as "a luxury." (10/7/07)

This rationale assumes everyone who goes to the post season gets good stats. Even helpful pitcher vs batter stats are ignored for fear people might look into post season stats a little more-which would be "unfair." If the YES Network ignores significant amounts of a Yankee player's most difficult work or fails to inform viewers of meaningful post season at bats between Ortiz and Rivera, what's the point of watching it?

If post season stats are due to 'luck' and 'opportunity' then how is the 'save' stat different since it's first a function of the 'save opportunity'- followed by a variety of other factors related more to the manager than the pitcher?

Reference, 7/20/2009, "No News is Bad News, Decline in Local Coverage pushes sports to Innovate," Sports Business Journal, by Bill King. "In its nine years, MLB.com has thrown lifelines to ink-stained wretches from coast to coast"...(item slightly more than half way down page)

Reference, change in HOF Veterans Committee, 4/24/2008, "Brass in Mitchell Report might escape penalty," AP, MSNBC

"Fehr said changes in the format of the Hall of Fame Veterans Committee made it a “foregone conclusion that Marvin Miller would never be elected.” Miller, the former union leader whose strategies helped create free agency and multimillion-dollar salaries, received 51 of 81 (63 percent) in early 2007,

falling 10 votes shy of the needed 75 percent.

Miller got just three of 12 votes in December.

“It makes me sort of very sad,” Fehr said." (end of article)

From commenter at Baseball Think Factory on Tom Seaver's article saying "Marvin Miller Got Robbed (again):"

4. Bob Tufts Posted: December 07, 2009 at 11:55 AM (#3405635)

Has the Hall of Fame now slipped into total irrelevance? It has not for profit status due to its educational mission. In ignoring Miller for induction, the committee members appointed by the HOF have neglected the mission, so maybe they should have the tax free claim challenged?