I haven't added captions yet, but here's some of the pictures I took today:
Mariners vs. A's, Aug 6 2006
I think my top ten favorites are, in no particular order,
10. A Call To The Bullpen
9. What Should I Do With This Dummy?
8. Justin Duchscherer
7. Pouty Sean Green
6. Sweet Huston Street
5. Sherrill and Mateo
4. Swisher Takes A Fall
3. Swingin' Richie
2. Ichi-throw
1. EverQuist
and of course ones like "CUPCAKES, DESTROYER OF WORLDS", but I used that one in the last entry.
You know, I'm not nearly as obsessed with Huston Street or Brandon Buckley as this photo set would have you believe, though. It's just that the dummy escapade completely cracked me up. (You can see most of it on page 2 of the pictures.)
Monday, August 07, 2006
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Game Report: Mariners vs. A's - Cupcakes, Destroyer of Worlds
I went to today's game, but I didn't bring my scorecard book for the first time in years.
Every time Joe "Cupcakes" Blanton comes
to Seattle, he becomes "Cake Walk".
I bought a 70-300mm lens this morning before going to the game, so all I did was wander around for 4 hours taking pictures. I took over 500 pictures. No joke.
The A's won, 7-6. I'd say it was a close game, but I honestly couldn't tell. I spent about half of my time behind the bullpens taking pictures of pitchers. I spent the rest of the time walking around the stadium taking shots of the game from various angles.
The above Blanton picture was actually taken through one of those little holes in the wall in the Bullpen Tavern; somehow the green against green just made Blanton look totally evil in a way I hadn't anticipated.
At one point, an usher told me I couldn't use my lens and that they might take it away from me if I didn't switch to a smaller one. Oddly, about 15 feet to my right was a guy shooting with a lens twice as big as mine, so I'm not sure I get it; maybe only some ushers are strict about it and others aren't, or maybe some of them can actually tell good lenses from crappy lenses. I know some places have rules about using pro lenses if you're not with the press, but my lens is pretty much the cheapest zoom lens I could get for my camera, and I almost shudder to think what it's going to be like trying to use it in night games.
Your closer's a dummy.
Immediately after the game started, Brandon Buckley took out that hitting dummy from the bullpen and put an A's hat and sunglasses on it. I couldn't figure out what he was doing, except then he added a Huston Street jersey and a towel with a hand drawn on it. Then he set it up behind the bullpen bench... and Huston came out and was like "WTF?!" It was really funny. I've got more pictures of the entire process, but again, need time to actually crop/etc them.
About halfway through the game I just planted myself in the bullpen area. I got to watch Sean Green warm up, and then Kiko Calero, and Brad Halsey, and Justin Duchscherer, and Rafael Soriano, and even George Sherrill! Only problem with Sherrill was -- he and Mateo were warming up at the same time, and Sherrill was actually TOO CLOSE FOR MY LENS. So I went down to the far end of the bullpen to take pictures of him and J.J.Putz. Which was COOL. Except that in the midst of those guys warming up, Huston Street had warmed up and gone onto the field, so I missed him. Grumble. (I had forgotten that unlike Mike Hargrove, Ken Macha might actually put his closer in for the 8th inning if it was important to.)
This picture is for Paul.
I ended up going back to the infield for the ninth inning, so I could capture things like Willie Bloomquist striking out to end the game, because that's certainly exciting! I missed Saarloos and Flores warming up, but oh well. I've got plenty of pictures of Los Kirk and his spiky hair anyway, so it's all good.
For the record, all of the pictures in that set were taken from the concourses; I didn't sit down at all during the game, or at least, not in actual seats. By about halfway through the game I was starting to figure out how to keep my right eye in the viewfinder and my left eye on the game, so I could see when the pitcher was throwing the ball and would know when to click the shutter at the plate for a swinging shot. It was really easy to do that from the third-base side since the mound was to the left of the plate from that angle, but from the first-base side it was nearly impossible. Guess it's a good thing a lot of the batters I like are left-handed.
You know, I think being an actual professional sports photographer might be pretty awesome, although I'm sure they would just have one spot on the field and take shots from that angle, and not run around so much like I did today to get different angles. I personally literally circled the stadium at least three or four times today and ran up and down the stairs to the bullpen area about five or six times. It was actually pretty neat, and a totally different experience than I usually have at a game (I'm the sort that plants themselves in a seat for the first pitch and doesn't move until the end of the ninth inning).
And really, I could watch pitchers warm up forever. It's really fascinating to me, getting to see them close up, seeing how they throw the ball and how it travels. I suck at throwing, so it's neat to watch people who are good at it and try to figure out their mechanics and whatnot.
Every time Joe "Cupcakes" Blanton comes
to Seattle, he becomes "Cake Walk".
I bought a 70-300mm lens this morning before going to the game, so all I did was wander around for 4 hours taking pictures. I took over 500 pictures. No joke.
The A's won, 7-6. I'd say it was a close game, but I honestly couldn't tell. I spent about half of my time behind the bullpens taking pictures of pitchers. I spent the rest of the time walking around the stadium taking shots of the game from various angles.
The above Blanton picture was actually taken through one of those little holes in the wall in the Bullpen Tavern; somehow the green against green just made Blanton look totally evil in a way I hadn't anticipated.
At one point, an usher told me I couldn't use my lens and that they might take it away from me if I didn't switch to a smaller one. Oddly, about 15 feet to my right was a guy shooting with a lens twice as big as mine, so I'm not sure I get it; maybe only some ushers are strict about it and others aren't, or maybe some of them can actually tell good lenses from crappy lenses. I know some places have rules about using pro lenses if you're not with the press, but my lens is pretty much the cheapest zoom lens I could get for my camera, and I almost shudder to think what it's going to be like trying to use it in night games.
Your closer's a dummy.
Immediately after the game started, Brandon Buckley took out that hitting dummy from the bullpen and put an A's hat and sunglasses on it. I couldn't figure out what he was doing, except then he added a Huston Street jersey and a towel with a hand drawn on it. Then he set it up behind the bullpen bench... and Huston came out and was like "WTF?!" It was really funny. I've got more pictures of the entire process, but again, need time to actually crop/etc them.
About halfway through the game I just planted myself in the bullpen area. I got to watch Sean Green warm up, and then Kiko Calero, and Brad Halsey, and Justin Duchscherer, and Rafael Soriano, and even George Sherrill! Only problem with Sherrill was -- he and Mateo were warming up at the same time, and Sherrill was actually TOO CLOSE FOR MY LENS. So I went down to the far end of the bullpen to take pictures of him and J.J.Putz. Which was COOL. Except that in the midst of those guys warming up, Huston Street had warmed up and gone onto the field, so I missed him. Grumble. (I had forgotten that unlike Mike Hargrove, Ken Macha might actually put his closer in for the 8th inning if it was important to.)
This picture is for Paul.
I ended up going back to the infield for the ninth inning, so I could capture things like Willie Bloomquist striking out to end the game, because that's certainly exciting! I missed Saarloos and Flores warming up, but oh well. I've got plenty of pictures of Los Kirk and his spiky hair anyway, so it's all good.
For the record, all of the pictures in that set were taken from the concourses; I didn't sit down at all during the game, or at least, not in actual seats. By about halfway through the game I was starting to figure out how to keep my right eye in the viewfinder and my left eye on the game, so I could see when the pitcher was throwing the ball and would know when to click the shutter at the plate for a swinging shot. It was really easy to do that from the third-base side since the mound was to the left of the plate from that angle, but from the first-base side it was nearly impossible. Guess it's a good thing a lot of the batters I like are left-handed.
You know, I think being an actual professional sports photographer might be pretty awesome, although I'm sure they would just have one spot on the field and take shots from that angle, and not run around so much like I did today to get different angles. I personally literally circled the stadium at least three or four times today and ran up and down the stairs to the bullpen area about five or six times. It was actually pretty neat, and a totally different experience than I usually have at a game (I'm the sort that plants themselves in a seat for the first pitch and doesn't move until the end of the ninth inning).
And really, I could watch pitchers warm up forever. It's really fascinating to me, getting to see them close up, seeing how they throw the ball and how it travels. I suck at throwing, so it's neat to watch people who are good at it and try to figure out their mechanics and whatnot.
Game Report: Mariners vs. A's - Swish'n'Chips
Whee. Long day.
