Jeremy Reed broke his thumb the other day, and the lucky contestant to take his place on Field of Fortune is apparently Shin-Soo Choo, who will be ducking out on the PCL All-Star game to spend time up in the Show instead.
You know, when I gleefully mentioned that Jered Weaver was ousting his big brother from the Angels pitching staff, it didn't occur to me that his next start in the majors was going to be against none other than King Felix Hernandez. Sadly, Weaver Fever hit Seattle and he burned the team down as the Mariners lost the game 7-1.
I didn't pay much attention to any baseball today, as I was watching two of my friends get married on a roller coaster in Santa Cruz. No, really. I'd say how the ceremony was, only we were all screaming too loudly after we went down the first hill to hear most of it. The cool part was, the reception was a barbecue back at the bride and groom's house, so I wore a Mariners t-shirt, making this the second straight wedding I attended where a baseball shirt was reasonable attire, although I'm not sure the last one counts, being as it was at the Metrodome. It still cracks me up when Laurel mentions wearing her "wedding jersey" to Twins games now.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Game Report: Athletics vs. Diamondbacks - Stuck in a Webb
Hey, so I'm in California. I haven't been paying attention to this weekend's Mariners games; all I know is that they had a great win yesterday and a stupid loss today. I send you over to Lookout Landing if you want to read some pretty funny recaps.
Me, I went down to the McAfee Coliseum today to take in the A's-Diamondbacks game. It sucked. I wore my Pirates Kendall #18 shirt, which earned me a "Hey! Look at you, you've got a shirt from when Jason Kendall could actually HIT!" from some guy in the stands.
Short version: Brandon Webb pitched a complete game, in which he basically owned the A's. Frank Thomas hit a solo home run. Byrnes scored a run in the 4th inning after walking, and things were in a 1-1 lock until the 9th inning, which Barry Zito still pitched despite having thrown 104 pitches already. Single. Double. Groundout. Intentional walk. Walk. Sac Fly. Finally, Huston, but it didn't matter as the A's lost it 3-1. Game, set, match, sweep. Mark Ellis was pretty awesome in the field, though.
It's okay, Jason. *I* know you can still hit. You don't have to glare at me.
This game was pretty frustrating for me, because I have Zito and Swisher on my fantasy team, and I think extremely highly of both of them, but Swisher has become Slumper The Elephant these last few days, and he had yet another 0-for-4 today with two strikeouts.
I was ready to cry when Zito came back out to pitch the 9th inning. Huston Street was warming up, and yet, for whatever reason, Macha left Zito out there to bake. He shouldn't have started the ninth, and if he did, he should have been pulled after that Johnson-Ellis-Zito error. If not, he definitely should have been pulled after Conor Jackson hit that low liner into the left-field corner for a double.
The only thing that's vaguely amusing about the ninth inning is that the A's won a game the other night when the Padres intentionally walked Eric Chavez, loading the bases, to get to Antonio Perez, who also walked, bringing in the go-ahead run. Today, they intentionally walked Johnny Estrada, loading the bases, to get to Shawn Green for a double play, who then... walked in the go-ahead run.
I'm not sure what was up with the home plate umpire, honestly. Maybe the sun got in his eyes. I saw him call a ball that bounced in the dirt a strike for Brandon Webb, and I also saw him call some obvious strikes balls for Barry Zito, which may explain why Zito had 5 walks and 3 strikeouts for the day. Swisher looked like he ducked back from an inside pitch that was a called third strike for him in the ninth inning.
Brandon Webb, by the way, is an insane groundball-generating machine, though I'm sure you all know that already. Byrnes and Green must have been getting pretty bored out there in the outfield -- out of 31 batters faced, 7 struck out, 15 grounded out to the infield, 4 popped out to left field, one walked, one blooped a single over Webb's head, one singled to left, one singled to right, and one was Frank Thomas's home run. In other words, only 7 balls left the infield, and only one of them was fieldable by someone besides left fielder Luis Gonzalez. Yow.
Poor Bobby Crosby. He wasn't charged with an error for it, but in the 7th inning, Luis Gonzalez hit a high fly ball to shortstop territory in left field, and as Swisher and Kotsay ran in as backups, Crosby waved them off... got ready to catch the ball... and it fell about 5 feet behind him. Oops. Maybe the sun got in his eyes too. At least he stole a base. I think he's the only A's player that ever does.
On the other hand, hot damn, Mark Ellis! He made a ton of plays where the ball would be on a low arc, looking like it was sure to land in shallow center, and Ellis would just dash back there and make the catch. One time, he even did it in a running leap. It was pretty cool.
My friend and I were having a conversation that went something like this, when Frank Thomas came up to bat in the second inning:
Me: "Whee, Frank Thomas. You know, he's available in my fantasy league."
