really quite manic

Introducing Your 2011 Playoff Cardinals: Bullpen

2011-10-02T15:53:00.002-04:00

This is the Cardinals bullpen. I feel like there are a lot more guys hiding in there somewhere but every other familiar name I double-checked now pitches for another team. At the beginning of the season there was a lot of criticism leveled at the bullpen (*cough*RyanFranklin*cough*) but, after considerable wheeling and dealing the Cardinals have put together a respectable group of pitchers.

This is Kyle McClellan. He was left off of the NLDS roster due to a recent bout of arm fatigue. He says he's fine, so maybe he will show up later if when the Cardinals advance. Just thought you should know.

This is Mitchell Boggs. Like a lot of guys in the Cardinals' bullpen he has experience starting games, finishing games, and showing up somewhere in the middle. The past four seasons his won-loss record has been 3-2, 2-3, 2-3, 2-3. This isn't relevant to anything, it's just a minor statistical oddity.

This is Mark Rzepczynski (pronounced zep-CHIN-skee). YES HE HAS A WEIRD NAME. There aren't many people named Mark anymore. A former starting pitcher in Toronto, the Jays converted him to the bullpen before trading him to the Cardinals halfway through the season. As a left-handed pitcher he is often brought in as a specialist for specific match-ups, although he has pitched as many as three innings in relief. Since coming to the Cardinals he has averaged 11.1 strikeouts per nine innings, which is quite good.

This is Octavio Dotel (rhymes with Hotel). He has played for 11 teams in the past 8 seasons, which either means he is not terribly desirable, or he is the king of one-year contracts, or it means he is an excellent bargaining chip. Since coming to the Cardinals mid-season from the Blue Jays (just like half the dang team) Dotel has pitched effectively and has been used recently as the eight inning set-up man.

This is Arthur Rhodes. He is old. He was playing Minor League baseball in 1988. In 2007 he underwent Tommy John surgery, so really he is only pitching with a four-year-old arm. A lefty specialist, he will only face one or two batters at a time, some of whom weren't even born when he signed his first contract. Rhodes has done well as opponents have only batted .207 against him since he came to St. Louis in August.

This is Fernando Salas. He was born in Huatabampo, Mexico, which is infinitely fun to say out loud. This is only his second season in the Majors and for a while the Cardinals used him as their regular closer. They never announced that he was THE closer, he just frequently found himself pitching the final inning of tight ballgames. Last month his role was less defined as he was brought in to pitch as early as the seventh inning. Regardless he is consistent, reliable, and Mexican.

This is Jason Motte. He is a relief pitcher. Less a pitcher, more a throw-the-living-crap-out-of-the-ball-er. As they'll remind you during every broadcast Motte was a former catcher. You can tell this in his delivery as it looks like he is trying to throw every pitch through a brick wall. Despite throwing the ball so violently he walks surprisingly few batters. Last month he was used as the closer despite the fact that, again, the Cardinals never announced an official closer. He was simply their guy who finished close games.

Introducing Your 2011 Playoff Cardinals: Infielders

2011-10-02T00:20:00.002-04:00

Game 1 against the Philadelphia Phillies started off promising enough (three runs off of Roy Halladay? Holy cow!) but a bad inning, followed by a bad inning, followed by a bad inning put the victory out of reach. But with Halladay out of the way, the Cardinals can look forward in Game 2 to beating up on... Cliff Lee? Aw, nuts.

Let's look at the Cardinals' infield. Apart from Albert Pujols and, to some extent, Yadier Molina, the regular infielders are quite anonymous outside of St. Louis. Tony LaRussa is always shuffling them around anyway, so how are we supposed to keep track? Here are the guys you should at least make an effort to remember.

This is Albert Pujols (pronounced POO-holes, tee-hee). He plays first base, except for those weird seven games when he played third. Despite having the worst offensive season in his Major League career, he still led the team in home runs, hits, RBIs, runs, and total bases, among other things. Pujols is so dominating with his bat people forget he is also an excellent fielder and a smart baserunner (his stolen base success rate is always surprisingly high despite the fact he is not at all fast-legged). In 57 post-season games (including last night's Game 1) Pujols is batting .322 with 13 home runs and 37 walks, 12 of them intentional, so as this series progresses expect some Pujolsian damage.

This is Skip Schumaker. You could probably figure out everything you needed to know about him by simply looking at his name. Scrappy player under 6ft tall? No home run power, .290 career average? Check, check and check. In addition to competently fielding his second base position Skip can also be seen playing the outfield when Tony LaRussa gets a case of the late-inning switcharoos. Fun fact: Earlier this year Tony had him pitch (with permission, I'm sure) the last inning of a blowout game. Of the five batters he faced, he struck out two. He also walked a batter and gave up a homer. There is no reason to think Tony won't try this again next season.

This is Ryan Theriot (like "stereo," but without the letter S). He also plays second base. Theriot was actually the regular starting shortstop until Rafael Furcal was acquired in July. Since then he's been platooning with Skip and filling the position for the late innings. Theriot has also shown himself to be an effective pinch hitter.

This is Rafael Furcal. The Cards picked him up from the Dodgers in a mid-season trade. Although he is a little error prone, Furcal has great range and a cannon arm. He missed the final two games of the regular season with a hamstring injury but felt well enough to start Game 1 last night. After singling in his first at-bat the announcers said his base running could be hindered by the injury. Then he went ahead and stole second.

This is David Freese. He splits third base time with Daniel Descalso (which unintendedly sounds like some sort of innuendo). The Cardinals acquired him before the 2008 season by trading away an old broken Jim Edmonds to San Diego. Freese is a good hitter... and this concludes all I know about David Freese.

This is Daniel Descalso. He is a utility infielder playing his first full season in the Majors. Although not a regular starter, his versatility has allowed him to appear in 148 of the Cardinals' 162 games. He is always around, but you forget about him later.

This is Yadier Molina. He is the catcher, one of the best in the Major Leagues. Although he as always been regarded as an excellent fielder, the 2011 season was his best offensively. Usually regarded as a relatively quiet guy, this year Yadier got himself some tough tattoos and then later spat on an umpire. If this new scary Yadier continues to improve his hitting then I'm all for the radical image change. It is important to note that Molina is a post-season stud, batting .313 in 33 games and always there for the critical hit.

Introducing Your 2011 Playoff Cardinals: Outfielders

2011-09-30T14:50:00.003-04:00

Tony La Russa switched up his starting pitchers again. We still have Kyle Lohse starting Game 1, but now Chris Carpenter is starting Game 2 on three days rest. He has never pitched on anything less than four days rest. SCARY. Jaime Garcia will start Game 3, and Edwin Jackson is bumped to Game 4. It wouldn't surprise me if this all changes fifteen minutes before game time.

Now lets talk about the outfield. Ten different people at one point or another started a game in Tony's outfield this season, so you'll be forgiven if you can't recall everybody. They look so tiny out there anyway. Here are the need-to-know names and faces.

This is Matt Holliday. Apparently his nickname is "Big Daddy," which disturbs me more than a little bit. He is the left fielder, and every once in a while he has trouble catching baseballs lined directly at him. He more or less lost Game 2 of the 2009 NLDS all by himself when he attempted to field a line drive with his crotch, so hopefully there will be some sort of Matt Holliday redemption story this go-round. As ineffective as he can sometimes be in the field, he more than makes up for it with his bat. Holliday can hit for average, maintains a good on-base percentage, and is always a home run threat. However, he currently has a bum finger and will miss Game 1.

This is Jon Jay. He has, as far as I can tell, the shortest name in baseball history (right up there with Mel Ott). Raise your hand if you knew Jay played in 159 of the Cardinals' 162 games, more than anybody else. Now put your hand down because I can't actually see you. Yes, Jay weaseled his way into nearly every game by starting a few games here, pinch hitting there, replacing Lance Berkman over yonder, etc. Following the Colby Rasmus trade in July, Jay became the regular center fielder. He's reliable, he's durable, he's young (only his second MLB season), and the kids love him.

This is Lance Berkman. His nicknames are, and I'm not making this up, "Big Puma" and "Fat Elvis." After a disappointing 2010 season a lot of people decided that Berkman was old and broken. Eyebrows were raised when the Cards signed him during the off season, and eyebrows were raised even higher when it was announced he would play the outfield (something he hadn't done since 2007). He managed not to tear up his leg muscles in the field, and surprised everybody at the plate by becoming one the Cardinals' best offensive producers. He led the team in OBP, SLG, and (by extension) OPS.

This is Allen Craig. In only his second Major League season he has been surprisingly effective with the bat. As far as fielding goes he can play nearly every position, infield and out. He's usually been used to fill in for injuries or guys taking a day off or late-inning outfield substitutions. If he keeps performing this well he will have a regular starting gig someday.

This is Corey Patterson. He came over from the Blue Jays in that super deal in July that sent everybody everywhere. About the only thing going for him right now are his speedy legs, but he has zero stolen bases since coming to the St. Louis, so that shows you how much Tony cares about that. And having seen him play in Toronto I can tell you he is not a great base runner anyway. He has had bat problems too, hitting just .157 since the trade. What is Patterson good for? He can catch a ball. Most of the time...

Introducing Your 2011 Playoff Cardinals: Starting Rotation

2011-09-30T04:56:00.004-04:00

We continue our reacquaintance with the St. Louis Cardinals, this time taking a look at the starting rotation.

The St. Louis Post Dispatch is reporting that Tony La Russa's chosen starters for the NLDS against the Philadelphia Phillies will be Kyle Lohse, Edwin Jackson, and Chris Carpenter... in that order. Jaime Garcia will be saved for Game 4. Once again I cannot tell if La Russa is an insane genius or just insane. I'll call you back after the fourth game.

This is Kyle Lohse. Lohse pitched well in April and May, not at all well during the summer months, and sparkled in September. He may just be a mild weather kind of guy. This season Lohse was one of those few guys who actually pitched better on the road. He also did very well in his two appearances against the Phillies, holding them to 3 earned runs in 15 ⅓ innings, walking only 1 and striking out five. This may help to explain La Russa's decision to make him the Game 1 starter against Roy Halladay. It helps to explain, but does not fully explain.

This is Edwin Jackson. The son of a military cook, he was born in West Germany and can thus technically be referred to as a Bavarian. Jackson has played for five teams (if we don't count the two hours he belonged to Toronto) in the past four seasons and can thus also technically be referred to as a journeyman. In 2010 he threw a no-hitter, but it was a sloppy no-hitter as he walked eight batters and drilled another.

Jackson has only pitched against Philadelphia once. It didn't go too well.

(I didn't mean for Edwin's blurb to be so negative. His game should be an interesting one.)

This is Chris Carpenter (not to be confused with the Chicago Cubs rookie who is also a right-handed pitcher, also about the same physical size, and also shares the same first, middle, and last name). He is the "ace," at least until Adam Wainwright's arm is firmly reattached. Carpenter has the most experience of all the starters and even has one of those nifty Cy Young awards. His numbers were down this season, but he had a strong September. Carpenter is not a man you would expect to be laden with tattoos, but he is.

Carpenter pitched twice against the Phillies this season. In 15 innings he allowed only 1 run, walked two, and struck out 12. This is a very, very good thing.

This is Jaime Garcia (pronounced HY-may gar-SEE-ya). He was born in Reynosa, Mexico. He is the only left-hander in the starting rotation. 2010 was his first full season and he came third in Rookie Of The Year voting. His 2011 numbers were down a bit, and he threw 12 wild pitches (2nd-most in the NL), but his strikeout-to-walk ratio was much better. One day everything will click and there won't be anything you can do about it.

Garcia also did exceptionally well against the Phillies this season. In 15 innings he allowed only 1 earned run, walked 3, and struck out 9. The splits indicate Garcia is better at home than on the road and great after a ton of rest, and that may be why Tony is holding him until the series comes to St. Louis.

This is Jake Westbrook. His middle name is Cauthen. I don't know why his head seems so much bigger than everybody else's. Acquired from Cleveland in 2010 as part of a three-team trade the Cardinals are so fond of, Westbrook is an exceptionally good fielder. Pitching-wise, the second half of the season was better than the first, although he did bomb his last start.

And guess how he has done against Philadelphia this year. Fairly well! In 10 ⅓ innings he allowed only 2 earned runs (although he walked 8 and only struck out 2 -- yikes!).

Introducing Your 2011 Playoff Cardinals: Coaches

2011-09-29T04:37:00.006-04:00

The St. Louis Cardinals have spent most of the season flying below the radar. Then suddenly, BAM, they're in the playoffs. Since you wrote them off at the All-Star break it is therefore understandable if you've forgotten who's who or why we should care about particular players. So, to reacquaint yourself with the team, I've compiled this handy-dandy bare-bones Cardinals roster guide.

Today we will start with the coaches.

This is Tony La Russa. He's the manager. (Some people call managers "skippers." Those people are dumb.) Tony is known as a strategist. He will do silly things with his batting lineup, pull-and-push pitchers in-and-out of the game like yo-yos, and generally make you think he is suffering from advanced senility. But his team is in the playoffs now, so the joke is on you.

Other fun Tony facts:
- He really likes animals. He likes animals more than he likes most people.
- He missed a few games this season after coming down with a morbid case of face shingles.
- His post-game interviews are quite amusing, especially after a rough game. The Cardinals had a lot of rough games this year.

This is Dave Duncan. He is the Cardinals' pitching coach. He has been teaching pitchers how to pitch since forever ago. He is unnaturally good at it and can take virtually any old awful pitcher and shape them into something considerably less awful. (See Bob Welch and his 27 wins in 1990.) He has been Tony's right-hand man since the 1980's, and they will both probably be buried in the same casket together.

This is Mark McGwire. He is the hitting coach. As a player he once held the single-season home-run record. After he retired he became a steroid scapegoat, taking all the blame for the pervasiveness of "enhanced" play in baseball. As a result he brings a lot of baggage to the team, and nobody is really convinced that his hitting advice extends beyond saying "Just hit some dingers and you'll be fine," but they love him in St. Louis so it doesn't really matter.

This is Dave McKay. He is the first base coach. The first base coach is quite possibly the easiest on-field gig in baseball. He reminds his base runner to pay attention to the signs, and if the base runner forgets the signs then McKay just makes something up for him. McKay has been with La Russa since the mid-80s, doing whatever imperative coaching duties Tony lets him do. McKay is also Canadian, for whatever that's worth.

These four people, you might notice, were with each other in the Oakland Athletics' organization in the late-80s and early-90s, as well as the Cardinals' organization in the late-90s and, well, today. They all went to the World Series together in 1989. I'm sure it was fun, except for that whole earthquake thing.

Other Coaches

This is Jose Oquendo. Despite what his profile picture might imply, he does not eat children. He does coach third base where he waves his faster players to home plate, holds his slower players to third base, and yells at Yadier to just stay at first base for a while. Oquendo's claim to fame is that he played every position in 1988, including pitcher and catcher, and that is completely insane. La Russa did not manage that team, but I'm sure he wanted to.

This is Joe Pettini. He is the bench coach. I don't have any good idea as to what he actually does. Dave Duncan is usually the backup manager when Tony gets ejected, but I suppose it would be Pettini's time to shine if Duncan also gets ejected. I don't know that I've actually ever seen this man before.

This is Derek Lilliquist. He is the bullpen coach. When that bullpen phone rings, he freaking answers it. Then he says, "YOU there, start warming up," or "YOU there, sit back down." Sometimes he will even say, "YOU there, Tony wants you to pitch to two batters, then hit the showers."

Mariners: Just A Bit Outside

2011-06-27T18:18:00.003-04:00

The Mariners did a very interesting and bizarre thing yesterday. Actually, the Marlins did most of the work and the M's happily capitalized. But, just to be clear, scoring what would become the winning run on an attempted intentional walk doesn't happen all that often. Nearly never.

The play again, until MLB makes me take it down for some reason.

First of all, I love it when an intentional walk (or at least an attempted one) backfires. The IBB may be strategically and statistically sound, but it's also lazy and boring. And it is so very gratifying when the next batter hits a home run. It is infinitely more gratifying when the pitcher can't even hit his catcher.

And that brings me to this sub-thought: you'd be inclined to think that somebody receiving yearly paychecks worth more than the average human earns in a lifetime FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF THROWING A BALL would, in fact, be able to throw a ball. But something happens when pitchers leave their comfort zones. When they're on the mound, in their stretch, in their windup, in their delivery, they are locked in. But when they have to throw it to a base, or even when they have to soft-toss it to their catcher, they're a little bit out of their element. Most guys can keep their crap together. But sometimes, every once in a while, HILARITY ENSUES.

An odd thing about this particular oddity, had Seattle batted last in the inning instead of first, the ballgame would have instantly ended. This was Seattle's ballpark. Seattle should have batted second. I'm sure there was a reason why everybody pretended this was a Marlins home game, but I wasn't paying attention. So the Marlins actually had a chance to redeem themselves. They didn't, of course. Although there was some Florida vindication in the fact that the hitter, Carlos Paguero, struck out once the intentional walk was deemed unnecessary.

My favorite thing about this incident -- about the video, really -- is angry frustrated curmudgeonly cussy Jack McKeon at the :24 second mark. At 80-years-old McKeon is the second-oldest manager in MLB history (Connie Mack managed until he was 88, but he also owned the team, so he could do whatever he wanted as old as he wanted to). McKeon is OLD BEANS, and his team falls apart sometimes, and he behaves exactly like the salty dog he is. Maybe I'm just too easily amused by the elderly.

For the record, Jack McKeon could probably beat me up.

I've seen this happen before, where a pitcher tries to intentionally walk a batter and ends up throwing the ball into outer space, and subsequently loses the game. I recall seeing it happen in some sort of college game that occurred a few years ago. But it's rare. Cherish the absurdity. And don't expect to see it happen again tomorrow. Although this is baseball, and the same thing could be happening right now as we speak.

Shoot, I'm missing baseball, aren't I?

Mariners: KG,J

2011-06-22T13:56:00.001-04:00

In the late-80s baseball cards were crappy. Pictures were fuzzy, prints were off-center, the material was cheap, and even though you got a stick of gum in a pack (the taste of which went bad after about .000002 seconds) that stick of gum would often put a pink rectangular stain right across Rickey Henderson's cardboard face. But people didn't know any better. This was it as far as baseball cards were concerned. They were cheap to produce and the kids still bought 'em. And besides that, the Topps company was king of the card market. There were other smaller competitors like Donruss and Fleer, but Topps had been the top dog for so long that nobody could even attempt to dethrone them. Crappy cards, it appeared, were here to stay.

But in 1989 a new company called Upper Deck produced its inaugural set of baseball cards. The cards were glossy, the images were crisp, and -- holy smokies -- there were holographic stamps on the back! Other company's baseball cards looked (and actually were) cheap by comparison. Things would never be the same. Within a few years everybody would mimic Upper Deck's standards and image. Card quality, along with card costs, would rise.

Upper Deck needed somebody special to be the #1 card of that game-changing 1989 set. He had to be good at baseball, naturally, but he also needed to be young. These weren't your grandpappy's ball cards. Mr. Number One also needed to represent the future and a new era of sports.

Taking a big gamble, they chose a ballplayer who had yet to play a single Major League inning. They chose a ballplayer who, for his picture, was still wearing a Minor League uniform. They chose a teenager, a talented kid with a talented pedigree.

They chose a smiling, confident, gold-chain wearing Ken Griffey, Jr.

This was probably the best gamble in the history of gambles. That year in 1989 he broke into the big leagues and finished 3rd in the Rookie Of The Year voting. The next season he won the first of his ten Gold Glove awards and was voted into the first of his 13 All-Star games. The year after that he won the first of his seven Silver Slugger awards. Thanks in part to Griffey's success, Upper Deck had established itself as the premier card company. Griffey, meanwhile, had established himself not only as the new face of the Mariners, but as the new face of baseball.

Early on Junior was garnering comparisons to his father who, through a rare confluence of age and talent, was still playing Major League baseball. Senior had been a good consistent hitter since the early 1970s, a significant member of the Big Red Machine of the late 70s, and the MVP of the 1980 All-Star game. In August of 1990, Dad Griffey signed with the Seattle Mariners and joined his son in the outfield.

This situation was as bizarre as it was celebrated. There they were, father and son, playing outfield for the Mariners together. Nothing like this had ever happened before. It was simultaneously weird and awesome. They were having fun together (Junior always looked like he was having fun anyway), jostling each other and being good sports for the media. They posed for odd pictures. Sometimes Junior would steal a pop-fly his father was set to catch. They once even hit back-to-back home runs. It was like watching the end of Field Of Dreams every single day.

Dad retired in 1991, but Junior was still rising, exceeding all expectations anybody ever had of him. He was a great and graceful fielder, swift and agile, but it was nothing compared to his hitting.

Ken Griffey, Jr. had the smoothest, easiest, most natural-looking swing of any player I've seen. If God Himself was Junior's hitting coach it couldn't have looked any better. His mechanics appeared so easy to replicate that anybody could have been duped into thinking they had a big league swing. And it was impossible to fathom how that gliding swing could send a baseball 450 feet away. It was the perfect swing, and Griffey brought it with him every time he came to the plate.

With his stellar play, good looks, killer smile, and great marketability, by the mid-1990s Griffey had become a superstar. He had Nike endorsements, Wheaties, Nintendo games, Simpsons cameos, and prevented the Twins from going to the playoffs in Little Big League. In 1995 he took the Mariners to their first ever American League Championship Series appearance.

He was also hitting home runs at an accelerated rate. The 1994 season was shortened due to the players' strike and a wrist injury cut his 1995 season in half (he smashed his gloved hand into the outfield wall while making a successful leaping catch), but even so between 1993 and 2000 Griffey averaged 44 home runs a season, or a home run every 11.88 at-bats. Before he turned 30 years-old people were already speculating when he would break Hank Aaron's all-time home run record.

Before the 2000 season Griffey was traded to the Cincinnati Reds for four players. His numbers were down a little bit that season (hitting .271 with "only" 40 home runs and "only" 118 RBIs), but it would be the last great Griffey-esque Major League season he would ever have. Seattle fans were sad to see him go as the Kid had been the face of the franchise for the past decade, but after the 2000 season the M's would acquire an aggressive and nimble outfielder from the Orix Blue Waves. If anybody could make Seattle forget about Junior, it would be Ichiro.

Despite enjoying a relatively healthy career up to this point, Griffey suddenly and inexplicably became injury prone. It was as if Griffey's kryptonite was Ohio water, and every time he took a shower he ended up on the disabled list.
- In 2001 he missed 45 games after injuring his left hamstring.
- In 2002 he missed 41 games after injuring his knee, missed about 30 games after injuring his right hamstring, and missed a smattering of other games due to injured hips and thighs and legs.
- In 2003 he missed 33 games due to a shoulder injury and missed the final 68 games of the season due to an injured right ankle.
- In 2004 he missed 71 total games due to his injured right hamstring.
- In 2005 he missed the final 26 games of the season due to a foot injury (though he was still named the Comeback Player of the Year).
- In 2006 he missed 26 games due to an injury to his right knee.

His injuries became a running joke. It was virtually expected that Ken Griffey, Jr. would miss at least a quarter of the season due to a strained or broken somethingrather. My favorite lick came from The Dugout, a cussy webcomic that pretends baseball players use AOL chatrooms. Griffey's screen name was Elijah_Price.

Griffey, when healthy, was still productive, but the all-time home run record became an impossibility. All that remained were smaller personal milestones, the finishing touches upon a Hall of Fame career.

2007 was a resurgent year for Griffey. Despite missing games due to a chest injury, a groin injury, the flu, and something called pleurisy, he still played 144 games, hit 30 home runs, batted a semi-respectable .277, and was voted into his final All-Star Game.

A quick note about that 2007 All-Star game --
Still with Cincinnatti and representing the National League, Griffey had two RBIs in that game. However his Seattle replacement, Ichiro Suzuki, stole the show with an inside-the-park home run, the first in All-Star history. Griffey, once the embodiment of the future of baseball, was now overshadowed by the next generation of stars.*

[*A disclaimer, and really just a quick mention about how peculiar Ichiro really is. Even though it seems Ichiro can play forever, the man is only four years younger than Griffey. He came to the Majors at the age of 27, which would normally qualify him for "late bloomer" status were it not for the fact he spent his formidable years conquering Japanese baseball. Anyway, Ichiro will get his own entry soon enough.]

2008 turned out to be a season of footnotes as Griffey became the sixth player to hit 600 career home runs. It wasn't 755, but it would do. Later that year he was traded by the Reds -- along with some cash -- to the White Sox for two non-stars. It was strange to see him in a Chicago jersey, as if he were merely playing those games in nice pajamas. It was a forgettable 41-game stint and he was granted free agency at the end of the season.

Griffey was on his last legs, and Seattle did a very nice thing by signing him for the 2009 season. He had made the franchise relevant in the 1990s, and even if he played a limited role in those final years signing Griffey was the least the team could do.

However his return turned out to be more sad than dignified. The Kid, now a father himself, was clearly older now. His slender frame had been replaced with a pudgier one. The speed that made him a Gold Glove outfielder was gone. The coordination and quickness that made him one of the most feared hitters in baseball, also gone. All that remained were his name, his image, and that sweet swing. For some people that was enough, relying on their decade-old memories to fill in the blank spots. But for a team trying to compete it was not enough. Griffey spent an increasing amount of time riding the bench, pinch-hitting here and there, a symbol more than an active player.

Then one day in 2010, completely out of the blue, he called it a day. That was it. The Major League career of Ken Griffey, Jr. was over.

Even though the disappointing latter half of Griffey's career is still fresh in our minds, when he becomes eligible for the Hall of Fame in four years it won't be the injuries or the frustration or the White Sox uniform we remember. It will be the swing, the style, and the hundreds of home runs. We'll remember the toothy teenager on the front of Upper Deck card #1. We'll remember Junior -- The Kid -- and how he changed the game twenty years ago.

Mariners: Getting To Know David Pauley

2011-06-15T12:55:00.011-04:00

I just added David Pauley to my fantasy baseball team.

I know absolutely nothing about him.
Let's discover Mr. Pauley... together!

A couple days ago one of my relief pitchers (who will remain unnamed -- you never know who's reading these things) went on the disabled list. He was the black sheep on my otherwise stellar pitching staff, so I was looking for any excuse to dump him. An upper back strain rendered him completely useless (a step down from his "mostly" useless status when he was healthy) and I dropped him like a Christmas goose.

I chose to replace him with David Pauley for a couple reasons. First of all, when I drop a player I like to replace him with somebody who fields the same position. It maintains the balance of the universe, or something. Secondly, Pauley's at-a-glance stats are extraordinary.

ERA = 0.94
WHIP = 0.76
24 strikeouts in 38 1/3 innings (not bad)
4 wins

Four wins is unique for a middle reliever at this point in the season. Starting pitchers usually accumulate those wins. There are various statistical circumstances that would negate this, but without looking at specific game summaries it seems likely that Pauley was the last pitcher on the mound four times when his team took the lead late in a ballgame. This doesn't actually mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of baseball, just a slight abnormality. I don't expect Pauley to finish the season with ten wins.

A quick note on WHIP, by the way:
Walks + Hits,
divide it all by Innings Pitched.
It's a good indicator of how well a pitcher keeps guys off of base. A WHIP around 1.00 is very good. At 0.76 Pauley is only allowing one baserunner every other inning or so. Granted, he's only in each game for one or two innings... but still!

So opening up our handy-dandy Baseball-Reference.com profile, what do we find?

- Up until this season Pauley had been groomed to be a starting pitcher. For ten professional seasons he was starting baseball games. I don't know why, but it never appeared to work out. Somebody somewhere decided before this season began that, hey, maybe he should be pitching at the end of the game instead of at the beginning. It turns out he works very well in frequent short inning-long spurts rather than periodic multi-inning starts.

- Opponents are only batting .167 against Pauley. More surprising, opponents' slugging percentage is only .183. Slugging percentage reflects how often batters his doubles, triples, and home runs. So far this season Pauley has given up zero home runs, zero triples, and only two doubles.

- That WHIP thing we were talking about, prior to this season his lowest WHIP was 1.18. That was five seasons ago back in AA where the batters will swing at absolutely anything (and miss). The question then becomes this: can he sustain this new found ability to keep runners off the bases, or will he regress back to his old statistical standards?

- Additionally, Pauley has been the beneficiary of good luck. Even when batters do put the ball in play, they're still only batting .204. Normally this number is significantly higher (last season, for example, it was .262) but it seems Seattle's fielders have been in the right place at the right time... at least while Pauley is on the mound.

