While scanning for reference photos of brains, I found this baseball card for David Leonard Brain. He played for the Reds, the Giants, the White Sox, the Cardinals and the Boston Beaneaters. 🙂 You can get all his career details from baseball-reference.com, including the fact that he lead the league in 1907 with 10 homers.

Strangely enough, Dave Brain seems to be a really popular name.

Addendum: Dave Brain is the only NL player to have three triples in a game twice in one season. How is that for a bizarre record?

I have a romantic view of baseball, and it is always startling when confronted with the reality that baseball is a business first, and the national pastime second. It is, after all, a game. Games have rules, and rules are to be followed. I’ll boo Sosa because he corked his bat. I’m not fond of pitchers who throw at batters. This is baseball, not hockey. Courtesy and sportsmanship are supposed to count for something.

In yesterday’s game between the Nationals and the Angels, Washington manager Frank Robinson called for the umpires to check Brendan Donnelly’s glove for foreign substances. Lo and behold, pine tar. Illegal. Against the rules. Section 8.02(a)2 “[the pitcher may not] Apply a foreign substance of any kind to the ball.” It’s a pretty clear rule. Pine tar is a foreign substance. Tossing pine tar balls is illegal.

What did Donnely have to say?

“It’s not like I’m using it to doctor the ball,” said Donnelly, who faces a possible suspension. His glove was sent to the Commissioner’s Office for further review. “I want to know that I have a good grip on the ball and I’m not going to kill people.”

Even though it is essentially illegal, Donnelly admits to using pine tar occasionally to control the pitch in cold or sweaty conditions, but not to cheat.

Uh, transferring pine tar to the ball is illegal. Having it on your person, illegal. It’s cheating.

Play by the rules, and don’t whine and make excuses when you don’t and get caught. Keep my idealism for the game alive.

Addendum: Marco Scutaro had a big hit with two out in the bottom of the 9th to break a 2-2 tie with Mets. Nicely done Marco!

Well, I bitched about Oakland a couple of days ago, and today I’m watching the possibility that they might string two wins in a row. I was watching last night in the top of the 9th when I received a phone call from my son whose car crapped out an hour away (I spent most of the day today trying to get it going, eventually giving up and having it towed) so I missed the heroics in the 9th to tie and the 11th to win. Tonight they are leading 6-1 in the top of the 7th, so barring world-ending meltdown, they should make it two in a row. Haren pitched well, giving up a bunch of long popups to the wall. Nick Swisher had a nice catch bouncing of the wall, and Scott Hatteberg had a nice unassisted double play.

Could have gotten good seats tonight: the stadium seems empty.

Perhaps June will be kinder to the Yellow and Gold Yellow and Green.

It is good to see Crosby back in the lineup.

Addendum: In the bottom of the 9th, Nick Swisher hit a bases loaded triple, the first of his ML career. He’s got 4 RBIs on the night. 9-1 Oakland.

I suspected that the A’s may have a difficult time getting to the playoffs this year. All three of the other AL West teams had reasons for optimism: the A’s traded two of their big three talent away. The over-under line for A’s was 78 or so. Realistically they would turn out to
be a .500 level club.

But holy crap, they are stinking up the place.

As of this afternoon, they are 17-32. Lost 8 in a row. 20 of their last 24. They are on a pace to win a tragically pathetic 56 games. And quite frankly, there is no end in sight. There literally is nothing to be optimistic about. They are just bad. Last in the majors with only 27 homeruns. Last in the AL, with only 181 runs. Something like 8 for 45 with the bases loaded.

Holy crap.

It seems a far cry from the heady days of winning 20 in a row.

Well, the game was not the epic stuff that dreams are made of. The Blue Jays roughed up the A’s pretty good, they lead 10-0 at one point, and the A’s did little to quell the fears that they could be a below .500 team this season. The Blue Jay hitters peppered the field with balls that seemed to pathologically be where A’s players were not, and the A’s helped the matter with sloppy fielding, balls skipping over gloves, balls skipping under gloves, balls bouncing off the chest, and hey, even forgetting to cover first base. Sigh.

Still, I took a lot of pictures, had a pizza, an ice cream sandwich and a licorice rope (back on my diet today) and had a great time. Nothing like getting off the Bart in the colliseum and smelling the tailgater’s barbecue wafting over you, and realizing that baseball season has begun.

With any luck, I’ll be podcasting, blogging, and posting photos from the A’s home opener later tonight.

Update: It’s looking good. I have three separate devices charging their lithium ion batteries as I write this.

Ah, baseball season begins today.

Okay, I guess it really started yesterday with the Yankees/Sox game, but today is the first Oakland game. Unfortunately, Barry Zito didn’t do so well, and the A’s lost their opening day game.

Zito gave up four runs and six hits in six innings, breaking Oakland’s 7-0 record against Baltimore last year. Bobby Crosby got his first career hit against Baltimore, after beginning 0-23.