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We'll continue the season with our blog-type columns. Whenever the mood strikes, be it stats night on Monday, the middle of a West Coast game on Wednesday night, or maybe even a Friday morning before I leave for work, I'll come here and post entries. Sometimes it will be a paragraph or two, sometimes longer. I'll make sure I put a date on everything so you can easily tell what's new from what you may have already read. So feel free to come to this page often, or continue checking in once a week as the stats update, to check out and catch up on the latest entries in what I hope to be a season long blog. If anyone else has anything to contribute, I'll be more than happy to post it here, with all credit given to the author of course. And if we get one of our infamous 20+ reply e-mail threads going, I may also opt to copy that into this space as well so it's saved for all posterity. May 25th, 2010 As a homage to the great TV series "Lost", which aired its season finale this past Sunday, I give you a Top 10 List. Great show but the finale wasn't my favorite episode. In my opinion "M*A*S*H", "Cheers" and even "Newhart" all bowed out better, but it certainly beat "Seinfeld"'s finale and overall I was satisfied with the story's closure. Hopefully some of you also watched and are able to get this pop culture tribute. From the home office somewhere off the coast of Fiji in the South Pacific... Top 10 potential "Lost" baseball Bermanisms It's worth noting the the man pegged as Hurley, Jose "Hugo" Reyes, wears uniform #7, which unfortunately is not one of the famous "numbers" from the show. Neither did reliever Eric Hurley who pitched for Texas in 2008, he wore #37. As a matter of fact, only two guys in the above list, Guzman and Sheets, wear the infamous digits, as they both sport #15 on their unis. For those of you looking for some good Lotto karma this week the numbers of which we speak, that figured so prominently in the early seasons of the show, were: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42. Good luck splitting that multi million dollar jackpot with all the other thirteen and a half million folks who watched the finale and had the very same idea. Also feel free to substitute "Rosseau" in there for Daniel Murphy if you preferred the crazy french scientist castaway Danielle Rosseau over the piano playing physics master that was Daniel Faraday. Others (no pun intended) not making the cut to the Top 10 include: Richard Alpert Pujols, Brad Penny, Hank Aaron, Andre "Other" Ethier, The Tony Armas Initiative and of course everyone's favorite couple Pete Rose and Bernard Gilkey. May 21st, 2010 The latest Ed-dendum from the bankrupt birthday guy gives us three more cinematic options for those of you planning on going to the movies this weekend. Two thumbs up Ed! MacGruber - Former Toronto Blue Jays Dave Mckay and Kelly Gruber fight crime in the French Canadian Peninsula. Features a special guest appearance by Danny Ainge as the notorious "Northern GM". Date Night - This heart-warming story follows the daily life of Kris and Anna Benson as they pass the time together during many of Kris's stints on the DL. Up in the Air - Milwaukee Brewers closer Trevor Hoffman embarks on a memorable adventure in which he attempts to ensure that the baseballs he throws travel 10 million miles by year end. May 19th, 2010 Back in the day of the two thousand word column one of my favorite fillers was to take a look at the popular movies of the time and spin the plots to come up with baseball related themes. Grab your popcorn, Goobers and that 78 ounce soda and follow me as we take a look at what's playing at the box office these days... Iron Man 2 - Cal Ripken makes a comeback! How To Train Your Dragon - The Mets, desperate for pitching help, dip into the Japanese leagues once again and grab a young hotshot from the Chunichi Dragons franchise of the Central League. By the way, the Dragons were the team featured in that 1992 Tom Selleck classic, "Mr. Baseball". The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Either the young female Mets fans are falling for this new guy from Chunici or we've got a cross gender copy cat on our hands who has admired Neil's latest body artwork. A Nightmare On Elm Street - Kelly Leak returns! After dying from early onset lung cancer, the ghost of Kelly (played by the immortal Jackie Earle Haley) returns to harass poor Phoenix area Little Leaguers who don't have their immigration papers in good order. Don't fall asleep or daydream in the outfield! Hot Tub Time Machine - Derek Jeter slips in the new Yankee clubhouse hot tub and is transported back to the early 1990s where as a 16 year old he