Bitchin’.

The A’s pick up White Sox veteran Frank Thomas for a one year deal. He gets a guaranteed $500,000, plus up to $2.6 million in bonuses if he says healthy through the season. The White Sox cast the veteran adrift in 2005 because of his injuries. That’s really the big question: will we get the Frank Thomas that played 153 games in 2003 and batted .271 with 87 runs, or the Frank Thomas of 2005 that played only 34 games and had only 19 runs?

One thing I know: I’ll be watching. 🙂

Oakland Athletics : News : Oakland Athletics News

[tags]Oakland Athletics,Baseball[/tags]

I must admit, I’m a fairly unschooled student of baseball history, which is part of the reason why I’m trying to read up on the subject and play around with various baseball databases. Today, on a lark, I decided to try to figure out how tall the average baseball player was (just a tad over six feet), what they weighed (183 pounds) and so on. I then graphed the results, and found a startling outlier: there was apparently a major league player who was 43 inches tall and weighed only sixty five pounds! A short google later, and I found the story of Eddie Gaedel.

Check it out, and then tell me that baseball isn’t a fun game.

I was scanning the right sidebar of my blog to see what ballplayers were born today, and uncovered what I (at first) thought must be a bug. Two players, both named “Mark Corey”, born on November 3rd. But wait, born in two different years. It turns out that the 1955 version of Mark Corey was a righthanded outfielder for the Baltimore Orioles from 1979 to 1981, and the 1974 version was a righthanded pitcher for the Mets, Colorado, Toronto, and Pittsburg. He apparently also was naughty. Remember kids: stay off drugs. Stay in school. As far as I could determine with a few minutes of work, they don’t appear to be related (or at least, I couldn’t find any indication that they were).

Addendum: The most popular name in the major leagues? John Sullivan. Five major leaguers have had that name, born on February 16, 1873, May 31, 1894, March 21, 1890, November 2nd, 1920 (yesterday!) and Jan 3, 1941. There have been four versions of Bob Allen, Harry Smith, Bob Johnson, Red Smith, Tom Hughes, Harry Taylor, Bob Smith and Bill Smith. All in all, 141 players have had the last name “Smith”.

Well, after spending five or so hours watching the game on Tuesday, I really didn’t feel like investing the same amount of time watching what proved to be the final game in the Series last night, but the Sox managed to pull it off: the sweep was completed against the Astros in their home stadium. I thought the Astros would pull out at least one game, with the combination of Clemens-Pettitte-Oswalt you think they could have gotten enough offense in at least one game to pull it out, but sadly for their fans, they were just outplayed.

I didn’t have them picked: I thought Cleveland would outdo them in the final weeks of the season (just as accurate as my prediction that the A’s would overcome Anaheim) and later, that the Angels would prove to be too much for them, but they were in control the entire time, and collect their first world series in 88 years. Congratulations, and thanks for a great season!

Now, counting the days until spring training begins…

I’ve started a new quickie poll. You only have a day or so to voice your opinion: will it be the White Sox or Astros who win the World Series?

Well, the table has been set, and it’s going to be the White Sox vs. the Astros in the World Series beginning Saturday. Brad Lidge should send Oswalt flowers: if Oswalt blew the game, we’d be looking at a nerve wracking game seven, and it could have been bad. Instead, the Astros win their first NLCS pennant and a trip to the Series. All is forgotten.

All over the radio I’ve been hearing that this is going to be a total ratings fiasco: that nobody cares if either of these teams wins, but I think that’s silly. Baseball isn’t baseball only when the Yankees or the Red Sox are playing. These teams won the right to play in the Series, and despite the fact that I picked neither to advance, I think the matchups are going to be pretty interesting. It looks like it will be Roger Clemens (boo, hiss!) for the Astros in Game 1, and despite my dislike for Clemens, you have to give the guy some credit: he’s 13-8 with an astonishing 1.87 ERA in 2005. That’s just wicked. Game 2 will feature Andy Pettitte. On paper he doesn’t look as strong, but he’s got good stuff. Lidge (despite giving up the hit to Pujols, arguably the best bat in the NL) will be strong in relief. The White Sox had four complete game efforts in a row in the ALCS, going with Buehrle, Garland, Garcia and Contreras. That’s… just freaking amazing.

If there is one downside to the postseason so far, it’s the really questionable officiating. In virtually every game I’ve seen so far, there has been at least one highly questionable call by an umpire. Can we get some decent officiating for the Series?

I’m heating up the skillet to make some of my faux Buffalo Wings and some blue cheese dip. I’ll be good to go on Saturday. And I think I’m going to root for… The White Sox. Sorry Roger, just don’t like you, and I like the idea that the White Sox could win their first Series since 1917. Or maybe it’s just the idea that if the Sox lead, the ghost of Shoeless Joe will materialize in the White Sox dugout.

I love October baseball.

You begin by leading 4-2 in the top of the ninth, and then bring in your reliever to get two quick outs:

– B. Lidge relieved D. Wheeler
– J. Rodriguez hit for H. Luna
– J. Rodriguez struck out swinging
– J. Mabry struck out swinging

Then, you let some speedy kid bang out a single to left, and then let him advance to second.

