Okay, so these are mostly from batting practice time, but:
Photos: Mariners vs. Yankees, August 24, 2006
I had a really funny moment when I was like, "Who's that guy wearing 49? 49's retired for Ron Guidry!" and then realized... crap, that WAS Ron Guidry.
Getting pictures of Matsui was tough because there were ninety billion Japanese people standing around also pointing cameras, but I think I did a pretty good job.
No George Sherrill stalking picture today, sorry. I wanted to get the hell out of the bullpen before the national anthem, otherwise I'd never be in my seat for the first pitch.
It's really tough to take pictures of the Mariners pitchers through that damn fence, but it's easier to take pictures of opposing pitchers through the Bullpen Tavern wall holes. That's so dumb. It's hard to focus through the fence with a zoom. I'm working on it, but I didn't get that many good shots of Washburn today and it was just too crowded on the other side.
Ron Villone makes the best faces when he doesn't know a camera is pointed at him. So does Mariano Rivera.
I was really sad that Chris Snelling was in left field instead of right, because I couldn't take tons of pictures of him -- but, hey, it made the game better.
I really should cut this photo set down even more, but right now I'd rather sleep.
(and if you enjoyed these, check out my Oakland A's photos from a few weeks back!)
Friday, August 25, 2006
Game Report: Mariners vs. Yankees - I win!
So, I shot about 250 pictures tonight, and if I go through them before I write this entry, I'll never write this entry. I'm going to try to crop-resize-upload some before I go to sleep tonight, but we'll see.
Tonight's game featured these two lefty pitchers facing off against each other:
Cute vs. Ugly
Now, if you didn't watch the game, and I told you that one of these two guys pitched 6.1 innings, struck out 9, walked 2, and gave up 2 runs, which one would you think I was talking about?
Made you look!
Seriously, J-Rod the Washburninator was on fire. He had 7 K's after the first three innings, and picked up two more in the fourth and fifth. He did hit a few guys, and a couple of them got hits off him, but in general, Jarrod was dealing. It was pretty awesome. It probably didn't hurt that the lineup was LRLLSLSRR, with Jeter and Wilson being the only big lefty-mashers, but still. Aside from a Johnny Damon home run off Washburn's last pitch of the night, his 108th, and a run scored by Wilson, Damon, and Jeter all getting singles in the 3rd, that was all the Yankees really could do in terms of offense.
The only other inning in the entire night that more than 4 Yankees batters came to the plate was the 4th, where Posada was hit by a pitch, and Cano singled, and then the most awesome pickoff ever happened -- Cano was just plain sleeping, and Johjima nailed him with a throw at first. Wilson did walk and Green was hit by a pitch, but with the bases loaded, Johnny Damon hit a low line drive to left field, and CHRISTOPHER DOYLE SNELLING ran it down for the most awesome catch ever, which Ibanez totally would have never gotten. Good thing he and Beltre had the night off.
I got up and yelled, "WAY TO GO, DOYLE!", which got me a lot of funny looks from around me.
At this point, I need to digress in the recounting of the game and explain why this night was awesome and why I don't have very many game notes in general. People ask me why I bother going to games alone, and tonight is exactly why. Yeah, sometimes you get stuck by yourself the entire evening, but I seem to end up getting single seats next to some of the most interesting people on the planet.
The two guys sitting to my left were late-30sish, and they seemed pretty into baseball, and they thought it was pretty neat that I was keeping score and could answer questions about the recent roster moves, and really knew my baseball stuff, and they were impressed by my camera, and so on. One mentioned he was in town for the week from LA, and thought Safeco was a lot nicer than Dodger Stadium. Well, we get to talking about different stadiums and whatnot, and it comes out that I'm from Philly and grew up in Veterans Stadium, when one of the guys lets out this bomb:
"Oh, did you ever make it to a Scranton game? I played for the Red Barons way back in the day."
My jaw drops. "You WHAT?"
"I was a minor league player for the Phillies back in the early 90's."
I immediately stop paying attention to the game for the most part for most of the next half hour as this guy and his friend start recounting all these stories about the guys in the system back in the day; he was apparently reasonable friends with Mike Lieberthal and Mickey Morandini and just bunches of random players who I totally was in love with once upon a time. Heck, he was even Kevin Stocker's roomate! Through some weird coincidence of life, I've now met two of Kevin Stocker's former roomates (the other is former Blue Jays farmhand Brent Lutz, who roomed with Kevin at UW, and whom I worked with at Amazon), and still have never met Stocker himself. (I had the biggest crush on Stocker when I was like 16. Blame the 1993 World Series.)
At first, I wondered if he was kidding, even though it sounded way too bizarre to be making it up out of nowhere. I asked his name -- Ken Sirak -- and sure enough, I'd never heard of him. That's not surprising, because I barely followed the minor leagues at all until fairly recently. So when he and his friend Scott went off to get more beer a bit after that, I got out my web-enabled phone and Googled for him.
And here's his Baseball Cube page. He ended up quitting baseball after the 1993 season, because the Phillies wanted to trade him to the Reds, and he was a shortstop/utility guy and didn't really want to be blocked by Barry Larkin.
I probably spent a good half of the game just talking about the Phillies of my high school days with Ken, and then a good amount of time trading baseball trivia questions with Scott, and it was just a blast. Ken kept calling me "Baseball freak!" and Scott kept going on about how he'd never ever met a girl who knew as much random baseball trivia as he did, and meanwhile, I'm just trying to not totally act like a complete and random dork because I'm sitting next to someone who not only actually knows who Kevin Stocker is, but was his former roomate.
