Stuff Happens

I was watching the Mariners-Tigers game from a bar Saturday night while we waited to get into Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, aka "Orlando Bloom duels Computer Graphics", and I saw Mike Hargrove blow his stack at the umpires and get ejected, but since the TV had no sound or closed captions, I really had no idea what the heck was going on. Apparently the team in general was having issues with plate umpire Ted Barrett, starting with him calling Ichiro out on a third strike when Ichiro was pretty sure he hit the ball. However, what Hargrove was arguing over when we started watching the game was just a called third strike on Raul Ibanez.

Anyway, Roberto Petagine had an at-bat in the ninth inning, and I was actually commenting to my friends about how amazing it was to see him getting an at-bat, and it was a shame that he pretty much only saw action in situations like this, etc. Then I come home and see that Petagine has been DFA'ed.

What?

Oh yeah, and we called up a catcher from AA to take Johjima's place while Johjima flies back to Japan for a few days to see his wife and his new son. I guess it's great for Johjima, but this roster move makes no sense to me.

Today, despite wearing throw-back uniforms of the Seattle Pilots -- a team that embodied Seattle futility -- the team managed to scrape out at 3-2 win at the hands of Gil Meche, prompting Dave of USSM to write another "Gil Meche is smoke and mirrors" sort of article, which presents some interesting facts, but at the same time, I've always kind of liked Meche and would like to see him do well.

Unfortunately, I was getting killed at softball this afternoon instead of watching the Mariners, so I'm really glad there are some photos of the Pilots uniforms up on Yahoo. In particular, I like the ones of Ichiro and of Meche. I dig the high socks and the funky old hats.

The Seattle Times also has a funny article reminiscing about the Seattle Pilots.

Now we embark on a three-day break for the All-Star Game and all the associated fun. Tomorrow, of course, the festivities start with the Home Run Derby. I don't really care that much about the Derby, to be honest, but I'm rooting for David Wright or Ryan Howard to win it, if I have to choose someone. Also, the Phillies are worried about Ryan Howard screwing up his swing like Abreu supposedly did after his amazing performance in the Derby last year. However, to me, the most interesting part of the derby is that Ria Cortesio -- apparently the only female umpire in professional baseball right now -- will be working at the Derby. That's pretty cool; ever since reading Pam Postema's biography last year I've been hoping to see a female umpire reach the bigs someday. This isn't quite it, of course, but it's another good progression.

In theory, if I wasn't a complete slacker, I would have prepared the All-Cute Team to coincide with the All-Star Team this year, but it didn't really occur to me until right now that it's a good idea, so I guess it'll end up rearing its not-so-ugly head sometime in late August most likely.