Him: "Isn't he only able to play Util?"
Me: "Yeah, which makes him somewhat useless to me, because I'm carrying two catchers."
Him: "You should ditch one of your catchers and pick up Thomas."
Me: "Well, he does hit an awful lot of home runs. But my catchers are McCann and Mauer--"
*THWACK*
Frank Thomas chose that moment to launch a home run into the corridor near the scoreboards behind the left field wall. Everyone stood and cheered, including us.
Me: "See, didn't I just say he hits a lot of home runs?"
Him: "Uh, weren't you just saying he was useless?"
Me: "Useless to ME! TO ME!"
Bobby Crosby, who I have dropped from my team, but my friend still has on his, came up next and struck out.
Him: "Crosby! You're useless!"
Anyway, aside from the ridiculously short game, and the fact that I got sunburnt as red as Bobby Kielty's hair, I did have a good time getting to see the Oakland Coliseum for the first time. We had pretty fabulous seats a few rows back from the A's dugout, bought only an hour before the game. I got to admire Mount Davis, and see batting practice, though I wasn't able to corner any players to sign stuff, sadly. It was pretty weird seeing Bob Melvin out there. Also, the Diamondback uniforms are really stupid.
I didn't walk around that much of the stands -- saw a bunch of interesting food places right behind home plate. There was such a long line for sausages at Saag's that I ended up getting a pulled pork sandwich at a stand near that. It was really good, and only $6.
The only thing that really, really, REALLY pissed me off is that I couldn't buy a Swisher number t-shirt, because they were completely sold out.
I'll be back there on Tuesday for the Tigers-A's game, Haren vs. Verlander. Should be fun.
Me, I went down to the McAfee Coliseum today to take in the A's-Diamondbacks game. It sucked. I wore my Pirates Kendall #18 shirt, which earned me a "Hey! Look at you, you've got a shirt from when Jason Kendall could actually HIT!" from some guy in the stands.
Short version: Brandon Webb pitched a complete game, in which he basically owned the A's. Frank Thomas hit a solo home run. Byrnes scored a run in the 4th inning after walking, and things were in a 1-1 lock until the 9th inning, which Barry Zito still pitched despite having thrown 104 pitches already. Single. Double. Groundout. Intentional walk. Walk. Sac Fly. Finally, Huston, but it didn't matter as the A's lost it 3-1. Game, set, match, sweep. Mark Ellis was pretty awesome in the field, though.
It's okay, Jason. *I* know you can still hit. You don't have to glare at me.
This game was pretty frustrating for me, because I have Zito and Swisher on my fantasy team, and I think extremely highly of both of them, but Swisher has become Slumper The Elephant these last few days, and he had yet another 0-for-4 today with two strikeouts.
I was ready to cry when Zito came back out to pitch the 9th inning. Huston Street was warming up, and yet, for whatever reason, Macha left Zito out there to bake. He shouldn't have started the ninth, and if he did, he should have been pulled after that Johnson-Ellis-Zito error. If not, he definitely should have been pulled after Conor Jackson hit that low liner into the left-field corner for a double.
The only thing that's vaguely amusing about the ninth inning is that the A's won a game the other night when the Padres intentionally walked Eric Chavez, loading the bases, to get to Antonio Perez, who also walked, bringing in the go-ahead run. Today, they intentionally walked Johnny Estrada, loading the bases, to get to Shawn Green for a double play, who then... walked in the go-ahead run.
I'm not sure what was up with the home plate umpire, honestly. Maybe the sun got in his eyes. I saw him call a ball that bounced in the dirt a strike for Brandon Webb, and I also saw him call some obvious strikes balls for Barry Zito, which may explain why Zito had 5 walks and 3 strikeouts for the day. Swisher looked like he ducked back from an inside pitch that was a called third strike for him in the ninth inning.
Brandon Webb, by the way, is an insane groundball-generating machine, though I'm sure you all know that already. Byrnes and Green must have been getting pretty bored out there in the outfield -- out of 31 batters faced, 7 struck out, 15 grounded out to the infield, 4 popped out to left field, one walked, one blooped a single over Webb's head, one singled to left, one singled to right, and one was Frank Thomas's home run. In other words, only 7 balls left the infield, and only one of them was fieldable by someone besides left fielder Luis Gonzalez. Yow.
Poor Bobby Crosby. He wasn't charged with an error for it, but in the 7th inning, Luis Gonzalez hit a high fly ball to shortstop territory in left field, and as Swisher and Kotsay ran in as backups, Crosby waved them off... got ready to catch the ball... and it fell about 5 feet behind him. Oops. Maybe the sun got in his eyes too. At least he stole a base. I think he's the only A's player that ever does.