(I mentioned how Steve Carlton was one of my favorite players when I was a kid, too, and Ken started talking about when he and Carlton's son were both in single-A ball, and how bad he was. Man.)
So, yeah. There was a game.
Ichiro was amazing in center field. Snelling was amazing in left field. Bohn was not amazing in right, but he wasn't really hit anything that was difficult to get -- while I was initially disappointed that Snelling wouldn't be in RF, which meant I couldn't take ninety billion pictures of him during the game, it makes sense to put the stronger outfielder in left field with a lefty starter, as half the lineup will be batting righty and the other half might not be pulling the ball as hard as usual.
Seeing Mateo come out was not particularly heartening, but seeing Sherrill mow down Giambi/Posada/Cano in the next inning WAS particularly heartening.
All of the Mariners' scoring happened in the first and third innings. In the first, Ichiro led off with a double, and advanced on a Bloomquist sac fly, which isn't hard to do when he hits to center and Johnny Damon's throwing it in. Lopez singled him home after that.
In the third, Snelling led off with the nastiest double I've seen in a long time; the ball was barely fair and didn't roll foul until it was out near the left-field ball girl, which is just a pain to go get. He moved to third on an Ichiro grounder, and then Willie Bloomquist laid down the nastiest bunt I've seen in a long time; the ball pretty much rolled down the first-base down line and just plain stopped; a bunch of Yankees were just staring at it on the ground as Willie ran past first base. After that Lopez hit another RBI single, and then Sexson hit the ball way into the left-center gap and confused the heck out of Melky Cabrera for a double. This put the score at 4-2, which is where it'd stay until Damon's home run later on.
T.J. Bohn finally did something besides make an out today when he walked in the 7th inning! Woooo!
The ninth inning was probably the most perfect way you could possibly end a game like this, too. J.J.Putz comes out, and Melky Cabrera hit a hard grounder towards first, where Ben Broussard nearly bobbled the play but recovered it in time to throw to Putz covering the bag. One down. Bernie Williams pinch hits for Craig Wilson, and the crowd's getting louder, as he grounds up to second, where Lopez makes the throw. Everyone stands on their feet; the stadium is just rocking, with Mariners fans yelling, Yankees fans yelling...
...and Alex Rodriguez comes out to pinch-hit for Nick Green.
I didn't think the stadium could get louder, but it did, as all the Mariners fans who weren't yelling before got up and started booing. Cheers, yells, boos. Alex swings and misses the first pitch; he takes the second one for another strike. It's 0-2-2, and the next pitch is up a bit; the crowd boos louder. A-Rod fouls off the next one, and the next one nearly hits him in the head, and then... and then, he swings and misses the next offering. Strike three. Game over.
I'm not sure you could end a Mariners-Yankees game -- nay, series -- any better than that.
So on that note, I'm going to leave you with one last picture that I quickly cropped, and then I'm going to try to go through a whole bunch of these quickly. Because, dude, look who I saw running around in the outfield before the game?
To sum up: I own the Yankees. And meeting former Phillies minorleaguers is COOL.
Also, they had an announcement on the board that Mark Lowe will be at the Seattle branch of US Bank on Tuesday from 11am-noon -- it's at 1240 5th Avenue, which should actually be around the corner from where I work, so I'm going to try to stop by, if I can get more details before then.
Photo post is up!
Tonight's game featured these two lefty pitchers facing off against each other:
Cute vs. Ugly
Now, if you didn't watch the game, and I told you that one of these two guys pitched 6.1 innings, struck out 9, walked 2, and gave up 2 runs, which one would you think I was talking about?
Made you look!
Seriously, J-Rod the Washburninator was on fire. He had 7 K's after the first three innings, and picked up two more in the fourth and fifth. He did hit a few guys, and a couple of them got hits off him, but in general, Jarrod was dealing. It was pretty awesome. It probably didn't hurt that the lineup was LRLLSLSRR, with Jeter and Wilson being the only big lefty-mashers, but still. Aside from a Johnny Damon home run off Washburn's last pitch of the night, his 108th, and a run scored by Wilson, Damon, and Jeter all getting singles in the 3rd, that was all the Yankees really could do in terms of offense.
The only other inning in the entire night that more than 4 Yankees batters came to the plate was the 4th, where Posada was hit by a pitch, and Cano singled, and then the most awesome pickoff ever happened -- Cano was just plain sleeping, and Johjima nailed him with a throw at first. Wilson did walk and Green was hit by a pitch, but with the bases loaded, Johnny Damon hit a low line drive to left field, and CHRISTOPHER DOYLE SNELLING ran it down for the most awesome catch ever, which Ibanez totally would have never gotten. Good thing he and Beltre had the night off.
I got up and yelled, "WAY TO GO, DOYLE!", which got me a lot of funny looks from around me.
At this point, I need to digress in the recounting of the game and explain why this night was awesome and why I don't have very many game notes in general. People ask me why I bother going to games alone, and tonight is exactly why. Yeah, sometimes you get stuck by yourself the entire evening, but I seem to end up getting single seats next to some of the most interesting people on the planet.
The two guys sitting to my left were late-30sish, and they seemed pretty into baseball, and they thought it was pretty neat that I was keeping score and could answer questions about the recent roster moves, and really knew my baseball stuff, and they were impressed by my camera, and so on. One mentioned he was in town for the week from LA, and thought Safeco was a lot nicer than Dodger Stadium. Well, we get to talking about different stadiums and whatnot, and it comes out that I'm from Philly and grew up in Veterans Stadium, when one of the guys lets out this bomb:
"Oh, did you ever make it to a Scranton game? I played for the Red Barons way back in the day."