First, important announcement: the next book club will be on September 9th. A bunch of people showed up today and we had a great discussion about Fantasyland (unanimous opinion: it rules, it's absolutely hilarious, go read it) and fantasy baseball (unanimous opinion: since Conor was lucky enough to GET David Wright and Miguel Cabrera on his fantasy team, he better freakin' keep them both), and for next month, the book club book is going to be The Ticket Out: Darryl Strawberry and the Boys of Crenshaw, by Michael Sokolove (unanimous opinion: book club is fun, and y'all should show up!), suggested by Zach.
I'll write an actual review of Fantasyland sometime -- I should probably also review the book I finished reading last week, "The Chrysanthemum And The Bat", but that'll also have to wait until I have some time.
Anyway, on to the game report!
I didn't get there as early as I'd like, but batting practice was still going on, and I took more pictures of players, almost all A's. I think Joe Blanton thinks I'm stalking him now. After most of the pitchers had left the field, Barry Zito was still out there running sprints, and I was standing there with Conor Glassey, and I was like, "I'd love to go watch Komine and Loaiza throw in the bullpen... or go chase down Halsey for a signature over there... but... it's BARRY ZITO GODDAMNIT AND I'M NOT MOVING BECAUSE IF HE COMES OVER TO SIGN STUFF AND I'M NOT HERE I'LL CRY."
Soon enough, Zito came over and signed stuff, and was immediately swamped with people getting stuff signed and getting pictures with him. We were in the front row but not really poised to move over ten feet to where he was, but eventually he finally got over to us, and I got him to sign my ticket stub. It's legible, although, Conor noticed that Barry was signing stuff with his right hand -- that's kind of odd, isn't it? I mean, Billy Wagner throws lefty and writes righty, but he's got a good excuse. Conor didn't have anything to get signed, but he was like, "Hey Barry, you wanna hear some good music? My friend's band..." and offered up his headphones, but Barry was a little too busy and smiled and ran off.
We ran over to the bullpen after that. I shot a ton of pictures of Danny Haren warming up (which, amazingly, came out well), and then a few of the rest of the A's bullpen guys and a few of the Mariners bullpen guys. After Haren's warmup was done, Justin Duschcherer, who was being goofy in general, yelled something out to the crowd like "Hey everyone, that's our great bullpen catcher! Brandon Buckley!" and started applauding.
Hairy Haren Hurls Heat.
I ran up to my seat in the upper deck just in time to get there for Jason Kendall's leadoff at-bat. There was an older-ish guy sitting behind me who REALLY had it in him for Kendall -- and I was wearing a Pirates Kendall shirt. This guy wouldn't shut up about what an overpaid scrub he thought Kendall was, and how lousy the A's were with someone like him on the team. He later started ranting about Scutaro and Ellis as well ("stupid little skinny twits"), and Frank Thomas ("what a gimp, he's more like the Big Pain"), and so on. After the third inning when Adrian Beltre hit a home run, the guy actually punched me on the shoulder -- not hard or anything, but still -- so after that inning break, I got up and walked three sections over to where Conor and his dad were sitting and sat with them for the rest of the game instead, which was a lot more fun. Conor has Danny Haren on his fantasy team, and I have Nick Swisher, which made for some pretty funny moments ("Why couldn't they have tagged out freaking Payton instead?!?!").
Anyway.
"Scutaro-sized" Version: First, the Mariners were playing the A's. Second, the A's had Danny Haren starting and we had Joel Pineiro starting. Third, the Blue Angels were performing over I-90 as part of Seafair. So, why the heck did anyone bother coming to the park today? It's almost like rewatching Titanic and hoping that maybe, maybe, this time they won't hit the iceberg and sink. Right.
Yes, Kendall started off the game by striking out and making the dude behind me really happy, but two batters later, Milton Bradley doubled to left, and right after him, Frank Thomas singled to right. Ichiro's throw was actually pretty dead on as Bradley came running home, but today Rene Rivera was catching, and he couldn't hold on to the ball as Bradley collided with him. The Mariners accomplished very little in their half of the first beyond a Beltre walk, and then Pineiro just let the A's walk all over him in the second inning. Payton led off with a single, and then Swisher walked. Scutaro hit a low blooper fly ball a bit past shortstop, but everyone knows that there's no such thing as "out of Betancourt's territory", and he ran back and caught it. Ellis almost hit a home run which was instead caught at the wall, and then with two outs, the A's reeled off three straight hits -- Kendall singled, scoring Payton; Kotsay singled, scoring Swisher as the throw home was way off, and then Bradley doubled yet again, scoring Kendall. Frank Thomas walked, loading the bases, and then, with me beginning to panic that I'd have to rewrite my scorecard if the team batted around, Eric Chavez struck out.
Payton led off the top of the third by grounding to shortstop, and Betancourt threw the ball but it sailed over Richie and hit the wall of the stands; they ruled it an error on the throw, though in all honesty, Richie was sort of poised low to get the catch and may not have missed it if he'd stood up. Scutaro doubled after that, much to the chagrin of the guy sitting behind me. They intentionally walked Ellis to load the bases; Kendall popped out on a high fly ball to second, and they decided to take Joel out after 2.2 innings and 76 pitches, which is just embarrassing.
Ellis pulled a Betancourt to catch Ichiro's leadoff fly ball in the bottom of the third, but then Lopez hit a clean double to left, and then Adrian Beltre hit a ball that cleared the scoreboard by a few rows in left field for a home run. That brought the score to 4-2 as Swisher almost fumbled a grounder by Ibanez, and Chavez was charged with an error on a Sexson grounder, though in all fairness, it looked like the ball hit Chavez really hard and flew off him.
Things coasted for a while, mostly. Haren struck out the side in the 6th, which was pretty funny. Jake Woods did pretty well for three innings after coming in for Pineiro, until the 7th. Payton reached base on a Sexson error which I actually didn't see, but it must have been pretty good, because Hargrove came out to argue for a bit. After that, Swisher walked again, and Hargrove came out to replace Woods with Mark Lowe (yay!). Scutaro, for whatever inexplicable reason, sac bunted; I originally wrote it down as 1-3 for some reason, until Conor pointed out that Beltre had charged it and actually thrown to Lopez, who was covering first as Sexson also charged in. Ellis walked again after that, loading the bases again. With Kendall up, Mark Lowe threw a wild pitch (or a pitch got away from Rivera, whatever), and Payton scored as Lowe covered the plate and didn't get the tagout. Then Kendall grounded to third, and the throw home got Swisher (which evoked my earlier quote about Payton). Lowe struck out Kotsay after that, preserving his perfect ERA, and Payton wasn't an earned run for Woods either, so I guess it was okay.
Kiko Calero pitched a perfect eighth and Huston Street pitched a perfect ninth, though, and that was it as the A's completely and unexpectedly managed to beat the Mariners 5-2.
Well, at least this guy got his wish.
You know, I'm not sure I have a lot to add to that. There was a really funny moment to me in the sixth inning when Frank Thomas had been on first base, and Eric Chavez grounded into a double play, and as Thomas ran to second, he saw that he was going to be out. He immediately not only stopped running, but he also ducked down to get out of the way of the play.
Mark Lowe is fantastic. He really is. You know, I can't remember where it was, but recently I had read some article about the Mariners' lousy drafts, especially 2004 when they paid Tuiasosopo first-round money in the third round of a draft that included guys like Huston Street in the first round. But here's the thing -- Mark Lowe was drafted in the fifth round that year. Mark Lowe is from Houston; Huston Street is from Austin. Lowe pitched for the UT Arlington Mavericks; Street pitched for the UT Austin Longhorns. They're two months apart in age and both throw devastating sliders. So maybe we don't have Huston Street on the Mariners, but so what? We may have our very own version of him, only a little bit taller and without all the hype.
Today was Bobby Kielty's birthday, and I guess his present was getting a day off. I feel bad for the nice A's fans I met in the stands before the game that had a bunch of birthday signs for him, though. It was also John Olerud's birthday (and many others, including Carl Crawford, Eric Hinske, and Mark Mulder. Crazy day).
I may or may not go to tomorrow's game, depending on when I wake up and whether I decide to go ahead and buy that zoom lens I'm thinking about. We'll see. I'll also finish putting up this game's pictures sometime tomorrow, I think.
First, important announcement: the next book club will be on September 9th. A bunch of people showed up today and we had a great discussion about Fantasyland (unanimous opinion: it rules, it's absolutely hilarious, go read it) and fantasy baseball (unanimous opinion: since Conor was lucky enough to GET David Wright and Miguel Cabrera on his fantasy team, he better freakin' keep them both), and for next month, the book club book is going to be The Ticket Out: Darryl Strawberry and the Boys of Crenshaw, by Michael Sokolove (unanimous opinion: book club is fun, and y'all should show up!), suggested by Zach.
