Using my Dell PDA to record podcasts while on the way to work is strangely addicting. Here’s another one that features an update on my cat Scrappy and his recovery from his fisticuffs with another cat, my thoughts on the Schiavo case, and my disgust with Barry Bonds. Barry, you’ll get no huzzahs from me this year.
Oh, here is a picture of Scrappy rolling around on the ground in our front yard this morning. The sunlight apparently feels good to his recovering body…
It’s whether you end up in Cooperstown.
I was reading yesterday’s entry on my Major League Baseball calendar, and was greeted with this Dubious Achievement:
Hall of Famer Pud Galvin lost 20 or more games in 10 consecutive seasons. No other pitcher had more than five straight 20-loss seasons.
And he wound up in the freakin’ Hall o’ Fame, says I?
Of course, things were different back then. Way back then. Check out The Little Steam Engine’s record. From 1879-1889, he lost 27, 35, 24, 23, 29, 22, 26, 21, 21, and 25 games respectively. Of course in that span he also won 37, 20, 28, 28, 46, 46, 16, 29, 28 and 23 games. His career win loss record? 54%, with 705 games pitched, 364 wins and 310 losses.
Bizarre.
I can’t wait for opening day.
Well, it’s just past the middle of January, but already this fan’s mind is turning toward opening day at the ballpark. I was following my wife around in Macy’s and J.C. Penny, and surfing the Internet on my cell phone, when I found this article about A. Rod. Apparently he feels like he has something to prove against Curt Schilling after the Yankees blew their 3-0 series lead against the Red Sox.
Yes, Alex, you do have something to prove. You have to prove that you can do better than 2 for 17 in plate appearances in those critical close-them-out-the-series games. You know, the sort of games where the A’s have consistently choked in recent years. Like it or not, Schilling went out bleeding and kicked your collective asses.
Schilling won 21 games in 2004, the best in the AL. He ranked 3rd in strikeouts, 3rd in innings pitched, 2nd in ERA and had the 4th best batting average against rating of any pitcher in the AL. And most importantly, he summoned up what he needed to do, went out their with a foot held together with bailing wire, and helped the Sox kick your sorry butts four times in a row.
Oh, and Alex, that play in game six where you slapped the ball out of the glove and were called out for interference? It was a bush-league play.
I love to watch the Yankees lose. To anyone. I’ve never seen a team which seems to sap the personality and love of the game out of their players more than the Yankees. It seems like it’s just a business to them, and Alex Rodriguez is the perfect mascot for such an organization.
Oh, and Randy Johnson? Why Randy, why? Yes, you’ll win a lot of games with some run support, but… It disappoints me even more than Giambi’s departure.
Damn, I can’t wait for it all to begin again. 🙂
Tonight the Red Sox completed a 4 game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals, which was the first World Series game played during a total lunar eclipse. The ghost of Babe Ruth apparently stopped carrying a grudge.
I’ll be watching for the Apocalypse just the same.
Well, it’s time for the Series, and it’s Red Sox versus the Red Birds. Here are some pre-series thoughts, along with my prediction.
What’s all this mean? I really can’t pick between the teams, so I’ll just go with what I would like to see happen: Sox in 7.
Enjoy the series.
Okay, I’ve been boring people with baseball talk in the podcast, so I’ll just briefly mention it here: St. Louis defeats the Houston Astros 5-2 in game 7 of the NLCS, and goes to the Series for the first time since 1987. I originally had picked a Red Sox/Cardinals Series, but was dismayed by the 0-3 start by the Red Sox. That will teach me to doubt my powers of precognition.
Where your host apologizes for his haste in deserting the Red Sox and congratulate them on a terrific ALCS victory in game 7 over the hapless New York Yankees.
Links:
Where your host rants about the Red Sox’s second come-from-behind win in a row, discusses the nostalgia of the The Old Terminal Room which Rob Pike mentioned in his recent Slashdot interview and talks about the history of photography.
This teaches me not to turn off games in the 7th inning. Looks like I missed some real theatrics.
But sorry Sox, your defeat is inevitable.
Note to the Cardinals: don’t pussy foot around with the Astros.
I could be a Cubs fan.
To the Anaheim Angels: give the Yankees and Red Sox hell, boys.
Well, the A’s fall a game behind the Anaheim Angels with 4 games left to play. I like Jim Mecir, but it seems to me that you just can’t make him the guy you hang your season on. Nobody is really fooled by that screwball anymore (the pitch, not Jim), and you are risking a passed ball when you bring him in to pitch with a guy on third. Sigh. Well, for the first time in 50-something games, the A’s are in second place. Let’s see how they close out the rest of the season.
On this day in baseball history, Willie Mays made this spectacular over the shoulder catch at the wall to rob Vic Wertz in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series. The New York Giants would go on to upset the Cleveland Indians in four games: the last time the Giants franchise won the World Series. Damn, even in this grainy black and white, it’s a sweet catch.
You can read the scorecard and the play-by-play on retrosheet.org. Wertz was four for five, with a double and a triple. Mays’ catch preserved the 2-2 tie in the eighth, and the Giants would go on to win in the tenth.
SFGate ran a more complete article 50TH ANNIVERSARY / Mays’ ‘catch’ might not rank among his greatest.
According to SFGate, Willie has been in the hospital for hip-replacement surgery, but is expected to return home today. Best wishes, Willie, and damn, that is one sweet catch.
The drubbing of the Oakland A’s at the hands of the Boston Red Sox did two positive things: it reminded me that a great duel between Pedro Martinez and Tim Hudson is yet to come, and it reminded me of another terrific game which happened Labor Day weekend two years ago.
Retrosheet Boxscore: Oakland Athletics 12, Kansas City Royals 11 The A’s were trying for their record 20th victory in a row, and they started out strong, scoring six, one and four runs in the first three innings to jump out to an 11-0 lead. But the A’s would then go scoreless for five more innings, and the Royals came back to score five in the 4th and in the eighth to trail by only a single run. Going into the ninth, the Royals would tie the game, and it looked like extra innings. But with nobody on and one out, they pinch hit Scott Hatteberg for Eric Byrnes, and Hatteberg hits a walk off home run to win the game.
Now that’s baseball.
Just a quick note after a memorable game. Rich Harden and Bruce Chen battled and each gave up no runs. Chen had a no-hitter into the sixth inning, when it was broken up by a single by Eric Chavez. Chen left without giving up a run in seven innings, relieved by Ryan, who pitched a perfect bottom of the eighth. Harden gave up no runs through eight, and Macha brought in Dotel to pitch the ninth, who got through the top without any serious trouble.
The left handed Ryan made short work of Hatteburg and Durazo in the bottom half of the ninth, and we were braced for extra innings. But Miller managed to eek out a single, and Crosby walked to put men on first and second with two outs. Scutaro knocked a fastball to deep left, and the unlike every other ball that died short of the wall, this one had just enough to clear it for his first walk-off homerun and a 3-0 victory.
I was home by 10:30. Awesome game.
While the best baseball stories and poetry occurs on the field, some of it also appears in the form of prose (courtesy of kobayashi @ metafilter.com