Baseball-Related Program Activities

Longtime fans of Baseball-Related Program Activities may remember that, on August 30, 2004, Levi and I went to two baseball games in two cities in one day: White Sox vs. Phillies in Chicago, and then Brewers vs. Pirates in Milwaukee.

We finally had a chance to recreate that experience. Levi came to Los Angeles for business, and both the Dodgers and Angels were at home, and on May 9, the Dodgers were scheduled for an afternoon game, with the Angels playing at night.

The only thing that put a damper on the experience was Manny Ramirez being suspended for 50 games just three days before we were going to see him.

What Levi, I, and hanger-on Jason did end up seeing was the Dodgers defeating the Giants 8-0, followed by the Angels over the Royals, 1-0. Yes, we saw no visiting team runs. We also saw complete games by three pitchers -- Eric Stults of the Dodgers, Joe Saunders of the Angels, and Zack Greinke of the Royals. Greinke entered the game with a 0.40 ERA, which meant that his ERA went up after pitching a 1-run complete game, which is almost as rare of an event as the Dodgers and Angels both playing at home the same weekend. The Angels game finished in 2:07 -- not quite as short as the 1:56 Indians-White Sox game on our road trip, but impressive nonetheless.

(Special shout-outs to Maggie, Kimiko, and Kate for being hangers-on for the first game.)

There have already been plenty of Dodger Stadium and Angel Stadium pictures on this blog over the years, so all you get here is a picture of Greinke looking intense during his warmup:

Labels: angel stadium, angels, dodger stadium, dodgers, eric stults, game report, giants, joe saunders, Manny Ramirez, royals, zack greinke

Those of you who know me know why I think this poster, now appearing on my living room wall, is totally awesome -- it combines two of my interests.



It's also a bit of a lie. There's no regular "historic streetcar" service to AT&T Park right now; it's only in the planning and occasional demonstration stages. The folks at Market Street Railway are a little anticipatory (and, actually, selling the poster to promote and raise funds to help the service along).

Labels: at+t park, giants, san francisco, streetcar, trains

It's competing against actual postseason baseball in most of the country, but tonight's episode of "Journeyman" on NBC is titled "Game Three"; the plot is that Our Hero ends up back in time in October 1989 and has to either warn people about the forthcoming earthquake or warn people not to bet on the Giants. Since the show takes place in San Francisco, I guess it was inevitable (although this is only the third episode).

Labels: giants, journeyman

What would be a very bad time for your microphone to go out? If Barry Bonds makes it to 755, I bet KNBR will be putting a few extra microphones in the booth for every game.

Labels: barry bonds, giants, radio

Matt Morris has reportedly signed a 3-year, $27-million deal with the Giants, reuniting him with his favorite backstop, Mike Matheny, and ending a nine-year career as a Cardinal.

Matt's been one of my favorite baseball players since his rookie season in 1997, when he went 12-9 with an ERA of 3.19. I learned that season that Matt sometimes rode his bicycle to the park on days he wasn't pitching, and that was all I needed. He was always fun to watch pitch. He comes across as one of those guys who manages to be ultra-competetive without being a prick. His Cardinal career also coincides exactly with the period of my most intense baseball fandom: post-college, with more time on my hands and the Internet to keep me close to my team. He'll always be one of the faces of that era of baseball to me.

His best moments in a Cardinals uniform, though, came in one week in October of 2001. Twice in six days, he dueled Curt Schilling and the Diamondbacks in the Division Series. The Cards came out on the wrong side both times, as Morris lost the first game 1-0 and took a no-decision after 8 1-run innings in a 2-1 loss in the deciding game five. It was tough, stressful baseball, the kind that makes us ordinary people wonder how anyone can block out the drama long enough to actually participate in it. Up against Schilling at his world-beating best, Matt Morris threw a couple of the best games of his life.

He ends his Cardinal career having started the tenth-most games in team history, 209. with a 101-62 record, a 3.61 ERA, and an ERA+ of 119*. He's fourth in team history in strikeouts, with 1337, and sixth in winning percentage at .620. Oh, and he's sixth in hit batsmen with 49.

Thanks, Matt. Good luck in San Francisco. I think you'll like the city and that big ballpark.

*ERA+ is a complex stat designed to show how a pitcher performed relative to other pitchers in the league that year. 100 is average, anything over that is good. Matt's best was a 166 in his injury-shortened 1998. Last year, an off year for him, he still managed a 104.