On the other hand, hot damn, Mark Ellis! He made a ton of plays where the ball would be on a low arc, looking like it was sure to land in shallow center, and Ellis would just dash back there and make the catch. One time, he even did it in a running leap. It was pretty cool.
My friend and I were having a conversation that went something like this, when Frank Thomas came up to bat in the second inning:
Me: "Whee, Frank Thomas. You know, he's available in my fantasy league."
Him: "Isn't he only able to play Util?"
Me: "Yeah, which makes him somewhat useless to me, because I'm carrying two catchers."
Him: "You should ditch one of your catchers and pick up Thomas."
Me: "Well, he does hit an awful lot of home runs. But my catchers are McCann and Mauer--"
*THWACK*
Frank Thomas chose that moment to launch a home run into the corridor near the scoreboards behind the left field wall. Everyone stood and cheered, including us.
Me: "See, didn't I just say he hits a lot of home runs?"
Him: "Uh, weren't you just saying he was useless?"
Me: "Useless to ME! TO ME!"
Bobby Crosby, who I have dropped from my team, but my friend still has on his, came up next and struck out.
Him: "Crosby! You're useless!"
Anyway, aside from the ridiculously short game, and the fact that I got sunburnt as red as Bobby Kielty's hair, I did have a good time getting to see the Oakland Coliseum for the first time. We had pretty fabulous seats a few rows back from the A's dugout, bought only an hour before the game. I got to admire Mount Davis, and see batting practice, though I wasn't able to corner any players to sign stuff, sadly. It was pretty weird seeing Bob Melvin out there. Also, the Diamondback uniforms are really stupid.
I didn't walk around that much of the stands -- saw a bunch of interesting food places right behind home plate. There was such a long line for sausages at Saag's that I ended up getting a pulled pork sandwich at a stand near that. It was really good, and only $6.
The only thing that really, really, REALLY pissed me off is that I couldn't buy a Swisher number t-shirt, because they were completely sold out.
I'll be back there on Tuesday for the Tigers-A's game, Haren vs. Verlander. Should be fun.
Friday, June 30, 2006
Sherrill on the World Cup
Mostly for PDB, this comes from the latest Mariners email detailing the Perez-Cabrera trade, from the "Fan Zone" part:
GEORGE SHERRILL: LEFTY SPECIALIST AND SOCCER NOSTRADAMUS
MM: So rumor has it you have been keeping an eye on the World Cup?
GS: Yeah, when we aren't traveling. The games are on early, so you
can watch them in the clubhouse or the weight room. Some of us
have been kicking a ball around before batting practice.
MM: Who is going to win it all?
GS: Brazil. Hands down. Ronaldo... Ronaldinho... they have the five
best players in the world.
MM: Who could knock them off?
GS: Maybe Argentina if they get past Germany.
MM: Anybody else in the clubhouse following the World Cup?
GS: Jose, Felix, Yuniesky and J.J. are also keeping an eye on it.
I think everyone agrees Brazil is the team to beat, but I've also
heard votes for Italy. Yuniesky says France.
Cabrera traded for Perez
I know, what delightfully common surnames.
Mariners acquire Perez from Indians
As in, Eduardo Perez. 36-year-old lefty-mashing first baseman. I realize that the Broussard-Perez platoon was a thing of beauty, but still.
We traded Asdrubal Cabrera for him. This makes me sad. I really liked Cabrera, and I think he has a lot of talent, even though I know he was blocked by Lopez and Betancourt. I think, like everyone else, my initial reaction is something to the effect of "Great, we needed a guy who can really hit lefties, but didn't we overpay for him, trading one of our best prospects for a guy who immediately becomes the second oldest player on our roster?" It'll take some time to sink in. I think we could have gotten more for Cabrera, but I guess it's a moot point.
Discussion at USS Mariner and at Lookout Landing.
Man, after the Haigwood-for-Castro trade the Phillies made this week, I'm just not sure what to think of anything anymore. I know I'm not a GM, but I feel doubly skunked this week.
Baseball Prospectus has an interesting interview with Adam Jones, if you want to remember that we have some other studs remaining in Tacoma.
Also, rumors say that Jeff Weaver's gonna be replaced by his little brother at long last. I like Jered Weaver. He's a monster.
(EDIT: It's now official. I especially like how the next article down on the Angels page is "Izturis brothers feel no rivalry".)
Mariners acquire Perez from Indians
As in, Eduardo Perez. 36-year-old lefty-mashing first baseman. I realize that the Broussard-Perez platoon was a thing of beauty, but still.
We traded Asdrubal Cabrera for him. This makes me sad. I really liked Cabrera, and I think he has a lot of talent, even though I know he was blocked by Lopez and Betancourt. I think, like everyone else, my initial reaction is something to the effect of "Great, we needed a guy who can really hit lefties, but didn't we overpay for him, trading one of our best prospects for a guy who immediately becomes the second oldest player on our roster?" It'll take some time to sink in. I think we could have gotten more for Cabrera, but I guess it's a moot point.