- Apparently Pauley is making $422,000 this season. That may seem like a lot of money (and it is, at least compared to my bi-weekly paycheck), but the way he's performing it's an absolute bargain.

- David Pauley's middle name is Wayne.

- He looks slightly toasted in all of his head shots.

I've mentioned Seattle closer Brandon League's inconsistency before. If League should fall apart before David Aardsma's return then there is a good chance the Mariners would go with Pauley to finish off ballgames.

That is, as long as Pauley keeps doing his thing. There's that pesky invisible force called regression, and the bullpen is a new role for Pauley. It wouldn't surprise me to see him slide the second half of the season, but for now it appears he has finally found his niche.

Mariners: Closers & Brandon League

2011-06-14T02:00:00.004-04:00

Every team wants a solid pitcher to finish the game. There needs to be a man to slam the door on the other team's offense in that final inning of play. If his team has a slight lead in the ninth inning, he is expected to preserve that lead. The man to do it is called The Closer.

The Closer is an uncharacteristically severe term in a sport that, as pointed out by George Carlin, is full of kinder, gentler nomenclatures. It's finality in a game defined by its open-ended perimeter and un-timed play.

And so with that in mind it sort of makes sense that closers themselves are an uncharacteristic bunch. Some guys are weirder than others. Some are outright eccentrics. Baseball is full of them. Rollie Fingers and his twirly mustache. Dennis Eckersley and his side-armed cheese. Dan Quisenberry and his submarined junk. Antonio Alfonseca and his twelve fingers. Ugueth Urbina, who is currently in a Venezuelan prison for taking a machete to farm workers before dousing them in gasoline. Endearing bunch of scamps, they all are.

And while eccentricities keep things interesting, it's dominance that's truly matters. A closer who can successfully seal the deal 30+ times a season is a valuable commodity. When Mariano Rivera enters the game, even before he records his three outs, everybody knows the Yankees just won. It's that automatic.

[As an aside, the broadest and most common way to measure a closer's effectiveness is the Saves statistic. A save is credited to a closing pitcher when he satisfies a very specific and somewhat arbitrarily defined set of circumstances. It's a poor measure of the pitcher's ability as it's dependent on several other variables. Poor fielding, which the pitcher has no control over, can blow a save opportunity. Or if his team sucks a closer might never get a good save opportunity to begin with. Conversely, even a poor pitcher can accumulate a substantial amount of saves if he pitches every night.]

The Mariners have had few eccentric closers in their history and even fewer dominant ones. The closest thing they've had to a consistent lights-out closer was JJ Putz. For two seasons -- 2006 and 2007 -- Putz was among the best American League closers. He had an off year in 2008 as he was sidelined a month due to injury, and during the off-season Seattle traded him away in a convoluted three-team deal that ultimately gave the Mariners very little in return. JJ Putz eventually regained his effectiveness and is now once again dominating the closer role, this time in Arizona.

Following the departure of Putz, Seattle's last effective closer was David Aardsma, who incidentally appears first in the Major League Baseball Encyclopedia (this is a tremendous trivia factoid). Aardsma was a very good closer in 2009 and a moderately good closer in 2010. He is currently recovering from elbow and hip problems and has yet to make a Major League appearance in 2011. The Mariners are still banking on him to return to the team later in the season, but they've had to use a filler in the meantime, and that brings us to...

Brandon League, Seattle's current closer.

I remember Brandon League from his Jays days, but since Seattle acquired him I haven't been able to keep tabs on the guy. This could be a good thing as he's always mildly irritated me.

His literal slack-jawedness bugs me. As he squints through his goggles to get the sign from the catcher his mouth will hang open. It doesn't effect my opinion of him as a person and it likely has no bearing on his pitching ability, but CLOSE YOUR DANG MOUTH.

More than that, though, at least as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays, I was always bugged by how often Brandon League screwed things up.

Apparently there were high hopes for League as he was to be the Blue Jays' future closer. Unfortunately for him he was never given many chances to close games for Toronto, mostly because he proved to be tremendously inconsistent. His season-to-season stats vary wildly, and even game-to-game his effectiveness was never a sure thing. It didn't help that he often had trouble throwing strikes. Consequently, by the end of his Toronto tenure, he was used primarily as a set-up man, the guy who sets the table for the closer.

I'll also mention that he got frustrated very easily. You could see it. Some pitchers control their frustration and get themselves out of a rough inning. League channeled his frustration into more frustration, throwing too wild, throwing too straight, making life difficult for himself.

After the 2009 season the Jays traded League and a minor leaguer to Seattle for Brandon Morrow, then also a closer-in-training. Morrow converted to a starting pitcher halfway through the '09 season and that is the role he continues today with Toronto.

Brandon League still had to prove himself with Seattle so in '10 he was once again relegated to the set-up role in front of Aardsma. League did moderately well, striking out twice as many batters as he walked and keeping his ERA at a respectable 3.42.

But then, as I mentioned before, Aardsma's body fell apart and rather than acquiring a quick-fix, the Mariners opted to use League as their closer, at least until Aardsma returned. And there he remains, slack-jawed, goggle-eyed, and in the role that's been denied him his whole Major League career.

I don't have much to go on besides his numbers, but he seems to be doing an adequate enough job. League has only walked four guys in 28 innings of work, which is actually quite impressive, especially for him. He also currently leads the league in saves. Batters are only batting .238 against him. These are all good things.

Something I would worry about are the number of games he's appeared in. League has made an appearance in nearly half of Seattle's games (and in fact leads the American League in games finished). He's proven the past two seasons that he can endure the heavy workload, but he's never done so in the high pressure closing role. There is always the burn-out risk, although if a healthy Aardsma gets his job back that will be a non-issue.

Another thing to watch out for is his moderately high ERA. Good closers keep their ERA under 4.00. The best keep it under 3.00. As of today League's is 4.18. League (and/or his teammates) are allowing late inning runs to score, and this will always come back to bite.

Also, there's that frustration thing. If he keeps his shiz together he should be okay. If not, pray for Aardsma.

Mariners: Introduction

2011-06-14T01:00:00.000-04:00

I'm looking at the Mariners' roster and I see a lot of potential. Not future positive potential, but past potential that was never met. I see names like Brandon League, Chone Figgins, Jamey Wright, Jack Cust, Milton effing Bradley... guys who've shown flashes of brilliance in the past, but have since performed disappointingly once significant time and money was spent investing in them. These are guys the team picks up, hoping/gambling for that break-out season that would prove that lofty contract was actually a shrewd move. This is a game the Kansas City Royals have played for years. It's unproductive and terribly annoying.

There are, however, authentic glimmers of light this season. There is always Ichiro. Sweet, sweet Ichiro. Felix Hernandez is coming off of a Cy Young Award-winning season. Some guy named Justin Smoak is being deceptively productive. The pitching staff as a whole has been surprisingly effective.

And yet it would surprise nobody if Seattle finished in the bottom half of the AL West. The AL West, by the way, is a historically crappy division. And, historically, its forgotten cellar is where the Mariners belong.

My personal connection to the M's is tenuous at best. The franchise itself is only five years older than I am, and while I spent my early youth in the American mid-west, the Mariners invisibly trudged through the 1980s, hidden from me by their consistently awful performances and cast way over in the upper left-hand corner of the United States. For a while I wasn't even convinced they were a Major League team. What was a "Mariner" to a seven-year-old anyway?

But then, of course, Ken Griffey, Jr. came along, and while they team played only marginally better for the next half-decade, Junior made the team relevant to aspiring ballplayers like myself.

Then, almost all at once, they became contenders and even developed a peculiar rivalry with the New York Yankees, a favorite team of mine.

And then came Ichiro. Ichiro, my goodness. His singular name alone is like an untranslatable word that describes grace and finesse and suaveness and gazelles and hot Asian sex.

But as Ichiro ages I wonder if the team and it's character will wither away, or will the Mariners move towards another decade of prominence and relevance on the shoulders of guys like Smoak and King Felix.

2009 Blue Jays Home Opener

2009-04-09T14:38:00.000-04:00

I may make attending Blue Jay season openers an annual tradition. The tickets are relatively inexpensive, the crowd is fun, and something interesting tends to happen. Last year's opener versus the Red Sox was wrought with bleacher melees and semi-nude streakers. Did Boston bring their over-testosteroned fans, or are Jays fans just as insane? I was able to find out as I compared and contrasted the '08 opener with the '09 opener when Toronto hosted Detroit and their more sedate supporters.

The Tigers line-up. In lights!

Last year I arrived at the game early enough to witness the pre-game ceremonies. It featured Roberto Alomar and a couple other names from the days of yore. Names were added to the "Level of Excellence" and everybody showered everybody else with polite applause. Unfortunately I missed all of that this year as work and bad traffic prevented me from getting to the Rogers Centre until about 15 minutes before the first pitch. I suppose that's good timing if I wasn't interested in sitting through all the pomp, but it would have been interesting to see if Kelly Gruber or whoever was left from the 92/93 Jays would make an appearance and a speech.

Whatever. I was there to watch baseball anyway.

I was optimistic for the Jays success that night because Roy Halladay was pitching. Halladay (whose real name is Harry Leroy, I just learned) won 20 games for the sub-par Blue Jays last season and came in second for the Cy Young Award. Everybody was confident that Doc would shut things down.

Justin Verlander, who historically has not fared well during the month of April, started the game for Detroit.

The Rogers Centre center-field

Halladay was solid, not allowing a hit until the 4th inning. For Verlander, though, it was a different story.

Verlander got two quick outs in the 1st inning, then allowed a walk, then a double, then a single (coupled with an E9), then hit a batsman, then another double. Four Toronto runs would score that inning, but they weren't through yet.

The Tigers scratched back with a Curtis Granderson solo home run in the top of the 4th, but Travis Snider of the Blue Jays (who will be a Rookie of the Year contender this season) responded with a solo shot of his own. Marco Scutaro immediately tripled and scored on a sacrifice fly. After Verlander allowed a double and a walk he was pulled for reliever Eddie Bonine. It didn't help as Adam Lind hit a three-run homer to center-field.

At this point the Jays were winning 9-1. Halladay was cruising until the 7th inning when, inexplicably, he fell apart. Carlos Guillen hit an RBI double. Gerald Laird followed that up with an RBI single. Brandon Inge followed that up with a two-run homer. Four quick runs, and Halladay was noticeably agitated. Halladay finished the inning, but probably because nobody had even been throwing in the bullpen until that point.

Over 48,000 in attendance

In the meantime alcohol was taking effect in the 500s. The 500 level is the upper tier of the dome. It's the cheapies, and it's taken on the reputation recently of being party seats. Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of fun up there. There's a lot of good-natured ribbing, a lot of odd goofiness. I just wouldn't ever take children up there during a busy night. Opening night is a busy night x10.

At first there were just a couple paper airplanes, but then the paper airplane phenomenon caught on throughout the rest of the stadium, and eventually everybody was trying to see if their plane could coast all the way to the field. This wasn't initially a big problem because it's hard to glide a drunkenly made paper airplane one-or-two hundred feet.

There was also a lot of Tiger baiting. There were some heated arguments and some spilt/sloshed/tossed beer, but I didn't see any fists fly.

More and more planes were making it onto the playing field, and finally, in the bottom of the 8th, two baseballs were thrown at (or near) left-fielder Josh Anderson. Somebody also chucked a golf ball or two (who brings golf balls to a baseball game anyway?... unless it was one of those expensive souvenir balls, in which case the ball tosser was stupider than I thought). Tiger manager Jim Leyland called his players off the field and we all sat for eight minutes while security took the field. No announcement was made. More planes hit the field and the crowd applauded. No announcement. The umpires and managers conferred near home plate. No announcement. Finally the crew chief pointed at the PA booth, and finally an announcement was made to please refrain from negatively interfering with the game by tossing foreign objects onto the playing surface thank you. Bang, players back on the field, game resumed. They could have made the announcement ten minutes prior, but maybe they were waiting for a super special moment. Maybe the PA guy was just taking a leak.

The empty field with five or six security personnel keeping watch

ANYWAY, just before Leyland hit the pause button, the Jays had tacked on three more runs. The Tigers couldn't do anything in the ninth inning as Brian Tallet and his '80s 'stache (saving up for the throwback nights, I'm sure) induced the final three outs.

Afterward a lot was made of the delay of game. Nobody should have thrown baseballs or golf balls or anything onto the field. It is dangerous, rude, and annoys thousands of people. On the other hand, nothing was being done to prevent it. Security was useless, and an announcement to please stop was made only after the umpire told somebody to make the dang announcement. Usually that sort of thing is done when it become evident that people are trying to hit the field/players with whatever objects they have on them. And an announcement may have been all that Jim Leyland wanted anyway as he allowed his players to return to the field immediately after one was made.

It was a distraction, and it is too bad because the Jays crushed the Tigers by a final score of 12-5. When I mention the game to people all they ask about is the delay. They don't ask how Halladay looked, or about Snider's good game (2 for 4 with a home run and a double) or about Lind's great game (4 for 5 with six RBIs and seven total bases).

Umpires conferring.

And as far as whether or not Jays fans create all the trouble... oh yeah, it is definitely us. Boston fans and Yankee fans may contribute when they are in town, and Detroit has a fairly strong base in Southern Ontario, but it was definitely the homies goading the out-of-townies, and it was the homies who got liquored up and didn't know when to stop. It is okay to an extent. I'd rather have a rabid (literally, even) fan base than an uncaring and silent one. And again, the stadium's personnel did little to quell the disruption. But there are lines, and you may toe them, but know when you've crossed them.

By the way, no alcohol was served at the dome the following day. For incidents unrelated to opening day, the Alcohol and Gaming Comission of Ontario suspended the Rogers Centre from serving beer on three particular dates: April 7th, April 21st, and a Toronto Argos CFL game on August 1st. Canadians love to abuse alcohol, I guess.

Regardless, I had a lot of fun at the home opener and am happy that another baseball season has finally arrived. I also look forward to the other eventful/eventless games I'll see at the Rogers Centre this year.

Speaking of the season, that Brandon Inge homer was the first of three consecutive homer-hitting games. Game number four is in progress. We'll see if he finishes the year with 162 dingers this year.

2009 Baseball Opener Live Blog

2009-04-05T20:00:00.029-04:00

Welcome, everybody, to a live blogging of the 2009 MLB season opener between the Atlanta Braves and the Philly Phillies.

Those new to the live blogging concept, here's what's up:
Hit the refresh button every couple of minutes for semi-live updates of the game. You're probably better off just watching the game, but those of you who choose to watch and read at the same time... you're crazy.

Also, it's common practice to read a live blog for a minute or two, then go do something else far more productive.

8:04
Oh boy, Jon Miller, Joe Morgan, AND Steve Phillips. Don't be sad, one out of three ain't bad.

8:05
I'm eating a couple homemade wraps as well. Rice, beans, corn, salsa, in a flimsy tortilla, TIMES TWO, while I frantically type and monitor two monitors... this may end badly.

8:09
I'm realizing to my horror that I only recognize half of the Braves starting line-up. I don't know if that's my fault or the team's.

TOP 1st

FIRST PITCH OF 2009... ball one. Brett Myers pitching.
And zappo, two quick outs. It's not even worth mentioning how those outs came about. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention.
Chipper Jones, A RECOGNIZABLE NAME, just gophered it to left field. HOLY COW FIRST BASEHIT OF 2009!!!11!!

8:15
Brian McCann McCRUSHED the ball over the right field wall. FIRST TWO RUN HOMER-ROOSKI OF 2009!!!

2-0 Braves

Garrett Anderson, who is no Angel, cannot adequately follow up and grounds out. THIRD OUT OF 2009!!!

BOTTOM 1st
8:18
I'm finding the Phillies line-up to be quite likable. If the Phillies line-up could be embodied into one single human being, I think we could be friends. Except for the Brett Myers portion of that human being. But I guess we all need armpits.

Derek Lowe pitching. Expect lots of jokes about the pitch being LOW(e).
Jimmy Rollins grounds out. From now on whenever somebody grounds out I'm just going to tap the underscore key, like so: _
A pop out by Werth. Pop outs, like so: ^
I'm going to change the face of scorecards.

8:23
Chase Utley hits it deeeep... Francoeur near the right field wall... caught, quite routinely actually.

FIRST COMPLETED INNING OF 2009!!!1!!@

TOP 2nd
8:26
Welcome back to... ohFrancoeurjusthomered.
3-0 Braves.
Yeah, it was that quick.
Kotchman strikes out. FIRST BLAH BLAH BLAH 2009.
Ah, the Major League debut of Jordan Schafer. He looks like he's 12-years-old.
...
Bite me in the pants, the fresh meat just homered in his first ever at-bat.
Joe Morgan: (calmly) "Well, that is an oddity."
Steve Phillips: (inanely) "(Babbling)"

4-0 Braves

8:31
Pitcher vs. pitcher/batter matchup. I will take this time to put one of my wraps back together.
[doing so]
And I'm back. Strikeout? Yep.

Kelly Johnson at bat for a second time. Pops... I mean, ^
Three outs. Moving on.

BOTTOM 2nd

8:36
Ryan "homerun or strikeout" Howard at the bat.
Big swings.
Big strikeout.

If you're interested in reading any prior live blogs, by the way, I've got a couple more HERE.

Ibanez, grounds, out, to the shortstop. Dos down.
Victorino also grounds out, but the shortstop had to reach across so it was slightly more interesting. Really.

That was a quick half-inning. SLOW DOWN GUYS. CALL TIME OUT AND STUFF.

TOP 3rd
8:42

Escobar Esco-bashed the Esco-ball to center, missing a home run by a few feet. He's on second with a double.

Now pitching for Philadelphia, the Liberty Bell.

8:43
The ticker at the bottom of the screen just said "LeBron drops 38". ESPN, World-Wide Leader in hip verbage.

Chipper Jones down on strikes.
McCann up hoping to re-homer. Instead he pops out in foul territory. That's, like, doubly useless.

Garrett Anderson, _ to first. Three down. No damage that inning, and the Braves consecutive innings scored streak for 2009 is over.

BOTTOM 3rd
Pedro Feliz at bat. In Spanish his name translates to Pedro Happy. Sort of. I'm sure there are accent marks to deal with.
Whatever, he pops out and has legally changed his name to Pedro un-Feliz.

uh,
Carlos Ruiz popped it down the right field line. Foul territory. Francoeur telling the world that he's got it. Does not got it.
Ruiz goes down the other line and ends up on second because of fan interference. DO NOT TOUCH THE BALL. AREN'T THERE INSTRUCTIONS ON THE FRONT ROW SEATS??

Myers grounds out, does not advance runner.

Rollins up. Joe Morgan loooves him some Jimmy Rollins. I mean, I like Jimmy Rollins, but I'm not IN like with Jimmy Rollins.

He flies out to left. This relationship is over.

TOP 4th

8:57
Francoeur at bat once again. He's been quite involved in this game already, and that frustrates me because I can't ever spell his name correctly on the first try.
He lines out sharply to Rollins at short. They're still talking about Francoeur's batting stance even though he's not at bat any more.

Joe Morgan is talking about siting a rifle. A chill went down my spine.

9:00
Kotchman grounds out.

Jordan Schafer, we're being told, is only the 99th player to hit a home run in his first at bat. And now he singles in his second ever at bat. That's right, kid, it's all downhill from here.

Lowe flies out. Three outs. New inning. More commercials.

BOTTOM 4th

9:05
Hey, it's Terry Pendleton. He's being interviewed while wearing one of those huge traffic controller headsets. PAY ATTENTION TO THE PLANES, TERRY.

Jayson Werth at bat. His parents clearly could not spell. It's wOrth. Duh.
Grounds out, though Kotchman at first had to dig the throw out of the dirt.

Utley scoots it down near first... Kotchman dives, makes a good throw to Lowe covering at first. Good play. Good out.

Ryan Howard up. The infield is all shifted over, and it pays off as the shortstop Escobar, pretending to be a second baseman, picks up the grounder and makes the out.

1-2-3.

TOP 5th

9:11
The pitching coach's name is Rich Dubee? Well... okay. I'll sidestep the obvious joke and ask if he has some brothers.

I think Myers has finally got his stuff together. He strikes Johnson out, gets Escobar to ground out, and issues zero balls over the wall.

(cough)

Chipper Jones just ground-rule-doubled over the wall.

9:15
McCann at McBat, Jonesy at second, two down... three down, strikes out. Braves are starting to strand runners. IT'S HARDER TO SCORE WHEN YOU DON'T HIT IT 450 FEET, ISN'T IT?

BOTTOM 5th

9:18
The score, by the way, is still 4 to 0, Braves.

Ibanez grounds. Out. One down.
Shane Victorino, wanting to be the Victor-rino (I will pun you to death), taking his hacks. Missed that last one. Strikeout number two for Lowe.

Is it a conflict of interest for them to air Lowes commercials while Lowe is pitching?

Pedro Feliz returning to the plate. I'm voting for Pedro.

Somebody named Taschner is warming up in the Philly bullpen. Is he coming in to relieve the Braves pitcher?

Lowe strikes out Feliz for strikeout number three and for the third out in the inning. Follow?

9:25
At some point I'm going to have to take out the garbage. I'll also have to use the bathroom. Where's the pause button?

TOP 6th

Philly Phanatic, making me uncomfortable in that wig.

Garret Anderson shot it back to the pitcher, off Myers glove, the ball dribbled over to nobody, Anderson safe at first. I kinda like infield singles.

Francoouueur grounds it hard down the 3rd base line, Feliz picks it up (barely) and gets him out at first, advancing the runner to second.

Kotchman grounds out too, Anderson advances again. MOVE THOSE RUNNERS. Joe Morgan is probably wetting himself.

Ohgoodgrief, they're walking the wonderboy. I guess he DOES have a lifetime batting average of 1.000 and an on-base percentage of AWHOLEBUNCH.

SO, runners on the corners, two outs, and Lowe is about to screw everything up again.
UNLESS Brett Myers can screw things up first. Full count.
Strike three.
Out three.
No damage.
Just the mental damage
of seeing the Philly Phanatic in a wig
thrusting his/its crotch.

BOTTOM 6th
Carlos the catcher, grounds to short. Jon Miller says there's been lots of ground balls. It's how they keep the grass so short.

Taschner, still warming up. He's probably quite toasty by now.

Lou Dobbs... no, GREG Dobbs, pinch hitting for Myers, hits one deeeep to right. Francoeuerer on the track... makes the catch. We're way past due for another home run.

Jimmy Rollins singles up the middle. Only the second hit for the Phils. Lowe is cruising.

9:40
A Mike Boddicker reference! My night is complete.

The Ticker says that Alex Rodriguez feels "70%". A 70% Rodriguez... what is that? .280, 25 home runs?

Werth hits it back up the middle, Lowe does some sort of ballerina leap to snag it in mid-air.
Three outs.

TOP 7th

9:45
I just took out the garbage. It was smelling quite unholy. It still smells unholy, but at least now it's at the bottom of a garbage chute.

Taschner pitching. Gets King Kelly Johnson to ground out to second.
Taschner pitching. Gets Escobar to ground out to second.
Taschner pitching. Gets Chipper Jones to... strike out. (ha! got you!)

Jack Taschner, keeping things unremarkable.

BOTTOM 7th

9:57
Ack, I was in the bathroom and missed the first two outs. I was anticipating the 7th inning stretch to be more substantial.

Ibanez... grounds out. I'm sure the other two guys grounded out too. We all ground out sometime.

Lowe only threw six pitches that inning. He is the Sir.

TOP 8th

10:00
Scott "Jane" Eyre now pitching for Philadelphia. He's kind of spazzy, but only when he's not actually throwing the ball.

McCann at the McPlate, McStrikes McOut (it never grows old!)

Wait, they've already postponed the Royals-White Sox game? But it's tomorrow. Can they do that?

Garret Anderson flies out to left. Two down.

Score still 4-0, Braves.

Charlie Manuel, being the match maker he is, is bringing in a new pitcher. Time to gather myself a beverage.

10:07
New pitcher Chad Durbin strikes out old batter Francoeur. Well, that was easy.

BOTTOM 8th

Phillies are six outs away from losing their first game in over five months.

Victorino not helping things by dribbling it back to the pitcher. It didn't even make it to the pitcher. Lowe had to come off the mound and meet the ball halfway. Throw to first, one out.

Miller, Morgan, and Phillips have been arguing over pitch semantics for, like, three innings.

Pedro Feliz, strike out. Two down. I think Lowe is getting better the longer he pitches. And Jon Miller just insinuated the same thing. We may share a brain.

Ruiz, ground out. Eight pitch inning. On to the 9th (inning, that is).

TOP 9th

10:14
Phillies closer Brad Lidge now, ah, closing for the Phillies. He will be if the Phils don't pick up at least four in the bottom half of the inning.

Kotchman. Ground out. Man.

Joe Morgan mentioned that Lidge didn't do so well when he was with the Astros. I like to think Albert Pujols had something to do with that.

Jordan Schafer, my new favorite player at bat.
Strikes out.
I hate him.

Greg Norton pinch hitting, pinch pop flies to left. Three outs.

BOTTOM 9th

This has been a very fast game. It looks like it'll wrap up well under the three hour mark.

Mike Gonzalez closing it out for the Braves.
Good gravy, is that how he pitches?
It sucks because Eric Bruntlett (who happens to look exactly like a Bruntlett) doubles down the line.

10:24
Jimmy Rollins sac flies Bruntlett to third. The Phillies may score yet.

I've been way inconsistent with these time-stamps.

Jayson Werth singles sharply to left. Bruntlett scores. In about two minutes Gonzalez has already given up the same amount of hits as Lowe did in 8 innings and allowed more runs (1) to score.

Chase Utley, with one big swing, could bring the Phillies to within one. Put on your dopey rally caps!

Utley walks. Lowe didn't walk anybody. Why can't Gonzalez be more like Lowe?

10:28
Situation: 4-1, Braves lead. Phillies have runners at first and second. One out.
Ryan Howard and his pulverizin' bat at the plate.
Full count.

Is Gonzalez going to do this every game?

Strike three. Lookin'. You can't look a homerun.

Two down.

10:30
Ibanez, trying not to be the final out. That's so embarrassing.
Full count AGAIN.
Strike three.

The end.

That got kind of exciting at the end. That's why they pay Gonzalez the big bucks.

Final score: Braves 4, Phillies 1.
Take THAT for winning the World Series.

Thanks for hangin' out. We'll have to do this again sometime. Not often, but occasionally. On special occasions.

The Jays have their home opener tomorrow night. I'd live blog that one too except that I'll actually BE there, and I can't text that quickly.

Happy new baseball year!

Maybe I'll get through the whole season this time

2009-04-05T12:15:00.004-04:00

I'm bringing the beast back to life.
New season, new blog posts.

Tonight, 8pm Eastern, be here.
I'm live blogging the season opener between the Braves and the Phillies.
You know what's more fun than watching TV?
Watching TV AND typing frantically on the computer about what's on TV.

Cutting It Close With The Cardinals

2008-09-02T13:15:00.005-04:00

It's September 2nd. Only 24 (or so) more games left for each team, only 26 (or so) more days of regular season baseball remain. Playoff participants will be decided sooner than that.

Here's what the NL Central looks like:

	W	L	GB
CHC	85	53	---
MIL	80	57	4.5
STL	74	64	11.0
HOU	72	66	13.0
CIN	61	76	23.5
PIT	57	79	27.0

For most of the season the Birds have been right at the Cubs' heels. But recently it seems like whenever the Cardinals win, the Cubs win and no ground is gained. Then the Cards lose... and the Cubs continue to win. St. Louis was only two games back as recently as July 22nd, but since then the gap has grown wider. Now the team trails by 11 games and a division title is all but lost.

Of course there's always the Wild Card, but if the Cardinals continue to drop consecutive games (they lost their 4th straight last night... they had a five game losing streak in July) then they'll lose out to the Brewers, Mets, or Phillies. I've remained hopeful (but realistic) this entire season, and if the Cardinals make it into the playoffs it'll be close.

There's the 2006 season to draw inspiration from when, as you'll recall, the Redbirds made it into the postseason having won only 83 games and closed the year by defeating the Tigers in the World Series. Conditions favored the Cardinals that year (the NL Central was lousy and only the Mets provided any sort of competitive challenge), but it was enough to demonstrate that all teams start at 0-0 in the postseason, and anything could happen afterwards.

