Opening Week in Review

Baseball season is back! I'm so excited. Some ramblings...

• ESPN's new Thursday night package (I guess Thursday is the new Wednesday) is absolutely brutal. Not only do we get an extra dose of Joe Morgan, but he's teamed up with Chris Berman. Once I realized that was the announcing team, I just turned it off. I didn't it tune in to see if Peter Gammons was doing the sideline reporter thing, or if they'd found some other legit baseball guy to belittle with that role for the broadcast. Did Gammons really volunteer for that work? Does he need the money that badly? Is it some form of punishment?
• Barry Bonds has taken more ugly swings this week than I saw him take in the past five years. I know he had a strong (albeit brief) Spring Training, but he doesn't look like the same guy since the season started. I'm no expert, but it looks like his legs aren't there. I'd be ready to write him off, but at this time last year nearly everyone wrote off Ken Griffey Jr. (including myself, after I watched him in person). Griffey was slow to start, but eventually heated up and won the Comeback Player of the Year award. Maybe Bonds is on track to do the same.
• The Nationals seem to have finally worked out their broadcasting situation. Well, they're at least on the Extra Innings package more than they used to be (with Nats broadcasters -- in the past you always got the Expos/Nats opponents' broadcasters). I really like the team of Bob Carpenter and Tom Patoriek.
• "Bonds on Bonds" was pretty pathetic.
• I'm probably going to be staying up late a lot this year. The AL West is going to be a lot of fun to follow and every Bonds AB could be historic.
• I can't wait to see the Marlins new video board in person. Apparently it's gigantic.
• "The Fielding Bible" is a great read. I'm not a big fan of the format of it. It "looks" just like the THT annual and the Bill James book. They all feel the same. But the content (just like with the other two) of "The Fielding Bible" is great and completely different than anything I've ever read before.
• Too bad Jimmy Rollins' streak ended. If he'd reached 56/57 games, it would have equalled/surpassed Joe D's mark in my book. Do all non-Yankee fans feel that way? Maybe it just seems like it.
• Shea Stadium isn't my all-time favorite ballpark. But it's a nice enough place to see a game. And yes, it will be sad when they knock the old place down. I was sad when the White Sox left Old Comiskey. I'm sure I'll be sad when the Marlins leave whatever-it-is-that-they're-calling-their-stadium. I'll even be a little sad when they get rid of Shea, and any of the other ballparks I've watched a game or two in. At least with Shea we'll always have Suite 36.
• Braves starting pitchers have gotten roughed up early and often this season. Do Bobby Cox's boys miss Leo Mazzone that much? It's too early to say that, especially when Mazzone's Orioles haven't exactly been shutting everyone down.
• I hope the Brewers and Tigers (and Chris Shelton!) play this well all year long.
  

Something New

At one site or another I blogged the past three baseball seasons. But I kind of blogged myself out. Still though, I like this writing on the Internet thing. It makes me feel like I'm following my team(s) a little more closely. But up until the other day, I wasn't sure what I was going to do. Now I think I've found something.

Last year one of the things that drove me crazy with the Marlins, and made me happy with the White Sox, was swing games. Ok, I wasn't calling them swing games at the time, but that's really what they were. The Marlins were in plenty of close games, but they often found themselves on the wrong end of them (for instance, the game early in the year that the Marlins lost in extra innings to the Braves when Juan Pierre bunted into a double play). While the Marlins were losing those sorts of games, the White Sox, inexplicably, went 35-19 in one-run games. The differences in success these two teams had last year led (pretty directly) to the White Sox surprising everyone and winning the World Series while the Marlins disappointed many and finished short of the playoffs.

So this year I'm participating, along with some other folks, in a new site on a new project. It's not entirely objective -- much of it is subjective. But we're going to try to track which games are routine, which are significant wins, and which are significant losses. My guess is that the playoff teams will have large, positive scores. I'm curious about a young team, like the Marlins, who are expected to struggle. Maybe it's just because of last night's game, but I think the Fish could surprise us with a large number of "significant wins".