I'll write an actual review of Fantasyland sometime -- I should probably also review the book I finished reading last week, "The Chrysanthemum And The Bat", but that'll also have to wait until I have some time.
Anyway, on to the game report!
I didn't get there as early as I'd like, but batting practice was still going on, and I took more pictures of players, almost all A's. I think Joe Blanton thinks I'm stalking him now. After most of the pitchers had left the field, Barry Zito was still out there running sprints, and I was standing there with Conor Glassey, and I was like, "I'd love to go watch Komine and Loaiza throw in the bullpen... or go chase down Halsey for a signature over there... but... it's BARRY ZITO GODDAMNIT AND I'M NOT MOVING BECAUSE IF HE COMES OVER TO SIGN STUFF AND I'M NOT HERE I'LL CRY."
Soon enough, Zito came over and signed stuff, and was immediately swamped with people getting stuff signed and getting pictures with him. We were in the front row but not really poised to move over ten feet to where he was, but eventually he finally got over to us, and I got him to sign my ticket stub. It's legible, although, Conor noticed that Barry was signing stuff with his right hand -- that's kind of odd, isn't it? I mean, Billy Wagner throws lefty and writes righty, but he's got a good excuse. Conor didn't have anything to get signed, but he was like, "Hey Barry, you wanna hear some good music? My friend's band..." and offered up his headphones, but Barry was a little too busy and smiled and ran off.
We ran over to the bullpen after that. I shot a ton of pictures of Danny Haren warming up (which, amazingly, came out well), and then a few of the rest of the A's bullpen guys and a few of the Mariners bullpen guys. After Haren's warmup was done, Justin Duschcherer, who was being goofy in general, yelled something out to the crowd like "Hey everyone, that's our great bullpen catcher! Brandon Buckley!" and started applauding.
Hairy Haren Hurls Heat.
I ran up to my seat in the upper deck just in time to get there for Jason Kendall's leadoff at-bat. There was an older-ish guy sitting behind me who REALLY had it in him for Kendall -- and I was wearing a Pirates Kendall shirt. This guy wouldn't shut up about what an overpaid scrub he thought Kendall was, and how lousy the A's were with someone like him on the team. He later started ranting about Scutaro and Ellis as well ("stupid little skinny twits"), and Frank Thomas ("what a gimp, he's more like the Big Pain"), and so on. After the third inning when Adrian Beltre hit a home run, the guy actually punched me on the shoulder -- not hard or anything, but still -- so after that inning break, I got up and walked three sections over to where Conor and his dad were sitting and sat with them for the rest of the game instead, which was a lot more fun. Conor has Danny Haren on his fantasy team, and I have Nick Swisher, which made for some pretty funny moments ("Why couldn't they have tagged out freaking Payton instead?!?!").
Anyway.
"Scutaro-sized" Version: First, the Mariners were playing the A's. Second, the A's had Danny Haren starting and we had Joel Pineiro starting. Third, the Blue Angels were performing over I-90 as part of Seafair. So, why the heck did anyone bother coming to the park today? It's almost like rewatching Titanic and hoping that maybe, maybe, this time they won't hit the iceberg and sink. Right.
Yes, Kendall started off the game by striking out and making the dude behind me really happy, but two batters later, Milton Bradley doubled to left, and right after him, Frank Thomas singled to right. Ichiro's throw was actually pretty dead on as Bradley came running home, but today Rene Rivera was catching, and he couldn't hold on to the ball as Bradley collided with him. The Mariners accomplished very little in their half of the first beyond a Beltre walk, and then Pineiro just let the A's walk all over him in the second inning. Payton led off with a single, and then Swisher walked. Scutaro hit a low blooper fly ball a bit past shortstop, but everyone knows that there's no such thing as "out of Betancourt's territory", and he ran back and caught it. Ellis almost hit a home run which was instead caught at the wall, and then with two outs, the A's reeled off three straight hits -- Kendall singled, scoring Payton; Kotsay singled, scoring Swisher as the throw home was way off, and then Bradley doubled yet again, scoring Kendall. Frank Thomas walked, loading the bases, and then, with me beginning to panic that I'd have to rewrite my scorecard if the team batted around, Eric Chavez struck out.
Payton led off the top of the third by grounding to shortstop, and Betancourt threw the ball but it sailed over Richie and hit the wall of the stands; they ruled it an error on the throw, though in all honesty, Richie was sort of poised low to get the catch and may not have missed it if he'd stood up. Scutaro doubled after that, much to the chagrin of the guy sitting behind me. They intentionally walked Ellis to load the bases; Kendall popped out on a high fly ball to second, and they decided to take Joel out after 2.2 innings and 76 pitches, which is just embarrassing.
Ellis pulled a Betancourt to catch Ichiro's leadoff fly ball in the bottom of the third, but then Lopez hit a clean double to left, and then Adrian Beltre hit a ball that cleared the scoreboard by a few rows in left field for a home run. That brought the score to 4-2 as Swisher almost fumbled a grounder by Ibanez, and Chavez was charged with an error on a Sexson grounder, though in all fairness, it looked like the ball hit Chavez really hard and flew off him.
Things coasted for a while, mostly. Haren struck out the side in the 6th, which was pretty funny. Jake Woods did pretty well for three innings after coming in for Pineiro, until the 7th. Payton reached base on a Sexson error which I actually didn't see, but it must have been pretty good, because Hargrove came out to argue for a bit. After that, Swisher walked again, and Hargrove came out to replace Woods with Mark Lowe (yay!). Scutaro, for whatever inexplicable reason, sac bunted; I originally wrote it down as 1-3 for some reason, until Conor pointed out that Beltre had charged it and actually thrown to Lopez, who was covering first as Sexson also charged in. Ellis walked again after that, loading the bases again. With Kendall up, Mark Lowe threw a wild pitch (or a pitch got away from Rivera, whatever), and Payton scored as Lowe covered the plate and didn't get the tagout. Then Kendall grounded to third, and the throw home got Swisher (which evoked my earlier quote about Payton). Lowe struck out Kotsay after that, preserving his perfect ERA, and Payton wasn't an earned run for Woods either, so I guess it was okay.
Kiko Calero pitched a perfect eighth and Huston Street pitched a perfect ninth, though, and that was it as the A's completely and unexpectedly managed to beat the Mariners 5-2.
Well, at least this guy got his wish.
You know, I'm not sure I have a lot to add to that. There was a really funny moment to me in the sixth inning when Frank Thomas had been on first base, and Eric Chavez grounded into a double play, and as Thomas ran to second, he saw that he was going to be out. He immediately not only stopped running, but he also ducked down to get out of the way of the play.
Mark Lowe is fantastic. He really is. You know, I can't remember where it was, but recently I had read some article about the Mariners' lousy drafts, especially 2004 when they paid Tuiasosopo first-round money in the third round of a draft that included guys like Huston Street in the first round. But here's the thing -- Mark Lowe was drafted in the fifth round that year. Mark Lowe is from Houston; Huston Street is from Austin. Lowe pitched for the UT Arlington Mavericks; Street pitched for the UT Austin Longhorns. They're two months apart in age and both throw devastating sliders. So maybe we don't have Huston Street on the Mariners, but so what? We may have our very own version of him, only a little bit taller and without all the hype.
Today was Bobby Kielty's birthday, and I guess his present was getting a day off. I feel bad for the nice A's fans I met in the stands before the game that had a bunch of birthday signs for him, though. It was also John Olerud's birthday (and many others, including Carl Crawford, Eric Hinske, and Mark Mulder. Crazy day).
I may or may not go to tomorrow's game, depending on when I wake up and whether I decide to go ahead and buy that zoom lens I'm thinking about. We'll see. I'll also finish putting up this game's pictures sometime tomorrow, I think.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Game Report: Mariners vs. A's - Scutaroni and Cheese
PSA: If you are coming to book club and want to see the game beforehand, it may actually sell out! There were 44,277 people there tonight, and by the time I went to buy a ticket for the Saturday game, they had already sold out all the bleachers and big sections of the rest of the park! So order online or get there early, if possible -- and don't forget the I-90 closings for Seafair! If you're at the game, keep an eye out for me; I'll be stalking around with a big camera and wearing a Pirates #18 Kendall shirt.