St. Louis really should be doing better at this point, but they can't seem to defeat the teams that matter. They're 37-24 against teams from the other two divisions, but 30-32 against their NL Central neighbors. The Cubs and Brewers on the other hand are 38-24 and 39-25, respectively. The Birds have also lost a lot of extra-inning games -- a Major League leading 10 -- and are 21-23 in 1-run games. All those winning opportunities, lost (so to speak).

But if the Mets are able to take late-season dives, and if the Cubs are famous for them, then so too can the Cardinals take a... what's the opposite of "dive"? And until St. Louis is mathematically eliminated I will remain hopeful and look forward to another postseason appearance.

Google Custom Search

2008-08-08T13:14:00.003-04:00

You may have noticed the Google Custom Search thing to the right. You may have wondered if it was different than any other kind of search, Google or otherwise. Here's the scoop:

If you're anything like me you'll be reading an article and come across something that you want to know more about, either to fact check or for mere curiosity's sake. Let's say you're halfway through one of my posts and suddenly you want to look up information for, I don't know, Ron Karkovice. Pop 'er in the custom search and it'll open up a new window (so you won't lose your place in the original post) full of legit search results. "Ron Karkovice" yields results from Baseball-Reference.com and Wikipedia and all those good relevant sites.

But say you want information on pitcher Matt Smith. Holy cow, there must be a zillion different Matt Smiths populating the internet! Put him in the search anyway. Pow... Wikipedia, MLB.com, The Baseball Cube, etc. The search has been tweaked to yield baseball-pertinent results.

Type in "pants" and you'll get BASEBALL pants. Smooth, eh?

Play around with it, use it as a research tool, do whatever.

That's Mean: Fun With Regressions

2008-08-04T23:43:00.002-04:00

I just noticed something, though this has probably been common knowledge for months. At press time (my living room doubles as a high-volume press room for daily periodicals, don't you know) the Texas Rangers have the best run support in the AL, averaging 5.63 runs per game. But they have the worst pitching/defense, allowing 5.91 runs per game and committing 100 errors so far (leading the league in both categories). They're currently four games above .500 and trailing the Los Angeles Angels by 11.5 games, good for second in the AL West. Bill James' Pythagorean expectation formula, which describes how "lucky" a team is, puts the Rangers six games under .500 and in theoretical third place. They've gotten some good breaks, but if we're to believe in "regression to the mean" then the Rangers will slide a bit before the season ends.

As I type this the Rangers are tied with the Yankees 5-5 in the 9th inning. I predict the Rangers will end up losing to the Yanks by a score of 5.63 to 5.91.

Interestingly, despite leading the Majors in errors, Texas also lead the Majors in turned double plays. The only explanation for this I can come up with is that the team's pitchers must be putting lots of men on base and lots of balls in play (many of which happen to end up as tailor-made double play grounders).

What does all this mean? I don't know, just weird statistical anomalies I noticed.

In fact I was looking up information on how "unlucky" Blue Jays' pitcher Roy Halladay has been this season. During tonight's game against the Athletics (see the post date) things were going his way as he allowed only one run while the Jays put up six. But in Halladay's previous start he limited the Rays to only three runs, while the Jays supported him with... zero. In fact, seven times this season Halladay has allowed four runs or less and came away with a loss or no-decision.

Here's a telling stat. The Blue Jays' bats produce 4.28 runs per game (discounting tonight's game, which would actually bump it up to 4.33). When Halladay starts the team only gives him 3.79 runs per nine innings (again, discounting tonights game which, if my math is correct, would bump his support up to 4.01 runs per nine innings).

With an ERA now at 2.77 he's going to get a lot of wins, but he's also going to get a lot of undeserved losses, and his 13-8 won-loss record reflects that. I don't know how to Pythagorize a pitcher's record, but Halladay has the third-best ERA in the AL, second-best WHIP, second-best K-to-BB ratio, second-most strikeouts, tied for most shut-outs, and has the most complete games (by far). Somebody appearing at the top of those rankings should have more than 13 wins to his credit by this point. He definitely shouldn't have eight losses. But I suppose that's what happens when you pitch for a team fighting with Baltimore for last place.

And, as far as Cy Young Awards go, this may come back to hurt Halladay. Wins and losses, as we've just proved, are meaningless when it comes to a pitcher's talent. Obviously a good pitcher is more apt to win games, but it ultimately depends on his team's offense. Many voting members of the BWAA still think that a won-loss record is a good reflection of a pitcher's abilities. If Halladay ends up with a respectable 18-12 record, he's going to lose out to Cliff Lee who'll probably go 20-4. (It should be noted, however, that in many of Halladay's "second-best" stats Lee is the one in front of him, and if Lee does win the Cy Young Award then he probably does deserve it).

Pythagorasly speaking, Toronto has been "unlucky," especially while Roy Halladay has been on the mound. Expect the Blue Jays to perform better the remainder of the season (more a law-of-averages type thing, less a Cito Gaston type thing), and expect Halladay, if he continues to do his part, to have fewer losses and no-decisions.

Texas won, by the way, beating New York 9-5. So much for regressions.

Go For Gold, But Make It Quick

2008-07-28T12:42:00.006-04:00

I caught this a couple days ago. There'll be rule changes with regards to extra-innings Olympic baseball. Apparently baseball is too slow for Olympic standards of sport, and officials aren't crazy about the concept of baseball games capable of continuing forever. What's the silliest, most T-ball way to end an extra-inning baseball game? The IOC came up with these adjustments.

1) From the 11th inning on, teams are allowed to put a runner on first and second base prior to the first pitch.
2) In the 11th inning, teams can start the inning from any point of their batting lineup.

So, come the 11th, I could put my 1-spot hitter on second base, my #2 guy on first, and bring to bat my #3 slugger. Or I could put the 9-spot hitter on second, put the #1 guy on first, and bring to bat my #2 hitter.

At least they're not deciding tie games with a home-run derby.

I suppose I can understand why they'd want to speed up long games. Baseball, as far as I can tell, is the longest Olympic sport. It doesn't take runners three hours to finish a marathon. It doesn't take soccer players three hours to complete a match. It doesn't take sprinters three hours to run the 100m dash. If a baseball game were to go long it could seriously interfere with scheduling, and that could interfere with athletes getting to and from where they need to be, and that could interfere with performance. There's also TV scheduling, which is probably a more important factor in the eyes of those who run the Games.

But on the other hand I don't really care about all that. It'd be nice if everything were to follow the schedules exactly, but if that can't happen then just deal with it. Athletes can wait another hour (or two or three) for the ball game to finish before playing theirs. TV-wise, water polo coverage can wait. It's all pre-recorded anyway for North American viewers, isn't it?

There's also the issue of who gets credited with what stats. When the instant runner on second base comes around to score the winning run the pitcher will get credited with the loss, but will the run be attributed to him? He wasn't responsible for the runners on first and second, but they weren't put there by errors or anything. Unearned? Runner reaches second via IOC ruling? Ghost runner on first? What do you do with your scorecard?

This is the last year for Olympic baseball, at least for a while. It's goofy things like this that'll prevent me from missing it too much. It's the lack of big names, too. Big League teams won't let their star players miss a handful of games to play in the Olympics, and that's completely understandable. The Nippon Professional Baseball league allows their players to join the Japanese National Team, but it's not quite the same, especially when they're playing American minor-league players. By the way, do you know how the Nippon league gets around the issue of too-long baseball? Calling a tie after the 12th inning. It's far more sensible than magically adding base runners.

Will I watch Olympic baseball? If it's being broadcast I will.
Will I root for the Americans? Absolutely. Go, guys I've never heard of!

As an aside, check out the roster for the Canadian National Baseball team. Rheal Cormier... still around? Stubby Clapp, coming out of retirement? Chris Reitsma, who hasn't played a game since March? It should be interesting.

Statistical Foray: World Series Hitting Streaks

2008-07-13T01:31:00.001-04:00

I recently acquired a children's book (I read at a third grade level) about the life of Roberto Clemente. At the end of the book is a picture of his Hall of Fame plaque. There were the career highlights and such, but one piece of information caught my eye.

"BATTED .362 IN TWO WORLD SERIES, HITTING IN ALL 14 GAMES."

Every single World Series game Clemente played in he got at least one hit. That's outstanding. But is it the record? Are there longer World Series hitting streaks?

Initially I didn't think there'd be any easy way to do the research. But fortunately for me Baseball-Reference.com has opened up their Play Index to non-subscribers until the 19th of July. What this means is I am very nearly able to look up everything that ever happened ever.

Just go to the batting streak finder,
click "Postseason,"
click the "Series/Game" drop down menu to read WS (any game),
click "Consecutive Hs" on the far right,
click "Get Results,"
then get results.

Yankee outfielder Hank Bauer holds the record with 17 consecutive World Series games with at least one hit. Very impressive. With the Yankees during their decade of dominance, Bauer played in far more than 17 games. In fact he played in 53 World Series games, and accruing a hit in each of those contests would have been an unfathomable feat (though if we're talking streaks of 50+ games I can think of one person who was probably capable of doing it).

Bauer hadn't fared so well at the plate prior to his hitting streak. In his World Series appearances from 1949 to 1955 (32 games) he batted .202, had an on-base percentage of .265, and a slugging percentage of only .245. Zero home runs, zero doubles (though two triples to his credit). He was even caught stealing in his only two attempts. But from Game 1 of the '56 Series to Game 3 of the '58 Series he was a monster. Seventeen games, 24 hits, .316 batting average, .605 slugging percentage, six homers, two doubles, and a triple. And this time he was 1-for-1 in stolen base attempts. Go Hank!

But despite this sudden burst of hitting his strikeouts-per-at-bat ratio went way up.
First 32 games: 9 strikeouts in 94 at-bats.
Next 17 games: 13 strikeouts in 76 at-bats.
I get the feeling Casey Stengel told Bauer to just go up there and hit the ball real hard.

Bauer went 0-for-4 in Game 4 of the '58 Series to end the streak, but singled in Game 5 and homered in Game 6.

Next on the list with the second-longest World Series hitting streak is... Marquis Grissom?
Grissom was an average hitter but was a consistently awesome hitter during the World Series. Hit managed hits in his first 15 World Series games, ultimately hitting safely in 17 of 19 (and reached base safely in all but his final World Series game). During his 15 game hitting streak he hit an astounding .452, had an OBP of .500, hit 4 doubles, a triple, and stole 4 bases. He didn't hit any home runs, but he came around to score 11 times anyway (add that to his 8 RBIs and he played a part in 19 runs scored).

Third is another great Yankee, Derek Jeter. As an active player I suppose he still has an opportunity to break Bauer's record, but it seems less and less likely with each passing season.

From Game 6 of the 1996 World Series to Game 5 of the 2000 World Series Jeter hit in 14 consecutive games, same as Clemente. Jeter's 14 games were very similar to Clemente's 14 games with a few key exceptions.
Similarities:

- Jeter, 60 at-bats. Clemente, 58 at-bats.
- Jeter, 22 hits. Clemente, 21 hits.
- Jeter, .367 batting average. Clemente, .362 batting average.
- Jeter, 3 doubles, 2 homers, 1 triple. Clemente, 2 doubles, 2 homers, 1 triple.
Differences:
- Jeter, 4 steals. Clemente, 0 steals (though stolen bases are inconsequential to hitting stats).
- Jeter, 7 walks. Clemente, 2 walks.
- Jeter, 15 (!) strikeouts. Clemente, 6 strikeouts.
- Jeter, 15 (!) runs. Clemente, 4 runs.

Unlike Clemente, Jeter did not get a hit in every World Series game he played in (though a hit in 26 out of 32 games is still very good). And since nobody besides all the players we just mentioned have hit in 14 consecutive World Series games, Clemente holds the record for most World Series games with a hit where that same player had zero World Series games without a hit. It sounds wordy, but you know what I mean. Clemente got a hit in every World Series game he played, and he's the only one to do it with 14 games.

Who has the next longest streak for hits in all his World Series games? Riggs Stephenson who, for the Cubs in the 1929 and 1932 World Series, played in 9 games, hit .378, had 7 RBIs, and slapped 12 singles and 2 doubles. But despite his best efforts the Cubs lost 8 of those 9 games.

Who's the highest active player who's had a hit in all of his World Series games? Garret Anderson with seven. They were all accumulated during the 2002 World Series. If Anderson were to find himself in another seven-game series he'd have a shot at Clemente's mark. It's unlikely but possible.

As always mentioned during any discussion concerning Roberto Clemente, there's no telling what he could have accomplished given a few more years to do so. The Pirates fell to the Reds in the 1972 NLCS (where Clemente played his last games), and perhaps he could have given them the three wins they needed in 1973 to reach the playoffs again. Always a great hitter and outstanding fielder, he might've had enough left in the tank to advance the Pirates to the World Series in 1974 and 1975 (where they fell to the Dodgers and Reds, respectively, in the NLCSs). Tragically he was never given the chance to advance his World Series hitting streak or build upon his other great achievements. But there is no question that he seized the opportunities he was given and left a unique mark upon baseball.

Yankee Stadium + Toronto @ New York, June 5th, 2008

2008-06-16T18:22:00.008-04:00

I originally intended to post this earlier in June, but I suddenly got swamped and extracurricular activity dwindled to zero. But I was so struck with Yankee Stadium and the aura that surrounds it that I knew eventually I had to get my thoughts down on paper... er, computer monitor. So, as my June 5th, 2008, visit to Yankee Stadium still freshly lingers in my mind, here is the account and impressions of my visit.

My wife and I went to New York City for a couple of days during the first week of June. There was Times Square and Greenwich Village and all that, but we were mostly there for Yankee Stadium.

Yankee Stadium, the one Ruth built, will be demolished following the '08 season. Initially I was saddened to hear this, but the more I thought about it and the more I considered the make-up of the new stadium the more I felt that this wasn't such a bad thing after all. A lot of the original old timeyness was chucked out the door during the renovations of the 1970s, and the most historical part of Yankee Stadium, Memorial Park, will be transplanted to the new stadium. They're bringing back the frilly frieze and field dimensions will remain unchanged. Also, and there's no way I could have known this without visiting the stadium itself, the inside of Yankee Stadium (all that area between the gates and the field) is cramped and dank. New Yankee Stadium will feature a "Great Hall" and ample walking room. When you're mashed up against thousands of sweaty New Yorkers you'll take all the breathing room you can get.

And honestly, when it comes down to it, it's just concrete, right? The house isn't as important as those who live within it, and the game itself isn't going to change.

My biggest gripe against the new stadium is that its seating capacity will be 6,000 fewer than the current one. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Obviously with fewer seats there will be higher demand for tickets, thus tickets prices will be high. But with a new stadium (especially a new Yankee Stadium) every seat will sell regardless of the price, be there 50,000 or 70,000. Additionally the rise of ticket costs will likely prevent a lot of Joe Sportsfans from snagging what were once cheap seats. Rich people are allowed to be baseball fans too, but they're a lot less fun to hang around, and they're intolerable when they fill a stadium.

Anyway, even though Yankee Stadium may be "just concrete," there's still enough history and mystique there to lure me hundreds of miles just to be a part of its final year of existance.

New York subways, for all the crap they get (figuratively and literally), are actually efficient and easy modes of transportation. After seeing what goes on above ground I couldn't imagine going borough-to-borough in a car. And if you drove you'd miss out on being in a tube full of baseball fans going to the same game. It gets crowded down there, especially on the stadium stops, but if you can't deal with a crowd then you shouldn't be going to baseball games in the first place.

As we climbed the stairs to ground-level we could see the facade of the new stadium. It's large and impressive, like the outer shell to a mighty coliseum. I knew the insides still looked like churned up dirt and rocks, but it was a good start.

The current of bodies lead us to our gate. There were two discernable mobs; there was the initial mob which got filtered through friskers (I was clean, but that was the quickest unthoroughest frisk ever) to the second mob, which was supposedly a lineup to the ticket-takers. People tried to secure some sort of spot for themselves, but all they ended up doing was blocking the freshly frisked from entering. There was a little bit of confusion until a big-voiced usher kindly demanded that everybody "move to the left... you WILL get in." And you know what, he was right. And even though there were gobs of people all trying to mash themselves into the same space, this whole process only took a few minutes.

The insides, as mentioned before, were slim, but the crowds eased up as people went through tunnels to find their respective tiers, rows, and seats. Eventually, upon the upper deck and behind home plate, we found ours. All of those classic pictures of the field were likely taken near our seats, and we had a great panoramic view of everything.

Unfortunately Bob Sheppard wasn't in attendance, at least not in the PA booth. He's been out all season with a bronchial infection and was once again unable to announce the players. There was one exception, though. Derek Jeter, in lieu of Bob Sheppard actually announcing his plate appearances, has requested that Sheppard's recorded voice make the announcement.

Like in most stadiums I've been to, many of the ticket holders were fashionably late. It initially didn't appear as though the stadium would fill out, but a few innings later the place was packed. What was disappointing, at least to me, was the number of patrons who filed out early. The game was a close one, but people started leaving soon after the seventh inning stretch. I understand wanting to beat the rush, especially to the subway, but I felt as though people were taking their team for granted. Too bad for them though because they missed a tremendous finale, which I'll get to later.

Speaking of the seventh inning stretch, I knew beforehand that they (meaning those in charge of stadium operations) play "God Bless America" before ye olde "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." I read somewhere that while "GBA" blares over the PA ushers actually block the aisles so people can't wander around during the duration of the song. This is half true. From the upper deck I peeked over the rails and saw that the ushers below did indeed block the aisles. People love to be forced into reverence. Up in our half of the stadium though the aisles and tunnels were free and clear. God bless America and God bless being allowed to go to the bathroom.

The game itself was fantastic. Chien-Ming Wang and his sinker started for New York, and Dustin McGowan and his mutton chops started for Toronto. The Yanks scored two quick runs in the first, then the Jays tied it up in the fourth when Matt Stairs hit a 2-run homer. The Blue Jays went on to score five more runs in the fifth, knocking Wang out of the game. The Yankees responded with two runs themselves in the bottom of the fifth and two more in the sixth. It remained 7-6, Blue Jay lead, until the ninth inning. Matt Stairs knocked another one, a ground-rule double, to score Alex Rios. Scott Rolen ended up on third with no outs, but he was unable to score.

Eight to six Toronto lead, bottom of the ninth.
Derek Jeter grounded out to third. One out.
Bobby Abreu lined out to center. Two outs.
Alex Rodriguez... Rodriguez singled to left, then advanced during Hideki Matsui's plate appearance due to "fielder indifference."
Then Matsui singled to center and Rodriguez came around to score.
Eight to seven Toronto lead, two outs, Matsui on first, Jason Giambi pinch hitting.
Swing and a miss. Strike one.
Foul ball. Strike two. The Yankees down to their last strike.
Then Giambi crushed the ball down the right field line. It was obviously far enough to clear the wall, but would it stay fair? After I lost sight of the ball I looked for the umpire. He was waving his finger in a circle. Yankees won on a walk-off home run by Giambi. The team swarmed Giambi at the plate and the crowd stood for several minutes applauding. People were cheering as we finally exited the stadium. People cheered all the way into the subway. What a great way to end a day at Yankee Stadium.

Kansas City @ Toronto, 5-23-08: ALL YOU CAN POSSIBLY STAND TO EAT

2008-05-26T11:20:00.005-04:00

The Blue Jays decided to try out the All-You-Can-Eat option this past weekend in Toronto (where patrons can purchase a ticket that guarantees them a seat to the game, plus all the hot dogs, peanuts, popcorn, nachos, and soda they can handle). Naturally I was all over that.

It was interesting to note that they chose the Royals series to try out the promotion. The Royals don't draw a whole lot of fans to games in Toronto (at least not compared to Detroit or any of the Eastern Division teams) and I suppose this was the best way to gauge whether or not this thing would be a success.

Most of the dome was empty, but the AYCE sections were packed

Thanks to slow traffic on the QEW (and rubberneckers gawking at un upside-down car) we arrived an inning late. KC had already scored, and it turned out we missed the Royals' only run. I and everybody else, though, was far more interested in the food setup.

They gave us wristbands that allowed us to pluck whatever food we wanted (and however much we wanted) from the rows of tables on the 200 level. I had anticipated long lines, but everything was surprisingly efficient. From our seats we could leave, snag a handful of hotdogs, sit back down -- all in under 60 seconds.

The seats themselves were okay. We were tucked in an alcove next to the glass-encased restaurant beyond centerfield. We couldn't see the jumbotron, but there was a television overhead for our benefit. The crowd in our section was very well behaved, too (in contrast to those encountered in our last game). There were a lot of families, and I suppose the best time to bring kids to the game is when you can stuff them for a nominal fee.

TV above, actual action below... which to watch?

I found that due to the constant eating I had the worst time paying attention to the game itself. I am probably only able to do one thing at a time, and if I'm negotiating the cheese for my nachos I'm going to have trouble telling you who that runner is on second, or even how he got there.

Mysterious (and addictive) stadium cheese... in a bag!

Anyway, I anticipated this being a quick and low-scoring affair as Roy Halliday and Zack Greinke were on their respective mounds. I was half-right as Halliday ended up pitching a complete game, walking nobody, striking out five, and only allowing that one run we didn't see. Greinke, on the other hand, allowed six runs in five innings (all amassed in the 2nd and 3rd) on nine hits. The Royal relievers only allowed one more run after that. Toronto's back-up shortstop, Marco Scutero, was responsible for four of those runs as a pair of Jays scored on each of his two singles. Who needs Eckstein?

My favorite play, though, came when Aaron Hill made the best catch I've ever witnessed at a game (well, there was an amazing Little League catch I remember seeing -- a second baseman dove away from home plate into the outfield grass to make an over-the-shoulder grab -- but he was too short to simply jump up and catch the ball properly).

The Blue Jays needed this win too as they were fourth in their division and were in last place as recently as the 14th. Likewise, the Royals really could have used the victory as they too were fourth in their division. They lost, however, making it their fifth in a row.

Nobody messes with DeJesus

Everybody appeared to have a good time, at least on the 200 level. The game, for better or worse, was more of a side attraction, and the food, for better or worse, was plentiful. Personally I downed two-and-a-half hot dogs, three sodas, half a box of popcorn, half a pretzel, and three mini-boxes of nachos. My stomach still feels like a garbage bag, but I couldn't get enough of that cheese. I wasn't able to take many pictures for the same reason why I wasn't able to concentrate on the game; FOOD APLENTY.

Better Than "Centerfield"

2008-05-16T06:27:00.006-04:00

Via Buzzgrinder, via CMJ, some aging rocksters (including members of REM) have formed a new band called The Baseball Project. (And to be fair, Linda Pitmon isn't really at all old... "experienced" rocksters, rather than "aging" ones.)

Peter Buck is involved. I didn't know he (or any other musical artist this side of Meatloaf) liked baseball. But he does, as do fellow REMer Scott McCoughey, Steve Wynn of Dream Syndicate (remember them?) and drummer Linda Pitmon.

Their first release, Volume 1: Frozen Ropes & Dying Quails, will be released on July 8 on Yep Roc records. The song "Past Time" is already up on Myspace and lyrically sounds like a baseball encyclopedia put to music (with some whoo-hoos thrown in for good measure).

This could be something to get excited about if the songs don't suck. But anything mentioning Oscar Gamble's afro is alright with me. And really, looking over the track list, how many awful songs about Harvey Haddix could there possibly be? (None, that's how many.)

Statistical Foray: To Infinity

2008-05-12T13:25:00.006-04:00

Growing up I had several Wilson Alvarez baseball cards. Wilson Alvarez was a decent big league pitcher during the 90s and early 00s. I was never interested in his playing career, though. I was interested in how various baseball cards interpreted his 1989 ERA statistic. In 1989 Alvarez played one Major League game for the Texas Rangers. It was his first big league start, and in that game he allowed a single, back-to-back home runs, then back-to-back walks. He was then yanked by manager Bobby Valentine.

Zero outs, 3 earned runs, infinite earned run average.

And since this was his only big league appearance that year he will forever be stuck with an infinite ERA for the 1989 season. It's neat (at Alvarez's expense, of course), but how would a baseball card go about representing this non-number? Here's an example where Topps used a dash, which I suppose works. It's better than using 0.00 (which they've also done). Zero is absolutely incorrect. Infinity is, like, the opposite of zero. So what do you use? The 1993 Flair set got around this problem by omitting the '89 season entirely. Most cards, though, use "undef." or "inf." Upper Deck, I seem to recall, used an actual infinity symbol. This attention to detail was one of the reasons UD was better than all the other card companies.
Despite this statistical blemish, Alvarez redeemed himself in his next Major League start two years later when he threw a no-hitter. That's kind of amazing.

Anyway, I'm interested in other infinite seasons. Who allowed the most earned runs in a season without recording an out? In a mid-September game against Cleveland in 1979 Bob Kammeyer, pitcher for the Yankees, allowed eight runs on seven hits, including two homers. There was a hit batsman in there as well. Here's the boxscore. This was Kammeyer's last big league appearance. However the very next season as a member of the Columbus Clippers he was the International League's Pitcher of the Year.

Kammeyer's one-game effort (8 earned runs, no recorded outs) has only been matched twice since then, most recently by Paul Wilson in 2005. Wilson started for the Reds and the Dodgers jumped him for 8 runs on 5 hits. Interestingly Wilson Alvarez was the game's closing pitcher (he only had to face one batter, Sean Casey, who grounded out on the second pitch).

The other game involved Oakland pitcher Blake Stein in 1998, and it was again against the Indians. Stein didn't allow any home runs and in fact only allowed 4 hits, but he did walk 3 and hit-by-pitched another. Cleveland ended up scoring 10 runs that first inning, 8 of those credited to Stein.

Naturally Wilson and Stein were able to record outs in other games they pitched those years so baseball card manufacturers didn't have to deal with the whole infinity thing. Kammeyer, as far as I know, never had a baseball card. That's probably a good thing. Topps' calculators in 1980 would probably explode if they had to calculate infinity.

On-field Interview: Mark Ellis

2008-05-05T11:34:00.000-04:00

The following transcript is completely fictional, but even though this concept, an on-field interview, completely tarnishes the sanctity of the game, that doesn't mean I wish it wouldn't happen. This is possibly the first of several. Who would YOU like to see in an on-field-during-gameplay interview?

Also, I started writing this a couple days ago and had no idea that the Orioles would actually be starting a three game series against the Athletics in Oakland TODAY. Sadly Daniel Cabrera isn't scheduled to start any games this series, so I'm not completely clairvoyant.

Jon: Welcome back to Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN. I'm Jon Miller here alongside my Hall of Fame partner Joe Morgan. Oakland has a two-to-nothing lead over the Orioles here in the bottom of the fifth thanks to a two-run shot by Jack Cust back in the second inning. Daniel Cabrera is still on the mound for Baltimore, and despite the homer, Joe, and despite already walking five batters, he's kept things from getting too far out of hand.

Joe: That's right, Jon. Cabrera can be wild sometimes, and that's usually been his downfall in the past. He's not a consistent pitcher, especially tonight. A couple singles, the home run to Jack Cust, all those walks... it's surprising he hasn't given up more runs. We'll see if he can settle down this inning, and if he can't I don't suspect he'll last too much longer.

Jon: Hey Joe, we have a special treat for our viewers at home. Often between innings we'll interview a coach or manager, but right now we're breaking new ground and making broadcasting history... right here on ESPN. Down in the on-deck circle we've got Oakland second baseman Mark Ellis miked up. Mark, can you hear us?

Mark: Oh yeah, loud and clear.

Jon: Mark has graciously allowed us to communicate with him while actually at bat. Of course Joe and I will pipe down once he actually gets into the batters box. We don't want to distract him any more than we have to, but we'll have a few words with Mark while Travis Buck takes his cuts. Mark, what are you doing to prepare yourself for this next at bat?

Mark: Well, a lot of the preperation came before the game, taking a look at video of Cabrera, looking over the numbers, seeing if he has any tendencies...

Joe: Of course, your previous at bats in this game will probably best prepare you for this at bat coming up.

Mark: Right, naturally. This game... this is the first time I've ever hit against Cabrera, so I wanted to prepare myself the best I could. And yeah, those earlier at-bats this game, I could look at a sheet of numbers all day, even watch the video, but until you step up to the plate with the bat in your hand... but even for this at bat, I'm still paying attention because in the same way that I learned how to approach Cabrera, he's learned how to better pitch to me.