must battle Alvaro Espinoza for playing time and a chance to get Don Mattingly a World Series ring. All this while working behind the scenes with Jesse Barfield, who's trying to find a way to send him back to the present day. Robin Hood - A new twist on a common reality show theme. Current and former big league players Robinson Cano, Robinson Tejeda, Robin Yount and Robin Ventura share an inner city apartment while hearing stories about Hall of Famers Frank Robinson, Brooks Robinson and the recently deceased Robin Roberts. Just Wright - A retelling of the tale of the 2009 Mets after all their stars went down with injuries. Avatar - Corruption of an innocent ecosystem is the theme here as blue-colored alien beings have their lifestyle threatened when the Kansas City Royals, in an effort to cash in on the whole blue motif, try to build a new stadium on the planet Pandora and expect native taxpayer assistance as well. William Ligue Jr stars as the evil Colonel Quaritch. Clash Of The Titans - Set in an age where immortals are no longer worshipped as they once were. Trevor Hoffman! Jonathan Papelbon! Mariano Rivera! Walk off homers abound! Release the Kraken! Or at least release Trevor Hoffman already. Babies - Hanley Ramirez spends an hour and a half chasing a baseball around the park while muttering about disrepect. Great soundtrack featuring a remake of "Do The Hustle" by the band Fall Out Boy. May 18th, 2010 The farm featured in the 1989 movie "Field Of Dreams", located in Dyersville, Iowa, has recently been put up for sale. "If you build it, he will come." It's listed for the amazingly low price of $5.4 million. Hopefully it gets a few looks from folks who will keep the baseball diamond intact. More like "if you list it on realtor.com, they will come for the open house" "Go the distance", with a 30 year fixed rate mortgage. At today's prevailing rates, a jumbo in Iowa lists at 5.75%, you'd be looking at a monthly bill of approximately $31,500 not including your escrow for insurance and property tax. Wow, poor Joe Jackson's already Shoeless, what else is going to need to hock to make this payment and it looks like Moonlight Graham is going to need to do a whole lot of moonlighting to afford that mortgage! To put his in more easily understandable terms you'd have to sell 42,000 ears of corn a month at the current retail price of 75 cents an ear. But don't go tearing down the outfield "fences" just yet... I think the perfect idea here is to sell this property, ballpark, cornfields and all, to someone who's willing to put a minor league team there. I guess the novelty of having the team run out of the corn during pre-game introductions would get a bit old after awhile but given all the other cornball stuff (all puns intended) that goes on in minor league parks these days in the name of keeping the fans interested surely a lower tier minor league team could sustain that level of monthly revenue, no? So who wants to own a piece of this team with me? Let's see, we've got sixteen teams in the league and at about 2K per each month we'd be able to make the mortgage. A tad bit more than renting and catering the clubhouse for the Draft but hey, we don't need to eat right? We'd be minor league baseball owners and wouldn't have time for our wives and children anyway. Maybe we could even create a slush fund from the profits to cover things like child support and alimony payments. I could forsee some internal issues having 20-plus owners agree on things so we'd of course use the league's web site poll function to vote in proxy and the previous year's champion assumes the mantle of the managing general partner. I say we put in a bid, who's with me? Yes I do believe I see Joe's hand raised there in the back... May 14th, 2010 Sorry, it's been awhile since I've written anything hasn't it? Apparently I went all "Griffey", fell asleep in the clubhouse, and missed a few opportunities... Well I'm here now and wide awake so let's see what's going on. Let me look out the window and make sure there's no one in the Phillies bullpen starting at me through a pair of binoculars. Stealing signs by using binoculars? Seriously? Welcome to the 21st century Charlie Manuel, you may want to ask a certain Mr. Belichick if you can borrow his video camera instead, but even that's a bit old-school at this point. For an amazingly low price Jim Flinn and I can build you a bleeding-edge, image capture, data analytics system complete with built-in real-time artificial intelligence that automatically sends an audio signal to the batter indicating what pitch is coming via a network feed to their batting helmet and you can fire the man with the binocs to fund the project! But I digress... Stealing signs. We've all done it. Everyone's got a college story about a sign they stole from somewhere, right? Be it a stop sign, a street sign or my favorite one from the 1980s, lifting a "Men At Work" sign from the local construction site while singing "Do you come from the land Down Under? Where beers flow and men chunder. Can you hear, can you hear the thunder? You better run you better take cover...". 