My jaw drops. "You WHAT?"
"I was a minor league player for the Phillies back in the early 90's."
I immediately stop paying attention to the game for the most part for most of the next half hour as this guy and his friend start recounting all these stories about the guys in the system back in the day; he was apparently reasonable friends with Mike Lieberthal and Mickey Morandini and just bunches of random players who I totally was in love with once upon a time. Heck, he was even Kevin Stocker's roomate! Through some weird coincidence of life, I've now met two of Kevin Stocker's former roomates (the other is former Blue Jays farmhand Brent Lutz, who roomed with Kevin at UW, and whom I worked with at Amazon), and still have never met Stocker himself. (I had the biggest crush on Stocker when I was like 16. Blame the 1993 World Series.)
At first, I wondered if he was kidding, even though it sounded way too bizarre to be making it up out of nowhere. I asked his name -- Ken Sirak -- and sure enough, I'd never heard of him. That's not surprising, because I barely followed the minor leagues at all until fairly recently. So when he and his friend Scott went off to get more beer a bit after that, I got out my web-enabled phone and Googled for him.
And here's his Baseball Cube page. He ended up quitting baseball after the 1993 season, because the Phillies wanted to trade him to the Reds, and he was a shortstop/utility guy and didn't really want to be blocked by Barry Larkin.
I probably spent a good half of the game just talking about the Phillies of my high school days with Ken, and then a good amount of time trading baseball trivia questions with Scott, and it was just a blast. Ken kept calling me "Baseball freak!" and Scott kept going on about how he'd never ever met a girl who knew as much random baseball trivia as he did, and meanwhile, I'm just trying to not totally act like a complete and random dork because I'm sitting next to someone who not only actually knows who Kevin Stocker is, but was his former roomate.
(I mentioned how Steve Carlton was one of my favorite players when I was a kid, too, and Ken started talking about when he and Carlton's son were both in single-A ball, and how bad he was. Man.)
So, yeah. There was a game.
Ichiro was amazing in center field. Snelling was amazing in left field. Bohn was not amazing in right, but he wasn't really hit anything that was difficult to get -- while I was initially disappointed that Snelling wouldn't be in RF, which meant I couldn't take ninety billion pictures of him during the game, it makes sense to put the stronger outfielder in left field with a lefty starter, as half the lineup will be batting righty and the other half might not be pulling the ball as hard as usual.
Seeing Mateo come out was not particularly heartening, but seeing Sherrill mow down Giambi/Posada/Cano in the next inning WAS particularly heartening.
All of the Mariners' scoring happened in the first and third innings. In the first, Ichiro led off with a double, and advanced on a Bloomquist sac fly, which isn't hard to do when he hits to center and Johnny Damon's throwing it in. Lopez singled him home after that.
In the third, Snelling led off with the nastiest double I've seen in a long time; the ball was barely fair and didn't roll foul until it was out near the left-field ball girl, which is just a pain to go get. He moved to third on an Ichiro grounder, and then Willie Bloomquist laid down the nastiest bunt I've seen in a long time; the ball pretty much rolled down the first-base down line and just plain stopped; a bunch of Yankees were just staring at it on the ground as Willie ran past first base. After that Lopez hit another RBI single, and then Sexson hit the ball way into the left-center gap and confused the heck out of Melky Cabrera for a double. This put the score at 4-2, which is where it'd stay until Damon's home run later on.
T.J. Bohn finally did something besides make an out today when he walked in the 7th inning! Woooo!
The ninth inning was probably the most perfect way you could possibly end a game like this, too. J.J.Putz comes out, and Melky Cabrera hit a hard grounder towards first, where Ben Broussard nearly bobbled the play but recovered it in time to throw to Putz covering the bag. One down. Bernie Williams pinch hits for Craig Wilson, and the crowd's getting louder, as he grounds up to second, where Lopez makes the throw. Everyone stands on their feet; the stadium is just rocking, with Mariners fans yelling, Yankees fans yelling...
...and Alex Rodriguez comes out to pinch-hit for Nick Green.
I didn't think the stadium could get louder, but it did, as all the Mariners fans who weren't yelling before got up and started booing. Cheers, yells, boos. Alex swings and misses the first pitch; he takes the second one for another strike. It's 0-2-2, and the next pitch is up a bit; the crowd boos louder. A-Rod fouls off the next one, and the next one nearly hits him in the head, and then... and then, he swings and misses the next offering. Strike three. Game over.
I'm not sure you could end a Mariners-Yankees game -- nay, series -- any better than that.
So on that note, I'm going to leave you with one last picture that I quickly cropped, and then I'm going to try to go through a whole bunch of these quickly. Because, dude, look who I saw running around in the outfield before the game?
To sum up: I own the Yankees. And meeting former Phillies minorleaguers is COOL.
Also, they had an announcement on the board that Mark Lowe will be at the Seattle branch of US Bank on Tuesday from 11am-noon -- it's at 1240 5th Avenue, which should actually be around the corner from where I work, so I'm going to try to stop by, if I can get more details before then.
Photo post is up!
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Link Tank
Yes, the Mariners lost 9-2 last night, with Pineiro pitching 5.1 innings... in relief. Felix started the game, but got banged up pretty good by the Yankees. I see no real reason for me to write a recap of the game when Jeff Sullivan already wrote a perfect one, complete with theories on using 5 infielders with extreme groundball pitchers.