Labels: Cardinals, curt schilling, giants, matt morris

Here is Oakland Tribune Giants beat reporter Andrew Baggarly appearing on Young People's Week on the syndicated version of "Card Sharks" (with host Bill Rafferty) in 1987.



Unfortunately, it's the last game of the week, so it's a rushed, sudden-death kind of thing, and we don't get to hear much from li'l Andy -- especially since he doesn't get to play the bonus round for the trip to Hawaii. (Oh, sorry, should I not have spoiled an 18-year-old game show?)

Thanks to TiVo for religiously recording the Rafferty "Card Sharks" once GSN started rerunning it earlier this year, and thanks to Jason for pointing out that this does have a connection to baseball and was therefore eligible for posting here.

Labels: giants, tv

I know it's hard to believe, but even the monthly customer newsletter of the service that hosts baseballrelated.com wants in on the baseball commentary action...

Baseball is a weird sport because it's quite often the cheapest sport to attend, yet the players are paid the most of any pro sport. For example, I believe they were paying people $12 to attend the Giants games this weekend, but at the same time Alex Rodriguez earned $20,000,000 per attempt to swat away the ball while being tagged on his way to first like a little girl!

The way baseball can afford to pay its athletes so much while at the same time keeping ticket prices and stadium refreshments so reasonable is actually through a number of quite-unrelated side businesses. The most lucrative of which is the bulk purchasing and re-selling of highly desirable domain names! I KID YOU NOT.

It USED to be that only the richest sports franchise-owning billionaires and the president of the United States could get into this literal GOLD MINE of easy profits. But now, thanks to DreamHost lowering the price of .com, .net, .org, and .info domain registrations to just $9.95/year even YOU can now get in on this GUARANTEED PAYDAY! (You still get one free domain registration with every shared hosting plan too of course.)

Just remember, you are required by law to send all profits made through the resale of domain names to the New York Yankees. With the playoffs beginning tomorrow, they need this money more than ever to offer complimentary tickets to the starving children of the rest of the league's players.

Yes, the newsletter is always written in this style, although it's usually not about baseball.

Labels: alex rodriguez, Baseball writing, giants, yankees

The only real comment I have about watching the Devil Rays-Blue Jays game on TV tonight is that when Levi and I saw the Jays at SkyDome last year, the artificial turf was a brilliant shade of bright green; now that the building is known as Rogers Centre, they've switched to the modern-day artificial turf that more closely matches the color of real grass, yet somehow manages to look much worse on TV than real grass does.

Since that wasn't quite substantial enough for a post, I'll also provide a baseball-related excerpt from Bennett Cerf's 1956 collection of jokes and anecdotes "The Life of the Party"...

Two rooters at a ball game were so engrossed in the contest that neither wanted to take time out to march back to the refreshment bar for hot dogs -- and there wasn't a vendor in sight. They finally bribed a kid nearby to go for them, giving him forty-five cents and saying, "Buy a dog for yourself at the same time."

The kid came back with thirty cents change for them, explaining, "They only had my hot dog left."

Actually, this one is slightly more typical of a Bennett Cerf collection of jokes and anecdotes...

Milton Berle discovered Tallulah Bankhead rooted to a radio in her dressing room one day, screaming her head off for the New York Giants. "Gosh," exclaimed Miltie, "I didn't realize you were so interested in the national pastime." "Darling," snapped Tallulah, "I am the national pastime."

Incidentally, Tallulah wanted some new recipes for her chef to try. She called her favorite bookseller and ordered two copies of Fanny Farmer's Boston Red Sox Cookbook!

Labels: bennett cerf, blue jays, devil rays, fanny farmer, giants, milton berle, red sox, rogers centre, tallulah bankhead

In last night's Cards/Giants game, the last game before the dreaded All-Star Break, the 2nd-base mike caught a great bit of conversation among Lance (Son of Joe) Niekro, umpire Tom Hallion, and Mark Grudzielanek.

Niekro attempted a steal of second, and as Grudzielanek applied the tag, the pair got all tangled up, with legs and arms jumbled everywhere and Niekro's head getting intimately acquainted with Grudzie's crotch. They took several seconds to unravel (It reminded me of the way NFL refs pull guys one by one off a pile.), then Niekro said to the ump, "Was I out?"

"Yeah," Hallion replied.