Jon: Buck swings at the first pitch and misses, strike one. Now, you walked in your first at bat, then struck out in your second. What did you learn then?

Mark: Well, the first at bat I could've either taken a bunch of pitches just to get a feel for him, or I could've jumped up there aggressively. The bases were empty so I expected him to pitch aggressively to me. Y'know, throw strikes. I usually let the first pitch go by anyway, and I did. The next pitch was just outside, and I expected that, so I let that one go too. I was sitting on the fastball and waiting for one to be back in the strike zone, but it never was. The second at bat there was a guy on first. I knew Cabrera wouldn't want to walk me and put two on, although him doing that wasn't out of the question. He wouldn't do it on purpose. Oh, here's the next pitch to Travis...

Jon: Buck takes this one for ball one. One and one the count. So, Mark, there was a man on first and you didn't think Cabrera would walk you again?

Mark: Right, and I figured he'd keep the pitches low to get me to gound into a double play or something, but with two strikes he surprised me and pitched it high. That thing was eye-level, but I swung and missed.

Joe: So now you'll take what you learned those first two at bats and adjust.

Mark: Right, yeah. But how he approaches me this at-bat, the pitcher, it'll depend on whether or not Travis here can get on base.

Joe: There's all kinds of variables to consider, both from the hitter's and pitcher's points of views. There's the score, number of men on base, number of outs...

Jon: Buck hits this one deep down the first base line! It is... fouuul.

Mark: I could tell that was foul all the way, but you kinda got me excited there.

Jon: One and two the count. Sorry Mark, I didn't mean to raise your hopes there.

Mark: No, no. That's sort of your thing, isn't it? Where you say "fouuul"? I bet if you said "fair" the ball would've changed directions for a homer.

Jon: Haha, no I don't wield that kind of power. And even if I did I can't play favorites. If you're just tuning in we're talking with Mark Ellis who is on deck. Oakland has a two-to-nothing lead over Baltimore right now. Oriole pitcher Daniel Cabrera has been shaky this game but has only allowed those two runs. In the limited time you've seen Cabrera, Mark, what do you think of his stuff?

Mark: Well, he's got a great fastball and a hot slider. He's a big boy -- six foot seven, I think -- and when he takes that big step the ball gets on you in a hurry. Obviously he's got some control problems, but he's definitely a challenge to hit against.

Joe: Sometimes the wildness can be to a pitcher's advantage. He can be effectively wild and the batter can only guess where the next pitch is coming because the pitcher himself may not be %100 sure.

Mark: Yeah, it could either be low and away or in your ear.

Jon: There's a base hit for Travis Buck, a single to right. No outs here in the bottom of the fifth and our man Mark Ellis is now fully wired and up to bat. We'll keep quiet now and let Mark explain his situation. Take it away, Mark.

Mark: Thanks guys. Well, with no outs and a runner on first the infield is going to shift into double play mode. That'll leave a gap there between the third baseman and...

Ramon: Who are you talking to?

Mark: This is Ramon Hernandez, the Orioles' catcher. Umping behind the plate is the respectable Ed Montague.

Ramon: What? What are you doing?

Mark: I'm wearing a mic, and we're on live TV, so no swearing or you'll get in trouble with the network. So anyway, there's that gap on the left side of the infield, and if I can help it I'll try and poke it through. Again, I'll probably be getting a lot of low pitches...

Ed: Are you going to narrate or are you going to step into the box and hit?

Mark: Alright, the mighty Mark Ellis is stepping up to the plate.

Ramon: "Mighty" Mark Ellis?

Mark: Ramon is dropping the signs right now and I'm giving the pitcher a mean look.

Ramon: ...So annoying.

Mark: Cabrera is set to give up a base hit, and... Ramy, why did you have him throw to first? You're playing the Oakland Athletics. We've stolen, like, ten bases this season. The whole team. Travis over there at first hasn't stolen any. When I get on first I'm not even going to steal second.

Ramon: Hah, you are getting on first base only if Danny hits you in the face with the baseball.

Mark: Why would he hit me in the face?

Ramon: To shut your yapping mouth. Okay, Danny, en la cabeza!

Mark: Alright, I'm back in the box patiently awaiting the first pitch, unless you're still imagining Travis stealing imaginary bases.

Ramon: Recuerdas, Danny. La cabeza!

Mark: Here's the pitch...

Ed: STEEERIKE.

Mark: Of course I was taking all the way.

Ramon: Of course. The ball was in the middle of the plate but I saw you flinch.

Mark: I flinched because I should've hit that thing over the wall. Remember, Jon, if it's down the line and deep I want you to say "fair" instead of "fouuul".

Ramon: What? Who the fu... Who the fudge is Jon?

Mark: I've got Jon Miller and Joe Morgan listening up in the booth.

Ed: Tell Joe he still owes me a steak dinner.

Mark: Joe, Monty says you owe him a steak dinner.

Joe: I don't owe Ed Montague anything.

Mark: Joe says he doesn't owe you crap. Oh shoot, here comes the next pitch.

Ed: Low ball. One and one. He owes me a steak dinner. I mention this every time I see him but he still won't pay up.

Joe: There's nothing to pay. I don't owe him any dinners, steak or otherwise.

Mark: He still says no. Why does Joe owe you dinner?

Ed: We went golfing fifteen years ago, winner pays for dinner. I won and I'm still hungry.

Joe: We weren't playing gimmes and we weren't playing mulligans, but Ed used both on the last hole. Clearly... well, I won't say he cheated, but gimmes and mulligans negate the dinner agreement.

Ed: What's he saying? Is he giving you that gimme mulligan garbage? He replayed his tee shot on the fifth and sixth hole.

Joe: There were un-ignorable distractions when I teed off on the fifth and sixth hole and we agreed that it was okay for me to retake those shots.

Ed: STEEERIKE TWO.

Mark: Doggone it, Joe! Speaking of un-ignorable distractions. Can your audio team or whatever turn off the booth mikes until I get on base?

Ramon: You are not getting on base. You gonna get struck out.

Ed: If you consider inflation, and fifteen years have passed, Joe owes me a ten pound steak. You tell him that.

Mark: He can hear you. Now c'mon, I've got to concentrate. Two strikes. He'll probably throw something outside to get me to chase. If he were a more controlled pitcher I'd worry about him nipping a corner, but as it is it'll probably be way out or right in the strike zone.

Ramon: Right in your cabeza.

Mark: Now that last pitch, I had Joe in my ear, but I swung and missed on the slider. The first pitch was a fastball. His change up isn't his quality pitch, so if I see that one it'll probably be outside the strike zone. I'll sit on the fastball, but I'll really have to pay attention to the location as best I can. Alright, here it comes.

Ed: Take your base.

Mark: OW! ARGGH!! MMMM, that didn't hurt at all. Not at all not at all. Don't rub the spot don't rub the spot. Just trot to first like you didn't just get hit in the funny bone with a baseball.

Jon: Jon Miller and Joe Morgan back with you, speaking with Mark Ellis, who is now on first base after getting hit by a Daniel Cabrera fastball.

Tye: That get you on the elbow? Do you need to have that looked at?

Jon: That's first base coach Tye Waller talking to Mark, making sure he's okay.

Mark: I'm fine. I'm okay. I can't feel my arm, but no bones are sticking out.

Tye: What's this stuck to the inside of your helmet?

Mark: I've got a mic. I'm talking to Jon Miller and Joe Morgan. Can you see which booth is theirs?

Jon: We're almost directly behind home plate, just a bit to the right. Your left, I guess. Can you see us waving?

Tye: Did Bobby say this was okay? Is that why you've been talking to yourself?

Mark: Front office said it would be good thing to try, that the fans would enjoy seeing things from the players' perspectives. I don't know if they told Bobby or not. Probably not. I don't think he'd go for that.

Jon: Are you referring to Bob Geren, your manager?

Mark: Yep. Yeah, that's him.

Tye: That's him who?

Mark: Oh, I was answering a question for Jon.

Tye: They can talk back to you too? Is that legal?

Mark: Quarterbacks can do it. Managers flash signs to their coaches, who flash signs to their players. I don't see why we can't talk to the broadcasters.

Tye: Boy, Bob's gonna lay down some sort of fine...

Mark: Nope. Front office has given me immunity. Beane said I wouldn't get fined or suspended or anything.

Tye: What about the commissioner?

Mark: Uh... I'll let Beane talk to him too.

Tye: (sigh) Alright, whatever. Make sure Barton doesn't hit you with the ball too.

Jon: First baseman Daric Barton at the plate now, and the Baltimore bullpen is stirring a little. After Barton is the DH Frank Thomas, the Big Hurt. How's that elbow, Mark?

Mark: It's tingly. Fortunately this isn't my throwing arm, so I'll be fine when we take the field again.

Jon: Now that you're on base what's your strategy?

Mark: Well, I have to be mindful of Travis there on second. I don't want to pass him, y'know, if he holds up on a fly ball and I decide to run. But if it's a ground ball I want to run hard to try and break up a double play. But yeah, on anything bigger than a routine single I'll watch Tony down there at third -- Tony DeFrancesco, the third base coach -- and get from one base to another as quickly as I can.

Jon: Barton takes the first pitch low for a ball. Now, Mark, I see Tony DeFrancesco flashing some signs. Are those to you or to the batter? What's he saying there?

Mark: I can't really tell you with Kevin here within earshot...

Kevin: What's that?

Mark: ...Kevin Millar, the first baseman. I don't want him to steal signs or anything.

Kevin: Who are you talking to?

Mark: I'm talking to Jon Miller and Joe Morgan up in the booth. I'm wearing a mic, so watch your mouth.

Kevin: They're letting you talk to those guys during the game? Man, if I had those guys in my ear I'd strike out every time. Can they hear me?

Jon: Loud and clear.

Mark: Yeah, they can hear you.

Kevin: Who's up there? Jon and Joe? Do you guys want to interview me right after the game? Right after I hit the game-winning home run?

Jon: Oh yeah, tell him we'd be happy to.

Mark: Jon and Joe said no because you wear too much eye gunk. It smears when you sweat and it scares Joe.

Jon: Ball two to Barton, two and oh. Is that true, Joe? Does Kevin Millar's eye gunk scare you?

Joe: No, but I think Kevin is too nice a guy to scare anybody.

Jon: Millar has been known to apply the eye black so heavily that he looks like Alice Cooper.

Joe: Who is she?

Mark: Hey Kevin, they're talking about you.

Kevin: They're always talking about me. They should've stuck a microphone in my hat. I could've done the whole play-by-play from right here.

Jon: The pitch to Barton... Popped up to right field...

Tye: Halfway!

Jon: Nick Markakis camping under it. Not deep enough to advance the runners...

Tye: Back! Stay here.

Jon: ...And the Orioles have their first out in the bottom of the fifth. Two runners on, first and second, the A's with a two-to-nothing lead, and now it's the Big Hurt, Frank Thomas, up to bat. Mark, does your running strategy change with Thomas hitting? And does it change with one out?

Mark: Well, with one out I want to be extra cautious on a pop fly because if it's deep enough, and I choose to advance when it's caught, I don't want to be the third out at second base. We've got a two run lead and that's really not very much. I'm still going to be aggressive on the basepaths. Aggressive but smart. On a base hit, if Travis tries to run home and draws the throw I'll make an effort to get to third base, especially if they miss the cut-off man.

Joe: What about the possibility of a hit-and-run?

Mark: Our team doesn't do a lot of hit-and-runs and steals and things like that. I guess you call it small ball. The organization's thinking behind that is that it causes a lot of unnecessary outs, and we can advance bases just as well without that kind of strategy. With that being said we still practice those kinds of tactics just in case the time is right to use them. We have a hit-and-run sign, and if I see Tony give that sign then you better believe me and Travis will be running.

Joe: See, and I mean no offense, Mark, but I think that method of playing baseball is a mistake. Billy Beane has it wrong. You generate and manufacture runs by being aggressive on the basepaths. And if the other team has it in the back of their minds that the baserunners may or may not steal, or hit-and-run, or bunt, or whatever, then they'll be distracted and more apt to make fielding or mental errors, and that allows more runners to advance.

Mark: We are aggressive on the basepaths. I mentioned the situation where I'll take off on a throw home. Aggressive and smart. I'm not about to make an out by thinking I'm superman and can do anything. Especially with just a two run lead. I'm more valuable safely at first base than I am out at second on a failed steal attempt. I mean, ultimately before the pitch it's the manager's call. He gives the steal sign and I'll steal. But that's not how this organization chooses to win our games.

Joe: But you're not going to win games like that, by letting things unfold instead of making things unfold...

Mark: Joe, we're two games out of first place. We're... oh, shoot.

Jon: Thomas hits it to the gap in left-center. That should be enough to score Buck. Around third he comes to score. The A's take a three run lead. Luke Scott, the left-fielder, finally has the ball.

Tony: GO, GO, GO!

Jon: Mark Ellis is being waved home. Around third he goes. Luis Hernandez cuts it off, fires it home. The throw is...

Mark: ARRR.

Ramon: OOF.

Ed: YER OUT.

Jon: In time! Out at the plate. The ball beat Mark Ellis by a couple steps, there was a collision, and Ramon Hernandez was able to hang onto the ball. Everybody's okay, though Mark's helmet came off in the collision.

Mark: Monty, can you toss me my helmet?

Ed: Is this thing on? Joe, you owe me a steak dinner!

Joe: I do not!

You Always Big Hurt the One You Love the Most

2008-04-25T16:37:00.008-04:00

The Blue Jays just shot themselves in their big collective Jay foot.

The team is struggling this year (it's early in the season, but last place is no fun be it April or September) and changes might be necessary. But changes need to be made for the better, right?

Frank Thomas is now wearing Athletic green, and he's gone, and he's not coming back.

But he was slumping, wasn't he? Not contributing offensively?
Two things: A) the team has been slumping offensively, and B) Thomas in recent years has shown himself to be a slow starter anyway. Also, there was that 10,000 plate appearances = $10 million thing. Three things, then.

Thing A.
As of whenever I wrote this, the Jays are only averaging 4.57 runs per game. That's 10th in the league. As a team they're batting .258, good for 7th in the AL. Just 291 total bases, 11th best. 12th in slugging percentage. 13th in doubles. Interestingly though, the Jays have a decent on-base percentage (4th best in the league) thanks to a multitude of base-on-balls (2nd best!), but obviously all those runners are getting stranded (1oth in RBIs). Is Frank Thomas solely responsible for the team's last place presence? No, of course not. Half the line-up is in a funk. Thomas is just a circumstantial cog. In fact, Thomas had a bulk of those walks, so while he may not have been hitting his way on base, it's not like he wasn't there at all.

Thing B.
Frank Thomas, slow starter. These are his March/April stats from:
2007 - .250 batting average, .369 on-base percentage, .424 slugging percentage (4 HRs, 13 RBIs)
2006 - .190/.264/.405 (5 HRs, 11 RBIs)
2005 - injured
2004 - .304/.494/.571 (4 HRs, 9 RBIs) [in only 18 games, a good start]
2003 - .244/.440/.487 (5 HRs, 9 RBIs)

so far this season his line reads .159/.312/.317 (3 HRs, 11 RBIs). This includes his game for Oakland yesterday. These numbers aren't good even when compared to Thomas' recent March/April stats, but they're not drop-from-the-team worthy anamolies. How did he fare at the end of each of those seasons?

2007 - .277/.377/.480 (26 HRs, 95 RBIs)
2006 - .270/.381/.545 (39 HRs, 114 RBIs)
2005 - .219/.315/.590 (12 HRs, 26 RBIs) [in only 34 games. Injury season.]
2004 - .271/.434/.563 (18 HRs, 49 RBIs) [in only 74 games. Injuries!]
2003 - .267/.390/.562 (42 HRs, 105 RBIs)

If he remains healthy for a full season then there's no reason not to expect 25-35 home runs and 90-110 runs batted in, no matter how poorly he starts. In fact, just last season he led the Blue Jays in home runs and RBIs (walks, too). The Jays organization know this, so what reason, what POSSIBLE reason could there be to drop Thomas...

Thing C.
There's a clause in Thomas' contract that states that if he accumulates 1,000 plate appearances in 2007/2008 then he'll earn $10 million for 2009. After over 600 plate appearances last season it sure looked like Thomas was going to earn himself a nice pay increase. But after being benched the conspiracy theory now exists that the organization wants to prevent him from meeting that $10 million guideline. I'm sure the Jays weren't terribly keen on paying so much money to a 41-year-old, but it still remains that until he was dropped he was one of the team's best hitters.

What's most disappointing is that Blue Jay fans never got to witness the extra pop a line-up with Thomas AND Scott Rolen back-to-back. Rolen's out with a finger injury, and though he's ~~close to returning~~ in tonight's line-up! it's already too late. There's still Alex Rios and Vernon Wells and Matt Stairs, but a line-up with all five of those players together would have been a great thing to see.

The Blue Jays Home Opener

2008-04-06T15:31:00.000-04:00

Friday the 4th me 'n' the missus attended the Blue Jays home opener in Toronto. The Red Sox were in town and with them came all their boisterous fans. 50,000 total in attendance, division rivals meeting, and the excitement of a new season... this probably wasn't going to be a mellowed out game of baseball.

(Click any of these images for a larger view)

It was cold, windy, gray, and awful outside. Just this once I was thankful for domed baseball.

Great view from the 500-level nosebleeds. Yes, we were higher than the foul poles. Every Blue Jays fan, by the way, received a free white rag with the Blue Jays logo on them. They're like the Twins' hankies, but you can dry dishes with them.

We arrived early enough to beat the crowd and catch some Red Sox batting practice, but soon all of these seats would be filled.

Here is Roberto Alomar, with the lights out, saying some stuff on the jumbotron.
During the opening ceremonies they unveiled Alomar's name on the Level of Excellence. Even though Alomar only spent five of his seventeen seasons in a Jay uniform they were all all-star seasons. He also helped the Blue Jays win two titles, and should he be elected to the Hall of Fame he's expressed his desire to wear their uniform.

Fireworks are neat and all, but man, they really fog the place up.

After Alomar threw out the first pitch it was game time. The Jays took the field in their vintage powder blue unis, and the Red Sox were met with lusty boos. For the first few innings Jays pitcher Shaun Marcum kept the Sox from accomplishing anything productive. He only allowed one hit through six. Boston knuckler Tim Wakefield, though allowing more baserunners, was equally as hard to score off of. He kept the Jays shutout until Matt Stairs homered to lead off the bottom of the sixth. From our seats we were unable see the ball go over the right field wall and couldn't know what was happening until the stadium's boat horn signalled the home run.

From that point on the runs came pouring in. Toronto scored two more that inning, but then JD Drew hit a three-run shot in the top of the seventh to tie the game. The Jays came right back and permanently took the lead with a 2-RBI double by Frank Thomas. David Eckstein knocked in another run in the eighth inning, and the Blue Jays defeated the Red Sox 6-3.

As an added bonus, Marcum's eight strikeouts ensured that every ticket holder would receive a free slice of pizza. Hooray for food promotions.

The Ortiz shift, seen above.
Wife: The rightfielder is playing really shallow.
Me: That's the second baseman.
Wife: Oh. The second baseman is playing really deep.
The rightfielder himself was fielding his position so deep that he was beyond our line of sight. The shift worked as Ortiz grounded out twice.

Meanwhile there was a good bit of mayhem in the 500 level. Every Sox fan was mercilessly picked on and fistfights were inevitable. We saw a fellow a few sections over take a header down the stairs and somebody else ended up at the receiving end of a series of haymaker blows. Pow, pow, pow -- haymade.

Fan participation culminated with two shirtless fools (one male, one female with a skin-colored bra [who obviously took streaking lessons from George Costanza]) running across the field. The woman only made it to the foul line (much to the amusement of Manny Ramirez, who was standing on first base just a few feet away). The guy got all the way out to centerfield before getting levelled by security. He ended up with a nasty turf burn across his chest.
Pwned, or FAIL, or something.
And while I would never condone pseudo-streaking or unwarrented jaunts across a baseball field, it's still terribly entertaining. Here's somebody else's Youtube video of the event.

Everybody, except for those who got punched in the face and certain members of security, had a great time (though my wife said that this was the most amoral game she had ever been to). The atmosphere was electric, the Blue Jays won, the Red Sox lost, and great baseball was played. Hopefully the Jays will make it all the way to the playoffs this season. Regardless of whether or not they do, I'll definitely try and make it to next year's opener.

2008 Opening Day Live Blog

2008-03-31T16:49:00.001-04:00

Kansas City Royals vs Detroit Tigers. Channel 43.
I missed the first batter because I was taking out garbage. Stinky kitchens are no good, and I'll miss a first pitch to fix a stinky kitchen situation every time.

Justin Verlander on the mound for the Tigers. He's looking pretty solid, but it is only the first inning.

Mark Grudzielanek reached first when the first baseman bobbled the catch. Actually, Grudzy's name is so long his uniform reached base thirty seconds before he did. Not really? Okay.

Blue Jays vs New York Yankees. Channel 22.
...Rain delay?! What the fork? Oh well. This'll make my channel flipping a much easier thing to deal with.

Channel 43.
Gil Meche on the mound for the Royals. The Royals are full of questions marks, each of which will be answered by the end of the season. Meche himself is a question mark. Will he have a good season? A poor one? He had a surprisingly good season last year, but he was only so-so with Seattle prior to that. Of course, much of his performance will rely on how well the rest of the team hits and fields, and much of that is as questionable as Meche is. It's a big confusing circle.

Meche unquestionably walked Gary Sheffield (who I hear is a pleasant and agreeable person) and gives up a single to the Big Tilde.
I'm also paying close attention to Meche because he's on my fantasy baseball team. But none of you would care about that so I won't mention it again.

Channel 22.
Rain delay.

Channel 43.
The first and third base coaches look dumb in helmets. It's one thing to voluntarily wear the helmet. Colorado first base coach Glenallen Hill was the first to don a helmet following the death of a minor league coach, and I applaud him for it. But an isolated incident shouldn't be the basis for a rule that requires coaches to wear a helmet. Silly. And probably uncomfortable. A few agree.

ANYWAY
Bottom of the second, Carlos Guillen on second, and Meche striking the crap out of Ivan Rodriguez.

Detroit's going to be good this year. I'm already awarding them the AL Central title. The Royals... like I mentioned before, I just don't know. And since I don't know I think it's okay to be optimistic about the team. Not TOO optimistic, but they'll certainly be better than the last couple seasons. Right now they're battling with the Orioles for the status of "American League Punchline". If the Royals are solid enough this season then maybe they'll be omitted from that contention.

Meche walked another. Two walks, two innings.
Edgar Rentaria + single up the middle = first Tiger run of the 2008 season.

Channel 22.
Rain Delay.

Channel 43.
Commercials.
Why is the TV flickering? I don't know if the signal is bad, if the TV crew in Detroit doesn't know how to properly use an outlet, or if somebody on my floor is running a vaccum. How annoying.

I'm eating a bowl of noodles. The spicy chinese kind you make with boiling water. It's pretty good.

That half-inning came and went. It was unremarkable. Verlander struck somebody out. Three for him. Three strikeouts in three innings.

Meche back on the mound, striking out an overly upset Gary Sheffield. Magglio enacts Sheff's revenge by doubling to right. His hair might be disgusting, but his swing is a very pretty thing.

Miguel Cabrera, fresh from Florida. I'll be keeping an eye on him this season. I'll also be keeping an eye on Dontrelle Willis who came to Detroit from Florida as part of that same deal. I don't even remember who the other players involved were.

Groundout, by the way.
Two down, bottom of the third.

Carlos Guillen... another hit! A single to right. Magglio chugging around third. Chugging... chugging... still chugging... good grief he's slow. Thrown out at the plate by ten feet.
New inning.

Channel 22.
Spicy Baconater commercial. Those things are pretty good. It's the jalapenos that make them noticeably spicy, but unfortunately I don't like the taste of jalapenos. The rest of the burger is great, but if I brush off the jalapenos, what's the point?

Rain delay continues.

Channel 43.
Grudz on first base again. How did that happen? He looks a bit shaken up. What happened??

In Grudzy's first at bat, the one where the first baseman dropped the ball, they bumped into each other. If there's going to be an incident every time Grudzielanek reaches first base then he's in for a long season.

Oh. Hit by pitch. Grimace explained.

The Royals, by the way, have yet to get a hit. Top of the fourth. One down thanks to Alex Gordon hitting into a fielder's choice. Grudzy's free to nurse his boo-boos in the dugout.

The Royals have a Jose Guillen. The Tigers have a Carlos Guillen. Jose strikes out. Carlos points and laughs.

Bob Dylan has a great song called "Catfish". It's about Catfish Hunter and is probably the only song ever to mention Charles O. Finley. Check it out.

Bottom of the fourth time.

Channel 22.
Large white tarp covering Yankee Stadium's infield. How depressing.

Channel 43.
Since 1901 which team has played the Tigers the most times in Detroit on opening day? The Afflac duck tells me it's the Indians.

Ivan Rodriguez (or Pudge-Rod) singles to center.

Jacque Jones at bat. Cubbie last year. Tiger this year. It's like he's a fully grown animal now. Strikes out like a big freaking baby, though.

Bottom of the fourth, one out. Tigers up 1 to 0.
It looks really gray in Detroit. Gray and cold. That makes since because Detroit is two hours west of here, and here it's gray and cold.

Brandon Inge up, whose name sounds and looks like a suffix. Doubles like a suffix.

Doesn't look good for the Mecher. He's given up seven hits in under four pitched innings. So far he's been fortunate to have only allowed one run, but I'm not sure he'll get out of this one cleanly. Especially after WALKING A MAN TO LOAD THE BASES. Still one out.

Placido Polanco looking to blast things open. That man has a huge head. Look at it next time he has his hat off.

Wow. PP flied (flew?) out to Jose Guillen in right field. Pudge couldn't tag up and score from third because Guillen fired that thing right back to home plate. Good show. Two down.

Gary and his Field of Sheff at the plate.
FULL COUNT. BASES LOADED.
...the pitch...
...it's...
...
...low. Ball four. Add one run.

Tigers 2.
Royals 0.

The Royals got a hit last half-inning. I forgot to mention that. Billy Butler with KC's first hit of the season.

Anyway, Magglio Ordonez, who is a terrifically awesome hitter, will probably hit a grand slam here.

...Pop fly to left. But he was thinking about it.

And how in the world did Gil Meche get out of that crap with only one earned run?! Meche: the luckiest man in baseball.

Channel 22.
Game officially postponed. I'm sure the Yankee fans would riot, but the rain probably wouldn't do much for the mob fires.

Channel... oh, wait. They're just showing the KC/Detroit game on this channel now. This is great because this channel doesn't flicker. I win.

John Buck at bat for the Royals.
John Buck struck out for the Royals.
Verlander really is averaging a strikeout an inning.

The ump just gave the Royal bench a warning. Probably arguing balls and strikes. Probably unnecessary whining.

Strikeout number six. So much for the one-strikeout-one-inning ratio.

I'm obviously not calling every play and every out and every pitch. Check a box for that stuff.

Bottom of the fifth.

Miguel Cabrera... with Detroit's first homer of the season.
...with his first homer as a Tiger.
...with his first American League homer.

Tigers 3
Royals 0

Good grief. Pudge hit it all the way to the track. Had it been down the line it might've gone out. Perhaps this is why Brett Tomko is warming up in the bullpen.

Quick inning otherwise.
Top of the sixth.

I've got the TV volume turned low and the media player volume turned high (hence the random mentioning of the Bob Dylan tune a while ago). Just thought you should know, and I'll mention any other interesting songs that randomly come up.

The best and worst thing about these noodle bowls are the completely bizarre things you'll find in them. Like this... it looks like Lisa Simpson's head with a red spiral in it. I have no idea.

Grudzielanek at bat for KC. Probably about to hurt himself somehow.
Non! A base hit. Just the second for the Royals.

There's only been one opening day no-hitter. Bob Feller for the Indians against the White Sox. 1940. Those things don't happen very often.

WOWIE. Alex Gordon just beat the cheese out of the ball. Homer deep to right. Suddenly the Royals are back in this.

Tigers 3
Royals 2

Royals with only three hits but with two runs. Compare that to the Tigers EIGHT hits, but three runs.

Bottom of the... where are we? Fifth? Sixth.

Meche is still in there (as he gives up a deep popfly out to Inge), but I suspect that if he gets into the trouble he saw last inning they'll probably pull him.