On the other hand, the Kansas City Royals managed to get 10 runs in the first inning yesterday and STILL lose the game 15-13 in extra innings to Cleveland. And this is either the worst or best picture ever of Shin-soo Choo. I can't decide.
USSM links several articles about everyone's favorite outback outfielder Chris Snelling: Seattle Times, The News Tribune, and mlb.com.
It's the time of the year for Tangotiger's Fan Scouting Report, which y'all should take a second and fill out. The results are always pretty interesting to see.
As a precursor to me posting the All-Cute team for this year, I feel like I should link to an article about Moneybutt, which is one of the more bizarre but typical facets of Athletics Nation which makes it so unique. AN and Bat-Girl have the biggest female readership of any of the baseblogs I've seen, so there must be something to this butt-rating phenomenon. Another great recent AN post was this one -- I must say, the "legal binding document" aspect of that one is pretty funny.
If you don't read Zack Hample's blog -- and you really should, because it's definitely one of the more unique and amusing ones out there -- well, after 2900ish baseballs, Zack finally caught a famous one last week, Barry Bonds's 724th home run.
There's an awesome article on the Phillies' site full of funny little nuggets about the team, such as things like bullpen catcher Mick Billmeyer nicknaming Rowand and Utley to Bam Bam and Skeletor, and Cole Hamels having the locker next to Jamie Moyer and ribbing him about his age, and Michael Bourn's adventures in getting called up to the majors for approximately 5 minutes last week, and more "Just how old IS Jamie Moyer?" comparisons.
If you don't already read The Dugout, then you probably missed their great tribute to Snakes on a Plane, which is simply glorious, and I can't say more for fear of ruining the punchline. Of course, today's SimYankee strip is also pretty funny if you were actually around in the late 80's when the original SimCity came out, though I think there's an obvious Hideki Matsui joke in there that should have been made.
As mentioned on Japan Baseball Daily, there's a high school all-star team being assembled from the Koshien star players that will play against an American high school all-star team. The roster's available here in Japanese, and the two names Gary couldn't read are Masahiro Inui from Toyodai Himeji and Yodai Enoshita from Kagoshima Kogyo. (Corrections to other names are infielder Ryuya Nakazawa from Komadai, Ryo Hayashizaki from Himeji, and Yuu Funabashi from Waseda. Yes, I'm annoying (and emailing him).)
Supposedly, the Central and Pacific Leagues actually agreed on playoff schedules and interleague reductions, though it remains to be seen if they'll actually be approved. I still don't get how they'll split 24 games among 6 teams unless they play an uneven schedule or do 2-2 matches home/away.
I usually delete the mailings I get from Amazon, but today they actually told me to buy Ogasawara's book, which was cool, since they didn't even have it on their site the day it came out. It even got a good review from a Chunichi fan, so there!
In completely non-baseball news, now that they're testing for steroids all over the galaxy, Pluto is apparently no longer a planet. It doesn't fit the requirement of being "a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit," and has been effectively optioned to the minor leagues. Maybe Sidney Ponson can become the ninth planet instead.
I think that's it for now, but I may add to this during the day.
On the other hand, the Kansas City Royals managed to get 10 runs in the first inning yesterday and STILL lose the game 15-13 in extra innings to Cleveland. And this is either the worst or best picture ever of Shin-soo Choo. I can't decide.
USSM links several articles about everyone's favorite outback outfielder Chris Snelling: Seattle Times, The News Tribune, and mlb.com.
It's the time of the year for Tangotiger's Fan Scouting Report, which y'all should take a second and fill out. The results are always pretty interesting to see.
As a precursor to me posting the All-Cute team for this year, I feel like I should link to an article about Moneybutt, which is one of the more bizarre but typical facets of Athletics Nation which makes it so unique. AN and Bat-Girl have the biggest female readership of any of the baseblogs I've seen, so there must be something to this butt-rating phenomenon. Another great recent AN post was this one -- I must say, the "legal binding document" aspect of that one is pretty funny.
If you don't read Zack Hample's blog -- and you really should, because it's definitely one of the more unique and amusing ones out there -- well, after 2900ish baseballs, Zack finally caught a famous one last week, Barry Bonds's 724th home run.
There's an awesome article on the Phillies' site full of funny little nuggets about the team, such as things like bullpen catcher Mick Billmeyer nicknaming Rowand and Utley to Bam Bam and Skeletor, and Cole Hamels having the locker next to Jamie Moyer and ribbing him about his age, and Michael Bourn's adventures in getting called up to the majors for approximately 5 minutes last week, and more "Just how old IS Jamie Moyer?" comparisons.
If you don't already read The Dugout, then you probably missed their great tribute to Snakes on a Plane, which is simply glorious, and I can't say more for fear of ruining the punchline. Of course, today's SimYankee strip is also pretty funny if you were actually around in the late 80's when the original SimCity came out, though I think there's an obvious Hideki Matsui joke in there that should have been made.
As mentioned on Japan Baseball Daily, there's a high school all-star team being assembled from the Koshien star players that will play against an American high school all-star team. The roster's available here in Japanese, and the two names Gary couldn't read are Masahiro Inui from Toyodai Himeji and Yodai Enoshita from Kagoshima Kogyo. (Corrections to other names are infielder Ryuya Nakazawa from Komadai, Ryo Hayashizaki from Himeji, and Yuu Funabashi from Waseda. Yes, I'm annoying (and emailing him).)