Discussion at USS Mariner and at Lookout Landing.
Man, after the Haigwood-for-Castro trade the Phillies made this week, I'm just not sure what to think of anything anymore. I know I'm not a GM, but I feel doubly skunked this week.
Baseball Prospectus has an interesting interview with Adam Jones, if you want to remember that we have some other studs remaining in Tacoma.
Also, rumors say that Jeff Weaver's gonna be replaced by his little brother at long last. I like Jered Weaver. He's a monster.
(EDIT: It's now official. I especially like how the next article down on the Angels page is "Izturis brothers feel no rivalry".)
Deanna Crashes SABR, Part 1
Well, actually, it's fairly unlikely there'll be a part 2. I'd love to try to see Jim Bouton tomorrow, but honestly, I need to finish stuff up at work before I head off to California for the weekend. Speaking of which, if anyone reading this is an A's fan and is going to be at the Coliseum for either Sunday's or Tuesday's game, drop me a line, I'll come sing you something :)
So, tonight at the Elliott Bay Book Company, they were having "a SABR-related talk and signing". I'm not registered for the SABR convention because I couldn't take the time off from work and wasn't sure I'd get my money's worth out of the registration fee if I just ducked in on my lunch break and such. It's not that I'm not a SABR type at heart. Those of you who were around this blog over the winter will remember my obsession with deconstructing old box scores for debunking the Jack Nabors myth or reevaluating Hugh Mulcahy. It's more that I didn't know anyone else who was going, and a lot of the events look like they're committee meetings for the SABR members anyway.
However, I decided to go to the bookstore event because Jonah Keri's moving away next week, and I wanted to get a chance to say goodbye. Overall, it was pretty cool.
Jonah talked a bit about Baseball Between The Numbers, most of which I was familiar with because we covered that book at May's book club meeting. As usual, he plugged the clever titles of the chapters, including everyone's token favorite "Why doesn't Billy Beane's shit work in the postseason?" which was amended to "Big fat guys who walk won't win you playoffs, dumbass."
Mark Armour and Dave Eskenazi talked about this book they'd done about baseball's history in the Northwest called "Rain Check". It apparently talks about various baseball people and events in the area, and has lots of pictures of old ballparks and whatnot.
Jeff Angus read from his book "Management by Baseball", which is about the parallels between business management and baseball management, I think. In particular, he read a few pages about how awful a manager Maury Wills was. While I have to admit being largely unfamiliar with Jeff Angus, his reading was great, as he sarcastically recounted watching Maury Wills have the lumbering Jeff Burroughs try to steal a base, with the lesson being something like "Managers have to be aware of their employees' skill set and use those to solve the problem, and not try to impose their own skill set on the employee." Angus seems to be the master of the almost-but-not-quite-mixed metaphor, with things like "The idea hit me faster than a Randy Johnson fastball" and such.
Rob Neyer was vaguely plugging his Big Book of Baseball Blunders. I thought it was interesting that his book mostly starts at about 1917, when "the White Sox decided to play this guy Chick Gandil, and look what happened two years later?". He too implied that "I could have written an entire book on how awful a manager Maury Wills was, except I only got three pages."
After the guys finished talking about their books, there was some baseball Q&A about pretty much anything from gentrification and new stadiums, to making home plate wider, to Jeff's theories on which Fortune 500 businessmen could be major league managers, to David Cone's 147-pitch outing in the 1995 ALDS, to more Maury Wills bashing. Pretty much everything was interesting, and most of it was amusing as well.
It was a very interesting group of people assembled there; I always find it amusing to be in a room of people who actually know more random crap about baseball than I do. I think I may have been the only person who wasn't actually part of the SABR convention, though. The room was about 95% male and about 60% bearded. I didn't really recognize anyone there, though I'm sure some of the names would have been familiar if I'd caught them, and I wasn't really sure how to introduce myself to people. I did recognize Aaron Gleeman because of the SI picture, but what on earth would I have said to him? "I love your blog, dude. I'm so sorry about your dog."?
I waited in line for a bit afterwards to get Rob Neyer to sign my copy of the "Big Book of Baseball Lineups". I get up to the table and tell him how much I love his writing, and that "...this book is great! The only problem is, why did you put Von Hayes on not ONE but TWO 'All-Bust' lists?" He cracked up. Then he started saying something about how he wasn't sure where he'd originally gotten the idea Von Hayes was quite so awful, and maybe it was just an impression from all the Philly fans booing him, and hey, don't they boo everything?