Another quick popfly out. Two down.

Have I been spelling "popfly" consistently? "Pop fly" vs "popfly". From now on it's one word.

Pop... I mean, GROUNDball out. That was quick.

Top seventh.

Neat. There's a sweet statue of a sliding Ty Cobb outside ComericA (no typo) Stadium. I don't doubt that statue will find some way to spike a second baseman somewhere.

Verlander's getting close to the 100-pitch mark. I don't know if he'll be back next inning or not, especially now that there are runners on first and third. Yeah, I don't know how it happened either.

...And now there'll be a pitching change. Let's all welcome Jason Grilli.

John Buck with a basehit. Tie ballgame. He took some hefty empty cuts, but finally he connected roundly enough to poke a single to left.

Tigers 3
Royals 3

Top seventh (still), NO OUTS, KC runners on first and second.

Tony Pena, Jr., at bat trying hard to bunt the ball. Foul. Foul X2. He'll have to swing now. He might as well have kept bunting. All he did was get the runner at first out in a rundown. We call that a fielder's choice. We call that a big waste of time.

Still a man on first, still a man on third. One out.

Pitching change. Good work, Grilli. I guess.

Now on the mound, Bobby Seay. A lefty to face lefty Joey Gathright. Gentle fly to short.

Pitching change. Good work, Seay. I guess.

Now on the mound, Aquilino Lopez. Who? He pitched 17 innings last year, none of which I saw. Grudz must have been watching the video, though, 'cause he just single to center like it was nothing. Go-ahead run.

Tigers 3
Royals 4

Alex Gordon pops to end the inning.
This game is turning out to be a little bit exciting.

Bottom seventh.

Brett Tomko now pitching for the Royals. I thought maybe Meche might come back, but that long Royal rally probably didn't help things. Also I have no idea how many pitches Meche threw.

Full count on Sheff. Ball four. Walk. Three walks for Gary. Give the man a pitch to hit.

Magglio up again. Grounds into a double play.

Miguel Cabrera at bat. Homered last time just because he wanted to. Stikes out this time. Just because he wanted to.

Top of the eighth.

Aquilino still pitching for Detroit.
One pop out.
Two pop outs.

Teahen slaps one to the gap and has the Royals' first triple of 2008.

...All for naught, though, as Ross Gload grounds out.

Bottom of the eighth.

Tomko, still in.
Carlos Guillen... way out. WAAAY out. To deep right.

Detroit 4
Royals 4

If I poked my head out the window I could probably hear the crowd cheering from Detroit. Not really.

Two outs.
I wasn't paying attention. WW, as it were.

Beach balls in center field. Stop that.

Strike three, Inge out.

Top nine.

Todd "Handlebar moustache man" Jones now pitching. I guess the Tigers are expecting to close this one out in the bottom of the ninth or something. Ninth or tenth. Either way Jones usually makes things interesting.

John Buck is just hackin' and hackin'. Like, with his bat. If he was coughing that'd be pretty gross. Let's see if he can keep one fair, though.

He does, and it's a dinky little ground out.

TP, Jr., just strike threed on a pitch near his face. Gotta learn to lay off the ones in your teeth.

Gathright popout. Three outs.

Bottom nine.

Royals manager Trey Hillman looks angry and scary. If as the KC manager he's this hosed at the beginning of the year, just wait until... well, anyway.

Leo Nunez pitching for the Royals. Striking out Renteria.

Polanco... lining out to a diving Grudzielanek. I wish Grudzy would stop doing so much this game because his name is very hard to spell.

Sheffield at bat. Full count already. The pitch...
Ball four. Gary Sheffield has walked four times this game.

But why? Magglio Ordonez bats behind him. Would you rather face the Big Tilde?? (As he harmlessly pops out to the first baseman. I won't talk anymore.)

Top ten.

Trey Hillman, it's worth noting, managed in Japan from 2003 to 2007. He was a Nippon-Ham Fighter. I only wish I could play for a team called the Ham Fighters. Fighters of Nippon-Ham, I suppose. But still...

Denny Bautista taking Todd Jones' place. I understand.

Mark Grudzielanek at bat. Grudzielanek at first. Single to left.

Now's Alex Gorden. Remember he homered earlier. He could totally do it again.

They snuck in a pinch runner. No longer will I have to spell out Grudzielanek. Now running, Esteban German. Esteban and German rhyme.

You know what else rhymes? Esteban German stealing a BASE, right out from under your FACE.

Go-ahead run on second, one out (Alex Gordon was useless), Jose Guillen at bat.
Score tied.
Extra innings.

Guillen struck right out. Two down.

Billy Butler hit the ball pretty hard, but lined it to the left fielder (Clete Thomas?), who made some sort of sissy jump to catch the ball.

Bottom ten.

Extra innings on opening day. How exciting.

Leo Nunez, who's a flailer, is still on the mound for KC. Miguel Cabrera at bat. But not anymore. One out.

Carlos Guillen, popout to center. It was deep enough for people to think, at least for a split second, that the game was over. Two down.

The Tigers have played in the longest opening day game against the Indians (Afflac duck!) when they went 15 innings in 1960. Detroit won, 4-2.

Nunez has a hot fastball. 97 mph. Striking Pudge out.

Top eleven.

Royals have a couple guys warming up in their bullpen. I don't know if Nunez can deal three innings or not. Regardless, Bautista is still pitching for Detroit. They haven't shown the Tiger bullpen yet. If it's empty it might soon see some action as Teahen just walked.

Gload, sac bunt. Teahen to second. One out.

Trey Hillman looking angry.

John Buck single to center... Teahen rounding third? No. NOO. Pegged at home. Good throw by Inge. Trey Hillman is angry because he can see the immediate future.

Buck's at second if that's any consolation.

Pena, Jr., swinging for the fences. Missing, of course.
No home run, but he does golf a pitch to shallow center. It falls for a hit, Buck scores from second, and the Royals take an extra-inning lead.

Tigers 4
Royals 5

Two down, and they're really paranoid about Jr. at first. Pickoffs, pitchouts... he's in somebody's head.

My back hurts.

Passed ball. Pena to second. How weird. All this time they thought he'd run, but he advances on a passed ball. Irony.

Gathright walks anyway, so now there's a man on first and second with two down. Esteban at bat. Esteban swinging and missing. Esteban striking out.

Bottom eleven.

Joakim Soria will try and hold Detroit to zero runs this inning. But he's got Clete Thomas to deal with. CLETE!

CLETE!! with a double.

Brandon Inge is trying out the whole bunting thing and bounced the ball right back into himself. Try again. He does. Successfully. One out, man on third.

It's a wonder that Inge isn't a man of excess. In the boxes he's labelled as B.Inge.

(pause for laughter)

Renteria is taking cuts like he's trying to win a ballgame. A deep fly ball will tie the game back up. A deeper one will win it.

A strikeout will get him nothing. And it is so.

Two down. Fathead Polanco up. Tying run 90 feet from home.

Sharp grounder to that weird area between third and short. Diving stop by Alex Gordon. Throw to first for the out. Game over. ROYALS WIN BASEBALL!

Nice stop by Gordon. Totally saved the game. And ended it.

And this ended up being the longest post ever.

Happy opening day!
Enjoy the rest of the season.

Opening Day, Take 3

2008-03-31T11:38:00.004-04:00

Firstly I'd like to apologize for not updating in so so long. Road trips, alien abductions, etc. For now I'm back.

Secondly... oh, hey, the baseball season started. Like, for real.
I suppose the season really started when Boston and Oakland met a few days ago in Japan (choosing, I guess, to play in a stadium between the two cities, but on the OPPOSITE side of the globe). When those games aired live in the eastern time zone I was either at work or at sleep so I could only catch highlights. They re-aired those two games during more suitable hours, but I can't watch a pre-recorded baseball game unless it's at least a decade old. Anyway, everybody looked like they had a lot of fun (except for Jason Veritek... 0 for 8, six strikeouts) and I'm not so much of a fogey traditionalist that I wouldn't encourage more of the same in the future. Opening more seasons in Japan? Sure!

However, Japan is stuck in some weird continuum where space and time don't matter, and so the REAL opening day took place Sunday in DC. Although I wouldn't pick a Braves/Nationals matchup to ordain a new season I'll take what I can get. Unfortunately I was at work (I should really just quit) and only caught the last couple innings. But what an exciting last couple they were. A come-from-behind tying (via a passed ball... oops), and Atlanta hope squelched by a game-winning walk-off home run. Good stuff.

But of course making the Youtube rounds is video of the Washington crowd saying BOOOO-urns to the President. God bless a nation where its citizens can openly heckle the leader of it's country, and God bless a President who can throw a ball sixty feet without bouncing it.

(Not Youtube, but there's less of a chance of this getting yanked by the MLB deities.)

I couldn't get a good look at the Nationals' new stadium, but I didn't mind what I saw. Centerfield is a bit pointy (and a lot of batters will curse that extra few feet) and the light fixtures are huge (a lot of fielders will curse instant blindness). Maybe during some DC trip in the future I'll be able to catch a game.

A game I'll catch for sure is this Friday's Blue Jay home opener against the Red Sox. Our seats are way up in the mesosphere (possibly atop the CN Tower), but it'll still be an enjoyable experience.

Baseball-wide opening day games will be starting soon (like, in minutes). I'll be splitting television time between the KC/Detroit game and the NY/Toronto game. If I'm up to it I'll liveblog whatever my viewing habits permit me to watch, but you should be in front of the TV yourself.

My schedule may have just filled up for the next seven months.

Fantasy Ball Roundup

2008-03-11T13:21:00.004-04:00

I know maybe five people read this, most of whom are related to me, but it's fantasy baseball time over on Yahoo! and if you're interested in joining a league then let me know. If enough people want to play then we'll engage ourselves in some competitive statistics-comparing throughout the season, and if I'm winning I'll probably gloat about it here. If NOT enough people want to play... then I'll go hang out in the public leagues like I do every year. ALONE.

I don't think I have anything to offer as far as prizes are concerned. I don't know. Maybe I could find something. No Mantle rookie cards or anything like that.

Leave a "yes let's do this" comment in the, uh, comments area so as to provoke the shy lurkers to do the same. Remember, the more the ~~substantial increase in site hits~~ merrier.

Juan Gonzalez: Okay?

2008-03-10T09:00:00.007-04:00

I'm interested to see how this Juan Gonzalez thing is going to work out.

The Cardinals generously decided to give Gonzalez another chance and signed him to a Minor League contract last month. In past years Gonzalez has attempted several "comebacks" with other teams, but injuries have prevented him from doing anything productive. His last Big League appearance came in 2005 -- one at-bat for Cleveland (he grounded out to third and effed up his hammy) -- and he's been hanging out in the Atlantic League and Puerto Rican League since then. Even those seasons were cut short due to injury. If you're a betting man, the odds of Gonzalez getting hurt and only playing a handful of games (be it at a major or minor league level) are somewhere around 1-to-1.

It's interesting that the Cardinals, a NL team, signed him. Due to his fragility it would seem best to make him strictly a DHer. Less opportunity to strain things. And, in fact, during these spring training games the Cards have used him in the DH spot. But since he's vying for an outfield role with the team he needs to, y'know, play outfield. And so it shall be done, as LaRussa has decided to no longer utilize the DH at all during pre-season games. I suppose if Gonzalez misses the final cut, yet still does respectfully enough in the minors, he could get called up for interleague games. But I don't know if the Birds will ever be that desperate. Anyway, we'll see if he can shag pop flies without tearing up vital leg muscles.

He is, by the way, doing alright at the plate so far. In 22 Spring Training at bats he's had six hits, five RBIs, a double and a homer. I'm a little concerned that he's only walked once, but these are exhibition games and none of this really matters anyway.

Despite his propensity for injuries, and despite being a chronic whiner, I hope he does well. Juan Gonzalez used to be the best, and I don't really like seeing people fall from glory (unless they really REALLY deserve it, but I usually reserve that judgement for tyrannical political despots). But more than that the Cardinals need their line-up filled in a bit more. Albert Pujols, Troy Glaus, and Chris Duncan (and even Rick Ankiel) can swing a heavy bat, but offensively the team is still thin. Obviously Gonzalez isn't going to hit 40 homers like he routinely used to, but any little offensive pop in the roster would be greatly appreciated.

The Big, The Fat, and the Weighty

2008-02-25T12:39:00.016-05:00

Two things inspired this post. Firstly, it is spring training time, the time where returning baseball players try to get back into shape and shed those winter pounds. Some have more work to do than others. Secondly, I just had bacon and birthday cake for lunch. It's good to know that there exists professonal athletes who have similar food standards as me.

Though lists like these have been done to death, we still enjoy rooting for the chubs. Their imperfections make them more like us, and what wouldn't we, the Joe Everymans, give to play Major League Baseball?

This is a short list of active players, though you'll notice some of these players are active in leagues other than the Major one. Perhaps I'll follow this list up with one full of rotund old-timers. Jumbo Brown, I'm looking your way.

Without further ado, here are a bunch of Major League fatties.

Calvin Pickering
Baseball-reference.com lists his weight as 275. The Kansas City T-bones, where he currently plays, scale him at 280. Wikipedia has him at 318. Which is it? I don't know, but at six-foot-five that's a whole lotta man out there on the baseball field, and as a first-baseman he makes for a healthy target. He spent 2006 playing ball in Korea where he was likely the largest thing any of them had ever seen.

Ronnie Belliard
More like Ronnie BELLY-ard, yuk yuk. Baseball-reference, always the conservative ones, list him at 180. The Nationals have him at 195. When he showed up to spring training in 2000 he topped 200. This wouldn't seem so bad were it not for the facts that A) Belliard is only five-foot-eight, and B) he's a second baseman. Though he's got surprisingly good range for being so squat, he doesn't have the sure hands of many of his other slimmer second base counterparts.
[Picture bonus: two pudges for the price of one.]

C.C. Sabathia
The Indians unabashedly list his weight at 290, though it wouldn't surprise me if he ekes over the 300 mark. Even at an imposing six-foot-seven that's still a whole bunch of pounds. But having just won the AL Cy Young award and the Warren Spahn award for best left-handed pitcher, maybe there's something to be said for pitchers with great girth.

Rich Garces
As a Major Leaguer his weight was listed at 250. Now a member of the Nashua Pride, they've got him down to 235. Do I believe either of those numbers are accurate? No way. Even if they were, El Guapo is only six feet tall and visibly very round.

Walter Young
I believe Young has the "official" Major League weight record when, weighing 315 pounds, he was called up by the Orioles in 2005. Now a member of the Winnipeg Goldeyes, he is "officially" down to 295.

David Wells
Despite being a 20-game winner, a three-time all-star, the 1998 ALCS MVP, and not to mention having once thrown a perfect game, people mostly think of David Wells as being that out-of-shape old guy. He is still listed at 250 pounds by MLB.com, but since being diagnosed with diabetes he's had to adjust his diet. He might be down to 248 at this point.

Chris Britton
Baseball-reference has him at 278, but MLB.com rounds (no pun intended) him up to 280. Considering George Steinbrenner's disdain for fat pitchers, Britton may want to think about losing a few (dozen) if he wants to stay on the organization's good side.

Frank Thomas
I'm not going to call Frank Thomas the Fat Hurt or anything like that, but it is obvious that he is an exceptionally large man. Officially his six-foot-five frame supports 275 pounds, and not all of it is chub. His baseball-hitting power comes mostly from his arms, and that becomes apparent when you see him hit a home run while standing on one foot.

Johnathan Broxton
Six-foot-four, 290 pounds? Are you kidding me? He hides it well under his baggy uniform, but there's a reason why Mark Grace calls him "The Biggest Man in the World."

Olmedo Saenz
A fan-favorite in L.A., Saenz will now have an opportunity to show off his pinch-hitting skillz in New York as he recently signed a minor-league contract with the Mets. Due to his roundess and his ability to smash a fastball, Saenz is affectionately known as The Killer Tomato. Physical attributes: six-foot-one, 230 pounds.

Mike Sweeney, ex-Royal

2008-02-11T12:18:00.000-05:00

Mike Sweeney is no longer a Royal.

He's given Kansas City a lot of solid years, and though I'm sad to see him go I feel this is a good decision by Royal management. Injuries have only permitted him to play half-seasons for the last couple years, and Ryan Shealy and Ross Gload and Billy Butler have shown good potential to be everyday players either at first base or in the DH position. In short, the Royals kinda don't need Sweeney around anymore. He was terribly expensive anyways.

He's signed with the Athletic's organization now, so hopefully he'll have a good spring and be able to hang out on Oakland's bench this season. Of course, he also has the option of retiring, but that wouldn't be any fun for anybody.

There are two things I remember best about Mike Sweeney:
1) DC Talk's "Jesus Freak" used to be his come-to-bat song.
2) In a game in 2002 he lost his mind and charged then-Tiger pitcher Jeff Weaver.

That was a good fight, if such a thing can be said.
I suppose he could still do these things in a Sacramento River Cats uniform, but it just wouldn't be the same.

But if I ever find myself missing him too badly, there's always the Mike Sweeney bobblehead that sits atop the bookshelf in my livingroom, overseeing all with a thumbs up and a wry smile.

Looks just... like him?

The Numbers Game

2008-02-05T14:07:00.000-05:00

Sometimes you can really get lost in the ocean of numbers that covers all of baseball. And by "you" I really mean "I". All it takes is some sort of slight statistical oddity to send me on some inconsequential goose chase, comparing percentages and making mental tallies.

Follow my latest contrail:
88 Topps Cards, a blog that features, well, 1988 Topps baseball cards, today talked about Jesse Orosco's card. Wanting to check out his career numbers I headed over to Jesse Orosco's Baseball-Reference.com page and scrolled through the numbers. I perused his batting stats (because I'm always interested in how well pitchers can hit) and noticed that in 1997 and 2002, despite being credited with zero at bats, he still managed to reach base. There's a number of ways to accomplish this, but most common is the walk. And indeed, in Orosco's only plate appearances in those two seasons he was walked; once in '97, and once in '02. What's more, these two plate appearances were the last two of his career. What's further more, in 2002 not only did he take ball four in his only plate appearance of the year, he also came around to score. If you read the seventh inning play-by-play, it's amusing to imagine the 44-year-old Orosco huffin' from first to second on a base hit, huffin' from second to third on another base hit, then gladly walking home on a Brian Jordan grand slam.

So then I got to thinkin', what other pitchers have scored following their only plate appearance of the season where they reached base via a walk? That's a lot of criteria, and you might expect the answer to be "once by Jesse Orosco in 2002", but it's happened twenty-four times since 1900. The last person to do it was Brandon Lyon of the D-backs in 2006. In fact, he did it in his only career plate appearance to date. The first? Somebody named, and I'm not making this up, Farmer Burns of the 1901 Cardinals. Besting Lyon's effort (sort of), not only was this the only plate appearance of his career, this was his only Major League game EVER. He made the best of it though by stealing a base. Good ol' Farmer Burns.

That's another tangent altogether, isn't it? Stolen bases by pitchers. I'll get right on it.

Anyway, that's how I waste hours at a time.

The League of Extraordinary Stoves

2008-01-30T12:12:00.000-05:00

To keep myself sorted out this winter, and to counter the doldrums induced by the immense lack of baseball playing, I've started an (ir)regular feature covering the off season trades, signings, and whatever else puts new players in new uniforms. I may still have no idea who plays for what team come spring, but at least this time I've tried.
David Eckstein to the Blue Jays
The Jays probably didn't need to sign Eckstein at all, seeing as how they already had John McDonald and the newly aquired Marco Scutaro as viable shortstop candidates. But on the other hand, Eckstein only played in 117 games last season (and only 123 the season before). In the seemingly-likely event that he misses another forty games in '08 at least the Jays will have plenty of back-up. Hopefully Eckstein will remain healthy and not commit twenty errors like he did last season in his limited playing time.

Marco Scutaro to the Blue Jays
Athletics receive Graham Godfrey and Kristian Bell
Regular shortstopping may be out of the question now that Eckstein's on the scene, but second base may still be a possibility for Scutaro. However, regular second baseman Aaron Hill had a pretty good year at the plate last season and the Jays would also be hesitant to bench him. Somewhere somebody in that middle infield is going to get platooned, but I suppose an abundance of quality players up the middle is better than too few. But for Scutaro, there's also the outfield option as he has experience in both left and right fields.

As for Oakland's new players, Godfrey only competed at the A-ball level in '07, and while he put up good numbers in college... well, that was college. We'll check back on him in four years.
Bell doesn't appear to be anything special either. I'm assuming these two names were randomly picked out of a hat.

Scott Rolen to the Blue Jays
Cardinals receive Troy Glaus
Defensively Rolen still has his sparkly glove and the comfort of knowing that David Eckstein is still standing twenty feet away from him (for whatever that's worth). Offensively Rolen's bat has wained, though given a full season (which, given his recent propensity for injuries, seems unlikely) he can still hit 20-25 home runs. Also, he has never been named in reports accusing him of using illegal muscle chemicals, which is an instant advantage he has over Glaus.

Glaus himself is not so injury retardant either, having only played in 115 games in '07. He's not as sure-handed at third as Rolen is, and he strikes out a lot at the plate, but he does have good power. The Cardinal lineup, with Albert Pujols, Glaus, and Chris Duncan, will have some pop in it this year.

Jon Lieber to the Cubs
The Cubbies' starting rotation certainly isn't bad, and I don't know that Lieber would be much of a contribution. He's been so-so these past couple seasons (an ankle injury cut his 2007 season in half) and at age 37 is getting kind of old. I personally don't expect too much out of him and wouldn't be surprised if he were used in long relief.

Mike Cameron to the Brewers
Last season Cameron only hit .229 at his home stadium Petco Park in San Diego (versus the .254 he hit on the road). That alone would make it seem like a good decision for him to bail on the Padres, but the season before he actually did better at home than on the road. Regardless, he's playing in Milwaukee now where he'll have to cover less ground in center field. Bill Hall, who just got converted into a full-time center fielder last year, will either go back to the infield or re-convert into a left-fielder.

Josh Phelps to the Cardinals
Only 29 and Phelps is already a journeyman. He's been affiliated with eight organizations since August of 2004, but has made the most of his limited big-league time. Phelps is a good bat to have off the bench (enough so that the Blue Jays often used him as a DH) and carries the added flexibility of being a back-up catcher. Despite being signed to a minor league contract with the Birds, he'll probably poke his head up several times in the Bigs this year. Jason LaRue, watch your back!

Marcus Giles to the Rockies
Giles had an awful season with the Padres last year, hitting only .229 with 4 home runs in 116 games. Perhaps he needs a more hitter-friendly park, in which case Coors Field would be great for him. He remains capable, given a full season, of hitting .300 with twenty homers, but it's not certain whether or not he'll ever reach the high expectations he set for himself back in Atlanta. Regardless, he's signed a minor league contract and will have spring training to prove if he's deserving on any kind of permanent role, sparring with other infielders for a shot at Kaz Matsui's vacated second base position.

Brett Tomko to the Royals
The Royals have a surprisingly strong bullpen, but they need all the starting pitching help they can get. Tomko isn't a pitching stud or anything, but his presence definitely won't hurt the team either. He's coming off a bad 2007 season, so really there's no where to go but up, right?

*THIS JUST IN*
Johan Santana to the Mets
Twins get Carlos Gomez, Phil Humber, Deolis Guerra, Kevin Mulvey
The deal has yet to be finalized, but for now it looks like the Mets are getting the best pitcher in the Majors. And if you thought he was a mind-boinkingly good American League pitcher, wait 'til he starts business in the NL. I'm already giving him the Cy Young award. But though he will greatly enhance the Mets' already-awesome roster, I'll stop short of declaring the NYMs 2008 World Series champions. Although the odds are slim of lightning mis-striking twice, the Mets' end-of-the-year collapse last season is a hard thing to ignore. This will be a good team, though.

As for the Twinkies, they've already lost Torii Hunter, and now that Santana's leaving the team has a couple holes to fill. Minnesota has already acquired Craig Monroe and Delmon Young (part of a six-player trade back in November) to fill out the outfield, and Gomez will also see some time in the outfield, but probably as a back-up. Gomez is also faster than crap (see his minor league stolen base numbers) and if he can learn how to hit he'll be trouble on the basepaths.

Humber, Guerra, and Mulvey are all young pitchers, with Humber the only one with any Major League experience (nine cumulative innings of big league action). Guerra is only 18 years-old and we probably won't see him for a few more years. Humber and Mulvey, on the other hand, have a good chance at making an impact for the Twins this season. Both put up good strike-out-to-walk ratios in the minors, and Minnesota will look to beef up their starting rotation somehow.

Just Filling Space

2008-01-26T10:22:00.000-05:00

In lieu of a real post, I'm just going to link something four days old (which itself is a reaction to something from a week-and-a-half ago).
It involves the Official Chatroom of Major League Baseball,
Scott Rolen,
and poop.

The Dugout!

Cobb's Ghost Ball

2008-01-12T11:21:00.000-05:00

I was browsing the Library of Congress online image archive (as I'm often wont to do) when I came across this 1912 baseball card of Ty Cobb and Hughie (or "Hughey" according to the back of the card) Jennings issued by American Tobacco.

Hugh Jennings was awesome and maybe I'll mention him another day, but I just want to briefly talk about the action shot on the card. It's cropped from this 1909 (or was it 1910?) picture snapped by Charles Conlon.

This is likely the most famous image of Ty Cobb (and Conlon's most popular photograph), a great picture of him sliding into third and upending third baseman Jimmy Austin. You know Austin's going to eat the dirt because Cobb's momentum is taking him one way, and Austin is leaning the other (with his center of gravity all crazy). When you also notice that Austin isn't actually touching the ground then you know it's all over for him.
Cobb, as usual, appears vein-bustingly intense.

Some years after the picture was taken, somebody editted in a baseball to make the action appear more actionly (as if that were necessary). See if you can find it.

The real ball is somewhere in left field either due to the catcher's errant throw or due to Cobb's attempt to impale the fielder with his pointy spikes.

Anyway, I read about this fake ball many years ago, and ever since then everytime I come across the image I immediately look for the stupid thing. It appears in about 90% of the cropped pictures I see, which is why I made note of that baseball card. Even though it's a 1909/10 image appearing on a 1912 card, evidently the "ghost ball" hadn't yet snuck its way onto reprintings. I don't know who added it or when, I just know it distracts me. AND NOW IT WILL DISTRACT YOU.

As an aside, third base itself looks quite soft and comfortable.

Old timey baseball photographs are neat.
Old timey baseball is neat.

Carl Cares About Baseball's Integrity

2007-12-23T14:29:00.000-05:00

Forget everything I've ever said regarding the Mitchell Report.

This here is the definitive analysis. Pay special attention to why more Red Sox names weren't mentioned in the report.

I need those pants.

The League of Extraordinary Stoves, Pt. 2

2007-12-21T12:27:00.000-05:00

The Mitchell Report, or, Way To Underwhelm The Masses, George

2007-12-17T10:30:00.000-05:00

I suppose I'm obligated to weigh in on the Mitchell Report.

Here it is in all of its .PDF glory. Since it's hundreds of pages of bland "so-and-so received such-and-such from so-and-so", what I would do is read over the list of those mentioned in the report, then do a search within the .pdf file to find more information about your favorite cheater.

Honestly I am less than impressed with the report as a whole. Maybe I was expecting something harsher or more damning. Maybe I was expecting more big names. Maybe I was expecting clever and witty prose. Maybe I was expecting Joe Don Baker. But I suppose it is what it is: a concise history of performance-enhancing drug use in Major League Baseball, reasons why PEDs are bad, some obvious conclusions, some recommendations that the Commissioner and the Players Association may or may not pay attention to, and, most scandalously (and the only part of the report that people care about), details of former and current players' dealings with illegal substances.

Ah sweet, named names. This'll be like Christmas. The anticipation is killing me.
Not so much.

The names, as you peruse the list yourself, are a little bit disappointing and fall into two categories:
1) Unsurprising names. Clemens, Giambi (both of 'em!), Tejada, Sheffield, Juan Gonzalez. High-profile fellows, but a bit on the beefy side. And don't forget about Canseco and Bonds!
2) Desperate bottom-rung players. Athletes who've teetered between the Majors and Minors, who've made careers out of being back-ups, athletes who lack the physical abilities that would allow them to have a comfortable big league career, athletes who needed something to prevent them from falling into obscurity. Mike Bell, Gary Bennett, Larry Bigbie, Howie Clark, Cody McKay, some guy named Nook.