"Shit," said Niekro.

"After all that," said Grudzielanek.

Labels: Cardinals, giants, lance niekro, mark grudzielanek, tv

I seem to remember Baggarly writing a story or two about recently departed Giants catcher A. J. Pierzynski being a clubhouse cancer. Well, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, one of the many elements in A. J.'s clubhouse-cancerness was this:

One of those now-it-can-be-told stories the White Sox, A.J. Pierzynski's new employer, surely haven't heard: During a Giants exhibition game last spring, Pierzynski took a shot to his, shall we say, private parts. Trainer Stan Conte rushed to the scene, placed his hands on Pierzynski's shoulders in a reassuring way, and asked how it felt. "Like this," said Pierzynski, viciously delivering a knee to Conte's groin. It was a real test of professionalism for the enraged Conte, who vowed to ignore Pierzynski for the rest of the season until Conte realized how that would look. The incident went unreported because all of the beat writers happened to be doing in-game interviews in the clubhouse, but it was corroborated by a half-dozen eyewitnesses who could hardly believe their eyes. Said one source, as reliable as they come: "There is absolutely no doubt that it happened."

Can you get prickier?

That kind of behavior would go a long way towards explaining why a catcher with a career line of .294/.336/.438 isn't valued more highly. He should fit right in on the White Sox, a team Batgirl described once as being so unpleasant that, if you traded every player, they'd still have a character problem.

Original comments...

Steve: What a payoff for checking in. You think a catcher wouldn't be such a pussy in the first place.

Levi: You know, now I can picture what Mike Matheny's agent told Brian Sabean: "Sure, Mike won't hit for shit. But I guarantee you he won't knee the trainer in the balls, either."

That's how you get 3 years/$12 million.

Labels: a.j. pierzynski, giants, san francisco chronicle

Back in March, a man named Michael Mahan, who has more money than me, bought the entire right-field pavilion (bleachers) at Dodger Stadium for two of the three games against the Giants the last weekend of the season. With that big a group buy, the tickets cost only $3.50 each (face value $6.00). He sold some to a broker, donated some to Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and has been selling the rest through his web site for $15.00 each.

Everyone who buys a ticket, though -- and the big brothers and big sisters themselves -- has to sign an 8-page contract that if they catch a Barry Bonds home run ball, they have to give it to him, and then he'll sell the ball and later split the money with him.

The Dodgers found out about all this, and they're a little annoyed, but there's not much they can do; in California, selling tickets above face value is only illegal on stadium property. They also threatened to let people into the pavilion for free during the games if there is a significant number of empty seats, but Mahan says he's distributed almost all of the tickets, so that shouldn't be an issue.

This was all on the front page of today's L.A. Times, but reading that article requires registration, whereas baseballrelated.com doesn't. I think the reason this made the front page today is because Bonds has gotten near 700 home runs a little faster than Mahan predicted back in March.

I'm going to the Dodgers game tonight, but sitting in the "reserved" (third) level, behind home plate, so no Barry Bonds home run balls for me. Well, since they're playing the Padres, a Bonds home run ball would be highly unlikely no matter where I'm sitting.

Original comments...

Jim: It wasn't in the L.A. Times article, so I forgot to bring up Charlie Sheen buying the entire left-field bleachers for a game at Anaheim in 1996. ("Anybody can catch a foul ball," he supposedly said. "I want to catch a fair ball.") The Angels apparently didn't even make him fill up the section, because by all accounts, it was just Sheen and a couple of friends sitting out there. No one was in danger of hitting any milestone home runs in that game, though, and Sheen went home empty-handed.

Levi: You know, I was just retelling that story to Luke on Monday, but I had Sheen at Comiskey Park. My mistake, I assume, since Jim is known to be mistake-free.

Dan: Jim knows(tm).

Labels: barry bonds, dodger stadium, dodgers, giants, los angeles times

My brother got married last weekend in Indianapolis. Stacey and I and all the family had a great time dancing and making fun of Matt and generally enjoying welcoming a great new sister-in-law.

I had the honor of being the best man. While the groomsmen were locked away in a room in the bowels of the church away from the ladies, we got to watch the Cubs/Giants game. Despite the interest in the game displayed by most of the groomsmen, the wedding was not delayed, and I had to sneak back during picture-taking afterwards to see whether Greg Maddux had moved up a notch on this list.

