"Get me Vaughn..."

The "Wild Thing" spent the entire season in the rotation but in the one game playoff, Lou Brown called for Rick Vaughn to come into the top of the ninth with two outs, to face Clew Haywood and give the Indians' offense a chance to win it. Now I know Major League wasn't a documentary and events didn't occur in real time, but this was my first real memory of a closer in a baseball game (I think I was nine or ten).

From Lee Smith and Goose Gossage to Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera, pitchers have made careers out of shutting the door at the end of the game and picking up the "save". Guys like Dennis Eckersley and John Smoltz actually flourished in both the starting and closing roles. But many pitchers have and will continue to enter the Hall of Fame without ever being in a rotation. Back in ye olde days, dudes could pitch 12, 14, 16 inning complete games like ain't no thang and not bat an eyelash. Go back and look at some inning totals for a season in the 1920s. And of course four and five man rotations didn't exist either.

But the game was changing in the late 50s and a Chicago baseball writer named Jerome Holtzman saw the future of the sport. In 1959, he calculated a new statistic that wouldn't be adopted until ten years later - the save. Widely considered one of the greatest baseball writers ever, Holtzman passed away last Saturday at the age of 81. In addition to his tremendous body of work at both the Tribune and the Sun Times, he wrote the classic 1974 book, "No Cheering in the Press Box." Bud Selig actually named him the first official historian of Major League Baseball.

Also, from the Baseball Hall of Fame website,

"Holtzman also wrote the annual recap of the preceding season for The Official Baseball Guide, and contributed countless stories to stacks of magazines. He was the Cal Ripken Jr. of The Sporting News, writing more than a thousand consecutive weekly columns for the one-time "Bible of Baseball."

These days, we're stuck with Jay Mariotti. Yikes.

The sad thing is, Holtzman will miss the remainder of what could turn out to be the most impressive season by a closer in history. Last night, Francisco Rodriguez of the Angels recorded his 41st save. The Angels have only played 100 games so far this year! (Just to put things into perspective, the single season save record is 57.) That goes along with 47 K's in 45 innings. I've seen closers with lower ERAs and WHIPs before but this is getting ridiculous.

"Your concept of gravity amuses me!"

So for all you math majors out there, K-Rod has 62 games to record 17 saves and break the record. He's only 26 years old. If he pitches until he's as old as Hoffman or Rivera, what will his career stats look like? Here's the kicker for the Halos though. He's a free agent at the end of the year. Hmmm, a new contract for a guy who potentially shatters the single season record for saves? Artie Moreno better get ready to shell out the duckets. I've said before that I'm not really down with how much he celebrates after each save, but if no one on his team says anything (ala Youkilis and Manny) who am I to complain?

I don't want to short change the other young closers like Papelbon, Jenks and Soria (Nathan is 33...) but what Rodriguez is doing is borderline otherworldly so far. And his continued success will be crucial if the Angels want to win a second World Series this decade. He may not wear number 99, but I'm sure Lou Brown would be calling his number every chance he got.