When I initially looked over the list of names it seemed like there were an awful lot of Toronto Blue Jay players. There was Howie Clark (probably most famous for being a part of that "Alex Rodriguez yelled in my ear" incident earlier in the 2007 season), Troy Glaus, Gregg Zaun... as well as former Jays like Clemens, Canseco, Benito Santiago, a couple others, etc. Fortunately for me Wikipedia has already organized the named names by team, and the Jays aren't anywhere near being the worst offenders. Nope, just like in everything else, the Yankees need to be the biggest and best in every single category. Twenty-three former and current Yankees have been cited in the report. But just in case you were thinking that artificially enhanced athletes make for more championship teams, in come the Orioles with eighteen current and former offenders.

In fact, just from looking at this list you could probably throw out the notion that using PEDs correlates with success. If you could somehow quantify overall baseball ability, plot it on the y-axis, and then make the x-axis the number of fluid ounces of HGH injected into the bum, your plotted points would look pretty scattershot. PEDs do not make you a superstar. Now as to whether or not they enhance your own personal ability, I don't know. It's like with corked bats; everybody perceives and assumes that a corked bat will make you a better hitter, but there's not enough scientific evidence to support this.

Some players, most notibly Andy Pettitte and Rick Ankiel, claimed that they only used HGH to recover from injury. This seemed okay with me (especially since this was before HGH was specifically banned in baseball) until I realized that 1) HGH use isn't a ligitimate means of injury recovery, especially when 2) it's obtained through shadey doctors and iffy clinics. It's illegal, actually, for doctors and clinics to distribute HGH to athletes for injury recovery or to bulk up or things like that. I don't know if it's outright illegal for a person to possess HGH, but you're sure not allowed to pass it out for these purposes.

HGH is approved for those with short bowel syndrome. If I were an athlete caught with the stuff, I'd be claiming short bowels.

Anyway, does the Mitchell Report destroy baseball? No, not hardly. This is less an urgent crises than it is a tumor that's been allowed to grow for too long. It's a shame that Major League Baseball only within the past couple years is trying to remove it. The Report is kind of like a spade used to dig it out. Painful, yes, but everybody knew it was coming.

And besides, organized baseball has been around since the Civil War and has withstood many a dour day. The Black Sox of 1919, the Pittsburgh drug trials of 1985, the strikes of 1981 and 1994... baseball has always survived and the fans have always returned.

The League of Extraordinary Stoves

2007-12-10T09:29:00.000-05:00

I just learned where the term "hot stove league" might've come from. During the winter, baseball fans warm themselves around a hot stove and discuss off-season wheelings and dealings. Sounds like good ol' Depression-era fun!

Anyway, I've already lost track of who's going where, and by spring I'll be completely lost. I'm usually sorted out by May, but for the first few weeks of the season I'm always surprised to see certain men wearing a new team's uniform. "He plays for THEM now?" "Why isn't what's-his-face in the line-up, or on the roster... oh, he's in a different league now." Etc.

So in an effort to keep myself sorted out, I'll gloss over some so-far transactions. While warming myself by a hot stove.

Apparently Eric Gagne is going to Milwaukee. This'll be good for him both in effectiveness and in self-esteem (as he's fairly hated in Boston right now). He did well with Texas earlier in 2007, and he should fare even better back in the National League. He also seems to do well when he's the team's go-to closer instead of the set-up man and back-up closer roles he dismly served with the Red Sox.
But don't the Brewers already have closers? Francisco Cordero, who had 44 saves in 2007, is now a Red (thanks to free agency), and Derrick Turnbow, who saved 63 games in 2005 and 2006 combined before becoming Cordero's set-up man, isn't wholly reliable.
I don't expect Gagne to continue sucking as much as he did with Boston, and so I'm not terribly anxious to have him pitch all those games against the Cardinals in the 2008 season. But we'll see how he turns out.

More Brewer happenings...
Milwauke gets Salomon Torres. Pittsburgh get pitching prospects Marino Salas and Kevin Roberts. Torres is a lot like Gumby, in that he's very flexible. Middle relief, a closed ballgame here and there... he's even good to start. The Pirates liked him so much that they used him in over half their games between 2004 and 2006. This might explain his inflamed elbow (and his subsequently poor season) in 2007, but the Brewers should get good use out of him.
As for Salas and Roberts, the Pirates could use all the pitching help they can get. Salas is a decent prospect who put up so-so AAA numbers in 2007, but he still might get the call in 2008. Roberts still needs a couple years of work, and I don't know if he'll ever make any impact in the major leagues. But again, Pirate pitching is crummy, so who knows.

The Brewers also signed relief pitcher David Riske. Milwaukee's pitching was shoddy in 2007, and they're obviously trying to do something about it. Do you hear that, St. Louis? Making bad pitching good again?

Aaron Boone, one year contract, Washington Nationals.
...Will remain inconspicuous.

Andruw Jones is a Dodger now. Two years for $36 million dollars? Shoot, I'll strike out a bunch of times and hit .220 for free! But he can still field, and the Dodgers will probably boot Juan Pierre to left (formerly occupied by Luis Gonzalez, who's now a free agent), keep Jones in center, and make Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp fistfight for rightfield rights.
Honestly, though, I don't anticipate Jones performing as craptacularly with his bat as he did in 2007. Just because.

I'm a little bit excited to see Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera in Detroit uniforms next season, mostly because I like the Tigers a lot more than I like the Marlins. Florida, in turn, gets six players.
Breakdown time. First the trimmings.
The Marlins now own:
Cameron Maybin - He's been tearing up the minors with his bat, but he also strikes out a whole lot. He was unimpressive during his 2007 big league cup of coffee, but his future looks bright, especially with Florida.
Mike Rabelo - In Florida he'll either start or platoon or third-string or do something. I don't really care. I'm more interested in who the new back-up catcher in Detroit will be. In 2007 it was all Ivan Rodriguez and Rabelo. Pudge sure ain't gonna catch 162 games, and the organization's minor league catchers are all "all field, no hit" (although Nick Trzesniak down in Erie looks promising). Brandon Inge caught for a few seasons before moving to third base, but he's paid too much to be strictly backup. Maybe the Tigers can deal for Crash Davis or something.
Andrew Miller - The Marlins are getting a fine young pitcher. A lefty, too. Maybe he'll be the next Dontrelle?
Dallas Trahern - Pretty good minor league numbers. He'll probably help the Marlins win another World Series in two years.
Eulogio De La Cruz - Best. Name. Ever.
Burke Badenhop - Great minor league numbers. The Tigers weren't just trading away fillers.

The Tigers now have:
Dontrelle Willis - In Detroit his D-train moniker works doubly well. Last season was no good for Willis, but he was also pitching for a last-place team. Hopefully with the Tigers as 2008 contenders Dontrelle will once again excel.
Miguel Cabrera - People make fun of Cabrera because he's chubby/fat (and it should be noted that his listed weight at baseball-reference.com is off by about eighty pounds -- no joke). Whatever. We can address the weight issue when he's not hitting .320, when he's not hitting 30 home runs, and when he's not knocking in a hundred (plus a dozen) RBIs. Besides, doesn't the extra girth help him smother the ball at third base? No? Oh.

Good players at both ends of the deal. But whereas the Marlins are looking at world domination down the road, the Tigers are planing for victory NOW.

Moving on...

Outfielder Jose Guillen, like in 2007, is capable of good seasons. But, like in 2006, he's also susceptible to bad ones. Which Jose Guillen did the Royals just acquire? Kansas City also has a lot of young talent in the outfield (now that the old man talent, Reggie Sanders, is a free agent), so I'm not sure how they're going to sort that all out.

Sure, Elijah Dukes isn't going to get in any trouble in WASHING-freaking-TON D.C.
(Off-field problems + area of high crime = fun times for all)

Randy Wolf is pretty good when he's healthy, but he's hurt all the dang time. Even so, the Padres have a spot for him now that David Wells is a free agent. But due to Wolf's tendency to not pitch all the time they may want to pick up/call up another starting pitcher.

I know David Eckstein will probably sign with another team, but couldn't the Cardinals find somebody better? Instead of somebody worse? Instead of Cesar Izturis? Fortunately it's just a one-year deal, and he's not a bad fielder (Gold Glove in 2004), but I'm sure the Cards could do better. The Angels have a ton of shorstops, maybe they can spare Cesar's brother.

The Mets acquired catcher Brian Schneider and outfielder Ryan Church from the Nationals in exchange for Lastings Milledge. Let's break this one down into chunks.
Schneider to the Mets... but what about Paul Lo Duca? He's talking with Toronto now, which is weird because he'd have to split time with Gregg Zaun. Lo Duca is more valuable than Schneider both in ability and moneys, but maybe the Mets are looking to free up some bucks. Or maybe Schneider was just part of the deal. I don't know.
I don't know about Ryan Church either. The Mets' outfield is stacked full of Beltrans and Greens and Alous and Reyeses and Chavezes. If there was no room for Milledge than there's really no room for Church.
I don't even know why this deal even happened as it doesn't appear that the Mets will be benefitting from any of this.

Not only do the Rays need a reliable closer, they need reliable middle relief, set-up men, starters, everything. Troy Percival, one of the few bright spots in the Cardinals pitching staff (of course they're letting him go), will be good for Tampa Bay.

The Astros signed Kaz Matsui to a three-year, $15 million deal. His bat loved Colorado (and bitterly broke up with New York after starting off so well), but I imagine it'll "just be friends" with Houston. Matsui is replacing the retired Biggio at second, so he's got some pretty scrappy shoes to fill.

I've got things to do, so I'm going to shelve the rest of this for a Part Two.
And I'm sure between now and then everybody else will switch teams and I'll have to do the whole thing over.

Say Goodnight, Gracie

2007-11-24T15:52:00.000-05:00

I'm doing my best to digest congealed Thanksgiving leftovers.
I'm doing that and also gearing myself up for the Missouri/Kansas game set to kick off in about four hours.
However, TV listings are only giving me the "To Be Announced" description.
If "To Be Announced" turns out to be "Duck Tails: The Movie" then a certain offending television set is going to find itself flung right off the balcony.

So this is the biggest game in the history of EVER. And it just got BIGGER because #1 LSU lost. So now there's a number one ranking on the line in addition to all that other stuff. Insane. I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around it.

Anyway, as far as baseball goes, Torii Hunter is an Angel now, and that's interesting because the Angels already have a full outfield. Maybe they're defecting to a softball league and will play four in the field instead of three.

The Cardinals patched up the holes in their dismal team by signing... a backup catcher. Jason LaRue hit an astoundingly awful .143 for the Royals last season. His OPS+ (a stat measuring offensive production against everybody else in the league [an average player has an OPS+ of 100]) in 2007 was just 33. The Cardinals have pitchers whose OPS+ is higher than that. But don't overlook the fact that LaRue's stolen base percentage last year was 100%. One-for-one, baby!

They're saying we won't know what killed Joe Kennedy, who the Blue Jays picked up late last season, for another two months. It's tragic and a little bit disturbing to find out a 28-year-old athlete in good physical condition apparently dies of natural causes. Around Thanksgiving, too. In Florida for a wedding. With a wife and one-year-old son. So sad.

Don't confuse George Burns with George Burns or, of course, Nathan Birnbaum. All were born within seven years of each other. All were fairly popular at one point or another. Only two were MVP candidates (with George Henry winning the AL award in 1926, although it's worth noting that prior winners [*cough* Babe Ruth *cough*] weren't eligible to win repeat MVP awards until 1930).
Today is George Joseph's birthday. That's what spurred this Burns tangent. Happy 118th.

I'm going to go now because every minute I spend typing is another minute I spend not watching college football.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly [writing]

2007-11-19T17:44:00.000-05:00

Some quick GOOD/BAD labeling.

-Alex Rodriguez just won the AL MVP award. GOOD. He's, like, the best player in the universe, and that's just something everybody will have to deal with.

-Alex Rodriguez will play for the Yankees after all. GOOD. All the silly drama will continue next season and things in Yankeeland will still be interesting.

There are no other baseball players besides Alex Rodriguez, don't you know?

-Barry Bonds was finally indicted for something. I can't proclaim a GOOD or BAD verdict because, while I want to see Bonds get his just desserts, this whole thing saddens me.
I'm no legal expert, but something is still confusing me quite badly; Barry Bonds, indicted for purjery/obstruction of justice for lying about taking steroids. However nobody has proven that Bonds took steroids. So... he's been indicted for lying about something that hasn't been proven yet. Maybe something will be revealed during the preceedings. Or maybe evidence is optional in cases like these. Regardless, I wish he'd been indicted four or five months ago... BEFORE he went and broke that homerun record.

-The USA just won the Baseball World Cup. GOOD. Take that, World. As if I knew these games were being played anyway.

-Tom Glavine will play another year. BAD, actually. He had a so-so 2007 season, not an awful one. His numbers were merely average, but he'll be 42 years-old next year and decline is inevitable. He should leave the game with good memories of his 300th win still fresh in the fans minds instead of dampening them with the subpar performance he's bound to have with the Braves next season.

-Derrek Lee won the NL Gold Glove for first basemen. BAD. Because statistically Albert Pujols deserves the prize. Better fielding percentage, more assists, higher Range Factor. The voters must've only looked at the errors category where Lee had seven, Pujols with eight. Just one more error despite playing in fifty more innings.

Want to see why mainstream media doesn't take sportsbloggers seriously?
Okay.
Now check out my FireJoeMorgan imitation.

"Alex Rodriguez Does Not Deserve the 2007 AL MVP Award"

How's that for a confronting title? He does deserve the 2007 AL MVP, by the way. As if you couldn't tell where I was going with this.

"What a complete and utter joke."

This article, a complete and utter joke you say? Continue...

"ESPN reported today that Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez has been named the 2007 AL MVP. If this isn't a sign that the world is coming to an end, I don't know what is."

Well, Biblically there are wars and rumors of wars and false prophets and horsemen and whatnot. Oh, wait, here in Revelations... "And the fifth seal was broken, and it doth declare the winner of the 2007 American League Most Valuable Player Award. Alex Rodriguez, it spake, and there was much gnashing of teeth..."

"Forget about A-Rod's stats for a second..."

Oh dear, here we go.

"...and focus on a much more important question: where did the Yankees end up this year?"

Don't tell me. I can totally guess this. Um... um... shoot, I give up.

"Exiting from the playoffs after the first round, that's where.

So how in the hell can you justify giving their star player the MVP award?"

Because he led the league in home runs.
Because he led the league in RBIs.
Because he led the league in total bases.
Because he led the league in slugging percentage and runs scored and a bunch of other offensive categories.
Because MVP awards aren't contingent on their postseason performance.
Because his postseason performance wasn't all that terrible anyway.

"It would be one thing if A-Rod valiantly led a small market team to their first playoff appearance. But that couldn't be further from the truth."

Valiantly? Like, on a horse?
And what do small market teams have to do with absolutely anything regarding MVP awards? Should he NOT get the MVP because he doesn't play for the Royals? WHAT THE BEANS ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT???

"A-Rod plays on the best team money can buy. The Yanks are expected to get to the playoffs every year. With their payroll, anything short of a World Series championship should be considered a complete and utter failure for the franchise."

I spy an attempt at logical reasoning. But regardless of payroll, I think that anything short of a World Series championship should be considered reality. The Yankees look good on paper, but my spiral notebook isn't in an early-season slump, isn't dealing with a pitching staff emaciated by injuries, isn't dealing with HIGHLY UNREASONABLE EXPECTATIONS.
By the way, "complete and utter" sounds like the name of a toast spread.

"Since the Yankees didn't win a world championship, there's simply no way A-Rod should get the MVP."

If I drank coffee (which I don't... it upsets my stomach) I would have spat it all over my monitor just now. Only teams that deserve to win the World Series should have MVP award winners? But there's an NL and AL MVP award. Who doesn't get one because their team didn't win the World Series?

This is also a good time to point out that one man does not make a baseball team. A team doesn't lose because one player isn't doing too good. If, say, Alex Rodriguez has a bad set of games and the Yankees lose ten in a row, it's probably because the whole dang line-up is slumping. The pitching staff is tossing softballs. Alex Rodriguez's teammates aren't producing. He may contribute to the team's failure, but he's not solely responsible for it. This isn't the New York A-Roddys.

"MVP stands for "Most Valuable Player." Not most home runs or RBIs—which aren't too difficult to rack up when you are surrounded by the league's best talent."

If there are men on base you've still got to knock them in. Good grief. And obviously hitting the most homeruns does not automatically get you an MVP award. A Silver Slugger, yes. An MVP... leading the league in most offensive categories sure helps.

"The player who means the most to their team is supposed to win this award."

Rodriguez, yes, check, means the most, wins the award. Goodnight everybody.

"Where would the Tigers be without Magglio Ordonez? Could the Indians have had the year they did without the efforts of C.C. Sabathia on the mound?"

They can't all be MVPs. C.C. was the 2007 AL Cy Young award winner, so he got his props. And as for Magglio, the Tigers didn't even make it to the playoffs this season, so the author is making a case for points he rebutted earlier.

"What about can't they be considered, you biased hacks?"

You no write goodly.

"All season long, all we ever heard about were the Yankees, the Red Sox, and A-Rod's stellar season. It's time for the real gems of the league to be recognized, and the overpaid, underperforming superstars to be put in their proper place once and for all."

So did Rodriguez have a stellar season, or did he underperform? MAKE UP YOUR MIND. And what do the Red Sox have to do with anything else mentioned in this article?

If I ever write anything overwhelmingly stupid I want you to pick it apart line by line, then lop off my typing fingers, 'cause Lord knows I don't want to end up like this fool.

Alex Rodriguez: Coloring By Numbers

2007-11-07T17:27:00.000-05:00

I get the impression that people think Alex Rodriguez is something of a liability. Critics, many of them in the New England region, many of them Yankee "supporters", consider him a choker, or a selfish goon disinterested in team cohesion.

He's currently making his free agent rounds and will end up with whoever is willing to pay the most cash for him. Thus far there aren't many takers, and it's not due to post-season unproductivity or big fat jerkiness. The only reason Major League ballclubs aren't clamoring for Rodriguez is because he's the highest payed player. He's simply unaffordable.

Let's say I'm a big league team. Probably the Royals. I'm poor but I want to -- I don't know -- street race. I can't afford the high-performance sports cars, so I'm left with my dumb (and ageing) Ford Escort. If I want to seriously compete I can't simply go out and purchase the best models. I'll need to build up my own cars myself and work with what my budget allows.

Alex Rodriguez, therefore, is a gold-plated time-traveling DeLorean with a rocket engine. His salary this season (part of that gargantuan 10-year, $252 million deal) was $22.7 million. Tampa Bay's 2007 TEAM payroll totaled $24.1 million.

(Completely amusing, by the way, is the thought of Alex Rodriguez in a Rays uniform... and, for financial reasons, the only player on the field.)

(You'll notice, too, that I'll never call him A-Rod. He's not some sort of load-bearing I-Beam, and I'm not so lazy that I can't say and spell his dang name.)

As far as Rodriguez's talent is concerned, FireJoeMorgon.com has already beaten this topic to death. I like to play with the numbers myself, though, so here's my argument that Alex Rodriguez is not as crappy as you think. And not crappy at all. And actually quite good.

Postseason Meltdown
Some time ago Alex Rodriguez got the reputation of being a clutch choker. I don't remember when the scapegoating began, but it probably started during the 2004 ALCS. In the twelfth innings of Game 5 against the Red Sox, the Yanks up three games to one, Rodriguez had a chance to knock in the go-ahead run standing on second base. A win here would take the Yankees to the World Series. With two outs, instead of hitting a Hobbs-like home run, he flied out to centerfield. In fact, for the rest of the series he could do absolutely nothing with runners on base. It was hard to watch, and since so much expectation had been heaped upon him, and since it absolutely mortified Yankee fans to watch New York botch a three-game series lead, he was the natural boo-ee.

Fast-forward a year to the 2005 ALDS against the Angels. Two-for-fifteen, five strikeouts, no home runs. Yankees did not advance.

The 2006 ALDS against the Tigers. One-for-fourteen, four strikeouts, no home runs. Yankees did not advance.

Naturally the Yankees' failure as a team is due to Alex Rodriguez's inability to play the game of baseball, ain't it? Right? Aren't they awful because Choke-Rod is awful?
Well, first of all I don't consider four playoff appearances in four years awful.
Secondly AREN'T THERE, LIKE, THIRTY OTHER PEOPLE ON THE TEAM?

2007 ALDS Breakdown
So the Yankees fall to the Indians in the first round of playoffs and it's all Rodriguez's fault again.
Yes and no.
Yes -- because Rodriguez amassed zero hits in his first eight plate appearances.
No -- because A) he then went four-for-nine with a homer, and B) he wasn't getting much help from his teammates.

In this series the only Yankees who got more hits than Rodriguez were Robinson Cano and Johnny Damon with five. The Yankees as a team batted .228 (.223 without Rodriguez). Derek Jeter, the Captain, Clipper, Savior, Etc., went three-for-seventeen with four strikeouts. No walks, no extra-base hits. Grounded into three double plays. And Chokey Rodriguez is the bad guy?

Hideki Matsui, two-for-eleven.
Jorge Posada, two-for-fifteen.
Melky Cabrera, three-for-sixteen.
Chien-Ming Wang, fourteen hits, twelve(!) earned runs in five-and-two-thirds innings.
Roger Clemens, three earned runs in two-and-two-thirds.
Some guy named Ohlendorf, three runs in one inning.

Again, Alex Rodriguez, .267 series batting average, a home run, a couple walks, a couple runs, grounded into ZERO double plays. Not great, but not deserving of his wretched public perception.

And if you go back and check the numbers for the 2004, 2005, and 2006 playoffs series you'll find that, shockingly, Alex Rodriguez was NOT the only player on the New York Yankees who performed poorly. Egads! In fact, you'll find that he was one of the better ones on the 2004 team where in that postseason he hit .320 with three home runs, eight RBIs, two stolen bases, and five doubles.

And if you go back even further, as a member of the Seattle Mariners his postseason totals are fairly impressive. In fifteen postseason games spanning from 1995 to 2000 he hit .340, had three homers, three doubles, six runs, eight RBIs. These are not choking numbers.

Rodriguez and Jeter, Head-to-Head
It's the natural tendancy of Yankee fans to like Derek Jeter and dislike Alex Rodriguez. Jeter is a born-and-bred Yankee, a first-round draft pick who rose up through the organization to become the first Yankee captain since Don Mattingly. For many years Rodriguez was seen as something of a rival; both played shortstop, both excelled at baseball, and they would meet each other in the playoffs. So when Rodriguez came to the Yankees and gave up his shortstop position it was immediately apparent that he was to be second-banana. And when, heaven forbid, they weren't chummy with each other... well, every good guy needs a bad guy.

But I would much MUCH rather have Alex Rodriguez on my team than Derek Jeter. I mean, it's great to have them both together, but if I had to choose it'd be Rodriguez all the way. That's not to say that I don't like Derek Jeter. I love the guy. He's got a great bat and seems to be a pretty good team leader. But athletically he's no Alex Rodriguez.

Although they are different types of hitters (Jeter with his inside-out good-for-gaps swing, Rodriguez with his big good-for-home runs swing) they both have remarkably similar offensive stats. Per 162 games they average about two-hundred hits, thirty-four doubles, seventy-ish walks, and a .388 on-base percentage. (Interestingly they're both also hit by pitches about eleven times every season.) So it's clear that they're both equally adept at reaching base, but it's how they reach base that's so very important.

Per 162 games:
Derek Jeter's slugging% = .462
Alex Rodriguez's SLG% = .578
This means that for each at bat, Rodriguez is going to average more bases. More bases equals more opportunities to knock in runs and be in scoring position himself. Speaking of runs batted in...

Per 162 games:
Derek Jeter's RBIs = 82
Alex Rodriguez's RBIs = 128
It's quite an accomplishment to attain 100 RBIs in a season, even extrapolated to 162 games. Rodriguez averages 128.

There's also Bill James' Runs Created stat, which is a calculation of how many runs a team of Derek Jeters or a team of Alex Rodriguezes would score.

In 13 seasons Derek Jeter's Runs Created per game is 6.8, meaning a team of Jeters would score 6.8 runs per game in Major League baseball.
In 14 seasons Alex Rodriguez's RC/G is 8.4, meaning a team of Rodriguezes would score more runs than a team of Jeters.
In 2007 Jeter's RC/G was 6.3. Rodriguez's was 10.4.

So clearly, and I don't even know why I'm arguing this, Alex Rodriguez is a much better offensive weapon than Derek Jeter. But what about DEfensively? Both are Gold Glove shortstops, but which one is better at his position?

By the numbers Rodriguez is only an average third baseman, but I don't think it's fair to compare stats from his secondary position. So any numbers I pull up for Rodriguez will strictly be for games played at shortstop.

Their fielding percentage is about the same (Jeter's .975 to Rodriguez's .977), but we need to be able to figure out who has the better range. The point of being a fielder is to make outs, and naturally you'll be able to make more outs if you're able to get to more balls. Fortunately there's a range statistic, and in this instance the results are very telling.

The Range Factor is calculated by adding assists and put-outs and then, for the sake of averaging, dividing by games played. Somebody who is able to get to more balls will have a higher RFg.

Derek Jeter's career RFg is 4.05, which is actually below the league average of 4.12 for that span of time he's played.
Alex Rodriguez's career RFg at shortstop is 4.42, well above the league average of 4.15 for his span of time.

And as for double plays turned, Jeter averages a double play every 1.8 games played, or 90 every 162 games.
Rodriguez at short averaged a double play every 1.5 games played, or 108 every 162 games.

Alex Rodriguez is a better shortstop than Derek Jeter.
Alex Rodriguez. Is a better. Shortstop. Than Derek Jeter.
So why did Rodriguez have to move to third base? Because Jeter wouldn't have even been able to play the hot corner. He's a subpar shortstop who wins Gold Glove awards because of that neat jumpy throw he does.

But Alex Rodriguez is the bad guy. And the boos of finnicky fans and finger-pointing media probably aided in his decision to persue free agency. And now the Yankees will lose their best player.

[By the way, I didn't pull any of these numbers out of my hindquarters. Baseball-Reference.com is the source for all of these stats and more.]

World Series Game 3 Live Blog-o-rama

2007-10-27T19:35:00.000-04:00

Welcome to Game 3 of the 2007 World Series in Colorado.
I'm not in Colorado, but I AM in front of a TV, and reading about the game here (as it happens!) is dang near as good as being there. I promise.

Here's how it works. During the game I'll type stuff, then at the end of each half-inning I'll hit the "Publish Post" button. That way you can read along. Or you can just come back tomorrow and read it all in its entirety. Or you can go outside and do something productive.

I've decided that for every Colorado run scored I'll take a celebratory shot of vodka, and for every Boston run scored I'll take a drown-my-sorrows swig of beer. If this ends up being a high-scoring game (and it might -- thinner air, y'know -- or it might not -- humidored baseballs, y'know) then let my pickled liver be a health warning to you to never play drinking games with baseball.

PREGAME
Major League Baseball is offering "international coverage" of this year's World Series. Seperate from the FOX broadcast, up here in Canada we get the play-by-play talents of Dave O'Brien and the colo(u)r commentary of Rick Sutcliffe. Interestingly, due to my close proximity to Detroit, I can still get the FOX broadcast on my TV.
So who do I pick? The insufferableness Tim McCarver, or the inaneness of Rick Sutcliffe? Suddenly I envy Sophie's choice.

Tonight's pitchers will be Dasuke Matsuzaka for Boston and Josh Fogg for Colorado. If Fogg ends up winning this game for the Rockies I can just imagine all the punny headlines that'll say "FOGG LIFTS FOR ROCKIES" or "FOGG SHROUDS SOX" or "FOGGET ABOUT IT" or something equally as unclever.
As for Matsuzaka, I can't call him Dice-K. It reminds me too much of, Dice Clay, as in Andrew, and the last thing I need is for Andrew Dice Clay to take up brain space.

Because of the non-DH in the NL stadium, Terry Francona had to make a decision. Does he bench one of the most feared hitters in the Majors (Ortiz) or does he bench the man hitting .444 this postseason (Youkilis)? They can't both play first base, although I would pay a few dollars to watch them try. But it looks like David Ortiz will get the start, making Kevin Youkilis a very good hitting bencher. Look for his Bluto self to make an appearance later in the game.