The weekend was a good reminder of how useful a knowledge of sports can be in social situations. Say what you will about alcohol as a social lubricant; give me a little bit of knowledge of recent developments in sports over an Old Fashioned any day when I'm going to be hanging around a group of people I don't know very well.

P.S. Derek Zumsteg at USS Mariner has a good post about the bizarre obstruction call on Jose Lopez that handed the Devil Rays the game. (The archive link doesn't work, so scroll down to Saturday's posts.) There's also a good, if lengthy and inconclusive, discussion at Baseball Primer. My understanding of the rules on obstruction is that obstruction of a baserunner is necessarily a physical act, and that, as no one (Including the umpires!) has a right to a clear view of the field, obstructing a base runner's view can't be obstruction. Maura, is there an official D-Rays company position you'd like to share?

Original comments...

Jim: Thanks for the link to the Baseball Think Factory comments. Seems like a fun group there, if they can come up with both a reference to the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players and the phrase "Vince Naimoli's daughter is crying like a baby."

Levi: Do you agree with me that, though some evidence is introduced to bolster both sides of the argument, the "That call [stunk]!" side is stronger?

Levi: Oh, and Toby, something you'll appreciate: Sunday morning I went for a run with Thys Bax. Thys humored me by allowing me to set the pace for our 12-mile run, but I still ended up really pushing myself because, well, I didn't want Thys to get completely bored. Then when we were mostly done, Brandon showed up on the trail and ran part of the way with us. I was, of course, way outclassed.

Toby: Thys, by the way, folks, is 59 years old. Brandon is his son (graduated a year after Matt if memory serves me correct).

thatbob: A little bit of knowledge of recent developments in sports in unfamiliar social situations is just not as likely to lead to spontaneous making out with cute girls as a few Old Fashioneds are. But I guess if it's also less likely to lead to throwing up all over everyone, then it has its place.

Labels: cubs, devil rays, giants, jose lopez, stacey shintani, stahls

I TiVoed the Cubs-Giants game today, because they're still inconveniently scheduling baseball games for hours while I'm working. This would not have been a bad choice for a national Game of the Week, but I guess Fox and MLB are still firmly committed to the "regional" concept for the Saturday afternoon Fox coverage. Too bad it's nearly impossible to see any Saturday afternoon game other than the one being shown in your local area (they're not carried on the MLB Extra Innings pay-per-view package).

I am really, really tired of people in the front row leaning way over to try to get foul balls, or worse, fair balls that have rolled foul and are still in play. During this game, someone went all the way over the rail to try to get a foul ball, but jumped right back over. Fox practically made him into a folk hero, to the point of including him in the "play of the game" poll...and his play was, of course, the choice of a majority of the cell-phone-using people who bothered to vote. I contend he should have been thrown out of the stadium.

Maybe I'm slightly jealous of people who get to sit that close, but I'd still like to see the year-by-year numbers of fan interference calls...although I guess they'd have to be adjusted for the fact that most of these new stadiums have more seats closer to the action than the stadiums they replaced.

Anyway, speaking of people who get to sit close, the one celebrity Fox could find in the stands was Jim Belushi (and he was sitting in an upper deck anyway). Didn't any Fox stars want to go to this game? If I were a cast member on a Fox show, I would have demanded tickets for me and Caroline Dhavernas, late of "Wonderfalls," who I believe still technically counts as a Fox star. (Wait a minute, by that same logic, I could also go to the game with Paget Brewster of "Andy Richter Controls the Universe" and Sarah Silverman of "Greg the Bunny"! All right, enough of my rich fantasy life.)

In conclusion, if Levi were near a computer this weekend, he'd probably be saying something about Larry Walker.

Original comments...

Levi: Does Jim Belushi even count as a celebrity? Even for Fox?

Jim: Jim Belushi is the star of a surprisingly popular sitcom on ABC. He's got his name in the title of the show and everything! A lot more people have heard of him than have heard of Caroline Dhavernas, that's for sure.

Toby: Is Paget Brewster related to Punky Brewster? Or is that a whole separate family of Brewsters?

Levi: When I returned from the rehearsal dinner at midnight (Stacey had fled earlier with the niece and nephew, because she was worn out from, well, being around the niece and nephew.), I turned on the highlights and almost passed out. Larry Walker? I wanted to call my brother or bang on his hotel room door or something. But then I thought more sensibly, decided he needed a good night's sleep on his wedding weekend, and went to bed instead.