Check it out - and even sign up to participate if you want - over at Swing Score.

Opening Day Stuff

I caught a little bit of the Nats - Mets game at lunch, but I've mostly been radio only so far. For a lot of the day I've been scrolling around on XM, giving some of my favorite announcers a listen.

• The Dodgers game just started, but Vin Scully is amazing. He still sounds like he always has. And he's still doing it all by himself.
• President Bush through out the first pitch in Cinci. The announcers said he received a warm reception. They also said that the President was going to visit their booth to talk some baseball, but I couldn't stomach enough of a Cubs game (especially after hearing Juan Pierre lead off the game with a triple), so I didn't hear it.
• Bob Eucker is great. I may listen to him more this year if the Brewers are as good as everyone thinks they will be.
• Today worked out just how the Mets want the whole year to go didn't it? I guess Wagner's finger is ok.
• I really like the Phillies announcers. Too bad (for them) that they're getting shelled.
• I only caught a few pitches of the Rangers and Red Sox. How did I let that happen? That should be a good series.
• I miss Joe Angel doing Marlins games.
• The Marlins should open at home each year. Having games in New York this week is brutal. Teams in the North should wait until the second week.
• Why aren't the Twins or Blue Jays playing today? Is it because of the Blue Jays? Is Canada in a different time zone now?
• I am sick: I'm thinking of getting DirecTV's sports package (I have MLB Extra Innings, but not all of the regional sports channels) just so that I can watch Yankees batting practice on YES. Keep in mind, I do not like the Yankees. I just like batting practice. And batting practice on television fascinates me. Yes, I know - I need help.
• Albert Pujols! The game is still in progress, but Al already has two homers and four runs driven in. Here's a tip: if you're in a fantasy league, pick this guy up if he's a free agent/on the waiver wire. He could be good.
• Do the Angels own the record for most team and stadium names for a team playing in the same stadium? I'm not even sure what they call their park now, but it's been renamed at least twice (it wasn't that long ago that it was the Big A) and the California/Anaheim/Los Angeles of Anaheim/Los Angeles has changed plenty too. And all without moving anywhere! Yes, I know they significantly renovated the stadium after the Rams left, but still -- it's the same stadium in the same location.

What's up wtih these opening series matchups? I don't like that the Marlins open against the Astros and then at home with the Padres. The home openers should be against division foes. The Pads aren't going to be back in Florida all year. Sure, some of the matchups are good, like A's - Yankees, but A's - Angels would have been just as good to start the year.

Opening Day Fun

I'm not sure what made me think of this (actually, I guess it was that Rob Schneider special that ESPN showed as part of last night's rain delay theater -- it was fun to watch Ray Durham try to teach Schneider to play second base), but if you could put together a team of current players who are your favorites to watch, who would be on it? Not necessarily the best guys in the league, but the guys who you most enjoy watching.

Here's my team. This isn't necessarily an All-Star team (although a lot of them are). It's just guys I like to watch:

C - Paul LoDuca
1B - Paul Konerko
2B - Ray Durham
3B - Chone Figgins
SS - Miguel Tejada
LF - Barry Bonds
CF - Andruw Jones
RF - Vladimir Guerrero

Bench:
Miguel Cabrera
Juan Pierre
Luis Castillo
Jim Thome
Mike Piazza
Manny Ramirez

SP - Dontrelle Willis
SP - Pedro Martinez
SP - Mark Buerhle
SP - Jake Peavy
SP - Jamie Moyer

Bullpen:
Trevor Hoffman
Mariano Rivera
Chad Cordero
Roberto Hernandez
Neal Cotts
Tom Gordon

Ok, so that's pretty much an All-Star team. And I know that Cabrera (or Wright or Chavez, etc) should start ahead of Figgins... but you just have to have Figgins in the starting lineup. Right?

It's here

Baseball Tonight (I know) is on and the first game of the year is less than an hour away.