1980s? College? Yes, do I have a sign stealing story for you! I'd change the names to protect the innocent but in this case the name is an integral part of the story so here we go. One of the guys I lived with, his name was Jim, was dating a girl named Beth. Jim's roommate is named Kevin and Kevin's got a friend, forget his name, who was from Long Island. Beth's middle name was Paige. With me so far? Well actually, not only is Ray Boyce with me, but as a local native Long Islander I bet he's figured it out already! But for the rest of you the story continues... So Kevin's friend comes up to visit one weekend, hangs out with everyone and has a good time, vows to return later in the semester for some more partying. Cut to his return a few months later, he enters the dorm with a nice sized green sign in tow. We immediately recognize it as one of those highway-exit type signs and he says it's a present for Jim. Still with me? Yep Ray, that's right he went there! For the rest of you, the story continues... Beth happens to be in the dorm too at the time as the friend from Long Island slowly turns the sign around and what does it say? "Now Entering Bethpage", with Bethpage being the town on Long Island that this guy was from! Needless to say the story goes a bit downhill for our heros from here as Jim decides (a) he loves the sign and (b) how cool would it look hanging over his bed! Beth proceeded to go all "Kill Bill" on everyone and now we know where Mr. Tarantino got the idea for the movie a decade and a half later. I remember reading somewhere that it was originally titled Kill Jim (and all of his f***ing friends who think this is funny). This is all true, cross my heart and swear on my Bryant College satin varsity bowling jacket! So there you go Charlie Manuel, put that in your binocular and smoke it! Now I'm just hoping that Beth doesn't find her way to this website somehow and read this after all these years. If so, there's probably an assassination somewhere in my future. Remind me not to give out this web site address at my upcoming 20 Year Reunion. Wait a minute? It's been 20 years since I graduated! Holy crop and I thought Jamie Moyer was old! I've got to check the yearbook, he probably sat next to me in Principles of Marketing 101. May 10th, 2010 Dallas Braden of the Oakland A's threw the 19th perfect game in Major League history yesterday, no runs, no hits, no walks, no errors and most importantly, no mound crossings. Sunday was Mother's Day but unfortunately Mama Braden, who died when Dallas was younger, was not around to see her son's gem. Although there's a chance she had a good view from "upstairs" in the not-so-cheap seats for this one. Instead of mom, Dallas' grandmother was in attendance and with apologies to Stacey, let's just say that Braden's grand-mom had it going on. Asked to comment about her grandson's work she had what is probably the best sound bite to come out of any of the nineteen perfect games thus far when she flat out told A-Rod, he of the recent mound crossing incident, to "Stick it!" Later on in an untaped segment of her interview, while discussing others who have also thrown perfect games, she said something derogatory about Addie Joss (she dated him in high school), screamed that Len Barker was nothing but a long haired redneck, called for the state of Arizona to check Dennis Martinez' paperwork and swears she'll never forgive Jim Bunning for vetoing that unemployment benefits extension... Only a month and a half into the season and we've already had two games of the no-hit variety, with Ubaldo Jimenez' earlier no-hitter versus the Braves being the other (and still no word from Ubaldo's grandmother, go figure?). If I'm not mistaken we've also had at least three or four other pitchers take no-hitters into the 8th inning thus far. So what's going on here? Are we seeing a resurgence of hurling domination or some kind of mound re-bound? Is this perhaps the piece de resistance of a pitching renaissance? While I'd like to think that influx of young, talented arms has a lot to do with this I do fear the answer lies elsewhere. You know how on your prescription bottles it sometimes has that note that "future refills need doctor's approval"? Well I fear all the hitters of today have already made their third trip to the local CVS and are now needing