I got home from the game at 10:30pm and sat there playing with the 300 pictures I took for the last three hours. You know, the funny part is, the up-close shots are a lot higher quality, but the far shots still suck, and so I don't really have any game action shots to show for my effort; I think I definitely need a different lens to do that. On the other hand, shooting pictures in the bullpen is actually a lot easier with this new one, and I got some reasonably good shots of Washburn and of Blanton, who was throwing for the hell of it before the game. I also got several good ones of Shane Komine, who is short, but friendly. Here's a couple of the pictures, cropped/etc.
I'm tired and I actually didn't take that many notes during the game because I was trying to take pictures instead, so this entry may be a little bit scatterbrained.
J-Rod says, "Airplanes in the sky sound like home runs."
I got to the game super-early to play with my camera, but the light sort of sucked because of the whole sundown thing. Watching BP and the pitchers warming up is always fun just for the hell of it though. They were all sort of being silly, and at one point Huston Street even jumped on Justin Duchscherer's back and rode piggyback for a while. Then there were a whole bunch of A's fans yelling things like "DON'T GO TO THE YANKEES, ZITO!!" when he was warming up, and then this one extremely drunk guy kept harrassing Brandon Buckley, and I kept telling him to shut up.
Thomas and Chavez signed stuff in the dugout for a little bit, and then Swisher came out and literally just went from one end to the other signing anything thrown at him, for like 5-10 minutes. Most people threw baseballs or shirts or such, though one person threw their mini-hydroplane at him, and he was just like "Uhhh, dude, what the hell do you want me to do with this?" Originally I just wanted to take a few pictures of him, but eventually he got down to my end and nobody was throwing anything; I smiled at him and he pointed at me, so I passed him my ticket stub and he signed it (though somewhat illegibly, you can see the "33"). So, I'm glad I finally got a Swisher signature, but sad that it's illegible and that I didn't actually really get that close to him. On the other hand, this makes me even madder that the A's didn't have any Swisher shirts in stock when I was down in Oakland, because then I would have been able to get him to sign that!
Okay, I promise, I'm done crushing on Swisher for this entry now, because he didn't play in 90% of the game. Of vague lineup weirdness, Mark Kotsay started at first base instead, and Marco Scutaro started at shortstop in place of the now-DL'ed Bobby Crosby. The former change didn't make such a difference, but oh, did the latter!
"Short" version: In all honesty, Barry Zito wasn't at his best, and from my vantage point it looked like he and Washburn were struggling about the same amount, but the Mariners didn't take advantage of it. The A's drew first blood with a run in the second after Willie Bloomquist (why was he playing CF instead of Adam Jones? This isn't a platoon here, AJ's a righty) first didn't get to a Payton fly ball, and then the throw drew Betancourt away from the bag so he couldn't get Payton at second. With two outs, Scutaro walked, and Ellis singled in Payton. Kendall also walked, loading the bases, but Kotsay grounded out. The Mariners would even it up in their half of the third when Willie Bloomquist ran out a grounder that Scutaro couldn't retrieve from the hole fast enough, advanced on an Ichiro single and a Lopez double play, and Ibanez eventally singled him in.
The A's immediately started attacking again after that with three straight hits. Chavez singled, Kielty singled, and then Scutaro almost hit a home run that bounced off the back wall for a double, scoring Chavez. Ellis was hit by a pitch, loading the bases. Jason Kendall did ground into a double play at that point, but Kielty still scored.
Jose Lopez led off the bottom of the 5th with an infield single that was really a very nice stop by Mark Ellis that just wasn't in time to be fielded. And since Lopez immediately went and got himself thrown out by a mile stealing second, it was a moot point anyway.
With Washburn nearing 100 pitches, Kendall was hit by one (from my vantage point, I didn't think he was actually hit, but god knows, you don't argue with Jason Kendall about that sort of thing), and advanced on a wild pitch before Kotsay flew out to left and Bradley grounded out. Then the Big Hurt came up and hit the ball out to left, which may have been a double for a non-gimp but was a single for him; still, Kendall scored. Zito and Washburn both came out after 7 innings with the score 4-1 A's.
Jake Woods took over pitching for Washburn in the top of the 8th, and he was doing just dandy, and for whatever unknown reason, Hargrove brought in Mateo to pitch to Marco Scutaro, and you know, earlier today I bet that Scutaro was going to hit a home run in tonight's game -- and sure enough, Scutaro took the second pitch he saw and launched the ball 373 feet into the A's bullpen. BLAM. Duchschchcherererer pitched the 8th and 9th for Oakland, without much difficulty. Lopez led off the 8th yet again by singling, and this time getting tagged out by Mark Ellis wasn't his fault so much as it was Beltre's, in a tagout 4-3 double play. Richie Sexson did hit a home run in the 9th that barely cleared the A's bullpen wall and got Huston Street to start warming up, but Dukes struck out Broussard and Johjima and then Betancourt hit a high pop fly which Mark Ellis caught to end the game as the A's won it 5-2.
"Now, Scooter, just look into the camera like it's a Julio Mateo pitch."
A while back, I joked on Lookout Landing that I find A's-Mariners games a lot more tolerable if I become a temporary A's fan. (Apparently somebody at Athletics Nation thought that was funny enough to pick it up as their signature, and I'm honored.) The thing is, this game was entirely indicative of why that's so true. The Mariners were struggling to get anything together -- and it's not like they weren't getting on base, what with 9 hits, one less than the A's got -- and with 2 walks, one less than the A's got -- but they just weren't putting those hits together, and with the exception of Sexson's home run, none of their hits were for extra bases.
I seriously think Marco Scutaro has some insanely high batting average in games that I've attended. It always seems like he's kicking ass, either hitting triples or batting in a ton of runs or basically doing whatever sort of stuff you don't expect a funny little dude like him to do, which is why I even wrote a song about him last fall. Today he was 3-for-3 with a walk, a double, that home run, and 2 RBI. And that home run was just plain awesome. Scutaroni Power, scutards!
There were a whole bunch of funny things that came about from the people sitting around in my section, such as "Where does Joh-jee-moe come from?" or "So do you like the Angels?" (from the girl next to me, who was unaware for the first 3 innings that Oakland is the A's, not the Angels), but the one that stuck in my mind was this exchange with a slightly older couple sitting behind me:
Guy behind me: Look at that guy with that red hair! It is so red!
Guy's wife: Do you think it's natural? I mean, I could never make my hair that color.
Guy: He looks so young, doesn't he? Look at him run! These players these days are so young.
Me, turning around: Actually, Kielty's birthday is tomorrow. He's turning 30.
Wife, excitedly: Oh! Wow! It is? How did you know, are you friends with him?
Me: No, but, um, [pointing] they list the players' birthdays on your scorecard.
Wife: Oh.
They then went on to ask how old I was and then excitedly exclaim that they would have thought I was at least five years younger as well. At least they didn't ask whether my dull brown hair is natural or not.
The "Baffle the Broadcaster" trivia question was undoubtedly one of the best ones I've heard this year so far (especially given that the broadcaster doesn't get the multiple choices to choose from):
Q: Which baseball player is the only one in history to get caught stealing twice in the same inning?
A: Don Baylor
B: Ty Cobb
C: Rafael Furcal
It did completely baffle Rick Rizzs, and even for a minute there I wondered if Baylor was supposed to be the "gimme" answer or a clever decoy. My first instinct was correct, though, and he was the right answer, even though those circumstances are bizarre -- caught stealing with an error and then caught stealing home, same out, not part of a rally.
Also, despite that I spent the last few weeks not saying or typing Chase Utley's name or the word "streak", apparently with my veiled anagrammatical reference to him in my last post I DID jinx him -- and I feel terrible for it. Because if there's a baseball player out there that I love more than Nick Swisher, it'd be Chase Utley. I knew it was unlikely he'd go much longer, but I'm still sad to see it end.
Anyway, I suppose I'm heading back to Safeco in a few hours. Hopefully I'll have more opportunities to play with my camera in better light.
I got home from the game at 10:30pm and sat there playing with the 300 pictures I took for the last three hours. You know, the funny part is, the up-close shots are a lot higher quality, but the far shots still suck, and so I don't really have any game action shots to show for my effort; I think I definitely need a different lens to do that. On the other hand, shooting pictures in the bullpen is actually a lot easier with this new one, and I got some reasonably good shots of Washburn and of Blanton, who was throwing for the hell of it before the game. I also got several good ones of Shane Komine, who is short, but friendly. Here's a couple of the pictures, cropped/etc.
I'm tired and I actually didn't take that many notes during the game because I was trying to take pictures instead, so this entry may be a little bit scatterbrained.