So what he ended up writing in my book is: "For Deanna - Just for you, I'll excise any references to 'Five-for-One' in the next edition. Yours, Rob Neyer."
I didn't end up buying the other authors' books, and I didn't have my copy of BBTN with me (having loaned it to a friend who asked me one too many times why Jose Lopez shouldn't be sac bunting), so I just went over to wish Jonah goodbye and good luck, and went home.
I got home pretty much RIGHT as the Mariners game was ending. They won it, 3-2, which gives them a whopping 13-2 record in interleague play, which ties them with the Tigers and the Twins. Only Boston's 14-1 is better. It's still crazy, though. And now we're TWO games over .500. TWO! With Jamie Moyer facing Josh Fogg tomorrow! Rock on!
The Phillies also finally stopped their 7-game losing streak, with Ryan Madson shutting out the Orioles in an almost complete-game win (8.2 IP, 1 BB, 7K). I would like to point out that I am solely responsible for this, as I finally dropped him from my fantasy team roster again. Every time I drop him, he suddenly becomes Supermadson. I'm learning one of the lessons of fantasy baseball: If you love a player, set him free. If he starts kicking ass, he was never yours to begin with.
So, tonight at the Elliott Bay Book Company, they were having "a SABR-related talk and signing". I'm not registered for the SABR convention because I couldn't take the time off from work and wasn't sure I'd get my money's worth out of the registration fee if I just ducked in on my lunch break and such. It's not that I'm not a SABR type at heart. Those of you who were around this blog over the winter will remember my obsession with deconstructing old box scores for debunking the Jack Nabors myth or reevaluating Hugh Mulcahy. It's more that I didn't know anyone else who was going, and a lot of the events look like they're committee meetings for the SABR members anyway.
However, I decided to go to the bookstore event because Jonah Keri's moving away next week, and I wanted to get a chance to say goodbye. Overall, it was pretty cool.
Jonah talked a bit about Baseball Between The Numbers, most of which I was familiar with because we covered that book at May's book club meeting. As usual, he plugged the clever titles of the chapters, including everyone's token favorite "Why doesn't Billy Beane's shit work in the postseason?" which was amended to "Big fat guys who walk won't win you playoffs, dumbass."
Mark Armour and Dave Eskenazi talked about this book they'd done about baseball's history in the Northwest called "Rain Check". It apparently talks about various baseball people and events in the area, and has lots of pictures of old ballparks and whatnot.
Jeff Angus read from his book "Management by Baseball", which is about the parallels between business management and baseball management, I think. In particular, he read a few pages about how awful a manager Maury Wills was. While I have to admit being largely unfamiliar with Jeff Angus, his reading was great, as he sarcastically recounted watching Maury Wills have the lumbering Jeff Burroughs try to steal a base, with the lesson being something like "Managers have to be aware of their employees' skill set and use those to solve the problem, and not try to impose their own skill set on the employee." Angus seems to be the master of the almost-but-not-quite-mixed metaphor, with things like "The idea hit me faster than a Randy Johnson fastball" and such.
Rob Neyer was vaguely plugging his Big Book of Baseball Blunders. I thought it was interesting that his book mostly starts at about 1917, when "the White Sox decided to play this guy Chick Gandil, and look what happened two years later?". He too implied that "I could have written an entire book on how awful a manager Maury Wills was, except I only got three pages."
After the guys finished talking about their books, there was some baseball Q&A about pretty much anything from gentrification and new stadiums, to making home plate wider, to Jeff's theories on which Fortune 500 businessmen could be major league managers, to David Cone's 147-pitch outing in the 1995 ALDS, to more Maury Wills bashing. Pretty much everything was interesting, and most of it was amusing as well.
It was a very interesting group of people assembled there; I always find it amusing to be in a room of people who actually know more random crap about baseball than I do. I think I may have been the only person who wasn't actually part of the SABR convention, though. The room was about 95% male and about 60% bearded. I didn't really recognize anyone there, though I'm sure some of the names would have been familiar if I'd caught them, and I wasn't really sure how to introduce myself to people. I did recognize Aaron Gleeman because of the SI picture, but what on earth would I have said to him? "I love your blog, dude. I'm so sorry about your dog."?
I waited in line for a bit afterwards to get Rob Neyer to sign my copy of the "Big Book of Baseball Lineups". I get up to the table and tell him how much I love his writing, and that "...this book is great! The only problem is, why did you put Von Hayes on not ONE but TWO 'All-Bust' lists?" He cracked up. Then he started saying something about how he wasn't sure where he'd originally gotten the idea Von Hayes was quite so awful, and maybe it was just an impression from all the Philly fans booing him, and hey, don't they boo everything?
So what he ended up writing in my book is: "For Deanna - Just for you, I'll excise any references to 'Five-for-One' in the next edition. Yours, Rob Neyer."