It looks like John Kruk got a new hair piece. But I think he has it on backwards.

(Almost) Opening Day Randomness

Various things I think I think:

• This article says the American League is strong and it's true. What's scary is that while the AL has won six of the past eight World Series, most folks forget that the only champs from the NL in that time are the Florida Marlins. And at this point, I'm not even sure that the NL is proud to call the Marlins their own.
• In that same story, Ozzie Guillen says this, "It's a different ballgame," says White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, who watched the NL closely as a coach with Montreal and Florida for three seasons before taking his current job in 2004. "People think that there is all of this difference in strategy. The only strategy is the double-switch. "In the American League, I can hit-and-run with my six, seven, eight and nine hitters, and I can bunt. In the National League, I can't move guys over there because the pitcher is batting behind them and what am I gonna do?" That's an interesting point, particularly for those of us who think all the strategy takes place in the NL. Maybe the DH isn't such a bad thing.
  Barry Bonds is everyone's favorite steroid whipping boy. I have a hard time getting all worked up about it, especially considering that the allegations in the hot new book come from: 1) an estranged ex-girlfriend, 2) illegally obtained grand jury documents, and 3) drug dealers and pseudo-scientists. Those of you who are familiar with baseball history will recall though that illegally obtained, leaked grand jury testimony was all that was needed to convict (if only in baseball's terms) the 8 men who were banned from baseball from the White Sox 1919 pennant winners.
• Home Depot says it doesn't want to participate in any promotional efforts celebrating Barry Bonds because of the steroid rumors and allegations. Home Depot (owned by the owner of the NFL's Falcons) instead prefers to put its money behind athletes who use pseudonyms and knowingly infect women with STDs.
• Are you familiar with the chain of restaurants known as The Rusty Pelican? For whatever reason, their website only features one Southern California location. Regardless, what is a rusty pelican? I didn't know that animals could become rusty. Should I be worried?
• My pet peeve: referring to the total value of a player's contract without referencing the length of the deal. Today I heard about a $50 million contract extension for David Ortiz. Now, if that's a 2 or 3-year deal, it's pretty expensive. If it's a 5 or 6-year deal, it's too cheap. The value of a contract doesn't make sense without talking about its duration.
• Only one new stadium (new Busch in St. Louis) and no new uniforms? That's kind of a blah start to the season. Yeah, the Nats have new alternate jerseys, but that's kind of minor. Edit: Oops - there will be more new things this year. I'm still not sold on those freaky helmets though.
• This is a great story. I wish they'd run it on the front page of every sports section everyday.
• If you don't cheer for George Mason this weekend, you have no soul. If you're cheering for the Gators to beat GMU, well... I will pray for the soul that you don't have.

I had a lot more, but I can't remember any of it right now. Oh well, maybe it will come back to me.

Everyone Else Gets a Free Pass

We've all seen the photos of how Barry Bonds' head has grown, how has chest has expanded, and how his biceps are now (each) the size of a small town. Lost in all of that is how he's not alone. In fact, he's far from it.

Some of the guys who have "grown" over the years include the steroid suspects (or the outright guilty). Rafael Palmeiro, for instance:

Before:

After:

How about some other guys? You know - the guys who (at least as far as we're always told by the media) are clean/steroid-free... I'm not saying that these guys are steroid users (or that they ever were). All I'm saying is that some of them have undergone some pretty amazing physical transformations over the years.

Jeff Bagwell
As a youngster:

More recently:

Frank Thomas

Rookie card:

As a grown man:

The Thomas rookie card shocks me. I've always thought of Frank as a big guy, but if you took his name off of that rookie card, I wouldn't ever guess that it was him.

Alex Rodriguez

Rookie card:

More recently:

Yeah, they're just pictures. And yeah, there's all kinds of "evidence" against Bonds. Mostly we just don't know details about guys who weren't working with BALCO because their suppliers weren't busted. That doesn't mean that no one else is/was using steroids.