J-Rod says, "Airplanes in the sky sound like home runs."
I got to the game super-early to play with my camera, but the light sort of sucked because of the whole sundown thing. Watching BP and the pitchers warming up is always fun just for the hell of it though. They were all sort of being silly, and at one point Huston Street even jumped on Justin Duchscherer's back and rode piggyback for a while. Then there were a whole bunch of A's fans yelling things like "DON'T GO TO THE YANKEES, ZITO!!" when he was warming up, and then this one extremely drunk guy kept harrassing Brandon Buckley, and I kept telling him to shut up.
Thomas and Chavez signed stuff in the dugout for a little bit, and then Swisher came out and literally just went from one end to the other signing anything thrown at him, for like 5-10 minutes. Most people threw baseballs or shirts or such, though one person threw their mini-hydroplane at him, and he was just like "Uhhh, dude, what the hell do you want me to do with this?" Originally I just wanted to take a few pictures of him, but eventually he got down to my end and nobody was throwing anything; I smiled at him and he pointed at me, so I passed him my ticket stub and he signed it (though somewhat illegibly, you can see the "33"). So, I'm glad I finally got a Swisher signature, but sad that it's illegible and that I didn't actually really get that close to him. On the other hand, this makes me even madder that the A's didn't have any Swisher shirts in stock when I was down in Oakland, because then I would have been able to get him to sign that!
Okay, I promise, I'm done crushing on Swisher for this entry now, because he didn't play in 90% of the game. Of vague lineup weirdness, Mark Kotsay started at first base instead, and Marco Scutaro started at shortstop in place of the now-DL'ed Bobby Crosby. The former change didn't make such a difference, but oh, did the latter!
"Short" version: In all honesty, Barry Zito wasn't at his best, and from my vantage point it looked like he and Washburn were struggling about the same amount, but the Mariners didn't take advantage of it. The A's drew first blood with a run in the second after Willie Bloomquist (why was he playing CF instead of Adam Jones? This isn't a platoon here, AJ's a righty) first didn't get to a Payton fly ball, and then the throw drew Betancourt away from the bag so he couldn't get Payton at second. With two outs, Scutaro walked, and Ellis singled in Payton. Kendall also walked, loading the bases, but Kotsay grounded out. The Mariners would even it up in their half of the third when Willie Bloomquist ran out a grounder that Scutaro couldn't retrieve from the hole fast enough, advanced on an Ichiro single and a Lopez double play, and Ibanez eventally singled him in.
The A's immediately started attacking again after that with three straight hits. Chavez singled, Kielty singled, and then Scutaro almost hit a home run that bounced off the back wall for a double, scoring Chavez. Ellis was hit by a pitch, loading the bases. Jason Kendall did ground into a double play at that point, but Kielty still scored.
Jose Lopez led off the bottom of the 5th with an infield single that was really a very nice stop by Mark Ellis that just wasn't in time to be fielded. And since Lopez immediately went and got himself thrown out by a mile stealing second, it was a moot point anyway.
With Washburn nearing 100 pitches, Kendall was hit by one (from my vantage point, I didn't think he was actually hit, but god knows, you don't argue with Jason Kendall about that sort of thing), and advanced on a wild pitch before Kotsay flew out to left and Bradley grounded out. Then the Big Hurt came up and hit the ball out to left, which may have been a double for a non-gimp but was a single for him; still, Kendall scored. Zito and Washburn both came out after 7 innings with the score 4-1 A's.
Jake Woods took over pitching for Washburn in the top of the 8th, and he was doing just dandy, and for whatever unknown reason, Hargrove brought in Mateo to pitch to Marco Scutaro, and you know, earlier today I bet that Scutaro was going to hit a home run in tonight's game -- and sure enough, Scutaro took the second pitch he saw and launched the ball 373 feet into the A's bullpen. BLAM. Duchschchcherererer pitched the 8th and 9th for Oakland, without much difficulty. Lopez led off the 8th yet again by singling, and this time getting tagged out by Mark Ellis wasn't his fault so much as it was Beltre's, in a tagout 4-3 double play. Richie Sexson did hit a home run in the 9th that barely cleared the A's bullpen wall and got Huston Street to start warming up, but Dukes struck out Broussard and Johjima and then Betancourt hit a high pop fly which Mark Ellis caught to end the game as the A's won it 5-2.
"Now, Scooter, just look into the camera like it's a Julio Mateo pitch."
A while back, I joked on Lookout Landing that I find A's-Mariners games a lot more tolerable if I become a temporary A's fan. (Apparently somebody at Athletics Nation thought that was funny enough to pick it up as their signature, and I'm honored.) The thing is, this game was entirely indicative of why that's so true. The Mariners were struggling to get anything together -- and it's not like they weren't getting on base, what with 9 hits, one less than the A's got -- and with 2 walks, one less than the A's got -- but they just weren't putting those hits together, and with the exception of Sexson's home run, none of their hits were for extra bases.
I seriously think Marco Scutaro has some insanely high batting average in games that I've attended. It always seems like he's kicking ass, either hitting triples or batting in a ton of runs or basically doing whatever sort of stuff you don't expect a funny little dude like him to do, which is why I even wrote a song about him last fall. Today he was 3-for-3 with a walk, a double, that home run, and 2 RBI. And that home run was just plain awesome. Scutaroni Power, scutards!
There were a whole bunch of funny things that came about from the people sitting around in my section, such as "Where does Joh-jee-moe come from?" or "So do you like the Angels?" (from the girl next to me, who was unaware for the first 3 innings that Oakland is the A's, not the Angels), but the one that stuck in my mind was this exchange with a slightly older couple sitting behind me:
Guy behind me: Look at that guy with that red hair! It is so red!
Guy's wife: Do you think it's natural? I mean, I could never make my hair that color.
Guy: He looks so young, doesn't he? Look at him run! These players these days are so young.
Me, turning around: Actually, Kielty's birthday is tomorrow. He's turning 30.
Wife, excitedly: Oh! Wow! It is? How did you know, are you friends with him?
Me: No, but, um, [pointing] they list the players' birthdays on your scorecard.
Wife: Oh.
They then went on to ask how old I was and then excitedly exclaim that they would have thought I was at least five years younger as well. At least they didn't ask whether my dull brown hair is natural or not.
The "Baffle the Broadcaster" trivia question was undoubtedly one of the best ones I've heard this year so far (especially given that the broadcaster doesn't get the multiple choices to choose from):
Q: Which baseball player is the only one in history to get caught stealing twice in the same inning?
A: Don Baylor
B: Ty Cobb
C: Rafael Furcal
It did completely baffle Rick Rizzs, and even for a minute there I wondered if Baylor was supposed to be the "gimme" answer or a clever decoy. My first instinct was correct, though, and he was the right answer, even though those circumstances are bizarre -- caught stealing with an error and then caught stealing home, same out, not part of a rally.
Also, despite that I spent the last few weeks not saying or typing Chase Utley's name or the word "streak", apparently with my veiled anagrammatical reference to him in my last post I DID jinx him -- and I feel terrible for it. Because if there's a baseball player out there that I love more than Nick Swisher, it'd be Chase Utley. I knew it was unlikely he'd go much longer, but I'm still sad to see it end.
Anyway, I suppose I'm heading back to Safeco in a few hours. Hopefully I'll have more opportunities to play with my camera in better light.
Friday, August 04, 2006
Notes For The Weekend
I'd have a real update, but I ended up buying the aforementioned Nikon D50 last night from Kits Camera, and ended up spending most of the evening doing stuff like taking a hundred pictures of a Coke can at various settings to see how they compare. I just got the kit with the 18-55mm lens, and I can already tell that I'm definitely going to need a better lens for no-flash stuff. The store didn't have a 70-300 lens yesterday, but they just called me back and they have one in now, so I'll probly pick it up tomorrow.
Anyway.
While a bunch of people have told me they'd like to get to book club on Saturday, not enough have told me that they want to go to the game beforehand (or have said they have tickets already, etc). So I'm not sure exactly what my plan personally is for the game, and may infact depend on how well my camera works today, or whether any last-minute stragglers tell me they want to go. Either way, if you're thinking of showing up to talk books, please do -- Elliott Bay Book Co downstairs cafe, about 30 minutes after the game ends, and we'll talk about Fantasyland and fantasy baseball and other fun stuff. I think Conor Glassey is looking for advice for his keeper league, too.