I didn't end up buying the other authors' books, and I didn't have my copy of BBTN with me (having loaned it to a friend who asked me one too many times why Jose Lopez shouldn't be sac bunting), so I just went over to wish Jonah goodbye and good luck, and went home.
I got home pretty much RIGHT as the Mariners game was ending. They won it, 3-2, which gives them a whopping 13-2 record in interleague play, which ties them with the Tigers and the Twins. Only Boston's 14-1 is better. It's still crazy, though. And now we're TWO games over .500. TWO! With Jamie Moyer facing Josh Fogg tomorrow! Rock on!
The Phillies also finally stopped their 7-game losing streak, with Ryan Madson shutting out the Orioles in an almost complete-game win (8.2 IP, 1 BB, 7K). I would like to point out that I am solely responsible for this, as I finally dropped him from my fantasy team roster again. Every time I drop him, he suddenly becomes Supermadson. I'm learning one of the lessons of fantasy baseball: If you love a player, set him free. If he starts kicking ass, he was never yours to begin with.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
On winning, and on book club
Two things of note:
1. The Mariners won the game tonight 10-3, which means their record for the season is now 40 wins and 39 losses. Last time I checked, 40 was more than 39, which means that the team has a winning record. OMGWTFVORP.
2. The July 8th book club meeting may not happen at all. Does anyone actually care? Is there anyone out there who could run the meeting for me? Basically, I can't make it that day due to something I committed to back in April, that won't be over until around 6:30-7pm. Josh says he can't make it, and I haven't talked to Gomez yet. Conor's getting married that day (congrats, Conor!), so it's pretty unlikely he'll be there. If someone else has interest in making sure book club happens that day, please let me know.
However, August 5th is going to be the book Fantasyland, by Sam Walker. And I'm about 100 pages into this book, and it is seriously one of the most entertaining books I've read in my entire life. I'm not exaggerating. I laugh aloud at something on just about every page. If you've ever played fantasy baseball, or even if you haven't, this book will totally crack you up. I promise. I'm even thinking I'll have to go against my general principle of not writing a review for a book club book before the meeting, because I want people to understand how completely enjoyable a book this is. Go freaking read it, and come to the August book club and complain about your fantasy team, or complain about how annoying people are when they talk about their fantasy team. Or else.
1. The Mariners won the game tonight 10-3, which means their record for the season is now 40 wins and 39 losses. Last time I checked, 40 was more than 39, which means that the team has a winning record. OMGWTFVORP.
2. The July 8th book club meeting may not happen at all. Does anyone actually care? Is there anyone out there who could run the meeting for me? Basically, I can't make it that day due to something I committed to back in April, that won't be over until around 6:30-7pm. Josh says he can't make it, and I haven't talked to Gomez yet. Conor's getting married that day (congrats, Conor!), so it's pretty unlikely he'll be there. If someone else has interest in making sure book club happens that day, please let me know.
However, August 5th is going to be the book Fantasyland, by Sam Walker. And I'm about 100 pages into this book, and it is seriously one of the most entertaining books I've read in my entire life. I'm not exaggerating. I laugh aloud at something on just about every page. If you've ever played fantasy baseball, or even if you haven't, this book will totally crack you up. I promise. I'm even thinking I'll have to go against my general principle of not writing a review for a book club book before the meeting, because I want people to understand how completely enjoyable a book this is. Go freaking read it, and come to the August book club and complain about your fantasy team, or complain about how annoying people are when they talk about their fantasy team. Or else.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
.500
Well, they will fly 500 miles
And they will fly 500 more
Just to be the team to reach .500
While they're on a west-coast tour
Yes, the Mariners are 39-39. They no longer have a losing record, thanks to being the best team in the NL West.
For the record, though, the AL is beating the NL 117-70 in interleague as of right now. The Mariners, Twins, and White Sox are 11-2 in interleague, Detroit is 12-2, and Boston is 12-1. Only 4 AL teams out of 14 are posting losing records in interleague, whereas only 2 NL teams out of 16 are posting winning records. This is pretty insane.
In case you're wondering, I kept my streak of only catching one inning of the game alive: I got home after walking Greenlake with my housemates and the dogs, just in time for the ninth inning. It was 7-7, Ibanez was coming up to bat with two outs (and apparently Beltre on second), and I joked to the rest: "It's okay, I'm home, they can win now." Within the next three minutes, Ibanez was intentionally walked, Richie snagged that low pitch for a double to score Beltre, and Johjima launched that home run into the left field stands scoring the other three, putting the score at 11-7.
I was pretty dumbfounded, but it was pretty cool.
