source: http://0rz.tw/7c38H October 13, 2007 -- BOSTON - The temptation is great, and it'll be there most of the winter, and for the early portion of Joba Chamberlain's career. The bullpen has become the overwhelming baseball obsession of the new millennium, the thing that keeps fans awake at night, keeps GM's ears permanently glued to their telephones and keeps manager's stomachs awash in Maalox. Somehow, somewhere, we have forgotten about the Ace. Keep the capital letter precisely where it is. That's how important the Ace is going back to the beginning of baseball time, the man around whom an entire team - hell, an entire city - can rally every five days. The guy you know - you just know - will deliver you when you need delivering. A guy like Josh Beckett of the Red Sox, for instance. A guy who can go out, in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series against an ultra-confident lineup of Cleveland Indians and give them this: four hits, two runs, seven strikeouts spanning six innings and 80 pitches. "He was just fabulous out there tonight," said Terry Francona, the Red Sox manager, savoring another Ace effort from an Ace pitcher, savoring this 10-3 win that gives his team the early advantage in this best-of-seven series. That is what an Ace does. And this is what an Ace says: "It's important to get your guys in the dugout, especially on a cold night," Beckett said. "Sometimes you realize you don't have to make perfect pitches. Sometimes good ones are good enough." That's the way it is with an Ace. Everything we've seen about Chamberlain tells us he's got that in him. That he's got some Beckett in him, that the talent coursing through his right arm could allow him to be the traffic-stopping, eye-popping, jaw-dropping Ace that can sustain a team through the long season of summer and absolutely carry them through the short series of October. Chamberlain himself has yet to state a preference. "It's kind of hard to see myself as a starter right now," he said recently, "just because I haven't done it for a while." Mariano Rivera's dominance - coupled with a procession of Mets bullpen frustrations, from John Franco to Armando Benitez to Billy Wagner and a cast of subpar setup men - has drilled into New York baseball fans the importance of the men who enter late in games. Make no mistake, that is important. But that compulsion has come at the cost of forgetting just how valuable the guys who enter early in games are. Part of that is because we haven't had an Ace, a real one, around here in a long time, maybe going all the way back to David Cone's twin primes with both teams. There have been terrific frontline starters - Andy Pettitte, David Wells, Orlando Hernandez, Al Leiter, Mike Hampton - for both clubs, nominal aces, but all of them distinctly lowercase. Occasionally, Roger Clemens has offered glimpses of what he was in Boston and Toronto and Houston, but even he was never a wire-to-wire Ace in any of his Yankees seasons, even the Cy Young year of 2001. It's what Joba Chamberlain could well become for the Yankees. He has the electric skills. He has the repertoire. He certainly has the dare-you-to-knock-me-out attitude an Ace needs, the snarling swagger that Beckett exemplifies better than anyway. An Ace's attitude. People always point to the Red Sox, and to Jonathan Papelbon, but that move was as much about necessity, as much about protecting a balky shoulder. Chamberlain has no such issue right now. Right now, it's about value. And there is no question that a drop-dead closer - the kind Rivera has been since 1997 - is a precious commodity. But just think: How much did having Rivera lurking help the Yankees this year when Chien-Ming Wang - their ace, small a - failed twice to get out of the fifth inning? How much did it help the Mets having Billy Wagner two Sundays ago when Tom Glavine never got out of the first? Last night Papelbon took the night off primarily because Beckett didn't. You get the chance to put an Ace on your team, you better do it. Ask the Sox. Ask the Tribe. And ask the Yanks, if Chamberlain becomes everything he's bound to become. --

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