I'll stick with Sut and O'B for now. Less irritating FOXy bells 'n' whistles. The commercial breaks are shorter on this channel too.

The bullpen, apparently, is in the middle of the woods.
And, lest we all forget, the Rockies mascot is a BIG PURPLE DINOSAUR.

National Anthem time... and wow, Carrie Underwood's voice has the power to conjure fireworks!

Let's play ball.

TOP 1ST
Jacoby Ellsbury up first for Boston. I like him, and I hope one day he doesn't play for the Red Sox. Even when he screw up, like that wimpy hit he just now dribbled, he makes it into something positive (in this case his hit was so wimpy that nobody could field it in time).
Dustin Pedroia has all five vowels in his name. If only his name was Dustiny (but only sometimes). HIT AN RUN HIT AND RUN... foul. Try again. Seemingly routine groundball to short, but SAFE at first because Vowels is so dang fast.
Alright, man on first and second, Ortiz at the plate. No outs. Fogg's in some early trouble. So he strikes Davey out. Nice. Take THAT Mr. Big Papi sir.
Now Manny, who's even more dangerous than Ortiz. I'm glad baseball announcers are finally addressing the fact that Ramirez isn't some dumb manchild. He's an intelligent hitter who just happens to speak chop English and wear baggy pants.
Pop out to left. Two outs. Mike Lowell up.
It's a little bit funny to me that the two rookies immediately got on base, but the veterans can't get anything done.
Full count on Lowell. What's going to happen? The runners go and... AND... flyout to center.
Three outs.

BOTTOM 1ST
Kaz Matsui up first for the Rocks. First pitch from Matsuzaka is hit into the right field for a single... NAY, a double, thanks to some excellent ball misshandling by JD Drew. Single + Error, technically. Either way there's an instant man in scoring position.
Tulowi... Tulo... witz... TROY steps up to the plate, trying not to let 'Zaka's butt waggle distract him. He works his way up to a full count. Matsuzaka appears bored and throws his heralded apathy pitch. Strike three.
One out.
Matt Holliday now, perhaps still thinking about the fact that he still needs to touch home plate from that game against the Padres. Back to the pitcher... SNAGGED by Matsuzaka. He then spun around and caught Matsui off second in a rundown. They play around and get the second out.
Todd "Gotee of Doom" Helton now at bat. Holliday at first. Maybe a ghost runner on second.
Ground ball to third. Force at second. Three outs.

TOP 2ND
If each team is going to put two runners on base without scoring any of them then this is going to be a very long and frustrating game.
JD Drew quickly grounds out to second. One quick out. Quick quick quick.
Jason Veritek now at the plate. Veritek sounds like some sort of sythetic fiber.
Holy smokes. Veritek's broken bat helicoptered right through Fogg's legs. The ball trickled to Troy at short, who made a great throw to nail 'Tek at first. Two outs. Extra points for amusing chaos.
Julio Lugo, who was awful earlier during the regular season, has been oddly awesome in the playoffs. Like just now when he hit a double. I don't understand.
Dasuke Matsuzaka at bat. Rick Sutcliffe is talking about home runs for some reason.
Strike three. Three outs.

BOTTOM 2ND
First pitch to Garrett Atkins... is in his face. Off the shoulder, actually. Take your base.
Now Hawpe. On pop.
Strike one, two, three.
One out, man on first.
Now's the catcher, Yorvit Torrealba. Yorvit flies out to Manny in left, who makes every putout attempt an exciting one.
Two outs, Cory Sullivan at bat. I know absolutely nothing about Cory Sullivan. Isn't he a racecar driver or something? Probably, because he weakly dribbles out to Lugo at short. Flip to second, three outs.

TOP 3RD
Ellsbury in at bat number two. Wowie. Stretched that single down the left field line into a double. So once again there is a man in scoring position.
Can Pedroia reach base again? Yes, yes he can. He dropped a great bunt, which Torrealba fielded (when it was closer to Fogg) and dang near threw it into the seats. Helton managed to grab it, but Peds was easily safe at first.
Ortiz, RBI double to right. I'm grabbin' a beer as they intentionally walk Manny. A Rickard's Red... like, for the RED Sox. Get it?
The bases are now loaded for Mike Lowell. No outs.
Lowell single right up the middle (dividing the infield exactly in half). Two more runs come in. It's 3 - 0, Boston, no outs. What more?
Drew vs. Fogg. Drew pops to Troy. Reliable ol' JD, good for an out when you need it most.
One down. Veritek... singles to left. Manny coming around trying to score. The throw from Holliday is... is... is... doggone it, the umpire took forever to call that. OUT!
That was sure exciting. Two outs.
I like how Manny popped up after his slide into home and called himself safe.
Oh dear. Fogg just walked Lugo to reload the bases.
And now feared hitter Matsuzaka at bat... singles? A TWO RUN single?! Five to nothing??!
Okay. Man on first and third, two outs... wait a second, Ellsbury already batted this inning.
Single to center just out of reach of the diving Sullivan. Another run scores.
Hurdle is yanking Fogg, and the bottle I cracked open earlier this inning is already almost empty. Shoot, they don't even need Youkilis.
Who's pitching now? Franklin Morales? He got Pedroia to ground out to third. Three outs. FINALLY.

BOTTOM 3RD
It's not such a good thing when a pitcher leads off an inning at bat.
Strike three. That's why. Down goes Morales.
The mighty Kaz at bat. I kind of enjoy it when a Japanese batter faces a Japanese pitcher. I wonder if they have some deeper level of understanding that they subtly communicate to each other. I wonder if they make fun of the Americans. Whatever it is they're doing, Matsui and Matsuzaka are taking a long time to do it. Kaz keeps a-foulin', and 'Zaka keeps a-pitchin'.
Full count. This has turned into quite an epic battle.
Swing and a miss. Matsuzaka shames Matsui into striking out. Second out.
Troy Alphabetzki at bat. Weak grounder to Lugo. Tossed out at first. Third out. Change sides.

TOP 4TH
David Ortiz first up. Grounds to Kaz at second, who flips to Morales covering first.
One out. Maybe this will be a quick inning? Maybe six more runs won't score?
It's Manny time. A big shot to left-center. Back goes Sullivan. Back... back... caught at the track. Good job catchin' up to that, racecar driver man. Two outs.
Mike Lowell... back to the pitcher. Tossed out at first. Three outs. Quickest half inning ever.

BOTTOM 4TH
Matt Holliday at the plate. Matsuzaka still wiggling his rear. Foul ball after foul ball after foul ball. Then POW groundout to Ortiz at first. One out.
David Ortiz has been doing pretty good down there at first today, considering that his regular position during Boston field play is the bench.
Todd Helton now at bat. Maybe he can hit a six run homer. With nobody on base.
More fouls. Good grief. It must be ball souvenir day for the fans. And on the twelfth pitch... caught looking, strike three. How frustrating. Two outs.
Atkins up again, not really needing a diet. Unless a diet would make him a better hitter. I keed I keed... Atkins has been pretty solid with the bat this season. Not so much in the postseason, but... Oh, hey, ball four.
So, man on first, two outs, Brad Hawpe at bat. Pop out to Lugo. Three outs on, like, a million pitches this inning.

TOP 5TH
JD Drew now a-battin'. Gapper to left center, good for a double. Once again there is a man on second with no outs for Boston. They need to stop starting innings this way.
Veritek... showing bunt? Foul ball. Nice effort, 'Tek.
Strike three. Also a nice effort, 'Tek.
Out number one.
Lugo at bat now. What kind of nonsense will he involve himself in now? Full count now... and Rick Sutcliffe's favorite holiday is Halloween. He said so. He's still saying so. And Lugo's favorite holiday? The one where he flies out to right field. Two outs.
Is this Matsuzaka at bat again? I think he used up his one hit allotted to him. No more. But man, he sure is taking his hacks.
Grounder to Matsui at second. Tossed out at first. NOW who is shamed?

BOTTOM 6TH
Uh-oh, I don't have the expressed written consent of MLB to live blog this game.
Torrealba just Torre-singled-up-the-middle. That makes... TWO base hits for the Rockies.
Cory Sullivan. Fly out to Manny.
Now batting for Morales... Seth Smith. I know less about Seth Smith than I do about Cory Sullivan. But look! Another single. These are potential runs.
Just in time for another Matsui/Matsuzaka battle to the death. A dribbler to Lugo, snags it to his right... throws to third! Gets him out. Nice play, Julio. Two outs.
Still men on first and second. And Tulowitzki Tulo-pops-out-to-Lugo. Great.

TOP 6TH
Jeremy Affeldt now pitching for Colorado. Remember when he used to pitch for the Royals?
Jacob Ellsbury at bat, probably seconds away from hitting a triple or something. Hah, not this time. Grounder down the third base line, Atkins makes a nice little play and stops Ellsbury's reign of terror.
One out.
Dustin Pedroia watchin' all kinds of strikes go by him. Takes a hack and pops out to center.
Two outs.
Big Ortiz... swingandamiss.
Three outs.

BOTTOM 6TH
Hmm... one of the hits I thought the Rockies had wasn't really a hit. I've been bamboozled.
Kevin Youkilis is in the game now, as if they really needed him at this point.
Matt Holliday grounds out to Lowell at third. One out.
I wonder how much longer Matsuzaka can last. Doesn't all that waggling make him tired?
Todd Helton, after another hundred pitches from 'Zaka, takes a walk to first.
Atkins... what can you do to help the situation? Also take a walk? Good answer.
I knew the butt wiggles would do him in. Francona's yanking Matsuzaka for Javier Lopez.
Warm up time.
Wait, isn't Javier Lopez a catcher? He's pitching like one, giving up a hit to Hawpe. RBI. Rockies on the board. I'm going to wait until this inning ends before making a kitchen run.
There's a man on first, a man on second, one out, and a big ol' Torrealba at bat. He just swung so hard he did the moonwalk. Next swing, single to left. Atkins scores. 6 - 2.
Aw, nuts. Francona is taking Lopez out. In comes Mike Timlin, who I'm sure is sixty years old.
Warm up time again.
Spilborghs at bat? Baker on deck? These are just made up players.
Spilborghs, demanding recognition, just hit it DEEP to centerfield. Alas, it was caught. Two outs. No runners advanced.
Jeff Baker, taking huge cuts. Two quick strikes. A ball. Another ball. I wonder if he realizes this is the biggest at bat of his career.
Line drive to left-center... NO, Julio Lugo at short jumped twelve feet in the air and somehow snagged that thing. Curses.

TOP 7TH
Matt Herges now pitching for Colorado.
Manny Ramirez now batting for Boston.
Manny Ramirez now striking out for Boston. One out.
Mike Lowell up now. Mike Lowell down now. Strike three. Herges is making these batter appear fairly foolish.
Youkilis is in the dugout working on his swing, but he's all wrapped up in hoodies and oversized boxing gloves and whatnot and he looks kind of terrifying.
JD Drew can't look terrifying no matter what he does.
Jason Veritek on dek. Deck.
Drew swings and misses. Strike three. Herges totally just struck out the side like it was nothing.
Stretchy time.

BOTTOM 7TH
Holy cow, Philip Bailey just sang God Bless America. Maybe this is the pick-up the Rockies need in order to win this game. Some Earth, Wind, and Fire. Maybe Bailey should pick up a bat, too.

Anyway,
Kaz Matsui leading off, Timlin still pitching. And NICE, Kaz laid down a perfect bunt. Everybody just kind of stared at it. Now there's a Kaz on first.
Troy up. Timlin old.
Kaz scoring MORE points. Consider second base stolen.
Tulotroy hits a dinky little nubber that somehow skips through the infield. Kaz at third. Troy at first. Holliday at bat. Timlin no longer pitching.
Warm up time again again.
Uh-oh, Okajima now pitching. In the outfield Drew was yanked, Ellsbury's moved to right, and Coco Crisp, WHOSE NAME I WILL NOT MAKE FUN OF, is now in centerfield.
Holliday still at bat. DEEP! DEEP!!! HOME RUN!!!11!!! To centerfield. Way over Crisp. Three run homer.
Boston 6, Rockies 5.
Outstanding.
And I like how Holliday was all cool about it, like he hits three run World Series homers all the time.
Helton at the plate now, trying to bat despite the fireworks smoke polluting the field.
I just realized how much Stolichnaya I've got to put in me now. Maybe I'll split it with my imaginary friends.
Helton, full count, BASE HIT to left. Call this game a Top 40 countdown 'cause the hits just keep on coming. Cha-POW.
Atkins at bat. This is very un-Okajimalike behavior. Maybe he finally snapped his brain from that sudden head-jerk movement he pulls during every pitch. And a snapped brain... allows him to give up base hits?
Outs seem to be optional as there don't appear to be any.
Oh, there's one. Atkins struck out swingin.
Brad Hawpe lookin' to hit a baseball now. Also, without a helmet or hat, he looks a lot like Marc Summers. And Hawpe fails the physical challenge. Strike three.
Two outs.
Yorvit up. His number is 8. Yogi Berra's number is 8. I suppose it's a catcher thing. But you know what would make Yogi proud right now? A home run. I bet it would.
Ground out to 'Jima. Yogi weeps.

TOP 8TH
Surprisingly I hold alcohol very well, but I'll let you know if I puke all over the keyboard.
Brian Fuentes now pitching for the Rockies.
'Tek at bat. Hits it to short as slow as he possibly can. Easy out. One down.
I'm glad there's at least one exciting game in this here World Series contest. This one is turning out pretty good.
Lugo now. Lugo now on base. Call it a walk.
Up comes Coco Crisp. Crisp's real name, by the way, is Covelli. Covelli Loyce. Crisp. And not Count Chocula. Regardless of what his name is, Crisp bloops it past the diving Tuloblahblah for a single.
Man on first. Man on second. Jacoby "I'll Probably Get A Hit" Ellsbury at bat.
Ellsbury just got a hit. He popped it down the right field line and Marc Summers couldn't come up with it. Lugo scored, Crisp to third.
Fudge nuggets. Pedroia doubled to right. A couple people scored. And Fuentes isn't making me so happy.
Boston 9, Rockies 5. There goes another half beer.
Youk up to bat. Ground out to third. Two outs.
Manny now. Being Manny. Being growing hair like Predator.
High pop up just past third, which might be a homer in Boston. Three outs.

BOTTOM 8TH
Manny Delcarmen pitching for Boston. Now I guess I have to point out which Manny I'm talking about.
Was that Spilborghs? He just flied out to right. One down.
Willy Tavares now batting for Fuentes. I like Tavares. He might suddenly drop a bunt, or he might not. Whatcha gonna do? Tavares decided that he was gonna line out to the second baseman. Two down.
Matsui up again. Singles up the middle! He's had a pretty good day. But I bet his day would be a bit better if he crossed home plate.
'Witzki up now. And I spy Papelbon warming up in the bullpen. They might think about bringin him in 'cause Delcarmen just Del-walked Troy. Yep, here he comes.
Papelbon now. Holliday pops out DEEP to left. I had high hopes for that one. Three outs.

TOP 9TH
LaTroy Hawkins now pitching for Colorado.
I was on the phone with my wife for this whole inning, but I can tell you Lowell singled to center, some guy named Cora sacrificed Lowell to second, Lowell stole third base (!), and Veritek hit it deep to center to score Lowell. Lugo grounded out to short and the peasants rejoiced.

BOTTOM 9TH
Unless Papelbon completely loses his mind Boston has this one in the bag.
To prove my point Todd Helton pops out to right.
To prove my point Garrett Atkins grounds out to third.
Last chance Hawpe at bat now.
Hawpe now with the fate of the universe in his hands. SINGLES down the right field line. Make that a TRIPLE. I need to pay more attention.
Yorvit Torrealba now with the fate of the universe in his hands. Broken bat to short. Lugo fields it easily. Out at first.
Red Sox win Game 3.
To take a three game lead.

POSTGAME
That was, despite the outcome, a pretty exciting game. At least for a minute there. But now we have to accept the fact that the Boston Red Sox will probably become our Baseball Overlords. I intend to hide out underground, just like I did after the 2004 World Series, and peek my head out in February like Punxatawny Phil. I'll only come out when it becomes clear that the Red Sox will have a dismal 2008 season.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this live blogging of Game 3. And if you DIDN'T enjoy it, I hope you wasted a whole bunch of valuable time reading it.
My brain cells are thankful that no more runs scored.
I apologize for all the pictures of 80s B-list icons.
Hopefully I'll be able to do this again in the future. Probably not this season, though.
G'night, y'all.

Game 3 Live Blog Scheduled to Coincide with Game 3

2007-10-26T11:02:00.001-04:00

Because circumstances allow it for just this one time, I'm going to live-blog Game 3 of the World Series Saturday right here on this very website. I've done this once before, and it's kinda fun (for me, anyway. I don't know about you poor suckers who choose to read along instead of actually physically watching the game.).

So set your clocks, boot up your harddrives, and mute Tim McCarver. We're gonna have ourselves a jolly ol' time.

Chillin' like a Machiavellian

2007-10-21T16:09:00.000-04:00

Another reason to despise the R. Sox: They fouled up my anniversary plans by forcing a game seven. Done on purpose, I can tell.
Westbrook vs. Matsuzaka. When these two met last week 'Zaka allowed four runs, Westbrook just two, and Cleveland won. Will there be Indians in the World Series, or will it be a Rox and Sox matchup? We'll find out (I will, at least) in a few hours.

The Yankees must make October headlines, even when they're out of World Series contention. I didn't really think that they'd fire Joe Torre, but Joey pulled the ol' switch-a-roo. Did anybody consider the fact that maybe he didn't want to come back? And now that he's made that much known, can anybody blame him? Bickering players, manic corporate management, finnicky media... I'm surprised Torre's lasted this long.

But the Yankees refusal to negotiate on a one-year contract seems to indicate that they didn't really want him back after all. The organization is going through changes (new ownership, new ventures, new stadium), and a new skipper may have been part of the plan. The fans love Torre, and an outright firing wouldn't sit well (which was George Steinbrenner's plan/knee-jerk reaction, and an offered contract is demonstrated proof that he's not really in charge any more). Scheme: Make Joe look like a bad guy for wanting to leave Yankee Nation... offer a crappy contract, DON'T BUDGE ON IT, and naturally he won't take. Intentions are all speculation, but subterfuge doesn't appear to be beyond those who treat their baseball teams like empires.

As far as replacements go, I think I'd like to see Mattingly at the helm. I'm worried about how he'd do, though, seeing as how he's got no management experience at all. But I suppose he's been in the dugout long enough to know what's what. And as mellow as he is, I would pay solid dollars to watch him explode in front of an umpire.
I was initially hopeful that LaRussa might head to New York, but it looks like he's probably going to stay in St. Louis, and that's fine with me too.

(Source and source, because citation is important.)

Days of our Steinbrenner

2007-10-09T15:36:00.000-04:00

The media has been making a big thing of this recent "threat" by George Steinbrenner to axe Joe Torre if the Yankees failed to advance. I think this had been blown WAY out of preportion, and everybody is making it sound as if Torre is as good as dead.

Here's the thing -- George Steinbrenner isn't in a very good condition right now. Senility, alzheimers, lobotomy, whatever... he is unsound and not able to make the major Yankee decisions he's been known to make. For goodness sakes, he's rarely at Yankee Stadium anymore, and when he is he looks vacant and unawares up in that kingly box of his. The Yankee organization, much too valuable to be placed in such brittle hands, is now run by businessmen and is no longer subject to the knee-jerk whims of Steinbrenner. George is merely the symbol of Yankeedom and has no more power over the roster than the Queen.

And now there's this quote floating around that Steinbrenner is going to fire Torre if the Yankees don't advance. I don't know if George said what he said in a moment of clarity or while in a dementious haze, but regardless of whether or not he meant it he has no authority to act upon it.

But here's the funny thing: now that the media has latched on to this errant quote, now that they've repeated it in papers and television enough times to convince themselves it's fact, the Yankees organization might just dismiss Torre to save face. The Yankees have taken great care to retain the kingly image of Steinbrenner, and Torre may have to go just to prove that Steinbrenner still pulls some weight around.

A soap opera, for sure, but it's the New York Yankees. All you can do is shrug your shoulders and tune in next week.

Giving a Hoot

2007-10-09T13:20:00.000-04:00

Cleveland, Boston

Colorado, Arizona

I don't have any allegiances to any of these teams. I do have an intense dislike for the Boston Red Sox organization (or "nation", or whatever), so from here on out instead of rooting for a team, I'll be rooting against the Sox. That's quite a negative way to participate in the playoffs, but I suppose it's better than just not caring.

What happens, though, is that I've got to suddenly and emphatically pull for the Indians even though I was just cursing their very existence during the Divisional Series. Fan-hood is such a strange thing.

As for the National League contenders, I'm just along for the ride. I think I might be more inclined to favor the Rockies, but if the Backs make a World Series appearance for the second time in their short existence I won't complain.

Ideally, given who's now remaining in the playoffs, I'd like to see a Colorado/Cleveland World Series. Both are due for a World Series appearance (this is only the second playoff appearance for the Rocks and the first time they've advanced to the NLCS, and the Indians haven't won a World Championship since 1949) and I'd be interested in seeing how Cleveland pitching responds to Coors Field.

Champion-wise, and I know this is extremely superficial, I'd rather team named for a mountain range win than the embarrassing Chief Wahoo. It's bad form to choose a victor based on mascots, but that's how uninvested I am.

Wait... the Rockies' mascot is that stupid purple dinosaur? DINGER?! Well then, there will be no winners this year.

NL, Oh-No

2007-10-05T12:14:00.000-04:00

Playoffs are underway, and since I only came in 5th place in my fantasy league I don't think I can make World Series predictions with any authority. I'm just hoping for an entertaining post-season.
I'm excited about the American League games. New York and Boston always make things interesting, and it's fun to watch the outstanding young pitchers from the Indians and Angels. These National League games, though...

The entire National League has been pretty abysmal this season. The Cardinals took a mediocre championship team and, even though expectations were already low, still managed to disappoint. The Mets, chosen by many to be World Series champions, didn't even make the playoffs. None of the teams finished with over 90 wins. And I can't bear the thought of either the Cubs or Phillies playing (let alone winning) a World Series.

It was a rough year for the Cardinals, and I looked for positivity wherever I could find it. However it was always marred by something. I was still celebrating April baseball when Josh Hancock tragically died in a car accident. The Birds delivered the Phillies their 10,000th franchise loss in July, but Philadelphia is now in the playoffs and the Cards are not. The Ankiel story was a good one, at least until HGH caught up with him. Now I can't believe in anything good ever again.

And although I'm bummed that the Cardinals didn't make it to the post-season this year, I'm at least glad that their collapse (losing 14 of 16 in September to go from 1 game behind the Cubs to 9.5) was overshadowed by the Mets' freefall (dropping 12 of 17 at the end of the season to lose their division lead).

If I had to choose an NL team to root for right now it'd be the Colorado Rockies, and not just because they have a chance to stop Philly from advancing. They won 14 of their last 15 regular-season games to take the NL West by surprise. I kind of feel they deserve it.

Of course after that playoff-to-make-the-playoffs game between the Rocks and Padres, everything else seems sort of anti-climactic.

First Round Over-Achievers

2007-09-26T15:59:00.000-04:00

I was perusing baseball draft picks of the past when I came across a note about John Elway. Elway was selected by the Royals in the 18th round of the 1979 draft and even played a season for Oneonta of the Yankees organization. So what other notable NFLers have been drafted by MLB teams? And more interestingly, which of them actually played minor league ball?

- Tom Brady (18th round) was drafted ahead of Aaron Miles (19th round) in the 1995 amateur baseball draft. The Expos selected Brady out of high school, but he opted instead to play football at Michigan.
- But Ricky Williams beat them both by being selected by the Phillies in the 8th round. He even played four years of low-level pro-ball, but of course he turned out to be a little bit better at football.
- Bronco wide receiver Javon Walker was drafted by the Marlins in the 12th round of the 1997 draft (way ahead of David Eckstein in the 19th round) , but had difficulty putting the bat on the ball in the three years he spent in the Marlins' organization.
- Dan Marino was drafted out of high school by the Royals in the 4th round of the 1979 draft (the same draft as Elway) but played college football at Pittsburgh instead.
- Archie Manning was drafted four times between 1967 and 1971 but never signed.
- Here's some interesting trivia: Bronco defensive back John Lynch threw the very first pitch for the Marlins' organization in 1992. He would play two seasons in the minors before focusing on football full time.

Although several athletes have played in both the NFL and Major Leagues, very few have been successful at both. I can only think of Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders.

And for whatever it's worth, Tom Glavine was drafted in the 4th round by the L.A. Kings in the 1984 NHL draft, and longtime Angels/White Sox pitcher Kirk McCaskill was drafted in the 4th round by the Winnipeg Jets in the 1981 NHL draft.

Best New Rookie of the Year Artist

2007-09-19T18:00:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I think the Rookie of the Year award is like the Grammy's Best New Artist award; occasionally the recipients will have successful careers, but most of the time they fade into obscurity. So for comparing and contrasting purposes here's a list of rookie winners and how they parallel each other.

2004's BNA winner, Evanescence, is currently struggling to retain fan loyalty and critics' approval.
2004's AL ROY, Bobby Crosby, is currently struggling with getting on base and strikeouts.

1998's BNA winner, Paula Cole, has just released a new album after eight years of studio inactivity.
1998's NL ROY, Kerry Wood, recently returned to the Cubs' bullpen after a full season of Major League inactivity.

1996's BNA winner, Hootie & the Blowfish, still periodically releases albums despite nobody really paying any attention.
1996's NL ROY, Todd Hollandsworth, still periodically makes big league appearances (though he's yet to be seen this season) despite nobody really paying any attention.

1992, Marc "Walking in Memphis" Cohn, one-hit wonder.
1992, Pat "NL ROY" Listach, one-season wonder.

1988, Jody Watley
1988, Walt Weiss (in the AL) and Chris Sabo (in the NL)
It was a slow year for everybody.

1984's BNA winner, Culture Club, was wildly successful, but drug use (including well-publicized heroin addictions by frontman Boy George) tore the band apart and hindered the members' musical ability.
1984's NL ROY winner, Doc Gooden, was wildly successful, but drug use (including well-publicized cocaine addictions by the Doc) hindered his pitching ability.

1981's BNA winner, Christopher Cross, had a hit song ("Ride Like the Wind") about going to Mexico.
1981's NL ROY winner, Fernando Valenzuela, was born in Mexico.

1975's BNA winner, Marvin Hamlisch, became the first person to win three Academy Awards in one night.
1975's AL ROY winner, Fred Lynn, became the first person to win the Rookie of the Year award and the Most Valuable Player award in the same season.

In 1967, despite the six nominees, there was no Best New Artist winner. This had never happened in the category before or since.
In 1967 the ROY recipients were Tom Seaver and Rod Carew, both Hall of Famers. This was the last time the two ROY awards went to eventual HOFs.

The 1966 BNA winner was Tom Jones.
The two 1966 ROY winners were Tommy Helms and Tommie Agee.
It was a great year for Toms.

On the other hand, sometimes there's absolutely no relationship whatsoever between the two awards.

1993, Arrested Development... what ever happened to them?
1993, Derek Jeter... 'nuff said.

The career of 1990 BNA winner Milli Vanilli crashed and burned in a fiery scandelous explosion.
The career of 1990 AL ROY winner Sandy Alomar just keeps on going and going.

On putting sharpies to good use

2007-09-17T10:27:00.000-04:00

Shelley Duncan states the obvious.
Naturally I heard thousands of Fenway fans shouting "Yankees Suck" during last night's game, but somehow it's a no-no to write "Red Sox Suck" for a ten-year-old at the same game. Whatever.
But I find myself liking the Duncan brothers more and more. They're like the Yortuk and Georg Festrunk of baseball.

wooo.

2007-09-06T20:11:00.000-04:00

Cardinals beat the Pirates 16 - 4.
Can this count as a double victory?
No use splurging all that offense for one measily win.

The Art of Ducking

2007-09-06T14:00:00.001-04:00

Again, I take requests. Even morbid ones.

"Juan Encarcion (sp?) getting nailed in the eye. Who are some past baseball players who suffered from running their eye into a ball and how many were career ending injuries?"

Juan Encarnacion, while standing in the on-deck circle, was struck in the eye by a foul ball last Friday. The injury will end his season and potentially his career. This incident comes just a little over a month after a minor league coach was struck and killed by a foul ball. Helmets protect your head, but they don't protect your face.