I was in the midst of telling my housemates what a lefty-masher and speed demon Eric Byrnes is when he got his double off Jake Woods, and I was pointing out that Conor Jackson and I share a birthday as he walked. And as Putz came in to face Gonzalez, they asked why we were bringing in a righty to face a lefty, and I said, "Because Putz is awesome. He's going to get this guy out," and he did.
You could have played a pretty good drinking game with the postgame show on the phrases "haven't been at .500 since..." and "Kenji Johjima's consecutive 2-homerun games".
Felix is up tonight, and I've got a decent plan for ignoring all but one inning of the game tonight too, so they should win this one as well.
(In other random things, I realized I never linked to Miguel Cabrera refusing to be intentionally walked, which is one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life. I always wondered if someone could pull that off.)
(Also, if you have good karma to dish out, send some to Peter Gammons, who is recovering from surgery for an aneurysm. Get well, PG!)
And they will fly 500 more
Just to be the team to reach .500
While they're on a west-coast tour
Yes, the Mariners are 39-39. They no longer have a losing record, thanks to being the best team in the NL West.
For the record, though, the AL is beating the NL 117-70 in interleague as of right now. The Mariners, Twins, and White Sox are 11-2 in interleague, Detroit is 12-2, and Boston is 12-1. Only 4 AL teams out of 14 are posting losing records in interleague, whereas only 2 NL teams out of 16 are posting winning records. This is pretty insane.
In case you're wondering, I kept my streak of only catching one inning of the game alive: I got home after walking Greenlake with my housemates and the dogs, just in time for the ninth inning. It was 7-7, Ibanez was coming up to bat with two outs (and apparently Beltre on second), and I joked to the rest: "It's okay, I'm home, they can win now." Within the next three minutes, Ibanez was intentionally walked, Richie snagged that low pitch for a double to score Beltre, and Johjima launched that home run into the left field stands scoring the other three, putting the score at 11-7.
I was pretty dumbfounded, but it was pretty cool.
I was in the midst of telling my housemates what a lefty-masher and speed demon Eric Byrnes is when he got his double off Jake Woods, and I was pointing out that Conor Jackson and I share a birthday as he walked. And as Putz came in to face Gonzalez, they asked why we were bringing in a righty to face a lefty, and I said, "Because Putz is awesome. He's going to get this guy out," and he did.
You could have played a pretty good drinking game with the postgame show on the phrases "haven't been at .500 since..." and "Kenji Johjima's consecutive 2-homerun games".
Felix is up tonight, and I've got a decent plan for ignoring all but one inning of the game tonight too, so they should win this one as well.
(In other random things, I realized I never linked to Miguel Cabrera refusing to be intentionally walked, which is one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life. I always wondered if someone could pull that off.)
(Also, if you have good karma to dish out, send some to Peter Gammons, who is recovering from surgery for an aneurysm. Get well, PG!)
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Baseball is hard
"Baseball's a game. Games are supposed to be fun."
-- Tom Selleck, in Mr. Baseball
I went to the batting cages again last night to work on my swing for softball. Between playing softball out in the WHOPPING 85 DEGREE WEATHER on Sunday for an hour and a half, and working on my swing last night until my arms were ready to fall off, I really get a better appreciation for what ballplayers go through.
It's really easy to criticize them, to say they suck when they don't make a play, or if they strike out, or whatever. And quite frankly, some of them are getting paid more money per plate appearance than I'll make in a year. But still. Sometimes it's really hard to keep it in perspective that even if someone like Mark Teahen, All-Star sucks compared to many other major leaguers, he's still in the top .000001% of the baseball players in the world, just by way of being in the Major Leagues.
I had a really lousy day playing the field on Sunday. It was hot, the sun was shining in our faces. The other team was much better than us; we knew we were the proverbial Royals to their Yankees. And for whatever reason, I couldn't seem to get to grounders in time. It sucked. And worse, I couldn't get my mind out of it. I didn't catch a pop fly because I misjudged it by a few feet and couldn't readjust in time, so I was still mentally kicking myself a minute later when a grounder was hit about ten feet to my left, and I didn't get a good jump on it and it went through. Eventually, I know I was thinking things like "Hey, if they only get two more runs, this inning will end," and such.
Baseball is hard.
My right wrist has a bruise on it because I'm doing something wonky with the follow-through in my swing, and after 150 swings or so, it didn't want to deal with me anymore. Being as I like having control of the fingers on my right hand, I decided to listen to my wrist.
However, I started really getting the timing down of that damn pitching machine after a while. I started pulling the ball well, hitting it far into the netting behind the machines. I'd step into my swing more, swing harder, give myself some more bat speed, stop meekly hitting grounders back to the middle. I loved hearing the thwack of metal on softball as I got some really good contact.
Baseball is fun.