Supposedly, the Central and Pacific Leagues actually agreed on playoff schedules and interleague reductions, though it remains to be seen if they'll actually be approved. I still don't get how they'll split 24 games among 6 teams unless they play an uneven schedule or do 2-2 matches home/away.
I usually delete the mailings I get from Amazon, but today they actually told me to buy Ogasawara's book, which was cool, since they didn't even have it on their site the day it came out. It even got a good review from a Chunichi fan, so there!
In completely non-baseball news, now that they're testing for steroids all over the galaxy, Pluto is apparently no longer a planet. It doesn't fit the requirement of being "a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit," and has been effectively optioned to the minor leagues. Maybe Sidney Ponson can become the ninth planet instead.
I think that's it for now, but I may add to this during the day.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Game Report: Mariners vs. Yankees - Swung on and Beltred!
About four months ago, I was talking to one of my college friends, a diehard Yankees fan. He was debating whether to accept a job in Seattle and move out here. Our conversation went something like this:
Him: I dunno, moving is such a pain in the neck...
Me: I have an extra ticket to a Yankees game in August, you know. If you move out here, it's yours.
Him: Hmm. Really?
Me: Yeah.
Him: I'm sold. See you in a few weeks.
Me: Wow, you're an easy bribe.
Anyway, tonight we went to the game. He wore his Tino Martinez jersey -- the kind with pinstripes -- and we sat there trash-talking each other and whatnot. We thought it was kind of cool that if the Yankees won, both teams would continue their current streaks, but if the Mariners won, it'd end both of them. We lamented Craig Wilson's new hair, or lack thereof, and I booed Bobby Abreu, and he cheered A-Rod, and we had a blast in general.
Oh, and the Mariners won.
Oh god! Not in the head! Not in the head!
As usual before a Yankees game, the Occidental Street approach to Safeco Field was full of scalpers and merchandise sellers. There was a tent selling actual Yankees shirts and jerseys, and of course there were these guys as well. I had my camera out early because I wanted to capture the lack of Jamie Moyer around the park -- and sure enough, they've already taken his banner down -- doesn't Ichiro look lonely? -- and they replaced his player wall photo on 1st Avenue with Yuniesky Betancourt's picture.
Today featured two starting pitchers who'd just been called up, and both were wearing #58, which is a somewhat crazy coincidence. The Yankees had Jeff Karstens, one of those rare guys who actually was drafted by the Yankees and bubbled up through their farm system, and apparently has been learning facial expressions from John Lackey. We had Cha Seung Baek, who's had a pretty great year in Tacoma, and is for now subbed into the rotation to fill the Moyer hole.
(Speaking of Moyer, he started at Wrigley today, for the first time in eighteen years -- "with his wife, children, parents, father-in-law Digger Phelps and his college roommate in tow, among others" -- and picked up the win, going 6 innings and giving up 3 runs in an eventual 6-3 victory.)
Anyway, tonight's game featured a whole lot of fun stuff:
I feel there are not nearly enough pictures of Eric O'Flaherty out there yet. I took this one while watching bullpen warmups before the game:
I may be young and left-handed, Mr. Hargrove,
but I can work my way out of a jam, thanks.
I'm suddenly totally falling asleep on my keyboard, which is understandable, so I'll either add to this when I think of stuff tomorrow, or just leave it at that.
Him: I dunno, moving is such a pain in the neck...
Me: I have an extra ticket to a Yankees game in August, you know. If you move out here, it's yours.
Him: Hmm. Really?
Me: Yeah.
Him: I'm sold. See you in a few weeks.
Me: Wow, you're an easy bribe.
Anyway, tonight we went to the game. He wore his Tino Martinez jersey -- the kind with pinstripes -- and we sat there trash-talking each other and whatnot. We thought it was kind of cool that if the Yankees won, both teams would continue their current streaks, but if the Mariners won, it'd end both of them. We lamented Craig Wilson's new hair, or lack thereof, and I booed Bobby Abreu, and he cheered A-Rod, and we had a blast in general.
Oh, and the Mariners won.
Oh god! Not in the head! Not in the head!
As usual before a Yankees game, the Occidental Street approach to Safeco Field was full of scalpers and merchandise sellers. There was a tent selling actual Yankees shirts and jerseys, and of course there were these guys as well. I had my camera out early because I wanted to capture the lack of Jamie Moyer around the park -- and sure enough, they've already taken his banner down -- doesn't Ichiro look lonely? -- and they replaced his player wall photo on 1st Avenue with Yuniesky Betancourt's picture.
Today featured two starting pitchers who'd just been called up, and both were wearing #58, which is a somewhat crazy coincidence. The Yankees had Jeff Karstens, one of those rare guys who actually was drafted by the Yankees and bubbled up through their farm system, and apparently has been learning facial expressions from John Lackey. We had Cha Seung Baek, who's had a pretty great year in Tacoma, and is for now subbed into the rotation to fill the Moyer hole.
(Speaking of Moyer, he started at Wrigley today, for the first time in eighteen years -- "with his wife, children, parents, father-in-law Digger Phelps and his college roommate in tow, among others" -- and picked up the win, going 6 innings and giving up 3 runs in an eventual 6-3 victory.)
Anyway, tonight's game featured a whole lot of fun stuff:
- 9 out of the 11 runs scored in this game by both sides were driven in by home runs. The Yankees had all five of their runs come in on a Bobby Abreu 3-run homer in the third inning and an Alex Rodriguez 2-run homer in the sixth. The Mariners had three runs come in on Beltre's first-inning and ninth-inning homers, and a fourth on a Richie Sexson blast in the third.