But we seem to be doing a good job of separating the users from the non-users by just looking at people. So if we're convicting guys based on pictures and hat sizes, let's make sure that we get them all.

A real QB in Miami

As you know, I am anything but a Dolphins fan. But this is exciting news: the Dolphins, at long last have a real QB. I mean, they finally have a guy who's capable of taking them to the next level. It's been a long time since a certain legend retired, but now the Dolphins might have the answer at quarterback. For the first time in decades, they'll have a guy under center who's capable of leading his team to a Super Bowl -- and not embarassing himself when he gets there. It's an exciting time to be a Dolphins fan. They haven't had a QB with this kind of ability since Bob Griese retired.

And even if you're (like me) not a Dolphins fan, you have to be excited about the prospects of having a guy who's gotten into some headline making trouble in Minnesota (freaking Minnesota). If Daunte can make off field headlines in Minneapolis-St. Paul, he could be a lot of fun in the magic city of Miami.

Bringing the Thunder

Randomness. Complete and utter randomness:

• I got my hands on one of Wiggins' college papers. Apparently he went to USF for a little while.
• Have your pets found The Lord? Maybe it's time.
• The Simpsons - for real.
• This dude started for the USA in the World Baseball Classic. Are you kidding me?
• Remember the whole 7th Floor Crew mess for The U? Something similar happened at Michigan, but it wasn't made into a big deal... mainly because the song is really bad (as in, I could rap better than that).
• There's only one place you need to go for baseball previews (AL here and NL here). I mean, where else are you going to get insight and analysis like this (from the Cubs preview):

  Strength: Catcher Michael Barrett won the Silver Slugger award last year, which is apparently given to a random player whose name is drawn out of a hat.
  Weakness: Derek Lee just missed the triple crown last year when he fucked it up in the end of the season. Expect the Cubs to get less production out of him this year, as last year was a fluke.
  Question mark: Kerry Wood may not be ready in time for opening day. That sentence should be engraved on a plaque on the wall of the manager's office at Wrigley Field.
  Outlook: Mark Prior was dangled as trade bait in the offseason for shortstop Miguel Tejada, probably because the Cubs would prefer someone who is actually good, rather than someone who is theoretically good.

Cuban Time

The WBC game between Cuba and Panama started about ten minutes late today. Apparently the Cubans were trying to employ some "gamesmanship" during the lineup card exchange process. Most of the teams in the WBC have been forthcoming with their lineups and pitching plans (Buck Martinez laid out Team USA's plan for game one against Mexico at least a week prior to the first pitch, for anyone who wanted to hear about it). The Cubans took a different angle on the whole thing.

After issuing not one, not two, but three lineups before the game, the Cubans spent ten minutes at the plate before turning their lineup card over. Based on what the radio announcers are saying, it sounds like the Cubans went with their original lineup. It's not clear at this point whether there was some sort of an issue (illness to a player, someone missed a meeting/workout, etc) or if this really was some sort of gamesmanship. If it's the latter, I'm not sure what it's supposed to accomplish. Normally the exchanging of lineup cards is a mere formality. Over the course of a major league season, managers often send their coaches, and sometimes even players, out to handle the duties. To make it into an issue is odd. I wonder what will come out of this. Maybe the Cubans had some issues with the ground rules at the stadium.

Edit: I think the Cubans really want to win today and/or they're panicked. There are two on and one out in the bottom of the first and they already have two relievers warming up in the pen. And yes, they do have their ace on the hill.

Reason # 1,256,489 that Wiggins wants to be President

And no one gives you a hard time about it.

I'm getting into the WBC

Now that it's finally underway, I'm really getting into the WBC. I suppose I'm supposed to be all about Team USA, but I'm really just excited about watching some great baseball players -- even if the overall quality of play isn't great.