But I did wake Stacey to tell her.

Jason: Why would Fox be pointing out an ABC 'star'? Couldn't they find a shot of Calista Flockhart eating a hot dog?

Labels: caroline dhavernas, cubs, foul balls, giants, jim belushi, larry walker, paget brewster, sarah silverman

Warning: Those of you tired of reading about the Cardinals might want to skip this post. It's long. I can't imagine anyone could be tired of reading about the team with baseball's best record, but then again, I can't imagine anyone not finding Dick Cheney repulsive, and he's married. And Vice President.

Last night's Cards-Giants game was everything a nationally televised game should be: Two good pitchers with differing styles (Jason Schmidt and Woody Williams), two of the game's best sluggers (Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols), and two of the game's best teams in one of baseball's prettiest ballparks. And it lived up to it, with the Cardinals winning 6-1, their margin of victory fattened in the late innings on a Giants bullpen that's been as reliable lately as the Bridge of San Luis Rey. Most of the game was spent with the score 2-1 Cardinals, making every pitch--especially those to a certain lefty--fraught with peril.

The great moments in the game were primarily one-on-one moments, batter versus pitcher. There were no particularly great defensive plays or baserunning heroics; the fun was in watching the power of Jason Schmidt and the guile of Woody Williams matched up against the batting eyes and hitting smarts of the likes of Bonds and Pujols.

Some highlights from that:

1) In the first inning, with Edgar Renteria on base, Pujols faced Schmidt. What followed was as pure a power vs. power battle as you'll ever see. Schmidt brought the 95-mph heat just above the belt, Pujols swung as hard as humanly possible, and he swung right through it. Stacey and I actually gasped. The next pitch was a little higher, around the shoulders, and Pujols couldn't lay off. But you can't hit that pitch, even if you're Albert Pujols*. Then, in a textbook demonstration of how to pitch, Schmidt struck Pujols out on an off-speed pitch that started thigh-high, then dropped to the dirt. It was Pujols's 29th strikeout of the year, to keep pace with his 29 home runs.
The next pitch Schmidt threw, to Rolen, was deposited far beyond the wall in dead center. That's the second time in a couple of weeks that Rolen has followed a Pujols strikeout with a long first-pitch homer. Maybe catchers need to make going to the mound a regular step following a Pujols strikeout., if only to remind the pitcher not to throw a first-pitch fastball.

2) For a couple of years, statheads online have been arguing whether teams might be walking Barry Bonds too often, in a way that's counterproductive. After all, the argument goes, if you walk him every time, he makes no outs. If you pitch to him, he makes four or five outs out of ten atbats. Maybe it's worth the home runs that he hits to get those outs. The Cardinals seem to be the only people testing this theory. This post at Redbird Nation covers the last two years of the strategy. His take: Cards come out ahead, but just barely.
I don't mind the intentional walk, but last night's four Bonds at-bats did remind me of what automatically walking Barry takes away from the game. Four times Bonds batted, and four times, the Cardinals came right at him:
a) In the first, Bonds--knowing the Cardinals were going to challenge him, just barely got under the first pitch, an outside fastball, and drove it to the warning track, and John Mabry's glove.
b) In his second at-bat, Bonds swung at the first pitch again, a fastball that made his eyes light up--then cut in a bit at the last second to jam him, a beatiful pitch that became an infield popup.
c) In his third trip, Bonds fouled off two, took two, then fouled off four straight, a variety of pitches, from a couple of inside fastballs to an outside slider to a hanging curveball that he just missed crushing. Finally, on the eleventh pitch of the at-bat, he flied out to the weird angle 420 feet away in right where home runs go to die.
d) In his last at-bat, the only time in the night when Bonds didn't represent the tying or go-ahead run, round, effective lefty (and Chicago native) Ray King faced him. Bonds took a strike on a tough slider, fouled one off, took a ball low, then drove a pitch into McCovey Cove that, like a slalom skier missing a gate, went for naught because it was on the wrong side of the foul pole. Then King jammed him inside and got a grounder to Pujols.
They were four of the most fun at-bats I've seen all year. Bonds didn't swing and miss even once, and he took very few pitches, for him. It really was baseball at its best, and the Cardinals came out on top--this time.