some "pharm-assistance" to fill up that orange bottle again. Whether they're looking for HGH, 'roids, greenies or Flintstones there's certainly something missing this season as the bats have gone flat in the early going. Of course, don't mention any of this to the Milwaukee Brewers who, doing their best Green Bay Packers impression, have already put up scores of 20, 17 and 17 once again in three of their games. Forget the 13 run pool, take the Brewers and give a touchdown to the spread! Apparently they've found a way to keep these prescriptions open. I hear Wisconsin pharamacists always fall for a good "cheese bribe", and that a wheel of top quality camembert is good for at least four months of refills without a co-pay. Well either it's that or Jim Edmonds is one hell of a field goal kicker! May 7th, 2010 I'm enjoying how everyone's been contributing items to the News & Notes thus far this season, keep 'em coming! Our latest guest is the "other" Les Frere, Brian Legere, who attended a recent minor league game between the Richmond Flying Squirrels (yes that's really their name) and the Altoona Curve and he reports in with the following observations: Commenting a bit on Brian's comments, these teams play in the Double-A Eastern League with the hometown (for Brian at least) Squirrels being an affiliate of the San Francisco Giants and the Curve are (is?) the AA home for the Pittsburgh Pirates. So with the San Fran Giants having minor league representation in the state of Virginia does this now help the Brothers Flinn relieve some of that "inter-coastal strain" that we spoke of a few entries back? Something Brian missed out on in this game, probably because this particular person didn't play, was that Richmond has a backup infielder on the team named Nick Noonan. Noonan delivered a game winning pinch hit later on in the series in what must've been a pressured packed moment that I'm sure any fan of the movie "Caddyshack" would certainly have enjoyed! Playing the same "name game" (sorry I can't help myself this week), when I see the name "Skyler Stromsmoe" why is it that I can't get "Stiffler's Mom" out of my head? I was interested in seeing who the mascot was for the Squirrels, hoping beyond hope that they'd resurrected Bullwinkle's sidekick Rocky The Flying Squirrel! Brian, having already anticipated this, sent me over a picture from his cell phone and alas it was not Rocky so I'm assuming they had some copyright issues there. Well the pic was a bit small and grainy (as most cell phone pics are) and the guy in the squirrel suit looked a bit, er, well, nuts! And won't you believe it, his name is Nutzy! So instead of posting that picture I'll just link you to a couple of pictures below. First, the Richmond mascot in better days and then the mascot for the Altoona Curve team... click here for Nutzy, the Richmond Flying Squirrels Mascot Now the Curve mascot is actually not a guy in a squiggly line costume as one might think, but instead as you can see in the link above, it's a green steam train! Or what a green steam train might look like if it was mated with Grimace from McDonaldland! Why a train you ask? Well a little research (thank you Walt) reveals that the team name is a reference to Horseshoe Curve, which according to Wikipedia is, and I quote, "a National Historic Landmark which boasts the best train watching in America; the name is derived from the U-turn-type curve trains make while passing through the mountainous region. The Curve name ties the team with the rich history of Altoona, PA as a railroad town." Unquote. Well there you have it. Not sure if the Grimace is a big fan of the railroad, has ever visited the region, or if there's even a McDonald's franchise in the town, but we can explore that connection at a later date... Personally I think the team should ditch the train motif and use "Curve" in the more natural sense of the word. They can certainly come up with something better right? You telling me that Jessica Rabbit merchandise wouldn't sell like hotcakes? And given the major league parent's perpetual losing history, wouldn't this quote just fit perfectly as the team motto? "They're not a bad team, they're just drawn that way"... I see my brother also had a Gorkys Hernandez sighting. I too, often wonder what happened to him (not!). Figured he might be playing overseas somewhere, and wouldn't Russia be the perfect place? He'd be such a fan favorite that, somewhat along the lines of The House That Ruth Built, they could call the place he played in Gorky Park. Where they'd of course have a Boris Badenov mascot. "Natasha, we must get moose and squirrel!" "Boris, which one? Rocky or the red guy from Richmond?" "Both! That red guy owes us royalties!" Back