- All of the home runs were pretty fun to watch. Adrian's first one sailed into the Mariners bullpen. Bobby's was to dead center, and Ichiro actually scaled the wall, but couldn't get it. Richie's was just huge, the sort of home run where you hear it come off the bat and don't even have to watch it land to know it's way out there. A-Rod's actually went into the BLEACHERS in left field, above the KOMO 1000 sign. And Beltre's walk-off one -- well, we weren't even positive it was a home run at first, since it looked like it might have bounced off the wall as a ground rule double or something -- but apparently it hit above the yellow line, and once that became evident, the stadium went mad.
- Even better, Ronnie The Bear gave up that game-winning home run. It's nice to see him doing that for someone NOT us.
- During the 6th inning, with a 2-0 count on Ben Broussard, Karstens threw a wild pitch, and they took him out of the game after that and put in Mike Myers. I didn't know you could switch batters mid-at-bat as well, but Eduardo Perez came in to finish off the at-bat, and instead, they just had Myers walk him. After throwing the two pitches to finish off that intentional walk, they pulled Myers for Jaret Wright. I was somewhat annoyed because I like watching Mike Myers pitch, and besides, pulling a guy after TWO INTENTIONAL BALL PITCHES is just plain DUMB.
- Got to see T. J. Bohn's major league debut. Yeah, he pretty much just went up there to pinch-hit for Snelling and struck out, but that's still pretty cool that they used him at all. He also played an inning in the field.
- Oh yeah, and DOYLE IS AWESOME but you all knew that already. Seriously, I was using my camera zoom as binoculars and watching him, and he's got such a lovely, wonderful, quick, compact swing. I'm so glad he was batting second. Heck, I'm so glad he was batting.
- Sean Green got into a bit of a jam in the 7th. Bobby Abreu walked, and then Craig Wilson, god bless his soul, hit a grounder towards third. Beltre charged it, fell to his knees fielding it, and still fired a great throw to first base, but JUST missed getting it in time. Rather than pitching to A-Rod, they walked the bases loaded. We've seen this situation a billion times, where they do something like that for the double play, the force at any base, whichever, and then fail to get it, but this time, just like clockwork, Jorge Posada grounded to Lopez, and BAM. Inning over.
- Great rundown in the 8th inning, as Sherrill kept almost picking Melky Cabrera off first. Finally, Cabrera runs, Sherrill throws to pick him off, and there's the rundown which ends the inning. Thanks, Yanks!
- Speaking of Sherrill, if you live or work near Tacoma and read this before 11:30am on Wednesday, they had an announcement on the board saying "Meet George Sherrill"; apparently he'll be at a USBank in Tacoma from 11:30am-12:30pm, but unfortunately, I didn't write down the address. I think it said Pacific Ave, but I know there's more than one USBank on Pacific Ave.
- Also speaking of Sherrill, for those of you following my "Deanna's not stalking George. Really." saga of pictures, here's today's. This was right after everyone except O'Flaherty had high-fived Baek on his way out of the bullpen to start the game, and I think Sherrill was lecturing the rookies, except instead, it looks like he's saying "You've been voted OFF this bullpen!"
- The entire bench got into the game at one point or another. I'm not sure I've seen that in a long time, or at least not in a 9-inning game. It was sort of funny: Bloomquist pinch-ran for Perez, then Johjima pinch-hit for Rivera. Snelling was up with two guys on base, and I was excited about that, but with LEFTY-KILLER RON VILLONE up on the mound, they pinch-hit for Snelling. My initial reaction was "oh NO!", thinking he was going to get pinched by Morse or Bloomquist or something, but after a split second, I realized the only person left on the bench TO pinch-hit was Bohn, so my reaction turned to "oh COOL!"
- I wore my USSM shirt and loudly cheered for Doyle, but alas, the only person who I ran into was Dylan and the rest of his clan, who were sitting a couple of rows behind us. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, given that half the stadium was Yankees fans anyway, so why would they be familiar with USSM or Doylism?
- There were these cute little kids sitting in front of us, and from talking to the parents a bit we found out they're Yankees fans, and so their kids were supposed to be Yankees fans too, but my Yankees-fan friend offloaded his Mariners rally towel on one of the kids, and from then on in during the game when the scoreboard said, "WAVE THOSE TOWELS!!!", at appropriate Mariners-cheering moments, this little kid would get up and cheer madly and wave the towel, much to the chagrin of his parents.
I feel there are not nearly enough pictures of Eric O'Flaherty out there yet. I took this one while watching bullpen warmups before the game:
I may be young and left-handed, Mr. Hargrove,
but I can work my way out of a jam, thanks.
I'm suddenly totally falling asleep on my keyboard, which is understandable, so I'll either add to this when I think of stuff tomorrow, or just leave it at that.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Lose, lose, lose
I went to Canada for a day trip today to catch up with a friend of mine I haven't seen in way too long who was out there this week/weekend. In short:
- KOMO actually broadcasts all the way up into metropolitan Vancouver, 150 miles from home. The Mariners game today pretty much went for my entire 3-hour drive up, starting when I left my house and ending right after I got out of the tunnel, and I was able to listen to it the whole way.
- The Mariners lost. That's 11 straight and 20 straight divisional.
- Komadai lost. I was driving back from Canada, it was about 11pm, and my phone blinks at me that I've got a message. I glance down, a friend had sent me "WASEDA WINS 4-3!!!!" and I nearly crashed my car.