In case you don't already know, Seafair is happening this weekend, and I-90 will be closing for part of Saturday and Sunday afternoons, apparently from 12:45pm-2:40pm both days, for the Blue Angels performances. Remember, the Mariners games are both at 1:05pm, so BE EARLY or you'll end up stuck on the wrong side of the lake. Traffic will be sort of wonky due to Seafair in general, so leave yourself plenty of time to get to the game, and carpool or ride a bus, if you can.
By the way, I do feel I'm required to give a good Phillies shoutout to Cole Hamels and Chris Coste for last night's game, as Hamels struck out 12, walked two, and gave up one run on two hits in 7 innings. And Chris Coste is now at a scorching .375/.419/.588 for the year after going 4-for-5 with two RBI last night. John Brazer had a fun blog entry about Coste the other day, complete with Coste's opinion of the movie Fargo.
(and in case you're wondering, yes, I am aware of some other things going on with the Phillies, but in respect for certain players, here's a clue: he can't say more either.)
Also, props to Jason Churchill for a perfect Deanna troll. HUNTER BROWN FOR THIRD!
Anyway.
While a bunch of people have told me they'd like to get to book club on Saturday, not enough have told me that they want to go to the game beforehand (or have said they have tickets already, etc). So I'm not sure exactly what my plan personally is for the game, and may infact depend on how well my camera works today, or whether any last-minute stragglers tell me they want to go. Either way, if you're thinking of showing up to talk books, please do -- Elliott Bay Book Co downstairs cafe, about 30 minutes after the game ends, and we'll talk about Fantasyland and fantasy baseball and other fun stuff. I think Conor Glassey is looking for advice for his keeper league, too.
In case you don't already know, Seafair is happening this weekend, and I-90 will be closing for part of Saturday and Sunday afternoons, apparently from 12:45pm-2:40pm both days, for the Blue Angels performances. Remember, the Mariners games are both at 1:05pm, so BE EARLY or you'll end up stuck on the wrong side of the lake. Traffic will be sort of wonky due to Seafair in general, so leave yourself plenty of time to get to the game, and carpool or ride a bus, if you can.
By the way, I do feel I'm required to give a good Phillies shoutout to Cole Hamels and Chris Coste for last night's game, as Hamels struck out 12, walked two, and gave up one run on two hits in 7 innings. And Chris Coste is now at a scorching .375/.419/.588 for the year after going 4-for-5 with two RBI last night. John Brazer had a fun blog entry about Coste the other day, complete with Coste's opinion of the movie Fargo.
(and in case you're wondering, yes, I am aware of some other things going on with the Phillies, but in respect for certain players, here's a clue: he can't say more either.)
Also, props to Jason Churchill for a perfect Deanna troll. HUNTER BROWN FOR THIRD!
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Any sports photographers in the crowd?
Fun link: Signs Fantasy Baseball Is Not Your Thing, snagged from AN. Because, you know, I'm gearing up for a good discussion on Saturday at book club.
This blog entry isn't really about baseball. Not directly, anyway.
I've discussed it with a few of you, but I'm looking to get a digital SLR camera before I head off to Japan at the end of the month. Quite frankly, it's no fun to go to a baseball game there and not sit in the outfield seats with the oendan cheering group... but, a LOT of my photos that I've taken of baseball stuff on past trips to Japan, quite frankly, suck ass, since I was just using my point-and-click little Powershot digital camera from said outfield seats. The last time I brought an SLR to Japan was five years ago, and we didn't go to any baseball games on that trip.
The problem is, all of my old SLR stuff is Minolta. My dad gave me his SRT-102 when I was about 16 years old (and it was about 20 years old). I've got a 50mm lens I used for most things, and a sweet Spiratone 500mm 1:8 Mirror Minitel telephoto lens that I used as binoculars at sporting events, and a few varied other lenses that I rarely used. And either way, Minolta is a dying breed, and I'm not actually sure any of my lenses would work in the supposedly-compatible Sony dSLR cameras anyway. I'm basically starting from scratch.
So, I'm looking at acquiring a Nikon D50, which seems like a nice starting point. I've been trolling around various camera stores in Seattle the last few days, and it seems like the "standard" kit at most places includes an 18-55mm lens. This all seems pretty reasonable for a start.
The problem is, what lens do I get that I can shoot from a distance with? Namely, the distance between the first few rows of outfield seating, and home plate? Paul's recommended the 70-300 lens; due to the nature of dSLR's multiplying the focal point by 1.5 or whatever, it seems like the 300 setting would almost be equivalent to what I'm used to with my old 500mm, and there's a version of it that sells for relatively cheap, so I wouldn't be breaking the bank to try it out (which is also a requirement. I'm not buying any damn expensive lenses until I really can get my money's worth out of them).
I'm kind of interested in hearing what digital SLRs other people are using for amateur baseball photography, day or night, indoors or outdoors, etc, and especially if they're working with Nikon. I'm almost definitely going to pick up the D50 kit with the 18-55 lens tonight (Thursday), because I'd like a chance to start playing with it this weekend during the Mariners-A's series. But I'll be shopping around for lenses for the rest of the month, most likely.
So, any camera advice would be greatly appreciated. Remember, you'll be rewarded in the end with lots of cool pictures of Japanese baseball miscellany!
This blog entry isn't really about baseball. Not directly, anyway.
I've discussed it with a few of you, but I'm looking to get a digital SLR camera before I head off to Japan at the end of the month. Quite frankly, it's no fun to go to a baseball game there and not sit in the outfield seats with the oendan cheering group... but, a LOT of my photos that I've taken of baseball stuff on past trips to Japan, quite frankly, suck ass, since I was just using my point-and-click little Powershot digital camera from said outfield seats. The last time I brought an SLR to Japan was five years ago, and we didn't go to any baseball games on that trip.
The problem is, all of my old SLR stuff is Minolta. My dad gave me his SRT-102 when I was about 16 years old (and it was about 20 years old). I've got a 50mm lens I used for most things, and a sweet Spiratone 500mm 1:8 Mirror Minitel telephoto lens that I used as binoculars at sporting events, and a few varied other lenses that I rarely used. And either way, Minolta is a dying breed, and I'm not actually sure any of my lenses would work in the supposedly-compatible Sony dSLR cameras anyway. I'm basically starting from scratch.
So, I'm looking at acquiring a Nikon D50, which seems like a nice starting point. I've been trolling around various camera stores in Seattle the last few days, and it seems like the "standard" kit at most places includes an 18-55mm lens. This all seems pretty reasonable for a start.
The problem is, what lens do I get that I can shoot from a distance with? Namely, the distance between the first few rows of outfield seating, and home plate? Paul's recommended the 70-300 lens; due to the nature of dSLR's multiplying the focal point by 1.5 or whatever, it seems like the 300 setting would almost be equivalent to what I'm used to with my old 500mm, and there's a version of it that sells for relatively cheap, so I wouldn't be breaking the bank to try it out (which is also a requirement. I'm not buying any damn expensive lenses until I really can get my money's worth out of them).
I'm kind of interested in hearing what digital SLRs other people are using for amateur baseball photography, day or night, indoors or outdoors, etc, and especially if they're working with Nikon. I'm almost definitely going to pick up the D50 kit with the 18-55 lens tonight (Thursday), because I'd like a chance to start playing with it this weekend during the Mariners-A's series. But I'll be shopping around for lenses for the rest of the month, most likely.
So, any camera advice would be greatly appreciated. Remember, you'll be rewarded in the end with lots of cool pictures of Japanese baseball miscellany!
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Baseball Book Club, THIS SATURDAY!
Have you read Fantasyland, by Sam Walker?
Are you playing fantasy baseball this year?
Do you want to go the Mariners-A's game Saturday and chat about books and baseball afterwards?
If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then your presence is humbly requested at the Elliott Bay Book Company cafe, downstairs, near the back, about 20-30 minutes after the game ends (estimated 4:30pm, due to the 30 minutes it'll take Danny Haren to pitch 8 innings and the 3 hours it'll take Joel Pineiro and six guys from the bullpen to pitch 9 innings), for baseball book club. I'll wear something conspicuous like a Pirates Kendall #18 t-shirt to make the group easy to spot.
If you want to go to the game in a group beforehand, LET ME KNOW. I could either set something up where we meet up outside Safeco before the game and get tickets as a group, or it could just be a free-for-all and we'll meet up at the bookstore afterwards. As of yet I don't personally have a plan for attending the game; in the past, the game has been AFTER book club, so there was no extra coordination necessary. This month is a little bit different.