– D. Eckstein singled to left
– D. Eckstein to second on fielder’s indifference

Then it would be good to walk Edmonds so that you could bring up Pujols, and let him crack a game winning homer over the fence.

– J. Edmonds walked
– A. Pujols homered to deep left, J. Edmonds and D. Eckstein scored
– R. Sanders struck out looking

3 runs, 2 hits, 0 errors
St. Louis 5, Houston 4

It goes back to St. Louis. If the Astros don’t make it to the Series, this will go down as one of the most amazing ninth innings in baseball history.

Whew.

It’s September, and the A’s were two games back of division leading Anaheim going into last night’s game. Carmen had some homework to do, and the weather seemed beautiful, so I decided to go to the game and see the A’s versus the Twins.

The weather was beautful. I had seats right behind home plate in the Plaza Infield (second deck), and despite uneasily resisting the frequent cries of the ice cream sandwich man to break my diet, I settled in for a relaxing and fun night.

The A’s got off to a good start in the first. Ellis tripled in his first at bat when the Twins right fielder dove and missed at his diving shot to right field. Kendell got the RBI on a grounder, and the A’s were on the board.

They had their biggest inning in the bottom of the second. After Payton popped out and Hatteburg grounded out, Bobby Crosby walked, Johnson singled, and Swisher homered to drive in all three. On the very next pitch, Ellis crushed another one, and the A’s had back to back homers and a 5-0 lead.

Despite a kind of rough looking performance, Zito would leave after six and a third, having given up only two hits and no runs. Kiko Calero came in and gave up a homerun to Jason Morneau, giving the A’s the 5-1 lead.

In the bottom of the seventh, the A’s would score again. Chavez scored when Payton hit a soft tapper back the the infield, which was fielded by Twins pitcher J.C. Romero, and Payton would move to third when Romero’s throw to first sailed to the wall. Marco Scutaro would drive Payton in to complete the scoring in the seventh. A’s lead: 7-1.

Scutaro? Oh, he was in for Bobby Crosby, who came up limping when he hit the bag running in the bottom of the sixth. Bobby’s been out for a couple of weeks because of a broken bone in his foot, and after the game, it appears that he said that he really didnt feel much pain until he hit the bag tonight. I bet you they are gonna rest him for the rest of the Twins series. It’s great that Marco has been doing such a great job for the A’s, but still, Crosby would definitely be good to have going into postseason.

In the top of the 8th, Calero walked Bartlett, got Stewart to strike out swinging, and then walked Lew Ford. With lefties coming in, everyone knew that Rincon would be coming in, and he did. He got Mauer to fly out, but then walked Tiffee to load the bases. The crowd was relieved when he got Jacques Jones to strike out swinging, ending the threat.

I was getting ready for the Bart ride home. The crowd of 15,000+ who were in paid attendance had probably thinned to half that. I was content on soaking in the win.

But then, the top of the 9th.

Yabu relieved Rincon. Cuddyer: homer. A’s 7-2. Morneau singles, then Castro triples, scoring Morneau. A’s 7-3. The crowd begins its chant of “Street, Street, Street”. Sure enough, Street relieves Yabu (faced three batters, scored two, one on, nobody out) with Castro inherited from third. Ryan grounds out, and Castro scores. The A’s lead 7-4.

But the Twins have nobody on, and we have the hottest closer in baseball (Street’s ERA is an anemic 1.36). We are two outs away from closing this out.

Stewart grounds out, and we are one out away, with nobody on.

But the Twins don’t seem to notice. Lew Ford singles, and then goes to second on fielder’s indifference. Mauer pokes a ball to right pass Johnson (who it appeared to me should have at least tried to make a play) and Ford scores. A’s lead 7-5. In what appears to be a loop, Mauer goes to second on fielder’s indifference, and Tiffee pokes another ball to the left of Johnson, scoring Mauer. A’s lead has shrunk to 7-6. Finally, Street gets Jones to strike out swinging, and we all breath a sigh of relief.

A great night of baseball, with the right outcome for the pennant chasing A’s. Still, it was ugly at the end.

By this time next month, I’m gonna be missing baseball.

Addendum: Despite being right behind home plate, the woman sitting directly in front of me managed to get hit in the shin by foul ball tipped off Eric Chavez. She didn’t get the ball though. I consoled her with my story of how I was hit in the head by a Jeremy Giambi foul ball, and we had a good laugh. Still, every pop fly after that, she seemed to duck and hide. 🙂

For the second day in a row, the A’s pull out a come from behind victory over their rivals in the AL West, the Somewhere Angels from Some Other Place. The A’s trailed 0-4 going into the bottom of the 7th, but scored four times to tie the game. Then, in the bottom of the ninth with Kendell on third, Crosby on second, and two outs, Anaheim reliever Francisco Rodriguez was getting a toss back from the catcher, but it ticked off his glove and rolled behind him. Kendell was alert, and bolted for home, and scored on a slide ahead of the throw of the recovered ball. The box score reads:

J. Kendall scored on fielder’s indifference, B. Crosby to second on F. Rodriguez’s fielding error

The A’s lead their division for the first time this year.

Rockin’.