I have to go piece together a recount of today's Mariners game for LL, so I don't have time to say much. Congratulations to Waseda (and especially Yuuki Saitoh -- that kid is going to go FAR!) on their first Koshien championship win, but I really wanted to see the three-peat.
If nothing else, this year's tournament was much more dramatic than anyone expected, I'm sure. And in the very last at-bat, with the entire tournament on the line, Waseda's pitcher Saitoh struck out Komadai's pitcher Tanaka for the final out. Adachi Mitsuru couldn't even write a plot like this.
- KOMO actually broadcasts all the way up into metropolitan Vancouver, 150 miles from home. The Mariners game today pretty much went for my entire 3-hour drive up, starting when I left my house and ending right after I got out of the tunnel, and I was able to listen to it the whole way.
- The Mariners lost. That's 11 straight and 20 straight divisional.
- Komadai lost. I was driving back from Canada, it was about 11pm, and my phone blinks at me that I've got a message. I glance down, a friend had sent me "WASEDA WINS 4-3!!!!" and I nearly crashed my car.
I have to go piece together a recount of today's Mariners game for LL, so I don't have time to say much. Congratulations to Waseda (and especially Yuuki Saitoh -- that kid is going to go FAR!) on their first Koshien championship win, but I really wanted to see the three-peat.
If nothing else, this year's tournament was much more dramatic than anyone expected, I'm sure. And in the very last at-bat, with the entire tournament on the line, Waseda's pitcher Saitoh struck out Komadai's pitcher Tanaka for the final out. Adachi Mitsuru couldn't even write a plot like this.
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Why hello there
Yes, I've been sort of busy these last few days. If you've really missed my brilliant witty writing, you can check out my game recaps at Lookout Landing:
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Jeff admitted that calling me off the bench to pinch-blog for LL actually IS all just a plan to reduce the size of the Mariners blogosphere by crushing my spirit.
Jason Churchill, who is one of the coolest people in the galaxy, actually went and asked Hunter Brown about the musician gig thing for me, and found out that yes, infact, Hunter does play guitar, harmonica, and sings, and writes his own songs, too. The article I found was just from a coffeehouse appearance he did for fun. Still, that's so damn cool.
Koshien update would be that Komadai and Waseda locked heads in the final, and played a 15-inning game to a 1-1 tie. Under the rules now (which weren't the rules in 1998 when Matsuzaka pitched that crazy 17-inning game), the game stopped after 15 innings and will be a rematch tonight/tomorrow (depending on your timezone). The scary part is, both Yuuki Saitoh and Masahiro Tanaka have thrown an insane amount of pitches in the last 3-4 days (830 for Saitoh, 658 for Tanaka, according to some reports, mostly because Komadai's had Kikuchi and others actually pitch the first 2ish innings), and will probably be counted on for the rematch as well. Last night's match was one of the most dramatic things I've ever seen, and assuming nobody's arm falls off, the rematch should be even more dramatic. Will Komadai prevail? Will Waseda win it? Tune in tonight at 9pm PDT.
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Jeff admitted that calling me off the bench to pinch-blog for LL actually IS all just a plan to reduce the size of the Mariners blogosphere by crushing my spirit.
Jason Churchill, who is one of the coolest people in the galaxy, actually went and asked Hunter Brown about the musician gig thing for me, and found out that yes, infact, Hunter does play guitar, harmonica, and sings, and writes his own songs, too. The article I found was just from a coffeehouse appearance he did for fun. Still, that's so damn cool.
Koshien update would be that Komadai and Waseda locked heads in the final, and played a 15-inning game to a 1-1 tie. Under the rules now (which weren't the rules in 1998 when Matsuzaka pitched that crazy 17-inning game), the game stopped after 15 innings and will be a rematch tonight/tomorrow (depending on your timezone). The scary part is, both Yuuki Saitoh and Masahiro Tanaka have thrown an insane amount of pitches in the last 3-4 days (830 for Saitoh, 658 for Tanaka, according to some reports, mostly because Komadai's had Kikuchi and others actually pitch the first 2ish innings), and will probably be counted on for the rematch as well. Last night's match was one of the most dramatic things I've ever seen, and assuming nobody's arm falls off, the rematch should be even more dramatic. Will Komadai prevail? Will Waseda win it? Tune in tonight at 9pm PDT.
Jamie Moyer heads back to eastern Pennsylvania
Yes, sadly, the guy who I'm sure most of us thought would never get traded until the day he either died or retired, Jamie Moyer, has infact been traded to the Phillies. I've been up and down about this all evening -- my Moyer #50 t-shirt is actually sitting on top of my scorecard book, where I put it last night after doing laundry, for when I go to Safeco next week. I don't have the heart to move it.
I've sort of got dual blogizenship between here and the Phlogosphere, because I grew up in Philadelphia going to Phillies games every Sunday for the first half of my life. That experience helped me immeasurably in learning how to appreciate terrible baseball teams like our recent Mariners, but it's given me really weird perspectives in a lot of Phillies-related events this year, such as finding myself in Philly over Memorial Day weekend watching Arthur Rhodes pitch to Jeff Cirillo, who lined a single over David Bell. But I digress.
I think it's pretty cool that Jamie's going to get to go play for the team he watched growing up. I think it's neat that his parents will be able to watch him play again. The Phillies and Mariners both get great "local boy" angles off of this trade, as the two A-ball pitchers we got are from Corvallis and Redmond. Jamie gets to delude himself into thinking he's in a pennant chase again, but, much as I adore the Phillies -- and I really do -- I just don't see them making it to the Wild Card with so many holes on the team, even with the recent tear they've been on after the Abreu trade. Whatever makes him happy, I guess.