Either way, I hope to see some old and new faces there. Fantasyland is a seriously awesome book, and it's even a quick read -- if you get it today, you'd probably get through enough of it in a few days to laugh about it with everyone, if not the entire thing. It's just such a fantastical yet entertaining story. Also, we need to pick some books for upcoming months, too.
So see you Saturday!
Are you playing fantasy baseball this year?
Do you want to go the Mariners-A's game Saturday and chat about books and baseball afterwards?
If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then your presence is humbly requested at the Elliott Bay Book Company cafe, downstairs, near the back, about 20-30 minutes after the game ends (estimated 4:30pm, due to the 30 minutes it'll take Danny Haren to pitch 8 innings and the 3 hours it'll take Joel Pineiro and six guys from the bullpen to pitch 9 innings), for baseball book club. I'll wear something conspicuous like a Pirates Kendall #18 t-shirt to make the group easy to spot.
If you want to go to the game in a group beforehand, LET ME KNOW. I could either set something up where we meet up outside Safeco before the game and get tickets as a group, or it could just be a free-for-all and we'll meet up at the bookstore afterwards. As of yet I don't personally have a plan for attending the game; in the past, the game has been AFTER book club, so there was no extra coordination necessary. This month is a little bit different.
Either way, I hope to see some old and new faces there. Fantasyland is a seriously awesome book, and it's even a quick read -- if you get it today, you'd probably get through enough of it in a few days to laugh about it with everyone, if not the entire thing. It's just such a fantastical yet entertaining story. Also, we need to pick some books for upcoming months, too.
So see you Saturday!
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Trade Array
Deanna's take on various trades, which have absolutely no bearing on reality or the standings, but just random thoughts, going from this list:
Mariners
Managed to acquire both parts of the Broussard/Perez platoon. Got rid of Carl Everett. This is sort of like being on Sesame Street and kicking out Oscar the Grouch and replacing him with that two-headed monster that would sound out parts of compound words slowly until they came together. "Pen... ant. Pen? ...Ant! Pen...ant. Pen-ant. PENNANT!"
Rangers
In a classic case of "Needs arm, gets bat", the Rangers' major additions were Carlos Lee and Matt Stairs... and Kip Wells. Thus, all I can say is that they are DOOOOMED. I mean, what were they thinking -- they pick up the DH from the worst team in the AL and the #5 starter from the worst team in the NL? I know Carlos Lee kicks ass and all, but it's sort of like buying an extremely expensive designer dress and then trying to accessorize it at Goodwill. This generally doesn't work; and I'm pretty sure most GMs can't pull it off, with the exception of Billy Beane, and when's the last time you saw any of the A's in high heels? (Besides rookie hazing day, of course.)
Tigers
You know, the people I feel worst for are the tons of people in Pittsburgh who bought Sean Casey jerseys and t-shirts, for the whopping 60 games he played in there. Of course, when I was back for Thanksgiving last off-season, they were still trying to pawn off Matt Lawton shirts for $10, and even had a bunch of Brian Giles crap left as well. I think a store attendant told me that they don't like printing player number shirts anymore, because of how lousy they sell and how often the turnover is around there. At any rate, the person I feel second-worst for is Chris Shelton, who's been optioned down to the minors, because I always thought he looked like a perfect throwback player -- as if you'd taken a picture of the Detroit Tigers playing circa 1906, ripped out their first baseman, and plunked him down on the field in 2006, and gave him a more modern hat.
White Sox
Uhh, they DFA'ed Chris Widger and traded for Sandy Alomar. This is sort of like replacing Dan Wilson with Pat Borders. Wait a minute, I think I've heard of someone doing that before.
Twins
Back in May, with Francisco Liriano breathing down his neck, one wondered whether Kyle Lohse had somehow become the world's best sleeper HACKING MASS pick in history (as only one person had picked him -- and in Gardy's words, "It's about a 9.00 ERA and not getting people out"), when they finally sent him down to call up John Wilkes Boof -- err, I mean, Boof Bonser. At any rate, Kyle's been sent out of Minnesota more than once now; hopefully he'll have more luck in the NL than he did in the AL, except for the fact that Cincinnati's a hitter's park, so it may be a wash. In other news, Torii Hunter came back off the DL, which is sort of like the traditional late-season trade of Advil for Griffey.
Indians
I went to the gym tonight, and was lifting weights and watching Baseball Tonight. They showed the end of tonight's Indians-RedSox game, where David Ortiz launched a 3-run homer in the ninth off of Fausto Carmona. I started laughing, and someone asked me what was so funny. "Looks like Cleveland *still* has a closer problem," I remarked.
On the other hand, BIG LEAGUE CHOOOOOOOOOOOOO! And at least Hector Luna has a lot less sleazy headshot than Ronnie Belliard. In general, I sort of see the Indians' trades as basically replacing spare parts with younger spare parts.
Royals
I'm kind of pissed off because Jeremy Affeldt was going to be the Royals' representative on the All-Cute team this year. Now I'm probably going to have to go with Grudzilla or something.
Yankees
You know, normally I'd be really psyched about getting to see two of my favorite players -- Bobby Abreu and Craig Wilson -- coming to Safeco to play in a few weeks. Unfortunately, since they're showing up in Yankee pinstripes, I'm sort of torn about whether I can cheer for them. And, of course, the Yankees will undoubtedly make Craig Wilson cut his hair. I suppose he can join Randy Johnson and Sal Fasano in the Former Mulletmen of the Apocalypse. It's still sad. I've already ranted enough about the Curse of the Bobbino on here, though.
Blue Jays
I hear that some corner infielder went inSHEAne and got himself traded to the Giants, but in reality, who cares? Alex Rios is back from the DL and will be further plaguing all of my friends' HACKING MASS teams, and it's about time.
Orioles
You know, if Miguel Tejada HAD actually been traded, would they have scratched him from the lineup and broken his consecutive game streak? And would it have eliminated at least 20 minutes of material out of each Orioles broadcast as the announcers would have to come up with some other way to work Ripken into their conversation?
Devil Rays
They traded Lugo, but if I was a Rays fan, I'd be more worried about what's up with Kazmir. Hell, I'm not a Rays fan, but I had to miss Kazmir last time he was in town due to it being a 1:35pm game, and I was psyched to see him pitch next Tuesday until this hit. Sigh.
Padres
"The Padres are still looking for someone to play third base on a regular basis." I think that several of us feel that they have a perfectly good option, but we're biased. Anyway, uh, Todd Walker? Huh?
Dodgers
They did a whole bunch of trades, each of which deserves some speculation, with parts coming in from all over the place. The irony being, if you told me that Wilson Betemit was going to South California to play third base, I would have figured he was going to the Padres, not the Dodgers. Still. The big one here is that they got Greg Maddux, and the really sad part is, it's been so long since I've actually watched Maddux pitch that I'm not really sure what to say. Even if he's getting kind of old, he's still one of the greatest pitchers of this generation. And just like Jamie Moyer, he now gets to suffer the indignity of being on a pitching staff with guys who were born after he signed his first professional baseball contract.
Reds
They added Rheal Cormier to join Eddie Guardado in the "Old Lefty Club". I'll always have a soft spot for Cormier circa 2003, just like I have a soft spot for Shigetoshi Hasegawa circa 2003, but... this is probably the only Phillies-related trade that I don't hate. I'm sure there's a good "Red Pen" joke in here somewhere, but I'm getting too tired to ink it.
Brewers
Once upon a time, before he was a favorite target of the Boo Crew in Philly, David Bell was the third baseman on the Mariners when they won a bazillion games. The next year, he was traded to the Giants, where he put up a .760 OPS and the team went all the way to the World Series. The Mariners traded for Jeff Cirillo, who immediately suffered Safeco Syndrome and posted a .629 OPS, and the team started its slow spiral to where it is now, still in its search for a non-cursed third baseman. Somehow, David Bell and Jeff Cirillo are now both playing for the Brew Crew. Life is weird.
Pirates
You knew that laundry cart that Oliver Perez kicked last year was going to get its revenge eventually, and here it is. But the really funny thing here is that Roberto Hernandez went from being the oldest guy on the Pirates roster by a good 5 years to playing on the same team as Julio Franco, who's a good 5-plus years older than him. Anyway, aside from the fact that it's going to kill me to see Craig Wilson in pinstripes, the Pirates moves were actually pretty reasonable. Xavier Nady should step into the Craig Wilson role, only with more playing time; they'll need a first baseman with Casey and Wilson both gone. He'll most likely also have some starts in the outfield, especially assuming Chris Duffy continues to be a headcase. And dealing Oliver Perez could come back to bite them in the future, especially if he eventually turns into that ace everyone expects him to be someday, but for now, the Pirates are awash in young lefty starters, and Perez wasn't having much success there. Either way, as always, on the surface I don't see a problem with the moves. Down the line, who knows what may happen. Overall, the lesson to be learned is, as mentioned before: Don't ever buy a number t-shirt or jersey of a Pirates player, unless his name is Jason and his number ends in 8. (I have two Pirates player number shirts -- Kendall #18 and Bay #38.)