to Altoona one final time and we promise never to return (without an invitation from Hector Gimenez that is). One of our own, Thrusts owner Douglas of Quat, writes in to suggest that Altoona ditch the Curve name completely and call themselves the Altoona Fish! Because, as you all know, you can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish. Which you audophiles may recall was the name of the mutli-platinum album by the popular rock band REO Speedwagon back in 1978. REO Speedwagon you say? Aren't they named after a train themselves? No wait, that's a fire truck isn't it? Back to Wikipedia for me I guess... Well we're already over the fire, er word limit for today so I do believe it's believe It's time for me to fly; like in that REO song mind you not like Rocky the Trademark Challenged Flying Squirrel... May 6th, 2010 My mother always told me that it's not nice to make fun of other people's names. Sorry Mom, I realize Mother's Day is coming up this weekend and I don't want to offend so can I politely ask you to look away for awhile as I finish this entry then? Let's begin with a name that "bugs" (bunny) me a little bit. Minor league pitcher Al Alburquerque was recently cut by the Colorado Rockies after two uneventful seasons with the Double-A Tulsa Drillers in the Texas League. Having already been cut previously by the Cubs and now a minor league free agent, guess you could say that Alburquerque's career has taken a wrong turn at... Tulsa? Still in the minors, we find Royals phenom Mike Moustakas, one of the top rated prospects in the all the minor leagues according to Baseball America. He's got 37 home runs and 157 RBIs to go along with 18 stolen bases thus far in two minor league seasons in A-ball. So sure he's got good power and a bit of speed (very very frightening!) but has he ever been involved a bench clearing "scaramouche" (Italian for "skirmish") and most importantly, can he do the Fandango? Or at least order movie tickets online? Mama mia, let me go... on to the next paragraph... Climbing up the minor league ladder and into the majors, but staying in Kansas City, we say "aloha" to recently promoted first baseman/designated hitter Kila Ka'aihue. Allow me to be the first guy on the block to give him with a nickname (sorry Chris Berman). I say we call him Cereal (shades of the "Oatmeal" line from that "Frosty The Snowman" cartoon eh?). Huh, what you talkin' about Commish? Well it's really quite simple. Fellow native Hawaiians Benny Agbayani and Shane Victorino already have dibs on the two cool island nicknames, Hawaiian Punch and The Flyin' Hawaiian respectively. So we either tag this guy as "Five-Oh" (too easy) or he becomes... wait for it... wait for it... The Cereal Kila! I anxiously await an Ed-dendum where Mr. Koval insists we go Honolulu ghetto and call him Ghostface instead!. Getting back to reality (oops there goes gravity) perhaps if his stint in the bigs doesn't last too long it won't be because his skills have atrophied, but rather, they've just apostrophe'd? My last person of interest is Detroit's Taiwanese relief pitcher, Fu-Te "Knights Who Say" Ni. Picture this. Runners on 2nd and 3rd, top of the 7th, the Tigers are clinging to a slim 3 - 2 lead and Verlander's laboring. Here comes a pitching change, Verlander's out and Ni comes in from the pen. Out of the dugout comes the new Tigers pitching coach who's banging two coconuts together and seems to be riding some kind of invisible horse as he crosses the foul line on his way to the mound. When he arrives, the infielders gather and the following conversation ensues. "I Arthur, King of the Britains, as wielder of supreme executive power, demand that you must strand these inherited runners with.... a herring! Then you must go back to the bullpen and return to the mound in the 8th with a shrubbery, something nice and not too expensive. Should we then proceed to the 9th (five is right out), you must bring in another shrubberry so we can get the two-level effect with the little path running down the middle..." Wow, two shrubberies! Very "bush" league if you ask me. Wonder what happens if Ni allows the runners to score and gives up the lead? I'm guessing that would make the Tigers "the team who until recently employed Ni". May 5th, 2010 You can never go wrong by spending a little time glossing over the list of current baseball injuries as there's always an eye catcher or two amongst the existing crop of ills and ailments. Most recently, I came across these: Kurt Suzuki, OAK (intercostal strain) Inconsistent labeling of the same injury aside, what exactly is an "intercostal strain" I ask? Is that something you get when you pull a muscle walking from New York to Los Angeles? Or perhaps