But dammit, I'm going to miss seeing Jamie Moyer playing catch with people in the stands during BP, or sitting around signing stuff and chatting with kids and all. I'm going to miss the novelty of having the oldest and youngest players in the AL on our team. It's sort of like when someone cuts down an old oak tree in front of your house. You don't immediately think it's a gigantic change, and maybe you're even glad that it'll stop shedding leaves and junk onto your car. But a few days later you're hunting for your keys in the sun and sure wish there was a tree there to give you shade, or you suddenly notice that you can look out your window and really notice the ugly burgundy color the people across the street painted their house. And then you're like, Goddamnit, I wish the tree was still here instead of 3000 miles away serving up dingers to Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Beltran, but it's too late, you're stuck with a stump and some seedlings that might grow into another nice big old tree someday.
Goodbye, Jamie, and good luck.
I've sort of got dual blogizenship between here and the Phlogosphere, because I grew up in Philadelphia going to Phillies games every Sunday for the first half of my life. That experience helped me immeasurably in learning how to appreciate terrible baseball teams like our recent Mariners, but it's given me really weird perspectives in a lot of Phillies-related events this year, such as finding myself in Philly over Memorial Day weekend watching Arthur Rhodes pitch to Jeff Cirillo, who lined a single over David Bell. But I digress.
I think it's pretty cool that Jamie's going to get to go play for the team he watched growing up. I think it's neat that his parents will be able to watch him play again. The Phillies and Mariners both get great "local boy" angles off of this trade, as the two A-ball pitchers we got are from Corvallis and Redmond. Jamie gets to delude himself into thinking he's in a pennant chase again, but, much as I adore the Phillies -- and I really do -- I just don't see them making it to the Wild Card with so many holes on the team, even with the recent tear they've been on after the Abreu trade. Whatever makes him happy, I guess.
But dammit, I'm going to miss seeing Jamie Moyer playing catch with people in the stands during BP, or sitting around signing stuff and chatting with kids and all. I'm going to miss the novelty of having the oldest and youngest players in the AL on our team. It's sort of like when someone cuts down an old oak tree in front of your house. You don't immediately think it's a gigantic change, and maybe you're even glad that it'll stop shedding leaves and junk onto your car. But a few days later you're hunting for your keys in the sun and sure wish there was a tree there to give you shade, or you suddenly notice that you can look out your window and really notice the ugly burgundy color the people across the street painted their house. And then you're like, Goddamnit, I wish the tree was still here instead of 3000 miles away serving up dingers to Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Beltran, but it's too late, you're stuck with a stump and some seedlings that might grow into another nice big old tree someday.
Goodbye, Jamie, and good luck.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Hunter Brown For A Major Third, Not A Minor Third!
Yesterday's Mariners-Angels game sucked. I sort of kind of recapped it at Lookout Landing. Funny part is, I was making stuff up, but in reality the top three players according to WPA were Betancourt, Johjima, and Sexson, and Willie was dead last. Thanks, Fangraphs.
David at Sports And Bremertonians put up an awesome Mariners By The Numbers post today, with the list of all Mariners who have worn particular uniform numbers. Very cool. S&B's is now 3 years old. Happy blogday!
If you've been following my blog for a while, you'd know that I'm a huge Hunter Brown fan -- I chose him as my Adopt-a-Rainier in early May 2005, when a friend took me to a King Felix start in Tacoma the day before my birthday. Brown was 3-for-4 at the plate and was just plain awesome in the field, but at the time was hitting an anemic .148/.246/.185. Well, since that point he's been putting up pretty respectable numbers (to the tune of an .814 OPS last year and is currently at an .819 OPS this year), considering that Cheney's a bit of a pitcher's park as well.
I'm not the only one out there who thinks it'll be a travesty if he doesn't get a September callup. But that's actually not the point of this random burst of Hunter-Brown-For-Thirdness.
I was looking for old stats for him the other day, and I came across, of all things, a "music picks" blog entry from this past December:
Anyone know anything about this? I'm emailing the blog writer to see if they actually caught the show, but wow! I knew that Brown was pretty intelligent and talented at baseball, but I had no idea he was a musician too!
David at Sports And Bremertonians put up an awesome Mariners By The Numbers post today, with the list of all Mariners who have worn particular uniform numbers. Very cool. S&B's is now 3 years old. Happy blogday!
If you've been following my blog for a while, you'd know that I'm a huge Hunter Brown fan -- I chose him as my Adopt-a-Rainier in early May 2005, when a friend took me to a King Felix start in Tacoma the day before my birthday. Brown was 3-for-4 at the plate and was just plain awesome in the field, but at the time was hitting an anemic .148/.246/.185. Well, since that point he's been putting up pretty respectable numbers (to the tune of an .814 OPS last year and is currently at an .819 OPS this year), considering that Cheney's a bit of a pitcher's park as well.
I'm not the only one out there who thinks it'll be a travesty if he doesn't get a September callup. But that's actually not the point of this random burst of Hunter-Brown-For-Thirdness.
I was looking for old stats for him the other day, and I came across, of all things, a "music picks" blog entry from this past December:
"Newbie Hunter Brown rounds out the bill, and will be making his debut at this gig. He graduated from Rice University and plays baseball for the Seattle Mariners baseball organization -- but he's still a Texas boy at heart."WHOA.
Anyone know anything about this? I'm emailing the blog writer to see if they actually caught the show, but wow! I knew that Brown was pretty intelligent and talented at baseball, but I had no idea he was a musician too!
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