Mets
HA HA HA. NO ZITO FOR YOU. NEXT!
Phillies
I've already ranted about them enough. Call me when C.J.Henry turns into Kevin Stocker.
Sleep
A good idea. Why the hell am I still awake looking through the crazy trade lists?
Mariners
Managed to acquire both parts of the Broussard/Perez platoon. Got rid of Carl Everett. This is sort of like being on Sesame Street and kicking out Oscar the Grouch and replacing him with that two-headed monster that would sound out parts of compound words slowly until they came together. "Pen... ant. Pen? ...Ant! Pen...ant. Pen-ant. PENNANT!"
Rangers
In a classic case of "Needs arm, gets bat", the Rangers' major additions were Carlos Lee and Matt Stairs... and Kip Wells. Thus, all I can say is that they are DOOOOMED. I mean, what were they thinking -- they pick up the DH from the worst team in the AL and the #5 starter from the worst team in the NL? I know Carlos Lee kicks ass and all, but it's sort of like buying an extremely expensive designer dress and then trying to accessorize it at Goodwill. This generally doesn't work; and I'm pretty sure most GMs can't pull it off, with the exception of Billy Beane, and when's the last time you saw any of the A's in high heels? (Besides rookie hazing day, of course.)
Tigers
You know, the people I feel worst for are the tons of people in Pittsburgh who bought Sean Casey jerseys and t-shirts, for the whopping 60 games he played in there. Of course, when I was back for Thanksgiving last off-season, they were still trying to pawn off Matt Lawton shirts for $10, and even had a bunch of Brian Giles crap left as well. I think a store attendant told me that they don't like printing player number shirts anymore, because of how lousy they sell and how often the turnover is around there. At any rate, the person I feel second-worst for is Chris Shelton, who's been optioned down to the minors, because I always thought he looked like a perfect throwback player -- as if you'd taken a picture of the Detroit Tigers playing circa 1906, ripped out their first baseman, and plunked him down on the field in 2006, and gave him a more modern hat.
White Sox
Uhh, they DFA'ed Chris Widger and traded for Sandy Alomar. This is sort of like replacing Dan Wilson with Pat Borders. Wait a minute, I think I've heard of someone doing that before.
Twins
Back in May, with Francisco Liriano breathing down his neck, one wondered whether Kyle Lohse had somehow become the world's best sleeper HACKING MASS pick in history (as only one person had picked him -- and in Gardy's words, "It's about a 9.00 ERA and not getting people out"), when they finally sent him down to call up John Wilkes Boof -- err, I mean, Boof Bonser. At any rate, Kyle's been sent out of Minnesota more than once now; hopefully he'll have more luck in the NL than he did in the AL, except for the fact that Cincinnati's a hitter's park, so it may be a wash. In other news, Torii Hunter came back off the DL, which is sort of like the traditional late-season trade of Advil for Griffey.
Indians
I went to the gym tonight, and was lifting weights and watching Baseball Tonight. They showed the end of tonight's Indians-RedSox game, where David Ortiz launched a 3-run homer in the ninth off of Fausto Carmona. I started laughing, and someone asked me what was so funny. "Looks like Cleveland *still* has a closer problem," I remarked.
On the other hand, BIG LEAGUE CHOOOOOOOOOOOOO! And at least Hector Luna has a lot less sleazy headshot than Ronnie Belliard. In general, I sort of see the Indians' trades as basically replacing spare parts with younger spare parts.
Royals
I'm kind of pissed off because Jeremy Affeldt was going to be the Royals' representative on the All-Cute team this year. Now I'm probably going to have to go with Grudzilla or something.
Yankees
You know, normally I'd be really psyched about getting to see two of my favorite players -- Bobby Abreu and Craig Wilson -- coming to Safeco to play in a few weeks. Unfortunately, since they're showing up in Yankee pinstripes, I'm sort of torn about whether I can cheer for them. And, of course, the Yankees will undoubtedly make Craig Wilson cut his hair. I suppose he can join Randy Johnson and Sal Fasano in the Former Mulletmen of the Apocalypse. It's still sad. I've already ranted enough about the Curse of the Bobbino on here, though.
Blue Jays
I hear that some corner infielder went inSHEAne and got himself traded to the Giants, but in reality, who cares? Alex Rios is back from the DL and will be further plaguing all of my friends' HACKING MASS teams, and it's about time.
Orioles
You know, if Miguel Tejada HAD actually been traded, would they have scratched him from the lineup and broken his consecutive game streak? And would it have eliminated at least 20 minutes of material out of each Orioles broadcast as the announcers would have to come up with some other way to work Ripken into their conversation?
Devil Rays
They traded Lugo, but if I was a Rays fan, I'd be more worried about what's up with Kazmir. Hell, I'm not a Rays fan, but I had to miss Kazmir last time he was in town due to it being a 1:35pm game, and I was psyched to see him pitch next Tuesday until this hit. Sigh.
Padres
"The Padres are still looking for someone to play third base on a regular basis." I think that several of us feel that they have a perfectly good option, but we're biased. Anyway, uh, Todd Walker? Huh?
Dodgers
They did a whole bunch of trades, each of which deserves some speculation, with parts coming in from all over the place. The irony being, if you told me that Wilson Betemit was going to South California to play third base, I would have figured he was going to the Padres, not the Dodgers. Still. The big one here is that they got Greg Maddux, and the really sad part is, it's been so long since I've actually watched Maddux pitch that I'm not really sure what to say. Even if he's getting kind of old, he's still one of the greatest pitchers of this generation. And just like Jamie Moyer, he now gets to suffer the indignity of being on a pitching staff with guys who were born after he signed his first professional baseball contract.
Reds
They added Rheal Cormier to join Eddie Guardado in the "Old Lefty Club". I'll always have a soft spot for Cormier circa 2003, just like I have a soft spot for Shigetoshi Hasegawa circa 2003, but... this is probably the only Phillies-related trade that I don't hate. I'm sure there's a good "Red Pen" joke in here somewhere, but I'm getting too tired to ink it.
Brewers
Once upon a time, before he was a favorite target of the Boo Crew in Philly, David Bell was the third baseman on the Mariners when they won a bazillion games. The next year, he was traded to the Giants, where he put up a .760 OPS and the team went all the way to the World Series. The Mariners traded for Jeff Cirillo, who immediately suffered Safeco Syndrome and posted a .629 OPS, and the team started its slow spiral to where it is now, still in its search for a non-cursed third baseman. Somehow, David Bell and Jeff Cirillo are now both playing for the Brew Crew. Life is weird.
Pirates
You knew that laundry cart that Oliver Perez kicked last year was going to get its revenge eventually, and here it is. But the really funny thing here is that Roberto Hernandez went from being the oldest guy on the Pirates roster by a good 5 years to playing on the same team as Julio Franco, who's a good 5-plus years older than him. Anyway, aside from the fact that it's going to kill me to see Craig Wilson in pinstripes, the Pirates moves were actually pretty reasonable. Xavier Nady should step into the Craig Wilson role, only with more playing time; they'll need a first baseman with Casey and Wilson both gone. He'll most likely also have some starts in the outfield, especially assuming Chris Duffy continues to be a headcase. And dealing Oliver Perez could come back to bite them in the future, especially if he eventually turns into that ace everyone expects him to be someday, but for now, the Pirates are awash in young lefty starters, and Perez wasn't having much success there. Either way, as always, on the surface I don't see a problem with the moves. Down the line, who knows what may happen. Overall, the lesson to be learned is, as mentioned before: Don't ever buy a number t-shirt or jersey of a Pirates player, unless his name is Jason and his number ends in 8. (I have two Pirates player number shirts -- Kendall #18 and Bay #38.)
Mets
HA HA HA. NO ZITO FOR YOU. NEXT!
Phillies
I've already ranted about them enough. Call me when C.J.Henry turns into Kevin Stocker.
Sleep
A good idea. Why the hell am I still awake looking through the crazy trade lists?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)