this is an injury one gets when listening to a particularly bad pun spoken by announcer Bob Costas? Hey somebody get me that Carnac guy on Line 1! Staying closer to home, I think you can use this to describe the relationship between two owners in our league as the Brothers Flinn attempt to communicate across the miles to get their weekly transactions right with Jim being in Virginia and Mike almost 3K miles away on the Left Coast in San Francisco. If that doesn't count as an inter-coastal strain then I don't know what does? You say "costal", I say "coastal", let's call the whole thing off... Staying with the injury theme, there's the curious case of Ryan Madson who managed to get two distinct impressions dead-on in a week that would make both Rich Little and Frank Caliendo proud. First, he blew a save in extra innings, his second blown save of the season, which led all Phillies fans to ask the question "Hey when did Brad Lidge get back?" then he proceeded to do his best impression of fellow Philly denizen and Eagles placekicker David Akers when Madson, in obvious frustration, booted a folding chair about 30 yards across the clubhouse in what would've been a successful field goal had it been in Lincoln Financial Field right across the street. No wonder spectators keep vomiting on each other and running on the field over there at Citizen's Bank Park. Just tase me bro, I'm sick of watching this team right now! You also got to love how they list these injuries. It's usually a format like "Player Name, Team" and an ever so brief description and/or body part in parentheses. Like "(head)", or "(strained shoulder)". Just enough to let us in on what's wrong but not enough to get caught up in any HIPAA legislation or anything. I often wonder how this would work if we could report other non-sports "injuries" in the real world in this way. With that in mind, I present to you the Current Events Disabled List: Iceland (ruptured volcano) May 3rd, 2010 Today's entry is another reply from Ed where he comments on a recent entry where I mentioned that the role of Freddy Krueger in the new Nightmare On Elm Street re-boot was being played by the same actor who played Kelly Leak in the Bad News Bears. But that's not what made Ed get his writing tablet out. Rather, it's the nightmare-ish way the script writers for the Bad News Bears treated the sanctity of the line up card. Read on for the latest "Ed-dendum" from Mr. Koval... I had no clue that Jackie Earle Haley was in the remake....interesting. To me, Kelly Leak was the most interesting character in the "Bad News Bears". Not just because he was the best hitter, but because he had that bad-ass thing going on with the motorcycle and the disconnected past with his father (who we eventually see in the second movie). But what I always liked is how in the Astrodome game they get away with batting him out of order and nobody seems to care. That bugged me for so many years and I was finally glad to see Bill Simmons write about it a few years ago. Kelly manages to go 3 for 3 in a 4 inning game, in which the Bears only score 6 runs...doesn't seem possible now does it? However, what "The Sports Guy" fails to point out is the Buttermaker gets away with the doing the same thing in the first movie with Rudy Stein. If you recall the final game from that movie, they keep showing Buttermaker telling Stein to purposely get hit so that he'd be on base when Mike Engelberg comes up next. We also know that he's consistently batted right after Kelly Leak. Well...all of sudden, when they start the bottom of the 6th inning trailing my 4 runs (following the epic Timmy Lupus catch) there's Stein leading the inning off. He gets a hit but then gets thrown out trying to stretch into a double. The next batter....Amanda, the pitcher? Huh??? Four batters later Kelly is batting....Huh??? And I believe they do say that Stein would be the next hitter as the other team is trying to intentionally put Kelly on base with the bases already loaded....Huh???? I also agree with Simmons that perhaps the best line from any of the Bears movies was Tanner Boyle telling the Houston catcher, "You'd better shut up you red neck." Gotta love film lines people got away with in the 70s. COMMISH'S NOTE: Here's a link to the Bill Simmons' article Ed refers to above. Besides the aformentioned comments, The Sports Guys does a side-by-side comparison of the original and the sequel in his usual irreverant style. Read the whole article for the entertainment value but check out the "Lingering Questions" section for the discussion of the line-up shennanigans... http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/movies/badnewsbears
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