In 1995 Kirby Puckett was struck in the face by a Dennis Martinez pitch. The blow broke his jaw and ended his season (the incident occurred in late September, and he only missed the final three games of the regular season). Some speculate that this injury led to the glaucoma that soon ended his career, but this hasn't been proven.

Twenty-two year-old Boston sensation Tony Conigliaro, who had led the league in home runs in only his second season and still holds the record for most home runs by a teenager, was hit in the cheekbone by Jack Hamilton in 1967. Tony C returned to baseball in 1969 and hit 20 home runs, then followed that up with a 36 home run season in 1970. But his eyesight grew worse and he soon had to retire from baseball. Due to being such a prolific hitter at so young an age, people often wonder how good he could have been had he not been struck in the face by a baseball.

Herb Score was an outstanding young pitcher for Cleveland who led the league in strikeouts his first two seasons. In his fifth start of the 1957 season he was struck in the face by a ball hit by Gil McDougald. Score had several broken bones in his face and missed the remainder of the season, but his eyesight was unaffected. Unfortunately after his 1958 return he adjusted his pitching motion, consequently making him a less effective pitcher. He only pitched one complete season afterwards and retired at the age of 29.

Cleveland shortstop Ray Chapman became the only Major Leaguer to have ever died as a result of a bean ball. Chapman was batting .303 when he was struck by a Carl Mays pitch on August 16, 1920. The Indians went on to win their first World Series that season and wore black arm bands in Chapman's memory. Though Carl Mays was an excellent pitcher, his reputation was forever tarnished by the incident (apparently he was also a bit of a jerk, which didn't help matters). Chapman's replacement at short, rookie Joe Sewell, went on to have a Hall of Fame career.

Don Zimmer has been hit in the head by pitches at least twice; once in the minors in 1953 in an incident that nearly killed him, and once again in 1956. The 1953 beaning left him unconscious for two weeks and he had to have screws put into his head. The 1956 beaning broke his cheekbone and ended his season.

In a famous incident Joe Medwick was beaned by Bob Bowman in 1940. Both had been teammates just six day before, and it's been disputed whether or not Bowman hit Medwick on purpose. Regardless, Medwick was knocked unconscious and missed a couple games with a concussion, though he was able to continue his Hall of Fame career.

There are a ton of other incidents. Boston pitcher Bryce Florie's was an ugly one in 2000, as was Dodger pitcher Kaz Ishii's in 2002. Although Ishii had to be taken off the field on a stretcher, he would come back to pitch for several more seasons. In fact he still pitches in Japan. Florie would only pitch in seven more big league games in 2001.

Billy Wagner has been hit by a comebacker, as has Andy Pettitte. Mike Piazza's taken one to the head, as has Sammy Sosa. Each were able to continue their careers with little ill effects. Baseball is a game of inches, but sometimes it's a millimeter's difference between a sore noggin and a career-ending injury.

Can I be in your club too?

2007-08-28T15:13:00.001-04:00

I was checking out the all-time strikeout list when I wondered which active pitchers have a shot at the 3,000 mark. Obviously Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz are right there, with 2,998 and 2,926, respectively. Mike Mussina has a decent chance, as does Andy Pettitte. But then I saw a name that took me by surprise.

Javier Vasquez? Could have 3,000 career strikeouts? Really?

He gives up a lot of hits, a lot of them for home runs, and has struggled in his two previous American League seasons. He's also a bit wild, having drilled 15 batters last year. But he might be the good kind of wild, the wild that keeps a hitter from determining if the next pitch will be over the plate or in his ear.

Vasquez has never led the league in strikeouts, but he's been healthy and he's been consistent. Twice he's topped the 200 strikeout mark, and from 2000 to 2006 he's averaged 193 a year. This season he's already at 157. Those aren't overwhelming numbers, but extrapolate those numbers over a twenty year career and you've got something.

In ten big league seasons Vasquez has 1,759 strikeouts. He also just turned 31. If he's able to stick around for seven more seasons, and if he stays as healthy as he's been up to this point, then he's got a good shot at the 3,000 mark. That may not guarantee him a spot in the Hall of Fame (see also Bert Blyleven), but it's a prestigious accomplishment nonetheless.

Take your base... AGAIN.

2007-08-25T00:06:00.000-04:00

Francisco Rodriguez's windup and delivery is so exuberant that I feel bad when he doesn't get the call on a close pitch. It's like wasted effort.

Baltimore, still needing something to celebrate besides being at the butt-end of a 30 to 3 loss Wednesday, can high-five Kevin Millar for extending his consecutive games on base safely streak to 51. But what's the record for CGOBS? In 2003 Barry Bonds reached base safely in 58 consecutive games, tying the NL record with Duke Snyder's 1954 effort, and that's fortunate because it means somebody has already done all the research for me.

Ted Williams in 1949 reached base safely 84 times-- amazingly done in 155 games. That's for a single season... I don't know if those numbers carried over to 1950 or if he was finishing up what he started in 1948. Either way, for that particular season Williams safely reached first base (and often beyond) in over half the games he played in.

While Williams finished the season batting .343 with 43 home runs and 159 RBIs, Millar is only batting .264 with 12 home runs and 54 RBIs. While it might be unfair to compare a Ted Williams MVP season with any given statistical Millar year, it is interesting to note how skeletal Millar's hitting has been even though he's on base all the time. Since the All-Star Break, Millar is hitting only .242 with a SLG% of .409. Credit the 13 of those 36 games he's gone hitless, but still scored a BB or HBP. In fact since his streak started in June his batting average has actually fallen from .249.

To be especially mean with our comparisons, during the 44 games in which Barry Bonds' reached base safely after the All-Star Break he batted .393, had a SLG% of .838, and went hitless only 11 times.

So of those who've had substantial CGOBS streaks (Williams with 84, Joe DiMaggio with 74 in 1941, Snider with 58 in 1954, Bonds with 58), three of them won MVPs in their respective streak seasons. Only the Duke missed the award, but his offensive numbers were nearly identical to MVP winner Willie Mays.

I'm not entirely convinced that Kevin Millar has a shot at the MVP award this season (understatement used for comedic effect), but he is keeping some good company.

Also, Kevin, Gene Simmons doesn't think you're wearing enough eye black.

Field Box $10.00

2007-08-22T13:13:00.000-04:00

The wife was digging through my wallet yesterday (I'm still not sure what she expected to find in there... Pepsi coupons?) and pulled out a ticket stub from my very first Major League game. I had been to tons of OKC 89ers (now called the Red Hawks) minor league games in the 80s, but Weatherford, OK, is offensively far from any big-league ballparks, and I had to wait until 1991 to catch my first Biggie in Kansas City.

Aisle 140
Box J
Seat 2
APR. 12, 1991
FRI., 7:35 PM

Royals Vs. Yankees

I have the worst memory ever, and there are only three things I distinctly recall:

1) Don Mattingly at first base. He was my favorite player then and I made it a point to find him. Unfortunately we were so far down the right-field line that I needed binoculars to see him manning first base.
2) Lee Guetterman on the mound. I knew he was tall (his stupid 1990 Topps baseball card appeared in every other pack I opened, and due to overexposure or osmosis or whatever I eventually memorized all of his statistics), but his height was even more appreciable when he stood on the mound towering above all of his teammates.
3) So many people ran on the field that night. For a long time afterwards I thought this was what fans normally did at Major League baseball games. Security took care of most of the drunken fools, but one guy who was sitting immediately in front of me hopped the fence, ran across the entire outfield, and lept back into the left-field line seats. Although I'm sure he was apprehended on the other side, I had never seen anybody before or since clear the entire field without getting caught.

Thanks to baseball-reference.com, the greatest website in the history of time, I've now got the long-forgotten details of that particular game.

Things to note:
- This was back when the Royals were better than the Yankees. New York finished 1991 with a record of 71-91, while Kansas City topped the .500 mark with a 82-80 record. It's amazing what can happen in sixteen years.
- Starting pitchers were Storm Davis for KC and Chuck Cary for NY. I have absolutely no recollection of Chuck Cary whatsoever, either in baseball card form or in SEEING HIM WITH MY EYEBALLS form. He allowed 8 runs in 3 1/3 innings, which probably explains how he's so forgettable.
- Batting first and second for the Yankees... Steve Sax and Don Mattingly. Next year both would appear on the best Simpsons episode ever.
- Batting clean-up for the Yankees... Kevin Maas! He hit the only triple of his big-league career in this game.
- Batting fifth for the Yankees... Hensley "Bam-Bam" Meulens! This line-up is absolutely amazing in an over-hyped sort of way.

As for the Royals:
- George Brett. I don't know how I managed to forget about George Brett, but he was playing first base this game.
- Danny Tartabull dang near hit for the cycle. He went 3 for 5 with a single, double, and a triple.
- "Now pinch hitting for Kevin Seitzer-- Bill Pecota"
- Kirk Gibson, in his 17 years of baseball, played one season for KC. Guess who the DH was?

Royals won, 9 to 5. Not a terribly remarkable game, and I bet 90% of the people there couldn't recall the game today (and even I am just barely able to), but it was a special one for me and I'll hang on to this stub for as long as I can. At least until somebody steals my wallet.

Last Week in Baseball, or, All That Stuff I Missed

2007-08-17T11:14:00.000-04:00

I've been gone. Algonquin Park, located somewhere in Ontario, is a beautiful place to camp and canoe and get bit in the face by mosquitos. It ain't no RV park, either, so I've been removed from computers and TVs and even radios for the past week. I come back to find the Cardinals opting not to suck anymore, Rick Ankiel is once again a Major Leaguer (and a dang good one at that), and there's a wild card race a-happenin'.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on whose side you're on) I caught B.Bonds' 756th homer just before I left. ...Caught it on TV. I didn't actually catch the baseball itself. If I had caught the baseball I'd be buying up Caribbean islands by now.

I returned just in time to read about Jose Offerman going ape over in the Atlantic League. I wouldn't have known that Offerman was still in organized baseball if I hadn't of re-stumbled across him while doing research for the All-Pena team a couple weeks ago. Anyway, I might be able to condone a bench-clearing brawl (the NASCAR equivalent of the guilty delight a big crash brings), but not if swinging bats are involved. If batters are allowed to charge the mound with bats in tow then pitchers should be allowed to carry guns.
HERE, by the way, is a fantastic collection of pictures of the incident. No video exists because nobody in their right mind would tape a Long Island Ducks game, but scroll through the photographs quickly and it sorta looks like it's in motion. Happily nobody was seriously brained.

And Scooter died. Phil Rizzuto was old and led a very full life, but it's still sad to have him leave us. I wish my best memory of him was something other than that holy cow knocking him over on Phil Rizzuto Day in 1985. They showed the incident at least once every season on TWIB.

Is that everything? Or at least everything of note?
What will NEXT week bring?

The All-Mickey Team

2007-08-04T17:36:00.000-04:00

All sports have their share of athletes named Jeff or John or Joe, but only in baseball can you find an abundance of Mickeys. There is something inherently basebally about the name Mickey, and it's got a long rich history of Major League use. Admittedly, Mickey was usually a nickname -- in fact, only three Major Leaguers have ever been Mickey by birth (Mantle, Tettleton, and Callaway) -- but who ever called Mickey Rivers "John"? Interestingly, Mickey Mantle was named after Mickey Cochrane, whose birth name was actually Gordon. Imagine a Hall of Fame plaque for Gordon Mantle.

Anyway, if an ideal team of Mickeys were to take the field, this is what it would look like.

Catcher: Mickey Cochrane - A two-time MVP, Cochrane hit two home runs for the Athletics during the 1930 World Series, aiding their eventual victory. His Hall of Fame career was cut short in 1937 when a pitch thrown by (the ironically named) Bump Hadley struck Cochrane in the head.

First Base: Mickey Vernon - A seven-time all-star, Vernon was also a two-time batting champ and finished his career with 2,495 hits.

Second Base: Mickey Morandini - A decent-hitting second baseman, Morandini is probably best known for turning an unassisted triple play for the Phillies in 1992, tagging Barry Bonds for the third out.

Third Base: Mickey Klutts - As his name might indicate, Klutts wasn't a stellar fielder, and he was too infrequently used in the big leagues for his bat to shine. But in 1976 he was co-MVP of the International League

Shortstop: Mickey Stanley - A gold glove centerfielder for the Tigers, Stanley played half the 1969 season at short, replacing defensive wizard Ray Oyler who had been drafted by the expansion Pilots. In fact, due to the liability of Oyler's bat, Stanley replaced him for much of the 1968 World Series as well.

Left Field: Mickey Rivers - Though in New York he was strictly a center fielder, Rivers played a handful of games in left field for the Angels and Rangers. But it was on the basepaths where he excelled, stealing 70 bases in 1975.

Center Field: Mickey Mantle - Even though he played through painful injuries, Mantle was an astonishing combination of power and speed. He was a 16-time all-star, 3-time MVP, 4-time home run champ, Triple Crown winner, and the 1956 batting champion. He was also the boyhood hero of every lad between New York and Oklahoma.

Right Field: Mickey Tettleton - Good behind the plate, Tettleton split time between catching and playing right field later in his career. Tettleton, like another Mickey on this line up, was a strong switch-hitter and had four 30-homer seasons.

Starting Pitcher 1: Mickey Lolich - The Tigers' all-time strikeout and shutout leader, Lolich won 25 games in 1971 and followed that up with a 22 win, 2.50 ERA season in '72. In the 1968 World Series he went 3-0, struck out 21, and had a 1.65 ERA.

Starting Pitcher 2: Mickey Welch - One of three Mickeys in the Hall of Fame, Welch was a 19th century phenom, winning 307 games in 12 seasons between 1880 and 1891. He sported a 44-11 record in 1885. In 1884 he once struck out the first nine batters he faced in a game.

Closer: Mickey Harris - A former 17-game winner for the Red Sox, Washington manager Bucky Harris (unrelated) moved Mickey Harris to the bullpen when he came to play for the Senators in 1949. He wasn't great, but he did save 15 games in 1950.

Manager: Mickey Cochrane - Not only was he a Hall of Fame catcher, Cochrane was also a successful player/manager for his Detroit Tigers in the 1930s. In 1934 his team won 101 games; in 1935 they were World Series champions.

It's startling how many Mickeys turned out to be catchers. I assume the tremendously popular Cochrane had something do with this, although maybe players of Irish descent were more inclined to saddle up behind the plate for some reason.

Also, I couldn't understand where Cornelius Frances "Neal" Finn got his "Mickey" nickname until I realized that "slipping a Mickey" and a "Mickey Finn" were the same thing.

Interestingly (for me at least) there was a Major League player in the 1970s named Mickey Scott, which happens to be my name as well. I wish he had been a better player (as if we had more than just names in common, as if I were somehow responsible for him), but I guess you don't really want to share your name with somebody too well known. "Michael Bolton," anybody?

Mountain Dew, Topps, and you (...er, me)

2007-07-28T16:35:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago my parents bought me three cases of Mountain Dew. Each of these cases contained a pack of three 2007 Topps baseball cards. Since I can't remember the last time I opened up a pack of baseball cards I've decided to live-blog each pack opening.

I am now on my last pack of cards.
The other two openings can be found HERE and HERE.

Let us begin.

I dang near bent these cards in half trying to pry them off the Mountain Dew box. Plastic may protect the cards from dust and dings, but it's no good if the plastic itself is crazy glued to another surface.

Anyway...

Johnny Damon, P174
Damon was born in Fort Riley, Kansas, and Royals fans still remember him fondly. I'd be interested to hear what Athletics fans think of Johnny D. Anyway, the funniest thing that ever happened in the history of time was when Damon signed with the Yankees as a free agent two days before Christmas '05. Feliz Navidad, Red Sox Nation.
I remember watching an episodes of Cribs a couple years ago. They were at Johnny Damon's house, and on the wall he had a picture of the Last Supper on the wall, but members of the '04 Sox had replaced the disciples. Naturally shaggy-faced Damon was Jesus. Also, his closet had an upstairs.
I think he signs his name in sanskrit. Seriously, a wavey line followed by another wavey line does not constitute a signature.

David DeJesus, P190
Speaking of Jesus and the Royals...
It's bothering me that the baseball in that picture is slightly above the barrel of the bat and past him a little bit, indicating that ball is going to go staight up and over to the third base dugout. It's a neat picture, but I'm not sure DeJesus would appreciate being photographed swinging late on a pitch.
Another nitpicky thing bothering me about this picture is that I can't really see Davey's face. I cannot gaze into the eyes of DeJesus.
On the back of the card:

"The Royals relied heavily on David in 2006. In the games he played, they
went 49-68 (.419); without him: 13-32 (.289)."

What's conveniently overlooked here is the fact that .419 and .289 are BOTH terrible winning percentages. Those are, like, losing percentages. But whatever. David DeJesus is one of the few bright spots the Royals have.

Barry Zito, P200
I would have been thrilled to get this card before the season started. The past few years with Oakland Zito's put up lots of wins, lots of strikeouts, and several seasons with a pretty good ERA. The Giants signed him to a $126 million(!!!) deal after the 2006 season, and so far this year he is 7-10 with a 5.28 ERA. Somehow he's a better American League pitcher than he is a National League pitcher. So until he gets good again I'm going to be pretty middle-of-the-road about him.
Other than that I really don't have much to say about Barry Zito. Apparently he's Patrick Duffy's nephew.

And what's with all these lefties? Did I crack open the lefty case?

Well, that was a fun adventure. Three packs of three... nine cards of Mountain Dew baseball awesomeness.
Here's the final breakdown:

P22 Gary Matthews Jr.
P26 Bronson Arroyo
P49 Mike Piazza
P91 Dontrelle Willis
P174 Johnny Damon
P190 David DeJesus
P192 Brian Schneider
P199 Robinson Cano
P200 Barry Zito

Not TOO bad, but not terribly exciting either. Ah well, half the fun is tearing open the plastic.

Obligatory Bondsy post

2007-07-28T15:22:00.000-04:00

I remember where I was when I watched McGwire hit his 62nd home run.
I remember where I was when I watched Cal Ripken play in his 2131st game.
I made it a point to experience these events live as they happened. No Sportscenter recaps for me. When future generations ask me what I was doing when an all-time mark was set, I don't want to say I was out back mowing the lawn.

For better or worse another monumental mark is about to be reached. And as much as I don't want Barry Bonds to hit 756 home runs, as ashamed as I am to call him a baseball player, I've still got to watch.

Do you know how badly I wish I could've seen Aaron's 715th homer?
Rose's 4190th hit?
Maris's 61st home run?
Live on TV?

No historical baseball records are going to pass me by.

So I feel sort of obligated to watch Barry Bonds piss me off.

Now let me tell you how mad I am at Sportsnet, the less-annoying Canadian ESPN equivalent, right now. They promised me more Giants' games. Okay. Fine. They promised every Bonds at-bat until he breaks the record. Good... I'll have to wade through some boring CFL highlights, but they'll cut to the at-bats live.

Last night I was all prepared to watch history. I had the Yahoo Gamechannel running on the computer to tell me when he was coming to bat. I had the TV on the Sportsnet channel ready for some live history-making. I had a plate full of chips to munch on while I waded through the boring CFL highlights. At this point Bonds was at 754. One more to tie Aaron.
And...
And...
More boring CFL highlights.
I glanced at the computer. Bonds was on first base.
EVERY AT-BAT MY BUTTOCKS.
Maybe they just... forgot?
Next at-bat. Boring CFL highlights. Computer glance: Bonds on first base again.
I went to bed.

Fortunately (in more ways than one) he didn't tie the record that night. But TV lied to me. I can't angrily watch Barry Bonds break the home run record if I can't angrily watch him at all. Don't promise me every Bonds at-bat, Sportsnet, if you're not interested in broadcasting every Bonds at-bat.

For crap's sake.

I may end up witnessing the 756th home run for the first time on YouTube or something like that. That's no way experience a momentous event.

"Where were you when Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's all-time home run record?"
"I was in the living room screaming at boring CFL highlights."

Helmets are alright, y'know

2007-07-26T13:08:00.000-04:00

As always I take requests and dedications.

I saw this in the newspaper and wondered if you knew about it....
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19908311/

That's a link to an article about the minor league coach who was struck and killed by a batted ball.

Yeah, I read about that the day after it happened. And while I'm saddened by the incident, I'm not really surprised by it. There is a certain level of danger in baseball (or any other sport that revolves around hitting a very solid ball in random directions as hard as you can) and things like this occasionally and tragically happen. That's not to say baseball has a high price. This isn't auto racing. Little leaguers aren't putting their lives in danger by stepping out onto the field. Death by baseball is a very rare thing, but enough baseball is played all over the world for the possibility to still exist.

Actually, I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often. In any given game at least half a dozen screaming line drives are shot into the stands. Splintered bat shards can go anywhere. Shoot, every few games or so an entire bat will fly out of the hitter's hands and land behind the dugout. Sometimes people get plunked, but it's not often somebody gets killed.

I'm not demanding on-field coaches wear protective gear. The danger is there, but it's not imminent. I don't remember the last time a coach was critically injured by a batted ball. But if they want to wear a helmet or something for their own well-being, I'm all for that. If John Olerud can play first base under a helmet with minimal discomfort then first base coach Glenallen Hill and anybody else should be applauded for doing the same.

There was a time when even batters didn't wear helmets, so who knows? Maybe the helmetted coach will become a trend that catches on. But again, I don't think non-batters/catchers should be required to don protective head gear, no more than I think the fans should be shielded from the field by a large all-encompassing net.

forums will be the death of me

2007-07-24T07:58:00.000-04:00

Facebook recently opened its e-doors to everybody so that any ol' goober can get an account there. Naturally I hopped right on that bandwagon. I'm still on Facebook. I enjoy it there.

They've got a baseball application where you can let the world know who your favorite teams and players are, and you can totally make a complete douche of yourself on the forums. With a constant supply of chatterbox highschoolers and meathead frat-tards there's a constant supply of the latter.

And it keeps coming up over and over and over...

"Sure Pete Rose bet on baseball, but he bet for his own team to win. There's no harm in that. In fact, isn't that like an incentive to win?"

#!$%.
First of all, there's a reason why gambling, ANY form of it, is banned in baseball. If you happen to be betting on your team, it really doesn't take much for you to bet against your team. It's easy to put money on your team when your '89 Reds are playing the abysmal '89 Braves, but is it so easy to to cash in on your team when you're playing the '89 Giants (who were NL champs)?

People often say that since he bet on his team to win he wasn't harming or effecting any outcomes. I then punch those people in their dumb mouths. Take, for example, this completely plausible situation:
The Reds are playing a close game, but Rose doesn't have any cash riding on this one. However, he does have one of his better players benched so that he'll be rested for the next night's "money game." Suddenly a situation arrises where, should the benched player be put in the game, he would be a certain asset and could possibly aid the Reds in winning that particular ballgame. Nope. You keep that bench warm. I need you tomorrow.
THAT is a circumstance effected by gambling. THAT is wrong. And even if THAT never actually happened, the mere fact of that scenerio even existing compromises the game.

In six of Rose's eight managerial years the Reds finished second, but never first. This was likely God's doing, punishment for shaming baseball.
I'll let you decide how serious I am.

And look at me! I didn't even mention the 1919 White Sox.

As for whether or not Pete deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, I'm still on the fence about this one. Based on playing ability alone he's a shoo-in. BUT he broke a very serious baseball rule. Players aren't banned from baseball for no good reason.

"But what he did as a manager shouldn't effect what he did as a player. It's the baseball PLAYER's Hall of Fame, not the baseball MANAGER's Hall of Fame."

&!#$.
1) There ARE managers in the Hall of Fame, so stop saying that.
2) Pete Rose was a player/manager for three seasons. Managing, gambling, and still a player.

I'm glad I'm not the decision-maker here, the one who decides whether or not to open those doors to immortality. I know in the hearts and minds of many he's already there, but it sure helps to have that shiney plaque hung up on the wall. He was a hero, and I'm still mad at him for shirking that and bastardizing the game for money.

It's too early in the morning for me to get riled up.
It's the kids these days... they're uninformed, amoral, and stupid.
I'm not a sixty-year-old porch coot, but if I look it it's because I've been driven there.

The All-Peña Team

2007-07-23T19:34:00.000-04:00

No rhyme. No reason. But I need a first post, and I can't think of a better first-post topic than who I want to see on my All-Peña Team. From Alejandro to Willy Mo to Tony to Tony to all the no-namers inbetween, a team of Peñas is undoubtably a force to be reckoned with.

Alright, everybody. Hands in the middle... on three...
1, 2, 3... Peña Power!!

Catcher: Well OBVIOUSLY it's going to be Tony Peña. Few have played over 1900 games behind the plate, and fewer still have done it with the patented Peña 'stache.

First Base: Carlos Peña is havin' himself a mighty fine year (23 homers, .289 average, 1.01 OPS, and a stolen base to boot!) but since he plays in Tampa Bay few seem to notice. Peñas, however, are used to being overlooked. It's part of what makes a Peña a Peña.

Second Base: Roberto Peña (nicknamed "Baby") was more comfy at shortstop, but he played enough games at second to be considered a safe backup there. He wasn't so sure with his bat, as his .245 career average will attest to.

Shortstop: Tony Jr. is having a better year with his bat (.284, 17 doubles) than he is with his glove (16 errors in 93 games), but he plays for the Royals, so all is forgiven (or at least explained). Also, in this mess of Peñas, it was only inevitable that there'd be some relations here.

Third Base: Bert Peña was primarily used as a shortstop, but for the sake of this line-up I had to go A-Rod on him and scoot him to third where, in 10 mid-1980's games for Houston, he committed no errors.

Left Field: Geronimo Peña was a second baseman for several years with the Cardinals, but I had to stick him way out in left field for the sake of filling spots. In 1991, in four left field games, he caught six fly balls and committed no errors.

Center Field: Elvis Peña had himself a couple big league cups of coffee in 2000 and 2001. Though brought up as an infielder, he was last seen playing outfield for the Long Island Ducks in the Atlantic League.

Right Field: Wily Mo is a fielding liability, but give him a hundred games and he'll give you 20-25 home runs and a couple key hits. What's remarkable is that he's the only Peña with any real outfield experience.

Starting Pitcher: Juan Peña was a sweet pitching prospect in the Red Sox organization. When he was finally called up to the majors in 1999 he struck out 15 batters in 13 innings, allowed just one earned run, and won both of his starts. Unfortunately he quickly came down with shoulder problems, then wrecked his elbow, which caused him to miss all of 2000. He bounced around the minors after that and ended his pro career with Nashua of the Atlantic League in 2004.

Middle Relief: Tony Peña, no relation to Tony or Tony, is currently a middle-relief man for Arizona, though periodically he'll be called upon to close a game. He's sporting a 2.09 ERA this season and strikes out twice as many as he walks.

Closer: Alejandro Peña began his career as a pretty good starting pitcher, but he proved to be a dang good closer as well, converting 13 straight save opportunities with the Braves in 1991. He finished his career with a highly respectable 3.11 ERA.

Manager: Tony gets dual credit for being both a reliable catcher and an adequate manager (not just anybody can lead the Royals to an over-.500 record). But this isn't Kansas City, and I'd like to see what skipper Tony could do with a team full of killer Peñas.

Honorable Mention/Bench:
Brayan Peña - If catcher Tony needs a day off, Brayan would make a great second-string. A seldom used catcher for Atlanta, he has yet to commit a Major League error. He struggles with that Mendoza line though, so skipper Tony needs to be careful where he bats him.

Ramon Peña - Tony's brother and Tony's uncle, Ramon is mostly here by associations. In eighteen big-league innings with Detroit in 1989 he closed six games (no saves), allowed twelve earned runs, struck out twelve, and then disappeared.

Orlando Peña - Like Alejandro, Orlando began as a decent starter and finished his career as a good closer. In 1963 he had a 12 - 20 record for the KC Athletics. In 1970, after a couple seasons in the minors, he was picked up by the Royals as a batting practice pitcher, but Pittsburgh felt he was good enough to pitch real games for them and signed him that summer.

Jesus Peña - The holiest of Peñas, for obvious reasons. In two big-league seasons he struck out 40, walked 42, and had a 5.21 ERA.

What surprised me in my Peña research is discovering how many Peñas are/were light-hitting infielders. Peñas, it seems, are not built for the wide open spaces. And though they may appear mediocre, a team full of this many scrappers (well, Wily Mo excluded) is sure to come through with a win somehow.