I thought that XM's radio coverage was interesting. While I don't know if it was intentional or not, the crowd noise during both games I listened to (the US - Mexico and the Dominican Republic - Venezuela) was loud. When you consider the relatively small size of the crowds, it was even louder than that. Maybe the XM folks were trying to drown out the volume on their announcers. That wasn't necessary, although that's what often happened. XM's play-by-play coverage generally consists of their hosts from 175 for these WBC games. The play-by-play calls are good, but not the professional voices that you're used to. Still, it was nice for me, as a regular XM 175 listener to hear some of the voices that I've become so familiar with over the past year or so.

Random: Of all the things that people are complaining about with this tournament, why isn't anyone talking about the fact that minor league umpires are being used? I mean, this is a "world championship" and it's being officiated by minor leaguers. Something's wrong with that. Maybe it will be more of an issue after Miguel Cabrera's disputed home run/double today (even though it ultimately didn't affect the outcome of the game).

Oh yeah, and the Yankees are complaining. Surprise, surprise. It seems that fans aren't turning out in Tampa because some of the star power is missing. I thought the Yanks were supposed to have great, loyal fans. Apparently their fans are loyal so long as their are superstars to watch... early in spring training.

Willie Mays said something rather profound the other day. He was wishing that the WBC had been around in his day, as he said he would have liked to have represented the USA. What came next was the interesting part: Mays said that he wasn't sure if he'd have started on the team back in his day. On the surface, that's rather tough to believe (Mays was third all-time in home runs until recently; he was a great defender and was speedy on the base paths), but it's possibly true. You'd almost have to grant that the corner outfield spots would be manned by Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson. Those two are two of the all-time greats of all the all-time greats. That leaves only one outfield spot (and keep in mind, we're talking about the days before the DH); Mays wasn't sure if he'd have started ahead of Mickey Mantle. I'm not sure who I would have picked. That's a tough call. Those are the types of calls (ok, maybe we'll never see something like a Mays/Mantle issue ever again) that the WBC was built to create. Maybe we'll see more of them the next time around (in 2009) if everyone starts buying into this tournament. If they play it in November next time, I think we will.

It was nice knowing ya'

Apparently Fred Rouse isn't balling for the Noles anymore. What a shame - he always seemed like such a good kid.

Since it's MP3 week at The U

I'll bring back this little diddy. I'd never heard the whole Winslow rant before. I'd heard the end, but not what got him wound up. You can almost hear the craziness building within him as the reporters pepper Winslow with questions.

No, I'm not advocating this or anything about Winslow. I just thought it was funny.

Go Vikings!

Lock up the women and children: the Vikings are coming!

Pre-game Speeches

First of all, I'm well aware that Miami lost the FSU game. Still, this is pretty funny stuff. First, listen to the clip of Michael Irvin recounting the (apparently ineffective) speech that he gave to the Canes before their season opener against Florida State. Then listen to "Fake Howard Schnellenberger" give his speech to the FAU Owls before their season opener. It's pretty funny stuff.

All of the audio comes from Dan LeBatard's radio show, which can also be very funny at times.

Michael Irvin

Fake Howard

I love these little videos

Beason (#2) was flagged for roughing the quarterback on this play. It's a heck of a hit, but the ball was fumbled about 90 yards away and the QB is effectively on defense at this point, trying to make a tackle.

T-minus Twenty-Four Hours

We're about 24-hours from gametime. Or, we're about 24 - 27-hours from Wiggins and I going off of speaking terms.

Whatever the case may be, I thought I'd share one last Hester video.

Also, 18-packs of beer are $3.99 at Publix this weekend. Life is good. I hope that I go to bed tomorrow night as happy as I am right now.

Debo

Devin's gotten loose a couple times over the years against the Gators. Monday night could be his chance to do the same against the Noles.

Devin meets the Gators.

The last time we saw Devin.

Two weeks, bitches!

Wiggins is trying to kill this site, but I can't allow that to happen:

Meet my boy Devin.

In case that video moves too quickly for you, here's a slower version - but with the same theme.

Note - both clips are videos.