The other day, I was sitting there at work refreshing box scores, waiting for certain game lineups to show up so I'd know who was playing and who wasn't, so I could throw them into the lineup that day on my fantasy team. I decided to take a risk and put in Ryan Freel as my 2B and sit out Tadahito Iguchi, despite that Iguchi was facing lefty Andy Pettitte and Freel was racing righty Jake Westbrook. Iguchi went 0-for-3 with a walk, and Freel went 5-for-5 and scored two runs. Was I brilliant? No, just lucky. A few days later Iguchi got me 2 home runs and 7 RBI in one game, which is actually the new single-game RBI record for a Japanese player in the MLB. And that was even luckier.
Figuring out how baseball players are going to perform is complex.
I realize that softball is not baseball, that I am not an athlete, that managing a fantasy baseball team is nothing like managing or general managing a real team. I know that I don't work on my programming projects at work to the cheers of 40,000 people, and if I screw something up, I only have to face my boss; I'm not going to have to deal with a full stadium shouting, "YOUR CODE SUCKS, DEANNA, GET OFF THE KEYBOARD!"
I guess my point is, despite that I know it's not going to stop me from shouting things like "YOU SUCK, EDDIE!", I've been trying to take a different tack on the game this year, both in writing and in playing, and it's been a lot of fun and really educational. There's a fine balance between how far you can submerge yourself into the game mentally before you start thinking of the players running around like little random-number-generating automata. I wanted to take a step back and put some things into perspective for myself, and I figured I'd let you all in on what I was thinking.
-- Tom Selleck, in Mr. Baseball
I went to the batting cages again last night to work on my swing for softball. Between playing softball out in the WHOPPING 85 DEGREE WEATHER on Sunday for an hour and a half, and working on my swing last night until my arms were ready to fall off, I really get a better appreciation for what ballplayers go through.
It's really easy to criticize them, to say they suck when they don't make a play, or if they strike out, or whatever. And quite frankly, some of them are getting paid more money per plate appearance than I'll make in a year. But still. Sometimes it's really hard to keep it in perspective that even if someone like Mark Teahen, All-Star sucks compared to many other major leaguers, he's still in the top .000001% of the baseball players in the world, just by way of being in the Major Leagues.
I had a really lousy day playing the field on Sunday. It was hot, the sun was shining in our faces. The other team was much better than us; we knew we were the proverbial Royals to their Yankees. And for whatever reason, I couldn't seem to get to grounders in time. It sucked. And worse, I couldn't get my mind out of it. I didn't catch a pop fly because I misjudged it by a few feet and couldn't readjust in time, so I was still mentally kicking myself a minute later when a grounder was hit about ten feet to my left, and I didn't get a good jump on it and it went through. Eventually, I know I was thinking things like "Hey, if they only get two more runs, this inning will end," and such.
Baseball is hard.
My right wrist has a bruise on it because I'm doing something wonky with the follow-through in my swing, and after 150 swings or so, it didn't want to deal with me anymore. Being as I like having control of the fingers on my right hand, I decided to listen to my wrist.
However, I started really getting the timing down of that damn pitching machine after a while. I started pulling the ball well, hitting it far into the netting behind the machines. I'd step into my swing more, swing harder, give myself some more bat speed, stop meekly hitting grounders back to the middle. I loved hearing the thwack of metal on softball as I got some really good contact.
Baseball is fun.
The other day, I was sitting there at work refreshing box scores, waiting for certain game lineups to show up so I'd know who was playing and who wasn't, so I could throw them into the lineup that day on my fantasy team. I decided to take a risk and put in Ryan Freel as my 2B and sit out Tadahito Iguchi, despite that Iguchi was facing lefty Andy Pettitte and Freel was racing righty Jake Westbrook. Iguchi went 0-for-3 with a walk, and Freel went 5-for-5 and scored two runs. Was I brilliant? No, just lucky. A few days later Iguchi got me 2 home runs and 7 RBI in one game, which is actually the new single-game RBI record for a Japanese player in the MLB. And that was even luckier.
Figuring out how baseball players are going to perform is complex.
I realize that softball is not baseball, that I am not an athlete, that managing a fantasy baseball team is nothing like managing or general managing a real team. I know that I don't work on my programming projects at work to the cheers of 40,000 people, and if I screw something up, I only have to face my boss; I'm not going to have to deal with a full stadium shouting, "YOUR CODE SUCKS, DEANNA, GET OFF THE KEYBOARD!"
I guess my point is, despite that I know it's not going to stop me from shouting things like "YOU SUCK, EDDIE!", I've been trying to take a different tack on the game this year, both in writing and in playing, and it's been a lot of fun and really educational. There's a fine balance between how far you can submerge yourself into the game mentally before you start thinking of the players running around like little random-number-generating automata. I wanted to take a step back and put some things into perspective for myself, and I figured I'd let you all in on what I was thinking.
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