3) And speaking of good at-bats: I love good-hitting pitchers. Woody Williams, hitting better than .260 on the year, last night had a single in the second inning, but that wasn't his best at-bat of the night. In the 7th, he worked Schmidt for ten pitches, including four fouls with two strikes, before finally being blown away by a fastball. Those ten pitches, pushing Schmidt to 118 for the night, were instrumental in getting Schmidt out of the game before the 8th inning and bringing on the Giants bullpen.

All in all, a great game. And we're less than three weeks away from our trip now!

*I'm often surprised that hitters swing at the high fastball. It must just look too good to resist, even though you know it's not good for you, like a deep-fried Twinkie. In little league, I was so short that my coach, Eugene Lindsey, instructed me to take pitches until I got a strike. I dutifully did so, and occasionally I would draw a walk. Most of the time, though, the first strike would be called and I, freed from all shackles, would blindly hack at whatever came my way. So I don't have a lot of experience trying to lay off shoulder-high fastballs. Maybe some of the more accomplished ballplayers in the audience can weigh in on the seductiveness of the high heat.

Original comments...

Timmy: You're blog is great...it's good to see dedicated baseball fans, willing to travel the country...I recently flew out to Chicago to visit Wrigley (Pujols had 3 HRs) and Boston to visit Fenway (3rd visit to Wrigley, 1st to Fenway), and it's an experience I'll never forget...good luck on your trip (too bad you can't see a Ranger's game...the Ballpark is one of the nicer ones) http://getslaughtered.blogspot.com

Jim: Thanks, Timmy! If we do another trip in 2005 (or beyond), I definitely want to try to get to the parks in Texas. The Ballpark does look nice in the pictures I've seen of it, and since I'm a railfan, I know I'll enjoy the orange-powered steam locomotive in Houston.

Jason: I've learned you can deep-fry a Twinkie, but you can't deep-fry a Hostess cupcake.

Levi: Thanks for the kind words, Timmy.

One thing I forgot to mention: last night was only the fourth time this season that Bonds hasn't reached base in a game he played.

stacey: levi pointed out the row of rubber chickens that fans have strung up at the giants' ballpark to represent the number of times barry has been walked (intentionally, i think) this season. wow, that is a lot of chickens.

stacey: here we go: http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/sf/news/sf_news.jsp?ymd=20040620&content_id=776287&vkey=news_sf&fext=.jsp

Jason: You can deep-fry a chicken. But I dunno about deep-frying a rubber chicken.

Labels: Albert Pujols, barry bonds, Cardinals, edgar renteria, giants, jason schmidt, john mabry, ray king, scott rolen, woody williams

Despite my crankiness in the comments to Jim's post about the Sports Illustrated piece about baseball being in good shape right now, I do agree with the general premise. We're in a great era for baseball.

Over the weekend, which we spent being rained and eaten by John Kruk-sized mosquitoes in Door County, Wisconsin, I was reminded of one example of why it's a good time to be a baseball fan. I thought of this recently when we were in Lake Tahoe and I was reading the Sacramento Bee, and it came to mind again while I was reading the Green Bay Press-Gazette last weekend.

Both cities, lacking major league baseball teams, cover teams from nearby cities, with the Bee leaning towards Oakland but covering the Giants as well, and the Press-Gazette covering the Brewers. But, their home cities being medium-sized, the papers don't have extensive sports sections. They run bare-bones box scores. You get the at-bats, runs, hits, RBI. You get basic pitcher stats. You get the time of game and the umpires. And at best, you get a capsule summary of a paragraph or so to go with the box score.

Which brings me to my point. I'm spoiled. Reading a big-city paper or two or three every day, I'm used to getting the bells and whistles on my box scores. I want the pitch count, batters' walks, batting average, details of the types of errors made.

And that's just the beginning. When I moved up here in 1992, the expanded box score and the capsule summaries were my only way to follow Cardinals games that I couldn't pick up on KMOX. Once in a while, I got to see a Post-Dispatch at a newsstand. But most days, I was deprived of a lot of
the fun of following a major league team: I got no rumors, no human-interest stories, no detailed stories of exciting wins. And, lacking cable, I got no replays.

Twelve years later, being away from the Internet and a big-city paper for a few days reminds me of just how much things have changed. I now have more baseball information than I could ever use, from all the stats in baseball history to great Cardinals commentary to the Post-Dispatch. And, though the design sucks (I keep hoping a certain Major League Baseball employee will get it fixed.), mlb.com is fantastic. The audio portion alone makes it a godsend to people like me rooting for out of town teams. Add in the video highlights (like a bit of thievery by Jim Edmonds that's currently available on the Cardinals site), and you've got the best thing Major League Baseball has done since barring Pete Rose.

Add in all the other reasons already discussed in the earlier post, and it's sure a good time to be a baseball fan.

Original comments...

maura: oh, starla.com, how i coveted you back in the day...

Levi: Yeah, I should probably fix that so it links to, say, your page instead of Hasbro's.

Ok. Now it does.

Jason: What were you doing in Door County?

Levi: Not making a documentary about Wisconsin. Instead, we were camping. In the rain and a mosquito convention.

Labels: athletics, brewers, giants, green bay press-gazette, rain, sacramento bee

The Washington Post just wrapped up a series on how DC or Northern Virginia is about to be the newest area to be screwed over by Major League Baseball. After the All-Star Game, Bud Selig is going to announce where he's going to plunk down the team he stole from Montreal.

The series is in three parts. The first looks at the remarkably shady dealings that brought us Miller Park. I knew the dealings for that stadium reeked of corruption, but the Post's writers get all the details in order, and it's even worse than I thought.

The second looks at the remarkably shady dealings that brought MLB ownership of the Expos.

And the third looks at the shady dealings still to come, as Selig and his cronies arrive to loot the local treasuries of the DC area to the tune of around $350-400 million.

These articles are some of the first mainstream articles I've seen to argue strenously against Selig and his stadium-building boom. They're well-researched and well-written, and if they don't make you mad about the tax money being funneled into the pockets of billionaires, then maybe you should go here. The other thing this article does is make me more impressed with Peter Magowan of the Giants and the Cardinals ownership group. Magowan built the first privately funded stadium since Dodger Stadium (Which, it's important to remember, was built on land that was basically given to the O'Malleys after the low-income people living there were booted.); the Cardinals ownership is trying to do the same, getting some assistance, but not much.

The Post requires you to register, but I bet you all can figure out what to do.

Original comments...

Levi: This doesn't belong here, but I liked it so much that I had to put it somewhere. From E.J. Dionne, "The plural of anecdote is not data."

He's using the statement as a clause to introduce a bunch of anecdotes that he's using kind of like data, but it's still a succinct, sharp way to pinpoint what's wrong with reasoning from anecdotes.

Steve: Thanks alot, Levi. Just when I've really been enjoying this baseball season and the tight divisional races you go and dig this up. Grrrrr.

Well back at ya! How about that little league blooper that lost the game for the Cardinals last night? And my grandma can throw harder than Matt Morris.

Levi: Fortunately for my soul, I wasn't able to see the game last night, and by the time the radio broadcast came in, all I heard was Mike Shannon saying, "Totals and highlights in a moment."

I think that probably should have been "highlight," since Suppan's pitching seems to have been the only one.

But we're back at 'em tonight. And how many times--apologies to Toby--can the Pirates beat you, really?

Jason: If any other business were run like Major League Baseball, it would be bankrupt and OUT of business.

Levi: Like will soon be the case with the NHL, which seems to be run kind of like MLB, but with worse hair.

Steve: "And how many times--apologies to Toby--can the Pirates beat you, really?"

Apparently at least three times.....

Levi: Thank god tomorrow's an off day. This team sounds like it badly needs a day off.

And John Mabry might have had the worst day ever. He hit into two double plays, left ten men on, and managed to make six outs if you include the DP outs. Poor guy.

Labels: bud selig, Cardinals, giants, miller park, nationals

While you slept, Levi, you missed the game I watched on TV tonight, in which David Wells had to run from first to third (but, alas, didn't end up making it to home).

Oh, yeah, Jay Payton climbed the wall in the 5th to prevent Barry Bonds from going down in history as the first person to hit a home run in Petco Park, and the Padres came back to tie in the 9th and then came back to win in the 10th, both times on Sean Burroughs singles.

Also, in the top of the 1st, the Giants announcers were making fun of the scoreboard that was listing the count as 5 strikes and 3 balls. Then they realized it was the pitch count scoreboard. I would obviously have rather watched the game with the Padres announcers, and DirecTV usually goes with the home team version of the games in their Extra Innings package...but only when the home team is on a regional sports network that DirecTV carries. The Padres are on a cable-only network.

Labels: david wells, directv, giants, padres